Age of Assassins (The Wounded Kingdom #1)
R.J. Barker
For Lindy and Rook, who are all my best things
Prologue
Darik the smith was last among the desolate. The Landsman made him kneel with a kick to the back of his knees, forcing his head down so he knelt and stared at the line between the good green grass and the putrid yellow desert of the sourlands. Nothing grew in the sourlands. A sorcerer had taken the life of the land for his own magics many years ago, before Darik’s parents were born, and only death was found there now. A foul-smelling wind blew his long brown hair into his face and, ten paces away, the first of the desolate was weeping as she waited for the blade—Kina the herdsgirl, no more than a child and the only other from his village. The voice of the Landsman, huge and strong in his grass-green armour, was surprisingly gentle as he spoke to her, a whisper no louder than the knife leaving its scabbard.
“Shh, child. Soonest done, soonest over,” he said, and then the knife bit into her neck and her tears were stilled for ever. Darik glanced between the bars of his hair and saw Kina’s body jerking as blood fountained from her neck and made dark, twisting, red patterns on the stinking yellow ground—silhouettes of death and life.
He had hoped to marry Kina when she came of age.
Darik was cold but it was not the wind that made him shiver; he had been cold ever since the sorcerer hunters had come for him. It was the first time in fifteen years of life that the sweat on his skin wasn’t because of the fierce heat of the forge. The moisture that had clung to him since was a different sweat, a new sweat, a cold frightened animal sweat that hadn’t stopped since they locked the shackles on his wrists. It seemed so long ago now.
The weeks of marching across the Tired Lands had been like a dream but, looking back, the most dreamlike moment of all was that moment when they had called his name. He hadn’t been surprised—it was as if he’d sold himself to a hedge spirit long ago and had been waiting for someone to come and collect on the debt his whole life.
“Shh, child. Soonest done, soonest over.” The knife does its necessary work on another of the desolate, and a second set of bloody sigils spatters out on the filthy yellow ground. Is there meaning there? Is there some message for him? In this place between life and death, close to embracing the watery darkness that swallowed the dead gods, are they talking to him?
Or is it just blood?
And death.
And fear.
“Shh, child. Soonest done, soonest over.” The next one begs for life in the moments before the blade bites. Darik doesn’t know that one’s name, never asked him, never saw the point because once you’re one of the desolate you’re dead. There is no way out, no point running. The brand on your forehead shows you for what they think you are—magic user, destroyer, abomination, sorcerer. You’re only good for bleeding out on the dry dead earth, a sacrifice of blood to heal the land. No one will hide you, no one will pity you when magic has made the dirt so weak people can barely feed their children. There is the sound of choking, fighting, begging as the knife does its work and the thirsty ground drinks the life stolen from it.
Does Darik feel something in that moment of death? Is there a vibration? Is there a twinge that runs from Darik’s knees, up his legs through his blood to squirm in his belly? Or is that only fear?
“Shh, child. Soonest done, soonest over.”
The slice, the cough, blood on the ground, and this time it is unmistakable—a something that shoots up through his body. It sets his teeth on edge, it makes the roots of his hair hurt. Everything starts changing around him: the land is a lens and he is its focus, his mind a bright burning spot of light. What is this feeling? What is it? Were they right?
Are they right?
A hand on his forehead.
Dark worms moving through his flesh.
The hiss of the blade leaving the scabbard.
He sweats, hot as any day at the forge.
His head pulled back, his neck stretched.
Closing his eyes, he sees a world of silvered lines and shadows.
The cold touch of the blade against his neck.
A pause, like the hiss of hot metal in water, like the moment before the geyser of scorching steam hisses out around his hand and the blade is set.
The sting of a sharp edge against his skin.
And the grass is talking, and the land is talking, and the trees are talking, and all in a language he cannot understand but at the same time he knows exactly what is being said. Is this what a hedging lord sounds like?
The creak of leather armour.
“I will save you.” Is it the voice of Fitchgrass of the fields?
“No!”
“Only listen …” This near the souring is it Coil the yellower?
“Shh, shh, child.” The Landsman’s voice, soothing, calming. “Soonest done, soonest over.”
“I can save you.” Too far from the rivers for Blue Watta.
“No.” But Darik’s word is a whisper drowned in fear of the approaching void. Time slows further as the knife slices though his skin, cutting through layer after layer in search of the black vessels of his life.
“Let me save you.” Or is it the worst of all of them? Is it Dark Ungar speaking?
“No,” he says. But the word is weak and the will to fight is gone.
“Let us?”
“Yes!”
An explosion of … of?
Something.
Something he doesn’t know or understand but he recognises it—it has always been within him. It is something he’s fought, denied, run from. A familiar voice from his childhood, the imaginary friend that frightened his mother and she told him to forget so he pushed it away, far away. But now, when he needs it the most, it is there.
The blade is gone from his neck.
He opens his eyes.
The world is out of focus—a haze of yellows—and a high whine fills his ears the way it would when his father clouted him for “dangerous talk.” The green grass beneath Darik’s knees is gone, replaced by yellow fronds that flake away at his touch like morning ash in the forge. He stares at his hands. They are the same—the same scars, the same half-healed cuts and nicks, the same old burns and calluses.
Around him is perfect half-circle of dead grass, as if the sourlands have taken a bite out of the lush grasslands at their edge His wrists are no longer bound in cold metal.
Is he lost, gone? Has he made a deal with something terrible? But it doesn’t feel like that; it feels like this was something in him, something that has always been in him, just waiting for the right moment.
He can feel the souring like an ache.