5
The thief went by Woodchuck—not his real name, of course, but a nickname used between fellow thieves. Parn and company moved upstairs to their room to talk privately. They brought food and drinks, which Ghim started in on right away. The room was fairly large, but six people was a tight squeeze.
“There’s an old mansion in the forest about three days east of here,” Woodchuck began, sipping his wine. “The lord of the manor kicked the bucket twenty-five years ago, so it’s been abandoned. But some suspicious people started squatting there a few years ago…right around the time the Academy’s treasures were stolen.”
“They’re not bandits—or at least, if they are they’re some fly-by-night crew and not right with the Guild. So one of my colleagues went to check it out and found something interesting—a dark elf and an ogre standing guard outside. After he watched for a while, a man in a fancy suit of armor came out—with the emblem of Marmo on his chest.”
A shudder ran through the room. Marmo was infamous—and known as the home to dark elves, ogres, and trolls, so that checked out.
“The Dark Island?” Etoh groaned. “Why are they in Alania? Are they plotting something?”
“I don’t know,” Slayn said with a shrug. “But if Emperor Beld is as bad as the rumors say, it could be anything.”
“I heard that he’s trying to conquer Kanon. Is he after Alania, too?” Parn gulped.
“We can only speculate at this point.”
At Slayn’s words, Parn crossed his arms in thought. It was a reasonable assumption that these soldiers could be the advance guard of an invasion force. Maybe Wagnard destroyed the Academy not just because of a personal grudge, but because it would be a threat to Marmo’s attack.
“I think we should check this out,” Parn concluded, crossing his arms.
“Why do we have to stick our noses in this business?” Ghim asked glumly. “Leave it to the Alanian soldiers.”
“No soldiers,” Woodchuck said, shaking his head. “This is valuable information! Think of the rewards we’ll get for bringing back the treasures and thwarting this conspiracy. How much do you think I had to pay the Guild for this sweet piece of intel?”
He didn’t pay anything, Slayn thought, though he didn’t bring it up to the group. “A dark elf and an ogre—sounds dangerous. Dark elves use magic.”
“They’re elves, too,” Ghim muttered.
Deedlit bristled. “Dark elves are wretched, evil creatures who sold their souls to the Devil! They’re nothing like us.”
Elves like Deedlit despised dark elves. Legend said that, as their name implied, dark elves had made a pact to serve the Dark Gods. They fought each other in the ancient battles between Light and Darkness.
For humans, those battles were the stuff of myth, but in Deedlit’s elf clan some elders who’d fought in them still lived. Those elders passed down their memories of the cruelties they’d seen—dark elves killing men and women mercilessly, offering up maidens as sacrifices to the Devil. Siding with the hideous, supernaturally strong ogres, who would eat elves like a snack.
“I’ll show you how different we are,” huffed Deedlit.
“I think…” Parn turned to Slayn, looking thoughtful. “I think we should handle this ourselves. I doubt the Alanian mercenaries will believe us without proof. And we don’t want to cause a panic by spreading rumors about dark elves and ogres.”
“R-right,” Woodchuck squeaked.
“I see we have little choice,” Slayn sighed. “We’ll go with Parn. The chance of regaining the Academy’s treasures is worth it…and we can’t let dark elves and ogres roam the countryside, either.”
“I’m in,” Ghim said simply. “I’ll lop that dark elf’s head off myself. Dwarves don’t like dark elves, either.” He flexed his thick arms at Deedlit, who seemed offended for a moment before realizing he was just teasing. She returned a tentative smile.
“That’s the spirit—you’ll all do great!” Woodchuck yelled with a grin. “And I’ll help, of course. I’m pretty handy with a dagger, after all.”
Slayn could imagine—he knew that the biggest thing to fear from a thief was a stab in the back in the dark. His old friend had been a fierce warrior, but had been killed before he could even respond.
“You can have half the reward. Does that sound fair to you?” Parn tried to sound savvy and dignified.
“Sounds great,” Woodchuck nodded in gratitude, and smiled thinly. Slayn couldn’t help but see it as a sickening leer.
He stood to get ready, and resolved to always stay at the back of the group. Better to keep an eye on things, after all.
With their new additions, the group settled their bill at the Crystal Forest and made it to the outskirts of Allan by the afternoon. The east road wasn’t as crowded as the one that ran north-south, since the only destination this way was the fishing village of Margus. The only other traffic was the occasional wagon that passed them by, reeking of fish.
They hiked at a comfortable pace, led by Parn and Deedlit. Ghim followed behind them, Woodchuck walked with Etoh for some reason or other, and Slayn trudged along at the back, always with an eye on the thief ahead of him.
It’s getting hot out here, he thought, pulling his hood low over his eyes to block out the blazing early-summer sun.
The group continued that way for two full days and reached the edge of the forest on the third.
“Here we are,” Woodchuck gestured at a trail leading into the forest. “This takes us to the mansion.”
“How long to get there?” Parn asked.
“About an hour.”
“What a weird place for a house,” Deedlit murmured, looking wistfully at the trees.
“Well, I didn’t build it,” Woodchuck replied.
“We’ll have to be careful from here on,” Slayn said, his voice muffled under his robe. The sun was at its highest, and his face was completely in shadow.
“Yeah,” Parn replied with a grimace. “Let’s get going.”
Deedlit happily agreed.
They walked single file through the forest, with Parn leading the way and stamping down the path so the rest could follow easily. The forest teemed with life, and the smell of leaves refreshed them all—well, except one. Slayn slid on the dew-damp ground, and his rope kept snagging on branches and was starting to fray—a real problem, since there was no longer any place to buy Philosopher’s Rope in Allan.
As they got closer to the mansion, they slowed down to move as quietly as possible. Even so, the metal of Parn and Etoh’s armor jangled.
Ghim had bragged earlier that the mithril armor he wore didn’t clank the way ordinary armor did. Deedlit also wore armor over her clothes, but though it appeared metal at first, it was actually tanned leather. It had been dyed purple with wild grapes and was etched with a beautiful pattern.
Finally, a huge mansion came into view. They hid in the underbrush and peered out at the entrance.
The most obvious thing before them was the huge, man-eating ogre guarding the door. The other guard, the dark elf, was half its height—but the evil glint in his eye was unmistakable. The ogre held a giant club, the dark elf, a spear.
“What should we do?” Parn murmured to his companions. The view was limited from their hiding place, but if they crept forward to learn more, they’d be discovered immediately. “Bow and sling?”
“It didn’t work when we tried it on the goblins,” Etoh replied, wincing at the memory. “There’s no way we’ll knock out foes like these.”
“Then what?” Parn snapped, unhappy to be reminded.
“Magic won’t work,” Slayn said. “Dark elves are resistant.”
“In exchange for selling their souls to the Devil,” Deedlit reminded them, words dripping with contempt. She drew her rapier from its sheath and felt for the throwing knife in her shoulder armor—coated in paralytic poison. Ghim unstrapped the battle axe from his back.
“I think…I have a way,” Slayn whispered.
“Let’s hear it,” Parn encouraged.
“A spell that acts on an individual won’t work on a dark elf. But I can use magic to direct their attention elsewhere.”
“An illusion,” Deedlit smiled.
“Yes, except only sound. If either guard leaves their post, we won’t have to deal with both at once, and we should be able to take one down without their raising the alarm.”
“What if they both leave?”
Slayn shrugged at Parn’s question. “Then we’ll sneak right in.”
“No doubt,” Ghim quietly chuckled, his beard shaking.
Slayn focused on the thicket opposite them. He whispered a spell, made a complicated gesture with one hand—and gave the underbrush in front of him a violent shake.
“Slayn!” Parn shouted in surprise—but Parn’s voice and the rustling didn’t sound from their hiding place. Instead, it could be heard coming from the thicket Slayn was staring at across the way. The two guards both turned to look, then the dark elf gave the ogre a brief command in a strange language. The ogre nodded and picked up its club while the dark elf grabbed his spear and glided away toward the sound.
“Wow, that’s convenient. You’ll have to teach me sometime,” Woodchuck said with a smirk. “That would be a really handy trick for breaking and entering.”
“On my signal—” Slayn started to say, but Deedlit was already on the move. She looked back at Parn, threw him a wink, then ran cat-like for the entrance. Parn stood frozen for a moment, shocked by her daring.
“Gentle forest spirits, that ogre is my friend,” Deedlit whispered as she ran—a spell in a different tongue from Slayn’s ancient language. The ogre opened its mouth to roar, but the moment the spell was complete, it froze, slack-jawed and blank.
To the creature’s mind, everything was normal—except that Deedlit was its dear friend. She seemed much more soothing than the dark elf, who constantly barked orders.
The ogre was twice Deedlit’s size, bulging with misshapen flesh, and wore only a ragged loincloth over its clay-covered skin. Its sharp fangs and disfigured nose repulsed Deedlit. “Bark,” she mumbled—“ugly” in Elvish. Then, she charged, speeding even faster toward the monster with her rapier aimed squarely at its heart.
The monster stared blankly at her as the blade sank deep into its chest. At that moment, the ogre finally recognized her as an enemy, but it was too late—Deedlit used all her body weight to yank her blade from the ogre’s body. Dark red blood gushed from the wound as it lurched forward. Deedlit jumped away to avoid being splashed and turned to follow the dark elf.
“Deed, look out!” Parn’s warning snapped her attention back, and she jumped on pure reflex. Beneath her, the dying ogre swung its thick arm, nearly hitting her. The monster thrashed and tried to regain its feet—if it had hit her it could have done serious damage. Bloody foam bubbled from its mouth whenever it opened, struggling to cry out.
Deedlit felt cold sweat run down her back, and her delicate frame shuddered like a branch in the wind. She couldn’t deal the final blow.