Today I learned a very important lesson. I just wished I didn’t have to learn it the hard way.

The lesson? Mages fight dirty. They were the most underhanded, unfair, backstabbing little sons-of-bitches I had ever fought against. My countrymen fought with melee weaponry, swords and maces and spears and the like. But mages used spells that could wipe out a whole company of men with a wave of the hand. Even a dragon could be brought down with magic. Mages possessed far too much power for one person. It made them arrogant.

It also made them stupid.

Take away a mage’s staff and he became helpless. Get too close to a mage and she couldn’t defend herself. A mage’s true weakness was pride. They thought simply because they had power that they were invincible, and that was where they were wrong. A mage bleeds as readily as any other man.

Every teacher I had growing up, from statecraft to combat training, told me that those who lost respect for their strength lost the respect of their peers. The ultimate lesson of this came during my berserker training. My instructor, without even entering the berserker trance, bested another berserker who had been getting full of himself as of late. My instructor had warned us, his students, against the perils of thinking ourselves invincible while he had his foot planted on the offender’s neck.

It had been the reason why Eliza had been such a deadly foe. Unlike our siblings, she had taken her power to new heights without thinking herself unstoppable. She had nearly killed Kuro during our fight back in the Ishmarian Arena, and fought Alverd and I to a standstill. Even now, I was sure that she was adhering to her diligent training, fantasizing about the day when she could kill all of us herself.

But the important thing was, I had never met a single mage who struck me as honest or fair. Captain McFarlane didn’t count, seeing as how she was a special forces soldier who did whatever was necessary for a mission to succeed. Kuro most definitely didn’t count, because the weaselly little bastard had the cold, calculating mind of a tactician, prioritizing victory over morals. And finally, I didn’t know squat about any of the members of the Council of Magic, or Prime Minister Albrecht, which meant I couldn’t trust them either.

Sheena? I was still on the fence about her.

I’d been watching her like a hawk since the moment we’d been brought before her, and I still couldn’t figure her out. Was her clumsy tumble down the steps of her throne room an accident, or just a calculated ploy to feed us a false image? She’d already demonstrated a devious side to her when she managed to point out that she was now Alverd’s employer. Everything about her was a paradox. I didn’t know if she was just some air headed bimbo or a cunning master of manipulation.

I think I was starting to lean towards the latter.

I made that call when she gave out assignments for guard duty that night. She insisted on Alverd being right outside her bedroom door. Even the Prime Minister wasn’t fond of that idea. She had voiced such in the throne room, without any of the Council members present, much to his dismay. The older gentleman leaned down so that he could look his niece and liege in the eye, a stern and disapproving tone creeping into his voice.

“Sheena, dear, must I remind you that having a man stationed right outside your bedchamber is the height of impropriety? Your chamber only has one entrance, and it can easily be guarded at the end of the hallway where you wish for Sir Kuro and Princess Alicia to stand guard. While I know this knight won’t do anything to jeopardize your…virtue, I simply must protest.” He ran a hand through his greying brownish hair. “I don’t need to grow any more grey hair on account of worrying about you and your…inclinations. Please, just indulge your paranoid uncle just this once.”

Sheena wasn’t happy, but she eventually gave in to his pleading. “Fine, fine. If it helps you sleep better at night, Uncle, I’ll have Sir Alverd wait out in the hall with his companions.” She looked a little crestfallen. But I wasn’t born yesterday. I knew exactly why she was disappointed. I’d been around long enough to know what that wanton little witch had planned for.

And so, the hallway was where the three of us stayed. Not like it mattered much; Sheena’s room door was only about twenty five feet away, so it was only a short dash away in the event of an emergency. Her room windows were made of a special glass that neither magic nor blade could break, not that it mattered considering that the fact that Sheena’s room was five stories above the ground. The hallway was a natural chokepoint, according to Kuro. Provided that the enemy didn’t come from both directions at the same time, the three of us could easily work together to dispatch any enemies that may have come for Sheena’s head.

It was still early when I wrapped up my patrol around the area for about the sixth time or so. Kuro had turned the small area in front of the Witch-Queen’s bedchamber into a miniature fortress. He had large, thick wooden tables propped on their sides, all the better to shield from projectiles of the magical (and possibly nonmagical) variety. He was also talking to a group of royal guardsmen, about six in total. I walked over to deliver my report and see what he was telling them.

Kuro was giving out orders. “I want you to split into groups of three, and start patrolling the floor below. Make sure you always remain in sight of each other. Assassins have many tools to try and separate guards so they can eliminate them silently, one by one. Report any strange noises, and watch each other’s backs. Now get out there and report back to me after you’ve finished your sweep.” He made a dismissive gesture and the six guards marched away.

Kuro saw me approach and hailed me. “Hey. You find anything on your sweep?” I shook my head. “No, nothing. I sent the two guards I was with to watch the east corridor. We didn’t even hear a peep. Are you sure that something is gonna happen tonight?” I leaned on one of the wooden “barricades”, giving him a look of skepticism. “Say, where’s Alverd?”

Kuro’s face scrunched up. “About that…” He looked over his shoulder, at the door that led to Sheena’s bedchamber. “Turns out the Witch-Queen is more devious than we thought. She asked Alverd to come check on her every so often. He’s been in her room for about five minutes now.” His expression turned grumpy. “I know Alverd isn’t the type to take advantage of women, even if that’s what they want him to do. That’s the only reason I allowed him to go in there.”

I climbed over the makeshift barricade and joined him. “Are you sure?” I asked, in a way that was a little too revealing of my intent. Kuro placed his staff against the barricade and crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah. Besides, I’m sure you need an ear right now. Something’s bothering you, and I think I know what it is.”

I had forgotten that of the two, Kuro was the brains of the operation. He was very, very perceptive. I leaned against the doorframe, placing my hammer on the ground. “There are two things, actually. Care to try and guess them?” I decided to make Kuro work for it, so that if necessary, I could beat him for going too far.

Kuro took a moment to collect his thoughts. “So, first and foremost? You must have seen something pretty nasty during the divination ritual.” I sighed. He was playing the safe game for now. I figured he’d ask about Sheena first, but if I could figure things out, so could he. But I did want to discuss what I’d seen, because I had found it disturbing.

“You first,” I told him. Kuro sighed, but he spoke anyway. “I don’t really know what to make of what I saw. I saw…someone, in a cloak. I couldn’t see their face. The person was talking to two children. A boy and a girl. Telling them some kind of riddle. I can’t remember all the words, something about a curse following them, and of something their mother did, that they had to pay for. None of it makes any sense to me. I don’t even know what the damn crystal was trying to tell me, if it even had any poignant message for me at all.” He shrugged, then motioned at me. “Your turn.”

I leaned into the wall some more to steel myself. “I saw myself, in battle with Eliza. But not as we were back in Ishmar not too long ago. It was a different battle. We were fighting in the throne room…and Eliza was Queen. Queen of the Dragon Tamers. Crown and all. But something was off about her. She looked even more crazed then usual. I don’t know how to put it in words.” I saw Kuro scowl.

“Pretty sure your sister was bereft of any inkling of sanity before we left Ishmar. If that wound Alverd gave her hasn’t finished her off, there’s no telling how mad she is now. I suppose hoping for her to get her throat slit in the middle of the night is off the table, seeing as how your kind doesn’t believe in assassination.”

I seized upon the relevant topic to prevent him from asking about my attitude toward Sheena. “So, you and Alverd seem to know a thing or two about preventing assassinations. Not exactly something someone reads in a book, is it?” I was genuinely curious. Knowing little about the topic itself, I wanted to know everything about it that I could, and since Kuro was in such an accommodating mood, I figured I might as well strike while the tooth metal was hot, so to speak.

I’d never had to deal with assassins before. In my home country, assassination was frowned upon for several reasons. First and foremost, it was the coward’s way to ensure one’s ascendancy to the throne. It was even worse when the assassin was never apprehended, because then the blame could fall on any of the royal family, thus staining all of their reputations. Second, assassins did not have the ability to deal with dragons; their lightweight weaponry and equipment ensured that they could do no harm to our constant companions.

Kuro didn’t pick up on my attempt to change the subject at all, which was good. He launched right into it. “Well, Alverd and I have learned a few things working with other mercenaries over the years. We’ve never assassinated anyone, mind you. We’ve prevented a few, though. Just merchants who pissed off the wrong people, nobody of any consequence. Assassins, they’re all the same. Just a bunch of heavily armed opportunists. Lazy as hell. Predictable, too.”

The young mage pulled out a map of the floor that had been provided by Lord Albrecht. “I’ve already ruled out the windows. I tested them earlier, and they held up to my elemancy, so any assassins who somehow manage to climb the five stories of sheer castle wall won’t get in that way. So I’ve fortified the chokepoints in the halls, scheduled patrols and made sure that at no point are any of the guardsmen alone. Assassins will always attack targets of opportunity. And they’ll do it from shadow, so that they won’t be seen.”

He motioned to the torches lining the hall. “Every torch on this floor has been lit. There won’t be any place for the assassins to hide, and all of the guards know to signal for help the moment that they see anyone out of place. Visibility is an assassin’s worst enemy. If we force them to make themselves known, we turn this into a fair fight. And if there’s one thing assassins loathe, it’s a fair fight. Buggers are terrible at those.” He chuckled to himself as he folded the map and put it back into his pocket.

Then his face hardened, and a frown appeared. “Now, if only the high and mighty Witch-Queen would let Alverd do his bloody job instead of bending his ear about sweet nothings, then I would be utterly convinced that our security is impenetrable.” His tone went straight into disdain in a second. “Honestly, what is that woman thinking?”

I thought at first that this could be a trap. A way for Kuro to suss out my resentment towards Sheena without seeming too ready to pounce on me about it. I decided to throw caution to the wind. “Yeah. She doesn’t seem to care much that something could happen. Did you see the way she fought out on the street? She had no problem sending that giant wolf beast of hers to kill those assassins.”

He nodded in agreement. “You know, I asked Lord Albrecht about that. He said that Sheena has been fighting off assassins since she was six. Six! Can you believe that? She might have more blood on her hands than me or Alverd. And that’s saying something. When I was six, I could barely conjure a tiny spark, much less a gigantic bolt of lightning.” He jut out his lip. “I guess after a while, you just…adjust. Like with Alverd and I. Eventually the act of killing didn’t faze us the way it did when we spilt blood for the first time.”

Suddenly I remembered something. “Oh right. You were gonna ask Sheena a question out on the street the other day. What was it?” I was genuinely curious, as everything I’d seen so far of Algrustos was alien to me, and I wanted to understand my surroundings better.

Kuro leaned in close and whispered to me. “I asked Lord Albrecht earlier today. Apparently, Sheena’s ancestors made a deal with a powerful spirit. That’s what allowed her to do magic without a staff the other night. It’s an exceedingly rare thing, because not every spirit is willing to make those kinds of contracts with mortals. I think Lord Albrecht mentioned that her magic powers manifested earlier than most mages, so she became an assassination target right after she took the throne at only six years old. She had to survive her first assassination attempt mere days after her decision not to redeclare war on Ishmar.”

He raised his hand and scratched at his chin. “But if she’s been killing that long, it couldn’t have been good for her. Maybe that act of hers is just a way to hide the pain, or the guilt. I would say we just give her the benefit of the doubt, but if she keeps on interfering with my plan, I may have to just drag Alverd out of there myself. You agree?”

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“Yeah. Queen or not, she’s making our job harder, not easier. After all, you two still owe me big. If anything, you should be taking orders from me, not her. Isn’t that how mercenaries work? One contract at a time? Isn’t she breaking some “cardinal rule” of yours or something?” I realized too late that I’d voiced my insecurity about the matter. I looked at Kuro squarely, trying to gauge his reaction.

His eyebrow raised slowly. “Ah, I see. So that’s what it’s about, then. You’re not happy about this arrangement. Well, neither am I, but if it bothers you so much, maybe you ought to-“ He was interrupted by a gust of wind that flew down the corridor from behind me. The gust flew past me, past Kuro, and doused all of the torches along the way, leaving only the moonlight from the windows.

And then the screaming started.

It came from down the corridor, and it wasn’t long before the sounds of battle followed. The guards were combat mages, clothed in their not-metal armor and wielding their long staves, and yet I didn’t think they would be of much help in this situation. The enclosed halls and narrow corridors would turn this into a close quarter battle. And then I heard something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

The sound of metal clashing.

Someone had changed the game. Rather than try a magical assault on Sheena, these new assassins were going to go the old-fashioned route; with good old fashioned steel. The sounds got louder, and I heard a cry of pain from the end of the hall. Kuro threw himself against the barricade and yelled at the top of his lungs. “Alverd! Gods be damned, Alverd, get your armored arse out here now!”

There was a crash from behind us, and a few seconds later, Alverd emerged from the door we were standing in front of, his sword drawn and his shield leveled. “Where are they? How many?” He yelled. Then Sheena came running up behind him. She was dressed in a dark red silk nightgown that left a great deal of her shoulders and all of her arms utterly bare, hardly attire for her to be running around in. She ran up to Alverd and grabbed onto him. “Are they here? Oh, Sir Alverd! Protect me, good sir knight!”

I felt that familiar anger flare up again. I wanted to just smack her for acting like a pathetic damsel in distress when we all knew damn well that she was anything but. But there wasn’t time. From the left, the door burst open and a pair of assassins with wands came through. In the space of a second, they both pointed wands in our direction.

Alverd brought up his shield, and when the two mage assassins fired, twin streaks of blue light lancing forward through the air, he braced himself. The two streaks slammed into the shield, bouncing off with no effect. They redirected into the ceiling and made a small explosion that shook the now doused torches, but nothing else. Kuro peeked his head over the barricade and took aim with his staff. A golden bolt of lightning sailed out of the tip, striking one of the mages and sending him reeling from the blow.

Before the other mage could react, he received an ice lance that pierced through his chest like a nail into wood. I looked behind me and saw that Sheena had thrown the lance. Alverd quickly pushed her back into the safety of the doorway. “Milady! You’ll be safer in your room. Leave this to us.” Sheena, however, was done with her little damsel routine. “I can help you! Let me go get my staff and I’ll prove it, sir knight!” And with that, she ran off to her bedroom.

I didn’t have any time to make any comments, because from the opposite direction, another door was kicked open and another group of assassins, three this time, came through. These others were carrying more traditional assassin weaponry; knives, daggers, a sword. This surprised me. So now, whoever was trying to overthrow the Witch-Queen was bringing in foreign muscle to help them out? This was a new development. While the Witch-Queen could probably deal with mages on her own, I doubted that she would be able to anticipate an attack from conventional mercenaries like these. Even with her unusual ability to use magic without a staff, fighting this many assassins alone would be a losing proposition. Fortunately for her, MY mercenaries were not cut-rate hacks like these fools were.

When it came down to it, I wasn’t surprised that mages would resort to such distasteful methods to solve their problems. If it was racism for me to think so, then damn it, I was racist. Everything I had seen so far had done little to show me that mages preferred to figure out their problems with pleasant conversation. But if they wanted to stoop so low as to hire assassins, then I wouldn’t stand for it.

I didn’t even need my berserker trance to deal with little cutthroats like these idiots. I vaulted over the barricade and made for the three new arrivals. The one closest to me waved his puny little knife at me, as if he thought that it would be enough to persuade me not to attack him. Not bloody likely. He stabbed at me with a great deal of speed, but I had raw power behind me. I swung my hammer with both hands, the flat surface of its dragon tooth head turning the bones in his hand into gravel. He howled in pain as he dropped his knife. I spun, delivering a roundhouse kick to his face to knock him out. He crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

The second assassin pulled out another dagger, then lunged at me. I was forced to step back to avoid his rapid thrusts. While I was dealing with him, the sword wielding assassin rushed past me, angling towards Alverd. Before he could even reach the barricade, however, a chest high wall of ice appeared from nowhere. The man crashed headlong into the wall and rebounded off of it, dropping his weapon and groaning.

Sheena had reappeared in the doorframe, her long staff pointed in the man’s direction. Before he could get up, she started firing little blue blasts of ice, wrought from the air at the blade tip of her staff. The assassin threw up his arm to shield himself from the barrage, his other hand searching for the hilt of his sword. Still clad in her nightgown, she advanced on the man, the intensity of her attacks increasing. Once she was standing in front of him, she swung the bladed end of her staff down, burying it in the man’s chest. He twitched once, then lay still.

The scariest part of it all was that Sheena didn’t seem to care one bit that she had killed someone. Her face was inscrutable. When I had killed my first living being, I had felt sick to my stomach. I was still coping with the gravity of taking life, even now. If what Kuro had said was true, she would have been very much at peace with killing these men.

Speaking of which, I still had someone to deal with. I whirled back to face my attacker, who had taken advantage of my distraction to come at me with his twin daggers. My hammer wasn’t built to deflect attacks, so I had no choice but to dance around him as he swung his arms frantically, never leaving an opening for me to exploit. Playing defense was not my strong suit, but I knew it was only a matter of time before he made a mistake.

And then I found it. His weakness. When he swiped at me with one of his daggers, then the other, I noticed that he always swung high. He left his legs and lower body unguarded. I wrapped both hands around the shaft of my hammer, and waited for him to swing again.

This time, he lunged again, the knife in his right hand sailing towards my face at great speed. But my reflexes were better than that. I spun around the attack, dodging the knife and swinging my hammer into his unprotected chest. He let out a loud “whoomph” noise as the air was pushed out of his lungs, and he fell to one knee. I swung again and let my hammer find the side of his head. It wasn’t heavy enough to be a killing blow, though. I wanted to take these men alive, to find out who had hired them in the first place. The man hit the ground, moaning as he cradled his head.

Another group of assassins, three in number, came from the door on the opposite corridor; another man with a sword, and two men armed with both wands and daggers. Alverd climbed over the barricade as quickly as he could (with Kuro shouting “what’s the damn point of these things if we’re aren’t going to use them properly?!”) and charged at the man with the sword.

But to my great surprise, Alverd’s sword didn’t carve through the other man’s weapon. Only one material could possibly be strong enough to stand up to a weapon like the Sword of Evros: another blade made of dragon tooth metal. It wasn’t easy to get a dragon tooth metal blade; they were given only to high ranking soldiers or royal bodyguards. Perhaps what Lord Kertouli had said about my country’s assassination attempt had some truth to it.

As Alverd and the sword wielder traded blows, the two men with wands sidestepped them and made for Kuro’s barricade. Waving their wands, they threw fireballs at us in a steady stream. Several of them impacted harmlessly against the makeshift barricade, and I even bat one aside using my hammer. Still they pressed their attack, especially when they saw the Witch-Queen behind us.

Alverd was in top form. He parried another thrust by his attacker and countered by bashing his enemy with his shield. The man, off balance, tried to swing at Alverd but the attack sailed through empty air. Alverd dodged to the left, smacked the assassin in the face again with his shield, and then thrust the Sword of Evros through his chest. As the now lifeless assassin slumped to the ground, Alverd turned around and rushed at the two mages who had gotten around him.

He caught up with the first one just as the man raised his wand to fire. The Sword of Evros ran him through as easily as if it were cutting parchment. The wand fell from the man’s hand, and he made a choked gurgle as his life left his body. Alverd planted his boot on the man’s back, then pushed to yank his sword free of the man’s back.

Sheena rushed past Kuro and mantled the barricade, much to his growing annoyance. She ran forward to engage the last of the assassins with her bladed staff. Swinging it with expert precision, she slashed the bladed head across the man’s legs, forcing him to his knees. She was uniquely graceful, her movements fluid and flexible. In a way, she was even a better fighter than Captain McFarlane, in that she didn’t allow her emotions or anger to influence her fighting style.

When the man fell to his knees, Sheena placed the bladed edge of her staff against the man’s throat. “You’ve lost, assassin. Tell me who sent you and you may yet live.” There was ice in her tone, and she sounded nothing like the woman I had met in the throne room only a day or so ago. When the man made no effort to answer, she pressed the blade against his neck harder, and a tiny drop of blood came leaking out of the newly formed cut.

Then he started to laugh. Just like Bloodface, his laughter did not stop and possessed no reason or rhyme.

And then we looked at his hands, and saw the wand start glowing.

The light from the wand was blinding, and it only got brighter. The wand began to shake, vibrating intensely, as the glowing increased. The man stared the Witch-Queen in the eye, still barking mad. Alverd leaped across the room, pulling Sheena behind him, angling his shield towards the man’s coming suicidal attack.

And then Kuro sprang in front of us all, a blazing blue ball of light growing from the tip of his staff. He thrust the staff forward, and a dome of bright blue energy blazed into existence. He had used a shielding spell. But whether it would be enough was anybody’s guess.

Then came the explosion, and everything went dark for a moment.

When I came to, I was half-buried under a pile of rocks. Kuro’s barricade was smashed to bits, and there was a new hole in the wall where the suicidal assassin had cast his final spell. I looked around, in a daze, unable to focus on anything clearly. That is, until I saw someone approach. I tried to lift my arm, my hammer, but it was pointless. It was only Alverd. Sheena was clinging to him tightly, as though holding on for dear life.

Alverd walked over to me, holding out his hand. “Are you alright, Princess?” I took his hand and pulled myself up from the floor. “Yes, I’m fine.” I replied, a bit too snippy than was necessary. Alverd went back to go check on Sheena. Aside from being shaken by the gravity of the situation, she seemed to be fine. But when we went to find Kuro, we found him in quite a predicament.

Kuro had been buried in a small pile of rubble, where a section of the wall had collapsed on him. He was in no obvious danger, but the collapse had pinned his legs and he had no hope of moving the heavy stones on his own. His staff lay just out of reach, but it definitely looked like it had seen better days. It was cracked all along its length, and looked ready to break. Kuro himself didn’t seem to be in pain, but he was raising plenty of hell about the situation. When the three of us came over to him, he started whining.

“Well, don’t just stand there! Help me! For the love of all that’s holy, get me out of here!” He looked so pathetic. I decided to have a little fun. I put my foot on top of the pile, then leaned forward, putting my weight onto that foot. I saw Kuro wince a bit, which only amused me further.

“You know, if you’re such a powerful mage and all, why can’t you just lift these rocks yourself, hm?”

Kuro scowled at me. “You know damn well why, you bloody twit! I’m just an apprentice and this isn’t my staff! And furthermore, your big fat foot is on top of me! Even if I were the most powerful mage in the world I still wouldn’t be able to lift your fat carcass off of me!”

I was just about to instruct Kuro in the proper use of his eyes when I heard Sheena gasp. Alverd and I both turned to look at her. She was cupping her head with her hands. “You are only an apprentice? And you wield a staff that does not belong to you? How did this come to be? It is…it is unthinkable! No wonder you are so terrible at magic!” She laughed as she clapped her hands. “It all makes perfect sense now!”

Kuro’s expression looked like he had been stabbed with a molten hot poker iron. I had never seen such a crestfallen look on his face. It was utterly pathetic. Then the Witch-Queen continued.

“To be honest, I never really looked too closely at the two of you,” Sheena said, pointing to me and Kuro. “My attention was focused elsewhere. But if Sir Kuro here really is only an apprentice…that complicates things. He must undertake the Trials. I would feel much better knowing that he has completed them.”

Kuro looked ready to die. I think I could even see tears beginning to form in his eyes. Not that I blamed him, really. Even I had to admit that this was a terrible situation. After all, Sheena was mercilessly talking about him like some piece of meat while he was within earshot, and buried beneath a pile of rocks to boot. Even I wasn’t that heartless.

I mean, I knew that Kuro was still an apprentice. I knew that he had apparently taken his staff from his dead mentor. All these things meant that he couldn’t use magic as easily as a normal mage. Yet despite that, I’d seen him risk his life to protect me and Alverd. Even if the little bastard was a bit rough around the edges, I couldn’t fault his courage, at the very least. His poor judgment, maybe, but definitely not his nerve.

Ugh, I couldn’t believe I was trying to justify defending him. It wasn’t worth my time. Fortunately, I didn’t have to, because Alverd did it for me. I preferred it that way. Alverd knew more about his best friend anyway. He’d know how to protect his friend without wounding his pride…or at least, what little pride he did have.

Alverd stepped in, just as I predicted. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t belittle my friend like that, Milady. It is true that he has a few issues, but he is my best friend, and a valuable ally.” He quickly changed the subject before Sheena could reply. I guess I had gauged Alverd wrong. He could be smooth when he wanted to. “What would be entailed, then? How does a mage go about passing the Trials?”

Kuro finally opened his mouth. “The first part of a mage’s Trial is usually the same across all schools. The binding and taming of a familiar, or spirit animal. Like Kelda.” Kuro tried to shift the rocks again but failed. “But where would we go to find one? You can’t just conjure familiars out of thin air, you know. I mean, until you form a contract with one.”

Sheena’s crooked smile stretched across her face. “Leave that to me.”