Age of Assassins by Rj Barker

Author:Rj Barker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2017-08-01T07:00:00+00:00

Interlude

This is a dream of what was.

He is ten. He knows what his master does but he has never seen her kill. He is not sure he wants to, but there is foreknowing in the dark clouds of the horizon, in the brown crisp leaves whipped up by the wind biting through his woollen clothes, in the whispering bare tops of the stunted trees.

Today he will witness death.

“Master, are they people or hedgescares?” he says as he trots along behind Xus. His master raises her hand to cover her eyes and stares into the distance. The long golden grasses with heavy seed heads hiss in the wind.

“People,” she says. “Come.” She puts down a hand and lifts him up onto Xus’s saddle. “Shade your eyes, Girton. Tell me what you see.”

He does as he is told. It is hard to tell the difference between rag-wrapped people and the rag-wrapped statues believed to scare away the hedge spirits of field, forest, pool and souring.

“Mounts, Master. Three mounts and a blood gibbet.”

“Yes,” she says. Her words are no more than breath on the wind. “Down, Xus,” she says, and the mount hunkers down into the grasses. She does not want to be seen by the people. He does not need to ask why so he stays quiet and counts as he has been taught. “One my master. Two my master.” He loses count at two hundred and twelve and, eventually, the people leave and Xus rises.

They make their way to the blood gibbet. It has been erected on the line where the grasses abruptly stop and the yellow land of the souring begins. Below the gibbet is a black mark where blood has been spilled on the ground. Green shoots are pushing their tips through it.

In the gibbet is an old woman and she terrifies him. She is a sorcerer and people like her caused the sourings. Maybe she will curse him or suck his blood to replace what she has lost.

She doesn’t look evil, not when he looks closely. She looks old and pained. With a squeak the breeze spins the windvane which lifts the brake on the slow-weight with a click that makes him jump. The old woman grunts as dirty blades are spun to reopen half-healed wounds on her arm and let out a slow trickle of blood.

“Barbaric,” he hears his master hiss.

“But the magic has to be reclaimed by the land,” he says. He heard a Landsman, looking fine in bright green armour, say as much in a village a year ago.

“Maybe, but there’s no reason it should be strung out so. Blood is blood, life is life.”

“But why do they do it this way then, Master?”

“Girton, when I buy you a bag of crispy pigskin, do you eat it all at once or do you save it and make it last?”

“Make it last.” He doesn’t understand what crispy pigskin has to do with anything. He would like some crispy pigskin though, it is his favourite.

“Does that change the taste?”

“No, but it lasts longer.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.