He chuckled quietly to himself as the fortress roared to life. Men scurried everywhere, hastily donning armour, checking blades for sharpness, yelling profanities at each other or discussing killing competitions. Shaking his head as one man, not five feet from him, mentioned his estimate of five thousand men in the force about to assault the fort. The soldiers all seemed somewhat disorientated, not unusual, given the early hour, but still, professional soldiers should be more used to rousing at the alarms, no matter the time.
The pearly sun peeked over the walls on the other side of the grounds, below him sprawled a series of barracks, a command house and a tower. He was somewhat unclear on what the tower's purpose was, storage and housing for the captains he supposed, but it was irrelevant. The position of the outer wall was uncommonly close to the tower and with arrow holes all around the building and small protrusions in the stonework where floors met ceilings; it would be a simple matter to scale the tower's wall.
Pulling his hood forward slightly and checking the straps on his backpack, he pumped his arms and raced across the top of the wall, then, darting between crenulations, he leapt. Fingers flexing, he grabbed hold of the arrow hole and braced himself. His shoulders ached terribly as his weight pulled him down, the momentum smashing him into the stones and knocking the breath from his lungs. Gasping, he scrabbled with his feet until he found purchase, only then did he check behind him to make sure his jump hadn't been noticed.
Carefully, he climbed around the cylindrical tower until he was above one of the barracks on the inside of the complex. It was a short drop onto the slate roof and he tucked his shoulder in and rolled to dispel some of the sound from his landing. The tiles clattered softly as he rolled to his feet and peeked out at the courtyard.
There was movement in the command house, but the lantern light emanating from the window showed him only silhouettes, no way yet to tell which his target was. Settling back onto his heels to wait, he rolled his shoulders against the unfamiliar weight of his pack. Soldiers still scuttled about in the courtyard, but most were at their posts, those must be messengers.
He checked the sun's progress; it was barely above the horizon, the walls keeping most of its light from the fort. Soon. If his target didn't present himself soon there would be trouble.
A bowstring creaked nearby; he'd know that sound anywhere. Spinning and drawing his knife at the same time he barely managed to deflect the arrow at the tower. The archer's eyes widened, surprised by his reflexes. Then the archer opened his mouth to raise an alarm. He never even got that far. He tackled the archer to the tiles, kicking the bow away from him. The fellow was surprisingly large for an archer and clasped a hand around his throat. Fighting for air, he pressed his fingers into the archer's throat, much easier to kill a person that way.
The archer's hand grabbed his collar and tossed him aside, hauling himself to his feet and coming at him again. This time, he wasn't going to give the archer more chance than he had to. With a flick of his wrist his knife blossomed at the archer's throat, blood leaking down his chest. The archer collapsed silently and began to roll towards the edge of the roof.
Cursing, he leapt at the corpse, catching it just in time to keep it on the roof, but several arrows spilled from the quiver and clattered to the cobbles below. Muttering an oath for his bad luck, he dragged the dead archer to one edge and looked over. An alley ran between this end of the barracks and the outer wall. It looked to be used mainly for storage, several barrels and a few crates were stacked against both walls along with a few sacks, probably with foodstuffs in them. He rolled the body off the edge and pried open a barrel. It was full of scrap metal. The next had grain in it and the third was packed with straw, but the fourth was empty save for a pair of withered apples.
Still grumbling about how badly this was turning out, he doubled the archer up and stuffed him in the barrel. It wasn't a perfect fit, he had to rearrange the corpse several times before he could get the lid secured back in place, and then he still had to take the fellow's boots off! At least he hadn't had to break bones, that would've created too much noise.
Despite his curses, he'd been lucky so far in avoiding detection. If he'd been in the archer's place, he would have sounded an alarm before loosing that arrow, no matter that the intruder's back was turned. Now he just had to fulfil his contract and get out. How hard could that be?
Very. After clambering back up onto the barrack's roof, he found the door to the command house open and two men in the doorway, neither his target. Eyes scanning the grounds, he finally spotted the man he was after.
"Red plumed helmet, check," he said to himself softly as he unlimbered his bow. "Height roughly six feet even, check. Long tail of brown hair, check. Missing right hand, check. Looks like your number's finally up, my friend."
He drew his goose feather arrow smoothly to his cheek and evened his breathing. Taking his time, he sighted down the shaft, focusing on the mark. His blood thudded in his ears, and time seemed to slow around him. This shot was almost as far as he'd ever shot, not wanting to risk being seen to get a softer shot, he'd just have to deal with the distance. But despite that and the target moving and the slightly breeze and the sun in his eyes as it finally topped the wall, he had all the time in the world to make this shot. All the time in the world.
Exhaling, he released the arrow.
In his bones he could feel the shot was good, but he watched it arc through the air towards its target anyway. There was very little in the world as beautiful as an arrow in flight. An arrow with a purpose. Three hundred paces the arrow flew, accounting for distance, speed and wind, not to mention the height adjustments he'd had to make because of his elevation, over the heads of several soldiers and ruffling the hair of the messenger standing next to the target, it thudded home. The arrowhead pierced the mark's throat and dropped him to the cobbles.
He smiled and slipped from the roof into the back alley, pulling his pack from his shoulders. Tipping the contents onto the cobbles, he changed, now wearing the clothing of the enemy. Slinging his pack across his shoulders again, now stuffed with his usual attire, he pulled his knife free. With it, he pried open the window at the back of the barracks and crawled through, tucking his knife at his belt and picking up a sword on his way through.
Then he simply walked through the doors to the barracks and headed towards the gate. Naturally, it wasn't completely clear sailing. The guard on duty stopped him.
"Where are you going during a lockdown?" the guard asked gruffly.
"I have a message from the captain to send to the capital," he said smoothly. "Something for his wife. He said it was imperative she get it as soon as possible."
The guard frowned; it wasn't his place to pry into the personal affairs of his commanding officer. If he asked to read the letter, then two things could happen: if there was no message, an alarm would be sounded. But if there was a letter, he would be put on probation for snooping; he might even be investigated for treason.
The guard eyed him up and down, taking in his bow, sword and pack but lack of quiver. He'd only brought one arrow with him, it was all he needed. Then the guard nodded and waved him through. The sally port to the left of the main gate was opened for him and he strode through, nodding to the guard. That poor fellow, when he found out the captain was dead would he realise the man with the message had been the killer?
It didn't matter. He walked down the path and then sidled off into the trees to where he'd tethered his horse. The creature looked at him briefly and whinnied before going back to nibbling the grass, a full quiver tied to the saddle along with his travel bags.
He tossed the sword into a bush as he mounted, but much as he would like to change, if he encountered any scouts this close to the fort he could find himself in trouble. Best to get to a nearby town before dumping the disguise. Heeling his horse around, he rode back to the rode, riding cross country could also count as suspicious behaviour. Really, who else but someone who wants to remain unnoticed rides away from roads?
Humming to himself, he began the long ride back, with his message for the captain's wife. It was only polite to tell her of her husband's demise. She was the one who'd hired him after all.