The Assassin King

36

Within the dark hold ahead a candle was flickering.

Dranth peered within. “Do come in. It’s impolite to linger in doorways.”

The voice was rich and deep, but with a knife’s edge to it. It issued forth from the blackness of the ship’s hold, disembodied. Dranth looked for the source, but the shadows were too heavy, and kept shifting as the boat rocked. He steadied himself and stepped through the opening. Around the small open room other candles began to spark into light. Dranth, no stranger to such meeting tactics, remained still, waiting for the illumination to drive some of the shadows out. He could see shapes in the comers, far enough away from the candleflames to avoid clear sight, but near enough to present a show of numbers. At least one of them was the blacksmith, from his outline. By his estimate there were eight people in the room in addition to himself and Yabrith, who was still lurking outside the opening. He snapped his fingers, and his henchman stepped into the room.

The flickering candle that had been alight the whole time began to glow brighter as other wicks in it were lit. Dranth saw that this was being done by a slight man with red hair and thin, sharp features, all except for his eyes, which were enormous and owlish; they glowed like beacons in the dark. As the radiance in the room expanded, he could see the man was wiry and not particularly tall, with fair skin mottled by the sun and vaguely pocked with age, and perhaps drink. “And who is calling this fine evening?” the red-haired man asked. “Dranth, from the Raven’s Guild,” the guild scion said. “I come under the auspices of the Golden Measure.” Some of the dark figures around the room exchanged glances, but the red-haired man merely nodded. The countersign was one known only to guild hierarchs of all types, and would only be recognized by the leaders of such organizations, whether they were tradesmen, craftsmen, merchants, or thieves. Dranth had used it to confirm what he already suspected; the man at the table was the leader of the Spider’s Clutch. “Do you now, Dranth from the Raven’s Guild?” the red-haired man said idly. “And what is it you want?”

“I’m looking for John Burgett.”

“Aye, you’ve found him,” said the man. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? This is the first time one of your guild has come in person; generally we have just communicated with your mistress by bird.”

Dranth’s dark eyes took on an impatient gleam in the half-light. “I have a proposition for you that was too important to trust to any messenger.”

“Really now?” said the man who called himself John Burgett, amused. “We’re honored, of course. What is this weighty proposition? And why didn’t your mistress come herself if it’s so important?” He pointed at two stools near the table. “Please, sit. You’re looking a little green around the gills.”

Dranth did not know if the guildmaster was testing him, or if word had just not reached the distant shores of Golgarn, but he decided the risk of revealing the truth was minimal, given the geography.

And given the poison gourds he had stashed about his person, a toxin to which he and Yabrith were both immune, but that would be released upon any attack against him. He sat, nodding to Yabrith to do the same.

“Esten is dead—murdered,” he said flatly. The words cost him dear; he still had a gnawing pain in his gut at the very thought. “I speak for the guild now.”

The shadows in the room exchanged glances again. There was even an intake of breath from one comer, Dranth noted with some satisfaction. His mistress’s reputation had been well known. And well deserved. Only the red-haired man appeared unmoved. “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Burgett. “What is your proposition?”

Dranth crossed his hands on the table board in front of him. “I seek your help in the planting of some information valuable to a friend of mine,” he said directly. “A simple task, really, and easy to accomplish, especially given the Spider’s Clutch’s proclivity for moving headquarters.”

Burgett smiled broadly, revealing remarkably white teeth.

“Aye, we do that indeed,” he said. “Like our namesake. I assume you’ve seen dock spiders, or perhaps their desert-dwelling cousins, who spin webs of singular artistry in eaves or between fence posts or on pylons? Someone comes along with a broom or a cloth and destroys this beautiful creation with, a single sweep, and yet the next morning there it is again, in the same place or another, equally magnificent?”

“I suppose,” said Dranth dryly.

“Well, such is the need of our guild. Unlike your own, which I hear is able to operate in plain sight, due to the weakness of the leaders of your province, we are a poor band, struggling under the oppression of the crown. With all the trade in the port of Golgarn, every other blasted person on the street is a soldier or military sailor, skilled at fending off piracy and other sea crimes. In short, Dranth, Golgarn is crawling with the law. Not much for a self-respecting guild to do but operate in the shadows and learn to be adaptable.”

“Understood,” Dranth said. “And if you agree to help me, I may be able to assist in changing that situation.”

The shadowy figures exchanged glances again.

“Is that so?” said John Burgett. “That’s a tall order. Let’s hear the details of your proposition.” Dranth sat back. He reached into his cloak and pulled forth a packet wrapped in leather. “You will begin meeting again in one of your former eaves, fence posts, or pylons—some place that has been raided before and was known to have been a hideout of yours, where your proverbial web was swept clean. It doesn’t matter where, as long as the crown has known of it. Then you will arrange for them to know of it again—and they will raid it again. When they do, you will have scattered, naturally—but they will find various booty, perhaps weapons, perhaps contraband, but most especially, they will find these documents.”

“And if I could read these documents, what would they say?”

The boat shifted, and Dranth’s stomach lurched. The men from the Spider’s Clutch didn’t seem to notice.

“They are maps,” he said, “maps of tunnels five miles beyond Golgarn’s northwest border, where the Firbolg are encamped, massing for an attack.”

The only sound in the room was the creaking of the ship and the slapping of the waves. Then, to a one, the shadows began to laugh.

“Firbolg?” said John Burgett in disbelief. “Are you certain they are not also in league with hobgoblins and trolls?”

Dranth did not laugh in return.

“I assure you, Mr. Burgett, that when your king sends scouts to investigate these documents, and he will, he will find such an encampment in those mountains.”

“He will?”

“Yes, he will. Bad sanitation, bones strewn at cave entrances, the entire nightmarish scenario—however ludicrous you and I know it to be. It’s cost me quite a bit to set up, but it’s impressively realistic.”

The red-haired man smiled even as his brow furrowed. He interlaced his fingers and brought his hands to rest on his belly.

“All right, I’m intrigued. What possible gain is there for you—and me—in persuading Beliac that the Bolg are massing in the hills outside Longsworth?”

“It’s a diversion,” said Dranth. “Beliac will panic at the prospect of Golgarn being a feeding ground for the Firbolg. And since he does not have the land military power to do anything to stop it, he will turn to an ally who does—and commit his naval forces, as well as whatever pathetic army he has—to the service of that ally in return for being saved from the big, bad Firbolg—who could care less that he, or any of you, exist. For you, it means that the omnipresence of the military will be over; once the men of Golgarn have been conscripted into the war that is to come, you can emerge from the shadows into the light, where you will discover many unguarded citizens and visitors to your fair land who are without the protection they once enjoyed. Not to mention ships. You can raise the practice of your profession from shadow thuggery to, well, whatever you wish it to be. And my aforementioned friend, who coincidentally happens to be the ally to whom Beliac will turn, will get the support he craves for his war.”

Burgett exhaled. “And for you?”

A tight smile finally cracked Dranth’s features.

“The Raven’s Guild will obtain what it most dearly desires—vengeance on the one whose actions put me in charge.”

The owlish eyes glistened with interest. “Very well,” the red-haired man said after a moment, his deep voice smooth and resonant. “I will accept your proposition, Dranth from the Raven’s Guild. Go back to the wharf— follow the man you came here with—and proceed on alone by night to an inn just to the lee of the north gate of the city. You’ll know the place by its firebrands outside, and the white straw of its roof. Go in the side door and ask the woman at the bar to send out her husband to speak to you. Tell him you are looking to buy a dray mare, and give him your papers. You can be assured they will be found as you hoped.”

“And what is the name of the man I am seeking?” Dranth asked, rising from the table and steadying himself on his feet. “Just in case there is more than one woman in the bar in the inn with a husband.”

The pearly teeth gleamed white in the darkness of the boat’s hold. “Why, his name’s John Burgett, of course.”

When the raid on the inn was accomplished, the papers took almost no time in making their way to Beliac’s table.

The king was in the middle of his breakfast at the time, sweetening the whey in his porringer with molasses, when the messenger arrived from the very efficient commander of the city’s police brigade.

Upon opening the commander’s packet and reading the contents, the king spat his breakfast the entire length of the table. The Queen of Golgarn, seated across from him, rose from her chair in disgust, even as his adult children choked back laughter. Scouts were dispatched forthwith, as Dranth had predicted. Upon entering the mountain passes to the northwest of the prefecture of Longsworth, they came upon a sight that had been relegated to the stuff of nightmares a thousand or more years old. From the bases of the first mountain pass to the summit of the hills that led up into the mountainous reaches, a pathway of human bones had been carefully bordered with a series of fencelike posts.

Each crowned with a human head in varying stages of decay.

The stench of the encampment, issuing forth from a variety of repulsive sources, was so overwhelming that two of the four scouts immediately turned from the scene and retched. The more intrepid two, possessing somewhat stronger stomachs, ventured up alongside the path in tree cover until they were in position to observe through a spyglass the encampment itself. A series of caves, hidden from view from below, were being loosely guarded by tall, broad manlike creatures, hirsute and covered in filth, who sat sharpening cruel-looking weapons and setting up catapults with arms that could easily lift burdens of two hundred stone or more. They appeared to be training their weapons defensively on the mountain passes, but had shown evidence of positioning similar encampments farther up the hillside, from which the town would be not only visibie, but within range.

Dranth and Yabrith remained in Golgarn, taking rooms at the beautiful Sea Duchess inn in the heart of the Jeweled Streets and enjoying the fine cuisine of the port city, including the new experience of seafood, which Dranth found to be quite to his liking. Yabrith, still suffering queasiness from the smell of the sea, was unable to stomach anything more gastronomically challenging than fish stew.

It was only a matter of days before the word came back to the palace. While neither of the men were privy to the conversations of the king and his scouts, there was no mistaking the outcome.

They were sitting out on the terrace of the Sea Duchess one fine morning when a royal mail coach came clattering through the finely cobbled streets, the driver urging the horses mercilessly in order to meet the outgoing tide.

“What do you suppose the message he’s carrying says?” asked Yabrith idly, picking the sausage out of his teeth with an ivory shard as they watched the carriage driver delivering a package under seal to the yeoman at the docks.

“Can’t imagine,” said Dranth, folding his napkin. “But something tells me it may be time for us to head home—I have had as much as I can tolerate of the hospitality of John Burgett.”