I was on the hunt again, searching for some poor soul to murder and make an example of.

I did my work, did as he commanded, but now it was different. Now it sickened me. I had never revelled in it, never taken pleasure in what he had me do to his enemies. But neither did I resist, I just did as I was told. It did not please or disgust me, and pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears – I was a machine.

Now it was different. Now, somehow, I had began to care. I felt the pain of those I took, I saw the look in their eyes and saw too their innocence. But still I could not resist him.

Since Anna, he had sent me forth with a vengeance, and so very many had suffered at my hands that my soul wept with the anguish of it.

But the voice grew stronger within me. It now questioned why. It forced me to seek answers – I now had to know what their crimes were, and what they had done to displease my master.

Anna had known it would be like this for me – the agonising pain at the sins I committed. But she also said that only this unbearable agony would set me free.

I so longed to be free of him, longed for the moment when I would finally defy him, refuse his commands and turn against him. But even death was not an escape, not from him. I could not take my own life, none of his toys or playthings could; that was a control he exerted to his fullest, for only he could take a life or order it done – that pleasure was his alone.

And no matter how much you might crave your own death, his way was not one that any would contemplate.

The man I now hunted was a learned man, a scholar. His crime only that he looked too deeply, saw the past too clearly from the histories he uncovered, and was too close to some potential weakness in my master. And so I had been sent forth once more.

He would be found in the city of Abarth, I had been told. In the library by day, one of the many taverns of an evening and in a brothel at night.

A learned man who loves his pleasures I thought.

I had arrived in the city as the sun set over the distant mountain tops, the mountains of Erithon, said to be where Al'kar had first gathered his resistance against my master.

My work was best done in darkness, the shadows hid my coming and terror held sway in the night, my master ensured that.

A few taverns and some simple questions, and I sat in a smoke filled, raucous room, bustling with drunk and almost drunk revellers, celebrating the few hours between the day’s toil and that which the morning would bring anew. My scholar sat opposite, not ten feet away, blissfully unaware of my presence or the fate my master had decreed for him.

He sat in an easy chair by the fire, a mug in one hand and the other firmly holding the waist of the serving girl that sat on his lap. She was at least thirty years his junior, and he a short, overweight, balding man of obvious little means given the poor state of his clothes.

Yet as she laughed at his humour and wit, her eyes smiled too. Not the smile of one who cares only for the weight of a purse, but a smile of genuine fondness.

He enjoys life, the voice said to me. He lives every day as it should be lived; he savours them, drinks them in. He harms no one, and he shares his joy with all. See how she smiles, see the regard all have for him. And it was true, many had called across to him, greeting him with words of warmth and friendship. The voice continued in my mind but I paid it little heed for my conscious mind now wrestled with the thoughts it had given me.

I had thought to defy my master when he had commanded Anna’s death. But she had know that I was not then strong enough. “The time will come,” she had said. “You will know when… the pain to obey him will be too great, and then you will be free.”

I looked again at this scholar, this old man filled with life and laughter, saw the regard and friendship others held for him and my chest tightened, squeezing my heart until I thought it would burst.

In my minds eye I saw the horror on the faces of his friends when they heard of his death, I felt the sorrow and the anger that would be theirs on the morrow, and I saw too the loss for the world if I took away this man. I felt all their pain, all their loss, and I felt guilt. I felt guilt for all that I had done, for all those that had suffered at my hands.

My mind, bereft of any emotions for so very long, could not cope, would not survive this onslaught, and I knew then that I would die – and I welcomed it. But the voice spoke to me, reached in through the turmoil that was my mind. Anna would love this old man, it said. She would not let you take him! And through the anguish and pain, I knew then that the time was upon me, the time Anna had said would come – I was going to be free of him.

I sat, the pain and guilt slowly ebbing away, waiting for it to happen – waiting for the surge of power, a flash, thunder in the heavens, something, anything. It did not come, nothing happened.

Slowly, very slowly, I realised that it had already happened, that it was done, that I was free.

It was so strange a feeling; it was not as if I finally had the strength to resist him, nor was it a battle of wills, it was almost as if magic. His control of me was simply gone and I was suddenly completely free of him. The realisation was almost overwhelming. I wanted to laugh, to cry, to stand up and shout it to the whole world.

But I did none of those things. Instead I steeled myself, forced myself to think, forced myself to consider what this meant, and what I needed to do to remain free of him.

It was Anna’s doing I knew, she had foreseen my freedom, but I knew also that she had done far more than that. In giving her life she had set me on this path, this path to freedom, knowing it would take me to this very day. I smiled, a real smile, as I realised that I would not take this man’s life – Jain the scholar would live, and I was at last free.

That night I waited alone in a room full of beautiful women, all plying their wares, while Jain took his pleasures somewhere in the warren of bedrooms above me. I had reasoned that allowing him one last normal night of pleasure would harm neither of us. Beyond that we would both need to flee, and if Jain was to have any chance of a future, he would need to stay very close to my side from this day forward.

For my master would be aware of the breaking of his bond, and his rage would be such that he would stop at nothing to reclaim or destroy me.

Jain was insignificant beside my escape, but he would not be overlooked. My master would not come for us himself, I knew. He had not yet openly proclaimed his return; he still worked in the shadows, sending others to do his work, as he had with me. But they would come for us, all he could send. He would have me back or see me destroyed, and he would not stop, ever.

I sat quietly, placed so I could watch both the entrance to the room and the stairs. I had paid most handsomely to sit here undisturbed, far more I believed, than had I taken a woman.

“I wish to be left alone, I like to sit and watch. See that none bother me,” I had said to the proprietor as she eagerly took my coin. And my discreet questions of the old scholar had told me not to expect him anytime soon – Jain took his pleasures very seriously, and would not leave until morning, if then.

I reasoned that he could not really know anything of my master, for surely he must spend his whole day at the library asleep. I laughed at my own thoughts, laughed out loud. Some turned to look, but I laughed all the more, loud and hard. They must have thought me mad.

And it was morning before he emerged. I heard his coming before I saw him. A woman’s voice. “Tonight Jain, come back again tonight. Please… promise that you will." The voice was not one of a seasoned veteran of the profession playing to the vanity of her customer – this girl really wanted him to return. For girl I could see she was when she appeared at the top of the stairs, waving and throwing kisses at the old man as he descended. No more than twenty to his sixty years by my estimation. I was very, very intrigued, but there were other, more urgent, matters to attend to before I could attempt to solve the riddle of this man’s way with women.

I followed him to the door and, as he turned to wave and smile at the young woman stood atop the stairs, I took his elbow and gently lead him outside. He showed only the slightest concern at my action, his face barely breaking his smile for the girl.

“So you were following me last night,” he said. “Thought so. What can I do for you, young man?”

His words and calm demeanour were somewhat of a surprise, but then everything I had seen of this man so far had surprised me. I looked him in the eye and smiled at him, really smiled – for I found I liked this man, liked how he lived his life.

He would, I felt, make a good companion in our flight from my master. “You are a scholar and research the histories, I am told,” I said. “I have much to tell you that I have learned of the past, much which will affect both our futures, and yours in particular, I’m afraid. Have you somewhere we can talk in private and maybe breakfast together."

And that was that. I was free, and Jain became my companion of the road and, soon to be, firm friend.

Jain and I rode hard that first day barely slowing, and then only to rest the horses.

It was during one such rest, as we walked alongside each other leading the horses, that Jain asked, “What shall I call you? Don’t like the name Kanteth… don’t reckon any will take to calling you that.

Too much fear and death associated with that name. And now that you’ve said how you came by the name, I cringe at its very use. So what’s it going to be? You must have had a name before, before he got his hands on you I mean.”

He surprised me with his question, and yet again with his blunt honesty. I had not even considered the matter. Hardly a day had passed since I had been miraculously freed of Dar’cen’s shackles, and mundane thoughts, such as my name, had been far from my thoughts, which had been torn between marvelling at my sudden freedom and the life I now had again, and the need to ride as fast and as far from the pursuit that would surely follow.

“Yes, I have another name, two in fact,” I said as I thought of the name David that I had not used, not heard, in such a very long time, and the second name, my middle name, Evan, after my father, long since passed away.

Jain waited expectantly, glancing my way as we led the horses. I looked ahead, forgetting Jain, forgetting almost his question, seeing only my father’s face as I looked up from his knee.

“Where did my name come from, Dad?” I had asked him. I remembered that he had seemed surprised by the question.

“Strange question for a boy of seven,” he had answered. “Why do you ask?”

I didn’t really have an answer, didn’t know why I had asked even – the curiosity of youth I suppose. But my father had wanted an answer, and the only thing I could think of to say was, “I don’t like my name, that’s all.”

“Don’t like it,” he’d repeated. “I don’t see why. It's a good enough name, a solid dependable name.”

Then a smile had crossed his face. “Mind you, your mother chose the name David, I wanted to name you Kane… I really liked that name, was dead set on it for some reason. Looked it up once; it means Warrior to some folk and yet Beautiful to others… kinda strange that. Anyway, your mother would have none of it; she said she hated the name, couldn’t say why, just that the name was all wrong for you. So that was the end of that, and you became David. And David does suit you, Son, just like your mother said it would.”

I had forgotten all about that moment, that conversation, that name even. Strange how my mother had hated the name Kane, and how it was so close to the name that he had bestowed upon me, Kanteth – another hated name, but a name hated with reason aplenty.

“Kane,” I said. “You can call me Kane. Not my true name, but a name that will forever remind me of what I was and what I did, and yet will allow the world to see me as I am now… the man that perhaps, but for a husband’s regard for his wife, I was always meant to be.”

Jain looked at me puzzled, but asked no questions. And I was glad for I did not want to explain – I was not sure that I understood my own reasoning, but it felt right. Kane was a name I could wear, a man I could be, until, God willing, fate decreed that I could truly become David once more.

“Fair enough, Kane it is then. Bit to close to the other name, the one he gave you. But I’m sure you’ve got your reasons,” Jain said as he laughed and held out his hand. “Real nice to meet you, Kane,” he said. “Strange though, but somehow it seems that Kane is a name that will fit you right well. I hope you’re never given reason to change it again… that would get mighty confusing.”

I took his hand and shook it heartily, whilst I prayed to all the gods that existed, that in his hope, Jain was well and truly wrong.

That night, some twenty miles from Abarth, I sat just outside the circle of light cast by our ebbing fire, reviewing and reliving all that had happened to me in the time since I had been taken. Jain lay to one side of the fire snoring loud enough to give away our position to anyone within five miles of us. I smirked now as I listened to the almost strangled noise his throat made, but I knew that in days to come some form of cure would have to be found if we were to elude capture or worse.

This was the first time I had thought it all through, the first time I had been myself enough to do so. It was four years since I was taken, or as near as makes no difference.

One part of me was astonished at the time that had passed; so much was a blur, hazy, or pushed so far back in my mind as to have almost not happened. But then, when I pushed myself, and delved deep into those memories, it was as though I had lived a lifetime in those few years. I marvelled now at how easily I had accepted my freedom just a day ago, with not a thought for all that had happened to me, all that I had done or for what would next befall me.

Since meeting Anna, so much had changed for me. Oh, there had been a grain of resistance before our meeting – that quiet, distant voice that so befuddled my mind. But that was all it was at first, a noise, a distraction. Meeting Anna, and then her death, had changed everything. Slowly, ever so slowly that resistance had hardened, the voice becoming louder and far more persistent.

The fear had not left me, I knew it never would. But somehow I did not now care. I knew now that it was not fear that had held me, it was his compulsion, and breaking that was what had set me free.

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Last night it had happened, as Anna had said it would, and I was now free of him.

But it had come at a price. Now I was free to look back with a clear mind, a mind clear of his compulsion and the unerring obedience and love for him that it brought. I could now see clearly the horrors that I had committed, see them for what they really were, see the pure vindictive evil that he had me commit.

Faces swam before my eyes, I could see them all, name them, relive in detail the deaths that I had visited upon them. God forgive me! I can see it all now, every single act. Memories played themselves out before my tear filled eyes – Barab the healer, Maravat the councillor, Jahan who I murdered as his wife watched screaming from the corner of their room, and so may others, deaths beyond counting.

Lastly I saw the caravan on the road to Ultrow, their faces their screams.

“Kill the men, kill them all. Make Eltran’s death slow, make him suffer as you have been taught, and force the women to watch, the children too. Show yourself, give your name. Tell of my return, and then set them free. Let them tell the tale.” His words, his voice sounded through my mind as the bloody scene played itself out before my minds eye.

Twenty seven died that night, some with swords in their hands, others on their knees screaming and begging for their lives. One died slowly, ever so slowly, as I took him apart piece by piece to the sobs and screams of the women and children that I forced to watch. Eltran was his name I knew, but nothing else of him, not of his life, not of his crime against my master.

All that I did that night, and yet I did not shed a tear, not a single thought of remorse, not a single thought at all.

I am a monster. No one should be able to commit such atrocities. Bile lurched up from my stomach, burned in my throat, and I retched until I was drained. Wiping my mouth, I steeled myself, asked what it was all for, why I had been freed, why I still lived.

Anna’s face swam before my eyes, her smile and her so very blue eyes cut through my grief. Anna had believed in me. She had given her life to set me free. She knew who I was, what I had done, and yet still she sacrificed herself for me. I did not know what she wanted of me, but I knew it would not be this, not self pity and loathing.

I had to stop these thoughts, leave them in the past and look forward, look to what comes next – if only for Anna and what she had given for my freedom.

“But what does come next? What do I do now I am free?” I asked myself aloud. What did Anna want of me? She never asked anything of me, never hinted, not even a clue – she was just my friend.

I could turn against him, fight him to my last breath. But it would soon be my last breath; I could not stand against him for long, could never defeat him.

So what then? What did the future hold? Slowly it came to me – four years, only four years, not the lifetime it had felt like, the lifetime it could have been.

Anna said that I would see snow again. Had she meant that I would return home? Could I find a way home? Is there a way?

If he could send Nargu to my world then that way at least existed, there could be others – must be others. I had a scholar with me, and he was a learned man; so much so, that my master feared him enough to command his death. I could enlist his help. After all had I not spared his life. I recoiled at the thought – I wanted no help for that.

Jain had done nothing to deserve death, he was an innocent. He owed me nothing. If he helped me it had to be because he wanted to, because he was my friend.

Now was too soon to ask, tomorrow would be too soon, and the days to come. They would be on our trail soon, whoever he sent, and that would be enough to be getting on with. I would settle into this new freedom first, and plan for the future when it was more certain that one even existed for me.

The first attack came barely a week after we left Abarth. Messenger birds fly fast but he had other ways to speak with those who served him, and I suspected they had been on our trail almost from that first day.

Jain had listened to all I had to tell him and shown little surprise throughout. He had known who I was from the start, he said. Known me when I sat opposite in the tavern, guessed that I had come for him, but not known why.

“I have had a good life,” he had said. “Lived it fully and enjoyed it all. So when my eyes fell on you and perceived your intent, I vowed to make my last night a good one… the best. And it was, by god. That Maryn is a fine woman, fine indeed."

He had just accepted all I had told him, and agreed there and then to come with me. “Never one to turn down an opportunity,” he’d said. “Love a good adventure. Just let me get my things together, get my best boots from Graeme the cobbler… can’t go anywhere unless you have good, reliable boots on your feet."

And so we had set out, barely three hours after we had met. What a strange man he was, so trusting and so very full of life. The small voice had spoken again then. You would do well to learn from this man.

They came upon us by night, as I knew they would. As I would have done. But I would have been alone and would have approached them slowly, stealthily, taken them one by one as they slept. But there was nothing slow or stealthy about how they came, nothing subtle at all.

They had waited until full dark, waited until our fire had burnt low, waited until we appeared asleep, and then simply charged, relying on their numbers and the noise they made to terrify us, their victims, into immobility or flight. My knives took two of them from behind as they raced forward towards our campfire.

There had been ten of them, a pitiful number really. They could not have known who they would face. They would have brought more had they known, many more. Three men already lay dead, their throats cut as they waited for the signal to attack. Four Nargu and a woman remained. The man I had been would not have even noticed the woman, she would have just died. But I was different now.

I called out to them from behind as they advanced on the campfire, halting their charge. As they turned to me, Jain rose from his bedroll. A brave and trusting man indeed, for he had agreed to remain at the fire to draw them in. He carried no weapons save a belt knife that I knew of, and yet knives flew from his hands. One sunk deep into a Nargu’s neck, just below its skull, and the beast fell. The other lodged in a second Nargu’s shoulder, hardly penetrating its leather padding. It roared as it turned back to face Jain, and I inwardly cursed him for drawing their attention away from me. But again he amazed me with his calm and fearless approach to life as yet another knife flashed from his hand, embedding itself deep in the Nargu’s eye, even as he stepped forward bringing his walking stick up to block the woman’s sword thrust, and spinning it end over end to strike her across the temple and send her crashing to the floor unconscious.

I quickly dispatched the remaining Nargu as they made to run past me. Nargu maim and kill for sport when the odds are with them, but without a far greater terror to drive them forward they will run at the first opportunity should the odds change. So it was now, they were very quick to see they were outmatched, but alas too slow to avoid my blade.

As I walked to the fire, Jain was binding the woman. Her weapons lay at her side, and quite an array of weapons it was too; far more than I thought she would have been able to easily carry, let alone be able to use. A wickedly sharp, curved long sword, a slim bladed short sword, more like a long knife than a sword really, a half dozen throwing blades and a leather bound iron cosh. Her belt pouch revealed a set of small throwing stars and a blowpipe with needle darts – the woman was no ordinary mercenary.

I nodded to Jain. “Good work, you’re very handy with those knives and that walking stick of yours."

“You can never have enough knives, son. And this,” he said, hefting his walking stick toward me, “is no walking stick."

I caught it, and its weight took me completely by surprise. It looked like a type of slim bamboo, but was far to heavy for that, much heavier than an oak quarterstaff twice its length and width. I gave him a puzzled look.

“Its a Barantu battle staff. Made it myself after I read about how deceptively potent a weapon they could be. Has a rod of iron running right through its centre, and is capped, both ends, with Magya wood, and that’s harder than the finest steel." He grinned and said, “I call her Bess, after my first wife. Now that was one hard woman, hard as they come. Best thing I ever did was to run off and leave her."

I turned it over in my hands, swung it a little. It really was a deceptively wicked weapon, and I could see why he would want to carry such a beauty. It would take potential footpads by complete surprise, as it had me. I laughed as I tossed it back. “Have any other surprises that you want to share with me?” I asked as my eyes turned towards the woman.

And just like that his face changed, all laughter gone from his eyes, his smile replaced with a frown. “I don’t hold with killing, not unless I have to. Nargu are one thing, they’ll skin you for sport. And the men… well they got what was coming to them. But as for the woman… Well, you may have noticed that I believe women to be special, put here to be cherished and loved, to bare children and then be loved some more again.” Turning to the unconscious form on the floor he said, “She might be some kind of mercenary that was sent here to kill us both, but I could not see her killed, could not let—” and with that he trailed off, an embarrassed and yet determined look on his face.

I understood, knew what he had not been able to say. The things that he knew I had done, thought that I had done, my reputation, the stories, all horrific even without the very many exaggerations.

He knew who I was, what I had been. I had told him some of my story, and of how I had changed and escaped Dar'cen’s control.

But there still had to be some doubt, even for a trusting man such as Jain. I had killed without compunction; some stories told of women and children.

Those stories were not true, but would have been had he ordered it. So I told Jain all those things, and of how the man I had been would have killed the woman without a second thought. I looked him in the eye and told him that I was no longer that man, that the man I was now would not have killed the woman, could not have killed her.

As I spoke Jain watched me, looked deep into my eyes as though somehow measuring the truth of what I said.

When I finished, he simple smiled and said, “That’s just what I figured. But I haven’t known you that long, and… after all it would have been her life I wagered against my trust for you. So I thought I would just even the odds a little by putting her to sleep for a little while, until we could talk it through. Knew I was right about you though, just could not bet her life on it."

Then, he chuckled, the smile back on his face, and in his eyes. “If I can get the materials, I’ll make you your own Bess… though somehow I doubt you’ll name her that."

It took only a few questions and very little coercion to get the woman to tell her story.

I told her who I was and that was enough – enough to get her cursing anyway, cursing using some of the most foul language I had ever heard.

Jain winced, and I suspected his view of the fairer sex had been tainted forever.

She told us her story, not out of fear of me, although she was greatly shocked by my revelation. Her fury drove her to talk to us. She had been duped, she said. One of the men, Davi, had enlisted her; they were to track a band of thieves who had robbed his employer. There would be good money in it the man had said. His employer wanted them alive, he said, no bloodshed. Just capture them and take them to him, and a bonus if they both lived.

She had not really been interested, but she did have a liking for Davi. She’d had her eye on him for a while, ever since they fought together a few months back. And so she’d joined them.

The Nargu had turned up the night before they attacked us, and that had not pleased her at all. But Davi had convinced her to stay; the Nargs were just there to put the fear of God into them, he told her.

I thought to myself that Davi had paid a high price for his deceit, he was out there somewhere with his throat cut. But then, I thought that Davi probably didn’t know the truth of it either, he too had been just a tool, a tool to be used by my master.

The woman had been in one fight or another her whole life, ever since she was a child and a pox had taken her family and most of the village. From that point on, her whole life had been a battle, and she soon learned that to survive she needed to fight, and to fight well she needed to learn, to be trained. She apprenticed to the blacksmith in what was left of her village. A strange occupation for a girl, but there had been few left to take on the job, and even less who wanted it. She made horseshoes and the like by day, and taught herself to make knives and axe heads by night.

Harly, the butcher’s son, taught her the little he knew about fighting, but all he was really interested in was trying to get her on the floor in the hay. One evening she put a stop to his advances with a well aimed foot, and so her fighting lessons, such as they were, ended quite abruptly.

Some time later a troop of soldiers passed through the town, and on impulse she had snuck into the back of one of their supply wagons.

She was fifteen then and the rest, she said, was history.

The following morning we saddled the horses, cut the woman free, and set off, leaving her staring in disbelief, as we rode away.

In less than an hour, she had caught up and was riding alongside us. She had thought herself a dead woman, she said, and as long as we were not going to kill her, if it was all the same with us, she would like to keep us company, at least until some better prospects came along. Besides, she said, she would be safer with us than all those out there who were after us. And with that our journey together really began.

Now we were three – Jain, Tarnia and myself.

Step and Garam were also mercenaries, fellow comrades of Tarnia’s, and somewhere in our travels we picked them up too. I was not recruiting an army, I was just trying to keep one step ahead of him, and possibly find a way home.

But they were good company, friends even. That was a very new experience for me, and though I took them into danger, I found it far too hard to send them away.

***

Looking up, my tale not complete but ending on a good note as far as my adventures went, I could see tears in Alex’s eyes. And, under my gaze, she blushed furiously and quickly wiped away the tears with her sleeve.

“Why the tears?” I asked, completely baffled.

Her voice choked, she said, “Its just that, given all the horrors of your other stories, in this one, you finally find friendship, and yet… even that was taken from you when Carthia forced you to return. I just found it sad, that’s all.”

I held back my own tears as I said, “Its okay, Alex. I feel nothing but happiness from these memories. I regained my life and with it came friends, people I could trust, people I loved… and they’re out there somewhere, safe and well.”

It was a lie, I knew, but I could never tell Alex what her double had said in those final seconds. No matter how much she looked like Carthia, Alex had not said those words.

Yet I knew that if I did tell her, she would think of nothing else; she would spend all her time trying to understand why, the woman she considered to be her sister’s heroine, would do such a thing.

Eventually she would come to believe that, on some level, I held her accountable, and that would destroy our budding friendship.

That I did not want, and so I held my silence, smiled and took a sip of my stone cold coffee, as I waited for the inevitable next question.