Vaughn Heppner - Assassin of the Damned

Towers rose above the walls as high as the walls rose above the sea. A central spire rose above the many towers. It was like a spear hurled at the stars. Mortal man had never built that tower. It was too tall, too massive. Erasmo was vain. The central tower proved it. Unless…maybe it had a magical significance.

I knelt on the shore and lifted my crossbow. The vacchette bobbed along the water, headed for the tower. Six octo-men rowed. One steered. Anaximander hunched in the center of the vacchette. He held up his head with one hand and kept the other on Francesca’s shoulder.

His bearing…I believed he feared the water. That had to be the reason why they’d marched on shore instead of heading straight by water to the tower. Had the altered men carried the vacchette on their shoulders all this way? I thanked fate if that was so. I would never have caught up with them otherwise. I recalled that some stories said demons feared salt water. Old Ones surely acted like demons.

I had one chance to rescue my daughter. From shore, I sighted Anaximander’s lantern-like head. I had one surprise shot to rip the head out of his grip and possibly send it into the water. I refused to think about what would happen if I missed.

I pulled the lever-the trigger. The steel bow snapped. The stock shook. The string propelled the crossbow bolt. It sped like a hawk. I watched. I bit my lower lip. A rower cried out. He pitched against Anaximander. The Old One let go of Francesca and hurled the wounded man from him. Water splashed as the octo-man sank into the sea. The other rowers stopped.

I gripped the stock and yanked back the string. I slapped in another bolt and waded into the water. “Anaximander!” I shouted.

Before I could pull the trigger, the brute jerked my daughter in front of him. “Shoot again, and you risk killing her,” he bellowed.

“Daddy!” she screamed.

I shook with impotent rage, and I noticed that a gate rose in the distant tower.

At Anaximander’s command, the octo-men began rowing. My dear little daughter wept.

A galley slid out of the tower, but I could no longer watch. I’d failed. Now I had to think about tomorrow. Bitter, I retreated into the jungle. They had my daughter. Somehow, I had to rescue her. To do that, I had to remain free, alive, as it were. I thus began to search for a place to hide.

I hid in a trunk-branch wedge of a jungle tree. I would rather have hidden in the water, but I feared that during the day crocodiles might swim by and devour me. That day, I dreamed of the tramp of feet, the clank of armor and the muttered oaths of soldiers. It was closer to a nightmare. The dream passed…

I stirred. And with a start, I raised my head. It was night again. The sun was gone. I crouched in the crotch of a branch and its trunk. I listened. There were squawks, hisses, roars and screams. I relaxed. Those were regular night-jungle sounds.

I jumped down onto trampled ground. Grass, fungi and thorns had been thoroughly crushed into mushy pulp by many men. My dream-had soldiers hunted me?

I turned toward shore. Then I reconsidered. Such trampling obviously meant someone had searched for me. Did Erasmo know how the sun sent Darklings into a lifeless stupor? I slipped through the jungle until I reached virgin ground. Fronds slapped my face. Long, thorny vines with unholy life tried to tangle me. I soon gazed on the Tower of the East. The lake or this inlet of the Adriatic Sea was its moat. I studied the walls. Could I scale those? If not, how would I get within?

The water was placid. The battlements were bare of guards, which reminded me of the moon castle. The only sign of life were lights in some of the towers.

After a thoughtful study, I returned to the trampled ground. Now that I considered it, my dreams had hinted about Orlando Furioso. He must have led the search party. I was grateful the lycanthropes had remained behind. Their noses might have ferreted me out.

I stood where I had last night when I’d tried to shoot Anaximander. Instead of a vacchette, an owl skimmed the water. Maybe I could find a log and float over.

I pondered that. Last night, they had sent out a galley. Despite the lack of visible guards, the tower had watchers. That made sense. An army supposedly waited on the edge of the swamp. It was not technically a siege, and yet…. The quickly sent galley showed me the tower-watchers were nervous. They’d reacted fast.

I began to trek along the muddy shore. I spent a quarter of the night and saw more crocodiles, more vine-lashing trees and more and larger serpents. Some of the serpents had mottled skin. Some had stripes like tigers. A few could have swallowed a bull. No swordsman could have hacked those in half. It would take carpenters with two-man saws. The swamp in and of itself was a defensive rampart with animal guardians. Maybe none of the guardians could effectively stop me, but they would slow a human army.

My marching paid off with sight of the bridge. It spanned from the tower to the mainland. A cavalry troop trotted across it. They went from the tower to the swamp.

I climbed a lightning-smashed tree and considered the tower in light of this knowledge. From this distance, the walls looked smooth. There might be some irregularities, but probably not enough to give me handholds. Had Erasmo conjured vast slabs of obsidian? Or were those bricks? I might drive spikes into mortar and work up the wall like a spider.

Spiders…there was something about spiders that tickled a memory. I set that aside for the moment. My trek had shown me the smooth walls. Of garbage chutes, canal-entrances or tunnels I had seen none. The tower and Venice were unalike in that regard. Erasmo’s sorcery must have effected the changes. My problem was simple. How was I supposed to get past four-hundred-foot walls? I would have to walk through a gate or climb a wall. If bricks formed the walls, I could possibly use spikes. If slabs of obsidian formed the walls, I needed a ladder, a very long one. Or, I needed a rope.

I sneered. How would I carry a four-hundred-foot rope to the tower?

The spider image returned. Spiders crawled. Spiders made webs. It was something about webs. Did I imagine myself spinning webs? No. Webs were like silk. Silk-that was it! Silk came from faraway Cathy. Silk was strong. Silk was light. Could I use a silken rope? The possibility made me re-estimate the wall’s height. I think the walls were closer to three hundred feet than four hundred.

Now, where could I get a silk rope? And get spikes for climbing? Milan was my first answer. For a price, everything could be found in Milan. Unfortunately, Milan was far from here. That would take many nights travel there and back, another night for finding the right merchant and maybe a night for haggling. Time was my enemy.

I watched the cavalry troop leave the bridge and enter the swamp. Fortune favored the bold. If I were daring, I would walk across underwater. Maybe I could even wait the day underwater.

Had Erasmo conjured sea serpents? I told myself that Francesca had survived so far without me, surely she could another night. My ignorance could kill me, and that wouldn’t help her. I needed knowledge. I could ask the Moon Lady through my coin, but she would demand my soul.

I turned from the Tower of the East and headed inland. Lorelei had told me before that the priestess of the Moon had articles that had once belonged to olden Darklings. Those were likely assassin tools. I would have to gather them, and talk to the priestess under conditions where she would tell me the things I needed to know.

***

As I headed west, the swamp quickly thickened into a gloomy jungle of cypress trees and others I had no name for, plus creeper vines. The creepers snaked everywhere. They were barbed and choked lesser plants and they sprouted violet flowers that glowed with a weird luminance. Slime and muck mingled in quietly sloshing pools, while a noxious mist several feet higher than my head distorted sights and sounds.