Assassin’s Fate

When the sound and stink of the fire on the upper storeys faded behind us, we halted. Lant and I both sat down, panting cleaner air into our lungs. The top floors would all be ablaze now. Would the stronghouse collapse on top of us? ‘We have to get back to the others,’ I said dully. Our quest to save Bee was over. We had to get out. I staggered upright again and stooped to seize the front of Per’s shirt. ‘Get up!’ I ordered him.

Per coughed and tried to stand up. ‘Bee,’ he gasped.

‘Gone.’ I spoke the horrid truth. ‘We can’t get up there. I doubt she’s still alive.’ My eyes were already stinging and running from the smoke. True tears mingled. It seemed an impossible cruelty that I’d come so close to her and then failed.

‘Bee!’ Per cried out and rolled free of my grip. It unbalanced me and I fell. I had never known that smoke could so disable a man. I crouched on my hands and knees, wheezing. Per tugged at the unconscious child he’d dragged down with us. ‘Bee, I’ve come to save you,’ he said faintly. Then his words shattered into coughing.

The child’s clothes were scorched and smudged with soot and his face disfigured by scars. The flesh around his closed eyes was thickened like that of a veteran brawler. There was a scar on his left brow and a split from a more recent beating at the corner of his mouth. The marks spoke of a short life best left behind.

Then the boy opened his eyes and Bee looked at me. We stared at one another. Her mouth formed a word that her breath could not push. ‘Da?’

So small. So scarred. She lifted her hands toward me and life surged through me again. ‘Oh, Bee,’ I said, and had no more words. I reached for her and pulled her to me. Her arms went tight around my neck and I held her close. ‘I will never leave you again!’ I promised her, and her grip on me tightened.

I rose onto my knees, Bee still clasped to me. Per staggered upright. He was weeping. ‘We found her. We saved her,’ he said.

‘You did,’ I told him. With my free hand, I seized Per’s upper arm. ‘Lant! Come on!’ I stood and made a staggering run, dragging poor stumbling Per and jouncing Bee’s face against my collarbone. Lant caught up and took Per’s other arm. Joggling along, bumping into one another, we fled the smoke down the long gently curving corridor until suddenly my head spun and I crashed to my knees. I managed not to drop Bee but Per fell beside me and Lant went to one knee.

‘Oh, Bee,’ I managed to say. I lowered her to the floor. She was gasping spasmodically, as if she had nearly drowned. Her eyes had closed again. But she lived. She lived. I touched her face as Per scrabbled over to us.

‘Bee, please,’ he said. He looked up at me and as if he were a very young child, he pleaded, ‘Make her be alive. Heal her.’

‘She’s alive,’ Lant assured him. He leaned on the wall to stand. Then he stood over us, his sword in his hand again. He’d protect us.

She stared up at me wordlessly. I shook my head, too heart-stricken to find even a word for her. My finger traced the line of Molly’s jaw, touched her mother’s mouth. She coughed and I drew my hand back. No, this was not the little girl I had come to rescue. This scarred and beaten creature was no longer my Bee. I did not know who she was. Still small for her years, as young as I had been when I had begun to act on all Chade had taught me. Bee Farseer. Who was she now?

She rolled her head to look at Per, her breath wheezing in and out. ‘You came. The crow said …’ Her words trailed away.

‘We came to find you,’ Per assured her, and went off into another coughing fit. He reached over and took her hand in his. ‘Bee. You’re safe now. We have you!’

‘None of us is safe, Per. We have to get her out of here.’ No time for reunions and apologies, no time for tender words. I lifted my eyes. I looked up at the panelled ceiling above us and the massive beams that supported it. Wood would burn, but stone did not. Fires always climbed. We might be safe on this level, at least until the heavy timbers that supported the stone scorched and flamed.

Where were we? Had we passed the door and the stairs to the lower levels? We had to find them. Perhaps they’d found the tunnel. If not, we had to fight our way out before the whole stronghouse came down on us.

I coughed again, and rubbed my cuff over my streaming eyes. Time to move. ‘We have to go,’ I told Per. ‘Can you walk?’