Роберт Асприн - Forever After

Gar shrugged. “I have no trouble killing time, Spido.” His aide looked strangely at him, so the assassin added, “That was a joke, Spido.”

“Right, sir.” He forced a laugh, but it ended in a yawn.

“Dead tired, are you?”

“Yes, sir.” Spido glanced back along the road. When Gar turned in the same direction he caught a flash of gold from the treeline. “Can I ask you a question, sir?”

“By all means.”

“I’m thinking, sir, about changing my name. Do you think Buck suits me?”

Gar shook his head. “Buck is out, Spido. Hingu and Tian-shi-sheqi do not often bestow nicknames on their practitioners.”

“So you’ve never had one, sir?”

“No, I have not. At least not formally, for all I am referred to by other names among Prince Range’s forces.”

“I know, sir, I’ve heard many of them. You’re called Death Machine, the Lethal Legate, the Murderous Missionary, the Son of a—”

“I don’t need a recital.” Gar smiled quixotically. “Actually, Udan Kann has renamed me. I suppose that counts as a nickname of sorts.”

“Likely does, sir.” Spido nodded confidently. “What does he call you?”

“With my defection to Rango’s side, Udan Kann forbade any other hingu-kun to speak my name in his hearing. To him I am known only as the Pariah.”

“Sounds as if he took your departure fair personal.”

“Oh, I’m certain he did, but it was unavoidable.” Gar shook his head. “You see, I learned that Udan Kann had murdered my parents and my sister. Strangled them and made me an orphan.”

“Strangled them, sir? I can understand your upset.”

“I daresay you can. You see, my father was a learned man and he had a vision for the future of Faltane. He had opposed Kalaran’s ascension to power.” Anger seethed through Gar’s voice. “Udan Kann tore them from our manor house and choked the life out of them. And he described their murder to me in exquisite detail, as if he could remember their pulses getting thready beneath his hands, their faces turning purple, and their life flowing out of them. He was proud and I was disgusted.”

“With good cause, sir. That’d have riled me some. If he’d done my mum like that…”

“Indeed, you do understand, Spido. Strangling your mother would be wrong.”

“It would that, sir.”

“Yes. From all you have said of her, she should die in her kitchen, baking something that she expects to serve to you and Squashblossom. It should be a new invention, something upon which she used her imagination. And right at the moment of inspiration, when the perfect name comes to her, that is when she should die.”

Spido winced as the blood drained from his face. “But then she would be dead, sir.”

‘Tes, but she would have been transformed by Tian-shi-sheqi , Spido. My parents and sister deserved that sort of death.“

“In me mum’s kitchen, sir?”

“No, Spido, they deserved deaths that encapsulated their lives. My father should have died overreaching himself like the visionary he was, not strangled and choked and smothered. There was nothing choking or strangling about the man. And my mother, she was from a noble house. She should have died listening to music or walking in a garden. And my sister, she was but a child. She should have died in a fantasy world of faery stories and sweets.”

“Well, I think you have a reason to hate him, killing your kin like that.”

“No, Spido, Udan Kann did not kill my parents, he slaughtered them. Had he slain them in appropriate ways, I would not be his enemy. His callousness toward them forever drove us apart. Mark me, Spido, I will slay Udan Kann when next we meet.”

“My money will be on you, sir.” Spido spurred his horse on, but in doing so he drifted toward the far side of the road. “Can I ask you another question, sir?”

“You may.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you can be a bit spooky?”

Gar decided, and Spido agreed, that his training should begin in earnest immediately. Over the next three weeks on the road, in addition to pitching and tearing down camp and preparing all the meals, Spido spent a fair amount of time trotting along behind the horses in an effort to improve his wind. In the evening and again in the morning Spido went through a series of exercises designed to improve his speed and reaction time. After dinner he often chased after the golden hind, honing his agility and, when he caught her and she transformed into Elise, picking his spirits up.

The exercise did him a world of good, especially after Gar cut his rations. Spido thinned down a bit and built up some muscle. Using swords that Spido had packed for the journey, Gar was able to instruct him in the rudiments of swordfighting, but he found Spido had a natural affinity for wrestling and punching when he got in close. This presented something of a problem as that sort of attack brings the fighter in closer than most want to be to their foes.

The last day before their entry in the Torfay valley, Gar bid Spido pay special attention. “You are a promising Tian-shi-kun , Spido, but we do not have the time we need to complete your training before you may need to avail yourself of martial skills. As a result I will show you something no one else knows. It is called wan-tej .” Gar pulled his fingers down into a fist, but thrust his thumb up between the index and middle fingers. “It is a very special thumb thrust. When you hit Dolonicus with it, shout his name and you will kill him.”

Spido looked at his hand. “Really? Just bip, ‘Dolonicus,’ and he’ll be down?”

“I will guarantee it.” Gar bowed to his pupil, who returned the bow with deep respect. “Tomorrow we will enter Torfay. I will slay these dinner-sores and you will kill Dolonicus. Before two days have passed, you will be a hero and Torfay will be free.”

The valley in which Torfay lay had steep mountain walls that rose to the clouds. Though it lay on a northwest-southeast angle, at either end it broke north and south for just under a mile in length. Thick bamboo forests and virgin underbrush covered the mountains in green, but down near the river that ran through the valley, the native growth had been cut away and terraces had been built up. Orderly rows of plantings covered the dark soil and split-bamboo aqueducts and waterwheels gave mute evidence to the care which the farmers lavished upon their fields.

Crouched at the bamboo line, Gar studied the tight little entrance valley. Two stone crofts stood up and away from the river and appeared to have been half dug into the mountain itself. Both had been built on a level equal to that of the middle terraces, and each had a corral and a series of henhouses near it. While the whole spectacle did not speak of prosperity, it seemed clear to Gar that the crofters were able to make a comfortable living from their holdings.

The screams coming from the people standing on the roof of the croft on the east side of the river contrasted sharply with the picture of idyllic beauty. Two goats lay in the mud of the corral. Their bright blood had not yet begun to turn brown, marking the kills as very recent. A third goat bleated pitifully as it ran pell-mell across the middle terrace.

Chasing after came a dinner-sore.

“What do you think, sir?”

“I think it’s beautiful, Spido, absolutely beautiful.”

Roughly twice as long as Gar was tall, the sorian held its little foreclaws tight to its chest as it ran on its powerful hind legs. It used its long, rigid tail to balance its body, and at the shoulder it would have been no taller than Gar himself. At one point, as it cut across the goat’s path, Gar saw its narrow silhouette and the way both eyes looked forward.