The Norse Shinobi, that was the name Charlie had given to the survivors she left alive.

One of Tir’s great assassins, a little girl with a can-do attitude and smile that speaks beyond her years.

If the Norse Shinobi arrived and declared you to be her target, you might as well fall to your knees and accept a merciful death. Most of the targets hoped and prayed that their killing was the Norse Shinobi and not the other great assassin from Tir, The Pale Death.

Unlike the Norse Shinobi, running from The Pale Death made the assassination worse.

Sylvia Goturix, the woman next to the snow elf, crumbled under the pressure of Charlie just pointing at her.

Falling to her knees, she started to cry in frustration and looked towards anyone or anything that could save her.

“H-H-H-Hughes please, Lord Hughes, save me.”

Hughes sighed. He looked offended, as if he was upset that a legendary Tir assassin wasn’t here for him.

“Men, it was a pleasure, really it was. I’ll make sure to place your names on some gravestones in Noin.”

Hughes turned and started to walk away looking for an exit. “Sylvia, I’m giving up my men’s own lives to save myself and you. So, do your best to escape”

The soldiers and mages roared a battle cry. Charlie and Freya could feel their loyalty in their emotions, in their tone of voice.

These men were willing to die for the snow elf known as Hughes.

“It’s always the sleezy looking ones that have loyalty like this from others,” Freya complained.

The mages charged their meteor attacks and the soldiers rushed head long towards Charlie.

Charlie aimed the hook-claw at the ceiling, she pressed the button on the handle and the claw section shot out.

It pierced the ceiling, although not very well. The claw itself was connected to a chain. Pressing the button again, the chain started to pull Charlie up, dodging the soldiers who had made it to her, swinging their swords in frustration as they missed.

Meteors started to fly through the air, Charlie used the chain and swung her body to dodge the meteors. Her movements and swings had speed to them.

She dodged a majority of them and had one close call that singed the ends of her hair.

As she swung towards Sylvia, who was trying to stand up and run out the same exit Hughes did, Charlie pulled out one of the twin summers blade, Freya’s godsend.

She tilted her body and sliced at one of the mages who was attacking her on her way to Sylvia. He died instantly from the attack Charlie had given him, slicing his neck.

Charlie pulled the claw out of the ceiling once she was closer to Sylvia, returning the weapon back into standby mode. She did a somersault in the air and landed right in front of her target. Stopping her in her tracks, the grown woman was frozen by fear of the young child.

The mages stopped firing, they didn’t want to burn Sylvia to a crisp. The soldiers at this point ran up the stairs to the second floor and stood ready to face Charlie.

Charlie pulled out her remaining assassin daggers, Sylvia could hear the young assassin muttering a word in strange language as she held the daggers.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Aldrnari.”

Charlie then pushed her target against the wall and stabbed one of the daggers into her right shoulder. Sylviascreamed out as the dagger held her in place.

Charlie then turned around, the mages had started to charge again and the soldiers who had done nothing at this point, charged with anger at the fact that a little girl had nullified and neutered them in battle.

Charlie smiled and stuck out her tongue. Even in their anger and rage their intrinsic thoughts raged in their minds.

“This Norse elf is extremely cute.”

Charlie winked and threw one dagger with a flick of her wrist; it sped past the soldiers and headed towards the mages.

She then threw another dagger, but this time with less strength. It went straight towards the soldiers rushing her.

Extending her left palm out she whispered in a cute tone, “Blæst!”

At the same moment she whispered the command, she made a fist and rotated that fist to face the ceiling.

The two prepped daggers she focused her ather on exploded simultaneously. One of the daggers pinpointed the chest of a mage; the explosion instantly killed the mage it stabbed.

The other mage stood next to the explosion, which burned half of his body causing him to panic and lash out wildly. Falling from the second floor platform, the mage fell to his death.

The other dagger exploded in a radius that killed some of the soldiers while knocking out others. One of the men who tanked the explosion landed on his knees.

His face and hair were partially gone from the burning explosion, his anger and rage flared his resolve.

He was not going to die without even swinging his sword once.

The scarred soldier gritted his teeth and put all his weight into his right foot, making a last ditch mad dash towards the Norse Shinobi.

Worry and shock formed on Charlie’s face as the soldier lifted his sword and sliced down. His sword connected withCharlie’s chest, and the soldier looked up at her face.

Her expression turned from worry and shock to a cute smile. She whispered: “Vardøger.”

He recognized the language, it was Norse but he had no time to figure out what it meant.

The sword started to go through Charlie whose body started to appear ghostly. The real Charlie jumped back, dodging the blade, a shadow clone or a doppelgänger had appeared where Charlie had stood and was the one to take the attack.

The soldier's face slumped. It was over, he knew he lost. Charlie pulled one of the blades of twin summer out from under her cloak and stabbed the soldier once, giving him a warrior's death.

Syliva saw as the young Norse girl systematically took down the soldiers and mages. She didn’t care about the dagger in her shoulder, she didn’t care about asking for forgiveness from her sins. She also didn’t care that her life was about to end.

She just remembered what the citizens of Tir whispered to each other, the rumors and legends of the assassins of the Tir underworld.

“If you see the Norse Shinobi or The Pale Death, just accept death and beg for a merciful kill.”

As tears flew down her face, Charlie turned around and cutely smiled at her.

They both knew that Syliva had accepted death and wanted a merciful one.

///

Noin

Alessandro pushed the two children into the carriage. Radcliffe stood beside him with his back straight like a soldier.

“Now you two listen to Radcliffe, he’s your superior,” Alessandro said with a laugh.

Gia, the young girl, stared silently at Alessandro and his bodyguard. Luca, whose wounds and bruises had been treated, sat next to Gia, between her and the two men.

He was acting as a barrier protecting the young girl. Alessandro asked the two if they understood. They both said nothing to him. This was incredibly frustrating to Alessandro, it made him appreciate even more how amazing of a granddaughter Elena was.

“I need you to speak when spoken to!” he yelled. These two weren’t at all like Radcliffe, they had that spark of rebellion in them.

Gia cowered at Alessandro’s raised voice, she took both of her hands and covered her ears. Luca quickly hugged her and placed her head closer to his chest.

“She can’t speak, and her ears are sensitive.” Luca's tone of voice was soft, as to not hurt the ears of the girl he loved, but his vitriol and hatred still stood out of his hushed tone.

The girl lifted her hand away from her ears and started to move her hands, gesturing in communication.

“Ah, sign language. So, this world has that as a form of communication as well,” Alessandro thought. His arm and fingers ached, yearning to fetch his notebook and write down this new information.

He only knew the common tongue and one language from the kingdom of Elena that closely resembled Italian.

“We understand,” Luca begrudgingly responded.

“You understand her?”

Luca hesitated but eventually remembered that Alessandro would yell if he didn’t say anything, hurting Gia’s ears. “Only a bit, I would write in the sand or dirt and she would read it. She taught me a little bit of her hand movements and what they mean.”

Alessandro thought it was strange, Neco would have told him the girl was defected. He asked the boy if the slavers or other slaves knew she was mute.

“No, we kept it a secret. They would have just taken her away and possibly killed her.” As Luca spoke, Gia grabbed his hand. While the two were only children their short lives as slaves had matured them.

It also made Alessandro question if Luca was a retainer, even Gia could be one with how powerful her soul was. She could just be faking her muteness. Again his arm flexed, instinctively wanting to grab his notebook and write.

Alessandro closed the carriage door, patted Radcliffe on back, and sent them off. He immediately took out his pocket notebook and feather portable pen.

Alessandro had instructed Radcliffe to take the two into the capital of Noin, Hura, which was near the slave encampment area. There they were to be bathed, checked for disease, and properly clothed.

Alessandro would stay behind and spend quality time with his Trinity informant Neco.

“I either break the children or earn their trust; the boy has to be special for Lady Minerva to adamantly push for him. He could even be a retainer. I need to use his love for the girl and get him on my side or to slip up and expose himself.”

He started to make the long trek into the castle of Noin, still lost in thought and scribbling down the plans and outcomes he thought about.

“What's the next stop of the plan after you're done with that barbaric woman?” Minerva's voice echoed in his mind.

“I need to speak with Hughes first before going anywhere else. He changes location rapidly so knowing he’s in Tir is probably my only chance at getting any information on this so called royal slave.”

He finished his writing session and then turned back a few pages. He crossed out “speak with Trinity and receive the slave they owe you.”

“Also, Tir has some of the best assassins guilds in this land. There has to be a retainer in their ranks, and even if there isn’t… we could shop around for my last sub-retainer. I personally know the leader of Tir’s premier assassin guild.”