Bound To Kill

VI: Bound To Kill

Evangeline

We all stopped in front of the village of nothing but ruins. My cottage is on the rear end, where it camouflages itself with the decapitated walls of the other buildings.

"This doesn't look like a burnt village to me, Bash." Says the guard as he's the first to unmount on his horse.

"Secure the perimeter for any survivors, the English must have, I don't know, cleaned the mess." Bash glares suspiciously at me.

"What?" A soldier laughs. "They just swoop every wall full of evidence in no less than a day?"

"I'm telling the truth." I withstand with a posture of confidence. Looking away into the surroundings, a fake frightened gasp escapes from my lips. "The Assassins. They're here."

Bash looks around as well but without daunt. His men fled off to secure the place, splitting up into individuals as they roam in a maze of debris and torn-down walls.

This is my cue to get dressed then.

"I must go to my cottage and see if my stuff are still there." I say. Before Bash could disagree, I cut him off guard. "He can go with me." I tip my head to the brawny guard, who was one of the first to see me when I enter the castle.

I feel angry about myself how I'm gonna kill him later. The first tenet of the Order is to rest the blades from the innocents. But to save a thousand of lives in the future, I have no choice but to break the tenet.

"Alright. I'll go with the others." Bash nods his head as we split apart on a fjord of a tall wall, splitting both our paths.

My bodyguard unsheaths his sword just in case as his eyes roam around our route.

I'm still unarmed, meaning I can't take action yet. I need to get to my cottage sooner before Bash realizes I've been lying this whole time. Meaning I have to kill everyone here, including him to keep my reputation to the French Court innocent.

After walking through hills of debris and dead-ends, we finally arrived in front of our cottage.

"Why isn't this cottage burned nor destroyed like the others?" My bodyguard asks, his suspicion rising as I didn't turn to him.

"Perhaps it was too distant for the fire to be reached." I sigh. I unlocked the door with the key the coachman had given me.

Going in, I requested for him to wait in the vestibule while I go pack my things that could have survived from the 'fire', if there was any.

Closing the bedroom door behind me, my back slides down as I sprawl on the floor to reduce stressing over my plan to assassinate every guard, not including cutie Bash, without getting detected.

The cottage is made of mostly wood, so the guard must be wondering why the fire did not reached here.

Too late for him to report quickly to the Deputy, he's already hanging between life and death in this very hour.

After I undress into my Assassin uniform with my hidden blades and main weapon of choice, my Spanish cutlasses, I look at the broken dresser mirror with a smug expression.

I am going to enjoy this.

I take on the hood and it takes over me with a rush of adrenaline.

I try my hardest not to make a sound while opening the door. Gladly the guard was facing his back to me.

Without any hesitation, my hidden blade digs its way to the man's back as I press his body close to it. He grunts silently even.

"Apologies if you have to die this way, after what you did of taking me in last night." I mutter to the man now transforming into a corpse making itself drown into a pool of its own blood. His eyes stare blankly to the ceiling, which made my frown worsen as I climb to the alcove and into the rooftop.

I quickly bow my head down after I see two guards talking to each other at a dead-end.

They were laughing, probably because of a joke.

I lunged at the both of them from above with both of my wrist blades. One of their blood squirts and lands on my tattoo on my wrist.

"The Assassin!"

I look up and see another guard looking frantically at me, he was about to escape until I aimlessly throw him a flechette. It lands on the front of his neck and I had to look away of disgust from the blood quickly coming out.

Back at my missions with Alexander in England, I was never the one to assassinate, let alone be the one to see detailed gore.

The guard falls to the ground as he removes the flechette from his neck. Without a minute, he's dead.

After hearing upcoming footsteps coming from the left alley, I hide inside an open window inside a roofless house that's barely standing. But i was enough to make me hidden.

"What happened here?" I hear a guard asks.

When I peak at the little hole on the wall, I see the Devil in Bash's scowl.

He's still handsome though.

"Unsheathe your blades and be prepared." He orders in fuming rage to his men. They do quickly as they were told. "Show yourself, Assassin!" His words echo throughout the village of ruin that it reached the woods.

A part of me wants to come out with pride while standing in front of the innocent guards' corpses. But a part of me is too wise.

"Where's the girl?" Bash questions.

I hear no answer but silence.

"Find her." He commands.

"What if she has escaped to the woods?" A guard says.

"She couldn't have gone far so split up all of you and start searching for her, goddammit."

The clinging of their armor quickly disappears after they turn around a corner. Bash chose to stay. He's kneeling down to his knees in front of my victims, his face drenched in regret.

I went back inside my cottage through a hidden tunnel and change back to my peasant disguise, storing back my weapons and uniform as well in the chest before I place it back to its place under the bed.

The door bursts open simultaneously as I stood back to my feet. My heart beats uncontrollably as Bash stares at me with bewilderment.

"I was with the Assassin." I chose to lie again. If I didn't. I'll be forced to kill him as well, and I can't, I won't. My heart tells me not to, and I happen to listen to it for once.

He doesn't say anything and continues to study me like an experiment, trying to find something specific that will be the theory to his hypothesis.

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