71st Day of Spring, 501AV || Robern's Reaches
The face was just the latest in a series that Konrad had given up keeping track of. Of course, at first, he remembered the number. The order. He even thought about getting tattoos for each one, like... tear drops, or blood from a dagger. Maybe flowers from a petal, that seemed like a nice, sly wheeze. But the years went on and they piled up and one day, Konrad just stopped counting.
It should have bothered him, he thought. That he stopped remembering the order. He always thought that every life he took would be as fresh and vivid as the first, a red nightmare he'd left hewn from balls to skull in some dank sewer. He'd never forget that one... but would he?
Sometimes he had to remind himself of the boy's name? Miles? No... Niles. That was it. It would take a chime of frowning, maybe a gulp of wine, and he'd have it. Because it meant something.
But he knew the beardless boy that coughed phlegm and blood onto his cheek as he died would not last the season in his memory. Stark and fresh for a few days, maybe a score, and then... he'd know he fulfilled a contract, and his hand was heavy with coin for the effort, but the face? The name? The reason, even?
They all became as grey as the leaden sky above him. Just an endless, formless smear of bleached color that bled warm drops onto them both. The boy who'd fancied himself a demon and cut up the wrong bastard in a bar fell back into the door way. He looked at Konrad with fading eyes, still holding out his kukri, slick with blood, scarlet drops falling with the clear water.
Konrad stepped forward, shadow falling over the dying man. He wouldn't die in the rain, at least. Konrad had his hat, though, as always. Rain chased down the brim and pattered onto the shoulders of his coat, faded old leather creaking as he went down to one knee.
"Pluh... Pluhs..."
The boy stuttered, frothy red foam bubbling on his lips as the same old litany started. The killer glanced down at the red atrocity wrought on the lad's stomach. Mortal wound. No matter what. Yet still he would beg, and hope.
Doesn't everyone?
Konrad's free hand grabbed the boy by his shaggy black hair, holding his steady so-
-his other arm could snap out, kukri at the end of it, curved blade not designed for stabbing or thrusting but hells, it was hardly a difficult kill or a squirmy target. The lad's mouth popped open and the queerest, breathiest gasp of shock Konrad had every heard hissed out of his mouth, nose and the hole Konrad left in his throat.
He twisted the blade, then pulled it free. A river of red flowed down and soaked cloth, flesh, hair, everything it touched, until it leaked into his breeches and spread onto the floor.
Konrad wiped the blade clean and replaced it in it's sheath. He had his kopis, of course, but this... it was close work. No point bringing out the big blade for something so simple.
He leaned back. Glanced left... right... no, he picked this place well. He knew roughly where the boy was, it was just a matter of deciding where to do it. This rickety, crooked alley wasn't much except for a shortcut to other places. Konrad had got the boy's attention with a brief "hey, mate?", and when he'd turned to see who it was-
Konrad stuck him in the stomach. That's how it started to end. The man flexed his jaw as he looked down. Damn weather like this. Spring storms, lightning in the air crackling down to the cobbles through the weathervanes and studs in the thatch buldings... they always made his face hurt. He caressed his jaw and felt the ravagings of his father on one side, a whole topography of vicious scars, spreading forth from one.
A gladius. Short blade, bur broad. Balanced. Double-sided. It should have killed him, and he knew it. Were it not for the sheer, raving, drunken state of the Elder Venger, it would have.
No, he thought with enough bitterness to shame a lemon. I was lucky, instead.
Konrad touched the brim of his hat, as if bidding the boy a polite farewell, then walked away, and started to forget.
Very fun, and a great writer's voice.
