The Chronicles of Outsider: Humble Beginnings

by Justin Wayne

  Chapter Ten: Reunions

  Stepping through the crowd as easily as if the street was empty, Outsider led Thom through the throng of people with a knife to his back hidden by his cloak. He knew the Warrior wouldn’t be out for long. All the while he muttered threats to the thief and assured him he would not escape. No one paid them any heed as they made their way through town until they reached the gate.

  The guards recognized the hobbit and immediately noted the terrified look on his face. They stepped in front of the lowered drawbridge and unsheathed their weapons.

  Outsider whispered into Thom’s ear before letting him out of his grip. “If you run. I will kill you.” He glanced at Jiff’s reigns to ensure they were still strapped to Thom then stepped forward a ways and waited for the guards to speak.

  Hesitant as always, the sergeant forgot protocol and waited for someone else to answer. The quick-minded bounty hunter noted the flustered look in his eye and took advantage.

  “Are you in charge here?” he demanded of the man. The guard looked around then nodded. “It’s about time someone showed up! My friend here was on his way to see me when some cut-rate bandit attacked him. What precautions are you taking for his safety?”

  The tables suddenly turned, the sergeant shuffled his feet and looked to the others for help. Outsider interrupted before anything could be said.

  “Nothing, that’s what. So we’re leaving to a place that will. You men should be ashamed of yourselves for allowing such insolence in your town. Come on, Rodge.” He motioned for Thom to follow and together they walked past the sentries then through the gate.

  He hurriedly untied Jiff from the hobbit and tossed him into the saddle. “I have had it with your hijinks, thief. Do not mistake my patience for acceptance or leniency. Remember, your price is equal dead or alive. Dead is easier even, but I hate to kill when unnecessary. However that does not mean I won’t.

  “You have tested me enough. To continue to do so will only leave me with failure in which my failing spells your death. So by seeing how far you can push me, you are actually pushing yourself off a cliff. Now, call me crazy, but that doesn’t seem like the brightest thing to do. But hey, it’s your call.”

  He swung into the saddle and pulled the gelding from the front gate. But as he turned away and into the open a multitude of things happened at once.

  First, Dradewen appeared, beyond enraged and swinging about his claymore, meanwhile the guards, seeing him, decided to act against such ‘wild men’ and attempted to keep him from the rider. Then his father Dunawar, who had just ridden up and saw the commotion, quickly stormed the men to defend his son who had already felled three of the town’s men without killing them. And last of all, but perhaps the most important, another rider crept in from the side, parallel to Outsider, and stared at him from beneath his hood; a mirror image.

  “It can’t be.” Outsider whispered, barely a breath. The hooded rider pulled back its cloak and scowled so viciously that Thom actually flinched. A dark elf stared back at them, with angular features so sharp he looked like a black eagle turned humanoid. His eyes were a deep burgundy and his hair cropped short with a dusty, copper color like aged blood; skin as black as night.

  “Oh, but it is.” the dark elf replied and smiled a wicked grin as he pulled a long bladed dirk from his boot and watched its reflection. “You know why I’ve come, Outsider.”

  “Let me guess. Revenge for leaving Duskenbaijan and forsaking the ways of our people.” he said, not really a question.

  The dark elf laughed a high pitched keening sound like someone in pain. “Do not think yourself so worthy of such attention. While it is true you are a traitor guilty of treachery and I shall kill you for it, you did not betray me, for I never trusted you.” His eyes narrowed as he smiled even wider. “No, I am here for the hobbit.”

  Outsider sighed and turned back to Thom. “Would you like to go with him? I promise you he isn’t nearly as much fun as I am.”

  Thom recoiled from the thought. “Why the devil would I go anywhere with a bloody dark elf!” he exclaimed fearfully.

  The dark elf laughed again and the rider imagined someone suffering. “It would seem he knows very little of you, old friend.” he sneered. “Enlighten him would you, his choosing me over you could very well speed up this process.”

  Outsider drew back his hood and heard the air leave Thom’s lungs as he fell backward off the horse with a thud. “You..you’re..you’re one of them!” He pointed with a stubby finger. “Stay back you demon worshipping monster!”

  At that, the bounty hunters both frowned. But Outsider was quickest to react. He leapt from the saddle and scooped up the thief as a dirk buried itself in the wall behind him. He tossed Thom into the outer stables and locked the door with a deadbolt.

  ‘If you want him, you go through me.” he stated resolutely and held his arms out at his sides, cloak billowing in the wind. “And I assure you, Blaine, it is much harder than it sounds.”

  Blaine dropped from his horse and with a flourish, crouched low, spun on his heel, and then watched as two shuriken soared right at Outsider’s chest. “Sure it is.” he muttered low, confident it was already over.

  Then faster than the eye could follow, two knives appeared in Outsider’s hands and cast the shuriken aside harmlessly then were launched at Blaine who leapt to the side to dodge them. But as he landed with a roll, Outsider pulled the dirk from the wall and flicked it at him. He noticed it just in time to lean away and receive its bite in the leg instead of the stomach.

  Blaine grimaced and removed his own weapon from his thigh. “You’ve gotten better since last we battled in the Shadowverse.”

  Outsider stepped forward, closing the gap, as emotionless as ever. His face was passive even in the heat of battle. “I have learned more than you will ever know. Especially if you continue to attack me, for I will kill you here and now before you ever get the chance.”

  Blaine’s smile faltered for a second then quickly recovered. “And who would teach you up here in this world that hates us for those we were born to?”

  “A kindred spirit who realized too, that it is more than who our ancestors are, but what they did, that marks us as evil. Their wicked ways.” Outsider’s eyes bore into his old rival. “Wicked ways you still follow.”

  Blaine stood then and ignored the blood that freely ran down into his boot. “Do not go all righteous on me, Outsider! I have seen your dark side. I remember when you slaughtered your own mentor and abandoned your home and family to die!”

  “He betrayed my parents and had them killed when they left to the surface! You and your brood are no family of mine.”

  “That’s right, Outsider, the half-breed monstrosity; for you are exactly that: alone, with no family.”

  The daggers were in his hands and against Blaine’s throat before he even thought to draw them. Only his eyes burned with the intensity of what he felt. “My family is waiting for me in the afterlife.”

  Blaine’s eyebrows rose in confusion

  “They are the reason I can kill you as easily as a spider does a fly,” The blades returned to their sheaths in the same movement he threw the dark elf to the ground. “And the reason I do not. Leave this place Blaine and pray you do not cross paths with me again.” Then he stomped on the wound upon his leg.

  Outsider turned from him, knowing full well they would meet again, and too soon.

  Blaine’s eyes were still blinded by Darkbane and his leg seared with a white hot pain. He lay still for several minutes, listening to the battle of the guards and Warriors, and gauged who was winning by the war cries to Valhus; their god of battle. As the pain receded and his eyes once again became capable of focusing, he stood up slowly. “You haven’t heard the last of me, old friend.” Blaine whispered and limped away to where he had left his horse, only to see Outsider riding away on it, Thom behind him on Jiff.

  Dradewen and Dunawar continued fighting as they swapped their discoveries.

  “Th
e cloaked man has the dagger and attacked me from behind! He has taken the hobbit!”

  Dunawar cursed their misfortune. “He will pay for interfering and striking my son. By Valhus, I swear it.”

  The Warriors, having repelled the force of guards, saw the wounded bounty hunter nearby and gave chase. The guards; too dumbstruck to realize why they had been fighting in the first place decided to retrieve their wounded and made their way inside before closing the gate behind them.

  The hulking fighters descended upon the dark elf and threw him across the ground disdainfully. “Where is the rider, dark elf?” the chief spat. The hate in his eyes was all too obvious for Blaine, igniting his mutual feelings for the humans.

  “Gone, and to be here long after your short-lived race has up and died!”

  The axe struck out at the dark elf but never connected. Inksmoke dropped upon them, deeper than the darkest black, and Blaine vanished before they found their way out of it.

  The Warriors backed away from the cloud of black and glared as it dissipated.

  “Where to now, father?” Dradewen asked, wary of his father’s temper. He laid a hand on his shoulder and smiled. “When we find them, we shall make them cry out to Valhus in their own tongue for mercy.”

  Dunawar’s malicious grin was his only reply.

  In the distance, another rider followed the hobbit and elf from afar, trying to gain on them.