The Killing Grounds

  The Killing Grounds

  Assassin Series Book 1

  By Simon Corn

  Copyright 2015 Simon Corn

  Smashwords Edition

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and occurrences are fictitious and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, events or locations is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or means, electronic or mechanical, without permission from the copyright holder.

  One:

  Osari relaxed in his favourite high-backed chair, as thunder and lightning threatened to shake the glass from his window, and reflected on his day’s work. There were fifteen bounties to collect, but as he looked at the paperwork on his desk his anger once again rose in his chest. Only twelve had verification signatures, the other three had been missed by the spotter. He shook his head and slammed a fist down onto the arm of the chair, which creaked ominously under the pressure. “Damn idiot boy!” A spotter had one job and one job only, confirm the kill and record the details, and yet the incompetence of the boy was going to lose Osari well-earned gold. All three kills were good, but the boy had been too slow in his follow up to witness Osari’s blades as they ended each man in turn. He hadn’t bothered to berate the imbecile, he’d just made sure that as soon as the boy were to lay his head down on his pillow that evening, that a junior assassin would be there to send him to his second life. “More fodder for the mine bosses!”

  His black leather blade belt was always close at hand, and Osari inspected his weapons one by one, making sure they were in pristine condition, sharp enough to slice through any part of the human body and strong enough to cut through a steel sheet. As his fingers came to the last slot he cursed at the empty space. The missing blade was worth more than he would collect for the retirement, but the gold wasn’t the issue, every single blade was made specifically for him, and the thought of one missing made him even angrier. It was perfect in both weight and balance, and now it lay at the bottom of the deep water docks that served as the city's connection to the White Island and the lands beyond.

  He stood and laid the belt over the back of the chair, warmed himself by the large fireplace and stretched in an effort to work out the kinks in his back and neck. He rolled his head from side to side and tried to dismiss the thoughts of the missing knife, but it irked him so much that thinking about anything else became almost impossible. The blade would have to be replaced, and the thought of having to deal with Manak the Weapon Master just made his mood sour even more. The man was an Artist that worked with magic, and Osari hated Artists of every kind, but Manak was the best weapon maker in the city and Osari had little choice but to do business with the man.

  “Damn Artists!” Every magic user in the city needed a permit to use their skills, and if any were found using powers without a permit they were put under investigation. If anyone was found guilty, they were put to death. It was an archaic practice that many people thought should be changed, but the city's Senior Council was mostly made up of mundane people who voted to keep the status quo. A smile found its way to Osari’s face, he knew the dates printed on Manak’s permit, and if he failed to renew it in time he would be close by to collect on the bounty he had laid on Manak’s head many years ago when he had first come into contact with the man. The bounty was issued to him to collect on and he had kept it under lock and key ever since. Osari was a patient man and he knew that sometime in the future Manak would make a mistake, and he secretly looked forward to that day. In the meantime Manak was an asset, as many people viewed him as the best weapon smith in the country and his rates were more reasonable than many other members of his profession. “All Artists are evil,” he reminded himself as he stared into the flames that licked at the wood in the hearth.

  Osari heard something impact with his window, leapt across the room and grabbed a blade from his belt. With one fluid motion he let it loose in the direction of the noise, and within a second he stood by the window and saw the dead bird. He wasn’t keen on killing any form of life other than human, but he had to admit that this was some kill. The blade had been thrown with such ferocity that it split the wood just under the window sash and impaled the bird through the head, killing it instantly. He pulled the knife clear and watched as the dead body fell to the courtyard below. Is that some sort of omen? He shook his head, cleaned the blade and placed it back into the slot in his belt as he recalled the events of the day...

  The Quartermaster met with Osari as he had done a thousand times before, and invited him to take his pick of the one hundred and thirty bounties available for collection. As a young assassin he used to look at the details on each form, but as he grew older and wiser the crimes made him feel sick and he started to hate his marks, until one day he permanently retired a man purely through hatred. That night he’d sat in his rooms contemplating his role in society and promised himself he wouldn’t allow his job to become personal ever again, and his new attitude served him well. Retiring a mark became nothing more than a business proposition. All he looked for now was the gold amount and the sponsor. There were certain families that he would try to avoid working for, which included every member of both Senior and Junior Councils. This practice always limited his income, but he had grown rich over the years and the payment from the bounty meant less and less.

  Snow started to fall from the iron clad skies that hovered low over the city, and even though Osari was only dressed in his black assassin's fatigues and thinly soled boots, the cold didn’t bother him. He stared up at the old grey building that had been his home for his entire life as he waited for his spotter to arrive. It had once been an elegant hotel that had welcomed the rich and famous from all over the globe, but the ABC wars were brutal and the old building had taken a pounding as plane after plane let loose its bombs over the city. The assassins had spent a fortune trying to bring it back to its former glory, but even years after the war ended some of the floors were still out of use. He turned his head as the sound of a car engine broke the silence, pulled out a blade and stepped back into the dark shadows of the building. He tensed, ready to strike if any threat was posed by the driver or anyone else riding in the cab, but it was just the spotter that jumped out and shouted goodbye to the driver. In hindsight Osari should have seen this as a problem. Normally he would have been annoyed at having to wait for the boy, but he had been two minutes early and the boy was on time. Osari growled an instruction at his aide and ran on into the city.

  The first three retirements had gone by the book and he dispatched each one without any of them putting up a fight, but the fourth had proved to be more elusive. He was an Artist and was holed up in an ancient homestead on the outskirts of town. The fool had surrounded himself with guards armed to the teeth with firearms and other miscellaneous mechanical weaponry, but to a trained assassin such an arsenal held little or no threat. Each of his blades found their mark and one by one the guards were retired without any of them managing to get one shot off. The Artist had locked himself into an old war bunker, and it had taken Osari only thirty minutes to find the air intakes that fed the rooms beneath the concrete, and another fifteen to smoke the bastard out. The plan worked perfectly, and as the Artist came screaming from the bunker, Osari had inserted a blade between the man’s ribs, retiring him almost instantaneously. He pondered permanently retiring the Artist by removing his head from his body, but the bounty had been set up so that the man could be resurrected and sent to the mines to work his entire second life.

  The rest of the day passed slowly as Osari went about his business with a calm determination, even though the spotter had failed to sign off on two kills. The boy could have lied and just said that he had witnessed the retireme
nts. Osari respected his honesty, but he’d already committed to retiring the boy for his tardiness. Honesty was commendable and should be encouraged, but when it was linked to incompetence, the point became moot and open to interpretation.

  His last mark was a shipwright who worked on the night shift at the city docks. Osari could have simply gone to the man’s house to retire him and end his day early, but the man had a family, and even though Osari was a deft and ruthless assassin, he wasn’t a monster that killed in front of someone’s own children.

  As they walked into the docks the spotter had been sent to the rooftop adjacent to his chosen killspot, but as his mark came into sight the spotter had slipped and fallen to the floor and the man took off and ran for the relative safety of the jetties. Osari cursed silently and ran after his fleeing victim. The man had taken refuge in a maze of large metal containers, but Osari was used to such tactics and vaulted onto the roof of the first locker and listened for the sound of running feet. The man had made it further through the maze than he’d bargained for, and the assassin had to leap from roof to roof trying to catch the mark before he reached the relative safety of the main quayside. Osari leapt onto the last container and caught a glimpse of the man disappearing between two large ships that bobbed silently in their moorings. The man had done well so far and Osari was impressed at his stamina and calmness under pressure, but it made little difference as he would be dead within three minutes. Osari picked up the pace as he ran down the first jetty and saw the man about to turn into the next row of ships, but a blade to the back of his calf slowed his escape to a crawl. Osari’s next blade caught the man in the back of the head killing him instantly, but as the corpse fell, the body twisted and it dropped into the deep water between the quayside and the ship. Osari’s blade was lost and the spotter hadn’t been anywhere near the kill to verify it.

  Osari took a deep breath and shook his head, the day was done and the die was cast, and all that was left to contemplate was the crackle of the fire burning in his hearth. He turned toward the flames to warm his hands and admired the Picasso painting of The Old Guitarist that hung on the wall. It had taken him years to track the painting to a mansion in the capital city, and months of pro bono work for the local Assassins Guild before they would agree to let him collect on a bounty that was outstanding on the Lord and Lady that owned the painting. But it was worth the extra work to add such a treasure to his collection. Every man is said to have at least one vice that he keeps hidden from the world and Osari’s was his obsession with attaining fine art. His walls were covered with paintings, drawings and sketches from hundreds of the world’s greatest artists. He absentmindedly straightened the frame and ran a finger over the border to check for dust. The rooms he chose to call his own weren’t as large and luxurious as some of the other senior members of the Guild, but Osari was a man of few comforts, and the space he occupied was all he needed. He slowly walked around the room inspecting each piece carefully and smiled, he’d worked extremely hard as a young assassin and never once waivered in his dedication to the Guild. His efforts had paid well, and whenever he could, he would take art as payment instead of gold. Life was strange and someone always wanted someone else retired, many called it business, others labelled it as personal, but it was all the same to Osari, a means to an end.

  He crossed the room and placed the palm of his hand on the old cherry wood bookcase that housed many of his favourite books, including manuscripts from every lesson he had ever attended when he was an apprentice at the Killing Grounds. He paused for a second as the name of the old hotel stuck in his mind. He had never cared for the branding, it made him feel like death roamed the corridors, and nothing could be further from the truth. The only retirements that took place within the walls of the Hotel took place in the barracks as the apprentices honed their skills on each other. He picked up a large volume and smelled the pages. He always loved the way the soft breeze felt on his skin as the pages fanned under his thumb. He carefully placed the book back in its place and looked at the old discarded television set that faced the wall and snarled. The machine had never even been plugged in, but Osari kept it as a reminder of all that was bad in the world. After the ABC wars live television had been banned by the politicians for reasons that he didn’t care to investigate. The Killing Grounds still looped old war movies and documentaries on ancient battles and strategy to every room in the hotel. The Guild Council had said it was so that the members could watch and learn, but to him it was just a cheap imitation of real life and if they taught anything, it was that humankind was vicious and vile in its love of everything destructive.

  Osari put the book back in its place and yawned. It had been years since he had last slept, which would have killed any normal man, but Osari had been practicing deep meditation techniques for his entire life and his mind and body were trained to accept that version of rest. He breathed in deeply and relaxed his mind, readying himself for the mantra that would aide him into semi-consciousness, when his silent alarm signalled the approach of a visitor. He crossed to the chair and slung his blade belt back into place around his waist, and silently moved to stand behind the door. He could hear the footsteps approach and knew instantly that the person wasn’t a threat, but since he was a man that never took a chance, he pulled a blade clear of its slot and held it close to his body. He counted the time between each step and the volume of noise each footfall made and guessed the person to be between the ages of fourteen to sixteen, and thin. He smelled the air and picked up a slight scent of jasmine oil mixed with water and knew it was a young girl. Osari closed his eyes and let all of his senses go to work. He had no Artistic talents, but his mind and body were attuned to everything around him and he had been waiting for one specific girl for over a year. If this were the one, his life and every other life within the Killing Grounds was going to change. He had little time for fortune tellers or other carnival tricksters, but he’d been spoken to by the voice of Minster many years ago when he visited the capital city’s Cathedral, and it had been very clear on one point, an Arian female Artist held his fate in the palm of her hand. That was the day he knew he hated the Artists, and he’d waited for the girl to enter his life every day since then.

  The footsteps came to a halt and Osari counted to four before he heard the girl reach out to knock on the door. As her knuckles came into contact with the wood, Osari yanked the door open and the girl toppled. As she overbalanced and fell into the room, he threw out an arm and caught her around the neck. She started to thrash around and he applied pressure to her windpipe and she stopped. The smell of her sweat mixed with the aroma of the rough khaki material of her uniform. Maybe this isn’t the girl? Surely if this were her she wouldn’t be such a mess? “Move and you die.” Her body tensed under the pressure of the grip, but the girl did as she was told. With one single movement he spun her around and threw her onto her back. “You smell like trash and old hessian, and it’s disgusting.” He rested his foot on her throat and held out a hand signalling for her to remain still, but as their eyes met he lessened the pressure. “Arian? I thought as much.” Her eyes were the shape of baby owl's eyes and sparkled with a midnight blue fire that exploded into hundreds of miniature stars. Osari found himself slightly mesmerised by their beauty. He removed his foot and pointed at a chair close to the hearth, “Get up and sit there.”

  His eyes never left her as she crossed the room and sank into her chair, and as he sat in the chair opposite her, he examined her more carefully as dark red blood dripped from the corner of her mouth. He threw her a box of tissues, “Wipe that away.” The throw was deliberately under powered, but the girl caught it with ease, “What do you want?” She continued to hold his gaze as she wiped the blood from her face, “Speak girl!”

  “Lord Osari, you are in need of a new spotter and I am here to offer you my services.”

  He regarded her with disdain, “Your Guild sent you?”

  “No Lord, your previous spotter came back to the Guild and self-r
etired, I took the opportunity to get here before they could send a replacement.”

  “And why would that be?”

  “You’re the most respected assassin in the city Lord Osari. I believe that you are the only one that refuses to work for one of the main houses. I have similar aspirations and I think that I could make a reasonable replacement.”

  “A deaf and blind dog could have made a decent replacement, and if that story is true then you also know how I feel about Artists?”

  “Indeed Sir.”

  “That’s Lord not Sir!”

  “Sorry Lord, please forgive my ignorance.”

  “You have a licence to practice your Arts?”

  “I have a life licence Lord Osari.”

  “Of course you have.” He growled, all Arians had life licences and it made Osari sick to his stomach that those people were allowed to go through life using magic without being kept a close eye on. “Tell me about your Guild and how they allow one of their own to just wander into the Killing Grounds and walk around unchallenged?”

  He watched as she swallowed hard, “The Guild of Arbitration isn’t as strict as the Assassins Guild Lord Osari, and they encourage people to use their talents to further their goals.”

  Osari scoffed, he’d dealt with the Arbitrators during most of his career and he disliked them immensely. In the early days after the wars the Assassins went about their business in a strict and orderly fashion, but there were always people that wanted to discredit them or forfeit on payment because no proof was presented after the retirement. It had been a time of turmoil in the city, and the Senior Council was constantly snowed under with the amount of day to day issues brought forward by the ever increasing population. A subcommittee had been formed to examine and prepare a plan to pass off some of the workload in order to take the city forward. They presented two answers, firstly the formation of the Junior Council to take care of regulations and minor matters, and secondly to form what was now known as the Guild of Arbitration that dealt with all disputes and verification processes, including the introduction of spotters for all assassin retirements. No spotter, no bounty. Both proposals were adopted and the city’s landscape changed for what everyone except the Assassins called the better. “So I’m supposed to train you, am I? And who will pay for that?”