by J. L. Ficks
The warlord approached warily. Kishrub and Zulbash tightened their grip, taking no chances. Yessheeran looked on with interest. The crowd closed in around them. Seeing Shade’s mangled and crippled body put them all at greater ease.
“How did you catch him?” the warlord asked.
“Hiss woundsss gave him away,” Yessheeran replied.
“It was a simple thing really,” the Rat added, “I wounded him and we had only to follow his blood trail. I tracked him as one might follow a trail of bread-crumbs left behind by an errant child. He was betrayed by his own lifeblood. A fitting death, don’t you think?”
“And you shall be well rewarded,” Warlord Lewd said. He turned back to the assassin. He knelt and whispered coldly in Shade’s ear, “It stings, doesn’t it?”
Shade struggled and thrashed.
“I wonder what stings worse,” Lewd mused, “death or your wounded pride?”
The Dark Elf coughed and sputtered on his own blood. His body wracked by the slow embrace of death as it tightened its cold black grips on his soul. He lifted his head. His blurry yellow eyes bore directly into Lewd’s grinning face. His mouth moved, but no words parted from his lips. He seemed to be trying desperately to tell the warlord something.
“You were so cocky,” Lewd went on, “a swaggering upstart! You spit in the face of the Lord of the Underworld and now look at you! A blubbering pathetic wretch, choking on your own blood!”
Shade tried to mouth more words, but Lewd ignored him.
“Silence whelp!” Warlord Lewd struck him across the face. “No one insults me. No one!”
The Dark Elf spit up more blood.
“You feel this?” Warlord Lewd dug a long fingernail into Shade’s chest and twisted. The Dark Elf let out a muffled gasp. A fresh gush of blood trickled down his stomach. “The throbbing pain of your wounds?” the crimelord gloated, “the cold numbness of death stealing over you!” He wrenched his hand free and rubbed the Dark Elf’s blood in between his fingers. “I can feel your life slipping away, your warm blood running through my fingers…” He nodded to his bodyguards.
Zulbash placed a hand over the assassin’s mouth. Kishrub braced the assassin with both hands. The crowd waited with batted breath. They all knew what came next.
“I shall relish this moment for the rest of my days, Shade,” Lewd whispered in the Dark Elf’s ear, his voice slowly building into a shout, “not even you could hide this time, not from me!” He pulled out one of the assassin’s own blades. He ran his long green fingers down the sharp edge, his eyes locking with Shade’s own. “The whole of Covent shall hear of your downfall. Your death shall be proclaimed from the highest walls of Doljinaar to the deepest darkest pit of Jui-Sae. No one shall dare oppose me now! They shall know that not even the world’s most renowned assassin could escape my hands.”
The warlord raised the knife. The steel edge flashed as it caught the torchlight.
Shade shook his head repeatedly. He flailed and squirmed under Kishrub’s and Zulbash’s massive hold.
Warlord Lewd drove the blade deep into the assassin’s heart.
The Dark Elf emitted one final gasp. His breath slowly drifted off. His glowing eyes dwindled and winked out like fading embers.
Lewd’s crooked lips leaked into a triumphant grin. He sat back, his perfect white teeth still radiating with unabashed glee. He rose and tossed the dagger carelessly behind him. “Cut off his head and mount it. His black skull will make an excellent addition to my collection,” he ordered and walked off, “and break out the finest wine, pipeweed and dust, for tonight we celebrate!”
Chapter Seventeen:
Death from
the Shadows
Yessheeran watched as his master strode triumphantly out of the antechamber, through the double doors and down the main hallway towards his harem. The Rat pushed off the wall and followed him. ‘A bit eager to collect on the bounty, are we?’ Yessheeran mused. He sat back on his long coiled tail. He looked back on Shade’s cold lifeless face. The Syssrah’s lips twisted into a snaky grin, “let him have his reward. He earned it!”
Yessheeran reached for the dagger that had taken Shade’s life. He closed his long slender fingers around the hilt. He raised the knife over the assassin’s dead body and eyed the gaping wound where Lewd had pierced Shade’s heart. All rationale told him the Dark Elf was dead, but he would take no chances. He had learned from years of living among Syssrah to trust no one, to trust nothing. He would drive the knife into Shade’s black heart and twist fanatically until he was beyond certainty.
The envoy heard the sound of a wood beam sliding into place. He froze and looked back over at the double doors. He slithered over to the doors to investigate. The Syssrah turned the handle, but the doors wouldn’t budge. He shot an annoyed glare first at Kishrub and then Zulbash who gaped dumbly back at him. ‘Odd,’ he thought, ‘why would the Rat lock the doors?’ He turned back around.
The crowd had dispersed. Yessheeran had ordered three servants to deal with the remains. They had gone to fetch supplies.
The Syssrah glided back over to Shade’s body. A subtle gray blinking of the assassin’s features seized his attention. ‘Strange,’ he thought. The snake-man uncoiled his long snaky body and stretched himself out to investigate. His serpentine eyes widened as the assassin’s face flickered like an image.
The chilling realization broke loose like an avalanche, burying him in the cold hard truth. The Dark Elf’s black skin and hair lightened until they were no longer Dark Elven at all. Shade’s face had vanished, replaced by the face of another.
The envoy turned back to the doors. “My lord!” he hissed loudly startling Kishrub and Zulbash, “MY LORD, NO!!!”
Warlord Lewd could still feel the excitement surging through his veins. He could barely contain himself. He did not feel as though he was walking down a hallway, but through the clouds of victory. His lips were frozen in a perpetual grin. He reviewed the litany of his latest boasts. He had parlayed with death, bargained with death, shared a bottle of wine with death! He had stared death straight in the face, mocked him and lived! It would be told to the ends of Covent that it was his hand which slew the invincible assassin.
His men did well. He would hold a great feast and raise a toast their honor. No, he would raise a toast in his own honor, but he would shower his men with dining and dancing, drugs and women…the list of pleasures would indulge them late into the night.
The crimelord felt a gust of air behind him. He heard the subtle whip of cloth. A common burlap cloak landed in front of him.
Lewd halted in his steps realizing he was no longer alone. He bent over and examined the garment identifying it to be the Rat’s cloak.
“You did well,” said Warlord Lewd. He did not turn around, but straightened. He mindlessly examined the cloak in his hands. He was not sure what to make of the Rat’s strange gesture, but would let nothing spoil his mood. He remained cordial and said coolly, “You are to be the guest of honor in my festivities.”
Silence. There came no reply.
Lewd turned the cloak over in his hands. The burlap had recently been soaked as if it had been used to sop up blood, lots of blood. The fabric had dried mostly, but the blood flaked off. It stuck to his fingers as he rubbed.
He spun around and found nothing but an empty corridor. A torch flickering down the hall snuffed out like a wick pinched out by a pair of fingers. He felt a snakelike chill crawl down his spine and sink its teeth deeply into his nerves.
“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing,” he said sternly, “but you are fast falling from my graces.”
Warlord Lewd jumped as a cold draft of wind whisked past him. He turned down the opposite end of the hall. Still, empty. What was this? Shade’s ghost returning to haunt him? Some ruse of the Rat and his illusions? Just then another torch winked out on the wall. The hall went completely black.
Lewd panicked and ran for the nearest door. He pulled at the latch, but it wouldn’t
budge. He spun around and went for the opposite door. That door was locked as well. He ran from door to door pulling madly at the handles, but to no avail. He broke out into a cold sweat. His hot panicked breaths bounced back at him. He looked left then right and left again, but even his night vision availed him nothing. He froze as he felt a pair of strong arms wrap around him.
A cold steel knife pressed up against his throat.
“I told you what would happen the next time you saw my face,” came an all too familiar chilling whisper.
“You!” Lewd breathed, “but how? I saw you die!”
“No, not I.”
“Then if that wasn’t you, it was…” Warlord Lewd looked and saw the Dark Elf’s mocking smirk in a mirror hanging on the wall.
“Yes,” Shade whispered, “you see the chilling thing about Shadow Magic is that it can also be cast on unwilling victims. Oh, I wouldn’t hold it against your so-called master of illusions. That secret is known by few even in Jui-Sae. Perhaps if he had delved more deeply into the ways of shadow he would yet live. In the end he was only a minor piece on the board…a decoy chosen for my own dark amusement. I had only to cut out his tongue and send him running off like a rat. Then it was merely a game of cat and mouse with your men. If only I didn’t have to put them repeatedly back on the trail. ”
“But how? When the magic wore off I saw your face!”
“An even wider secret is that Shadow Magic can project illusions just as well as light. I had only planned on leaving your rat in shadow form, that is, until you added your personal touch to your own downfall. You asked me to cast that spell, remember? A bold masterstroke I have only you to thank for.”
Lewd seethed through clenched teeth, “My men will find and butcher you!”
“I think not,” said Shade and he clasped his gloved hand over Lewd’s mouth, “you and I both know their kind are hardly more evolved than a pack of wild dogs,” he paused and reinforced his hold as his victim squirmed in his arms, “I leave them to squabble over your table scraps.” He pulled the blade cleanly across Lewd’s neck. He held him until the warlord barely struggled. The assassin finished with a shrill whisper blown softly in his victim’s ear, “Your empire dies with you…”
Smash! The double wooden doors splintered and broke to pieces. Kishrub and Zulbash came lumbering through the dust.
Yessheeran shoved his way past the two bumbling brutes and glanced down the hallway. He saw his master’s body lay unmoving on the brick floor. He slid quickly down the hall heeled by the clamoring of the Gorums’ heavy boots. Lewd’s arms had been crossed across his chest. His fingers had been folded neatly around a flower the Syssrah had never seen before—a single black rose.
Yessheeran collapsed in anguish. He beat his fists against the cold hard brick. “NOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Warlord Lewd’s minions had not searched for Shade for long. Infighting had already broken out in Lewd’s palace. Control had wriggled far too quickly from Yessheeran’s fingers. The assassin had slipped silently in shadow form back into the sewers of Kurn. He no longer bothered to travel unseen. He strode briskly out of the Old Mino Quadrant, his cloak wrapped tightly about him.
The assassin had not passed into the Black Markets ten minutes before the fragile infrastructure of the underworld crumbled around him. Whispers of Warlord Lewd’s assassination spread like wildfire. Sparks flew off of tongues and ignited into heated arguments over who should assume control. Power struggles sprouted among the middle management. Old alliances and blood grudges rekindled.
Shade smirked darkly as he witnessed firsthand the fruits of his labor. The rapid and utter decay of the Kurn underground surprised even him. The denizens of the underworld erupted into a full scale riot. First words flew, then merchandise and overturned stalls, and then out came the iron. Arms clashed, blood was shed and bodies splashed into the sewer canals. Men, Doelms, Drakor and Syssrah lucky enough to make it back hunkered down in their respective sectors. Magic flashed in the north markets as even the Black Robes were forced to defend their territory. Only one passed through the turmoil unhindered. Only one whose glowing yellow gaze had become as much feared as the eyes of death itself.
Shade’s smirk slowly faded away. He could not help but feel a growing pang of disappointment that chewed away at his accomplishments. He traced his fingers along the bandages of his wounds. He had been tested, but not tried in every avenue of his being. He had hoped that somewhere within his clashes with Warlord Lewd he would have found a worthy rival to challenge him for years to come. He would have to wait for another day.
The assassin turned around and stole one final glance at his handiwork. He wondered at how much more trouble he had caused poor old Bwedrig. He hardened his heart at the thought and melted into the shadows of the east tunnel. Somewhere out there in this dark, depraved world waited a worthy enemy…
The Story Continues…
Shade Series II:
Kingsblood
Don’t miss Shade’s next tale that takes him deep into the bustling heart of the Capital Doljinaar—a urban labyrinth completely hostile to his kind. He must play the unlikely hero and track down an unidentified assassin of the Shaltearan Brotherhood who has a contract that threatens the very throne of men…
Turn the page for a free excerpt!
An excerpt from Shade II:
Kingsblood
By J. L. Ficks & J. E. Dugue
Chapter One:
A King Among Thieves
In the wee hours of the night, a man lay captive. His wrists and ankles had been tied to his bedposts. A shadow sat over him. The shadow’s face housed a pair of glowing yellow eyes that burned in the darkness. The two prostitutes who had tied the man up in a harmless game of lewder pleasures lay unconscious on the floor.
The man was a handsome Shamite, a competent conman, a mere twenty-nine years of age. He had long curly blonde hair and a charming grin that had been the undoing of many maidens. His lips found no smile this night. He fought against his binds, but they would not budge. He opened his mouth to scream, but his tortured throat exuded nothing but an indistinct numb choking.
“Scream,” came a callous voice.
The man’s heart jumped.
“Scream,” the voice said again. The shadowy figure leaned forward from a chair beside the bed. Those piercing yellow eyes carved into the man’s soul.
The man tried to scream again, but it came out as nothing but a miserable muffled shriek. He trembled and stared at the door, eyes wild with desperation, but no one came. There was no escape. Not from the hands of this assassin. An Unseen killer whose very name had become intertwined with fear.
Shade grinned darkly at his latest victim. He leaned further in. “Your guards are right outside your door, Oisleean,” he whispered in the Shamite’s ear, “they could still save you if only they could hear you, so, scream.”
Oisleean struggled for words, for the familiar peal of sound off his tongue, but nothing came. The shadow of one of his bodyguards in the hallway shifted in the torchlight that shone from under the door. The man whimpered.
“What’s the matter, Shamite?” the Dark Elf mocked him, “Don’t you want to live? You can scream, can’t you?”
The Shamite thrashed his arms and legs, but his restraints held fast.
“Muffle Juice,” Shade said. He leaned back in his chair. He shook a half-empty vial of amber-colored goo. “It’s a wonder back in my own dark country. Sprinkle a dash of freshly ground Mummel Flower in molasses and you have the world’s only known mute agent. It finds much use in the dungeons of Aaagdensool when our ears tire of our victims’ screams of horror.”
Oisleean yanked so hard at his binds he burned his wrists.
Shade watched him and chuckled softly. His victim had not come to terms with the hopelessness of his situation. He supposed he could not blame the man. After all, few men understood the many secrets of Jui-Sae. Muffle Juice caused aphonia—a bilateral disruption of the recurrent laryngeal nerve, which su
pplies nearly all the muscles to the larynx. In layman’s terms, it strips the voice box of all sensation and motor function. Of course, he would not bore his victim with some dry old scientific explanation. The inability to call for help in the company of one’s executioner was terrifying enough.
“You really should hire better help, Oisleean,” Shade mused, “one of these days someone dangerous might come looking for you.”
Oisleean whimpered at the cold hard door.
“Oh, don’t feel so bad,” he patted the man’s chest. He tucked the vial away and retrieved a dagger.
Oisleean watched in arrested horror as the assassin played the blade over in his fingers. The razor edge flashed in the darkness reflecting off the moonlight that poured in through the window. The Shamite gasped.
“You see, I’m not usually so sophisticated in my methods of execution. Slide an acute piece of metal into a vital organ and the victim will die quick and without much fuss,” he continued as he rubbed the razor sharp edge against his thumb, “crude, but effective. Assassins have neither the time nor the creative vision to entertain so elaborate deaths as, say, your common serial killer.”
The man stared vacantly at Shade.
Shade leaned forward in the chair. He traced the tip of the blade across the man’s smooth features. The Shamite shook even more violently. The Dark Elf’s voice died to a hiss, “But I’m afraid your lifestyle has made it personal.” The assassin flicked the blade drawing a trickle of blood from the man’s cheek.