…play it safe, waiting and watching for the perfect time to strike.

Your fingers still, paused before they can drum the wall with idleness. There is surely no one to hear, but you can’t be certain. You can’t be certain of anything.

You throw out a sigh, stirring the freshly poked mortar of the wall and making motes of dust that twist and fall in the narrow light of the room. You’re going to wait. You’d have to wait either way for their return, and waiting here is definitely safer than waiting there. If some hapless wonder stumbles upon a body, or a reaching pool of blood, it would be better not to be in the Wendigo’s jaws, so to speak, when the alarm goes up.

Thinking about it, what real advantage would it bring? Yes you could jump out if an opportunity presented itself, but what would that look like? Her alone after her meeting is done, or her asleep if she chooses to do so here? You could go about to the door then and spring through it just as easily. Only if she chose to leave the building and return to her boat you could more easily catch her before she departs, maybe. Again, there are no certainties, but there are at least some reassurance that the best place to stay is here.

You look about the room, trying to come up with a plan for several possibilities if only to pass the time. Like many of the rooms in this building, it carries an air of neglected grandeur. The bare floorboards are scuffed and scraped and the walls stacked with boxes, but the coving is well carved and the window tall. You go to it and look out, viewing it critically as a way to escape. It stretches high but only starts at waist height, and there is a little balcony ledge too narrow for any human use. Dropping down from it would be unpleasant, but not impossible. The captain’s room juts out a little further than this one, limiting the view of the forest to that side, but not by much. You consider opening it, but one look at the rusted latch and hinges changes your mind; it probably hasn’t been opened for years, and would make a lot of noise if you tried to change that now.

You take one last look at the moon before stepping out of the narrow alcove, cursing your needless romanticism as you blink away its afterimage. What would be perfect right now would be a harmless distraction; something to mark the time and keep your thoughts busy. What’s in the crates? Again the squealing noise of rusted metal and wood sounds in your head, this time with the squeak of pulled nails. You’re not _that _curious. You blow out another sigh, returning to the hole in the wall and moving the boxes about a little more so that you can spy more comfortably.

You don’t want to do nothing, but there is nothing else to see. A large bed dominates much of the room, with what looks like a pile of discarded clothes in the space between you and it. Twisting your head, you can just about see the door of the small side room that robs your current room of its window space.

You take a breath. Your heart still beats faster than it should, and the pain of your injuries is a lingering reminder of what just happened. It’s all too still now, too quiet, ill-suited to the raw you feel. The silence of the room gives you a headache, throbbing where he hit you, and your fingers long to turn upon your temples, but the blood on them only makes it worse, adding nausea to the mix when you bring them anywhere near your face.

You scrape at the hole to distract yourself, trying to clear your head. There’s something relaxing about the act, not so much making the hole bigger, but clearing off the bits of loose powder and small stones while rubbing smooth the coarse surface between. Your fingers play in the only lantern light reaching into the room and soon you feel yourself calm, your breathing become steady, and your heart begin to slow in the mindless state. You end up feeling a little more gathered. A little more able to do what needs to be done.

“I’m telling you, you can’t do it. It just can’t be done.”

The man’s voice makes you jump as it drags you from your unthinking meditation and you look back at the door you came through. The sound rumbles from there more than walls, though you know it’s not directly outside. That quickly shifts as the conversation goes on.

“Again?”

The familiar back and forth of voices begin to rumble through the wall as the double doors to her suet snap closed, and sounds of frustration are unmissable in their tones.

“The currents turn here, and _here _are the rocks.” You move to the wall nearest your spyhole, sliding to the space where the inner room should be and pressing an ear to it, letting her words jump in clarity. “If the convoy is here, then they will have to go here.”

“But the navy will be in a line escort, so they will get through! And I don’t see any rocks on this map.”

“See? Right there! Damn it Roland, it’s clear as day!”

“Bah! Fine! But I’m right about the navy!”

The inner door opens and you move back to your spyhole. It’s clearly too far into the room and facing opposite from the door to see them -they would have to walk all the way to the bed for you to do so- but you can still hear what they have to say with added clarity.

“No you’re not, because...”

The door closes again and you have to move back to listening through the other wall, loosing whatever her argument was in the process. You do catch Captain Rolands words though, or think you do.

“Fifeen shits at once?”

It’s probably ‘Fifteen ships at once?’ but they are talking more quietly than before and it’s harder to hear them.

“Sven shits. For capains an bee paid to rum, ree are capained by known cowards(?) who will free when the others do, and won of them will mutiny, effortlessly-“

You give up: it’s too hard to hear and you cannot follow their words, though the general muffle remains to tell you where they are. You take the time to run the bottom hem of your black top under your fingernails, wiping the dried blood from under them. You don’t think about the blood elsewhere. All being well, you’ll be swimming free of this place before morning anyway.

You look at the hole again. Surely the wall you cannot hear through is much thicker built than this one. You could probably nock the holed wall down, though you don’t know what would be directly on the other side of it. It would also take time. Perhaps a broad shouldered man running at speed could turn the failing plaster into a door, but if you tried you’d probably just bounce off and concuss yourself further. It’s also occupying a ‘step’ in the wall, only as long as one of your arms outstretched with your shoulder leaning on the other wall. You really will have to go around when the time is right.

“I know I have it here somewhere...” Your targets voice comes clear from the hole, the inner door now finally opened again. She walks into the room stopping very close to where you are, though still not within sight of the hole, and begins to open and close wooden draws from the sound of things.

“Here! Look at this cargo manifest, its last months. Since it was successful, other merchants are adding to the pot so it will be much bigger next time.”

Captain Roland responds after pause, exclaiming “Gods!” with clear shock.

Captain Washkin sounds satisfied. “I also have reliable sources that tell me the Grand Princes favoured niece will be finishing her Coronac visit at that time, so odds are good she will be on that ship as well. The ransom alone could match everything else on board!”

The man whistles, impressed, and you as well raise your eyebrows at the audacity of such a move. Everyone in Coronac knows of Lady Preda Pravean, though everyone is of a different opinion about her. The rich girl from rich stock had been touring the cities and the frontier with an intimidating entourage of worried protectors for a few months now, though why was anyone’s guess.

“So it’s well worth it. We take out five ships with our three and someone else intercepts the cargo ships?”

“No. Here I’ll show you.”

Captain Washkin leads with her lighter steps back to the other room and once more from your hearing.

By this point, you had slumped to a stoop by the hole, resting on box and floor and stretching out your bruised legs, wincing at the pain hammered between them. When this meeting of hers is over, should you rush in? Hopefully your injuries won’t slow you down. The inner door opens again and you decide to worry about that when it’s time.

They walk into the room’s middle and again you cannot see them clearly. You hear a strange sound, like a whoop from Captain Washkin, as her pace makes an odd dance of running forward before taking a few steps back. Finally, as they near the bed, you see her leading him by the collar in a playful manner before tossing him onto the feather mattress.

"You just lie down and I’ll show you why I’m right." Finally in sight, she unbuckles her belt and tosses her sword in its sheath to somewhere you can’t see it, then, she drops to her knees before him. "Mmmm, this is always the best bit of our little talks."

‘Oh no’ you think to yourself, despairing at the antics you now have to watch, ‘perhaps they won’t.’ Your unsaid words are not even unsaid with enthusiasm, unable to imagine anything else they could be doing, and in the next second you are proven a hopeful fool. His trousers come down with a tug, and a single lick rides up his stiffened member. A wince of disgust strikes your face involuntarily, then voluntarily.

You look away, blessed with a room of boxes and darkness with which to distract yourself. You’re here to kill her, not peep on her and her lover. You have standards after all. The room is much the same as it’s always been, with-

"Ahhhh! Ohhhh. It’s so, mmmm, big..."

You look, despite yourself.

Captain Wendy ‘Go’ Washkin, terror of the seas, sits atop her man as though perched on a stool. He lies on the bed, but his legs hang over its bottom edge and hers are between his, her feet on the floor and her arms on the bedposts as she grinds her hips back and forth in his lap. The posts squeak, and the whole frame rocks slightly with the effort and leverage being put upon it.

But her face is bored. You were just glancing really, to keep an eye on things, but her expression makes you linger. It’s not just boredom, but bored concentration. Oddly enough, it reminds you of your father, who would spend many hours in the workshop carving hundreds of little pieces from scrap wood to use in other projects; little dowels, each identical, practical, made by expert hands. He’d have the same look of bored concentration then that this ex-whore, riding the manhood she perches upon, has now. It’s so ridiculous that the-

She looks at you.

You move back from the hole at speed, as though burned, escaping the thin stream of light that leaks through it. She didn’t see; her bored eyes roamed the room briefly as she worked. That all. It must be it. The heavy panting sounds and the squeaking wood continue unchanged, no alarm, no question, not even a gasp among their heavy breathing. Still, a feeling lingers. You’re eyes met, if only for a fraction of a second, and while your memory paints hers as unfocused, the feeling doesn’t go until you draw your blade again and hold it in your hand.

It still feels hot, and reassuring, its edge tested and not found wanting. You wipe the blade on your thigh idly, the smell of blood leaping to the forefront of your mind. Could she smell it perhaps, like hound? From her grim reputation, she must be quite an expert in such scents.

You dismiss the idea as fantasy, confirmed as you listen to the rising creak of the bed and the moans of both of them rolling back and forth. It sounds different and you lean back to the hole again, keeping as distant as you can so that they are the only sight you can see and no incriminating light rests upon you.

Roland is on top now, with a pair of bare creamy legs rising up at either side of him and wrapping about his hips. They bounce every time he move back and forth, sounding amusingly rusty as each forth is backed by their groans and husky squeals. You sigh quietly, relieved, discarding your unnecessary bout of paranoia.

While her tenor is unchanged, his rises in moans of growing intensity.

“Ugh. Ugh! Fuck!”

You hear his partner crying out a passionate answer, watching her hands rove up and down his bare back.

“Say you’ll be there Roland! Say that you’ll be there! It’ll be just like Rojourn!”

“Yes! Yeah! Fuck!”

You can’t tell if his agreement is a response or just pleasure. Maybe that’s why she asked?

“Come on Roland! Cum inside me! Cum in my pussy. That’s it. Thaaat’s it.”

His humping winds down, like some clockwork contraption, humping less and less as jerking thrusts of his hips die down to simple slow rocking, and then finally to stillness. Captain Washkins hand strokes his back as she coos at him, like a child whose chores are done, and after a few minutes of whispered sweetness and catching breath, he stands and she follows, their mutual nakedness disappearing briefly behind a bedpost.

He walks away from the bed, tired and looking perhaps a little annoyed. That may just be the natural state of his face though. She leans against the bedpost, hidden from your sight but clearly watching him as he silently dresses, hopping into his trousers leg by leg. It all seems a little abrupt, and she agrees with you.

“Eger to leave? You know, most men would at least kiss a girl goodbye.” You can hear the smile on her face, though nothing tells you if it’s fake or genuine.

Roland continues to dress in silence, waiting until his ugly yellow and red coat is on his shoulders before responding.

“Most men don’t know where those lips have been.” He pauses, considering it, until a smile blooms on his face. “On second thoughts, most men probably do.”

“You don’t seem to mind what I do with them,” she retorts with an easy speed, ignoring the barb, “I’d say most _average _men don’t.” He begins to walk away and she calls out after him. “Remember, the Conjack constellation, on the 15th.” A wry tone enters her voice, “Should I assume you’ll arrive there before me?”

He only grunts as he walks to the door, and you see a little wave of her hand poke out from behind the bed post, though the post is fairly thin and most of her ‘assists’ poke out anyway, front and back.

The door closes and a quiet descends, both of you listening to the muffled thuds of his boots as they cross the intervening room and depart down the stairs of the foyer. The captain moves, springing to life now that he’s gone, and you lean in close again to better see where she goes. It doesn’t work; she walks to the rooms centre and busies herself out of your sight, remaining quiet as her bare feet pad the wood boards. Its only when she goes for the door and you hear it open that you can place her.

Like Captain Roland, she cross the intervening room, though with a lighter step, departing through the double doors at the top of the stairs.

“ROCK!”

You jump, startled by her sudden shout. What is she doing? Calling for something? Why a rock?

As you quietly move to the door to better listen, you hear the faint call of a response, lacking clarity until you get near. The captain calls out again.

“Get up here!”

She’s close. If she stands on the balcony, still barefoot (the image of her still being naked comes to mind, but not even _she _could be so shameless), then could you run out and kill her? It would be in sight of the others below, and this ‘Rock’ who must in fact be a person, and the notion is quickly dismissed. Maybe you could get away before they reach you. Maybe not. What’s certain is that the risk isn’t worth it.

The dark room and its closed door still limit you to imagined pictures provided by thick suffocated sounds, but you listen close and pick out the heavy steps of a burly man creaking each board of the foyers flight. They stop before the top, and no verbal words are exchanged with the Captain waiting above.

A slick metallic sound scrapes from where they stand, quiet in its reach, yet loud in its familiarity. No other image comes to mind save for a long blade leaving the confines of a long sheath. The footsteps begin to approach your door.

No no no no no no. You back away, looking about the dark room for a place to hide. There are boxes around the room, and a pile in the middle, with a circular path left empty for people to walk. You run the distance to the other corner of the room, placing the small staked hillock of boxes in the middle between you and the exit just as the door opens. It hits the wall and shakes with the impact.

They stand at the doorway, looking in, and from your dark corner, you look over the nearby boxes to assess the damage.

The Captain is standing there, familiar, though now garbed in a flowing blue dressing gown tied shut at the front, shear enough in some places for that to hardly matter. She holds a sword in one hand, pointed out and ready: her rapier, mentioned with awe by anyone who had seen her fight, even if they lost. Apparently, she is no slouch in its use, and while far from the best swordsman, she is likely one of the best swordswomen of the central seas.

At her side and blocking most of the hallways light, a large block of a man, thick armed and wide shouldered. Despite his thick cut bulk, there is an angled quality to him, as though each muscle was pushed out and shaped against any hint of flab. He looks like a dockworker that was born of giants, and the heavy looking axe in his hand adds to his brutish presence. If that wasn’t bad enough, a slab of leather wraps his torso, looking short on him, but thick enough to turn even the pointed stab of your stiletto blade.

“Lanterns.”

The captain’s quiet word sends the man lumbering away while she stays at the door, sword up like a barrier, ready to cut down anyone who gets close.

This is definitely not good. She must have seen you after all, or thought she did, enough to check the room with backup. There isn’t really many places to hide; had she come alone, she may have taken one path around and you another, or you could have struck from around a crates corner if you were lucky. Instead the looped path about the middle boxes leaves a channel that will corner you if two people go about either side, and with two against one, your odds of surviving an attack drop considerably.

What other choice is there? If you can’t hide, and you can’t strike, you will need to run. The captain blocks the only exit, but there is still the rusted window. It stands bathed in a shortfall of moonlight, providing the only other light in the room not streaming past her silhouette; if you go to it, she will see you. She can’t not.

You have no other choice that you can see, and with the thudding return of the other man, carrying light enough for two, you take a deep breath, then another, and run for the window.

You reach it in seconds, wrenching the rusted hatch lock open and throwing your shoulder into the old frame. It moves, but barely, moaning with the scrape of old warped wood on same. You hit it again, gaining another few inches, and a final time, your shoulder cracking a glass pane as the window finally swings free.

“Don’t move!”

It’s not the bark of her words that freeze your leg on the hip high ledge, but the thin feel of drawn metal on your neck. It’s just the point, lightly brushing you as it shakes, but when it comes to swords, that’s the dangerous part. Your mind goes blackly cold when you picture why. The tapered flat side of the point comes to rest on you. How quickly that could turn.

“Drop it!”

Your hand is in the frame, ready to haul you out of the room, but it also still grips your blade with its lower fingers. The sword presses a little harder to your neck, bouncing with each beat of your heart. The stiletto clatters as it falls.

You feel the blade begin to slide, making your breath catch in your throat, but it remains the flat edge, pushing the point forward into the hanging clothe of your black facemask. Before it cuts through the material, she moves slowly to your side, placing the blade directly across your throat and using it to gently push you away from the window. You let your leg fall like your blade, stepping back under her instruction.

By this point, the heavy looking man had crossed the room as well, lantern and axe in hand, to loom over both you and her. Considering she is already nearly a head taller than you, it’s quite a dwarfing experience.

“Anyone else?”

He responds with a monotone ‘No’ after swinging the light about a few times, shining it into all the corners of the room.

“Search him.”

Under her simple instruction, the quite golem of a man puts down his lantern on a nearby box, then puts his axe high up, atop a stack of boxes, beyond your reach even if you jumped for it. Not that you would in your current predicament. His wide spade like hands brush down your body, pressing the dark material of your top and trousers flat against your form. He grunts as he reaches your chest, his sliding hands finding more womanly elements than he bargained for, but he moves on with surprising professionalism. The Captain takes notice, moving her sword to lift up the cloth covering your nose and mouth. It doesn’t lift fully, but she gets the point.

She smiles cruelly. “Alone, my dear?”

You say nothing, moving only when firm hands shake you in their search. He stops at your thigh, the leather strap shaped by his fingers and the vial of poison is fished roughly from your trousers slit pocket. He ends with your shoes, lifting your legs one by one and slipping off your pumps like a stable hand unshodding a horse. He tosses them away, leaving you as barefoot as his captain, who he hands the poison to shortly after, before grabbing your arms, swallowing them in his grip and twisting them up your back gently but firmly. It’s clear he could break them like twigs if he wanted, and you try to put up no resistance that would prompt him to do so. Seeing you secure, the captain lowers her sword and goes to the now open window, shouting through it.

“Zap, Narnen, Report!”

A moment later, a voice shouts up.

“Captain?”

“Assassin. Get to my room.”

“Mam!”

She waits for the other called name to show himself. She waits a while, letting the quiet night stretch. You catch her eyes glancing up, as though looking for the roofguard through the opaque celling. Her eyes glance to you. How much blood can she see? Where the moonlight touches you, only spots as black as your clothes can be seen, but in the lantern light you know some patches of rusty red and dried brown must be flaking before her eyes.

“Follow me.”

The instruction is for the giant, not you, though bound as you are in his grip it may as well be. You hop as you’re walked, skipping so your twisted arms remain as untwisted as possible, but it doesn’t work; he just lifts you higher.

What are you going to do now? The three of you among the cramped boxes in the dimly lit room had an almost conspiratorial air, as though you were not captured at all. There was no real shouting or alarms, and the search had been thorough but not terribly invasive, lasting long enough to breathe calmly again, and the shadows hinted at all manner of escape.

Now though, the light of the hallway shines about you, showing just how unlikely escape it. You’re taken to the bright light of the foyer and the surprised stares of the merchants gathered below, as though on a stage. What are you going to do now? The question rages. What can you do? Is there anything? A hot uncomfortable prickle rides up your spine; a kind of shame and fear and panic mixed together. You grasp for options. She’s likely going to question you, considering she already asked a question before. She wouldn’t kill you right off, you hope. You could lie and say you’re not here alone. She may see through it though. What if she tortures you? Should you tell the truth? What if she asked who the blood belongs to? She won’t be happy about that no matter how you spin it. You could stay silent? That option seems to have much of the same problems as the other two, with little benefit coming to mind.

In the end, you decide to…

The captain turns, taking you in from head to toe. She reaches out a hand, and with no room for you to shy back, she pinches a dark patch of your black top, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. There’s blood. Her face is unreadable.

A man bursts into the lower foyer, running up the stairs and wielding a long wooden bat. He pauses on the stairs, looking to his captain for orders. Before she gives them, she turns her hard eyes to the Rock you’re trapped against.

“Take her to my room, strip her naked, and tie her up.”