Rain lashed down, stinging my face and rendering the alley I was looking for almost invisible, dark as it was. Crouched in the shadow of a tall building on the edge of Benjen's compound, my mind flashed back over the plan we had hashed and rehashed several times over the 10 days it had taken me to recover. We had approached under the cover of dusk, scouts ranging ahead to ensure we arrived unseen. Only twenty paces back, were 8 men and 6 women, waiting for my signal to move on. If everything was going smoothly, two further teams of 15 were currently taking similar routes to the north of here.
I'd spent as much time as had been possible in the last few days observing and then training with my team, and any apprehension I had about them swiftly evaporated. I might not have always seen eye to eye with my mother - but I had to grudgingly concede she had her people trained well. If anything, I was the liability here, used to fighting solo if running wasn't an option. I had the uncomfortable feeling throughout our training sessions that they were almost all for my benefit.
I set myself to cutting a small gap in the chain link fence, grateful for the sound of the rain covering each snap of metal. The hole was soon big enough for a fully grown man to slip through, and I signalled for the rest of my team to pass one by one into the base proper. They moved quickly and purposefully, sweeping the area for the guards - we'd timed our approach using intel fed from inside Benjen's army, but it didn't sit well with anyone to trust too much in that.
It seemed our informant had been right however, and we moved swiftly through the open space in a tight formation, stopping only once we had reached the back wall of a long grey building that we believed was the infirmary. From here, two of our team would attempt to rescue a number of my mother's soldiers that had been wounded and captured. I had remembered the doctor who had been so kind during my stay with the Easterlies, and had made a quiet request of one of the extraction team to look for him. The remaining 13 of us took a meandering route through similarly squat and dull buildings until we were in view of Ben's mansion. It wasn't until I saw it that I fully grasped what he had done here, and so quickly. The entire camp was set in the grounds of an old stately home, the uniform grey buildings had been erected in its gardens. Under my feet I could make out a single broken rose stem, the rest of the flowerbed crushed into a muddy pulp by a thousand boots.
Somehow the blueprints hadn't done justice to the scale of the thing. The manor house itself was bigger than anywhere I could remember, and each of the 2 dozen outbuildings was large enough to house 300 men easily. Beyond the main encampment, I knew that fields of tents went back as far as the eye could see. Benjen wasn't just consolidating his power here. He was building an army.
This all crossed my mind as we approached the centerpiece, the house. Moving silently between the buildings, hidden safely in the dark, I could make out low voices from around nearby campfires; too close for comfort, even if I knew the bright flames rendered the watchmen night blind. This fact alone let me know that although he had a lot of men at his disposal, they were untrained and undisciplined. I filed this away for later, needing to focus on my mission.
We knew that Benjen's quarters were on the third floor, taking up most of the left wing of the Manor, and it was towards this I fixed my gaze, certain I would find Keri there also. He would keep her close, part of him probably expecting me to make an attempt to rescue her. It pained me just a little to know I was likely doing exactly what he knew I would, but it was the distraction my team would need for their true mission. My mother had instructed ten of her most experienced soldiers to accompany me and my two companions to the inside wall, before moving into the building via a different route. They would look for any clues as to what the Easterly clan were planning.
I had been glad to hear this, but I knew I only had two aims. And only one that I could focus on. I had to get Keri out of there, and if I could, I had to kill Ben. As painfully as possible. In no time at all my back slammed against the wall, the hard stone sending a painful reminder down my spine that my shoulder was still tender. I could feel Matt's shoulder against my left - he had insisted on accompanying me - and a second later another shoulder brushing my right arm. Another previous messenger, my second companion was a young woman named Suriah. I'd been embarrassed to admit I didn't remember her face, but I came to learn she had only joined the messengers a few weeks before she defected. In a quiet moment Matt had pulled me aside, explaining that Suriah had joined the guild for me, having heard all about me. Although she was never less than professional, I occasionally caught her staring at me, a sort of hero worship in her eyes that made me squirm with discomfort. I put up with it mostly because she had the best aim I had ever seen, and as she unloaded the grapple-hook loaded crossbow from her pack and aimed it at the ledge above a dark, third-story window, I was grateful she was here. There was a fair chance I could have made the shot, in good conditions. But at 2am in the driving wind and rain, she was the obly one who stoof half a chance.
I watched her take aim at the window and steady herself with a few deep breaths: in and out, in and out. On her third exhale she pulled the trigger, the sharp claws of the grapple reaching out and wrapping around the ledge to catch on the far side, rope trailing down. Forgetting herself for a moment, Suriah shot me a huge grin, proudly tugging on the thick cord to check its stability. Satisfied, she motioned to the others, who stole off into the darkness, their role in our mission complete. With a final glance at myself and Matt, Suriah took a short jump at the rope and then started to climb, quickly scaling its length. As she reached the window she pushed gently off the wall with one leg, using the other to pull herself into the room above.
A moment later a dark face peered down at us, a barely visible arm beckoning us to follow. The coast was clear. It was my turn next, and I patted Matt gently on the shoulder before starting the climb myself. It was harder than I'd anticipated, with a sword bouncing at each hip, silent in their sheaths but awkward to move with. My shoulder twinged too, and I tried to shift more of my weight to the other arm as I favoured my legs to propel me up the rope. I counted slowly in my head as I climbed, and then hands reached out to grab me, Suriah swinging me in through the open window. I shot her a thankful look, releasing the rope for Matt to follow. A few moments later his head popped up past the ledge, and Suriah and I moved to help him in, pulling the rope safely out of sight behind him.
We wasted little time, arranging ourselves by the door weapons drawn. We each had a small handgun holstered to our thighs, but bullets were a luxury we couldn't waste, and fighting in the close quarters of the dark corridors we were as likely to shoot each other as any of the enemy. Matt counted quietly down from three before throwing open the door, allowing Suriah and I to move out into the hallway back to back. The coast was clear again, and it was starting to make me nervous. Suriah turned on her heel and followed me silently into the dark, Matt just behind.
We made it to the end of the corridor before all hell broke loose. It was clear from the sudden commotion that one of the strike teams had been noticed. I let out a small prayer that it wasn't the rest of ours, listening to the sound of several soldiers unwittingly running our way. Releasing one last deep breath, I ducked around the corner into the well lit passageway, swinging my left blade in a large arc as I let my eyes adjust. The sharp edge caught on the waist of an unsuspecting young man, surprise evident on his face, but I didn't have time to brood. I could already make out almost a dozen men between us and the room at the far end of the hallway, where we believed Keri would be. To get to her, I would cut down as many of them as I had to.
Suriah and Matt waited barely a second longer than I before leaving the relative cover of the dark hallway to come up alongside me. I noticed the smallest flick of Suriah's wrist as she surveyed the scene, and then watched a man crumple to the floor before he even realised what was happening, the hilt of a throwing knife protruding from his throat. No time now for pride, even if it was a perfect shot, Suriah wasted no time in following the path of her throw; a short blade lashing out from her offhand to catch another guard low in the belly as she moved to retrieve the knife.
Matt had taken a different approach, using his large frame to tackle one man to the floor. I saw a single beam of moonlight reflected at Matt's wrist, and then the man below him stopped moving. Launching myself over the bodies now lining the floor, I let the muscle memory of a thousand fights take over. Three men fell quickly behind me as I carved a path towards Keri, but the surprise of our attack had worn off, and the four soldiers still alive had retreated down the corridor, small bucklers raised into a wary guard. A smile played across my face and I sped up, waiting until the last minute to drop to my knees and slide past the two closest to me. I quickly pushed back up to my feet and swung both swords up to sink the blades into the necks of the two soldiers at the back, before spinning to cut down those I had passed. All four collapsed at the same time and I took a deep, shuddering breath.
My companions were suddenly back at my side, Matt letting out a low whistle.
'I thought you said the stories were exaggerated' I heard him mutter under his breath.
I ignored his remark, worried that if I let any of my adrenaline go, I'd be unable to face whatever was waiting behind that door. I moved swiftly to grasp the handle, sucked in a lungful of air, and opened the door.