Kigh - Fifth Quarter Part 34

"Can she Sing that carrion eater out of my body?"

Unable to stop herself, Vree jerked around to stare at the sleeping Gyhard. "Even

if she could, we still need him."

"What for?"

"To deal with Kars."

"The bard can deal with Kars."

"She'll be freeing the dead."

"Then what will we be doing?"

"Freeing the prince."

"He's dead, Vree. You said the bard will free the dead."

"She can't free all of them at once!"

"You don't know that."

"We still need him to deal with Kars."

"Why? Kars is alive. We can deal with Kars the way we've dealt with all the

others."

"Stop it! You're confusing me."

"You're confused, sister-mine, but I'm not doing it." Bannon's mental voice

picked up the intonation of command. "Ask her."

"Bannon, I..."

"Ask her. Or I will." He began to force his control past hers.

"Bannon, I don't want to fight you."

"Why, Vree? Are you afraid I'll win? That I'll take over? That I'll keep you imprisoned the way you've kept me?" She could feel the accusation stretching back beyond the time they'd shared a single body.

"No! I'm afraid I won't stop. That I'll push until you're gone!" She slammed herself at him with every phrase. "And then he'll have won! Is that what you want? For me to push you right out of here?"

His consciousness retreated so completely, so quickly, that she had to throw out a hand to steady herself against the age-polished wood of the window frame.

"I want my body back." He sounded like he was five; hurt, frightened, betrayed. She wanted to hold him, to tell him everything would be all right, be the anchor and the shield she'd always been for him. But she couldn't.

Who would hear her if she cried that she wanted her body back? Who had heard her when she was five?

Gyhard stirred. Even asleep, her brother's face now bore the patina of the man who wore it. Could the bard Sing him out of Bannon's body? If she did, where would he go?

Vree closed her eyes and collapsed for a heartbeat into the comforting circle of Karlene's arms. She trembled as she felt warm lips touch her hair, then she set her jaw and pushed away. "No..."

"Why not? We could both use the comfort."

"I can't, not until Bannon has his body again."

Karlene shook her head in disbelief. "You've made the big sacrifice, Vree. Why continue sacrificing yourself for him?"

Vree spread her hands. "I am him."

There had to be a hundred responses to something so ridiculous but at the moment, Karlene couldn't think of one of them.

He could hear the two women talking, their voices rising and falling in murmured cadences too soft to carry the actual words to his position on the roof. Cloaked in the night, Neegan weighed his options. Until this point, he'd concentrated solely on tracking his targets; now he could begin to plan the kill. When sleep claimed them once again, it would be easy enough to slip through the window, slit their throats, and put their betrayal to rest. The foreign singer would awake beside a pair of b.l.o.o.d.y corpses and the structure of the Empire would be restored. a.s.sa.s.sins who deserted from the seven armies died.

But these targets were a special case, and Marshal Chela wanted to know why. Although he considered their reasons of less than no importance held up against the enormity of their faithlessness, it wasn't the first command he'd been given that went against his personal preference. One of the two would have to be taken alive.

No. Both. Threatening Bannon would drag the truth from Vree. He doubted he'd get it any other way. The brother was the sister's only weakness. Bannon was his own weakness as well, but he'd pile lie upon lie to save himself the way she never would to save him. And to save her? Neegan wouldn't want to put it to the test.

Perhaps they should have been separated. But so few children became available for training with a sibling so close in age and ability. It had been an opportunity impossible to resist.

And I was right. They both survived, finding strength together where they might not have had it alone. They were two of the best.

Which made it worse when they betrayed his judgment, his decision to keep them together. The army was supposed to be the only family an a.s.sa.s.sin had...

It was the only family he'd ever had.

These two had spat in its face. His face.

Neegan didn't want to kill the foreign singer if he could help it-he could leave her in good conscience for the First Army-but neither would he hesitate if she interfered with his mission.

He wasn't surprised to find they were no longer in a private room. The way they'd spent their stolen coin, he was surprised that it had lasted as long as it had. Right hand working around the leather-wrapped grip of his favorite dagger, he weighed the possibility of success while all three slept grouped together in the loft. On one side of the scale, it would be over. Finished. He could let go of the anger devouring his heart. On the other side, he would have two of the best a.s.sa.s.sins the seven armies had ever trained to subdue as well as an opponent of unknown skills to deal with.

I will wait the short time necessary in order to face them one at a time. He had survived longer than almost any other Imperial a.s.sa.s.sin. Long enough to become an officer. Long enough to know that to strike in anger dulled the blade.

"Soon," his dagger whispered as he slid it into the sheath.

Far enough north for snow in the winter, the roof of the small inn sloped gently from ridge to eaves. Over the years, Neegan had slept on worse beds. Though the night was cool, the threat of rain had pa.s.sed and up above, the stars, the same stars that blazed out over the Sixth Army, divided the sky into a thousand portents.

He saluted the Archer, and, warmed by the heat of his anger, closed his eyes.

He opened them again just before dawn when the sound of the inn door jerked him awake. Rolling up into a crouch, he worked the night out of his muscles and peered over the eaves, waiting to see who the early riser would be.

Bannon.

Neegan frowned, his own action arrested, as he stared at the slight figure crossing the innyard to the privy. It was Bannon. And yet...

No. The patterns of shadow between the day and night could be deceptive. The angle of observation, looking down from above, elongated some movements while it masked others entirely. And Bannon had changed. He had cast aside everything he'd been taught to believe in-surely such corruption would leave a physical sign.

Wrapping his betrayal around him, Neegan waited until the rough plank door to the privy closed, then moved silently off the roof. He would take Bannon as he emerged and it would all be over by the time the sun cleared the horizon.

"Vree!"

"I feel it, too." She lay still on the pallet, senses extended; the sounds, the smells, the feel of the air currents against her skin sifted for threat.

"Whatever it is, it's not in here," Bannon declared after a moment.

"Outside?"

"Yes..." A weapon clasped loosely in each hand, she rolled up onto her feet in a single, fluid motion. "Gyhard's missing."

"What the slaughter is he up to in my body?!"

They were at the window, shielded by the side wall of the gable, eyes and experience scanning the innyard.

"Privy door's closed."

That this explained where Bannon's body had disappeared to did nothing to lessen the sense of danger they shared.

"Do you see anything?"

"No. But there's enough shadow out there to hide an army."

So they waited, wounds left by the emotional battle the night before buried beneath trained responses.

Tucked into a fetid corner between the stable and the privy, Neegan set his anger aside and narrowed his focus to Bannon's capture. The anger would be easy enough to take up again when it would no longer be in the way. He listened to the sounds from within the small building-the splash of liquid, the rustle of cloth, the creak of wood as a man's weight settled on it-and timed a likely exit.

A blade held across the throat wouldn't be enough, but a sharp pommel blow behind the ear would significantly slow a counterattack. Perhaps even prevent one entirely.

Wood creaked again. Cloth rustled.

"Door's opening."

"I see it."

"Something's down there, sister-mine."

"Then so are we."

Gyhard stared in astonishment as Vree flung herself out of the loft's small gable window, hit the ground, rolled, and ended up facing him, crouched with a dagger in each hand.

"If you're trying to make me p.i.s.s myself, you're too late," he muttered, wondering when she'd cease to amaze him. "What are you doing?"

Neegan froze in place, unable to believe what he saw. Bannon's only reaction to his sister's sudden appearance seemed to be surprise. He neither a.s.sumed a defensive position of his own nor moved to support hers.

Vree's gaze flicked from one pool of darkness to another. "Something's wrong."

"What? With the stairs?" Gyhard checked to see if his heart had started beating again.

"Something's out here. Something dangerous." "Bannon, cover the corner by the bathhouse."

"How?" If he'd had teeth to clench, he would've forced the word through them.

"Sorry." Vree slid sideways to shrink the blind spot caused by the angle of the building.

All at once, Gyhard realized she was perfectly serious. The hair rose off the nape of his neck and, slowly, he turned. "I don't see anything."

"That's the worst kind."

Hands out from his sides, wishing he had a sword, or a shield, or even one of Bannon's narrow-bladed daggers, he began backing toward the inn.

Not until he called her name from the doorway, did Vree move to join him.

If Neegan hadn't known better, he would have sworn this man was not, nor had he ever been an a.s.sa.s.sin. Calling himself several kinds of fool, he shook off the paralysis and tried to understand what he'd just seen. The kind of training Bannon had undergone-the kind of training that made certain responses instinctive- could not be discarded.

Except that it had.

Chapter Thirteen.

"You jumped out the window?" Karlene stared at Vree in astonishment. "Why?"

With the landlord seeing to bathwater for one of the inn's other guests-and therefore safely out of earshot-and the common room empty except for them, Vree saw no reason for evasion. "There was danger; in the innyard. We had to protect Bannon's body."

"Danger!" The word bounced off the walls and Karlene hastily lowered her voice. "What kind of danger?"

Vree looked confused. "How many kinds are there?"

"No!" The bard waved an impatient hand in the air. "I mean, who or what caused the danger?"