“What about this?”
When he countered with clear suspicion in his voice, the man tilted his head and gestured with his thumb toward the embroidery on the surface of the pouch.
“That was made by Her Grace, the Grand Duchess.”
Blinking blankly, Varkas looked down at his waist once more.
The silk-lined leather pouch was covered in intricate patterns formed by interlacing small glass beads and vividly dyed threads. It was far too sophisticated a piece to be the work of a woman who had only recently taken up needlework as a pastime.
He leveled a doubtful stare at Edric.
“She made this?”
“There is no mistaking it. I watched Her Grace labor over that very thing for months.”
At the knight’s confident tone, Varkas’s expression grew utterly bewildered.
“Why would I have something she made?”
“How should I know?”
Edric Luvon knitted his brows as though the question were absurd.
Varkas recalled the moment she had come to his chambers before he departed for the campaign. Had she slipped it into his belongings then?
‘Why on earth…?’
He untied the water pouch from his belt—one he had carried without a second thought until now—and stared down at it as if seeing it for the first time.
Woven densely in gold thread, ivy trailed around the Black Horse crest, encircling it like a halo. Feeling the tight ridges of thread beneath his fingertips, Varkas suddenly felt his throat constrict, and he swallowed hard.
What had she been thinking as she worked this? And why give it to him?
“Giving someone a handmade keepsake before a long journey usually means you wish for their safe return, doesn’t it?”
Edric Luvon spoke up out of nowhere, as if reading his mind.
Varkas looked up at him again. Scratching the back of his head, the knight added with a quiet sigh.
“Ask Her Grace yourself once you return. Ask her why she gave it to you…”
That pointed remark stirred something deep in his chest. To suppress it, he drew a slow breath, hooked the pouch back onto his belt, and pulled the leather thong tight.
‘Do not harbor pointless expectations. It was surely nothing more than a whim.’
How many times had he already been swayed by that woman’s erratic whims? He had no desire to play the fool any longer, letting his heart rise and fall with her every breath.
Face hardening, Varkas rose and jerked his chin toward the fissure between the boulders.
“If you have caught your breath, we move. We cannot afford to linger.”
Edric Luvon let out an aching groan.
Ignoring him, Varkas resumed his stride along the mountain path. Even so, his mind remained consumed by thoughts of her.
What does she truly want from me? She pours out venom, swearing she will never forgive me till the day she dies, only to slip an unasked-for gift into my hands.
He wanted to ask her.
‘What do you mean to do with me?’
‘What am I to you?’
“Your Excellency, going any further looks dangerous.”
Rgen’s low murmur snapped him from his reverie, and Varkas halted, fixing his gaze ahead.
Before they realized it, they had drawn close enough to make out the interior of the windows in the central keep.
Shaking off his scattered thoughts, Varkas concealed himself behind a crag and carefully surveyed the massive stronghold. This was no time to be lost in idle musings.
Veiled in the deepening dusk, he slipped through the dense thickets and rocks toward the rear ramparts. Beyond the sheer cliff rose the fortress walls, crowned by a tall watchtower and a wide parapet path.
“Your Excellency, isn’t this enough for reconnaissance? Perhaps you should pull back here…”
“From this point, we separate.”
Brushing aside his subordinate’s warning, Varkas pulled two parchments from his inner breast pocket. He handed them to the swiftest scouts crouched along the slope and gave his orders in a calm, steady voice.
“Deliver one to Daren and the other to the commander of the northern detachment. The rest of you will split into two squads and lay an ambush near the rear and main gates.”
“Does that mean…”
“Labomir, Trian, Edmon, and…”
Ignoring the ripples of alarm among his men, Varkas calmly called the names of his subordinates before pointing last to Edric.
“These four will come with me.”
“Surely… you are not planning to breach the fortress yourself?”
The knight, silent until now, spoke up in a tense voice.
Varkas nodded without hesitation.
“I have an adequate grasp of their patrol rotations. We wait for nightfall, infiltrate, and throw open the gates. The moment I give the signal, launch the assault.”
“That is far too reckless! Entrust this to us and fall back to the main host, Your Excellency!”
“Keep your voice down.”
At Varkas’s cold warning, Rgen, whose tone had risen in agitation, stiffened and snapped his mouth shut.
Varkas added coldly.
“My words are a command, not a discussion. I will brook no dissent.”
“Yet for Your Excellency to shoulder such peril…”
“That is not for you to decide.”
Severing his subordinate’s protest cleanly, Varkas continued in a dry tone.
“I have already dispatched orders to the detached forces. The operation will proceed without disruption. Move without delay.”
Cowed by his resolute demeanor, the men exchanged brief looks and began to scatter in orderly silence.
Varkas watched for a moment as the scouts dispersed according to command, then led the infiltration team toward the ridge, which was now stained crimson by the dying sun.
Before long, dense darkness swallowed the foot of the mountain. He advanced swiftly along the path he had committed to memory, watching the faint glow flicking along the ramparts. Guards bearing torches marched in steady intervals along the sentry walk.
Pulling his hood low, he crept toward the base of the outer curtain wall. Soon, the dizzying expanse of masonry rose to block his view entirely.
“I will climb first and silence the sentries.”
“Wait! Let me go.”
Edric Luvon, trailing closely behind, urgently caught his arm.
Shaking off the hand as an annoyance, Varkas unslung the crossbow from his back and fitted an iron-tipped bolt tethered to a rope into the groove.
Winding the crank until the string was pulled to maximum tension, he sighted along the highest edge of the battlement. An instant later, with a crack like a whip, the bolt pierced the darkness and shot upward.
Varkas gripped the rapidly unreeling cord. When it snapped taut, he felt the grapple bite securely into the crenel.
He yanked the line twice to test its hold, tapped the stone wall lightly with the spikes on his boot toes, and gripped the rope with both hands. He began scaling the wall with uncanny speed.
To ascend a height of nearly eighty kuvets took him mere minutes.
Breaching the parapet in a single fluid motion, Varkas slipped behind a sentry on watch. Clamping a hand over the man’s mouth, he drove the blade concealed within his wrist bracer downward in one stroke.
He twisted the blade sunk deep into the man’s nape to widen the wound, and hot blood spurted outward.
He tilted the thrashing sentry’s head to hasten the bleed. The body, twitching faintly as muffled gurgles broke from its throat, went limp at last.
Once he was certain the breath had fled the man entirely, Varkas hauled the corpse beneath the watchtower and shoved it into a shadowed corner, then returned to the battlement. The iron hook remained wedged firmly between the stone blocks.
Kicking it once to ensure it stayed locked, Varkas signaled downward. One after another, the four men scaled the wall.
“Given the fortress layout, the mechanism operating the drawbridge and portcullis should be inside the southern tower. Split into pairs, eliminate any sentries nearby, and secure the approach.”
“What will you do, Your Excellency?”
Edric Luvon asked, his tone wary.
Having coiled the rope and stowed the hook back into his pack, Varkas answered calmly.
“I intend to locate His Highness the Crown Prince.”
As he turned toward the portal connecting the wall to the fortress proper, Edric seized his wrist.
“Did you not say you would abandon him?”
“There is an accomplice within the Imperial Guard who aided in His Highness’s capture.”
Even in the pitch-black night, Edric Luvon’s eyes widened visibly. Shaking off the knight’s hand with irritation, Varkas added in a low voice.
“A rescue stands a far better chance if they believe I have abandoned him.”
“Then I will assist you in recovering His Highness—!”
“I am enough on my own.”
Varkas cut him off without mercy.
“This is an individual undertaking born of my own concerns. Focus on seizing the gatehouse as ordered.”
“Your own concerns… How can saving the Crown Prince be treated as—”
Leaving Edric Luvon to swallow the rest of his protest, Varkas slipped toward the watchtower. Seeming to have given up at last, Edric made no further attempt to detain him.
Varkas stepped through the doorway into the structure and descended the stairs. Catching sight of a faint lantern light rising from beneath the railing, he flattened himself against the wall. A soldier was trudging up the steps, his face heavy with sleep, looking as though he had only just been dragged from his bunk for his watch.
Varkas melted into the deep shadows, waiting for the man to enter reach.
The soldier, muttering something in a thick northern cadence, reached the landing level with the sentry walk. Varkas struck in an instant, dragging him close and ramming his dagger straight into the man’s mouth. A strangled gasp choked in his throat.
Muffling the man’s face in the folds of his cloak to smother any sound, Varkas drove the blade deeper.
The steel punched through the back of the palate, shattered the vertebrae, and severed the spinal cord. Without even the chance to scream, the soldier collapsed, his knees buckling under him.
After a moment’s thought, Varkas shoved the corpse between crates stacked beneath the stairs. It was crude concealment, but he could not afford to waste time hiding a body.
Tripping the mechanism on his bracer to retract the blade, he slipped out of the watchtower.
It was common practice to hold high-value prisoners near the top of a keep. From what he had observed outside, the connecting corridor to the central stronghold lay to the southeast. Yet a frontal approach was too risky.
A servant’s side door near the kitchen or the stores would serve best; an infiltration route along the back of the structure was the wiser path.
Reaching a conclusion in a split second, Varkas began moving along the outer ring of the fortress walls.
END