'War is the assassin’s trade’

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

Marcus stared at the thin, slightly curved arm of steel that protruded out from the snake-humanoid’s cloaked form.

His eyes then traced its lithe torso, seeing the thin dark wrappings that clung to its skin, clearly well suited for a night raid like this. The body suit was patched with form-fitting leathers around the chest and kneecaps for protection of only the vitals, and the long shawl that hung from the creature’s face gave away nothing to Marcus except the amber eye-slits that blinked horizontally at him from within their visor.

From the black scales he saw between those eyes, and the long, thin tail that trailed from the creature’s back, Marcus was certain of his assassin’s species.

A Yokun…he thought. One of the beasts behind this whole proxy war.

He gulped, watching the serpent close the door to his chamber, noticing the bloodied snout of one of his guards lying just beyond the doorway.

Those guards were of Clan Marrow. Armed and armored. That means one thing: this guy’s good.

Marcus licked his lips, thinking of any way he could alert the palace servants.

“I presume you didn’t come here to talk,” he said, moving slightly to his left, hand reaching into his pocket to precure Gatskeek’s dagger.

He got his hand round the hilt. He blinked once, and then he was looking at the tip of the Yokun’s blade, its edge glistening with ratman blood.

“Drop it, human,” the creature hissed.

Marcus dared not even gulp – the sword (a Wakizashi, by the looks of it) was close enough to his throat that even a single twitch out of line would be instant death.

He let the dagger fall to the ground.

And he waited.

He watched the eyes of his enemy in silence, head rushing as he tried to think of a way out of this.

“I suppose negotiations are out of the picture?” he asked, raising his hands and keeping his body as rigid as possible. “If it’s any compensation, I believe we could come to some form of mutually beneficial arrangeme-“

The Yokun had stepped behind him and tied a muzzle round his mouth before he could finish whatever ‘plan’ he was spinning on the spot to stall for time.

“Be a good monkey and keep quiet,” the creature told him. “And you might just keep your head.”

Marcus felt the arm of the snake coil round his neck, the other one jabbing into his back to propel him forward.

A woman…he realized, noting the inflection in her voice. And one who, it seems, wants me alive…

And without any other alternative, he allowed himself to be guided outside, stepping over the gradually pooling blood from the two guardsmen lying prone at his doorway.

Clean cuts – across the throat. Absolute precision, no waste, no struggle.

His eyes shot back to try and get a glimpse of his captor.

“Keep moving,” she whispered.

You’re good, aren’t you?

The end of the hallway turned into a crossroads, and Marcus heard a general shout go up from deeper within the palace chambers.

Ahead, two guards ran in tandem with torches burning in their hands. As they turned they saw the pair moving down the dimly lit hallway and were about to call out for aid were it not for the two shuriken that stopped their tongues – embedding themselves deep beneath the chin of each paralyzed rat.

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As they fell to the floor together in a spasming, twitching heap, Marcus’s assailant finished them off with two masterful mercy strokes of her Wakisashi. It all happened so fast that Marcus couldn’t be sure it had happened at all.

His assailant scanned the bottom floors as they entered into a long, spiral stairway that would lead out into the servants’ quarters and then the front door of the palace. From the confidence with which this snake moved, avoiding contact with any guards by keeping to the pillars and shadows of the castle’s environs, Marcus made two more assumptions:

One: she knew the layout of the castle and

Two: she’d already taken care of the guards at the front door.

So thorough must this girl’s preparations have been, that when a general shout went up from the palace courtyard outside – just beside where the quarters of the Glumrat representatives slept – he was actually struck with surprise:

“H-help! Bloody murder…isssss…being…done! Asssssasssssinssss have invaded palaccccce!”

Marcus heard his captor hiss behind him.

You didn’t realize it takes more than just precision to kill a Gloomraava, did you? Especially one of Clan Glumrot. You left old Verulex alive, and now you’re going to pay the price.

As the snake-fiend practically threw Marcus down the right corridor that led towards the servants’ quarters, he began to piece together what must be happening right now – a precision strike at the throats of the war-council…probably based on reports that a meeting had been held on this night, when we would all be gathered together.

And that meant someone gave her the intel…

The Yokun dashed through the servant rats who screamed as they awoke to Marcus’s gagged form being bulldozed through the door to their quarters. The Yokun’s blade flew to slice at their jugulars like it were a homing eagle, and she simply continued on her way into the long, vine-coated corridor that led down into the palace foyer. Into freedom.

“Wait,” Marcus heard her say as she launched both her and him down onto the carpeted floor of the palace and scanned her surroundings.

Marcus could see nothing out of the ordinary – the lilac and strawberries of the foyer were just as bright as they ever had been.

…but, come to think of it, maybe they were just a little too bright to be believed.

As a hail of arrows came flying from the palace doorway Marcus felt himself thrown into the air and spun like a ragdoll as the Yokun’s tail whipped about to slash at the storm of projectiles. When he landed, he did so in the snake-woman’s arms, and she immediately took up her blade and placed the tip directly under Marcus’s throat.

“Don’t bother,” she told the air before her. “Make one more move, and he dies.”

Marcus’s eyes flew to see what she evidently could see, and noticed the tell-tale signs of silhouettes glittering against the corrugated steel of the palace door.

Slowly, the spell of indivisibility was lifted, and Marcus looked upon a retinue of familiar, yet bloody face: Deekius, Skeever, and a detachment of Shrykul’s halberd-wielding honor-guards.

The king himself stood at the center of their formation, clutching a strip of gauze to his bleeding neck.

“Tsk’alia!” Marcus heard his assailant scoff. “The rodent king yet lives…”

How had she hit them all at once? Marcus’s mind railed with nothing else better to do. How could this single woman…without being detected…unless…

The realization pierced him with an intensity that matched the kiss of the Yokun’s cold steel under his chin.

There’s more than one of them…

That at least told him something: if there was indeed a team of assassins working together here, they had clearly spent themselves too thin, and one of them had been exceedingly sloppy.

She straightened up and pressed the Wakizashi's bloody tip deeper into Marcus’s neck, so he could feel the thin trickle of his blood run in a little red river down his throat.

“Make one more move and he dies,” she told the ratmen. “You understand, vermin? Your Shai-Alud dies here and now.”

Marcus’s eyes flew to each of the panting, breathless rats, settling finally on Skeever. He tried to communicate with his eyes flaring eyes and nostrils alone that the snake she-devil was bluffing – that she clearly wanted him alive. But judging from the sagging shoulders and sorrow-filled face of the Talon-Commander, he could tell he wasn’t getting through.

“Be…letting…her…pass,” Shrykul said. “There is…being…enough…bloodshed on this night.”

The guards parted unsteadily, eyeing up the Yokun as she kicked at Marcus’s legs to move him forward passed the crowd of his allies. As he looked upon Skeever’s face – wracked with pain and fury in equal measure – he felt the ratman give his sleeve a reassuring tug.

“Hands off!” his captor hissed. “Or he dies!”

The rats gave them an even wider bearth, and Marcus had no choice but to stagger towards the exit, looking round only once to see the bloody form of Verulex appear at the top of the castle stairway and be cowed into silence by King Shrykul’s shaking head. A sharp sting of pain beneath his ear jerked him back to face the slowly approaching palace gates.

“Eyes forward,” the Yokun corrected him.

This time he let out a gulp. He knew that as soon as he left the safety of these gates, the chances of him returning were probably slim. And whatever the snake-fiend had in store for him, it hardly bode well.

The gates to the castle opened and Marcus was thrust into the streets with the Yokun’s dark blade glancing his throat as she grimaced, looking about her fervently as though she was waiting for something.

Then, looking to the skies, she saw what she needed to see.

And Marcus’s eyes went wide as he realized the situation was far worse than he’d imagined.

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