He left Onora and headed straight to his office. The haphazard stacks of files on his desk and the towers of dossiers on the conference table plus the general disarray might give a visitor the impression that he was disorganized. Not so. The mess had been arranged with care and, within the piles, Valek had implemented a system that would help him find the information he needed without having to search his entire office or suite.
After flipping through a heap of reports under the conference table, Valek located the dossier on known assassins. He settled behind his desk and read. Many of the names were familiar. During his years at Hedda’s school, he’d met a few others who’d graduated.
When he’d first started his training, he’d known only Arbon. The boy had shown Valek around the complex and had answered his questions. Arbon had arrived at Hedda’s a season before Valek and had been working on hitting the target with a bow and arrow, which came after perfecting your aim with a knife. They’d spent hundreds of hours inside the training building together and a friendly rivalry began.
“The knife is supposed to stick in the wood, not bounce off the target,” Arbon said to him during one of their daylong sessions. “Can’t kill the King let alone a bunny with that weak throw.”
Valek ignored the jab and considered Arbon’s comment. His throw had lacked power. He needed to strengthen his muscles. That night, Valek found the weight room. The air reeked of sweat and body odor. A few others worked out in the dim lantern light. He didn’t know if the four men and two women were students or instructors and they didn’t bother to introduce themselves. They mostly ignored him when he headed toward the barbells.
But there was always one big mouth. “Hey, skinny arms, do you want me to call my mother to help spot you?” he asked as the others laughed.
Valek stared at the man. Taller, heavier and with thick muscles, the bruiser would pound Valek into pulp. He kept his sarcastic retort about the man’s mother to himself. But someday, he wouldn’t worry about whom he’d pissed off. As he lifted the heavy weights, he focused on that future time.
The teasing stopped after Big Mouth realized Valek wouldn’t react to his digs and when Valek continued to lift the heavy weights every night despite his sore and aching muscles.
“Gotta respect the dedication,” the big bruiser said.
Arbon scoffed at Valek’s efforts. “You’ll burn out by the end of the warm season.”
Curious, Valek asked, “What happens if someone doesn’t complete the training?”
“Why? You thinking of quitting?”
“No. Just wanted to know where to send you my condolences.”
Arbon’s laughter boomed with a deep explosive sound. “Well, then, you roll up your note of sympathy, stick it into a bottle, seal it and toss it over the cliff. When you hear the splash, consider the message delivered.”
Harsh. But that explained why information about the school had been hard to find. Those who failed became fish food. And those who succeeded kept the location of their home base a secret. In fact, most of the students kept a low profile and didn’t make friends. Valek had no idea how many students trained here, or the number of instructors or graduates, for that matter. The lack of information intrigued more than frustrated him.
Valek’s aim with the knife improved faster than with the stone. Arbon claimed Valek would never catch up to him despite the fact Arbon couldn’t finish the requirements with a dart. It just added more incentive for Valek. After working with the weights, he grabbed a lantern and returned to put in a few extra hours of target practice. A couple of weeks later, he started dimming the light a little more each night. It made sense to him. Assassins worked mostly at night. It’d be rare that he’d be aiming at a victim in the bright sunlight.
By the time Valek caught up to Arbon—both working with throwing darts—Valek was sleeping only four hours a day. No one had set a schedule for him, so he slept during the afternoons. Also there were no lessons in fighting or how to be an assassin. On occasion an instructor would arrive to test his aim, but otherwise no one bothered them.
“This is impossible,” Arbon said. He stood about thirty feet from the target, but his dart didn’t reach.
Valek’s efforts to strengthen his muscles showed as he had struck the bull’s-eye at thirty feet, but at forty feet the lightweight dart nose-dived five feet short of the target.
“Is this the last weapon?” he asked Arbon.
“I think so. We’ve done stones, knives, arrows, crossbow bolts and now darts. What’s left?”
“Chains, whips, nunchucks.”
“You practice with those on a dummy. I’ve seen the practice area. It’s in the building along the edge of the cliff.”
Valek hadn’t spent too much time exploring the complex. He considered it a waste of time and energy. He’d been given a task and would accomplish it so he could move on.
After Arbon gave up for the evening, Valek continued to throw the darts. No amount of force made any difference. He mulled over the problem. Perhaps there was another way. Valek picked up a crossbow and tried using a dart instead of a bolt.
The force of the string destroyed the dart before it could launch. Valek laughed for the first time since his brothers’ murders, and the burning pain that had seized his heart for the past year died down for a brief moment. He returned the weapons to the wall and left the training building, which Valek suspected was only used for the new students to see if the boredom and repetition would drive them away.
A warm breeze blew from the east for a change, carrying the dry scents of pine and earth. Even though it was the heating season, the chilly damp air from the Sunset Ocean kept the temperatures low.
He strode to his favorite spot along the cliff, where large gray boulders jutted over the ocean far below. From this height, the crashing water sounded muted and mild. The white tips of the waves glinted in the bright moonlight.
Smaller gray rocks covered the ground between the path and the outcrop. As Valek crossed them, he concentrated on keeping his weight evenly distributed so the stones wouldn’t crunch under his boots. Success was spotty, but tonight he managed only a few cracks.
Grabbing a handful of the rocks, he settled on the edge. His feet dangled and he tossed a bunch of the stones out into the darkness. After a couple of heartbeats, a distant plunk sounded. He absently rubbed two of the rocks together as he pondered the problem with the darts. Nothing sparked. Not even from the heat generated between the stones. However, the action had scraped away the dull gray and revealed a darker color underneath.
Valek pocketed the two rocks and headed back to the target room. On the way, the wind rustled the long green stalks of bamboo that lined the complex’s paths. A hollow wooden ring mixed with the shushing of the leaves. He stopped and cursed his stupidity.
After fetching a knife and a lantern from the training building, Valek cut a piece of bamboo from the plant and brought it to his room. Hedda had called it a cell, and if it’d had bars, he’d agree with her. The tiny space held a cot, a table, a chair. It had no windows, a dirt floor and no place to build a fire. By sleeping in the afternoon, Valek stayed warm, but he wondered what he would do in the cold season. Arbon stayed in a cell two doors down. The other three rooms in the one-story structure that resembled a long shed instead of a building were empty. Again Valek thought isolating the new students had been done for a reason.
He worked on his piece of bamboo until the sides were smooth and straight, and the inside was completely hollow. Sap coated his fingers and the blade of the knife, but he was careful to keep the sticky substance from getting into the center of the bamboo.
Once he was satisfied with it, he retur
ned to the target room to test out his new blowpipe. Starting at the first red mark, he loaded the bamboo with a dart, aimed, then blew out a quick puff of air. He smiled. Much better.
When Arbon arrived after dawn, Valek hid his blowpipe. The boy had once again shaved his hair close to his scalp. White skin shone through the black stubble and looked odd on top of his round face.
“Did you get any further last night?” Arbon asked.
“To sixty feet,” Valek said.
“Liar.”
“How about a bet?”
“All right. What’s the bet?”
They both owned nothing of value. “How about if I hit the target with the dart, you owe me a future favor, and I’ll owe you one if I don’t?”
Arbon agreed.
Valek stepped up to the sixty-foot mark, whipped out his blowpipe and hit the bull’s-eye.
“That’s cheating!” Arbon cried.
“No, it isn’t. I never specified how I’d accomplish it.”
“But—”
“But what, Arbon?” Hedda asked. Clothed in black, she stepped from the dark corner of the room.
Valek wondered if she’d been there all night. Did she often hide there? His heart rate increased.
“The task was to...” He stuttered to a stop as Hedda moved closer to him.
“To what?” she asked.
“To hit the target, sir.”
“Exactly. Did anyone tell you not to improvise?”
“No. No one told us anything!”
“Are you not satisfied with the training?” A cold flatness settled on her narrow face.
“I’m...I’m...fine.”
“I see.” She turned to Valek. “So, King Killer, you’re still here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s see what you can do from the last mark.”
He grabbed the weapons and demonstrated his skills, hitting the bull’s-eye with the stone, knife, arrow, bolt, but not the dart. He didn’t have enough air to send the dart that far.
“How would you make it go further?” she asked.