Mind Maze
Prologue
The assassin was perched behind a large boulder, hiding, waiting, face concealed by a black cloak and hood. The assassin's body was tense, hands hovering close to the numerous weapons strapped and hidden around the black-covered body.
From far, far away came the sound of clattering of a carriage and horses. It drew closer slowly, since the horses had been dragging the carriage and the King and Queen inside all day already.
The assassin, part of the patient shadows, continued to wait. This chance cannot be missed; not when the price of the King and Queen's lives were so high.
Then, when the carriage was almost right behind the boulder, the assassin sprung from the dark hiding place, drew gleaming weapons, and attacked.
The driver gave a shout of alarm that was quickly silenced with a swipe of a silver blade. Dark blood sprayed. The horse reared, surprised by the sudden lack of control. Inside the decorated box, the assassin could hear the Queen's voice, cold and imperial, with a hint of fear, asking her husband of the situation. Her husband, the King, did not reply. He did not know.
They didn't notice that their death was upon them until the assassin pried open the door, and with two well-aimed throws, ended the lives of the two most important people of the neighboring country.
The assassin did not care about their status. After all, their lives were worth some money, and the assassin needed that money.
A match was pulled from a concealed pocket of that black cloak, and within moments, the carriage was burning to ashes, along with all the corpses stuffed inside the box.
One week later, when the death bells reverberated through the land, rolling through the fields of one prospering and beautiful kingdom and ending after reaching the rocky deserts of its neighbor.
The assassin sat on a boulder, juggling two knives and a rock. The mournful chimes of church bells rolled past that boulder. Then there was a smile in the darkness of the hood, that grin nothing short of feral. Ruthlessness incarnate.
A black-clad figure slid gracefully from the rock and began striding purposefully across the desert and towards civilization.
Now… payment.