'No. I cannot believe that. My father was a lot of things, but he would not keep child slaves.'
Blade seemed to lose interest, his anger evaporating as quickly as it had boiled over, and he turned to stare into the darkness again. 'I never saw him myself, but I knew two of the boys he owned.'
'Perhaps it was not him. Maybe the boys lied, or the man pretended to be my father.'
The assassin shook his head. 'He ordered it. The soldiers rounded up almost all the young children in my village, mostly twelve and under. I was almost too old. They should have killed me, but I was small for my age.'
'What did you do in the camp? Fetch and carry, cook, clean and wash clothes, I suppose?'
'Amongst other things.'
'Like what?'
Blade shook his head again, evidently tiring of the conversation. 'That is enough.' He returned to the fire.
The Prince followed him. 'What else? You must tell me. I have a right to know.'
'Why should I tell you anything? It makes no difference any more, not to you, not to me. What is done is done, and nobody can change it.'
'Because it is still being done, is it not? No one has stopped it, because no one who cares knows about it. They are my people. I have a right to know the crimes they have committed.'
'You know enough.'
'But there is more, is there not, and worse?'
Blade sighed. 'Yes.'
'What?'
'Were you born yesterday?' Blade snarled. 'What do you think? Must I spell it out for you?'
'Yes, I think you must.'
The assassin stepped closer, his eyes glittering in the firelight, white teeth flashing as he bit out the words as if they soiled his lips. 'We were their toys, their playthings. They starved us, tortured us, forced us to perform unspeakable acts for their amusement, made us fight each other and whipped us if we refused.'
The Prince's heart twisted with anguish and shame.
'Your great people,' Blade said. 'The mighty Cotti, scourge of the desert, torturers of little children.'
'You have to let me go. I must put a stop to it.'
Blade smiled with bitter satisfaction. 'No, you are going to meet the Queen. I hope she has something particularly nasty planned for you.'
'I am not to blame. I would never have allowed it.'
'That does not matter, does it? That is not why she wants you, she does not even know about it, as far as I know.' He looked away. 'No one does, for I am the only one who ever escaped, and I have told nobody.'
'Then you share the blame,' Kerrion declared. 'You could have stopped it, had you warned your people, they could have protected their children.'
'Your men attacked undefended towns and villages. Who could have protected the children? Do you think my father did not try? How could unarmed farmers fight soldiers? Your father launched surprise attacks across the mountains in the dead of night, burnt whole villages to the ground and flung women into the flames.
'When all the border towns were wiped out, he sent raiding parties deep into Jashimari lands to attack more. He, most of all, enjoyed watching little girls dance until they dropped from exhaustion. He put babies on ants' nests to see how long they screamed. Those who did not die of the cruelties perished from disease.'
Blade bent and dragged the Prince up by his collar, thrusting his face close. 'And they made the rest of us watch! Do you know what that does to a young boy? To see his sisters dance like puppets until their feet bled in the hot sand and their faces turned red, and they dropped like broken dolls…'
His face twisted with the intensity of his hatred, and the fist that gripped Kerrion's collar trembled. 'The more I watched, the more I wanted to kill. Your father made me what I am, in more ways than one. He created the monster I have become, a killer, remorseless, ruthless and unfeeling. You do not see any tears in my eyes when I speak of what happened, do you? That is because I do not care anymore.
'He made me the finest assassin in all the lands, for I have no mercy. Do you know how many assassins have died simply because they hesitated? Their victims begged for their lives, and they paused, moved by their soft hearts.'
Blade gave a bark of bitter laughter, and Kerrion recoiled from the madness in his eyes, a rage so powerful that it swallowed all else. 'Imagine that! An assassin with a soft heart! Yet compared to me, they did have feelings, enough to make them pause; enough to kill them. I have never hesitated, never felt the slightest twinge of pity for any man. Every time I kill, I grow emptier. The rush of hot blood does not bring me joy. The sigh of a final breath does not thrill me. I just grow colder inside. So, if you become my next victim, do not waste your breath begging for mercy.' Blade shoved him away, sending him staggering back a few steps.
'I will not,' the Prince murmured. 'I do not doubt that you are an excellent and merciless killer. But have you not become like those you profess to hate so much? You say that my father made you what you are, surely you hate his influence?'
The assassin's wintry gaze flicked away into the darkness. 'Of course I do, but it has served me well. What else would I do with my life, being as I am? Perhaps become a soldier and throw it away in the carnage of a battle, yet that prospect has never appealed to me.'
'But you must have scruples, surely? There must be someone whom you would not kill? Your Queen, perhaps?'
Blade smiled, and the Prince marvelled at the gentle seduction of his expression, the soft curl of his lips that hid his ruthless nature so well. Blade’s smile could probably charm birds from the trees, and it meant nothing to him at all; it was just another tool he used to his own ends.
'No one is safe from me. If they have a price on their head, they are dead.'
'Have you no loyalty then? She is your Queen.'
'I am loyal only to my hatred of the Cotti.' The assassin squatted beside the fire, holding out his hands to it. Kerrion shivered, beginning to understand the man who had taken him prisoner with such consummate ease. In the leaping light, Blade's face took on a sinister aspect. Death hung about him like a flock vultures sitting in a tree, waiting for something to die.
The Prince swallowed and sat down on the far side of the fire, glancing at his captor. Blade noticed it, and his smile broadened to reveal even white teeth in an expression of profound, gentle beauty. This man, Kerrion pondered, was too fine in his looks to be described as handsome. His neutering robbed his face of true masculinity. What had caused that, he wondered. Who had perpetrated this ultimate humiliation on a man such as Blade, and why? In his father's court, he had heard many tales of the Jashimari Queen, how she used male slaves to sire her offspring and castrated any man who offended her.
Had Blade fallen foul of her anger, and if so, why did he still serve her? Perhaps the assassin's castration had been the revenge of one of his victims' bereaved relatives. Would death not have been a better vengeance? Already he had learnt more about this strange man than he cared to, and had stumbled upon the secret of unlocking his tongue. The only way to make Blade talk, it seemed, was to goad him, and then he took his life in his hands whenever he did it. Only the Queen's orders prevented the assassin from killing him, he was certain.
'Was it only you and your sisters who were taken?'
Blade raised his head. 'No. My younger brother, who was ten, was also taken. I buried his body.'
'How did he die?'
'All the children in the camp fell ill eventually, and they all died. A disease carried by sand fleas, I was told, one that Jashimari have no resistance to.' He paused, staring past Kerrion with such intensity that the Prince was hard put not to turn and look behind him. 'I got it too, but for some reason, I survived.' He lowered his gaze to the fire. 'I seem to have a charmed life, for there have been many times when I should have died. Yet I have never failed to kill the man I was sent to slay. Even your father, who survived all the other attempts on his life.'
'Were you afraid?'
Blade snorted. 'Any man who claims never to have known fear is either a fool or a liar.' He put down his wine cup. 'Enough talk.'
The assassin tied Kerrion to a tree, then retired to his blanket.
