He moved on, slipping past a guard nodding at his post, mesmerized, perhaps, by the distant lights of the city, or the even more distant lights of stars. Dressed in blackest shadow, Ghe moved as effortlessly as smoke, through an ostentatious arch encased in gold leaf into a spacious cabin, onto the rich carpet woven in distant and exotic Lhe. Toward the great bed, and its sheets of finest linen.
Ghe had not the faintest idea why it was his task to kill the man who slumbered there; the priesthood would never make him privy to such details. He need only know whom to kill and where to find them; the why of it didn't matter to him. As a child, he had killed for nothing more than a few copper coins. Now his skills were for the priesthood, for the River himself.
He suddenly realized that no one was in the bed, and the hackles of his neck pricked up. The lights on the barge were extinguished; he had watched from the small boat that brought him until they had all gone out. That meant his target somehow suspected something, was hiding in the dark, waiting for his death to come looking for him and find a surprise instead. Ghe turned quickly on the balls of his feet, crouching at the same moment, searching with his eyes. After a moment of that, he sighed in exasperation and relief. He had overestimated this trader, this Dunuh, just as Dunuh had overestimated himself, somehow. For there he was, asleep in a chair, silhouetted against the lights of the city.
Ghe's relief faded as quickly as it came, for there loomed another shadow, standing near the sleeping one.
"Ah," the darkness whispered, "the much-vaunted Jik, I take it."
Ghe said nothing. If he should fail and die, there must be no proof that he was actually Jik. He carried no emblem, no sign of the priesthood. Unlike the other priestly sects, Jik were not castrated, so there would be no evidence of that sort. Only overconfident words could betray him, and though Ghe was confident, he was not overconfident.
His blade snicked out of its oiled scabbard, caught moonlight like a silver eel.
"Jik," the shadow went on, "I am Sin Turuk, from the ancient city of Kolem. You have heard of Kolem?"
Still Ghe did not answer. The man went on. "Kolem has many exports. The oil of the Kakla tree, textiles—and warriors. Warriors taught to fight from the moment we can hold a sword. Much-valued men." White teeth appeared, then, amidst the black skin of his face. A faint hiss was his sword clearing into the night air.
"My master is a drunken fool," Sin Turuk said. "But he is still my master."
Sin Turuk leapt, pantherlike, lighted on the tips of his toes an armspan from Ghe. Ghe darted his ribbon of sword for the man's heart, but his opponent stepped aside, the sword flickering by him. He saw his mistake in the instant he made it, that his lunge was what Sin wanted. Ghe had no time to recover his sword and parry. Instead, he dropped flat, and the foreigner's sword whirred above his head. Ghe lashed out expertly with his leg, caught his enemy at the ankles, who fell, and yet Ghe could feel that it was too easy, that Sin had anticipated this move, as well, shifted his weight so as to fall controlled. This insight saved Ghe's life, for instead of sprawling helplessly, Sin had somehow contrived to tumble over him, lashing out with the bright-edged crescent he held. Ghe dropped his own sword, lunged inside the blow, sweeping the strong arms on, delivered a Tsehats blow to Sin's neck. The man grunted dully, lashed out again. He should have been dead, but at least he was injured, slow enough that Ghe could snake-draw his dagger and plunge it straight into Sin Turuk's heart, jiggle it, and withdraw. Sin died silently, with the dignity a great warrior deserved.
"A sickle of ice," Ghe whispered to the man, as his eyes went from shocked to empty. "But you fought well."
The idiot out on deck had not even heard anything. Ghe sighed, slipped his knife into the sleeping man in three key places—heart, base of the skull, and temple. He left the other guards alive, to shame them, to let them see that a battle of Giants had transpired within their earshot and they had known nothing.
On the way back to shore, he saluted Sin Turuk by dripping a bit of blood in the River and by touching a dot of it to his own chin, to the first scar he ever received in combat. For his intended victim—who had merely exhaled upon dying, a breath stinking of expensive wine—Ghe did nothing.