22nd Trial, Cylus, Arc 718
Foster's Landing, Etzosi Coast
21st break
Foster's Landing, Etzosi Coast
21st break
There was a simplicity in what had to follow. Which did not necessarily denote ease. But compared to the breaks he'd spent squatting in the the mud by the side of the road, cloaked and hooded, mumbling to himself and passing feet for alms? Getting sneers and coarse words and spent baccy sticks and gobs of spittle in his bowl far more than he did coin? This was simple. No, more than simple, it was... better. Honest.
There was a... purity, in what would follow, although he knew men that would retch and recoil at his use of such a word. But it was apt. There was one course open to him, and in his blood-soaked world, it was expedient and prudent and professional all at once.
Anyone who got in his way. Anyone who saw him. Everyone on this floating coffin, if he had to.
They would all die, and he would kill them. It was as simple as that.
Well, not quite. You have to be able to follow through, too.
Kasoria didn't know the layout of a schooner from a paper boat floating in the gutter back home, but he knew that his quarry had to be below deck. There was not raised section at the rear of the ship where a cabin might be, so it had to be below. He moved swiftly across the deck, just one shadow among many now, karambit held tight to his side. In front of him was a staircase heading down into the bowels of the ship, emblazoned with light. He paused at the top. Listened. Smelled the air.
Food cooking. Burning, actually. Activity... metal on metal. Things being chopped. Scraped into pans. A kitchen. He started moving again, slinking below deck. The killer knew that being heard now would be less of an issue: as far as those underneath knew, he was just another crew member. Their captain and a couple of his crew were away to the tavern, leaving what sounded like a cook and two lookouts and...
Hopefully.
A clatter from behind a door. The first one in a narrow wooden hallway, leading down to the very back of the ship. A snarled curse in a foreign tongue, heavy footsteps moving to the door-
Kasoria slid to the side of it, knees bent, staying low, karambit held up below his chin, arm cocked-
-waiting for the door to swing open and a skinny sod wearing an apron came storming out, clutching a bloody palm as he cursed most creatively... or so Kasoria assumed. He still couldn't place the tongue. The Sea People, perhaps? That would make sense. The thought flitted through his mind like a moth and then he squashed it, focusing on the man who still had not quite spotted-
-the man outside in the hallway, already moving as he finally swung his head his way-
-mouth open to shout for help-
Too slow. Not your fault, mate. You weren't expecting me.
The karambit punched into the man's throat and Kasoria felt it tickle bone as it cleaved through veins and arteries and that little box that made noise. The skinny man heaved in the doorway, trying to gasp and gurgling instead, arms flailing-
Kasoria never gave him a chance. Before his hands could even grasp at him he yanked the blade back out, arm like a piston, back and lunging out again, almost a blur-
-slamming a punch against the man's breastbone, knuckles grinding against a chest alive with tattoos and tales scrawled on his flesh from across the oceans, one of them ruined as the curved blade of the karambit thrust through his ribcage and tore into a lung. Now everything air-related was problematic, and he was still bleeding to death. Instead he growled, already frothing up thick, blackish blood as he grasped Kasoria around the throat, determined to take the little fucker with him.
Hardly a first for him, though. Bigger man, hands on the throat... old hat, really. And easily escaped-
-when Kasoria snapped his hands almost together against his chest, pushing them up between the cook's grasping arms, then pushing out and away-
-breaking his dying grip, right hand coming diagonally down again-
Adding to the blood-pissing hole he'd already made. Carving a slash across the neat little orifice, destroying any trace of it. Truly Kasoria was still learning with the devilish little blade, but it complimented the way he fought best, anyway. Without a weapon. Punches and chops and blocks, now augmented by eight inches of curved, razor steel jutting out from the bottom of his right hand.
That ended the argument, as it were. The cook's eyes were flickering as he stared down at Kasoria... then straight at him... then up, as he slumped down and back into his filthy little galley. A stew pot bubbled away, throwing steam and froth all over the place, sizzling on the fire under it all the while. Kasoria knew it would be ruined: no-one would be coming back for it, he'd wager. A bloody hand gripped the front of his cloak, but there was no strength in it. He didn't even need to bat it away: he just started walking down the hallway, and the cook's hand fell of it's own accord, thumping down onto the floor, never to rise again.
One down...
He wished he knew how many he had to deal with, but then that simplicity came back to him. It didn't matter, he realized with an eerie sense of calm that he'd felt before. They would die just the same. His wounds from that job earlier in the season had healed. They ached and itched but did not impede him. He could fight as well as he did before, and in such narrow confines he had the advant-
The next door was thrown open and someone bigger, beefier, and distinctly aware that he'd been "boarded" stood in front of him.
And this one was holding a cutlass.
