Naleth threw the wounded hunter a menacing scowl as he moaned seductively in his sleep. She moved over towards him and crouched soundlessly. He shifted slightly and his cloak touched his face. He awoke with a start, his eyes wild then clenched. Then he opened them again and seemed to gain focus as she deliberately stood and brought her heel crashing down into his face, bloodying him further. His nose oozed and gurgled a bit and then he relaxed, his chest still rising and falling rhythmically.

However much it pained her, she was given the duty to bring the kinslayer to her own village. She was the first to find him, among the gore of her brothers, and her people’s cursed tradition required a proper trial with a wounded and helpless foe. He was to be nursed back to health to pay for his crimes.

Rage trickled up her back and she stiffened. To the very points of her ears she could feel her Elven blood warming her skin. She was sent to the border with her brothers to stand guard for any interlopers. With the first repercussion of his noisy weapon, he had caught the attention of five outrunners, she being the fourth. She had departed the grisly scene half-dragging him through the forest until she could find a proper place to camp. The fifth was a younger blood-sister of hers who gasped when she saw a rod forcibly rammed through the head of one of her own. She immediately went to the closest outpost to get others to collect the the bodies. Naleth felt that she only offered to do this because she was horrified by the site of both the human and the three bodies of her kin with gaping holes in them. No human has ever dealt such a blow, not that she could remember.

Come to think of it, she had noticed something peculiar about this one. It seemed that when he stopped moving that the forest would give away the positions of her brothers, purposefully. She would have to find what this was as she doubted any inborn low-lander would be given any of the gifts of Gods. Pathetic and meaningless as their race was. Naleth stopped, her eyes unfocused for a bit as she looked into the twilight and her hand moved absently to her waist. Apparently, just as meaningless as the traditions that kept this murderer alive under her care.

She had chosen her camp well, all of the amneties of home, without being the slightest bit obvious that they were even there. A patch of ground moss comfortable as any low-lander bed, she thought briefly of kicking this abomination again. And fallen tree where she could meditate and watch. And, of course, Milk Weed to tend to his wounds… she hissed with disgust.

She stooped near the small fire where she had been preparing the Milk Weed pods by roasting them as was customary to do. This activated their healing properties as Milk Weed tends to be poisonous unless prepared correctly. After testing their firmness and heat, she lightly sprinkled water over the fire pit and then pushed the mound of earth into the pit to hide the sign of fire completely. She moved gracefully through her camp, her long, leather-tied braid loping along telling of her movements. The darkness was settling in, but she was able to see perfectly in the half-light.

As the light dimmed further, she shredded the straps holding his armor together unceremoniously and found the final hole that her brothers had put into him. It was there that she found a newly crafted, sueded leather belt with several silver vials tucked artfully into it, all slid midway into their straps and held fast. Each of the eight vials were in perfect alignment. She arched a fine eyebrow as she ran he fingers along the corks to check for any variance. “This doesn’t fit this low-lander’s style,” she mused softly. She reached down and felt the long vials to see if anything was contained in them, but with each flick of her long fingers, she heard a hollow clank. Naleth shrugged absentmindedly. Naleth cracked the Milk Weed pod and began to fill his wounds with the milky resinous mixture. His body flinched from the purifying pain, but he did not awaken.

Merrick sat in his North-facing study, his hands lazyily rolling a silver coin in his gray fingers. His mind was busy with thought while he watched the sun make its final descent. The thick jungles to the North had created a rainbow with the steam rising from them. It had been a sweltering day, but he had seen worse.

thunk, thunk, thunk

With each contortion, he could feel the coin rolling, sliding and colliding with each of his fingers as he artfully wound it up and down. He lit the lamp in his study, looking still out the North-facing window. He gracefully flipped the coin in the air and caught it sideways with a smack and the turned it up in his hand to see himself reflected in the highly polished silver coin.

He was a keen-faced man with fine features, maybe a bit rat-like. Merrick rather consider his looks fox-like, but apparently the two could be interchanged quite regularly. The thing most unusual about him was the coloring of his skin: pale gray, looking like death itself. His eyes shimmered a little as well, sparkles of silver mixed with blue were apparent. He grinned quickly, his appearance made him unique and, even more it made other people realize it.

His fascination with silver and its purifying properties had become a constant reminder of his goals and who he wanted to be. Some houses fancied enlacing with gold, others with fine woods. His home was streaked in pure silver. Handrails, fixtures, doorknobs, small discs that he kept in all of his cold food stores to keep his produce and milk fresh. His constant exposure over the thiry-seven years of his life had tainted his skin, but his appearance was boyish and smooth.

After regarding himself, Merrick dropped his hand and again looked North. “The hunter won’t be coming home tonight,” he told himself deliberately, “In fact, he may never come back.” Merrick had contracted a hunter with a weapon as loud as his personality. Hemmer was it? The man had an artful way of declaring his presence without even speaking. He met Merrick at his residence after some words dropped in the right places.

Earlier that week, they had made the transaction. It was unusual, but by no means uncommon.

“You want me to off some Elves?”, Hemmer began unceremoniously. Hemmer’s eyes traced up and down Merrick’s slate-gray pale gray face, completely unabashed and unperterbed at the sight of it. Merrick noted that the hunter’s manner didn’t change even after he got a good look at him.

“In a way, yes.” Merrick’s own quiet demeanor was in stark contrast, but in no way lacking potency.

The hunter snorted and began to recount his dislike for the Elvens. Merrick politely listened for a short time drafting up a statement of work, but his patience was waning as this was not what he asked him here for. Not to rehash old times that neither one shared or even to build any rapport. Merrick interrupted Hemmer by sliding the statement of work in front of him. Hemmer seemed a bit taken back.

Merrick raised an eyebrow, “What say you?”

Hemmer looked over the numbers and grinned nodding his head. “I like these numbers!” He fingered at Merrick as though tapping him on the chest from a distance, “You must have some gold to throw around.”

Merrick’s gray face smoothed as he smiled, almost shyly, and edged his head down a bit. “I have some specific requests that you need to meet, however. And that is titled into the price.” Hemmer cocked his grizzled face slightly and narrow his eyes to meet Merrick’s.

As he expected, the hunter didn’t hesistate about the instructions at all. Tonight was the night, though, and apparently the Hunter had failed. He was a blasted idiot to use a ground shaking weapon like that in the presence of so many fine Elven ears.

He brushed off his tunic and stood from his desk. There is still time. There was always time.