Revenge Of The Elf (Book 1) Read online

  “I guess not.”

  “I was just a raghead. Not important, really. Especially now. Seems a long time ago,” she brushed the tattered jacket. The right arm felt loose at the shoulder and she wasn’t sure she could be bothered mending it again. “Was proud of it though, once.”

  “A raghead? That some kind of thug? You look like a thug. Again, no offence. I’m just saying…”

  “Yeah,” she said bitterly. “It’s something like that.”

  “So that thing you’ve got going in your hair, that’s part of the uniform? Why tie all that shit in there anyway? What’s it for? Patch your clothes? Looks like you need more of them.”

  “Snow’s gonna fall heavy tonight,” she said, ending that line of talk. She felt surprised she’d even spoken about it in the first place. She hardly knew the man and even if she did, sharing her past wasn’t something which came naturally to her. Absently fingered one of the scraps of cloth in her hair. “Best we use the wagon for shelter. I’ll see to the horses. You put out the fire.”

  “Put it out? What the fuck? It’s all that’s keeping me from turning into an icicle.”

  “Leave it lit and we’ll most likely burn in the night. Too much wood around, spellslinger. Even if most of it’s wet, let’s not take the chance.”

  “Freeze, or burn?” He thumbed his nose. “Fuck. I don’t know which I’d prefer.”

  The elf shuddered, remembering the day Talek had been hit by magefire. How he’d screamed and screamed until she couldn’t stand it anymore. “Freeze,” she said. “Trust me on that.”

  She slapped her thighs as she stood, brushing dirt and ignoring wet spots of blood. Looked through the trees to where she figured the horses were tethered and headed in their direction.

  Behind her, Chukshene started kicking earth onto the fire. “Glad I don’t have tits,” he growled. “They’d have frozen off by now. Hey, Long-ear? You think there’s wolves out here? I’ve heard they love nights like this. I hate wolves. I ever tell you that? Fucking animals. Evil balls of fur with fangs. Worse than cats. I hate cats, too. Make me sneeze. You know, up near Icereach, they get wolves the size of horses. Horses! Imagine that. Makes me want to puke just thinking about it.”

  Nysta clicked her tongue as she neared the horses, ignoring the muttering mage. Approaching cautiously, she allowed them the chance to get used to her before she stepped too close.

  “Take it easy,” she cooed softly. “You oversized lumps of shit.”

  The closest let her touch its shoulder and she checked the tethers before accepting Ollie probably knew his job much better than she did. Admitted she didn’t know much more about horses than how to tie them off and kick them in the ribs to get them to move faster.

  The first horse she’d ridden had bitten her.

  Only once.

  The punch she’d aimed at its head ensured it didn’t bite again. All the same, she didn’t trust horses, and pretty much every one since had sensed her distrust.

  The horse’s eyes were glass orbs and the elf expected it to roll its head at any second and try to take out a chunk of her outstretched hand.

  She inched her hand back slowly.

  “Evil fuckers,” Chukshene said morosely, approaching from behind. “Horses, I mean.”

  The elf grunted in agreement and pushed past him toward the wagon. The horses could die for all she cared. Told herself she could walk faster than they would anyway. “You look around?”

  “What for?”

  “Out here, you never can tell. We found an imp on our porch, once. Took a day to die and three goats with it. Out here they grow big. Saw an imp once with a mouth so big it could bite off your fucking arm. Had claws bigger than swords. Sneaky fuckers, too. You don’t hear them until they’re gnawing through your skull. And there’s worse than imps out here, I’ll tell you that much.”

  “Don’t say that,” he whined. “I want to sleep tonight.”

  She vaulted lightly into the wagon and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  Aware the mage would have trouble with his human sight, she drew A Flaw in the Glass and allowed the green enchanted glow to fill the inner cavern of the canvas-clad wagon.

  It was filled almost to the brim with crates. The heavy metallic smell hinted the wagoners were probably smuggling weapons. Many smugglers worked the Deadlands, and it would explain their reaction and subsequent attempt to rob them. Greed pulled their wagons as much as the horses.

  She held the blade close to one of the crates, but the size of them suggested they contained swords rather than anything she’d find interesting. With a grunt, she looked around and found a small chest which appeared to be for more personal belongings.

  “That’s a novel way to use an enchanted blade,” the mage mused as he climbed in. “Does it do any other tricks?”

  “Yeah,” she pulled a few blankets from inside the chest. Tossed him one and wrapped the other around her shoulders. “It silences mages.”

  “Really?”

  The elf mimed dragging A Flaw in the Glass over her throat. “Really.”

  “Ah. Funny.” He settled his back against the side of one of the crates and shivered under the blanket. “You know, I think you missed your calling, Nysta. You could have been an entertainer. Performed at inns. Why, with your skill, you could’ve done palaces. Maybe even in front of the Black King himself. Ah, the coin they would have thrown to you. More often at you. In fact, lend me some and I’ll do it myself. Doesn’t have to be coin if you don’t want. How about rocks? Want a rock in the face?”

  “Go to sleep, spellslinger. Before your tongue kills you.”

  Chukshene chewed his bottom lip. Slowly rested his head against the grimoire. “Fine, Long-ear. But first, can we make an agreement?”

  “Regards to what?”

  “I’m just not sure I trust you, Nysta. Actually, I’m pretty fucking sure I don’t. And why should I? You’ve got more knives than I’ve got hairs on my nuts. Worse, you’ve got the look of someone dying to use them. I don’t want to worry about waking in the middle of the night with my throat gushing blood, if you get my drift,” he eyed her warily as she casually spun A Flaw in the Glass in her fingers. The green light flickered eerily and he shuddered before continuing. “So, I’d like to make a truce. You don’t try opening my veins, and I won’t melt your face off. The thing is, I want to sleep easy for one night without having to keep hold of my magic just in case. And I’m sure you don’t need any more practice after what you did to those two out there. So, what do you say, Long-ear? Think we can agree to be polite?”

  “Sure, Chukshene,” the elf said, sheathing the blade and plunging the wagon’s interior into darkness. “I reckon we can mind our manas for a bit.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Nysta woke with a start from a dream of burnt flesh buried in a frozen hole in the ground. Ringing in her ears was the malicious laughter of a dying Caspiellan mage and she blinked rapidly to clear the remnants of her nightmare.

  Her mouth felt dry enough for her teeth to crack.

  Outside the wagon, the world was comatose beneath a blanket of new snow. A sharp breeze fingered through the small holes in the canvas and the elf shivered, drawing the blanket up under her chin. Though she was anxious to leave, she wanted to cling to the warmth for just a few more minutes.

  She stifled a yawn, watching the spellslinger snore gently near her feet.

  Wondered again why she’d brought him along. He was useless. A child in a world of cutthroats and mercenaries. Should have left him where she’d found him. Preferably with his guts dangling from a hole in his belly.

  Could still leave him, she reminded herself.

  Slipping past him wouldn’t be difficult. She could even cut his throat on the way out and he’
d never notice.

  She thought of the reason she’d given him. That he distracted her from her guilt. There was a grain of truth to the excuse, she thought with a grimace.

  But blaming herself wasn’t doing any good. She knew that. It was making her feel weak. making her doubt herself.

  And, with the Bloody Nine to kill, the elf figured she didn’t need doubts right now.

  Chukshene was a spellslinger, though. A mage. The thought coiled around her brain. A mage had crippled Talek. Destroyed their chance at happiness.

  The elf licked her lips, thinking again how easy it would be to kill him.

  Further thoughts down that road were cut off as her fingers found the small wooden box in her jacket. Suddenly remembering it, she frowned, and drew it out for a closer look.

  She studied it carefully, amazed by the seamlessness of it.

  Only a few times over the years had Talek shown it to her. It had seemed insignificant at the time. A family trinket. An amusing tale she presumed was mostly fiction. As an object, it meant little to her other than something he cared for.

  “It’s powerful,” he’d told her.

  “How? Don’t reckon there’s much you can do with it, except maybe bash some feller’s brains out with it.”

  “There’s more power in the world than just your arm, Nysta.”

  His words echoed in her mind as she rolled it between her fingers. It felt cold to touch. But, the elf thought, so did everything at this time of year.

  The indecipherable runes looked like spiders dancing. Something about them disturbed her, though she couldn’t say what. Her fingers ran the length of them, tracing the arcane design and sliding along the metal braces which bound the box shut.

  There was no lock.

  No seal to show how to open it.

  And, as far as she could tell, it wasn’t meant to be opened anyway.

  Suddenly that puzzled her. She began to look for an opening. A mechanism. Something which gave a clue as to how to open it.

  She turned it in her hand, feeling the wood between her fingers.

  And then her eyes widened.

  Talek’s box wasn’t just cold. It was frozen. As though she was holding a block of ice. The cold spread eagerly into her hands, creeping up her wrists like ice crystals on glass. Made her think her bones might crack with cold.

  The runes on the side of the box looked darker. Like they weren’t just seared into the wood, but were formed from the void of space. They also looked as though they were just about to start crawling over her hands, or yawn open to swallow the world.

  She leaned closer. Exhaled a cold fog of air.

  Eyes widening.

  There was something…

  “What’s that?”

  The elf’s head snapped up to see the spellslinger looking at Talek’s box with an odd expression. There was something in his eyes she didn’t like. Scowling, she shoved it deep into her pocket again, feeling the box’s frozen temperature abruptly return to normal. “None of your fucking business.”

  Her hand stayed wrapped around it in her jacket, and she decided the change of temperature was her imagination. She was tired enough, she thought, to imagine anything.

  The mage yawned. “Whatever. Keep your secrets. I don’t care. I’ve got plenty of my own and I’m sure they’re better than yours. Found anything to eat?”

  The elf’s stomach bubbled at thought of food and she tossed the blanket aside. Shivered as the cold air rudely stole her warmth. It would be a bitterly cold day if the temperature inside the wagon was any indication. Cursed softly under her breath and rummaged through the small chests beside the crates.

  A few neatly folded packets nestled in the second chest and she tossed one to the spellslinger. Took another for herself.

  “Thanks,” he caught it with clumsy hands, almost dropping it.

  “We’ll leave as soon as you’ve eaten,” she said with a curt jerk of her head.

  “What’s the rush?”

  “Some fellers out there are breathing when they shouldn’t be,” she said. Snapped her teeth into a strip of dried fruit and sniffed at a chunk of dried meat before tossing it over her shoulder.

  She chewed quickly and swallowed, barely tasting anything and unsure what fruit it was she was even eating.

  As she ate, her mind drifted in a distracted manner, tumbling over fragments of memories and thoughts of Talek’s killers dying violently in her hands. Felt her lip curl slightly up toward the scar on her cheek.

  At the same time, she found herself wondering what she was really doing out here.

  Talek was dead. He would never return from the Shadowed Halls no matter what she did, so what was there to gain by the deaths of those who murdered him?

  What if they weren’t heading toward Spikewrist?

  What if they doubled back? What if she was to wander aimlessly for the rest of her life searching for elusive ghosts?

  Too many questions riddled her mind like holes in a tattered banner.

  Submerged in her doubts, Nysta’s expression remained impassive but her eyes slid curiously around the interior of the wagon. The texture of the wood. The soft ripple of canvas. Her nostrils flared as she caught the scent of fresh snow. The hollow sound of silence fraying at the edges of her hearing.

  Little fragments of detail that made her wonder about that mystical thing called life. Life she was thinking of taking. And life she might be close to losing.

  Was vengeance really what she wanted?

  Was it really their blood on her blades that she sought?

  Or something else?

  Her heart quivered as she swallowed. Quickly stuffed the rest of the dried fruit into her mouth and chewed hard. The wagon suddenly felt stifling and she wanted to get outside as fast as she could.

  To move on before the doubts gnawing at her brain made her pause too long.

  “Can I ask a question?” the spellslinger asked, chewing fast as he tried hard to keep pace with her. “How far is it to the next town?”

  “Spikewrist? Be there by mid-afternoon on horseback. Quicker if we push them.”

  “Mid-afternoon. Do you think it will snow more today?”

  The elf shrugged. “Probably. Was pretty heavy last night. Figure it’ll come and go for the next few days.”

  “Shit. I was hoping you’d say no,” Chukshene arched his back and stretched like a cat. The runes glittered on his robe. “I hate the snow. It’s fucking cold. And when it melts down the back of your neck, well. Drives me fucking crazy.”

  “Pull your hood up.”

  “I can’t. I don’t have one.”

  “Should’ve planned better, then,” she smirked.

  “Thanks for the sympathy.”

  “You want sympathy, you came to the wrong place. This is the Deadlands. We’re all out of sympathy around here.”

  “So I’m finding out,” he sighed, wriggling under his blanket, trying to cling to the fading warmth. “You got any good news this morning?”

  “Good news? Well. I ain’t killed you, yet. That good enough for you?”

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re an absolute joy to be with? That you light up the fucking room just by being in it?” he shook his head. “No, I bet they didn’t. Just gloom, doom and mass-fucking-depression. That’s you. For me, I can blame the snow. I mean, who doesn’t get down when it’s so cold you can’t piss for the frost on your cock? But you? An emotional cripple. Guess that’s a good attitude for a punk in an alley. Maybe you needed it to survive. But for a real person out here in the real fucking world, I gotta say it’s a shit one. Tell me, Nysta, what do you do in the spring? I bet you don’t even notice it happen if it weren’t for the deathpriests and their crazed dances in the streets.”

  “Ain’t much for the Rites of Spring,” she allowed cryptically. Patted A Flaw in the Glass jutt
ing from her hip. “Only straight edges I got are here.”

  “I don’t get it,” he muttered. “That some kind of joke? If it was, it wasn’t funny.”

  For answer, the elf rolled to a crouch and crossed him to get to the rear of the wagon. Threw open the canvas to look out at the pale snow-crusted trees.

  Other than the two lumps in the snow, all sign of the previous night’s violence had been obliterated.

  Not far away, the two horses gave a snort at the sudden movement and she glanced at them.

  They didn’t seem bothered by the cold, and for a moment she felt a pang of jealousy. The cold air was brittle on her skin and every breath was a misty exhale that turned her lips to glass.

  She looked down at the spellslinger, who was staring out with distaste.

  “Come on, spellslinger,” she said. “Time to go.”

  “Can’t we stay inside a bit more? There’s some cracks in the clouds. Maybe the sun will shine on through. It might warm up soon. It’s freezing, Nysta.”

  “Stay if you like,” she said. “But I’m leaving.”

  “But won’t the snow have covered the trail? It’s a fucking maze out there. You could take a left when there’s no left to take.”

  Her eyes glittered as they swept over the white and grey landscape. The twisted trees writhed in the icy wind and she admitted he was right. The trail through this part of the Deadlands was narrow and as knotted as the trees themselves.

  With the dark clouds still fuming overhead, it was hard to pinpoint where the sun was, and the mountains to the north which might have given her a bearing were lost from view.

  Unless she wanted to climb one of the cursed trees for a look. She spat sourly out of the wagon at the thought of touching the blistered bark.

  It was a tough road to take, but the only other choice was to turn around. Head back north. Maybe swing around to the east. But that would take days. Days she didn’t have. Talek’s killers were moving further away with every minute, and in her mind she felt the gap yawning wider every minute.

  She had to catch them.

  Had to make them pay.