Assassin 3 - Royal Assassin Read Online Free PDF Page B

they had raped and killed, but
little more than that.
    I could do nothing except watch. I coughed
heavily, then found a breath to speak. If only I could understand
them, I said to the Fool. If only I knew what they wanted. There is
no sense to these Red-Ships. How can we fight those who war for a
reason they will not divulge? But if I could understand them
...
    The Fool pursed his pale lips and considered.
They partake of the madness of he who drives them. They can only be
understood if you share that madness. I myself have no wish to
understand them. Understanding them will not stop them.
    No. I did not want to watch the village. I had
seen this nightmare too often. But only a heartless man could have
turned away as if it were a poorly staged puppet show. The least I
could do for my people was watch them die. It also was the most I
could do for them. I was sick and a cripple, an old man far away.
No more could be expected from me. So I watched.
    I watched the little town awaken from soft sleep
to the rough grip of a strange hand on the throat or breast, to a
knife over a cradle, or the sudden cry of a child dragged from
sleep. Lights began to flicker and glow throughout the village;
some were candles kindled on hearing a neighbor's outcry; others
were torches or burning houses. Although the Red-Ships had
terrorized the Six Duchies for over a year, for this folk it became
completely real tonight. They had thought they were prepared. They
had heard the horror stories, and resolved never to let it happen
to them. But still the houses burned and the screams rose to the
night sky as if borne on the smoke.
    Speak, Fool, I commanded hoarsely. Remember
forward for me. What do they say about Siltbay? A raid on Siltbay,
in winter.
    He took a shuddering breath. It is not easy, nor
clear, he hesitated. All wavers, all is change still. Too much is
in flux, Your Majesty. The future spills out in all directions
there.
    Speak any you can see, I commanded.
    They made a song about this town, the Fool
observed hollowly. He gripped my shoulder still; through my
nightshirt, the clutch of his long, strong fingers was cold. A
trembling passed between us and I felt how he labored to continue
standing beside me. When it is sung in a tavern, with the refrain
hammered out to the beat of ale mugs upon a table, none of this
seems so bad. One can imagine the brave stand these folk made,
going down fighting rather than surrendering. Not one, not one
single person, was taken alive and Forged. Not one. The Fool
paused. A hysterical note mingled with the levity he forced into
his voice. Of course, when you're drinking and singing, you don't
see the blood. Or smell the burning flesh. Or hear the screams. But
that's understandable. Have you ever tried to find a rhyme for
`dismembered child'? Someone once tried `remembered wild' but the
verse still didn't quite scan. There is no merriment in his banter.
His bitter jests can shield neither him nor me. He falls silent
once more, my prisoner doomed to share his painful knowledge with
ine.
    I witness in silence. No verse would tell of a
parent pushing a poison pellet into a child's mouth to keep him
from the Raiders. No one could sing of children crying out with the
cramps of the swift, harsh poison, or the women who were raped as
they lay dying. No rhyme nor melody could bear the weight of
telling of archers whose truest arrows slew captured kinfolk before
they could be dragged away. I peered into the interior of a burning
house. Through the flames, I watched a ten-year-old boy bare his
throat for the slash of his mother's knife. He held the body of his
baby sister, strangled already, for the Red-Ships had come, and no
loving brother would give her to either the Raiders or the
voracious flames. I saw the mother's eyes as she lifted her
children's bodies and carried them into the flames with her. Such
things are better not remembered. But I was not spared the
knowledge. It was my duty to know these things, and to