Chapter One

  The last conspirator arrived after midnight. He removed his hood, revealing the visage of a grizzled older man who did not look happy to be awake at the late hour. His eyes flicked from man to man around the room and, seeing the certainty in theirs, waddled to join them at the long table. As he sat, he said, “I apologize, gentlemen. It took my wife quite a while to fall asleep.”

  The six others in the room harrumphed their replies as their host, a stout middle-aged man approached the table with a tray, a pitcher and goblets atop it. Setting it down, the burly, bearded man began to pour wine into each goblet and gestured for the nearest man to start passing them around. “Though a must, ‘tis a nasty business we discuss. Requires hard drink to embolden ours words.”

  To this there were hushed words of agreement, some goblets limply raised. Despite the wine, the mood was not celebratory.

  The burly host finished his last pour and sat down at the head of the table, next to the late-arriving older man. After a look exchanged between the two, the older man turned to address the table. “This will be the last of such meetings between us. It’s my understanding that we have the last piece of information required to penetrate the innermost precincts of the castle. The means by which we can be done with the fool who sits on our throne.”

  This drew several positive grunts and few raps of knuckles on the table. The old man let them settle and looked around at their firelit faces. How far they had come since first making the decision to move forward with their treasonous plan. “For the last, I shall turn things over to our young friend.”

  Down the heavy, wooden table a man sat forward. He was in his late twenties, blond and it was easy to see he was well-muscled, despite the heavy outer cloak that hid his uniform underneath. He reached into the tunic of his palace guardsman’s uniform and pulled out a short scroll of new parchment. The young man unfurled it and held it flat on the table, his downturned palms on the outer edges. “The councilman is correct. It was only today that I learned of this passage. Down the curving corridor that leads away from the council chamber, there are exits that lead into the palace, but not into the actual residence of the royal family. This we knew. But if you look here, you can see that this large tapestry hides a sliver of a corridor that lets out near the private kitchens, and those kitchens have direct access to the bedchambers of the king.”

  Around the table many of the conspirators rose off their chairs to get a closer look at the charcoal-etched map. Some even gave “aaahh’s” of approval. At last! This was the key to carrying out their murderous plan.

  High above their down-turned heads, in the flickering shadows amongst the ceiling beams, lay a man. He lay on the thickest of the beams, his body concealed by its width and further concealed by the tight, dark clothing that completely shrouded his body. Only his eyes were exposed through the covering cowl on his head, and those were concealed still in the shadows of the large hood over his cowl. The concealed figured had been here since long before even the burly host had arrived and built the fire that lit the room.

  He squinted down at the crudely drawn map, recognizing the corridor that led to the secret chamber within the castle where he’d received his orders for this very assignment.

  Harn Garek was a “Shadow Man”. Once a guardsman like the young traitor at the table below, he had been plucked from the ranks because of his particular abilities and trained in a far away, secret encampment in the arts of stealth, information gathering and death. The purpose of the few, elite Shadow Men was to keep sharp eyes on the untrustworthy neighbouring kingdoms, to quell sedition within the kingdom itself and to unceremoniously kill those who stood against the will of the kingdom. Very, very few persons were chosen from the ranks for the training. Fewer still made it to the point of being given assignments.

  It was only one night ago that Harn had been given his orders in the matter happening below him.

  *

  Summoned by a long-established secret method, one that fluttered in plain sight hanging from the castle walls, Harn waited for nightfall. Long-believed to be a prediction of tomorrow’s weather by the palace alchemists, the banner hanging from the short, southern tower of the palace was a signal to him that he was to report to the Shadow Council that night. Other Shadow Men, or all of them, could be summoned with the many differing banners by their varying symbols and colours. Today’s was for him alone; the Shadow Man know to the council only as Dragon Shadow and by the dragon sigil on the banner. He’d chosen his home in the center of town because of its clear view of the tower that held the military offices of the kingdom of Vesta, the realm which he served.

  He’d gone upstairs and laid out the ceremonial version of his covering clothes, and then went downstairs to make an early dinner.

  After nightfall, he dressed in the clothes that completely concealed his identity. Only the tips of his fingers and his eyes showed. He had a few secret weapons concealed within the folds of his clothes, but not the multitude he carried during his deadly missions. He assumed he would only speak to the council and then return home. He’d never had to engage in battle directly after a council meeting. No – His kind of missions involved planning and cunning.

  Around his neck he hung a medallion on a chain which he concealed under his clothes until it needed to be displayed.

  Satisfied he had all he needed, he stepped out into his walled back yard, crossed his elaborate garden to the high back fence and leapt over it, disappearing into the night.

  *

  A guard stood by the opening in the tall southern wall that surrounded the palace. Though alert, he was still slightly startled when Harn appeared out of the shadows before him. An older, experienced man, the guard held his momentary fear in check and followed the protocols. He asked with rehearsed purpose, “What is your business?”

  “I am to meet the Shadow Council.” Harn said, his voice an affected rasp. He held the medallion out from his neck, showing its backside to the guard.

  The guard squinted in the torchlight at the dragon sigils on the medallion, then flicked a quick glance at the banner hanging from the southern tower, then nodded. “Very well.”

  The guard stood aside allowing Harn to stride up the palace lawn toward the base of the tower. Behind him, the guard made an upright chopping motion in the air at a guard, a much younger man, who manned the entrance at the base of the tower. Seeing the “all clear” signal from his superior the young man watched Harn approach him with inter-mingled fear and awe. Though inexperienced, the young guardsman knew full well that anyone else who saw this view – a Shadow Man in his concealing robes approaching them - was surely about to die. He did his best to not shiver at the thought.

  As Harn approached the young guard, he once again withdrew his medallion from within his robes and showed the back. The guard approached a small table under the mounted torch on the wall and opened the lid of a small wooden box atop it. Inside the box was a sigil in glazed clay – The Dragon Sigil, just like the one on the banner and the medallion. The young guard nodded and stepped aside from the stairs that led downwards, into the underbelly of the castle. He fought the urge to salute the Shadow Man. They held no official rank in the guard, but the young man felt the respect one does for an ally who can generate so much fear.

  A thought occurred to guard as Harn was reaching the bottom of the steps. “Do you need the torch?”

  Harn stopped and half-turned his head back, said “No.” and continued onward into the darkness. The young guardsman exhaled a long sigh of relief when was he was gone.

  *

  After many memorized twists and turns in the corridor, Harn came to a doorless chamber. He stepped into the darkened side of the oval room and approached a semi-circular table placed against the wall. Harn flicked the lid of a box on the table open, and gathered up the coins inside – The stipend for his service to the crown. He secreted the coins into a pocket in his robes designed to conceal their sound. Closing the box’s lid, he turned and sat in the singular chair that was always there in the darkened side of the room. The other side of the oblong chamber was lit by torches and had a long, horseshoe-shaped table with six chairs around it. The wall behind each chair had small banners hung all around the curving length of the table representing the kingdom, the guard and the many sigils of the Shadow Men, including his own.

  He was not sitting long when several figures began to shuffle into the room from behind the chair at the head of the table. Though partially masked, Harn knew they were all older men who had served the kingdom for a great many years. Anyone could tell they were aged from the way they stooped in their robes and shuffled across the floor. But for one individual among the masked old men, Harn had no idea who any of them were.

  Such was the nature of the Shadow Council, a body established more than a century ago to protect the kingdom of Vesta from its enemies and, sometimes, itself. No one, not even the kings and queens of the kingdom, were allowed to know their identities. All new members were chosen by the existing council when one among their ranks elected to retire or passed on.

  Harn thought perhaps tonight’s business had something to do with just that. One of the masked councillors seemed just a tad spryer than the others. A new man.

  When they’d settled their gnarled, old bodies into their respective chairs, the councilman at the high seat, the center of the horseshoe, spoke into the darkness. “Come forward, Dragon Shadow.”

  Harn stood and walked the length of the room until he was within the torchlight at the open end of the horseshoe table. Until the man at the head chair spoke none of the councillors acknowledged him in any way, other than to turn their masked faces towards him.

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  “Thank you for coming, guardsman. The matter before us is of grave import. We’ve discussed it at length before. Unlike those other occasions, we now have absolute confirmation of a murderous plot involving sedition and treason. And, unfortunately, one of the members of this body.”

  After the man at the head chair finished speaking, the man who he knew and who knew him despite the strict rules against it, the others around the table spoke in turn, each laying out the details of a terrifying plot: Shadow councilman Greva of Turl had been enlisted by a group of “patriots” who sought to set things right in the kingdom by assassinating the king - a man known to be an actively dangerous and arrogant dullard. Whilst most of the traitors were from outside the inner workings of the castle, a couple of key people involved in the plot were trusted members of the kingdom, including a shadow councillor and a palace guardsman. It was believed the plotters wished to end the life of the king before his idiotic foreign policies led the kingdom to all-out war with Hemmorly, the neighbouring kingdom to the east. Their thinking, which no one argued was likely correct, was that the young queen would take over the throne until the first of her sons was grown enough to assume his father’s helm. The queen was known to be generous and kind, and all roads that led to war would be avoided under her rule. Sensible enough, but their method to obtaining this goal was the murder of a sitting sovereign. It was bold treason, and it was to be met with death.

  “Hear their words. Confirm their intent. Once you have no reason to question that they are moving forward, kill them all, but for one – Leave former councillor Greva alive that we may question him.” The familiar man said, and then passed a sheet of parchment down the table. Hand to hand it went down the table until the last counsellor, the newest one, pushed it towards the edge of the table.

  Harn stepped closer to the table to look down at it. The parchment had a map to the defunct tavern where the conspirators would meet and a listing of their names. Having memorized the details, Harn pushed the sheet back towards the youngest counsellor and stepped away from the table.

  “I’m surprised none of the weaving spider’s names are on that list.” Said a councilman on the other side of the room.

  Many around the table gave exhausted groan at this, and the man at the head chair rapped his knuckles on the table, and said, “But they are not! The actions of the Spider Council are not being discussed tonight. These meetings are solely for the matter at hand and nothing more, good counsellor.”

  Harn watched closely as the man whose masked face could not show his contrition deeply nod his head and said, “It is as you say, good councillor.” He then stood, as did the others around the table.

  Though the meeting had drawn to a close, the councillor at the head of the table slid passed the others moving toward the hidden passage behind the head chair, and approached the end of the table, his hand out. Harn stepped forward and took the councillor’s hand.

  “Thank you again, guardsman. You are the will of the kingdom. Good luck.” Said the familiar councillor.

  When he turned away, Harn put the thick, folded square of parchment the councillor had secreted into his palm away in the folds of his robe. It was a risky thing for the councillor to do, as Harn had observed the councillor who had brought up the Spider Council stopped at the head chair briefly and watch their exchange. Harn had no wish to get wrapped up in some petty palace intrigue, especially one that might cause his identity to be revealed.

  As he heard the last of the councillor’s feet scraping away in the hidden passage, Harn turned from the room and began the ascent back up the corridor to the palace grounds. They wanted the traitorous councillor alive, did they? If an arrest was to be made, he’d have to have word with the experienced guard manning the palace wall as he left.

  *

  Looming high over the traitors now, Harn began his deadly calculations. He had six men to kill and one to capture. None of them would get far if they escaped the single exit, as a contingent of the guard were hidden nearby outside. The option to kill them, however, completely went away as soon as they reached the safety of other people’s eyes. No, they had to dispatched within the walls of this old tavern, and quickly. Because of his size, the burly old barman might cause a problem, but not so much as the young guardsman who had brought the map. He was young, fit and well-trained. And a political zealot willing to kill his own king, which meant he might not be sane. Crazed persons did not know their own strength, or the limits of the lack thereof, and it made them incredibly dangerous opponents.

  Harn would kill him first.

  *

  The men below could not begin to react, so shocked they were when a black shadow appeared to drop from the ceiling. By the time they realized it was a man in concealing clothing, he had already driven a short knife into the upper spine of the robust young guardsman and had swiped the forbidden map of the castle’s underbelly off the table.

  When the shadowy figure pulled his knife free, the guardsman dropped like a slab of beef onto the tabletop and slid to the floor. Before he had even hit the floor, the black shadow had driven his knife into the neck of the man on his left at the base of his skull, and had gotten a firm grip on the man on his right. That man’s jaw went slack when he sought to free himself with both his hands from the assassin’s grip, and found he’d aided the assassin in his own demise. The swift, black-clad man grabbed hold of one of the man’s grasping wrists, twisted it up and outwards, causing the man to stand on his toes to abate the pain in his arm. The assassin then raked his dagger up the man’s inner wrist, the plunged it several times into the inner part of his upper arm and then once into the side of his neck, raking the knife back towards himself. The man maintained his stunned expression as he fell to the floor with no less than eight fatal wounds.

  Across the table, another man, a near-toothless cur, saw his friend get stabbed multiple times in a singular second, and immediately pulled his knife. The assassin heard the raking of the blade as is came free from its short scabbard. The black-clad wraith spun in his direction and threw his own dagger with lightning speed. It lodged in the man’s eye with squelch, all the way up to its hilt.

  The oldest man, Councillor Greva, sought to run, his eyes agape with fear. Of all the men in the room, he was the only one who knew exactly what a horrible fate had befallen them and why. If he made it to the door, he would run in the direction of the neighbouring kingdom and never stop. But he never got that opportunity. Swiftly as his old man’s feet could carry him, it was not speed enough to get past the Shadow Man the council had sent. Only getting as far as the fireplace, the old man gave a yelp as the assassin spun towards him and drove his head forcefully into the mantle. Councillor Greva’s knees gave out and he flopped to the floor with a groan.

  The burly barkeep had been on his feet since the guardsman fell, but awaited his opportunity. By his reckoning, the assassin’s knife was on the other side of the table, buried deep in his fellow conspirator’s head. The big man looked across the table at the only other man left standing from their treasonous group and gestured roughly over the table. “Come around! There’s only one of him – we’ll box him in.”

  The skinny man across the table flicked his eyes back and forth between his burly ally and the assassin who fell from the shadows of the ceiling, quickly calculating who he feared more. It almost seemed he was going to join the barman in his hasty plan when, just as he was rounding the table, he bolted for the door and disappeared outside.

  Undeterred the big man rushed forward, arms spread wide, his bass roar increasing in volume with every tromping step.

  The Shadow Man re-squared his feet. For less than a second, both of his hands plunged into the obi at his waist, the tightly-wrapped cloth that kept the folds of his concealing clothes so close to his body, and re-emerged holding outward pointing daggers clenched in his knuckles.

  As the big man reached him, the assassin ducked away from his swiping arms, knelt all the way to the floor and drilled his dagger-clad fists into the big barman’s inner thighs. Inflicting a few deep wounds on each leg, the assassin then tumbled forward on the floor, between the man’s legs, and sprung up behind him. Spinning round, the assassin punched several wounds up and down the man’s spine, the last as the big man was falling toward the floor. The impact of the big man smacking onto the floor caused the table and chairs to shudder.

  *

  Under cover of darkness and the overgrown bushes outside the back entrance of the long-abandoned tavern, several palace guardsmen were hunkered down and waiting. Among their number was the older guard who had met the Shadow Man at the palace wall just last night. His name was Guard Sergeant Fallon Eardsley, and tonight he had command.

  Eardsley watched the back door intently, listening, occasionally scratching his muttonchop sideburns. Strange business. The last man to enter was known to him as a member of the King’s council, but he’d retired long ago. Last night the Shadow Man instructed him to assemble a squad and wait in silence outside this location. The matter was of highest import, it involved treason against crown. Fallon did not question the Shadow Man further – Though the veiled assassins held no official rank in the guard, all orders from them were to be obeyed as their assignments were entangled with the safety of the kingdom at large. Intrigued though Fallon was, he wished he knew more of the details behind it all. Arrest a former king’s councillor? Strange business, indeed.

  Over the stillness of the night, the guardsmen could hear the hushed tones of conversation from within the old tavern, the scraping movement of chairs on the floor.

  Then, all conversation stopped and the sound of chairs and bodies falling were heard. Fallon signalled his men to be ready to spring. And luckily, they were, since the door blasted open and a man came dashing out, arms flailing. “Grab him!” Fallon seethed at his men.

  Three guardsmen zipped out of the bushes and tackled the running man, being sure to cover his mouth. Fallon looked around behind them, into the neighbourhood beyond. No one had heard. No windows with curious on-lookers opened.

  A moment later, the Shadow Man appeared in the doorway. Fallon stood up and trotted over to join him. The bloody carnage he saw beyond the doorway was incredible.

  “Councillor Greva is the old one by the fireplace. The rest are dead.” The Shadow Man said, withdrawing a parchment from the folds of his robe. “This is evidence for the council.”

  Sergeant Eardsley took the parchment, saying, “Understood. One other got out alive. Won’t you have to answer for that?”

  The Shadow Man eyed the Sergeant through the slit in the cloth masking his face. He then said, “No.”

  The assassin walked away, adjusted the knuckle-dagger still affixed between his fingers and approached the two guardsmen now holding onto the prisoner. They had him by the arms, his knees barely touching the ground, his head lolled forward in defeat. “Hold him still.”

  “Why?” one guardsman asked and immediately got his answer.

  The Shadow Man reared back his elbow and droved his dagger-clad fist into the back of the traitor’s head. The man’s body shivered for a second, then went entirely limp. The assassin then strode away from the guards, who watched him heading away with queasy stomachs, a corpse now dangling between them.

  At the tavern door, a young guardsman approached the sergeant, the same who had manned the door in the southern tower of the palace. Looking inside, the young guard was amazed. “He killed five men in as many seconds. Unbelievable.”

  Turning away from the door, the younger man was just able to glimpse the assassin as he leapt over a nearby fence and disappeared. Sergeant Eardsley swatted the young man’s arm, saying, “Don’t look at him, boy. We’ve got work to do.”

  ? Devon Richards 2026