Chapter 1
The sun was nearly set but the remaining light wouldn’t disappear fast enough for her and her crime. She was a murderer. She wasn’t an assassin by trade and it showed. She didn’t like how the bile churned in her stomach but hated even more how it clawed at the back of her throat. She swallowed it back. When she had slid the black dagger blade across his sleeping neck there was blood everywhere. There was so much blood that she knew she couldn’t ever go back to her shop. At the thought of it she could feel the bile in her stomach begin to bubble up again.
San’Khan walked quickly down the afterglow and candlelit street. The low-level lighting was barely there to give a normal human enough light to see details. However, she could see and hear many of the smallest things with her elf senses but their importance was lost on her. She could hear the rodents scurrying and squeaking as they looked for food. Horses pulling carriages as they passed her to everywhere, clopped on the cobblestones. Confusion raced circles through her mind as she tried to solve here current dilemma.
“What am I going to do?” she muttered to herself, “Where am I going to go? I can’t go to the lawman. I slit his throat with his own dagger. I need to stay calm. I have to get home and warn her. Tell her that we need to move. She won’t like it. Stay calm San’Khan, you’ll be fine. No, she won’t be liking this one bit. I need to find someone to buy the documents I stole. Maybe someone to buy the dagger and rapier that I stole. How do I explain her all the gold I have?”
She abruptly stopped in the middle of the street and nearly got hit by a horse and carriage.
“I’m a murder,” she said softly to herself, “I... I... I killed a man.”
The acid churned faster and faster in her stomach and her own hysteria played tricks on her mind. Was she going to vomit in the street? Suddenly she didn’t know anything. She was so confused that she could barely remember her name. She tightly held a bath towel-wrapped rapier in her left hand. She had covered it a best as she could. It wasn’t common for any woman to be seen in the streets with a weapon of any sort larger than a dagger or kitchen knife and again, she didn’t want to draw attention to herself. Often if they did they were in the military or part of some religious sect. From her left shoulder and across her chest hung a big satchel with her other prizes: it held the paperwork that carried the bad news for the city. News that she thought someone in power would want to either know or hide. A black blade dagger with a bejeweled hilt and a sack large enough to hold two hundred gold. Gold that she felt was bribe money. Her client was blackmailing or financing the lower aristocracy.
“GET OUT THE WAY, SLUT!!!!” a driver barked
San’Khan looked at him like she was coming out of daze. Did she know this man? No, he was just someone who knew her occupation. She moved to the side of the street and noticed how everyone was looking at her. She stared wide eyed back to the ground and kept moving. San’Khan didn’t dress like the typical whore. She wasn’t proud of her career choice but she chose to look as desirable as she could for her patrons. She was a rare commodity. In the city of nearly three hundred thousand souls, she had never seen another elf. This made what she did expensive to say the least. Men, and some women, would pay more to have her in their beds or seen on their arms in public. But right now, she didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself than her elf ears and courtesan dress already would. She looked around and she noticed that she was getting the customary looks of disdain from the women on the street. Some were other hookers but most were not. She didn’t care right now, or ever usually.
She rounded another corner and felt the odd tingling sensation of being followed. She slowed to a walk and casually looked around. Behind her a good thirty feet was a tough-looking couple, a man and a woman who looked as though their only purpose in life was to protect through pain. San’Khan turned another corner and ducked into a recessed and darkened doorway. Were they after her or was she just being paranoid? She waited for them to pass. Time seemed to stop. Even the horse drawn cart seemed to move incredibly slow. It felt like a year passed by before the couple passed in front of her. They didn’t notice her. San’Khan counted two minutes in her head before peeking out. They were nowhere to be seen.
San’Khan needed to make a choice, go home and leave or get rid of the paperwork. If she was going to get rid of it, how was she going to do it? Who could she even trust? Then she had a flash of insight.
“Him,” she said too afraid to leave the doorway, “he can help me. He has to help me.”
She had seen a particular information broker around the district. She knew him by sight and minor reputation but that was all. He would be the only one to know what to do with the documents she carried and maybe pay her for her troubles.
She glanced back down the path she had come and a miracle manifested itself. Approaching her from the next block, was the exact information broker and his bodyguard speedily walking towards her that she wanted. She stepped out and briskly walked over to him. The bodyguard saw San’Khan approach and moved to intercept her.
She only had a brief moment to eye the guardian but San’Khan could see from the chest work that the bodyguard was a woman, probably of great skill if this was her only occupation.
“Please,” she said sternly yet quietly to his face as if the bodyguard wasn’t with them, “I am San’Khan and I have some information I need to sell. Immediately.”
Before she could divulge anything, the broker pulled her off to the side and gave her a quick visual once over. His grip was as soft as his hands were smooth and firm.
His voice expressed his preoccupation with another situation, “I’m listening. What do you need? But just keep in mind that while I would love to help you right now, I’m in a bit of rush to get home. You see…,”
“Stop,” his female bodyguard whispered hard, “Ve haff people come our vay.”
The couple following San’Khan had doubled back and were now walking straight for her. They were a block and half away. With both of them being in a hurry, the broker took her by the arm and urged San’Khan down the street she had come up. Conveniently, they saw an alley. When San’Khan, the broker, and his guard turned the corner, a half-elf and halfling ran full force into the bodyguard and all three crumpled to the ground. The broker and San’Khan looked passed the group and saw six men enter the alley’s opposite distant end and gave chase to the halfling and the half-elf. San’Khan panicked seeing more people running after her. This was very out of the ordinary for her. Her mind raced to think that she was a murderer and that the people now chasing her caused her to have an upset stomach. The taste that was in the back of her throat was a bitter burning of bile that was now moving into her mouth.
“Gotta marking pencil?” she asked the broker before working up some saliva to wash away the bitter flavor and squelch the panic rising in her soul.
Ignoring the approaching assailants and the two new victims, the broker pulled out a pencil and a scroll from his satchel. The two-new people and the bodyguard untangled themselves and did their best to stand up. San’Khan stabilized the rapier with her legs as she took the tools from him. As quickly and legibly as she could, San’Khan wrote down her address and pushed them back into his hand. The panic bubbled up the bile again.
“Ah brother,” the halfling said, “we’re nicked.”
“Come here as discreetly as you can. I’m being followed and need to get away.” San’Khan said as stuffed the rapier into her satchel.
Once stable, she used her incredible leg strength to jump from the street to the second-floor balcony. Pulling herself up, she then bounced back and forth up a wall to the roof. From there she disappeared into the fast approaching night. She felt bad for leaving them with her pursuers, but San’Khan knew that she would be less than useless if a fight did start.
“You and me both, sister,” the broker quipped as she made her escape.
The six pursuers slowed down to a brisk walk. They couldn’t care about her leaving. Their job was to get the halfling and anyone helping him. Seeing a chance for escape, the halfling pulled at the rope tied around his waist, launched it into the air, caught the same balcony she had jumped to, pulled himself up, and followed San’Khan. This left the half-elf with the broker and his bodyguard.
“Wonderful,” the half-elf muttered, looking at the people coming up behind him, “he forgets that I can’t jump like he can. So it’s six versus three. Could be worse.”
“It is.” Said the bodyguard as he heard the metal scraping that sounded as she unsheathed her sword and pulled her shield from behind her head.
“Oh yeah? How?” he asked sardonically.
“Look behind you,”
The couple that had been following San’Khan had been joined by two women.
“Ten,” the half-elf said clearly, “ten verses three. Brilliant!”
The broker pulled a sword out of his cane and moved between his bodyguard and the stranger. He wasn’t a fighter himself but he’d do what he needed to survive.
“I can take on four of these jerks. Can you two handle the rest?” the half-elf asked readying his stance.
“No.” the broker said.
“Yes.” the bodyguard said.
There was no time to get a clear answer.
“Quill and Micky,” called one of the six, “follow after’em.”
“We can get the halfling later.” growled the leader of the six, “We need to get this one. He’ll lead us to the runt.”
The half-elf and the bodyguard closed with the attackers.
The half-elf was acted first. He landed a punch on the first attacker’s jaw, breaking the bone sending piercing shards through the opposite cheek. He barely had time to pull a round house and clothesline the second assailant before kicking the third attacker’s leg out. All of this while the bodyguard slit the throat of her first attacker near the information broker.
The bodyguard’s second attacker managed to break her upper left arm. She howled in pain as now she only had the use of her right arm to win the day. She was able to make a near amputation like stab into the thigh of the third attacker as her armor absorbed the powerful club attack to the stomach. The nearly critical blow should have knocked the wind out of her but somehow the only thing it did was dent her protective armor.
Being proactive, the broker raised up his sword as though he was going to backstab his ally and made a downward stab over his bodyguard’s shoulder. His landed sneak attack action managed to penetrate the pocket between the collarbone and neck of the second attacker.
The half-elf was fighting back-to-back with the bodyguard. He could now keep the fight in front of him. Because he refused to let go of the second attacker, the half-elf blocked solid punches and dagger strikes from the fourth, fifth, and sixth aggressors. Using his victim as a shield, the half-elf managed to keep many of the attackers from stopping his counter attacks. Soon the second attacker was bruised and bleeding badly all over the half-elf’s arm. On a lucky grab from his free arm, the half-elf managed to maneuver an arm-drag sending the dagger of the fifth attacker into the chest of the fourth. The half-elf let go of his prisoner not able to see the body crumble to the ground. Then from out of nowhere came two globs of green ooze. One landing on each of the two remaining attackers fighting the half-elf who watched as their faces turned to water and fall off. He wasn’t the only one to witness the event. Those who were attacking the bodyguard suddenly stopped and watched as their fellow assailants died in front of them. The fight was over and the remaining attackers fled terrorized.
As the half-elf heard them flee, a beautiful woman with raven black hair, pale skin, and the smell of brimstone manifested in front of him.
“I need you.” was all she said before she clutched his forearm and then disappeared as fast as she appeared.
He felt his arm burning and quickly rolled up his sleeve to see on his arm was a sizzling sigil that looked like a compass with a green arrow. The arrow slowly blinked and pointed to the southeast.
“Hey, fella,” the information broker asked half not really caring, “Are you okay?”
The half-elf looked at his mark another moment before covering it up. “Yes. I’m fine.”
“Could you give me a hand? My dear friend here has been seriously hurt.” The broker said. “I’d like to get her to a cleric or a priest for her to be healed.”
The half-elf turned to see the bodyguard’s arm hanging limp like a dangling rope in the wind. Looking through the “T” shaped opening on her helmet, they could see excruciating pain was painted all over her face but she made no sound. He didn’t know how she could keep her composure through all the agony.
“I vill be okay. Are you okay?” she asked the broker.
“I’m fine, your teachings came in handy.”
“In ozer vords you hid behind me like a frighzened little child,” she said sarcastically knowing he actually helped quite a bit.
“Yep, now let’s get you home,” the broker said with a smile to protect against her barb.
“Ve have ta see vat zat voman vanted first,” she answered, “Plus I zink your apartment has ozer people vatching it oond I’m in no shape for anozer fight.”
“I hate it when you’re right. You know that.” The broker said teasing her back. “Okay then, let’s see where we’re going.”
He pulled out the piece of paper and looked at the address. He thought about where they were, where they were going, and what would be the best way to get to the location.
“Well,” he said to the half-elf, “it appears where we are going is on the other side of the district. My friend, do you think you can make it?”
“Yes.”
“Are we going to that lady’s house?” the half-elf asked.
“Yes, why?” the broker asked trying to get a better look at the hanging arm.
“I’d like to know where my friend got off to,” was the reply.
“Does this hurt?” the broker asked poking the bodyguard’s arm.
“Yes, ouch, quit it.”
“Are you sure?” the broker asked poking in again.
The guard gave the broker a hard glare and said, “Do zat vun more time, I dare you.”
And with a whimsical smile the broker turned and started walking out of the alley as though nothing had happened.
“Vait,” the bodyguard said, “I vant ta try somesing.”
She placed her right hand over the part of her left arm that was broken. A white aura glowed faintly for a few moments and then dissipated.
“Zere,” she said, “Zat should keep it from breaking furzer and cause me less pain. Now let’s go.”
The half-elf was a little less than amazed to see a healing done so quickly in the middle of the street.
“Okay then,” the half-elf said, “off we go.”
