fixated on the need to kill and survive. He and Nortah moved together as they had learned to do all those years ago, back-to-back, swords cutting through flesh and bone in repeated blurring strokes as they described a lethal dance through the disordered ranks of the assassins.
Despite the chaos caused by their attack and Alum’s ferocity, Vaelin saw no sign of panic amongst their enemies, responding to this new threat with a uniformity that put him in mind of Volarian slave soldiers. They drew back from the Red Scouts to form a tight defensive knot in the centre of the meal hall. A series of barked orders from Sho Tsai soon had the Scouts and surviving soldiers marshalled into a circle, spears and swords levelled as they closed in for the kill.
Hearing a guttural shout at his back, Vaelin whirled in time to see Chien withdrawing her staff-sword from the guts of an assassin who, having feigned death, had reared up and attempted to drive a dagger into Tsai Lin’s back. The Dai Lo gave her a stiff and very brief bow of gratitude before moving to stand alongside his father.
“Crossbows, Dai Shin?” he asked, nodding at the increasingly tight knot of assassins.
“Dead men don’t talk,” the captain replied. “And I’ve a yen to meet whoever organised this reception.”
As if in response the clustered assassins became instantly still, all movement vanishing and not a breath uttered. Then, as one, they collapsed, weapons clattering to the floor from lifeless hands. Sho Tsai quickly moved to the nearest body, checking for a pulse or movement to his chest, then cursing when he found nothing. A quick examination of several more bodies revealed the same result.
“Check the wounded!” the captain ordered, but a thorough examination of every assassin in the hall confirmed that none remained alive.
“Gone to their ancestors and taken their secrets with them,” Chien observed, using her sword to lever away the mask of one assassin. “Same as the other one,” she told Vaelin. “His heart wasn’t stopped by poison.”
“Other one?” Sho Tsai demanded of Vaelin.
“There were two, actually,” he said. “And as for who organised this, the stonemason has a very clear notion.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
They found Governor Hushan in his rooms, weeping beside a pool in a bathing chamber, the deep red of the water a stark contrast to the finely illustrated porcelain tiles covering the walls. He whispered barely audible entreaties as he wept, fingers playing in the red-stained water, eyes fixed on the body of his third wife.
No poison for this one either, Vaelin thought, seeing the deep gashes the woman had slashed into her arms, single cuts reaching from wrist to elbow. Her blood would have drained in seconds. In death she appeared more human now, the doll-like visage rendered empty and ugly. Just a dead woman floating in a cloud of her own blood. Vaelin doubted she could be more than twenty years old.
“No shame . . .” the governor sobbed in a thin voice, crimson water rippling as he reached deeper into the pool. “He teaches there is no shame in failure . . . He would still have welcomed you home . . . welcomed us . . .”
“Who?” Vaelin asked, tone deliberately soft, solicitous. The discordant shrillness of the governor’s voice, and the wild cast in his eyes as they snapped to Vaelin, told of a man with a greatly weakened grip on reason. “Who would have welcomed you?”
Hushan stared at him in blank silence for a time, tears streaming from unblinking eyes to his beard. Then he laughed, a thin, grating giggle that soon built into a hearty bellow of genuine mirth.
“Traitorous cur!” Sho Tsai spat. Hushan barely seemed to notice, his unabated laughter causing the captain to step forward, sword raised for a killing blow.
“Wait,” Vaelin said, moving between them. “Dead men don’t talk, remember?”
He crouched at Hushan’s side, offering a good-natured smile to the governor’s continuing mirth before pointedly shifting his gaze to the dead woman in the pool. “She wasn’t really your wife, was she?” he asked.
Hushan’s laughter stopped at that, expression abruptly shifting into a mask of grief. “She was bound to me,” he murmured. “And I to her . . . in His sight. Our bond went beyond the mere formalities of marriage. Through her, I heard His voice from across the Steppe . . . Such clarity she brought, such wisdom . . . What am I now?” His gaze swung back to Vaelin,