beseeching, earnest in its desperation. “Without her, what am I?”
Mad, to be sure, Vaelin concluded, looking deep into the void behind the governor’s eyes. But there must still be knowledge in there somewhere. “She heard his voice,” he said. “The Darkblade. Through her, he spoke to you.”
“More than mere words . . .” Hushan got unsteadily to his feet, Vaelin gesturing for Sho Tsai to stay put when the captain once again readied his blade. “Through her I saw so many things.”
The governor slipped into the bloody pool, the white and silver pelt of his cloak staining red as it trailed in the water. Fresh tears fell as he enfolded the dead woman in his arms. “She showed me what will be. The fire and fury of it all. The destruction of the southerners who made us their whores.”
A defiant glint crept into Hushan’s eye as he cast a glance at Sho Tsai. “For which my family have beseeched Heaven for so long. And finally they answered us, with Him.” The expression drained from his face once again as he looked at the woman in his arms. “With her. Your whoremaster king can send all the armies in the world, it won’t matter, for I have seen what will come. This”—he pulled the woman closer still, crushing her limp form to his chest—“was but the first taste.”
“He told you to kill us, didn’t he?” Vaelin asked, careful not to employ too demanding a tone. “Our arrival here was unexpected.”
“You?” The governor’s voice regained a measure of mirth as his eyes flicked from Vaelin to Sho Tsai. “Him? The Thief of Names and the Merchant King’s errand boy.” He began to weep once more as he cradled the woman’s head against his shoulder. “You are not worth a single drop of this precious blood. He will deal with you in time, for his minor amusement.”
“Then why?” Vaelin pressed. “Gathering so many assassins here must have taken weeks. Preparing this place to ensure its fall when the Stahlhast come without arousing suspicion couldn’t have been easy. Why gamble it all now?”
“Ask the errand boy.” A disgusted, almost pitying grin played over Hushan’s features as he jerked his head at Sho Tsai. “Does the Temple of Spears really think it can remake the past . . . ?”
The captain moved too fast for Vaelin to have any chance of stopping him, leaping high with his sword raised, bringing it round in a swift arc as he landed in the pool. Vaelin saw Hushan’s eyes give a final curious blink as his head tumbled from his shoulders. Blood painted the tiles as both bodies collapsed into the water, entangled in death.
“He still had more to tell us!” Vaelin grated at Sho Tsai as the captain hauled himself from the pool, crimson water dripping from his armour. He gave no answer and started toward the door.
“What did he mean?” Vaelin demanded, stepping into his path. “About remaking the past.”
“I have no idea,” Sho Tsai replied. “Just the babble of a corrupted mind. Whatever that witch did to him evidently overthrew his reason.”
“He spoke of the Temple of Spears,” Vaelin said. “Where you once studied. I think it’s time I learned more about it.”
Sho Tsai’s features, liberally decorated with the governor’s blood, twitched as he matched Vaelin’s stare, before his anger abruptly leeched away. “My thanks for your assistance this night,” he said, wiping clean his sword before sliding it into the scabbard. “But there is nothing more to discuss. And, with the governor’s demise, I find myself with a great deal to do.”
He moved his head in the briefest of bows and stepped around Vaelin before making his exit.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It took only a few moments in the company of Governor Hushan’s deputy to understand why, unlike the city’s garrison commander and several other well-regarded officials, he hadn’t attracted an assassin’s blade the night before.
“The governor . . . a traitor?” Deputy Governor Neshim mopped his brow with a silken handkerchief. Like Hushan he was of northern stock with a similarly broad-shouldered build that somewhat belied a less than resolute character. “His third wife a witch. It’s impossible, surely.”
“No, Honoured Sir, it is not,” Sho Tsai told him, his patience clearly starting to wear thin. “Governor Hushan conspired with an agent of the Stahlhast against the Venerable Kingdom.”
“But she was always so . . . nice. Three years since he brought her back from a northern patrol, a slave rescued from the savages’ clutches, he said.”