Queen Tarna's Regalia

Inside were ten small stacks of coins, silver and gold, and a row of rings. Some bore the prince's seal, while others were set with gems or gilt-leaf designs. Above the row of rings was a golden diadem set with an amethyst carved in the shape of a wizened, bearded old man. Aranthir smelt the distinctive scent of spice about it.

He carefully swept the coins and rings into his pack. The princess did not need to know about this, and he would share the extra spoils with the others when they were free and clear. The job was proving to be better every moment. The diadem he carefully stowed at the very bottom of his pack. He would have to find a loremaster who could tell him more about it later.

The hidden compartment plundered, he looked around the room for anything else of interest. There was always a possibility of more compartments in the walls or floors, but Aranthir had neither the time nor the inclination to exhaustively search the whole house. Sooner or later, someone would come looking. He left the room and returned to his searching in the hall.

The room was a small bathing chamber. A floor mosaic depicted a pair of nymphs bathing, while a large copper tub sat in the middle of the room. Barring more hidden compartments, there was little else here of interest. Aranthir closed the door and moved on.

Around the next bend he could see a railing that overlooked a room below, and from there he heard voices. The railing formed the edge of a gallery alcove, set with couches and tables for conversation or for musicians to entertain those downstairs. The gallery's candles were unlit, cloaking it in shadows only lit from the lower floor. Aranthir crept to the edge, mindful of the harsh yellow light being cast up from below by a roaring fire in the hearth. He kept to the shadows as best he could and looked down into a lavish sitting room.

Four men sat around a low table topped with a slab of black marble. Before them were crystal goblets filled with dark wine, books, and papers. Two of the men wore swords at their hips. Beside them, standing at the hearth, was a tall woman in a long green gown of silk. She was no older than thirty, with brown hair tied up in a bun beneath her lady's hood. She held a quill in her hand as she spoke.

"His Highness will dole out the royal offices once he is seated on the throne. All previous arrangements will be honored, I can assure you."

"He has promised me gold as well, and before long I will require further payments to secure the loyalties of my compatriots."

"You will be provided for. The healer assures me the queen will not survive the night. In the morning, Janndar will sit the throne and you will have all that you require. In the meantime, there is work to be done."

"Did your man secure the regalia?" one of the sword-carrying men demanded. He leaned forward and put his fist on the marble tabletop. A heavy ring on his finger clacked against the stone.

"He did. It is in the house," the woman replied. "It merely awaits it time of use. Fear not, with the regalia in our hands, the priests will fall in line like sheep."

"Where is your lover, then?" a second man demanded. "If this is the night, why isn't the prince here? Where has he gone?"

"He is at the palace," the prince's mistress assured them. "He and the marshal await the moment of her Majesty's passing. He has charged me with... assuaging your legitimate concerns, as well as another matter."

"What matter is that?" the man with the heavy signet ring growled, his eyes narrowing as the woman heaped scorn on his demands.

"The seneschal," she said. "He is the upstart princess' strongest ally in the court. He must be eliminated tonight. Task a force of your men to do the deed."

"Had we more warning of the queen's death, we might have ensured that the Fatespeakers or Men of the College were in town."

"He is an upjumped merchant," one of the other men grumbled, "we do not need College assassins for him. A few thugs will do the trick."

"Indeed," the prince's mistress agreed. "Find some rough men who are looking to earn some coin and point them to the seneschal's house."

She stopped and turned as another man entered the room. He was pale and raven haired, with a thin mustache and narrow beard on his chin. His tall, slender body was almost completely cloaked in a long black robe of silk that shimmered in the firelight. The other men quieted instantly when they saw him, and the newcomer strode arrogantly to the middle of the room where he stopped and raised a long-fingered hand to pensively tap his chin. Even from the upper galley, Aranthir could smell the spice around him.

"Well," the mistress prompted after a moment. "What is it, sorcerer?"

The sorcerer smiled to himself and stroked his chin before replying. "I have read the omens," he replied after a moment. "And the omens tell me that a great king will be crowned on the morrow."

"Your omens have been wrong before," the signet ring man muttered quietly. The sorcerer arched one thin eyebrow and stared down his long nose at the man.

"Have they now?" he asked quietly. The target of his question shifted uncomfortably in his seat. A tense silence reigned over the sitting room.

"You said the queen would grow weak."

"And so she has."

"You said her rule would grow weak! Weak enough that we might regain our old rights that she stripped away!"

"Is that not what Prince Janndar has promised? That he will restore your old rights?"

"Promised, but not delivered."

"Well," the sorcerer replied, his eyes intent on the man who dared to speak to him. "As soon as word of the queen's death arrives, I will take the regalia from the library to the palace and seat him on the throne. Then you will see if he delivers."

Aranthir did not wait to see the end of their conversation. He left the upper gallery as quickly as he dared and stole down the hallway in search of the library. All the doors were closed, forcing him to guess at what looked to be the door to a library. He peeked into several rooms as he passed, finding only more bedrooms, sitting rooms, or servants' quarters.

Reaching the end of the hall, he turned a corner to find himself at the top of the main staircase. The staircase was made of marble and carpeted with a rich green runner. It turned on itself at a landing populated by flowerboxes before emptying into the main hall below their current position. The top of the staircase let out into a wide foyer before a set of double doors, furnished with narrow tables and plants in fired clay urns. A chandelier over the stairs burned with a score of candles, lighting up the hallway in a manner Aranthir found most oppressive. Across the foyer was Lutharis, crouched against a wall and staying hidden as best he could. The other man signaled his fruitless search to Aranthir with an apologetic shrug of his shoulders. Aranthir nodded back, then tapped his eye. He mimed opening a book, but Lutharis simply replied with a shrug of confusion. Aranthir scowled in frustration.

"The library," he whispered across the hall to Lutharis. "Where is the library?"

Lutharis pointed to the set of double doors facing the stairs. Aranthir nodded. Together, they stole across the lit hallway to the library doors and prepared themselves. Slowly, Aranthir pulled the door open.

Inside was indeed a library. Tall, glass-fronted bookcases stretched from floor to ceiling, replete with scrolls, tomes, and legal codices. The long, narrow room stretched down what must have been the length of the house, for at its rear were two tall windows of latticed glass. The center of the library was home to couches and reading desks in alternating placements, and at the center of this row, on a carved table of elden oak, lay a sword, scepter, and mantle.

But beside the table stood two guards, armored in cuirasses and sallet helms and carrying broadswords. Each of also wore a whistle on chains around their neck. Aranthir quietly closed the door to consider.

"Two guards," he whispered to Lutharis with a furtive look toward the stair.

"How do we proceed?" Lutharis asked, reaching for his sword belt.

Aranthir made no reply, thinking the situation over in his mind. He was confident that he could fell one guard with a thrown blade, but not that Lutharis could do the same. His pistols would do the job easily enough, but were not an option for obvious reasons. In any case, there was also the concern that the fall of an armored body would alert those below.

He knew a charm that would quiet their attack, but casting it in close proximity to another sorcerer also risked revealing their presence. If the guards raised the alarm, how was he to escape? The windows at the far end of the library presented a tempting option, but the lattice was narrow and likely to slow if not stop them. Additionally, nowhere had his circuit of the grounds revealed a place where the house reached the street, so even jumping out the windows would leave them inside the outer wall.

It was a riddle with no easy solution, and every moment he spent thinking risked discovery.

"Find Krulles, we need all of us," he whispered at last. Lutharis nodded and crept away down the hall. As he went, Aranthir risked another peek into the library. The guards remained at their posts, though clearly quite bored. One was holding a thin book in his hand, tracing a finger along the lines of words as he mouthed along silently with them. The man must be near illiterate, Aranthir thought to himself. A shame to kill a man so intent on bettering himself by learning to read.

But that seemed the best way. A knife from him for one man, one each from Lutharis and Krulles to fell the other. Then seize the regalia and run for the rope. And so, he waited in the hall for Lutharis and Krulles to return, standing at the top of the staircase where anyone who summited the landing would see him plain as day. His heart pounding, he waited with the poignard in one hand and the pommel of a pistol in the other until at last Lutharis came back around the corner with the Wildman in tow.

Aranthir explained the plan to them quickly and they readied their knives for the throw. Aranthir breathed deep as he tightened his hand around the door's handle. He saw Lutharis and Krulles do the same. He gave them a nod, then swung the door open.

They burst into the library as one, three knives flying from their hands at the two guards. Both men were taken unaware, and Aranthir's blade buried itself in his target's eye. Lutharis' blade struck the man's cuirass and deflected up, off the angled rim of the armor piece and into the air. Krulles' blade found home in the guard's throat. The guards staggered and fell.

Not one to leave anything to chance, Aranthir rushed forward with his longsword drawn, runes in the fuller flashing white. The wounded guard lay in shock, clutching the knife in his neck with one hand as he groped awkwardly for the whistle around his neck. Aranthir reached him and killed him before he found it.

"Quickly, they likely heard the bodies' impact," he called. He tore his poignard from the dead guard and snatched up the queen's sword and scepter. The former he handed to Krulles for safekeeping while the latter he set about stowing in his swordbelt. Lutharis retrieved his own blade from where it had fallen and stuffed the royal mantle into his pack.

Raised voices sounded from below.

"Hurry!" Aranthir hissed. Krulles shot him an annoyed look as he seated the ceremonial sword in his scabbard. It fit poorly, but would hold well until for now. It has to, Aranthir told himself. He heard armored boots in the lower hall.

"They are coming, to the window!"

The three of them rushed the length of the library, painfully aware that they were heading toward the very men rushing up the stairs to kill them. But they had no other way out. Aranthir spared a fleeting moment to curse the architect who had designed this place. Was no thought spared for the fortunes of thieving mercenaries? he cried in his own mind.

Four men came rushing up the stairs, armored like those he had slain and carrying broadswords in their hands. They turned the bend in the stairs and cried out.

"Halt there! Thieves! This is the house of His Highness, Prince Janndar!"

Aranthir snatched a pistol from his belt with his free hand. No sense trying to stay quiet now. He opened the flashpan's spark guard, aimed at the lead guard, and pulled the trigger. The wheel spun and sparked, sparks flying everywhere but into the flashpan. The guard's eyes widened and he dove to the side, crashing into the staircase's wall. Aranthir swore and raised the pistol to rewind the wheel. But Lutharis and Krulles rushed past him, blades drawn and ready to ring steel against steel. Aranthir reholstered the disobedient pistol and ran to join them.

They clashed at the top of the stairs, three mercenaries against four guardsmen. The guardsmen failed to reach the top and as a consequence were forced to fight from the low ground against the high ground. The narrow space constricted the ability of the guardsmen to attack, allowing Aranthir and his companions to fight without being surrounded. Raining blows from the upper stairs, Aranthir slashed downward. He kicked a man in the face as he tried to gain the top, sending the man reeling backwards.

Krulles parried a blow with his saber and drew his own pistol with his free hand. The report of the pistol thundered through the hall and the shot punched a neat hole in a guardsman's cuirass. He gasped in wordless shock and fell backwards. He crashed into the stairs and tumbled down with a great racket.

Meanwhile, Aranthir traded blows with the lead guardsman who had called on them to halt. To his right, Lutharis battered through a guardsman's parry with a heavy, two-handed blow of his messer. Aranthir's swordpoint darted across and plunged into the man's armpit, just about where his cuirass ended. The wounded man cried out and staggered backwards. He lost his footing on the stairs and tumbled downward, only to be caught by another man. This man wore full plate harness and a sallet helm topped with an ivory figure of a unicorn. His breastplate was similarly emblazoned with the animal and he carried a gleaming longsword in his hand.

The knight gently guided his wounded comrade to the ground even as he quickly advanced up the stairs to join the battle. Warded by expert strokes of his blade, the knight drove his opponents back from the stairs, forcing Aranthir and his companions to fight their foes on even ground. The half-elf attacked the unicorn knight with a low thrust that was batted aside. But Aranthir converted the parried strike into a backslash that came across the defeat the knight's own riposte and then followed through with a thrust of the swordpoint into the knight's visor. The blade did not find the vision slit, but instead screeched across his helm and left its mark for all to see. The runes in its fuller flashed white, then red, and Aranthir readied himself for a deadly blow.

The knight drove forward with his shoulder, forcing Aranthir back. Behind them, Lutharis threw one guardsman to the ground and raised his messer for a killing stroke. Downstairs, more raised voices sounded, along with pounding feet on the stone floors. Aranthir shut them out as he was driven back under a furious assault. His back brushed against the far wall. He had run out of space. But the knight had overstepped and put himself off balance. Aranthir darted aside, bringing a two-handed strike down across the knight's shoulders. The ring of steel on steel echoed throughout the hall, soon drowned out by a scream as Lutharis finished off a downed guard.

His armor ringing, the unicorn knight turned to face Aranthir again, but the half-elf continued his circuit and was behind him again. Aranthir inverted his grip on the blade and swung it at the knight's legs. The crossguard caught the knight at the knee and wrenched his leg out from under him. There was a great crash of metal on wood as he fell to the floor. His legs flailing about in the air, he knocked a decorative vase from its place atop a stand and it fell to shatter on the floor.

Aranthir wasted little time. He swung the sword by its blade again, striking the knight in the helmet with the blunt force of the longsword's hilt. The sallet helm rang like a bell and the knight's arms fell to his side, stunned. He was downed, but not dead. Aranthir tore the poignard from his belt and set upon the knight like a hungry wolf. He stabbed through the visor's vision slit, then tore the blade out and sank it through a gap under the arm. The knight grabbed at him, flailed about, tried to scratch out his eyes with steel-encased fingers. But it was no use. Aranthir fought back the clutching hands and sank the blade deeper. He seized his longsword and drove the point of the blade as far into the visor's slit as it would go. Runes flashed bright red, then darkened to the color of blood. The knight went limp, blood dripping out the back of the helm and onto the wooden floor.

His chest heaving, Aranthir looked about. Lutharis tangled with a newly appeared guard, who had come charging from an upstairs room but turned back when he saw what was before him. But the veteran mercenary was not about to let him escape. He pursued the man into a side hallway and struck him down from behind. The guard cried out as he fell, slamming against the floor with enough force to make the whole house shift.

Krulles stood locked in battle at the top of the stairs. He had driven his man against the railing over the stairs, perilously close to tumbling over. Aranthir retrieved his poignard from where it had stuck in the knight's armpit and rose from his crouch. Krulles meanwhile battered aside the guardsman's broadsword and threw his shoulder into the man's chest. With a startled cry, he tumbled heels over head backwards and crashed into the stairs below.

Krulles laughed. He struck the flat of his saber on the wrought iron railing and cried out.

"Arvoran be praised! I've missed a good fight!"

Aranthir beamed in premature triumph, then felt his smile freeze on his face. The hairs on his arm jumped up on end and the smell of spice filled his nose. From below, a black bolt of eldritch energy streaked up to strike Krulles square in the chest. The man went limp immediately. His skin turned pale, while the veins under his skin blackened and thickened. Krulles fell to the floor, his saber clattering from his hand. Aranthir froze midstride. In the side hall, Lutharis looked to him in confusion, unable to see Krulles' demise.

Aranthir raised his sword as a darkhaired head appeared on the stairs. The black-robed sorcerer advanced calmly, climbing the stairs backwards so he could not be taken unawares. He was lined in fierce red flames that danced along his frame from head to toe, a potent shield against attacks.

"Ah," he said as he reached the landing, "As I thought. You are not common thieves. You've come for the regalia."

Aranthir's eyes went to the ceremonial sword, still in Krulles' scabbard.

"Have you come on behalf of the princess? Or some other pretender?" Aranthir did not answer. His eyes studied the sorcerer's defenses. In addition to the shield of fire, he had summoned a shimmering barrier before him that Aranthir knew as a shield against shot. His pistol would be no use here. The sorcerer climbed to the top of the stairs and stopped. He cast a dismissive look over Lutharis, who stood in a swordsman's stance with his messer at ready. The black-robed sorcerer looked instead to Aranthir, who approached down the hall slowly and deliberately, tapping the tip of his sword against each piece of furniture as he passed. He considered the sorcerer, his trained elven eyes tracing the flowing of each arcane weave that shrouded the man, probing for patterns, for weaknesses.