The King's assassin

if only the rain would let him.

He heard a voice and then another, and then several at once, coming towards him. He dropped flat into the green shoots and the sodden earth. Since he was already covered from head to toe in mud, no one would notice one more body.

‘. . get out of this mud,’ one voice was saying. ‘This is a disaster!’

‘. . sound the retreat and get us out of here?’

‘I thought he did!’

Berren wriggled, trying to turn his face toward the voices. The last one sounded strangely familiar. There was a pause. ‘You told me he did!’ said the familiar voice again. It had a shrill tone of outrage this time, one that Berren would have known anywhere, remembered from Silvestre’s sword school in Kalda.

Lucama!

25

THE KING’S ASSASSIN

‘I said he should have,’ said the second voice.

‘That bloody king probably won’t let him,’ said another. Berren wriggled again. There were at least four men now. Last he’d heard, Lucama had been fighting for the Mountain Panther. Made sense that he was here, but why here and not in the battle line being butchered with the rest?

‘Even if they didn’t call the retreat, so what? We’ve got what? Fifty men here? Let the Black Swords get themselves slaughtered. One less company to keep an eye on next year, that’s what I say.’

Finally he caught sight of them, walking slowly out of the haze of rain.

‘It’s a shambles,’ said the first voice. ‘They had some sort of fire-throwers. Our cohorts managed to rally. Buggered if I know what happened to the Panthers. I think they broke. Then those traitor lancers came at us from the other flank. By the time we get back to the king, chances are we’ll find the whole place overrun. Only thing that makes sense is we get back to the castle as fast as we can. What’s left of us. Don’t know why we left it.’

‘Huh.’ Lucama snorted. ‘With archers and armoured swords, we don’t need the rest. We could hold the walls on our own. And don’t ask me why we came out here!’ Which made Lucama a Black Sword now? Berren clenched his fists. Almost the first friend he’d made since escaping off that bloody ship, and now they were to be enemies across a battlefield?

‘And what if the Prince of War has another trick up his sleeve?’ asked the second voice. ‘What if he’s got some way to shake down the walls and make them topple back onto us?’

The feet trudged past where Berren lay. He watched them go.

‘Don’t be an oaf,’ snapped Lucama.

‘That fire seemed a pretty good trick to me!’ snapped the other voice. ‘And don’t forget that the Prince of War grew up in that castle. If it has secrets then he knows them. They already did that to us once, don’t forget.’

‘And we were ready for them. .’

‘And then there’s the people in the town. What if they decide they want their old kings back?’ The voices began to fade as the men walked away, but the last words caught Berren’s ear: ‘. . go tell that mouse-dick Meridian about that. . probably doesn’t know.’

Right then. He picked himself up and sat on his haunches, watching the soldiers fade into the rain. When they were nothing more than hazy shapes, he wiped the mud from his hands and face and followed. More men passed him in dribs and drabs, coming the other way. Some of them were limping, some running. They slowly appeared out of the grey haze of rain, and slowly faded again, heads bowed between fearful looks over their shoulders. They were all headed the same way. Away. Anywhere but the battlefield.

Lucama and his friends led him to a hollow where half a dozen houses nestled together with maybe twice as many barns. Soldiers milled aimlessly to and fro, scores of them, or else propped themselves up under whatever shelter they could find. They looked bored and dejected and afraid. Covered in mud just like the rest of them, Berren walked into their midst without a single challenge. Lucama stopped at the largest house and exchanged words with two soldiers in long leather skirts who slouched by the door, then he vanished inside. Berren scratched his head. From here, in this weather, you wouldn’t have the first idea what was happening on the battlefield. What sort of general was this, sat with his feet up, drying his cloak by someone’s fire while his men were put to the sword in a sea of mud and rain? In his mind’s eye he’d seen Meridian sitting on a horse atop a hill somewhere, watching the battle in horror. He’d seen himself creep through the mud, shoot him in the head, and that was the end of that.

Now what?

Another soldier hurried out of the house. Berren followed him with his eyes into a barn and then out again, a wine bottle in each hand, then back to the house. When he was inside again, Berren peeked into the barn. It was packed full of soldiers sheltering from the rain, but in among them were horses and mules. One of the horses wore an elegant harness in fine rich colours. The king’s colours. He slipped out again and found himself a place to stand without being seen, between the barn and the house, out in the rain and away from the sheltering soldiers. He took the crossbow off his back, cleaned it up as best he could and settled to waiting along the path the king must take to his horse. Water ran in steady rivers over his face, trickles of it creeping down his spine, into his breeches, filling up his boots. He was soaked through to his skin and the cold had settled into his bones. Yet he waited, still and silent.

He almost missed them. Out of nowhere, three soldiers in gaudy cloaks and crested helmets walked swiftly towards the barn. They weren’t muddy at all. An older man was with them, dressed in fine metal plates. He was carrying his helm under his arm, and he’d already walked past when Berren saw the golden crown set into it.

Meridian. It had to be. He didn’t know what the king even looked like, but the crown was enough. As they passed, barely a dozen paces from where he stood, Berren lifted the crossbow. He took a moment to aim. Blood pounded inside him, urging him to hurry, but he it fought back, picking his spot with deliberate care. The string was wet, the crossbow would be weak, the man wore metal plate, but from this range none of that would matter.

The bolt hit the king square in the back of the head. Berren didn’t see Meridian fall; by then, he was already gone, out of sight between the houses. He hurled the crossbow away, drew his sword and then gave in to the tautness inside him and ran, as far and as fast has he could. He had no idea where he was going. Away, as though there were a dozen men hard on his heel, maybe more. At first, he didn’t even dare to look back over his shoulder.

And then he realised that no one was following him, no one at all. If anyone had even seen him go, they hadn’t given chase. Behind him in the rain the hamlet was already nothing more than hazy shapes. He kept running anyway, until he couldn’t see it any more, and then he ran further, in a different direction this time, until he was sure that no one who was looking for him could find him. Finally he stopped and caught his breath. Every part of him was shaking, trembling uncontrollably. He could hardly feel his fingers. They’d already been numb when he’d pulled the trigger.

I killed a man. He never saw me coming.

He saw Tasahre again, Master Sy cutting her down, face twisted with rage. And Radek, paralysed by Saffran Kuy’s shadow around his neck as Berren smashed in his skull. The sailor, Klaas, the woman who’d earned him his name and the nameless soldier Syannis had killed beneath Meridian’s castle.

After a bit he found a tree that gave him a vestige of shelter. He huddled under it, cold and wet and shivering. The rain finally began to ease away as the early winter darkness fell. He could see the farmhouses again by then, or rather he could see the fires being kindled beside them. He could soon hear the men around them too, their rowdy singing and shouting. For a time he thought these must still be Meridian’s men, camping for the night. But the fires grew more numerous, spreading out into the fields all around until Berren understood. This was Talon’s army, not Meridian’s. Talon had won.

He tried to run again then, to get back among them and back where there was warmth and friendship, but