The Misbegotten (An Assassin's Blade Book 1) (28 page)

While they inspected their new weapons, I took stock of the goods inside the wagons that lagged behind. Food was still plentiful, if stale and cold, and we still had rows of wine skins, which meant morale would remain stable, unless we had a teetotaler sellsword amongst us, which is a rarity along the lines of seeing a eunuch bending over a whore. After all, if you live to kill, you better have some wine to chase away the nightmares.

But while our goods were well-stocked, the horses did not fare as well. Many were heaving at their sides, heads drooping, nostrils flaring. Their backs and bellies were frothing beneath the saddles, a milky glaze that leaked down their thick coats.

So much for leaving in ten minutes. Half my horses would probably keel over by the time we made it twenty miles farther.

“Stoke some fires,” I hollered. “We rest here tonight and leave in the morning.”

“Wot about guards?” a man asked. “In case some wanderers or barbarians come looking for a poach.”

“Figure it out,” I said. “I’m not your fucking father.”

I missed my Rots during times like these. The Black Rot was the most organized and lethal fighting force this world had to offer, and I’d back that claim even in the face of the Glannondils’ Red Sentinels, the Danisers’ Blue Wave, the Verdans’ Royal Guard and all the highly specialized killers across Mizridahl. The Rots would never ask silly questions like who was standing guard. It was figured out before the first fire was even lit.

Perhaps I was being too hard on the mercenaries. After all, it is their intrinsic nature to be disorganized buffoons. They’re crude fighters, ones who can stab and poke, but asking them to make strategic decisions beyond that is useless. I didn’t have time to babysit them, though. I had maps to look at, thoughts to think, a blade to sharpen, and most importantly, wine to drink.

And I drank my wine, and another. Two skins’ worth coursing through my veins. I felt pretty fuckin’ sloshed as I raked a whetstone up the edge of my dagger, laughing to myself as I dropped the blade for the sixth time in my lap. I picked it up again, held it steady and caught the reflection of a small band of equally drunk sellswords approaching me. They crouched before my fire.

“Thought I’d introduce myself if we’re going to be killin’ together,” a man said. Scars zigzagged across his face, and a dense black beard hung to the middle of his chest. Caught within were flakes of snow and soot and splinters of twigs and crushed leaves.

“Story is Mama called me Art as I popped right out of her, but then she said I looked more like a Pog, so that’s my name. Pog.”

Two women and three other men huddled around Pog. They introduced themselves in order. There was a Crillean, a Svella, and the others I couldn’t remember. Didn’t care to remember, either. They weren’t my Rots. They were only sellswords. Buy ’em up, put ’em to work, and if they die, then you have simply lost an investment.

I laughed to myself. I liked the way the wine made me feel. Took away all that sentimental shit that wrenched my gut and made me question who I was.

“I like this,” Pog said. “It’s different for me. For all of us. Assassins like you, they don’t hire us. No, we get these pigheaded lords and ladies who haven’t seen a real fight in their whole lives. They think they can hold a sword just because their master-at-arms taught them how to parry once or twice. They come to us, lay some gold in our hands, and we follow ’em west and east and south and north, wherever they’re goin’. Make sure they get there safely.”

“You should hear the stories they tell,” Svella said. She rolled her eyes. “One time they drank wine that was sour, and it gave their tummy the cramps.”

“A little lord from Sedan bitched about the quality of his boots,” Pog bemoaned. “Said he hadn’t gotten new ones made in over a year. I told him I’d been wearing the same ones for eight years now. Shut up him real quick. Wealthy fuck probably couldn’t even patch a hole in the sole.”

I took a swig of wine. “I’m sure they pay well nevertheless.”

“Ah,” Pog grumbled. “You pay better.”

“As I should. Because this may cost you your life.”

Pog shrugged. “Don’t matter. Makes me feel alive again, camping in the wilds, hunting down caravans, storming walls. I got a savage’s heart, Astul. We all do, including you. We’re nothin’ but a bunch of ragged monsters loping around in search of blood.”

I grinned and took another gulp of wine to the face.

“I’ve heard some tales about you,” Pog said, “don’t tell me they’re not true.”

“The better a tale sounds,” I said, “the taller it likely is.”

“Heard you were a murderer,” Pog said.

“Assassin,” I corrected. “Murderers are novices. You would never call a seasoned blacksmith an apprentice, would you?”

Pog flicked away debris from his beard. “That’s all fine and good, but still stands that you’re responsible for lots o’ graves. Also heard you were a liar.”

“Who hasn’t spun a story once in a while?” I retorted.

“And a thief.”

“Occasionally I have borrowed items and not returned them,” I confessed.

“And a kidnapper.”

“When the job calls for it, I suppose.”

“A broken, disparaged monster just like us,” Pog said. “But gods, it’s not our fault. Some of us were born to the wrong name, destined to plow fields. Some were pulled aside as little boys and girls by their lords, forced to sing songs, serve the nobles and maybe even forced to suck a few cocks. Some of us were captured by slavers, run ragged till we escaped. Life has chewed us up, Astul. Chewed us up, ground us into real mushy morsels, and then spat us out into what we are now. All we got left is to take as much revenge as we can before we eat some dust and take the eternal nap. That’s why we kill, pillage, rape — to take from others what was taken from us.”

Svella had a smile on her face that spread to the other mercenaries. They all nodded their heads as Pog talked, as if he was reciting their motto.

“Had a little princess approach me a few weeks ago,” Pog said. “Thirteen, maybe a few months older. She got separated from her lord father on a journey west. She had lots of gold on her, asked for my help in reuniting her.” He grinned maniacally and swept his snakelike tongue across his teeth. “I put her up on my horse, and we rode about twenty miles into the deep woods. She was clutchin’ my waist like she wanted it, pressing her little nubs against my back. So I stopped before a great big oak.

“Climbed down off my steed, and I reached up and put my fingers around her pretty little throat. Stripped her naked, threw her on the forest floor and I fucked her till she bled for the first time in her life. Took that princess’s innocence and I wrapped it around my cock and slammed it into her. By the time the sun rose, she had crusted thighs, and she was damn near bloating with my seed. With teary eyes and a hoarse voice, she asked me why. And I looked at her, and I told her, ‘Because you need to know what it feels like to be me. To be empty, ravaged and lifeless.’ She called me a monster, and I thanked her, then I took her gold and left her to wilt.”

“Well,” I said, “your reputation
is
everything.”

“That it is.”

I took a final swig of wine. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to rest. Long road tomorrow.”

“I can’t wait to kill me some Verdans,” Pog said, smiling. He picked himself up and walked away. The remaining mercenaries followed him like cattle.

I looked beyond the spitting flames of my campfire and followed the splash of blinking stars that threaded themselves into the fabric of the night like flashing buttons, all the way up, till I was lying on my back.

I thought about the story Pog told. I’d heard a lot worse over the years — spend a few nights among drunks in a tavern and you’ll get your fill of horror — but it gave me pause, which was something the wine was supposed to prevent. I wasn’t like the sellswords. I still had people to live for and a cause for which to fight. But if those were stolen from me… what would I be capable of?

The Astul I knew, the one I strived to become again, was no monster. A bold man, yes. Cold and cutthroat, yes. Merciless, often times. But murder, lying, stealing, kidnapping — they were the tools of my trade, not acts of impetuosity carried out under the very dangerous and always-shifting guise of revenge. But if I had nothing meaningful to fight for, and everyone I cared about was gone tomorrow, would I become Pog? If I was emptied out, ravaged and lifeless, would I become a monster like him?

I’d seen enough good men succumb to insanity that I already knew the answer.

There was a chance I wouldn’t die in this war. Maybe I’d take an arrow to the back or a club to the head. Dercy’s army would retreat from the Edenvaile walls, desperate to live another day, and they’d take me with them. Or maybe the North and the conjurers would take me prisoner. One way or another, I’d live in a world that wasn’t mine any longer. I’d look for revenge. I’d look for ways to strip those of the life that had been taken from me. I’d become a monster.

I reached deep into my pocket and eased a finger along a tiny bottle I’d brought from the Hole. It calmed my racing heart, and if I opened the cap and I tilted the oily liquid down my throat… it would still my racing heart. It would thicken my blood, idle my thoughts. It was the only certainty I had that I would never become a monster.

I slid my fingernail beneath the cap, popping it off.

I licked my lips and I laughed.

Then I replaced the cap and closed my eyes, for tomorrow would be a long, hard day, and it would be immeasurably longer and unfathomably harder if I had to go through it dead.

A
mercenary
by the name of Logan stood back, hacksaw in hand, proudly admiring his work.

“Clean cut,” he said.

There were a few sniggers amongst the sellswords, and after poking my head inside the wagon I saw why.

I blinked, hoping that with each shutter of my eyelashes, a new vision would appear before me. “Logan,” I said, “we’re going to play a game. Are you ready?”

“Er. Sure.”

“It’s called yes or no. You told me you were adept at woodworking. Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“You understand what the word adept means. Yes or no?”

“Of course.”

“And you know what woodworking means. Yes or no?”

His eyes creased. “What’re you tryin’ to get at here?”

I peered inside the wagon again. Logan was supposed to cut the bed out of the wagon so we could place a false bed below for four or five sellswords to lie inside. A new plank of wood would be fitted on top, ideally in perfect alignment with the original, so that when the Edenvaile city guard glanced inside, they wouldn’t suspect a thing. Logan, however, had decided to make this problematic.

“Well,” Logan said, “you can’t expect perfect precision.”

“Some semblance of precision would be wonderful,” I said. “You’re about as precise at cutting a straight line as a virgin is at fucking. ‘Am I hitting the right spot? No, how about now? Over here, maybe? What about this side?’”

The mercenaries slapped their thighs as they hurled out booming laughs.

“I’ll fix ’er up,” one of them said. “I used to build walls as a lad.”

“Hopefully you didn’t practice under the same master as Logan over here,” I said.

The former carpenter went to work salvaging what he could of Logan’s hack job. By the end of his sawing, hammering, whacking, clawing, swearing and knuckle-busting, he delivered a passable false bed, so long as the Edenvaile city guard didn’t examine it too thoroughly.

He then repeated the process on the second wagon.

When he finished, the morning sun was a ripened melon gushing with flavor and spilling its orange juices across the crystallized landscape. A sun like that ought to put some warmth in your bones, but here in the grasp of winter — beginning of spring or not throughout the rest of Mizridahl, it was always winter here — it was just a pretty bulb in the sky that sometimes blinded you.

The groups were set. The eight sellswords who would hide inside the false beds — four in each — wiggled their way in. A flat sheet of wood covered them, on which the promised delivery of weapons and armor was piled. The drivers were chosen based on who best resembled the Ollesean people — at least that was the reason I gave to placate the unrest that broke out amongst those who deeply wanted to have the lead roles. In truth, I had about as much knowledge of the average Ollesean person as I did of naked mole rat hierarchy. Were they all pasty white like those we butchered? Were their women all so slender and shrill? And surely their men couldn’t have been so old and frail. Who knows? Hopefully not the Edenvaile city guard.

I put Pog in charge of the mercenaries who would sneak inside the walls. The man was disgusting, vile and, yes, utter filth, but he seemed like a man who could lead. A man who could get things done, particularly when those things included chopping off heads.

We marched off toward the North, the lot of us, but only for another night. The morning after, the caravan with two wagons continued on, toward the gates of Edenvaile.

The fifty-some sellswords I retained devoured a stew of cabbage and boiled bread heated over a large campfire. After their bellies were full, I rounded them up.

“I paid for your swords,” I said, “but now I need your eyes and ears.”

I unfolded a large map I had taken from the Hole, and I flattened it over the frozen snow. I struck my fist at the eastern border of Rime.

“Edmund Tath’s bannermen will be coming through the Widowed Path, here.” I glanced up and scanned the mercenaries. I pointed at ten of them. “Let’s call you boys and girls… spy group one.”

“That’s a shat name,” one of them remarked. “What about the Eagles?”

“The Eagles?”

“Yeah, yeah. The Eagles. ’Cause eagles fly around all silently, you know? See things that no one else sees, like spies do.”

Some heads turned, most of them cocked to the side.

“The eastern spies,” a woman said.

I snapped my fingers. “There you go, the eastern spies.” I looked at Mr. Bird Brains. “
Fucking eagles
.”

“Better than fucking spy group one,” he shot back.

“All right,” I said. “So you jolly lads and two ladies will position yourselves here.” I trailed my fingernail just beneath the mouth of the Widowed Path. “Some hills, forests, places to hide about. This is day seventeen — remember that. I need you to return on day twenty-six. Go due west of here till you see an army that looks like a mobile city. You’ll find me there.”

One of the sellswords cleared his throat. “What’re we supposed to do there in the, er, forests and hills and all that?”

A woman turned to him in disbelief. “Are you shtupid? We’re the eastern spies. We’re spying.”

“I want to hear about every soul who passes through the Widowed Path,” I said. “What they’re wearing, carrying and how many of them there are. Watch yourselves for roving bands of soldiers who try to sniff out scouts.”

I organized another ten and ordered them to scout near the Mount Kor, at the far southwest of Rime. Another ten would remain here in the hills on lookout for Ollesean forces and other families who were in debt to the Verdans. Finally, the remaining twenty-some mercenaries would come with me, simply because I had overcompensated and bought too damn many of the sellswords.

The scouting groups took what supplies they needed to survive. I grabbed what I could and abandoned the wagons because lugging them around would slow us down, and they weren’t necessary any longer. And then I fled south. And then east. And then south. Back to the east. A little toward the west, and then south again. It’s bloody annoying traveling across mountainous terrain.

On day nineteen, I made it to the Hole. There, I gathered up the ebon blades that Borgart had crafted, loaded them up into two wagons and left again.

On day twenty-three, I established contact with the armies of the gods. At least it looked that way. Felt it too.

The rolling hills of ugly gray bedrock wavered under the roiling blight that swept over them. Thunder rumbled the rocks and fractured the air, splitting the thick humidity like an ax splits wood, dousing your skin in a cold sweat. It wasn’t the kind of thunder that strikes without warning, the kind that seemingly cleaves your ears in two and then retreats like a yapping dog. No, this thunder was constant. A low, relentless throaty roar that pimpled your skin. It wasn’t a threat, but a promise.

It looked a mountain shifting across the landscape, leaving behind disrepair and toil. There were pikes aimed toward the heavens, spears glinting as the moon and sun played a game of hide-and-seek. Thousands of foot soldiers marched at the head, and behind them archers, and behind the archers trotted the cavalry, the proudest of them all.

My sellswords and I remained on the small hill overlooking the foreboding scene below. We waited for a good hour and finally the horizon of muscular horse flanks and sharp armor abated. Oxen came into view, hauling innumerable wagons of coveted supplies. The logistics of war can boggle the mind. Ensuring you have enough food for twenty thousand men and some five thousand horses is no small matter. Those who plan accordingly can win a war against a much larger force without so much as swinging a sword.

Well, perhaps not if you’re laying siege to a castle which has enough supplies for a good six months. You certainly need to swing a sword in that case.

I waited for night to fall, and when it did, Dercy’s army predictably settled down and set up camp. I led the mercenaries down steep earthen steppes and rode for the middle of the army, just behind the cavalry, where the officers would gather. Thin drops of water fell from the sky now, soaking my hair.

A handful of cavalry met me midway, dressed in royal blue tunics with a Tyrian purple crest of a shark. They demanded my name and intentions. Despite me giving them both, they eyed me suspiciously and informed me I would follow them to Commander Vayle and that if I or my men put a hand on our weapons, they wouldn’t hesitate to strew our entrails across the dirt.

“Well,” I said, “you bunch certainly have more gusto than Glannondil soldiers, don’t you?”

They ignored that and led me through the suffocating walls of their army. One of fog or steam snaked lazily across the ground, rising up slowly around us like we were boiled fish in a covered pot. Judging from the sweat that dripped from my fingers, we may well have been.

Most of the cavalry were resting beside their horses, eating hardened crackers and washing it down with small sips of wine. I’d eaten those crackers before — you bite down too hard, and you’ll be eating a tooth as well.

Slaves in rags had the joyful backbreaking duties of digging latrines and fetching supplies from the wagons far in the back. They weren’t new to this kind of work; their spines were misaligned, their shoulders were permanently slouched, and their knuckles were swollen and busted. Most were likely prisoners serving their punishment.

Finally we came upon a mishmash of purple tents illuminated by hungry torches whose receding fires fought a losing battle against the rain.

The cavalry stopped in front of one of these tents.

“Lord Commander Vayle,” a soldier announced, “there is someone who claims you will see him.”

With her chocolate hair pinned up and a quill in her ear, Vayle emerged from the tent. She had a spry smile on her face, undoubtedly amused. If she really wanted to fuck with me, she’d say, ‘Take him away!’

“That man,” Vayle said, “was chosen as the true lord commander by your king.”

Each of the cavalry straightened themselves.

“I’m sorry, sir,” one of them said. “It was with no ill intention that—”

“Pipe down with that proper ‘sir’ shit,” I said. “Listen, there’ll be two wagons coming into the camp soon. They’re bringing a special delivery for the war effort. Direct them here when they arrive.”

“Yes, si— I mean, yes.”

The cavalry scattered.

“Look at you,” I said to Vayle. “Quill in your ear, hair tied up, bags under your eyes. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks to me like you just finished interrogating a map.”

Vayle smiled a tired smile — the kind of smile you flash with your eyes closed, while you rock back on your feet, thinking how nice it would be to fall asleep right then and there.

“War planning,” she said with a shake of her head. “I haven’t worked my mind this hard in a long time.” A faint smirk touched her lips, as if she had just dipped her toes into a hot bath.

“It’s like planning an assassination,” I said. “Just on a much larger scale.”

“
Much
larger,” she said. She pointed her chin at the sellswords. “Who are they?”

“Some of the mercenaries the vault of the Rot paid for.”

“What do you do?” she asked them, immediately stepping back into her commander role.

“We kill!” Ivor said. Then quickly, “If you want us to. We also protect.”

“Which usually involves killing,” I reminded him.

“I understand what a mercenary is,” Vayle said, “but
what
do you do? Are you cavalry? Foot soldiers? Archers?”

“Anything but archers,” Ivor said.

Vayle wiped the dripping rain from her brows. “Join the men on foot up front. Leave your horses here.”

After they were gone, Vayle invited me inside her personal tent. We walked to a table where a few candles flicked a mellow orange into the room. There was also a map on top of a map on top of about ten other maps.

“Does someone have a cartography fetish?” I asked.

Vayle leaned over the table. “I marked up the other ones too much.”

She picked the quill from her ear and laid it in the inkwell, then she rubbed her face and stared at the map, clicking her tongue.

There were ink lines… everywhere. It looked like someone had stabbed the night sky and then squeezed out every ounce of black blood it had to offer.

“I’ll be honest,” I said. “I’ve no idea what I’m looking at.”

Vayle sighed. She bent down, grabbed another map from beneath the table and unfurled it on top of the others.

“Dercy and I have been working on this since we landed in Watchmen’s Bay. I think I’ve finally broken through with something.”

“Er, where is Dercy?”

“Sleeping,” Vayle answered. “He hasn’t slept in three days. And I haven’t slept in two.” Her eyes slanted upwards toward mine. “It’s my turn tomorrow.” Revisiting the map, she drummed her nail on Edenvaile. “Northern castles are nightmares to lay siege to. All the mountains and hills act as walls. The reinforcements hide behind them. When the wounded and the dead pile up in the castle and in the field, the reinforcements pour out like ants, and they resupply. Anywhere else, where the terrain isn’t as fierce, the entire army often gathers within the castle. If you can manage a good rush at the wall and send soldiers over, you create chaos. There’s no time to issue orders or catch the attackers by surprise.

“But the North — they’ll time it perfectly. They’ll wait until your men are over, and then they’ll send in an overwhelming force to flush you out. It’s a battle of attrition, and that never favors the attacker.”

Vayle looked at me with an inclining brow and crossed her arms.

I cleared my throat. “Ah, yes. The ever-clever resupply tactic of the North. One that you always have to prepare for, hmm?”

She chuckled. “Dercy admitted that he gave you — and then me — the title of lord commander as nothing more than a reward for our help in rescuing him. It would give us little influence over the war. It wasn’t until I offered better strategies than all of his officers and held better sway with his men that the title gave me the power the name represented. And I think my newest scheme will justify that decision. Do you remember Grimm, a lord at the border of Nane and Rime?”