The King's assassin

cave.

‘Muffle it!’ hissed Syannis, and the light went out.

‘Everything’s inside.’

‘Berren, follow me. Hands and knees into the cave. Hain, you take the rear.’ In the darkness Berren barely saw Syannis drop to a crawl. He did as he was told and followed into the hillside. He couldn’t see a thing, but then after a yard or two he felt space grow around him. Master Sy’s hand fumbled at his shoulder and pulled him up, and then Hain was in as well. He unshuttered the lantern, and Berren could see the cave. It wasn’t a big one, but large enough for half a dozen men to hide inside. At the far end was another tunnel, vanishing into darkness, old and rough hewn, and barring the tunnel was an iron grille. From the looks of it, it had rusted fast years ago.

His feet touched something. He looked down. On the floor were their swords and their armour, everything they’d left outside the city in the morning.

‘You must be joking,’ he said.

Syannis jingled a set of keys. ‘Don’t get dressed, lad, not yet. Just pick up your stuff and carry it.’

‘You’re not going to get through that!’ Berren picked up his sword. He waited, watching.

The thief-taker jingled his keys again. ‘It’s been a dozen years and more since I was last inside these walls,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s hope the locks are still the same as they were and that they haven’t rusted as solid as they appear.’ He put a key in the lock. It turned easily and the grille opened without a sound. ‘Oh, look! Fancy that!’

‘But that doesn’t look like it’s been used for years!’ Berren squinted at the gate as he passed through. The rust was ancient. The lock should have welded itself solid by now. His head snapped up, peering into the darkness of the tunnel ahead. ‘If they still use it, why isn’t it guarded?’

‘They don’t,’ hissed Syannis. ‘They don’t know it’s there.’

‘Well someone must-’

‘Me, you dolt! Me and Hain! What do you think I’ve been doing for the last two months? While you and Talon were living the lives of princes in Kalda, I was here, squatting in flophouses, camping in the woods, digging holes for my own shit and eating bark! Turning those lancers so they were taking my coin instead of Meridian’s. And while I was at that, Hain was here, hours and hours, night after night, picking at that lock, working it loose again for the day we’d need it. And no, Meridian really doesn’t know it’s here. You’ll see why in a moment.’

They rounded a corner and the tunnel opened into another cave, larger than the first. The light from Hain’s lantern gleamed off a wide pool of water.

‘It’s a sump,’ said Syannis. He pointed across the pool. ‘Swim down under the water there, you’ll find a tunnel. It’s narrow. Like the way in. It’s not long though. Just a yard and then you’ll come up into another pool. That’s where the Pit is. We used to drain the tunnels every few months to keep the water down. It was our secret way out. By the time Meridian took the castle, it must have flooded again.’

‘What’s the Pit?’

‘There are many more caves in these cliffs. When you get out of the pool, there’s another tunnel. Wide enough that you can put your sword on before you go through it, and I suggest you do. It’s steep and goes up about twice the height of a man. The Pit? People get thrown in it. People Meridian doesn’t like. If he’s got anyone in there, there’s a chance he’ll have a guard standing watch as well. I’ll go first and wait for you on the other side. Take your time. Take this and follow it when you’re ready. I’ll give a tug when I’m through.’

Syannis handed the end of a rope to Hain and waded out into the pool, carrying his sword and his armour. As the water got deeper, he splashed and spluttered and then took a deep breath and vanished, simply sinking beneath the surface.

‘You next, dark-skin,’ growled Hain.

He pushed the rope into Berren’s hand. Berren took it, but stopped for a moment. A tunnel under the water? ‘Why me? Why not you?’

‘Because I don’t trust you not to run.’

The rope jerked. Berren took a deep breath and stepped into the pool. Cursed water was freezing, but at least it would wash the last of the shit off him. With one hand on the rope and the other clutching his sword and his leathers, he dived in.

21

DANCING IN THE DARK WITH KNIVES

The underwater tunnel wasn’t as narrow as he’d feared, and before he was halfway though, Berren felt a hand on his shirt, pulling him on. Hain came quickly after. It took them a minute to light the lantern again, even though it had been wrapped in oilskin; when he did, Syannis shone it at a cleft in the cave.

‘Up there.’ He shuttered the lantern and squinted, then put it down. ‘See,’ he whispered. ‘See how you can still see the cleft? Barely, but it’s there. That means there’s a torch lit beside the Pit.’ He crept closer. ‘Berren, you behind me. Hain take the rear. Keep back.’

The crack in the cave wall was wide enough, as Syannis had said, but the slope and the darkness and the thought that there might be an armed man standing not more than a dozen yards away made the climb agonisingly slow. At the top Syannis put a finger to his lips and gestured to Berren to ease closer. The cleft opened into a third cave. The walls were smooth, worn over time by water; the floor was flat, but most of it was a hole ringed by a low wall. The Pit. From where he stood, Berren couldn’t see how deep it was. There was a pulley and some ropes, presumably for winching people out once they’d starved to death or whatever happened to them in there.

On the other side of the cave was an arch. Two torches burned in sconces, one on either side. Beyond it, Berren could see two men with their backs to him.

Syannis began to ease his way around one side of the pit. He glanced at Berren, gestured to him to go the other way and then drew a finger across his throat. Berren looked down inside as he crept around the wall. The Pit was at least as deep as it was wide, but there wasn’t anyone in it — at least, there wasn’t anyone moving. The smell was terrible.

They reached the archway together. The thief-taker raised three fingers. On the count of three. Berren looked behind him. Hain had stayed back, lurking at the top of the cleft.

One finger. One. The thief-taker’s eyes shifted from the guard to Berren. Buried in the gloom of the past was a man Berren had known as Jeklar the Throat, a friend of Master Hatchet. Jeklar had been called Jeklar the Throat for a reason, and he’d been happy to show anyone who’d listen exactly how you killed a man like this. Berren hadn’t thought about Jeklar for at least a decade, but now the throat-cutter came back.

Two. He didn’t have a knife though. He had a sword. Clumsy weapon for this sort of work. Too long. Syannis had a proper throat-cutter’s knife, of course.

Three. He’d never done it before. Didn’t know how. Didn’t know if he even could. Kill a stranger, just like that? From behind? Without any warning?

He must have made a noise. The guard started at the last moment and stepped back straight into him. Without thinking too much about it, Berren clamped his free hand around the man’s face and mouth. He dropped his sword, pulled the soldier’s own dagger out of its scabbard and held it to the man’s throat.

‘Be quiet!’ he whispered.

‘What are you doing?’ hissed Syannis. His own man was slumping back. A wild fountain of blood sprayed across the roof of the arch and begin dripping to the floor. Syannis caught the body as it fell to muffle any sound. What was he doing? He didn’t know. He was sweating and shaking and this was suddenly a lot harder than he’d thought it would be. Killing someone like this. . He couldn’t just. . Sun and Moon, but it just wasn’t that easy!

The guard flailed, pushing himself into Berren. He cried out, the sound muffled by Berren’s hand, and pushed them both back further. They fell together. Berren closed his eyes and tried to twist his body. The two of them hit the ground at once, knocking the breath out of Berren’s lungs. Then Syannis was there, driving his own knife into the back of the man’s neck. The guard gurgled, reached out a hand and then lay still. Berren felt blood, still warm, running over his arms and his face like a river. He pushed the body away.

‘Holy sun!’ Syannis stared at him with eyes like saucers. ‘What was that? What were you thinking?’

‘That I’ve never cut a man’s throat before!’ hissed Berren savagely. ‘And that maybe I didn’t have to. Couldn’t