Sometimes even simple assassinations can become life threatening. On some occasions, most really, this is the result of improper planning. It does not much matter if your target has been slain if you did not plan a way to get out of the building with your own life.
There are times, however, where all the planning in the world can be undone by simply not knowing all the facts. There are things that you cannot plan for; that you would never even think of as possibilities, especially when magic is involved. Surprises are, of course, a part of the job. If you do not want to be surprised by life-threatening complications, then bake bread, or build houses, or be a village idiot. Do not be an assassin.
Mendel met me in our usual spot in the woods, and filled me in on the latest job.
“This should be some easy money, Goda. Tamic Leafwater, the high mage of Fenric wants you to eliminate the brother of the mayor of Greenvelt village,” Hiram explained.
“Any special requests?”
“Only that he be killed out of doors, and that you place the contents of this bag next to the body once the deed is done,” Hiram picked up a rough sack from the ground by his feet and held it out to me. The bag was not overly large, probably big enough to put a head inside.
Upon taking the bag, I could feel that there was something inside it, but that whatever it was it was very light, “What is in it?” I asked, “You did not accept something from a mage without first asking what is it, did you?”
“What sort of a fool do you take me to be?” Hiram asked, and I was silent in response, “Yes, I had Leafwater show me the contents. It is nothing but a flower, an ugly purple thing. Leafwater says you are to drop it on the corpse and leave, but do not open the bag before then, as the bag is preserving the flower, or some such.”
“Sounds simple enough.”
“For someone as skilled as you? No doubt that it will be.”
Flattery aside, the job seemed a little too easy. Why should a high mage, even one from as small a village as Fenric, making him a big goblin is a small den if ever there were one, need to hire an assassin just to slay a single man? I would have imagined it to be a matter of not wanting it known who was behind the killing if it had not been for the flower.
Still, as long as his coin spent, it was not my place to wonder about my client's motivations. I decided that the flower must be intended to place blame on someone else, or perhaps the mage just thought that killing a non-magical person was beneath him. Thinking back, I was not completely wrong on that second part.
I spent a few days in Greenvelt under the guise of a traveling blacksmith. The town smith was a nice fellow, and we spent a couple of hours in the local tavern discussing the trade. I did not make any sales in town, but he did teach me a technique that I had not previously known about. I did not find it to be better than any I employ, but it is always good to have knowledge.
A good portion of my time there was also spent learning about my target. His name was Reginald Feldworn, and he fancied himself an artist. It seemed that his brother supported him, so he spent his afternoons down by the river painting. I am not sure what it was he was painting, because what ended up on his canvas looked nothing like anything I saw in that forest.
From what I could find out about him, Reginald had never been married, and had never harmed a soul. I decided that his would be as painless and quick a death as I could manage. Let it never be said that I do not have a little mercy in my soul.
I watched as he painted what would be his last work; some hideous blur of green, brown, and blue that, to me, demonstrated either a lack of skill with a brush or a lack of ability to see clearly. He seemed content; at peace. He never even heard me come up behind him.
My weapon on choice is a blade, and I could have easily slit his throat from behind, spraying his lifeblood onto the canvas, but I wanted him to leave something behind. I had considered stabbing him at the base of the skull with a stiletto, but decided against that too.
I went with a more brutish approach. I reached around and grabbed his chin with my left hand, and the back of his skull with my right, and twisted until I heard the crack that only a breaking neck makes.
I laid his body on the ground at the foot of the easel, and quickly searched him for something to use as evidence that I completed the contract. I took a fancy ring that featured his family crest. I made sure to leave his coin purse so that it would be known that this had not been a robbery.
All that was left to do was leave the mage's calling card. I went back to the stand of brush that had obscured me, and retrieved the sack. Standing over the body, I loosed the cord around the bag's mouth, and opened it.
Inside the sack was an exotic looking flower as Hiram had said there would be, with purple petals covered in black spots. From the center there were pale coloured tendrils sticking out. This was undoubtedly something out of the mage's garden, as it was certainly nothing native to this land. The flower's bloom looked hungry, like if I stick my finger in the center of it that the petals would grab it, pull it in farther, and devour it.
As instructed, I placed the flower on the ground next to the body, and turned to leave.
I was only a couple of steps before I heard something rustle behind me. I turned quickly, pulling my sword. I expected to see one of the mayor's servants come to retrieve Reginald, hoping I would not have to stay some poor fool who happened to show up only moments before I would have been out of sight. What I saw was much more surprising.
Roots had sprouted from the stem of the flower, and were digging into the dirt. It was growing as we'll, very quickly. It was already as large as me, and it was still growing. It knocked the easel with its atrocious work of art on it over.
I reacted very unprofessionally at the sight of this new magic; new to me anyhow. I stood there and watched as the flower, now a good four or five hands taller than I, bent forward. The flower's tendrils stretched down to the body, wrapping around the man's remains, and lifting them from the ground.
Straightening up like a wolf rearing its head back to swallow a piece of meat, it seemed to take Reginald's corpse in through the flower's center. As it swallowed him, I could see his mass traveling down its stem, creating a human sized bulge through which I could see him like looking at a man through green stained glass.
Not satisfied with its meal, the flower then turned to me. I stood there like a fool watching a magician's light show as it bent towards me, now towering over me by at least a dozen hands. It wrapped one of it's whitish tendrils around my left arm, and that was enough to finally wake me up.
I brought my sword down on the tendril pulling at my arm. While it may have been a very large flower it was still just a flower, and offered little resistance to a sword meant to cut though flesh and bone.
While I was pulling the severed plant from my arm, it lashed out at me again, trying to grab my sword arm. I ducked, evading that attack, but leaving myself unable to avoid the next pair of tendrils that wrapped themselves around me, pinning my arms to my side, and causing me to lose hold of my blade. The flower then proceeded to lift me off of the ground.
The flower quickly drew me in towards its center, which had opened like a mouth. With my arms secured to me, there was little I could do; I couldn't even turn my sword to try and cut myself free.
I am of the opinion that I handled all of this well. I did not panic, I did not scream for help, though none would have come; we were quite alone out there. I faced my death, head high, or at least as high as I could get it as the massive bloom drew me into its gaping maw.
Like Reginald's body, it swallowed me whole, only it swallowed me head first. I was able to see through the surface of the stem, although the world appeared out of focus and very green, and I could even sort of breathe, though I expected that I would still pass out soon. I slid down the slimy inside of the stem until I was just inches from Reginald's body.
My arms were still by my sides by the stem's interior walls, although not held as tightly as they had been before. I could reach into my cloak, already soaked with slime, but I had to figure out what to do.
Fire seemed like a quick option, but I do not know if the flames would even catch with there being so little air in there with me. There was also the matter of breaking open the phial with the fire resin without coating myself in it. Burning the plant would do little good if I burnt myself with it.
My best option seemed to be a blade. I reached into my cloak, and pulled out the straight edged dagger I usually reserve for puncturing a target's stomach or lungs when a client requires suffering as part of the contract.
The flesh of the stem was tough, but the tightness of the stem gave me something to push off of enabling me to punch through to the outside. I could feel the burst of cool air flood into the plant's warm interior.
I wished I had some sort of a serrated blade that I could have used like a saw. Cutting through the fibrous material of the stem with a smooth blade was akin to cutting through a tree branch with one.
It took some time, and I dulled the edge of that dagger to such a degree that cutting butter would have been challenging, but I did finally make a hole big enough to squeeze out though. With a wet, slimy plop, I dropped to the forest floor in a puddle of the plant's fluids that had pooled around its base.
Even though I was exhausted from my efforts, I managed to scramble away from the flower, grabbing up my sword as I went, before it could grab me again. I half staggered, half ran until the flower was out of sight, and them plunged myself into the river to wash off as much of the flower slime as possible. I do not know what that substance was, but getting it off of my skin and clothes seemed like a very good idea.
I do not believe that I was wrong about that anyway. I awoke the next day to find much of my skin a dry, flaky, angry red that itched and ached for a week after. When I tried to clean that cloak and trousers later on, they practically turned to dust in the water. The dulled dagger also corroded into useless over the next month. I can only imagine what that would have done to my flesh had I left it on there any longer.
Despite what one might expect of someone in my profession, I am not a vengeful man. I did threaten to skin Hiram alive for not getting the truth about the flower from the mage, but I know that Hiram is a fool, and when money is involved that he becomes blind to much of anything else.
No, it was Tamic Leafwater who I held animosity towards, but I did not seek vengeance, no I did not. Luckily for me, the fates have a well developed sense of humour that allowed me to settle our accounts.. It was not a full moon later that the mayor of Greenvelt sought my services to eliminate a certain mage whom he was sure had murdered his brother.