He lifted the fingers, dangling them like ribbons in front of his face and a faint scowl came to his lips as he saw on them his own blood, fresh red. Slowly the explorative hand hovered to his face, and he dragged the fingertips over his cheek, feeling with displeasure the scratches and cuts that now decorated his smooth features, caused by the swings of small blades…

Jharen seemed intent on defending the life of Verin, and she in turn was intent on defending Ar’thilmus. The halfling had showed his loyalty, bravery…and perhaps stupidity as he lunged forward with both blades outstretched at the moon elf. The elf had seen the blades coming, dodging to the side hastily and activating the magic of a ring that covered his torso in protective stone. Jharen’s second swings were unavoidable, clashing with the stoneskin and tearing chunks from it. The moon elf retaliated, a stroke of a single rapier taking the halfling across the cheek, clearly having been aimed for his neck. Jharen dived to the side now, avoiding a forward thrust from his opponent, and as the moon elf spun with his step, the halfling vanished from sight. The moon elf growled in anger and then leapt forward as he felt the halfling’s blades literally rip stone off his flesh. The elf spun on his heels, and Jharen took careful aim on a second pair of frantic swings. These blows tore stone from his opponent’s face, taking with it chunks of flesh. The moon elf span around quickly to face his opponent and then he himself vanished from sight. Jharen reacted hastily, and then for a moment he too disappeared from visible sight. A moment passed before both combatants reappeared, their blades clashing in a sweat-inducing parry. Twice the moon elf struck the halfling, and twice the halfling struck the moon elf, the smaller fighter’s aims chipping away stone as well as flesh as he struggled against the stoneskin. Jharen literally ducked one of his adversary’s lunges and rolled aside, hastily raising his own shadow up to its feet. The moon elf’s eyes seemed almost to boggle a second as the now upright shadow took swings at him. The moon elf hopped back dexterously and with a wave of his own hand he raised another shadow that had been cast under Jharen’s feet. The two shadows locked up in fist-to-fist combat as the too humanoids clashed blades.

Jharen was becoming tired but he could see the fatigue in the moon elf’s eyes and realized that his opponent was looking ready to collapse. He leapt off the floor and stroked his shortsword upwards, instantly tearing the stoneskin spell off the moon elf’s body. The elf cried out angrily, but before Jharen could even take a return swing, the elf was gone from sight. Jharen spun around on the spot as he heard the agonized screams of the shadows around him, but in the same instance the moon elf reappeared, his entire body covered by a shell of shadowstuff, striking down on the halfling with his rapier. The blow took Jharen square across the chest and he staggered backwards. A cold and malicious sneer curled the moon elf’s lips as he went for the finishing blow, but Jharen blocked it with his smaller blade. The two of them stared coldly into each other’s eyes. Jharen’s small eyes either did not notice, or ignored, the black flash that for a second possessed the gold glimmer in his foe’s eyes… the gold eyes that bore into Jharen’s and then Jharen vanished into the shadows. The moon elf cursed, spinning around… his eyes scanned around but he could not see the halfling. The only movement in his view was the two shadows, losing themselves in their forced battle, but the moon elf quickly disbanded the fight by giving a wave of the hand that obliterated the shadow Jharen had raised. The moon elf brought his hand up, rubbing at the blood dripping from his face and he narrowed his eyes slowly, his attention slowly leaving Jharen as he looked up at the castle ruins before him.

He awoke from the reminiscence with a distressed grunt; the body was exhausted as it had been for days, a result of him not letting it get the rest it needed. That battle had taken what little energy it had left, bringing it to a climax of fatigue. But still he had kept it on its feet and challenged the half-drow. He felt strong, if not in physical form then in mind. His mastery of the shadows around him was at its peak, the very light around him wanting to quake and give way to the darkness around him, the shadows and the gloom almost begging him to let them enshroud his form.

But he felt weak now, the dried blood having caked itself to his skin, every muscle in his body aching and his head pounding from passing out and from blood loss. He had confronted Verin to get to Ar’thilmus; he could not go on without her death, a part of his mind echoing over and over that she must die. Of course there would always be the response, the nagging in the head that cried out in protest, refusing as it had so long ago to allow Ar’thilmus to come to harm. But the nagging would cease when she was gone, when all was too late and when there was nothing that could be done.

He brought his hand back to the wound on his chest, his entire body arching away from the touch and a whimper of agony leaving his lips now. Slowly he sat himself up on the floorboards of the ruin, his eyes hovering over the bloodstains that tainted them. His bloodstains. She had put the dagger in him when he had been least prepared…

Verin stared out at the moon elf, every muscle in her powerful body straining and struggling to be free of the tight mesh of shadows that bound her, their shrill screams of agony barely audible against her body. Her violet eyes glimmered coldly but angrily at him, his taunting words merely making her want to kill him more. The moon elf stared right back at the half-drow, his rapier still clutched tightly in his fist, his mind forcing the shadows to keep her bound, and they daren’t resist him. He ran the sharp of the rapier against his leg, poising ready to deliver the final blow to Verin if she refused again to give him access to Ar’thilmus.

The dagger plunged deep into his gut, piercing the leather armor with ease, and his skin with even more ease. He had not seen Ar’thilmus step around Verin, and he had not seen the glint of the blade as she thrust it forward. His jaw dropped to hang open, his eyes widening to bulge in pained horror. His lips slowly open, the darkness shifting from his eyes now and a look of mourning comes into them. “Ar’th?”

Slowly he pulled himself to his feet, both hands clutching his injured gut, a few faint coughs bringing blood from his throat out onto the floorboards. A moment passed before he brought one of his bloodied hands up to rub his aching temple, trying desperately to focus his heavy-lidded eyes on the forest around him. He then reached into his armor jacket, opening a flap on his side and pulling out a small vial of green liquid. Before the cap could ever hit the floor he had downed the liquid, the fluid barely even touching his tongue as it slid down his throat. The potion worked its magic instantly, and he could feel the dagger wounds on his chest disappearing. A derisive smile curved his lips as the cuts across his face covered themselves over, his skin returning to its original smooth state. His head tilting on a side, his neck cracking to the bone, he began to flex his mended muscles; they felt as good as new, all but the fatigue that still ran through his body that could be resolved only by rest.

He moved now with a silence almost inhuman, reaching the bottom of the stairs and stepping slowly over forest leaves without so much as cracking them beneath his feet. He stopped down onto one knee, picking up from the grass the two pieces of a broken rapier that he could only assume Verin had broken and laid there the previous day. He fitted the blade segments under his dark armor and then raised to his head a single hand. His own shadow shrieked out beneath him in a voice it should not have, as its dark form lifted off the ground, spiraling like a whirlwind around his body and absorbing him into its dark folds and bringing him to vanish from normal sight, the only intentions on his mind being to find Ar’thilmus.