Post by Ayzlyn on May 4, 2009 20:35:52 GMT -5
Liam ducked his head as Rick swung the training pole at him. He rolled forward and swung his own pole up to block his friend’s. Rick grinned at him.
“You’re never going beat me, Liam.” He said through his teeth.
“We’ll see about that.” Liam narrowed his eyes and jerked the pole around to come at Rick’s legs. Rick turned to deflect it and Liam kicked his feet out from under him from the other side. As soon as Rick hit the ground Liam pinned him down, the pole at his neck. “Got you.”Rick relaxed, accepting defeat.
“Well done, Liam.” The Training Master walked over to the two boys, a rare smile dawning on his face. “You are becoming a skilled fighter.”
Liam stood and helped Rick to his feet. He turned and bowed respectfully to the Training Master.
“Thank you, sir.” Of all the men in the Academy, the Training Master of the Black House, known only as M to the boys, was the only one who was ever kind.
Rick also bowed to M and to Liam. “I was wrong. You can beat me.”
Liam grinned mischievously at his friend. “We haven’t done archery yet.”
Rick grinned back at him. “I take that as a challenge.”
“Well, boys, get to it. I look forward to finding out whom the winner is.” M motioned them toward the open field used for archery and horse training.
Liam tapped Rick on the shoulder and took off running. “Last one there has to get all the arrows!”
“Liam!” Rick sprinted after him attempting to put him in a headlock.
Liam laughed as he ran. Rick was bigger than him, but Liam was faster. He beat him easily and was at the archery range before Rick passed the horse paddock several hundred yards away. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. “You really need to work on your running Rick. You’ll never get anywhere that way.”
“Speak for yourself, Liam. You don’t need speed to go places.”Rick walked over to the bow wall and selected a recurve made of mahogany. It was a fine bow, but Liam couldn’t repress a snort of laughter.
“What?” Rick looked at him, annoyed.
“Do you intend to hit something with that?” Liam joined him at the wall. He took his time inspecting each one carefully.
“You think I can’t?” Rick grabbed a quiver of arrows and slung it over his shoulder.
“I don’t think you’ll do much with that bow.” He returned a willow compound bow to its place and moved down the line.
“Whatever.” Rick walked over to a target.
Liam glanced at him and turned back to the wall as Rick took aim. He laughed as he heard the thwack of the bow and his friends curse. “I told you so.” He turned back to the wall. As he did something caught his eye. M was talking with the Headmaster. It was only on a rare occasion that the Headmaster was seen talking to the instructors in public. Intrigued, Liam watched them.
M stood stiffly and looked uncomfortable. He looked at the Headmaster with an annoyed look and Liam was fearful his teacher would do something that would cause trouble, but then he made an off handed gesture at something. Liam looked at the greying sky. They were talking about the weather. Then the Headmaster glanced in his direction. He watched as M’s expression changed to sadness and anger. He nodded in acknowledgement of something that the Headmaster said. The Headmaster walked away and M looked over at the archery range and started towards them. By the time he arrived, Liam had chosen an oak long bow and was examining the fletching on a set of arrows. M joined him. “I saw you talking to the Headmaster, M.”
M took a bow and strung it. “You did, eh?” he smiled. “I thought you would, Liam. You were never one to let something by you.” He smiled at him.
Liam followed him as he walked over to a target some feet from Rick’s. “What did he want, sir?”
M positioned his feet and knocked an arrow. He raised it, pulling the shaft back to the corner of his mouth. “He informed me that you and Rick will be taking the next rounds of the Test.” He released the arrow and it flew straight into the heart of the target.
~
Liam grimaced and swallowed to get the taste of bile out of his mouth as the body of the man he had been assigned dropped to the ground, a blade in his back. He looked down at his own knife, safely in its sheath at his belt. He had disobeyed orders and another had taken his assignment. Fear seized Liam’s heart. The Headmaster was waiting for them to return. He would have seen the display from his vantage point at the top of the bell tower.
It was Liam’s first time away from the Academy. Now he was in a city that he had only heard stories of. It was called Pyre, named for the strange architecture. From afar the city appeared to be burning. They had arrived at sunset, a sliver all that was left of the sun. For a brief moment the light had caught the strangely shaped buildings with their gargoyles and stone angels. The many glass windows had reflected a palette of burning colors across the sky. The affect had been stunning, but Liam could find no appreciation for it now as he stealthily climbed back to his likely death.
The Headmaster was waiting for him. Liam prepared himself for a death blow. The faint smile on the older man’s face was surely meant to mask a fury greater than that of a mother grizzly, but now blows came. He just stood there. That was when Liam realized all of the others were gone or leaving, jumping across the rooftops. Within minutes it was just him and the Headmaster.
And that’s when it came. Liam felt the pain before the butt of the knife hit his head just above his temple. He knew what this would do: leave him paralyzed and at the mercy of the man in front of him. He managed to role sideways, but then the Headmaster was standing over him.
“Not that way, boy.” He shoved Liam over in the other direction. “We wouldn’t want you to go rolling off the side now, would we?”
Liam grunted and reflexively curled inward as the boot collided with his stomach. He gasped for breath. His lungs protested and more pain shot through him. He surely had a broken rib. Not that it will matter, he thought as another blow came. He shied away from the pain, his mind blocking it out. He was safe now. A sense of comfort overcame him. He was shrouded in warm light. This was peaceful…. He cried out in pain as he was tore from his mind, back to his body.
“You don’t get of that easy, boy. No dying for you.” The Headmaster dug his nails deeper into the knife wound in Liam’s side. He then decided to stab him again for good measure.
Liam realized that the bloody knife now imbedded in his shoulder was his own. He reached up and pulled it out, his fingers almost too weak to hold on to it. He didn’t think he would be able to wound the Headmaster, but the knife gave him something real to hold on to besides pain.
The man laughed. “You can’t possibly think you can still fight me.”
Liam’s voice was almost inaudible as he said “Dying with a weapon-” He sucked in a breath as pain racked through him. “- is better than dying without one.”
The Headmaster looked at him thoughtfully. “Very wise my boy.” He bent down and wrapped his hands around the knife. He pulled it all too easily from Liam’s grasp. He then began to clean it on the long tunic her wore. The stain Liam’s blood made on the crisp white fabric was sickening. “But you will find that there is a very fine line between life and death. And if you had followed orders you would know. We are not murderers, but keepers of the balance. We control the scales.” He glanced at Liam. “But for a price, of course. I believe the word used is ‘assassin’.” He began to chuckle, then to laugh. “Take him away, boys.”
Liam watched the Headmaster as two large men grabbed him under the arms and dragged him away. His body left a trail of blood to the pool he had been laying. He watched, rage running wild in him, as his knife disappeared into the man’s belt. He cried out in pain as he was thrown into the back of a wagon. The road was long and bumpy. A poor frazzled woman sat next to him, cleaning and stitching his wounds. Liam wondered briefly if she had been threatened or paid to be here. Either way, it didn’t matter. He knew the truth about the place he had been raised in now. It was nothing less than a school, a school for killers. There was no going back to his ignorance. Everything was becoming clear: the constant battle training, hand-to-hand combat, weaponry. It was all meant for one purpose.
Tears began to roll down his face. No matter how hard he tried to not be like these men, the ones who killed for money, who enjoyed it, he was still one of them. There was no taking back the past fifteen years. And he couldn’t deny the fact that they were his family. The only one he had.
~
Liam looked at himself in the infirmary mirror. His face was dramatically swollen on the right side where the knife butt had hit him. His right eye was almost completely swelled shut. On the left, the forest green iris was shrouded in black and blue bruising. His dark blond hair still had dried blood in it. He flexed the muscle in his left shoulder. The muscles had been torn and damaged when he pulled the knife out, but they were healing well. He was still strong. His ribs were another matter. One rib had been broken and had almost punctured his left lung. On his right side, he had punctured a lung. Or, his knife had punctured the lung. It had taken several grueling hours for the surgeon to repair it; Liam had been awake the whole time. All in all, he didn’t look to good.
Liam limped his way into the Black boarding house. He knew now that this was not the house of exceptionally gifted boys. It was the home of the most promising assassins. Here it was basically the same thing.
M had told him everything about the Academy on his return from Pyre. He told him about how it was a thousand years old, of the many battles that had been won because of the work of an assassin, everything. And he had just learned how he had arrived in the place.
Erin was her name. She was a poor street girl of sixteen in a city from a land across a vast ocean. She had been paid to have a son. And that son was Liam. At first Liam had been furious and hurt. But then M told him the whole story. He had not officially gone on the trip, but he was there. He always went to make sure the babies were taken care of. He had watched Erin for long months after she had been approached by the Academy. She had intended to find the strongest man she could to father a child, but she fell in love with Liam’s father, a boy named Quinn. He hadn’t been anything special, just a bar boy. He had been murdered on his way home to Erin some months later, caught in a bar fight. He’d died in her arms.
Liam had to stop and duck into a dark corner to fight the burning tears that threatened him. He had never been an emotional person, but his parents’ story was enough to almost kill him with grief. To think, they were only a little older than him.
He had great respect for his mother. She survived, but only just, to bring him into the world. It had been a few months early, but into the world none the less. She had been ready to give him up. But there had been something about Liam that she could never give up. She made it just fine for several months, but then the assassins came back. She had run, they caught her and.…
Liam wiped the stray tear from his cheek. He had been stolen from his mother, his parents were murdered, and all so that the Academy could have one more assassin in their ranks. He let out a ragged breath, and then slammed his fist into the wall.
“Liam?” It was Rick. He had a worried look on his face.
Liam turned around and stared at him. Rick sucked in a breath at the sight of Liam’s face.
“What happened to you? You look like you fell of a horse and it decided to run over you a couple of times.”
“Horses don’t have knives, Rick.” Rick didn’t have any idea what happened. He had been spared the round of Testing Liam had been in. He was scheduled to go tomorrow night.
“What are you talking about, and what knives? What happened to you?”
“We have to get out of here, Rick. This place isn’t what you think it is.” Liam started to walk in the direction of his room.
“Well what is it then?”Rick was starting to sound anxious, and he was giving Liam funny looks.
“They’re training us to be...assassins.” Liam glanced at Rick’s face. His friend looked dumbfounded. “It’s true. The Test, we have to kill people, innocent people.” Liam opened the door to his room and walked over to his closet. He didn’t have much, and most of what he did have was black. Perfect for night work, he thought bitterly. He reached in and pulled out whatever he grabbed, shoving it into his rucksack.
“Is that what happened to you? You tried to kill somebody and they got you first?”
Liam turned slowly and looked as his friend. “I tell you they want us to kill people and all you can say is “did they get you first”?” Rick just looked at him. “I didn’t do it. The Headmaster tried to kill me. But he wouldn’t let me die.” He looked back to his bag. “I wanted to die.”
“You are seriously messed up, you know that?” Rick started to laugh.
A cold shiver ran down Liam’s spine. Something was wrong. He had just enough time to slip a knife out of his sleeve and bring it up in front of his throat before the wire came over his head. It was thick and the knife didn’t cut through like Liam had hoped. Instead the knife was pressed back into his throat as well as the wire. His air was cut off. He felt his already damaged lungs fighting for oxygen.
“I’m sorry, Liam, I can’t let you leave. Come to think of it, I can’t let you live.” Rick pulled the wire tighter. Liam could feel the edge of the blade digging into his skin, the trickle of blood down his neck. “I knew all along.”
Liam’s eyes widened. This was not his best friend. This was a stranger, born to kill, who wanted to kill.
Giving into his training, Liam brought his elbow back into Rick’s stomach. The wire loosened and Liam tore it out of Rick’s hands. He lunged forward, grabbed his bag and threw it out the window. Just as he was about to follow, Rick grabbed him from behind and pulled him back. He threw Liam against the opposite wall then lunged at him. Instinctively, Liam brought up his hands to protect himself. Only then did he remember the knife, but it was too late.
Rick backed away, the knife imbedded to the hilt in his chest. Dark blood stained his shirt and poured from the wound. Liam cried out, realizing what he had just done.
Rick sank to his knees and pulled out the knife. “I should have killed you a long time ago.” He gave Liam a last look of hate, then collapsed.
Liam fought back more tears as he slid down the rope out of his window. He touched the ground and immediately started to run. He ran until he reached the outskirts of the horse pasture where he found a single horse. It was a dark brown gelding that had a particular fondness for Liam. The horse was used to people running at it, so Liam didn’t stop until he reached it. He swung his pack on his back, and then heaved himself onto the horse.
“Run, boy.” Liam wrapped his arms around the horse’s neck as it took off at a gallop. He pulled its long main to the left, away from the Academy, toward the wall. If he could make it over he could hide his trail, fade into the background. They would never find him.
~
Liam looked up at the star filled sky. His hood fell back and he heard a woman gasp at the sight of his face. He quickly pulled it back up and moved away from the candlelight in the middle of the ship’s deck. He sat down on a crate at the side and looked at the water. It was flat as glass, reflecting every star and the crescent moon perfectly. A ripple suddenly appeared and Liam realized he was crying. An image of Rick drifted into his mind. His hate, his blood, Liam’s knife…
How Rick had known about the Academy’s real purpose, he didn’t know. But it didn’t matter. He had killed his best friend. In his attempt to avoid the future that had been laid down for him, the life of a murder, he had become one. He was no better than the men he hated.
And now he understood what the Headmaster had said about the fine line between life and death. Death was so swift, sudden. Life could be taken so quickly. It was a fragile thing, more breakable than glass, but it could withstand so much. It always went on. Until death. Death was its undoing.
There was a delicate balance between life and death. The assassins had taken this balance into their own hands. The scales were tipped towards death.
Liam looked out at the water with sheer determination. He couldn’t take back the deaths caused by the assassins. But he could give life to those who they would steal it from. He had the obligation, the responsibility, to pay for what he had done. He would bring back the balance.
“You’re never going beat me, Liam.” He said through his teeth.
“We’ll see about that.” Liam narrowed his eyes and jerked the pole around to come at Rick’s legs. Rick turned to deflect it and Liam kicked his feet out from under him from the other side. As soon as Rick hit the ground Liam pinned him down, the pole at his neck. “Got you.”Rick relaxed, accepting defeat.
“Well done, Liam.” The Training Master walked over to the two boys, a rare smile dawning on his face. “You are becoming a skilled fighter.”
Liam stood and helped Rick to his feet. He turned and bowed respectfully to the Training Master.
“Thank you, sir.” Of all the men in the Academy, the Training Master of the Black House, known only as M to the boys, was the only one who was ever kind.
Rick also bowed to M and to Liam. “I was wrong. You can beat me.”
Liam grinned mischievously at his friend. “We haven’t done archery yet.”
Rick grinned back at him. “I take that as a challenge.”
“Well, boys, get to it. I look forward to finding out whom the winner is.” M motioned them toward the open field used for archery and horse training.
Liam tapped Rick on the shoulder and took off running. “Last one there has to get all the arrows!”
“Liam!” Rick sprinted after him attempting to put him in a headlock.
Liam laughed as he ran. Rick was bigger than him, but Liam was faster. He beat him easily and was at the archery range before Rick passed the horse paddock several hundred yards away. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. “You really need to work on your running Rick. You’ll never get anywhere that way.”
“Speak for yourself, Liam. You don’t need speed to go places.”Rick walked over to the bow wall and selected a recurve made of mahogany. It was a fine bow, but Liam couldn’t repress a snort of laughter.
“What?” Rick looked at him, annoyed.
“Do you intend to hit something with that?” Liam joined him at the wall. He took his time inspecting each one carefully.
“You think I can’t?” Rick grabbed a quiver of arrows and slung it over his shoulder.
“I don’t think you’ll do much with that bow.” He returned a willow compound bow to its place and moved down the line.
“Whatever.” Rick walked over to a target.
Liam glanced at him and turned back to the wall as Rick took aim. He laughed as he heard the thwack of the bow and his friends curse. “I told you so.” He turned back to the wall. As he did something caught his eye. M was talking with the Headmaster. It was only on a rare occasion that the Headmaster was seen talking to the instructors in public. Intrigued, Liam watched them.
M stood stiffly and looked uncomfortable. He looked at the Headmaster with an annoyed look and Liam was fearful his teacher would do something that would cause trouble, but then he made an off handed gesture at something. Liam looked at the greying sky. They were talking about the weather. Then the Headmaster glanced in his direction. He watched as M’s expression changed to sadness and anger. He nodded in acknowledgement of something that the Headmaster said. The Headmaster walked away and M looked over at the archery range and started towards them. By the time he arrived, Liam had chosen an oak long bow and was examining the fletching on a set of arrows. M joined him. “I saw you talking to the Headmaster, M.”
M took a bow and strung it. “You did, eh?” he smiled. “I thought you would, Liam. You were never one to let something by you.” He smiled at him.
Liam followed him as he walked over to a target some feet from Rick’s. “What did he want, sir?”
M positioned his feet and knocked an arrow. He raised it, pulling the shaft back to the corner of his mouth. “He informed me that you and Rick will be taking the next rounds of the Test.” He released the arrow and it flew straight into the heart of the target.
~
Liam grimaced and swallowed to get the taste of bile out of his mouth as the body of the man he had been assigned dropped to the ground, a blade in his back. He looked down at his own knife, safely in its sheath at his belt. He had disobeyed orders and another had taken his assignment. Fear seized Liam’s heart. The Headmaster was waiting for them to return. He would have seen the display from his vantage point at the top of the bell tower.
It was Liam’s first time away from the Academy. Now he was in a city that he had only heard stories of. It was called Pyre, named for the strange architecture. From afar the city appeared to be burning. They had arrived at sunset, a sliver all that was left of the sun. For a brief moment the light had caught the strangely shaped buildings with their gargoyles and stone angels. The many glass windows had reflected a palette of burning colors across the sky. The affect had been stunning, but Liam could find no appreciation for it now as he stealthily climbed back to his likely death.
The Headmaster was waiting for him. Liam prepared himself for a death blow. The faint smile on the older man’s face was surely meant to mask a fury greater than that of a mother grizzly, but now blows came. He just stood there. That was when Liam realized all of the others were gone or leaving, jumping across the rooftops. Within minutes it was just him and the Headmaster.
And that’s when it came. Liam felt the pain before the butt of the knife hit his head just above his temple. He knew what this would do: leave him paralyzed and at the mercy of the man in front of him. He managed to role sideways, but then the Headmaster was standing over him.
“Not that way, boy.” He shoved Liam over in the other direction. “We wouldn’t want you to go rolling off the side now, would we?”
Liam grunted and reflexively curled inward as the boot collided with his stomach. He gasped for breath. His lungs protested and more pain shot through him. He surely had a broken rib. Not that it will matter, he thought as another blow came. He shied away from the pain, his mind blocking it out. He was safe now. A sense of comfort overcame him. He was shrouded in warm light. This was peaceful…. He cried out in pain as he was tore from his mind, back to his body.
“You don’t get of that easy, boy. No dying for you.” The Headmaster dug his nails deeper into the knife wound in Liam’s side. He then decided to stab him again for good measure.
Liam realized that the bloody knife now imbedded in his shoulder was his own. He reached up and pulled it out, his fingers almost too weak to hold on to it. He didn’t think he would be able to wound the Headmaster, but the knife gave him something real to hold on to besides pain.
The man laughed. “You can’t possibly think you can still fight me.”
Liam’s voice was almost inaudible as he said “Dying with a weapon-” He sucked in a breath as pain racked through him. “- is better than dying without one.”
The Headmaster looked at him thoughtfully. “Very wise my boy.” He bent down and wrapped his hands around the knife. He pulled it all too easily from Liam’s grasp. He then began to clean it on the long tunic her wore. The stain Liam’s blood made on the crisp white fabric was sickening. “But you will find that there is a very fine line between life and death. And if you had followed orders you would know. We are not murderers, but keepers of the balance. We control the scales.” He glanced at Liam. “But for a price, of course. I believe the word used is ‘assassin’.” He began to chuckle, then to laugh. “Take him away, boys.”
Liam watched the Headmaster as two large men grabbed him under the arms and dragged him away. His body left a trail of blood to the pool he had been laying. He watched, rage running wild in him, as his knife disappeared into the man’s belt. He cried out in pain as he was thrown into the back of a wagon. The road was long and bumpy. A poor frazzled woman sat next to him, cleaning and stitching his wounds. Liam wondered briefly if she had been threatened or paid to be here. Either way, it didn’t matter. He knew the truth about the place he had been raised in now. It was nothing less than a school, a school for killers. There was no going back to his ignorance. Everything was becoming clear: the constant battle training, hand-to-hand combat, weaponry. It was all meant for one purpose.
Tears began to roll down his face. No matter how hard he tried to not be like these men, the ones who killed for money, who enjoyed it, he was still one of them. There was no taking back the past fifteen years. And he couldn’t deny the fact that they were his family. The only one he had.
~
Liam looked at himself in the infirmary mirror. His face was dramatically swollen on the right side where the knife butt had hit him. His right eye was almost completely swelled shut. On the left, the forest green iris was shrouded in black and blue bruising. His dark blond hair still had dried blood in it. He flexed the muscle in his left shoulder. The muscles had been torn and damaged when he pulled the knife out, but they were healing well. He was still strong. His ribs were another matter. One rib had been broken and had almost punctured his left lung. On his right side, he had punctured a lung. Or, his knife had punctured the lung. It had taken several grueling hours for the surgeon to repair it; Liam had been awake the whole time. All in all, he didn’t look to good.
Liam limped his way into the Black boarding house. He knew now that this was not the house of exceptionally gifted boys. It was the home of the most promising assassins. Here it was basically the same thing.
M had told him everything about the Academy on his return from Pyre. He told him about how it was a thousand years old, of the many battles that had been won because of the work of an assassin, everything. And he had just learned how he had arrived in the place.
Erin was her name. She was a poor street girl of sixteen in a city from a land across a vast ocean. She had been paid to have a son. And that son was Liam. At first Liam had been furious and hurt. But then M told him the whole story. He had not officially gone on the trip, but he was there. He always went to make sure the babies were taken care of. He had watched Erin for long months after she had been approached by the Academy. She had intended to find the strongest man she could to father a child, but she fell in love with Liam’s father, a boy named Quinn. He hadn’t been anything special, just a bar boy. He had been murdered on his way home to Erin some months later, caught in a bar fight. He’d died in her arms.
Liam had to stop and duck into a dark corner to fight the burning tears that threatened him. He had never been an emotional person, but his parents’ story was enough to almost kill him with grief. To think, they were only a little older than him.
He had great respect for his mother. She survived, but only just, to bring him into the world. It had been a few months early, but into the world none the less. She had been ready to give him up. But there had been something about Liam that she could never give up. She made it just fine for several months, but then the assassins came back. She had run, they caught her and.…
Liam wiped the stray tear from his cheek. He had been stolen from his mother, his parents were murdered, and all so that the Academy could have one more assassin in their ranks. He let out a ragged breath, and then slammed his fist into the wall.
“Liam?” It was Rick. He had a worried look on his face.
Liam turned around and stared at him. Rick sucked in a breath at the sight of Liam’s face.
“What happened to you? You look like you fell of a horse and it decided to run over you a couple of times.”
“Horses don’t have knives, Rick.” Rick didn’t have any idea what happened. He had been spared the round of Testing Liam had been in. He was scheduled to go tomorrow night.
“What are you talking about, and what knives? What happened to you?”
“We have to get out of here, Rick. This place isn’t what you think it is.” Liam started to walk in the direction of his room.
“Well what is it then?”Rick was starting to sound anxious, and he was giving Liam funny looks.
“They’re training us to be...assassins.” Liam glanced at Rick’s face. His friend looked dumbfounded. “It’s true. The Test, we have to kill people, innocent people.” Liam opened the door to his room and walked over to his closet. He didn’t have much, and most of what he did have was black. Perfect for night work, he thought bitterly. He reached in and pulled out whatever he grabbed, shoving it into his rucksack.
“Is that what happened to you? You tried to kill somebody and they got you first?”
Liam turned slowly and looked as his friend. “I tell you they want us to kill people and all you can say is “did they get you first”?” Rick just looked at him. “I didn’t do it. The Headmaster tried to kill me. But he wouldn’t let me die.” He looked back to his bag. “I wanted to die.”
“You are seriously messed up, you know that?” Rick started to laugh.
A cold shiver ran down Liam’s spine. Something was wrong. He had just enough time to slip a knife out of his sleeve and bring it up in front of his throat before the wire came over his head. It was thick and the knife didn’t cut through like Liam had hoped. Instead the knife was pressed back into his throat as well as the wire. His air was cut off. He felt his already damaged lungs fighting for oxygen.
“I’m sorry, Liam, I can’t let you leave. Come to think of it, I can’t let you live.” Rick pulled the wire tighter. Liam could feel the edge of the blade digging into his skin, the trickle of blood down his neck. “I knew all along.”
Liam’s eyes widened. This was not his best friend. This was a stranger, born to kill, who wanted to kill.
Giving into his training, Liam brought his elbow back into Rick’s stomach. The wire loosened and Liam tore it out of Rick’s hands. He lunged forward, grabbed his bag and threw it out the window. Just as he was about to follow, Rick grabbed him from behind and pulled him back. He threw Liam against the opposite wall then lunged at him. Instinctively, Liam brought up his hands to protect himself. Only then did he remember the knife, but it was too late.
Rick backed away, the knife imbedded to the hilt in his chest. Dark blood stained his shirt and poured from the wound. Liam cried out, realizing what he had just done.
Rick sank to his knees and pulled out the knife. “I should have killed you a long time ago.” He gave Liam a last look of hate, then collapsed.
Liam fought back more tears as he slid down the rope out of his window. He touched the ground and immediately started to run. He ran until he reached the outskirts of the horse pasture where he found a single horse. It was a dark brown gelding that had a particular fondness for Liam. The horse was used to people running at it, so Liam didn’t stop until he reached it. He swung his pack on his back, and then heaved himself onto the horse.
“Run, boy.” Liam wrapped his arms around the horse’s neck as it took off at a gallop. He pulled its long main to the left, away from the Academy, toward the wall. If he could make it over he could hide his trail, fade into the background. They would never find him.
~
Liam looked up at the star filled sky. His hood fell back and he heard a woman gasp at the sight of his face. He quickly pulled it back up and moved away from the candlelight in the middle of the ship’s deck. He sat down on a crate at the side and looked at the water. It was flat as glass, reflecting every star and the crescent moon perfectly. A ripple suddenly appeared and Liam realized he was crying. An image of Rick drifted into his mind. His hate, his blood, Liam’s knife…
How Rick had known about the Academy’s real purpose, he didn’t know. But it didn’t matter. He had killed his best friend. In his attempt to avoid the future that had been laid down for him, the life of a murder, he had become one. He was no better than the men he hated.
And now he understood what the Headmaster had said about the fine line between life and death. Death was so swift, sudden. Life could be taken so quickly. It was a fragile thing, more breakable than glass, but it could withstand so much. It always went on. Until death. Death was its undoing.
There was a delicate balance between life and death. The assassins had taken this balance into their own hands. The scales were tipped towards death.
Liam looked out at the water with sheer determination. He couldn’t take back the deaths caused by the assassins. But he could give life to those who they would steal it from. He had the obligation, the responsibility, to pay for what he had done. He would bring back the balance.