Chronicles of Mirstone

A Taste of Blood-1

A Taste of Blood

Richard Fierce

Kirin stepped out of the shadows as the carriage approached, his eyes narrowed against the glare of the rising sun. The transport stopped and he boarded silently. With limited seating, he was forced to sit beside a large female dwarf. She wore a pendant around her neck; the symbol for one of her gods. Kirin shifted as a spring in the cushion probed him obscenely. He rested his hand over the new bag of gold at his hip, half of the payment for the job he’d just taken.

The carriage jolted as it began moving. Kirin stared out the dirty window. The buildings they passed were old and abandoned. He hated the village of Thanalian, wanted to be out of it before the dwarves woke and rose from the gutters and the ruins to begin their work day. At least in Vaelkesh the nasty little creatures kept themselves hidden. Thanalian was a small village twenty miles west of the Verge in elvish lands. It was one of the only places Kirin knew of where dwarves and elves lived around each other without burying daggers in one another’s backs. More often than not.

The dwarf leaned toward Kirin, staring out the same window as they passed a small group of elves standing in front of a burnt-out market. One of the elves held a magical ball of fire, a bright tongue of blue flame curling up, searching for a target. Kirin fought a wave of nausea and ducked his head, wondering if they were the ones responsible for the dwarf killings, or the fire that almost killed him. Like it was his fault that the dwarves had been in the same tavern as him.

The dwarf beside him held her pendant tighter, fingering the outline of the symbol. Kirin shook his head, hiding his disdain behind an impassive mask.

“Elves,” the woman spat, her face contorting as if tasting her own disgust. “I hope they all die. The city’s better off without them.”

“Have you ever met an elf?” Kirin asked, taking the middle road.

The dwarf touched her pendant and moved back into her own space. “No. And I hope I never do. Only a fool would want anything to do with one of them.”

Kirin knew all too well what someone would do to an elf, which was why Kirin kept his ears covered. In Thanalian, most elves and dwarves remained in a drugged or drunken stupor, selling body and soul for the chance to forget. Kirin knew she would not be sympathetic. This dwarf would condemn him as she condemned the hundreds of others who had not been involved in the Plucking. In this dwarf’s world, the words “elf” and “love” could not exist in the same sentence, the same thought, the same breath. Kirin knew it must be a sad existence.

“Fools and worthless trash, they all are,” the dwarf continued, rocking in her seat until it creaked. Kirin considered telling her the pendant was useless. He didn’t think the dwarf would appreciate a history lesson, so he said nothing, and she let the subject drop. “You’re holding onto that bag tightly,” she stated almost coyly, as if hoping for a handout without having to beg.

“Yes, I am.”

The dwarf seemed to realize she wouldn’t get anything without pleading and sat back in her seat to sulk. They fell into silence as the carriage moved on past the void of light that during the day was a large garden, full of dead flowers. At night, it was a black hole, sucking light and energy from the world around it until even the stars above seemed pale. No one went into the garden at night, unless they were looking for something most people didn’t want to find. The dwarves in the rest of the city were civilized for the most part, but in the garden, that chunk of wilderness in the middle of town, they were nothing more than predators, without honor, without humanity.

The carriage continued along the nearly deserted street, past taverns patronized by shady types. The carriage slowed as it neared a sparsely populated part of the village. Kirin stood, preparing to leave the ignorant dwarf. She grabbed his arm, obviously preparing to give him some dire warning about this part of the town. Before she could, the pressure of her hand caused Kirin’s sleeve to ride down, pulling his cowl loose, exposing his pointed ears. The dwarf pulled her hand away as if scalded, and stared at Kirin, her expressive face registering horror and disgust.

Rage uncoiled within Kirin, overshadowing his mild contempt. This dwarf was his enemy now. That prejudice, once broad and laughable, was now aimed directly at Kirin’s soul. As if she could know him, as if she could understand the decisions he’d made. As if she were somehow better because her ears weren’t pointed.

Kirin leaned down in her face, sneering. “What’s the matter? Never seen an elf before?”

The dwarf sputtered, finally dumbstruck. The carriage lurched to a halt and Kirin turned, holding his anger in his fist and walking stiffly out into the village. The wind beat against him like the wings of a bird trying desperately to escape the beast that has it pinned. The dark morning sky seemed far away now, like a cloak had been lain across the tops of sharp, angry dwellings that closed in on him from above. He shrugged his shoulders, adjusting to the burden, and as the carriage pulled away he turned into the darkness.

A great fire had ravaged this part of the village. The old stone building that had housed his family for generations was still there, a ghost of its former glory. He stared at it for a long, aching moment, slowly walking past the place. One of the doors hung drunkenly askew, and the odor of smoke still lingered in the air. Where light shone through the broken windows and missing roof, he could see black fingers reaching up the walls, their destructive touch caressing the remaining inside, teasing, promising.

He hadn’t seen the fire, didn’t know who, if anyone, had survived. All he knew was that the fire that had killed so many of the elves milling around outside hadn’t killed him. If he had survived, maybe someone else had, too. He could hope.

Hope. The concept seemed so foreign, a foul taste on his lips that knew the pleasures of the present, not thoughts of the future. Hope reeked of the belief that there was something beyond this day, these precious hours. He had given that belief up long ago. Or perhaps not so long. It seemed an eternity, but nothing was forever. If elves could die, then he could remember.

He left the boundary of the village and stepped into the woods. He had a job to do. Reminiscing would have to wait.

The elves named the valley Tal’Elul—the Land of Death. Most now called it the Verge, and no living being walked there willingly unless they were desperate or insane. Kirin was neither. He was on a mission.

He had been hunting the creature for days.

Kirin wasn’t sure what it was, and neither were his employers. He’d yet to glimpse the thing. It hunted during the night and it was quick, leaving few clues behind. Something was terrorizing the outlying villages, leaving mauled bodies and terrified people in its wake. Kirin had read several reports and there was little consistency among them. Some described a demon, while others talked about a humanoid figure mounted on a horse. He believed he was closing in on it, whatever it really was.

Kneeling beside a slow-moving stream, Kirin cupped his hands and placed them in the water. The cool liquid pooled into his hands and felt good against his skin. He brought his hands to his lips and drank some of the water before splashing the rest onto his face, wiping the sweat and grime away. Although it was autumn, summer clung to the land like a child clung to its mother. It was nearing dusk and the sun was descending faster than he anticipated. The temperature was beginning to drop. It wouldn’t be long now.

A panicked squeal resonated from the east. His sensitive ears twitched at the sound. It wasn’t an elvish squeal. It was an animal. He stood up and dried his hands on his pant legs. He scanned the area in the direction of the noise. His vision was hampered by tall, thick marsh reeds. The setting sun was casting long shadows on everything and he could only see a few feet ahead.

He was a fair distance from the safety of the woods, and he had no time for distractions. Hunting down the creature was his sole task. Besides, he was in the Verge—the narrow strip of land between the elvish and dwarvish kingdoms. It was a dangerous place. Aside from possibly running into one of the short folk, there were dire creatures afoot. It was likely the squeal he had heard was an unlucky animal being attacked by something sinister.

Again, the squeal rang out. Against his better judgement, he drew his sword—a straight, single-edged blade roughly two feet in length—and walked toward the sound. Kirin leaned forward and ducked beneath long strands of foul moss that hung from the lifeless branches of dead trees nearby. In the marsh around him, all sounds of birds and other things suddenly stopped. Only the unending swarms of mosquitoes and gnats continued to make their presence known. The annoying bugs horded around him seeking exposed flesh to bite. These he managed to ignore as his full attention was locked ahead.

As he pushed his way forward, the reeds began to thin. A terrified squeal sounded. He could hear the animal splashing, and he could hear too the sound of a deep, gravelly voice cursing. The reeds parted and he found himself standing at the edge of a quagmire, roughly twenty feet in diameter. Near the center, a pony floundered, giving an occasional terror-stricken cry. Kirin noticed the form beside the fraught pony. Chest deep, struggling and cursing, Kirin’s eyes narrowed in a sudden rush of hatred.

A dwarf!

Kirin stepped fully out of the reeds and the pony stopped its thrashing. The dwarf looked up and locked eyes with Kirin, his eyes narrowing—just as Kirin’s own had—at the sight of his hated enemy.

Silence ensued. Long, tense moments passed as the two glared at each other, neither willing to speak first. Kirin’s emotions churned, his mind in turmoil. Seeing a dwarf in Thanalian was one thing. Seeing a dwarf out here … that was another. He stepped toward a log and the dwarf spoke.

“Don’t try to help me, elf. I’m capable of getting out of this myself.” The word elf was spat as a curse from his mouth. The dwarf continued to glare hostilely from his shadowed eyes. Sheathing his blade, Kirin turned to go. Just as he turned, the pony began to thrash again, snorting and rolling its eyes in terror.

Clenching his jaw, Kirin turned back around and grabbed a long tree branch. “I refuse to have this animal’s blood on my hands, dwarf,” Kirin fumed. He leveraged the branch over the bog and dropped the end of it near the dwarf, leaving the other end resting on dry ground.

Snorting with disgust, the dwarf grabbed hold of the branch and pulled himself out of the muck and onto the branch, wrapping his legs around it for balance. Finally free, he reached with his short arms to grab the pony’s reins. He almost fell back in, but he managed to grab them. Clutching the reins firmly, he used his brute strength to pull the pony toward him. Then the dwarf scooted backwards, reset his legs firmly around the branch, and heaved the pony again.

It was a tediously slow process, but finally the dwarf reached dry ground. The pony thrashed free as well. The dwarf stood there, gasping in deep breaths. Kirin couldn’t tell what the dwarf looked like beneath the muck and slime. A cloud of insects immediately swarmed both the animal and the dwarf. They smelled terrible. The foul odor of rotten eggs assailed Kirin and it was all he could do not to vomit.

Like all dwarves, this one too was short—standing somewhere between four and five feet. He was thick and looked like he weighed a few hundred pounds. Other than that, Kirin could see no other distinguishable traits. Dusk had fallen into night and the dwarf was nothing more than a vague silhouette.