Shade glared at his two foes in annoyance. He did not ordinarily have this much trouble with any one Doelm or Syssrah. This pair had been well trained. They must have spent many years in their respective militaries before becoming deserters and brigands out west. The Doelm stood to his right. The brute yanked his axe out of the ground and turned to him. The Syssrah wavered to his left, propped up high on his tail, clutching his double spears and his creepy serpentine gaze awaiting the assassin’s next move.
Shade merely nodded his respect to his two foes, but that respect did not last long. He gestured with both hands in a come-hither motion. They charged. The Doelm came in much faster, his axe already wound back, but the Syssrah’s spears provided a greater reach advantage. The assassin did not go for his blades. He merely waited, goading them on with that boastful, all-knowing leer.
Shade leapt into the air as they finally reached him. He grabbed hold of the Syssrah’s left spear and set the point into the onrushing Doelm. He guided it deep into a slit in the Doelm’s leather cuirass. He heard a grisly sinking noise as the spear drove into the Doelm’s heaving chest. The Doelm squealed, but just as Shade had planned the stubborn brute carried his blow through. He caught the Syssrah deep in the side with his huge axe. The Doelm strength sliced through the bronze scale armor as easily as tin. The Syssrah groaned. His body keeled over to the side. He twitched, clinging barely to life.
Shade landed and hand-sprung backward. He watched from a short distance off.
The two highwaymen collapsed against each other. The Doelm was down on one knee. He shook with an unyielding rage. He yanked the spear out of his chest and threw it to the side. Yellowish foam dripped from his mouth as he shook with the quaking of a seizure and yet he refused to die. The Syssrah lay almost comatose. His slitted eyes popped back open. The snake-man sprung to life in one final backstabbing act. He drove his second spear deep into the other side of the Doelm’s chest. Then the light left his eyes and he died. The Doelm groaned one final time and he too passed away.
Shade listened to the scraping of bare branches in the forest for a few moments longer. He reflected on the challenge the pair had offered him and hoped that the Kurn underground itself would provide far worthier challenges. The sound of a body dragging over the trail broke his contemplation. He saw the last Braznian, the one he had wounded across the shins, trying to drag his bleeding legs down the path toward Kurn. He had left a long trail of blood in the mud behind him.
Shade stalked down the trail after the wounded man. The Braznian tried to pull himself desperately down the road, but he could not escape. The assassin caught up to him with ease. The man trembled hysterically. He looked up at Shade in a glossy half-glazed shock. The Dark Elf kicked the man swiftly across the face. He knocked the man flat out. He sheathed his blades. Let the man go crawling back to Warlord Lewd. Let him tell his master that death had arrived.
Shade huddled under the cover of thick bushes, trying to ignore the irritating prick of pine needles. He watched the guards on the east walls of Kurn go about their rounds. This section of wall was always left undermanned. The Old Thieves’ Trail, or Lewd’s Highway for a short time longer, happened to end here as well. It was still a one-hundred yard sprint across an open field and into the city. He spit in his hands and rubbed them together as he eyed the guards on the battlements.
The rumor that Kurn did not welcome those of less than reputable reputations was not entirely accurate. In truth, Kurn was filled with an oversupply of hypocrisy. The beating heart of Kurn was not in the lenience of its citizenry, but in the commerce amassed in its streets. And it would be precisely this quenchless flavor for wealth that would permit his entrance into the city.
Shade pulled his travel cloak more tightly about his body. He did not dare risk using Unseen form. The Kurn guards would be equipped with terramite helmets and the use of Shadow Magic would be a dead giveaway to his dark heritage. Better to appear to be an Elven or a human thief than a Dark Elf. He watched as the guards made their rounds. He waited for the top of the hour when the guards would set their backs to the watch and a patient lurker could make a safe sprint into the city.
In truth, Kurn did indeed welcome any mortal. The Shamites had grown too rich on the Black Markets to leave any paying patrons dead on the city outskirts. Even the guards had been bought by Shamite gold, just as long as they didn’t get sloppy. A superior officer would be forced to make an example of any soldier that was caught permitting the entrance of a criminal or a night mortal into the city. The guard would either have to kill the trespasser or face the punishment of the state.
Shade grinned in amusement. ‘It’s all so characteristically human.’ His eyes never left the guards. Then regular as clockwork the watch faced north and south. They waited thirty counts staring down the long walls of the city, but left a convenient hole in the watch. The assassin sprinted from the trees. He dashed madly for a tunnel closed off by all appearances by a sturdy iron sewer grate.
The sewer grate drained onto a ledge and down into the moat far below. He ran across a sturdy wood board laid out rather handily across the moat. He splashed through the shallow waters on the ledge. The waters running off the ledge were ankle deep at best. He reached the sewer grate and opened a postern gate fashioned quite mysteriously into the cross-bars. He slipped into a dim torch lit tunnel just as the guards turned on their next round.
“Ah, yes,” he laughed out loud, “it’s all so characteristically human…”
Chapter Eight:
The Kurn Sewers
Shade strode down a long brick walkway following the natural flow of sewer water surging through the center canal. He tried not to look at the raw sewage, but continued on his way. A maze of corridors and canals led off in a multitude of directions shrouding every step in mystery. A pair of walkways ran alongside each sewer canal and wooden boards were used to provide crude crossings. The occasional torch flickered along the walls casting a hazy trail of light that led to the underground markets. He made several turns before passing down the border tunnel that divided the Thieves Quadrant from the Drakor Quadrant.
The sewers were divided into six quadrants—each ruled by a different race. The Thieves Quadrant and Mage Quadrants were ruled by men, while the Doelm, Syssrah and Drakor Quadrants were ruled by their respective races. Lewd’s organization had taken over the Old Mino Quadrant, though the warlord extended his tentacles of power into every other major corridor save the Mage Quadrant.
The Dark Elf glanced across the coursing canal at the opposite walkway and was thankful the Mage Quadrant was not anywhere near here, for hidden in those deep dark corridors lay magic that chilled even his cold blood. A curse laid upon those tunnels…a deadly ward to keep trespassers out.
The assassin rounded another corner and could at last discern the murmur of the crowds in the Black Markets. He thought about all that had changed in such a short time. The Minotaur once ruled these sewers; at least they had held the strongest presence before Warlord Lewd. The sewers had been dominated for decades by one name—Tantarus. The Minolord Tantarus had been a hulking, but cunning Minotaur crimelord that ruled through sheer brute force alone.
The problem with Tantarus’ rule was that it neglected the delicate intricacies of diplomacy. The “wrath of the Minolord” led to an endless series of mob wars. The power shifted on many occasions to the Doelms, then to men, then to the Syssrah, then the Drakor and back to the Minotaur again. The fame of Tantarus had accrued its weight in its ability to simply outmuscle his competition.