“Does it matter?”
“It might. I want to know who to either thank or curse later on, depending how this day goes.”
“Oh my, is that so?” the woman laughed. After a moment she looked back to see the young elf keeping a sharp eye on her as she held onto the strap of her quiver. “My mortal name no longer matters, so there’s no point in calling me by that anymore. You can just call me… Shadow.”
“Shadow?”
“Yeah. That’s all I am to the living now, a shadow.”
The ranger walked off with sand blowing in the wind behind her, leaving Clover in a state of awe as the woman slowly faded from view in the billowing haze. As the sand settled and revealed Clover to be all alone on the beach, the young elf looked to her arm bracelets, feeling a small ominous aura from them knowing where they came from. Turning her gaze towards the forest she decided to question if she was going crazy from what just happened later on, with the girl then sprinting back towards her village as fast as she could as the most prominent thought in her mind wasn’t that she just had a literal brush with death itself, but rather the imminent destruction of her home that she was determined to avert. Of course there was one more thing that poked into her mind as she felt the golden bracelets bobbing against her arms which she turned a questioning glance to.
“How the fuck am I supposed to put these things to use? What are they going to do?”
*****
Within the elven village of Tiok Grove a loud horn was being sounded, the echoing blare cutting through the sky while sending birds flying off in haste, elven mothers and children rushing into their homes both below and above in the trees, and rangers scrambling as fast as they could to gather their weapons and proceed towards the disturbance. Elven archers clad in brown tunics and black capes rushed through the forest settlement, dozens of well-trained and armed women charging along the ground and down rope walkways as they headed towards the lookout who was sounding the alarm on the outskirts of their forest.
“For fuck’s sake!” a ranger shouted as she ran alongside her sisters. “This better not be another surprise test from the lead huntress again! I’m sick of these stupid training exercises happening during my lunch!”
“It’s no test,” another warned nearby. “The patrol on the southern side of the forest just got back from dispatching a group of trolls slinking about. Sounds like there’s more of the filthy bitches coming our way.”
“About time I see some fucking action,” an elf eagerly said. “Every patrol I’ve ever been on has been boring as fuck. My arrows are itching to kick some ass and pierce some skulls.”
“Sounds like you’re going to get your wish,” another pointed out as a second horn began blaring. The rangers suddenly heard the lookouts sending louder and longer signals, which only meant one thing.
“What the fuck?” a ranger questioned. “This isn’t some scouting party that’s crossing into our land.”
“A third lookout is giving the same signal!” another exclaimed as the two warning sirens were joined by one more. “You’ve got to be shitting me!”
“What’s that signal mean again?”
“It means there’s a fuck-ton of enemies coming our way, not just a few!”
“A fourth is going off!” a ranger cried out as yet another warning blast went out.
“Aren’t our lookouts stationed far apart? They can’t be seeing the same group of intruders, right?”
“No, they’re seeing a huge wave of intruders if they’re all going off at the same time. That’s a fucking army coming our way!”
“Move it, ladies! We’ve got to stop them from getting to the village!”
“A fifth is going off! What the fuck is happening?”
“Move it, move it, move it!”
The rangers of Tiok Grove nimbly weaved around trees and over hedges, all of them racing through the village as mothers and children were now starting to freak out as they heard multiple warning sirens going off. The archers grabbed their arrows and prepared to rush out into an all-out-war as they neared the village limits, all of them starting to sweat out of fear while hearing the ominous blaring of their sentries further ahead. As the rangers started to approach the outer border of their forest they saw other archers running by and sticking close to trees while keeping in the shadows, their arrows primed in their many bows as they were set to fire at a moment’s notice.
However that moment never came for them, or the many reinforcements they received who all rushed up to the front lines alongside their sisters just as the warning sirens stopped. Every elf on the ground and in the trees, those that gathered behind the line of archers, and the lookouts who stood atop high balconies in the tall timbers, everyone fell silent as they both lowered their bows and jaws in disbelief of what they saw.
“What’s going on?” a ranger with a golden cape demanded as she and two of her rangers pushed their way through the stunned crowd. Upon stepping out ahead of their fellow archers they too stopped and stared with marvel at what lay ahead.
To the east of their forest lay a wide horizon of small hills and sparse woodlands that couldn’t even conceal an ogre. Further away in the distance a lone mountain could be seen sticking up from Eden, covered in a thick jungle with banks of mist floating around the base of the gloomy looking crag, and was known to be the home of a large tribe of savage and rather unpleasant trolls that often harassed the elves of Tiok Grove for generations.
The very same trolls, and nearly all of which by the looks of it, that now littered the landscape just short of reaching the elven forest. Arrows were seen everywhere; hundreds of them pierced to every tree, mound of dirt, fallen log, and the murderous trolls who had multiple bolts each stuck in their lifeless corpses. Piles of the fallen monsters were seen clumped together, one of the unfortunate monsters was literally pinned to a tree with a dozen arrows sticking her to it, another was down on her knees while leaning back to show multiple arrows lodged in her face, and there was even a troll who was bent over on her knees with arrows stuck in her back and sticking out of her rear. Only the sound of a small breeze blowing across the land could be heard as every ranger of Tiok Grove saw what looked to be a very unsuccessful campaign against them by their enemies.
“What… the… fuck?” an elf finally asked. “What the hell happened here?”
“Holy shit,” the ranger in front said in shock. “This was a fucking massacre. There’s hundreds of the damned bitches out there.”
“They didn’t even make it into our forest,” her companion slowly said to the elves behind her. “Um… how did you girls do this? You just stopped a fucking army in their tracks.”
“We didn’t do this,” a ranger said shaking her head. “We only managed to fire at the frontlines of the trolls before it happened.”
“Before what happened? Explain, because one minute we’re being warned of approaching danger, then the next all’s quiet and there’s a fucking meadow of dead trolls stinking up our eastern fields. What did this?”
“Captain!” the second companion said pointing ahead, with the captain and the other elves all turning to see yet another baffling sight.
In the middle of the field filled with fallen trolls and arrows sticking up from the ground was a pile of the dead monsters along with something else quite noticeable. It wasn’t the dozens of empty quivers littered around the mound of flesh and blood, but instead the lone elf who stood atop it with her blonde twintails flowing in the wind. With her bow in hand and an empty quiver on her back, Clover kept her sharp glare aimed ahead at the battlefield while all eyes fell upon her.
“Who is that?” the captain asked. “Is that a fucking kid out there?”
“Hey, isn’t that Cadence’s daughter?” a ranger wondered. “I recognize her hair from here. That’s Clover.”
“What is she doing out there?”
“She just… ran out there,” an elf said with a shrug. “Right before the sentries spotted the horde coming for us she sprinted ou
t there with arms filled with quivers of arrows.”
“She what?” the captain exclaimed. “What do you mean she just ran out there? Why would she do that?”
“She… she…” another elf shakily spoke up as she pointed to Clover. “Captain, you’re not going to believe this. But she… and they… it was all…”
Slowly Clover glanced behind, seeing her people gathered at the edge of the forest while staring at her in awe, the harsh scowl on her face never leaving as she slowly breathed out and relaxed slightly before looking down to the dead troll she was standing on.
“You’re all nothing but shit,” she muttered. “Unreliable, untrustworthy, fucking cunts. Don’t think this means I like you people. You’re just a small step above this trash, that’s all. This was only to make my mother proud of me. Nothing more.”
Wiping away a tear she then looked at her arm bracelets that shimmered in the sunlight, a curious look coming over her before she gazed around at the fallen monsters that dared to attack her home. As she slowly calmed down from the battle and fully realized what had happened, as the elves in the crowd began speaking in hushed tones of a very unusual tale, further away under a small canopy beneath a tree with a fallen troll slumped down against it was someone else who witnessed the event from start to finish with a serene smile on her face the entire time.
“Whatever you say, Clover,” Shadow mused with a slight shake of her head. “Like them or hate them, just keep living your life how you see fit. And bravo for proving right your mother’s faith in your spirit and ability.”
Turning around she started to walk away, the woman then stopping and looking up with a curious murmur while tapping her bow against her hip.
“I think… yes, I’m most certainly sure of it,” she said, a weak smile then coming over her face as she giggled and shrugged in self-amusement. “I’m probably going to be in trouble for this little deviation of the fates. Going to get yet another earful of the ‘I’m not supposed to interfere with destiny’ speech. Still, this was worth the show. That girl was indeed worthy of my interest.”
With a hearty laugh she continued on, a haunting whisper coming from her bow as the wind blew against its cord while she left the battlefield to collect her own spoils of the conflict.
“I do wonder what fate has in store for her now.”
*****
A molten blast of fire and rock erupted from the forest floor, throwing glowing globs of magma into the air while nearby trees were quickly set ablaze. The ground trembled violently, as if Eden itself was letting loose a terrifying roar in awakening from its slumber. The elven village of Green Haven was thrown into chaos, and not just from the land threatening to swallow it up from below, but also by the civil unrest between the residents of the haven and their captors. They, and the new self-appointed priestess.
“Sisterhood!” Sivil yelled, the woman pulling an arrow out from her quiver to take aim at Clover as the two stood atop a high terrace over their frightened elven sisters. “Get my elves out of this fucking inferno right now! Rangers! Execute this insufferable rat who dares stand before me! It’s about time she left this world once and for all!”
It all happened in a noisy blur. Monsters of The Sisterhood converged on the crowd of screaming elves, dark cloaked rangers aimed their arrows up at Clover with sharp glares, and a torrent of fiery lava erupted from the ground on the other side of the tree, setting fire across its branches and leaves while Clover and Sivil stared each other down in the crimson bloom.
It happened in mere moments, at least to everyone but Clover. For her, things happened considerably less quickly. Her narrowed glare remained locked onto Sivil, her hearing picking up the screams of her kin below, while out of the corner of her eye she saw the twinkling glimmers of arrows that were about to fire towards her. Everything, from her hair blowing in the breeze, the screams of the elves below as they saw The Sisterhood rushing them, the rumbling of Eden below, everything passed by at a snail’s pace as Clover’s sense of awareness drew in an overload of sensory information. Her golden bracelets shimmered in the fiery light of Green Haven as the elf prepared to engage those that threatened her people once again. And to use her special gift, once again.
Gripping her bow tightly Clover started to run forward, taking only one step before quickly jumping up onto the railing while reaching back to her quiver. She saw Sivil turning her aim upwards at her, heard the sharp twangs of strings that let loose arrows from the rangers, felt her boot touching down on the guardrail, and her fingers grasped three arrows between them. With a sudden hop she jumped back over the terrace, her hair flowing behind as she fired all three arrows to the side in a blur, reached back and grabbed three more, and then fired them as well before doing so again and again. With hands and arms that moved faster than could be believed Clover then fired two more arrows towards Sivil, one of which struck off the head of the arrow that just launched from Sivil’s bow while the second pierced her in the shoulder. As Clover finally touched down on the platform she promptly jumped forward, turned her body, grabbed and fired three more arrows just over the top of the railing, then rolled backwards along the floor as sudden cries of surprise were heard below along with the sounds of six arrows whistling by and striking the tree that Clover had leapt past.
Sivil screamed as she staggered back with an arrow striking into her shoulder, right before Clover rolled back onto her feet and swung her leg out, kicking the dark priestess in the gut and throwing her tumbling back along a rope bridge away from the tree’s balcony. Clover stood still as she saw the arrows that missed her sticking out of the tree then slowly turned her sights down towards the crowd. The residents of Green Haven below were frozen in place with stunned faces. Before them they saw six of the dark rangers having dropped back onto the ground, each having an arrow lodged in their leg or arm that they painfully grasped at. Next to them three goblins, a troll, and two gremlins dropped to their knees with arrows lodged in their skulls, the fiends falling forward with thumps while nearby grunts of The Sisterhood were staring at them in shock. Slowly everyone looked up to see Clover watching them with her piercing stare while Sivil was heard screaming on the bridge behind her.
“What the FUCK?” Sivil roared, yanking the arrow out of her shoulder and throwing it aside. “How… how the fuck did you do that? What trickery is this, Clover?”
“What… just happened?” an arachne nervously asked.
“She didn’t just…” a troll cautioned.
“Holy fuck…” an elf breathed out.
“What did you just do?” Sivil yelled as she got back onto her feet. “What the fuck was that?”
“This,” Clover replied. She hopped up onto the handrail with one foot, and to everyone’s amazement rapidly fired a barrage of arrows all down towards the monsters who surrounded the crowd below. In the time it took to spin her body around to face towards Sivil and hop back off the banister a wide volley of arrows streaked over the elves in the crowd, striking each grunt of The Sisterhood in the head while the remaining dark rangers were incapacitated with bolts piercing their hands and thighs. The residents of Green Haven struggled to fully watch as Clover sent out what appeared to be a flurry of arrows all in a mere moment, each of which took down their oppressors in the blink of an eye. As the last body of a goblin dropped dead onto the dirt and the dark rangers screamed while gripping their injured limbs, Clover kept her sharp glare aimed towards Sivil who was staring at her in bewilderment after witnessing the blonde elf’s attack.
“What… in… Eden?” Sivil breathed out. “That’s… not possible. You can’t… you can’t…”
“Did you see that?” an elf below hushed. “Did you see what she just did?”
“Um… no.”
“What the hell was that? How… how did she do that?”
“She just took down an entire troop of those wenches… in a fucking second…”
Slowly every elf looked up towards Clover, backing away from the tree’s base so they could
see the lone archer staring down Sivil with her twintails flowing behind her. They saw their huntress having made her return and challenge the priestess who continued to curse and yell at her with a bleeding shoulder, whispers of disbelief and praise starting to spread amongst the crowd after witnessing something truly remarkable. Glancing behind they then saw other grunts of The Sisterhood slowly approaching from the fiery woods, all of them looking between their fallen sisters and the single elf up high who they had seen doing something completely baffling to them.
“What the fuck is this bullshit?” Sivil yelled, watching as Clover stepped over onto the bridge from the terrace while keeping her unblinking eyes on the dark priestess. “How could you do that? That’s not fucking possible! Goddammit, what the fuck are you? You’re no elf, you’re a goddamn abomination! You’re nothing but a fucking outcast, a loser, a freak, a nobody! You can’t do this! You can’t do anything!”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Clover retorted.
Sivil snarled as she reached back for an arrow, her hand stopping over her quiver as two bolts were instantly shot right past her head by Clover, the blonde elf almost appearing to just move into position of having fired them in the blink of an eye.
“Don’t even think about it,” Clover warned with narrowed eyes.
“How… how are you doing this?” Sivil shakily asked. “Nobody can fire that fast, it’s not possible. There’s no way you can shoot arrows like that.”
“Again, keep telling yourself that. This is your only warning, Sivil. I’m sorely tempted to skull-fuck you with my arrows right now, and don’t think for a moment I won’t if you push me any further. I spared those rangers’ lives down below, I just spared your life, all so you can surrender and attempt to redeem your souls. Either you all come with us, quietly and peacefully, or I will consider you to be one with The Sisterhood and treat you as such. This is your last chance to belong to our community in any way, Sivil, and it’s far more than you deserve after all you’ve done! You’re just lucky I respect my people enough to give them a chance to redeem themselves, but you only get one fucking chance! So what’s it going to be?”
Chronicles of Eden - Act XII Page 23
