Ambrose was surprised at how quickly Nichol sprang into action to keep them from being detected as enemies, but grateful for it all the same. The hubbub of it got a slight rise (a groan or two) out of some of the sleeping soldiers. The assassins continued on, following Nichol's path at a distance. The servants quarters, a stairwell, and the kitchens passed them by. Ambrose kept a sharp eye, checking behind them as often as he could get away with. They went out the door of the lower castle, the upper looming above them.
The stairs and outdoor walkway were swept clean of snow, even as the flakes fell into the yard. The sentinels watched outward, perhaps four of them that Ambrose could see from below. The snow was disturbed, of course, with many sets of crisscrossing footprints marring the surface. Even at night some servants still had to do their duties. A gate, consisting of a drawbridge, portcullis, and a large set of doors was in one side of the walls. A stable was set in the shadow of the gatehouse. Perhaps it was true, what he'd heard. Once you're inside a castle, people assume you belong there.
"A word, if you please," Caleb whispered, stopping and turning towards the three. The snow swallowed sound like an abyss, so there was little likelihood that the following would be overheard by the watchmen. "The lord's room is on the upper floor of the keep, furthest in on the left. When he's dead, the room is full of loot. Take what you can manage from it. Everything else can be distributed to the locals it was stolen from. I'm going to bed."
And with that, Caleb left, back the way they came, disappearing into the lower castle.
"Anyone want to leave with him, now's the time," Ambrose said, his breath steaming into the frozen air. "If not, follow me."
He made for the stairs up. He hoped Nichol could meet them further inside.
Nichol followed in silence as the sentry led him through the hallways to reach a stairway a few junctions ahead of where Ambrose and the others made their own ascent. Though he tried to take in as much as possible, there weren't many sights to see, and it wasn't just because of the sparseness of the lighting. He saw only one other person, someone plodding down an intersecting hallway just after the stairs. There was one more hallway, an unusually dark one at that. Some of the candles must've gone out with no one to notice them. Nichol sensed danger as he found himself being led up a stairwell whose lighting was in a similar state, and...
"I— I hope this will suffice for the night, sir," the sentry said, gesturing through a sudden doorway towards a bedroom.
"Hm... Yes, this will do," Nichol replied. He surprised himself with how much fun he'd been having with his theatrics. Observing the bedroom in the light of the sentry's lantern, the furnishings were spartan but not entirely barren.
He could hide a body under the bed.
"Right," Nichol continued. "Back to your post, then. Get some rest. I'll announce myself properly come sunup."
The sentry turned, and Nichol's hand darted to his sidearm... but he hesitated. Could he actually pull off a stealthy takedown? And was it even necessary? No. Let him go back to sleep. It wasn't nearly as risky, besides. Briefly, memories of garrison life came flooding into Nichol's head. The vast majority of a fortress's occupants, he knew from experience, were simply looking after their own selves and putting the bare minimum of effort into their duties. The sentry would, in all likelihood, mind his own business.
Or he'll raise a proper alarm and that'll well and truly be the end of me. Nichol had killed for the greater good before. He would do so again.
"Long live the Kingdom," he whispered as his dagger met the young man's throat. It didn't make it any easier to snuff out the life of someone who'd done nothing but be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He'd basically tackled the sentry against the wall to cover his mouth and execute him. It wasn't a glamourous assаssination, but Nichol was fairly sure the dull thumps and murmurs hadn't carried all the way to the hall downstairs where he'd last seen another guard. Once he was sure the man was dead, he stowed the body under the bed, wrapped in the mildewy blanket that had formerly adorned it.
Nichol crept down another hallway, but not the way he'd come; instead, he elected to go in the same direction the first set of stairs from before had led, with the idea that he would eventually cross paths with his comrades. He came upon a walkway leading outside: to his surprise, it led down to where several watchmen stood facing away. Was he already in the inner sanctum?
Nichol heard the approaching sound of armour, and it wasn't his. He thought about snuffing out the candles... No! Too damned many of those to make a difference!
Lacking any better idea, he ducked out onto the walkway and stood guard. His armour wasn't the same, but perhaps all he needed to do in the low lighting was strike the same pose as the other guards. Despite the chill air, he felt like sweating. He tried to listen for the patrolling guard's footsteps over the whistle of the wind and the pounding of his heart. After what felt like an eternity, the footsteps passed him by. He wasn't even sure if this was enough to make the sentinels raise an eyebrow at all.
... Wait a second. That guard was going the same direction I was. And if the others took those stairs before, then that would mean...
Splits the take in less pieces? How charmingly mercenary. Not even sarcastically charming -- this was such an alien viewpoint to Tangle that it somehow avoided being repulsive and wrapped around to being fascinating. Like lifting up a rock and finding something so repellent that you can't quite bring yourself to crush it. Metaphorically. The alien part wasn't in the lack of concern for Nichol's safety. Callousness, Tangle understood. This wasn't about money, it was about striving toward a goal for the sake of striving. Whether it was good for any of them or not. She looked at Priam in a considering fashion. "The take I'm here for splits just as well regardless of numbers," she murmured, before following Ambrose.
****
After Caleb had said his peace and left, Ambrose's ultimatum only seemed to earn him a crooked grin. "I never turn back, love. It's one of my worst traits." She'd come here to do a job, and she was going to do it, unless tonight was finally the night where she died in service to the cause. It would have been nice -- very nice -- to be able to conjure a small bit of fire against the cold, but instead she made due with pulling her cloak tighter around herself. It wasn't yet so threadbare that it didn't help a bit.
Priam was kind of disappointed, to be honest. For all that wild talk this Tangle chick was just like all the rest. All that high-minded pretty-sounding bullshit, over and over again. As if it was gonna make any difference in the end except for who got what.
He shook his head. "Things ya can't see or touch ain't worth a shit," he muttered.
The Ostian exile followed behind Ambrose and Tangle, because he'd come for loot and that was exactly what he was gonna get. After he bought food and somewhere more permanent to stay... hm. If there was any left over...
An idea turned itself around in his head. One that could turn these times more to his favor.
But first he'd have to see just how much loot there was.
"I never turn back, love. It's one of my worst traits."
Ambrose smirked at hearing this. Working with this woman would surely be interesting. They ascended the wooden staircase as normally as possible, trying not to look out-of-place. He opened the door, letting the group into the keep. Ambrose loosened his sword in its scabbard, drawing the blade as smoothly as he could. With it fully out, he headed straight for the door Caleb had directed, when suddenly, a guard appeared in front of them, just as they were entering the light of a candelabrum.
The man was alert, and rather than greet them, immediately looked over Ambrose, saw his naked sword, and shouted, "Intruders!" He turned and bolted the way he came, undoubtedly seeking safety in numbers. Ambrose immediately charged for the young lord's door, ramming himself into it. It shuddered in the frame, and he started hearing more cries of 'rouse yourselves,' 'Intruders,' and 'To arms!'
"Tangle, Priam, I think you will need to provide a distraction," Ambrose ordered, taking his dagger and slamming it into the lock of the Lord's door.
"Now, that's just annoying timing," Tangle said. She seemingly complied, however, moving briskly toward the sounds of approaching guards, hoping that Priam at least cared enough about the job at hand to provide backup. She was amazing, certainly, and the plan was to distract, not to fight the whole garrison, but this got a lot more survivable with someone between her and the swords. Just go to a decidedly different part of the keep and make sure the guards were entirely occupied with the heretic mage throwing fire around.
"The joke's on me after all, isn't it?" she said to Priam, a madcap grin coming across her face. "It's true that killing an upstart Lycian lordling splits as many way as you please! But it's not really the same if you're not in the room for it, is it?" As she spoke, she produced the guiding ring from around her neck, snapped the flimsy piece of twine holding it in place as a makeshift pendant, and put it back in its rightful place on her left hand. There were about to be far more obvious signs of what she was in a moment.
"Nice tapestries down that hallway, aren't there?" she noted, now that they were suitably far away from the scene of the actual crime. The tome she produced from within her cloak was worrisomely worn, and -- given that they were inside and near a copious amount of cloth -- worrisomely fiery red-gold. "A good deal dodgier than your plan, but, in the end, explosions always make me feel better."
"Shittin' 'ens!" Nichol muttered a curse and ducked back indoors as he panicked. To his credit, the other guards were also panicking. The game was afoot; the operation had gone hot; the hens had shit themselves. Think! The best course of action occurred to him as a guard stumbled past him: the best thing he could do for the time being was fumble around like a buffoon and try to confuse some of the scrambling watchmen.
"Barracks!" Nichol shouted the first location that came to mind. "To the barrac— weapon!" He shifted gears as another guard crashed into him. "Need a weapon!" He practically wrested the bardiche from the sentry's hands as it occurred to him to lapse back into the Etrurian accent he'd used to greet Ambrose back in the inn. "His Lordship's already fled! Get as many men as you can and fall back to the barracks, right?!" Not only was it a bold lie that Pascal had somehow already escaped, it wasn't even clear what Nichol was saying to "fall back" from. Nichol knew what to expect from a modest garrison in the Etrurian hinterlands, but that still meant it was four assassins against at least several hundred guards. If they could manage to goad as many men into one place at once, that meant more room for an escape. Nevertheless, the guard scurried off, probably more to save his own hide than to follow the bogus "orders".
"Fall back! They've seized the gate!" Nichol continued to shout the most misleading words he could think of as he ran to his companions' side. He intersected with another guard, one headed straight for Ambrose, Tangle, and Priam, and elected to start swinging his new axe. "Blasted Imperial scum," he growled as he was parried rather effortlessly by a short sword. Who the hell gives a bardiche to a guard in these close quarters?! This fortress really did have organizational problems.
So much for getting in and out clean. Not that there was gonna be any of that the second they'd committed to whatever this was. Well, whatever. Priam sure as fuck didn't plan to die here, and the way not to die here was to fight with every dirty trick and weapon you had.
Rather than killing every guard in he and Tangle's path, he focused entirely on using his lance to trip, shove, and otherwise throw the ones immediately in front of them off balance and preferably into each other. Many of them were half-asleep or half-drunk anyways, not exactly on their game. Once enough of the guards were in a heap behind them-
He reached into his cloak for a large ceramic bottle and threw it on the pile. It burst into pieces and sent viscous lamp oil all over the poor bastards.
"Any plan where shit blows up's aces in my book. Light 'em up."
Burning humans directly was not quite the plan Tangle had had, but, well, they were improvising. And in terms of distracting obstacles, a burning, screaming, writhing mass of humanity, igniting carpets and wall hangings alike, was certainly not the worst one could do. Tangle's hand sketched through the air, lingering trails of light coming off the fingers to paint a complicated rune in front of her. Magic gathered in her hand, coiling and compressing a horrifying amount of power into a single ball of fire, illuminating her smile demonically for just an instant.
The moment the airborne fireball struck the ground in the midst of the mass of confused guards trying to pull themselves back up into some kind of order, it exploded outwards in a column of brilliantly green flame, a wave of heat washing over them a moment later, billowing her hair and cloak dramatically. "I never get to use that indoors," she noted, as the fire spread from the still-living bodies to the rest of the room with alarming rapidity. When it had been pure magic, there hadn't been any smoke. That was swiftly changing, although the purely-cosmetic green continued to make the rest of the fire match her eyes. "I always want to, though. We should be somewhere else, though." She said this last while already halfway out the door.
If they weren't 'distracted' by this, then they deserved to burn alive.
Ambrose grew annoyed quickly by the lock, and finally thrust his sword into the keyhole and pressed down. The mechanism stayed whole, but the lock broke from the wood, and Ambrose pulled open the door, looking into the dark room. A tall-ish, thin figure with sleep-tangled curls of blond hair and panicked brown eyes held a naked sword in his hand as he eyed Ambrose in turn. The assassin could see that the man was only just awakening from sleep, clad in braies and an undershirt.
"Who are you?" his voice squeaked out, quaking with fear. Ambrose closed the door behind him. It wouldn't lock, but amid panic, it might serve as something to deter awareness.
Then the screaming started. That'll be Tangle and Priam's work, he thought. Best finish this quickly.
Some guards, having come from the other direction, were frantically trying to empty the treasury of their mostly ill-gotten goods, understanding the predicament that they would be in if there was no money to go around.
"I am Death. For you, Pascal," Ambrose smiled grimly. Amusingly, Pascal looked indignant. He started to go on a tirade about how much better he was than the peons he ruled over and/or commanded, but Fred didn't let him finish, charging in and striking at him. The blow was heavy, but the young lord parried expertly, bringing the sword down on his armored arms. That would be a bruise, but a blade can't cut through a steel plate.
Pascal was a skilled swordsman, matching the mercenary blow for blow, an impressive feat to accomplish while naked of armor. Twice, Ambrose had to dodge otherwise fatal strikes. Finally, though, he was able to land a middle strike to the neck. Blood fountained from Pascal's ruined throat as he tried to scream for help, but no one came. The whole fight was over in two minutes.
The mercenary hated to ruin good glasswork, but what needed to be done, needed to be done. He shattered the glass latticework, sending the work down the hillside of snow. He then proceeded to the bloody work of using his own sword as an anchor for Pascal's body, and threw him out of his window. The sword was longer than the window was wide, so it worked. When morning came, the village would see Pascal, just as he'd promised Tangle.
He grabbed up Pascal's sword, a wonderful work of art in itself, found its scabbard, and belted it on, abandoning his former sheath and sword.
He went in search of his party. The assassination was complete, thanks to them, and the treasury was being emptied. Best to grab their share now and get out, before the fires consumed everything.
Nichol turned to defend himself against another incoming guardsman, one armed with a short pike probably intended more for ceremony than combat, until the guard's eyes widened and he abandoned his weapon to flee. Confused, Nichol turned to witness the previous guard he'd been fighting screaming and blanketed in green fire. A heat wave blew past as the blaze advanced along all manner of tapestry adorning the walls. Taking a step back to wind up, Nichol threw his axe at the immolated guard. Rather than lodge itself in the soldier, it bounced off rather comically, but it hardly mattered. Just about anything was enough to deter an assailant who really ought to focus on not burning alive in the first place. Etrurian magic, alright. I really am back home. The pike was in his hands before it even had a chance to clatter to the floor. Ceremonial or not, it would do just fine indoors. To Nichol's surprise, no other guards approached to challenge him; most of them were scrambling to grab what loot they could and escape. A peek back out to the courtyard revealed several of the sentinels from earlier fighting over a large sack.
"Right!" Nichol shouted above the blaze after seeing Ambrose emerge from the room behind Tangle and Priam. "It's done, then?"
As the son of craftspeople, however humble they might have been, Priam recognized goods of quality manufacture when he saw them.
So when other people were panicking trying to grab gold coins from the treasury, Priam casually grabbed all the rapiers, because they were much more lightweight than the equivalent value in gold coins and easily sold to snobbish nobles.
There was also a very distinctive pair of boots in the treasury, mostly so in that they were completely unremarkable-looking in a room full of gold, jewels or antiques. In the course of all the looting, they had gone completely ignored.
Priam knew that normal-looking boots wouldn't be left in a treasury without a reason. So he kicked off his own and put them on.
Yup. Now he felt like he could keep pace with a horse. Or outpace a fire, as the case might've been. Just as he'd thought, this was some kind of magic item.
He exited the treasury, whistling in the face of all the panicking, shoving and screaming. As much of a pain in the ass as this'd been (he thought, having not really done all that much,) it was worth the price of admission.
When your mother had a title, the natural assumption from most is that this means you're rich. Certainly, that's what penniless nobles liked people to believe, regardless. Tangle's family had, point in fact, been fairly destitute by the standards of their peers. It had been to the point of it being a struggle to find the scion of a wealthy merchant family willing to marry in to save their finances.
The two things that even destitute noble houses tend to have, though, is land that scant handful of valuables too irreplaceable to have been sold yet, acquired over painstaking generations, or when the family was in better shape. Prior to being murdered by the Lycians, the previous Lord of this castle had been far from penniless himself, but Tangle was still equipped to be able to assess what pieces from the treasury maximised portability and value. This included what jewellery she could fit on her person, a needlessly ornate magical staff shoved through her belt, and a jewel encrusted sacred text of the Church of Saint Elimine. The kind that had been in abundance in Etruria at one point, but currently Tangle was surprised it hadn't already been burned.
She'd pry out the jewels later, for practicality's sake, and keep the book for herself. For now, the point was to get out before things got too much worse.
"Yes, it's done. He's hanging out his window, and I looted his sword. Let's go," Ambrose said, leading them from the castle after snatching a couple sacks of gold.
--
The morning after, the castle had finished burning, the snowstorm having eventually put the flames out before the castle was ashes. Ambrose arose and took a look at the tower, where he could still see his grisly work hanging from the tower window. He would spread the word that the Vanguard had done this as a punishment to Lycia's tyranny. He returned inside, sitting down for a little breakfast and waiting for his... comrades? Associates? Friends? What would he call them?
Nichol hadn't taken much more in the way of loot than the ceremonial pike, which now lay concealed in a ditch outside of town. He intended on pawning it to acquire a more practical weapon the next time he was in a place where he could get it appraised. There were, however, a few items even he hadn't been able to resist, those being a fine cloak woven in Etrurian style and a crest of some sort which had been cast aside. Nichol wasn't sure what rank the crest signified, but he was certain it was at least fairly valuable. Nichol took a place at the table and elected to eat in silence. Half a minute into the tasteless porridge, he couldn't help but speak his thoughts.
"None of them wanted to fight." It had been on his mind the whole past night. As soon as things had gone hot, the raid had gone by in a blur, but only the guards in the inner sanctum had bothered to put up a token resistance, and every person he'd fought (or so he suspected) had just been trying to escape... to say nothing of the boy he'd assаssinated out of fear of being caught. It all felt so unnecessary in retrospect. "But that's war... Isn't it, Sir Fred?"