AC - Event Fiction: Intelligent Designs : AC News

Adso stalked through the swamp under cover of night, moving from bush to bush in a hunched crawl that was a compromise between his need for stealth and his desire to keep his nose out of the fetid marsh water. The water in this area smelled particularly foul. It reeked of all the familiar swamp gases that he’d come to know and loathe in his past excursions into Blackmire, but it also carried with it a new and less familiar odor. It was a sharp, cloying odor, redolent of ozone. He stopped for a moment, trying to place the scent, trying to remember where he’d last encountered this odor…

“Scent can be an important tool,” Master had told him once, at the start of their training. “Often times, moving through forest or jungle, the smell of your prey will alert you to their presence before you can see or hear them. Especially if you are hunting Mosswarts or Banderlings. Conversely, your smell will almost certainly betray your presence if you’re stalking any kind of animal, and certain well-trained humans as well.” Master had smiled sharply at this, always amused by his own jokes. “Always try and approach from downwind, my apprentice. Or, failing that, try rolling around in some muck and dirt if you’re stalking prey out in the wilds, and maybe your milk-drinking man-stink won’t give you away.”

Adso reflected on that advice as he hunkered in the muck of the swamp. He was already covered toe to neck in the effluvium of the Blackmire, and the reek was starting to interfere with his own sense of smell. He dared not dunk his head in, to block his nose and mouth with the stink.

He shook his head, breaking himself out of his reverie, and bent his mind back to the task at hand. He could see lights ahead, just a stone’s throw away. A few minutes later, after very careful and stealthy progress, he spotted the source of activity through a gap in the undergrowth. Somehow the Tanada had constructed a Sho tower in the swamp! He could see a few human forms, silhouetted by firelight, moving back and forth in front of the tower’s opening. There also appeared to be some kind of earthworks in the vicinity, a pile of earth excavated from the festering ground and piled near the tower.

Adso found a good ambush spot in the lee of a banyan tree and watched for patrols. As he waited, he checked on the state of his enchantments, making sure that the armoring spells set on his well-worn leather armor were still strong. He’d fought the Tanada enough times to appreciate the help of a good armor enchantment.

Satisfied with the state of his armor, he watched as a sentry walked out near his position from the tower. Grinning in anticipation of a clean and satisfying kill, he readied his knife, also blessed with powerful enchantments, and allowed the prey to come to him.

The Tanada moved stealthily and warily, showing an admirable sense of discipline as he patrolled the outer perimeter of this godforsaken outpost. He moved as if expecting attack at any moment, but he did not seem to show any awareness that Adso was there.

Adso’s own skill proved to be superior to the Tanada’s. In the hazy night of the swamp, where moonlight filtered unevenly through the trees and swamp gases flickered in the distance, Adso’s strike could not have been more perfect. He was a silent shadow, flitting out briefly from the shelter of the banyan to grab the patrolling assassin. In one swift movement, he wrapped one arm around the Tanada’s throat and mouth, plunging his thick-bladed knife into the back of the Tanada’s neck, cleanly severing the spinal column even as he closed in on his foe. An efficient, nearly bloodless kill, so that his enemies would not even be alerted by the smell of blood.

The Tanada collapsed without a sound, and Adso laid the corpse neatly down in the shadow of the banyan tree where he’d been hiding. The body disposed of, he stalked out into the swamp once more, moving slowly towards the tower again. He could see two more guards. If he was lucky, he could get to the tower and the dig site without alerting any of them. He still hadn’t decided which one to investigate first. He was under no illusions that he’d long remain undiscovered as soon as he breached the threshold of either structure.

Barely a minute after his clean and perfect kill, he noticed a stirring from the earthworks. He could see half a dozen Tanada, clad in scaly dark armor that looked black in the dim light, streaming swiftly from the opening in the ground. They were all coming towards his position. They all had blades out. They made not a sound as they swarmed towards him.

This shouldn’t have been possible. How could they know where he was? It was almost as if they were in instant communication with each other…

There was a splash behind him. One of the Tanada had dropped out of the branches of the very tree where he’d stashed the first murdered assassin. This one bore no weapons, but his fingers were bunched and pointed in a position that Adso had among the most advanced practitioners of the Sho fighting arts. He had no time to defend himself. The assassin’s hand jabbed forward, almost too fast to track, and he felt an explosion of pain in his ribs.

“Nonsense,” he said, as he felt the too-keen bite of an iron-hard hand. “Armor spell… failed…” He hadn’t felt a punch that hard since he’d tangled with that nest of Hollow Minions…

All of a sudden it made sense. The responsiveness of the Tanada guards, the sharp tang of otherworldly corruption in the air, the assassin’s fist that blasted through his magical protection like a dagger through cheap linen…

The world went light, and he blacked out before the other Tanada arrived to finish him off.