The Farseer Series Books 2 and 3: Royal Assassin, Assassin’s Quest. Robin Hobb

twice into a meaty thigh. He roared with anger and increased the pressure. He pressed my face into the frozen earth. Black dots spotted my vision, and Nighteyes was a sudden addition to the weight on my back. I thought my spine would snap. Nighteyes slashed at the man’s back with his fangs, but the Forged one only drew his chin into his chest and hunched his shoulders against the attack. He knew he was killing me with his strangle. Time enough to deal with the wolf when I was dead.

      The struggle opened up the wound on my neck and warm blood spilled out. The added pain was a tiny spur to my struggle. I shook my head wildly in his grip, and the slipperiness of my own blood was enough to let me turn my throat a tiny bit. I got in one desperate wheeze of air before the giant shifted his grip on me. He began to bend my head back. If he could not throttle me, he would simply break my neck. He had the muscle for it.

      Nighteyes changed tactics. He could not open his jaws wide enough to get the man’s head into them, but his scraping teeth found enough purchase to tear part of the man’s scalp from his skull. He set his teeth in the flap of flesh and pulled. Blood rained down on me as the Forged one roared wordlessly and kneed me in the small of the back. He let go with one arm to flail at Nighteyes. I eeled around in his arms, to bring one knee up into his groin, and then to get a good knife thrust into his side. The pain must have been incredible, but he did not release me. Instead he cracked his head against mine in a flash of blackness, and then wrapped his huge arms around me, pinning me to him as he began to crush my chest.

      That is as much of the struggle as I can remember coherently. I don’t know what came over me next; perhaps it was the death fury some legends speak of. Teeth, nails and knife I fought him, taking flesh from his body wherever I could reach it. Still, I know it would not have been enough had not Nighteyes also been attacking with the same boundless frenzy. Some time later, I crawled from under the man’s body. There was a foul coppery taste in my mouth and I spat out dirty hair and blood. I wiped my hands down my pants and then rubbed them in clean snow, but nothing could ever cleanse them.

      Are you all right? Nighteyes lay panting in the snow a yard or two away. His jaws were likewise bloodied. As I watched, he snapped up a great mouthful of snow, then resumed his panting. I rose and stumbled a step or two toward him. Then I saw the girl’s body and sank down beside it in the snow. I think that was when I realized I was too late, and had been too late from the instant I had spotted them.

      She was tiny. Sleek black hair and dark eyes. Horribly her little body was still warm and lax. I lifted her to my lap and smoothed the hair back from her face. A small face, even baby teeth. Round cheeks. Death had not yet clouded her gaze; the eyes that stared up into mine seemed fixed on a puzzle beyond understanding. Her little hands were fat and soft and streaked with the blood that had run down from the bites on her arms. I sat in the snow with the dead child on my lap. So this was how a child felt in one’s arms. So small, and once so warm. So still. I bowed my head over her smooth hair and wept. Sudden shudders ran over me, uncontrollably. Nighteyes snuffed at my cheek and whined. He pawed roughly at my shoulder and I suddenly realized I had shut him out. I touched him with a quieting hand, but could not open my mind to him or anything else. He whined again, and I finally heard the hoof beats. He gave my cheek an apologetic lick, and then vanished into the woods.

      I staggered to my feet, still holding the child. The riders crested the hill above me. Verity in the lead, on his black, with Burrich behind him, and Blade, and half a dozen others. Horribly, there was a woman, roughly dressed, riding behind Blade on his horse. She cried out aloud at the sight of me, and slid quickly from the horse’s back, running toward me with hands reaching for the child. I could not bear the terrible light of hope and joy in her face. Her eyes seized on mine for an instant and I saw everything die in her face. She clawed her little girl from my arms, snatched at the cooling face on the lolling neck, and then began to scream. The desolation of her grief broke over me like a wave, sweeping my walls away and carrying me under with her. The screaming never stopped.

      Hours later, sitting in Verity’s study, I could still hear it. I vibrated to the sound, long shudders that ran over me uncontrollably. I was stripped to the waist, sitting on a stool before the fireplace. The healer was building the fire up, while behind me a stonily silent Burrich was swabbing pine needles and dirt out of the gouge on my neck. ‘This, and this aren’t fresh wounds,’ he observed at one point, pointing down to the other injury on my arm. I said nothing. All words had deserted me. In a basin of hot water beside him, dried iris flowers were uncurling with bits of bog myrtle floating beside them. He moistened a cloth in the water and sponged at the bruises on my throat. ‘The smith had big hands,’ he observed aloud.

      ‘You knew him?’ the healer asked as he turned to look at Burrich.

      ‘Not to talk to. I’d seen him, a time or two, at Springfest when some of the outlying trade folk come to town with their goods. He used to bring fancy silverwork for harness.’

      They fell silent again. Burrich went back to work. The blood tingeing the warm water wasn’t mine, for the most part. Other than a lot of bruises and sore muscles, I’d escaped with mostly scratches and scrapes and one huge lump on my forehead. I was somehow ashamed that I hadn’t been hurt. The little girl had died; I should have at least been injured. I don’t know why that thought made sense to me. I watched Burrich make a neat white bandage snug on my forearm. The healer brought me a mug of tea. Burrich took it from him, sniffed it thoughtfully, then gave it over to me. ‘I would have used less valerian,’ was all he said to the man. The healer stepped back and went to sit by the hearth.

      Charim came in with a tray of food. He cleared a small table and began to set it out on it. A moment later Verity strode into the room. He took his cloak off and flung it over a chair back. ‘I found her husband in the market,’ he said. ‘He’s with her now. She had left the child playing on the doorstep while she went to the stream for water. When she got back, the child was gone.’ He glanced toward me but I couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘We found her calling her little girl in the woods. I knew …’ He glanced abruptly at the healer. ‘Thank you, Dem. If you’ve finished with FitzChivalry, you may go.’

      ‘I haven’t even looked at …’

      ‘He’s fine.’ Burrich had run a length of bandaging across my chest and under my opposite arm and up again in an effort to keep a dressing in place on my neck. It was useless. The bite was right on the muscle between the tip of my shoulder and my neck. I tried to find something amusing in the irritated look the healer gave Burrich before he left. Burrich didn’t even notice it.

      Verity dragged up a chair to face me. I began to lift the mug to my lips, but Burrich casually reached over and took it from my hand. ‘After you’ve talked. There’s enough valerian in here to drop you in your tracks.’ He took it and himself out of the way. Over by the hearth, I watched him dump out half of the tea and dilute what was left with more hot water. That done, he crossed his arms on his chest and leaned against the mantelpiece, watching us.

      I shifted my gaze to Verity’s eyes, and waited for him to speak.

      He sighed. ‘I saw the child with you. Saw them fighting over her. Then you were suddenly gone. We lost our joining, and I couldn’t find you again, not even with all my strength. I knew you were in trouble and set out to reach you as soon as I could. I’m sorry I wasn’t faster.’

      I longed to open myself up and tell Verity everything. But it might be too revealing. To possess a prince’s secrets does not give one the right to divulge them. I glanced at Burrich. He was studying the wall. I spoke formally. ‘Thank you, my prince. You could not have come faster. And even if you had, it would have been too late. She died at almost the same instant I saw her.’

      Verity looked down at his hands. ‘I knew that. Knew it better than you did. My concern was for you.’ He looked up at me and tried for a smile. ‘The most distinctive part of your fighting style is the incredible way you have of surviving it.’

      From the corner of my eye, I saw Burrich shift, open his mouth to speak, then close it again. Cold dread uncoiled me. He had seen the bodies of the Forged ones, seen the tracks. He knew I hadn’t fought alone against them. It was the only thing that could have made the day worse. I felt as if my heart were suddenly caught