Authors: Usman Ijaz
“There I met you.”
“I’m glad,” Iris told him. “I don’t know where I
would be right now if not for you, Amon.”
But Amon was silent once more, and this time
he did not break the silence.
3
“Have you seen a lone man and a boy passing
through in the past day or two?”
The question was asked gruffly, in the tone
that Amon used when he did not wish to speak. People flowed by either side of
him on the street, and there was that bustle and noise that was found in every
town and city. He hated the noise, and associated it with the mingling of
rodents.
The old man looked up at him, squinting to get a
better look. Amon muttered a curse in annoyance. “No ... I can’t say I have,
son.”
“I’m not your son, you old bastard,” Amon
growled as he rode on.
They were in the town of Juwail, but to Amon’s
eyes it looked like every other little town they had passed through in the
outer reaches of Grandal. The buildings were different, here they were flat
topped and just as many made of wood as stone, but the endless milling throngs
moving through the town could be the same as he had seen anywhere. The only
noticeable differences he saw was the cut of their clothing, how coats
sometimes flared around the hips and were divided along the sides, or how the
women seemed dedicated to exposing as much of their bosoms as they could. He
felt disgusted, and thought:
Just like rats who rose above their place
.
He rode on, with Iris following behind him. The
crowds were thinning out as many headed home with the setting sun. Amon
maneuvered his horse through the townsfolk, who parted before him quickly as
they realized he did not intend to stop or slow down. He stopped in front of a
small tavern with a ramshackle sign atop the door creaking in the wind.
“Wait here,” he told the girl, and went in.
The smell of sawdust and spilled beer hit him
like a fist to the jaw, and he scowled as he made his way to the fat man behind
the counter, wondering if there was such a thing as a thin innkeeper in all the
world.
God forbid should one of them not look like a bloated bear on its
hind legs
. He looked around the bleak room and saw many of the tables taken
up by small groups, nursing their mugs of whatever filth they drank. He dismissed
the regulars and stopped before the fat innkeeper. The man’s face lit up in a
false smile and he began to say something before Amon cut him off.
“I’m looking for a young man and a boy traveling
through here. Have you heard anything of it?”
The innkeeper frowned at the sudden inquisition,
and he looked ready to say something humorous, perhaps even insolent, but
changed his mind as he got a good look at Amon’s face. He ran a hand through
his thinning hair. “Uh ... can’t say that I have.”
Amon turned and left. He had expected as much,
but how wonderful it would have been to find the two bastards here and capture
the boy. He went to where Iris waited, watching the darkening sky and the
crescent moon that hung in the night.
“Let us find an inn.”
“They are not here?” Iris asked.
“No.”
They headed up a stark avenue in hopes of
finding a suitable inn. Amon was ready to put Juwail to his back.
If they
haven’t come this way then
--
“You there!”
Amon tensed at once as he turned around to look
at who had hailed them, one hand already held a knife disclosed in it. Behind
them, in the middle of the street, stood a small band of men wearing poorly
made uniforms of bright red. There were perhaps a dozen of them in all. But to
call them men was stretching it, he realized; even in the fading light he could
see that they were barely out of their teens.
They stood with an arrogant assurance that their
numbers would protect them. All of them stood with some sort of weapon; most
with staves, but one with a sword and a few with spears, and two with a bows;
one, Amon saw, even had a revolver at his waist.
“What are you doing out so close to curfew,
strangers? Identify yourselves!”
Amon relaxed his guard a little. He had thought
they had been recognized, but it seemed these fools were only acting as the
town Guard. They were boys, hardly ready for what they were preparing
themselves for.
“Answer me!” shouted the boy. “Who are you?”
Amon looked at them levelly. “No one.” He turned
his horse and Iris followed suit.
“Do not dare turn your back on us!” came the
indignant shout.
Amon stopped his mount and for a moment sat
still as a statue, reigning in the anger that always boiled beneath the
surface. He was truly beginning to despise this town and this chase. “Go home,
you impudent brats, try and impress your fathers some other way.”
Their silence made him believe for a moment that
they would let it go. He made to kick his mount into motion. A crossbow bolt
flew through the empty street. The quarrel missed Iris and him by quite a large
margin. Amon let out a tired breath, glanced at Iris, and turned around. His
hand flicked out, nothing more than a casual movement, but the next moment the
man with who the crossbow lay on the ground, a knife hilt protruding from his
throat.
Now he would give way to the demon within him.
The Guard stared at their fallen comrade in
surprised horror, and then as one they ran towards the two assassins, shouting
their litany.
Amon and Iris slid off their horses with the
graceful tact of twin snakes and ran to meet the mob, weaving to avoid the
crossbow bolts that were shot at them. Amon reached inside his tunic and
grabbed hold of three daggers. He drew them out and threw them in the same
fluid motion. One boy fell fingering the hilt in his chest, the other fell
shrieking in pain as blood ran down his cheek from the ruined mess of his right
eye. Iris was letting the daggers fly beside him, and when the Guard struck
them, the two of them met it with a knife in hand.
Amon sidestepped a blow from a large scythe and
buried the knife in the boy`s throat. He quickly stepped aside to avoid a large
cudgel and kicked the man wielding it in the side of his knee. A dry snap
erupted and the man to fell to the ground screaming with a twisted leg. Amon
threw another knife into the chest of an oncoming man, and then wheeled around
to successively stab a younger boy in his leg and thrice in the chest. The boy
collapsed to the ground wearing a look of surprise.
He looked to Iris and saw the girl duck a swipe
from a javelin and elbow the man in the ribs, causing the man to emit his last
breath before slicing his throat. She turned to face another attacker, and
leapt back immediately to avoid a clumsy sword slash. Her hand darted up one
wide sleeve and the next moment the knife was buried in the boy`s chest.
Between the two of them, Amon and Iris lay waste
to the Juwail Guard within minutes. What was left of the Guard lay on the
ground, begging for mercy and staining the cobblestones with their blood.
“Are you satisfied now?” Amon asked harshly as
he walked to the boy who had challenged them. The boy lay with one of Iris’s
knives sticking from his ribs and tears rolling down his smooth cheeks.
“Please ... no ... don’t ...,” the boy pleaded.
Amon faltered in his step, and then stood
looking down on the boy with eyes that were for a moment hesitant. In his mind
he was suddenly a boy of eight and crying those very same words to the large
drunk that had cornered him in an alley. But in the end the man had ignored his
pleas, as the gods had ignored him from birth, and the walls of the alleyway
had amplified his screams and torment. That had been when he had realized that
the world was a maze, and they were all but doomed to wander aimlessly.
“Please ... no!” the boy wept as Amon knelt
before him. He drew the knife out of the boy’s torso, causing the boy to scream
aloud.
Amon leaned forward and whispered harshly into
the boy’s ear, as though to remind him a lesson he had forgotten. “This world
is not meant for the weak!”
He slit the boy’s throat.
4
That night, as they prepared to lie down in an
old inn, Iris asked the question that had been on her mind.
“Amon, why did you kill that boy?”
“Why did we kill any of them? Why do we kill at
all? Might as well ask those!” Amon spat bitterly. Iris only stared at him in
bewilderment. She had never seen him like this. Amon sounded almost lost. Amon
sighed, and his voice returned to his usual harsh tone, as if he despised the
simple act of talking. “I did it as a favor to him. And in case you have
forgotten, they would have done the same to us.”
Iris did not pursue the matter further. Since
the bloodbath in Juwail, her companion had become tense and easy to petulance -
even more so than usual.
When she lay down to sleep the other man was
still standing before the window and staring out into the cold night. The girl
wondered what sort of thoughts must be going through his head.
The next morning they continued their hunt.
1
The Sea Spirit slowed as it approached the
harbor of Sune. Alexis and the boys stood on the deck and watched the docks
grow nearer. They had no belongings with them, what little they had possessed
was now strewn on the Konul river’s embankment. Alexis watched the docks and
the awaiting people there. He moved his left shoulder slightly, and felt a
twitch of pain. He was healing, but still not yet quick enough to suit him. But
he contented himself with his remarkable progress so far, and assured himself
that the wound would heal completely.
As he looked at the other ships already moored
at the docks a faint memory brushed his thoughts, something about a dream, a
dream full of darkness and light. But as quickly as the thought came it was
gone. He shook his head and let it pass.
After days of stumbling around in the woods, and
then days of being stuck aboard the ship, they were finally visiting
civilization again. At the forefront of his mind was an imperative need to find
out what had happened to Hamar and Owain. He had asked Lavos if he had heard any
news of Legionnaires in Haven, but the captain had been hauling cargo and had
heard nothing.
Alexis’s mind came to dwell on the assassins.
Sune was far from Haven but had they outrun the assassins, or would they find
them waiting here for them? He scanned the approaching docks, trying to discern
one face from another. He looked at the two boys by his side and realized that
he was all they had left. It was his duty to guard one of them, but having them
both might prove to be an advantage. Did the assassins really know what the boy
they searched for looked like? Might they not take Connor instead, and allow
Adrian to escape?
Connor is dispensable
. The thought came to him
unbidden, not something he wanted to face or admit, and nothing that surprised
him in his depth.
In his heart he knew the mission took precedence
before everything else.
2
The ship was docked and moored. The captain
pulled Alexis and the boys aside as the plank was lowered to where the tariff
officer waited.
“I suppose you’ll be leaving now,” Lavos said
gravely.
“We must, captain,” Alexis told him.
“Before you go, take this,” the captain said and
held out a pouch jiggling with coin.
“We have money,” Alexis told the man patiently.
“Enough to buy three horses?” Lavos asked. “Or
do you intend to walk your way to Teihr?”
Alexis frowned. “No,” he said at last. “We don’t
have enough for that.”
“Then take this. I want to help in any way I
can.”
Alexis looked at the offered pouch for a long
time. At last he reached into his own pouch and drew out a marked bullet. He
gave it to the captain as he took the money pouch. “If you ever go back to
Grandal, ask audience with the king - mentioning my name might be enough to
allow that - and show him this. He will reimburse you.”
“I think meeting the king will be more than
enough,” the captain said in silent wonder.
They said their goodbyes and departed then,
leaving captain Lavos yelling at his crew to not drop the cargo, and marched
into the city of Sune.
3
“It’s hard to believe isn‘t it, Adrian?” Connor
asked. “We’re in Marith! I never thought I’d make it this far in my life.”
“Neither did I, Connor,” Adrian replied softly.
Tall square buildings of red brick more often
than wood or white plaster dotted the streets, their glassy eyes peering down
on the crowds roving about. The streets were congested with folk, many pausing
to look at the fresh fruit displayed or to smell the large mounds of spices.
The people, Connor saw, were dark-skinned as often as light, and they all moved
without a second thought to one another. He had seen people of other lands in
Port Hope, but he had never seen so many gathered in one place.