The Assassin's Tale (Isle of Dreams)

 K L Jones

Copyright ©2012 K L
Jones

All Rights Reserved

Cover
design by Rob Francis of
http://www.ink-corporated.co.uk

http://www.facebook.com/isleofdreams

Other
titles in this series:

The
Assassin’s Destiny

The
Seer

Eternal
Winter

Tribe

Fallen

Sit
iter
incipiam
.

The tiny
village of Nevelte lay close to the sprawling Velvet Forests that had long been
rumoured to be inhabited by spirits; as such the villagers never dared venture
anywhere near after darkness.  On a wild and stormy November evening an
old woodsman from the village was battling to drive his cartload of wood back
towards the village.  The heavy downpour of rain had turned the rough
track to thick mire, riddled with deep potholes full of muddy water. 
Spooked by the noise of the wind amongst the branches of the trees the
carthorse was stubbornly refusing to move and no amount of encouragement with
the whip would persuade her to continue.  She trembled with fear,
motionless in the traces, while the storm-laden sky blackened as night began to
fall in earnest.  The woodsman felt an involuntary sliver of fear crawl up
his back as the snapping sound of the wind-lashed trees seemed to grow even
louder in the fading light. 

‘Get on, damn
it!’ he bellowed futilely at his immovable horse, now rolling its eyes in fear
at the dark thrashing branches of the nearby treeline. 

With more than
one sideways glance at the deep woods on his left, the woodsman reluctantly
began to climb from the cart.  Stepping stiffly down on the rain soaked
ground and keeping one hand on the cart’s side, he walked up to take hold of
his horse’s bridle.  Speaking soothing words, he began to gently lead her
forward.  The terrified mare took two tentative paces forward before
halting suddenly and jerking backwards.  Snorting hard she tossed her
head, ripping the bridle from the old man’s grasp. 

Cursing with
the sudden throbbing pain in his arthritic hand, the old man squinted through
the rain down at the ground in front of his horse’s nervously stamping
hooves.  He bent closer, not sure of what he could see.  A bundle of
leaves and moss lay on the ground.  The old man’s eyes suddenly widened in
disbelief; he could swear it was moving.  Shuffling a step closer, he
knelt painfully on the wet ground and began to unwrap the bundle, his hands
trembling with more than the cold as he stripped away the tangle of tightly
wrapped leaves.  He hoped it would be a catch a trapper had dropped … a
wolf cub maybe … he would kill it, take it home, and skin it.  Even a
small wolf cub pelt would make good money at market.  As the tightly bound
package began to submit to his efforts, a plaintive cry rose from the centre.

‘Wolf cubs
make no noise like that!’ the old man muttered and redoubled his efforts to
unravel the mossy wrappings. 

Hurrying now,
as the storm was steadily worsening; he tore at the thick, soft layer of moss
until the bundle suddenly dropped open in his hands.  A flash of lightning
illuminated a tiny pale face, screwed up eyes and a mouth opened in a heartfelt
bawl. 

‘Well I’ll be
… it’s a child!’ 

Sitting back
on his skinny haunches, the old man threw back his head and laughed joyously,
letting the rain wash unnoticed over his face.  Scooping up the mewling
bundle of life, he grasped hold of his horse’s bridle and began to drag her
along the track towards the village.

It was late
November in Nevelte and already the morning frosts had begun to linger until
noon.  In the small stone cottage that Mistral had called home for the
last sixteen years her adoptive parents were preparing their evening meal.

‘Brothertoft
sit down, we need to talk.’ 

Elnora spoke
to her husband in a voice that brooked no argument.  Noting the use of his
full name, Brothertoft finished scraping the scales from the trout he had
caught for their supper and wiped his hands on a clean cloth.  As he
turned to look at his wife, expecting to be in trouble for some domestic
misdemeanour or other, he caught the serious expression on her lined face and
immediately did as he was instructed, sitting obediently on one of their
rickety kitchen chairs.

Elnora’s eyes
were sad as she began to speak. 

‘It’ll be
sixteen years ago this month since you brought Mistral to live in our cottage,’
she sighed and gazed out of the window, smiling wistfully.  ‘I couldn’t
believe it – a child!  I’d accepted that we were a barren couple years
ago, and then –’she paused and took a deep breath, blinking back sudden
tears.  ‘These last few years have been the happiest of my life.  I
never thought I would have the chance to be a mother.  I had thought
myself blessed to have spent my life with you, Brothertoft.’  Elnora gave
her husband a fond smile as he reached across the table and patted her thin hand
comfortingly.

‘I know,’ he
agreed smiling indulgently, ‘we’ve been lucky.  She’s something
else.  Special I call it,’ he added in a voice full of pride.

Elnora looked
quickly out of the window to make sure nobody was near before leaning across
the table, her face contorting suddenly into a fierce expression.

‘That’s just
it!’ she whispered urgently.  ‘She is … and she isn’t!’

Brothertoft
frowned at her, his already wrinkled brow creasing into deeper furrows, ‘Just
what are you getting at woman?’  he demanded sharply.

‘You know what
full well I mean,’ his wife snapped, casting another anxious glance out of the
window.

The tiny
kitchen grew suddenly dark as heavy grey clouds rolled across the sky. 
Brothertoft didn’t respond, instead he stood up abruptly and walked across to
the window.  Placing his hands against the sink he looked broodingly out
at the fat drops of rain falling from the lead-coloured sky.  After a few
minutes he turned his back to the window and leaned against the stone sink, a
stubborn look on his face.

‘There's time
yet,’ he said defensively, but he wouldn’t meet his wife’s piercing look.

‘If we don’t
act soon, there will be no time at all!  Only last week Beattie Cooper was
asking me whether Mistral would be starting her training in the Craft this winter.’ 

The hint of
barely restrained panic in his wife’s voice made him look up sharply, his
expression obstinate ‘So, she hasn’t got the Craft strong in her, so what?
 Plenty haven’t!’ 

Elnora sighed,
her shoulders sagging; she didn’t feel as though she had the energy to argue
with him anymore.  Children of sorcering families were initiated into the
Craft on the winter solstice of their sixteenth year, an age when the Mage
Council decreed that they were mature enough to learn the intricate and dangerous
arts involved in becoming a sorcerer.  Mistral, however, had shown no sign
of having any sorcery in her at all and Elnora knew they had hidden her lack of
Craft for as long as they could.  It was time to face the truth.

‘Do you
remember when Mistral was a little girl she would tell us that she could see
colours around our heads?’ she asked softly.

Brothertoft
pulled a face, ‘Children tell stories,’ he said dismissively.

‘You know it’s
more than that,’ his wife persisted.  ‘She’s
knows
things without
being told.’

‘So, she’s
perceptive, it’s not a crime is it?’  Brothertoft thrust his chin out in a
mulish expression.

Elnora sighed
again and stood up slowly, just recently everything had begun to hurt. 
She moved over to the wooden dresser and began to collect plates and cutlery to
set the table.  Walking back with her hands full of plates, Elnora set
them down and fixed her husband with a hard look.

‘When was the
last time Mistral was here?’

Brothertoft
pursed his lips and looked speculatively up at the saucepans hanging from the
low beamed ceiling.

‘Oh, I don’t
know.  A couple of nights ago maybe?  Does it matter?  It’s not
like she’s a prisoner!’

‘Brothertoft,’
Elnora's voice was dangerously soft.  ‘It was three weeks ago.’

Brothertoft’s
eyes snapped to hers, surprised and then immediately defiant, ‘No it wasn’t,’
he argued.

‘Yes, it was.’
 Elnora’s voice was firm.  She began to move briskly around the tiny
kitchen preparing the supper with undisguised irritation at her husband’s
stubbornness. 

Brothertoft’s
face was creased in thought, he was trying to remember the last time Mistral
had been home and found that he couldn’t.  His memory was becoming more
and more selective these days.  He could recall clearly events that had
happened years ago whilst yesterday was often a puzzling blur.  He sighed
wearily and ran a mottled hand across his face. 

Elnora banged
a saucepan onto the stove with more force than was strictly necessary, dragging
his attention back to the problem in hand.

‘She’ll be in
the forests,’ his wife’s voice had taken on a sharp tone and Brothertoft eyed
her savage soup stirring with trepidation.  ‘Where she always is! 
It’s not safe I tell you!’  Elnora cried, whipping round to wag a wooden
spoon at him angrily.

‘Elnora, that
girl can handle herself just fine,’ he scoffed, wiping flecks of soup from his
face.

‘Exactly!’
 Elnora shrieked with another accusing stab of the spoon.  ‘How many
sixteen year old girls do you know like her?  She fights with boys twice
her size for fun and rides any horse she pleases as though it were a toy! 
Never mind
the fact that she’s
happy to spend weeks alone in a
haunted forest!’  Elnora spun around and began beating the soup again,
breathing heavily.

Brothertoft
made a show of examining his hands for any remaining traces of soup
spray.  The rain was falling in earnest now, drumming loudly against the
small lead-paned windows. 

‘She’s just a
girl,’ he said quietly, turning away to watch the rain sliding down the
glass. 

Elnora shook
her head in exasperation, ‘Just how deluded are you?’ she asked scathingly,
keeping up her furious soup-beating. 

Brothertoft
glared angrily at her back and was about to make a sharp retort when his wife
turned around with tears glistening in her eyes.

‘Oh Elnora I’m
sorry,’ his lined face sagged in dismay at her obvious sadness.  ‘I’m just
a stubborn old fool.’  Brothertoft let out a long sigh and slowly walked
over to take his seat at the kitchen table again. 

There was a
long silence broken only by the sound of the rain slowing and Elnora’s quieter
stirrings of the soup.  Brothertoft watched her for a while then turned to
look out of the window.  The rain had nearly stopped and the dark sky was
streaked with lighter shades of grey. 

‘What can we
do?’ he asked in a bleak voice.

Elnora kept
her back to him and moved the soup off the heat.  When she spoke her voice
had an odd strained quality, as though she was trying to control a suppressed
emotion.

‘She needs to
go and train in the Valley of the Ri.’

‘No!’
 Brothertoft banged his hand down onto the table.  ‘How could you
condemn our child to live the life of an assassin?’  he demanded in a
shocked voice.

Elnora laid
the wooden spoon over the top of the saucepan and turned to face him, tears
pouring down her withered cheeks.  She wiped at them angrily with her
apron.

‘Condemn?’ she
sobbed.  ‘More like liberate!  That girl is a wolf in sheep’s
clothing!  She was born to hunt and she’s not really
our
child is
she?  We don’t know who she is – or what,’ she added more quietly.

‘She’s no
child of mixed blood, I’m sure of it,’ said Brothertoft firmly.  ‘I’ve met
elves from the tribes in The Velvet Forests and Mistral doesn’t look a bit like
them!’

‘Brothertoft,
you know the Isle is a haven for more than just sorcerers and a couple of elven
tribes!  There are creatures living here that I’m sure Mage Grapple
himself isn’t even aware of!  Mistral’s not a sorcerer’s child; there’s no
Craft in her.  The truth is we don’t know what blood she has.’ 

Brothertoft
looked obstinate again, ‘Well, maybe she is a child of mixed race then. 
Sorcerers are always having affairs with elves and fairies; they can’t seem to
help themselves!  So what if Mistral is a half-breed?  It doesn’t
make her a monster!’ 

Elnora nodded sadly,
‘A half-breed, yes, that’s exactly what I think she is.  One of those
unfortunate children who are not accepted by their sorcerer parent as they
never have the Craft, and usually end up being shunned by their Arcane tribe as
well for being too different.  I think that’s why she was abandoned; they
often are.’

Brothertoft
frowned and shook his head in denial, ‘No, I don’t believe she’s a
half-breed.  I’ve met a couple and they always have a strange look about
them.’

‘And just how
normal does Mistral look?’  Elnora asked quietly.

‘She’s
beautiful!’  Brothertoft retorted angrily.  ‘A little wild, maybe,’
he amended after a moment’s pause.

‘Uncontrollable,
I think you mean.  And yes, she has a certain quality about her, but it’s
not exactly the pleasing and demure nature that would ever attract a
husband!’  Elnora exclaimed then heaved a sigh and walked slowly to the
kitchen table.  She sat down opposite her husband and reached across the
table to gently take his hands in hers, ‘Brothertoft.  Please be reasonable
about this.’

He stared at
her obstinately for a second then his face softened.  His wife looked more
careworn than he remembered.  He felt a sudden stab of anxiety for her
health.  Winter was approaching and talk was that it would be a hard one
this year. 

‘Are you ill
Elnora?’ he asked hesitantly.

‘Yes,’ she
nodded, reading the concern in his face.  ‘I think this may be my last
winter.’

Brothertoft
opened his mouth to protest but she held up a hand to stop him, ‘No, don’t,
please.  There’s been enough lies already.  It’s time to face the
truth.

‘When we’re no
longer here to shield Mistral, you know that the village will shun her. 
She doesn’t have the Craft and she’s too
different
for them to want her
living here.  What do you think will happen to her then?’

Brothertoft
was silent for a few moments, gazing sadly at his wife of nearly a lifetime,
‘She’ll become an outcast and live wild in the forests,’ he finally admitted in
defeat. 

The old couple
looked at each other for a long moment.  The rain had stopped completely
now and a shaft of late afternoon sun pierced the gloom of the kitchen,
throwing into sharp relief the ridges and contours of their aged faces.

‘The Ri will
give her a home.  She won’t be out of place there and when she’s trained
she can make a living being a hunter or a tracker.’  Elnora’s voice was
firm.

‘An assassin’s
life is a short one,’ said Brothertoft looking argumentative again.

‘She won’t
have a very long one living wild in The Velvet Forests either,’ retorted Elnora
sharply.   

‘What about
money?’  Brothertoft demanded with the air of someone clutching at
straws.  ‘We can’t send her without any money, she’ll need to buy –
weapons and things,’ he guessed wildly.

‘Brothertoft,
what is in the cupboard under the stairs?’  Elnora asked with a tired
sigh. 

Brothertoft
looked blank, ‘Only the fur pelts from the animals Mistral has brought home
over the years, I don’t see how – oh!’

‘Exactly, you
can take them all to market tomorrow and sell them.  That bear pelt is
worth a few coins on its own.  I shall be sorry to see the wolf skin go
though, it was nice and warm in the winter.’

Brothertoft’s
face worked silently while he tried to see a hole in Elnora’s reasoning. 
After a few moments he sighed. 

‘If you think
it’s for the best,’ he finally muttered in a defeated voice.

‘I’ll go pack
her things, we’ll talk to her when she comes home,’ Elnora stood up, suddenly
business-like and bustled from the room.

Brothertoft
stayed sitting at the kitchen table, staring unseeingly out of the kitchen
window, his old face sad.  Yesterday he had a family; today he had a dying
wife and a daughter that he was sending to become an assassin. 

Mistral
finally returned to Elnora and Brothertoft’s cottage at sunset two days
later.  Walking slowly up the dirt track that was Nevelte’s only street
she paused outside the small stone cottage that had been her home for so many
years.  Dropping her full saddlebag onto the floor at her feet Mistral
gazed dispassionately up at the smoke spiralling from the tiny chimney. 
Elnora and Brothertoft were obviously at home – but, weren’t they always? 
As her eyes slid over the tiny shuttered windows she reflected darkly that they
might as well have been barred with iron grills; the cottage had always been more
of a prison than a home to her.  Mistral sighed; shifting her bag onto her
shoulder again she lifted the latch on the small garden gate and decided to
make it a short visit.  She had only really been forced to come back to
pick up her wolf pelt.  It was starting to get cold at night in the
forests.