Prolouge AND chapter one! God, this took a long time to type up. It may get gory in scenes, but bear with me!
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Malice: Prologue

Jensahra kept his an arrow nocked. His eyes darted around, searching for more enemies. When he saw none, the bowman set down his golden-brown bow. Jensahra took out a roll of bandages and tore off some. Using his other hand, he pulled out the coal black throwing stars with 6 crescents in place of edges. The rank one bowman wrapped the bandages around his wound and drank from a small glass bottle full of a light purple drink, which partially healed the wounds he couldn’t heal by covering with bandages.

Suddenly, a bush rustled. Jensahra grabbed his bow and jumped just in time to dodge a large, four pointed throwing star to miss him. The bowman shot an arrow which disappeared for a moment, and then split into a thousand more arrows, raining down upon the assassin’s hiding place. Three people tumbled out of the bushes, blood spilling from various wounds, while someone with a staff made of twisted, dark wood with a dragon’s skull on top jumped out. He was wearing naught but a cloak of black and yellow fabric. The magician smirked, raising his staff. A trail of lightning and ice shot toward Jensahra, hitting his leg. Jensahra stumbled, dropping his bow and backing slowly toward a tree on all fours.

The magician stepped in front of Jensahra and opened his mouth, giving out a silent hiss, “You never had a chance, Jensahra Ganashi.”

***
Out in a mountainous range, not far from the forest in which Jensahra Ganashi, leader of all archers, Hidekay Ganashi, son of Jensahra Ganashi, woke as a chill ran down his spine.

Chapter One: Laments of the Dead

Hidekay looked at the direction the forests of Ellinia, the domain of the mages, was. The chill seemed to have emanated from there. He remembered the old legend.

“If a person who was in your bloodline and extremely powerful was murdered, the said person’s offspring shall feel the loss,” Hidekay muttered. “But the only EXTREMELY powerful people in my family are my dad and me. And I’m not very dead right now.”

Shaking the thought out of his head, he stepped out of his tent. The sky was painted orange, and the early morning rays of light had not reached the hidden valley in which wingless cousins of the dragons of Perion-or drakes- had taken shelter. Already, many drakes were walking around, killing boars for meat. Hidekay could’ve slaughtered many using his rare and powerful “Geta”, a dagger twice as long as his arm with two fins sticking out at an angle from a handle, but the bandit was running out of supplies. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck with carnivorous dinosaurs that were constantly hungry without any food or potions.

Hidekay jumped down and stabbed a drake with six strikes in sucession, turning the dinosaur into a crumpled heap of very valuable hide, extremely sharp and rare claws, flesh which was extremely tasty when cooked very, very, VERY well, and blood that was in demand on the market. Even a pouch of meso, coins fashioned out of gold and used as currency, was visible in the mess. The bandit grinned. Drakes were a gold mine. Too bad not many people could kill them.
“Spoils of war,” Hidekay said, whistling a tune known as “Figure 0.8”, by Maple Ark.

Suddenly, a large group of drakes stampeded toward Hidekay, driven crazy by the thought of soft human meat. He picked up all his stuff and resorted to his plan B, and the plan B of almost all the people in the nation of Scania when in the face of a charging group of hungry meat-eaters. Run like hell.

He raised his hands and a blue, Chinese word enveloped him. Hidekay was able to run faster and jump higher after that, and he increased speed, swearing he would never take his Haste skill for granted again. What he failed to notice was four shadows running alongside the two valley walls, following him.

Hidekay reached the end of the valley, where drakes where afraid to go since more people ventured there. The former prey strutted toward the gates of Perion, the mountainous home of the warriors, feeling that he could survive anything. Then he tripped over a snail. A bunch of women noticed that and laughed uncontrollably at the incident.

“What an idiot. He escaped a herd of stampeding drakes and then he trips over a snail!” By now, everyone in town was laughing at this remark.

Hidekay ripped off the snail’s red shell and smashed it atop the monster’s head. The snail writhed and then withered away. The crowd dispersed and the bandit walked along the main street. Suddenly, he saw a shadow on the side of a tent. He kept looking at the side of the tent, pretending to be interested in the pattern on the tent. As the shadow started to move, another set of shadows appeared, these smaller and coming fast at him. Hidekay jumped to the right and pulled out a coin. He hurled it to the fleeing assassin and pointed at it. The coin exploded, staining an adjacent cliff face with blood.

Three more assassins rushed at Hidekay, but he just leaped with supernatural speed and one of them was cut open.

“I will kill you like Amaksah killed your father!” One of them yelled. Hidekay remembered that morning with a sinking feeling.

“You are scum! Your family was scum! You ARE SCU-,” Hidekay silenced him by shoving a spare dagger through the idiot’s face.

“Tell me. Who is Amaksah?” Hidekay stepped toward the remaining person.

“I’m tellin’ you nothing!” He screamed out.

“You mean ‘I’m not telling you anything’,” Hidekay said. “Strike one. Don’t get three. Now who is Amaksah, and why are you trying to kill me?”

“Go to he-,” Hidekay kicked the stubborn man, watching him cough out blood.

“I’m sure you value your life. Strike two.”

The man reached up with a quivering hand- and flipped three silver steel throwing stars out from his sleeve. Blood sprayed out of Hidekay’s legs as the throwing stars burrowed deeper into his legs. Hidekay stumbled and collapsed. The “injured” man got up and returned the kick at Hidekay.

“You’re weak, you know that? Weak as your dead father!” He kicked Hidekay again.

“My dad’s…Not…Dead!” He uttered

Hidekay raised his head and saw Spatrix, his adopted brother, looking at the one-sided fight with wide opened eyes, and then snapped his Nakamaki katana out. The blood red blade shimmered in the sunlight. The blade had been stained red when Spatrix had slaughtered his family, which treated him like a piece of dried crap on the streets, not even important enough to be stepped on.

Spatrix started running toward the fight, and the assassin, oblivious of the charging warrior, taunted Hidekay.

“Any last words, idiot?” He raised a single throwing knife, fashioned after a ninja’s kunai, and prepared to throw the knife into Hidekay’s skull.

“Yes. One word. Duck,” Hidekay smirked. The man’s eyes grew wide and tried to spin around and defend himself from the oncoming attack. He made it halfway before a blood-red blade sank into his back. The blade cut right through his back. The assassin fell down, sprawl-eagled. Hidekay struggled up and looked into the man’s face.

“Should’ve ducked.”

He looked at Spatrix, who was busy cleaning his sword. Not that it would help. The blade had been stained ages ago. His adopted brother did that when he was agitated…

“So what’s wrong? Dad’s dead?” Hidekay asked.

Spatrix raised his eyebrow. Tears could be seen streaming down his face. “How did you know?”

To be continued