Excerpt: The Angel and the Assassin

This is not wise, said an oddly pitched voice in Bran’s head. You could easily be caught.

Bran groaned mentally. He could have bet this was coming. I know what I’m doing and I’ve done it before. You know that, he replied and didn’t bother to hide his irritation. Bailaks were notoriously overcautious, at least Bran’s was. And he wasn’t about to get into a discussion about his motivation with the thing that shared space with his brain. He knew better. It was quite impossible to explain human emotions to a thing that hadn’t ever had one.

I do not wish you to be caught, the bailak said insistently. Nor, I think, do you, it added as if this would settle the matter.

We won’t be caught, Bran replied. He never had been. There was no reason to think he would be this time.

You have a very important mission to complete, if I am not mistaken, the bailak reminded him.

Bran stifled his irritation at being reminded. He didn’t need reminding about how important his mission was. Every mission was important, but this one was doubly so. In fact, it was probably the most important mission Holger had ever sent him on.

“I have faith in you, boy,” Holger had said, clapping a huge hand on Bran’s shoulder hard enough that Bran feared his knees would buckle. “The Han are gathering and when there are enough of them, we shall crush them. But we must know for sure before we strike, for it is likely we will get but one chance to push them out of the Northland forever.”

“Yes, sir,” Bran had replied. “I won’t let you down.”

And then Holger had tightened his grip on Bran’s shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. The firelight flickered, brightening Holger’s eyes to the same unearthly blue as the day time moon they called the Maiden. The long red beard the older man wore as a sign of his mourning for those lost to the Han seemed to glow in the unsteady light. Bran would have worn a beard too, had he grown enough hair on his face to support one.

“I know you won’t let me down, lad, and if we succeed with this, I promise you, we shall bring our women folk here to the Bramble Valley and they need never again suffer at the hands of the Han pigs,” Holger said, intensely and so softly Bran was sure none of the other men in the cave heard him.

Bran had merely nodded in response. He couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat.

Holger had given him a shake. “You’ve a lot of talent and potential, lad, and I’ve been impressed by what you’ve done for me thus far. My bodyguard is a man short, as you know,” he said, his voice still low. “Keep your head up and your mind on the task; that spot could be yours.”

Bran had done his best to hide his shock. He was young, the youngest man in the Bramble Valley and to be so trusted… well, it was quite an honor and an unexpected one. “Thank you, sir. I will.”

He rushed now over the grain field, then up the side of the Mother House. At the top, he flashed by a dormer window in the garret and thought he saw a startled face looking out of it and nearly forgot what he was about. When had they started housing women in the attic? It wasn’t even heated. Renewed anger at the Han for the conditions they kept his people in bubbled to the surface of Bran’s mind instantly and threatened to disrupt his concentration.

Careful now!, the bailak warned.

Bran was headed straight for a chimney.

Shit!, he responded, and pulled himself together. Barely. He grazed the tip of the chimney, one of dozens that sprouted from the roof of the Mother House.

He crested the ridge line of the roof and dove, down the side of the house, skimmed the top of the compound wall and on into the trees. The forest was different on this side of the Isle, filled with a different sort of tree that had thin white bark, fluttering leaves that turned yellow in fall and dropped to the ground for the winter. They didn’t grow so close together as the needle trees, so there was space for Bran’s body – and his wingspan – to fly. It was excellent cover, since the way to the water otherwise would have been in full view of the guards outside the compound gate.

Before long, Bran whizzed out of the trees and flashed across the other arm of the river. Then it was up over the tops of the trees again, because on the that side of the river, it was back to needle trees again. From there he climbed steeply with the terrain until he reached the bench where the meadows started.

Almost immediately, he spotted campfires. Dozens upon dozens of them.

.