FARHAYVEN: VENGEANCE

by S. K. Ng

  After Dawn had left the carriage depot, one of the undercover soldiers went into it and approached the ticket salesman at the counter.

  “That woman with the worn-out, oversized dress, where was she going?” he asked.

  “Sorry, we’re not allowed to divulge such information!” said the salesman.

  “Provincial Guards!” said the soldier as he pulled out his military-issued identification, which was a small, flat block of jade that had the Fallsian emblem carved on it; and held it up so that the salesman could examine it.

  The salesman was obviously shocked. Then he nodded his head to signify his willingness to cooperate.

  “Eastsands Town, Southern Falls Province,” he said.

  “Eastsands! Are you sure!?” asked the soldier.

  “Positive! She paid me eight gold coins. That is the exact fare!” confirmed the salesman.

  “The kingdom thanks you!” said the soldier and then he went away to report the information to Serene.

  Serene sent out orders, via despatch riders, to the soldiers of all the local garrisons between Timberstock and Eastsands to set up hidden observation posts. She also commanded them to give Dawn easy passage and to monitor her movements covertly. A despatch was also sent to Fallsene City to notify Ray and Clover of the latest progress and to redirect 1st River, Royal Elementhar Pond to Eastsands. Serene afforded herself a little smile. Her plan was going well!

  About an hour later, Dawn stepped into a black carriage drawn by four horses. An elderly gentleman and a man in his early forties joined her in the cabin of the carriage. They smiled politely at her and afforded slight bows, which she returned politely. As the carriage started to move, Dawn closed her eyes and relaxed. She was out of danger and on her way home, or so she thought. Unbeknownst to her, Serene and a few soldiers from Garrison Timberstock were trailing her on horseback from a distance away.

  The journey to Eastsands took approximately a week. It was late evening on the 4th Day of Fifth Month of Dry Season when Dawn finally arrived at the coastal town. After saying all her polite ‘goodbyes’, she stepped out of the carriage and walked towards the local tavern, a worn-down looking place called ‘The Spot’.

  “Good evening! What can I get you?” asked the barman.

  “Nothing. I am here to see Gust,” answered Dawn.

  “Go through that door!” instructed the barman.

  Dawn nodded politely to the barman and walked through the door that he had indicated. She went down the stairs and found two muscular men guarding an entrance.

  “Name and purpose!?” asked one of the guards.

  “Dawn Breven, Lead Assassin of the Shadow Deathmerchant Clan. Weapons purchase!” answered Dawn.

  “Hold on while I check!” said the guard as he knocked and entered the room.

  A few moments later the guard reappeared and gestured for Dawn to enter.

  The room was well lit. Its size was average but looked small due to the fact that there were a number of swords, daggers, bows, crossbows, spears, tridents and other edged weapons hanging neatly on the walls. In the middle of the room sat a fat, elderly man behind a small desk. He beckoned Dawn to the empty seat across the desk from him.

  “Miss Breven, how may I help you?” he asked.

  “I need a sword. Single-edged, straight blade, three-quarter length,” answered Dawn in the same business-like manner.

  “Is this to your liking?” said Gust after he stood up and took a sword sheathed in black scabbard and set it down on the table in front of her.

  “This will do fine,” said Dawn after she had drawn the sword out and examined it.

  Gust did not sit back down. He remained standing because he knew that if he sat down, he would just have to get up again to get Dawn’s next item.

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Tactical clothing, some rations, an emergency medicine kit and three sacks of explosive powder,” replied Dawn.

  “Anything else?” asked Gust after he put on the desk a set of black clothing, a backpack, some leaf-covered packets, a small wooden box and three small sacks.

  Dawn shook her head. Gust sat back down.

  “How much?” asked Dawn.

  “20 pieces of gold coins,” answered Gust.

  “I only have 15,” answered Dawn coolly.

  Gust sat silent. He thought about the situation for a moment. Would he be willing to get killed over five pieces of gold coins. No! His life was worth more than that.

  “15 pieces will do fine for the Lead Assassin of the Shadow Deathmerchant Clan,” answered Gust finally.

  “One last thing! Tell no one I was here, not even my clansmen!” instructed Dawn as she paid Gust the 15 pieces of gold coins.

  She then proceeded to supplement the contents of her sling bag with the rations and the medicine kit while she stuffed the backpack with the three sacks of explosive powder. The hunter’s knife and the sword, she placed with her bundle of black clothing.

  “Understood,” said Gust coolly.

  Dawn got up and walked casually out of the room. Gust got out a book and began noting down the details of the transaction that he had just made. For him, it was just business as usual. For her, however, she was embarking on something ‘different than usual’.

  Huge dark clouds covered the night sky as Dawn set out into Southend Forest at the edge of Eastsands. She was as dark as the shadows seeing that she had changed her clothes and smeared mud and dirt onto her exposed skin. Serene and her subordinates followed cautiously behind, trying their best not to betray their presence. But half an hour later, Serene realised that she had failed. Dawn had disappeared into the darkness, and neither Serene nor her subordinates could see her.

  Serene punched the ground in frustration. She signalled for her subordinates to gather around her.

  “Lost _ we have of this of Dawn Breven, so all of you are to spread out in pairs and search the area. Follow _ do of this to her if and when you find her, and when you have found The Lair, report back to me at Garrison Eastsands. Meet _ those of you who do not manage to find her, you shall do of this with me back here at daybreak,” instructed Serene.

  “Understood,” the rest whispered in unison and then they spread out in pairs, crouching and moving stealthily; searching blindly into the dark, dense forest.

  Dawn turned around. She thought she had heard something. She strained her eyes and ears. Yet she saw nothing and heard nothing. Did she imagine it? She was not sure. She decided to continue on.

  As Dawn continued on her journey through the dense forest her mind ran into overdrive. For the first time in her life she would be breaking into the clan’s lair. It would be no easy feat, but doable. After that, she had to locate her uncle and get him out. This part would be more difficult as Dawn knew her uncle would not leave willingly. He still had patriotic sentiments towards the clan, for it was only towards the clanmaster that he harboured resentment. How would she convince him to leave? Would she be able to do it in time? Or would he turn her in? No, he would not. He would try to convince her to rise up against the clanmaster instead. But she was not interested in a coup d’etat! That was not the answer that she was looking for. She wanted to go away and put everything behind her. She wanted to start life anew… and be ordinary, just plain ordinary! She wanted to be just a plain, simple, ordinary person living a plain, simple, ordinary life!

  The familiar gushing sound of water greeted Dawn’s ears just as it had for so many years in her life. She was getting closer to home. She looked around in the dark. She managed to locate a huge boulder which she was familiar with. She stuffed her sling bag in a huge crack in the boulder after wrapping it with some large, waxy leaves. She then moved closer to the waterfall. She climbed the trunk of a huge tree nearby and tied into place a small sack of explosives with a long fuse that went all the way down to the ground. She called this ‘Panic-solver Number One’. Then she climbed down from the tree and crouch-ran towards the waterfall and towards her home, The Lair.
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  The clouds cleared. The very dim moon above illuminated the silhouette of two black garbed guards crouching behind small boulders on a ledge either side of the huge waterfall. Dawn cursed to herself! She should have gotten more money from Grace. A few Airblades would prove useful in such a situation. But no matter! Dawn believed in working with what she had in hand, not what she could have had. So she drew out her hunter’s knife and crawled towards the closer of the two guards.

  Dawn gets to her knees. She takes careful aim and throws the hunter’s knife as hard as she can. The normally present whooshing sound gets drowned by the loud gushing sound of the waterfall. The closer of the two guards slump backwards as Dawn’s knife pierces one of his eye sockets. Dawn crouch-runs towards the remaining guard and draws out her sword. The remaining guard sees something moving in the dark. He gets up to investigate but it is too late as Dawn runs across the ledge to his end and slashes him in the throat. He too, dies silently. Dawn recovers her knife and procures a few Airblades, smoke bombs and pepper packets from the bodies of the dead guards; and with that, her weapons inventory is now complete.

  Dawn walked stealthily into the mouth of the cave behind the waterfall. The mouth of the cave led to a winding, multi-forking network of tunnels that were dark. This was the entrance of The Lair. It was an elaborate design created by her uncle long time ago to confuse and trap intruders. Due to her familiarity, Dawn had no problems avoiding the wrong tunnel paths, which were booby trapped. She also easily avoided the pits and large cracks in the ground, which would have sent her falling to her death if she had stumbled into them. Finally, after a quarter of an hour of feeling her way through the darkness, she saw lights coming from the main chamber of the cave. She was truly back home.

  Dawn crept into the main chamber slowly, always making sure that she was in the shadows. The environment was to her advantage here, as the cave was dimly lit due to the scarceness of fresh air owing to poor ventilation. She carefully took out ‘Panic-solver Number Two’ and placed it inside a large crack in the chamber walls near the entrance.

  Dawn’s eyes swept across the huge chamber. There they were, her clansmen; some singing, some dancing, and quite a few were drunk. But there were also the mourners. The wives and the husbands and the children who had lost their loved ones during the execution of their missions. Dawn could see a significant number of them, all wearing a white band on their arms. These people were sober and sad-faced. A few were crying. Some just sat staring at the chamber walls, their eyes so swollen one would have thought that they were stung by bees. A part of her felt like reaching out to comfort them. But that would endanger her mission. No, she was too well trained to let her emotions get in the way. She was there for one purpose only; which was to get her uncle out.

  Dawn made her way through the maze of tunnels, chambers and smaller caves, sometimes walking amongst them with her face casually covered as though she was coughing, or crawling through natural forming cracks in the walls. Finally, she arrived at a large chamber that had a river flowing though it. This chamber was dark and the river water was raging. There was only one torch that lit this chamber and she knew to whom it belonged. There was a man sitting by the river bank, fishing.

  “Uncle Rake, it’s me, Dawn,” she whispered.

  The man got up, grabbed his torch and turned around. He squinted his eyes as he looked into the darkness, searching for a figure that he could not make out. Dawn slowly walked into the illumination of the torch.

  “Dawn, it is you!” said the man as he limped forward and hugged his niece.

  “But I thought that you were in prison. They told me the mission at Fallsgreen had failed completely and that you were killed. Then they told me that you weren’t killed but were caught instead. What happened? How did you escape?” asked Rake Breven.

  “I wasn’t caught at Fallsgreen. I escaped but got caught when I tried to assassinate the prince at Castle Greenbloom. The client had an agent who, together with the help of some bandits, helped me escape,” explained Dawn.

  “That’s my girl!” Rake said as he hugged Dawn again.

  Rake saw Dawn’s serious expression and knew something was wrong. His niece did not seem happy to be back at The Lair.

  “Uncle, we must leave at once! You were right about Clanmaster Collart! The Fire Elementhars mission 15 years ago was a failure, just like you said. He lied to us, and now that I know the truth, he’d kill me to protect his secret. Besides, I’ve failed to kill the prince, and that failure warrants the death penalty anyway. I’m leaving this continent. I want you to come with me!” said Dawn urgently.

  “That’s the wrong thing to do, don’t you see? Go public! Stand at the main chamber and announce to the clan what you’ve found out. Expose that fraudster for who he is. Remove him from power and let another, who’s more worthy, take his place. Our war with the government isn’t over yet. They still haven’t paid for what they did to us!” argued Rake.

  “Uncle, it’s over. We’ve lost too many men! We can’t possibly hope to win!” Dawn pointed out.

  “But there are recruits…,” protested Rake.

  “Who are nothing but mercenaries and common criminals! They fight for money, not for principles! They care not about what happened to our villages all those years ago!” disputed Dawn.

  Rake Breven shook his head and stepped away from Dawn. Dawn took a few steps towards her uncle to close the gap.

  “So what you’re saying is just pack up and leave? And forget about what the government had done to us!? I can’t, Dawn! That wound’s too deep! You leave. You go. You’re still young. There’s still a bright future for you. I have to stay. I’m too tied down by the past,” said Rake.

  “Uncle, the clan’s doomed! Follow me and let us leave for a better future!” pleaded Dawn.

  “No, I can’t. If the clan’s doomed, then I’m doomed as well. That’s my final decision. Now go, before Collart catches you!” said Rake.

  Dawn shook her head in disappointment. She knew that her uncle was stubborn, but she had never expected him to be this stubborn.

  “What do you plan to do when I’m gone?” she questioned him out of curiosity.

  “The same thing I’ve done for years, which is to look for clansmen who are willing to testify against Collart and have Collart sacked as our clanmaster,” Rake responded.

  “No one will testify! They’re afraid they’ll be killed!” she pointed out.

  “Nonsense! Collart wouldn’t dare! Assassinating a clansman is against clan law. He would have an open rebellion on his hands. He wouldn’t risk it!” rejected Rake.

  “Not if he assassinated them while they were away on a mission! When they were away from The Lair! No one would know! Therefore no one would rebel!” Dawn pointed out.

  Rake Breven nodded his head. Dawn had a point, and he conceded it.

  “Yes! I agree! Collart can have them assassinated away from The Lair, away from the presence of the rest of the clan; and he had done so on many occasions in the past. So don’t you see why it’s important that I stay back and stop him!?” persisted Rake.

  “Uncle, how long before Collart comes after you personally!?” questioned Dawn.

  “It’s not so easy with me, or have you forgotten that I’m one of the Ten Founders. If he kills me, it would raise a lot of awkward questions for him,” reminded Rake.

  “What if he got you away from The Lair, assassinated you and made it look like an accident, or made them think that the government has captured you? He’ll be able to kill you and get away with it!” Dawn pointed out.

  “That’s why, my dear niece, I never leave The Lair! I’m not giving that fraudster the opportunity to eliminate me and turn the clan into his personal army! I have to stay! I have to fight him! I can’t let him hijack the clan. It’s the only thing that we have left! The clan’s our family! The clan is us!” insisted Rake.

  “Not anymore, uncle! With these new recruits, it’s not our family anymore! It’s not us anymore! It’s
Venom Collart Incorporated!” disputed Dawn.

  “I can’t accept that! I’m not willing to give up!” said Rake.

  Dawn stared at her uncle in disappointment. He turned and looked away in stubbornness. She had no choice but to accept the fact that he would not be leaving with her. So she said her final goodbye, bowed, turned around and left. Rake did not turn to face her. There were tears streaming down the old man’s eyes which he was too proud to show his niece.

  Dawn kept to the shadows as she tried to creep her way out. A large part of her that was reluctant to leave. This was where she grew up. This place held her history. But being a highly trained assassin, she was also pragmatic. She knew the clan was doomed. Staying on would have only meant death, but worse still, a meaningless and senseless death. To die for a principle was noble but to die so that Venom Collart could get richer was just plain stupid!

  She had just made it to the main chamber when she felt a sting on her thigh. She tried to run, but it was too late. The poison from the dart had set in. Her legs became numb and paralysed. She stumbled onto the ground and lost consciousness. The last thing she heard was a cry of ‘Intruder! Intruder!’ The last things she saw were unfamiliar faces, a dozen unfamiliar faces surrounding her in what used to be her own home! Truly, the clan was dead!