Target acquired

I proceeded to the location that my spy had chosen for our ambush. I'd worked with this one before and knew she had a good head for tactical ops so I trusted her judgement. Her service record listed her as Operative Scarlet but if memory served, her name was Idra. We'd met on a few occasions. Shrewd, careful, impeccable acting skills, and a body to make men kill each other. She was the perfect choice for this mission.

I shuddered to think of the indignities she'd have likely had to endure during her months under cover but then, knowing Idra, she may have enjoyed it. She may even be made to remain in the kingdom after the Hero was dealt with,

The area was a good one. A rocky cliff formed a natural wall, with a good number of trees surrounding the small clearing that seemed to have been used as a camp site time and time again by travelers but none recently.

With a few hours before the appointed time, I walked the ground to feel for it, careful not to leave any evidence of my passing. The gorund here was either hard earth or soft moss anyway, nearly impossible to leave a print.

After placing a few silent alarm spells at the perimeter, I return to the tree I'd chosen as my hiding place. But no sooner had my hand touched bark that the first psychic alarm sounded in my mind. Already? He's early. The alarm chirped three times and fell silent. He wasn't alone. It would have been too easy if he came alone, anyway, I laughed.

Still, as long as he was here at all I would be satisfied. Perhaps I could make it seem like they killed one another. Yes, I could use this. I darted up my tree and became functionally invisible thanks to a special camouflage sheet I'd brought for this climate.

The next alarm sounded, again three times. Three was such a small number, why would the hero only bring two retainers? He must have been very confident in his abilities. I readied by crossbow just in time as a flicker of movement caught my eye near the edge of the clearing.

The Hero. He was tall and handsome, and moved with the kind of confidence that comes from actual superiority. If we'd been on the same side I may have found him attractive or even let him bed me. But he was the target, and I never let myself feel attached to a target.

He walked directly to the center of the clearing and stopped as if waiting. My instincts screamed that something was off. He should be investigating this little camp site for clues; we'd lured him here on pretenses of bandits and smugglers using this...

"Come out, assassin." His voice boomed through the area. "Your mission has failed, and you are forfeit. Come down, I'd like to get a look at you before I kill you."

I froze momentarily, considering this new information. How could he possibly know? And such arrogance. He didn't seem to know my precise location, his eyes calmly scanning the trees. He must have known my general tactics, and he knew the ambush site... I suppressed a grown. He must have intercepted communications.

"I'd like to hurry this up, dog. Either kill me or flee, but I know you're here. This is exactly where my letter told you to be, and here you are." He spoke in a strange accent.

My hand itched to pull the trigger. The man was irritatingly arrogant and where did he get off calling me a dog? So he had intercepted communications, and even falsified at least one letter. But it had all the markings of a legitimate missive. He was smarter than he looked.

But still something was off. He'd led me onto a trap and then not sprung it when I arrived? This wasn't good. Where were the other two with him? A cart or horse or other large object could have caused a chirp in my alarm, but he stood alone in the clearing.

A few minutes passed while I processed the new information.

"Now you're starting to bore me, dog. And here I thought you were going to be fun."

I pulled the trigger when he turned his head far enough to one side that his neck was exposed, and then I fired again where I anticipated him ducking at the sound of the crossbow.

But the bolts both turned earthward a few feet from him, embedding themselves in the packed dirt. Some kind of enchantment? I'd need to get close and finish him with my blades; What a pain.

"Ah, now we can have some fun." He said, now looking directly at me.

I stepped from my hiding place. "Hero."

"A dog should refer to her master as such."

There was that word again. "Shut up, otherworlder. You don't belong here, and I have nothing to discuss with you." I fired my crossbow again for good measure but the bolt fell again under an unknown power.

He grinned. "Ah, you are fun. I hope you last longer than this one did." He waved his hand and a woman entered the clearing following a cart, her focus intent on it. She was dressed in a fine silk dress with more than a little lace. Young, pretty. The castle mage.

But I didn't pay her any mind, because the cart drew all my attention. It was a flat platform on wheels, with a thick wooden stake in the middle, about four feet tall, tapering to a wicked point.

Idra was impaled on that stake. Naked, covered in blood, made to look like she was kneeling with her back arched, the stake entered her body between her legs, exited briefly at her lower back to miss her vital organs, and then re-entered below her head to exit her gaping mouth. Her arms were drawn back at an unnatural angle and bound tightly to the back corners of ehr platform. There was blood everywhere; she'd been impaled alive.

It was the most gruesome thing I'd ever witnessed. It was far more sinister than anything the reports had led me to believe about him.

"Y-you... You're a monster." I said. "I'll kill you for this." I drew my blades and dropped from my tree. All three pings had been accounted for now, so I had no fear of being surrounded unless he'd left troops here before my arrival, and I'd searched the ground.

A soft gasping sound drew my attention once again to the cart and I realized there were fresh tears on Idra's face and she drew shallow, awkward breath, trembling.

"SHE IS STILL ALIVE?!?"

The mage's very intense focus made sense now. She was using Dark magic. Forcing the girl to remain alive. This was the worst form of **** I could have imagined.

The hero smiled. "Oh yes. Scarlet was very eager to help me prepare for your arrival. My mage can keep her alive for days, yet, I think. But if you drop your weapons and surrender to me now, I will let her die."