Thomas Leroy was not happy. The cold wind of the night had penetrated his gloves easier than a rich man with a whore, and while he had no grand delusions of slaying dragons or nocking three arrows on a single bow to take out three invaders, he had imagined something more exciting than this. To make matters worse, his luck was so poor that he managed to get paired up with the only mute person possibly in the world as far as he knew.

Was it G? Gio? He thought to himself and was on the verge of asking the man's name before realizing the error. He wasn’t invested enough in the affair to press on, just unable to think of what better there was to do. The guy had a rather different mustache that twisted into curls on each side and looked to be having a fine time, the latter was only annoying Thomas. Nobody should be this nice and happy five hours into the graveyard shift, but there he was bobbing his head around as if listening to a tune.

Perhaps his annoyance was jealousy, he considered. If this man, cursed with the inability to ever speak, could manage to find some semblance of happiness in this mundane task, he should probably quit lamenting over his own life. He tried to spin his fortune; he was making a bit of extra coin for standing around, occasionally looking through the nearby arrow slits to survey the large area of bare land below, and was even beginning to get stronger and more apt at fighting. He placed his thanks in his improved ability to the soldiers of Silver Acre, who may have been a bit intense but were certainly able.

Maybe when this position is through, I can offer my services to their army! He perked up with the exciting thought in mind. With a few more weeks of training, and grabbing a minute of their commanding officer’s time, the possibility could become reality. To dawn that head-to-toe plated armor of silver, the shield crest prominent over the middle of his breast, that would be a reality worth living.

He moved closer to one of the torches, feeling a bit renewed. He wondered how soon the walls patrol would check up on them, hoping they had some sort of drink to offer. As he blew heat into his hands, he noticed the mute man waving at him.

“Anything I can do for you friend.” Thomas said.

The mute man was standing near the tower's door, which like the walls was equipped with an arrow slit. Motioning him to come here, as there seemed to be something he wanted Thomas to look at.

Thomas felt a ping of excitement, now ready to take his duty a bit more seriously. He tried striding over to the man with the same confident swagger he had seen from the soldiers of Silver Acre. He most likely looked ridiculous but decided to fake it until he made it.

“Let’s have a look,” Thomas said, and the mute man slid over. Looking through the slit, Thomas wasn’t exactly surprised to see what he did, as the slit only offered a look at the wall’s walk, with torches afire and evenly spread out as the walk continued. The walk led to one of the corners of the wall, where a circular open space housed one of the eight ballistic meant for defending the castle.

The mute man was making motions with his hands as if holding a bow and arrow and shooting it, and then using his hands to indicate a big explosion.

“The ballista? Are you wondering about that?”

The man pursed his lips, understanding, before mouthing the word ballista himself.

“Yup, that's what it is, and what you showcased there is probably what would happen. Doubt we’ll ever need to use them though, a pity.”

The man offered a thumbs up, before changing it to a thumbs down, and flip-flopped between the two options.

“Do I like ballistas? I mean sure, they are impressive weapons. I was shocked at the size of them when I first saw them up close.”

The man tapped the side of his head twice, then pointed to Thomas and back to himself. Putting his right pointer and middle finger on his left palm, he seemed to be indicating a person walking, before pointing to the ballista.

Thomas shook his head, smiling, “You and me, go over the ballista? I’m already freezing in here, plus I’m not up for getting in trouble.”

The man frowned, shrugged his shoulders, and began twisting one side of his mustache.

A strange fellow, thought Thomas, before speaking: “Is your name Gio, friend?”

The man turned with a questioning, surprised look on his face. He pursed his lips as if pondering, before offering a dramatic nodding of his head.

“So, it is?” Thomas said, “You took a second to consider it, just want to respect your name is all.”

The man offered two thumbs up, smiling and nodding his head approvingly.

The sound of metal boots became apparent in their silence, and from the other door to the tower came the patrol. Two Silver Acre soldiers, identical height and silver armor leaving them completely unidentifiable, came into the tower.

“Gentlemen, how goes it?” One of the soldiers said, removing his gauntlets to find some heat from the torch.

Thomas puffed his chest out, “Outside of the cold, everything is in order sir. No disturbances.”

“And G, should I take your silence as good news?” The other knight said, slapping a hand onto Gio’s in honest jest.

Gio offered a dramatic, silent laugh, wiping away tears.

“Dawn shouldn’t be longer than another hour or so. When the sun reaches your arrow slit, one of you may report and request dismissal. I’d imagine there won’t be any issues to derail your going home.” The first knight said.

“So all remains quiet, sir? Nothing out of the ordinary at all?”

“In the two weeks since we arrived, there’s barely been a training accident, let alone any threat.” The knight said, satisfied now with the torch.

“I worry for the King of Runswick. It is one thing to battle your demons, but to worry all of the people of your country and waste another’s forces…” The knight shrugged, putting his gauntlets back on. “Well, you two hang in there a little longer. See you at dawn.”

The knights offered a curt nod before exiting through the other door to the tower.

“Aren’t those Silver Acre knights something?” Thomas said.

Gio offered an unconvincing yes, nodding yet shrugging.

“He called you G, didn’t he? That was my second guess at your name. So which do you prefer?”

Gio bit one lip. Which do I prefer? He mused. The name G had been very good to him, offering him an amazing look at the world in a way he hadn't seen before, and an occupation that was too much fun to call a job. Even now, he was still having a blast. Who would have thought that he would be a defender of a castle?

Gio threw up one finger.

“So, Gio?”

Gio shook his head.

“Oh so G it is then!”

Gio spun a finger in a circle, trying to get Thomas to continue on the train of thought.

“So...do you prefer G, but your name is Gio?”

Gio clapped at that, impressed and delighted.

“Well, why didn’t you just say something!” Thomas said, offering a similar slap to the shoulder he had seen the Silver Acre knight do. God, they’re so cool, Thomas thought.

Gio rolled his eyes, motioning back to his post where he began walking. Thomas followed suit, and as he did he felt much better with the optimism he was carrying now.

Before he could make it back to his post, a sound rang in the tower. It was like a piece of metal falling to the ground, coming from behind him. Thomas spun to find Gio looking at him, a puzzled expression on his face as he switched from Thomas to the floor, looking for what must have caused the sound.

“What the hell was that?” Thomas said.

“Beats me.” Gio said.

Thomas whipped his head to Gio, his face stupefied. The mute man had just spoken, in a thick, foreign accent that Thomas hadn’t heard before. The man was looking back at him, eyes wide as if in surprise. While Thomas was also surprised, he was far from annoyed by the discovery, finding it pretty funny.

“Gio, have you been pulling a fast one on the lot of us?” Thomas said whimsically.

Gio tried to offer an unconvincing shake of his head, before sighing and slouching his shoulders. His time was up.

“Oh, bugger me! I broke, I broke didn’t I?”

Thomas was full-on laughing now, “You bastard!” He started, “Now why would you parade yourself as a mute?”

“For fun of course! I’ve been a many things in my life, but to be concealed on the sidelines, oh Tommy I never lived so carefree! Ho ho! You know what it’s like, to live freely boy?”

The humor had left Thomas, replaced with an odd feeling as the man's mysterious accent confused him.

“It’s Thomas, not Tommy. And...maybe not as free as a bird, but I believe I have.” He said.

“Thomas! My apologies once, and my apologies again as I’ll have you know if one needs to think how free they are, then they must only be as free as something else allows them to be. Never question your freedom, Thomas! Demand it!”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Thomas stood silently, uneasy and very confused.

“I shall have you know that you are one of only two people in this country that knows my secret Thomas! What an achievement that is. For both you and me, ho ho!” Gio said as he bounced from one foot to another in an odd-looking sort of dance. “Would you happen to know an Ambrose Nola?”

Thomas shook his head. He began thinking about how much better he liked the muted Gio to this guy, and how he’d like to go home now.

“Ah, that's a shame. Funniest bastard I’ve met! Even defended me from a big ‘ole bully he did! What Visconti has ever needed a defender, ho ho! I do believe I should keep that one from my sister.”

Visconti? Thomas thought, How many lies does this man have?

“Look Gio, your secret is safe with me, but I don’t really get what you're talking about nor care much. If we could finish this shift without any more talking, that’d be delightful.”

“Ho ho! Ok Thomas, but on one condition. Come have another look outside the door here.” Gio leaped and spun with grace as he stood near the same door slit.

“What is it now? The ballista?”

“One look! One look and I’ll be mute Gio again!”

Good deal, thought Thomas. He made his way to the door, the excitement apparent on Gio’s face. He shook his head, reverting to thinking about how he managed to have such awful luck, before peering through the arrow slit.

It was apparent to him right away. The torches offered plenty of light to portray the scene; nestled near the halfway point between their tower and the ballista, two bodies lay on top of one another, the fire dancing in the silver armor. A dark pool of blood formed around the bodies.

“Oh my! Oh my! Gio we need-” Thomas started, before choking on his words as his eyes fell on the wicked smile Gio had on full display.

Thomas didn’t think, just ran for the other door. As he made his way, Gio took a crouching position, extending his hand so that it hovered over the floor. He looked to the wall where Thomas had been posted, staring at the torch there that swayed with the draft that was present in the room. Staring at the shadows the torch created, Gio called for his dagger.

Conjured from the shadow, a blade hissed close to the floor and through the air. In full stride and closing in on the door, Thomas extended one foot past the other, and another, and in the middle of his last stride, he heard the blade slice through air and then flesh. An incredible pain burst behind his feet, tripping him. He fell hard on the side of his face, where his whole world was filled with agony, and as he screamed Gio covered his mouth, balling a piece of cloth and shoving it in.

“It’s not even dawn Thomas! You’re going to wake the damn country!” Gio said, overtaking Thomas’s back and now his arms. Tearing off his other sleeve, the first being the cloth ball now covered in saliva, he began tying Thomas’s hands together.

Thomas continued to scream through the cloth ball, the pain unlike anything he had encountered. He bled from his nose as well, but the pain wasn’t there. He was trying to thrash, but the man he pegged as mute and aloof was much stronger than he appeared, rendering him immobile. He finally was able to glance towards the true pain below, where blood was covering his heels. Both of his feet seemed to be nearly hanging from his legs, as both of his achilles were cut wide and deeply.

He tried to scream again and felt himself growing faint. Gio was getting off him now, but the strength in Thomas’s body betrayed him, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. He was able to look up, and as his vision blurred and fogged, he saw Gio standing over him, wielding a knife as dark as the backs of his eyelids.

“Quite the blade, huh Tommy? Real ebony! Ho ho!”

Thomas passed out.

<><><><><>

Giovanni Visconti could never have expected to be this emotional about the ending to his hiatus. He still had time before morning broke, and he intended to enjoy himself. He looked up at the gap in the ballista, where the arrow was nocked securely between, still unsure just how wide it was. He shrugged off the calculations, confident enough that something interesting would happen. He had not been instructed on how he should signal that the outer wall was now compromised, so why not make it grand?

A grand send-off for a grand time, Giovanni thought. He only had two more ties to go, and so he allowed himself a moment to reflect on what had been the most peaceful stretch of his life.

Was he a cold, heartless killer? On the outside, surely, no doubt about that, but inside he wondered how much longer he could go on. Killing came easy to him, and easier to his sister, but did that mean he had to like it? Had to do it?

Veronica would laugh at him, he knew, as she often had in the past. But he enjoyed so much more than killing, than torturing, and while it was close, he’d even give up the hilarity of men pissing and shitting themselves in untamable horror.

Who am I really?

It must have been the booze, that’s what was leading his head so astray. Eight months behind a bar, with six months having to manage the whole damn operation!

I shouldn’t have killed the owner, but the man asked so many damn questions! Where did I leave his body?

He was frustrated now, and he felt that thinking by himself only added to this weight that felt so foreign to him. He needed an outside opinion, so he moved back to the ballista. Securing the second to last knot he intended to make and pulling tight, the cargo was successfully set on the large, cold arrow. Giovanni moved around to the other side.

Slap! Slap!

Two hard slaps, one forehand and one backhand, and yet no response. Giovani groaned, realizing he may have gone too far. Before he gave up entirely, he tried a different approach.

Slap, slap, slap, slap, slap.

Faster, lighter slaps continued, until a flicker of movement from underneath the man’s eyelids gave Giovani a warm smile.

“Ho ho! He lives!” Giovani said.

Thomas Leroy woke to find that the pain he dreamt of was not only real but worse than he could imagine. He tried to scream, useless still with the gag in his mouth. He was cold, so unbelievably cold, and seemed to be hugging something with no semblance of warmth, his whole body and face pressed to it. He didn’t quite understand where he was and prayed he was wrong about how he got there. But his prayers had been futile, and as he looked up to see the arrow shaft aiming up and toward the sky, he began to cry, knowing the not-so-mute man was right next to him.

“Thomas, oh don’t cry! You wear the face you die with forever in heaven or hell, don’t you know that? Wouldn’t want you looking that now would we.”

Thomas sobbed, and as he tried to move and thrash from restraints that would never allow him to, he only succeeded in opening his right achilles gash more. The pain exploded, and as his vision betrayed him, Giovani whirled around.

Slap. slap, slap, slap, slap.

His vision was blurry, but as the slaps continued his sight remained. He felt himself almost leave the pain behind, before feeling the fire behind his feet again. Thomas cried anew.

“These light slaps do wonders!” Said Giovani, “Look Thomas, I just want your tongue, ok? Not—sorry, not like cutting out your tongue. Could have done that, but I didn’t! Just a chat, for new time's sake.”

Giovani reached for the wad of cloth housed in Thomas’s mouth, hesitating before he grabbed it. He gave the man his most dangerous look.

“You scream, you fly Tommy. Entertain me for a moment more, and you’ll be rewarded.” The tone seemed to be struck by Death himself, and Thomas felt too tired and in too dire a place to fight.

Giovani removed the gag. Thomas coughed once, to which Giovani pressed a cold blade to Thomas’s neck. Thomas coughed again, breathing in unrestricted air and flexing his jaw bones. Giovani removed the blade from his neck, and as he did Thomas caught another glimpse at what appeared to be the deepest and darkest of blacks' move to and behind the back of his captor, disappearing as his hand reproduced itself.

“V-v-Visconti…” Thomas hushed.

“Ah yes, ‘tis I. You’ve heard the name, as many others have, but did you feel I lived up to that infamous reputation?” Giovani looked behind him, where the two Silver Acre knights still lay.

“Why?” A single word at a time seemed all that Thomas could manage.

“My question as well Thomas! Why do I continue to lead this dreadful lifestyle? Is it because I am so good at killing? Are we all victims of where our specialties are? What about those without anything special about them?!” Giovani took a seat, cross-legged, and sighed loudly.

Thomas’s head swam, unable to think coherently as the pain made itself more tangible. Tears continued down his face, and he prayed both the tears and the pain would all cease to exist.

“Just answer me this Thomas; can a person like me, from a line of gifted killers and stained with the blood of both foe and friend alike, really escape the destiny that awaits me?”

Thomas tried to raise his head, trying so hard, before losing his strength.

Slap, slap, slap, sla-

“Wha-” Thomas’s eyes pupils restrained from rolling behind his head.

“C’mon Thomas! You were going to say something weren’t you? Some sage advice that could prove to be your freedom?”

With the inkling of freedom, Thomas pushed himself to resist the temptations of a deep sleep, saying: “You’re...wrong...destin-”

Slap, slap, slap, slap.

“Destiny changes...each step is a c-crossroad.” Thomas had another moment before the pain crippled him, saying, “Please…”

“So you’re saying I can choose my path? If only I could Thomas! You have no idea how the Visconti family works, all the pressure, all the blood-”

“You poor follower…”

“What did you say?” Giovani stared accusingly.

“Follower...following a trail…” Thomas said, chuckling at the end. “A Visconti...that follows…”

Giovani stood up and looked down at the captive. Reaching behind his back, he called his dagger from his own shadow, where the blade emerged and shot up to his hand. Outside of that one funny man named Ambrose, there was no one in Runswick he would remember in any significant detail until Thomas now.

Giovani burst out laughing, and dropped his dagger to the shadow again, where it was swallowed up.

“Wow, Thomas. I’ll tell ya—balls of steel you got, friend. Calling a Visconti a follower while strapped to a ballista! If that’s not a first then you can rob me blind. When you called me Gio in the tower, I was nervous! ‘Who is this fellow?’ I had thought, before being a bit disappointed I might add. But now I know that in another life, you were a sage Thomas, and great advice you must’ve given! I heed your words with great care.” Giovani whirled and began walking to where the Silver Acre guards lay still.

Thomas did not fight him and knew how useless it would be anyway. He prayed that his advice would be sufficient for him to be left where he was.

Giovani was struggling with one of the bodies, before falling on his backside, helmet in hand. Goofily springing from one foot to another, he made his way back to Thomas. No resistance was offered as Giovani slipped the helmet over Thomas’s head.

“Thomas, by the power of the Viscon-” Giovani paused, then continued, “By the power vested in me, Giovani Visconti, I knight thee!”

Clapping now, Giovani took a step back and faced the horizon, where the earlier black sky had begun to turn a dark blue. He thought of the impending dawn and hated that the calm would soon be over once again. Staring out at the vast field that led to a line of dense forest, Giovani saw what he was told to look for. The fog was emerging.

Thomas could feel hysteria begin to overtake him, laughing and crying at the same time at his incredible situation.

Is this real? Am I dreaming?

“I will remember what you said, and remember our sliver of time together fondly, Thomas.” Hovering over Thomas, Giovani reached out with one hand over him, “Now, let's see how this thing works.”

Called from the shadow of the ballista, the ebony dagger sliced through the rope meant to release the arrow, and as it did Giovani was left with an incredulous expression as he watched his entertainment unfold, blood splattering onto his forearms. He saw in great detail Thomas’s body shoot forward and through the ballista frame, too narrow for anything other than his head and torso, severing the arms and legs off the man and leaving them to fall gracelessly just over the wall. As for the rest of Thomas, the ties Giovani had secured proved commendable, and as the arrow flew through the air so did the remains of Thomas Leroy. A red mist was visible in the arrow's wake, and Giovani became nearly giddy with excitement as he saw the great damage the bolt had done to a farmers’ land far and below the wall.

Giovani's heart beat in a way it hadn’t in over eight months, and though he would not soon forget the words of Thomas Leroy, he knew there would soon be much more exciting things to do this day rather than lament. Watching as the fog swallowed the far side of the vast land below, Giovani deftly moved to secure the hiding spot he had planned in the tower, for he knew the bells would begin soon.

War! While a faint thought loathed himself for taking part in what truly was his sister’s scheme, a hungrier need felt great anticipation and excitement in the morning to come.