52nd of Ash, 120
"I... don't know about this, Ark," spoke the avialae. "The insignia here looks familiar, and not in a good way," he motioned to the diagram of the bloody eye. "Nothing about this feels right, and I'm not sure it's worth a measly five-hundred farthings. You can find work somewhere else."
Those were Asmodei's warnings and concerns during their meeting earlier in the day, but Arkash failed to heed them. He even contemplated going to Fayeth with the news, but Arkash had convinced him not to. Even if it was just five hundred farthings, all Arkash had to do was kill a couple of farmers and hand over the son, or so the translated instructions said. The part that confused him was the mention of the bloody eye; he was meant to draw the insignia that had been written into the back of the envelope above the bed where they sleep, using their blood. Why?
The promise of more work to follow was the prize in the kill, or so Arkash suspected. If he could impress his unknown client, there would be more money to come, money that Arkash needed. What were the lives of three humans to him, anyway?
Arkash sat at a fire that he'd prepared in the woods that surrounded the farmland. The stars had long since awoken on the dark black canvas of the night sky, and the light of the moon illuminated his surroundings in the company of the flame he'd started. He'd been there for a couple of hours while the family settled down to sleep. occasionally, he'd leave the cover of the ridge to check the windows of the house, where he waited for the lights to extinguish. Eventually, they did, and the house was lost to him. Arkash's vision was poor as a komodo dragon, he needed to get closer before he could find it again.
So, he quickly kicked over the fire and stomped out the flames before he pulled his weight over the shelter of the ridge, then ran in the direction of the house across the corrugated fields. Before long, the general shape of the home entered his view with the aid of the moonlight, and more details followed. It was a sizeable stone home, complete with a detached outhouse and animal pens. Arkash pressed his back to the cobbled wall, then turned the corner with his sighted side to check for a point of entry. He moved silently and carried the scent of the earth the animals around him slept on; he didn't need to worry about drawing their attention.
The front door was just across from him, but he'd be damned to try and enter through there. There was the option of the high window, but who knew what awaited him on the other side? He couldn't see through. So, he ran low to the ground around the building in search of more entrances and found the outline of a cellar door. The chain and padlock that would have been used to lock it laid on the ground beside the stone frame; someone had forgotten to close it.
It was because of people like Arkash that other people had such locks, but then they got comfortable, negligent. The usual consensus was 'that only happens to other people,' and 'I'm much too careful for that.' People always tricked themselves into false senses of security, and so, mistakes like the one Arkash gazed upon happened. Arrogance would be their downfall.
As he reached for the handle of the door, his left shoulder tensed and pulled in a violent twitch that saw his left side seize up. "Not now..." he muttered through a pained snarl, then pulled the muscles apart. It was the worst time for a flare-up to happen. He had to be as quiet and careful as possible, there was no room for error.
Once his shoulder was lax again, Arkash carefully tested the cellar entrance and found an obnoxiously loud creak. The rath paused and held the door still while he bared his teeth. Thankfully, there was enough of a gap in the door to squeeze through with his lithe frame, which he carefully climbed and contorted his body to fit through before he oh-so-gently lowered the cellar door to close, and trapped himself in the pitch-black darkness of the cellar. He waited a moment for his eyes to adjust while he listened to the sounds of the rooms above and exhaled through his nose when naught but silence met his ears.
The next obstacle was the various tools and furniture that could serve as a block for the rath, so, he lowered his body close to the ground and crawled down the stairs headfirst, where he came to rest on the dirt-covered landing. With a low exhale, he began to inch forward, and occasionally leaned on his stump arm to give his right arm a break His tail remained tucked close to his leg while he moved; he couldn't have it knocking things over. At some point, his nose bumped against something metallic and empty, but he wove around it and proceeded to the far end of the room, where he found a flight of stone stairs.
A glance upward revealed the subtle shine of moonlight that glared through the door above. He spied the cracks in the woodwork, and the gap beneath the frame, and began to climb the steps. Halfway up, he rose to stand on his two feet but kept low and slow with his weight evenly distributed to remain as quiet as possible. At the top, he pulled at the door, but it gave nothing. A gentle push saw it open into the landing, however. Unlike the cellar door, it made no noise. That made sense, as the cellar door had a lot more conditions to weather, while the indoor one didn't.
He stepped onto the wooden floor and found, to his delight, that it didn't creak. Arkash took a brief sniff through his nose to test the air, then filled his lungs with the scent of sweat. It was disgusting and the act made him cringe, but it ultimately led him to the source. The stink of human covered the home, but its source was nearby. He didn't bother to close the door behind him, it was an excess of noise that he didn't need. So, he began to make his way through the hall, unencumbered by anything but the weight of his clothes and his knife.
The air was warm, too. It clung to the warmth of a fire that had recently been extinguished, and Arkash could still smell the ash and char among the stink of their sweat. There were several other smells in the air that he could detect too if he tried to sift through the odor of the human's bodies, but he wasn't all too interested in those. Soon enough, he came to the master bedroom, or so he believed. The sounds of breathing could be heard within. No snoring, just breathing. There was also the matter of the son, but he'd find the other human later.
The problem was that the son could barge in and band with whichever of the two humans remained after his initial attack. After all, he couldn't kill both the mother and father at the same time; he only had one arm. He couldn't kill the son either, as his client wanted the human brought to him alive. There was another matter that Arkash could control, however, and that was the family's pet. Most farmers had dogs, he recognized. Arkash had worked slave labor for a lot of the men that tended the fields, so, Arkash had to dispose of the pet lest it ran to its master's aid. He couldn't take on two angry humans and a vicious animal at once.
So, Arkash sorted through the scents in the air, then made his way to the kitchen where the smell of dog permeated. In the corner of the room, near the back door, a great beast laid in slumber. Arkash had only ever accidentally set a dog on fire before, he'd never killed one deliberately, or with a knife. But with every job, there were new challenges and obstacles. It was something Arkash appreciated about the role he'd fallen into.
He stifled a sigh, then approached the beast where it laid. He supposed the chest was where its lungs and heart were, but it would still likely make noise if he stabbed it. He had to crush the creature's throat... with his jaws? That works, he thought to himself. Arkash bated his breath as he lowered his jaws to the outline of the beast's neck, then drew his dagger, and weighed it beside the creature's chest. Then, after a brief mental countdown, he clamped the iron grip of his jaws around the creature's neck and plunged his dagger into its heart.
The beast shot up and rumbled in its throat while it attempted to writhe free of the lizard's grasp, but Arkash leaned all of his weight into the beast and squeezed its throat tighter. He wouldn't permit it to breathe or whine, it wouldn't alert the family. He twisted the dagger to pull it free, then drove the blade back into the creature's flesh in another spot. Again, the creature jolted. Another stab saw similar, but weaker results. The fourth and fifth elicited pitiful scrambles, and the sixth had barely any fight left at all. Arkash continued until he'd stabbed the creature's chest ten times, even after it stopped moving, then carefully released its throat. The mutt's bed was stained red, and the stink of blood filled his nostrils. The timer had started; there was no going back from that point. The family would perish that night.
Image source.
