Assassin's Edge Read online

  Usara was painstakingly summoning a grey-blue haze from the rock beneath them. It hovered on the very edge of sight like a memory of mist. Ever more dense as it drew closer to Larissa’s cerulean sorcery, the cold colour was drawn into her spell like smoke up a chimney, brightening to a vivid blue. “We can do this, Shiv,” he breathed, exultant.

  Turquoise light pooled below the dancing tendrils of light, ripples edged with radiance. Aquamarine waves leapt to join Larissa’s magic, colliding with the sun-burnished blue. Flourishes of white light bleached the green hue of Shiv’s working to that same sapphire clarity. The breezes playing around the monuments danced around the wizards’ linked hands, any that ventured too close swept into the sorcery.

  With a suddenness that startled an oath from Pered, two figures tore through the impossibly narrow line of the spell. The magic blew away on the wind like fragments of a dream.

  “It’s me!” Pered backed hastily away from the naked dagger in Sorgrad’s hand.

  Sorgren had somehow tripped as he came through the spell. He rolled like a fairground tumbler, back on his feet in an instant. “Ouch.” He grinned as he sheathed his own blade. “You really have to learn that spell, ’Grad.”

  Pered looked past him to Shiv, wide-eyed. “That was incredible.” He shook his head. “How could I ever paint those colours?”

  Sorgrad tossed his knife up high, catching it as it tumbled. He halted to survey Larissa. “My lady.”; His voice was warm with admiration.

  “This is Larissa.” Usara wondered how best to introduce her. “Planir’s—”

  “—pupil.” Larissa offered her hand. Sorgrad bowed deep and brushed it with his lips.

  ’Gren contented himself with grinning at her in blatant appreciation. He tugged at his collar to settle his crumpled shirt and something chinked in a pocket of his tattered jerkin.

  “What were you running from?” Shiv frowned at the younger Mountain Man.

  “Watchmen.” Sorgrad held two backpacks in his off hand and tossed one to his younger brother. By contrast with ’Gren’s dishevelled appearance, his shirt was clean, the silver buttons on his jerkin polished and his boots well oiled. ’Gren’s hair was long and tied back all anyhow with a scrap of leather. Sorgrad’s was neatly trimmed and brushed back with a touch of expensive oil.

  “What did the Watch want?” Usara asked before he could stop himself.

  “There was this goldsmith,” began ’Gren with a happy smile.

  “We don’t all have Planir’s bottomless bags of gold.” Sorgrad took a handful of silver chains out of one pocket and stowed them in his pack. He looked blandly at Shiv.

  “Does Planir earn his coin or does he make it?” ’Gren was next to Larissa, pale against her darker colouring, azure eyes engaging. “Alchemists go to Hadrumal, don’t they? Everyone says they’re looking for magical help to turn base metals precious.”

  “Shall we get on our way?” Pered suggested, offering Larissa his arm. ’Gren sauntered along on her other side. The others followed some paces behind.

  “So let’s go look for a ship,” said Sorgrad. “No sense in delaying, not if there’s a fight in the offing.”

  “We’ve tried the harbour master and all the various princes’ factors,” Usara said gloomily.

  “I’ll find someone who sees the sense of taking your coin.” Sorgrad’s confidence was laced with a hint of menace.

  Pered looked back, shading his eyes with a hand. “Are we all going down to the docks?”

  Sorgrad shook his head. “I only need these two to sit still, look rich and keep their mouths shut.”

  “You’re lodged at a decent inn?” ’Gren smiled obligingly at Larissa. ”Let’s wait for them there.”

  “Larissa’s rather more than just Planir’s pupil,” Shiv murmured to Sorgrad.

  “I don’t see him hereabouts.” The Mountain Man shrugged. “Your choice: risk ’Gren cutting a slice off Planir’s loaf or taking him down to a dockside after your magic just spoiled his hopes of a good fight.”

  “Pered will keep things decorous,” Usara offered.

  “As long as he doesn’t go off trying to work out how to paint a spell,” frowned Shiv. “All right, let’s find two coaches.”

  Pered was already whistling them up and ’Gren ushered Larissa inside the first with exquisite courtesy at odds with his grimy clothes.

  “Somewhere near the pilot academy, if you please.” Stifling his qualms, Usara followed Sorgrad and Shiv into the second vehicle and the coachman whipped up his horse. Once down from the heights, they rattled through streets thronged with people intent on the buying and selling that kept both halves of Zyoutessela rich.

  After some distance, Usara cleared his throat. “Sorgrad, how did you get on in Solura?”

  The carriage swayed round a corner before Sorgrad shook his head with disgust. “Everything Gilmarten told me was true. Every mageborn must be apprenticed to some other wizard and every master mage is under vow to some baron or other. The best I found were earnest do-gooders desperate to sign me up with someone in their circle. The worst were pig-headed bastards who locked me up and called for the local headsman to brand me as an untrained mage.”

  “You escaped, obviously.” Shiv looked at him speculatively. “Using magic?”

  “Picklocks and ’Gren’s talent for breaking heads,” Sorgrad said without humour.

  “We could share a few things with you,” Usara said with studied casualness.

  “Just so you can help out Livak and Halice,” added Shiv.

  “Good of you to offer.” Sorgrad smiled, this time with satisfaction. “That was going to be a condition of my cooperation.”

  “I thought we’d already agreed your price,” said Shiv with mild indignation.

  “That was ’Gren’s price,” Sorgrad assured him earnestly.

  Usara laughed. “It’s not far now. What do we do when we get to the docks?”

  “We find a likely tavern where you two sit still, look rich and don’t so much as clear your nose like a wizard. In the kind of tavern we want, that’ll mean knives coming your way.” Sorgrad’s tone was simply matter-of-fact.

  “So we’re looking for our own crew of pirates?” guessed Shiv.

  Sorgrad smiled. “No, we’re looking for a ship. I’ll go looking for crew after dark and I’ll take ’Gren because I probably will be dealing with freetraders. If it takes a fight, I’d rather have him at my back, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “We can get ourselves out of trouble,” protested Shiv.

  “You won’t see how to keep yourselves out of it in the first place,” countered Sorgrad.

  “If we’re caught using magic in some brawl, the word will get back to D’Olbriot quicker than bees to honey,” Usara pointed out to Shiv.

  “What’s D’Olbriot’s stake in this game?” Sorgrad looked from Usara to Shiv and back again. “I think it’s time you told me what’s going on. Let’s start with why you two are playing truant from Hadrumal?”

  With Shiv’s frequent interjections, Usara’s explanations lasted all the way through the grimy, gimcrack terraces cramped between the generous holdings of the merchant classes and the unyielding sprawl of the dockside districts. Warehouses loomed high on either side with blank walls and doors barred from within. They passed the much extended building where ship owners and captains paid for their helmsmen and pilots to learn the mysteries of the ocean coast, its winds and currents. The coachman drew up in a small square dank with the scent of the retreating tide and hammered on the roof. “This is as far as I go.”

  Shiv stood with Sorgrad as Usara paid the man off. “Where do we start?” he wondered aloud.

  Sorgrad nodded at a man selling freshly cooked shrimps from a bubbling pot on a small brazier. “Got a cup on you?”

  Neither wizard did so each had to pay for a misshapen reject from someone’s kiln to hold a steaming spoonful. Sorgrad produced a short-stemmed silver goblet from some pocket and exchanged a few words as the sh
rimp seller filled it.

  Nodding to the mages, Sorgrad led them away, holding a shrimp between his teeth to pull off its head before crunching the rest. “Our friend tells me there’s a captain about to be left high and dry by a merchant whose creditors will be breaking down his doors any day.”

  “He told you that for the price of three pots of shrimps?” The difficulties of peeling one with one hand and his teeth didn’t mask the fact that Shiv was impressed.

  Sorgrad shrugged. “I told him it’d be worth ten times that if the word turned out to be sound.”

  Usara was licking a burnt finger. He passed a hand over his shrimps, which abruptly stopped steaming. “Where do we find this captain?”

  “A dive called the Moon and Rake, so watch your step,” Sorgrad warned. “And if you use magic again, ’Sar, I’ll break your fingers.” He led them down a noisome lane running between a barred storehouse and a yard with high walls topped with broken glass. A few more turns brought them out on to a raucous dock. Sorgrad hailed a man hauling a laden sled on iron runners over the slick cobbles. The docker directed them with an unsmiling jerk of his head.

  “Yonder.” Sorgrad led the way towards the tavern whose battered sign showed a man dragging a pole through shallow water beneath the lesser moon casting the secretive light of her full round. Her bolder sister was no more than a blind crescent. The building looked more respectable than Shiv had expected and he raised his hand to the door already ajar.

  A dagger thudded into the jamb barely a finger’s width away from his startled hand. “No, this way.” Sorgrad retrieved his blade and gestured to an alley beside the tavern.

  The wizards did as they were told. Sorgrad watched from the shadows for a moment before pointing to a big man. “Now what do you suppose he’s doing here?”

  Much of a height with Shiv he was half as broad again across the shoulders, muscles emphasised by a close-cut shirt in faded red linen beneath a buckled jerkin. He was deep in conversation with a man handing bundles of clothes, baskets of bottles and a few crates of battered fruit down to a lad standing in a broad, flat-bottomed rowing boat tied to the stubby posts on the dock. The trader paused to consider several of the ocean ships anchored safe in the embrace of the curving arms of the harbour and surrounded with boats like his own tempting their crews to spend their coin on a few trifles.

  “Darni!” Shiv was furious. “So Planir trusts us, does he?”

  “He’s shaved off his beard,” Sorgrad noted with approval. “Passes better for Tormalin that way, I reckon.” With his black hair and dark colouring the big man certainly bore more than a passing resemblance to the incurious passers-by.

  “He might have some business nothing to do with us,” Usara suggested doubtfully.

  “Even when he’s hiring out as a mercenary Darni’s about some scheme of Planir’s,” said Shiv grimly.

  “Can we get rid of him somehow?” wondered Usara.

  “You really want to break with Hadrumal?” Sorgrad looked surprised, then considered the task. “I can take him with a knife in the back down some back entry but I’m not going up against someone that size in broad daylight. We’ll get some gang of sworn men running in to spoil the fun for one thing.”

  “I didn’t mean kill him,” protested Usara, horrified.

  “What do you suppose he’s doing?” Shiv watched as a woman came to see whom the trader was talking to. She was tall and stout with improbably dyed hair and rouged like a child’s doll. Several other women hovered close by, gowns cut low and legs bare beneath their soiled skirts. They flanked a couple of malnourished girls, one with her wrists held tight by her hard-faced elder. Darni turned to talk to her, gestures curt, face intimidating. The whoremistress had plainly faced his type before and shook her head, unimpressed. Darni turned on his heel, heading further down the dock. The trader and whoremistress looked after him with resentment.

  “Wait here.” Sorgrad darted across the cobbles to be welcomed by the woman with an avaricious smile. They exchanged a few words and then Sorgrad headed back towards the wizards with the youngest whore released from her captor.

  “What do you suppose he wants her for?” asked Usara with alarm, seeing Sorgrad’s protective arm around the girl’s thin waist.

  “I’ll get Pered to draw you a picture.” Shiv was quite nonplussed.

  Sorgrad ushered the girl into the alley. “How much coin are you carrying?” he demanded of the mages.

  “Pardon?” Usara looked blank but Shiv was already reaching for the purse he’d tucked prudently inside his breeches.

  Sorgrad unbuttoned his shirt and pulled several gold and silver chains over his head. “Right, I told the old bitch there were three of us, so you should have time to run before they come looking for you.” He scooped up the marks and crowns that Shiv offered and pressed them into the girl’s trembling hands, bruises banding her wrists. “Buy a ride on some carrier’s cart to the far side of the pass before nightfall.” He stowed the jewellery in the girl’s meagre cleavage with impersonal efficiency. “Sell that before you sell yourself, chick.”

  She looked at him with huge, hopeless eyes. “My da drowned last year and the scour took the babe and my mam with it. My auntie took the little ones but—”

  “There’s a goldsmith on Angle Street,” said Usara with sudden inspiration. “Find a man called Renthuan there. Tell him Ryshad Tathel wants him to help you.”

  A spark of life lit the girl’s fearful face. “Yes, masters.” She turned and ran down the alley away from the docks, fists clutching the coin to her bony breast.

  Sorgrad watched her go with a shake of his head. “Whoring for sailors is no task for children.”

  Shiv was looking at Usara. “Sending her to his money lender isn’t going to flatter Ryshad’s reputation.”

  “Shall we go before that fat madam comes asking what we’ve done with her?” Usara looked apprehensively at the whoremistress who was fortunately busy with a handful of newly arrived sailors. “Did she say anything about Darni’s business?”

  “He’s looking for a girl who he reckons is looking for a passage over the ocean. From the description, he’s after your Larissa.” Sorgrad was watching the woman now deep in negotiations. “Now, quickly.”

  Neither Shiv nor Usara delayed as Sorgrad led them out of the alley and, unseen, away down the dock. He passed the first tavern beyond the Moon and the Rake but ushered the mages into the next; a sour-smelling, ramshackle place. “Over there.” He led them past a gang of men waiting for a boatswain to pay them off according to the figures chalked on their broad-brimmed, oiled-leather hats or the offside shoulder of their dark leather jerkins. A thickset man with a cudgel stood ready to discourage anyone keen to take more than their share from the coffer of coin.

  “I think we should offer Darni a seat at the game,” announced Sorgrad.

  Shiv leaned against a pillar. “Livak doesn’t like him.”

  “Livak’s not rounding up a crew willing to fight pirates with just you two dancing masters to back her up.” Sorgrad grinned at Shiv. “Besides, Livak takes the runes as they roll, just the same as me. Darni’s big and scary and he’s useful with a sword. We worked together well enough in the Mountains and that counts for a lot.”

  “If Planir’s concerned enough about Larissa to send Darni after her, we should surely let him know she’s safe.” Usara realised he was standing in a sticky pool of ale and looked down with distaste.

  Shiv pursed his lips. “Do you think he’s here to haul her back to Hadrumal?”

  “Possibly,” said Usara cautiously.

  “If we’re taking a pretty piece like her on this voyage, she’ll need her own guard dog,” Sorgrad pointed out. “Otherwise you’ll find ’Gren playing her champion and slitting the throat of anyone stepping too close.”

  “Darni’s no fool.” Shiv looked at Usara. “He’ll find us or her sooner rather than later. Don’t we want to have that conversation on our terms rather than his?”

  Usara
nodded. “He might let slip what Planir thinks of our little expedition.”

  “Let’s go find him.” Sorgrad was already heading for the door.

  Shiv grimaced. “It’s more cursed complications every way we turn.” He pointed a firm finger at Usara. “You can tell Livak.”

  Suthyfer, the Southern Approaches,

  44th of Aft-Spring

  For someone who so dislikes the sea, I was spending entirely too much time aboard ships.

  “Still feeling queasy?” The ship’s carpenter passed me leaning on the rail of the Eryngo.

  “No, thanks all the same.” I glanced up to the crow’s-nest where several sailors were keeping as eager a vigil as me. “Any sign of the Dulse or the Fire Minnow?”

  Lemmell shrugged. “You’ll hear it the same as everyone else.” He came to stand beside me, one hand smoothing the rail like a man caressing a favourite hound. He loved this ship, always keen to point out some virtue to me, explaining to anyone who’d listen that the Eryngo was a quarter as long again as the biggest of the pirate ships, never mind half as broad again. That’s right, Haut the sailmaker would agree, and we carried more canvas and better rigged. I couldn’t decide if they truly knew the ship better than anyone else or were just hopelessly biased. Captains came and went at the whim of an owner and crews were hired from voyage to voyage but I’d learned boatswain, helmsman, shipwright and sail-maker stayed with a vessel from the first laying of the keel until it was either broken or rotted as a hulk. Some even kept wives and families in their canvas-walled cabins on the lower decks but Temar had forbidden, that on this voyage.

  “Don’t you worry about pirates, my girl,” Lemmell continued. “We’ve high sides and a steep forecastle ready to repel boarders and the rear deck stepped to give D’Alsennin the best view of any fight.”