205. Duchess Elect: Wiremu.

I collected Susie the next day to head to the Lore Society. At the entrance to the society was a squad of soldiers. The Sergeant approached me, “Ma’am, you have been accused of an assault against a noble and are summoned before the Duke.”

“The Duke, huh? The King was too big a risk for her, I assume. It is not unexpected.” Tabitha won that bet. I thought they would get the King involved.

“Miss Susanne Wells, you are summoned as a witness.”

“Indeed,” I said. “They must wrap up all loose ends. We will come with you, Sergeant, but we won’t be separated or bound.”

The Sergeant chose not to push it in public. The real fight will come when we get out of sight in the Duke’s Palace. The squad formed around us, and we headed off.

I made casual conversation as we went, “Tell me, sergeant, do you believe the stories about the Great Snake Spirit that escorted Težka away from the army base?” I did say that loud enough for everybody to hear, including the surrounding spectators.

“No,” was the gruff reply.

“I wouldn’t be so certain,” I said, “Stranger things have happened.”

We arrived at the Gate to the Duke’s Palace. I was disarmed. I only had a cheap knife on me anyway. As I said, this was predictable. They tried to push me around as they disarmed me. I merely locked the appropriate joint and watched them bounce, literally in one case. I eventually let them bind my hands behind my back. The problem was Susie; she was not nearly so robust, and I made sure to be near her and stop the worst. They tried to separate us, but I was pretty much immovable for these goons. I had expected more. They had obviously expected less. An assassin is stereotyped as a light, fast attacker. I was not the stereotype; if I had been, Otto would have killed me.

For Susie's sake, I was just starting to get annoyed when one of the Dukes' flunkies came out to bring us to the Duke. It would have tipped our hand if I had beaten all ten of them. Saved by a flunkie.

Duke Terrance was in his grand receiving hall, his imitation throne on a stage at the end. There was a balcony area on one side. The Duke and his current wife occupied the stage with his key advisors and Harry. Guards lined the hall, and there were four archers on the balcony. Also on the balcony were his other two sons, Michael and George, plus four others I didn’t know. I guess they were their inner circle of nobles.

I was marched to the front, and Susie was taken off to the side. The Duke rose. Everybody bowed if they were noble or dropped to a knee if they weren’t. Everybody except me that is. I just stood there and looked at him. The guard behind me tried to knock my knees out, but that was also predictable, and I had locked the joints.

“You would defy me?” the Duke asked, “You are here on charges of maiming my daughter. You should be begging for mercy.”

“Yes, I maimed your daughter for attacking me with a Skill. Do you have any questions?”

“I can have you killed right now.”

“I actually think you have been manipulated into bringing me here because they want me to kill you.”

“What? Who is “they”?”

“Who is “they”, Harry?” I asked.

Everybody looked at Harry. She looked uncertain and surprised at the way things were going. She turned to her father, but before she could use her Skill on him, I said, ”You can’t charm the whole room with that Skill. Everyone knows you have a Mental Charming Skill, and you are in a plot to kill your father.” They do now, anyway.

Harry turned on me, “You are an accomplished liar, aren’t you? You obviously have a deceptive skill that turned everyone against me when it was you who assaulted me!” Her eyes were brimming with tears. I wondered how Tabitha would rate her performance. She turned to her father, “You are not going to believe his lies, are you?”

Whether or not her father believed her, he would always side with his daughter. His days were numbered anyway. This performance was for others.

“You admitted the assault, and the evidence is clear.” the Duke said, “You are guilty. You are hereby sentenced to ten lashes with the whip and ten years of hard labour in the mines.”

“Except for the fact I am a Knight of the Audtior and acting under her orders,” I replied.

“We only have your word on that, and we have already established your word is unreliable.”

“You could always just ask me,” Tabitha said as she detached herself from a shadow near Susie.

“How did you get in here!” the Duke demanded.

“I actually just walked in the front door. Your security is pretty slack.”

Then Harry shouted, “Kill her!”

The four archers on the balcony already had arrows notched, and they raised their bows and fired together. They must be under Harry’s command, not the Dukes. Two of the archers used Triple Shot to spread the arrows. Tabitha tried to dodge, but it was too quick, and three of the four struck her, and she went down and lay still.

“What did you do?” The Duke demanded.

Harry ignored him, shouting, “Execute!”

Three of the archers immediately fired at the Duke, and all of them hit. He was thrown back into his throne, bleeding. One of his guards stabbed the Duke, and the other one then struck at the traitor, wounding him. The fourth archer had turned and plunged a knife into Harry’s older brother, Michael, followed by one of the nobles I didn’t know slitting his throat.

The Duke's wife was screaming as the two guards duelled in front of her. Other guards were approaching the throne. The Duke's advisors were huddled in a corner. The loyal guard took an arrow in the back, allowing the traitor to finish him off. Another arrow embedded itself in the floor in front of the approaching guards, causing them to stop as Harry mounted the throne steps and punched her stepmother unconscious.

Harry then addressed us all. “The Duke and my dearest older brother have been killed by the traitorous Countess Auditor and her underhanded Knight. This leaves me as the Duchess Elect. I am taking charge here, and you can either join me or be killed in the fight against this fierce Knight of the dead Auditor.” She glanced at me, still with my hands tied behind my back, “I am sure you will die fiercely defending your traitorous boss.” she said to me with a smirk.

I could see a bewildered George being restrained by the unknown noble on the balcony. The four archers were carefully watching everyone below, and the traitor guard was standing behind Harry, ready to defend her.

“Kneel before the Duchess!” yelled the guard behind Harry, and everybody who didn’t want to die kneeled under the watching eye of the archers.

I didn’t bother kneeling as I was slated for death anyway. I made a show of struggling with my bound arms.

“Congratulations,” I spat. I was in the role of a valiant knight, defiant in the face of death.

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” Harry said. “The Countess was a problem you solved for me by bringing her here.”

I looked over, and Tabitha’s body was lying there, half in the shadow she came from. Susie was on her knees with her hands still bound, face to the floor.

“What’s next?” I growled, “The Kingdom?”

“Tieing up loose ends is next. Unfortunately, that means the end for you and your girlfriend over there,” she said, indicating Susie.

“She is not my girlfriend. She is my sister.”

That got a puzzled look from Harry before everything went dark, and Tabitha and I went to work.

The bindings on my arm literally melted off, and I stepped forward and punched Harry unconscious, as she had just done with her stepmother. I stabbed the guard behind her and left Puia to turn him into ash.

The darkness was reduced to clouds of shadow moving through the area. Then, the fear hit. A ghostly giant snake appeared by the main door. It was partly translucent and had a real ghostly look. Nyx was getting good with these images. Those trying to escape turned back. Tāoke was guarding the private entrance the Duke used, and several advisors were dead there.

Three of the archers were dead on the balcony, and Tabitha was engaged with the fourth and the noble. I created two Granite Darts. I preferred lava darts but didn’t want to burn the place to the ground. I took the opportunity and poisoned the noble as Tabitha struck the archer.

The guards on the ground floor were my responsibility. I picked up the dropped sword of the traitor guard. The floor guards seemed fixated on the ghostly snake and the fear, which was the idea. The one in charge of the guards was looking to make a break past the snake, so I moved to engage him as he was between me and the door.

He must have sensed me coming as he turned and struck out with his sword. He was fast. Only one of the other guards noticed and turned to face me as well. They must have fairly extreme Mental Strength to resist the fear and the ghostly snake.

I created a small shield for my off-hand and let them drive me back so it didn’t break any of the others out of position. They were both good, and I had difficulty holding them off. They kept driving me back even when I wanted to stop. With my Thermal Sensing, I knew what was behind me, and I was running out of space.

Then Tabita created a distraction by tossing a body over the balcony, and I managed to get my sword through to reciprocate some of the wounds I had taken. I created spikes on my shield and suddenly drove forward, drawing a lot of blood from the girl on the left.

Then, the main doors burst open, and several squads of marine commandos burst into the room. The fear stopped, and the ghostly snake disappeared. My opponents stepped back in semi-surrender. We were all disarmed and watched by the commandos, and I could sense other teams sweeping the mansion.

Tabitha was at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the balcony, holding George. It appeared she had just frogmarched him down the stairs when the commandos arrived. With his father and brother dead and his sister about to face treason charges, or at least patricide charges, he was now the heir, or Duke Elect, as they call it. I am sure the King won’t let him stay in charge, but Tabitha and I shared a smile.

Tabitha did look strange wearing Susie's clothes. Susie was a sunny flower type of girl. Tabitha’s favourite colour is black.

Then the King arrived. He looked around and spied Tabitha, and said, “Countess Auditor, please explain this.” his hand waved, including the dead Duke and other bodies.

Tabitha dragged George forward and started a fairly accurate explanation of events. It left out the fear, the ghostly snake, and the shadows. She explained her first death by arrows as an illusion, which it was, just not by her.

The commandos took charge of the prisoners, which included Harry, her Stepmother, George, and the other surviving nobles, as they were all suspects. Conspiracy to murder his father might be how the King was going to replace George with someone better. Oh, well, we tried our best for him.

The dead noble that Tabitha tossed off the balcony was the heir to the Marquess Patrick Onslo. That's a name I hadn’t heard since Beitemark. He was the one supplying Otto with Monster Cores. We were planning to leave the King to sort out this mess from now on, but I might pay the Marquess a visit anyway.