Stuff coming to the blog

I feel good that I was able to get myself to finish the Sasha The Assassin series cause the two ideas I had in my head for a long time finally got together and had a kid. Idea one was ten rings of power that were fought over for control of a kingdom and the other was a female assassin character murdering stuff she could murder and talking her way out of situations where murder wasn't an option. I don't know if/when Sasha will have further adventures but if I come up with another storyline for the character I'll put in work on it.

Now for the big project I've been working on for years on end. It's a novel I've bored many of my friends to tears about and it's art is my facebook banner. The story has the working title of "The War" and it is simply put about two nations going to war.

The elevator pitch of the novel would go something like "Game of Thrones with far fewer sides, better technology, no magic and only one dragon." And here is where I put in my plea for you to believe me that I was working on this long before I knew about the books and the show hadn't even existed yet. I know this puts me on the same shaky ground as the Hunger Games author who savaged Battle Royale but at the very least I don't think my characters/story are a take off of the books/show in any way.

So while I start to steal myself on the process of finally finishing the first draft of the first book of the series I figured I'd use this blog to write little slices of life of each of the main characters of The War before the war happened. The cast is rather large so I have a pretty big pool of characters to play with so at least once a week I'm going to try to sit down and hammer out about a thousand or so words about a day in the life of a character before the events that led up to the great conflict happened. This will be a way for blog readers to get to know these characters before I make the novel and it'll be a good exercise for me to help to get to better know the people I'll be having fight each other in a battle that will rock their nations to their foundations.

Thanks everyone who has given the blog a look see and I hope to give you some content to read and enjoy over the coming months.

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. 

Sasha The Assassin Part 8

                “I’m not going to kill you.” Lord Brown told Sasha as the army massed at the gathering point. “Oh I know Mistress Green wants me to once you've gotten us the jewel, but I trust you. I have faith in you my dear and more to the point I think you’ll be a helpful ally once I am king. Since you will no longer be a slave after tonight you’ll be paid quite well for your service.” He finished with a nod to her.

                Sasha nodded back to him. Her face was blank but the intensity in her red eyes was easy to see. The glamour of choice was red hair with white framing her face and a black stripe across her eyes with black tears running down her cheeks. Warriors of her nation painted such imagines on their faces when they knew they were going to die in battle. Lord Brown stared at her for another moment and then turned and nodded to the three men cloaked in blue at the head of the army.

                The men began chanting, their voices started off melodic and soothing but soon the noise became distorted and twisted, almost demonic sounding, until finally the very fabric of reality warped in front of them. Sasha had heard of the great portals that allowed people to travel thousands of miles in the blink of an eye but she’d never seen one in person. Now before her was a portal that thousands of men were charging through and on the other end was a two mile march to the castle of the king. The great battle had arrived.

                Sasha braced herself and ran through the portal. She did not follow the army on it’s march towards the castle, her place was elsewhere. She wondered for miles until she finally found the fetid stream that led into the sewers. The air was rank with waste as she made her way through the twisting tunnels until she finally came to the location Mistress Green had told her about. She was now under the castle itself.

A grappling hook got her to the ceiling of the tunnel and she was able to push aside the stone and get herself into the castle.  Once inside she quickly disguised herself as a knight of the king.  She made her way through the hallways of the castle and was amazed as she passed warding stone after warding stone yet not of them stripped her of her glamour or sounded an alarm. She shook her head as she wondered why the Greens would go to such trouble to overthrow a dynasty they were so well established with.

Sasha finally had found her way to the king’s private chambers. She drew Mercy from it’s sheath and took a breath. The door flew open as she kicked it and she rolled into the room only to find nobody there. Sasha quickly composed herself and then noticed the king’s crown resting on a desk near the bed. She looked the crown over carefully and saw that it was real gold and the gems were authentic. The centerpiece diamond took a little work to pry free but she finally managed to get it loose and she pocketed it.

She debated seeking out the king to murder him but then decided that she’d either be dead or free within the next two hours so she really didn't have much desire to engage a bunch of armored knights in an effort to kill the king when a rumor of the king’s death would do just as well. She walked towards the entry point she’d gained access to the castle from before and then waited. Finally she heard the footsteps of a patrol. With a quick jab of her dagger she drew blood from her forehead. She let the blood leak onto the crown and then she placed the crown on the ground in directly where the patrol would see it once they rounded the corner. Once the crown was placed she quickly escaped the castle and started her trek through the sewers to the meeting point.

The journey came to an end at the entranceway to the sewers where she was to meet up with the person that was to take the jewel to Lord Brown. When she got there she saw Craggs staring at her. “Really Craggs? You’re going to kill me?” Sasha said with more disappointment than anything else.

“They told me this would help to kill you.” Craggs told her in a cold, emotionless voice as he held a ball of light in his hands. The ball exploded and suddenly the whole tunnel was coated in bright light. Sasha knew of such weapons and what they would do to her. She had no means of escape and she had no way to hurt the giant that stood before her.

“I am at your mercy.” She told Craggs as she threw the diamond to him. She then took out her daggers and threw them to the side and then the sai right after that. “Do as your master demands and kill me.” Sasha told him.

“I have no choice in this. You know this Sasha. Slaves must do as their masters command. This is the way of the world.” Craggs replied to her as he pulled out his broadsword.

“What if I could make you free? What if I could make you no longer a slave?” Sasha asked him.

Craggs walked towards her, shaking his head as he moved. “Such a bold promise. I didn't hear you making such offers to me before your life was about to be ended.” He stood over her and waited for a moment.

“I hadn't figured it all out just then, but now I’m pretty sure I've got everything all mapped out. I know the truth. It’s up to you Craggs, we both know this ends with our masters obtaining an unstoppable power and being able to ruin the southern kingdoms with an iron fist. If they want to kill us after they do so it’ll take them but a thought to do so. I think I can stop them and I think I can make us both free in the process. What’s the difference if I live or die really?” Sasha asked him.

Craggs looked over her and pondered what she had said. He then put his broadsword back in it’s sheath. “You talk a big game. Let’s see if you can back it up.” He told her. Sasha grabbed her weapons and rearmed herself.

“You will be a free man come the morning. I promise you.” Sasha told him as they headed towards the vault.  

Sasha The Assassin Part 7

“You’re alive, he isn’t, and that is all that matters.” Craggs told her. He was Sasha’s new friend at Lord Brown’s estate which had become a military base instead of a residency of a high lord. Sasha walked with the giant of a man, she figured he was over seven feet tall and didn’t want to even hazard a guess at his weight. He was always shirtless, his body had weird pock marks and scars all over his bronze torso, tales of countless battles he’d fought in the past.

“But so much of it was luck, his sword breaking, that he couldn’t bite me in the neck because I’m wearing a slave collar.” Sasha said.

“If you think it would do justice to the situation I could kill you now.” Craggs told her. He playfully threw his arm into her and she’d learned how to take the hit without being knocked over, which wasn’t easy even with the lack of force he put into the blow. “Big as I am, powers I have, still doesn’t matter. I’ve had a few fights where an inch this way or that would decide if I lived or died. The inches went my way those times, maybe not next time.”

“Why do you serve as a slave? You’re so powerful. How can Mistress Green kill you? You can’t have a collar like me since you can turn your flesh into stone.” Sasha asked him.

“Device in my head, put there when I was a child, they say the magic word and my brain explodes.” Cragg told her.

Sasha sighed. “I wish we could just steal the rings and kill our masters. You know we’re not living through the night of the assault right? They’ll never let us get near all those rings once they finally have them.” Sasha said, the despair in her voice was clear.

Craggs gave a loud laugh in reply. “Oh silly girl. You know that if you have the rings they make you a slave all the same don’t you? Oh you might be powerful and fearsome but the rings control the one who wears them, drive them mad.”

“What do you mean? I’d never heard that before.” Sasha said. She was stunned by the statement.

“You know all the Champions who wore those rings died before they even made it to age fifty. They aged so fast, the rings ate their spirit. Also they said that after enough kings died wearing them that the rings became haunted, that the dead kings would talk to the new king and tell him what to do. It’s why King Franklin died in that crowd. He planned for himself to die and for the crowd to tear at his body to get at the rings. He knew the Champions had reigned long enough that they had the army and the people behind them, the rings didn’t matter anymore, and he didn’t want his son to be damned into wearing them.” Craggs said.

“I knew they had died young, but I’d never heard about the rings being haunted.” Sasha told him.

“Oh it’s what Mistress Green tells us all the time. It’s why she’s so willing to let Lord Brown wear them and become King, because she knows the Browns will have to bear the burden of the curse while the Greens can just marry into power.” Craggs said.

Sasha shook her head. She hated Mistress Green everything about her seemed so smug. She felt like there was even more to the story than Craggs knew but his information really felt like put some things into place for her.

“They want me.” Craggs said just as Sasha felt the razors in her collar poke her neck.

“They want us you mean.” She replied to him as they headed to the command center in Lord Brown’s estate.

They made it into what had been a parlor but was now the war room where Lord Brown poured over maps and pretended he was some sort of military expert when odds were he had no idea about anything at all. Today Mistress Green was looming over his shoulder as he stared intently at a map.

“Craggs, Sasha. You know that in a week we will be launching the assault on the castle and now has come the time for your missions.” Mistress Green smiled deviously as she continued to speak. “Craggs, you’ll kill everything in your path. You’re the distraction for Sasha.” She nodded at Craggs who nodded back to her. “And you my dear will assassinate King Derrick and steal the center jewel out of his crown.”

Sasha took the news as impassively as she could. She knew that assassinating the king would be next to impossible. He was guarded by wards and talismans that would prevent Sasha from ever taking him by surprise and his personal bodyguards were armored with enchanted steel plate that would be nigh impenetrable for her weapons.

“Do not worry Sasha. The king still thinks the Greens are on his side. He believes I am a double agent that has been working all this years only to betray Lord Brown in the final hour and to hand the rings back to the Champions. The Greens build that castle, we set up the wards, we know exactly how you can get at the king without anyone stopping you. The king’s death is not what matters most, but killing him will sow chaos and confusion into the ranks of our enemies. The jewel at the center of his crown is the key to the vault that houses the final ring. Once you have it, you’ll meet us at the rendezvous point for the final assault on the vault and the gathering of the tenth ring.”

Sasha nodded. She was terrified of the fact that she wasn’t being set up to fail when it came to the murdering of King Derrick. She was supremely confident that somehow someway the Greens had in fact set all of this up to allow her to pull off this assassination. As sure as she was of that, she was sure of the fact that she would be murdered the moment she handed over the jewel, never in a million years would they allow someone as deadly as Sasha to be that close to those cursed rings.

Sasha The Assassin Part 6

Three times the blades pressed into her neck. It was the distress sign Lord Brown had never used before in Sasha’s whole life but now she was feeling it. She remembered him joking that if he ever needed to use the call that she might well decide to run the other way since the threat might be not worth dealing with. Sasha recalled his grim words and armed herself and ran to her horse. Lord Brown must be saved since if he died whoever killed him would almost assuredly find the device that controls her collar and could kill her with the press of a button.

                As she came upon his estate she saw dead bodies on the grounds, servants having been butchered with their bowels ripped out. Whatever person or persons were involved in this attack they sure were not being subtle about what they were doing. Sasha entered the back door of the building and saw Pablo’s dead body sprawled on the carpet she grimaced as his lightless eyes staring at her as she walked into the room.

                Down the hallway there were yet more dead bodies, throats slashed, torso’s run through, everything was professional and effective, she knew those behind this assault knew what they were doing. “Sasha? Are you here yet my dear?” a man’s voice called out in the distance. Sasha drew her sai and braced herself for combat.

                “You’re why I’m here Sasha.” The voice continued. “Lord Brown is the only man left alive, and he’s alive only because I fear that if I killed him it would have trigged something in your slave collar to kill you. I took the contract to finally meet you, to finally kill you.” The voice finished. Sasha felt the man shadow step and turned to where he’d appear. He popped from the shadows some ten feet away from her.

                “I was supposed to wear that collar you know.” The man said with a smile. He was pale like Sasha with light blonde hair and green eyes, she didn’t know if his features were a glamour or not. “You don’t remember me do you? You don’t recall big brother Benjamin do you?” he asked her. Sasha backed up a step at the sound of the name. “Yes Sasha. I’m your beloved brother.” He said with an acid tone. “Well not really, because I was supposed to be Lord Brown’s slave. Mommy and Daddy thought he’d want a big strong boy to be his slave and when they had me they were so happy since they knew they had paid our debt to the Browns. They never loved me or cared for me, when Jenna arrived a few years later she got all the love and attention, and you, you were the most beloved of all.”

                Sasha couldn’t believe the man’s story, but she knew from her study of people that at the very least he believed every word he said. “When Lord Brown took you it broke mother. She wailed for weeks on end, she went from not loving me to hating me. It was my fault I wasn’t good enough to be Lord Brown’s slave, it was my fault her beloved Sasha was taken from her. Then I heard the tales of the assassin’s school and how that’s what Lord Brown wanted. So I ran away from home and I found a group of assassins and I had them train me, teach me their arts, till finally I could meet the little bitch that ruined my life and kill her.”

                As he said it he charged at her, in his hands were two short swords. Sasha parried his swings with her sai and looked for openings to counter attack. Benjamin’s speed was impressive and he kept her on the defensive. Sasha shadow stepped and he was right upon her again continuing to hack away at her and forcing her to defend herself.

                “You’re over-rated” he sneered. “This is going to be easier than I thought.” Right as he finished his boast Sasha managed to leg sweep him and sent him crashing to his back. Sasha brought her sai down in a stabbing motion and Benjamin barely rolled out of the way. “Good one sister.” He smirked and then he threw a dagger at her. Sasha side stepped it and the next one. She felt him shadowstepping behind her and jumped away from the spot, when she reappeared a knife was flying at her head and she barely had time to react and deflect it away from her face.

                “Slow, to slow.” He said, he charged at her again the two exchanging thrusts and parries as they battled in the darkness. Sasha ducked under a swing at her head and lunged at him with a stab at his chest but found the blow deflected harmlessly away. “Haven’t fought an assassin have you?” he asked. “All I’ve been doing is fighting people like you, knowing their moves, understanding what they can do, how they’ll react. I’m sorry to say sister but you’re pretty disappointing.” He finished.

                Sasha didn’t reply but she knew that she’d never fought anyone who could have even threatened her before this fight. Her whole life had been killing easy targets or merely the threat of her black cloak was enough to prevent anyone was giving her trouble. Now she was in a fight to the death and she had no idea if she was going to survive it.

                Benjamin brought both his swords down upon her sai and began to try to push her arms down. Sasha decided now was the time to see if the deep earth iron was just a sales pitch or not. She twisted her wrists and started driving the guards of her sai into the sides of the swords. “Really? Trying to break my swords with your gardening tools?” Benjamin scoffed. “The Champions paid top dollar for these blades, steel refolded countless times to the point where it’s indestructible. Your silly little weapons will shatter like glass.”

                Right as he finished the word glass the sword in his right hand snapped clean in two. Benjamin stumbled forward and Sasha reacted just in time to drive her sai into his stomach. She felt the blade dig into his body and he fell into her, his head resting on her shoulder. At that instant she felt his teeth trying to find purchase in her neck but her slave collar prevented him from being able to doing any damage. She stepped away from him and in a swift motion brought the sai out of his belly and into the bottom of his jaw, through the roof of his mouth and into his brain.

                As his eyes started to glass over she smirked at him. “I guess there’s a reason mother loved me most.” She said as she pulled the blade out and watched him fall. Right after he hit the ground she drove the sai through his heart to make certain of his death. “Lord Brown!” she shouted. “It’s over, I’ve killed the assassin the king sent for you.” And then she felt the blade of her collar hitting her neck, four times it grazed her flesh.

                “How many times did I trigger the blade?” Lord Brown asked nervously.

                “Four.” Sasha replied. She knew lying could have meant her death given the panic her master was in.

                Lord Brown rushed from his chambers. “Sasha! You saved me. I can not thank you enough. This is open war the king has declared on us. All my servants and staff are dead, thank the Gods my children were not here. Armies must be gathered. I must contact the Green’s at once about this. The day of reckoning is coming soon Sasha, you must stay with me till it arrives. We will defeat them Sasha. They will pay.” He said with his voice regaining it’s confidence as he spoke. Sasha looked down at her dead brother a man who spent his whole life obsessed with killing her and now having failed. She looked at Lord Brown and thought of his obsession and how she was positive he was to fail also. The big difference was Lord Brown’s failure was going to get her killed. 

Sasha the Assassin Part 5

Sasha turned the ring over to Pablo who bowed deeply as he accepted it. “Forgive Lord Brown but he is indisposed this evening.” Pablo told her. Lord Brown was many things but first and foremost he was a drunk. Sasha fled as quickly as she could since she hated being around him when he was drunk, he had a violent streak that the alcohol brought out and he had threatened on more than one occasion to kill her while he was in a drunken stupor.

She spent the next two days resting in her hovel and awaiting the inevitable tug on her collar before she got the full details of the suicide mission she was to be sent on for the final ring. The final day of her captivity was the rare day when all six of the planets moons would be full at the same time and she’d heard legends about it increasing magic power. Sasha wondered if she would be more powerful that day or if it was all just a story made up to make the moons seem more important.

Leaving her hovel in the evening she decided to go find Arthur again and to try to have a better time having sex with him. She saw him through a window as she walked towards his house and then she shadow stepped into his doorway.

“Hello lover.” She said to him as Arthur flinched and then jumped from his chair. “Did you miss me?” she asked him as she strutted towards him. Arthur threw his arms forward, begging off as he backed away from her.

“I got something for you. Spent a few days making them.” He said, stammering as he spoke. Sasha’s eyebrows arched in surprise as she heard these words.

“Why would you make something for me?” She asked, keeping the sultry tone to her voice and masking her honest interest.

“Mostly so you wouldn’t beat the shit out of me.”  He replied. Arthur reached near the forge and pulled out a blanket and handed it to Sasha. Sasha could feel the heavy weight of the metal inside the blanket and unwrapped two black sai.

Sasha held them in her hands and tested their balance. “These feel really heavy for their size.” She told him.

“That’s because it’s deep earth iron that was used to make them.” Arthur told him. She noticed a bit more confidence in his voice as he said this.

“Deep earth iron is a joke, a con used by merchants to get people to pay extra for their weapons.” Sasha said flatly, trying to dismiss the fact that these weapons truly did feel different in her hands. The sai were expertly made and a run across the blade with her finger showed that they were deadly sharp. She flashed a grin at Arthur and moved towards him. “I didn’t come here for weapons.” She told him as she kissed him deeply and threw her arms around him.

As good as the kiss felt, when she let go of the sai she felt euphoria. Finally she was letting go of the need for control, the need to have a weapon at the ready to kill the man she was with. She didn’t even remember how their clothes came off, only that she was on top of him in her bed and completely entangled with him.

She wanted more than to just straddle him she wanted to feel his body against her own. She laid on top of him and felt the warmth of his skin, the heat of his breath, all of it was divine. Then she felt his arms reaching over her, holding her in a hug. Then he starting shifting his body from beneath her, he had managed to roll on top of her and placed her on her back. Sasha’s eyes shot open in panic. As a reflex she grabbed his hair with her left hand and pulled his head away from hers and then with her right arm she landed a forearm square on his nose that sent blood everywhere.

Arthur crumpled from the bed, blood pouring from his nose as he fell. Sasha looked down and saw her pants resting right near the bed, she didn’t remember putting them there but the years of training hard wired into her brain and still managed to make sure they got to their proper spot. She drew Mercy from its seethe. “What the fuck were you doing?” she shrieked at him, her green eyes wild with fear and anger.  

“Fuck, oh God, you broke my nose.” Arthur said. He sat up against the wall as his hands continued to clutch his nose.

Sasha spoke each word slowly, convinced Arthur hadn’t heard or understood the question he time before. “What the fuck were you doing?” she repeated.

“What do you mean? Getting on top of you? You were on top all of last time and this time. Figured you could use a break, let me be the one to put the work in. Guess not.” Arthur replied and then finished with a moan as blood continued to trickle out of his nose and stain his flesh.

Sasha stared at him dumbfounded she had no clue what he was talking about. She had to picture the two of them having sex before she could come to grips with the idea that the person on top was putting in more effort than the one on the bottom.  She felt shame for what she had done to Arthur, something she’d never felt before, tears started to well up in her eyes. “I. I can’t deal with this.” She said as she felt the world closing in around her. She dressed quickly as she kept an eye on Arthur who was still crumpled against the wall naked and bleeding.

“Talk to me please.” He begged her. “Tell me what’s going on here. Or just kill me, at least that would make some fucking sense.” He told her. Sasha started walking out of the room trying to avoid eye contact with him. She then turned towards him and struck his nose with an open palm.

“Sorry, had to set it. I didn’t want it to heal crooked.” She told him and then kissed his forehead and rushed off. She could hear him calling out to her but she ignored him. She didn’t want to deal with a world where she made mistakes that she couldn’t fix by killing somebody. She didn’t know if she really wanted to be anything but an assassin.

Sasha The Assassin Part 4

Sasha went to her hovel, a tiny rundown shack far away from decent society. She was not welcome at Lord Brown’s estate unless she was summoned and there was little in the way of housing for one who practiced the dark arts Sasha enjoyed. Her cloak and throwing knives were first on the list of tools to gather and then it came time to poison her daggers. Sasha stared at the two blades as they glistened in the moonlight, silver and steel merged to make the blades and the handles were made of ivory. The blade she carried in her left hand was serrated and named Malice, while the blade in her right hand was smooth and named Mercy.

Upon the two blades she slathered on a poison that would relax muscles once it got into the blood stream, she didn’t care if her victims died tonight, only that they be unable to stop her from obtaining the ring.

She called for her horse that she had let run free in the vast fields around her tiny shelter. He returned to her and they got about the business of the long ride towards the caravan that was carrying the ring Lord Brown so desperately wanted.

                The hours bled into each other as did the forests and fields, the road wasn’t travelled by common people at night for fear of bandits, but none seemed to be around to mess with Sasha, or maybe they just knew better than to try their luck with her. Her journey finally brought her to the northern road and now she just had to find the caravan.

                Dropping off her horse at a farm she got to the work of stalking her quarry.  Then off in the distance she heard the sounds of battle. She jumped through shadows until she could see what was happening, a party of bandits was attacking the caravan.

                She couldn’t believe the size of the bandit party there was at least six dead already yet dozens more men were attacking the king’s men. The horses of the lead carriage had been slaughtered with massive pools of blood around their bodies, the carriage itself tossed on its side. The other three carriages were under assault with knights keeping the mob of attackers at bay while crossbow men on the tops of the carriages shot into the crowds.

                Sasha found some nice shadows to blend into and took a handful of her throwing knives. The crossbowmen had to be taken down to allow the mob a better chance at success. Her first knife hit one of them in the shoulder blade and the second one hit his comrade in the throat. The second man toppled off the carriage and landed behind a knight while the other man kept his feet. Sasha glared at the man who didn’t fall from the first knife that hit him and struck him with two more knives, one in the arm and the other in the small of his back and finally he slumped to his side.

                She went to work on the other crossbowmen and soon enough they were all dead or dying. The Knights were killing more than their fair share of the mob but the numbers were catching up to them, Sasha decided it was time to start thinning the numbers of the other side. Her knives started finding their way into the flesh of the bandits. Those who strayed too far from the fray of the battle found themselves being picked off by her blades.

                The last knight was overwhelmed and the last ten or so of the bandits began ripping through the carriages and one of them came out holding a ring aloft in his hands. The rest of the men seemed underwhelmed by the prize and she could hear the group’s conversation turn from elation over the victory over the king’s forces into disappointment over the lack of riches they had obtained in the battle.

                The men walked roughly two miles to an inn where they began drinking in celebration of their victory. Whatever coins they had looted from the dead were not used to pay for the drinks that were spilling down their throats. Sasha entered the inn and stayed in a corner and let the men drink and celebrate.  She nursed a glass of water as she waited for the time to strike.

                Most of the men had drunk themselves into a stupor by the time one of them jumped on a table. “We done fuckin’ showed them pussy ass soldiers who the boss is around here!” He shouted. A roar of approval came from the others. “This fucking ring had better have been important if all these idiots had to die for it!” He gave a loud drunken laugh as he held the ring up.

                “Mitch, what we gonna do for money mate? What’s that ring really going to get us?”  Another one of them asked. “I mean it’s pretty and all but it’s just a ring.”

                Sasha pulled out her coin purse. “I’ll pay all the coin I have for it.” She said as she walked from her corner to stand in the doorway of the inn. “You boys don’t have any idea what you are holding on to. Once the king knows what’s happened to his convoy and his ring this place will be swarming with soldiers. If you hang on to that ring you won’t live the week.”

                One of the drunks staggered over to her. “We ain’t selling for no small sack of coins. Maybe we’d sell it for what’s between your legs.” He said as he reached for her crotch. She ran Malice under his rib cage and through his heart in a motion she’d practiced thousands of times and used to kill people than she cared to remember. As she withdrew the blade his limp body dropped to the ground.

                “I was lying before so now I’ll tell the truth.” Sasha said. “You will not have to wait for the king’s men to come to kill you within the week as I will kill all of you tonight if you don’t hand over the ring. I offer the coin I have as a token of gratitude. You can accept it and keep living or you can resist me. If you resist me we’re fighting to the death and I do mean that. Once I’ve left you all laid out I will walk up to each and every one of your bodies and slit your throats.  So it’s up to you to make the decision. Personally I hope you let me kill you all cause it’ll save me my money.”

                The room was silent for a few moments and then the men started muttering, their words were slurred and incoherent but the tone was depressed and defeated. A man stood up from his bench and waved a knife in the air. “No fucking cunt is gonna tell me.” He started to say. Sasha saw the shadow cast by the pillar behind him and shadow stepped directly behind him. Mercy glided quickly across his throat and before he had hit the ground she was already standing in the doorway again.

                “Does he speak for the rest of you?” she asked. Mitch looked at the ring and then at Sasha and threw the ring to her. She bowed to him and left the inn.