Waiting Game (The Chronicles of Covent)

by J. L. Ficks

  The extra weight forced the Hand to beat his wings low. Shade managed to grab hold of his carpal bone. He used the wing to pull himself up and swung hard. The pair spun into a barrel-roll, but Shade cut through the whip. He fell. He took a chunk of the Hand’s wing with him. The Dark Elf plunged into the drink. He saw the Drakor crash and skid down a walkway just before he went under.

  Shade opened his eyes and looked around the dark murky water. He could barely see more than ten feet in front of him. The saltwater stung his wounds and blood plumed the water red around him. He saw four ghastly white humanoid forms swimming at him through the cloudy waters. Sharlak!

  He realized he was still holding the hunk of the Hand’s wing. He pushed the grisly mass from him and slipped into Unseen form. He would be a fool to face them down here in their domain. He swam carefully away trying not to cause too much motion. He hadn’t made it more than ten feet when he had to resurface for air. He broke the surface quietly and looked around. There was no sign of Lewd’s Hand, but the Drakor would have lost his position as well.

  Shade remained in Unseen form and slipped back underwater. He heard the sound of violent splashing and glanced back behind him. The Sharlak had reached the bait. He saw them squabbling over the small morsel. He continued on and felt along the wall hoping to find a ladder somewhere. He emerged at a four-way intersection. He saw a ladder thirty-six feet down the right canal and made for it.

  He made it ten feet and checked behind him again. The Sharlak had stopped at the intersection and appeared to make sniffing motions in the water. He was alarmed when they turned his direction in unison.

  The Dark Elf kicked harder, but the finned Sharlak glided easily through the water and closed the distance. He had twenty feet to go, but they were within ten. He kicked so hard he thrashed. He made it another bare six feet before he was surrounded.

  The Sharlak swiped at him with outstretched claws. He turned around and studied their movements. He spun and rolled just barely evading their swings. He pulled out his knife and stabbed a Sharlak between the ribs. He yanked his dagger out and blood mushroomed from the shark-man’s side completely obliterating his trail.

  The other Sharlak turned on their kin and began tearing it to pieces.

  Shade paddled warily away. He reached the ladder. He pulled himself up and slipped out of the water no more than a shadow lost in the darkness.

  Shade stole silently down the walkway. He knelt and squeezed blood out of the wound on his shoulder. He allowed the blood to trickle to the floor and form a small pool. He stopped just before he grew lightheaded. He took a moment to retrieve a small tin medical kit he kept in his belt-pouch. He treated the wound with gauze and a strong douse of alcohol to hide his blood scent. The wound burned with pain.

  The assassin tightly wrapped the wound. He glanced back at the ladder. The three Sharlak had emerged from the sewer water and walked around sniffing the air. The assassin knew he could slay them easily with three quick dagger throws, but he would not risk giving away his position to Lewd’s Hand again. Instead, he left the pool of blood behind him.

  He sprinted down the corridor and took a running leap over the canal. He landed noiselessly on the opposite walkway back at the four-way intersection. There, he spun around and knelt silently under a small crumbled nook in the wall. He waited; concealed in his Shadow Magic, from here he could maximize his vantage points. He glanced down the right corridor then checked the left, then swept back to the south corridor where he had left the Sharlak.

  The shark-men had found the pool of his blood. They knelt, sampling the Dark Elf’s blood, but appeared by their confusion to be having a difficult time locating him. ‘Good,’ he thought, ‘that will hold them for now. With any luck my quarry will play into my hands.’ He unsheathed his most finely honed weapon yet—patience. Time passed with nothing, but the sound of rushing waters and the strange gurgled chattering of Sharlak.

  Shade watched the shark-men methodically search the walkways for any sign of their lost prey. He watched as they scoured one end of the sewers to the other. He saw them sniffing, babbling and then bickering amongst themselves.

  Hours passed with still no sign of the Hand. Shade grinned. He admired his new foe. Perhaps, at long last he had found a worthy rival. Another hour passed and yet still the Drakoran assassin betrayed nothing. Shade had challenged him and Lewd’s Hand had gladly accepted…a duel of patience…to the death.

  Shade guessed it was about early evening when the Sharlak lingered some forty paces away on the same walkway where he currently hid. The shark-men leapt and swiped at the ceiling, their gurgled ranting grew increasingly erratic and nearly slurred into words. The Dark Elf waited, watching, poised and prepared. The tallest Sharlak burbled an order at the others. The pair split off in opposite directions.

  Shade’s hands tightened around his daggers as one sea creature scampered past him. The Sharlak disappeared around the corner and came back a minute later carrying an old wooden crate. The other Sharlak had already fetched two crates to their companion’s one.

  The Dark Elf watched as the Sharlak stacked the crates and began climbing up towards what appeared to be a six-foot wide hole cut in the ceiling—a duct of some kind. Shade’s jaw dropped. How had he missed it?

  Suddenly, a large winged figure dropped from another duct, between Shade and the Sharlak, not twenty paces away. It was the Hand and he left his back exposed. The Dark Elf rushed out of hiding just as the Drakor slashed the first Sharlak across the back. The other two shark-men spun around. The Hand ran one through the heart and he snapped the other’s neck with a lash and a twist of his half-severed whip.

  Shade plunged his dagger into the Hand’s back and drove it straight into his spleen. The Drakor fell backwards into the Dark Elf’s arms.

  Shade wrapped his left arm around the Hand’s neck and braced himself to hold his victim’s weight. He brought his right dagger up to the Drakor’s cheek and whispered, “I had hoped you would be the first to escape my blades.” Shade dragged the blade lightly across the Hand’s cheek. “It appears I thought too much of you,” he hissed in disgust. Shade plunged the dagger into his foe’s heart. He smirked evilly, “Go tell the gods who sent you to your grave.”

  Chapter Thirteen:

  Pledge of

  the Moons

  Shade strode briskly down the empty corridors of the Old Mino Quadrant to the neutral meeting place he and Lewd’s messengers had discussed. He was escorted by Yessheeran who carried a torch and led him down the faintly lit passageways. Old candles burned down to nearly the wick and set in bronze sconces provided scant candlelight. The Dark Elf watched in growing disgust as the Syssrah’s scaled tail slithered over the grimy, weathered brick passageways. The air reeked of raw sewage and betrayal.

  The assassin had followed the ducts discovered by the Sharlak and found them to be part of a complex network of emission channels that ran under the entire city of Kurn. The passages were small and he had to crawl on his belly through most of them, but he had indeed found a way into the warlord’s palace. He had left the Drakor’s head lying on Lewd’s throne with a note that read: Lewd’s hand. Next time it will be his head. Shade grinned in dark amusement. It appeared the warlord had got the message.

  Warlord Lewd had summoned him under the Pledge of the Moons. The pledge was a custom of Shade’s people. When two warring Faelin wanted to meet and talk under a banner of truce, one would offer the other a black cloth sewn with the motif of the three moons. The three moons stood for a sign of unity among the Faelin and was the binding symbol of the pledge. Upon acceptance, the enemies met unarmed under a moonlit vigil. If either Faelin broke the sacred pledge and attacked his foe, he was eternally damned to burn in the flames of the sun under judgment of the moon gods.

  Shade conveniently left out in his reply that he wasn’t a practicing Faelin. He decided to show up on Lewd’s terms on a matter of principle. The pledge was also a sign of respect, the sender saying to the recipient he ha
d found a worthy enemy. Shade’s profession rarely afforded him the opportunity to meet a mark face to face. He had grown far too used to not seeing their faces until those last few telling moments, when he watched in cold indifference as their life slipped away.

  He suspected the pledge might be a trap. After all, Lewd was no Faelin and had no fear of the moons. What bound him to honor the terms of the agreement? But then again Lewd wasn’t aware that Shade wasn’t a practicing Faelin either, a gravely overlooked detail that could cost the warlord his life. Shade almost wished for a trap. Life was growing dull these days. He had not found the challenge he had hoped for. Only Lewd’s Hand had pushed his abilities and with that hope dead, the chance of a trial by fire was fast slipping through his fingers.

  Yessheeran led Shade into a large deserted storeroom. Overturned and smashed rotting wood crates lay on their sides long since stripped of their contents. Rats squeaked and scampered out of the way as the pair made their way to the center of the room. A pointy-eared figure sat alone at an Ebonwood table under a shaft of moonlight pouring in through a small rusted grate in the ceiling. Shade could hear the bustle of the city streets above.

  The figure was not alone. The room was steeped in darkness and there were many places to hide. Kishrub and Zulbash stood ten paces behind Lewd, their huge hulking arms crossed, but they were otherwise unarmed. They bickered and accused each other of being too loud. The figure at the table shot them a glare. They clamped their chubby lips shut and resorted to a feud of big fat finger-pointing.

  Shade stifled a chuckle. They looked like over-wrapped mummies in their bloody bandages. He let them drink in the full mockery of his boastful smirk.

  They froze and grimaced fiercely back at him.

  He ignored them and turned his attention back to the table.

  Yessheeran pulled out a chair.

  Shade waited. His eyes swept the room, turning over every shadow to detect a ambush. He could feel the figure grinning at him through the darkness. The table was set with a lavish satin tablecloth that caught the moonlight. A bottle of rich Dark Oliverian Wine sat on the table, chilling in an ice bucket, beside two silver goblets set with small round gems of tannamite and bloodstone. A silver candelabra engraved with the motif of the three moons burned—one flame representing each deity. Shade shook his head. Lewd must have done his homework.

  Warlord Lewd’s face was illumed by the pale candlelight. He wore well-polished dark blue plate armor and a rich purple cape fit for a king. He wore a simple black cast iron crown on his head. Shade was surprised the crimelord had the guts to show up in person, but then again Lewd was probably thinking the same thing about him. Shade’s first impression was that there was nothing blatantly grotesque about Lewd, but rather subtle disproportions that left Mother Nature at a loss.

  Warlord Lewd sat permanently hunched over as if his broad Doelmish shoulders were far too thick and heavy on his lean manlike frame. Such was the tale of his form. His bushy brows and overly obtrusive forehead hunkered down on his grossly half-human face. His face was wrinkled and lined with age. His skin was a sickly blend of yellows and greens infested by black pockmarks. His beady black pupils stared back at Shade floating in slimy mucus colored eyeballs that glimmered as if warming over an open flame.

  Lewd stood up. He bowed managing all the grace and courtly polish of a Faelin king. “I’m humbled by the presence of such a world renowned assassin,” the Troll smiled with a beguiling enigmatic flare, “I see now why so many of my henchmen were returned to me wrapped in cerecloth.” He flashed a set of long blocky, but perfectly white teeth.

  Shade was momentarily stunned by the sudden reflected white in the torchlight. Teeth had always been described as one of a Troll’s most frightening features. It appeared Lewd spent much time grooming his teeth even despite his wretched and twisted appearance. The assassin recovered quickly and took his chair.

  “Don’t waste your time trying to disarm me with your flattery, Warlord Lewd,” he growled back, “I came here to do a job and by the moons I’ll get it done.”

  “Disarm you? Why would I seek to disarm you, my dear cutthroat?” Lewd sat back and said with a cool frost to the edge of his lips, “When I already have.” He snapped his fingers.

  Shade jumped to his feet, his fingers going to the invisible shadow daggers in the straps of his armor. He glared at Kishrub and Zulbash who did not move. Neither did he pick up on any other movement in the room.

  Yessheeran slinked from the shadows his scaly fingers reaching for the bottle of Dark Oliverian Wine. The Syssrah ran a cloth over the bottle and popped the cork. His scaly green lips snaked into a crooked smirk as he filled the two goblets.

  Lewd’s own mouth twisted into an equally snaky grin, “Oliverian wine?”

  The assassin lowered himself back into his seat. He grabbed his glass of wine and smirked coolly back. He stared the crimelord in the face. Shade brought the cup to his lips and drank slowly. The rich taste washed down his throat. He closed his eyes a moment and thought of home. He saw the glow of the moons dancing off of healthy black rustling leaves. He saw gardens of midnight flowers and the proud towers of moonstone cities shining in the night. Two tears squeezed from his tear-ducts, but he forbade them to fall. He betrayed no weakness.

  Shade opened his eyes.

  Lewd was staring at him as if to make certain the Dark Elf drank every last drop. He set the glass down half-finished. He smirked as Lewd shifted uncomfortably. The warlord’s eyes lingered on the half-filled goblet. Now Shade’s lips were lined with a cool edge of satisfaction. He suspected the wine had been poisoned.

  “Now let’s talk gold,” Lewd said quickly, attempting to smooth over the awkward silence, “how many pounds are they paying you for the hit?”

  “There was no specific number,” said Shade, “let’s just say you’re wearing the weight of it on your shoulders.”

  Warlord Lewd laughed, “A rather gruesome touch, don’t you think?”

  “No more than the trophies mounted above your throne, Lewd.”

  “Name your price.”

  “I have no price.”

  “The weight of one of my bodyguards in gold.”

  “And give up the thrill of the chase? You’ve got to be joking.”

  “The weight of both my bodyguards in gold,” Lewd offered, “and you come work for me. You have already relieved me of my very best. I could use an assassin of your caliber to dispose of a few manmade inconveniences.”

  “I will not play one of your stoolpigeons, Lewd.”

  “Surely we can reach some manner of agreement,” the crimelord frowned, “otherwise we’re caught in a deadly waiting game, one in which we will both undoubtedly lose. You will waste my valuable time and resources and I will waste your invaluable talent! Let us not speak of what we cannot do. You desire to move onto the next hit and I desire to move freely among my own chambers and manage my affairs without fear of you.”

  “No agreement,” said Shade. He picked up his goblet and took another sip, “you will find it rather unsettling how easy it will be for me to get to you.”

  “You’re a dangerous Elf, Shade, but do you really think you could reach me in the heart of my fortress behind all my walls?”

  Shade sat back and shrugged. “It appears you didn’t get my message.”

  “You left Krulle’s head in the outer chambers,” Warlord Lewd said, “a real assassin would have slipped it under my bedcovers. Tell me…was the security of my inner stronghold too much even for the legendary Shade?”

  Shade harrumphed and momentarily averted his gaze.

  “Not even you can walk through walls, Shade.”

  Shade snatched up the goblet and his eyes traced back to Warlord Lewd. He stared long and hard at his adversary. His yellow eyes glowed in cool pools of confidence, so sure and strong his gaze that Lewd actually shuddered under the weight of it. Shade brought his goblet to his lips. He paused before gulping down the meager remains of his wine. The Dark Elf wip
ed his mouth, savoring the final taste and smirked with an icy grin, “Tomorrow night when the three moons are at their peak, I will come for you.”

  “Try it and I will have your head on a scale,” Lewd’s voice wavered.

  Shade leaned in. “I consider that a personal insult, Lewd. I couldn’t possibly back down now. I take the weight of any challenge far more seriously than the weight of gold.”

  “Then we are at a stalemate.” Warlord Lewd stood up and bowed graciously. “I look forward to your next move on the board. I consider it an honor to have so worthy an enemy.” He bowed deeper. “Thank you for honoring the terms of the agreement.”

  “The honor was mine as well, though I will not boast of your honor,” he said, he turned the goblet over and let the three last drops of wine dribble to the floor, “this wine was poisoned.”

  “Ah yes, I’m rather disappointed you didn’t die,” the crimelord said bluntly, “the Syssrah assured me it was one of their fastest-working toxins.”

  “I’m a rather disappointing fellow.”

  “Even you have a weakness, Shade.”

  Just then fifty men, Doelms, Drakor and Syssrah rushed from the darkness. Kishrub and Zulbash led the charge. They raised their barbaric weapons and swung powerfully down at Shade’s crown.

  The assassin sprung to his feet. He leapt instantly into a brilliant forward flip and landed directly behind Warlord Lewd. He spun around, his daggers already dancing in his fingers. Kishrub’s hammer and Zulbash’s mace smashed Shade’s chair to pieces. They smacked face first into one another. Their enormous craniums cracked loudly together. Crack! The two dumb brutes fell backward out cold.

  Lewd groaned. The Dark Elf grabbed hold of the crimelord and brought his knife up to the Troll’s neck. The warlord’s henchmen froze. Time stopped until the room filled only with the flustered and labored wheezing of Lewd and his men.

  “So that you know that I could get to you at any time,” Shade whispered coldly in the crimelord’s ear.