Still a few miles out from the Imperial highway, Leresai grimaced as she glanced at the late afternoon crescent moon. The stallion she rode bristled when she clenched and unclenched at its reins.

Finely, Leresai relaxed her hold in resignation. She could not pick up the pace without causing the pair of horsemen who followed her down the foothill path to hurry up their steeds in response.

Leresai expected difficulty along the trail from local bandits but what caught her eye was the peculiar eastern riding style of one of the companions. He held the broadside of a heavy, curved sebel blade over the rump of his beast to guide it.

A man of the D'jestre steppes, not of the foothill thickets she now descended. What were these two doing on this side of the Usuül Craigs?

Many D'jestre now made their homes in the city of her destination, Nevespora. Most of whom came from the sea-faring commercial cities on the eastern shores of the Mooring Sea, not from the wild and barbaric steppes nomads.

Leresai assumed her own vestments were queer to them. The gelded helm of a White Hawk set in platinum and the white chain mail of an elven spearmaiden she wore caught all eyes she passed in the lands of the Imperium.

She was no elf in spite of her guise of raised eyebrow and even spider web knitted ear extensions, but a human albino of Sgoëthe origins. This Northern Isles heritage gave her a long, tall, even sporting physique.

She also possessed a lustrous ivory skin tone befitting an elven warrior of the high North.

She guessed correctly the horsemen would make their approach shortly before the Imperial highway leading to Nevaspora came into view. As she heard the hooves strident beat behind her, she made no response, but kept her composure intact.

"Is this an elven maiden? You are far from your goddom home," asked one of the horsemen who veered to her left and joined her pace.

She acknowledged him with a well practiced fetching smile. She stole a glance from beneath her helm.

His shirt was of an earthen green hew and garnished with orange silk embroidery. His cap turned askew to the side, in typical style of the merchants of the eastern city-states. His hair of coarse, curly brown was tied in a single strewn knot thrown back on his left shoulder.

This was also typical of the pragmatic class of men he seemed to fit so well.

The Empress' Imperial flowed from his lips without accent. In that, he was not what she was expecting at all.

The man she assumed to be a steppes nomad now rode to her right. His horse's trod was more ponderous than that of his lithe bodied companion.

"I said to myself upon the sight of the pair of you, 'T'nonnon'B', for that is my self name, 'those men who ride with the natural grace of gallants do not appear to be from the western lands.' You must be far from your homeland as well, strangers."

"Myself, my home is merely a few hours ride. My guests -," the D'jestre said, gesturing for her to acknowledge his companion, "- is a man of the steppes just east of the Nin from the valleylands beneath the Usaäl Craigs."

She gave a fleeting glance that sized up the horseman. Dressed in billowing cotton and hide leathers, he gripped his sebel blade tight against the flank of his mount.

Otherwise, his composure was relaxed and amiable. A squinting whole face smile spread through a soft beard of redhair. A cap of leather covered his head with scarlet hair flowing from the back.

The merchant pried once more. "Quite late isn't it for even an Elven spearmaiden to be out and about the far paths from city and highway - mountain lions, bandits, goblins - you could encounter anything on the back roads if you are not careful."

"As you may notice," she began with her lips moving in supple turn and her voice lyrical as expected of an elven spearmaiden, "there are no hovels along this stretch and I'm obliged this evening to continue until I reach the palace and deliver this package."

Leresai revealed a package in the grip of her riding glove with an upturned twitch that alarmed the D'jestre merchant. It could have just as easily been a knife thrust out with the same motion, hidden from his companion, to catch him in the throat.

Her lips bowed up in an arched challenge.

"What is the matter, good D'jestre," Leresai asked with feigned concern that sprung from her voice in the lilting tilde that flavored elven speech.

"There's talk of an assassin on her way towards Nevespora."

She gawked and blinked.

"An assassin?"

"Coming from up river, but evidently avoiding the riverboats."

She felt a chill run down from her navel and tense up through her loins. She quickly dismissed the warning as being one incongruent with her present concerns.

Leresai laughed with an intended nervous stutter, "I've met a rough element on these paths, but no assassins, sieur. My vision extends into the night, my hearing even further.

"Even the casts of their dark cloaks on the shadows of a great elm would be revealed to me. The tread of their soft boots on the moss of the wilding trails would set my ears to a steady twitch."

The D'jestre assessed her with an expression set like fossilized wood.

"She could be dressed in any fashion she so chose. Wearing the helm of the White Hawks even."

She held her fingers against her lips in a theatrical gesture of naked mockery to goad them in action.

"Sieur, you cruelly jest!"

Leresai listened for a misstep from the nomad's horse that would come when the blade rose from the beast's haunches. They might attempt to take her head even if they were not entirely certain she was the one they sought.

"We are told the assassin is one of renown. A human albino."

She kept silent. In a pose of wrinkled brow and lowered chin, she feigned to show her thoughts affixed on considering his words and what they suggested.

He continued. "An elven maiden and a human albino could easily be mistaken for one another, do you not agree?"

She fluttered her eyes. She shook her head with her shoulders hunched in an over-wheening flair. An emphatic smile formed as she suspired; air eased from beneath her bosom.

"D'jestre of Nevespora, I accept your apology."

"None intended," he shot back.

"I wasn't insulted. I merely thought the notion silly."

His tone finally broke into an exasperated shout.

"No apology intended! Do you deny an elven courier would be an effective disguise if one wished to be well-received with little scrutiny into the palace? Is the notion so credulous given the good terms the goddom of Voilétél and the kingdom of Midvries are on?"

"The palace, you say?" Leresai spoke, her voice slow and sober, "I ride into intrigue this evening. Who would deign to harm the Lyoneid family? Their enemies are most surely few."

The D'jestre rankled through a snarl he no longer made any attempt to contain. "Expertly clever distractions. Your modus changes upon a ducat to keep us off our guard."

The path towards the Imperial highway began to smooth and wear well trod against the brambly ledge. From around the next high hedge the coastal marshes beyond it were now aromatic.

Soon Leresai and her escorts would be exposed to the traffic going to and fro Nevespora. She saw a moment of hesitation as the merchant's eyes darted from her and to the highway ahead.

He intentionally avoided the eyes of his companion. The D'jestre was near a decision. One he wasn't comfortable making.

Leresai closed her eyes as they warmed in the silver of Rhoethella's gift. She swung her right arm out in a smooth singular motion as she flung a dart in the eye of the sebel bearing man.

The man fell from his mount with a double tapping thud on the ground.

His horse whinnied and galloped into the brambles in an overanxious stride. It cried in anguish as it rolled over itself in a downward plunge. The bones of the beast snapped against the trees as it fell into the gulley.

"Halt," she commanded the remaining D'jestre. Her voice no longer gailey elven in accent, but low and dusk.

He gasped at the silver glowing from her eyes. Many men, Leresai reminded herself, go their entire lives without the intrusion of arcana upon their mundane existence.

"I said, 'halt.' I will skin you alive if I have to repeat myself."

He said not a word as his eyes glared back. When he tightened the rein, his nervous steed became still.

"How did you know," she asked.

A leaf-bladed throwing knife readied threateningly in the grip of her fingers.

"You're Leresai Fervarryn. You don't appear at all like a human at this moment."

As he said this, his voice cracked even as his words kept their sense.

He was a man of the Ko Laga, the D'jestre crime syndicate, she was certain. She ascertained his operative role in he notorious organization was not of a soldier, nor that of an enforcer; with his diplomatic and educated bearing, he was an intelligencer.

"My geas. How did you know about it?"

"You'll kill me no matter what I tell you."

She considered his response for a moment before she decided how to proceed onward.

"That is most presumptuous," Leresai answered. "Get off your horse."

His eyes fixed on the arch of her steady forearm as she kept the blade readied. It gleamed sharp with intended menace.

He obeyed her command with care.

Leresai surveyed the weapons strung on the saddle sides. Pleased she was at the sight of a sorely needed crossbow. It appeared to be of expensive craftwork. It also possessed a bandolier of bolts attached to its side.

Even more impressive in the D'jestre's possession was an obsidian cutlass of sea-faring D'jestre design. She could see it reflect the light of the late sun as it peaked through an encasement of twined leather.

Authentic of the D'jestre city of renown crafters, Haffya Schtas, this blade also appeared to have never been used.

She took both weapons and smiled. A gloating malice shined in her eyes.

The D'jestre grimaced in turn as he stared at the loss of his prizes.

There was nothing else in his bags but cured dried meats that reeked to her nose of D'jestre spices, a half full wine sack, and several coins.

She held the coins in her fist. Sifting through them for a specific issuance of coins as she dropped them one by one back in the bag. None were to be found amongst the coins she examined.

Leresai stared down at the man.

"I've been hunted before and on those occasions they possessed a specific coin. Do you know of this coin?"

He shrugged with his head fixed in a stare towards the distant sea. She knew that look in D'jestre men she had clashed with before. He was making his peace with the demonic lords of Dom Daniel.

"So, you do know of it," she chided.

"The Usurper's Ducats," he volunteered, "a beautiful set of coins. I even own a few in my private capacity, but it has nothing to do with us."

"And, just who is this 'us', D'jestre?"

He raised his chin and spat out, "you do know of it."

"Of course, but why would you care about any affairs I may have at the palace?"

She didn't expect an immediate and satisfactory answer but she had no time to entertain a hostage. With the cutlass still in its scabbard, she used it to smack the remaining horse on its haunches. It hurried down the path.

"Take off your clothes," Leresai commanded, her voice brusque, "down to your loincloth, little D'jestre."

As he obeyed, she trotted her horse in a tight, intimidating circle around him. Beneath the embroidered coat his clothes were even more formal than Leresai would have expected for his current outing.

Evening attire fit for a royal occasion. This did not comport well with her. What did this encounter mean? Did this man, a Ko Laga criminal, serve in some capacity as an emissary to the provincial lord of the Midvries?

Was the palace expecting her?

Leresai did not let her concerns expose themselves as she chortled in malicious taunt. He was bare of chest now with hair bunched thick around his dark brown nipples. His chest hair was blond.

She suspected he was of mixed D'jestre and Imperial heritage. His face bore the long thin cheekbones of the D'jestre who also tended to be raven or dark red haired. His head was covered in a brown mop instead.

He was a handsome specimen and if she had more time for a proper interrogation she would mortify his defenses by forcing herself on him. Instead, when he was stripped down to his loincloth, she freed the cutlass from its scabbard and she used it to snip the belt rope from his waist. The cloth fell to his ankles. Now he stood exposed.

She gave him an admiring whistle and a pleased, whispery moan of 'mmm', as she circled around on her mount.

Leresai halted her horse to watch as his cock grew in arousal, otherwise he did not move, nor look up to meet her gaze. She once more circled around and found evidence of the fear she sought to exploit in the clinch of his buttocks. The creases pressed against his thighs fluttered with a spastic twitch. Bloodheat, vitaechemist called it.

She reached out now with the cutlass unsheathed and she placed the flat side of the blade along the length of his shoulder blades. His breathing grew shorter. She rubbed the blade slowly down his back.

Twisting the blade over as it reached the indent of his spine, she scraped the edge of the blade across his ass cheeks roughly enough to make the D'jestre gasp.

Leresai dismounted and stood behind him. Riding gloves pocketed, she pressed the nail of her thumb into his bleeding wound; the other four fingers gripped his ass cheek with her nails dug deep into his flesh.

Glancing over his shoulder, with her breath warm on his neck, Leresai whispered into his ear, "even facing death, you're excited, dear little D'jestre man. I would take care of that for you if time wasn't short and circumstances were not so dire."

She laughed teasingly at first but stifled a giggle upon seeing a trickle of piss splatter his feet. Time was being wasted for frivolous sport.

"Now I ask you once more, how did you know about my geas?"

Though his lungs rattled as he exhaled, his articulations remained clear, even as his tone stayed disdainful.

"The alliance of those whom you are employed is not so secure that it doesn't leak like a sieve."

She released the rough grip with which she clutched his ass. With the hand free she began to muss his hair.

"If this were reversed, were I at your mercy, D'jestre, and I answered you so cryptically, would my reward be life or death?"

"The brother," he blurted out.

Leresai did not understand at first. "Lord Lyoneid's own?"

"No. No. No. Her brother, the one who pursues you."

She lay her chin on the D'jestre's shoulder, her eyes fixed on the moon. She dug her thumb nail into his right nipple with a rough twist. Leresai let him know her decision.

"All right, pretty D'jestre. You actually told me something pertinent to my cause so you live. Now start walking. When you reach the Imperial highway, you don't go southward to Nevespora.

"You go North. So long as you continue northward, I don't care what you do or what becomes of you. Do not cross my path in the next seven days and you may return home, understood?"

He nodded curtly with his feet springing forward. His figure grew smaller until he disappeared behind the curve of the hedge. Leresai shredded the clothes in case he tried to return for them. She bore the D'jestre no ill-will, but she wasn't going to make it any easier for him to return to his duties.

As she bent to pick up the sebel blade that had fallen nearby, she heard a hissing pneumatic moan coming from the D'jestre whom she had thought dead. Keeping an eye on the wounded man, she gave the blade a quick appraisal.

The blade was not practical to her preferred means of combat so she tossed it far into the gully beneath the brambled ridge.

The man stared straight up at the sky with his remaining eye, appearing perfectly dead but for the slow blinking lid. Leresai plucked the dart from his crushed eye, and she cleaned off the ruined orb from the needle with a swipe against his hide leather vestment.

She examined the needle. The tubular shaft enclosed in the point had failed to draw enough poison to kill the man quickly. He was dying slowly with every muscle in his body tightening.

His fingers bruised purple, curved together, mangled. Similar dark bruising crawled up along the length of an exposed leg even as she watched.

"You speak the Imperial?" She asked.

He lay in the cast of her shadow. His response so slow as to be near to imperceptible.

"The Enigmatic," he whispered.

When his lips moved to whisper, his mouth spread wide; it stretched impossibly long across his face.

The creased ends of his lips butted against the bruising on his cheeks. The skin cracked and flaked; it revealed an oozing sheen beneath.

It was the first time on hearing her own nom-de-guerre, Leresai shivered. Her mind reeled back fifteen years.

She recalled her friend, Hosparr the Gnoyul, as she accompanied him on an expedition to dig up a near half an eon old fort ruin in a squalid Suüdland's march far from the currents of contemporary civilization.

She needed to stay incognito for a season and in turn Hosparr needed a guard for his student assistants and himself as they practiced in the gray art of archaeology.

After an arduous but productive day of excavation for his team he asked Leresai to join him in his tent. Once there and settled in, he brought out a bottle of the fortified Ninci wine of dark grape and rye grain, blushbort.

With assuredly lust driven flattery, he toasted her with a song written for her.

"Leresai,

Your hair is spun of the spirit of translucence

Made manifest in this world.

Your eyes are of a violet

No one forgets

And haunts the shadowed realm

Of their dreaming minds to their dying day.

Your smile is dangerous and disarms any man.

As it befits the nomenclature

They whisper in the better quarters,

You are so indeed Leresai, the Enigmatic."

The name stuck as she gained a reputation in the dark arts.

Leresai shook her head free of cruel memory; it was time to end the Djestre's suffering. She retrieved the crossbow. She placed the bolt into the stock groove and then she cocked the drawstring.

Leresai picked a position twenty yards from her target. With a sharp pitched swish, his skull split into, spread out from above his brow. His brains, nearly evenly perforated, seeped out onto the ground.

She walked over to the corpse. The piercing was not as well centered as she would have liked. Leresai cleaned off the bolt and examined it.

There was no flaw in its construction. She studied the crossbow with care. A knot in the polished wood embedded in the arch of the bow caused the flaw in the flight of the bolt. Within one hundred yards the accuracy would be under compensated by nearly a foot.

She flung the crossbow down the gully. Eyeing the crescent moon, Leresai cursed the name of the ensorcelled god, Izdun the Patriarch, long ago defeated by her very own patron, Rhoethella.