Paul S. Kemp - Erevis Cale 2 - Another Name for Dawn

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2024-11-24 0 0 105.22KB 14 页 5.9玖币

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It’s hard to get into the Night Masks.It’s impossible to get out.

Another Name for Dawn By Paul S. Kemp

The garbage-strewn alley behind the Black Eye stank of puke and rotting

fish. Vasen wrinkled his nose, endured the odor, and stared holes into the

Eye’s backdoor. It was nearly four hours past midnight. Jeldis would be coming

through in moments. The target, Nomen Thorsar, soon thereafter.

At ease in the darkness, Vasen settled deeper into the shadows beside

the inn’s back exit. Selûne rode full and bright in the night sky above but the

tall wooden buildings that lined the alley blotted out her light. Here, only a soft

silver glow reached down to caress the street. Vasen waited, tense. Long

seconds passed. With the waters of the Inner Harbor only a dagger toss behind

him, he could hear the waves of the Sea of Fallen Stars lapping against

Westgate’s piers. The sound lulled him to lethargy.

To keep himself occupied, he ran through his Dwarven language lesson

from the day before. Vasen enjoyed both the linguistics lessons and the

after-session talks with Theevis, his teacher. Everything else that involved the

Night Masks was drudgery to him. Though the Faceless, the Mask’s

guildmaster, had culled him from an orphanage and trained him up as an

assassin and translator, Vasen knew that the guild would discard him whenever

it became convenient. He owed them no gratitude, and now he wanted out. To

get out he needed coin, and he knew how to earn money only through

extortion, bribery, and assassination. The logic was inexorable and ironic. To

get out, he needed to get deeper in.From behind the inn’s door, the loud crash

of a broken dish gave him a start. He rebuked himself for his inattention and

refocused on the job. He could not afford to be sloppy.

The murmur of voices carried through the inn’s oak walls. An occasional

shout or laugh rose above the general din. The place sounded crowded.

Good, he thought. He and his crew had chosen The Eye for two reasons;

Nomen Thorsar regularly slummed here, and none of the crew had ever set foot

in the place. Their faces would not be remembered, and they would never be

back.The door flew open. Candlelight, voices, and the smell of beef stew spilled

into the alley. Out of professional habit, Vasen closed one eye to avoid entirely

losing his night-adjusted vision. A tall figure stood momentarily silhouetted in

the doorway before pushing it closed. Jeldis.

The big man walked past without slowing. Above the stink of the alley,

Vasen caught a whiff of his smell: oiled leather and stale ale. His ringmail

armor clinked as he moved. He wore a longsword at his belt.

“Nomen, drunk with one bodyguard,” Jeldis said. “Less than a twenty

count behind me.”

“Got it,” Vasen acknowledged. He and his team had trailed Nomen

Thorsar for the previous two tendays. They had learned that when slumming,

the nobleman always entered and exited via back doors. Things were going

according to plan.

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“Don’t foul this up,” Jeldis hissed over his shoulder.

“Piss off.”

Jeldis offered no retort, merely stalked down the alley and out of sight.

Vasen watched him go, imagining how satisfying it would be to bury a dagger in

his spine, then turned back to business.

He drew a dagger, his tool for close work. The metal of the hilt felt cool in

his hand. His heart rate accelerated slightly – but only slightly. He brushed the

red hair from his face and waited.

Within a few moments voices sounded from behind the door. Vasen could

not make out the words, but he knew it had to be Nomen and the bodyguard.

The door opened.

Nomen staggered through first, stumbled, and slipped to the ground.

“Blast,” he cursed, his voice slurred with drink.

Behind him, the bodyguard filled the doorway. A hulking brute, the

dark-haired bastard fairly glittered with steel: a chainmail shirt, two daggers,

and a broadsword. Vasen figured him to be new to the job. An experienced man

would never have let his charge walk through the door first. If Vasen had

wanted to kill Nomen, he could have done it before the bodyguard ever got out

of the doorway.

“Don’t just stand there, lout,” said Nomen. “Help me up.”

The big man murmured something unintelligible, looked once up and

down the alley – his eyes looked over and past Vasen – closed the inn door, and

stalked forward to help Nomen regain his feet.

The moment the bodyguard exposed his back, Vasen erupted from the

shadows. The big man never saw it coming. Vasen drove his dagger into the

man’s neck just under the base of the skull. Death came instantly. Vasen

jerked the dagger free, shouldered the corpse to the ground, and stood over

Nomen.

The brown haired young nobleman stared at him with eyes as wide as

coins. His mouth hung open. He seemed to want to say something, but nothing

came forth save a frightened croak.

Without a word, Vasen slammed the hilt of his dagger into the

noblemen’s temple. He went out with a soft groan.

Moving quickly, he dragged the bodyguard’s corpse into the darkness

further down the alley. Afterward, he bound and gagged Nomen. He’d have to

carry the pudgy nobleman across town to the drop by himself. Vasen had told

his team that the client wanted to deal with him alone – a lie. He’d told them

too that the job paid two hundred and fifty platinum – another lie. It paid three

hundred. He planned to skim fifty off the top, just as he did with every job.

Soon he would have enough coin stashed away to buy him passage and a

comfortable life somewhere else. He would only miss Theevis when he left.

He gripped Thorsar by the cloak and heaved the unconscious nobleman

over his shoulder. He would take the back alleys to avoid prying eyes. This job

would go off like every other – without a problem.

Though it took longer then he had anticipated, the drop went fine.

Deposit one nobleman; collect one bag of coins. Vasen didn’t know the names

of the people who had paid, and he didn’t want to know. Now heavier by three

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