The Black Death had been ravaging the kingdom for months when the Piper first appeared.
He came before court, promising to rid the city of the scourge. The King decreed that if he succeeded he would receive a lordship, but promised that if the man was wasting his time he would scream his last in the dungeons.
But the Piper did not seem concerned.
He commanded a large trench be dug and filled with pitch. Then he began to play his pipe. Every rat in the city reacted immediately, desperately following the sound, until thousands were driven into the trench, which was lit aflame. It was the rats, the Piper explained, that carried the plague, and with them gone the city would begin to recover. All there was left to do was wait, and see if his claims proved true.
Slowly, the Black Death began to recede, until after a few months it was eradicated all together.
The city was saved.
But the King was foolish and greedy.
He claimed that he had been duped by the Piper, that he had resorted to a mere parlor trick to achieve his goal, and tried to renege on their deal. When the Piper demanded his due, the Pontiff declared him a practitioner of black magic and a heretic. He was allowed one day to leave, but after that the Inquisition would arrest him on sight.
And so the Piper left, but when he returned, he played a different tune.
He came leading packs of wolves, bears, and stranger beasts from the woods. Villages were devastated, and soon the King could not ignore the violence. He sent a great host to bring the Piper to heel, but no sooner did they take the field did he change his tune again.
Then he continued his march on the capital, but this time at the head of an army.
The fighting was brutal. The men who marched with the Piper, their tear streaked faces twisted with sorrow, were forced to sack their own city, slaughter their own families and comrades, and rape their own women. The civil war lasted only days before the Piper had taken the throne, enslaved court, including the King himself, and bought a kingdom, literally, for a song.
His rule was tyrannical and cruel, which was why I, an assassin, and a brave Princess found ourselves in the same room.
"I will not stand for the indignity my father faces at the hands of the Piper." She said, her blue eyes alive with conviction. "I will not stand for his mockery of our great kingdom. Will you help me?" She was as beautiful as the songs say.
How could I refuse?
I was smuggled into the throne room and stood in the crowd before a large, blazing fire pit, watching the Piper King sit lazily on the throne. He was being attended to by the former monarch, now dressed in rags, kneeling on bloody knees with a tray of wine and grapes held in quivering hands. The Pontiff, once a dignified and austere man, danced before the court in motley to the tune of the accursed pipe.
"Has the old bag of bones' sermons ever been so amusing?" The Piper King shouted, throwing a pomegranate at the old man, and the crowd laughed their forced, anguished laugh without him even forcing them to.
They were terrified.
The weight of the crossbow concealed in my cloak is comforting. While he is distracted by his revels I will draw and fire, putting a bolt through his throat, so that his foul magics cannot harm me.
The time is now.
I draw my weapon and aim, about to apply pressure to the mechanism. Such a small thing, and yet I stop short. To my horror, I realize the Piper is staring directly at me, pipe to his lips. Slowly, implacably, my hands lower, moving the nose of the crossbow under my chin. The Piper King smiles, then trills on his pipe.
There is a click.
Unimaginable pain.
My left eye goes black.
My legs fall from under me.
The flagstones slap my face.
A pool of blood so dark it looks black spreads slowly before me.
"Well, well," the Piper King says as if from far away. "It seems I missed a few rats after all. But we know what to do with rats, don't we?" The tune changes again, and this time the Princess steps forth, jerky, like a marionette, her face pale with terror.
The last thing I see before my vision fades completely is the Princess hurling herself into the flames.
I hear her screams.
And then the laughter of the crowd.