In the palace basement of King’s City, Kingdom of Graycastle, Timothy Wimbledon sat on his throne with his cheek resting in one hand and watched the latest candidate demonstrate his knife technique.
How many of these idiots have I endured since winter started?
He had been too lenient, clearly. Word had gotten out that the king would receive anyone with a credible plan, and now the fools came in daily, each one more ambitious and less competent than the last.
He sneezed. The torchlight was making his eyes dry.
The Hall of Sky Dome was still under reconstruction after the snow powder had brought down its ceiling, so council meetings had been moved to the renovated basement chambers. Several storage rooms had been opened up; the total space was sufficient, the entrance was singular, and the entire weight of the palace sat directly above as a roof no explosion could penetrate. It was as secure a location as existed in King’s City. The disadvantages were the absence of natural light, the turpentine torches—which turned the air hot and sweet and faintly nauseating—and the fact that Timothy was forced to conduct the business of a kingdom in what had been, until recently, a root cellar.
Every time he thought about Roland, the resentment sharpened into something almost physical.
The candidate was demonstrating again. Four throwing knives, twenty paces, a barrel. All four hit the center of the target with a crack-crack-crack-crack rhythm that suggested long practice.
“My lord.” The man faced him with evident satisfaction. “If that traitor Roland ever appears before me, I guarantee the outcome.”
“What guarantees do you offer,” Timothy asked, “that I’ll see the twenty-five royals again after I’ve paid them?”
The candidate’s face fell. “Your Highness, I assure you—”
“Knight Weimar.” Timothy beckoned without inflection.
The Steelheart Knight stepped in from the corridor, shield on arm, saber at his side. He removed his helmet and approached the candidate with the deliberate ease of a man who has done this before.
“Wait—Your Highness, this isn’t—” The candidate broke away from the first slash, flipped his body, got his balance back, flung a knife. It struck the shield with a flat sound and dropped. Another slash. The candidate stumbled sideways, hit the floor, tried to rise—a vicious kick doubled him over, and then the saber came down at an angle and took half of his right forearm.
The blood made a wide curved line across the stone.
“My hand—”
“Firstly,” Timothy said, “members of the royal family are not your typical targets. Even my foolish brother won’t walk willingly into a crowd. Secondly, if you can’t defend yourself against a single knight, you have no business inside thirty feet of a lord protected by many.” He gestured. “Remove him.”
He watched them drag the man out and felt, not for the first time, the dull exhaustion of this entire enterprise. A month or two ago he wouldn’t have entertained common-born assassins at all. He had started by giving small sums to anyone who showed genuine skill—and Roland was still alive, still sending snow powder from the sky, still entrenched in the Western Region as comfortably as if the civil war had never touched him. News of Timothy’s apparent tolerance had spread quickly, and now the applicants arrived daily with increasingly absurd proposals. A tavern maid, one man had suggested. A tavern maid, as if Roland hadn’t spent the past two years surrounded by witches and hadn’t learned, presumably, to distinguish them from ordinary women.
Maybe it was a mistake to look in the citizenry at all.
The only things that could reach Roland were pills and snow powder of his own.
He surveyed the hall. Empty of outsiders now. “Prime Minister. The snow powder weapon development—where does it stand?”
Intelligence gathered from Longsong Stronghold over the past year had confirmed the general shape of the weapon: a semi-enclosed iron pipe, powder loaded at the breach, force directed forward to propel a lead ball. Crude on its face, but the results spoke for themselves—Border Town’s miners had broken the Duke’s knights with it, repeatedly and decisively. Timothy had pulled every experienced smith in King’s City and set them to reproduction immediately.
“Not well, Your Highness.” Marquis Wyke’s expression was professionally neutral. “We’ve produced ten or so prototypes according to our intelligence. None approach the claimed firepower. A few can penetrate a knight’s breastplate at close range—ten steps at best—and accuracy at fifty steps is essentially theoretical.”
“Might as well walk up and stab them,” Timothy said flatly.
“Yes, Your Highness. And even at that production rate, gathering every blacksmith and apprentice in the city generates perhaps twenty weapons per month, with no guarantee of function. There have been four burst pipes in training. The guardsmen are not enthusiastic about holding them.”
Timothy let the frustration settle rather than speak it. Border Town was a fraction of King’s City’s size and resource base, and Roland had reportedly deployed hundreds of these weapons in a single winter. The only explanations were witches or an advantage of technique he couldn’t replicate from secondhand intelligence. Neither answer was satisfying.
“The pills,” he said. “Has the Church replied?”
“The High Priest sends his regrets, Your Highness. The Holy City is occupied with its own demonic beast crisis during the Months of Demons and cannot spare supplies at this time. He asks that we wait until spring.”
I don’t intend to wait until spring. He would write to Hermes himself—a personal letter, unambiguous in its terms. The Church wanted continued access to Graycastle for recruitment and congregation. That access now had a price.
He was preparing to close the session when the Minister for Diplomacy materialized at his elbow with the expression of a man who has held back news through poor timing and now fears the moment has passed.
“Your Highness. Messengers from the Kingdom of Dawn arrived in King’s City today. They’re requesting an audience.”
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
In the basement of the palace, King’s City, Kingdom of Graycastle.
Timothy sat on the throne with his cheek resting on his right hand. He watched impatiently as the candidates performed their assassination stunts.
“How many fools have I watched since winter begin?
I must have been too lenient recently, to have allowed these clowns to perform.”
He sneezed and felt the dryness in his eyes.
Ever since the Hall of Sky Dome was destroyed by snow powder, Timothy had moved the venue of the Council Meeting to the basement of the palace. After some renovation, including opening up several storage chambers, the total space was large enough to accommodate all of the Council’s ministers and nobles. Most importantly, this place was absolutely safe. There was only one entrance, and the magnificent palace was directly above. No amount of snow powder could disrupt matters in here. The only disadvantage was the lack of sunlight, and thus light had to be supplied using turpentine torches. The torches, which were placed on the surrounding walls, caused the air in the room to become abnormally dry and stuffy. Furthermore, the turpentine gave off a sweet yet foul smell which made Timothy feel drowsy.
Whenever he thought about his Fourth Brother, Timothy would become furious and spiteful. Had it not been for the eyewitnesses who noticed that the attacks came from the sky, Timothy would probably still be building guard towers recklessly. After he realized that this method was completely ineffective, all he could do was to hold his meetings in this place for the time being.
“Roland Wimbledon will surely pay for this!”
“Your Highness.” The voice of a candidate disrupted his thoughts. “Have a look. If that traitor Roland ever dares to appear in front of me, I’ll accomplish the mission that you’ve entrusted to me!”
Timothy took a swift glance at the candidate. In a split second, the candidate landed four flying knives accurately on a barrel that was twenty steps away.
“Is this the stunt that you mentioned?”
“Indeed, Your Highness,” he replied assuredly. “Frankly speaking, I was in this line of business previously. I’ve killed dozens of Rats using this method. If I hide in a crowd, most of my targets won’t even know where the knives are flying out from.”
“How much do you want?” Timothy shifted his stiff body a little.
“Just 25 gold royals,” the candidate counted his fingers and said, “five of which will be used to cover the cost of my journey and my disguise—I’ll dress in a common and unattractive fashion in order to get closer to the traitor.”
“Knight Weimar.” The King beckoned.
“Yes, Your Highness.” Steelheart Knight walked into the hall, brandishing his saber and shield.
“Your Highness, what do you mean by this?” The candidate was startled.
“If you defeat my knight, I’ll give you your reward straight away.” Timothy winked at Knight Weimar.
The latter nodded his head. Then, he took off his head armor and walked towards the candidate.
“Wait, wait… no, Your Highness, this won’t do.” The candidate flipped his body distressedly to dodge the knight’s incoming slashes, and stammered, “I can’t fight head on! Ah!”
The knight swiftly followed up with a vicious kick to his stomach, causing him to swallow the rest of his words.
After rolling on the floor for a while, the candidate flimsily flung a flying knife at the knight, but it was easily deflected by the knight’s shield. The knight stomped on the candidate’s hand and, using his sword, sliced off half of the candidate’s arm. Blood spilled on to the ground in a curved line.
“My hand…!” the candidate cried in pain. He held onto the remainder of his right arm and coiled his body.
“Firstly, the royal family isn’t as dumb as your average target. Even that foolish brother of mine won’t easily go near crowds. And secondly, if you can’t even handle a knight, what makes you think you’re able to assassinate a lord who’s protected by many knights? I’m afraid that once you receive the 25 gold royals, you’ll never be seen again.” Timothy gestured with his hands. “Throw him out.”
Had it been a month or two ago, he would not even entertain this bunch of ignorant and greedy people. He had given a small sum of money to those whom he deemed to have a slight chance of succeeding—yet until now, Roland was still alive and kicking.
It was probably because of this ‘benevolent’ attitude that caused more and more people to come forward and declare that they could solve the problems created by the traitor, and the methods they proposed became increasingly absurd. There was even a fella who suggested using a tavern maid as the assassin, claiming that her technique was outstanding and that no man could refuse her service. “Utter ignorance! Don’t they know the difference between a normal female and a witch?” It was already well-publicized that Roland had raised and groomed several witches, so there was zero chance that Roland would fall for someone so cheap.
Timothy let out a long sigh. “By teaching these ignorant candidates a lesson, perhaps others will think twice about coming forth.
Maybe it was a mistake to recruit an assassin from the citizenry.
The only things that could defeat Roland are pills and snow powder.”
He swept a glance around the hall, and, seeing that there were no outsiders remaining, he asked the Prime Minister, “How’s the progress of the development of the snow powder weapon?”
According to successive intelligence gathered from Longsong Stronghold, the reason that Border Town miners were able to defeat the Duke’s knights and the mad militia was because they used an unusual snow powder weapon. It was, in all likelihood, a semi-closed iron pipe which made use of the force generated by the explosion of snow powder to propel a lead shot towards the target, similar to how a crossbow worked. Timothy was highly interested in this, and had immediately gathered the experienced blacksmiths of King’s City to begin creating an imitation of this unique weapon.
“Not ideal, Your Highness.” Marquis Wyke shook his head. “The blacksmiths have created 10 or so prototypes of this weapon in accordance with the intelligence, but none of them have anywhere close to the alleged firepower. Only a few can penetrate a knight’s breastplate within 10 steps, while all are inaccurate over 50 steps.”
“10 steps?” Timothy frowned. “Might as well aim at the face, no? At this rate, how are we going to stop the charging knights?”
“Indeed, there may be some tricks we have yet to master… Another thing, even if we gather all of the city’s blacksmiths and apprentices, we can at most produce 20 of these weapons per month, and there’s no guarantee that every one of them will work.” The Marquis sighed. “Until today, there have been four cases of iron pipes exploding during training, and the guards are rather reluctant about training with this kind of snow powder weapon.”
Damn it. Border Town was several times poorer than King’s City, yet Roland was able to produce hundreds of iron pipes in one winter. He must have received the assistance of demons.
Timothy angrily switched the topic. “How about the pills? Hasn’t the church replied to us yet?”
“Yes, Your Highness.” The Marquis responded. “The High Priest said that Holy City was busy fighting the invasion of the demonic beasts, and therefore temporarily unable to provide more pills of madness. He hoped that we could wait until after the Months of Demons to discuss things.”
“I don’t want to see the traitor remain peacefully in the castle of Western Region, not even one day longer!”
“Looks like I have to personally write a letter to the Holy City of Hermes,” Timothy thought spitefully. “In the future, if they want to continue recruiting believers in the Kingdom of Graycastle, they’ll have to bring pills for exchange.”
Just as he was about to announce the end of the day’s Council Meeting, the Minister for Diplomacy, Sir Bullet, suddenly walked up to him and said, “Your Highness, messengers from the Kingdom of Dawn have arrived in King’s City, and they wish to see you.”