Arman staggered along the top of the cliff in the light of the moon. He glanced skyward and watched as the silver moon seemed to dance with a red moon that had appeared in the sky. The silver moon was normal, the red one wasn't. It was an ominous omen.
It had first appeared in the sky the night before, when the silver moon was full. The night when they had gone into an unknown wilderness hunting. Hunting for creatures with huge fangs, strong claws, and even stronger jaws.
He winced as he placed his left foot mere inches from the edge, the movement sending a jolt of pain through his shattered and torn left arm. He had set it as well as he could, but upon second inspection he had noticed a small piece was floating around, and would continue to cause him pain. There was nothing he could do about it though. To top it off the muscle in his arm was torn and he had been bleeding badly. His good coat had now been torn to shreds so that he could bind the wound and stop the bleeding.
But the blood loss had caused him to be unsteady on his feet. He couldn't stay still though. He would die out here if he didn't manage to find something. Something to eat, something to drink, somewhere to sleep, maybe even some herbs to help with the healing. But here there was nothing.
Not here, on top of a cliff that was only a few yards wide, with sheer drops on both sides. On an island in the middle of the ocean that no one had ever found before. A silver wolf skeleton, its jaw easily three times the size of a man, sat on the ground at the very middle of the island, protected by the cliff he stood atop. The other side fell away to the ground below, a forest covering the land to the ocean.
He couldn't climb down the way he had gotten up. Not with one arm out of action. But there had to be a way. How else had that wolf managed to get up to the top to fight him. There had to be another way down. Unless the wolf had gone straight up the cliff face.
He shook his head for thinking such absurdities, and then wished he hadn't. A wave of giddiness over took him and he staggered a few steps to the right, away from the internal cliff edge thankfully.
His eyes closed as he moved, and then for a moment the pain was gone.
* * *
His eyes opened and he looked down on the cliff top. He tried to search for the pain and couldn't find it. He smiled. Then the realisation struck him, he must be dead then. He couldn't feel his body, couldn't move his arms or legs. He didn't have any arms or legs.
He heard a voice below him though, and strained to listen. The words were familiar, but he couldn't make them out. He turned his head in the direction of the sound and looked down upon himself, standing face to face with a wolf.
Arman watched as the scene from a few hours earlier was played out before him. He saw the wolf tear at his arm and break it. He watched the fight from a third perspective and realisation struck him.
The wolf had been letting him win. Keeping him on his toes enough to think the fight was a struggle, but letting him have what he thought was the last laugh. Even the final blow had been staged.
Arman watched as his claw dragged into the wolf and his feet propelled the beast over the edge of the cliff. Life blood flowing from numerous wounds and a drop to sure death under it, and it felt like the wolf had been smiling at him. Arman had given the wolf exactly what it wanted.
His incorporeal mouth dropped in a gape. The wolf, whom his master Innic had called Ohenoki, had wanted to die. But had dying really achieved anything for the wolf. Was it part of some plan to stop Innic or Arman. He couldn't answer these questions. All he knew was that the wolf had left him as good as dead then happily gone on its merry way over the cliff edge to certain doom.
A voice sounded from beside him.
“You shouldn't be here!”
He turned to look at the voice but pain overwhelmed him, and his body convulsed.
* * *
Arman's right foot gave way and he collapsed to his knee. But with his weakness at the moment his body kept its momentum until his right shoulder was touching the ground. Only then did he stop. He lowered his head then until his forehead was on the rock.
“Why leave me like this?”
He pushed his right arm beneath himself and forced his body to stand up again. All these sudden movements were not good for his arm. So he did his best to take his shirt off and then use it to strap his arm by his side. With his teeth, and good hand, he tied the sleeves in a knot and winced as he rocked by waves of pain again.
That's all his life was at the moment. Going from pain to pain. Why had the wolf not just killed him? Why did every bone and every muscle in his body call out for him to stay alive. On the edge of exhaustion, losing blood, hungry, thirsty, and still his self-preservation mode engaged.
He tried to think back again on how many other times he had felt like this. The answer came back to him. None.
He had never faced a foe like this. Nor felt pain like this. He had walked through town with daggers sticking out of his flesh, he had taken crossbow bolts through the leg. He had even been shot by a musket. But he had always survived, and never had the pain felt like this.
But there had always been somewhere for him to go, someone to assist him. Here he had nothing, and no one. Here he was alone. Truly alone for the first time in his life. True, he had no friends, but there had always been people, and everyone had their price. But here, not any amount in the world was going to save him now.
All he could do was walk forward and look for a way down. His eyes scanned the curved cliff top. Where he had come from was wonderful and warm, like summer. But further around dry, dead leaves were whipped up by the wind. Even further around black storm clouds gathered and lightning crackled with all its might. And, finally, the last section of what he could see was currently covered in a fine mist of rain, with the sun shining through in patches.
He smirked, not quite understanding what he was seeing, and drifted back into unconsciousness.
* * *
He watched from afar as a person who looked remarkably like himself crept stealthily into the library. His mind was wide awake, and realised he was watching his own memories as if through the eyes of someone else. This one of a ‘hit’ he had done just before he had seen the Captain arrive carrying the beast.
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His target was sleeping lounged in a chair, alone in the room, fire crackling. The fire masked any sounds he might make to alert the man of his presence. Thankfully there was no one else in the manse though, so he could kill the man without fear of waking anyone else up.
He watched as he drew his short sword and then slide it through the back of the chair, and the chest of his target, in one sharp motion. The man grabbed for the sword but his fingers fell loose quickly and the body slumped.
Arman looked at himself, saw the gleam of glee in his eyes as he did the kill. Then he noticed a shadowy figure standing on the other side of himself, watching him also. He didn't remember the figure being there. It looked up and directly at him.
“You shouldn't be here!”
The room rushed around him and changed. It changed frequently. His life flashing before his eyes. He was dying, and just as they said, your life flashed before you. Thankfully he didn't regret any of his life that he remembered.
He saw the arrow that had sailed into the heart of a prince from a neighbouring country.
He saw the merchant drink the wine he had poisoned.
He even saw prostitute that he had strangled when she had tried to over-charge him.
And in every case the shadowy figure was there. It seemed to be getting more and more annoyed at Arman. Not at the Arman in his memories, but at the Arman that was watching on, as if it could see him, even though he himself could not. It confused him to no end.
He watched as his master gave him his first contract.
He watched as the ceremony of the Assassins Guild neared its conclusion, all the other members lying dead at his feet, his hands and face covered in blood and smiling. Teachers at the academy pocketing large sums of gold at his win.
He watched as he went through the training exercises. Striving day after day to be better than the day before, and to exceed those around him. He would be the favourite to graduate this year, they would be placing bets on him.
His memories raced backwards, faster and faster as the man kept waving his hand at him and flinging him on to another memory. Then he saw his earliest memory.
A man took him to the front door of the academy, all cloaked in dark colours and obscured by the night. He was less than five then. The grounds keeper had opened the door and taken a note. His eyes had widened as he read it. Soon he was ushering the boy inside. He smiled at the boy, warm and friendly, and waved to the man who had brought him.
Arman had never found out what the note had said, but he had been welcomed to the academy. They had taught him everything, from reading and writing, to his sums. Then, when he was of an age, they had taught him their secret arts. He now understood why they had taken him in though.
“It's because it was your destiny. It was written in the stars,” the shadowy figure spoke to him, “and you are a persistent one. You shouldn't be here!”
And then the pain started up again.
* * *
He looked around and realised he had managed to make it half way around the cliff. Even if he hadn't been in a dream state this would have been a miraculous feat. He looked out over the storm clouds that were now in front of him and watched as the snow fell from them.
He was dying, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The figure had said he was destined to be a killer. But was that just something from his dream? Was he just making excuses up so that he didn't feel bad about feeling good. Because the killing did make him feel good. The adrenaline rushing through his body, the blood pumping through his veins, it made him feel more alive.
He was dying, and he could think of nothing else to do but make it end quicker. He pulled himself to an upright position at the edge of the cliff and jumped. He jumped towards the storm clouds and fell. As he plummeted towards the ground below he lost consciousness again.
* * *
He looked at a room. It was a cosy room. He didn't remember the room, but it made him feel warm and safe. A woman was sitting in a rocking chair, rocking slowly backward and forward. Two children played at her feet. They looked similar, but had slight differences. They were playing with some coloured wooden blocks. They must have been about three or four years old.
A window opened and a man leaned in.
“Penelope, hurry, they are on their way now,” he spoke in hushed tone but with great hurry about his words, “we knew the day would come, quick, give me the children.”
The woman in the chair stood quickly, knocking it over.
“So soon? I thought we had more time.”
“Quickly now, they will be at the door in any moment.”
The woman, Penelope, grabbed the child with the sandy coloured hair and rushed to the window. A sound from downstairs like splintering wood could be heard. She passed the child out the window to the waiting arm who took him quickly. The child was carried to the bottom of a ladder.
She grabbed the other child, his hair raven dark, and held him close as she waited for the man to climb back up the ladder. But he was too late, the people coming inside were just outside the door to the room. She pushed the ladder away from the window and slammed it shut, clutching the second child fiercely.
Three men burst into the room. Two in full armour and carrying longswords, the third a large man in a heavy cloak, much like the one from his previous memories.
“Give us the child Penelope. It doesn't have to end with blood,” he proffered a hand towards her to take the child.
“For you it does! It always does!” Penelope screamed out at her attackers and tried to rush to the side.
One of the guards stepped in front of her and grabbed her arm as she brought it up to slap him. With his other arm he pulled the child from her grip and pushed her away, where she slumped against the wall.
“Yes, yes, this is the brat we want, just where my master said he would be, and with the mark he is supposed to have too. We have what we need, kill the girl and come, we have planning to do.”
The guards advanced on the woman as the third man started walking away. Arman could see a small mark on the back of the child's neck, a mark that was vaguely familiar. The woman screamed, and then he saw the shadowy figure watching the child be taken away. The mother didn't matter to him, only the child. With a belligerent wave of its hand the shadowy figure sent him away again. Not even bothering to speak.
* * *
His eyes opened just as he plunged into a large snow bank. Amazingly enough it broke his fall as the snow gave way before him. Soon he was rolling on his side on top of soft snow next to a tree. It seemed strange that even after trying to plunge hundreds of feet to his death he was still alive.
His head raised and he saw a cave not far away.
Maybe the shadowy man from his dreams had been looking out for him. He lifted himself up from the cold and staggered his way over to the cave. The pain was still there, but he was getting used to it by now, the sharpness that once caused him to fall just becoming a dullness, mixing with the rest of the issues he now faced.
He saw a pile of pine needles laying on the floor over to one side and burrowed himself into them. Warmth started to spread through his body and his eyes started to drift shut.
It was too late when he realised this was not the warmth of pine needles, but must be the warmth of approaching death. But his eyes closed anyway, and sleep overcame him quickly.
* * *
Arman realised he had a body this time as he walked through a shifting world towards what appeared to be a clearing. In the clearing things seemed to take a more substantial form. This must be what death felt like, all blurs and soft edges.
A log sat in the middle of the clearing, and upon that log sat the shadowy figure from earlier. The shadowy figure that had watched him through all his dreams. Had always been watching him. His mind drifted back to the last dream.
The shadowy figure had always watched him. And the figure had watched the small boy get dragged away from his mother. Was he the small boy? No, he couldn't be, he didn't have a birthmark on the back of his neck. He felt behind his neck with his hand and remembered. He had a tattoo on the back of his neck, and had had it for as long as he could remember. Maybe someone didn't want anyone else knowing he had a birth mark.
The shadowy figure beckoned him, and he found himself unable to do anything but obey. He walked over and sat beside the figure.
“You shouldn't be here, but while you are, I can at least tell you some things you need to know.”
The voice made him feel comfortable and slowly he forgot that he was dying in a cave on a forgotten island for a master he had never actually met.