“I was looking for your father,” Deidre said. “But if what you say is true, then it looks like someone found him before me. That is a shame.” Deidre appeared less tense. When Ashken had first seen her, she looked ready to fight, wound up and accepting of the possibility of violence inside the enclave. With the news of Tenos’s death, she seemed relieved that she would not have to take those steps. But with that came a certain lack of understanding for Deidre, as if the events she had thought she understood had transformed into something she did not even know where to begin to unravel. The militiamen behind her, however, did not seem to share her relief. If anything, they looked more ready to fight than before Ashken had said anything.

“He’s not in the house, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Ashken said, more to the militiamen than to Deidre. But, again, Ashken’s words did not have the expected effect on the militiamen. They did not stand down, but instead looked more riled than before. Ashken watched them carefully. There was something strange about their reaction. They had slowly spread out around Deidre, the end of their lines moving closer toward the house.

Jeremiah had not been still either. He had moved further back and had herded his wife and daughter against the house. He reached across the door and grabbed Ashken’s hand in a quick squeeze. The reassurance felt good to Ashken. He was not sure what was going to happen, but he was glad he was amongst friends who could help if things went badly. He stepped forward and drew closer to Deidre and her troops. He felt Moses step forward with him, a step behind. He knew to trust Moses’s watchfulness. If something did go wrong, and it looked that way, Ashken was sure Moses would be ready to step in front of him and help him know the best route. Ashken squeezed his father’s cane, resisting the strong urge to take a few practice swings to relearn its weight.

“Why were you looking for my father,” Ashken asked. “And why did you bring militiamen with you? I thought you’re disagreements with him and the other council members stayed within the enclave’s council. Have you decided that the council is now not the best place to resolve your differences? Have you decided to resolve them with shooters and batons now?” Ashken was proud of his calm delivery. Even with the scores of militiamen arrayed in front of him, he was not worried. Many of them had been trained by Moses, and while they were component fighters, they were did not have Moses’s skill or speed. In practice fights, Moses seemed more than human when he took on ten or twenty militiamen at a time, and this was without a sharpened blade. Ashken did not think it would come to that, however. Whatever disagreement Deidre had had with his father, he was sure that like most things, it would not survive his death.

“Your father tried to kill me,” Deidre said. “I was attacked in my home this morning by men from outside the enclave. After I had killed most of them, and driven off the rest, I caught one of them. I was not kind to him.”

While Deidre was a large woman, he had not known of her prowess in battle. If what she said was true, then she had fought off and killed men. Perhaps the rumors of her time outside the walls were true. Either that, or there was something less than honest about her story.

Deidre continued. “He told me about how Tenos had paid him and his dead or fleeing comrades to murder me in my house. He described the places of their meeting, and even the goods Tenos had used to bribe him. He showed me where Tenos had brought him to breach our walls from the outside. Not only had Tenos hired someone to kill me, he had also showed outsiders how to breach our walls. Tenos had left the enclave, met with these men, and pointed out the weaknesses of our defenses to them and who knows how many other outsiders. We now have no idea how many people outside the enclave know of these weaknesses. Even now, outsiders wander the enclave, stealing and murdering. I brought these militiamen with me to stop the killing, and to cleanse Washen’s Enclave. To do so, I had to start at their source. And I’m afraid that it is your father, Ashken. Your father is the source of this killing. I must find him and stop him and cleanse the enclave of the outsiders.”

What Deidre said did not make sense to Ashken. Why would his father hire outsiders to assassinate Deidre? His father had his disagreements with Deidre, but he could not imagine his father ever resorting to violence over those disagreements.

Flying through Ashken’s mind were strange thoughts, thoughts that he had never had. Perhaps he had not known his father as well as he supposed. Ashken was the first to admit that he was not a good judge of character of those he knew well. While he could quickly and accurately assess the worth and veracity of a person he did not know and did not have emotional connections to, he knew that he could only go so far with that judgment on those he did know. His father had taught him well to understand his weaknesses as a judge.

Since Ashken had known his father his entire life, he was never able to judge him, to truly understand him deeply as he did other people. When Ashken was in his adolescence, he did not get along with his father. He felt his father had too many rules to follow, and Ashken knew that there were better ways to do things than his father demanded. But as he was getting older, he was beginning to appreciate his father. At least he thought he had been. It was hard to look back at his relationship with his father so soon after the wound. Ashken fought down a wave of sadness that threatened to overwhelm him.

Ashken turned on Moses. “Moses, did you know of this? You were with my father. Did you know of this plan? Tell the truth. This I command you.”

“I will not trust the words of this man,” Deidre screamed.

“And yet you would trust my words?” Ashken asked.

Deidre considered Ashken. “I have long studied your father’s judgments, Ashken. And it was your influence on him, and his preparation of you that I watched most. I have hopes for you, great hopes for you and the enclave. I watched you when you attended my meetings, I heard of your debates with others at the schools, I even learned of the cases your father let you decide. You are different from your father, Ashken, more different than you will be able to appreciate for some time. Yes, I will admit, your words I do trust.”

“And yet when I tell you my father’s dead,” Ashken said.”You doubt me, you question my statements.”

“Were you with him when he died, or did his creature tell you of his death?” Deidre asked.

“I was there,” Ashken said. “Moses buried him, but he was dead. Now, if you trust me, you will trust my words, and you will let me question Moses.”

“Your father never ordered anyone murdered,” Moses said without prompting. “You should know better than to think this.”

Ashken felt immediately abashed. Of course his father would not order the murder of anyone. His father was not a pacifist, but he did not believe in violence within the enclave. He always said that the militiamen on the walls should be brutal, disgustingly brutal. If anyone attacked the walls they should not only be cut down, but left to die, and once dead, strung up along the roads leading to the enclave. He was not a violent man, but he was a realist. The world outside the enclave was violent. In the enclave, Tenos had believed not in violence but in justice. He would never raise a hand of violence in the enclave, and would punish people only two ways: with payments when they wronged someone, and with banishment. He considered banishment to be worse than death. Any person banished from the enclave left Washen’s Enclave with enough resources to survive. But nobody in the enclave could believe that such a person could survive or would ever want to survive. In his rule, Tenos had only sent three people over the walls. Tenos was not the supreme ruler, but the supreme judge for the enclave, as Ashken knew he would be after his death. Ashken reconsidered his thought. His father was dead. Ashken was now the supreme judge of the enclave.

“Moses has never lied to me,” Ashken said, looking back to Deidre. “I do not think he will begin now that my father is gone. If my father had wanted you dead, he would not have sent outlanders to kill you. He would have sent Moses. No, Deidre, I do not believe that my father ordered you killed. I would like to know, however, who did, and why that person planted the lies with the people he hired; Lies that would only come out if they failed to kill you. I have a sneaking suspicion that whoever paid for the murder of my father, also paid the people who attempted to kill you.”

“It is funny,” Joseph said, breaking the silence. “Because the people who hired us to kill Tenos claimed to be working for Deidre Diamond. They repeated her name often, and even described her. They did not do you justice, regrettably. Had they described you accurately, my master might have demanded they introduce him to such a vexing lady. He always thought he had a way with women.” Joseph laughed, a laugh that did not convey any humor or any other emotions. “This is beginning to make a lot of sense to me.”

“And who is this man, and why does he talk of killing Tenos, and yet stand near you?” Deidre asked.

Ashken did not know where to begin with his explanation. There was movement in the ranks of the militiamen. They had been looking over toward the house as if they were waiting for something. They were not paying attention to the conversation or its revelations. Ashken thought they looked distracted. He wondered if they knew what was going on, if they had some information that they had not shared with Deidre and him. He thought to question them after he heard enough from Deidre. There were some rumblings and quiet conversations coming from their ranks. Perhaps they were as confused as Ashken was as to what was happening.

It all happened so quickly that Ashken had to sort out the happenings in the moments after they were complete. Moses pushed Ashken into Joseph, and Ashken felt Joseph’s arms wrap around his upper body and pull him to the ground. Ashken had a moment to worry about being crushed by the giant, but Joseph stepped over him and stood in front, his legs wide enough to allow Ashken full view of the scene, but his body covering any possible attack on Ashken. The banging on the door stopped abruptly, and as Ashken fell, he watched Moses run the five paces toward Deidre.

Deidre tracked Moses’s approach, and she fell into a practiced fighting stance, two small daggers appearing in her hands from out of nowhere. She faced Moses as he approached and prepared to meet him. Moses drew his sword before he reached Deidre but changed direction at the last moment, almost an instant before a large bang. A flash of light and the distinctive sound of a shooter going off caught Ashken’s attention. He looked over and saw one of the militiamen in the crowd firing the shooter. It was difficult to see from where Ashken sat underneath Joseph what the militiaman was shooting at. Moses had swung his sword in time with the bang. He had been a step away from Deidre at the time. Deidre’s daggers were frozen at her side.

Ashken rose to his feet, pushing Joseph out of his way so he could see what was happening. A dark gray metal ball was on the ground at Moses’s feet, neatly sliced in half. Moses barely stopped moving, heading into the crowd of militiamen. The militiamen around the shooter gave way, providing a clearing for Moses to the militiaman with the shooter. Ashken watched the militiaman frantically try to load another ball into the shooter. He barely pulled the ball out of his bag before Moses’s sword found him, the point of the sword starting low and ripping up through his lower abdomen and out through his back. The sword was barely inside the militiaman before it was out. Moses backed away from the militiamen, holding his sword up, eyeing the crowd of militiamen. He was working his way back toward Ashken. Deidre had turned at an angle to the militiamen, so she was partially facing the militiamen, and partially facing Moses and Ashken. She seemed uncertain of where her enemies wait. Her daggers were held in front of her. The shooter’s halved ball lay near Deidre’s feet.

Ashken heard yelling to the side of him and saw Jeremiah shoving his wife and daughter into the house.

Word count: 2,261

Words remaining: 25,220 (words so far: 24,780)

Thoughts: Ah, I thought I had something today. I had big plans and I felt the words would roll out of me. Again, I admit I was wrong. Now, if I can only fight through this and get my words for the day, I’ll be happy. Another day where I felt my writing, my dialogue, my descriptions, my inane internal discussions were absolutely painful and worthless. Oh well. I’m keeping to the goal. On days like this, all I can think about is first-draft quality, first-draft quality. Almost halfway done!