FLHTH Session 08 - Campaign Story: Tándir

My Secret Revealed; Knives At the Dinner Table

Threesday, Third Hand of Harvester, EE237

Tándir of Great Harbor

Vacozan Province, Wirost

"So what do you really do?" Saafiyah asked at breakfast one morning as she munched on a piece of flatbread smothered in keber jam and honey.

I didn't really think twice about telling her the truth this time. She already suspected I was a thief, a criminal, and probably already had a suspicion of the awful truth. If not, I had decided she deserved to know given what had happened back in Folkestone's Landing. "I kill people, Saafiyah."

Saafiyah tilted her head slightly and studied me. "Really?" Is it hard?"

Her casual acceptance stirred something in me. I wasn't sure what it was. Relief? Fear?

If anything her determination grew in the days and hands following. Every day she was a fireball, insisted she practice with the bow, the crossbow, and was soon enough asking me to teach her to fight with blades. She maintained her growing collection of weapons with great care. I taught her how to clean, sharpen and oil her dagger, then a thrusting short sword I had purchased for her on one of our trips north for supplies. I gave her a hand crossbow which she could draw herself and she kept the strings of both it and her shortbow cleaned and waxed. Through it all she talked up a storm. She had me explaining how to kill, where to place an arrow or bolt in a target for the greatest chance of a kill shot, how to approach a target. Her curiosity was endless. I cut body shaped silhouette targets out of canvas sheeting, nailed them to wooden frames and let her practice kill shots. She was more dedicated than I'd ever seen anyone, and only eleven cycles old! I was pretty sure I understood the ulterior motive driving her unusual dedication; it was about control. Or so I hoped.

Hands passed at a dizzying pace of instruction and practice and summer moved into autumn, the daily temperatures settling into a more respectable mid-eighties. My shoulder had long since healed but I was so caught up in Saafiyah's enthusiasm for learning that days would sometimes go by without my thoughts turning to the reason we were here in the Vacozan countryside in the first place. The events of Folkestone's Landing seemed so far away, so long ago. I berated myself incessantly each time I realized that I had let the potential for danger slip my mind.

Saafiyah was staring down at the dagger in her hand one day, eyebrows knit. She was working her wrist to try and work the blade into her long shirt sleeve. It would have been easier to start her with a robe, or a loose fitting overcoat, and if she had been anyone else I would have started there and moved on to more difficult methods of concealment later. With Saafiyah, I no longer doubted her ability to master the skills I was teaching her.

With a flick of the wrist the dagger slid across the palm of her hand finally and disappeared beneath the edge of her sleeve, tucked neatly against her wrist. She shook her arm subtly, the dagger sliding forth again until her fingers were gripped around its hilt.

"Again. Faster. That was two and a half beats, kerl."

Saafiyah glanced across the dinging hall at me, frowned and started again. Her hands moved faster.

"Again. Faster. Do it in under a beat, Saafiyah."

She put the dagger down, spun it on the oak table so the hilt was facing me and slide it to me. "I can't! It can't be done," she told me frowning in frustration.

I studied her for a moment. "Time me and count."

I hefted the dagger into the palm of my hand. "Ready?"

She nodded.

"Now!"

I could see her lips moving as she counted, my hand a blur of movement, the blade disappearing into the sleeve of my shirt, reappearing, gripped to strike a target, disappearing once again. Repeating, I thumped my knuckles on the oak table with each repetition.

I stopped at ten repetitions. Her mouth hung open.

"How many?" I asked her.

"Ten."

"How long?"

"Eight beats."

I smiled wryly and pushed the dagger back across the table to her.

"Now, practice. Do it faster. Like I did." I stood and started preparing dinner, thankful to have distracted the girl long enough to prepare a meal that wouldn't end up on my plate blackened and barely edible.