Once Lost Lords (Royal Scales, Book 1)

by Stephan Morse

  Our situation rapidly turned hectic. My head pulsed with a rush that was either excitement or fear. A picture of our surroundings hit my senses in flashes. Like static on a scrambled television channel, everything came in clear bursts embedded in madness.

  I felt an arrow flying through the air towards Thomas. It connected with a tremendous amount of force, firmly lodging itself into Thomas’ chest. My brain didn’t have enough time to figure out if it was a lung or heart. Hopefully neither. Wolves healed, but that kind of shot was risky for any species.

  Another swivel of motion betrayed the bow’s change in targets. The string jerked as another shaft hurled through the air. Julianne dodged behind a tree and an arrow chipped away at the bark. Her gun felt lighter than before. Her scream of outrage rattled the woods.

  “Hide!” I yelled.

  A thoughtful hum of noise bounced off the fabric. The bow and guiding arms shifted towards me with a lead for velocity and direction. I pumped both legs trying for increased speed to outdistance his range.

  Time slowed as the old elf’s fingers loosed. My hands flew out to brace while I dived forward to the next tree. The face first slide was poorly timed and Evan’s pal was skilled enough in adjusting his shot. It zipped right over while I twisted to the side and slammed into the ground. My teeth hurt and head rattled, but I managed to scramble back to my feet and keep running.

  The next arrow, one I was too dazed to feel coming, embedded into my arm. I noticed the new addition as the pain caught up. Both eyes started to water.

  I had to escape. More arrows would be coming soon. Gunfire echoed repeatedly, each one violating the entire area. Julianne was emptying her entire clip. By the screaming, she’d gone mad. By the footsteps, she was headed towards Thomas.

  Numerous arrows flew in my direction. Each one slightly off the mark. Distance and Julianne’s wild shots were helping. Chains rang out and slammed into each other. I felt bodies slam into the ground and someone cried out. Candy was close. There was no time to go back and check on the siblings. The scent of almonds permeated the air.

  Half blind fumbling and bouts of adrenaline helped me reach Evan. He was right where my tracking had pointed. The elf was sitting up and looked absolutely lost. Both ears drooped and his arms were listless.

  I searched for a blade to draw blood forth. Another thought occurred to me. A pained cry ground out between my clenched teeth. The arrow lodged into my arm snapped and yanked out.

  There was more than enough blood for Evan now. My arm hovered over Evan’s mouth and I barely restrained myself from shoving his face into my pit. With the free hand, I tilted Evan’s head back and said a prayer.

  Footsteps carefully tread the ground behind me. Slow paced. Calmer. Softer. Almond scent carried with them.

  “Candy?” I looked up. Where was the old cowboy with his bow? She stood in the distance. Her face twisted.

  “Jeff.” She said flatly. It was easy to forget due to her beauty, that Candy was probably close to one hundred years old. Decades of experience and resolution that I didn’t have. All of it shone on her face.

  “Why, Candy?” Why had she planted those illusions? I kept hold of Evan and tried to get additional drops of blood into him.

  “You can’t know.” She didn’t even shake her head. As if we had moved beyond a simple ‘no’.

  “Can’t know what?” I set Evan’s head down carefully and stood. My eyes were set to full on angry bouncer mode. This was the face I used when collecting from low lives and thugs. Five years ago I could break weaker men with this glare alone.

  “What you are.” Candy actually looked away first. I tried not to grin happily.

  “Why can’t I know what I am, Candy? Why does that matter? Do you need another fucking,” I emphasized that part. “favor so I can get a real answer?”

  “No amount of fucking-” She returned the snide tone, but her voice sounded distorted, “-would make me tell you. It’s dangerous.”

  “Does this have to do with Arnold?” Was there a link?

  “Who is Arnold?” She actually pulled her head back in confusion. That threw me off. Quickly my mind put things together. If she wasn’t here about Arnold than it was my fault, like always, causing issues.

  “Then it’s me, why can’t I know?” I said.

  She shook her head but kept her lips buttoned. Part of me couldn’t help but to admire how cute it looked. Every other ounce of her stance screamed anger and desperation.

  “Why, Candy?” I’d gotten extremely close. She never once showed a sign of backing up, or looking at me. Her focus passed right through my body. “Why can’t I know?”

  Candy stayed silent. Damn it, Julianne, you said to try asking. I had asked the elf three times and still got nothing. No one else was here to help me and Evan. Julianne and her brother were missing in action.

  The silence broke when Evan shouted. Candy’s form fell apart like shattering glass. I turned to look at Evan. Candy straddled his chest, with both hands covering his eyes. Her lips moved in a silent whisper while small sparks of light shot out of her own orbs.

  “No!” He yelled again, bucking weakly under Candy. It sounded distorted like Candy had earlier. “No! Lord, help me!” Evan’s voice came out in a cry for help. My help.

  I ran at her. My dive met with air and I face planted into the dirt. More illusions.

  “Evan!” I yelled, trying to find the source of his cries. Drumbeats started in my head. Their pounding demanded I defend what had been claimed.

  “Answer me!” I fumbled about, swinging both arms as if wading through a pool. Hopefully, one of these wild swings would connect with anything. Evan’s voice grew further away while his words slurred together.

  Auditory senses weren’t enough. I had another way to solve this. A single moment of concentration was needed. There, he was to the right against a tree base. I dove, trusting what I could feel instead of what I could see and connected. For a second time today Candy screamed my name but for an entirely different reason.

  The illusions hiding her from vision shattered. Candy spilled to the ground under me, she raised one hand and shoved dirt into my eyes. Her knee followed up with a switch kick to my pelvis.

  Winded, blinded, I curled into a fetal position and tried to suck in air. Evan was calling out again and I was unable to concentrate on feeling, or seeing anything. Blurred flickers of color proceeded brighter bursts like fireworks.

  I managed to stand up by using the tree trunk. The landscape looked like two rainbows were fornicating five feet away. Wondrous pain occupied my thoughts. Both ears rang, gut clenched spastically, and nothing was in focus.

  Candy was yelling at Evan. I could hear the words being shouted like waves breaking on a shore. A roaring sound of anger and frustration answered back. Evan’s voice was the sound of trees groaning in a thunderstorm. They spoke in with wild words that nearly made sense.

  Candy was denying me an answer from Evan as well, by taking away something? His eyes? How did that make sense?

  Another set of colors popped into existence. This time streaked with an angry red tint overlaying what would have been a bright rainbow. Evan’s voice yelled back, his words sounding harsher but no less wild than Candy’s. I gained enough control to rip off the jacket and mop my face.

  When I could see again, the world had gone mad. Colors kept popping like little bombs of paint going off. There were false copies of Evan and Candy both running around. Yelling saturated the area so intensely I could feel the vibrations of the landscape.

  An image of Candy ran towards me with a large tree branch. Yelling echoed as I tried to block the swinging branch. The actual attack came from a completely different direction, connecting firmly with my exposed ribcage.

  “You can’t know!” An invisible female voice screamed. Candy’s words were tainted by the waterfall accent. I was bewildered and kept one hand in front of my face, the other over my wounded side. Her earlier blow had definitely cracked a rib.

&n
bsp; “Lord!” Evan cried out. Numerous colors flared up obscuring him from vision.

  None of the history books or documentaries had ever shown a scene quite like this. Elven abilities had never been described beyond a mastery over the visual spectrum. Even the few actual elves I had seen use their abilities didn’t come out like this. This was a master with a paintbrush compared to children and their chalk.

  One Evan leaped onto a distracted image of Candy. The projections both collapsed. Another two dozen were dodging through trees. Each visually real that it was difficult to separate what I felt from what I saw.

  I pressed my back to a tree and tried to figure out what to do. Wading in there wouldn’t work out. There was no telling where the real elves were amid the madness. Not without cutting out some senses.

  Both eyes shut to assist concentration by ignoring their illusions. Evan’s distracting screams almost immediately shifted to background noise. My fingers were grasping at tree bark. The simple sensation of rough wood against my skin served as a starting point.

  The two were struggling nearby. I opened my eyes again and the assault wasn’t as bad. Both elves’ illusions had dwindled. Those standing around wore slack-jawed faces devoid of real emotion.

  One wasn’t standing. Candy pinned Evan down with a knee in his back. Both her hands cupped the male’s eyes as a scream came forth. Her voice was loud enough that I could hear it. They were still speaking in their elven tongue, elemental, primal, inhuman.

  I limped over and tried to help.

  Evan’s face dripped with sweat. Blurred images of the elf trying to escape spun out in desperation. Both Evan’s and Candy’s illusions were collapsing.

  “No!” I closed the last bit of distance and weakly tackled the female elf.

  My assault connected, and probably hurt me more than her. Candy was laughing, a delirious rush of excitement on her features as she grinned wildly beneath me. No dirt to my face, no knee to the balls.

  “It’s over, Jeff, it’s over. I’ve protected us all!” She said.

  “I will tell him.” Evan’s voice came from behind me. I turned to look up at him. He was battered beyond his normally disheveled look. His body was covered in forest debris and both eyes were a milky white.

  “You can’t! You’re bound.” Candy said.

  “What did you do?” I growled at her. She didn’t even flinch in response.

  “I bound him!” Candy yelled. Her voice was no longer under me. She had scrambled to a new location behind me and left an illusion behind. “He can’t tell you what you are.”

  “Why?” The version of Candy under me was a fake. An illusion like everything else. Her helping me. Evan’s answers.

  “She fears what our kind will do if they know.” Evan gasped in the middle of his sentence.

  “What?” I said.

  “If they knew that you were a…” A flash of light in his eyes sent Evan backward with a cry.

  “A what? What, damn it? Elf, wolf, human, vampire? What am I?” None of the above? He had been a few syllables away from telling me. Once I knew, once I had that under control I could better understand my abilities, right?

  “He can’t tell you. I’ve bound him to save all our lives.” Candy said.

  “Nonsense. The knowledge alone will not hurt anyone. In a year and a day, I will tell him.” Evan had recovered enough to protest.

  “We will see. This battle is mine, though.” Her voice sounded amused by the phrasing. The image of Candy vanished into the trees. I could feel her getting further and further away. She had left me in the middle of the woods with an elf that couldn’t answer the primary question I came for.

  “Oh, shit. Julianne.” I tried to scramble to the siblings. Multiple face plants into the dirt, an arrow, a tree branch to the ribs and being kneed in the balls outmatched me.

  “What is going on?” Evan asked.

  “The other elf was shooting at us.” I ground the words out. It took every ounce of concentration I had to stay on my feet. My entire body was drooping.

  “I will take care of it.” The male elf nodded and started walking off. He kept one hand pressed out in front to carefully feel his way through the woods. Evan walked like a blind man in the familiar territory.

  I leaned against the younger tree. The same one Evan himself had rested at in my vision. Once again I had failed. My arm itched and there wasn’t any strength left to scratch it. Slowly one foot gave way, followed by the other and my body slumped to the ground.

  Chapter 19 – An Issue

  I had regained a small amount of awareness. There was a distinct western twang that wasn’t entirely audible. Vague impressions of an old man complaining about some little girl came to mind. Was that Evan’s grandfather? Was everyone okay? My lips tried to groan out a question, but it didn’t quite come out.

  “Jay?” Julianne’s voice was distant. It sounded worried and relieved.

  “He is resting. It’s a good thing.” The response came from Evan. It was hard to tell where he was, but I felt a flickering heat nearby. I wanted to roll closer and bask in it. The tree felt cold compared to the warmth being kicked off from the flames.

  “Are you sure?” She said.

  “The tales say his people often rest after a fight. It is how they regain their strength.” The voice was Evan’s. He always sounded tired and didn’t use contractions. When he spoke it was like each word was worth using in its entirety.

  “His kind? What does that mean?” Julianne shuffled closer to the crackling fire.

  “I can not tell you anything else. It is dangerous to skirt the binding like this.” Evan said.

  “Binding?”

  “The other elf, the female Speaker has bound my eyesight. It is a terrible practice that is only enacted upon traitors of our kind.” The young elf didn’t sound upset. Just resigned. As if he expected something to go wrong or else it wouldn’t be business as usual.

  “You’re a traitor?” Thomas’ voice. Strained, but whole. The arrow I’d felt must not have been fatal. That was good since it meant Julianne wouldn’t fire me over her brother’s death. Hearing him speak helped me to relax.

  “Our clan was cast out from the old world a long time ago.” The cowboy twanged voice said. Drowsiness kept my eyelids closed, preventing me from seeing what was going on. Resting felt good despite the mismatched temperatures to each side.

  “Why?” Julianne was gathering information. Something she always did. It was part of what kept her in business.

  “Neither of us know. Only full Speakers are told.” The cowboy answered.

  “So is that what you are then, a Speaker?” The direction of Julianne’s voice clearly changed. She was talking to Evan now.

  “Incomplete. As was my mother before me. Our clan hasn’t had a full Speaker in generations.” Evan said. I almost lost his words as the flames crackled wildly.

  “Where is she?”

  “Dead, with a tree planted for a marker, as is our custom,” Evan said. There was a rustle of fabric as someone moved.

  “Oh.” Her voice was sad at first. Then it changed. “Oh. Oh, we should move him then.” Move who? Me? I was unable to stir myself and say something.

  “It is alright. She would rejoice, I think, to know the sins of our forefathers were not absolute. To know that our arrogance did not purge them all.” Evan said. The Purge was an elimination of all of the dark races some two thousand years ago.

  There was a hint in there. Candy had said much the same thing. I felt little trust towards the female elf now, however, what she told me prior seemed to be confirmed by Evan's words.

  “Sins of your forefathers?” She missed the turn in the conversation I was hoping for.

  Silence answered her. The last thing I heard was Evan taking up a wordless song. I wasn’t sure how I felt about a man singing to me. Awkward I guess, but it sounded haunting. Like the wind across the prairie. My mind slipped off again into a deeper dreamless sleep.

  Morning sunlight peeked t
hrough the trees and woke me. Hopefully, only one day had passed and not two or more. The jacket bundled under my head served as a pathetic sort of pillow. Putting it back on was difficult because my thumb insisted on getting caught in a new arrow hole.

  One night’s sleep made a world of difference. I found Julianne and Thomas slumped out cold next to each other. They looked more like siblings than ever. Evan should be nearby. This mess could be salvaged by finding Arnold.

  Locating him was frighteningly easy. Almost as soon as I thought of the elf, visions popped into my head outlining where he sat. A carved object in his hands was being spun about. Was this ease at tracking because of giving him blood?

  Sneaking was not one of my skills so I staggered over. He sat at the base of a tree with his face turned towards sunrise. Even his irises were a pasty white color.

  “Lord?” His face turned somewhat. I blinked and looked away.

  “You promised me answers.” There was no good way to start this conversation. I kept my voice calm. Clearly Evan hadn’t conspired against me.

  “I find myself unable to fulfill my part of the bargain. I apologize.” He said gently. The object in his hand spun around some more.

  “No. Candy being here is my fault.” I should have stolen money out of the bar till and taken a taxi. Anything would have been better than getting into a car with her.

  “Candy?” Evan asked.

  “The other elf. Her real name is-,” I slowed my speech in order to say her name clearly. “-Kanda’rila Ro’hal.”

  “Ah.” His response came out as a sigh. His normally serious demeanor was nothing more than pure exhaustion. “Do not worry.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I felt the bond starting with her as well. She will not hide the truth from you forever, and I doubt she wishes to keep this from you, not really.” Evan shrugged one shoulder and ran his fingers over the wooden carving. I stared at it. It looked like a wooden ball.

  “It seemed like she did.” I said.

  “It is not you that she worries about, it is us. Time or understanding will change her.” Evan said. A grimace of pain crossed over his face and fingers locked around the carved ball.