Kigh - Fifth Quarter Part 35

"I don't know." Vree shrugged, tucked the flying tails of her increasingly grimy silk shirt down into her pants, and tightened her belt. "I'd say a who, though, not a what."

The bard pushed past to the door of the common room and scanned the visible wedge of yard. She whistled the four notes that would call the kigh and then Sang a question at them. After a moment she Sang a grat.i.tude and came back inside. "They say there's a man forking s.h.i.t over by the stable and that's all."

"Now." The sense of danger had faded. Whoever'd been out there was long gone. Vree didn't need air spirits to tell her that.

Karlene sighed forcefully and turned to Gyhard. "Did you feel it, too?"

He shook his head. "But then no one started teaching me to recognize it when I was only seven."

"Six."

"I was seven, Bannon." Vree could feel their ident.i.ties beginning to merge again and desperately hung onto the memory of a small child whirling about barely in time to duck beneath a flailing leather strap, having finally learned to read the air currents and avoid a stinging welt. She only hoped it was her memory and not her brother's that she clung to.

"So you believe there was something out there?"

Gyhard tightened the buckle on his saddlebag and straightened. "Do you know how long an Imperial a.s.sa.s.sin usually lives after training?"

Karlene glanced from Gyhard to Vree and back again. "No," she said tentatively. "How long?"

"Three years. You see, the sort of people that a.s.sa.s.sins are used against- traitors, rebel leaders, the officers of opposing armies and such-are usually well aware that they're targets. As a result, they make certain preparations. Now a.s.sa.s.sins take that into account, but in about three years or so, the odds catch up to them."

"If the a.s.sa.s.sins know that, know the odds, why do they... uh..."

"Follow orders? Why are you asking me?" He c.o.c.ked his head at Vree. "The bard would like to know why you followed orders."

Rubbing her palms together, Vree fought to get around the concept of refusing to follow orders.

"You must have known the odds," Gyhard persisted.

"What did you think when you went out after a target!"

"The odds meant nothing." Vree's chin came up and her eyes narrowed. "We were the best."

"There." Gyhard spread his hands and turned back to Karlene. "All a.s.sa.s.sins are taught to believe that from a very young age. Now, as Vree and Bannon have been working a.s.sa.s.sins for the past five years, that seems to indicate that they, at least, have reason to believe in what they've been taught. They are the best. Or among the best. If Vree tells me she senses danger, I believe her." He slung the saddlebags over his shoulder and picked up a wrapped package of journey food. "I've settled up with the landlord. We should get on the road."

Brow furrowed, Karlene picked up her own bags. "You should have woken me," she muttered to Vree as they followed Gyhard to the stables.

Vree snorted. "If I'd had time to wake you, I'd have had time to take the stairs."

Head bowed, a filthy rag over his hair, Neegan methodically forked horse s.h.i.t from the stable cart into the manure pile. Clad in a rough tunic and short breeches he'd pulled from a wash line two houses away, he stood hidden in plain sight and watched his targets.

While he had never seen either of them around horses to give him a basis of comparison, Bannon's movements still lacked the deadly grace that marked an a.s.sa.s.sin and he wore only a single dagger hanging in plain sight from his belt. Vree, for all she retained her training, seemed to periodically lose control of bits of her body-as though she forgot, just for an instant, who she was.

Was she sick, he wondered. Had she picked up some kind of brain disease in Ghoti? Perhaps they left the army rather than risk spreading it. Perhaps they were looking for a cure.

But that theory didn't explain Bannon.

Had Bannon sustained an injury in the a.s.sault on Aralt's stronghold? A blow to the head that had caused him to forget who and what he was? Neegan had heard of that kind of an injury although he'd personally never believed such a thing to be possible. Was Vree guarding a brother who could no longer guard himself? Actually, had he not known their relationship, Neegan would not have a.s.sumed from what he observed that they were brother and sister.

He studied them for a moment as if they were nothing more than targets. Not lovers, not yet. But they no longer flirted with the boundaries blood placed around them. A line had been crossed or the boundaries had been shifted-he wasn't certain which.

They spoke of their horses, or the weather, or the condition of the secondary, packed clay road they now followed but said nothing that would even begin to answer the mult.i.tude of questions he suddenly had. Neegan c.o.c.ked his head as Vree swung into the saddle and turned to Bannon, her exasperation apparent from a distance.

"Can't we beat Kars to his stronghold and ambush him?" she asked. "I hate trailing along at his heels."

"First of all, it isn't a stronghold, it's merely a cabin, or it was. Secondly, it's a long ride to the mountains and I rather think our friend the bard here would prefer to catch up and free His Highness sooner than that. The longer the prince is with him, the more twisted his kigh becomes."

"You never said that before."

"I should have thought it was obvious." He smiled and Neegan fought to keep from staring. Even from across the stableyard, the expression on Bannon's face had nothing of Bannon in it. What's more, it had been Bannon's voice but not Bannon's manner of speaking.

When they rode out of the innyard, galloping off toward the dawn, Neegan dropped the manure fork and raced along the shadowed paths to his horse and gear. Apparently, his targets were helping the bard to rescue the prince. But that doesn't change anything, he reminded himself as he buckled on his arm sheaths. It didn't change the fact that they'd deserted, spat on their oaths, turned their backs on everything he believed in, on everything he'd taught them to believe in. Didn't change the penalty. Eventually, Bannon would seek a little privacy by the side of the road and, when he did, Neegan would be waiting. Once he had Bannon, he'd have Vree.

"Before you kill them, ask them why."

He would ask the marshal's question, but now that confusion threatened to overwhelm his personal sense of betrayal, he would also take the time to ask a question of his own. What had happened in Aralt's tower?

When they finally allowed the horses to slow to a walk, Vree dropped out of the saddle to stretch her legs.

"We're going to forget how to get anywhere on our own two feet. Gonna end up looking like fat-a.s.sed officers."

Vree arched her back, rocked forward, then arched it again, working the stiffness out of her shoulders. "Giving the pounding it's taking, if my a.s.s is getting fat, it's in self-defense."

She glanced up as the bard fell into step beside her, then let her gaze drop back to the road. There were always people attracted to danger, who courted a symbolic death by courting Jiir's blades. Vree recognized the bard's fear-You could kill me at any moment. Would you kill me at any moment?-so she recognized the other woman's attraction and while she was willing to accept that Karlene honestly wanted to be her friend, she could sense something else as well. Something that confused her.

"She pities us, sister-mine."

"But she doesn't know that we've broken our oaths..."

"Don't be so slaughtering stupid, Vree. She pities us because of what we are."

"You mean with both of us in one body?"

Bannon rolled Vree's eyes. "I mean she pities us because we're a.s.sa.s.sins."

"That's ridiculous."

"I don't think so." She felt his resentment, couldn't tell where it was directed. Or at whom. Felt him retreat into a sullen silence.

"So..." Karlene cleared her throat and made her voice sound curious, nonthreatening. "What did your parents think about you becoming a.s.sa.s.sins?"

"Children with parents aren't trained."

"You must've had parents once."

"Mother was a soldier. She died."

"What about your father? Or Bannon's father?"

"Same man. We look like each other but not like I remember her." Brushing a fly

off her face, Vree caught it on the wing, crushed it, and dropped the body.

"Probably a soldier; but we don't know who he is."

"Didn't he come forward when your mother died?"

"He could easily have been dead, too."

Karlene shook her head slowly in disbelief. "You sound like you don't even care."

"I don't. We don't. The army is our family, the only family an a.s.sa.s.sin needs."

"But you've left the army..."

Vree flicked a glance back over her shoulder, unable to prevent the involuntary

motion. The world stopped as she thought she saw a horse and rider moving into the very edge of her vision. A heartbeat later, they disappeared into a dip in the road.

"Bannon! Did you see that?"

"We're not the only people on the road, Vree."

"What if the danger from the inn's following us?"

"What if it is? We can't do anything until it catches up."

He was right. She forced her attention back to what the bard was saying.

"... and you'd always had Bannon."

"I still have Bannon." Vree's right forearm twitched and a throwing dagger appeared in her hand. A twist and it disappeared. She turned and glared at Gyhard, walking on her other side.

Karlene followed her gaze and considered everything she'd learned about a.s.sa.s.sins since dawn. "Was Gyhard a... a target? Was he prepared?" She read the answer in the set of Vree's shoulders and the studied indifference of Gyhard's expression. "He took Bannon's body when Bannon killed his body, didn't he?"

"Rough justice, Lady Bard," Gyhard suggested.

All things being enclosed, Karlene had no intention of comparing the immorality of his action to the equally dubious morality of a.s.sa.s.sination. "How did you do it?"

"That's no concern of yours, but I think you'd do the same if it came to a choice between transferring and dying." He looked at Vree, his mouth twisted into a rueful smile and his voice softened, becoming almost a caress. "I never meant for you to become involved."

Vree jerked back, as though she were shaking off his touch. "No, you meant for me to die!"

Gyhard's eyes narrowed. "I meant for Bannon to die."

"I know." Her voice was a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "That was Bannon."

"You couldn't stop him?"

She shook her head. "I thought it was me."

The captain raised her hand. The order to halt echoed down the line. She squinted at the walls and towers of Shaebridge and could just barely make out the garrison flag of the Third Army through the reflected glare of the afternoon sun on the yellow sandstone. "Orlan, send a pair of runners into the garrison. Have them see if Commander Neegan checked in with the Third Army. If he hasn't, then he didn't enter the city and neither did they. Send another pair to the bridge with a full description of the bard and her companions. If it turns out that they're not in the city or over the bridge, then they must have taken the road along the river."

"Sir!" The squad leader saluted and wheeled his horse around, racing back along the road to where his people stood panting in the sun. They'd had a hard, fast march since the marshal's courier had met them two days ago, double-timing back along the road. They all knew there'd be no rest until His Highness was found.

Rubbing her eyes, the captain slumped in the saddle. "Tell the company to stand down where they are," she growled and reached for her water skin. As she swallowed the tepid liquid, she stared at the city and at the two roads bracketing it as if by will alone she could determine where the fugitives had gone.

I should've held them when I had them.

But she'd had no reason to hold the wh.o.r.e and his sister and no way of knowing -until the marshal's courier told her-that they had a companion who knew where to find His Imperial Highness. She had no reason to feel like a fool, but she did.

The captain swallowed another mouthful of water and wished for something just a little stronger. Her orders were clear; capture and question the bard using any means necessary to discover the location of Prince Otavas. But how the slaughtering b.l.o.o.d.y blazes was she supposed to capture and question a woman who could sing herself invisible?

The best she could hope for was that the a.s.sa.s.sin who'd pa.s.sed them half a day before the marshal's courier arrived-Commander Neegan the courier had named him, although the captain had never heard of an a.s.sa.s.sin making commander who continued to use his own blade-would hold the bard after he'd slit the other two's throats.

The sudden gust of wind very nearly blew Karlene off her horse. She clutched at the saddle horn as a pair of kigh tried to drag her to the ground. Somehow she managed to whistle them back and then hurriedly dismounted while they swirled around her, just slightly more than an arm's length away.

"Don't tell me he's lost another one," Gyhard muttered, reining in.

Vree glared at him, but Karlene paled at the thought of a third discarded corpse. Unable to banish a vision of Otavas lying rotting on the road, she struggled to make sense of what the kigh were trying to tell her. When she finally understood, anger obliterated the horror.

She Sang a piercing grat.i.tude and, breathing heavily, threw herself up into the saddle. "Your Kars has done it again," she snarled.

A muscle jumped in Gyhard's temple. "And what has my Kars done?"

"Sang the kigh back into the dead. He did it there..." Karlene jerked her head toward a small fishing village, half-screened by giant cottonwoods, squatting between the road and the river. "Night before last."

"We should have expected it." Gyhard shrugged. "He had to replace the two bodies he lost."

The bay shied sideways, reacting to its rider, whites showing all around its eyes. Karlene was so furious, she could hardly speak. "Sure. Should've expected it. Except he didn't rob a grave this time. These two weren't dead. First he killed them. Then he Sang the kigh back into the bodies." Her knuckles were white around the reins. "No more stopping. No more sleeping until he's stopped." She slammed her heels into the horse's ribs, and the startled animal leaped forward, the bard bent low over his flying mane, her braid a pale pennant.

"She thinks she's in a ballad," Gyhard snarled, holding his gelding back.

Vree fought to keep her seat as her own horse danced in place, anxious to race after its companion. "She's angry at herself because the prince was killed like these two were and she hasn't rescued him yet."

"Ah, and you can recognize that; you're angry at yourself because I'm still in your brother's body?"