The moon hung low and full in the night sky casting a silvery glow on the cobblestone streets of the ancient city. A figure in shadow, solitary, went like a dancer through the silent alleys. The air was cool, carrying the faint scent of jasmine from the nearby market. It was just another night, but in this air was a hidden beat of anticipation, which seemed to reverberate within the stones beneath her soft-soled boots.
Dalilah, the assassin, could feel it running in her veins, the tension of the task. Her heart was steady as she walked toward the great gothic monolith looming against the skyline. This was her destination: the palace of the nobleman who had earned her ire. She knew every detail of the place, having studied it meticulously for weeks. The guards' patrol patterns, the layout of the interior, the nobleman's habits-all were etched into her memory, ready to be used to her advantage.
Her hand brushed the cold, smoothed hilt of her dagger, hidden beneath the dark folds of her cloak. Death's promise was a gleaming whisper for the blade, silent because it told her mark what awaited him. The wall of the palace stretched high above her, but she had studied its weaknesses and knew how to find the right wall to climb. With silent prayer to the shadows, she climbed. Every handhold, every foothold a precision-sliced choice; the fluidity of water moving upwards.
The first guard she came to never saw her. She moved so fast, a blade cutting through air, catching moonlight on its way to his throat. He gasped once, a surprised sound that was swallowed in the night. Dalilah caught him body-falling, laying him down softly on the ground. The second sentry was more watchful, his eyes roving through shadows as he came toward her line. She waited, breath tight, till he was near enough for her to take him. Her hand reached out, a lean curve of shadow, and snapped over his mouth, cutting off all noise. The knife flashed behind his spine. He fell without so much as a whisper.
This time, however, entering the palace was like slipping into the lion's den, yet Dalilah felt a warmth she had not felt in weeks. The guards fell one after another before their eyes had a chance to widen in shock and then drain of all light. She moved with the silent confidence of a specter, a moving shadow no alarm could drive out. Her destination approached, the nobleman's rooms a beacon of warmth and splendor in the cold stone fortress.
The heavy wooden door to the chamber was unguarded and a mistake that would cost that nobleman dearly. The noblewoman took a moment to compose herself, listening for the cadence of his snores, feeling the weight of her mission in the pit of her stomach. Then, she pushed the door open, the hinges emitting a sigh that was lost in the symphony of the night.
The room was a cocoon of velvet and gold, a nobleman sprawled across a four-poster bed, a mountain of pillows and fur blankets. Candles threw flickering warm light upon the tapestries, which had been hung upon the walls with scenes of battles and conquests that would be the opposite of what the man had orchestrated: peaceful slumber. Dalilah's gaze fell upon his face, a mask of arrogance even in sleep.
Her boots made no sound on the plush carpet as she approached the bed. The nobleman stirred slightly, his features marred by a frown, as if he even in his dreams, sensed something unwelcome there. She waited, poised for his breath to deepen again before reaching out to close the distance. Her hand hovered above his throat; beneath her fingertips, she felt the beat of his life. For a moment she allowed herself to think through the weight of what she was going to do.
But the night whispers called to her, the whispers of justice and vengeance that had brought her here. Her hand tightened, and she struck, the blade sinking deep. The nobleman's eyes shot open, but there was no time for fear. His hands grabbed at her, but she was already slipping away, leaving the crimson stain spreading across the white sheets.
Her escape was as carefully planned as her entrance. She slid through the shadows, the walls of the palace seeming to melt around her. The guards she had avoided on the way in were now but a distant memory, their lifeless forms a grim testament to her skill. Each step was placed with purpose, each turn of a corner calculated.
The cries of the nobleman had been smothered, but the crash of his body onto the floor had carried through the echoing halls of the palace. Guards shouted out orders and armor clanged through the corridors as the palace awakened to life. Dalilah's heart beat now not in fear, but in excitement of the chase. She had to move quickly. Night was her friend, but it would not tarry forever for her.
Her way out was a labyrinth of twists and turns, with every step tense like the bowstring pulled tight. Panic and blood scented the air as she walked by the bodies of the slaughtered guards. Their lifeless eyes seemed to dig into her back as she walked by them, a silent accusation she did not even notice, as she had faced death so many times.
Dalilah arrived at the window through which she had entered the room, the velvet drapes fluttering in the night wind. She paused for a moment to look down at the courtyard below, measuring the new obstacles that had been added to her path. More guards had been alerted, their torches casting a frantic pattern of light and shadow across the ground. She waited, breathing slowly and evenly, for the perfect moment to make her move.
The courtyard was a tumult of activity, men rushing to and fro, their shouts reverberating off the stone walls. Yet in the midst of the chaos, there was a pattern, a rhythm to their movements that she could use. She waited for the briefest of lulls, then she leaped from the window, her cloak billowing around her like a midnight cloud. The drop was longer than she had anticipated, but she landed with a silent roll, hugging the impact like a cat.
The guards down hadn't seen her descent, their attention on the palace's upper floors. She took advantage of their distraction, weaving through the shadows cast by the frenetic dance of torches. Her eyes scanned for an escape route; her mind calculated the risks of each potential path. The stables, she decided, would offer the best opportunity. Horses, loud and unpredictable, could cover her tracks if she played her hand right.
Dalilah ran fast, barely stepping on cobblestones, going to the stables. Horses and hay reeked with a metallic taint that seemed to be radiated by the stones themselves. Animals could feel it-the turbulence, the whinnying, nervous noise they all produced in the dark night air. She picked one that had been reliable on the recon missions-someone very silent.
With a soft touch, she calmed the beast, her eyes locked on his, speaking a silent language of trust and necessity. The stable doors were left ajar, allowing moonlight to spill in and cast the barest of lights on the scene. In one fluid motion, she saddled the horse and swung herself into the saddle. The stallion, trained for such moments, stood stock-still, muscles quivering with anticipation.
The screams grew louder, the crashing of armor and the thunder of boots growing closer. Dalilah felt the panic well up in the air like something living, driving her to hasten. She nudged the horse forward, and with it, they slid back into the night, lost among the shadows once more. The soft earth made hardly a sound with the hooves of the animal, and they moved like one being-a silent specter escaping carnage.
The guards in the courtyard had heard the noise in the stables and were now running towards her. But she was already a ghost, disappearing into the night, the stallion's hooves leaving no trace in their wake. Dalilah's eyes scanned the terrain ahead, mapping out the quickest and most concealed route through the city. She knew the layout like the back of her hand, every alley and rooftop a potential escape route.
As they neared the edges of the city, the streets became narrower and more hectic; cobblestones became packed earth, and the glory of the palace became ratty homes for the poor. The stallion's breath steamed in the cold night air, its eyes rolling with the thrill of the hunt. They moved as one, her instincts meshing with that of the creature, sensing their need to flee.
Dalilah leaned low over the horse's neck, guiding it with gentle pressure from her legs and the occasional whispered command. They turned down a narrow alley, the walls so close she could have reached out and touched them. The shadows grew denser here, and she felt the tension in the air thicken. Her senses were on high alert, her hand never straying far from her dagger's hilt.
As they get close to the city gates, she sees some guards dashing in their direction while brandishing torches aloft. She feels that momentary heart stop in her chest but doesn't freeze. She tells the stallion to move less noticeably, to let those pass by. The guards were looking for one person on foot, not a mount with the potential to outleave them. She held her breath, heart thumping in her chest, until their shouts faded into the distance again.
City walls stretched ahead, a bulwark between her and liberty. Yet she had studied the blueprints, knew of a secret passageway, a narrow slit between the stones that centuries ago had been missed. The stallion's hooves muffled as they crept forward, and she stepped down, taking hold of the reins. She pushed through the slit, alongside the stallion, which filled the gap. Stone bruised her shoulders and sides.
Once beyond the embrace of the city, the night air was fresh and clean; the sounds of pursuit grew distant. Dalilah breathed deep, savoring the sweetness of victory.
But then, she felt a chill down her spine. A prick of awareness. Someone was tailing her. She felt the beat of it- footsteps, a steady cadence increasing with each tick of time. Her grip on the reins tightened; her eyes narrowed, probing the dark.