"Darkness in Nachtig" by Travis W. Herring

It is a cold night in Nachtig. A dark figure crouches atop the Foundry, clutching her cloak tightly about her. The wind gusts, sending the gray cloak swirling about her. White hair becomes a momentary blizzard about her face, obscuring her vision. She pulls it aside without seeming to realize she is doing it. Below, the merchant caravan she has been tracking for six months rumbles through the streets, her target still locked within its reinforced chest. It is guarded by sixteen men-at-arms and one portly sergeant. She has been patient. Tonight, she ends the wait.

How the merchant who owns the caravan managed to get ahold of the object she has been hunting, she does not know. The carriage containing the overweight fellow glows warm in the night, heated from within by fire-warmed coals, kept within a box beneath the seat. In the night, it offers a warm light to her heat-sensitive eyes. Candlelight spills through the closed curtains of the ornate vehicle ever time it hits an unworn cobble in the street below. The sounds of high-pitched feminine laughter can be heard even at her height.

Forcibly removing the image of her favorite crumpled against the marble wall of her throne room from her mind’s eye, she estimates the abilities of the sixteen men below. They are cold, their hands wrapped in cloth gloves that have worn through with years of service. Heavy cloaks thin with age and sleeping on the side of the Empire’s roads encase their cold bodies. The trip from I’bearn was a quiet one. They are overconfident, ready for rest in a warm tavern somewhere ahead.

As she stands, she releases the clasp that holds her long cloak closed about her, letting the chill winds reach in and caress her cramped muscles. The cloak falls to the stone roof, exposing the pale white leathers she is known for. The high boots, mid-thigh skirt, and split shirt she wears is a trademark of sorts, worn by every Furiekin to carry a blade and take the oath. Others of her kind wear darker variants. Her leathers are stark white, a bright counterpoint to her chocolate-gray skin. Queen of the Furiekin, she stands, goose bumps rising on exposed skin. The sudden burst of chill makes her lips split into a frozen grin, the death mask she is known to show those who get in her way.

Before she can cool too much, she launches herself into the space before her, four stories above the guards below.

Bedar is coled. It has been a long march with this fat merchant. Seven chests lie in two small wagons, trailing behind the merchant’s black carriage. Inside their wooden confines lies who-knows-what, and he really doesn’t care. The fat man seems to think they’re important enough tow warrant sixteen experienced mercenaries, so they must have great value. At least, to someone who cares.

He has not bothered to ask. The taciturn merchant is bothersome enough to deal with without the hired help asking him pointless questions. Someone else wants the chest, Bedar figures. Reason enough to want a few good swords at your side. But why sixteen? The fall was quiet enough, the roads safe for travelers and merchants alike. There has been no reports of banditry on the road from I’bearn to Nachtig.

Maybe the person who wants them is rich and powerful enough to demand such protection, even when it is obviously not needed. Bedar shakes his head. Again, who cares? Whatever it is, he will not know or care about it past the moment when he receives the pouch of gold waiting for him at the tavern where they stop.

Of course, he considers, if that much protection was requested, then maybe something that dangerous is inside those chests? The merchant DID say something about magical wards against anyone opening them…

"Just hope I’m wrong," he mutters to himself, rubbing his hands together again. His thin gloves have just about had it after this trip. Time for a new pair once the pay comes through.

A man screams behind him, the agonizing cry of someone pierced through in a place he cannot reach. Bedar spins about, whipping his blade from its scabbard with easy practice and holding it before him. A dark shadow flits from the cloudy sky above, darting across the wagons at an angle impossible to reach with his blade. The wounded man lies quietly in the snow behind him.

There has been no sound, beyond that of the wagons’ creaks and one man’s death cry.

Another scream rises from the other side of the rearmost wagon, the shadowed figure touching ground at the same time. Bedar hears the fat merchant’s heavy breathing even before he shoves his head out the decorated curtains.

"What is happening?!"

"Assassin!" a guardsman cries from the far side of Bedar’s wagon. His shout ends in a gurgle as his throat suddenly sprouts a long, silver knife blade. A short distance away, Bedar can see the dark figure clad solely in white, long matching hair floating about her face in a breeze that is not there. Before he can contemplate what or who she might be, she has twisted about and is gone again, leaping up and over the middle wagon, to land on the guard posted behind him.

All around, men are shouting. Swords crash into the wood of the wagons, swung in desperation at the flying assassin. Bedar watches her land, her movements a dangerously supple dance. The guard she lands upon has a broken rib or more, his breath crushed out of his body by the impact of thigh-high booted feet. He falls to the snowy ground, gasping for breath and grabbing at his chest. She bounces off and lands lightly, as if he were nothing more than a bug she just stepped on.

For a moment then, their eyes meet. Bedar sees a beautiful dark-skinned face, gray eyes looking back at him from beneath pale white eyebrows. Slender features accent the dark skin, complimenting the pale outfit she wears. She is death incarnate. Beautiful, but the last thing anyone should ever see face to face.

"Leave," she says suddenly. Her voice has a lilting quality. Like a bird, Bedar thinks almost absently. And then, the tableau is broken.

A guardsman has taken advantage of her distraction and chanced a swing at her unprotected back. She twists about, dropping to her knees as she draws a long, slender blade so thin as to make Bedar it cannot kill a man. When she plunges it straight through her attacker’s heart, he knows better. The assailant dies without a further sound, falling heavily to the snowy cobbles.

"Quickly!" the merchant cries, startling Bedar into motion. "Rally and kill her! Drivers! Away from here! Leave the guards! Men! Stop her or lose your pay!"

The street fills with the sudden noise of horses urged into action by their drivers. There is no need to tell them twice. While the shadow has ignored them thus far, the merchant has just made them tempting targets. One of them cries out as she leaps up and over his wagon, falling back into the rear with a broken neck. The driver of the last wagon utters of shout of unmitigated terror and dives out of his seat onto the snowy cobbles, rather than face her. Without apparently feeling it, he is up and running as fast as his legs can pump, into the dark streets of Nachtig.

"Amazing," Bedar mutters, lowering his sword to stare in awe at her deadly dance.

Two more guards fall, one to a knife in his heart, the other to a quick swipe of her long, slender blade across his neck. Only four remain standing, and Bedar is one of them. The carriage and its single remaining wagon are beginning to get away.

The Elf woman lands ten feet away from him and raises her weapon to point at him. "Leave," she says once again. She stands with a foot on the driver’s seat of one wagon, looking down her blade at him. The wagons are coming to a stop, the frightened horses calming as the fighting dies down. "You need not die."

In the half-light cast by a nearby lantern, the guardsmen can fully make out her leathers. "Pirotess!" one of them cries fearfully. "Gods curse us all! Pirotess!" Without a further word, he turns and flees, drawing two more and leaving Bedar to stare at her.

"Go," she commands, glaring at him. "Or die. It is your choice." She glances down at the chests she has fought for. Her deathshead grin is beginning to fade as the adrenaline of mortal combat dies. Behind her, twelve men lie bleeding their life’s blood into the snow.

Bedar cannot move. The fat merchant and his single remaining wagon are gone into the night, the sound of the horses’ metalshod hooves on the cobbles fading into the night.

"You are beautiful," he says softly, terrified but amazed at the same time. For all the ferocity she has shown, there is something about her that draws him. Her beauty is cold. Cold as the night, he thinks. Her eyes are colder. She must be freezing, now that he stops to think about it. Only the adrenaline of battle has kept her going this long. She is not wearing enough to keep a sane person warm on a night as cold as this one.

Without thinking, he removes his cloak and offers it to her. "You must be freezing."

A true smile appears on the woman’s face. Bedar is momentarily stunned by this reaction to his words. His outstretched hand continues to offer the cloak, despite his own body beginning to complain with the chill.

"Are you not afraid of me?" she asks, ignoring his offer and kneeling to look at one of the locked chests. "After all, I am who the man said. Those who come close must die."

"Beauty comes in many forms," Bedar says softly. "Some are deadly and some are not. It is all the same however. And you are it."

Pirotess stops to stare at him for a moment, raising a hand to her chin as she reappraises the Human standing before her, his cloak still outstretched in his arm. He must be awestricken, she thinks. Beyond his mind with fear. Still…

"Spoken like a true Furiekin," she says softly. "Go. And do not let me see you again. If I do, you will be at the wrong end of my sword."

Like the smack of cold water on a sleeping man, her words finally reach through his daze. Furiekin. Pirotess. The woman standing before him is the queen of the assassins! He can hear her laughter as he turns and runs away, leaving his cloak on the street behind him.

It is not until he has run as far as his legs will take him that thought returns to his addled mind. "I stood four feet from the queen of the Furiekin and lived! Offered her my cloak!"

Behind him, her laughter pealing off the walls of the cobbled streets of Nachtig, Queen Pirotess of the Furiekin clan of assassins turns back to her search. That enchanted blade should be here somewhere…