• Mature • End Of Land (Graded)

[Kasoria]

15th Trial, Saun, Arc 718
Outer Perimeter
10th bell

Everyone wanted to live. At least at first. They fought, or they pleaded, or they bargained, and if none of those worked, they ran. Until their veins pumped acid and every breath tore fresh strips of flesh from their lungs. Until they'd exhausted every friend and bolthole, called in every favor and debt, and tried every avenue of escape and evasion. Because they all wanted to live, and what was dignity or honor next to one more trial in the suns where otherwise you'd be cold and stiff and lost?

Everyone wanted to live, but everyone had their limits. The assassin didn't know how one calculated where that line was drawn in a man's soul, but he'd seen enough of that hard, ragged edge of existence to recognize it.

He saw it in Zak's face when his cousin walked away. When his pleas and curses ran dry and there was nothing but tears left soaking his voice. A final betrayal from a man so ashamed he would not look back at him. But the man hoped, oh, he hoped, every step of the way. Until his cousin vanished from the sight and sound of the canal, and it was just the two of them alone by the water.

Kasoria watched as the man's trembling became almost a full-body spasm, and then... and then the strangest thing happened. That nervous energy left him. It drained from his muscles like water from a jug, until his arms hung limp at his sides. His face lost that twisted, terrified, furious riot of desperate emotion. His features flattened and softened until they were a calm, dead mask of resignation and-

Acceptance. He recognized that. Most never accepted it, because everyone wanted to live. But some of them realized that most horrific and unpleasant of epiphanies in their last few bells, or bits, or trills. Kasoria mused that he was, perhaps, the personification of that epiphany.

The world doesn't care what you believe, or what you want. What happens will happen, whether you want it to or not.

"How..."

The man spoke and Kasoria could hear the fear behind his stoic mask. Of course he was afraid. He wasn't a ganger or a killer, a hustler or a gangster. As far as he knew, Zak had barely got into a fight in his life. He was a clever man who made his money through his counting house, a modest affair with a staff that consisted of him, his wife, and a woman who swept the floors. Perhaps it was that same, crushing, mediocre modesty that spurned him to pursue cards and dice. Another fool who believed untold riches were but a hot streak away, and so...

Harder yet to swallow, Kasoria thought as the man licked his lips and sought the right words. That what happens, will happen, and happen because of you.

"How did you find me?"

The little man blinked as the doomed man by the water asked his simple question. An irrelevance, really. A waste of breath seeking knowledge that could not profit him at all. But they were alone, and unlikely to be disturbed here, next to a sewage outlet, where rats and stray animals came to sup and the homeless came to die. His fingers flexed around the karambit in his hand, and he made a quick calculation.

Time enough, should I need it.

Kasoria told him.

[Kasoria]

The Previous Morning

"Morning, Donal."

"An' who the fuck're you, little man? More t'the point, how'juh know my fuckin' name?"

Same way I know why you're already drunk in a shithole like this, when everyone else is out working.

If the smaller, slighter man was intimidated by Donal's growling, he gave no sign of it. Just slid onto the stool next to him and gestured to the 'tender for a pint. Hairy little fucker, he was. Mounds of it, masses of the stuff, growling out of chin and cheek and crown and scalp like weeds in a forgotten castle. Donal wrinkled his nose at the stench emanating off him, too. The rank wrongness rising from his tattered cloak and muddy breeches and begging bowl carefully placed next to the drink that arrived.

Impudent. Scrawny. Unafraid. Just the kind of wanker that Donal could alleviate his mood with.

"Listen, wee cunt," he said, leaning over the little man like a dragon over a lamb. A lamb that was still peacefully sipping his ale. "Dunno wotcha fink yer doin', but I'm gonna-"

"I'm here to give you some money, Donal."

The hired thug blinked a few times. The fug of booze and boredom and frustration weighed heavy on his eyes, but the sight of a purse being produced and dropped on the bar between them chased away that fug pretty quickly. The little man patted it with his free, non-drinking hand.

"Hundred nels, for a little information. Quick chat, then you never have to see me again. I'd say that's a bargain."

"An' what'f I jus' take yer fuckin' nels?"

"That would be a bad idea." Still not a note of fear, not even the hint it might arrive. The beggar wasn't even looking at him. He seemed more interested in studying the contents of his cup, and the dirty mirror behind the bar. "Sure but you could probably give me a beating, but my boss wouldn't like that."

"Fuck would I care-"

"Mister Vorund doesn't like his men manhandled." There was a stunned silence, and Kasoria couldn't help but fill it. Peering up for a moment, face a picture of parodied befuddlement. "'Men manhandled"? Doesn't sound right, does it? Men manhandled... men mistreated? Hmm. Better."

He mused and supped and waited for the rusty, cobweb-covered cogs in Donal's pea brain to start moving again. Drunk and dissolute as the man was, he still had a modicum of intelligence. Hired thugs like him needed it, after all: they needed to know whom to work for, and whom to avoid, and how all the pieces of the Etzos underworld fit together. He looked at the man's face in the mirror opposite them both. Saw his eyes darken with disbelief, and doubt... then grow wider... as recent memories were dredged up and filled in the gaps.

Recent memories. Older rumors. Stories he'd heard and rolled his eyes at. Until Kasoria saw him look his new friend up and down. The clothes, the smell, the beard, all of it rotten and decrepit and yet his words were casual, confident... a beggar that was not a beggar.

Listen close, and you'll hear the penny dropping.

"Yuh... You're... the Raggedy Man, aincha?"

"Can't say I've heard that before, Donal."

"Ka-Kasoria."

The assassin gave a little "mmmhmmm" as he swallowed the latest mouthful, nodding at the same time. He had to admit, for a shit-reeking dive that still had bloodstains on the floor and vomit on the doors, Feral's Fastness served pretty good damn ale. He didn't usually drink during the day, and almost never in the mornings. But when he'd heard this was where Donal could be found when not "attached", and he'd heard about their brews, too...

"That's better."

"Shit."

"You know why I'm here?"

"Um... ab-about Zak, r-right?"

"Correct. Now, first of all: I'm not here to kill you. I want to find Zak. Someone in The Under told me he was down there, with a couple of lads for protection. Problem was... I got busy that day, and didn't find him."

Again, he left much unsaid, knowing that the tale of his battle with The Fence's pet shadow-witch had done its rounds and then some in the season following it. Kasoria had even heard it whispered about while he was shuffling around, muttered by street thugs and urchins and shady sorts and even honest johns who liked to frequent places such talk could be heard. He'd smiled into his beard, kept shuffling, kept shaking his little bowl for alms.

He walked by them, the man who defeated a Shadow-Child and lived, hiding behind this humble mask. But he couldn't quite keep the irritation from his voice. A whole season, spent sniffing out this bastard debtor nobody, and only now was he getting close to the end of the trail.

"So I went back to that someone. Asked her about Zak and his protection. Got a name from here, too. Your name. You'd been with him when he came over to sell his things, get some quick money. She recognized you and, well... here I am." Kasoria finished his pint and waved away the 'tender's offer for another. He was working, after all. "Tell me where I can find him, Donal."

"I... um... w-well, I heard they were trying to-to hop a caravan-"

"They?"

"Yeah, er, Zak and Mikos, his cousin. Worked with him a few times. Good bloke, doing his cuz a favor, y'know?"

"Continue."

Donal did, in his stuttering, meandering fashion. Torn between trying to please and trying to paint himself as a keen ally, he gave up his partner and former employer without a qualm. Kasoria listened to him drone, logging away important titbits here and there. It was much as he'd suspected: Zak knew his time in Etzos was coming to an end, so he was looking to leave. He'd scrounged together enough to get out of the city, on a caravan, and then his nightmare would end. But he wasn't a fighter, so he'd need protection, and what better than blood?

"So, ah... so, that what you wanted to hear?"

"Mostly." Kasoria said, sliding over the purse but pausing before letting Donal take it. "One more thing, though. Tell me about Mikos."

"Um... well-well, what do you-"

Kasoria resisted the urge to sneer at the bigger man. Fates, but his intelligence really did have limits.

"Like where he lives."

Receipt

-100gn for bribe

[Kasoria]

Earlier That Morning

"Tell me this is nearly over."

"It is. I promise."

"He's leaving? He's going away?"

"He is, and he won't be coming back. Love, I gotta go, yeah?"

"I know... I know."

"Well then, you need to let go of me, don'tcha?"

He smiled and tried to make a joke of it, but he could see she would not stop worrying. Her eyes were wet and he was torn between being annoyed by her womanly nonsense, and just not wanting her to cry. Not his Emma, his Emmy, who had to spend the day pacing the boards of their little lodgings, wondering if he'd ever come back. She'd been his wife for going on ten arcs now, and when she found out what he did for coin, and did not approve but did not leave, Mikos knew she was a keeper.

Just like Dad said, he reminded himself as he used a meaty thumb to wipe away the smear of tears under one of her eyes. She loves you beyond good and bad. So you have to earn that. Every damn trial.

"I won't be late tonight," he said, voice low and coaxing, extricating himself bit by bit from her worried hands. "Probably not much later than the afternoon. Just seeing him off to the mustering grounds, then I'll come straight back."

Emmy sniffed and bit her lip and nodded. But her eyes darted to the short sword at his hip. An old weapon that was well-maintained. Sharpened daily, leather hilt replaced when needed, and she'd seen her husband use it once, when they were still courting. He wasn't the stuff of knightly sagas, true, but he knew how to handle himself. And Emma had seen the pain in his eyes when he'd taken a life. The regret that he couldn't quite quash, even if the alternative was letting some bastard do him in.

That was why she stayed. Because he wasn't a bad man. He just did bad things for men who were bad, but someone would always do that, and they had hungry bellies and more than that-

Something small and wordless clamored at the other side of the room. Finally awake and damned determined to be fed, it drew his mother's attention right away. Mikos seized the chance and gripped her hands one more time. She turned back to him and saw-

-nothing, but felt-

That same fire on her lips. That same delicious press of his unshaven cheeks against hers. Her breath still and them emptied in a sigh against his own. A thousand memories conjured by the smell of him, the taste of him, her eyes closing of their own accord.

Then he broke the kiss, and his voice was a whisper as he let her go.

"I need to go, love. See to the boy."

"I love you."

She said that like she would never see him again. Some corner of his soul twisted as if impaled, but he ignored it. His uncle's son was in trouble, and he needed his cousin's help. Zak had always been good to him, to them, even lent them money here and there, back before his... difficulties. Now was his chance to pay that kindness back, and get him out of a city that was rapidly and relentlessly trying to kill him.

Bangun Vorund, he'd thought with somewhere between disgust and horror, when a terrified Zak told him who he owed money to. Of all the ruthless bastards in the city, he goes to that one.

"I love you, too, Emmy. See you later."

Then he was gone, walking away, and he didn't look back. She watched him and watched him until he turned the corner. She wiped her eyes and hoped, hoped so hard and so fiercely that he would come back. Give up this foolishness with his cousin, now hounded by dark men whose reputations even she knew, and stay with her. With his son. With his family. But there was nothing. The only movement was the beggar at the end of the street who stretched, yawned, got up... and went the same way at her husband.

Emma frowned and thought it was a little odd. Usually they stayed put all day, and certainly didn't go moving around so early. But before she could think anymore on it, there was that damned wailing again, hungry and primal and now. Emma closed the door and went to her baby, not thinking about the shuffling little figure anymore.

After all, it was only a beggar.

[Kasoria]

Half a Bell Ago

He'd been careful and watchful and distant. That one was the most important. Following a man was much easier when he had no clue he was being trailed, after all. Nothing would give him that impression better than the same face looking back at him from a dozen paces away.

Kasoria was smarter than that, and a far older hand at this game. He kept almost a street's length away from Mikos' wandering back. When he turned a corner, the little man quickened his pace until he was around the corner. then his brisk walk became his usual disguised shuffle. Begging bowl out and shaking, words slurred and insensible... but his eyes were watchful.

They never left Mikos. Across the cobbles and through the winding streets, until the Outer Perimeter became dirt roads and cleaner air and like that, in the space of a hundred feet, there were no buildings around them anymore.

Where're you heading, mate?

Once the cover of streets and buildings and crowds was lost to him, Kasoria gave up trailing. Now he simply stalked the man. He squinted at him, one hand resting easily on his sword, the other swinging idly at his side. Just a man out for a walk. Leaving the city behind but always overshadowed by those titanic walls, and The Citadel jutting up from the great foundation rock like some immense and ornate volcanic eruption. Kasoria watched him walking, deciding what to do, and he smelled something that wasn't leaving no matter how far into the Wilderness they tried-

Ah. Of course.

Kasoria let the man get so far ahead he almost vanished from view, and then he started walking again. He knew where he was going. And he knew where Zak was going to emerge.

Literally, in fact.

[Kasoria]

Five Bits Ago

His cousin looked like absolute shite. Which made sense considering where he'd been hiding for a whole season.

He staggered from the tunnel, hunched and disheveled, same clothes on his back that he'd been wearing when he'd come hammering on Mikos' door scores of trials before. Even the softer light of the dawn seemed to be too much for him, and he held up a hand to ward it away from his crunched up eyes. Mikos swallowed hard when the smell hit him. Fates and Fuckery, that would take more than a quick dunk.

"M... Mikos?"

"Who bloody else would it be, Zak? Here." He tossed over some old clothes and a bar of soap. "Get your arse in the river, clean up, change, and I'll get you to the grounds. Caravan to Hiladrith leaves in less than a bell, so make lively."

Zak did not, in fact, do that. He just stood there, shoulders slumped, eyes wide and disbelieving. Mouth dropping so low it looked like a small aperture of the one he'd just emerged from, a yawning, stinking slurry sluice that emptied Fuck-knew-how-much human waste into the river every day. Finally some recognition seemed to play over his features, and for the first time in a while, Zak smiled.

"You... You mean they-"

"They took the coin, yeah. False name, of course, but they're waiting on you. Just tell them your name's Xander Burke and they'll have a spot for ya." Zak paused and fiddled with his fingers for a moment. He didn't like what he had to say next. "I, ah... I tried to tell Sacha. Just, y'know, so she could-"

"She wouldn't come. She didn't come once before, why would she now? Far as she's concerned, I'm already dead."

Mikos winced as his cousin trotted out his reply without any apparent emotion. Some sort of bitterness or anger or sadness, that would have been at least understandable. But it seemed the man was beyond that. All those trials in the darkness, above and below, hunted like an animal but men who would happily gut him... it had taken its toll. But it was almost over. There was hope in his eyes and he started to shrug off his shirt, then paused-

"Cousin, we need to move-"

"Who's that?"

Mikos knew exactly who it was; or what, more accurately. All it took was one look for him to take in the bearing and gait of the man who was approaching them... the weapon he held openly, intention and proclamation both... and the cold, calm look in his eyes. Solid as steel and just as unfeeling. Hope died on Zak's features and Mikos slid between him and the man who was coming from the way he'd arrived. Fucker must have followed him. Stupid, stupid mistake-

"C-Cousin-"

"I'm not here for you, Mikos," the little man said, an educated voice and measured tones coming from the mouth and face and form of a rotten beggar in rags. "Your cousin ran out on Mister Vorund. We could have reached an arrangement, but now that's too late. Now he has to die. I've been hunting him for a season. I'm not letting him get away again. But only he needs to die. You can go home."

All of which was true, and Kasoria didn't feel the need to dress it up with flowery prose. Truth be told, he was fucking tired of this job. Chasing a ragged little ghost through sewage pipes and around shadows. He didn't want to venture too deep into the Underground, not with that heinous cunt of a Naerikk still down there and howling for vengeance. So he'd had to circle and watch and wait, and all the while he could feel his master's displeasure.

Why isn't he dead, Kasoria? Why isn't it done, Kasoria? This isn't like you, Kasoria.

Getting old, are we?

"Mate, you need to turn back around, and leave us alone," Mikos said, voice commendably solid, considering. His sword was halfway out its sheath and behind him, Zak cowered like a child behind a guardian angel. "He's leaving Etzos, you understand? He'll never come back. You've one. Vorund has won-"

"When he's dead, we've won," Kasoria clarified for him, taking a few more steps forward. "My name is Kasoria. I trust you've heard it at some point."

He didn't like trading on his name. For over a decade he'd built his reputation on the absence of a name, a face, anything real or tangible that his enemies could strike against. He was The Raggedy Man to most, and when his name was mentioned, all people knew was that he was short, bearded, and still alive and killing after a quarter-century in the underworld. But he was tired of this. He wanted it over. So he spoke his name and let the stories Mikos had heard inform him about exactly whom he was facing.

And what his chances were.

"Walk away," Kasoria said, seeing the first cracks start to appear on that harshly handsome face. The first of his resolve, chipping away, losing its footing in the face of death. "Take your hand of your sword, and walk away. Go back to your wife and your baby. Don't die fighting a battle you can't win."

Another step forward, and Kasoria's voice was deep as the tunnel gaping wide beyond them. Soaked with a yearning to persuade, a desire for the man to just listen to sense and not throw his life away.

"He brought this on himself. You know that. Don't die for his stupidity."

There was a long silence. Lives were weighed and measured in the span of it. Water and sewage rushed and clunked respectively. The constant grind of industry clanged from the Southwood River Mill, a mile or so down the bank. But out here, there were no watchers or pedestrians. Not this early, anyway. It was just those three men - one desperate, one icy, one torn - deciding on their futures.

"M... Mikos...?"

Zak's heart fell into his shoes as Mikos let go of his sword. The man turned away and started walking without a word, not looking back, not risking any contact at all with his blood. One word might be all it would take. Enough to drag him back to his side, futile and doomed though the action would be. Kasoria felt something like relief course briefly through his veins. Killing had never bothered him, but only when necessary. Besides, it helped having a living witness walk away, to remember and remind his closest friends what the cost of betraying Vorund was.

And they'll tell their friends, and they'll tell their friends, and so on, and so on...

"W... Well fuck you! Fuck you, Mikos! You and your fucking cunt wife and brat! Fuck you and your father! Your mother!" Zak's voice was as hideous and toxic as his clothes. It rose to a shriek and wouldn't stop until he was choking on each word. "Fuck you for leaving me here! For letting me die! YOU'RE KILLING ME, MIKOS! YOU FUCKING HEAR ME?! YOU'RE FUCKING KILLKFKFKFKFKFKFKFFFF-!"

Then the screaming stopped. His words fell like his body did, to his knees and tears filled the silence they left behind. Childish and ugly and dripping down with snot and shame as his hands clawed the dirt. Then a shadow fell across him, and Kasoria looked down into eyes bereft of any hope. He saw himself reflected in those limpid pools. Implacable and grim and without pity.

You wrought this, friend. All of it. To the end.

[Kasoria]

It didn't make him feel any better. Knowing all of that. But that hadn't been the point. Zak had looked out over the river as Kasoria told his tale, in his clipped and concise manner. Leaving out most of the dramatic, narrative flourished a scribe might give it. Shortening paragraphs to sentences, conversations to sidenotes. The work of trials, condensed into not even three bits.

But that wasn't the point, and Kasoria knew it, too. Because it was three bits more than he'd otherwise get. Even a man who accepted this final atrocity, could still hope and scramble for the time to take a score more breaths.

He kept looking out over the river. Long after Kasoria had finished. As if he'd never noticed the breadth and beauty of the thing; the elemental power of so much crashing, rushing water. The way it was so simple, yet powered engines and turbines at the Mil. On its back floated barges and yachts that carried trade far and wide. A whole city, hundreds of thousands of souls, were nourished and survived on her bounty, flowing into and under her every single trial.

Zak swallowed hard and tried to remember if he'd ever gone boating with Sacha. He couldn't remember. Not one time. And now, never.

He closed his eyes and that damned little killer shifted behind him. He could almost hear the evil intent, coating his hand and blade and very soul. He knew he had mere moments left. He couldn't drag them out anymore. But he dug deep and tried to find... no... no, his soul was a mine ravaged and empty. A seam run dry, a well now naught but mud at the bottom of a hole. The man who was so good with numbers, now not even bothering to calculate the odds of his survival. Better a man might lay the odds of jumping into the air and flying to the moon.

He sighed and lifted his head up. Wanting the suns to warm him one more time.

"Will... Will it hurKKKK-"

What felt like a spear struck him in the side of the neck, a speeding shard of agony that set him ablaze for a brief moment. But even as it seared, it cauterized. It numbed him. By the time the blade was ripped out the front of his throat, severing arteries and destroying his speech box as it went, Zak felt shock and sadness and terror and yet-

Not much pain. It was already a sensation for those who, well... were alive. And he was dying. He knew that as he fell to his knees, hands pressed to a hole where his throat used to be. It was so hot. So sticky. And there was so much of it. How much blood did a man have in him, anyway? It seemed like so much he would burst like a doll stuffed with too much straw and-

Kasoria blinked and frowned. That was a laugh. Choked and soaked with blood but... yes, that was a laugh, and there was a queer smile on the man's face. Right before he pitched forward, Kasoria could see a glow of humor in his eyes. As if some thought has seized him, been the last one ever to take hold in his mind, and driven away all that fear, replacing it with-

Zak laughed again. Mostly through the hole. Then he fell forward, and Kasoria shook his head.

You never can tell.

He leaned down and wiped his blade clean on the back of the man's breeches. Then he turned around and walked back to the city. To cobbles and smoke and shadows, away from the bright sun falling on a fresh corpse on the river bank, as sewage floated past without even noticing it.

[Oberan]

Review Rewards

Kassan-i Sabbah

Points awarded: 10

Knowledge:

Discipline: Do Not Stop Until the Job is Done
Intelligence: Tailing an Underling to Find the True Target
Intelligence: Questioning Hired Muscle About Their Employers
Intimidation: Reminding a Man What He Has To Lose
Persuasion: Always Provide an Easy Alternative
Stealth: Keeping Your Distance While Following Someone

Non-Skill Knowledge:
Etzos: Sewage Flows to the Southwood River
Location: Southwood River Mill
Location: Feral's Fastness
NPC Donal: Dimwitted Muscle-For-Hire
NPC Mikos: Married Man and Street Sellsword

Magic: No magic exp

Other: -100GN, +1 saved reputation, +10 fame for being terrifying

Notes:
I rather liked the ending, to be honest. Actually, I liked all of this thread, and most likely any other you have written. I'm starting to think I should stop complimenting you as I fear I'm beginning to sound trite. Anyway, excellent writing, as always!

Your review request is here.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns in regards to this review, feel free to PM.