Everything had gone to shit. Two weeks of planning, three men hired, four guards bribed, and six horses purchased, all to smuggle one pregnant elf from the Capital. Three days of travel by boat or a week’s ride south and he was to earn nearly two months’ worth of normal jobs. Light rain made the cobblestones of the street treacherous for his horse as it galloped through the midnight street. He leaned his lithe tall body as close to the horse’s neck as he dared. A quick glance behind him showed the elven woman a top her horse in a gallop ten feet behind him. One of the hired men was close on her heels. An arrow skimmed over Terrin’s head grazing along his cheek as his horse bounded down the street, the arrow plunged into the chest of the man following the elven woman and he toppled from his horse. Ahead of them, a hasty barricade of an upturned cart filled the middle of the street. Three men were crouched behind the cart aiming crossbows as Terrin whipped his horse to the left. A crossbow twanged and he immediately felt the bolt strike his right ankle. The pain was explosive and shot up his leg all the way to his thigh. Forcing his horse into a thin alley Terrin called to the elf as he looked down. Only the fletching of the bolt was visible on the edge of his boot, but blood was dripping freely, and he realized he couldn’t feel it or move his leg off the stirrup. The elf crashed through the alley behind him, her cloak hood had been blown back and he could see black braids framing her pale but determined looking face.

“The docks are out. We will need to go through the gate.”

She just nodded and took a deep breath before following Terrin back out onto the street on the other side of the barricade. The men had left their position at the cart to follow them into the other alley, but one remained crouching near the cart. He hastily fired off a bolt that went far to the left of Terrin, almost catching the elf as she exited the alley. Cursing, he shakily started to reload. Without hesitating Terrin turned and galloped off down the road, the elf hot on his heels. He mouthed thanks to Rohr, God of luck, riding through the opened gate as the four bribed guards played cards beside the road.

He could hear shouting and more hooves thudding on wood shortly after they cleared the gate and the drawbridge.

“Shit.” The group of men behind them had torches, armor, and a strong desire to kill her or Terrin, or both. “Who the hell are you,” you thought to himself, as his horse galloped down the wide cobbled King’s Road.

It wasn’t long before he could feel his horse starting to fail, he was feeling a little faint himself. The heavily armed and armored men chasing them had begun to slowly lose ground. It looked like one rider was pulling ahead of the group. Terrin rode on slowing and galloping to save the horses as long as possible. He was determined to get to a spot he had often used about fifteen miles from the city. A look behind to check on the lone rider chasing them froze Terrin’s blood. The horse trotting behind him was riderless and slowing as it veered toward the edge of the road. The elf was laying on the road three hundred yards back in a clump of cloak. Terrin wheeled his horse around and willed it to go as fast at it could back towards the woman. Drawing his sword from his hip as he advanced, he guessed he would get to the woman just after the man did, he was almost upon her. The rest were not that far behind. Cursing Rohr for the thousandth time that night Terrin gritted his teeth and lowered his sword to his side preparing for a slash as he watched the man jump down and grab at the cloak. The elf had no weapons, they were on the boat waiting for her, but she kicked the man in the groin, punched him in the side of the neck with a sickening crunch and batted away his feeble attempt at a punch in her direction. He clutched at his throat wide eyed making gurgling noises as he fell face first onto the stone. Terrin made it to her side turning his horse around. He saw the whole world tilting and felt a shuddering thud down his side as he fell from his horse. His sword tumbled from his numb fingers and clattered along the street. The elf grabbed his sword off the ground in a smooth practiced motion and stood facing the five men with the sword unwavering in front of her, her body in a casual relaxed position. The men had arrived and were talking. He could see their lips moving and hear sounds, but their meaning was lost to his mind. The men looked to laugh and then draw weapons with smiles. The first man to attack did so with a non-committed swing of his sword at her stomach as if in jest. The elf leaned just out of the path of the blade, at the same time her blade blurred through the space where his wrist had been. The sword and his hand went end over end into the night beside the road. The sword blurred a second time and the man’s body fell limply to the ground without a head. Terrin had no trouble understanding the roar of pain shattering the night that cut off abruptly. He struggled to keep his eyes open and get his arms and legs under him. He still couldn’t feel anything in his right leg but a faint far off pain and a feeling of wrongness. A cold numbness was spreading through his whole body. Giving up on trying to move he watched the beautiful elf dancing with his sword. She moved in precise and fluid motions, and being obviously pregnant did not seem to hamper her in any way. She sidestepped an overhead attack from a giant of a man with a mace while stabbing another man through the thigh. Drawing the sword from the man’s thigh with a river of blood, she stepped into the mace wielder’s space and drove the pommel of the sword into the side of his kneecap. As the giant of a man tried to pull away pushing on her shoulder, she used his shove and reversed her cut, hamstringing him. She seemed to blur as she moved, she was so fast the men all seemed to be moving in slow motion. She faced off against the remaining two standing men as they slowly spread to surround her. They no longer wore smiles as they moved cautiously around their struggling wounded. Without a glance the elf plunged the sword into the neck of the giant mace wielder as he struggled to crawl away. One man had an iron-tipped spear, the other had a long-curved sword. The man with the spear rushed forward motioning for the swordsman to do the same. The swordsman hesitated a split second before raising his sword above his head in an overhead chop, the spearman thrusted, his point passed just under her arm as she reached forward grasping the shaft and pushed it down towards the ground, at the same time she brought the sword up and cut the shaft of the spear a foot in front of her hand. As the spearman reflexively pulled back his shortened shaft the elf pirouetted impossibly fast swinging the iron tip around and planting it in the armpit of the other man halfway through his swing. The large sword slammed into the corpse of the giant mace wielder splitting his leather armor and crunching bones. The man released his hold on the sword grasping at the spear still stuck in his armpit, five feet of shaft dragging on the cobblestones. With two quick strides the elf ran up the shaft of the spear, jumped over the dying man’s head and nearly cut the spearman in two as he turned to run away. As soon as it was over, she was beside Terrin, concern shone in her blue eyes, blood streaked and freckled on her pale face. The crossbow bolt had hit his ankle, then his stirrup and broken. The bolt head had deflected up into his calf and lodged in his thigh just above the knee. She applied a strap to his leg to stop the bleeding. She was talking, but all he could think was how her lips looked so soft, as he cursed Rhor one more time before losing consciousness.

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