The Birth

by Paul Kite

  “He's Ma- “But Dazrael didn’t allow him to finish speaking, shaking off the hand of Rokshan, he pulled his sword from its sheath and slit the throat of the werewolf.

  Rokshan immediately jumped to his feet and glared at the elf:

  “That's who's to blame! Yeah? As always, the Shadows are everywhere! Of course, I should’ve guessed!” the man became angry. “Is Hontar one of you by any chance? Why do innocents always die where your Guild's people appear?!”

  “I didn't know that,” the elf shook off the blood from the blade of the sword and drove it into the sheath.

  “Who knew then?”

  Admittedly, I was also very interested, why was Hontar hunting us? More precisely, he has only interfered with the plans of his brother, Master Zorkhan. We should expect direct attacks on us by his people. That felt right, since I didn’t believe the words of Zorkhan, that I shouldn’t fear Hontar. But if he himself were to fight me, I would be powerless against him, because I was too weak to confront such a powerful NPC.

  “Hontar is a former master of the Guild of Shadows,” Dazrael replied through clenched teeth, highlighting the word ‘former.’

  “Well,” slightly cooling off, the hunter continued more quietly. “You were always different from other people. You live for dozens of centuries, but sometimes behave like children in a sandbox called Noria. What do you always want more of?”

  “Authority. Don't look at me like that,” noticing Rokshan’s anxious look, the elf hastened to divert suspicion from himself. “I don't need authority. But...the Guild leader and his right hand, Zorkhan, love it.”

  “Who's Hontar, in that case?” Rokshan asked thoughtfully.

  “He is Zorkhan's brother, who has left the Guild due to the disagreements related to Kraven,” the elf nodded to me. “It's a long story, and you’re better off not knowing all the nuances.”

  “God save me from all your squabbles and quarrels!” He said. “I have the good sense not to get in between crazy drow!”

  “You're right,” the light elf agreed. “Let's destroy all the shifters and free Rovar's daughter and her husband. And then we'll go far, far away.”

  “Yeah, and we're gonna be destroyed one day, just like that. Just because some Dazrael and Kraven passed through our settlement one day.”

  “They won't destroy you. They're just not interested in you.”

  “God forbid they were,” taking a deep breath the hunter whispered.

  “No more empty talk from you, as if you weren’t a warrior, but a woman.”

  “Piss off!”

  “How do your bosses even put up with you?’

  “All right!” as if giving up, the hunter lifted his hands. “Let's go to that damn camp. I grow weary of this forest and the werewolves. I'm tired of you, too. I wouldn't mind getting rid of you as soon as possible.”

  Along the way we... well, more precisely, Dazrael and Rokshar, killed two more werewolves that had been stationed near the camp.

  “It is all too easy,” having estimated what he's recently seen, the elf began to talk. “They didn’t set up any protection, even sharpened stakes around the camp in the clearing are absent, they have no sensible guards—only the young werewolves who were roaming in their animal form. They live in tents. Two huge tents stand in the center, and six small ones are situated around them. However, I didn’t see the mages, but I think they are in one of the central tents. They also had two well-armed guards in human guise around. I noticed five people at the far tents—they were cooking dinner near the fire. I didn't see the others.”

  “So how many of them are there?” the hunter decided to clarify, wanting to count the number of the opponents.

  “Four young people are walking around the camp.”

  “So, there are eleven of them. We've already sent six to their eternity. And that boy said there were only twenty of them. Well, there are three more werewolves somewhere nearby, then.”

  “Perhaps they are in the camp,” I offered up my wise counsel. “Dazrael hasn’t followed them for a long time.”

  “Maybe,” the elf agreed.

  “Unless, of course, he lied,” Rokshan said incredulously.

  “He didn’t lie. I would’ve felt a lie,” the Master of Shadows said, disagreeing with him.

  “You can do everything,” the hunter mumbled. “What are we going to do?”

  After a little thought, Dazrael began to give instructions, “Kraven, you will deal with the youngsters. Do what you want, but you must kill them! Rokshan, can you remove those five shapeshifters near the pot?”

  “Of course!”

  “Just don’t hang around in one place for too long or they will notice you.”

  “Ha! Stop teaching me, long-eared guy,” stroking his bow proudly, the hunter answered the elf's advice.

  “But start shooting only after I kill the guards at the tent.”

  “Okay,” - Rokshan nodded and disappeared behind the trees—to choose the best place, one which offered a better view of the shapeshifters cooking food at the moment.

  “The last time I saw them, they were there,” the elf pointed somewhere and disappeared into the air.

  “I hope to deal with at least one,” I whispered, also activating invisibility. “Four is too many!” But I couldn’t argue with Dazrael and I understood very well that we needed to act quickly and hit all the targets at once, otherwise they would group together and it would be more difficult to defeat them.

  I sneaked between the trees very carefully, trying to stay away from the glade with the camp. Well, where are you?! I’d already walked a hundred yards along the edge, but couldn’t see the shapeshifters, it was if the earth had swallowed them up.

  Suddenly, I noticed a gray cat, lying on a fallen tree. It, with a grin (yes, that was a grin on its face!) watched the attempts of its black-haired relative to climb up a vertical trunk with the help of only its claws.

  They were really young, as the elf had put it. They played and had fun. If they were simple animals, I wouldn’t have even touched them. But, the enemy was the enemy, no matter how he looked!

  I took both swords out and, remembering how the bear had sniffed me out before, even if he’d been older and more experienced than these shapeshifters, I jerked closer to the fallen trunk. But I managed to land only one strike, and even then, I only slightly touched a cat’s back with one of the blades. For a split second, he seemed to sense something, then abruptly jumped off a fallen tree.

  “Miaow!” There was a loud, alarming squeal, and the second cat instantly turned to us.

  He stood next to his brother, they looked at each other and the wounded beast began to walk behind my back—hoping to attack me from a blind spot.

  Oh, no! Only face to face—I spun in place, trying not to lose sight of my opponents. I swung the swords around me as if they were a steel fan—to protect me from an unexpected attack or, at least, temporarily stun the rushing enemy.

  “Miaow!” The wounded shapeshifter snarled angrily, although the cut was disappearing in front of my eyes—only blood stains remained on the gray wool.

  The animals still circled around me, not daring to jump me. However, I can understand them, very few people in their right mind would put a finger into a working fan, and that is how I look right now, using the swords with all the speed I can muster. Just how much strength do I have? My endurance isn’t infinite.

  I pushed off the ground with a lot of force, jumped to the grey cat, hoping to hurt him or, at least, graze him again, and, maybe, the bleeding would kick in and give him an unpleasant debuff.

  The blade of the sword stuck somewhere under the shapeshifter’s chest and the beast jumped aside in fear, whimpering plaintively and limping on his front paw. And his relative, who was at that moment trying to get me with his teeth, hit the second blade and left a part of his ear on the ground.

  Shaking off the blood from his muzzle, the black cat stared at me with a hateful look and growled. He raised his hackles and hit
his sides with his tail violently.

  “I have to finish this,” the thought flashed like lightning through my head, “before the rest come here.”

  Moreover, some shouts were clearly heard from the other side of the camp, apparently Dazrael and Rokshan had seriously started to clean up the camp.

  "And the easiest way is to finish off the grey," I decided.

  I made a jerk, the sword slipped over the cat's head. The cat managed to dodge, having crouched low to the ground, but not the second blade—the sword dug precisely into his neck. It was a finishing blow and the shapeshifter, in agony, rolled up his front paws.

  “Miaow!” I heard the black cat to the right of me, but I managed to watch him while I finished off his relative. He approached me in a couple of leaps, hoping to disable my hand, thereby depriving me of the opportunity to defend and attack normally.

  I met him with a kick to the face, aiming at the nose—-the most vulnerable spot of most feline and canine animals. Tears spilled from his eyes, and the beast, shaking his head in shock, began to move backwards. Two quick strikes, while he was distracted, and the head of the animal was practically separated from the body, hitting me with a fountain of hot blood.

  Having spat out a brackish liquid with a metallic taste that had fallen into my mouth, I hastily looked back—were there any new enemies coming? And I was just in time—one shadow flashed in my direction, among the trees, then a second. So the remaining youngsters had come, but I didn’t have time to discern their appearance. I hope they’re not bears - yes, recently, I have started disliking those!

  I was ready to repel the attack, but it proved useless. The two shadows rushed in the direction of the camp at full speed to help their relatives. Listening, I caught the ringing of steel and an animal roar. Apparently, something was wrong. And without sheathing my swords, I also rushed to the glade.

  Chapter 19

  M eanwhile, the battle was in full swing, in the middle of the camp. Dazrael was spinning, avoiding the sweeping blows of the two warriors with the hefty two-handed swords and one... I didn't know what the name of that animal was – it was like a four-armed monkey, but with a height of three meters. It also had the head of a crocodile, only a bit shorter. And, judging by the axes it was holding in each hand, it was sentient, which meant that was the shape of one of the shifters. But it was still a very strange appearance.

  I also saw Rokshan, however, he was faring better. He's just killed one of the shifters in human form who’d been armed with a short sword and a shield, the hunter skillfully hitting him right in the eye, and at that moment, he was attacked by those two animals that had swept past me.

  “Help the elf,” the hunter shouted to me, throwing his bow away and picking up the weapons of the defeated enemy. “I can handle this on my own.”

  I sheathed my swords, materialized the daggers and moved behind the nearest warrior. I put one blade in his side, in the gap between the fastenings of his thick leather armor, and the second one got him in the neck and I then immediately jumped to the elf.

  “Thank you,” the Master of Shadows said. “You're right on time.”

  “What the hell is that?” I asked while moving away from the monkey's blows, changing my daggers for the swords.

  “You can rejoice, it's a leader!”

  “So?”

  “This beast, in this form in which he's so smartly waving those axes around, is called a krogan.” The elf guessed that I was wondering about the name of this creature. “He lives on the tops of mountains, in the land of the dwarves.”

  “It's a bit odd, after all these cats and bears,” I crossed my swords to block the blow of a warrior with a two-handed sword, and Dazrael immediately killed him.

  “I also didn’t expect to meet this monster here!” the elf agreed with me, evading an ax.

  I did a somersault forward and hit the legs of the monkey with my blades, but the blades didn’t even give him a scratch, just sliding down the thick hair instead.

  “How do we kill him?!” I asked, stunned, it was clear why there wasn’t a single wound on the body of the four-armed monster, our weapons simply couldn’t penetrate its natural defenses.

  “We don’t!” the elf pushed off from the ground, jumped over the head of the beast, hoping to poke the blade into its eye, but missed, since the monkey had raised a hand, protecting his face. “But we can try to slow it down with magic, then confuse it and give it some poison.”

  “But we have the scrolls!” I jumped to the side again, away from the enraged monster.

  “You can try them,” the elf dodged more ax blows, and it went deep into the ground. “But if the spell doesn't work, he'll kill you. Do you want to risk it??

  “But where are Rovar's daughter and her husband?”

  “They're unconscious in that tent over there.”

  Whoosh, a red arrow hit the monster's back; it was Rokshar, trying to help us. Swish, swish! But the arrows were like a mosquito bite to a bear in the woods, they would just get tangled in the fur and be annoyances!

  “Go!” the elf understood my idea. “Quickly!”

  I wanted to free the mages and work together to try to kill the leader of the shifters. It couldn’t be left alive; it could decide to attack the settlement.

  While the monkey was distracted by Rokshan and Dazrael, I slipped away crawled into a tent.

  A couple of locked chests stood at the entrance, there were three bags filled with clothes and armor, and in the far corner was some kind of miscellaneous rubbish, dumped in a heap. And in the center of the tent, two people, with their hands and feet bound, were lying on the skins. They were a young girl with long, fiery red hair and a bald man.

  “There you are, daughter of the headman,” I admired the beauty. “I'll untie you right now.” I cut the straps made of a strange, greenish rope. “Wake up!” I shook the man's shoulders.

  But, alas, all my attempts were useless, I slapped them on the cheek, and poured water on them from the flask, but everything was to no avail.

  “Kraven!” an angry hunter's face looked into the tent. “What are you doing there?”

  “They aren’t waking up!”

  “I'll ask the elf,” Rokshan disappeared, but a minute later, I saw him again. “Here you are, he threw me a little bottle filled with yellow powder, it had been on one of the guards. Try it!”

  “What if it's not what we need?” I asked, but it was too late, the hunter had already slipped out the tent.

  I hurriedly opened and smelled the powder. It smelled of gray and daisies. That’s right! It smelled nasty. I know, it sounds fairly stupid, but the alchemist that had created it had definitely been a little crazy at that point.

  I held the vial to the man's nose. After a moment, he grimaced in disgust and sneezed, and then again. I removed the vial and approached the young woman. She had a similar reaction to the powder. But at least they finally woke up. The man opened his eyes and was watching me, rubbing his stiff wrist.

  “Who are you?” he asked, suspiciously squinting his eyes.

  “I'm a friend,” I closed the vial and, just in case, hid it in the inventory. “Rovar sent us.”

  The girl took longer to wake up than the man had, but she finally moved.

  “Ankri?” she had a pleasant and sonorous voice, like music.

  “I'm afraid not,” I smiled.

  “Ow!” the girl opened her eyes and jerk in fright.

  I imagined what I looked like from the outside; I was covered from head to toe with someone else's blood, the armor on my shoulder was full of holes, the sleeve was torn off completely, the hair turned into a dirty bed of chaos from forest debris. My lips stretched out into a cheerful smile.

  “Darling, I'm here,” the bald man ran up and began to help his wife stand up. “And you,” he looked at me sternly, “stop grinning like that! Where is your honor and decent behavior in the presence of a lady? You're a person of a noble birth!”

  One more! And how did he discern
my noble birth in my present state?

  “Yeah,” I wiped the stupid smile off my face. “We helped you, and now you can help us.”

  “Who are ‘we’?” Ankri immediately asked, embracing the woman and patting her soothingly on the head.

  “The light elf, Rokshan, and me,” I readily said.

  “This... this…” the young girl broke away from the embrace of her husband and came up to me, blazing with anger, “uncle…” the beauty hadn’t wanted to curse or just decided not to do so in the presence of her husband, “is he with you?”

  “Yes,” I nodded, averting my gaze.

  “Bastard!” she couldn't keep silent.

  They're all so cute! I was surprised, both Rokshan and his niece. What a funny family! The uncle staged a debate at the table in the house although he himself ought to have run off to save their lives. The niece seriously clenched her fists as if to hit him! Although, who knew what their relationship was. Though Dazrael had mentioned that Rokshan was a careless son-in-law of the headman.

  “Honey, you shouldn't be so worried about your situation,” Ankri gently took the girl's hands.

  She's pregnant! Perfect! Rovar never talked about it... So, wait, her dad doesn't know about it, does he?! Then we will not involve the girl, I decided.

  “We'll talk to Rokshan later!” the man added quietly, in a tone that I knew–a very unpleasant and dangerous conversation awaited the hunter, though I didn't know what it'd be about, but it was unlikely they would be discussing weather and fine art.

  “Ankri, can you do magic?” I asked. “If your, uh, wife is pregnant, could she stay here until we eliminate the threat?”

  “No!” she proudly said, and stamped her foot angrily. “I'll help you!”

  Poor Ankri, I sympathized with him.

  “Riella!” trying to appeal to the reason of the young girl, the man said her name. “It's too dangerous! You shouldn't…”

  “Ankri,” the daughter of the headman interrupted him. “I can decide for myself what I should or shouldn’t do! Don't forget, I'm stronger than you!”