by J. L. Ficks
“We?” Shade turned slowly. He saw Bearus, the tall Brigorian man and the two other thugs he had thrown out of the tavern.
Bearus had drawn his huge battleaxe.
The assassin was amused at the small tears of bloody cloth jammed up the man’s nostrils. The other two ruffians brandished long swords and had stuffed themselves into so much armor the Dark Elf thought he could tip them over and roll them down the street like trashcans. He sighed, bored already, “Stubbornness and foolish pride. Those failings will see you to an early grave, friend.”
“Shut your filthy mouth, Welf!” Bearus snapped, “It’s time someone showed you how we welcome your kind in Doljinaar. Tell you what…we’ll even throw you a party, you know, the kind where we leave you dangling from the end of a rope?”
Shade shifted his weight and blinked at Bearus slowly.
A huge portly Grull lumbered out from an alleyway with arms as thick as tree trunks. The man even towered over Bearus, filthy from head to toe. His black hair was clumped into grease-matted locks, not by the skill of human hands, but the neglect of tending one’s hair. The Grull wore a big dumb grin on his lips. He held a noose in his left hand and clutched a massive spiked ball and chain in his right.
“Bearus,” the assassin said calmly, his yellow eyes burning in the night, “tonight you and your friends are all going to die.”
“Y—” Bearus stammered, then recovered, “You said you could take me without the aid of your shadowcraft, dare to make good on that boast?”
“Ah, I see. Tell you what, I’ll do you one better,” said Shade, “I’ll take all four.”
“NOW!” shouted Bearus, then he whistled.
Shade threw two daggers and before Bearus’ fingers even left his lips, he gasped and looked around in staggered shock. His eyes bulged out of his head.
Two of the Dark Elf’s knifes had been planted neatly in the hair-thin chinks in his companions’ armor. The pair teetered over and hit the ground dead with two loud clangs. Bearus gasped.
The assassin vaulted forward, pulling off a perfect handspring and landed right in front of the stunned man. Bearus stumbled backward. He had not even seen the assassin draw fresh blades, but already he felt the stinging pain of three gashes—one across his left thigh, another on his right side and the last running down the full length of his sword arm.
Shade brandished his two bloodstained daggers and winked at Bearus. This would not be a quick death, not for Bearus. Bearus nursed his right arm. He struggled with his axe and fell back just as eight other men came running around the corner.
Shade grinned. The Grull was not the end of Bearus’ cowardice. The men surged forward, waving their weapons, but the assassin lingered long enough to ensure Bearus caught his boastful glare.
Bearus was still reeling, stumbling back in a blank haze. Panic twisted his face into a horror-stricken mask. He had not expected Shade to move so fast. Nor could any man fathom the full measure of lethal grace and swiftness displayed by their adversary. The assassin wheeled to the side, biting down on the flat ends of his blades, just as the Grull’s ball and chain smashed into the ground.
Shade spun around and took the blades from his teeth. He kicked swiftly at the first attacker. He caught the man in the gut and knocked him back into the line of others. He made quick work of the other frontrunners. He slashed one across the throat. He lodged another dagger in the second man’s chest.
Shade whirled back around. The Grull was right where he expected him. The filthy giant blinked and gaped dumbly around, his thoughts far too slow to comprehend the assassin’s lightning quick movements. Shade found great satisfaction in slaying huge, impressive specimens such as this hulking Grull. He often toyed with them picking apart their big clumsy movements. He taunted, “Right here, big man.”
The Grull’s eyes opened wide in simple rage. He whirled his ball and chain around his head. He swung it downward in a devastating blow.
Shade back-flipped over the six remaining men. He landed squarely behind them, his boots barely crunching in the snow.
The men skirted to a stop. They bumped into one another and pushed the lead man forward. The ball and chain crushed the man’s face. The Grull licked his lips in a bloodthirsty delirium, confident he had heard the satisfying crunch of Shade’s skull. The others shouted frantically for the Grull to stop, but he swung the ball and chain back again crosswise. He sent the next man flying.
Shade ducked swiftly just as Bearus’ axe cut through the air in a wide arc. He felt the swing whiff overhead and slice through a single hair.
“Almost forgot about you, Bearus,” Shade chuckled, slashing the man across the cheek, “just a little kiss on the cheek.”
“Curse you!” Bearus growled and wiped the blood off. He waved his axe in an unbridled rage, grimacing fiercely each time Shade drew another trickle of blood.
The assassin ducked. He nicked the Brigorian over and over again. He might have drawn every last drop of the man’s blood, but the other men charged back into the fray. They boxed the assassin in—the size of the Grull, the unyielding swings of Bearus’ axe and the walls of an alleyway cut off any acrobatic escape.
“Impressive, it only took twelve of you to box me in,” Shade said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “trouble is…that hardly gains you an advantage.”
Shade’s yellow eyes glowered as he sprung into a quickness that chilled Bearus to his soul. He danced around the circle of men, gracefully drawing daggers from his vest and lodging them in his attackers’ flesh. Men cried out in pain, but he no longer permitted them to die so easily. He left blades lodged at the kneecaps and elbow joints, plunged deep into muscle tissue and between the ribs. Yet he left every stab just far enough away to miss the vital organs. He did not wound, so much as slay their pride. And then when the moment was ripe, he drove terror into their hearts like a stake.
Shade disappeared suddenly, cloaked in the shadow arts of his people. The Shadow Magic covered his skin and made him completely invisible to the naked eye.
The men gasped, their faces ghosting white with terror.
“What?!” one man said.
“Where’d he go?” said another.
Bearus cursed, “Why that backstabbing devil!”
Shade sat crouched on a wooden awning, watching…planning. He allowed the men to drink in the full terror of his vanishing act.
The men breathed hot and heavy, their faces cold with fear.
“Lose someone?”
The men’s heads snapped up in the direction where they had heard Shade’s voice, but they were too late. The assassin back-flipped and landed noiselessly behind them. The Grull groaned unexpectedly and fell flat on his face in the gray snow. The men took one look at the single dagger lodged into the back of the Grull’s huge, hulking neck, turned and fled the opposite direction.
But Shade was already there waiting for them. He moved among them, a silent messenger of death. He opened up the throats of two more men.
Bearus and the only other two survivors screamed in horror as they witnessed their companions die at the hands of an unseen killer. They shrieked even louder bloodcurdling screams and ran for their lives. An invisible knife cut one man’s scream short as it sliced cleanly through his windpipe. The other man nearly made it down the alleyway. He hit the ground. A dagger appeared sunken into his back.
Bearus limped down the alley. His hands shook uncontrollably as he tried to stop the bleeding from his many wounds. He was the only man left.
Shade would take his sweet time with this one. He followed the man’s bloody trail in the snow. The assassin no longer bothered to conceal his steps. He wanted Bearus to hear…to hear the footsteps of death coming for him.
The big man gasped pathetically for breath. He looked around eyes wild with panic. Shade watched as the man shambled back toward the main streets seeking help. He allowed him to lurch forward in a fast bleeding hope.
Shade whispered coldly in the man’s ear, “Bearus.”
Bearus
jumped and tripped in the wet snow. He rolled pathetically on the ground, wheezing in a mad hysteria. He barely managed to scramble back to his feet.
“Bearus,” Shade whispered again.
The man gasped, choking on his own fear. Tears stung his eyes. He stumbled on unable to speak. He tried to muster words, but he found no strength. He seethed heavily. His breath grew hotter. He finally spit through his teeth, “You coward! You said you wouldn’t use your magic!”
“You didn’t play by the rules either,” Shade replied, “a hidden mob in the alley? Honestly, Bearus.”
“Please.”
“And now you’re begging for your life,” he continued to whisper, “gasping pathetically for breath,” Shade stopped and sniffed the air, “you think I can’t smell that? The reek of your own urine running down you leg and freezing in the winter cold. That’s just sad Bearus….pitiful!”
Bearus’ face reddened in shame. He shut his eyes and stumbled on like a shell-shocked child trudging through a gruesome warzone. He spoke the words of a desperate disillusioned man, “Be gone! Shadowdemon!”
Shade laughed darkly. His cutting laughter bit down deep.
“Please, spare my life. I beg you.” Bearus stumbled back onto the main streets of Jile.
Shade shoved the man to the ground. “No.”
People watched curiously as Bearus, bloody and beaten, stumbled in the slush road. He fell over and over again, as if pushed and then they knew.
Bearus struggled back to his feet, only to be shoved cruelly back to the ground. He tried again, but he ended up facedown, whitewashed in the snow, his face burning red with streaks of blood, sweat and humiliation. Bearus crawled and clawed his way through the gray snow on his hands and knees.
“Help!” he shouted, “Someone help me!” He gasped around in shock as the citizens of Jile coldly ignored him. None dared interfere.
“No one will help you. This may be your country, but this is my town.”
Bearus looked around in wild abandon and caught sight of the guards chatting around the brazier. He crawled towards them, clawing his way through the slush. He waved his arms in desperation.
“Guards!” he screamed, “Guards, help me!”
“They won’t help you either. They’re too well paid,” Shade whispered, the words seeping into the man’s ear and freezing over his heart.
“Come out then!” Bearus demanded bitterly, “Come out here and show your face, you filthy demon!”
“I’m right,” Shade whispered, “here.”
The legendary assassin’s face materialized before the man’s eyes. His yellow eyes burned devilishly in the night. A wicked grin spread across his dark lips. He grabbed Bearus firmly by the jaw. He squeezed tightly as the man struggled. He brought his dagger to Bearus’ mouth, to the man’s wiggling tongue. The citizens of Jile went about their late night pleasures as a member of their own race screamed until he could scream no more…
Chapter Three:
The Ice Marshes
Shade’s hot breaths wafted up in puffs of steam as he pushed himself at a brisk pace through the freezing swamplands. The Ice Marshes were one of the few places most men assumed avoid in the civilized west. It was considered the cancer of the western plains and although it lay on the very doorstep of the capital, travelers kept to roads that wound far around it. Few roads passed through the Ice Marshes; most had sunken into the ever-settling bogs long ago. Shade passed by the rotted, grayed remains of old wagons, carts and wheels half-submerged in the frozen mud. This was a land that swallowed the few mounts dragged in by their foolish owners, giving the land a hungering, almost gluttonous reputation.
The assassin’s ever-alert eyes swept the gloomy landscape. He was always on his guard when passing through the Ice Marshes. The marshes stretched out in every direction forming a maze of twisting, muddy plateaus and hammocks bulging from swamps of frozen green water. Ice Reeds lined the banks and withered brown Duckweed lay encased in solid ice. Shriveled and bare Bald Cypress Trees cast frail skeletal forms over the foggy terrain, dripping with melting icicles. Danger could creep up on him at any instant and he was all too familiar with the rules of the hunt.
Shade was a predator and he had a profound respect for nature’s other great hunters. His keen Elven ears picked up a screeching sound in the distance, but he lowered his guard almost as soon as it had been roused. The screech was nothing but a high-pitched squeal of a Muckhog dying at the end of a Wilderman’s spear of that he was certain. He still could not bring himself to relax completely. Wildermen were the least of his worries here, beasts lay in wait and darker things stalked these swamps of which he dared not speak.
The wind moaned loudly in Shade’s ears. The merciless gust blew back his hair and bit into his flesh. He pulled his cloak about him, but wiped the cold sweat off his brow. The winter grew late. Most of the swamp water was still frozen over, but he had passed several pools where ice floes broke off and floated in the frigid waters. He could smell it. The reek of the swamps returned to torture his nostrils. He choked back the nauseating stench that wafted up from the thawing brown muck.
The rising temperatures had begun slowly turning the frozen mud flats into a sticky morass. Soft, wet spots of ground made a suction noise every time Shade lifted a boot. He had to fight to pull his boot from the icy sinkholes. He would have to be extra careful. Although the warm seasons were a much welcome change to the biting cold winters, the ice would be melting now and a simple misplaced step could send him plunging through the ice.
Shade wondered what other dangers the thawing swamps would awaken. He was always amazed every year he encountered another new species that tested his very will for survival. He thought about the giant Boring Worm and the Hydra he had killed the year before. He grinned in a smug confidence. Killing a powerful man hedged in by a host of bodyguards was far more satisfying than offing some lone commoner who had murdered his brother over drawing the short straw in his inheritance. Shade had coldly settled similar squabbles between brothers, between spouses and countless others, each a dull monotonous kill that held no meaning to the renowned assassin, but a few more gold pieces to line his already fat pockets.
Warlord Lewd would be a well-protected quarry making the assassin a number of fascinating enemies for years to come. The warlord would make a worthy adversary from what Shade had heard. Lewd’s victories in Karus Forest during the Thieves War were legendary in the criminal underworld. He singlehandedly united the forest’s many competing factions of night mortals and bandits under one banner. This incredible feat earned him the title warlord, but Lewd was not some ruthless tyrant. He was a diplomatic genius who had a way of winning over his rivals. The nickname, ‘The Sewer King’ was a poetic tribute to Lewd’s charismatic flamboyance, although the word on the streets was that Lewd never appreciated the artistry in the name. Executions inevitably followed.
Shade reasoned it likely that the warlord’s rise to power enabled him to stake a claim at the real crown jewel of the underworld—the Kurn sewers. That claim had paid off. Lewd now ruled the Kurn underground with an iron fist. Shade was making an enemy…a very, very dangerous enemy. The difficulty in getting to Warlord Lewd only proved to be more exhilarating.
The Dark Elf reminded himself he had been trained in the ranks of the Unseen, the deadliest assassins in all the world. It was no wonder no man, not even the mighty legions of Doljinaar, had ever penetrated the black forests of Jui-Sae. The Unseen lay in wait there, still and hidden as shadows among the trees. Shadow Magic shrouded them completely from sight. His people were the ‘sons of shadow,’ the Faelin as they were called in their own language.
Shade stopped in his tracks. He sensed danger. He studied several blocks of ice floating in a thawed pool. It was the middle block that caught his eye. The block was long and slender—fifteen feet in length and had scales—strange white scales and a pair of hungry yellow eyes. It was no block at all, but a Coldwater Crocodile. The assassin discerned the reptile’s long
white teeth pressing against its thin leathery lips. The crocodile lay in wait in perfect stillness, a mere five paces away. Another step towards the water’s edge and he would be claimed by its powerful jaws.
Shade smirked in amusement, “Very clever, shadow hunter.”
The Coldwater Crocodile’s albino appearance was a product of its thick hide that grew only in wintertime and enabled it to survive the harsh winters. The coldblooded reptile shed its skin in late spring when it would show its true scale, a greenish brown. The croc’s chameleon-like skin blended masterfully into the seasons, which kept Shade on the tip of his toes when passing through these swamps. How humiliating it would be for the world’s most renowned assassin to meet his untimely end due to a careless step placed next to the jaws of another great hunter.
“Not today, shadow hunter,” he chided softly.
Shade trotted up another muddy bank taking great care to go around the creature and watched for more. He ducked under the low branches of a Baldcypress Tree and continued onward. He always thought of his old master back home when happening upon a Coldwater Crocodile. His master would have surely appreciated the cleverly camouflaged reptile. Master Sadora was the legendary Shadowlord of Jui-Sae, lord over all Unseen. Shade wondered if there ever was a creature under the sun as dangerous as Sadora.
Shade owed everything he knew to the Shadowlord. He would have never risen to such prominence without his old master’s grisly training. Shade had worked his way into Sadora’s favor and became the Shadowlord’s star pupil. Sadora taught him the deepest mysteries of the shadow arts, attuning his every reflex to the ways of stealth and death. Lord Sadora had molded Shade into the perfect killing machine he was today, but his master’s dark teaching was the straw that eventually drove him away.
Shade was an assassin with a few loose principles. No women, no children, unless it was absolutely necessary, but Sadora was a merciless killer. The Shadowlord took pleasure in the art of murder especially the weak. Sadora had a way of doing away with political rivals and their entire families, though nothing could ever be proved. Shade was certain, had he stayed in Jui-Sae, he would have remained a part of the Shadowlord’s secret circle of Unseen and would have continued to carry out such ruthless acts of brutality.