Tales of Red Sonja

Assassin

There is a popular but erroneous belief that assassins always wear black. The reality, however, is that no true assassin would ever draw attention to himself by doing so – an assassin works by stealth and will go to great lengths to avoid notice. Mishnak of Andor dressed like a farmer, spoke like a farmer, acted like a farmer; he'd even made sure that there was some soil under his finger-nails so that he smelt like a farmer. Nevertheless, he was an assassin – a dedicated and highly-paid assassin – and tonight he would ply his grisly trade.

It was early evening and the Broad Oak tavern was doing a brisk trade as it always did on market day. Mishnak sat at a table by the wall, nursing a flagon of ale and chatting in a farmerly way to those around him. His victim was sitting at the next table with her back to him. Identifying her had been laughably easy; a tall, shapely woman with flame-red hair, carrying a sword and wearing a few pieces of armour that exposed more than they protected. He did not know the woman's name, nor why his paymaster wanted her dead. Such details were unimportant to Mishnak – it was enough that he had been paid.

The woman was drinking deeply and holding an animated conversation with two men at her table. She'd cast aside her cloak, and Mishnak could see her ribs each time she moved. It would've been easy to lean forward, slide a dagger between two of those ribs, and fulfil his contract without even rising from his stool, but the common-room of a tavern was too public a place for him to act. An assassin strikes in secret and departs unseen. And so Mishnak waited patiently. He had great reserves of patience, and was confident that an opportunity would present itself.

It came soon enough, when a large man on the far side of the room stood up, tripped over a chair, and fell into a table, spilling the drinks of three or four other revellers. Instantly everyone in the room, the red-head included, turned to laugh at the fellow's clumsiness and the outrage of those he had deprived of refreshment. Everyone except Mishnak that is who, confident that all eyes were elsewhere, produced a small flask, unstoppered it, and emptied the contents into his victim's flagon.

Presently the uproar died down and everyone turned back to their own tables. The red-head proposed some toast or other and she and her companions took a long draught. Then over in another corner, an old, grey-bearded man stood up and began to sing a song. It was long and bawdy, with many verses and a rousing chorus in which the whole room joined with gusto. Mishnak sang also, so as not to seem conspicuous, but he watched the woman at the next table out of the corner of his eye. To begin with she sang as loudly as the rest; but by the fourth repetition her enthusiasm was clearly waning. When the chorus was sung for the sixth time she did not join in at all, but sat slumped with her head in her hands. A little later she rose groggily to her feet and made her way unsteadily towards the stairs.

By dint of careful eavesdropping, Mishnak had discovered that the woman had reserved a room on the upper floor, to which she was evidently making her way, to sleep off (as she supposed) the drink she had taken. Mishnak smiled to himself. The liquid he had poured into her drink was not, strictly speaking, a poison but a strong soporific that would cause whoever drank it to sleep long and deep, before waking with a very sore head. Except that Mishnak had no intention of permitting the woman ever to wake up at all.

Mishnak remained in the common-room for another hour or so, to give the drug time to take its full effect; then he rose quietly and crossed the room to the stairs. Again, there is a belief that assassins strike only at the dead of night. This they sometimes do when there is no alternative, but Mishnak knew well that a person moving stealthily during the night watches runs the risk of being discovered, but a man moving confidently through a crowd of people enjoying themselves rarely attracts much attention.

Mishnak climbed the stairs and found himself at the head of a passage with four doors leading off of it. He listened at each in turn – his hearing was acute – and at one he detected the sound of somnolent breathing. He tried the door, found it was not locked, opened it gently and stepped into the room. Inside, the lamp was still burning; evidently the woman had been too weary to remember to extinguish it. She had made it to the bed, however, where she lay face-down under a thin blanket, her hair obscuring her face and one arm trailing on the floor. Scattered untidily about the room were a pair of boots, a sword, a leather gauntlet, a few scraps of chain mail...

Mishnak paused. He was a killer, cold-blooded and aloof, and a stranger to emotions such as pity and remorse. Yet he was still a man, and now a deeper instinct gnawed at him. He reached down, took hold of the edge of the blanket and drew it gently away from the sleeping woman, who didn't stir. Mishnak ran his tongue over his dry lips. It was as he'd supposed; she was entirely naked – well not quite entirely for she was still wearing a gauntlet on her left hand, which incongruous detail seemed somehow to emphasise the rest of her body.

And what a body; hard and muscular but still breathtakingly feminine; with curves in the right places and legs to make the Gods choke on their ambrosia. There were women, Mishnak reflected, in the Golden Pleasure-House in Thrannak whose fee for an evening's indulgence was almost as much as he charged for a death (in spite of which, he remembered with a smile, their fee was well worth paying); but this woman could demand twice as much and not lack for customers. Mishnak bent over her sleeping form and laid a hand on her shoulder; then ran his fingers over her smooth flesh; down her spine, over the swell of her splendid behind...

Faster than the deadliest snake could strike, the woman sat up, reached into the gauntlet she still wore, and produced a small but glitteringly sharp dagger which she drove into Mishnak's throat. The assassin's eyes bulged with astonishment and he collapsed onto the floor. A pool of blood began to form about him.

The woman sat on the bed and smiled at him. "Good evening. In case you don't know already, my name's Red Sonja. You're not the first person who's tried to kill me, and you're not the first who's failed."

Mishnak's mouth worked but no sound came out. His body started twitching.

"No doubt you're wondering about the drug," Red Sonja continued in an amiable tone. "Hypnos wort, wasn't it? It has a slight smell – only very slight, but I try to be alert all the time. Oh yes, you saw me drink, but you didn't see me spit the ale back into the flagon. Well, most of it – I do feel a bit light-headed, which is probably why I'm explaining all this to you. Unfortunately, I'm not quite light-headed enough. Unfortunately for you, that is."

Red Sonja rose and stood astride her would-be nemesis, playfully pulling at each finger of the gauntlet on her left hand, before removing it and dropping it on the bed. "There," she said, "not a stitch. Do you realise that you're the only living man who's ever seen me completely naked? I hope you think it was worth it."

Mishnak the assassin made no reply. His body twitched one last time, and he ceased to be a living man.

Red Sonja smiled once more, then blew out the lamp and went back to bed.