Chapter 8
Night had once again come upon Theramore, last city of the Alliance. Some resident say that if you never left the city, you could almost believe that you were back on Lordaeron. Nay, said others, shaking their heads sadly and casting their gazes skyward. The stars weren't the same, they'd say. They were all still there, but not in their proper places. These others wanted to look up to the stars that they grew up under, the one thing that would never change no matter what happened. Had any in the elite quarter of Theramore set their eyes on the celestial strangers above, they might have seen a dark blur briefly obscure a section of the night sky, along with the light rustling sound of a trailing cloak.
Golonda, her feet barely even touching the rooftops as she ran, closed in on her target with swift relentlessness. The loss-hardened heart that now dwelled in her breast did indeed look forward to this. It was, as Suul had said, a practice run for when she was finally free to pursue her vendetta against Tyrande. When at last the small but still impressive manor was in view she paused, crouching down low so not to present a large silhouette against the clear night sky.
The manor had an eight-foot stone wall around it, about half-a-foot thick, with a pointed iron railing around the top, making climbing over a tricky proposition, but leaping over it only slightly more hazardous. The gate was locked shut, iron bars with more points along the top preventing entry there, as well as two Sentinels standing guard outside. There would doubtlessly be more just inside the walled compound, walking around the neatly trimmed lawn and garden. The trick here wasn't how to kill so many guards, but how to do so quickly and quietly enough to avoid alerting the ambassador within.
While the walled compound made it virtually impossible to move across without being spotted by the sharp-eyed Sentinels, Golonda finally concluded that the close proximity within it would actually work out in her favor. Once her battle plan was mapped out in her head, she crossed the building tops until she was roughly a block away, then jumped down the street level. A brisk walk brought the vengeance-ridden Warden around the corner of the residence there, putting her on a direct path towards the two outer guards. Under her expansive cloak, Golonda's right arm curled, moon-glaive at the ready. Tossing aside the dark garment with her left arm her right snapped out, sending the three-bladed weapon out on a straight and level path at just above shoulder height. The assassin then began to run, long, muscled legs propelling her forward until she was almost matching the speed of her thrown weapon.
The first guard's long ears twitched as she heard the whirring noise of the approaching moon glaive and the light tapping of Golonda's boots against the stone street, her head beginning to turn. A look of shock had just managed to cross her face as the weapon sliced swiftly and cleanly through her unarmored neck, a large gush of blood erupting from the wound a fraction of a moment after the blade had passed through. The second guard, also hearing the noise and the brief, strangled cry of her comrade, had almost turned fully when the weapon struck her in turn, fully decapitating her and sending her helmeted head spiraling to the street. The Sentinel's nerveless hand twitched over the handle of her crescent-shaped sword, the entire body then joining its severed head on the ground. Its grisly work done, Golonda summoned the blade back to her gauntlet, the large round gem on the back of her hand glowing a faint blue as the magic called out to the like gem set into the middle of the moon glaive.
The glaive arced back towards her, skipping against the side of a nearby building before homing in on her gauntlet. The weapon had just struck the forearm brace when Golonda launched herself into the air, entering into a curled forward flip, her back just clearing the sharpened iron points set along the top of the stone wall. She landed in a crouch, crushing a row of carefully cultivated lily-of-the-valley beneath her feet, releasing their pungent odor to her nostrils, reminding her of another garden that had been trampled so callously in a land so far from here. The guards on the inside of the compound had been alerted by now, their weapons drawn, the fine silvery blades almost glowing in the moon light. Only one was mounted, the close confines of the courtyard allowing for only one of their infamous nightsaber panthers to maneuver effectively. Golonda straightened and walked to the edge of the garden, letting the guards see a tall, cloaked figure whose face was all but obscured by a voluminous hood. She stopped when she was within seven paces of them, the mounted Sentinel wielding a bow, an arrow as long as her arm pulled back behind the forward curve of the weapon. At this range a strike was assured, and a fatal blow an almost certainty, considering the skill of the archer.
Inside, in the well-furnished main bedchamber that occupied the better part of the north-west corner of the upper level, two figures moved against one another in the gloom, the only illumination the indirect starlight coming in from between the nearly closed drapes. But here, with the shuffling sounds of skin sliding against skin, with gently caressing hands, seeing was not necessary. The two knew each other so intimately by touch, scent and sound that had they been blind their whole lives, they would still recognize one another after only a few moments together. A nose slowly slid along the entire length of a gracefully arcing ear, a slim hand pressing a well-muscled shoulder and then sliding further down. With a subtle movement there was a soft, high-pitched gasp and a groan of a deeper register. The two bodies continued their slow, sensual dance, completely unawares of the events transpiring on the front lawn of that very house.
"Identify yourself before we end your life, assassin. You have lost the element of surprise and I have you dead in my sights. Who sent you?"
Golonda paused for a long moment, then slowly took her hands out from under the cloak, weaponless. The Sentinels edged forward, tense, weapons swaying slightly as they were positioned for maximum effect on the first swing. Her long, slender fingers curled around the hem of the hood, slowly pulling it back. A collective, muted gasp rose from the mouths of the Sentinels as her face was finally revealed. The moonlight slid across her smooth, angular features, highlighting the prominent parts of her face and seeming to set her hair ablaze. It was a silvery-white in color, chopped short at the nape of her neck, worn parted down the middle, with the tips of the bangs just covering over her almond-shaped eyes. The former Under-warden cocked her head to the side slightly, regarding the look of shock on the Sentinel leader's lower face, the upper portion still obscured by the hawk-nosed helm she wore.
"Tyrande. Tyrande Whisperwind is the reason I am here tonight. Ask her why when she joins you in the afterlife. "
The lead Sentinel answered this with her bow, sending the perfectly-straight shaft of her arrow at Golonda's heart. The assassin's form suddenly seemed to collapse in on itself with a brief flash, the arrow striking that magical discharge rather than the flesh and bone that was there only a split-second ago. Golonda now stood a body's width to the right of where she was previous, effectively dodging the deadly metal-tipped shaft without having to move. The nightsaber emitted a threatening growl, and the rest of the Sentinels charged forward.
Golonda reached deep down inside herself and drew forth the magical power the dwelled there, honed and refined after centuries of practice and meditation. Her arms threw aside her cloak, revealing a form-fitting leather bodysuit of darkest black, with a dizzying array of sheathes sewn to the outside of it. In each sheath was a slim, double-edged dagger, forged from a single piece of steel and perfectly balanced for throwing. Time then seemed to slow in a bubble around Golonda, the edges of her cloak rippling languidly as if she were underwater. Blindingly fast, her hands then began to retrieve daggers and set them into air, as if they were stuck in some sort of invisible surface. When the time bubble collapsed, the entire length of its existence measured in the time it takes to draw a breath, these daggers then flew out in their pre-determined paths, creating a barrage of steel points with which the Sentinels could offer no effective defense. A few blades were deflected by their intercepting swords, ringing off with the high-pitched 'ting' of finely-crafted metal striking finely-crafted metal, but the rest found their mark, and blood coursed over armor plates and purple skin.
Inside, the bodies began to move with more vigor, more need. They twisted and rolled several times before stopping with one on top of the other, then focusing their movement on only one portion of the body. The figure lying on its back moaned loud and clutched feebly at the wrinkled bed sheets, spasms rocking their body. At last, after a titanic build up, the two figures suddenly arched their backs, emitting a shuddering, wordless cry of ecstasy and release, even their voices seeming to embrace as they drifted up towards the ceiling. The two continued their rhythmic movements even after this, determined to strain every moment of pleasure from the experience.
One Sentinel sat on her knees after the assault, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth as she began to pull the dagger from her chest, the weapon having lost some of its deadly momentum from the glancing parry she had managed with her sword. Golonda's foot lashed out, her heel striking the dagger's pommel and driving it deep within the guard's heart, killing her instantly. Seeing the danger posed by the thrown weapons to its rider, the nightsaber had selflessly reared up, exposing its underbelly to the assault and shielding his rider. The lead Sentinel cried out in denial and alarm as she pitched backwards, she alone untouched by the assassin's flurry of blades. The other guards were dead or dying, long limbs crumpled and twitching and sightless eyes gazing up at the night sky. The nightsaber now lay on his side, his breathing shallow and quick, a dagger in a lung, shoulder and lower jaw. It growled at Golonda as she slowly approached his master, a wet, burbling noise as its lungs filled with blood, incapable of stopping her.
The last Sentinel struggled to reach her bow which lay nearby, an arrow clutched in her left hand and ready to notch. Golonda whipped her right arm in an upward arc, releasing the moon glaive and then almost immediately recalling it. The spinning weapon dug a shallow groove into the short grass, beginning to arc upwards into the air after it had traveled only a few feet, but not leaving the earth until it had severed the night elf's hand at the wrist, the tips of the unresponsive fingers lightly resting on the bow shaft. The last Sentinel screamed in pain and horror at the spurting stump that her arm now ended in, her sobs of pain interrupted only by coughing from a throat made raw by her screams.
The lead Sentinel looked up to see the imposing figure of Golonda standing over her, moon glaive pointed at her neck, blades and hair flashing the same brilliant color in the moonlight. The last guard coughed and looked then to the moon far above them both, her shuddering subsiding somewhat even though she continued to bleed at an alarming rate.
"Why-why have you betrayed us?" she asked, still gazing at the silver-white crescent in the sky.
"I did not betray, it was I who was betrayed. I lost everything because of mindless followers like you who thought they knew the best way to save us all. She was taken from me, and now I work to repay that wrong tenfold, to make Tyrande suffer as I have."
The Sentinel said nothing at first, her ears hearing her faithful mount's last breath leave his lungs as he perished right beside her. Her own breathing growing shallow and her vision darkening, she then looked at her attacker, fixing her with eyes beginning to glaze over.
"Do you think she still waits for you, knowing what you have done in her name? She is there, "the downed Sentinel whispered, looking back at the moon.
"She-she is there with Elune forever, in a place you can never reach her because of what you have become."
Rage shook Golonda's body, her face a distorted mask of anger. How dare she speak of Aweldessa in such a way! The former Under-warden raised up her glaive to finish the elf off, but the last guard wasn't out of life yet. With a pained grunt she swung her left arm across her body while still gripping the arrow shaft, driving its metal tip through both the top and bottom of Golonda's boot and foot, all the way into the soil she stood on. The look of anger melted into disbelief and pain, her foot pinned to the ground by the impromptu weapon, pain shooting up her leg. Snarling with barely suppressed blood-lust the assassin let her glaive fall again and again, butchering the defiant guard until she was an unrecognizable pile of gore.
Her breath coming out from behind clenched teeth the former Under-warden bent down and grasped the shaft of the arrow. It would cause less damage to merely pull the shaft out, so with a quick motion she snapped the wooden implement, grunting in pain as she did so. She then slowly pulled her foot off of the rest of the gory weapon, gasping aloud despite herself. The wound would hamper her movement, her maneuverability, but she still had a mission to undertake, and a small thing like this would not stop her. With a pained limp, she made for the house….
Ambassador Twillbara Clearwater slipped on a loose robe of rich emerald trimmed in golden thread knot-work and opened the veranda door, letting the cool breeze wash over his mostly naked form and sweep through the room where Sharleste slumbered. Once past the threshold he turned and silently swung the doors closed, but not completely, leaving only a small crack between the two doors. He walked to the stone balustrade decorated with small flower boxes populated by tiny blooms with yellow petals and a dun center. The slight of so many stone buildings clustered around him didn't refresh him the way the wind and the sight of the open sky did, but he could endure it. Being so far from the comforting sight of centuries-old trees and the soothing shadows underneath their boughs was the price he had to pay. He, and everyone who traveled with him to try and heal the rift between themselves and their wayward cousins the Quel'dorei. Thousands of years past, they had been exiled from Kalimdor, but now the return of the Legion had brought the two related races together again, and Clearwater saw it as a sign to try and help those who had suffered so on that distant continent to once again become one strong people. It was an uphill battle though, with many detractors among his own people, and he doubted that even he would be able to accomplish the task in his lifetime. That's why there was Sharleste. While still grappling with her own prejudice, she had a gentle and temperate spirit, and he hoped that one day she would take up his fight should he not be able to….
Some primal warning broke Clearwater from his thoughts. The tiny voices of the flowers before him cried out, swaying almost imperceptibly to attract his attention. The wind coiled and shifted around him, teasing the wisps of hair that had slipped free of his lengthy pony tail from his love-making session. Millennia of living in tune with the spirits of the natural world made him aware of even the tiniest nuances and signals. He was no longer alone on the balcony.
There was a slight rustling noise behind him, and then two light taps on the stone. He also smelled freshly spilt blood, the mark of a predator. When he spoke there was a sort of tired resignation in his voice, looking down at his hands, at the fine lines that marked his advanced age to those who knew where to look.
"I suppose if you are here, most or all of my guards are dead. I hope they died quickly and without suffering."
"Some did, others did not."
"A shame, to die so far from home. I will assume that I am your actual target. What I did to deserve such hatred I do not know."
"You are a stepping stone on the path to something greater, who you actually are or what you did in your life is irrelevant."
Ambassador Clearwater slowly turned around until he was facing his would-be killer. The figure before him was tall, as tall as any night elf, and her scent, that too marked her as one of his fellow Keldorei.
"How is it that you, my child, managed to lose your way so completely? Elune's light shines to guide all who walk the difficult paths of life."
"I was sealed away from Elune's light for a very long time, old man. Even your vaunted goddess cannot reach hundreds of feet underground."
Clearwater peered at the hooded face, speaking with perfect calm.
"Perhaps Elune's light has not stopped shining, but you instead have decided to stop looking. Whatever evils have befallen you in your life, this is not the answer to it. It is never too late to begin walking the path of forgiveness."
The figure snorted at this, and it was then that Clearwater saw that she was wounded, a hole in her left foot. This must have been the scent of blood that he had detected.
"And what if I decided to kill your lover in there, then promise to give up my murderous ways? Would you still take me under your wing and guide me back to the light? Would I then become your next bed-mate?" she taunted, taking a step forward.
The beginnings of a frown began to crease Clearwater's brow. Her threat was not an empty one, and while he hated to turn aside those who had strayed from good, he disliked seeing those that he loved suffer even more.
" It seems that I can do nothing to turn you away from your chosen course, at least, not in the time that we have here. I suppose… " Clearwater began, but was cut off as the door behind the assassin began to push out, the conversation having awoken Sharleste from her slumbering. With a short, angry cry, his pupil violently pushed open the door, but the assassin wasn't caught off-guard, and reacted without hesitation.
Her right leg kicked straight back as Golonda's body dipped low as a counter-balance, the elf looking past her left shoulder to make sure that her strike was as effective as she had intended for it to be. It was, the door rapidly pushed back to strike the interfering woman on the forehead and knock her prone, and senseless as well. Clearwater had little time before the assassin's attention would be on him again, using that distraction to summon up magic from the depths of his soul and channel it into his right arm. The purple skin there began to shift and warp, bulging with rough protuberances and the fingers growing much longer and thicker. In the blink of an eye the night elf ambassador's arm was the size of a nightsaber's hind limb, and composed of a dense wooden material, with sharp-tipped fingers suitable for raking.
Golonda' attention shifted back to her true target just in time to see the end of the transformation, the unarmed man now wielding a formidable natural weapon. The former under-warden drew her arm back, ready to hurl her deadly weapon at him, but a peculiar rustling sound from around her made her pause. Looking to her flanks she saw that the vegetation on either side of her—little more than tiny shrubs and flowering plants beforehand—had become writhing masses of green tendrils moving under the guidance of the druid. Her injured foot still paining her Golonda nevertheless lunged forward, teeth bared in a feral snarl and right hand now grasping the outer edge of one of the moon glaive's three blades, to be used as a slashing weapon. Upon receiving some silent command the vegetation shot outwards, coiling around the limbs of the assassin, staying her progress towards him. Golonda twisted and thrashed in their wiry grip, her moon glaive slicing through the vegetation desperately, knowing that her mobility was her greatest asset against a spell caster. Clearwater was not idle during this time, however, his transformed arm cutting an arc towards the trapped would-be killer. Muscles straining the former under-warden was only just barely able to deflect the brunt of the druid's attack across the flat of her glaive, though she still received two long, shallow cuts across her right forearm where the metal guard didn't cover.
The druid drew his hand back, preparing for another strike. He would not underestimate her a second time, the vines beginning to wrap around her neck and face, half-blinding her. With one violent heave she threw the moon glaive at her target, the tri-bladed weapon still possessing a great deal of force behind it despite the short distance it flew. This time it was the ambassador's turn to deflect an assault, the blade being parried to the side by his wooden arm and the arcanite blade sticking into the thick stone railing. Seeing her only effective weapon now out of her reach the druid focused on directing the vines, moving slowly forward to deliver the final blow. " And so it ends, " he said quietly, eyeing the struggling woman with pity.
All but helpless in the grip of the druid's enchanted vines Golonda had only one chance to kill him. She focused on the gauntlet on her right arm, summoning the glaive back to her. The weapon quivered in its stony prison, the gem set in the middle glowing brightly, with then a swift, clean 'shicht' noise, it slipped free, twirling back to the point of its summons…or at least it would have, had the druid's back not been between it and the blade.
"Tell me again, lad, why are we tromping through the goldgrubber's district this late at night? I have a bad enough reputation with the city guard as it is."
"We are here because every target of the killer has been somehow important to Theramore, or to the Alliance as a whole. There are many here whose deaths would serve to further the deterioration of the city's overall power base, plus a newly arrived ambassador. It may only be a hunch, but perhaps fortune will smile on us," the elf wizard replied tersely, trying to focus on the environment around him and not dwarven prattle.
"For both our sakes I hope your right. The pay's good enough, but all of this cloak and dagger stuff is starting to wear on me. Let's put this murderous fiend to rest and get on with living," Daghmor stated, shrugging the issue away.
Shaking his blonde locks at his stocky companion Crys was about to throw something chiding the dwarf's way when something out of place caught his eye in the streets ahead. What appeared to be two crumpled forms lay on the street by the gate into one of the estates lining the street. The warmage quickened his pace, Daghmor hurrying to catch up, uncomprehending at first, but seeing the bodies soon after.
" I hate when your hunches are right, lad," the dwarf groused, struggling to keep up with his short legs and old injury as the long-striding elf broke into a full run.
It was as bad as Crys had feared. The figures were lying in thick pools of dark blood, their weapons un-drawn and heads separated from their bodies. These were some of the guards whom the Quel'dorei had encountered outside the council building, the honor guard for the night elf diplomat. Despite his feelings toward his racial cousins, the elf knew he had to stop the murder of the ambassador. These killings seemed to have some darker purpose other than sending tremors of fear through Theramore, and if Crys could interrupt one of those steps, maybe the reason would become apparent.
The gates of the estate were still firmly locked, eight feet tall with the same metal points across the top as the wall did. This was only a problem for the mundane. By the time Daghmor had caught up the green energy from Crys' unlocking spell had already sent the gate doors flying open, with the mage waiting for his backup to reach him before proceeding.
Inside the scene was no less grim, with the rest of the guard laid out in a bloody scatter like fresh cuts of meat thrown out for the hounds. One was so badly sliced Crys had to force down the urge to wretch a few times at the sight of it before being able to regain his composure.
"Come on, lad, this is no time to re-examine your dinner. The murderer might still be inside!" Daghmor prompted, moving up to the door cautiously. Nodding, Crys spotted a slight but distinct blood trail leading from the scene of the slaughter into the partly open door of the manor. With all the guards dead and accounted for, it was probable that they had at least managed to injure the intruder.
The need for haste overcoming caution the elf pushed the door open roughly and paused at the threshold only long enough to spot the stair case leading up to the second storey. Their booted feet rumbling up the wooden stairs, Crys frowning in concentration as he sorted through what spells he could use against such a skilled assailant. He would have to consider if the ambassador or his protégé were nearby too, so it would have to be both focused and deadly. Hopefully the killer would be distracted enough to unleash a spell before the murderer could throw their weapon, the elven wizard thinking back to the neatly sliced neck on the orc and how swiftly he had been felled.
At the top the pair had little trouble determining which was the master bedroom, the elaborately carved door and the blood trail faintly detectable on the carpet leading to it both obvious signs. Steeling his nerve before throwing open the door, Crys entered first, stepping to the right, with Daghmor directly behind him, stepping to the left so they could both fight without getting each other's way. The quiet scene beyond the door was not what they had expected, nor was the stirring night elf woman without a stitch of clothing on, laying on her side in the middle of the room. By her hair color Crys recognized her as the ambassador's student, and apparent lover. Propping herself up weakly on one elbow she pointed to the room's only other door, which, judging by its location in reference to the house, opened up to the outside onto some sort of balcony. A thick stream of blood from her nostrils that had covered most of her lower face told them how she had been rendered unconscious.
"Please, help him," she pleaded in a pained voice.
Pushing aside his dislike for her and the sight of nearly seven feet of perfectly toned elf flesh, Crys rushed past her and pulled open the door, crouching low in anticipation of a reactive strike from who ever might be on the other side.
They were too late, it seemed. The tall assassin was quickly removing something from the slain ambassador's arm and storing it under their cloak when the door opened. It was then that Crys received his second shock for that night. Short, sliver-white hair framed a strong but still distinctly female face as white eyes swiveled to gaze upon him. The murderer was not only female, but a night elf as well?! Before he could consider the ramifications of such a development the scene burst into motion. The prone student wailed at the sight of her dead shan'do, Daghmor roared and began a charge towards the assassin, and the Kaldorei killer staggered back in surprise at their sudden intrusion, forcing the mage to act quickly. Curling the fingers on his right hand into claws Crys called upon the elements, drawing in and rapidly cooling the moisture in the surroundings around the central point of his hand, creating a bright blue glow there. Slowed by her injuries the murderess nonetheless had managed to vault over the edge of the balcony before his spell was completed, the roughly bullet-shaped mass of ice striking her in mid-air. Clambering to a standing position Crys rushed to the stone railing, just as the assassin was hitting the ground and Daghmor was following her hasty path to the ground, cudgel in hand.
The icy bolt had done as Crys had intended, the supernatural cold both eliciting a pained cry from the fleeing night elf, and the chill seizing her muscles and slowing her speed considerably, slow enough for a short-limbed dwarf to catch up. The solid wooden club rose up and fell with enough force to break bones…if it had actually connected to the side of her knee as the rogue had intended. Instead his over-extended swing sent him to the grass in a tangle of leather and black hair, as the fugitive simply ceased being where she was and reappeared roughly ten paces ahead. Limply badly now, the heavily cloaked night elf made it to the wall, and with a slightly wobbly leap, sailed over the metal points, though she snagged and tore a good portion of her cloak on the way over.
"Blast furnace!" Daghmor roared as he got back to his feet, covered with bits of grass but otherwise no worse for wear.
Crys slapped the palm of his hand on the stone surface of the railing in frustration. They knew there enemy now, but to have her slip away when they were so close…. The soft sound of weeping broke the elf from his directionless anger, turning around slowly to view the pitiable scene of Sharleste cradling the dead body of the ambassador in her arms. She had wrapped a sheet around her naked form, her tears streaking past an obviously broken nose and mingling with the blood caked on her chin and around her mouth. Crys felt like he should say something, but words seemed to inadequate, and would likely mean nothing coming from him.
Now that all the action had died down the elven wizard was able to examine the corpse of the Kaldorei emissary a little closer. He looked nothing like the man he had seen earlier that day, like he had suddenly experienced the withering of the flesh that should have normally affected someone of his advanced age. His skin was pale and drawn tightly over his bones, his eyes sunken into their sockets, lips clinging tight to the teeth. Simply being killed didn't do this to him, there was some other force at work, something that drained the life from him. A small scrap of paper rested on the stone near the dead man's hand, obviously another taunting message from the mastermind of these crimes.
Crys stooped to pluck the paper from the floor when he noticed something else about the body that was out of the ordinary. An ugly bruise had formed around a hole in the corpses' left arm, near the cluster of veins between the pair of bones in the forearm. It looked like the sting from a very large insect, but Crys new that there was nothing of the sort around that could inflict that kind of wound. Standing back up the elf's sharp hearing heard the sounds of clanking metal and distant shouts of alarm as a patrol happened across the slain Kaldorei guards outside the manor. He examined the lightly crumpled piece of paper in his palm, reading its words while the bereaved night elf gently stroked the slain ambassador's long braid. 'Ye shall suffer like none before' the note read in simple black ink. Thinking of the pall of death that had been thrown over this house, Crys could only darkly imagine what else this killer and her master had planned for the city's populace.
"The guard will be up here shortly. I'd wager you'd want to slip something proper on before they arrive."
Sharleste glared at him, her eyes filled with a mixture of anger and sorrow, then softened somewhat. Mutely, she stood up on unsteady legs and made her way into the bedroom where she and her love had spent such an intimate time together not long ago. Looking back over her shoulder to make sure she wasn't paying attention to him, Crys gingerly grabbed the corpse's shoulder and pulled him to his side. The body seemed to weigh as much as a child's now, and was rapidly cooling besides. Crys had still not seen what had killed the man, and knowing their assassin's preferred method of murder, the elf doubted it was the hole in the arm.
It was in the middle of the back, straight in line with the spinal column, that the blade had pierced, an inch long cut with a surprisingly small amount of blood found there. Judging by the location of the blow, Crys wasn't entirely sure that it had killed him right away, perhaps only paralyzed. The warmage closed his eyes tightly at the thought of this, letting the corpse return to its former prone position. To lie there helplessly while your life was being drained away….
"She said that what he was meant nothing, and that he was only a step to something bigger. As if everything he had done in his life did not matter," came the raspy voice of Sharleste behind him, startling him and forcing him to a standing position rapidly in an effort to distance himself from the corpse of her beloved. Lip quivering in an effort to maintain her composure she fought a losing battle, slowly sliding down the edge of the door frame, the tears flowing once again.
"All those guards, dead… all dead. Yet I'm still alive, oh Elune why am I still alive?" she pleaded to the indifferent night sky. Crys again stood mutely, eyes unable to look upon her. While his head was turned he noticed a deep cut in the stone of the railing, undoubtedly from the same arcanite weapon that was cutting a bloody swath through Theramore's populace. A missed throw?
The strength of the words the night elf said next forced his attention solely on her, however, looking upon a face ravaged by both physical and emotional pain.
"Promise me, High-born! Promise me that one responsible will pay for this, for each of the lives she has destroyed tonight. If I am unable to pursue the road of vengeance, you must travel it for me. Do this…I, beg of you," she faltered, collapsing into a fit of sobs again. Crys' brow furrowed, the indifferent mask on his face sliding slightly at the heart-rending scene before him. After a long pause, he spoke;
"I promise you that stopping her and who she works for will be the foremost thoughts in my mind. They will see their ambitions squashed, their plans foiled, and their lives ended, as is the only fitting punishment for those who view other's lives so callously," the high elven wizard finally declared, his tone low but determined, to try and convince her of his sincerity when his word would have not carried much weight to begin with. She didn't seem to hear him, stirring only when the Theramore guard began to enter the house from below, and even then only to move to seat herself on the edge of the bed where she and her teacher had shared their final intimate moments together.
Turning away to face out onto the yard Crys looked to the night sky, wondering, as he had many nights before, if Rhell too looked up to the same sky. It wasn't odd that he thought of her at a time like this. Whenever he saw loss and grief, his mind inevitably turned to his own, and how the world around him sometimes seemed drenched in it. How many more corpses would he stand over before this assignment was brought to a close?
Below, Daghmor was being eyed by the guards in a most uncomfortable manner, and called up to him.
"Are we done here, lad? This many guards in one place is conjuring up memories of some unpleasant nights."
The elf sighed wearily and nodded, still looking at the star-filled sky.
"Aye, we are. I'll fill the watch commander in on what happened here, and then we will have a drink, and review what we know so far. But mostly drink."
