“What do you want?” Leita came crashing through into the guild war room. The room was simple, with a few tapestries, a long table, about ten chairs, and a small man seated at the head of the enormous table. There sat Bailzin, the guild master, wearing his typical lopsided grin.

“Good evening my fine elven killer,” he said in that nonchalant voice he always used when speaking to Leita. She felt two other presences in the room. She could not see them but her sixth warrior sense told her that they were there. Two tapestries flew up at once. When they flew up, Leita dived to the floor in a headlong roll, pulling two daggers from her boot sheaths as she did. She came out of the roll facing two elves, one male and one female. Both had knives resting easily in their hands as they stalked closer. The male, to Leita’s left, struck first, coming in hard and fast with a double thrust. Leita easily moved the simple strikes away from her. However, this was not the real attack. The female leaped up, planting her feet on the male’s shoulders, and pushed off to come down on Leita with her daggers coming down in a V formation, one on each side of Leita’s neck. Leita went into another forward roll that sent her between the man’s legs. She jumped to her feet and spun around, whipping her dagger around for a killing blow in one fluid motion. If you had not been watching closely, you would have thought she had been behind the defenseless man the whole time. Her dagger came streaking in, only to be parried by the woman’s knife. The ring of steel echoed within the room as though bells had gone off right next to your ear.

“Excellent!” Bailzin cried out in joy. In his mind he was thinking of just how dangerous this trio of elves were. Leita produced her cloak about her in a grand flourish, promptly covering her whole body. The cloak- with Leita inside- then disappeared from sight only to reappear behind the female elf. The elven warrior had anticipated it and dropped to a crouch immediately, crossing her daggers together above her head. Leita’s knife came in and bounced off the two weapons with a loud clang. Leita moved back several steps and resumed a ready formation. However, it seemed that the elven duo had seen enough for they sheathed their weapons and moved to stand behind Bailzin.

“Mother, Father,” Leita acknowledged both with a nod of her head. She quickly turned on Bailzin again. “Now what do you want?”

“Is it not enough to say I wanted to see you again?” A throwing knife came to a dead stop in the chair beside his head.

“No one wishes to just ‘see’ an Assassin,” the dangerous woman said in a low tone. “I ask you once more. What. Do. You. Want!”

“Oh very well,” Bailzin tried his best to appear casual about the obvious threat. He noticed that the pair behind him had tensed at their daughter’s actions. All of those thoughts were quickly diminished with ones of what he was about to do. “I have another contract for you.”

Leita perked up a tiny bit at that and excitement ran across her face before she could stop herself. “When?”

“Tonight”

“A deadline?”

He seemed to think for a second, “By the time the Moon reaches its zenith.”

“Who?”

There was a long pause. A creeping sensation came into Leita at that point. She cast a suspicious look upon the grinning guild master. And then he spoke the damning name, “Zareesa”

The name rolled over Leita like a concussive blast. She looked to her mother and father then, looked into their devilish smiles. Shock soon was overcome by anger, and anger by hatred: hatred to Bailzin, to her mother and father, to this city crawling with the worthless maggots that call themselves sentient beings. She was being asked to kill Zareesa. She was being asked to kill her friend. Zareesa was the only friend Leita had ever known. She had grown up with the litany, “friends are weakness, and weakness leads to death.”
Zareesa was a Healer. A Healer was one who could channel their life energy into another to heal wounds. However, such people were shunned in this world, believed to be unnatural and a creation of demons. Then again, so were Assassins. That was what gravitated the two toward one another.
Leita rushed out of the room, slamming the door behind her, and ran to her quarters. She and her parents had taken up temporary residence in the guild, taking contracts from Bailzin or anyone else who wanted to hire someone to do their dirty work.
There was nothing special in Leita’s small room. A bed lay in one corner, a wardrobe in another. A long carpet was stretched out in the middle of the floor and a life-sized mirror sat on its stand a few feet to the right of the door.
Leita moved to the mirror to examine herself first. She was not tall for human standards, standing at five feet and two inches, but she moved with the grace and beauty unmatched by any human woman, and even most elves! She had enviable long, black hair that she brushed back to reveal another sign of her elven heritage, the pointed ears. Her eyes were the color of the purest sapphire. Adorned on her figure were boots, leather pants and studded jerkin stained black over a long-sleeved black shirt, and a necklace that negated harmful magic directed at her specifically.
Leita turned away from the mirror then and moved to the wardrobe where she flipped a switch. A slight swoosh, came from the side. The Assassin moved around to the area she heard the noise from and opened a secret hatch. Inside lay a pair of wrist sheaths with a matching set of daggers. The daggers glowed green with enchantment. If the daggers break the skin of an enemy, at Leita’s will, their enchantment can seep in, progressively killing them with a deadly poison that is designed to tire the victim until they die. The more they move, the faster the poison works.
She closed the hatch and went back around to the front where she swung open the wardrobe door. Inside laid her bandoleer with an array of throwing knives with different sizes, edges, and poisons. All, however, were sharpened to perfection.
Strapped onto the back of the bandoleer at the section where the leather would meet the small of her back, were two miniature crossbows designed to be held lightly in Leita’s hands. Along with those were bolts at the very top of the bandoleer, next to her shoulder. The bolts were secured very loosely so Leita could quickly reload without having to fumble about with the strings.
Leita turned as she heard the door swing open. She always kept it slightly creaky so if an intruder attempts to enter her room, she will hear them. Her father walked in then. He was only slightly taller than Leita was with a muscular build, and black hair cropped short. His green eyes met Leita’s as he closed the door behind him.
He tossed her a bag that clinked with the familiar sound of coins. “Advanced payment. You get the other half when the job is done.” He said nothing else, and calmly walked back out of the room.
Leita unsheathed a dagger from her wrist sheath, letting it fall into her hand, and flung it into the mirror. The finely cleaned glass shattered into hundreds of little pieces.
Where she was going, she wouldn’t need it.

The hunter stalked the streets. Moving from alley to alley, shadow-to-shadow, as silent as death itself. It passed by beggars, homeless families, and drunks from the tavern, and people walking to the ramshackle houses they called home, without a whisper of sound. No one noticed the hunter, and that was the way it liked things. It knew nothing could stop it; nothing could get in the way of the hunter’s goal. However, killing innocent bystanders just wasn’t professional.
Embracing the primal side of her being, Leita moved toward the tent that marked Zareesa’s residence. Two guards were posted outside, standing at attention. Apparently someone else had anticipated this day, Leita thought to herself. She smiled, no matter. Again the primal beast welled up inside her as she moved off to the side, down another alley. She came out facing the back of the tent. The Assassin moved forward and started to take a dagger from her boot to cut a hole in the tent. The dagger stopped halfway to the tent wall before it disappeared again into the boot. Leita crept around to the side of the tent, behind one of the guards. She then snapped open her right wrist sheath, letting the magnificent dagger drop into her hand. She then pulled a throwing knife from her bandoleer, a straight, four-inch blade with a simple poison, and snuck closer. The hunter enveloped her in full and leaped forward. In a matter of seconds, her right hand came up, drawing a grin across the closest soldiers neck with the dagger and her left hand came up, back, and forward to throw the throwing knife straight into the other guards heart.
“Perfection,” Leita muttered. It was the Assassins’ motto, simple though it may be. Their thinking; why waste time memorizing a silly speech when you could be out making money.
The hunter walked into the tent; pausing for half a second to let her elven eyes adjust to the single candle’s light that filled the room. Leita’s friend knelt in the middle of the crowded space facing a small altar.
“You’ve come to finish it,” her tone was low. She turned to face Leita at that moment and her eyes were filled with sorrow. She smirked, “Ironic, isn’t it?”
The hunter growled and brought the knife up level with the Healer’s throat. Leita’s conscience fought for dominance. The dagger inched closer. Zareesa closed her eyes, waiting for the killing blow. Leita began to sweat.
The dagger came closer.
Her breathing became labored as she fought that darker side of her. The side she always reverted to on a mission. But this was no ordinary mission. She was about to kill her best friend.
The hunter snapped and blew apart into pieces and the dagger flew from her hands into the center wooden support.
Leita dropped to her knees and hugged her best friend with all her considerable might. Zareesa began to sob. Leita was glad no one else was there for fear of someone seeing the small tear running down her cheek.
“We have no time to waste,” the Assassin had to stop. Her voice was too shaky. After a long moment she spoke again.
“Let us go”

Leita poked her head out of the tent and looked around. What she saw wasn’t encouraging. Bailzin didn’t think she could finish the job because there were many suspiciously looking guards in the area. He didn’t pick the men well either, for Leita knew a few of them. She disappeared back into the tent.
“Alright we have a slight problem. Bailzin has stationed his men as guards to make sure I finish the job.” Leita winced as she completed the last sentence. She spoke so calmly about killing her own friend! Stop this nonsense, her conscience screamed at her. You have more important things to think about. It was true, and when she looked at Zareesa, Leita saw that her friend took little notice of the Assassin’s tone.
“That’s a small problem? What’s a big problem to you?”
“You may not want to know.” More than a few circumstances came to mind when Zareesa voiced that question but Leita pushed them all to the side and prepared herself. “OK, here’s the plan. I will walk you to the alley as if I have a knife to your back. I need you to act scared and struggle a little. Once we reach the alleyway we run like all hell’s broke loose for the gate.”
“Sounds simple enough.”
“Whatever you say.” At Leita’s gesture, Zareesa stood up and got into position in front of the deadly woman. Leita drew a dagger from her right wrist sheath and set it lightly on the small of Zareesa’s back. At the Healer’s wide-eyed expression, she shrugged. “Authenticity,” was the only explanation she gave.

The tent flap opened and the guards saw a familiar elf leading a rather frightened woman at knifepoint towards an alley towards the left of the tent.
“What is she doing?” one man asked.

“Beats me. I just hope she finishes it. I don’t want to get anywhere near that woman,” the second man muttered.

“I hear yah there buddy.”

A third man walked up, obviously the leader of the group. “She isn’t going to do it. It’s a ruse! Move it you fools, she’s already into the alley!”



When the duo reached the alley they broke into a sprint, pushing aside anyone who got in the way. A horn sounded from above and Zareesa stopped. Leita would have run her over had she not twisted away in time. She pulled her friend along.

“It’s Bailzin’s men! We have to keep moving!” The dash for the gate resumed. A guard stepped out of a small space between two buildings, sword barring the way. Leita stabbed the outstretched arm with the dagger she still held in her hand. The green enchantment flared as she willed the blade to deliver its deadly payload. The guard shrunk back as the pair ran on. A quick look over her shoulder showed Leita the man had recovered enough to give chase. The Assassin smirked and led Zareesa on. The two were coming up on a right hand turn. Leita stopped Zareesa, whipped around and kicked the trailing man square in the face. He dropped like a stone thrown off a building. The elf turned back around and peered around the corner. Unsurprisingly, she saw two men in guard uniform standing watch at the end of the alley, looking in. Leita looked to Zareesa.

“Are you ready?”

“If I say no?” Zareesa looked like she meant it too.

“I won’t care,” Leita gave a halfhearted grin. She took a step back, put her enchanted dagger back in its wrist sheath and took out her two hand crossbows. Checking the strings with a casual glance, the Assassin took a deep breath, and leaped out into the middle of the bend, moving into a sideways roll as she came down. She finished on one knee with both crossbows level and fired one after the other. Thump! Thump! The bolts slammed home, one in the chest of each soldier.

Leita looked back to see Zareesa staring at her. She also saw three more of Bailzin’s men coming from the way they came. She stood straight up and reloaded, bringing the two crossbows up to her shoulder area, hooking the strings onto the backs of two bolts, and pulled over and in. The result was a clean reload coming from practicing the exact same maneuver hundreds of times.

“Move!” came the scream. Zareesa, trusting in her companion, jumped and crashed into the wall of a nearby building. With a whizzing sound, the bolts screamed past the injured human and met their marks: one in the head of the soldier on the far right and one in the shoulder of the far left. That left the man in the middle as the last one able to fight. Leita evaluated her options. She did not have enough time to reload before the man could get to her so she either had to roll backwards, trying to buy enough time to reload or find an alternative method. Going into the roll would leave Zareesa in danger, though. All this went through Leita’s mind in half a second. She made up her mind with the other half. Seeing no other way, she dropped the crossbow in her right hand, twisted to the left, and took a throwing knife from her bandoleer and threw it underhand at the charging buffoon in one fluid motion. The knife came in hard at the poor man’s gut. With a scream he doubled over in pain, grabbing at the hilt of Leita’s weapon.

Unfortunately for him, it was already too late. The poison from the knife had already made its way into his veins with a single purpose, reach the heart and stop it from beating.

The man with the bolt in his shoulder, however, was a different story. Leita picked up her crossbow from the ground, reloaded, took careful aim at the whimpering fool, and fired. The bolt thudded into his chest, piercing his heart and forever silencing him. She looked to her friend who was still against the wall favoring one leg.

“Come on, we can’t stop now.” Leita slung her friend’s arm over her shoulder. They started off until Leita stopped.

“We can’t get out like this.”

“Give me a few seconds and you hand,” came the grateful response.

“My hand?” Leita felt a little skeptical at that idea. She kind of needed both hands for her craft.

Zareesa gave her a look, “Just trust me.” Hesitantly, she put the Healer down and grasped her hand. Zareesa closed her eyes and put her other hand a few inches above her ankle. Immediately, Leita felt an overwhelming sensation of vertigo and felt the energy in her body, both natural and from adrenaline, being siphoned out of her through her hand into Zareesa’s. A blue glow erupted from the human’s other hand and reached toward her ankle. Tendrils of blue energy wrapped around the flesh and seeped into her body. A loud POP resounded moments later as the forces realigned bones. Zareesa abruptly let go of Leita who in turn tumbled backward onto her rear.

“What in the Nine Hells?” Leita took several deep breaths before her head stopped spinning.

“That is my gift, or my curse, depending on how you look at it. I take energy from either myself or another person and channel it into healing.”

“Yeah, don’t hurt yourself again. Come on, we have to move or they’ll be on us.” Leita got up, steadied herself, and walked over to help Zareesa up. “The gate is right around the corner. I don’t know how many of Bailzin’s men are already there but regardless; I want you to keep running no matter what. Understand?” Zareesa nodded. Leita didn’t wait; she gave her friend a good push and sprinted past her.
Turning the corner, she saw at least six men though there could have been more. The two wondrous daggers dropped into her hands as she charged forward. The elf jumped into the air, performing a three-sixty spin. At the end of the spin her arms snapped out to full length, slashing the throat of one of the soldiers. Leita landed and immediately was in a crouch, darting forward. She knew that if she waited for them to come to her she would be overwhelmed. She put on a burst of speed a leaped again at a man a few feet away. She collided with him before he could produce his weapon. She promptly locked her legs around the doomed man’s waist, riding down to the ground. Halfway to the ground, however, she sunk both daggers into opposites sides of his neck. When the man finally collided with the earth, Leita rolled off coming to her feet quickly to parry an overhead swing. She pushed the sword out wide and came in, stabbing the guard in the chest. Then, one dagger was gone as the Assassin reached to her bandoleer, producing a wickedly curved throwing knife. Her arm went back and forward in one fluid motion, arcing the blade toward an enemy as she selected another blade and threw that one at a different target. Both knives landed in the chest of their intended victim. As the two latest kills dropped, Zareesa ran past toward the gate. The final soldier attempted to swipe his sword at the small human but another form collided with the back of his legs, slamming him to the ground. Leita was on top of him in a second, stabbing down with her remaining dagger. The fine-edged blade punched through his throat. It looked like he was trying to scream but all that came out was a gurgling sound as he drowned in his blood.
Leita got up and scrambled over to the corpses with her throwing knives sticking out of them. Wrenching the knives out, she cleaned them on the armor of the two dead men. After putting them back, the deadliest woman in the Northeast exited the infernal city of Kaledriin.
“Perfection.”

Leita moved at a steady jog to catch up to Zareesa, who was at the forest line a hundred yards from the city. A familiar whizzing sound came from behind Leita. Her exceptional elven hearing saved her because the arrow was far enough away to give her the time needed to drop to the ground. She was up again in an instant, moving with all speed toward the forest.
Fifty yards to go…
More arrows came down around Leita. She saw Zareesa start moving towards her, but she waved her back. Her friend hesitated and then came on with renewed vigor. However, she didn’t get very far.
Zareesa stopped in her tracks fifteen yards from the forest line. Whiz! Thump! An arrow smacked into Leita’s left calf. The Assassin lurched forward and fell face first in the dirt. She didn’t stop moving, though. She continued to crawl towards Zareesa, who had resumed her dash.
Thirty yards to the trees, Zareesa met Leita and hovered over her as she began to mutter and wave her hands about. She seemed to come to the end of the incantation and pointed a finger at the city walls. A brilliant blue flash exploded from the extended finger and a bolt of pure fire streaked toward a man holding a rather large bow. Leita couldn’t make him out perfectly but she did get to see his eyes widen as he ducked down, letting the fire bolt slam into the archer behind him. That image satisfied Leita for the time being.
She tapped Zareesa’s leg and pointed to her own, “Do you mind giving me a hand?” Zareesa chuckled and helped her friend to her feet. The two stumbled the thirty yards to the tree line with no further pursuit. A sigh of relief escaped Leita’s lips as she sat down behind the protective cover of a tree a few feet in.
The sigh turned into a yelp of pain as Zareesa broke the arrow in half and pushed it the rest of the way through the Assassin’s leg. She shushed her friend and threw the broken arrow bits far away.
“What… Did… You do?” Leita was at a loss as to what happened a few minutes before. Zareesa was a Healer! Not a mage! Healers can’t use offensive magic, yet here they were, one bolt of blue fire later. Blue fire! Leita was smart and fairly worldly but never had she heard of blue fire. “You shouldn’t have been able to do… Whatever the hell you just did!” she continued, voicing her tumbling thoughts.
“I met some people. They had found a way to turn Healing magic into offensive abilities. They called themselves Battle Clerics.” It wasn’t much in the way of an explanation but Leita was in pain and didn’t feel like arguing a sensible answer from her companion.
“Whatever, can you do your healing thing?” Leita grumbled after a while.
“Of course,” Zareesa smiled. She smoothed the front of her robes and took a seat in front of Leita. Closing her eyes, she positioned her hands a few inches above the gaping wound in her leg. The familiar blue glow erupted from her palms once more. Blue tendrils reached down and wrapped around Leita’s leg. Leita felt a comforting warmth surround her wound as Zareesa’s magic began knitting muscles back together and creating new skin until all that was left was a pink scar. The blue light unwrapped itself from Leita and snapped back into Zareesa’s body in the blink of an eye. Zareesa sat back on the heels of her feet and Leita closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the tree where she promptly fell asleep.