THE DANGEROUS AND THE POWERFUL
One of his brothels and two of his drug dens were reporting reduced takings. His first thought was always that someone was trying to take advantage of their position of trust. It was costly to replace the operator of one of his businesses, so he liked to be sure. Swift action was needed though, or it would send the wrong message to the other businesses. There was no such thing as a quiet life, he thought. They would have to be visited regularly to let them know that he was watching. If his suspicions were confirmed, the culprit would be dealt with harshly and held up as an example to dissuade others from similar behaviour.
He was always glad to get back to his office after his morning inspections. It was a cool sanctuary, sheltered from the heat and noise of the city, where he could be alone with his thoughts and make the decisions that would keep his empire running, and more importantly, him at its head. He closed the door with a click behind him and walked to the comfortable leather chair behind his desk. He sat and allowed his body to sink into the plush leather padding. He would never cease to appreciate the simple pleasures that life offered. As he sat looking idly out of the window with his back to the door, it clicked again. He swivelled his chair around to look at the door and instinctively slipped his hand beneath the desk and tugged on the alarm cord that was hidden there. There was a tall man standing where a moment before there had been nothing. He was draped in a dark hooded cloak that partially obscured his face. The hilts of the pair of blades at his waist were not obscured.
He surreptitiously tugged the cord one last time before moving his hand to the crossbow. ‘I think it safe to assume you’ve killed my guards, so all that remains is to discuss what you want,’ he said. His voice was sharp and assertive. Contanto had faced death many times before, but come out on top and he refused to be afraid of it.
The cloaked man remained silent.
‘It’s like that then.’ He paused a moment and sighed. ‘What did I do? Kill someone close to you? Put your family out of business?’ He had tilted the gimballed crossbow and pointed it at the intruder. He intended to kill the man regardless, but he would like to know what had brought him here, and if there were more people that would need killing, to ensure that this irritating interruption was not repeated.
The front of his desk was false wood, being little more than a paper screen. He had spent hours firing bolts at targets all around his office, at first entirely in preparation for a situation such as this, then because he found it diverting and enjoyable. In a moment the bolt’s deadly toxin would be coursing its way through the intruder’s veins, but first he wanted to know why he was here. Still the man said nothing. It was disappointing, but that was often the way of things. The man reached to the hilt of his sword and began to draw it, the hood falling back from his face a little. He was young, younger than Contanto would have expected, but his eyes were old, old and hard. He had seen eyes like that before. The man meant to kill him and he would do it without hesitation or mercy.
They had toyed with one another for long enough. He clicked the hair trigger on the crossbow and was comforted by the thrum of the bowstring and the release of tension in the small weapon that accompanied it. His expectation was such that it took a split second to realise that there had not been any sound of the paper being punctured, nor of the man reacting to being hit. That split second was all it took for the man to move across the room. He was freakishly fast.
Contanto looked around for something, anything that might influence what was to come. Had he been over confident? He let out a slight gasp as the intruder’s blade pierced his chest. He couldn’t quite believe that anyone would have the audacity or ability to actually manage to kill him. It wasn’t quite as painful as he was expecting either, but perhaps that was just the shock. Then it was done.
Soren left by the front door as innocuously as anyone could. He walked briskly away discarding his dark cloak and quickly blending into the crowd. His heart was racing with excitement. It was a perfectly executed kill. He wondered briefly if he should try to send word to the General, but decided it was unnecessary. Word would spread quickly that Contanto was dead but what would follow that, he could only guess. With the head of the city’s underworld dead, there would be chaos and internecine warfare amongst the criminal gangs.
He spent two hours on a circuit around the city, looping around and backtracking several times until he was certain that no one could be following him. Then, and only then did he return to his apartment.
‘Ruripathian scouting parties seen crossing the border! Farmers reporting their livestock being rustled. Outrages and atrocities being committed all along the border!’
Despite the noise on the square, the crier somehow managed to raise his voice above it allowing himself to be clearly heard even from fifty yards. The news disappointed Soren. After all of their efforts, it seemed that relations with Ruripathia had disintegrated regardless. Something occurred to him, it was a familiar thought, almost like déjà vu, but he couldn’t quite work out what it was. Something someone had said to him, but he couldn’t remember whom. He was struggling with the memory, trying to dig through the jumble in his mind. It had been about Chancellor Marin not being what he was supposed to be. Nevertheless, he had other matters to attend to. Grand Burgess Anton Spiro walked out of the Guilds’ Hall onto the square with his two minders, and this required Soren’s full concentration.
He was greeted by several traders, much like Contanto had been, but with a noticeably different atmosphere. The greetings seemed genuine, not rooted in fear. Soren had not been able to discern any notable pattern in Spiro’s behaviour. Every day was different. His house was in Highgarden, and he was married with two children, one of whom was preparing to enter the Academy. Soren had no desire to kill Spiro in front of his children no matter what the reasons for his assassination, so the house was out. He worked long days but was never far from his minders. It looked as though the Seafarers’ Guild had provided them. They had the tough weathered appearance of sailors. They were big, mean looking men but Soren was willing to bet that they were more brawn and aggression than ability. For angry merchants and guild members, they were more than enough of a deterrent but they would amount to no more than an inconvenience to Soren. The greatest threat they represented was escaping to raise the alarm.
The Guilds’ Hall was enormous and given the time frame within which Soren had to complete the assassination, he really didn’t have the luxury of being able to acquaint himself with the layout.
He had divided the available time evenly between the three targets, which in reflection might have been mistake. He felt he had spent longer then necessary in preparation for Contanto’s assassination and had not taken into consideration the fact that one of the other ones might require more time. The imposition of this novice error was making itself known to him now. It narrowed the options in terms of locations, but as he had discovered, every man left an opening, it was just a case of finding it in the time he had.
The street was busy, just as Soren had hoped. Crowds were vital for the success of his plan. Spiro walked down the street every morning on his way to the Guilds’ Hall. For three mornings Soren had been watching him, from the point that his bodyguards collected him from his house, and walked with him down to the hall. It was the only consistent element in Spiro’s daily routine that Soren had been able to identify.
The street was always busy at this time of the morning. It was neither too wide nor too narrow, and there were a multitude of alleyways leading away from it, any of which would facilitate a good escape. It would be a brazen killing, in full view of the crowds and the bodyguards and would cause quite a fuss. It was this fuss that he hoped would allow him to melt into the crowd and disappear. If it went wrong it would be a disaster, but Soren found the prospect thrilling nonetheless.
He lurked at the entrance of one of the side alleys waiting for Spiro and his men to appear at the end of the street. He had been at the house when Spiro left, but had rushed on ahead to be ready for them. In the crowd his sword would be useless so the dagger would be the best choice. Something with a smaller hilt would have been better, but he had not got the money spare to buy a stiletto. The wound it would cause might not have been severe enough either. He would only have one chance so he needed to be sure that his equipment would do what was required.
He spotted the larger of Spiro’s two bodyguards first, and then focussed in on Spiro himself who followed shortly behind. Most people moved out of the way as soon as they saw Spiro and his men, but there were enough who didn’t to cause some bustling and jostling. It meant the bodyguards were a little farther from Spiro than they should have been. Not by much, but just enough.
Soren stepped out from the alleyway and walked toward the approaching men. He slipped seamlessly between the moving people around him and readied his dagger. The bodyguards drew closer and he fought the urge to look at them, forcing himself to stare toward some imagined purpose at the far end of the street. He was between the guards before they noticed him, not that they paid him very much attention anyway. As Soren bumped against Spiro, one of them gave him a gentle shove away. But the bodyguard was too late and it was already done.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, and sidestepped out of the way before walking quickly toward the nearest laneway. He had sharpened the blade to a wicked edge. It cut so smoothly that it would be seconds before any pain was felt. He had slipped it between Spiro’s ribs, into his heart and given it just enough of a twist to ensure the wound would not close. Spiro would take three, maybe four steps before the catastrophic loss of blood would cause him to drop to the ground and die. Perhaps he would have enough time to realise what had happened to him, but perhaps not. Either way, Soren was halfway down the alleyway before the body hit the ground.
His heart was racing and it was a struggle to maintain his composure, as it always was after a kill. Walking calmly away from the scene of an assassination was perhaps the most difficult part of the whole undertaking. There were shouts from the street behind him, and a scream. If the bodyguards had more than a shared brain cell, which judging by their appearance and demeanour may not have been the case, they would by now have connected him to the fact that their boss was lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Working out where he had gone would be more difficult for them. The fog of confusion and panic was an invaluable tool.