The following days galloped by me. The training schedule put together by Gretel kept me fighting, or more accurately, getting beat up most of the time. Hansel trained Ruby in another part of the guild, which made me uneasy. However, I realized she was better off with one-on-one training. Either way, staying inside the guild was the best for us, since the capital remained in an uproar with my murder of a prominent noble.

  On the first day, I got to know Gretel better. I’d never trust her, but she gave me information. Gilbert’s murder caught the king’s attention, and his guards swept through the streets looking for the murderer. Apparently, the servants and others inside the manor house scattered like roaches. The ones they gathered added to the dungeon cell population. Rumors filled the taverns about Gilbert’s past. Talk among the nobles forced the royal court into an uncomfortable, if silent, acknowledgement of Gilbert’s crimes against commoners. However, the king and his nobles required someone to pay in order to save face.

  “With so many enemies, it’s easier for the king’s guards to find someone who didn’t want him dead,” she told me. “They’ll find someone to hang for the crime. That’s what nobility does best.”

  With a nod to her sarcastic statement, I asked about the person who put out the contract. She shook her head.

  “We’ll probably never know,” the pretty girl explained. “My guess is another noble who wanted his manor. That’s how petty they are. Contracts seldom tell you who ordered the work. Still, I’m happy to take the gold for your kill.”

  Her smug words pissed me off a bit as she took me to the training area. Gretel smirked at my anger while she led me to the training area. Then she surprised me by suddenly asking about my past. After giving a somewhat honest but entirely vague answer, I quickly diverted the conversation. I carried plenty of questions about the guild and operations.

  It’s surprising to discover that most of the assassin’s guild’s work had nothing to do with assassinating people. Instead, the members typically worked as spies gathering intelligence for certain houses or rich merchants. Also, a fair number of contracts focused on developing unique poisons or special onetime magic spells. Other contracts included finding the right ingredients for such poisons in various corners of the kingdom or beyond if the price was right.

  When we entered the training room, I found an enormous creature waiting for us. At first glance, the thing looked like a bizarre cross between an ogre and Frankenstein’s monster. Before I had a chance to ask, Gretel gave me the answer.

  “The guild master has plans for you. This is one of her creations.” She tossed me a training spear.

  “You won’t be so emotional destroying this,” she smirked while heading to the side of the room.

  The spear was nothing more than a pole about my height, with a dull point at the end. I looked it over, then shot her a glare. On the table was a sand clock, which she turned over.

  “You must destroy this golem before the sand runs out!”

  I wasn’t sure of the process, but somehow the golem activated automatically. Before I could understand the threat, the damn creature hit me in the belly and sent me tumbling across the sandy floor.

  “You might want to get up! It won’t stop until you destroy it or it kills you!”

  I heard her words while trying to keep from puking up my breakfast. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the golem coming again.

  Screw you, bitch!

  My body took one hell of a beating on the first day. After finally destroying the creature, Gretel sent me against two more golems with nothing more than an iron bar. By mid-morning, the golems came close to ending me. I was sure I was no more than an inch away from death when my training partner came over and gave me an elixir of some type. That’s when she pointed out how to defeat the golems more effectively. I needed to stab them in vital spots, similar to how you kill a human.

  “It would have been nice if they told me that sooner!” I sneered at her.

  “Well, sometimes you need to learn the hard way.”

  Her response made me seriously consider cutting her throat that night. Fortunately, the elixir brought me back to life. The bad news was I had to fight on during the afternoon. By the time I found my cot, my aching muscles told me my revenge would need to wait. Then I passed out without even thinking about eating dinner.

  A few days later, black-and-blue bruises covered my face and body. Still, I considered it a win since I noticeably improved my swordsmanship and my throwing dagger capability. While I had too little strength to keep going for long attacks, I could at least defend myself up close using my weapons. Defeating golems became somewhat easier. Then the morning schedule changed to focus on my getting beaten by three golems while using only my daggers. In the afternoon, I had the added treat of having Gretel beating me down using her superior skills with a wooden sword. In her defense, we also worked on tactics, hiding, and other useful techniques for infiltration and escape.

  During one session, both of us slid down the wall, heaving from the exertion. Sweat covered us from several rounds of hand-to-hand sword and dagger training. Gretal slipped out of the tunic she wore. Her fine body held my eyes for a moment. I’m a guy after all.

  “It’s too hot,” she complained. “I work better at night.”

  “Well, get the management to put in air conditioning,” I huffed out before taking a swig of lukewarm water from the leather flask we shared.

  “What’s that?” she looked over with interest.

  “Just an idea,” I replied with a shrug. “Anyway, this training is getting boring.”

  “You’re getting better,” Gretel said. “Since you’re bored, I’ll give you a prize to shoot for now. If you can disarm me, I’ll let you bed me!”

  My reaction caused her to smile.

  “What? Too much for you?”

  Her tone caused me to scoff.

  “Tempting, but I don’t trust you enough to put my pole into you.”

  She threw her wet shirt into my face.

  “Here’s my scent for you to dream about tonight,” she replied as she stole the flask and took a drink.

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  “Doubtful,” I sneered.

  Ruby and I found time to hook up each night for quiet sex time amid the snores around our cots. Even if you’re worn out, such fun keeps the motivation going during these days of intense training.

  By the end of the first week, Gretel informed me I was done with the basic knife and sword skills. While I failed to stop both golems completely while she attacked me at the same time, I guess she thought I was close enough. Still, I believed she had an alternative motive. My conversations with Ruby confirmed our suspicions about the brother and sister. You’d have to be a blind man to not see that was coming soon. Somehow, Hansel and I would come into conflict. I realized she wanted her brother to hold the advantage in our upcoming conflict. I felt it in the pit of my stomach, but I had no idea when our showdown would occur.

  Gretel asked me to settle on a key weapon. To her surprise, I chose the longbow which I had basic knowledge of how to use from my past. I’d kept my eye on several bows hanging from the walls in the training area.

  “That’s an interesting choice,” she told me. “Are you trying to become skilled in multiple weapons?”

  I shook my head.

  “No, that’s not me. I just prefer to stand off to do the damage. Besides, I’ve used a bow before.”

  It was a white lie since I’ve not picked up a bow since grade school. Still, my experience with the child golem remained fresh in my mind. The brutal initiation Eva gave us terrified me about up-close encounters. The rage which filled me enough to kill Gilbert now felt foreign to me. His death did not bother me. However, the act of cold-blooded killing of an innocent-looking person so close made me adjust my thoughts and goals. Yes, I knew I lived in a dangerous world and my encounters showed me I needed to be tough as well. But I had no intention of becoming a psychopath who wanted to enjoy killing up close and personal.

  Unfortunately, I’m stuck in a guild which includes assassinations, which means I’m going to kill someone because of an upcoming contract. My weapons needed to focus on remaining outside the fray as much as possible. If I needed to murder, I would prefer to make it more like a hunt. Coming in close required poison to make the odds swing my way. That was one rationalization I carried. I hoped it would save my sanity. Beyond that, using the sword would take much more time than I will accept. Long range and deadly were my goals to survive the guild’s jobs.

  After closing out one day, Gretel led me to meet with the blacksmith of the guild. It was a perfect time to bring up a weapon design that came to me when Ruby and I spoke about my difficulty in killing Gilbert quietly. Plus, I realized something about my future with the guild master. Giving just enough information to help the guild would aid me and, by extension, Ruby. The guild master might dislike us, but I was sure she would give us some protection as long as we showed our usefulness.

  On the way over, Gretel told me to avoid talking about the smith’s curse. According to her story, the guild’s blacksmith sold his soul to a demon to create a weapon of the gods. As she told me the story, it reminded me of “The Smith and the Devil” tale that was in a book I read to my grandchild. In the version I recalled, the smith could get out of the curse by chaining the devil to a magic anvil that no one else could move. Yet, in this new world, the smith still carries the curse. So, another fairy tale I knew did not follow the plots of my past.

  We found the smith working on a sword blade that was longer than my height. The man stood over me by at least a foot, and his massive chest and arms nearly burst out of the woolen gray undershirt he wore. The long leather apron covered his belly and the black leather pants he had on. After the introductions, Smithy groused at the interruption.

  Yes, his name was actually Smithy. After the man’s complaint, Gretel sweet-talked to him for a while and the giant soon turned into our obedient guide. He showed me the various weapons he specialized in making inside the shop. From small daggers to massive two-headed axes, the guy could do it all. When I asked about making small arrows for my blowgun and another project I had in mind, Smithy looked insulted.

  “You don’t understand.” I quickly tried to get back on his good side. “The one arrow is easy to make, and I only need a few. The other type I require must be stronger than iron and have a particular shape, so it’ll fly accurately. Plus, it must cut through leather or thin metal armor. I’ll poison the tips so I can remove guards in the way of my target.”

  “We have musket balls,” he sniffed. “The musket is a kid’s toy like that blowgun I heard you use. A real man fights with a sword or ax.”

  Apparently, my killing toy became the talk of the guild. I shrugged at the news and focused on a counter argument.

  “A musket is loud and single shot. It’s designed for armies and hunting. Plus, it takes a while to reload. An assassin needs something light and silent,” I answered with confidence. “Someone must get close to their target quietly, but once you get too close, the enemy can sense you or you might tip them off with a sound. Let me show you the design of a quiet weapon we can build which will kill like a ghost.”

  They watched me with obvious skepticism as I drew out a rough sketch of the pellet and the air pistol. While I worked, I went back to my encounter with Gilbert. My ability to kill him required sneaking up while he remained distracted. Worse, the blowgun had little range, maybe several feet, and the accuracy wasn’t the best. As for the air rifle, I remembered it accurately shot the paper targets while standing at the other end of the yard. My estimate was a range of about fifty feet. Of course, I need to come up with a design for an air compressor, but I have ideas for that as well.

  After I designed the pellet, well, I actually copied the design I remembered, then I drew out the pistol. This weapon would have a removable stock to make it useful as a rifle as needed. I added in a type of narrow holding clip for the small arrow-like pellets, but I wasn’t sure how well a blacksmith could do the work. In this world, I doubt they have machines with precise cutting capability that would bend and slice away the thin metal sheets and form the parts of an air gun. Even making a chamber to hold the air will be a challenge without modern plastics and rubber. I figured a lever action pump would compress the air like I remembered.

  Or maybe I could find a magic scroll that would work?

  “Well, mages and witches control magic.” Gretal shrugged at my question on scrolls. “They make the scrolls to fund their work, so I don’t think they’ll help you unless you have gold. Why not learn a spell from Eva to do this?”

  “First, like most people, I know nothing about magic,” I said. “I certainly can’t figure it out soon enough to complete this.”

  I didn’t mention I wanted to build things outside of the guild. Certainly, Eva would try to control my upcoming creations.

  “Besides, the idea is for anyone to use this weapon. I can get someone with basic skills to become deadly from about 40 paces away. The poisoned pellet will feel like a wasp sting right before the victim dies. My guess is I can even get a type of poison which could delay death if we wanted.”

  Damn, I’m talking cold and calloused killing here!

  Her surprised expression made me grin. From the tilt of her head and the twinkle in her eyes, Gretel seized a renewed interest in my design. Smithy remained skeptical, but he agreed the needs of the guild came first. I got a promise from the blacksmith to work on the pellets while I completed the design and spoke with the guild master about the pistol. My attitude with her was one of extreme caution and distrust. There was no way I would let her dictate my ideas about getting wealthy. Still, I needed permission from Eva to make a test model of the pistol.

  Who knows, maybe I’ll sell others back to the guild!

  When I spoke to Ruby that morning, I asked about some of the terms of the contract we signed the night before. The two main points with joining the guild were a minimum of five years in their service and no one held rights to my wealth but me after my fees to the guild were deducted. The guild acted as a bank as well. Of course, if I died, any wealth in my account went back to the guild so my ideas required me to survive for five years. I explained my first idea to Ruby after I told her she could become my partner.

  “Why would you want me?” She asked.

  “Well, you’re my friend, so why not be my partner in a business? Once I get the design perfected, we can make more gold from my ideas,” I explained. “We’ll sell them to other kingdoms, so I’ll need help. I can’t trust anyone more than you. You are my lover.”

  She blushed at my words.

  “But I don’t know how to read and write,” Ruby resisted.

  “I don’t care. You want to be free, then it takes money. Who has the money? Nobles and merchants, right? So why not an inventor like me? We’ll be the only ones with plans and the ability to create these weapons. We’ll charge them plenty for using such knowledge.”

  Her open mouth slowly closed while she thought about my words. Finally, she agreed.