Mercenary Little Death Bringer

MERCENARY

(Little Death Bringer #1)

Catherine Banks

eBook Edition

Copyright 2012 Catherine Banks

Cover design and artwork by
Avery Banks

This book is also available in print.

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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

~~~~

Note from the author:

I wrote this story during NaNoWriMo 2011, a
challenge to anyone willing to participate to write a 50,000 word
novel in one month. NaNoWriMo happens every November and anyone is
welcome to participate. This was my first year participating and I
finished the challenge! I did not edit very much of this novel as I
wanted to be sure that I kept the same tone and story that I was
able to write for the challenge. I will be writing book two of the
Little Death Bringer Series during NaNoWriMo 2012, so be sure to
visit my blog and Facebook pages to be kept up to date on my
progress.

~~~~

CHAPTER ONE

“Keep your elbows down and off of the table,
Marin,” Amadis, Queen of the Elves and my foster mother, ordered me
as I sat at one of the large mahogany tables inside the exquisite
ballroom where the elves held their balls each year. The balls were
always extravagant and filled with ladies in beautiful dresses and
men in tuxedos dancing, flirting and clinking glasses
appropriately. It was all out of my league and yet I had to attend
them every year, unless I was at school.

At sixteen years old I was supposed to know
how to be a proper lady already. Unfortunately for Mother I was
more skilled at the manly arts of hunting and killing then crafts
and crumpets. She kept strong and continued to train me despite my
boorish tendencies and I was finally learning a few things. I
picked up the proper fork and took a small, ladylike, bite of the
salad and then chewed slowly with my lips closed.

“Well done!” she said happily, clapping her
hands together to show how pleased she was. When she was happy,
Mother glowed and would have put angels to shame if they existed.
She was gorgeous with fair skin, silver hair and pointed ears. When
I’d first come to live with the elves I had been envious of their
pointed ears, silver hair and beauty. At one point I had felt
poorly about myself for not being an elf, but Mother assured me
that there was nothing wrong with being a human and told me I was a
beautiful human. I wasn’t sure if I believed her or not, but I
stopped being overly envious of the elves and just accepted myself
as I was. I didn’t know if I was pretty or not, but it hadn’t
bothered me, until the past year.

“Alright, we are done for the day,” she said,
“Go ahead and go change.”

I kissed her cheek and walked quickly out of
the ballroom and to my room to change. It took me fifteen minutes
just to get out of the dress with all of its tiny buttons, but once
I was out of the dress and in my pants and sleeveless shirt I
finally felt like myself. Mother meant well and I did try to
behave, but I preferred being outside, getting dirty, and fighting
to being clean, inside the castle, and sipping tea.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror and
inspected my thin frame with a little muscle in the right places
and feminine curves in the right places as well with long blonde
and brown hair that hung to my back and sighed. There were so many
areas for improvement.

I dismissed the things I could not fix on
myself and ran out the back door of the castle. Even if it were
possible to change my physical appearance, I wouldn’t have done it.
I am who I am and I can only change certain things and I accepted
that…or at least that’s what I repeated in my head several times a
day.

I continued on my way to the fighting arena
that was built over one thousand years ago. The sand arena held
many memories for me, but I knew it held even more for the elves
that lived to be over three hundred years old. Humans envied the
elven race because the elves were one of the few races which were
immortals. They could be killed, but they would never die of old
age or illness and at their oldest only looked to be in their late
thirties. For humans who valued beauty and youth since they only
had them for a few years, they wished for a way to become an
immortal.

The sand arena was over one hundred feet in
diameter and had wooden boards around the outer edges. The male
elves that lived in the kingdom came every Saturday to train and
spar with each other. Fighting prowess was highly regarded in the
kingdom and those that were poor fighters weren’t well thought of
and generally didn’t come to many functions.

As I walked up I realized that a much larger
group had come than usual and there were well over three hundred
elves around the arena. As soon as I was noticed they all turned
and smiled at me. Every elf had pointed ears and ninety percent had
silver hair, which made them fairly easy to spot out in the rest of
the world. I walked through the crowd, receiving pats on the back
from the older elves and smiles from the younger ones until I came
to the front to see who was fighting in the arena.

I stood on the bottom rail of the fence to
look over just as I had done every Saturday since I was five years
old and folded my arms on top of the fence. Cesar had brought me
out here after witnessing a few of my fights with other four and
five year old male elves and decided that I needed an outlet and
some training since I seemed determined to continue on a path of
fighting. Mother had been against it at first, but they told me
that it truly did help my temper and I stopped fighting others
except when in the arena or when my life or honor was on the
line.

I watched as Cesar, King of the Elves and my
foster father, fought hand to hand with Favian, Prince of the Elves
and my best friend. Favian was fast and incredibly better at
fighting then me, but he still had a lot to learn before he could
best his father. I watched their fight and smiled as my two
favorite men battled each other. A few minutes later Favian was
pinned to the ground by Father who had a wide smile on his face.
“Still too slow, Son,” Father said.

I clapped my hands and whistled. “Good job!
Nice fake pinning Favian.”

Father looked at me curiously a moment and
that was all it took for Favian to escape the pin and whip around
his father to put him in a choke hold. “Never take your eye off of
your opponent, Father.”

The crowd cheered and laughed and Father
patted his son’s arm. “I concede. You won, but only because of
Marin’s trickery.”

I pretended to look offended. “Me use
trickery? I would never do such a thing.”

“Come into the ring and let us see how much
you’ve learned,” Kato, Father’s guard and a man who had spent much
of my childhood playing with me and carving toys from wood for me,
said. He was like an uncle to me and I never took his love for me
for granted.

I jumped into the ring and walked as though I
were holding up a dress in my fingertips. “Sir, I am but a sweet
maiden who is appalled at your crude ways and cruel words.”

Kato tossed a sword to me and I caught it
easily. “You, my dearest child, are a very adept liar. It frightens
me quite a bit.”

I spun the sword and said, “I learned from
the best,” and bowed to him. The crowd laughed at our banter and I
smiled happily.

He smiled back at me and then took a ready
stance. “Come at me, girl. Let us see if you can last more than
three seconds today.”

I took a ready stance and then charged
forward, slashing downwards and then sideways, but of course he
easily dodged both attacks and attacked me, forcing me on the
defensive. I rolled to the right to avoid his strikes and then
kicked at his legs, but my timing was poor because he chose that
moment to strike downwards. I rolled to the right just in time to
avoid the blow, but that was also because he drew back enough to
stop the blade and not cut me.

I stood up and sighed. “How long was
that?”

“Four seconds,” Father said from the
fence.

I groaned and Kato patted my back. “That’s
better than last time.”

“Only because you pulled back that last
strike,” I grumbled angrily.

“Come, you and I need to fight,” Jovan said.
Jovan was one of the younger males who I often sparred with and one
of the many who came to spar with Favian. He was also one of the
few elves, whom I found to be unattractive. He had similar
features, but there was something off with his symmetry that made
him ugly to me. He was nice and I had no problems with him so he
and I had developed a sort of warrior friendship.

I bowed to Kato and then turned to face
Jovan. “Swords or hands?” I asked.

“Swords because obviously you need much more
practice.”

I stuck my tongue out at him and then walked
to the center of the ring and took a ready stance. “I take it you
aren’t going to go easy on me, are you?”

He smiled evilly. “Do I ever?”

I smiled at him in response.

He lunged forward and I was forced to act and
react instead of plan moves. He did hold back, despite his claim,
otherwise I would have been dead within seconds, but he did so in a
way that kept me fighting and helped me learn.

We sparred for at least ten minutes and then
I didn’t see his fake and I had his sword against my throat.
“Dang,” I said sadly.

He smiled and removed his sword. “You are
learning and you are doing a lot better than last year.”

“Yes, but I am still only at a toddler elf’s
level,” I complained as we walked out of the arena to let others
spar.

He patted my back. “You cannot compare
yourselves to us, you know this.”

“It’s just that I feel that I can do better,
but I can’t seem to figure out how to unlock it.”

“It just takes practice and time. You don’t
think Kato learned to be as good as he is in sixteen years, do
you?”

I laughed. “I know they have many years on
me, but that’s another problem. My race only lives to be eighty
years old at the most! I’ll never be able to have as much training
as you guys do. I’ll only have forty years of real training
available and then after that I’ll be degrading into an old
woman.”

“I thought we had agreed not to discuss
things like this,” Favian said as he walked up to me with his shirt
off, mopping up the sweat on his upper body with it.

Favian had the telltale elf characteristics
of silver hair and pointed ears, but even after meeting every elf
in the Kingdom I could easily say that he was the most handsome elf
I had ever seen. Drool built up within my mouth and I was forced to
turn away from him. Why did I react to him in such a way? I hadn’t
felt these sensations two or three years ago and now all of a
sudden I found myself thinking ludicrous things such as kissing
him.

“She only speaks the truth,” Jovan said.

“We do not speak of it,” Favian said
angrily.

“Right,” I said, “We must not speak of my
impending doom. One which will end while Favian is still
technically a child to the elves,” I said bitterly before walking
away. I didn’t usually get upset about it because I knew it was
going to happen, but today it bothered me. It really bothered me
that I was going to look old and haggard while Favian looked
exactly as he did now. I would die while he was in his youth. It
was an awful feeling and one I did not talk about because it hurt
too much.

I headed passed the arena and continued
through the fields until I made it to the river. The elves had a
way with nature that ensured the Kingdom was always beautiful with
blooming flowers and clear flowing rivers. I sat down on the edge
of a high rocky area and looked down at the fast moving water. Fish
swam with the current in the waters in a variety of color that made
the whole area even more beautiful.

I had wished on every star to be granted some
miracle which would give me the type of longevity the elves
experienced, but alas wishing on stars did not work. I had prayed
to the god and goddess and that had failed as well. I had had to
come to the realization when I was only six years old that I would
never live as long as Favian. The only reassuring part was that I
wouldn’t have to bear witness to his death.

“Marin,” Favian whispered as he sat down next
to me, “I thought we were over this?”

“I will never be
over
it, Favian. I am
going to die before you and I am going to get old and look
disgusting while you look as you do currently. It is always in the
back of my mind.”