Murder in the Dark: Kirsten

Kirsten leaned her whole body weight into her strike, feeling the pommel of her sword hard against her breastbone while she forced the blade through muscle, flesh and bone to find the beating vitals beneath. She'd been shocked by how difficult it was, physically, to kill a man. Nearly as shocked as she'd been to discover she felt no guilt or pity for this man, whose murdering ways had brought death to so many. She'd thought that taking a life, especially in so grim and grizzly a manner, would evoke feelings of pity and guilt. At least, that's how it happened in the songs. Instead, she glared fiercely into the thugs eyes as he died, hate blazing inside her.

That's for all the weeping goodwives, beaten children and disfigured whores left in your wake, you dirty Tilean bastard!

It took three sharp tugs and her boot against the mans face to draw her blade from his chest. By then the fight was almost over, she turned away from the struggles of the last thug to watch the door, ready to fillet the first man who came through.

What will Wanda think of me now? she thought, strangely perturbed by the notion.