Their steps were light against the branches, bounding from arm to arm along the forest's ceiling. Not one leaf or slumbering darkdove was roused by their passing. They were phantoms of the Black City, drilled from birth to conceal their presence and strike without drawing blood or leaving a visible wound. Their black, pyramid-shaped hoods and fluttering robes obscured the silver flesh lurking beneath.
Something had disturbed the arbours. Their Founding Descendant, much like the cone-eyed web weavers of the canopy, could sense even the slightest disturbance in his domain, the most minute twitch in the web connecting his mind to the perfect stillness of Akzhem. In just a few hours, they had leaped across the peninsula's length towards that rippling annoyance, and upon the distant horizon marred by root growths witnessed their bane piercing through the darkness: tiny, naked flames.
Those stars of the night seared their vision with blind spots - little burns on the surfaces of their sensitive pupils. Hurriedly, they retrieved blindfolds from their packs and blinded themselves to the forbidden light, relying on nothing but hearing and instinct to guide them across the precarious labyrinth of branches.
Meanwhile…
"Dear oh dear…" Baccharum scraped the blades of his daggers against one-another, "Why do I have to subject myself to this?"
"Don't worry." Lieze replied, "I don't plan on letting it kill you."
"I hope that goes without saying!"
"More importantly, do you think you can defeat it?" She asked.
"Well, we're about to find out, aren't we?" He wandered into the encirclement of Deathguards, "If it can mimic even a quarter of an Onz Hound's ferocity, then you'll have performed a swell job. Just be mindful that of all the world's beasts, those who rely on speed are the ones we Elv have the most experience hunting."
The Stalker dragged its tiny, crimson feet along the soil. In the low light, its monstrous visage appeared like something from a nightmare, stripped of eyesight and headspace to account for its splitting maw. Marché had imprinted one instinct into its flattened brain - to relentlessly hound anything its master deemed a threat. And in a matter of seconds, that threat would be Baccharum.
"Are you prepared, Baccharum?" Marché asked from the sidelines.
The Elf smiled, "No? But what does it matter whether I'm ready or not?"
"You're quite right." He nodded, throwing his arm forward, "Attack!"
The Stalker leaped - no, pounced - no - its movement couldn't be defined by any of those words. There was simply a point between itself and Baccharum that it recognised as 'a distance that needed to be crossed', and in one instant, the gap between them was closed. Baccharum had less than a tenth of a second to react, and yet somehow, he did.
A clamp of the beast's jaws sent something akin to a thunderclap through the clearing, but it didn't find the Elf so easily captured between its teeth, for the lanky assailant in question had already sidestepped his way into the Stalker's blind spot. Expecting an easy kill, his dagger came down to pare its crimson flank, only to be caught off-guard when the beast's body came hurtling towards him.
The body slam sent Baccharum reeling, and though he recovered with more finesse than any human could hope to replicate, the moment between balance and locomotion didn't go unexploited. Before his mind could scramble an escape route; stepping, ducking, leaping - anything but taking a step back - he felt a warm, sopping air running over his face just before a voice called out, "That's enough!"
His posture gave out, and the Elf landed on his rear with a grunt, unsure of what exactly had transpired but quite certain of his loss. His stomach ached as the adrenaline coursing through his veins was depleted. A bruise he would be feeling for days was already beginning to form under his pale skin.
"That wasn't bad." He heard Lieze's voice, "An Elf could conceivably dodge the Stalker's first blow, but it reacted quickly enough to offset Baccharum's balance with a shunt of its weight before going in for the kill. I never expected that a thrall would ever be capable of fighting so intelligently - or, I suppose 'aggressively' would be a better term."
"Hah… I could feel that beast's breath right at the last moment." Baccharum lifted himself up, "Incredible, I must admit. Rot Behemoths and Horrors are powerful enough for some good-old-fashioned destruction, but your army was sorely lacking in finesse up to this moment."
"Now, the real question is whether the average Elven assassin is as deadly as you are." She replied, "Isn't it possible that you've lost your edge since being exiled so many years ago?"
"Please… my senses are as pronounced as the day I left."
She crossed her arms, "I'd like to believe that, but some proof would be nice."
"Here's your proof-" He began, "Take two very quick steps back if you don't want to die."
The subtle urgency to his tone moved Lieze to action before she thought to consider those words. As soon as she hobbled backwards, a pair of needles tore the air where she once stood. The second adjusted for the first, landing somewhat closer than she would have liked. The smooth iron reflected her lamplight as they stood upright and half-buried in the soil.
"What!?" She reflexively summoned blood from her Bag of Holding in preparation to conjure a barrier, "Are we under attack!?"
Commotion erupted from the Deathguards, whose unspoken commands riled up the horde of thralls idling in the vicinity. Baccharum craned his neck to the distant branches above, running a hand over his forehead while squinting both eyes.
"They're already gone…" He muttered, "We must have spooked them."
"Lieze!" Drayya rushed over, "Are you alright!?"
"I'm fine. I'm fine." She repeated, "Baccharum?"
"Ah - there's no need to panic. We're no longer in danger." He replied, "Seems we ran afoul of some scouts. Or, they might have been searching for us all along. I suppose the urge to decapitate the Order was too tempting to resist. It's a good thing I'm here, isn't it?"
He wandered over to the needles poking out from the ground and knelt down to examine their craftsmanship. They were no larger than the type one would use for sewing when plucked. Their points were slick with a colourless solution which Baccharum brought close to his mouth and allowed to drip onto his tongue.
"Mm… it's not a very potent coating. I imagine it's been diluted." He smacked his lips, "Well, poison is poison at the end of the day, no matter how strong. It would have spelt the end for someone unaccustomed to Akzhem's toxins - a human especially."
"Urgh…" Drayya grumbled, "You're familiar?"
"Vaguely." He allowed the needles to slip through his fingers, "Poison was never my style. Too many combinations and effects means that a particular mixture can usually be traced back to one seller. I preferred the unpretentious kiss of a blade."
"There were assassins lurking nearby and you didn't think to mention it?" Lieze furrowed her brow.
"They seemed harmless at the time, and I didn't want to fuel your paranoia." Baccharum answered, "-And you survived, didn't you? No harm done."
"They'll report back to their masters, won't they?"
"Oh, the 'masters' of Akzhem have been aware of our presence ever since we dipped beneath the canopy. I can assure you of that much." He continued, "The Shamans call upon something deeper than the sorcery offered by Gods here in the dark. I can't imagine how troublesome one might turn out if they were suddenly granted the power of a Scion."
"Something deeper…? Are you sure you aren't spouting nonsense?" She asked.
"If only I was, then things would be so much simpler." Baccharum sighed, "I'm not familiar with the specifics myself, but we should move forward under the assumption that we're always in plain sight of the enemy. At least until I get my hands on some local flora."
Lieze turned her head towards the row of tents half-assembled in the murk.
"-Then it's too dangerous to rest." She resolved, "We need to keep moving."
Brilliant, twinkling stars studded the obsidian walls of the Black City. Like a monolith erected in the heart of the woods, there were no gates, battlements, or towers. From an outsider's perspective, it was nothing more than a great slab of rock. And yet, that particular inaccessibility didn't stop its inhabitants from entering or leaving.
Shadows leaped from perch to perch alongside its perimeter, seldom idling in one spot for too long before moving onto the next. When words were spoken, they emerged from chapped lips in hurried whispers, decorated by the whistling of the wind. Once the towering walls were cleared in a single bound, streets haunted by silence provided shelter from the horrors lurking beyond, within which the silhouettes of tall, emaciated Elves went about their duties.
A trio of recent arrivals sprinted across the roofs, their footfalls purposeful but obscured, accelerating towards the obsidian palace at the city's northern edge. Great twists of bark curled through its flying buttresses and along its spired tip, infesting the structure like a verdant parasite. Hooded figures spanned the length of the hundred shortening steps leading up to the entrance, where the only two Elves uninterested in concealing their presence remained statuesque at either side of the enormous doors.
The three assassins opted to use the ajar windows instead - not a respectful thing to do ordinarily, but quite agreeable if circumstances demanded swiftness. One after the other, they came rolling through the lofty fractures, plummeting into the palace's entrance hall and landing with all the ease of cats dropped from stories high.
They skittered up the central staircase, stole through the corridor at the end of the room, and pushed their way past the double doors leading into the ritual chamber. A chill air ran across the leader's face as he barged in, and the sweet smell of nectar trickled into his nose.
An overhanging root dangled from the ceiling, expelled from a destroyed section of the palace where the trunk of a Great Oak had spread out to function as a kind of secondary wall. The root tapered down to a miniscule point which hovered just a few feet above eye level. Beneath it, a sunken burrow not unlike the pit of an Antlion had been carved into the floor, filled to near-capacity with fluorescent sap.
Eight figures flanked the pit, their faces obscured with wooden masks modelled after fell demons of the night, painted with shades of crimson and silver. The foremost Shaman - and by far the tallest - turned slowly to face his visitors, who wandered to within ten paces of his towering silhouette before kneeling.
"...The cursed one approaches." The leader reported.
Without uttering a word in response, the Shaman turned on his heels and tapped his gnarled staff against the floor. Soon, his rhythm was joined by the other hooded figures, whose voices conjoined into a hushed mantram. The lead assassin huddled over and placed both hands over his ears as the sound of something tearing, or peeling, screamed through the chamber.
Above, the ancient Great Oak stirred. Its wooden flesh trembled, sending quakes through the forest. Then, animated by some otherworldly will, figures of bark and timber emerged from its trunk: humanoids, beasts, behemoths of nature; rootborne abominations sporting branched limbs and peat-filled maws.
"Great guardians… sacred Wichta of the roots…" The Head Shaman lowered his head, "Can you sense it? The stench of death corrupts these glades… a foul curse swallows the lands. Arise from your formless dreams, take shape, and banish these intruders from our land."