Sasha

by Richard Young

new outfit.

  I had decided it would be easier if everyone thought I was a boy, so I had bought clothes that supported that decision. I now wore a loose dark blue shirt, tucked in to loose fitting black pants. With my short hair, nobody would ever guess I was a girl. Best part was, I still had two dachals, twelve cuvers and six ferits in my pack. The clothes weren't as expensive as I thought they would be.

  I bought an apple for 2 cuvers and sat by the pier, watching the ships come in as I ate. Before I knew it, night had fallen, and I realized I still hadn't found a place to stay for the night. It didn't bother me too much. After all, I was used to sleeping out under the stars. But after having spent the money on new clothes, I was reluctant to subject them to the elements.

  I hopped off the ledge I had been sitting on, and looked around. There was no inn in sight, but surely there would be one near the pier. As I glanced down the street, my eyes - trained to sense danger - picked up on a slight movement in the dark. Before I could react, four men stepped out of the shadows.

  Instinctively I reached for my bow, but it was unstrung and by the time I could string it, it would be too late. I cursed my lack of caution, and drew my knife. The men laughed as they approached. One stepped forward.

  "Well, boy," he said, "you've got balls, I'll give you that. But don't be stupid. Just give me the bow, and we'll go our separate ways. No need for anyone to get hurt."

  I was confused. "My bow?" I said, not moving. "Why?"

  The man shrugged. "All I know is there's someone willing to pay me and my men good money to get it. Now, I'd prefer to do this the easy way, but if you insist, it wouldn't be the first time I've killed a kid." With a rasp of steel on leather, he drew his sword. "So hand it over."

  With a growl, I lunged at him with my knife. A flick of his sword sent it flying and left a gash on the back of my hand. I clutched at the injury as his other hand came up and backhanded me across the face. I stumbled, but kept my feet and launched myself at him again. Somehow I found myself caught by another pair of hands as his cohorts joined the fight. Two of the men held my arms and another hit me in the stomach as their leader went to my back to inspect the bow.

  "Very nice," he said as he caressed the wood. "High quality. Where'd you get it?"

  I coughed but said nothing. The man came back around in front of me. "I asked you a question," he said. "Where did you get it?"

  Again I refused to answer. He smiled. Sheathing his sword, he drew a small knife instead, and handed the bow to one of his companions. "I was hoping you'd say that," he said. Then he gave orders. "Open his shirt and hold his arms behind his back. I'll carve the question into his chest."

  My eyes went wide and I thrashed as best I could, but it made no difference. One of the men took his knife and started cutting through my shirt. Halfway through, his eyes suddenly went wide and an evil grin twisted his face.

  "Look at this," he said as he ripped the rest of my shirt open and stepped aside. I debated going invisible, but there was little point. They were still holding me, and my talents didn't extend to touch.

  "Ah ha," the leader said softly. "So our boy is a girl. Well, that makes things much more... interesting." He gestured to his men and they threw me to the ground as he put away his knife. "You should count yourself lucky," he said. "I couldn't disfigure a girl. Not when there are other ways of punishing her. Some of them you may even enjoy."

  By this point, two of his men had placed themselves on either side of me, and were holding my arms to the ground. The leader stood over me and smiled. Beyond his head, on the rooftop, I saw a flicker of movement. I didn't have time to wonder what it was before I heard the small thwip of a bowstring. A spray of blood hit my bare chest and the man to my left spun and fell, a black arrow protruding from his chest. The man to my right sprouted an arrow from his chest before he could react. The man holding my bow tried to run. A black arrow took him in the back and he fell, the bow clattering to the street.

  This had all happened in the space of four seconds. The man standing above me cursed and drew his sword, looking into the blackness of the night. I took the opportunity to swiftly raise my foot up between his legs. He paled and collapsed to the street.

  In moments, I stood and disarmed him. I sat on his chest and held the point of his knife to his throat. I didn't care if I took an arrow in the back. I just wanted my revenge.

  "What's your name?"I hissed in his face. He groaned. "Wrong answer," I said, and plunged the knife into his right shoulder. He shouted and tried to throw me off, but I drew the knife out and held it to his throat again. That quieted him down.

  "What's your name?" I tried again. He didn't answer immediately, so I moved the knife blade to his left shoulder and pressed down. When he still didn't answer, I pressed harder and the knife dug into the flesh. When it had gone in about an inch and he still hadn't spoken, I started to drag the knife back towards the middle of his chest. Blood welled from the wound as the knife moved.

  "Greyn," he finally said through gritted teeth.

  "Good," I said. "Now,who sent you, Greyn?"

  No answer.

  "I've skinned a lot of animals, Greyn. I will skin you alive if I have to." I began to move the knife again.

  "Don't bother, girl," said a voice behind me. "Burl sent them." I spun around, clutching the knife in my hand and ended up kneeling beside Greyn. The man standing behind me was tall and dressed in the strangest clothes I had ever seen. They looked like the camouflage outfits that my father used to wear while hunting, but instead of brown and green,these were colored with grey, black and brown. It covered his whole body and a cloth even stretched across his face. As I stared, he lifted a small black bow from his side and fit an arrow to the string. He drew back, and I found myself looking down the shaft of a pitch black arrow.

  "Excuse me," the man said, and released.

  The arrow flew past my face and slid underneath Greyn's ribcage. He coughed blood once, then lay still. The arrow had pierced his heart.

  Furious, I stabbed Greyn in the chest with his knife and stood to face the man in strange camouflage. "He was mine!" I shouted.

  He ignored me, instead walking calmly over to where my bow had fallen. Picking it up, he studied it closely for a moment. "He was right," he said finally. "This is nearly as good as my own."

  "So are you going to kill me for it too?"

  "Maybe," he said. "It depends. Can you use it?"

  "Of course I can use it."

  "Prove it," he said, throwing me the bow. Still raging, I grabbed my pack from the ground and drew out a string. Within seconds, I had the bow strung, and I grabbed an arrow from the ground where it had fallen. I hadn't had an opportunity to buy more arrows yet, so it was one that I had made myself, a piece of plain wood for the shaft, owl feathers for the fletching, and a fire hardened point.

  "What's the target?" I asked.

  He pointed to the harbor, where dozens of boats were floating in the night. "This row, four down. Hit the mast." I squinted my eyes in the darkness. I could barely see the target. It was easily fifty paces away, and no larger than a handspan.

  I drew back on the bow and calmed myself. My hand touched my cheek as I sighted down the arrow. I took a deep breath and let it out. At the end of the exhalation, I released the tension on the bow, sending the arrow sailing through the night. A slight thunk echoed in the air as the arrow met its target. I glanced at the man, but he wasn't watching the arrow. He was watching me.

  Embarrassed, I held my ripped shirt together with one hand and glared.

  "Don't flatter yourself," he said. "I just needed to know if you'd picked up any bad habits I'd have to fix."

  "And?"

  "Nothing I can't work with. Come on, let's go." He turned and strode up the street.

  "Wait, what? Why? Who are you?"

  Silently he spun, smoothly drawing an arrow and fitting it to his bow as he turned. Before I could move, he had the shaft sighted at my chest. "It wasn't a request," he said. "It
was an order."

  I scooped up my pack and walked to him as he released the tension on the bowstring and returned the arrow to his quiver. We walked for a minute before he spoke. "My name's Jaim," he said. "I'm an assassin."

  For two years I trained with Jaim. He told me about the Assassin's Guild, the organization that employed us. He taught me how to shoot, not just from a standing position, but from any position, even while running. He taught me how to kill for money. My first kill under his instruction was Burl, the man who had tried to steal my bow. I killed him on the street just outside his butcher shop.

  Most importantly, Jaim taught me how to get away. Murderers for hire don't get paid unless they can collect it. I made my own clothes, of the same materials as Jaim's, making me nearly invisible in the night. I learned the city, the dead ends and the secret routes, the alleys and the rooftops. Killing people wasn't so different from hunting in the forest. I watched my target, figured out his patterns. Examined the area to find - or sometimes create - a suitable ambush point. Waited. Took my shot. The only difference was running away instead of collecting the body.

  But in the two years I had known him, I had never told Jaim about my special talents. I had never had a reason. Without them, I was one of the better assassins in the city. With them, I was the best. Perhaps I didn't lead the most moral of lives, but it was a life. The Guild was good to me. The money was better