Assassin's Apprentice

I awoke on a dark hillside, gripping my stick so tightly my hands were numb. Not for a moment did I think it a dream. I couldn’t stop feeling the knife between my ribs and tasting the blood in my mouth. Like the refrain of a ghastly song, the memories came again and again, the draft of cold air, the knife, the boot, the taste of my enemy’s blood in my mouth, and the taste of my own. I struggled to make sense of what Smithy had seen. Someone had been at the top of Burrich’s stairs, waiting for him. Someone with a knife. And Burrich had fallen, and Smithy had smelled blood. . . .

I stood and gathered my things. Thin and faint was Smithy’s warm little presence in my mind. Weak, but there. I quested carefully, and then stopped when I felt how much it cost him to acknowledge me. Still. Be still. I’m coming. I was cold and my knees shook beneath me, but sweat was slick on my back. Not once did I question what I must do. I strode down the hill to the dirt road. It was a little trade road, a peddlers’ track, and I knew that if I followed it, it must intersect eventually with the coast road. I would follow it, I would find the coast road, I would get myself home. And if Eda favored me, I would be in time to help Smithy. And Burrich.

I strode, refusing to let myself run. A steady march would carry me farther faster than a mad sprint through the dark. The night was clear, the trail straight. I considered, once, that I was putting an end to any chance of proving I could Skill. All I had put into it, time, effort, pain, all wasted. But there was no way I could have sat down and waited another full day for Galen to try to reach me. To open my mind to Galen’s possible Skill touch, I would have had to clear it of Smithy’s tenuous thread. I would not. When it was all put in the balances, the Skill was far outweighed by Smithy. And Burrich.

Why Burrich? I wondered. Who could hate him enough to ambush him? And right outside his own quarters. As clearly as if I were reporting to Chade, I began to assemble my facts. Someone who knew him well enough to know where he lived; that ruled out some chance offense committed in a Buckkeep Town tavern. Someone who had brought a knife; that ruled out someone who just wanted to give him a beating. The knife had been sharp, and the wielder had known how to use it. I winced again from the memory.

Those were the facts. Cautiously, I began to build assumptions upon them. Someone who knew Burrich’s habits had a serious grievance against him, serious enough to kill over. My steps slowed suddenly. Why hadn’t Smithy been aware of the man up there waiting? Why hadn’t Vixen been barking through the door? Slipping past dogs in their own territory bespoke someone well practiced at stealth.

Galen.

No. I only wanted it to be Galen. I refused to leap to the conclusion. Physically, Galen was no match for Burrich and he knew it. Not even with a knife, in the dark, with Burrich half-drunk and surprised. No. Galen might want to, but he wouldn’t do it. Not himself.

Would he send another? I pondered it, and decided I didn’t know. Think some more. Burrich was not a patient man. Galen was the most recent enemy he’d made, but not the only one. Over and over I restacked my facts, trying to reach a solid conclusion. But there simply wasn’t enough to build on.

Eventually I came to a stream and drank sparingly. Then I walked again. The woods grew thicker, and the moon was mostly obscured by the trees lining the road. I didn’t turn back. I pushed on, until my trail flowed into the coast road like a stream feeding a river. I followed it south, and the wider highway gleamed like silver in the moonlight.

I walked and pondered the night away. As the first creeping tendrils of dawn began to put colors back into the landscape, I felt incredibly weary, but no less driven. My worry was a burden I couldn’t put down. I clutched at the thin thread of warmth that told me Smithy was still alive, and wondered about Burrich. I had no way of knowing how badly he’d been injured. Smithy had smelled his blood, so the knife had scored at least once. And the fall down the staircase? I tried to set the worry aside. I had never considered that Burrich could be injured in such a way, let alone what I would feel about it. I could come up with no name for the feeling. Just hollow, I thought to myself. Hollow. And weary.

I ate a bit as I walked and refilled my water skin from a stream. Midmorning clouded up and rained on me for a bit, only to clear as abruptly by early afternoon. I strode on. I had expected to find some sort of traffic on the coast road, but saw nothing. By late afternoon, the coast road had veered close to the cliffs. I could look across a small cove and down onto what had been Forge. The peacefulness of it was chilling. No smoke rose from the cottages, no boats rode in the harbor. I knew my road would take me right through it. I did not relish the idea, but the warm thread of Smithy’s life tugged me on.