Free Epic by Conor Kostick Page A

themselves to the threat that he might reveal all he knew. Not that any of them came close to deliberately antagonizing him. They found him useful—and perhaps they feared him. Such had been his plan ever since University, to become indispensable to the authorities. He had volunteered for every ugly assignment, every arena battle that he could, no matter how unpopular the issue or controversial the decision that he was being asked to champion. His strategy had worked. Whereas all the other committee members saw themselves as heroes of some sort—as legendary figures—Ragnok refused to cover his deeds with such fanciful notions. He was a villain, so what? Right now, at this moment, he was the greatest power in the land. It has been a hard, twenty-year slog. But every hour of his youth spent in Epic accumulating strength had proven to be well spent.
    The Executioner raised his sword to the moon and roared aloud with the pleasure of being alive.
    It would be quite something to be the sole person able to use the Executioner. Government of the world necessitated a committee; after all, you needed at least five players for a team. Plus there were sufficient demands on the authorities that a committee of nine made sense. But what if you were the only person with access to the Executioner? How the other members of the committee would bow and scrape to please you. The others were getting old. There were younger players awaiting their chance, people he was cultivating, including the sons and daughters of the present leadership. He had waited twenty years to get on the committee; it would not take him so long again to command it.
    A cart track came into view and Ragnok turned to ride along it. This would take him to the old stone road that ran straight to Newhaven. He had covered half the distance to the road when he saw a movement on the track. Some brave player was journeying in a wild place, very late in the day. The figure had his back towards the Executioner and was running, obviously wanting to reach the relative safety of the stone road before dark. Silently Ragnok drew the Bastard Sword of the Moon. His left hand on the reins, right raising the sword high, the rider of death thundered down on the traveler. A mocking glance over his shoulder showed Ragnok that the person he had struck was an elf. Then he was galloping on, laughing aloud, having neatly sliced the head from his target. Somewhere on the planet, some farmer or student was unclipping, probably in a tearful daze, with no idea as to why their character’s life had suddenly ended.
    By the time the guard-post lights of Newhaven were approaching, Ragnok had calmed down. The trail of bodies he had left in his wake on the stone road was thinning out. After all, closer to the city, the chance of any word of his slayings reaching the committee rose and he could not bear to hear their censorious comments. There was even a chance that they might vote to exclude him from using the Executioner. Of course, the argument for not killing players unless they had been voted to be assassinated was completely logical and watertight—there was no point arousing questions. But the illicit thrill of being a player-killer was something that could not be understood with logic. Nor could logic explain the pattern of his killings. Curiously it was not the stronger-looking players that attracted his attention—and if there was any justification for the deaths of players it was to eliminate possible threats to the Central Allocations team. No, it was the slightly heartrending players, with their one weapon and tiny pieces of armor, which drew his attention. There was something bewitchingly naïve and tender about them, spending their spare time killing kobolds and orcs for pennies, saving assiduously and slowly. And so he rode them down, bringing their struggle up the ladder of Epic to an abrupt end.
    Once in Newhaven, Ragnok rode slowly through the narrow, cobbled streets, keeping to the