The village stood, melting into the shadows of the forest as it always had. As Kyrwan Bishop strode through the houses, past Talia Lannen's place on the outskirts, through her fields. He had two stops to make. Two scores to settle.

He knocked on the door of his aunt's house. He didn't know if she still lived there, but he figured he ought to at least try. His mother's middle sister, Githa Quarely. He prayed that the lout Cullan was no longer alive, that yellow-haired bastard who'd chased him from his doorstep after Mum had sent him to play with his cousin. He wasn't a monster like Dad, just a petty tyrant with a shaky grasp on the throne, terrified that somehow the taint of the Bishop family would come to his doorstep if he didn't keep it at bay with a broom. Kyrwan was quite aware that he was the spit and image of the old man - how could he not be. He avoided looking-glasses, letting his face grow until it was nearly a beard that the assassins forbid him, just to avoid having to see his father's face looking back at him as he shaved.

A boy, perhaps fourteen, perhaps younger, answered the door. His blue eyes widened as the shadow of the assassin fell across him, and he realized that perhaps he'd opened the door to something very dark indeed.

"Who're you?" he managed to squeak out.

"Is that you, Jem?" Kyrwan asked. Of course it's not, Jem's in his twenties by now. This must be the baby…

"I'm Bragen. Jem's at the inn. Not here."

"Well, you've got words same as him. You tell your mum and dad to tell everyone in town to get out. Something bad's coming at midnight. You have to leave the village."

"Who are you?"

"I am Death," Kyrwan said, "And I'm coming back with my friends in less than four hours. You tell your mum to tell the townspeople that."

"Who's that there!?" he heard his aunt's voice from the other room. He had a thought for a moment to do something really cool, like melt off into the darkness, but to his chagrin, he didn't quite pull it off, and he heard her call, "I see you there! Who are you?!" to his back as he attempted to stalk off into the night. He turned. Their eyes met, and she gasped. She was older, her blond hair shot through with white. He felt a pang of loss for how much she resembled how his Mum would look now. People aged quickly in Barnslow.

"Something bad's going to happen at midnight. Tell the townspeople," he said before turning again.

"You always were an ill omen, Kyrwan," she said, "I told your mother she should have left you in the woods when you were born. Hells, I told her she should have left Kyla in the woods too. Do you think for a minute I'm going to believe the words that come from your mouth? Surely you've something nefarious planned should we leave, you and your sister's whore friends will rob our houses…"

Don't you talk about my sister. "Yes," he said, setting his jaw, "That's exactly what I had in mind. You've foiled my whole entire plan, aren't you the clever one, aunt."

"You're too big to be chased from my doorstep with a broom, but I'll thank you to leave. My older son will be home any minute, and I'd hate for there to be an altercation."

He grunted. He wondered what kind of man Jem had grown into. I could likely take him, he thought, but that's not what I came here for. "Do as you please then, Aunty," he said, "It's not on my head any longer." He turned to leave. As he walked away from the house, he heard Bragen again.

"Why'd he call you Aunty?"

"Don't worry about that Bragen. Now bar the door tight, I don't wonder that he does have something up his sleeve, and we won't be caught in our beds!"

Well that was stupid, he thought. He felt bad for the boy, it wasn't really his doing, after all, but it was even less his own fault the circumstances of his creation, and it kept nobody from hating and trying to kill him for it.

I told your mother she should have left you in the woods. The only reaction Kyrwan had to that thought was that he wished she had as well. Mine is a short and pointless life.

Well, not entirely pointless. Time to right a wrong.

He made his way to the outskirts on the other side, where all but the poorest would be spared the rank stench of the butcher's killing floor. The barn still stood. A glance told him that the rope, sawn in half, still swung. He wondered if the old man relished it, his victory, his final triumph over the sixteen-year-old girl whose life he had decided to make it his business to destroy. Turned her into a sixteen-year-old mother, and a thirty-year-old grandmother, and a thirty-nine-year-old corpse who snapped her own neck rather than face what he had wrought. Did he glance up at it as he was cutting the throats of goats and cows, and smile? Whistle a tune?

He slid the window open to his childhood room. He wasn't as small as he was at eight, but at seventeen he was thin and lithe enough to wriggle through. His eyes adjusted to the dim lamplight and he saw that nothing had changed. Cobwebs covered almost every surface, but the bed, the books hurriedly pulled from the shelves, drawers open and dangling, exactly as they had left them at dawn nine years before. Silently, just as he'd been taught, he crept into the main room. The old man was sitting, his back to the door, facing the fire.

"You shouldn't turn your back on the door, the life you've lead," he said. He fingered the knife at his belt, but he had thought about this moment for far too long to ruin it with something as vulgar as a weapon.

"The fuck's in my living room?!" the old man sprang up and turned. He wasn't really that old of a man, and his movements were those of someone still robust and strong though probably well into his sixties. Kyrwan had the awkward feeling of looking into an enchanted mirror, one that showed him the future. Dad was still handsome, though time had whittled lines into his forehead and someone had given him a scar down one side of his face. It's not your own face you hate, he said, forcing him to look at the old bastard, it's his.

But my face is his.

Not if you take it from him.

"So you've come back to see your old Dad, have you," the old man said, his tone jovial.

He stumbled back, the words like a fist in his solar plexus. Are you bloody serious?! You're happy to see me?

"You've grown strong," the old man said, "I've been waiting for you to come back, I have. I always said, my boy Kyrwan, he's going to grow up big and strong and he's going to come back to his old dad in his dotage."

Dad got up and put a hand on either one of Kyrwan's shoulders. "Handsome, too. I'm glad you're back, son, the arthritis has gotten to my hands in the winters. How old are you now? And where's that sister of yours, I hope you brought her back as well, I can't hardly cook for myself."

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

"You don't have any idea why I'm here, do you?"

The old man's face fell, "I hoped we'd gotten past that unpleasantness." He took went over to the cabinet. There was no food in the cupboard to speak of, but the rows upon rows of liquor jugs told Kyrwan how he got most of his nutrition. With a shaking hand, he poured two tumblers of clear liquor - unaged corn whiskey by the smell of it - and brought one to Kyrwan.

"I never got to tell you about being a man," he said, "Sit down, kid."

He sat down, still too taken aback to do anything. He found his own hands shaking, and he took a drink of the moonshine.

"The thing about women, son…" he said, "They mean well, they really do, most of the time. They think they're saving you from yourself. But you can't listen to them. I know Kyla probably said some bad things about me, so whatever she told you I did to her…"

"Don't say her name," Kyrwan said, "She never said yours." In fact, I don't know your name. You're Bishop the butcher. Or Dad. Or Granddad.

"Whatever she said about me, it's just a fantasy in a silly girl's head, trying to make excuses for her whoring around and getting a belly just beyond her thirteenth spring…"

"She never told me anything," Kyrwan said, "She didn't have to."

"She was a little slut, see son, that's what you have to learn about women, sometimes they need to be reminded where they belong. Your mother, Gods take her to their side, she learned early on, she was smart. Your sister… she never learned."

Kyrwan took another swig of whiskey. "I blamed Mum for years. I thought she should have taken both of us away. Just like Kyla did. I blamed her for dying instead of taking care of us. But…"

"She knew better than to deprive a man of his only son…"

"Listen Granddad," he said, "Don't blame her for what you did. Only weak men blame others. If you're a bastard, be a bastard. I'm a bastard. I kill for a living. But I ain't going to blame that shit on you, I'm a bastard because I decided to be. You just aren't that powerful. You were worse to Kyla than anyone else, and she wasn't, even until the end."

"End?"

"Yes, she's dead, of course she's dead," he said, his declaration having brought his taste for the liquor back. He downed it, "And by the time I leave tonight, you will wish you were as well."

"So you've come here to kill me," the old man said.

"Your hearing must have gone bad, old man," he said, "I told you you will wish I had."

"What… what do that mean, boy?"

He sat still a moment, and then gestured to his own face, and then to his fathers. "Like looking in a mirror, ain't it," he said, "See, I don't like us having the same face. So, I'm going to fix that."

The look of mortal terror in his own face was simultaneously the most satisfying and frightening thing he'd ever seen.

"So this is the shithole you're from?" Dayven snorted as they met at the outskirts, less a question than a derisive observation, "Explains a lot."

Kyrwan was silent. This is the last time I'll ever have to hear your voice, may as well let you wag that tongue in that toothless mouth while you've still breath to do so. He pulled the hood over his head. He watched the other assassins pile the bales of hay around the houses and barns. He took his bow off his back, nocked an arrow. There were three with him. He didn't care for the other two, but there was only one that he really and truly wanted dead. Too bad Dayven knew better than to turn his back on his apprentice.

He waited until all of the hay bales were doused in oil and set ablaze. The assassins waited for the escapees to start running towards the exist. They raised their bows, to pick off the ones who dared to run. He nocked an arrow, drawing his bowstring tight and aimed.

"Loose!" The command came. He turned, barely time to aim, and let it loose.

He missed. Fuck, he thought, as his arrow sailed past Dayven, nicking his ear, and hit a the side of a barn with a thunk.

He could have avoided the bolt. Crossbows were clumsy like that. He could have ducked and rolled, and taken off. But, he didn't. He pretended he didn't see it. He relaxed. Things hurt less when your muscles weren't tense. And he waited for it.

There was no pain. It was as though a mighty wind knocked him to his back and knocked the breath from his lungs. He was surprised when he felt and found bolt protruding from just below his sternum. He would bleed out. It hadn't gotten his gut or his lung. All he had to do was lie down and wait. He smelled the crackling flames, burning away all the filth and hatred. He gazed up at the stars, not trying to navigate or figure out what time it was, just to look at them. They were cold and clean and sparkling. I'd like to be cold like that.

"Kyr, what are you doing here?" Kyla asked. He looked about and saw that they were in a meadow in the hills above Barnslow. It sunny and warm out. She was dressed in green, her hair was cut shorter and curled around her shoulders. She looked younger than she had the last time he'd seen her, her face had none of the weariness that had tugged at its edges.

"So this is where we go?"

"This is where I go," Kyla said, "You don't belong here."

"Don't make me go back," he said, "I can't go back."

"This is my afterlife," she said, "You don't belong here."

"Oy! This one's alive!" He heard a voice in the distance.

Oh no, oh no, oh fuck no I can't…

His eyes flew open again as his ribcage was wracked with pain. He opened his mouth to protest whatever it was that was happening to him, but only blood gurgled out from his throat.

"He's salvageable isn't he?" The man who'd pulled the bolt from him said to his companion.

"Back off the both of you," a third came, this one a woman dressed in the robes of a priestess of Tyr. She bent down by his side and laid hands the hole the bolt had made in his chest. He felt a very strange sensation then as unseen microscopic forces drew the edges of the wound together. He spat out more blood onto the ground and took a breath.

"I… fucking… never," he gasped, "Wanted to have to do that again. Who the fuck are you lot? Can't you leave a dying man in peace?"

"Now, no need to be a pessimist," the man who seemed to be their leader said. In the firelight, Kyrwan could see he was half elvish, but couldn't discern much more about him, "There's living people worse off than you in this ruin. Who are you?"

"I'm the butcher's son," he said.

"What were you doing out here?"

"The fuck do you think? I was trying to chase down the sons of bitches as did this thing," he said.

"Why are you wearing one of their cloaks?" The half elf countered.

"It ain't one of theirs, it's one of mine. You try getting cow's blood out of a white one," he said, "Look, you don't believe me. I live in that house, over there." He pointed at the Bishop homestead.

The priestess and the bald man who'd taken out the bolt for him looked at the half elf, who sucked his teeth, "That one? Then come with me, boy, I've something to show you."

Cognizant of the armed nature of the band who had found him, he rose and followed where the half elf was leading. The others didn't follow them, too busy counting the dead and seeing if any lived. He found himself at the doorway to his own house, the one he'd grown up in. The half elf opened the door.

Either someone had cut Dad down from where Kyrwan had hung him upside down from a crossbeam, or the rope had burned through.. The fire had done a number on him just as he intended. He was all melted flesh and blood. He smelled like a pig roasted on a spit at Midwinter.

"That your da?" The half elf asked.

He thought a moment then. Do I cry now? He didn't, but settled for saying, "Aye. He was the only one home."

At the sound of his voice, Dad started breathing hard, a horrible grating, wheezing noise, and lifted an arm to point at his son. And his grandson.

"You and I both know he didn't string himself up by the ankles," the half elf said, "And you and I both know if we show your face to someone at the Circle of Blades, they'll know exactly who you are."

They two looked at each other a long minute.

"What are you going to do with that knowledge?" Bishop asked.

"What are you going to do for me?" The half elf countered.

"Anything you need, I suppose," Bishop replied.

"Good," the half elf said, grinning, "Duncan Farlong. Pleased to meet you."

"Kyrwan Bishop," he replied, "Just call me Bishop, it's what I'm used to answering to."

"Did he deserve it?" Duncan asked.

Bishop nodded.

"What'd he do?"

"Trust me when I say that you do not want to know."

Dad gurgled and moaned, and Bishop realized with satisfaction that the fire hadn't just taken his face - it'd taken his tongue as well.

"So what are you going to do with him?"

"Oh him?" Duncan asked, chuckling. He took a dagger out from his belt and shoved it into what was left of the burned man's throat. The red blood seeped out, and the body lay still, "He'll tell no tales. Now, Master Assassin, you must accompany me back to Neverwinter. I'm sure I'll have use for you."

I'm sure you will.