Untitled. Maybe "The Point of Chaos"

Chapter 2: On the Job

Kirt pressed the thick sole of his boot into the scrawny carcass and jerked his right arm back, ripping his poor excuse for a sword from the cavity left in the corpse and the knot of rags that once served for clothing.

Wiping the sword clean of the blood and treading over the corpse, careful not to slip in the blood, Kirt wondered whether his blade was bloodied from the quagmire of animal blood that his clients had polluted the room with through their tenacious sacrifices, or from the fool he had just killed. Judging by the skeletal build of the man, Kirt could only assume that the man had no blood left in him to shed, anyway.

What an odd rabble his clients were, Kirt mused as he walked through the prayer room. Animal sacrifice was not only frowned upon, but it was shunned by the Church of the Motherhood; the motherhood threatened excommunication if any living beings were sacrificed, and no one wanted to be excommunicated. The general opinion among the commoners was that life was tough enough as it was without having to worry about what comes after life, so why aggravate it? Better to just be kind and courteous and do as the Motherhood say, including the hefty donations.

The “commoners;” Kirt almost laughed at the thought, as he struck at a thick oak door barring his way with his sword, the wood splintering. He had to stop thinking of people in classes; nowadays, a farmer was a farmer, a mercenary was a mercenary, and an aristocrat was either dead or nothing. That’s what happens when a new total anarchy reigns supreme, Kirt assumed.

Kirt turned his mind to the assassinations that caused this anarchy, as he strode through this new room, the reception hall, with clean stone walls and floors and a row of oak seats of a simple and sturdy make, lining the far wall. Knowing the entrance would be barred shut, Kirt turned right, and followed the spiraling stairs upward.

Kirt actually witnessed one of the assassinations. It was well planned, and it’s execution was even better. The poor were lining up on the street, as always, to see Willard “the Blind” Godder, some fellow of significant nobility. Will’s guards were doing a fine job of holding back the beggars, moaning for money, until the bell roared over their mumbling, demanding attention. Kirt was passing by the street when he heard the cathedral bells strike in fast and scattered succession. This was the city alarm, used to warn against any approaching skirmishing parties and, for those without a home, code for “panic.”

Acting accordingly, the beggars on the streets frantically jostled, quickly breaking the line of soldiers protecting Zack and, in a matter of moments, he was on the ground, his blood draining from him.

The attack could have been interpreted as an accident by an armed beggar, but rumour quickly spread, rumours of other nobles being killed off in a similar fashion, all moments after the alarm sounded. While rumours mean little, the pools of blood scattered throughout the city that Kirt found after conducting his own detective work, was evidence enough. The Motherhood worked fast in cleaning up any dead, but only as far as their responsibility pressed them; they were not responsible for the blood.

Climbing the staircase, Kirt noticed small rivulets of blood dripping down the stairs. He then stepped out from the stair case into another room, a bakery by the look of the massive ovens. The pale grey light from the overcast sky outside shone through the elongated windows to his left, revealing that the ground was stained with more blood. He groaned, growing tired of the blood, everywhere. While the slippery blood did frustrate him, it, however, did mean that there was probably another of Kirt’s jobs nearby. It almost seemed like his clients had set up the building so that those Kirt was being paid to kill were in the most gory rooms. For the hundredth time, Kirt turned his mind to the ramifications of the assassinations.

It was a genius plan. Genius, except for the motive. It was no genius who thought it would be a good idea to assassinate such influential people. Of course, the motive was obvious. Watching a man walk around with a foot of space between him and his box of guards while you have trouble finding your two deprived children a place to sit, let alone food to eat, would be enough to aggravate any mother. Kirt assumed that a group of beggars banded together, making a pact of vengeance and waited until the next skirmish, the perfect opportunity for murder.

Ironic, then, that the bell-toll was actually a false alarm, Kirt thought as he opened the first oven to find a topless waste of a man, suddenly screaming in shear terror at his discovery, his dirty face stretched by his wide mouth, baring a few yellow teeth, the rest missing. Annoyed at his thoughts being interrupted, Kirt quickly thrust his blade into the oven, through the man’s gut, and slid it out again, just as fast. Growing extremely agitated at the amount of time spent in this abandoned church, blood and limbs everywhere, he did not bother cleaning his sword, simply walking on.

Turning his mind back to the toll of the bells, as he proceeded to open the other bread ovens in search of his last job, Kirt could not help but smirk at the irony. The bells often foreshadowed coming death, as the Kalamaar skirmishers would charge through the front gates before there was time enough to have them pulled up, and use their dagger-tipped gloves, like claws, to turn the nearest peasants to shreds in search of food. This toll, the first false alarm in Kirt’s recollection, had still foreshadowed death and, in fact, had been the cause of it. The difference this time, however, was that the rich died, instead of the poor, and all because of that lowly man that rang the bells, the man employed by the Motherhood, but almost as poor as the beggars. Considering this, Kirt contemplated that maybe this man had also conspired with the beggars, except for that Motherhood; the Motherhood would only employ the most devoted of servants, and murder was another strictly prohibited act.

Now concentrating on the job at hand and, finding only a few limbs within the other ovens, Kirt continued through the church. This was actually an abandoned church-home, serving as both a place of residence and worship. The lower level, where Kirt had just come from, had been a place of heart-felt prayers and passionate sermons, replaced by crimson and body parts. Upstairs had been the living quarters and, as such Kirt moved through bedrooms and halls, a cafeteria and, finally, a bloodied bathing room. The blood of the room told Kirt it’s purpose: the last of his jobs would be here.

There were eight full large washbasins in the dark room, each basin large enough to fit a man in, and a towel rack. As Kirt approached the centre of the room, his boots clicking on the tiles, white except for a few red stains around the basins and the red shoeprints he left, he observed that they were actually filled with blood, and had a sudden desire to pummel any one of his clients for charging him with the monotonous job of wasting his time killing frail, horror-filled fools, fools who were stupid enough to aggravate such a demented gathering of people as to merit this kind of punishment. Kirt was sick and tired of blood. While indifferent to death, Kirt preferred ale and women, enjoyed in the sun. The apathy of shadows and blood simply frustrated him.

It was obvious that the idiot Kirt was to kill had enough of a stomach to hide in the blood basins and, as such, Kirt moved from basin to basin, swirling his sword around in the blood as if he were mixing it. His sword bumped small objects, probably body parts, but as he came to the fifth, he felt his sword knock something large, and shoved his gloved hand into the pool of blood. His black leather glove was already stained by the blood that this church-home turned hell-hole seemed to collaborate with in the psychological torture of it’s victims, so a little more wouldn’t hurt, Kirt decided as he felt around violently for one of the men that made his day long and tiring.

Grabbing hold of a limb, Kirt ripped his hand from the basin, hauling a decrepit man from the blood.

Spluttering on the blood he was coated in, the man screamed “Why?!”

The question being obvious, why was Kirt going to kill this man, Kirt replied “Because this is what I’m being paid to do. Don’t blame me; blame the bloody hooded imbeciles that sent me to bloody kill you all!” He shouted in frustration as he swung his sword in an arc, separating the man’s head and arm from his body, so that the head tumbled off the side and rolled to the wall, while the body slumped back down below the surface of the blood. Kirt threw the arm at the wall in relief, blood spraying from where it was severed. “You’re better off without that damnable head anyway.” He spat vehemently at the basin, unloading some of the anger from the hour he wasted chasing that rugged fool around the priest’s quarters, behind the altar-room.

Kirt was ordered not to talk to the victims but, this one being dead, Kirt figured he was not going to divulge the conversation to Kirt’s clients. Now, Kirt thought with relief and resolve, off to collect my pay.