40 – Destrian’s Group

My body was falling down the pit in a high speed. The distance with surface was increasing at high pace and as a result the light that reflected through the entrance was getting dimmer.

Terran Tiger’s body was a meter or even less than that away from me. I was afraid that as the first one to hit the ground, I would end up as a splashed tomato. That’s why I raised my hands towards sky and tiger’s body passed me. In the span of two breaths, I tried to grab from tiger’s fur so that I land on its body and don’t end up as a cripple.

Instead of its fur my hand clutched into tiger’s ear. Terran tiger growled in pain which was picked up by my ears even though my ears were numb because of “swooshing” sounds that were weeping them.

In the next moment or so, large tiger ear disappeared from my hand. Tiger’s body disappeared as the air began to hit my body again because of the friction of the down fall.

“SPLASH”

Momentarily I had collapsed into a pool. I struggled in the water because I didn’t expected to fall into cold water. Bubbles of air were floating towards the top. I swam up and my head was released out of water.

I inhaled air in fast breaths.

The water pool was still. “It must be an underground lake or pool”, I whispered. Looking towards the sky I couldn’t see any light at all. Actually I didn’t know where the shore is. Darkness was dominant.

The next moment, “shzhshzh” sound echoed around. Few meters away from my current location a man was standing. He had a torch in his hand.

I swam towards the man and got out of the pool. His face was visible because of the light emitted from the flame torch. His eyes were covered with black cotton cloth piece. Nevertheless from initial second he was facing me as if he ‘saw’ me.

“Little Kain”, he uttered.

“Follow the blind man and the cat”, I said out loud.

“Sshhh, quit.. They may hear you”, he said pointing towards the entrance of the cave.

A cat appeared on his left shoulder. It licked it’s paw and looked at me ferociously.

“Isn’t that the Terran Tiger?”, I asked the ‘blind’ man.

“It’s a Tiger King!”, the man replied.

“How should I address you?”, I asked the ‘blind’ man again.

“I will be Stark and you will be called Lin”, blind Stark replied.

“Alright”, I nodded in agreement.

“Follow me”, he said and I began to run in fast pace after Stark.

In less than ten minutes we were out of the deep cave on a mountain road. There were around 50 tents in the area where we went to.

Stark introduced me to the rest as Lin whose family was traveling from Catalon lands to Astoria for better life. According to Stark’s tale, unfortunately my family’s caravan was ambushed by wild Terran Tiger’s on our way and I was the only one who was left alive.

After introductions and with Stark’s recommendation I became part of ‘Lightening Lily’s Troupe’. The group was performing public and private shows in different regions. It’s main program for public shows was similar to a circus.

For private shows there was a special group maiden’s headed by the owner of the troupe Lily. I had not seen Lily when I arrived. She was kind of a mystery woman to me for a while as she never appeared in public. And whenever she did so, she covered most of her body including her face.

Members of the troupe knew Stark as a blind man with extraordinary strength. Stark looked after Dark Horses and Raging Red Bulls that were used to pull the carriages. There were only two Dark Horses which were used to pull the Lily’s carriage. The rest of the carriages were being carried by the Raging Red Bulls.

Dark Horses were three meter tall strong animals which were similar to horses in appearance but their diet included sheep and goat meat. Raging Red Bulls were domesticated animals that were as fast as horses but much more durable to hot and cold weather. Their diet consisted of green grasses and leaves of different plants and trees. Sometimes Stark fed them fruits.

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To make everything much more clear, the time when we were departing the Monarch Academy with the group to head over to the Molten Peak, Kyle whispered to my ear. He said to me “Follow the blind man and the cat”. I was doing so.

Stark was doing his best to alienate the rest of the group from being in contact with me. So for the next three months of the travel more or less I didn’t know anyone. To tell the truth I cared less.

However what took my interest was Stark’s talks regarding where we were heading.

According to him, Stark had been member of the “Lightening Lily’s Troupe” for the last 8 months. He has been looking after the safety and health of the animals while troupe camped. Stark had joined the troupe when they were in lands of the House of Forbes.

All I knew was we were heading to the lands of the House of Byron. The troupe was going to travel up to 10 cities in the Byron lands. Stark didn’t revealed to me in which city we were going to depart the troupe but he said that we were going there for an assassination.

Most of the time I walked with Stark at the back of the caravan. Sometimes mercenaries and bodyguard’s hired by the troupe accompanied us but Stark avoided talking to them most of the time. He kept it to bare minimum.

First time when I mentioned ‘Sir Destrian’s name to Stark, he had an ironic smile on his face. “That old prick is a useless shit who is neither a noble nor a warrior... His group is much useless than himself”, was Stark’s reply.

The Cohen family was running an underground assassination team. Destrian’s group was a cover that Cohen Family used to display to the powers of the continent. As much as I understood even “Stark” was not informed about the number of assassins employed by the Cohen family. Although he knew that there were quite a few people and each one of them was more powerful than Destrian’s group.

Actually even in my state as a 4th rank martial artist (warrior) and 5th rank magician, I was more powerful than Destrian’s group. I lacked experience.

Anyhow, I didn’t know what the mission was. I didn’t know up to which point I was going to be involved in the plan. I didn’t know what the plan was. Moreover I didn’t give a fuck.

After three months of travel with the troupe we reached troupe’s first destination. Neft city was an ordinary one in my eyes as I had seen grand cities of the continent. The houses and buildings had typical cubic designs. Most of the structures were no more than 2 story tall.

The only grand building in the Neft city belonged to the governor who ruled the city in the name of the House of Byron. Nevertheless it was not something extraordinary either.

People of the lands of the House of Byron had nonintellectual and vulgar/vandal aura surrounding them. Even if they tried to sound and act as friendly as they could there was some-kind of disdain that I felt. Maybe I was wrong. It was my subjective point of view.

The troupe moved close an open arena out of Neft city. Tent’s were made to accommodate the performers and the rest of the troupe members. The next night few thousand people had come to enjoy the troupe’s public performance.

City guards helped the troupe to seat the people and to keep the peace while the performance.The Neft city’s governor’s family was present as spectators too.

It was a great show. Mix of acrobatic dances and artistic juggling by the human and animal performers blended pure ecstasy into hearts of the audience. Choreographed and highly polished fire show had stunned and amazed the audience.

Likewise I enjoyed the show too. It lasted for few hours and ended up at late night when both moons were shining bright in the sky.

Applause and cheers could be heard a kilometer away from the arena. Even the blind ‘Stark’ had a wide grin on his face. “Is he really blind?”, was the last question that passed my mind before we went to sleep.

P.S: Anyone expected this kind of outcome?