“He’ll owe us all a fortune when the list’s done. It’s likely he’ll try to stiff us for the rest.”
Breia chewed her cheek. The list was two thirds complete. Only one more page of targets remained. Carefully allocated to each of them by the Necromancer himself, each “target” had proved to be a ne’er-do-welclass="underline" a drunk, a bum, a down-and-outer with no hope and no light in the eyes. “What about his tower? Why build it if he’s planning to disappear once we’ve done the job? Besides, he’s already paid us a third of the coin.” A sudden thought sent a shiver down her back. “What’s to stop him hiring another band to get rid of us?”
Terrano’s eyes flashed azure in the brightening light. He grinned another sunrise and tapped his left ear. “Simple, Bree. The Diamond Dogs are the best. That’s why he sought us out, and that’s why another band would think no more than twice before turning down such a dangerous assignment.” He winked at her. The five kiffs in his earlobe winked also, reflecting the pale sun. Four studs of metal, and the fifth, a brilliant white diamond. Of the seven in their band, only Breia did not yet wear the high kiff. She fingered her own earlobe. Four kiffs: copper, bronze, silver, and gold. The last piercing still stung. She had come to the gold only last month, but Terrano spoke true. She smiled wryly.
“The best,” she agreed, kicking Ashen to a canter. Leaving doubt and the mysterious tower behind, they rode on.
By the time they reached Riverton, Breia’s stomach howled with hunger and her rear felt like a slab of stone. “Carannah’s Tits,” she muttered, standing in her stirrups and rubbing her saddle-numbed backside.
Terrano chuckled, turning his horse toward a public ostlery. “A beautiful round arse like yours, and it’s not a good cushion?”
Breia bared her teeth at him. Ashen’s iron-shod hooves clanged on the stone of the yard. She slid from her saddle with a groan of relief, and handed the reins to the ostler’s lad. A tossed silver piece brought a grin to his clear-skinned face. “A good rubdown, mind.” Breia arched a brow at the boy. “And the best grain, not the leavings.”
Terrano leaned forward, resting his forearms on the pommel of his saddle. The roan shifted beneath him and snorted. The fading sunset sent a last wash of golden light over his face, then died, casting his features into shadow. “Until we meet again, Princess.” He touched a finger to his forehead and kneed the horse from the yard.
“The road home?” Breia called after him.
His teeth showed white in the gloom. “The road home,” he said over his shoulder, his voice and image fading into the dusk.
“Take care,” she whispered, then turned her thoughts to her night’s work.
Later, slouching beside a midden heap up to her ankles in foul-smelling, freezing mud, Breia cursed the unpredictable nature of these assignments. She shifted her position, hoping she needn’t wait much longer. Her fingers warmed in her armpits and her breath steamed in misty whorls before her face. The Necromancer’s scrying told him where the target would be-when the target would arrive was not so easily predicted. This night, she knew that a man dressed in russet would pass this way: a man bearing a pauper’s candle-lantern and wearing a distinctive hat of red hessian.
A night bird called. Breia held her breath at a sudden rustle behind her. A small rodent sprang from the midden heap and scurried past her. A large shadowy form swooped from a rooftop and flew after the movement, ghosting on silent wings. She was only distracted for a moment, but long enough for the approaching man to notice her, to check his hurried progress through the moonlit lane. She cursed, tightened her fingers on the knife she held, and stepped from the shadows.
It happened quickly. Moving with practiced ease, Breia stepped into the man’s path. His breath steamed in long streams, his eyes wary. He raised his candle-lantern and opened his mouth to speak, but Breia laid a finger to her lips and shook her head. A small frown crossed the man’s face. One step, one thrust. Breia’s longknife entered the man’s belly, tore up through his gut, and found his heart. She held the knife firm. He grunted. The frown melted into surprise, then faded. Breia saw death-knowledge in her victim’s eyes even as blood ran from his mouth. A last choking breath sprayed her face with wet warmth.
“Tits!” She spat and wiped her mouth against her shoulder. Heat flowed over her hand, warmed her fingers. When the man sagged against her and life faded from his eyes, she let the body fall. Still allowing no feeling, no reaction, she listened to the night. No sound other than the light wind. One last task. She bared the man’s neck. With quick strokes of her knife point, she scratched a symbol into the skin beneath his hair. Blood oozed, dark and slow, from the death-mark. Number eight. Two to go, and the list would be complete. The band would collect their promised payment from the Necromancer and move on.
Breia slunk away from the midden heap, keeping her thoughts from the stink of blood and the sound of flesh riven by steel. Her penance would be paid in the long hours before dawn. Dead men’s fingers crawled along her spine at the prospect. Damn Terrano. She could have used his solid presence in her bed this night. Even Tagrin, bless his dark heart, kept the specters at bay. Touching cold fingertips to the burn of the golden kiff in her earlobe, she entered the empty lane behind the ostlery and slipped through the tackroom door.
Ashen’s whiskery muzzle probed Breia’s neck with warm and moist insistence. The horse lipped at her ear. Opening gritty eyes, she pushed him away and yawned. He blew gently and stamped a hoof in the packed straw. Breia pulled her blankets closer beneath her chin.
“By the Divine Witch, I hate cold.” She extended a reluctant arm from her bedroll, clutched her mantle, and drew it beneath the blankets, only succeeding in entangling herself in the fine-woven garment. “Tits!” She stood and wrapped the mantle around her shoulders, shivering and goose-bumped in the chill morning. Blasted alchemists. Couldn’t they have worked a little heat magic into the robe? Her “Mantle of Exclusion,” gifted to her by a Sister of the Flame of Fianna in return for services rendered, had yet to be put to the test for any of its purported protections. Still, she wore it in the hope that it would deflect weapons and magic. And besides, its ability to conform to the wearer’s shape and size made it a damnably flattering garment to wear. It also hid armor plates and weapons alike beneath its clever folds.
The night had taken its toll, as usual. Fatigued and irritable, Breia saddled Ashen and made a clandestine exit in the dawn’s peach glow. Breakfast could wait until she reached the first town on the road home. As well to be away before the frozen russet mound was discovered beneath the dusting of snow that had fallen overnight. A layer of innocence over a dark deed, she reflected. Carrannah forgive me. These killings lay like stones on my soul. She heaved a sigh. Two more. Then she would return to good, honest mercenary hire-outs. No more knifing desperates in the dark. No more nights of relived killings, of eyes leaking life and light.
And yet, the Necromancer’s coin had been too good to refuse. A small fortune, in fact. Enough to ensure a comfortable future. After all, a bluff woman such as herself was unlikely ever to know the comforts of the marriage bed. As if she had need of a man. She had always provided for herself, and among her fellow mercenaries she had found acceptance, although it had been hard-won. A few cracked heads had convinced them she was a worthy fighter and not an easy mark. She grimaced and tightened numb fingers on the reins. Except for Terrano. He had observed her struggle for acceptance, for respect and a place in his small band. Observed with his usual amused indifference and kept his distance.
Kicking Ashen to a canter, she shook her head. Terrano was not averse to sharing her bed, but he never sought her out. It was always she, drawn like a moth to a bright flame, who instigated their trysts. She sighed, her breath misting only a little in the warming air. She knew his reputation. Ta-grin had delighted in passing it on. He used to hire out to the Temple Tribunes in Tamisia, until they found him humping a priestess or two. Tribs didn’t take too kindly to that. Ran Terrano out of the last five northern regions he tried to work in. Similar stories abounded. Don’t be getting fond of him, Bree, Tagrin had warned her.