Read Online Assassin's Quest by Hobb Robin - Free Book Online Page A

secret, he sundered our ties. I felt suddenly adrift. I watched in a daze as he took up his pack and cloak.
    “It’s dark out,” I pointed out. “And Buckkeep is a far, rough walk, even in daylight. At least stay the night, Chade.”
    “I can’t. You’d but pick at this quarrel like a scab until you got it bleeding afresh. Enough hard words have already been said. Best I leave now.”
    And he did.
    I sat and watched the fire burn low alone. I had gone too far with both of them, much farther than I had ever intended. I had wanted to part ways with them; instead I’d poisoned every memory of me they’d ever had. It was done. There’d be no mending this. I got up and began to gather my things. It took a very short time. I knotted them into a bundle made with my winter cloak. I wondered if I acted out of childish pique or sudden decisiveness. I wondered if there was a difference. I sat for a time before the hearth, clutching my bundle. I wanted Burrich to come back, so he would see I was sorry, would know I was sorry as I left. I forced myself to look carefully at that. Then I undid my bundle and put my blanket before the hearth and stretched out on it. Ever since Burrich had dragged me back from death, he had slept between me and the door. Perhaps it had been to keep me in. Some nights it had felt as if he were all that stood between me and the dark. Now he was not there. Despite the walls of the hut, I felt I curled alone on the bare, wild face of the world.
    You always have me.
    I know. And you have me.
I tried, but could not put any real feeling in the words. I had poured out every emotion in me, and now I was empty. And so tired. With so much still to do.
    The gray one has words with Heart of the Pack. Shall I listen?
    No. Their words belong to them.
I felt jealous that they were together while I was alone. Yet I also took comfort in it. Perhaps Burrich could talk Chade into coming back until morning. Perhaps Chade could leech some of the poison I’d sprayed at Burrich. I stared into the fire. I did not think highly of myself.
    There is a dead spot in the night, that coldest, blackest time when the world has forgotten evening and dawn is not yet a promise. A time when it is far too early to arise, but so late that going to bed makes small sense. That was when Burrich came in. I was not asleep, but I did not stir. He was not fooled.
    “Chade’s gone,” he said quietly. I heard him right the fallen chair. He sat on it and began taking his boots off. I felt no hostility from him, no animosity. It was as if my angry words had never been spoken. Or as if he’d been pushed past anger and hurt into numbness.
    “It’s too dark for him to be walking,” I said to the flames. I spoke carefully, fearing to break the spell of calm.
    “I know. But he had a small lantern with him. He said he feared more to stay, feared he could not keep his resolve with you. To let you go.”
    What I had been snarling for earlier now seemed like an abandonment. The fear surged up in me, undercutting my resolve. I sat up abruptly, panicky. I took a long shuddering breath. “Burrich. What I said to you earlier, I was angry, I was . . .”
    “Right on target.” The sound he made might have been a laugh, if not so freighted with bitterness.
    “Only in the way that people who know one another best know how to hurt one another best,” I pleaded.
    “No. It is so. Perhaps this dog does need a master.” The mockery in his voice as he spoke of himself was more poisonous than any venom I had spewed. I could not speak. He sat up, let his boots drop to the floor. He glanced at me. “I did not set out to make you just like me, Fitz. That is not a thing I would wish on any man. I wished you to be like your father. But sometimes it seemed to me that no matter what I did, you persisted in patterning your life after mine.” He stared into the embers for a time. At last he began to speak again, softly, to the fire. He sounded as if he were