Farek wore a muddy green robe and creased beige amongst the throngs of commoners. He stumbled between a woman in a long, wide blue dress and a man with a large wooden shield hanging from his back. Shields were only used by the valiant knights on the Great Isle, where the scattered forests gave them plenty of space to line of stage silly battle sports. The man had come far. Not nearly as far as Farek, who had only marched down from Coin Hill, bought this cheap disguise in the bog farm market where the citizens of Var Nordos sold tarragon, verbena, and dill from the southern swamps. He had descended to Lord Thrane’s estate once again, but was allowed onto the grounds by the main gate.
Lord Thrane was holding audience in the central hall of his mansion, governing over all of his employees, servants, and businesses. Today, Farek was one of a hundred bodies that packed into the hall to hear the Lord’s decisions. While the ill rumours around Lord Thane were bountiful, Farek had seen nothing of substance aside from Thrane’s tryst with a woman in his cellar. He doubted an audience would reveal any further corruption, but he wanted to see Lord Thrane from yet another perspective.
It was an overcast day, so the servants had lit braziers and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Flickering lights cast shadows of the ceiling beams against the walls, but kept the dais where Lord Thrane and his wife sat. Someone was asking Lord Thrane to bail out his brother, an employee of the Lord’s fishery business who had been wrongfully imprisoned.
Farek did not want to be caught in the middle of the crowd, where new patrons of the Lord’s favour were constantly calling out for favours or business, so he turned and made his way toward the right wall of the enormous audience hall. A side door was open half a foot, and a man had just slipped through. For a moment Farek wasn’t certain if his peripheral vision had caught what he thought it had. A bald man with a bulk pack over one shoulder…? Was there not also supposed to be a guard posted at a side door like this?
With a sigh, Farek stepped closer to the door. There was no sign of a guard, and the door was clearly unlocked—Farek could see through the crack between the frame and the door. He gently opened it and looked inside. The man he had spotted had disappeared up a flight of stairs.
He took another look around the crowd in the audience hall. Everyone was watching the dais, not him. Lord Thrane folded one leg onto his other and listened to the plight of a second citizen, a man who claimed he was owed two-month’s wages that had not been paid. The lord’s face was unchanging, his long greying hair tucked behind his ears. He scratched his square, well-kept beard, and waved his hand dismissively.
Farek stepped through the door after the bald man. He crept up the stairs to a hallway that ran parallel to the great hall, and spotted his target near a red and grey tapestry. The man was rummaging in his bag. Farek stepped across the hallway as silently as he could and hid among the folded corner of the tapestry, pressed against the cool stone wall. The rest of the corridor, past the stairwell where he had emerged, was open on the left side to overlook the audience hall. They probably allowed the crowd up here in times of overflow.
The man produced a crossbow from his bag, and smoothly slid a bolt into place. With one boot he yanked the string taut, stepped up to the balcony opening, and took aim into the large chamber below.
Gods, is he going to kill Thrane? Farek wondered. Was this the assassin he was supposed to stop? Gravagan, the magician he had spoken to a few months ago, had predicted the first of two signs—Farek was to save Thrane’s life from assassins.
But as Farek stood there, watching the killer wait for an opportune moment, he could not bring himself to intervene. Thrane was a corrupt ruler, a weakness to Soros most likely, and a criminal too. After his night infiltrating Thrane’s residence, it seemed no areas of the lord’s life were free of filth. Besides, Farek thought, I’m not letting some sorcerer determine my fate.
The Gallendris prince waited for the assassin to release his bolt.
A moment passed, and then it flew. A thud was heard, in the shocked silence, before screams erupted from the great hall below. The bald man was already bagging his crossbow.
Farek stepped out from the tapestry and rushed forward, bringing his fist swinging down toward the assassin’s hunched neck. The man heard him and dropped lower. Farek fell off balance, but instead of attacking, the contract killer withdrew quickly, rising from his crouch at an angle and shoving Farek into the tapestry. The rough weave caught Farek’s fingernail, but he reclaimed his footing quickly and lifted his hands to protect himself.
The assassin was already six paces down the corridor, springing full tilt away. He had left his crossbow bag where it lay. Farek stormed down the hallway after him, his sandy cap discarded. They burst from the hallway, through a lounge room, and across the balcony. The bald man soared from the railing to the roof of the covered well below and hopped onto the wooden shingles of the stable.
Farek made it onto the well alright—the courtyard was virtually empty and the guards downhill at the gate to the grounds could not see their chase. When Farek leapt after the assassin onto the stable, he shorted it and sprawled along the angles roof, scratching his shoulders and knees on the shingles. He reclaimed his footing and shimmied up the roof.
The assassin was already flying onward, over the wall of the estate and into the city. Farek went after him, sliding down the stable-top toward the estate wall. A guard, looking out from the estate, started shouting. “On the roof!” he hollered. The sentry wasn’t looking at Farek, but at the assassin, who was running along a rooftop nearby. The killer heard the shouts, and quickly dropped into the street.
Farek peaked over the peak of the stable. The guard was gone, and Farek was quickly scrambling over the wall. The assassin was on Katak Krazo, but that was a poor choice. If there was one thing that Farek knew perfectly, it his bank, his city. He landed on the salty cobblestones and grimaced from the impact—Thrane’s wall was a good height. Katak Krazo was the most direct street to Harbor Centre, if it was not the middle of the afternoon. Right now, Katak Krazo would be shoulder to shoulder by the time a pedestrian reached Old Drezo’s Hill. The assassin didn’t know it, but Katak Krazo was the wrong choice.
Lord Gallendris took Moon Krazo, jogging between wagons. The street was busy too, full of shop keepers and shoppers, but Farek elbowed his way between them. When he reached the Harbor Centre, the town square in the city closest to the port, he turned right and entered the opening of Katak Krazo.
As predicted, the assassin shoved his way through the crowd and right towards Farek. The latter kept his head down until they were shoulder to shoulder, then slammed the man in the jaw with his palm and popped his arm up behind his back in a pressure grab. The assassin was a pro—he knew all the moves. A stomp for Farek’s foot, a face grab with his free hand, fingers grappling. Farek shoved him into a side alley and smashed his head off the rock wall, just once.
And then, Farek Gallendris dragged the unconscious killer back to the estate of the late Lord Thrane. He smoothed his hair and looted the body—though there was nothing but a single, out-of-place leather glove that he pocketed. People gave him a wide berth, even along Katak Krazo. The crowd parted ways for a man with another man shouldered around his neck. It was hard work, though the assassin wasn’t a large man.
The guards at the Lord’s property were still letting panicked people out from the estate, searching and questioning each. They stared and lowered spears at him as Farek approached. “I saw him,” Farek told the warriors. “Fleeing from your estate along Katak Krazo… Is he wanted here?”
“The assassin,” one sentry breathed.
“There’s been an assassination?” Farek asked.
One guard whispered to another, and the second held up one hand. “A moment, Lord Gallendris. We’ll take him from here, and someone will be here momentarily to thank you. I’ll just see who.”
Farek set the assassin down against the opened gate and smiled. He could only imagine the chaos inside. Had Thrane’s wife assumed control, or his mistress? His smile was one of politeness, but it masked a small amount mirth.
Until Lord Thrane came walking down from the estate, past the stable, and face to face with him. “Master Gallendris,” he murmured. “How did this happen? You caught this man for me?”
“I did,” Farek said, “Though I’m still unclear on what exactly he did.” That, at least, was honest.
Lord Thrane ran his fingers through his long grey hair and frowned. “He killed a man in my employ. A shop keeper and foreman. The man was just about to ask something of me, in my audience hall… Now I may never know what.”
“Your own safety was at risk!” Farek exclaimed. “How fortunate are you.”
“I’ll have my security doubled, I assure you,” Thrane said. Did he suspect it would interfere with Farek’s coming and going also? And what of the prophesy—that Farek would save Thrane’s life. Farek wondered if this had been the assassination that Gravagan had foreseen, a poor set of circumstances that made it appear he had averted an attempt on the lord’s life.
“And what of the man’s information, the man who was killed?” Farek asked.
“I assure you, we’ll get what we can out of the killer and investigate internally. Thank you, Master Gallendris.”
“Could I attend the questioning?” Farek asked.
“It’s better handled by my men. But I’ll share a drink with you soon,” Thrane said. “You’ve done me a great service today.”
Farek gave his best grin. “You’re paying,” he said. He would need to learn more about the man he let die today.
“Of course,” Thrane said, holding out his hands.
When Farek turned and paced away from the corrupt lord, he let his mask fall. He walked back to Coin Hill with a scowl and a single leather glove, and asked Norrey what he knew of assassins.