Read My Shorts

Dark Blade

Dark Blade

She screamed into the gag as he slid the blade along one cheek. His breathing quickened, her sobs sending adrenalin and lust coursing through his veins.

"I found this blade so long ago now," he whispered, his breath close and raising goosebumps on the skin of her bare neck. "I'd spent my entire life running away from trouble, but ran straight into a world of warm darkness. It called to me and I knew there was nothing I could do about it, knew there was no other choice but to take it and use it as the ancients had intended. It whispered its name to me as I picked it up - Stiehl - and I embraced it as a friend.

"I had to kill the gnome who owned it. He was worshipping it as an idol, an item of ancient magic. It comes from the time of the Faerie, before the fall of science and the rise of the races. But your race comes from the same time, little elf. You still have command of some magic, you understand the ancient links and the evil lying only a blade's width away from this world. The Ellcrys knows how thin the walls are..."

He ran a hand down the smooth trunk of the tree to which she was tied, her hands free, but body wrapped tightly upright against the bark, and carried on his whispered conversation as her terror wide eyes roamed the darkness behind him. "No use looking for help little elf, your fellow Chosen are all dead, as are the Guard.

"The Steihl talks to me: in the night, in my dreams. It can cut through anything, kill anything, it's only weakness is the creature carrying the blade. Yet I am strong now, I have partaken of the magic many times and it sustains me, makes me one with the weapon."

Reaching up, he drew back his hood to expose pale skin ridged with a myriad scars, a spider-web tracery of his past contoured on his face and neck. "One scar for every creature I've killed, little elf. And soon I will listen to the screams thousands more as the demons roam Arborlon. But first there are a few tasks to perform.

"You are of the Royal blood and a female Chosen. Why did the Ellcrys choose you now... does she know she is in danger? She is healthy after all. Could it be that your tree knows of me? Knows that she may die and release the demons contained in the Forbidding?

"What do you know little elf? Shall we find out?"

The girl stared at him, eyes wide with terror as they watched the blade. He struck, viper quick, the blade slicing effortlessly through her shoulder and into the trunk of the tree behind. She screamed, and the tree shuddered, leaves dancing like snow through the night air. He watched, fascinated, as her eyes darkened. White changed to blood red and black, a swirl of white bursting into life and morphing into the shape of the tree and she thrashed desperately against her bonds.

Pale eyes watched as she altered, a nacreous shimmer dancing over her skin. He struck again, the blade plunging into the other shoulder, as he played with his victim, delighting in the pain, the smell of blood and the despair floating in her tree darkened eyes.

"It seems you are linked little elf. But now you must die; first you, then your tree, and then the people of this land. Die knowing you've failed your race..."

The dagger slammed into her chest, a blush of dark crimson spreading over her white gown as the knife buried itself in the tree behind. The tree spasmed and her body went rigid against the trunk, her hands scrabbling at the bark. Crimson fire shot into the night, momentarily blinding the assassin as he threw an arm over his face. Darting forward he made a grab for the blade, but doubled over as her hand shot forward, the fingers turning into branches which speared into his heart. The crimson light scoured the sky...

~

Askel, King of the Elves looked away from the sprawled forms of his personal guard and white robed Chosen. High in the branches of the tree lay the tattered robe of a Chosen, and a human skeleton.

He placed his hands against the smooth bark and bowed his head in communion. After a few moments he stepped back, tears streaking his face and lifted a dark blade from the grass.

"Captain!"

"Yes, my king."

"The Ellcrys has been re-born. The Forbidding is intact, but some demonkind may have escaped. We must find them and kill them."

"Yes, my king."

"Oh my daughter, what have you become..."

~~~ The End ~~~ 

This little short is actually a Fan Fic of sorts, based around Terry Brooks' Shannara series. The Steihl was a blade used by Pe Ell and then Aphasia Wye and can reputedly cut through anything, and kill anything. The second assassin was captured by the Tannequil tree and after that it disappeared... 

The Ellcrys is another tree but one that lives in the royal gardens of the city of Arborlon, city of the elves. It keeps in place The Forbidding, keeping the demons away from the world of the Four Races. In the Elfstones of Shannara, a young girl elf becomes the new Ellcrys after the other one starts to die and the Elves and other races must fight the demons as the old tree weakens. 

This little story puts the two things together at some point in the future of the city of the Elves, and was done as my entry for the latest Fantasy smackdown being run in The Pub (which used to be an area in our forums which closed in 2020).

To enter I had to use the picture prompt of the girl with darkened swirly eyes (which looked like a tree to me) on the right, and the sentence highlighted in bold had to be used somewhere in the story.