Chapter 1. Crescent Blade

he squalid corridor reeked of cheap liquor and sweat, the bold odor standing out against the crowded city’s legion of rancid smells.  From her shelter in the shadows, she listened, screening out the myriad small sounds of life in the slums.  Ratty street dogs bayed at strangers or snarled at one another over filthy patches of dirty street. A scuttling rat squeaked in protest as it bumped against her bladed boot and hurried on its way.  A baby wailed in the night unanswered.  It was, however, the breathing of a sleeping man upon which she focused.

Her long ascent to the shattered third floor window at the end of the corridor had taken many long breathless minutes.  The smallest sound would alert her quarry.  He was a mesmer, a fact that made her task that much more daunting.  The destruction of magi was her specialty.  After weeks of distant study and recognizance, her preparations were hopefully about to pay off.  Crescent Blade had followed him home from a raucous party at one of Kaineng’s most disreputable brothels.  She did not deny the night workers their due, but she had seen the way he had beaten the young harlot that had followed him home the prior night.  His dishonorable and disgusting nature made her job that much easier. 

Not that she questioned the motivations of her masters.  Spies and assassins had little use for such things.  Her talents required an intimate knowledge of her prey and sometimes it was tempting to pity them.  Sometimes, after spying upon and tracking her quarry for weeks, she had to pray to Grenth that her actions were just and that she was being used for a higher purpose.

Tonight, thankfully, she had no such qualms.  Ichiro Akiyama was a violent wastrel scum.  He was spying on behalf of Elonian foreigners against his own countrymen.  This much she had learned from the correspondence he left unattended in his filthy lair.  And after what he had done to that poor prostitute, he deserved to go straight to the darkest hell.  It was her honor to send him there.

Touching the charm that was bound against her throat, she reassured herself that it was still proof against mental detection.  She had learned to respect mesmers, but she did not fear them.  They bled and they died like other human beings.  As she prepared for the kill, her shrouded mind focused undetected and her body tensed with anticipation.  The first few seconds of her attack were crucial. 

The soft sounds of sleep became low fitful snores.  Uttering a prayer to Lyssa for luck, she launched into the darkness and emerged with a sound no louder than a sigh at the bedside of her prey.  His eyelids fluttered and his fist tightened over the gleaming circle of his chakram that burned with chaotic energies the moment he clasped it.  Crescent Blade had the advantage, however, and before he could utter his hex, she struck his face and her own powerful spell ensorcelled him.  His tongue fell dead in his mouth.

A silenced spell caster was a dead spell caster.  The blood drained from his face and a soundless cry of rage and terror poured from his gaping mouth.  He was alone and helpless, his brute strength as nothing beneath her swift and graceful blows.  He struggled to flail away as her daggers flashed and whirled, bright at first as she plunged them swiftly into his chest and then dark with a viscous coating of his lifeblood as they clashed and crossed over his throat in a smooth scything motion.  Crescent Blade leapt astride his belly, bearing him down onto his back and striking his jaw as the silencing hex faded and he made a strangled cry for help.  He had fumbled a dagger free of his belt but that arm now writhed and shuddered ineffectually beneath the harsh press of her shin.  Warm blood sprayed her masked visage as his head flailed and the severed artery drained him of life.  He made a pathetic attempt to steal her energy that he might heal himself, but he was seconds too late.  He grew limp beneath her with a shuddering gasp, his swift death and faint fruitless cries failing to rally his allies who lay wrapped in drunken stupor in the neighboring rooms.

She rose from his bed, her heart thundering in her breast and her breath coming in swift gasps.  Shuddering with adrenalin, she gazed upon the ruin of her quarry by the fading light of his chakram, observing the angry spray of blood that darkened the wall above his bed.  Stepping back into a shadowy corner away from the dusty window, she watched the open doorway and listened, reassuring herself that his death had gone undetected.  Then, reaching into her belt pouch, she drew out an ornate silver dagger, a mere toy compared to the dozens that were sheathed about her sinuous form.  It was her calling card with its single edge curved to resemble a sliver of moon.  She was Crescent Blade, and when his friends rose to find her trademark weapon lying upon his breast, they would quail.