El-Vador's Travels (19 page)

Soon
his agents will have the chance to subdue the Elf, then they would
bring him here and he would bask in the glory of his future power.
After that, nothing would stop him.

El-Vador
made ready to depart from the keep, it had been a longer stay than he
had expected but a welcome one all the same. He was refreshed, and
much better equipped to deal with the rigours of the south than he
had been before meeting the strange priest.

He
had made his way through the keep toward the gates and out into the
south when he spotted something oddly amiss.

A
robed figure was hidden in the shadows.

Remembering
his paranoia while bathing, El-Vador tensed up and prepared for the
worst. The would-be assassin did not have eyes for the Elf though,
seemingly concentrated on another priest making his rounds through
the keep. His fears were confirmed by the small knife that glinted
from the outstretched hand of the killer. He had to do something to
prevent this slaughter.

The
knife-wielding figure caught sight of El-Vador then, as if feeling
his gaze upon the cloaks he was swathed in. Without a care for
disrupting his hiding place, the priest sprang at El-Vador with the
weapon raised and prepared to make short work of his foe.

With
no time to draw his blade, El-Vador dove to his right and threw a
punch at the arm holding the knife. Having evaded the first attack
his fist snapped into the attacker's wrist and disarmed them, no help
was forthcoming for either of them. Whoever this killer had been
following had vanished.

The
priest cursed and tried to make an escape but El-Vador was more fleet
of foot, he grabbed a handful of the robe and jerked the priest back
with some force. The killer fell backward inelegantly, sprawling onto
the floor. Before he could move, El-Vador pinned the fallen priest,
removing the cowl so he could see the face of his enemy.

He
found a young woman staring back at him, defiant and angry.

A
female priest? He had not seen a single woman in his entire journey
through the keep. He had not asked Harlven of it, assuming there was
a ruling that only men could receive enlightenment.

His
captive renewed her efforts to escape, and she snarled at El-Vador
through gritted teeth, 'Let me go, whoever you are. You don't know
what it is you're preventing!'

El-Vador
did not smile, he didn't think that this woman meant well if she
planned to kill. 'Who are you?' he demanded, 'why did you try to kill
me?'

'If
you get off me and we return to the shadows I shall tell you, the
priests would frown upon what you are doing here.'

El-Vador
nodded. If the priests caught him atop a young lady screaming for
help they would act first and ask questions later. They returned to
the darkness in which she had previously hidden but left the knife
where it lay, El-Vador drew his sword meaningfully.

'If
you make any attempt to flee I shall cut you down where you stand,
woman or not, understood?'

She
nodded, taking a deep breath and finally noticing El-Vador's strange
features.

'The
priest you just prevented me from attacking has something that
belongs to me.' she said, sounding more irritated than worried by
El-Vador's drawn weapon.

'So
why not ask him for it? Why try and kill him to get it back?'

'He
wasn't just going to hand it over to me, trust me on this.'

'Trust
you?' El-Vador said, 'you just tried to put a dagger in my throat.'

The
woman shrugged. 'I thought you were sent to stop me.'

'No.'
El-Vador said, 'I was about to take my leave of this place when I
spotted you.'

She
didn't look entirely convinced by that explanation. 'If this is no
concern of yours then why not just let me go? What does it matter to
you whether one of these priests dies?'

'It
doesn't matter to me, what concerns me is that you tried to stab me.'

The
woman flung up her arms in frustration, but soon stilled as the Elf's
blade drew closer in response. 'we've been over that already, I
thought you were in league with them, I see that you're not now. I
need to get to that priest before it's too late, please, let me go.'

El-Vador
mused over the situation. The woman was unarmed and she did have a
point, he didn't care if some random priest were to die this day. He
would most likely never see this place again. With that in mind he
bid the woman leave and she took off without further complaint. She
grabbed the dagger from the floor but made no further attempt at
attacking him. Apparently he was not with 'them' and beneath her
consideration as a result.

El-Vador
had just emerged from the shadows when he heard the yell up ahead.
Had be been mistaken? There was no way the woman could have caught up
with the priest that quickly, had she simply been an indiscriminate
killer?

Up
ahead he spotted two priest locked in combat, with two more lying
face down on the floor. One of them had a blade and the other was
doing his best to avoid it.

The
woman ran toward the two fighting men, her own knife held ready to
strike, El-Vador watched the scene unfold before taking any action.
He was not affiliated with any of these parties and simply wanted to
exit the keep without a dagger in his back.

The
priest with the knife mortally wounded the man he was wrestling with
and let him slump to the floor with the others. He then quickly
searched one of the bodies and took off before the woman could reach
him. The woman veered away from the fallen men after the assassin,
but he was already some distance away and if he was as fast as he had
looked then she probably wouldn't catch him.

El-Vador
walked over to the fallen priests now that any danger had passed and
to his dismay he recognised one of them.

Harlven
stared up at him sightlessly as he turned him over.

Though
he had not known the priest for long he was angered by the senseless
loss of the man. He had treated him well and offered his hospitality
and he doubted that his killer had any good reason for doing so.

The
young Elf stood now, his anger coming unbidden and bubbling over.
Harlven had been the closest thing he had to a friend since his
departure from the desolation of his former home. It was as if he was
reliving the slaughter once more. Whoever did this to the priest was
going to pay, of that he was sure.

He
broke out into a sprint after both the woman and the assassin, his
new leather shoes gaining great purchase as they pounded across the
stone floor. The killer may have been fleet but El-Vador was of a
different kin altogether, these humans were slow and cumbersome in
comparison to his lithe Elven limbs. He knew there was only one way
out of the keep and he closed in on it at a great pace.

Of
the assassin there was no sign, El-Vador had made it through the gate
and out into the snowy wastes and still he could not discern the
direction of the man. Had he taken some other route and not left the
keep yet? Surely he would not choose to remain in such a place with
the woman also on his tail? Or had he ended the woman as he had
Harlven and the other priests and simply hidden himself in the
darkness? No, the priests would root him out eventually if he were to
do that, if El-Vador had been in the man's shoes he would depart from
this place as soon as possible. It would seem that he had beaten his
quarry to the gate.

He
settled himself in the drift outside of the gate. Whoever departed
the keep would do so before the murders had been discovered so as not
to arouse any suspicion from the guards. All he need do was maintain
sight of the gate and ambush the one hurried departure from this
place.

His
guesswork paid off but moments later as a solitary figure dressed in
robes approached El-Vador's hiding place. It was almost too easy.

He
picked his sword up from the rock against which it leaned. He could
have easily dispatched the man with the bow but first he wanted to
know why he had killed Harlven.

He
slipped from the boulder upon which he had perched and gathered his
energies to spring forth and surprise his opponent.

El-Vador
finally leaped from concealment and brandished his sword, ready to
behead the cowled figure. 'Relinquish your weapons, assassin. Lest I
strike you down where you stand.'

The
robed figure raised its hands in submission, though it didn't remove
any weapons it had concealed. 'You idiot!' it spoke in a familiar
voice. 'you've got the wrong person!'

El-Vador
knew he had got it wrong even before the figure pulled down the hood
of its cloak.

It
was that damn woman again, looking disgusted that El-Vador had
waylaid her once more.

'You.'
he remarked simply, his distaste evident.

'What
are you doing here?' she hissed.

'I
told you that I was leaving the keep. Is this not outside the keep?
The assassin you were trailing murdered one of my friends and most
likely wanted to kill me too, looks like we're both after him now.'

She
looked confused at that, possibly wondering the same thing that
El-Vador had before. Why would anyone want to kill him?

'I
fear that we will never find Anacletus. He is like the shadows,
almost impossible to track and even harder to find.'

Now
he had a name, names were power when used properly. 'Anacletus, you
said?'

She
shook her head, as if she had just realized she had spoken too much.

El-Vador
raised his blade again. 'tell me what you know or I shall run you
through.'

She
sighed, as if disappointed in the threat of violence. 'two pairs of
eyes may well discover him faster than one. There is no harm in me
telling you of him.'

He
waited patiently for her to speak again, in no mood to make good on
his threat.

'I
am known as Eihblin. I come from a region far from here yet the name
of Anacletus is known to us. He is a servant of a dark power that
resides in a fortress not too distant from here.'

'This
dark power you speak of has no name?' El-Vador asked.

'We
know not its name, merely of the horrifying rumours of the place.'
Eihblin replied. 'Anacletus killed my father and stole an heirloom of
great value to us. I tracked him to this keep to recover it.'

'Have
you any idea why Anacletus would surround himself with these
priests?'

She
shook her head. 'his actions confuse me, there is little to be gained
from here.'

'Why
then have you not gone to this fortress?' El-Vador asked. 'this
Anacletus is bound to return there to his master at some point.'

'The
fortress is said to be impenetrable unless one is allowed inside. I
had no reason to go there, unless I planned to destroy the dark power
within by demanding entrance after acquiring my heirloom from
Anacletus' corpse.'

El-Vador
did not like the sound of such a plan, he would be satisfied with
merely taking this assassin out and leaving whatever dark power was
there alone.

'It
would seem that if the trail is cold then the only place you know
this Anacletus will return to is the fortress.'

Her
face hardened. 'that is where he sets out for now, I do not know why
he detoured at the keep.'

'It
sounds as if we must take out both Anacletus and the dark power that
he serves, you cannot do such a thing alone, but perhaps together...'

She
looked at him distrustfully but El-Vador knew that she had no choice.

'You
make a sound point, stranger. We shall travel together for a time and
then part once the heirloom has been recovered.'

'I
am called El-Vador, not stranger. Let's hunt this fool down and put
and end to him.'

With
that uneasy pact formed, they started down the side of the mountain
and out into the open tundra.

The world is fraught with fragile alliances, with those who seem
neither well-intentioned nor entirely malevolent with regards to your
well-being. The art of diplomacy was one skill that I never entirely
mastered and in my early days any alliances I forged were fractious
at best and combustible at worst.

I
t
was a barren place that she had strayed into, blanketed by snow and
harsh sunlight that stung her eyes yet offered no warmth. A faint
path had been trudged through the white tundra and offered her a
vague direction in which to proceed, little else told of any
civilised creatures in these parts.

Phaedra
trudged through it all, impervious to the cold if not its bite. She
knew she must find the stranger that Sarvacts so reviled before the
Orc could bring about his destruction. A chill was but a minor
complaint when the outcome may be the freeing of what was left of her
people.

As
she rounded a corner she spied a small village ahead, though she was
unsightly she had wrapped herself entirely in a thick cloak so as not
to startle onlookers. Many had considered her more a victim of plague
than a reanimated corpse. Though she had not met anyone who knew of
the name that Sarvacts had spoken of, it was clearly Elven in nature.
That had given her enough direction to begin with but as the lands
opened up she was beginning to lose hope of ever finding this elusive
person. Perhaps the village ahead would provide her with more
information, if not then she may as well trudge back to Sarvacts'
fortress and wait for the captive to be brought to her. A desperate
plan and one she didn't contemplate for long. If she was going to
save this soul for her own ends, she needed to find him before her
former master's forces did.

Anacletus
silently swept through the lands with great haste. He had left the
keep in a great hurry, and the lack of provisions were beginning to
take their toll on his journey. Though the assassin was no stranger
to hunger he knew that his strength may fail him before his pursuer
had ceased giving chase. Long had he tried to evade this one and
still she clung on to his path, in spite of this he had never found
an opportune time to end her. He knew he must keep her following him
in order to bring the Elf to Sarvacts, it was a dangerous necessity.