Torrin Malakai stood on the outskirts of Almasen, a border settlement so small it hardly deserved the title of "city". All around him, soldiers in foreign uniforms and armor ran past him, yelling and hefting their bloodied swords and muddied shields. Although night had fallen many hours ago, he could still see fairly well, by the light of the bonfire that was slowly being built up. It will be quite the inferno indeed, he thought to himself with a wry grin. The assault was almost over, but more and more bodies were being brought in by the hour.
The grassy plain around him afforded little to no coverage, and he knew that his comrades would soon be flushed out, if their lifeless bodies were already not laid out before him. The only place were his fellow training Assassins could hide were in the forests to the east. All he had to do was wait.
It was a mad idea, he knew, but somehow it hardly mattered. I will have my vengeance. I will have her to myself. Come out, and we shall see who comes out on top. Torrin laughed to himself very quietly in the surrounding din.
A loud harrumph from behind him disturbed his thoughts. He turned around very slowly, trying to calm himself. He stared down at the man who stood before him now, who was garbed in a green tunic with yellow stripes over each shoulder, and covered simply in a heavily-worked chestplate. One of the leaders of this rag-tag group, Torrin observed. Only a fool who stands behind the actual lines of battle would wear such an obviously ornamental piece. Torrin sneered down the length of his nose at this shorter man with a bright blue feather in his also heavily-worked conical helm. "What is it." His voice was flat and impassive, despite the man being of high rank and at least twenty years his senior. Behind him, his retinue of frail-looking fellow soldiers gasped at his impudence.
The feathered-cap man cleared his throat and tried to puff his chest out. "Sir Torrin of House Malakai?" Torrin simply nodded. "You're younger than I expected." Torrin's eyes narrowed slightly, but the man hastily continued. "I'm Lord Garwick, of House Serrol. I am Captain of the Safer southern border guard. My supervising officer sends his regards, but was afraid-- er, was unable to come here himself. I am the commanding officer here."
The two turned around and faced the scurrying foot soldiers, who were adding more and more fallen logs from the nearby forest onto the quickly-growing ring of wood that was to surround the entire village.
"A beautiful sight, is it not, Lord Garwick?" Torrin crossed his arms across his chest, his face lit up at the spectacle, like a child in wonder. "The thrill of victory is a wonderful sensation, incomparable to any other sensation save love itself."
"It is," Garwick had to concede. He was sick to his stomach, though, at the sight and stench of the bodies around them. The ground had become soaked and muddied as it was saturated with spilled blood. "But one curious thing remains. You were in disucssion with my commanding officer for days before we finally launched this offensive. You claimed this settlement of Almasen was building a threat to Safer's own border, but I see nothing here that warrants so many of our troops. I'm curious as to why my superiors agreed to send the number you had requested." He gestured to the troops around them, which were organizing the corpses within the huge wooden ring that would serve as kindling. "There's only several dozen people here, not including the maybe twenty more that you said could be flushed out from the woods. We've only found about six of them heavily armored, and yet we outnumber everyone here four to a man. Was this settlement really such a threat?"
Torrin said nothing for a while, but then turned to the nearest guard dragging a black-and-red garbed corpse through the slick soil, and beckoned for him to come closer. The guard looked perplexed at this foreigner giving him orders, until Garwick nodded his head in consent. When he was close enough, Torrin lifted away the bloodied black jacket of the dead man, who appeared to be in his mid-twenties. A nasty tear appeared on the left side of his neck, exposing a deep hole where a spear had once been gouged in. That was not what made Garwick step back though. Within a concealed flap of his jacket, the man carried numerous slim throwing knives, among a number of other sharp-looking silver tools. Torrin picked up a particularly insidious-looking tool with barbs and assorted dagger points.
"Do you seee this little thing? You palm it into your hand until you're close enough to your target, and then plunge it into their skin," he said, demonstrating on the soldier who dragged the corpse over. The man fell over to the ground with a shriek, grasping at the tool that was now protruding out of his shin up to its handle. "The blades slice its way easily through the numerous layers of leather and clothing--so long as it's not through metal armor-- and the barbs only dig into the flesh afterwards. There's no easy way to pull it out, and if the person is lucky enough to get it out before dying of bloodloss or of gangrene, it will leave a huge permanent scar." Torrin grasped the handle and twisted hard, and ripped it out of the man's leg. He fell backwards, sprawled onto the ground with a final cry of pain. A huge hole the size of the palm of a hand now appeared in the man's shin.
"Is -- is he dead?" Garwick stared at horror at the tool as it was handed to him. It dripped crimson warmth over his immaculate white gloves.
"No-- he's merely passed out from shock, but his career in the distinguished Safer armed forces is over. Well, a career in anything, actually, assuming he survives." Torrin grinned at the paling Garwick as he waved the fallen soldier away with his hand. Two other soldiers came forward and pulled the two bodies away. "Now, that was just one tool out of about two dozen concealed on that dead man's body. The dozens of other black-clothed men and the handful of black women here all have the same set of tools to work with, besides their own scimitars. I have the same on me. We're all trained killers here."
Garwick and his retinue all gasped in horror. Finally, Garwick broke the silence hanging over them, asking, "Then why sell out your own? If you were one of them, why kill them off?"
"I mentioned love earlier," said Torrin quietly. "Among the black-garbed women in this settlement, there is a blonde young girl... I am seventeen years old now, but the girl I speak of is but six or seven years old. She is mine. We were promised to each other when she was first born. She has, apparently, chosen another for her intended one. He, too, was one of us."
"A girl? This was all over a girl?" Lord Garrick Serrol laughed openly, and his retinue tittered to each other. "Oh, you are a fool!" Suddenly he stopped laughing. He looked down at between his legs, where Torrin's hand gripped, hard. Garwick swallowed audibly.
"Good. Now listen, or I squeeze. I was one of the best in my cadre," he said, slowly. "I know many, many ways of inflicting exquisite pain on your body. This is one of them. Laugh again, and I will show you others." He let go, and turned to the fires that were being lit up from all around the wooden ring surrounding the makeshift village of Almasen. "I have not seen this seven year old girl among the corpses yet, and this is good. She is also one of us, so she may turn up yet, in a valiant effort, or something, to save her fellows. Bring her to me when she turns up. She is this high," he made an invisible mark in the air with his hand, "and has exquisite blonde hair up to her shoulders. Now if there's nothing else, captain, I leave the rest to you ...and your.... so capable troops. Find her and bring her to me." Without another look at Lord Garwick Serrol, he stalked away, admiring the numerous corpses now laid out at his feet.
-------
Lord Torrin woke up in his bed, his eyes slowly widening.. A dream? He shook his head as he sat up in bed. No, a recollection. A faraway memory. He got up from his bed, and stumbled over to an open window, one that looked over his extensive personal gardens. It was nearly noon, but he did not care. There, next to the pond filled with huge, distorted goldfish, Caraain Bedell sat, admiring the colorful flowerbeds at the feet of the towering weeping willow.
She said she would leave me, he thought to himself. She told me yesterday it was time for her to move on. She will be gone. Again.
He turned away from the window, and picked up a fine redwood flute from its stand on a nearby dresser. Wetting his lips, he put it to his mouth, and played a few strands of "Willow's Widow", reciting the lyrics with each note:
My love is gone, carried away,
by the wind that shakes the willow,
and all the land is beaten hard,
by the wind that shakes the willow.
But I will hold her close to me
in heart and dearest memory,
and with her strength to steel my soul,
her love to warm my heart-strings,
I will stand where we once sang,
though cold wind shakes the willow.
Quietly, eyes closed, he set down the flute, and stretched his arms out, yawning. Fifteen years ago I swore you'd be mine, he thought. If I can't have you, no one will. Worse yet, I cannot have you discover what it was that actually went on in Almasen some fifteen years ago.
"Time to call upon the Assassins," he said quietly, in front of the mirror, staring at himself.
The grassy plain around him afforded little to no coverage, and he knew that his comrades would soon be flushed out, if their lifeless bodies were already not laid out before him. The only place were his fellow training Assassins could hide were in the forests to the east. All he had to do was wait.
It was a mad idea, he knew, but somehow it hardly mattered. I will have my vengeance. I will have her to myself. Come out, and we shall see who comes out on top. Torrin laughed to himself very quietly in the surrounding din.
A loud harrumph from behind him disturbed his thoughts. He turned around very slowly, trying to calm himself. He stared down at the man who stood before him now, who was garbed in a green tunic with yellow stripes over each shoulder, and covered simply in a heavily-worked chestplate. One of the leaders of this rag-tag group, Torrin observed. Only a fool who stands behind the actual lines of battle would wear such an obviously ornamental piece. Torrin sneered down the length of his nose at this shorter man with a bright blue feather in his also heavily-worked conical helm. "What is it." His voice was flat and impassive, despite the man being of high rank and at least twenty years his senior. Behind him, his retinue of frail-looking fellow soldiers gasped at his impudence.
The feathered-cap man cleared his throat and tried to puff his chest out. "Sir Torrin of House Malakai?" Torrin simply nodded. "You're younger than I expected." Torrin's eyes narrowed slightly, but the man hastily continued. "I'm Lord Garwick, of House Serrol. I am Captain of the Safer southern border guard. My supervising officer sends his regards, but was afraid-- er, was unable to come here himself. I am the commanding officer here."
The two turned around and faced the scurrying foot soldiers, who were adding more and more fallen logs from the nearby forest onto the quickly-growing ring of wood that was to surround the entire village.
"A beautiful sight, is it not, Lord Garwick?" Torrin crossed his arms across his chest, his face lit up at the spectacle, like a child in wonder. "The thrill of victory is a wonderful sensation, incomparable to any other sensation save love itself."
"It is," Garwick had to concede. He was sick to his stomach, though, at the sight and stench of the bodies around them. The ground had become soaked and muddied as it was saturated with spilled blood. "But one curious thing remains. You were in disucssion with my commanding officer for days before we finally launched this offensive. You claimed this settlement of Almasen was building a threat to Safer's own border, but I see nothing here that warrants so many of our troops. I'm curious as to why my superiors agreed to send the number you had requested." He gestured to the troops around them, which were organizing the corpses within the huge wooden ring that would serve as kindling. "There's only several dozen people here, not including the maybe twenty more that you said could be flushed out from the woods. We've only found about six of them heavily armored, and yet we outnumber everyone here four to a man. Was this settlement really such a threat?"
Torrin said nothing for a while, but then turned to the nearest guard dragging a black-and-red garbed corpse through the slick soil, and beckoned for him to come closer. The guard looked perplexed at this foreigner giving him orders, until Garwick nodded his head in consent. When he was close enough, Torrin lifted away the bloodied black jacket of the dead man, who appeared to be in his mid-twenties. A nasty tear appeared on the left side of his neck, exposing a deep hole where a spear had once been gouged in. That was not what made Garwick step back though. Within a concealed flap of his jacket, the man carried numerous slim throwing knives, among a number of other sharp-looking silver tools. Torrin picked up a particularly insidious-looking tool with barbs and assorted dagger points.
"Do you seee this little thing? You palm it into your hand until you're close enough to your target, and then plunge it into their skin," he said, demonstrating on the soldier who dragged the corpse over. The man fell over to the ground with a shriek, grasping at the tool that was now protruding out of his shin up to its handle. "The blades slice its way easily through the numerous layers of leather and clothing--so long as it's not through metal armor-- and the barbs only dig into the flesh afterwards. There's no easy way to pull it out, and if the person is lucky enough to get it out before dying of bloodloss or of gangrene, it will leave a huge permanent scar." Torrin grasped the handle and twisted hard, and ripped it out of the man's leg. He fell backwards, sprawled onto the ground with a final cry of pain. A huge hole the size of the palm of a hand now appeared in the man's shin.
"Is -- is he dead?" Garwick stared at horror at the tool as it was handed to him. It dripped crimson warmth over his immaculate white gloves.
"No-- he's merely passed out from shock, but his career in the distinguished Safer armed forces is over. Well, a career in anything, actually, assuming he survives." Torrin grinned at the paling Garwick as he waved the fallen soldier away with his hand. Two other soldiers came forward and pulled the two bodies away. "Now, that was just one tool out of about two dozen concealed on that dead man's body. The dozens of other black-clothed men and the handful of black women here all have the same set of tools to work with, besides their own scimitars. I have the same on me. We're all trained killers here."
Garwick and his retinue all gasped in horror. Finally, Garwick broke the silence hanging over them, asking, "Then why sell out your own? If you were one of them, why kill them off?"
"I mentioned love earlier," said Torrin quietly. "Among the black-garbed women in this settlement, there is a blonde young girl... I am seventeen years old now, but the girl I speak of is but six or seven years old. She is mine. We were promised to each other when she was first born. She has, apparently, chosen another for her intended one. He, too, was one of us."
"A girl? This was all over a girl?" Lord Garrick Serrol laughed openly, and his retinue tittered to each other. "Oh, you are a fool!" Suddenly he stopped laughing. He looked down at between his legs, where Torrin's hand gripped, hard. Garwick swallowed audibly.
"Good. Now listen, or I squeeze. I was one of the best in my cadre," he said, slowly. "I know many, many ways of inflicting exquisite pain on your body. This is one of them. Laugh again, and I will show you others." He let go, and turned to the fires that were being lit up from all around the wooden ring surrounding the makeshift village of Almasen. "I have not seen this seven year old girl among the corpses yet, and this is good. She is also one of us, so she may turn up yet, in a valiant effort, or something, to save her fellows. Bring her to me when she turns up. She is this high," he made an invisible mark in the air with his hand, "and has exquisite blonde hair up to her shoulders. Now if there's nothing else, captain, I leave the rest to you ...and your.... so capable troops. Find her and bring her to me." Without another look at Lord Garwick Serrol, he stalked away, admiring the numerous corpses now laid out at his feet.
-------
Lord Torrin woke up in his bed, his eyes slowly widening.. A dream? He shook his head as he sat up in bed. No, a recollection. A faraway memory. He got up from his bed, and stumbled over to an open window, one that looked over his extensive personal gardens. It was nearly noon, but he did not care. There, next to the pond filled with huge, distorted goldfish, Caraain Bedell sat, admiring the colorful flowerbeds at the feet of the towering weeping willow.
She said she would leave me, he thought to himself. She told me yesterday it was time for her to move on. She will be gone. Again.
He turned away from the window, and picked up a fine redwood flute from its stand on a nearby dresser. Wetting his lips, he put it to his mouth, and played a few strands of "Willow's Widow", reciting the lyrics with each note:
My love is gone, carried away,
by the wind that shakes the willow,
and all the land is beaten hard,
by the wind that shakes the willow.
But I will hold her close to me
in heart and dearest memory,
and with her strength to steel my soul,
her love to warm my heart-strings,
I will stand where we once sang,
though cold wind shakes the willow.
Quietly, eyes closed, he set down the flute, and stretched his arms out, yawning. Fifteen years ago I swore you'd be mine, he thought. If I can't have you, no one will. Worse yet, I cannot have you discover what it was that actually went on in Almasen some fifteen years ago.
"Time to call upon the Assassins," he said quietly, in front of the mirror, staring at himself.