Chapter 1: The Dagger

The hooded girl pops out of the crate she was hiding in. She had a close call just now so it was just her luck she was still hidden. She walks onto the market street in the Fyle of Mast and is instantly greeted by the smells of pickle, onion and oddly, socks. As she continues down the street, members of the Mast Fyle could be seen on both sides of the road bargaining with the annoyed stall owner in their colourful stalls. Forward she goes until she reaches the end of the busy and crowded street. She turns right and after ten steps she reaches the Fyle square of Mast. The square is covered with pink and maroon tiles and in the middle, a statue of the first Igniter of Mast, Krul of Krack. The square has three roads leading of it, one at the south, one at the north-west and the last at the north-east. The road the hooded girl came out of was the south road and opposite her, the Fyle hall of Mast stands magnificently.

    She strides across the square and passes the statue. Her destination is just a couple of steps away. As the cold and cooling breeze makes her fine brown hair sway, the scent of the morning makes her nose tickle. At the front of the Fyle hall, she quietly slips through the soldier-like doors. A hall stretching several feet with two balconies with pillars to the left and right greets her. The hall was deserted. Guess her friends did a good job at distracting. As she continues on the dark path, the girl pulls out her bag from her back. she takes out a dagger with a handle made out of solid Maonu and a floral carved blade. This blade has been dipped into the pot of blood of the ancients in the hideout, so it is very precious to her. Holding the dagger tightly in her restless hands, she enter the room to the right of the endless hall.

    Then, she sees him, the Igniter of Mast. He is wearing a golden-bronze robe with thick creases running through the middle. His hands are crippled and tired from old age and his glasses seem like they want to die.

"May I know who you are?" asks Fiblie, the current Igniter.

"That answer will not be answered before you sleep" answers her as she stabs the elderly man with the dagger.

    Quickly, she dashes out back into the square like nothing had happened. Her feet trembles as she forces them into a run while the wind find it's way through her hair. After she passes Krul she tries her best to blend in with the crowd: walking at the same pace as the crowd, mixing in with a group of other hooded men. Then out of a blue moon, hysterical screams of horror fill the eardrums of the crowd.

"Fiblie is dead! A murderer! A murderer...." shouts a man running out of the hall.

    Almost instantly, everyone scrambles as if afraid the assassin would strike them next. She picks up into a sprint again as tense fill all her veins. A pack of enforcers burst out from the market street and start chasing the girl. How did they find her so fast? 

"She's there, catch her!" roars the head enforces with a head full of fiery rage.

    He charges towards the girl so quickly like a cheetah awaiting a feast. Now she's sprinting as fast as she can. Struggling to escape, the hooded figure runs into the street perpendicular to market street and is greeted instantly by another pack of enforcers.  The packs of enforcers swarms around her like ant around food. A terrified look climbs up her face as she realises she is cornered. She slips out her dagger ready for a beating. Where were her allies?

"This is the end of the road, you will surrender yourself and not escape or die trying" barks the head like a dog. 

     Suddenly, she jumps over him and tackles him nothing his long cobalt longsword out of his palm. Without any time to spare, she instantly gets a knuckle in her face. The punch hurt steel. He pulls her up and locks her arms in his muscular and sturdy arms. Full of fighting rage, she slams her head into his chest at the top of her strength and tumbles from pain. She drives the dagger into his heart without time to think. One more useless soul is worth for the bigger picture isn't it? But then more of the vicious enforcers knock her down after she killed their only leader. Why do they not understand?The dagger slips from her hands and under a bag of hay. Great, she thought, just what I needed, a bag of HAY! She uses her leg and kicks the legs of the other enforcers and they all tumble like a tower in an earthquake. She sees her queue to escape and dashes out towards the empty street.

    The other enforcers have clearly not have been training as they loss location of the girl. She is hiding inside a shop at the edge of town. If she goes now the enforcers might not have secured the gates into Mast yet and she can escape fairly easily but she loses the dagger. Her precious dagger. Why was she so clumsy and careless? On the other hand, if  she goes back into the heart of Mast, she might be able to locate that stinking-ass haystack and get her dagger. The problem is how will she get there without being spotted? Moreover, how on Jaime is she getting out of the Fyle?

    She is paralysed in dilemma. Trying her best to find a third path leading her way to the dagger and out of the Fyle, she encounters another confusion. Where are her friends/allies? Weren't they supposed to meet in this house after the assassination? Maybe they have escaped because of the commotion she helped encourage? or maybe they are just late, unlikely. What should she do?

    After long trial and error of forming a logical plan, she decides use the roof, like the medieval assassins do in the tales told by the elderly. This is the only plan she could come of that has even the slightest chance of success. And so, she climbs to the roof of the house she was in via the trap door stair thingy and observes the aerial view of the area. As thought, the roof was as clean from enforcers as an eagle in a pack of canaries. She jumps onto the tiled roof and starts leaping onto other houses. Where was that road? Jump, leap, jump, leap. The hay was nowhere to be seen. She has yet to be spotted by the enforcers now swarming the roads checking houses for signs of her. Luckily she wasn't found yet.

    Then, she sees a pile of smoke gushing out from a street. The girl rushes there to take look. Then she sees it. A pack of enforcers were crowding the area and the hay was burning. No, she thought. Her dagger must have been found. Her precious dagger lost to a pack of enforcers! Such a disgrace. Without further ado, she quickly leaps over to the north entrance to Mast and finds that it is clean from enforcers. She escapes.


Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: AzTruyen.Top