Elizabeth Haydon - The Assassin King

“Ya know what they say about men wi’ lit’le blades, Abner—”

“Yeah, poor fellow, got no shoes neither, damn him. He’s a baldy, too, no hair. A right sorry sort.” The laughter grew more uproarious. “Good job, Percy—ya picked someone ta rob who got less’n we got! What’s the odds of that?” One of the brigands tossed his hoe on the ground and snatched the knife angrily. “He’ll have even less in a minute,” he said tersely. He shoved the first man out of the way and grabbed for Rath’s robe below the waist. With a speed born of the wind Rath seized the robber’s wrist and clenched it in the viselike grip of his race. With grim satisfaction he ground the bones against each other, feeling them pop from the joints. The man gasped raggedly, then began to wail in pain, a hideous noise that scratched against Rath’s skin. He tilted the man’s arm at an impossible angle and with the man’s own hand dragged the small knife across his throat, slashing through the veins and cartilage to the bone. The three other brigands froze, even as the pulsing blood from the neck of their comrade showered them in gore. Rath rose from the ground, kicked aside the body sprawled in the pink snow, snatched up his pack, and quickly searched the wind for a favorable updraft. He opened his mouth and let loose a strange hum, the call that summoned any wayward breeze that might be gusting through. In answer, a southeasterly breeze filled his ears, drowning out the animal-like sounds of terror from the remaining robbers. Rath pulled up his hood, preparing to depart, and lowered his gaze to take in the sight. He cursed inwardly, annoyed with himself for having been caught unaware by such pathetic specimens of humankind. One of the men’s faces melted from the rictus of horror before his eyes into a mien of black fury. He scrambled to his knees and lunged wildly at Rath, encouraged after a few seconds by his bewailing fellows. “Get ’im, Abner! Get the bloody bast—”

Rath’s eyes narrowed in his angular face. He changed the character of the vibration he had used to call the wind into a discordant drone, intensifying the modulation and increasing the frequency, punctuating it with harsh clicks from his epiglottis. The two men who remained crouched on the ground shrieked in pain and grabbed their heads as their temples throbbed, the veins threatening to burst. Rath reached down and seized the man who had charged him by the back of the neck in his iron grip, then stepped into the open door of the wind. The updraft was a strong one, its trajectory high. Rath allowed it to carry him and his struggling passenger aloft till it was at its apex twenty feet from the ground, then released his grip, dropping Abner headfirst onto his fellows with a thud that resounded like the crashing of a melon. The pink snow beneath them splashed red. Not at all an unattractive picture when viewed from above, thought Rath as he traveled down the long wave of the gust, moving quickly across the ground where the air temperature was colder. He closed his eyes and allowed the wind to carry him northward, toward the east, where upon landing he would once again seek the man with the dead name. Ysk. His closest prey.

As soon as the council dispersed, both the lord and lady went to the chamberlain of Haguefort. Gerald Owen was an older Cymrian, and had been in the service of the family Navarne for several generations. He set a great store by efficiency and proper etiquette, and took great pride in the meticulous running of his staff. He was in the process of getting the Lady Navarne ready for bed when the lord and lady appeared in the hallway. “Owen?” Ashe called as the two of them approached. Gerald Owen turned in surprise. “Yes, m’lord?” Ashe pulled the elderly chamberlain aside. “Pack Melisande’s belongings, and enough of your own for a brief journey.” He looked over to the young Lady Navarne, whose face was growing pale at his words. Rhapsody put her arm around the little girl’s shoulder. “You will take her to the Circle at Gwynwood, where you are to entrust her to Gavin, the

Invoker of the Filids. Then return to Haguefort and gather the staff; direct them to begin packing in a written missive before you leave. They will be relocating to the stronghold at High-meadow when you return.”

“Yes, m’lord,” said the elderly chamberlain smoothly, but his hands were shaking. “When do you wish the Lady Navarne to leave?”

Ashe glanced at Rhapsody. “Before dawn,” he said, then turned and left the room. Gerald Owen bowed quickly to Rhapsody and followed him. “You’re—you’re sending me away to Gwynwood—alone?” Melisande stammered. Rhapsody knelt down and turned the trembling little girl to face her. “Shh,” she whispered. “Yes. Don’t be frightened. I have a mission for you.” Melisande’s black eyes, glazed an instant before in building terror, blinked, and in the next second were sparkling with interest. “A mission? A real mission?”

“Yes,” said Rhapsody seriously. “Wait a moment, and I’ll tell you about it.” She closed her eyes and reached out both hands to Melisande, who took them excitedly. Then she began to chant softly, words in an ancient language taught to her more than a thousand years before by her mentor in the art of Singing, a science known to her mother’s people, the Liringlas, called Skysingers in the common language. The air in the room was suddenly drier as the water within it was stripped, and a thin circle of mist formed around the two of them, glittering like sunlight on morning dew. A moment later the words Rhapsody was speaking began to echo outside of the mist in staggered intervals, building one upon the other until the room beyond was filled with a quiet cacophony. Melisande had witnessed this phenomenon before; Rhapsody often called such a circle of masking noise into being whenever the two of them were whispering, giggling, and sharing secret thoughts to protect their words from imaginary eavesdroppers. In the back of her mind, she knew innately that those days were about to come to an end. When she was satisfied that their words had been sufficiently occluded, Rhapsody opened her eyes and looked down at the Lady Navarne. “I need you to do something for me that I can entrust to no one in this world other than you, Melly,” she said, her voice soft but solemn. The words rang with a clarity that Melisande recognized as the Naming ability of True-Speaking; she straightened her shoulders to be ready for the gravity of what was to come. “This night I will send a messenger bird to Gavin asking him do as you direct him when you arrive. I can only entrust this request to you in spoken word, because if something should happen to the message, it would be disastrous.” Melisande, orphaned by such disasters, nodded soberly, understanding the full implication of the Lady Cymrian’s words. “Once you arrive at the Circle, ask Gavin to take you, along with a full contingent of his top foresters and his most accomplished healer, to the greenwood north-northeast of the Tar’afel River, where the holly grows thickest. These are sacred lands, and I can give you no map, for fear of what might become of it. Gavin will know where this is. Tell him to have his foresters fan out at that point, keeping to a distance of half a league each, and form a barrier that extends northwest all the way to the sea, setting whatever snares and traps they need to protect that barrier. They are to remain there, allowing no living soul to enter. They should comb the woods for a lost Firbolg midwife named Krinsel, and should they come upon her, they are to accord her both respect and safe passage back to the guarded caravan, which will accompany her to Ylorc. Are you keeping up with this so far?”

“Yes,” said Melisande. She repeated the directions perfectly, and the Lady Cymrian’s emerald eyes sparkled with approval. “Gavin himself is to take you from this point onward. A sweet-water creek flows south into the Tar’afel; follow it northward until you come to Mirror Lake—you will know this body of water because its name describes it perfectly. At the lake you are to leave Gavin and travel on alone. He is to wait for you there for no more than three days. If you have not returned by then, direct him to return to the Circle.” She paused, and Melisande repeated the directions again flawlessly, her face calm and expressionless. “Walk around the lake to the far side. There you will see a small hillside, and in it, hidden from all other vantage points, is a cave. Its entrance is approximately twenty feet high, and on the cave wall outside the opening is an inscription—“Cyme we inne frið, fram the grip of deaþ to lif inne ðis smylte land” Melisande’s small face lit with excitement. “Elynsynos! You are sending me to Elynsynos?!”