The Assassin That Flew

Catherine Harper removed the blackened mask she usually wore and handed it to Sir Aled Cadogan. She traced a line of stones on the tower top with her eye and her forefinger then told the gathering to get out of her way.

            “You’re mad,” said Sir Cadogan. “It’s too far.”

            “He’s right. If you fall short the tree will eat you. It won’t be conscious for another week. If you jump far enough to clear the tree, you’ll break your legs. If you clear the tree and miss the top of the wall, you’ll break everything.” Danielle Longbow shook her head at the woman who had been her friend.

            “One less person to call you a traitorous bitch then, isn’t it?” Cat flashed her teeth. Her yellow eyes glittered with hatred for miss Longbow.

            The yellow eyed woman, who had survived almost becoming a harpy, strolled to the opposite end of the tower then jumped up and down. She rolled her shoulders. She threw off the equipment that would weigh her down. The bow, quiver, sword. Down went her armour and most of her furs. If she didn’t make the jump, she’d be dead long before her body froze.

            “Rope.” Miss Harper pointed to the rope the blue knight had with him. “Yes. We can do this.” She looked at the battlements of the tower, chose her launch point.

            She ran.

            Huge strides ate up the tower top in a moment. She sprang to place a leather boot on the merlon, the bit that sticks up, and then launched herself. The roar she made would have put a lion to shame.

            She flew. Briefly.

            Gravity was jealous of her flight. It wanted her back.

            Danielle heard a grunt and a smacking sound. She ran to look.

            “I told you.” She was lying in the snow on the top of the wall, clutching her ankles.

When Cat Hawk had recovered, she caught the other end of the rope and tied it to another merlon so that the five warriors on the tower could get down.

            First was Sir Cadogan in his blue tabard with the red salmon of Afon.

Next was Lupita Smith in heavy furs. Danielle held the rope for her woman, certain it would not move at her end at least. She held her breath as her lover hung over the hungry tree which had been planted in a corpse just hours before.

            Down went the supplies next. Enough arrows to severely depopulate the garrisoned imperial soldiers in Worm’s Mount Castle.

            Sir Fabian Castel went next. His green Crann oak tabard flapped in the breeze. Daylight caught the silver of his exquisite armour as if he was selling it.

            Down went Carl, yellow hair whipped by the same wind. As he got down from the rope, he looked his age next to the adults.

            Danielle was last on the rope. It bounced with her weight. It swayed as the same wind played with her. The red imperial uniform she had stolen flapped about. She looked down at the branches of a tree that would swallow her, armour, and all.

            “You took your time,” said Cat, colder than the winter air.

            “I love to keep you waiting Catherine, you know that.” Danielle winked. Miss Harper looked away, revulsion on her face.

            The yellow eyed woman took back her mask from the blue knight and was bird faced again. Miss Longbow understood. She felt naked without armour.

            “Onward brave comrades. To battle.” The boy raised a fist.

            “Shut up Carl.” She said it with as much affection as she could manage, because if she didn’t, one of the others would say something worse. He couldn’t take another punch. His forehead was more bruise than forehead.

            Scars on her back ached. Her wrists were stiff from injuries Sir Fabian had given her in training and during a tournament. Cold weather sucked for seasoned warriors.

            “When we see more of the Nephilim knights, remember they have a break in their armour in their armpit. I think that’s the easiest way to kill them.”

            “Perfect,” said the blonde boy, “all we need to do is get them to give us a salute and stab them while their arm is up. Easy.” One of his blue eyes winked as he looked at her, seeking approval with a cheeky grin.

            “Shut up Carl.”

            “I agree with Dan,” said Fabian.

A high walkway to the towering keep of Worm’s Mount Castle was blocked by a tower on the wall and three locked doors. There again, Cat had her moment, pulling a roll of leather from somewhere inside her furs.

            “Since when do you pick locks?” Lupita asked.

            “Since the queen started training me as an assassin. You’re not the only one who was chosen for a special purpose. The difference is, I didn’t betray her.”

            “Give it a break Cat,” Danielle said.

            “Kill the general and I’ll think about it.”

            “I saved a kid from being killed, I didn’t turn around on the wall and start killing my own people.”

            “It’s the same thing in war.”

            “No, it’s not.”

The door swung open with a wooden creak and a metallic screech.

            A spearpoint shot through the gap, aiming straight at Cat’s face. Fabian deflected the spear with his sword. Danielle leapt forwards with her sword up, putting the tip through the skull of the spearman. She was immediately tackled to the ground by a gold warrior.

            “Under the elbow!” She shouted as a gladius rose over her face. The blade turned vertically until the hilt and the golden arm behind it were divided by the silver line.

            The arm was kicked out of the way by Lord Castel who was also stabbing someone else at the same time.

            “Under the elbow,” she gasped.

            Pinned beneath the golden man with the knife, she was no help to anyone. She could move her feet to kick him in the crotch. Sadly, the codpiece of his armour was as tough as the rest.

            As her head was crushed down into the ground, she heard the scuffling and the yelps. Helpless. As a booted foot stamped down next to her face, she felt blood spraying down over her and the limp weight of the huge man collapse.

            “Get him off me.”

            With a huff and some puffs, the boulder of a man rolled off her. Lupita and Carl helped her to her feet. Five soldiers were bleeding out on the floor.

            “Are you alright?” Carl asked.

            “I’m fine.”

Cat was more cautious when she opened the door out on to the walkway. The path out to the keep was clear but only wide enough for one of them at a time. Two towers with eight floors of arrow slits above the walkway looked down on the door to the keep from either side.

            “That door will be barred,” said Lupita. “We’ll be out there trying to break it down as they shoot us full of holes.” She pointed to the door. “That’s where we die. We need something better than just running out there and giving it a go.”

            “Oil and fire worked before,” said Carl. He nodded to a shelf full of the oil pots used for the braziers in the snow.”

            Lupita clicked her fingers. “Perfect. We burn down the door.”

            “What if there’s another door?” asked Sir Aled.

            “There are several other doors. One down near the northern gate. Another out to the western wall at the same level. We should block this door with the fire and the arrows then do the same with the lower door and go in through the western door.” Everyone looked at him. “How many times do I need to tell you I was posted here?”

            “How many times do I need to ask if I can kill him?” Cat asked.

            “You have a point,” said Sir Aled.

            “Which one of us?” asked Carl.

            “You and her.” Aled Cadogan pointed at Cat.

Danielle closed the upper eastern door using one of the soldiers from the tower. Carrying the body over her shoulder as a shield, she ran with a red arrow held in her other hand. Arrows bounced off the stone behind her. Some of them stuck in the corpse. Some bounced off her chainmail.

            Shoving the arrow through the dead mouth, she ran flat out without looking back.

            Cat already had the other door of the eastern wall’s tower open.

            They ran across the wall north to another tower. The same trap waited for them. Each time Lupita stashed the jars of oil in a bag.

            Blocking the northern door was harder than blocking the upper eastern door. The double door was twice Danielle’s height and wide enough for four soldiers to march through. She and Aled ran with bodies covered in oil and dumped them by the northern door. Another arrow began to morph the bodies. The knights of Afon and Crann ran for their lives under a hail of arrows and stones thrown from a hundred windows.

            Catherine ignited the oil on the bodies with a fire arrow. As Danielle turned in the doorway of a tower up to the northern wall, she saw the explosive growth of the tree in the doorway, triggered by the magical reaction to the blood and the fire.

            “Can’t we just block them in and say we’re done?” Carl asked.

            “That’s not a bad idea,” said Sir Aled.

            “It is if we ever want to go back to Leonor with our heads attached.” Danielle’s shoulders sagged. For all they had done, there were undoubtably more soldiers in the keep than all the others they had fought combined.

The boy cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled. “One door left, Come and fight or we’ll trap you in there.” He looked at the rest of the group. “I don’t think they’re coming out. Fire time?”

            Carl’s eyes glowed with pyromania in its infancy. Danielle was barely less excited. As she had learned with a candle as a small girl, fire was a beautiful way to get in trouble.

            Cat readied a fire arrow as all of them picked the rags from other bodies and wadded them up. They were dumped by the door by the knight and the traitor, using shields for cover as arrows hissed through the air towards them. Next the oil jars were thrown at the door, smashing with the sweet sound of breaking pottery.

            Catherine’s flickering arrow screamed and whistled before it hit the thick oak door with a thud.

            It was beautiful. Orange flames climbed the door. Black smoke spun off into the sky.

            “How long do we have to wait?”

            “Shut up Carl.”

            “Yes mother.”

            “Call me mother again and I’ll bend you over my knee and smack you.”

            “Don’t make promises you won’t keep Lupita. You’ll just break my heart.”

Snow began to fall as they watched the fire flicker.

            “Are we smoking them out or just keeping them warm?” asked the boy. He was shivering.

            “Quiet and wait.”

            When the flames shrank down more oil was added. Danielle had to admit the novelty of the fired died down before the door began to burn through.

Meaningful glances passed between the six of them as the first black cracks appeared in the door. They waited until the sun began to set. Flames lit the growing hole in the door. They all knew that they were just waiting for a confident moment to rush in. The moment didn’t come.

            “We can’t wait here forever,” said Sir Aled Cadogan, who was shivering, he drew his sword, checked his helmet, and started running in the dark.

            Without the usual battle cry the rest of them followed. One after the other they ran towards the fire and the darkness.

Arrows thudded into their armour and the furniture of the barricade burning beyond the remains of the door. Glad that Lupita was at the back, Danielle charged on, kicking the tables aside.

            Fifteen warriors in the imperial standard armour faced them in rows of five. Spears faced them. Carl had a jar of oil with a flaming rag for his countrymen. Their screams reverberated off the walls. They scattered.

            Crann’s warriors charged into the enemy ranks and hacked until nothing moved.

            “Two,” said Carl, holding up his index and middle fingers in Cat’s face. “I killed two of them so stop thinking I’m not with you. I hate the empire as well, Cat Hawk.”

            “Why do you hate your homeland little boy?”

            “Because my mother was a sex slave, and my father was one of a thousand imperial soldiers who raped her. Eira Mynydd is my homeland. I didn’t get to say no when I was told we were off to wipe Crann from the map.”

            A black bird mask stared at the bloody ground. Danielle hadn’t known about Carl’s parents. None of them had.

            “You have-” Cat began.

            “Blue eyes and blue hair from my father.” His voice began to tremble. “If women taken during the invasions produce children with the desired traits they’re kept for ‘breeding’ until they produce one that doesn’t look like the emperor’s wet dream. Then they kill the baby and the mother.”

            “Carl, I-” said the woman in the blackened silver mask.

            “Just open the next door so I can show you how I feel about the empire again.” He picked up a spear as she walked to the locked door.

Complete silence was broken by the click of the lock opening. Instead of opening the door straight away Cat and Danielle drew their bows. Aled and Fabian braced themselves behind imperial shields. Carl and Lupita opened the door with spears.

            The next room was a death trap. Archers waited on the floors above, aiming down over the balconies. Two Nephilim knights in their golden best held shields taller than Danielle and swords to match. Behind them stood smug looking soldiers in their red unforms.

            Leaning through the door with a red arrow notched, Danielle hit an archer on a balcony above and jumped back to cover.

            “The general is in there,” Carl whispered, “plumed helmet at the back.” He yelled through the door. “Thanks for the arrows. We were running low. Fuck these spears, give me some oil.”

            Notching a regular arrow, Danielle leaned through the door and fired.

            “Yes.” She ducked back. “I got him. The general is dead.”

            “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” Carl threw a jar with a burning rag hanging out of it and fell back with an arrow in his leg.

            “It’s not new year for a week,” Lupita said, dragging him to safety.

            “Yeah. I don’t know why I said that.” The boy groaned, holding his leg and wincing.

            “No red arrows, I need his head.” Danielle said, holding up a hand to stop Cat, who had one notched.

A Nephilim pushed through the doorway. He swung at Lupita with a sword heavy enough to cut her from head to crotch without slowing at all.

            Screaming in agony as he jumped with an arrow in his leg, Carl leapt up onto the golden back of the imperial elite. He wrapped his arms around the golden giant’s neck. When the Nephilim reached up to rip the boy off, Aled Cadogan threw his sword into the read fabric under the armpit of the golden armour. The sword disappeared up to the hilt.

            The second Nephilim threw Aled of Afon across the room as it burst past Fabian at a run. Imperial soldiers poured into the chamber which stank of burning flesh.

            Drawing her sword, Danielle stabbed until it was over. She forgot about Carl. She forgot about Fabian. She even forgot Lupita in the fog of war.

            Eventually she was on the balcony finishing the archers. A tree filled a quarter of the mighty hall. She had to retreat away from the creeping branches as they reached towards her and tested the floorboards above them.

            They’d done it.

            Cutting the general’s head off was a grisly business.

            Carl hopped to spit on the stump with a bandage around his bleeding leg.

            The head hung in a tied up imperial cloak on Danielle’s back as they left the massacre behind them.

            It was a stretch to call it a glorious victory. Miraculous certainly. All of them were bruised, broken, and punctured.

            “The general really lost his head in the end,” said the boy, smiling at them all with a glow in his eyes.

            “Shut up Carl.”

            “Happy new year to you as well.”

            Danielle shook her head. How he could talk with an arrowhead in his leg she didn’t know. It seemed to distract him as he threw out puns and jokes in a stream of nonsense all of the way back to Leonor.