The few stars that still shone against the void struggled to blink through the growing clouds, which, as they grew and formed into a thick smog, swallowed them whole until the night was caliginous. A fog began to descend with the stilled, chilling air, and over the wall climbed beings of dark cloth who slipped down the inside like drops of black rain on glass.

Those who landed first moved quickly to snuff out torch-flame and brazier, but their discovery had been so sudden that more men with yet more torches were filling into the courtyard to replace the light that was lost. Within moments these torch-wielders were set upon by a force half their number and growing, and like men suffocated by pillows they were smothered, and their lives were extinguished by strangulation and knives.

The remaining guards in the courtyard were soon rendered lucid by the starkness of the assault, and though most of them wore only part of their armour or none of it, they drew their knives and swords and set about defending themselves.

Sir Anselm came out into the courtyard from one of the watch buildings nearly stumbling in the dark, and in his right hand he held a long thrusting dagger. He had been so unsure of the actual cause of the commotion that he still held a wine bottle in in his other hand, and though not completely drunk his reactions suffered.

One of the black garbed men came at him from the shadow under the wall and thrust at him with a knife, and Anselm only just managed to grab the wrist that held it. He was too late to stop it completely – the knife sank through his doublet and into his lower abdomen – but he knew it had touched no vital place. The knife was withdrawn, and before Anselm could even feel the pain from his first wound, the knife was thrust again and he received a second where the blade passed straight through his palm and out the back of his hand. A heartbeat later, a sword cleaved diagonally through the rogue’s shoulder and into the base of his neck, and for a second blood sprayed sideways from his wound until he dropped dead to the ground.

Arthur pulled his sword free from the body and looked to Anselm, who held his wounded belly with his wounded hand. Blood ran from both, welling into his doublet and down his fingers as he groaned in discomfort. “Arfeyr’s blood,” the older knight moaned, as Arthur put a free arm around his side to support his weight.

“We need to get inside the chateau,” Arthur said breathlessly, and together the two limped away from the watch building’s door and around the edge of the ongoing melee.

The fighting was still fierce and many of the Sarkanian soldiers were pulling back from the barbaric and uncoordinated combat to form a line of spears, blades, and shields to try and hold the courtyard behind the gate. As they became surrounded this line changed to a more of a square and the wave of killings slowed to a creeping tide, and the masked men threatened them with short blades like snapping wolves. A dozen or so more of the Sarkanians came out of the chateau’s main doors, followed sword-in-hand by several Lavellan nobles kept under house arrest. These Lavellan courtiers delayed on throwing themselves into the fight, unable to decide between themselves whether this regiment of hooded aggressors were part of a ploy by their king or some other foe. Their answer was made for them as the first arrow lodged itself into one of their upper thighs.

“Hurry!” Arthur grunted, him and Anselm now running in what little fashion they could towards a thick bolted door that sat in a concave opening in the chateau’s wall. The door was opened slightly, and a thin face peered around it with dark eyes to see the devastation for himself. When those eyes found Arthur and Anselm coming quickly towards him, he pulled it open and beckoned them inside. Immediately they barrelled into the interior, as did three other soldiers driven to retreat by the relentlessness of their attackers. There had been four, but one had been caught by the pursuers and his fighting death had given the others the chance they needed.

The door was shut instantly, and men who tried to knock it down with a shoulder or boot found that it was bolted. Rather than waste more time getting inside they left it alone and went back towards the gatehouse, where the remaining defenders were now surrounded and trapped.

One figure, who still stood on the stone ramparts, raised a gloved hand and as though they were controlled by his movement like marionettes on strings, the black-cloaked assassins readied throwing knives and drew arrows back against bowstrings. The hand was thrown down a second later, and their missiles cut down the square of men in successive volleys of fire until any hope of a valiant last stand was washed away by blood.

Suddenly the courtyard was silent except for the haggard breathing of the victors and the moans of those yet to completely die. There must have been sixty of them, if not more, standing behind the wall and on the wall, and in the guard towers and gatehouse. Some of them were dead, but not nearly as many as their enemy.

Some of them checked the main doors to find them barred, and searched around the two side courtyards where the stables were kept, and the armouries and blacksmith were, and the kitchens, and where the combat arena lay silent in the night with the empty barracks around it. They ransacked what they could, but there were no unlocked doors into the chateau itself, and they made no attempt to force one.

Back at the gatehouse they opened the portcullis, and from the blackness beneath it walked seven figures whose business was clearly death, and whose very presence made that cool night air just a little more chilled. The first seven of them wore the same uniform: dark grey robes that were shut around them by a red sash, and sandals on naked feet. They were a mixture of men and women, but all of them had light brown hair and eyes of green, blue, silver or violet. They also carried the same weapon – a long, thin claymore-like blade that was as high as its wielder and no higher and lacked the crossguard that one would find in a sword from the Southern Realms.

The eighth was a different figure entirely. If there was one among them who looked to be in charge, it was him. He stood at the back of them and had jet black hair that ran down to his chest and dark, violet eyes. He also wore a robe, but unlike the others his robe was fine and adorned with greys, blacks and reds and consisted of multiple carefully worn layers; the outermost layer open to reveal those within. He also wore dark leather boots, which he carefully raised over bodies and blood to avoid dirtying them, and that made almost no sound when he walked in them. His weapon was also different – a single-edged straight sword that was smaller than the others and reached the top of his chest from the ground.

None of them spoke. Whatever their true occupation, whatever their true purpose, they were clearly adepts of it. Any detail that needed to be known had been memorized, and any instruction that would need giving would been given in the language of experience.

They approached the double wooden doors that served as the chateau’s main entrance, and one of the two leading figures pressed a hand gently over the thin space between where each door met. Her lips moved in an inaudible mutter, and then for several seconds the sounds of iron locking mechanisms and sliding bolts broke out over the silent courtyard. When the sounds ended, she pushed against both doors with enough force to send them opening inward.

The inside was dark, and all candles had been extinguished. There was a small vestibule-like room that acted as a main entryway before the main corridor, but within the vestibule nothing could be seen but shapes of gloom in shadow. The woman, and the man standing besides her, peered into this dark for a moment before the sudden, aggressive screams of men came at them like banshees. The man moved back away from the door with a quick step, and the woman planted the tip of her sword in the ground and, using it like a vault-pole, thrust her entire body up in the air and down over the other side of the claymore just as three spears tips came to be where she had been, and three soldiers followed them.

The soldiers swung and thrust their spears aggressively, a suicidal attempt at killing at least one more enemy before they themselves met their end. All three, with an effortless agility and deadly efficiency, were murdered in seconds. The final soldier’s head rolled along the courtyard and came to a halt before the final man in his lavish robes, who raised a foot to let it pass under him and away. He put his foot down again on the opposite side of the blood trail, then looked to the others who looked to him.

He gave a single nod, an order repeated by one of the other robed men who raised his hand and then gestured towards the door. A moment later the dozens of black figures filtered through the chateau’s door and into the interior, where they killed a man hiding in the vestibule and moved through to the main hallway.

In the throne room Caden Sarka and Harik Wulfsurd stood with their swords drawn, while Edmund Gray kept a long dagger in a hand that was concealed beneath a sea-blue cloak that fell over his arm. Around them the kingsguard prepared to fight, their black armour shining in the light of candles and braziers lit around the large, open room. Several kingsguard stood at the double door entrance to the room, with one man leaning out around to see what was happening in the hallway beyond.

The throne room was at the rear of the chateau and one had to take many turns to get there if they followed the corridors. It was slightly quicker to pass directly through the various lounges and function rooms, but without knowledge of where to go it quickly became a maze. For now, that maze was controlled by the Sarkanians, but even from the throne room they could hear fighting through distant walls. Caden expected that the last of the regular guard would have fallen or retreated by that point, leaving the defence of the chateau to his personal guard and the men of the Philosopher King, who so far had yet to show themselves.

“Lords, they’re about to take the western lounge,” said one of the kingsguard, coming into the throne room to deliver a tactical report. “We’re pulling back to the hall beyond. It is a bottleneck, and we’re hoping we can hold them there for a time.”

“Who are they, soldier?” Asked Wulfsurd. “Not Lavellan, so who are they? Kedoran?”

“We don’t know, Lord. They wear black cloaks and hoods, leather armour, and fight with knives, swords, and bows. They obscure their faces with masks like common thieves, but they are highly trained. We know they tried to come over the walls without being seen, and they retreat from rooms and hide in the dark, then attack us from the side when we go into them. They fight like black cats and assassins, and toy with us like mice.”

“I don’t know of any fighting force like that,” Wulfsurd admitted.

Lord Gray was about to interject his own point on the matter, but Caden spoke up and he was silenced. “I need you to find out where Arian, Ethelyn and the Lady Jaqueline are. Have them move to the highest level of the chateau.”

The soldier nodded. “I’ll send word at once, sire.”

Gray looked at Caden then, his eyes dark with doubt. “The Philosopher King and his own guard have taken over the third floor, sire. Will they even let them pass the stair? And what about you, should you not join them?”

“And what if this so-called Philosopher King is the very man behind these attacks? This timing isn’t just suspicious, it’s downright alarming,” said Wulfsurd. “And his so-called guard haven’t put a toe in this fight since the alarms were sounded.”

“You don’t understand, Harik. If the Philosopher King is behind this, then we are about to face our death. Escape might be possible, but it would ultimately be temporary. His reach is far enough that there is no-where in the Southern Realms we could hide that he would not find us, and if need be he would march all the armies of the world just to see his will done,” Caden explained, something about his earlier meeting with the man confirming every terrifying notion he held. “They would tear every root from the ground just to find which plant we hid under.”

“You’re saying we have no choice but to trust him,” muttered Gray. “Because to not would make no difference if, like the ocean, he decided to storm.”

“You can’t fight a storm,” added Caden. “You can only be swept along with it and hope it isn’t your end. But for now, I do trust him. I don’t see why he would be behind this.”

“Then what will we do?” Wulfsurd asked.

“We’ll get Armand and drag him back here. Even if he’s not behind this, it’s certainly in his favour.”

Wulfsurd nodded, and Caden suddenly set off walking towards the door with the intention of performing the errand personally. Lord Gray faltered and stayed behind at first, but when Wulfsurd and half the kingsguard in the room left to follow Caden, Gray reluctantly followed them.

They turned and walked down one hallway towards the centre of the chateau where the main staircase was located, and passed through a room in which two maids tended to the wounds of men who had been pulled back from the fighting. “Take them to the throne room,” Caden told them with a clear voice of authority, barely even stopping before he and his entourage left the room through the far door.

They proceeded closer to the fighting for a while, then turned east towards the staircase on the main east-west hall that ran the length of the chateau. Just before they reached the stairs, they saw and heard at least ten of the kingsguard holding a southern hallway against several of their similarly black-clad foe, but their armour put them at a great advantage. Fighting had spread through many of the rooms surrounding the hall, and suddenly one of the doors burst open behind them and fighting men stumbled out and tripped over a length of blue carpet. Several of the assassins chased after them, with one tripping on a soldier’s leg, and another sinking his blade down into the gap between someone’s armour.

“Help those men,” Wulfsurd told two of the accompanying guard, and they rushed to do so as Wulfsurd himself harried the rest of them up the stairs to the second floor with a great, bear-like arm. At the top they were welcomed by more men, including several evacuated servants and courtiers who stood in the corridor there as though sheep without shepherd.

“Where’s King Armand?” Caden asked one of the courtiers.

“I-In his room, lord,” said the Lavellan. “Or at least, the one permitted to him.”

“Quickly now,” said Caden, and he led his companions towards it.

The second floor had not seen any fighting yet, and nearly all stairways leading up to it had been carefully and masterfully barricaded for non-combatants were moved there out of harm’s way by the surviving soldiers. However, when Caden and his men approached the door to King Armand’s room, the Lavellan knights and nobles who stood guard in front of it drew their swords and almost went to blows with the Sarkanians.

“Step aside.” Caden said, his tone clear and fierce, and not stopping until the raised sword of Guillaume Bescond almost touched his chest.

“Never. I shall defend my king, Sarkanian,” said the moustached man.

“You and your men will lower your weapons and step aside or I shall carry your king’s still screaming head and throw it at the feet of whatever scoundrels he hired to free him.”

Caden’s voice had been so explicitly clear, and his white eyes so bright with intent, that Guillaume fell away from his gaze and, defeated, stepped out of Caden’s path. Reluctantly the others did the same, and Caden walked right up to Armand’s door and opened it.

Armand had been stood facing his fire, his arms folded over his middle, but before he could turn and greet his opposite the tip of Caden’s sword had been lain on his shoulder. A cold steel edge touched his neck, and carefully Armand turned so not to cut himself. “You’re here to kill me, then? The city will riot when they hear. You’ll all be dead by week’s end.”

“They’ve come here for you, Armand, so I shall give you to them.”

“I wish only that I knew who ‘they’ were, though I do not expect you to believe me.”

“And I don’t,” said Caden, though what Armand said troubled him for a moment before he remembered the multi-faceted layers of deceit that the Lavellan king routinely concocted. “Lead on.”

Armand released a slight murmur, then with Caden’s sword ever on him he walked carefully out into the hall beyond. The Lavellan men standing outside the door seemed ashamed to be in Armand's presence but he ignored them and pressed on with his eyes set in the direction he would be walking. Whether he was trying to stay regal and composed, or merely resigned himself to the fate he thought awaited him, Caden could not say. Even so he was impressed by the man's poise, and as he directed Armand to continue to the end of the hallway he did so without the usual snide remarks that Caden had come to expect.

"I don't like this, Caden," said Wulfsurd. "And I can't claim to know what your plan is."

Armand spoke in reply as they reached the first turning. "You shouldn't question your king, Lord Wulfsurd. You should follow him."

"And that there is the difference between you and my father," said Caden. "He wasn't afraid of being told he was wrong."

"The difference between me and him, but not you?" Armand questioned, and it must have touched Caden's nerve because his sword slightly nicked his neck. "Ow."

When they made the turning towards the centre stair again they saw Arian leading Lady Jaqueline and several of her handmaids towards it, accompanied by the member of the kingsguard that Caden had sent to him. When Jaqueline saw Caden and her father, however, she made an audible gasp of fright and broke off to stride hastily towards them.

"Caden, what is this? Father?" She asked as Arian came after her.

"Step aside, Jaquie," said Armand. "I go to meet the enemy."

She looked at Caden for answers, but Caden gave none. She scoffed. "He will not hurt you. If he does, his hope of taking your crown will die with you," she told them, her voice as sharp as her eyes.

"Arian, take her to the third floor," said Caden. "And where is Ethelyn?"

"We could not find your witch," spat Jaqueline. "No doubt she's with the invaders; whoring herself and her heathenry to them."

"I'll keep looking," said Arian, speaking for the first time. "Who are they? The attackers?"

"I don't know for certain, though I have my suspicions. And do not bother, if she does not wish to be found then you will not find her."

"Then I will come to you and help fight them," he said.

"No. I need you to keep Jaqueline safe, and see what the Philosopher King's men are doing. Lord Gray, will you accompany my brother? You are worth more right now as a sensible mind to amplify his than a sword."

"Of course," said Lord Gray. "If I may be permitted, I might also try to see this 'king' and ask him why he is not aiding us."

"Very well."

The two groups went their separate ways then, though Jaqueline's eyes were very much livid. Despite her anger she knew to keep her silence and went without resistance as Arian and Gray took her up the flight of stairs, while Caden and the rest went down them.

At the top of the flight of stairs was the third and most private floor of the chateau. It had, in the past, been used for the private quarters of the royal family, but had been in mid-renovation for some time and thus Lady Jaqueline had moved into a wing of guest rooms on the second floor the same as her father. Now the third floor was home to the man who made nations shudder when mentioned, and exactly one hundred of his strange, wolf-helmed bodyguards.

Two such guards stood at the open door where the stairs came to an end, blocking Arian and Jaqueline from leaving the stairway and entering the third floor proper. Their blue armour was almost black in the dim candlelight, while the gold and silver of their trims shone brightly.

Arian spoke to them first. "I am Arian Sarka, brother to the future king Caden Sarka of Sarkana. This here is Lady Jaqueline, daughter and heir of King Armand of Lavell. With me are Lord Edmund Gray of Sarka, Lady Jaqueline's handmaids, and one of my brother's personal guard."

Neither of the steel wolves answered.

"I... Need access to this level, sirs," said Arian, uncertain at their lack of response. "These people must be kept safe here until the fighting ends."

Again there was no response, and after some seconds one of Jaqueline's handmaidens tried to urge her to withdraw back to the second level and barricade them in her private wing. "No," said Lord Gray at the suggestion. "The second floor may not be safe for long, and there is no guarantee we can keep safe there. At least here we might be for a little longer."

"Why do you not fight, man?" Suddenly came the voice of the kingsguard with them. "You are a company of elite warriors, and the scoundrels trying to break through my brothers will soon come for the head of your master just the same as mine!"

It was pointless. Like lifeless statues, or clockwork automata devoid of emotions, the warriors were as still as they were silent. They tried to reason more of course, and two of the handmaids even begged them, but it wasn't until something occurred to Arian several minutes later that they finally got a response.

"The Philosopher King's sorceress, Ethelyn, has sent us here with specific instruction. You cannot simply turn us away," Arian lied.

The guards broke then. Both turned slightly to look at one another and after a few seconds of what could well have been some unspoken communication, the first one nodded and the second turned and walked through the door and gestured for them to follow him. They did so, walking into the half-furnished hallway that was now lined with one of the foreign soldiers every few paces.

"Wait here," said the soldier who led them, his accent as thick as it was strange. The group stopped there in front of a side-lounge, and Arian could see in just far enough to see empty bed-rolls lining the wall and men with once-tanned skin sharpening swords with wetstones and issuing prayers to the gods of whatever land they came from.

For several minutes they stood there awkwardly, attracting the gaze of the golden-brown eyes that nearly all the foreigners shared. They, as was their discipline, made no remarks towards Arian, or towards the woman who was now a guest in her own home. They only watched, scrutinizing them as though they were somehow untrustworthy or lesser.

Eventually the Herald came to them from around one of many corners, his silver mask covering his face as completely as his dark armour covered his body, and his dark cloak covered his head. "Have you come to ask us why we do not fight?" The figure asked.

"I do," said Arian, his desire to know superseding his order to keep Jaqueline safe.

"Then ask yourself, son of Valen, what side is it we should fight on?"

"Ours!" Arian said almost immediately. Behind him, both Lady Jaqueline and Lord Gray remained silent, as though they did not dare speak in the presence of the silver mask.

"Is it? Though we know not what grievance has caused this action to be taken, or who that grievance is against? Is that grievance lawful, this reaction to it righteous? What if, were we to draw our blades for one side of it, we disrupt a course of justice consecrated in this land that is not our own? A response warranted by a people, who being unknown to us, we cannot know to fault?"

"But I thought that by ancient oaths this land does belong to the Philosopher King?" Arian replied, his question a frantic protest. "Therefore those who live here are under the protection of his laws, and by extension his vassals deserving of his aid? Do his lands not have courts of law that stand against such violence?"

"Only if it is lawless, and only if the people of that land subscribe to them. The people of these Southern Realms do not, or am I mistaken?"

"Because of his inaction, his absence. The people here do not know them because his lawgivers have not been here to preach. It is his abandonment of this jurisdiction that caused him to lose it and now, while he comes to reclaim it, he would abandon it again?"

"Such changes in law, and lawgivers, take time. The heart of a people must be changed who, for generations, have come to love the laws of your fathers, not the laws of the one who created all law."

Arian released an exasperated sigh. "Then do it because I ask him to. Do it because I beg him."

The Herald lifted his face slightly, and though the cold silver mask was expressionless, there could well have been a smile beneath it. "That, young Arian, makes far more sense."

When Caden and Wulfsurd reached the bottom of the stairs with Armand and the few guards that accompanied them, they discovered that the enemy had broken through to the throne room. All men there, few as they were, had been slaughtered, and as the ranking kingsguard officer filled Caden in on how the remaining had abandoned most of the first floor, he also spoke of strange figures in grey robes.

"They must be their leaders," Wulfsurd commented. "Which makes them dangerous."

Caden agreed. "Then we must meet them," he said as he prodded Armand with his sword so that the man moved to the side. "These robed figures."

The remaining kingsguard had pulled back to form a perimeter around the main staircase, blocking off the hallways and barricading any side-doors, as well as any side-stairs or alternate routes to the higher floors. There had been a lull in the fighting that had allowed them to do this; the black-clad assassins seemed to have fallen back momentarily, no doubt to lick their wounds and count their not insignificant losses. They had killed many, but the kingsguard had killed more - they were highly trained, experienced warriors whose primary advantage was their armour, and the chateau corridors provided natural chokepoints for them to stand in like walls of onyx steel.

Indeed, when the kingsguard had lost a room, or forced to pull back to another part of a hallway, it seemed to have been these robed figures who were primarily responsible. They, like ghosts, had passed through the defenders and cut cleanly like a surgeon's knife into what critical places weakened the defence of the chateau. They then disappeared back behind their masked horde, waiting for some other opportune moment to strike.

Now they had only one place to go: directly towards Caden, and Wulfsurd, and the king of Lavell who Caden was so sure was the objective of their incursion. The main stairs sat at the back of an open area that was furnished like a lobby, with cushioned seats and varnished armour suited on stick mannequins. Their weapons, unused for generations, were placed cleanly by their sides, and Caden thought about how they could so easily be mistaken for real men in dim candlelight. Two hallways led into the lobby, one eastern and one western, and both were separated from the room by white doors that Caden ordered be kept open.

"What is your hope here, Caden?" Armand asked. "That they take me and leave?"

"I see two possibilities here. They are either here for you, or they are here for me. I'll see which is right, then decide from there," he replied.

"We're bait, then. Both of us."

"If you want to see it that way."

Armand grinned and looked at the few kingsguard who kept watch over the east and west entrances. For a moment he wondered if he could break through and outrun them, and that perhaps the ranks of the intruders could be a sanctuary for him. Yet he would never make it, he knew that; he would be dead before he reached a doorway. "Either way, if this plan of yours doesn't work then I won't see tomorrow, will I?"

"Most likely not," Caden admitted. Wulfrik gave an audible smirk at this, but Caden himself remained courteous and Armand seemed almost appreciative of it.

"I suppose it's what I would do," the king admitted. "I was the enemy of your father for as long as I was his friend, and though you are not him, you are yet somehow more dangerous. The betrayals that come so naturally to us would never have occurred to him, for unlike us he never realized the futility of honour."

"Then you know neither of us."

There was silence from that moment, except for the metal sounds of armour and the occasional murmur between guard, until the enemy made their attack again. It was a strange thing, for when it came it was so fast that it took a moment for the onlookers to see that it was happening at all, and yet it was also silent enough to be serene.

From the western hallway came a figure in a plain, dark grey robe who knocked aside the armoured men who waited there with an alarming speed, and despite coming from their front it seemed as though they had not noticed him. He was behind them in a second, and the guards were off balance, and before they could so much as reconstitute themselves, they were set upon by others in a mid-air collision that fully knocked them to the ground. Despite seeing this, it was not until that clatter of their armour hitting the ground that the others woke to the fact it was actually happening, and by then it was too late for the soldiers concerned. On their backs and sides, they had the tips of man-length swords driven into their throats and other immediately vital areas.

Two of them did not die immediately. When a blade cuts through the neck in a professional manner, as was in this case, blood squirts and sprays from the wound and pools quickly below them, and they are unable to make the vocal noise necessary to scream. Yet despite their silence, they were conscious of what had happened, and they thrashed around on the floor and gurgled in thick crimson and clutched their wounds in vain until, a good dozen or more seconds later, they finally fell into that endless sleep of death.

There were four of them in the room now, and they had pulled their swords free and held them partway down the blade like walking staffs. At the opposite entrance the guards had turned inwards, their weapons readied, but before they could make their attack they were grappled from behind and dragged out into the darkness of the hallway and never seen alive again. From that darkness emerged three more robed figures, and two of the masked men in black, and they joined the others near the centre as they looked on towards the men at the stairs.

Caden had taken Armand and pushed him down to his knees with his sword across Armand’s throat, and the remaining kingsguard in the room now formed close to his and Wulfurd’s side with swords, shields and war hammers. “Halt there,” Caden commanded them. “Or I will cut his throat.”

There was no answer, and one of the robed figures held his sword casually by its blade and, just as nonchalantly, began to approach in a steady walk. Wulfsurd turned then, taking an axe that had been part of a mannequin display at the side of the staircase and hauling it right at the figure with a single, vicious throw. The figure turned and stepped, and the axe’s spinning edge just barely passed him and planted itself into the head of one of the masked men behind him.

“Come closer, and the next one will be for you,” Wulfsurd growled, holding his sword tightly in his right hand and taking a second, similar axe in his left, until the bearded bear of a man had a weapon in each. He stepped forwards, putting himself firmly between the enemy and Caden, and readied himself.

“Get back, Harik!” Caden tried to order, but it was too late. The robed man took up his incredibly long sword and thrust it towards Wulfsurd’s chest, who caught the sword in the hook of his axe and pulled it free around his side so that the robed figure was unprotected. Then with the man still holding his sword, he thrust his own with an immensely muscled arm behind it, and if it had not been for one of the women in the grey robes it would have entered flesh. The woman had stepped forward quickly, using her own long blade to parry away Wulfsurd’s sword so that the man was able to launch forward and hit him in the face with his skull. Wulfsurd’s nose exploded with blood and he peeled back, off-balance and near unconscious before a swift, acrobatic kick by the female sent him launching back towards Caden and Armand.

Caden pulled Armand out of the way, and one of the Kingsguard lifted Wulfsurd up under his arms and dragged him back to the stairs. “Stop this now!” Caden commanded again, reasserting his sword’s position at Armand’s throat. “Or I will kill him, I swear it!”

The robed men, for a moment, halted as Caden commanded. Yet he knew, somehow, that they were not heeding his command for the sake of diplomacy, but rather analysing the situation that he and his kingsguard were in. Their eyes looked at their stances, their weapons, and like the eagle hunting field mice Caden could see it clearly. It was a strange sensation, and he could not entirely explain it, yet he began to feel as though he knew what they were about to do. They would move around him, and attack the guards at his side, then come in at him from both flanks at once. What about Armand? Did they truly believe they could move fast enough to save him, or did they simple not care to?

Yet they did not move, and rather than attacking him the foremost assassin was almost studiously looking at his eyes. “He is touched by death,” the robed man said in a dialect that could be understood yet was so alien they struggled to do so.

“He is,” repeated the woman behind him. “Touched by death.”

It was then that Caden saw another figure enter from the eastern hallway; a man with violet eyes, and dark hair that ran like a stygian waterfall to the chest of his robes. They were grey, and red, and black, and his sword was shorter than the rest yet somehow more dangerous.

“So, it is true,” this new man said, carefully moving through his companions until he could see Caden and Armand clearly. “Then you, at least, are not ours to take.”

The man with violet eyes drew a knife from his outer layer of robes, then tossed it with the ease of a flick. Caden saw the tip coming in time that, in a thoughtless move of instinct, he began to pull Armand out of the way, and instead of hitting him in the heart the knife only sank into the arm where it had been. Armand yelled in pain, and the man with Violet eyes seemed frustrated for a moment as he drew another knife.

“Please stay still,” he said, his request oddly polite.

Caden never saw Ethelyn arrive. Instead, like the realization that she had been standing in his father’s tent that night, he only became subtly aware she was there at all. At first it was the feeling of delicate fingers that were not his own clutching a cold knife, and soon this became another’s eyes looking at the flickering lights of the chandelier above them. Finally, he saw her, dressed not in her usual dresses but in leathers and a brown bodice that hugged her form, and she walked between the robed figures as though none but him could ever notice she was there. She eventually decided on one of them, and positioned herself behind him with the knife, existing only for them, hovering by his neck. Then she pulled it back and cut, and the man suddenly tried to cry except his voice was cut with him, and he gasped and hissed and spat blood and crumpled to the ground where death’s cold embrace found him.

The others turned, alarmed, at the sudden realization that a woman was suddenly there. She sank her blade deep into the heart of a second robed man, a fierce thrust that had all her weight behind it, and as she drew her blade back there was bright red blood in the groove. Suddenly soldiers in blue armour, and helmets fashioned after the head of a wolf, and wielding curved blades began to run down the stairs in their dozens and fill in from the flanking hallways and attack the intruders indiscriminately.

The melee was fierce. The remaining robed men, and their leader with violet eyes, almost immediately began to fight against the sudden coming of the Philosopher King’s personal guard. His guard was far more skilled than Caden’s own, yet despite it the assassins seemed even more so. They parried and blocked and dodged and when they did attack, they only barely managed to wound their new foes, who were quickly taken behind the lines to safely so that none of them would lose their lives.

Caden knelt over Armand and Wulfsurd, and soon Arian ran down to join him, and together the brothers watched in silence as the assassins fought their way to the western hallway. One more of them was cut down by the steel wolves, leaving only the violet eyed man and the female assassins remaining, and the moment they saw a chance they broke off the melee and ran down the hallways and made to flee.

Like rats, the intruders set to scurry away from the light that was the philosopher’s warriors, and like a cleansing flame those warriors sought out and burned away all trace of corruption with steel fire and tempered skill. The rogues in black cloaks were cut down or fled back into the courtyard, and only a few of those that made it there managed to flee through the portcullis gate. Even fewer of those would escape the city that evening, or in the days following as the Sarkanian army scoured every sewer and searched every house.

Yet of those remaining grey-robed women, or their violet eyed leader, nothing was ever found. Like a mist lifting in the morning warmth they seemed to dissipate completely, their physical presence gone despite how they tormented the dreams of the survivors.