Chapter XXVII - Assassin

The day was long and quiet. Jaedon was not a very vocal person, but the absence of his constant presence shadowing Tancred was a little unnerving. Tancred could hardly remember a time that he had been bereft of the old warrior's company.

To fill the silence, Tancred spent the day making plans. He saddled Chale and rode across Ruma to study the palace entrances once more, calculating the best way to enter...and the quickest route to escape. Getting in would not be that difficult; he only had to worry about himself. Getting out would be completely different, though, for he would have to coordinate Zoe’s movements too. if her shoulder was still healing from Montel’s assault, that would also add further complications. She might not be capable of heaving herself up over walls and hurrying across difficult terrain.

He returned to his house in the late afternoon, full of thought and burdened with care. He knew his job and he did it well. But breaking into the Elangsian palace during a time of great tension and upheaval was without question the most dangerous and audacious thing he had attempted thus far. Perhaps the most foolhardy endeavor, too.

It did not matter. No matter how seemingly reckless, he would not leave until he either accomplished his mission or died trying. He smiled with a hint of cynicism. The latter seemed the most likely result of the matter.

Ah, but only You know the outcome, Deus, he prayed, glancing briefly up to the sky. There was nothing else he could do but trust Deus and take what he felt was the best and wisest course.

Tancred cared for and fed Chale, then entered the house. Supper was simple to take care of: some jerky, cheese, and a goblet of water satisfied him. After he was finished, he retreated to the artifact room and spent the remainder of the evening considering his next move, sharpening his sword, and thinking. He lit a couple candles, for the shutters were barred on the window and emitted just the faintest light.

Walking across the room, he stopped before the small table that was positioned against the west wall. Opening its single drawer, he reached beneath the numerous maps he kept there and withdrew a dagger. The assassin’s dagger. Tancred studied it broodingly. It was simply made; the leather-bound handle was worn, obviously having been a familiar tool of its previous owner. The blade was sharp and deadly. It was surreal to think it had been intended to pierce Tancred’s heart only a fortnight ago.

Instead of replacing the dagger to the drawer, Tancred laid the weapon atop the table. He blew out the candles and loosened the bar on the shutters, opening them enough to allow a bit of fresh air and moonlight into the otherwise enclosed room. He walked over to the wall opposite the window, where his bedroll lay. He and Jaedon had continued sleeping in the artifact room since the first assassination attempt and Tancred decided he would keep doing so until he and Zoe left Ruma. He was used to it now, and it was best that he did not change things up too much. Everything was different enough as it was, without Jaedon around.

Removing both his wrist and boot knives, Tancred loosened his belt and lay down. His hip dagger was still available for his use, and he positioned his broadsword within comfortable reach. Then with a sigh that came from deep within him, Tancred closed his eyes and drifted slowly into the oblivion of sleep.

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Hours later, he woke with a start.

Someone was in the house.

Shaking his head to rid himself of the numbing effects of unconsciousness, he blinked. A shadowy figure appeared in the doorway and stared across the room at Tancred. His broad figure filled the entrance and in his hand was a drawn sword. The situation seemed unreal and almost dreamlike, but Tancred knew it was definitely happening.

“Assassin,” he stated in an unnaturally calm voice, his muscles coiling for action.

“Your death,” the stranger shot back.

Tancred grabbed his hip dagger as the assassin sprang forward, sword upraised. The force of the two blades hitting each other threw the assassin slightly off balance, allowing Tancred enough time to get into a crouching position and readjust his hold on the dagger. You want to fight? he thought grimly. Fine then. Bring it on. He was sick of looking over his shoulder at every little noise, every unusual disturbance in the city, wondering if it was somebody trying to kill him. It’s time to end this.

The assassin swept in again, his assault strong. Tancred avoided it completely and jumped to the right of the blade. It saved him from being slashed, but—he grimaced slightly—it also took him far away from his sword, which he had not had time to grab. Tancred shifted his grip on his dagger and performed his own attack, forcing the assassin to defend himself for a second. He recovered all too quickly, however; Tancred did not like that. Whoever this man was, he was good. Very good. Who hired him? Who sent him after me?

As if proving Tancred’s thoughts, the assassin came at him with a fresh series of attacks and lightning swift blows that overwhelmed Tancred’s defenses. With a ring of steel against steel, Tancred’s dagger spun out of his hand and landed far across the room. Hot pain simultaneously exploded at his wrist; the assassin’s blade had cut him deeply below the palm of his hand.

Tancred leapt behind one of the two chairs in the room, his mind racing. He needed a weapon, and fast. The corner of his eyes snagged on the dagger he had laid on the table earlier the previous night. This assassin’s very own weapon that he’d used two weeks earlier against Tancred.

“Just die,” growled his attacker.

“Not tonight,” Tancred responded evenly.

“You’re without weapon. You can’t save yourself,” the assassin replied with a trace of mockery in his voice.

“I have more than enough weapons to defeat you,” Tancred told him, keeping his voice calm.

With a grunt the assassin shoved the chair aside with his foot. Tancred immediately dropped into a somersault to the left. When he had completed his roll, he came back up and swiped the long dagger off the tabletop. Satisfied and relieved that he had a means to defend himself again, Tancred quickly raised the weapon and deflected the next blow from the stranger.

An arresting pair of shale blue eyes suddenly locked with Tancred’s. Smiling a tight, small smile, Tancred quipped, “So, you recognize it?” They both knew he was referring to the long knife Tancred had grabbed.

“I will take it from your dead body before this is over.”

The fury in the assassin’s tone was surprising, and it alerted Tancred. Refocusing, Tancred amended the man’s death threat: “You will try.”

The assassin laughed; a hard and strange sound to hear at such a time. He attacked to the right and as Tancred moved to deflect it, the blood coating his palm caused his grip on the dagger to slip a little, making it a weak parry at best. Sword, Tancred thought tersely with a hint of urgency. He needed his long blade to even out the odds in the struggle.

The assassin attacked next from the left, providing the opening that Tancred needed. He jumped a few feet back and flipped the dagger around in his hand. He let the blade fly at the man while simultaneously turning and grabbing the hilt of his sword. Drawing the broad blade with a flash of silver steel, he turned and met the blue eyes of the assassin. To Tancred’s mild surprise, the man was grinning.

“You find this amusing?” asked Tancred.

“You have confidence, but not the skill. You can’t protect the ones you love; how will you protect yourself against me?”

For the first time, Tancred felt his relative calm evaporate completely. His face hardened. How much did this man know? Apparently too much, thought Tancred angrily. The next moment he charged the assassin, his sword upraised and in a ready position.

The two of them clashed, their swords flashing as they each poured themselves into the fight. This assassin was better than good, realized Tancred as the blades continued ringing against each other. Wherever Tancred pressed him, the assassin responded with strength and skill. When the assassin rushed in at Tancred, Tancred blocked and parried with equal fervor. The assassin played off Tancred’s weak wrist, however, pushing Tancred to use his injured side more than he typically would. He hid a grimace as pain jolted up his arm after a particularly hard strike from the assassin’s sword.

“Save yourself. Can you? You couldn’t save the girl taken to the castle, could you?” taunted the assassin, his voice cruel but holding a bit of glee that angered Tancred even more. In response he attacked harder, more furiously.

“Where did you send the old man and child, hmm? To their deaths? It’s dangerous out there.”

“You know nothing,” Tancred finally responded, his voice low. There was no way this man could know of how Jaedon and Grace were faring. They were many miles away by now. Tancred continued fighting, but his breathing was becoming labored. He had not faced so skilled an opponent for many years.

“I know the castle girl is dead. Gone because of you.”

For one second, all reason failed Tancred and he faltered. The castle girl was Zoe, obviously. But how did this man know about her, or her fate? It was impossible.

The assassin took advantage of Tancred’s brief falter and came harder. Tancred was hardly able to repel this attack and took a step back.

The assassin laughed and ridiculed him. “Pathetic.”

He came again, faster still, and Tancred struggled to keep up. It was unnerving how much this assassin seemed to know. What other secrets had he managed to uncover while in Ruma?

A moment later he found out. The assassin continued in the same sardonic tone, “She is the second one to die because of you in this city. Isn’t she?”

Shock waves rolled over Tancred. An image of Liam Ralyn flashed through his mind. How can he know about Father? No one but Shyla, Jaedon, Kristalyn, and a few of his men in Mairbrac were familiar with the details of Liam’s death in Ruma. If this assassin knew...this enemy of Aerilya...it could be devastating.

Stunned, Tancred stepped back and tripped over his bedroll, losing his balance for an instant and falling against the wall into a half-crouched position. A second later the assassin had struck the sword from his hand and it flew out of reach. Tancred’s eyes flashed up to meet those of the assassin’s. The man was standing over him, sword at the ready. Logic told Tancred that it was all over. He was weaponless and he had lost the dominate position.

“You couldn’t protect her and you can’t yourself.”

Intangible knives of regret and anger pierced Tancred’s soul at the words of the assassin. He had failed Zoe, and he had no reply for his accuser.

“Die, Hunter.”

The assassin raised his blade and it swept downward in a deadly arch—

—when a flying projectile flew past the assassin’s head and slammed into the wall close to Tancred, creating a deep dent and loosening splinters. A pot landed with a loud clang on the floor beside Tancred. The assassin spun around and Tancred saw his opportunity. Pushing himself erect again and leaping to the right, his hand swept down and reclaimed its hold on the hilt of his sword. Tancred had no idea where the flying pot had come from, but he was not overly concerned with finding that out...yet. Raising his blade again, he stood erect and turned to his attacker. In the weak light, the assassin’s expression registered a small amount of unadulterated surprise. He was not used to being thwarted while murdering, Tancred grimly realized. Whoever had thrown the pot was someone who was willing to help Tancred...and someone who this assassin had been sure would not be a problem tonight.

It did not matter at the moment. It was time for Tancred to get some information of his own, while the assassin was still thrown off guard. “What do you know of the castle girl?” he demanded, using the name that the assassin had used for Zoe.

The man lifted his sword but shrugged very slightly. “She is of little consequence to me. I am concerned only with your death.”

“That’s not going to happen,” stated Tancred, his voice cool and even.

“But it already has. I’ve killed your spirit and we both know it.”

“You know nothing of my spirit, Assassin,” Tancred replied firmly. “Nor will you. Tell me of the girl.”

The assassin sneered, “Are you so concerned for her that you forget about Kristalyn? Shame you will die without knowing about either.”

Fiery rage and icy fear converged on Tancred and he stopped for one horrible instant. This was too much. The man seemed aware of everything. A roaring sound filled his ears as he demanded, “What do you know of my sister? Where is she?”

It was as if his words had turned the assassin into stone. A dozen emotions flicked across the man’s face, almost too quick for Tancred to register. Regret, anger, pure shock and more flew through his blue eyes in the space of a few seconds. Tancred struggled to emerge from his own shock as he watched the assassin’s curious reaction. What had Tancred said that had been so astounding to the man?

Then, to Tancred’s surprise, the man turned his sword to sheath it. Just before he shoved it into the sheath, he flipped the blade over once; then he drove it in with a smooth whisper of steel. Tancred blinked. This night was odd and getting odder. First, why was the assassin giving up after what was really just a brief distraction? Second, flipping the sword like that was exactly the same thing that Zoe did before she sheathed her blade. It was a strange, nightmarish sort of thing to see somebody else, especially this assassin, perform the unusual move.

The assassin turned away toward the door. He was turning his back to his opponent? “Stop!” called Tancred. He wanted answers before this man disappeared like a wraith. “Why are you quitting?”

Pausing for a moment but still not turning back, the man replied, “Oh, I’m not.” His voice sounded icy but Tancred detected a note of something else—what, he could not tell—in the assassin’s voice. “I will kill you, make no mistake. It is only delayed for a time. Enjoy the moments you have left.”

Tancred’s face darkened. “What do you know of my sister and the castle girl?”

“They both live. I don’t know of the castle girl, but the other is well.” The assassin spoke quietly and decisively, then walked through the door and disappeared down the hallway.

Tancred did not follow. It would be pointless. The assassin would not give him any more information, and he apparently had decided not to kill Tancred tonight. The front door clicked shut quietly, but Tancred remained frozen in place, sword still lifted. His mind was spinning and he did not like some of the conclusions he was drawing.

After a long while, he lowered his blade and deliberately crossed the room to its sheath. Sliding the blade into it, he picked up the pot and walked across the hall to the kitchen. He silently placed the vessel in its place on the shelf and moved to a bucket of water that sat on the hearth. He stared at it. Now that he had more time to think, he wondered who had thrown it.

A thought occurred to him; he reached into an inner pocket of his jerkin with his left hand and slowly withdrew the note that he had gotten two weeks before. He studied it again. Its message was cryptic as ever: Skilled assassin remains and waiting to kill. Very persistent. Be on guard.

An involuntary, humorless smile fleetingly crossed his face. He had met the assassin face-to-face now. But whoever had written this note was still at large, and if Tancred was not mistaken, that person had been the one to thrown the pot, saving Tancred from death.

Replacing the note to his pocket, Tancred picked up the bucket of water from the hearth and moved it to the table in the center of the room. He washed his wounded hand in the bucket and a cloud of steely crimson blood stained the water. The cold water purged the deep cut, stinging terribly. He suppressed a grimace and distracted himself from the pain by urging his mind to other places.

It seemed that for all the care that had been taken in protecting the secret of Liam Ralyn’s death, somebody had spilled that information. How else could the assassin have known about the original Hunter’s death in this very city? But who would have shared such classified information with the assassin? Who was the traitor?

He began tallying what exactly the assassin knew. He’s aware of Father’s death; he knows who Jaedon, Grace, Kris, and Zoe are—though he did not appear to know Zoe’s name. If Captain Ricald had hired and sent the assassin after Tancred, as Jaedon and Tancred had tentatively agreed a couple weeks ago, then how much did Ricald know? Was he aware of Tancred’s history and family loyalties? How? wondered Tancred, feeling frustrated.

The worst part was that he had absolutely no idea who would share that information. He trusted his mother, his sister, Jaedon, his men. Zoe understood that Liam had been murdered in Ruma, but Tancred was certain she would not have collaborated with an assassin against him. They had not gotten off on the right foot, certainly, but she was not plotting against his life anymore. He smiled tightly. Half a year ago I might have suspected her, but no longer, he thought with a trace of weariness.

By this time he had gathered a needle and thread from a drawer in another room and brought it back to the kitchen. After a few frustrating moments he threaded the needle and sat down at the kitchen table. He laid his right arm, underside facing up, on the tabletop. Gently he positioned the tip of the needle by the edge of the cut, which still oozed blood, and set his jaw.

Piercing the already tender skin by the deep slice was worse than painful, but he forced himself to keep his hand steady and pulled the first stitch out the other side. Looping it around, he threaded it through his skin again, and again, and again; he pulled softly but firmly on each precise stitch to completely close the wound up.

Again he forced his thoughts away from the throbbing pain. Reluctantly he allowed his mind to meander to the topic he was most concerned about at the moment, yet had not wanted to face because of its ramifications: Kristalyn.

He did not know how she became associated with the assassin, but the man had known Tancred’s little sister’s name and used it to shock and disorient Tancred at the very end of their clash. Not only that, but the assassin had apparently been around Kris recently if he had been able to tell Tancred that she was “well.” Tancred’s lips tightened and he tried to push down the mixture of alarm and fury that arose in him at the thought of his sister being anywhere close to the assassin. There were few things that could arouse Tancred’s temper, but his family in harms way was definitely one of those few things. His sister was smart and strong, but the last thing Tancred wanted was for her to be in a position of danger.

He had been out of contact with his mother and sister for months now; he had no clue where Kris was stationed anymore, if she was on another mission, or perhaps back to relative safety in Mairbrac. Not knowing how she was faring was the worst possible fate he could have been given. He hated being helpless to aid her if she needed it.

The needle’s sharp, unyielding prick as he made another neat stitch in his quivering skin caused him to wince. “Deus,” he muttered between his clenched teeth. “Protect my sister.”

I cannot protect her myself.

He hated to admit it, but it was true.

Exhaling deeply, he struggled to concentrate. It was all too much. The assassin was a huge problem. He was not just going to disappear. He had promised he would finish what he had started that night, and Tancred believed him.

Zoe was still in the palace, wounded and a prisoner. His heart clenched strangely as he briefly pictured her. He could almost feel her dark green eyes on his face. Thoughts of her in captivity—rash, strong, untamable Zoe—were also killing him.

King Jaeger needed information on the Wild Men and the alliance; Tancred could only hope that Jaedon was at that very moment on his way to deliver it. If something happened and Aerilya fell to Elangsia for lack of information, because Tancred had not stayed in Ruma for Zoe instead of delivering it himself, that would be just another burden for Tancred’s over laden shoulders to bear.

Lack of knowledge of where Kris was and what she was doing was slowly beginning to chip away at Tancred’s endurance. He felt stretched—too far in too many directions. His loyalties to his country, his family, Zoe, and his men were all strong and demanded so much. Kris. Zoe. Shyla. Assassin. Jaedon. King Jaeger. Warrick.

Their faces flashed before his eyes and he silently cried out to Deus. Am I strong enough for this? How can I be strong enough?

Methodically he knotted and severed the last tail of thread. A row of stitches stared up at him, looking small and guiltless in the weak light of the embers on the hearth. He raised the injured arm slightly. His whole body tensed at the sharp throbbing that washed up his forearm and down into his hand and fingers. It would take time to heal completely. He’d have to be careful not stress the wound or the surrounding muscles too much, unless he wanted to permanently cripple his hand.

Just one more thing to worry about, he sighed. Deus. Be with me. Strengthen me.

Because there is no possible way I can continue this without You.