by Eric Vall
“Of course she’ll live,” Dragir hissed. “Every elf in Nalnora knows of--”
“Long enough to breed,” his father interrupted, and his voice was thick with menace. “They’ll wait until she’s given birth and then kill her to teach us a lesson. They’ll ruin us for the next thousand years, they’ll bring the wrath of the Houses down on all of us.”
I could see the muscles on Dragir’s shoulders begin to twitch with rage.
“I would rather die than let that snake get her this way,” he growled, but he was losing command of his tone quickly. His voice was tight with fury, and I saw his knuckles go white against the chair back. “Not like this, you must see sense. How could you sit by after everything we’ve done and allow--”
“Enough,” the head of House Quyn snapped. Then he slumped back into his chair with a stubborn set to his jaw. “Kylen has her now, and if we let him keep her, then we can still salvage our position. We can still maintain our allies, and Deya will keep her life.”
“Father … ” Dragir warned.
“She will keep her life,” Qiran repeated in a low voice. “That is all that matters now. It has begun.”
Dragir dropped his hold on the chair and looked ready to rip the old elf to shreds. He trembled with fury while he fought to find any words, and whatever he growled next was in Elvish. Then he turned, and I caught the deathly cast of his serpentine eyes as he shoved past me and left the room.
A moment later, the front doors of the house slammed shut behind him, and I heard a few wooden planks snap and fall to the marble floor.
The leader’s face was lined with anger and defeat, and I could hardly believe what I’d just witnessed. How a father could let a man steal a daughter away, especially one so gentle and tender as Deya, was beyond me.
But I couldn’t stand by and let it happen.
I wouldn’t.
So, I stepped forward. “I’ll get her back for you,” I told the leader. “I’m well-armed, and I have nothing to lose. We’ll go now and follow the trail to House Kylen, and Deya will be safe at home before the sun rises.”
Qiran turned a livid glance in my direction. “Get out of my sight,” he snapped. “I do not need you or your women bringing the wrath of Kylen to my doorstep. It’s bad enough you lured House Syru here.”
“Kylen will have no idea who we are,” I countered. “You have nothing to risk or to lose by letting us get her back for you. I’m here and completely capable of--”
“I said get out!” the elf roared. “House Kylen knows the worth of Deya more than you do. Any fool who tried to get her back would be tracked straight to this house, and we’d be burned in our beds within a day.”
I glared at the elf sitting in his velvet seat before the fire, and my anger boiled in my veins over his stubborn cowardice. I fought to keep from taking the last three steps between us to wring the fucker’s neck.
He was even weaker than I’d imagined him to be, and to see him abandon his own daughter when he knew exactly where she was made me sick. Too many offensive words rolled through my mind to speak with the coward any longer, and I stormed from the room as the muscles in my jaw began to ache under the tension I locked them with.
The doors had split straight down the center of their planks from Dragir’s own fury, and I let another few planks snap loose against my shoulder as I threw the doors open and went out into the night.
The many guards and their dogs were nowhere to be seen, and everything was silent except for the distant roar of the waterfall. My pulse pounded in my ears, and I felt ready to punch the first thing I came across, so I turned toward the jungle rather than head for where the women waited for me. I couldn’t seem to steady my breath as I thought of Deya’s sweet smile and the way she’d softly grazed her father’s cheek the last time we’d been to House Quyn. I’d watched them berate her and shut her up inside, and she somehow bore it all with love and grace.
Yet the coward would let her be taken without lifting a finger to bring her back. I couldn’t find any sense in it.
Her father’s vulgar statement about her breeding with the elves of House Kylen made my skin crawl, and a fresh wave of fury came over me as I recalled it. My mind became a hideous web of fates that awaited Deya without anyone to protect her, and I headed blindly for the trees at the edge of the house with long strides while I worked to steady myself.
Then I stopped short in my tracks. No, I couldn’t, wouldn’t let this be Deya’s fate. Even if her father wouldn’t lift a finger to save her, I would. I knew nothing of Nalnoran customs, but I knew this was wrong.
I spun around to march back to the house, and I’d just passed the cornerstones when someone suddenly snatched me by my vest. Then I was swiftly dragged around the side of the house and pinned with my back against the stonework.
Dragir had me locked in his fists, and he leveled his furious eyes on me. “You’re hired,” he growled.
Chapter 4
I didn’t even hesitate.
I nodded, and Dragir abruptly released his hold on me. Then he moved to the edge of the house, peered carefully through the darkness, nodded once over his shoulder, and motioned for me to follow.
We silently passed the splintered doors of House Quyn to cross to the opposite edge of the house, and I eyed the dim glow between the wooden planks as we went. The house was silent, and I assumed the cowardly father was right where we’d left him in his little sitting room. I felt the muscles in my shoulders twitch at the thought, but I turned my focus to the task ahead of me.
Dragir brought us to a small alcove completely overgrown with blue leaves and deep green vines. It looked like the jungle had swallowed up this corner of the house, but he brushed the wall of plants aside and ducked behind them.
Then we were on a small dirt path lined with colonies of mushrooms on either side. The path wound into a dense grove of trees and seemed to be the only place where the fog didn’t loom over everything. I’d figured the blue plants splayed all around the secluded house, but now I could see they’d strategically concealed a separate forest.
As we walked briskly along the path, I caught sight of torchlight through the trees ahead, and eventually we turned into a small village. Modest houses made of the same stonework as the main house dotted a slim road on either side, and there were even thinner roads that branched off here and there as we walked along. I could see the glow of the elves’ fires through the small windows of the houses, and I was shocked at how populated the quiet village was.
The guards who had helped track Deya’s scent strolled amongst the roads and houses, and some of them sat on squat porches and polished glaives and swords while they spoke with their comrades in Elvish.
Nearly every elf we passed bowed their heads to Dragir, but the elf didn’t seem to notice any of them. He continued at a brisk pace with his eyes forward and his fist clenched around the hilt of his sword, and it struck me as odd that the guards were so relaxed here. The daughter of their leader was still missing, but from the looks of it, Dragir and I were the only ones who considered this an immediate issue.
Dragir had mentioned an army of sixty elves while he’d argued with his father, and I could see now he hadn’t overestimated that number. There were easily enough houses for as many in this hidden village. I’d honestly assumed House Quyn consisted only of the leader’s home and children, and most likely a handful of guards. From the outer jungle near the waterfall, it appeared to be nothing but a crumbled cottage in a neglected area, but now I wondered if the humble and secluded exterior was a well-planned diversion.
After all, the leader seemed adamant about not attracting any attention, but these concerns struck me as a little ridiculous now. He had more elves on hand than either House Fehryn or Natyr. As I considered the dismissive way Natyr’s leader had spoken of House Quyn, though, I realized Qiran had played his cards surprisingly well. He’d managed to trick them all into thinking he could pose no threat and lived an irrelevant life down here in the southern
jungles.
Spineless and temperamental as he was, I was mildly impressed, but the thought only fed my frustration.
Qiran’s cowardice where Deya was concerned was highly unwarranted if this was the extent of his army. Granted, I hadn’t seen them fight yet, but from the looks of it, Dragir’s plan of attack was a solid one. The leader’s fretting over a retaliatory attack seemed like an oddly weak argument to me now, and although I could understand him not wanting to lose his son in the field, Dragir was the head of his army. That risk came with the job title.
Either way, what was a battle against one House when the man’s own daughter had been snatched from him? House Natyr had waged one battle after another purely out of blind greed.
I ground my jaw and tried to reign in my growing anger with Deya’s father, and I shifted my thoughts toward being grateful Dragir wasn’t nearly as weak minded.
For that, I liked him a little more.
Dragir led me to the far back corner of the village and turned down a dirt footpath with three unoccupied houses on it. Then he ducked into the last house, and within a minute, three torches were lit along the walls.
The squat house consisted of only one room, and it was sparsely furnished even for its size. A cluttered desk was shoved against one wall, and a low-lying bed sat in the shadows of the corner. There were a few pots for cooking piled on the wooden floor beside a fireplace, and two wooden chairs sat on either side of the small table in front of it. Melted wax mottled much of the surface of the table, and a single candle stood nearly spent at the center.
The humble arrangement of the house surprised me, given that Dragir was one of the heirs of House Quyn, but this point was far less interesting to me than what I saw on the walls.
Four sturdy racks were mounted on the stonework around the room. Despite my rage, an eager grin came to my face when I saw each one was loaded with no less than a dozen gleaming weapons.
I realized this must be Dragir’s own home because he went straight for the desk, and I eyed his armory while he rifled through the topmost drawer.
Three full racks glinted with weapons made of the strange translucent material I’d seen a few elves vying for. Onym had almost taken a bow to the back just over a small dagger in this style, and Rhys had gotten a boot to the face for the same one shortly after.
I knew little of their history, but I’d suspected for a while now these weapons were a prize to the elves, and as I looked at the lineup in the three hefty racks, I could certainly appreciate them as such.
Especially if they were all runed. The dagger Aurora won from the elf she’d burned alive in the jungle had a small rune embedded at the base of the hilt, and I had a feeling this is what made them so sought after.
I’d been hoping to ask someone from these lands about the distinctly elven blades, but as curious as I was, this definitely didn’t feel like an appropriate time to do so. I’d only come across a few stray weapons in this style amongst the elven Houses, and Dragir was the first I’d seen with an extensive collection at his disposal.
One of the racks had at least twenty daggers of various shapes of blades and lengths, and their hilts were each different and crafted of finely polished silver. The next rack boasted swords in as many varied styles, with a few serrated sabers and several lengthy blades that reminded me of katanas as well.
But the third rack was my favorite.
The strange material looked best in the elven glaives in my opinion, and the twelve mounted side by side on the third rack looked fit for a king. With the broader cut of the blades, the thin blue and purple veins that sprawled like lightning through the cloudy material caught the light more distinctly. The sheen of these streaks on the deadly and hooked blades had an ethereal quality, and it looked like the wrath of the gods contained into a single weapon. I decided I liked the axe-like ones best, or maybe the one on the end with the needle-sharp point and elegant hook along the back of the blade.
The last rack held standard steel glaives with wooden grips, but two swords mounted at the base caught me so off guard I took a double take. I’d studied my own sword so many times now it would be impossible to mistake the craftmanship, and I raised my brows.
The two dwarven swords were embedded with gems much like my own with a sapphire at the hilt, and I could see the inlaid initials just below them in the dim firelight of the torches. I couldn’t imagine how an elf who lived this far south had managed to collect two dwarven swords, let alone appreciate them.
I dragged my eyes across the four hefty racks, and as I considered the remarkable quality of each, Aeris’ insults from this afternoon came to mind.
He’d accused Qiran of having only a blacksmith for a father, but now I understood why the leader of House Quyn had been so offended. If these strange weapons were what he’d called Halcyan Blades, then Qiran’s father must have been a fucking visionary to invent them. I was just beginning to wonder if Dragir’s grandfather created all of the weapons in his collection, when the elf muttered something to himself and stood up. I snapped out of my admiration and quickly came over to join him while the elf smoothed a crumpled map out across the desktop.
I couldn’t help but snort when I saw it. Compared to the map of Nalnora the Elven Council had sent me, which was marked with only two X’s and a dot, this one looked like a masterpiece.
The ten elven Houses were marked throughout the region, and I saw Rhoemir and several other cities indicated to the north. The Raxis groves glinted in bright red ink, and the amount of other red portions I hadn’t visited yet unnerved me. They blotted the map in too many places to count, and I recognized the placement of the grove of Putre we’d unfortunately wandered into.
“Nice map,” I muttered.
Dragir pointed to the forests surrounding House Quyn. “This is where we turned back,” he clarified. “House Kylen is two leagues east of here. Follow the scent south and then east to avoid this lagoon. It’s not a friendly place, so do not forget this. Do not go to this lagoon.” He tapped hard on the slim ripples of blood red for good measure before he continued. “Once you’ve rounded over to the east, you’ll travel another league before you come to their fortress.”
I nodded along to all of this and was about to ask how the hell he expected me to follow her scent, when my eye caught on a drawing buried between a few scattered slips of parchment.
While Dragir found a quill to mark the route on the map, I casually shifted the paper out an inch to get a better look. Most of the papers on the desktop were filled with designs of blades, measurements, and weights noted here and there. One of them had a sketch of the angry glaive with the needle-sharp tip I’d admired on the wall, and several lengthy Elvish words littered the margins.
The drawing that initially caught my attention had a very familiar weapon on it, though.
The sketch of my revolver wasn’t remotely complete, and there were many scratched out sections all over the place. Blank spots were left in the design, and I assumed the elf hadn’t gotten enough of a look at the gun to know what to put in these places.
I couldn’t help but smirk.
For someone who insisted his House didn’t need my weapons so often, Dragir certainly seemed to be curious about them. I could tell the design had been an attempt to comprehend the mechanics of the revolver, and as I considered the elf’s ancestral line, I wasn’t surprised the weapon caught his attention this much. The few measurements he’d guessed at were all correct, and although the barrel was missing, he’d judged the hammer mechanism well.
I furrowed my brow and glanced to the extensive armory around me as it dawned on me Dragir might be nearly as much of a weapons buff as I was.
“What is your price?” the elf suddenly asked, and I quickly shifted my eyes back to the map before I looked up.
Dragir didn’t seem to notice what I’d been studying on the desktop, because his face was the same deadly mask he’d had since he’d spoken with his father, and his demeanor was all business.
&nb
sp; The question caught me off guard, but as I thought of Deya waiting for me only two leagues from here, I shook my head.
“No price,” I told the elf.
Dragir narrowed his eyes. “A man with no price has no reason to deliver,” he pointed out. “You offered to do this, so what is your price?”
I couldn’t argue with him there, but it took me a moment to think of something adequate. As much as I would have liked to pick any weapon I wanted from his impressive collection, I couldn’t ignore the unique opportunity I had at my fingertips.
“Alright,” I said, and I crossed my arms. “Stop being a dick to Aurora.”
The elf cocked a brow as if he thought I was joking.
“I mean it,” I urged. “No comments, no shitty looks, and no referring to her as anything less than Defender Solana. I don’t wanna hear about tainted blood or halflings or bitches or anything from you where she’s concerned. That woman means the world to me, so you’re going to show her some fucking respect while we’re here.”
The elf studied me for a moment before he looked uncomfortably toward the windows and considered my price. “Okay,” he agreed, “but I cannot be kind to her in front of others. I will not be rude, but I cannot be … nice. I have worked hard to earn my place here.”
I let out a long sigh and ground my jaw. “See, I like you for five seconds, and then I just wanna punch you again.”
Dragir nodded. “That’s okay. You don’t have to like me. You just have to bring Deya home.”
“Deal,” I said with a shrug. Then I held out my hand to shake his, but the elf only eyed it briefly before he turned back to the map and cleared his throat.
“House Kylen is taller than it is wide,” he explained. “This will make it difficult to find her. With only yourself and the three women, I recommend you rely on stealth. House Kylen’s warriors are large, and they do not hesitate, so kill anyone you come across before they can raise an alarm. It’s likely Deya will be on the topmost floor, so find stairs as quickly as you can. They’ll keep her in a very nice room. Look for anything elegant or distinct, well-crafted, possibly even decorated. With heavy locks.”
