Shade paused when he came close to a stream. He felt a refreshing mist on the wind and decided he could take the itching no longer. He headed off the path and downhill some twenty paces where a small brook trickled gently by. He glanced around and saw that the coast was clear. He knelt. He splashed the cool water over his face. He exhaled in relief. He washed the cream away and watched as it floated downstream in small golden swirls.
The assassin heard the snap of a tree branch behind him. He jumped up and spun around.
Nothing. He saw no one, but his finely honed survival senses were still tingling. He pulled his hood back on. He started back up for the trail. His hands closed tightly around his dagger hilts. He squeezed hard. His keen Elvish ears picked up the creaking of leather and chainmail. He saw shadows moving in the brush, but he could not see his new foes. He suspected whoever had trained this rabble, had trained them well, for they moved almost as light of foot as Rangers in the golden forests of Jui-Rae, almost.
Shade stopped.
An arrow whisked past his brow and struck a tree.
He crinkled his eyebrows as he stared at it in confusion. The arrow had been fletched with golden-feathered vanes. ‘It can’t be,’ he thought. His thoughts flashed back to his youth. He had seen thousands of these arrows back home. Its appearance instantly muddied his original suspicions that he was being singled out by a band of highwaymen. He heard more branches cracking under heavy boots. He even heard the sound of slithering behind him. He reached the trail again.
There, in the middle of the road, stood the tallest, broadest shouldered Doelm axeman he had ever seen. The Doelm’s soft glowing eyes stared at Shade. He cricked his huge neck and licked his leech black lips. His hulking arms rested upon the huge shaft of a brutish black axe. And Shade heard a gang of other bloodthirsty brutes closing in around him…
Chapter Seven:
Lewd’s Highway
Shade had completely forgotten how large Doelms came. This brigand was no runt. He was a specimen of the highest possible warrior caste. He neared seven feet in height. Slits had been cut into his leather cuirass to make room for his bulging chest which heaved with a swelling almost bestial ferocity. The patch of fur that grew down his arms and down his broad back was so thick it could have been mistaken for a bear pelt. The Doelm twisted his grip around the shaft of his monstrous battleaxe. His knuckles cracked. He smiled hungrily at the Dark Elf.
The assassin scowled from underneath his dark hood, but this was not Jile. The Doelm would not back down, not here. Shade slid his daggers from their sheaths when a shorter light-skinned figure appeared from behind the huge axeman. The figure was not that short, about Shade’s height in fact. The Doelm simply dwarfed him. He was surprisingly winsome. He flashed a disarmingly charming grin which dripped too thick with honey for a brigand.
He had a thin slender frame, etched with softer features and shadows that clung unnaturally to his delicate parlor. He had long flowing, nearly golden, blonde hair. He too was clad in soft leathers, far too familiar leathers emblazoned with the symbol of a burning sun. Shade gasped. An Elf! A Quaelinari as they were called back home. The mortal enemies of Shade’s people. He wasn’t surprised to find an Elf this far west. Jui-Rae had strong trade relations with humans after all, but traveling in the company of this rabble? Now that was shocking.
Four ugly, scar-faced Braznians emerged out of the brush, two on either flank. They were all clad in chainmail with leaves jammed into the links for camouflage. They carried bastard swords and kite shields. The shields shined so brightly the Dark Elf could see his face reflected in the polished brass. He saw no fear in their hearts like the brawlers he had encountered in Jile, only a brazen boldness as sharp as the edge of their swords. They surrounded him trading bloodthirsty bearded grins.
Shade heard that slithering again behind him, of scales pulling almost inaudibly, across the trodden dirt trail. He saw the smirking face of a Syssrah, a snake-man, in the reflection off one of the shields. The Syssrah raised a long spear. His slippery smirk snaked even farther up his creepy scaled cheeks. Syssrah looked like men, except they had the lower half of a snake. No legs, just horrible wriggling tails. The assassin’s skin crawled. He abhorred Syssrah above all other races.
The Syssrian bandit raised himself up on his tail. He nearly reached the Doelm’s height, but he did not strike. His disgusting long scaled body swayed in the shield’s reflection like a charmed snake. His sick pale yellow skin was clad in scaled bronze armor. He wore a headdress capped by a bronze viper. The Syssrah’s green lips parted and a humanlike, but forked tongue slid out. He emitted a slight hiss which squirmed down Shade’s collar and crawled down his back.
“You are passing on Lewd’s Highway,” the Elf said smoothly, his speech sweet and tart, “and anyone who trespasses on Lewd’s Highway must pay a toll.” He nooked another arrow to his curved Elvish longbow. He took aim at Shade’s head, but the corner of the Dark Elf’s eyes lingered on that disgusting Syssrah.
Shade blinked. He refocused one hundred percent in control again. He was aware of every creaking muscle, every heel digging into the dirt and even that meandering spear behind him. He pulled two of his concealed daggers out just a crack and beamed widely. Ah, his first test. “A toll?” he cut back, “The Sewer King must be worth less than a lick of dirt if he thinks he can cut coins from my purse.”
“How dare you insult the supreme warlord,” the Elven Highwayman spat back, “don’t you know that Warlord Lewd owns not only every brick in the Kurn sewers, but every kernel of dirt in all Karus Forest? You are most unwise to speak against the one who singlehandedly tamed the wilds of Karus Forest and brought the black crown of Kurn to bear upon his own brow.” He pulled his arrow back. All he had to do was release. Quaelinari were just as fast as their dark-skinned cousins.
“So high and mighty sits the king of piss and manure,” Shade grinned wider, “I nearly hesitate to knock him off so grand a pedestal.”
The men huffed. The Doelm growled and brandished his axe. The Syssrah emitted a soft rattling hiss. The Elf’s almond eyes shot wide open burning with uncooked shock and blistering anger.
The bowstring creaked as it pulled back.
“HOW DARE YOU!” the highwayman captain growled, “Lewd will pay extra well for that flapping tongue of yours. You should have exercised more discretion before wagging it before a pack of wolves!”
“No,” the assassin hissed low and cutting, “it is you who should have exercised more discretion!” He squinted hard and at long last his glowing yellow eyes stabbed through the shadows of his hood.
The highwaymen all hesitated. The Elf’s tan face drained of all color. He stared slack-jawed and bumbled awkwardly, “Just who do you think you are?”
“I am the last face you will ever know.” Shade raised his head. His hood fell back revealing his dark heritage. A Dark Elf!
The air filled with hisses and whispers. The name “Shade” was on the tip of every dry tongue. Fear swept over the brigands shrieking in their ears. Its icy grip seized hold of them like hosts of ghastly hands, squeezing the warmth out of their beating hearts. There was only one Dark Elf who walked the streets of Doljinaar…only one. Even the Doelm, the huge Doelm’s face, went white with fear.
“No…” the Elf whispered.
“I warn you again,” Shade said, his hands still under his cloak, “walk away. There’s no need to join your master in his grave!”
“You mean to kill Warlord Lewd? An impossible feat, even for you, Shade!” the Elf stammered, “Kill him!”
Shade unsheathed his daggers. In the split second before the highwayman captain could release his arrow, the assassin had already spun around. His first dagger sailed through the air. He caught the Elf in the neck. The Elven captain fell backward dead. The arrow fell harmlessly out of his lifeless fingers.