Faariin looked up, his large nostrils flaring as he reared back quickly at the sight of the arrow oncoming toward him.
Then it struck...
And went right through the vision in front of me. The glamor of the buck dissipating as soon as the arrow cracked through it and into the side of a tree.
"Damn it! Damn it all!" I shouted angrily as I rose from my seated position. I should have known it wouldn't be that easy! How could I be so stupid to think that I was going to outsmart something that had lived for hundreds of years. I gritted my teeth and pushed through the bushes, not caring about the arrow whatsoever or my silence as I bolted through the woods. I would find him, I would find him, and I would get him!
I ran for a while before I slid to a halt, nearly stumbling over at the sharp sound of a horn. The horn that was originally signaled to start the great hunt. Was it over? Did someone else already get him?
Did I miss my chance?
Many thoughts began to race through my head as I realized I may have failed Vethari. What would he do now if Faariin tried to do something to the humans? Vethari! I would turn back and find him, he couldn't be too far from where we last saw one another amongst the dancers.
I blushed, turning on my heel and running back toward the bonfire.
21
I could hear the familiar strange crunching noises of metal on the ground as the steps broke through leaves and sticks, though I was almost completely unable to discern their locations. They seemed to appear from all around me but didn't distract me from getting to the same point, just outside of the throne area where Vethari and I had parted. I felt as if I'd been running for hours. On the odd occasion I could see another hunter sprinting far in the distance, though they didn't bother to pay me heed.
Sliding to a halt, I braced myself against one of the many trees around and tried to catch my breath. Only when the horn began to sound again did I look up, brows furrowing in confusion.
What was happening? I wasn't sure what the horn was signaling. Was the hunt over or not? It continued to drone on for several seconds before once more silencing.
"Penelope!" a voice called, one that I was familiar with. I glanced behind me to spy the dryad from earlier that evening during the revelry. They seemed almost entirely out of breath, as much as I was anyway. "Hey. W-what's happening?" I made myself stand from my hunched position, turning to face him as I took in deep breaths. He skidded and stumbled slightly, having more than likely drank much more of the spiced wines than I had for it to still affect him so. "I don't know."
His words surprised me. So, I wasn't the only one in bewilderment about what exactly was happening. The faeries were too. He shook his head, pushing hair from out of his face and back over his head to get a better view within the darkness.
"I thought the hunt was over, but the horns keep blowing."
I nodded, "Me too. I thought it was part of the celebration that I wasn't familiar with."
Once more he shook his head. His eyes moving back and forth as he glanced around the vicinity. "I'm worried, I think something is happening." His tone, and the seriousness of his accusation made me believe him. This wasn't just some ruse they were trying to pull over on the human.
"I was trying to find Vethari, but I don't think he's still in the woods," I admitted.
"He's probably back at the throne. I keep smelling a stinking metal. Like iron." He scratched roughly at the side of his throat.
My eyes opened wide at this. "You can smell iron? It's close?"
"Yes, if its close enough you can smell it in the air, it makes your throat burn and your skin itch. For us faerie folk, anyways."
"I thought I heard metal boots earlier."
The strange dryad frowned, reaching for an arrow that was on his own quiver, simply holding it by the end in his hand as the bow was gripped tightly in the other. "Others did too, they stopped the hunt and immediately headed back because of it. Something is happening, and I'm worried."
"Come on, let's go back," I urged, following his lead, and taking an arrow from my own quiver. He didn't speak another word before he went charging into the darkness. I followed, trusting him to lead us back much faster than I was able to. It was difficult to try to keep up with his speed, and I felt as though I was holding him back as I caught him slowing down several times when I stumbled, trying to maintain our pace.
"Just go!" I shouted at him, but he made no sign that he was intending to leave me behind.
"No! We have to stick together. If anything happened to you I have a feeling Vethari would skin me alive." He laughed.
I joined in the brief moment of laughter, though the moment felt rather forced.
The light of the bonfire ahead shone brightly, meaning we were not too far from the village.
But then the smell of smoke was easily sensed from where we were. Not the welcome embers of the central fire before Faariin's throne, but hot, full of ash, and foul.
"Something's on fire?" I asked, not expecting a reply. Not receiving one either. I glanced to my left at the dryad to spy his face. His face was masked in fear, but his mouth remained tight as he continued to run.
After we broke the thick cover of trees, we finally stumbled into the inner circle of the throne area. Just a few trees blocking us as we stood not a dozen yards from the outskirts, but the smoke was heavy, and the clangs and curdling screams were even thicker than the smell of it all. We both managed to come to a stop before entering the fray, the glimpses of silver metal shining bright next to the bright flames that continued to flicker.
His eyes widened, pulling me next to him and pushing us to the ground as we saw through the cloud a faerie come running past. The pink of her skin beaded with sweat.
And after her was the clanging of metal armour.
She tripped over her own feet and hit the ground hard. Spinning over onto her back as she raised her hand into the air. Her pursuer raised a jagged, dark-looking metal sword and plunged it straight through her chest with no hesitation. In an instant her eyes rolled up into her head as she screamed. Blood choking out of her mouth as she slumped backward.
The dryad jerked instinctively, I assumed to jump up and defend her, but I put the weight of my arm on him to signal for him to keep low.
"No..." he whispered. His hand sliding through the grass as we lay on our bellies to cover his mouth as he witnessed the carnage. Her pursuer pulled his sword from her now limp body, with the aid of his boot on her pelvic bone. Then it was my turn to gape as he turned around.
On the centerpiece of his armour was the symbol of the Alabaster Temple. The warrior's face was completely obscured with a mask I recognized and was used to help keep smoke out of their nose and mouth. The barely visible eyes, watering slightly from it. They reached to their hip and withdrew a small dagger and went charging back to where most of the screams seemed to be coming from. As soon as they were gone, the dryad stood up from our hidden position and ran toward the fallen faerie woman. Placing fingers against her throat to see if her heart was beating.
I was hesitant to move into a possible line of sight but fought the urge to run to come to the fae's side. This dryad was the only one I had to rely on then, and my head was spinning from the idea that the humans had come in to slay everyone in the village. How could they have possibly come in so quickly and easily? How could they get past the elder trees who had defended this place for decades?
I looked over at the two fae, "She's dead, there's no way she would live from a sword to her like that." My voice wavered as I tried to force myself to remain calm. The utterance of a syllable shook in my voice, and I decided to remain silent instead. He shook his head, turning to look from the corpse back to me with tears in his eyes.
"No, faeries can live through much more. But this, this wound, it's not even trying to heal. The iron. From your kind."
I nodded knowingly. "That's the weapons the humans in my hometown use." I forced my throat to not tighten up, so I could speak, but damn, was it hard.
They were here, they really were here, trying to kill all the faeries.
"You! This is all your fault!" he shouted. The fae punched the ground, and rose back to his feet.
"I didn't want this! You have to believe me!" I raised my hands and backed slowly away from him as he quickly picked up the arrow at his feet and nocked it toward me. "We're on the same side, I swear!" I shouted, my heart sinking at the prospect of him trying to kill me.
"Faariin was right all along! It is too dangerous to bring a human here. They don't want anything except to kill all of us! You're the reason they're killing us!"
Before I could let out another word his arrow went flying. I pinched my eyes tightly, expecting it to hit me, but it didn't.
Instead, there was a wet, disgusting gargle.
Opening my eyes with trepidation, I could see his pupils widening, as if he still hadn't realized what happened, as I didn't either. He fell to his knees, slowly creeping his head backward as he looked over his shoulder to see him. To see him standing there with a thick blade in his hand.
And in one fell swoop, the dryad's head was cleanly cut off, hitting the ground, and rolling, his body following suit within seconds. I was struck still. Being unable to move. To feel.
Faariin cleaned the blade on his pants as he moved quickly toward me, placing his hands on my shoulders tightly. I looked in his eyes. They lacked any resentment, empathy, and light. Dark and hard and cold.
"Y-You killed him," I glanced back at the body before looking him in his empty eyes once more.
"He was going to kill you in cold blood." He spoke with little emotion.
All I could do was nod. "Thank you," I muttered. His hands squeezed me before he stood back to his full height. "The humans are acting as I thought, and sooner than I had anticipated."
I couldn't comprehend his words. "Come. We're going to gather all we can and leave, now. If they came here for you, slaughtering my people was not in the agreement." The smell of blood was prevalent, and I tensed against the feeling of his hands on my flesh.
"My people. My people are doing this because of me," I whispered, before receiving a bit of a shake from the high fae.
"They will not have you. Not after this," he said, his voice soft. Not like I'd ever heard from him before. "Go through the back ends of the woods toward Calidi's home, I will find you there. She has a place to hide. I don't believe she's fallen."
I reached up, gripping at him needily. "No, no I can't be alone! Please don't leave me!" I hadn't even realized the tears had welled up in my eyes until I could taste their saltiness in my mouth as they streamed down my cheeks in droves.
He released my shoulders, gripping the sides of my face, forcing me to look him in his eyes. "I swore I would never let this happen. I must protect my people or die trying. You must trust me. You must."
I stared back, not breaking eye contact. "Then you have to tell me. Tell me I can trust you."
The continuous screams for mercy and of fighters granting naught but death seemed to echo behind us, echoing until they became non-existent. The smoke was obscuring our surroundings.
Faariin leaned forward, placing a warm kiss on my forehead, and releasing my face.
"You can trust me."
With that, he wrapped his arms around himself. The shadows sweeping from around us and wrapping him into a cocoon of darkness that instantly took him away. Vanishing from my eyes in a puff of smoke.
I could trust him. I had to trust him. One final deep smoky inhalation had me coughing, and my eyes watering more than just from tears. I turned on my heel and bolted off toward Calidi's workshop, remaining on the outskirts of the town. I had to do what he said, he would do what he had to do to protect his people. And after everything my people had done, I refused to go back with them. I would not.
22
Calidi's workshop was still there, but the edge that led into what her home was had been set alight. I wondered how fire would, if it could at all, harm her being that was her nature. As I fast approached the entrance to her work space, I could hear soft cries within. My eyes adjusted to the brightness of the fire that seemed to be everywhere now, from the once extreme darkness. I rubbed the ash from them that floated through the air. "Calidi!?" I yelled.
The soft cries paused, and instead a voice called out. "Penelope!"
I grunted, almost thrown off my feet as Rolun wrapped himself around my legs. "Rolun!" I shouted in surprise, sitting down into a squat as I embraced him in my arms. "Rolun, what happened? Where's Calidi?" I shouted. His bottom lip quivered as he pulled back from me, tears caking the ash to his skin, his face and fur almost completely black from soot.
"The humans took her!"
My heart stopped. "They took her? Or they killed her?"
He sniffled, placing his forehead against my chest. "No, they put iron on her hands and neck and they took her! They took a bunch of them, a-and killed the rest of them! They killed them!" After what I'd seen at the hands of my fellow humans, I couldn't even force myself to be shocked that they were murdering them. Though the thought that they were keeping some of them hostage gave me hope that we could maybe free the living.
"I'm going to go find them. I've got to help them." I rose from my squatting position, though Rolun wouldn't let me free from his grasp.
"No! Don't leave me, please! We have to hide!" he cried. I reached down and ruffled his hair with a forced tight-lipped smile on my face.
"This is because of me. I must do something. You go hide."
He seemed hesitant but nodded. I quickly grabbed several arrows lying strewn in the shop, not sure who I would use them on. But if I needed them, at least I'd have them.
"Please come back for me." Rolun whimpered as he crawled back underneath one of the tables, waving his hand as small brambles of roots began to come forward and cover it up, masking it.
"I will! I promise!" I shouted as I bolted out between the raised roots of the tree we were underneath.
I had to do something. I had to try to help. I'd rather die knowing I tried my damndest to save these poor creatures than live, knowing I hid like a coward.
I wasn't going to be the worthless human any more. Never.
Keeping my eyes low to the ground was the only way I could discern exactly where I was going. The thick smoke was rising high into the air and kept from blowing away by the canopy of the trees. Only a few steps outside of the hut I spotted something familiar. I slid in the dirt to halt as I got closer, squinting as I stared down at the carnage.
Ke.
I choked back the vomit wanting to spill forth, forcing myself to keep running and not stop and mourn. Her tiny pixie body looked as if she had literally been torn in half, her innards spilling across the distance of her torso to her lower half. Not only hers, but several other pixie bodies alongside her.
No, I wasn't going to just help. I was going to kill someone. The inner turmoil of fear and worry within me turning into rage and hatred. The same rage the humans had toward the faeries, was directed to my own kind.
And right before my eyes, with a mace reeling backward over his head, a knight. Helmetless and wearing a mask as he slammed his blunt weapon against the arm of another fae, her arm snapping and iron sizzling her flesh upon impact. The fae shrieked before extending a hand forward, fire curling out from her fingers and wrapping itself around the warrior's flesh. He reeled back for a moment, yelling as he patted at his face and dropped to his knees. The fire nymph, grabbed their arm to their body before taking off into the distance.
I found my moment to nock my arrow, and aimed it directly at the screaming man, letting the arrow fly loose with as much pull as I could possibly manage. It sank deep within his exposed throat, and he fell to his side, scratching at his neck. The flames continued to consume him. His flesh warped as it burned and began to hang off his jaw, raw muscle flexing beneath the burnt skin in pain. I ran closer as he rolled on to his back, still holding onto the shaft of the arrow I'd struck him with.
One of his eyes melted completely shut and the other lolled upward to look at me as he writhed in the flames. They widened in surprise at the sight. He mouthed something, reaching his hand up. For aid? I was unsure. I frowned as I immediately sent another arrow straight into the eye that dared to look at me for help after what he was doing. His hand fell to his side.
How dare he ask for mercy. Ask for help. Ask for anything. I stomped at the arrow to drive it further into his skull but instead ended up snapping it in half. I gave no heed however and continued to run.
A screech behind drove me from my progress to find the other hostage fae, and a deep unwelcome penetration to my mind curled up the back of my spine, 'Well, perhaps it was good we did not eat her after all.' I shivered as I spied Vethari's ibisa, stalking toward me with the arm of a soldier within its beak.
"I'm looking for Vethari, can you help me?" I urged, not replying to his words.
The ibisa squawked, eyeing me with caution before kneeling slightly. I nodded my thanks and gripped its feathers and furs tightly to swing onto its back. 'Let's kill more of the human pests.' The ibisa thought aloud and began to take off in a dizzying sprint.
"Let's!" I shouted. The fury in my heart still building.
There were many more bodies than I had anticipated. Covering so much distance now as I clutched tightly onto the beast beneath me, many more were human than I realized too. At least some of the fae had fought back. But there were fewer dead guards compared to the sheer numbers of fae I had seen inhabiting these woods.
The ibisa quickly darted into the woods, off the main path with shocking precision for its large body, weaving and dodging around obstacles as if it had memorised the entire layout of these woods by heart. The smoke had begun to dissipate the further away from the throne area we got. There was a shout of war cries ahead, and the faerie beast did not halt at all, instead going full charge into the fray, bursting completely through a petrified tree, and sending us skidding along the ground.
Solitary Fae (Humans vs Fae Book 2) Page 14
