Weapon of Flesh (4 page)

“Yes Master,” he said, scurrying off to the baths, unsure of the command, yet forced to comply by the magic that coursed through his veins.  He placed the strange cloth on a chair in the bathing room and quickly stripped out of his loincloth.  Soap and water was applied judiciously, though he was again unsure why he would need to bathe after only a ten-mile run in the rain.  But bathe he did, and thoroughly; he could
not
disobey.

The real dilemma was the Master’s order to put on the clothing he’d been given.  He’d seen others wearing such things, and these were not any different than what the servants wore, but he’d never worn pants or a tunic, and he’d never watched anyone dress.  It took him a while.  He put the pants on back-to-front once and struggled briefly with the tunic, unsure of the lacings, which he eventually decided to leave hanging loose.  The cloth belt he wrapped double around his waist and cinched tightly in a knot he knew would not slip.  The last he did as he sprinted back to the great hall, which was now slightly less chaotic, thought still strange.

Every servant he had ever seen in the keep stood in a straight row, all facing the hall’s entrance, and all fidgeting nervously.  Something was definitely amiss!

The boy stilled his mind and took his place, exactly where the Master bade him return to, for he could do naught else.  He stood and waited, enduring the itching clothing, calming his hammering heart and stilling his tumultuous thoughts.

“Good!”  The Master’s bellow echoed through the hall, surprising everyone except the boy.  Now the Master approached him and his face changed.  It stretched into a smile, something the boy had never seen.  His eyes raked the boy from toe to brow, and his staff rapped the floor smartly.  “Very good!  We are ready to leave.”

“Leave, Master?”  The boy did not understand; leaving was something other people did.  The trainers, the people who brought food and other things, they left.  How could the Master leave?  How could
he
leave?  He had been here in the keep, on the plateau, his entire life.  Where else was there?  His agile mind briefly flashed with memories of lights in the distant forest.  Maybe they would go there.

“Yes, boy, it is time to leave.  Your training is complete, as are the spells I have woven into your flesh.  It is time to fulfill your destiny.”

“Destiny? 
My
destiny, Master?”

“Yes.  Now, go stand by the cart and wait for me.”

“Yes, Master.”  The boy sprinted out of the great hall and stood by the sturdy two-wheeled cart, questions whirling around his mind like leaves on the wind.  What was a
destiny
?  He’d heard the word before, of course, but never really understood its meaning.  If they had to leave for him to fulfill his, perhaps it meant something people did when they left.  If the Master was leaving with him, would they find the Master’s destiny as well?  He forced the questions down, knowing that he would not get answers to them until the answers presented themselves.  Two cleansing breaths brought calm, and shifted his mind into the enforced quiescence of a light meditation.

He took in his surroundings -- the keep, the courtyard, the sights, sounds and smells that he had known throughout his short life.  The thought that he would not ever see any of it again came to him, and he mulled it over, finding the concept difficult to grasp.  He could find no remorse in leaving his lifelong home, though he may not have been capable of such an emotion.  He had no desire to leave, and he had no desire to stay.  His desires had never been a significant issue in his creation, so he did not consider them.  All he considered was what lay beyond the plateau, what they might encounter and what his destiny would hold.  For curiosity was an emotion inseparable from every human psyche.  The Master had deemed it necessary for survival, and it had not been suppressed by the magic like many of his other emotions.  The magic had not taken everything human away from him; not quite.

The groan of bronze hinges stirred the boy from his calming meditation; the Master stood at the great doors of the keep, drawing them closed with a dull boom of finality.  Then his hands moved in graceful arcs, and words that the boy could not understand pulsed through the air with power.  When the words ended, a subsonic tremor shook the castle to its very foundations, and a fine spiderweb of white light traced every seam in wood, metal, glass and stone.  The Master turned and descended the steps to the courtyard, dusting his spotless hands upon his robes.

“There we are, safe and sound.”

This did not make sense to the boy, but his comprehension was not required, only his obedience.  The Master climbed into the seat of the wagon and released the creaky brake, and then turned to his silent minion.

“We are going on a journey.  At the end of that journey your destiny awaits.  You will walk beside the wagon and remain wary, for the world beyond the plateau is dangerous.  If there is trouble upon our path, you will use all the skills you have been taught to combat it.  Is that clear?”

“Yes Master,” the boy said, tensing and relaxing muscles in the rhythmic patterns that brought him to a state of calm preparedness.

“Good.”

The whip cracked over the backs of the two stout horses, and the wagon lurched forward.  The boy followed without a word, too many unanswered questions whirling in his mind as he walked away from the only home he had ever known.

In the city of Twailin a tower rose in the midst of a grand estate.  It loomed above the tile roofs and ornate balconies of the homes of the richest nobles and merchants that populated Barleycorn Heights.  But the master of that estate, while more wealthy than the vast majority of his neighbors, was not a highborn noble or a merchant, as many thought; at least not in any commodity that anyone wanted for their own.

The master of the estate stood upon his tower this evening, looking down on his wealthy neighbors, disdainfully.  His name was Saliez, though none of his associates used that name.  They called him only “Grandfather,” though he had sired no children, nor taken any under his care.  He was the Grandfather of Assassins, the headmaster of their guild, a merchant in death.  Terror and killing were the only commodities in which he dealt.

Business was good.

Business was so good, in fact, that not a facet of commerce, government or graft within the city of Twailin was beyond his grasp.  He wielded more power than that sniveling Duke Mir, sitting so smugly in his walled keep, high on the bluff that overlooked the city, and surely garnered more respect from his guild members.  Why, not even the city constabulary, half of whom were on the Grandfather’s payroll, respected that doddering old fool.  Only the Royal Guard remained steadfastly loyal to Duke Mir, but he had spies aplenty among them.  They were no threat.

The Grandfather’s minions, the entire Guild of Assassins, respected him utterly.  They had learned to respect him.  They had learned that disrespect resulted in death, or worse.  And there
was
worse.  They had all witnessed worse first hand.  They had witnessed it from the Grandfather’s own hand, for he was not only their guildmaster, he was their foremost practitioner.

But this night, despite the distain he expressed toward his highborn neighbors, the Grandfather of Assassins was elated.  He had come to this, the highest point in all the city save for the spires of the Duke’s Palace, not to gaze down at those who were nothing but contracts or clients to him, but to take delivery of a message that his eyrie-master had just received.  He held that message now in his triumphantly clenched fist, for his life was soon to become much easier, and his business tenfold as lucrative.  The message he clenched so tightly bore only two lines, lines that only his eye would ever read and understand.  He flattened the crumpled parchment once again, though he had read it many times already.

Your weapon is ready.

I will arrive with it in seven days.

~ Corillian ~

“Arrogant bastard,” he muttered under his breath, crumpling the parchment again.  “Sixteen years, and he makes me wait another week!  Ha!”

He turned and stalked back into the tower, casting the crumpled note into one of the glowing braziers that lit and warmed the eyrie.  He could wait one more week.  After all, he’d been waiting almost two decades for this.  What was seven more days?

By the beginning of their third day on the road, the boy was beginning to think that the only true danger in the world beyond the plateau was boredom.  They’d been plodding along at a pace that could be challenged by any tortoise in good health, and the most dangerous thing they’d encountered had been a nasty patch of poison sumac.  Every night they ate their stew and he watched while the Master slept; then in the morning they would eat their porridge and the boy would pack their gear.  The Master allowed the boy the few hours of sleep he required in the back of the wagon during the early part of their daily travels.  He would wake him around mid-morning and order him to once again resume his plodding pace beside the wagon.  The boy’s keen senses attended to their surroundings as the Master studied his books and scrolls, lounging in the driver’s seat.

The trip would have been endurable, even pleasant, if not for the boy’s nagging curiosity.  So many questions rattled around inside his head that he began to be distracted by them. 
Where were they going?  How long would it take to get there?  What was a Destiny, and was his different than anyone else’s?
 He had even tried to ask the Master for some answers to these questions, but had just been told to be quiet and vigilant.

After three days, he was bored with being vigilant.  Oh, he was still watching and listening as best he could; the spells of obedience required him to do exactly as he was told.  Yet, while his eyes and ears were tuned finely to their surroundings, his mind wound through complex trails of thought, surmising this and imagining that, all concerning his destiny.  It was undoubtedly the distraction of his own tumultuous thoughts that allowed him to be so caught unaware.

The snort of a horse snapped his attention back to his razor-sharp senses in a heartbeat, and he immediately knew that there were at least six people on horseback hidden in the brush on either side of the road.  They were still a stone’s throw away, three on each side of the muddy track.  The boy could hear their breath, their mounts shifting, the creak of leather on harness and belt, and the click of an arrow being nocked onto a bowstring.  This did not bode well.

“Master,” he said in his usual calm tone.

“Yes, boy.  What is it?”

“Men with horses and weapons are hidden on either side of the road fifty paces ahead.”  He heard the rustle of paper and the thump of one of the Master’s books landing in the bed of the wagon.

“Well, now.”  The Master’s voice held a waiver of interest, perhaps anticipation.  “Well, well, then.  Keep walking boy, but be ready.  They mean to rob us, and we will have to kill them.”

“Yes Master.”  Some of the Master’s words were unfamiliar, but the last were clear enough.  The boy relaxed, slipping into the pre-fight meditation that prepared his body and mind.  He catalogued his opponents, their number (which was seven, not six as he’d previously thought), their weapons and their positions.  From this, he estimated the order in which they would attack and whom his first target would be.

As he predicted, the bandits crashed from the woods when they were about ten paces away, startling the carthorses, and bringing their bows to bear.

“Ho there, old man!” the burliest of them said, leveling a heavily-built crossbow at the Master and bringing his fidgety black mount abreast of the two cart horses.  “This here’s a toll road, and you’re only allowed to pass if you pay up.”

“Toll road?” the Master said, a quirk of amusement in his voice.  “I wasn’t aware of that.  This is open land, sir, unless I miss my guess.  And you are nothing but a thief.  I’ll not pay, and you’ll let us pass.”

The boy could hear the falseness in the Master’s voice and quickly reassessed their foes; six men and one woman sat astride well-kept mounts.  They all had bows: three crossbows, three hunting bows and the woman bore a short hornbow.  Her eyes flickered between the boy and his Master, nervously.  The crossbows were cocked and loaded, which meant they could be fired readily.  Those would be his first targets.  The others would have to draw and take aim first, which would take at least two seconds; plenty of time.  He shifted his feet upon the rocky road, readying himself.