Of Duke Cambelny of Aptleed’s three sons, only the youngest, Maximilian, was interested in his poetry. Timothy, James and even his wife, Kimberley, entertained this desire to create with good manners, but only Xim asked questions, and only he began creating his own. The duke would spend hours upon the tower’s balcony, the whole of his city stretched before him, parchment and quill in hand. He would fiddle with the words in front of him from dawn til dusk, scouring his mind for the precise, specific, perfect word to occupy each position in his work. That was the beauty of poetry, in his mind: that this form of art was so limited in length meant that every word must be given ample consideration—was it indeed the best word for this particular moment? Did it convey the emotion that the duke intended? Did it convey the imagery that he held, oh so vivid, in his mind?
But, as with all days of late, he found little joy in the process.
‘Arnus?’ he called out, and his aide arrived promptly at his side, looking down upon the parchment before him.
‘You know, my lord, not every poem has to rhyme,’ he said.
Duke Cambelny ignored the cutting remark. ‘Tell me. What is the latest news on our news soldiers?’
Arnus hesitated. ‘All information will be presented at the morning briefing,’ he replied.
‘Tell me now.’
The prolonged silence that followed was almost answer enough; the Duke knew, in his heart, the truth of the matter. Ever since he had accepted Queen Amira’s aid in dealing with the recent bandit menace, the situation had devolved.
It had, at the time, seemed to be the deal of a lifetime. The foreign queen had not demanded payment for the “borrowed” soldiers in gold, but in timber—and this was a resource that the Gentle Tundras had in plentiful supply. He would hand over this timber—a significant amount, to be sure—and the soldiers in gold would drive out the bandits that had seemed to emerge from nothing over the past few months.
Yet the timber had not been the true payment. Now granted access to the city, the Goldmarch soldiers had taken certain… liberties. Crime was at an all-time low, or so the duke had been told in his morning briefings, but it seemed that the definition of “crime” had changed. That is, anything that the Goldmarch soldiers deemed necessary was by default legal in the city of Aptleed. It was legal only because their number was far greater than that of the local guards, and the duke’s loyal men could do nothing without risk of injury or death.
And of that, there had been plenty.
With every day that passed, the duke found his authority eroded. Goldmarch soldiers hassled innocent locals, those simply going about their work. They stole, they attacked, they committed dreadful crimes of which Duke Cambelny would not permit himself to think about. For, of course, he was to blame.
‘Any communication from my fellow statesmen?’ the duke asked.
‘No, sir. I…’ Again, Arnus paused. ‘If you will excuse me, one of your guards is signalling that you have a visitor.’
Duke Cambelny sighed; it had been so long since he had heard from any of them. The last letter, in fact, must have been received over a week ago, and the Duchess of Lenktra had not sounded her usual self. ‘Very well, let them in,’ he told Arnus, then turned his attention back to his latest poem—one that, it was clear, possessed no heart.
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‘My lord,’ Arnus said at the duke’s rear. ‘May I present to you— Oh, sword of Ares…’
The duke’s heart sank in his chest, and he whipped himself from his city-facing chair just in time to avoid the coming attack. A woman stood at the threshold of the balcony in the fine clothes of the upper class, though there was an air about her of anything but. Arnus, who only put on the visage of having come from a wealthy background, could not have noticed.
She released a dagger from her hand, throwing it forward. It stuttered forth, and with every foot that it passed away from her, it stopped, duplicated, and then continued on its path. The last of these copycat knives hovered in the air just where Duke Cambelny’s head had been only a second earlier.
The woman ripped her hand back, and the furthest knife began to retreat, merging with the one before, until soon she had the full weapon back in her grasp.
Arnus roared something unintelligible, his words losing all the effected air of the upper middle class, and he threw himself at the would-be assassin. They tumbled to the floor, while the duke drew his ceremonial sword. Ceremonial it may have been, and blunt as a result, but that did not mean it was useless. A local enchanter by name of Steven had imbued it with a powerful attack—one so powerful that it might only be used a single time.
‘Arnus, stand clear!’ the duke commanded, but at the same moment, the aide’s eyes bulged. The tip of a dagger emerged from his chest, then duplicated, then shot forward and duplicated once more, heading again for the duke’s head.
Duke Cambelny dove to one side, careful not to land on his blade. Though it may have been dull, it could still do damage, and he would not want to activate the enchantment until the correct moment. The last of the duplicating blades caught him by the ear, slicing through it, but doing little enough damage that the duke’s health reserves could manage.
He drew his blade, pointing it towards the assassin, and he couldn’t help but smile.
‘Do you really think—’ the assassin began to ask, but the duke was never able to hear the end of the question.
Duke Cambelny activated the enchantment, and magicks of all kinds shot forth. Fire attacks combined with frost attacks combined with lightning attacks, combined with the dark aura of magicks he really should not have possessed. As these magicks ploughed forth, the blade risked slipping from his hand, and he gripped it with the other to steady himself.
When the enchantment finally ended, the woman sank to the floor, a hole in her low abdomen and indeed in the wall behind her. The duke sank to the floor, exhausted, dismissing the resulting notifications for the time being, for there were other matters to attend to.
The duke staggered over to the felled assassin, grit his teeth together, and ripped open the woman’s shirt. The answer to a question he had not yet voiced was there in front of him—the ink of a Goldmarch prison. This woman was not a local, was not disgruntled by the terrible deal the duke had struck. She was the next stage in Amira’s plan; she had intended this all along.
Duke Cambelny could not help but be impressed; in all his dealings with Amira, he had not thought she had such a strategic head upon her shoulders. Though, of course, the duke could not discount the possibility that this scheme had come from new aides of hers.
The duke stood, and the duke ran, down the long corridors of the tower he called home, rushing for the room in which he might find his family. As he slammed open the door, he was relieved to find his wife and his three young boys were all together.
‘Kim, Tim, Jim, Xim… pack your bags. We need to leave.’
His beautiful wife rose from her chair, her face paling. ‘Darling? What is it? Why must we—’ She ceased her question when she saw the blood stains on his hands.
‘An attack on my life. And almost certainly not the first. We must leave. Now.’
‘Father?’ Xim asked, still so, so young. ‘What are we packing for? When will we return?’
‘My boy… I do not know that we ever will.’