Valentine Gift

“We should kill them!”_ said a woman’s voice.

“No, my dear, we should not.”

“We ALWAYS kill them! Why don’t you let me kill those two? The client won’t be pleased!”

“Because, dear pupil, this one is the man we have been looking for. Only reason why we have been searching those cold, dry, uninteresting mountains for 20 years is that his damn mother must have protected her lineage with some high ritual. I knew her family must have been somewhere in this part of the world but no Divination Spell could give me anything about them.

Now that we have him, there is no need to keep working as mercenaries for those barbarians”

“He is the son of Arabella?”

“Yes. From this distance I have no doubt.”

“Still don’t explain why you bothered to expend a level 2 to grow back the arm of that small one.”

“Do you think I like to answer your stupid questions and fix your silly mistakes? When you act against my express instructions just to satisfy your desire to kill and **** others. Even if it jeopardize your own interest!”

“Master,…mom! I didn’t…”

“Why do you think I do it?”

“I don’t think…”

“This small one is obviously the son of the other one. What would make him the cunt’s grandson.

We don’t have the spell to mind-control him alive. As I will not risk killing him not knowing what other protections his mother locked in him before she die. We could kill him and find out that’s his corpse do not answer our questions like corpses are supposed to.

You would love the assist me in the troublesome job of extract information from him by ****. However, I am too old to lose time with that sort of thing. And I don’t know how long we have before that cursed cloak of a village disappear under an ocean of orc mercenary bands, and their human employers.

I want to take our prize and leave before that happen.”

“So, you will send the boy to fetch the magic instruments while we keep his father?”

“I doubt a human that young can find his way out from this forest alone. I am sure his family didn’t trusted him with their most valuable secret. No! We are keeping the small one, his father will bring us the Shadow-Hunter uniform of his mother and the accessories that accompany it.”

“I don’t know what you two are talking about! My mother was a village-mage. I kept her magic books and scrolls for as long as I could. However, the last piece of magic that I still had was sold to put food on our table for the winter, many winters ago.”

“Wrong! Your mother was a Shadow-Assassin and a Demon-Hunter. If you had sold the black box where her uniform and her magic weapons must be this smelly bag of waste you call family would be well accommodated in a fortified mansion somewhere in the capital city of your nation. You have the thing in your house, somewhere. ! It is in an unbreakable black box that big, about the same shape of a book!!”

“I am starting to understand where your daughter got her sharp mind, and wasn’t from her father! There is no point in show me how big this thing is supposed to be, when I am still wearing this stupid blinding thing some of you must have put in my head while you where binding me.“

“You watch how you talk with my master, peasant!!”

“Why? He is right. I am glad you are conscient again, hunter. I will repeat the instruction, but the most important part you already know. You must bring the box, and leave it in this same tree to where you are tied right now. You have five days, do not tell anyone, came alone and don’t look back once you leave the box.

Do that, and you will have your son back. Unharmed. You have my word! Disobey, and we will leave his mutilated corpse at your doorstep.”

“Look, I really don’t know what you are talking about. There is nothing like that in my house! My mother was a normal peasant with little more magic talent that the average person around here. You two are welcome to came and search my house as much as you please!! Just let my family go, and I will stay with you. Kill me after, if you don’t like what you find.”

“Good try, hunter. We are not walking into any trap you may have in mind. And I have no way to know if the box is hidden in your house or you have it buried somewhere else.

Now stand up! I will accompany you to the edge of those woods.”

“Can’t your daughter do that, instead? You are a bit too old for my taste, no offense.”

“Don’t worry. She will not hurt your son. Now that she knows how important he is in your plans, she will take good care of the boy”

Moments after the hood was removed from my head. The day was almost over but there was still enough sunlight for me to see the beautiful woman undoing the ropes binding me. Brown skin, black hair, and facial features that could have been described as Indian or Arabic, perhaps Brazilian, if this was Planet Earth. Well defined muscles, but not to the point of give her body any masculine line. Specially considering the middle to large boobs, and large hips. She was slim, agile and irritable. I would have given her 17 or 18, but due to the conversation between her and her mother I had to assume she was at least in her early thirties.

Then I noticed the pointy ears. Either elf or half-elf, I suppose. Or something else that is not entirely human. Given how poor my knowledge about non-human races in this world still was, speculate about her age became pointless.

“If you don’t try to escape, I may not kill you”

She said, kindly, to tranquilize a scared child still in shock.

I guess I must have been in bad shape. Even after the spell, I had lost a lot of body, and from my left shoulder to my left fingers the colour of the skin was completely different. As if this part of my body had never been touched by the sun until them.

Because it had not. My arm was still hanging from that tree, the knife still in my hand. Wasn’t the hand what was holding the knife however. Looking with calm was easy to see the blade was entangled in the branches same as the severed arm holding it.

“Makes more sense” I though to myself.

I was now happy that I didn’t had time to use any spell o deal with this situation. The situation was in process of solve itself, looks like. Without any need for me to blow my cover, revealing my secret.

This new arm was weaker than the other one. “I suppose I will have to exercise it, and recover my swordfight skills gradually” I thought.

“Don’t even think you can run for your freedom in this darkness. I can see as well in this light as I can during the day. Even without expend any spell.”

I believed her. She made no sign of light any oil lamp, despite the fact that I could hardly see my fingers now. The ones in the arms attached to my body, I mean.

Least she was allowing me freedom of movement. Didn’t bothered to tie my hands in any way.

She was paying attention to me, while I walked around. Lost and confuse. Wondering if there was a way for me to get my knife. However, more than anything else, I was listening. My kidnapper, was not.

That’s why she was caught by surprise when the predator jumped on her.

I was waiting for it, clocked in a silence spell and hoping the spell I was using to listen the surroundings ar some distance would not carry the full blow of the panter’s hyper-sonic weapon. Indeed, almost all the impact was filtered, what hit me made my teeth vibrate in a painful way, but didn’t hurt me.

The two women must have been aware that we had been hunting some animal with that natural weapon. They took the wax helmets from our heads, they knew our prey could not be far.

Perhaps they failed to realize how close we actually where from the entrance of this screaming panther. Most predators would choose to avoid intruders, specially in a place smelling magic, where a fight had recently happened.

This panther could not avoid us. First, I imagined it was a mother with small kittens, second scream corrected this theory. Two males, probably more in the way. There was a female in hit inside that hole, evidently. They needed to impress her, would kill anything in their way, and bring it as gift. We happened to be exactly in their way.

Even caught by surprise the magic-assassin in training was not down. Her body must have some extra protections. And she probably knows Level-2 healing spells.

She used a fire spell to cause an explosion in a nearby tree, and **** the felines to retreat for a moment. Then she draw a circle of oil around the burning tree, and set it on fire with a burning branch. The wall of flames was high and intense.

I could try my lucky running into the dark woods.

With my magic skills, if the mana I had not being using for years didn’t failed me. I could probably escape the panthers for hours. Possibly run far away enough to miss any one following me. Assuming my magic worked well still, and that my body didn’t failed me either. I was weak and dizzy.

Then I had no chance to escape the fire in the woods. Air was dry.

To start a fire like that, my kidnapped likely had some magic protection against the flames and the smoke. Her mother certainly would be in no danger, even if the fire spread was fast enough to reach her. She would protect my father.

I would find shelter in a night like that? In my current state?

That didn’t felt like a risk I would like to assume.

However, I was too far from the burning tree to reach it before that wall or fire raise in my path.

So, I decided to run in that direction. Make myself as visible as possible, hoping that sadistic psychopath would not choose to disobey her mother and mentor in a serious matter like that.

A moment too late I remembered that the magic-assassin in training had been fighting screaming panthers. No matter how good her protective spells where, unless she had a cloak of silence up around her, she would be deaf by now. One way or another, she would be unable to hear my screams begging for help.

While the panthers, on the contrary, hear everything. Their senses of sonar are based in the same principle used by bats, and their sound weapons do not affect it.

With the wall of flames approaching ahead of me, and horny screaming panthers coming from every other direction, I realized that mistake in my strategy, a moment too late. No one would fing out about my magic. Except perhaps the screaming panther lassie, if flesh with mana tastes different from normal human flesh.

At least is **** I would be a gift. Help a family to start, and generate a new generation of strong children!

On the other hand, what a fucking stupid way to die!