Private Tales Your Money or Your Life

A single man stood in the road. No. Not a man at all, for his ears were pointed, though they scarcely peaked from a face half-swathed in bandages. He'd a tunic and loose pants, much stained and patched. He idly picked at his fingernails with an enormous knife, seemingly heedless of the rattling wheels and clop of hooves, announcing a single carriage and four accompanying horseman.

Tall bushes rose on either side of the dirt road and here the trees stood thickly together, a canopy through which the sun peeked through in shafts of light.

The leaves stirred with the wind and in the autumn, many fallen leaves rustled in flurries on the ground.

"Out of the way you fool," barked the lead rider, his liveried surcoat above his chainmail announcing him as a guardsman of one of the mercantile houses of Alliria.

"Hmmm," mused the solitary elf, "No. I think I'll stay."

The lead rider urged his horse forward with foul oath, but as the horse clod forward upon a pile of leaves, the leaves gave way to hole dug in the dirt of the road and covered with a thin lattice of branches. The branches snapped beneath the horse's hoof, sending the horse collapsing into the hole and hurling the rider from the saddle.

The screaming of the injured horse split the air and for a moment, all the riders watched in horror at their fallen comrade laying still in the dirt where he'd been thrown.

"Bastard," growled one, reaching for his sword.

"Ahh, I wouldn't," mused the elf. And just then an arrow hissed from the bush, skimmed past the rider's ear, and buried itself with a thwock in the wood of the carriage.

A crooked grin twisted the elf's lips and he pointed his dagger at the lot of them.

"All of you, dismount, or you'll be sprouting new growths in goosefeather."

Lyria Killoran

The riders, with much cursing, did as they were told. Pity. Rob would have liked a bit more fun. His band needed some live target practice.

The wheat stalk between his lips dipped as he chewed on the end. Light footsteps carried him at a lackadaisical glide to the side of the carriage. He rapped on the door with his knife.

"Little pig, little pig, let me in."

"No!" came the muffled voice from within the carriage.

Rob sighed. "I know who you are. And I know how much ransom money you'll fetch," he idly toyed with the goosefletching on the arrow embedded in the side of the carriage, tracing his knife along the wooden shaft with a bored expression. "Come out now and we'll give you back in one piece. Don't... and we'll set the carriage on fire and we'll sell you back anyway. Slightly singed."

A groan came within, then the door banged open and a heavyset man with bushy sideburns got out. He wore incredibly expensive garments, with a white ruffled collar and a coat of minkskin.

"Now, there's a good little piggy. Come on out banker. All the way out."

The banker tottered down the steps. "Valk and Sons will hear about this."

"Oh I'm sure they will when they get our ransom demand."

The banker stood before Rob Yew... and in full open view.

Lyria Killoran

A low hiss cut through the air beside Rob's head and he jerked away, well familiar with the sound an arrow made in flight. But he seemed not the mark, for the banker clutched at the shaft now sprouting from his throat as he collapsed, gurgling. Bright scarlet blood gushed from his lips and stained his white ruffled collar.

"I said hold, damn it," snapped Rob, then he looked at the fletching on the arrow, his one good eye narrowed.

That wasn't one of theirs...

His head snapped around and he flattened himself against the side of the carriage, but no more shots came. The dismounted riders began looking at each other. Desperate men all. Rob cursed.

"Kill them all," he snapped to his crew.

More arrows flew from the bushes, peppering the survivors. Rob ignored it all, looking between the fallen banker and following the shot's trajectory. He'd been a skilled archer once. And he thought he knew where the shot came from. That ridge just there.

Rob sheathed his knife and ran to one of the guardsmen's horses. He snatched up the reins, vaulting into the saddle with elven spryness and urging the mare forward as the rest of the guards fell to arrows around him. The horse's hooves thundered and branches tore at Rob's face and arms as the mare carried him up to where he thought the shot came.

His keen eye studied the ground and the foliage with the expertise of a lifetime in the woods tracking. Hunting. Then he saw it. Broken branches and the imprint of a boot in soft earth.

They couldn't be far ahead.

Rob snarled and the mare raced forward. Ahead, he thought he saw movement in the trees. The fleeing assassin who stole his ransom.

"I've got you now, fucker," he hissed, unfastening a length of rope from his waist, weighted at either end with a stone a little smaller than his fist. He spun the bolas around and around, then whipped them toward the flash of motion ahead of him.

Lyria Killoran

The mare whinnied as he drew on the reins and she skidded to a halt, back legs leaving furrows in the forest floor. Rob didn't wait for her to stop. He leaped from the saddle and landed with the grace of a feline near the laughing figure.

Laughing.

That really stuck in his craw.

"I'll show you a knife," he hissed, dragging out his massive hunting dagger. The carved wood hilt was worn down to a polish from use and the blade's edge flashed in a ray of sunlight coming down through the canopy.
Only one side bore an edge, but the point of the dagger was a wicked thing.

Rob stalked toward the grounded assassin, leaves crunching beneath his boots. He saw her proper now, a human woman with hair the color of summer wheat and eyes like the sky. His own green eye narrowed on her and his lips twisted into a lopsided sneer, made heinous by the vicious pink and red scar starting at the corner of his mouth and running up beneath the bandages swathing half his face.

The elf aimed a kick at her ribcage, "Stop fucking laughing. You know you cost me a small fortune today? All that coin gone with a single arrow. I was this close."

He held up forefinger and thumb and bent down. "This close." The knife flashed as he tried to hold it to her throat. "But then you and your little bow ruined everything. Who are you?"


Lyria Killoran

"That right?" he sneered down at her, pushing the knife up against that pretty neck, her tendons taut beneath the cold edge of the blade.

That voice. Not a street killer at all. This was some highborn assassin. Either she was an incredibly expensive hire, or she was just out playing hero. And judging from how good her shot was, Rob had to admit she might just be a pricey hitter. Someone had paid a good bag of coin for her services.

But it seemed like fortune was coming back around after all.

"A Killoran, eh? Well consider me fuckin' honored."

He tweaked her nose. That ought to put a crack in that smug facade of hers.

"Guess I found myself a new hostage."

The Killorans owned a bunch of opal mines if he remembered right. Rich merchant guild types. If she was telling the truth, then she might be worth a bit of ransom herself.

He grabbed at the bola rope with his other hand and started trying to wind the cord around her wrists in a quick tie, elven fingers deft and experienced from years of hunting elk and deer.

And humans.

Lyria Killoran

She moved too quickly and his blade nicked her. A bead of blood welled up and trickled out across the steel of his dagger. He eyed it, then her words and drumming fingers drew his attention. He glared at her, then at her ring. A gold band set with an amethyst.

Fucking Ruan Dontae. Of course.

Yew's lips thinned into a firm line of disgust as he stopped for a moment, still kneeling in the dirt next to her. He yanked on the rope and shifted one knee from the dirt, placing it on top of the dangling strand of rope binding her wrists so that they were pinned to the forest floor. He sank his weight forward, leaning in a crouch over her so that his nose hovered just above hers. He could smell her, this human. Sweet, floral... Abominably clean. Roses, was it? And something else he couldn't place.

Eye locking with hers, he ran his tongue along the cold steel of his dagger, licking away the red dribble of her warm blood torpidly.

"Trust me," he hissed into her face, "I've killed plenty."

His thoughts raced. Why had Dontae sent an assassin? A failsafe, maybe? Or maybe he just didn't trust Rob. That made Rob scowl.

He teased aside a wisp of her blonde hair from her face with the tip of his dagger. "Maybe I just kill you here. Say the job went wrong. One less competitor on the payroll."

Lyria Killoran

Humans.

Her murmured whisper in his ear made the hair on the back of his neck raise. One dark eyebrow beneath the swathe of bandages drew down in a persistent scowl, the lean hollows of his cheeks lending him a cruel expression.

The curve of her lips in a smile left him suspicious and his muscles tense. A viperess' compliments and a vixen's wile. Her words were a backhand at his savaged face. He knew what he looked like now and it was far from pretty.

He moved to snatch up the rope from beneath his knee and he drug her bound wrists up and over her head, palm pinning them flat. Rob shifted, knee grinding over one of her thighs to keep her from moving before coming to settle between her legs as he leaned over her, knife still hovering over her face.

"Blah, blah, blah. A lot of pretty talk from your pretty lips, Blue-Eyes."

She should be terrified, but instead she taunted him. His knee in the dirt ground upward. Leather creaked.

"Why should I trust you? Maybe you were aiming for me and you just missed."

Lyria Killoran

The world spun as the woman hooked her legs around his hips and tugged him to the ground, rolling. His shoulders met soft soil and dry leaves and he found himself laying on his back with her knees on either side of him. She wore an absurd grin as she sat back, pinning him.

"Piss off," he swore, furious at the reversal and the feel of her filthy human body in soft leathers pressing against his pelvis.

Rob slammed his feet down and bucked up once, before realizing there was a far simpler way to solve this.

"And knives? You into me sticking you as well, human?" he pressed the tip of the knife up against her ribcage for emphasis. His dark hair matted underneath him as he lay there. And he could feel his bandages had come a bit loose in the scuffle. His lips twisted.

"In the span of less than an hour you've poked a hole in my payday's throat, told me you're the spawn of a mining merchant, then that you work for the most dangerous crime boss in Alliria. I'm starting to lose track of your stories, Killy."

The rope fibers bit into his palm as he yanked on it, hard, trying to bring her closer as he shimmied his hips, trying to get free of her lithe, straddling thighs.

"Not to mention the jabs," he hissed into her face, the knife tip pressing into her leathers, as he recalled how she mocked how he looked, calling him pretty, "You trying to convince me of your story or fuck me?"

Lyria Killoran

Thankfully, she took her weight off him and got to her feet. Rob felt a surge of disgust at himself for the rush of heat he'd felt that now started to slip away. Shouldn't feel anything for a worthless human, even one as pretty as her.

"What's the matter?" he grunted, pushing himself up off the forest floor and coming to stand over her, a good five inches taller at least.

Born unable to lie? That was a fae thing. Could she be part fae? His good eye narrowed, assessing.

"Not enjoying the bondage after all, eh?"

He waved his knife before her face with an obnoxious waggle, then made a show of sheathing it. He started unwinding the rope from her wrists, his movements quick and methodical. He'd better things to be about.

"Let's talk then."

Lyria Killoran

Did she really just proposition him? After everything she'd done? More mockery of his looks no doubt. Rob glared as she seemingly confirmed this by asking about his eye.

"Oh, this?" he pointed to the swathe of bandages and the scar that crept out beneath them, extending all the way to the corner of his mouth. "Fucking humans happened."

He bared his teeth savagely, "Maybe I take one of your pretty blue-ones instead. Seems fair since you botched my job, Killoran."

Lyria Killoran

"As if you're better, shooting first," Rob spat back, shaking his head. "I know you didn't have to put that arrow near as you did. You were enjoying it."

He was so tired of humans, better just killing them on sight. But he had done enough of that at the Falwood borders and that was before he lost an eye. He was a wanted man out there. A wanted man in Alliria, too, of course. But at least here he didn't have to deal with dreadlords. Just assassins intent on vulturing jobs right out from under him.

"Look, I don't care if Dontae trained you personally. I run my own crew, or haven't you heard of Rob Yew?" He smirked, "Dontae did me some favors, so I owe him, but I'm not his happy little lap dog." He poked her in the chest with a finger, "Next time you want to fuck up my ambush, you let me know ahead of time."

Still, he could understand why Dontae wanted the banker gone. It made sense. And she was right, Rob got his money either way.

"Where were you running off to anyway? Just going to slink back to Alliria?"

Lyria Killoran

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't."

It was not, but she probably couldn't even pronounce his real name. He was not in the habit of handing that out. Especially not to some human woman who assassinated for a living - no matter how well she filled out her leathers.

He sighed through the nose and ground a leaf beneath his toe, mulling over his next words.

"We're headed back toward Alliria anyway," keep your enemies close they said, "There's a tavern on the way, Red Rover. You know it?" his one good eye looked her up and down, "Thing about me is, I am presumptuous. Meet me there. We might have some common business to discuss."

With that, Rob turned around, got on the mare, and left her standing there.

* * *

That evening, Rob's troop rolled into the lonely inn on the side of the road like a storm blowing into port. The group of mostly elves took over, sitting on rafters, drinking too much ale, and turning a table on its side and into an impromptu, indoor archery contest.

Rob sat at a table in the corner by himself, whittling a small figurine.

Lyria Killoran

Rob offered her only a glance before his eye flicked back down to the work at hand. He scraped away a shaving, then blew on the object before setting it down.

The wood had a reddish hue to it. Cherry wood. Good for such carvings. The figure was not finely detailed, still in the rough stages, but it was clearly a falcon with wings out spread.

“My brother used to love carving little figures like these,” a frown pinched at his brows, “before the Anirians killed him.”

Rob sniffed dismissively and looked at the commotion, taking in the damage his troop was causing with their raucous yelling. Someone had found a flute and was wailing on it with a slightly off key upbeat kilter. Rob’s eye wandered back to her.

“You came.”

Lyria Killoran