by K T Durham
She stared down at Nebulane and sighed with a mixture of relief and dread when she saw the glowing silver dot blinking up at her. Yes, this was where she needed to be. Another pit stop.
But she had never felt more lost.
The light from the compass offered some solace in the darkness. Clutching Nebulane, she took a few steps forward. The trees looked like they were made of stone. The leaves were paper-thin and instantly dissolved into an ashen substance when she touched them. The air tasted stale, as though no wind or fresh air ever reached this place. She was reminded of the underworld that languished beneath the Tree of Alendria, putrid home to the goblins and the Beast, and she began to tremble uncontrollably. It was cold here, colder than it had been outside. She looked up and could not see the stars; the vast canopies of the tall, dead trees seemed to block out the sky. She could not imagine anything thriving or living here.
This place was like a graveyard. A chill crawled up her spine. Greymore, where should I go? This place is really giving me the creeps.
Silence.
Greymore?
The silence stretched on, and terror seized her. She leapt up into the air and fell right back down with a soft thump. She tried again. Thump.
She could not fly.
Greymore!
She broke out in a cold sweat. Then she opened up her Royan, and her heart seemed to stop when it refused to open at her command.
Something had happened to Greymore! Why had he fallen silent?
A strangled cry escaped from her trembling lips, and she started running back the way she came. She ran and ran, but she had no idea where she was going. It seemed like she was running in circles, and she could not feel any wind or fresh air on her face.
Calm down, calm down.
Finally, feeling dizzy and weak, she stopped and sank down to her knees. It was so quiet that she wanted to scream, just so she could hear her own voice in this terrible silence that was snuffing out the last embers of her courage and resolve.
Ellanor.
Her head snapped up at the sound of her Royan’s voice. Greymore! What happened? Where did you go? Letting Nebulane dangle from her belt, she clasped her Royan tightly to her chest, relieved beyond belief to hear his voice in this thick, suffocating silence.
Greymore rumbled wonderingly. It seems as if some dark force lured me to sleep, but I fought hard against the stupor. I cannot explain the anomaly, but the only thing I can do for now is communicate with you. Everything that I have held for you cannot be retrieved. My pages cannot be accessed. Some dark force has clamped down on my powers, Ellanor.
Her stomach churned. I think the same thing is happening to me, Greymore. I can’t use my magical powers. Even worse is … I can’t find my way out of here. I’m stranded!
Greymore sighed. Yes, this seems to be the case. Then you cannot rely on magic in this petrified forest; instead, you must utilize your combat skills, your physical strength, and your wit. All the excruciating training they put you through should count for something here.
Petrified forest?
Yes, this is what I call this forsaken place.
Petrified forest. Yes, what a fitting name, she thought wryly as she looked around at the cluster of lifeless, stony trees.
Then she felt for her pocket, and Marlow’s hamster head popped out and looked at her questioningly. “Oh, thank goodness you’re OK!” she cried, kissing him on the top of the head. Marlow glowered up at her with a look that asked, What’s going on?
With a groan, she bit her lip as she pondered her predicament. What was she going to do without magic? She felt awfully vulnerable, robbed of the one thing that had made her feel secure in the human realm. At least she’d had the sense to retrieve weapons from her Royan before she entered this petrified forest. With immense relief, she realized she had some food and water in her backpack, thanks to Grandma, who had the practical sense to pack her some amenities. Oh, how naïve and complacent she had been to think that she wouldn’t need them!
Elly closed her eyes. Please give me strength, Freya. Please grant me the wisdom and the courage to face whatever strife is ahead, she prayed. There was a dull, sinking sensation in her stomach as the silence seemed to ring loudly in her ears.
Then the heavy silence was pierced by a sound that made Elly’s blood go cold. It was a strange, guttural growling that seemed to grow louder by the second. She gasped and jumped to her feet, right hand flying to the dagger on her belt, left hand clutching her bow. If fear could be smelt, then she would be reeking of it right now.
No, no, no.
In the deadened darkness, red dots lit up around her and stared.
No, no, no.
Then a loud, echoing crack broke the drunken silence like a gunshot. All around her, bits of tree trunk started breaking apart, debris spilling forth, and Elly watched frozen with horror as writhing legs, torsos, and snouts broke free of the petrified trunks. She screamed and staggered back.
And so emerged the five warflings bred by the Beast from long ago. They were terrible to behold: red-eyed, crazed, baring gleaming, sharp fangs, their foul, petrified bodies skeletal but strong, their mace-like tails ready to deal a lethal blow. One by one, they awoke from their long slumber, for they would wake only to the smell of living flesh and coursing blood.
Elly had never beheld such vile, terrifying creatures. Her skin crawled as she recalled reading about the warflings. Vampiric wolves. Creatures of the undead.
Grandpapa had once warned her about the last of the warflings that resided high up in the mountains of Aranon. Many had been killed off by the elves.
Nobody had told her there were warflings in Gaya.
She stood rooted to the spot, paralysed as she stared at the pack of warflings that stood twenty feet from her, staring back, sizing her up.
This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.
The warfling in the middle of the pack was larger and darker than the rest, and it advanced towards her first. There were five of them.
Ellanor, run!
With a shrill cry, she turned and leapt away. Immediately there was a collective snarling followed by pouncing footsteps, and she screamed and ran as she had never run before.
Back in Alendria during her training sessions, she had had to run from creatures of the wild that pursued her but always in a controlled environment supervised by the Order. This was the real deal, and there was nobody to save her, nobody to tell her what to do. Even Greymore couldn’t do anything to help her now. The Vierran had subjected her to brutal training, making her run hundreds of miles with heavy rocks tied to her ankles. Faster! Blaine would shout, and sweat would stream down her back as she forced her legs to pump faster, desperately trying to ignore the searing pain in her muscles.
Now as she ran for her life, she silently thanked the Vierran.
The warflings followed close behind. Though she could not fly, she was agile enough. In the midst of running, she leapt up and grabbed the nearest tree branch, which sprayed a film of ash over her. Then she swung herself up and ran up the length of the trunk, got into a crouching position, and leapt from tree to tree. The warflings followed her, snarling and clawing the air as they leapt and pounced. If anybody had been there to witness her flight from the warflings, they would have seen a moving blur of black and green, for her hair swept along like a shadow darker than the night, and her eyes were two blazing flames.
She heard the Vierran in her head, and it seemed like his voice had been rolled into one with Greymore’s.
Ellanor, you cannot run forever.
Sweat poured down her face, stung her eyes. I’m so afraid. I don’t want to die here!
Courage does not come in the absence of fear, Ellanor. You must face your enemy. Take down the alpha!
The alpha? That would be the largest warfling, the one in the middle of the pack. How i
n the world was she going to take that down? She knew she only had a split second to turn and shoot down the alpha warfling. But what if she missed? She had been forced through various scenarios in training before, but this was a first. She had never tried taking down a moving target at such high speed, let alone taking down what was probably the most ferocious creature she had come across. If she faltered for just a spit second, the pack would be on her, and they would show her no mercy as they tore her flesh and feasted on her blood.
But it was now or never. She had to do it, unless she wanted to die. So she reached behind and whipped out an arrow as she turned in mid-air. Then she squinted and shot an arrow towards the advancing black shadows. Twang! There was a resounding yelp, and one of the shadows fell to the ground below and burst into a confetti of ashes. An anguished, collective howl pierced the air that curdled her blood.
She groaned; she had missed the alpha. She had merely shot down one of the underlings.
Try again, Ellanor!
But as she turned back to see where she was going, the branch she pounced on snapped with a crack, and she fell. She screamed, falling, clawing at the air. Branches scraped and tore through her clothes. She reached out a hand to grab onto something, anything, and her fingers scraped against sharp edges, cutting open her skin, and she cried out in pain.
Finally she grabbed hold onto a branch, about thirty feet from the ground. For a moment, she dangled there, dizzy from the fall. Then the branch gave way, and she fell to the ground with a thud. The bow spun from her left hand and landed next to some rocks. Her fingers flew to her belt and grasped blindly, and she sat up as her eyes swivelled around.
And before she could even blink, the shadow of the alpha loomed up, its red eyes hungry, long, sharp fangs bared, revealing black gums. Then it was upon her, crushing the air out of her, its knife-like stone claws sinking deep into her shoulders, its fangs about to tear into her neck, and the scream that ripped out of her was absorbed by the dead, petrified forest.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Stumbling Block
The long claws of the alpha warfling sank deep into her shoulder blades, and she continued to scream when the foul creature impaled itself on the dagger that she was grasping with both hands on her abdomen, pointed skywards. The vile creature’s snout was inches from her face, and its red eyes rolled upwards as its mouth opened in a final, deafening, haunting howl that shook her to the very core.
Then the alpha burst into a confetti of ashes and dust that blanketed her face and body, and she coughed and sputtered and heaved. The ash in her mouth tasted like death.
The remaining three warflings, bereft of one member and their fallen leader, snarled and let out a collective howl in mourning. Then one by one they slinked away and retreated into the trees. Elly sat up and gripped the blackened dagger, wincing at the slicing pain in her shoulders. The three pairs of red eyes slowly vanished into the darkness, and then all she could hear was her own ragged breathing.
Something was running down both her arms, and for a split second she thought she might have fallen into a pit of snakes; but then she saw that it was her own blood snaking copiously down both arms, scarlet red blooming out on the dark, stony ground. Numb, she put the blackened dagger back in its sheath, stood up, and proceeded to walk twenty feet to retrieve the bow.
Ellanor, do not walk! You are wounded. You need to tend to your injuries.
Elly did not listen. She was never very good at listening to Greymore’s advice, was she? That was why she had gotten fooled by Gutz the goblin to begin with. She staggered blindly, crying, the pain in her shoulders searing into her bones. She was wounded, lost, and alone, and there seemed little hope of getting out of this place alive. She was trapped.
She didn’t see the edge of the stony ground, and she lost her footing, stumbled, and slipped. Her hands flew out to break the fall, but then she landed on a ledge of some sort, rolled off, and with a thump she fell and landed in a dark, dank ravine. The sharp pain in her shoulders made her cry out. She was losing much blood.
Slowly, the world turned black.
When she awoke, her head was throbbing, her mouth was dry as sandpaper, and her shoulders ached. With a groan, she sat up with effort, for her body felt awfully stiff, as though she had been lying there for a very long time. She checked Nebulane for the time; she had passed out for nearly three hours. Then she looked down and winced at the sight of the torn and bloodied fabric at her shoulders. Caked in dried blood and ashen muck, she was certain she looked feral.
Greymore?
Ellanor. How are you feeling? You were badly wounded.
Pretty terrible. But strangely, I don’t hurt as much as I thought I would.
She examined her wounds gingerly and saw the scars the claw marks had left behind. To her astonishment, the scars hardly looked fresh.
She frowned, puzzled. Elves were able to heal significantly faster than humans. But with the type of wounds she’d sustained from the alpha warfling, it would’ve taken at least a week to heal without the medicinal assistance of manna. She checked the time on Nebulane again and saw that nearly six hours had passed since she first entered the petrified forest. She had been unconscious for nearly three hours, during which only minimal healing would have taken place. How could her wounds have healed so quickly in such a short time? It didn’t make sense …
And then, as though a fog was slowly lifting, it finally registered: she had managed to take down the alpha warfling all by herself! A surge of pride welled up in her chest. She had tackled her first real enemy in combat, and a formidable one at that – all without magic! She couldn’t wait to tell the Order all about it. Aron would be so proud of her!
The glimmer of pride fizzled quickly, however, as though the very air in this petrified forest sucked away any hope or joy. Slumped over once again, her stomach rumbled loudly, and she was relieved nobody was there to hear it. Looking around, she could not tell whether it was night or day. It should be some time in the middle of the night, but it was so dark that her sense of time was hopelessly distorted. And no wonder she was so hungry; she hadn’t eaten since the previous afternoon at Jong-Min’s place.
Wincing at the dull ache in her shoulders, she reached behind her and opened the backpack, relieved to find that only one out of the four tangerines had been crushed to a pulp. The bottle of water was still intact, and she drank some of that thirstily. She ate one tangerine, and she sputtered and gagged; it tasted horrid, as though it had gone bad. But she was too desperately hungry to care. Then she devoured one of the large rice crackers, which tasted very stale. Why did the food taste so old, as though they hadn’t been packed just the day before? Perhaps food could never taste good in a place like this …
She was still hungry when she stood up, but she had to ration her food. Freya knows how long she would be stranded here. Besides, she couldn’t waste more time. She had to find the Guardian. Nebulane was telling her that she was close. Northeast, the needle now pointed.
Go, go, go.
So she walked, straining her ears for any sounds that might signal impending threat. But the silence was complete; not a single rustle or a tinkle of water could be heard, except for her own light footsteps. Thank goodness the warflings had retreated. For now, at least.
She walked for what seemed like hours, and she began to feel even more tired and hungry. But she trudged on. Why wasn’t the blue dot moving any closer to the red? She had to be getting closer after all this walking. She must have covered tens of kilometres by now.
But it was with a growing sense of dread that she realized she wasn’t making progress. And the fact that she could not tell whether it was night or day bothered her deeply. She kept checking Nebulane for the time. Another two hours had crawled by.
She couldn’t explain it, but she had the most dreadful feeling that time moved differently here. A tremendous heaviness descended upon her, and she s
tarted dragging her feet. Something weighed heavily on her heart, and she found it difficult to breathe.
Greymore, I feel so lost. I can’t seem to find my way to the Guardian. What should I do?
Silence.
Greymore?
She waited, expecting to hear his voice again. Any minute now.
But the minutes turned to an hour.
“Greymore!” she screamed. She clasped the Royan to her chest. “Don’t leave me!” she cried, trembling all over. At that moment, the last remnant of faith seemed to leak away, and the feeling of hopelessness that had plagued her rolled over her once again and dragged her down. She dropped to the ground, curled up into a ball, and she found herself drowning in a spiral of thoughts that stabbed at her, over and over again …
Eventually her sobs subsided. Exhausted, she rolled onto her back and stared up into a sky she could not see. As the tears rolled down her cheeks, she didn’t care how much she whimpered, how pitiful she looked, because nobody could hear her anyway.
Marlow crawled out of her pocket and pressed his furry self against her wet cheek, trying to comfort her. She squeezed her eyes shut. “You’re the only one I’ve got, Marlow. What am I going to do?” she asked softly.
He looked at her with his large dark eyes. I’m sorry, Elly. I wish I could help. I wish I could fly us back to Alendria.
She let out a sob. “I wish that, too.”
If the warflings came back for her now, she wouldn’t have the energy to fight them off. Maybe it was better to not fight it and just surrender to the grim reality that she was now facing. She wasn’t going to get out of this place, was she?
She felt too weary to move, to think, and even to cry.
Without realizing it, she closed her eyes.
And she dreamed.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
