The first time Turgeon saw the King’s Swordmaster was in a crowded marketplace shortly before the nameless bastard killed his brother.

  What stood out at first about the man was his height. He towered over the crowd in the market, and Turgeon tracked him easily as he approached the stall where he and his brother Aelfredd were loitering trying to look interested in the poultry on offer.

  While he did not appear to be an old man, the Swordmaster’s long, lank and curly hair that looked to have once been a dark black was now mostly silver. He was more lithe than muscular, certainly not as overbuilt as the soldiers Turgeon had seen from the King’s Own Guard. His beard was scraggly and patchy, and while he might have once been an attractive man, multiple facial scars (alluding to the likelihood of worse elsewhere upon him) had degraded his looks to the point of average.

  His garb was as unassuming as his appearance. Though well tailored and fitting, it was dark and moody. Not too fashionable, but not too out of date. Appropriate both for court or in a dark tavern.

  Looking back, Turgeon would acknowledge the man’s appearance was no doubt intended to lead observers to underestimate him, as he would admit he had done.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  When it happened, it all happened so fast he would later doubt his memory of the event. Could anyone truly be so masterful with the sword?

  Aelfredd clearly thought he had the drop on the man, drawing and cleaving down on his head with his own blade before he should even have been seen.

  But the Swordmaster was faster. Almost faster than a blink, in one smooth motion he drew his side sword and parried Aelfredd’s strike off line with the false edge of the blade, then deftly twisted his wrist to dart the point of his blade inside Aelfredd’s guard and through his throat.

  As Aelfredd dropped to the ground, blood spurting onto the market cobbles in dark gouts, the Swordmaster grabbed Turgeon’s arm and roughly pulled him away, through the crowd and towards the castle. Guards swarmed to surround the body almost immediately, pushing back the crowd.

  Struggling against the man’s grip, Turgeon turned and saw as a guard stood up from checking Aelfredd’s pulse, shaking his head and holding aloft a medallion ripped from his brother’s neck.

  “Say nothing of what happened here, or who that man is to you, to anyone,” the Swordmaster hissed under his breath as he dragged Turgeon from the market.