by M E Wolf
Turning around to face the last remaining assassin, Gr’g’r gave him a kick to the inside of his right knee with the heel of his left foot, snapping it as he thrust his short-sword through his opponent’s heart while he parried his opponent’s short-sword with his dagger. Wiping his weapons clean on the assassin’s shirt he noticed The’d’r going down as an assassin was running into the woods. No time to draw an arrow into his longbow, he threw his dagger catching the assassin in the back of the head. Gr’g’r ran to his brother.
Delaigda was bombarded with more assassins than the other two due to her slight notoriety within the arena in her death matches. More than fifteen assassins surrounded her, so much that she could no longer see The’d’r or Gr’g’r and could not hear them either. She assumed her fighting stance and waited for their approach. Unlike Gr’g’r and The’d’r, she did not have weapons that fought for her, however, she was far better than those weapons could make Gr’g’r and The’d’r.
Her diamond edged short-swords were not her only weapons. A two handed sword, the one that she got from her last death match, was strapped between her shoulder blades and daggers, six of them, were sheathed in various places about her body. As the assassins made their way to attack Delaigda, she quickly killed them with a thrust here and a slash there. Each wound meant death to her opponents. A punctured lung, severed jugular and any other important arteries or organs were her main targets.
Hair flinging wildly as the clasp was broken from a stray strike of her enemies’ weapons made her look like she was a spirit especially with the slight vicious fear in her eyes. One would be frightened of her at this point, considering her height of six feet and four inches. Thrusts, kicks, slashes, punches, head-butts, elbows came from her in a blur over and over again and all that could be heard was the melancholy crack, snap and pop of bones, joints and flesh.
It would take its toll on anyone not of sane mind and body and then again it would take its toll on even the sanest of us all. After all even the inflictor of damage, damages themselves eventually. It seemed only mere moments had passed from the time she began fighting the assassins to the time she had finished them all, but a fair bit of time passed. So much time that Gr’g’r already drew out the poison from his brother and had bandaged him up satisfied that his brother would live with some rest.
Proper rest in an inn would have been best, but any rest would have to do. At the end of Delaigda’s fight she passed out from exhaustion, her light leather tunic was cut to pieces in the battle long ago so she lay on the ground naked and exhausted. Cold it would be tonight and his brother would need some heat, so Gr’g’r hoped that what he had to do next would not be regretted. He dug a hole in the ground and made the hole big enough to allow for two people and made the ground soft at the base.
Putting a couple blankets down in the hole, he stripped his brother of all of his clothes. Then he picked up a naked and exhausted Delaigda and put them both together in the hole. Placing blankets on top of them, he then put sand from the hole over the blanket to keep them nice and warm. The fight began near the beginning of Gr’g’r’s brother’s watch and ended before his watch was over so Gr’g’r had to finish his brother’s watch and do his own watch.
He was tired without much sleep, but not as tired as his brother and Delaigda obviously were. In the night he restarted their campfire and built a bench out of an old log that he had to keep ants from crawling up his leg. It was a minor variety of ant that squealed and popped as he dropped it in the fire, small and light red was its colour.
CHAPTER FIFTY
When Gr’g’r and The’d’r were a lot younger they enjoyed playing in the sand and burning all types of ants with The’d’r’s spectacles. For some reason after one ant was burnt more of them would come and try to recover the ant’s corpse until they had a field of burnt ants. Them were the days when they were free, now they would have to run as long as they lived. Even if they did not run in fear, they still would have to battle out everyday or night as last night proved.
They were barely able to fight the assassins this time, but next time they would send more assassins that would be better than the last ones that were sent. The guy in the arena had mentioned the syndicate. Who was the syndicate and what kind of operation and people were they up against? Gr’g’r knew very well that someone with the connections that the syndicate seemed to have just had to have some enemies. He just had to find out who those enemies were.
From where he was from there was a saying that the enemy of your enemy is your friend, he just hoped that there was at least an ounce of truth to that statement or they would be in deep trouble worse than they already were in now. Morning was opened with the rising of the sun. Under any other circumstances it would be a beautiful time watching a sunrise, but with it came the realization that the bodies of the assassins were still around.
There was one difference though, Gr’g’r was so deep in thought that he did not notice the bodies had been taken away in the middle of the night including the one that was right at his feet. Fortunately, when he looked at where he had placed his brother and Delaigda, they were still fast asleep. Gr’g’r noticed that the assassins had left no marks when they took the corpses of their comrades. It was an eerie feeling that he had about the corpses disappearing without a trace.
The birds were singing, robins, blue jays and a few sparrows and some hawks could be seen far up in the sky scouting out the territory for a rabbit or any other rodent. Possibly a fish because Gr’g’r could hear the sound of a river in the distance. Soon his brother The’d’r and Delaigda would get up and he would probably have to explain why he did what he did. He hoped that there would be no regrets and knew that they wanted to do this for some time.
They were taking too much time to figure out whether the other one felt the same about them and would have regretted it down the road if nothing happened between them. Of course he was considered rash sometimes, most of the time. To him there was no sense being wishy washy with what you knew that you wanted already. No sense at all. Better to be blunt instead of going around the bush without any apparent destination in mind.
In the traveling sense, it meant that you were last. The’d’r awoke, still tired from the previous night. It did not take long for him to notice that he was sleeping next to Delaigda. He could feel her naked body pressed up against his, in fact she was holding him real tight. Their bodies were all sweaty and sticky from the heat generated from the night and the morning sun baking them beneath a blanket of earth. He could not remember much from the night before, only that he did have a fever from poison introduced into his bloodstream from an assassin’s short-sword.
The’d’r still felt like vomiting but was better because of the heat generated from his still sleeping companion and himself. Delaigda was still asleep and looked at peace. It was hard to understand how Delaigda and him had gotten under the ground. Someone, not him or Delaigda, had to have dug a hole and placed them in it and then put sand on top of the blanket. His brother had to have done this, which might mean that Delaigda did not know about it yet. Hoping that she would not react to this too negatively, he nudged her awake.
Delaigda awoke with a start when The’d’r nudged her awake, her face was full on blush. She was obviously in somewhat of shock or what seemed to be shock to The’d’r. Looking over at The’d’r, Delaigda appeared to be thinking of something to say, opened her mouth, closed it and opened it again to only close it again. What could she do now that she was in bed with The’d’r naked? She was not sure of her feelings for him and not sure how serious her relationship with him could get.
It was a nice day and she started it all sweaty with her naked body pressed against The’d’r’s naked sweaty body. This was too much for her to handle at this time. Disappointment hit at her lack of commitment, but she needed to control her desires before it ruined both of them awkwardly crawling over The'd'r's naked body probably was not her best idea ever. Getting up she grabbed a few clothes, a towel
and some soap and headed to the river she could hear just a little ways from their camp.
The’d’r did not see Delaigda leave because he was too busy concentrating on getting up after she climbed over him in her rush to get up. He was sore all over and the wound made by the sword of the assassin was black and flaking. That could not be good, he thought. It smelt bad, but when he touched it puss did not come out and he felt nothing as though the skin around the wound was already dead.
He went down to the stream where Delaigda was taking a bath. The’d’r could not see much of her, but because of her height the tops of her breasts were sticking out of the water. Maybe they were buoyant, The’d’r was not sure so attempted to banish that silly thought by shaking his head. Setting his clothes next to Delaigda’s clothes he waded into where she was with a bar of soap in his hand. The water was cold and he could feel his manhood shrinking.
It was uncomfortable when that happened, especially when he was around someone like Delaigda and always caused him great discomfort when his arousal threatened to rip out hairs of his pubis. The’d’r washed all of the grime from his body as he watched Delaigda finish and walk out of the stream, dry herself off and put her clothes on. As he got out of the water he stubbed his toe on a rock and caught himself before he cursed due to the pain. Delaigda did not seem to notice and just kept on walking up the river bank towards their camp.
Falling over a few times trying to dress too quickly for himself, he gathered his stuff and climbed or limped up the river bank after Delaigda. When they had reached the camp, Gr’g’r was asleep. He still looked like he was on watch, but his eyes were closed. Delaigda and him waited until Gr’g’r had some rest and then dismantled camp. They did not think it was that important, but Delaigda cleaned up the camp to leave no trace of them being there.
Every few meters of them traveling they would clear their tracks and make it hard to follow them. It should have been hard for someone to follow, but not when someone watched them from the safety of a tree branch far above the road that they were traveling on. She stayed out of sight to make sure that the syndicate did not have anyone trailing them. Candis had told her about the assassins in league with the syndicate.
CHAPTER FIFTY ONE
The syndicate were a powerful enemy of the underground and anyone strong enough to kill syndicate assassins was worthy of contact from the underground. Candis’ underground needed good allies to defend against the syndicate and defeat them. It would take time to contact these three because Veronica or Veri as others had called her had to watch them closely and make sure that they were approachable.
Veri watched Delaigda, The’d’r and Gr’g’r for more than a week now and she saw them kill many assassins. They were getting better at it every day and Veri felt like she was falling for Gr’g’r. It hurt her when she thought that he was killed one day and she nearly broke her cover when she went down to check on him. He had been knocked unconscious and she was delayed after bandaging him because four assassins wanted to finish the job.
She was only four feet tall and weighed about eighty pounds, but she was very strong and swift. Their throats were all slit from ear to ear before they even realized that it had even happened to them. Veri loved to use small razor edged knives, the smaller they were the better. Razored knives were attached to her boots, knee pads and elbow pads. So sharp were her blades that she could slice into arteries in ways that would only cause internal bleeding.
It was a good thing that the others did not notice her, even though they did notice that Gr’g’r went down. By the time they finished their fights and made it to Gr’g’r’s side she was up in the tree and Gr’g’r had come to. At some point she would have to show herself to them and get them to a place that they could be safe from more assassination attempts. She knew that they could handle any danger that they had to face. Maybe not her, but she was not a danger to them. Not at the moment anyway.
Right now they could be a danger to her and to find out if they were a danger to her or the underground, she would have to get closer to them while she was following them and listen to their conversations. Delaigda was tired of the fighting and the running. They needed to get somewhere where they could rest properly. Between them they had fewer than four hours of sleep for each day of their travels. A lot of their time was spent bickering or looking into the woods at something that was never there.
Gr’g’r kept saying that they were being followed because he always felt someone’s hungry eyes watching him. The time he could not explain the four deaths of assassins that obviously were not from his blades, but on closer inspection were from smaller and sharper blades. On many occasions Gr’g’r was about to be killed by an assassin and the assassin just died. They had to talk about it because it was bothering everyone.
She was the first to speak,
“It has been tiring for all of us these last three weeks of fending off all of these assassins. We are all weary and this syndicate does not seem to be giving up even after the countless dead assassins that we have left behind.
“I hope you guys are not thinking of us joining another faction. Hard it will be to discern what their motives would be in involving us in their organization.
“It is understandable that we will have to keep running if we do not side with a group, but what would we be required to do in that group?”
Gr’g’r interjected before Delaigda had a chance to say anymore and got a dirty look when he did. She still did not forgive him for putting her and The’d’r in bed together naked, even though they had slept together at least half naked ever since that night. He had to spend his time alone with himself ever since he did that to them and it was lonely being by himself all the time and lonelier now that they spent so much time mooning over each other.
“I do not know about you guys, but I am alone and am very tired of our bickering. There is no fun in looking over your shoulder all the time wondering whether this is the day that you die.
“It would be nice to be a part of a group that has people to watch out for you. Also, there are benefits to having an army to fight off an army of assassins.
“How long do you think that we can last when we have to fight off assassins every night and every day? Have you not figured it out yet that we most likely are being followed by both the syndicate and another faction looking to bring us into their fold?
“So many encounters with a near death situation I have had where someone assisted me in staying alive.
“I can see that the person is probably an agent of some other faction and needs to be sure that we are worth their effort of bringing us into their group.
“Maybe to them we are a threat or they just want to make sure that we are not a threat. Sure, mysterious things have been happening for at least two weeks now, but we have to give another faction a chance to approach us.
“It is our only chance for survival. So far you have been quiet my brother, The’d’r, but it is time that we had your opinion on this or are you both still mad at me for putting you both together that one night you would have died from lack of warmth. It is time for your silence to be over. I only did what needed to be done, nothing more and nothing less.”
The’d’r was both upset about what his brother did and glad that it had been done. It was Delaigda that had kept him so occupied that he did not have time to talk to his brother, even if he wanted to. His brother was impulsive sometimes and that is what he liked most about him. Unfortunately, he would have to side with his brother on this subject and hoped that Delaigda would not be mad at him for it. The other faction would have to be contacted before they were too tired to fight anymore.
All of the assassins so far were not too hard to fight, but that was because someone was following them and helping them. They needed to contact whomever it was that was following them.
“I am not really mad at you my brother now knowing that you had done it because you thought that it was the only way to keep me alive.”
He looked a
t Delaigda and then continued talking.
“It is understandable that we cannot last much longer against the assassins given that we are never completely over one fight in respects to recuperating from injuries or even from being tired.
“Eventually we will be too tired to fight back and what will we do when that happens to us. Granted we do not know who this other faction is that may have an interest in us or how we get in contact with them.
“Of course I could probably find a song to sing us to health, but look at what that did to us in the first place. It may even bring them down to us even faster than they already are coming after us.
“At least we know that they are not totally aware of our location given the fact that they have not been successful in assassinating us or singling out one of us at a time with distance shots from bow or even a blowgun.
“Maybe the person or persons that are with the other faction are stopping this in some way or another. We do not know. So far, Gr’g’r and I are agreed on at least contacting the other faction and hearing them out, let alone joining them.
“When we do contact them, if you are in agreement with us Delaigda, after hearing what they have to say we will have a vote on whether we join them.
“You will probably both agree with me that we should all stay together, no matter what. We all have fought together and know that none of us will stab each other in the back or plan to get rid of one of us.”
