XX

Nai Sha’el, the Third Order of the Goat.

That was the order of which Rynoria lived and trained. And she was to lead a party of deadly assassins against their enemy. Using her looking glass, she inspected the castle bridge leading to the king’s private chambers. The King’s Bastion. All was well. The guards were out, alert, but bored.

This would be an easy task for her and her men.

Glancing toward her second, Rynoria jerked her head toward the castle and with a nod, set forth.

The plan was already in motion.

There was no need to talk further. Each member of their company knew what to do this night if they were to succeed in their mission. To prolonged the Age of Rebirth—the age called by these heathens, the Age of Darkness.

The fools!

Rynoria stood up and shuffled through the trees until she, with her company, reached the rocky base of the mountains. Looking up, the King’s Bastion of Aevalin castle was above.

Her cloak, mottled in black and white, like the darkness and the white marble stone of the castle, would protect her from being seen from so far below. She pulled up her hood and jumped toward the nearest out jutting rock.

The base of the castle was constructed of rough stone. An easy climb. With the next handhold a pace away, she lurched, caught it and hauled herself up as her men came up after her.

Yoreno ran as fast as he could, surprised Dantera was keeping such a fast pace, even with her wound, which he knew pained her. She had refused Mai’s request to heal her, saying that there wasn’t time.

As fast as she moved through the corridors of the castle—there wasn’t. Every time they passed guards, she commanded, “Guards! On me! To arms!”

Their party was now at least fifteen strong as they made their way to the throne room. Some of the king’s guards stopped them before they could enter, looking suddenly alarmed.

“Hault!” they called, leveling their pole arms. “State your intentions!”

“We have reason to believe…” Dantera began, but had to stop to breath.

“The king,” Yoreno gasped. “He may be in danger.”

“What? That’s impossible. He has an entire company of his best men from the Guard with him as we speak!”

“You don’t understand,” Dantera said. “The king is in danger!”

“What is taking Sir Cedryk so long?” Yoreno asked of no one in particular.

“What is this about the captain of the castle guard?” the man at the front of the King’s Guard asked. “If you can give me word from him, I can let you enter.”

Dantera growled, turning on heel and moving about in a generally frustrated way Yoreno had not seen before.

They wouldn’t be able to force their way through these guards and get away with him. “Then one of you leave this door and go tell the king he is in danger.”

“Assassins are on their way,” Mai said.

The guards looked at them dubiously.

“Do you not know who this is?” Yoreno asked as he gestured to Dantera.

“Of course we do!” the guard said.

She passed through these doors several times just today already, Yoreno was aware. But with this sudden arrival of twenty people brandishing weapons, most of which were castle guardsmen, the alarms in these men’s heads had gone off.

It was too sudden—too unexpected.

The white marble of the castle would be harder to climb, but far from impossible. The construction left hardly visible clefts between the huge slabs of marble where she could easily insert climbing teeth.

She inserted the first climbing tooth into the rent in the marble and used it to support most of her weight as she touched the various runes tattooed, burned and scarred by knife cuts in her flesh.

“Hashar Favratto!”

The other members of her company did the same, the magicks called forth enveloping each member who had the runes and knew the enchantments that would mostly envelop their forms, giving them the appearance likened to that of mirrors so they would be incredibly difficult to see unless the one looking was either searching, or very naturally aware.

“Go!” she hissed, jumping to the next rent. With her high level of skill climbing similar structures, Rynoria shunted the next climbing tooth into the gap with a magically-assisted throw and caught hold of that portion of the wall.

It was loud and noisy, but most of the sounds simply echoed off the castle walls and out into open air, dampening most of the noise. And unless they climbed particularly close to a patrolling guard, none of them would hear a thing.

The night air was cold!

King Branlin lifted the high collar of his coat as he—at the front of his procession, crossed the bridge toward the King’s Bastion. The structure was, in and of itself, a small castle, though with less fortification and more aesthetics.

The bridge crossed a narrow but deep pass within Mount Herrylenia. Bellow the bridge were evergreen trees and a man-made stream. All around were the rich and sumptuous structures inside of the walls of Aevalin.

Even to Branlin, in this place where he grew up, it sometimes stole his breath way.

The bridge was well lit with glow rocks and torches, though he couldn’t see the stars for the arched roof. But he often stopped here on the bridge just to take hold of the railing and look out over his kingdom.

And sometimes, to look out and up, toward the stars, each a gleaming promise of the future of Aevalin.

When the warning bells started tolling, Branlin’s heart nearly stopped.

“YES!” Dantera yelled. “Sir Cedryk accomplished his goal. Do you hear those bells, you fools! Now let us through!

They stepped aside, moving to join their ranks.

“No!” Yoreno said. “Stay here. We have more than enough men and we don’t know the extent of the attack. Stay here and guard this door. Let no one through who isn’t of the castle guard, do you understand?”

The lead guard nodded stoically. “It will be done.”

Yoreno ran to catch the others rushing through the arched doorway and out onto the bridge. It was a long way, at least a ten minute walk to the king’s private chambers.

With Dantera, Mai and the castle guardsmen ahead of him, Yoreno couldn’t see far enough to tell if the king was still on the bridge or already in the Bastion.

All was quiet as Rynoria climbed over the arched rooftop of the private palace. There were some few guards up here, but silently removing them with her small crossbow was easy.

The first guard went down in a gurgle of blood and kicking feet.

Other bolts went flying from her allies as they removed the other guards one by one. Now to make for the roof of the bridge.

It would be easy.

The roof expanded into a portico shading the front entrance of the private palace and all of the guards on the roof were now dead.

The castle warning bells started tolling.

Rynoria hissed, glancing back at her allies as they looked to her for direction. How did they know she was coming?

It had to have been…

No matter.

“Go!” she commanded. “We stick to the plan! He’s on the bridge now!”

They jumped onto the portico below and ran across the bridge as fast as they could—all thirty members of their company.

Yoreno ran as fast as he could, his throat burning from the cold winter air. He hoped to the gods this threat of assassination by the killer they had ended on the rooftops had been a bluff.

But somehow deep in his bones, he knew it was all too real. The killer had been vicious and active in his assassinations. He had a purpose—a mission to fulfill.

Yoreno almost had to stop as he struggled to catch Dantera, slowly passing the castle guards. They were a lot slower with the mount of armor they wore.

The king’s company came into view as he ran toward the edge of the bridge, trying to glance forward. They were so close.

And then the king’s party halted, spread out and turned to face Dantera and the rest of their group. They put their shields forward and drew their short swords.

“Hault!” the guard at the front commanded.

“Wait!” King Branlin ordered. “Lady Dantera—what is happening?”

She was breathing heavily and so was Yoreno as he trotted up toward the front of their party. “Your—Your Majesty. We! You! Under… attack!”

And then there was a strange noise to their left.

Yoreno glanced over, saw a rope flop down.

“What is that?” one of the guards asked.

“They’re here!” Yoreno screamed as ropes started dropping over the open sides of the bridge all around them.

“Look out!”

“We’re under attack!

“Shields!”

Men in black cloaks slid down the ropes, their boots landing on the wooden supports holding up the arched bridge roof and starting shooting crossbows in at them.

Bolts whistled through the air, landing into men and passing through them, sending violent spatters of blood across the wooden floor.

Yoreno jumped, narrowly dodging a bolt. By the time he got up, the man was swinging down onto the bridge floor. It slowed the assassin down just enough to give Yoreno time to put his sword through his chest.

Dantera swiped Ito Farralia left, deflecting a bolt, then right, deflecting another. She lunged at the attacker wielding the two small crossbows and put her sword through his neck.

“Hold the line!” the King’s Guard commander yelled as his men inched closer, packing their circle tightly to protect the king with their large shields.

An assassin jumped toward that wall and stuck his long blade through the crack, but he must have missed when he back-stepped from the arching sword that came through the crack.

The king’s defense was solid, but Dantera didn’t like this at all.

With her rapier, she took the assassin down with a stab into his lower back just below his leather armor. He cried out, clutching at the wound as he fell to the floor.

Something hit her in the arm and she whirled, finding another assassin that had shot a bolt at her, his form hard to see—like a mirror! He lunged forward silently, his sword coming in for the kill, but Dantera parried and then elbowed him in the face.

He fell back, stumbling.

It was a good enchantment, but as a top-tier adventurer, stood no chance at misdirecting her acute senses.

She went in to finish him off, but he managed to bat her blade aside before jumping back to his feet.

Then an explosion of pink and purple magic rocked the floor behind him and he went flying, almost hitting Dantera as she crouched out of the way.

Mai was there, her hands held together in post projection of the magical explosion. She was undefended, but Dantera could do nothing for her if she were attacked from that distance.

With a quick nod she turned and rushed toward the railing, taking a hanging assassin about to shoot a bolt into the King’s Guard in the chest. He cried out and let go of his rope, falling far below as Dantera rushed to the next assassin.

Heart racing faster than it ever had, King Branlin held his arms up in front of his face as he was battered by his own grunting King’s Guard as they lunged forward and back, protecting him with their shields and short swords.

“Your Majesty!” Commander Ranell bellowed.

“Yes?” he asked, reaching down and removing the long knife of one of his men. If an assassin broke the line, he would die an adventurer’s death, not the death of a cowering royal.

But the commander didn’t answer. “HOLD THE LINE!” he barked. “PROTECT HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS WITH YOUR LIVES!”

“We can’t stay here!” the king yelled.

“I—I know!”

“We must move!” he yelled to Ranell. They were much closer to the King’s Bastion than they were the castle proper. It was a defensible position.

And as if in answer, Commander Ranell ordered, “TO THE KING’S BASTION!”

As one, the King’s Guard moved in lockstep, one step, their shields coming together. Then another step. Their shields coming back to narrow the gaps, all the while crossbow bolts smacked and ricocheted off their shields.

Occasionally an assassin would come in for a strike but was warded off when the swords came out at him.

Rynoria narrowed her eyes as she leaned down over the roof of the bridge to survey what was happening. The king was supposed to be guarded with no more than two to four men. Instead he had more than thirty-five?!

This should be easy, she thought, scowling as she reached into the small leather pouch at her back for her obscura grenandos.

As things were progressing, the Nai Sha’el had the advantage of surprise, but there were too many defenders!

The king’s personal guards were well organized and maintaining a tight formation, while the other guards in their blue and white defending the outer lines, but their formation was haphazard.

They seemed to lack proper leadership, unlike the other guards with the blue and black and the winged helmets—the elite King’s Guard.

She tossed one of her grenados onto the bridge and it exploded into a plume of grey smoke. Then she threw her others about, spreading as much smoke and misdirection and confusion as she possibly could.

Mai tossed another plume of pink magic forward, being careful not to injure any of their own. The assassin she had been aiming for went flying upward. He slammed into the rafters and came back down.

She smiled, pleased with herself.

And then smoke exploded onto the bridge, obscuring the King’s Guard and Dantera from her view. Then three more exploded, obscuring most of the fighting.

“Move!” the King’s Guard Commander bellowed. “Hold your formations. Step! Hold! Step! FOR THE KING!”

“FOR THE KING!” they bellowed as one.

Squirming with frustration, Mai could do nothing to remove the smoke. She was a healer, an earth mage. Not a wind mage. She could not move the air.

Her only recourse was to cause en explosion large enough to sweep it away, but without her staff, she could do no such thing.

They need my help!

Her eyes widened as an idea came to her.

Help.

She looked out across the railing at the mountainous horizon and the blue night sky, a peaceful, twinkling that contrasted the extreme violence on the bridge not fifty paces in front of her.

With agile movements of her hands and fingers, she made the runic gestures and called out, “Luminati expletaro!”

And an orb of bright light burst forth within her hands.

Leaning out over the railing, she sent it high into the sky.

That will attract attention!

Hissing in frustration, Rynoria pulled herself back up to the roof as the bright light exploded, cascading into the sky.

They have a mage down there.

She needed to stop him.

Running across the rooftop, she reached the spot where the light was cast from. Without a rope—she had little need for such things—she jumped off the roof and caught hold of the hand railing.

Then she pulled herself up with a lunge, her feet coming to rest on the railing as she crouched down like a cat.

The mage—a girl—looked at her with wide eyes and gasped.

Rynoria flicked her dagger into the girl and she spun and fell face-first on the wooden decking.

Without further thought on the matter she jumped back up toward the roof and removed a vial from her pack. She downed the blue liquid in a single gulp.

It would give her the ability to see through the smoke. Something her allies were no doubt doing as well. She made her away across the rooftop toward the King’s Bastion.

It was time to end this—to kill King Branlin and his push toward this new Age of Readventure.