by Simon Archer
The moment the vanguard of golden weapons launched forward toward the wraiths, I knew my gut call had been the right one. As they whirled through the air, swooping, slashing, and crushing along to our combined orchestra, the specters retreated, pushing them against a wall of the cave. And once the ghostly creatures had nowhere further to retreat to, the mystical weapons tore into them. While each strike ripped away tattered streamers of their misty forms, clearly causing the things pain, the specters did seem to regenerate quickly, as if whatever vile magic that made them kept sustaining them.
I’d have to figure out some way to end these things for good, but for now, we had the upper hand on these things. I gave a small sigh of relief. I didn’t want to learn what would happen if one of them made contact with one of us. Of course, the big problem was that we had a stalemate of sorts going on. They couldn’t kill us, but we couldn’t seem to destroy them, and while I could keep playing for hours, my friends’ voices weren’t as well trained.
“I think we need to just slip out,” I screamed over the screeching. “They seem to be bound here, or they would have attacked us outside. I can try to figure out a way to destroy them once we’re safe out there.”
“Alright, Leo,” Freyja called back over the din, dancing carefully near the edge of the fray which partly blocked the way out of the cave. “If you all keep those… things… busy, I know I can get out, and I bet Ishida can too. Two fewer targets you have to protect.”
I nodded to her as I cast a glance at my kingdom elf friends. Nadeine and the others were holding strong for now, their spellsongs weaving well with my cello play. Their weapons were fully formed and doing exactly what they were supposed to do, even Bernsten’s. The kingdom elves were certainly rising to the occasion.
“Okay, good plan, Freyja,” I called out as I moved into a new measure of my song. “We’ll keep trying to hold them off, and you try to slip out around them and the spells. Be careful. Our spells can hurt you as easily as these monsters!”
“Noted,” Freyja said dryly, eyeing the magical weapons in the air above us with distaste. After a brief moment’s study of the dangerous dance of spell and wraith, she suddenly darted forward with amazing speed and fox-like reflexes. She ducked to avoid Marinka’s daggers as they swarmed a wraith like a cloud of angry hornets, dipped around the specter closest to her edge of the cave, and neatly rolled past the last of and disappeared outside the cave’s entrance. As she passed it, the specter had some kind of fit, screeching out at an even higher pitch and rushing to try to catch her, even taking a tremendous slash from one of my mystical blades that bisected it… but when it hit the edge of the cave, the specter rebounded off it as if it hit an invisible wall.
I smiled. Suspicions confirmed, and with that, I redoubled my efforts to beat the ghosts away from the entrance of the cave.
“Okay, you next,” I called, nodding curtly to Ishida as I switched to a new spellsong. With a change of tunes, I shifted my array of mystical weapons into a larger number of them that moved swifter and covered more ground: a combination of more daggers, a machete, a broadsword, and a glaive. The idea was to cover more ground, keep the ghosts torn to bits so that they wouldn’t threaten my friends.
Ishida nodded nervously and pressed herself up against the wall to try to avoid Godfried and Nadeine’s nearby mystical weapons. More otter than fox, Ishida wasn’t gifted with Freyja’s reflexes, but she was adept in her own way, stealthily slipping slowly past our spells. And then, when the specters caught on to her attempted escape, she dropped to the ground before the nearest specter could reach her and rolled all the way to the edge of the cave like an otter-furred bowling ball. It was almost comical, but I wasn’t going to laugh, because it worked like a lucky charm, and when the ghosts moved to chase after her, our spells fell upon it like hungry beasts on a deer. The thing was torn apart, flung back into the cave where it started to knit itself back together.
“Alright!” I practically cheered, grinning at how Ishida had managed to get past the specters. Now, the things were really pissed off, swaying around and trying extra hard to find a gap in our wall of weapons. “Marinka and Bernsten, you guys go next! We still need our strongest players to keep them back now that they’re mad.”
“Understood,” Bernsten said as he let his song drop, letting his broadsword evaporate in a puff of golden smoke. Marinka did the same, and together, they slipped around the remaining spells and hugged the cave wall like Ishida had to avoid alerting the specters to their movements. Though our defensive line of spells was lessened, my new song made up the slack, and just for good effort, I doubled the tempo, speeding up the swings and slashes of my array. Our remaining spells held them back, distracting them and preventing them from reaching us or seeing Bernsten and Marinka.
Taking advantage of the specters’ distraction, Bernsten and Marinka decided to take the opposite tactic of the forest elves, rushing the specters head-on instead of attempting to maneuver around them. They ran straight at a gap between two of them, and the gamble paid off since, by the time the specters noticed what was happening through our wall of blazing gold, it was too late. Bernsten and Marinka were already gone.
At the end of my latest spellsong concluded, I raised a fist in triumph before turning to a third spell, one I understood was specifically for holding off a line of opponents. As the new melody began to weave together, a line of golden pikes erupted out of stardust, thrusting forward menacingly with every beat of the rhythm.
“Alright, you two next,” I shouted as I looked over at Nadeine and Godfried as my phalanx of phantom pikes drove the furious specters back. They had gone absolutely ballistic at Bernsten and Marinka’s exit, focusing all their remaining attention on us now and darting around the cave wildly to try to find a gap to attack us. “I’ll stay here and find my way out when you’re safe.”
“Very well,” Nadeine said, nodding curtly and grabbing hold of Godfried’s forearm as their own spells disappeared in two giant puffs of golden smoke. “Be careful, Leo.” She met my eyes right before she turned to leave, and I could see the worry there. I gave her a small smile in return and nodded to her in an attempt to reassure her that I’d be fine.
She and the kid, easily able to avoid the reach of my spell since it was the only one left and all the pointy ends were facing the enemy, stepped up to the specters, seeming to adopt the same strategy as Bernsten and Marinka had. They prepared to rush the specters, Nadeine still holding tightly to Godfried’s forearm to prevent him from drifting away from her.
I was suddenly reminded of how young the kid was. Nadeine was probably thinking of that. It would be awful to lose any of my companions, of course, but to lose a life so young would hit hard, almost as hard as if I lost Marinka, Nadeine, or Freyja.
As Nadeine and Godfried charged forward, attempting to maneuver past the melee, it looked as if they were going to be successful. But, just when it looked like they would slip by, Godfried suddenly froze, as if all the stress, all the screaming and battle, had finally made him crack. Nadeine didn’t notice at first, but when she got to the limit of her arm, still clinging to the kid’s wrist, she stopped and looked back in surprise.
“What are you doing?” she screamed at him. “They will see you. Come! Now!”
He just stood there, wide-eyed, staring at her, and the specters, seemingly drawn to his fear, all whirled on him as one.
“Go!” I roared at him, trying to break him out of whatever stupor this was as I played my cello harder and faster, redirecting my phalanx of pikes to surround Godfried protectively.
“I… I…” he stammered, still not moving. “I… I…” He couldn’t get whatever he was trying to say out. While his body wasn’t moving, his eyes darted around wildly, focusing on each and every ghostly monster that tried to surround him. Despite my defensive wall, with their renewed fury and apparent hunger, even I couldn’t hold them back forever.
“Go!” I screamed again, but it was too late. Both specters had noticed h
im and Nadeine then. She was furiously trying to pull him with her to the edge of the cave and back down to the path, but he weighed a fair amount more than her and wouldn’t budge.
“Come with me, Godfried, come with me,” she pleaded, continuing to pull on his arm, and I could tell that she had noticed the specters’ changed person of interest. He didn’t move, but the specters did, rushing at him from either side, and one found a gap in my constantly spinning circle of polearms.
On instinct, I rose, dropped my cello, and darted in Godfried’s direction. Right before the specter reached him, I tumbled on top of him. He may have been large and strong for a kingdom elf, but I much was larger and stronger and toppled him easily. Together, we fell forward, over the threshold of the cave and off the edge. For a moment, I thought we would fall, but I caught the edge of the cave’s mouth with one hand and held onto Godfried with the other. While we would live through the dozen-plus foot drop, there was no way to be sure the kid would properly roll with it in his state.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to, because Bernsten, Freyja, Ishida, and Marinka were all there, taking Godfried out of my free hand, just as Nadeine came barrelling over the edge herself. As she leapt agilely off the edge, I dropped down myself, the chasing specters slamming into an invisible barrier at the edge of the cave. Nadeine landed with a rough roll on the broad mountain path, and I tumbled myself when I hit, splayed out next to her near where the horses were tethered.
“Shit, that was too close,” I cursed, shaking my head.
Bill leaned down and sniffed me in concern as I lay there, letting it all sink in, my limbs all sprawled out.
“I’m okay, boy, I’m okay,” I said, patting his long snout. “Don’t worry. Just tired.”
24
I sighed and laid there for a few more moments, not wanting to get up and face the rest of the day yet. My companions let me be, though I could sense their eyes on me. Finally, I pulled myself into a sitting position, my hair all mussed up, and my robes dirty from the fall.
“Are you alright, Leo?” Marinka asked nervously.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I sighed. “That was just a lot.”
“Indeed,” she said. “A lot.”
“How about you guys?” I looked around at my almost equally disheveled companions. “How are you doing?”
“I believe we are alright now,” Bernsten said. “Now that you are safe as well, my friend.”
I nodded, even as I glanced over at Godfried, who was hugging himself and averting his eyes.
“What happened back there?” I asked him, trying to be gentle and keep the edge out of my tone, but I wasn’t sure I was all that successful. Godfried didn’t respond for a long time, but I waited for him.
“I… I do not know,” he stammered, still not looking at me.
“Well, it can’t happen again,” I said with a bit more force. While I understood what it was like to have nerves, to be a kid his age, to be too soft with him wouldn’t help. Not with how high the stakes were.
“I… I know,” Godfried said after another period of silence. He still wasn’t looking at me. “I am sorry. So very sorry.” He looked down at the ground in shame.
I sighed, feeling my anger fall away at the sight of him. I rose and crossed the trail to where he stood and put a hand on his shoulder. “I know you are. It’s okay. Those things… whatever they were… really sucked. They were scary and weird, and we don’t know what they were. But we’re going to run into more stuff like that, I’m almost certain, and we need to be ready next time. All of us.”
“Thank you,” Godfried said, looking away from me and running a hand through his dark curls.
I looked back up at the cave entrance and the continued howls of the specters. Instead of rage, they now moaned in despair and failure. That made me a little happier about the whole thing.
“I was going to see about a spell to deal with those things, but that dark echo… This is all tied to the mountain elf,” I explained as I untied the horses deliberately. “We stop the mountain elf, and we’ll stop this.” I turned to the others as I took Bill by the reins. “Alright, let’s get the hell out of here.”
As the other kingdom elves gathered their mounts and the forest elves their packs, I hopped up on Bill, who seemed even more ready to get away from the cave than I was. The horses had undoubtedly been able to hear everything that had happened in the cave, including the specters' deafening screaming noises, but had been unable to see or understand what was happening to us.
“We’re here now, boy, it’s all good now.” I ran a hand through his mane, and he huffed contentedly in response.
“Indeed,” Marinka said, a shaky edge to her voice as she mounted her own horse. “Let us find another place to make camp tonight. Far from here, if I may suggest.”
“As far as we are able,” Bernsten agreed. He mounted his horse and glanced over at Godfried, who was still standing there, hugging himself and staring at the ground. “Chin up, my young friend. The sooner we escape from this place, the better you will feel.”
Godfried shook his head to clear it and slowly raised his gaze to meet Bernsten’s eyes. “Yes,” he muttered. “Of course, you are right.” He gave one last wary glance in the direction of the cave, another off the cliff where he and I nearly fell, and mounted his horse with haste, following the rest of us off up the trail. He didn’t look back again.
We traveled long past dusk until the long stretches of gray rocks interspersed with the occasional tree or stream were replaced by denser sections of trees, more akin to a small forest than anything else.
“This is more like it,” Freyja said after we had been in one section of trees for about a mile, looking around at the trees and grinning ear to ear. Her arms were wrapped around me as she sat behind me on my horse, as she and Ishida had taken us up on our standing offer to let them ride with us after the tiring battle in the cave. Ishida rode with Bernsten on his horse, as it was the second-largest after Bill. “I didn’t realize how much I missed it.”
“Me too,” Ishida sighed, closing her eyes and leaning back, letting the gentle breeze run through her short, silky hair. “It’s been too long. I didn’t realize how long every day has felt since the blight.”
“Should we make camp here, then?” I asked, stifling a yawn. It was getting late, and it had been an even longer day than usual.
“Indeed, I believe this would be nice,” Marinka said, nodding. Then, pointing to the west in front of us, “I believe I can see a clearing somewhere in the distance up there. Perhaps it would be a good place to put our tents.”
“Indeed,” Bernsten agreed, squinting and leaning forward to see where she was pointing. “I believe that will work. Let us get closer.”
We did so, and just as Marinka had predicted, the clearing would just fit our tents. It was overlooking the edge of a cliff between several trees, so the view was magnificent. We had crossed to the other side of the mountain by that point, so I couldn’t see back to the forest, which was probably a good thing considering that it was depressing to look at, a mass of dead trees and other flora. But from here, I could see other mountains, a sea of rock and trees and lakes as far as I could see. I could hear the bustle of a stream nearby, and several birds were singing.
“This is amazing,” I sighed as I looked out at the mass of mountains.
“It really is,” Freyja said, coming up next to me to get a better look at the view.
“It truly is magnificent,” Marinka said from behind me, and I turned to see her shaking her head in wonder. “I would never have expected it.”
“What did you expect?” I asked curiously, walking over to stand by the small campfire pit we had set up between the tents as Bernsten was pulling out our dinner and heating it up, and Ishida was lighting the fire. Godfried sat on the other side of the campfire with Nadeine, hugging his legs up close to his chest.
“Truly, I do not know,” she sighed. “But I suppose it was nothing this beautiful.”
&nbs
p; “Indeed,” Nadeine nodded. “In my military training as a child, I suppose I envisioned the mountains on occasion. I certainly envisioned the mountain elves, horrible, monstrous creatures, white skin, thirsty for blood, and their eyes red and lifeless. I suppose I imagined their realm to be much the same, rocky and hard, devoid of life.”
“Well, it’s certainly rocky,” I said, kicking a boulder next to Freyja and me playfully. “But it’s not anything like that otherwise.” I cast another look over my shoulder off into the mountains, full of the sights and sounds of life. “I wouldn’t mind living here, actually.”
“Nor would I, I must admit,” Marinka said, furrowing her brows together, deep in thought. “I love the forest, and it was truly beautiful before our enemy’s spell laid wreckage to it, but I would not wish to live there full time, no offense.” She glanced between Ishida and Freyja, and they both shook their heads, waving away any offense. “But here…” Marinka looked off into the distance now herself. “There are built-in dwellings with the caves, and I would not be surprised if we were to find more sophisticated structures left over from mountain elf society as we travel. One could have a healthy dose of both civilization and nature here.”
“You know, I was thinking about that,” I said, hunching down next to her and glancing one more time at the view. I gestured in the direction of the other mountains. “This whole place is practically empty, so far as we know. When this whole thing with this enemy of ours has all blown over, why not move some people out here? It seems like a waste not to use all this space. Not to share it with more people.”
“Live here?” Nadeine asked, aghast. “In the mountain elves’ territory? You cannot be serious.”
“Why not?” I shrugged. “They’re not here anymore except our enemy, and we’ll get rid of him by the time any of the stuff I’m suggesting happens. You can’t argue this place isn’t amazing.” I gestured in the direction of the view again. Nadeine followed my gaze.
