Fire and Shadow WIP

[Eddycted]

Prologue

“I remember you,” Kumori said.
“You were there, two centuries ago.”
“There?” the male elf asked.
“Now that you mention it… you do look familiar.”
He seemed to think for a moment, then grinned.
“You resemble your mother.”
Kumori glared at him angrily at the mention of her mother, and did not know what to reply.
“What do we do with her?” another, younger, elf asked.
“Take her away. We’ll question her later.” the superior replied. “Right now, we have more important matters to attend.”
“As you wish, milord.”
The second elf turned to Kumori, and snapped.
“Follow me, fool.”
In no position to protest, Kumori followed him.

The elf took her down a flight of weathered stairs to what seemed to be old, unused jail cells. He searched her quickly, and, to Kumori’s amazement, found both her hidden daggers and the lockpicks she had woven in her cloak.
“Clever,” the elf smirked.
He threw Kumori casually in the cell, and locked the door.
“But do not think you are the first to try.”
Kumori fell roughly on her side, but turned around quickly to face her captor.
“Don’t assume things, child.”
He ignored her biting remark, and asked, “What is your name, assassin?”
A grin formed on Kumori’s face as she thought of something brilliant, then replied.

Chapter I.

Kumori grimaced. She had expected the estate to be large. But this large? It’s close to hilarious in size, but nothing one wouldn’t expect from a blood elf.
She sighed. It was going to be a long night. The last phase of the hunt was going to be tiring.
No matter.
She preferred it this way.

The information she had received from her informant proved quite accurate – as she had come to expect of him – and she avoided the perimeter guards with ease. However, according to the maps she was given along with the time schedules of the patrols, she would have to sneak past at least three more sentries before she could even enter the building itself. The route she had planned would take her through the gardens and to the side entrance, commonly used by servants.

Reaching the garden’s maze of hedges, she took the first turn left, a dead end, to hide and look over the map of the maze again. She quickly glanced over the path she had memorised earlier, making sure she had the correct path. Two lefts. One right. Another left. And two more rights.
She thought to herself, “When I hear the guard pass the other side of this hedge, I’ll have about… three minutes to get through this annoying maze.”
She steadied her breathing in preparation, awaiting the footsteps anxiously. She hated sitting still for long. A few minutes later, as predicted, she heard the sound of large metal boots on the other side of the hedge.
“Plenty of time.” she thought to herself as she took the first left without making a sound. She took another left turn, then a right. She skidded to a halt suddenly, just before the next corner.
She heard someone talk. Whoever it was broke off mid-sentence, and clearly wasn’t alone. She silently drew her weapons, as the shadow cast by the hedge’s corner was slowly taken over by torchlight.

[Eddycted]

“Plenty of time.” she thought to herself as she took the first left without making a sound. She took another left turn, then a right. She skidded to a halt suddenly, just before the next corner.
She heard someone talk. Whoever it was broke off mid-sentence, and clearly wasn’t alone. She silently drew her weapons, as the shadow cast by the hedge’s corner was slowly taken over by torchlight.
Pressing close to the hedges, ready to strike, it was only a matter of time before the first sentry would peek his unfortunate head around the corner. Between two fingers Kumori readied a small globe of some kind. She grinned to herself. “Let’s see what it does, mage…”
She noticed an irregular shadow approaching – someone was walking in front of the lantern carrier. Kumori absently bit her lip as she thought over the move she was about to make once more, making sure it was indeed the best course of action. This had better work.
As the first sentry turned the corner, Kumori burst into action. Out of nowhere, she hit him hard on the head, knocking him out cold, spun around him to face the other sentry, and threw the globe at the other sentry before he had even realised his companion was already down. He wanted to shout out, his lungs were pumping out all the air her could muster, but no sound whatsoever escaped from his mouth, even though the words clearly formed on his lips. Shrugging off his confusion, he raised his sword in defiance. He was already too late. Kumori’s sword easily batted away his feeble defence, and her dagger plunged into his torso. As the poor soul dropped his sword and lantern, so did Kumori let go of her weapons, and she dove for the falling lantern. She caught the lantern, and turned her momentum into a roll and ended standing behind the collapsing sentry, who, by now, was choking on his own blood and staring at her in disbelief. The last thing he felt was a chill running up his spine as Kumori mouthed “Goodbye, fool.”
Seconds later, his unconscious brother in arms joined him.
She moved the corpses to a dead end in the maze, hoping that it would at least buy her a few minutes before they would be found and the alarm would be sounded. She’d have to improvise now, since the carefully planned assassination had been thrown off schedule by a couple of useless sentries who were socialising on the job. She sighed. This might not be a long night after all – time was now an issue.

Less than a minute later she exited the other side of the maze. She could already see the servants’ entrance to the manor. After making sure she had a clear enough path, she sneaked to the entrance. It was, not surprisingly, locked, and Kumori retrieved her hidden lockpicks from a patch on her cloak. She fiddled with the lock for a bit and realised quite soon that it was quite an intricate lock. A couple of minutes later – a lot longer than expected – she managed to pick the lock. She was just about to put away her lockpicks, when she heard almost soundless footsteps behind her.
Reflexively, she dropped her lockpicks, rolled to the side full speed, and ended standing, blades drawn. She stood eye in eye with another Sin’dorei. He was wielding a dagger and a mace, and, judging by his stance and dark, stealthy equipment and how close he managed to get to Kumori without notice, it was safe to assume he was in the same line of business. He was smirking, and seemed to enjoy the fact that Kumori had heard him.
Almost a whisper, Kumori said, “You’re no mere guard.”
Grinning, the other assassin replied, “Neither are you.”
He advanced on Kumori fast – faster than she had expected – and attacked.
Kumori easily parried his attacks, and threw a few easy attacks at him in return to gauge his fighting capability. He evaded them with ease, and retaliated. They were both slowly picking up the pace. This made Kumori realise he was testing her as well; and, if she knew, so did he. Moments later, they were fighting, full throttle, and, save for a few glancing hits, hadn’t severely wounded each other.
“We’re equally matched.” Kumori thought to herself – until she saw an opening.
She grinned. “Or not.” And went for the strike.
Both of their eyes grew wide as they felt drops of blood trickle down their necks. They had both deliberately held back the full force of the blow, but if they hadn’t… they would both be dead or bleeding to death by now.
“Well. This is interesting.” the assassin said.
“Indeed.” replied Kumori, still staring him in the eye.
“Let’s call it a draw.” he said, smirking, and stepped back.
Catching her breath, Kumori asked him, “Why are you here?”
“Lady of the estate,” he replied. “You?”
Kumori grinned, “What a coincidence… so am I.”
He returned the grin. “Nathaniel.”
“Kumori,” she replied, still grinning. “Pleasure to meet you.”

[Syllie]

I'm not really a writer so no constructive comments from me... But I like your story so far and really want to know what happens next so keep going

[Eddycted]

Thanks! Though I haven't worked on it for a while (exams and such), I'll try to make a next part soon. ^^