Heinrich was already scaling the rope, having ensured the grapple at the top of the wall was secure. Lucius followed, trying not to grunt with the effort, conscious that Heinrich was making it look very easy. As soon as Heinrich swung his boots over the top of the wall, Lucius heard the sounds of a sword fight above him and started to climb faster. While he did not like the man, Lucius knew of his reputation and did not relish the idea of penetrating the Citadel without him.
Peering over the wall before throwing himself over, Lucius saw Heinrich to his right, engaged with two Vos soldiers. One cowered away from the assassin's paired long- and shortswords behind his shield, his own blade only occasionally flickering out to test an opening. The other stayed behind the first soldier, jabbing at Heinrich with a spear.
Lucius pulled himself over the wall and drew his own weapons, a sword and dagger, before wading in to help Heinrich. There was space on the wide rampart for them to fight side by side, and the soldiers began to give way under their combined assault.
Ducking a thrust of the spear, Lucius slammed his dagger into the top of the shield, forcing the soldier to duck. Lucius hooked his sword under the shield's bottom edge and heaved upwards, and Heinrich stabbed forward with his long sword, a smooth and supple movement that tore through the soldier's mailed shirt to cleave his heart. As the man dropped, Lucius and Heinrich advanced on the remaining soldier, who backed off a few steps to give himself room, the tip of his spear darting forward at head height to slow their step. Lucius could see the soldier assessing the situation, casting a glance at the dead man now behind his attackers and realising the situation was desperate.
With a loud cry, the soldier stepped forward and swung his spear sideways, hoping to use the weapon's momentum and his own strength to knock his attackers flat. Heinrich ducked under the blow, but it nearly blind-sided Lucius, who had expected the assassin to block the attack. At the last second, Lucius raised his sword to catch the spear, the blade biting deep into the shaft. Twisting his wrist slightly so the spear could not easily be withdrawn, Lucius tried to pull back, but the soldier had a better grip on his weapon and when he heaved, Lucius followed, stumbling forward.
The soldier took another step back, frantically trying to shake his weapon free, but Lucius and Heinrich were quicker. Even as the spear came free of the sword, Lucius' dagger was plunging into the soldier's neck and Heinrich's own blades were thrust deep into his stomach.
The soldier sank to the floor as Lucius and Heinrich ripped their own weapons free. Lucius was about to compliment Heinrich on his style, but a thunder of heavy footsteps and rattling chain caught his ear.
He whirled around to see a third soldier who, having crept up behind them during the fight, now charged at Lucius' back. Lucius spun to face the man, trying to bring his sword into a defensive position against the blow, knowing already that he was too slow. The soldier had raised his sword high above his head for a vicious downward cleave that would split Lucius' skull in two - and then he stopped.
Lucius frowned as the soldier looked at him blankly, sword still held high. With a crash, the man collapsed to his knees, and then fell flat on his face, his sword clattering away before tipping over the edge of the wall to fall into the courtyard below. In his back, a throwing knife protruded.
Beyond the fallen soldier, Lucius saw Elaine clawing her way onto the wall, and he smiled.
"Thanks," he said with genuine relief, and ignored the sour look he received in return.
Elaine glanced at the dead soldiers and then into the compound below. Dominated by the central keep, the bailey was a hive of activity, with the authoritative shouts of officers organising squads of soldiers into platoon and company before dispatching them to various parts of the city. The inner walls were strewn with outbuildings built along their length, a variety of stables, guardhouses, blacksmiths, and stores.
Elsewhere along the wall, more assassins had entered the Citadel, and three teams had already descended into the bailey, engaging the closest soldiers before the Vos forces had time to react. As the officers began to notice the presence of intruders, more and more soldiers peeled away from their formations to take up arms, but the assassins in the courtyard quickly melted away, retreating to the walls or to the towers, where the tighter confines would favour their style of battle, not the soldiers'.
Gesturing for them to follow, Elaine started running along the wall, heading for a stone bridge that ran from the nearest tower to a large gate mounted halfway up the side of the keep itself. As Lucius followed, he eyed the keep, the massive fortified structure that was the centre of all Vos operations and government in the city. He remembered being inside it once before, as a captive.
This time, he vowed, the upper hand would stay with the thieves and their trained killers.
Chapter Sixteen
The passage was lit by slow-burning torches that sputtered in wrought-iron brackets as Elaine closed the heavy door, filling the passage with a tangle of wavering shadows until the light steadied. Voices could be heard far off, commanding and authoritative, as the men of the Citadel struggled to keep a rein on the chaos in the city.
Crouching in the shadows, Elaine, Heinrich and Lucius paused with weapons drawn, alert for any reaction to their entrance. The battle within the tower and along the bridge that connected it to the keep had been fierce but brief, and dominated by the assassins. Other teams had briefly joined them and the defenders of the tower, depleted by the need for soldiers to control the city, had been wiped out quickly.
Now they were alone, the other teams having moved off to different areas of the keep. They had all been briefed on a broad range of targets, from the mysterious Commander of the Citadel himself, to various functionaries and officials responsible for the day-to-day running of Turnitia. However, if they were Vos-born and had a measure of authority, anyone could be considered fair game this evening.
While most teams were heading for the higher levels of the keep, where they expected to find most ranking individuals, and a few stayed near ground level where soldiers were still assembling, Elaine led her team underground, into the darkest reaches of the Citadel.
Lucius had guessed why, and who she was hoping to find there. For his part, he was happy with the assignment, for he had been incarcerated within the dungeons of the Citadel in the past, however briefly, and was familiar with the area.
Holding up one hand and pointing forward, Heinrich padded ahead, following distant voices. A few paces behind, Lucius and Elaine followed, senses straining, determined not to be caught flat-footed should a soldier or official inadvertently happen upon them.
Moving silently, foot by foot, they followed Heinrich, trusting to his keen senses and memorised maps of the Citadel. While the guild had never been able to put together a complete plan of the keep - the Vos military being very careful to guard the identities of its architects - years of bribery, trespass and even incarceration had all led to pages upon pages of maps being compiled and revised. The final picture, while not yet complete, had been invaluable to the assassins while planning the assault.
The light became brighter and voices louder as they ventured into the more populated areas of the Citadel. The corridor widened suddenly and opened onto a long balcony. Hugging the wall as he moved out into the open, Lucius saw they were in one of the keep's large halls, the balcony running along three sides of the immense space to a long, wide staircase that ran to the ground floor.
The hall's floor was a war of order against confusion. Soldiers tried to assemble in tight ranks as their commanding officers gave them instructions for deployment within the city, while officials ran between desks, clutching bundles of parchment. To one side, wine and steaming food were being served to a group of richly dressed men and women - high-ranking members of the city's government, Lucius supposed - while messengers and runners wound their way through the milling crowd, passing in and out of the many doors that lined the hall.
Across the hall, on the other side of the
balcony, Lucius saw another two of their assassination teams. He saw their leaders picking targets out from among the crowd and wished them luck striking a few Vos officials down before being discovered and forced to retreat. Beside him, Elaine hissed, and gestured to the wide staircase.
In his full Final Faith regalia, the Preacher Divine had appeared, wreathed in whites and trailing his red cloak behind him. Leaning on his staff, Alhmanic mounted the first few steps, then turned to face the churning mob, stretching out his arms to either side.
"Silence!" His voice rang out across the hall, its deep tone cutting across all other conversation. Officers stopped giving orders; officials and servants instantly halted their own discussions mid-sentence.
"This is a time of trial, my friends," Alhmanic said, once he was sure everyone was paying him his due attention. "The criminal elements of the city have turned against us, as we knew they would. But they have made a grave error! For our prey have revealed themselves. Now, instead of sending our brave men into the darkest and dirtiest regions of the city, we can strike them down in a single evening!"
"Would like to see you try," Lucius heard Elaine mutter, and he smiled.
"Remember this, all you of Faith," Alhmanic continued, unaware that a number of assassins had already marked him for a dead man and were even now taking aim. "You do God's work this evening, and your actions are blessed. Together, we will make this city a true child of the Empire, elevating Vos beyond our weak, decadent enemies in Pontaine."
The Preacher Divine went on, but the attentions of Lucius and Elaine were caught by Heinrich, who pointed out a single Vos officer. Wearing the gold epaulets and braid of the military, along with the cropped beard common among the higher ranks, he seemed unremarkable, perhaps no higher than a captain in rank. While that made him a viable target nonetheless, Lucius looked back at Heinrich quizzically.
"That's the Commander of the Citadel, I am sure," Heinrich said.
Elaine frowned. "You certain?"
"The description fits."
"The uniform doesn't," Lucius pointed out, remembering the last commander he had faced, a rich and respected baron. The post of the Citadel's commander was highly sought after, even though Turnitia was still technically outside the Empire's borders. It was generally presumed that it would one day become another Vos city, in name as well as fact, and that meant there were plenty of opportunities here for an ambitious noble. As effective ruler of the city, the commander could do pretty much as he pleased.
"I would say he has learned the lesson of his predecessor," Heinrich said with a rare smile. "He is not drawing attention to himself.
Holding up a hand, Heinrich caught the gaze of a leader in one of the other teams. The two assassins exchanged hand signals for a moment, then the other gave a nod of assent. Heinrich grunted.
"Dressing down will not help the commander now. Come, we should move on."
Creeping along the wall, Heinrich led them to a thin spiralled staircase set into the wall and started to descend, sword in hand and ready to spit anyone who should happen to be moving upwards. As Lucius set foot on the first stair, a shriek of pain behind made him look back.
The assassins had started their attack, launching a barrage of knives and arrows at selected targets among the crowd below. Lucius followed an arrow as it lanced through the air and smacked into the Preacher Divine's shoulder with a wet thud. The big man went down with a howl, dropping his staff and clutching at the wound as he rolled down the staircase.
Elsewhere, the agents of Vos were falling with knives in their throats and backs, or else impaled on arrows and bolts. Gradually, they began to recover, officers ducking behind their own men as they assembled rough shield and crossbow lines, while others charged past the wounded Preacher Divine up the staircase to assault the balcony, but after their initial strike the assassins had already retreated. The two teams split and headed deeper into the interior of the keep to continue murdering ranking members of the Vos military and government.
Nodding his satisfaction, Lucius dived into the spiral staircase before anyone thought to look in his direction. As he trotted down the stairs, circling around and again, he started to gain on Elaine, ahead of him. She passed by an entrance leading into the hall, just as a shadow clouded the threshold.
A Vos soldier shoved his head inside the narrow space, having seen movement inside. He spotted Lucius rushing toward him and looked up, alarmed. Fumbling with his scabbarded sword, hindered in the enclosed space, the soldier opened his mouth to shout a warning to his allies in the hall, but was cut off by Lucius' blade, burying itself deep in one side of his chest. Lucius caught his fall and lowered him to the floor, glancing through the entrance to the hall.
It had started to empty, with officials running for their lives and soldiers eager to avenge the deaths of their comrades on the assassins. No one was looking his way, and Lucius heaved the soldier's body further into the staircase, lest it be spotted.
There was nowhere else to stash the body, and Lucius knew it would soon be discovered. Trusting to fate, he carried on down the winding stairs into the foundations of the keep. As they opened into a wide, dank corridor, Lucius was greeted by Elaine's withering stare.
"For the love of all that is holy," she whispered. "Keep up!"
He shrugged in reply.
Further along the corridor, Heinrich hissed at them to both be silent and, exchanging looks, Lucius and Elaine moved forward to join him.
Deep beneath the Citadel, the corridors were walled with rougher stone, giving the walls an irregular appearance. The air was cool and damp, with fewer of the slow-burning torches bracketed to the walls. No doubt that helped provide an atmosphere of despair to those incarcerated within, but Lucius was thankful for the shadows they provided.
Advancing cautiously up the corridor, they were soon brought to a halt by a raised palm from Heinrich. He glanced back and held up two fingers, then made a slicing movement across his throat. Two guards ahead.
Straining into the gloom, Lucius picked out a set of alcoves a few yards ahead, though it took him a few more seconds to make out the forms of two soldiers, partly hidden in the recesses on either side of the corridor. Before he could ready his weapons, Heinrich and Elaine were already padding ahead, hugging the walls.
Deciding that this was a task best left to professionals, Lucius hung back, ready to support either should their slaying go awry. He need not have worried.
The two assassins moved slowly but with intent. Swords drawn, they held the blades back behind them, careful not to reveal their presence by an inadvertent flash of torchlight from the naked metal. They froze for a few seconds when the soldiers exchanged a few words, indistinct from where Lucius crouched, but the tone was one of complaint, perhaps a mutter about their shift patterns, locked into the dungeons while their colleagues swept through the city restoring order.
When the assassins moved again, it was as one, and with speed. As Elaine dashed the last few feet to her target, Heinrich copied her motions on his side of the wall. Lucius heard a gasp from the guards as each saw the other's attacker, but the assassins whirled like tightly wound springs, their blades sweeping through the air to embed themselves in the soldiers' stomachs. In the same movement, Elaine and Heinrich grabbed the soldiers' mouths while twisting their swords, holding the men rigid with pain yet silent.
They lowered the dying men to the floor, then slit their throats. The assassins pushed the bodies further into the alcoves, clearing the way. With luck, the bodies would not be found until the shift change.
Pushing on, they were soon in the heart of the dungeon complex, passing cells filled with the misery of the city: traders who refused or were unable to pay their fines, beggars who had not given up their profession, murderers, rapists and drunkards, as well as those that Vos simply found unpleasant or inconvenient. Each cell was secured by a thick wooden door, the only view to the corridor outside through a tiny window set with metal bars. Lucius had spent time in one o
f these cells, and he did not envy those incarcerated within, oblivious as they were to his passing and that of the two assassins.
The dungeon was quiet, and Lucius presumed most were asleep, or else sunk into the deep depression or half-sleep he had seen in those locked away for months on end without any hope of release. From some cells, they heard quiet snoring, from others gentle moans, though whether they were from pain, loss, or despair, Lucius could not tell. As he passed one cell door, no different from any of the dozens of others in the underground complex, he stopped and cocked his head. Something had caught his attention, and he concentrated to find the errant sound.
"Lucius," someone whispered.
He looked up at the cell's door, and opened his mouth in astonishment.
"Harker, is it?" he said, trying to place the man's face, half-hidden as it was by the bars set into the door.
"Gods be praised," Harker said. "It is you! I thought you council types had forgotten all about us! You freeing everyone?"
Lucius hesitated for a moment, and then considered the options. He had been part of a widespread break from the dungeons before and while many had been recaptured or killed in the attempt, some had made it out of the Citadel. Back then, they had not had the advantage of the Citadel, indeed the entire city, in total chaos.
"Hold on, Harker," he said, as he began to study the door and assess its weak points. He was no locksmith, and any magical method he might employ was sure to attract attention.
"What are you waiting for?" Elaine asked, appearing at Lucius' side. He glanced around, and saw Heinrich a little further ahead, looking back at him with impatience.
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