The Man-Butcher Prize

by Charles X Cross

  ‘Something like that doesn’t come cheap.’ The teller was sat behind a thick sheet of glass, on a stool so high that he would have been able to look down on Ojo had he been there; to William, he was positively towering.

  He gave a thin-lipped smile, used to the scrutiny of self-important postmasters. It seemed the life of an assassin was more in the correspondence than it was in the killing. If he and Ojo were outside of a city, away from a guild outpost, Ojo would send off for his contracts, post details of completed jobs, and collect payments. That wasn’t even accounting for the mysterious side-line: sending away bearer bonds, collecting strange vials, and sending them on to someone Ojo called “his patron”.

  ‘Our top service comes in at…’ The postmaster set the package onto a brass scale, counterbalancing it with iron blocks to assess the weight. The sour twang to his voice had dampened through his natural reverence for anybody who might be willing to pay an exorbitant amount. ‘Seventeen grana.’

  ‘That’s fair.’ William didn’t bother to complain or barter.

  He fished his hand into his pocket, retrieved a small pouch and tipped a handful of tiny silver coins into his palm. Grana, minted by The Vitulan Empire, were about the size of his smallest fingernail and worth ten times the value of the metal from which they were forged. It was an effort to make the task of transporting one’s wealth all the easier for the imperial gentry; William could think of worse problems to have. He set the money on the counter.

  ‘Thank you very much.’ The postmaster gathered up the payment, his greedy green eyes lingering for a moment on the pouch that was still heavy with the little coins.

  ‘Excuse me… sir?’ William tried his best to look as innocent and simple as possible. ‘My master asked me to find Samuel Morris… he had a job for him – I think.’

  Usually it was a mistake to ask a man for the whereabouts of an assassination target, but the contract that Ojo had taken was for both Samuel Morris and the Postmaster Daniel Burgess. The latter had been easy enough to find; Ojo had even tailed him to his meagre accommodation the night prior. Morris had proven a little harder to locate, and Ojo was keen to leave the town as soon as possible.

  A shame, William thought. Henningley was a pleasant town with old Garlish charm, of a kind that made him nostalgic for the years in Fairshore he couldn’t quite recall. There was a farmers’ market and cider press, neat rows of cottage traders and townhouse residences, and none of the Vitulan-inspired white block monoliths that blighted the cities. But no matter how quaint or pleasant an imperial city might appear, it would never knowingly welcome an assassin. Men hanging from gibbets in the town square were a testament to that.

  ‘Do you know where I could find him?’ William pressed.

  The teller pursed his lips a moment. William watched the man’s expression flicker with suspicion until it softened and took pity on the thin and grubby young boy with the large pouch of coin. As intended, the man’s greed had supplanted his good sense.

  ‘It’s a postmaster’s job to know how to find any man, woman or child in his district. How else would I be able to direct each and every letter to the right location?’

  William thought about mentioning postal addresses, but didn’t bother, instead letting the glorified cashier finish his spiel.

  ‘Such information is both vital to my position and worth a great deal, I cannot simply give such things up for free. The gift of information is as much a service as the transportation of a package or…’

  The postmaster trailed off as William poured a few more coins into his palm and handed them over. ‘He lives on Hallows Place; at the end of the street, conifers, large red door, can’t miss it.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ William beamed, pulled the laces of his coin pouch tight and thrust it into his pocket.

  ‘Have a pleasant day.’ The teller followed him to the exit, flipped a small wooden sign from open to closed, and locked the door behind William.

  The last pink and orange hues were disappearing from the sky and William hurried across the road for his mentor and waiting cart. There were men out in the streets with long shafts used to light the high streetlamps. Ojo had already lit the cart lantern and was using its glow to peruse the lies of a news-sheet while he waited.

  ‘Did you find him?’ He glanced over wilting paper.

  ‘A house at the end of Hallows Place.’ William had only just hopped onto the back of the cart when Ojo urged the horse to a brisk trot. He sat down on the flatbed, amongst the supplies collected for the next few weeks.

  ‘Good.’

  Ojo was very sparing with his praise and could have a temper on him should William fail in any task he was assigned, but had looked after him well for the most part. Between jobs they would relax, camp in the wild, and hunt with Ojo’s bow and arrows. The man could be kind and was a good teacher, but it seemed that he was a perfectionist when it came to his contracts and that shortened his fuse somewhat.

  ‘I remember seeing a Hallows Street to the east.’ Ojo commented. ‘Hallows Place shouldn’t be too far from there, we’ll see if we can find it before asking anyone for directions, shall we?’

  He directed the cart through the streets towards the Hallows district, an area of the town built on the old estate of a once prominent family. He had to direct the lamp to check each road sign in the fading light, so progress was slow.

  As he steered around a bend, an uneven cobble jolted the cart and William’s satchel tipped onto its side. A boule of stale bread rolled out and dropped to the road, the silver flintlock slid after it with a skittering quantity of emergency-only cartridges. With breathless horror, William slumped forwards and landed with both palms over the pistol and the majority of the ammunition. The loss of three or four couldn’t be helped now; Ojo was driving too quickly for William to retrieve them unnoticed and asking to stop was unthinkable.

  As he sat back, the pistol winked in the lantern light; he followed the etched curves on the silver barrel to the ivory handle. Beautiful; terrible. It felt right in his hands, and he thought himself much safer with it close by.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ Ojo spoke over the rumbling cartwheels.

  Alarmed, William shoved the pistol back into his satchel. Ojo thought guns were not sportsman-like and deemed them far too impersonal for any assassin worth his salt. But Ojo wasn’t referring to the pistol, he was pointing to a road sign illuminated with a glass lamp; Hallows Place.

  ‘We’ll pay our friend a visit.’

  The cart turned onto the street. William kept a hand on his satchel to stop it falling over again. There would be no room for such carelessness, not if he wanted to follow in his master’s footsteps and make a name for himself.

  At the far end of the road was an imposing three storey residence flanked by meticulously trimmed conifers and a black wrought iron fence. It was quite distinctive, just as the teller had described. Their cart came to a halt.

  Ojo alighted and tied the reins loosely around the railing. In a moment, William was by his side, satchel on his shoulder. Other than smoothing his dirty hair away from his face, and trying to dust himself down, there was little William could do to improve his appearance without soap and water. They had been on the road for a while, and because of the contract, the visit to this town was a fleeting one. They wouldn’t stay in a tavern again until this job had paid.

  The latch and hinges on the gate were well oiled, and it swung inwards without a creak. Their shoes tapped on the smooth stone path and up a small flight of stairs.

  ‘Stay silent, watch and learn.’ Ojo rapped the knocker on the large red door, echoing in the hallway beyond.

  After a moment, the brass doorknob turned and the door opened just enough to reveal a thin sliver of the well-lit indoors. A man eyed the pair suspiciously through the gap; a small gilt chain prevented the door from being opened any further. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Samuel Morris, is it?’ Ojo inquired placidly.

  ‘Yes… Can I help you?’ Mo
rris eyed the strange pair that stood outside his house.

  William had seen Ojo gain entry to many a house and establishment. There were plenty of ways to do it: disguise, stealth, a lock pick, and – more often than not – a well prepared story. Ojo had a gift for weaving a lie, perhaps pretending he had found William injured in the street or making up some credible alias for himself. Amongst others, he had been a guard, an investor, and an executor of a distant relative’s will. There was no end to the assassin’s creativity when it came to intelligent infiltration. Today however, he employed a different tactic.

  Ojo thrust forwards and shunted the door with his shoulder. The small chain was no match for the force, splitting into several sprained links that scattered across the floor. The door cracked into Samuel Morris’ face and sent him reeling. Ojo was less than a second behind, one hand wrapped deftly over Samuel's mouth, the other crimped onto his windpipe. The pair staggered inside, Ojo wrapped his foot behind the target’s leg and they toppled to the floor.

  William followed instinctively, cast a glance back to the street – nobody in sight – and shut the door behind him.

  Ojo writhed with his target on the floor. His hand slipped from the neck and his arm wrapped tightly around it, not allowing a moment for a scream to escape. His other hand gripped his wrist and he pulled on his arm like a lever, bulging Samuel’s eyes and forcing his mouth agape. Fingers clawed weakly but there was no fighting with Ojo's practiced technique.

  Only when Samuel’s bloodshot eyes rolled back into his head did Ojo relax his grip.

  ‘Is he dead?’ William asked timidly.

  ‘Not yet.’ Ojo rolled the body onto the floor and swept a hand through his hair, neatening the usual pristine coiffeur. ‘He’s lost consciousness, but he might wake up in a minute; the sooner you finish him off the better.’

  William swallowed spittle. Though he had been with Ojo for over a year now, and seen more than his fair share of death, he hadn’t actually taken a life himself since he shot the pawnbroker.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ He swallowed.

  ‘Kill him.’ Ojo dusted himself down and peered through a doorway to a study with a warm hearth and liquor cabinet. ‘Strangling’s best, it’s the quietest way – and the most honourable. You actually feel their soul pass from their body. If not that, you could stove his head in, but that can get messy.’

  William felt panic rise in him. If he’d known earlier that Ojo had intended to pass the job over, he could have prepared.

  ‘I’ll wait in here.’ Ojo stepped into the study. ‘I think it’s important that your first kill is alone, just shout if he starts to stir and you feel that he might overpower you.’

  The assassin tossed a reassuring smile William's way, then softly closed the door.

  Feeling a tremor in his hands, William wrung them tightly together. Of course, being an assassin’s apprentice, he had known it would come to this eventually, but perhaps not quite so soon. Anxiously, he approached the target, far from eager for the kill.

  The face looked dead; sagging flesh, open mouth and drooping tongue. The body was twisted a quarter turn from feet to head in a way that looked extremely uncomfortable. The only sign of life was the shallow rise and fall of the man’s chest under his dressing gown.

  William picked up a small marble figurine from a side table topped with final notices and unpaid bills. He knelt beside the man and took the statue in both hands; a naked woman, headless and armless, atop a small but hefty plinth. One of the corners would easily crack a skull. Tightening his fingers around the woman's cold stony body, he raised her high over Samuel’s temple.

  He wanted to smash the man’s head in, make it quick, but couldn’t quite muster the courage. He gritted his teeth and tried to concoct a fiction about the man; that he was bad, as bad as the pawnbroker or the man on the ship, but seeing how helpless Samuel was made him falter.

  The figurine refused to come down, held still by William’s reluctance. Then it slipped effortlessly to his lap, comforting against his shame. Almost overwhelmed, he fretted his bottom lip; afraid he wasn’t cut out to be an assassin after all. Samuel was just unlucky enough to have made an affluent enemy; murder would be better employed against those who truly deserved it.

  A floorboard creaked from inside the study. William swallowed again, but his mouth was arid. Ojo would disown him if he couldn’t kill this man, and then he would fall back to his life of abuse and servitude. Granted, he was still beholden to the assassin, but at least he could hope to become as free, rich and independent as Ojo.

  He set down the statue. One hand delved inside his satchel and found the smooth ivory handle of the pistol. He pulled it out and set it in his lap, the etched silver winking in the warm light, more like a work of art than a sordid instrument of death. Something about it comforted him.

  A solitary cartridge was pushed into the hungry firearm.

  William's instinct prickled at him, and suddenly he was staring into the eyes of the man he was tasked to kill. Samuel’s breathing was audible now, rasping and laboured. He saw the gun and the boy, and seemed to recognise something was wrong when the pistol was armed and readied. Caught in a state of half consciousness, he probably thought himself dreaming, or in a nightmare.

  William knew he had to kill him; he wouldn’t go back to silent slavery, and though he knew shooting the man was far from Ojo’s preferred method, it was still better than failing in his task. He pulled back the hammer; felt it click into position. He held the gun in two fists and wrapped both index fingers around the trigger. Screwing his eyes shut, he squeezed.

  The gun clapped and he winced away. He saw only the briefest glimpse of a blood spatter, but as he closed his eyes again the image remained, seared into him. Dark red pooling across the boards, lifeless eyes unfocussed. He nearly vomited from the sudden rush of it.

  Ojo burst from the study, eyes wide with panic and rage.

  ‘William,’ came the furious hiss. His mouth tried to wrap itself around all the condemnations he had, but as his ire built, not one coherent thought was vocalised. Abandoning his tirade, he grabbed William and heaved him through the front door.

  Nearby windows were illuminated by candles and lanterns. Curtains parted and people peered into the gloom. There was no doubt that some would see the man and boy running from the house, a few might have even caught a glimpse of the shimmering pistol.

  William was tossed into the back of the cart in a sprawl; Ojo sliced the reins from the gate post and slapped the horse into motion. By now, residents and manservants had come to their doors to watch. Runners were shouted from their beds to inform the town guard. There was no way to stop them all. It was too late to avoid being seen, but if they made haste it was still possible to escape.

  Ojo’s silence was more awful than the beatings from the broker. This life had been William’s choice, a chance at a brighter future, and it sickened him to disappoint his mentor so. He watched Ojo snap the reins, pushing the horse hard, funnelling his rage into positive action. The cart rattled through the cobbled streets as fast as any messenger’s stallion. With any hope, they would be long gone before the town guard caught wind of them, and maybe then he could put things right. Even as William thought they might escape, Ojo dragged on the reins and the cart rocked to a halt. The horse tossed its head and snorted in agitation.

  Alarmed, William looked around, fearing a guard regiment or violent mob had cut off their path; the road was clear. A single street lamp burned at the far corner, and nearly every window on the tidy terraced street was shuttered against the night. It was quiet here, far removed from the sound of his gunshot.

  ‘Out.’ Ojo glowered.

  ‘Why have we stopped?’ William asked quietly, petrified he was being left behind. ‘We need to get out of here.’

  ‘We still have work.’ Ojo was matter of fact. ‘There will be no coming back here after tonight, we need to finish this now. Get out.’

  Ojo approached the nearest hou
se and thumped the door several times before William had scrambled down to the cobbles. Stilted silence followed, filled only with the muffled creaking of movement from inside. A dog barked a few houses away.

  William shrivelled in the moment of silent contemplation, the vision of the man he killed coming back to him. He swallowed something acrid that tried to force up from his gut. His chest ached and he started to breathe heavily. The lock clicked loudly, startling William from his spiralling thoughts.

  A sleepy-looking man peered from inside as the door opened, confused as he recognised William. He didn’t have time to speak before Ojo barged the door wide open. What followed was a similar skirmish to the last, but the assassin was even more vicious, venting his rage on the target. He kicked and elbowed and might have even bitten the man in his animal fury. It was certainly a less economical take-down, but garnered the same result in the end.

  ‘William, come here.’ Ojo dragged the man to the floor, throttling him. ‘Forget the door, just come here. Now.’

  William scurried closer, just as the target’s limbs stopped jerking. Ojo released the man and rolled him aside, limp and cumbersome as a sack of onions. The face trailed blood, a few teeth were absent in his mouth, but the postmaster was easily recognisable.

  ‘Right, finish him.’ Ojo sat on the floor, a deep frown making peaks of his brow. ‘And do it properly this time.’

  ‘How should I do it?’ William swallowed; his mouth deathly dry.

  ‘Throttle him.’

  ‘I- I can’t,’ William admitted. It was too close, too real.

  ‘Can’t?’ Ojo interlaced his fingers and bent them backwards producing a flurry of little clicks. He eyed William for a moment, then lunged. He wrestled him effortlessly to the cold boards, clamped a strong arm around his neck and crushed his windpipe.

  William kicked out, clawed at the assassin’s arm, gasped and panicked. He could feel the pressure building in his skull and behind his eyes. His mouth was biting for air that wouldn’t reach his chest, and his body filled with the overwhelming sense of impending doom.