Though the meeting was officially over, nobody left the table. Instead, they talked and reminisced as the night continued. Eventually, Kedra excused herself, explaining that there were a lot of things she would need to do extra early tomorrow morning as tomorrow’s inquisition would likely take up a large chunk of the rest of the day. Though he clearly wanted to stay, Dade admitted he too should probably go and so he left with her.

  At some point Nolan slipped away from the table for a while. Rori wasn’t sure how long Nolan had been gone when he finally noticed his absence. Then at some point later he realized Nolan had returned again as unobtrusively as he’d left. When he got a moment with Nolan in private, he meant to ask where he’d gone, but before that could happen Rori had forgotten about the whole thing.

  Eventually, with the exception of one person passed out at a corner table, they were the only patrons left in the bar. Rori had no idea how late (or early) it might be, and he figured he was better off not knowing. The Laughing Green was known as being one of the taverns in town that closed later than any other and Rori figured not knowing how little sleep he was going to get was probably better in the end.

  When he finally did excuse himself from the table, he stumbled upstairs to the room Nolan had arranged for him to use. It turned out to be the same room he and Nolan had shared months before, the first time Rori had come to Lycea.

  Rori fell onto the bed and was asleep in an instant.

  He awoke to Nolan sitting in the chair on the opposite side of the room throwing small rolls at his head. He started to complain but the smell of freshly baked bread was too overpowering and wonderful. Instead, he picked up one of the rolls and bit into it.

  Once he’d finished all of the first and most of a second, he said, “Don’t you ever sleep? I feel like I’ve been trampled by Bernie the bull and you look fully rested, though I’ll wager you got less sleep than me.”

  “Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Bernie, but I won’t take that bet,” said Nolan with a smile. “I prefer to stay busy. I’ll sleep later.”

  “I guess I should change into nicer clothes,” said Rori with a yawn.

  “Don’t bother,” said Nolan. “Kedra will find whatever you choose unacceptable and will spruce you up with finger wiggling anyway.”

  Rori looked down at his clothes which were rumpled from being slept in and shrugged. “Fine by me. But if she complains, it’s your fault.”

  “I’m prepared to handle the blame. Let’s go, we need to meet the others.”

  Eventually the pair set out and began winding their way through the early morning streets. They were up early enough that while the streets were not empty, there were still relatively few people up and about.

  They walked in silence for a while, which for Rori’s part was mostly because he was finishing off yet another roll. As he swallowed the last bite Nolan asked, “Have you been keeping up your training?”

  “Sure,” said Rori. “I still run and such every day. I try to spar with some of the fighters from the clan. It took me forever to convince them that I was serious when I told them I wanted them to try and actually hit me. They do their best, but it isn’t as good as training against Dade and the actual soldiers.”

  “Something is better than nothing,” said Nolan. “What about other types of training?”

  “Such as?” asked Rori.

  “How about spotting things?” said Nolan dropping his voice to nearly a whisper.

  “You tell me,” said Rori, lowering his voice to match. “I see at least three people following us up on the roofs. It’s possible it’s four, but if it is two of them look nearly identical. There is a guy that manages to turn the corner ahead of us just as we turn onto a street. Which I guess isn’t too odd, except he manages to turn at whatever corner we will be turning on next. Similarly, there is a lady who turns onto the street we are on, just as we are about to turn off it. I suppose they could both just be heading to the same location as us, except we’ve traveled in a circle two times now and they are still there.

  “Surprisingly there is a little boy playing in the dirt that we keep passing. I say surprisingly because I think it is the exact same halfling pretending to be a boy that was trailing us last time I was in Lycea. Finally, and I could be making something out of nothing on this one, but I think there is somebody invisible on the other side of the street and a bit behind us.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Impressive,” said Nolan. “Especially the invisible person. If I had to pick one person for you to miss, that would have been it.

  “So how many did I miss?” asked Rori.

  “It’s possible any number of the people we pass are part of the people watching us. If they know our route or ultimate destination, they don’t have to be moving with us to be able to report on our movements. But I can confirm there is at least one you missed that is keeping pace with us. There are actually five on the roof, but you were right about two of them looking the same. I’m going to guess the one you didn’t see is the one carrying the blowgun.”

  “What’d you say?” said Rori his steps faltering for a moment.

  “A blowgun. You know, it’s a length pole you shoot darts out of.”

  “I know what a blowgun is,” said Rori speeding up to move back closer to Nolan. “Can you point him out to me?”

  “Sure, let’s stop over by the railing in front of that store so I can pretend to adjust my boot.”

  As they began to turn towards the store, Rori tried to pin down the person on the roof that he had not yet spotted. They were one step from the railing, when Rori instinctively pulled up short. A dart shot through the narrow space between him and Nolan and imbedded itself in the side of the building.

  Rori turned towards the direction the dart had come from, and it was now easy to spot his attacker on the roof. They were using the side of a chimney to steady the blowgun. Further down the series of roofs, Rori watched as the two similar looking men also stepped out of hiding onto the open roof. They both had bows drawn and were aiming in his direction. They fired almost simultaneously, and both quickly followed their first set of arrows with a second.

  Rori leapt into the air with a twisting leap. In the midst of his jump, his hands flew out, deflecting two of the arrows as the other two missed him completely.

  “Nolan?” said Rori over his shoulder, “what’s the plan?”

  When there was no answer, Rori risked a backward glance to find that Nolan was gone.

  Without a sound all three of the attackers leapt down from their respective roofs on the opposite side of the street. The two with the bows were wearing black clothing and had black cloths tied in front of their faces. The cloth made it hard to identify them but did not conceal that they were both human males. The one with the blowgun was also wearing black, but they were not the normal clothes of the others. Instead, the clothes were very plain, loose and light, with the legs tucked into the top of the boots. They were also wearing some type of hood with a cloth mask that completely concealed their identity.

  Rori took the moment to slide his hands into his pockets. When he pulled them back out, they had the sword catchers that Nolan had given him as a birthday present loosely hanging on them. He grabbed a loose string from the back of each and pulled them both tight.

  “Usually this is where guys like you make some statement about how you were going to kill me or whatever,” said Rori with a smile. “Not feeling chatty today?”

  The two attackers with bows, dropped them and each drew a pair of short swords as they began circling to the left and right around Rori. The one with the blowgun slipped it into some kind of holder on his back and with the same motion drew a long sword from a scabbard that was also on his back.

  “Nolan, if I was supposed to run you probably should have made that more clear,” said Rori.

  The three attackers now essentially had Rori surrounded. Rori tensed waiting for one of them to make the first attack. But that attack never came.

  Without warning Nolan appeared behind the one on Rori’s left and Brand was behind the one on the right. Both of them appearing with their weapons already in motion, driving them into the backs of Rori’s would-be attackers. Nolan’s fell immediately. Brand’s blow momentarily stunned his, giving Brand enough time to strike again and drop him to the ground.

  Within an instant the fight had changed from three to one against Rori, to three to one against the last attacker.

  The shift in odds was clearly not lost on the final opponent. He drew something out of his belt and threw it on the ground. Immediately the street was filled with a roiling cloud of red smoke. Rori tumbled to the left, just so that he was not standing like a dolt in the same spot waiting to be struck.

  By the time he got back on his feet, the cloud of smoke was already beginning to clear. A moment later the smoke and the final attacker were gone.

  He, Nolan and Brand moved together, each facing away from the others.

  “See anything?” asked Brand.

  “No, and I doubt we will. Assassins usually don’t bother with a fight unless they are totally sure they will win,” said Nolan.

  “Assassins!” said Rori with disbelief.

  “Definitely. So Rori, what have you been doing lately that you have a contract out on your head?” asked Nolan.

  “Me?” said Rori with even more disbelief. “Why couldn’t they have been here for one of you?”

  “I was invisible,” answered Brand.

  “And once I turned invisible and disappeared, they continued to press their attack. If an assassin’s mark disappears, the assassin disappears.”

  “Speaking of which, how did you disappear? Last I checked neither of you is a magic user.”

  “Nolan’s got a wand,” said Brand.

  “I think I know who these two are,” said Nolan as he walked over to the two assassins lying in the street and bent down to remove their masks.

  “The Harrigan brothers,” he said as he quickly frisked them and emptied their pockets. “Freelance assassins, not associated with a guild. They’ll work for whoever pays them. They aren’t the best, but they aren’t anything to laugh at either.”

  “How do we find out who hired them?” asked Brand.

  “We can ask mine when he wakes up,” said Nolan. “Based on your question I’m going to guess that yours is never waking up.”

  “Well, you didn’t say not to kill them,” said Brand defensively.