"Heart of the Crown" Chapter 4

[seymoure]

Chapter 4

The Contract

Count Gerathio sat in the darkness. The room was dismal but clean. He lounged with a glass of mead, facing the door, and he waited.

Hawk got there a few minutes early but wasn’t surprised to find the swordsman.

The two men sat across the room from each other, but neither spoke.

Gerathio finished his drink, dropped the glass to the floor, and stood. He hesitated for a moment, as if deciding whether or not he should leave.

At that instant, a voice came from the darkness behind them. Both immediately went into fighting stances.

“Gentlemen, I have called you here to offer you more money than either of you have ever earned for a single contract,” the voice whispered.

Hawk relaxed a bit, “That sounds good, but what do you want us to do?”

“And why do you need both of us?” the Count added.

“The other side is gathering its forces at this moment, and there is no way to know what they will be capable of,” the voice explained. “So I thought to acquire the two finest blades in the land.”

“So we have to fight a small army?” Hawk asked.

“I doubt that it will be more than a handful,” came the reply.

The Count was playing with the tip of his rapier as he said, “These things are never about the fight. The fight is but a way to achieve some other purpose.”

An unsettling laugh came from the shadows.

“I do want you to kill someone,” he said.

“That is rarely a problem,” Hawk said, “But I have to know who and why.”

“Why is not your concern,” a sterner voice replied. “But the who is simple enough.”

There was a long pause.

“You both will make more money than you can spend, and all you have to do is end the life of an infant.”

The silence swirled within the darkness.

© 2008 C. Wayne Owens
Chapter 5 is here.