The Alley

The hooded and cloaked man ducked into the alley, not worrying that his footprints would betray him. With the snow already trampled to freezing mud by a faceless multitude and with no new snow yet fallen his footprints would be lost. The short alley contained three beggars, swathed in all the filthy rags they had managed to collect or pilfer, and huddled around a small fire in one of the corners. It stank of human waste in the crisp clear air.

The man joined the wretches, who took no notice of him in their frigged despair, and crouched down against the back wall so that he could watch for the men he was following. They had been a short distance behind him. He waited, not even blinking in his vigil. The men passed the alley, precisely when he expected them to. The large one was talking to the former Scholar, who was smiling as he listened, and they did not look to either side, but kept their eyes ahead.

The hooded man rose and was about to resume his covert pursuit of his targets, passing them and waiting somewhere ahead for them to pass before doing the same over again. However, his eyes caught sight of a tiny hand, sticking out from beneath a small pile of snow. The man's heart sank as he walked over to the snow pile and scraped the snow from the frozen body of the urchin, frozen to death in the cold of the night.
He loved children above all else, however, this was easy since he cared for nothing in this world but himself and children. In his life, he had murdered; played assassin to those with the coin to pay for his skills; he betrayed as easily as he did the bidding of his employer, for no reason other than the enjoyment he took in killing and spreading chaos. Yet, he would see no harm come to any child. Below the crusting snow, the child was naked and his rage boiled up and evaporated the sorrow of just moments before. The heat of rage was foreign to his cold mind. He embraced it. He turned around, pulled down his hood, unfastened his cloak, and let it slide to the snowy ground.

''You sit around your fire.'' his voice icy calm. ‘‘And let this child die. Without even thinking to share the warmth of your fire.'' He drew his sword and started a slow advance on the three.

The three beggars had only now seemed to notice him, coming out of their stupor to find a madman with a naked blade sharing their alley.

''And when he died. You had the gall to take the clothes from his frozen corpse.''

Too late the three realised that their doom was upon them and thought to be elsewhere, and the nearest of them died where he sat. His head still spinning in the air as the second man died coming to his knees. The third made it to his feet before a flash of steel put him on his knees. In his terror, he continued crawling away from the death that now, after the burst of killing speed, again advanced slowly upon him.
Step by step. Unhurried.

The formerly hooded man plunged his sword into the hamstrung beggars back at kidney level, careful to avoid the spin. The beggar screamed as the man twisted the sword slowly, viciously. He screamed again as the sword was withdrawn and thrust into his back higher up. It sheared through ribs and his right lung to stick into the ground beneath his now collapsed body. The man twisted the sword again before pulling it free.

Then the killer stood and watched as the body twitched less and less, moans growing quieter, blood seeping into the trampled snow just inside the mouth of the alley. When the corpse grew still the man sheathed his sword and returned to the shrunken body of the child. He took his cloak from where it had fallen and reverently wrapped the icy body in it. He rose with the bundle in his arms, stepped over the bodies, and walked from the alley.

The streets, cleared by the screams and the cityguard were probably on their way. Irate from coming into the cold from their fire warmed barracks. His targets where long gone, but he would easily find them again. He had no fear of anyone stopping him; no one would stop a man carrying what appeared to be his dead child's body.

He was soon lost in the city and all the cursing guardsmen found were three more dead beggars. It didn’t matter that they had clearly been murdered, they were just no-bodies after all. The mercy of death had come quickly to them.