Lansat gave a yell of fright as a loud clanging came from his companion's armor. The bigger man whirled around and drew his blade all in a single, swift motion. He had been hit in the calf with an arrow, the sharp point piercing his armor and flesh alike, but he stayed on his feet. He was not one to go down so easily.

“Assassins! I knew it!” Lansat screamed, cowering behind his hired muscle.

“Stay quiet! I am sworn by my blood to protect you, so just remain calm and everything will be fine.” He scanned the trees, looking for signs of movement. He saw another arrow zooming towards him, and only barely dodged out of the way, pushing the scrawny noble aside as he did so. Lansat fell to the ground and immediately began crawling away.

“Kill them!” He cried as he ran, getting to his feet and fleeing as fast as he was able. Kellen growled softly, but there was no time to chase after Lansat. If he let his guard down, he was dead for sure. He started towards from where the arrow had come, but was taken by surprise as a lithe figure suddenly appeared from behind a tree, slamming its forearm into his throat. He let out a gurgle as he dropped to his knees, and in another second the attacker was on him, slamming his head into the ground with everything they had.

For all their advantage, the one thing the assassin didn't have was size. Kellen pushed himself to his knees, bucking them off of his back. He got to his feet and brought his fists up, turning to face them, but as soon as he was ready they were gone again. He turned, expecting an attack from behind, but there was nothing there. He spun a few times before reaching down for his weapon. As soon as he did so, he felt a sharp pain from the back of his heels as a blade sliced cleanly through them. He screamed and fell to his knees once more, digging his fingers into the dirt.

He turned back to see the figure racing away from him, in the direction in which Lansat had run. Kellen cursed himself. How had he allowed himself to be caught by surprise with such regularity? He took his sword in one hand and used the other to brace himself against a tree. His heels burned as he put his full weight onto them, but he had no choice but to continue fighting. He limped from tree to tree, wobbling on his legs the entire time.

“Lansat!” he called into the forest. He heard a meek cry in response, and started towards it. Within a minute he saw the bound form of Lansat wriggling in the dirt, huffing and weeping as he struggled against his bonds. Kellen snarled and looked around. Surely this was a trap.

“If I pushed a little hard, do you think you'd just topple over?” a soft, feminine voice asked from behind the mountain of a man. He felt the slight pressure of her hand against his back. Giving a yell, he lashed out with his sword, spinning around. He lost his balance and fell to the ground, and his sword bounced harmlessly off of the tree on which he'd been supported. He saw the woman rise from a crouch, smiling down at him.

“I'm very excited to have two of you to play with tonight,” she said, taking Kellen by a leg and dragging him towards the man he was meant to protect. “I was worried I'd have to kill you, sellsword.” It was then that Kellen noticed there had already been a firepit set up, and a small tent with a bedroll inside. The fire was unlit, but there were still a few hours of daylight left.

“You will have to kill me before you lay a hand on him,” Kellen insisted. The woman let his leg fall once he was close enough to the firepit, then gave him a swift kick in the ribs. He grunted in pain, holding his side. Through it all, she smiled.

“Don't grimace too hard. You'll miss the little show I've prepared.” She sauntered towards Lansat, whose squeals grew in pitch and volume as the assassin approached. “My name is Nira. I think you two should know my name, because it's important to know the name of the person who kills you.” With her foot, she rolled Lansat onto his back, then pressed down on his chest. “Stop squirming, would you? You won't get out of your bindings by rocking back and forth.”

Kellen wished she would put herself in the same position, but with him. He could feel exactly how his muscles would flex as he grabbed her foot and twisted it, snapping her ankle. He would pull her to the ground, give a sharp tug towards himself, and within five seconds from the start of the maneuver his hands would be around her throat, crushing everything within his clenched fists.

Lansat's strategy, it seemed, was to sniffle.

“That's better.” She cast her gaze over to Kellen. “You haven't even tried to get up yet. I just cut your hamstrings, you're not paralyzed. You wouldn't happen to be planning something, would you, sellsword?”

“My name is Kellen.”

She shrugged. “I don't care. Take all of your clothes off.”

“What? No. I will not.”

Again Nira shrugged, this time taking a seat on a treestump. She pulled back a flap of cloth on her thigh to reveal an array of throwing knives strapped to her leg. “I guess I can entertain myself by practicing my aim on you. There's twelve of these, so if you can tolerate getting perforated up to twelve times, then by all means, keep your clothes on.” She slowly withdrew the first blade as she spoke, twirling it in her fingers. “Or you could just obey me and get this all over with.”

“The Greysteels do not feel pain,” he told her. She smiled.

“A Greysteel, huh? You must be pretty rich, Mister Worm,” she addressed Lansat. “Still. I'm sure you feel a little pain.” She let the first knife fly, and it buried itself in Kellen's arm. He grunted, his body tensing. “See? It's okay to admit that hurt. I'm big enough to admit it would have hurt me if it had happened to me.”

The next six knives all found themselves in various parts of Kellen's body, and each time his reaction was a little less controlled. Pain was setting into his voice, and the look in his eyes as Nira drew each knife got wilder and wilder. Nira stood up and walked slowly towards him, placing each foot carefully in front of the last. She set her foot on his chest, and let the knife dangle loosely between her fingertips.

Now was his chance. He tried to reach out, to take her foot and snap her ankle and yank her back and choke her to death... but his limbs wouldn't obey. They flopped uselessly at his sides, and at seeing his pathetic struggles, Nira let out a soft, mirthful laugh.

“Oh, did you think I was just blindly tormenting you? No silly boy, you're just a meat doll now.” She let the knife drop and it stuck into his stomach, sending another shock of pain through his body. “But I'll let you off easy. I don't even need you to take your clothes off anymore. You won!” She giggled again, then walked over to Lansat. Reaching into one of her pockets, she pulled out a small vial.

“Now it's time to play with you, dearest Worm.” She sat on the ground and pulled Lansat into her lap, such that she cradled his head in the nook of her left arm. He looked fearfully from her face to the vial in her hand, which she carefully uncorked and brought to his lips. “Drink deep, you don't want just a little of this in your system.” She tilted his head back and poured the concoction into his mouth where it drained down his throat. He coughed and sputtered but she clamped her fist over his face, keeping it inside of him until it was too late.

“There you go. See how easy that was? It should take about ten minutes for it to take effect, so in the meantime why don't we get to know one another?” She took her seat on the treestump again, leaving Lansat to lay in the dirt. “I guess I'll go first. Of course, you both know my name is Nira, and I'm sure by now you've figured out a few of my other names.”

“The Red Brute,” Kellen said, and Nira nodded with a smile.

“That's a good one, although I prefer 'The Bloody Guarantee.' There's something about that name that really speaks to me.”

“I always thought you were a man.”

Nira shrugged. “Can't be helped. It's not as though I'm about to go announce my identity to the entire world, now is it? I like to think of it as just a little convenience.” She pulled Kellen closer to the stump and started taking his armor off herself. It was clear by the expression on his face that he was uncomfortable with it, but there was nothing he could do.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, I changed my mind about your clothes. You look pretty fit, and I've just thought of how I'm going to kill you, so I thought I might enjoy you a little bit before you expire.” She worked his clothes off of him, pulling out the knives when they got in the way. His tan, leathery skin was a bloody mess, but in the slowly-fading sunlight, Nira found herself intrigued by it.

“You have a very nice figure, sellsword,” she said earnestly. “I wish we could have fucked after cutting down a squad of twenty or thirty men together.”

“I would never work with a lowlife like yourself.” Nira laughed and straddled him, running her hands down his chest and massaging the blood into his skin. Her actions aggravated his wounds, causing him to twist and grunt.

“But you would fuck me,” she insisted, smiling. “After all, even with your morals, deep down we're the same kind of people. We're killers. We like killing. We're good at killing.” She slid her hand across his face, her thumb resting on his eye. He tried to shake it away with his head but she held him firm, and he could see her smirking down at him through his uncovered eye.

“But at the core of killing is power, isn't it, sellsword?” She was grinding herself against his manhood, which swelled despite Kellen's wishes. “We get off on wielding power over others. But you can't just wield it, can you? You have to use it...” Nira dragged the word out, and at the same time pressed down slowly with her thumb. Kellen howled in raw pain as the thumb went through his eye, mashing it out of the socket before her thumb curled up and scooped it out, tearing away at the tendons and connections that kept it functioning. Blood flowed from the socket, and Nira leaned forward and licked sensually at the stream, all the while giggling under her breath. She held his eyeball by the connective tissue, dangling it playfully over his face. He stared into his own eye in horror while Nira's laughter grew.

A sudden motion to the side caught his attention. He looked, and noticed that the nobleman Lansat was no longer there. Through his pain he grimaced a smile, staring up at Nira defiantly. She noted his expression and cocked her head to the side. “What's got you so happy, sellsword?” she asked, her tone still one of merriment.

“Your sadism... cost you a kill...” he said through clenched teeth, indicating the distinct lack of Lansat where he once was. She smiled and shook her head.

“Oh, no, he didn't get away. You want to see him?” She shook his eyeball back and forth again, smirking, then rose off of her naked prey. Nira crouched beside where Lansat had been, and in a moment she dangled something in the fingers of her other hand. A small, pale creature that flailed and squeaked pathetically in her grasp.

“Impossible...” Kellen whispered, his last traces of defiance melting away. He realized Nira had never been anything other than in total control of the situation, and there was nothing he could do to fight her.

“Very possible, my dearest sellsword. And now, unfortunately, our time is done. You'll be dead by the time I get around to disposing of the little Worm here, but why don't I give you a sneak preview? It might just look something like this.” She dropped his eye on the ground and moved her leather boot over it, hovering playfully above. Slowly she pressed down, the small organ squishing and smearing out beneath the pressure. She twisted her sole back and forth, then lifted up, revealing a wet mess of tissue.

“Of course, it'll be a lot redder with him, but you get the point.” She was grinning as she knelt down beside him and rolled him over onto his front, then walked around to his head. “Now what is it you Greysteels always say? 'By my blood, I swear to fulfill my duty,' isn't it? Well let's just get little Worm here covered in the fulfillment of your duty, then.” Nira dropped the nobleman onto the ground in front of the titanic visage of his former protector, who looked down at him with a forlorn look in his eyes.

“Kellen please! Stop her!” the tiny man called out, but Kellen didn't acknowledge it. There was no stopping her now. She pulled him forward and sat on his back, holding his head up by his hair.

“I had fun with you, sellsword. I think I won't enjoy torturing another person as much as I enjoyed you for at least... a month. Possibly more.” He felt a blade against his throat and closed his eyes, accepting his fate.

Lansat screamed as blood cascaded down onto him like a waterfall, drenching him completely in the mercenary's life force. He tried to scurry away but the ground was wet and slick with blood, and he succeeded in little more than tripping over himself, writhing in the mess like the creature after which Nira had named him.

The colossal head fell beside him, Kellen's cold, cyclopian gaze staring into space. He screamed and backpedaled, falling onto his ass yet again. Nira leaned down, propping her head up on her hands, and watched her target humiliate himself.

“P-please don't kill me!” he screamed. “I have money! I have so much money, I'll pay you whatever you want! I'll put you on retainer! I'll pay you a wage – a nobleman's wage!”

“Oh? And what would you have me do in your employ, little Worm?”

“Nothing! Nothing at all! I would pay you to do nothing!”

Nira's smile twisted to one side of her face. “I don't like the sound of that. If I just sat around all day I'd never meet interesting people like the sellsword here.” She patted the corpse on which she was laying.

“Y-you could kill people then! Anyone you wanted! Er – well, except for me, of course!”

“That does sound like a pretty great offer. And what, exactly, is a nobleman's wage?”

“Two thousand gold a month! I swear it!”

The assassin gave a whistle, causing Lansat to cover his ears. “That's certainly quite a bit. Now, how would you protect me from all the assassins that would come after me for having failed to kill you?”

“I... I, uh...” Lansat was quaking with fear, but he believed this conversation was his only lifeline. If he could just make Nira see how lucrative letting him live could be, he was sure he would walk away. “I would hire more mercenaries! Ten men around my mansion at all times!”

“Only ten?”

“Twenty! Fifty, however many it takes! I swear to god, you will be safe! Just let me go, please!”

She shrugged and plucked him up. “Okay. You can go.”

“Y-you mean it?” Lansat was trembling in her grasp. He could feel the power of her fingers behind their warm tips, and knew just how easily she could smash his ribcage out through his back.

“No, of course not.” Nira giggled. “I was just playing with you. It was so easy too! You must have been playing along, right? You didn't really think you were going to just walk away, did you?”

“Y-you said... you said I could go...”

“Yeah, and then I said I was lying.” She rolled her eyes and crawled into her tent, laying on the bedroll. “But I'll tell you what: if you can keep making me laugh, I'll keep you alive. I mean, you're dead to the rest of the world already, but I'll keep you around as my little secret. Like a pet monkey or something.” Nira was grinning as she put Lansat back down on the ground, the dirt sticking to his blood-covered body. “What do you say to that?”

“Please... please don't do this...”

“Ugh, how boring.” Lansat squealed as Nira pressed his face to the ground, her mighty index finger crushing his skull into the dirt. His entire body shook and squirmed underneath her finger, and then one soft crack later he went completely still. Nira wiped his remains off of her finger, leaving his decapitated body in the dirt beside her head.

“Well... shit,” she sighed, looking at him forlornly. She so loved power, but was never able to control herself enough to keep her toys around for very long. Suddenly, she remembered the travelers she had picked up a few hours before the sellsword and the Worm. Rummaging through her pouch of vials, she discovered the two little bodies near the bottom of the sack. She withdrew them carefully, inspecting their tiny forms.

The woman was mostly fine physically, although she was in hysterics over the condition of her partner. His chest was caved in, most likely from having the weight of the vials on him for so long. She prodded his wound and he only struggled weakly, his tiny groans inaudible to her. She sighed again and layed him down on the ground beside her, focusing instead on the lively young girl in her palm.

“Help him, you monster!” she shrieked up at Nira. “Don't just leave him there! He'll die!”

“You're going to die,” Nira countered. The woman went silent in her palm, and the assassin laughed. “That got your attention, didn't it? Now the question is what to do with you. Of course, I could just squish you like a little bug. Would you like that?”

“N-no, please!”

“Of course not. Much too quick, much too painless. You want to agonize before you die.” She looked at the firepit, then glanced up at the evening sky, darkening with each passing moment. “I think I have a way to satisfy you, my little masochist.” The woman was silent as Nira got up and started a fire in the pit, moving the little man out beside her as an afterthought. Her tiny captive was clearly concerned with the well-being of the man, who had inexplicably endured his injury so far. Nira watched the flames in silence as they grew, enjoying the high-pitched pleas that would intermittently come from her fist.

“We don't deserve this!”

“Just let us go, we won't tell anyone about you!”

“I hope you die, you sociopathic monster-whore-cunt!”

Everything the little woman said delighted Nira, and she made a game of seeming utterly unaware of her utterances, as though sitting and staring at a flame was much too important to allow herself to become distracted with the goings-on of a girl only a couple inches tall.

Eventually Nira decided the fire had gotten on well enough and she scooped up the tiny man, who moved weakly in her grasp. She took a long stick with a jaggedly pointed end and shoved it through the man's back. Despite his weakness, a look of agonized horror still came over his face, and Nira smiled, delighted by it.

“I think I want your little boyfriend inside of me,” Nira said to her female captive as she held the man over the flames. Both of the tiny people screamed as loud and as hard as they could. Both of them fought with all their strength against Nira's cruel games, but none of it mattered. Even though he was held several inches above the fire, the man's flesh started to brown, and his struggles stopped almost abruptly. Nira was briefly upset that he had perished, but decided she'd already left him for dead a few minutes ago and any further life she'd gotten out of him was a bonus. She pulled the stick back, blew lightly on the body, then placed his head between her back teeth, holding it in position.

“No! Please, no! Please God have mercy! Please don't do this, please! He's still alive! He's still alive! Please let us live!” She was right. He was incredibly weak, but his eyes rolled in a disjointed, fearful manner back and forth as his brain tried to make sense of what had become of his life. The assassin was happy to hear that he lived, and with glee she chomped down on his head, crushing it like a watermelon beneath an elephant's foot.

Blood sprayed across her teeth, painting a vivid redness against the bright white of the teeth themselves. The tiny woman sobbed uncontrollably, wailing like a banshee while Nira continued eating the body, biting off the limbs one by one and chewing them. She enjoyed the way the little man tasted, and of course being able to cause such suffering at the same time was just a bonus. When she finished, she smirked down at the woman.

“So, I suspect you'd like to die now, too? I only ask because I was actually thinking I'd become a little bored of tormenting so many people in a row, maybe I could just grow you back and let you go free.”

The woman stopped crying. She felt as though she hadn't heard correctly. “W-wait, what?”

“It's too bad, too,” Nira continued, once again pretending she couldn't hear the woman. “I could have just fed you the antidote, set you on your way, and it would have been as though none of this happened. Well, except for your boyfriend getting chewed up. There's no antidote for that.”

“No, I want to live! I want to leave!” Nira enjoyed the desperation in the woman's voice.

“I suppose it can't be helped. You're too overcome with grief to keep going, I understand.” She brought the stick up again, placing the jagged, blood-covered edge against her tiny back. “Are you ready?”

“WAIT!” she shrieked as loudly as she could. “Please let me live! I want to live! Give me the antidote, please!”

“O-oh... oh you do want to live?” Nira feigned surprise.

“Yes!”

“Oh, perfect. I hate it when people resign themselves to death.” She pushed the stick through her captive's little body, by now accustomed to her pained screams. “Now I think I'm going to go charred for you, so hang on, this will probably sting a little.” Nira held the woman's body inside the flame, chuckling as her tiny limbs thrashed wildly. The fires quickly overtook their prey, and within half a minute she lay still and rigid on the end of the stick, her once-pale flesh now blackened to a crisp. Her eyes had melted out of her skull, and her hair had burned into her skin, twisting it even more. Nira held her there for another few minutes, slowly turning the stick, admiring the twisted figure at the end. Finally she withdrew the corpse, but when she tried to slide her off of her impalement, instead she just crumbled to ash, her little body breaking at first contact.

“Hm,” Nira grunted to herself, studying the grey-black stains on her hand before brushing her hands together to get rid of them. She looked around her camp, her eyes lingering on the only full-sized corpse that was still laying by the fire. She recalled how fun it had been to hurt him, to have such power over someone who themselves was so powerful. Excitement and lust filled her muscles and spurred her to rise, wandering towards the nearest trail. She wasn't quite ready for the night to be over.