The climb to the top of the mountain was weird. I could see just fine, but Alan was cursing up a storm in a low voice. He had it easy, he just had to climb the rope. I was the one who was climbing ahead and using stone magic to secure the pitons. When we were twenty metres up, I created a platform where a handful of people could rest. Or one person could stay and help the rest up.

It continued like that for an hour and a half. If it had been daylight, I would have climbed it a lot faster. Nevertheless, I reached the top, having made four stops along the way. After having got to the top and secured the ropes, I took the time to look around.

The tower did not surprise me, I had been told there would be one. However, I had thought we were farther away from it. I was less than fifty metres away from it. I could not hear any sounds that indicated people moving around. However, I did see flickers of light through the shutters and the cracks in the door, through the bushes and trees that grew around it.

I helped Alan up, behind him would be the members of 1st and 2nd Platoon. He was about to say something, so I put a hand over his mouth and whispered, “We’re close to the tower.”

He looked in the direction I pointed. When he nodded, I continued giving him orders. “I’m going to see if there are more exits than that one door. Until I come back, cover the door with ranged weapons.”

He nodded once more, and I slipped into the night. First I circled around the tower to the other side and saw that there was indeed another door. There were no guards at the ground level, though I did see a harpy fly out from the tower for a few minutes before heading back. I was slightly worried that he might see something that would alert them. However, they flew in the opposite direction of where my men were.

I guess that he was just stretching his wings. With the crisis averted, for now, I made my way back. However, the fact that they had at least one harpy stationed at the tower made for a new problem. There were not just two exits, but three. The top of the tower. Sure we might be able to take them down with rifles or bows. However, it was a risk. Also, I did not know if they had a priest in the tower to alert the rest of the army.

“Alan, take Alrik and First Platoon, go in a wide arc around the tower. There’s another door on there,” I whispered the order. He gave an affirmative nod, and a minute later the men were moving out.

I turned to Essam, the senior squad leader of 2nd Platoon, one of the few original troopers I had been assigned I had left. There were four senior squad leaders, Alan, and Hrothgar at the Bastion. At the Hold, I had Caspar and five senior squad leaders. For a total of 12 out of 27. It was not an inspiring number.

“Essam, cover the door, I’ll go make some trouble,” I said, before slipping through the dark again. This time heading directly towards the tower. It was not a tall tower, only fifteen metres or so. It was square, maybe eight by eight metres. Made from cut grey stones. A lot of work had gone into it.

I arrived at the tower without trouble. I could easily have made a new entryway into the tower, but the plan was to put a cork in the bottle so to speak. Slowly, to reduce any noise, I started conjuring handholds for climbing the side of the tower after I had found a route that would leave me free of the windows.

Though the tower was not tall, the need to be silent and produce the handholds slowed down the process quite a lot. After twenty minutes, I was near the top of the tower. Just beneath the crenelations.

As far as I could tell there was no source of light on the top of the tower. And from what I could hear, it only sounded like one person shuffling around up there. Before peeking up, I turned my eyes back to normal and waited for a few minutes for my eyes to get used to the dark. If I was wrong and there was a source of light, glowing eyes would be a red flag for any watchstander.

Slowly I moved my head up so I could peek at the rooftop. I saw a shadowy figure moving around. From the bulk of it, and the outline of the wings, I knew it was the harpy. I had to observe it for a minute to figure out if it was looking in my direction or not. It was not.

So I immediately shifted my eyes to allow me to see better in the dark. With the eyes of a cat, the little moonlight that made its way through the thick clouds was enough for me to see clearly.

With a slow smooth motion, I hoisted myself over the battlement of the tower, making a lot of effort to stay silent. Steps formed to allow me down from the battlement, instead of jumping down, which might make enough sound for the harpy to turn around. As I started making my way across, I drew a dagger with my left hand.

I was halfway to him when the harpy started to turn around. I was not sure if I had made too much noise, he heard my breathing or if it was just dumb luck. Immediately I started rushing forward. He gaped dumbly at me for a second, allowing me to cross most of the distance. He started fumbling for his sword and opened his mouth to shout.

Before he could shout, I hit him hard in his throat with a chop. Since I was still moving at high speed, I grabbed him around the torso and used him as an anchor to stop my momentum. I spun around, with him as the fulcrum, using the rest of my momentum to drag him back toward me. My left hand flashed up, punching the dagger into the side of his neck. I twisted it before I let go of it and brought my left hand up to grab his chin, forcing his head backwards.

He struggled, tried to shout, but my iron grip and the dagger prevented it. My right hand had slipped down and controlled his, preventing him from drawing his weapons. I forced us down to the ground, my legs preventing him from trashing too much around. The struggle lasted for a minute before the bloodloss made him pass out.

I held him for another minute and then released his chin. I grabbed my dagger and made sure he was dead. After collecting myself, I looked at the hatch leading down. I considered just making a layer of stone that closed off that exit and then just collapse the tower on them. However, I worried that there might be either a stone mage or a priest in there.

If there was a stone mage they could make another way out, but if there were a priest they could alert the main camp. It would take time before a ground force could reinforce the tower, but not so long for a force of harpies. When daylight arrived, it would also be clear that the tower was gone.

Sighing, I knew what I had to do. I made my way over to the hatch and on the way, I drew my shortsword. Once inside, I would draw a hatchet as well. In cramped spaces, they would be more effective. Kneeling down next to the hatch, I started making a small hole in the roof. When it was made, I observed the dark room below.

The hatch led to a ladder. The ladder was at the end of a short wide corridor. Two metres across at least, with the stairs at the other end of it. As far as I could see there was no one below me, but neither could I see if there were any rooms.

Carefully I opened the hatch. No one called out. I heard no sound of anyone moving. As silent as possible, I made my way down the ladder. I arrived at the bottom of the ladder, with no shouts of alarm going up, nor did I see anyone. It turned out that I had been right about what I would find on this floor. Just the corridor and the stairs leading down.

Unstrapping a hatchet, I felt a bit better with two weapons in my hands and slowly made my way over to the stairs. Still no light visible. The stairs went along the sides of the tower. After two turns, I arrived at another floor, this one had a short corridor before the stairs continued. Halfway through the corridor, there was a door with a bit of light coming through the crack. There were still no lights to be seen from the stairs.

Making my way over to the door, I checked on my mana. I had consumed a few crystals on the climb up, so I was still in okay shape, at around 70%. I made another spyhole close to the door. The room looked to belong to an officer of some kind. What I could see was an office of some kind, and there were two other doors. If I had to take a guess from the placements, they probably led to a bedchamber and a privy.

Unfortunately, the elf it belonged to was up and about. She was sitting behind her desk, facing the door. No wings, so that meant she was most likely a dryad or lampad. Maybe even a siren, had not seen one of those so far. At least not that I knew.

She presented a problem. By not being a harpy she could be a stone mage, or she could be a priest. Both of which represented a danger for me and my men. If I could be certain she was neither, I could just brick up the door and ignore her. However, I could not, so I had to kill her somehow, but with her facing the door, any intrusion would make a ruckus.

I could tunnel in from above, drop down on her, but that would make noise, take a long time and all of my mana and then some, probably. Kicking in the door would be one choice, but then I would alert the others in the tower. If she was not the priest, then the game would be up anyway.

After going over many options, I ended up going with a simple plan. After putting the hatchet away, I knocked lightly on the door. The lack of hinges on the outside meant that it opened inward. A muffled voice drifted out to me, “Enter.”

I knocked again. She repeated her command, but I ignored it and knocked again. I heard the scrape of wood on stone, and footsteps approaching. I crouched down low in front of the door. Ready to spring to action.

The door opened, and she hissed, “Wha—”

As soon as the door started opening, I sprang forward surprising her right side first. My left shoulder knocked the door fully open, while my left hand snaked around the edge of the door to prevent it from banging into the wall. She stumbled back just as my shortsword found the underside of her chin, slipping all the way up into her brain.

It was a strain holding her up like that, but I quickly moved inside, closed the door behind me. As I was listening, I slowly put her on the floor and pulled the shortsword out. As far as I could tell, no one was coming to check out the noise I had made. Despite trying to be silent, I had made a bit of noise, but it still made far less than anything else I could come up with, would have made.

I quickly went to check the other two doors, and they led as I had expected to a privy and a bedchamber. Both were empty of people, though the privy could stand to be emptied and cleaned.

I checked through the hole before opening the door again. There was no one there as far as I could see, and there was still no source of light, except for a bit of moonlight coming in through the arrow slits.

With great care I started making my way further down the stairs, coming to yet another floor. This one was mostly open, with just a few solid columns. Unfortunately, it was also rather full. It seemed to be a sleeping area, with beds for sixteen people. Only four of them had someone sleeping in them. Two with wings, and two without.

From the stairs leading down to the next floor, I could see a faint amount of light. From what I could tell, the next floor should be the ground floor. There would be people down there because I could hear someone move around down there. I also heard voices, but they were so faint I could not hear what they were saying. There were at least two down there.

I made my way further down the stairs, I needed to see what I was dealing with. When I got to the last turn of the stairs, I stopped and tried to make a hole in the wall next to me. It took some time because the wall was thicker than the others I had modified.

What I could see from my vantage point was limited. I could see a table, and two figures sitting at it, talking. Played some kind of game with tiles. However, I estimated I could only see around a fourth of the room.

I observed them for five minutes before I saw some movement down there. Someone walked behind the tile playing guards. Just caught sight of their boots, nothing else. That meant there were at least three down there. Four in the sleeping area, and one on the roof. That was eight, but there was bedding for sixteen people.

Would they keep twelve people on guard during the night? That sounded ridiculous. I made my way back to the sleeping area. The little noise I made was easily drowned out by one of the harpies’ snoring. As I checked the sleeping area, I came to the conclusion that only eight of the beds were used. So my hope was that there were only three of them downstairs.

I considered several options, one of the more fanciful was growing a stone spike above each bed, and making them fall just as I rushed the ones downstairs. However, I was not practised enough with earth magic to do that. I still needed physical contact or very close proximity to use it.

Instead, I prayed that my luck would hold, as I went about doing the grisly work of an assassin in the night. I started closest to the stairs. I snuck up on the harpy closest to the stairs. He was lying on the side, presenting a perfect target for my dagger.

With a wet squelch and the cracking of bone, I hammered the dagger into his brain through his left ear. I moved quickly, but silently towards the next target, leaving the dagger behind. I could see the three others in the chamber moving around a bit. Not completely waking, but they had registered the sounds.

I waited a minute, as they settled down, their breaths becoming deeper and deeper. Meanwhile, I was studying my next target. A beautiful female elf. In fact, I do not think I had ever met an ugly elf. Nor a fat one. Even Yathanae when she was all scarred, missing an eye and ear, was still incredibly beautiful.

When I was satisfied, I continued my grisly work. I felt nothing about it. Somewhere deep down I wondered if I should feel bad about killing people in their sleep. In the end, I did not care. They were in the way of the safety of me seeing my child born and the safety of my people. That was all that mattered.

This one lay on her back, so I had to go about it differently. It would be too difficult to target the ear opening. Instead, it would be the throat. I remember once I worked with a lunatic that called himself Shadow. The guy was certifiable, usually did wetwork, but he was the best in the area, so I worked with him for a bank job.

While we were staking out the employees, he went on and on about the best way to kill people. One of the methods stuck with me. It was the slicing of the neck, he complained about how the movies always got it wrong. It was messy and did not kill quickly.

“Instead,” he had said. “Stab at the neck, sever the spine. That way their dying brain can’t send signals to their body, severely lessening the death spasms. Of course, they are still dying slowly. If you want to kill them quickly, stab them in the side of the throat, all the way through so you cut both the carotid arteries. That way they die faster.”

So I was going to try what he said. I angled up the dagger and hammered it into her throat, my other hand shot out and covered her mouth. Her body still spasmed, so I might have hit the wrong spot, but I was not sure. I withdrew the dagger and stabbed her through the side of the neck, and ripped it upwards cutting her neck completely open. A fountain of blood spurted out. There was blood everywhere, even got some of it on my face. Despite her completely cut throat, somehow she managed to whimper loudly.

“Damnit, stop making so much noise, I’m sleeping,” the last harpy muttered. I released my hold on my victim and sprang over the bed between me and the harpy. He was sitting up and turning around just as I was on him. His scream was cut off as I punched him with my left hand, but the damage was done. The other guy sat up in his bed as well.

“What’s happening?” he asked loudly. Just as I stabbed the harpy several times in the chest. The harpy whimpered. The other elf shouted, “Something is wrong!”

As I killed the harpy, I heard steps on the stairs. I turned around and saw the last elf was fumbling for his sword in the dark. Not caring any longer, I drew my sabre and crossed the room in a few steps. The elf could not see anything and was just waving the sword around. It was relatively easy to slip around his sword and finish him.

Just as I finished him, someone from downstairs had made their way up with a light source. There were two of them, one with wings and one without. They looked at the grisly scene of the one I had slit the throat on. There was blood everywhere.

“Intruders!” one of them shouted. The other looked further into the room, holding the torch high while holding a sword in the other hand.

The light must have reflected in my still shifted eyes because he stumbled back and stammered in a shrill voice, “De—demon!”

I punctuated his statement by throwing the dagger at him. With the help of a link, it caught him right in the chest. I was sprinting at the harpy who managed to get his sword up to parry my sabre. It did not stop me from kneeing him in the groin. I slipped to the side and around him, grabbed his hair, pulled back and kicked him in the back of his knees.

Kneeling on the floor, he could not stop me as I pushed the sabre into his trapezius muscle and into his body. I kicked him forward, leaving my sabre where it was. I spun around to look at the one with the torch as I pulled my shortsword and one of the large muzzled pistols. The guy looked dead, but a quick stab in the neck ensured it.

There were at least one more on the ground floor, but I could not hear anything. They said nothing, I could hear no movement. If I came down the stairs, I would be at a significant disadvantage, I did not know where they were, or how many there were. Irritated I moved into the sleeping area and moved to what I reckoned was the centre point of the tower. I used my stone magic to remove a square large enough for me to fit through.

I was surprised when I looked down because I could actually see the boots of someone. Walking around the hole, I could observe the rest of the room. There was only one elf down there. It was a female, not winged, so probably a dryad. She was armed with a beautiful looking bow and was aiming it at the stairs. Her whole focus was on the stairs.

I pointed the pistol at her. Then in a calm voice, I said loudly. “If you don’t put the bow down, I’m going to kill you.”

Surprised she looked up and to the side. Enough light from the ground floor came through the hole I had made for her to see me sitting on my haunches looking at her, the pistol aiming right at her. Her eyes went wide and her face paled. Either because she was scared or because of the copious amount of blood I was covered in.

She looked indecisively for a few moments before putting the bow down. I smiled at her. “Kick it towards the stairs.”

She did it, very carefully. She looked back up at me for further instructions. I motioned for her to step a bit further back. When she was a sufficient distance from the hole, I ordered, “Now turn around and lie down.”

Again she did as I commanded. When she was down on the ground, I holstered the pistol and jumped through the hole. As I landed I was prepared for her to strike out at me, but she did not.

I walked over to her and knelt with a knee on her lower back. She whimpered, not from pain, but from fear. I sent my mana into her body, looking for her mana pool. It took me but a moment to find it, and it was all covered by the barrier, meaning she was not a magic-user, nor a priest.

With a simple thought, I made the stone flow up and form restraints for both her wrists and her ankles. Which made her whimper even more. “Why are you whimpering like that?”

“You’re going to rape me, all humans do,” she said, tears streaming down her face.

“Ugh, I’m so tired of being accused of being a rapist. Don’t worry, no one will rape you,” I said and got off her back now that I was sure that she was secured.

“Maybe you won’t, but the guy you sell me to will.”

“If I enslave you, I will keep you, but you’ll never be forced to have sex with anyone.”

“If you enslave me?” she asked as I made my way over to the door.

“I’ll give you the choice between a quick death and being a serf in my service,” I explained as I hunkered down next to the door. I opened the door without showing myself. No arrow or shot sounded, but I did not expect there to be unless I presented a target.

“Alan, the tower is clear,” I shouted.

“Milord, is that you?” the question was shouted back.

“No, it’s Santa Claus, get your butts in here, send someone to the other side and tell Essam and his men to stand down.”

“Yes, Milord!” the call came back. After a few minutes, Alan came through the door. He looked me up and down, but seemed to decide that I was fine. “Who’s Santa Claus?”

“Nevermind. No one touches the prisoner or the bow,” I said and pointed to the elven woman. I had placed her bow on the table. “Secure the tower and clean it up a bit. There are eight dead elves, one on the roof, one on the third floor, the rest is on the second floor. Mind the big hole in the middle of the room.”

“Yes, Milord. May I say that if I had known you were going to storm the tower alone, I would have never let you,” he said eyeing my bloody clothes.

“Why do you think I sent you to the other side of the tower?” I asked.

“I’ll have to be more vigilant it seems,” he said with a sniff, sounding a little offended.

I shrugged. “Anyway, see you at dawn. I’m going to climb down and remove the platforms and ropes. I’m going to go help them build the stairs.”