The adventurers hid in the bushes, and regarded the castle in front of them with interest. There were a few moments left before their plan would be put to the action. While everyone was tense with the upcoming battle, the sight in front of them still inspired them.
“What's the matter, Facyr? Never seen an elven fortress before?” Faira grinned and looked at the fortress that rose from middle of the woods. She wondered silently what kind of interesting secrets the castle held now – after all, it probably was a lot more interesting place than how Aleln and Realn left it when they fled the castle.
Facyr smiled to Faira and said, “I have, it's just so... ordinary.”
It was early dawn, two days from the nightly attack, after which nothing really remarkable happened. It was a misty. Just like the morning in Anchorfall we got to this mess, Facyr thought, and he was right: the light fog in distance reminded him of home, though right here, instead of buildings there were trees. They had slept well, the sun of was just rising, and they were looking at the castle just beyond the edge of the woods.
The creatures in the fortress had lowered the drawbridge a moment earlier, and sent some scouts out; little did the wizard know in the castle that the scouts would likely not return, and would likely be already found and killed by the Lancers who were once again laying siege on the castle, this time a bit more covertly. The Lancers kept their distance from the castle, and had made good effort camouflaging themselves so that the flying contraptions could not see them.
They had his worries, however: the fact that the wizard kept leaving the drawbridge down for most of the time, leaving the castle a little bit vulnerable, seemed fairly odd. But on the other hand, the goblinoids had seemed fairly alert: As soon as the lancers showed up near the castle, the drawbridge always went up and a lot of noise could be heard inside. Perhaps, an elaborate ruse wasn't going on. But it was still enough to keep them on toes.
They had decided not to attack right away after the previous night's assault after all. The night had proven to be surprisingly tiring, and Aleln had agreed that they shouldn't try things too hard. Mornings, they had found, were rather delicate times. They were also afraid of spies who might have worked among them and listened to their plans.
The real reason to delay, however, was that Aleln woke up the following day at midday, and the adventurers fared no better. Sometimes, even best assault plans seemed to go wrong when such things happen.
But a delay of a couple of days simply meant they could prepare for things a bit better. Aleln and Realn organised a siege ring around the castle, and more people looking for possible tunnels in the area near the castle. Gnedrnygr and Facyr spent the time getting their equipment in order, and Faira did her best to make further sense of the castle. She studied the plans, went scouting around the castle, and even climbed to the wall and took a peek beyond - she couldn't risk going to the courtyard, but a good look at the courtyard told her more than enough.
“This, my friends”, Gnedrnygr said, “is a typical elven frontier fortress. You see, at some point, it was, shall we say, fashionable for elves to build fortresses that in no way were different from human-built ones; in other words, this one here strives for practicality instead of the usual mighty and refined looks.”
“Well, this still seems like a mighty fortress all right”, Faira said, peering upward to the ridges of the outer wall. Not a single orc was in sight yet; that was a good sign.
“I could not put the description better myself, Gnedrnygr”, Aleln said. “Though I have to remind you that we aren't quite as hidebound as humans often think – it was no problem for us to build this place, as we don't really insist on beauty. When we settled the area, Furinel was in middle of very difficult times. We had to adapt, and leave the refinement back when it did not make sense. My grandfather was enraged when he finally moved in from Furinia and saw this castle”, Aleln said with a smile, “though, but even he accepted it soon. If I remember right, I was just proposing renovations that might have added some more traditional looks to the castle around the time when the wizard took the castle.”
“Well, it's not as pleasant sight as the Duke of Moonbay's palace, but a whole lot of stones will keep the enemy away in either case.” Faira smiled and turned to Aleln and Realn. “Happy to be back at home?”
Realn smiled. “Yes, though I have my suspicions that the welcome is not very warm”, she said and sighed.
A rough scream made them look at the top of the outer wall. Some goborcs had seen them, and now two of them screamed and jeered at them incomprehensibly and waved their spears, while two ran inside.
“Well, jeepers, this is what we came here for”, Faira said.
“Hurry! Over the drawbridge before they raise it! Charge!” Facyr shouted.
They ran toward the drawbridge. Facyr and Faira were the only one to make it to the drawbridge as the goborcs began raising it. Unluckily to the creatures, the two knew exactly what to do, unlike so many other invaders they had managed to repel. The two winches used to raise the drawbridge were placed so that the walls covered it, but were quite vulnerable if the enemy had already reached the courtyard.
As they ran over to the courtyard side, they saw the deplorable condition the courtyard was in. The sturdy walls, made of light grey stone from the mountains, was still standing firm and rather smooth, but the amount of garbage everywhere on the ground made it evident that the goblinoids had stayed here for quite a while. Even the walls had been violated – the battlements seemed to have been likewise neglected by the goblinoids, and were now in disarray. The only thing that was in any good condition was the keep in the middle of the courtyard, undoubtedly now serving as the wizard's hiding place. The goblins probably lived in the rude huts on the back of the courtyard, where they seemed to be awakening after this morning's alert.
Before the goborcs could react, Facyr took a crossbow, killed the creature operating the other winch, while Faira shot the other.
“My, they make this too easy”, Faira said, as she leapt on the ladder leading to the wall, quietly muttering a spell formula. Apparently, the goblins had grown tired of using the easily-defended, narrow stairway at the far end of the wall, and put a crude ladder next to the main gate, making it more convenient for them to climb up. Of course, the goborcs weren't complete idiots; As soon as the nearest goborc on the wall released the portcullis, it ran to the ladder and tried to push it down. Much to its surprise, the ladder didn't budge. A crude wooden ladder obviously didn't weigh that much, even with a human climbing it; the rogue grinned that the spell had worked and made the ladder thousandfold more heavy.
“Good going, Faira!” Facyr shouted as the portcullis guard fell from the wall and crashed down by the gate. He noted the creature was largely unharmed and probably died when it hit the ground after the great fall; he hadn't seen what happened up on the wall, but he guessed the creature had just stared at Faira, that ugly big mouth open with disbelief, as she climbed the ladder – and then she had just pushed the thing off the wall. But now, he fought the creatures, swings of his swords mowing down the advancing goblins, and grinned as the portcullis rose again, just high enough that Gnedrnygr, Aleln and Realn could join the fray.
Faira leapt down from the wall with a somersault, and landed gracefully on her feet next to her companions.
Realn, while lacking in knowledge of sieges and other castle warfare, had seen a few people drop down from the walls of castles and not really survive all that well, so Faira's safe, light landing seemed to defy his experience of everyday physics, and also most of the logic. But she could easily see there was some other explanation for this. “You're a feather-light rogue, aren't you?” she said with a grin. “How did you do that?”
Faira just smiled. “Well, this was just thanks to a magic pendant given to me by an old friend long ago.”
“We don't have ample time to chat here, folks! If we kept talking about all of Faira's magic trinkets, we'd be stuck for a while, and then Gnedrnygr would want to ramble about his even bigger collection,” Facyr said. “Anyway – let's get moving! You all remember what to do, right?”
“Yes, I understood nicely and clearly, Facyr”, Gnedrnygr said, and hummed a tune as he, with much less hurry and with much more calm determination, climbed the ladder to the wall, frying the big guard goborcs emerging from the towers with greenish lightning bolts.
A swarm of goblinoids was still occupying the large courtyard, but that didn't worry the elven lord. Aleln blew a horn he was carrying. From the forests emerged a company of Mighty Lancers, who ran over the drawbridge and joined the fray, slashing and spearing the goblins. Aleln grinned with dark joy as he witnessed what happened: In one eye blink, it seemed there were a lot of green- and grey-skinned ugly creatures all over the courtyard in those rude shelters and huts they had disgracefully built everywhere, and in another eye blink, it seemed that for each and every creature there was one tall blue-clad elvish soldier, running it through. He stayed on the courtyard with his wife, fighting off the swarm of goblins, joyful that things worked just as well as they had planned.
In mere moments, the fight in the courtyard was almost over. The adventurers regrouped near the entrance to the keep. Facyr and Faira pushed open the big doors, which opened quite easily – Faira admired the elven craftsmanship, especially these clever counterweights hidden in the walls. They fought the last remaining goborcs that held their positions just inside the keep.
The keep was quite well-tended compared to the outside. The adventurers looked around, and saw all sorts of graceful elven decorations – beautiful tapestries and paintings with perfectly harmonious colours, and craftily weaved carpets with extravagantly complex designs – though, as Facyr and Faira learned later, and as Gnedrnygr guessed, the latter were just presents from Colemian diplomats.
It was obvious that the wizard never let his creatures anywhere past the guard post right by the front door. Two filthy goborcs posted as guards had been of little resistance to three adventurers and two diplomatically enraged elven nobles, all armed to teeth.
The lower floor was quiet, and not a soul could be found there. Valntathalens noted that the halls had, fortunately, been mostly left to their original state.
“I know you're fairly certain the evil wizard didn't previously try to see us by magic means, but perhaps you could you use your magic sight to locate the wizard?” Aleln asked Gnedrnygr.
“I don't see the point, right now, really – previously, I hesitated to that because such scrying was dangerous, especially considering that Jaxtomsyn is not a mere amateur magician. We might find out what he's doing, but he might find out, at the same time, that we find out what he's doing, and it might be just a little bit hard for us to find out that he found out that we found out what he did...”
“...All right, let's not try that”, Facyr cut off the rambling magician. “I guess Gnedrnygr's point is that magic sights would have been useful for seeing this place from the city, but now that we're here, all we have to do is... well, let's go upstairs, that's where he's probably hiding!”
“Right – that's where our library was, quite a lot of interesting books there,” Realn said.
They went up the stairs to the library. Quite predictably, the big desk in the library had been filled with magical apparatuses of all kind, magical reagents, and mysterious-looking books. Large glass windows let light in. The day was getting bright, and the clouds that had covered the castle over the whole day so far were passing now.
And, by the tables stood a robed figure, quite surprised to see the adventurers at all.
The adventurers stared at the wizard silently, not quite sure what to say. On Gnedrnygr's face, Faira saw contempt and condemnation mixed with curiosity. Facyr looked alert and ready but not quite ready to rush in first and get fried by the magician's spells – as he had noticed so many times before, wizards tended to keep some annoying spells up their sleeves. Realn looked curious but stayed behind Aleln's back; Aleln himself apparently shared Facyr's ideas.
The morning light poured in from the windows, the adventurers standing in a patch of light on the red carpet. The wizard, first hidden in the shadows, turned, and slowly walked to the light. Light glimmered from the knob of his staff; Facyr's first thought was something nasty was afoot, but the staff, while clearly magical in nature, seemed not to really be the kind one used to toss fireballs at people at whim – he couldn't be sure, of course. The wizard looked at the adventurers, eyeing them with a look on his face that could only be explained by lack of sleep, and made no smile or frown. It was hard to read the wizard's expression; he did, however, show some curiosity.
“Adventurers.” Jaxtomsyn said, with a raspy voice of an old man. “Welcome.”
“Why is he...?” Facyr began to whisper to Gnedrnygr, but couldn't find words.
“He's quite strange, is he not?” Gnedrnygr whispered. “I presume his Preservation was botched.”
“The Preservation?” Aleln asked.
“The spell Colemian Evokers use to attain their famed longevity”, Gnedrnygr explained. “You probably wouldn't guess, for example, that I'm over 70 years old already,” he continued, and grinned to Aleln, who could have sworn, a moment ago, that Gnedrnygr didn't look a day older than forty.
“And how old do you think Jaxtomsyn is?” Aleln whispered.
“Well that's the strange part. Usually, when we age, we age kind of... normally. You don't see a fellow who looks like a forty-year-old and sounds like a 120-year-old...” Gnedrnygr told Aleln, and wondered in his mind what mysterious things could turn Jaxtomsyn like this. Probably touching things mortals were not meant to touch.
Jaxtomsyn, meanwhile, had slowly come forward. The adventurers stared at the wizard, looking at him and wondering what kind of person he was. “Well, well. I'd like to especially welcome Duke Valntathalen, it is quite a time since we last saw each other. I have no idea how you really got here though”, the wizard continued. “Few people manage to get past my creatures. But, ah, bringing an Evoker surely could help that, if only a bit.” The wizard smiled kindly, the first true emotion that could be seen from him, and also one that they had not quite prepared for. “Please speak.” He eyed the adventurers, smiling some more, then turned a bit more stern. “If you try to threaten me with the silence, it is not working, and that whispering is useless, because I can hear you just well.”
“Why, pay no attention to me”, Gnedrnygr began. “Most of the thanks for getting this far I give to my companions.”
“Hah!” the evil wizard cackled. “I know you've come here for exactly same reason I am here, Evoker. Undoubtedly you have recruited these warriors to aid your cause to acquire the most desired magical item of all time!” He held forth the staff, the gem at its end glimmering in Trinvnil's morning rays.
“What is that?” Aleln whispered. “I've never seen that thing.”
Jaxtomsyn chuckled. “The dearest treasure of Valntathalen family, and you have no idea what this is? Surely you are just pulling my leg, your grace. Or maybe your father was never told really how valuable this staff is.”
The Valntathalens looked at each other, both confused about the thing. Facyr and Faira, on the other hand, looked at Gnedrnygr, wondering if their friend had something to hide, after all. Gnedrnygr was unfazed, but it was clear to the other adventurers that he was barely holding himself as calm as he could. Jaxtomsyn had clearly provoked him. “This”, he said, pointing to the staff, “is... the unnamed staff.”
“Yeciv'y'd'tolp, Staff of Demon Lord Nyffu'gcam!” Jaxtomsyn snapped. Gnedrnygr flinched against all of his might, relaxing a bit immediately when the castle didn't collapse on top of them. “Yes! Handed to safekeeping to Verron Valntathalen three hundred years ago. We had no idea it was here, and it took some pains to find it.”
Faira could see some hints of rage at Gnedrnygr's face. “'We'? As I feared. You're the last of the Unrepentants?” he said, voice quivering. “Your Grace, I congratulate your family for keeping this dangerous item from the hands of traitors to Colemia,” Gnedrnygr said to Aleln.
Aleln wondered for a moment. “I did know that there are – or were, as it now seems – a lot of things in my family's vaults. Now, I find myself wondering if it had paid to find out what most of them really were”, Aleln said.
“Feel not worried for me saying the demon lord's name, Evoker, for I destroyed him, with his own staff!” Jaxtomsyn shouted with a wide, evil grin. “It took some good boring time finding out where the staff wasn't, but all possible alternatives exhausted...” he left the thought to hang in the air. “And now, need I even to say that you have come here in vain, Evoker. You will not get this staff from me.”
Gnedrnygr composed himself, and thought for a while. Jaxtomsyn grinned, and clearly waited for an answer; Gnedrnygr decided to give him one, though it was probably not something the wizard expected. “Well, first of all, I could only guess that there was something powerful hidden here, why else would a wizard raid a castle with an army? I had absolutely no idea what it really was. I regrettably had completely forgotten about the Unrepentants and their silly quests.”
“Silly? How dare you!” Jaxtomsyn didn't seem particularly amused, his voice trembling. He shook the wand angrily at Gnedrnygr, who now seemed to take that much more calmly, unlike his companions.
“Anyway, I can assure you I only came here with my friends to depose you. I don't have any axe to grind against Unrepentants either, though I found them a slight nuisance in my novice years. I don't even find any powerful artefacts so alluring that I'd need to grab them from left and right whenever I have a chance. And why should I be interested of the staff right now, anyway? It's useless, after all.”
“I beg your pardon?” Jaxtomsyn said.
“Well”, Gnedrnygr said with sarcasm dripping from his voice. “You destroyed the demon lord, though I have my doubts – those things are very difficult to kill throughout.” Gnedrnygr raised his hands. “No, wait! I guess you know how to dispose a demon, after all, the Unrepentants probably have to deal with demons regularly. Where was I? Oh yes, you have a big, easily defended fortress. You have a whole lot of orclings who keep the nearby area nice and clean and you have a lot of breathing room. Then what?”
Jaxtomsyn looked at Gnedrnygr with derision. He snorted like arrogant wizards may do, in case someone asks a particularly stupid, self-evident question that really serves no purpose, while at the same forgetting entirely why the question was asked in the first place, because the other person could clearly not ask some stupid questions just to make a good point. Unluckily for Jaxtomsyn, Gnedrnygr was making a good point, but he clearly wouldn't bother his mind with such things. “Then what, you ask? With this staff's powers, I shall rule the world!” Jaxtomsyn let out yet another snort of contempt. “You fool! You of the Citadel never understood. You threw us out. You hunted us down. You mocked us by sending away your prized magical items, and just smiled when we came to take it by force.” Jaxtomsyn drew some breath. “Getting Yeciv'y'd'tolp was our destiny and our right. We had to have it, because it belonged to us by every right imaginable.”
“Of course, ignoring a couple of laws of Furinel, such as ones holding the property of Kingdom inviolable, to say nothing of private property in general – it seems to me the Unrepentants were on a bit shaky ground here, always thinking it was their right to destroy other people's private property – and, you also violated a number of quite normal diplomatic procedures”, Aleln muttered. “You could have used at least some cleverness, like posing yourself as a Colemian diplomat who thinks that there is something that belongs to Colemia in our vaults, or something along those lines.” Aleln looked disgusted. “Army of these... creatures. That alone was your condemnation that has forever ruined your chances of any moderate, civilized justice. Know this, wizard: The Crown of Furinel has decreed masters and slavers of the unspeakable creatures as a folk even worse and vile than they are. You're forever a traitor in these lands.” He sighed. “And even if you ignore that fact, I have to say using these tactics shows that you have absolutely no... refinement, or even good style and decency, at all.”
“Yes, yes”, Jaxtomsyn said, trying to drown Aleln's mumbling. “Diplomacy was never my strongest area, I fear.”
“And all you managed to do with these brutish tactics was drive us mad. Was that what you wanted?” Aleln said. The wizard remained silent, somewhat stung by Aleln's words.
Gnedrnygr sighed, and stepped a few steps forward. “I volunteer for a little bit of a test, then. The Rite of Ksstnge dyn Eldkullr. You know the Eldkullr, do you?”
Jaxtomsyn was unfazed. “Very funny, Evoker”, he said with a small chuckle. “I shall have my orcs scrape your remains from the walls shortly, for I like my palace neat and clean.” He raised the staff, and pointed it directly at Gnedrnygr, then hinted at the rest of the adventurers that it might be a good idea to get very far from their Evoker friend. The adventurers dispersed, hoping Gnedrnygr had the necessary skills to handle the situation.
Jaxtomsyn took some magical reagents from his belt pouches, drew breath, then intoned in a bit clearer voice than before, “Knna-hv-l'tl'n-mrr-dratsum-eht-dloh!” the gem at the end of the staff glowed, and the reagents formed a small ball of light, which shot at Gnedrnygr. Just as it was about to hit him, Gnedrnygr swiftly ducked. The spark flew through the door behind the wizard, and a great ball of fire exploded in the corridor, luckily, as Aleln observed, in a location with no flammable things in sight.
“But... how can it be?” Jaxtomsyn said.
Gnedrnygr sighed, then smiled kindly – Facyr, as he got back to his feet, noted a subtle distinction between Gnedrnygr's genuinely kind smile that showed humour, and Jaxtomsyn's earlier smile that had shown merely comfort that the threat wasn't going to be big enough to harm them any more than an ant can topple a house. But now, judging from Jaxtomsyn's face, the house had suddenly turned into a fir needle. The adventurers were still wary – needles can be prickly.
“The staff has absolutely no effect.” Gnedrnygr lectured. “That is the great big secret of the staff. None can possibly fathom the minds of the demon lords. Nyffu'gcam, in all likelihood, just got the staff because the gem at its tip can be possessed. Have you never examined it? The staff is merely a conduit, like all magician's staffs, and the magical container gem is just that. The staff was possessed by the demon lord – that was the only reason why the Venerable Archmage wanted it locked up somewhere safe.”
Jaxtomsyn looked downtrodden. He realised that the true power of the staff had been the link between the demon lord and the staff, and how he had used it to summon it in first place; with proper rituals, the staff might have been dangerous to the Evokers. So now, there was truly no reason to fear the staff any more. Jaxtomsyn pondered this with calm rationality, which he found quite surprising. It is, after all, not every day when you hear you practically managed to destroy what you was supposed to use to dominate the known universe. Jaxtomsyn wasn't known for uncontrollable fits of anger; instead, he vented his anger by ranting. And now, he was trying to think of something to say.
“I'm very sorry,” Gnedrnygr said. “I don't know why and how the Unrepentants got the idea that the staff might have some unusual properties. I will let you in a little bit of a secret – conduit and container items are, these days, at easy reach of all law-abiding Colemians, but not traitors like you. You have revealed yourself, Unrepentant. If I don't kill you, it may be that someone from Colemia with much more grudge than me will come to handle this personally, and that is not going to be very pleasant.” Gnedrnygr sighed. “It is really a shame how much trouble can people get into over some ordinary magical staff.”
“Very well. Allow me to make a modest proposal.” The wizard turned, and took a paper from the desk. “I will submit to your will, and will personally come to Colemia to be teleported to the deepest trench at the bottom of the sea, or whatever uncreative methods of capital punishment you have these days, on the condition that the story of the Unrepentants shall be published throughout the land. My version, of course. The story of the systematic flaws, the errors in the judgement of the Archmages... everything. It is right here on the paper, and I have in my library a book that expands on the matter considerably, as well.”
Gnedrnygr smiled. “Firstly, the punishment of treason is an instantaneous bodily disintegration these days, or, as we say, 'The Beam Man blows the bad guys to the Ether'. Yes, the executioner is none other than Arthur Bovinier, Archmage of Anchorfall. Secondly, during the past years, you wouldn't believe how much material from the very hands of the Unrepentants have surfaced. I doubt I can find any new Unrepentant arguments against Colemia from those notes of yours.”
“Look, this is confusing”, Facyr interjected. “I know you're busy debating, but I'm sure we'd like to know what's going on, as well. Who are these Unrepentants anyway? You may know a lot about them, but I suppose we don't.”
“Oh yes,” Gnedrnygr said with a smile. “The fun little problem in Colemia back in the day. Basically, there was a big loud-mouthed group of magicians who disagreed with everything the Archmages were doing, mostly on principle, and if not on principle, with some of the most ridiculous arguments I've heard.”
“Far from ridiculous!” Jaxtomsyn interrupted. “And you know that just as well as I do!”
“Oh please”, Gnedrnygr said. “even I remember one funny detail. Your glorious leader, Wlachm Schybleyng, claimed he was aware of dark conspiracies that were plotted among the Archmages, and said he knew them because he had been member of the cabal himself for several years.” He grinned. “The truth is, he emigrated from Tachur to Colemia the preceding spring! And how could he possibly be a former member of the Archmage cabal, anyway? He died while he was, according to the witnesses, throwing a really, really puny fireball at a sea serpent.” Gnedrnygr shook his head slowly.
Jaxtomsyn said nothing for a few moments. “But you can't stop us from getting our viewpoint known by the public!”
“Believe me,” Gnedrnygr continued with a smile, “at this point, everyone knows the supposed 'viewpoint' of yours. It was not very hard to figure out, really. You don't even need to wrap it around biting sarcasm any more – the Venerable Archmage himself knows he's a daft old man, and you know what?” He smiled kindly. “He thinks it's very funny, really. The wonders of cultural exchange with Tharkaia, where philosophers know random passer-bys are right when they say they're daft old men, and know that that sets them free to do whatever their mind can still do!”
“That wasn't quite what I had in mind”, Jaxtomsyn said, unwavering but quite obviously confused. “I'm afraid this means that I have to—”
Jaxtomsyn never quite got to say exactly what he intended to do. With a clockwork-like precision, a thing that appeared to be a person swung through the window from the roof and knocked him down on his face. As Jaxtomsyn went down, hopelessly losing when fighting against the laws of physics this time, the adventurers saw a dagger that was placed neatly between the subtle wizard's shoulder blades. The wizard just lied there, and didn't manage to make his death scene much more dramatic or anything; it seemed that today, he had been humiliated far enough with Gnedrnygr's news, and he let his assassin get all of the glory.
The assassin, in turn, had landed perfectly on his feet. He rose, and walked to the light, removing his magical dagger from the wound. Without word, he looked at the adventurers. The adventurers regarded him with some concern, but quickly judged that there was no danger – at least for now.
“Mister d'Breygin”, Faira said. “I suppose I was not entirely wrong about my hunch?”
“You are right. I am tired of running between two quarries.” he smiled humourlessly, and pulled out a sheaf of paper from his pocket. “Let me see...” he went through many slips of paper. “Yes. A contract for the last remaining Unrepentant, identity unknown. Not so unknown any more.” he then regarded the adventurers with a big, grim smile. “The contracts I were operating under were highly conflicting to say the least.”
Faira wondered a bit. “So you were given orders to...”
“Kill Jaxtomsyn, that's right. But at the same time Jaxtomsyn ordered me to protect the keep and kill all potential intruders - and he paid a lot more. But now that you showed him to be the last remaining Unrepentant, I suppose there's no question what orders take precedence.”
“And what about us?”
“My orders to defend Jaxtomsyn are moot once the wizard is dead, don't you think?”
“So it is all cleared then.”
“Not quite.” The assassin stepped in front of Faira, looking her in the eyes. “Why do you think I attacked you first in the inn?”
Faira looked d'Breygin in turn with icy gaze, but grinning nevertheless, with the joy of figuring things out. “Let me guess, someone has put price on my head too? And who might that be?”
The assassin took the contract in question from his pocket, slowly regarded it, then looked Faira in the eyes again. “That would be telling, as you full well know.”
Faira shrugged. “That I do. So which one of us will leave this room alive?”
The assassin grinned, then quickly ripped the contract in shreds, throwing them out of the window – only to have the shreds blown back to the room by a gust of wind. He regarded the sight with some disappointment, then turned again to Faira. “I suppose that just in this case, we both might. In the inn, you proved yourself to be a far too big of a headache to be bothered with right now. Besides, even if I rip this contract, the remaining contracts, which I wont discuss either, still make my head spin.”
Faira smiled, and the rest of the adventurers dared to breathe again. “Thank you. Justice has been done.” Faira smiled. “And, no matter his affiliation, he was a nasty wizard. He's better off dead, I suppose.”
“I do not care about justice”, the assassin said, drawing a hood over his head. “I just want to get the hell out of this backwater. It is freezing in here, even if it's summer.” He turned to Faira, gave her yet another of those dark smiles as a goodbye, grabbed the rope he had used to swing in, and swung out of the window, sliding down the rope to the ground and disappeared among the goblinoid huts in the courtyard.
“The Citadel employing assassin?” Gnedrnygr looked confused. “I genuinely thought we laughed out the Unrepentant these days, and only wanted to fairly try them for crimes and all that. I'm surprised anyone in Colemia would be bothered to send assassins after them. After all, it's not like they could do much more damage...”
“Ah, no”, Faira said. “the assassins never tell who they were sent by – and they probably often don't even know. Mr. d'Breygin just doesn't care to find out, he just kills. I suppose the Citadel didn't care enough to get these people killed, but someone did. I hope we find out.” She paused. “No, wait, I don't really want to know.”
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