Balric D’Vrelle followed, hands on the grips of his saber and shortblade. He thought of Vanessa, of Valhirst, and of the beasts he was about to encounter. Men, doppelgangers, and soldiers from many nations and cultures he had killed and fought in the name of Alden. He took a breath, knowing he had never been face to face with a troll or an ogre, and never fought a wizard that seemed to defy the natural process of death either. Regardless, he felt the urge to follow, to do as he was told, and his body surrendered despite what his will tried to impose.
Arrogant and overconfidant, Johnas walked past his thirty men with Balric trailing behind him. He nodded to the silent wizard back from the death that Kendari had rewarded him with. A hundred trolls stood guarding their queen Munn Par, and twice that in ogre surrounding their decrepit and aging king Avegarne in the distant valley below. “You have done well Salah, and your efforts will be repaid for certain.”
The rotting human remnant of a wizard bowed to Johnas, his wisps of black hair stuck to the back of his head. His black robes clung to him like a burial shroud and his scarred neck gave way to the patches of hair still trying to grow from his face in the inbetween of life and death. “Your journey was safe and –“
“My friends and allies, greetings. You meet us early and well before the agreed spot outside of Roricdale. Perhaps I misunderstood and was running late? If that is the case, a thousand apologies.” the Prince of Valhirst ignored and walked past his wizard, knowing his arrangements. He nodded to Balric, feeling the power of the ring tied to the enslaving necklace around the Harlian man’s neck.
“Yes, my prince.” was all the swordsman could say as he felt the urge to cut the old wretched sorcerer a hundred times over, a false feeling that he had not put there himself. He looked over the masses of troll and ogre, all looking to Salah Cam and the prince of Valhirst. He wondered what it was all for, what the madman had in store for Chazzrynn, and how he could possibly stop him.
Kendari II:II
City of Harlaheim
His eyes flickered open, the dusty sunlight strobing in the afternoon; a light the Nadderi elf was not accustomed to nor cared for. Shielding his eyes with his steel covered forearm and reaching for his blades that were next to him, the cursed swordsman peered around to see exactly where he was. He found himself laid out in an abandoned church, blades resting at his side, and a crossbow bolt next to them. Looking at his shoulder, he noticed the wound had been cleaned and bandaged well. His left shoulder now only held the faded pain of a puncture wound that felt as if it had rested and healed for a week. Kendari wiped his eyes, bringing them to full focus. He looked around the room again, this time his mind connecting with what he saw.
The alley, Harlaheim, agents of the White Spider….and the woman that must have… he heard the sound of men walking in the broken doorway behind him. Grabbing his scabbards that lay beside him on the pew in front of a toppled altar, the Nadderi elf ducked under the hanging wooden cross of Alden and snuck to where the priests’ quarters would have been. His back to the wall in the shadows, he slowly tightened his belts and gear and placed his hands on the grips of his swords.
“You see, father Garret, dilapidation at its worst. That makes four abandoned wrecks here in the city, and the former bishop, God rest his disloyal soul, has done nothing about them for so many years.”
The voice was human, Harlian accent of thick vowels and light consonants, likely a city merchant looking to take advantage of the fact that Harlaheim had separated itself from the church over the last few centuries. Kendari waited, hoping they would not inspect the back offices and chambers.
“However, there is history here my friend, and the presence of God is very alive in these rooms. I can feel it is wrong for the church to surrender this old temple, whatever the condition, and lose the spirit that was once placed here. You can tell your lord and master, Sir Sebastian, that the holy church will not be selling the building. In fact, I will see that it is restored, along with the others. The Aldane monastery of Shalokahn will make contact with the king and the cardinal as to when reconstruction of these holy sites should commence.”
“The offer is far more than the value of these buildings, surely the church could use-“
“The holy church does not need to sell itself, my friend. And the offer is most generous indeed, but this is a spiritual matter, not a financial one. Preservation and history outweigh coin in matters of faith, God willing. With the loss of the bishop here, inform Sir Sebastian that my word will have a higher say than his merchant plans for old temples, at least until the cardinal returns. Good day sir.”
The second voice was not Harlian, human, yet educated and sharp in speech and accent. Kendari could not place it, almost as if the man had been well traveled with elven peoples and perhaps the Altestani. He had no need to look, and did not care to kill a priest and a merchant in broad daylight. Not that the cursed elf was not capable or ready, simply due to the fact he cared not for the chase and chaos that would ensue after the fact, so shortly after his waking.
“I would like a moment alone here at the altar, if you do not mind.” Father Garret D’Ourmas spoke softly to the noble merchant.
“Of course father.”
Garret walked to the altar, his white robes tickling the rubble strewn floor of the temple to the Lord of Heaven. He felt something here, something not quite spiritually centered with the rest of the harmonious sensation the blessed building emitted. His mind would have had his hand on his longsword, a decorated and holy gift from the Aldane in Shanador for his missionary and historical work in the eastern kingdoms. His heart and spirit told him to pause and focus on what it was, or where it was.
Kendari felt his breathing swiften, his pulse race, as if someone were seeing him through the walls and shadows he was well hidden behind. His mind raced over the name Garret, finding nothing yet fearing the ability of this young sounding priest that he could not see. The moments felt like hours, and the cursed elf reached down to his ring, the onyx stones sparkled the instant he touched them, and he knew that his aura and presence were cloaked. He could still be seen by the eyes of others, but not through any divine or magical means.
Garret opened his eyes from his standing meditation, drew his blessed longsword, and stepped toward the passage behind the feathered cross above the ruined altar. He had felt someone there, then it vanished as if it had known it was being watched. Whatever, whoever, was now gone from the empty hallways and rooms that Garret searched. He marched down the stairs into the wine cellar, his sword glowing a golden light once the light of the sun was no longer present. The curtain was still moving, a sign that someone had just passed through. The priest walked faster, down more stairs through a door in the very wall that looked shoddy in construction but new in stain and placement. He peered down into the sewers that opened before him and saw nothing even with the glowing light spreading far and wide in both directions the foul smelling tunnels reached.
“Why would there be a door to here from a holy church? Hello? Show yourself and no harm or repercussion will befall you, hidden one.”
Nothing replied to father Garret, yet he waited to see if his patience and resolve would unnerve whoever had just taken flight from him. Minutes passed, and only the occasional squeak of a rat or flit of bat wings broke the silence and odor. He walked back up to meet with the merchant and have the building locked up until he could amass the funds from the eastern monastaries of Shalokahn to have this place rebuilt. But first, breathing out a sigh at what was such a strange encounter, Garret sheathed his sword and knelt before the altar.
With the sun shining through the cracked wood and stone, his mind as weary as the off center cross before him, the young priest of Alden prayed for guidance from God to lay to rest his worries, of the stranger here, and the four churches that needed reconstruction in Harlaheim. He prayed for the fate of Harlaheim and its leaders. He prayed for Alden to guide him in what he must do every moment.
“Alden, Lord of Heaven, pleas
e guide my actions to be worthy of your needs. There is much trouble here in this kingdom and I fear I am wasting precious time with restoring churches in a land that may have needs beyond mere stone and wood buildings. The bishop here is dead, the politics are entrenched in deceit, and I feel the message I was to receive in my coming here never arrived. To stay and wait for the Cardinal as I heard from your voice in Shalokahn, I will do. Yet my heart tells me that there is something else, somewhere else, and it is not here, yet I know not where to go. Almighty God, I ask only---“ his words in prayer were cut short. Something in his was mind showing him, telling him, guiding him from heaven.
“Yes, very well, yes. To the city named for Erin the Saint. Yes, a journey, an exodus to begin, yes my lord.” Garrett bowed as he stood, hearing the word of Alden loud and clear in his mind and conscience. “I will abandon the capital and travel north to Saint Erinsburg, trusting in you my Lord, without need for cause or query.”
Father Garret D’Ourmas, having just arrived a few days back to assist in bringing God back to the streets of Harlaheim, ran his fingers through his short dark hair and walked out of the abandoned temple to Alden to follow the holy guidance and travel north. He never questioned anything from God, and even though he was to meet with the ruling monarchs of the kingdom tomorrow, Alden held his devotion beyond anything else.
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Kendari breathed out a silent sigh as the priest left from his perch right above his head. Sliding himself out from the alcove behind the ladder that the man had been standing on, and sheathing his drawn blades, the cursed assassin looked with his nocturnal vision into the dark sewer passages. He heard faint prayers cease and leaving footsteps start from up above, so he made himself more than faint in step. His mind recalled from centuries past that the tunnel to the left would take him out of the city to the north side. Having used these sewer routes many times long ago, he knew that the salisans dwelled to the right and all he would have to contend with was perhaps the homeless or a few cutthroats to the left. Keeping to the walls and stepping quick and careful over the sludgepiles and scavenger vermin, Kendari traveled north through the ancient undercity.
His thoughts ate away at him as to why he felt tension from a priest and a merchant, but mostly the young priest of Alden. He did not care for matters of faith nor respect them in the slightest; quite the opposite. Stepping from safe dry spot to slimeless ledge down the sunless corridor, Kendari fumed at himself and his puzzling reactions toward the holy man he had not even seen. Was it something in his voice, his ability to sense or see the corrupt unnatural spirit that he was, or the unseen itself which had him on edge for a few moments? Kendari thought of how many times in his six centuries he had faced odds and enemies far vast and superior to that of a pious human male, and had survived with blood covered blades.
“I should go back and kill him just to start this day over proper!” he mused as he kicked a scurrying rat into the slop that drooled through the middle of the sewer. His mind began to wander to Angeline and the battle of days past. Why had she left him alive and even tended to him? Where had she gone?
The plop of a rat was followed not by the shrill animal voice of displeasure at its disgusting whereabouts, but a scream of terror that was human and feminine in nature. Curious, Kendari quickened his fleet steps, clung to the darkness of the shadows as he approached lanternlight from around a turn in the sewers. Arguing between some men and a woman, the clash of steel, someone disarmed, and surprised tempers and frustrations all were obvious to the cursed swordsman from what little he heard through the commotion. Spying around the corner, walking as sure as death itself, the Nadderi elf spotted the source of the noise that disrupted his peaceful walk through the filth under Harlaheim.
“Impossible! That is her, I bet my brand on it! They did something to her, magic, enchantments, something, but it is our domenarch I swear!” one of the four men was staring at the woman held by his three allies.
Another picked up her rapier as he kept her wrist in his free hand. “They executed her, we saw it! This is some imposter sent to root us out. Kill her now and leave the body in the sewer, she is surely followed!”
“Florin, tell us what to do. My lady, please. What have they done to you?” yet another refused to accept that the woman that had recruited him years ago was any other than this woman, who seemed to be crying in the low yellow glow of the underground.
“I am not Florin! Please! Just let me go! Please!” Rosana began sobbing, falling limp from exhaustion and duress.
“Then who are you, m’lady?” his steps were silent, hands on his blades, cloak pulled over his head to hide his face in yet more shadow. Kendari had heard enough to know that these men were agents of Johnas here in Harlaheim, and they looked more confused and unstable than the normal guild of assassins and criminals he was used to in other cities.
“Mind yer business or you will be finding what the bottom of the sewers has hidden in it, stranger. I would suggest you move along.” two of the men, this one with the scraggly hair and long beard and his uglier twin behind him, both drew daggers held in reverse and tightened their stance toward the silent cloaked image.
“I was talking to the lady, human.” Kendari removed his hood with a flick of his neck, his emerald green eyes never leaving sight of the four men or their breathing. He stepped closer into the light and allowed a smile of vile cruelty to crease his marked face. Their breathing stopped for a moment, as he anticipated, then he slowly drew out his swords. Shiver first crept out of its scabbard, the heat rippling in front of Kendari. Then his left hand drew the pyramid pommeled longblade, held in reverse, and he moved it across his throat before turning his hand. The gesture froze the four men in place, as he expected it to.
“Ken-en-kendari…” the apparent leader of this group within the guild turned to the others. “You told me he was dead, dead in the alley. You said you killed him!?”
“Ahhh lies, are they not the meat and bread of life? No, he ran away actually. From a woman.” Kendari moved closer, knowing he had these men easily intimidated, two of them already shaking.
“Four on one, not even you could—“
“Yes he can, I saw him! Florin, help us kill this elf. He is wanted and Johnas is paying a kings reward, here!” the third agent of the White Spider handed Rosana back her blade and let her arm go.
“I am not Florin!” Rosana fell to the soot and refuse covered walkway, blade in hand, sobbing in frustration.
“Then who are you!?” the leader turned toward the crying woman he knew was not his domenarch. He had known the whole time since she had no apparent will or skill with a blade.
“I am…Queen Rosana of Harlaheim! Your…bitch Florin sits on my damn throne!” her words trailed off in more tears as she threw the rapier into the muck and placed her head between her knees to hide her face and her shame.
“Interesting.” Kendari moved closer, a few feet away from the leader now.
“She’s worth a lot to ransome if it’s true, take her with and let’s head up topside. Florin, wherever she is, will know what to do.” just as he went to grab the supposed queen, the heated edge of Shiver appeared inches from his neck.
“That would be my prisoner, thank you.”
“You don’t stand a chance against all four of us—“ his words stopped as the blade came closer and the heat made his eyes wince.
“He killed five last night Dillim, and I hear fifteen in Chazzrynn a few months back. That’s why the Prince offered five thousand on his ugly head. Let’s leave here and live!” the trembling words of the one that got away killed any hope for rallying the others to stand.
“He is almost correct, Dillam, it was twenty two in Chazzrynn and the price was ten thousand in gold. That was before I came to Harlaheim, I am sure it has gone up since then. I can make the count higher here, or you can leave me to my prisoner. Your choice.” Kendari whispered into his opponent’s ear, noting the white knuckle grip he held on his dagger
.
“Fock the ugly elf, I say—“
Swoossshh, thump, thump, sploosh, thud, clank.
His stance regained, Kendari watched the blood drip from his longblade after taking Dllams head clean off, watching it fall to the floor, then in the sewage, followed by his body and the dagger to the stone floor. “Ugly? That was rude, truly. Now, the same offer stands, unless you would like to join your friend in deep, permanent, meditation.”
Like crows from the sight of an eagle beaming in on their kill, the three men vanished into the side tunnels of the undercity. Waiting for a countermaneuver or a trick, the Nadderi swordsman held still amidst the frightened sobs of the woman professing to be queen Rosana of Harlaheim. Nothing stirred, nothing moved near, and only the sound of the heat from the lantern and the longsword made any violation in the faintest. Kendari sheathed his swords and pulled the woman to her feet by the armpit.
“Time to go, your highness.”
“And to where? Am I just a trade to be bartered from killer to corrupt criminal? Just kill me now, whoever you are!” Rosana went to fall to her feet, but was held up by the marked and deadly elf.
“I do not deal with the White Spider who wants you. I do not deal with the nobility who has hurt you and removed you from power. However, I am sure there are nobles somewhere that will pay something of great value to have you safe and secure. In reality, I just want to see another scheme of Prince Johnas Valhera fail, it amuses me. He will surely add money to the pile and keep my nights exciting from city to city with assassins and bounty hunters. Now, my moneys are low so where am I taking you, your majesty? Keep in mind though, if you run or scream, I will kill you before your words escape or your second step is taken.” his eyes beamed into hers, leaving no doubt in their validity.
The Exodus Sagas: Book II - Of Dragons And Crowns Page 38
