Anaya was not in a great mood as she marched toward the guard captain’s office, her armour clinking and clanking as she went, and her boots stomped on the worn wooden floor temperamentally. She’d been told of the summons by her snickering fellow town guards, so she was sure it was going to be nothing good. They loved to give her a hard time. The captain was no different. She’d been in the town guard for four years, but she’d already had enough of it for a lifetime. Her father had been the previous guard captain, which was why she’d trained hard and eventually joined, but less than two years after that he’d been killed while chasing after a group of bandits. Her biggest regret was that she’d not been there for him. She strongly suspected foul play having been involved, given no mere bandits were likely to gain an upper hand against someone as skilled as he’d been. Trying to uncover evidence – or even just rumours – to that effect was why she’d stayed in the guard afterward, but she’d come up empty-handed.
She arrived at the captain’s office and gave the closed door three brisk knocks. The door was made of oak and very sturdy but swung open effortlessly as she entered after a voice from the inside beckoned her to do so.
Captain Stropp was a rather wiry middle-aged man. A far cry from his predecessor, to be sure, and his nasal voice did nothing to improve upon the overall unpleasantness of the man. Where her father had always worn his armour while on duty, just like the regular rank-and-file guards were expected to, but Stropp wore what could mostly be considered an upper-class merchant’s regalia, or perhaps that of a minor noble. As far as Anaya knew, neither he nor his family were either.
“You asked for me, Captain?”
“Oh, yes.” The captain leaned back on his luxuriously padded chair and eyed Anaya with an obviously amused expression, which she well knew was a further sign of something unpleasant. “Unfortunately, Modric has taken ill. As I am sure you know, we have an execution taking place today.” Indeed, Anaya had heard that a witch was to be executed at noon in the town square. A rare punishment, though she didn’t know what this witch had supposedly done to deserve it. She’d only heard about the whole thing when she’d overheard some of the other guards mention it prior to telling her to come see the captain. That was unusual in itself; something like this wouldn’t normally happen on such short notice.
“Yes, so I was told.” She refrained from asking what that had to do with her, as she knew she’d find soon enough, but she also knew it would only serve to annoy the captain. He was easily annoyed by any and all questions from most anyone, as far as she’d seen.
“Good, good. Well, to get right to the point, you are to take his place.” Anaya blinked, unsure if she’d heard correctly. Normally such tasks were left to volunteers, where the ‘official’ executioner was unable to attend for whatever reason. Of course, there rarely were executions to begin with, and even less so ones where a volunteer was actually needed. But assigning a non-volunteer… that was unheard of, as far as she knew. From what she’d studied under her father, her understanding was that if there were no volunteers, the role fell to the captain. Not only that, but she was sure there were others in the guard who would have relished the task.
“If I may ask–”
“You may not.” The captain’s voice made it clear that he’d brook no argument. He might not look much like an authority figure, fancy clothing aside, but he had real authority and wasn’t afraid to wield it. “This execution is important to Lord Nesbit personally, so you would do well to make it happen smoothly.”
Anaya tried her best not to show her annoyance and confusion on her face. Her father had not viewed executions favourably except in the most extreme of cases, and she’d certainly not heard of anything about a witch causing trouble recently. Witches weren’t all that uncommon in the kingdom, or even outside of it. It also wasn’t illegal to be one by any means, even if many viewed them with prejudice, whether deservedly or not.
Even all that aside, it didn’t particularly make sense that she’d be the one to do it. If this needed to go smoothly, surely someone with more experience should’ve been picked. And yet, clearly the other guards had known about this, hence their gleeful sneers at her earlier. She’d seen a few fights against bandits and even killed a few of them, but this was something entirely different.
“I see,” she said at length. “I shall do my best. Is there anything else?” The captain shook his head.
“That is all. Make the guard proud.” His smile was rather repulsive. It was clear he expected her to fail to do so. Anaya felt like spitting to get rid of the foul taste this whole thing left in her mouth. Satisfying as that might’ve been, she opted to just salute and walk out, all the while wondering just what exactly would make these degenerates ‘proud’ to begin with. It was something best not thought about too closely.
Noon was soon upon her. She’d tried to go and see the witch in question, or to find out anything about why she was being executed. The most she could gather was that the witch had done something to upset Lord Nesbit. No one would tell her anything about the witch either, so she didn’t even know if it was a man or a woman. Male witches were sometimes referred to as warlocks, especially in some regions, but she couldn’t be sure in this case. The whole thing smelled rotten.
Eventually, she was left with no more time, and she had to make her way toward the town square. In addition to her usual gear and armour, she was carrying a heavy axe, given her sword wasn’t exactly suited to decapitations, and the black hood for which the role of executioner was known. Not that it made a difference – including her, there were three women in the entire town guard roster currently, and the other two were assigned outside the town proper itself. As such, pretty much everyone knew who was under the hood, given that despite being no weakling and the armour being a sort of camouflage in its own right it she was fairly sure that it wasn’t too hard to tell her apart from the men even from a distance. But she supposed that it was better to at least appear to go by the book… for now.
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