Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands (31 page)

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Authors: David B. Coe

BOOK: Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands
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“What is it you want from me?” he asked, his eyes flicking down toward Jedrek’s blade.
Jedrek lunged at him again, but the Qirsi danced away.
“I think you know,” Jedrek said.
The gleaner nodded and licked his lips, his eyes drawn repeatedly to the fire now, as if he was looking for a way to use it against Jedrek.
“Why?” the man asked. “You can at least tell me that.”
“It’s not my choice,” Jedrek said. “I was sent after you.”
“Sent?” he repeated, narrowing his eyes. “You’re one of the singers, aren’t you? From the Revel.”
The gleaner had halted, and rather than answering, Jedrek leaped at him again, his blade raised. He knew that this time he was close enough, that Grinsa, his eyes widening, knew it as well. The Qirsi was a dead man.
But in that instant, just before he buried his dagger in the gleaner’s heart, he heard a sound that reminded him oddly of his father’s hammer ringing on hot steel. At the same time, the gleaming blade of his weapon splintered, as though it were mere glass. His attack carried him forward so that he hit the Qirsi’s chest with the hilt of his dagger, but the man just staggered back a step. There was no blood on him.
Jedrek stared down at what remained of his weapon, unable to speak. After a moment he looked up at the gleaner, who was watching him with a grim expression, his own blade held before him again.
“How did you … ?” Jedrek trailed off, shaking his head. The answer was obvious. He probably should have run, but all he could do was stand there, his eyes drawn once more to the useless piece of polished wood that lay in his hand. “But she said you were just a gleaner.”
Grinsa was about to order his attacker onto his knees when the full import of what the man had said hit him. He felt cold suddenly,
as though the warm wind moving through the wood had turned frigid.
She?
“Who told you I was just a gleaner?”
The sound of his voice seemed to jar the man into motion. He whirled as if to flee into the woods. But Grinsa grabbed him from behind and they both tumbled to the ground. The man was strong—stronger than Grinsa—and he almost got free. But when Grinsa pressed the edge of his dagger against the man’s neck, his struggles abruptly ceased.
Grinsa’s horse, that was tied nearby, snorted anxiously and stamped his feet.
“Who told you?” the Qirsi asked again. He was shivering. How had it turned so damned cold?
“A woman in Galdasten,” the man said. “A white-hair, like you.”
He didn’t want to ask. Qirsar knew he didn’t. But what choice did he have?
“What was her name?”
“She didn’t say.
Of course she didn’t. “What did she look like?”
“She looked like a Qirsi. I can’t tell one of you from another.”
He was lying. She was beautiful. Even an Eandi brute like this one could see that. He tightened his hold on the man, pushing his blade against his skin until blood began to seep out from beneath the steel edge.
“What did she look like?”
“Young,” the man said, his voice rising. “Pretty. Pale eyes, long hair. I swear, I don’t know how to describe you people!”
It explained so much. Everything, really. He should have known. He could sense a man tracking him through the wood without even seeing him, yet he could not see through the deceptions of the woman sharing his bed.
He must have relaxed his hold on the man, because before he could ask why she wanted him dead, the dark-haired man grabbed hold of Grinsa’s blade hand and at the same time dug an elbow into the Qirsi’s side. Grinsa gasped and tried to hold the man down, but it was too late. He was on his feet again and bounding into the wood. Grinsa jumped up as well, but rather than giving chase, he formed a thought in his mind—an image really—and propelled it forward as
if with his breath. The effort tore a second gasp from his chest and left him feeling light-headed for just an instant. But it worked.
A large branch from an oak snapped and crashed to the ground just in front of the Eandi man, forcing him to stop.
“The next one kills you!” Grinsa called, though he wasn’t certain that he had the strength to do it again.
Fortunately, the man didn’t make him try. He turned and faced Grinsa, looking like a frightened child.
“Come here,” the Qirsi commanded.
Slowly, almost timidly, the man started back toward the fire.
Grinsa was lucky she had sent an Eandi. Another Qirsi would have better understood the limits of his power. The Eandi were too afraid of magic to learn its ways.
The man stepped back into the circle of light cast by the fire, eyeing Grinsa warily. There was a line of dark blood on his neck where the Qirsi’s blade had cut him, and his hair and clothes were covered with dirt, but otherwise he was unmarked.
“Sit,” Grinsa said, waving his dagger at the ground.
The man lowered himself to the ground, his gaze never straying from Grinsa’s face.
“What’s your name?”
He hesitated. “Honok.”
It had to be an alias. The man was an assassin; he wasn’t about to give his real name. But Grinsa merely nodded. It made little difference. He just needed something to call him.
“I’m going to ask you some questions, Honok. I’ll know if you’re lying, so you might as well answer me truthfully. You don’t want to make me angry.”
“Can’t you just read my thoughts?” the man asked. “Why bother with questions at all?”
“I can divine your thoughts, yes. But it would be quite uncomfortable for you. I thought you might want to avoid that.”
There was some truth in this. He did have the divining power, though it offered him little more than a indistinct sense of another’s emotions, and it could have been unpleasant, even painful, for Honok. This wasn’t why he chose not to use it, however. He was beginning to tire. He had shattered the man’s dagger and brought down the tree limb in the span of just a few moments. There were limits to a Qirsi’s magic, even his. The exertion of power necessary
for a divining would probably leave him too weakened to do much more than just sleep.
Once again, though, Honok’s ignorance proved to be Grinsa’s ally. The man paled at the implied threat, and, after a moment, nodded.
“The woman who sent you—” He paused, gritting his teeth against a wave of nausea. “Did she say why she wanted me dead?”
“She didn’t want you reaching Kentigern,” Honok said.
“Why not?”
“She didn’t want you helping the boy.”
“The boy,” Grinsa repeated.
“The duke of Curgh’s son.”
Grinsa wasn’t surprised. Knowing what he did of Tavis’s fate, and remembering all the questions she had asked about his gleaning, he could hardly expect anything else. But still his chest ached, as though the man’s dagger had found its mark after all.
“Why did she send you?” he asked.
Honok looked away, saying nothing.
“You’re an assassin?”
He nodded, still not looking at Grinsa.
The Qirsi stared at Honok for several moments, trying to recall the times he had seen him at the Revel. The more he looked, the more familiar the man’s face appeared, until finally he began to nod.
“You have a partner, don’t you?”
Honok looked at him sharply.
“That’s why she went to you, because your partner is already in Kentigern. He’s the one who went after Tavis in the first place.”
“I work alone!” the man insisted. But Grinsa heard the lie in his voice.
Again the Qirsi nodded. He could see the other man in his mind. He could picture them singing together. “I remember him, too. Tall and thin. Built like me, wasn’t he? But with black hair and a beard.”
“No!” the man cried. Moving so fast that Grinsa was caught off guard, he jumped to his feet and hurled himself at the Qirsi. Somehow, he had a dagger in his hand—too late, Grinsa realized that he hadn’t searched him for a second weapon—and he raised it over his head, once again aiming a blow at the Qirsi’s heart.
Grinsa threw out a desperate hand, deflecting Honok’s arm at the last instant. But the dagger blade sliced into his left shoulder as the two men fell to the ground again, Grinsa on his back and Honok
on top of him. The dark-haired man yanked the blade out of Grinsa’s shoulder and stabbed down with it again, this time trying to bury it in the Qirsi’s throat.
Grinsa formed the thought and forced it from his mind so quickly, with such blind desperation, that he could barely control it. As it was, instead of hearing the clear ringing of shattering steel, he heard something duller, like the muffled snapping of wood. Honok screamed out in pain, his dagger falling harmlessly to the ground as he rolled off of Grinsa and began to writhe on the dirt, clutching his arm to his chest.
Grinsa’s shoulder throbbed as though the blade were still in his flesh. He put a hand to the wound, exploring it gingerly as warm blood flowed freely over his fingers. The cut went all the way to the bone.
“Damn you!” he said, forcing himself to sit up.
Honok just glared at him, his own pain written plainly on his face.
In a way, the pain in his shoulder was the least of his problems. Honok knew he was a gleaner, and he had seen him shatter wood and steel, not to mention bone. Now Grinsa had to heal himself, and Honok as well, if he was going to keep him alive. How much could he afford to reveal? And what was he to do with Honok? He couldn’t keep the man with him without putting his own life at risk. Nor could he take him to a town and have him imprisoned. If Honok and his partner were as skilled in their dark trade as he suspected, there were no prisons outside those of the major houses that could hold him. Releasing him, of course, was out of the question, not only because of who he was and what he might do to Tavis and others, but also because of what he knew. If word got back to Cresenne that Grinsa had other powers, it would raise her suspicions, and given what he knew of her now, that seemed the greatest risk of all.
All of which meant that Honok had to die.
Grinsa shivered. Over the course of his life, he had gone to great lengths to preserve his secret, but he had never killed for it.
He’s an assassin,
he told himself.
He would have killed you tonight if you hadn’t stopped him. Who knows how many others he’s murdered, or how many more he’ll kill if you let him go?
It was an excuse, nothing more. All of it might have been true, but if he did this, that wouldn’t be the real reason. He was protecting
himself, and no one else. He was trading the life of this man before him for his own.
Honok started to push himself up, and as he did, his gaze fell to the second dagger lying on the ground between them.
There was nothing else Grinsa could do. As Honok lunged for his lost dagger, Grinsa threw himself forward, grunting at the pain in his shoulder. It seemed to the Qirsi that they met in midair, like falcons battling over the Moorlands, and then crashed to the ground. Grinsa’s good arm, dagger in hand, was crushed against his chest under Honok’s weight. He was fortunate that the blade lay flat, or he might have taken his own life. As it was, he could not free the arm to stab at the assassin. The dark-haired man pounded his fist into Grinsa’s side and then stretched out his arm for the blade that lay on the ground. It was enough to give Grinsa room to move. Arching his back as violently as he could, and exhaling sharply at the white hot pain in his shoulder, he threw the man off of him. Without hesitation, in one convulsive motion, he flung himself over and plunged his dagger into Honok’s chest, collapsing on top of him as he did. The assassin screamed, his back arching as Grinsa’s had a moment before. But then his entire body seemed to sag, and he lay utterly still.
For a long time, Grinsa couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes, much less sit up. His shoulder ached, his fingers had started to grow numb, and his side was tender from where Honok had hit him, once with his elbow and once with his fist.
But it was fear that held him there, that kept his eyes closed so tight it hurt. He had killed.
You had to
, he told himself.
To protect yourself, to save Tavis.
“You had to.” He said it aloud, as if hearing it could help.
Slowly, he opened his eyes and pushed himself up with his good arm. Honok’s eyes and mouth were still open, his death frozen on his face for all to see. Grinsa pulled his blade free and wiped the blood on his sleeve so that it mingled with his own. He tried to stand, but his head spun until he thought he’d be sick and he had to sit back down.
His shoulder needed healing, but he wasn’t sure he had the strength to tend to himself. He had already used his powers far too much this night. He rested a few moments before crawling to where his mount stood. Forcing himself to stand, he retrieved his waterskin and pulled some food from a sack hanging from his saddle. Then he
returned to the fire and dropped down to the ground. He took a long drink and made himself eat, though he nearly gagged on the smoked meat and hard cheese.

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