Brave Men Die: Part 2 Read online

  His head turned and Madeline pushed the hairpin through his eye, ramming it as hard as possible to make sure it punctured the brain. Letting go of the King’s head, it slumped back and the body dropped down onto the bed, then tumbled off the edge and landed with a thud on the floor.

  Madeline walked to the small alcove in the corner of the room, leaving her robe on the floor and strutting naked across the marble. Closing the door behind her, she went straight to the basin full of water and plunged her face into it. Quickly scrubbing her fingers she rubbed the blood off her face before she moved her hands across her body, as the water cleaned her shoulders, neck and breasts.

  Glancing down she judged she had removed it all and went back out into the bedchamber, her feet padding lightly on the floor as she walked to the body, putting her hair back up simultaneously. By the time she reached the old man’s dead body lying prostrate she leant down and scooped up her crumpled robe and checked that it was clean before putting it back on.

  Madeline swept across the room, tracing her fingers along the curtains, gazing off the balcony at the open plains to the east of the capital, before moving to the stone wall beside the large wooden alcohol cabinet. She pressed a stone and entered the darkness of the hidden recess.

  His fingertips clutched at the uneven wall and he felt his way for the next handhold. Pushing with his feet, Thom drew up another foot before he made a jump for the balcony on the east side of the apartment. Two storeys up, missing would have alerted the guards and ended the attempt, if not his life.

  As his fingers gripped around the railing, his legs swung underneath him until he got them under control and boosted himself up and over the top. His feet landed silently and he ducked down to avoid the sentry’s eyes. Thom crept quietly to the door, put his hand on the handle and paused, listening for movement inside the room. All he heard was the soft slumber of two small bodies, their chests rising and falling with each breath.

  Opening the door just enough for his body to squeeze through, he leaped up, slid through, and was closing the door as he returned to a crouch. His eyes darted around the room, looking for any signal that his intrusion had been heard. First one bed, then the other, he waited for movement, holding his breath. Within seconds he knew that he had not disturbed the two girls and looked around the room to get his bearings.

  It was small, with two thin, short single beds, which were so close side-by-side that they could almost be touching. A desk lay in the corner of the room with a bench seat big enough for two to sit together and stare into the large oval mirror.

  Thom moved closer to the beds. Both of the girls’ blonde hair lay covering their pillows like ivy growing up a tree. The younger of the two had her hand stretched out reaching for her sister. Pulling his dagger he set about his business for the good of the Empire. The royal line had to be terminated and that included the only granddaughters of the King, no matter that they were seven and four and would never be a threat.

  He covered the mouth of the oldest as his blade pressed against her throat when her eyes opened in fright. Sighing, he dragged the blade across and held her still until she stopped thrashing and he moved to the younger. Repeating the process he felt a touch of remorse as the girl had no idea what was happening and her eyes opened with happiness and sparkles before the pain receptors went off and the tears streamed down her face. Kids always made him hesitate.

  He wiped the blade clean on the bed sheets and made his way for the door, cautiously pressing his ear against it to listen for signs of the serving staff. The silence made him relax and he realised that he had been tensing his shoulders. He turned the knob and pulled the door open as someone pushed from the other side. With a silent gasp a woman fell toward him, startled that anyone was in her daughters’ room.

  Thom’s blade punctured her heart before she realised, came out and went in a few more times before her hands came slowly to her chest and clutched at her blood soaked shift. Then her blue eyes bored into his skull momentarily, the intense scrutiny, the anger and pain, before they lost focus and blanked, rolling back as her knees gave way and she started to fall. Thom’s arms went out instinctively and caught the woman, then slowly and gently lowered her to the ground and laid her between her daughters’ beds.

  Three down one to go, he thought, as he crept out into the hallway.

  The palace was alive with gossip by the time Madeline made it back to her room amongst the other girls’, with the King’s personal guardsmen racing along the corridors. The girls themselves were alive with the buzz and talk of what could be creating such a stir at this hour, saying this, suggesting that.

  Madeline smiled at the fools and their harebrained ideas and went walking past, she had never been one to stop to talk and chat. She was all business. The girls were all in varied state of undress, some having returned from some of the officials of the King’s court that provided them with attention when the King did not and offered life’s little luxuries.

  Entering her room, Madeline felt refreshed after washing and wanted to relax, her muscles a little tense from the sudden burst of activity. It wasn’t like she used those muscles all the time as part of her day job, for that she used some others. Lighting a scented candle on her dresser, the smell of lavender soon filled the room and she went over to her bed, grabbed a manuscript from her bedside table, opened it to where the blue silk marker indicated and started reading until her eyes got heavy.

  Madeline jumped awake at the thudding at the door, the book falling off her bosom, and the King’s guardsmen entered without waiting for an invite. She began to protest but saw the other girls being manhandled past her door and thought better of it. Sleepily, she allowed them to lead her to their destination, only once checking that her hair was still neatly put up and that she looked her finest in just about nothing.

  All the girls in the harem were hauled into the palace ballroom, with guards manning every door. There was tension in the room as the girls huddled together, talking quietly, wondering what was going on. The guards refused to answer any of their questions and stood there in grim silence. Madeline pressed her back against a wall and waited.

  Half an hour later the war council stepped into the room with a contingent of the palace guard. They strode purposefully into the middle of the room where Knight-General Dejeski, the oldest man on the council and a distant cousin to the King, stood quietly with his hands grasped behind his back. He was a veteran of wars, brawls, and skirmishes. A white scar ran down the length of his face through his left eye, its milky colour giving it a ghostly presence. The blue-grey eye stared at the girls and his voice carried across the giant ballroom.

  ‘You little sluts line up.’

  The girls jumped to obey his orders as Madeline strolled over clasping her hands. She didn’t want them to think she was guilty of anything, at least not now.

  ‘The King is dead,’ Dejeski roared. ‘And one of you sluts killed him.’

  There were gasps all around from the girls.

  Dejeski, his voice strained. ‘Now we could stay here all night til we find out which one of you did it, but I have more important things to worry about. I’ve been guaranteed that every last one of you whores is in this very room.’

  The girls murmured.

  ‘Kill them all,’ he ordered to the palace guards, who stepped forward, drew blades from their scabbards and stabbed the closest girls.

  Panic ensued as some of the girls broke down and sobbed as the blades took them. Others dropped to their knees and pleaded, some removed their clothes and tried to bargain. There was no remorse, no sympathy, no quarter given.

  Madeline glanced around the room, found the closest guard and went after him. It wasn’t going to end like this, not if she could help it. Her fingers reached into her hair and instantly the two thin blades were in her hands and her hair was falling down upon her shoulders. Within steps she was at the first guard, his blade through the chest of a girl younger than her, blood spewing over her pert breasts.
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br />   Driving the first blade up into his eye, the second into the back of his neck where the armour didn’t cover, the man went down screaming in agony. The response was immediate. The guards cut their way through to her, blood covered everything and everyone as they came at her. The blade in her right hand launched into the throat of the closest as she turned and pulled the guard’s short sword out of the young whore. With a jerk it came free and the blood dribbled down the steel as she held it upright before her.

  Blocking the first blade with the sword, it was heavier than she was used to; she drove the hairpin into his hand and kicked him away screaming. Madeline blocked another and another before they had her surrounded. This was it. The remaining hairpin flew from her hand and took one man in the shoulder, as the rest of them closed in, driving their blades into her perfectly toned body. Madeline tried desperately to drive her short sword into one man’s chest but her strength failed and could only manage to drop the point and spear him through the thigh. Blood gurgled from her lips as she collapsed.

  The surviving harem girls stood huddled in the corner of the room. They looked at the knight-general, pleaded with him, but he simply shook his head and signalled for the guards to finish them. The soldiers moved in with caution, slowly closed the gap, and brought their blades to bear.

  The apartment was silent in the early hours of the morning. Even after all he had done there was not a murmur of alarm. The moonlight filtered into the darkened corridors as Thom made his way silently through the shadows. He made his way to the master bedroom around the corner from the children’s to find it empty and signs that only one body had been sleeping in the bed.

  The possibility that one had been on top of the other flickered through his mind, but was easily dismissed as other telltale signs were missing. The blankets and sheets were too orderly, neatly pushed to one side as the occupant climbed out.

  Leaving the bedroom, he systematically searched every other room on the top floor, only to find disappointment. The rooms were empty, even the study which he thought might occupy the Prince in these late hours. The large desk that sat in the middle of the room was awash with moonlight streaming in from the large bay windows behind it. Glancing over the papers on the desk, there was nothing of note that he could use and send back to the Empire.

  The stairs posed a problem as they left him completely exposed as he traversed down them. Thom kept his back pressed firmly against the wall as step by step he went down, testing his weight on the wooden planks before planting his foot fully so there would be no sudden creaks.

  A figure emerged from the doorway on the left and walked right in front of the stairs, the young serving girl moved with her head down and straight in the direction of the kitchen. Releasing the breath he was holding, all caution gone, he hurried down the last few steps and followed the girl. He couldn’t leave her alive when he had the rest of the apartment to explore.

  The kitchen was dark and the evening light that came through the tiny window in front of the large sinks did little to reveal the features. The girl stood in her shift with her back to him. Thom could see the shape of her figure through it and smiled at the thoughts running through his head. He pushed the thoughts aside for later, took his knife and stepped closer. The girl was cutting bread and cheese on the bench, her own knife larger than his and he hesitated for a second.

  Thom’s hand came up too quickly, smothering her mouth and any chances of crying out, long before his knife hand was ready to slide across her neck. The girl’s eyes went wide with fright and she started thrusting the blade in her hand back toward him. Thom’s head went dodging to the side to avoid taking it through the eye and plunged his knife into her neck. The bread knife came up one final time, scratching him across the back of the hand and he grimaced in pain but did not murmur a sound. The girl collapsed and he gently lowered the body to the ground in silence.

  Looking at his hand, he noted the scratch wasn’t deep and he wouldn’t bleed to death. He hurriedly got about his business searching for the Prince. There was not another living body in the building and he had made sure he searched every nook and cranny. The Prince was not here tonight, or maybe he had never been here. Thom would be paying a visit to the information merchant and informing him of such. At least the others had still been here, the Princess and her daughters all dead by his hand. The Kingdom would tremble at the fact that someone had murdered their beloved royals under their very noses, and gotten away with it too. The Prince still needed to die but that would have to wait for another day.

  Thom bounded up the stairs three at a time, confident now that no one was left alive that could hear any noise he made. He went back into the master bedroom, closed the door behind him and went out onto the balcony. Planting one foot onto the balcony rail, he twisted his body around and leapt for the roof. His fingers caught the gutter and he pulled himself up, straining from the effort and the pain from his hand. Moving quickly he got over to the other side of the roof, hit it at a run, and leaped over the alley beside the apartment and onto the roof of the building next door.

  Not bothering to stop and check that no one had heard his scrabble to regain his footing, Thom rushed on, jumping from roof to roof, building to building, before he leapt down into a shadow filled alley. He removed his mask and gloves, checked to see that his knives were safely tucked up his sleeves, and walked calmly from the alley out into the night with a smile on his face.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘My girls are dead!’ Reza screamed as he was restrained by two of the Murukan knight-generals. Braithe held him on one side, Rodderick the other, as he launched himself forward at Dejeski and the men behind him.

  Spittle flew from his mouth as he snarled and struggled against men who had trained all their lives for service in the military. Reza’s light frame strained against their muscled forearms. ‘I want them dead. They’re useless, can’t do what they are bloody trained to do. Fuck. Bastards.’ The ranting turned into rambles and sobs but the anger never left his eyes.

  Dejeski stood with his arms folded across his chest and kept his body between the men of the royal guard in question and the distraught Prince. His remaining eye stared unblinkingly, his jaw set and the white scar that ran down the left side of his face twitching involuntarily.

  ‘It was a trained assassin Reza. Those bloody Kyzantines are murderous scum and are very good at it. Even the best of ours might not have seen him.’

  ‘If I was there I could have done something, led those men,’ he screamed, pointing at the four men of the royal guard.

  ‘If you were there and not in Sarkridge on business, he would have killed you too, and that would have thrown the Kingdom into chaos.’

  ‘And it isn’t already?’

  ‘The loss of your wife and daughters is a tragedy Reza, but to lose you the same night that the King is murdered would be an event that we might not come back from. The Kingdom needs you to be strong. Your brother is now the King and you the heir to the throne. We are at war with our neighbours and any sign of weakness could be the end of us.’

  ‘These men travelled from Nethvan to report the crime to you personally. It was a professional hit, by a man that would never be seen unless he wanted to be. It was their duty to guard them and they failed, but they did the honourable thing and came here to ask forgiveness.’

  Reza went limp in Rodderick and Braithe’s arms.

  Reza’s eyes went to the four men in military uniform, standing with their hands clasped behind their backs, their eyes on the ground and genuine regret and sadness haunting their features. His own heart sunk even further.

  ‘The woman that killed my father …’

  ‘Was also a Kyzantine assassin. She had no chance to get out of the palace once the King’s body was found and we had all the harem girls cornered. The devil put up quite a fight before we put her down along with the rest of the little bitches.’

  Reza pushed the two generals’ arms away and leaned back. Straightening his jacket, he
composed himself the best he could. His cheeks were still red but there was nothing that could be done about that.

  Directing his attention to the four members of the royal guard he ordered, ‘Get out of my sight. Assign yourselves to some outpost along the border but I don’t ever want to see your faces in Sarkridge or Nethvan again. Go.’

  The four men saluted, brought their fists to the sides of their heads, pivoted on their heels and left the room. Upon their departure the generals relaxed slightly, now the Prince was not going to try to kill them with his bare hands.

  ‘Where is my brother at the moment?’

  Braithe coughed under his breath. ‘He and Curdish have the ten thousand Murukan Horse patrolling up and down the west coast. There have been an increased number of raids and your brother wanted to deal with them.’

  ‘I assume it was at father’s request?’ Reza asked, running his hand over his short cropped blond hair.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘He has been informed I take it? The new King needs to know he is the new King before anything happens to him.’

  ‘A messenger has been sent conveying your father’s death as well as your wife's and daughters’. The Kingdom mourns,’ Rodderick informed.

  ‘That is not enough. The Murukan Kingdom needs to act. What are our plans generals?’ Reza questioned.

  The three older men looked at each other. Dejeski, with his arms still folded across his chest, nodded at the other two to speak. Braithe coughed into his fist to clear his throat.

  ‘Black smoke appeared over the Callisto Mountains just over a week ago, at all three outposts in the passes. Black Claw signalled first and within hours the other two had started up. We have received word via messenger bird from Buckthorne and Gravid’s Drift that they are responding to the distress beacons.’