Little Cat

This is the story of Akiko a tiny Moon Elf of the Assassin Guild who is one of five sent to kill the King and Princes of the Kingdom of Nivava. Akiko is a singularly bad assassin and ends up saving the Prince and the Princess. She is captured and taken as a prisoner to the Kingdom of Adhara. Abandoned by the Guild an outcast marked by blue eyes and tartans and bound to a wagon wheel at night she has not a friend in the world. She is destined to be a beggar always on the verge of starvation roving from town to town and wanted by no one.. Or does she? The wizard accompanying the group declares that she does have friends—strange friends that are unknown to her. And what of the astonishing tales the wizard tells—of the Endunnlin secret solitary warriors who fight the elves? And who is Micah a man they encounter along the road? Is he a wizard? Was he waiting for them? Does he mean to harm the Prince and the Princess? Is he an outrider for the dark armies of elves and men who are gathering in the east?. And what of the dragons? Are they friend or foe and do they even exist?. * * * * * * * * * * The castle was built at the end of a long ridge of land which—with sharp rocky cliffs—loomed above the surrounding countryside. The northern side of the castle wall bordered on that ridge which sloped down from the fortress’ front gate while the side to the east rose above the small port city. The southern side of the fortress towered above the Southern Ocean and the fourth side—to the west—rose above a flat area of low scrub and small trees. This flat edged up within two hundred feet of the base of the castle walls and—according to the military commander of the fortress—would impede any attacking force while providing little hindrance to any arrows fired from the castle’s walls. His subordinates had a far different opinion of this forest of low-lying trees—it should be burned they said so that no one could approach the castle unseen from that direction. And there were such persons approaching. They came as gray shadows barely seen and making no noise at all. There were five of them and they moved like ghosts spread out and easing along the narrow tracks within the forest avoiding limbs and the debris underfoot. They halted at the edge of the scrub forest and squatted there not moving just watching. And perhaps it was a trick of the moonlight but they seemed to disappear entirely. Only a hint of their being remained—possibly the thin wispy outline of part of a cloak or the tiniest faintest shimmer of a weapon. But for all purposes there was nothing there only the tiny trees their dark shadows and deeper blackness beyond. If there had been such an observer and if he or she could have seen the ghost-like figures they would have known instantly that there was nothing—nothing—to suggest that these interlopers were anything but dangerous and extremely so. There was a movement in that forest when none of the guards were visible and in that moment a thin figure—the smallest of the group—quickly ran across the open flat and to the castle wall. The figure paused at the corner of one tower and its adjacent wall waiting and listening and then began to silently chimney upward. There was nothing to be seen of the intruder—not an outline of a person and not the sign of any kind of weapon. It wasn’t that the person was almost invisible—it was that the person wasinvisible. And this to anyone who was a knowing observer was of terrible importance. The person ascending the walls was not just any threat. It was a Moon Elf moonbent and invisible to all but another Moon Elf. And given the speed and silence with which the elf climbed this could only be an elf of the Assassins Guild highly trained and skilled in the art of unexpected death.