Sometimes I know why my services have been sought, other times I can only guess. This was one of the times where I think I could guess fairly easily. Mendel brought me a contract to assassinate an elf named Maneko Dribbick, also known as Maneko the Lucky, before he could win The King's Chalice competition. My guess is that someone wanted their own champion to win.
The King's Chalice is a competition that is held yearly at Kingskeep, the seat of power for this nation. Villages from across the land would send their mightiest warriors to compete, although most of the fighters fought for local nobility more than for the town's themselves, but the people seem to take pride in their champions all the same.
I have attended King's Chalice before, not as a combatant mind you, I would be lucky to get out of a fair fight with those sorts with my life, but as a vendor. It was not the first time I had peddled my wares there, but it was the first time I did so under contract.
So I loaded up the wagon with my creations, my portable forge and anvil, and my other tools, kissed the wife and child farewell, and was on my way.
There was a certain tenseness to the registrar when I was completing the documentation to vend at the challenge. It was as if there had been some order to make sure the King's Chalice went off without issue. I attributed this to the rumours of the return of the wizard Malifar that had been making their way in from the coast.
I had not given much thought to the talk of Malifar, as there are plenty of things in this world to be afraid of without worrying about villains from fairy stories. Me, for example.
I first saw Maneko not in the competition itself, but at my wagon. He was exploring the main plaza and stopped to examine my wares. I knew then that he could not be of pure blood, he was a head taller than I, and I am not of inconsiderable height myself.
Most elves were too small and frail to take part in something like King's Chalice, so Maneko was the only one amongst the warriors. The rest were either human or orc, although there was one fellow who looked to be half ogre.
Maneko's most prominent feature, after his size, was his behaviour. He had the manners of a goblin, and thought to bully me down on the price of a sword. I will admit it was a little amusing, and a little unnerving, to see the big elf swinging a blade meant to be welded with two hands around in his right hand as though it weighed no more than a dagger.
In the end I sold him the sword he liked at little more than he initially offered. I would be making a hundred times more for killing him than I would lose on that weapon.
The first day's challenge was an obstacle course
Maneko came in first place in the event, and in the process killed a man from the village of Pellico. The obstacle course is not meant to be a life threatening event, but pushing a man from atop a forty hand tall wall and then jumping down on top of him is a good way to make it more dangerous. The bloodthirsty in the crowd cheered this death while I suddenly felt much more excited about killing the halfbreed elf.
My first attempt to assassinate Maneko failed miserably. I had heard rumours that he was very particular about his meal, and that despite his size he did not eat animal flesh. Since all the the King's Chalice participants were to eat at the king's table, I guessed that it would be an easy matter to sneak into the kitchen and poison his food.
It was an easy matter to get into the kitchen dressed as a servant, easy to find out which plate was to be for him, and easy to put a dose of a powerful poison in among the tubers, mushrooms, and leaves. Even getting the food put in front of him was of no difficulty. It was unfortunate that he disliked one of the varieties of mushrooms on his plate, and rather than eat around them he felt it right to throw the plate onto the ground.
I tried again the next day during the archery competition. I managed to make my way to the front of the spectators. I readied my blowpipe with a poisoned dart, and waited for Maneko to take his turn. He insisted on going last so that he could have the opportunity to show off.
The way he showed off was to loose his first shot while the lad who was collecting the arrows from previous contestant's attempt was still in front of the target. The arrow could not have missed the boy by more than a couple of fingers width. The crowd cheered at this, but I am fairly sure that the boy loosed his bowels there in the arena.
I had three darts, and every time I would launch one at my target, he would move just as the small projectile would take flight. This half-elf's luck was beginning to make me feel inept, but I like a challenge.
Maneko was ultimately disqualified from the archery competition, but he won the joust while taking two of his opponents out of the chalice competition with injuries, and sent a third to his grave by aiming for the man's face instead of his chest. The crowd loved it though.
I had to do something. It was now the night before the final day of the competition. The last challenges would all be combat, and I had no doubt that Maneko would do well in those. He was already in the lead, and had become a favourite to win.
My time was up, by the time the sun set again, Maneko would likely be presented the king's chalice. That would be the last night I could fulfill my contract unless I could think of some way to get myself into the competition, and I had no desire to do that. I had tried to do this clean, but now it was time to do it messy.
The contestants were all being housed in the castle, so I had to get in their first. Getting past the perimeter was easy enough, as I my wagon was already in the courtyard, and I, like many of the other vendors, was sleeping there instead of letting the cost of an inn eat into my profits. It is not as if there were any rooms open in Kingskeep anyway during the event. The trick would be getting into the wing where the combatants were being housed.
Disguising myself as a woman was not a viable option. Aside from being the sort of rubbish that amateurs who have spent too much time watching low quality theater might attempt, I am rather too tall to convincingly be a lady. Also, I would have preferred to not be seen at all.
Luckily, like most castle guards, these were more interested in simply getting to their end of their shift than they were actually looking for intruders, and with all of the contestants roaming around, an unfamiliar person wouldn't even raise an alarm. All the same, I entered Maneko's chambers through the window.
The night was cool, so Maneko had closed his window. A little oil on the hinges to keep things nice and quiet and a little manipulation on the latch, and I had my entry.
Maneko lay mostly on the bed. I say mostly as the large elf's feet protruded from the edge of it. I pulled my blade from beneath my cloak, and closed the distance between myself and him. I raised the blade, preparing to end his life quickly and quietly... and that's when he opened his eyes.
Before I could strike, he rolled off the bed, leaving me to impale only linen and straw. He was already on his feet before I had even withdrawn my sword. Large and fast are a deadly combination.
“What is the meaning of this?” Maneko asked, staring at me in the moonlit room. I knew that with the window behind me he would only be seeing a silhouette.
“Someone wants you dead. I am here to fulfill that desire.”
“I have bested better than you, assassin. Tell me your name that I will boast of your defeat.”
“You may call me Nomo Goda. Let that be the last name on your mind when you die,” I leaped across the bed, but his luck held, and he sidestepped my attack, leaving me to stab nothing more than door frame.
Maneko grabbed me, and yanked my off my feet. He shook me so that my cowl fell away. The moonlight must have been sufficient to reveal my face to him.
“The blacksmith?” he said in disbelief, and then he grinned, “Well won't this be poetic then.”
The elf threw me back. I landed on the bed, and let momentum roll me so that I landed on the feet with the bed between us. When I came up I saw that Maneko had produced the sword he had bought from me. He swung the blade in circles in front of him in an attempt to unnerve me.
I won't say that it was not at least a little effective.
I used my fear to my advantage, and let it show on my face. I could see confidence bloom in his eyes in response. He struck out at me, and I blocked it badly while palming a throwing spike in my left hand from the cache of them in my bracer. When he swung at my apparent opening, I ducked and threw the stiletto.
The throwing dagger missed his neck, but stuck in his right shoulder as his blade cut through empty air. The injury seemed to, if anything, increase his battle rage.
He stepped around the bed, and swung at me, I parried. He swung again, at my midsection this time, again again I parried his blow away.
I will admit that it was not only his skill that had me worried, but also the fact that he was using my steel. I had never had reason to battle an opponent using one of my own weapons before, so I did not know how well my personal sword would hold up against such a powerful onslaught of blows from one of its own brothers.
Maneko swung in a wide arc as high as the room's ceiling would allow, and tried to cleave my skull in two. I had to use both hands on my blade to stop the force of it. He followed this up immediately with a savage kick to my stomach. The armour under my cloak absorbed some of the blow, but not enough to keep me on my feet.
I staggered back, and fell hard upon my arse. He stepped forward and swung down on me. I was unable to maneuver my blade into the right position, and he knocked it from my hands. He them brought his big, bare foot down hard on my chest, pinning me to the floor.
“This was good,” Maneko said as he raised his sword to drive it straight down into my face, “I needed this practice before I kill that halfbreed ogre tomorrow!”
“There is a difference between me and the ogre, Maneko,” I said, “He would have fought fairly.”
I don't know if his memory was short, or if he was not used to fighting against someone who fought dirty, but he didn't take into account the stiletto that was still sticking out of his shoulder. He seemed genuinely surprised when I produced one from up each sleeve, and then drive them into his ankle.
The elf roared as blood sprayed from his Achilles heel, and stepped back. He tried to put his weight down on the wounded ankle. The injury could not hold his weight and he went down like a tree with almost as much thunder.
I rolled away, ignoring the pain in my chest and stomach, and grabbed my sword as I rolled to my feet.
I pulled a dagger from my back with my left hand as I closed on him again, he tried to swing the sword at me, but even for someone as big as he was it was not possible to attack with such a large blade from a sitting position. I deflected the attack easily with my dagger, and then brought my sword down on his tree-branch thick wrist. The sword thudded heavily to the floor with his hands still wrapped around it.
“No, don't,” the elf begged. I hate begging. I hope that when my time comes I will face it with some measure of courage in defeat.
“Sorry, Maneko, but your luck seems to have finally run out,” I said, and with a single slash of my blade I cut halfway through his neck. Elven blood that was a little too red to be pure elf flowed out, staining his nightshirt, while he choked on it.
In moments he was still and silent, and the only noise in the room was my heavy breathing. He had proved a much greater challenge than he should have been, which means I was letting my skills degrade, or he had some sort of edge.
It was then that I noticed something on his foot, the one not covered in blood. He had a ring around the second toe of his left foot. I tried to slip the ring off, but it would not budge, so I took the whole toe.
Once I managed to cut the toe meat out of the ring, I looked at it. It looked to be just plain gold, but there was a faint warmth emanating from it. Just holding it in my hand made me feel more confident.
“You cheating halfbreed,” I said to his corpse, “You had an enchantment on you the whole time! Maneko the Lucky indeed”
I decided to keep the ring. An enchanted item that somehow escaped the scrutiny of the king's wizards and increased your luck could only be a help. I just hope it serves me in the long run better than it did him.