NaNo 2019 - In the Emperor's Shadow (Updated 11/26)

[MasterGhandalf]

Hell, everyone! MasterGhandalf here with my second-ever NaNo project (I sat out last year due to various real-life issues; in 2017, I posted the first volume of my ongoing space opera/Arthurian re imagining Realm of the Stars). This year, I'm doing a project I'd been toying with for a while in my long-time favorite genre, high fantasy. This one is deliberately supposed to be evocative of "classic" fantasy, but with a twist - where a lot of high fantasy takes it's inspiration from Lord of the Rings, this one is inspired by "The New Shadow", a sequel to LotR that Tolkien wrote about a chapter of late in life and then abandoned. Basically, the idea is that the "dark lord" figure rose again and was defeated for good about a century ago, but his legacy and a few of his minions are still out there, while the "good guy" kingdom has started to crack around the edges, with noble ideals giving way to ruthless ambition. Just because the dark lord is dead doesn't mean evil is gone for good. And of course, when human evil and supernatural evil meet, bad things are in store. And it's deliberately designed to have a lot of the fantasy tropes I personally love - intrigue! Adventure! Epic quests! Cool magic! Dark elves (long a guilty pleasure of mine)! If that sounds cool to you, strap in. Feed back, as ever, is appreciated. 

Spoiler

Prologue

A hidden harbor city crouched beneath great cliffs on the shores of the Altan Ocean, beneath a moonless night sky.

Nature seemed to have conspired to conceal the city; the cliffs wrapped around it on all sides, leaving only a narrow strip of beach where the docks were built, and the buildings themselves were carved into the face of the rock. The cliffs swept forward, leaving only a narrow passage from the cove out to the ocean proper, a channel that was difficult to find and even more difficult to navigate if one did not already know the way. And if a captain was foolish enough to try and take their ship through the channel but did not know the proper words of passage, guards waited in crevices within the rock with ballista that would send any intruder to the depths.

The passage overland was just as treacherous, for the land atop the cliffs was barren for miles around, and the only passages downward were tunnels which were hidden from the prying eyes of outsiders; here too, the ways were watched, and only those who knew the proper words were permitted entrance.

The city itself was of curious design, built in terraces into the base of the cliffs with much of its structure buried deep in caverns within the stone. Those buildings which were visible were of a distinctive make, though exquisitely crafted. They did not resemble the solid, practical architecture of the human kingdoms which now dominated so much of the world, nor yet the start and sturdy fortifications of the orcs or the towering monoliths of the giants. Most closely they resembled the fine constructions of the elves, and yet they could not be mistaken for the same style, for the beauty of these structures was haunting, unwelcoming, disturbing to the eyes. Humans called the cities of the elves ethereal, dreamlike, but if this city was a dream, it was a dark, foreboding one, which warned of nightmares to come.

And yet, that comparison would be the most accurate, for those who dwelled here were of the elven race, though long sundered from their kin in culture and belief. For this was the city of Ydrisithalin, last outpost of an empire which at its height had ruled all the world beneath a fist of iron. Ydrisithalin, the secret port, but one of the many citadels which had dotted the land, from which the followers of the Emperor-in-Shadow had ridden forth, the Children of Night at the head of their armies of orcs and giants to bring all that lived to heel. For a thousand years they had ruled, until humanity had risen up and in a great war had forced the Children of Night to withdraw their power to remote lands. There they had waited another thousand years, as short-lived man built his cities and his kingdoms and grew complacent, forgetting the terror of the Dark, and then they had returned, to reclaim what was theirs. For ten long years the war had raged, but in the end, it had been for naught. The Emperor-in-Shadow, who had ruled the Children of Night for ages uncounted, was slain, his lieutenants with him. The orcish legions had been broken; many of the Children themselves perished. Too many. Their empire failed, they had been hounded from the lands, until at last, they fell back here. A city clinging on the edge of the sea; a single city, and far from the greatest, of what had once been the Empire of Night. And even that city not filled; more than half of Ydrisithalin stood empty.

Once, the Children of Night had ruled all; now, a century and more after their great defeat, they were a dying race, the last remnant of a dead empire. Their Emperor was gone, their legions scattered. Humankind, who had been their slaves, once little more than beasts, now covered the earth like a plague. Many whispered that this was the end, that all that had been promised to them was for naught.

But the Lord of Ydrisithalin stood in his high tower, looking down over the city that was his, turning over the letter he had recently received in his pale hands, smiled. For the proposal it contained intrigued him, opening up new possibilities that he, who had once stood in the high council of the Emperor-in-Shadow, had not before considered – and that yet had potential.

For, he thought, where force fails, guile might prevail. And there were always those fools who, in their shortsighted pursuit of power over others, would happily take actions that would only serve to hasten their own demise. They needed only the proper incentive.

///

A dark-cloaked figure emerged from the narrow passageway above Ydrisithalin and stared out over the empty expanse of the Plains of Maradd. Nothing moved or grew for as far as the eyes could see; the badlands of bare, cracked rock were stark in the pale moonlight. A cold night wind rustled the figure’s cloak, which they pulled more tightly around their slender body in response. It had been a long time since they had been up here, since they had left the bounds of Ydrisithalin, or at least, they thought it had been long. It had been more than a century since they had set foot outside of the city, and the figure was young for one of the long-lived Children of Night – young enough that a century still felt like a long time, though to the elders, it was nothing.

The plains had been desolate for long ages before the Children of Night had ever come here; what cataclysm had so marked it, and whether it was natural or supernatural in origin, even the elders did not know. But it was a suitable guard on their last stronghold, keeping away the prying eyes of the short-lived beings who now crawled and thrived in the outside world. But the Children knew how to survive there, as well as they did anywhere; they were not beings who gave up their lives easily.

The cloaked figure glanced back over their shoulder warily; they had spent too long in thought, but there was no sign of pursuit from behind. There would be, but not yet. The figure knew the proper passwords, had freely made their way past the guards, but sooner or later, their absence would be reported to the lord of the city, who would know that they did not leave with his permission. Then the hunt would begin, for the renegade – the one on whom so much depended and could not be lost – and for the thief, for they had taken something the lord considered most valuable when they fled. The figure’s slim fingers brushed the hilt of the sword at their waist as they thought of this; the ruby set into the pommel seemed to flash as if in response.

The figure began to move, slipping from shadow to shadow as easily as only one of the Children of Night could, for darkness was their element, their birthright and true home – even another of the Children would not easily find one who did not wish to be found and had shadows in which to hide. The renegade meant to be far away before the sun crested the horizon, for the cruel light of dawn would hinder pursuit. The Children had turned their back upon the sun long ago, seeking the solace of other, darker powers, and the sun in turn burned their skin and blinded their eyes, and scorched away their magic. When dawn came even the renegade would have to find some cavern or crevice in which to hide and rest, and then begin to move again when night fell once more. Another day should be enough to clear the Plains of Maradd and thus begin their journey north, to deliver a warning to those who might make use of it.

The Emperor-in-Shadow was dead, and he would never rise again. But there were still powers in Ydrisithalin who hated the light and dreamed of empire reborn, and those in the outside world who would contract with them. There were plans being drawn, plans for wars and worse than wars, plans the renegade had overheard while snooping at the lord of Ydrisithalin’s doors and had been left chilled by. The Emperor-in-Shadow was dead, but the death of one tyrant, no matter how great, was not enough to banish darkness and strife from the world forever.

The renegade crept on through the night, silent and unseen. In the darkness behind, in the hidden city by the sea, the alarm had been raised, and the lord’s anger made plain; soon, now, pursuit would be loosed. The renegade fancied they could hear it and increased their pace. They meant to be far away before dawn.

 

Edited November 27, 2019 by MasterGhandalf

[MasterGhandalf]

New chapter! Also slight revision to the title. 

Spoiler

Part One: Shards of the Past

Chapter One

The bards said that the city of Hira Sentaria, capital of Erresune, greatest of human nations, gleamed like shining silver under the blessed light of dawn. The bards also said that the city was the very heart of righteousness, into which no evil thing could enter. The latter statement was generally agreed to be a poetic exaggeration of the type which bards were prone to make; that some might argue, were employed primarily to make. But the former statement could not be denied; Hira Sentaria was indeed a marvel to behold.

The city sat in a fertile valley under the shadow of snow-capped mountains; the Silaran River flowed down from its spring high in the peaks and passed through its heart. The city’s great wall was white and seemed all but impenetrable, a feeling that was borne out further if one knew its history, how in the War of Shadows more than a century earlier those walls had held off the forces of the Emperor-in-Shadow for weeks of siege until the city was rescued and the siege lifted. It was these walls against which the armies of the Children of Night and their orcish brutes, their giant allies and the Sultan of Uraz who they had made their vassal were turned back. It was in the valley before these walls that Araktosh the Mighty, warlord of the orcs and the most feared of the Emperor-in-Shadows’ commanders, had at last met his doom, and here that the tide of war had turned in favor of humanity.

Within the walls, the city itself was just as magnificent, with mighty palaces and towers arranged in a great circle around the complex at its heart, the Citadel of the House of Alizanen, which had ruled Erresune since the kingdom first threw off the yoke of the Children of Night centuries ago. The King’s Citadel, it was called, or the Queen’s – the Queen’s Citadel now, for the reigning monarch was a queen, Anitzaine II, descended and named for Anitzaine the Great, who had led her people to victory in the War of Shadows.

But Hira Sentaria was more than a stronghold of war and a seat of political power; it was also a center of learning, home of the Royal Academy which occupied a sprawling compound just to the west of the Citadel. Here students from across the lands came to be educated in history, the sciences and the arts – most from within Erresune itself, though some from allied lands, cold Orosk to the north and the plains of Basene to the east, and even a very few from distant Uraz, whose relations with Erresune had been strained for a century and more, ever since their Sultan had the misfortune of finding himself on the losing side of the War of Shadows.

In addition to the other subjects on its curriculum, the Academy offered classes in the magical arts for those few students who possessed both the skill and the dedication – the former was rare, and the latter rarer still – to master it, in accordance with the decree of Her Majesty, Anitzaine the Great, that knowledge of the arcane should never be permitted to fade from the land. For even with the Emperor in Shadow gone and his followers banished to distant lands, such arts would always be needed.

Such was Hira Sentaria, city of wonders, city of light. And yet all was not well here, for despite how great its fame made it, it was still a city of mortals, and not of gods. And human beings are fallible; they forget the lessons of the past, and dream of power and prestige. And the brightest lights cast the darkest shadows.

The bards said that no evil entered Hira Sentaria. The bards lied.

///

It was early autumn in Hira Sentaria; the trees on the Academy grounds were turning a brilliant shade of golden red and a chill breeze was blowing as a young woman crossed the central courtyard, hood pulled up against the chill. She was clad in a long green student’s robe; that, together with the satchel of scrolls that was slung over one shoulder, was enough to clearly state her position. The gold trim on her sleeves and hood signified that she was in her fifth and final year, and that she was a student in good standing. Her name was Leira of the House of Idaska, and she came of a family with a storied history. After the old king had been assassinated early in the War of Shadows, when Anitzaine, a distant cousin of the royal line, had arisen to lead her people to victory, it had been the House of Idaska that had been the first to pledge itself to her; it had been an Idaska who had placed the Crown of Erresune upon her head. The Idaskas had been counselors to the throne, in various roles, ever since; Leira’s father was none other than Chief Minister Aedor Idaska himself. Not that this was of particular concern to her at the moment; all Leira knew for now was that she was about to be late to class.

Gods knew that it was her own fault, of course. First, she’d overslept, then she’d taken too long at breakfast, and then she’d let herself get distracted working on a problem the lector of her Magical Theory course had set, and, well, one thing had led to another. Once she realized just what time it was, and how closely she was cutting it, she’d barely managed to throw on her cloak and grab her satchel before hurrying out the door.

Fortunately, she arrived at the lecture hall with just seconds to spare, slipping quietly in the back of the room and taking a seat beside a girl she only vaguely knew, who gave her a sharply disapproving look. Leira set her satchel in front of her and threw back her hood, revealing features that were classically Erresunin in appearance – straight dark hair cut shoulder length, dark eyes, tan skin several shades darker than what might be expected from a northerner but lighter than would be typical of an Urazin. Breathing a quiet sigh of relief, she unrolled a blank piece of parchment and straightened it out, then began to set out her quill and inkpot just as the lector walked up to the front of the class.

Lector Reidarr son of Savrin was a northman of Orosk ancestry; merely to look at his height, broad shoulders and full, greying beard one might be tempted to assume that he was a combat trainer rather than an instructor of the Art of Practical Magic. Such a judgment would be ignorant, in Leira’s opinion, even if made before talking to him and learning the truth; the Orosk, after all, were known for their poet-sages every bit as much as they were for the prowess of their warriors. Still, it hadn’t stopped her brother Kenem from joking that if someone disrupted Reidarr’s class, he looked fully capable of picking them up and ejecting them bodily from the hall, and Leira had a feeling that would be entirely true.

The lector’s voice, in sharp contrast to his fierce appearance, was soft and pleasant, lightly flavored with the accent of his northern homeland. Today’s topic concerned the use of magic to manipulate fire; the most difficult to control of the five Fundamental Elements, and the most disastrous to get wrong, which was why it was traditionally taught last of the five and only to advanced students who could be trusted not to burn the Academy down. The lectors had higher opinions of her fellow students’ restraint than Leira herself did, though the fact that the Academy was still standing indicated there must be some truth to their judgment.

Or maybe they were just good at catching overly enthusiastic young mages in the act.

Reidarr was picking up from the last lecture and began sketching a number of complex symbols on the blackboard. These were sigils, the core building blocks of magic – at least, the sort of magic that humans could use. The Oroskin called them runes and the Urazin glyphs, but the principle was the same. The core sigils represented concepts – fire, in this case. The peripheral sigils represented properties that defined what the core sigil was and was not to do when animated by a mage’s will – the difference, in this case, between a candle flame, a cook fire, or an inferno that could consume an entire city block. The last, of course, was not magic that was taught at the Academy, but such had seen use during the War of Shadows.

So far it was covering little more than what Leira had already read, and listening to the lector’s soothing voice, she found her mind beginning to wander. There had been rumors of strange happenings across the realm, lately; living in the same house as the Chief Minister when not on the Academy grounds, she knew at least some of them for truth. The new Sultan of Uraz was supposed to be rattling his blades again; he desired to avenge his people’s defeat in the War of Shadows, though Leira’s father thought the rumors made the threat worse than it was. The Sultan was full of hot air, Aedor assured his family, and Uraz was in no position to win a war with Erresune in any case. Not that that stopped that fellow Lord Arratus from rabble-rousing in the Assembly, decrying Uraz and declaring that Erresune should strike first and remind the southerners just why they had lost the war, never mind that it was a century in the past and according to Leira’s history lectors Uraz had only grudgingly thrown in with the Emperor-in-Shadow in hopes of being spared his wrath. And the current Sultan wasn’t even of the same bloodline that had ruled during the war, anyway. Ridiculous.

Of course, there were other rumors as well. The Guild of Ravens was said to be active in the city again, even though the Queen had sworn she’d stamped them out a decade ago. In the far north, beyond Orosk, some jarl had supposedly united the tribes of the giants for the first time in centuries. In the War of Shadows, giants of different tribes had fought both for and against the Children of Night; no one was sure what a unified giant nation might portent. The giants were creatures of elemental magic, the offspring of the bones of the earth, to hear them tell it. They didn’t need sigils to wield that power, which was as much a part of them as breathing, but each giant tribe was bonded to a particular element, though the sages had never quite understood how or why…

Leira was startled out of her reverie as someone poked her sharply on the shoulder; she looked over at the girl next to her, who was glaring sharply at her. Sarne, that was her name. “Wake up,” she hissed. “I don’t care how rich you are, you are not going to embarrass the rest of us by falling asleep in class!”

“I wasn’t asleep,” Leira hissed back, though she had a sinking suspicion she’d at least been trending in that direction. Today, clearly, wasn’t her day.

She was saved from having to admit that fact when the door opened and a young man in the dark uniform of an Academy secretary slipped in and came to stand beside her. “Leira Idaska?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” she said, and he thrust a small scroll into her hand before turning and leaving as quickly as he’d come. Leira glanced down and felt her heart sink. The scroll bore her father’s personal seal. The Chief Minister wouldn’t interrupt an Academy class with a message unless it was urgent. Something, Leira knew, was terribly wrong.

///

Leira found it almost impossible to focus on the lector’s voice for the remainder of the class; finally, it was over, and she hurried outside, breaking the seal on the scroll as she went. Her eyes widened as she read it, and then quickly stuffed it into her satchel before anyone else could see. The next hour passed in a blur as she raced back to her dormitory – thankfully private; she’d earned that privilege as a student in her final year – and hastily shoved scrolls and clothing into a sack. That done, she raced across the grounds, ignoring the surprised looks and shouts of her fellow students, before arriving at the Academy gates, where a carriage bearing her house’s insignia – a griffin’s head in profile – waited.

The ride to House Idaska’s mansion didn’t take long; both her ancestral home and the Academy were located near the center of the city, after all, albeit on opposite sides of the Citadel. The distance was short enough that she honestly could have attended the Academy without ever living on its grounds, though her father had insisted she did. He said he’d wanted her to have the authentic experience, as he’d had at her age.

Still, brief though the ride was, she found herself sitting uneasily the whole way. Glancing out the windows, she saw Hira Sentaria’s outward calm marred by a feeling of tension. People were walking past hurriedly, not speaking to each other, or speaking in rushed whispers. On a few street corners, she saw small knots of men and women in red cloaks gathered; she recognized the mark of Lord Arratus’s faction and frowned. Her father’s laeter had been brief and evasive; what in the name of Suil was happening?

Aedor Idaska was waiting for his daughter at the gates of the mansion grounds; a tall man in clothing that managed to be rich without being ostentations, his neat hair and beard lightly touched with grey, he had passed his dark hair and eyes to his daughter and his strong features to his son. To Leira’s surprise, he wore a sword at his waist; the Chief Minister of Erresune rarely went armed and prided himself on being a man who didn’t need violence to solve his problems. No sooner had she climbed out of the carriage than he gestured for her to follow him into the garden; he carefully shut the gates behind them as the carriage rolled away towards the stables behind the house.

“Father, what’s going on?” Leira asked breathlessly once the gate was closed. “Your note just said there’d been trouble in the Assembly and that you needed me to come home.” She glanced around the garden. “Where’s Kenem? He’s not been hurt, has he?”

Aedor held up a hand. “Your brother’s fine, don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve summoned him home as well, but he hasn’t arrived back from the Institute yet.” Unlike his sister, Kenem had never had much patience for magic or scholarship and had always wanted to be a soldier; he was a cadet at the Royal Military Institute of Erresune, just outside the city, and was training to be an officer.

“Well, that’s a relief, at least,” Leira said. “But still, if you pulled both of us out of school – Father, something’s going on, I know it.”

Aedor sighed. “Walk with me,” he said, turning down one of the stone paths that wound its way through the garden; Leira followed just behind. The walked in silence for several minutes, and then finally, her father spoke. “There was an… altercation in the Assembly this morning,” he said. “Arratus instigated it, as one would expect, though I’m sure he would insist that it was really my fault. The bloody fool was calling for war with Uraz again, offering half-baked ‘proof’ that they were planning to invade us and that we needed to strike before they did. When the Assembly voted him down, he was furious, declared he didn’t need to abide by the dictates of fools, and stormed out – taking his entire faction with him.”

“Gods,” Leira breathed. Though Queen Anitzaine was sovereign in Erresune, the Assembly – composed of a mix of hereditary nobles and elected representatives – handled most of the day-to-day affairs of running the nation. Her father, as Chief Minister, presided over the Assembly and was elected by it, though subject to confirmation by the throne. By denouncing the Assembly’s authority, Lord Arratus was effectively denying the legitimacy of the entire government, with the possible exception of the queen herself. And though his party was a minority, controlling somewhere between a quarter and a third of the Assembly seats. If they’d all marched out at once… “What’s going to happen?” she finally managed to ask.

“I don’t know,” Aedor admitted. “But I don’t like it. Ibban Arratus is a hothead, desperate for a war with someone because it feeds his fool ideas of glory and charismatic enough to convince others to follow him, but he’s not stupid. He has enough support to cause trouble, but not enough to just seize power, whether politically or militarily. If we’re lucky, he’s just trying to get attention and we’ll be able to smooth this over peacefully. If we’re not, and he refuses to stand down, things could get very ugly very quickly.”

“What do you think he’ll do?” Leira asked. “Make his followers riot? Try to attack the Citadel or the Assembly Hall?”

Her father chuckled. “I think you read too many novels, Leira,” he said. “I’m sure Arratus would love to take power in a coup, but he knows if he tries, he’ll lose. But he is up to something; I’d wager this house and my office as Chief Minister both on it. I’ve been having him watched, lately – ever since he pulled a dagger on Lord Sendor last month – and there have been strange people calling at his home. My spies aren’t sure who his guests are or where they come from, but they don’t like the look of them, and it all makes me uneasy. It makes me want my family where I know they’re save until this all blows over.”

“Father, we’re nineteen, not nine,” Leira said fondly; she and Kenem were twins. Aedor smiled at her.

“I know, dove,” he said. “But it’s a father’s right to worry, especially in troubled times. But I trust you managed to bring home enough books and scrolls that you won’t completely fall behind on your studies. Your lectors all tell me you’re brilliant. Head always in the clouds, but brilliant.” It wasn’t the first time he’d said that, and his eyes twinkled affectionately as he did.

“I’ll try to keep my feet on the ground until the troubles are over,” Leira said.

“I know you will,” Aedor told her, wrapping her in a hug. “Now, go see your mother while I wait for your brother. She’ll want to hear all about your studies, even if we both wish you could be home for a happier occasion.”

Leira nodded and pulled away, then turned and hurried back towards the house. Aedor smiled as he watched her go, but his eyes were troubled.

///

Hira Sentaria might be a city of marvels, but it was a city nonetheless, and all cities had their underbellies. One such neighborhood crouched beneath the northern wall, ramshackle and forlorn, the peeling paint and rough construction of its buildings a sharp contrast to the wall’s gleaming white. A lean man in a tattered brown cloak walked down a winding street in this place, hood pulled low to hide his face. He resisted the urge to sniff contemptuously at the ragged people he passed; mostly laborers, though doubtless some were practitioners of rather less-savory professions. He himself was not a resident of this part of the city, and it was only business that brought him here. He wished nothing more than to get it over with, so that he could leave this place, and its smell behind.

He finally arrived at his destination, a low, shabby inn, unremarkable in almost every way. He entered the front door, finding a dingy common room that was, at this time of day, mostly empty; he walked over to the bar and after a low, hurried conversation with the barman, was pointed towards a door in the common room’s rear. Behind the door was a small, plain room that was entirely bare save for a table and two chairs. The man took a seat at one of them and waited.

Several minutes passed and then another man entered, of average height and indeterminate age; indeed, unremarkable in every way. He wasn’t at all what the first man had expected – but then, he supposed, that was the point. The best thieves were those who never stood out from the crowd; no doubt that was true even more of the best assassins.

“Hands on the table, where I can see them,” the assassin said; the first man complied and the assassin nodded, seemingly satisfied that his guest was unarmed. “Now, pull back your hood – I want to see your face. And tell me your name.”

The first man drew a deep breath to steady himself and tossed his hood back, revealing a plain face and a balding head. “My name is Julin Benas,” he said. “Personal assistant to Lord Ibban Arratus.”

The assassin nodded. “Very good,” he said. “Your master contacted my master and arranged this little get-together. Didn’t want to come himself, I see; smart. But that doesn’t matter to me, so long as his coin’s good – and if someone’s got a “Lord” in front of their name, their coin is usually very good indeed. Out with it, then. Who’s the mark?”

“Before we begin, I was told to get your assurances that your people are capable of killing whoever my lord may require,” Benas said slowly. “It would be a shame to learn that your reputation was greater than the reality.”

“Well, that’s a tough question to answer, before we know who the mark is,” the assassin said. “That can change things, can’t it? But you know what we’re about, or you wouldn’t have come to us. And I promise you, friend, that what we say we can offer, we deliver.” He idly fingered the pendant at his neck as he spoke – a pendant in the shape of a raven. Benas swallowed.

The Raven Guild had existed almost from the beginning of Erresune. They had been destroyed numerous times across the centuries but had always risen again. It was said they dealt in all manner of illicit dealings, but their main line was assassination. No target was too powerful, or too dangerous. The Raven Guild never stopped trying until they were dead, though they rarely needed multiple attempts. That was what legend said, anyway, and looking at the cold, dead eyes of the man across the table from him, Benas found it difficult to doubt.

“My lord will be pleased to hear it,” he said, shoving a small pouch across the table. “Here is the first part of your payment. You will receive the rest when the job is done. And here,” he placed a small roll of parchment on the table, “is your quarry.”

The assassin picked up the parchment and unrolled it, his eyes scanning it quickly. “Well, now,” he mused. “That’s very interesting, isn’t it? Very interesting indeed.”

 

[MasterGhandalf]

New chapter! 

Spoiler

Chapter Two

Deverim an-Mahtar looked up from wiping down his bar as the door creaked open; raising his eyes, he saw three young men swagger into his tavern. He sighed quietly to himself when he saw the look in their eyes, and he realized it was going to be one of those days.

“Welcome, friends,” he said mildly. “Blessings be upon you. This is a little earlier than my usual business, but I can’t complain. What can I get for you?” The sultan and the priests frowned on strong drink, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be bought, especially in places like this, a ramshackle drinking hole in a dying town on the edge of the badlands that separated the lands of Uraz and their traditional enemies – or worthy rivals or hated conquerors or whatever the popular name was these days – in Erresune to the north. And there were certainly those for whom the lure of the forbidden made such things more attractive rather than less. Still, Deverim had the feeling that these particular young men weren’t here for drink.

He was an older man, more grey in his long hair and beard than black these days; his face was lined, albeit as much from hardship as age. In truth, he was younger than he looked, though not by much, but he had seen and done things over the course of his life that took more of a toll than the years did. His robe and headcloth were grey as well, tattered but sturdy garments that had seen better days. He himself was lean and sinewy and his posture was slightly stooped, but he had once been tall and proud, and the eyes that watched his guests were still bright and alert. Men far greater than these had once quailed before that gaze.

One of the young men stepped forward, swaggering, resting a hand casually on the curved sword he wore at his waist. His beard was dark, his expression cocky; Deverim noticed that his clothing was fine but dusty and mismatched, as though it had come from several different sources. A bandit, he decided, or maybe an adventurer, which was a fancy way of saying tomb-robber and troublemaker. The other two, who hung slightly make, were probably his cronies, then.

“I’m not here for a drink,” the maybe-bandit said, leaning in close. “I’m here because I’ve heard rumors. I wanted to know if they’re true.”

Deverim shrugged, went back to cleaning the bar. “You hear so many rumors in these parts,” he said in a neutral tone. “Who can say if they’re true or not? Certainly not an old man who serves drinks and rents the occasional room for his living.”

“You know which ones I mean,” the bandit said, putting his hands on the bar and leaning close to Deverim’s face. “I want to know if you are who they say you are.”

“And who do they say I am?” Deverim asked, not looking up. He knew where this was going now, but that didn’t mean he welcomed the inevitable.

The bandit chuckled. “Not going to give me a inch, are you?” he said. “Well, then, let me spell it out for you. They say that you’re Deverim an-Mahtar. The Blade of Heaven – that Deverim. Descendant of one sultan, and champion of another, before you vanished. And ended up here, apparently. But a man like Deverim an-Mahtar can’t hide forever. That sound about right, old man?”

“I do seem to recall a man by that name,” Deverim said slowly. “But it’s been so long I can’t say I remember him that much.”

“Don’t be coy with me,” the bandit said, irritated now. “You were the greatest blade in Uraz in your day. A fixture at the sultan’s court. They say women swooned over you – hard to believe that to look at you now, but you’d not be the first old man who was a handsome one in his youth – and men lined up to learn at your feet. They even say you killed a fire giant hand-to-hand. I was never sure I believed that, though.”

“An old story,” Deverim said quietly. “Kadurat had marched his army to Uraz, declaring his intent to sack and loot the capital, boasting that he would turn back if any warrior faced in single combat and defeated him. None dared to take him up until a certain man whom you have named, an officer in the sultan’s guard, put himself forward. And shot the giant between the eyes with a crossbow while he stood there boasting. Giants, as it happens, make very large and easy targets. His army was so stunned to see him fall that we routed them almost before they could react. There is a lesson in this, I think.”

“By El and Hokmah,” one of the bandit’s followers breathed. “It is him!”

The leader grinned wryly. “Maybe it is at that,” he said. “Still, it seems a rather long way to fall, from the Sultan’s Palace of Uraz to… here.” He raised his hands and gestured as if to encompass the entire dingy tavern.

“A new sultan came to power,” Deverim said. “He ordered me to do certain things beneath my dignity and honor. I refused. He insisted. I resigned my commission. He would not accept. I escaped the palace and thought it prudent to make my home somewhere I would not be looked for. Unfortunately, I told some of my comrades where I was going, and word has a way of getting out.”

“Long way to fall, indeed,” the bandit leader said, leaning in close again. “But your family would know all about long falls, wouldn’t that, old man? Or am I wrong to say that your great-grandfather was none other than Sultan Mahtar himself, who marched into Erresune at the head of his armies, at the side of the Lord of the Night himself? Would that be right?”

“Not at his side,” Deverim murmured. “At his heel, like a dog. There are those who would say that my ancestor was a great man slandered by history, who would have conquered Erresune had fate been kinder. And there are others who say he was a coward who fell on his knees before the servants of darkness to spare his own hide. I say he was a clever man who realized he could not defeat the Lord of the Night in open battle and thought that by allying with him, he could, perhaps, gain leverage with him and influence at his court, and so spare the lands of Uraz his wrath. Clever, but wrong. For the Lord of the Night would never have been satisfied until he had laid the entire world under his rule, as the ancient texts say it once was – and he is a fool who feeds other men to a crocodile in the hope that it will see fit to eat him last.” There was a warning in his tone now.

The bandit laughed. “Well, well,” he said. “It seems we find ourselves honored not just to be in the presence of a famous swordsman, but a philosopher as well! But as fascinating as that all was, in El’s name, I don’t care. I’m more interested in the fact that you are Mahtar’s descendent.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Deverim said. “My great-grandfather gambled and lost, and it cost my family the throne. Such is the price of dealing with devils. And I walked away from the court itself, years ago. I have nothing to offer men like you, unless you wish to sit and trade old stories – or, better yet, order drinks. These days, I am merely a barman.”

“Listen, old man,” the bandit leader said. “I’ve heard stories that Sultan Mahtar left treasure buried in the badlands. Treasure only his descendants knew how to find. That’s why I went to the trouble of tracking you down. You can’t be happy here, working in this dead-end down, serving cheap wine and cheaper food to the same ten people over and over again. Not a man like you. I’ve got an offer for you. Come work for me. Guide me to that treasure. When I find it, my men and I will be set for life, and I’ll give you a nice cut of the profits. Enough to move into a nicer home, anyway. One last adventure for the Blade of Heaven. How does that sound?”

Deverim laughed. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, young man,” he said. “I know of no treasure, and I certainly can’t help you find it. If I did, do you honestly think I would dress as I do now?” He pulled at his grey robe and chuckled. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“That so?” the bandit asked. His grin was decidedly unpleasant now. “You know what I think? You’re just a coward – afraid to go out into the badlands, just like you were afraid to fight Kadurat without a crossbow. I guess your reputation was to good to be true after all. But you’re coming with me, one way or the other.” He stepped back and drew his scimitar, the blade flashing in the dim light of the tavern; behind him, his two henchmen did the same. “We could have avoided this.”

Deverim sighed. “Yes,” he said, reaching under the bar, his hand brushing something he’d hidden there long ago. “Yes, we could have.”

Before the bandit could blink, Deverim an-Mahtar straightened to his full height and drew the scimitar from under the bar in a fluid motion. With a speed and agility that seemed impossible from such a frail-seeming man, he bounded over the bar and landed directly in front of the bandits. Swords flashed, faster than the eye could follow, and then Deverim the Blade of Heaven stood in the middle of his tavern, posture straight and blade held by his side, three assailants lying on the floor around him, groaning.

“You’ll live,” he said, his voice much stronger now – in it could be heard an echo of the man who had once given commands to the sultan’s legions amidst the chaos of battle and been obeyed. “I used the flat of the blade. You want to know why I didn’t fight Kadurat sword to sword? Because only a fool engages an enemy twice his height and three times his strength at close range. And only a bigger fool thinks to march into the home of legendary swordsman and hopes to force him to do anything by threatening him. Here is my wisdom to you – if you wish to triumph in battle, do not engage your enemy on his own terms, or he will destroy you.”

He knelt down beside the bandit leader and looked him clear in the eye. “I wasn’t lying about the treasure,” he said. “If it’s out there, I don’t know how to find it. So even if you had been able to threaten me, I couldn’t have helped you. You are young and strong, if overly-bold – I recommend you return to Uraz and find yourself some honest work. The next old man you try to threaten may not be so merciful as I am. Understand?”

The bandit nodded wordlessly, and Deverim smiled at him. “Now, get out of my tavern.” He stepped back, and the three bandits scrambled to their feet, practically falling over each other as they fought to be the first out the door. When they were gone and the door swung shut behind them, Deverim held up his blade and sighed.

“I had hoped to put you away for good, old friend,” he said to it, shaking his head. Then he turned and walked back to the bar, stiff after his sudden exertion – his age was not entirely feigned. Stowing the sword back in its hiding place, he straightened up and went back to cleaning the bar. His regulars would be arriving soon enough.

///

Night lay heavy over the small town of Kas Sinir. The last of Deverim’s few patrons had finally left for home, with the door swinging shut behind him. The barkeep was sweeping the common room floor now, as part of his final round of cleaning before he finally retired to his small bedroom in the back. He hummed an old marching song as he worked, and despite himself, his thoughts strayed back to his encounter earlier in the day. He didn’t believe a word about the treasure his ancestor had supposedly left buried – if Mahtar had actually left anything of the sort behind, it had either been looted by now or else was hidden so well it would never see the light of day again. No, he was more worried about the fact that the bandits – or treasure hunters, or whatever they preferred to call themselves – had known who he was without a doubt. There’d always been rumors, of course, young fools who wanted to test themselves against him in combat, or learn at his feet, or recruit them for some harebrained scheme as those today had done. But these bandits had seemed so certain. Word was getting out, and apparently, it was becoming increasingly reliable. Some day soon, perhaps, he’d wake up one morning to find the Sultan himself and all his elite warriors at the door, there to either kill him for deserting or to conscript him back into service.

Neither fate appealed to him.

Deverim had long ago lost his interest in the games of the powerful; they had brought his family only grief. Sultan Mahtar had thought to protect and advance Uraz by shackling himself to the Lord of the Night, the one who was known as the Emperor-in-Shadow in the north. All he’d gotten for his pains was a death on a foreign battlefield, costing his family the throne and leaving his nation weakened and humiliated before their enemy. Deverim had no love for Erresune, who had placed their foot on Uraz’s collective throat after the War of Shadows, but neither did he seek war with them. He knew the northern kingdom wasn’t strong enough to conquer Uraz, and from all he’d heard its strength was fading anyway from where it had stood after the Lord of the Night was defeated. Only a fool seeks out a war he does not need, when time itself and the slow turning of the world will defeat his enemy for him. Justice belonged to El, not to man. A pity the current Sultan – Deverim still thought of him as a boy, though he must be nearly forty by now – had yet to learn that lesson.

The old man sighed. He had no doubt it would be painful when it came.

A sound like a thunderclap suddenly echoed through the tavern; Deverim started, watching the dust shaken from the rafters and the lanterns swinging. That had been the sound of a fist striking the door, he knew, but so loud, and with such force – what sort of a person could strike such a blow? The only answers he could imagine didn’t bear considering.

The sound came again; now Deverim could clearly see the door shaking on its hinges. It wouldn’t stand up to many more strikes like that. Ducking quickly behind the bar, he grabbed his scimitar from its hiding place and drew it for the second time that day, holding it at the ready. He wasn’t sure if he was a match for whoever – or whatever – waited on the other side of that door, but he intended to meet it standing and proud, the Blade of Heaven to the last. Whoever this intruder was, they would soon learn that he might be old, but even an old leopard still has his fangs.

A final blow rocked the tavern, and then the door was ripped from its hinges and flung onto the floor. A massive figure stood there, silhouetted against the night, and then slowly stepped inside. Deverim’s first, wild thought was that it was a giant, perhaps even the wraith of Kadurat come back from the grave to seek vengeance on his long-ago killer, but then he realized that notion was foolish. He’d spent too long today replaying old battles in his mind. The fire giant had stood nearly twice the height of a tall man and couldn’t have fit through the door except in a crouch; this being was not so large, overtopping Deverim’s full height by little more than a head. But he clearly was not human – that was obvious. His shoulders were broad, and his entire body corded with muscle, as was to be expected from a creature who’d just knocked a door off its hinges by the strength of his arms alone. His skin was a dull grey and most of it was on display, as he wore nothing but a loincloth – but there were places where it was marked with red tattoos of strange, jagged symbols. Glyphs, Deverim realized – he was no wizard, but he was familiar enough with wizards’ devices to recognize what he was looking at.

The creature’s face was manlike, though his brow was heavy, and his jaw wider compared to his face than most humans’ were. His eyes were red, and his teeth were fangs, some of which could be seen protruding over his lips; his hair was black and worn in a topknot, and his ears were sharply pointed. What appeared to be the handle of an immense axe could be seen poking over his shoulder.

Taking the sight of the creature in, Deverim realized what it was he was looking at. “An orc,” he breathed. “Can it be?” Growing up, he had heard legends of the brutal creatures that had once served as the slave-soldiers of the Lord of the Night’s armies, but he had never seen one. He’d heard they’d all died out in the War of Shadows or shortly after, before he had been born. But if even half of the stories he’d heard were true, he knew that he could not defeat this creature. Only the greatest of orc warriors had worn the blood marks, as they called the red tattoos, and this fellow had plenty of those.

Well, best to meet death on his feet. If El wanted his soul today, Deverim didn’t intend to meet him meekly. “It is customary in this land,” he said, voice even, “to not break down the doors of establishments we wish to enter. I cannot say much for your manners.”

“You are the owner of this place?” the orc asked. Deverim was surprised; his accent was strange, but his voice was deep and resonant. The old man would have expected a croak.

“I am,” he replied.

The orc took a step forward, and Deverim raised his blade. “I need… help,” the orc said. Deverim’s eyes fell to the monster’s side and widened as he took in the bandage wrapped around his ribs, which he’d not noticed before. The orc was injured, maybe badly – he wondered who or what could have inflicted that wound and decided he didn’t want to know.

“Help,” the orc repeated, and then he fell forward and landed face-down on the tavern floor and lay still.

///

Deverim didn’t know how he managed to drag his unexpected guest to his room behind the bar and heave him up onto the bed; he was stronger than he looked, but by El, the orc was heavy. The axe he wasn’t able to lift at all, though he managed to prop the blade up against the wall. Taking a moment to make sure the orc was unconscious but didn’t appear ready to die just yet, he hurried over to one of his neighbor’s homes and managed to convince one of their young sons to race across town and find the local healer, in exchange for a coin or two. He didn’t know if Ayda knew anything about fixing a wounded orc or not, but he’d wager she knew more than he did.

Returning to the tavern, Deverim headed back to his room to find the orc still unconscious on his bed. Taking a seat beside it to wait for the healer to arrive, he couldn’t resist leaning over to study this new arrival in fascination. He wondered where the orc came from. The Plains of Maradd were not far from Kas Sinir, but he didn’t know if any orcs still lived there. He knew little of their kind. During the War of Shadows, it was said, Urazin legions had marched into battle beside the orcs, but they had been allies of convenience, never friends – and orcs and humans had certainly never mixed socially. What Deverim knew of their race was based entirely on rumor and hearsay, and that centuries out of date. Most of it, though, was fit to chill the blood.

The stories said that the orcs were peerless warriors, and that they fought only for the Children of Night. Some said they were older than humanity; others that they had been created by the Children of Night using some foul sorcery and were not natural creatures at all. Of those who believed that story, some maintained that they were grown in vats rather than born; others said that they had no females of their own and only reproduced with human women. Deverim doubted that; it seemed the sort of lurid story that would spring up around such beings, and despite its prevalence, he’d never actually heard or read of an orc expressing interest in a human woman at all.

Some said that they ate their own dead; others that they would eat any living thing that fell into their power, including prisoners of war. They were said to laugh and smile only at the promise of pain in other beings. They were supposed to be bound in some strange way to the Lord of the Night, and the rumor went that when the Erresunin queen had plunged her sword into that dread Lord’s heart, the entire orcish race had gone mad. Now, though, Deverim doubted that story – this fellow, wherever he came from, had seemed lucid enough. He wondered what else of the stories were true, and what were fabrications. But for every tale of horror, there was another that seemed to agree that orcs possessed a fierce, uncompromising sense of honor. Deverim hoped that would prove to be the case. He’d rather the wounded creature he’d taken into his home not prove to be an irrevocably bloodthirsty monster.

The glyphs on the orc’s skin fascinated him. Those, he’d heard reports of. They were found only on accomplished orcish warriors and were supposed to be tattooed as part of a strange ritual of blood sorcery that imbued the orc’s body with the glyph’s power. Clearly, it wasn’t perfect, but still, if it was true, small wonder this warrior went about in nothing but a loincloth. Even full plate armor wouldn’t provide him better protection.

Deverim reached out a finger slowly, the temptation to touch one of the glyphs overcoming him; before he could, a huge, grey hand grabbed his wrist, and he found himself staring into the open eyes of the orc.

“Peace,” he said. “I’m not going to harm you. I’ve sent for a healer, to have a look at that wound in your side. You are among friends.”

“Thank you, human,” the orc rumbled. “But I have no time to sit in bed waiting to be told I’ve recovered. I must leave at first light, to travel north. I have a message I have been sent to deliver by the elders of my clan, and it cannot wait.”

“What message is that?” Deverim asked, growing cold inside.

“A warning,” said the orc. “War is coming. Soon.”

 

[MasterGhandalf]

New chapter! 

Spoiler

Chapter Three

North of Hira Sentaria the Skyfang Mountains swung in an arc towards the east, forming a barrier between the realm of Erresune to the south and the cold coastline of Orosk to the north. On the southern slopes of the mountains, where the rule of the queen of Erresune came to its end, there lay the Forest of Gilfannin, a land shrouded in mystery and legend. Few humans had ventured there in living memory, and those who did spoke little of what they saw, but stories described the haunts of fey creatures and valleys filled with strange magics, all under the canopy of a great sea of green trees. One fact which all the stories and legends agreed upon, though, was this – somewhere, deep in the heart of the forestlands, the last of the great cities of the elves to remain in the world could still be found.

This story, at least, was true.

Celannien, city of the elves of Gilfannin, was not large, by human standards, and it had shrunk much in recent years – for, like their distant, unloved cousins, the Children of Night, the elves were a fading people, whose peak had long sense passed and who had for millennia now found themselves in the throes of a long decline. That decline had begun long ago and in a distant land, the lorekeepers said, when he who would become the Emperor-in-Shadow had first heard the call of Night and swayed two-thirds of his people to the services of forces which the elves did not name. For the elves and the Children of Night were indeed two fruits of a single branch, and in the beginning of time they had been one people. But when the will of Night came among them in their long-vanished homeland and strife was born among them, those who would become the elves of the woods had been the weaker party, and weaker they had remained through the long years of the Emperor-in-Shadows’ ascendancy. Too many of them had died in the wars which had destroyed their homeland, and in which the Empire of Night had been overthrown by humanity, and then during the War of Shadows a century gone, when the Emperor had at last met his doom. Too many dead, and they were a people who multiplied slowly, though they were also a people who lived long. That was their blessing and their curse, for it meant that all of their long history of sorrows lay in the memory of elves who yet lived, and they would never be free of the sorrow of it.

And so, whether to their ancient enemies or the armies of man or to the simple vagaries of time, the hidden cities of the elves had fallen, one by one, until at last, only one remained. They were a dying race, the lorekeepers believed – dying, but not yet dead. And the long, bitter tale of the history of elvenkind was not yet done.

///

In the shadows beneath the trees of Gilfannin a figure crouched; clad in green and brown, with a hood pulled low over her face, she cocked her head to the side attentively and listened. She was a Guardian, charged with the Forest’s care and the defense of the last borders of her people; she knew Gilfannin as she knew her own home. And now she knew that something was very wrong. Normally, the forest around her hummed with the sounds of birds and insects, and the louder noise of creatures moving through the underbrush, but now all was silent and still. A brooding silence hung over the woodlands, and the Guardians could only imagine one reason for that; something or someone was here who shouldn’t be.

Standing warily, she reached up a hand and cast back her hood. The face that gesture revealed was fine-featured and darkly tanned, with striking green eyes of a brilliant shade that rarely occurred in humans. Her long hair was jet black and worn in a long braid down her back, pulled back in such a way as to reveal the sharply pointed ears that were an obvious mark of her heritage. Her features were fine, and she knew that many humans spoke of them as beautiful, though they also often said, when they thought she wasn’t listening, that there was something uncanny in her appearance, something otherworldly that set her apart from mortal beings. The Guardian could not speak for that, save that she found humans as strange as they found her, for all that she had once spent much time in their company.

Her name was Ellisaine, and it was a name that had won much fame in the lands beyond Gilfannin, for a century ago she had taken up her bow and blade and left her home behind to take part in the final war against the Emperor-in-Shadow and his Children of Night. There she had witnessed a great many deeds of renown – and performed some of those herself – and had travelled for a time as one of the companions of Anitzaine, the Erresunin queen-in-exile as she had claimed her throne and then led the final defeat of the Emperor himself. Ellisaine was the last of those companions to still draw breath; though a human might look on her face and take her for a young woman, she had seen the passage of centuries – and might well live to see centuries more, for she was still reasonably young by the standards of her own people.

And now, Ellisaine was troubled. Warily she drew her bow and nocked an arrow to the string and began to creep quietly as only an elf of the forest could through the underbrush of the forest. A feeling pricked at the back of her neck, as if she was being watched, but she could see no sign of the enemy – and yet she knew that whoever had made Gilfannin fall silent with their presence must be close. Whoever it was, they were clever enough to be able to cheat her elvish eyes, which was not an easy thing to do – especially not when the elf was in her own home territories. That made her warier still, far more so than if her enemy simply showed themselves and attacked.

Rounding a nearby tree, she saw a twisted shape lying on the ground and her eyes widened in horror. It was the corpse of a deer, simply killed and left to lie; an outraged hiss escaped between her teeth, her lips pulling back to reveal canines slightly longer and sharper than a human would have possessed. Slipping her arrow back into its quiver, she approached the body and knelt down beside it, running her hand along the deer’s side. This was fresh, she decided, only a few hours old at most, and probably less. That meant whoever had done this was still nearby, very likely. The animal’s eyes were glazed with death, but even so they still gave the impression that this creature had died in unspeakable agony. And there, in its throat, was the wound that had killed it – an open gash, blacked around the edges. Poison. This wound had been dealt by a poisoned blade.

Again, the outraged welled in Ellisaine’s heart. No creature of the forest did this – the wound’s edges were too straight and clean, which could only mean this had been done with a metal blade. And no elf would hunt so, using poison and leaving the body to lie. But it seemed impossible to imagine that a human could have done this either; at the very least, even the most skilled human tracker would have left a trail Ellisaine’s senses, honed by centuries of experience, could follow. A giant would have left even more of a train than a human; they were not creatures designed for stealth. And Ellisaine was rather fond of giants, despite that a great many of them had fought for the Emperor-in-Shadow, she knew full well that many of their tribes had not, and some had opposed him. Her friend Yngrulf, one of the other companions of Anitzaine during the war, had been a giant; theirs had been an odd camaraderie, but a pleasant one. She knew that while giants were warlike, they were not given to wanton killing. An orc, if there were any of them left in the world, would not have left the body to lie. Orcs never wasted edible meat.

Of course, exhausting those possibilities was not a reassuring thing. The few options that were left did not much bear considering.

Regarding the body again, Ellisaine traced the edge of the deer’s wound with a finger, frowning in thought. This was done with some sort of blade, she decided, razor sharp and coated with a lethal poison. But there was no sign of the blade itself, either in the deer’s body or anywhere nearby – and that meant it had been recovered, surely by the original killer. But that made even less since. Why would someone kill a deer and leave the body to lie? For sport? Perhaps, but they didn’t take any sort of trophy that she could see. For meat? Clearly not. For sheer cruelty? She could scarcely imagine such a thing – but she knew all too well that such cruelty existed.

The ominous feeling pricked the back of her neck again. Surely, whoever did this would know that a Guardian would find the body, would come to investigate. If they could find their way this deep into Gilfannin, slightly more than a day’s journey from Celannien itself, they would know that there would be elves nearby – and that no elf would stand for the wanton killing of living things within the bounds of their homeland. Elves hunted for meat, but not for sport, and they didn’t permit such hunting within the boundaries of their forest. The killing would not go unnoticed – and that thought revealed another motive that she had not considered.

This poor creature’s death hadn’t been for sport. It had been for bait. The deer was not the true target.

Ellisaine leapt to her feet and pulled another arrow from her quiver, just in time to dodge the long, thin knives that were hurled from the shadows straight towards her. She ducked aside, and the blades impacted the trunk of a nearby tree. From no clear direction she could tell, a quiet, cruel laugh could be heard.

No, the deer hadn’t been the hunter’s target. Ellisaine herself was.

///

For a long moment, the forest was silent and still, and then another three knives flashed from the shadows. Ellisaine twisted away to avoid them, then let an arrow fly in the direction from which they’d come. The quiet laugh echoed again from no particular direction, a clear indication that she hadn’t hit. “You’ll have to do better than that, traitor,” an amused male voice said from the shadows. “You didn’t even come close.”

“What do you want?” Ellisaine demanded; if she could keep her attacker talking for long enough, maybe she could figure out where he was hiding. “And I am no traitor. I am a Guardian of Gilfannin, and you are not wanted here.”

“All your kind are traitors,” the voice said, “and the get of traitors. When their king commanded them, they disobeyed and fled his realm. And from their disobedience, you were born, a blasphemer and a daughter of blasphemers. You are the definition of a traitor.”

Ellisaine hissed. “He whom we do not name ceased to be our king when he called up powers he could not control and was devoured by them,” she said. “Those who followed him were fools.”

“It is not the place of the subject to question their ruler’s decrees,” the voice taunted. “Merely to obey, as we obeyed, and you did not. You especially are a vile blasphemer, Ellisaine of Gilfannin, for you took up arms alongside the mortal vermin in defiance of your rightful lord, and by your help he was struck down. But the Children of Night yet live, and we will have justice.”

“I didn’t kill your Emperor,” Ellisaine spat. “Anitzaine did. And that was just; he had the blood of millennia of wars and oppression on his hands, and he deserved exactly what he got, as did all of your foul realm.”

The voice didn’t laugh now; its snarl of anger matched her own. “Just?” it demanded. “Just? The greatest ruler this world has ever known, slain by the hands of a human animal? You call that just? You are a fool as well as a traitor; a blasphemous fool. Maybe your hand wasn’t on the blade that was driven into our lord’s heart, but you helped bring him down, and brought our dreams to ruin! And we will be avenged.”

“Not while I draw breath,” Ellisaine whispered. The Children of Night were almost impossible to see when they did not wish to be seen; above the forest canopy the sun was slowly sinking towards the horizon, but beneath the trees, shadows were thick enough for her enemy to hide in, invisible to all but the keenest eyes. True night would fall soon; she couldn’t count on the sun, which might blind her enemy’s eyes and burn away his magics, to save her now. But she’d been watching the trees even as they’d been speaking, and she thought she saw a faint blur of movement atop one of the thicker, heavier branches. There you are.

Grabbing a vine, Ellisaine swung up into the tree, clambering swiftly as only a forest-born elf could; in moments she was on the branch and slammed into something solid there. The Child of Night cursed and stumbled back, the shadows he’d woven about himself dissipating; they reformed swiftly, but before they did, she caught a glimpse of a slender, black-clad figure opposite her. Ellisaine grinned and drew another arrow.

Not fast enough; knives flashed, and this time one of them grazed her shoulder. She grimaced at the pain, and at the sensation of numbness that spread from the cut. Poison, she realized, but not enough to do serious harm; elves were hardy against such things, and the cut wasn’t deep. But it was a distraction, one she didn’t need. And in the time she’d taken to consider it, her enemy had vanished again.

She drew another arrow, but her arm was weak where she’d been struck, and she didn’t trust her aim in this condition. But her attacker was still close, waiting to finish the job, trusting his magic to keep him concealed until he was in position to strike. But the elves of the forest possessed magics of their own; Ellisaine closed her eyes and dropped to one knee, resting a hand on the branch below her. Breathing slowly, deeply, she reached out her senses into the tree, and from there into the world around it. For a moment she could feel the forest for miles around, every tree and plant, every animal and insect. For the elves, it was said, were the earth’s children, and they had a bond with it that none other could understand, as natural to them as breathing.

All elves, that is, save the Children of Night. They had sacrificed that bond long ago, under their Emperor’s direction, and gained something new in its place, a power drawn from the dark spaces between the stars. That power let them walk unheard and unseen where shadows ran thick, and sometimes gave other abilities that were yet more terrible – but it left them bereft of the connection to the natural world that should have been their birthright. Ellisaine might not be able to see her attacker with her eyes, but where his presence should have been in her sense of the forest was a cold void that stood out as obviously as a torch in a darkened cave.

And he was right behind her. Fluidly, Ellisaine twisted, bringing her arrow up. The Child of Night stumbled back at the sudden movement – he hadn’t realized she was there, had thought her defenseless. And so he wasn’t prepared for the sudden attack as she drove the arrow into his shoulder and slammed him back against the trunk of the great tree. Only then did she open her eyes.

She saw her attacker clearly now. Like all elves, the Child of Night was slender, fine-boned and fine-features, with sharply pointed ears, but there his resemblance to her ceased. His skin was chalky white, so pale that a faint tracery of dark veins could be seen on his cheeks if one looked closely enough, and his eyes were solid black, without visible white or iris. His head was shaved, and Ellisaine frowned at the sight. That marked one of the Emperor-in-Shadow’s personal assassins. She’d thought they had all died; apparently not.

The assassin’s face was twisted in pain as he stared up at her, and Ellisaine bent down close. “Talk,” she hissed. “Who sent you here? What do you want?”

“To kill you,” he spat. “And to make sure you knew why. You’re the last of the upstarts who cost our Emperor the war and his life; time took the others, but it is too slow an assassin for you. So I was sent.”

“Who sent you?” Ellisaine repeated. “And why now?”

“Do you honestly think I’ll tell you that?” the assassin asked, smirking. “What are you going to do – torture me? I’ve lived through things that you can’t imagine in your nightmares. You’re weak, like all your traitorous kind.”

“Weak?” Ellisaine laughed. “Weak enough to kill your Emperor. Weak enough to drive your kind to the edge of the world.”

“And did it save you?” the assassin asked. “Your race is dying as much as mine is! But we don’t intend to go gently into the burning dawn of oblivion! What do you know of the plans hatched in Ydrisithalin? Less than nothing! My master will outlast you yet.”

“Your Emperor is dead; you admit that yourself,” Ellisaine said. “We thought all the Twilight Council died with him. Which of them is alive? Who gives you your orders?”

“I’ve told you all you’re going to learn, traitor,” the assassin said. “You think the death of one ruler, no matter how great, would give this world peace forever? Night is always there, lurking just beyond your sight. If you want to see your true enemy, look to your own borders. But you’ll have nothing more of it from me. Night Eternal!”

No sooner had the battle cry left his lips than the assassin twisted sharply and rolled off the edge of the tree limb, too quickly for Ellisaine to grab him. As she looked over the edge, she saw him strike the ground with a crack and lay still. He was dead; his neck broken. He would answer no more questions.

Ellisaine sat back against the tree, rubbing a hand along her wounded arm and trying to massage some feeling back into it, lost in dark thoughts. She had to return to Celannien at once, for more reason than one. Lanyrilyn would be able to help her with her injury. But more importantly, the lorekeepers had to be warned of the attack – and what the assassin’s words portended.

///

Far to the south of Gilfannin, on the borders of the Plains of Maradd, a slight figure crept from the cave where it had been hiding as the sun slipped down past the horizon. The figure walked warily towards the edge of the barren plateau and stopped at the place where the land suddenly fell away at a sharp divide. Atop the cliffs was barren Maradd, and there, stretched out at its base, were the green fertile fields of Erresune, glimmering faintly in the dying sunlight. In the distance, the figure fancied that the faint shapes of mountains could be seen. Somewhere in those mountains was the fabled city of Hira Sentaria, if the maps at Ydrisithalin were to be believed.

The last glimmer of sunlight vanished, but the renegade Child of Night could still see with eyes accustomed to darkness. Alabaster white hands reached up from within the folds of the dark cloak and cast back a hood, revealing a sharp-featured, feminine face whose shockingly pale skin and jet-black hair were a sharp contrast. Slowly, she reached up to the blindfold of thin cloth that she’d wrapped around her eyes – thin enough to see through, thick enough to protect her from the worst of the sun – and unwound it slowly. The eyes that were revealed were large and dark, like those of all her kind, eyes that were made for the night. She wouldn’t need the blindfold again until dawn.

It had been a century and more since she’d been this far from Ydrisithalin and the court of the Lord of the City; she wondered how the world had changed in that time. She’d have to stop to ask someone about what had happened in Erresune since the fall of the Emperor-in-Shadow; she knew little beyond that which was pertinent to the Lord’s plans. Assuming, of course, that a human didn’t flee in terror at the sight of her; the Children of Night had left a memory of fear behind them. Perhaps she should keep her blindfold on and hood up. Though doing so might invite questions of its own.

She shook her head. These were thoughts for another time; for now, she had to keep moving, before the hunters caught her. Near here, she knew, there were hidden staircases that would take her down to the base of the cliff; she just needed to find one of them. Luckily, she knew the signs to look for.

One hand fell to her side, and lightly brushed the object she wore at her waist. The ruby on the stolen sword’s hilt flashed as if in anticipation, and she felt the blade shiver at her touch, almost as though the steel were alive. Perhaps, in some ways, it was.

Keeping a hand resting on the hilt, the renegade began to walk along the edge of the cliff, seeking the passage that would take her down to the realms of mortals, and to what she knew must await her there.

 

[MasterGhandalf]

New chapter! 

Spoiler

Chapter Four

The sound of practice swords clacking against one another echoed across the House Idaska gardens as two figures in padded grey training armor faced one another. Leira frowned, sweat beading her forehead as she locked eyes with her opponent; her brother Kenem grinned fiercely back at her. They looked very much alike; though it wasn’t always the case that pairs of male-and-female twins resembled one another so closely, and they were both past the age where passing themselves off as the other would be easily done, none would ever doubt that they were siblings. Of course, family resemblance or no, they weren’t alike in all ways. For one, the gods had seen fit to grant a much greater aptitude for, and interest in, swordplay to Kenem, which in the present circumstance struck Leira as rather unfair. But that didn’t mean she intended to let her brother win easily. People might say she walked with her head in the clouds more often than not, but damnation it, she had pride.

Kenem lunged forward and Leira managed – barely – to catch his blade on her own and hold it in blade. He grinned at her over the crossed swords. “Ready to give up yet?” he asked.

“Not on your life,” Leira shot back and disengaged. She started circling her brother warily, looking for an opening. Finally she tensed and lunged forward – only for Kenem to catch her blade on hers and with a clever twist of his wrist, send it flying. Not to mention, indignity of indignities, send Leira herself sprawling on the cobblestones on her bottom.

“I guess I win again,” Kenem said, lowering his sword. Leira scowled at him and raised her hand, tracing a series of quick sigils into the air in front of her and forcing her will through them. A simple spell, combining sigils for “water,” “cold” and some general directions, but it was enough to make the sigil construct flash brightly in the air where she’d marked it – which in turn formed a small patch of ice directly under Kenem’s feet. He gave a startled shout as he slipped and fell backwards, landing in the exact same undignified pose his sister had found herself in mere moments ago.

Leira stood and dusted herself off. “You were saying, little brother?” she asked, giggling at his stunned expression.

“You cheated,” Kenem muttered good-naturedly. “We never agreed magic was allowed in that bout. And besides, I’m all of twenty minutes younger than you are. Not really worth rubbing my face in, is it?”

“We never agreed not to use magic, either,” Leira pointed out. “And those were clearly a very long twenty minutes.” So far as Erresunin inheritance law was concerned, those twenty minutes were, in fact, very long indeed – long enough to make the difference that Leira was House heir and Kenem was not, in any case. But that was not a topic the twins much cared to dwell on, for a number of reasons.

“Good game, though,” Leira said, walking over to her brother and helping him to his feet. The ice was already dissipating. “Even if you still can’t recognize a sigil construct when you see one.”

Kenem laughed and stretched. “What do I need to learn magic for, anyway?” he asked. “I’ve got you for that. And you’ve got me for beating people up who annoy you, so we’re even.”

Leira quirked an eyebrow at him. “Well then, care to go again?” she asked. “Maybe this time I’ll get lucky.”

“Not if you promise beforehand you won’t cheat,” Kenem said in a mock-serious tone. Leira chuckled at his expression but stopped as they heard the sound of a throat clearing loudly behind them.

Both siblings turned to regard the stately woman clad in a gown of green and gold. The Lady Petra Idaska was a formidable woman of powerful presence, something of which both her children were very well aware. For now she was smiling calmly at them, but there was something guarded in her gaze this afternoon. Leira felt her heart sink at the realization; their small attempt to block out the present situation beyond the House Idaska compound was over.

“Well, children,” Petra said, “it certainly sounds as if you’ve both been enjoying yourselves.” He gaze flickered to the scuffs on their clothing and over to the small puddle that was all that remained of the ice Leira had conjured. “But the time for play is, alas, over. Walk with me.”

She turned and began to glide down the garden path, Leira and Kenem hurrying to keep up. “What’s going on?” Leira asked. “Is there news from the city? Has something happened to Father?” It was now the third day since she’d been recalled from the Academy and Kenem from his training; from the little they’d heard, tensions were still high in the city, though nothing had broken out into outright violence yet, and their father had been meeting with various other officials to try and resolve the conflict. So far, they’d had little luck.

“Aedor is well; don’t worry,” Petra said, smiling at her daughter. “He just returned home from another meeting of the Assembly – or, I suppose, what’s left of it. It seems the unrest in the city continues, and there have been a few instances of violence. Arratus’s redbacks seem to have instigated most of the altercations by attacking members of Aedor’s or the queen’s factions, though there have been a few cases of the reverse; in all instances, the watch managed to restrain the perpetrators and locked them in the holding cells until they can cool off. Arratus and his followers seem to have largely holed up in their estates and refuse to come out until the Assembly apologizes for its treatment of them and promises to hold a vote on declaring war with Uraz.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Kenem broke in. “Arratus and his people started this mess; they should be the ones apologizing to the rest of us! And the Sultan of Uraz has been rattling his sabers for years, but I haven’t heard the slightest proof he’s planning to invade. The masters at the Institute don’t believe it, anyway.” As far as he was concerned, that settled it; Leira knew he revered his instructors, decorated veterans all.

“That may be so, but people do believe it,” Petra said. “Erresune hasn’t forgotten that Uraz marched with the Emperor-in-Shadow, never mind that none of Uraz’s leaders or warriors were even alive when that happened. And it’s easier to blame your problems on a foreign enemy than on the vagaries of the weather or your own countries failings. Even the most powerful leader can’t ignore the people forever, and Arratus has his redbacks out rallying up anti-Urazin sentiment, trying to force a vote in his favor.”

Petra paused, thoughtful for a long moment. “He has his redbacks, and… others. Strange men and women in black; there only seem to be a few of them, thankfully, but they’re apparently working with the redbacks. They say they’re priests of some sort, but they’re not from any order I’ve ever heard from. Apparently they’re declaring Erresune a land blessed by the gods, and though they don’t name any names, they seem to be implying that Arratus is the gods’ chosen champion.”

“They can’t be serious,” Leira said. “Even if Suil wanted to take a hand in running Erresune – not that he ever has before – why would he pick Arratus? Father says the only thing the man’s god for is causing trouble.” Suil, the Sun Lord, was considered the patron god of Erresune, and certainly the most widely worshipped there. At Leira’s side, Kenem nodded enthusiastically.

“These priests, whoever they are, don’t actually mention Suil by name, so it’s entirely possible they worship some other god,” Petra said. “Apparently no one has ever heard of them before, and the ones on the streets seem more interested in slogans than explaining their theology. Still, between them and the redbacks, they’ve created quite a stir. Aedor has been trying to convince the Queen to take direct action, but she’s been hesitant. Which is understandable – more than one monarch who has pushed their authority too far has found themselves deposed by the Assembly, after all – but frustrating in this case.”

“So, in other words, we’re still stuck with the situation exactly like it’s been,” Kenem grumbled.

“Maybe not,” a voice broke in; Leira grinned broadly to see her father come walking towards them, looking tired but pleased. “I’ve just received some interesting news.”

“What sort?” Petra asked. “I don’t suppose Arratus has renounced his title and decided to take up a new calling as a hermit in the mountains? I might have to throw a party in that case.”

Aedor smiled. “We’re not quite that lucky, unfortunately,” he said, “but we may be close. As I was leaving the Assembly, I happened to run into none other than Julin Benas – Ibban Arratus’s secretary. He said that his master had sent him to apologize for the recent unpleasantness, which was far more intense than he’d intended. He said that he knows Arratus is a hothead, but now that he’s cooled down, he wants to find a way to gracefully resolve matters and thinks that if he could speak to me privately, we might be able to handle things easier than the full Assembly could pulling things every which way.”

“Aedor,” Petra said slowly, “what did you agree to, exactly?”

“Arratus and a few of his men will be our guests for dinner this evening,” Aedor said. “I’ve invited a few of my supporters as well, but not so many it’ll scare him off. Benas said Arratus is genuinely regretful of his actions the other day and wants to mend the breach as soon as possible. I don’t know if I believe that, but I have to take the chance.”

“Father, are you saying Arratus is coming here?” Kenem asked.

“He is,” Aedor said. “And I want the both of you to be on your best behavior when he is. Which means I’ll expect you both at dinner this evening; you don’t need to talk, but you do need to make a good impression. Which means Leira, you are not to bring your books to the table, and Kenem, for the love of Suil, don’t challenge Arratus to a duel.” Kenem’s face fell, and Leira hid her smile behind a hand – she was reasonably certain he’d been intending exactly that. She did not bring books to the dinner table, though. At least not often. Well, not very many.

All right, maybe her father had a point.

Petra glanced up at the sky, and then back at her children. “It will be evening soon,” she said. “I must go and tell the servants to expect company; both of you had better get dressed. You are not meeting Ibban Arratus in training leathers with grass stains on their knees. Understood?”

“Yes, Mother,” the twins chorused as one, and then turned and hurried off towards the main mansion.

///

When they were gone, Petra turned to Aedor, frowning. “You can’t believe Arratus is honest about this,” she said. “The man is a hothead, but he’s also clever. He’s planned every step of this, though I can’t figure how he means to profit by it.”

“I know,” Aedor said. “But the chance to meet him face to face, no matter how small our odds of actually resolving anything, was worth it. At least, it will give me more of a sense of his plans, and he won’t try anything in my home, surrounded by my guards.” He caught his wife in an embrace and leaned in close. “And besides, don’t you think I’m a match for Ibban Arratus?”

“I know you are,” Petra smiled and kissed him. “But it’s my place to worry about you.” She pulled away, looking concerned. “I’ll tell the guards to double their watch, just in case. Whatever Arratus is planning tonight, I don’t intend to let him get away with it.”

///

Leira picked at her meal for a long moment that seemed to stretch into an eternity, shoving a piece of potato idly around her plate without being able to bring herself to eat it. She was dressed in a fine green and gold gown, similar to that which her mother wore, if slightly less grand. It was elegant and fashionable, but unfortunately, those qualities did not equate to “comfortable.” Down the table, at their father’s right hand, Kenem looked about as comfortable as she felt, dressed in a fine but stiff doublet in the same colors. The twins shared a wary look out of the corner of their eyes, and then turned back to face their guests, who sat across from them on the other side of the table, and whose presence would have prevented the meal from being comfortable no matter what outfits they were wearing.

Ibban Arratus was a handsome man, younger than Aedor or Petra but still a good ten years older than the twins at least. His garments were dashing and fiery red in color; his dark hair and beard were both short and neatly trimmed, and he had a friendly manner and a winning smile. Still, there was something about him that made Leira squirm inside, something cold and appraising that made her think that the affable exterior was, if not entirely feigned, at least a cover for something far more dangerous that lurked inside. Maybe she’d just heard too many stories about her father’s political nemesis and was imagining things. Maybe.

Arratus’s assistant, Julin Benas, was the opposite of his lord in every way; middle-aged and balding, he was a rather mousy man who was thoroughly unremarkable in every way. He seemed harmless enough – his table manners were finicky, almost fussy, and he generally seemed like the sort of man who’d be far more at home in an office than on a battlefield. But then, Leira’s father had always said that the stroke of a pen wielded by mild-mannered men in bright rooms could cause far more death than the sharpest swords. She wondered how many people had died as a result of documents Benas had affixed his lord’s seal to before calmly moving on to the next item of business.

“A fine meal, Aedor,” Arratus said, pushing his empty plate away; a servant hurried over and collected it. “Your chefs are to be commended. They’re better than mine, anyway. I might have to see about hiring some of your people away one of these days.” He flashed a roguish grin.

“You’re welcome to try, Ibban,” Father said, pausing to wipe his face carefully with a napkin. “But if I’m not mistaken, you didn’t come here to discuss my cooking staff. You want something. What is it?”

“Always so serious,” Arratus said, chuckling. “But you’re not wrong. I didn’t come here to enjoy your hospitality, but to make peace between us – even if it meant putting myself in your power for the evening to prove my sincerity. Honestly, this whole situation is quite out of hand. Don’t you agree?”

“I do,” Aedor said slowly. “But I’m surprised to hear you say it. After all, it was your denouncing of the Assembly and storming out of the session that lead to this ‘situation’ in the first place. Do you deny it?”

“Honestly, no,” Arratus said. “I’ll admit, I lost my temper and said some things I shouldn’t have. A failing of mine, as I’m sure you’re aware. Unfortunately, my supporters are an… enthusiastic lot. They’re very passionate about the security and future of our country, and when they heard what had happened, they took to the streets in protest. Since I calmed down, I’ve been trying to rein them in, but, well, their passions are running high and I’m afraid they won’t stand down until they’ve seen their demands met.”

“So, is that why you’re here, Ibban?” Petra asked, speaking for the first time. “To threaten us with a mob if we don’t give in? Hardly gentlemanly of you. And when will their ‘demands’ be met? When we’ve marched an army into Uraz to put the Sultan’s head on a pike?”

“Which would be a foolish act,” Aedor put in. “Uraz has never been our friend but they are not, for the moment, our enemy either, and openly declaring war on them would only serve to alienate every other nation on the continent, including our allies. To say nothing of the fact that while Uraz is not as strong as Erresune, they are no minor power, either. The conquest of Uraz would not come easily.”

“Oh, for Suil’s sake, that isn’t what I want,” Arratus said, raising a hand. “Are you surprised? I’m not a warmonger, Aedor, whatever you may think. I am a realist. And I tell you that the Sultan of Uraz would like nothing more than to avenge his nation’s defeat in the War of Shadows a century ago, and if the more militaristic elements of his court are successful in prevailing on him that we are weak enough to attack, he will do it. We must be seen as strong; for too many years we’ve allowed ourselves to rest on our laurels, but I say that must end. All I want is an increase in our strength along the southern border, enough to defeat any attack that might come from Uraz.”

“Such a gesture could well be seen as an act of war by itself,” Aedor said. “If the Sultan fears it is a prelude to an attack on Uraz, he could well decide to strike us first, whether we actually meant to attack him or not.”

“Or it might be enough to make him think twice before attacking,” said Arratus. “You call it an act of war; I call it preventing a war before it begins.”

“Perhaps,” said Petra. “But I have noticed, Ibban, that so far you have said nothing about these so-called priests who have been stirring up your followers. They, at least, certainly seem eager for war.”

“I’ve said nothing because they’re not technically part of my faction,” said Arratus. “They’re a new cult, and I’m honestly not sure where they come from. They’ve thrown their support to me, but I never asked for it, and honestly, my people are trying to convince them to back off. As flattering as their endorsement of me is, it’s not an element we need to deal with right now, don’t you agree?”

“Quite,” Aedor said, and stood, taking Petra’s hand. “I fear we’re boring my children and I feel we’re reaching matters that are sufficiently sensitive they should be discussed more privately. Would you and your man be willing to accompany us to my study?” Bored? Leira thought irritably. She knew that her father had intended to move the discussion to more private quarters eventually, in the hope that being away from potential spies might make Arratus open up more, but it still rankled. She was young, but she wasn’t a child, and Kenem wasn’t either.

“Of course,” Arratus said, standing. He looked over at Kenem and Leira and smiled. “Speaking of your children, I hear from my sources that they are very promising in their studies and training. It’s good to know that House Idaska’s future is in good hands.”

Something about the way he said it made the hair on the back of Leira’s neck stand on end, but she brushed the feeling aside and bowed politely in response. “Thank you for the compliment, Lord Arratus. We’ll do our best to be worthy of it.”

“No doubt,” Arratus said. “Shall we?” he turned and followed Aedor and Petra from the dining room, his mousy little assistant following close behind.

“Hey,” Kenem said suddenly. “Benas, right? Julin Benas? You’ve been awfully quiet during all of this. Do you have any thoughts you’d like to share?”

“I, of course, support my lord in all things,” Benas said stiffly. “It is my place to help carry out his wishes, not to question them. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He followed the others from the room, letting the door shut behind him.

“Odd fellow, isn’t he?” Kenem muttered as they left. “Both of them, really.”

“Yes,” Leira agreed. “Not what I was expecting, anyway. I wonder what they really want?”

///

Later that evening, Ibban Arratus sat back in his carriage as it left the Idaska estate, folding his hands in front of him and looking across the vehicle to Benas. “Well, my lord,” the little man said, “I thought that went rather well.”

“Don’t think, Julin; you’re not properly equipped for it,” Arratus said, smiling. “Just do, and do efficiently as ever, and that will be enough.” He’d made a show of contrition, agreeing to appear tomorrow before the Assembly and officially apologize for his actions and demand that a token increase in the border garrisons in recompense. Of course, that wouldn’t be enough to satisfy what he really wanted; not by any measure. He was an ambitious man, and always had been, but he hadn’t lied to old Idaska and his wife about his dedication to Erresune. Above all things, Ibban Arratus was a patriot – perhaps the most dedicated patriot Erresune had in this generation. And he intended to raise his country’s star higher than it had ever been raised before. Even if that meant dealing with those whom he would have otherwise avoided.

But first, there were certain steps that had to be taken. Regrettable steps, but necessary ones, if things were to develop as they must.

“I don’t suppose my lord was convinced to change his mind?” Julin asked hesitantly. “I don’t like dealing with these… people.”

“I’m afraid not,” Arratus said. “And I don’t like the Guild either, but we work with what we’ve been given, and they are the proper tool for the job. I wish it could have been otherwise, but…” he let the sentence trail off, and sighed. “I’ve made my gesture. Send the order. It’s time.”

///

Aedor Idaska sat quietly in his study, alone. His wife and children had gone to bed, and their guests had departed, and he was alone. And troubled. Arratus had given in too easily; he was certain the man had an ulterior motive, but he couldn’t yet fathom what that might be. But the breach had to be healed before the unrest in the city could be ended. And that was only one piece of a larger set of troubles. As Chief Minister, countless reports passed Aedor’s desk, and lately, most of them had been bad. The Sultan of Uraz was indeed making noise in the south, though Aedor didn’t credit the man with the power or intelligence to be a true threat the way Arratus did. This new giant jarl, in the north, was more concerning, but it was difficult to get human spies into giant country and as yet no one was quite sure what his ambitions were. And there were other troubling signs. The shadows move, his agents reported, an old code phrase, seldom used these days, that put fear in Aedor’s heart.

Equally troubling, the queen had become distant lately. She’d refused to involve herself in this Arratus matter, even as a mediator, and that was unusual – and disturbing. She was usually open with Aedor, but during their most recent meetings she’d been distant and distracted and had quickly shooed him away. He wasn’t used to such treatment and he wondered what the change portended.

Sighing, Aedor, unrolled a parchment on his desk and began to write a quick letter to an old friend, someone who might know more about what was going on in the world – and might be able to help his family, should the worst happen. After the letter was finished, he quickly rolled it up and sealed it, then rang for his secretary to come and send it away with a messenger bird at once. That done, he sent the man home for the night and then, finally, retired to his bedroom and laid down beside his wife and slept.

 

[MasterGhandalf]

New chapter! 

Spoiler

Chapter Five

It did not take more than a day for the old tavern-keeper’s strange visitor to become the talk of the entire town of Kas Sinir. No orc, much less a wounded one coming to humans for help, had been seen in these lands since the last of the Lord of the Night’s armies had been routed, which was before anyone still living had been born, and so now a small crowd was milling around the tavern, hoping to get a look at the mysterious creature. Not pressing too close, though – one could never know for sure just which of the tales about orcs were true, and no one was of much mind to try their luck and possibly find themselves on the inside of the creature’s stomach.

Deverim, for his part, had yet seen no evidence of human-eating tendencies from his unexpected houseguest, though the orc – who had yet to volunteer his name – could put away bread and mutton in such amounts as to shame even the heartiest human appetite. His appetite wasn’t the only exceptional quality he had, though. Old Ayda the healer had changed the bandages on the orc’s wound and given him something foul-smelling to drink – for the pain, she said – that he’d thankfully accepted without complaint, but when she’d come back in the morning, she’d confided in Deverim that the orc’s wound had healed miraculously quickly during the night. He wasn’t well, certainly, but it looked like he’d been resting for days rather than hours. Maybe orcs just healed faster than humans, she muttered in bemusement; Deverim, for his part, wondered about the glyphs tattooed on the orc’s skin, and whether, perhaps, he’d found some inkling of their true purpose.

Such thoughts were on his mind as he pushed open the bedroom door at midday, bringing a meal with him on a wooden tray. He found the orc sitting up in his bed, staring down at the back of his hands as if deep in thought himself. Deverim cleared his throat loudly and the orc sat up and regarded him intently. “I brought you your midday meal,” he said, refusing to bend before that predator’s stare despite every deeply buried instinct telling him to be afraid. “Regardless of how fast you heal, Ayda assures me that you need to eat to keep your strength up. And it seems to me that you need quite a bit; luckily, food and drink are things which I can provide.”

The orc took the tray and picked up a roll from it; he sniffed the bread appreciatively, then bit off a large hunk and began to chew. After he swallowed, he turned his attention back to Deverim. “Ayda,” he rumbled. “She is the healer who tended me? You may tell her she has my thanks. As do you.”

“From what she says, you hardly seemed to need it, but I will do so,” Deverim said.

The orc regarded him for a long moment. “Why did you help me?” he finally asked. “I am not your kind, not one of your people. Most humans would call my people monsters; sometimes, they would not be wrong. But you helped me. Why?”

“It seems strange that you are surprised by that,” Deverim observed. “After all, you came to me for help. Most enthusiastically, as well. I will need to see about replacing my door before long. That does not strike me as the action of a man – or orc – who expects to be turned away.”

The orc snorted. “I expected nothing,” he said. “I was desperate, wounded and bleeding. I needed somewhere to rest, and food, or I would be dead before I had a chance to complete my journey. Yours was simply the first village I came to.”

“Desperation,” Deverim said. “Yes, I understand that. But whatever faults I may have, I will not turn away a traveler in need. Few in this land will, unless they are truly dissolute and corrupt. This is a hard land, and we who live here learned long ago to rely upon the hospitality of others, and to extend it in turn. And too, it is the command of El and Hokmah – succor the widow, the orphan, and the outcast. I do not know about the first two, but you, my friend, seem at least to be the last of those.”

“El?” the orc asked. “Hokmah? I do not know those names. They are your rulers?”

Deverim chuckled. “They are our gods,” he said. “El, the lord of heaven, and his consort Hokmah, Lady Wisdom. The patron god and goddess of Uraz.”

“Ah,” the orc said, nodding. “My people have no gods, for no gods came to succor us in all the long years we toiled and fought beneath the whips of the daarash’khal, the Night-Children. But we revere the spirits and memories of our ancestors, and some of their commands to us are not so different.”

“Your people?” Deverim asked. “Forgive me if this subject is painful, but I was under the impression that there were very few of you left – if any. To be honest, you are the first orc I have ever met.”

“We live,” the orc rumbled, “but we are few. Once, our legions stretched from horizon to horizon, but when the Emperor fell, we were broken, scattered. The daarash’khal had a hold on our souls, and when it was severed, we were scattered to the winds. But we were free, for the first time in our existence. Those of us who survived banded together and fled far from the lands of men, in caves and mountains, there to try and build a new life for ourselves. Until now.”

“Until now,” Deverim murmured. “And why now has an orc warrior come down from his secret fastnesses in the mountains and into my sleepy little village?”

“I did not come here,” the orc said. “I was passing nearby, on my way to another place, when I was ambushed and wounded. I came here because I was hungry, tired and in pain, and this was the first settlement I found. I did not know what manner of folk lived here, or what it was called. I still don’t.”

“The village is Kas Sinir,” Deverim said. “Of the land of Uraz, though here we are near the borders. To the north lies the badlands, which no nation now claims; west of that lie the barren Plains of Maradd, which no nation would dare to claim. And beyond them both lies the land of Erresune, our age-old… rival.” He paused. “And I am called Deverim an-Mahtar.”

If the orc recognized that name, he gave no reaction. “It is to the north I must go,” he said. “To the land you call Erresune and beyond. And since you offer your name, I will offer mine. I am Harkosh, of the Clan of the Broken Spire. And I am in your debt.” Harkosh stuffed the rest of his roll into his mouth and picked up a sausage from his plate with fingers remarkably dexterous for their size. Swallowing, he studied Deverim for a long, quiet moment. “You were a soldier,” he finally said. It wasn’t a question.

“I was,” Deverim admitted. “For many years. Until I realized that there were better things I could do with my life than keep on fighting to support a ruler I could no longer believe in.” He met the orc’s gaze. “I imagine you understand that feeling as well.”

“I do,” Harkosh rumbled, looking thoughtful. “Better, perhaps, than you can know. Tell me, human – what do you know of my kind?”

Thoughts of all the terrible stories he’d ever heard of orcs flashed through Deverim’s mind, and he thought it best not to bring them up now. Harkosh seemed a surprisingly pleasant sort, but, well, few were the people – man or orc – who would react well to being told their race was famed as murderous cannibals. “Many things,” he finally said, in a neutral tone. “Though I expect few of them are accurate.”

Harkosh threw back his head and laughed. “That is often so!” he finally said. “And not just regarding human knowledge of orcs! But know that while we do not speak of our origins to outsiders, we are an old people, and if we are not so long-lived as the daarash’khal or their cousins, our lives are still longer than yours. Far longer. For five hundred years, I fought in the Emperor’s legions, knowing nothing else. Not just a soldier, but a slave – given no option of escape save for that offered by death. Until the Emperor fell and we were freed – but even then, hunted as monsters by those who thought we had fought for him of our own will. Do you understand, Deverim an-Mahtar? I was there, that day on the fields of Erresune; the day the Emperor was defeated once and for all.”

Deverim felt his mouth go dry at the thought. This creature had walked the battlefield alongside his own ancestor – and now sat here before him, very much alive. It beggared the imagination! “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I didn’t know.”

Harkosh waved his hand. “I did not expect you to.” He paused to swallow his sausage whole, then seemed to consider something. “You helped me when you did not have to,” he said. “And you listened with respect, when few humans would have thought to do so. Therefore, I am in your debt. I will tell you something of my mission, that you may know why it is I have come to your town and your home.”  

He drew a deep breath, seeming to consider where to begin. “My home, most recently, has been at the Broken Spire, a mountain in – I do not know what your name for the range is, to the east and south of these lands. There, some among my kind fled after the Emperor fell and there we sought to make a new life, away from the wars of men and elves and giants. For many years, it seemed that we had succeeded. Inasmuch as is possible for we who were born to fight, we knew peace. Then, something changed. When our elders cast their omens and consulted the spirits of our ancestors, they became troubled. The omens warned of a great danger, and the elders’ dreams were troubled. They saw a great serpent devouring the sun, and they were sore afraid of what it might mean.” Deverim’s breath caught at that, for he recognized that vision; the serpent swallowing the sun, an image associated with old gods and old legends, spoken of only in whispers, but never forgotten. Never that. But Harkosh pressed on.

“The elders grew troubled, debated with each other about what was to be done,” he said, “and then, in the midst of their councils, one of the daarash’khal appeared, cloaked all in black. We were amazed, and afraid, for we had believed they had all been killed in the last war, but he was very much alive. He spoke to the elders of the old alliances between our peoples – as if we had been their equals and not fodder for their wars – and that his master meant to renew them. He said that soon, there would be opportunities for glory and plunder for all, if we would but renew old allegiances. The elders told him that the Emperor was dead, and we would fight for his kind no more. He laughed and said that this was a new age, and that the Emperor who was dead was our master no longer, but that soon, we would be needed – in Erresune. He told the elders he would give them time to think, and then, he vanished as suddenly as he had come.

“The elders were furious, for we had long ago vowed that we would never be slaves again, no matter how honeyed this creature’s words. But they determined that they must know more, so one was sent forth, to investigate the world of men and to travel to the north, to the Forest of Gilfannin, where the ellar’khal, that humans call elves, yet dwell. For they are as old as their cousins, and though there is too much blood between us for our races to ever be friends, they know much that is hidden. If anyone can unravel these riddles, it is they. The elders called on a warrior to serve as their emissary. And so, I was chosen. But after I set forth, as I crossed your land, I was waylaid by a daarash’khal assassin. I slew him, but not before he struck me with a shadowforged blade. And thus, I came to your village, and into your care. And now you know the net in which your actions have enmeshed you.”

Harkosh’s voice trailed off and he devoured another of the sausages on his plate; Deverim simply frowned, regarding his guest carefully, deep in thought.

///

Deverim bowed as he entered the small temple’s sanctuary, then looked up to take in the chamber around him. The room wasn’t large, it’s walls rough and plain; it was devoid of decoration save for the traditional depictions of the Sword of El and the Book of Hokmah on the far walls. And yet, it had always struck him that there was something soothing about this place – a small, rough temple in a small, rough town – that far grander structures in the heart of Uraz itself could never match.

The priest, Adiz, was clad in his usual white robes as he tended the sacred brazier in the center of the sanctuary. He was facing away from Deverim and humming a snatch of a familiar hymn to himself and didn’t seem to have noticed he had a guest; after waiting a respectful amount of time, Deverim cleared his throat loudly. Adiz started and turned towards his visitor. He was an older man, around Deverim’s own age, though his beard was shorter, and he was noticeably plumper. When he saw Deverim standing in the doorway, he smiled broadly.

“Ah, my friend, come in, come in!” he said. “Don’t worry about interrupting me; the fire is strong today, and I was almost done. What is it you would have of me?”

“Perhaps I am simply here to pay my respects to our most high gods,” Deverim said as he took a seat at one of the benches that surrounded the brazier; Adiz prodded the fire with his poker one last time and seemed to be satisfied, as he came over and took a seat beside him.

“But my friend,” he said, “people can pray at home, and they can do that without my help. When they come to see me and it isn’t for worship or a holy day, that is usually a sign that their hearts are troubled. So tell me – what troubles you?”

Deverim looked down at his hands where they rested in his lap, then back up at Adiz. “I trust you’ve heard about my houseguest by now?” he asked. Adiz chuckled.

“I’m a priest, not a hermit,” he said, “and I would likely have to be a blind and deaf hermit to have avoided hearing that. Your new friend has been the talk of the town.”

“And you do not think I am endangering my soul by consorting with such a being?” Deverim asked, though this wasn’t truly the question he’d come to ask. Still, depending on Adiz’s answer, that might mean his true question wasn’t worth asking at all. Fortunately, the priest only laughed again.

“He hasn’t enticed you to join him in acts of slaughter and wickedness, has he?” he said, and laughed again at Deverim’s expression. “I didn’t think so. It seems to me that so far all you have done is to give aid to a weary and wounded traveler. The gods smile on such things, as you know. And no matter what sins their race may have been guilty of in the past, from what I have heard and read, the orcs are reasoning beings – and therefore, they have the capacity to discern right from wrong and choose between them. They are not soulless abominations, whatever those who have faced them in battle may say.”

“Thank you,” Deverim told him, privately relieved. “That’s what my interactions with my guest had led me to believe, but I wanted an expert’s opinion.” He sighed, pausing to consider how best to ask what he wanted to know. “Do you believe in fate?” he finally asked.

Adiz raised an eyebrow. “I am a priest,” he said. “But I think your question is more complicated than that. Do I believe our lives are a book that has already been written? No, for then, what would be the point? But I do believe that the gods sometimes have plans for us and set certain things in our paths in order to direct us towards those plans, but that it is our choice to decide how we will react to them. And only a fool thinks he knows for sure what that plan may be.”

“Yes,” Deverim said slowly, “that is what I believe as well. When I spoke with the orc – with Harkosh, as he names himself – earlier today, I thought I felt the hands of the gods on my shoulder. I think we were meant to meet, though I cannot say why. But he was no mere traveler who found himself lost on the borders of our little town.” Quickly, he summarized for the priest what Harkosh had told him of his mission. Adiz listened as he did so, eyes uncharacteristically grave. When Deverim finished, he sat back, looking thoughtful.

“A strange and remarkable tale,” he said. “And one which strikes me as ominous indeed. Do you see the orc’s coming to you as a sign, then? A call to arms, perhaps? One last adventure for the Blade of Heaven?”

“I don’t know, old friend,” Deverim said. “I feel called to act, but I don’t know what course of action to take. Counsel me, Adiz. What do the gods want me to do?”

“If I knew that, I would be a very wealthy man,” Adiz said. “Or strung up as a heretic for blaspheming by claiming it, of course. I am a priest, not a prophet. But our lore teaches us that when the gods made man, El gave us life, that we might move and act, and Hokmah gave us wisdom so that we may choose when and how to act. I cannot choose your path for you. But I do agree that this Harkosh’s tale is a troubling one, and the gods led him to you for a reason. It is you who must decide for yourself what that reason may be – and what you, Deverim an-Mahtar, are going to do about it.”

///

“I will be well in a few days,” Harkosh said, sitting up his bed and staring intently at Deverim. “Then I must go. My errand cannot wait.”

“Your healing is remarkable,” Deverim said, and nodded at the glyphs on the orc’s torso and arms. “Does it have something to do with… those? I’ve never seen the like before.”

Harkosh snorted. “It does,” he said, “but we do not speak of such things with outsiders, so I will tell you no more. But even so, I would have likely died had you not taken me in. Your hospitality is much appreciated, and I am in your debt.”

“You are most welcome,” Deverim said. “When you leave… I wish to go with you.”

The orc looked at him strangely; on a human face, his expression might have been called shock. “Why?” he finally said. “My errand is my own, and it is none of yours.”

“Because,” Deverim said, “I think I can help you. You were attacked already once; maybe you will be attacked again, and next time you won’t be so lucky. Unless, of course, you have someone to guard your back. I may be merely a frail, short-lived human, and I’m not as young as I once was, but I was once accounted a fair hand with a blade, and my skills have not entirely deserted me with age. I could be of use as a companion. And I can help you in other ways too. You are, if you will pardon my stating the obvious, an orc, and your journey will take you through human lands. You will not pass unnoticed. In Uraz, most people would take you for a monster – it will be worse in Erresune, where you say you must go on your way to this Gilfannin, for they have few fond memories of your kind there. They are not overly fond of we Urazin either, but there is trade between our nations, and my presence will be explainable in a way yours will not. Having someone to talk to people, to buy supplies if necessary and smooth over any disturbances that might arise, will make your journey far easier; that I promise you.”

He fell silent, and Harkosh regarded him thoughtfully. “And?” he finally asked.

“And I do not wish to remain here forever, tending my bar and hiding from the Sultan until age withers me altogether,” Deverim said quietly. “I cannot help but feel that my gods – and maybe your ancestors, too – brought us together for a reason, and I do not wish to let this pass me by, and then live with the regret of that along with all of my other regrets. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” Harkosh rumbled. “But I will remind you, this is no pleasure journey. I have been attacked already. Go with me, and you may die.”

Deverim grinned. “I have faced death before,” he said. “I am willing to risk it again, my new friend. If, that is, you will have me.”

Harkosh was silent for another long moment, seeming to weigh his ideas carefully against one another. Finally, he spoke. “I am alone in a strange land,” he said, “and it is a fool who is in that position and who turns away help that is freely offered. Your words have merit, and you have helped me already. Very well. If you wish to accompany on my road north, I will not turn you away.”

He held out one great grey hand; Deverim clasped it tightly in his own, much smaller brown one. Man and orc faced one another and nodded in agreement. They would take the road north together.

///

Three days later, the townsfolk of Kas Sinir gathered to see two strange travelers off – such a pair as had never been seen in the town before, and likely never would again. One was an orc who stood a head taller than a tall man, with broad shoulders and a body rippling with muscle under grey skin. A great axe was slung across his back, and though his side was still bandaged, he walked as if it did not pain him. He regarded the humans with cool appraisal as they gawked at him.

By his side was Deverim the old tavern keeper, who some in Kas Sinir knew had once worn a more famous name. Yet his demeanor was changed from what they knew, for he walked taller and straighter; his robes were clean, and his beard freshly trimmed, and he wore a fine scimitar at his side. His eyes were bright and steely, focused on the journey ahead, and some who knew him well, including Ayda the healer and Adiz the priest, thought to themselves that here they saw before them an echo of the Blade of Heaven as he had once been.

They had a donkey with them, walking beside them slowly to carry supplies. They made no speech or spectacle as they departed; they simply left Kas Sinir along the road to the north, the gathered crowd staring after them as they passed into the dry badlands and on towards what lay beyond, and whatever awaited them there.

 

[MasterGhandalf]

New chapter! 

Spoiler

Chapter Six

Ellisaine winced at the sharp sting of the unguent Lanyrilyn was rubbing into the gash on her shoulder. It had been carefully prepared and enchanted so as to be especially effective against curses and poisons, and she knew it would help her heal – but by the Tree, that didn’t make the stuff feel any more pleasant on her skin. A sharp hiss escaped her lips as Lanyrilyn’s nimble fingers gave a particularly vigorous rub, agitating the wound.

“Oh, hush,” the healer said, affection and mock irritation overlaying one another in her tone. “It’s for your own good and you know it.” Stepping back, she paused to admire her work critically for a long moment before picking up a roll of bandages from a nearby shelf and beginning to wind it. “And we both know you’ve had much worse. Still, you were lucky. Shadowforged steel is not a pleasant thing and would not be even if the blades were not so often poisoned. You were lucky the blades only grazed you – and that the assassin apparently wanted to gloat at you before killing you.”

“He said he was ordered to kill me and make sure I understood why,” Ellisaine said thoughtfully. “He was there for me personally, not just for any Guardian he might be able to ensnare. He knew that I’d traveled with Anitzaine and fought with her against his master during the war. In a way, I am lucky. Lucky that the assassin’s orders were such he wasn’t allowed to just put a knife in my back without my knowing until it was too late.”

“You’re sure he was one of the Emperor’s own hunters?” Lanyrilyn asked as she began to wind the bandage around Ellisaine’s arm. “I thought they all died with him during the War of Shadows, but then, I wasn’t there at that last battle before the walls of Hira Sentaria.”

“I was there,” Ellisaine murmured, “and I thought so too.” Memories rushed over her in a great wave of that final, terrible struggle on the plains of Erresune. The vast hosts of the orcs stretched as far as even elven eyes could see, with their Urazin and giant allies with them and the Children of Night on their black horses to command. The great form of the Emperor-in-Shadow himself, looking like some dreadful ancient god in his armor so black it seemed to have been forged from the darkness between the stars, his helm’s blank visor concealing his face; beside him walked Araktosh, commander of the orcish legions, and the robed and hooded form of Siltharannis, the priest of Night and chief of the Twilight Council, who stepped before the other two to offer terms of surrender on behalf of his silent Emperor. She remembered Anitzaine’s defiance and Siltharnnis’s anger; Araktosh ordering the assault and the terrible battle that followed, and of the victory that had at last come seemingly beyond hope…

Ellisaine blinked the memories away. That war was over. The Emperor-in-Shadow was dead, as were his lieutenants. And so were Anitzaine and Yngrulf and the rest of their companions, slain not in battle but that most terrible and, for mortals, inevitable of assassins, Time. She let Lanyrilyn finish her ministrations then stood, sliding her tunic’s sleeve back over her arm, and walked over to the small tower room’s nearest window.

The city of Celannien spread out below them, its graceful spires peeking through the tops of the trees that concealed the ground below. The elves built with nature, rather than against it; their city was truly a part of the forest, rather than some construction with fought against it. The towers themselves had a smooth, almost organic quality, as did the bridges that connected them; fancifully shaped, deceptively delicate, they were nonetheless strong enough to weather almost any storm. But now they were mostly empty, for the city’s population had shrunk to something far smaller than what it could hold. The elves of Gilfannin were a people in twilight, and the signs of that were everywhere.

Ellisaine could hear the rustle of Lanyrilyn’s grey healer’s robes behind her, and then felt a pair of slender arms that reached around her from behind and wrapped around her torso. “Are you brooding again?” Lanyrilyn asked, her voice, tickling Ellisaine’s ear. “Haven’t we talked about this?”

“We have,” Ellisaine said, turning to face her. “But I can’t help it. I am Guardian of a people who seem doomed to fade away within a bare handful of human generations. How can I not be?”

“Not all things have faded,” Lanyrilyn whispered. “Not you, and not me.” She leaned in to plant a quick kiss on Ellisaine’s lips, then pulled back. The sound of footsteps interrupted them, and both elves turned to see a third elf, a man in rich green royal livery, step through the door and into the small room. Ellisaine frowned as she recognized him – one of the Lady’s heralds.

“Guardian Ellisaine?” he said. “The Lady of Celannien requests your presence at once.”

“Then I must go,” Ellisaine said, sighing. She turned to Lanyrilyn. “I’m sort I have to run, but it seems you were right. Some things haven’t faded yet, and a royal summons is one of them.

 ///

Ellisaine took a brief stop in her private rooms lower in the tower to refresh herself, splashing water on her face and making sure her hair and uniform were properly arranged, and to fetch a heavy pack before following the herald out of the building and through the city. They saw few people as they passed through Celannien, and most of those ignored them – the city’s population was small enough, and sufficiently long-lived, that everyone mostly knew everyone, and even a famous Guardian attracted little attention. At last they arrived at the Lady’s audience hall.

Calling it a “hall” might be overstating the matter, for it had no roof and was left open through the heavens. The hall was ringed by a circle of white marble pillars with an arched opening through which guests were to pass; once inside was a grassy knoll that rose gently towards a central point where was planted an immense tree that towered far above the pillars or, indeed, any elf-built structure in the city. It had been a seedling, so the lorekeepers said, of the World Tree which had once grown in the elves’ long-vanished homeland before strife consumed it. Ellisaine could credit that tale, for she had seen no other tree quite like it in all her centuries of life. It wasn’t oak, or beech or ash or any other kind she knew – it was, simply and completely, itself, and it was a magnificent sight.

At the base of the Tree’s thick trunk, its roots had been coaxed by long, slow elvish arts to grow into the shape of a fine seat, and there sat Her Grace, Tatrisaine, Lady of Celannien, Protector of Gilfannin, and many other things beside. She appeared young, but then so did all elves at first glance, and that impression would not survive meeting her green eyes, which bore the weight of millennia behind them. Her features were considered beautiful – and indeed, many songs had been song of that beauty across the centuries – but her expression was cool, her eyes hard. Her clothing was simple, as this was not a Festival day; she wore a plain green tunic, almost long enough to be a dress save that it flared out in the back to leave the front open, revealing the Lady’s supple trousers and high boots. But her belt was of gold, as was the diadem she wore on her brow that held back her long black hair. Worked to resemble an intricately detailed circlet of leaves, it was the only outward sign of her position. She didn’t need anything else. She was Tatrisaine and needed no more to reinforce her authority than that simple fact.

Aside from a handful of silent heralds who stood in a half-circle at the base of the columns, the Lady was the only one present. So, this was not to be public, then. Thank the Ancients for small mercies.

“My lady,” Ellisaine said, bowing at the waist, “as you summon, so I come. What is your will?”

The Lady quirked an eyebrow at this, but if she found Ellisaine’s formality excessive, she gave no other sign. “You were attacked today, so I hear,” she finally said.

“I was, Your Grace,” Ellisaine said. “A Guardian’s life is not always an easy one. But this was different. Let me show you.” She dropped her pack to the ground and kicked it open; the assassin’s armor and weapons spilled out. For a moment, she had the satisfaction of seeing the Lady truly shocked; Tatrisaine stood from her seat and stared down at the mail and daggers, eyes wide. Then the moment passed, and the Lady was mistress of herself once again.

“I did not think it possible,” she said slowly. “I had believed that the Children of Night were broken with their Emperor and presented no further threat to us.”

“As did I,” Ellisaine said. “Clearly, it is not the case.”

Tatrisaine turned and began to pace before the Tree. “This is merely the latest of a series of troubling events which have reached my ears,” she said. “There is unrest in mortal lands, I hear, and neither Erresune nor Uraz have escaped it; they are both powerful, and what happens here may affect others before long. And too, I have been watching the giants to the north. They have been moving through the mountains on our Northern border in greater numbers lately, moving to the east. I have sent Guardians to speak with them and learned only that their new jarl commands them. A few, however, have let slip something about a mine. You were once friendly with a giant. Can you tell me any more?”

“I can’t,” Ellisaine said honestly. “My friend Yngrulf was a stone giant; this new jarl, Thursinn, is reportedly an ice giant. The two tribes are as different as we are from the Children of Night. I have no special insight to offer you.”

Tatrisaine sighed wearily. “It was too much to hope,” she said, and sat back in her throne at the base of the Tree. “But I fear that all of this cannot be coincidence, though I do not yet see the shape of it.”

This was the opening Ellisaine had hoped for. “Your Grace,” she said, “I am troubled as well. By your leave, I wish to travel from Gilfannin, to Erresune and perhaps to other lands, to see what I can learn of the movements of the Children of Night and how they are connected to these other events you mention. When I know more, I will return to you.”

“No!” Tatrisaine said, eyes flashing. “I forbid it!”

“But we cannot do nothing!” Ellisaine cried. “The world is changing around us – you say it yourself! And now a Child of Night tries to kill a Guardian within a day’s journey to this very city! Doesn’t this disturb you? Don’t you want to know more? Or would you rather we sit here in Celannien, gazing at our own reflections until the world passes us by for good?”

“Scouts will be sent,” Tatrisaine said. “You will not be one of them. The enemy has already proven they wish you dead; I will send those who will attract less attention. Remember your place, Guardian – and remember that we are not what we were even a century ago. We are a fading people, Ellisaine; another war would almost certainly be the end of us forever. Therefore, I must choose carefully before we act. The fate of our entire race hinges upon it. Do you understand me, Guardian?”

“Yes, Mother,” Ellisaine muttered under her breath. “I understand.” That she was the Lady’s daughter was not something that had significantly impacted her station in life – elves were a long-lived people, and died rarely enough that royal blood, by itself, was no guarantee that one would ever ascent to a position of power. But Tatrisaine cast a very long shadow to try and live up to, and though she had not been the most affectionate of parents, for affairs of state had often kept her away from her daughter’s life, Ellisaine still greatly desired to please her. Not that that seemed possible much of the time.

“Very well,” Tatrisaine said. “Your report is appreciated; you have given me much to consider. You are dismissed. Leave the shadowforged steel. I will examine it later.”

“Of course,” Ellisaine said. Love you too, Mother, she thought sarcastically, but resisted the urge to say so out loud. Some lines one simply didn’t cross. “By your leave, Your Grace.” Turning with a swirl of her cloak she left the audience chamber behind, disappointment filling her heard.

///

When her daughter was gone, Tatrisaine dismissed her heralds with a nod of her head and waited until she was alone with the Tree. Sighing, she rose from her throne and turned to face the mighty trunk. She studied it intently for long minutes, seeing no sign of any flaw or sickness in the wood, and then placed a hand flat against the bark.

At once, her mind was filled with the sensation of the great tree’s long, slow life. She could feel the slow movement of the sap beneath the wood, the roots that dug deep into the earth beneath her feet to draw up soil and water, the wind that rustled the leaves of the great canopy and the birds that made their nests in its high branches. And she felt its vast well of memory, more sensations than images, that stretched back across the countless years to the long-vanished homeland of the elves, from which it had been brought when it was little more than a sapling.

Yes, the Tree was old indeed – but it was not older than she herself, the Lady of the Forest who was one of the last living beings to have beheld the fair Isle of Elladonne, before darkness came and the island – and its people – was sundered. Together they stood for a time that seemed to both stretch for eons and to last for little more than a handful of heartbeats – Tatrisaine and the Tree, two of the oldest living beings to yet survive in the world, remnants of a long-forgotten age.

Tatrisaine knew she didn’t look old, but she felt it, a bone-deep weariness that grew greater every day. She who had been born in her people’s dawn had lived long enough to see their twilight. Time had borne her far from what she had once known, it’s inexorable river leaving behind her family and friends, the land where she was born, the husband she had loved, and now it was taking the new land she had made her own in Gilfannin. All that was left to her of her past was the Tree – and her daughter.

Tatrisaine understood Ellisaine’s rashness, her desire to do something – anything – to make the world right. But she also knew full well that some things could not be mended. She knew that she would not be able to restrain Ellisaine forever, but she could only try, nonetheless. The Lady had lost so much in her life and could not bear the lot of losing anything more – of losing the daughter who, despite all, she loved dearly and who had already passed through so many dangers already.

With a final sigh, Tatrisaine lifted her hand from the Tree and stepped back. Time never stood still, even for one such as she who had seen the passage of so many centuries, and there was work yet to do. Turning, she faced the pile of armor and weapons Ellisaine had brought. It must be studied, to see if she could determine which of the Emperor-in-Shadow’s minions it had belonged to, and who had sent him. Then it must be melted down, but carefully, and with great still.

Even when inert and wielded by no hand, shadowforged steel could be deadly. Tatrisaine had learned that long ago and taken the lesson to heart.

///

The same twilight sun that shown dimly above the Forest of Gilfannin also glimmered above a trail in southern Erresune, and the lone black-clad figure that walked along it with her hooded head bowed. Here, too, the land was forested, if not as thickly as the fabled woods to the north, and the sun was blocked enough this late in the day that the renegade had decided to risk traveling before it had fully set. She had to make haste, after all, and she dared not lose even an hour on her journey. Her destination still lay far ahead, and she had no doubt that pursuit lay behind. And so she had resolved, staring out from the small cave where she had slept for most of the day, that she should head out early, before night had fully fallen.

It had been several days since she’d descended the plateau and left the Plains of Maradd behind; so far, she had seen few humans on her journey. This part of Erresune, she recalled, was sparsely populated, and that did not seem to have changed much over the course of a century. She had passed a few villages, but had taken care to avoid them, save for once when she’d been unable to ignore the rumbling of her stomach and had stopped to buy food. The innkeeper had been surprised by the make of coins she’d offered him as much as by the fact that she’d kept her hood up and her face muffled, but he hadn’t asked questions and had given her the meal she’d ordered.

There was a time anyone who lived so near to Maradd would have been more suspicious. The humans had lost much in the century since the War. It remained to be seen what they’d gained.

A sudden rustling in the underbrush drew the renegade’s attention; her pointed ears twitched at the sound beneath her hood. For a moment, panic rose in her chest – had she been found? – but then it subsided. The rustling was too loud, too clumsy. She wouldn’t have heard her own people until they were upon her, and the sounds weren’t right for animals. Humans, she decided; humans were stalking her. She could almost have laughed.

She stopped in the middle of the trail and waited with her arms crossed patiently over her chest. A moment later, a human in rough clothing and with a drawn sword in one hand stepped out into the middle of the path in front of her; there were two others just behind him, a woman and another man, and all three of them regarded her with cold eyes. She could hear rustling behind her and new that a comparable number had also stepped out from that angle, to prevent her from escaping. She was surrounded.

“Well, well,” the leader said. “When my people and I stopped at that stinking little village yesterday, imagine our surprise when we heard that we’d just missed a rich girl traveling alone, dressed in a fine cloak and paying with coins no one had ever seen before. We thought, that might just be worth a look in between ambushing caravans coming out of Uraz, and sure enough, here you are. Just like the innkeeper described – a blind girl all by herself, wearing a real pretty black cloak and probably with a big fat money pouch, too. Our lucky day.”

Blind? Ah, he’d seen her blindfold, then, and mistaken its purpose. Another human who’d forgotten much – one who didn’t remember what strange, black-clad travelers with light-sensitive eyes signified, or that his kind should steer well clear of them. No, the man clearly had no idea what he’d gotten himself into – his every word made that plain. “I don’t know what possessed you to travel these parts by yourself,” the man went on, “but it was a mistake. Doesn’t have to be a fatal one, though. We’re not monsters. Just fork over that cloak, and that fine sword, and whatever coin you have on you, and we’ll let you go. How does that sound?”

Finally, the renegade spoke. “I have no quarrel with you,” she said. “But I am on an errand that cannot wait. You will remove yourself from my path now. I did not come to this land to deal with you.”

The robber laughed. “Yeah, well, that may be, but you’re here now, and wearing a cloak and a sword that will fetch a fine price in any city in Erresune. Now, I don’t feel like beating up a skinny blind girl, so I’ll give you another chance. Hand over your valuables, and we let you go. Now.”

“You are rude,” the renegade said. “And my patience grows thin. Get out of my way, now. I do not wish to harm you, but I will, if I must.”

“You don’t want to hurt us?” the robber asked. “Girl, you’re outnumbered six to one. Those aren’t good odds, no matter how nice that sword of yours is. And we don’t have all night either. Take her.”

The renegade sighed. “I warned you,” she whispered, and then she threw back her cloak and drew her sword from its sheath. It hissed as it came free, and the robbers around her muttered in surprise, for the blade was black – so black that it scarcely seemed to be made of metal; rather, it appeared to be a piece of the inky blackness between the stars, pulled down from heaven and forged into a weapon. This was no mere shadowforged steel – it was one of the Fangs of Night. Only a handful of those weapons had ever been made, and only this survived, kept locked in a vault in Ydrisithalin. It had not been easy for the renegade to steal it.

The robbers were taken aback for only a moment, and then their circle around her began to tighten again. But the sun was almost to the horizon, now, and the forest was growing dark – dark enough. The renegade stepped into shadows and vanished from their sight. She was not invisible, not truly, but close enough that seeing her would require greater skill, and keener senses, than any of these human louts possessed. She could have escaped then easily enough, but that went against her training. No Daughter of Night left enemies behind her when she had the option otherwise.

And so, the renegade began to kill.

She danced among the robbers, the Fang light and deadly in her hands. Every so often one of them caught a glimpse of her as she moved and tried to strike her, but they were no match for her speed; they might as well have been batting at the air. They themselves were not so fortunate. The Fang hissed and spat as it cut through their weapons and crude armor as effortlessly as it would through cloth. Pieces of swords and axes clattered to the ground followed by the bodies of the wielders – bodies that bore cuts that did not bleed, and yet for a moment after they were inflicted smoked at the edges. No one who received such a blow could stand for long. One by one, the robbers fell.

Finally, the leader broke away and turned to flee down the path, determined to save his own skin at the expense of his fellows. The renegade hissed a single word – coward – under her breath and ran forward, easily keeping pace with the slower, heavier human. The she pulled slightly ahead, stepped into his path, and dropped from the shadows. The man’s eyes widened as he saw her appear seemingly from the air in front of him, but it was too late to stop. He slammed into the Fang as she held it before her, and it pierced deep into his chest. He threw back his head and screamed, and then the black smoke poured from his eyes and mouth and he slid off the blade, lifeless, to the ground.

“I warned you,” the renegade said as she raised the Fang; as ever, the blade bore no bloodstain and required no cleaning, and she slid it quietly back into its sheath. “But you did not listen.” She rested a hand on the ruby on the sword’s hilt; the weapon seemed almost sated, now.

From where the other robbers lay in a circle, she heard the sound of fitful stirring; walking over, she saw that one of them – the woman – wasn’t quite dead yet. The renegade bent down beside her, staring at the human’s haggard face in quiet contemplation, listening to her ragged breathing.

The woman’s eyes looked up at her killer, disbelief written in them along with pain. “What in hell are you?” she managed to breathe. The renegade reached up and cast back her hood. The human woman’s eyes widened at the sigh of alabaster pale skin, night-black hair and sharply pointed ears. At last, it seemed, she realized what she faced.

“Thought all you people were dead,” the robber gasped – then, surprisingly, she managed a choking laugh. “Should’ve guessed it, though. Who else would travel these parts alone? Just our luck, eh? Just our bloody luck!” She laughed again, but this time it quickly degenerated into a hacking cough, and then she fell completely still, her blank eyes staring up at the darkening sky.

The Child of Night knelt by the robber’s corpse for a long time, drawn by a fascination she could not have explained. Then she stood slowly, cast her hood back up, and resumed her journey north along the forest path. She did not look back.

 

[MasterGhandalf]

New chapter! 

Spoiler

Chapter Seven

Leira woke suddenly, her dream shattered into wakefulness as she blinked her eyes open to find her mother bending over her. Despite herself she gave a startled squeak and sat up in her bed, pulling her nightgown protectively around herself.

“Don’t be frightened,” Petra said. “It’s only me. Get up, quickly, and get dressed, then come with me. This is important; don’t dawdle.”

“Get dressed?” Leira repeated in incomprehension. Her eyes slid down from her mother’s face and she saw that Petra was wearing a sturdy dress such as might be appropriate for riding, with a cloak thrown over her shoulders – and was that a bow and quiver handing over her shoulders? Her mother liked to hunt, she knew, and was a more-than-fair markswoman, but she never did anything so crass as go about armed in the house! That had to mean… could only mean… “Mother,” Leira finally managed to say, “what is going on?”

“I’ll explain in a little bit,” Petra said, but Leira didn’t miss that her tone was worried. “Just get dressed for traveling, and get whatever you need to defend yourself, and then meet me in the hallway. Understand?” Leira nodded, and her mother turned and swept from the room.

Her head was spinning now, possible reasons for her mother’s strange behavior rushing through her mind, each more terrible than the last. Had Arratus done something? No, he was gone, she remembered that now. Not Arratus, then, or his sneaking little helper. Something else. But what? Clambering out of bed, Leira rushed to her wardrobe and began rummaging through the clothing within. Ignoring her fine court dresses or her student’s robes – none of those seemed liable to fit what her mother had told her to wear – she finally pulled on a set of hunting leathers and a hooded cloak. Remembering Petra’s warning that she needed to defend herself, she grabbed her sword off its stand and buckled it around her waist. Her heart thudded in her chest – she knew she wasn’t that good with the weapon, nothing like Kenem – but it was certainly better than nothing. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she grabbed her satchel of books and scrolls that she’d brought from the Academy and slung it over her shoulder. She was a wizard – or, well, was studying to be one, even if she didn’t feel she was quite all the way there yet. But in any case, she understood that sometimes books and scrolls could be the most dangerous weapons of all.

She rushed out into the hallway then and found her mother waiting for her; Petra had the bow in her hand now, though she didn’t seem to have used it yet, and she breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of her daughter. “Very good,” she said. “Come with me; quickly now!”

Leira followed her down the corridor and into the mansion’s main hall; she found her father and brother waiting there, along with several guards in House Idaska livery. Kenem looked as tired and confused as she probably looked herself, and definitely felt, though he perked up a bit when he saw her. Like her, he was dressed for travel and wore his sword, though it looked rather more comfortable on him than she was sure her own did.

“Any idea what’s going on?” Kenem asked as she hurried over to his side. “Father pulled me out of bed, but he won’t explain anything.”

“Mother’s been giving me the same treatment. What time is it, anyway?” she asked. The House Idaska mansion only had a few clocks, and she hadn’t had a chance to look at any of them yet.

“About an hour before dawn,” Petra said, sweeping over to her husband. “Has anything else happened, Aedor?”

“Not yet,” Leira’s father said, frowning. She watched him with concern; Aedor Idaska being visibly rattled was a rare thing, and it could only mean that other terrible things were happening to make it so. “But it will; I know that much.”

“Will someone please tell me what is going on?” Kenem demanded; Leira nodded in agreement.

Aedor sighed. “Less than an our ago,” he said, “one of our house guards was assaulted in the courtyard. The attacker killed him, but not before he called for help; the rest of the guards managed to bring the man down, but not without killing him. When they did, they found a curious tattoo on the inside of his wrist, small enough to escape notice unless you were deliberately looking for it – a bird’s head, done all in black. The mark of an initiate of the Raven Guild.”

Leira drew a sharp, horrified breath. The stories of the Raven Guild were as legendary as Anitzaine the Great – and far more terrifying. They said that the Guild was composed of only the most ruthless and capable assassins, and that they were trained from childhood. That they used dark and dangerous magics in their methods, and once they accepted money to kill someone, they never gave up until the target was dead. The Guild had been destroyed a half-dozen times during Erresune’s history, but it always came crawling back out of the shadows sooner or later. If even half the stories about the Guild were true…

“I thought they were destroyed,” Kenem finally said. “I thought the Queen had the Ravens rooted out years ago.”

“The Guild always comes back,” Aedor said. “I don’t know if it’s because new groups of assassins and criminals like to revive the name for the sake of its reputation or if it’s actually a continuous organization that just plays dead every so often to make people think it’s been uprooted, but either way, I saw the dead man, and I recognized the symbol. The Raven Guild is back, and someone has hired them – to kill me, or maybe all of us.”

“But you said he died,” Leira said, finally finding her voice. “The assassin died, right?”

“The Ravens never work alone, dove,” Aedor said sadly. “There were others out there, I’d wager anything. Scared off, maybe, when the alarm was raised, but they’ll be back, and soon. The Raven Guild never leaves a job undone. No matter how exaggerated the other tall tails about them are, that one is true. It would be bad for their business, otherwise.”

“That’s why we need to get out of here,” Petra said. “The house is probably ringed with their agents by now, if we stay here, we’re vulnerable. Luckily, we have a way out. You remember the hidden door in the cellar?” Leira nodded, as did Kenem; their parents had shown them that when they were children and made them promise never to use it except in dire need. “Well, it leads to a tunnel that comes out in the merchants’ district, far from here. From there, we can get to safety.”

“But who hired the Guild in the first place?” Kenem asked. “Was it Arratus? Or his man, Benas?”

“Maybe,” Aedor said. “Though I don’t see what he expects to gain from killing me the same night he attempted to make peace, unless…” he shook his head. “Never mind. We haven’t had any further warning of Guild activity from our guards in the courtyard, which means we still have some time, I hope. But I don’t trust that to last for much longer. We need to get moving. Before we do, though, take these.” He pulled a pair of scrolls from inside his cloak and thrust one at each of his children. “I’ve sent a letter to… let’s just say, an old friend. I feared something like this might happen, though not so suddenly. These scrolls contain instructions for where you can meet her, in case… in case we get separated. She can protect you.”

Leira and Kenem traded glances; neither of them had any idea who “she” might be, and neither had they failed to catch the ominous undertones when their father said “separated.” He might not come and say it outright, but Aedor Idaska didn’t know if he would survive this night. That scared her worse than any Raven Guild assassins.

“Come on, now,” Petra said, moving the family towards the direction of the cellars. Two of the guards fell in beside them. She turned to the guards who looked to be staying behind. “Hold them off if you can,” she said, “but don’t try to pick a fight you don’t need to, and don’t try and get yourself killed, either. The Ravens don’t kill needlessly, and it’s most likely us they’re after, not you.”

“We know, ma’am,” the guard captain said. “But stopping people from killing you is what you pay us for. We’ll hold them off if we can, don’t worry.”

“Thank you,” Petra said; the guard saluted, and she nodded in return. Then the Idaska family and the guards who were to accompany them left the room and walked down a short hallway until they came to the staircase that would lead them down to the cellars, the secret passage – and, hopefully, to safety.

///

Harkaitz Danelin crouched in a tree overlooking the road across the street from the House Idaska compound and scowled to himself. The night wasn’t over yet – not by a long shot – but by the Great Raven, this mission was already proving itself a headache. First Ganik had rushed in ahead of his team like the young fool he was, probably thinking he could slaughter the whole family in their beds before they ever woke up and thereby earn favor and reward from the Guildmaster, only to run afoul of the house guards and get himself killed. All he’d managed to do was get the alarm raised and have the house locked down tight. The noble family was probably already going to ground; Danelin had a layout of their compound, but nobles always made modifications to their designs, adding tunnels and bolt-holes and gods-knew what else. Nobles, even the more-or-less decent sorts like this Idaska was supposed to be, were a paranoid lot.

But if nobles were paranoid, so were assassins, and Harkaits Danelin had been in the business too long to let such a minor setback stop him now. He had plans and more plans, and he wasn’t about to let his quarry slip away. The Raven Guild always carried out its missions. Always.

Kill Aedor Idaska, the weedy little man had told him when they met in the dingy old inn the Guild ran as a front. Kill all four Idaskas if possible, but Aedor Idaska was the primary target. And don’t use subtle poisons, or an arranged “accident” – Idaska had to die violently and in his own home, leaving no doubt that he’d been the victim of an assassination. Do that, and make sure that his corpse was in such a state that, when found, there would be no question of its identity. And the Guild was to leave certain weapons their employer had provided at the scene of the murder, weapons of a curiously southern make that were to be linked to Idaska’s death.

Killing a Chief Minister wasn’t easy – not as hard as killing a king or queen, true, but harder than most marks. And that was without all the stipulations the little man had said his master insisted on. Those made it a challenge. But then, the Raven Guild would take challenges. Any street tough with a knife and nothing to lose could commit murder. A true assassin made killing an art, or so Harkaitz believed.

Rustling slightly in the leaves, he bent down and regarded the compound before him. No sign of anyone coming out. The Idaskas must have a secret room or tunnel after all, then, or they’d have tried to escape out the front already. No sniping them as they left their front gate, then; he’d have to go in after them. Very well; he’d figured he’d have to, and he was ready for that.

Harkaitz raised his crossbow and sighted down the weapon. There was a guard walking along the Idaskas wall; there weren’t more than a dozen in the whole house, and one was already dead. Nobles didn’t think they needed that much protection in the city itself. Idiots. Harkaitz took careful aim and pulled the trigger. The guard toppled with a bolt in his neck. Good. One more down, then, without having the chance to give warning. That was how it was done.

Harkaitz raised a hand, and shadows rustled in the branches behind him as several Ravens of his team leapt from the tree, using the minor magics with which they’d been trained to make sure they landed silently on the Idaskas’ wall. He sketched the sigils in the air himself and then joined them. It was time.

///

By the time the Idaskas made their way down the winding staircase to the cellar deep below the mansion, Leira felt like she could barely control her anxiety. She kept expecting Raven Guild assassins to jump out of every shadow, and her hand kept brushing the hilt of her sword nervously while she ran the sigils for combat magic over and over again in her mind. Beside her, she saw Kenem looking equally nervous, resting his hand on the hilt of his own weapon and looking around warily. The twins were very different in some ways, but at times, they could be in perfect accord. Clearly, this was one of them.

When they reached the cellar, they made their way slowly past the shelves of food and rows of wine and ale casks and finally came to a wall with a single shelf propped up against it. Aedor nodded once and then shoved the shelf to one side, revealing what it had concealed – a brown wooden door, plain in every way save for the incongruity of his location. Pausing a moment, he fished out a key from within one of his sleeves and inserted it in the door’s lock. There was a brief moment of tension and then a click and the door swung open. The passageway it revealed was long and dark, more than a little ominous.

Kenem chuckled nervously. “You’re sure this is the way to safety?” he asked, nodding down the passage.

“Unless you’d rather fight your way past a squad of Ravens,” Leira muttered. “Here – maybe this will help.” Reaching up a hand, she traced a series of sigils in the air, which coalesced into a single glowing symbol that hovered in front of her, giving light roughly equal to that of a torch, and far more steady. Behind her, one of the guards whistled in appreciation.

“All right,” Aedor said, “let’s get moving; if we’re lucky, we’ll be far away before they realize we’ve left…” before he could get farther, Leira raised a hand for silence. Something was prickling in the air around her, something nobody else seemed to notice. Stories of wizards being able to sense the presence of their enemies and exactly what spells they were using were, according to the lectors, folklore and children’s stories, but working with magic did give one a certain sensitivity. There were spells active nearby besides her light, and that could only mean… Leira’s eyes widened.

“Everyone, get down!” she shouted; too late. Crossbow bolts shot out of the darkness from somewhere higher on the cellar stair; one of them struck one of the guards straight in the chest, and the man toppled; Leira’s hand went to her mouth in horror. Another grazed the side of her father’s chest just as he turned away from it; he went down to one knee, hissing.

Petra kept her head cooler under fire than her children; no sooner had Aedor fallen than she nocked an arrow to her string and loosed. It struck someone Leira could just make out standing on the stair; she heard a muffled curse and the sound of someone falling – falling backwards, she presumed, since the body didn’t come tumbling down the steps. “That got one, but there’ll be more coming,” Petra said. “Into the passage, quickly!”

Leira needed no further incentive; the four members of House Idaska and one surviving guard hurried into the long corridor, and Petra pulled the door shut behind them and locked it. Now the only light was from Leira’s magic symbol, glittering faintly in the dark. It seemed much more ephemeral now than it had outside. Her heart was hammering in her chest.

Her father groaned and slid down to the floor; Petra knelt down beside him worriedly, and Kenem hurried over. “Come on, Father,” he said, concern showing in his eyes and making his voice shake. “Get up; you can make it, the wound’s not deep. We need to get out of here.”

“No,” Aedor said weakly, “it’s poison; I can feel it. I don’t know what kind, but something bad; my side feels weak and burns like fire, and its’ spreading. I can’t run, and can probably barely walk, and you’d only be slowed down by carrying me.”

“What are you saying?” Leira asked, trying to fight the panic in her voice.

“I’m saying, you need to leave me and escape,” Aedor said, coughing. “It’s probably me they want, especially if it is Arratus who hired them. If they get me, they may give up hunting the rest of you. And I think they got me already, no matter what we do. This way, I may be able to take at least one of them with me.”

“No,” Kenem said, “no, you can’t talk like that! You aren’t going to die!”

“You’re a brave boy, Kenem, my hawk,” Aedor said, “but you don’t have the power to change what the gods have decreed. Go with your sister, keep her safe. When I die, she’ll be Lady Idaska.” He turned to look at his wife. “Petra…”

“I’m not abandoning you,” she said firmly, “and it seems to me that the best I can do for our children now is to stop those Raven dogs from getting to them. I will run no more.”

“No!” Leira said. “You can’t die too, not now! You can’t… we need you.” Her voice sounded childish and weak to her own ears, but there was no avoiding it.

“Oh, I have no intention of dying,” Petra said, drawing another arrow from her quiver, “but neither to I intend to abandon your father while there’s life in him. I’ve got some tricks of my own, and I have no intention of becoming meat for those carrion-eaters.”

“Listen to me carefully,” Aedor said. “If whoever hired the Ravens won’t be satisfied with just my death, they’ll come for you. That means you need to get out of the city. The town of Sandellon is a few days east of Hira Sentaria. I’ve contacted a friend and asked her to meet you there. Ellisaine will protect you, and help you get to the bottom of this.”

“I’ll join you when I can,” Petra said. “Don’t wait for me.”

The sound of booted feet echoed in the cellar outside. “Wait,” Leira said, “you know Ellisaine? Ellisaine the Guardian? The Ellisaine? How? You’ve never mentioned her before!”

“There’s no time!” Aedor said, nodding at the door. “The letters I gave you will explain everything. Read them when you’re safe. Now go, do you hear me! Get out of here while you can – do not make me watch my children die!” He nodded at the guard, whose name, Leira suddenly remembered, was Luken. “Stay with them; keep them safe.”

“Yes, sir,” Luken said, and turned to the twins. “Come on, then,” he told them, roughly, but not unkindly. “We need to move. You can honor your parents by keeping yourselves alive, like they want you to.”

Leira nodded, and then, abandoning all stoicism, rushed over and embraced first Petra, then Aedor; a moment later, Kenem did the same. Then they were being guided down the passage by Luken’s easy but firm hand. Leira cast a last look over her shoulder and saw Aedor and Petra Idaska fading from view in the dim light.

///

When their children and Luken were gone, Aedor hauled himself to his feet and nodded at Petra before drawing his sword. His side ached as though a fire was burning in it and he almost fancied he could feel the poison in his veins; he would be weak, but in these close quarters, he wouldn’t need strength to run an assassin through. Beside him, Petra nocked her arrow and held her bow at the ready. Side by side, they both faced the door.

They didn’t speak with words; after more than twenty years of marriage, they didn’t need words. They had shared a home, a career, and a life for nearly half of his own lifespan and had known each other well before that. They understood each other perfectly, and now they shared a single overriding desire – to keep the assassins of the Raven Guild from reaching Leira and Kenem.

Something heavy crashed into the door outside. The blow came again and again, and then an axehead burst through the wood. So, even assassins would forego subtlety when their way was blocked by a solid obstacle. Aedor smiled tightly through his pain. There was a lesson in that, he supposed, though for the moment he couldn’t quite figure what it was.

Then the door was smashed completely open, and the assassins burst through. Aedor drew himself up beside his wife and prepared to meet his fate.

///

Leira couldn’t say how long she, Kenem and Luken marched down the long passageway in silence, their only company the pale light she’d conjured, bobbing slightly ahead of them. A whirlwind of thoughts and emotions tore through her head, and she didn’t think she could process them all even if she had a week to sit and do nothing else. Grief and pride and fear and surprise and above all a terrible, all-consuming numbness that passed description. In the face of all that, all she felt she could do was keep moving. One foot in front of the other…

Suddenly she stopped, body tensing. That feeling was back again, the prickling on her skin. What did it mean? Were the assassins near? Did the Raven Guild really use dark magic in their methods, and that was why she could sense them? Such thoughts were chased from her head as Luken suddenly grunted and stumbled, then fell face-forward onto the stony floor. The hilt of a throwing knife protruded from his neck.

Leira couldn’t help herself. She screamed.

But even as she was still screaming, she and Kenem spun to face the corridor behind them and drew their swords, he rather more confidently than she. Several figures suddenly stepped from the shadows, all of them armed – the leader was a man of indeterminate age, rough in a nondescript way, who carried a crossbow. Whatever magic they were using, it must have helped them move stealthily, Leira decided; that’s how they’d been able to catch up to them. Her own Academy-honed senses had detected them, but not soon enough. Not soon enough at all.

She half expected the assassins to gloat or threaten, but they seemed to feel they had their prey cornered and felt no need for that. The leader just nodded, and the others fanned out while he raised his crossbow, apparently deciding which twin was the bigger threat. Leira felt another scream rising in her throat, but all that came out was a croak. She was trapped, they were both trapped and they were going to die, just like poor Luken, just like father and mother, because there was no way the assassins could have got by them when they were alive…

Oh. It turned out there was an emotion more powerful than terror after all, some distant part of Leira realized. Pure, burning, unyielding rage. These people had killed her parents. But if they thought she was some helpless damsel, they were mistaken.

Leira didn’t have time for a complex working, was too enraged to have held a complex series of sigils in her mind in any case. But there was one sigil that jumped to mind, from her last lesson at the Academy – one of the core elemental sigils. She sketched it sharply in the air in front of her and forced her will through it just as the lead assassin pulled the trigger.

Fire.

And the secret passage exploded.

That’s what it felt like, anyway. A wave of fire, vaster and more powerful than anything Leira had ever conjured before, erupted from the sigil she’d drawn. It burned the crossbow bolt to ash in an instant and then swept down the passage, consuming the assassins, who had time to do nothing but open their mouths in horror. Then the whole corridor was ablaze, fire racing along the floor, consuming the wooden supports. They were dead, they were dead, and everything could just burn until all the world went up in smoke. Leira stood with her hands outstretched, forcing her will through the sigil and bathing the corridor in fire.

Suddenly Kenem was beside her, saying things she couldn’t hear into her ear; there seemed to be panic in his voice and fear in his eyes, and then he sighed and grabbed Leira by the arm and hauled her down the corridor. The sigil vanished as her concentration on it was broken, but the fire remained. It had found flammable materials now and had taken on a life of its own; already it had raced as far as she could see, and was likely already into the cellar, or would be soon. Somewhere down the passage one of the supports collapsed, blocking the way with flaming debris, and other places seemed to be about to give, covering their escape.

But Leira was only vaguely aware of that as Kenem hauled her the other way down the passage, away from the fire and into darkness. Finally, he let her go and they ran together, side by side, to escape the blaze as it began to move their way as well. At last, they reached a wooden ladder and hurriedly climbed up. At the top was a door, and Kenem shoved it open as they stumbled out into an alley. Far from House Idaska; the merchant district, Aedor had said. Leira vaguely remembered it. The fire was fading now, and she just felt numb inside.

Kenem rested a hand on her shoulder, and they both stumbled away from the door and further down the alley, keeping out of sight. The sun was a faint glimmer on the horizon, and people would be out soon. Finally, they reached a hidden spot that seemed far from any prying eyes and collapsed against the side of a building. At last, the wave of emotion burst free from where panic and rage had been holding it at bay within Leira. She who was now the Lady of House Idaska fell into her brother’s arms and wept.

 

[MasterGhandalf]

New chapter! 

Spoiler

Chapter Eight

Ibban Arratus paced before the window of his sitting room, watching the first glimmers of dawn rising above the city’s spires. His face was impassive, but Benas knew his employer well enough to recognize the tightness around his eyes and mouth; that alone would have given away that he was both nervous and expectant, even if his pacing hadn’t told the tale even more clearly, as did the fact that even having his hands clasped tightly behind his back couldn’t quell the faint drumming of his fingers. So much was riding on the events of tonight, after all. If the Ravens weren’t as capable as their reputation made them…

“I don’t like this,” Arratus finally said, stopping to stare out the window. “We should have heard something by now.”

“Patience, my lord,” Benas said. “I expect such things cannot be rushed. In this, assassins are not so different from masters of other crafts, I would think. You would not rush a master tailor or smith and still expect to receive a quality cloak or sword, after all.” Benas considered Arratus to be a capable man, a man of charisma and vision – but then, men of vision often became so wrapped in that vision that they failed to keep track of the details. Fortunately, men like Julin Benas existed to make sure they wouldn’t have to. It was an often-thankless position, but then, competence could be its own reward, even if it went unnoticed by the world.

“I am unlikely to be tried and executed if my smiths and tailors are late in completing my order,” Arratus muttered. “If Aedor Idaska survives and suspects I am behind the attempt on his life, he will have me hauled before the Assembly and they’ll send me to the headsman before the day is done. Even his wife pointing a finger at me could be… unpleasant.” Petra Idaska held no public office, but her older sister was head of her house and she was well-liked and connected among Hira Sentaria’s leading families. Yes, Benas thought, she could potentially prove a problem. There was nothing yet to prove that anything had gone wrong, of course, but it never hurt to have a plan for these things.

“Wait,” Arratus said, staring suddenly at something out the window. “Julin, get over here. I think I see smoke. Something is burning. Is that what I think it is?” Benas hurried to the lord’s side and peered out the window. Yes, he thought, a thin column of smoke did seem to be rising in the distance – from a direction where both of their thoughts had been turning for most of the night.

“That does appear to be the direction of the Idaska compound, my lord,” Benas said. “In fact, though it is difficult to say for sure from this distance, I would say it very likely that the house itself is burning.”

“Burning!” Arratus snapped angrily. “I said nothing about burning Aedor Idaska’s home! I need the scene of the murder to be recognizable! I can’t have Aedor die and then his body go up in smoke! So much effort wasted, by fools who can’t even follow the most simple instructions I give them…” Arratus’s voice trailed off as he began to pace again. Julin stayed silent, watching him carefully. When the lord was like this, it was generally best not to risk provoking him further – but it also paid to stay nearby, just in case he decided to demand something.

The minutes stretched longer, as Julin kept one eye on the clock and the other on his employer; finally, after what felt like an eternity, the door to the sitting room opened and a servant stuck his head in. “My lord,” he said, “a… gentleman is here to see you. He says it’s important.” The servant’s tone was less than impressed by whoever this “gentleman” might be; Benas thought he had a fair inkling of what the man’s identity would prove.

“Finally,” Arratus muttered, then waved to the servant. “Send him in.” The man’s head ducked out of the room, and a moment later the door opened again and the assassin Benas had met at the tavern stalked in. If anything, the man looked even more disreputable than he had before; his clothing was tattered, and he smelled strongly of smoke. Benas regarded him curiously; it seemed he had been in a fire after all. He wondered what had caused the man to go against orders in such a way.

“Well?” Arratus demanded. “What news do you have for me? And I trust you weren’t followed.”

“Relax, Your Lordship,” the assassin said. “Nobody saw me, and I didn’t use your front door. Gave that fellow who showed me in a bit of a scare, but I’d wager your people aren’t going to go tell the Assembly about this arrangement of ours. As for the job, it’s done. The most important part is, anyway. Aedor Idaska is dead, his body is intact,” here his face twisted, as if accomplishing this feat had proven rather difficult, “and he was killed with weapons and poison of Urazin make, as you requested.”

“Excellent,” Arratus said, smiling tightly. “Where did you leave the body?”

“We put him in his bedroom, arranged things to make it look like he’d died there,” the assassin said. “We managed to get the fire under control before it made it there, so nobody will be wondering about why exactly he doesn’t have burns on him.” He paused, considering. “Strange. I get why you wanted Idaska dead; the two of you never got along, the way I hear. But it would have been easier on you to make it look like he died of disease, or an accident. This way, you’ve very likely made him a martyr. Idaska was popular, and when popular men die…” he left the implication hanging.

Arratus only chuckled. “Made him a martyr?” he asked. “I certainly hope so.”

The assassin grunted. “Makes more sense what you had us do, then,” he said. “It’s a frame-up, isn’t it? You’re using Idaska’s death to whip people into a frenzy against someone you want to be a target. Someone from the south, I’d wager.”

Arratus’s eyes went hard. “Have a care you don’t delve to deeply into my goals, assassin,” he said. “Do your job and collect your reward; that’s all you need to care about. So that’s Idaska dead, then. What about his family? I trust you took care of them as well. I don’t want any loose ends.”

“Lady Idaska is also dead,” the assassin said. “The kids, though…” he bared his teeth in what could only be described as a snarl. “Didn’t see much of the boy; didn’t make much of an impression on me. The girl… your information was faulty, Arratus. You told me she was a wizard, that she’d studied at the Academy, but you did not tell me she was powerful. That fire you probably saw from that window there? She did that, not us. Nearly ruined everything, she did. Lucky for me, I know a few sigils myself. The Raven Guild educates its higher members. I threw a few of them up just in time and only got singed. A lot of those with me weren’t so lucky. That girl killed half of my entire team, and nearly burned down her own house doing it.”

“But she is dead,” Arratus said. Benas frowned and shook his head. From the assassin’s expression, he doubted it, and the man’s next words confirmed it.

“What do you think?” he asked. “That tunnel was filled with fire and debris. I can keep a bit of heat off myself, but I’m not a damned phoenix. There was no way I could get through that. The kids got away, and no doubt went to ground. We’ve got people looking for them, but even the Guild doesn’t move openly in broad daylight.”

“Idiots!” Arratus snarled. “Aedor was the most important, but I needed them all dead for a reason. If they come before the Assembly and accuse me of murder, it could derail everything I’ve worked for! Everything! Your Guild is supposed to be infallible, and you cannot kill two children for me?”

“These ‘children’ are all but grown,” the assassin said; Benas didn’t fail to notice that the man’s posture had straightened and his accent softened. He was facing Arratus as an equal now, not as a street tough; he wondered what the assassin had been before he found his way to the Ravens. He still didn’t the man’s name. “And that girl is dangerous. Talented. But we’ve got people around the Assembly; if they show their faces there, or at any Houses friendly to their father, they’ll be dead before they have a chance to so much as say your name. Of course, if they’re smart, they’ll lie low. But we’ll flush them out, don’t you worry. The Guild doesn’t have the reputation we do because we kill flawlessly every time, but because once our quarry is in our sights, we never, ever give up. And now we know what we’re up against. The young Lady and Lord Idaska will learn that soon enough.”

“They had better,” Arratus said, and waved his hand. “Julin here will see that your payment for Aedor and Petra is delivered. You’ll get the rest when their children are dead as well. You are dismissed.”

“Of course,” the assassin said, sketching a bow that seemed only half-sincere, if that. “Always a pleasure doing business with you, my lord.” He turned and departed, shutting the door behind him with an audible slam that made Benas wince.

When he was gone, Arratus walked back over to the window. “Well,” he said, “things could have gone worse. But they also could have gone much better. I don’t care what that lout said; I’ll rest better when Leira and Kenem Idaska are dead. I have too much riding on this.”

“Of course, my lord,” Benas said, nodding. Aedor Idaska had to die, of course; Arratus had determined that long ago. The man was too opposed both to Arratus himself and to what ultimately needed to be done to secure Erresune’s power and prosperity and had seemed extremely unlikely to ever be brought around to their way of thinking. The problem was, of course, that if he did die, Arratus would be the obvious suspect – his quarrels with Idaska were too well-known. Rumors of the Raven Guild’s resurgence in the city had suggested part of an obvious solution – the Guild represent a resource for hiring killers who couldn’t be traced to House Arratus and were reputed to be unlikely to fail at their task. Leaving evidence linking the killing to Uraz allowed for the killing of two foes with one arrow – now, even Idaska’s closest allies, the ones who were most likely to carry on with his work, would be lining up to claim the Sultan’s blood.

It had been Benas who’d suggested having a dinner meeting with Idaska at the man’s own house shortly before sending the assassins. Partially, to allay suspicion that Arratus was involved, by making it look like he’d been willing to make peace with his longtime opponent – and partially because he’d hoped, on some level, there might be a chance of resolving this without bloodshed. Benas was not a naïve or softhearted man, but, well, his talents did not run to violence, and an alliance between Arratus and Idaska, however unlikely, would be an easier situation for him to navigate. Ah, well.

He'd allowed Arratus to think he’d come to the idea on his own, of course. No matter how great the lord one served, it was always best to let him think every good idea was his. An assistant who seemed too competent might find himself rewarded – or might find his head at risk. Best to take the cautious road, or so Benas’s father had taught him long ago. An assistant should seek competence, always, not glory.

“Word will get out soon that Idaska is dead,” Arratus said suddenly, pulling Benas from his musing. “A special session of the Assembly will have to be called; I intend to be there. We must mend old feuds in the face of tragedy, after all.” His expression was wry, but his tone oddly serious. On some level he genuinely believed what he said, despite the fact that he personally had been responsible for the tragedy in the first place. A man of contradictions was Benas’s master, one who callously ordered the death of the Chief Minister, and yet genuinely saw himself as working for a better future for Erresune. “Help me get changed. I will require something dignified, but somber.”

“Of course, my lord,” he said. “What of our… other allies?” Arratus had spoken truly last night when he told Idaska he had no control over the strange street preachers who seemed to be stirring people up on his behalf. Benas did not like to think of those who did.

“Let them use Idaska’a death as a sign,” the lord said. “A warning of change coming. The punishment of the gods on the unrighteous? No, we need Idaska’s name untarnished. They know what they’re about.” He nodded. “And send another message to the north. I expect my station will change soon enough; perhaps Thursinn will be more amenable then.”

“I will draft it at once,” Benas said. “But first, my lord, your wardrobe awaits. This will, after all, be a very important day.”

///

Harkaitz walked quickly through one of Hira Sentaria’s less reputable districts, hood up to shadow his face. Few people spoke to him as he passed; the city had been tense for days, and there were already rumors swirling about the column of smoke that had risen from the noble quarter and what it might mean. The assassin was less than pleased with that; a true assassination, even one carried out under the restrictions Arratus had demanded for this particular job, ought not to announce its completion with an obvious sign an entire city could read. The Raven Guild had not survived for as long as it had by being ostentations. The Guildmaster would likely have words with him later today; not an experience he was anticipating with much pleasure.

And it stuck in his craw still that the girl and her brother were alive. Despite his words to Arratus, Harkaitz Danelin had never failed on a hit before, at least not on one that was of such importance. And he could still see the wall of fire racing towards him, feeling the heat of it, barely having the time to sketch a sigil with one hand behind his back before it hit him. The rest of his team hadn’t been so lucky, or so quick. They hadn’t been friends, exactly – friendship was not a trait the Raven Guild encouraged among its members – but they had been people he’d known well and mostly respected, and siblings in his dark craft. And now they were dead, burned to ash by a wall of fire he knew he’d see in his dreams for the rest of his life.

His gloved fists clenched. The damnable wizardling would die for this, he swore. She would die, and not just because his client desired her death. He didn’t care one whit for Arratus’s ambitions or his motivations, so long as he kept the coin flowing. He did care that Leira Idaska had killed Ravens. Blood demanded blood, as the Oroskin said. Harkaitz intended to collect that debt. He’d like to kill her brother Kenem first, in front of her, but that was a wishful fancy. Professionalism trumped vengeance; if he got close enough to her to take his shot, he would, regardless of whether she even knew he was there.

He saw again the fire flashing through the tunnels; his breath caught as he imagined the heat of it on his skin. Yes, killing the girl unawares would probably be the safer path in any case. Now all that remained was to find her.

He arrived at the Tattered Crow, the Guild’s run-down old inn, and stepped inside. The barkeep nodded at him as he passed; he was known here. He went downstairs into the cellar, came to the stretch of wall that concealed a hidden door, and rapped his knuckles against it in a particular pattern he had committed to memory long ago, and which came to him as second nature now. The wall shivered and the door slid open.

The Raven Guild had no true headquarters; it controlled a number of secret hideaways and bolt-holes throughout the city and moved between them whenever the Guildmaster decided on it. The watch had never found them all, and thus was the Guild’s secrecy maintained. If one hideaway was compromised, its inhabitants put up a token resistance and then when their enemies were satisfied that they’d been defeated, slipped away and regrouped at a more secure location. But for now, this place underneath the old inn was the Ravens’ Guildhouse.

Someone expecting the home of an assassins’ guild to be a chamber of horrors, some human attempt at recreating the horrors of the Empire of Night, would have been sadly mistaken – in truth, the dim hallway Harkaitz found himself walking down now looked little different from the inn’s lower levels, with plain, spare walls lit by torches, and no visible weapons or guards of any kind. But Harkaitz knew full well that every person he passed, nodding to him respectfully as he went about his business, was a capable killer, and behind the walls were traps and hidden passages from which guards could watch. Anyone who tried to invade this place would be in for a rude awakening indeed.

Harkaitz finally left the main corridor and stepped into a small room on the side, where a man and a woman sat at a rough table, playing at cards beside a plain, wooden door with a barred window on it. They looked up as he entered, and the woman nodded. “Welcome back,” she said. “How’d he take it?”

“As well as can be hoped, Erla” Harkaitz told her. “He wasn’t happy Idaska’s children got away, but what we managed seems to have pleased him well enough. We got our payment, and we’ll get more when the twins are dead.”

“Good enough,” Erla said before turning back to her cards. After a quiet moment, she added, “Guildmaster’ll probably not go too hard on you, if you got the main mark and Arratus didn’t stint you on it. You going to see him now?”

“In a moment,” Harkaitz said. “I wanted to check on something first.” Walking over to the door, he peered through the window into the small room – a cell, really – on the other side, and the elegant woman who sat on a bench inside it, hands bound, and a blindfold wrapped around her eyes. Funny how Petra Idaska kept composure so well when she was a captive. Most nobles would be desperate by now, making bribes or threats, or just begging for mercy. Harkaitz found himself impressed by her in spite of himself.

He hadn’t lied, not really, when he told Arratus she was dead. She was in the Ravens’ power and would die once their use for her was done. There was no doubt of that. Her husband had been poisoned, but when Harkaitz had realized the twins had escaped down the passage already, he’d taken her alive, just in case they got away and the Guild needed information to track them down. Fortuitously, as it turned out, for the blasted girl and her brother had indeed escaped, and Harkaitz had found nothing in Idaska’s effects to indicate what their plan was. But he suspected the woman in front of him knew. And he intended to find out.

The Ravens were assassins, not slavers. They rarely took captives. But when they did, it was for a reason, and they knew how to get information from reluctant people. Whether she wanted to or not, this woman would help Harkaitz find her children. Then he’d have his revenge, and Arratus would have his final threats removed.

The assassin turned away from the door, straightening his cloak as he went. For now, though, it was time to report to the Guildmaster.

///

The badlands weren’t a desert, exactly. The land was dry and flat, true, but there was water if you knew where to find it, and there were grasses and small shrubs here and there among the rocky soil, though nothing larger. There were far more inhospitable places in the south of Uraz, true deserts of sand and wind and scorching heat, ringed with burning mountains where the fire giants dwelled in their fabled cities that no human eye had seen. But the badlands still had a desolate, unfriendly air, barren and flat as far as the eye could see, bordered on the west by the Plains of Maradd which were still spoken of in hushed whispers, and to the east by the jagged peaks of the Karadish Mountains. There were a few small towns here and there but no settlements of any size; ever since humanity had thrown off the yoke of the Empire of Night a thousand years gone, the badlands had been disputed territory between Erresune to the north and Uraz to the south. For now, neither nation held a firm claim to it; the two great powers found it far more useful as a neutral buffer than as a territory that was profitable to hold.

Of course, the Sultan was known to grouse about that fact, claiming that the badlands were Urazin territory by right; if the rumors Deverim had heard were true, he suspected similar claims were made just as often in the Assembly Hall of Hira Sentaria. If it came to war again between Uraz and Erresune, at least part of it would be fought here, as it often had been before. Legends said the bones of armies were buried beneath the badlands. Such a thought did not make the place any more inviting.

Deverim and Harkosh made their way along a road that was most commonly used by caravans headed north; it passed from the heartland of Uraz through Kas Sinir and north, through the badlands and towards Erresune. Deverim had pointed it out on a map, and Harkosh had grunted and said that it suited his purposes for at least the first stretch of his journey. It had been some time since the last caravan had passed through Kas Sinir, however, and so far, they had seen no one else on their way north save for carrion birds circling overhead and the occasional wildcat glimpsed among the grass. Tensions between Erresune and Uraz were high enough that it seemed many merchants weren’t willing to risk being caught between them should that tension escalate into open war.

For the most part, then, they had walked alone and in silence – a man, an orc, and a donkey. Such a trio, Deverim thought wryly, as even the gods had likely not seen for many years – and it would likely be a very long time before such was seen again.

Finally, as the sun was beginning to sink into the west, they arrived at a simple way station, little more than a small well with a wall around it and a cooking pit nearby. Nodding to each other, they pulled up to stop beside it. Harkosh began setting up their small tent, while Deverim drew water and prepared a small meal from the supplies he’d brought. Well, his was small, anyway. Harkosh ate rather more; an orc’s appetite, it seemed, was nothing to make light of.

The orc was not, it seemed, in a talkative mood that evening; he sat on the ground with his legs crossed beneath him, idly stirring the fire with a small stick. Deverim stood and walked a short distance away, then drew his sword and began to pass through a series of exercises with it. Nothing fancy, tonight, but enough to work some of the tension from his old limbs and to help remind him of his skills, and of the warrior he had once been in his youth and the prime of his strength.

When he was done, he paused to bow before an imaginary foe and then turned to find Harkosh sitting up straight, watching him intently. “You are skilled,” the orc rumbled. “You said you were a soldier and I believed it to be true, but I hadn’t realized that you were so gifted.”

“You are too kind,” Deverim said, taking a seat beside him. “I was once known for my skills with a blade, true enough, but that was long ago. I am no longer so mighty as I once was. Age and disuse have sadly sapped my skills.”

“Then you must have been mighty indeed, at that time,” Harkosh said. Deverim sighed.

“I was accounted such,” he said. “And yet, it brought me no joy. War is not such a great thing that to be a man skilled at it should be held it high esteem, and yet so many people, in my country and elsewhere, seem to believe it should be.”

“We orcs understand this as well,” Harkosh said. “We spent so long fighting beneath our masters’ yokes that when we were finally free, it was a relief to finally be able to turn our hearts towards other things. I have found more satisfaction in tilling my fields in our valley and watching my crops grow than I ever did in all my centuries of violence. And so you understand in part the importance of my mission. The orcs no longer seek glory on the fields of battle, and we have no wish to ever again march to battle beneath the banners of those who care nothing for our lives.”

“Yes” Deverim said quietly. “I think I know something of what you mean.”

Together, two old soldiers, they sat by their fire as the last light dimmed from the sky and the stars slowly appeared, a vast expanse of tiny lights spread against the inky blackness of the night.

 

 

[MasterGhandalf]

New chapter! 

Spoiler

Chapter Nine

Ellisaine stood in the House of Remembrance and ran her hand softly along one of the murals along its walls, with her head bowed in silence.

She was alone, for now. It was easy to find places to be alone in Celannien these days, for the city’s population had shrunk so far from where it had been at its founding, and elves were not even at the most prosperous of times a gregarious people. If one wanted time for solitary contemplation, it was not hard to find, even in one of the city’s most sacred places. The House of Remembrance was not a museum, such as the humans had in Hira Sentaria or Uraz or other great cities, though it was dedicated to preserving the memory of the past. Nor was it truly a temple, though it sometimes served as a place of gathering and of reverence – though not, precisely, of worship. The elves venerated the forces of the natural world, and of the worlds that lay beyond natural sight, but they rarely felt the need to personify them as humans did. If the House had a true function, it was, as its name suggested, a place to remember the past and to meditate on it to seek guidance for the future.

Sometimes, Ellisaine thought her people focused over much on the past and thought too little of the present, and less of the future. But as she aged, as time had carried her mortal friends away from her and she was bitterly reminded that she would likely see the coming and going of many generations of other folk, she felt like she was growing on some level to understand. Maybe given enough time she’d even come to understand her mother, though part of her doubted that. Even among the elves, there were few who could truly claim to understand Tatrisaine.

The main hall of the House of Remembrance was vast and open, lined with benches for meditation; a circular opening in the roof let in the light of the sun by day, and the light of the moon and stars by night. The walls were lined with murals, looping around the edges, telling the story of the history of the elves from their earliest beginning. Here at the beginning was Elladonne, the lost isle where the elven race had first arisen, and the eons of peace that they had known in their dawn. Here, he who would become the Emperor-in-Shadow dug deep beneath the earth and uncovered the Twilight Shard, that strange crystal through which he first heard the seductive whispers of Night and by which he and his followers were transfigured, forever separated from their kin. There followed the centuries of strife that ended with the remnant of the true elves fleeing to the mainland after the Emperor raised the Shard against them and in his fury struck the entire isle to the depths of the sea. They thought they were safe there, and for a time they were, but the Emperor pursued them, having grown to even greater heights of power, and he laid all the land under his rule and raised up the Empire of Night. There he reigned for a thousand years until an alliance of elves and mortals cast him from his throne and sent him into exile – an exile from which he had at last returned a century ago and was finally defeated.

The mural showed the Emperor falling, his dark armor split and black smoke leaking from it where the sword of the young mortal queen, Anitzaine, had pierced his heart. Ellisaine ran her hands along the spot, remembering. For she had been there, at the end, and had witnessed all that had come to pass.

Slowly she turned to the right, looking down the wall past the scene of the great battle – the wall that was, for now, blank. Only when further great deeds had been done would the lorekeepers add to the mural. There was little space remaining. Ellisaine thought it an omen – a sign that the history of the elves was, after so many millennia, drawing at last to a close. For every struggle and cataclysm had diminished them, and they replaced their numbers slowly. She herself was the only child Tatrisaine had borne in her long life, and not, as she understood it, from a lack of desire. Such troubles with fertility were common among her people.

Ellisaine sighed and stepped away from the painting. She had remained in Celannien for several days now after the disappointing audience with her mother; if patience and the ability to remain perfectly still for days in serene deliberation was a virtue of the elven people, it was one that Ellisaine had clearly not inherited. Already she was becoming anxious to be gone, but she still remembered the assassin’s cold, dark eyes and his poisoned blades, and she still hoped to change Tatrisaine’s mind. She wasn’t going to find out why a Child of Night had crossed half the continent to kill her by sitting her in Celannien until the year turned!

It was a sign of how weary she was that she had come to the House of Remembrance at all. She knew the histories as well as anyone, for she was the child of the Lady, the last of their people to still remember the isle before darkness and strife came. But she was herself young as well, born after the Empire of Night fell, and coming here and seeing the fantastically detailed murals made it all seem more real, nonetheless. But it also saddened her, a reminder that she was a child of a people who were fading and not growing and had been fading for a very long time indeed.

Maybe the Children were right, and in time, darkness would swallow everyone and everything. But if that was so, Ellisaine didn’t intend to give in to oblivion without a final defiant struggle. When she talked like that, Lanyrilyn sighed, and Tatrisaine told her she sounded very human. Ellisaine remembered Anitzaine and her people and took that as a compliment.

Drawing her dark green cloak around herself, though she doubted the chill she felt was from the wind, she turned and left the House and its memories behind her.

///

“You’ve been troubled lately, dar’elyth,” Lanyrilyn said. The healer sat at her desk in the tower room she and Ellisaine shared, carefully weighing a powder she had made from crushed herbs on her small scale. Ellisaine had only been glancing at her from the corner of her eye and wasn’t sure what sort of mixture she was making; for now, the Guardian stood at the window with her arms crossed on the ledge before her, staring out over the city. “I am beginning to worry about you.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, someone tried to kill me not so long ago,” Ellisaine said. “An enemy we thought had finally been defeated once and for all, and they sent their assassin into Gilfannin itself, not far from our own city! I’m afraid it’s left me a little bit on edge.”

“Now, now,” Lanyrilyn said lightly, “that is far from the first time this has happened. Unless you’ve been dishonest with me all these years about where all those cuts and scrapes you keep asking me to patch up for you come from?”

Ellisaine chuckled in spite of herself. “True enough,” she said. “But never before have our enemies come within less than a day’s travel of Celannien itself. And never before has my mother, in her ineffable wisdom, refused to allow me to do anything about it! Am I to wait, safe and pampered, until some other Guardian assures us that it’s safe for me to venture out into the forest again?”

“Dar’elyth,” Lanyrilyn said, her disapproval evident even through the endearment, “do not speak of the Lady in such a way. She is eldest among us, and always has her reasons, even if we don’t always realize them.”

“Yes, and in time she may even deign to share them with the rest of us lowly creatures,” Ellisaine snapped, and then sighed. “I’m sorry; I shouldn’t speak of her that way. She is the Lady, and she is my mother. I suppose I am simply not someone meant for sitting around, staring at nothing while others do things.”

Her measurements apparently satisfactory, Lanyrilyn stood and walked over to Ellisaine and put her arm around her shoulders. “I know,” she said. “Ancients preserve me, but I know your heart and I know this can’t be easy for you.” She leaned in close, brushing her forehead against Ellisaine’s in a gesture of affection. “Now, are you going to keep moping the rest of the day, or are you going to help me? I could use someone to help me fetch ingredients from my stores for this elixir I am making, and if you cannot be a great and mighty Guardian today, you can at least be of use to me.”

“Oh?” Ellisaine asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’m to be an errand-runner, then?”

“Unless you would rather test the elixir when I am finished with it?” Lanyrilyn asked, returning the expression. “It will not harm you, but the taste is rather bracing. Perhaps it would shock you from your current malaise.”

Ellisaine laughed and threw up her hands in surrender. “Very well,” she said. “Tell me what you need.” She listened as Lanyrilyn told her and was about to head down to the tower’s lower levels where the healer kept her store of supplies when the sound of rustling wings drew her attention back to the window. A dove perched there; not an unknown occurrence in homes in Celannien, but this particular bird was of a species that was more common further south, in Erresune. And it bore a small scroll-case tied to its neck.

“And where have you come from, small one?” Ellisaine asked, holding out her palm. The dove fluttered over into it, and she gently stroked its downy chest with one slim finger. The dove cooed appreciatively, and Ellisaine then reached up and undid the bindings around its neck. Letting the bird flutter back to the window, she sat down on the bed and opened the scroll, eyes scanning it quickly. The more she read, the wider those eyes became.

“What is it?” Lanyrilyn asked, taking a seat beside her. “I recognize that expression; something had just surprised it. Dar’elyth? Who sent this bird?”

“A friend, mir’elyth,” Ellisaine said slowly as she finished the letter. “A human friend, from Erresune. His ancestors fought in the War of Shadows with me; I knew the man himself when he was young. He has children now who are as old as he was when I met him – by the Ancients, human lives flit by so quickly! He is a man of some importance in Erresune now. They call him Chief Minister, which is something like a cross between a herald and a lorekeeper, but not really either – it’s hard to explain. Humans are strange, even the Erresunin, who I’ve lived among. In any case, he says there is unrest in his city, and he wants my help. He requests that I meet him at a place known to us both, not far from Hira Sentaria.” She sighed again. “My mother will not be happy about this.”

“She did want you to remain in Celannien,” Lanyrilyn said, nodding. “But as I recall, her specific orders were only that you would not be among those sent to investigate the Night-born assassin. She made no mention of rushing to the aid of old friends in need.”

“Only because she did not know,” Ellisaine said. “But I know Aedor Idaska well enough to recognize that when he wrote this note, he was frightened. How can I turn aside a friend who needs my help, especially when I have no prior commitments to keep me from doing so?”

“You can’t,” Lanyrilyn said, her expression serious. “If you did not go, you would hate yourself for it. You are a woman of honor. That is why I love you.” A smile quirked the edge of her lips. “Among other things.”

“I suppose that what Mother doesn’t know can’t hurt her,” Ellisaine said, “though I doubt she’ll see it that way when she finds out.” She leaned over and caught up Lanyrilyn in a tight embrace. “You’re right, of course. I’m not someone who can easily abandon a friend. I will ride to Erresune and see what is happening there and help Aedor with whatever trouble frightened him enough that he would turn all the way to Gilfannin for help. And when I am done, I will come back to you – and hopefully to find that the Lady’s anger with me has cooled by then.”

“I’m sure it will have,” Lanyrilyn said. “You have angered her often enough that she is surely comfortable enough with forgiving you by now!”

Somehow, despite the teasing tone, Ellisaine did not find herself reassured.

///

Ellisaine was dressed in her Guardian’s attire – a green hooded cloak over plain leathers, with her bow and quiver slung over her back and a short sword and daggers belted at her waist. She stood now in the stables at the edge of Celannien which were set aside for the Guardians’ use; for the moment, thankfully, no one else was here, the other guardians having been sent away on their own missions for the Lady. She was saddling her horse, Pershaine, a fine dun mare with a gleaming silver mane and tail. She was an elvish-bred horse, descended from a bloodline they had taken with them when they fled Elladonne, and there were few other breeds that could match them for speed or for loyalty.

Ellisaine finished adjusting the saddle-straps and paused a moment to nuzzle against the mare’s long face. It’s been too long since we’ve ridden together, sweet one, she thought, but now we have need of haste. Pershaine let loose a quiet snort at that and tossed her head; she, like her rider, seemed eager to be gone.

Turning to look over her shoulder, Ellisaine saw Lanyrilyn standing there, clad in her usual soft grey robe with her arms crossed in front of her. “None of your mother’s heralds have been by,” she said. “And the few people who have passed haven’t seemed interested in questioning our presence here. You are a Guardian, after all, and Guardians are often traveling, and I am known to be your companion. Are you ready to be off?”

“I am,” Ellisaine said, swinging up onto Pershaine’s back and patting the mare on the neck. Pershaine trotted forward so that she now stood next to Lanyrlyn and her rider could look directly down at the healer.

Lanyrilyn’s face was concerned. “Neither you nor I told the Lady that you were leaving,” she said, “but I think it strains credulity that she will remain ignorant forever. When she realizes you’re gone, she will doubtless ask me. Is there anything I should tell her?”

“The truth, of course,” Ellisaine said, sighing. “Though by then I hope to be well on my way. I expect she will be angry with me, but when I return, I hope I’ll be able to explain. She is a great one for loyalty and debts of honor, my mother is. But if you assure you it wasn’t your idea, she won’t punish you. She is stern, but usually fair.”

Lanyrilyn raised an eyebrow. “I do not fear the Lady’s anger,” she said. “I do fear for you, dar’elyth, but then, I always worry for you. Be safe and come back to me.”

Ellisaine leaned down and kissed her. “I will,” she said. “I promise I will return soon, once my business in Erresune is done.” They both grinned quietly at that; for an elf, with a potential lifespan of millennia, returning at any time inside of a year might be accounted as “soon.”

Sitting up straight again, she took the reins and signaled Pershaine forward into a trot. Soon they left the stables behind and passed outside, onto the road of paved white stones which snaked through Gilfannin and from there south, into the land of Erresune. Ellisaine felt a thrill go through her at the thought. She was going back into human lands once more, to help a friend who needed her – and, though she was privately guilty for feeling it, she was leaving the fading city wrapped in its fading past behind her, and she was going somewhere that her actions would matter. It wasn’t the same as hunting down the one who had sent an assassin to claim her life, but it was, perhaps, a start.

She was a Guardian, and she had a mission to accomplish. Mounted on her horse, she left Celannien behind and headed south. From the stable door, Lanyrilyn watched her go with keen elven eyes, a quiet sadness faintly visible beneath the serenity of her face.

///

In the south of Erresune, on a lonely forest path, sunlight was growing faintly in the distance, night giving way to a new day. The renegade looked up and wrapped her dark cloak more tightly around herself. She would need to find a place to rest soon, for she was a night creature, like all her kind. The trees provided some cover, but they were thinning; it wouldn’t be much farther before she would leave the forest behind and come to the plains the covered much of the kingdom of Erresune; to cross those, she would have to move only at night, or possibly under heavy cloud cover where the hateful sun could not find her. But that was still a trial she wouldn’t have to face for another day or so, if her memory of the map chamber in Ydrisithalin guided her true.

Fortunately, at the last village she’d stopped at, she’d taken time to listen to rumors, and had heard stories of a haunted place somewhere in the forest nearby. They said that it was a ruined tower, its top gone now, that was beautiful and yet terrible of form, and seemed to be made entirely from black marble. The renegade had smiled at the story, for it seemed she had at last found another place that had been marked on the lord’s map, a place from a time when her kind had laid an entire continent under their rule. Humans feared such a place, like they feared the night, but to the renegade, both night and ruin would be welcoming.

Leaving the path, she cut a short distance through the forest; the rumors said that the haunted tower wasn’t far from the road – it wasn’t difficulty in reaching it that kept humans away, but fear of what powers might still dwell in its walls. At last, she emerged into a small clearing, and there the ruin stood – the stump of a tower, its top levels gone, as the stories had said, and what remained was solid black. She smiled beneath her hood at the sight. Yes, this was a place that would suit her purposes.

The sun was just peeking over the trees when she stepped through the opening that had once been a door and into the main hall. Thank the Night, though the top of the tower was gone, the roof of this chamber remained intact; it would be shaded here all day. Despite herself, the renegade felt a sudden sense of peace wash through her at the sight of the dark, shadowed chamber. The humans might have feared it, and would have no doubt called this room grim and fearful had they seen it, but it remained her of the dimly remembered palace of her childhood, from before the Emperor had fallen, and of the more modest chambers of Ydrisithalin where she had spent an adolescence and young adulthood in exile. And yet it was empty, free of the presence of others of her kind – her people who had betrayed her. Yes, this place would suit her to rest for the day, far more than any of the caves she’d used before had done.

Carefully she reached up and tossed back her hood, then pulled off her blindfold to reveal the dark eyes beneath. Slowly then she walked around the edge of the chamber, tracing the carvings on the walls with her fingers. Here were the familiar scenes of conquest and glory, the appropriate tributes to the Emperor, and even something that had been scuffed out, no doubt when the tower had fallen, that might have once been a depiction of the Serpent itself. Her heart shivered in awe.

This had been no great fortress or lord’s dwelling in the days of Empire, but rather a simple watchtower. Still, when the Children of Night built a place there were certain powers they wove into the stone, powers to conceal and protect. As the renegade’s fingers traced the stone, she drew shadow forth from it and wrapped it around herself in an invisible haze that would turn aside seeking eyes. No human bandit or hungry beast would find her now; even the hunters of Ydrisithalin would miss her unless they stumbled directly onto her. She was as safe now as she’d been at any time since leaving the last city of her people.

Laying down against the wall, she rolled her cloak into a pillow for her head and lay back against it, first being sure that the Fang was propped up beside her, in easy reach. As she slowly drifted off, she found herself remembering the faces of the bandits she had killed, several days ago. She felt no guilt for their deaths – they had tried to kill her, after all, and they were hardly the first humans she had ever slain in any case – but their images swam before her, nonetheless. Perhaps it is this land, she drowsily thought, that is so much more alive than the Plains of Maradd and is not pleased by killing. And my journey will take me farther still. What will become of me, before its end?

But such weighty thoughts slipped away, and she drifted off into sleep.

///

Further south still, atop the cliffs that separated the Plains of Maradd from human lands, a figure crouched, clad in the hooded black cloak of a Child of Night. Heavy clouds hung in the air above him, keeping the eye of the cursed sun away; whether by coincidence, the blessing of Night or the power of Ydrisithalin’s lord, he did not know, and for now, did not care. A moment’s reprieve was a relief, in any case. For he was a Hunter and he had a task to perform, and it could not be done while he was being burned alive by the hateful glare above.

The creature that crouched beside him had little more love of the sun than did he. In form, it resembled a great black hound that was as much wolf as dog, but the resemblance was in form only. Smoke and shadow rose from the tracker’s furry back as if leaking from its very substance, and its body was inky black. Its eyes were pale embers that glowed faintly with an eldritch light. But its sense of smell was as keen as any living hound, and it would serve its Night-born masters utterly in their task.

The tracker now prowled back and forth on the edge of the cliff, seeking a scent. One of the Children of Night left a trail that was hard to follow, but this creature had specifically been bred to manage it. There were several hidden paths that led down to the forest below, and it had already ruled out several of them; but they must be close now. The hunter could feel it. He could well remember being woken from his bedchamber by dark-armored guards and hauled before his lord, who was in such a fury as he had never seen before. She had gone missing – she on whom the future of their race depended. And she had dared to steel a Fang when she left, perhaps the most potent weapon remaining to them after their great defeat. The guards who had allowed her to pass were suffering already, the lord had told him; they would die after a few more days’ torment to remind the Children of the cost of failure. The lord had other plans and other allies, now; the girl’s betrayal had not ruined all, not yet. But he wanted her back, and so he ordered the hunter to take his squad and a tracker and find her and bring her home. Alive, of course, but still, the hunter did not want to imagine what awaited her on her return. He was a hard man, a cruel man at need, but there were some things that simply didn’t bear thinking about.

Finally, the tracker stopped, sniffed heavily, and then threw back its head and howled, a terrible, triumphant sound. It had the scent. The hunter grinned and turned to where the other two members of his squad, a man and a woman of the Children, both cloaked and hooded as he was, stood waiting.

“Come,” he told them. “We have our trail. It is time, and we will not fail.”

“We will not fail,” they repeated, bowing their heads, and he knew it for truth. He was Vissandrian, chief of the hunters of the Children of Night, and he had never failed before to take his quarry. He did not intend to start now.

He would find her, and he would bring her back to Ydrisithalin, in chains if need be. And then the lord of the city would decide on what fate awaited her for her betrayal.

 

 

[MasterGhandalf]

New chapter! 

Spoiler

Chapter Ten

Harkaitz paused briefly to clear his throat and once again to straighten his clothing before he raised a hand and rapped it lightly on the door before him. The door itself was plain wood, with little to distinguish it from any other door in the Guild’s current home; by itself, it didn’t seem like something that would instill such obvious nervousness in a hardened killer. Of course, the door itself wasn’t the problem; what lay behind it was, and that was another story altogether.

For a moment that seemed to stretch into an eternity, there was silence; then a voice from the other side bade him to enter. Harkaitz drew a deep breath and opened the door, stepping through into the room beyond and shutting it behind him.

The room itself was sparsely decorated, though fancier than many down here. A desk sat against one well, illuminated by several candles, and the walls were lined with bookshelves. It was clearly a study and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a fine lord’s mansion, save for the lack of windows. But the figure who sat in the chair and was now turned to face Harkaitz was certainly no house lord or member of the Assembly, and their presence demanded his attention above all else.

No one knew for sure who the leader of the Ravens was, or where they’d come from. They were simply called the Guildmaster, or the Raven Master; if they had a real name, nobody Harkaitz knew could say for sure what it was. Some said the title was passed down by unknown means; others that the Guildmaster was centuries old, prolonging their life by some mysterious magic, and had led the Guild from its inception. Harkaitz didn’t know the truth and felt that a man with any sense of self-preservation wouldn’t try to dig into it and risk learning things he shouldn’t. The Guildmaster was the Guildmaster; that was all there was to it.

They were dressed today as they always were, in a hooded black cloak that completely shrouded their body, with their face concealed by an exaggerated mask that resembled the head of a great black bird. It bore a passing resemblance to attire favored by plague doctors in centuries past, and Harkaitz figured that uncomfortable association was part of the reason for the costume. It was horribly impractical for an assassin, of course; nobody would go on a mission in such a distinctive outfit, one that drew all eyes immediately to it. But then, that was the reason the Guildmaster dressed as they did; the costume itself provided ample distraction for the person inside it. Nobody knew what the Guildmaster looked like beneath the mask and robes, or even if they were a man or a woman – Harkaitz tended to use either “he” or “they”, as the mood took him, and the Guildmaster had never objected, but that was hardly proof either way. They gave the impression of a tall and powerful build, but then, those robes could easily add quite a bit of height or bulk, if they were padded properly. The voice was that of a man, deep and smooth, but voices could be faked, and Harkaitz would wager a month’s pay that there were sigils on the inside of that beak that made anyone who wore the mask sound like that.

The Guildmaster could be anyone, or no one. That was the point. Some of the Ravens said that they hid themselves among the Guild, pretending to be an assassin of lower rank, going secretly on missions so as to keep an eye on their acolytes. Harkaitz didn’t know either way. Another of those mysteries, in his reckoning, better left unexplored.

Regardless, the Guildmaster might command the Ravens, but they – or he – were no lord; Harkaitz saluted but did not bow. The Guildmaster nodded in response and stood, seeming to tower over the assassin; the mask’s dead eyes gave away nothing.

“Harkeitz Danelin,” the Guildmaster said, voice as smooth and cool as ever. “You were placed in charge of the assault on House Idaska, as commissioned by Lord Ibban Arratus. According to reports from your team, you were successful – partially. Aedor Idaska, the primary target, is dead. However, his twin children escaped. And there was a fire. The Guild was not commissioned to start a fire at House Idaska. How did this happen?”

The master’s voice wasn’t angry, or harsh, or accusing; it was simply calm and even, its tone never changing; that always frightened Harkeitz more than if they had shouted. “Master,” he said, “the Idaskas became alerted to our presence and were attempting to flee. The lord and lady tried to hold us off to allow their children to escape; they failed, but when we caught up to them the girl…” once again, he could feel the heat on his skin and felt his heartbeat quicken, “the girl was trained in magic, and performed a powerful fire spell. Of those of us who cornered her and her brother, I alone escaped.”

“Indeed,” the Guildmaster said, mask impassive. “Your targets were alerted to you. How?”

“One of my team was sloppy and got caught,” he said. “Ganik. He paid for his mistake with his life, but I should have done a better job of reining him in, and I submit to your judgment.” He didn’t say that it was the Guildmaster who had requested he take Ganik on that mission and see the boy seasoned, or that Arratus’s conditions for the murder had made their job much more difficult. He’d been talon leader for his team; its failures were his responsibility before anyone else.

“I think not,” the Guildmaster said. “I am angry, but not with you. I am angry that our client failed to provide adequate information on our targets, whether through carelessness or his own ignorance, and that this mission led to the deaths of five Ravens. There will be an accounting.”

“Yes, Master,” Harkaitz said, saluting again, hand over heart.

“Any means are acceptable, so long as the mark is killed. The only honor an assassin is allowed is this – that when a killing is commissioned, it will be carried out, no matter the cost. This is the creed of the Raven Guild.” That it was; Harkaitz had heard the idea repeated, in different phrases but expressed the same nonetheless, many times since he began his training in the Guild, but he couldn’t help but listen intently as the Guildmaster repeated it now. “Your task is not finished. Not by your own fault, perhaps, but as talon leader, you must accept responsibility. You will hunt down young Lady and Lord Idaska, and you will kill them. They both must die in fulfilment of our contract, but the girl most especially. For she is a Raven-killer, and those who kill Ravens will know the Guild’s retribution.”

“Of course, Master,” Harkaitz said. “But the girl is powerful – strangely powerful, for her age. This task will require caution.”

“Of course,” the Guildmaster said. “I will assign you a new talon, composed of our most skilled mages. And you will interrogate Petra Idaska before you set forth and seek out the girl’s lectors and friends from the Academy. I will send Guild members to search through what remains of her home, if that will aid you. When you go against her, you will go forewarned and forearmed. And you will not fail.”

“I will not fail you, Guildmaster,” Harkaitz said. The masked head nodded, and the assassin knew he was dismissed. He turned to leave the room, but as he placed his hand on the door, the Guildmaster’s voice came one more time over his shoulder.

“Before you begin your investigation, send Sandos to me,” the Guildmaster said. “There are matters regarding our friend Arratus that merit further study.” Sandos was the Guild’s chief spy, but the Guildmaster wouldn’t have mentioned Arratus if he hadn’t wanted Harkaitz to know that he was interested in their client’s secrets. Not for the first time, he wondered at why the man had the most powerful official in Erresune killed the way he did, and just how deep his schemes ran.

He shook himself. It didn’t matter. He was an assassin, a killer; he had a job to do, and vengeance to claim. Plots and schemes, he’d leave to lords and guildmasters. So long as they had need of his ilk, and paid well for his services, their reasons didn’t matter. Harkaitz had worries enough already.

///

Hira Sentaria’s streets were hushed as word of the death of the Chief Minister spread. Guard patrols marched or rode down the major streets, past the palace, the Academy and the Assembly Hall and through the markets, more so that they could be seen as symbols of order than because they planned to arrest anyone right away. Nonetheless, they were on edge. People watched them silently from their windows or carried out their business quickly and with wary eyes at the market stalls. A pall seemed to hang over the city, as if everyone and everything in it was taking a deep breath and waiting for whatever doom to fall that would.

Leira made her way quickly down a market near the city’s main gate with her hood pulled up. It didn’t offer much protection of her identity, but she’d tried to cover for that. She wasn’t much good at illusion magic, but a few sigils traced on her cheeks made her look about twice as old as she really was; anyone looking for a girl of nineteen probably wouldn’t give a woman of forty a second glance. She just hoped it would hold long enough to finish her errand.

Every time a guard patrol passed, part of her wanted to jump out at them, announce her identity and beg for their help; another part wanted to run to the Assembly Hall and denounce Arratus as a murderer and a traitor. He had to be behind this, or at least involved, but her father’s letter warned against such a course of action. Arratus was one of the most powerful, well-connected men in Erresune; probably the most powerful no that Aedor Idaska was dead. Who knew how far his influence went? It certainly went beyond those fanatics in red cloaks who stirred up trouble on street corners but were curiously absent this morning. And the Raven Guild could be anywhere…

She finally came to the alley where she’d left Kenem and ducked back inside, waving a hand over her face to dispel her sigils before they came apart of their own accord. Her brother leaned against the wall, sharpening his sword, and he looked up when he saw her approach. “Well?” he asked quietly. “What’d you find?”

Leira shook her head. “The gate is shut,” she said. “And guarded. As we figured. We’re not getting out the city that way. And we can’t stay, either. The Ravens will be looking for us. They probably won’t try anything during the day, but after dark…” she let her voice trail off.

“Do you think we’ll be safe from them if we do get away?” Kenem asked. “I mean, all the stories tie them to Hira Sentaria, but just because they’re based here doesn’t mean they can’t send people elsewhere.”

“I know,” Leira said. “But we have to trust Father knew what he was doing, and that if we find… find his friend, she can help us.” Ellisaine. Their father knew the famous Ellisaine. That still was a shock – and thinking about it only reminded her that she would never be able to ask how he’d met her. She’d never be able to ask him anything, ever again…

No, Leira told herself. Be strong. I will not cry. Not yet…

“Come on,” she said out loud. “There are other ways out of the city, you know. Mother and Father showed us, in case we ever needed to sneak away without anyone noticing.”

Kenem rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Exactly what I was trying to avoid. Nothing like a nice trip through the sewers after escaping a burning building. The glamorous life of adventure.”

“Oh, hush,” Leira said. “It’s a tunnel, not a sewer. And we’re not far. Come on. The sooner we get through with it, the sooner it will be over.”

“Sewer or tunnel, it still stinks,” Kenem muttered, then threw up his hands in surrender. “Very well, my lady. Do lead on.”

Leira shot him a flat stare.

///

The tunnel did smell, but it wasn’t as bad as Kenem had feared; it wasn’t guarded, either. It was barred, with a small gate, but the gate was maintained by the city watch and, as the Chief Minister’s daughter, Leira had been given a key that would open it. The twins passed the gate quickly, and soon found themselves beyond the wall, in the broad belt of buildings that made up Hira Sentaria’s outskirts.

Thinking it best to keep moving, they made their way through the streets and found a horse trader; Leira stood off to one side as Kenem bargained with the man, staring at her hands. She flexed her fingers and remembered the sigil she’d traced in the air, the fire that had consumed the Ravens, that had surely started the blaze that had gutted their home. They’d seen the pillar of smoke. She’d caused that destruction. She’d killed. Part of her said it had been self-defense. Another, quieter part, whispered murderer.

And in any case, it had been too late. It hadn’t saved their parents, or Luken, or anyone…

Finally, Kenem came walking over, leading a pair of brown, workmanlike horses. Swiftly the twins mounted, and then rode off down the road, heading east, towards the village where their father’s letter had said Ellisaine would meet them.

That night, they stopped at an inn to rest, under false names. When Leira slept, she dreamed of a great black serpent that swallowed the sun.

///

The Assembly Hall of the Kingdom of Erresune was in an uproar.

The great marble chamber was lined with columns and murals depicting famous scenes from Erresunin history; beneath them along either side were rows of benches where the Assembly members sat, elected representatives on the left, hereditary nobility on the right. At the far end, directly across from the main entrance, was a raised dais upon which sat the Queen’s Throne; the wall behind it was painted with a golden sunburst. The queen typically attended Assembly meetings, but by tradition she did not speak save to open and close the proceedings, or to give her vote in the rare event of a tie. One step down from the throne, however, sat another chair – the Chief Minister’s Seat, which was today, sadly and by necessity, empty.

Ibban Arratus sat among his faction on the right-hand side of the hall, calmly watching as his fellow Assembly members stood and shouted at each other, blaming one another for the Chief Minister’s assassination, demanding contradictory courses of action in response to the murder, or just shouting curses at anyone who dared to interrupt them. Arratus himself kept himself quiet, his features solemn, and he had instructed the other members of his faction to do the same. He was clad in somber mourning clothes and had commanded his supporters to dress the same way, with no sign of the red cloaks that usually marked their faction. Today, he had told them, was a day to be seen as reasonable, an island of measured calm and honor given to a respected opponent who had been taken from them. It was not a day for division. The time for action would come, but not yet.

Taking his gaze from the rising quarrel on the Assembly floor, Arratus turned to look at the throne and the woman who sat there, her face as calm and composed as his own. Anitzaine II was a beautiful, elegant woman of around Arratus’s old age, and in her fine gown and gleaming golden circlet, she certainly looked every inch the queen. It was said she greatly resembled her great-grandmother, Anitzaine the Great; if the portrait of the famous warrior queen that hung on the walls of this very chamber was at all accurate, Arratus had to admit that it was true. But in his experience, she lacked her namesake’s fire and strength of character; today, even from a distance, he thought he could see the liens of worry around the edges of her eyes and mouth. Yes, her Chief Minister’s death had troubled her greatly; she was off-balance. That wasn’t strictly necessary for what Arratus intended, but still, it could work to his advantage. If the queen wouldn’t step forward to provide leadership in an hour of crisis, then someone else would.

Finally, Anitzaine seemed to grow tired of the argument before her; she frowned and made a small gesture with one hand. A tall old man who sat on the right-side benches close to the throne stood, a long golden staff in his hands, and slammed it into the marble floor. The sound was incredible, and the Assembly members stopped their arguing to turn to stare at him. “Enough!” the old man declared angrily. “Are you members of the Assembly of Erresune or are you squabbling children! This is a sad day, and I will not have it turned into a free-for-all!”

The assembly members quieted and returned to their seats, shuffling nervously. The old man was Bittor Kaldeus, Speaker of the Assembly; if the Chief Minister was the official head of the Assembly, the Speaker was the one who oversaw the processes of its daily running. It was a position typically granted to recognized elder statesmen, and Kaldeus was no exception, having served with distinction for decades. And, fortunately for Arratus, he had long held himself aloof from politics, being focused almost entirely on making sure proper procedure was followed. This man had the potential to become a rival, but so long as he was true to his own nature, he would be no threat.

“Speaker,” an elegant older woman said, standing, “my I be recognized?”

“The Assembly recognizes Lady Garbene of House Ladara,” the Speaker said, gesturing with his staff.

“My lords and ladies of the Assembly,” Lady Ladara said, “we all know why we are gathered here today. One of our own – and not merely an Assembly member, but our own Chief Minister, Aedor Idaska – was found murdered in his home; his house was burned and his family are presumed dead. This is a tragedy, both for those of us who knew him and for our nation, and it is an outrage. The Assembly cannot let this stand. I hereby move to open discussion – in a civilized manner – about what our response should be to this terrible event.”

The Speaker pounded his staff again. “The motion is heard. Is it seconded?” A number of hands shot into the air, each of them seeming to strain to be the first seen; the Speaker merely nodded. “Then the floor is open.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Oer Firmin, a merchant and one of the elected representatives, declared. “According to the Watch, weapons of Urazin make were found at the site of the Chief Minister’s murder; according to the mages who examined his body, the poison in his veins was of Urazin manufacture. Clearly, this was an act of war by the Sultanate of Uraz against our kingdom, hoping to deprive us of leadership in a single fell blow! Our course of action is clear – we must demand an explanation from the sultan and that he punish those responsible, and if he does not, then we must punish them ourselves!”

“You’re talking about war!” Alaia Venessus, another merchant, shouted, rising to her feet. “We must demand an accounting from the sultan, of course, but I think that this is likely a misdirection. Clearly, criminal elements within our own city are at fault, hoping to place the blame on a foreign enemy to distract from their own operations. We need to double watch patrols and increase investigations to root out criminal activity within Hira Sentaria itself, as I’ve been proposing for months!”

“Oh, and if we’d listened to you, this never would have happened?” Lord Imanol said, his voice scornful. “Hardly. This murder was obviously the work of the Children of Night, seeking revenge for their defeat a century ago!” Nobody paid much mind to Imanol, except perhaps to quietly laugh or grin at their neighbors; he was known for believing all manner of wild tales and had been predicting the imminent end of the world for years now. The rest of the Assembly had long sense learned to ignore him.

“I think,” Markus Zabirus said, “that we should hear from the last of us to see the Chief Minister alive. Ibban Arratus had dinner with Lord Idaska the night before he died. Lord Arratus, will you talk to us?” Zabirus was another of the elected representatives, and he wasn’t part of Arratus’s faction; a small offering of gold had convinced him to call on Arratus to speak, and his neutrality would help give that request more weight than if it had come from one his own.

“The Assembly recognizes Lord Ibban of the House Arratus,” the Speaker declared. Arratus stood slowly, fully aware that all eyes were on him. This was the moment he had been waiting for; the moment where his dreams would either be realized or would fail utterly.

“My friends,” Arratus said, “It is well known that Aedor Idaska and I had our many differences over the years. We stood on opposite sides of many issues, as everyone in this hall had occasion to witness on numerous occasions. Our most recent argument led to the division of this Assembly, and for that, I claim full responsibility. I am a man of passion, and sometimes that passion leads me to decisions I later come to regret. That was the case in our previous meeting. Dividing the Assembly was never my intent, and when I looked back with a more level head, I came to realize that I had done nothing but harm Erresune with my impetuousness. That was why I sought a meeting with Lord Idaska, so that we might mend our conflict. For, despite our differences, I have never had anything but respect for our Chief Minister and had no desire to be his enemy.

“I am pleased to say that Lord Idaska also wished for a reconciliation. I merely wished for my fears regarding Urazin aggression to be heard, and Lord Idaska gave me a hearing. I asked nothing of him save that he take my warnings seriously. He was well when I left him, and it was only this morning that I heard tidings of his death. Never have I been more shocked and horrified. Lord Idaska was a great man, and his loss diminishes us all. I have nothing to add regarding the events surrounding his assassination, save to call for unity in these times of trial. I regret my role in causing strife among us, and I think that were he here, Lord Idaska would call us to unity as well. Let us not, my friends, disgrace his memory by fighting here in the Assembly Hall itself.”

From the corner of his eyes, he saw the queen nodding appreciatively as he took his seat. “Don’t you have anything else to add, Ibban?” Oer Firmin called. “Surely you, of all people, couldn’t resist a chance to call for war with Uraz?”

Arratus spread his hands. “I am not here today to call for war,” he said. “Merely to remind us that Erresune must stand as one. If Uraz is our enemy, we will discover it, and take appropriate action. If not, we had best direct our attention elsewhere. But I do not wish to soil Lord Idaska’s memory today with talk of bloodshed.”

“Thank you for your thoughtful words, Lord Arratus,” Lady Ladara said, standing again. “And for your reminder that we must show the respect due to the dead. It has been many years since a Chief Minister was murdered while in office; we must observe the traditional mourning period, and then the time will come to the Assembly to elect a new leader. Therefore, though votes will be postponed until after Lord Idaska’s funeral, I hereby call upon the Assembly to nominate candidates to succeed him. We cannot go without leadership for long in a time of crisis.”

“The floor is now open for nominations for the office of Chief Minister,” the Speaker declared.

“I nominate Lady Garbene Ladara!” one of the nobles called; an elected representative seconded. Arratus nodded thoughtfully; Ladara was a respected member of the Assembly, and her nomination was to be expected. Expected, and planned for.

“I accept,” Ladara said, nodding. Two more nominations were proposed – Lord Orzabal and Representative Elkanus, the former an aging nobleman, the latter a decorated military officer. Both were well-liked, but would, in Arratus’s estimation, have a lesser chance than Ladara at winning enough votes.

Finally, Lord Urtzin Amanus stood; he was another Arratus had spoken to beforehand. No money had changed hands here; Amanus wasn’t part of Arratus’s faction but was reasonably sympathetic to his goals. He looked over at Arratus and nodded; Arratus tensed in response. “I nominate Lord Ibban Arratus!” he declared. Zabirus raised his hand to second.

Arratus stood. “It was never my intention to seek power today,” he said. “Merely to honor a worthy adversary and seek to heal the wounds I have helped cause. But if the Assembly will have me, I accept the nomination.”

No more nominations were raised, Arratus sat down, feeling relieved, but determined. He’d made it this far; now he had to finish the job. He hadn’t lied about respecting Idaska, but sometimes, for what was necessary, certain sacrifices had to be made. He regretted that Idaska’s death had been one of them, but to see Erresune rise to true glory, Ibban Arratus would pay any price.

He looked over at the throne, where the queen was now regarding him with a thoughtful, measuring expression. He met her eyes and nodded slightly. He’d tossed his dice now; soon, everything would be in motion, and Erresune’s grand destiny would be at hand. Someday, the queen would thank him for it. Not today, perhaps, but soon.

 

[MasterGhandalf]

New chapter! 

Spoiler

Chapter Eleven

Julin Benas regarded the clock in House Arratus’s sitting room and nodded quietly to himself. Lord Arratus should be addressing the Assembly now; should everything go as planned it would not be long before he had received his nomination for the position of Chief Minister. It was not the same as actually becoming Chief Minister, of course, but is was a step in that direction – perhaps the most important one. Now all that remained was securing the vote, but Arratus had – with Benas’s help – laid many plans in motion, and he had the support of his Assembly faction behind him. Yes, everything remained on track, for now.

Of course, that also meant that certain… other arrangements had to be attended to. Benas had been putting this conversation off, but at last he decided that he had best get on it sooner rather than later. Better to take care of unpleasant business quickly rather than draw it out. Sighing, he stood and straightened his jacket before leaving the sitting room and walking down a hallway towards one of the mansion’s guest rooms.

This particular guest room had its door sealed tightly shut, and Benas knew that its curtains were drawn heavily over the windows as well. The guest who was currently in residence here did not like light – he didn’t seem to mind candlelight or lamplight much, though he also didn’t seem to need them, either, but he despised sunlight and avoided it at all costs. He was a nocturnal creature, as was apparently typical of his kind; he might be in bed at the moment, though privately Benas doubted it. He’d heard that beings like the one he was dealing with slept, but so far, he’d never caught this one at it.

Benas knocked once to announce his presence, then pulled out his keys and unlocked the door, shutting it behind him as he stepped into the dark room. As he’d expected, there were a few flickering lamps here and there, but they mostly just served to make the shadows in the rest of the room seem deeper by contrast. The bed, of course, was empty, with no sign it had been slept in.

“Julin Benas,” a soft voice said; Benas barely managed to avoid jumping, and instead turned slowly to face the speaker. “I hear things are going well for your master. What would you have of me?”

The guest room’s occupant sat in one of the room’s fine chairs; he’d been sitting so quietly and still, Benas hadn’t noticed him until he’d revealed himself. He resembled a man, in most respects, albeit an unusually pale, slender man with long, jet black hair. He was handsome, albeit in a faintly off-putting way, with the bones of his face being just slightly too angular to be human. But his ears were sharply pointed, and his eyes were solid black, giving the lie to any idea that this being was human. His name was Istandar, and he called himself the personal envoy of the Lord of Ydrisithalin. He was a Child of Night, one of the ancient enemies of humanity, a being who had served in the court of the dreadful Emperor-in-Shadow himself, though he had been evasive as to what role he had played.

And he was, for now, Lord Arratus’s personal guest and uneasy ally.

If Benas had his way, he’d throw the Night-born from the house and take his chances relying solely on Arratus’s resources and cunning to advance the lord’s ambition. He was no bigot, and had nothing against non-humans in general, but, well, there was something about Istandar that set him on edge. He couldn’t help but wonder how many human slaves this creature had murdered, back when the Empire of Night bestrode the continent or in the Emperor’s failed resurgence. But Arratus said he found the aid of Ydrisithalin useful, and so Benas was forced to grit his teeth and stomach the envoy’s presence.

That did not, however, mean he enjoyed Istandar’s company.

“Lord Aedor Idaska’s death is a tragedy,” Benas snapped; no matter his own role in arranging that death, he would not give the Night-born an inch of ground on that topic, or any other. “Albeit a tragedy which suits the interests of my Lord Arratus. My lord is currently at a meeting of the Assembly; he asks me to pass on his compliments, and your latest instructions.”

“Instructions?” Istandar asked; his voice remained level, but something cold crept into it, and his black eyes glittered dangerous. “I was no aware that I took instructions from your human lord.”

“Consider it a request, then, if you will,” Benas said, “from one ally to another. Today, my lord intends to receive a nomination for the Chief Minister’s office. He requests that you and your… associates work to swing public opinion in his favor before the election.”

Istandar chuckled quietly. “Your lord’s enemy is dead,” he said, “and he was, however indirectly, responsible. Why does he require our help to take power that he should be in a position to seize for himself?”

Benas knew Istandar understood Erresune’s political system perfectly, and that the Night-born was baiting him. He tried to keep his face calm, though as was often the case when dealing with the infuriating creature, that was difficult. “Despite what you may be used to,” he said, “here in Erresune we are civilized, and we do not transfer positions of power through murder. Killing Idaska will not win my lord his position; indeed, if word of his involvement should get out, it would likely destroy his career and potentially his life. The Chief Minister is elected by the Assembly, and the Assembly pays attention to the mood of the people. The representatives are elected and must remain popular to hold their seats, but even the nobles know that they ignore the voice of the people at their peril. Therefore, you must use your influence to sway that voice so that it says Ibban Arratus should be Chief Minister.”

Istandar shook his head. “Ah, but you people make life so complicated,” he said. “It never ceases to amaze me how you humans, whose lives are short enough already, waste so much of your time with empty rules and procedures. I remember when your kind still used bronze weapons and followed whatever warlord was most efficient at killing his enemies. How times have changed.”

“But you will do it,” Benas pressed.

“But of course,” Istandar said. “My lord values his friendship with your lord; we would never want to risk such a valuable relationship.”

Benas didn’t know for sure when Arratus had first contacted the dark city of Ydrisithalin, or whether it had been humans or Children of Night who had first initiated the communication. All he knew was that some months ago Istandar had appeared at the mansion unexpectedly in the middle of the night, and he and Lord Arratus had worked out the rough terms of an alliance. The Night-born would help Arratus gain the power he sought, the power to build Erresune into the greatest empire the nations of man had ever seen – and in return, Arratus would help them, with certain… concessions.

So far, the arrangement had been profitable, but Benas still couldn’t bring himself to like it. He was an organizer by trade and nature, and he hated unpredictable and chaotic elements – and there was no element more chaotic than the Children of Night, whom he was certain would be more than pleased to watch all of humanity fall into the ocean and never return. But it was not his place to question his lord.

“Of course, we will require that our… requests… be met as well,” Istandar said. “Have you any updates on your progress?”

“I keep telling you, these things take time,” Benas said. “Even getting messages that far north and back can take weeks, and that with the best birds. But as for your question, no. Thursinn’s opinion remains unchanged. The jarl is proud, and he says he won’t deal with just any human. He says that he will only negotiate with an equal, which to him means either the queen or the chief minister. Clearly, the queen is not an option, therefore Lord Arratus must become Chief Minister in order to fulfil his end of the bargain with you.” Benas allowed himself a small, tight grin. “So, it seems, in helping us, you are helping yourself as well.”

Istandar chuckled, an oddly musical sound that made the hair on Benas’s arms stand up. “Indeed,” he said. “It is curious how these things work out, isn’t it? But don’t think to cheat me, human. My lord wants what the giants have found, and he will have it, one way or another. If you can’t procure it for us, we will find another who can – and in that case, things will go poorly for your master.”

“We are well aware,” Benas said drily; he’d heard it before. Whatever it was Jarl Thursinn had discovered in his mountain fastness – and Istandar was evasive on that front – the Children of Night wanted it, and badly. Apparently, they’d approached the jarl directly, but their messenger – possibly Istandar himself, though he hadn’t been entirely clear – had been rebuffed. Since the en of the War of Shadows, the giant clans had wanted nothing to do with the remnants of the Night-born. The lord of Ydrisithalin, however, had been unwilling to give up, and so had decided to use someone else as a middleman to purchase the giants’ discovery on his behalf. That was where Arratus had come in.

“You can tell your lord that once Lord Arratus has the Chief Minister’s chair, he will provide you with everything you have asked,” he went on. “And you can also remind him that he has a vested interest in putting him there. By your own admission, your people have only a shadow of their former strength – to achieve whatever ambitions you have left, you need our help. But so long as you also help us, we see no reason it can’t be a mutually profitable relationship.”

“Of course,” Istandar said. “We remain at Lord Arratus’s disposal.” Whatever the Children of Night might lack in military force, they certainly made up for in other areas. It had been Istandar who had provided Arratus with the services of the strange priests who had proven so instrumental in swaying public opinion in his favor – priests of a god Istandar would not name, and seemed to shiver in what might have been fear or awe when he mentioned it. Apparently, the Night-born envoy had been among humans for some time, in various guises, and had recruited a number of acolytes with threats and promises. They were closed-mouthed about what they actually believed, but they had proven willing to speak in Arratus’s favor, rallying the people with calls for a Greater Erresune and speaking of one whom their god had chosen to lead the people to glory. With their help, the ranks of Arratus’s redbacks had swelled.

“There is one more thing my master requests,” Istandar said. “We are not a homogenous people, any more than you. Sometimes we have… disputes, as to how best we may serve the cause of Night. Recently one of our people fled Ydrisithalin, having stolen something of great value to my lord. She must he found. Hunters have been dispatched, but she fled into Erresune. We would be much obliged if Lord Arratus would help us retrieve her.”

“If you want this woman dead, perhaps the Raven Guild would be a better option,” Benas said coolly; as far as he was concerned, the Ravens and the Night-born deserved each other. “We are a noble house, not bounty hunters for hire.”

“We do not want her dead!” Istandar hissed; more emotion showed on his face than Benas had ever seen him display before. Interesting; this had struck a nerve. “Merely… retrieved. But she is dangerous, and we would advise against engaging her. However, if anyone in your lord’s employ should happen to see a young woman in black who avoids the sun, we would be pleased if they passed that information on to us. As a… favor. This girl is very important to my lord. He would hate to lose her.”

“Very well,” Benas said. “I will inform our agents… discretely… to watch for this person. Is there anything else you wish to ask of us?” Istandar shook his head ‘no’, somehow managing to make the gesture look unnatural, something he’d learned by rote but which he’d rarely had occasion to use. “In that case, I will take my leave. And remember your own obligations. We must make the people of Hira Sentaria believe that Ibban Arratus is their only option for leadership.”

Istandar nodded and smiled a cool smile; Benas nodded at him and stepped back out into the corridor, relieved to be out of that dark room and away from its disturbing occupant as he shut the door behind him.

Well, Istandar was useful enough – for now. So were the Ravens. But someday, Julin Benas vowed, Lord Arratus would be strong enough to stand without such friends. And on that day, they would be rid of Istandar and his ilk once and for all.

///

It was another week of interminable travel before Deverim and Harkosh left the Badlands behind. The land remained flat and unvaried, desolate save for the presence of the occasional traveler, and the days had begun to bleed into each other by the time they reached a place where the terrain finally began to rise again. The empty plains gave way to a rolling hill country where the grass was thicker and greener; to the west, the shadow of a distant forest could be seen. They had arrived at the southern border of Erresune, and Deverim found his hand resting more heavily on his scimitar as he walked. He had no particular animosity for the Erresunin – Uraz and Erresune had not been at war during his tenure as the Sultan’s champion, and he had rarely had occasion to come here – but the two countries did have quite the history of animosity. And in these more heavily travelled regions, their odds of being waylaid were that much later. Better safe, he always thought, than dead.

It was the evening of their second day out of the Badlands that the two travelers came to a signpost indicating that a village was nearby. After a quick conference, they decided that Deverim would head into town to buy food and listen for any news that might impact their errand; Harkosh would wait in a hollow not far from the road. It was hard to tell how the townsfolk might react to an orc, especially considering that Harkosh was now apparently fully healed and appeared far stronger and more dangerous than he ever had in Kas Sinir.

The village’s name was Pillaba, and it seemed, to Deverim’s eye, fairly typical of what might expect of such a place in this part of the world. Smaller than Kas Sinir, true, with a small cluster of tile-roofed homes around a handful of shops and an inn, nestled against a moderately-sized stream. Deverim made his way to the inn and stepped into the common room, where he found a scene almost comforting in its familiarity. Small groups of people clustered around a number of tables, talking animatedly with each other, while an innkeeper and a couple of assistants bustle about, making certain everyone was comfortable and their orders taken care of. He smiled slightly behind his beard. Yes, the language was different, the dress was different, but in a sense, he was home.

Taking a seat at an empty table, Deverim flagged the innkeeper over. “Pardon me,” he said in Erresunin; this far south, the innkeeper likely spoke Urazin as well, but it was easier to use the local tongue if one knew it. “I cannot stay long, but I would like to order a meal to go – for two. And I will warn you, my companion has quite an appetite; the second meal had best be large.”

The innkeeper grunted and nodded. “Two meals to go, one extra-large,” he muttered to himself. Pausing for a moment, he looked closer at Deverim and squinted. “You Urazin?” he asked, whether because of his accent or his clothing, Deverim wasn’t sure.

“I am,” he said mildly. “Will that be a problem?”

“Can you pay?” the innkeeper asked.

“Exquisitely,” Deverim said, smiling and placing several silver coins – two more than what he estimated his meal order would cost – into the man’s hand. The innkeeper looked down at them and his eyes widened, and then he smiled broadly.

“That’ll be no problem at all, good sir,” he said, and hurried off. While he waited, Deverim sat back in his chair, regarding his surroundings carefully. Over the low buzz of conversation, he was able to make out a number of separate discussions. Most was local talk, of little interest to him – though one story, energetically related by a man who had clearly had too many ales which concerned a hapless farmer and a poorly behaved rooster, did merit a quiet chuckle. However, there were other travelers in the room besides himself, and overhearing their talk he frowned; this was more interesting, and possibly disturbing. Apparently, news had just come in from another town a few days ride to the west, within the borders of the forest, that a rather notorious bandit gang had been found, all of them dead. There was no sign of whoever had done it, and the wounds on the bandits’ bodies showed no trace of blood. Instead, they were blackened around the edges as though diseased. Nobody was shedding tears for the bandits, but still, the manner of their deaths was disturbing. Apparently, rumors blamed everything from a rival gang with some strange new poison to an angry ghost.

Suddenly, another voice caught Deverim’s ear. “That’s right!” a man was saying loudly, “messenger just brought the news today! I saw her go riding up to the mayor’s house, horse all a-lather, and I overheard what she told him. They’re spreading the word far and wide, but you’ve heard it from me first – the Chief Minister is dead!”

“Dead?” a woman asked. “How? I hadn’t heard he was sick.”

“He wasn’t,” the first speaker said, leaning forward with obvious relish. “He was murdered, in his own home – him and his whole family too, they say. And they say it was the Sultan of Uraz who did it!” He paused. “Well, not the Sultan himself, of course. But he sent the assassins! They found Urazin made weapons and everything!”

Deverim stiffened in his seat, frowning. This… this could be very bad. He didn’t believe that Uraz had ordered the Chief Minister killed; the current Sultan was an ambitious fool, in his opinion, but the Chief Minister was second only to the Queen of Erresune and killing him was an act of war. Uraz wasn’t ready for war with Erresune, despite all the saber-rattling the Sultan liked to do. Surely, he wouldn’t be that shortsighted? Of course, this far from the capital, it was only a rumor, and the only testimony Deverim had heard was that of a probably drunken man who’d been eavesdropping. But still, if enough Erresunin did believe that the Sultan had killed one of their leaders – and though Deverim was no expert on the Erresunin political situation, he’d heard the man was reasonably popular – things could go very bad for Uraz, very quickly.

And Deverim, so far as he could tell, was the only Urazin in the room. He resisted the urge to curse under his breath. Something told him that his welcome was about to turn much colder.

A moment later, the innkeeper hurried back over, a large, cloth-wrapped bundle under one arm; as he got closer, the smell of warm bread, among other savory aromas, could be smelled rising from it. “Here you are, good sir,” he said, still smiling; he didn’t seem to have heard what the man across the room had just announced. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay the night? I have rooms available, very nice accommodations.”

“I’m sorry, but my friend isn’t overly fond of towns,” Deverim said, taking the package carefully. “And I really must be getting back to him. My thanks, and El’s blessings on you.”

“And you, good sir,” the innkeeper said, bowing slightly and making a gesture of blessing – the correct one. Deverim’s estimation of him rose slightly; maybe he had been to Uraz, or at least spent some time talking with people from there. Standing, carrying his provisions, he turned to leave the inn when several men blocked his way. Then man who’d broken the news about the Chief Minister’s assassination was one of them. They smelled drunk and didn’t look happy. Deverim sighed. He’d been hoping to avoid this.

“Say,” the first man said, “it seems to me that you look Urazin.”

“That would be because I am,” Deverim said. “I also happen to be a paying customer, and I currently wish to leave. I would appreciate it, friend, if you would let me past. My friend is waiting for me, and he is no doubt very hungry.”

“Friend,” the first man said, laughing. “That’s a good one. Way we here it, your people just killed our Chief Minister. That’s not a very friendly thing, now, is it? And isn’t it interesting that when we find out about that, we find you here in our little town? You wouldn’t know why that is, would you?”

“The ways of El are mysterious,” Deverim said testily. “And it seems to me that your Chief Minister died some days ago, at which point I was deep in the Badlands and in no position to do – or to know – anything about it. I ask you again, please move.”

“Well, maybe we don’t believe you,” the man said, swaggering forward; his friends took up positions close behind. “Maybe we want to have a little talk about what you were really up to, huh, desert man?” Or maybe, Deverim thought, you are simply a bully looking for a chance to beat an old man because he’s from the wrong country and prays to the wrong god. Regardless of his motivation, the man reached out a hand and roughly seized Deverim’s shoulder.

That was a mistake. Quick as a serpent, Deverim’s free hand shot up, seizing the man’s wrist and twisting it sharply. The bully gave a surprised shout and then Deverim shoved him backwards with sudden force, sending him flying backwards into the door. The entire exchange was over in moments; the bully lay against the door, groaning, while his cronies stared in amazement and the innkeeper could be heard moaning in horror.

Deverim stepped forward, throwing back his cloak to show his hand now rested on his sword. His posture was straighter now, and his expression cold. The two cronies shrank back; a defenseless old man was one thing, but an old man who suddenly looked every inch the warrior was something else. There were many differences in culture between Uraz and Erresune; that bullies were cowards at heart, however, seemed a universal constant. “I have no wish to harm you,” Deverim said. “Merely to be on my way. I hope in the future you remember this lesson in courtesy.” He leaned down towards the first bully, eyes sparkling. “And for the record, much of Uraz is quite temperate, if warmer than what you Erresunin are used to, and only a comparatively small portion is actually desert – and that is not the region I am from. Do not let it be said you weren’t educated by this encounter.” Straightening up, he dug into his coin purse and pulled out a pair of gold coins, which he tossed to the innkeeper. “For your troubles, friend,” he said.

Then, stepping past the bullies, he opened the door and walked out into the village, leaving a common room full of stunned patrons behind him.

///

Deverim found Harkosh still in his small hollow, where he’d been waiting patiently during the entire encounter, and carefully unpackaged the food the innkeeper had prepared for them. While they ate, he regaled the orc with his tale of what had transpired in the inn. Harkosh watched him intently, his grey face thoughtful.

“Well, it seems good to me that you managed to escape in one piece,” the orc said. “A Chief Minister is important, I presume? During the War of Shadows, we learned of Erresune’s military strength, but little else. It was not considered important for us to know more.”

“Very important,” Deverim said. “Much like what we would call a vizier in Uraz. I don’t know what the equivalent among your people would be – an important elder, perhaps? The queen rules Erresune, but the Chief Minister actually runs most of the government; that, I know.”

Harkosh nodded as he absorbed this new information. “Then it seems someone wishes war between your countries,” he said, “though I do not know who. Now, tell me again of these dead bandits you heard of.”

Deverim related that part of the story again, and when he mentioned the nature of the bandits’ wounds, the orc’s eyes narrowed. “I take it you have heard of such things before,” he said, “Though it seems different from the effect the shadowforged blade had on you, if I’m not mistaken. Do you know what could have caused it?”

“Yes,” Harkosh rumbled. “A weapon of the daarash’khal; a very dangerous one. They were all thought to be destroyed long ago. Things are moving in the world, my friend. I do not know to what end, but I cannot imagine that these things – the bandit deaths, the return of the daarash’khal, the dreams of the elders, and this human chieftain’s death – are not related.” He chuckled grimly. “It is fortunate I found you, my friend. It seems my errand may be more important than even I had realized.”

“Then by my gods, we will make sure you do not fail,” Deverim said. “I promise you that.”

 

[MasterGhandalf]

New chapter! With this one, I officially pass 50,000 words total and thus meet my NaNo goal; I therefore won't be updating as frequently from here on out, though I do still hope to continue with this at a somewhat slower pace. A big thanks to everyone who's been following along! 

Spoiler

Chapter Twelve

The wind howled through the passes of the Skyfang Mountains like the very breath of winter. South, and at lower altitudes, autumn remained, and the land was only beginning to cool; here, no spring or summer would every come, and the snow remained heavy and the wind cold. The Skyfangs were the great mountains of the north, and they separated the lands of Erresune and Gilfannin from the cold peninsula of Orosk to the west, and from the desolate Giant-fells that lay even further north, in places where no creatures less hardy could survive.

Celebdanel pulled the hood of his cloak down across his face as he walked along a winding mountain road towards the north. He did not appear to be a dangerous man, to a casual inspection – though he was tall, he was lightly built and did not give the impression of great physical strength or ferocity. But a closer inspection would reveal the sword that hung at his hip and the fact that he walked with a warrior’s casual grace, and he had the piercing green eyes and pointed ears that marked the elven people, though the latter were currently hidden beneath his hood. He was a Guardian, and he had been sent into the far north, to the Giant-fells itself, so that he might carry out a mission from his Lady.

The giants were an ancient people – only the elves were older, or so the legends said, and there was no longer anyone left in the world who might say for sure whether or not that was true from firsthand knowledge. They were long-lived, though not truly immortal, and they were a hardy race capable of surviving in conditions where all other living things might die. But they were also fractious and prone to warring among themselves. The giants claimed they had been born from the bones of the earth in the long-ago days of the world’s youth, and the different giant tribes each possessed an affinity for one of what they called the primal elements of creation – an affinity that was almost as strong as their antipathy for each other. The giants had clashed with each other many times over their history, in terrible wars that were known to smaller peoples only as a distant, dreadful rumor.

The giants had seldom troubled themselves with the wars of other races, even the great conflicts against the Emperor-in-Shadow and his Children of Night. During the War of Shadows, a small force of ice giants had marched under the Emperor’s banner, but had reputedly stressed that they were the Emperor’s allies and not his slaves; they fought for him for their own reasons, though what those reasons were they had never bothered to explain, and they had quickly deserted him when the tide of war turned against him. Of course, most giants had sat out that conflict altogether, and some had fought on the side of humanity – most famous among them the stone giant Yngrulf, companion of Ellisaine the Guardian, Anitzaine the Great, and other mighty heroes.

Little had been heard of the giants in the south since that war, at least until recently, when word began to spread that something long thought impossible had happened – the giant tribes had been united under a single leader. Thursinn, jarl of the ice giants, had declared himself ruler of all giant-kind and brought the stone and storm giants under his dominion – even the fire giants, who mostly dwelled in the volcanic lands to the south of Uraz, had reportedly sent emissaries to do him homage. What further ambitions he may have had beyond this, none could say; many giants had passed through the northern fringes of Gilfannin on their way to Thursinn’s court to serve him, but none could say what he planned.

Tatrisaine, the Lady of the wood, had not lived as long as she had by taking chances, and she did not trust this new power rising on her northern border. Thus far, Thursinn had made no move to make war on elves or humans, but no one rose to such a position of power as he had without some level of ambition. And so, she resolved to send an emissary north, to discover what they could of Thursinn’s intentions. Celebdanel had been chosen for that position.

At the time, he had been pleased; after all, few non-giants had ever traveled to the Giant-fells and returned to report what they’d seen, and for a long-lived elf, new experiences were often rare and precious things. Now, however, the reality of the cold and loneliness was beginning to wear the novelty of this journey quite thin.

The wind howled from the north ever more fiercely, and it brought with it a fall of new snow which began to steadily increase in strength. Celebdanel looked up at the sky, and the increasingly darkening clouds, and scowled. He would need to find shelter, he decided – the elves were a hardier people than they appeared, and often endured the elements more easily than humans did, but even they had limits, and he was approaching his. Bowing his head, he continued to trudge forward along the road, rounding a bend as he did so. Hopefully, there would be a cave or crevasse nearby where he could build a fire and rest out of the brunt of the wind.

Suddenly a massive gust of wind struck him, and he stumbled back; the snow suddenly grew so thick as to be blinding, and Celebdanel brought his arm up across his face to shield his eyes. After a moment, the howling grew less and he lowered it, blinking to clear his gaze. The winds and snow had died down now, enough, at least, that he was able to see. And he could see that he was no longer alone.

Five figures stood on the road in front of him, blocking his path, three male and two female. The men towered twice his height – and Celebdanel was not a short elf; he was taller than most humans – and the women were only slightly shorter. Despite the cold – or maybe in defiance of it- they wore little clothing; the men’s chests were completely bare, and the women’s tops left their arms exposed. Their skin was a cold, pale blue, the color of a winter sky, and their hair was white a snow – the women wore theirs long, and the men shaved their heads but wore long beards, all intricately braided. And they were all armed with great, heavy axes that were longer than Celebdanel was tall. The blades of those axes seemed rimmed with ice.

The Guardian’s pulse quickened. Ice giants – they could be nothing else. He had found the people he’d been looking for, or perhaps they’d found him – and in any event, they did not appear to be happy to see him.

“Who are you?” the tallest of the male giants said; his voice was cold and dry, and sounded like two great ridges of ice grinding against one another. “What are you doing here?”

“My name is Celebdanel,” the elf said, stepping forward. “I am a Guardian of Celannien and have been sent by the Lady Tatrisaine to speak with your jarl. She seeks a mutual understanding and perhaps an alliance between our two peoples. If we could step someplace warmer, I would be happy to discuss the matter with you further.”

“Warmer?” one of the women said, laughing. Her voice was slightly higher than the man’s, but no more merciful. “Ha! He is weak! The Skyfangs are no place for him, if he thinks this is real cold!” The other giants guffawed with a sound that resembled nothing so much as the noise of an avalanche; Celebdanel had to stop himself to keep from looking around in startlement. If they thought him weak, he must not act in such a way as to prove them right. The giant leader, however, remained impassive.

“We do not need your friendship,” he said. “We do not care about your Lady. You will go now.”

“Please,” Celebdanel said, “I’ve come all this way – I can’t turn back now! All I ask is for an audience with Jarl Thursinn. My Lady simply wishes me to convey her compliments to him, and to be certain of his intentions towards the elven people. We mean the giants no ill-will, unless you prove to mean us harm first.”

The ice giant snorted. “Elves,” he spat. “Liosalfar, doccalfar, they say they’re so different, but from what I see, they’re just the same. Always so arrogant, so certain they know best, thinking they can demand of us whatever they want, and we’ll be happy to oblige. But are we not a people as old and proud as they? Are we not as deserving of respect, of glory? This is what Thursinn promises us – that the giants shall be proud again, united under one banner, and we shall remind the world that we are the earth’s true children, and we will not be denied!”

It had the air of propaganda, of a rehearsed speech, but the other giants were nodding along to it enthusiastically and fingering their axes. The leader paused for a long moment, then returned his attention to Celebdanel; his blue eyes were hard. “We had a messenger from the doccalfar come, not long ago,” he said. “He made sweet promises, but he lied. The doccalfar have only ever wanted to make slaves of all who are not their kind, and they demanded what Thursinn had no wish to give. And the doccalfar and the liosalfar are of one blood! Humans are so short-lived, so short-sighted, but they can be made to see reason. But the alfar cannot be trusted! This is what Thursinn says, and Thursinn is wise!”

“I promise you,” Celebdanel said, trying to keep his voice calm but reaching for his sword nonetheless, “whatever the Night-born wanted from you, that isn’t what I’m here for. I’m telling you the truth when I say that I just want to speak with your jarl and deliver my lady’s message to him. We of Gilfannin have never been the enemies of the giants, and we have no desire to be!”

“Maybe you are,” the ice giant rumbled, “and maybe you aren’t. But maybe Thursinn would like to meet you after all. He might be amused by your bold words, little alfar. Or perhaps he will have other uses for you. Perhaps little elves are better for work in the mines than we giants? The jarl grows impatient with how slow the excavations go; maybe we need more workers who can fit in the little tunnels.” He stepped forward, holding out one hand and raising his axe in the other. “You come with us to Issheim. Thursinn will see you after all.”

“I think not,” Celebdanel said. “I came here to speak with your leader, not to become a slave in his mines. I am a representative of Lady Tatrisaine, and to assault me is an act of war against the elven people! Remember that we could have avoided this.” In a single fluid motion, he drew his sword and struck the giant’s hand as it reached for him; the giant cried out and the Guardian stumbled back before turning to flee down the road.

He didn’t get far. No sooner had he started to run than the wind picked up again, howling in his ears like the wailing of doomed souls; the snow rose about his feet in heavy drifts that even elven grace could not avoid, and he stumbled, falling forward with his sword spinning out of his reach to land point-first in a drift. Groaning, he looked up to see the giants surrounding him, completely untroubled by the cold. Then, at last, he understood. They hadn’t appeared with the storm; they had brought the storm with them. The giants’ affinity for the elements was no idle boast; these ice giants were truly a part of their environment – and it responded to them. To defeat giants in their own land required foes far more formidable than a single elf could be. The very snows fought for them.

The lead giant bent down over Celebdanel and smiled, revealing massive white teeth. “Come now,” he said, reaching down. “War, you say? There will be no war, for no one will ever know what became of you. Now, you will come with us. You wanted to meet Thursinn? We will take you to him. And he will decide what fate lies in store for you.”

///

Pershaine’s strides seemed to eat up the ground beneath her as Ellisaine rode south into Erresune. She quickly passed out from under the eaves of Gilfannin and into the broad plains and rolling hills of the human lands. Here she kept her hood up and her face lowered; humans had short memories and it was unlikely any of them would recognize her as a famous hero of the War of Shadows, but elves were not so common any longer that she could pass without causing a stir, which she did not wish to do. Aedor’s letter had indicated he feared enemies from among his own people; she didn’t know if those enemies knew that he had met Ellisaine and befriended her in his youth – a mere twenty years or so ago; how human lifespans flitted by! – but in any case, she thought it best if word didn’t spread of her coming.

Still, she stopped at a few small towns along her way south to the place where Aedor had said he wanted to meet; a place called Sandellon she remembered from years ago. The news she heard along the way was disheartening. Rumors were often distorted as they travelled, especially this far from their source, but still, if half of these were true… Rumors of assassination, war, and internecine strife in Hira Sentaria, abounded, and if they contradicted each other on a dozen points, something they all agreed on was that Ellisaine’s old friend was at the heart of it.

And so, she rode on south, determination warring with dread in her heart, intending to discover the truth, and then… and then to do what would have to be done.

///

The Wayward Scholar was the largest inn in Sandellon, not that this was a great accomplishment in a town of that size. It had, however, been a fixture in the town for years, and its sign, which depicted a roguish looking young man with a book in one hand and a full mug in the other, was familiar to everyone who lived there. Leira and Kenem hadn’t had trouble finding the place, as a result, when they’d arrived in town a week after fleeing from Hira Sentaria, and it was here that their father’s note had instructed them to wait for the arrival of the friend he’d sent for. The Ellisaine. That was still hard for Leira to wrap her mind around, sometimes.

It had now been several days since their arrival, and so far there was no sign of the Guardian, or of any elf of any description. The twins had been weary when they’d arrived and simply rented a room with only a cursory search of the common room, but every evening since they’d waited up late into the night, but still, Ellisaine hadn’t come. They’d asked the innkeeper, a cheerful woman in her late middle age, to keep tabs for them, and she assured them that if an elf arrived in Sandellon, they’d be the first to know of it – so far, to no avail.

On the second day after they’d arrived, news had come from the capital that the Chief Minister had been assassinated. Hearing the news – and the report that Lord Idaska’s entire family had died with him – felt like opening the wound again, killing whatever hope Leira might have had that her parents had somehow survived. She and Kenem had disavowed any knowledge of the deaths, claiming to have left Hira Sentaria before the murders happened, and no one had pressed them on them further, but they’d spent most of that evening sitting quietly at what had become their usual table in the corner, staring silently down at their uneaten meals.

That had been several days ago now, and Leira was growing anxious. The longer they waited, the more fearful she became – and the more likely it seemed that the Raven Guild would find them. The sun was falling outside now and the day was darkening to evening when she and Kenem took up their customary post at their table, she reading one of the books she’d brought and watching the crowd over the top of the cover, while he drummed his fingers on the table and looked impatient. Leira understood the feeling.

Suddenly the door opened, and several figures stepped inside; a group of travelers who clustered together, followed by a tall, slender person in a hooded green cloak that was oddly difficult to focus on, as if it blended perfectly into any surroundings. The hooded figure placed their order quietly at then settled down at a table across the inn from the twins, seeming to brood in the shadows, while the group of travelers gathered in the center of the room and quickly drew a crowd as the locals badgered them for news.

Leira didn’t pay either group much attention, as she was immersed in a particularly difficult series of sigils she was trying to learn – a more complex illusion that she thought might come in handy if they had to flee from the Ravens again. She was tracing one finger along the central figure when Kenem suddenly elbowed her in the side. “Listen to what they’re saying,” he hissed. “I think these people are from the capital. They may have news.”

Leira’s ears perked up just as the lead traveler raised his voice. “As I was saying,” he said, “Lord Arratus has been nominated for the Chief Minister’s chair. He’s not won yet, but it’s just a matter of time. He’ll put everything right after this tragedy, mark my words!”

“No!” Leira hissed, though it wasn’t unexpected. She barely managed to keep her voice from carrying across the room; Kenem wasn’t so discrete. He rose to his feet as well, anger written on his face.

“Lord Arratus is a murderer and a demagogue!” he shouted furiously. “Fix this tragedy? It’s probably his fault that Lord Idaska is dead! All he’ll do is plunge Erresune into a war it doesn’t need and can’t win!”

“Oh, really?” the lead traveler said, swaggering over. “I’ve just come from the capital and heard Lord Arratus address the city myself. I say it was the Urazin who killed the Chief Minister, and Lord Arratus plans to get justice. Where’ve you heard different?”

Kenem opened his mouth to speak, but Leira kicked him in the shin. “We’re in hiding, remember?” she hissed, and then stood. “Please, forgive my brother,” she said in a louder voice, putting a hand on Kenem’s shoulder. “He’s just very passionate about politics, but he doesn’t mean anything by it. I’m sure Lord Arratus will be a very capable Chief Minister and that the Assembly will get to the bottom of these murders.” There, she thought. That was mostly true and didn’t sound like I was insulting Arratus too bad, did it?

“Oh, no,” Kenem said, pulling away from her hand and stepping forward. “I was just wondering if you might be able to explain what, exactly, the Urazin stood to gain by killing Lord Idaska, who had never been their enemy?”

“Who knows how a tyrant’s mind words?” the lead traveler said. “Everyone knows the Sultan’s not right in the head. But it seems to me that you’re implying that one of Erresune’s leading nobles is behind the Chief Minister’s murder. Is that really something you want to be doing, son?”

“I’m not your son,” Kenem spat. “And so what if I am?”

“There are some who might take it poorly,” the leader said, expression still easygoing but voice increasingly cold. “Lord Arratus is a popular man, after all. And if he wins the election, he’ll be Chief Minister, in which case slandering him might be very unwise. Treason, some would say.” A sudden feeling of dread rose in Leira’s chest, and she glanced over the man’s shoulder to the seat he’d vacated – and she saw the cloak he’d thrown over the back of the chair. She hadn’t noticed its color before, but she did now. Red. The man was a redback – one of Arratus’s supporters. She’d bet his friends were too, or at least leaned in that direction. This was not good.

“Kenem,” she whispered, “let it go. We don’t have to make a fight of this tonight.”

“I’ve been hiding for a week,” he hissed back. “I think I don’t like hiding very much.”

“What’s that you’re saying?” the redback asked. “Hiding behind your sister are you, boy?”

“It’s not treason to criticize someone,” Kenem said. “Even the Chief Minister. But I will say this – Aedor Idaska was a great man, and I won’t hear his name used to justify war with a country that didn’t have anything to do with his death.” He paused. “Also, this might be a crime, but it’s not treason either – and I’ve been looking forward to doing it ever since you started talking.” Suddenly exploding into motion, he landed a punch squarely on the redback’s nose. The man stumbled back, reeling and clutching his face, while his friends leapt to their feet behind him, drawing weapons.

“damnation,” Leira muttered.

“No fighting!” the innkeeper yelled, rushing forward, but everyone on both sides seemed content to ignore her. Kenem ducked under the table and pulled out his own sword, holding it ready to face the redbacks who now stalked towards them. With his training, Leira suspected he was a match for any of them – but they outnumbered him six to one. The leader, his nose bloody, looked especially murderous and he raised his sword threateningly.

“A little help here,” Kenem whispered urgently.

Leira’s eyes flashed to her own sword, still under the table, and she considered drawing it, but, well, she wasn’t that good, and she wasn’t sure how much help she’d be. Or, her gaze fell to her book, she could use a spell, something to help them escape – or to take down the redbacks. Suddenly, in her mind’s eye she saw again the sigil she’d drawn in the escape tunnel, the inferno that had burst from it, the Ravens burning, dying… suddenly, she was short of breath, horror and revulsion filling her. Could she do that again? And risk killing everyone in the inn?

Then another figure appeared among the redbacks – the tall person in the green cloak. Their hood was still up, but they spun and darted among the travelers, quickly taking them down with a series of quick, fast jabs. Before Leira could process what had happened, five of the redbacks were down, leaving only the leader standing, staring in openmouthed shock. The hooded figure raised their hand and made an inviting gesture; the redback glanced at them, then back down at his companions, then turned and fled the room.

“Sorry about that,” the figure said – it was a woman’s voice, spoken with a strange, musical accent. She dug around in her belt and pulled out a small pouch of gold, which she tossed to the innkeeper, and then she walked quickly over to the twins, seized them both by the arms, and hauled them down an empty side hallway.

“That was foolish of you,” she hissed. “You’re lucky I was there to help you. I don’t know if those men would have killed you, but they likely would have beaten you badly.”

“Ah, thank you,” Kenem said, sheathing his sword. “And, er, who are you?”

“Haven’t you guessed?” the woman asked and tossed back her hood. Leira found herself staring. Their rescuer was one of the most beautiful people she had ever seen, but she obviously wasn’t – couldn’t be – human. Her face was too angular, with its high cheekbones and fine features, and its ears that came to sharp points. Her hair was dark and worn in a long braid; her skin was a tan roughly the same shade as Leira’s own, but with a distinctive metallic undertone she’d never seen on someone before. And yet her eyes, which seemed almost too large for her face and were a brilliant, piercing green, seemed to be the most remarkable thing of all. Leira realized she was staring.

“You’re Ellisaine, aren’t you?” she finally said.

“The same,” Ellisaine said, looking them both up and down. “And you, I assume, are Leira, and your brother is Kenem. You both look much like your father; I can see him in your faces.”

“He’s dead,” Kenem said quietly. “That’s what that fight you interrupted was really about, at least for me.”

“I know,” Ellisaine said, her voice soft. “I had heard the rumor on my way south, but I hoped it wasn’t true. In that case, Aedor has asked that I keep you safe. You suspect this man Arratus whose followers you so unwisely antagonized was responsible? Perhaps, but if so, it is only one part of what is happening in this land. Things are in motion across Erresune and beyond, and I begin to suspect a deeper hand at work.”

“What,” Leira finally said, her voice hesitant, “what can we do? I was so focused on getting to a safe place, then waiting for you, that I never really thought beyond that.”

“First, you can gather your things and come with me,” Ellisaine said. “If your enemies suspect you’re alive, they will come for you – and after your little display tonight, I doubt they’ll have much trouble finding you here. Best to be gone. I will take you to a place of safety and do what I can to help you learn just who is behind the loss you have suffered.”

“And then?” Kenem asked.

Ellisaine grinned fiercely, and for the first time Leira saw that her canine teeth were noticeably longer and sharper than a human’s would be. “Then,” she said, “I intend to avenge Aedor’s death. And something tells me you would be interested in that as well.”

Leira looked down at her feet, took a deep breath, and then met Ellisaine’s eyes. “Yes,” she said, and saw Kenem nodding out of the corner of her eyes. “Yes, we are.”

“I thought so,” Ellisaine said, nodding approvingly. “Then let us get ready to depart. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

End of

Part One