Pity's Revenge

Pity’s Revenge

By Megan Russ

This had never been the life I wanted for her. To be an assassin was a hard thing, to watch the life fade from your target’s eyes, to feel their hot blood drip from your hands. Yet she had proved herself during her years as a runner. She was reliable, quick, and followed orders. It was not my place to deny her the calling of apprentice, but why had the Grandmaster appointed me as her Master. My only child, my daughter, looked up at me with a grin as we walked out of the temple that morning. Her honey colored eyes sparkled, her new dagger in her hands, my thick cloak around her shoulders.

“What now?” she asked happily.

“We will return to the court, you will get some rest. Savage has already given me our next hit, so you need to get some sleep. I will have your cowl ready for you tonight.” I glanced down at her. She was far too young for this. Only thirteen, was I that young when I was called as an apprentice? I could not remember—fifteen years ago seemed like an eternity. Had I been so small? Had my master looked at me with the same uncertainty I looked at her with?

I let her slip into the women’s dormitory to get some rest, and turn to cross the alley into the court. Making my way from the back door, down the narrow hallway, past the warmth of the kitchen, and into the main tavern. The smell of fresh bread, hot soup, and wine wafted through the air.

“Slash!” The call came from my right as I emerged into the crowded main room. I let out a heavy sigh. What did the king want now?

I stood up straight and nodded to him. Savage, the King of the Thief’s Court, sat in his high-back chair in front of the roaring fireplace just beyond the end of the bar. His advisors stood across from him, glaring at me as I approached. I bowed as I stopped about five feet away from him.

“How did your daughter fare during her vigil?” he asked. I tried not to narrow my eyes at the man. He was my age. He had come into power while he was still in his teens. He had murdered our previous king in his sleep, the snake. The man sitting in the chair grinned at me, his teeth black from chewing tobacco. His black eyes narrowed as he grinned.

“She fared well, your majesty,” I stated flatly.

“Good,” he whispered. He ran a hand over his pristine face and curled a finger through his auburn beard. “So, she will be going with you tonight on your hunt?” he asked.

“That is my plan, yes,” I said.

“Excellent.” He waved a hand at me dismissively. “I look forward to watching your daughter grow into a killer for the court,” he growled as I left.

I ground my teeth together as I made my way through the crowd. I found my own companions sitting at a table near the front door. The air was cooler here, not boiling as it had been near Savage’s throne. Strider nodded to me as I sat down across from him. The Whisperer had just returned from a mission to Digsa. He still looked tired, his dark beard was beginning to show his age. Shed, my fellow assassin, sat to my right, picking dirt from beneath his fingernails with his dagger. He kept grinning across the table at the woman to my left, his brown eyes dancing in the light from the swinging chandelier overhead. The dark-skinned woman to my left, with her body covered in shadowmarks, grinned at me as I sat down. The witch mark beneath her eye did not diminish her beauty. She leaned toward me, her thick, red robe falling off one shoulder as she reached out a hand and placed it on my forearm.

“How did she do?” Drala asked, her voice as warm as the honey in my tea.

“She did great. Her dagger barely had a mark on it.” I sighed.

“That is a good sign,” she purred.

“Does not mean that I am any less nervous,” I replied.

“That is just because she is your daughter,” Strider said, taking a drink of his tea.

“You weren’t nervous when you took on your first apprentice?” I asked.

“Of course, I was. But you look more nervous than I ever felt back then,” he said.

“Helpful,” I growled. “Anything else I should know about my target?” I asked the Whisperer.

“I think I have told you everything I have on him,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “You shouldn’t have any trouble. He is an arrogant piece of drake shit. His guards will leave as soon as he’s in his room for the night. You’ll be able to slip in and out with no one the wiser until the morning,” he said with a grin.

“Sounds like you had a great vacation while you were following him.” Shed laughed, glancing at Strider out of the corner of his eye.

“I would have rather gone to the dragon pits of Sadgifi.” Strider sighed. I chuckled.

“Good thing he won’t see another sunrise then.” I yawned and stretched back in my chair. “I need to go get some sleep before tonight.” I sighed. “I’ll see you all at supper.”

Two years later, as I watch her stalk our latest target, I cannot believe I ever doubted her. She learned quicker than I had ever hoped she could. Her skills with a blade were unmatched by any other apprentice. She would earn her mark before I knew it. I crouched on the edge of the roof. The building across from us was the inn where our target slept. This was the first mission where she was in charge. I had let her get her blade wet a few months back, but this was on her. She had spoken to the client, gathered information from a Whisperer, she had tracked the target here to this inn. Now I would stand as lookout and let her go in alone, for the first time.

“Master, I am ready,” she whispered. I looked over at my daughter, her beautiful face covered in the patchwork gray and black cowl that matched her long-sleeved shirt and pants. Just her gleaming gold eyes danced in the light of twin moons overhead.

“Yes, you are,” I replied. I put a gloved hand on her shoulder and nodded as I let her go. She slipped off the edge of the roof and slunk as silent as a shadow across the electrical wire between the buildings. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She could do this, I knew she could. She had five minutes to get in and get out before I went in after her. She made it back in three. She came sliding back across the wire and up onto the roof tiles beside me.

“It’s done,” she said. I could tell she was grinning behind her cowl. I just nodded and let her take the lead along the rooftops back towards our side of the city. A death in the Inner City of Lianist would attract attention, but thankfully, the guards never bothered to look at us for such killings. Up and over the wall that surrounded the Inner City and back into the Lower District, like wraiths on silent wings, we were one with the shadows. The smoke from the factories and warehouses clogged the air over the houses, taverns, and shops here. It helped to conceal us as we moved across the rooftops.

“You did well,” I said to her as we pulled our black and gray coats from our shoulders and turned them inside out to expose the brown interior. We slid our cowls from our heads so they hung around our necks like scarves. We were ready to join the people crowding the narrow streets of the district.

“Thank you master,” she said, dropping to the street below. She and I made our way back to the court tavern. I joined Shed and Strider at our usual table, and I watched as my daughter joined a group of three men. Two other young assassin apprentices and an apprentice grifter. She sat down beside her best friend. The young man had a head full of gold hair that fell like a mane around his shoulders. His brown eyes lit up when he saw her. He threw an arm around her and pulled her close to his side.

“Wrath was anxiously awaiting your return. He was worried about Ash,” Shed stated as he gnawed at a cockatrice bone. Wrath was the young man with his arm around my daughter.

“I don’t know why he worries, she is just as capable as he or Slate,” I growled, grabbing a piece of roasted cockatrice off the platter in the middle of the table.

“He’s going to ask for her hand soon,” Strider stated.

“How do you know?” I asked, glancing over at the Whisperer.

“He has been bragging about it to his friends, and not a single one of them can keep their tongues still for very long,” he said, taking a sip of his steaming black steep.

“Isn’t it a bit late for steep?” Drala asked, as she sauntered by the back of my chair to take the seat to my left.

“Not when I have to go to the Wharf and pay a visit to Cris,” he growled.

“Why are you visiting the Wharf king in the middle of the night?” Shed asked.

“Apparently, he has an internal problem within his court and needs an outside eye to come in.” Strider sighed. “So unfortunately, I have to sneak over in the middle of the night like a common thief.”

“Oh an’ what’s wrong with that?” another man yelled from a few tables over.

“Nothing at all, Dealer. It’s just I am not a thief.” Strider called back.

“Nah, you be to flat-footed for that,” Dealer roared. His companions at his table burst into laughter.

“I should go,” Strider said, climbing to his feet and leaving the tavern.

“Slash, may I speak with you?” I looked up to meet the brown eyes of the young man my daughter loved.

“Sit down, boy,” Shed snapped to his apprentice.

“Yes, master.” Wrath took the seat Strider had just vacated.

“Come on, Drala. Let us go get some ale,” Shed said, standing and moving off towards the bar. Drala leaned over to me and whispered in my ear.

“Have some pity on the poor boy, and remember how you felt when you asked to marry Elin.” She patted my shoulder and followed Shed. I glared across the table at the man, who sat staring down at his hands. Shed praised the man for his skills as an assassin, he was a fast learner and hard worker. I had known him since long before he had earned the alias Wrath, back when he went by Mouse, and even before that when he went by his birth name of Eric.

“What do you need to speak to me about, Wrath?” I asked. I tried my best to keep my voice steady, but I knew from his widening eyes I must have sounded upset.

“Sir, I wish to ask to marry Ash.” I narrowed my eyes at him. If he wanted to marry my daughter, he would have to use her real name, if he could remember it. “I love her sir, I will do right by her, I want her to be my wife and for us to make a life in the court together.” I sighed, and rubbed my hand over my beard.

“Tell me her name,” I growled. He met my gaze and glanced over to where my daughter sat with the rest of his friends.

“I love Alina,” he whispered. “I would never let any harm come to her,” he said. He sat up a little straighter, his shoulders squared and his jaw set. “May I please marry your daughter?” he asked.

“Yes,” I stated. The largest grin I had seen in my life spread across his broad face. “If she says yes, then you have my blessing.” Wrath stood up so fast his chair toppled to the ground with a crash. He scrambled to turn around and pick the chair back up. He held his hand out to me. I stood and clasped his hand in my own. “Just remember, I am a trained killer. If you hurt her, you will not see another sunrise.”

He only grinned at me. “I think, sir, if I hurt her, she would do the work for you.” He shook my hand and ran back over to his table. Ash jumped to her feet and threw her arms around Wrath. She smiled over his shoulder at me, tears in her eyes.

A year later, I stood before Savage, my hands bound behind my back. I did not waver. My eyes met his as he screamed at me from the throne in his office on the fourth floor. I had stopped listening to what he was screaming. It was the same thing he had been saying to me for the last six months. I did not know where they were, and if I had, I would never have told the monster sitting in front of me. I had been confined to the cells beneath the tavern since the marriage. Savage had been in a rage ever since, searching for Ash and Wrath, but they had escaped his search so far. Every few days his enforcers would drag me from my cell through the tavern for the entire court to see and up here to his throne room.

“Where is she?” he screamed.

“I don’t know,” I growled in return.

“I will kill you when I find her. I will make her watch as I slit your throat,” he snapped.

“Oh, are you actually going to do it, or are one of your dogs going to?” I retorted. His fingernails dug into the arms of his chair. He would have killed me right then if he was sure I did not know where my daughter and her husband were.

“She was mine, Slash, mine by right,” he growled.

“She was never yours, and finding her and killing her husband will not win her love.”

“I don’t need her to love me, but she will be mine,” Savage snapped. He waved his hands and I was returned to my cell.

That night as the guards snored in their chairs and the tavern above fell silent for the night, I moved to the mere slit near the ceiling. The small beam of moonlight that fell through the crack was just enough to read the note Shed had slipped into my hand. It was the only communication I had with the outside world. He would slip me notes as I was drug through the tavern.

Cris Perish’s handwriting scrawled across the paper. He stated that the group that had fled to him six months ago was gaining followers. Our own people were ready to rise against Savage. Perish would keep his men within the Wharf and out of the way while Wrath’s people took on Savage’s loyalists.

I slid down the wall and sat on the cold, dirt floor, the letter held tight between my hands. Wrath was going to lead a coup against Savage, my daughter by his side. To what end? To become king, to free me, just to come home? They could serve under Perish just as they had here, his court needed loyal young people like them.

“What news?” Slate asked from the other dark corner of the cell. He was the only one of Wrath’s friends to have been caught in the last six months. He was beat every day for information, but as of yet he had stayed strong.

“They will be coming for us soon,” I whispered. I heard the young man wince as he moved to sit up.

“Truly?”

“I think so.” I ripped the letter in half and crawled across the filth-covered stones to hand him half the paper. We tore small pieces off and chewed them until we could swallow. Savage did not believe in feeding his prisoners, meant to make breaking us easier. Cooks and runners snuck down the stairs from time to time to hand bread to those here, but there would be days between deliveries.

It was three more months before we heard the shouts and cries through the thick, wooden ceiling over our heads. Three months of whippings, beatings, and being pulled before king Savage before that torch descended the stairs. Tears burnt trails down my filth-covered cheeks as Ash stepped to the cell door, a bronze key in her hands. The metal screeched as she pulled the door open. She stepped over to me and knelt beside me.

“Father?” she whispered, putting a soft, warm hand to my cheek.

“My sweet girl, what are you doing here?” I whispered.

“We have captured the court,” she replied.

“Savage and his loyalist are on the run,” Wrath said proudly from the cell door. He and Cin were helping Slate to his feet. “Let’s get you two cleaned up and a good meal. We will catch you up on what you’ve missed.”

We were taken upstairs and cleaned and fed. We all sat around the roaring fireplace as Wrath told Slate and I what had transpired over the months we had been captive. Drala was at my side, tending to my raw sores and open wounds, her brown eyes full of concern and regret. I had been caught helping her slip out of the court. She blamed herself for my suffering.

“We started on the outer border. Those who would not turn, we eliminated. King Perish helped with supplies, staging, and money. It has taken us three months to get to the court. He knew we were coming, with half his dukes gone or silent. Our Whisperers tell us he has fled to the market. He has also sent word to his friends in the nobility, hoping it will help him,” Wrath said, a grin spreading across his face.

“So we attack them, eliminate him for good?” Slate asked eagerly.

“Not yet. We need to regroup first, get our own people to turn against him. If their king is absent for long enough, hopefully they will see him as the coward he is,” Wrath said.

“Savage is many things,” I whispered. The young men watched me closely. “I have never heard him called a coward. He killed the last king in his sleep. He has maintained his position through influence and fear. He has people who are loyal to him because they are afraid of him. Those people will not risk their families and their lives on whispered promises,” I stated.

“What would you have us do?” Wrath asked, leaning forward in his chair.

“I do not know. I cannot wield a blade against him.” I said, pulling the tattered, right sleeve of my shirt up to expose the crossed-dagger shadowmark burnt into my forearm. “I can help you fight, but I could never do anything to harm Savage.”

“You cannot but we can,” Ash said proudly. “We never pledged our loyalty to Savage.” She looked to her husband. “We will kill him,” she growled. Wrath put a hand on her knee. he was the calm captain of the ship in her storm-tossed sea.

“We have to be able to get to him in order to kill him,” he said.

“You won’t be able to do that without allies within his circle,” Shed stated from behind me.

“We have some,” Cin whispered.

“That is how you know where he is?” I asked Wrath nodded. “You cannot let him live, or any of his loyalists. They will betray you if you do.”

“When he is gone, his loyalists will bow to the new king,” Wrath stated.

“And who will be this new king?” Shed asked.

“Dresden Perish,” Wrath stated.

“You cannot hand our court over to the Wharf,” I stated.

“Cris Perish has backed our rebellion. It is all Dresden asked in return. The two will turn our split city into one court,” Wrath stated.

“No, Dresden is power hungry he always has been. It’s why Cris keeps him so close. He’s dangerous, and he will eliminate you the first chance he has,” I retorted.

“Why would he do that, if we are the ones who put him in power?” Ash asked.

“Because he will see you as rebels. He will always fear that you will remove him just like you did Savage,” Shed added.

“So, who should be king?” Wrath asked, all eyes turned to him. “I have no interest in ruling the court.”

“Good, you will make a good king, then,” I stated.

###

“Help!” came the cry in the middle of the night two weeks later. “Help!” I leapt from my cot in Drala’s quarters and sprinted into the hall, nothing on but my loincloth. The call was coming from the common room one story down. I vaulted the stairs in one leap. The room was empty, the fire was dim, the door stood open, letting the blowing snow from outside enter the dark room. The fire smoldered in its grate, what little life it had being blown out by the splintering cold. Wrath lay in the doorway, blood pouring from a wound across his face, his hands held tight against a wound on his chest, dark, thick blood seeping through his fingers and onto the wood floor. Drala rushed past me and to Wrath’s side. Shed and Cin lifted him from the ground and put him on the bar for her to examine.

“What happened?” I demanded, closing and locking the tavern door.

“He has her.” Wrath panted, his eyes finding me around his friends. “Savage has Alina.” I felt my chest tighten and the cold seep back into my skin.

“What?” I breathed.

“He broke into our room and took her.” He sighed. “I tried to stop him. I followed him. He stabbed me and pushed me from a rooftop.” Tears mixed with the blood on his face. “Slash forgive me, he has her,” he begged.

“He won’t for long,” I growled. I ran upstairs and dressed, I put every blade I owned into my belt and went back downstairs. Shed and Slate both stood in my way.

“You can’t go,” Shed stated, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Move, Shed. I won’t hesitate to cut you down,” I growled. Shed narrowed his dark eyes at me.

“You cannot do this alone. You cannot even harm Savage,” he pointed out, putting his other hand against my chest. “We need to go together. We will get her back, I promise.” I looked over at Wrath, who was passed out on the bar, Drala stitching closed the wound on his face. The wound on his chest had come dangerously close to piercing his heart.

“Fine, but as soon as Wrath is awake we leave,” I snapped.

The next five hours moved as fast as sap down a pine. Wrath woke up before daybreak, panting in pain but ready to go. He lead the way, with Cin and Slate behind him. Strider, myself, and Shed were about fifty paces behind. A group of Wrath’s rebels had already gone ahead and surrounded the market.

“Are we sure she will be here?” I asked Wrath as we arrived at the alleyway that lead into the old warehouse. The Thief’s Market was one of the most dangerous places in the city, if one did not know the right people.

“If he is here, she will be too,” Wrath growled. His dagger was already in his hands. He would not back down now.

“We will get her back,” I whispered.

“We have to.” He looked at me. “We have to get them back.” I narrowed my eyes at him, tears blurred my vision.

“You should have stayed in the Wharf. You would have been safe,” I said.

“She would not let you continue to suffer,” he replied.

“Let’s get them back then,” I growled.

We charged into the Market. The stalls had been cleared and instead there were barricades to block our movement. We met swords and daggers with people we had once called comrades. Wrath and I cut our way to the center of the warehouse, to the obelisk of the gods where it stood watch over the entire scene. Savage fought there with his own advisors, cutting down our people who tried to get to him.

“Where is she?” Wrath roared. The fighting slowed around us as everyone turned to watch the two men.

“Here,” Savage stepped to the side. I fell to my knees, my daggers bouncing off the stone floor with a clang. My daughter was tied to the obelisk, blood dripping from a thousand cuts. Her head hung limp and her chest did not rise for air. “She turned her back on me, just like all of you, so I have made an example of her,” Savage roared.

“No,” Wrath rushed forward, so fast no one had time to stop him. His blade pierced Savage’s chest, mirroring Wrath’s own wound. Savage fell to his knees, blood dripping from his lips. Wrath pulled his blade from Savage’s chest and stepped behind him. “Savage’s reign is over,” he roared over the heads of the assembled court. He pulled his blood-soaked blade across Savage’s throat. The king fell dead into a pool of his own blood.

Wrath cut the ropes and held Alina’s body in his arms. He screamed in agony as he held her, tears streaming down his face. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. He said it over and over again while his rebels cleared out those that remained of Savage’s loyalists.

“What now?” Slate whispered from beside me. I still knelt on the ground, staring at my daughter’s body.

“We kill them all,” I growled. Wrath looked up at me, his brown eyes hardened.

“Do it,” he said.

“As our king commands,” we all chorused.

“Slash,” Wrath called to me. I stepped over to him and knelt beside him. I placed a hand on my daughter’s cold arm and fought back the tears. “I need you to assassinate someone for me.” He looked up at me, tears in his eyes.

“Anyone,” I growled through clenched teeth.

“Savage’s money came from the castle, from Novik.” He growled. I felt the cold run down my spine. “Kill him,” he said. I nodded and rose to my feet. I left without another word, without looking back at the bodies beside the obelisk, without glancing down at the fallen around my feet. I had a job to do.

I dropped into the well-mannered garden of the estate, thunder crashing overhead, rain pouring in torrents across the city. The smoke from the warehouses had hid my approach along the rooftops. The guards were too busy watching the main roads, they did not think to look at the wall to the adjacent estate.

The crowned prince lived here instead of within the castle with the rest of the royal family. He was a cruel and power-hungry young man who would have lead our country into ruin once he took the throne. He would have had the Thief’s Court in his pocket and the Kingdom of Ower in his hands. I climbed up the rain-slick wall, up to the balcony of the third floor. I slipped into a shadow-filled room from the balcony. The room stank of dust, stale air, and old leather. This room had not been used in some time, even the floor had a thin layer of film over it.

I made my way out into the hall and along the landing of the third floor. I could hear voices below—servants arguing in the kitchens. Someone said something about calling their prince for dinner, and I heard a bell ring a few rooms down. I stepped across the whitewashed wood floors and turned the handle of the door as the bell rang within once more. I slid into the room without a sound and gawked at what was before me. Two young boys huddled in the far corner of the room, one holding a dagger that was much too long for his young frame. He pointed it at me, his blue eyes wide with fear. The other boy behind him had the same blue eyes, both with heads of dark hair, no older than eight. Each bore bruises on their faces and arms.

My eyes went to the body in the middle of the floor, the blood around him still warm. I stepped to the corpse and pulled back the right collar, exposing the flame birthmark on his shoulder. It was Price Novik, the second. I glanced over at the boys who still huddled in the corner.

“You killed him?” I asked. The one with the blade nodded. “Who are you?” I demanded.

“We are his sons,” the smaller boy said. His blue eyes hardened as he looked at me. “We will kill you, too, if you touch us,” he snapped.

“No, I was only here to kill him,” I said, examining the knife wound on the prince’s throat. “Quick kill.” I glanced at the boy with the dagger, my eyes taking in every bruise and cut on his face. “More than he deserved.” I turned to leave. I was at the doors to the balcony when I heard their footsteps behind me.

“Take us with you,” they said.

“You won’t be princes where I am going.”

“Good,” they both said.

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