Dark Elf
Book Two of the Red Knight Chronicles
by Ray Morand

Chapter One

“Give me the spyglass, Addae,” Akulina ordered as she grabbed the metallic tube away from her South Isles companion. Although she, too, appeared to be a dark-skinned female of the Islands, she was a dark-elf under the illusion. “We are supposed to be watching for the man who will go out to that ship, not observing the local beach life – or have you forgotten why I came here?”

“No one had gone out to that ship since we arrived. Now, the beach life is much more interesting…,” he cut himself off as two scantily clad white skinned females strolled by wearing the colorful knee high skirts and tied front halter tops common among Islander females. All Akulina noted was that one woman was a green-eyed brunette of unknown origin, the other was a tall, muscular blonde and looked as if she was from the Northern Tribes. It was odd to see one this far South.

“You are drooling, Addae,” Akulina told him, not even turning to look at him as she focused the spyglass on the galleon anchored over a furlong from shore, “You are here to give me a believable cover story and to watch my back— neither of which you are doing now. Is this what you get paid to do?”

“Well, so sorry for being human,” Addae said with fake remorse. Akulina was about to utter a retort when she saw what she had been waiting for all day.

“Look, there’s the boat,” she almost hissed then tossed the spyglass to him. Three men in a rowboat were heading for the galleon in order to make preparations for unloading the ship’s cargo.

“Did I not say it would be today? My spies are never wrong,” he told her and after taking a look through the spyglass, he passed it back to her.

“Then what of that supposed shipment of armor and weapons last summer for a supposed coup in Carthach? I watched Kafele’s warehouse for half a season and they never arrived.” She tapped his arm to get his attention. “Well, well, well, look at who we have here…Nikodim. So, he is the mysterious buyer. I should have guessed he was behind all this.”

“If he is here, there are most definitely weapons on that ship,” Addae replied.

“That would explain a few things,” Akulina answered, not wanting to go into details. Now that everyone involved had arrived, it was time for her to earn her coin for this contract.

“Send the message. I am going for my swim,” Akulina ordered as she uncovered a hole in the sand next to her that she had been covered with a blanket. Inside the hole was a small, oilskin bag, which kept her spell components and scrolls safe from the water.

Her assignment was simple, to destroy the ship and its cargo. The spell she had researched should safely scuttle the ship, a spell that would have gotten her executed by her own people in Nadezhda, if they had caught her using it. The spell belonged to the school of necromancy and all elves abhorred spells that involved death rather than life. Many humans also frowned upon the dark magics too, but not to the extent the elves hated them. There was a group of elven knights who actively hunted down necromancers and twisted healers, then summarily executed them with the full blessing of the Elven Queen of Nadezhda.

Akulina shouldered the bag across her torso and headed for the water, followed closely by Addae. “Well, be careful,” he warned.

“I always am,” she responded with an arrogant smile.

Addae tried to return the smile but could not. As he watched her cast a brief incantation that would allow her to breathe while still underwater, he had a chilling premonition about the success of her mission. Then she was gone in a flash. He began to feel as if this was the last time he would ever see the strange, she-elf alive. He pushed aside those morbid thoughts and went to the tree where he had tethered his horse.

According to the plan, what he knew of it anyway, after she took care of her mission aboard the ship, another ship would come and pick her up to take her to the Mainland. If things did not go as planned, Akulina would have to improvise – and what he knew about her, and what he had seen from her previous missions in the South Isles, he knew she was a master of improvisation.

Addae remembered the first time he had met Akulina. It was her first mission to the South Isles. She was to steal a spell book from a First Tier Mage of Necromancy, who had plans to cast a spell that could decimate the population of the Duchy of Valegard, run by a Duke that was one of King Sebastian’s most ardent supporters.

When Akulina arrived, she looked ever bit the South Isles female. He could not believe that she had not grown up on the Isles or that she had only just learned his language and the polytheistic religions of the Isles only a season prior to her arrival. She quickly assumed the role of his niece, and had successfully used that cover at least six more times.

Addae had been born in Niadhardal even though his family was from the South Isles. He became interested in the world of spies and found a Royal Assassin willing to apprentice him, covertly teaching him the arts of spying and assassination. When his Master felt Addae was ready, he was inducted into the Royal Assassin Guild of Niadhardal.

Since he spoke Trade and numerous dialects of the Isles, they groomed him for a role as a spy in the South Isles. Then he was placed on Nukuluve, one of the larger Islands. Originally, he had yearned to travel like Akulina, but he grew into the role of a wealthy and powerful man involved in the trade of sugar cane, something the Mainlanders used to sweeten their food and the Islanders used for the distilling of rum.

Since the Royal Assassins paid him very well, he enjoyed the opulent, stationary lifestyle in exchange for his services every now and then, mostly smuggling anything from material to people to various locations in the Isles or off them. He would also send any information he stumbled upon during his everyday dealing with the community.

This contractor from the Assassin Guild had stayed with Addae for various amounts of time, a few days to a couple of Moons, on various missions for the Royal Assassins and all he knew about her was that her name was Akulina and she was a dark-elf according to her people. She had never married, even though she was over seventy winters old. He did not even know what was in the waterproofed bag. He did not need to know she had warned him.

More likely, she did not trust him, but that did not bother him anymore. People like her rarely trusted anyone, and in her position, he could not blame her.

When Addae climbed on his horse, he suddenly felt movement behind him. He turned to look and saw nothing, but someone had yanking the reins of his horse near the bit, causing the horse to falter and crash to the ground on its side. Addae tumbled to the ground and before he could fully recover, he felt the cold steel of a dagger pressed against his throat.

The woman who yanked the reigns of his horse was the tall blonde woman seen earlier with the smaller woman with the green eyes. No doubt, the green-eyed woman was the one holding the knife to his neck. The blonde’s face held no emotion. She watched his every move with cold professionalism, as the other woman pulled him to his feet.

Addae knew the mission had to have been compromised. Akulina was probably walking into a trap and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. Or maybe only his cover was the one destroyed, but it did not make any sense. The locals would have picked him up. They would want to publicly humiliate him before killing him. Either way, his prospects did not look good. He had to do something and he had to do it quickly.

A mule and two-wheeled cart was heading toward them driven by a Mainlander male who came out of a grove of trees near the beach line. The blonde glanced quickly at its approach, losing sight of the prisoner for less than a heartbeat. Addae risked her moment of distraction and twisted the hand holding the knife at his throat away from his neck. He then yanked the woman forward, sending her careening to the ground. But he soon discovered that these women were not the typical females he was used to.

The brunette hit the ground, but kicked upward back at him, catching him in the stomach. The blonde female jumped forward at the same time, tackling him and slammed his head face first into the ground. At the same time, she grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back.

“Brigit? You okay?” the brunette asked, but realized how ludicrous asking her that was. Brigit rarely got hurt it seemed, or sick for that matter, and if she did she was not likely to mention it.

Brigit merely glanced at her in response then pulled Addae roughly off the ground. Addae licked his lip and found that it was bleeding. He shook his head to try to clear it, but it only gave him a headache. The brunette came forward and checked his lip then his eyes.

“Is he unharmed?” Brigit asked her companion. Addae noticed she had a very thick Northern Tribes accent.

“It’s just a bloody lip, not even worth a Healing,” was the response.

“Good,” Brigit responded and Addae felt a prick at the side of his neck. As the poison overwhelmed him, he tried to figure out the irony of Brigit’s statement. Blackness soon consumed him. The brunette however had, and chuckled to herself.

“Something funny, Healer?” Brigit asked as she slipped the poisoned dart into a piece of leather and folded it into a small bundle.

“No, just you Brigit,” she responded.

“I do not understand,” she commented as she pulled on some pants and a tunic from the bag the brunette had handed her.

The cart stopped next to them and a baby-faced, male Mainlander jumped down from the seat and trotted over to them. He looked over the scene with indifference, and then looked around to see if there had been any witnesses. Seeing none, he looked back at Brigit.

“Kenneth, tie him up and bring him to his Villa. With luck he will not remember any of this,” Brigit ordered, “then you meet us at the regroup point.”

“We have to hurry or we will be behind schedule,” her partner commented as Kenneth lifted Addae into the cart, and then covered him with a lightweight tarpaulin.

“Do not worry, Healer. We will get to the Mainland before them. The Captain has the hard task,” Brigit told her.

At that time, Akulina had just finished climbing aboard the ship, totally undetected by its crew. She started to head aft when a sentry walked over to her position near the gunwale to look at the western horizon. She snapped out with almost lightning fast speed and slammed the heel of her right hand into his face.

The man stumbled back dazed and before he could call out for help, she pulled a knife she had tucked into the sash that was part of her native skirt, then plunged it into the man’s throat. As he gurgled for life, without even giving him a second thought she grabbed the cutlass from his belt then pushed him into the murky waters.

Sword in hand she quickly glanced around to see if anyone was coming to investigate the brief sounds of the scuffle. No one appeared, much to her relief.

The skyline slowly became an array of pink, orange and blue, but Akulina did not have time to enjoy it. She had a mission to complete.

She had just made it to the stairs leading to the lower decks, when someone came to the gunwale, causing her to pause in place, trying to meld into the shadows near the wall. The investigating sailor mumbled something about ‘lazy bastard’ and walked away, no doubt thinking his companion was not doing an assigned task.

Akulina let go the breath she had been holding and quickly moved through the ship’s lower deck, heading for the entrance to the hold. Up ahead, to her right, two men were having a heated argument in the trade language most those who lived on the Isles and along the Mainland coast used to do business. She then saw another sailor heading up the stairs ahead of her that led back up to the main deck. She silently passed the occupied cabin, but had to duck into a closet as another sailor came down the stairs behind her. This man entered the cabin where she had heard the beginnings of an argument, then closed the door behind him.

Akulina hurriedly left the musty closet and pulled open the floor hatch that lead to the hold. There was no guard posted inside the hold so she lowered herself and closed the hatch behind her. After she reached the last loop of rope ladder, she pulled out a small gem from her oilskin bag of tricks.

Being elven, she had night-vision that a cat would have envied, but she was going to need additional light that the magical gem could provide. The sound of people walking above her made her glance up reflexively, hoping they were not coming down now that she was so close to completing her mission. The footfalls faded as they moved aft.

Akulina activated the palm-sized gem by saying its command word. An unearthly blue light glowed from inside it. She hurried to a stack of wooden crates bound to the hull by a retaining net to keep it from shifting around. Again, she reached into her bag though this time she started chanting in ancient Elven. From her hands, she blew some fine powder over the crates.

She smiled mischievously as the crate she was looking for glowed brightly, even though only she would have seen the magical glow if anyone human had been present. The light was so bright to her that it almost overwhelmed the light coming from the gem. The crate was presently under a majority of the heavy crates, but it had to be the one containing the powerful artifact she had been sent to find. If the glow it was emitting was any indication.

Akulina sighed and began to cast again, feeling the energy drain from her as she began to levitate the crates out of her way. She then used her knife to pry the lid off the crate she had received the magical reading from. Inside were several ceramic, painted bowls made by the Islanders and sold for a very good price on the Mainland. There were also various figurines as well, one, a ceramic statute of a panther glowed as if begging her to pick it up.

Akulina had the skills of a thief, trained by the best, but she resisted the almost overwhelming urge to keep the relic for herself. Elves were creatures of magic and were taught as children in the casting what was seen as the simplest of spells, but were what humans took a good portion of their lives to learn. Magic was always around elves, woven into their homes, cities and even everyday tools. They also loved to collect magical relics such as this one. However, she had a code of honor that even the stigma of being branded a dark-elf could not wash away. She was paid to send this relic to the Ether, so she would send it there, regardless of her own desires.

In the Ether, no living thing could survive for it was pure magic, and it was believed that was where mages drew energy from in order to weave their spells. Some believed it was where elves went when they left this life. Akulina did not venture to guess which theory was true, she only knew that was to be the destination of the relic.

She admired the statue’s craftsmanship for a moment then threw it to the ground causing it to shatter. Inside she found the rod, a single piece of silver-black metal that looked as if it was modeled to look like an oak twig with ivy wrapped around it. A red ruby the size of a child’s fist was seamlessly merged into it on one end. It felt unnaturally light in her hand and she allowed herself to lovingly rub one hand along its three-handbreadth length. She sighed again forlornly and laid it on the deck. Then she pulled out a piece of blue and red chalk and chanted as she first circled the rod with the blue before scribing archaic runes in red around the outside of the blue circle. When she was done, she stood and pulled out another gem, this one the color of an emerald, which glowed with an eerie green inner light that seemed to pulse and dance inside it.

The ship’s hold was stale and musty, which made it difficult to breathe, but she continued her chanting, even though she felt like climbing that ladder to get out and get some fresh air. With this kind of spell, you had to finish it once it started or it could backlash on the caster and the surrounding area.