Yesterday, Sunday April 5th, was the due date for Round Two of the #NYCMidnight short story competition. I had three days to write a 2,000 word short story. I got to the second round with my story - A Tale of a Beard. YAY! See my Blog to read A Tale of a Beard, a story about a not so adventurous dwarf doula going on an adventure. Anyways, as these things go, I was assigned a genre - Fantasy, Subject - a stag party, and a Character - a prince. Please enjoy The Silver Shrike, and wish me luck getting to Round Three!! (I've done a dozen of these or so, and have never gotten to Round Three!)
The Silver Shrike
A herald marched into the dimly lit room, “The company is leaving the dining hall!”
That was the cue to get ready. For some it meant pouring champagne, revealing towers of pastries, tuning their lutes, or topping off lantern oil. For Delphine it meant adjusting her breasts in her corset, fluffing her rump-length ruffled skirt, and testing the flexibility of her tall black leather boots. She gave a few warmup swings around her pole as the human lords entered the chamber for the final stage of the stag party.
Delphine couldn’t help but notice the stains on their shirts and the slipshod way their tunics were belted. She despised them all; though some more than others. The Elven Princess Sylvie was slaughtered by Prince Conall and his younger brother Prince Gregor as some sort of twisted and vile entertainment while on a hunting expedition. Elves weren’t people to humans. All humans cared about were themselves.
However, men did care for exotic female elves. Though that didn’t do their reputation any favors. Delphine smiled seductively at the human lords and whipped her head back. Silver hair cascaded over sharp facial features and pointed ears. Her dark chocolate skin was interrupted only by a black mask of paint across her eyes, the mask of the shrike. An elegant, but fierce bird of prey. What these filthy men didn’t know, as they sloppily clinked their champagne flutes, was that purifying vengeance was nigh. Honor to the Elves. Glory for the King, Delphine chanted to herself as her delicate fingers played down her silver buckles and the silver tips of metal lining the bottom of her corset.
Honor was the only aspiration Delphine had been taught. Her father was a member of the elite elven warriors, The Order of the Silver Shrike. He had raised her and her brothers in The Way of the Warrior. It was a code that prescribed how a Silver Shrike should act in all things. Yet her father had never talked about her joining the Order, as he did with her brothers. She knew it was because no female had ever been admitted. She was valued less in his eyes. However, one day when the Great Errante River flooded and her father and brothers had rushed out in boats to help the flooded villages, all that changed. Delphine, only six years old, had hitched a ride on a wagon to the nearest flooded town, swam the raging currents of the river, and clambered from roof to roof until she had found a cat. She had put that cat in a basket and nearly drowning herself in the process, swam that cat to bare ground. Her father had given her a sword the next day. He didn’t need her to be male, he needed her to be brave.
Great ranks of King Marcellus’s elven soldiers were arranged in the next valley over, ready to deliver righteous vengeance on behalf of Princess Sylvie. Delphine was the hand of justice. Once she completed her mission, her acceptance into The Order of the Silver Shrike would be secured. Her hands shook, a warring combination of anticipation and trepidation.
The lute music changed from festive to sultry. With drinks and desserts in hand, the lords wandered closer to her platform. She studied the faces and surreptitiously listened to the conversation as she rocked her hips.
“A toast to Duke Rollo of Birmington, soon to be the brother-in-law to Prince Conall! Hear! Hear!” So, the sheepish grinner with the large nose was Duke Rollo, brother to Duchess Mathilda, the bride to be.
“Come now, Baron of Bristolderry, grab a front row seat!” The young floppy-haired one was Baron Digby. Got it.
“Check out those elven titties!” Which was followed by a chorus of, “Shut up Yorkenford!” So the red-faced one already tipping over was Baron Byron of Yorkenford.
“Now wait, wait, wait, my Lords. Before we get this party going any further, I want to hear a great hurrah for our Prince of honor tonight. What do you say?”
“Well said, Viscount of Abernathy!” Well, well. The good-looking one with a sense of style, sharp nose, and muscles to spare is Viscount Gray of Abernathy.
The lords all turned for a toast to Prince Conall, the murderer himself. I should’ve guessed. The most pompous demeanor in the room, with a clever smirk and a hideous yellow coat to match his cowardly soul.
“Let me say a word!” called out a dull-looking young man in a red jacket. “My brother, the best man I know…” Prince Gregor! She had them all now.
At last the toasts were all said, and the humans gravitated to where Delphine was swaying her strong, flexible hips. She lifted a leg and twirled around the pole, watching each face in the crowd gather closer.
Hoping to draw in one of two important faces, the elf kicked her leg high above her head, hooked her ankle around the pole, and twirled upside down, keeping her eyes focused. ‘Frack!’ she cursed under her breath, as she saw the red jacket leave the room. She had to act fast. Delphine tracked the nearing yellow coat of Prince Conall as she swirled to the ground. Straightening back up to a standing position and drawing on strength that came from knowing she was honoring her family and all elfkind, she ran her fingers along the metal in her corset.
The men hooted. The red-faced Baron of Yorkenford hollered, “Take it off!” Delphine grabbed the metal in each hand, pulling thin throwing knives from inside her corset. She let fly! End over end they flew, and before they struck the chest of the murderous Prince, she had let two more fly his way. “For Princess Sylvie! Honor to the Elves! Glory for the King!”
The humans couldn’t grasp the change in circumstances, and at least half were three sheets to the wind. Chaos reigned. An attack when all the lords of the human lands were drunk in one place was all the opportunity you could wish for.
Delphine leapt into the crowd, shoved them out of her way, and tore into the hallway in search of Prince Gregor. She picked a corridor at random, ran to the end, and looked both ways. Nobody was in sight. She doubled back, but men were coming into the hall now. The elf warrior ducked and swung her leg low, swiping the Baron of Bristolderry off his feet. She jumped up and landed high on the chest of the drunken Baron Byron, toppling him. She spun and grabbed the arm of the muscular Viscount of Abernathy, twisting him screaming onto the floor. Free of the men, she ran on. Turning left and right, she prayed to the tree spirits that she was making the right choices.
As she skidded around a corner, she caught a glimpse of red cloth. Prince Gregor and another were heading her way. Delphine quickly slipped behind a loose tapestry, partially concealed by a tall statue of a wading bird. She heard the voice of the Prince coming closer. “Marquess of Rottingshire, I hear you, but it’s not that simple for me to just relax. I know it’s my brother’s stag party and all, but the hunting trip was only last week. I can’t get the image out of my head of the elf girl, lying in my arms, her life bleeding away. Her last words were a plea for me to tell her father. And what did King Marcellus do? Did he avenge his daughter’s death? No!”
“Shhhh, shhhh,” shushed the Marquess. “I know, I know.”
“It just drives me insane that the elf king cares more about his alliance with the ogres, than his own daughter. He’s still moving forward with the treaty. I understand wanting to have their strength on your side, but you’re signing on with murderous brutes! If you had seen what they did to the elf princess. It was the most terrible thing I’d ever seen. I can’t get it out of my head!”
“I heard,” the Marquess added, “that King Marcellus has blamed humans for the massacre.”
“Bah!” scoffed Prince Gregor, as he walked by a tall statue of a bird, “Nobody would believe humans were capable of such an atrocity.”
Delphine was shaking. Her dagger was frozen in her hand. She had always identified herself as the hero that would make her father proud. Since she was a little girl, she had aspired to be brave, honorable, truthful, and righteous – to follow The Way. She had thought she was on the righteous path today, but now what could she believe? Instead of the hand of justice, was she instead the King’s pawn in a political stunt? The thought made her want to vomit. She had murdered a man! Possibly an innocent man. And she’d drawn first blood in a conflict that should not be!
No, that can’t be the truth. This must be a mistake. A misunderstanding. She can’t know all the factors at play. Delphine followed The Way of the Warrior, and her actions today would prove it, and she’d be the first female elf accepted to The Order of the Silver Shrike. She wiped away tears that smeared her perfectly applied black mask. Time to move on to the final task, and the Order would surely view her mission as a success.
The last step was simple but vital. Delphine had to make her way down to the kitchens, to an inconspicuous rear door. The elves of The Order were waiting in the kitchen herb garden to begin Phase Two of the castle invasion. They would streak though the castle like the graceful and vicious birds depicted on their sigils. The strike of the Shrikes would pave the way for the invading army, that was at this moment riding up the valley slope. Timing was critical.
Delphine was still the keystone in this operation. She just had to ignore her shameful doubts and keep her head. She ducked out of the tapestry and ran for the nearest staircase. A soldier in the hallway shrieked and jumped out of the way of the mad black-masked creature which had seemed to fly out of the wall.
Entering the kitchens, the elf found them crowded with servants washing pots. They didn’t pay her any attention as she walked to the back wall. She found the rear garden door and stopped. Delphine put her ear to the solid oak door and listened. She heard nothing on the other side, but they were The Order, so she wouldn’t. She knew they were there.
Delphine thought of the men at the party. The men she had immediately despised for their murderous appetites and slovenly appearance. She also thought of Prince Gregor’s lament for the Princess, whom he couldn’t get out of his head. And now the humans seemed to her like nothing more than a bunch of boys at a party, eating and drinking and making merry. Not much different from an elven stag party.
In the doorway across the kitchen from her, Delphine saw Viscount Gray of Abernathy skid to a halt and point at her. “There she is!” A troop of human soldiers began to swarm into the room. A troop of the elven elite stood at her back, behind the door. The honorable Order of the Silver Shrike. Delphine tucked her silver hair behind her dark pointed ears, bowed her head, and took a knee. Honor to my father. Honor to the elves.
As the spear raised in the air, Delphine saw her only path towards redemption. She called out, “The elven army is coming! Bar your gates!” before she was run through.
The End
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