It all ended quickly, but messily.

  Most of the Wasps had been put down, and corpses lay scattered across the entire camp area; no one had moved them yet. A nasty smell of blood and filth hung in the air, stinking of fear and pain. It was noon, and Reed sat wearily by the extinguished fire, trying not to look around. As if having fallen into the abyss of his own consciousness, he studied the ash before him with an indifferent gaze, ignoring the blood on his hands and the pulsing pain in his thigh. The wound wasn't large, it had only torn the skin. So, he didn’t even consider to bandage it.

  Reed wasn't frightened by the corpses or the pain; he was surprised by a much more mundane thing. Ermod hadn't told the guards that Reed's life mattered. Otherwise, why would they try to kill him? Another time, he would have written the attempt off as the kreyghars' hatred for elves, but these kreyghars answered to Ermod. Disobeying him would mean audacity of the highest degree, entailing punishment. Reed kept thinking, and when the final picture assembled in his head, he saw some sense.

  Ermod had told his men about him, but not at all what Reed expected. What if he told them to kill him? His death would hide all traces, save Ermod from unnecessary talk, and the need to pay a generous sum. Reed didn't intend to blab, but only the Mother knew what was in the heads of these kreyghars, and the devil himself would break a leg trying to figure it out. All these thoughts rang true, as one of the guards hadn't just stumbled upon Reed in the heat of the fight, but had purposefully followed him to kill. Moreover, he was the only elf in the group, and confusing him with someone else was simply impossible. It would have been enough for Ermod simply to say that the elf must live, but he had said something completely opposite.

  At first, Reed wanted to return to the city and kill Ermod. Then, to abandon the Wasps and the mission. But later, when his thoughts calmed down a little, he thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to finish the hunt for the mages, take the money, then kill Ermod, and take his money too, double win here. For moral damages, so to speak.

  While Reed was deciding what to do next, something resembling a scandal, threatening to grow into a fight, was brewing by the tents. Martin was yelling at some punk; at their feet lay a guard who was still alive, simply abandoned on the battlefield by his own comrades. In the end, Reed came to the conclusion that Ermod squandered other people's lives like a tergin throws shit, generously and thoughtlessly.

  The archers had created turmoil and left. This would explain why not a single arrow was fired at the Wasps again after the fight started. The guards who remained to fight killed as many as they could and died themselves. Such a dirty trick could well be the truth, a guarantee of news. Someone had to report to Ermod that Reed was dead and that the Wasps were weakened. The Wasps wouldn’t have let a single guard escape just like that, unless it was a guard no one saw at all.

  The punk apparently wanted to finish off the survivor, and Martin wouldn't let him. And no wonder, Hornet would want to know the details, would demand explanations as to why the guards had put down nearly the entire squad, jeopardizing the earnings of Hornet's beloved coin. Even more, he would want to know why the Argain guard attacked the caravan outside the city limits. Martin planned an interrogation, and the punk insisted on a execution. Reed looked at them, not hiding his disgust. Both Martin and his sparring partner in the argument looked pathetic; they resembled two stray dogs without kin or home, gnawing at each other over an old scrap. The result was utterly predictable. The punk spat out a couple of his teeth, heard new curses, and dragged the guardsman into the tent, while a sudden chill seized Reed. He was disturbed by the thought of the details the guardsman might reveal during interrogation, and he didn't want Martin's suspicions to be reinforced factually. Reed quickly calculated who might conduct the interrogation. Martin was wounded, as was Gray, who was now lying in one of the tents. Two others had gone to the village to beat food and curses out of the peasants. The punk didn't look like a specialist in special diplomacy. The rest were dead.

  Martin waited until the guy dragged the guardsman into the tent, and then, spitting, walked over to Reed. A nasty little smile barely cut through on his face, but Reed held back.

  "Stop sitting on your ass," he grunted. Didn't even shout, would you look at that. Martin knew that talking to Reed in the same tone as with the punk would only lead to new injuries, but not to a compromise or the desire to fulfill the "request." "Get up, you're coming with me."

  "Where?" Reed asked lazily, raising a tired gaze to Martin.

  "To talk to the guest, where else. Are you blind or deaf?"

  "What, is your tongue swollen?"

  "Don't pretend stupid," Martin snarled and kicked Reed's leg, causing him to hiss in pain. "You understood why you're needed."

  "Do that one more time, and your punk will dig one more grave," Reed's voice was quiet, but only an idiot could miss the threat in it. Martin didn't retreat under the onslaught of the heavy gaze; he bared his teeth.

  "You wouldn't dare."

  "Oh really?" Reed asked insinuatingly. "And who will stop me? The kid? Your buddies who are already dead? Who will stop me and point a finger at me? The prisoner is still alive; he's the one who gutted you. The living are believed more than the dead."

  "Bitch," Martin spat. "I'll cut you open as soon as we finish. I'll cut you like a sheep. And Gray won't help you anymore."

  "Yeah," a chuckle escaped Reed's lips, "right. Just make sure you can handle that in the first place. How many teeth did you collect last time?"

  "And who said I'd be alone?"

  "And who said you'll live to make the return trip?"

  Martin stared at Reed as if seeing him for the first time. His hand jerked toward his sword, and in response, Reed demonstratively threw back his cloak, exposing his blades. A stranger's sword also lay next to him. Realizing the complete lack of authority, Martin spat at Reed's feet once more and swore.

  "You fucking trash!" he barked. "This is your work. Dirty work."

  Reed measured Martin with a look full of contempt, and then fell thoughtful. If the guardsman could reveal details capable of harming Reed, it was better for him to handle it himself. After all, he could carefully poison the guard before he started blabbing too much. Right now, Martin, without knowing it, was making the game easier.

  "I'll bandage my leg and come," Reed grumbled discontentedly. "Get lost; I'm tired of looking at your mug."

  "I'll talk to you about mugs later," Martin snapped one last time and walked away, swaying. "Bastard."

  Limping, Reed walked toward his tent, turning over all possible options for further action on the way. He couldn't run, and leaving the guardsman alive was out too, just as killing him openly was. That meant he had to be killed quietly before he started spilling compromising information, and then Reed just had to stick to the original plan until the return to Argain. Martin wouldn't allow beating the guardsman to death. Besides, that would strengthen suspicions, and Reed wasn't ready to take such a risk.

  Reed shook the entire contents of his bag out, hastily bandaged his leg, and began examining the items scattered on the ground. He cast fleeting glances at the vials of poison and already understood what he would do. He knew what to do even before he entered the tent; he just needed to account for all variables.

  In the end, Reed snatched up the vial with the oily liquid the merchant had called The Sorcerer. For a while, Reed sat and looked at the glass barrier between his fingers and an agonizing death, and then smiled, squinting brazenly. Reed took his leather gloves, mentally saying goodbye to them, and then removed the stopper from the vial. The poison had no smell, and that was good. The oily form was also a plus as no one would notice that Reed's gloves shone a little more than usual. Especially in a tent during an interrogation. Reed's gloves would be the last thing Martin would pay attention to.

  First, a few drops fell onto his palm, and Reed began to thoroughly rub them into the black leather of the gloves. Soon their surface was covered with poison, which glistened, giving off glares barely distinguishable from the natural shine of the leather. It was enough simply to touch the guardsman's open wound for the poison to enter his body. And then he would vomit blood so hard he was unlikely to be able to say anything at all. And no one would be able to catch Reed, since he carried no weapons at all, except what would remain in the scabbards on his belt until the very end. No one would even think that the poison was not on blades, but on his hands. If only his nose wouldn't itch. This thought made Reed smile, and then bend over in a fit of laughter. If someone asked him what was funny about that, he wouldn't have answered, because he didn't know himself. This laughter looked like hysteria, but Reed needed it.

  Inside Martin's tent, it was stifling; it stank of blood, sweat, and dust. The smell was so heavy that it seemed to soak tightly into his clothes, into his very skin. For a moment Reed was afraid he would never wash it off himself. Martin sat on the left smoking; the punk stood nearby. Both looked at the guardsman tied to a support post. He was stripped to the waist, a slash wound visible on his side. Reed grinned, hiding no triumph in his gaze.

  "Gentlemen," he greeted, nodding toward the Wasps.

  "Good day, colleague," Martin parried nastily, and then shifted his gaze to the prisoner: "Well, here is our negotiator."

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  "I have the honor," Reed offered a semblance of a bow, too clumsy and awkward to be taken seriously. The guardsman stared at Reed with hatred, spitting blood onto his boots. "Don't rush to waste so much blood; you'll still need it."

  The ostentatious, prim politeness and pompous, laughably exaggerated respect for one another made this entire spectacle eerie, but Reed felt nothing but disgust and a bit of fear. What if he surrendered before the poison took effect? Despite the lump of anxiety growing in his chest, Reed kept his face straight, for he understood that showing weakness now would mean signing his own death warrant. The prisoner looked at him with undisguised contempt and hatred, and Reed couldn't blame him. He would look the same at anyone who wanted to torture him.

  Deliberately slowly, he walked up to the guardsman and cast a fleeting glance over him, fixing his gloves. The wound on his side was fresh, still bleeding a little even, which meant it could be used without even taking a knife in hand. Reed looked at the kreyghar, straight in the eye, and then smiled sharply. This smile was one of those that bode nothing good. The prisoner twitched, and then curled his lips, and something else appeared in his eyes. It was fear that was hard to hide. In such moments, Reed frightened himself. The power given to him by fear brought pleasure, and at times he hated himself for desiring it, even if the power of fear was the only kind available to him.

  Reed didn't intend to torment the guardsman, only to pretend before killing him. Yet the fear in the kreyghar's eyes stirred his nature, appealed to animal instincts, secret desires, shameful ambitions. Reed didn't consider himself a saint, but hoped he still wasn't a moral monster. In such moments, hope became like ether, just as elusive and practically intangible. Working with the Wasps forced him to resort to such practices more and more often, and this couldn't help but affect Reed. He wasn't an executioner and wouldn't torture for entertainment. Yet he admitted that at times his blood boiled when a kreyghars' life ended up in his hands, he felt that they experienced at least approximately the same pain he had experienced in Belden. And then a ghostly semblance of retribution visited him. It was sick, twisted, and not quenching the eternal, deep-rooted thirst. And when everything came to an end, he hated himself, for he had become like them, gorged on pain and violence, on others' blood and suffering. As if he didn't have enough reasons to hate himself. As if he had at least one reason not to hate himself.

  On that stood the eternal struggle of his personality. Reed desired revenge, pain, and blood, and his hands were covered in blood, and he brought death. On the other hand, the deeper he dove into the trade of a killer, the more he became like the kreyghars he hunted. Reed couldn't stop either, for when he killed kreyghars. It seemed to him that the scales in Erna's hands had at least a little balance for who, if not he, knew how much elven blood had been spilled by humans. Shackled forever by these two extremes, Reed couldn't choose either side, remaining between two fires that would extinguish together with the flame of his life. This hopeless cycle would stop its run only when the heart in his chest stopped. Reed had long ceased to fear death, even awaited it, though he couldn't have admitted it to himself.

  The guardsman looked at Reed, and the latter smiled.

  "So, how did you end up here?" Reed asked in an insinuating voice. The prisoner heard but answered nothing. He swallowed hard, closing his eyes.

  The guardsman raised his head, opened his eyes, and examined everyone present with a hint of pride.

  "You can kill me."

  "Why?" Reed feigned surprise. He, of all people, really would have liked to kill him before serious conversation began. And now he had to play out a cheap spectacle and pretend he was just as interested as Martin. Reed waited and mentally prayed for the guardsman's stubbornness.

  "Because you'll kill me anyway. I prefer to die without betraying."

  "Even if you've already been betrayed?" Reed parried.

  The guardsman didn't answer, burning a hole in Reed with his gaze, as if he didn't understand what Reed was talking about at all. Reed, meanwhile, continued.

  "When you came here, you thought you had loyalty, but your friends left you here. Left you, do you understand?" He smiled, leaning over his interlocutor. "They left, forgetting about loyalty, and your blissful dream of it dissipated because it never existed. And you hardly believe in it yourself anymore, do you?"

  "You killed everyone," the prisoner spat again and fidgeted, sitting up straighter.

  "Everyone?" Reed raised an eyebrow in surprise. "We killed..." he turned to Martin: "How many?"

  "Nine," Martin grunted, lighting up. He sat sprawled casually, watching Reed and the interrogation victim intently.

  "See," Reed drawled, turning back to the prisoner. "We killed nine, you're the tenth. Is that all? And what about the archers? They didn't fight, and I know that for a fact."

  "They were supposed to provide cover."

  "And how'd that go, did they cover you?" Martin laughed loudly.

  "Covered you?" Reed repeated the question, straightening up. "You saw everything yourself."

  "Then it was necessary."

  "For whom? For your master? Or for you? Is it so necessary to you that you'd die for it?"

  The prisoner fell silent, and Reed began to pace slowly in front of him.

  "If such is your loyalty... How many of your friends are ready to face interrogation for you?"

  "All of them."

  "All of them?" Reed chuckled. "Then why are you here alone? Why did no one try to finish us off, to free you? Why did they leave as soon as you entered the camp? There is no sense in hiding it anymore; you can speak."

  "I won't report to a dirty, long-eared bandit," the guardsman spat. "You are nothing! You are the rot of this city! You are rotten, and your words are the same!"

  "Or maybe I just don't try to hide who I am," Reed broke into a grin. "Unlike you, and unlike your master. I am a killer, and you are a killer; just the shine of your armor blinds the crowd, whereas on my clothes the blood is visible immediately."

  "I killed the likes of you. Because the place for all of you is underground."

  "The Mother didn't gift any of us the right to decide whose place is where. Therefore, you are just as guilty, and you are the same kind of killer."

  "If I were you, I wouldn't be so snide," Martin coughed, taking advantage of the moment of silence. "Otherwise, I'll order the long-ears to gut you. And what use are you dead, hmm?"

  Martin shifted his gaze to Reed and nodded. Reed answered the nod and turned to the guardsman. He had known what this gesture meant for a long time. With a short swing, he punched the prisoner in the jaw, and the man spat blood and started smiling.

  "We have a lot of time," Reed summed up calmly. "A lot. Of course, you can try to play the hero and protect those who left you to die."

  The guardsman's bloody, swollen lips twitched; his face twisted, demonstrating the highest degree of disgust. He laughed again and leaned forward a little; the smell of blood and old sweat hit Reed's nose. The air also stank of Martin's tobacco, old leather, and stale alcohol, but this was just the Wasps' bouquet of aromas.

  "How are you all different from whores, hmm?" he asked almost in a whisper. "The price."

  The only answer Reed could afford was another blow, and this time it was harder and, one might say, from the heart. And then a second one.

  "You will speak," Reed hissed, leaning over the guardsman. "One way or another, you will speak, even if I have to beat the soul out of you."

  "You know yourself what I have to tell you."

  With a sneering, self-satisfied smile and empty, expressionless eyes, Reed reached for the wound on the guardsman's side and pressed on it with one finger. A moan escaped his lips, but that wasn't enough. Reed began to dig into the wound, and after a while, the moans broke into screams.

  "Speak!" shouted Reed, trying to outshout the howling. "Speak! Who sent you? What was the plan? Speak!"

  Repeating the same "Speak!", Reed tore at the wound on the kreyghar's body, hoping the poison would be enough. The guardsman screamed and tried to dodge, but couldn't. Reed stood up and immediately kicked him in the wounded side, although there was no longer any need for this. The gaurdsman was almost crying. Blood streamed down his body, flowing under his pants, soaking into the ground, settling in dark streaks on Reed's hands.

  "Speak," Reed was surprised himself at how hoarse his voice had become. He was trying to show the rage of everyone present, and it couldn't be said that he was pretending; it was just that the cause of his anger lay in slightly different circumstances.

  The guardsman coughed and raised a hand, surrendering.

  "I'll say it, fine," he exhaled, and everything inside Reed dropped. If he started talking so soon, the poison wouldn't have time to take effect, and then Reed himself would end up in the interrogated man's place.

  "They said to kill you." A chuckle ran through the tent, and Reed felt with his skin how Martin tensed up, although he didn't see him. Reed tensed too, but didn't show it. Instead, he pulled a surprised face and asked:

  "Me alone? And why the others?"

  "For pleasure."

  "And me?" Reed raised an eyebrow, clenching his fists.

  "Your mug has been an eyesore to the whole city," the guardsman spat. "Bradenmain remembers everything. They paid us to take out the trash. They said to put you down before there were too many of you here."

  "Fifteen people is not too many?" now Reed was genuinely surprised. He understood the guardsman was lying, but why? There was no hope that they wanted to cover for him. Most likely, the prisoner was lying, and in the current situation, Reed was ready to let him lie. On the other hand, someone like Ermod wouldn't have spoken about his deal with Reed, for that would have cast a shadow on his reputation. Although the Council often engaged in such things, everyone just kept quiet. It was quite possible the guardsman was lying without even knowing it as Ermod just didn’t tell him the truth. This lie was convenient. Martin would finally stop digging under Reed.

  "No one said how many of you there were."

  "Who sent you?" Martin cut in.

  "Are you stupid?" the guardsman snapped, and then suddenly coughed. Fresh blood appeared on his lips, and Reed barely suppressed a sigh of relief. The poison had started to work.

  "Hit him one more time, eh?" Martin shifted a tired gaze to Reed.

  Reed nodded and silently carried out the order. When the guardsman coughed up a new portion of blood, Martin repeated his question.

  "The City Guard answers to the Council, idiot," the prisoner groaned. "No one comes personally, only through the chiefs."

  Martin coughed, taking a drag. Then, shifted his gaze to Reed, who pulled a face of maximum surprise, as if what the guardsman said was news to him too.

  When Reed turned his gaze to him again, the man had already begun to bleed more actively. Crimson rivulets streamed from his mouth and nose; he was paling quickly and periodically leaned forward, as if holding back retching. Reed watched silently, diligently maintaining the mask of surprise. The prisoner coughed, and then vomited blood, and in that same moment, Reed shifted a gaze filled with horror to Martin. The merchant hadn't warned him about this.

  Martin was in exactly the same confusion as Reed.

  "You killed him, long-ears," Martin grumbled, looking at the waterfalls of blood the guardsman was erupting.

  "With what?" Reed tried to put as much irritability into his voice as possible. "My finger?"

  "Well, you were picking at his wound!"

  "And were you against it?" Reed snarled back. "What difference does it make now? He talked anyway."

  "Maybe he would have told something else?"

  "Like what?"

  Martin shrugged, then stood up. His sweaty, swarthy face took on a squeamish expression, and it was unclear if the cause was Reed or the guardsman. More likely, both. Martin stank of tobacco and sweat, and Reed thought that Martin certainly had the least right to disgust. He walked past without looking, leaving Reed alone with the guardsman.

  Reed looked at the kreyghar choking on his own blood and fell thoughtful. His thoughts were chaotic, and if someone asked him what the main topic of his reflections was, he wouldn't be able to say for sure. He just stood and watched. His gaze was empty, lifeless, absent. As if it wasn't him who killed this kreyghar, as if Reed was somewhere far away right now, but not in the blood-stinking tent. When the wheezing stopped, Reed turned around with the same absent look and walked away, pulling off his gloves on the go. He would throw them away as soon as he got a chance to stay alone.