Assassin 3 - Royal Assassin (49 page)

After a time I began to be alive again. I helped
to clear the bodies from the door of the tower, and then from the
battlefield. The Raiders we burned, the Six Duchies men we laid out
and covered, for kin to claim. I remember odd things about that
long afternoon. How a dead man's heels leave a snaking trail in the
sand when you drag him. How the young watchman with the dagger in
him wasn't quite dead when we went to gather him up. Not that he
lasted long afterward. He soon was just one more body to add to a
row that was too long already.

We left our warriors with what was left of the
tower guard to help fill up the watches until more men could be
sent out.

We admired the vessel we'd captured. Verity
would be pleased, I thought to myself. Another ship. A very
well-made one. I knew all these things, but felt nothing about any
of them. We returned to the Rurisk, where a pale Justin awaited us.
In a numbed silence, we launched the Rurisk and took our places at
the oars and headed back to Buckkeep.

We encountered other boats before we were
halfway there. A hastily organized flotilla of fishing vessels
laden with soldiers hailed us. The King-in-Waiting had sent them,
at Justin's urgently Skilled behest. They seemed almost
disappointed to find that the fighting was over, but our master
assured them they would be welcomed at the tower. That, I think,
was when I realized I could no longer sense Verity. And hadn't for
some time. I groped after Nighteyes immediately, as another man
might grope after his purse. He was there. But distant. Exhausted,
and awed. Never have I smelled so much blood, he told me. I agreed.
I still stank of it.

Verity had been busy. We were scarcely off the
Rurisk before there was another crew aboard to take her back to
Antler Island Tower. Watch soldiers and another crew of rowers set
her heavy in the water. Verity's prize would be tied up at his home
dock by this night. Another open boat followed them, to bring our
slain home. The master, the mate, and Justin departed on provided
horses to report directly to Verity. I felt only relief that I
hadn't been summoned also. Instead, I went with my crew mates.
Faster than I would have thought possible, word of the battle and
our prize spread through Buckkeep Town. There was not a tavern that
was not anxious to pour us full of ale and hear our exploits. It
was almost like a second battle frenzy, for wherever we went, folk
ignited around us with savage satisfaction in what we had done. I
felt drunk on the surging emotions of those around me long before
the ale overwhelmed me. Not that I held back from that. I told few
tales of what we had done, but my drinking more than made up for
it. I threw up twice, once in an alley, and later in the street. I
drank more to kill the taste of the vomit. Somewhere in the back of
my mind, Nighteyes was frantic. Poison. That water is poisoned. I
couldn't frame a thought to reassure him.

Sometime before morning, Burrich hauled me out
of a tavern. He was stonily sober, and his eyes were anxious. In
the street outside the tavern, he stopped by a dying torch in a
street sconce. There's still blood on your face, he told me, and
stood me up straight. He took out his handkerchief, dipped it in a
rain barrel, and wiped my face as he had not since I was a child. I
swayed under his touch. I looked into his eyes and forced my gaze
to focus.

I've killed before, I said helplessly. Why is
this so different? Why does it sicken me like this,
afterward?

Because it does, he said softly. He put an arm
around my shoulders, and I was surprised we were of a height. The
walk back to Buckkeep was steep. Very long. Very quiet. He sent me
to the baths and told me to go to bed afterward.

I should have stayed in my own bed, but I had
not the sense. Luckily the castle was abuzz, and one more drunk
clambering up a staircase was not remarkable. Stupidly, I went to
Molly's room. She let me in. But when I tried to touch her, she
pulled away from me. You're drunk, she told me, almost crying. I
told you, I promised myself to never kiss a drunk. Or be kissed by
one.

But I'm not drunk that way, I
insisted.

There's only one way to be drunk, she told me.
And turned me out of her rooms, untouched.

By noon the next day, I knew how much I had hurt
her by not coming straight to her to find comfort. I could
understand what she felt. But I also knew that what I had carried
that night was nothing to take home to someone you loved. I wanted
to explain that to her. But a boy came running up to me to tell me
I was needed on the Rurisk, and right now. I gave him a penny for
his troubles and watched him dash off with it. Once, I had been the
boy earning the penny. I thought of Kerry. I tried to remember him
as the boy with the penny in his hand, running at my side, but
forever now he was the Forged one dead on a table. No one, I told
myself, had been taken for Forging yesterday.

Then I headed down to the docks. On the way I
stopped at the stable. I gave the crescent moon over into Burrich's
hands. Keep this safe for me, I asked him. And there will be a bit
more, my crew share from the raid. I want to have you hold it for
me ... what I make at doing this. It's for Molly. So if ever I
don't come back, you be certain she gets it. She doesn't like being
a servant.

I hadn't spoken so plainly of her to Burrich in
a long time. A line creased his brow, but he took the bloodied
moon. What would your father say to me? he wondered aloud as I
turned wearily away from him.

I don't know, I told him bluntly. I never knew
him. Only you.

FitzChivalry.

I turned back to him. Burrich met my eyes as he
spoke. I don't know what he'd say to me. But I know I can say this
for him, to you. I'm proud of you. It's not the kind of work a man
does that says he can be proud or not. It's how he does it. Be
proud of yourself.

I will try, I told him quietly. I went back to
my ship.

Our next encounter with a Red-Ship was a less
decisive victory. We met them on the sea, and they were not
surprised, for they had seen us coming. Our master stood the
course, and I think they were surprised when we began the
engagement by ramming them. We sheared off a number of their oars,
but missed the steering oar we had targeted. There was little
damage to the ship itself; the Red-Ships were as flexible as fish.
Our grapples flew. We outnumbered them, and the master intended to
use that advantage. Our warriors boarded them, and half our oarsmen
lost their heads and jumped in, too. It became a chaos that spread
briefly to our own decks. It took every bit of will I could muster
to withstand the vortex of emotions that engulfed us, but I stayed
with my oar as I had been ordered. Nonge, at his oar, watched me
strangely. I gripped my oar and ground my teeth until I could find
myself. I muttered a curse when I discovered that I'd lost Verity
again.

I think our warriors let up a bit when they knew
we had reduced our enemy's crew to where they could no longer
manage their vessel. It was a mistake. One of the Raiders set fire
to their own sail while a second one attempted to chop through
their own planking. I guess they hoped the fire would spread and
they could take us down with them. Certainly at the end they fought
with no care for the damage they took to their ship or their own
bodies. Our fighters finally finished them, and we got the fire put
out, but the prize we towed back to Buckkeep was smoking and
damaged, and man for man, we had lost more lives than they had.
Still, it was a victory, we told ourselves. This time, when the
others went out drinking, I had the sense to seek out Molly. And
early the next morning, I found an hour or two for Nighteyes. We
went hunting together, good clean hunting, and he tried to persuade
me to run away with him. I made the mistake of telling him that he
could leave if he wished, meaning only the best for him, and hurt
his feelings. It took me another hour to convey to him what I had
meant. I went back to my ship wondering if my ties were worth the
effort it took to keep them intact. Nighteyes assured me they
were.

That was the last clear victory for the Rurisk.
It was far from the last battle of the summer. No, the clear
pleasant weather stretched impossibly long before us, and every
fine day was a day when I might kill someone. I tried not to count
them as days on which I might be killed. We had many skirmishes,
and gave pursuit many times, and it did seem there were fewer raids
attempted in the area we regularly patrolled. Somehow that only
made it all the more frustrating. And there were successful raids
for the Red-Ships, times when we put into a town but an hour or so
after they had left, and could do no more than help stack bodies or
put out fires. Then Verity would roar and curse in my mind that he
could not get messages more swiftly, that there were not enough
ships and watches to be everywhere. I would rather have faced the
fury of a battle than Verity's savage frustration racking through
my brain. There was never any end in sight, save the respite that
bad weather might bring us. We could not even put an accurate
number to the Red-Ships that plagued us, for they were painted
identically, and as like as peas in a pod. Or drops of blood on the
sand.

While I was an oarsman on the Rurisk that
summer
,
we had one other
encounter with a Red-Ship that is worth telling for the strangeness
of it. On a clear summer night, we had been tumbled from our beds
in the crew shed and sent racing toward our ship. Verity had sensed
a Red-Ship lurking off Buck Point.

He wanted us to overtake it in the
dark.

Justin stood in our prow, Skill-linked to Serene
in Verity's tower. Verity was a wordless mumble in my mind as he
felt our way through the dark toward the ship he sensed. And
something else? I could feel him groping out, beyond the Red-Ship,
like a man feeling forward in the darkness. I sensed his
uneasiness. We were allowed no talk, and our oars were muffed as we
came closer. Nighteyes whispered to me that he had scent of them,
and then we spotted them. Long and low and dark, the Red-Ship was
cutting through the water ahead of us. A sudden cry went up from
their deck; they had seen us. Our master shouted to us to lay into
our oars, but as we did, a sick wave of fear engulfed me. My heart
began to hammer, my hands to tremble. The terror that swept through
me was a child's nameless fear of things lurking in the dark, a
helpless fear. I gripped my oar but could find no strength to ply
it.

Korrikska, I heard a man groan in a thick
Outislander accent. I think it was Nonge. I became aware I was not
the only one unmanned. There was no steady beat to our oars. Some
sat on their sea chests, head bowed over their oars, while others
rowed frantically, but out of rhythm, the blades of the oars
skipping and slapping against the water. We skittered on the
surface like a crippled skater bug while the Red-Ship forged
purposefully toward us. I lifted up my eyes and watched my death
coming for me. The blood hammered so in my ears that I could not
hear the cries of the panic-stricken men and women about me. I
could not even take a breath. I lifted up my eyes to the
heavens.

Beyond the Red-Ship, almost glowing on the black
water, was a white ship. This was no raiding vessel; this was a
ship, easily three times the size of the Red-Ship, her two sails
reefed, riding at anchor on the quiet water. Ghosts strode her
deck, or Forged ones. I felt no hint of life from them, and yet
they moved purposefully, readying a small boat to be lowered over
the side. A man stood on the afterdeck. The moment I saw him, I
could not look away.

He was cloaked in gray, yet I saw him limned
against the dark sky as clearly as if a lantern illuminated him. I
swear I could see his eyes, the jut of his nose, the dark curly
beard that framed his mouth. He laughed at me. Here's one come to
us! he called out to someone, and lifted a hand. He pointed it at
me, and laughed aloud again, and I felt my heart squeeze in my
chest. He looked at me with a terrible singleness, as if I alone of
our crew were his prey. I looked back at him, and I saw him, but I
could not sense him. There! There! I shrieked the word aloud, or
perhaps the Skill I could never control sent it bounding off the
insides of my skull. There was no response. No Verity, no
Nighteyes, no one, nothing. I was alone. All the world had gone
silent and still. Around me my crew fellows rattled with terror and
cried out aloud, but I felt nothing. They were no longer there. No
one was there. No gull, no fish in the sea, no life anywhere as far
as any of my inner senses would reach. The cloaked figure on the
ship leaned far out on the rail, the accusing finger pointing at
me. He was laughing. I was alone. It was a loneliness too great to
be endured. It wrapped me, coiled about me, blanketed me, and began
to smother me.

I repelled at it.

In a reflex I did not know I had, I used the Wit
to push away from it as hard as I could. Physically, I was the one
that flew backward, landing in the bilge atop the thwarts, tangled
in the feet of the other oarsmen. I saw the figure on the ship
stumble, sag, and then tumble over the side. The splash was not
large, but there was only one. If he rose to the surface at all, I
did not see it.

Nor was there time to look for him. The Red-Ship
hit us amidships, shattering oars and sending oarsmen flying. The
Outislanders were shouting with their confidence, mocking us with
their laughter as they leaped from their ship to ours. I scrabbled
to my feet and lunged to my bench, reaching for my ax. Around me,
the others were making the same sort of recovery. We were not
battle ready, but neither were we paralyzed by fear anymore. Steel
met our boarders and battle was joined.