Assassins' Dawn (39 page)

De Sezimbra was almost amiable. He stepped forward into the wash of moonlight, letting his pack drop from his shoulders. He limped slightly, favoring his left leg. “I’ve been on other worlds that didn’t want me, sirrah. I’ve learned how to defend myself to an extent. Had to. I might not be the easy target you suppose. And I never concede inevitabilities. That’s too complacent an attitude. It allows you to let injustices continue. I fight back, instead. Ask your friend—he’s waiting on the other side of the cleft, isn’t he?”

A spasm of pain twisted Sartas’s face, a shadow. “You don’t know? You killed him, de Sezimbra.” A pause. “He waits for you, but it’s not here.”

“No.” Shock and surprise were loud in the denial. “I wasn’t intending that . . . I didn’t hold back, that’s true, but he was going to kill me if I didn’t get away. I thought the fall would give me time . . . I checked with Niffleheim. They said the Hoorka were scrupulous, would follow their code. All I wanted was the time.” His eyes pleaded.
A man who’s never killed,
Sartas thought,
and who hadn’t really contemplated the possibility of having to do so.
“I’m sorry,” de Sezimbra said. “I didn’t want that to happen. Believe me.” He seemed genuinely perturbed, concerned.

“A victim that doesn’t resist the Hag deserves his fate. And our apprentice must have told you—we don’t take a person’s fate out of the hands of their gods. I congratulate you on your skill,” he remarked stonily. “Dame Fate was with you. It wasn’t your time yet. It is now.”

“Dame Fate may still be with me.”

“If She is, you’ll know soon enough.”

Sartas said no more. He moved slowly into the open, watching de Sezimbra, waiting for the man to move, to commit himself. Back, to the left: de Sezimbra retreated, eyes glancing from side to side wildly, looking for an avenue of escape. The Hoorka moved inexorably toward him.

De Sezimbra flicked on his vibro.

It happened quickly. De Sezimbra suddenly leapt straight forward, far more agilely than Sartas expected—the limp was gone, a deception. The man’s vibro thrust at Sartas, but the Hoorka, despite his surprise, was already countering. He turned, evading the blade, and slashed with his own weapon, hearing the whine of the vibro and the tearing of cloth. De Sezimbra groaned with pain as the vibro raked his side, and he kicked at Sartas’s groin. Sartas deflected the blow harmlessly, lunging. This time he found his target. De Sezimbra staggered back wordlessly, dropping his weapon, hands clenched to his stomach. Blood, bright arterial blood, was slick around his fingers. He moaned, looking up at Sartas. He seemed about to speak; his mouth worked, but no words came. He nodded, almost a salutation, and slipped to his knees. Grunting, de Sezimbra tried to rise again and found he could not. He looked up at the sky, at the watching moon.

He fell to his side on the rocks.

“If I could’ve denied the Dame’s whim, I would have, de Sezimbra,” Sartas whispered. “If a man deserved to live . . . I wish you’d been luckier.”

The Hag came to Heritage for a second time that night.

Sheathing his vibro (he would not clean it again until he returned to Neweden and could feed She of the Five), Sartas called McWilms, giving the apprentice his position. While he waited, he gave de Sezimbra the rite of the dead and wrapped the body in the spare nightcloak.

In time, McWilms arrived, and they took the body back to the car. On their way to Home, the tachyon relay on Sartas’s belt suddenly shrilled, startling them both.

At Underasgard, morning light had touched the dawnrock.

•   •   •

They could not help but attract attention as they entered the boundaries of Home. The throaty rumble of the groundcar shook the sleepy ones from their beds and turned the heads of those on the streets. All stared at the death-apparitions: the dust-lathered Hoorka in the open car, dark in the fluttering nightcloaks; the silent bundles in the back, wrapped in black and gray cloth.

They knew, the inhabitants of Home. The Hoorka could sense the news spreading through the city, welling outward.

Guillene’s home was set well back from the street that wandered through Park Hill. It was further held aloof by a high wall and a wrought-steel gate flanked by two guards. The Hoorka rode toward it through a scurrying of people. Already a crowd had formed before the gates, standing silent across the lane, moving with a quiet restlessness. The guards, dour-faced, perhaps a little frightened, uneasily watched the mob grow, crowd-prods in hand. One whispered into a relay button on his lapel as the Hoorka rode up, shattering the night stillness.

The groundcar shuddered to a halt, the roar of the engine died. Sartas and McWilms, the cowls up on their nightcloaks, dismounted and picked up the bundle behind Sartas, handling it with a curious gentleness. They laid it before the gate as Guillene’s men watched, as the mute faces across the street stared. The crowd swayed, murmured. “Is Sirrah Guillene here?” Sartas asked.

The guard to whom he spoke didn’t have a chance to reply. From the darkness beyond the gate, a figure moved into sight The muttering of the crowd increased. “I’m Phillipe Guillene, Hoorka.” He was tall and slight, his hair a crescent of silver around the dome of his head, and the robe he wore spoke of silken wealth. The voice was smooth, aristocratic. Gray eyes glanced down at the wrapped body outside the gate. “Is that de Sezimbra?”

“It is. Your contract has been fulfilled. Do you need to see the face?”

He glanced up. Sartas could see quick horror in the man’s eyes.
So that’s why he would pay Hoorka, then. He doesn’t want to be near death.
“No,” Guillene said, his voice rushed. “I believe you.”

There was a concerted whispering in the ranks of people across the way. Guillene looked, seemed to see the spectators for the first time. He looked at them rather than Sartas. “De Sezimbra was to be an example to them,” he said. “The man was a troublemaker and a fool.”

“I found him to be a brave and honorable opponent.” Beneath the shadowed hood, Sartas’s eyes glittered. He defied Guillene to gainsay him.

Guillene’s face flushed with irritation, visible even in the dim light of the gate-lamps and the moon. He tugged at the belt of his robe, drawing it tighter around his waist. “You needn’t speak your opinions here, Hoorka. I paid you—and well—for your work. It’s now done. You may return to Neweden. I want nothing more to do with you.”

“And the body?”

“My people will throw it on the slagheaps with the rest of the filth.”

Sartas said nothing, but his stance altered subtly. Behind him, McWilms sensed the shift in attitude; he moved back and to one side, in a better position to support Sartas if trouble developed. The crowd-murmurs grew louder, though none of them made a move to cross the street, and none spoke loudly enough for Guillene to understand words. If they were angry with Guillene’s treatment of de Sezimbra, they were also cowed.

“De Sezimbra deserves better rites.” Sartas spoke slowly, loudly. “As I said, I found him to be courageous and honorable.”

Like steel striking steel, his words drew sparks from Guillene. The man reared back as if struck. His eyebrows lowered, his lips parted, and the noble face was suddenly ugly.
“I
decide what is to happen on Heritage, Hoorka. If I say that the body is to be given to the slagheap, then that will be done.” He gestured curtly to his guards. “Take it,” he said.

Sartas stepped forward, an arm sweeping aside his nightcloak, his hand pulling the brown-stained vibro from its sheath. It whined eagerly; behind him, Sartas could hear the harmony of McWilms’s own weapon. The guards, suddenly uncertain, stopped, caught between obedience and fear. They looked back at Guillene.

“Marco de Sezimbra faced Hag Death with honor,” Sartas hissed, poised over the body. “I won’t have him dishonored now. You’ll lose your lives if you try. Sirrah Guillene, unless you want bloodfeud declared against you, tell them to stay away.”

Guillene’s face was taut, his neck corded with unvented anger. “This isn’t your little backward world, Hoorka. There’s no bloodfeud here, no kin. The man died because I willed it so. He’s to be an example to my employees—I
warned
him to leave Heritage, to go before I was forced to take stronger measures. He stayed. He chose his fate. You stop me now, and you give an unwanted meaning to his death. That’s not what I paid for. I won’t have it.”

“You paid for death. Nothing else.” Sartas spoke to Guillene, but he watched the guards, who backed away one step. “The meaning and results of a person’s death aren’t in your hands but the gods’. You aren’t able to pay for that. De Sezimbra will be given the proper rites or more than one person will join him in the Hag’s dance. You can summon enough people to overcome us, true, but that’ll only give more emphasis to de Sezimbra’s death, neh?” Adamantine, that voice, with no hue of weakness. His vibro hummed threateningly, the luminous tip unwavering.

“We’ll take the body back to his people.” The voice came from the front ranks of the watching crowd; as Sartas glanced that way, a woman stepped out into the light of the gate-lamps. She was plain, heavy, clothed like a miner or lassari laborer. Behind her two men as nondescript as she stepped forward, heads down. “De Sezimbra helped my family once. We’ll take the body and do what’s proper, sirrah.” Her voice was an odd mixture of servility and determination.

Sartas glared, uncertain. He didn’t trust these people, so much like lassari, so used to doing Guillene’s bidding. Lassari could not be trusted. It was a bitter lesson all guilded kin learned. Turn your back on them, and you’d better be prepared for the thrust of the knife.

Guillene raged behind his ornate barrier. “I’ll have your shift masters cut your wages—your family will never leave Heritage. That’s the cost of touching that body.”

“Sirrah Guillene, I’m sorry, but the assassin is right. De Sezimbra deserves to be treated better than a common thief.” She could not defy Guillene for long; her gaze dropped at his scowl. Behind her, the men shuffled their feet.

“You’ll do this properly, woman?” Sartas asked.

She glanced at the angry Guillene. A nod, tentative at first, then stronger . . . “Might never leave Heritage anyway. I’ll take the body back to his cabin and his people. If we may?”

Sartas, slowly, stood aside, still unsure but swayed by the look on Guillene’s face. “You
will
do it,” he said again.

“By my word,” she replied. Sartas nodded and watched the two men lift the body and turn back into the crowd. The mass of people parted wordlessly, flowing back around them. Guillene, with a broken cry of frustration and rage, turned and strode back toward his house. “I won’t forget this, Hoorka.” The words came from the night.

Sartas and McWilms, a wary eye on the silent guards, sheathed their weapons. The groundcar roared as they made their way back to the hostel.

•   •   •

The following day was as pastoral as Heritage seemed capable of being. The sky was sooty blue, tinged with orange on the horizon where the metallic cross-hatching of a mining platform gnawed the distant hills. The sun was unrelenting: too hot, too bright, too oppressive.

Sartas and McWilms were pleased. They would be gone soon.

The flitter held the day’s warmth in abeyance, circulating cool air through the glassed compartment in which they sat. The windows were polarized to cut the glare, and the scenery passed—ten meters below them—at a tolerable speed. The flitter purred along its predetermined course. The Hoorka relaxed, heads back on the cushioned seats, eyes half-closed.

“Gorgeous view, neh?” McWilms was half-turned, looking down at the orangish landscape.

“I’ll be damned glad to leave it. Underasgard’ll be very pleasant, even with having to tell Thane Valdisa that we need to prepare a wake for Renier.” He glanced back. A heavy, oblong case was secured to the back of the flitter.

“When do we reach the Port?”

“An hour. Just lie back. Relax.”

McWilms sighed and closed his eyes. Thus it was that he didn’t see the grove of trees to their right nor the gout of fire that blackened the leaves there with sudden fury. Both Hoorka were only momentarily conscious of the wrenching lurch as something tore into the shell of the flitter, shredding the plasti-steel, ripping off the guiding power vanes. The canopy sheltering them flew apart in crystalline shards; the next lurch of the flitter threw them both from the craft, blessedly oblivious.

Orange and black: flame and smoke tore at the craft and flung it to the ground.

The wreckage plowed into earth a hundred meters from the still bodies, carving a blackened gouge in the gritty dust, burning. Neither Hoorka saw the figures that came from the grove and stood over them, silent and grim-faced.

“They’re dead?”

“This one is. The other’ll be soon enough. No, don’t bother to kill him—let ’im suffer.”

It was nearly thirty minutes before the nonarrival of the flitter caused a puzzled Diplo at the Port terminal to send an investigating team out after the tardy vehicle. Neither Sartas nor McWilms heard the exclamations of surprise and concern as the Diplo crew arrived at the still-smoldering mass of twisted metal.

Hag Death, grinning eternally, returned again to Heritage.

Chapter 8

A
n excerpt from the acousidots of Sondall-Cadhurst Cranmer. This transcript is one of the rarities. In the Family Cranmer Archives there is a dot with what seems to be a live recording of the following scene, but the fidelity is terrible and much of the dot is indecipherable. Evidently Cranmer felt the conversation to be of some import, for he immediately did a dictation of the conversation as he remembered it. It was a method to which he had to resort on other occasions. The concealed microphones sometimes failed. It was, in his own words, “a penance one pays for being dishonest.”

EXCERPT FROM THE DOT OF 5.28.217:

“Gyll was not much in a mood to see me. ‘Don’t even bother, Cranmer,’ was all he said when I knocked at his door. I persisted noisily, though, and eventually he had to answer. He looked angry and tired. His eyes were red-veined and he moved with a jerky sullenness.