Sasha The Assassin Part 9

Craggs came through the secret tunnels and appeared in the room with Mistress Green and Lord Brown. “The gem! Throw it here!” Mistress Green hissed. “Don’t you dare get any closer or I’ll kill you where you stand!” she shouted at Craggs. The sound of fighting nearby made everything far more urgent.

Craggs gave a hard stare to Mistress Green before finally throwing her the gem. “Quickly Lord Brown! The fighting closes in on us, our forces near defeat.” She told him as he placed fumbled with the gem for a few moments before finally placing it inside the slot on the face of the safe. The nine large rings he already had on his hands made the task far more difficult than it should have been.  Nothing happened for painful seconds as the three stared helplessly at the giant safe until finally gears started turning and the door slowly grinded open.

                Lord Brown walked towards the final ring. He could barely force his legs to move him the last few steps. He could not believe that finally after all these years it was finally going to happen, he was finally about to become King and restore his family to the throne they had been deposed from all those hundreds of years ago. Then he slipped the tenth ring on his right thumb and instantly was driven to his knees by ripping pain that ran through his whole body.

                Mistress Green also fell to her knees, a grimace on her face. She turned and smirked at the fallen Lord Brown. “You idiot. How we played you. How we’ve waited so long for this. Get up now, get up and show me your power, melt Craggs here to a puddle of smoldering flesh.” She turned and glared at Craggs with an evil glare.

                In the distance bells could be heard ringing signaling that midnight had arrived. Inside the room itself the clink of metal hitting stone could be heard. “She’s free. You’re fucked.” Lord Brown gasped as he lay prone on the ground.

                “What?” Mistress Green said and then suddenly a blade struck her hand and tore her fingers clean off.  In a quick motion Sasha grabbed the ring on one of the severed fingers and put it on her hand.

                “Shut up bitch.” Sasha said as she punched Mistress Green in the face. Sasha felt the pain of the ring pour through her body but she fought to control it. “Use the nullification ring on Craggs now. Get whatever junk is in his head to stop working.” Sasha snapped at Lord Brown who pointed his hand at Craggs and sent him into spasms. Craggs thrashed and buckled for a few moments, blood started to trickle from his eyes and nose and then finally he crumpled to the ground.

                Sasha wanted to run to him, to comfort him and see if he was still alive but the power of the ring she wore and the situation at hand required her to avoid getting anywhere near the giant man. “Craggs, lemme know if you’re OK. I’d hate for this to have killed you after all the work we’ve done.” She said to him from across the room. Outside the room the battle got closer, the door to the safe room was now being struck soon the King’s forces would be inside. “Craggs. Come on buddy, talk to me.”

                “I can feel it’s gone.” Craggs said, his voice raspy. “I’m. I’m free.” He said and then he slumped back down to the ground. Sasha could see his chest slowly rising and falling and knew he was still alive.

                “Sleep well my friend. It is for the best you don’t have a hand in what I am about to do.” Sasha said to him. A moment after she finished saying that the door to the room burst open and the King’s forced charged. “Kill them all” Sasha yelled and a giant burst of flame shot from Lord Brown’s hand. Men screamed as they were burnt alive. The smell of charred flesh filled the room and Sasha took deep breaths to prevent from puking. “Come on. We’ve got a king to kill.” She said as she walked from the room. Lord Brown followed behind her as if dragged by an unseen rope

                They walked up the stairs from the vault to the ground floor of the castle. Sasha let Lord Brown get in front of her, giving him a hard kick in the ass as he passed by. “All this work to behind the slave of a slave.”  He sneered.

                “First of all I’m free now, and second of all you could have doomed generations of your family to being puppets of the Green’s. You should be grateful this ends tonight with only your life.” Sasha said. More guards charged at them when she finished talking and more guards were reduced to charred skeletons.

                With a blast of energy Lord Brown blasted the doors to the throne room open. There stood twenty knights in front of the King and his eldest son. The King was old and sickly looking, his face drawn and lined with wrinkles. On the sides of the room were crossbowmen with their weapons at the ready. Sasha looked at the young man standing beside the King. “You’re the crown prince right? Eric is your name?”

                “Yes.” Eric replied. He glared at Sasha and Lord Brown with a fury in his eyes.

                “Well now you’re king, this sickly old fool is in no condition to lead the kingdom. Idiot left his crown unattended. That’s unforgivable.” When she finished speaking Lord Brown threw a bolt of energy at the King that ripped through his chest and killed him. Arrows from all directions flew at Sasha and Lord Brown but were deflected away by a giant shield that surrounded them. The knights charged them and were also unable to penetrate it. A few moments later after a volley of energy from Lord Brown’s rings the only three people alive in the room were Eric, Sasha and Lord Brown.

                Eric Champion stood at the side of throne gazing at all the dead men’s bodies strewn around him. “So what do you want me of Lord Brown?” he asked.

                “He’s just a puppet. I’m the one in control here.” Sasha said. To prove her point she drove Lord Brown to his knees in pain. “You need to understand what’s been happening and what has happened to your family. When your family took the throne from the Browns hundreds of years ago it wasn’t the plan. As a child my family always told me the Greens were on our side and the Browns were our enemies. The invasion my family launched upon your kingdom was massive. They far outnumbered your forces but the one thing your kingdom had in vast supply was magic users. The rings were not a plan to save the nation. They were a scam by the Greens to keep all the magic users away from the front lines, a way to keep them distracted until the war was over. Tragically for them your ancestors skills on the battlefield kept our armies at bay and the rings that were never meant to be finished were made and then they were given to your legendary ancestor and he used them to defeat the invasion and usurp the throne.”

                “Why would the Greens do this? What was their plan?” Eric asked.

                “They were to rule as the new leaders of the south after we’d conquered them. The Browns were to be purged such that anyone with a drop of their blood would be killed.  It didn’t work out for them so the Greens fell upon a plan B. They were the ones who designed the rings and worked with all the magic users in the crafting process. It was from this knowledge they figured out a way to craft another ring, a controlling ring. One of the Greens servants told me the rings were haunted. That led me to the truth. The Greens were using the rings to control you. Then finally one of your ancestors got tired of it and managed to find a way to drop dead in a public setting which allowed people to tear his body apart to try to get at the rings and thus they were lost. The Champions having ruled for generations at that point no longer needed the power of the rings to enforce their rule as the people had long accepted them as the rightful dynasty. Your bloodline was free of the Greens and their meddling.”

                “You killed my father, you slaughtered all my knights, why should I not kill you?” Eric asked her.

               

                “Cause I’m giving you the power right now.” Sasha said and with that she closed her eyes. Her body shook as Lord Brown began screaming and flailing. Blood began to trickle from Sasha’s nose as she kept on focusing till finally Lord Brown was dead. “That took a few years off my life.” She said as she removed the ring from her hand and threw it to Eric. “There. All the scheming of the Browns and the Greens down the drain. You have all the rings, do with them as you see fit, but know to wear the ten rings is to assure yourself an early grave.”

                Eric stared at the ring. “What happens now?” he asked.

                “I don’t know. The Greens and Browns may declare war. They may hide their intent in fear of the rings. You’re King in a dangerous world in a dangerous time. I wouldn’t want to be you.” Sasha told him and she walked away.

                “Where are you going?” Eric asked.

                “Anywhere. I’m free, that’s the point of being free right?” she told him.

POST SCRIPT

                That night Sasha walked into Arthur’s house. His eyes still had some blackness from his broken nose. “I survived and I’m free.” She told him as she walked towards him for a kiss. Arthur backed away from her. His rejection stung. “What’s wrong?” she asked him.

                “The fact that you nearly killed me one time, and broke my nose the other.” He told her.

                “Oh, you silly man, if I wanted to kill you, you would be dead.” She said it as sweetly as she could, but she could tell it didn’t really have the impact she wanted it to. “So you don’t want to have sex?” she asked in confusion.

                “Not really. It’s kind of been horrible both times.” Arthur told her.

                “So what do you want to do?” she asked him.

                “I don’t know. We could talk.” He said.

                “Talk?” Sasha puzzled over the term. “You know. I’ve never really talked to anyone besides you and a seven foot tall man who could turn his skin into stone.” She told him.

                “That guy sounds really impressive.” Arthur said.

                “Oh he was.” And Sasha began to tell Arthur the story of Craggs and that led to other stories and tales, and the two of them spent the night talking and laughing in each other’s company.