Chapter 66

As we rode further and further away from the tower, we slowly picked up more and more speed, until the wind felt like it was ripping through my hair, and cutting my skin. Though every time I reached up to check if this was happening, I would just find that there were no cuts and my skin was perfectly fine.

As we rode on, I noticed that my master did not once look towards me and didn't even look around anywhere, she just focused on the road, as she road on and on and on.

As we rode, I also noticed that every time it looked like we were going to go into a town or a village, we would instead come off of the road and ride around it. It was like she didn't even want to be seen.

Soon we began to come up to what appeared to be a military fort, I could even see the army banners flying over the fort. There were rather a few. Regiment banners, though I did not know the banners well enough to be able to tell what soldiers those banners were for, just that they were regiment banners.

As we rode up to the fort, I could hear a bell ringing, then the gate began to slowly open with loud creaking noises. As we arrived, the gate was fully open. Riding through it, instead of seeing the normal soldiers that I expected to see, I instead saw rangers. The whole fort was filled with rangers!

Though she did not stop as we rode through, instead of heading to an area that was even more out of the way. There was another gate, inside of the fort which leads to an enclosed off area. As we rode, the gate closed behind us.

Looking around in this area I saw, that there were no many people around at all. I saw only about ten people. Each of those was carefully watching us, this was until my master lifted a medallion and then they all seemed satisfied, went back to whatever they were doing.

After getting down from my horse, my master pointed me to a room, in which there was a bed.

"Go get some rest, then once you awake, come out here and I will give you the final details of your mission."

Doing as she said, I quickly went to bed. Once I was finally awake, I went back outside, It was night, but although outside of the compound which I was in seemed to have been lit up by torches, the inside of the compound wasn't. It almost seemed to be covered in a dark bobble, like the light was being made to be kept out.

As I walked into the courtyard, I couldn't see anyone, anywhere. That was when I felt it. The cold touch of metal, which was dancing along the skin of my neck. As I looked down, I saw a dagger and graced my neck. Then I heard her voice behind me.

"Come on Adoh, you shouldn't let anyone be able to sneak up on you like this…"

Then she removed the dagger, causing me to let out an involuntary breath of relief. Turning around, I saw her in some tight black leather armor. The armour only served to further improve her looks and it showed off the beautiful body that laid underneath it. But now was not the time for those thoughts.

She seemed to have read my mind.

"The ambassador you have to kill is only visiting a border city which is around a days horse ride from here. In honesty, you can kill him where ever and however you want. The only condition is that you must be seen. War is preferable to just bowing down to them. Go to the armoury. Inside you will be able to find some fresh armour and make sure your weapons are all up to scratch so that you are ready for combat. Good luck..everyone will be watching you."

Then she walked off to join, who I assumed to be the other shadows. Once she was with them I heard some boisterous laughter, I looked back only briefly to see that they were all in a contest of some kind, it made me smile a little bit and think of home. Then I walked into the armoury.

It was massive. Many types of weapons adorned the walls, all put away neatly on row after row of weapon racks. Then I saw mannequins as well, each with a different kind of armour placed onto it.

I walked past them all slowly, until I found one which had some kind of leather and chain mixed armour. It offered way more protection, unlike the pure leather armour but at the same time didn't completely remove the flexibility that the leather armour would give. It was perfect.

I slowly took it off of its stand and placed it over me. I didn't even notice the added weight, which was nice to know. As I looked around, I walked over to wear the daggers that were being stored. There were a few types, but I picked out one of the straight-edged daggers. Felling that the bouns it gave in stabbing people would help more in an extreme close quarter fight. Then I walked back out, grabbing my sword as I did.

I knew deep down, that once I had gotten time to carry on passing through the seals, the sword would show its true power as one of the most powerful weapons that have ever graced this continent.

Then as I walked back out of the armoury, I found that there was a horse saddled up and waiting for me. My master and the ten other shadows who were playing around had all gotten up and were standing around the horse.

I felt uncomfortable as I walked through them all and then mounted up. No one had said a word to me. It was like I was a ghost. Then just before I began to ride out and away. They all spoke in unison.

"May the shadows guide your path!"

I didn't know how to reply to all of this, so I just nodded towards them as I rode out of the compound, then the fort itself. The rangers within the fort didn't take any notice of me. I guess it was easier for them this way. After all who would like to admit that there was a massive secret group of basically, assassins hiding out within their fort.

My ride to the city was extremely uneventful. The guards didn't stop me as I tried to enter as well. A quick flash of my military rank quickly shut them up. After all, although I was a shadow. Officially I was a ranger, which in truth outranked a lot of the soldiers that were out there.

I rode, through the city trying to see if I could any rumours about when the ambassador would arrive. To my surprise, I heard nothing at all. It was like none of the ordinary people knew he was coming, which would make sense if it was well hidden. But then, someone must know about it.

So I sat there for a few minutes as I thought, who would know about the coming of an ambassador. Only a few people came to mind. The first was the commander of the garrison. The second was the city mayor. The last person was the high ranking noble that would surely be here, waiting to greet this ambassador. As I thought more, the only one that I had any real chance of getting to give me any form of information, was the commander of the garrison. So after asking someone for some directions, I began to ride off towards what should be where he was stationed.

Soon enough, my directions bore some fruit and I found myself outside of a fortified office. A few guards were standing outside, but aside from that and the buried gate, I could see nothing really that screamed out defensible to me. I guess it was just how it worked.

After getting off, and tieing the horse up. I walked up to the guards on duty, requesting to see the commander.

"What makes you think you can just see the commander? You look like a mercenary to me."

I found myself quickly annoyed by the attitude of the guard.

"I would open the door know, or do you want the commander to know that you denied me, a ranger, access to the commander so that I could finish my mission." With that I also shoved the proof of my position into his gut, causing him to keel over. Though as he rose back up, he made no complaint and just opened up the doorway for me.

"The commander is through to the left. If you follow it round, you will come to a guarded door. He is in there."