Lyla was exhausted.

  Not physically, but mentally.

  She was an assassin, trained to kill single-digit targets at a time and that was from the shadows. She’d spent a lifetime training to slip into the darkened corners of homes, skulk across creaking floorboards, tip-toe up groaning stairs. She’d been taught to slide behind her targets, cover their mouths. Drag her blade across their throats or jab a dagger between their ribs and into their hearts and be gone before anyone noticed.

  She definitely was not trained for this.

  Bells tolled across the fields like a funeral procession, even as the screams of dying men were going silent. Bodies lay sprawled across the fields around her, choking face first in pools of their own blood or with hands clasped around throats that could no longer breathe. She’d lost count of how many had fallen to her. Hundreds certainly.

  And still there were more.

  She ducked under the soldiers blade as he sliced through the air at her head, instinctively sliding behind him but then she felt a blow to her right shoulder which took her off-balance. She turned to the other threat as she felt movement in the air behind her. She somersaulted to her left, let the third soldier stab his broadsword against the mailed back of the first. She flicked both wrists, letting the daggers fly from her hands to hit the second and third soldiers clean in the face, as she grabbed another dagger from her waist, pounced forwards and jammed it under the chin of the first one just as he was turning to face her.

  “Still two left,” Elliott called, appearing at her shoulder, before he [Stealthed] again. She glanced up, seeing a fourth soldier bearing down on her with a spiked mace as a fifth notched an arrow to a bow several metres away. She sheathed the bloodied dagger in her hand, grabbed the two from the faces of the felled soldiers and ran forward. She flicked her wrist again, the dagger in that hand flying towards the archer. She heard the wet thump of the dagger as it caught the archer as she stepped aside from the incoming mace. The soldier’s overhead swing of the mace missing its target caused him to stumble and gave her the split second she needed to jam her dagger in his eye, before cutting his throat.

  “You’re not done yet,” Elliott called again. She scanned left and right, trying to see what she was missing. She’d never had to face so many opponents at the same time before. She’d never fought in the open in daylight like this either. Her work had always been from the comforts of darkness. It wasn’t a matter of strength. These were unranked soldiers. They could barely scratch her. But trying to keep track of all the movement around her was taking its toll on her mind.

  She was far from being at the same level as her newfound companions.

  She found the group of soldiers Elliott was referring to – at least, she hoped it was. They had abandoned any pretence of wanting to fight as they ran in a tight cluster towards the north. They were trying to get away from her, clambering over the bodies of others she had already taken care of as she’d zigzagged her way towards the Temple entrance, trying to ensure none escaped.

  She sauntered over to the archer she had killed and kicked his body over. His eyes were open as he took long, deep breaths, her knife protruding from his neck between the fingers of his hand. As long as it stayed there, he could breathe.

  She knelt down, placed a hand over his eyes as she grasped the grooved hilt of the dagger and pulled. The blade came free with a soft exhale of air followed by a gurgle of blood. The soldier gasped but instead of trying to stop the flow of blood, he let his hands fall to his side. He knew it was over for him. Why delay the inevitable?

  “They’re getting away,” Elliott said, blinking into existence a few feet from her, squatting between dead men.

  The group of soldiers had managed to cover twenty metres. She almost sighed. What was the point of running? Lyla [Lunged] forwards, followed by [Dash] as she covered the ground in mere moments. She caught up to the rear of the group, slashing the tendons at the back of the knees of the first soldier she got behind. As he dropped, she sliced across his throat, as she jammed her blade under the armpit of the one just in front of her. As she was cutting through them, the ones at the front could hear the screams of the rest, but they didn’t stop running, trampling over their dead in their desperation to get away.

  They didn’t.

  As the last one fell, Elliott materialised ahead of her and she could see in his face what he was about to say.

  “Who did I miss now?”

  He pointed over her shoulder and she glanced around, seeing another ten or so soldiers running in the opposite direction, already a hundred metres away from them.

  She hung her head with a sigh, turning in their direction and getting ready to chase after them.

  “Don’t bother,” Elliott said. “You’re out of time anyway. Here, let me help you out.”

  She watched as the fleeing soldiers came to an abrupt halt, legs still in motion, like they had been preserved in amber. Then they rose a few feet into the air and suddenly hurtled towards her far faster than they had run away. In an instant, they were lined up in a row a few feet ahead of her, all facing the same way with their legs still in motion though they could not move at all as they gently touched the ground.

  Ten sets of eyeballs glanced to the left. She could hear their short, sharp intakes of breath.

  She hesitated. Seeing them lined up like that, completely at her mercy…it seemed…wrong. Something about it felt off to her. She wasn’t squeamish about death. She’d seen plenty. Delivered plenty. She was standing in the middle of it. But these soldiers were running. They’d been trying to get away. She couldn’t understand why that felt different? If they had been assassination targets, she wouldn’t have hesitated at all. Was it because she had the choice now? Without fearing for her own life? Without feeling compelled to serve a master?

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

  “What’s wrong?” Elliott asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. He wasn’t her master. He’d made that explicit but she had chosen to follow him. These were his orders. She needed to follow orders.

  She strolled up to the first in the group, keeping her eyes on the floor. She knew exactly where the neck was as she reached up and dragged a blade across his throat. She repeated the action a further nine times and when she was done, all ten were gently laid to the floor. Even Elliott allowed them some dignity. She turned back to Elliott.

  “What did you mean, I’m out of time?” she asked, but she needn’t have bothered. Beyond him, she could see exactly what he meant.

  The fields around the temple looked like an overturned graveyard, bodies scattered across red grass, some piled upon others where they fell together. The cross and star banners of the Bizayn Empire fluttered in the muted wind alongside the pentagram banners of the Order of Balance. At the base of the stairs that led to the temple entrance, Isabel wiped away the blood on the black blade of her axe as Elsie walked in front of a group of men kneeling on the floor. Every now and then she would stop and wag a finger at the man she was in front of before marching on, tiny hands on her waist like a schoolteacher in front of a particularly unruly band of kids.

  And around them lay the several hundred bodies of ranked soldiers. Lyla had to admit to herself that she had been dreading coming up against that many ranked soldiers. Starforged though she was, with her skills, she would have struggled in a straight-up battle and yet she hadn’t even had the chance to confront them. While she was still getting rid of the unranked soldiers – the easy ones – these two had cleared twelve platoons of ranked soldiers.

  Isabel held her axe up to the light, as if checking that she’d wiped all the blood. Elsie wagged a finger at one of the kneeling men.

  They both seemed so…casual about it all.

  Elliott walked towards the six men kneeling on the floor, Elsie pacing before them, hands planted on her hips. Every so often, she would wag her finger at one of the men like she’d caught them cheating in an exam. She wasn’t impressed with them. Not at all. Upon hearing his footsteps, she turned and scampered towards him, clambering up his legs and clipping on to his belt. The eyes of the men followed her with dumbfounded expressions, unsure of what they were looking at.

  Isabel joined him on one side, Lyla at his other as he stood in front of the men.

  Two of the men wore cloaks entirely in the blue and red of Bizayn, both with the weathered skin of seasoned veterans though one still had more black hair than white in his hair and stubble around his chin. The other four had white cloaks, a red pentagram within a circle emblazoned on the back. Those four looked at him with a fervour in their eyes. The kind of fervour that suggested it wouldn’t be worth his time trying to pry information from them.

  “I’ll keep this simple,” Elliott said. “I’m making you a one-time offer. There will be no negotiations. I have some questions. Whoever’s willing to talk will be allowed to live. Any takers?”

  He was met with silence. He let it linger there for a moment before he [Teleported] to the rightmost man. A young man, clean-shaven, short-cropped hair. Elliott grabbed a blade from his back, drew it across the man’s throat before sheathing it and [Teleporting] back to where he had been.

  The others hadn’t had the time to register that he’d moved.

  The first they’d realised is when the young man’s head plopped forwards, no longer being held in place by the fibers of his neck. It nestled on his chest for a moment before dropping to his thighs and rolling forwards. The body followed soon after, dropping to its left. The two Bizaynian officers blinked several times, one of them licking his lips. The ones from the Order stared ahead, fervour in their eyes like they could already see their afterlife. Elliott found it curious given their desire to end the gods.

  “Anyone?”

  Silence again

  “Isabel.”

  She stepped forward, walking towards the officers of the Order. They had been together so long that when it came to situations like these, she was entirely in tune with his own thoughts. Entirely as ruthless too. Death’s Whisper was true to its name as she took all three heads with one swipe. She used one of the white cloaks to wipe the blood from her blade before returning to Elliott’s side.

  The gulp from the two Bizaynian officers was audible.

  “Last chance.”

  “We’re dead men anyway,” one of them said. Surprisingly, the younger of the two – the one with black hair and stubble, though his skin had certainly seen better days. “If we’re the only ones to walk away from here alive, the Empire won’t let us live for long.”

  “Is that what you want?” Elliott asked.

  The black-haired officer looked at him with his brown eyes. “We don’t have a choice. If we returned, our families would lose everything and we’d be executed. Better to die out here.”

  “Then you have no reason to remain silent.”

  “We have no reason to talk.”

  “You could live elsewhere? Outside of the Empire?”

  “What would be the point without our families?” It was the older one that spoke this time, his voice deep and gruff.

  Elliott smiled.

  “So, if you had your families with you, you would talk?”

  Both men looked at each other then nodded to him. The younger one spoke. “And some coin so we could start a new life.”

  “How much do you know about the Order?”

  “We know a bit. We’ve been living alongside them for six months.”

  “What’s a bit?”

  “What is it you want to know?”

  “Do you know why the Order uses that symbol?” Elliott pointed towards the pentagram banners. The men looked then looked back to him, their eyes fixed on the same symbol on his forehead.

  “Some. But we won’t say anything further.”

  Elliott glanced at Isabel, then at his sister. Some information was better than nothing.

  “Well, looks like we did have a negotiation. I’ll make you another offer and this time, there will be no further negotiation. If you answer my questions, you can live under my protection. We’ll extract your families from the Empire. Just your immediate families – wives, children, parents. That is, if your information is good. If it turns out you have nothing or you have lied, you’ll be killed.”

  “What’s stopping you from killing us anyway?” the older one said.

  “I’m a man of my word,” Elliott replied.

  “No deal,” the older one scoffed. “How can we trust you?”

  “Look around you. I will get the information sooner or later. The only question is whether you’re alive to see it.”

  Both of them did look around but he could see in the older man’s eyes that he was still hesitant. Elliott was almost exasperated – he was the one who had the harder part of this deal. They just needed to speak. He was being very generous with his offer.

  “That’s why I don’t trust you,” the older one said. “A man who could do this wouldn’t think twi–”

  His mouth was still open as his eyes rolled back and his head toppled. The sound of the clasp locking Isabel’s axe back into place echoed in the silence.

  Elliott fixed the younger man’s brown eyes with his black.

  “Like I said – I will get the information sooner or later. Do you want to be alive when I do?”

  The younger man’s eyes settled on the head of his compatriot and glanced at the headless corpses to his side before returning to Elliott.

  “You promise to bring my wife and children?”

  “I promise. And I never renege on a promise.”

  The man took a deep breath and nodded.

  “What do you want to know?”

  Elliott pointed at the pentagram banners.

  “Tell me everything you know about this symbol.”