• Prologue


    The sun was warm in the blue sky as the young prince Davian Pythania stood at the balcony, looking over his father’s kingdom. Pythania was beautiful around this time of year the emerald banners were up telling the citizens that the carnival was close.
    The carnival was a yearly celebration to celebrate the fact that they had a strong king. For three days the whole kingdom would gather into the castle and celebrate day and night. Children would dance in the streets and gather in groups to sing carols to anyone who would listen, men and women would play their strings and the elderly would laugh, joke and tell stories of the past.
    At night fireworks would be set off by local engineers. The city at this time of year looked fantastically beautiful to any who lived there.
    Davian loved this time of year he could occasionally get the chance to sneak out and play with the other teenagers of his age, it was one of the only times a year that he could pretend that he was a normal boy.

    Davian stood just less than six feet tall with perfectly sized features. Long straight blonde hair hanged loosely down his back adding to his perfect handsome picture. A god among men with looks intelligence and fighting. He was already an awaiting legend, to be. His father expected great things from him when he became king.
    Davian’s life had been hard to live for a young boy, three sisters and one perfect mother each member of the royal family was perfectly beautiful in their own way. His mother had the luscious sapphire orbs of a loving mother and his father; the king had his radiant long hair. His sisters were all beautiful however they all could not compare to Davian’s perfect unnatural looks.
    Davian was soon to take up the role of king and his father had made sure he was prepared in every aspect possible. He had him tutored in Mathematics, literature and he had had the biggest tactical geniuses drill the most clever deceiving, tactical strategies of all time into his brain. From the age of twelve he had been taught to fight by a retired gladiator called Miantez who was very strict and did not like mistakes. Although he was a strict teacher he had behaved more like a father figure than his actually father had. Miantez had taught him how to fight with every weapon known to man and even his own fists, his balance however was always his downfall as all of his fighting tutors always said to him.
    When he reached the age of thirteen his father had ordered that he learn to dance. Davian had no idea what so ever why but he was forced to attend these dancing lessons after skipping several of the first ones. His trainer was an actor called Loraine Perkins, he was as agile and strong as any man he knew but he looked as fragile as a beanstalk. Loraine had short cropped black hair with features all too good to become a warrior and a way of speaking, all too luring to become a logger so Loraine had taken up acting and learnt to dance. He must have been the best male actor in the kingdom for he had soon become rich on the stage performing to various crowds.
    Dancing had always been the subject Davian had hated with a passion. It was bad enough that he wore the best clothes money could buy, when he was playing with other teenagers. But when they had found out he was learning to dance his face became nearly permanently flushed from their gut straining laughs.

    He cut the thoughts of his annoying childhood and ran down stairs to greet his father who had just come back into the palace from his daily massage. His father strolled in completely relaxed with a luscious young lady on each arm. Davian secretly promised to himself that if he was to become king, he would not be like his father.
    “Hello father how was your massage in the sun?” Davian asked calmly.
    “Ah Davian my boy, Please leave me ladies.” The two women quickly left the room swaying their hips as they walked past Davian. “Just think my son, when you are king this shall all belong to you. Imagine the beautiful wives you can have and the fantastic children you can sire. Just think about your fantastic future ahead of you all because of me.” His father laughed freely at his son.
    Davian wanted to shout at his father. “All because of you... You did nothing you stupid little man! It was the men you paid that did the entire hard work al you did was spend the government gold!” instead he nodded and gave a polite smile.
    “Now Davian I want you to look your best for this afternoon. It is the third day of my celebration and I am to ride the goddess horse.” He spoke proudly trying to impress Davian.
    “Of course father ill go get changed right now.” He got pushed himself off the couch that he had sat down on and left his father. He quickly went to his one of his bedrooms.

    Laura glimpsed her brother walk past her bedroom door but she did not care for him on a day like this fore she was in love. “Oh mother he is amazing, his words make my heart skip a beat. He is the one mommy, he really is.”
    Her mother dropped her golden bracelet that she had been fiddling with onto the side board. “You listen here my lovely sweet heart no fourteen year old girl can be in love! Whoever this young man is that has pleased you, you should stay away from.”
    “Oh no mother, don’t stop me from seeing him again! Please, please!” she begged nearly crying she grabbed her mother’s dress and said again “Please!”
    “Good heavens my girl whatever is the matter with you? I want you to stop this nonsense right now! I honestly have much more to be worry about. What is your father going to wear from his royal parade?” she questioned herself knowing that her child would not speak of it again.
    “Ok mother but I really do love him mother, I really, really do!” she then fell onto the bed as if in a dream trance, staring at the sealing.


    As the four darkly cloaked men quickly stepped over the threshold of the tall white bricked house, they removed their hoods as a sign of respect to the lord of the house. Lord Miantez had called them all to the dining room. There were now ten men gathered in the fairly large living room. They all had the special white feathers of the Crimson Rose secret organization of assassins.
    Each of the men had black or brown hair and eyebrows, beardless chins no moustaches, eyes that showed knowledge of the hundreds of ways they could kill a man. They carried looks and expressions of someone you would not like to be caught down a dark alleyway with. Each sported two daggers. They dressed the same, looked the same, spoke the same and moved the same. From onlookers they all seemed to be identical brothers.
    Miantez was the assassin at the head of the table. He bore extremely broad shoulders clad in black leather armour and a long black hood, still covering his features. He was the Lord of the Crimson Rose guild and he did not have to remove his hood as the others had, because he was the Lord.
    “Now my good fellow brothers, I have gathered us here today to discuss our little problem. The royal Pythania family have to be finished today. I have been given one hundred thousand gold coins by a certain Lord Polath Pythania.” Gasp and wow broke out from the men. Some even slammed their fists on the table from such a shock of that sum of money. Miantez gave a sly smirk and a wink at some of them. “Now remember Polath is not our target! He is our customer and as you all know Lord Polath wants his kingdom and he has hired us to make it his.” He put his hands on the table and drummed his fingers quietly. “The second our king is dead and his heir is also no longer with us Lord Polath will take charge and he shall make us very rich men. I want three of you to take care of the daughters. They should be easy, I want two of to take care of the mother, and then the king should be as useless as his daughters so two of you can pick him just in case he has a trick up his golden lined pockets. Then I know the son has had an exceeding amount of training in all forms of martial arts, I know this because I taught him.” He paused letting the men take it all in.
    “Why did you teach him how to fight then? If you knew he was to be one day your enemy?” one of the men asked in a low pitched whisper.
    “Because the king bought me this house and paid for all of the things I currently own.”Miantez soon replied in a growl.
    None of the men would question his betrayal to the king. Miantez had been as close to the king as any other servant had, maybe even closer. Yet now his task was to kill him and took money for doing so. This was betrayal of the highest act and it was also normal among assassins, especially considering they carried no honour.
    “I shall be one of the men going for the boy, he should be fun. I think that some of you will die this day and I will miss those of you that shall go to the dark but your part of the pay shall be shared out equally between the survivors. Now the signal to attack is the simplest possible signal there could be, there are others of the Crimson Rose who shall start some very big fires when the fireworks begin I want you all to do your jobs, this is enough money to pay for you all to retire so get your jobs done correctly and we are all happy.” He stopped then piped in one more comment. “Apart from your royal highness of course” The men all chuckled loudly with their dark spine chilling laughs.