The quarterstaff was, at best, a cumbersome weapon. It was much the same as a sword in that it was
rather showy, even somewhat impressive looking with the gleam of finished birch, without any true practicality. Oh, that was not to say the thing came without forms and strategies entailed; he’d taken enough weaponry lessons to be able to practice the staff by himself and know each stance, each step, no matter how much he fumbled in his performance thereof.

The fact of the matter was that there was no grace to it. Any exchange of blows between two quarterstaffs was naught more than that: two strips of wood slamming against one another. Footing, planning–they remained of no importance. Despite what so many Asha’man maintained, between two people of equal skill–or lack thereof–the stronger would always win. Always.

Which is why, he thought, I won’t ally myself with it. He’d not vest his confidence in something that could rob him of life simply because its very nature depended on something as trivial as its user’s size. His rather average height and lean frame had always put him at a disadvantage with most of a Major’s typical weaponry. It was only under a facade that Lysander maintained that he would wield such: the facade of an Assassin merely feigning to be something else.

Lysander, in all truth, was a Darkfriend.

To be seen as an Assassin was to leave an open doorway for questions.

He was no fool.

Deciding that an hour’s work of practice was near enough completed, Lysander returned the staff to its shed and left that for that. Not all of the Major’s weaponry gave him such a hassle as the staff and the sword; he was growing rather proficient with the bow. Truthfully, an Assassin’s provision of weaponry vested no matter in a man’s size. If anything, Lysander could claim height as a disadvantage. These weapons held true grace, requiring true skill.

Peering with a quiet smile around the practice yards, he could hardly decide what to do. It wouldn’t be surreptitious in the least to be practicing daggers and knives in the open. Oh, Majors were encouraged to explore weaponry to their fullest, but a Major playing with weapons that simply did not fit his line of duty would draw a raised brow. At best, Lysander could get away with one or two lessons with these before his facade would begin to unravel. No, he’d certainly have to find another way to occupy his time. Lounging was not an option; one simply did not become a Dedicated by thinking he could laze about.

Strangled shouts drew his attention. He did not say anything or show any hallmark of surprise–or tried not to, at least. With an unassuming gaze, Lysander watched in the distance the line of folks attempting to tackle one of the practice walls. It was an amusing sight, to say the least, to see the hulking fellow with shoulders as wide as likely his ego attempt to grab hold of the rope. His attempt was in vain and his grip must have been slick as sweat, for kick as he may at the wall, it granted him no sudden ascent.

Approaching the spectacle, Lysander did not invest too much interest in it. He hardly preferred crowded situations and though they were unavoidable in the swarming mess of recruits that was the Black Tower, he would rather practice on his own until he was summoned to a more formal lesson. Whenever that would roll about.

It did look amusing, he noted, as he watched the line grow and diminish, gradually fluctuating depending on the amount of recruits. He could try it . . . and he didn’t think he’d do poorly. Unaware of how long he maintained this debate as he simply peered at them, it came as a surprise when a voice rose from behind him, startling him from silent rapture.

“Just wait til they get to the third wall. This one’s a piece of cake.”

Blast! Peering around suddenly, he eyed the woman standing before him. She was a swarthy one, lean and hardly distinguishable in height with Lysander. The gleaming enamel of her dragon pin commanded his attention far more aptly than her bosom did. His bow can instinctively, knowing the consequences of a dearth of deference as well as any Dedicated did. “What can I do for you, Asha’man?” He tried to conceal anger from his voice, hoping to keep it level. Did the woman enjoy looking at him, then, and making him jump so?

“It seems that you have similar interests as I, and so I’ve come to offer you a chance to learn from me.” He very well laughed at this forwardness of this; did she think it was charitable? He wanted no charity from her, pins or no! “You can come or not, it matters little to me, but should you wish to learn how to deal with ‘marks’, then come now or your chance will be gone. In case I didn’t make myself clear, Dedicated Lysander, that is a take it or leave it offer that ends in ten seconds.” A vague proposition at best. She’d her back to him a quicksilver motion, striding away in the opposite direction.

He began at a slow follow, still biting back amusement. She was not the first woman to claim a higher expertise in cloak and dagger. There was a striking confidence about her that reminded him very much of Seianai; though she’d been no Asha’man, the pale-haired woman obviously had received training somewhere in her life. Whatever his feelings for Seianai had been, she was gone from him for now at least–and may her desire to prove him as some sort of fool be gone forever!

“I follow in your wake, Asha’man,” he said quietly. Ronan? Yes, that had been it; she’d instructed him before. He paused before continuing. “I’m sure you’ll teach me as well as you can.” Or fret about breaking a nail on a blade’s bevelled tip, whichever came first.

Her strides fell to a sudden stop. Though the words themselves carried implications of politeness, the woman’s tone carried no such thing. “I beg your pardon?”

Woman or not, the last thing Lysander wanted was a confrontation with an Asha’man. “I meant nothing by it, Asha’man. It was just a comment. Nothing for you to worry about.”

Ronan began to approach him calmly; did she intend to begin whatever this “lesson” was right here an now? In the middle of an open footpath, no less–and he hardly even knew what under the blood winter’s sun she’d be trying to teach him! In all suddenness, her hand grasped around his forearm. Feeling it twist the slightest, he felt Ronan bend her knees before snapping up with a sudden twist. The woman jerked forth his arm and Lysander felt himself going with it, thrown right off his feet and onto the hard ground. Pain shot across his arm.

He seized saidin on instinct, preparing an assault–before realizing the situation. Where he was, what he was about to do. How likely she would parry him. He was no boar-headed fool, one place action in preference over thought. One to strike out at an Asha’man! Lysander was hasty to separate himself from the One Power. It was a wonder to behold, a true burst of exhilaration. That was why he denied himself of all but the smallest amounts. Things of such thrill merely tempted dependence, addiction. He was no hedonist! Lysander would not find himself clawing for the True Source if only to feel life unparalleled once more!

“West Classrooms, Dedicated, if you’re still interested in following,” Ronan said, her smile seeming somewhat less rigid as she continued on her pace. Blight her! Blight all bloody woman!

He abandoned the True Source, pulling himself up onto unsteady legs. He had to gather composure. Lysander knew the importance of separating himself from rage, of living a life with a tiny, smiling mask. Would he let a woman bring that to pieces? Would he let one intimidate him out of an offer? No! Blight her, if only for the sheer purpose of showing her that he wasn’t going to back down at her offer, that he was made of a stronger mettle and, more importantly, mind than any of these burly fools, he would follow her.

This time while not saying anything–and while nursing his own arm–Lysander followed in the Asha’man’s wake.

Leading Lysander toward the West Classrooms, she used the silence and the pace as a means to calm her anger. Blood and ashes! Dedicated were supposed to be arrogant, but not to the point of suicidal. Burn her! Questioning her ability to teach him anything like she was some farmer’s wife looking for amusement! He was lucky she hadn’t incinerated him on the spot for that comment, and if not for her respect of Jarid’s orders, she would have; the way the Dedicated walked lightly and softly after she threw him to the ground either meant he had come to his senses or caught a glimpse of how short his life had been until that moment.

Lighting the torches to flame as they entered a large, bare room that had been akin to a second home to her as she trained with first Girvan and then Faust, she gave a satisfied look around. All the weapons were hanging by hooks or pegs along the left side of the room, tables that sat low to the ground and brilliantly colored cushions spread on the floor occupied the front corner. She hadn’t had the time to order tea to wait for them and as her eyes took a turn about the wide arena, Ronan discarded the notion all together. She seriously doubted that Lysander and herself would bond as mentor and mentee or become the good friends the other two Asha’man had become to her. Likely, he would be much like the rest—competition for who was the best.

“We’ll be training in this room for some time, so commit its location to your memory, Dedicated Lysander. In the event that you don’t remember the lesson I taught on hand to hand fighting, I’m Ronan, Asha’man Ronan to you, as well as assassin to the Black Tower. Oh, don’t look so surprised that I admit it so openly. Among those of us who choose this path in the Tower, you’ll find that we know everyone’s names, faces, and how many marks we’ve taken out.” She motioned for the table and cushions and sank to the ground atop one, her legs folding before her. As Lysander did the same, she continued, “You’ve been approached by me because over the past months you’ve been watched. Your actions have been monitored, your answers to questions considered and you have evidently been selected as one of those rare few who can do what we do—kill in cold blood.”

“Over the course of the next few months, you’ll work with me and a few others to teach you what you’ll need to know about becoming an assassin. The lesson I taught you was a child’s lesson compared to what we’ll practice later on in your training. I’ll show you spots on a person’s body that can kill with the right touch, how to get close to someone without them seeing or hearing you, and many, many other things.” She hid her wince at that last sentence, wondering if she had become daft.

“If you believe that assassinating someone is merely about stabbing them in the heart, then I’ll show you quickly how wrong you are, and how many different ways there are to kill a person, with variations even on those ways. Those weapons you see on the other side of the room are those we use most often in our assassination. Some leave very visible marks, while others leave hardly a trace.” She sighed. “You’ll also learn to rely on your ability to channel far less and find out when you’ll be commanded to kill with the Power and when not to.”

The Dedicated watched her impassively, but she could see the wheels turning in his mind. “What you learn here will be kept relatively secret. Outside our division of the Black Tower there are a very few who know of our true duties to the Dragon and how we carry them out. You still have a choice, though, Lysander. You can choose to do this and follow this path or you can walk out that door and never hear from me again.”

Settling with more comfort into her cushion, she watched the Dedicated’s face avidly even if she knew that reading the emotions on others was not a skill she possessed with any expertise. “If you choose to do this, say the word and I’ll answer any questions that you have, but know that with the wrong move, the wrong words at any time during your apprenticeship to me I can kill you. It’s easy enough to encourage you to forget these few moments, but it’s another thing to completely erase days or even weeks of training unless you die. What is your decision, Dedicated?”

It was decided that he’d not go against the course of events. It had been humbling to be made a spectacle of as the Asha’man had done so–if not downright infuriating–and he decided that angering the woman would hardly bode well for him. It was not below him to treat an Asha’man with respect, no, woman or not. He might even find use in this lesson, he thought . . . so long as he was told what it would even be about!

With a quiet sort of curiosity, Lysander followed Ronan into the particular classroom, peering around. It was suitably large and adorned with a variety of weapons, all hanging on the room’s leftmost wall. Those interested him particularly; some did not seem out of the ordinary at all, though some he couldn’t possibly place a name to for all the life within him. He’d like, at least, to learn what those were called. Smiling quietly to himself, he regarded a group of coloured pillows. He didn’t suppose pillows would make particular good targets for a crossbow though he could only suppose one or two other purposes for them.

Ronan moved about the room with the air of a woman having been here before, certainly more than the slow, cautious movements which hallmarked Lysander’s steps. He did not like new surroundings; “paranoia” was what some might call it. How long before they found a knife in their back, then, for being idle?

“We’ll be training in this room for some time, so commit its location to your memory, Dedicated Lysander. In the event that you don’t remember the lesson I taught on hand to hand fighting, I’m Ronan, Asha’man Ronan to you, as well as assassin to the Black Tower.” Did she just call herself an . . . ? And suddenly, he was able to make sense of her lithe frame and what she’d meant by their similar interests. “Oh, don’t look so surprised that I admit it so openly. Among those of us who choose this path in the Tower, you’ll find that we know everyone’s names, faces, and how many marks we’ve taken out.” The woman took a seat atop one of the cushions. They were to . . . be sat on, then. Not targets. He blinked at the sudden obviousness of this–and he thought of himself as an intellectual!–and followed suit. “You’ve been approached by me because over the past months you’ve been watched. Your actions have been monitored, your answers to questions considered and you have evidently been selected as one of those rare few who can do what we do—kill in cold blood.”

Upon revealing her true place in the Black Tower, Lysander had supposed what was on her agenda. And so it made sense. The woman was an assassin and was looking to educate him in this. He found a sudden wealth of anticipation well up inside of him. Well, Seianai had been skilled in her techniques. Perhaps this woman before him would not be all too different. The notion of Seianai as a teacher, of course, was enough to curdle blood. How would Ronan go about this, then?

And as she continued on, that wealth of anticipation grew itself into a cornucopia of excitement. This was why he’d come to the Black Tower! This was what he was meant to learn! Polearms, swords–they were awkward and superfluous. Weapons meriting true grace, true skill . . . and he found his attention drawn to those hanging from the walls. How many of those would he get to use? How much would he be taught with them?

Ronan elaborated. His lips began to grow dry and he countered this with his tongue, dabbing them wet. Different ways to kill a man? His imagination caught the best of them, thinking of every place where a knife could be embedded, or some of those more sinister looking weapons. Some places, Lyander knew, would certainly bleed more . . . and hurt more . . . yet a reconnaissance mission would grant him no leeway. If silence was due, then it was silence he would assume. Still, a quick kill would not allow him to bring upon the target as much pain as he’d like. It had taken aback even him by how much he’d enjoyed that. Emory had taught him to ward for sound, however. Perhaps there might be room for leeway.

“What you learn here will be kept relatively secret. Outside our division of the Black Tower there are a very few who know of our true duties to the Dragon and how we carry them out. You still have a choice, though, Lysander. You can choose to do this and follow this path or you can walk out that door and never hear from me again.”

It was only at this did the weight of consideration truly hit him. Lysander would not be able to maintain his facade if he had to submit to a teacher, to an entire community knowing that he was no mere Major. Still, if they were assassins . . . they would have no reason to assume that he was anything more or less than one who walked ‘neath the Light. Would they?

“If you choose to do this, say the word and I’ll answer any questions that you have, but know that with the wrong move, the wrong words at any time during your apprenticeship to me I can kill you. It’s easy enough to encourage you to forget these few moments, but it’s another thing to completely erase days or even weeks of training unless you die. What is your decision, Dedicated?”

He spared a pause for this threat. Did Asha’man . . . they didn’t make custom of killing recruits, did they? He could walk from this room right now, certainly . . . and yet this is what he’d been waiting for. After months as a Soldier, months of useless weaponry lessons–well, not all had been useless–he would finally learn to kill as he wanted to. Lysander had killed before and enjoyed it. It was a stimulant like none other and he wanted it.

“I would like to learn beneath you,” he said quietly.

Ronan nodded, seeming unsurprised by this. Had there really been people watching him and tracking his progress so closely? “I can answer whatever questions you may have, Dedicated, before we continue further.”

If any situation allowed for unprecedented enthusiasm, this was it. “Three. Will this training involve me killing any real people? And what’s a ‘mark’? And will I learn to use all of those weapons?” He realized now that he was biting his lip, a rare sign of indecision. “And . . . I apologise if I. . . . I know that I said before what I ought not to have and I apologise.” There. His voice had deepened as he’d said it for it had not come easily, yet there was no use in having some enmity hanging over them like a roiling cloud. He would hardly be able to learn this properly with that; this if nothing else required his fullest attention. This was not how he’d imagined learning this, no, but it was the way the Wheel had spun it out. He might as well do it properly the first time.

Ronan’s lips quirked slightly in a smile a moment before it disappeared. There was raw enthusiasm in his voice that she knew as intimately as a lover, the chance presented before him more than he could imagine bending his voice into emotion. The apology—that was unexpected. She had disciplined him for his actions and he had backed off and despite her lingering irritation, there had been no necessity for the apology. But one of the first rules was always to acknowledge a man’s apology, no matter how unnecessary. “Your apology is accepted, Dedicated. I consider the moment past and we have much of the future still ahead of us so don’t dwell on it. Now for your questions.”

“While in training, there will only be one instance where you will kill a target and that is at the end to prove that you have learned all that I have in me to teach. Practice and lessons will involve effigies and assorted stationary targets.” She gave the man a wry look. “It’s not in the Black Tower’s best interest to waste human life unnecessarily. Being an assassin means even more structure and rules. You don’t kill a person without the command of the Black Tower, and that means the M’hael; you may find yourself in battle, considering your cover and will do so then, but assassination is done with very strict guidelines and rules.” She waved that last away, irritated at herself. “But I’m off track.”

“A ‘mark’ is our term for a person contracted to be killed. The target person to be assassinated is referred to by us as a mark. I’m not sure the origin of the word.” She mused. “Perhaps because they’ve been marked for the kill that it’s slowly translated into mark. But anyway, when you hear that term spoken by any of us, you’ll now know what it means.” The Dedicated nodded his head, interest lighting his eyes.

“You’ll learn to use a great deal of those weapons over there, Dedicated, as well as weapons that aren’t there. Like poison and the Power. But primarily, yes, the weapons you see on that wall there are used for assassinations.” Ronan paused and waited to see if he had any other questions, but his silence stretched out until she was satisfied. Rising, “For the next three days, I’m going to work with you on using a dagger.” She crossed the room and drew one of the stilettos from the hooks and held it up, balancing it in her slender fingers. “Or more specifically, a stiletto. You’ve seen one like this before?”

The Dedicated hesitated the briefest of moments, licking his lips slightly before nodding. “I have.”

She laughed, twirling it in her grasp so that the leather wrapped hilt rested firmly in the pad of her palm. “Admitting that you’ve seen one of these doesn’t make you a Darkfriend, Lysander, so relax. A stiletto is generally associated with assassinations and thieves. Thieves because slipping one of these into the back of a wealthy man means that the clothes won’t be ruined by a large hole in it. Assassination—well, I’m sure that for obvious reasons you could probably figure out why. Tell me why you think it works well.”

His eyes were wide with curiosity and interest as he spoke. “Doesn’t make a man bleed as much and is probably pretty easy to conceal.”

Ronan nodded, “Mostly true, Dedicated. A stiletto, when placed in the right spot, will make a man bleed, regardless of the size of the wound, but in general, yes, it does plenty of damage with not a lot of blood. Smaller stilettos are easy enough to conceal, but as you see, this one here is as long as my forearm, it’ll slip up my sleeve, for sure, but it’s still a large enough weapon. What makes this weapon unique for assassins most importantly is its ability to slip into places usually well protected by the body to get to the heart of things, so to speak.” She approached the Dedicated. “Unbutton your coat and take it off.”

He started at the order but complied with some hesitation. Running her fingers along his abdomen, feeling the gentle arch of his ribcage, she smiled and he swallowed nervously. “Don’t worry, I won’t kiss you, Dedicated.” She poked at him hard above his solar plexus and he grunted. “People are always talking about ‘slipping a dagger between his ribs’, but I’m telling you right now—don’t. Right here, right under the rib cage, is where a man is vulnerable to take a dagger through the heart. Here, feel this.” She pressed his hand along his ribs, running them heavily along the skin. “Feel all that bone? You’re more likely to hit bone and miss hitting your mark if you try to get him as high up as the ribs. It’s a cage surrounding the heart in protection and it does it well. A lucky blow by a skilled knifer will get in there, but my advice is, don’t test your luck.”

Sidestepping about him, her fingers tickled his ribs as they crawled around to the ribs behind and she poked him up to his shoulder blades and down. “If you want to kill a man from behind, Lysander, there are two sweet spots. The first is right here, just below the ribcage.” She pressed and he grunted. “This is the kidney. First, it will drop them instantly because of the pain that it causes, second, when the stiletto slices through the kidney, it rips at it and the man will both bleed to death from the wound as well as from the damage done to his kidneys, stomach and other organs. The internal hemorrhaging will kill him faster than the loss of blood though.”

She pressed at the base of his skull and his head bent forward. “A small upward thrust of the stiletto here will cause nearly instant death. Piercing the brain through either the back in that area or,” She rounded to face him once more, her finger pressing at his eye, which had closed instinctively. “Here. Penetrate the skull and stab at the brain in these two spots, the man will die nearly instantaneously.”

“Lysander, I will give you these instructions, but they are to be used as advice in many cases. This is a piece of advice that I will give you that I hope that you take as instructions: don’t try to make the assassination stupendous and dramatic. Go for the weak points in the body and strike.” She turned toward one of the corners and drew on saidar, pulling one of the effigies close.

“We use this to show you where to strike and when you’ve done it correctly. The outside of who we call ‘Dumar the Dummy’ is padded with wool while the inside is configured with wood in a facsimile of bones and some filled sheep’s bladders loaded with their blood. I’m going to show you a couple more ‘sweet spots’ on a human and then I’m going to hand over this weapon and let you learn by trial and error.” The Dedicated nodded, his eyes traveling to the effigy in curiosity.

She pointed and touched Lysander’s body as she named off the spots. “Piercing areas: Abdomen, under ribs. Short, upward strike to the heart. Bypasses the ribs but the stiletto needs to be at least three hands long. Eye, either one. Best used with a stiletto two hands long or shorter. Base of the skull, upward blow, straight into the brain. Kidney,” she poked at him from behind again. “Make sure it’s beneath the ribs else the bone will slide your dagger off target and twist it.

“Those are the four piercing sweets spots on a body, but if you find that you need to carry something less conspicuous, something that doesn’t scream that you’re there for no good and all you have is a dagger, there are three more sweet spots that can be accessed with even the smallest of knives to kill a person in less than thirty seconds through a very small slice on the skin.” The Dedicated watched her with little apprehension or distaste, his eyes following her and her motions when he could.

Holding out her arm, Ronan took his hand and curled his fingers about the bicep. “If you squeeze gently beneath the bicep where the arm bone is,” she paused a moment as the pressure was gently exerted and then moved his fingers slightly up a little more. “Do you feel that? The pulsing you feel is someone’s heartbeat and that’s the blood pumping through their body. This is one of three major arteries on the human body that will cause a person to bleed to death in less than a minute. It’s just beneath the surface of the skin, and when sliced, a person has roughly 15 seconds to tourniquet it before they die.” Kneeling down in front of him, she grabbed him high on the inside of his upper thigh and she smiled as he gave a sharp squawk of surprise. “Second spot. High inner thigh has another of these arteries, if you’ll feel where I’m pinching, you should also feel a slight throbbing. Slice that and the effects will be the same.”

Ronan rose and finally pressed her finger to the side of his neck beneath his jaw. “And finally here. If you’re going to slit someone’s throat, don’t hope that you’ll hit the right spot, slice right here on either side of the neck. Slice the artery and you’ll make them bleed to death within a matter of seconds. Slice their throat and someone could realistically come along before the person suffocates and Heal them in time.”

“Now, Dumar is going to be your mark for the next couple of days. Today we’ll start with some very basic piercing practice. If you hit the spot right, then you’ll make Dumar bleed. Miss and you’ll have a mark who could probably crawl away if you left him for dead.” Ronan smiled and pulled out another stiletto, handing it to Lysander. “Well, there’s no time like the present, let’s get started.”

He was disappointed perhaps even past what he’d have expected when he learned how much–or truly little–actual killing his training would incorporate. True, he supposed it would be worth more than the Tower’s name to have untrained recruits traipsing about upon unsuspecting victims . . . though even the logic in this was met bitterly. Foolish to attempt to change the unchangeable, surely, but even that stout philosophy made this none the easier for him.

Strict guidelines, he thought tepidly. Where was the excitement in that?

Ronan’s words carried from the subject of marks to the weapons on the wall, the allurement of the glinting
steal and menacing curvatures of some of the blades. A wicked thought, planting one of those in someone’s back

“For the next three days, I’m going to work with you on using a dagger.” A dagger. Well, he supposed his training would have to begin somewhere–and it was not like he’d had much formal training in such a weapon. “Or more specifically, a stiletto. You’ve seen one like this before?”

A pause. Yes, actually, he had. The tapered blade reflected one exactly Seianai had used in her attempt to kill him. It was standard issue of Kiserai Alshan–the Lord’s Glory–a guild and token of Lysander’s past. He licked his lips. “I have,” he said quietly. What would the woman infer?

She laughed, giving the blade a small bit of a twirl before holding it comfortably. “Admitting that you’ve seen one of these doesn’t make you a Darkfriend, Lysander, so relax.” His stomach turned to ice. “A stiletto is generally associated with assassinations and thieves. Thieves because slipping one of these into the back of a wealthy man means that the clothes won’t be ruined by a large hole in it. Assassination—well, I’m sure that for obvious reasons you could probably figure out why. Tell me why you think it works well.”

Peering curiously at it as he began to dismiss the Darkfriend line as something of a fluke, he said, “Doesn’t make a man bleed as much and is probably pretty easy to conceal.”

As she elaborated on its uses, Lysander began tucking this information safely away far past the chasms of memory. After all, if he was to be any good at this, committing this information to memory would hardly be enough. He needed to know this. Approaching him, Ronan said, “Unbutton your coat and take it off.”

Take his . . . ? Surely there had to be a thousand better means for demonstrations! Did this woman just want to ogle him up, a recruit of less than eighteen years of age? Still, that did not mean he could refuse; he doffed the coat uncomfortably. She ran her fingers across his abdomen and he shifted his weight where he stood. Blight her, but the woman’s fingers felt cold. He swallowed. “Don’t worry, I won’t kiss you, Dedicated.” Very well she didn’t, then; he could hold saidin without the stupid woman knowing! She poked him suddenly. She demonstrated the difficulty of killing a man through the bony prison of the ribcage.

Stepping around behind him–with the nerve to tickle him, too!–she elaborated about the “sweet spots.” He found his anger beginning to dissipate with sheer excitement rising in its stead. The kidney. He hardly could imagine something like that, a blade tearing into the inner organs, ripping them open . . . letting them bleed . . . and making the victim scream. He was out-and-out smiling by the time he found the sense to snatch it from his face.

She continued, citing the skull and the eyes as other sweet spots. A man without a working brain would die almost immediately, even despite the example made by some of the more boorish recruits. They defied every ounce of logic by continuing to walk around.

The effigy she proffered was impressive. He smiled tepidly at the name; he wondered how many times this Dumar had effectively died. The way Ronan described it made it seem so realistic–and he wondered, a tiny thread of anger lighting again, why Ronan could not very well have demonstrated these spots on it.

He was even more interested in the notion of bleeding. A sloppy death, certainly, though easier performed. Lysander wondered how much of a sadistic side he’d coddled these past months, but a nick to the bicep, thigh or neck seemed awfully appealing.

“Now, Dumar is going to be your mark for the next couple of days. Today we’ll start with some very basic piercing practice. If you hit the spot right, then you’ll make Dumar bleed. Miss and you’ll have a mark who could probably crawl away if you left him for dead.” Ronan smiled and pulled out another stiletto, handing it to Lysander. “Well, there’s no time like the present, let’s get started.”

Nodding, Lysander emptied himself of emotion and formed the Void. He despised holding the Void, feeling the warmth of saidin yet not touching it. He was no hedonist, and denied himself these primitive pleasures, as mind-numbingly difficult as that was. It was for the good of the lesson, however. He needed that oneness.

And as he accepted the stiletto–he held it comfortably, trying to think of it as more of an extended appendage and less of a weapon–Lysander began listing off the sweet spots in his mind. Beneath the ribs. Upwards to the heart. The . . . yes, she’d said the eyes, even demonstrating with his own. The biceps. The thigh. And, finally, right beneath his jaw. Of course.

Eyeing Dumar’s abdomen, Lysander approached carefully. Perhaps it was better that Ronan had demonstrated on himself; he could still feel a phantom of her touch mark the exact spot on his own body. He rounded the dummy slowly, watching. He tried to imagine himself placed within the scenario, though his attempts fell fruitlessly short. He couldn’t picture Dumar–the dummy standing so frightfully still–being a true mark. Still, he supposed this wasn’t really about eclipsing the situation but rather practising the blade movements. Still. . . .

Standing before Dumar, Lysander estimated about where the ribcage would be and held the stiletto carefully beneath it, mentally marking where he’d make the blow. Then, thrusting with a grunt, he stabbed the stiletto into the back. He drew back. A tiny spout of blood, far too narrow to merit success.

So much for making as narrow of a wound as possible, he regarded quietly, thoughts echoing distantly through the Void. If the stiletto went in too far, the wider end would create too large of a wound to justify such a tapered weapon. Dumar spouted little blood, it appeared. The sacks hidden within the dummy remained barely touched, though at least he’d not hit bone.

A second attempt. Was it so much of a crime to want to make the incision as narrow as possible instead of jamming the blade in thoughtlessly? Dumar, at least, thought so. Pushing the blade forth, Lysander increased the pressure to sink the long blade in deeper. He drew back. Nothing again!

“You’ll have to hit deeper than that,” Ronan instructed.

Blight her! Shockwaves of anger threatened to bring the Void collapsing upon itself. Stepping forth, Lysander thrust the stiletto forth again; the solid thud of steel on wood marked wood. Bloody ashes! He realized he’d missed the mark by half a hand too high. “I can do this,” he said quietly, as much to himself as it was to Ronan. He’d not have her jabbing himself in the back again if only to show him where the bloody kidney was!

The fourth time, at least, rendered success. He embraced the numbness for what it was, calming his temper. He placed the dagger in further this time, matching the mark of his first two attempts. A spout of blood pouring out from Dumar’s back. Lysander nodded with decision. He’d let the stiletto ensure as narrow of a cut as feasible; it would not come by coddling it. A lesson learned, he supposed. The stiletto was too long to be treated like a pushpin.

“The heart, now,” Ronan reminded him. There was no point in getting angry for the woman for merely instructing him, he supposed. That did not make him like it, though!

There seemed something almost poetic about embedding a knife in a man’s heart. He relished the chance to do it as he pleased, if only for the purpose of practice: with a grand flourish and a sweeping wave of the blade. There was little logic to dramatics, he supposed . . . he himself never usually abided by them . . . but that did not mean there had to be a sterility to everything he did. It would certainly not be the most feasible in the line of action, but Lysander found himself drawn to a sweeping wave of steel.

Though I’d better not, he decided. He didn’t want the woman to think he was too dense to follow instructions.

He guided a path with his hand on the dummy’s chest, marking where the heart would be. Ronan had said that he’d have to bypass the ribcage. That he could do, he supposed, though the layers of cotton surely wouldn’t help. Mapping out where the ribcage ended was no easier on the dummy than on his own chest. And so Lysander used his own chest–he held less “meat” on him than this dummy did, so to speak–to guided where best it would be to plant the stiletto.

Only when Lysander felt that he’d done a thorough job did he thrust the weapon upwards. He coupled strength with accuracy to ensure that the mark was no feeble cut; he needed some heavy effort. The spurt of blood was his trophy.

“Good,” Ronan said. “I think that’s all that I’ll ask of you today. You’ll return here tomorrow at the same time to take up where you left off. You’re dismissed.”

Already? Blast! He’d not even been able to finish what she’d wanted! It was with a slow regret that Lysander returned the stiletto. Turning to leave with a hasty salute, Lysander had made it all the way to the door when he remembered what he’d left behind. He stifled a sigh. He couldn’t very well go out into the winter air without his coat, could he? 

When he’d found the opportunity after leaving the day prior, Lysander had scrawled down the locales of the different sweet spots on a spare slip of vellum. He knew that he’d not be able to remember this when training resumed again and didn’t much care for Ronan poking about his body for the purpose of some sort of demonstration. Once training with the dagger was complete, however, Lysander did not doubt that he’d be able to recite these off like any professional.

Returning to the West Classrooms the next day, he was unsurprised to find Ronan there waiting for him. He vowed that no matter what pressure the Asha’man pressed on him, he’d not take off his coat–and, fortunately, he found himself not needing to test that resolve. He accepted the stiletto cautiously, feeling its haft mould in with the grooves and bumps of his hands. It felt comfortable, like more of an appendage than ever.

And so Lysander began the first of two additional days of training. Ronan appeared keen to have Lysander commit these to knowledge. It was not merely that he was to progress to each new sweet spot once one had been completed successfully; again and again, Lysander was to test his all on poor unsuspecting Dumar, repeating each move where correction was needed.

The eyes. Either would work, she’d said, and Lysander found himself attempting both, though he did not doubt each respective attempt would be quite the same. It was with a shorter stiletto that Lysander made this attempt; the one he’d used up until that point was, put simply, far too long. The shorter one was different to hold, unsurprisingly, though quite the same in principle. He was sure to come in on the opposite direction of the eye for which he was aiming–not that he knew why or had any reason, of course. And for each attempt, there was a satisfying tear as the blade cut through the cotton and an equally satisfying squelch as the sack of sheep’s blood was perforated, causing the dummy to bleed two symmetrical streaks of blood from the eyes. Memorable imagery if anything warranted the title.

That marked the end of the puncturing. Though not evoking quite as much force, slicing across the skin seemed to warrant a more delicate, skillful approach than anything else he’d done so far. Lysander opted to keep the shorter stiletto, for anything too long and extravagant would likely only impede his progress.

The bicep. He couldn’t imagine there’d be much room for error in this one. After all, it wasn’t the actual muscle to which he was supposed to focus his aim but rather any of the three arteries. Lysander made this a rapid approach as he hastened forward, keeping the dagger apart from dramatics. It surprised him that this indeed was indeed one of the harder elements. Lysander was not a man for the superfluous, or so he might’ve thought. It was best that he corrected this before any sort of problem rose from it. The stiletto sliced through the “skin” as expected and he was rewarded by a fountainhead of rising blood, certainly more than any of the other wounds. The woman, it appeared, had not been leading him astray.

The thigh. How impossible would that one be at night? And with a constantly moving mark? he wondered curiously. Perhaps if the target was standing completely and invariably still, he conceded . . . though surely that would not happen often. Still, if only a small nick of the skin was required, then he could just as easily be wrong. Lysander decided that a stealthy attempt would fit again this well; crawling up from Dumar’s left side, stiletto in hand, he eyed the leg. Three arteries could not be hard to miss. Nevertheless, as his blade made hasty work of the dummy’s thigh, no wellspring of blood rose. How far up the thigh do the arteries run? He conceded that the mark of his wound had been far closer to the pelvis than Ronan had demonstrated their first day. The Shadow preserve him, it was difficult enough being wrong! He made good work of his second attempt, thankfully; the leg rendered such a copious amount of blood that it might have disgusted another man. Lysander, however, only felt gratification.

The jaw–and the final one of the sweet spots. It was that minute spot beneath the actual jaw. He could hardly doubt that there was blood to be lost from that spot, especially after what had been demonstrated by the bicep and thigh. A quicksilver approach, then, he decided. Taking the stiletto, Lysander hurtled himself for the target. No, it was not the jaw that marked his attempt. It was the throat. He was going to slit Dumar’s throat; he enjoyed the notion of that greatly. Seconds to bleed out. Rearing the dagger, Lysander leapt forth and, eyes focused upon that single spot, he watched as steel met wool, and the victim literally tore open. Ronan had not kidded him. He caught a splash of it as it speckled his face with red.

Only then did he realize what he was doing: covered in blood, Lysander was heaving heavy breaths, a wide grin splayed across his face. It had been an exhilaration.

Ronan thanked the Asha’man for the items that he’d given her and she walked away, jars, vials and pouches held in a net of Air while she walked the short distance back to her classrooms, cutting across the Northern Yards to save time. Lysander was due to arrive for his next lesson very soon and the last thing she needed was to show up late for their assignment, how would that look to the apprenticed assassin? The truth was, she was caught in a meeting with the M’hael, discussing certain items and points to help improve the organization of the current assassins. With her hands on a full listing of men and women at the disposal of the Black Tower, she had begun to see patterns in who did what and specialties and had eventually ventured over to speak to Poettre about ideas she had for the group. The meeting had run on far longer than she’d expected and only asking to be excused to attend Lysander had allowed her to get away at all.

He had done very well with the stiletto and had instructed that he use it at least once a day for an hour in practice to become more adept. She knew from her own deep cover in Caemlyn that even a month’s worth of sloth had been detrimental to her abilities and her skills had been honed back to razor sharpness after two straight weeks of nothing but practice. If he was going to work for the Black Tower, Ronan wanted to be sure that whatever methods he specialized in, he excelled at them and didn’t give some paltry half effort.

She entered the designated classroom and began weaving tables of Air, misting them opaque with a few fine threads of Earth and then setting the different pouches, vials and whatnot along them. She had only just finished arranging the items when Lysander sauntered in with the same arrogant walk every other Black Tower trainee bore. “Good morning, Dedicated,” she replied with a nod to acknowledge his promptness. “Take a look along these tables and tell me what you see and what you think these are.”

Giving a silent nod, Lysander walked slowly along the other side of the platforms, his head bent to look at the different things. He stopped on one small pile of mushrooms and pointed, “Those are poisonous I’ve heard.” He finally stated and then glanced around. “So it stands to reason that the rest of these are poisons of some sort as well.”

Ronan nodded. “Good. Most of us recognize at least one poison on sight or smell before we get any sort of training, but as you can see, there is quite an assortment of different poisons in the world and while you may or may not ever use a poison to assassinate someone, your knowledge should at least encompass this in a basic form of recognition.”

“Have you ever used poison, Asha’man?”

She paused and then shook her head. “No. It’s too unpredictable and some people can actually develop immunities to certain poisons. Arsenic, for instance. Taken in very small quantities every day over a period of time, and you’ll never be poisoned by it. Certain poisons that have been distilled into powders always give someone with enough time and nerve to develop resistance to it. I trust my blade and the Power to do it, but I also recognize there are times that poison would seem the best action.” She shrugged and smiled.

“Today I’m going to show you what each of these are, how you find them and what they will do to a person. Starting with the mushrooms.” She held up the one Lysander had pointed out. “Deathcap. It looks like an ordinary mushroom that you might cook with but notice the ring at the top of the stem and how it widens. Dry and grind it up and place it in someone’s food or coerce a cook to cook it up and put it on someone’s plate. Be mindful that if you have someone cook it that they take great care to wash the pots several times to get the poison out of the metal.

“The Spotted Cat mushroom. Distinctive by the white spots on the top and the flat cap. There is generally a ring about the stem to distinguish it from other edible species. Destroying angels is nearly as poisonous as the deathcap and among these beauties, death may take up to a full day to happen. You can identify matured specimens by the slender stem with the ring at the top and the thin cap. As a young specimen like you see here, many people would mistake it for a common, edible puffball. The Tiny Dancer, deadly and easily confused with other varieties that have a similar light brown appearance. The ribbing on the bottom of the cap and the ring about the stem marks it undoubtedly as poisonous. If not found and treated within one day, the poison will kill your mark. Another beautiful mushroom here when found among pines, Milady’s Bloodcap is blood-red and can grow up to 12 inches wide. This is generally not fatal, unless you concentrate the dosage.”

Lysander watched Ronan speak avidly, his eyes drinking in the characteristics that she pointed out. “Next, the plants. There are some very common and well known poisons that can be obtained at nearly every shady apothecary that I’m sure you know about. Nightshade—also called Belladonna, hemlock, baneberry, you may have even heard of oleander.” Ronan held up each one of the plants while Lysander nodded his understanding or perhaps his familiarity with the names and she continued, “But I’m going to show you some items here that you can find out in the grasses and trees that you may not realize are poison, but are just the same.”

Rolling her fingers along some deep purple berries, she continued, “These are from the privet bush, an evergreen plant found in most wooded areas, the leaves and flowers of this plant are, ironically, edible, while the berries are poisonously fatal to man. Birds love the berries and can eat them without problem but man can’t. Privet bushes grown in good conditions will provide a very ample supply of berries to make any assassin happy. Foxglove. A very pretty flower that will almost always adorn some farm woman’s table in the spring and summer. And a very lucky assassin will get its leaves and start making a drug that will cause the heart to eventually stop.

“The yew is probably the best loved tree of assassins.” She picked up the fanned leaf branch with red berries adorning it and twirled it in her fingers. “Poisons can be extracted from everything except for the skin of the berry itself. Arches prize it for the excellent longbows it makes, we prize it for its versatility. Wolfsbane—once again one of those all purpose poisons where nearly every part of the plant can result in quick and rather embarrassing death.” She held up the stalk, the purple flowers dancing with her fingers. “Death from either a prick in their bloodstream or ingestion will come within two hours, but there is a known cure for this if someone recognizes the symptoms, so be very careful when poisoning in this fashion.”

She held up what looked like a small bean pod. “This is the castor bean, and from it, castor oil is made from the inside to help people who have bowel problems and the like. But the shell.” She tapped on it with her finger, “Contains what I would think is my favorite poison and should I decide to poison someone, it would be my choice. But you will excuse me if I don’t open the vial. I have to stress, Lysander, that if you use it, use it with great caution. Ricin poisons by either ingestion, injection or inhalation and once the poison is in your system, there is no cure. Handle this with gloves and a protective shield of Air about your face so that you don’t get it in your system and always work in a still breeze environment.”

She swept her hand along the whole of the first two tables. “These poisons are all items that are found within wooded areas, the mushrooms, the plants, each of them can even be found in Andor due to their forested areas. Today you and I will be Skimming to the Blackwood on the other side of the Two Rivers district and I’m going to set you out to go and find five specimens of what I just showed you today. Come.” Leaving the poisons where they were, she locked and warded the door with a deadly surprise should anyone want to wander in, and led Lysander to the Traveling Yards. She hadn’t the strength to Travel, but she could Skim and opened the Gateway to step onto her stone balcony.

As they moved through the empty void, Ronan looked to the Dedicated. “Knowing your poisons is half knowing what they do, how strong they are and how quickly they kill. The other half is knowing how to find them when there isn’t a shady apothecary nearby and learning to prepare them yourself. Is it a part of an assassin’s job to do this? I think it is. And in your position, more important than knowing what he poison is, is knowing the cure. Knowing how a poison tastes, smells, how long you have until the antidote won’t work and knowing what doses to administer to make it work.” She felt the end of their trip coming and opened up the other side of the Gateway, stepping out into a dark, misted section of forest, some of the nearby bushes sliced neatly through by the portal.

“I’ll be here waiting for you, Dedicated, but you have two hours to find five specimens of what I’ve shown you. All of them are natural to this environment and you shouldn’t need that much time, but I’m generous on occasions.” She smiled and sat down into the mossy grass. “If you get lost or can’t find me, send up a flare of the Power and I’ll come to you. If you haven’t returned in two hours time I’ll send up a flare and you had better be back within ten minutes else you’re marked as a deserter.” There was no smile this time but Lysander seemed unaffected by the threat leading Ronan to believe he would return without doubt. “Now go.”

His lessons on the finer points of assassination had quickly grown to be his most favoured part of the day. True, Lysander could hardly call them “his lessons with Ronan” as the woman had to be his least favourite part of the whole endeavour, though he considered himself patient enough to abide by her presence. It was far too obvious to be stated that she hardly belonged within this sector of the Black Tower, let alone the Black Tower itself . . . though he would not jeopardize these lessons again by making his feelings known.

“Good morning, Dedicated,” she said upon his entrance, nodding her head. “Take a look along these tables and tell me what you see and what you think these are.”

Lysander peered over at the series of platforms woven, he supposed, of saidar. Walking alongside of them, he peered at each intently. “Plants” was the answer that first came to mind as, well, each indeed did look to be a plant, though he supposed he could exclude that answer by the sheer obviousness of it. Finally, he spotted the mushrooms, pointing at them. “Those are poisonous I’ve heard,” he said. Who’d have thought that idle warnings of his idiot mother would help him learn of assassination? “So it stands to reason that the rest of these are poisons of some sort as well.”

“Good. Most of us recognize at least one poison on sight or smell before we get any sort of training, but as you can see, there is quite an assortment of different poisons in the world and while you may or may not ever use a poison to assassinate someone, your knowledge should at least encompass this in a basic form of recognition.”

Poisons. There was something awfully seductive about them, awfully . . . different. Oh, he’d place the merit of a good blade over them, certainly, though that did not mean they’d be interesting to try. After all, assassination was something of an art form. One did not become a master painter by using but one or two different colours. “Have you ever used poison, Asha’man?”

Shaking her head, Ronan replied, “No. It’s too unpredictable and some people can actually develop immunities to certain poisons. Arsenic, for instance. Taken in very small quantities every day over a period of time, and you’ll never be poisoned by it. Certain poisons that have been distilled into powders always give someone with enough time and nerve to develop resistance to it. I trust my blade and the Power to do it, but I also recognize there are times that poison would seem the best action.” A resistance? He tucked that tiny tidbit away.

Ronan began to educate him of the various different poisons that she had before her, and though Lysander did not expect himself to remember each of them and their every detail, he did his best. Death cap. Spotted cat. Destroying angels. Tiny dancer. Milady’s bloodcap. Nightshade–yes, he’d heard of that one, even if he’d not been able to recognize it. Berries from privet bushes. Foxglove. Yew, which certainly came as a surprise, as he prized himself in his skill with a bow–one of the few real skills Lysander had as a Major–and had used yew bones innumerably. Wolfsbane. Castor bean shells.

Ronan then explained what was next on their agenda: Two Rivers, Andor. This place was hardly unheard of to him as, after all, it was where the Dragon Reborn had been born. Together, they passed through to the Traveling Yards where Ronan wove Skimming to bring them to their destination.

“I’ll be here waiting for you, Dedicated, but you have two hours to find five specimens of what I’ve shown you,” the woman explained. “All of them are natural to this environment and you shouldn’t need that much time, but I’m generous on occasions.” The woman found herself a seat upon the ground. “If you get lost or can’t find me, send up a flare of the Power and I’ll come to you. If you haven’t returned in two hours time I’ll send up a flare and you had better be back within ten minutes else you’re marked as a deserter.” If Lysander wanted to turn his back on the Black Tower, he’d certainly have done so before. “Now go.”

And so Lysander turned about, cleaving a path for himself through the forested undergrowth. He was no fool. Seizing the One Power, Lysander wove hoops of Illusion around the trees, banding them in bright pink to mark his path. He tied each individual weave off. Only when he reached a clearing after several minutes of walking and not spying any sort of such poisonous fauna in the forest, did Lysander begin to use strategy. Using Illusion again, Lysander spun out Spirit, dyed with the greens and reds of Earth and Fire, and created facsimiles of each of the plants. He could only compose them of memory, certainly, so the details left a little to be desired, though it would suffice. Eleven plants and Lysander only needed five.

“Yew would be easiest,” he murmured. Asha’man Bedouin already had instructed him in how best to identify trees that would yield the best wood for forming longbows; indeed, yew trees could easily be identified by their fluorescent red cones. Peering around at the trees, Lysander began looking around for the plump evergreens. His efforts hardly took him long, for he was able to spy the tree even at a distance. Weaving Fire and Air, Lysander sawed off one of the branches and brought it wafting over to him, complete with cones and berries. Turning to the Illusions, Lysander untied the two-dimensional image of the yew and let it fade from existence.

He began foraging again, realizing how much of a difficulty this would be. Most of the mushrooms he spotted were dull and brown, making them indistinguishable from the tiny dancer, he remembered, though he hardly could recall whatever defining marks the tiny dancer had that would be useful to him. Nevertheless, after several more minutes of searching, he was able to find one or two that looked close enough to the destroying angels. Again he returned to the clearing and let another one of the ten remaining Illusions fade. Depositing the yew and the destroying angels onto the grassy forest floor, Lysander wove a dome of Air around them. That ought to fend off foragers.

As he returned again to the forest, Lysander spied a hare bouncing about in the distance. He found himself with an idea. Hasty flows of Air snatched up the hare before it could do anything else. Lysander brought that, too, back to the clearing, binding it to the ground. Wait for me, he instructed soundlessly.

He was pleased to find foxglove growing amongst a patch of other wildflowers; he uprooted it along with two identical others. Time was unquestionably passing as, after a whole estimated thirty minutes without adding anything, Lysander was able to add to his collection what he was sure was a pair of death cap mushrooms. Two more hares also could be found, these standing stock-still. Flows of Air snatched these up, too, and he brought his whole bounty back to the clearing.

Foraging continued as Lysander again returned to the forest, this time faced with his longest tenure without finding a single thing. Oh, he passed more foxglove, though bringing that back would hardly help. Finally, he spied the tall plant that had come to be identified with castor oil plants. He smiled. He was sure to use saidin to harvest that and kept it as far away from him as possibly. There were fortunately too many trees for there to be a wind.

As Lysander returned to the clearing, he realized finally that he had found all five poisons. By estimation, Lysander supposed that he had been out in the forest for . . . a bit more than an hour, likely. Peering at the three tethered hares, Lysander smiled quietly to himself. Work to be done.

Instead of gathering up his bounty and returning to Ronan, he found himself with a better idea. Lysander hastened himself into the forest, foraging again for something of another nature. Several minutes found him with two more animals–not hares, no, but rather shrews. Flows of Air bound those to the ground, too.

It was time to test out the poisons, he decided, on these few subjects. There was more than enough of the plants to bring back to the Asha’man. The weaker toxins would be tested on the smaller animals; their tiny bodies likely would not be able to hold up to such abuse. Sitting upon the ground, Lysander was slow and methodical in his surgical approach. He first took the death cap which, of the two varieties of mushrooms he’d harvested, was the most poisonous.

From his pocket, he pulled out a stiletto. He’d brought it, after all, thinking that he might find use for it today in Ronan’s lesson. How right he was. Slicing the mushroom into chunks, he approached one of the hares. It took flows of Air to bind it still, its mouth open, and Lysander poked in bits of the mushroom. Between two of the hares, Lysander divided the mushroom evenly, and did the same with the destroying angel, forcing some down the two hares’ throats. With their little hare bodies and with the added mushrooms’ potency . . . well, he’d have to see.

Lysander then began to shred up the leaves of one of the foxgloves, administering it to one of the shrews. He did the same with yew berries, treating them to the other shrew. He watched patiently.

Remembering Ronan’s warning, Lysander wove a barrier of Air before his face as he worked with the castor beans, being sure only to touch them with flows of the Power. He was clever in extracting the ricin from the plants. It took a grid of Air, Earth and Water passing through some of the beans. The extracted solution hovered before him; taking another grid solely of Air and Water, Lysander separated any liquid from it, rendering it into a powdered state. It was a healthy (or unhealthy) quantity and, by means of force, Lysander administered that to the final remaining hare. After but a few moments’ pause, Lysander’s eyes lit when he watched the hare slump over. He turned over to the two other hares. They, too, were dead. Only one of the two shrews–the yew one, likely–had died, though the other appeared limp. He plunged his stiletto into the shrew’s back.

Suddenly, before Lysander had even thought of getting up, a faint explosion-like sound echoed. Spinning around, he watched as the vestiges of a flare began to dissipate in the air.

“Blood and ashes!” he shouted. He had ten minutes to return! He began racing to the line of trees when he realized he’d forgotten his bounty. Lysander snatched them all up with a weave of Air as though they’d been snatched up in a rucksack. He raced off through the undergrowth, sprinting for all the life within him.

Which way? Had he even entered the clearing from that direction? He clawed through the plants, the trees, very nearly tripping over a haphazard log. The Great Lord preserve him!

Finally, he spied a relief: a pink-banded tree, coloured with the Illusion he’d woven. He followed the banded trees through the forest, nearly tripping over himself, when he finally found Ronan standing there for him. Lysander collapsed to the ground, gasping, letting the collection of poisons fall to the ground. Saidin and the Void both were gone. His skin burned with the scratches of a hundred trees in passing, his lungs aching and limbs shaking.

He’d made it back in time, at least. If barely.

Ronan settled into a comfortable position on the floor, motioning for Lysander to do the same. “There will be times when the best method of killing someone will require a certain amount of discretion. That is to say, the Black Tower will wish to deny their involvement so prohibit you from using the One Power to kill, and stabbing someone may seem too messy or obvious. That’s when you’ll be required to kill someone with your bare hands.”

Lysander nodded, “How often are you asked to be discreet?”

Her smile was hard. “Often enough that you need to learn the skill, Dedicated. The Black Tower is at war, and that means eliminating opponents and enemies by any means possible—which is why we have duties here in the first place. Many times you’ll be directed to assassinate by a particular means, sometimes to make a certain point and sometimes to hide that point. But the purpose of it isn’t to question, only to obey.” The Dedicated’s head bobbed once more in understanding. “But I’m digressing. I’m sure that you can think of at least one way of killing someone with your bare hands, so speak your mind on what you can think of.”

“Well, the obviously, Asha’man.” Lysander replied. “Strangling someone.”

“Very good.” She acknowledged. “Perhaps one of the easiest methods to fall back on, and yet it can take up to three minutes for a person to pass out and die from lack of air. That’s because you’re limited the flow of air to their lungs with your fingers, but the method is flawed. It works, but it’s flawed.”

“I’m going to give you a few methods or killing with your bare hands that will assure the preson’s death in at least a minute, sometimes far less, and they’re all relatively direct methods. The trick is to find the weak spots on a person that will kill them quickly and effectively, which means that you’ll focus on two particular areas. The lungs, or more specifically, the air they breathe, and the head or the brain.” She rose, the Dedicated following suit quickly. “I’m going to demonstrate them slowly on you so that you can see the method, and then our friend Dumar will help you refine those moves.”

“With a dagger, you have the option of locating several sweet spots on a person and killing them quickly, but with your bare hands, you’re limited to merely three options. All are effective, quick, and require strength and agility.” Ronan stepped forward, her fingers brushing against Lysander’s adam’s apple. Pressing firmly, she felt him resist before taking a step back. “Here is a weak spot on the human throat, and when struck with a blade of your hand, can crush the windpipe instantly. This denies the lungs all access to air and a person will suffocate within a minute. I’ll demonstrate on Dumar to show you the best technique.”

She took a single step backward so that her back was to Dumar and then she spun around, her arm swinging with the force of her momentum. The side of her hand struck the area of the throat and she heard the sharp crack of eggshell splitting from the power of her blow. Within seconds, poor Dumar was peeing egg yolk, the yellowed liquid dropping thickly to the floor. Lysander watched with a raised brow of interest and she smiled, gathering up the yolk with Air and then incinerating it with a hot weave of Fire. “I’ll replace the egg in Dumar when I’ve finished my demonstration. You’ll note that I had my back to the effigy originally and this is to get maximum power from your blow. If you were to face him, the swing of your arm could only come back halfway before driving home, while with your back to him, you can pivot nearly three quarters more distance and gather that much more strength.”

She moved back to the Dedicated and made a slow motion of slamming her hand into his nose. “When struck properly, with enough force at the right angle, the heel of your hand can drive a man’s nose into his brain. This will cause a person to die immediately if done right. Let me show you.”

Facing poor Dumar, she pulled her arm down and back near her hip and the drove it with as much force as she could into Dumar’s face. The nose gave with a sharp snap and he even fell over. With weaves of Air, she pulled him back up and then realigned his nose with threads of Air once more. “Best technique is to drive from your hip upward. This will cause the blade of the cartilage in the nose to come upward into the brain and pierce it fatally. I always suggest from the hip because if gives you more distance to build up momentum and thus, strength.”

She didn’t turn back to the Dedicated, but this time stood behind Dumar. “The last way to kill someone effectively with your bare hands, is to simply snap their neck and it’s not as easy as it sounds.” Burn her, but it’d taken a week’s worth of practice to do it consistently. There was both the necessary strength and the right amount of snap required to break someone’s neck. Placing her hand beneath Dumar’s jaw, her other hand twisted the opposite way on the back of his head and she pulled hard and sharp, her hands coming apart in opposite directions. “The trick is in hand placement,” she said after Dumar’s head snapped and then hung limply to the side. “Place your hand under the mark’s jaw and the other on the back of his head, grip hard and pull your hands apart. Try to make the hand holding the jaw pull upward slightly and you’ll find there’s less resistance.”

Once more, a weave of Air meant to crack at the right pressure held Dumar’s head up and she inserted the extra egg into Dumar’s throat from a small door in the back. “Now it’s your turn. I’ve shown you the moves, but you need to practice the technique to get it right. I have plenty of eggs here and I can channel until the sun goes down, so I want you to perform these moves until you can do each one three times in a row without failure. Whichever you’d like to begin with is up to you, but let’s get started.”