Poetic Justice

In one of many worlds in the cosmos, a place of magic and conflict, the irresponsible creation of a God destroyed by arrogance, a world of beauty and blight, a sun rose upon a shining forest of birches. Golden rays skirted the horizon, setting the beautiful leafy canopy of blazing red, yellow, and green alight with reflecting beads of fresh dew. Clouds parted, and birds flew to meet the glorious blue of the sky as the chilly mists exuded by wet soil under bone-white tree trunks rose slowly up to vanish into morning warmth. The forest was known by humans of the realm as the Shurai. A place of utter beauty. A place of peace.

Under the ground upon which the trees of this wonderful place took root, there was blight. Dark tunnels of blackness, unreachable by the sun. One man crawled through these cramped caves, smelling the oily stink of fear. He was simply garbed in deepest black, nearly every inch of his body sheathed in cloth or leather. On his back was a burnished sword, and he held out in one gloved hand a knife. He saw through the inky blackness only due to the jagged shard nerid crystal in his hand, which glowed a warm blue. The place was damp, and the snaking coils of birch roots penetrated the low ceilings, scraping his head. Helt Nomarin slashed them with his gleaming hunting knife, originally forged for killing and skinning deer. Helt had killed no deer. Only men. He had lost count ages ago. He had killed perhaps a hundred, and very few knew his name. He had killed all kinds of people: men, women, children, even a few demi-demons. A cold murderer. A man of many uses to those with nefarious intent. He always took money for what he did. Some would call him a mercenary, but he did not consider himself one. The claustrophobic caves he crawled through were not natural, having being formed by a particularly venomous species of giant spider known as the veerat. Helt found it a peculiar job he had been assigned, but he was one of few willing to do it. And he would not turn down the plentiful reward offered, the job having been given to him by the Lord of the heavily populated city of Oerdiv. Down the tunnel, a rustling was heard by the man beneath his leather mask. He sheathed his knife, and hung the string to which the glowing stone in his hand was attached around his neck. He then drew his sword and proceeded. A fat veerat sprang at him from the shadows, claws and massive jaws clicking and spraying clear venom. Helt swung his polished blade and cut the giant spider through its repulsive thorax. The creature sqealed in an unearthly fashion and died with a violent spasming of its legs. Helt walked on, wiping t he yellow fluids from his blade. Fear coursed through him with each beat of his heart, but he hid it deep within. Many minutes later, he was attacked again, by two more spiders. He swung his sword expertly once again, quickly dispatching the two. He knelt to look at the corpses. One of them was female, and its sac of a body bloated with eggs. Helt put away his sword, drew the knife from his belt and cut into the leathery skin of the sac.

In one corner of the forest, Helt emerged from a hole in a grassy hillock, with two sacks in his hands. A white horse awaited beside the hole, snorting and whickering in impatience. Helt mounted it, and with a swift kick of its haunches, rode away into the morning mist.

********************

Deep in the heart of the bustling city of Oerdiv, Helt sat by himself in the stinking pit of a bar hidden in one of the various maze-like networks of alleyways that honeycombed the main streets of the fortress settlement.