The Merchant Who Would be King

Blood, Violence and Theft

Hadiin

The one green curtain still hanging flickered in the breeze.

Hadiin lay slumped up against the opposite corner of the bedroom suite, his hand on his stomach. A river of red blood oozed out of a belly wound, overflowed around his fingers, and dripped to the floor. While attempting to fight off the assassin, he'd been stabbed in the shoulder and hand as well. He'd also been knifed in the chest where a lung seemed to have been punctured because he was spitting blood with each haggard breath. Luckily, the thrust had missed his heart.

The room was a wreck. The magical lantern had been smashed on the black tile floor next to him, shards of glass glittering dangerously. The night wind swept through the shattered remnants of the twin balcony doors, past torn curtains and over more shards of glass, before swirling atop the unmoving body, or perhaps corpse, of a raven-haired young woman in a skin-tight, dull black outfit with two dark arrows protruding from her torso.

He rolled to his knees, gasping in pain and then choking on blood as he breathed. With great effort, he stumbled towards the bed, afraid of what he'd find there.

Marian lay before him, still entirely nude from earlier, but now the formerly white sheets had been stained crimson with her blood. There were stab wounds in her legs and body. But worst of all, her throat had been slashed. She held a shaking hand to the garish wound in a vain attempt to stop the leakage. Terrified eyes turned towards him, begging him to help her as her life, like his own, bled away.

The gold coins that had shone so warmly beneath her body that evening were all gone.

Someone pounded on the door and a stern woman's voice called through. "Excuse me! This is the manager of the inn. And security. What's going on in there?"

Hadiin could barely function. He felt his body growing colder and numb. He blinked repeatedly, trying to make sense of the banging and the voice. Some distant part of his traumatized brain recognized a potential source of help. He coughed blood and pushed off of the bed, legs wobbly as he moved across the room and thumped against the door. His hands fumbled with the latch, taking precious seconds to unlock it. He shifted to the side, staining the wall with his blood, and opened the door.

The manager stood there, a handsome woman in her fifties, gray-blond hair in a bun, reading glasses around her neck, wearing a form-fitting gray dress that went high up the neck. She took one look at him and anger turned to fright. She screamed, hand going to her mouth.

An inn security guard, a muscular man wearing chainmail under a tailored black shirt, shoved her aside and burst into the room.

Hadiin felt himself sliding down the wall. "Potions," he mumbled. "Healing potions. Or a healer..." He wasn't entirely sure if healing potions existed in this world. But if they did, he needed them now. As did Marian and the stranger.

To her considerable credit, the manager nodded. She hiked up her dress and actually sprinted down the hall.

Potions were delivered in remarkably short order, along with another security guard, who had come to investigate the crisis.

Hadiin accepted one of the small glass vials but needed help to open and drink it. The blue liquid was acrid but the magic it contained flowed through him. Before his eyes, his wounds closed up and his life stopped fading. It couldn't replace the blood that had been lost, so he was weak, but at least he felt stabilized. His lung healed and he was able to breathe properly, something that he'd never take for granted again. He tried to stand and one of the security guards helped him move to sit on the edge of the bed so that he could check on Marian.