At the sourthern gates of Nathas

Sotaire Xelus didn’t like anything about today’s events. The castle was stormed by a lone knight on a crusade against the Dark King, Sotaire’s best friend and trusted comrade was murdered in cold blood by the bastard on his righteous rampage, the fool later tried to make excuses to Sotaire’s face and didn’t even have the courage to accept his new position right away, Sotaire got scolded by Lady Vexelda herself, and now a storm was rolling in just as he was making the rounds on the outer walls of the city to make sure security was in top form and nothing like this ever happened again.

Worst of all, Sotaire had just heard by word of mouth that the idiot who charged the castle was now officially the Dark King, recognized by Lady Silquintis herself. The only silver lining was that he’d chosen to make the former princess his advisor and prime minister. Truth be told, Sotaire had always hoped she would become the next Dark Queen, she would make a fine ruler, so this was the only good news he heard. To know that she was at least going to have more say in the empire’s political system than she even had before was slightly comforting, but not comforting enough.

“Hel marith,” Tess, the dark elven woman who had been with Sotaire when he accosted Fate in the castle, got his attention with her dark-elven pet-name for him, “you’re quiet tonight.”

“I know, I’m just upset. If it wasn’t for Lady Vexelda I could have easily cleared my conscience and murdered that bastard when I had the chance. Ritil would have been able to rest in peace then.”

“I don’t think Ritil would have been very happy to hear you say something like that,” Tess countered. “You know how he felt about Vexelda.”

Sotaire definitely knew that much, at least. The guy had the kind of unflinching devotion to the former heir to the Mirewood Duchy that one didn’t see much these days. A blind loyalty that went deeper than just good old-fashioned dark elven patriotism. The crazy bastard Ritil had confided in him at one point that he even dreamed to one day earn her hand in marriage.

Thunder rumbled in the skies south of the castle town, and both Sotaire and Tess peered at the thunderclouds looming in the distance.

“Think that will make it to us?” Tess asked, leaning on the parapet of the outer wall gazing into the sky.

“It does look closer than it was a moment ago,” Sotaire said, then turned to one of the skeletal guards, “prepare for rainfall just in case. Make sure none of the gutters are clogged.”

“Yes…” the guard nodded and walked away briskly to carry out his orders.

Sotaire then came forward and leaned against the same parapet as his fellow dark elf, taking her hand in his and giving it a squeeze.

She flashed him a brief, beautiful smile and continued to gaze out into the conifer forest surrounding the castle town. Another bolt of thunder boomed in the distance.

“Gods, the sky was perfectly clear earlier, where did this storm even come from?” she asked, and it was clear she wasn’t just making conversation. Something about this was definitely strange. “Wait, do you hear that?” she asked suddenly.

Sotaire focused a bit and listened carefully. Then he heard it, something no human ears could have picked up. Galloping horse hooves in the direction of the storm. He had a bad feeling about this.

“Hey!” he shouted for the skeletal guard who had walked away. It turned toward him diligently. “Get some guards down on the ground, someone is coming!”

“Shouldn’t we close the bridge?” Tess asked.

“I don’t know if it’s friend or foe yet, could be someone from Logaliss and they might be on the run from something. Best to find out for sure, first.”

Tess nodded and then shouted an order of her own, “Be ready to draw the bridge just in case!”

Another guard nodded and then shambled over to the pulley, making a gesture to someone across the way to do the same at the other side of the gate.

“Await my signal,” Sotaire commanded.

The clopping of the hooves was getting steadily louder now, he didn’t have to focus to hear it anymore. Whoever it was, they were in a hurry. They were pushing their horse into a full sprint. It could only mean one of two things. Either they were running for their life from something really bad, or they were planning on charging into the city before the guards had time to close the gate. If it were the former, Sotaire thought there would have been a lot more yelling or screaming, perhaps cries for help. And even if that was the case, if it was something that bad, the dark elf didn’t think it was a good idea to just let it waltz right into Nathas, even if it meant the poor bastard running from it was doomed.

It began to rain.

“Raise it! Raise the bridge!” Sotaire commanded.

The guards diligently obeyed, beginning to turn the pulley system and raise the platform.

Just then, amid a flash of thunder, the figure emerged into the clearing in front of the gates. It was someone wearing plate armor atop a white horse. Somehow, even with as little detail as Sotaire could see, the figure looked familiar. As they drew closer, he could see a little more with his elven eyesight, noting armor of Syldon-make over a female frame. That’s when he realized it, she was one of the escorts who brought the Syldon princess.

“Quickly!” he shouted. He felt good knowing he’d made the right choice to raise the bridge early. There was no good reason for a member of the envoy to be coming back here charging like she was going to war unless that was exactly what she was doing.

“The bridge is rising!” Tess shouted and warned the figure. “If you keep coming this way you’ll just fall into the moat!”

She kept riding forward, not even hesitating even though the bridge was clearly pulling upward. She had a determined look on her face, strike that, she looked furious. This lady was absolutely crazy. Sotaire braced himself to watch the crazed knight go tumbling into the moat thirty feet below.

He was not prepared for what happened next.

Thunder boomed on high, and as the lightning created a bright glow to the otherwise darkened night, a green flash surrounded the woman’s legs for a brief moment. The horse skid to a halt right in front of the gate and she did something that Sotaire would never forget. She stood up atop her saddle and leapt into the air toward the raising gate.

“What!?” Sotaire and Tess exclaimed in unison. In spite of the fact that the bridge had to be up at least fifteen feet by now, and the fact that she had been clad in plate armor, she grabbed onto the end of the drawbridge and hoisted herself up and over to the other side just as it was finally closing.

“Damn it! She’s gotten through,” Sotaire rushed to the other side of the battlement. He was briefly optimistic seeing about a dozen fully armed guards on the other side of the gate, their spears at the ready. That was until he saw the woman charge right into the middle of them and witnessed a lightning-fast half-moon of silver flash out in front of her, causing about five skeletal guards to explode into bones and metal all around her.

What had she done just there? Even his elven eyesight wasn’t able to pick up on anything, and the fairly long curved sword she had at her hip was in its scabbard still.

The two dark elves quickly ran down the stairs leading to the ground.

“She must be here to take back her princess,” Tess observed.

“Damn it, go and warn the castle, I’ll see if I can help hold her off, the guards are just going to be fodder for… whatever in the Abyss she’s doing.”

Lightning rumbled again from above as they made their way, and another flash of silver crumbled another four guards. The sound it made was unmistakably a blade ripping through metal armor, but as far as Sotaire could see, the woman’s blade hadn’t even been drawn.

“Be careful hel marith,” Tess replied, and then in dark elven she told him not be a hero like Ritil and to come back to her.

He promised her he would in the same tongue, and they parted ways as soon as they had reached the bottom of the steps. He drew his fizil, a dark elven sword with a curved three-foot blade and a hand-guard. It was a common dueling weapon, a perfect weapon for the esteemed dark elf who held the honorable title of being one of the best duelists in the kingdom. He’d only ever been beaten by Lady Hilda, and even she admitted that was largely due to her inability to feel pain and undead-enhanced strength.

He quickly rushed to put himself in the crazed knight’s path then shouted, “Fall back!”

The remaining undead guards didn’t even shoot him a surprised look as they carried out his order, immediately backing away. And just in time too, from the woman’s stance, hunched slightly forward and with her hand on the hilt of her lengthy weapon, it looked like she was about to unleash an attack that would have taken care of the rest of the guards in her way.

“Knight of Syldon,” Sotaire addressed the woman directly, “you’ve proven your ability to turn our guards into scrap-metal. Surely you want more of a challenge. I am one of the greatest swordsmen in the Dark Kingdoms, a dueling champion, and I am in a really bad mood. If it’s a good fight you seek, you’ll find no better opponent.”

The woman simply glared at Sotaire with haunting green eyes, eyes that were actually glowing now that he was really looking. “I’m here for Her Highness Princess Aria, and I will not hesitate to cut down anyone who gets in my way.”

So, she was after her princess, just as Tess speculated. “That doesn’t sound very honorable of a knight. You Syldonites gave her to us of your own accord, we had a deal. Your presence here could be seen as a declaration of war.”

He’d said this to get a reaction out of the woman, to unsettle her or make her hesitate. Frankly, he would have been satisfied if she had turned tail and ran away given how much carnage she could clearly cause. He didn’t want a repeat of earlier today, he definitely couldn’t stand to lose any more of his comrades. It might have even been Tess this time. He didn’t want to think about what he might have done if he lost her.

But regardless of anything he expected or wanted, the woman’s reaction took him by surprise. It was absolute unfiltered rage he saw in her eyes. She was glaring at him like she was a wild wolf and he’d just killed one of her precious pups.

“You dare speak to me of honor!?” She yelled, and it was hard to tell due to the rain, but Sotaire thought he spied tears at the corners of her eyes. “After what you’ve done!? Don’t make me laugh. No more words, we speak with our blades!”

Well, that was just par for the course today, wasn’t it? Of course, on today of all days Sotaire’s attempt at unbalancing her only seemed to make her even more determined to kill him. He took on his stance and decided to just play the cards he’d been dealt.

A flash of lightning erupted from the sky, marking the start of the duel. She immediately rushed forward with an impressive amount of speed, going from perhaps twenty feet to just a yard away in the blink of an eye, mud scattering in a long trail behind her. She was still in that slightly hunched, legs far apart stance with one hand on her hilt and the other at the mouth of her scabbard, and she looked like she was ready to strike.

Having no idea what to expect, but assuming she was just going for a typical horizontal swing from her scabbard, Sotaire readied his blade in front of himself and prepared for a heavy hit. The blade of her weapon was clearly quite long so it would have quite a bit of momentum behind it.

What he had not planned for was the speed of the attack. Much like her dash toward him, her attack was lightning-fast. Only in that moment did Sotaire realize that the flashes of silver from earlier were her sword strikes, and he wouldn’t have believed the speed with which she could draw, strike, then sheathe such a lengthy blade if he wasn’t currently on the receiving end.

There was a flash of sparks as their blades collided, and thankfully he’d used just the right angle to ensure his arm didn’t completely buckle under the **** of her strike. He saw the blade for only a split second when they collided and recognized it as being of distinctly eastern-kingdom make, very out of place for this woman who otherwise screamed of Syldon. It was like a katana but longer, probably by about a foot, and the speed was perhaps explained by the fact that it was made of mithral. In fact, her armor looked like it was made of the same lightweight but sturdy metal.

He didn’t have the time to ready a counter-attack, her weapon was already sheathed again in the blink of an eye, and she was clearly ready to make another strike. This time her pose was slightly different, and the tilt of her scabbard gave him an indication she was going for a vertical strike this time from the top down. A bold and ordinarily risky attack, but with her speed there wouldn’t be much risk at all for her.

He changed his arm position and adjusted his grip just in time to see a flash of silver from above and watch more sparks erupt as he caught her blade on his thankfully sturdy hand-guard. She had specifically been aiming for that, he realized. Had his weapon been simple steel, she might have been able to punch through the guard like it was nothing. Luckily, the reason he had recognized her blade as being made from mithral was because his weapon was made from the same metal.

After this strike failed, she dashed backward about a foot, her chest heaving and rainwater dripping from her frame, “Your talk of skill with the sword was no hollow boast, I see. I apologize for my harsh words before, but I implore you to stand aside. I will rescue Princess Aria, and it would be a shame for such an excellent swordsman to become a fresh corpse.”

Frankly, Sotaire was feeling confident. The woman had a great deal of speed and skill, but he was pretty sure he knew what to do in order to make a successful riposte. He just had to wait for her to make another downward swing.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. I watched a friend of mine die just earlier today fighting someone like you, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let anyone else get taken from me.”

This response seemed to affect the woman in some way, her eyes widened briefly, then her gaze became slightly more relaxed, but she stiffened her stance all the same, making it clear that she would not be swayed from her path.

Sotaire nodded and readied himself. He knew exactly what he needed to do, and conveniently, his opponent looked like she was going to make another downward swing. Perfect.

She dashed forward until she was three feet away again, and suddenly, her eyes flashed a bright green. An arc of lightning the same emerald color as her eyes shot from tip of her hilt and toward him. No matter how fast Sotaire might have been, dodging lightning was out of the question. It struck his weapon, and he felt his arm then his whole body become numb as a prickling pain surged through it. And of course, that was when she decided to strike.

That was it, he was done for. He’d broken his promise to Tess. Regret was the last thought on his mind.

Or it would have been, had the knight not deliberately struck the fizil of his hand instead, sending it soaring from his grip and into the mud a couple yards away.

Sotaire collapsed to his knees, confidence shattered, and having nearly believed he had taken his last breath. He looked at her, his red eyes filled with shock and confusion.

She stood over him, looking strangely serene. Clearly still angry about something, but it seemed like she was putting that aside for the moment. “You fight like a man who fights for someone other than himself, and you fight to honor the dead. I won’t deny you that honor as long as you don’t try to come after me. I will do my best not to slay your dark elf kin.”

Then she walked past him. The remaining guards foolishly went after her and were swiftly and easily struck down in a single stroke, but Sotaire did not. He just sat in the mud and despaired. Those words she spoke, she would try not to kill his kin, that wasn’t far off from what that knight who’d killed Ritil said.

And that single phrase had wounded him deeper than any sword could have done.