by Lisa Rusczyk
He watched her for a moment, the candlelight making his eyes shiny and dark, his face bronze and shadowy. He looked otherworldly, like a spirit sent by one of the goddesses. This thought made Mandia sink to her knees and put her head in her hands. She whispered, “Thank you for saving me.”
“You’re welcome,” he said simply, no expression in his voice.
She felt him wrap a heavy fur around her shoulders and he sat next to her, bundled in his own fur. He handed her a ceramic mug of water and a piece of dried meat.
She ate and drank, feeling some strength coming to her from the warmth of the fur and the sustenance of the food. She took a deep breath and asked what she was dying to know.
“Why are the Lenn assassins after you, in particular?” She looked at him to gauge his response.
“What I did last night. You see, Lenn’s king, King Herean, always goes into each battle. His thirst for seeing people fall by his own axe is unquenchable and he’s an incredible fighter. Nobody can defeat him one-on-one, and he can even take on many people at a time.”
Mandia had a feeling she knew where this was going.
“You know what I am. I, too, am an assassin. And I’m very good at it, quiet about it. My king didn’t want me to do what I did. He thought he could make peace before war overcame the city.
“I knew that would never happen. I have met King Herean in person, but he didn’t know who I was. Which was fortunate. But when I looked in his eyes, I saw madness and a man so driven to kill for power and to have people fear him, he would never go for a peaceful agreement.
“And then there was you.” He looked at her and the candlelight lit half his face. His eyes were serious, and Mandia held her breath.
“I couldn’t let anything happen to you from the moment I laid eyes on you. And I’m not talking about in the concubine sales house. I mean when we were children. We didn’t speak the same language, but I knew the meaning of what you said to me. You wanted me to live. Do you know what I said to you?”
“No. Of course, I couldn’t understand you.”
“I said, ‘I’m happy yours is the last face I’ll see before I die.’ Then I didn’t look at another person until your father came to me and told me I would live.”
He reached out and took her hand. It was warm now, while hers was still icy. His penetrating gaze, it hypnotized her. What he had just told her was so very personal, but she needed to know more.
“What did you do last night?”
“I sneaked into their camps and slit King Herean’s throat while he slept, passed out from drink.” She saw no regret in his expression, but there was something. What was it?
It surprised her as a feeling of pride came over her at his act. This crazed king had taken her own home, now Jass’s, and who knows how many lives he was responsible for destroying? “And your king didn’t tell you to do it, did he?”
“No. I acted alone. Nobody knows for sure it was me, but I have a reputation. In fact, no one in Farna knows he’s dead. Lenn just attacked without telling why, without revealing their leader was dead. They are mindless drones. But their assassins are not. They knew my handiwork. Nobody else could have gotten close to him.
“I believed if I killed him, they would end their wars. King Herean was a powerful leader, inspirational in the most deadly ways, encouraging those under him with fear and bringing out their dark tendencies. But even in death, they followed him and attacked. How he could have so many people under his spell, I’ll never know.”
Mandia unconsciously squeezed his warm hand. He laced his fingers through hers.
He said in a quiet voice, “I knew we had to leave right away when I saw them coming from the watchtower this morning. I knew we had a little time, not much. And when you begged me to save your mother, I decided maybe one more hour could be risked. When I left you, I looked for her.”
Mandia’s eyes widened. She gasped. “Did you—Did you find her?” She held her breath again.
A soft smile curved his lips. “She was a butcher’s slave, cleaning the shop.”
“You saw her? Talked to her? How is she? Did you tell her I was okay?”
He actually chuckled. “Yes, all is well. She was being treated kindly. I paid the butcher a high price to smuggle her out of the city with him, told him a way to get her and his family safely away from the Lenn attackers.”
“What? And you’re just now telling me this?” She jerked her hand away from him, paused, then punched him right in the face.
But Mandia wasn’t very strong and he barely flinched
“Why couldn’t she come with us?” she asked as relief her mother was safe washed over her. She didn’t regret the punch.
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d want to go with her and the butcher’s family.”
“And why didn’t you want me to? That’s where I should be now. Why couldn’t she have just come with us? I don’t understand any of this.”
“She was very weak. She never could have made this climb. Where the butcher took her is a safe place, not too far out of the city, in the jungle, a place many were escaping to. Lenn doesn’t know the jungle as Farnans do and there’s little chance they’ll be found.”
“So you’re saying she was too weak for making it here, but why wouldn’t you let me go with her? Why didn’t you tell me?”
He was quiet for a long moment, staring at the candle’s flame. He then turned his body to face her, took both her hands. “I had to make sure you were safe, and I knew nobody could protect you like I can.” His eyes gleamed with desire for the first time, black in the darkness.
Mandia’s mouth opened slightly and a warmth spread through her body at his words, his touch, his eyes. He leaned to her and she felt his warm breath on her cheek. He gently kissed her face all over, then moved to her lips.
Their kiss was soft, sweet, and all thoughts of how he was a deadly killer were lost in her. Everything floated away as he ran his hands up her arms and cupped her neck, rubbing his thumbs across her throat.
The kiss had started soft, but was becoming more intense. Without even thinking, she reached for him, moved her hands over his chest and shoulders. She was suddenly filled with a sensation she’d never felt, a deep need to have him as hers, to feel his body on her, all over her, inside her.
She tore at his clothing, and he whispered into her ear, “Slowly, we have all night.”
She moaned, then sighed as he nibbled her ear. He undressed her carefully and took entirely too long. But soon enough, he was wrapping her naked body in their furs and stripping off his clothes. He joined her in the furs. The sensation of feeling his flesh all over hers was almost too much to take. She begged him, pleaded with him to take her, but he simply lifted his head from her, curls dangling down and tickling her cheeks, and shushed her.
He pleasured her body with his hands and mouth for what felt like eternity, and when she thought she would die from desire, he entered her. There was a moment of pain, and he stopped as she gasped. Then he began moving inside her and she felt her own natural movements matching his. Mandia never knew anything like this, and she was mindless; he had taken control of her body and made it react in the most pleasurable of ways. Time stopped, their breathing labored together, and she felt something even more intense than anything else.
They cried out together at the same time.
He stroked her blonde hair as he caught his breath, staring down at her with an expression of pure love and adoration. He whispered, “I’ve loved you forever and always will.” A look of vulnerability spread across his features.
She reached up and tucked a lock of his curls behind an ear. “I love you.” Then she grinned and laughed.
He smiled down at her. “What is it?”
“When can we do that again?”
~~~
Mandia awoke with a start in the dead of night. Silence. What had woken her? She reached beside her, but Jass wasn’t there. The candle had long died out.
Slowly, she
got to her feet and wrapped a fur around her freezing, naked body. She instinctively felt something was wrong, very wrong. She couldn’t see a thing, but after looking around wildly, caught a glimmer of faint moonlight coming from the open flap of the hut.
She peeked out. Nothing. Not even a breeze. She shivered, stepping outside. Suddenly, she felt vulnerable, in open sight to whatever was out there with her, and she was now certain there was…something…someone.
A hand grabbed her throat and slammed her on her back to the ground. She couldn’t breathe as she struggled against her attacker. All she could make out was he wore a mask, his eyes sunken within and showing no emotion.
Then another man held her down by the hips. “Tie her feet and hands,” a man’s voice said.
Once she was bound, the man released his hold on her throat. She gasped desperately for air. There were four of them, all dressed head to toe in dark, tight clothing.
“What do you want with me?” she barely got out. She’d never been so afraid. Where was Jass?
As though summoned by her thought, he sprung from behind a boulder, taking one assassin down with him. Mandia heard the man’s neck snap.
The other three immediately went into action. One threw a dagger at Jass, but he slapped it aside in mid-air. He yanked out one of his own daggers so fast Mandia barely caught it. He hopped higher in the air than humanly possible, landing on the man’s head, slashing his throat.
The second assassin tossed something that looked like heavy wire around Jass’s neck. He fell back, slit the wire off him quickly, then spun backward and stuck his dagger in the man’s neck. He fell, gurgling.
The assassin who had held Mandia down by her throat was more careful as Jass cleaned his bloody blade on his shirt. Jass pulled out his other dagger as the assassin withdrew a long, samurai blade from his sheath.
They circled each other slowly, looking for weaknesses. The assassin said, “I held her throat, and it was soft, tender. What will I do with her after I kill you?”
“Don’t listen to him,” Mandia cried out.
Jass’s posture didn’t change. The cat in him was in full prowl, eyes wide and body oddly loose and tense at the same time. Why didn’t he just do something, anything?
The assassin continued to taunt Jass. “You know you can’t throw your daggers fast enough; I’ll block them and you’ll be defenseless. You know you can’t approach me. My weapon has farther reach. What will you do?” He stepped dangerously close to the bound Mandia, and she scooted away, but not in time.
He grabbed a handful of her hair, yanking her head to the side. She wanted to stay strong, but she yelped in pain.
Jass flinched.
“So this is your weakness,” said the assassin. He reached down and roughly caressed Mandia’s neck. “I can see why. Such a weakness I wouldn’t expect in you. Women.”
Jass stepped closer, never taking his eyes off the man.
The assassin raised his blade between them, blocking Jass’s approach. But it was a fatal flaw. As the sword rose, Jass slashed downward on it with both daggers, spun to the side, then dragged both daggers through the assassin’s side, gutting him.
He fell, screaming, and Jass ended him with a slash of the throat.
The night was the silence of new death.
Mandia’s heart pounded and she breathed shallowly. Jass had taken on four expert assassins. He had defeated them, in the dark, with only those two daggers. They’d seemed so threatening to her the first time she’d seen them in the concubine sales house, but now, as he wiped the blood off them onto his last victim’s pants, she knew they could be an extension of his hands, a part of him.
“Thank you, oh…” She noticed the red mark on his neck and it was slightly bleeding. “Let me clean that, please.”
“We need to go.” He looked deep in her eyes, sadness there.
“Why do you look at me that way?”
“I don’t want you to see me as a killer.”
She let out a long breath. “You kill, but you saved me. And I imagine you’ve saved others. And what I have seen is there’s so much more to you than killing.”
He watched her intently as she spoke. After a moment, he said, “We need to leave, now. They know where we are.”
Fear shot through Mandia. “And my mother…?”
“That’s where we’re going. Come, dress. We’ll move fast.” He turned to enter the hut, then stopped. “I meant what I said earlier.”
“I did, too.”
He looked back at her with a genuine, full smile, then entered the hut. She followed.
~~~
They went down the mountain and by dawn, they were back in the jungle. All day, they walked quickly, quietly, with Jass stopping every once in a while to listen. Mandia couldn’t imagine what for.
She felt nervous asking, but had to know by around midday. “Who were those men?”
“Lenn assassins. The best ones. The one with the sword knew me. We’d met before.” That’s all he said about it.
Around dusk, Jass gestured for her to stop walking. In a low voice, he said, “We are close to the haven. I’m worried because we hear nothing. Usually, that trail there,” he pointed at what looked like nothing to Mandia, “would take us within, but we’re going up and around, just in case.”
Fear shot through Mandia. What if Lenn had already been here, killed everyone, including her mother?
They silently made their way up a rock cliff covered in red flowering vines until at a vantage point over what Jass had called the haven. They looked down and the things Mandia saw scared her more than anything she’d experienced yet.
The haven was blocked on three sides by somewhat high, gray cliffs. Vines covered everything, and exotic plants filled the ground. There was a shallow pool in the middle, but it was filled with bodies. The dead of Farna.
All around the walls, Lenn soldiers guarded terrified men, women and children. As they watched, one brave, yet foolhardy man made a rush at a soldier, and the soldier stabbed him through the stomach, then dragged and tossed his body in the pool. The man’s family cried horrible sobs.
Mandia turned away. She could barely breathe. “Why are they keeping them alive?”
“They’re waiting for me. They know I’ll come, and I have. They want to assassinate me for killing King Herean.”
Mandia couldn’t look again. “Do you see my…my mother?”
A moment later, Jass said, “Yes. She is with the butcher’s wife.”
“How does she look? Is she hurt?”
“She is afraid, but unhurt.”
“Oh, what are we going to do?”
He looked pensive. “But I’d need distraction,” he mumbled, then looked at her.
“What are you thinking?” Her heart pounded.
“I need you to walk in through the front way. The rest, I’ll take care of.”
“But Jass, you can’t possibly…I mean, there are a dozen men down there. Maybe more.”
“Do you have the strength to be my distraction? If you are too afraid, I understand.”
Mandia couldn’t see how this would work, but her fear had formed more into an anger, a deep hatred for Lenn and what they did to every society they came across. How could they treat human beings like this?
She gave Jass a steely look. “Yes. I can do this.”
One side of his lips curved up. “I know we’ll make a good team. Now, take off your clothes.”
~~~
Mandia felt the thick brush against her soft, naked flesh. She took three deep breaths before entering the haven, which was blocked by poorly stacked palm fronds.
She pushed them aside and walked in.
Everyone stared, and several of the soldiers laughed.
“Mandia!” she heard her mother cry, but she kept her gaze straight ahead.
One of the soldiers approached her and looked her body carefully over. Then he reached for the red ribbon in her hair, fingered it. “You are his concubine. Only an assassin’
s concubine wears the red ribbon.” He turned to the rest of the gawking soldiers. “Assa Jass, weak man, is offering her to us in his place.” He turned back to her. “Pitiful.”
He continued in a booming voice, “But if this is his offer, we may as well enjoy it, though it will not satisfy.”
Mandia finally spoke the words Jass instructed her to say, and to say it loud enough for him to hear. “Why are there so few of you?”
The soldier turned back to her. “We are the dedicated. We stayed when King Herean was slaughtered. Our Gray Goddess Sella has not abandoned us; in fact, she demands us to continue in her name, and that King Herean now sits at her right hand. We will all be blessed by her once vengeance is ours.”
Even more loudly so Jass could hear, she said, “This is all of you? Everyone else left?”
He got close to her and reached for her naked hip. “Enough talk.”
Then the screams.
Jass was everywhere at once, swinging from vines with his daggers out, slashing throats and switching hands, hopping off one vine onto the next, taking down at least five shocked men this way. He landed by the pool and looked at Mandia with admiration.
She gave him a little smile. She mouthed the words, good luck.
Now Jass had six men coming at him and everything happened so fast, his speed unable to be accounted for, and his blades and arms turning red with blood.
Mandia gasped only once, when the soldier who she’d spoken with jabbed Jass’s leg with a thick sword. Jass acted and moved the same as though nothing happened and expertly cut the man open.
How long did this slaughter go on, and how could any one man do this?
Mandia didn’t know, but she felt a primal pride in her for him. As the last man fell, Mandia heard her mother call again.
She felt and smelled her before she looked into her eyes. Her mother sobbed., holding Mandia in her arms. “I thought you were dead, I’d never see you again. I thought I’d die here, in this place, in that…pool.”
Mandia pulled back so she could look her mother in the eyes. Such sadness mixed with joy. “May I speak?”