Free Take the body and give me the rest by Julius Schenk Page A

that ship, and the purpose of our watching is to
make sure she doesn’t get to port.’
    ‘Well, just ask
the blade to take both of them instead of one,’ he said with a
casual shrug.
    ‘Okay, get your
friend in the Cravosi navy to send a letter. We will have it
waiting for our blade in Dacar.’

Chapter 10
    The room rocked
ever so slightly with the sway of the ocean, as Seth lay in the
most comfortable bed he’d ever been in to that point so far. He was
warm and fast drifting off to sleep in the womb of the ship. It
felt a safe place, so he allowed himself to sleep in just his pants
with his new dagger under the covers and against his chest. He
didn’t feel his enemies would bother him anymore, but when you are
hired as a guard, you’d better at least pretend to be one he
thought.
    As he drifted
quickly into sleep Seth imagined, as Elizebetha had asked him, a
room with many different doors. It was the main room in Bloodcrest
Hall. Large with cold blue stones that made the walls and the
criss-cross of dark wooden beams that held the slate roof in place.
The wall was lined with hundreds of doors, some small, some large,
one was the door of his family’s cottage, one the backdoor to the
General’s manor house. He was aware this was just a creation of his
own, like picturing the face and body of the cute girl from the
tavern that night; but again, Elizebetha had asked he do it, and so
he would.
    Seth reached
out for one of the doors with invisible hands and tried to open it.
Nothing happened. He imagined himself trying different ones but
with the same result, they were all stuck fast. Walking through the
room, he spotted a large trapdoor that looked very familiar. He
walked to the wooden trapdoor and reaching down swung it open
without effort. Looking within he could see a familiar stone
staircase, he walked down with a feeling of growing apprehension.
Once he was through the door, it snapped shut and bolted behind his
head. Seth was swallowed by the feeling of being in his own memory.
He walked into the main room and tried to stay calm when it came
into full view. Sitting at a table playing cards and talking were
Yend and Josephine, around them the room in which he killed them
looked the same as it ever had. Carpets on the floors, cupboards
and chests filled, overflowing with stolen clothes and
trinkets.
    Yend smiled at
him as he had the first day when he and his friends had strolled in
from the north with a big red target on their backs. Josephine
stood and welcomed him, like the first night he’d come to her
tavern, the Red Minstrel.
    ‘Seth, so good
of you to join us tonight. You’ve been ignoring us,’ she said in
her most charming voice.
    ‘It’s true
Seth. We are as much a part of you as that lousy General, and we
are not half as bad. Knaves and thieves yes, but killers . . .
well, yes, but not on the same scale, not by a long stretch,’ Yend
told him, putting down his hand of cards.
    Seth was
unafraid, and, truly, he did feel some guilt in killing these two.
Like Yend said, they were crooked as their housing room walls, and
they had planned on killing him—but that was just bad water
compared to poison.
    ‘Hello, you
two,’ Seth said in a friendly voice. ‘Nice to see you again. Sorry
for ignoring you, been busy trying to escape with my life.’
    Yend and
Josephine laughed at that. ‘Oh, not to worry young Master, we are
here to help you. After all, your life is now our life, your neck
is our precious neck. So we’ll help you survive this bloody mess
you’re in,’ Yend said.
    ‘Well thanks
friend, and what can you do to help me?’ Seth asked.
    Josephine
walked over to him and kissed him on the cheek. ‘We’ll help you by
setting you free. We’ll show you what you really are and what
you’re capable of. Then this little girl and her rich cousins will
seem as nothing to what you can do.’
    Seth suddenly
felt the tear of hunger inside of him like he’d felt back in that
basement. Yend and