betrayer (prologue)

Prologue
Kryshen sat in his forest home, pondering all that had transpired.  He sat, sharpening his daggers, even though they were already preternaturally sharp.  Both could cut through solid steel without slowing in the least, both had remained sharp even through the last four years.  Years that had been the bloodiest ones in his life.
Kryshen Tel’darr was not a drow, one of those malicious elves of charcoal skin from the World Below.  It was a statement that was contradicted by the ebony hue of his skin.  Nor had he been polymorphed by some malignant wizard, in fact he had been born that way.  The true class of his race would be a night elf.
About one in every ten thousand people was an exceptional person, one with almost supernatural abilities for that race.  Often these individuals were segregated, or they were worshipped, in Kryshen’s home city of Galobra, the city of Spiderfeild, they were killed, unless they were female, then they were hoarded like treasure.  The society in drow culture was matriarchal and rigidly controlled by the priesthood.  Or priestess-hood in the drow’s case, no male was allowed to practice the divine magicks, they weren’t good enough.  Males were rarely considered more than mates or fodder and were disposed of as the females pleased.  Thus the men couldn’t be allowed a place of power now could they?  That would upset Lloth, the drow’s evil spider goddess of chaos, greatly.  So all the male night elves were killed.  Well, almost, a select few were sometimes hidden away by the Matron Mothers, the ruling females in a House. 
A House was a family of Dark Elves, though colony would be a more apt term, perhaps.  Drow cities were usually made up of upwards of fifty houses, each ranging from one hundred to a thousand drow.  The Houses sometimes attacked one another in order to gain rank in the city, the top eight Houses were considered amongst the cities most powerful and decided the city’s every move.  But those Houses were just as readily destroyed, so the foundations of a drow city were always changing, just as a Goddess of Chaos would wish it. 
The drow referred to this underprivileged subspecies as night elves because of their affinity for dark magic.
Despite his race’s inherent gift with magic, Kryshen was indicted as a fighter and was quickly exiled from his house after he killed a female.  Then, adopted by a band of rouges that ran throughout the realms, even deep into the heart of Spiderfang, one of the largest drow cities on the material plane, he was taught the ways of the shadow blade, an elite group of fighters who combined two weapon fighting, throwing knives and various magicks that either augmented weapon potential or effected enemies in some adverse way.  He grew quickly and amazingly, by the time he was merely thirty-seven, not even a child by elven standards, he could defeat most anyone in the band.  But then there was the quest…
Kryshen sighed and walked over to a tree and sat down, he curled his knees to his chest and drew his head away from the tree.  He slammed his head against the trunk and welcomed the pain.  The momentary dizziness had made him forget why he was here.
He spotted a bird overhead and muttered a few words, the creature dropped from the sky.  The sparrow landed in front of him and one of its wings broke off.  It was now a stone statue.  Kryshen leaned forward and slapped it angrily, he felt the guilt enrage him and he realized he was sweating; he leaned back against the tree helplessly and uttered a small cry of self-pity.
This was the same forest everything had happened in.  This was where they had slept; this was where they had grown fond of each other.  This was where they lived.  And now it was just Kryshen left.  Now this home had become a graveyard.  Now it was full of emptiness.  A pained expression came across his face as he realized how depressed he was.  It was a heavy feeling, accompanied by an emotion of restlessness; he wanted to do something, anything, but anything he tried to do just turned out to be something he didn’t want.  He was beyond confused; he was lost in an abyss of unwelcome emotions.  Everything he had accomplished seemed so empty to him now, as if saving the material plane was nothing important, every wrinkle of his brain was encompassed by the sensation of loss and the image of a dagger thrusting into his friend’s chest.  All these years he’d deluded himself, he said he could live without his friends, he told himself that he was self reliant, that no one needed to help him, and those false assumptions had torn him apart more thoroughly than any demon’s claw ever could.  Now, now was when he fully understood the concept of how much he’d lost: everything.
A small sound awakened him from his tentative reverie.  It sounded like a snapping twig, or the snap of wings.  They beat again and he distinctly heard feet set down, feet clad in armour, he knew.  He groaned and rose, ready to face ‘justice’.
He came around the tree to see three humanoids, likely humans standing about fifty feet away.  They wee clad in brilliantly white plate mail, mithril Kryshen knew, his daggers would have no trouble piercing the suit, nor would his shurikens, but those were far too precious to waste on such small foes.  Or so he thought.  His ideas changed considerably when brilliant white angelic wings unfolded from around their backs. 
They spoke in resoundingly deep voices: “Kryshen Godkiller, give yourself up, or we will be forced to kill you.  You are wanted of charges of heresy, murder and blasphemy.”
Heresy and blasphemy, eh, how does that work?  “You do not think I will give myself to you, do you?  That would be very foolish.”
“You are the slayer of the greatest hero our world has ever known, you have slain the pantheon’s chosen, and you must be punished for it.”
“He may have been your chosen one.  But all that meant was that you were willing to sacrifice him.  I only slew him, my friend, because it was necessary, and because he requested it.”
“If you think we will heed your words then you are sorely mistaken, shadow slayer.  He never would have requested it, he knew how o do it himself, he did not need you to kill him, you crippled the strike that would have killed the lord of evil.”
“Does the church put as much effort into actual justice as they do demonizing me, I’m not evil, please, Sons of Angels…”
“Speak not, heathenish wretch, it is by your hand…”
“That The Falix, the Seven Lords of Hell, were repressed, mind your tongue, prejudiced demigods.  Mind the fact that our party was what saved our world; mind that without us, Tathiel would never have returned.  He would be lost and Liantus still immortal.  Don’t ever underestimate the sacrifices I made to achieve that goal for your twisted and callous desires!  Don’t ever forget that I loved each and every one of those friends that I lost!  I will never forget the agony your War caused me!” Kryshen’s anger had reached impossible level, all the horrors of those years swarmed over him completely, and the rage devoured him.
“Enough of your words Godkiller, prepare to die for all the pain you have caused, and may your Queen of the Demonweb feast upon your soul.”  As he spoke the demigod drew a long, delicately curving blade and a shield off his back.  The others were doing the same, but one was armed instead with a massive greatsword and the other had drawn a bow, Kryshen was more than happy to oblige their desire for a fight.
He rushed forward; his feet enhanced by boots he had taken from a demon’s lair in the abyss, moving four times as fast as a normal creature his size ought to.  He closed the gap in less than three seconds and drew two shurikens, all the while muttering an incantation.  He threw them and they both thudded neatly into the bow wielder.  They did minimal damage, until they exploded.  Two massive explosions scattered birds throughout the forest and knocked the other demigods off their feet.  The one who had been hit was simply no more; it was the only way to describe it.  One arm was twenty feet away, a leg or two could be seen where his body should have lain, the torso was immolated, only a fraction of it remained and the head was nonexistent.  The other two realized they were overmatched.  But were certain that if they died today, they would not have died in vain, with a howl, they charged.
In a brief moment of clarity he realized the foolishness of what he was doing, “Stop fighting, you can’t win, let’s talk, please, I’m sick of fighting.”  It was as close to a plea Kryshen would ever come. The demigods would not stop.
He dove out of the way of the man wielding a greatsword and slashed at his leg, as if to hamstring him.  The man was far too fast and he retracted his leg out of the reach of the tiny shuriken.  Kryshen rose to his feet and dove backwards, out of the reach of the sweeping greatsword.  With impossible dexterity, he sheathed the throwing knife while he was flipping through the air and in one smooth motion he drew both daggers.  The daggers that had been the only reward of his ill fated quest those many years ago.  He grimaced slightly and shook the unpleasant memory from his head.  The skull pommel of the right hissed its protest at being awakened. 
His right-hand blade was named Ironis and was his more powerful dagger.  The two foot long, black bladed dagger had been forged in the bowels of the hells for a powerful half-demon general named Vlyndar.  It was intelligent and could telepathically speak with its wielder.  The pommel of the dagger was also the skull of a demigod named Neridol, which had the ability to speak, though it did so rarely.  Ironis could also invade its enemy’s minds and tamper with their psyche.  Sometimes its influence could be so great as to kill the creature from fear of its power.
His other dagger had been forged two years later in the same spot, a spot in the third hell that had come to be known as the Hellforge.  His left-hand dagger was named Vescal, the Dagger of Souls.  It was the sister blade to Ironis and they both looked similar.  Vescal was black bladed, though the shades of the metal seemed to shift within itself, and was two feet long.  However, instead of a skull for a pommel, the pommel was magically enhanced obsidian resembling the shape of a tulip.  Vescal was named for its ability to consume the souls of those it stabbed and trap their souls within a demi-plane housed in the pommel.  These souls would not age and Vlyndar could visit the souls of the demons whenever he wished, and torture them, or kill them, which ever pleased him.  The advantage of destroying the creature twice was that it could not be brought back to life by some powerful mage, once the creature’s soul was destroyed; it was incapable of living again.  Because of this, the demon lords of the Hells banished these weapons as unsafe, because they were fearful that one day Vlyndar would rise up against them and defeat their powers of immortality.  Vescal was less intelligent than Ironis and limited to empathetic communication with its wielder.
Needless to say, the daggers had the greatsword badly outmatched.
The other demigod rushed ahead with his shield, hoping to stun the night elf.  Kryshen quick stepped to the right and thrust his dagger at the other’s chest.  It was picked off with a neat flick of the wrist.  The next wasn’t.
With two demigods down, the third had to admit that this enemy was beyond him.  He threw down his blade and called his surrender.  Kryshen pointed his left blade at him and muttered something, and instantly he was wreathed in electricity.  Then the demigod fell to the ground, unable to even unclench his fist, which was drawing a bright line of blood even through the chain mail gauntlet.
Kryshen approached him and set his foot on the demigod’s chest.  Excitement was pulsing through his veins.  “Now that you have no choice, would you like to hear my story, the true one.  Not the meaningless book of lies the pantheon as composed about my exploits?”  The magic was still paralysing him so he could not answer, “silence gives consent.”  Kryshen shrugged.
Later, inside a tent Kryshen had fashioned, he sat across from the demigod, who was tied with a string that he had procured from a Balor’s home, it was made of astral strings, in essence it was made of souls, it could not be broken and it could not be dispelled, the only way to escape would be by being released.  Not likely to happen for a while.  Kryshen had allowed his prisoner his voice, not that it would matter, they were far from the edge of the forest, in any direction, he wanted his prisoner to be able to ask questions, he wanted to prove Celestia wrong.  His nerves were tight with adrenaline.  He always loved to narrate aloud, and now he could do it of his adventures, adventures that surely would have been buried under the pantheon’s relentless lies.    He was certain that the excitement would die with the adrenaline, but that was a matter to attend to later.  Kryshen sighed and began, he would continue to the next morning, without any sleep.  He would continue and his prisoner grew manifestly curious, he began asking legitimate questions and he began to believe the night elf, if only a little.  It was far too detailed to be a lie, and he was a great speaker.  More than once he found himself gasping or laughing at the Godkiller’s tale.  And it was only the beginning.  Kryshen started with his tale of Alexia, a tentative subject, at best…

stand by for the next installment of BETRAYER, written by Chris Rush