A Thirst for Vengeance (The Ashes Saga, Volume 1) (12 page)

“I mean, why are we
really
here?” I corrected. “You’re not just going to wait for the Black Brotherhood to come and kill you!”

“Why not?”

I stood up. “I’m leaving. I—”

The man caught my arm. I had no idea how he moved so fast. One minute he was leaning back in his seat, the next, he was hovering over me like an angry deity.

“
Not
a good idea, kid,” he said. His eyes darted to the barkeeper. “You see him? He knows you came in with me. He looks like the type ready to divulge information, especially given a little…” He twisted my arm enough for pain to shoot up the limb, “…forceful persuasion.”

He let me go. “So sit down. You know our coach was followed, yes?”

“It was?”

“Of course it was,” he snapped. “Stupid boy. Why did you think I hired the largest one and took the main road? If I had intentions to disappear, that is not how I would have done it.”

“So why didn’t you?” I asked. Then it dawned on me. “Wait. You’re looking for a fight!”

“And finally, Dagan proves he’s not an idiot,” the man announced. “Congratulations. Have a drink. On me.” He pushed his across the table.

He was mocking me. But suddenly, I had a new respect for him. He knew the Black Brotherhood was coming, and did not cower and hide.

He’d been right: We took the most ostentatious means of transportation possible to Lamore’s Tavern. He was making it easy for the assassins to find him.

The question was:
Why
?

“Who are you?” I whispered.

The man laughed. “Finally, you’re asking the right questions. But your curiosity is misguided.
Who
I am does not matter. A man can change names the way a serpent sheds skins. What I can do, however…” he trailed off and peered into his drink, “…
that
is the important question.”

“So, what
can
you do?”

A knowing smile played on his lips. “Would you like a demonstration?”

I had a feeling we were playing a dangerous game. Despite that, I nodded.

“Stand up, then, Dagan. Walk over to that wall.”

I did. I walked to the wall closest to us and turned around. “Now what?”

“Now… catch this apple!”

He produced an apple from the inside of his coat and tossed it to me. It arced high through the air. I cupped my hands out to catch it…

And never got the chance. A knife whizzed through the air and split the apple in two. The blade sunk into the plank behind me, a hair’s breadth above my head.

I could feel the vibration of the quivering metal against my skull.

The two pieces of the apple fell to the floor. I looked at them in wonder, and then looked back at the man. I didn’t dare move my head for fear of being cut.

He had his face hidden behind the pitcher he was busy downing.

I ducked down and ran to him. “That was amazing! How did you do that? That was—”

“Nuh-uh,” he stopped me. He pointed to the wall. “My knife, please.”

I hurried back to it and gripped the hilt. I turned back without thinking, pulled—

And ended up flat on my ass when the blade didn’t give.

The man laughed. “Come on, Dagan! I know you’ve got more strength in those arms than that!”

I scowled as my face turned bright red. I stood up, wrapped both hands around the hilt, and pulled again.

It didn’t budge.

I gritted my teeth and tried once more. I put one foot against the wall as leverage and used it to push. My whole body strained as I tried desperately to yank the knife out of the wood.

It was no use. The blade was stuck as solidly as if it had been forced in with a hammer.

“Trouble?” the man asked over my back, surprising me. I looked up to find him standing beside me. “My turn.”

He put his thumb and forefinger on the blade and gave the most delicate of tugs.

It came out as if the wood were merely butter.

My jaw hung open as I trailed the man back to the table. His coat swished around him as he sat down.

He noticed me staring. “Impressed?”

I spoke so quickly I stumbled over the words. “How did you do that? How did you get the knife in your hand so quickly? How did you throw it so fast? How did you know I wouldn’t move?”

“I didn’t,” he replied solemnly. “You can never know something with absolute certainty. But I’ve been watching you since we met. You did not seem like the kind to jump.”

I remembered the raven I’d killed. “But if I had—”

“Then I’d be explaining to the barkeeper right now why there’s a dead kid lying on the floor of his tavern.” The man laughed. “But I thought you had more guts than that. I’m pleased to see that I was right.”

I didn’t know whether to be affronted or satisfied with the compliment. I decided on the middle ground, going for indifferent.

“How’d you get it out of the wood?” I asked. “Are you really that much stronger than me, or was that—”

“—a trick?” He finished. “What do you think, Dagan?”

“I don’t think you’re that much stronger than me.”

The man grinned. “Self-assured as always. I like that. You’re right. I’m the only one who could have removed the blade from the wall.” He laughed again. “Unless they took to the beam with an axe.”

“How?” I asked. “Was it…
magic
?”

“After a fashion, I suppose.”

I looked at him again in awe. The man knew magic.
Real
magic.

“If you’re thinking of asking me to teach you, the answer is
no
,” he said.

My face fell.

“At least, not yet,” he corrected gently. “There are many levels of training you have to go through before you can be trusted with learning the elemental seals.”

“The elemental seals?” I asked. “What are those?”

“A method of binding earth, air, fire, and water. All the material you see around you consists of those four building blocks. From that apple—“ He gestured behind me. “—to this wood.” He rapped his knuckles against the table.

“And you know all that?” I asked, struck with disbelief at my luck in finding him.

“Oh, no,” the man chuckled. “Magic was locked away from this world many generations ago. It was too dangerous for humans to meddle with.”

I frowned at him, confused. “Then what did you do?”

“Magic is not something concrete, Dagan,” the man answered. “It is not like a pile of firewood or a herd of cows. It cannot simply be picked up and stuck in a shack. Some of it always seeps out.”

“And you can use that…?”

“Yes. I know how to channel what little traces of it remain. It is not instant, as it would have been before. Each of us carries a small reservoir on our person. It is something we are all born with. Most people do not realize they have it. Even in the days when wild magic roamed free, only a select few would sense they had the capacity to capture it and unleash it to do their bidding.

“Now, it is much harder. It requires the utmost control of your mind. It requires immense concentration and willpower. It requires otherworldly persistence. But, if you can manage that,” the man sat back, “you have the potential to become a God amongst men.”

“Is that what you are?” I asked, my voice hushed.

He barked a laugh. “Hardly. But I do have more tricks up here,” he tapped his head, “than most men discover in a lifetime.”

“You’ll teach me?” I asked, eager to learn. “You will, won’t you? You wouldn’t have told me all that if you didn’t mean to.”

“My, but you’re a tenacious little brat,” he said. He leaned across the table and ruffled my hair. “And I like your enthusiasm.” His eyes glimmered. “Tell you what. If both of us survive the night, then I promise, I will teach you what I know.”

Chapter Sixteen

I spent the rest of the day watching the man get more and more drunk.

In truth, his casual nonchalance made me uneasy. I saw what he could do: throw a knife. But, he’d done that when he was still sober. He said the Black Brotherhood was coming for him, but it was obvious that he did not see them as much of a threat.

It was either that, or he was insanely brave. Or stupid.

The thought seemed ironic. Those were the two qualities he’d identified in me earlier.

An hour after midnight, things became interesting.

I had been watching the tavern fill up with patrons as the evening progressed. The rundown bar was apparently a favorite spot of both nobility and peasants. You could distinguish each from the cut of his cloth. I had never seen the two types of people mingling together as freely as they did here.

The first customers who entered the bar after dinner eyed me curiously. I was an oddity. My presence didn’t fit. But, the man I was with was still lucid enough to look intimidating, so I wasn’t troubled.

However, I was worried that as he drank himself deeper into oblivion, somebody would take issue with my presence at Lamore’s.

Instead, I found the opposite. As more people filled the space, I was given less and less attention.

A blue hen stands out in a flock of fifteen, but is lost in a crowd of one thousand.

Still, I jerked my head up every time I heard the front door open. I did not know how the Black Brotherhood would make their entrance, so every loud noise had the tendency to spook me.

A girl about my size, though probably at least ten years older, stood up on a table in the middle of the room with a harp. She strummed the strings and began to sing. The crowd joined her with the words of a song I did not know. It seemed to be a jolly melody.

The sound of the song made the man I was with perk up. He joined in. He sang with his full voice, slurring the words. When the song ended, he roared to his feet and cheered the loudest.

That was when I noticed two small men in brown, indistinctive cloaks walking toward us.

My eyes swept over them at first. They were so ordinary that nothing about them attracted attention. You could walk down the street and not notice their kind until you were a heartbeat away from a collision.

But, just as I was going to turn my attention back to the performance, the glint of a metallic edge in one man’s hand caught my eye.

Everything seemed to happen at once.

The girl started to sing. Her song began with a chorus that everybody knew. A hundred voices burst to life around me.

At the same time, the men quickened their steps. Their faces showed absolutely no emotion, but their fingers danced. I saw blades twirling in their hands.

I screamed to alert the man. My voice was lost in the uproar.

One of the assassins swept both hands up. Silver flashed through the air.

The man I was with, the one who seemed so completely oblivious to his surroundings, lifted one arm. His wrist flickered.

Two knives that were aimed at his head fell listlessly to the floor.

I did not know who was more surprised by that: me, or the would-be assassin.

His companion scowled and leapt forward.

By then, the man I was with was already on his feet. He met the attacker head-on. They collided and fell to the ground.

I lost sight of them behind a table. Nobody in the crowd seemed to notice. I ran around, grabbing an empty metal mug out of somebody’s hand. It wasn’t much, but it felt better to be armed with something.

I skidded to a stop when I saw what had happened in that brief moment when I lost sight of the fight. The man in brown was lying on his back, dead. He had a knife lodged in his throat.

The man I was with turned toward me. His eyes widened in momentary surprise. Before I could react, two more blades appeared in his hands and hurtled through the air toward me.

They whistled by my ears. With a wet
thunk,
they landed into something solid. I spun around.

Not two feet away from me was a third attacker, also in brown. He croaked and fell, trying to stop the blood as it poured from his gut.

My heart was racing at this point—my body, flush with adrenaline.

The chorus started up a second time in the bar.

My companion turned and rolled forward as more knives flew at him. He lifted the body of the dead man and used it as a shield. The knives implanted into the brown-clothed chest.

It’s funny the things your mind picks up in times like that. I realized, for example, that I did not know the man’s name.

By then, the scuffle was beginning to attract attention. Two dead bodies will do that. Alarm rippled through the crowd.

The remaining attacker looked around, as if suddenly afraid to be seen. He reached inside his cloak and pulled out a small, round package about the size of a grapefruit. He threw it at his feet.

It exploded in a burst of smoke. People gasped and jumped away. When the smoke cleared, the man was gone.

“Dagan!”

My head whipped around. The man I knew motioned urgently to me.

I ran over. He gestured at the brown-cloaked body. “You can see him?”

“Of course.”

“What does he look like?”

“Short hair, plain face. Large nose.” I bent down and poked his shoulder. “Also dead.”

The commotion had stirred most of the crowd. The song stopped. People were staring at us.

“Good observation,” the man noted. He rose and strode for the door. “Come on.”

I ran to catch up. A path formed in the crowd as people shuffled to get out of the way.

He opened the door and led me into the night. It was cold. A full moon hung amongst the stars. The man looked both ways, nodded to himself, and started quickly down the street. His gait reminded me of a wolf stalking its prey.

The man spoke as soon as I caught up to him. “Three attackers tonight, Dagan. You saw all of them?” He showed no signs of intoxication.

“Yes.”

“Astounding,” he muttered. “You could see them the same as you see me?”

“Yes!” I said. “What’s so special about that? Anybody could!”

“No.” He stopped mid-stride and turned toward me. He knelt down. His eyes were clouded with emotion. “Not anybody, Dagan. You were the only one in that room who could.”