Break the Chains 1

Karsten wrote:BREAK THE CHAINS

1

I first met my future employer at swordpoint.

The tip dug into my throat. I froze. My eyes skittered up the length of the blade. He watched me over the point, his eyes the same cold grey as the steel, a killing colour.

My throat was dry. I swallowed. Until now I’d been hired by soft men with more money than spine; this one was the first to draw steel. He was testing me, seeing if he could scare me.

Tombstones pushed up out of the sea of mist like the bones of broken ships. A grave nearby had been hacked open and the mouldering bones scattered in the search for valuables. The skull grinned at me from atop the tombstone, dirt still clinging to discoloured bone, a worm wriggling in one socket. I’d assumed anyone who wanted to meet in a graveyard was an idiot in search of cheap thrills; now I was thinking that graveyards were isolated. Good places to kill.

I was charging him double after this. Bastard.

“Pleasure to meet you,” I lied. His eyes narrowed, not happy at a mere nobody speaking to him like an equal. The cold bite at my throat was a rapier, the kind of blade a gentleman would carry, and it took a title and an expensive education to instil that kind of arrogance. “My lord,” I added.

The gentleman in question said to his companion, “Your so-called assassin is ... a girl.”

I disliked him already, but I could learn to like his money. Gold talked with such a sweet voice.

“May I pass along a word of wisdom?” The lady shook a bright scatter of rain from her parasol and smoothed her skirts with one gloved hand, a glimpse of rich purple through the mists. “Girls make good killers. Nobody expects a young lady to garrotte them.”

His lordship angled the rapier ever so delicately. A single drop of my blood ran down the groove in the blade, a red thread unspooling. “I was expecting someone a little ...” The sentence dangled in the air like a hook he wanted me to bite on. “Different.”

My master hadn’t let employers rattle him. Listen to the money, that was his rule. Even the gold wasn’t singing to me quite so sweetly any more. “If I looked like an assassin I’d be dead already. I’m a professional. I kill people. That’s not something I shout to the rafters.”

The point bit deeper. Blood trickled hot into the hollow of my throat. Fear fluttered in my stomach, a thing I wanted to crush. If I couldn’t convince him to hire me I’d have to rush him before he killed me. For all that he looked twenty years older than me, he’d drawn with the speed of a striking snake, so I’d have to be faster still. Maybe I could reach the dagger in my boot in time.

“I like this one.” The lady smiled at me; her voice was honey, sweet and warm. “Let’s keep her.”

“If she pleases you I suppose she’ll do.” His lordship lowered the blade.

The fluttering stopped. I let go a long, shaky breath and relaxed for the first time since I’d arrived. When a meeting went wrong, it went wrong terrifyingly fast. A bad decision made in a heartbeat could leave scars for a lifetime. “Let’s talk about the money.” I could afford to smile now I was getting hired instead of killed. “My fees are very --“

The son of a bitch stabbed me.

The point drove up under my ribs. Pain seared through me. I choked on salty blood. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think. The blade jarred against the tombstone behind me. I clutched it, scrabbled at it trying to rip it out of me, barely felt it bite into my bare hands. It burned coldly like a sliver of ice. Red leaked between my fingers.

He wrenched the rapier out. The world tilted around me, the grass jumped up and knocked the breath out of me as I fell. Icy stone seared my bare arms. Tombstone. I dragged in a breath past throttling panic and the pain spiked unbearably. It was too much; it made me small. Helpless. Dying. Had to get away, had to hide, terrified instinct.

Crawl, my master had told me. It amuses me.

A snarl rose in my throat. I was going to die on my feet.

The tombstone was slippery. Blood and mist ran down it in trickles. When I first tried to haul myself up my hand slipped, I fell back and pain jolted through me. I gritted my teeth. Got a better grip. Pushed myself up. The world kept swaying, I couldn’t pin it in place. Under my feet the grass gleamed dark where my blood had soaked in.

“Admit it,” the lady said. “You’re impressed.”

“Maybe a little,” his lordship allowed.

I pulled the dagger from my boot and managed to straighten. Everything hurt. All this blood was making my hands slippery, so I shifted my grip on the hilt. He had the longer blade and the better reach; he’d stab me again before I ever got close enough to strike. I took a step back blindly, not daring to take my eyes off him. Then another. Then the earth crumbled away underfoot, discarded bones tangled my feet and I nearly fell into the open grave.
She;s be able to do all this while dying? Really?
“This is a terribly unfair fight.” His lordship came after me with frightening ease, sword red with my blood. He was in no hurry; all he had to do was wait for me to fall over and bleed to death.

Bollocks to that. If I had to end up in one of these graves with worms eating my eyes, this bastard was coming with me.

The lady perched on a tombstone and gathered her skirts around her in a flood of purple. “If you get careless and die, I may laugh. Just warning you.”

I pretended to stumble. His lordship skewered me straight between the ribs. The impact tore a strangled sound from my throat. Blood spilled, stupid amounts of it. I fell into him and caught a handful of his coat.

He pulled away too late. I stabbed him under the ribs with a snarl.

My dagger snapped. Armour. Bastard was wearing armour under his coat.

Next moment a bony hand yanked my feet out from under me. The rapier ripped free and I strangled off a scream as I toppled into the open grave. Bones shattered under me. The skull leapt down from the tombstone and bounced toward me, still grinning, its yellow teeth chattering. I kicked at it, missed. The skull jumped onto me and bit my arm once, twice, leaving half-moon imprints of teeth. I flailed around in a panic, caught it and threw it against the tombstone. It smashed. Bone showered. The fragments twitched toward each other like they were trying to reassemble themselves.

All the heat was leaking out of me as the blood seeped into the earth. I fumbled a hand under my torn coat in a pathetic attempt to stop the bleeding. My heartbeat skittered, caught. I dragged in a rattling breath and choked. The darkness crept in, and I knew fear as paralysing as the pain. No afterlife for Godless like me. Just worms.

“I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson today.” The lady in purple came to stand at the edge of the grave. A glance from her quieted the twitching remains of the skull. “When you want a job done properly, hire a necromancer.”

Everything went dark.