For the Love of Elves (World Walker Book 1)

by Shawn Keys

  The moon elf hissed on shoulder and mumbled, “Hecund dier, on da ‘eft!”

  He figured out what she meant. But before he could step off, a ragged moon elf in burlap clothes reached out from inside a cell. Grasping at Ajaz’s shoulder, the male elf pleaded, “You’re stealing them. Take me away too!”

  Ajax barked back at him, “Unhand me or lose it!” He stepped away and kept to the far side of the path to stop anyone else from pawing at him. In the dozen cells, there were perhaps five other prisoners, all of them in a similar state. The beige burlap clothing was purely utilitarian, little more than potato sacks with holes cut out. But they were clean and whole, probably replaced daily from the look of them. None of the jailed elves were mistreated, whipped or starved.

  His sympathy wasn’t aroused. They may have run a-foul of a bastard like Lyvarress, but they were still being treated like elves. Detained, but not abused. He suspected other corners of the prison held humans being treated far worse. It didn’t bear thinking on what he might find in the cells intended for orcs. The elves thought of the underworld as ‘the elemental fury’, the impossible storm below the world where light and dark and fire and steam all mingled in a destructive force that consumed anything it touched. Destruction standing in opposition to the power of creation. He figured those dungeons would make any orc beg to kiss the fires beyond death.

  He was about to depart the pit when the practical half of his brain produced an idea.

  Turning to the last cell, he summoned the elf inside. By the look of her, her greenish-hued skin and deep red hair pronounced her to be a forest elf. Being trapped inside rock and darkness for so long had been more punishing than on the moon elves. At least they admired darkness as part of their elemental nature. “Can you hear me, woman?”

  The forest elf didn’t unfurl from her ball completely, but she did peek out from over her knees.

  Ajax dropped one set of guard keys not far outside her bars. He saw a food bowl, a crude blanket… fury, even her own sack-clothing might be enough to sweep the keys back into her grasp if she showed the least bit of ingenuity. He fixed her with a threatening gaze. “Free the others if you want. Get out if you can. Say nothing of me.” It was an offer, a dare, and a warning all at once.

  He didn’t stay to see if she took the chance. Escaping her cell might lead to her death as easily as her salvation. Staying put and suffering her sentence might be better. He left her to decide her own fate.

  Ajax ploughed on, charging past two more openings into other pits without stopping, glad he could bypass them. Launching down another set of steps, he emerged into a new pit. A single guard was there, standing in front of a cell with a human occupant. The guard was taunting the human with a water jug, holding it out only to withdraw it before the thirsting woman could snatch it up.

  Laughing hard, he caught the sound of approaching footsteps and turned just in time to catch Ajax’s boot to the nose. Cartilage crunched and blood gushed. He howled in pain, but not for long. Ajax grasped his hair and rammed his head into the nearby wall. The guard didn’t get back up.

  Mild concern came from Callistia. “M’y ‘ave ‘illed ‘im. N’t ‘reathing I t’ink.”

  Struggling through the mumble, Ajax gave the guard another look. Hard to say if he was breathing in the torch light. Once again, after watching the man torment the woman in the cell, his sympathy didn’t go very far. “If he wakes, he wakes.” He held out the water jug to the prisoner and smiled. She gave him a nervous smile back, and it was all the reward he needed. Then, he held the second guard key ring through the bars to her. “Use it or not. Your choice. But I can’t stay. Hear me?”

  The woman nodded, turning the keys in front of her eyes. Possibilities ran inside her mind.

  Leaving her with the decision, Ajax raced off again. He’d sowed enough confusion that they might just have a chance to pull this off. Bounding down another set of curving steps, he knew by Helleanna’s description that they were near the underground river that could help them escape.

  A loud whip’s crracck-snap echoed off the tunnel walls. That was followed by a sobbing scream.

  Ajax lumbered to a halt. What the hell?

  There was another crracck-snap from the same whip, then followed rapidly by a different note. The second was a heavier bull-whip, the finish more palpable and thunderous with its thuuddd-crrrrraccck-boom! The female’s scream broke between the two punishing blows, trailing off into soft crying.

  He shouldn’t. Time was short. He didn’t have time to investigate. He didn’t have time to play the bloody hero.

  His feet wouldn’t move, though. He just couldn’t force himself to put one in front of the other.

  Callistia and Helleanna both hummed questions at him, wondering why they weren’t taking the last steps toward their freedom.

  He closed his eyes, then shook his head. “Apologies, ladies. But the knight inside never quite dies, I’m sorry to say.” He turned into the side-tunnel and strode purposefully toward the sounds.

  He didn’t rush in recklessly. Having heard the whips, he knew these guards would be armed. His best weapon was surprise, and he wasn’t going to expend it recklessly. Besides, if he was going to see some murderer getting their just fate, he was going to walk away.

  The pit wasn’t all that different than the others. It was smaller, almost intimate in the worst of ways. He was at the only entrance, other than the well-hole that could dip a bucket through the stone into the nearby river. There were only three cells, none of them occupied at the moment. This was the place where the most wicked prisoners were kept. The ones the King truly meant to punish. The central area between the cells was a nightmare of horrid instruments of torture. From an elaborate rack to a simple sawhorse over which to bend and beat someone, a creative person could do terrible things here.

  Hung from the ceiling in the center, Krizzilani dangled with her hands lashed above her, resting on her knees and unable to fall further. She could have stood had she the strength, but that had been long since lashed out of her. The dark elf was wearing nothing but linen small clothes clinging to her breasts and the gap between her legs. The clothe might once have been creamy white, but was now smudged grey with filth and sweat. Her night-black skin was flogged hard, the near-black welts mercifully hidden by her natural coloring but probably no less painful. Her flowing white hair, previously braided and bound intricately was now a tragic mess hanging limply around her shoulders.

  Two human guards stood back from her, each bearing a whip, one heavy and one light. As Ajax watched, the latter taunted her again, “Sort of hard to keep track of the hours down here, eh elf? When was the last time we actually asked you a question?” He laughed and snapped his whip a couple times near her face. He didn’t quite connected, but made her flinch away desperately. The only part of her body not yet touched was her smooth face. Hitting her there might risk damaging her eyes, mouth, or any of her other delicate senses she relied upon to survive. The thought of losing any of that made her whimper. The threat and the reaction were far better for the guards than doing her actual harm there.

  So far.

  The guard laughed at the flinch and answered his own question, “See, it doesn’t matter! Cause yer here till the end of time, so I wouldn’t bother counting it! Sucks to be immortal now, doesn’t it, bitch?”

  The second one held up a hand, asking for a pause. “Wai-wai-wait! Let me see if I can get a good wind up. If I hit her just right, maybe I can make her jump clear off the ground. Gotta get a good wind-up though.” He started to space himself back, searching for the perfect distance and angle and seeking where to place his ‘masterpiece’ blow.

  Ajax hung his head. He wasn’t fighting with himself. He already knew what he was going to do. He just didn’t know if his current ‘hostages’ would understand. Deciding it was only right to give them a choice, Ajax swept the two elfish women off his shoulder and laid them on the stone. Motioning for them to be silent, he tugged off their gags, then
immediately got to work on their bindings.

  Callistia scrunched up her face, “What are you doing?

  Ajax answered simply, “I can’t leave her to this.”

  Helleanna raised her head as soon as she had the range to do so, peering into the inner pit. “You stopped for a dark elf?”

  Callistia added with even more emphasis, “The dark elf who betrayed you in the first place!”

  Ajax growled, “I know it better than either of you. It was that fool Aramat who sold my name to the King. She just took the bounty and did what rogues like her do. Can’t blame a lion for eating a deer, can you?”

  Callistia rubbed her shoulders to ease some of the ache. “No, but you don’t have to free every lion from every cage you find them in!” Her voice stayed low, not giving them away despite her clear displeasure with the idea.

  Ajax went still, deliberately gazing into her eyes in a way that would demand honesty. “I know the grief that stands between your two races. I’ve lived around elves long enough to know how deep the hatred goes.”

  He pointed into the chamber, “But you tell me you can walk away from any woman at the mercy of those two, left here by your King to tie up a loose end in this damned affair. She’s as much a victim in all this as you or I, and I’m not leaving her with these two pieces of filth.” He didn’t mention the night he’d shared with Krizzilani. It would be hard to explain: how the dark elf could have taken what she needed, but instead had treated him to his first night with an elfish woman, fulfilling fantasies he never even knew he had. She’d done right by him, and he wasn’t going to leave her to a death like this.

  Callistia was about to snap back with reflexive racial hatred.

  Helleanna placed a calming hand on her shoulder. The two were fully unbound now, kneeling side by side. The moon elf gave her a smile of support, believing in her. Believing that her sun elf love could look past boundaries in the same way she had embraced her maid despite her heritage.

  Callistia’s natural anger eased. Her hands twined with Helleanna’s, gathered her breath, and answered Ajax. “No, I can’t.”

  “For what it’s worth from a poor Errant like me, choices like this make me glad I’m helping you.” Ajax laid his own heavy hand atop their linked ones. “You can run onward if you like. Make sure you’re clear while I deal with this. Or stay.”

  Callistia’s eyebrow raised in cool appraisal. “Or… help?”

  Ajax rumbled a dark laugh, “I’ve been told you could probably roast me before I had a say in the matter. Not saying you couldn’t handle these two bastards. But remember the story, princess. Seeing these two burned down by your magic will only spoil the image to the King.” His smile grew genuine. “But the offer means everything.”

  The sun elf princess nodded her thanks. “We’ll stay until it’s finished. We’re in this together, to the end.”

  Helleanna affirmed, “To the end.”

  Ajax cupped her cheek, and the moon elf nuzzled him back fondly.

  Their concern for each other renewed, Ajax crept back to the entrance and measured the distances across the room. He had no fear of dying at the hands of these two. But there was a chance they might decide to kill Krizzilani or use her as a shield.

  When ready, he pulled his kukri from its hold. Gripping it by its tip, he flicked it across the room in a flash of silvery steel. The weapon planted right in the upper chest of the second guard, who was even now winding up for his grand strike. The guard stared down at the hilt protruding from his ribs, choked, and then toppled backward.

  The other guard was stunned. His hands fell to the side, and he actually asked the other guard, “Jurl? Are you alright?”

  Feeding his anger, Ajax bulled his way out of the tunnel’s shadows. Drawing Skyreaper in one smooth pull, he snarled, “Go join him and find out!” Raising the rhompaia over his head, he chopped down with enough force that he split the man from the crown of his skull right down into the depths of his belly. The two halves of him folded outward grotesquely, gushes of blood spilling over the floor.

  Helleanna drifted into the room behind him, whistling. “Well that was horrifying.”

  Ajax grabbed a rag and wiped clean the blade and his face. “Better than these two deserved. Vultures.” He returned the blade to its home, then shifted over to cut Krizzilani down. “Can you catch her as she falls?”

  The two elves did precisely that, trying to ignore the smears of her near-black blood staining their dresses. The ash, rock-dust, and grime of the dungeon area had already done enough to ruin them, but it still wasn’t pleasant.

  Krizzilani’s eyes flickered open as she felt the strain on her arms vanish. She squinted in puzzlement as her hazy vision glossed over the elves, then widened as they took in Ajax’s huge form. “You! Why…” Her strength gave out. As if the sight of him had relieved her of the need to be strong, she surrendered herself into his arms and passed out.

  “Aye lass, take your sleep. We’ll get you out.” He said to Helleanna, “See any injuries that will kill her by moving her?”

  The maid inspected along Krizzilani’s dark, bare skin. “A few that might grow foul if not stitched closed, but that is a lingering death that’ll come later.”

  “So, we’re on a clock. Understood. For now, let’s go. Grab the torches. There won’t be any more wall sconces past this point.” Certain elves could see in far less light. Sun elves were even blinder than humans in the dark, while moon elves needed only a touch of starlight. Dark elves could wander around in total darkness quite happily. Right now, torches were the safer bet. Using utmost care, he curled Krizzilani into his arms. Together, they trotted back to the entrance and resumed their path into the lowest bowels of the castle’s underground.

  They soon hear the turbulence of the river. Following the sound, they entered a long cavern that undulated up and down around the bubbling path of an underground river. The elfish stone shapers had expanded the original shape of the cavern to see as much of the river as possible. Stone shafts came from the ceiling above, dipping into the river. Those were well shafts coming from the castle above. There was perhaps a dozen of them, each able to raise water into a different part of the castle complex. This cavern had been crafted so workers could seek blockages and unplug them. It just so happened to offer a chance of hidden escape as well, a fact the designers had never considered.

  Callistia looked at the downstream direction. Ten feet after the final well, it pierced the side of the mountain and vanished. “I have no idea how long until we will be able to take a breath once we’re under that.”

  Helleanna assured her, “It isn’t far.”

  Ajax’s eyebrows rose. “You say that like you know.”

  She grinned impishly. “A bit of an old game among junior moon elves. The river has a fast current and it flows into the ocean. At the end is a waterfall, fifteen feet to the waves. The hardest part is dodging the rocks. Don’t go deep. Take the pain of smacking the water flat. Spread out and hit the surface so you stop.” She pointed at the river. “While you’re in there, don’t fight the current. Swim with it. Get as much speed as you can and launch off the end. The feeling is incredible… at least, when you aren’t running for your life and scared out of your mind.”

  Ajax let out a belly-rich laugh, the first he’d had in a while. “At least it’ll make anyone chasing us think twice.” He laughed once more, shaking his head. “Alright, after the plunge, swim toward the city. We don’t have the skills to lay a false trail that will fool the gendarme and the realm’s rangers. Our only hope is to reach the cobblestones of the city. We’ll come up onto the docks and vanish into the city. You’re sure you know someone who can take us in?”

  Helleanna nodded again. “I’m sure. For how long? That’s a guess. But we’ll be able to hide for the night and make plans. That’s assuming they don’t hunt us down. We’re still following your hunch they won’t check the city immediately.”

  Ajax nodded. “This whole thing’s a gamble. And tim
e is not our friend. No sense in waiting. The water isn’t getting any warmer.”

  Helleanna smiled. “If it makes you feel any better, the ocean is wonderfully warm this time of year.”

  Callistia added her own. “Like clear blue crystal in the sunshine.”

  Ajax laughed. “Fantastic. Remember, stay close to the rocks. If the water is that clear, a vigilant eye might see us from above. Just one more gamble.” He held Krizzilani close. “Be glad you aren’t going to be awake for this.”

  They took deep breaths. Then, as one, they jumped.

  Chapter 7

  Ajax felt the current accelerating as they approached the cliff-face. There was a dive in the tunnel, removing any hope of a slow exit. According to what Helleanna had said, this was a good sign, no matter how wrong it felt to go faster when you were blind.

  He curled around Krizzilani, not about to let her smash into any rocks. He held his hands over her lips and nose to stop her from unconsciously sucking in any water. She was in more danger than the rest of them to be sure. If this doesn’t wake her up, nothing will.

  Resolving to not let go of her, no matter what happened, Ajax braced himself…

  Then he was airborne. Spat from the tunnel by the rush of the river, he sailed out over the ocean and crashed into the rolling surface. He remembered Helleanna’s advice about shaping his body, but he was focused far too much on keeping his dark elf passenger safe. He would hit the water like he hit the water, and he’d have to deal with the consequences.

  The impact was punishing, and the current generated by the waterfall smashed him into at least one of the seabed rocks before it let him broach the surface. He exploded past the waves and sucked in air like a laboring whale.

  Callistia had fared a little better. She was not as hardy, but didn’t have a passenger and far less mass. By the time he was on the surface, she was already treading water and drifting slowly in the direction of the city.