A day in the life of.. Secrets

A cimmerian youngster clutched his bow tightly in his hand, his palm sweaty. It was time he did
something for the New Dawn his parents had said. It hadn't been his choice to come along with
them. Where else was he supposed to go? And against his parents will? No, he was stuck here now,
and he was to become a murderer too. He almost jumped as a twig cracked under his feet and
quickly hid behind a stone, his back against it. He breathed heavily, the group of men he was
following had heard him. He was done for he knew, as they started shouting at each other in some
strange language, drawing steel that gleamed in the sun. These weren't some washed up
swashbucklers that learnt what they could from barfights, these were mercernaries. They had
taken a circle formation around the crate they were carrying, a crate marked with the New Dawns
emblem. He threw a quick glance around the rock to take in their positions and then quickly
stood up, his bowstring pulled back, though his eyes opened wide as the fletched end slipped
from his sweaty fingertips and he quickly jumped in behind a broad tree, hidden anew before he
heard a loud gargle and more shouting. A quick glance again around the edge revealed that his
arrow had lodged itself into one of the mens throat and he watched him fall to the ground, the
others closed the formation in his gap, shouting obscententies at him to lure him out.

"Alright", he thought to himself. "I have a mission, I have to do this." But then he frowned and
a mask of hopelessness came upon his face "What have I done!? I'm a murderer! I killed that
man!" He took a deep breath to hold back his tears and without thinking about it he spun around
as he heard leaves rustled and found himself standing infront of the two men, a throwing axe
lodged into the tree next to his cheek and he let his arrow go. It burried in the mans eye just
below the edge of his helmet and he fell backwards as if knocked down from the force of the
arrow, but never got back up. The other man charged towards him and he barely dodged the cleave
of his sword that cut the bark instead of his own flesh. The steel was stuck and in his
furiosity he tried to pull it out rather than go at his target, the boy gripped his wrist and pulling him off of the sword hilt he threw him off balance, sending a heavy punch in just below the mans ribs before he had him fall onto the ground and throwing his bow aside, he pulled the two daggers from his belt before he leapt onto the mercenaries back and stabbed him again and again and again untill they both were soaked in his blood.

As he stood up beads of sweat trickled down his forehead, the adrenaline was gone and he became
weary from his effort. Approaching the crate seemed to take forever as he couldn't look away
from the corpses that lay strewen across the leaves. Pools of crimson forming beneath them. He
had slayed them all, he wore their blood on his hands. With stained fingers he opened the crate
to see what was so important, what needed protecting so bad that he had to kill three men for
it. Inside was small vials, rows and rows upon vials filled with some odd purplish liquid.

Later that day he approached the city gates with the crates in his arms he laid it down infront
of the solid barrier without a word and turned his back to the city. Walking back down the
mountain road he did not want to go back, he could not see justice in what he had been asked to
do. That evening he sat infront of a small campfire he had made, a gentle breeze in the
wind made his fire flicker, the leaves rustle and the flames died out. It became dark, an
impenetrable void for his eyes as he was used to the firelight. He felt a blade against his
throat, a cold tingling sensation that made his eyes open wide. "Sharifal." Spoke a voice that
seemed familiar to him but he could not pinpoint it. He swallowed hard, the slight movement of
his throat making him feel the sting of the sharp edge as he skin rubbed against it. "I-I did as
I was asked." He said with a trembling voice, "I killed those men and I brought the crate back."
He felt the blade press flat against him. "You have not returned, you have deserted the New
Dawn." The youngster thrust his closed fist into the ground in a fit of rage at this "Yes I did!
You made me kill them over some stupid bottles! That is not right!" There was a pause then and
neither of them spoke, only when his chest had stopped raising and lowering so fast and his
pulse did no longer beat against the hand that was pressed against his throat did the other man
speak. "Those men were mercenaries, they fought you, they were prepared to kill you only for the
weight of gold in their purses. And the stupid bottles was poison, a new prototype that has
taken our research branch years to discover. By stopping them you ensured that this did not fall
into the hands of our enemies. You killed them for the safety of your comrades, how is that not
just?"

Nice story Captured the essence of an assassin well.