Cassie never gave him time to get up.
The back of Fraxus’ head made the sound of a coconut being cracked in half with a sledgehammer. His limbs flopped around as his body tried to fight the trauma. She’d never been into seeing anything suffer so she pulled a dagger free and slipped it in between the vertebrae on his neck.
Fraxus’ life ended with a single thrust.
Cassie looked up at Drix on top of the cage wagon. “I believe you owe me some gold and the keys.”
She could tell he was thinking of ordering his men to attack. The way she beat his champion into the next world so easily gave him pause. Even after Drix cheated it still hadn’t been enough for his champion to win. Would his regular men fare any better? The wheels were turning, and she was enjoying watching the man squirm.
Eventually, the idiot would realize he didn’t have a choice but to do what she asked of him.
“Fuck you. I name you Scourge of the Desert. If you ever enter my camps again, my men will kill you on sight.” Drix tossed the bag of coins she’d put up for collateral at her feet.
After spitting on the ground, Drix reached into his robes and pulled out an iron ring with keys on it. He threw them next to the gold. Turning away from Cassie, he shouted at his men, “Break camp. It’s time to go.”
The men on top of the wagons all scurried away, and Cassie could hear the sounds of them breaking down tents in great haste. It seemed Drix was a poor loser, that or he might have been scared of what would happen when she opened the wagons and released the prisoners. There was no time like the present to get it done. She had an oasis to return to, and maybe she could sneak in a few more glasses of that honeyed tea before JaKobi made it back.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
ShadowLily kind of missed questing alone.
It wasn’t that she didn’t love her friends. It was more that her style of play was easier to accomplish in solo situations. In the big boss fights, she spent way too much of her time positioning for damage that didn’t have the same impact as she did when sneaking up on someone and gutting them from behind. She almost hated to admit it, but she felt a certain thrill right before delivering the perfect execution.
Deadly and methodical, that was how she handled her business.
She planned every single one of her kills down to the moment her daggers went to work. Sure, there were the occasional mishaps, but with enough planning, she avoided most of an assassin’s pitfalls. It wasn’t her fault most of her stabby brethren were more of the “run in, kill the target, and try to evade capture” types. Those kinds of players had their place, but she liked to think of herself as a well-oiled killing machine.
When she took a contract, she liked to watch her target for as long as possible. It wasn’t as if she had the time to scout a sling as she wanted because their adventures kept her pretty busy. Still, showing a little restraint had saved her ass on more than one occasion. There was no reason to be hasty when a few minutes of simple observation would lead to the perfect kill.
Smart assassins don’t end up dead.
Sometimes she almost felt more like a thief than a master assassin. Mostly because she spent her time sneaking around in the same way a master burglar would. Only, instead of stealing something at the end of her quests, she plunged her dagger into it. Lock-picking was also something she picked up along the way, although she used the skill to sneak into buildings, not to open chests.
ShadowLily liked to think her perfect kill streak would earn her a little respect in the assassin world, but most of the assassins were self-absorbed loners. It wasn’t exactly the kind of profession that lent itself to having close friends in most circumstances. She found a way to make it work.
There was also a chance it wasn’t only her friends that set her apart but her code of honor. For her, it mattered who she killed and why. If a job appeared on the board asking for help, she would take it. Evil landlord, strict overseer, rapists, murders, pretty much any job that fell into the protecting the little guy or avenging the wronged, and she was on it. Those jobs didn’t normally pay as well, but they left her conscience clean.
A few people tried to take advantage of her generous nature once word got around. Setting up someone innocent for death was the kind of thing that ShadowLily despised. If she found out anyone did that to her, she killed them herself or put out a contract on their head. It didn’t matter the price. No one pulled one over on her. Thankfully most of her brethren didn’t share her concerns about who they killed, only the sound of coins entering their purse.
Unfortunately, her ambitions had to be put aside for the time being. There would be time for her to right the small wrongs of the world later. Right now they were working on saving a nation. How cool would that be? Not many people could say they helped do something on such a grand scale. After this, they only had to topple a goddess. No big deal.
At least she’d have Tim by her side. She’d almost written him off when he’d broken out into a song at their graduation, but something told her to give him a chance. What do you know? She’d met the first guy in a long time who wasn’t a total piece of shit. ShadowLily didn’t know what it was with her fondness for bad boys, but having a good man in her life was a game-changer. Even if he was addicted to coffee.
There were worse things. Her last boyfriend had been addicted to his ego.
Arrogance was such an unbecoming trait. It was okay to recognize the greatness in others, but always talking about being the best was tiresome. A person didn’t have to be the best at everything or own the coolest new things to have worth. Some of the best people she knew worked their asses off at jobs that earned them little or no respect but kept food on the table and a roof over their families’ heads.
Everyone talked shit about plumbers until a pipe burst in the middle of the night with your family in town for the holidays. Then that plumber was the most respected person in the world. Sometimes saving the world took a big sweaty ass and some low-hanging jeans.
Her ass might not be big or very sweaty, but she liked to think since coming into the game, she’d helped more than a few people solve some unsolvable problems. Maybe instead of an assassin, she could call herself a fixer. Had a nice little ring to it and none of the “I’m always a breath away from killing you” vibe that the word assassin connotated. Although, it might have been a bit disingenuous since she only solved problems one way. By killing them.
ShadowLily jumped into her camel’s saddle and pulled out the card Khalid had given her. A quest prompt opened as she stroked her thumb over the golden hieroglyph.
Quest Received: Dancing with Deception
When is an assassin not an assassin? When she’s a thief, of course. There is a location I need you to break into and retrieve a bundle of letters from inside a locked chest. A red ribbon will tie the letters together. Normally I’d put your blades to better use, but with Jabari’s generals defeated, this is the task that needs doing now.
Not what she’d expected, but the wording was wildly complimentary so she was willing to branch out a bit.
Quest Reward: Ten gold coins
Bonus: Complete the mission without killing anyone and receive an additional five gold coins.
And a challenge.
Khalid might not be the best at sharing secrets, but he was a hell of a quest giver. He left her the ability to kill with one hand while offering her an incentive not to do it with the other. ShadowLily was starting to think this wasn’t the kind of man to get on his wrong side. He was playing a long game, thinking seven steps ahead of everyone else.
She guided her camel onto the right course and leaned back in the saddle. After plucking one of her daggers free, she started to sharpen it. The weapons didn’t need sharpening, but it made her feel like she was doing something to respect them so they wouldn’t let her down in a moment of need. Or in this case, she gave them loving caresses because she wouldn’t be using them for a while.
This fort looked more like a small town.
The only thing she knew for certain at this point was she wouldn’t get inside on her camel. A small grove of palm trees outside the fort looked like a tailor-made place for her to leave her horse. She didn’t tie it in place in case she died and didn’t make it back in time. This was a game, but ShadowLily didn’t want the camel starving to death because of her.
“I’ll be back.” ShadowLily patted her mount and dropped into stealth.
Her skill wasn’t strong enough to make her disappear in the bright desert sun, but it did make it harder for people to notice her. Now she needed to wait until a group of people went in or out of the fort so she could slip in among them. Once she was inside, she’d have to follow Khalid’s map to the chest.
As if on cue, a large group of people—maybe ten or twelve trailing behind a wagon and two or three in front of it—passed her. ShadowLily doubted this would happen on a loop so she had to go now, or she’d miss her only opportunity until nightfall. Damned if she wasn’t tempted to say fuck it and just kill everyone.
She didn’t need the extra gold, but Khalid had sucked her in with the challenge.
ShadowLily burst from cover, running in a low crouch. Her stealth ability provided her enough camouflage that unless someone looked directly at her, they wouldn’t see anything but a shimmer. The trick wouldn’t work on the gate guards since they tended to look at people. It was kind of their job. She needed to find a way to blend in with the crowd behind the wagon or find a way to wedge herself under it.
Getting under the wagon held the most appeal to her, but that would mean weaving through the people walking behind it. From there she’d either have to pray someone didn’t see, or they would keep their big fat gobs shut as they went through the gate.
There wasn’t much she could do about it now. The group was already closer to the gate than she would have liked. As she ran, ShadowLily noticed that the men and women behind the cart had their feet chained together. None of them appeared to want to do anything except stop walking. It was like watching the walking dead. Most of them didn’t even have their eyes open. She moved through their numbers like a gentle breeze and dove under the cart.
There wasn’t a lot to hold onto beneath it, but she managed to wedge herself into a small gap. Hopefully, the guards would pass the cart through the gates quickly because she couldn’t hold herself in this position forever.
Not yet, anyway.
“We’ve got a delivery for Kyron.” A woman from the front of the caravan called. “New batch of workers for the mine.”
If this fort had a mine, it explained why it was so much bigger than the other ones. There was more wealth, then Jabari would need more men to guard it, and ten times as many laborers to see the mine operated at its full potential. Nothing said big extra profits like free labor.
The guards must have motioned for the gates to open because the caravan moved forward again. “He’s in a mood today. You better hurry.”
The woman laughed. “When isn’t he? At least Kyron won’t be disappointed with this lot. Sturdy workers, every last one of them.” She banged her hand against the cart for emphasis.
The guard watched the progression of the sorry caravan start to move forward. “I doubt that.” Some laughter from the other guards. “That kid can’t be more than twelve. If he can swing a pickaxe, I’m a captain of the guard.”
“We all know after the number ten the next one might as well be fifty. There’s work in the kitchens as well,” the woman quipped.
Just like that, ShadowLily and the cart were inside the fortress. The large wooden gates closed behind them, sealing her inside the fort with a crack. A quick check of Khalid’s map and she knew where she needed to go. All she had to do now was figure out the best way to get there. The cart was still going that direction, but she’d be better off approaching on her terms than trying to stay wedged underneath it.
Falling flat on her ass, too tired to stand, let alone use her daggers wasn’t an appealing thought. If she were going to die, it'd be fighting not hiding like a coward. Skipping the dying part was probably number one on her to-do list for the day.
ShadowLily waited until there was a gap in the buildings, then rolled out from under the cart into an alley between two structures. She came up next to a low stone wall, slunk over it, and knelt. The three-foot-tall retaining wall gave her a chance to scan the fort ahead. Not a lot to be thankful for stared back at her. This section appeared to be guards for the mines.
Part of her already wished she’d stayed with the cart.
At least the next part of the quest was simple. All she had to do was get from where she was now to her target location. If ShadowLily could pull that off without a problem, the rest would fall into place. How hard could it be to sneak in, steal some shit, and get out? Stealing had to take less effort than killing people, right?
This was a great time to test the limits of her skills, and ShadowLily was more than up to the challenge. Ninety percent of staying hidden was planning. It paid to know or be able to guess where and when people would be looking. If she could stay ahead of being full-on spotted, her stealth would do the rest.
Easy-peasy.
ShadowLily jumped the wall, sprinted to the other side of the street, and dove behind some crates. Her heart was thumping now. Getting caught here would most likely result in deadly consequences. Death was the kind of thing that would put a crimp in her plans, so she decided to avoid it at all costs.
No one called out in shock, and her jackhammering heart slowed to dull thudding. Attackers didn't surround the crates she hid behind, and no one was running off to sound the alarm.
“I need to pull it together.” Shadow Lily drew a few deep breaths to calm herself, and then she was moving again.
Most of the men must have been busy working their shifts because it was easier to move through the fort than she anticipated. A few times she thought for sure that she’d been busted, but the guards kept moving. She didn’t know how spies did this. Sneaking into places you weren’t supposed to be was the most stressful thing on the planet.
For the next twenty minutes, she gritted her teeth in suspense every time she heard a noise, but ShadowLily made it to her destination without being seen.
“Would have taken me five minutes to kill them all.” ShadowLily stayed low and stuck to the alleys as she scouted her destination.
The outside looked clear enough.
One door led inside the building, and four men guarded it—two on the inside and two on the outside. Going through the door and earning the extra gold wasn’t going to be an option, and ShadowLily wasn’t quite ready to forgo her bonus. She continued scouting the perimeter, looking for a secondary entrance. Any of the windows would have been perfect, but it looked like they were all closed against the heat of the day.
Maybe there was a balcony?
Circling the property again revealed a small Juliet balcony on the second floor hidden by some superior stonework. The door leading to the balcony was open, and all that was stopping her from getting inside that way was about twelve feet of height and a willingness to go for it.
“I’m no Jackie Chan, but I got this.” ShadowLily started to run.
She leapt into the air, kicked off the wall, and flew toward the ledge.
When ShadowLily’s fingers closed around the stone, she knew she made it. Now she had to get inside before someone saw her dangling on the side of the building like an idiot. What a mess. It wasn’t exactly stealth one-oh-one to be hanging from a balcony in broad daylight. At least an alarm hadn’t sounded. If she hurried, ShadowLily might get inside before that happened.
With the strength of a professional rock climber, ShadowLily pulled herself up and inside the building. Not the graceful cat burglar entrance she’d wanted to make, but it wasn’t like anyone had caught her yet. Sometimes a good thief needed a little luck.
It certainly helped that the guards were looking for wayward miners and not an attack from inside. A person would have to be nuts to break into the fort, then into a building without looking inside first.
Gaston would be so disappointed.
The room was empty, but that was a coincidence. If she wanted to get out of the building unseen and alive, she would have to do a much better job of paying attention to the details. The plus side of being an assassin was that she could normally stab her way out of trouble, which sadly wasn’t an option today.
ShadowLily crept forward and stopped by the door. In the comparative darkness of the interior, her stealth was much more effective than it was outside. No sound came from the other side of the door, but that didn’t mean much in a world full of magic. If she wanted this to go smoothly, she had to play it safe.
This quest felt a lot like she was playing Hitman or Thief. In those games, patience was the key. ShadowLily wasn’t always the best at waiting around and usually ended up fighting for her life and having to replay the level a few times before getting it right. Today she was going to take a page from Tim’s book and take things slow and steady.
The knob turned slowly but was well-oiled and didn’t make a sound. As she slipped the door open, one of the hinges squeaked. Her heart rate increased, but no one cried out in alarm as she continued to pull the door open. From her current vantage point, ShadowLily could only see down the hallway in one direction. The only way to check the other side was to open the door further.
No one stood in the hallway, but things couldn’t be as easy as climbing onto a balcony and walking out with the letters. The tension of this job was getting to her. Every breath, every noise, felt like it would make the world crash down on her.
The chest was located two doors down on the right.
Once she was in the hallway, there was nothing to hide behind. Not being spotted would take a hundred percent commitment. Any hesitation or indecision could get her caught, and she hadn’t suffered through all this bullshit to give up those extra coins now. Slipping one of her throwing knives free, she placed it between her teeth and took another in her right hand.
Deserts Of Naroosh Page 37