Chương 314: Scumbag Assassin

Luke strolled down the fortress corridor as if he had all the time in the world. His kukris dripped red, and he wiped them clean with a strip of cloth torn from an enemy's shirt. He could have tossed them into his inventory and let the system clean them automatically, but today the blades felt like they deserved a little personal care. He stopped in front of a door and knocked.

"Who is it? I already said I don't want to be bothered at this hour!" came an irritated voice from the other side.

"Sir, I brought your dinner," Luke answered.

"Dinner? I already ate. And tell that idiot cook not to forget to send the leftovers to the prison wing, I don't want anyone crying in my ear," the voice snapped. Luke opened the door.

"I told you not to—" The man didn't finish. Luke's kukri flashed across the room. The blade hit home. The man shrieked, tumbling out of his chair.

"Shit!" he roared. When Luke saw him reaching for a sword from his inventory, he flicked another kukri straight into the man's hand. More screaming, rolling pain. Luke whistled softly, strolling through the office while the kukris snapped back into his grip, guided by Magnetism.

"You bastard!" the man shouted, staggering backward. Luke exhaled, motionless. The man fumbled for a crystal and yelled into it.

"Alert! We have an intruder!" The crystal pulsed with a faint echo, likely relaying the warning throughout the fortress. Luke recognized the mechanism—some magical blacksmith working with an artisan, probably from Bastion tech. He calmly pulled out a chair and sat down.

"You done?" The man gulped down a healing potion, bolting for the door. The moment it swung open, a fist came flying. Princess Charlie stood there waiting. She stomped on his leg hard enough to make the bone crack like dry wood. The man howled, pulling a massive axe from his inventory and swinging it at her shin. Nothing. She barely flinched. Her fist came down instead, smashing into his face. Teeth scattered across the floor.

"You shouldn't have pissed her off," Luke said lazily. The princess grabbed him by the hair, dragging his head across the floor while he screamed. She crushed his hands in her grip, then shoved him into a chair across the table. It was an office. Luke propped his boots on the desk.

"You're all screwed," the man spat.

"My soldiers will be here any second. You think you're tough? We've got seventy people in this place! You're nothing!" Luke smiled faintly, cupping a hand to his ear as if listening.

"I don't hear anyone coming," he said.

"Do you, Princess Charlie?" She shook her head. Luke shrugged.

"Looks like your soldiers aren't coming." He stood, voice even.

"All right. Before anything else, you're going to give me some information."

"I'm not telling you a damn thing!" Luke's gaze slid to Charlie. She drove her fist into the man's face again.

"The bones breaking won't be mine," Luke said softly.

"Play the tough guy all you want. I promise you, she's tougher." He gestured, and Charlie reached for the man once more.

"Let me go!" the man screamed. Princess Charlie hurled him straight through the window, glass exploding around him as he plummeted into the open air. Before he could vanish into the night, a spectral chain shot out from her hand and coiled around his leg. Wind tore at his clothes, the drop yawning beneath him. This office was at the very top of the fortress's main keep.

"See any of your soldiers down there?" Luke called, leaning out casually.

"Help! Please! Pull me up! For the love of the gods, pull me up!" Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. The height really was dizzying.

"Can you fly?" Luke asked.

"Please! Don't let me fall!" Charlie loosened the chain just enough for him to drop again. His scream echoed before she snapped the chain taut and hauled him back up like a hooked fish.

"Ready to cooperate now?" she asked.

"Yes! I swear!"

"Good. Then sing, little bird. Answer every question exactly, and if anything you say contradicts what I already know, you're diving headfirst." The man was crying now, truly crying. After everything, kukris through his body, a broken leg, mangled hands, was he still trying not to cooperate, or had they just taken too long to make their point? Luke decided not to dwell on it.

"Let's start with the most important question," he said.

"WHERE DID YOU PUT MY FOOD?" Artemis's voice barked from the pendant, sharp and annoyed. The man blinked, stunned. Luke cleared his throat.

"What I meant was: where are the supply crates?"

"They, they're gone! Someone came and took them, stuffed everything into storage items!" Bastion bastards… everything we stockpiled over these days. Luke tightened his grip on the kukri and continued the interrogation.

Layla had been trapped in that place for days. Lately, her life had been spiraling from bad to worse. This was the second time she'd ended up imprisoned, the first because of James, or rather the criminal Luke, and now here she was again, probably his fault indirectly too. She'd been shoved into the deepest, most isolated part of the fortress prison. The hostages had been split into groups of three, but she'd drawn the short straw and wound up alone. Her only cellmate was a plant. Literally.

The same plant that used to sit on her work counter. It had landed here with her by accident. In the chaos she'd thought she was being evicted from the inn and had grabbed her things, plant included, then came the capture. Footsteps echoed in the darkness. She backed away from the bars. The criminals hated it when she stood too close.

"Hello, Layla," a voice said from the shadows. She froze. She knew that voice.

"Luke?" she asked, incredulous. He emerged wearing black, a mask covering his face up to the bridge of his nose. But that irritating, calm confidence in his tone, she'd know it anywhere. Everything about him stirred her anger.

"It's me. Nailed it," he said in that maddeningly casual way as he pulled the mask down.

"What are you doing here?" She couldn't believe it was real, half-wondering if she'd finally cracked and started hallucinating. It made no sense. He was supposed to be with the main group in another zone of the tutorial, probably hauling gear for the others. He was weak. Luke slipped a key into the lock. The cell door clicked open. Not an illusion. Flesh and blood.

"You came to rescue me?" she asked, disbelief and suspicion tangled in her voice. Could it be? After everything, was that scumbag actually about to do something good?

"Rescue you?" he said.

"No. I came to save the plant." He brushed past her and crouched in the corner of the cell.

"Have you been watering it?"

"What?" Layla blinked, utterly confused.

"Katarina's thirsty. She told me you've been getting water but never bothered to give her any." He lifted the potted plant as if it were a newborn, cradling it with mock solemnity. Then he simply started walking out.

"Wait! Is it even safe? What's going on?"

"Yes, it's safe," he answered over his shoulder.

"You were the last ones left to free." Layla hurried after him.

"There are a lot of bodies on the way, so close your eyes, lady."

"And how am I supposed to walk with my eyes closed?"

"My advice was for the plant, Layla. How exactly would you walk with your eyes shut? Are you an idiot?" She clicked her tongue and followed anyway. The hallway was dim and hushed, and she found herself inching closer to him out of instinct. She'd never admit it out loud, but the dark was pressing in on her.

"Up ahead you're going to see a sea of dismembered corpses, limbs scattered everywhere, guts smeared across the floor," he said lightly.

"What?"

"You were worried about the criminals killing you, right? I'm just preparing you. You're going to see a lot of severed heads. Everyone's dead."

"That's not comforting at all!" she snapped.

"What, would you rather they were alive and waiting to kill you?" She clicked her tongue again. As they walked through the fortress, Layla caught glimpses of bodies on the ground, still and pale.

"They're really all dead?"

"Yes." She thought about how many criminals had been here.

"The group that came in must've been strong."

"Group? I killed them all myself," he said. A laugh escaped her.

"You? You took out the entire fortress alone? Yeah, right." He sighed.

"You're right, I lied. It was Allison Rhiannon. She did it alone."

"Makes sense."

"Why would you believe she'd do it all herself but not me?"

"Because you're a manipulative, lying scumbag who plays women."

"I don't see how that has anything to do with strength. That whole James phase is behind me. I'm making up for my mistakes. I even did a good deed—came to rescue a plant and accidentally saved you too. See?" Her irritation climbed with every word. Everything about him grated. She stepped in a slick of blood and shuddered. The corridors were as terrifying as she'd imagined, silent and dark. She swallowed hard. For a moment she looked at him differently. Maybe he wasn't actually bad.

After all, he'd come for her, walking ahead as if to shield her from danger. For the first time since she'd been dragged into this nightmare, she felt something close to relief. Next to him, the dungeon seemed less monstrous. Maybe he really had changed.

"Still scared?" he asked.

"A little," she admitted.

"I was talking to the plant, Layla. Why would I care how you're feeling?" Every hopeful thought she'd just had about him shriveled and died on the spot. Not a hero. Just the same infuriating scumbag.