Blade Archer ~ Forty-Six
Jun. 30th, 2013 01:52 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
annarti.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
yraeA week ago, Kael had been single and still regarded by Raykinian society as a boy. Now, he was officially a married man, though he felt no different. His living situation didn’t change, as he still lived with Ronanen in the guest quarters of Banok’s villa, and he still walked with them both to the palace every morning for training. Ronanen still held his hand and kissed him with the same tenderness.
The only aspect of his life that had truly changed was that now Ynuk was back in it, something for which Ronanen seemed even more grateful than he was himself. He and Ynuk had both decided not to tell Aen that Kael had worked out the secret. They both speculated over who the fourth member of their little group was, but as Aen added a fifth and a sixth shadow, Kael figured it probably didn’t matter, anyway. They all moved like warriors trained in the army, but Kael didn’t know anything of the other year levels, and cared little for his peers in his own level. Knowing he now fought alongside his brother was enough, now.
The year meandered on without learning much of anything new. The Talons pulled in more and more people for questioning, and threw more and more from their ranks and into the dungeons, but the leader of the hooded organisation remained elusive.
Kael did his best instead to concentrate on his training. As promised, Banok spent more one-on-one time with him in training, teaching him more than what he might ever need in the army.
It rained heavily on the Summer Solstice, a positive sign to open Kael’s final year in training. This year, Banok announced, they would spend training with the army, with only an hour of formal training in the morning and an hour of theory work after that. The rest of the time, they were expected to seek out training partners, and not only with their weapon of choice. Members of the Raykinian army had to be well-rounded, he reminded them. Even if a man was Own-material with his throwing knives, he wouldn’t graduate if he couldn’t wield a sword or fire an arrow with any skill.
It was in these training sessions that Kael fully realised just how far behind he really was. He could compete well enough with the other boys in his class, but they were all at essentially the same level as he was. Even those in the army who had only graduated at the last Summer Solstice were far above him.
Kael refused to be discouraged. Banok had said he was good enough for Tenth Company, maybe even as high as Eighth if he put his mind to it. If that was the level Kael was expected to be at by the end of the year, then he would reach it. He sought out those with ten lines of white stitching over their left shoulder to signify their Company, and for the first few weeks, merely watched them train with dagger, sword, palu and bow.
Acutely aware of his mere trainee’s blade belts and his rusted old dagger, Kael approached a group of five blade archers, three men and two women, with as much confidence as he could exude.
‘Share a target?’ he asked, hiding his accent as best he could. He wasn’t going through the same ridicule as he had when he had first signed up. Let them judge him on his skill, not his origins.
The closest of the blade archers, a stocky woman with her hair tied loosely at the nape of her neck, gave a shrug and a grin. ‘Final year?’ she guessed.
Kael nodded.
The blade archer beckoned him over. ‘No need to be shy,’ she told him. ‘We’ve all been there.’
‘I’m not shy,’ Kael argued as he readjusted his blade belts.
‘Just hiding an accent,’ one of the other blade archers picked, then held up a hand with only three fingers and four scars lining his wrist. ‘Been there, too.’
Kael lifted his eyebrows in surprise, and the blade archer shrugged. ‘They’ll always ridicule you for it,’ he said, and now Kael could pick up the hint of southern sneer still left in his otherwise disguised accent. ‘Best you can do is to prove you deserve to be here.’ He nodded towards the target. ‘Go for your life, kiddo.’
From then on, Kael sought out the same group each day at training, and occasionally in the palace bar at the end of the day, as well. He didn’t tell them much beyond the bare bones of his life, having had enough of sympathy and pity from those he already knew. It was fun to just sit and talk about the mundane, about the impending retirement of the First General, about the beer taxes going up, about visiting relatives and kids wanting to join the army. They talked about Queen Alurié’s pregnancy and speculated on their new prince or princess, whether he or she would be the self-obsessed autocrat his mother was, or a patient nobody like his father. They discussed events going on in the markets, Own riders being impressive and arrogant, about cute kids, cute animals, ugly animals and ugly kids.
If he wasn’t still watching over his shoulder and spending every moment away from the palace with a former Own rider at his side, Kael could almost have been tricked into thinking his life was sorted. He and Aen continued, with Aen’s small but growing army of shadows, to make trouble for the hooded organisation that still haunted his every step. Though they hadn’t yet attacked him openly, he regularly spotted their shadows down alleys and perched on rooftops as he walked the streets, silent warnings should he dare to step out from Banok’s protection.
After hooded bodies had been found in the streets an floating in the docks earlier in the year, the organisation was now known to the general public. From within, Aen said, they were in turmoil. Their own anonymity, even amongst themselves, was becoming a problem. They didn’t know who to trust within their own organisation.
It was on an evening not long after Kael’s anniversary that he and Aen were following another of their suspects through the shadows of the district known for its blacksmiths, far too late for him to be simply looking for cooking pots or garden tools. He had so far been into eight blacksmiths, all of whom supplied weapons to the Raykinian army, and spent only a few minutes at each. Now, in the ninth, he hadn’t emerged for at least half an hour. Over that half-hour, half a dozen black hoods had stepped into the small blacksmith’s.
‘We have to get in there,’ Aen hissed through his hood. ‘I’m sure that’s him.’
‘So let’s just tell the Talons and leave him with them,’ Kael hissed back. ‘Have ye seen how many hoods there are looking at the place? He ain’t letting ye in.’
Aen shrugged. ‘How’s he know who I am? I promise ye, Kael, in this mob, if ye knows who the top cat is, ye may as well be babysitting his kids.’
‘But how’s ye certain?’ Kael pressed.
‘He knows too much. This ain’t the first time I been following him. He’s the one. I seen him in warehouses what been littered with bodies the next morning, and he ain’t never gone to pick up a message like a lackey. He calls it. I know he does.’
‘Who is he, then?’
Kael could hear the grin in Aen’s voice even though he couldn’t see it through the hood. ‘Nah, I ain’t having ye take this one to the Talons. He’s mine.’
Kael swore between his teeth. ‘D’ye want to take ‘em down?’ he growled. ‘Or just get yer own revenge and die fer it?’
‘I’m not gonna die.’ Aen drew himself up, ready to jump off the roof and approach the blacksmith.
‘No!’ Kael hissed, grabbing at his wrist. ‘Just give me one shot, right? If they don’t get him first time, ye can go after him yerself.’
Aen yanked his wrist free, pulling it back in a threat to strike out at Kael. ‘I been waiting fer this fer years.’ His voice had lost its mischievous air and was now full of dark threat.
‘So have I,’ Kael snarled back. ‘And fer far bigger reasons than ye’ve got. He is not getting away just because ye’re getting itchy fingers.’
Aen stayed motionless. Kael wished he could read his expression behind the hood to know if Aen was crumbling or if he was getting ready to strike.
‘We got one shot,’ he warned, holding his own threat in his voice. ‘Which one d’ye want to take? The one where it’s just yer dagger against a dozen of ‘em? Or the one where we got half the Talons falling on him?’
Aen slammed a fist against the roof and strode without a word away from the blacksmith.
‘His name, Aen,’ Kael called after him in a harsh whisper.
Aen paused at the edge of the roof, arms folded. ‘Ye’d better get this right,’ he warned. Still he hesitated before finally shaking his hood. ‘Minister Dukiya,’ he spat. ‘Ye’d better get him dead.’
Kael nodded as the assassin dropped silently from the roof. ‘Good,’ he murmured to himself. He looked back towards the otherwise innocuous blacksmith, eyes narrowed and jaw tight. ‘Tomorrow,’ he promised the minister. ‘Tomorrow, I get yer life like ye’ve taken mine.’
The only aspect of his life that had truly changed was that now Ynuk was back in it, something for which Ronanen seemed even more grateful than he was himself. He and Ynuk had both decided not to tell Aen that Kael had worked out the secret. They both speculated over who the fourth member of their little group was, but as Aen added a fifth and a sixth shadow, Kael figured it probably didn’t matter, anyway. They all moved like warriors trained in the army, but Kael didn’t know anything of the other year levels, and cared little for his peers in his own level. Knowing he now fought alongside his brother was enough, now.
The year meandered on without learning much of anything new. The Talons pulled in more and more people for questioning, and threw more and more from their ranks and into the dungeons, but the leader of the hooded organisation remained elusive.
Kael did his best instead to concentrate on his training. As promised, Banok spent more one-on-one time with him in training, teaching him more than what he might ever need in the army.
It rained heavily on the Summer Solstice, a positive sign to open Kael’s final year in training. This year, Banok announced, they would spend training with the army, with only an hour of formal training in the morning and an hour of theory work after that. The rest of the time, they were expected to seek out training partners, and not only with their weapon of choice. Members of the Raykinian army had to be well-rounded, he reminded them. Even if a man was Own-material with his throwing knives, he wouldn’t graduate if he couldn’t wield a sword or fire an arrow with any skill.
It was in these training sessions that Kael fully realised just how far behind he really was. He could compete well enough with the other boys in his class, but they were all at essentially the same level as he was. Even those in the army who had only graduated at the last Summer Solstice were far above him.
Kael refused to be discouraged. Banok had said he was good enough for Tenth Company, maybe even as high as Eighth if he put his mind to it. If that was the level Kael was expected to be at by the end of the year, then he would reach it. He sought out those with ten lines of white stitching over their left shoulder to signify their Company, and for the first few weeks, merely watched them train with dagger, sword, palu and bow.
Acutely aware of his mere trainee’s blade belts and his rusted old dagger, Kael approached a group of five blade archers, three men and two women, with as much confidence as he could exude.
‘Share a target?’ he asked, hiding his accent as best he could. He wasn’t going through the same ridicule as he had when he had first signed up. Let them judge him on his skill, not his origins.
The closest of the blade archers, a stocky woman with her hair tied loosely at the nape of her neck, gave a shrug and a grin. ‘Final year?’ she guessed.
Kael nodded.
The blade archer beckoned him over. ‘No need to be shy,’ she told him. ‘We’ve all been there.’
‘I’m not shy,’ Kael argued as he readjusted his blade belts.
‘Just hiding an accent,’ one of the other blade archers picked, then held up a hand with only three fingers and four scars lining his wrist. ‘Been there, too.’
Kael lifted his eyebrows in surprise, and the blade archer shrugged. ‘They’ll always ridicule you for it,’ he said, and now Kael could pick up the hint of southern sneer still left in his otherwise disguised accent. ‘Best you can do is to prove you deserve to be here.’ He nodded towards the target. ‘Go for your life, kiddo.’
From then on, Kael sought out the same group each day at training, and occasionally in the palace bar at the end of the day, as well. He didn’t tell them much beyond the bare bones of his life, having had enough of sympathy and pity from those he already knew. It was fun to just sit and talk about the mundane, about the impending retirement of the First General, about the beer taxes going up, about visiting relatives and kids wanting to join the army. They talked about Queen Alurié’s pregnancy and speculated on their new prince or princess, whether he or she would be the self-obsessed autocrat his mother was, or a patient nobody like his father. They discussed events going on in the markets, Own riders being impressive and arrogant, about cute kids, cute animals, ugly animals and ugly kids.
If he wasn’t still watching over his shoulder and spending every moment away from the palace with a former Own rider at his side, Kael could almost have been tricked into thinking his life was sorted. He and Aen continued, with Aen’s small but growing army of shadows, to make trouble for the hooded organisation that still haunted his every step. Though they hadn’t yet attacked him openly, he regularly spotted their shadows down alleys and perched on rooftops as he walked the streets, silent warnings should he dare to step out from Banok’s protection.
After hooded bodies had been found in the streets an floating in the docks earlier in the year, the organisation was now known to the general public. From within, Aen said, they were in turmoil. Their own anonymity, even amongst themselves, was becoming a problem. They didn’t know who to trust within their own organisation.
It was on an evening not long after Kael’s anniversary that he and Aen were following another of their suspects through the shadows of the district known for its blacksmiths, far too late for him to be simply looking for cooking pots or garden tools. He had so far been into eight blacksmiths, all of whom supplied weapons to the Raykinian army, and spent only a few minutes at each. Now, in the ninth, he hadn’t emerged for at least half an hour. Over that half-hour, half a dozen black hoods had stepped into the small blacksmith’s.
‘We have to get in there,’ Aen hissed through his hood. ‘I’m sure that’s him.’
‘So let’s just tell the Talons and leave him with them,’ Kael hissed back. ‘Have ye seen how many hoods there are looking at the place? He ain’t letting ye in.’
Aen shrugged. ‘How’s he know who I am? I promise ye, Kael, in this mob, if ye knows who the top cat is, ye may as well be babysitting his kids.’
‘But how’s ye certain?’ Kael pressed.
‘He knows too much. This ain’t the first time I been following him. He’s the one. I seen him in warehouses what been littered with bodies the next morning, and he ain’t never gone to pick up a message like a lackey. He calls it. I know he does.’
‘Who is he, then?’
Kael could hear the grin in Aen’s voice even though he couldn’t see it through the hood. ‘Nah, I ain’t having ye take this one to the Talons. He’s mine.’
Kael swore between his teeth. ‘D’ye want to take ‘em down?’ he growled. ‘Or just get yer own revenge and die fer it?’
‘I’m not gonna die.’ Aen drew himself up, ready to jump off the roof and approach the blacksmith.
‘No!’ Kael hissed, grabbing at his wrist. ‘Just give me one shot, right? If they don’t get him first time, ye can go after him yerself.’
Aen yanked his wrist free, pulling it back in a threat to strike out at Kael. ‘I been waiting fer this fer years.’ His voice had lost its mischievous air and was now full of dark threat.
‘So have I,’ Kael snarled back. ‘And fer far bigger reasons than ye’ve got. He is not getting away just because ye’re getting itchy fingers.’
Aen stayed motionless. Kael wished he could read his expression behind the hood to know if Aen was crumbling or if he was getting ready to strike.
‘We got one shot,’ he warned, holding his own threat in his voice. ‘Which one d’ye want to take? The one where it’s just yer dagger against a dozen of ‘em? Or the one where we got half the Talons falling on him?’
Aen slammed a fist against the roof and strode without a word away from the blacksmith.
‘His name, Aen,’ Kael called after him in a harsh whisper.
Aen paused at the edge of the roof, arms folded. ‘Ye’d better get this right,’ he warned. Still he hesitated before finally shaking his hood. ‘Minister Dukiya,’ he spat. ‘Ye’d better get him dead.’
Kael nodded as the assassin dropped silently from the roof. ‘Good,’ he murmured to himself. He looked back towards the otherwise innocuous blacksmith, eyes narrowed and jaw tight. ‘Tomorrow,’ he promised the minister. ‘Tomorrow, I get yer life like ye’ve taken mine.’