The Exodus Sagas: Book I - Of Spiders And Falcons (44 page)

The air warmed and the outskirts of vision blurred with a fog that came from nowhere in midday. Kendari’s heart rate moved faster against his will and a smell of perfume mixed with decay dampened the area. He knew this aroma all too well, its danger, its meaning, and its face,
her face
. The shadow of the willow in front of him crackled with a sizzling noise and splintered the very air as a pale skinned woman appeared in full motion toward him, her dull black feathered wings tucked behind her shoulders. Her hair was long and black, darker than the deepest shadows. Her eyes glowing crimson to match her lips, and her skin a pale white adorned with elegant designs and brands of a long lost and infernal language. Barely clothed in black leather garments and bare feet, her fanged mouth smiled with an otherworldly beauty and foul intention that was followed by two well placed attacks with the black curved and serrated longblades aflame in each hand.

The Nadderi elf parried them both, backing up slightly, and countered with a spinning reverse cut from his left hand, meant to draw her guard high. As she parried, he plunged Shiver into her belly. The sizzling of flesh and sound of metal through skin echoed in the concealed forest. Both froze for a moment, parries and blows standing still, and their eyes met. “
Seriously
, Kendari? That was a little premature after
so
many years, was it not?” her voice had power, sounding like a cacophony of dark seductive whispers in a cemetery. She stepped back two steps, the wound dripping deep red and black blood to her groin and thighs, and then closing as if it had never been. “I expect more from the deadliest swordsman alive,
more foreplay
if you will.” her laughter was deafening, sinister, and alluring, not to mention intimidating.

“
Nareene
, whore spawn of Vasentanessa. I had hoped you had forgotten me by now. You must be bored in hell indeed.” the elven killer stepped forward, prepared to give another lesson should this temptress require.

“That was less than polite, cursed one. Nareene,
high priestess to Cancuru
, lady of promises, mistress of pleasures, and no longer associated with my old mortal worships, Kendari. You know these things, with all the things we have shared….
all the nights
…surely you think better of me than that.” Nareene’s laughter again cascaded from some foul place far from the mortal worlds and spread poison on the wind. Her blades glowed red with hellish magicks, the small fangs she bit into her own curled lip produced the same color onto her chin.

“A thousand apologies
priestess
, but I am busy on the hunt and have little time for what you call,
foreplay
.” Kendari lowered his guard, but slightly, as this demoness had shown an explosive temper in centuries past. He remembered his first meetings with her, shortly after his sentencing by the Order of the Whitemoon, after they placed the thorn of the Nadderi inside his abdomen for his crimes. She had come at a moment of weakness and hate, promising all his vengeances to be redeemed upon his former kin. She had come in many guises, pretending to be mortal and in love with him, with many gifts, including Shiver, his enchanted longsword. Nareene had guided him to killing many swordmasters and famous warriors early in his curse, then began simply pushing for him to kill for little reason at all, praising him every few decades, then every few centuries.

“I know what you are hunting, and what you
want
to hunt. Or should I say,
who
you want?”

“Why are you here? To distract me? You must be busy with what you do, luring the desperate to live and serve and kill for you. I am busy, and I send your master many that I am sure
belong
in hell. Why are you here Nareene?” Kendari put his blades away in their scabbards and began to proceed on picking up the trail again.

The temptress blinked and her weapons vanished with a wisp of red fog. “You got my attention a few days ago my love, killing that esteemed and venerable priest in the Temple of Golden Mercy, pinned down and outnumbered in your old age, yet still with a zeal for blood to match my own.” she slowly closed her eyes as he passed, appearing in front of him again with her simple willpower, her cold hand caressing his face.

The cursed elf batted it away with his hand and walked around the temptress, annoyed at her games. “Sometimes a person is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and gets to meet their maker a bit
earlier
than expected, demon. Try not to read much into it.”

“I have a favor
lover
.”

“Have I not done enough, killed enough for our little
bargain
all those years ago?” his frustration rising and his mind desperately trying to think of how to be rid of her. He knew from past experience, that he could
not
kill her, he had tried. His blades had butchered and outmatched her before. She would disappear and be back the next night, and not near as pleasant in her negotiations.

“You are heading to a sacred temple near here and a few of my superiors would like to see you desecrate it and use your talents on
all
who dwell inside.” again, Nareene appeared beside Kendari, rubbing her hand on his arm and shoulder, whispering into his pointed ear.

“Are you saying the satyr and the wild elf are at a temple of the
Whitemoon
? If that is the case, you need not push me to exact a toll on them should I find it.” his pace quickened, trying to keep distance from her whispers and charms.

“They are already there, and you know once you are spotted, it will seal quickly. Your employer, the mortal one anyway, will get his treasures soon enough by your hands. Do this for
me
? Please Kendari, I have so many that would be pleased to see that temple covered in the blood of the fey, you have
no
idea.” her fanged smile, her otherworldly beauty, and the lust tipped voice of this temptress could make almost any man beg for her favor,
almost
any man.

“Your offer? You realize I have a scroll to find as well.”

“A blade of equal power to Shiver, yet poisonous and corrupt, or mesh armor from the netherworld mines, or perhaps…I could capture that
elven
woman you failed to kill in the west, she may be quite a prize to keep you entertained.” Nareene smiled and laughed again, twirling around like a young girl dancing in the snow. “I know you
long
for her, I felt it when you saw her, and smelled it when you were crossing blades with her. What a
dream
Kendari. The age’s old cursed elf, and the young deposed princess from the most noble of elven kingdoms, how
precious
.”

The swords drew from their scabbards once more in a flash of anger and the Nadderi elf stepped around to face her. Hers were there as well, before he could attack, red fog simmering into hellish metal from her hands as she weaved her defense. His heated blade cut toward her face while his off hand reversed cut close across her thighs, slicing deep into her immortal flesh. His posture was too low, too quick, and her infernal foot kicked him square in the chest, sending him tumbling over backwards. Kendari was up on his feet in a moment, ready for the next assault, but his enemy was not to be seen, only heard in distant whispers.

“Remember who owns you, Kendari of Stillwood, remember who has your little soul locked away for the future. Do as I ask of thee, and it may be yet another century before I call on you…..”

The voice faded, the strange shadows and fogs dispersed back to some other place, and the sounds of the world and forest began to stir again. The swordsman sheathed his weapons and breathed in and out the unpolluted air, feeling his heart return to a semblance of his own. He felt the hopelessness of it all, like he had so many times before with this demon he had bargained with after his curse took effect. There was no escape from her, not ever, and he was given little compared to what he would have to offer in the end. He had not seen it then, but now, for Kendari, fear of dying had a most foreboding connotation and worry wrapped to it. The trail was fresh, small hoof prints again gave it away, and the Nadderi killer headed northeast after his prey.

Thoughts of the elven noble, Shinayne, crept in his mind like spiders moving slowly down their own web. Her golden curls and skin, her aqua and silver eyes, and the way she moved in swordplay, all clouded the crisp focus that Kendari held in his hunt. The cursed elf smiled, hoping to have the chance, no, the
pleasure
, of gazing upon her beauty again. And then he would kill her.

Kaya I:II

Eastern Rural Trails, Chazzrynn

Her black steed was tired from two days of travel with little rest, its legs stiffening from the cold Chazzrynn winds that had picked up after the snowfall. Kaya T’Vellon pushed the horse onward, through old trails rarely used even in warm weather months. The main roads would be well traveled by knights of Southwind, agents of the White Spider looking for a mark, and soldiers of King Mikhail to bring her in for treason. The small trade roads of lesser merchants and dwarves of Boraduum were treacherous in the heavy snow, but it was a risk she had to take to reach Valhirst alive. Surely, her brother Alexei, Lord of Southwind, had uncovered the broken warlock mirror and the priest that had been watching and recording her movements was too well guarded to silence. The walls of deceit had closed in around her, and now all that was left was to seek Prince Johnas in the emerald city and hope for benevolence and mercy.

Kaya had been in the service of Johnas Valhera since she was a young girl, starting with little bits of information gathering, then to secret travels for this or that, and finally in the last decade, one of his best and most dependable blades. Her position of shared lordship helped, as well as her beauty and seductive nature. Many an ambassador never returned to their kingdom from a night’s pleasure with the lady of Southwind Keep. Many a young soldier or knight found the same fate, had they seen or known too much for her to let them survive. Now a few loose ends had forced her to leave all she knew, to flee in the face of certain death or capture should she have tried to talk her way through her own webs in the west. The church of Alden would see the truth, and the priests had ways of revealing it in prayers, something the spy could not contend with. Even as one of the Emerald Eight of the White Spider, known in secret as Jade of the West, Kaya had little choice but to flee.

Her gaze was squinted by the snow and wind coming at such a forceful angle, her mount bucking at the gestures of it’s rider to continue on. The trees moaned, swaying from the harsh winds and weight of ice and white blankets of snow upon their branches. She thought of staying a night in the small town of South Darmoun, south of Addisonia, as the two days left to Valhirst may kill her steed and leave her stranded. Hopefully no one would look for her in a small temple village of farmers. Her eye caught a caravan, its wagon facing the west, meaning it was returning from Valhirst, snow piled inches atop of it. It had been still for some hours, the horses lay dead and partly buried in the drifts. The lady spy noticed two small sets of footprints, perhaps children, heading south toward the main road in deep snow. They looked recent and fresh. Kaya drew her shortblade, and pulled her small steel shield from her back. The horse stopped and she saw the red blood mixed in the snow by the rear of the wagon as she peered around and dismounted. An ogre, cut in half, entrails frosted over with drifting flakes, and two humans, a man and a woman also cut apart in the same manner, their bodies face down. She had never seen an ogre, yellow skinned and tusked brutes over ten feet tall, cut in half by
anything
. Her eyes looked for tracks, for a sign of what recently did this, and where it went.

The snow wisped around her high leather boots, filling in the tracks she left as she rounded the caravan. Cautiously, sword out and shield up, Lady T’Vellon crept round the rear of the wagon near the butchered bodies. She poked her head inside the rear flap, noticing the blood spray that covered the white cloth that was torn and cut, likely from a sword. Her mind raced of bandits, a rival ogre tribe, perhaps a giant from the Bori mountains that may have been the murderer of a family and an ogre that had cut into the wooden carriage. Her eyes were met, inches away, by another set of eyes, dark, black like the night. The breath came hot and heavy from its nostrils, its horns curved round its brow and nearly touched, and shadowy light from the gray winter sky illuminated the kneeling minotaur with a greatsword the size of the lady herself, covered in blood.

Her first step back was met with a rush of muscle, brown hide and horns as the beast emerged from the wagon. Kaya turned to her left, continuing her backpedal, and watched the horned killer turn round to face her. It stood half a foot taller than the gray one in Southwind, Saberrak, and had a look far more terrifying and bestial. Scars covered half the creatures face, claws and blade cuts scattered across the chest and arms were adorned with tattoos to define them. It’s greaves and shoulder plates of bronze had spikes and blades with various etchings of skulls and horns, and even his giant blade carried a string of fangs and teeth from the pommel.

The lady spy sidestepped close to a grouping of trees to use as obstacles and cover from the beast and eyed her vial of minkshadow she had stolen from an agent of the White Spider named Farrigus long ago. If need be, she could draw it off her belt and spill it to release a cloud of thick, nauseating black mist that would give her a head start to mount her stallion and escape. The dark brown horned terror charged at the trees, his horns lowered, but eyes fixed on the woman. The edge of its blade cut halfway through a young willow about as thick as herself, followed by it snapping from the impact of hundreds of pounds of minotaur. The willow began to fall, leaving a stump about four feet in height between her and the bloodied blade that had killed the others. Kaya stepped to the left again, keeping close to the trees, her shield deflecting a one handed swing from the beast. His steps slowed, cautious and calculated, placing both hands on the grip of the greatsword, his nostrils issuing several feet of steam with each breath.