nobeautifulthingsnovels-blog

[nobeautifulthingsnovels-blog]

Chapter One (Aurus)

    Twisting violently to his left, he narrowly avoided a pile of filthy rags covering a destitute, and now quite startled, gold dwarf. His footing never faltered as he ran, splashing through the stagnant water, run-off from the closely spaced housing in the district. Sweat stung his eyes, pouring from his brow in an unrelenting torrent, nearly as tenacious as the pack of dogs, and their handlers, hounding him through the avenues.      The stinging continued to intensify, though he couldn’t afford even the split second distraction of wiping it away. One misstep and they would have him.      Again, he turned, down what seemed to be an ever narrowing series of alleys. The thought dawned on him that he was being cornered; and if he didn’t think of something soon...      “Shit”, he cursed to himself, as he came face to face with a stone wall standing twenty feet tall, with, to his dismay, no visible handholds to scale it. He spun quickly, hoping to backtrack down a connecting corridor, but his pursuers had caught up with him.      He backed against the wall as four men with their snarling hounds advanced intently. His eyes, with their unusual violet hue, darted side to side, analyzing his surroundings. Two of the watchmen approached, handing the leashes to their comrades while removing cudgels from their belts. They advanced to encircle their quarry.      The elf, Aurus, finally relieved his brow of sweat and pulled his pale blonde hair back with a silk ribbon from his sleeve. His expression shifting from frantic panic to a stern and calculating coldness.      The man to his left charged in, swinging his cudgel low. Aurus steps quickly to his right, lifting back his left leg, bending it at the knee. The cudgel passed just under his toes, the assailant beginning to tumble forward off balance- only to be sent backward from the force of Aurus’ heel snapping into the bridge of his nose.     Swinging his cudgel with an ever increasing furor, the man on the right charged in before his partner had even hit the ground. Aurus, unarmed as he was, ducked and dodged around the blows, his feet a blur across the cobblestones. He found his opening in the form of a wild overhand swing. He sidestepped the attack and drove his knee upwards into the assailant’s sternum, following it with a fierce elbow to the base of his skull. The breath driven from his lungs, he dropped face down onto the stones, blood spurting from his nose upon impact.      After nimbly disentangling himself from the human, he pulled two small bits of ebony wood from his pocket and tucked them into his mouth. His violet gaze set upon the remaining two men as they set the hounds loose. Aurus backpedaled a few steps as he bit down on the fragments of wood. As the dogs neared, he spat them onto the cobbles. They struck firm, bursting into twin towers of sickly green magefire. The dogs stumbled back avoiding the flames, which promptly vanished, leaving no trace of Aurus in their wake.