No one paid me any attention save to show me to a table and ask my preference for drink and food. I ordered a Blue Brew and was not surprised when the barmaid handed me the open bottle and a mug.
“Room?” she asked. At my nod, she told me the same number as the boy, gave me directions and left me to drink. The table was barely big enough for the mug so I wasn’t going to share my space with anyone else. The room was packed, noisy and smelled of unwashed sweaty males.
The captains were easy to spot, they all wore those funny pointed caps with gold braid and every one of them carried swords and knives. I saw one or three battle axes on figures straight out of Viking sagas. Several of them eyed me, one approached, a disreputable man with gold hooks in his ears and pale lavender eyes. He was taller than I and with long arms and scarred hands.
“You’re a Dark Elf,” he said and smiled slowly. “Far from your home, aren’t you?”
“This is your business because?” I asked quietly.
“Because there are a few local lords who’ve put a standing bounty on Dark Elves, sirrah.”
“And you think you are the one to collect on it?” I eased my leaf dagger out of its sheath.
“Hell no,” he grinned. “I sail ships, not fight for slaves. I could use a ...man like you on board my ship.”
“No.” I finished my ale and stood up, the dagger still hidden in my palm.
“No? Not even curious? About what the job is?”
For the first time in years, I felt something besides fear, terror and pain. I was so amazed that I took it out and examined it. Yup, it was annoyance. I debated with myself whether that was sufficient case to kill him and decided it was not. I turned my back on him and went up the stairs to the room. His eyes remained on my back until I was out of sight.
The room was second from the end of the hallway and on the left. There were two ways out; either end of the hall led to staircases and the room had several windows with easy access to the roof should I need it.
It was a box with a bed, dresser, dry sink, pump spigot, water closet and nothing else. Clean, the bed was thick, piled with comforters and a plump pillow. I put my bedroll on the floor by the windows and unrolled it, that would be my sleeping area. My body and bones had not known softness since the day my Master had re-birthed me. Since I had died, I could not tolerate anything else but hard floors or dirt.
Slowly, in almost a ritual, I took off my clothing and stood in the water closet to wash. What I saw of my body was what I remembered of it, tall, cleanly made with long arms and legs. Fine, graceful hands, muscles hard and as tough as bull-hide. Scarred with whip marks on my back, shoulders buttocks and belly, knots where muscles and tendons had been stretched to the limit and beyond. Craters and knots on the bones where his cane had left its message. I touched my cheek where the hawk had torn it and gently scrubbed the blood off to reveal a shallow rip that would heal without much of a scar. The Master generally never hit me in the face, he said he did not like to look at ugly things and my eyes were so uniquely beautiful in an animal way.
The scar on my belly was white, raised and sometimes, still hurt. I closed my hands and squeezed the water from the washrag. My fingers protested, they too had been broken and healed by the Master.
I looked into the mirror. Saw the face of a man in his late teens, early twenties. He had dark eyebrows over deep-set yellow eyes like a wolf, a still, quiet face that was dangerous and dark hair kept short so that it would not curl. Small neat ears laid close to his skull and grim lips, clearly not meant for smiling. A dimpled chin that hinted at weakness for being too pretty. I did not smile, not even when I was alone, it was as if my face had forgotten how. I felt frozen most of the time, anyway. In my eyes, I saw a broken abused creature, a tortured soul without hope, memories or a past.
As I stared, my image wavered and the Master’s appeared. He looked back at me, studied my body and I covered myself with the washcloth and then dropped my hand to my side. I had no longer any secrets from my Master, he knew every inch of this body and what parts of it were the most vulnerable to pain. I dropped my eyes to the sink.
“Admiring yourself, Corbel?” he smiled and his hand exited the mirror. It touched me and I kept my instant shiver inside.
“No, Master. Washing off the road dust.”
“You are very beautiful, Corbel. Many a man or woman would pay to do things to this body.”
“Master---.”
“What are you doing here? You were to take passage on The Mercat,” he snapped and instantly, I felt him seize my guts and twist them. I dropped to my knees and hit my chin on the sink. Tasted blood and gasped.
“The tide, Master, she sails on tomorrow’s tide!” The pain eased up and hesitantly, I drew my knees under me.
“Oh get up, for God’s sake,” he said. “The tide. I forgot about sails and tides and winds. Oh, for electric motors and jets.”
“Master?”
“Put some clothes on and go about your business, Corbel,” he snapped. “Eat, drink, sleep. Whatever. Just make sure you’re on that ship tomorrow or you’ll wish I had let you bleed to death in my study.”
“Yes, Master.” I crawled out of the washroom so as to not irritate him further. Laid on my cloak and saddle roll but could not sleep. Stayed awake almost the whole night listening to the noises in the taproom and drunken revelers on the street below.
Dawn brought tea with cream, piping hot. Fluffy eggs, meat strips and scones with butter. Fresh fruit and some kind of poached fish. I was overwhelmed with so much food.
I ate a roll and a spoonful of eggs. Anything else would cause me stomach upset and I would hate to have died because I was caught with my britches down in a bout of diarrhea or vomiting. I did drink the tea and enjoyed the strong taste of the leaves mixed with the rich cream. Master liked tea but complained bitterly over the lack of good coffee, he said it tasted like day old mud.
When I came downstairs, dressed, cloaked and packed, the boy was waiting with my gelding saddled and bridled. I paid him with one of the Master’s coin and his eyes widened as he saw the gold stamped with Amber’s Unicorn.
“Royal gold,” he whispered. “That’s as rare as bloody white moons,” he whispered. “I’ll have to get my dad to make change.” He looked around but the tavern was empty of patrons this early in the morning. “Don’t let anyone see your purse, sir Elf. There are those about here would murder you for half a copper, let alone a purse such as yours.”
He put the reins in my hands and disappeared into the kitchens to have the bartender come out. His father had the look of a blacksmith from the Iron Anvil Range---built like a bull with blonde hair and those strange black eyes with no pupils. The nostrils of his nose marked him as less than pure human, they were slanted like a bull’s. When he spoke, it was in Elvish and I understood only a word or two, mostly curses.
“I don’t speak Elvish, especially those of the Bright Elves,” I returned. Mortal enemies of the Dark Elves.
“You know the language of men?”
“I am half human and was raised close to Amber.”
“You’d best leave as quickly as you can, sir. I have your change and a warning. There are those that will attempt to kidnap you on the way out of town.”
“A certain Captain?” I asked. Perhaps I should have let my annoyance run its course to full blown anger. Master did not care how many I killed or for what reason although I generally did it on his orders and to secure my own safety.
“He sold your whereabouts to others.” He handed me a small purse plumply filled with coins. I looked. A good handful of silvers and a few coppers. “If you take the back alley, it will bypass most of the places of easy ambush. My son said you are for The Mercat?”
“Aye.”
“She sails in twenty minutes. It will take you that long to reach West Harbor.” I mounted and tossed the purse back. He caught it nimbly.
“Thanks.” I left them standing with their mouths hanging.
The horse did not like the back alley, it was dark, close and cats yowled eerily from the rooftops, barrels stacked haphazardly, from the gutters over our heads. The water was close and lapped at the edges of the wharves; it was slippery and the boards under our feet shivered as we passed on them as if the ground would fall away beneath us. If the gelding had to run, I doubted he would keep his hooves under him.
I drew my cape and in the shadows, it shifted to make us nearly invisible. In the darkness, my eyes lightened and became super acute so that I could see almost as well as a wolf.
Four blocks from the Inn, a group of skulkers met me at the corner of the main thoroughfare and the entrance to the harbor. Six men, two city guards and a Bright Elf. His hackles raised as he saw me, his voice loud in Elvish, spitting curses.
I slid my knives from my arm sheaths, dropping the reins onto the saddle pommel, tightened my knees into the knee-rolls. Didn’t wait for them to speak or make the first move, simply kicked the horse into a gallop. As we lunged, the elf bent impossibly fast and tore at my cape snagging the hem. The rest of them I knocked over like a bowling strike. Those left standing, I filleted with double strikes of my blades and then, I was flying through the air on the end of the bullwhip the elf had made of me and my cloak.
I hit the ground rolling as the clasp at my throat tore and left me gagging from the stricture and sudden release. The elf was on me before I was up all the way and slapped the air in front of his hands. I heard a thunderclap and was picked up off my feet and flung, face first into the side of the nearest building. Which happened to be a brick shithouse. I hit with my shoulder, bounced off and came up on the tips of my toes and one hand. The elf ran lightly forward and pulled out a blade much like my own leaf dagger.
We dueled. A dance of death, a ballet of blades that was explosive, deadly and nearly invisible to others watching. He thought we were evenly matched but I was enjoying the dance of death too much to end it with the hundred possible openings he was showing me. He had several shallow cuts that I had teased him with and I had none. After the first spell he had used against me, he was too busy defending himself to try another.
“I have an appointment and I’m going to be late,” I said. “Excuse me, I have to leave.” I ran him through the heart and watched his eyes widen in both pain and despair. Pulled my blade free and leapt over his head to whistle for the horse.
Felt rage take over when I saw him lying on his side, his throat cut and hind legs still quivering. I slaughtered them all and stalked ferociously to the ship, arriving just as they were raising the anchor. The Captain knew who I was and brought me aboard personally as the tide was turning. Showed me to a cabin and asked about my mount, said nothing as I cleaned the blood and gore off my blades.