Mark of the assassin - a Shadowbane tale

Two weeks of hard travel have carried Slaan back into the Northern Highlands. Snow threatens in the clouds, and a broken Sun-Eater sign lies half-buried beside the path.

Ahead, a narrow pass opens onto a shattered cache site. Fresh blood, snapped ash poles, and dragged boots show the network has been hit here, hard.

Lord Markul steps to the pass edge and uncovers a rough ash map in the snow. He sets the bane stone at the marked point, where the route threads straight into the Church's hidden line.

The bane stone begins to hum, and somewhere deeper in the pass, hidden watchers answer with movement.

Markul drags the bane stone half a stride down the snow line, nearer the black rise of the keep road. The ash map smears under his glove, but the marked route still holds.

The bane stone's hum sharpens at the new mark. Far inside the pass, a hidden response answers at once, a brief clatter of stone against stone.

A loose edge of snow sloughs off the cliff above them, spilling a thin white veil over the ash map. Markul stays crouched, jaw set, as if listening for the next sound to decide whether the Church has already seen the shift.

Slaan draws shadow over herself, and the darkness closes like a held breath. Her outline thins, then slips free of the snow line.

The bane stone keeps humming on the smudged ash map as her shape vanishes from the sight of the men beside it.

Above them, the cliff sheds another ribbon of snow, and the hidden clatter in the pass answers once more.

Slaan slips through the falling snow, a dark seam between white drifts and broken stone. Ahead, the first watcher leans out from behind a jagged shelf, intent on the road below.

She closes the gap in silence, one hand already on her dagger. The blade flashes once, then the watcher folds without a cry.

Blood darkens the snow by the rock. Slaan catches the body before it slides, easing it down and taking a breath no one hears.

Below, Bram and Dravin do not see her, but the pass does. A second scrape answers from farther up the cliff, sharper now, like the mountain has noticed the missing voice.

Slaan wipes the blade clean on the watcher’s cloak and melts back into the drift, her outline swallowed by the storm again.

For one heartbeat, the ridge goes still. Then snow sifts from the overhang in a fresh spill, dusting the ash map and the bane stone below with pale powder.

Lord Markul looks up at the cliff, jaw tightening as the hidden movement shifts farther away. He has lost one watcher, but the pass is not empty yet.

Slaan slips downhill through the snow seam, a whisper against stone. The next watcher is fixed on the road, blind to the shadow rising behind him.

She closes in, arm tight, blade fast. The cut lands clean, and the watcher drops out of the ridge line without a sound.

Slaan catches the body before it can slide, then eases it into the drift and backs away. The snow swallows the shape almost at once.

Below, Bram stiffens at the change in the cliff’s silence. Dravin’s gaze lifts, sharp and immediate, toward the place where the watcher was.

Fresh powder pours from the overhang in a thin white sheet, dusting the ash map and the bane stone. Somewhere higher up, another scrape drags back from the edge.

Slaan melts into the drift again, dagger low, vanishing before the ridge can answer. Lord Markul keeps his eyes on the pass, waiting for the next movement to choose itself.

Slaan shifts her gaze toward the summit, but the jagged peaks and swirling snow obscure the horizon. The Tree of Life remains hidden behind the mountain's impenetrable wall of stone and ice.

Slaan slips from the rock gap and melts into the drift line, using the snow wall as cover. Below, the ash map trembles under fresh powder while the bane stone keeps its dim pulse.

A hidden watcher breaks from the whiteout to intercept the approach, but Slaan is already behind them. Her daggers flash once, and the figure drops soundlessly into the drift.

She moves again before the snow can settle, taking a higher shelf of stone where the pass opens in broken angles. The ridge now sits in her sightline, and the route below is clear of immediate movement.

Bram looks up from the map, exhaling through a tight jaw as the pressure eases for one brief breath. Dravin keeps one hand near the iron token, eyes fixed on the storm beyond the stones.

Markul’s order lands hard in the storm. The hidden watcher no longer moves, and the mountain pass opens into a narrow, dangerous window.

Slaan strains her eyes against the swirling whiteout, but the heavy snow and jagged peaks offer no glimpse of the Tree of Life. The horizon remains a wall of impenetrable grey, hiding the summit from view.

Slaan slips into the storm, each step measured to match the gusts. Shadow gathers around her boots and robe hem, swallowing the pale flash of snow as she threads between the watchers' sightlines.

A buried ridge of ice cracks under her weight, but she turns the sound into part of the wind. Her daggers stay low, ready, while the storm hides her shape from the pass below.

She reaches a broken spur of stone above the road and pulls herself up without a scrape, the mountain finally opening a narrow angle past the white curtain.

Through the drifting snow, the Tree of Life appears at last, pale and distant beyond the pass. The sight costs her a sharp sting of cold across one knuckle where the rock bites through her glove.

Below, the storm thickens around the shelf, and the motionless watcher in the snow begins to disappear under fresh drifts. The pass stays quiet for one breath, but the hidden movement deeper in the whiteout has not yet answered.

Slaan lowers the scroll into the storm and begins the rite. Pale threads of spellwork coil from her hands to the bane stone, then stretch toward the distant Tree of Life like a drawn seam.

The stone answers at once, lifting from the ash map with a low, grinding hum. Frost skates over its surface as it swells, shadowed veins climbing through it in branching lines.

Bram tightens his grip on the records, eyes wide as the air between stone and tree thickens into a visible tether. Dravin’s ash-stained glove hovers over the map, steadying the circle as the floor gives a faint, answering stir.

The bane stone rises to the height of a man, then taller, taking the shape of a living pillar. Its growth locks into the Tree of Life across the pass, and the hidden watchers are forced to show themselves in the snowline, moving at last against the spell.