War in Arbin

War in Arbin

Copyright © Mike Woods 2015

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

Acknowledgements

Lisa, who kept me fed.

If the tower is everywhere and the knight of deliverance

no proof against its magic, what else?

- Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49

Chapter 1

It seemed at times that people thought they knew what was best for me. When I look back I see that when I did what was expected, what was seen to be right, the upshot fell out easy, there was less pain. But nothing changed. It was when I did what was not expected—even if that was nothing at all—that things were different. These times, the latter, I was able to see things differently, to see what maybe I had not been able to see before. And it is these times that I look back and I feel I have done what was needed to be done, and I feel, dare I say it, proud.

What brought me to the roofs that night has been deemed in tales curiosity by some; nosiness by another name; pure boredom, I maintain. The steely breeze shivered under my cloak and stole across my skin. That morning we’d been greeted with frost-webbed windows and a slate-grey sky, and folks spent the day with heads half askew waiting, in vain as it happened, for the season’s first spatters of snow. Along with the cold, the wind carried a smell of staid ice water, but it couldn’t hide the heady stench of rotten fish and river sludge. It buffeted its way down the narrow streets, and here, a half dozen blocks from the Etern, faint sounds of night trades could still be heard. I turned my head that way, and beyond the river the upper city was enwreathed in a warming glow from torchlight and bright mansions, the embrace of civilisation that didn’t reach across the water. Carefully, I made my way down a sharply descending rooftop to a squat warehouse capped with verdigrised tiles, turned my shoulder to the wind. The tiles were slippery in the glistening dew, and soon, with winter fast closing, it would be too treacherous to be up there of a night.

The winter months were traditionally a quiet time for assassins, a time for reflection. There was a saying in Arbin: if you are going to betray a man, do it while the snow falls.

My own maxim is make sure he has a short memory.

The stars were crisp pinpricks of silver overhead, trying to make up for the days’ weakening sunlight, but still doing little to light my way. The gods’ footprints were stark in the trail of the sky, reminding that the colder months were a time of peaceful contemplation and supplication for men of the cloth. The spaces between the constellations were also dusted with faint symbols connecting the heavenly emblems and inviting all sorts of blasphemous interpretations.

It was definitely curiosity that made me cross the hooked alley below and skirt an abandoned tenement to track the sound of gruff laughter. What fool would be out on a night like this?

Perhaps a better question, who could find something to laugh about these days.

Peering around the tenement’s flank I spotted torchlight flickering up from the street below. This side of the building was all in shadow. I shifted to a better vantage point and peering over the rusted out guttering saw three soldiers shuffling from foot to foot to ward off the cold, their breath misting in quickly dissipating clouds about their heads. One, a commander of sorts, stood before the others who were side by side like naughty children. The commander passed the other two a flask, its graven image of the king’s family insignia stood out in fool’s gold even in the dancing shadow of the street.

Crouching, I rested my weight on my heels, then nestled into a deeper pocket of shadow. The cold bricks at my back made me cringe. The soldiers were jesting and laughing amongst themselves, no doubt getting paid well to do their job. Whatever that was. If they even knew, themselves.

The troops had arrived three months past, an entire division, one thousand of the King’s worst men sweeping into Arbin in high spirits and promising war and all the attendant violence and spoils. For half a turn of the moon the drinking halls and gambling dens were infested with squads of heavily-armed, boisterous, but wary-eyed fighters spinning tall tales and rousting the youth with promises of iron and gold.

And since then, silence.

The soldiers had become a fixture in the city not unlike whores: there on every corner, just doing their job, but largely ignored by most of the city’s inhabitants. They were notionally keeping the peace, what with the election coming up, and conscripting likely young lads into the army, but at no great pace, making many of us wonder if the war would ever happen. Being one of those likely young lads, I’d learned to avoid the soldiers’ unwanted attentions, so if they were waiting to make up numbers with volunteers, they’d be grey and bent when the charge was sounded. For all that, they were probably paid much better than whores. Maybe that accounted for the jollity.

A couple of sharp movements below as the two soldiers saluted loosely, the commander taking his leave. No doubt he was sitting on his own pile of gold, just to make sure the soldiers were looking like doing their job. He clasped his hands behind his back and strolled beyond the brightness of the light.

The wind was quieter in this street, but still strong enough to make the torch on the wall sputter and threaten dark. Two large grey moths spiralled round the bright arc as though chasing each other or both being chased by something I couldn’t see. The two soldiers visibly relaxed as their commander rounded the corner and out of sight. They leaned close and shared a low comment barely more than a mumble from my vantage point. Their laughter was cut short as the commander reappeared in the street and strode towards them. They sprung to attention but he waved them down again. He gave them a short command and they saluted as he disappeared once more.

The pair shared a brief look but remained silent, turning away from one another to watch either end of the street.

I was about to leave when a movement on the opposite roof caught my eye.

The assassin, for he undoubtedly was, silently padded in soft-soled boots to the edge of the roof and lowered himself to one knee. Black-clad and hair hidden beneath a raised tight hood, his features deeply shadowed. The kneeling figure was statuesque, only his outline against the blue tinge of the sky betrayed him.

I tried to sink deeper into the bricks at my back, willed the shadows to encompass me. I was suddenly aware of my own breath clouding before me and slowed it almost to a stop.

The figure slowly, methodically pulled a light crossbow from over his shoulder. His gaze remained unwavering on the figures in the torchlit street below. Unaware, helpless, they seemed as cattle penned with a wolf now, and no longer the fierce warriors they made themselves for.

The assassin loaded a bolt in and cocked the bow. Then he sighted down the shaft before settling to watch the soldiers.

Conversation had begun again in earnest below. One of the soldiers was telling the other a story about a woman he once knew. The other laughed at all the right moments, but it was strained as if the story was just beyond his belief.

I had a strange feeling as I observed the assassin watching the soldiers. It was almost a perverse situation, a voyeuristic knowing that I should not be seeing what I was seeing. Yet I could not look away, even knowing what must come.

I could intervene, perhaps even should have. Who knew what the killing of soldiers would bring down on the city? Yet here I was, watching, and it felt like I had a unique view of the world in motion, a privileged perspective. It was almost a sort of amusement, seeing the unusual twistings of the fates at play, and a feeling that perhaps this was beyond me, that I had no right to turn the course of this night.

Another figure appeared on the roof behind the first, and my breath caught.

Though clearly also a man trained in the killing arts, this one appeared somehow out of place. He was much bulkier than the first assassin and did not seem to have the surety of foot on the roofs expected of someone making a living up here. Even as he stood there he seemed to waver in the wind, not crouching to balance.

As the newcomer started forward, it was clear he was making a concerted effort to remain silent, but it looked to be a struggle. He descended the gently sloping roof in short, stuttering steps towards where the first assassin knelt.

The first assassin had not acknowledged the newcomer, so at first I thought they were together. In itself that was unusual, but given recent times I could understand if others were out with people watching their backs.

Unless the noise from the street was obscuring his approach.

And the wind was blowing towards their faces, taking the sound of his steps away.

Was this another sole operator? But why?

My breath was coming in short sharp bursts now as I watched the slow hunt play out. My mind raced as I considered that maybe the fighting among the assassins was coming to a head once more. It had not been business as usual since the Boss had purged his circle, but there had definitely been a renewed sense of safety.

Perhaps that was about to change.

The second assassin drew a knife, the curved silver blade flickering and glowing at the edge of the golden torchlight. One of the soldiers hawked loudly and spat. The first assassin sighted steadily down the shaft of his bow and his finger moved to the trigger.

The newcomer was within a step of the bowman now. A bellowed laugh rose from one of the soldiers and muffled angry voices sounded from the adjoining street.

The assassin lifted his gaze from the figures below and froze, head tilted to the side, sensing something awry.

The killer reached around and clamped a hand over the assassin’s mouth and his knife sunk into the man’s back. The knifeman jerked up his fist as he pulled his victim back from the roof’s edge, the curved blade rising through the assassin. There was no movement for about a minute, the killers locked in a frozen tableau of death, the only sign of life the shallow panted mist from the mouth of the knifeman.

Below, the soldiers shuffled quietly and paced in the small lit space.

The killer lowered the body carefully to the rooftop, shuffling back from under it. He lay the bow, strung and cocked, across the killer’s chest, then stood uneasily and backed his way clumsily and stiff-jointed up the sloped roof.

In the street the soldiers had gone quiet. The killer watched the corpse for an interminable moment as if expecting it to come back to life, then turned and climbed out of my sight.

My breath left me in a gasp and I thirstily sucked in more air. I lost track then of how long I sat in the shadow, watching the dance of the firelight on the eaves across the street, just beneath the faint humped shadow of an assassin’s corpse.

Eventually I rose and picked my carefully across the slippery roofs towards home, clutching my cloak tightly about me against the outside world. The coming snow was reason enough to keep off the roofs in the long months ahead.

Chapter 2

Maybe there was no such thing as luck. We can pray and beseech, take the same route to the market every fourth day of the new moon, stroke the head or phallus of some granite figurine—maybe it all meant nothing. Seemed like when the dice fell your way a few times it’s easy enough to put it down to skill or just desserts; but it’s when they’re falling the wrong way that luck seems real to me.

Maybe if you take it seriously enough you can turn your back when things are looking ill, crawl back into bed and wait out the day. Except when there’s a job to be done.

So were the dark directions of my thoughts as I gazed on the still-lit shutters’ edges. Two problems with the picture: the light, and the shutters.

The job was meant to be easy—the wife was due back the next day, and either she or whoever else had ordered the hit didn’t want her there or wanted her to come home to find him dead. So, tonight it was.

Except there’d been a damn party that was already well under way when I’d arrived. And I wasn’t invited. For hours I’d sat up on the opposite roof, hunched against the swirling wind, listening to the put-on joy of people that didn’t have to worry about the next day. I’d watched revellers stumble in and out of the street below, more than a few to empty their guts in the rain-puddled gutter, while the hired security lugs watched them with just enough attention to ensure they didn’t fall face-first and drown in their leavings. I felt some sort of brotherhood for those bored thugs; but there was envy, too. They’d be getting paid more, for starters. And they were out of the wind.

The shindig wasn’t part of the client’s plan; usually they’d pay more for a public gesture. That said, what jobs there were paid piss-all anyway.

That was half the problem. There wasn’t enough work to make bailing viable.

So I’d waited it out. I kept glancing eastward for the dawn, though I knew it was still hours off. And as winter reached its frost-rimed hands towards Arbin, those snow-capped peaks seemed to hold the dawn down longer with each passing day. My body knew the night had hours to go—I was just being impatient.

And I hated how that smacked of desperation.

The cold didn’t help none.

The chilled, taut cable of my bow had gone back into my cloak hours before, while the guests still gambolled on the lower floors, and the only light in the host’s bedroom came from lost or furtive torchbearers seeking a shrouded nook for a rendezvous.

I rubbed my hands. Despite the cold I had a late night thirst. It hadn’t helped when the guests stumbled out with sloshing wineskins and jars of ale. They seemed to find their way into the guards’ hands, no doubt along with coin-filled purses before the merrymakers were heaved up and carried round front and bundled in a cart bound for home.

It was almost an hour now since the festivities dampened and the last guest left. The security had made off an hour before that, their terms well-negotiated. My count was clear and, unless a latecomer slipped unseen into the noisy mirth, the host was alone.

And yet here I sat watching the flickering of candlelight around the first-floor shutters. He didn’t sleep with the light on—I’d established that the night before. Maybe he’d passed out drunk and neglected to snuff them.

This was the problem with winter. One of them. There was nothing to enjoy in it, yet it seemed to last forever as though the cold slowed the world’s mechanisms. I was convinced that one year it would just stop forever and we’d be trapped in eternal frozen misery.

Just when I’d resigned myself to a life of waiting, the lights began to go out. Three stages of dimming as the hit rounded the room snuffing candles.

I readied myself, checked my weapons, and secured my bow. I was about to stand when boot steps sounded smartly in the street below.

A hiss whispered between my teeth on a curl of steam.

Creeping to the edge on stiff joints I watched two soldiers sauntering down the street and then angling beneath the eaves to the street’s edge.

Move along there, came a voice that seemed to boom in the deathly dark of night.

A mumbled response, more a whine, then a scuff on stone followed by a thump. That whine again, then, If you don’t move along you’ll wake in a cell.

There was silence a moment as the victim pondered this option, then more scraping sounds and a groan.

You stink. You shit yerself?

There were more mumbles and a soldier backed up into my line of sight dragging a miserable looking fellow in a bright green coat. He could well have been jettisoned from the party after the guard moved on. The soldiers helped him to the centre of the street and he began laying down a complicated argument or a tale of his depravity while they shepherded him past the mansion and out of sight.

I waited a few more minutes to let their distant voices die down, and give the neighbours a chance to fall back asleep, then made my way across the rooftop to the adjacent house and down to the street. The mansion was actually an old warehouse that had been gutted and rebuilt and the front facing dolled up to look like a noble’s playhouse and secure it. The roof had been remodelled with steep sides and slick tiles. The near wall I’d been watching, which happened to bear the resident’s sleeping quarters, was the only easy access point.

Down in the street the smell of piss and spilled liquor was almost thick enough to hide the musty smell of damp stone. I picked my way between the darker puddles and stood beneath the window. There was no blending in with the pale limestone veneer, so a quick look either direction then I climbed above the shuttered ground floor window and reached up to grab the sill.

Feet balanced on the arched protrusion of stone below, I reached with one hand into my cloak and pulled out a twisted length of wire to open the shutter latch. I twisted my shoulder and my right foot slipped on a mouldy patch—my hand came off the sill but left a tranche of skin behind, the wire fell as I tried to balance myself with that hand, and I heard my cloak tear as it snagged on an out-thrust stone. For a moment, cursing myself colourfully, I sat splayed against the wall, one knee taking my weight, hand stinging, hoping the wind stayed down. I saw the wire strip balanced on my toe, wavering. I shifted a little, regained some balance, and reached carefully and grabbed it between two fingers.

I was about to smile in triumph or relief when a hacking cough burst from within the room just above my head. I paused then, an acrobat mid-tumble, and I realised how precariously I hung.

The coughing ended with a mumble and a smacking of lips. Limbs burning, I righted myself, taking care with my footholds, put the wire between my teeth and drew myself up on the windowsill. I blew on the cut on my hand, and clenched my fist tight to hide the sting.

I’d wasted enough time, so I crouched there only long enough to hear a handful of ragged boozy snores, then slipped the wire between the shutters and lifted the latch and pushed one side open enough to let me slip in.

The room was not pitch dark, even when I leaned the shutter to behind me. The bed was large and square, and flanked on either side by squat tables bearing candlesticks, piles of books, and on the far one a thrown-off shirt. A mirror hung by the door, and across the room from the bed was a tall double-doored wardrobe, the left door open two finger-widths and the round bow of a brass key sitting in its lock. The hit, a generously jowled fellow with oily sheened dark hair combed across his forehead, slept bent double with his mouth agape. A well-trodden carpet covered the floor and muffled the noise of my footsteps as I crossed the room to peer out the open door to the hallway beyond. The house was quiet, as though the very walls slept exhausted from the night’s depravity.

I backtracked into the room and drew a dagger from my belt.

As I got to the foot of the bed, boot steps sounded softly out on the street and I paused, waiting for them to pass. They faded as their owner went around the corner. Certain there was no one else passing, I breathed out and turned to my target.

He was sitting up in bed, silently, eyes wide open, watching me.

We stared at each other for only a heartbeat—a long one, for I think mine stopped—then his eyes shifted towards the door and he let out a wordless roar.

I hissed and started towards him, dagger rising. Still yelling, he rummaged beneath the cast off shirt on the side table and then threw something fist-sized and heavy towards me.

It came straight at my face, and I lifted my free hand to bat it aside. It was a stone ashtray—it careened off my hand to my shoulder, and as it struck, a cloud of pungent herby ash flew around my head and stung my eyes. I staggered back, blinded.

Help me!

I tried to get my bearings before he could yell again, but he was throwing whatever was at hand—books, clothing, pillows.

There was a loud knock downstairs. My first thought was that a reveller had returned, probably the drunk who’d been lounging in the street below.

Up here, help me!

The shout was quickly followed by a book striking my shoulder, and my knife fell from my blood-slickened hand. As I bent to retrieve it, I saw faintly in my periphery the hit stand wobbling beside the bed and beginning to shuffle towards the door.

From downstairs, a booming voice, Night watch! Open up in there!

I swore, and staggered towards the doorway, kicking the leg of the bed as I went, and almost tumbling headfirst. My vision was clearing, and I saw the hit’s head darting side to side, looking for more objects to pelt me with. Finding nothing, he backed off towards the bed.

Don’t make this any harder, I said, all my frustration turning my voice to a growl.

A loud bang downstairs, followed by the crack of splintering wood and another thump as the night watch—whoever they were—battered open the front door.

Before the man could call out to them, I lunged forward and slashed my knife at the man’s throat. He fell backwards onto the bed, and I tumbled atop him. He flailed his fists and kicked out at me, trying to back away. My dagger slice open his forearm, and he screeched. I stabbed at him, feeling the blade bite flesh and scrape on bone, and he kept struggling and tussling with me. I finally overcame his flailing, and the dagger struck home in his chest. He sucked a heaving breath, and I covered his mouth to stop him screaming while I withdrew the blade and stabbed him again.

There were voices and footsteps on the floor below. When I was sure the man was dead I climbed off his still body, and took stock of the dark bloodstains marring his nightclothes and the sheets.

Light flickered in the hallway. The window beckoned, and I pulled open the shutter. As I leaned out, a soldier was craning to look up at me.

Who’s up there?

I backed away from the window and, bloodied dagger still in hand, started toward the door.

Two more soldiers appeared in the hallway, one holding out in front of him a swinging lantern while the other, peering over his mate’s shoulder, had a short sword drawn.

They froze, seeing me standing in the middle of the room. I pointed at the corpse on the bed. He came into my room and tried to murder me!

The foremost soldier raised the lantern, casting his face in a fiery light that belied the confusion it bore. The soldiers looked me up and down, my cloak and the dagger clenched in my fist, then at the man’s body in its nightclothes, and the stain spreading over the bed. The lantern bearer raised his light and peered around the door at the rest of the room.

His comrade kept watching me, and the dagger. The cut on my palm burned against the leathern grip.

There was a voice from downstairs, and even as my head twitched to get my bearings to the window, I knew I’d given myself away.

Don’t move.

The swordsman edged past his mate who thought the command was for him, bumping the arm holding the lantern. The light swung and the room’s shadows rocked and swayed. The swordsman advanced uncertainly. I decided to take advantage of the shadow play, and darted forward. The soldier backed into a defensive stance and his heel struck the thrown ashtray, enough to throw him off balance, and he swung his sword to back me off but I slowed to let the singing blade pass and stepped inside its arc to plunge the blade beneath his sternum. He tried to grapple me down with him and his sword clattered to the floor.

There was a shout from downstairs, and the lantern carrier swore, looking around for a place to lay the light even as he scrambled for his own sword. I stabbed wildly with my dagger, dislodging the dying soldier’s weakening grip, then began backing towards the window.

The other soldier had his sword out now and stood in the hallway shuffling from foot to foot, waiting. When I was level with the foot of the bed I flung the dagger underhand—I didn’t wait to see if it struck true, but I heard it rattle on the floor—then pulled open the shutter and climbed hastily out onto the ledge.

A voice from the hallway, then another: He’s gone out the window! and hasty boot steps.

I took little care descending. I lowered myself to the ledge below, then jumped sideways the rest of the way down to the cobbled street. It jarred all the way up my knees, hips, and back, and my left ankle landed awkwardly and rolled over a cobblestone. I got up and limped a few paces before I heard voices from round the front.

I had the jump on them—for what it was worth—and I hobbled around the corner and down the rat’s nest of alleyways. I could hear the soldiers calling out in alarm but there appeared to be little response. I was sure their hearts weren’t in the chase, though just to be sure I kept up my staggering run, bruised and busted, until I was on streets I could call home.

Chapter 3

News spread fast when there was a sensational tale attached. The orgiastic death cult soiree at the manse that was broken up by three brave soldiers, one of whom lost his life to an axe-slinging six-foot bearded but gold-masked madman, was all the talk for a day or two, then the Arbin bargrubs clammed up and went back to quietly fearing the edgy soldiers, who clearly didn’t enjoy feeling unwelcome in the city they ostensibly had under siege.

The Hand of the Lady, no thanks to its patron deity, was of little interest to our martial guests.

I was about to complain that my mug was close to dry, but it was becoming clear to me that in times of need the gods or whoever is looking out for us may sometimes provide. With customary grumbles Harald thrust another mug on the table before me. Perhaps he was trying to drain the stocks so there was no reason for anyone to come back.

I would have thanked him but instead frowned at him as the liquid spilled over the rim.

You know, it doesn’t hurt to play nice with the customers, keep them coming back and all.

Paying customers, maybe. He sighed—no, huffed—and yanked the towel from his shoulder to wipe up his spillage. Doesn’t work the other way when you want to get rid of them.

What do you mean? I lifted my mug obligingly as Harald cleaned. He turned to me as he did so and was about to say something when a crash from the kitchen demanded his presence, the sound making his face screw up in anguish. He stalked away muttering and pushed through the door into the chaos of the kitchen and its dinner preparations.

I sipped and enjoyed for a moment the warm glow that had infused me to the bone. Little was I to know that what comes to be revealed behind the opacity of such gifts often exacts a heavy penance.

For the most part, it had been quiet since the chaotic outbreak of the assassin war. The assassin war that nobody but me seemed to know about. Or maybe they just didn’t want to talk about it. Cardhan’s death and the removal of his cronies from the picture, while denying me the chance of ever finding out who was behind Lucinda’s untimely demise, had at least allowed me to cool my heels for a little while, pick up a few quiet jobs,