After a sleepless night, the command staff gathered in the central tent where the wounded had once more been replaced by tables laden with maps and other paraphernalia. As the officers streamed in, Edwin noticed that the general mood was distinctly more subdued than it had been even during the previous day’s fight, though he was unsure whether that was because of the fact that more than twenty Marradi assassins had gained access to the camp, possibly walking past the attendants as they slept, or simply because it had been a long morning.
“General, this is everyone,” an aide reported.
Asher nodded from his place at the head of the gathering. “Very well. Karmund, take it away.”
Colonel Karmund, 5th division’s chief of staff, was the man in charge of the security of the camp. He and his aides had written the sentry plan and patrol routes, with the battalions filling the posts on a rotating schedule. That meant that preventing nightly incursions was his responsibility, and he was here to explain why he had failed.
As the colonel stood from his chair, he leaned heavily on a wooden crutch, his bandaged right leg unable to hold his weight. Edwin hadn’t noticed at the time, but apparently he’d been one of the wounded in the tent, having rushed out of his wagon, sword in hand, when the assassins had made their move. Despite being barefoot and in his sleeping garments, Karmund had gravely injured one of the armed and armored assassins before receiving a life-threatening injury himself. The healers had reached him in time to save his life but hadn’t bothered to fix him up completely, instead using their mana for those who needed more involved procedures. He would be good as new in a day or two.
“After last night’s events, four intruders could be captured alive, though one succumbed to his injuries before help could arrive. They have been interrogated, and my report is based on our own investigation as well as their testimony. At around quarter to three this morning, forty-five minutes after shift change, two swordbearers from second battalion standing guard at the north-eastern corner of the camp turned their weapons on their comrades. They first killed their respective partners, then met up and assassinated two further teams, one of them in the corner tower. The two were not meant to stand guard today, but they volunteered independent of each other for this exact time frame.
“With our perimeter broken, the two traitors then signaled the Marradi who were waiting outside. They gained entry while the traitors left the camp the same way. Once inside, the intruders split into three groups: The first was an eleven-strong force headed right here, tasked with assassinating the general and as much of our command personnel as possible. Cutting the head off the snake if you will.”
His words caused a murmur, and even Edwin raised his eyebrows at Karmund’s nonchalant way of referencing an attempt on his own life that had almost succeeded. Edwin was hesitant to use the word ‘unflappable’, but he certainly hadn’t come across anything that could flap the grizzled staff officer.
“A second force of five, four soldiers and a mage, headed to our mage camp with the intention of assassinating as many members of our mage contingent as they could. They seemed to not have any specific targets in mind, though Master Gregory was mentioned by name. A third force of six began moving toward our food storage, armed with satchels of an as yet unknown powder. Thankfully, none of the three managed to achieve their goals, though we did suffer casualties from their attempt.
“The first force sought to circumvent the guards at the entrance to the central area by crawling under a wagon but were spotted by a sentry they hadn’t detected. The following commotion lost them the element of surprise, and the guards on duty managed to hold the intruders long enough for the rest of us to wake and overwhelm them.”
“Why did they only send eleven to attack here?” someone asked. “It seems like even with the blunder, they could’ve caused a lot more damage if they’d had a few more people.”
Karmund nodded. “The interrogation has revealed that the initial plan consisted of only two groups, with the first one being fifteen strong, but the plan was changed when the mage joined at the last minute. The soldiers we captured are unaware of the reasoning behind the changes, but they report that the mage was quite angry during their entire interaction. We think it likely that he demanded to take part after our victory over the knights, with the leader of the force adjusting the plan as best he could. If they lacked detailed information about our internal security and expected to gain entry without being spotted, ten men might have been considered just enough to achieve the goal. Even with the first group failing, their plan would have been potentially disastrous for us. Thankfully, we got lucky.
“Just before entering the north-eastern supply area, the third group came across Edwin over there, who was out on a nightly stroll.” The colonel gave Edwin a respectful nod, turning the heads of all those who hadn’t heard the story yet in surprise. “As he recalls it, the intruders attacked him almost immediately upon being hailed, likely assuming that a quick kill was a safer prospect than banking on their disguise. Luckily for us, they were wrong. Despite carrying no weapons himself, Edwin managed to turn the fight on his opponents and subsequently killed them all.”
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It took all of Edwin’s self-control not to crawl under a table to escape the shocked, surprised, disbelieving and impressed looks he received. Thankfully, Karmund continued the story without too much delay. Edwin earned another set of glances when it got to the enemy mage throwing him around, though those quickly turned to Master Ulyssa when it came to the magical fight that followed. There were no details except for how the fight ended, but duels of magic were a thing of myth and legend. They didn’t happen right outside your tent.
“In total, sixteen men died in the attack, with a dozen others wounded: Six sentries on the wall, three College guards who were murdered in their beds before the assassins were discovered, and five guards and two officers in the melee right outside this tent. On the other hand, the enemy lost twenty of their more experienced soldiers who had been recruited specifically for this mission, the Marradi intelligence officer who was in charge, a mage, and two sleeper agents they had within our ranks.”
“What about the traitors?” Colonel Harrick asked. “Do we know how they were turned? Were they working for the enemy the whole time?”
“I’m on it,” Firetail said, the portly Raven lounging in a chair near the entrance. “It’ll take some time, but we’ll be going through their lives with a fine-toothed comb.”
One of the lords spoke up next. “What about the leader of the infiltrators? Did we manage to capture him?”
Karmund shook his head. “No, he was among the third group, the ones headed for the supplies. According to Edwin’s retelling, he was the first to die.”
Firetail nodded. “The broken neck didn’t make him prettier, but he was easy enough to identify. The prisoners knew him as Jornes, though that is obviously not his real name. He was the dedicated intelligence officer of Lindvar division – my counterpart, if you will.”
“And he took part in the operation himself?” Gerrack wondered aloud.
Firetail chuckled, slapping his gut. “Marradi intelligence has a more… hands-on approach than we do. To put it bluntly, they’re mostly a bunch of thugs and murderers whose job it is to find and eliminate our assets within their ranks. Still, I assume that he was with that particular group because he intended to get out the same way he got in after achieving his goal, which was highly unlikely for the other two groups.”
Karmund nodded, bringing the conversation back on track. “Speaking of said goal, Master Ulyssa, being a master alchemist herself, was kind enough to take a look at the substance we found on their bodies. Master?”
Ulyssa cleared her throat, her expression darkening. “If any of you good people have come to the conclusion that it obviously has to be a type of poison, congratulations. It is. The details are mostly interesting to someone like me, but I’ll try and condense it down to what may be relevant: It takes the form of a brownish-grey powder and dissolves in water within seconds to then be completely taste- and odorless. I have only run a preliminary set of tests so far, and learning the exact effects and potency of the substance will take far longer, but my initial assessment is that each of the twenty small pouches the men carried would have been enough to contaminate one barrel of water.
“Anyone who drank that water would begin to experience a number of possible negative effects, including but not limited to cold symptoms, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, shaking, loss of equilibrium, temporary blindness and internal and external bleeding. I can’t say how long it would take for those symptoms to manifest, so it’s entirely possible that hundreds if not thousands would have been poisoned before anyone realized. What I can say with certainty is that it’s not something I’ve ever seen before, which is remarkable in itself. There are known poisons that do something similar, but those are either impossible to produce, or their effects can be countered with the right antidote. This one is new, which means that even I couldn’t have done anything about it.”
“Do we know where they got it?” Asher said, addressing Firetail.
“It’s news to me,” the spy said with a shrug.
“I have a suspicion,” Ulyssa said, eyes narrowing. “The alchemy community is small, and the one that dabbles in poisons is even smaller. I have yet to identify most of the ingredients that make up the compound, but two that I have confirmed are alchemical plants that only grow in the Death Swamp. I’m willing to bet my right leg that this is one of Hilera’s concoctions.”
She paused, noticing the confused looks around the table. “Master Hilera Nolt, the newest Head of Alchemy of Marrad. Young, ambitious, and no morals to speak of. She has funded almost all of the expeditions into the Swamp for the last ten years, and there have been rumors going around for almost as long that the research she’s been doing on what came out of those expeditions was less than ethical. Nobody else I know would have access to Pine Rot in anywhere near the amount used here, let alone use it to craft a poison.”
“Speaking of mages,” Karmund chimed in, “our prisoners were able to identify the one that accompanied the intruders. He was a senior Journeyman Spellweaver, one of the leaders of Lindvar’s mages due to his close relationship with Master Kelmor Dardis, the de facto leader of the Marrad College.”
“A zealot,” Master Gregory chimed in, grimacing in distaste. “Kelmor has long been advocating for a revision of the laws on magic, and he has gathered a fervent following, especially among his younger colleagues. For us to have engaged in direct combat after vehemently arguing against it for years must have seemed like a mockery of their struggle.”
“So,” General Asher said, standing, “we foiled their plans not once, but twice in one day. We dealt a painful blow to their capabilities and their morale, and we removed the threat the cavalry was posing. Now is the time to go on the offensive ourselves. Let us talk about how we crack this fortress.”