There must have been nearly a hundred men walking briskly toward the room that the two assassins were hiding in. They hadn’t noticed Nathan or Cleo yet, but there weren’t many places to hide, nor was there anywhere to hide Saleh’s body.

“What’s your genius plan to get us out of here?” Cleo hissed, pulling her head back from the doorway.

“Why is the plan always on me? You’re a world class assassin too, why can’t you come up with a plan for once?”

Cleo glared at him and he glared right back. They held their eyes locked together for several wavering moments, the constant thumping of boots growing steadily closer. In less than thirty seconds they would be out of time. They couldn’t fight their way out of this. Not with a hundred men coming at them. Not in the shape that they were both in.

Cleo’s right eye twitched, her lip curling up in annoyance. Finally, she cursed and looked away.

“Fine. But you aren’t going to like it.”

“I don’t like you either, but here I am.”

***

Nathan screamed. He screamed his aching heart out, falling hard to his knees, the navy cloth soaking in dark blood and turning an ugly purple. He reached down with shaking hands, grasping at Saleh’s crisp white lapel and pulling the man toward him. Saleh’s head flopped back wetly as Nathan let out a sob.

“You evil bitch!” he screamed, eyes red and bulging. “How could you? Show yourself! Show yourself, and face my wrath, you coward!”

He spun around on the ground, eyes looking wildly in all directions for Cleo. She was nowhere to be seen.

She was right. He did not like her plan, as it involved him doing all of the work. Unfortunately, he had no better ideas.

All in all, he thought his performance was just okay. Not his best work by far. No, that would have to go to when he played the part of a lovesick circus ringleader in order to get close to a Spanish duke and assassinate him. But this was decent.

Major Corvus was first through the doorway, his drooping face falling further than usual as he took in the bloody scene. “Colonel,” he yelled, obviously out of breath from running the last twenty feet to the door after Nathan started screaming. His eyes bulged upon seeing Saleh. “Is that… Mercer? What the hell happened here, Colonel?”

“My assistant,” Nathan seethed, pushing himself to his feet. His eyes burned with a fury that was entirely false. It was easy to bring up negative feelings when thinking of Cleo, afterall. “She betrayed us. I think she was working for a rival guild. As soon as we got to the final room, she killed Mercer and then tried to kill me.”

Corvus put a hand to his circular mouth in shock.

“I was barely able to fight her off, but then she went invisible.” Nathan spun in a slow circle, feigning to look for Cleo. She really had turned invisible. Apparently that was how she’d been able to become so quiet lately, and how she appeared out of nowhere during the fight with the Keeper of the Crypt, but he knew where she was. If she were following the plan, she should already be outside the room and quickly heading toward the exit. And hopefully, Nathan would soon be following her.

“An assassin,” Corvus breathed, tiny flecks of foam forming at the corners of his fat lips. “She didn’t happen to take the dungeon’s treasures… did she? That would be, ah, quite a shame.”

Good to see he has his priorities straight. Maybe I can keep him in the dungeon longer if he believes that the treasures are still here.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Nathan started heading toward the exit as several more men filed into the room. “No, Major, she did not.” He picked up his pace, lengthening his stride. The amount of soldiers in the room was starting to become worrisome, he’d have to shove his way through them to just get to the door.

“Colonel,” Corvus called from behind. His voice had taken on a different tone. A bit more confident. A bit more… smug. “You didn’t happen to have taken them then, did you?”

Nathan’s forward progress ground to a sudden, silent halt. His head was slightly lowered toward the ground, but he knew that all eyes were on him. He could sense the anticipation in the room, the sweaty palms nervously wrapping slick fingers around the hilts of weapons. It was the calm before a storm, that split second moment before a fuse goes out where one knows exactly what is coming, but is helpless to stop it.

The assassin straightened his back, lifting his eyes to see the men surrounding him. Some met his eyes, most did not. “No, Major,” Nathan replied, speaking his words precisely. “I did not. As I said–”

“But then where–” Corvus pursed his lips and placed a hand against his chin “–did you get that new dagger on your belt? You certainly didn’t have it when you came in.”

Not quite as sloppy as you look, are you?

Nathan turned and stared into Corvus’s moist, smiling eyes. He knew he had been found out. They both did. But that didn’t mean he was caught. First you get the fish on the line, then you have to reel it in. And as all good fishermen knew, the best fish fought back.

Nathan narrowed his eyes dangerously, resting one hand easily atop the soft leather hilt of his new dagger. It was not a pose meant as a threat. Not yet at least.

These men knew nothing about Nathan. They didn’t even know his real name was Nathan. The only information that they had to base their judgements on was that he was supposedly a Colonel within their guild – and even that was a lie. But they did not need to know anything about him to understand that he was dangerous. A man does not need to understand a tiger to fear its claws. He moved with practiced motions, each step not wasting an ounce of energy as he crossed the room to stand before Corvus.

“How much are you willing to wager on that assumption?” Nathan said. He kept his voice quiet, but in that moment, in that still room, he may as well have yelled.

Corvus swallowed heavily, his eyes darted between Nathan and the men behind him, as if gauging the odds. The large man smacked his wet lips several times, and then they split into an unexpected grin.

“You know,” Corvus said in his baritone voice. “I’d never heard of you before today, Colonel Elijah. But Mercer vouched for you so I decided to believe you.” His heavy hand slapped Nathan on the shoulder, holding on tightly. He leaned in close and if Nathan had been able to smell the wine on his breath earlier, now it was almost overwhelming. “But I wanted to verify your story just in case.”

The major chuckled heartily before speaking in a mocking tone. “And Commander Tyson had never even heard of you.”

I think I might be in trouble.

Corvus brought his lips next to Nathan’s ear and spoke quietly, “And now, no one else ever will.”

Corvus’s weighty fingers dug into Nathan’s shoulders with a crushing grip. He could feel the entire left half of his body beginning to go numb beneath the pressure. The pain was white hot, the roof of his shoulder starting to fracture. Then, with terrifying ease, Corvus lifted him off his feet – no magic, no threads, just strength – and held him dangling in the air.

“You nearly got away with it,” he said. “Slipped right under our noses like a little rat – had poor Mercer there fooled as well.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the corpse of Saleh while two men were already in the process of wrapping him in a dark cloth. “But you weren’t quite slippery enough.”

“Fuck you.”

Nathan kicked the fat man in the face. Boot to soft tissue and brittle bone, his nose shattered. Corvus howled, releasing Nathan involuntarily as his hands went to his splattered nose.

There was no time to assess the damage to his shoulder. He needed to get out of there. Now.

He’d already taken in all of his surroundings by the time his feet hit the ground. Roughly twenty men packed tightly into the cramped room, half of those between him and the door. That meant another eighty or so outside.

Corvus was busy screaming bloody murder as Nathan charged toward the exit. In seconds, the room was thrown into chaos. The smart guards got out of his way, stumbling backward, getting in the way of the braver guards. It was a tangled mess of limbs and half drawn weapons.

It was around the time that Nathan was pulling his new blade from the armpit of the first guard stupid enough to stand in his way that he came to several realizations.

First, his magic was running dangerously low.

And second, low did not mean empty.

A warm rush of healing energy flowed from the body of the now dead guard and into Nathan. This new ring is going to come in very handy.

With the last of his magical strength, Nathan summoned the next Echo that he had. The Mutated Nightshade Maw.