Page 56 of Cut of the Dark Elf's Blade

But as the screams continue, followed by another loud bang, I realize that it can’t be Luocre.

Do you really think you know him that well, to know that this isn’t him losing his mind and attacking his mother or one of the servants?

The thought is valid, but my theory that it isn’t Luocre persists.

He wouldn’t do something so loud and flashy. He is quiet. Elegant. If he were going to kill someone, it would be neat and simple.

“What the fuck is that?” Rhiucra has finally caught onto the fact that something is happening.

“I don’t know,” I say breathlessly. There is another bang and more screaming. “Do you think the house is being attacked?”

“Attacked?” Rhiucra echoes. “Nobody would be stupid enough…” The rest of his sentence disappears as a strange look crosses his face, and then without another word, he runs around the corner of the manor.

He comes back seconds later.

“The house is being attacked. I thought it could be Luocre, finally losing his shit, but I don’t think it is him.”

I grip the blade of my sword and look over at Rhiucra, whose face is strained, his skin tight over the bones and muscles of his face.

“What should we do?” I ask him anxiously. I haven’t had that many sword fighting lessons with Rhiucra, and I am not sure how much protection that will afford me.

“What should we do?” I ask him again when he doesn’t answer the first time. His eyes are wide and bright. “Should we hide?” My voice is brittle with urgency.

The banging is coming closer and closer. It sounds like whoever has attacked the main mansion is heading directly for the manor house.

The only thing you can do is fight,I tell myself when Rhiucra hasn’t answered me.

I go over to the weapons table he laid out earlier today and grab a dagger, and then replace the longsword with the broadsword which I am more comfortable with.

Do you really think you can do this?I ask myself as I stare down at the blades in my hands.

You started these lessons to protect yourself against Luocre. But this is something else entirely. Are you sure you shouldn’t just hide?

But my resolve strengthens, and I turn to see Rhiucra standing against the side of the building, that strange, unfamiliar, and yet all too familiar look on his face once more.

“What are you doing?” I hiss the words as I run over to him. “We have to fight and defend ourselves!”

“We can’t.” Rhiucra says it so matter-of-factly as if we’re not on the brink of potential death. There’s something almost miserable about the look on his face, but he schools himself quickly.

It is too late to convince him, and I have no time to try and riddle out his strange behavior any further because the mysterious attackers are here. They begin running into the gardens that we are in, behind the manor house.

Their attack is immediate and deadly.

They throw a ball of light at a nearby tiphe tree, and the tree instantly catches fire. The fire spreads quickly to the other trees and the shrubbery, and before I know it, I am surrounded by a circle of fire.

I suppose that was their plan,I think to myself.

I stumble backward as the attacker, a male dark elf, slows down now that they have me – us – surrounded by a ring of flames.

“Rhiucra!” My voice is shrill as I scream at him. The tone of my voice seems to take him by surprise, and he takes a step toward the dark elf before he falters.

“Rhiucra!” I scream his name again and again, as the dark elf attacker walks closer and closer.

He isn’t doing anything!My thoughts are a jumbled, panicked mess.

The sword and dagger clatter as they fall to the ground, my hands suddenly going limp.

And I can’t protect myself from a dark elf! I am no match for a dark elf!