“General Jaali, today is the day,” Queen Kishi said with a great deal of optimism. “We will end this overly long siege and deliver the ultimate payback.”
“What did you have in mind, my queen?” asked the general gruffly. The long battle combined with heavy losses to his ranks had left him bitter and desensitized. He tried to put on a smile but gave it up as a lost cause. He was too close to the queen to waste any energy on hiding his feelings about the situation. I simply cannot believe that General Yukio has been able to hold us off for so long! How in the name of everything sacred and holy are we supposed to finish this battle that has raged on for longer than anyone anticipated?
“What is the strongest point of any group or organization? In other words, where does the true power lie in the people before us?” she asked slyly.
“Like an archway, there is one stone that holds it together and in this case the keystone is the queen,” replied the general thoughtfully.
“I am impressed. I thought you would have said that it was their insane general. You hit the mark spot on. We need to remove the queen so that the rest will lose their nerve and flee.”
“So, you want us to direct our assault on the queen for the next few days?”
“No, I want you to take the army and hem in their troops. I want them to think we are tightening the noose around their necks. This diversion will draw their attention away of their center long enough for an assassination attempt. Since I will be the one taking on the assassin’s role, the attempt will be successful.” She had a wicked gleam in her eye as she said this, and her good friend took notice. He knew that his queen was changing and liked his new, more confident friend.
“Then let us make haste and put an end to this fight today!” He snapped to attention and saluted his queen. She reached out and gave him a warm hug and then kissed him firmly on the lips. The general was taken aback by this show of affection. After a few brief moments, he regained his composure and headed off to deliver the new orders for the day. As the queen watched him leave, she began to plan out her assassination attempt in her mind.
She determined that it would be best to make her approach as undetectable as possible. She decided that mimicking her environment would do the trick. She knew that any soldier she came across would have to die. It was while she was thinking this that the memory of her departed sister burst into her mind. Kira would not approve of this course of action; she would try to find a way to spare every life she could on a mission like this. Why am I so different from her? The queen looked around guiltily as though someone may have somehow heard her thoughts. She did not care for the feeling of guilt she experienced when thinking of her sister. She knew that her plan would be successful and that if she allowed those who came into her path to live she would pay with her own life.
After an hour of preparation, the army had finished dividing up and began to move out. A small number of forces remained behind to feign guarding their queen. Kishi waited for the army to engage General Yukio’s entrenched soldiers before easing her way down to the underground castle of Queen Daria. She only had to wait for a few minutes before the first signs of resistance presented itself. The battered army began to swarm the dilapidated ranks of Yukio’s army while Queen Kishi disguised herself and headed toward her target. Smoke began to rise from the battles that had erupted along the eastern and western sides of the canyon. The assassin made her way silently down a long, winding rock staircase. She used her magic to conceal her secret movements as she hugged the canyon walls during her descent. She reached the bottom after another hour had passed. It had taken her so long because she had to move slowly because there were sentries posted along the path at every turn.
At the end of the winding trail was a small encampment where the sentries that she had passed along the way slept. She crept quietly through the camp so that she would not alert anyone to her presence. As she made her way through the tents, she came upon two soldiers sitting around a burned out campfire. They were talking conspiratorially about the events surrounding the unprovoked attack by the elves who called themselves by a different name for some superfluous reason. They laughed at one another’s comments and views on the subject as they eyed the fighting that had sprung up along the canyon walls. They were glad not to be in the fighting because the pointed-eared freaks were using magic, which clearly gave them a distinctly unfair advantage. They believed the high elves to be nothing more than a bunch of race haters who believed they were the enlightened ones. The conversation was beginning to have an adverse effect on the queen as she tried to slip by. Her shadow appeared on a tent that was in the line of sight of gossiping soldiers who knew at once that someone was behind them. They stood abruptly and whirled about to face whoever it was that was eavesdropping on them.
A hand was in each of their bewildered faces, and before they could swipe away the assassin’s hands, they saw a flash of red light, and then they saw nothing at all. Kishi lowered her hands slowly with a look of fierce determination and pure loathing. She had used her fiery magic to vaporize the unsuspecting soldiers’ heads, which helped the queen relieve her built-up tension. Her attack, however, was not silent. Several of the sentries that she had passed either saw or heard the commotion. She wheeled about to face a dozen guards rushing toward her, and she did not move as they rushed at her. She gracefully moved her hands and arms about as if she were weaving something in the air. A staff appeared, and she quickly turned the weapon in their direction. A green, ethereal dart shot from the end of the staff and into the middle of her attackers. It exploded into a greenish brown cloud and every single sentry was engulfed in the toxic haze. The poison worked instantly, and all twelve of her pursuers fell to the ground like a sack of rocks, dead before they landed.
The queen was lucky that none of the sentries thought to send up the alarm and instead rushed her. No one had been alerted to her presence yet, and she quickly resumed her course toward the castle’s main gate. She did not reveal herself the rest of her journey until she reached the entry to the castle. At this point she could tell that it would be impossible to conceal her presence because of the position of the sun. As soon as she reached the gates, the queen’s guard noticed an unusual shadow being cast by an invisible object. They immediately shouted for the gate to be closed and the doors to the castle to be sealed. The small wall surrounding the entrance to the underground palace came alive with archers who released their arrows at will. Kishi reacted swiftly by throwing up a defensive shield that deflected the missiles. She retaliated by shooting forth lightning from her staff into the bowman atop the wall. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air at once, and shrieks of terror and frustration burst from soldiers behind the bulwarks.
Kishi raised her staff high above her head and lowered it with both hands. A gust of wind blasted the gate that had just been shut but did no real damage. She wanted the queen’s guard to give into their fears and make a mistake. She could hear yelling on the other side of the wall, but the voices did not have the same edge to them. The captains were obviously rallying the troops and calming them down. The high elven queen was infuriated by the success they were having and began to twirl her staff in elegant motions around her body. Her eyes turned an icy blue color as a cool mist began to form around her. After a few more revolutions of the staff, she was completely engulfed in the magical mist. The cloud around her began to crystallize, and then she aimed her staff with both hands gripping tight at the main entry. A bluish orb shot out from the end with extreme velocity.