by Ikaros Marks

Created on: June 14, 2009

In the gloomy twilight, a thin figure leapt from rooftop to rooftop. The moon cast a pallor over the rooftops of the village, sleep looming over or consuming every single villager. No one noticed the shadow slinking stealthily, slipping in and out of the shadows, a pure creature of the night.

The shadow moved ever closer to the manor house at the top of the hill. He would have to be swift about it, he was behind schedule and it did not do to be caught at sunrise. The night was his greatest ally, but she would desert him at sunrise to whatever fate was left to him. He didn't think they would offer him milk and cookies and bid him a fair night.

The lights danced in the window of the large mansion, a welcome sight to any bedraggled traveller on the road through the village. Outside the walls the situation was much different, and travellers on roads were non-existent. Bleak winds hit the house, scoring gashes in it. The stonework of the wall was cut and bruised in a manner of interesting variations. The shadow smiled upon seeing this, for they offered him great footholds and handholds to set about finishing his job. He took out the rope he carried with him in his small, lightweight pack and tied it to a limb, torn off a tree from the rough gale that now encircled him.

With the wind crashing against the walls and roof, and howling all along the eaves, he shouldn't have any trouble throwing the branch to clatter among the stones atop the building. He needed it to catch in the teeth of the turret at the top of the mansion so he could scale upwards. It was true he could possibly do so without the use of the branch, for the handholds that were cut into the rock of the wall gave sufficient leverage to get climbing done, but he wanted to get up there as quickly as possible and this seemed the best way to do so.

He heaved the branch upwards, his strength obvious from the distance that the medium-sized branch made upwards. It clattered upon the rooftops, but the wind's voice cloaked the sound of the landing branch. He grabbed unto the rope and yanked it once, twice, three times to set his mind at rest. He sighed, satisfied with the rope's position, and began scaling the wall.

In a matter of minutes he was atop the mansion. It wasn't by any stretch of the imagination a large mansion, but it provided shelter for the small feudal lord living there. He slipped into the shadows of the trees that were cast unto the rooftop, now moving silently, stopping now and then to

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