Chapter 8: The Raven

Hoplite scrambled up the tree easily as Lance screamed after him to take the would-be assassin alive. He knew that very well, he would take him alive to interrogate him first, then he would let the watchers take custody. Surely they would like to question this elf as well, for certain the mysterious attacker had to be one of them, otherwise where would he have gotten the color-shifting cloak?

He scaled the tree quickly, driving his fingers deep into the bark with his gray rock hard fingernails as the assailant fled. Pistol clenched between his teeth as he ascended, he felt the bark press into the pads of his feet as he used them to quicken his ascent, his hands providing the grip with his abnormally strong nails.

An accidental mutation during his infusion, one he never thought he’d ever find a use for on the battlefield aside for ripping through flesh… till now. When he finally crested the high branch he had been shot at from, he saw that other watchers were speeding towards the attacker, hopping through branches with a practiced grace.

The assassin though, was far faster. The speed by which he leapt across the branches made Hoplite think of a Paladin, the previous generation of super-soldier. He knew though that this could not be one of them, the frame and height was too small. Paladins, while not being quite as tall as hoplites, were still head and shoulders taller than ordinary humans.

This was a man of middling height and width, no augments from Terna certainly. He strained his legs, and jumped forward, moving across the branches with long leaping strides, passing wide-eyed watchers and quickly gaining on his quarry. He would never be able to jump across these treetops in the phalanx suit, the weight would snap them off and send him plummeting to the earth for certain. He kept his gun in his teeth, wanting to have his hands free to grab the assassin or climb higher if needed.

The assassin turned back, revealing a set of brilliant blue eyes. Hoplite was only three branches behind the man now, having closed the gap in merely a few seconds since the bolt was fired. Those brilliant blue eyes widened in horror and he turned away, trying to increase his pace from his already super-human stride.

Hoplite increased his own pace, and it was a simple thing to reach out and grab the man by the nape of his neck. His hand was left gripping cloth though, for the man suddenly dropped from the branch, undoing his cloak and landing on the forest floor in a roll and standing to continue his stride as if he hadn’t just dropped from a height that would break a normal man's legs. Hoplite immediately followed, leaping down from the twenty foot high branch, discarding the cloak which faded away into the night, its colors blending in with its surroundings.

His feet hit the ground, the shock absorbers in his knees and ankles taking the brunt of the fall and leaving him perfectly fine as he took the pistol from his mouth with his left hand

Long black hair tied back in a tail waved in the wind as the bare armed man ran, his face still concealed by a black face mask. A simple sleeveless dark shirt and dark trousers made up his outfit, revealing a lean runner's frame. Pointed ears revealed him to indeed be an elf, but Hoplite didn’t really think he would be anything else.

Hoplite would fire at the man's foot if he somehow managed to outpace him, but Hoplite knew that the chase would be over soon. No one, no matter how fast they were, could outrun Hoplite on flat terrain. As the distance closed, Hoplite swiped for that trailing ponytail with his right hand only to meet air as the man suddenly rolled to the side, coming up to a kneeling crouch.

A hand crossbow fired from the man's steady grip, and the bolt flew right into Hoplites eye.

Or it would have if he hadn’t knocked it clean out of the air with an almost lazy hand, two fingers striking the shaft. It whizzed away and thunked into a nearby tree. Hoplite fired his pistol, the blast tearing through the wooden weapon with an explosion of wooden shrapnel and grazing the assassin's arm before the round hit the dirt. The elf snarled and darted forward, slashing for Hoplites face with an almost preternatural speed.

The elf had drawn a sharp black blade, the metal forged to look like a raven's beak.

Hoplite batted away the blow, smacking the flat of the blade with his pistol. The elf’s arm was sent flying upward and he stumbled for the briefest of instants before he rolled with the momentum. The assassin never got a chance to stand from the roll.

Hoplite darted toward that wide-eyed face with reaching hands, finding those lean shoulders and squeezing hard. Hoplite’s stone-like fingernails bit into the flesh of the elfs shoulders, drawing blood and eliciting a cry of agony from the elf. He picked the elf up bodily and stared murder into those blue eyes, the black beak-blade falling to the dirt.

“Identify.” Hoplite ordered the gun between his teeth once more.

“Ferow Mahera!” The elf screamed in agony, straining his neck back and forth as Hoplite applied pressure.

If he wanted too, Hoplite could squeeze the elf’s shoulders hard enough to shatter the bone. His current grip strength would leave deep bruises, but he didn’t want to risk sending the assassin into unconsciousness.

“Why did you try to kill me?” Hoplite asked, his tone unchanging.

The elf winced as blood dribbled down his bare arms and over Hoplites squeezing fingers.

“Tch! Ah!” Ferow groaned through clenched teeth “A-a day watcher!”

“Name.” Hoplite commanded.

“You caught him already?” He heard Lance say from behind him.

He turned his head to see her and other watchers were gathering around him and Ferow, some looking with… awe? Yes, looking at the assassin with awe and sparing some strange looks for Hoplite. Was that fear or was it confusion? Both?

Ferow gasped out before Hoplite could reply “Didn’t- give names… tall faekin, long blonde hair! I couldn’t see his face but he wore that cloak!” He continued through clenched jaws “I ain’t a watcher, fella just hired me cause he heard I was around I swear! Didn’t tell me why he wanted ya dead but I didn’t ask!”

“How long have you been after me?” Hoplite asked, applying a bit more pressure and feeling the bones creaking through Ferow’s flesh.

“Two… Days…” He said through heaving pained breathes “Been… waiting for you to get out of that armor…”

Hoplites eyes narrowed. Not one watcher had seen him? Perhaps they did, but none thought anything of it, after all, he did have the cloak. For that matter, Hoplite himself could have seen Ferow several times in the last couple of days and not thought anything was amiss. He would be keeping an even keener eye on the watchers from now on.

Hoplite set him down on the ground without loosening his grip… and stomped on Ferow’s right foot with a quick motion. The arc of Ferrows foot was then flattened beneath the force and the elf cried out in agony, falling to the ground when Hoplite released him. Hoplite kicked away the black dagger and knelt on Ferrow’s back, looking to the watchers who all stared with concerned eyes, even Lance.

“Rope.” Hoplite ordered as he forced Ferow’s hands across his back.

A nearby elf nodded after a moment of silence, wrapping the cursing Ferow’s wrists together with an almost… reverent touch. He wouldn’t be making any escape bound like that, and even if he found a way to escape those bindings, his crushed foot would ensure that he couldn’t outrun a turtle.

Hoplite stood, looking down at the glaring Ferow, that mask doing little to conceal the hate plastered across his face. Not from around here and hired by a day watcher… it could only be assumed that this day watcher had taken a slight at his presence in the Faewood and hired this elf to kill him.

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The question was, what prompted him to hire an outsider to kill another outsider? Ferow had claimed to not be a watcher, and based on that accent he indeed wasn’t a native to the Faewood. He knelt down to that glaring face, yellow eyes meeting blue.

“Has anyone else been hired to kill me?” Hoplite asked in a cold tone.

Fear momentarily overtook the look in Ferow’s eyes before going back to that hot anger “No one that’d be as good as me, so no.”

A couple of watchers dragged Ferow to his feet, the elf putting all his weight on his unbroken foot as Hoplite stood. He turned away from Ferow and approached Lance, who seemed to be focusing on just his face with a concerted effort. Seemed that elves were as uncomfortable with nudity as normal humans, but Hoplite himself didn’t care about his nudity outside of his vulnerability.

He kept himself at the ready to deflect or catch any more bolts, Hoplite could not believe that only one killer had been hired to end his life, no matter how allegedly competent this one had been. Lance looked away from his face a moment to stare after Ferow as he was guided away by the watchers, likely they had their own questions to ask but Hoplite doubted that those questions would stray far from his own.

“Ferow the Raven… unbelievable.” She said almost to herself.

“The Raven?” Hoplite asked, turning to look at the limping man.

His handprints had made deep bruises in Ferows shoulders, a pain he’d be feeling for a long while yet. Lance blinked at his voice and turned her head back up to look at him.

“Yeah, I’m ashamed to say that he’s a bit of a celebrity around here.” She said with a frown “He’s a bit older than me I think, in his two-hundred’s. He’s famous on this continent as a… well, an assassin. He’s never failed even the most dangerous jobs, but he’s never been out here before.” She explained as he moved to walk back toward the river.

She quickly followed, this time seeming to go out of her way to stay just ahead of him “He does his work almost exclusively in Akan Dar, used as a tool between the Block-Lord’s there. Not many elves make home there see, so hearing about a well known elf in the largest human city on Ahkoolis has made him something of a folk ‘hero’ around here.”

She cleared her throat as dozens of watchers passed them by, none stopping to talk with either her or Hoplite as they presumably moved to see this ‘Raven’ for themselves.

“I guess ‘hero’ is kind of… wrong, but I suppose the respect he receives is like that of a hero round’ here.” She said, scratching her cheek “I can’t believe you actually managed to catch him… you’re going to be somewhat of a celebrity yourself here soon when word spreads.”

When they reached the river, Lance fell into silence and turned her back to him once more. Hoplite descended back into the water, scrubbing away the dirt caking his feet and finishing up the cleanse. When he was finished, he crawled up out of the river and moved past Lance toward the direction of the pod. He didn’t want to stay out of the armor longer than what was necessary.

“So…” Lance said “You feeling okay?” She asked, tone concerned.

“I don’t like to speak unless necessary.” Hoplite replied.

She let out a relieved breath “Oh thank Draoi, I thought you were angry with me.”

Hoplite frowned and actually turned back to her, looking her in the eyes. She seemed bemused as she looked into his eyes, though why he could not say.

“Why would I be angry with you?” Hoplite asked.

“I was assigned to watch you Hoplite, that means keeping you from causing trouble… and keeping you from harm. I failed.” She said with a deep frown.

Hoplite furrowed his brow. The last few days had been spent constantly killing fiends, she certainly hadn’t been too concerned with ‘protecting’ him. Then again, perhaps in his armor she was confident that he could not be harmed. When he emerged out of his armor she did seem to be more aware of her surroundings, but he had simply chalked that up to nightime caution. Fiends could seemingly jump out of nowhere on occasion, especially at night.

“I am unharmed. You didn’t fail.” He said turning back ahead.

“Well… I suppose that’s true, I guess I’m still amazing after all!” She declared with a giggle.

Hoplite didn’t reply.

“So those adventurers we saw earlier are going to the fiendwall to help shore up the defenses.” Lance said “Do you want to head that way? We can probably catch up to them with how we’ve been going the last few days.”

Hoplite considered. They were out of fiends to kill out here and unless the gap in this ‘fiendwall’ was shored up they would continue to pour in. With pests, the best thing to do was to eliminate them at the source, in this case, the fiendwall.

“We’ll need to take supplies with us. You said before that the journey was three days, so we will need to pack for that.” He told her “When we reach the fiendwall, I’ll eliminate enough to where the breach can be safely rebuilt.” He continued “And after that, we’ll see who sent Ferow to kill me.”

He turned to look at her and she grinned, nodding her response.

Another three days of travel… another three days out of contact with Terna. Unless… unless the breach was caused by a falling pod. The thought quickened his pace as he rushed for his pod.

What if they were buried beneath the rubble? The supplies within couldn’t last them forever, he had to hurry. That was if it was indeed a ternan pod that had fallen, it was all too possible that it was a Final Kind pod that had crashed into it.

That would be just his luck.

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