Excerpt: Chain's Story (working title)

My partnership with Nimora and Bya was one of convenience. They needed an expert on arcane magic, and I needed some allies to make the dangerous wilderness significantly less dangerous. Nimora was a tracker and expert with a bow, though I'd seen her wield blades with no small amount of proficiency when the time was needed. She could be hard to get along with; I'd never seen an elf with a darker personality. I assumed that she had some tragic history that had forced her into wilderness survival, but I'd never had the gall to ask. Byadani was a devotee of the four elven gods, and had equal amounts of combat training and religious instruction, which unfortunately dismissed arcane magic as a tool used only by two-bit conjurers and stage magicians. In my mind, arcane magic is much more useful than its divine counterpart, but I'm partial to the flavor I'm familiar with. Bya, having had a more traditional elvish upbringing, as far as I can understand, had a more traditional elvish personality. While elves could be serious and stoic when the situation called, they preferred a more relaxed environment and generally had sunny dispositions. Elves got their reputation for capriciousness by switching from one to the other with little to no warning, or at least it appeared to humans. I preferred Bya as company, because she didn't glare at me when I tried to make conversation.
Neither knew that my magic really depended on my dagger. They thought that I was a wizard trained at the High University. My story was that I'd dropped out, not from a lack of skill or determination, of course, but of funds. Because elves look down on the concept of paying to be trained in a skill, they'd accepted my story without a second thought. I don't really like to lie, but I find myself doing it more and more.
We were currently trekking through the Grey Forest in the elven territories. That's the human name, of course. I can't be bothered to remember the elven name for everything when there's a human name that's simpler and in a language I understand. Even though I am as close as one can be to being an elven citizen without actually being an elf, I've never bothered to learn the language. It can operate contrary to human thought processes, and elves prefer to speak English around humans anyway. Our job was the usual one. Take an important package from point A to point B, and make it snappy. In a world where stepping outside the town walls is a dangerous proposition, jobs like this made up the most of our work as a small mercenary group. We were occasionally offered “problem solving” jobs, and they generally paid better, but they were few and far between. They also tended to have high risks, and I'd rather play “follow Nimora through the woods” to “duel to the death with Jim Necromancer” any day.