Another chapter

Kelahi peered closely at Nerissa and her colleague, they stared back at him coldly, with Nerissa's stare shifting with nervousness.

Then Kelahi simply walked away.

Nerissa looked at her colleague, Tora ( for that was her colleague's name) turned to look at Kelahi.

"Who is he?" Tora asked

" We got here at the same

time" Nerissa replied " surely you don't expect me to know"

Then Nerissa pulled out a dagger and turned to find Kelahi. Tora held her back.

" What do you think you're doing?" She asked

" He could be a spy, he might expose us!" Nerissa said

Tora shook her head in disagreement.

" You do not just kill people in a place you're not familiar with" she said " we don't know who that boy was, we might even thwart our whole assignment if we kill him and you know how Falun treats those who fail their assignments"

Nerissa nodded, she knew that if they failed,Falun would either torture them or make them fight each other to the death. None of the options seemed pleasant.

Nerissa and Tora spent the remaining few hours before nightfall in a bar listening to conversations and keeping an eye out for any new information.

By nightfall they had found out who Kelahi was.and they were rather grateful that they did not attempt to kill him.

By midnight, they snuck into the palace. Having discarded their dresses ,they climbed the walls of the palace in total silence.

The guards on duty could be seen by the two assassins above them.

The guards were warming themselves by a fire and they took no notice of the two dark clothed figures climbing the walls above them.

Nerissa held on to the lattice of the king's window.As part of their preparation to assassinate Olian, they had gotten an exact description of the palace and had known the position of Olian's bedroom.

As Nerissa held on to the lattice, Tora ,who was standing on the small brick frame surrounding the window ,took a small metallic tool and started twisting the lattice.She would hold on to a particular piece and twist it until it separated from the wall. Nerissa slowly shifted her grip to the brick frame with one hand and used the other hand to hold the lattice which was slowly being detached from the wall.

They worked slowly and painfully, Nerissa's fingers were sore from holding on to hard surfaces and her other hand ached from holding the lattice.But she wouldn't dare to let go. She would fall to her death if she did.

Nerissa remembered how her mother died and a cold shiver ran down her spine.She remembered the first time Falun had asked her to climb a building during her training.

"Climb up!" He had barked

Nerissa shivered and took a step forward.

"I said climb up!" Falun barked again

Nerissa took another step and held on to the first wooden support in the wall which she was to climb.

The wall had such wooden sticks covering it. They were put there for the purpose of their training.

Nerissa had grabbed hold of the first stick and at that instant, the scene of her mother climbing the portico flashed past her eyes.

She dropped to the ground immediately, much to the annoyance of Falun.

Falun gave her a severe beating using a spiked twig and it took some months of such beatings to make Nerissa climb even a small tree.

Her fear of heights was dealt with by introducing another fear to her - the fear of pain.

Tora on her part,worked in silence,her brows furrowed in concentration and sweat running down her face.

Eventually,the lattice came off and Tora lifted it slowly from Nerissa and slipped it into the room .She then came in and Nerissa followed closely behind.

Meanwhile, King Rinaul was in Olian with his soldiers, all undercover. He was getting ready to attack Olian.

He knew that Olian was no stranger to attempted assassinations and so he knew that Olian could not be taken down in such an easy manner.

And so even though they did not know it, he employed the assassins as a mere distraction.He knew they would be found out by Kelahi and he would in turn inform king Olian.

Rinaul's plan was to attack the palace while everyone, including Kelahi, was busy dealing with the assassins.

But he had thought wrong, Kelahi was aware of his presence.And as Kelahi lay down on the floor of the king's bedroom that night,he sighed heavily, he was getting rather tired of the dirty games of politics going on around him on a daily basis.

But the girl he saw looked too young to be an assassin.

Indeed Kelahi thought and I am also too young to be a brute king's seer

Kelahi suddenly felt like he and the girl had a lot in common. And he was not going to let her die.

The first assassin came into the room from the window.

Kelahi wasn't too bothered about that one.

Then Nerissa also jumped in, and Kelahi instantly sought to keep her safe.

A guard moved in the darkness.

Nerissa and Tora stood still, trying to find out where the sound came from.

Suddenly, they heard Lord footsteps in the room. As they pulled out their weapons, Kelahi cast a spell and a fire ignited around his palm.

It was then that the assassins saw that the room was filled with soldiers and Olian himself was in their midst,with an evil smile on his lips.

Nerissa and Tora tried to fight but Kelahi cast another spell which rendered them immobile.

"So Rinaul sent assassins to me?" Olian asked, chuckling

"And the best he could send to me was a slow middle aged woman and a child!" He roared with laughter,his men laughing with him.

Kelahi did not even smile,after all,he himself was a child.

Nerissa spat at Olian with hate in her eyes.

"Animal! " She seethed

A soldier walked up to Nerissa and slapped her.She struggled in vain to release herself from the grip of Kelahi's spell so that she could attack the guard but to no avail.

Tora bowed her head,she knew they were going to die.

Olian smiled again, the girl seemed to be an angry one.He did not recognize her, after all, Alamin was not the only place he had razed to the ground.

Kelahi stood still,the fire still burning in his hand. He was counting the time in his head, he knew that at any moment Rinaul would attack and he would release the girl and probably her colleague from his spell.

"I will show Rinaul what it means to trifle with me," Olian said as he held Nerissa's cheeks with one hand.

She bent her head and bit him on his hand.Olian screamed and slapped Nerissa with his free hand.

The soldiers went over to her and made her and Tora sit on the ground.

Nerissa spit out Olian's blood from her mouth and shouted insults at him and his soldiers while trying to bite them.

Kelahi knew that the girl had been hurt by something Olian had done to her in the past. He just didn't know what that 'something' was.

But he wanted to help her, he really wanted to.

Just as Nerissa and Tora are being dropped off by the soldiers, a cry rose out from the castle gates.

"Who is that?"Olian asked, puzzled

"Rinaul" Kelahi answered simply. He then released Nerissa and Tora from the spell.

by this time everyone had been thrown into confusion and Olian himself was at a loss.

Once they noticed that they could move, Nerissa and Tora immediately swung into action.

Tora dived straight for the window, and once she got there, she jumped out of it.

Nerissa, on the other hand, jumped at Olian with a dagger in her hand. She struggled to slit his throat but the soldiers restrained her.

Kelahi extinguished the fire, grabbed Nerissa's hand and ran out of the room.

The whole castle was in confusion.Olian himself got up from the ground which Nerissa had pushed him down to and started shouting orders at his soldiers.

"Get my sword!" He shouted at a guard standing nearby.

"Yes my lord" the guard answered and left Olian's presence and never came back.

Rinaul's soldiers began to set fire to the castle itself and smoke rose from the castle and covered the entire place with a dense fog and a choking smell.

Kelahi took Nerissa to the garden and there she refused to go any further.

"Who are you and where are you taking me to?" She asked

Kelahi answered in a calm voice, "I am Kelahi"

"What do you want from me?" Nerissa asked again

"For the sake of the gods" Kelahi said exasperatedly, " child, is it a crime to save your life?"

"I would have killed Olian back there if you had not stopped me" she shouted at him.

Meanwhile, sounds of battle could be hard in the Castle.

Kelahi sighed deeply.

"I do not know what he did to you " he said " but if you want revenge against an enemy as powerful as he is then what you need is power and more power"

"I am already strong enough" Nerissa shouted again

"If you were I wouldn't have had to save you" Kelahi replied, his grey eyes almost glowing in the moonlight.

"You need power is separate from the physical if you really want to defeat him" Kelahi said

Nerissa looked down, after getting so close to revenge she had been thrown back to where we started from. A helpless, confused child.

Kelahi noticed the change in her countenance and felt sorry for her.

" I could help you," he said,placing a hand on her shoulder.

But just as he was about to say something else, a burning log of wood fell from the burning roof into the garden. The fire was spreading fast.

Rinaul's soldiers took advantage of the fire in the garden and went over to it , fetching the flames and using them to burn the doors of the castle to prevent anyone from escaping.

In a bid to escape the fire, Nerissa had separated from Kelahi and when she looked back at the garden, she knew she couldn't go back. There were too many soldiers there.

Nerissa hid behind a horse when she saw some soldiers approaching. When they had gone past her, quickly climbed the palace fence and jumped down, hurting her feet in the process.

As she limped away that night, she swore within herself that when next she would confront Olian or anyone else at all, she would not run - they would be the one to run away from her.

Nerissa knew that she could not return to Elan. Falun would most likely kill her. Besides, Rinaul knew that she was one of the assassins sent to kill Olian and so he would not be comfortable seeing her around.

Nerissa hid her weapons in her clothes and looked for a safe place to pass the night.

But then it struck her that the entire capital city of Olian was not safe for her at that moment.

She had only one option,to keep moving.

Nerissa creeped through the empty streets , walking quickly and stealthily.

The entire city was quiet in an unnatural way. The people must have heard the noise coming from the Castle. They probably knew that they will wake up the next day with a new king ruling over them.

Nerissa prayed for Olian's safety, she wanted to have the satisfaction of killing him herself.

Of what use would she be to herself if she could not avenge her family's death? Revenge was her only driving force, and without it she would have taken her own life.

Nerissa walked on until she came to a tree to which a horse was tied. Seeing no one around,she untied the horse, mounted it and held on to his mane.

Samil had told her that if a horse did not have reins, it's mane what's the next best option.

Nerissa moved the horse along, at first it resisted her and she almost fell off but then she regained control and moved the horse.

Eventually, Nerissa gained enough control of the horse to make it run.

By the time she got to the city gates, it was almost daybreak. She noticed that there were no guards at the city gate, they had probably heard the news and fled for their lives.

Nerissa left the capital city and got down from the horse.She tied it to a tree and left it there.

A little girl riding on a horse without any adult would be a rather suspicious sight.

Nerissa found herself in one of the smaller towns in the Orizon of Olian.

As she got there, the news going around was that Olian was still alive and that he had fought Rinaul to a standstill such that he was forced to retreat.

Nerissa smiled a bitter smile,she would still have the satisfaction of killing Olian herself.