She steadied him. She was helping him, after what had just happened to her, after what she’d just seen, she was helping the guy who was out for the whole thing. Who would do that?
“Sasha.” She paused. “You’re a good person, the best person. I don’t care what people say, you’re not a demon, you’re an angel. You deserve better than how people treat you. I just thought you should know.” That came out bad and awkward. She probably thought he was crazy or something. Why had he talked?
He looked down at his feet. This was why he didn’t talk to people. She placed both her soft hands under his chin, raising it. Tears were forming in her eyes and her voice shook. “Thank you.” The tears started rolling down her cheeks and he knew she meant it. He wondered how many people had ever told her that.
* * * * *
Arkin knelt down next to the paralyzed soldier and spoke in a soft voice. “We require information from you, information that we will get, and after that, we will kill you.”
The man’s eyes bulged and he stuttered, “Why…why should I talk then, if you’re going to kill me either way?”
Arkin didn’t like doing this, but the bastard had it coming.
“I’m glad you asked that. Because it is going to be up to you how long it takes me to kill you. One way is fast and relatively painless. The other is… hmmm, well, messy.” The man looked at Arkin intently for a minute.
“What do you want to know?” the man asked.
He wasn’t surprised to hear this. Of course he would crack. This pathetic animal didn’t have any training, any backbone. He was a blunt instrument, nothing more.
“What was your mission? And what did you know about it?”
“That’s all you want to know?” the soldier groaned. He was clearly in pain.
“That’s it. Now talk,” Arkin said, and gave the man a slight shake. These royal guards were the easiest to interrogate. No discipline, no honor.
Breathing hard from the pain of having his spine broken, the man began. “Ok. We’re here looking for a man that’s a smuggler. We didn’t know where he lived, just that it was in the Salez territory and that he was around eighteen with a tattoo on his back. We were told that he would be armed and dangerous. After we caught him we were to take him back to the capital for interrogation.”
“You needed ten armored men for a smuggler?”
“No. We went in two groups of five. This was just the last town on the way.”
“So why did you set a trap?”
“We knew that whoever we were looking for must be here, and the commander said that it would be good training for us. Also, ten of us in a town would draw too much attention.”
“Very well. I believe you.” Arkin knew that these people just took orders. They didn’t think. He reached down, and before the man could say anything, he broke the soldier’s neck.
The sound of shuffling feet told him that Sasha and Keither were returning. It was a good thing the soldier had talked so quickly. He didn’t want either of them to have to see more violence today.
As he got up, Legon looked him in the eyes. “I appreciate what you have done, but we need answers, and…”
“You will get them, but first we need to move away from here. Go and cut all the men’s purses. Take anything of value.”
“You want us to rob them? We need to get out of here before more men come! We need to run! We need to get as far away as we can!” Sasha said, getting more and more frantic. Legon started to pace.
“We need to leave and go to Salez. I have to find out why I’m being hunted, how they found out about me. We can’t just make it look like these men were robbed and hope for the best. We need to get answers,” Legon said,
“Salez? Are you out of your mind? We just killed a bunch of royal guard looking for you. If we go anywhere near that city, we’re dead,” Kovos said.
“Yes. Salez is not a good idea. They’ll know about you,” Sasha started.
“No. I have to go there and try and get some answers.”
“You’re part Elf. Why not try and kill you? What more reason do they need?” interjected Kovos.
“How did they know what part of the empire I lived in?”
Arkin needed to get them moving. It