Many things went through my mind at that moment. I wondered, of course, who had sold me, but I couldn't imagine any of the soldiers in the camp being satisfied with silver, when there was gold to gain.

I hesitated to scream and struggle, to reach for my knife, but my attacker was sitting on my right hand. In that handful of heartbeats, I seriously weighed the pros and cons. If I had thought I could get away with an injury, even a serious one, I wouldn't have been so deliberate. But the man from Franlake had a firm grip on me, his blade was wedged under my eye, and it would have taken him barely the snap of a finger to make good on his threat.

And then, in the middle of all this, sounding like a diabolical lullaby, there was this thought that came back in palpitations. I kept telling myself that I was finally going back to Brown-Horn. Despite the fate that awaited me there, a part of me wanted to see the black granite walls again more than anything else in the world.

"Unbuckle your belt," the assassin calmly ordered me. I pretended to do so, and the dagger bit my face until it bled. I hiccupped to keep from screaming. "Easy," he said in a whisper. I swallowed. One by one, as slowly as possible, I removed my clips. The assassin pulled me up, taking his time, then threw the weapons belt onto the nearby mat. A roll of light rope then blossomed in his hand, as if by magic. In the shadows near the fire, I could see Sigburt's boots. They were still stirring from time to time.

The killer laced me up, and the threat of the dagger disappeared once my hands were securely tied in front of me. "I heard that, finally, you had killed since the last time we saw each other," the Assassin whispered in a conversational tone. "Ironic, isn't it?" I contemplated his face in silence as he checked the ties. Neither ugly nor handsome, he had sharp features and a thin moustache, and his grooming was impeccable. Everything about the man pointed to austerity and yet, just by looking at him, he exuded danger like a mud snake: brown, plain, but deadly. There was also something deeply disturbing in his grey eyes.

A metallic, distant quality that kept whispering how easy it was for him to kill. He finished securing his work and a slight smile twisted his thin lips:

"Your Val is smart. Three years with a bounty like that, and I still have to come get you in person."

I snorted disdainfully and let out a brave and venomous protest, a High-Brownian saying that seemed appropriate. "The game's got it good when the dogs are bad." The assassin put me on my feet a tad roughly and proceeded to probe me for hidden weapons.

"Got it good? More than you know," he said evenly. His hands flew over me, firm and methodical. "Your name has been particularly useful to us. In addition to everything else, you're now accused of the murder of Bard Govon the Young. His body had those marks for which you became famous." I widened my eyes, but the assassin shook his head. "No, I had nothing to do with it. At least not directly. I only did the cutting. His horse slipped while charging the partisans in Owl's alley." My lips curled despite me:

"Like Holen, right? He's dead from his bronchial disease, and you took the opportunity to cut him, too. But not the others. You still don't know who cut the others."

The assassin snapped his tongue and forced me to pivot until my back faced him. "Your former payees underestimated you, kid. If you didn't have another use, you could've become an asset to the league, I always thought. But we'll talk about that on the road. You've still got a whole lot to tell me." The sweet tone he used clearly rhymed with torture. I swallowed again, my mind racing. The man drummed his fingers absentmindedly on his thigh, then, after a quick glance around the tent, he pulled Sigburt's cloak over my shoulders and pulled the hood down. He had just transformed me into a draped, anonymous figure that could be mistaken for any other kid wrapped in a hood. No one would ever see me disappear.

Then he went to stand in front of me. He grabbed my face and forced me to look at him. He wanted to make a point, I could see it. "You're smart, and imaginative too, I'm sure," he licked his lips, "but I'm going to tell you anyway. I've been working for three years to bring you back, but at the slightest hitch, you have my word, I'll stab you and fuck your corpse every night until we get to Brown-Horn." I nodded, digesting the threat like an expected meal. "How did you find me?" My heart was pounding and my own voice seemed distant, but I wanted to know. The assassin straightened up with the calculated suppleness of a fawn and pushed me firmly in the direction of the exit. He had a slight accent, but I was still unable to identify it accurately:

"In place of the Val I would have sought the protection of my people. But you weren't in Spinel, and it's not for lack of looking for you. It was when I was told that a Val and his yunling had massacred three bandits in Culon that I understood. You had tried to disappear. And the old man was training you. Since you never made it to Cover-Pass after Vilan had had its way, I came to find the only remaining vaïdoerk in the area. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the right moment. It was easy."

I felt resignation come over me, and then suddenly the leather flap - in the direction of which the assassin was pushing me - was torn off. The whiteness of the snow blinded me. "Here's something easy, assassin," Ofrid said as he entered the tent, weapon in hand. "Release the yunling or die like a dog." Ereck slid in beside him panting, a warlike smile on his lips, and Ulrick came after them. "An old man?" he growled dangerously. Behind me, the killer hesitated. Time seemed to stand still.

I could have sworn that even the wavering flames of the fire pit had solidified. The pavilion froze in shadow and light. Then the assassin spat.

Then everything went very fast, so fast that I hardly had time to be afraid.

As the killer drew his blades in a whirlwind of capes, Ereck lunged forward, quick as a thing of the sky, a hawk or lightning. His blade forced the assassin to choose between me and evisceration. He chose quickly. I stumbled forward and Ofrid pulled me toward him as the assassin backed away. Ulrick charged the killer from the side, as Ereck threw another blow, knocking over a garbage bucket in his haste. There was a clash of blades, a true gush of metallic clanking, and then, bent and hissing like a fighting feline, the assassin retreated through the pavilion. A trail of carmine beads dripped in his wake.

The two warriors rushed after him. I couldn't see the action directly, as I was wrapped up in the cloak, but in my life I have only known a handful of men who could repel, even briefly, the simultaneous assault of two such warriors.

Despite his alley cat reflexes and obvious skill, this couldn't last for the assassin, and he knew it. After allowing himself to be cornered, the killer deflected a thrust from Ereck and, with a flick of his dagger, opened a gap in the pavilion behind him. Still in a defensive position, as nimble as a snake, the man from Franlake slipped a first leg through the gaping canvas before his opponent could recover. His eyes grazed me as he left.

Then, just as the killer threw himself through the breach, there was a fierce war cry outside and a succession of muffled shocks. Something slumped heavily against the ruined drapery. I thought the assassin had escaped, and then, a heartbeat later, Sidrik Harstelebb's bloody face peered through the opening. "Iss finne," he said, with bits of brain in his hair. I exhaled sharply, biting my lip to keep from crying. Ofrid, with the tip of his boot, was feeling the inert body of the great Sigburt with a pained look on his face.

Ereck pulled the still twitching assassin inside so as not to attract more attention. I took a few steps towards him to make sure he was dead. I was as wary of the assassin as of the plague, but Sidrik's hammer had left no room for subterfuge. Ulrick sheathed his sword and my strength left me. I sat down at once beside the fire.

As if in a dream, Ulrick carefully removed my cloak and began to shear my bonds. The rest of the vaïdoerk was now in the pavilion, and was gathering around the inert body of Sigburt. Bent over, to bid him farewell and pay their last respects. Ereck and Sidrik were bandaging their cuts, small, sharp, deep things on their faces and arms. In shock, I was shaking like a leaf in the wind. As the lace gave way, I grabbed Ulrick Treikuss' forearm in a clan warrior's salute.

"Forgive me," I murmured miserably, my eyes blurred. The old Val nodded and ruffled my hair. With the sleeve of his gambeson he wiped away the drop of blood that had trickled down my face where the assassin had held his blade. "Ofrid will want to talk to you," he said seriously. "A boy has come with a message. If it weren't for that, you'd already be on your way to the rope."

Something even stranger than the arrival of the assassin had taken place that day. The vaïdoerk had been warned. Ofrid had placed the boy in question in the custody of Wimred Hadman before rushing to my rescue with a dozen hand-picked warriors. The child, one of the many idlers in the canvas village, seven or eight years old, was still under the influence of the aster-gum he had smoked the day before. His initial reluctance to talk to us was finally explained when he suddenly snapped under the threat, and begged Ofrid, crying, not to take his nugget. Someone had rewarded the boy for his run with a nice little gold fragment.

By the time we got him to agree for good that no one was planning to rob him, it was long past dark and the vaïdoerk had gathered for a folnwordd under the tent. The boy was much more cooperative over a bowl of baked beans, yet he was unable to explain who had given him the note that had saved me, or even what that person looked like. His reddened eyes glowed like those of a feverish man when questioned about it, and despite Ulrick's repeated insistence, the questioning went nowhere. The boy babbled every time, long hesitant tirades, and held his hands out in front of him as if to touch something. Yet he couldn't describe what he had really seen. What remained was the note he had carried, which seemed to have been scribbled in charcoal on a torn piece of vellum. The handwriting, in impeccable brownian, was graceful, but it also felt hasty. "The League's killer is coming for the apprentice of Ulrick the Val. Make haste." There was nothing else on the message, and the kid was let go when it became clear that he would be of no further use to anyone.

After a brief debate that evening, the Vals themselves put an end to the deliberations: the assassin was dead, and if all of this remained mystifying, the threat to me seemed to have been removed for the time being. Sven and a few other impatient yunlings did offer to investigate further to try to find the anonymous author, but Ofrid managed to dissuade them. In spite of my curiosity and the exciting call of the investigation, I reluctantly agreed with the hettman's position: it might draw too much interest to me, at a time when I had already caused enough attention with my questions about Brown-Horn. So it was decided that we would leave it at that and that, as a precautionary measure, I should not venture anywhere by myself. It was a hard decision to accept, but after what had happened I accepted it without protest. This didn't prevent me from spending the rest of the Belmo turning my brain upside down with hypotheses about the identity of my enigmatic benefactor.

Ulrick openly suspected Jask or Ringer, but, although I admit to having had my doubts, this theory seemed absurd every time I considered it seriously. If the two soldiers had sold me out, and then regretted their actions enough to try to make up for it, why reward the messenger with a nugget that must have been worth a monthly pay? It didn't make sense. Besides, I was pretty sure that Ringer couldn't read or write, and assumed that the same must be true for the highlander. In fact, what I found the most intriguing was that someone could have detected the presence of the assassin in the camp and knew when he would strike. Having seen him operate, I found it downright supernatural. One thing led to another, and an old terror resurfaced, and I found myself briefly staring into the ebony eyes of the Seïd. Could the assassin have been followed from Brown-Horn? When he had spoken to us with Dera three years before, through the worm-eaten boards of the south road cabin, the Seïd had not used brownian. Then my doubts returned, and after a healthy dose of padekke, I wondered again about the very existence of the black-eyed demon.

After relieving him of everything that could be used to identify the assassin, we threw him into the woods the next morning, claiming that he had been an ordinary thief. We burned Sigburt a few days later. I didn't know him very well, this Val who had died because of me, but out of respect I cut off the longest of my braids, and it burned with him.

I admit I was surprised that his assassination didn't put my place in the vaïdoerk back on the table. "You fought in the wall. You'd have died for him the same way," Sven had told me, his face sincere. That was the only explanation anyone would give me about it. I had tried to talk to Sidrik, after thanking him for having sacrificed some of his flesh to protect me. The young warrior had merely given me a surprised look and turned away without even bothering to answer.

The Belmo festivities swelled without me, until they took on completely excessive proportions. There were more deaths before the year was out. A militiaman froze in his own vomit on the eastern palisade, and a highlander mercenary was beaten to death by a dozen scrap dealers wearing the Children of Yss crest, for stabbing their captain. The brute who had led us into battle in Ac-Pass survived his wounds, which surprised no one. Then a new year began and habits returned, overnight. The winter weeks went by. Soon the boredom and the treacherous routine of the siege returned.

Sven and I sometimes went back to the trench in front of the walls. I was again participating in val trainings in a proper way. I had pushed Brown-Horn aside, as one bends a bramble in its path. I had devoted myself to the dreary tangle of days and the immediacy that comes from steel.

I had the time to believe that this sharp interlude, the one that had got the better of the assassin, had also finished cutting something in me. In the dead eyes of the agent of Franlake, I had believed to see the mark of the past bursting, and I had imagined that with him mine had finally stopped flowing back into the present. It was with a strange apathy that I had imagined how what remained of the old Fyss would be scattered by scavengers all along the Thorns, from the borders of Wadd to the edges of Amuber. As far as I was concerned, I was sure this time, the cord had finally been cut. I couldn't have been more wrong.