But Merrick had trained in the blade yards of the Collegium, facing half a dozen swordsmen at once, taking beating after beating with their training swords. The
Principiums Martial
were hard learned and long remembered, but Merrick had mastered them all before he was fourteen.
His blade moved as though it were possessed, seeking its targets with a hunger, showing no mercy as it pierced flesh, sending gouts of blood and severed limbs flying. Within three breaths Merrick was standing amidst nothing but corpses.
He breathed hard. Though he moved with grace and speed as he slew, it had been a long time since he’d drilled his body, and it wasn’t used to such exertion.
Kaira looked at him as he leaned back, stretching the crick from his spine. More slavers were running up the stairs to the gantry, and it wouldn’t be long before he was facing a dozen bloodthirsty thugs.
‘Are you with me?’ he asked.
Because if you’re not there’s every chance I’m a fucking dead man.
Kaira looked at him for endless moments as the screaming horde drew closer. Then, just as he thought he might have to flee, she smiled. Like a lioness on the hunt she stooped with elegant grace, picked up a sword dropped by one of the dead slavers and turned to face the mass of ruffians charging up the stairs.
The first of them came up screaming from below. Whether he was confident of victory when he saw he was facing a woman Merrick couldn’t tell, but he certainly looked as if he regretted his actions as Kaira spun her weapon with practised ease and hacked off his arm at the shoulder.
‘Vorena!’ she screamed, leaping high and landing among the rest of the charging mob. Two were knocked back down the stairs by the strength of her attack, others taken off guard, doing their best to avoid this mad woman who had jumped into their midst.
Merrick moved forward to lend his own blade to the fray, but he was suddenly struck with awe as he watched Kaira’s display of power. Her blade was undaunted by the flesh it carved, her face a mask of steely concentration, showing no anger, only studied and disciplined focus.
Within moments men were screaming for mercy, others fleeing for their lives in the face of the onslaught, but Kaira was not to be thwarted. She leapt over the rail of the stairway, her sword slashing through the bonds that held the first batch of slaves.
‘Run,’ she yelled at them; a group of men whose sudden freedom seemed to instil strength in their limbs. ‘Or take your vengeance.’ Kaira lifted her blade, pointing to the remaining slavers who were now desperate to escape this place.
Merrick allowed himself a smile as he saw them choose vengeance.
It was the choice he’d have made had he been in their place.
What he saw then was brutal and bloody, but he forced himself to keep looking. This was partly his fault anyway; he should at least watch while these men were torn apart with bare hands or strangled with ropes. It was only right.
When the bloodletting was done, and the remaining slaves released from their bonds, Merrick continued to watch for a while as fathers were reunited with wives and children. Kaira did her best to tend any wounded, accepting the gushing thanks of the thronging crowd, and he couldn’t help but feel envious. But she’d played no part in their internment – she deserved their thanks.
He on the other hand …
Despite the warmth of the sight, though, Merrick couldn’t help but taste the bitterness of it. His troubles had been all but over – but now he had made more trouble for himself than he would ever escape. He had killed Bolo and betrayed the Guild, and they would never forgive him for that.
But then he remembered Bolo’s casket …
The slaver’s body was surrounded by the corpses of his men. The casket lay on its side, its precious contents spilled out at the dead slaver’s feet.
Merrick knelt down, righting the copper-bound box and sweeping up a handful of coins. There was blood mixed in with the gold, sticky and black in his palm. But what did it matter; coin was coin. It could be washed … and spent.
He threw the coins in the casket and scooped up another handful. This time the blood ran through his fingers and when he tried to fling the gold in the box it stuck to his palm.
‘You think that will save you?’
Merrick looked up to see Kaira standing next to him.
‘I think it will help,’ he replied. ‘You want half, I’m happy to split it. The gods know we’ve earned it.’
Kaira shook her head and her look of disappointment almost hurt.
Almost.
‘There are others more deserving,’ she said.
‘What others … ?’ Merrick glanced down at the dishevelled mass. ‘Wait … oh no! You can’t seriously think …’
That’s it, keep the money. It’s not like you’ve ever done the right thing in your life anyway.
He glanced down again at the families. At the pitiful faces.
Fuck!
He stood, pointing to the casket like he was accusing it … of what he didn’t know. ‘All right then, take it. I hope it makes you happy.’
Kaira picked up the box and closed the lid. ‘Trust me – it wouldn’t have made you happy,’ she replied, turning and making her way down the stairway to hand out the coin.
No, it might not have made me happy. But it might have kept me alive. For a while at least.
And he stayed long enough to watch, as the coin … his coin … was given away without a second thought.
H
e watched from the rooftops, lurking as close as he dared. He monitored the movements of armoured men, of sentries, of the militia in their green jackets patrolling the streets. Had there been a way in, he would have taken it; had there been a way to climb the wall without being seen, he would have used it. For a day and a night he watched and waited, but the palace was secure against him now; there was no way through.
She was in there somewhere; River could feel it. He yearned for her, pined for her so intensely it was like a knife in his gut. If he watched for long enough, surely he might catch sight of her, one fleeting glimpse to still his heart as it beat against his chest,
like the waves against the rocks
.
Jay did not come, though, protected as she was by her armoured guards, kept cloistered within the palace walls like a bird safe in its cage.
But those guards and sentries could not protect her forever – a thousand, thousand men could not keep her safe. If the Father of Killers put his mark on her they would never keep her from him.
Only River could keep her safe.
Only River.
As time wore on though, he knew that waiting for the inevitable would never keep her from harm’s way … from his Father’s wrath. He had to act, had to take the fight to those that would seek to kill her. By waiting in the shadows he could not protect her and he knew, with sudden and clear clarity, what he had to do.
If there were another way he would have taken it, but the longer he tarried here, watching from afar, the longer the Father of Killers had to make his plans.
The way was clear. River would have to kill his Father.
As dusk leeched the light from the sky, he made his way across the city’s rooftops, his feet sure on the slate tiles as he went. Usually he felt free, felt alive on the hunt, but this time River’s heart was heavy. Even though he knew it must be done, it weighed on him that he was about to face his Father. This was the man who had raised him, nurtured him, taught him to survive, and now he was to suffer the greatest betrayal a son could inflict.
And how would he defeat him? The Father of Killers was the consummate assassin, the deadliest man River had ever known. He had no weakness, no flaw in his armour. For every attack River had, his Father had a counter. River could not say the same on his side.
They had fought one another countless times over the years, and River had not once bested his Father in combat. But he had to do something and it must be now. He would not wait,
for the River waits for nothing and no one
.
Lights flickered in the distance, marking his route, and River’s eyes were keen, tempered in the darkness of subterranean tunnels and beneath black starless skies. The rooftops were his playground and he could have made his way blindfold had he wanted to. It was this superior sense that alerted him to someone on his trail. It was the faintest of notions – shadows in his periphery, but it was enough.
There were only two men left alive who could track him as he made his way across the city. River’s heart beat all the faster at the prospect it might be his Father.
As he leapt a ten-foot gap and landed silently on a flat rooftop, he rolled, turning as he tumbled and coming up to face his hunter. He fully expected his Father, expected a quick death, for he had no weapons, but it was not the Father of Killers who came after him.
Forest waited in the shadows for several moments before revealing himself. With a sure step he moved from the darkness, his feline grace almost mesmerising. River had always admired Forest, his older brother, sometimes a companion, sometimes a mentor, always a danger.
As River waited, Forest smiled.
‘Our Father is disappointed in you,’ he said, pacing, moving like a cat on the prowl.
River had no answer to that. His guilt bore down heavily on him, his betrayal like an iron weight about his neck.
‘Though brutal and stupid, Mountain was still his son. Father wept for a night and a day at his loss. He knew it was you that killed him – there was no other that could have bested him. Other than me.’
‘Have you come to fight me, brother?’ River asked, his every sinew tensed, his eyes scanning, waiting for Forest to strike, swift and true as only he could.
But Forest just laughed. ‘No, I have not come to fight you, River. Our Father has already lost one son. He has no wish to lose another.’
‘So he has sent you to bring me home? I tell you now, I will not go other than with murder in my heart.’
Forest showed just a sliver of emotion. River’s suggestion that he would do harm to their Father was clearly crossing a line.
‘He does not want you home. You have turned your back on him, and in turn he has turned his on you. You should die for this, River. I urged him to let me kill you, but he refused my request. Instead, he offers you mercy. More than you deserve.’
For a fleeting moment River felt relief, but he knew mercy was different from forgiveness.
‘Mercy? The Father of Killers offers mercy? No, I do not believe you, brother.’
‘Do not be so quick to judge. His mercy does not come without a price, River. You should know that.’
‘And what would he have me do?’
Forest smiled anew. ‘He would have you perform one last task for him. Leave the city and travel over the seas. Certain men in a place known as Keidro Bay have been marked, and you will see them to their rest. Do this and you will live. That is the mercy our Father offers.’
No, he could never … ‘Leave the city? And leave Jay with no one to protect her? You think me a fool? You would have me gift you her life?’
Suddenly the smile was gone from Forest’s face. ‘What has she done to you, brother? What has she poisoned you with that you would spit in our Father’s face?’
‘She has shown me …’
Love.
‘She has shown me there is another path than that of the killer. She has shown me that we are not born to this, Forest. We are men like any other. We don’t have to—’
‘Enough!’ Forest spat. ‘Don’t try and infect me with the same poison she has poured in your ear. We are sons to the Father of Killers. We are the weapons in his hands. The swift blades in the night. Not born to this? Perhaps you weren’t, but then you were always weak. This is what I am, and no one will ever turn me from it.’
It was clear he could never talk Forest round. His brother’s devotion was too strong.
‘I will not do it. Go and tell our Father that. Tell him that I would rather die.’
Forest looked down, his head nodding. When he looked back up, the smile had returned to his face.
‘My Father predicted this might be your reaction. And so he is willing to bargain.’
Bargain? River thought this a curious choice of words. The Father of Killers was uncompromising, single minded in purpose. He made no bargains. When his mind was made up there was no changing it.
‘What do you mean? The Father—’
‘The Father offers you one chance, River. You are his son. He has no wish to end your life. It is a chance, brother, one you should take.’
‘And what is the nature of this bargain?’
‘If you do this one last thing for him, if you kill a mere five men of his choosing, he vows to spare your … what should we call her? Your lover? But know that you can never return. Come back to the city and the bargain is annulled. The life of your princess forfeit.’
‘He offers to make a pact? We both know the Father makes no pacts.’
‘On this occasion he is willing to break with tradition. It is a generous offer. I would take it were I in your … predicament.’ With that, Forest flung something towards River, who caught it deftly. ‘This should seal your passage on a ship to Keidro Bay. There you will be given the names of the men you are to visit – five Lords of the Serpent Road. Evil men, pirates and slavers all, each more than deserving of death. Take it and go, brother. Do this thing and she will be safe. That is the word of our Father.’
River glanced into his palm, seeing the purse of coins.
‘Just like that? I go, and she will be spared?’
‘Just like that, brother,’ Forest replied. ‘But don’t tarry too long. Our Father is not a patient man.’
He backed away, keeping his eyes on River. Now more than ever there was little trust between them. Had the roles been reversed, River would not have shown his back either.
Forest reached the edge of the flat roof, then stepped back into oblivion, dropping from the edge like a stone.
As soon as he was gone, River turned and ran, taking the rooftops as fast as his legs would carry him, determined to put as much distance between himself and Forest as he could. Though their parlay had been without incident, he knew how unpredictable his brother could be.