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A scream pierced the night of Britain.

The young girl struggled in the grip of her captors, striking out with her nails, trying desperately to loosen their hold. The two street toughs laughed, but when a raking nail caught one of them in the eye, he cursed and released his grip on her. Before he was able to recover, the maiden had twisted away, and bolted around the corner. However, this farmer's daughter had spent little time in the town proper of Britain, and therefore found herself soon in a dead end against the main gate's wall. The two toughs decended upon her, and she cringed against the stone..

The footpads were almost upon the girl when the faint music of a lute wafted down the alley towards them. Ragik, the larger of the two toughs, suddenly shifted his thoughts away from his lust, and to thoughts of how his cohort Jak had beat him at cards the previous night. He had no reason to think so, but he suddenly found himself overcome with the utter certainty that the grimy bastard had cheated him. Incoherent with inexplicable rage, he shifted his attention towards Jak, pulled his belt knife, and was upon him in an instant.

Jak never had a chance. One moment he was an inch away from ripping the shivering girls blouse off, the other he felt the razor edge of his friend's knife slicing through the back of his neck. He fell to his knees, and Ragik was slicing a thin red line from ear to ear across his throat, ensuring his work was finished. When he stood up, smiling triumphantly at his friend's already-cooling corpse, the rage began to fade. The smile faded with it. The realization that he had just killed his partner dawned. He shook his head, mouth open in shock.

The sound of boots crunching on cobblestones a yard away was his only warning as a thin blue blur pinned him to the stone wall next to the still-immobile girl. He cried out in agony as the blue leaf-shaped blade of a spear drove through his left shoulder, slicing through collar-bone and into shoulder blade as if driven with a god's hammer.

His face twisting in agony, he looked down at the shaft of the spear that impaled him. It shimmered an eerie blue, all one metal piece, colder than a mountain peak as it held him to the wall. His tearing eyes followed the shaft up to the gloved hands that held it, up the arms to the face that stared at him, into his eyes, piercing his soul with their flat gray voids.

A soft voice, gentle, said "You went to the wrong part of town to try this sort of thing my lad," not unkindly. "It's too late for your friend there, but not for you. Your arm will never have the strength it once had, if it ever moves again, but you will recover if you can get to the healer in time," a chuckle, "If you can persuade him to help you at all. Tell what friends you have left that it is no longer safe to prowl the night of Britain."

The dark man shifted fluidly, ripping the spear from the street tough's shoulder like pulling a tooth. The man screamed, and fell to his knees.

"Now go. If I see you again, I will kill you." The words were simple, efficient... and utterly passionless.

The tough looked up into the flat grey voids once more, and shivered in a way that had nothing to do with physical pain. He found the strength to stand, and stumbled down the alleyway, never looking back.

The dark man slipped his spear into a loop on his belt behind him, and walked slowly over to the girl, who remained utterly still as he watched her savior approach. He knelt upon one knee and held his hand out to her, palm up. He stared into her terrified eyes, and his arm was like stone as he held it out to her. It was a full minute before she moved, but his hand never wavered. Slowly she shifted, her hand reaching for his, and then suddenly she was in his arms, sobbing. He patted her back gently as the girl cried into his shoulder...
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Edgewood Dirk dropped the girl off at the healer's home. As he turned away from the weary old man in his tattered old robes, faced lined with the sorrow only a healer could know, Edgewood bowed his head and sighed. He could not grieve. He could not mourn. He was a killer, a soldier, a warrior. His only gifts were his strength, his skill, and the blue spear that was strapped across his back. He didn't have to look at it to know it was shimmering at him again, telling him what he already knew... that for some there was no sorrow...

But there was justice...

Great story, Dirk. Fiction or game-based it's really a great tale. And I thought you were just an all-round softy!

nice story.

That's why I recommend Dragons to all my girlfriends btw.

Nice