Hell's Glitch (initial draft)

27 Deadly Cooperation

Sam walked past a drifting Forest Barker, this one taller than the rest. There were two others just like it nearby and Sam was tremendously glad that the creatures didn't automatically aggro. He had carelessly walked right past one earlier after mistaking it for a small tree, but it hadn't attacked. He wouldn't make the same mistake of assaulting it as he did its smaller cousins before.

He continued on, past them, until he found the path from before. He stopped and recalled what had happened on the path the last time. It was the first time he had seen Caesar and at that time Caesar had brutally killed a huntsman right where Sam was staring. Sam had been killed for the first time, not far from that very spot. He took a breath and pressed on, down the side of the moonlit path. The trees over the path were cleared leaving Sam to wonder what had caused the clearing. As he walked into more new territory, Sam saw more Forest Barkers and rose men throughout the forest. Then he heard footsteps. There were two pair. One was heavy and gave a clinking sound with each step. The other was light, barely crunching on the dying forest foliage.

"Shit! They're coming from two different directions."

Sam braced himself for combat, his back against a large tree.

"There he is, over here!" yelled a familiar voice. Sam then found himself in a situation that he was only half prepared for.

"Both of them? Seriously?" his questions were as much to the gods of misfortune as they were to Fulton Milner and his crew. He was now face to face to face with the merchant from the cave and Caesar the forest killer.

"It is just as you said, he is alone." said the armor clad killer. Caesar, as before, was in his black and crimson plated mail. The bleached vulture skull adorned the top of his head with white feathers hanging down to his upper back, while his crimson cape fell down to his calves. Caesar's face couldn't be seen at all, only the hollowed out eye sockets of the vulture helmet. Caesar's greatsword stayed in its scabbard on his back, but Sam knew better than to expect it to stay there.

"Of course. I knew from the start that he wasn't very bright, but he's outdone himself now, hasn't he?" said the grinning merchant. Sam hadn't trusted the man before, but now seeing him with Caesar showed him in a completely different light. He was a snake, plain and simple. As before, he wore the same Cutthroat armor as Sam. He didn't wear it to hide from other Cutthroats as he had lied before. He wore it because he was a Cutthroat. Sam just had to confirm his identity before he proceeded.

"It's not that I'm not bright, Mr. Coward and Mr. Crazy. The reason that I've messed up so much so far is because I didn't expect your A.I. and voice recognition programs to be so sophisticated, meaning I expected you to be much more stupid. It's more of an underestimation than anything else. I underestimated your creators is all."

"You call us crazy, yet you speak nonsense." said the merchant. Neither he nor Caesar had made a move yet, but they were blocking the better escape routes.

"No, I called him crazy. You're just a coward, aren't you Rondo? I mean, what else can you call an assassin hiding away in a forest pretending to be a merchant? Maybe I'd be scared too if I were you, given the severity of your crimes against the king."

The merchant smirked then seemed to ponder something.

"You must be proud of yourself, eh? I could lie to you and tell you that you got the wrong guy, but then again, there's no point. I think it's much more satisfying to kill you while you know the truth. Innit that right, Caesar?"

"I have to agree." said the lunatic wearing the vulture skull. "Beauty is born from struggle, true art."

"Yes fool, I am Rondo and in this forest I am king...king of assassins that is. My word is law here and you have desecrated that law with your meddling. As for your king, he is a bigger fool than you. What I did, I did for coin. He's no better murdering me than he is murdering some other stranger. His hunt should've been for those that ordered my services. Those nobles that wanted him and his kin removed from the throne because of his cursed bloodline. We were both expendable in their eyes. The buggers killed me before I was even able to cash in on my contract. Luckily it turned out I was cursed. Rose right out of that shallow grave they put me in. And they were right about the king as well. Turns out he was just as cursed as his foul son, the kin killer. Now the mad king is right here with me, in the land of the undead. So why can't he just let it all go, as I have?"