Assassin's Shadow (Veiled Dagger Book 2) (17 page)

A great cracking sound filled the air as the ogres plunged into the Banewood. Tree limbs snapped and crashed to the ground as the giants swept them aside as though they were swatting at flies. The human contingent of the war party was forced to walk a distance behind the ogres in order to avoid being struck by falling timber.

The vantage point afforded Rothar a fantastic view of the full scope of the ogres’ power and prowess. Wide lanes opened up in the thick forest. New trails were being blazed that would likely now be used by generations of huntsmen and travelers, but today they would serve as a path to victory.

The ogres were moving in pairs, and each pair had been instructed to head towards a particular area where they had seen the flying machines landing from the mountains. Behind each duo of ogres were two or three armed men on horseback, except behind Talfor, where only Rothar and Taria rode.

All of the riders were armed with bows and arrows, along with their normal weapons of choice. The huntsmen carried spears and broadswords. Harwin carried a pair of short swords of his own invention. Taria was armed with the familiar curved blade of her native desert, and Rothar, of course, carried his reliable dagger, along with his longsword.

Flocks of birds rose up from the Banewood, squawking furiously as they took flight to escape the unwelcome clamor. Deer and elk sprinted among the shattering trees and disappeared into the shadows of the untouched wood.

As a Talfor passed the place where Rothar’s old friend Brath was buried, a massive brown bear stood up near the gravesite and watched impassively as the giant strode by. Rothar halted Stormbringer as he neared the bear, Taria stopping behind him. The bear and Rothar regarded one another, and the beast locked eyes with the assassin for a long moment before seeming to bow a farewell as it turned to enter the stream.

Rothar watched the bear for a few seconds more before urging Stormbringer back along the newly cleared trail.

“I am sorry,” he said to Taria. “I know this will sound mad, but it almost seemed as if that bear were, in some way-“

“It was,” Taria interrupted.

Rothar needed say nothing more, Taria understood him and she understood nature. She even seemed to understand that which could not be understood. The two continued on in silence, knowing they would soon be upon the enemy.

***

Peregrin and Stone rode easy in their saddles, keeping a safe distance of about one hundred yards behind a fearsome ogre called Rigmor. Peregrin had intentionally picked the elder huntsman as his lone companion. There had been tension between the two since they had left the red desert, and huntsmen never left things unsaid between them for very long, it was not their way.

“Stone,” Peregrin said after they had rode a while in silence. “We know that we ride today into danger, into the very mouth of hell, perhaps.”

Stone grunted in agreement.

“You know that I have the deepest respect for you, borne of the respect that my father had for you, and I do not wish to enter into conflict without making things right between us.”

“Peregrin, you need not say any more,” Stone spoke up. “Please do not make an old man number his mistakes. Our brothers would have been dead before we reached them, and we may well have died in that desert all the same. You were right, and I knew it too, somewhere in my heart. I just did not wish to believe it was true. Let us go forward without another thought of my prideful words.”

Peregrin reached his hand out towards Stone, who grasped him by the forearm. No more was spoken about the conflict between them, the past was the past. That
was
the huntsman way.

“So,” said Stone, “how do you supposed the big fellow up there will let us know when we have found our quarry?”

At that moment, Rigmor let out a bellow that shook the very earth on which they rode.

“Perhaps like that?” said Peregrin.

“Enemy of the Kingdom!” thundered Rigmor. “Avail yourself of a moment to scream, for soon the only sound will be the grinding of your bones into dust!”

Ogres prided themselves on their ability to contrive impressive threats, and Rigmor was no exception to the rule.

Through the trees beyond the ogre, Peregrin could make out the giant round shape of one of the flying contraptions he had seen in the sky a couple of days prior. Darkly clad men were hurrying around the machine, seemingly attempting to ready it for flight. Reaching the clearing, Rigmor reached down and plucked one of the men from the ground, tossing him into the air as though he were a child’s toy. The Reaper sailed across the clearing before being impaled upon the jagged limbs of an old dead tree.

Rigmor bellowed again as some of the strangers opened fire upon him with arrows. The tiny arrows stuck out of the giant’s skin like porcupine quills, and only served to further enrage the beast. With a sweeping backhand, Rigmor flattened a half dozen tents and sent embers flying from a large campfire.

Peregrin and Stone reached the scene and loosed arrows at the Reaper archers, who were so preoccupied with the giants that they had not noticed the huntsmen approaching. A pair of archers fell before the others ran for cover towards the flying machine.

The mighty foot of Rigmor, as long as a man is tall, thudded into the ground between the fleeing Reapers and their apparatus. The ogre swept the men up with his hands, pinning their arms to their sides so they could not use their weapons. Rigmor began to squeeze and Peregrin could see the faces of the men turn from pink to red to purple.

“Rigmor!” shouted Peregrin.

The giant looked down at the huntsmen and seemed to remember where he was and what he was to be doing. With a grunt, he dropped the Reapers to the ground where Peregrin and Stone disarmed them. Suddenly, Stone let out a shout. Peregrin turned to the old man to find an arrow protruding from the back of his friend’s leg. Following the line of trajectory, Peregrin spied a dark clad figure crouched in the wood a short ways off.

“Rigmor, you may kill that one,” Peregrin said, pointing in the direction of the archer.

It took Rigmor only a moment to spot the Reaper hiding in the thicket. Realizing that he had been found out, the shadowy figure turned and ran deeper into the Banewood. With three long strides, Rigmor overtook the fugitive and stomped him out as though he were a stray ember on a hearthside carpet.

A familiar humming sound filled the air as the remaining Reapers breathed life into their flying machine. Rigmor moved towards the machine and Peregrin drew back on his bow and took aim at the cockpit, but the giant halted as the machine began to rise off of the ground, and Peregrin never let loose his arrow. Instead, he turned to Stone and began to tend to his friend’s wound as the contraption hovered higher and higher, reaching the top of the canopy. Rigmor reached up and took hold of the machine by the wooden box on the bottom which held the men, and he turned the machine eastward, towards the red desert, towards home.

***

Deep in the center of the Banewood, Rothar and Taria were embroiled in a battle of their own. Much like Rigmor, Talfor showed reluctant restrain in dealing with the Reapers, accidentally crushing one with a swat that made the black clad Reaper seem no more than a fly before Rothar reminded him to watch his kill count.

Taria showed herself to be more than proficient with her bow, threading arrows through thick woods to slay three Reapers before they even knew she was there. Rothar moved deftly through the clearing, working around the flying machine and using chaos to his advantage, slitting the throats of awestruck and terrified men who affixed their attention on the fearsome ogre.

Finally, standing on blood soaked earth and sweating heavily, Rothar counted four remaining enemies and shouted the command to Talfor and Taria to end the slaughter. At his feet, a dazed and wounded Reaper looked up at him, whispering a sort of disjointed prayer.

Rothar leaned down and spoke softly but sternly, coming close to the man’s face so that he might hear him more clearly.

“Pray not to your god, for your god is dead,” Rothar hissed. “Go back to your city and tell your brothers that it is so.”

With that, he kicked the man in the ribs until he staggered to his feet and joined the other three remaining Reapers inside of the flying machine’s compartment.

As the humming machine left the clearing, Talfor knelt down to speak to Rothar.

“So far so good, would you not say, Rothar?” the ogre asked.

“Doing battle alongside a giant is quite a novelty,” he answered. “I only wish I had thought of this long ago.”

Talfor’s laughter could likely be heard back in the King’s City.

Allette and Esme had little trouble making their way through the upper city and down into Witherington. The marauding crowds had congealed into one or two large mobs and it was quite easy to hear where they were rioting. The girls needed only to cut through a couple of narrow alleys and across a private garden and they were safely away from the worst of the fray.

Once into Witherington, the crashing and shouting of crowds was all behind them, and what lay in front of them was the cruel and smoking wreckage that was all that was left of their home streets. Roughly half of the buildings in the merchant town were burned or damaged, and the roads were all but blocked with abandoned carts, dead livestock and charred rubble.

Hear and there, hushed voices could be heard from inside of the homes and businesses that remained intact, either from souls too weak or scared to venture out, or from shrewd individuals who still had a bit of their Obscura stash left; the latter gave themselves away with a weak and raspy twittering laughter.

At one point, Allette and Esme had to scramble out of the street to make way for a gaunt and wandering herd of cows that were roaming the city in search of food. As the animals meandered by in a chocking cloud of dust, Allette looked down at Esme and noticed that there were tears running down the young girl’s cheeks. Allette knew Esme’s story, and was familiar with her reputation for bravery, so she was surprised to see this show of emotion.

“What is wrong, dear?” Allette asked, putting her arm around the younger girl’s shoulders.

Esme sniffed and wiped her face, clearly embarrassed that she had been seen in such a state.

“Oh, it is nothing… it’s only that,” Esme struggled to find words as her emotions threatened again to betray her. “This is the only place I have ever known,” she continued. “And it is gone, all gone.”

Allette wrapped her arms around Esme and held her tightly, not speaking for a moment. Then, as the herd of cows passed, the dust settled and the noise faded, she held her out at arms length and leveled a serious look at her.

“Esme, look at me,” she said. Esme sniffled again and stared back at her. “Am I here?” Allette asked. Esme looked confused. “It is a simple question,” Allette persisted. “Am I here, or have I gone away?”

“Well… you are certainly here,” Esme answered.

“Exactly. I was, not long ago, in ruins, but I came back.”

A look of realization started to come across Esme’s face.

“So you see,” Allette explained, “just because a thing is broken down, does not mean it cannot become whole again, am I correct?”

Esme nodded, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of her mouth.

“We will have our city back, and we will rebuild it, one brick at a time if we have to,” Allette said with severity. “But in order to do that, we must first bring our people back.”

Esme nodded again. “Alright. Let us go.”

The pair continued on to Harwin’s home and workshop at the edge of Witherington, where a finger of the Banewood cut across the meadow and touched the village. Allette felt certain that this was the only place in Witherington or the King’s City where the flower could grow. The Arapithia was also known as Shade of Winter, and grew only in shady, windy areas. Besides this place, Witherington was all but treeless, so shade was scarce, and in the upper city, lavish homes and gardens were clustered so densely together that wind was altogether blocked out.

Allette considered how poetic it was that this plant, which could help to save the people of her city, grew only in the garden of the humble blacksmith and his beautiful daughter.

Esme led Allette to the back of the small garden, where under a crooked old oak tree there was a mass of yellow Shade of Winter flowers, blanketing the ground so thickly that the space seemed covered with a golden carpet.

“Oh, bless you Esme! Bless you and these perfect plants!” Allette exclaimed.

The two began picking the flowers, pulling the heads from the stems and depositing the petals in a leather pouch that Allette had brought. After a time, the pouch was teeming and Allette announced that she felt they had enough.

At that moment, a rustling in the narrow strip of woods caused both girls to freeze, their hearts in their throats. The sound had been too loud to be caused by a rabbit or squirrel, and it was too close to ignore. A branch snapped, and the two stepped back, Allette protectively stepping in front of Esme.

The thicket parted and a man slowly stepped out of the wood and into the garden. He was very tall, with a bald head and large hands which curled and uncurled in rhythm with his ragged and heavy breathing. Allette thought that she recognized him from Witherington, but could not place how. One thing that she knew for certain was that he was in desperate Obscura withdrawal.

The stranger’s face was gaunt and jaundiced. He was sweating through his clothes and his body trembled as though he was suffering from an awful fever. His eyes were glassy and crazed as he regarded the two women in the way that a starving man looks at a table adorned with a feast. Allette knew it was not her nor Esme that the frightening man desired, but that did not make him any less dangerous.

“Get back! Go away!” Allette shouted at the man. “We have nothing for you!”

The figure shambled forward, seeming not to hear. He emitted a low groan as spittle ran down his chin and dripped on his soiled tunic.

“Get on with you!” Allette shouted again, pushing the reluctant Esme behind her. She would not let the little girl come into harm’s way trying to defend her.

All at once, the man lunged forward with surprising speed. Allette cried out as he collided with her, knocking her to the ground. Esme sidestepped to avoid the collision and circled around behind the man as he fought to pin Allette to the ground. Allette managed to free one hand and clawed fiercely at the stranger’s face. Her hand came back stained with his blood, strips of flesh hanging from her fingernails. The man bellowed savagely and smashed his forehead into Allette’s temple.

Allette moaned and went limp. Suddenly, Esme was on the man’s back, kicking and thrashing at his throat with her little hands. He rose and spun, flinging her off of himself and into the cluster of yellow flowers.

Allette regained enough of her senses to rise to her feet and take up a stout branch that she spied on the ground nearby. Swinging with all her might, she struck the man in the back of the head. The attacker staggered forward, stunned, but the branch broke across his skull. He shook his head and growled, charging again at Allette. He once again tackled her and took her to the ground. Esme slipped up beside him, stealthy, like a cat, and slipped her dagger in between his ribs.

The man’s eyes went wide and he turned his head to look at the little girl. Esme stepped back, a peculiar expression on her face. She had not wished to kill the man, she had seen enough death in her short time on earth to fill many lifetimes, but he had left her no choice. He rose once more and reached out towards Esme, his lips moving soundlessly, in his eyes was a look of contrition. The bedraggled man collapsed in the grass and breathed his last.

After a deep breath and a silent prayer, Esme hurried to where Allette lay on the ground.

“He is dead, Allette, I got him,” she said, but Allette made no reply.

“Allette… Allette!” Esme put her hands on the young woman’s shoulders and shook her gently. Then she noticed the dark stain growing on the earth beneath her head.

Alarmed, Esme tried to roll Allette onto her side. A sharp rock, the size of a man’s fist, was embedded in the soil behind her head. Allette’s hair was matted and crimson around the spot where her skull had cracked.

Esme sank to the ground beside Allette and sat for a long time. There was no sound in Witherington, save for the calls of the vultures that had been circling over the city for days. Finally, Esme reached out and closed Allette’s eyes. After that she stood, picked up the satchel full of yellow flowers, wiped the blood from her blade, and headed back to Castle Staghorn.