SWORDPOINT DIPLOMACY CHAPTER 2

She moved. There was no conscious thought involved, only her desire to survive and the heightened instincts that her family was known for. The assassin adjusted quickly, lunging around her cot. Light glinted off a strange, short blade.

Rose rolled under the cot. In the same motion, she grabbed the sword that had been left by the side of her cot. She danced backwards, buying time to pull the blade out of the hilt. She let the hilt fall, since it wouldn't serve as any kind of shield. Her would-be-killer took a step forward- and then turned away.

She was still preparing to be rushed and her reaction was too slow. She lunged after, but Rose wasn't fast enough to stop the assassin from escaping out of a hole that had not been cut in the tent when she went to bed.

She nearly rushed out after, before her instincts whispered to her. If it was her creeping into kill an enemy commander, she would have whipped around and prepared to cut down anyone who followed through the slit cut in the tent, in the instant when they couldn't see.

Rose bolted out the actual entrance of her tent. The guard out front startled, jumping up and turning toward her. She could see the whites of his eyes in the reflected moonlight. "Under attack," Rose bit out. "At least one assassin."

He started shouting behind her. She didn't process the words, only focusing on hunting down the person who had been in her tent.

She sprinted, as safely as she could with a bare blade in hand. Rose caught glimpses of her assassin dodging around tents, jumping over supplies, ducking where a guard wouldn't have a direct line of sight. Frustrated, Rose yelled, willing someone closer to notice and react in time.

The night raider escaped out of the bounds of her encampment. He didn't slow at all, on a direct route for that damn forest she'd feared might have enemy combatants in it.

She ran through her options in an instant-

She could not catch him without going into the woods, which could well be a trap.

She could not shoot him as he ran, because she did not have a bow in hand and he would escape before she could get one.

She could shout for someone to shoot him, but even if someone skilled happened to be in the right side of camp with their bow ready, a normal person wouldn't be able to see in the dark.

Resentfully, practically, Rose stopped running. She lowered her sword. She'd have sheathed it if the hilt wasn't still in her tent.

The camp was well-roused by that point, and someone ran to stand by her. A tall man, with light hair and a somewhat wiry build. She gave the soldier a brief look, before he was joined by the guards who had been posted outside her tent.

That didn't sit right with her. No one should have been able to reach her faster than her personal guards.

'That's not impressive," Rose thought. She frowned. 'Why are they so slow? Incompetent or traitors?'

…She kept her expression fairly relaxed, and watched the two guards only in her peripheral.

'If cutting the tent didn't wake me, I can't expect them to have heard it. But I threw the hilt away, it hit the ground. If they were paying attention, they should have heard that. Why didn't they either enter or call out?'

She fixed their faces in her memory, and that of the light-haired soldier for good measure.

"You're one of Harrod's?" Rose asked him, turning to the soldier. The armor looked like like Harrod's troops wore. He was looking off into the forest, as if he'd caught sight of the assassin escaping.

He focused on her and gave a bow. To her eye, it was a bit smooth for an average soldier. She mentally reclassified him as minor nobility, someone's second son. "I was coming to report," he explained. "I saw you come out of your tent and followed."

Rose decided that he wasn't lying and he wasn't particularly suspicious. She nodded. "Would you tell your Lord that I'd like to meet? And you, bring me Celestin. Return with him."

"My lady," the guard she'd pointed to murmured. Harrod's man echoed him a moment later and jogged off.

"With me," she told the remaining guard. With absolutely zero trust, she kept track of where the man was as she returned to her tent. Someone had roused her poor squire, and he was waiting for her outside. The boy's brown hair was sticking up on the side, but his armor was on properly and his eyes were wide awake.

"Good morning," she greeted him. "I want a full patrol and inspection, now. Have the food stores checked for tampering, and a rollcall."

Rose had to cut off abruptly. Cold, white fear had a grip on her lungs. She might not have been the only target. Etienne was much more isolated-

She forced herself to calm down. Her assassin had almost certainly come from the forest that he'd escaped into. Etienne was in the opposite direction, hours of travel away. Even if the castle defenders knew where he'd gone, they hadn't had enough time to physically reach him.

Her squire had bowed, hair flopping over his face. "Yes, princess," he said hastily. His voice was significantly higher than she'd every heard it before. He didn't dare move until after she'd passed him. Too polite to turn his back on her, she knew.

Rose kept any amusement off her face as she strode past. She heard him start to run.

It didn't take long for the men she'd summoned to reach her tent. They stayed with her in tense silence as reports came in- everyone was accounted for, there were no signs of theft or tampering with the food or water, the horses were undisturbed.

'Honestly, that's more unsettling,' Rose thought. 'I was the only target? Only one person was sent out to infiltrate? They were confident.. and they were really good.' She frowned, almost painfully tense. 'Whoever that was made it halfway through the camp without being seen or having to kill anyone, and found my tent first try?'

Maybe only one person had been sent because only one person was that skilled. Or maybe she just didn't see the other angle yet.

It was a very long day. She'd probably only slept about 4 hours, but she wasn't interested in sleeping again. Especially not before the guard shift changed.

It took two days for the angle to become clear. Technically speaking, it took two more nights.

The next night, Rose woke up to shouting. Three soldiers on the night shift were found dead, and the tent they'd been standing outside was a blood bath. Rose personally checked for survivors.

It beggared belief that someone could kill all those soldiers so quietly that none of them awoke. But as far as she could tell, someone had. The same surgical cut had ended each of them in a way that she could only assume must have been nearly silent.

The patrols in the forest hadn't found any trouble. Rose almost found that funny, in a sick way, given the fairly convincing evidence that there were hostiles hiding out there.

No one was sleeping well, so someone saw light on the third night. They shouted an alarm, but that didn't do anything to stop the lit arrows that rained down on the camp. People began panicking, screaming, running.

Rose stood a moment, counting the intervals between arrows and tracking where they landed.

'One archer,' she thought, narrowing her eyes at the chaos. 'and he's lighting up tents. They're not falling randomly to scares us or hit people by chance, it's an attempt to burn down our shelter. This is a campaign against our morale and ability to rest.'

She notched her own bow and waited, silent and still. The next light was a few feet away from where the last arrow had been fired. Rose focused, drew, and released.

The light in the distance went astray, shooting down at a sharp angle, far too close to the archer to have been deliberate. For a moment it was out of sight.

Then fire bloomed. Cheers went up among the camp members who noticed it.

Rose grinned viciously. She reached out and grabbed the nearest soldier. "Get four more people," she ordered. "Bring water and follow me out there."

They hurried to put that fire out, while Rose assumed that common sense and at least one of her generals would get the fires in camp extinguished.

The grass wasn't dry, so it hadn't spread far before Rose got it put out. While it was still burning, she walked past to the spot she'd mentally marked.

The bowman was gone. But there was trampled grass and a whole lot of blood.

Rose squinted into the dark, trying to track how he'd escaped.

"I'll have the area checked in the morning," Rose mused to herself. "If we don't find a body, we might find where this fucker's been coming from."

Someone nearby made a choking sound.

She gave the soldiers a dry look that was wasted on them in the dark. Her own eyes would be nearly glowing in the dark, reflecting what little light was available from the two half moons overhead. They were probably be the only thing the other people could see out here, she realized absently.

That brought to mind the unpleasant concept of someone aiming at her eyes in the dark. She dismissed the thought for another day.

It was fairly plausible, it might happen to her one night.

'But not tonight,' Rose thought with immense satisfaction. 'Tonight, I am going to sleep like a baby.'