《Ronin》 Birthed in Blood 1 After two weeks of constant bombardment, the gates of castle Ifel finally fell and the invading army rushed in. ¡°We shall go in three waves¡± General Martel roared at his army. ¡°First the cavalry will run through, kill or maim any in your way but do no slow or stop. Then the light foot soldiers go in and take care of any survivors. The last wave is the heavily armored troop, do not bother with killing individuals, your job is to destroy any remaining pockets of resistance. Brother¡¯s remember your oaths, let the blood of the infidels stain the earth for eternity as a warning to those who seek to defy the will of Athos¡± Soon the only ones left are the General, his personal guards and a rail thin black figure shrouded in a black cloak, his face hidden by the cloak¡¯s hood. ¡°Behar, your job is the most important, make fast for the inner castle and extinguish the Kahn bloodline, your clan has already been paid more than handsomely¡± The cloaked figure did not deign to respond as he flitted off into the night faster than the eye could see. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Behar¡¯s POV Almost as long as my memory is deep, blood and the night have been close companions, yet the stench of savagery in the air tonight makes even my mouth turn sour. As I make my way towards the royal palace, I see limbs being sundered from bodies, disembodied screams echoing through the night. None are spared, none are left alive, man, woman or child. Just a few meters to my right I see a familiar young soldier of about 16 years old. His name is Harnell, he had seemed to me during my short stay with the Parnian army, a decent young man from a decent family but now his face his twisted into a terrifying grimace by a wild killing intent and savage lust, below him is a girl of about five years old, her eyes now empty and lifeless. The young man unaware of her demise, or perhaps just not caring, continues to rape her corpse. The fighting has reached the royal palace. Enshrouded by darkness I am unseen and unobserved as I hurry towards the inner chambers. Birthed in Blood 2 Arah¡¯s POV Twenty years ago at the age of thirty, I made an oath to protect the royal family with my life, and today is the day that I must deliver. I stand before the doors of the royal chamber, my palm on the hilt of my sword. The king, queen and their children are all behind me. Only about thirty guards are left, no one makes a sound, no one talks, we all just wait for death. Suddenly, a loud creak reverberates through the room, the huge doors swing inward slowly as if in mockery of our fear. A hooded thin figure appears, looking like the dread reaper himself, he is unarmed. For a few seconds everyone is too shocked to react. I gather my wits and command the guards to attack. Swish, a sword slices through the air leaving behind a faint blue trail. A diagonal slash to slice from his left shoulder to his waist, fast enough to chill the hearts of even the most seasoned warriors. As the sword is about to strike the hooded man, he shuffles slightly to the left, just far enough that the tip of the sword passes less than an inch from his skin. His palm comes up unhurriedly, and a small knife appears in his fist as if by magic, the next thing I see is blood pouring from the attacking guard¡¯s neck, from the tiny slit between his helmet and body armor. Behar¡¯s POV The guards were no problem, slow and weighed down by their armor. I take a deep breath, entering into the state of the placid lake. Time seems to slow, a sword is thrust at me, then another. The most important thing when facing multiple enemies is not how to strike, it¡¯s to always be aware of each opponent¡¯s position. If you know where the enemy is, it¡¯s easy to dodge and strike without endangering yourself. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. After doing away with the guards, I turn to see the shocked gazes of an old knight and the royal family. The old man is brave, strong, a veteran of many battles but our fight end very quickly. Death comes to us all brave or cowardly, strong or weak. The King is tall, with pale blue hair and violet eyes, he must have been very good looking in the past, but now he just seems old and tired. ¡°Please let my family go¡± the King pleads. I don¡¯t know if there is a god, perhaps not, what I do know is that with every person I kill my soul wears down more, and now I am left with only a tiny nub. I wander what will happen when I have no soul left. This has to be my last job. After mercilessly spilling the blood of the Kahn¡¯s all over their castle floor, I feel like I am close to the end, if I kill just one more person, I will lose the last vestige of myself, worthless though it may be. I have decided not to go back to the clan, let them come after me if they must, after I turn over the royal family¡¯s heads to the General, I will disappear. Birthed in Blood 3 General Martel¡¯s POV This long night is finally over and the battle won. The assassin appears suddenly at my side, sending a shiver of fear up my spine. With the heads of the Kahns separated from their shoulders, the long campaign is finally over. Relief like wind blows over me, carrying with it the expectation of peace or at least an acceptable facsimile, dampened slightly only by the thought of returning home to my wife and probably another bastard child birthed in my absence. I look at the faces of my soldiers, and upon the destruction that we have, like a vengeful god, wrought upon men like ourselves. What does it say about the creator that we can commit such acts, yet live on without being wrung dry by guilt? How can we continue to eat, drink, laugh and love after this? These unanswered and perhaps unanswerable question have like weeds sprouted in my mind for a few years past. I cannot seek counsel from anyone, not even my closest friends, these are not the kind of thoughts a general is allowed to have or the kind a Parnian is allowed if he does not want to be accused of heresy. ¡°General your attention is needed¡± my attendant Iguan says to me from behind, throwing me a crisp salute. ¡°What seems to be the problem?¡± He is quiet for a few seconds, his shifty rat like eyes showing more than a hint of fear. Disgusted by his uncharacteristic inability to marshal words, I motion for him to lead me to the source of the discordance. We walk about thirty minutes to, what just a few hours ago, judging by the arrangement of the stalls must have been a market place. My mood worsens with every step I take, as I become even more unwilling to look at the destruction that my words had caused. A few of my men surround a pool of blood and a pile of mangled bodies. Within that pile a baby of about one summer sits innocuously. From the child¡¯s silence, I had initially thought him dead, but as I draw closer his black eyes turn to stare at me unblinkingly. My heart seizes for a moment, clutched by tiny hands of fear, within his eyes seem to lie an eternity of pain, suffering and death. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡°He is possessed by a demon sir¡± one of the men says and the others murmur their concurrence. Our orders are to send every soul in Ifel to the torturous hell of Ehan the death god, but it seems none of my susceptible and superstitious soldiers can summon the courage to end the life of this child for fear of being cursed. I also can¡¯t seem to bring myself to stain my hands with this child¡¯s blood, not because I am afraid of being cursed, but because I am at this moment tired of killing. I know it¡¯s not something I can avoid, for as long as man draws breath upon this earth there will be war. I look towards Behar for help, those from his clan are bred for killing, and this should be no problem for him. He seems to understand my thoughts and turns towards the child. The child finally takes his eyes off me and looks towards Behar. Their eyes meet and it seems like the rest of us suddenly disappear into the scenery. After what seems to me like a fraught eternity, Behar walks towards the child. He hits the child¡¯s neck with his fist and the child falls to the ground. Like air being let out from a bag, I hear sighs of relief all around me. As I turn to leave, I see Behar pick up the child¡¯s lifeless corpse. ¡°I will use the body¡± he says before disappearing into the night. Weary and afraid to think of what foul deeds his kind would use a child¡¯s corpse for, I make my way back to my tent to prepare for our triumphant return. Chapter 4: Cutpurse Chapter 4 Time in the slums of Karvell ran contrary to the rest of the city. During the day, its streets were sparsely populated, but once the sun had completed its slow descent into inevitable slumber and the blood red moon gained ascendancy, its depraved denizens like cockroaches crawled out of the woodworks. Karvell is a poor city at the very edge of what had after the fall of Ifel become known as the Parnian Empire. Too poor to be of any interest to the emperor and too far to draw the greedy grasp of merchants, the city is figuratively the pimple on the asshole of the great empire. Majority of its citizens were fugitives from serious crimes or lost souls just counting down the clock till Ehan¡¯s embrace. It was a dangerous city, a haven for cutthroats and criminals, and nestled within Karvell like an egg in its mothers warm embrace was the slums of Karvell. If Karvell was the cesspool of the empire, then the slums are the cesspool of Karvell, where the worst of the worst lived, even a mass murderer could be considered good there. No matter what vice you pursued, or the depravity you sought, it could be found behind one of the grimy dirt clogged doors in the slums. With the inky black night covering the slums, a little boy of about five summers stood hidden in the shadows formed where two walls met. The boy did not have a name, having never had need of one, a name was a luxury he couldn¡¯t afford. He had black hair left to grow long, tangled and unruly; black penetrating eyes and mahogany skin that implied an exotic ancestory. The child watched the revelers with unblinking eyes carefully studying each person going in or out of the door. The door led to a fight den, and all fights were to the death. As young as he was, he understood that the people going through the door to satisfy their lust for blood and to gamble on the deaths of fellow human beings were not anomalies, but rather the norm, seeking meaning like everybody else. He did not think them evil primarily because he had no concept of good and evil which was something that he had never been taught. He just saw them as they were, without any judgements. After about thirty minutes, an inebriated man stumbled out of the door. Immediately a gang about three boys aged from 13 to 15 surround the drunk. The gang was led by a well-muscled, tall boy with pale skin, sandy blonde hair and a scar running from his left cheek down to the edge of his mouth giving him a cruel air that was accentuated by the emotionless smile on his lips. This young boy steps towards the drunk and bashes his head in with a cudgel. The gang robs the now dead drunk taking everything down to his underwear and leaving his naked body lying where it fell. The young child watched all this indifferently. He was no different from the gang, he would have robbed the drunk too if not because the competition was much stronger than him. So rather than robbing drunks, he had to steal from people who were still sober and able to protect themselves. This was much harder to do, and would lead to his death if he was ever caught. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. He had been a cutpurse for one year and three months, perfecting his methods and sometimes narrowly escaping death. The first thing to do is to pick the perfect mark. Because of his height, it needed to be somebody short, with a purse concealed not on his chest but at his waist. The purse had to be concealed because in these streets a purse carried openly is always empty. Having found the first mark for the night, the boy slips out of the shadows, and shuffles towards the target. His left leg lagged behind his right giving him the appearance of a lame person, while his wild unruly hair obscured his face. As he is about to walk past the mark¡¯s left side, his right hand faster than the eye could see slips into the narrow slit of the target¡¯s shirt, precise enough not to brush any skin. A small knife slips out from his wrist severing the string holding the purse in one smooth motion, precipitating the purse into his palm which was then fluidly withdrawn. All these actions took place just as he was walking past the target, no wasted or extra motions, nothing to draw the eye towards him. He unhurriedly withdraws back into the shadows after first making sure that no eyes followed him. After which he left for another door. This was one of his rules, never to rob in the same place more than once on the same night. In order to survive these streets, he could not allow even a moment¡¯s carelessness. Before he returned home, he took three purses, earning 30 copper coins, and 2 silver coins. It was not a particularly good hurl, but it was not bad either. With careful management, it would purchase enough food for a man and a child to live on for a week. Even on his way home as he had through the night, no name kept to the shadows. As weak as he was, the only way for him to survive was not to be noticed. When other babies are taught words, he had been taught how to move in the shadows from the moment he could crawl. No name moved familiarly through the night, comfortable in his element. He finally comes to a stop before a squat hovel with mud walls and a roof of thatch. In front of the house, a stick like man sits in the lotus position, a jar of the local alcohol that smelled like embalming liquid was set out by his side with two bowls. His face was etched with lines, looking far older than his spry figure would suggest. He had pale blue eyes set deep in his face, making him look like a wise frog, pale almost translucent skin and red brown hair. The man¡¯s name is Behar a former assassin, and even though they look nothing alike, he is no name¡¯s father. No name goes to sit before Behar, also in the lotus position, pouring himself a drink. They do not speak any words, just drink cheap alcohol and watch the stars.