Kade Lasombra - Beginning

Merhit watched the children play from his usual seat by the window, the best seat in the house at the Starfish Tavern. The children always played in the alleys around here, dirty little creatures. Most of them orphans, others just products of bad parenting. Merhit had a keen eye for talent, and over the past few months one of the boys had caught his attention.
The child in question wasn’t the largest kid around, but he was big enough that he never got bullied. He was very coordinated, which was shown whenever they kids would organize a game of goalball. A game where they would take a ball, made by the local tanner from the stomach of a boar blown up and tied off set inside leather cut to make a sphere, and using only their feet, knees, and hands to put it in a goal defended by the other team. The child was not only the best at the game himself, but you could also see his intellect as he generaled his team to victory more often than not.
Yes, he would be a good student, and Merhit was going to take him in today after his meal. He would be a good jewel in his next batch of students, provided he wasn’t too headstrong to teach. Merhit was sure he was young and impressional enough that if the street hadn’t brought him to the thought process that he wanted, it would be easy enough to bend him that way.

* * *

The past few months were grueling for Kade. It wasn’t just the hours spent with physical training, he had been doing that for years. It wasn’t learning how to use various weapons, strength training, and of course the agility drills. Nor was it the intense schooling. The tactics training, the skill straining, and the mental quickness excersizes he actually found quite fun. The grueling part of it all was living with his conscious after he found out what this school was for.
Headmaster Merhit had taken him in off the street, fed him, put a roof over his head and put clothes on his back, he owed Merhit. Headmaster Merhit had also invested in Kade’s future, and put a lot of personal time into his training, which he hadn’t with many of the other students. If Merhit wanted Kade to take lives for money, how could he really say no? Kade always felt sick when he came to that final answer, the answer that he would in fact take a life to pay Merhit back for taking him off the street and giving him a life.
Kade had to make this right within his head. At this point it was the only course of action he could think of. Time to get his head straight and just think of it as a job.


* * *

Kade went over his plan again and again in his head. His plan of escape. His plan that must not fail. The island they are living on has been cursed, and Mehrit is moving his base of operations, during this move will be his chance. Kade had come to terms with taking a life, but he couldn’t kill for coin, and the only alternative to that if he stayed with Merhit was death. During some of the moving tomorrow, during all the hustle and bustle with people coming in and out he would be gone. He had his clothes packed already, along with a weeks worth of rations, his weapons that he had trained with, extra daggers, and a couple of coin that he had hid away.
Kade wanted to take some of the other kids with him, he had made some great friends over the last four years. Some of them he was sure Mehrit would send after him after he was gone, and he would have to kill to defend himself. He was sure his friend Justin would not make it in his training after he was gone. Kade had been helping Justin pass his tests and protected him from the other kids ever since Justin had been brought to Mehrit’s school the previous spring. Justin would slow him down though, and they would both be caught and put to death.
Tomorrow it is. Tomorrow Kade would be free.

* * *

“Run.” Kade thought. “Stay calm, Keep running. Do not stop for anything.” Kade knew it wouldn’t be long before they found Headmaster Mehrit’s body with a dagger sticking out from his throat, and it wouldn’t be too much longer after that they would find Kade missing and put the two together.
Kade had been caught trying to leave with a pack on his back, his weapons on his belt, and was led to Mehrit’s office and was made to wait for Mehrit. Mehrit had come into his office in a huff and sent the guards away. He proceeded to lecture Kade for the next fifteen minutes. At the end of his tirade Kade saw Mehrit’s hand start to go for a sword on the wall, and before he know what he was doing Kade felt the dagger leave his hand. Mehrit didn’t see it coming, turned around and all kade heard was a gurgling noise. Mehrit clutched his throat and sank to the ground and never moved again.
Kade lunged to Mehrit and checked his vitals. Dead. Kade started to pace, mind racing. He stopped, scolded himself and forced himself to remember his teachings. He first went to mehrit’s safe, and removed a bag of coins. Then he went to Mehrit and took the thing that Mehrit coveted most, his leather boots that were worked so well that he bragged they were like a second skin. Red stiching on black leather in the shape of a feather going up the side,a nd it was the finest cut anyone had ever seen. Then Kade ran.

* * *

Back on the streets, hiding. It was two days of hard running, but Kade had finally found a town. Town meant a port, port meant passage to a different island and a gateway to a new life. A nice human young adult trying to build his own life in a new town would blend right in. Kade would wait til morning then look for passage off this cursed island, maybe take his stolen gold and in the new town buy a nice cargo boat, become a merchant and grow old with no more excitement in his life.