"Shit," she uttered as she jumped up and prepared to try to jump out of the way.
Rufer pointed the rare, and no doubt unspeakably expensive, small and unassuming weapon at her. He pulled back on the trigger, and a deafening roar burst forth into the room. The shock of firing the thing was apparently a bit much for him, and he recoiled back, losing much of his aim.
Tehra had chosen to duck to her left. She would still have been hit and possibly killed, if not for the merchant being such a terrible shot with his own overpriced weapon.
"What?" he said, as though expecting her to be obliterated the moment he pulled the trigger.
Tehra tossed the knife up and caught it with the blade pointing down, in a stabbing position now. "What, haven't you ever fired that toy before? You really are as stupid as you are fat and ugly, Rufer." She dove toward the quivering man with both her arms raised and bore the knife down on him.
Rufer put his hand out to defend himself, and the knife went straight through his palm pinning his hand to his chest.
Yanking on the blade, Tehra found that it was stuck fast among the merchant’s bones and sinew.
Rufer let out a raspy scream, his lungs now too weak to make much noise. They were also filled with phlegm judging by the gargled sound. He grabbed at the elf, but she was too nimble and skipped to the side, ducking around behind the round mass of his figure and taking hold of his wrist, on the side she'd stuck the knife through his hand.
"If you're going to squeal like a stuck pick, I'm going to fucking make you a stuck pig," she said into his ear, grabbing him by the hair and yanking his head back to expose his neck, then letting her whole body weight launch backward so that she was able to pull the man's own hand onto his exposed throat. The knife pinned his hand there and pierced him perfectly in the jugular, making him gurgle and sputter blood all over himself.
"Disgusting man," Tehra said as gobs of blood landed on her. She pushed him down, letting him land on his enormous belly as he tried to unpin his knifed hand from his airway. He was attempting to gasp for air and failing miserably. She almost felt sorry for him but had heard too many stories about what he liked to do to the less fortunate women who had been brought to his home over the years. She imagined that the manacles were just a surface taste of the debauchery he had planned for her.
"I have your foul blood on me, and you've led me to a decoy bedchamber?" Tehra spat on the dying man, retrieved the key from his person, removed the manacles from her wrists and then began to search the room. There was nothing of value apart from the firearm and a few gold coins the merchant had in his coin purse. She was not stupid enough to try to sell something as obscure and identifiable as the pistol, so she left with nothing but the coins and a bitter taste in her mouth, which was probably Rufer's blood that had dropped onto her face.
Tehra was out of the room seconds later, running toward the stairway. It was tempting to look around the house and find something worth stealing before she left, but that gunshot must have woken up every person in the neighborhood, and grabbed the attention of any nearby city guards. Even if there were none in the area, they would no doubt be notified soon enough.
There's enough time to find at least a few things worth selling, just to make this all worthwhile, she thought. It had been painful enough pretending to be attracted to Rufer this past week, while she played the part of an innocent young elf who was down on her luck. Tehra did not know what was worse: acting as though she wasn't repulsed by him physically, or pretending his personality didn't make her want to slit his throat every time he spoke to her.
At least it had been easy to give him her history, however vaguely she’d done it. The part about being from an orphanage was true. Some of her true history was too perfect for a backstory, so she didn't see the need to lie about more than she needed to. Maybe she had actually expected her real childhood to elicit some sympathy from the now dead merchant. A deep sorrow lingered inside her, made worse because she'd foolishly let herself think anything at all could have created empathy in a man like Rufer.
Tehra couldn’t help herself; she sought out something else to take before fleeing into the night. She continued to the top of the stairs and tried double doors across from them. They weren't locked, which was just another mistake on Rufer's part. If he had truly been suspicious that his new sexual prey was a thief with her eye on him, he had seriously underestimated her.
Inside was the true bedchamber of a rich hedonist. The amount of expensive furniture, gold trimming, and rich fabrics like silk and dyed leathers was almost too much for her eyes to take in. Simply put, the room was dazzling. And there was much for her to steal, which made her almost giddy with anticipation.
This week's ploy to steal from Rufer the merchant had been a desperate one. Tehra had been down on her luck and was at the point of being without so much as enough money to buy a loaf of bread within a day or two. She needed a big catch, and this fat fish was the one to reel in for that kind of score.
"Hey!" shouted a voice from the doorway behind her. Tehra spun on her heels, the knife still in her hands. It was the manservant, whom she had stupidly forgotten all about in the wake of the explosive sound of the gun. He didn't look like much of a fighter though, and he proved that much true by turning around and running down the stairs, shouting, "Guards! Help! Murderer!"
"What do you mean murderer?" Tehra said, then looked down at the blood on her and the bloody blade in her hand. "Oh, right." Even though the servant was running out toward the street with the intent of bringing down the full force of the law on her, Tehra was not about to start harming innocent workers, so she looked for a means of escape.
As the building was a narrow townhouse, it was adjacent to similar buildings either side, and also behind it. Tehra ran into the bedchamber and over to the window. Passing through a room filled with exorbitant valuables, and without the time to stop and get herself some loot, was practically heartbreaking, but she pressed on. The window unlocked from the inside with an iron bolt and slid open easily enough. There were eaves above it, and across was a similar window, closed fast, on the neighbor’s townhouse.
Below, there was an alley so narrow that it would have been the stuff of a claustrophobic’s nightmares. Tehra had never minded small spaces, though, and she slipped down to street level with a graceful drop. Footsteps were sounding out on the street, moving toward that address no doubt. It was either the guard or just some do-gooders who were nearby. Making no plans to wait around and find out, Tehra darted out of the alley toward the only exit, the street.
It was fully dark out, with the moon mostly hidden behind ominous cloud cover. There were sparse street lights throughout the city, but one was situated at the cross-section of roadway a few houses to her right. Naturally, Tehra wanted to run directly away from the revealing light - a burning torch cased inside a glass cabinet, atop a large metal pole fixed into the cobblestone sidewalk firmly. Unfortunately, the group of approaching men was coming from the other way.
Tehra took a deep breath and ran at full speed toward the street light, aware that she would stand out like a demon in a church with her pointy ears and disheveled blood-stained dress. She ran for a good time without coming across anyone, but finally, someone called out to her.
"Stop! You there! Woman!" It was the city guard, come to investigate the cause of the gunfire and the frantic manservant. There was a chance they already knew that a killing was involved.
There was no way she was stopping. Tehra pushed harder and moved faster, knowing that she could outrun most men, especially common guards. Through the streets she raced, darting down turns and alleys when the whim took her. There was nowhere nearby that she could stop and feel safe, not in the rich part of the city. Unfortunately, it was an expansive area too, many miles in diameter.
A city guard stepped around the corner of a side street as Tehra approached at speed. “Here she is!” he called out so his fellow guards would come running. The man was alone though, for now.
He drew his sword and rushed toward Tehra.
The elf kept running as the guard approached her. She didn’t want to get into a confrontation. She had no armor and just her small knife; injuring a city guard was too risky anyway. “Get out of my way!” she yelled at him.
The man shook his head and slashed at her with his sword. “Stop now, or I will use this.”
“Go on then,” she suggested, coming to a quick stop and waiting for her opponent to make his move. He did just as promised, and with sub-par technique. Tehra avoided the blade easily and pushed him so that he stumbled and nearly fell. She used the opportunity to continue running, the sound of more guards coming to help their comrade hot on her heels.
She stayed ahead of the guards and eventually made her way out of the upmarket side of the city, carried by swift elven feet and hidden by the dark night sky.
As she re-entered the slums, Tehra could think of nothing positive from her disastrous evening. You stupid girl. They will be looking for you now, and there aren't that many elves around. As she felt around her person for the coin purse she'd taken from the dead merchant; she let out a loud curse. "Shit it all! It's gone!"
"Hey!" yelled a gruff sounding man nearby. "Hey, I think she's here!" The chase was on again. Apparently, the guards were not as useless at tracking as Tehra had given them credit for. Several of them closed in on her now as she walked down a narrow alleyway. Luckily, the tops of the buildings in this area were much lower than other parts of the city, cheaply made for the poorer peasants to dwell in.
"Watch this," she said with a smirk, making a rude gesture at the guard who was approaching her as two further guards closed in from behind. Tehra put her knife between her teeth and held it there tightly, then leaped up, kicking off the crumbling brick and mortar wall of one building, and then across to the other. One final push off with the other foot sent her high enough so that she could reach up and grab the top of the crumbling tiles.
They almost came loose, but she managed to hoist herself onto the rooftop before she lost her footing. One of the tiles went tumbling down and landed on a guard below, smashing on top of his iron helm but doing no lasting damage, as she steadied herself. Luckily, he had no way to get himself up after Tehra; none of the clumsy humans could match her feat of agility.
"Good luck following me now, morons," she said and ran off across the tops of the roofs. This time, she would not be so foolish as to stop and rest, not until she was well out of danger. As the guards had followed her all the way into the slums, it would be almost impossible to lose them there now. The commoners had their buildings very close together, cramped in the confines of their lower class world. That made it easy to move quickly across the tiled roofs, as well as areas of crumbling stone flats. But where would she go? This was not a safe haven for her tonight. Instead, she headed for the docks by the flowing river Stryks. There had been little expansion beyond it, as there was no bridge across, leaving those who lived on the other side somewhat cut off from easily accessing the city. The area around the docks was often an ideal place to hide out when things got too hot in the city.
It would be easier to lose them there. As she approached the docks, Tehra could feel the chill coming across the river from the hills and farmland on the other side. The city guards were still following her, although they had lost sight of her for now. If she could just stay out of view until they passed, maybe things would work out.
“She went down to the docks!” came a voice, and a gathering of heavy footsteps moved toward her.
“Shit,” she whispered. There were boats moored to the docks, as usual, but Tehra found herself standing a good fifty feet from any of them. From the sounds of them, the guards were too close for her to try and hide now. The only thing she could think to do, was to gently lower herself down over the edge of the dock so that she didn’t make a splash or create noticeable ripples in the dark water. The water immediately chilled her, sending shivers through her body, but it soon became tolerable as her body acclimatized.
Then came the guards, holding lit torches now, as they began to inspect every possible hiding place along the docks. There were so many of them altogether now, so they were able to break up into many smaller search parties. Tehra knew they would eventually find her, unless she removed herself from the area. So, with a deep breath, she submerged her head completely under the surface. Just as she did so, torchlight illuminated the area above her, making the water shimmer and shine in her vision.
They’d found her, surely, as two of the guards looked down on the surface above her. But after some time, as Tehra’s lungs strained for air, they moved away. Tehra took the opportunity to come up for breath, just as the two men came back. They were shouting out to the other guards, but their words were muffled by the water. This wasn’t looking good. She was unwilling to face going to prison, sure that a pretty young elf in this city of men would endure endless humiliations.
Tehra eased herself back under and began to move through the water, quickly making her way to the other side of the river. At least it was not winter, Tehra thought as she collapsed on the opposite shore. Not for the first time, she would be spending a night in the hills.
5
Mertho had been sleeping for so long, or had he? It might have been that he was awake, at least conscious, the whole time. It was confusing. At first, he had felt unable to move. It was as though his body had seized up, or perhaps was injured beyond use. No... he had had too long to think about all of this. Had it been weeks of him lying there without company with no sign of whether the sun was rising or falling? There was hardly any light now, apart from the eerie glow that emanated from where he lay on cold stone.
So, perhaps he was not in slumber. Then, where was he? How was he alive and yet unable to move or shout out for help?
He remembered being in his family tower, left there to die. Or had he done the killing of others? Images of burning blood and flesh, rendered ashen before it had stopped bleeding flashed through his mind. Skin flaking away like the outside of a roast fowl. It made him feel strange, not sick to his stomach though. It didn't feel like Mertho even had a stomach. If he had, he would have wanted food.
Some kind of spell had been cast upon him. It was the only answer that he could think of. It must have been a dark type of magic to have left him in this state of limbo, buried among the cold, hard rock and darkness somewhere seemingly forgotten by all. He deduced that he had to be inside a cave of some sort, or at least beneath the surface of the world. He had been in his tower when the whirling vortex had formed around him, but that had fallen to the ground.
The memories of that power, the rush of primal energy that had caused him to kill Benevic's adventurers as though they were paper dolls before a raging inferno - it had left him wanting to know more about himself. Especially now that he was clearly not who or what he used to be.
Eventually, something came to him, tickling at his peripheral senses. It was like he could see a person through the rocky tomb that he had found himself buried within. There was something different about them, perhaps familiar, but he could not quite put his finger on what it was, not that he even seemed to have fingers any longer.
It was a magical energy, the natural aura of someone. Perhaps it was another magic user, come looking for him. But who would know where to find him? And why would someone suddenly have the drive to search for him after what must have surely been years? His mind was spinning around faster and faster now that something was finally happening, lighting up his magical senses and making it very clear that he was no longer just human.
Hello, he said, shocked that he had spoken. Except, there was no sound, assuming that he had ears to hear any more. The word had gone out as though he'd used his mind to send it to the world, yet he knew that it wasn't just a thought. None of his other thoughts had ever given him that same feeling.
The magic aura that was out there on the other side of all this rock seemed to be aware that he had said the word, too. It f
elt as though the other creature, whatever it was, had understood. Yes! It was even attempting to respond but seemed to lack the necessary magical power to reply through its own mind. What a shame.
But he could still talk to it, and it had been so long since he had been able to communicate with anyone, Mertho was not going to waste the opportunity. After all, it might be his last. He said, I am trapped in a cave near you. I am not sure what has happened to me. Will you help me?
The creature responded again and was moving around out there, perhaps searching for the source of this mysterious voice that had come into its mind. The creature was not a human; what was it? He probed further into its magical aura to try and detect more about it. Hmm, it was cold, tired, very hungry, and seemed to feel almost as alone as the wizard himself.
He focused his mind on himself, on his 'body' or whatever he was, and remembered his earlier magical training. Conjuring was something that had always been close to his heart. Wizards enjoyed their more basic days of spell casting in the same way that a common person might think kindly about learning to ride a horse on their family farm, or being given a favorite toy by their parents.
He conjured up something to eat, but it was not for him. I have hot food, and drink too. You just have to find me.
6
Tehra had already spent two nights out in the hills beyond the limits of the city, across the river. It was not something she did lightly. The times when she did try to venture closer to make her way back across the cold water, there had been too many merchant vessels coming to and from the docks on the other side. She knew these heavily trafficked mercantile venues were rife with lawful types. There were the members of the city guard for one, as well as the personal bodyguards of fully-loaded merchant transportations.
Despite her skills with a knife and silent stalking abilities, the elf had not been able to find much game to eat. She had consumed a small bird that had flown low enough for her to hit with a well-thrown stone, but it had turned out to be mostly bone and gristle. And she knew nothing about which plants and berries were harmless for consumption. There was plenty of water though, of course, with the wide river Stryks flowing so close to the hill where she had hidden away.
The Wizard (Dungeon Core Book 1) Page 3
