MetaFic

“Remember?” he asks, his rasping voice a mixture of mischief and weariness.

“Of course I do, you old fool. I paid for it all.”

He begins to chuckle, but his merriment is soon overtaken by coughing. I wipe the bloodstained spittle from the corners of his mouth, tutting at him as I do so. The coughing fit subsides and a smile struggles onto his ashen face.

“You didn’t pay for the room.”

“That’s because you’d drunk away all my money by then.”

“You didn’t seem too unhappy at the time.”

His hand is on my thigh, but the poison has so weakened him that it drops back to his side before it can reach its intended target. His touch, however weak, rekindles old memories of a drunken kiss and the night of passion that brought us together.

“Shush now, you old fool. Now’s not the time to spend chasing after your lost youth.”

He ignores me and continues. “Rubbish, woman. Now is exactly the time. I’d rather leave this world remembering how your lips felt on mine than …” His words are swallowed by a wracking cough which consumes his whole body. I hold him throughout, cursing my inability to do anything to help. The fit subsides and his smile is back.

“Can’t keep your hands off me even now, can you?” His gasconade breaks down into another coughing fit.

I try to smile, but instead I find myself fighting back tears, so I turn away.

“Old fool,” I mutter as I try and compose myself. I feel his hand upon me again which only increases the flow of tears.  

~*~

The day is warm, despite the cool breeze blowing down off the mountains. A trickle of sweat runs down my spine, adding to my mounting discomfort. Today is a day best spent in the shade or, better still, up in the hills where it is cooler and there were streams full of melt water. It is not the sort of day for riding yourself and your mount to exhaustion. Neither is it a day for riding past welcoming inns and lodges. But then, no day was ever the right day for trying to outrun the Assassin’s Guild.

~*~

It was a race we knew we couldn’t win, but for a while we had fooled ourselves into thinking that we could. Eighteen years we had survived. And with every grain of sand that had slipped through the neck of the hour glass, we had relaxed a little more. Of course we’d never stopped moving, never thought that we were safe enough to buy some land and raise a family. But we had relaxed and now we – or rather, he – was paying the price. The debt was being repaid, honour was being satisfied.

I sit down on the stool next to his bed, watching the staccato rhythm of his breathing as the poison takes hold. I have staunched the bleeding; the knife wound was not deep, but the poison that coated its blade cannot be stopped.

In the rubbish-strewn alley next to the inn, the assassin’s body lies hidden from prying eyes. Honour is satisfied on both sides, but revenge is not so easily assuaged.

He is quiet now, exhausted by his display of bravado and I open his inflamed lips and pour a sleeping draught into his mouth. Time has finally run out for us, the last grains of sand are about to fall, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. His death will be violent; the least I can do is to make sure that he is no longer able to feel it.

~*~

The town of Mountain’s Shadow had prospered under the benign rule that had followed the end of the troll wars. No longer subject to attacks by stone-skinned monsters, traders’ caravans had begun to arrive in increasing numbers and the market square now heaved with the mass of humanity crammed into it.

I snatch a flask of small beer from a stall and throw some coins at the shouting stallholder whilst I slake my thirst on the bitter liquid. Pushing my way through the crowds, I begin to regret my decision to come into the town. On the plains around the settlement, clouds of dust told me where my pursuers were, but in this heaving mass of humanity they could be anywhere.

I push and I shove my way past those who have more time to appreciate the sights and sounds of the day, trying to reach my goal of the quieter streets beyond the market. Apologies pour from my lips to those who can be thus placated, whilst curses – backed by the very visible handle of my dagger – suffice for the rest.

I keep looking over my shoulder, anxious for any sign of my pursuers. I know it is a pointless exercise as I will only see my killer once their knife has done its work, but I continue nonetheless.

~*~

Looking back, I know how futile it was to run. There would be no escape; the price had to be paid, honour satisfied.  And he paid the price. There’s no fool like an old fool, and with his grey hair and sagging stomach, he is certainly that. Old enough and foolish enough to think that he could save me again.

Sweat beads his brow and I know that the end is near. I rise and, taking a dampened cloth, I soothe his brow. Not that he knows. He is beyond reason, beyond sentience, beyond my care. His eyes are flickering beneath their lids, rushing back and forth, his mouth only silenced by the drug I have given him.

~*~

The alley was deserted, eerily so after the crush of the market place. The bare-brick walls are punctuated by shabby-looking doors, their paint long since stripped by the summer sun, and their steps piled high with rubbish. Above street level there is the occasional window, all of which are shuttered against the stench which permeates the air. I force my breathing to slow, ignoring the need to gag and will my heart to cease its pounding. My eyes flit from possible hiding place to possible hiding place, but in truth there are none.

In front of me a pile of rubbish stirs and my hand is on the hilt of my dagger and I am on my tiptoes ready to pounce. I curse as a rat scurries away from me and breathe a sigh of relief.  A door behind me opens and I whirl around, pulling the dagger from its sheath. The man’s face is a picture of surprise and by his casual attire I know he is not my assassin. The rubbish behind me stirs again and I know that I am too late.

~*~

His body is shaking, fighting the poison at every step, struggling for a few more seconds of breath. I fling myself on him as the convulsions continue, clinging desperately to him, fighting to keep him on the bed, all the while tears streaming down my face.

~*~

I spin quickly and duck, hoping that the blade is aimed at my throat. My attacker has anticipated this and I feel its sharpened edge slice through my tunic and into my flesh. Pain shoots up my arm and I pray to the gods that there is no poison on the blade. I kick out, hoping to catch him off-balanced, but he is ready and leaps away from the arc described by my foot. I fall clumsily and wince as my dagger clatters across the cobblestones.

Before I can move, a boot is on my chest, holding me down and though I strain every muscle, it is in vain, and so I stop. Perhaps he will let me stand and receive the blade like a fighter and not a cur forced to scrabble amongst the rotting vegetables. Above me there is the flash of steel, a curse and then the sound of a body hitting the floor.

~*~

There is one massive convulsion as the poison reaches his heart, and then his body falls with a thump into the mattress and he is still. I stroke his face, still weeping, my fingers caressing his blackened lips, and willing there to be a whisper of breath despite it all.

~*~

A hand reaches down towards me and I accept its help standing up. It is the stranger who stumbled into the fight and not my would-be killer. Behind him, in the middle rapidly increasing pool of blood, there is a body.

“Is he…?”

“Dead? Of course.”

“No, I meant, is he …?”

“An assassin? Yes.”

My saviour is handsome, if you can ignore the dust of accumulated travel. His jet-black hair and beard are wild and untamed and his emerald green eyes feel like they are looking into my soul.

“I think you owe me a drink for helping you out here, don’t you?”

The glint in his eye suggests that he thinks he is entitled to more than a drink, but at this stage, he is content merely to mentally undress me.

“What about him?” I ask, nodding at the corpse. He starts to walk away.

“Leave him,” he replies, the distance between us growing.  “The guild look after their own, dead or alive. I’m far more concerned as to whether you have enough in this pouch to say thank you.”

He throws my money bag into the air and grins at my outraged expression.

“You bastard,” I yell and set off after him, the body on the floor forgotten.