The target snored, a mixture of a wheeze and a snort to be precise. The small fire set aside for the four of them did just enough to keep the chill in the air from penetrating their bones. It was large enough for the task, yet small enough not to attract any outside attention. The half-moon sat above them providing just enough of its light to mask the dangers of the forest and the hills beyond. The bulk of the squad slept a quarter mile away, the four of them representing the advance watch. It was a position of great honor, or so the Commander told each of them.
Tactical suicide, thought Rainier, to act as both a decoy for any attack and to provide a first point of contact. It was madness for any of the twenty-five they rode with to splinter off into smaller groups. Better to have all hands available rather than provide a potential enemy a smaller target to eliminate. Any bandits roaming the surrounding forest could rise up and slit each of their throats, before returning into the darkness without any alarm sounded.
Lunacy.
Rainier ran his fingers along the length of his dagger’s sheath. He listened to the other two drift off to sleep. The small one who could not stop bragging about all his conquests, and the heavier one who laughed incessantly at every one of the smaller’s tales. Their breathing became more and more regular with each passing moment. He had volunteered for this middle watch. In the darkest portion of the night, when there was no one else around. Where a man, his thoughts, and his very soul could be as one. The small amount of light did its job to illuminate everything and nothing. Enough radiance to mask the death which sat amongst them for he was a viper, clutched tight to their chest, waiting for his time to strike. He relieved his blade from its home. The knife glistened in the moonlight, eager to drink. Calm and quiet, he inched over to his target.
If he felt anything for the man, it would have been pity. Pity the man would never know the value of his life. Pity he wore a target placed on him by powerful men who felt threatened by what he could represent in the new order. In truth, Rainier did not need to feel anything. An assassin only focused on the job before him, everything else becoming happenstance. From an early age, they trained him to blot out all distractions. Feelings and pain must not exist. All was secondary to the mission. Nothing compared to the final moment of the job.
Therefore, Rainier deadened himself to every emotion. He beat on whores and felt nothing. He hunted the great beasts of the lands and still nothing. The only truth was that nothing matched the moment when your blade slips inside the target. Nothing compared to the ecstasy contained in that one motion. As the victim’s life ebbed and flowed out onto the ground, his blade giving the body a new spout, those were the moments he felt… whole.
It was why they chose him for this task, to act as the harbinger for the Night of Knives. He would strike the first blow for a new regime. King Dmitri was a relic of a different age, or so they told him. Rainier chose not to concern himself with politics. He had watched too many align themselves with a side, with a cause, because their hearts told them to do as much. The blade made equals of all men, whether they were justified in their decisions or not.
However, that was not why he did what he did. He was a hunter, let off his leash to release death upon a single soul. Afterwards he would disappear into the darkness.
One week out, that was the deal. He would travel with the rest of them for the week until they were firmly on the border of the contested lands. Where once the Empire stretched beyond a man’s ability to walk it from east to west, it now shrunk every year. Eroded by a sea of infected long since dead, and decayed by remnants of old ways that no longer existed in the true world. Now they were only false echoes representing the ancient ways before the Lichy.
He became a chameleon. Given enough time, he could blend into any situation. A target might even call him friend before his mouth tasted copper and salt. Rainier many times shook a man’s hand with his right and gutted him with the other. To find that time when it was finally correct to strike, it was his poetry. He enjoyed the dance when he could find it. This close to the end, he could hear the organ bellow, the harpist plucking the strings; they all played for him.
Yet, the week passed and there were still no signs of anything. He was beginning to wonder if it all was an elaborate lie perpetrated by Dmitri to keep the populace from noticing how his power waxed and waned with the moon. The type of story a parent might tell their children in order to compel them to obey.
He had hoped that there would be a bandit attack on the group. In the confusion, perhaps his blade would find the marked one. The rest of the group, at least the ones who managed to survive, would be none the wiser.
Still, that would have been the easy way. Now, though, he would have to do things in the only way left to him. Ironically, the bandits could have saved the lives of these twenty-five men.
Now he sat beside the target, and glanced one last time into the darkness around them. He listened to the sounds of the forest, and it greeted him with a stillness only broken by the rhythmic breathing from his companions and the heavy breath of his target. There would be no random messenger from the bulk of the force. The music turned in his head, the instruments struck one last chord.
His left hand hovered just above the target, ready to prevent his scream as the blade bit into him. The blade in his right tensed, ready to complete its task.
No survivors. No one must carry Vadim’s tale from these foothills.
…to be continued in Episode 2
About John R McGuire
John R McGuire is an engineer by day and writer by night. He attended Georgia Tech to obtain a civil engineering degree. While his left brain absorbed information on E-mag, Calculus, Statics, Dynamics, Structures and Road Design; his right brain devoured the works of Jack London, Mark Twain, Anne Rice, Alan Moore, Kurt Busiek, and Mark Waid. Today, John is a registered professional engineer and professional writer. He lives just outside Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and three cats.
Also available by John R McGuire
The Dark that Follows
The White Effect (forthcoming)
Comics by John McGuire
The Gilded Age (from Terminus Media)
Tiger Style (from Arena Comics)
He also maintains that he would have been a Marine biologist, if not for Jaws.
HOLLOW EMPIRE is his second novel.
Visit https://johnrmcguire.com/to keep up to date on future releases, news, and free short stories.
And visit https://tesseraguild.com/to read his weekly blog.
About J Edward Neill
J Edward Neill became obsessed with writing fiction in early 2001. On one bitterly cold morning in the lowest corridor of his candlelit man-cave, he set fingers to keyboard and began hammering away on what would soon become a much larger project than he ever imagined. Since that day, J Edward has spent nearly all his free time lost in his daydreams, conjuring ways to write the kind of stories he always loved as a child. When he's not glooming in front of his laptop or iPad, J Edward haunts the internet via his websites: https://tesseraguild.com/ and https://downthedarkpath.com/.
Also available by J Edward Neill
Down the Dark Path – Book I in the Tyrants of the Dead trilogy
Dark Moon Daughter – Book II in the Tyrants of the Dead trilogy
Old Man of Tessera – A horror short story
The Sleepers – A sci-fi horror short story
And coming soon from J Edward Neill
Nether Kingdom – Book III in the Tyrants of the Dead Trilogy
Let the Bodies – A short story sequel to Old Man of Tessera
Darkness Between the Stars – Prequel to the Tyrants of the Dead Trilogy
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