Chapter 2: Growing up
Thump! " excuse me sir, I did not see you there" said a young, gruff voice from under the hood of the black cloaked figure slinking drunkenly down the dark road of the city, as he bumped into a lord chatting with a first year, both unaware of the deceptive movements of the young man under the hood.
"It's quite all right. Just watch out; others aren't as enlightened as I am and won't let you walk away without some missing fingers or appendages." He said smirking in what he thought was superiority.
"Ah, yah, ok" said the seemingly too drunk young man.
The lord walked away with disgust showing in his eyes.
The "drunken" wanderer walked away with a heavy purse full of gold coins. He would stay drunk for days off the local liquor with this much money. Jed laughed as he headed to the nearest inn, found a table in the back, and ordered a mug of the black steaming hard liquor the locals called Ishti, laughing the whole time.
Jed navigated through the alleyways with the precision of a life long veteran of the city, even though he had just arrived a week ago. All cities are the same, he thought as he walked, and they were; all the cities and clans were built inside a circle of stone at least three horses thick. Nobody remembered when they were put up, but all knew why. Jed had heard it said once that to stay outside of the ancient walls at night was instant death and nobody was stupid enough to do it alone. I must be really stupid for doing it every night. The people were weak, and afraid of the demons and monsters that assume a shape of what they want in the forests and fields outside of the walls. Jed knew from experience though that one rarely ever saw one though.
After that night he had woken up next to a tree in a forest as dark as night from the tightly wound foliage above him. He thought about that day often; that was the day he started learning to listen to the silent instincts that he had always disregarded, and that now saved his life on a nearly daily basis.
He took the massive hip flask from the inside of his cloak and left it tipped for longer than he had intended; after what happened six years ago, he had picked up a nasty habit of drinking enough in one sitting to knock a horse out for a couple of days. He was never without at least four full, big, flasks of the hardest alcohol he could find. He had long ago stopped trying to figure out where he was, or what he was eating or drinking; who would when you had to leave a few days after getting there every time, and he knew he had never been to the same place twice. Since that day he had been running from that damn black demon, living in alleys and abandoned shelters, and every town and city had been attacked to get to him. He didn't know why "it" chased him every where he went, but it did, and it was trying to kill him. That was how he had learned that staying in a place where demons attack anything, including demons, might slow it down or hurt it enough for Jed to get away for at least a couple of weeks. That had been his dream for six years now.
Growing up how he did, you gain skills that get you by. The very first street trait he learned was that of the pickpocket, so naturally, other than steel or bow, it was his best skill. He could steal everything from the cities best thief, and hold a conversation with him while he was doing it. His battle skills though came to him as easily as breathing. When his first fight had started, he had blanked out, then woken up over the bloody body of the unrecognizable face of the bar patron who had started it. People had been screaming demon, pointing at him and running. Now-a-days he knew why; the more something happened that left him unconscious, the more he remembered and had control over it; and he was evil. If it served his purpose, he could take another life without a second thought; it was like a release, similar to sex, yet more satisfying and addicting.
It was getting dark, so he went to the nearest inn to get the food and drink he would need for the night in the broken down building he had found at the edge of the city. He drank and played a game of cards with some soldiers who came in for some respite after a hard day of training and battle practice. War was common in these lands; Jed had even been hired a few times to assassinate a leader or a warrior giving the other troops confidence; he had been ordered to scare them into falling on their own weapons.
He had succeeded with flying colors; he scared the troops enough to make a whole contingent of men run like children. He had crucified the leader upside down to a tree, bleeding from every orifice, accept there wasn't a scratch on him. This happened from the evil inside him telling him to bask in the blood of his enemies, to really let them know there was something out there that just cared less about life than the under keeper himself. The demon that was chasing him was different though. He did not run from fear of it; the small bit of sanity Jed still had originated from the night that thing killed everything he had. That demon was essentially all he had left. He pulled the aces from his sleeve with the skill of a bird lifting off for flight. He took the money and left.
The walk to the shelter was quiet. The alleyways always were. Nibbling on a piece of dried meat, Jed headed towards the landmarks in the city he had memorized. He was thinking about the card game when he heard the explosion. He nearly dropped everything when he heard the death bell toll; it could only mean one thing. The demon had destroyed a part of the wall, and already Jed could hear the wind rushing past him, meaning it was coming. "This thing gets stronger every time." He said in all truth. Each time it came, it did something that surprised him into speechlessness; but it never lasted long. Here we go again, he thought as he started flying through the alleyways like a shadow under the sun. "Lets see what happens this time he said" willing a dagger into his hand. An experiment gone badly had absorbed two bands of unel daggers into his wrists, from where he could then call to him whenever we he needed them. Two daggers suddenly appeared in his hands. "Let's see if you can catch me tonight."