Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

Fitz knelt, but only briefly. “He’s dead, sir.”

“I can see that,” Marcus said, forcing his mind to work. “I want you to run to the barracks and collect as many men as you can round up in five minutes, then come back here. Understand?”

“Yes, sir, but-”

“I’ll check on the colonel.” Marcus drew his sword. “Go!”

• • •

The door to the colonel’s rooms was slightly ajar, and something metal glinted in the gap. It took Marcus a moment to recognize it as the bolt, complete with fitting, torn out of the rock wall.

What the hell is going on? Marcus prodded the door with a boot and kept his sword in front of him. The door opened into the suite’s anteroom, which Janus used as an office, and more doors let off into a dining room, bedroom, and servant’s quarters. The office was dominated by a big, flimsy table, which had been cracked in half by the impact of another body. This sentry’s face was contorted and black with the agony of strangulation, and his throat had gone a dark bruised purple.

Marcus took a deep breath, the point of his sword twitching. He considered calling out, but if the assassins-and what else could they be? — were still in the suite, he’d only be warning them. And if they’ve done their work and gone? It seemed unthinkable, but his mouth went dry.

The door to the bedchamber was half open. Marcus padded toward it as quietly as he could, and stopped abruptly at the sound of voices from within. The first, to his relief, was Janus’.

“I had been expecting-something like this,” the colonel said in Khandarai. A young man answered, his tone pleasantly menacing.

“You must be a fool, then, to walk so willingly to your death.”

“Your mother is the fool, if she thinks that killing me will change anything.”

Marcus resumed his quiet advance. Through the gap between door and doorframe, he made out a flash of blue uniform that was probably Janus at the back of the room.

“You understand nothing. The latest fool in a long line of fools who thought us easy plunder, and found out different.”

“Times have changed. The Redeemers have-”

“They have changed nothing. They wash in, and wash out again, like waves on a beach. It is of no importance. Mother remains.”

“The Last Duke does not agree. Neither, I suspect, does the Pontifex of the Black.”

“Gahj-rahksa-ahn.” Marcus didn’t understand the word, but the Khandarai spat it as though it tasted foul. “If you are the best he can muster, his order has fallen low indeed.”

There was a footstep, and Marcus’ sliver of vision was eclipsed by someone in brown moving between him and Janus. It was the best chance he was likely to get, and Marcus had not survived five years in Khandar by being chivalrous. He kicked the door out of the way and dropped into a lunge that would have made his old fencing master proud. The sword went in just between the young man’s shoulders-

Or should have. As Marcus started to move, the stranger twisted in place, impossibly fast. Marcus got a glimpse of bald head and a thin, mirthless grin. One of the man’s hands came up, viper-fast, and the edge of his palm struck the flat of Marcus’ sword a moment before impact. There was a sharp, wild ring of steel on stone. The blade had been neatly severed a third of the way down its length, and the shorn-off end slammed against the wall so hard it raised sparks. It bounced like a leaping salmon and pinwheeled across the room while Marcus stared incredulously at the broken fragment protruding from the hilt.

His eyes were still trying desperately not to believe what they’d just seen, but the rest of his body had enough sense to send him reeling backward as the stranger’s hand came around again, a lazy backhand blow that whistled through the air with the force of a cannonball. Marcus scrambled away, searching for his balance, and came up against the broken table in the main room. The stranger blurred in front of him, and only another wild dive to the side kept Marcus out of his path. With a crack like a gunshot, one end of the table exploded in a shower of splinters.

Marcus ended up on the floor, rolling until he bumped into a bedraggled sofa. He’d lost the remnant of his sword, and spent a moment scrabbling for his belt knife, but the Khandarai was on him before he could draw it. Marcus rolled again as the man came at him, but this time the stranger anticipated the move, and Marcus fetched up against his suddenly interposed foot.

“Good-bye, raschem ,” the man mouthed. But before Marcus even had time to flinch, the assassin was gone, twisting away faster than the eye could follow. Marcus saw the glitter of steel overhead, and then heard another tremendous impact, as though a battering ram had crashed home.

Adrenaline drove him to his knees, though he was still desperately fighting for breath. Janus was in the anteroom, a thin-bladed sword in hand, and it was his attack the stranger had been forced to avoid. The Khandarai’s riposte had been intended to plaster the colonel against the doorframe, but Janus had ducked away, and the punch had hit home hard enough to crack the ancient sandstone. Janus’ sword flicked out as he moved, scoring a line on his opponent’s flank that cut through the Khandarai’s shirt and left a bright crimson stain.

At least he bleeds. Marcus struggled to his feet as the stranger rounded on Janus, warier now. The Khandarai tried to swat the colonel’s blade aside, as he had Marcus’, but Janus kept his nimbler weapon just out of reach and circled the tip around to pink his adversary’s sleeve. After the third try, this seemed to enrage the Khandarai, who picked up a nearby chair and hurled it like a handball. Janus twisted out of the way, and then had to dive for his life as the assassin came bulling in after the missile.

Marcus cast about, looking for a weapon. The best he could come up with was an ornamental lamp, and he was just reaching for it when someone whispered in his ear.

“Sir. Perhaps these would serve?”

Marcus glanced over his shoulder to see Augustin, Janus’ aged manservant, crouched beside him, a pistol in each hand. They were fancy guns, all oiled wood and silver chasing, but, important to Marcus’ mind, they were cocked and loaded. Marcus grabbed them without a word.

“Careful, sir,” Augustin said. “Hair trigger.”

Marcus was already spinning away, a gun in each hand. Janus had bought himself a few moments by ducking under the damaged table, but the stranger heaved it aside like a cheap toy. Marcus aimed carefully as the Khandarai stalked forward, and even managed a smile.

“Good-bye, demon,” he said, but the words were drowned under the blast of the pistol’s report, mind-shatteringly loud in the enclosed space.

The Khandarai spun as though he’d been punched in the shoulder and staggered a step. Marcus dropped one pistol and switched the other to his right hand, then let his mouth fall open in naked disbelief. The assassin raised one hand, blood dripping slowly from his palm. When he opened his fingers, Marcus heard the soft ping of a pistol ball bouncing off the stone floor.

He caught the thing-

“Get down, sir!” Marcus just had time to recognize Fitz’s voice. His instincts threw him to the ground and pressed his hands over his ears. Another roar of gunfire, a dozen times more violent, ripped through the chamber, and Marcus could hear the crazy zing and whine of ricochets. It was followed by a horrible wrenching sound and a shrill scream, then by ringing silence.

Marcus looked up cautiously. A dozen men stood on both sides of the outer doorway, the muskets in their hands still smoking. In the corridor just beyond, another soldier lay in a vividly crimson puddle, one arm and most of his shoulder torn away. Behind him was Fitz, his back pressed tight against the wall, eyes wide as saucers. There was no sign of the assassin.