Maiev Shadowsong's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The scout's last words still rang in Maiev's ears as she rode north. One fugitive had reached a crossing where travelers gathered. It would kill them all before she arrived. Her moonsaber ran hard, but the trail was long, and she counted the distance in bodies she could not stop. She crested the ridge above the crossing at dusk. Wagons stood clustered near a shallow ford. A dozen travelers huddled between them. And the demon was already there, hunched at the water's edge, its long arms twitching. But it was not attacking. Someone stood between the demon and the wagons. A small night elf, no taller than a child, planted herself in the mud. She wore black leather and moved like a blade already thrown. Twin glaives spun in her hands. Maiev knew that stance. She had trained it into others. And she knew that face. She had chained it to a wall in the vaults and left it in the dark. Aisslyn. The fugitive lunged. Aisslyn dropped under its swing and opened its flank. She was fast, but small, and the demon shrugged off the cut. It hit her with a backhand that threw her into a wagon wheel. She rose slower. Maiev did not think. She threw her glaive from the saddle. The blade sank into the demon's shoulder and spun it toward her. Her moonsaber closed the gap and bore it down. Maiev landed on its back and drove her second blade through its skull. It went still under her. The travelers did not cheer. They gathered their children and fled across the ford, leaving the two elves alone with the corpse and the dark. Aisslyn stood, one hand pressed to her ribs. Her glaives were still raised. Not at the demon. At Maiev. "You," Maiev said. "Me." Aisslyn spat blood. "I saved them. Don't chain me for it." "You held it off. Alone." Maiev stepped off the body. "Why?" "They were going to die." Aisslyn's eyes flicked to the fleeing wagons, then back. "Same as I would've, in your dark." Maiev looked at her. A fugitive from her own vaults. A demon hunter who fought demons. The very thing her order needed and the very thing it was built to cage. She had come to kill a fugitive. She had found one killing fugitives instead. "Come with me," Maiev said. "I have eleven Watchers and a hundred fugitives loose. I need blades that know how to fight them." Aisslyn laughed, short and sharp. "You put me in a cell." "I'm offering you a purpose." "Not the same thing." But her glaives lowered an inch. The demon was dead. The travelers were safe. And the woman Maiev had once hunted now stood as her one chance to build the order fast enough. Maiev held out her hand across the corpse. Aisslyn did not take it. She did not run either.