Chapter One - ii)some dinky title...

Inodhill crept silently along the rooftops of Kakuo later that night, his cloak wrapped around lean five and a half feet frame, buffering him from the chilly sea breeze while distorting his shadows and even making him seem like one.

He had no particular destination in mind. He just needed to prowl, to expand pent up frustration. He need to… stretch. After about two hours of stalking nothing but shadowy mists, Inodhill finally tired and slumped against a chimney that was not puffing out smoke. It was a damp and chilly night, but he needed no warmth. Sighing, he shut his eyes, hiding their blue shine from the world.

He had a lot of things running through his mind. He missed Avenda terribly. It would be three months tomorrow since he saw her. It was hard for him to admit, but he was having difficulty keeping his emotions in check. He never intended to get together with Avenda. It was all accidental. Her partner fell when he was discovered during an assassination attempt, and she was trying to cope with her loss. Along came Inodhill, offering a shoulder to a friend in need. But what started as a friendly consoling session rapidly became a night of passionate bed-creaking, and they’d been together since.

In truth, Inodhill was not prepared for the many things he saw when he came out of the monastery in Akanista for the first time. An orphan, he was chosen to be brought into the monastery of the dark lord Khaine by his mortal representatives. After five years of training in the various disciplines of Khaine under the watchful eyes of the masters and mistresses of the monastery, he was deemed worthy to be initiated into the Drikung order; the path of assassins; one of the highest honors attainable by those who serve Khaine. Now aged twenty, Inodhill had recently completed his training, and was given the code name ‘Purple Asp’. The colors represent which master or mistress he was under, in this case, mistress Kimianne, and the animal was just a moniker thrown in to confuse any who might be listening in.

The Drikung order was started by the dark lord as a personal bodyguard for his representatives on earth, the Matriarchs of Akanista. For who better to guard against an assassination attempt then an assassin himself? Bound by a blood oath to serve Khaine’s representatives, they were the perfect bodyguard. Rarely seen and spoke about only in whispers, they were also used to conduct assassinations of high ranking, or high profile people in any nation. Regular assassinations, however, were delegated to the ‘rank and file’ assassins. These were members of Akanista’s populace that joined the monastery by design. These ‘contract assassinations’ were what brought in the gold for the monastery.

Inodhill remembered the first time he did high level sentry duty. High level literary meant being high up in the canopies of trees. For the monastery, like most of Akanista’s towns and buildings, were partly built into the trees themselves. Looking down, the monastery looked like a wooden orb with four tentacles reaching out into the darkness. The assassins were all housed in the right most ‘tentacle’. The other three wings held trainees of other disciplines; Poison/Antidote, Spying/Information Gathering, and the last ‘tentacle’ housed Khaine’s chosen, wielders of his magical energy who devoted their time researching into new ways to aid the other three schools.

No name has ever been given to those of the last tentacle. Simply called the monks of Khaine, they were shrouded in such secrecy that it sort of became taboo to even discuss them. Latest rumors seem to indicate a new deadly weapon that could kill from a distance equal to that of a longbow, and twice as simple to use. Other sources suggested that these weapons used metal balls as projectiles.

The masters and mistresses of the monastery were assigned members from each of the three schools. Some of these groups were small and mobile, with up to six or eight members. Others were larger, with members trained to operate for months in another nation under assumed identities, tracking their marks till the most opportune moment to eliminate them. Inodhill was part of the later, and his group usually handled the delicate assassinations of those whose deaths were demanded by Khaine. Targets included deserters –much like Corvhale this afternoon –, and priests of other gods who he decided were getting too powerful for his liking.

Inodhill let out a deep sigh at that thought. Corvhale fit those two descriptions perfectly. Once a master at the monastery and Inodhill’s trainer for a period, Corvhale apparently found a way to break the blood oath and flee the forest. Inodhill had wanted to ask Corvhale about that secret, but he dared not. For Khaine was ever watching, ever present. Everything he knew revolved around Khaine’s word. He wanted to live another life. But he was powerless.

In an uncharacteristic drop in his guard, Inodhill started to drift off to sleep, leaning against a chimney.