Incidental Padding

Reigha sat in the utter darkness waiting for the faintest movement. She had been posted outside the noblewoman’s mansion for three nights now. Thus far she had been undetected, even by the mages. She was lucky enough that she naturally blended with the environment. Her physical attributes had nothing to do with it. Her pale skin and ice blue eyes would have given her away almost immediately in her dark surroundings if there weren’t something special about her.

Her own parents had referred to her as an almost cat like creature. Dancing from shadow to shadow like a flicker of candle light. Eaves dropping from corners that could be drenched with sunlight, yet still remain hidden. Crawling out windows and dropping to the streets below without a scratch or a sound like a feline, landing on her feet. They had made it a point that she knew it was unnatural the way she behaved.

Yet instead of forcing herself away from it, she embraced it. She embraced it like a long lost friend. Like a lover, who left for war, and returned tattered and scarred, but the same lover that left.

Now here she was, waiting for her mark to take flight. This baroness knew that there was a bounty on her head, and she would not take any risks lightly. Reigha wouldn’t dare venture into the house without a mage. Too many wards and barriers would have been set, and the chances of Reigha getting caught in one was far too great for the risk. So she waited, patiently in the shadows.

At some late hour of the night Reigha saw shadows moving swiftly towards a waiting carriage that she had not heard arrive. Either it was a spell, or somehow Reigha had managed to drift into a light sleep. This was a mistake that Reigha had not made for many years. The last was when she was  young and merely in training as an assassin. It was highly unlikely that this was the case.

A shrouded figure was moving much more slowly then the others. Almost carelessly towards the carriage. Either they were attempting to draw out the assassin or there was pressing business that the Baroness had to attend to outside the manor. Reigha sat tight for a few moments, deciding what the wise choice would be. By allowing the Baroness to leave unscathed, it could lead her into a false sense of security. Yet this could be the only chance she might have for several more evenings to take her mark.

“If you have to think twice about an initial response, then it is most likely the most hasty response,” a voice echoed in her head. With that thought Reigha sat back into a comfortable position and waited for her next opportunity.

The figure began to climb into the carriage as an arrow whizzed past Reigha’s head and stuck into the side of the carriage.

“Fools!” She hissed as, in one fluid motion, she rolled to her feet and leapt into a tree. She skimmed from one tree to another, because she knew the trees would be the first place the guards would look. She could hear fighting behind her. A glance proved that the incapable fools who had fired the arrow were within feet of where she had been sitting. She hadn’t been noticed, which was good. But how did they get so close to her, with out her realizing it. She was beginning to lose her edge. Maybe is was time to take a short break from the field and get back to some basic training.

Reigha slid to the base of a tree across the small dirt road from where the carriage sat. This was her chance. There were two guards left at the carriage with the baroness inside. Reigha felt that she was lucky that the man who had hired her had hired other assassins. They had laid the way for her to make easy work of this task.

Silently she crept around the carriage, short sword pulled and at her side. Quickly, she pulled the blade across his throat and let him lull to the ground. The other guard was aboard the coach in the driver seat. She climbed the back of the coach quickly, yet weightlessly as not to alert it’s inhabitant or it’s guard. Reigha crept across the top of the carriage and pulled her other sword.. The gaurd realized she was there only a moment too late. She had her blades crossed, and drawn across his throat, only a moment before he would have yelled to alert the other guards.

Though perhaps she was too anxious with her blade, for when she pulled inward she took the soldiers head. With a sigh she went to toss the head aside. Then she decided she would save the head to use for an experiment after they had stolen away. Reigha took the reigns of the coach and said a quick silent prayer to the goddess that the spell of silence was still in tact and shook the reigns to set the carriage on it’s way. Luckily, it was, and it’s inhabitant was none the wiser.

After several hours of silent riding, the sun began to rise and it had been miles since Reigha had encountered a keep or tavern. She decided that here, in the middle of the woods and far from the main road was as good a place as any to finish the job. She crawled down, a little less cautiously than she had climbed up, and grabbed the decapitated head by the hair. She took a few paces from the carriage and palmed the head as if it were a ball. A cruel smile crawled across her face and she pitched the head at the shade drawn window of the carriage.

A ward whirred and sizzled as the head tried to pass through it. Finally, the head passed through and a high pitched woman’s screech filled her ears. She didn’t know any living being could make such a mind numbing sound.

A petite, delicate woman emerged from the carriage led by a charcoal colored, steaming thing that reeked of burning flesh. Tear engulfed eyes found Reigha leaning against a tree just off the path. The Baroness’ golden hair shown and her eyes swam in pools of blue that oddly resembled the cold ends of summer in the fall skies.

“Who are you and what do you want of me?” The baroness asked. Her fear wasn’t allowing her to move any closer and wasn’t allowing her to run, even though she knew the answer in her heart.

“I am the woman who has been hired to kill you. My name is Reigha Nightshadow.” She stood free of the tree, taking a slight bow of respect, though it was meant as a mockery, proceeding her introduction. After straightening herself, she allowed her six inch blade, her dagger, to play gently along the skin of her face. She did not fear the blade, nor the damage she knew it could inflict. She preferred a small blade in instances such as these. It made the kill more personal, though there was no personal vested interest. . .aside from the money of course.       

“Who wants to kill me? Why would anyone want me dead? I am good to my people,” The Baroness said in a pleading tone, backing slowly, yet unconsciously toward the coach.

“It’s not your people that want you dead Baroness. It’s a man that has great wealth to gain from your death. He does not care how he gains it, as long as he does.” Reigha’s eyes were cold, face emotionless, with the exception of a smile that graced her full pink lips. The smile that she gained from the anticipation of the kill.

“Lord Aris.” It was a statement, not a question. Reigha simply nodded in agreement, taking another light step toward her prey.

“Please, don’t kill me. My people need me. I am a good ruler. I love my people.”

This was always the fun part. The pleading. The final grasping at straws. Something a noble would lower themselves to unless they knew they were at deaths door. Men, they were always the most fun, because they would never believe a woman could kill them. In their final breath, after a drawn out battle, that Reigha always let last longer than need be, they pleaded for their lives with a blade biting into the flesh beneath their chin. Then, usually in mid sentence she would slice open their wind pipe, blood washing over her, and their life slipping away, eyes intent on her. She was always the last thing they saw before they drifted into an eternal sleep. She gained pure joy from this thought. She knew that whatever the after life consisted of ,she was going to a bad place, and somehow didn’t care. She would be met by all those she had slain. Though to many this would be hell, to her, this was heaven. She harbored no terror or horror from the encounters. Just pure, unbridled pleasure. Reliving them would be bliss.

“Why do you think I care about your people and their well being?”

“Because their living beings. They deserve good, full lives. Lord Aris will not grant them this.”

Reigha let out a loud, full throated laugh, for she found amusement in this statement. “You don’t seem to understand my dear baroness. I am an assassin. I don’t care about the state of life your people live in. For the right price I would slay them all. The men, the women, the children. . .Their lives have no effect on my own, unless I have a price to kill them. And I was offered a very fair price to take your life, my lady.”

Finally, the baroness had backed into the carriage. Backed into the end of her rope. The end of her life.

“Oh please Goddess. Do not let it end like this.” Baroness Trentian looked to the skies and began to sink to the ground. Reigha grabbed a handful of soft golden hair and pulled the small woman to her feet with a yelp of pain. “You will not get away with this.”

“On the contrary my lady. I intend to burn your corpse with the coach. No mage can sense the surroundings of your death after the flames have engulfed you and fill the air with the stench of your burning flesh.”

Fear filled the baroness’ eyes as the truth hit her and felt the blade bite into her flesh.

“Please.”