Nelida's Grace

Chapter 3 - Cymbiir

The shadows, whether in the woods, a town, or a major city was the only way he could feel comfortable and relaxed. Everyone he knew thought he was quirky as he managed to always find the spot with the least light there. The truth was, the light hurt his large elfen eyes. Bordering on the realms of being an albino for an elf, it only made sense. Light skin, bright grey eyes tinged with pink, and shoulder-length white hair he tended to keep pulled back in a ponytail weren’t the makings of someone who made their living in the shadows, but he was damn good at it.

This job has managed to pull him from the city and into the woods. The queen wasn’t too keen on the general, everything seemed to move too nicely, and fall just into place for him. With the taking of lands from Tiwban with little loss, the humans from Rithevin stopped their incursions due to the general's "negotiating" skills when he seemed meek in front of the queen. When she called Cymbiir to her office, the order was direct. Follow him, record who he met with, where he went, and why. All things that Cymbiir was the best at for his country, and relished in the fact he was one of the best. Sitting back behind the trees, in the shadows with his cloak pulled around him, to the untrained eye, he appeared as a shrub, maybe uneven, but a shrub non the less.

The general was a traitor, and he knew it from the minute he started following him. The first stop was to the barracks of the general's shock troops, all were devoted to him, which was unusual for elves. They tend to be focused on the nation as a whole, not one person. This was eye-opening for him, which meant, no one was ever safe around the general. The second meeting was a clarion sound to him. The general met with a human, dirty, scared, and not from anywhere near Ullimane. The dialect and speech patterns didn’t mark him from any of the human nations close by, in fact, he had only heard the lilted speech once before, and it was from a paladin from the nation of Navrene. A young man, that was foppish in his ways, but skilled in the trident he always had strapped to his back. The only reason this stuck out, was the man was a half-elf, his ears slightly pointed with no lobes, if it weren’t for the facial hair, he could have passed for one of their own. He shook his head as he thought about that encounter and had to focus back on the general. What he realized was, that the general was giving descriptions and locations of various elven patrols through Ullimane. The final giveaway was the fact the man met with a fiend. Cymbiir had never met one but had only heard stories about them and he could only say, this fits the bill. This “fiend” had curled horns that encircled his head from brow to jaw, his skin was tinged red as if kissed by fire, his teeth and tongue black as night just like his eyes. Just to look at him set his skin crawling. He couldn’t hear what was being said, in fact, it was the speech he didn’t understand, he doesn’t know what it was, but as he moved closer, both the general and the fiend's heads snapped in his direction and he could feel the fiend's eyes tearing into his soul. He froze almost immediately, realizing he had been made for the first time in his life, he failed his queen. He didn’t wait, he turned and fled.

“Damnit Cymbiir,” He thought to himself, “You really messed up here.” as he began to stride through the trees quickly, it wasn’t until the arrow pierced his left shoulder he realized he wasn’t paying attention. The wound burned, and as he reached up to touch it, he could feel the arrowhead at the front of his shoulder. Removing his hand, it was covered in blood, realizing he didn’t have much time and quickly glancing back, he realized he was lax in his surroundings and had been surrounded by the general's troops, it was going to take a miracle to get out of this alive. Quickly setting himself behind a tree as the arrows flew and connected into the trunk where he was just seconds ago, he took a careful survey around him and realized he was near the river, if he could make it there, he wouldn’t necessarily be able to lose the pursuit, but he could let the river take him downstream. He launched himself back into his wounded gait and headed toward the river, as he arrived at the shore, he was steeling himself for the cold that was going to hit him when he felt multiple arrows land, pitching him forward, into the water, with the most egregious wound that he could tell, in the small of his back. He started to float downstream, hitting the roils of the white water, trying to keep his head above water. Without any control, his head finally collided with one of the boulders and the last thing he saw was the bright sun through the leafy canopy of the forest.