Sarvacts strode into the chamber and observed the spike. The room existed as a focus for the vengeance he sought; when El-Vador was planted upon it his blood would become the catalyst from which his power would spring forth. Power enough perhaps to overthrow the very Orcs that had exiled him from their lands.
He smiled at the thought. While he was considered more powerful now than most of his former clan, he still would not be able to force his dominion upon them. Once bathed in the energies that sacrificing this Elven boy would produce, he would have the force to take out whatever opposition his former home could present. He would swarm the place with his forces and demand the execution of all who had wronged him, then he would proclaim himself ruler over all that was once destined to be his.
Soon his agents will have the chance to subdue the Elf, then they would bring him here and he would bask in the glory of his future power. After that, nothing would stop him.
El-Vador made ready to depart from the keep, it had been a longer stay than he had expected but a welcome one all the same. He was refreshed, and much better equipped to deal with the rigours of the south than he had been before meeting the strange priest.
He had made his way through the keep toward the gates and out into the south when he spotted something oddly amiss.
A robed figure was hidden in the shadows.
Remembering his paranoia while bathing, El-Vador tensed up and prepared for the worst. The would-be assassin did not have eyes for the Elf though, seemingly concentrated on another priest making his rounds through the keep. His fears were confirmed by the small knife that glinted from the outstretched hand of the killer. He had to do something to prevent this slaughter.
The knife-wielding figure caught sight of El-Vador then, as if feeling his gaze upon the cloaks he was swathed in. Without a care for disrupting his hiding place, the priest sprang at El-Vador with the weapon raised and prepared to make short work of his foe.
With no time to draw his blade, El-Vador dove to his right and threw a punch at the arm holding the knife. Having evaded the first attack his fist snapped into the attacker's wrist and disarmed them, no help was forthcoming for either of them. Whoever this killer had been following had vanished.
The priest cursed and tried to make an escape but El-Vador was more fleet of foot, he grabbed a handful of the robe and jerked the priest back with some force. The killer fell backward inelegantly, sprawling onto the floor. Before he could move, El-Vador pinned the fallen priest, removing the cowl so he could see the face of his enemy.
He found a young woman staring back at him, defiant and angry.
A female priest? He had not seen a single woman in his entire journey through the keep. He had not asked Harlven of it, assuming there was a ruling that only men could receive enlightenment.
His captive renewed her efforts to escape, and she snarled at El-Vador through gritted teeth, 'Let me go, whoever you are. You don't know what it is you're preventing!'
El-Vador did not smile, he didn't think that this woman meant well if she planned to kill. 'Who are you?' he demanded, 'why did you try to kill me?'
'If you get off me and we return to the shadows I shall tell you, the priests would frown upon what you are doing here.'
El-Vador nodded. If the priests caught him atop a young lady screaming for help they would act first and ask questions later. They returned to the darkness in which she had previously hidden but left the knife where it lay, El-Vador drew his sword meaningfully.
'If you make any attempt to flee I shall cut you down where you stand, woman or not, understood?'
She nodded, taking a deep breath and finally noticing El-Vador's strange features.
'The priest you just prevented me from attacking has something that belongs to me.' she said, sounding more irritated than worried by El-Vador's drawn weapon.
'So why not ask him for it? Why try and kill him to get it back?'
'He wasn't just going to hand it over to me, trust me on this.'
'Trust you?' El-Vador said, 'you just tried to put a dagger in my throat.'
The woman shrugged. 'I thought you were sent to stop me.'
'No.' El-Vador said, 'I was about to take my leave of this place when I spotted you.'
She didn't look entirely convinced by that explanation. 'If this is no concern of yours then why not just let me go? What does it matter to you whether one of these priests dies?'
'It doesn't matter to me, what concerns me is that you tried to stab me.'
The woman flung up her arms in frustration, but soon stilled as the Elf's blade drew closer in response. 'we've been over that already, I thought you were in league with them, I see that you're not now. I need to get to that priest before it's too late, please, let me go.'
El-Vador mused over the situation. The woman was unarmed and she did have a point, he didn't care if some random priest were to die this day. He would most likely never see this place again. With that in mind he bid the woman leave and she took off without further complaint. She grabbed the dagger from the floor but made no further attempt at attacking him. Apparently he was not with 'them' and beneath her consideration as a result.
El-Vador had just emerged from the shadows when he heard the yell up ahead. Had be been mistaken? There was no way the woman could have caught up with the priest that quickly, had she simply been an indiscriminate killer?
Up ahead he spotted two priest locked in combat, with two more lying face down on the floor. One of them had a blade and the other was doing his best to avoid it.
The woman ran toward the two fighting men, her own knife held ready to strike, El-Vador watched the scene unfold before taking any action. He was not affiliated with any of these parties and simply wanted to exit the keep without a dagger in his back.
The priest with the knife mortally wounded the man he was wrestling with and let him slump to the floor with the others. He then quickly searched one of the bodies and took off before the woman could reach him. The woman veered away from the fallen men after the assassin, but he was already some distance away and if he was as fast as he had looked then she probably wouldn't catch him.
El-Vador walked over to the fallen priests now that any danger had passed and to his dismay he recognised one of them.
Harlven stared up at him sightlessly as he turned him over.
Though he had not known the priest for long he was angered by the senseless loss of the man. He had treated him well and offered his hospitality and he doubted that his killer had any good reason for doing so.
The young Elf stood now, his anger coming unbidden and bubbling over. Harlven had been the closest thing he had to a friend since his departure from the desolation of his former home. It was as if he was reliving the slaughter once more. Whoever did this to the priest was going to pay, of that he was sure.
He broke out into a sprint after both the woman and the assassin, his new leather shoes gaining great purchase as they pounded across the stone floor. The killer may have been fleet but El-Vador was of a different kin altogether, these humans were slow and cumbersome in comparison to his lithe Elven limbs. He knew there was only one way out of the keep and he closed in on it at a great pace.
Of the assassin there was no sign, El-Vador had made it through the gate and out into the snowy wastes and still he could not discern the direction of the man. Had he taken some other route and not left the keep yet? Surely he would not choose to remain in such a place with the woman also on his tail? Or had he ended the woman as he had Harlven and the other priests and simply hidden himself in the darkness? No, the priests would root him out eventually if he were to do that, if El-Vador had been in the man's shoes he would depart from this place as soon as possible. It would seem that he had beaten his quarry to the gate.
He settled himself in the drift outside of the gate. Whoever departed the keep would do so before the murders had been discovered so as not to arouse any suspicion from the guards. All he need do was maintain sight of the gate and ambush
the one hurried departure from this place.
His guesswork paid off but moments later as a solitary figure dressed in robes approached El-Vador's hiding place. It was almost too easy.
He picked his sword up from the rock against which it leaned. He could have easily dispatched the man with the bow but first he wanted to know why he had killed Harlven.
He slipped from the boulder upon which he had perched and gathered his energies to spring forth and surprise his opponent.
El-Vador finally leaped from concealment and brandished his sword, ready to behead the cowled figure. 'Relinquish your weapons, assassin. Lest I strike you down where you stand.'
The robed figure raised its hands in submission, though it didn't remove any weapons it had concealed. 'You idiot!' it spoke in a familiar voice. 'you've got the wrong person!'
El-Vador knew he had got it wrong even before the figure pulled down the hood of its cloak.
It was that damn woman again, looking disgusted that El-Vador had waylaid her once more.
'You.' he remarked simply, his distaste evident.
'What are you doing here?' she hissed.
'I told you that I was leaving the keep. Is this not outside the keep? The assassin you were trailing murdered one of my friends and most likely wanted to kill me too, looks like we're both after him now.'
She looked confused at that, possibly wondering the same thing that El-Vador had before. Why would anyone want to kill him?
'I fear that we will never find Anacletus. He is like the shadows, almost impossible to track and even harder to find.'
Now he had a name, names were power when used properly. 'Anacletus, you said?'
She shook her head, as if she had just realized she had spoken too much.
El-Vador raised his blade again. 'tell me what you know or I shall run you through.'
She sighed, as if disappointed in the threat of violence. 'two pairs of eyes may well discover him faster than one. There is no harm in me telling you of him.'
He waited patiently for her to speak again, in no mood to make good on his threat.
'I am known as Eihblin. I come from a region far from here yet the name of Anacletus is known to us. He is a servant of a dark power that resides in a fortress not too distant from here.'
'This dark power you speak of has no name?' El-Vador asked.
'We know not its name, merely of the horrifying rumours of the place.' Eihblin replied. 'Anacletus killed my father and stole an heirloom of great value to us. I tracked him to this keep to recover it.'
'Have you any idea why Anacletus would surround himself with these priests?'
She shook her head. 'his actions confuse me, there is little to be gained from here.'
'Why then have you not gone to this fortress?' El-Vador asked. 'this Anacletus is bound to return there to his master at some point.'
'The fortress is said to be impenetrable unless one is allowed inside. I had no reason to go there, unless I planned to destroy the dark power within by demanding entrance after acquiring my heirloom from Anacletus' corpse.'
El-Vador did not like the sound of such a plan, he would be satisfied with merely taking this assassin out and leaving whatever dark power was there alone.
'It would seem that if the trail is cold then the only place you know this Anacletus will return to is the fortress.'
Her face hardened. 'that is where he sets out for now, I do not know why he detoured at the keep.'
'It sounds as if we must take out both Anacletus and the dark power that he serves, you cannot do such a thing alone, but perhaps together...'
She looked at him distrustfully but El-Vador knew that she had no choice.
'You make a sound point, stranger. We shall travel together for a time and then part once the heirloom has been recovered.'
'I am called El-Vador, not stranger. Let's hunt this fool down and put and end to him.'
With that uneasy pact formed, they started down the side of the mountain and out into the open tundra.
XVI
The world is fraught with fragile alliances, with those who seem neither well-intentioned nor entirely malevolent with regards to your well-being. The art of diplomacy was one skill that I never entirely mastered and in my early days any alliances I forged were fractious at best and combustible at worst.
It was a barren place that she had strayed into, blanketed by snow and harsh sunlight that stung her eyes yet offered no warmth. A faint path had been trudged through the white tundra and offered her a vague direction in which to proceed, little else told of any civilised creatures in these parts.
Phaedra trudged through it all, impervious to the cold if not its bite. She knew she must find the stranger that Sarvacts so reviled before the Orc could bring about his destruction. A chill was but a minor complaint when the outcome may be the freeing of what was left of her people.
As she rounded a corner she spied a small village ahead, though she was unsightly she had wrapped herself entirely in a thick cloak so as not to startle onlookers. Many had considered her more a victim of plague than a reanimated corpse. Though she had not met anyone who knew of the name that Sarvacts had spoken of, it was clearly Elven in nature. That had given her enough direction to begin with but as the lands opened up she was beginning to lose hope of ever finding this elusive person. Perhaps the village ahead would provide her with more information, if not then she may as well trudge back to Sarvacts' fortress and wait for the captive to be brought to her. A desperate plan and one she didn't contemplate for long. If she was going to save this soul for her own ends, she needed to find him before her former master's forces did.
Anacletus silently swept through the lands with great haste. He had left the keep in a great hurry, and the lack of provisions were beginning to take their toll on his journey. Though the assassin was no stranger to hunger he knew that his strength may fail him before his pursuer had ceased giving chase. Long had he tried to evade this one and still she clung on to his path, in spite of this he had never found an opportune time to end her. He knew he must keep her following him in order to bring the Elf to Sarvacts, it was a dangerous necessity.
It would not be long until he reached the village, if his strength held out until then he could rest without worry of immediately being discovered. He had money on his person and a warm bed in a barred room would be difficult for any woman to negotiate. Then he would slip forth into the early morning as she slept and leave enough of a trail onward to Sarvacts' fortress. He could easily have confused the tracks and denied his pursuer the chance of retribution, after which he could have made his way to his master untroubled. That was not his duty though, in order to bring the Elf to the fort he was required to also bring the woman. His orders had been most specific in this regard. Sarvacts would be expecting him soon, it would not be wise to make the Orc wait any longer than necessary. He could afford one night at this village, then there would be little stopping until he reached his destination.
The village she had wandered into had but one inn, it was largely empty at this hour and the proprietor didn't seem too disturbed at her attire. For some reason he seemed accustomed to dealing with heavily robed people coming in from the road.
'I know not of any Elf that has sought residence here in many a year, you would have better luck searching far north for such creatures.'
She nodded silently at him, the target of Sarvacts' vengeance had not made it this far south yet, there may yet be a chance that she could intercept him. She bid the innkeeper fetch her some water and prepare a room for her rest. The coin had been hard to come by on the journey north but she was resourceful enough to gather a meagre amount.
As the man scuttled to fetch her wine, Phaedra sat at a nearby table close to the fire. The inn was poorly kept, not that its few residents seemed to care. It would suffice for now, she would only need a night's rest for the coming week's journeying.
None of the other patrons bothered her, clearly they had enough sense not to inter
rupt a heavily cloaked figure that was seeking the warmth.
The innkeeper returned with a cup of water that looked palatable enough, Phaedra offered him a few coins before drinking deeply. She did not require sustenance beyond the occasional replacing of fluids. She would rest soon and ask the inhabitants of the village about the Elf in the morn.
Anacletus entered the inn and immediately sensed that something was wrong. It was an almost imperceptible smell in the smoky atmosphere of the room but it was there all the same. Working with Sarvacts had let him grow accustomed to the stench of his automatons. Nevertheless he knew that scent as soon as it touched his nose, why had the Orc sent one of them out here?
It was the woman sitting near the fire, or what at first he thought was a woman. Her pallor was not hidden by the light of the embers and there was no mistaking her for anything else to trained eyes such as his.
Cautiously he walked over, settling himself opposite her as if it were something that had already been planned. The brief surprise that flickered over her gaze was replaced with a smile, she had not been expecting him but the recognition was one of mutual respect.
He ate heartily then, knowing that this creature could not partake in his feasting and that with her watching over him he was safe for the time being. They spoke lies to each other so as not to arouse suspicion and acted like old acquaintances reunited after some time. He watched her sip at her cup with an amused expression, trying to imagine what it must be like to only imbibe water instead of the feast laid out before him.
'So, my dear Phaedra.' he said. 'what brings you to this dingy tavern north of your home? It's not often that you venture out after all.'
She smiled back at him as if he had cracked a witty joke at her expense. 'I have been tasked by our master with tracking down an individual that he requires vengeance upon.'
El-Vador's Travels Page 14