The pounding in Lord Reginald Lemoyne’s chest, now, far outweighed the painful, throbbing ache that still resonated in his groin and gut as a lingering after effect of the sorcerous assault visited upon him earlier in the afternoon. The panic that had induced that trip-hammer rhythm of his heart had erased the last vestiges of the spell which had numbed and clouded his mind, though, and for that the Trade Minister couldn’t help but be grateful. Had he still been as droolingly addled as he had been when he first came around in his office just a few short hours ago, after all, he might not have had the quickness of mind to run when, instead of being greeted by his wife or servants upon his eventual return home, he had been met by a horrifically skull-painted, yellow-eyed elven visage that grinned at him from the shadowed depths of the hallway in his too-dark home. He hadn’t recognized that face, at first, of course… had been too terrified by its sudden appearance to even connect it to the events that had transpired in his office… too terrified, even, to wonder after the fate of his wife when that looming death-mask moved towards him and filled the emptiness of the house with a sinister and spine chilling laughter.

Run, his mind had advised, leaving room for no other thought in that instant, RUN!!! And that’s exactly what he had done – turned and bolted out the door back into the now rain-soaked street, ignoring the agonizing spikes of pain that shot through his belly with each pounding, splashing step, hoping against hope that he would encounter a patrol of legionnaires in the deluge or, at least, make it back to the safety of the Trade Bureau before whatever that thing was could catch up. He tried to scream as he ran, too – tried to get the word ‘help’ to carry over the storm that had blown in from the harbor and driven the residents of his affluent neighborhood into the safety and shelter of their own homes – but, whether it was because his lungs struggled against the physical exertion of his flight and refused to give volume to his cries or that his neighbors simply chose to ignore his frantic pleas in deference to staying warm and dry, Lemoyne heard nothing in reply save for the singing of the blood in his ears, the rasping of his own breath, and, even over the pattering of rain on the cobbles and the rolling thunderclaps in the sky above, that wicked laughter and the clatter of galloping hooves closing in behind him.

“Oh gods,” he wheezed as he splashed madly along the street, now feeling the pursuing hoof beats under the pounding of his own feet, “oh gods, help me! HELP ME!!!”

“It is far too late for even the gods to help you, Reg,” he heard a voice behind him say just before a sodden loop of black rope fell across his shoulders, “Perhaps you should have invoked them before you tried to force yourself on my love, yes?”

My love? Lemoyne thought, almost in disbelief, as the rope tightened around his neck and he felt himself jerked off his feet. He recognized the voice, now, and his mind tied it to the face of the slave who had accompanied ‘Lady Eva’ into his offices… That realization and all that accompanied it was jarred from his mind just as the breath was jolted from his aching lungs when he was slammed brutally onto his back. Abject terror washed over his mind much like the sheets of rain washed over his body when it registered that the clatter and splash of hoof beats behind him had been replaced by the much lighter and much more ominous footfalls of a creature that moved on only two legs. His eyes struggled to pierce the painfully blinding flash of white that had accompanied his impact with the street and his mind fought to bring his hands up to loosen the noose around his neck as those steps drew nearer and nearer… he whimpered when they stopped and he felt his trembling hands cinched tightly together by the same rope they had reached to remove…

“And running from me, you paching round-eared piece of horse dung, only ensures that you will die tired,” Nyx whispered as he crouched down beside his quarry, quickly securing knots at Lemoyne’s wrists and elbows, “and I want you wide awake when I kill you.”

“You… you can’t do this,” the human sobbed as his vision cleared enough for him to see the evil, grinning face of the mith’ganni that hovered above his own.

“Yes,” Nyx replied matter-of-factly, clamping a hand tightly over Lemoyne’s mouth, “I can. Now, shut up and let me work.”

A sudden twisting of that hand relegated the human’s vision back to the painful, flashing white veil of blindness as several teeth broke and his jaw was dislocated. Reginald felt himself hauled to his feet and shoved into the flanks of a horse, groaned miserably as he was grabbed by craw and crotch and tossed across the animal’s back like some recently felled game trophy, and lapsed into unconsciousness as he felt the elf climb into the saddle ahead of him and spur the steed to a gallop.

He wasn’t sure, when he woke again, exactly where he was but, at a glance, he knew he was no longer inside Drasnia’s walls… all his vision could find beyond the tears that fell from and rivulets of rain that trickled into his eyes was a great expanse of inky blackness punctuated only in one spot, directly ahead, by an ebony and alabaster elf-skull with eerily gleaming moons that danced inside hollow sockets. Upon seeing that terrible face and now knowing it for what it truly was, Reginald’s heartbeat surged frantically and, once again, his mind urged him to run. He tried and found much to his dismay, that he had been securely trussed up against the rough-barked trunk of a tree. His arms and legs refused to heed his mind’s call to flee and his swollen and aching jaw refused to work properly enough for his cry for help to come out in anything more than a garbled squawk. A razor-sharp smile split the elf’s lips at that horrendous sound and a pale, slender fingered hand reached from the darkness to pat one throbbing cheek, evoking another anguished groan from deep within his chest.

“Hurts, yes?” Nyx snickered as the human’s round eyes grew wider and welled deeper with tears. “Good. I had hoped as much.”

Another blood-dripping spout of gibberish spilled from Reginald’s broken mouth as he tried to scream and plead for mercy at the same time. The elf, though, simply cocked his head, almost curiously, to one side and smiled all the more as he regarded his victim…

“When does the hurting stop?” Nyx gave words to the music that was the man’s anguish as his other hand produced a dark-bladed dagger and traced its point along Lemoyne’s jaw, down his neck, and along his collar bone. “Not for some time, I am afraid, Reg,” he said, pressing harder with the blade as he cut through the man’s saturated green garments and the flesh that hid beneath.

“You see, I wanted to kill you when you first touched her, but I could not…”

Lemoyne’s eyes scrunched closed as the blade sliced through the sash at his waist and proceeded downwards, extending the ever-lengthening gash towards his lower abdomen, overpowering the still-keen ache that lingered there from Eva’s hateful touch.

“…wanted to kill you even more when I saw the look in my lady’s eyes as she came to fetch me from your records room, yes? But she stayed my hand, then, as well,” Nyx whispered as he paused in his cutting just above the man’s pubic bone… smiled as if a thought had just occurred to him and fixed those wicked, yellow eyes back on the agonized green ones that threatened to bulge completely out of Reginald’s skull… “Which hand was it that you first laid on her,” he chuckled, “I know that your jaw is in no condition to form an answer, of course, so if you will just look in the direction of the left or right, I promise, I shall free it for you…”

Lemoyne desperately tried not to glance in the direction of either of his hands but found that he was unable to keep his eyes from ticking ever so slightly to the right and nearly managed an actual scream when a curved blade flashed out from beneath the mith’ganni’s cloak and lopped off the offending appendage. As promised, without that hand attached to the wrist any longer, Reginald’s right arm came free of the loop of rope that had formerly held it to the tree… the weight of his body, now partially freed from the bonds, shifted forward a bit and drove the dagger at his crotch a bit deeper into the tender flesh. Vomit accompanied the blood and the gurgling squeal across his lips.

“Do not worry, Reg. I am not going to cut off your root… not just yet…” Nyx’s smile widened and his moon-colored eyes flicked to the left and indicated the hand that was still secured in the coils of the rope; “Touched her with that hand, as well, did you not?”

Reg managed a frantic, almost pleading shake of his head as he realized what was to come… howled and vomited again as that realization came to inevitable fruition… wailed in abject misery as the sudden lack of support drove the black-bladed dagger even further into his lower belly… and began to sob incoherently and uncontrollably as he felt the elf’s kukri being wiped clean of blood on the remnants of his tunic.

“I had originally thought to drag you through the streets until the flesh was scoured from your bones, Lord Lemoyne,” Nyx said, then, sheathing the kukri and, at last withdrawing the dagger from the human’s groin with a savage jerking motion, “but Cayrimsa… the woman you know as Lady Eva, yes?... asked that there be no blood, no screams, and no evidence of you, at all, left in the city come morning and, I must confess, this has been much more fun for me than my initial designs might have been…”

He wiped the gore that coated the dagger’s blade off on the soaking locks of hair that hung from the top of Lemoyne’s head before returning it to its place, as well, then, stood back, listened to the man gibber and watched him heave and convulse for a moment before taking hold of a handful of that sodden mop and lifting the man’s head so that he could look into his eyes; “Just a moment longer, Lord Lemoyne. We have only one more appendage to deal with before I let you go, hm?” He released his grip on the man’s hair, moved that hand to a knot in the rope and tugged, loosing the man from the tree to which he was bound and stepped aside as Lemoyne flopped forward onto the ground at the base of the tree.

It was all the man could do in his misery to roll over and get his face out of the dirt. He did manage it, though, and in doing so caught sight of his murderer walking away from him towards the mist-gray horse that stood not far away. Something in his agonized mind screamed at him to run again, at that moment, and he desperately tried to comply, groaning and weeping as he pushed at the ground with the stumps of his forearms. He had all but managed to sit up when the mith’ganni was suddenly over him again… howled the loudest he had yet managed since his jawbone had been separated from his skull back in the city… and was quickly reduced to a gibbering, shuddering heap as a savage kick to his face ruined his efforts. Before his eyes rolled back in his head, the once and former Lord Reginald Lemoyne, junior Trade Minister of Drasnia’s bureau, wondered what the purpose of the flask the mith’ganni had just uncorked might be… sobbed when he realized that the elf’s other hand held a lit torch… and wondered, once more at the fate of his wife, as he felt the oil in that flask being poured in it’s entirety onto his crotch… when the torch dipped to set that oil alight, though, he wondered after nothing else as he was consumed by the exquisite agony of the flames that erupted between his legs and started a not so slow crawl across the remains of his flesh.

Some time later, a charred skeleton splashed into the storm-angered waters of one of the smaller tributaries of the Reyal and a pair of gleaming yellow eyes watched as it was swept away, south and eastward from Drasnia, certain that it would never be found by anyone other that the dwarves who still inhabited the mountains between Drasnia and Vaharon…

“It is done, melamin,” he whispered into the night, turning his gaze back in the direction of Drasnia’s distantly flickering lights, “A visit with the Dreamweaver will end my night and I shall seek you out beneath your tree thereafter.”

Nyx watched (both Cay and the gloomy slant-walled tavern) in silence as she glanced in the direction of the barmaid, placed her order, and then returned her eyes to the manifests and apparently pondered the estimations he had offered in their regard. When the sorceress finally spoke, still not having graced him with so much as the faintest up-tick of her tawny gaze, her voice was low and her words measured as if thoughts beyond those concerning the caravans writhed beneath the surface. The assassin imagined he knew what those underlying thoughts might be… chanced to think or, maybe, even wish that they might mirror those that lurked in his own mind… scowled faintly as he shoved those thoughts back again… Work to be done… preparations to be made…

“Yes,” Cay murmured in reply to his last statement, “that of course will prove to be difficult. I must admit I am a bit surprised we have not heard rumor of an arrest for the murder in our travels yet… Vadim must be stalling for some reason. Perhaps a journey to this Avenon will also be in order before long.”

He nodded. A sojourn to or, at least, toward Avenon in the shadow of one of these wagon trains was a thing he had considered, himself, and the difficulty in executing the other plans, as well. “Vadim is most assuredly stalling, else that boy would not only be imprisoned but likely hanging from the gallows already,” he answered, “As I said, it is becoming clear that there is more to all of this than simple trade or political maneuvering. Much more… and we’ll likely not know how much until we do venture to Avenon, ourselves…”

The serving-wench returned and Nyx fell silent as the woman plunked a hunk of crusty bread and a steaming bowl of stew down in front of Cay and followed that with a notably dusty bottle of wine and a pair of relatively clean, albeit roughly carved wooden goblets, all of which were deposited between them. He nodded, again, and waved the meaty woman away before she could think to ask if the pair needed anything else.

“Avenon is mainly mith’ganni territory is it not,” Cay asked, calling Nyx’s attentions back to her from the retreating barmaid, “As much as your people have a territory now…”

One black brow lifted a little at that and at the fact that she had finally lifted her gaze to meet his. “It used to be, yes,” he answered, reaching for the bottle and brushing the dust from its neck before filling the goblets, “My own clan ranged there in the days before I was born… before the Empire claimed it and...”

“I didn’t mean…”

Nyx lifted a hand and gave a faint shake of his head. “I know what you meant, Cayrimsa,” he said softly, sliding one of the goblets toward her and then lifting the other towards his lips, “My clan has been dead since I left Shanurdir and my race has been dying for longer than that. I would be surprised if enough of the other clans remained to even hold a piece of the steppes, let alone venture into what is now Avenon.” He shrugged faintly, and tipped the cup then but, over the rim of the crude goblet, his eyes stayed trained on hers as he sipped and didn’t stray even when he returned the vessel to the table and folded his hands in his cloak again. The hint of a smile danced on his lips as he allowed himself to relax against the back of the bench and swam in Cay’s lingering gaze.

“We will be busy then,” she said.

He simply nodded his agreement to that; his eyes not leaving hers even then.

“I know what you want to know,” Cay continued after a momentary silence, “I remember what you promised me…”

Another nod and a faint glint flashed in his eyes as the ghost-smile that had been toying with the corners of his mouth warmed a bit.

“I’m counting on you living up to it.” Her gaze dropped away, then, and returned to the scarred tabletop that filled the spaced between them.

Nyx couldn’t bring himself to take his eyes from Cay, though. His gaze was no longer transfixed by her returned stare; however, and he allowed himself to take in more than just her face… traced across her cheek, along the curve of her neck, and, moving lower, found the slender fingers of her hand unfurling from around a tiny square of paper that she had kept clutched there since they had made their exit from the Trade Bureau. His smile grew all the more when that hand stretched across the table to offer him that creased and sweat-stained treasure. His own hand slithered across the table to take the thing…

The witch actually wants you for something, it seems, Prien’s voice rumbled as Cay intercepted Nyx’s hand, pressed the parchment into his palm, and curled his fingers around it with her own, How very interesting… You notice, though, that, as I told you, it is because you bring death, hm? Not because you warm her heart? You should charge her for this commission…

The edge of the mith’ganni’s smile dulled a bit… She has paid enough, already… and better, I think, that she wants me for something rather than nothing… Besides, this was a thread I had already planned to sever…… but Cay hadn’t yet glanced up. It must have been the subtle flexing of his fingers beneath hers, then, or, perhaps, some other unnoticed reaction he had made that made her think that Nyx had been prepared to say something…

“Just let me finish what I have to say here before you go spouting off,” she said as her hand tightened ever so slightly around his, “I’m fine to start with, Nyx. It isn’t like I’m some blushing rose that hasn’t had someone try to force themselves on me before, so don’t even think about handling me with kid gloves here okay?”

Very well. He nodded… forced the fingers that were wrapped in hers to relax a bit… and reached for his wine with his free hand.

“What happened after you left is simply that I tried to delay any amorous thoughts he had, but I was unsuccessful. At least at first. I assure you he didn’t get what he wanted out of me…”

I knew this before you told me, melamin, Nyx smiled around the rim of the goblet as he poured another taste of the passable wine over his tongue.

“…Physical strength can easily be undermined with the correct grip and spell to go with it.”

That smile still played on his lips as Cayrimsa, also smiling now, lifted her gaze to meet his once again; “He should only just be coming out of the mental state I left him in, his physical state will take a bit longer to repair… and as for his ego…” The tip of her tongue appeared as she ran it between her teeth slowly. “I doubt he will be going to the guards with his complaint, my bet is he will return home as soon as he is able to lick his wounds and perhaps begin a less official inquiry into Eva.”

I should imagine so… Another near imperceptible nod, his eyes fixed to hers again, as he returned the wooden chalice to the table.

“Take care of him,” she said seriously, the smile melting from her lips, “And not like the last one. We are in enough trouble as it is right now; another heap of flesh in some alley with a blood trail back to your crypt is not what we need.” She leaned over closer to him and dropped her voice to a hushed whisper. “Make him suffer to whatever you want… but make him disappear afterwards. No trace… tomorrow morning I don’t want him to exist. No body, no blood, no screams… he is just gone. I don’t normally kill, but he does not deserve to live…” 

Nor do any of these humans who are simple enough to relegate their women to a status only a little above their slaves and other properties, elen en cormamin, the mith’ganni’s yellow-eyes gleamed as they finally broke from the amber fires that burned in hers and followed her hand to where it came to rest atop a particularly crude image etched in the table’s surface, perhaps you are beginning to see this, yes? An amused expression drifted over his features and a light chuckle escaped his lips when Cay’s hand flared with eldritch fire for an instant and then drew away from where it had been, leaving only a blackened and smoldering imprint of her fingers where the phallic-monster had formerly been. There was no mistaking the meaning in that gesture and neither, he thought, was there any mistaking the unspoken meaning in the words that preceded it.

“Consider it done,” Nyx whispered in reply, his eyes returning to hers as his free hand came to rest atop the one of hers that still clasped over his other, “Come morning, Reg will be no more and nowhere, yes?” His gaze dipped away from hers after a moment longer, fell to where those three hands were entwined on the table and lingered there for another instant.

“Your dinner is cooling,” he said, his fingers feathering across both sides of her hers as he finally withdrew his hands… the one that now held Lemoyne’s address disappeared beneath the cloak and the other took up his cup of wine again… “I do not imagine it will taste very good gone cold.” He waited for her to draw back across the table before he released her from his gaze… watched her as she took her first, tentative bite of the stew she had been served… and, sipping at his wine, let his eyes wander a slow circuit around the hazy tavern.

After that scan verified that there had been no changes in patronage or position that should arouse concern, Nyx set the goblet aside again and let his gaze drop to where his fingers had, at last, unfolded the slip of parchment that Cay had handed him. There was another faint nod as he read what was printed on that paper, memorized the pertinent information, and then refolded the thing. “You will need to report to Dmitrova alone, again, tonight,” he said after he drained that first mug of wine and stretched the refolded piece of stationary towards the lopsided candle that provided meager light to their booth… the paper caught fire as his eyes flicked back in her direction and he dropped it into the now empty goblet where it was quickly consumed by the flames. “After last night, I do not imagine that he would expect me in your company, anyway. Most likely, he believes me to still be licking my wounds, yes?”

“Probably,” Cay smirked, looking up from the stew and fixing him with a look he couldn’t quite read, “You weren’t in the best of condition when he last saw you, after all… he won’t know I’ve seen you, at all, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

He nodded and the last embers of Lemoyne’s stationary that smoldered in his cup died with a hiss as Nyx refilled the goblet with another sampling of wine. “Best for us both that he doesn’t,” he said, swirling the ashes into the wine before taking another sip, “I do not think that Tselika was entirely convinced by either of our stories and if, as I believe, she is doing more for Vadim than playing fetch-the-point-ear, she might not have that difficult a time reminding him that you and I are more than expendable…”

~*~*~*~

It was near dusk when Nyx and Cay finally emerged from the murk and haze of Salty Mermaid and into the lengthening shadows of Drasnian twilight. A cool wind blew off the harbor, its briny tang carrying with it another scent that foretold rain showers in the making, and whirled up the wharf, tugging at the assassin’s cape and the sorceress’ gown as it blew the clinging smoke and smell of the tavern from around them. Yellow mith’ganni eyes instinctually tipped toward the heavens and sought out the faint, early-evening wink of Shipri’s Torch and, having pondered that first of the night’s stars for a moment, sank to regard the iron-dark streak that slashed across the far horizon and mist-like undulation of the orange and yellows above it where the sunlight still held the sky…

Rain within the hour, he estimated, and full storms before midnight if those clouds hold true.

Nyx‘s attentions let go of the skies and returned to Cay as they wandered away from the tavern. “It promises to be a good night for work,” he said, finally breaking the long but not necessarily uncomfortable silence that had hung between them for the last little while. There had been things that he had wanted to say in that long stretch of quiet… things, too, that she wanted to say if he had read her eyes correctly the few times they had met and held his… but, given the events of the last days and the distractions he had found himself led into as a result… And the fact that you have work to do… he kept himself from speaking any of those things… All considered, he had been content to sit and sip away a second goblet of wine (and the ashen remains of Lemoyne’s stolen stationary along with it), watching the room and casting an occasional, lingering glance at the woman across the table as she finished her supper. He had waited, too, while she finished her first mug of wine… had poured her another and waited until she resigned the half-full cup to the table and nodded that she was finished. He was still content to linger with her as they made their way along the wharf, now, as well, but that favor she had asked of him... the promise I made her... called and so did numerous other tasks... "Where will I find you in the morning," he asked, "when I have finished with our friend?"