Dragon rider, p.10
Dragon Rider, page 10
Both wild and tame, it was they that cropped short the long grass of the endless steppe – and they that fed the great predators that made his homeland a dangerous place at the best of times.
Jai rearranged himself a final time, then stalked through the doors with all the confidence of the prince himself.
‘Where is Leonid?’
The guards at the doors stared straight ahead, ignoring him.
‘I have his medicine,’ Jai said, holding up the small pouch that contained his razor and coins. ‘I’m the one who looks after him – you’ve seen me.’ He shifted his weight onto one hip as the two guards stared straight ahead. ‘Of course, if he gets sick and dies, they’ll blame me first. But when they start pulling out my fingernails, I’ll have two more names to give them. Yours.’
The older of the two scoffed at Jai’s words, but the other blanched slightly. It was this one that Jai turned his attention to.
‘What was it that they did to that Huddite spy, all those years ago? Was he the one they fed alive to the gryphons? Or was that the court jester who took the piss out of Constantine’s beard?’
‘That bear-shit-eating Dansk king is ill,’ the boy muttered, earning himself an eye roll from his partner. ‘The royals and their guests have taken themselves to the royal rooms at the baths to help him sweat it out.’
‘Ill?’ Jai asked, his ears pricking up. ‘Ill with what?’
But his questions had earned him the ire of the older guard, who launched a kick that sent him sprawling across the plush red carpet of the grand corridor.
‘You fuck off now,’ the man said simply.
Jai fucked off.
His mind raced as he hurried back through the palace corridors, the rusted razor now clutched in his pocket. Little use it would be against a soulbound assassin, but it gave him some comfort.
Magnus knew where he slept. And soon enough, Balbir would go back to the room. Whether Jai was there or not, any killer would have few qualms about slitting the old woman’s throat while they waited for Jai to return.
But surely he owed Erica a warning also. Now he knew what the so called ‘trial’ had been. Testing the poison upon Ivar. The soulbound king had survived their first attempt, it seemed. But now Titus claimed he had an entire bowl of poisoned larks’ tongues. Enough to kill him dead.
Either way, Jai knew he would never get close to any of the royals. His best chance would be to return to his room, get another message to Frida that way. If Balbir arrived first, then the Dansk were on their own.
LEAVING THE PALACE WAS easier than entering, and with each step, his resolve grew. His plan to escape with Balbir had gone from a fantasy to a reality in the thousand steps it had taken to reach the inn once more.
Once there, he crept past the still-sleeping innkeeper and returned to the room. He prayed that Balbir would return soon. Before an assassin came for both of them. Within, he bathed himself as best he could, using a pail of water and the razor to try to make himself presentable.
There was even a bar of soap, unscented but serviceable. After washing, he left his clothes to air by the window and put on the gorget, tracing his fingers along the insignia at the front. It was perhaps the closest he had ever felt to his father. Quite literally, in many ways, for the sigil’s engraving was made all the more visible by the black blood dried within its cracks.
The armour sat heavy upon his shoulders, its crescent bottom beginning just above his sternum, and ending in a loose collar at the base of his neck.
‘You wear it well,’ Balbir said.
Jai spun, to find the old woman sitting upon the bed, her beetle brows furrowed at the site of him. How had she moved so quickly?
Jai hurried to cover himself, earning a cackle from Balbir.
‘Nowt I’ve not seen afore, Jai,’ Balbir chuckled. ‘I’ve seen your twig and berries since afore you knew you had them.’
Jai reddened, unsure of what to say. ‘We have to leave,’ he whispered, plucking his kecks from the windowsill and pulling them on. ‘I returned to the palace to ask Leonid to buy your contract. Only, he was not there. Magnus was . . . and . . .’
He sought the words to explain what he had heard, but they jumbled in his head. He did not know what he knew exactly.
‘Something is going to happen, very soon. If we can get a message to Frida, we should, but for now I need you to pack your things. We’re—’
A bony hand clapped over Jai’s face, shoving him back against the wall. It took a moment for Jai to realise it was Balbir. She had moved with such speed he’d been taken unawares.
She glared up at him with her dark eyes, and a single finger pointed to the ceiling. Jai’s own eyes turned there, seeing a trickle of dust falling through the beam of light from the curtains.
He looked to the door, but Balbir shook her head. Leaned in, close as a lover.
‘We run; they’ll hunt us down before we reach the front gates. We kill him now; we’ve bought ourselves some time.’
Jai’s eyes widened and he shook his head. But Balbir was already moving, stooping low and scuttling to the shadows beside the window. She pointed Jai to the darkest corner of the room.
It was a mad plan. An old lady and a damp, half-naked boy, taking on a soulbound assassin. She had not even a weapon in her hands, and he just a rusted razor.
The razor was slippery in his palm, sweat already forming despite his lack of clothing. It was a simple weapon; a floor-sharpened metal shard embedded in a handle of corkwood. He hid it behind his back. The element of surprise was all they had going for them.
Now he saw the shadow at the window. That long shaft of light that divided the room in two flickering, then darkening. There was a sudden glow . . . not from outside . . . from inside the room.
An explosion of glass. A man, moving impossibly fast, blade extended. Stopped short, even as Jai screamed, slashing wildly at the air.
Only the man never reached him.
Jai stood frozen, razor trembling. But the man was as still as he, but for a twitching face, and eyes that darted from Jai, then to the razor. For a moment, Jai wondered if this was some sort of challenge, waiting for him to make the first move.
Then, Balbir faded into view, as if Jai’s eyes had adjusted to the gloom. He saw her fingers clutching the man’s nape, pinched like an eagle’s claw. Her face was scrunched as if in agony, and the glow from her fingers and eyes was a dark, deep red. A red that was fading.
‘Now,’ Balbir croaked. ‘Before I lose him.’
Chapter 20
Jai had never killed a man. Never even been in a fight, unless being roundly beaten by guardsmen or other servants counted. He glanced at the old woman to his side. There was no choice here. Nor time. He did not look the man in the eye when he cut across his throat. Only felt the soft tug of flesh as he drew the blade through, and felt the hot blood spill, almost caustic, over his hands and feet. Jai felt numb.
Still, Balbir held the man until his gurgling abated. Her fingers never moved, and afterward his body hung like a marionette. Dead, yet frozen in place.
Then, with a great sigh, Balbir let him fall. Collapsed, kneeling in blood. Her breath rasped in her lungs, eyes rolling back into their sockets.
Jai gently took her in his arms, careless of the blood that now soaked them both. He lay her on his bed. She was so light, lighter even than Leonid.
His mind reeled at the discovery of her abilities. Again, he had been aided by one of the soulbound. Frida had surprised him. But Balbir shocked him.
‘Water,’ Balbir hissed.
Jai was swift to find the gourd of water and put it to her lips. She drank greedily. Her face was more drawn somehow, as if the crosshatching of lines had been etched deeper into her face.
Beads of sweat broke out on her forehead, and for a while she twitched, the corners of her mouth bubbling white. But after a few, long breaths, she calmed.
Jai had hardly spoken to a single soulbound person in his life. Now, they seemed to be everywhere. He stroked her head, and then felt his gorge rise as blood smeared across her brow. He turned, threw up upon the floor. Then again, and again, until tears and snot ran from his nose.
‘I killed him,’ he gagged through the words. ‘Like I w-ugh . . . slaughtering a pig.’
Balbir’s hand took his wrist then. Her hands were surprisingly strong.
‘It is good to mourn your enemy’s death, especially when you did not know them,’ she whispered. ‘But only after the battle. We are still in the midst of it.’
Jai gulped and wiped his face with the bedspread. Cleared his throat and took a seat beside her. Balbir smiled and lifted a hand to brush his face.
‘Of all Rohan’s sons, you bear his likeness most,’ she whispered.
Jai smiled and shook his head.
‘I am only half Steppeman. How can that be?’
Balbir tutted and gave him a light slap.
‘Contradict me at your peril. If I say it is so, it is.’
‘And yet you lied to me,’ Jai grumbled, wincing and rubbing his cheek.
Balbir groaned, waving at him dismissively as she sat up a little.
‘Bring me that soup,’ she said, avoiding the veiled question. ‘I must recover my strength.’
Jai spotted a fresh bowl of soup, still steaming upon the counter. She must have brought it with her upon her return earlier. His belly grumbled, its scent surpassing even the metallic tinge of blood in the air, but he diligently brought it to her and fed her a few spoonfuls.
‘I am a spy, my boy,’ Balbir said, sighing after a large gulp. ‘Or at least, I was one. Your grandfather convinced your uncle to send me to care for you boys. Old and hunched as I am, he did not think I would be suspected – just another captive from the war. I would have my totem carve messages in the earth for him to read. Of course, I could do little but let him know how his grandsons fared . . . and after a few years, not even that. With your grandfather’s death, I was forgotten. And I preferred it that way.’
She sighed and closed her eyes.
‘My Sagara still lives, though her eyes are more cataracted than mine. I see her world through a haze. But I still feel my old land through her. I am there now. I feel the earth beneath the pads of her feet. I can smell the fresh-cropped grass, hear the songs of our people as they bring the herd in for the night.’
‘Sagara is a khiro?’ Jai asked.
The old lady nodded, and Jai saw a sadness in her eyes. She took the bowl then, guzzling the rest of the soup. He marvelled at the old woman’s courage. The deaths of spies captured by the Sabines were legendary in their savagery and were always public.
There had been some Huddite spies caught just before Jai had been sent to Latium, but he knew the story well. It had been one of Constantine’s first acts as emperor. It was said by some that they were not spies but rather scapegoats so the new emperor could make his mark.
The five men and women had been barrelled and left in the market square, their heads exposed for any to hurt. Noses, ears, eyes – those were the first to go, for the urchins of the streets were as cruel as they were desperate.
But this was not what made their deaths so terrible. It was what was packed into the barrels with them. Faeces, milk and offal were poured in before their sealing, and the liquid putrefied inside. Maggots writhed and burrowed into the spies’ flesh, bodies rotting from the outside in, their wails rending the air.
By the end, their throats were slit in the night by someone who took pity. Or, more likely, a nearby vendor who knew the stench and noise was bad for business.
‘I thank you, Jai, for not hesitating,’ Balbir said, her voice quieter now. ‘My mana was almost spent. A few seconds more and he would have slaughtered the both of us.’
Only then could Jai look at the man. He had thought it would make him sick again, but instead, he felt strangely empty.
The man wore no armour, nor insignia. His face was as plain as any he’d seen, neither handsome nor ugly. Even his sword was a simple thing, made of pig iron. Jai wondered at the care Magnus had taken to hide the assassin’s origins.
‘What happened to his beast?’ Jai whispered. ‘Will it not warn his brethren of his death?’
Balbir shook her head.
‘Some say a piece of the man’s soul now resides in his beast. But it is but a beast, and loses the acuity that so many totems gain when the bond forms. Without him to guide it, it will be unable to pass on any message. If we are lucky, it has flown off in distress, without anyone noticing it has gone. I could smell it on the roof before . . . I cannot smell it now.’
Jai breathed deeply. ‘What now?’ he asked.
Balbir shrugged and lay back.
‘If we run this very moment, we have a chance. But a slim one. Better that they do not look for us at all. Beyond that, I know not. Until a few minutes ago, you were to go back to Leonid, and I to go back to scrubbing floors for a new master. If you’ve a plan, I’ll listen.’
Jai brought his knees up to his chest.
‘My plan didn’t involve a dead assassin in our room.’
Balbir’s hand lashed out, slapping him.
‘It does now.’
Chapter 21
Ready?’ Jai asked.
He felt sick. Their plan was precarious and relied on chance more than anything else. But it was the only plan.
Balbir nodded, then heaved as they rolled the man’s body onto the blanket and wrapped him up to his neck. He lay there, eyes half-open, mouth agape. Balbir shut them both with gentle fingers.
Now the assassin wore Jai’s clothing, and Jai his. He was conspicuous, as his outfit was bloodied . . . but that was a problem for later.
‘You are sure?’ Jai asked.
‘He is but an empty vessel now,’ Balbir whispered. ‘And I will need to defile him to save us, before the night is done. But first, I must soulbreathe.’
Jai cocked his head, fascinated. Balbir settled back, cross-legged, as he had seen the acolytes of the Eyrie do.
‘I can do this alone,’ she said. ‘This will take hours, for I am not the cultivator I once was, and my totem is far. If they come while you are here, we both die.’
Jai grunted.
‘The assassin was waiting for your return, I am sure of it. So whoever sent him might assume he is still waiting.’
‘Even so,’ Balbir muttered.
‘You think I want to make that journey without you? I’ve hardly set foot beyond the walls of Latium. If another assassin comes, I’ll wake you up and we’ll deal with him together.’
‘On your head be it.’
She breathed in, then out, slowly.
‘The lungs, the bellows,’ Balbir whispered. ‘The heart, the hearth. The stomach, the cauldron. The blood, the filter. The core, the cast.’
Her voice was hardly audible, yet her chest seemed to double in size as she took great gulps of air. Jai wished he could see what he knew was happening. The mana of their surroundings, trickling into her body like fine dust. What happened beyond that, he knew little of.
For a while, he watched her. Then scrubbed at the front of his shirt and his moccasins until the washwater was pink and the stains faded so as to look like he’d not had more than a violent nosebleed.
The killer’s clothing was far softer and cleaner than the scratchy servant’s uniform. Unexpectedly comfortable, Jai dozed on and off as Balbir sat, her only movement the deep in and out of her chest.
It was only when he woke, perhaps hours later if the angle of the sunlight was any indication, that he noticed it. Something was in his pocket, something small and soft, but he could feel it there.
He pulled it out. It was a note.
Whether it’s done or not, take a shift at the palace before the eighth bell. All trusted hands are needed.
There was no signature or seal. Likely a message passed from Magnus, to a captain, to the assassin. The man looked young, hardly more than a boy. Likely this had been a test of his loyalty, or some such nonsense.
What this did tell him was how much time they had before the assassin would be missed. And he had just heard the seventh bell ring a few minutes earlier. He had to speak up.
‘Balbir,’ he said.
‘I know, boy,’ Balbir muttered, getting to her feet. ‘The hour grows late, but my power is still only a little. Let us hope it is enough.’
Already the old woman was stooping over the assassin’s body, a hand outstretched over his face.
‘Forgive me,’ she whispered, as her eyes started to glow.
Her hand began to blaze orange, even as her fingers danced in front of the man’s closed eyes. Then, the flames poured forth, materialising as if from nowhere. Jai turned away as the stench of burning hair and flesh made him gag once more. At least this time, his stomach was practically empty.
The orange light began to fade, but the stench remained. Balbir sighed and finally Jai turned. He averted his eyes, but not until after a glance at the ruin that the flames had left behind.
‘You are lucky he is black of hair and tanned from the sun,’ Balbir muttered. ‘Or I’d have to do his hands and feet.’
Jai felt his gorge rise once more, but resisted. Another glance told him that the face was unrecognisable. He could have been Titus himself, and Jai would not have known.
‘Now, you need to leave – through the way he came,’ Balbir said, jerking her head at the window.
‘Repeat the plan to me,’ Jai whispered.
‘I’ll wake the innkeeper as if I have just arrived, then return in a panic and have him call the town guard and tell them of your death. I’ll wait until they’ve taken the body to the plague pits and meet you by the front gates.’
Jai nodded.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘They will think the assassin got sick of waiting for you and killed me – and I suspect you’re not important enough for them to mount too great a search . . . no offence meant. He’s supposed to return for the eighth bell. Let us hope there is enough chaos in whatever happens tonight that they think he died in the fighting . . . if there is any.’
