The Complete Farseer Trilogy: Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin’s Quest. Robin Hobb

open and looked around me in bewilderment. The light was ebbing, and an overcast defeated the moon.

      My exhaustion had been such that I had leaned over into the thorn bushes and slept despite a multitude of jabbing prickles. I extricated myself with much difficulty, leaving bits of cloth, hair and skin behind. I emerged from my hiding-place as cautiously as any hunted animal, not only questing as far as my sense would reach, but also snuffing the air and peering all about me. I knew that my questing would not reveal to me any Forged ones, and hoped that if any were nearby, the forest animals would have seen them and reacted. But all was quiet.

      I cautiously emerged onto the road. It was wide and empty. I looked once at the sky, and then set out for Forge, staying close to the edge of the road, where the shadows of the trees were thickest. I tried to move both swiftly and silently, and did neither as well as I wanted. I had stopped thinking of anything except vigilance and my need to get back to Buckkeep. Smithy’s life was the barest tendril in my mind. I think the only emotion still active in me was the fear that kept me looking over my shoulder and scanning the woods to either side as I walked.

      It was full dark when I arrived on the hillside overlooking Forge. For some time I stood looking down on it, seeking for any signs of life, then I forced myself to walk on. The wind had come up, and fitfully granted me moonlight. It was a treacherous boon, as much deceiver as revealer. It made shadows move at the corners of abandoned houses, and cast sudden reflections that glinted like knives from puddles in the street. But no one walked in Forge. The normal inhabitants had abandoned it not long after that fateful raid, and evidently the Forged ones had as well, once there were no more sources of food or comfort there. The town had never really rebuilt itself after the raid, and a long season of winter storms and tides had nearly completed what the Red Ships had begun. Only the harbour looked almost normal, save for the empty slips. The sea-walls still curved out into the bay like protective hands cupping the docks. But there was nothing left to protect.

      I threaded my way through the desolation that was Forge. My skin prickled as I crept past sagging doors on splintered frames in half-burnt buildings. It was a relief to get away from the mouldy smell of the empty cottages and to stand on the wharves overlooking the water. The road went right down to the docks and curved along the cove. A shoulder of roughly-worked stone had once protected the road from the greedy sea, but a winter of tides and storms without the intervention of man was breaking it down. Stones were working loose, and the sea’s driftwood battering rams, abandoned now by the tide, cluttered the beach below. Once carts of iron ingots had been hauled down this road to waiting vessels. I walked along the sea-wall, and saw that what had appeared so permanent from the hill above would withstand perhaps one or two more winter seasons without maintenance before the sea reclaimed it.

      Overhead, stars shone intermittently through scudding clouds. The evasive moon cloaked and revealed herself as well, occasionally granting me glimpses of the harbour. The shushing of the waves was like the breathing of a drugged giant. It was a night from a dream, and when I looked out over the water, the ghost of a Red Ship cut across the moonpath as it put into Forge harbour. Her hull was long and sleek, her masts bare of canvas as she came slipping into port. The red of her hull and prow was shiny as fresh-spilled blood, as if she cut through runnels of gore instead of saltwater. In the dead town behind me, no one raised a shout of warning.

      I stood like a fool, limned on the sea-wall, shivering at the apparition, until the creak of oars and the silver of dripping water off an oar’s edge made the Red Ship real.

      I flung myself flat to the causeway, then slithered off the smooth road surface into the boulders and driftwood cluttered along the sea-wall. I could not breathe for terror. All my blood was in my head, pounding, and no air was in my lungs. I had to set my head down between my arms and close my eyes to regain control of myself. By then the small sounds even a stealthy vessel must make came faint but distinct across the water to me. A man cleared his throat, an oar rattled in its lock, something heavy thudded to the deck. I waited for a shout or command to betray that I had been seen. But there was nothing. I lifted my head cautiously, peering through the whitened roots of a driftwood log. All was still save the ship coming closer and closer as the rowers brought her into harbour. Her oars rose and fell in near-silent unison.

      Soon I could hear them talking in a language like to ours, but so harshly spoken I could barely get the meaning of the words. A man sprang over the side with a line and floundered ashore. He made the ship fast no more than two shiplengths away from where I lay hidden among the boulders and logs. Two others sprang out, knives in hands, and scrambled up the sea-wall. They ran along the road in opposite directions, to take up positions as sentries. One was on the road almost directly above me. I made myself small and still. I held onto Smithy in my mind the way a child grips a beloved toy as protection against nightmares. I had to get home to him, therefore I must not be discovered. The knowledge that I must do the first somehow made the second seem more possible.

      Men scrabbled hastily from the ship. Everything about them bespoke familiarity. I could not fathom why they had put in here until I saw them unloading empty water casks. The casks were sent hollowly rolling down the causeway, and I remembered the well I had passed. The part of my mind that belonged to Chade noted how well they knew Forge, to put in almost exactly opposite that well. This was not the first time this ship had stopped here for water. ‘Poison the well before you leave,’ that corner of my mind suggested. But I had no supplies for anything like that, and no courage to do anything except remain hidden.

      Others had emerged from the ship and were stretching their legs. I overheard an argument between a woman and a man. He wished permission to light a fire with some of the driftwood, to roast some meat. She forbade it, saying they had not come far enough, and that a fire would be too visible. So they had raided recently, to have fresh meat, and not too far from here. She gave permission for something else that I did not quite understand, until I saw them unload two full kegs. Another man came ashore with a whole ham on his shoulder, which he dropped with a meaty slap onto one of the upright kegs. He drew a knife and began to carve off chunks of it while another man broached the other keg. They would not be leaving for some time. And if they did light a fire, or stay until dawn, my log’s shadow would be no hiding-place at all. I had to get out of there.

      Through nests of sandfleas and squiggling piles of seaweed, under and between logs and stones, I dragged my belly through sand and pebbled gravel. I swear that every root snag caught at me, and every shifted slab of stone blocked my way. The tide had changed. The waves broke noisily against the rocks, and the flying spray rode the wind. I was soon soaked. I tried to time my movement with the sound of the breaking waves, to hide my small sounds in theirs. The rocks were toothed with barnacles, and sand packed the gouges they made in my hands and knees. My staff became an incredible burden, but I would not abandon my only weapon. Long after I could no longer see or hear the raiders, I dared not stand, but crept and huddled still from stone to log. At last I ventured up onto the road and crawled across it. Once in the shadow of a sagging warehouse, I stood, hugging the wall, and peered about me.

      All was silent. I dared to step out two paces onto the road, but even there I could see nothing of the ship or the sentries. Perhaps that meant they could not see me either. I took a calming breath. I quested after Smithy the way some men pat their pouches to be sure their coin is safe. I found him but faint and quiet, his mind like a still pool. ‘I’m coming,’ I breathed, fearful of stirring him to an effort. And I set forth again.

      The wind was relentless, and my salt-wet clothing clung and chafed. I was hungry, cold, and tired. My wet shoes were a misery, but I had no thought of stopping. I trotted like a wolf, my eyes continually shifting, my ears keen for any sound behind me. One moment, the road was empty and black before me. In the next, the darkness had turned to men. Two before me, and when I spun about, another behind me. The slapping waves had covered the sound of their feet, and the dodging moon offered me only glimpses of them as they closed the distance around me. I set my back to the solid wall of a warehouse, readied my staff, and waited.

      I watched them come, silent and skulking. I wondered at that, for why did they not raise a shout, why did not the whole crew come to watch me taken? But these men watched one another as much as they watched me. They did not hunt as a pack, but each hoped the others would die killing me and leave the bounty for the picking.