Chapter 9

Dree was preoccupied enough on the way home that she forgot she was afraid of riding. It was hard to tell what Gogron was thinking, even with his helmet off. He was like this afterwards last time, too. He probably always is. The Orc sat slumped in the saddle. Dree sat pillion with her cheek against his cuirass, listening to the slow thud of his heart for the comfort it brought. Heat radiated off the metal.

I drank a life. I wish last night had been the first time, she thought. I hope it's the last.

Something hissed in her earA second later there was a thunk behind her. She turned to see an arrow buried in a tree trunk.

"Bandits," Gogron said, and snatched up his helmet just as another arrow went clang against his breastplate. Then he reached around and batted Dree off the horse as easily as if she'd been a fly. Dree had sense enough to tuck in her limbs. She hit the ground on one shoulder, rolled, and came up under a red-flowered bush. She heard Gogron unlimber his axe as she scanned the bushes on the other side of the path.

"Three of them," she called. "A Khajiit and two Humans."

"Got to be kidding me," Gogron said. He sounded only slightly annoyed, and very tired.

One of the Humans drew and fired before he finished speaking. Dree threw herself flat as the arrow hissed overhead. Right. No talking. Gogron's armor can take it, but mine can't. And gods know what'll happen if they really set him off. If there is a Sithis, I hope he really does like vampires, she thought. She drew her dagger and began to crawl further up the path, behind a fallen tree that provided a little cover. Switching the hunter's sight on and off gave her a headache, but she could hear the bandits as well as see them now. They must have been hiding a way back, or I'd have heard them before.

The black horse stamped its foot behind her as Gogron dismounted. She felt the vibration through the hard ground. The animal showed no inclination to bolt. But then, Gogron had bought it for an assassin's horse, hadn't he? They won't shoot it. It's worth too much money.

Dree glanced back. The Khajiit seemed to be circling Gogron with a warhammer. The archer must be a slow learner; he was still firing at Gogron. The other one seemed to be hanging back, hesitating to help his apparent comrade. Dree waited until everyone seemed to be looking away, then leaped up and ran across the road. She circled around behind the bandits, trying to avoid stepping on anything that might make a noise.

She did not remember Valenwood at all, but her woodcraft was still better than her horsemanship. I'm still a Bosmer. Nothing Valtieri says can change that. She crept up behind the vacillating bandit without being seen. Then she hesitated. The Khajiit is going to die. Maybe all of them don't have to. And this one's not even wearing a helmet. She trod up softly behind the man and pressed the tip of the dagger gently into the back of his neck. He froze. Dree resisted the urge to stand on tiptoe to speak in his ear. She raised her voice, instead.

"You haven't done anything fatal yet," she said. "Maybe you should take the hint."

"What do you want?" the man said, speaking in the stiff manner of someone trying to move his jaw muscles without moving his head.

"Start running," Dree said. "And believe me. I'll know if you try to circle back."

"Why should I?"

"You really think your friend can kill that Orc with an iron warhammer?"

The bandit apparently deliberated for a second. Then he took a careful step forward away from the knife point and sprinted off down the road. Dree pivoted just in time to bat aside the shaft of another arrow. The archer dropped the bow and went for his sword.

Dree was faster. He was dead before he hit the ground.

She retrieved the knife from his ribs and wiped it carefully on the bandit's pants leg. Fur armor had much wider seams than chainmail, she noticed silently. And I got his heart on the first try, even from the side. That's doing better, anyway. She looked around.

The Khajiit was still alive. Dree watched him circle the Orc, tail lashing. Gogron turned to follow him as he moved, but he seemed slower than he should be, sluggish. The Khajiit darted forward and swung the warhammer at his head, and he barely hunched up his shoulder in time to divert the blow. Dree heard the metallic sound of the impact, and winced.

He's not berserking. He's not even as good as usual. The thought was confirmed as Gogron tried to decapitate the Khajiit with his axe. He missed, and not by a little. The weight of the axe dragged him sideways, off-balance, and the bandit raised the warhammer to bring it down on his helmet -

And Dree was behind the bandit without remembering the steps she'd taken. She stabbed the Khajiit at the base of his skull without any hesitation at all. For some reason, he didn't let go of the warhammer as he fell dead. I wish I could stop noticing things like that.

"Gogron?" Dree said. The Orc righted himself, shaking his head.

"The other two?" he said. His voice was a little muffled. She could hear his lungs laboring away, making a noise she'd never heard before. Not from the inside, anyway. Is he wheezing?

"One's dead. One ran. Are you all right?"

"Yeah," Gogron said, and took a deep breath. "Just too flaming slow. See if they've got any lockpicks. You never know when you'll need one."

Dree complied, keeping an anxious eye on the Orc as he went to hang his helmet on the saddle horn. Was he leaning on the stirrup, his back turned so she wouldn't see it? Was he hit when I wasn't looking? He's still breathing funny.

"Here's one," Dree said, and pocketed the article she'd found. She stood up. "There's maybe ten gold, too. Want it?"

"Keep it," Gogron said, without turning around. "Maybe you'll want a couple of apples next time you're in town."

"They must have been pretty desperate," Dree said.

"Or just stupid," Gogron said.

"Or that," said Dree. "Are you sure you're all right, Gogron?"

He chuckled deep in his chest. "Knocked the wind out of me," he said. "Gonna have to do some work with a hammer, we get back."

---

Ocheeva stood by a pillar in the main Sanctuary and waited. Night had fallen, and no shaft of light now illuminated the dry shaft of the well. A thin pall of smoke from the torches clung to the ceiling, wafting unceasingly toward the outlet. No one in Cheydinhal would wonder at the smoke rising from the well. First, the cover would largely disperse it, and second, everyone had long since been warned off loitering behind the abandoned house.

Ocheeva tugged at a cranial spine. Not from annoyance at the smell, though it stung more in her nostrils than it would to man or mer. She had expected Gogron back sooner. But Gogron gro-Bolmog was perenially inconsistent in his arrivals and departures, beyond even the natural caution of avoiding predictable schedules. There was no cause for concern, Ocheeva told herself firmly. She knew he had completed his assignment, and twenty guards would never kill an Orc she'd sent against fifty before.

Before, she repeated silently, almost against her will. If the little Bosmer has cost me a member of my Sanctuary, she had better be dead herself as well. A lowly new Sister ought to start out on easy, simple things. A poisoning here. An invalid there. Things in which her clumsiness might endanger only herself, not an established and necessary Brother.

Yet Gogron's time with us is limited, and ever has been. The thought was a sad one, because Ocheeva liked the Orc. And more than that, as well. Ocheeva had been chosen as the task-giver for the Sanctuary for a good reason. There were those within the Brotherhood who were, like Gogron, only the unthinking arm of the Night Mother, serving without understanding. There were those who, like Marie, loved the god above all else, including the Tenets. Most disordered and most dangerous of loves, yet it is powerful, Ocheeva thought. There were those whose motives were simply greed and lust for power, power over life and death. There were even a few like Vicente Valtieri, who followed the rules out of a fastidious distaste for chaos and all its messiness.

And there was Ocheeva, who loved them all. Who loved them as once the Night Mother had loved her own sons, so much that she slew them to make them better and purer. Perhaps Lucien LaChance ruled the Sanctuary as its Speaker, but Ocheeva watched over it like a hen brooding her chicks. She was untroubled by Marie's expulsions, and welcomed her back gladly at each triumphant return. She was untouched by M'raaj-Dar's insubordination, and bought from him whatever he offered her. Valtieri could not repulse her with the worst of his excesses, not when she had been reared by Lucien LaChance. All of them needed someone to keep them going in the right direction. They needed her. Ocheeva had no children to sacrifice to the Dark God. Her daily sacrifice was the gift of herself.

Gogron gro-Bolmog had always earned her pity, the more so since she had come to realize that he did understand his situation. Assassins seldom grew old. Valtieri was very much the exception. Teinaava, most controlled and most careful of them all, probably had the best chance of living out a natural life; Gogron had been astoundingly lucky to reach the age of thirty and two. It was only a matter of time before he let the wrong man get away, and the Legion found him out. One day he would lose momentum at the wrong time, and find himself exhausted and confused in the midst of his enemies. One day he would simply not see an archer in time.

Ocheeva would accept the inevitable. But she would not welcome any development that might hasten that end, and disturb the tranquility of her home besides. The vampire Dree seemed very likely to do both of those things. This was particularly true now that Gogron had had time to get attached to her. Ocheeva did not look forward to watching him go through the inevitable heartbreak when the stupid creature got herself killed. It would probably be at Gogron's own hands, which would only make things worse.

Perhaps it has already happened, and for this reason he is late. She knew he had completed his assigned task, because she always knew. It was the Night Mother's gift to every one who sent out her Brothers and Sisters to do the will of Sithis. But Ocheeva could not tell exactly how that had come to pass, or what had happened before or afterwards. She only knew that Lord Bendorith was dead, and many of his guards with him. It could very well be that the vampire Dree was destroyed, and Gogron had lost time disposing of the ashes and gathering up the effects. And collecting himself enough to pretend he does not care. Certainly no one else will -

This thought was interrupted by the creak of the front door. Somewhere behind her Ocheeva heard the Dark Guardian pause in its patrol, bones clicking in its spine as it swayed in place. A puff of cold air wafted in, and with it came a very familiar scent of armor, horsehair, and Orc.

Also, unfortunately, there came the metallic stink of vampire. And she does not smell the same as before, Ocheeva thought. The sound of clumping boots reached her next, and the soft patter of shoes. The tang of iron is sharper.

Gogron stepped into view a moment later. He walked slowly, and the sizable dents in his breastplate said that he had not come off entirely unmarked.

"Welcome home," Ocheeva said. The warmth in her voice was real. "Alas, it seems I cannot offer you the bonus."

"Never can," Gogron said, waving his free hand. The gesture was less expansive than usual, perhaps because his beaten armor limited his mobility. His other hand held saddlebags and a canvas sack. "Give the gold to Dree so she can count out her fifty percent."

"What?" said Dree.

"You killed the mark," Gogron said. "Only reason I'm even keeping half is because I got you there."

"I couldn't exactly have fought off twenty guards myself," Dree said.

"Then it was you who killed Lord Bendorith?" Ocheeva asked. She watched Dree, head on one side, as she held out the small purse of gold. Dree took it without touching her, but Ocheeva felt the cold that seemed to radiate from her skin. The smell of iron was stronger. It was not the smell of blood, but of blood distilled to its essence, blood being used up like oil in a lamp.

"She did it," Gogron said. "And she struck first. She's done her part for us." His usual good humor was muted, Ocheeva noted with growing concern.

"You have done well, Brother," she said. "Congratulations to you, Dree. I can see that your kill has changed you."

The young mer's pinched face looked momentarily startled, then resumed its expression of permanent wariness. "You can? How?"

"Could be because your eyes are glowing," Gogron said.

"They are?"

"When you stand in the dark," Ocheeva said. "I have at times seen Vicente Valtieri do the same. It is well."

Dree looked slightly disturbed, and said nothing. Ocheeva noted this in puzzlement. Did she believe she could die, and not change?

"Anything else, Sister?" Gogron said, peering down at her through the gloom. "You doing all right?"

"This one is well, Brother," Ocheeva said formally. "Go and rest."

"Thanks," he said. Gogron bowed his head with a courtesy quite at odds with his normal persona. Sometimes when he is very tired, he forgets. He limped off toward the living quarters with the undersized vampire in tow. Ocheeva watched her run ahead to tug the great door open.

Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps she will be one of us, after all.

Somewhere behind her, the Dark Guardian went on about his business. The torches guttered and smoked, and bones rattled softly in the dark.

---

Early next morning, Dree was awakened by the absence of any sound of footsteps.

She lay still for a moment, listening.

She could hear Gogron snoring, and beyond him the soft breathing of M'raaj-Dar and Antoinetta Marie. Someone had told her Teinaava was on an assignment. So the fourth person whose heart she heard beating was not Teinaava. It was not Ocheeva, who was also Argonian and breathed a little differently.

It's a Human. And he's not making any sound at all.

Dree slid carefully out from under the bed on the opposite side from the sound. She drew her knife slowly as she crouched beside the bed. She thought about risking a glance up over the edge. Then a cold, cold voice said,

"Put away your weapon, Vilindriel. Haven't you been expecting me?"

She stood up slowly. At first she saw nothing, just a ripple in the air. Then the chameleon spell dropped away, and she was looking at a fairly ordinary man in a black robe. Ordinary except that his eyes are orange, Dree thought.

"Are you the Speaker?" she said.

"I am Lucien LaChance," he said. "And you are a cold-blooded killer. Welcome to the Dark Brotherhood, Vilindriel."