Service, Humility, and Grace Pt. 02

Shay's meeting with the Huntress was in the same place it always was: a shithole far from anyone's eye. This time, it was a warehouse near the docks. Years past its usefulness, the dilapidated structure yet to be torn down for one reason or another. A hole in the roof provided the interior's only source of illumination, the remnants of the morning's downpour dribbling in like tardy students after the bell. As he entered the pool of sunlight, a dollop of lukewarm water slapped his forehead, making him wince and wiped it off with his sleeve.

He wore dark and earthen rags, as authentic a beggar's costume as he could manage with half an hour's Weaving. He could make anything with his gift, but that didn't mean a good disguise was quick. Or easy. You didn't just throw on clothes that made you look like you hadn't slept under a roof that was your own in your life. They needed to be carefully sculpted, altered, aged and weathered. Even in the threadbare patches around where his limbs pulled at the fabric, his arcane craftsmanship showed through.

The rotted floorboards beneath his feet creaked with every shift of his weight. He was a slight man, wiry in build and light of stride, but he still maintained care. Better assume the wood was not making idle threats. He made his way to the back, round a rotting dividing wall, when he saw his handler.

"You're late," the exquisitely dressed woman on the opposite side of the room noted. Not with contempt, merely stating a fact. Her own clothes shouted wealth in a neighbourhood void of it. Cocky. Stupid.

"And you look like you're ready for a coronation," he replied, then, showing a little spirit, added: "Or a higher paying client than I'd give you credit for." The briefest of exhales through her nostrils was as much as he could hope from her in terms of reaction.

He didn't even get that.

"The weapon?" she asked.

He reached behind him, into a tear in his rags, and withdrew her prize. It was a blade of a sort, though it was of some kind of bone or bark or some combination of the two. Its tapering, organic shape and dark brown colouration made it look like the thorn of a dead prickleplant. It appeared to have been grown into its present shape, rather than carved or cut to match an artisan's design. An oddity of the King in Green's curious magic, it remained sharp no matter how much it cut. The legends were clear: with a Thornblade, you could kill anyone.

Anyone.

Shay's eyes were black, sunken pits. The journey to get back had taken weeks, let alone the planning for the heist, the social climbing he'd had to perform to just get in position to slide inside the King's treasure room. But he could not betray his bone-weary fatigue in his word or tone. Nor the despair at being on the precipice of another assignment. And above all, he could reveal nothing of his singular desire to slide the artefact from its sheath, hurl himself across the distance, and jam it into his handler's black heart.

In truth, he doubted he could get halfway across the room with murderous intent without being turned to a red mist by the Huntress. She was a Magister, that much he'd figured out on his own. Not to mention the leverage she had. He wouldn't be the only who suffered should he enact his petty revenge. But the fantasy remained. A hearthfire he stoked to keep him warm. Until that day, he was naught but one of the Huntress' loyal hounds.

With a deep breath, he handed the weapon over to his taskmaster...blade first.

"Seven assignments down," she began, plucking the weapon from his grasp without praise or further note. "Seven more to go until your debt is paid. We could pretend like I'm giving you a choice, or we could proceed to the details and dispense with the pretense. I have a schedule to keep."

He dipped his head. "I live to serve."

"Yes," she replied, "You do. Your next task, then."

She twirled her fingers, and several of the more dry planks of wood on the interior wall that had once been a storage room floated through the air and settled in front of her, lying horizontally but elevated. A table without legs, in essence. Only after brushing off some of the loose debris on its surface did she unroll a large sheet of vellum from a cylindrical case. One of her famous maps, though none he recognizes as having helped create. Judging by landmarks, it was of the Southern Reaches, a place he knew only by reputation. Passing her hand over the map, ink from the tattoos on her arm bled onto the page. Borders, topography, estimated troop locations, even weather reports, all filled in with creeping black ink.

"The Winter Court of the Kingdom of the Frontiers. Backwater, really. But there's a woman there who we need brought under our eye. Sixth in line to the House of Forde, not to mention a mage, she wasn't considered a candidate for the throne until recently. The Old Ways are not as strong as they were, but I doubt the other petty lords in the region would readily kneel for a sparkblood."

Shay looked up from the map. "Why now?"

The Huntress curled her lip, ignoring the question. "Her name is Katerina. Trueborn daughter of King Magnus, at least as far as we can tell. You're to infiltrate as a guard recruit. Reconnaissance, as well as stay within sight of the Princess as often as you can be. Get yourself assigned as close as possible. Ingratiate yourself if need be. But stay pinned to her. If she's to move from the castle, I am to be informed."

"Point of contact? Pigeons? Flick cylinders? Dead drops?"

"None of the above. You're familiar with a Tethertext?" He shook his head. The Huntress sighed and pulled two identical books about the size of her palm from some fold of her dress that hadn't been there a moment before, placing them both on the floating tabletop. Opening the cover on both, his handler scratched the words 'Report In Full' upon the first page with ink that seemed to bleed from her fingertip. As she wrote, the same exact letters appeared on the front of the second book. "Regular ink works, though I'd avoid kraken if you can. Once full, shake the words out and you'll be able to write again."

He tried to keep from looking like a dumbfounded townie shown his first sparkler and merely nodded. Working with the Magisters was not his choice, but at least it was never dull.

"Understood." He had a lot of work to do before setting off. Developing a cover would be difficult, but with the right combination of confidence and misdirection, he could probably swing a low level guard posting. The problem was that guards are often on the periphery...

But the Huntress was not finished. "I'll be transcribing what I see on my end, of course. And I likely don't need to tell you this, but keep it safe, and keep it secret. These books are older than half the kingdoms in the realm. Frankly, I'd rather lose you than one half of this set."

That's it. She got his face to twitch. Damnit.

"Extraction?"

"When I say so, and not a moment before. Details will appear on the back page of the Tethertext, so leave that blank and check it regularly. Be prepared for a long stay, however. If our intelligence is correct, being around Katerina may prove eventful in the coming months. Be careful around the princess. She's not as dumb or as idle as she may appear at first glance. Neither is her...pet."

There was a hint of familiarity in the woman's voice. Not enmity, though not exactly fondness either. Something in between, perhaps. Shay wondered if there wasn't more to this assignment than the mere sneak and peek that it was being portrayed as. Interesting, but ultimately irrelevant. Even if this was some kind of personal feud, so long as he had more debt on his ledger, he would be the obedient servant.

"I'll leave at dusk," he replied, lowering his head once more.

"Very well," she said, motioning for him to be on his way. As he slipped his copy of the Tethertext into his rags, her hand snapped out with a preternatural quickness. "No matter what happens, until you receive orders to withdraw, you are to stay within sight of Katerina. Am I understood?"

Shay swallowed. She didn't use physical force with him. Not ever. Only after he nodded did she release her hold.

"I won't fail."

The Huntress's smile didn't touch her eyes. "See that you don't. You're on the home stretch now, Shay. I'd hate to see you lose your usefulness."

***

The long journey had let him blend both his outfits and his story to better match his surroundings. Between the long journey by ship across the Hundred Island Sea, joining a merchant carriage train to the southeast, he changed himself to look like he belonged. The only constant was finding places to store his blades: Rend on the right, Riven on the left. His only two constants, everything else about him was up for flux. Garb, accent, cut of hair, stride, and especially his name.

Once, on a mission, he'd felt something crawl on his hand. It was a beetle whose...skin? Carapace? Its outer shell, at least, had this peculiar effect. As it rested, it changed colour to match the bronze hue of his own hand. He felt a little like that beetle some days. His clothes, the way he spoke, even the way he moved, emulated the other men in the group until he found himself in the Southern Reaches.

Yet in those moments, alone with his thoughts in the passenger racks of a ship or trudging with bleary eyes into the horizon, his mind wandered. The beetle knew itself. It knew who it was, though that question was not hard to answer given its limited options. A beetle could be little more than a beetle. But who was he?

For now, his name would be Quen. During the trip to Anchordown, the last warm water port close to his destination, he'd overheard the name and liked the sound of it. Shay slipped on the new identity as easily as he did an old pair of shoes, seamlessly keeping track of who everyone around him thought he was. That was a much easier question to answer.

Getting recruited for the Guard wasn't difficult. Men wearing the House Forde insignia prowled the taverns and brothels and gambling houses of towns on the border looking for 'good men' to shape into blunt instruments. Lies about battle pay, free mugs of beer every night, and the soaring pomp of combat. Pretending he hadn't heard it all before had been the hardest part, making his face do that stupid look young men had when they sensed great destiny ahead of them shortly before they're murdered for king and country.

Getting plucked for guard service proved more challenging. A few evenings of eavesdropping and a night time infiltration to change a ledger steered his career path away from the meatgrinder. He was young, eager to please, and sober, which certainly helped matters. One of the requirements he wasn't expecting, however, was a thorough health inspection. A formality in most armies, according to the discussions he'd gleaned information from, the elderly surgeon responsible for the diagnostic was no fool, and was paid well to reject bribes as much as perform his duties.

Shay had little to fear on the fitness questions. He was, in truth and in appearance, a fit young man with an excellent arm for a sword. He had all his teeth, which did make him stand out some. But he wore his hair in a slightly shaggier style than he was used to, walking with a little more bravado than normal, and otherwise emulated the men around him. Scars from previous operations aided the impression. Asked if he'd served before, he'd conjured the modest veteran.

"I'd seen the sparklers," he said with a shrug. A bit of an old-fashioned colloquialism. But it cracked a smile on the old man's face, which was good enough.

"Document says you're twenty-one. Bit young to have served before," he replied. "How old were you when you first signed up?"

This time, Shay didn't lie. "Fifteen. Not that it was my choice."

The smile waned, but the surgeon nodded and gave him a pass. In a few days, he was on his way to the Winter Court.

***

"Saints and the Sea keep me alive," the gruff woman said, staring down the line of recruits. "I swear you all get younger every year. Hello, you tiny children in your mother's clothing. I am Guardswoman Crys, and I'll be the one who will decide whether you stay here or get tossed into the levies like so much raw ham."

Shay stood at the end of the line, next to four other men and two women. All stood at something like drill rest, or what they thought drill rest was. He blended in as best he could here as well. Standing too straight was as bad as slouching like a sloven lout. Dancing between the margins was as important to a spy as it was to not drawing the attention of a drill instructor.

She went into a fairly standard rattle of instructions and threats, so much that Shay partially zoned it out. He used the time to take in details of the castle. Or at least what he could see without turning his head too far.

They stood in the outer courtyard, whose comparatively gargantuan size made their paltry number seem even smaller. The old Marchlord who had used this as his citadel had built it to withstand sieges from the most powerful of modern weapons, and capable of housing an entire company of personal guards as well as civilians and levies from the surrounding area. Not that it had helped him any. Evidence of his futile final stand was everywhere, etched in the crumbled walls and burned in a scorch mark on the inside of a battlement.

Yet alongside the remnants of that final battle, it appeared that efforts were being made to restore what was lost. Gantries and platforms had been erected on the walls of the inner keep, piles of new stonework waiting to be hauled up by either a crane or a telekinetic. That hadn't been in the reports. This place was a gold sink, a place to dump a whole lot of money for no reason. Unless the local liege thought she was in danger of being under siege at some point.

"Recruit Quen!"

Shay blinked back to reality. For once, his apparent oafish confusion was not feigned. Looking deep into those steely grey eyes made him temporarily dazed. She was half a head shorter than he was, but her intense stare made some ancestral part of his mind want to shrivel away like a prey animal. That her sunkissed cheeks nevertheless sported adorable freckles was a total nonissue that he didn't even notice that much.

"Ma'am?"

"I asked you a question. Are you with us, or is your mind still lodged in some harlot's tits?"

Unable to hide a blush, he nodded and hoped that was the right answer to whatever she'd asked.

"Good. Everyone, form a circle. We're about to see what our volunteer has to offer."

Fuck. He's just signed up to be sparring fodder. Unable to back out without looking like a coward (and thus not a great pick for guard duty), he removed his belt and limbered up. Again, the balance. He wasn't going to pretend to be a novice in a fight, but he also couldn't be too good. To dismantle the drill instructor raised questions as to why he wasn't using his skills for better coin somewhere else. Or, indeed, if he wasn't already on someone's payroll.

"You train hand to hand before, or just with weapons?" she asked. A fair question. Few militaries actually taught unarmed combat. If you had neither sword nor spear in hand, you were likely already dead.

"I've had a few lessons. Mostly at the end of a night in a tavern." That got a few laughs. Good. Camaraderie, easy leverage for later. He posed himself in a sketch of a boxer's stance, hands forward, loose in the knees and ready to move. Her stance was tighter, more controlled. Western style? No. Tidewalker. Interesting. He'd pegged Crys as a local by her accent and facial features, but between her invocation at the start of her spiel and that distinctly non-regional fighting style, he was having his doubts.

Long moments passed before he realized she was waiting for him to throw the first punch. Ah, this bit. Classic. He'd throw a wild haymaker, and she'd easily catch it and toss him on his ass. Display of brains over brawn. He thought about deliberately falling for it, but if he was going to be trusted to be posted in the keep, he'd need to be at least mildly competent. A sequence, then.

Shay threw three quick punches, right left right, all hitting air as she ducked and weaved. But as she reached to catch his arm as he withdrew from the last, he slid away to the side, her fingers catching naught but his sleeve with her short fingernails.

"You've seen that one before, huh?" she asked, playfully but inquisitively. Part of any fight was feeling each other out, and she was doing the same thing to him.

"Like I said: not my first."

They sparred for a bit, neither gaining much ground. As he thought about letting her win to move this lesson along, she struck out again. He successfully dodged her right hook, but he'd been off balance on the dodge when her left leg swept along the ground and snatched his feet out from under him. He fell ass-over-alembic with an undignified 'oof', much to the enjoyment of his future comrades.

As he squinted up at the midday sky, marbles rattling around in the back of his skull, the sun's glare was blotted out by Guardswoman Crys.

"Good match. Think we could make a fighter out of you yet." She offered her hand. He accepted, and she pulled him up off the ground with little difficulty, or help on his end for that matter. Before he could slip out of her grasp, however, she yanked him closer until her mouth was a finger's width from his ear. The feeling of her hot breath against his skin made him stiffen in more ways than one. "And next time, if I think you're holding back, I'll tug out your fucking arm. Clear?"

It took several seconds before he could find his voice again. His heart pounded harder than it had the entire sparring session.

"Yes...yes ma'am..." he said, feeling weak in her grasp. She let him go, and he rejoined the line of prospects. Something about her casual strength, her power. It wormed its way into his mind and made it impossible to focus.

The rest of the day was a blur after that. Assigned to a barracks hall, shown around the mess, the sauna and hot water showers, and a vague understanding of where they'd be assigned on their first routes. All the while, all he could think about was her.

She wasn't his first crush, but this had hit him out of the blue. Normally they came after a too-long stay during an assignment. Getting close to a local barmaid, or the daughter of a merchant, and the harsh bite of having to leave, or worse, betray them...Shay had to get good at compartmentalizing his feelings. Not just to perform his duties, but to survive at all.

So he did. He slid that part of himself into a volume and stabbed it into the overflowing bookshelf within his mind. He imagined it nearly towering to the ceiling, the spines of hundreds of sublimated wants and needs all titled with things he knew but dared not feel. It creaked as yet another entry was added to its confines. It strained...but held. He knew, one day, he'd have to deal with the many, many things he'd had to do as one of the Huntress' loyal hounds. That the sheer weight of all these cut off parts of himself might crush him should his control fail.

One day.

But not today.

***

That night, he began his reconnaissance. The others were drained after a long day and collapsed into their meagre bedding, and only spent an hour with irrelevant small talk before one by one falling asleep. Shay was a little jealous. He doubted he'd be getting much more than a few hours of sleep in the next few weeks; the luxury to just sleep when you were tired was one he'd have to wait for after the assignment to indulge in.

The best part of being on the guard payroll is that all that preliminary work of spotting sight lines, guard duties, patrol routes, all of it is done for you. In fact, you're supposed to memorize it. And he did, writing it in full into his half of the Tethertext.