Mor-Ael felt stupid.

The assassin was trained to survive in the wilderness for prolonged periods of time. But lurking around the forests for days still wasn’t comfortable for a man so used to the cities as him. His two companions felt the same way.

The fact that they had to live in the woods wasn’t the only thing making the three men gloomy. They were one of the few squads dispatched outside of the city of cutthroats in these… turbulent times.

The Great Master of Mor-Ael’s guild was working together with the city’s monarch in an attempt to kill the one that had unexpectedly messed up the state’s internal politics. The assassin had no idea who this strange man was. He had never heard of a ruler, mage or noble with silvery hair and purple eyes. Yet, that same individual controlled most of the guild leaders and criminal organizations at this point. He did it from behind the curtains, too. Mor-Ael witnessed personally how he ordered the Great Master and the Lord of Thieves around like some lowly recruits. Soon one thing got clear for the assassin - this man had to die.

Mor-Ael and his companions attended the guild’s meeting where their leader explained to his men that the task wouldn’t be easy. He revealed that this unknown individual was a sorcerer of immense might and age, despite his youthful appearance.

Most of the guild’s forces were tasked with executing a complex plan that would culminate with the mage’s death. Another part of the trained killers were to be used as reinforcements. The rest, Mor-Ael included, had to wait away from the city in case that the plan failed and the guild received damage. It was the worst possible scenario, but the Great Master wanted to be prepared for it.

Mor-Ael thought of his role as cowardly and useless, but he couldn’t simply disobey direct orders from the highest echelons of the organization. Such a lowly act would be beyond dishonorable.

And so he dined with the meat of forest animals, wore only one pair of clothes (including his trusty hooded assassin’s coat, covered with more pockets that he could count) and slept in caves or between the roots of ancient trees. It wasn’t a comfortable kind of existence, but he and the others were professionals and endured it without difficulty.

The biggest problem for the three men was the crushing boredom that had befallen them. When the assasssins didn’t hunt for food or spent time trying to find wood and start a fire, a borderless pit of empty time engulfed them. They trained with all weaponsp from their arsenal for hours on end – from the long knives to the poison-coated needles, and also did long workouts. But it still wasn’t enough to occupy all of their time or to distract their minds from the inevitable questions growing within.

Why wasn’t no one trying to communicate with them after a whole week? Did the Great Master’s plan fail? No sound came out of the magical device that Mor-Ael brought along as means of connection to the guild. If it stayed silent for another week, the group had to return to Tarha-Nan and see the situation for themselves. All three hoped that the device would start up before this day came.

The questions tortured Mor-Ael and lowered his mood more and more with each passing day. But then something happened. And it definitely occupied some of his time, if anything.

***

The night was as dark and cold as always and it made the assassin dream of well-lit rooms and warm beds. Their sleeping place for tonight was a small cave. It was just a big hole in the side of a hill, but it was dry, solid and vast enough to hold the three of them inside. They made a small fire at its entrance and made sure it couldn’t be seen from afar. Still, one of them remained on watch. Of course, it happened to be Mor-Ael.

The man hated this kind of duty. It was necessary, and yet he could barely endure it. He wasn’t very well suited to the type of loneliness that these dark hours gifted him with. There were lone wolves amongst the ranks of the guild, but he always preferred to be surrounded by colleagues. Sadly, his usual teammates remained in Tarha-Nan. The new ones weren’t as warm to him, to say the least. He felt somewhat isolated during the days, and at night… He was alone in the true sense of the word.

The woods… They were quiet, except for the occasional rustling of leaves and sounds made by owls and other nocturnal animals that echoed through the impenetrable darkness. The fire shrinked over the course of a couple of hours. Mor-Ael kept it burning just because finding branches and pieces of wood laying around helped him cope with the boredom.

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The assassin checked his gear half a dozen times until midnight came around. Everything was flawless – from his spiked gauntlets, armored boots and gloves to the hidden dagger in his boot. There were about fifteen other blades in his attire, coupled with about twenty poison-coated needles and one garrote. It was enough for a whole squad of thugs or lowlifes, but an elite killer such as him wasn’t satisfied with only puny ordinary weapons.

He kept a few magical amulets and charms under his clothes. They held passive spells activated only through simple touching or tapping, and didn’t require any magical power from the user. The other men in his team also had some, but Mor-Ael's - older and with a higher rank than his teammates – were more powerful.

And yet, despite all of his arsenal, the assassin didn’t feel safe in the night’s cold embrace. “We are way too far from the city”, he thought grimly. Too far to react if something happened. And too close to the wilderness. “Who knows what roams these damned woods…”

Mor-Ael stayed awake and on his toes until the weak pink shine from the eastern horizon covered the forest into shadows and filled the air with pale, undefined kind of light. His comrades could easily sleep for another hour or two, but he didn’t have to be as cautious from now on. He just sat near the dying fire and focused on observing the surroundings.

The nature was still – the nocturnal animals were asleep and those that roamed during the daytime hadn’t awoken yet. The landscape was silent and made Mor-Ael calm without all the darkness engulfing it. The trained killer was tired after all of the hours he spent awake, and longed for sleep, barely keeping his eyes open.

And yet, the sounds made him jump up in the moment he heard them.

Those were voices, although still faraway and up the hill, at a couple hundred feet from Mor-Ael, at most. Even in the silence that reigned around, he could barely recognize them – they were like a buzz on the edge of his senses, but they sounded… human. There was no mistaking it, especially for the assassin’s trained ears.

He quickly extinguished what was left of the fire, scattered the ashes and made sure that the cave’s entrance and the signs of human activity were hardly noticeable. Then he proceeded to hide in the nearby bushes up the hill, stay still and calm his breathing. A knife found its way to his hand and he clenched its handle by instinct.

He waited for a couple of minutes before the group of strangers finally neared his position. There were about fifteen to twenty of them, and they definitely were a colorful, strange group of people. Some of them weren’t even people in the traditional sense of the word. There was a member of the Ratkin – the fucking Ratkin – along with what looked like a walking corpse. The latter creature was unknown to Mor-Ael, but he had seen enough weird bastards in his lifetime to think that a living dead man, albeit extraordinary, isn’t anything to get shocked by.

The members of the group were chatting in a loud manner, seemingly unafraid of the forests around them. “They should be”, Mor-Ael said to himself. He could probably take all of them out without too much of a struggle. He wouldn’t do it, of course. The strangers didn’t seem particularly evil or cautious. Everything would be fine as long as they didn’t notice him or the camp.

“Whoever you are, you can come out of these bushes. You smell like a human to the marrow of your bones, clean skin.”

Of course it had to be the big rat. Mor-Ael cursed in his mind, but it was too late. The creature’s words and his pointing claw had raised the attention of the whole group. Everyone took battle stances, although only a few of had actual weapons.

The assassins knew when to surrender, but he quickly hid a couple of needles in his gloves before getting up.

“Well, I guess you caught me.” His smile was well-calculated and had to look natural.

“Who are you, young man? And why were you spying us?” Those words belonged to an old, well-dressed man with a relaxed expression. He didn’t look like a leader, and yet the people around gazed at him with utmost respect. His soft expression showed no fear towards the trained killer, only mild curiosity. 

"Well, I just happened to pass around here and heard your group. You're not exactly hard to notice, you know?" Mor-Ael tried to give his voice the friendliest tone possible. "The people that lurk around these words and avoid the main paths are not usually decent fellas."

The old man smiled slightly, but the woman besides him - probably around forty years younger and gifted with pale, elegant beauty - spoke before he could. 

"You said it yourself, good sir." She smirked, but her voice wasn't warm. "The people around here aren't decent." She looked at the people around her. The assassin noticed their respect towards her. "I do this out of pure suspicion. Ehrir, please confine him."

One of the middle aged men within the group - with medium frame and with black hair reaching to the middle of his back - nodded.

Before Mor-Ael could understand what the man planned, he was between four solid stone slabs that restricted his movement and left only his head free.

"Impressive", hissed the living corpse. "You used the stone within the ground, right?"

"Yeah."

The assassin cursed quietly. Of course they had to be mages.

"Now, good sir, can you answer some questions for me?" The woman's smile was still hanging on her face. It was almost creepy.

"I don't have much of a choice, do I?" 

"No, sir. You don't."

Well, this day began in a really shitty kind of way.