Mark of the assassin - a Shadowbane tale

The alley opens into the Opal meeting point, a crooked loading court lit by lanterns and moon-glare. A wagon stands half turned, its tarp tight over a caged shape. Guild marks flash on cloaks at the rooftops, and the truce feels thin as glass.

Kaelith eases to the left wall, bow ready, eyes on the high windows. Kina stays near the alley mouth, one hand on her blade, reading the ambush faster than the rest. The Courier hangs back, hood lowered, tense and waiting for the signal he helped bait.

From the wagon, a muffled strike rattles the boards. The witness is alive, and the trap is closing. Two guild watchers shift on the roofline, trying to decide whether to spring early or hold for the snare.

Slaan stands at the brink of the court, daggers ready, shadows gathering at her heels. The guild waits above, the witness waits inside the wagon, and the false truce cracks under the weight of one last move.

Slaan lifts both hands and threads shadow through the lantern glare. The spell climbs the wall in a thin, quiet surge, then jumps to the two roof watchers at once.

Darkness blooms across their eyes and mouths. One watcher staggers against the parapet, blind and soundless; the other claws at his helm and loses his balance in the shingles.

Kina slips from the alley mouth toward the wagon, blade low and fast. The Courier freezes under the rooftops, staring up at the ruined lookout line, then back toward the caged shape.

Above them, one guild watcher drops to a knee, groping for the edge by instinct alone. The other slams into a stack of tiles and lies there coughing no warning at all.

The wagon shudders again from within, harder this time. With the watchers silenced, the courtyard turns on the caged witness, and every eye shifts to the cart.

Slaan turns her wrists inward, and the shadows she cast snap back into shape. Thin spectral cords lash up the wall and across the roofline, catching both watchers before they can crawl away.

The bindings cinch tight around arms, throats, and helms. At the same instant, a second veil of darkness smears across their faces, stealing what little sight they had left.

One watcher jerks hard against the parapet and goes rigid in the cords. The other slumps sideways into the shingles, blinded and muffled, his scrambling hands finding only trap and night.

Kina reaches the wagon in three fast steps, blade poised at the latch. The Courier flinches under the roofline, then stares at the caged witness as if waiting for orders that never come.

Above, the two watchers hang helpless in Slaan's spell, muffled and bound. Below, the wagon creaks under another violent shove from within, and the court narrows to that single, shuddering door.