章節 14: 0014 Why stay alive?
Haina secured the sling to the chimney of the fireplace and stepped over the wall for a light landing.
High up in the center barn are rows of shutters, six on each side, corresponding to the hangings in the barn.
Some of them were dormitories for beaters-cum-workers, while others had miscellaneous items pushed around in a haphazard manner.
Hina listened quietly against the louvers and soon identified the sound of breathing in three of the rooms on one side.
She pulled a wooden clip from her pocket to hold her nose, and a fire fold and some damp tobacco from her other pocket.
The ignited tobacco soon billowed out thick white smoke, and Haina watched with bated breath for a moment, casually tucking them into a gap in the louvers.
Sling, tobacco and this ancient fire-fold that is not afraid of the wind were bought from old Hansa along with the wound medicine.
As a tavern keeper and human trafficker in Black Harbor, he's got a lot of strange stuff there that's hard to find in the world.
It's like these tobaccos, which originate from the New World, infused with mandarine syrup sent from India, the smoke has a strong hallucinogenic effect, and unlike poppies it is not too addictive, and is deeply loved by the triads of Black Harbor.
Asasin also loved mandalas, and from the long past, they had used this special odorless hallucinogen as an ecstasy to break down doors and enter homes without fail.
Hina finished working one side and rejoined the top of the barn in her bare feet, circling around to the other side to repeat the trick.
When both sides were busy, she circled back to the back side, drew her pocketknife and pried open the shutters of the utility room, and tumbled in.
A strange stench permeated the utility room, like stinky socks and organic matter rotting in the corners for long, long periods of time without being cleaned up.
As if she hadn't heard, she stepped around the cluttered table and stools and over a couple of overflowing dirty clothes baskets and leaned over the door to listen quietly.
The aisles were quiet, while the dormitories on either side breathed much heavier.
She pulled the door open gently and glanced downstairs through the crack.
There were a dozen sealed crates piled up in the corner of the warehouse, no one was to be seen in the aisles of the hangings on either side, and no one was down below, and both the door leading to the front barn and the small door to the back barn were closed tightly.
Haina stepped lightly out of the room, drew the knife on her thigh, pulled a blade and pried open one of the bedrooms.
The beater's bedroom was more messy than the utility room, and Hina went straight to the bed, looked at the strong man lying there, flushed, and swung out her knife.
The sharp knife cuts through the inner neck, severing the trachea, blood vessels, esophagus, and vocal cords, and then whirls around and pulls out again.
Warm blood spurted out of the wound and splattered all over the wall, and the beater jerked subconsciously twice, cackling strangely in his throat, and was out of breath in no time.
I, II, III, IV, V, VI ...
On either side of the hangar, Haina took a slow, graceful catwalk and reaped six lives before swabbing her knife clean, removing the wooden clip from her nose, and counter-locking the small door toward the back barn.
After making sure she hadn't missed anything, she pulled open the door to the front barn.
Squeak!
The gate opens.
The wet Lorraine gasped and lowered her head, and when she saw Hina open the door, she instantly smiled brightly.
"How many?"
"Six." Hina frowned as she stared at Lorraine's chest, "Your wound is disintegrating."
"Penetrating wounds, they leave more or less marks when you move, no need to make a fuss." Lorraine held the door and passed by Hina, "Where's the survivor?"
"Not alive."
Lorraine froze, "You didn't leave anyone alive?"
"Why stay alive?" Hina asked rhetorically and justifiably.
...
Why stay alive ...
With eight of the ten hitters in the front and center bins, there should theoretically be two hitters left to stay in the back bin with Old Barry.
This is the state of affairs with no visitors this evening.
Before entering, Lorraine and Haina had stepped on the spot, and the known intelligence was that the back barn gate was guarded by two men, while two side-by-side wagons were parked at the entrance.
How many wagons does Old Barry actually have?
And was it old Barry's last hitter who guarded the door?
There is no way to determine this.
Lorraine stood behind the small door of the center barn for a long moment, gently jerked off the counter-locking plug, and joined Hina on the hanging floor, ducking into the utility room.
Hina hoisted herself up to the top of the barn once more at Lorraine's request, and about half an hour later brought new news.
Old Barry had not slept and was talking with another man in the house, the barn door still guarded by two men, and two wagons still outside the door.
That means old Barry has a visitor tonight, and that's bad news.
Lorraine stared in contemplation.
"Hina, how much more ecstasy do you have on hand?"
"Six volumes."
"How much of it is hallucinogenic when inhaled?"
"It doesn't take much if it's just affecting movement." Hina poked the doorway open and looked at the small, closed door, "If you want to disorient someone, it takes a little more time."
"If that's the case ...," Lorraine stretched strongly through the pain, "I need you to go to the back barn and dissuade Mr. Barry from leaving his estate."
Saying goodbye to Hina, Lorraine got busy.
The cargo box in the center bin had hay in it, and contained a small amount of china, some pewter, all specialties from the East.
He selected four of the boxes, took out the goods, threw in the cigarettes, and made a circle around the little door.
Finishing setting up the box, he dodged to the side of the small door, pressed himself against the wall, clamped his nose in the way Heena had done, and held his breath to ignite the hay.
The crate burned quickly, the white smoke of the cigarette wrapped in a thick black smoke that covered Lorraine and drifted down the doorway into the back barn.
Lorraine heard the back barn rise in chaos, some shouting about a fire, others shouting vague names of people.
The clutter of shouts came closer and closer, and someone boom kicked the door open and threw in a large bucket of water with a raised hand.
Throwing water around haphazardly doesn't extinguish the fire, it only makes the black smoke thicker.
Someone cursed a few words outside, and then five or six big men carrying buckets and pots crowded into the middle warehouse, looking at a few wooden boxes that were burning fiercely and staring blankly.
"This ..."
A bit of cold light in the black smoke sprinted, pierced through the heart of a big man, and pulled out, flipped his hand and pierced the neck of another big man.
Wooden pots and barrels clattered to the ground, the two big men fell down softly, Lorraine abandoned his sword, dropped his hand and drew the curved sword on the waist of the big man, muffled a grunt and slashed two people in a row.
The overly strenuous movement caused his wound to break open, squeezing out blood that seeped through the bandage and stained his shirt red.
But Lorraine instantly beheaded four people.
He guided his scimitar and turned to slash at the fifth man, but he didn't want the other man to be prepared, and with a clang, he blocked Lorraine's blade away.
"Boy, so it's you!"
The smoke that had clustered near the small door was dispersed by Lorraine's movements, and the other man got a good look at Lorraine's face, and Lorraine got a good look at the other man.
It was the leader of the day!
Lorraine gave him a deep look, stepped back slowly out of the smoke, and took a deep breath.
"The Artisian Chamber of Commerce, Lorraine. Drake sends his regards, sir."
The leader kicked over the crate in front of him, grinned, and led the other survivor out of the smoking area to stand across from Lorraine.
"Interesting little trick ... Earlier when I said that you didn't know how to die, it seems that I really wasn't wrong."
Lorraine nodded with a smile, but didn't say anything back.
That kick toppled the burning hay, and black smoke became if anything, filling half the center barn.
Who knew exactly which strand had the poisonous smoke of the Mandalorian mixed into it, and Lorraine breathed long, feeling that it would be better for her to inhale less.
The chief took his reaction as youthful arrogance.
"Judging by your injuries, that captain of yours had a hard enough heart, but unfortunately the stabbing wasn't accurate enough."
The chieftain spoke, drawing his sword, bending his back and sinking his shoulders into a fighting stance.
"Why serve death for such a captain? Isn't it good to live ...?"
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