It was roughly two hours from dawn, and the castle was still. Rigbard Dethinel yawned as he stared out into the darkened courtyard. Fresh off the farm, he was a young man of twenty and was looking forward to being relieved at daybreak. A warm bed was waiting for him in the barracks. He had been up the whole night and half of the previous one, and he was exhausted. The whole garrison was. He had been amongst those who had drawn the short straw in taking the first watch while the others slept.

Rigbard took a moment to rub his bleary eyes and banished thoughts of sleep from his mind. Lord Vick had often told them to remember why they were fighting. Rigbard was a man of the Finger and was fighting to protect his home and his family from the invaders. He was the only son of a farmer, and the farmers of the Finger as well as their first sons had largely been spared from being called up to House Verini’s armies until now so that they could continue feeding the county. He had been forced to watch in frustration as his friends and neighbours marched off in great parades to the ill-fated conquest of Cumbar.

Remember that frustration, he told himself as he struggled to keep his eyes open. Now, it was finally his turn, and he wasn’t about to be caught sleeping on the job, even if it would have been so easy. He and his partner had been tasked to guard the stables, which were located in a quiet corner of the courtyard, well away from prying eyes. The stalls were filled with the horses of Sir Gavin’s cavalry, which stared at him with large, soulful eyes. He looked back at the beasts, marvelling that there could be so many in one place. Back in his village, Lorgan Mistly owned the only horse, and he earned a living renting it out to farmers after ploughing his own fields.

He stifled another yawn and wondered why his partner was so silent. He looked around and spotted him sitting against a stall, sleeping with his eyes open. His prized shortbow was still clutched tightly in his right hand. Dalen Figbur was his name, and he shared a lot in common with Rigbard. They were both farmers’ boys and this was their first taste of war. However, Dalen had actually gone out into the moors on official business and never missed a chance to lord it over Rigbard whenever he could, even if all he did was confiscate grain and metal. Rigbard grinned maliciously as he thought of creative ways to wake his friend, who he felt had grown too big for his britches.

He still had a crooked grin on his face when someone wrapped a rolled up cloth around his neck and tightened it. He clawed at the cloth as it tightened around his neck. He croaked as someone planted a knee in his back and pulled back harder. Rigbard tried to warn his partner, who looked ridiculous as he slept with his eyes open and his mouth agape. However, garbled chokes were the only sounds he could make. His lungs screamed for air as the young guard tried to grab at the person behind him. The knee dug deeper, and the cloth tightened further. Soon, his consciousness began to slip. The last thing he saw was the knife sticking out of his partner’s back.

The body went still but Gav continued to hold the cloth tight around his neck. A knife to the throat, or in the back, would have done the job quicker but bloodstains on the uniform could give him away. After a few minutes, Gav loosened the cloth and felt for a pulse. Detecting none, he stripped the body and slit the man’s throat to be sure. He felt a wave of nausea but forced himself to focus.

“No more half measures,” Gav told himself.

His first instinct had been to subdue and restrain the two guards, but that was far too risky, and he had made too many mistakes already. He quickly donned the guard’s clothes and replaced the man’s sword with his own in his scabbard. A second look would tell anyone that the sword was unusual, but Gav gambled that anyone he encountered would be too tired to notice. The armour was a poor fit, but it hadn’t fit the young man he had just killed well either. Besides, the other guards were likely to be just like this one, desperately trying to stay awake as their adrenaline from the night’s excitement faded.

After hiding the bodies in a pile of hay, Gav walked across the courtyard with his head bowed, doing his best to look like a weary guard. There were few guards on duty, and none gave him a second look as he walked towards the keep. The effects of the powder he had taken still lingered and he sensed that was where the mage was. He deduced that his target would be close by as well.

Gav took a deep breath as he walked past the guards at the door without being challenged. He knew the layout of the keep well by now and sensed that the mage was in the barracks on the ground floor. Another pair of guards nodded at him sleepily as Gav made his way across the great hall. Here, men slept in their armour, as they sat slumped over at long tables. The late night meal that was laid out had barely been touched.

The mage was in a room just off the great hall. He wasn’t moving, which indicated that he might be asleep. Another pair of soldiers stood guard at the door. Gav took a deep breath and strode towards them. The guards barely met his gaze and one shuffled aside slightly to let him pass.

As he opened the door, Gav could scarcely conceal his disbelief. After all he had been through, was killing Lord Vick really going to be so easy? He entered the large room where thirty beds were laid out. Twenty of them were occupied. He paused at the threshold and looked for his target.

“Everyone’s just collapsed in the closest bed, you can sleep anywhere,” came a voice from out of the darkness.

Sweat began to bead Gav’s forehead as he searched for an empty bed. The voice was Randal’s, and it came from one of the beds furthest from the room’s two large windows. Should he kill him as well? His target had said he was the second in command here, and there was no doubt he was invaluable to the defence. Only if he had to in order to kill his target or escape safely, Gav told himself. That was the second cardinal rule his master had drummed into him. The first was to prioritize his own life overtaking the target’s.

Randal yawned as he struggled to stay awake. Vick was fast asleep in the next bed, and he was determined to stay awake until his friend woke up. Something was nagging at him in the back of his mind, he couldn’t put his finger on what in his sleep addled state. Then, it clicked. He glanced out the window and saw that it was still pitch black outside. The changing of the guard wasn’t for at least another hour!

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“Assassin!” he cried as he leapt to his feet. “The assassin is here! Arise, protect your lord!”

He searched the darkened room and could find no sign of the intruder. A snap of his fingers and candles were lit across the room. His eyes took a moment to adjust and then he spotted a crouched over figure hurtling towards Vick’s bed. He was dressed as a guard, and because he couldn’t sense his aura, it took a moment for his sleepy brain to register that it was actually a person.

Moments later, he saw the figure’s hand move. Vick leapt out of his bed with his sword in hand and grunted as a throwing knife that had been flying towards Randal’s throat deflected off the cuirass he had been sleeping in. Around him, men were beginning to stir. The assassin had barely broken stride when the throwing knife left his hand and he was now almost upon him.

The assassin’s blade arced. It was lightning quick and of an unusual length, which caught Vick off guard. He stepped forward and let the blade glance across his chest, where his armour was the thickest. However, the blow was light, and the assassin withdrew it quickly and pivoted so that he was in a position to counter should Vick attempt to strike.

Despite the danger to his life, Vick was impressed. A lesser fencer might have committed their full weight behind the strike, hoping to pierce the armour or to force him back. Sir Feryn’s death at this one’s hand had been no fluke. He heard Randal shouting something at someone, but he couldn’t spare it any thought. Every fibre of his being was concentrated on the assassin before him.

Deciding to take the initiative, Vick whirled his sword in a slow circle before swinging savagely at the assassin’s midsection. He knew his opponent’s bladework was quick, and aimed to stop him in his tracks with a blow that was difficult to dodge and too powerful to deflect. Then, with his weapon occupied, one of his men would be able to attack his unprotected back. Or, if he was lucky, he could shatter his opponent’s sword and cut him down in one fell swoop.

However, Vick’s swing was slightly delayed due to his fatigue. The assassin darted forward with surprising agility, taking him inside the large man’s swing. He stopped the lord’s sword arm with his free hand and slid the tip of his blade through the lord’s throat.

“Vick, no!” Randal cried.

With the effects of the powder still coursing through him, Gav felt power gather in the mage and withdrew his sword from Vick’s neck before diving behind a bed for cover. Moments later, an ice spike the size of a watermelon splintered the bed.

Gav scrambled to his feet and ran for the window, weaving in between confused guards, many of whom still hadn’t found their weapons.

“The assassin is here!” Randal bellowed. “Stop him!”

One of the guards found his wits and attempted to block Gav’s path. The boy’s sword arced, and the man’s head went flying. As the headless body slumped to its knees, Gav leapt onto its shoulders and used it to propel himself out of the window.

Glass shattered, lacerating his face. Gav covered his head with his hands and lay face down in the courtyard as a fireball came whizzing out of the broken window and exploded less than three feet above his head.

The soldiers inside the barracks took up the cry as the guards on the wall turned their attention inward.

“It’s the assassin! Fire at will!”

Gav cursed and scrambled to his feet as sentries the shouts were echoed across the courtyard. On the wall, the sentries there unslung their bows.

Dodging arrows, Gav ran along the walls of the keep in order to get to the far side of the courtyard where fewer guards would know what was going on. He pushed past a pair of confused guards who had arrived to see what the commotion was.

However, arrows continued to pelt him and the guards in this part of the courtyard soon understood almost at once that he was the assassin. The two guards he had passed came to an abrupt halt and turned around to pursue him. Gav paused to cut them down without mercy before sprinting towards the stables where he had obtained his guard’s uniform.

Once inside, he took stock of his surroundings. Guards were converging on the stables. Gav pulled out the shortbow he had found on one of the guards and fired an arrow at one of the onrushing men. It was a poor shot that missed by several feet, but it did cause the guard and several others to scatter.

Gav began to work quickly. He opened all the stalls before setting fire to a bale of hay. The horses stamped their feet uncomfortably at the smell of smoke as Gav climbed onto one that he had saddled earlier. He pressed his body low until he was almost lying on top of it and waited. As the fire grew, the horses grew more alarmed. One of the horses panicked and shot out of the stables at full tilt, triggering a stampede.

Men cried in alarm as they tried to calm the horses, and Gav struggled to control his, wrestling with the reins as he guided the panicked beast up the stairs that led to the top of the wall. Once on top, he was quickly spotted, and it didn’t take long for arrows to start whizzing past his head. As he whipped the horse down the wall, sentries dove out of the way to avoid being trampled. Gav looked over the side of the castle wall into town and swallowed. It was a long way down and the closest rooftop was a good twenty feet away.

He put those unnecessary thoughts out of his mind and whirled a length of rope with a noose tied to one end over his head before flinging it at a parapet. It caught, and Gav took a deep breath before leaping from the horse. As he did, an arrow caught him in the shoulder. As his face contorted in pain, Gav could only marvel at the one in a million shot, hitting a target moving at such speed in the dim light. However, with the sheer number of arrows loosed at him, it was inevitable that one would strike him eventually.

The pain broke his concentration and his grip on the rope slipped as he fell over the side of the castle wall. Fighting through the pain, he gripped the rope as tight as he could, but his descent was still wild, and he landed on the beaten earth perimeter between the town and the castle wall with a sickening crump.

Gav rolled on the ground in agony. Every part of him hurt. He could hear shouts from the wall and tried to stand. The safety of the town seemed so close, but he could not find the strength to lift his body off the ground, much less stand. Left with no other choice, he began to crawl. Arrows bracketed him, and he gasped as another struck him in the back, piercing his hauberk.

Stubbornly, he dug his nails into the packed earth and pulled himself towards the buildings. It was slow going, and he could only move a foot or two at a time. He knew that even if he got to the closest building, he lacked the strength to move any further and would quickly be found. However, he refused to give up and stubbornly inched his way forward.

More arrows landed around him, and he cried out as one struck his hand, pinning it to the ground. Now, he was no longer able to move. Was this how he was going to die? In the distance, he heard a horn blow a low, mournful note. Gritting his teeth, he attempted to pull the arrow out of his hand, but the pain every time he pulled at it was too much.

He heard more shouts from the wall behind him and looked up to see a cloaked man approach him rapidly. Was he a friend or foe? Gav tried to unsheathe his sword, but the man arrived before he could and wrenched the arrow out of his hand.

“Good thing they’re using bodkins,” he heard a familiar voice remark as the man cast the arrow aside.

Gav felt strong hands bear him aloft and the last thing he wondered before losing consciousness was if he had made the arrows that had struck him or if Arden had.