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 7/27/2008 11:04:24 PM
 | The warrior bard from Kelembad known as Strychnine (named for a nine-fretted, nine stringed instrument popular in that land) was calm to the end. He faced those who voted to execute him without a hint of reproach, but never admitted to any guilt. They strung him up in the middle of the hall and let him dangle until his feet stopped twitching.
It was only Krosius, the trained assassin/delegate from the land of Graha that caught the secret signal. The brief communication in the glance exchanged between Snict and Strychnine. "They've found me out, but you can still complete the mission. Carry one without me." It was so clear to another trained killer. As Snict and Lignisse stood by watching the hanging, Krosius moved stealthily in position behind Snict. At just the right moment, he silently slit his throat.
Lignisse turned with a start and looked at Krosius, he saw the wisdom of the ages in her eyes. He finally saw, perhaps because she was letting her guise slip away, or perhaps he was seeing with the clarity he felt just after a kill, but this was not a delegate from Shadia. There was a brief change in the air-pressure in the room and in a moment of untime, she was gone.
Krosius, alone now, looked at the two bodies, which were rapidly decomposing, and the smell was something that was so palpable, it was almost visible. The bodies would need to be burnt, and soon. Their faces had become ghastly masks of terror and malignant hatred. This delegate from the land of Graha, born at the very dawn of the first milleneum of the reign of the magic sword kings would never live to know, not by a thousand generations, what he was seeing. It would not be until after the sundering, and following the unsundering that Battal would again see faces such as these, but this is a tale for another time. For now, the Kings Council would continue to meet, and the kingdom would move on. All was right with the realm.
The End
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