Elf World Shadows Rising Read online

  “I let her and Daniela out about an hour ago Michaela,” Myst told her, “she is probably half way through the inventory by now… And hopefully Daniela has breakfast and coffee waiting…”

  “You Sun Elves are always so industrious,” the sexy Star Elf said as she headed for the stairs.

  Myst turning from watching Michaela walk off, “Lets removed the magical surprise from my room before we give one of the maids a surprise she won’t soon forget.”

  The three of them wandered around the second floor corridor heading for the New Tower and Myst’s booby trapped room. In the hall past the tower door on the way to the jakes, Myst noticed another passed out elf, “Kind of late to still be passed out in my hallway…” Normally Myst would not use his ability to cast a magic energy bolt, one because one was all he could cast, and two because even that little offensive spell caused a few seconds of weakness he normally could ill afford.

  But now Myst, casually dropped the word “sunfire” into the conversation while raising his right hand and releasing a green pulse of magic into the back of the elf laying in the hall seemingly passed out, but who somehow lay there with all his muscles tensed like a spring. The magic bolt slammed into the prone elf and he attempted to leap upright, staggering him into the wall in obvious but not debilitating pain.

  Sebastian and Remi had not been idyll after Myst had given the alert phrase; Sebastian had immediately started and then loosed a spell before the other elf could recover. A mass of energy lepted from Sebastain’s hand, striking the elf’s chest and enveloped the enemy in a ball of blue electric streaks that left him an unmoving ball on the floor. Remi reached the elf and bound his hands and feet, as soon as the blue lightning stopped its wild ride.

  “Well, well, we did have a visitor,” Remi rolled him onto his back, “Looks like a Sun Elf… but I doubt it.”

  Sebastian cast a dispel magic on the unmoving elf, “No illusions…”

  Remi took his flask out and poured some cognac onto his silk handkerchief and scrubbed at the elf’s face. The dispel magic had removed the paralysis and the suspected enemy started to struggle, Remi punched him knocking his head into the stone floor, “None of that or I’ll thrash you to death…”

  A bit more scrubbing and pale white skin with a faint blue tint to it began to emerge, “A Frost Elf, a bit far south for the likes of you!”

  “I know him… ah, his name is Stonecrow,” Myst mused. “Agnarr Stonecrow, he’s a mercenary, works for the dark side usually, but enough coin and he will work for anyone.”

  “I bet the Shadow Elves won’t be happy with his performance, it seems wrong that we will save them the effort to kill him for his failure,” Remi joked evilly.

  By this time Luc Laurent, Wren Greyfoix and Daniel Cortier had run to the scene with their swords and crossbows ready.

  “Take our guest to the lock up cellar, be careful and watch incase he has an accomplice,” Myst directed, “If he tries anything Wren put a crossbow bolt in the base of his spine. Now, let’s get this place swept and see any guest still here back to the village.”

  Myst looked at the perfect light streaming into the courtyard, the light always seemed so perfect here… “And someone get me some coffee,” he called!

  Epilog

  Noon on the day after the Spring Carnival, the news reached the castle that the Half Orc nation of Ishmar had launched a surprise attack against southern Kush and the Kushian city of Zacat had been sacked. Kushing troops battling the orcs and Shadow Elves in the northern disputed area had to pull back to send reinforcements south to counter that invasion.

  The Shadow Elves and orc army took the opportunity to send a massive attack against Surin Province. The Sun Elf defenses had collapsed, conflicting rumors of why, but they agreed the provincial capital was now under siege.

  “Myst, your father is there, how frightening,” Kayla gasp, the elves had gathered in the Great Hall to hear the news. “What happens now?”

  “The regiments will be called up, another ‘Great War’ has started. “This was the reason for our visitors the other night and the Frost Elf…, I’m also sure that was not the only decapitation raid that occurred, I pray to the Creator that the other raids were also defeated.”

  “Remi, your reserve commission is with 2nd Drakarian Lances?”

  “Yes Myst, as are most of my team, only Katerina and Wren the females are not in a regiment, and Kiron.”

  “You will probably get muster notices in the next couple days, unless we lose the entire province, all bets are off if that happens, it could be a long time before we could attempt an invasion.”

  “And you my love,” asked Kayla of Myst.

  “Orders are on the way here by now, if my general sent them magically I could hear today, if by mundane messenger then possibly in a week. I don’t want to try for Palantar and miss an order sending me in the opposite direction of Surin. So we wait. Everyone, spend time with your loved ones and friends, that is what I will do, and enjoy each day left for us to be together. Not by our choosing we have been set upon a long road into darkness, a parting will come soon enough…”

  The weeks spent showing Kayla his ancestral home in Mentonferat had been the best he could remember, the change in his long term goals had made a dramatic and permanent change for him. The last few days since the last attack seem to fly by in a haze.

  They had taken horses from his stable and rode to town to have lunch, swam in the azure sea, then headed up into the hills east of town. Looking west he could see the town, to the east the hilly valley that his family’s estate was nestled in, a comfortable ten or so miles outside the lively city. And he marvelled at the mountains, some still snow caped in the far distance. And the blue sea stretched out below, an enchanting mass of deepest blue that the coast was famous for. How he would hate to leave this place, how he would hate to leave this women.

  He stood behind her on the high hill overlooking the azure coast and the city with its reddish tiled roofs and bright white harbor down below, nestled in the idyllic Angle Bay, the lovely beaches stretched into the distance until it seem to disappear into the far snow capped mountains. Kayla stood in the shade of a tree that had a vine of pretty red flowers gently climbing it, she was looking out into the cloudless blue sky. Myst leaned against a Mimosa Tree in full blossom of yellow flowers, watching her, she was in just her dark sapphire blue loin cloth and halter, her favorite and one he found to be irresistible. The temperature had climbed well into the seventies this gorgeous spring day and he had worn light linen pants and an open tan linen vest.

  In the distance they could see an Imperial Frigate sailing down the coast with all snow white sails set in an apparent hurry to reach port, both of them knowing that urgent dispatches would be on board the ship.

  “You know what I want,” Kayla called to him without turning around?

  “A bath,” a good guess on his part … Not that he minded a bath, the riding had been a tad dusty. He would miss the castles’ wondrous bathing pool that could hold three dozen guests, or just the two of them under a star filled night sky... And that they had indeed spent some of everyday left to them frolicking in its magical waters, yes a bath sounded good to him...

  “No, well besides that,” she spun about laughing with joy at his good guess.

  “What then my darling, anything in my power,” Myst replied gallant, yet completely serious.

  Suddenly she pulled his sunsword from his belt and stepped back to the cliff, a ball of magic fire, pulsing with red orange and purple fire formed in her left hand…

  “You,” she replied equally serious, a determined gleam in her eyes, “I want you!”

  Myst held up in his hand an engagement ring for Kayla, “This is for you silly girl, don’t you know that I’m something you already have,” taking her into his strong arms, their lips kissed and Kayla dropped his sword and extinguished her ball of fire as her arms wound around his neck….

  No, for Myst, things certainly would never be
the same…

  The End of Elf World Shadows Rising.