“Shut up!”
“No, you shut up!”
Shade yawned. “Once again…bored.”
Kishrub pinched Shade by his cloak with his huge fingers, pulled him to his feet and roared, “You just do what we say or we break little Elf, you got dat?”
Zulbash pushed the assassin in the shoulder. “Yeah! We break you!”
Their strength was so great Shade had to put his right foot back to keep his footing. That was their mistake, their last mistake. His yellow eyes went electric. Their nerves jumped as a dangerous glint crackled in his eyes. He stepped towards them. His hands reached for the familiar cold steel of his hilts. He sneered, “Am I supposed to feel threatened? Lewd is a bigger fool than I thought if he thinks two brooding apes will be enough to deter me.”
“You murder Master over our dead bodies,” said Kishrub.
Shade swept his gaze from Kishrub to Zulbash and back again. His lips curled into a treacherous grin and he said smoothly, “That can be arranged.”
Zulbash slammed his fist into his open palm. “You try it and we pound you.”
Shade harrumphed and strode between the pair. He let them soak in the full ridicule of that playful grin frosting the edges of his lips. He saw their faces twist into horribly infuriated sneers. They were not used to being toyed with. No man or night mortal ever dared laugh at them, grin at them, mock them so, but that didn’t stop Shade. He paused in the middle of the room, his back turned to them. He sensed them raise their massive weapons in the air.
“So?” he chided softly, “Shall we dance?”
Kishrub charged him and brought his massive hammer down in a powerful blow. Shade sidestepped the blow. It smashed and cracked the tavern floor. Zulbash swung his spiked mace sideways. Shade tucked into a roll.
Smash! Bits of brick and mortar rained down. The spikes left nasty gashes in the nearest wall, but missed their target. Kishrub swung his hammer again. He tried to surprise Shade. He reversed his momentum and brought his hammer pick back at the nimble Elf. The assassin dodged the first swing. He arched his back to form a bridge to evade the second and calmly kicked his legs up into a walkover.
Shade strutted across the tavern. He grinned coolly back at his adversaries. He hadn’t even touched his weapons, but he wanted his enemies to know the full futility of their efforts. Zulbash surged forward, waved his mace and unleashed a series of cross swings. Kishrub swung his hammer back and forth in wild abandon.
Shade danced around their blows. He watched them whiff, grunt and curse in festering frustration. They hit everything—the walls, the ceiling, the tables and barrels, but not him. He waited until their eyes ran wild with terror, until they drank in the total depravity of their efforts, and then he drew his blades.
Kishrub got his pick stuck in the floor. It took a second to wrench it free, but a second was more than the Faelin needed.
Shade skirted deftly up the mace and drove one of his daggers into the Gorum’s right shoulder joint. Kishrub reeled backward in pain. He grabbed his bleeding shoulder, but managed to keep a hold on his hammer.
Zulbash swung his mace, but Shade ducked and drove a knife into his left knee. The Gorum dropped his mace and roared. He snarled at the cunning assassin, yanked the dagger free and tossed it to the side. He grabbed his mace. He rose back to full height shaking in unbridled rage. Kishrub’s hammer shook with equal fury in his giant fists. They charged him again, only this time together. Kishrub swung low while Zulbash swung high.
Shade dove forward. He squeezed barely through the narrow gap in their attack. He spun around and threw two daggers. One caught Zulbash in his right elbow and the other caught Kishrub in his left thigh.
The Gorums roared again and erupted into a blood rage. They swung in wild desperation. Shade stabbed them again and again. His stabs must have seemed more like pinpricks to his huge enemies, but he knew every strike stung their pride. He was an expert in bipedal anatomy. He watched in dour amusement each time one of his foes clenched his teeth and grimaced through the pain.
Shade never slipped into Unseen form. He wanted them to see him. He wanted them to look death full in the face and scream in hopeless solitude. He worked them over until they could barely lift their weapons. He avoided the vital organs, but aimed for the nerves. He grinned in satisfaction as he stripped the hope and dignity from their faces. He even found pleasure in their pain. He outfoxed them until they could only roll around on the ground and moan in unbearable agony.
Bwedrig looked up as Shade withdrew his last two daggers.
The assassin stood between the two giant green pincushions who looked up at him with wild, terror-filled eyes. He twirled the knives in his fingers. The tips flashed in the torchlight as he pointed them downward. He squeezed the hilts and raised his arms to deliver the simultaneous killing blows. He stabbed violently. He aimed at the crinkles in their huge foreheads in the same place Lewd had driven his own dagger into Tantarus’ thick skull.
Kishrub and Zulbash cried out in terror, but he stopped just a bare inch shy. They felt the cold pointed steel tips against their petrified brows. The points were so close they split the droplets of sweat that trickled down their hot faces.
Shade stayed his blade. Did he really want to kill these two? They made him laugh. And laughter was a rare thing indeed in the cold hard life of an assassin. He walked back to the bar, put a dagger down and took another drink. He turned back around to see Kishrub and Zulbash’s eyes still frozen in terror.
“Go,” he whispered.
They gawked at him in shock and disbelief.
Shade charged after them, brandishing his blades. “GO!”
Kishrub and Zulbash scrambled on all fours and crawled out the door like a pair of squealing terror-struck pigs.
A small vulgar crowd from the markets had gathered and gaped through the giant hole in the wall in disbelief. They scattered as Shade’s shouts of rage chased the Gorums away and echoed throughout the sewers, “Crawl back to your master and tell him his days of ruling the Kurn underground are over!”
Chapter Ten:
Where the Blood
Runs Gold
Warlord Lewd sat on his throne where he lived like a king. His main audience chamber flourished with an overabundance of color, music and smoke. Beautiful mistresses lounged with his most decorated subjects and smarmiest of flatterers on lavish red and violet cushions. The rich décor could have furnished any palace, but for the constant drip of old leaky pipes and algae growing up the walls and sewer gratings. And yet Lewd’s walls were hung with stark violet tapestries, exotic contraband and stuffed heads—the heads of conquered crimelords. The enormous grayish red head of Tantarus himself hung directly over the throne. The Minolord’s grim stuffed bullhead sneered through his heavily pierced face, casting a grim reminder of Lewd’s incontestable rule.
Lewd’s Hand, Krulle, as he was known before Lewd had handpicked the Drakoran Assassin to be his personal instrument of death, stood at his right hand. Yessheeran waited silently off to his left side, a quill and a ledger in his shrewd fingers. The Syssrah had been trying to go over the daily counts with his master, but the warlord’s mind lay leagues away. Lewd’s eyes passed over the revelous mob which remained too enamored in their winebibbing and carousing to pay him any notice. ‘Sponging parasites!’ he thought, ‘how truly loyal are you? I’ve offered you a bounty! And this is how you repay me?’
Warlord Lewd looked from side to side. He scowled even harder at Kishrub and Zulbash who flanked him. The Gorums had been wrapped from head to toe in ridiculous looking bandages. He was so angry with them for their inexcusable failings he had wanted to kill them. They hung their heads low. He watched as Zulbash lumbered forward toward the servant girls bearing platters of hors d’oeuvres.