Cassandra
10-22-2005, 08:12 AM
Kitiara smirked as she leant on the bar. It seemed to be an old bar, as the wood was scratched with a thousand marks, from mug bottoms and various others splints and stains, some a rather disturbing dark red and some of the groves with cut deep into the surface. However, in this hellhole, any bar would probably become like this in a few days or so. She turned round again, to survey the rabble that filled the inn, if the shack deserved that name.
A group, with cowls pulled up close, huddled in the shadows of the lee from the fire, while a woman with a faded smile and grief shimmering in her eyes half-heartedly flirted with a large brute with shaggy black hair. His stench was his most remarkable feature, and she found herself hoping he wouldn’t move, so she wouldn’t have any of it wafted her way. Some patrons were singing old songs and there was a lot of laughing and hugging and general drunkenness.
She smiled as two of them began a quick step dance on top of one of the grubby tables, with many shouts of ‘Hey!’ and ‘HO!’ and ‘Ow! That was my foot!’ She giggled softly and yawned, not bothering to shade her mouth. Manners would be a waste of time here. No one was paying her any attention any way.
A dwarf sat alone on one of the tables, glowering beneath red eyebrows if anyone came closer than four feet to his place. The furious scowl deterred even the drunkards from making friends with him. His axe lay by his feet and its edge was sharp. He seemed to be some kind of wandering warrior. Why or how, she could not guess, and did not bother to.
If someone had being paying attention to her, they would have seen a youngish human female, perhaps in her late twenties, black hair tied tightly up in a ponytail that swung threateningly when she turned her head. Pixie-like features were dominated by two large blue eyes that were rimmed with a diamond-edged hardness and distrust, only restored from stone by the flicker of some dark amusement deep within her gaze. Delicate eyebrows raised as the men began another dance, this time slower. It looked like one of the romantic dances, and it was performed adequately by the men, many loud guffaws from their comrades as they move through the steps, until all involved collapsed into helpless laughter, or in one case, just plain collapsed.
She shrugged, her clothing rustling against her deeply tanned skin, the brown cotton warm and soft. A serviceable black cloak was thrown around her shoulders, hanging almost to the floor, but not quite dragging through the mess of aged flagstones and dirt. She was visibly armed, which was why she, like the dwarf, was alone. A long sheath made from well cared for reddish leather hung from her belt, with golden trimming on the top and a steel cap on the bottom. The hilt of her sword nudged against her hip, the leather and steel shining dully, the pommel decorated with a single stone, an opal.
She crossed her legs, leaning against the bar and yawned again. The barman was taking forever with her drink, and if he took any longer, those morons who were drinking themselves into unconsciousness would have an idea. It would probably be a stupid, destructive and ultimately self-mutilating one, like most ideas when you’re drunk. She grinned as she remembered a few of her own. As she turned yet again, she noticed the door bang open, and the sun’s red light at the eve of the day flooded into the tavern. A black figure of a humanoid, about man-height stood outlined against the ruby glare, before stepping in. It was only a human with long blonde hair, a man, with arrows slung across his back. Some kind of hunter.
However, the men who had been drunk began to get angry at the flaxen-haired man’s appearance. Shouts were yelled into the room, and she only caught a part of the message in between slurred unintelligible parts. ‘Orrr…. yeh lazzzzy git. I should ‘ave you shtrung, I shh-shhhould.’
The man replied quietly, ‘Hello, Jordan. How are you?’ He didn’t seem particularly worried, but she noticed his hand inside his tunic, no doubt fingering a weapon.
The drunken man, eyes red and swaying spoke again, ‘Fer what ya did… you should be shtrung. You should never… have never… never… hrm… I’ve forgot.’
The blonde hunter grinned and replied, ‘Well, then Jordan, you have nothing to worry about do you?’
The drunken man slowly looked up and growled, ‘I remember now… yeh back-shtabbin’ dog. Yeh left me and my boysh to die out there on those ‘ills. Yeh left us and ‘oped we’d die! Went off with ya “country-shkills” and ne’er came back! Yeh said yeh’d be back, but yeh went shtraight ‘ome.’ He finished with a soft regretful tone, ‘Yeh ne’er came back Barlk, and we only jusht got ‘ome before we got et.’
The other shrugged quietly, ‘So? It isn’t my job to save your sorry hides from Orcs and bandits. I’m just there as a guide, not as a warrior like you were supposed to be. Find your own stinking way through the woods.’ With that he made to turn and walk out from the sourness in the inn.
Kitiara grinned at the potential in such a setting and was hardly surprised as the man yelled out, ‘Eh! Come back ‘ere, yeh good-fer-nuthin’ wretch! I ain’t finished with yeh yet!’ He pulled out a small rusty sword and lunged towards the guide’s back.
She was mildly impressed as the guide turned and brought his own long dagger, much more bright, slamming into the drunken man’s shoulder, easily brushing away the sword with another dagger. He removed them smoothly from the man now stunned and sober from the pain. The drunken man gasped and fell to the ground, blood pouring from his wound like water from a cup.
Talking of cups… She turned away from the fight, frowning slightly, then yelled, ‘Oi! Where are you barkeep!? Your patrons are getting thirsty!’
With a muttered comment it was good she didn’t hear, a large fat man bustled in, his pale skin shined with sweat that glistened on his wrinkles. He looked like a pig put into the oven for slightly too long. She shuddered at the thought, but thankfully accepted the glass of cordial. She never drank alcohol, it was far too risky. The days were hot now, in the middle of summer, and both tempers and temperatures were on the rise. She gulped down the apple juice in four thirsty swallows, slightly choking on the third, and slammed the container back down on the bar.
The innkeep was staring at the blood on the floor with a disapproving scowl and yelled for a scullery boy to clean it up. Kitiara looked over at the inn once more, noting that only the dwarf seemed as unconcerned about it as she felt. All the rest were either yelling at the hunter or comforting the drunkard, or vice versa.
She sighed, and walked out, keeping an eye on the dwarf. As she stepped out of the inn she moved down the street a fraction, the night newly fallen upon them and blue twilight darkening the clouds. She nestled backwards into an alley and waited, her icy eyes calculating.
The darkness deepened, and the moon slowly rose ponderously through the drifting black clouds, large and white, shining her light onto the crooked streets of the haphazardly made town. After a few moments, the inn’s door creaked open and the dwarf walked out, whistling lightly. She sneaked out, her footsteps were silent, and she gently lifted the purse from his belt with expertise, and almost elven grace.
He didn’t even notice and she chuckled to herself, before slipping away into the darkness to go to better hunting grounds. This place was a dump, and no suitable setting for her talents. She watched the dwarf go and saluted him from the shadows, at last, a traveller with enough gold as to give her money to buy a horse and get out of this stinking town. She opened the purse with shaking hands and almost screamed in frustration.
It was copper! It was stinking copper! With a snarl, she flung it to the ground and took out her sword, slashing furiously at the wood of the inn’s windowsill. It left a deep groove and she strode off westwards, her attitude dark and hoped vehemently that someone would try something, just so she could rend them limb from limb!
Her anger filled the air behind her passage with vicious curses that burned the air, and her footfalls slowly quietened from the area.
And in a hollow, dust still settling on the purse, the copper coins lay. Heavy footsteps came closer, and the dwarf smiled broadly.. ‘Ahhhh, thar you are!’ He stooped over a little awkwardly because of his armour and picked it up, tucking it back into his belt. ‘Musta fallen oot.’ He walks off again, whistling and slowly the street empties till everything is still and quiet, and the inn closes its door, till another day.
Kitiara yawned, stretching without any sense of decorum, in the small hut on the outskirts of town. Her body flexed underneath the mostly black clothes that covered her and she sighed, tying up her hair in a loose ribbon, one stray lock dangling over her face. She stared, lost in her own thoughts, her face blank, and her mind almost as dark as her hair.
She had been stuck in this place for so long, and had grown up quickly, soon learning her fits of immaturity were more trouble than they were worth. Expectations had been low, but reality had given her even less than that. She sighed again, pulling on her boots, looking around at the small room she had finally managed to rent. A few days of being able to rest in a dry place, if not a clean one. Her eyes were slightly glazed and she lightly touched the bruises on her legs with delicate fingertips. They were beginning to heal. Good. She took a belt from underneath the bed and slowly unwrapped the second purchase that she had saved and scraped for. A simple dagger. Its blade shone dimly in the grey light of early morning and she stopped breathing as she lifted it up to the light, her blue eyes frosting into remarkable facets of hatred and cold-hearted fury. This small thing would be her salvation, and she would wreak revenge on those who thought they could take advantage of her.
No more pick-pocketing and no more thievery. Just a swift sharp slash, that would end forever the vile crimes that he had committed and save others from his grasp. Lodan would die, begging for mercy.
Her eyes finally came alive and glittering with a strange light. She gently wrapped the knife, only six inches long, back into the package, and slipped it into her clothes, carefully hiding it.
She had come a long way from the slightly naïve girl who had screamed her frustration at the uncaring stars and only managed to steal copper. Now her thievery was even more pronounced for its skilfulness… but she never got any of the profit from the thefts she committed. Someone, no, why beat around the bush, Jodan, took her profits and beat her when she protested. He had at first seemed like any other man, perhaps even more friendly than usual. He had drawn her into his confidences and they had been almost friends for almost an entire week.
Her mouth twisted into a wry smile. At the end of the week, Lodan had beaten her so badly she hadn’t been able to rise, taking her sword for his own, and whatever else he fancied. He had left her with a single warning, that if she ever so much as disobeyed him or stole a single trinket without his permission, he would beat her to death in the most painful way he could devise. She shivered in fear and felt despair cramp her stomach, holding tightly onto the little bundle for courage’s sake. She could feel the pain of his fists when they hurt her all over again. Her mind spun in a small, trapped space, contained by fear and pain. Her key lay in her grasp though, if she had the bravery to use it. It would be her first murder…
NO! She refused to think of Jodan as human, it would be slaughter, not murder - the putting down of a dangerous beast. Her mind blanked as she remembered his threat that had prompted her to buy the blade. His mocking words as he had left the room, her body lying unable to rise for the moment from the cold stone floor, ‘You know, you look so lovely lying there. Helpless. Submissive. Just the way I like my women. Maybe next time you’re bad I’ll take you to bed for your punishment. And it will be punishment, even for someone as foul and depraved as you, you little brat.’
She shivered and pushed open the door to the little shack, her clothes dirty and stained with dust. Her stomach churned emptily. It had been a long time since she had eaten properly. With a flash of her old pride, she wondered how she could have let herself get into this mess. Strange, it had only being three weeks since he had first beaten her. It seemed like an eternity ago. But tonight she would have her revenge.
She almost purred at the thought of slicing Lodan’s throat. She walked quietly towards the place he had designated for their next meeting. She had tried to hide once. Once he caught up with her, he had knocked her unconsciousness, tied her up, and spent an informative night alternating lecturing her, beating her and kissing her. Her mouth snarled in revulsion at the memory of that night. For all this and more he would pay. There would be no simple death for Lodan Blackstone. Oh no… he would pay dearly for every single thing he had ever done to another.
The alleyway was dark and full of indigo shadows. Barrels were stacked up, next to the store next door. The smell of refuse came from them, and a small rat scampered through her legs, before disappearing into a crack in the wall. Early morning light filtered through the clouds that hung from the sky in a colourless panorama, tiny breaks in it letting shafts of sunlight flash through to light up the sky with golden columns. She paused a moment to admire the sight, and felt the now familiar tight grip around her wrist and the fetid breath near her ear, as he whispered to her, ‘Pretty ain’t it. Bit like you.’ He slapped her backside roughly, and leered, and she felt sick inside.
He let go though thankfully, and she sent her hands slowly towards the wrapped package, without any sudden movements that would draw his eyes to her hand. He smirked and was talking about a job she was going to do for him involving some kind of sword that would be worth a lot with the right fence. She felt her fingers grasp around the package and wormed her fingers into the black cloth, slowly drawing out the blade, her hand letting the hilt nestle into it comfortably. Her eyes sought her own sword, strapped to Lodan’s waist, and removed the dagger with one movement, lunging in the next.
Lodan’s eyes widened till she could see the white all around his irises, as she sunk her dagger into his chest. He took in a deep breath, but a soft gurgling accompanied the release, and he coughed, blood splattering onto his clothes. She leant back, tearing the wound further open and walked beyond reach, as he fell to his knees. His face was paling rapidly, and he could not breathe. Blood ran in almost unnoticed rivulets down his clothes and his face where he had coughed it up and it had dribbled out of his mouth. His lips were blue and he began to shake as she watched interestedly, her own lack of interest startling to even herself. She had seen death and injury many times in her life, but this complete apathy was something else. It was as if something had reached inside her and removed everything within her that could feel.
With a spasmodic shudder, Lodan fell to the ground, and lay still, the blood still flowing. She walked forwards and took her sword from him, saluting him lightly with her one free hand. Life returned to her deadened eyes, and she smiled for the first time since that first beating. She had her revenge, and her property back. Now, she would take his. She searched his pockets and grinned as she found a heavy money pouch and a single steel key…
The sun shone on the fields as a single warrior dressed all in black walked out of a small village, with slightly dreary clothes and a small backpack. A sword hung from her waist, and a dagger also. A black cloak blew in strange twisting shapes in the light wind, and the road stretched towards the horizon that picked out the silhouette of a large band of trees. They beckoned, and she followed, searching for riches, fun, freedom and danger. In that order.
Kitiara walked quietly through the streets, her eyes flashing to each person that walked by her, and there were so many she felt dizzy trying to keep up with all the new sights, but too scared and lost to even try to stop the reactions that had saved her life in the past; the need to know where everyone within threatening distance was and whether they were about to attack. The rain sleeted down in soft vertical sheets, so light but fast so that it sprayed and became a kind of omnipresent mist that dampened clothes and left dew drops on everything it touched, leaving half-rainbows in the air for a moment before they vanished. Her clothes were wet with the moisture and she stepped inside a small alcove of a door in order to get out of the pervading misty weather. The clouds hung in the sky like pregnant cattle, heavy and full, dropping their load to the parched crops below. She reflected, within the safety of her mind, that it had been a difficult summer, hot, long and dry, without any kind of rain.
Autumn had brought some thunderstorms, but they had been too abrupt and merely pounded the earth before washing away the rich topsoil. They didn’t sink into the earth and give it new life for the harvest, but remove the fertile part of the field. The crops had wilted and died. The harvest had been almost non-existent, and the coming winter looked to be fierce. She smiled grimly, and added, to the benefit of herself, that when the winter was lean, the predators started to take chances. She wanted to meet these predators, share with them what she knew, and learn from them. She wanted to have the hunt.
Visions flashed through her brain at the word searing through her heart, she could feel the blood swirling around her body, and remembered its touch on her hands as his heart, his evil twisted heart beat those last few times, gushing out his life-blood onto her hands. She lifted them up and kissed her hand lost in thought, finding she was beginning to thirst, not for the taste of blood, which she found repugnant, but the look of death, and the feel of it, and the glory in the taking of it. Her cheeks flushed with twisted desire, and she moved into the crowd, her eyes now flashing, looking for a target instead of the wolves of the city, hungry for death and profit.
Her figure was striking and recognisable, a figure clad entirely in black from her dark boots to her simple black cotton shirt, and long travelling cloak with a deep cowl that hid her features from all but the most sharp-eyed. The misty rain scattered on the wool material of the fleece-lined boots and formed small dewdrops that scattered as she strode forwards, her eyes alight with an expression that was a strange hybrid between emotionless and intensity of a terrifying calibre. It was no wonder that the crowd fought to get out of her way.
A form in front of her ducked into an alleyway, holding a small black pouch in his hand, and looked furtively down both ends of the street before clambering up a small staircase next to an inn and yanking on the door. She changed direction and moved into the alley, slinking into the darkness. The boy, about twelve years old, looked behind at the tiniest noise and frowned, seeing nothing but blackness, and shadows that had been there all the time. He reached up and wiped the sheen of moisture off his nose, half rain, half sweat from his exertions, and clutching the small velvet purse with greedy fingers, fumbled with the lock again. A shadow fell into his light that drizzled through the rain and the heavy clouds, and he froze, expecting to see the guards, ready to hurt him, but all he saw was a woman, all in black. Unlike many other children, he was relieved to see it, and said, ‘Did Angeline send you after me? She didn’t have needed to.’
Kitiara blinked at the boy’s friendliness, and asked in a puzzled tone, ‘Angeline?’
In an instance, the youth’s face paled and he stuttered, trying to open the door desperately, dropping the purse in his hurry to get away. She reached forwards and grabbed his shirt around the collar, pulling him towards her, and then asked, ‘Answer my question please. I am a newcomer, trying to get into contact with the thieves and assassins in the city.’
He looked up with her, his face scared, but managed to say, ‘How do I know that you’re not an infil… infiltra… fake?’
She smiled lightly and said quite quietly a few words that only a trained member of the underworld would know, and let him go. He got to his feet, picking up the sodden purse, and kicked the door, sighing, ‘Alright, the way there is through this door, but I can’t get it to open.’ He pushed the door futilely and grumbled, ‘It is not supposed to be locked.’
Kitiara asked quietly, her blood quest forgotten, in amusement and satisfaction of something going right, ‘Perhaps you should pull it?’
The boy blinked and then pulled the door and it came away from the settings easily, and he grimaced, turning a delicate shade of red. He coughed, and then nodded, stepping through the door, and said, ‘I’m called Cat, but my mates call me Rek, what’s your name?’
Kitiara smiled as she saw the long dry dusty corridor towards the shady underworld of the city of Altdorf, and followed the boy, replying, ‘Me? Oh, I’m called Rose.’ The lie sizzled on her tongue like a piece of sherbet candy, and she smiled falsely as the boy trustingly led her closer to the thieves’ hideout. They moved through dusty attics and ancient forgotten passageways, often between bedrooms, and occasionally through an alley, and one memorable slippery motion on top of a mostly flat roof that was acting as a gutter. The slant meant that the water wasn’t fast, but it was enough to put off the footing, and the building had being three stories high. She closed her eyes as she fell, and grabbed onto the closest thing, which happened to be a gargoyle, and pulled herself up. Cat watched her, impressed, and said, ‘Cor, you aren’t half strong, Rose.’ She grinned back at him and jumped lightly onto the roof, giving him a wink, and motioning for him to lead on.
After half an hour of travelling they arrived at a small warehouse, disused, on the fringes of the town, and Cat placed a hand on the small door, that had being originally used for warehouse workers to enter and leave work after the main gates were closed. He rapped the wood in a quick succession of codes and though she tried to memorise it, it was there and gone too quickly for her to do so. The door creaked open, and she heard her young host murmur, ‘Got a visitor for Angeline, Peter, she’s calling herself Rose, and she’s new but she knows the thief codes. I led her here using the Dark Route, and I’d recommend, oh, a Three.’
She knew what they were talking about, the Dark Route was one that was loaded with traps, and a Three was the stage of security they would need around her, in this case, actually very lenient. She walked towards the darkness, knowing she wouldn’t be stopped, not in a Three, and followed the boy towards a circle of bright light that was alive with the voices and souls of people.
The warehouse was huge, stretching up four storeys, and loaded with dusty beams and ropes, silvery grey light from the wet afternoon streaming through windows high up and from several small lanterns near the bright circle. Suddenly the scene flipped into a different focus and she saw people up there, practising their catches, their fighting and their balance up there on the beams. A quick getaway over the roofs could mean life or death, and often the “Thieves’ Highway” as it was called, was host to the others of this merry band. s, muggers, thieves, assassins, all those who lived on the wrong end of the law. Some by choice, some by preference, and some by necessity. She let her eyes wander back to the place she was nearing and saw them, in groups and mingled, the s flirting outrageously with the cut-throats, and one woman, sat in an ornate chair, clad in black like herself, and with a silver crown dominated by a single ruby in the centre.
Angeline leaned forwards and smiled, saying quietly in a voice like poisoned honey, ‘So, Cat, you have brought a new visitor to our midst. One with a sword no less, and the reflexes of a panther. One with eyes darting here and there like busy little bees, wanting to see everything, know everything, learn everything there is to know. What do you think, my court, of our newest flower, this country Rose?’ Silence greeted her words, and they all turned to her, but she narrowed her eyes and resisted the temptation to growl. The woman got up, showing some of her face that had before being hidden by the cowl. Green eyes, glittered strangely and brown hair, brown as wood and dust, curled lifelessly against her neck. She was not beautiful, merely striking, but she walked like a hunter, and her eyes were evil. Kitiara found an echo of herself in this strange woman, and let her gaze fall before the other’s.
Angeline smiled, pleased, and said quietly, ‘Angeline may not be young or pretty anymore, but she can see into the hearts of those who serve her, and you have the makings of the perfect assassin, little one. But Rose is not a name for such a creature as you. Let us give you a new name, a name only to be known among us.’ She pauses, and her court whisper suggestions, and she turns, pointing at a man who was startling for his handsome features. He was rugged, blonde and with a charming smile and friendly honest eyes. A swindler most likely. Angeline repeated his name again, her eyes bright, ‘Yes, let up give this cold little deadly blossom a name like that. You are now known as “Black Ice”. A suitable name, no?’
Kitiara looked up and smiled, nodding and taking the hands of the court as they crowded around her, her initiation apparently over. Well that was easy, she thought to herself. The handsome swindler took her hands and pulled her over to the queen of thieves, stroking her wrists with his fingers. She almost lost her composure, and hissed under her breath, ‘Don’t touch me, unless you want to become my first victim.’
He dropped her hands with a muttered complaint, and then said, ‘Fine, whatever. I just thought you’d want to know, you are the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever laid my eyes on.’ He moved closer to her, pushing the others in the crowd; that was now mingling and talking again, and whispered, ‘And that’s the truth.’ She seriously doubted it, but declined to comment, merely dodging away from his grasp. For all her threat, she didn’t dare make good on it, no matter what he did, with all these trained killers and thieves clustered around her. A thief’s life was never safe, but they could trust the others in their profession with their lives without a qualm. Angeline stood up and smiled, though it didn’t touch her eyes, and asked quietly, ‘Ah, my dear Black Ice. That is quite a troublesome title isn’t it, but it fit you so well. Perhaps we should have called you Obsidian, as that is so close. Though it is warm, and you, my dear, are not.’ She turned to the swindler and smirked, ‘I see you have met Charmer. Don’t listen to his words, they are all lies, the hedonistic pleasure-seeker.’ She waves her fingers playfully underneath the man’s nose and chuckles, before taking Kitiara’s hand and coming close, whispering quietly, ‘Don’t worry, your fears and your past life cannot reach you here. You are safe, and you will love your work. Do not be afraid.’
Kitiara froze up as the words reached her, and she glanced, stricken with hope and fear in equal measures, and then Angeline smiled and patted her on the back, pushing her back into the throng. Hands touched her and voices asked about her, partly in professional curiosity, but equally, many seemed to have taken to her, and Cat was acting like she was his property. She almost laughed out loud as he re-enacted on one of the beams her recovery from the fall. His performance was granted a cheer and an applause, and many hands pushed her up, and she began to perform herself, moving through the complicated fighter’s movements and moving stealthily like some like of large cat.
She finished a difficult leap to rounds of clapping, and then she met the wink of Charmer, and grinned her first real smile for a very long time. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had come home.
Angeline watched the newcomer with a fond smile, leaning against the support beams and watching the throng clapping her and welcoming her to the family. She would be an incredible asset, especially with training. Virtually undefeatable, but the terrors in her past would make her a dangerous ally. She would do what she could to mend those barriers, and then her court would heal the rest with affection and gratification. Two things the girl now smiling, the light changing her entire face, had not ever experienced before. She had seen into Kitiara’s mind and her memories in the first instant she had seen her, as she was gifted with some magical experience. The gift was how she, Angeline, had become to be the leader of this band, and as she saw the first inklings of healing occurring, she smiled in relief. The woman now watching others perform, and clapping had a great deal of potential for darkness, more than she knew, though she was beginning to feel it. Angeline was a queen of outlaws, but she was not evil.
Kitiara smiles indulgently as Cat scrabbles on the wall, trying to get purchase on the slick brickwork and he swears for a few minutes. Eventually he manages it, throwing her a look of triumph from underneath his dirty blonde locks; his face screwed up in an expression of smug satisfaction. Well, thinks Kitiara, scaling a twelve foot wall when you’re only four feet tall is quite an achievement. She says quietly, ‘Come on, we have that job to do. You got the picks?’ He nods and dusts his pants, merely spreading the mud over a bigger area, and makes a face, sighing.
The clouds hanging over the city are grey and deep, just touched by glimmers of red as the sun begins to descend into the place where even it sleeps at night, billowing down like dark sheets full of water, which they have been regularly depositing on the residents at intervals. The streets are paved with mud from shoes and between the cobbles, horses’ feet streaked with muck to the knee, and the rooftops slick with water from faulty guttering and the last night’s rainfall. She smiles again as she looks at the boy and nods towards the next obstacle, a tricky climb among chimney tops and small jumps from eaves to other roofs. She rolls her eyes as Cat asks plaintively, ‘Why do we have to take this way, again?’
She replies, ‘Because Angeline said the streets were too dangerous. With that new witch hunter in town, and the influx of guards, our business has got more risky all of a sudden. So we need to take precautions. I would like to see the fat, overweight, lazy guard who can make this jump.’ She points encouragingly at a small hop, barely three feet between the houses, and hears Cat’s laugh.
Her mind goes back to that evening’s conversation with Angeline. Charmer had been hanging around as usual, his expression sour when he saw her. Ever since she had resisted his advances he had being sulking and pointedly ignoring her, which meant going wherever she was, so he could ignore her. She sighs and shrugs, a phrase the thieves’ leader had uttered in her usual accepting tone repeating itself worryingly in her mind, ‘I have sent you and Cat because you are our most promising and accomplished thieves.’ At Kitiara’s raised eyebrow, she had gone on to explain it was a collective term, but she couldn’t get those words out of her head. Did this mean that this job would be a very difficult one? She looks towards the setting sun, the footing becoming even more treacherous in the half-light, and would be even more so after it became fully dark. She moves swiftly past Cat and leaps over a small chimney, looking down from time to time to see where she is, moving quickly through the roofs, and waits patiently for Cat.
Eventually they reach a place where the guards are more constant, and the houses start to move apart some more, no longer dependent on each other to keep themselves up. She lets her eyes drift to Cat, and nods. He grins and moves downwards, jumping from a roof to an awning and sliding down it to drop on the street with a squelchy thud. At once, two guards look around, and the boy looks up, attempting to give a seeming of total innocence. They look back again, and one starts to go towards the boy, raising an eyebrow. Cat lifts up a ring, obviously far too expensive for such a low-down tramp to have in his possession, and runs as the guards move far faster than Kitiara would give them credit for. She smiles wryly, they would never catch Cat; he simply was too good. Already whistles were shrilling up and down the street; one more shadow would go completely unnoticed. She sidles up to a door like any other and moves through it, pushing it open easily. She taps the picks sewn into a small pouch on her belt. Her clothes, unlike Cat’s, are black from top to bottom. If anyone catches her, even now, they will most likely prosecute merely for her dress. They’d have to catch me first though. She smirks in confidence and stops at another door, listening to the movement behind it, before moving on in the shadows, a silent darkness no different from the black in the corners.
She slips outside, the first touches of rain kissing her face, and darts into the shadow of an overhang as a contingent of guards walk past her, laughing and joking. She frowns at that some are obviously laid-back enough to ignore the bells and whistles even now still in uproar across what sounds like half the city. The continuing sounds are good. They, at least, meant that they haven’t caught Cat as yet. She waits till the guards have disappeared around a corner and slowly makes her way towards the large palace nearby, looking for the small irregularity that makes the palace as easy to infiltrate for her as any other place. She finds it in the tree that overhangs the wall, denying most of the basic security precautions. She blinks in surprise and shrugs, silently jumping up and swinging into the branches, up and up, with all the ease of a trapeze artist, all the hours on the beams coming into play. She finds it exhilarating as things come together, the straining of the muscles, the slight burn of exertion and anxiety twisting into a sweet heat that fill her with energy and life. She balances on the branch, looking in the nearly deserted grounds of the palace, watching the guards walk nonchalantly past her without an upward glance.
After she left, they surely would be more careful. However, for now, their unprofessionalism works to her advantage. She stills her breathing and slowly moves onto the wall, dropping down and moves right behind a guard that is moving towards the back of the grounds, away from the main gate. Her footfalls pad softly behind the guard, who doesn’t look back, and she slowly moves closer, and then draws with a lightning strike, his gasp stifled by the sounds from the city, which are slowly quietening now. The blood wells out from his neck where her dagger opened it, and he falls, strong arms catching him and dragging him into the shadow of the house. She drags him into an abandoned archway, the grass leading to it flattened, but she has no time to deal with that or with the drops of blood that stain her hands and the man’s clothes. Some blood sinks into the grass where the drops fell with unnoticeable difference in the wet and the dark. She smiles and wipes her hands on the guard’s clothes, just in time to see another walk past, completely failing to see, and lets her breath out with a small gasp of relief.
She turns to the door behind her and reaches for her picklocks, kneeling and slowly undoing each one after some time. She opens the door, and looks in the hallway, striding through it as it twists and turns, ignoring the doors on left and right, keeping to the side and dousing torches where she can. The darkness seems to follow her as she finally finds what she is looking for, and sidles up the stairs, dark grey stone radiating a chill that strikes into her fingers and toes, but keeps looking upwards, following the stairs to their top, and peeks out down the corridor. Two guards stand on watch in front of a large double door, faded red uniforms slightly creased and spotted with food droplets. One stares at the floor and the other at the ceiling, both looking very bored.
She smiles in the rare display of a challenge, and considers the problem for a few moments, her black eyes thoughtful, and then makes a decision. She dips into her clothing and brings out two graceful small metal devices, both shaped to something similar to a flat star shape made from steel. Naïve buyers may have commented on its graceful curves and beautiful engraving but she thought nothing of that as she tips both hands back slightly, the trinkets held carefully between thumb and forefinger, before stepping out into the corridor and throwing them with all the strength she can muster.
One guard falls immediately, the evil little weapon embedded in his forehead, twitching and guttering with his dying breaths. The other dodges, the throwing star smacking into the wooden door and the guard comes towards her, sword lifted high. She moves sideways as he lunges, and draws her dagger once again, but it is deflected with ease by the sword. The man moves with a grace and speed impossible, and she senses that he has being trained in the art of killing far greater than that of his late friend. He moves in for the kill, using his strength and superior weight against her. She narrows her eyes and draws her sword in her other hand, blocking his stroke and letting him push her against the wall, in order to give her some support. He leans in, the three cross-guards locked together, and brings his head back slightly. She recognises the act as one previous to a blow of heads, and with his iron helmet, she was most certainly at the wrong end. She stops and drops her weight, throwing him off balance, and rolling between his legs. She turns and strikes before he can complete his turn, and his shocked expression looks up at her with respect that gently turns into a smile as he falls to his side and lies still, staring at nothing.
She moves swiftly towards the doors and kicks them open. A man looks up, a silk blindfold such as those worn by those who have ideas above their station but no real power, covering his eyes. She shakes her head, amazed it could be so easy, and walks forwards. The man asks, obviously certain of who had come in, ‘What now, Crederin? More of your insane demands for payment in jewels? I told you, man, you get paid good gold just like any other…’ He stops his babbling as a sword touches his jowls, and she slowly cuts his throat without even removing his blindfold. The fat parts easily, blood spilling out onto the priceless fabric that adorns the bed, and he gurgles as he chokes on his own blood, scrabbling at the blindfold. She lets him gaze at her and sees the recognition and horror at her presence. She closes her eyes in animal satisfaction, and walks towards the jewellery caskets half-open on the corner, picking up a few of the more expensive trinkets and tucking them into her pouch, but not so much that it would slow her down. She listens to the man dying in slow degrees on the bed and shakes her head as his feeble attempts fail and silence fills the room. She cleans her weapons on the silk and gold covering on the bed and moves towards the doors, stepping over the corpses and almost runs down the stairs, her dagger unsheathed and ready.
She reaches the wall with no cry of discovery, but as she swings herself into the tree, she hears dogs start to bark and guards shout out within the walls. She smiles and nods, dropping into the streets with a sweet silence, and walks to a wall, which she climbs and then wanders through the rooftops as though she owns them all. A small figure sat on a chimney waves to her, and she walks over, looking down. He asks, ‘So, how did it go?’
She answers, with a small shrug, ‘Four kills, one a challenge.’
Cat raises his eyebrows, ‘A guard who knows his stuff? Wow.’
She chuckles at his cynicism and nods, beckoning to him, ‘Come on, Cat, time to go home and collect the cash, yes?’ She pats her pouch and his expression sharpens as he looks through the things she had managed to steal, his smile telling her all she needs to know. ‘So, I did well?’
He nods and grins at her, ‘Real well, Icy, Angeline will be pleased with us.’
Kitiara nods and moves along rather more urgently, the clouds promising rain, but the darkness seeming to threaten at thunderstorms. A tingly tension is in the air and she finds that the earlier satisfaction has resolved itself instead into an anxious nervousness that eats constantly at her mind. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.
She turns and says quietly, ‘I am going to run, catch up when you can. There’s something not right. Where’s all the watch?’ Indeed, the streets are almost empty, and she leaves Cat’s startled face behind, taking stupid risks as she leaps and runs across the wet slates, the wrongness flaring up in her like a terrible flame, urging her on at all costs.
The mission had not being difficult at all, so what had Angeline being talking about? Possibilities race through her mind as she moves like a ghost without a soul, spiriting along among the shadows. The scene that greets her, however, is far worse than any of the possibilities she had concocted. She stops in horror a few houses away from the warehouse, hearing the sound of the guard, and the screams of dying people. No!
She leans forward, leaping across a dangerous gap, but knows enough to hide from the prying eyes of the guard, watching with horror. People she knew and had liked, who had cared about how she was, lay dead on the floor, their own eyes staring at nothing. The pickpockets, some no more than children, lay dead on the cobblestones, more inside the warehouse, no doubt. The stink of death washed up to the chimney pots and she found tears stinging at her eyes. She angrily shakes her head and blinks them away, watching, her mouth dry, as Angeline walks out of the place, her hands tied tightly behind her back. A man with a long black robe peers deeply into her eyes, and says something that she cannot hear from so far away, and Angeline is flung onto a cart where a handful of others are huddling fearfully. As she steps up, they crowd around her, pleading for her to make some sense of the tragedy, no doubt.
Kitiara lets her emotions harden into something approaching apathy as she watches the others slowly taken out, one by one, and either put upon the cart, or shoved into a large wagon with bars on the sides. A moving prison cell.
The killing seems to be over, the resistance now gone. She defies the impulse to go down and start killing those who had, with one stroke, destroyed yet another attempt for her to rebuild her life. She waits, not moving as Cat nestles down beside her and watches, his mouth open in horror, his eyes wide in shock, but he also, does not move until Charmer walks out of the warehouse. There are no chains on him, and he walks up to the man in the black robes, which Kitiara was willing to bet money was the witch hunter. The witch hunter slaps Charmer on the back, and the two appear to be laughing. A bag changes hand, and Charmer moves away, into a nearby street, not even casting a backward glance to his former friends lying in the street, dead, or those who would face a far worse fate of rotting in a dungeon, or facing a public execution. Those who had being destined for the cart, Kitiara could not fathom. The cart and the wagon begin to move off in tandem, and she gets up, moving away from the warehouse.
Cat stays where he was, and then slowly turns to her, his eyes full of pain and fear, far older than they had a right to be, and said simply, ‘It’s over then. What will we do now?’
Kitiara’s eyes chill the soul of those who see them as she answers, in a voice like sharpened steel, ‘Take revenge.’ She walks to the side of the building and simply drops, landing elegantly on the street, and draws her sword. Cat, seeing her face, moves back to the warehouse and starts walking among the bodies, seeing if anyone had got away, or being away as they had.
Kitiara walks after Charmer, following his distant figure, until about ten minutes from the warehouse and calls out. He stops and turns, a scowl moving onto his face almost by instinct, then replaced by a sunny smile, ‘Rose, how nice to see you, my dear.’ He moves closer and she looks around for any witnesses. The street they had wandered down was apparently free of them, and she draws her sword. Charmer pauses at the naked steel and raises his hands, ‘What’s the matter, Ice, I’d kiss you without you having to threaten me.’
Pure fury races through her mind, he still thought that he was attractive to her?! Something of this must have shown in her implacable face, as he recoils and murmurs, ‘I’m only kidding.’
She hisses, ‘Were you only kidding when you betrayed us? Were you kidding when you killed all those there, and condemned them all to a life full of torment. You had a family, of sorts, why did you do it?’ Her distress makes him look up, the sheer grief threatening to wash away her barriers of self-control and conscience.
He licks his lips nervously, keeping his eyes averted, and says, ‘It was because of you. You, with your skills, your beauty, and your distance. Sigmar, I want you girl, I want you like I’ve wanted no other lass. But you wouldn’t give in to me. This,’ he meets her eyes, dropping the ultimate weapon, ‘is all your fault.’
‘No.’ She lifts her sword and walks forwards, eyes blazing, ‘it is yours, and you will pay for your betrayal. No judge, no trial, only the executioner.’
Charmer moves forward as well, drawing his blade and cutting at her. The swords clash with a steely ring, and she tries again, each time blocked by his skill and strength. He pushes her back, coming closer with every slash, and she tries desperately to gain the upper hand. He smirks, and gasps, ‘Not that bad, am I, for a swindler.’ She shakes her head, parrying again, the effort in blocking each of his powerful strokes flagging her arms. He spins in an intricate sword movement and her blade whirls into the darkness. Before she can draw another blade, he is upon her, and the tip of his sword tickles the base of her throat. She resists the temptation to swallow and meets his eyes with malice still there, defiant to the end.
He stops and lowers the sword and shakes his head, shrugging, ‘I can’t kill you, . Thought I would be able to, but, no. Strange, isn’t it, how you can live your life fairly blamelessly without ever having experienced what they call the ‘greater things in life’ but when they do come along, you’re ready to do things that’ll get you a place in hell.’ He drops the blade, it clattering to the floor, and smirks. ‘I am unarmed. Do your worst. But first, I want just one thing.’
She doesn’t move, though her eyes widen as he leans forwards and touches his lips to hers. Her eyes slide closed and she stays still as he takes his last and only kiss, before ripping into his chest with her dagger. He looks at her as he staggers backwards, red liquid cascading over his hands as he clutches the hilt. He smiles, and falls to his knees, looking at her as she follows, their eyes locked. He whispers, the blood making it slightly gurgled, ‘It was.. worth it.’ He jerks three times, his eyes glazing over and falls weakly onto his face, grinding the flesh into the cobbles. She leaves the dagger where it is and walks away, her head bowed, ignoring the people walking past her, moving randomly, until she sees the warehouse starting to loom up in front of her.
Cat. She walks quicker, and stops in horror as she sees a body far too familiar laid out across one of the corpses. She runs over and stoops down, tears finally cascading down her cheeks in ivory streaks, ‘Cat, Rek, are you still there? Cat?’
He opens his eyes, and doesn’t seem to see her at first, and then the twinge of a smile flickers on his lips. She can tell that he hasn’t much time left, and lets the tears fall where they will. He opens his mouth and closes it again, as she shushes, ‘No, don’t talk, it’s ok, Cat. Charmer is dead. It’ll be ok.’
He ignores her and tries again, his young voice emerging as a croak, and finishes, ‘It’s ..better… this… way. I wish…’ He stares at something only he can see, and then relaxes, his head rolling to one side. Kitiara holds the small body to her with bone-crushing strength, the tears falling all around her, and she loses herself within the rage and the pain, holding the cold corpse. Bittersweet memories flash in her thoughts, as she staggers away from the scene of carnage, sitting down in a doorway and curling up to herself and crying to herself in utter grief. Anger flares, at Charmer, at the witch hunter, at whoever killed Cat. She starts to sob again, wondering if the loved ones of the ones she killed cried like this when they found them.
She closes her eyes and lets the numbness wash over her; when she can no longer cry any more, and stares into the darkness.
I wish I had the power to kill all those who have hurt me. I wish I was good enough to have revenge for those who were betrayed… by me as well as by Charmer. I wish this hadn’t happened. Ohhh, I wish this hadn’t happened.
She sees again the look on the thieves’ faces as they had being driven away by wagon and cart.
As the sun slowly lifts over the horizon, golden light tinting the rooftops of the city, the clouds having being blown away during the night, she stands up, hope sparking anew. She could not help those who were dead, but she could save those who were alive. She walks towards the down class areas of the city, looking for a reliable fence who would be able to give her good value for the jewels. She needs a change of clothes and a few resources. Along with the light, a tiny sparkle returns to her eyes, as she wipes away the tears, a luxury in such a life of hard knocks, where death was always a dancing partner, or on the cards. She knew she thinks to herself, thinking over Angeline’s comments before she and Cat had gone. Why hadn’t she stopped it? Why hadn’t she killed Charmer as soon as she had known, avoiding all these deaths?
Kitiara stumbles into the sunlight, a piece of shadow and pain.
A group, with cowls pulled up close, huddled in the shadows of the lee from the fire, while a woman with a faded smile and grief shimmering in her eyes half-heartedly flirted with a large brute with shaggy black hair. His stench was his most remarkable feature, and she found herself hoping he wouldn’t move, so she wouldn’t have any of it wafted her way. Some patrons were singing old songs and there was a lot of laughing and hugging and general drunkenness.
She smiled as two of them began a quick step dance on top of one of the grubby tables, with many shouts of ‘Hey!’ and ‘HO!’ and ‘Ow! That was my foot!’ She giggled softly and yawned, not bothering to shade her mouth. Manners would be a waste of time here. No one was paying her any attention any way.
A dwarf sat alone on one of the tables, glowering beneath red eyebrows if anyone came closer than four feet to his place. The furious scowl deterred even the drunkards from making friends with him. His axe lay by his feet and its edge was sharp. He seemed to be some kind of wandering warrior. Why or how, she could not guess, and did not bother to.
If someone had being paying attention to her, they would have seen a youngish human female, perhaps in her late twenties, black hair tied tightly up in a ponytail that swung threateningly when she turned her head. Pixie-like features were dominated by two large blue eyes that were rimmed with a diamond-edged hardness and distrust, only restored from stone by the flicker of some dark amusement deep within her gaze. Delicate eyebrows raised as the men began another dance, this time slower. It looked like one of the romantic dances, and it was performed adequately by the men, many loud guffaws from their comrades as they move through the steps, until all involved collapsed into helpless laughter, or in one case, just plain collapsed.
She shrugged, her clothing rustling against her deeply tanned skin, the brown cotton warm and soft. A serviceable black cloak was thrown around her shoulders, hanging almost to the floor, but not quite dragging through the mess of aged flagstones and dirt. She was visibly armed, which was why she, like the dwarf, was alone. A long sheath made from well cared for reddish leather hung from her belt, with golden trimming on the top and a steel cap on the bottom. The hilt of her sword nudged against her hip, the leather and steel shining dully, the pommel decorated with a single stone, an opal.
She crossed her legs, leaning against the bar and yawned again. The barman was taking forever with her drink, and if he took any longer, those morons who were drinking themselves into unconsciousness would have an idea. It would probably be a stupid, destructive and ultimately self-mutilating one, like most ideas when you’re drunk. She grinned as she remembered a few of her own. As she turned yet again, she noticed the door bang open, and the sun’s red light at the eve of the day flooded into the tavern. A black figure of a humanoid, about man-height stood outlined against the ruby glare, before stepping in. It was only a human with long blonde hair, a man, with arrows slung across his back. Some kind of hunter.
However, the men who had been drunk began to get angry at the flaxen-haired man’s appearance. Shouts were yelled into the room, and she only caught a part of the message in between slurred unintelligible parts. ‘Orrr…. yeh lazzzzy git. I should ‘ave you shtrung, I shh-shhhould.’
The man replied quietly, ‘Hello, Jordan. How are you?’ He didn’t seem particularly worried, but she noticed his hand inside his tunic, no doubt fingering a weapon.
The drunken man, eyes red and swaying spoke again, ‘Fer what ya did… you should be shtrung. You should never… have never… never… hrm… I’ve forgot.’
The blonde hunter grinned and replied, ‘Well, then Jordan, you have nothing to worry about do you?’
The drunken man slowly looked up and growled, ‘I remember now… yeh back-shtabbin’ dog. Yeh left me and my boysh to die out there on those ‘ills. Yeh left us and ‘oped we’d die! Went off with ya “country-shkills” and ne’er came back! Yeh said yeh’d be back, but yeh went shtraight ‘ome.’ He finished with a soft regretful tone, ‘Yeh ne’er came back Barlk, and we only jusht got ‘ome before we got et.’
The other shrugged quietly, ‘So? It isn’t my job to save your sorry hides from Orcs and bandits. I’m just there as a guide, not as a warrior like you were supposed to be. Find your own stinking way through the woods.’ With that he made to turn and walk out from the sourness in the inn.
Kitiara grinned at the potential in such a setting and was hardly surprised as the man yelled out, ‘Eh! Come back ‘ere, yeh good-fer-nuthin’ wretch! I ain’t finished with yeh yet!’ He pulled out a small rusty sword and lunged towards the guide’s back.
She was mildly impressed as the guide turned and brought his own long dagger, much more bright, slamming into the drunken man’s shoulder, easily brushing away the sword with another dagger. He removed them smoothly from the man now stunned and sober from the pain. The drunken man gasped and fell to the ground, blood pouring from his wound like water from a cup.
Talking of cups… She turned away from the fight, frowning slightly, then yelled, ‘Oi! Where are you barkeep!? Your patrons are getting thirsty!’
With a muttered comment it was good she didn’t hear, a large fat man bustled in, his pale skin shined with sweat that glistened on his wrinkles. He looked like a pig put into the oven for slightly too long. She shuddered at the thought, but thankfully accepted the glass of cordial. She never drank alcohol, it was far too risky. The days were hot now, in the middle of summer, and both tempers and temperatures were on the rise. She gulped down the apple juice in four thirsty swallows, slightly choking on the third, and slammed the container back down on the bar.
The innkeep was staring at the blood on the floor with a disapproving scowl and yelled for a scullery boy to clean it up. Kitiara looked over at the inn once more, noting that only the dwarf seemed as unconcerned about it as she felt. All the rest were either yelling at the hunter or comforting the drunkard, or vice versa.
She sighed, and walked out, keeping an eye on the dwarf. As she stepped out of the inn she moved down the street a fraction, the night newly fallen upon them and blue twilight darkening the clouds. She nestled backwards into an alley and waited, her icy eyes calculating.
The darkness deepened, and the moon slowly rose ponderously through the drifting black clouds, large and white, shining her light onto the crooked streets of the haphazardly made town. After a few moments, the inn’s door creaked open and the dwarf walked out, whistling lightly. She sneaked out, her footsteps were silent, and she gently lifted the purse from his belt with expertise, and almost elven grace.
He didn’t even notice and she chuckled to herself, before slipping away into the darkness to go to better hunting grounds. This place was a dump, and no suitable setting for her talents. She watched the dwarf go and saluted him from the shadows, at last, a traveller with enough gold as to give her money to buy a horse and get out of this stinking town. She opened the purse with shaking hands and almost screamed in frustration.
It was copper! It was stinking copper! With a snarl, she flung it to the ground and took out her sword, slashing furiously at the wood of the inn’s windowsill. It left a deep groove and she strode off westwards, her attitude dark and hoped vehemently that someone would try something, just so she could rend them limb from limb!
Her anger filled the air behind her passage with vicious curses that burned the air, and her footfalls slowly quietened from the area.
And in a hollow, dust still settling on the purse, the copper coins lay. Heavy footsteps came closer, and the dwarf smiled broadly.. ‘Ahhhh, thar you are!’ He stooped over a little awkwardly because of his armour and picked it up, tucking it back into his belt. ‘Musta fallen oot.’ He walks off again, whistling and slowly the street empties till everything is still and quiet, and the inn closes its door, till another day.
Kitiara yawned, stretching without any sense of decorum, in the small hut on the outskirts of town. Her body flexed underneath the mostly black clothes that covered her and she sighed, tying up her hair in a loose ribbon, one stray lock dangling over her face. She stared, lost in her own thoughts, her face blank, and her mind almost as dark as her hair.
She had been stuck in this place for so long, and had grown up quickly, soon learning her fits of immaturity were more trouble than they were worth. Expectations had been low, but reality had given her even less than that. She sighed again, pulling on her boots, looking around at the small room she had finally managed to rent. A few days of being able to rest in a dry place, if not a clean one. Her eyes were slightly glazed and she lightly touched the bruises on her legs with delicate fingertips. They were beginning to heal. Good. She took a belt from underneath the bed and slowly unwrapped the second purchase that she had saved and scraped for. A simple dagger. Its blade shone dimly in the grey light of early morning and she stopped breathing as she lifted it up to the light, her blue eyes frosting into remarkable facets of hatred and cold-hearted fury. This small thing would be her salvation, and she would wreak revenge on those who thought they could take advantage of her.
No more pick-pocketing and no more thievery. Just a swift sharp slash, that would end forever the vile crimes that he had committed and save others from his grasp. Lodan would die, begging for mercy.
Her eyes finally came alive and glittering with a strange light. She gently wrapped the knife, only six inches long, back into the package, and slipped it into her clothes, carefully hiding it.
She had come a long way from the slightly naïve girl who had screamed her frustration at the uncaring stars and only managed to steal copper. Now her thievery was even more pronounced for its skilfulness… but she never got any of the profit from the thefts she committed. Someone, no, why beat around the bush, Jodan, took her profits and beat her when she protested. He had at first seemed like any other man, perhaps even more friendly than usual. He had drawn her into his confidences and they had been almost friends for almost an entire week.
Her mouth twisted into a wry smile. At the end of the week, Lodan had beaten her so badly she hadn’t been able to rise, taking her sword for his own, and whatever else he fancied. He had left her with a single warning, that if she ever so much as disobeyed him or stole a single trinket without his permission, he would beat her to death in the most painful way he could devise. She shivered in fear and felt despair cramp her stomach, holding tightly onto the little bundle for courage’s sake. She could feel the pain of his fists when they hurt her all over again. Her mind spun in a small, trapped space, contained by fear and pain. Her key lay in her grasp though, if she had the bravery to use it. It would be her first murder…
NO! She refused to think of Jodan as human, it would be slaughter, not murder - the putting down of a dangerous beast. Her mind blanked as she remembered his threat that had prompted her to buy the blade. His mocking words as he had left the room, her body lying unable to rise for the moment from the cold stone floor, ‘You know, you look so lovely lying there. Helpless. Submissive. Just the way I like my women. Maybe next time you’re bad I’ll take you to bed for your punishment. And it will be punishment, even for someone as foul and depraved as you, you little brat.’
She shivered and pushed open the door to the little shack, her clothes dirty and stained with dust. Her stomach churned emptily. It had been a long time since she had eaten properly. With a flash of her old pride, she wondered how she could have let herself get into this mess. Strange, it had only being three weeks since he had first beaten her. It seemed like an eternity ago. But tonight she would have her revenge.
She almost purred at the thought of slicing Lodan’s throat. She walked quietly towards the place he had designated for their next meeting. She had tried to hide once. Once he caught up with her, he had knocked her unconsciousness, tied her up, and spent an informative night alternating lecturing her, beating her and kissing her. Her mouth snarled in revulsion at the memory of that night. For all this and more he would pay. There would be no simple death for Lodan Blackstone. Oh no… he would pay dearly for every single thing he had ever done to another.
The alleyway was dark and full of indigo shadows. Barrels were stacked up, next to the store next door. The smell of refuse came from them, and a small rat scampered through her legs, before disappearing into a crack in the wall. Early morning light filtered through the clouds that hung from the sky in a colourless panorama, tiny breaks in it letting shafts of sunlight flash through to light up the sky with golden columns. She paused a moment to admire the sight, and felt the now familiar tight grip around her wrist and the fetid breath near her ear, as he whispered to her, ‘Pretty ain’t it. Bit like you.’ He slapped her backside roughly, and leered, and she felt sick inside.
He let go though thankfully, and she sent her hands slowly towards the wrapped package, without any sudden movements that would draw his eyes to her hand. He smirked and was talking about a job she was going to do for him involving some kind of sword that would be worth a lot with the right fence. She felt her fingers grasp around the package and wormed her fingers into the black cloth, slowly drawing out the blade, her hand letting the hilt nestle into it comfortably. Her eyes sought her own sword, strapped to Lodan’s waist, and removed the dagger with one movement, lunging in the next.
Lodan’s eyes widened till she could see the white all around his irises, as she sunk her dagger into his chest. He took in a deep breath, but a soft gurgling accompanied the release, and he coughed, blood splattering onto his clothes. She leant back, tearing the wound further open and walked beyond reach, as he fell to his knees. His face was paling rapidly, and he could not breathe. Blood ran in almost unnoticed rivulets down his clothes and his face where he had coughed it up and it had dribbled out of his mouth. His lips were blue and he began to shake as she watched interestedly, her own lack of interest startling to even herself. She had seen death and injury many times in her life, but this complete apathy was something else. It was as if something had reached inside her and removed everything within her that could feel.
With a spasmodic shudder, Lodan fell to the ground, and lay still, the blood still flowing. She walked forwards and took her sword from him, saluting him lightly with her one free hand. Life returned to her deadened eyes, and she smiled for the first time since that first beating. She had her revenge, and her property back. Now, she would take his. She searched his pockets and grinned as she found a heavy money pouch and a single steel key…
The sun shone on the fields as a single warrior dressed all in black walked out of a small village, with slightly dreary clothes and a small backpack. A sword hung from her waist, and a dagger also. A black cloak blew in strange twisting shapes in the light wind, and the road stretched towards the horizon that picked out the silhouette of a large band of trees. They beckoned, and she followed, searching for riches, fun, freedom and danger. In that order.
Kitiara walked quietly through the streets, her eyes flashing to each person that walked by her, and there were so many she felt dizzy trying to keep up with all the new sights, but too scared and lost to even try to stop the reactions that had saved her life in the past; the need to know where everyone within threatening distance was and whether they were about to attack. The rain sleeted down in soft vertical sheets, so light but fast so that it sprayed and became a kind of omnipresent mist that dampened clothes and left dew drops on everything it touched, leaving half-rainbows in the air for a moment before they vanished. Her clothes were wet with the moisture and she stepped inside a small alcove of a door in order to get out of the pervading misty weather. The clouds hung in the sky like pregnant cattle, heavy and full, dropping their load to the parched crops below. She reflected, within the safety of her mind, that it had been a difficult summer, hot, long and dry, without any kind of rain.
Autumn had brought some thunderstorms, but they had been too abrupt and merely pounded the earth before washing away the rich topsoil. They didn’t sink into the earth and give it new life for the harvest, but remove the fertile part of the field. The crops had wilted and died. The harvest had been almost non-existent, and the coming winter looked to be fierce. She smiled grimly, and added, to the benefit of herself, that when the winter was lean, the predators started to take chances. She wanted to meet these predators, share with them what she knew, and learn from them. She wanted to have the hunt.
Visions flashed through her brain at the word searing through her heart, she could feel the blood swirling around her body, and remembered its touch on her hands as his heart, his evil twisted heart beat those last few times, gushing out his life-blood onto her hands. She lifted them up and kissed her hand lost in thought, finding she was beginning to thirst, not for the taste of blood, which she found repugnant, but the look of death, and the feel of it, and the glory in the taking of it. Her cheeks flushed with twisted desire, and she moved into the crowd, her eyes now flashing, looking for a target instead of the wolves of the city, hungry for death and profit.
Her figure was striking and recognisable, a figure clad entirely in black from her dark boots to her simple black cotton shirt, and long travelling cloak with a deep cowl that hid her features from all but the most sharp-eyed. The misty rain scattered on the wool material of the fleece-lined boots and formed small dewdrops that scattered as she strode forwards, her eyes alight with an expression that was a strange hybrid between emotionless and intensity of a terrifying calibre. It was no wonder that the crowd fought to get out of her way.
A form in front of her ducked into an alleyway, holding a small black pouch in his hand, and looked furtively down both ends of the street before clambering up a small staircase next to an inn and yanking on the door. She changed direction and moved into the alley, slinking into the darkness. The boy, about twelve years old, looked behind at the tiniest noise and frowned, seeing nothing but blackness, and shadows that had been there all the time. He reached up and wiped the sheen of moisture off his nose, half rain, half sweat from his exertions, and clutching the small velvet purse with greedy fingers, fumbled with the lock again. A shadow fell into his light that drizzled through the rain and the heavy clouds, and he froze, expecting to see the guards, ready to hurt him, but all he saw was a woman, all in black. Unlike many other children, he was relieved to see it, and said, ‘Did Angeline send you after me? She didn’t have needed to.’
Kitiara blinked at the boy’s friendliness, and asked in a puzzled tone, ‘Angeline?’
In an instance, the youth’s face paled and he stuttered, trying to open the door desperately, dropping the purse in his hurry to get away. She reached forwards and grabbed his shirt around the collar, pulling him towards her, and then asked, ‘Answer my question please. I am a newcomer, trying to get into contact with the thieves and assassins in the city.’
He looked up with her, his face scared, but managed to say, ‘How do I know that you’re not an infil… infiltra… fake?’
She smiled lightly and said quite quietly a few words that only a trained member of the underworld would know, and let him go. He got to his feet, picking up the sodden purse, and kicked the door, sighing, ‘Alright, the way there is through this door, but I can’t get it to open.’ He pushed the door futilely and grumbled, ‘It is not supposed to be locked.’
Kitiara asked quietly, her blood quest forgotten, in amusement and satisfaction of something going right, ‘Perhaps you should pull it?’
The boy blinked and then pulled the door and it came away from the settings easily, and he grimaced, turning a delicate shade of red. He coughed, and then nodded, stepping through the door, and said, ‘I’m called Cat, but my mates call me Rek, what’s your name?’
Kitiara smiled as she saw the long dry dusty corridor towards the shady underworld of the city of Altdorf, and followed the boy, replying, ‘Me? Oh, I’m called Rose.’ The lie sizzled on her tongue like a piece of sherbet candy, and she smiled falsely as the boy trustingly led her closer to the thieves’ hideout. They moved through dusty attics and ancient forgotten passageways, often between bedrooms, and occasionally through an alley, and one memorable slippery motion on top of a mostly flat roof that was acting as a gutter. The slant meant that the water wasn’t fast, but it was enough to put off the footing, and the building had being three stories high. She closed her eyes as she fell, and grabbed onto the closest thing, which happened to be a gargoyle, and pulled herself up. Cat watched her, impressed, and said, ‘Cor, you aren’t half strong, Rose.’ She grinned back at him and jumped lightly onto the roof, giving him a wink, and motioning for him to lead on.
After half an hour of travelling they arrived at a small warehouse, disused, on the fringes of the town, and Cat placed a hand on the small door, that had being originally used for warehouse workers to enter and leave work after the main gates were closed. He rapped the wood in a quick succession of codes and though she tried to memorise it, it was there and gone too quickly for her to do so. The door creaked open, and she heard her young host murmur, ‘Got a visitor for Angeline, Peter, she’s calling herself Rose, and she’s new but she knows the thief codes. I led her here using the Dark Route, and I’d recommend, oh, a Three.’
She knew what they were talking about, the Dark Route was one that was loaded with traps, and a Three was the stage of security they would need around her, in this case, actually very lenient. She walked towards the darkness, knowing she wouldn’t be stopped, not in a Three, and followed the boy towards a circle of bright light that was alive with the voices and souls of people.
The warehouse was huge, stretching up four storeys, and loaded with dusty beams and ropes, silvery grey light from the wet afternoon streaming through windows high up and from several small lanterns near the bright circle. Suddenly the scene flipped into a different focus and she saw people up there, practising their catches, their fighting and their balance up there on the beams. A quick getaway over the roofs could mean life or death, and often the “Thieves’ Highway” as it was called, was host to the others of this merry band. s, muggers, thieves, assassins, all those who lived on the wrong end of the law. Some by choice, some by preference, and some by necessity. She let her eyes wander back to the place she was nearing and saw them, in groups and mingled, the s flirting outrageously with the cut-throats, and one woman, sat in an ornate chair, clad in black like herself, and with a silver crown dominated by a single ruby in the centre.
Angeline leaned forwards and smiled, saying quietly in a voice like poisoned honey, ‘So, Cat, you have brought a new visitor to our midst. One with a sword no less, and the reflexes of a panther. One with eyes darting here and there like busy little bees, wanting to see everything, know everything, learn everything there is to know. What do you think, my court, of our newest flower, this country Rose?’ Silence greeted her words, and they all turned to her, but she narrowed her eyes and resisted the temptation to growl. The woman got up, showing some of her face that had before being hidden by the cowl. Green eyes, glittered strangely and brown hair, brown as wood and dust, curled lifelessly against her neck. She was not beautiful, merely striking, but she walked like a hunter, and her eyes were evil. Kitiara found an echo of herself in this strange woman, and let her gaze fall before the other’s.
Angeline smiled, pleased, and said quietly, ‘Angeline may not be young or pretty anymore, but she can see into the hearts of those who serve her, and you have the makings of the perfect assassin, little one. But Rose is not a name for such a creature as you. Let us give you a new name, a name only to be known among us.’ She pauses, and her court whisper suggestions, and she turns, pointing at a man who was startling for his handsome features. He was rugged, blonde and with a charming smile and friendly honest eyes. A swindler most likely. Angeline repeated his name again, her eyes bright, ‘Yes, let up give this cold little deadly blossom a name like that. You are now known as “Black Ice”. A suitable name, no?’
Kitiara looked up and smiled, nodding and taking the hands of the court as they crowded around her, her initiation apparently over. Well that was easy, she thought to herself. The handsome swindler took her hands and pulled her over to the queen of thieves, stroking her wrists with his fingers. She almost lost her composure, and hissed under her breath, ‘Don’t touch me, unless you want to become my first victim.’
He dropped her hands with a muttered complaint, and then said, ‘Fine, whatever. I just thought you’d want to know, you are the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever laid my eyes on.’ He moved closer to her, pushing the others in the crowd; that was now mingling and talking again, and whispered, ‘And that’s the truth.’ She seriously doubted it, but declined to comment, merely dodging away from his grasp. For all her threat, she didn’t dare make good on it, no matter what he did, with all these trained killers and thieves clustered around her. A thief’s life was never safe, but they could trust the others in their profession with their lives without a qualm. Angeline stood up and smiled, though it didn’t touch her eyes, and asked quietly, ‘Ah, my dear Black Ice. That is quite a troublesome title isn’t it, but it fit you so well. Perhaps we should have called you Obsidian, as that is so close. Though it is warm, and you, my dear, are not.’ She turned to the swindler and smirked, ‘I see you have met Charmer. Don’t listen to his words, they are all lies, the hedonistic pleasure-seeker.’ She waves her fingers playfully underneath the man’s nose and chuckles, before taking Kitiara’s hand and coming close, whispering quietly, ‘Don’t worry, your fears and your past life cannot reach you here. You are safe, and you will love your work. Do not be afraid.’
Kitiara froze up as the words reached her, and she glanced, stricken with hope and fear in equal measures, and then Angeline smiled and patted her on the back, pushing her back into the throng. Hands touched her and voices asked about her, partly in professional curiosity, but equally, many seemed to have taken to her, and Cat was acting like she was his property. She almost laughed out loud as he re-enacted on one of the beams her recovery from the fall. His performance was granted a cheer and an applause, and many hands pushed her up, and she began to perform herself, moving through the complicated fighter’s movements and moving stealthily like some like of large cat.
She finished a difficult leap to rounds of clapping, and then she met the wink of Charmer, and grinned her first real smile for a very long time. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had come home.
Angeline watched the newcomer with a fond smile, leaning against the support beams and watching the throng clapping her and welcoming her to the family. She would be an incredible asset, especially with training. Virtually undefeatable, but the terrors in her past would make her a dangerous ally. She would do what she could to mend those barriers, and then her court would heal the rest with affection and gratification. Two things the girl now smiling, the light changing her entire face, had not ever experienced before. She had seen into Kitiara’s mind and her memories in the first instant she had seen her, as she was gifted with some magical experience. The gift was how she, Angeline, had become to be the leader of this band, and as she saw the first inklings of healing occurring, she smiled in relief. The woman now watching others perform, and clapping had a great deal of potential for darkness, more than she knew, though she was beginning to feel it. Angeline was a queen of outlaws, but she was not evil.
Kitiara smiles indulgently as Cat scrabbles on the wall, trying to get purchase on the slick brickwork and he swears for a few minutes. Eventually he manages it, throwing her a look of triumph from underneath his dirty blonde locks; his face screwed up in an expression of smug satisfaction. Well, thinks Kitiara, scaling a twelve foot wall when you’re only four feet tall is quite an achievement. She says quietly, ‘Come on, we have that job to do. You got the picks?’ He nods and dusts his pants, merely spreading the mud over a bigger area, and makes a face, sighing.
The clouds hanging over the city are grey and deep, just touched by glimmers of red as the sun begins to descend into the place where even it sleeps at night, billowing down like dark sheets full of water, which they have been regularly depositing on the residents at intervals. The streets are paved with mud from shoes and between the cobbles, horses’ feet streaked with muck to the knee, and the rooftops slick with water from faulty guttering and the last night’s rainfall. She smiles again as she looks at the boy and nods towards the next obstacle, a tricky climb among chimney tops and small jumps from eaves to other roofs. She rolls her eyes as Cat asks plaintively, ‘Why do we have to take this way, again?’
She replies, ‘Because Angeline said the streets were too dangerous. With that new witch hunter in town, and the influx of guards, our business has got more risky all of a sudden. So we need to take precautions. I would like to see the fat, overweight, lazy guard who can make this jump.’ She points encouragingly at a small hop, barely three feet between the houses, and hears Cat’s laugh.
Her mind goes back to that evening’s conversation with Angeline. Charmer had been hanging around as usual, his expression sour when he saw her. Ever since she had resisted his advances he had being sulking and pointedly ignoring her, which meant going wherever she was, so he could ignore her. She sighs and shrugs, a phrase the thieves’ leader had uttered in her usual accepting tone repeating itself worryingly in her mind, ‘I have sent you and Cat because you are our most promising and accomplished thieves.’ At Kitiara’s raised eyebrow, she had gone on to explain it was a collective term, but she couldn’t get those words out of her head. Did this mean that this job would be a very difficult one? She looks towards the setting sun, the footing becoming even more treacherous in the half-light, and would be even more so after it became fully dark. She moves swiftly past Cat and leaps over a small chimney, looking down from time to time to see where she is, moving quickly through the roofs, and waits patiently for Cat.
Eventually they reach a place where the guards are more constant, and the houses start to move apart some more, no longer dependent on each other to keep themselves up. She lets her eyes drift to Cat, and nods. He grins and moves downwards, jumping from a roof to an awning and sliding down it to drop on the street with a squelchy thud. At once, two guards look around, and the boy looks up, attempting to give a seeming of total innocence. They look back again, and one starts to go towards the boy, raising an eyebrow. Cat lifts up a ring, obviously far too expensive for such a low-down tramp to have in his possession, and runs as the guards move far faster than Kitiara would give them credit for. She smiles wryly, they would never catch Cat; he simply was too good. Already whistles were shrilling up and down the street; one more shadow would go completely unnoticed. She sidles up to a door like any other and moves through it, pushing it open easily. She taps the picks sewn into a small pouch on her belt. Her clothes, unlike Cat’s, are black from top to bottom. If anyone catches her, even now, they will most likely prosecute merely for her dress. They’d have to catch me first though. She smirks in confidence and stops at another door, listening to the movement behind it, before moving on in the shadows, a silent darkness no different from the black in the corners.
She slips outside, the first touches of rain kissing her face, and darts into the shadow of an overhang as a contingent of guards walk past her, laughing and joking. She frowns at that some are obviously laid-back enough to ignore the bells and whistles even now still in uproar across what sounds like half the city. The continuing sounds are good. They, at least, meant that they haven’t caught Cat as yet. She waits till the guards have disappeared around a corner and slowly makes her way towards the large palace nearby, looking for the small irregularity that makes the palace as easy to infiltrate for her as any other place. She finds it in the tree that overhangs the wall, denying most of the basic security precautions. She blinks in surprise and shrugs, silently jumping up and swinging into the branches, up and up, with all the ease of a trapeze artist, all the hours on the beams coming into play. She finds it exhilarating as things come together, the straining of the muscles, the slight burn of exertion and anxiety twisting into a sweet heat that fill her with energy and life. She balances on the branch, looking in the nearly deserted grounds of the palace, watching the guards walk nonchalantly past her without an upward glance.
After she left, they surely would be more careful. However, for now, their unprofessionalism works to her advantage. She stills her breathing and slowly moves onto the wall, dropping down and moves right behind a guard that is moving towards the back of the grounds, away from the main gate. Her footfalls pad softly behind the guard, who doesn’t look back, and she slowly moves closer, and then draws with a lightning strike, his gasp stifled by the sounds from the city, which are slowly quietening now. The blood wells out from his neck where her dagger opened it, and he falls, strong arms catching him and dragging him into the shadow of the house. She drags him into an abandoned archway, the grass leading to it flattened, but she has no time to deal with that or with the drops of blood that stain her hands and the man’s clothes. Some blood sinks into the grass where the drops fell with unnoticeable difference in the wet and the dark. She smiles and wipes her hands on the guard’s clothes, just in time to see another walk past, completely failing to see, and lets her breath out with a small gasp of relief.
She turns to the door behind her and reaches for her picklocks, kneeling and slowly undoing each one after some time. She opens the door, and looks in the hallway, striding through it as it twists and turns, ignoring the doors on left and right, keeping to the side and dousing torches where she can. The darkness seems to follow her as she finally finds what she is looking for, and sidles up the stairs, dark grey stone radiating a chill that strikes into her fingers and toes, but keeps looking upwards, following the stairs to their top, and peeks out down the corridor. Two guards stand on watch in front of a large double door, faded red uniforms slightly creased and spotted with food droplets. One stares at the floor and the other at the ceiling, both looking very bored.
She smiles in the rare display of a challenge, and considers the problem for a few moments, her black eyes thoughtful, and then makes a decision. She dips into her clothing and brings out two graceful small metal devices, both shaped to something similar to a flat star shape made from steel. Naïve buyers may have commented on its graceful curves and beautiful engraving but she thought nothing of that as she tips both hands back slightly, the trinkets held carefully between thumb and forefinger, before stepping out into the corridor and throwing them with all the strength she can muster.
One guard falls immediately, the evil little weapon embedded in his forehead, twitching and guttering with his dying breaths. The other dodges, the throwing star smacking into the wooden door and the guard comes towards her, sword lifted high. She moves sideways as he lunges, and draws her dagger once again, but it is deflected with ease by the sword. The man moves with a grace and speed impossible, and she senses that he has being trained in the art of killing far greater than that of his late friend. He moves in for the kill, using his strength and superior weight against her. She narrows her eyes and draws her sword in her other hand, blocking his stroke and letting him push her against the wall, in order to give her some support. He leans in, the three cross-guards locked together, and brings his head back slightly. She recognises the act as one previous to a blow of heads, and with his iron helmet, she was most certainly at the wrong end. She stops and drops her weight, throwing him off balance, and rolling between his legs. She turns and strikes before he can complete his turn, and his shocked expression looks up at her with respect that gently turns into a smile as he falls to his side and lies still, staring at nothing.
She moves swiftly towards the doors and kicks them open. A man looks up, a silk blindfold such as those worn by those who have ideas above their station but no real power, covering his eyes. She shakes her head, amazed it could be so easy, and walks forwards. The man asks, obviously certain of who had come in, ‘What now, Crederin? More of your insane demands for payment in jewels? I told you, man, you get paid good gold just like any other…’ He stops his babbling as a sword touches his jowls, and she slowly cuts his throat without even removing his blindfold. The fat parts easily, blood spilling out onto the priceless fabric that adorns the bed, and he gurgles as he chokes on his own blood, scrabbling at the blindfold. She lets him gaze at her and sees the recognition and horror at her presence. She closes her eyes in animal satisfaction, and walks towards the jewellery caskets half-open on the corner, picking up a few of the more expensive trinkets and tucking them into her pouch, but not so much that it would slow her down. She listens to the man dying in slow degrees on the bed and shakes her head as his feeble attempts fail and silence fills the room. She cleans her weapons on the silk and gold covering on the bed and moves towards the doors, stepping over the corpses and almost runs down the stairs, her dagger unsheathed and ready.
She reaches the wall with no cry of discovery, but as she swings herself into the tree, she hears dogs start to bark and guards shout out within the walls. She smiles and nods, dropping into the streets with a sweet silence, and walks to a wall, which she climbs and then wanders through the rooftops as though she owns them all. A small figure sat on a chimney waves to her, and she walks over, looking down. He asks, ‘So, how did it go?’
She answers, with a small shrug, ‘Four kills, one a challenge.’
Cat raises his eyebrows, ‘A guard who knows his stuff? Wow.’
She chuckles at his cynicism and nods, beckoning to him, ‘Come on, Cat, time to go home and collect the cash, yes?’ She pats her pouch and his expression sharpens as he looks through the things she had managed to steal, his smile telling her all she needs to know. ‘So, I did well?’
He nods and grins at her, ‘Real well, Icy, Angeline will be pleased with us.’
Kitiara nods and moves along rather more urgently, the clouds promising rain, but the darkness seeming to threaten at thunderstorms. A tingly tension is in the air and she finds that the earlier satisfaction has resolved itself instead into an anxious nervousness that eats constantly at her mind. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.
She turns and says quietly, ‘I am going to run, catch up when you can. There’s something not right. Where’s all the watch?’ Indeed, the streets are almost empty, and she leaves Cat’s startled face behind, taking stupid risks as she leaps and runs across the wet slates, the wrongness flaring up in her like a terrible flame, urging her on at all costs.
The mission had not being difficult at all, so what had Angeline being talking about? Possibilities race through her mind as she moves like a ghost without a soul, spiriting along among the shadows. The scene that greets her, however, is far worse than any of the possibilities she had concocted. She stops in horror a few houses away from the warehouse, hearing the sound of the guard, and the screams of dying people. No!
She leans forward, leaping across a dangerous gap, but knows enough to hide from the prying eyes of the guard, watching with horror. People she knew and had liked, who had cared about how she was, lay dead on the floor, their own eyes staring at nothing. The pickpockets, some no more than children, lay dead on the cobblestones, more inside the warehouse, no doubt. The stink of death washed up to the chimney pots and she found tears stinging at her eyes. She angrily shakes her head and blinks them away, watching, her mouth dry, as Angeline walks out of the place, her hands tied tightly behind her back. A man with a long black robe peers deeply into her eyes, and says something that she cannot hear from so far away, and Angeline is flung onto a cart where a handful of others are huddling fearfully. As she steps up, they crowd around her, pleading for her to make some sense of the tragedy, no doubt.
Kitiara lets her emotions harden into something approaching apathy as she watches the others slowly taken out, one by one, and either put upon the cart, or shoved into a large wagon with bars on the sides. A moving prison cell.
The killing seems to be over, the resistance now gone. She defies the impulse to go down and start killing those who had, with one stroke, destroyed yet another attempt for her to rebuild her life. She waits, not moving as Cat nestles down beside her and watches, his mouth open in horror, his eyes wide in shock, but he also, does not move until Charmer walks out of the warehouse. There are no chains on him, and he walks up to the man in the black robes, which Kitiara was willing to bet money was the witch hunter. The witch hunter slaps Charmer on the back, and the two appear to be laughing. A bag changes hand, and Charmer moves away, into a nearby street, not even casting a backward glance to his former friends lying in the street, dead, or those who would face a far worse fate of rotting in a dungeon, or facing a public execution. Those who had being destined for the cart, Kitiara could not fathom. The cart and the wagon begin to move off in tandem, and she gets up, moving away from the warehouse.
Cat stays where he was, and then slowly turns to her, his eyes full of pain and fear, far older than they had a right to be, and said simply, ‘It’s over then. What will we do now?’
Kitiara’s eyes chill the soul of those who see them as she answers, in a voice like sharpened steel, ‘Take revenge.’ She walks to the side of the building and simply drops, landing elegantly on the street, and draws her sword. Cat, seeing her face, moves back to the warehouse and starts walking among the bodies, seeing if anyone had got away, or being away as they had.
Kitiara walks after Charmer, following his distant figure, until about ten minutes from the warehouse and calls out. He stops and turns, a scowl moving onto his face almost by instinct, then replaced by a sunny smile, ‘Rose, how nice to see you, my dear.’ He moves closer and she looks around for any witnesses. The street they had wandered down was apparently free of them, and she draws her sword. Charmer pauses at the naked steel and raises his hands, ‘What’s the matter, Ice, I’d kiss you without you having to threaten me.’
Pure fury races through her mind, he still thought that he was attractive to her?! Something of this must have shown in her implacable face, as he recoils and murmurs, ‘I’m only kidding.’
She hisses, ‘Were you only kidding when you betrayed us? Were you kidding when you killed all those there, and condemned them all to a life full of torment. You had a family, of sorts, why did you do it?’ Her distress makes him look up, the sheer grief threatening to wash away her barriers of self-control and conscience.
He licks his lips nervously, keeping his eyes averted, and says, ‘It was because of you. You, with your skills, your beauty, and your distance. Sigmar, I want you girl, I want you like I’ve wanted no other lass. But you wouldn’t give in to me. This,’ he meets her eyes, dropping the ultimate weapon, ‘is all your fault.’
‘No.’ She lifts her sword and walks forwards, eyes blazing, ‘it is yours, and you will pay for your betrayal. No judge, no trial, only the executioner.’
Charmer moves forward as well, drawing his blade and cutting at her. The swords clash with a steely ring, and she tries again, each time blocked by his skill and strength. He pushes her back, coming closer with every slash, and she tries desperately to gain the upper hand. He smirks, and gasps, ‘Not that bad, am I, for a swindler.’ She shakes her head, parrying again, the effort in blocking each of his powerful strokes flagging her arms. He spins in an intricate sword movement and her blade whirls into the darkness. Before she can draw another blade, he is upon her, and the tip of his sword tickles the base of her throat. She resists the temptation to swallow and meets his eyes with malice still there, defiant to the end.
He stops and lowers the sword and shakes his head, shrugging, ‘I can’t kill you, . Thought I would be able to, but, no. Strange, isn’t it, how you can live your life fairly blamelessly without ever having experienced what they call the ‘greater things in life’ but when they do come along, you’re ready to do things that’ll get you a place in hell.’ He drops the blade, it clattering to the floor, and smirks. ‘I am unarmed. Do your worst. But first, I want just one thing.’
She doesn’t move, though her eyes widen as he leans forwards and touches his lips to hers. Her eyes slide closed and she stays still as he takes his last and only kiss, before ripping into his chest with her dagger. He looks at her as he staggers backwards, red liquid cascading over his hands as he clutches the hilt. He smiles, and falls to his knees, looking at her as she follows, their eyes locked. He whispers, the blood making it slightly gurgled, ‘It was.. worth it.’ He jerks three times, his eyes glazing over and falls weakly onto his face, grinding the flesh into the cobbles. She leaves the dagger where it is and walks away, her head bowed, ignoring the people walking past her, moving randomly, until she sees the warehouse starting to loom up in front of her.
Cat. She walks quicker, and stops in horror as she sees a body far too familiar laid out across one of the corpses. She runs over and stoops down, tears finally cascading down her cheeks in ivory streaks, ‘Cat, Rek, are you still there? Cat?’
He opens his eyes, and doesn’t seem to see her at first, and then the twinge of a smile flickers on his lips. She can tell that he hasn’t much time left, and lets the tears fall where they will. He opens his mouth and closes it again, as she shushes, ‘No, don’t talk, it’s ok, Cat. Charmer is dead. It’ll be ok.’
He ignores her and tries again, his young voice emerging as a croak, and finishes, ‘It’s ..better… this… way. I wish…’ He stares at something only he can see, and then relaxes, his head rolling to one side. Kitiara holds the small body to her with bone-crushing strength, the tears falling all around her, and she loses herself within the rage and the pain, holding the cold corpse. Bittersweet memories flash in her thoughts, as she staggers away from the scene of carnage, sitting down in a doorway and curling up to herself and crying to herself in utter grief. Anger flares, at Charmer, at the witch hunter, at whoever killed Cat. She starts to sob again, wondering if the loved ones of the ones she killed cried like this when they found them.
She closes her eyes and lets the numbness wash over her; when she can no longer cry any more, and stares into the darkness.
I wish I had the power to kill all those who have hurt me. I wish I was good enough to have revenge for those who were betrayed… by me as well as by Charmer. I wish this hadn’t happened. Ohhh, I wish this hadn’t happened.
She sees again the look on the thieves’ faces as they had being driven away by wagon and cart.
As the sun slowly lifts over the horizon, golden light tinting the rooftops of the city, the clouds having being blown away during the night, she stands up, hope sparking anew. She could not help those who were dead, but she could save those who were alive. She walks towards the down class areas of the city, looking for a reliable fence who would be able to give her good value for the jewels. She needs a change of clothes and a few resources. Along with the light, a tiny sparkle returns to her eyes, as she wipes away the tears, a luxury in such a life of hard knocks, where death was always a dancing partner, or on the cards. She knew she thinks to herself, thinking over Angeline’s comments before she and Cat had gone. Why hadn’t she stopped it? Why hadn’t she killed Charmer as soon as she had known, avoiding all these deaths?
Kitiara stumbles into the sunlight, a piece of shadow and pain.