As the others begin to load the wagon, I move beyond them into the street to leave the message. I shove a sturdy driftwood branch between two of the battered paving stones and force Calmorien's head down onto the top of the stick. The makeshift spike creates a squishing sound as it pushes up into the old elf's head, and blood oozes down the wood in sticky rivulets. I wet my fingers in the dead elf's blood, and write out "Murderer of Norien" on the door, tracing out a curse symbol below it. I am no sorcerer, so the curse symbol shouldn't work, but even if it did, I am pretty sure it wouldn't harm me, if I do come back. After all, I wrote it, right?

I step back to admire my work. It looks good. The message is clear. And Jet isn't implicated. I smile to myself in satisfaction.

Funny. It's the first time I've smiled today and it's prompted by the staked, gore-oozing head of a dead elf and the blood-written warning that explains it. 

Somewhere, elves are smiling at different things. Elf-maidens dancing through dappled sunlight in a forest glade. The woody scent that lifts lightly from ruby-hued wine held in a delicate crystal goblet. The joy of hearing a sublime bardic composition deftly played on a lyre. Somewhere, elves are smiling at those things right now. Not here, though.

Here in Elftown, we squabble like orcs in violence and squalor. We slave for the humans, doing the work they think themselves too good for, in the stench of the tannery and the heat of the smelter. We scavenge and struggle and survive, but just barely. We don't use words like someday and somewhere. Those are words of hope. And the only fruit born of hope here is despair. Because things never change. And death is the only way out. There's never anything good to smile about here. Never.

Well, almost never, I correct myself, looking at Calmorien's sightless eyes.

"Hey, hero!" calls Enturi sarcastically from the wagon. "We're ready. You gonna help? Or are you gonna stare all moony-eyed at that corpse-head all day?"

Stinkin' slime. One of these days, he'll push me too far, and my blades'll find out what taint lies beneath his skin. He keeps up with his barbs, and that day'll come sooner than he thinks. He's right about one thing, though. I'm no hero. I'm a violent, vicious blade-for-hire. Most days, there is no good in anything I do, unless maintaining order through intimidation in furtherance of the ambition of a sad little crime lord counts as some twisted kind of goodness.

But today is different. Today, I've saved some kids - street trash, but whatever - from a sickening end. Today, I avenge an elf-girl whose only crime was selling her body and dignity to survive. Yeah, I don't claim to be a hero. But today I am, in my rough and unprincipled way, an instrument of justice. Street justice, sure. But so what? If that's the only face of justice that'll get dirty enough to make an appearance here in the scum and degradation in Elftown, I guess we better be happy with it when we get it.

As I walk back to the warehouse, a startled rat darts across my path. I sweep my sickle down and slice the filthy bastard right in half. Damn, I'm good. As the two rat-halves roll their separate ways, dribbling rat's blood and bouncing on the uneven stones, I start to whistle. I move to the wagon just as Bolin begins pushing it out the warehouse doors.

"Let's go, orc-lickers!" I smirk. "We've got an appointment to keep."