Master Assassins Page 2

  The mob thins swiftly, north of the Palace. Kandri shivers: the day’s warmth is gone. The sun has set behind the Coastal Range; in the east, stars blaze already, untwinkling as always over the desert, the fierce, famished spider-eyes of heaven.

  He thinks: My brother’s deluded. The Prophet won’t make us fight the Ghalsúnay alone. We’re her children, she says so. Why would she send us to our deaths?”

  Men with torches by the East Gate, surrounding a pair of wrestlers, cheering them on. Outside, on the village road, a few early prostitutes in skintight wraps.

  “Touch me. Touch me! Use those soft little hands.”

  A low voice, slippery as oil soap. Kandri frowns: he knows the voice; it belongs to Skem, the Waxman. There they are in the shadow of the hospital: the pusher and his unlucky whore. Kandri almost shouts an insult. He loathes Skem; quite a few men do. He has seen the effects of wax, a drug applied warm to the skin, a drug that holds off hunger and fear but makes animals of addicts, a drug that corrodes the soul. But why confront Skem? What good can it do? The camp has a dozen wax dealers and they thrive on abuse. Kandri walks on, suddenly breathless. Muffled cries from behind him. Tang of antiseptic on the breeze.

  He stops.

  Bemused, he looks down at his feet. Damned if he should be stopping. No good will come of it. Don’t look back there. Just don’t.

  He looks back. There are three people, not two, by the hospital wall. The one he took for the prostitute is in fact a man, standing beside Skem and helping him restrain a much smaller figure. A child. Kandri spits out a curse and starts toward them, noisily, making his intentions plain.

  The men turn. Kandri catches a whiff of the clove oil Skem combs into his beard. He does not know the second man, a pale, enormously muscled soldier with a bottle tucked under his arm. But the man knows him, apparently. “It’s crazy Mektu’s brother,” he says.

  “No insults,” says Skem. “We’re all brothers here. You need a fix, Hinjuman? Normally you’d have to tell me by third rotation, but you’re in luck, I have plenty. Wait around the corner ’til we’re finished.”

  “I’m not a waxer,” says Kandri.

  “Then fuck off?” suggests the larger man.

  They are holding a village boy. Gag in his mouth, pants around his ankles. The boy’s white eyes turn to Kandri, pleading. Skem’s fingers are tight around his neck.

  “You can have a turn when we’re finished,” he says. “But I’ll need a few ghams from you, Kandri. Only fair.”

  Kandri feels his throat constrict. He is not a brawler, either; in fact he hates to fight. The very prospect afflicts him with a clammy sorrow like the onset of disease. He unbuckles his machete. It hangs there, loose on his belt. He looks the big soldier in the eye.

  “You just step away,” he says.

  With a lazy motion, Skem pulls the boy against his side. Fitted over his knuckles is a thrusting dagger, five or six inches long. He rests the flat of the blade on the boy’s cheek. Then he glances at Kandri, and his look is oddly coy.

  “Do you know what I think?” he says. “I think you’re a bit sentimental, Hinjuman. Maybe you had a sheltered childhood. Or a baby brother you were fond of. That’s all right. In fact, it’s sort of endearing.”

  “In a bitch,” says the pale soldier.

  “But little Faru here,” Skem continues, “is nothing to any of us. A gnat. Or in the words of our Prophet, one leaf in a forest aflame. What’s more, you don’t fuck with me. Everyone knows that. Because if you do, if you fuck with the Waxman, someone calls on you in the night.”

  Kandri stands very still. This rumor too has reached his ears: that Skem employs some kind of enforcer. An assassin, that is. A man who waits in darkness, cuts throats from behind, vanishes without bloodying his hands.

  The big man drains his bottle ostentatiously. Reversing his grip, he swings it hard against the hospital wall. The bottle shatters; the man proffers its jagged neck.

  “In a hurry to bleed, Hinjuman?”

  Kandri shakes his head. “I don’t want to fight at all.”

  “Who does?” says Skem brightly. “Waste of a nice fucking evening.” He taps the dagger against the boy’s cheek, then bends to kiss the small round forehead. “You’d like to get this over with, wouldn’t you? Tell him, boy. Go ahead.”

  The child’s bare legs are shaking. His eyes lock on Kandri’s own.

  “You can’t save them all, Hinjuman,” says Skem brightly. “Now if you’ll kindly—”

  The boy’s head jerks. His teeth close on Skem’s hand below the dagger, and despite the gag in his mouth, he draws blood. At the same instant, Kandri moves, striking Skem’s face dead on with all his strength. Three blows, half a second. Skem drops like a sack, and as he does so, Kandri whirls to face the larger man.

  The soldier hesitates; Kandri does not. Right elbow to jaw. Left arm swipe, bottle blocked. Right fist. Left knee. Down.

  “You fff—”

  Kandri kicks the bottle away, battling the urge to be sick. He hates fighting, but he is very good at it. He has killed six times in his three years in the army, but managed to finish his last deployment without killing anyone. He wants to believe he can finish his life.

  Skem is wheezing, spitting blood. He claws at the boy, whose teeth are still locked on his hand.

  Kandri puts his boot on Skem’s neck. Bending, he takes a firm grip on the dagger. “Palejek,” he says to the boy. “It’s all right. Let go.”

  At first the boy is uncomprehending, or perhaps unable to respond. Then his mouth opens and he flings himself away and is gone instantly in the darkness, a fish thrown to the sea. The big soldier lies curled in a ball. Skem cradles his hand, eyes bulging, mouth agape. Twisting his neck, he looks up in horror at Kandri.

  “Yatra,” he says.

  Last week Skem had held forth from his bunk. How he paid whores only in wax. How he’d massage the drug into their scalps as he took them from behind. How days later they’d crawl back to him on their knees, give him anything, their bodies and gold besides. “And who are you to judge me?” he demanded, although no one said a word. “I’m the same as anyone. I get pleasure where I can.”

  From women too hungry or frightened to escape you. From girls so worn out from hauling water or firewood, they fall asleep by the brothel door. From boys like that Faru, fleeing with the gag still in his mouth. Kandri’s hands are shaking. He touches the machete he never bothered to draw. Men will sleep with village women, or foreign women from the war zones, or any women they can buy with scrip or coin or half a cabbage. Those with money even go with the Kistrela courtesans, who ride in like dreams on their slate-grey stallions, galloping along the perimeter fence, swords aloft, twisting in the saddles to reveal a dark thigh, a naked midriff, taunting the men with their unbearably suggestive songs.

  Lust is currency, lust is a common tongue. Kandri himself has spent money on women: you can’t refuse without declaring yourself a lulee. But he cannot fuck them. The moment he is alone in their brothel chambers, their squalid huts, their tents half a mile from the killing fields; the moment they light a candle and he sees their gaunt cheekbones, their fingers cracked from years at the washtub; the moment their thin flanks and worried nipples emerge from threadbare clothes, his desire makes a blushing exit, his lust vanishes like a breath of song. He’s not indifferent. He wants to be there, to sit and rock these women in his arms. But to take from them. To take the least thing, a sigh, a shadow, the stroke of a hand—no, that is unthinkable. He pays what they ask for, endures their bafflement, hopes they will not talk.

  Later, he boasts with his comrades: That girl Annuli with the melon ass, oh brothers, she has fire down there. And that tongue, I shouldn’t be talking, forget I spoke will you, leave her to me.

  He has not touched a woman since he joined the army. It is his secret agony, his private shame. But a child. He could have killed Skem tonight with one swing of his machete. A braver man would have done so.

  The weapons shop
is always brightly lit. There is the yellow glow of oil lamps, dangling on chains from the roof beams; and there is the furnace, smoldering like the throat of a dragon. The broad front doors stand open, letting a little of the dragon’s breath escape.

  Kandri pauses at the threshold: he does not wish to blunder in on an officer. Tonight, however, he sees no one, not even Chindilan. Only the small desert bats come and go, improbable acrobats, feasting on the insects drawn to the light.

  He steps within. The heat of the fire welcome, the night already cold. He whistles for Chindilan—they are friendly enough for whistles, though the older man will pretend to be annoyed—but no answer comes.

  Arranged near the furnace are the anvil, stacks of raw iron, cooling tubs, and a rough table on which Chindilan lays out his tools. Kandri moves carefully between these objects. Where can the smith have gone? The furnace is roaring; in its mouth, a length of iron glows red upon the coals.

  Then Kandri sees the knife.

  It lies on a clean blue cloth at the center of the table. He knows it at once for a mattoglin, one of the huge desert knives of the Parthan nomads. It is almost as long as a machete, and it broadens near the tip, where three vicious teeth curve out like bending flames. A weapon made for beheading, disemboweling, for killing with a single blow.

  This mattoglin, however, was clearly made for a prince or sartaph, or some other ruler of men. The steel blade is inlaid with gold in a beautiful swirling script that races from the pommel to the teeth. The pommel itself is a smooth, cream-colored wood bound with rings of gold. Small rubies like droplets of blood encircle the hand guard, and at the base is a pale blue stone the size of a quail’s egg. Under the lamps the stone gleams like enchanted ice.

  Kandri’s heart is pounding. He has never been alone with such wealth. How can it be lying here? Why is it not under guard?

  He glances left and right, then starts to turn away. But the blade is fascinating, and he will never again see such a thing. Not once. Not ever. He reaches out to touch the stone.

  “Little bastard. Get your filthy paws away.”

  Kandri nearly leaps out of his skin. The smith is seated at the far end of the building, copper jug in hand, broad buttocks tipping back on a stool.

  “Uncle! I was just—”

  “Trying to get your head snipped off. That knife belongs to the Enlightened One.”

  Kandri shivers. Of course it does. Who but the Prophet could possibly afford such a treasure?

  Chindilan rolls to his feet and saunters near. He takes a towel from around his enormously powerful shoulders and mops his face. He is Molonji by birth; his family comes from the great cattle-herding lands of the south, but he has spent so many years among the Chilotos that only his bulk and pure-chocolate blackness hint at his origins. A leather apron covers his torso like a suit of mail; his jeweler’s glasses are high on his forehead. There is no smell of liquor on him: he drinks only water, gallons of water, when he works.

  “She left you alone with this knife. The Prophet trusts you, Uncle.”

  Chindilan scowls at him, cockeyed. “Stop calling me Uncle. I’m not that old.”

  Kandri smiles. He will always be Uncle. In point of fact, they are not blood relations, but the bond between Chindilan and his family is absolute. The smith is his father’s best friend, and godfather to all six of the Old Man’s children. Before joining the army, he had eaten at their table three or four nights a week.

  “I don’t know why they left me alone,” he says. “For a while, the men who brought it were standing around like goons. They wanted it sharpened, nothing else, and I was nearly finished when their commander showed up and took them away. He said a new team would be along any minute to collect the knife, but I’ve been waiting over an hour. I wish they’d fucking arrive.”

  “Is it old?”

  “Old? Is the ocean large? Is the desert hot at noontime? That’s a Kijinthu blade, from before the Empire of the Kasraj. It’s ancient. Why are you here?”

  “Can I touch it?”

  “No, imbecile, keep your Gods-damned distance! Step over there by the door.”

  “It’s cold.”

  “So is a spear through your belly button. Why are you here, Kandri?”

  “I want to know about the Spring Offensive, Uncle.”

  Chindilan glares at him again. He is, in fact, old enough. He pulls off his jeweler’s glasses and slides them into his pocket.

  “You look starved. Like a rat.”

  “I’m all right,” says Kandri.

  Chindilan sighs and walks to the table. He lifts a small wooden box and brings it back it to where Kandri hovers by the door. He lifts the lid.

  Inside are sausages, glistening with oil, lined up like cigars. Kandri’s head swims. He has not tasted sausage in years.

  “Take one. No, take two, but eat them both right now.”

  “They’re fresh, aren’t they? Who the hell gave them to you—?”

  “Ojulan.”

  Kandri’s hand snaps back as if from a live coal. Ojulan is the Prophet’s third son. Also a gleeful killer, a maniac. Unlike his elder brothers, he has no military rank, and takes little interest in the War of Revelation. He is mercurial; he can be found drinking with the troops at sunset, and whipping their backs to ribbons before the rising of the moon. He is not clever like his brothers. His speech is notably less refined. But for all this, the Prophet dotes on him, cherishes him, perhaps more than all the rest. Consequently there is no more dangerous man in the camp.

  Chindilan gestures at the knife. “That’s his mattoglin you wanted to touch.”

  “Devil shit. You said it was the Prophet’s.”

  “She’s making a present of it to the Thirdborn. He wants to use it in war, can you believe it? That thing belongs in a museum, or mounted on some sartaph’s wall. And not just because it’s priceless. There’s a history behind that knife, I gather. Dark sins and curses. Rubbish, if you ask me, but Ojulan believes it will make him a hero on the battlefield. Take the sausage, Kandri.”

  The meat is so delicious it hurts. For a few precious moments Kandri cannot think of knives, pushers, Ojulan, Mektu’s terrible rumor. Chindilan laughs and pokes him in the chest.

  “You mention these to anybody, it’s your ass. He had a whole wagonload of dainties. Wine, brandy, licorice, seed cakes, honey cakes, hams. Straight from the Valley. He gave me these with a big smile. It’s true what they say about his teeth.”

  “Gold?’

  “Solid gold. Six or eight of them, anyway. Jekka’s hell, but that smile gave me the creeps.”

  Kandri gestures at the mattoglin. “It won’t be damaged. Ojulan never goes anywhere near the fighting.”

  Chindilan’s smile fades. “He’s going north with the Third Legion.”

  Kandri is speechless. North is the largest, hottest front, where the Važeks resist them still. The depraved and bloody Važeks: that is the phrase all children learn. Merciless occupiers before the Prophet drove them out. Lunatics, liars, believers in a single God.

  “Why now?” says Kandri.

  Chindilan leans close. “Ojulan had to have the knife,” he murmurs. “They say he was squirming, begging. That he promised to become a war hero, if only Mommy gave him this toy.”

  His uncle’s disrespect chills Kandri’s blood. What has gotten into everyone? To call Her Radiance—that. Even to whisper such words in confidence. Even to think them.

  He puts the rest of the sausage in his mouth and chews. The meat seems almost flavorless now. He wipes his hand on his trousers.

  “Mektu says we’re going to attack the Ghalsúnay. Just our legion, just the Eighth.”

  “He’s right,” says Chindilan. “There was talk of it this morning. In a day or two everyone will know.”

  The chill deepens. “Are they hurt somehow, the Ghalsúnay?” he asks.

  Chindilan shrugs.

  “Maybe their crops failed? Or they’ve suffered some disease?”

  “I couldn’t tell y
ou, boy.”

  “Because otherwise it’s madness,” says Kandri. “The Eighth Legion’s too small. You know what happened last time.”

  The smith rubs his face. All at once he is reluctant to look Kandri in the eye. “Not as well as you do,” he says.

  Just past midnight a team of soldiers comes for the knife. They are led by Ojulan’s deputy, a ferocious officer named Idaru. A colonel and a terror in his own right, Idaru stands six foot ten. On his cheeks are the ritual burns of the Mesurat clan: spirals that look as if they were made with heated wire. He storms up to Kandri and screams in his face: what in Jekka’s hell are you doing here, who are you to gaze at the Prophet’s gift to Lord Ojulan, were you planning to steal it, you dog?

  Kandri’s uncle lifts his hands. “I asked him to be here, Colonel. I didn’t know what was happening. Lord Ojulan told me he’d be back within the hour.”

  “Lord Ojulan is”—Idaru stammers—“busy, detained. Lord Ojulan has a thousand cares!”

  “Yes, sir. And I knew Corporal Hinjuman would fight to protect his property, just as I would. He’s like a son to me, sir.”

  The colonel’s nostrils flare. “That is good, then. That is excellent. Why did you not speak up for yourself, Hinjuman? The Prophet requires boldness of her men.”

  Kandri promises, with great contrition, to be bold.

  “See that you are.” Idaru’s eyes shift to Chindilan. “Your man here could be out drinking and fornicating, smith, but instead he is here with you, guarding the Thirdborn’s property. I am pleased with you, Hinjuman.”

  “Thank you, Colonel,” says Kandri.

  “Your breath is somewhat foul, however. Do you brush your teeth?”

  “Twice daily, sir.”

  “Show me.”

  Kandri opens wide. Before he knows what is happening, the colonel’s hand is in his mouth.