PERFECT ASSASSIN 
by Nick Kyme 
	
	Rannick withdrew his rapier from the quivering body of Frenzini Lucrenzza with satisfying ease. As he wiped the long, slender blade upon the merchant's silken shirts, which bulged from his swollen girth, his prey looked on pleadingly with dying eyes.
	Within the merchant's inner sanctum, a cluttered but opulent domicile awash with a faint veneer of burnished gold, Rannick allowed himself a smile. He was the finest assassin in all of Luccini, even Tilea, and Frenzini had learnt that to his cost. What were all his trappings and gilt possessions worth now? Nothing. Everything was dust in the end. Prestige, that was what mattered.
	'To your health,' Rannick said mockingly, raising a gilded goblet to his lips from which, only moments before, Frenzini had been supping. Taking a careful sip and savouring the wonderful taste, he regarded the merchant's dying befuddlement with cold, unemotional eyes.
	'It's not me,' he stated, and brought down his blade. 
	Slipping through the merchant's mansion house like a shadow, Rannick made a silent escape. His alias, the Living Shade, was well founded, for he moved as if he were a part of the murky dark that crept through the windows.
	Two bodies lay ahead; Rannick had passed them on the way in. Their thick metal armour bore no crest or insignia; they were mercenaries, well armed, trained killers. Now they grew cold in a dead merchant's trophy corridor, the stark marble stained with blood that welled from their eyes, ears and mouths. The tiny darts protruding from their soft necks bore a deadly and agonizing poison. Fast-acting, they didn't even have time to scream.
	The guards were gone, a forgotten memory as Rannick sped on. The corridor was long, designed to impress guests and traders with its opulence. All manner of superb finery from numerous far-flung continents sped past in an blur. It would have been easy to stop, even slow momentarily, and grasp a small trinket to augment the fee. But it went against the code, the doctrine by which all assassins live.
	
	Assassins' Code #32: Always agree your fee beforehand and never waver from it. Unexpected 'difficulties' can arise from padding...
	
	Out into the grounds and a thick frost crunched underfoot, a white veil overlayed the luxuriant vista of marblesque towers and finely wrought garden fountains. In the chill silence of a Tilean winter night, a gong sounded.
	Frenzini had been discovered.
	The peal of the bell rang out a resonant warning; the sound clung to Rannick's ear drums as he slipped through the night.
	Great arboreal structures depicting griffons, pegasi and other fabulous beasts loomed high and menacing in the midnight gloom. Dusted with white powder they took on an eldritch quality against the pale moon as Rannick darted through them. At the end of a gravel path and secreted within a frost tinged bush Rannick found the rope and grapple he had hidden there for his escape.
	Booted feet tramped heavily over stone walkways beyond and above him, and shouts carried loudly through the windless night.
	Rannick shut away the noise. Low and stealthy, his lithe, muscled body blended with the night. He glanced back to check on his pursuers.
	A band of three had gathered, two with swords, a third with a crossbow. They stood upon a high balcony, lost in confusion, impotent with undisguised fear of the dark. It had come alive and slipped into their masters impregnable fortress with silent menace and left him dead.
	The grapple found purchase almost silently. Rannick tested the strength of the hold and scaled the wall to the stone walkway above.
	He surprised a guard who patrolled above. The guard fumbled with a half-drawn sword as the dark apparition slipped past him. He tried to choke a warning as the assassin slipped over the wall and into the gloom below, before he realised his throat had been slit.
	Within the labyrinthine streets, alleys and forgotten plazas of Luccini, Rannick made good his escape.
	He was pleased. Frenzini's retirement had unfolded as planned. The commotion, when combined with the sheer audacity of the attack would send shivers down the spines of his employer's rivals.
	A mercantile war was being waged, more like a state of perpetual conflict given Tilea's fractious nature, and the Living Shade was a ready tool for one of the most powerful merchant houses staking its claim.
	Rannick negotiated vast twisting pathways, shrouded in sibilant, crawling shadows.
	He came to a dead end, stark in the wan glow of silver moonlight. He stepped forward and shed the darkness. It was here that Rannick found what he was looking for.
	A set of crates and fire-baked urns, rich tan turned sickly pink in the light, sat against the alley walls. They cunningly obscured a small door sunk deep into terracotta. A world lay beyond, subterranean and sworn into death-threatened secrecy. A clandestine knock: three raps, a pause, two more and then a sixth and the Living Shade was admitted into the dark where his fee awaited.
	A long, dank corridor stretched before him, the entry guard evaporating into the blackness, as Rannick padded quickly down stone steps.
	A hundred broad steps and a flame flared at the end of the tunnel. Rannick stepped through the light into a vast and impressive hall, the Assassins' Guild, an organisation more valuable than the very throne of Tilea itself.
	'Rannick!' a voice cried from a vast throng of cloaked and mysterious figures, weaponsmiths, poison makers, engineers and more. Here men and dwarfs convened in a hive of subdued and secretive activity that bustled below the few remaining steps to the hall.
	Rannick keenly picked out his man and for the first time that night, drew back his hood.
	Deep brown eyes flashed bright in the firelight as he pushed back a swathe of dark, luxuriant hair from his tanned and well-defined face. Rannick paused a moment, allowing his man to come to him, privately basking in the imagined glory of his own countenance.
	Not only was he the best, he was the most handsome as well.
	'Rannick.' the man repeated, slightly out of breath. He was short, a mere dwarf compared to Rannick's own impressive stature, and advanced in years. A balding pate held obvious traces of grey around the temples and above the ears. Remy was his accountant.
	'Frenzini has been retired.' Rannick stated coldly with a hint of suave, self-confidence. He strode down the steps, regarding his colleagues imperiously, removing his black gloves and slapping them, without looking, into Remy's outstretched hands.
	'Excellent.' Remy acknowledged, skipping a little to keep pace. 'I will have the gold in your treasury by the morning,' he assured him.
	'See that it is.' Rannick ordered, striding through the mass, 'You have my next contract.' It was more of a statement than a question.
	'We need to talk about something first.' Remy warned tentatively.
	'Business first, Remy.'
	'Yes but...'
	'Business.' Rannick turned and fixed Remy with an icy stare. 'I didn't attain the mantle of best assassin in all of Luccini by being distracted by details.'
	'No, sir.' Remy conceded, a little uneasily. A speech was coming.
	'I have retired public figures, merchant leaders, politicians, warlords and barons. I have travelled beyond these shores, fought in the mercenary legions of Lorenzo Lupo, slain the orc chieftain Grushult Bonesneer and even had an audience with the arch-poison mistress Lucrezzia Belladonna herself, have I not?'
	
	Assassins' Code #62: Never extol the virtues of your own skill and undertakings. Weakness can be derived from such knowledge, particularly when said plaudits are embellished or false.
	
	'Indeed sir, my humble apologies.'
	Satisfied, Rannick continued. There was a large board ahead, set at the very back of the voluminous hall. It was adorned with all manner of contracts, wanted posters and death notices. Each had an artists impression of the mark or the deceased as well as a scribed report as to the contract's status.
	'Busy night.' Rannick remarked sarcastically to a thinning, bespectacled man working from sketches within a wooden partition. He glared daggers before returning to his furious scribblings.
	Rannick knew him. He was Callini Faust, known simply as 'The Artist'. He killed his victims with a sharpened quill filled with poison ink before drawing their dead bodies with their own blood off the murder weapon. If business was slow he worked a sideline as a contract artist.
	'He's been scribing for the past four nights.' Remy told him.
	'Four?' Rannick turned again. 'What of the regular employers?'
	
	Assassins' Code #2: In Tilea, somebody always wants somebody else dead.
	
	'That's what I need to talk to you about sir.' Subconsciously Remy recoiled, awaiting the backlash.
	Rannick's eyes narrowed. He bid Remy to go on.
	'The regular contracts.' he said, faltering, swallowing back his fear, 'have all been retired.'
	'All of them? Even Manlect the Obese, Merchant Prince of Sartosa!'
	'Even Manlect.'
	'That was my contract,' Rannick muttered. 'I only stole the plans to the manor house last night!'
	'The assassin climbed to Manlect's roof, bored two tiny holes through the slats. Through the first he espied Manlect asleep on his back as is necessary for a man of such generous girth,' Remy explained. 'Through the second bore hole he extended a length of fine twine, almost invisible to the naked eye as it was dark. He trickled a potent concoction of poison, black lotus I believe, into Manlect's snoring mouth. He was dead by morning, physicians were baffled.'
	'Not without cunning,' Rannick admitted quietly, making a mental note to burn the manor house plans and crush the ashes underfoot. Rannick smiled as he imagined the head of his usurper crushed beneath his boot instead.
	
	Assassins' Code #6: If something goes wrong always destroy all evidence of a transaction. Any monies exchanged are fair trade for compensation.
	
	'What about the tax-collector, Demitri Vallenheim? He's been on my books for weeks,' Rannick asked, turning back to find Demitri's contract on the board.
	'Him too.'
	A mask of controlled fury swept across Rannick's face.
	'It is the work of one man,' Remy told him.
	'One man,' he stated with frightening calm.
	At least twenty new contracts had been posted over the last month; it was a busy time in the assassination business. Each and every one had been daubed over with red ink, the word 'retired' emblazoned over their portraits.
	'Who?' Rannick uttered deeply.
	'He's new, been in the city for six months. He's been improving his tally since he arrived.' 'Name.'
	'I only know his alias. No one has ever seen him. He sends street urchins with wax-sealed envelopes to collect his contracts.'
	'And the alias?'
	'The Black Crowe.'
	'What is his standing?'
	Remy waited nervously, unwilling to answer.
	Rannick turned to him with rage in his eyes. 'His standing?' he repeated.
	'It rivals your own, sir.' he admitted in a choked whisper.
	Rannick swept his gaze across the hall to another wooden board where a rat-faced man on a rope and pulley chiselled a name near the top.
	'The Black Crowe.' Rannick read with disbelief, his own name only one place above. It was a large, prestigious record of an assassin's achievements. Rannick had always luxuriated in his own supremacy, his retirements always inexplicably higher than his nearest rival. Now he shared that honour with another.
	For a moment Rannick was speechless.
	'I tried to warn you sir.' Remy blathered.
	Anger turned to self-preservation as the horrified Rannick felt his crown slipping. To be the best meant something. It was not only prestigious, it was financially lucrative. Powerful, wealthy employers always requested the best. Up until now, that had been him.
	'What marks are left?' he asked quickly in desperation, scanning the contracts again.
	'Only one.' Remy's voice was like prophecy as he wiped sweat from his bald head. 'Count Banquo Degusta.'
	Rannick held his breath and looked over at the only unretired notice on the entire board, where it had remained for the last eight months.
	Count Banquo Degusta; known within the guild as the impossible mark. Seven separate attempts had been made on the mans life. All seven had failed, and as Rannick contemplated the suicidal nature of such a task, Faust pinned up an eighth with a dagger.
	'Sour-fingered Krellen,' Rannick read. 'Retired by his own poison spoon.'
	'Ah Krellen,' Remy sighed a wistful lament. 'He was good.'
	'He was careless,' Rannick countered coldly. 'Assassins' code, article fifteen,' he quoted confidently. '"Never use another man's cutlery," Krellen and the Duke Bastille learnt that to their mutual demise.' He turned on his heel and began striding back across the hall.
	'Rannick?' Remy called after him, taken aback by his master's abruptness.
	'I'll be at the Drowned Man inn,' he told him, walking away.
	'And the count?'
	Rannick paused, careful to block out the faces of the eight dead assassins.
	'He's been buying up property and businesses all over Luccini and holds sway in the mercantile war. His rivals would pay handsomely for his retirement. You could name your price!' Remy urged with a wry smile.
	Krellen's face flashed before Rannick; ashen pallor of the dead upon his flesh, a withered tongue protruding from his mouth.
	'I will consider it,' Rannick sidestepped. 'But first I need information on this "Crowe" character,' he said, exiting hastily back into the gloom of the entrance way.
	The Drowned Man was a darkly mysterious taverna upon the very fringe of the market plaza of Luccini. Much like the secret entrance to the Assassins' Guild it was located through a series of clandestine passages and alleyways. Outwardly it had little to distinguish itself: dark wood and sun-bleached stone, gloomy windows with an orange tinge. A sign hung from a solitary length of rope and swung languidly in the winter breeze. It depicted a nondescript body washed up upon a barren shore. It was a fitting epitaph to those that dealt in a business concerned with the faceless dead.
	Inside the gloom persisted. A perpetual pall of smoke clung to the interior even when pipes were doused and the fire smothered. Tonight though, the fire roared in an effort to banish away the cold. Suspicious faces huddled around tables and in darkened corners.
	A bar rested at the far end of a crowded room, cluttered with innumerable chairs and tables. A vast quantity of bottles and urns resided behind the counter away from prying eyes. Some bore the tell-tale hue of milky jade absinthe, others the corruptive yet agonisingly addictive luminescence of warp dust-infused potions.
	Two broad wings were set back from the throng, smouldering pipe weed serving as the only illumination. These areas were reserved for especially illustrious patrons. It was here that Rannick sat in silent contemplation.
	He surveyed the filthy clot of thieves, beggars, urchins and mercenaries before him, raising a warming glass of Bretonnian rouge to his lips. Without realising, he had drained it and was about to order another when a name he recognised called his attention.
	'That's right, twenty,' the urchin confirmed, his filth-encrusted face glowing with relish.
	'All slain by the Black Crowe?' a broad-looking dwarf pirate remarked. He regarded the urchin suspiciously, sucking deep on his pipe, absently scratching beneath his eye patch.
	'Yes.' the urchin responded, leaping excitedly upon the table, swinging his gaze around the entire establishment.
	The dwarf rested his hand upon a pistol at his belt.
	'He is the greatest assassin in all of Tilea!'
	He was a wretch, Rannick decided, inwardly seething at this proclamation. Bedecked in tattered rags, a second skin of dirt and street detritus smothering him, the urchin could have been any age. It mattered not; this was the link Rannick had been seeking. Through the urchin he could get to the Crowe.
	'He could best even Vespero!' the urchin boasted, wavering drunkenly as he upended a few glasses, one into the mercenary dwarfs lap.
	'A bold statement.' the ale-drenched dwarf said, reaching for his pistol, enraged at the urchin's undisguised amusement.
	'Bold and inaccurate.' another voice said. A man, pale and severe, black beard neat and trim, moved out of one of the wings, the darkness peeling away at his approach. Clad in black, he drew a duelling sword from beneath a deep crimson cloak.
	The urchin's amusement turned to sober concern as he staggered down from the table.
	Rannick watched with interest.
	'Enough!' a loud voice bellowed from the back of the room. A thickly muscled barkeep, tanned and weather-beaten, held a stout looking blunderbuss across the bar.
	'Back to your seats.' he urged with menacing politeness. The blunderbuss shot could shred everything before him. Several of the patrons with minds on their own business looked nervously, pleadingly between the mouth of the gun and the trio of man, dwarf and urchin.
	The dwarf raised his hand and returned to his seat with a muttered oath. The duellist disappeared silently, back into the gloom.
	'And as for you.' the barkeep said, 'out!'
	As if suddenly scalded, and with a last glance at the gaping maw of the blunderbuss, the urchin was gone, lost in the dark.
	The night drew in around him, cold and silent as the urchin tramped dazedly through the streets. Snow was falling and it covered the approaching plaza with a whitening veil.
	He looked up into the night and watched the flakes drift down languidly, disintegrating quickly on his alcohol warmed skin. When he looked back there was a shadow figure before him and the prick of a dagger at his neck.
	'Wha...' the urchin began but was silenced when the blade was pressed harder, nearly piercing the skin.
	'You work for the Black Crowe.' a voice like hardening ice told him.
	'The Black Crowe? No, I-'
	'This.' the voice said, a second dagger urging a filthy hand into the moonlight, 'tells me different.' A gold ring shone, its emblem picked out in sharp relief, that of a bird in flight, a crow. The urchin's skinny hand quivered with fear.
	'You have only this chance to save yourself.' the voice warned. 'Where is he and what are his plans?'
	Tears ploughed watery farrows through the grime on the urchin's face revealing pale, white skin beneath.
	'I don't know.' he rasped, constricted by fear and the dagger at his neck. The shadow pressed harder and a ruby of blood peeled away down the blade.
	'Wait!' the urchin begged, 'I have only met him once in the shadows. He said he needed eyes and ears in the city, that it was dangerous for him in the open. I was promised a generous pay and that a bird would bring instructions.' he explained with blathering speed. 'I take the note to the guild house and I send the contracts back with the bird.'
	'When?' the shadow asked, increasing the blade pressure.
	'All hours, he contacts me when he needs me, I swear by Taal!' he said with difficulty.
	'His plans?'
	'A murder.' was the urchin's choked retort, 'tonight.'
	Who?'
	'Count Banquo.'
	The shadow assailing him appeared to flinch, if only slightly, but then composed itself.
	'He will kill me for this.' the urchin sobbed, the blade released at last. He fell to his knees as if in penance, exhausted, shining with dappled sweat.
	'Pray that he does.' the shadow figure replied. The night enveloped him as he retreated. In moments he was a merely a dark memory, one with the shadow.
	The winter wind whipped a bleak and chilling chorus as Rannick crouched upon the barren rooftop of a lofty tenement. Through a powerful lens he espied the austere and well-fortified bastion of Count Banquo. The lens had been gifted to him by an Empire explorer for the retirement of a persistent necromancer. An esoteric payment, it had nonetheless proved invaluable on many occasions.
	Six guards patrolled the outer wall upon a circumventing walkway. They were mercenaries, possibly marksmen; a tattoo common to the principality of Miragliano upon one cheek. They held low-slung crossbows with practiced ease and watched the night with keen eyes. Two watchtowers surged high into the dark, jutting from the ochre walls like spikes. Staves that gleamed like silver blades in the moonlight were set around them. Each held a garrison of two men similarly armed. There was a single gate, wooden with iron studs bored into the timber. It was barred and set solid with a heavy lock. The guard patrol was thickest here.
	The count's first mistake.
	
	Assassins' Code #46: The strongest resistance will always stand at the obvious entrance. Attack obliquely and catch your enemy where he expects you the least.
	
	At such a high vantage point Rannick could see right over the forbidding wall and into the grounds. It smacked of the usual flamboyant opulence enjoyed by those with privilege, but more interestingly was bereft of any guards. There were three hounds left free to wander, sleek and brutish, heavily muscled and doubtlessly vicious if no guard was willing to be amongst them. The entrance to the count's inner sanctum lay across their stalking ground up stone steps and through two marble pillars. It was decorative and held little threat of determined resistance. Rannick had found his opening.
	If he was to believe the filthy urchin, and the panic in his eyes told Rannick he was honest, then he had little time to act. The lackey would no doubt try to get a warning to his master. He had been left alive and undamaged precisely for this purpose. How sweet it would be to sweep in and retire the count and then watch from the shadows, the Black Crowe enraged at Rannick's audacious bid to turn the tables. And besides, the urchin's death would have gone against the code.
	
	Assassins' Code #3: Unless it's personal, never kill someone without first agreeing a fee.
	
	Speed now paramount, Rannick slid down the tenement with controlled urgency, landing athletically into the sheltered street below. Tall and arching domiciles, businesses and taverns cloaked his advance superbly. Rannick clung to the shadows cast by the overhead moonlight. He scampered through the winding streets until he was poised at the very threshold of the count's dominion.
	The guard was re-doubled at the gate so Rannick slipped around the south-facing wall where the shadows were the deepest. Within their dark embrace he watched as the guard patrols overlapped. There was a moment when the wall was left unprotected. Rannick scaled up in a second, soundless and deadly. Upon the walkway he scurried across to the flat wall of the first watchtower. The angle would make it impossible to be seen by the marksmen above. A few more seconds and the patrolling mercenary would return. A moment to ensure his path was clear and Rannick traversed the width of the walkway and plunged into the leafy void below.
	Within a thick, evergreen bush Rannick drew forth a small thin pipe from one of the voluminous pockets that bedecked his blackened garb. From another pouch came three darts, made in such a way that they would not reflect any light. His keen senses told him the dogs were closing on him. His scent had alerted them that an intruder was present.
	In the noiseless dark, Rannick waited.
	It only took a few patient moments and a long, muscled canine loped into view. Rannick waited until he caught sight of the other two. They were advancing toward him, long pink tongues lapping the air for scent clues, eyes pricked up alertly, bodies poised with the threat of violence.
	Rannick fired. Three times, three hits, each an expert shot into the jugular, immediately getting into the bloodstream. The dogs fell, slumbering almost instantly, the wolfish features made tame by sleep.
	Rannick could have used a deadly poison, this way his time in the mansion would be curtailed, but he took the assassins' code very seriously.
	
	Assassins' Code #18: Killing a man by mistake is fine, but a dog... Many difficulties can arise from killing a dog...
	
	Certain that the guards could not see him, Rannick sneaked through the foliage that reminded him of Frenzini's Mansion.
	Perhaps all such habitations adhered to a floor plan, he wondered briefly before speeding silently up the stone steps and beyond the marble pillars of the entrance.
	As he had suspected, the door was not locked nor barred and swung open freely. Rannick allowed a wedge of moonlight to spill into the hall beyond and slipped through, closing the door behind him with an almost undetectable click.
	The hallway confronting him was dark, thrown into greyish half-light by a glass-domed ceiling of the vast lobby beyond. The immense room was pockmarked with marble and bronze statuettes, amongst them Borgio, the mercenary captain known as the Besieger, slain in his own bathtub, and the scientist Leonardo de Miragliano, holding aloft an alchemist's globe. There were others too: merchant princes, entrepreneurs and even a conceited likeness of the count himself, every inch the statesman. There were tapestries also, depicting ancient battles, treaties and coronations. The count was indeed a controlling factor in the mercantile war if the trappings of his domicile were any gauge.
	Rannick smiled. This contract would be both prestigious and lucrative. As he advanced slowly, heading for a large and ornately fashioned marble staircase up which he assumed would be the count's bedrooms and study, a thought occurred to him.
	Where are the guards?
	No dogs, no men, not even a decent alarm. This Count Banquo was arrogant indeed if he thought he only needed protection outside his little empire. Rannick imagined him as vainglorious, full of his own self-importance, unwilling perhaps to even share his vast quarters with the hired riffraff that patrolled the cold stone at his border.
	'That arrogance shall prove your undoing, dear count.' Rannick whispered as he trod softly up the staircase, his padded shoes making no sound upon the chilled stone.
	The mansion was immense. There had to be a hundred or so rooms, but as Rannick reached the very top of the staircase he was rewarded for his intuition. A faint wash of yellowing light was visible down a passage directly before him. A thick oaken banister ran around the platform, upon which he was standing, and several passages and portals lay along its circumference. Here was the route Rannick sought.
	Tentatively Rannick edged forward down the corridor. The silence persisted, filled with the threat of discovery. Rannick ignored it, and eventually reached a closed door at the end of the corridor, a hazy blade of yellow light issuing from the crack.
	Rannick pressed his ear against the door and listened hard. There was movement and muttering from beyond. It sounded distant, likely from within another corridor behind it, possibly leading to the count's private chambers. The door was off its latch and carefully Rannick eased it open a fraction so that he could peer at what was beyond.
	He was right, another corridor lay before him. Shorter this time, a junction peeling off to the east and west at its terminus. A shadow was cast over the western passage, thrown by the wan lamplight set at intervals, arranged in gilt wall-mounted candelabras. Rannick slid within, hugging the right hand wall, stepping quickly up the corridor until he reached the junction.
	Without breath he peered around the corner, low and cloaked by shadows. And there he was - mythical, untouchable, death warrant of assassins from across the length and breadth of Tilea, the impossible mark: the Count Banquo Degusta.
	Now that he saw him, Rannick could not help but feel let down. He was a youthful man, indeed, but held no presence, no ardour and was at least a full half-head shorter than he; a man, that was all, and soon to be a dead one. Rannick wondered briefly how he could ever have lasted this long. His contemporaries had been sloppy, allowing their judgement to be clouded. Now they were dead, lives thrown away in vain to perpetuate a myth of mere flesh and blood. He would give no such quarter.
	The count bumbled down the corridor towards an open door. From what Rannick could see, it appeared to be a study, a bookcase and the hint of a decanter and wine beyond. He wore a long crimson cloak with fur trim, night robes, and in his left hand held a glass of red wine. He had his back to him but Rannick was unconcerned about this. There was no honour in this act. He would not be another portrait on Faust's wall. He pulled the blowpipe from his pocket once more and this time produced a black dart with a red band at the tip.
	Black venom.
	His death would be slow and painful. The poison would first paralyse his vocal chords, silencing his screams, then it would attack his lungs, making it feel as if he were swallowing his own blood. After the visions and the blinding pain it would stop his heart. He would be able to feel it slow even through his agony and know the moment at which Morr had come for him.
	Rannick balanced the pipe carefully between two fingers and picked out a spot on the back of the count's neck and fired. Then something happened for which Rannick had not prepared.
	He missed.
	Doubtlessly addled from the liquor in his bloodstream the count stumbled at the very last second, the deadly dart missing by the scantest possible distance. Instead it hit a low hung tapestry, embedding soundlessly.
	Rannick shrunk back, watching as the count upended most of the wine onto a plush ivory carpet, oblivious to the fact that he had just escaped certain death but for a lucky chance!
	He shuffled off, careful to avoid the spill, and slipped into the open doorway of the study. Once his back was to him again, Rannick peeled away from the darkness and trod, silently and purposefully, after the count. He wouldn't miss again.
	The count busied himself with a glass and decanter within a plush looking study that held a strong aroma of lavender. It was filled with vast volumes of history, geography, art and even warfare - an impressive collection. It was almost a pity he would never read them again. Just as the count had finished filling a second glass of red wine, he felt cold steel at his neck.
	Rannick had tired of waiting. Time was slipping away. The sleeping draught he had given to the hounds would soon expire. He had to retire the count and be gone before the Black Crowe could mount a counter move.
	'Turn,' Rannick's voice was ice as the count faced him, shocked at the intrusion.
	'I am the Living Shade, greatest assassin in all of Luccini and Tilea and I have come to kill you,' he announced.
	The count's shock turned quickly to defeat as his shoulders slumped and his face fell.
	'There is no escape for you.' Rannick told him, the lavender stench pricking at his nostrils. 'I'm barring the only door, it is shut tight and no guard or hound will hear you.'
	'Then it ends at last.' the count sighed with resignation. 'I have survived eight assassination attempts. You are the first to breach my inner sanctum and live.' he told him and then added, 'Can I ask whom it was who ordered my execution?'
	'I know not.' Rannick answered truthfully, slightly wrong-footed by the count's demeanour. He was used to crying, begging, offers of gold and jewels, even his victims soiling themselves. Not this cold-hearted pragmatism.
	He had to make haste. He suspected the Black Crowe would have heard by now and would be on his way. He tensed his rapier arm and shaped for a death lunge into the count's throat.
	'Wait!' the count urged.
	This was more like it. Every mark was the same. They always beg.
	'A final request.' the count added, 'to honour your achievement.'
	That was vexing. This count was full of surprises. Rannick flicked up his rapier point slightly and nodded the count to go on.
	'To join me in a final glass of wine.' he asked calmly. 'I have heard of your exploits, that you toast your victims before the final death strike. I would be honoured if you would grant me such an indulgence.'
	Rannick scrutinised the count for a moment. He was a plain-looking man, not nearly as regal as his statuette in the ground floor lobby. It made him look honest. And after all he was beaten. He would have toasted him anyway. It was flattering to know that such an esteemed member of the community followed his work and held such a regard. Perhaps the count had tired of life and all its strains. That or he was mad.
	'One glass.' Rannick told him, 'that one.' He pointed to that held in the count's hand.
	Obligingly the count handed Rannick the glass and quickly poured another for himself.
	'To your victory.' the count said.
	'Indeed, and your health.' Rannick mocked, the glass almost touching his lips as a strange aroma assaulted his nostrils, faint amongst the cloying lavender.
	Rannick threw the glass to the floor where it shattered violently.
	'A trick.' Rannick whispered his eyes full of imperious hate. 'You hesitated. You wanted me to drink first. It is poison.'
	'No, I...'
	'You have failed, count!' Rannick proclaimed exultant. 'Little wonder you have ensnared so many of my trade, for you are indeed canny.' Secretly Rannick applauded him. He had got close. 'Now you drink.' he ordered at rapier point. It was a fitting end, poison the poisoner.
	Reluctantly the count swilled back the wine, swallowing hard.
	'At least you were slain by the best.' Rannick scoffed, waiting for his prey to keel over and foam at the mouth.
	It didn't happen. Instead Rannick's head began to swim. He went to lunge but the rapier fell from useless fingers as he slumped unwillingly to his knees. His throat constricted, making it difficult to breathe.
	'Would you like a hand?' the count offered innocuously.
	Rannick saw a gold ring upon his finger, an emblem upon it, that of a bird in flight - a crow. One of the fingernails was badly chipped but now held firm like rock.
	'You!' Rannick rasped. 'But how?'
	'The air you breathe.' the Black Crowe explained. 'It is a slow acting poison to which this potion is the only antidote.' He indicated the wine glass. 'You triggered its container after you closed the door to the study. It's perfectly harmless after a few more minutes.' he explained. 'Alas, it is already in your blood stream.
	The Count Banquo is dead. I killed him months ago, an exterior contract.' he added. 'I assumed his identity so that I might watch your movements better and learn of your ways as well as reap the benefits as a major power in the mercantile war.'
	Rannick looked on incredulously, powerless and enraged.
	'You see, I had to draw you out and this was the bait.' he gestured to his garb and disguise. 'That and the amateur dramatics at the Drowned Man. All designed to bring you here, to bring you to me.'
	The Black Crowe drew closer, mere infuriating inches from Rannick's face.
	'I have your title now, through arrogance and self-inflated flattery you have let it slip.' he told him darkly, watching as the last moments of Rannick's life drained away. 'Be wary of another man's cutlery indeed. But what of his glass?' the Black Crowe smiled, standing.
	'It's not personal.' he said impassively. 'Never make it personal. You were merely an obstacle.' His tone was condescending and accusatory.
	Rannick clenched his teeth, tears pouring down his face as he screwed up all of his willpower to speak for one last time.
	'I am still the greatest assassin!' he spat through his agony.
	'No, you're not.' the Black Crowe corrected. 'But very soon it won't matter what you think.' he added. 'In a few moments you'll be dead.'
	The Black Crowe walked away, opening the door to the study. 'Still.' he said, turning, just visible in the corner of Rannick's eye, 'my thanks for not killing the dogs.'