Bloodsword: War of the Leaf

A Change of Venue

Mar Beranis: a gray, grimy little mining town made up mostly of gray, grimy little buildings all built in the same cubical shape visible through the unchanging downpour.  It had only one purpose: to feed and be fed by Troska.

"By the First, this place stinks."  Valus hissed malevolently as he peered through slit lids at the plumes of acrid smoke rising from the massive smelters and smithies dominating the town's west side, which lay just north of the main road in.

"Filthy, filthy place."  He continued grumbling to no-one in particular since he was alone in the richly appointed carriage he was riding in.  Dabbing at his nose with a hand kerchief scented with pomander and cilestros, the diminutive lord closed the curtain with a sigh.

"What I don't do for my emperor and a bag of gold."  He groaned, rubbing his forehead.  Abruptly the foppish elf winced at some imagined pain.  "No, make that a very, very heavy sack of gold."  Valus amended with a sigh, sitting back into his seat just as the carriage lurched to a halt.  His driver Jesri abruptly called out.

"We've reached the waypost, milord!"

"Thank you, Jesri."  Valus called back after a final sniff of his kerchief.  He then returned it to its place inside his waistcoat and reached for the handle to the carriage's only door.

Once outside in the ever-present rain, his cloak firmly clutched around him to keep the cold water off him, Valus stepped towards the squat, rectangular building that now dominated the broad street Jesri had brought the carriage down and, by default, the wagon with the slaves.  As he walked down the muddy street, he peered towards the building, looking for those he needed to finish his business in this cesspool.

Standing in the shelter of a broad porch that ran the length of the building's street side were the two elves he now was looking for and Valus smiled thinly in satisfaction.

"Derik, you worthless heap of skuda droppings, I see you've finally quit your bed."  He snapped waspishly at the slender Mardish male in gray, his cloak wrapped tightly around his shivering body.  He had left his personal assistant in Beranis to make the trip to Troska as Derik complained of some illness that morning.

Looking pale and wan, Derik bowed wordlessly as Valus stepped onto the porch and out of the rain.

"Damn convenient, that illness that you had, my dear boy."  Valus continued in an acidic tone as he shook the chill water from his cloak.  "Just in time to avoid the trip to Troska this morning."

"Forgive me, my lord, but I'm afraid the damp doesn't agree with me as well as the capital's warmth does."  Derik finally replied in a soft, controlled baritone as he came erect once again.

"Indeed."  Valus sniffed, stamping the mud from his fine Liserian boots before looking over at the second elf, a stocky male that was nearly as broad as he was tall.  The elf's appearance was made all the more striking by the fact that he was dressed head to toe in unmarked black with only his shaved head left uncovered.  Dark blue eyes glared from beneath heavy brows in marked contrast to his almost black skin, the elf's expression grim with his thin lips tight with impatience as he looked at the effeminate Valus with barely concealed contempt.

"Why, Geras'El, my dour Dolomin friend.  Is that a smile I see cracking that rock you call a face?  No?"  Valus snapped sarcastically before letting his gaze slide across the Dolomin elf's broad face with its high cheekbones and onto the building behind him.  "And such ready and inviting quarters as well.  My, my, my, we have outdone ourselves, haven't we."

"Still filled with self-aggrandizing perceptions of self and wit, nar Valus, even after your trip to Troska?"  Geras'El bit out through clenched teeth in a deep and sonorous voice.  "The world will die in the T'sar and still you walk with the mince of a girl, ballooned with imaginings of your own importance and intelligence.  Har, I'm glad some things will never change."