by Ronald Long
The sight that confronted him now only added to his confusion.
Lining the path to the large wooden gate that would allow him access to the high court were banners flying the colors of the Order of the Comet, interspersed with the emperor’s own banner. The elves of Enoth had not been in Lone Peak for more than a day, and yet here, among the pride of his nation, flew the colors Coriander had come to detest more than any he could remember.
Surely the emperor was unaware of this. The general marched forward; ready to confront His Excellency, even if it meant confronting the elf who was his ruler. This overreach of the Order was madness.
Armed human guards stopped him at the gate. Coriander presented his invitation from the emperor, noting that it also bore the symbol of Darrion as well.
After a few moments in which the guards stared at him suspiciously, they signaled to have the gates opened.
With great effort, the wooden doors creaked open; allowing entrance into the light filled inner court. Delicate lamps surrounded by glass panels were lit every few feet. Some still milled about at the late hour and considered Coriander with suspicion.
He walked purposefully towards the largest building in the inner court: a castle with four great towers on each corner of its walls.
The banner of Darrion adorned the castle, no priesthood of the Comet to be found there. That, at least, gave Coriander hope that the entire city hadn't already lost its mind to Cedric's bile.
Again he presented his note to the guards of castle, who admitted him into the castle by unlocking, opening, and then relocking the great doors that allowed him entrance. The sound of the echoing click did not sit well with him.
But he was a general of the greatest elven empire on Gilia. What did he have to fear of locked doors and the misgivings of men?
An attendant bowed to him and motioned for Coriander to follow him. The castle would have been impressive to most, he thought, as they walked underneath gilded banners and by suits of magnificent armor. But he had been in the halls of the emperor. Coriander's own house was comparable to the ruling castle of Darrion.
This gave the elf pride as the attendant stopped in front of large double doors and directed him inside.
As he crossed the threshold, he was surprised to see not only the emperor, but also many men of Darrion, all arranged in their finest clothes and seated around a great feast. Apparently, the meeting had been going on for some time.
All eyes turned to him as he bowed to his ruler and acknowledged the others.
“Ah!” Rophilborn exclaimed as soon as Coriander had come inside the hall. The room was lit with torches and great paintings of naval battles and stallions charging down the creatures he knew to be called Wrents adorned the walls. “The finest leader of elves in Enoth!”
These words caused him to feel a swell in his chest. This was high praise.
He strode over to his emperor and friend and bowed again.
“You summoned me, Your Excellency?” he said.
Rophilborn stood and addressed the room at large.
“I did,” he said as he clicked his fingers and attendants brought food and drink for the general. It turned out he would be eating finer fare than he imagined tonight. He was just about to think about enjoying this food when the next words out of Rophilborn's mouth caught him by surprise.
“We were just discussing the threat of the Wood Walkers and how best to quell them before they burn down other cities of Darrion.”
***
Coriander trudged back to the ship from the noble castle; his feet and his heart were heavy. It had been a very long three hours.
The city, after having been awake far longer than it was used to, was finally sleeping.
The general wished he had been asleep hours ago. It was certainly the second watch by now. City guards and a few Enoth ones were the only ones who walked the streets at this late hour. Streets were empty save for the very late watch and the occasional small animal that stalked the paths for scraps. None of them held up Coriander's march back to the boat.
The events of the evening were heavy on his mind. Strange though the journey to Lone Peak had been, stranger still was the mood of his emperor and the agenda he had hidden from Coriander.
Why had he not briefed the general on the attack of Bestone by the Wood Walkers before they had embarked? Why had he not spoken of a combined alliance with Darrion, not for trade, but for the defense against and attack on the forest dwelling elves?
He racked his brain, trying to figure out how he might have missed Rophilborn bringing it up, whether offhandedly or in direct command.
Coriander knew this was futile. He remembered every word his emperor ever shared with him and he could not recall a single time the emperor had declared the Wood Walkers an enemy.
Not until tonight, that was.
From the way he spoke to the nobles of Darrion, he had been waging a constant war against them for several hundred years.
Coriander's own timeline with the empire exceed three hundred, and he could not remember more than a few small skirmishes with the Wood folk, most of which were misunderstandings on the elves of Enoth's part. They respected each other's boundaries. The Wood Walkers didn't journey south to the lands of the empire and the elves of Enoth did not harvest the plentiful trees that grew along the edge of the forest.
That was the agreement made after the long civil war many hundreds of years ago.
For generations, that had been enough.
Coriander arrived at the boat's dock just in time to hear the night watch changing throughout the city. Out of habit mostly, he listened for the elf call of all clear before heading inside the boat.
No alarms. All was quiet.
He walked up the ship's ramp to the deck and made his way to his room. A bed and a glass of strong drink were waiting for him. As soon as he pushed the door to his room open, however, drink and rest were pushed far from his mind.
A dagger flying at his temple drove those thoughts away quickly.
Perhaps the assassin shifted her footing when Coriander walked in. Maybe she took in a shallow breath in preparation to strike. Whatever the reason, in the split second before the dagger left the assassin's hand, Coriander was able to dodge the blade and his training took over.
Having no weapon on him, Coriander did what he knew to be the best thing to engage an attacker: he launched himself at her. The groan of pain was definitely female, as were the nails that raked into his neck. The general grabbed the assassin around her middle and threw her to the ground.
"Guards!" he shouted as he jumped on top of her.
He narrowly missed the blade she had procured from a hidden sheath on her calf. He wrestled her arms to the ground and pinned them there with his knees, before attempting to wrench the blade from her hand, which he held tightly just under her wrist with his own hand, he looked into the attacker's eyes.
There was no hatred. No spite. This was an assassin paid to do a job.
Her eyes were cool and calculating, as if attempting to measure up what her chances were of surviving the encounter.
"And who paid you to do this job?" Coriander managed before getting a hold of the knife and throwing it aside.
Her eyes narrowed.
Then Coriander felt a stabbing pain in his back. He lurched forward on top of the would-be killer and let his grip on her arms go as he recoiled in pain.
Agonizingly, he flipped onto his side to see what had caused him such fiery anguish. At the same time as he saw the small blade protruding from the knee of his assailant, two guards and a very distraught looking Finore stormed into the room, blades drawn and pointed at the assassin.
Coriander couldn't tell what happened next. The room was beginning to go black and his vision was blurring terribly.
"Coward!" he heard Finore shout. But it couldn't be at him, could it?
He was his emperor's finest general.
There was a moment when he felt a hand on his shoulder, but then it
passed.
And all things became nothing.
Chapter 30:
A Job to Finish
Sethin chuckled to himself as he heard the dwarf and the man struggling through the back rooms of the amphitheater. He had been clever to listen in on his boss's conversation about the meeting place he was heading to once they had sacked the city and arrived in Lone Peak.
He hadn't thought his captors would actually be so stupid as to leave him unattended and not chained to the wall of the ship. That was the problem with good people. They were too trusting.
Now he sat behind a false wall, grim satisfaction on his face as he heard them give up and head for one of the other rooms. They didn't know about the secret passageway. He'd be safe.
Apparently, the nobles of Lone Peak didn't trust the people to be forgiving when it came to changes in laws or increases in taxes. When important meetings like that took place in the stadium and things got out of hand, the nobles would pretend to spend time in the back room while the crowd settled down, when, in reality, they were heading back to the safety of their precious castle while their guards put their lives on the line for them outside.
Clever of them.
Now that he was back in the stone passageway, Sethin was doing his best to remember what the boss had said about the tunnels that led underneath it and where the meeting place would be for their contact.
Lucky Sethin had arrived just on the right day to meet up and relay the information: the city was torched, the instructions were followed, and only one ship found out they were there.
He'd leave out the part about the people on the ship taking him prisoner and bringing him to Lone Peak by happenstance.
That wasn't necessary information.
Then there was making up some excuse about why he, Sethin, was delivering the message and not the boss himself. Oh well. The boss often sent others to do his dirty work for him while he slinked away unharmed and out of danger.
How was this any different?
Feeling his way through the stone passage, Sethin was sure he had heard something about torches or lamps to help light the way. Then he felt it: a short metal rod held in place on the wall. He removed it, then touched the end with his bare hand. A soft orange glow came from the piece of Rimstone, no bigger than his thumb, and lit the immediate portion of the passage.
A little crude, but it would do.
What Sethin lacked in creativity or general intelligence, he made up for it with his exceptional memory.
He'd always been able to remember full conversations down to the smallest detail. If he had more readily applied himself as a youth, he may not have ended up a pirate.
But common sense wasn't Sethin's greatest asset.
He wasn't sure who the boss was talking with the day he had gone to ask about his share of a job. Something had stopped him from knocking on the door at the inn they were staying at, and he had been forever grateful he had paused.
"Worth more than the last three jobs put together," the voice had said. "And then some."
Sethin had obviously come in on the boss getting a new job from someone. A very well paying job at that.
"I don't know," came his boss's voice. "Sounds like a pretty risky endeavor. What if I don't want to risk my crew?"
The other laughed at him.
"Even I know you don't care a thing about your crew," the other voice said.
Sethin knew this.
Everyone knew this.
The boss cared about money. His crew was expendable. And money could buy him another one if he used up the one he had right now.
Still, the boss paid well. That's why Sethin had sought him out. And it was his own greed of money now that propelled him forward. The boss finally gave in and was given directions about what their crew was supposed to do. Their job now complete, Sethin was remembering the very last part of the conversation. The payoff and the meeting location.
Left. Right. Left again. Straight.
It was a small wonder no one got lost down in these mazes. Then again, if somebody ever walked up on a dead body down here, they could just put them on a shelf with all the others, Sethin thought.
Sethin had never been in a catacomb before. But he knew enough about them to understand the idea. The bodies of former nobles and rulers of Darrion lined the walls as he walked. He took a rag from his pocket to cover his mouth and keep from gagging. The stench was horrible.
At last, Sethin came to the door he knew would unlock if he pressed the third stone up and to the left of the dark gray one that didn't match the other tiles in the wall.
When he put pressure on the stone, he heard a small click and pushed open the door. Inside was a chapel of sorts.
Dark stone walls were bare. The ceiling was the same. No decorations could be found in the room except towards the front.
Plain wooden pews or benches stood on the left or right of an aisle that went down to an altar. Some unforgotten deity was once given honor here. The statue of it was the only thing worth mentioning in the small chamber, and even it sat on a plain stone stand. Small pieces of Rimstone embedded into the walls, similar to the one in Sethin's hand, lit the chamber.
A figure in a dark robe stood up at the sound of the door opening and faced Sethin. Whoever it was had a hood down, covering their face.
"You are not who I was expecting," came the voice from the hood. Male, Sethin thought. But he couldn't tell anything else about it.
"Yeah?" he answered, knowing he had to play this off well if he was to walk away with a hefty payday. "The boss is the one who sent me. So you were expecting me after all."
For a moment the hooded figure just stood still. Sethin could feel him staring, even though he couldn't make out a face in the dim light.
He also knew better than to ask the hooded figure to show himself. Being a pirate, he had learned to put up with the practices of secrecy.
"The city?" the hooded figure asked.
"Burned to the ground and left like you wanted," Sethin replied. He knew he was being tested for information. And only he and the boss had heard the explicit instructions.
"We left the loot and made sure it looked like they destroyed the place. The messengers fled with the news before the fires had burned out. "
Sethin could tell the hooded figure was nodding and understanding.
He was also making a note of the lack of treasure chests or bags of gold. This better not be some wild goose chase for this pay off or Sethin would be put out.
"One of my sources says that your ships were attacked. Who was the aggressor?"
This was something Sethin had not anticipated. How could this hooded figure know they had been attacked?
Time to play it safe.
"Yeah, we were attacked," he answered truthfully. But then his truthfulness waivered.
"Didn't leave any of them alive. Probably just a stray merchant ship in the wrong place at the wrong time," he invented.
He knew full well the people who had captured him were not ordinary merchants. But letting the robed figure know about a dangerous group who had been able to kill everyone on board his vessel and capture them seemed unwise. Especially if he was going to get his payday.
"You and your crew sunk their vessel and killed them all?" the hooded figure asked.
"Yeah," Sethin replied getting both annoyed and frustrated. He told the man what he needed to know. Why wasn't he paying up?
It was at that moment he sensed two others walking behind him. They were dressed identically to the man at the front of the small chapel. The only difference was that these two both carried short swords.
"Hey!" Sethin began. "What is this!?"
"I would ask you the same thing," the masked figure answered. "A ship did encounter your small fleet. It was burned as one of your vessels sailed away. But, if my information is correct, it was under the guidance of a new crew. It sits now in the docks and you are the only one from the original crew left"
Sethin had not counte
d on the masked figure knowing about that.
"I know that what you say about the city is true," the man said. "My spies have informed me that the job was completed."
Sethin felt both of his arms being grabbed by the two around him. He struggled to break free until one of them put a sword to his neck. He stood defiantly still.
"They also told me that four ships came to the city that day. Only three left and one of them did not belong to your boss." The robed man was now just two steps away from Sethin. He knew he couldn't fight his way out of this. He would have to keep talking.
"The group that killed my mates and stole our ship isn't from Darrion. They aren't even from this continent. They kept talking about Ruyn. One’s a catlike creature, one is a dwarf, and another is a half-man, a short folk. "
Sethin was doing the only thing he knew that might possibly save his life: giving some information, but not all.
"I know their captain, and where they are staying. I can direct them back to you. I can show you who their boss is."
For a moment, the four of them stood still. Sethin looked nervously from side to side and then back again at the masked man in front of them.
"Let me go and I can help you find him," he bargained.
The robed figure scuffed and turned away.
"You are so willing to change alliances, to tell me you are loyal to me most. Who's to say if someone with more money or power couldn't sway you to their side?"
The hooded figure stood in front of the deity.
"My followers are loyal beyond death."
Turning back around, he removed his hood to reveal a golden mask. The features of a man were molded onto it, but they were perfectly symmetrical. Not a flaw at all.
"These filthy humans at one time worshiped death. I seek to free those who are worthy from death."
He took three steps until he was nose to nose with Sethin.
Sethin looked squarely into the face of the mask.
"I can help you," he bargained once more, almost pleadingly.
A soft laugh came from within the mask.