Blood and Gold

Faith

I wedged myself between two of the rocky spikes facing the sky, and looked down into the cavern. The Bandit leader was a burly man with a greatsword, all of the other bandits looked like measly criminals that managed to get lucky when stealing the weapons.

I looked around for somewhere to climb in unnoticed, but to no avail. Soros? Any ideas?

I waited for the bird to respond. "The pond in the center." Soros was circling the gap, I wondered if any of the bandits had noticed.

That's a hell of a drop. I looked down at the muddy water in the center of the cave.

Another pause. "Have a little faith in me."

I took a breath, clung onto the rocky spike, and waited for Soros to cause a bit of mayhem inside. The hawk dipped down and set the dogs that had been locked up in the corner of the entrance loose. That took any attention away from the center of the cave, and provided me with enough time to leap backwards, turn mid-air, and dive into the water.

I looked around, under the muddy-looking surface, the water was clear. There were a few glowing creatures clinging to the sides and floor of the pond. I swam into a tunnel on the left, probably the waterway they used to smuggle their "prizes" in.

I took a gasping breath when I resurfaced. Soros, you are getting an entire rabbit for that.

"Finally, some appreciation." I smiled, shaking the water out of my hair.

Sneaking back into the main part of the cave was easy, no one checked the tunnels. Once I'd killed the first bandit, things got a bit trickier. I had to perform a lot of leaping attacks from one ledge to the other, then had to dart into the darkness again. Dagfinn's cape helped tremendously.

I decided that I'd need to figure out a sort of long distance weapon once I'd killed four of the bandits and had no way of killing the others with any stealth.

Soros, call Dagfinn in. I didn't get a response, instead, the loud clanking of the older assassin's armor drew the attention of the bandits, allowing me to run up behind and tackle two of them.

Dagfinn had cleanly stabbed through the remaining bandits, but their leader emerged from his office. "Now we have a real fight." He said to me with a smile.

"What in the gods-" The leader didn't get to finish his sentence, I had slipped my foot under a spear from the closest body to me, sent it upwards, caught it, and launched it into his chest.

"Theron." Dagfinn dragged out my name. "I wanted to fight." He took a long sigh and sheathed his sword.

"I'm sorry." I straightened up, "I didn't-"

"I was kidding." I blinked at him, registering that it was sarcasm before nodding.

"Sorry," I smiled this time.

"Stop apologizing." He said, shaking his head. "We've got to get you a sense of humor."

I nodded, unable to stop a smile from spreading across my face.

The ride back to the sanctuary had been filled with quiet conversation, talk of his time in the Bloodhood, but little about anything before that. He told me to meet Colby and get well acquainted with both him and Hawthorne. He gave me advice on swordsmanship, I listened to every word carefully.

I reported back to Hawthorne, giving him the weapons we'd recovered and explaining how the mission went. He had invited me to sit down in front of the fire pit and listened as if he was conversing with an old friend.

"I want you to look into archery." He suggested after I'd finished my story. "You have a natural knack for stealth, and a bow would allow you to stay hidden while taking your enemies down. If you train enough, you could be one of our best stealth assassins."