Soul Dead and Green Eyes

Soul Dead and Green Eyes

Part 1

Chapter 1

(If you are reading this account in a language other than Grand High Draconian, you might consider making a contribution to the Translation section of your local Magic Users Guild. XVD)

“Report!” Captain Dhiak ordered as the two tired soldiers shed their armor and were given food and water. “Where are Belgran and Sergeant Lekin?!”

“Sir.” Smid said, then paused a moment, as if to order his thoughts. “It was the strangest thing. We were takin’ a shortcut that Belgran knew about, a little two-rut cart path about three kilometers south of the highway. We came to this burnt out house. It must have burned last night because there was still a bit of smoke from the smoldering, and you could smell it was really recent, an’ bad. It’d been right beside the road, and one of the half-burned main timbers had fallen mostly across the way, and there was this kid sittin’ on the end of the timber with his legs out, blockin’ the rest a’ the road. He’s all covered in ash an’ soot, his head down, his hands on his thighs, ain’t wearin’ nothin’ but his trousers. Couldn’t of been more than twelve, maybe thirteen years old. He didn’t move a muscle as we come marchin’ up.

“It was just after noon so we were all hot and sweaty, and you know how Sergeant Lekin was, he hated everything just on general principles anyway, so he was in a pretty snarly mood from marchin’ in the heat in his armor. He kicks the kid’s legs out of the way as he walks past, not hard to hurt ‘em, just to get ‘em out ‘a the way, but not nice about it neither, an’ he says; ‘Outta the way, peasant!”

Smid paused for a drink of water, his eyes unfocused as he remembered, then continued. “The kid stands up an’ says ‘Hey’ as he steps up behind Sergeant Lekin. Not yellin’ or anything, just hey, in a completely normal tone of voice. Lekin spins around like he’s gonna yell somethin’ nasty, but he’s kinda’ surprised to find the kid so close to him that their bellies are almost touchin, and the kid’s looking him up right in the eye with this strange look on his face, or I should say no look on his face, no expression at all, and that was the strange part. And as this is happenin’ the kid takes Lekin’s short sword out of its scabbard enough to get the tip clear, and he lowers the handle end enough to get it pointing up as the tip is restin’ on Lekin’s belt, and he shoves it up under Sergeant Lekin’s breast plate and into his heart. He didn’t do it particularly fast, or slow, he just did it, casual like, like you’d slice a carrot, without lookin’ away from Sergeant Lekin’s eyes. It was all over in a second.

“Sergeant Lekin’ gets this stunned look on his face as he tries to grab the blade or the wound through his armor, then his legs start to give out an’ shake, an’ the kid casually pushes him backward off the blade, and he falls.

“We were so close as this is goin’ on that I could’ve reached out and touched him. The kid turns around and looks at the rest of us. He didn’t threaten us with the sword, he just let it hang by his side, drippin’ blood. But his face… It was like havin’ a dead man lookin’ at you.

“We all just stood there for a second, then Belgran says ‘Crap!’ an’ he reaches for the kid, and the kid cuts off two of Belgran’s fingers with no more hurry or emotion than wavin’ away flies. Then Belgran yells crap again, a lot louder this time as he draws his longsword, and an arrow hits him in the throat. A small arrow, prob’ly elf made, or… Or from a bow for a kid.

“The boy just stands there as Belgran starts thrashin’ his life out on the ground, then me an’ Krin here, we ran the hell outta there. Once we were in the trees an’ had some cover, we look back and the kid’s just sittin’ on the end of the burnt beam again, just like how we found ‘im, ‘cept with the bloody sword.”

“Sir, I figured it was an elven trap and the boy was spelled.” Krin stated. “I thought the best thing to do at that point was to catch up to you here at the camp and report.”

Captain Dhiak looked from one to the other of them for a moment, his jaw clenched. “You’ll take Lieutenant Fastel’s platoon back there in the morning.” he ordered. “They have our best trackers. Tell Fastel that you’re to find the boy and the archer. Kill them.”

“Yes Sir.”

Earlier that day;

She waited almost twelve minutes, until she was sure that the other two were gone. She stalked carefully out of the trees, her knife in her right hand held toward the boy, her bow in her left, her eyes looking everywhere.

The boy looked at her as she came within three meters of him, mildly surprised that he hadn’t heard her approach.

She was prepared to fight, but he didn’t move anything but his head and his eyes. She stopped and met his gaze, inspected his expression carefully, then turned away from him as she muttered “Soul dead.” to herself in Elvish.

She looked over the soldier with the arrow in his throat long enough to be sure he was dead without a doubt, then gingerly approached the other, and when she was just close enough to touch him she suddenly stabbed him in the neck with her little five-inch knife seven or eight times while quietly screaming in rage. She stabbed him as hard as she could, like she was punching him and just happened to be holding a knife at the time. Satisfied he was stone dead, she went back to the first one and carefully pulled her arrow out of his throat, then cleaned it on the sleeve of his tunic just as carefully, along with her knife. She quietly cursed in Elvish as she saw that the arrow was damaged, but put it in a waist-quiver anyway.

She returned her attention to the boy and asked him as she waved at the burnt house; “What happened here?”

He just stared at her a moment, then muttered to himself; “Huh. A little forest elf.” Everything about her was forest brown except her bright green eyes. Her boots, pantaloons, short tunic, cloak with the hood thrown back, and her hair were all mottled medium brown, even her bow and the handle of her knife.

She asked again, insistently, almost angrily; “What happened here?!”

He stared at her another moment before he told her; “I know that’s Bhian, but I don’t understand it.”

She tried again, asking the same in another tongue, but he shook his head.

“If that’s supposed to be Taldrian, you’re no good at it.” he informed her.

“Fried dragon on a stick!” she cursed in anger in Elvish, and tried one more time in Trade Common. “What happened here?!”

“Oh.” he said, then answered her in the same language with a strong Taldrian accent as he went back to staring at his feet. “Well last night as we were sitting down to supper, four soldiers came to the door and banged hard. Not these ones, other ones. It should have been okay because they were Taldrian soldiers, but it was wrong, it was all wrong right from the beginning and we could all feel it from the way they looked at us. Father gave us the quiet sign that they were enemies, but we already knew, and we got our minds ready to fight like he taught us.

“He was nice to them anyway, he bid them good evening and asked how they fared, and they asked to share our meal because they smelt it as they marched up the road, and they were tired from marching for many days. Father said yes and told mother to give them the places of honor, which meant we moved our plates down and they were served at the head end of the table by father, between us and him. Mother never sat, she made sure she was bustling around the whole time as the men ate and talked with Father about the war and looked around like they were deciding which of them were going to get which of our things. They had loosened their armor, but they never took it off, they just left their helmets by the door, and they kept their swords on.