The Wolf at the Door

The carriage was plain black, covered with shades drawn over the windows. Pulled by two handsome steeds, the driver dressed in a sensible coat and beside him a man with a loaded crossbow, a magazine over it noted it was made to be repeating. Three others rode with the carriage, all men of somber attire and sober looks carrying swords and parrying daggers, long daggers with thick blades, the backs of them cut to make use of sword breaking techniques.

Inside Randel was closing a ledger and slipping it into a box. This would need to be handled with care, he did not know the boy and half wondered if he would be much like his uncle. His spies had reported the boy had his own appetites, but they were no place near where his uncle had fallen. Of course, Randle had helped along his uncle.

Randle was dressed in a formal attire, dower for an elf, dark greys and deep blues, but he was half elf, a point he had never forgotten and one he noticed in each elf he passed. A half breed and an affront to the kinship that elves share with men, that his very existence was a reminder that elf and man were not separate, that someplace, in the past, they may have been one in magic or flesh.

He waited for the carriage to stop and for the footmen to open the door. He stepped out and looked around the estate. He had been here before, he had seen it when it was in all its glory. Now it would take work.

He knew the women here, he had seen them before. They would know him as the man who floated Uncle the money to keep betting and spending, even to buy some of the girls. Loans made with interest rates he never looked at and that would come due in the time frame of an elf, small payments but that could now be called in on due to the man's death.

The carriage pulled to a stop on the far side of a fountain that sat in the center of the courtyard of the estate, the large double doors of the house were not far, made from the wood of the trees that had grown here and carved with the lovely trees. Copper inlay was used for the fruit, the copper tarnished green to give the fruit a sickly appearance.

He walked to the door, his little entourage with him, men armed, dressed in a dark clothing and looking more like a funeral parade then a money lender. He had marks he would let the young new landlord know were levied against the land he owned.

One of his men knocked on the door loudly.