Eternal Forest

by Faith Naff

  “Shimmer,” Snowflake said meekly as she stood over her. “Are you okay?”

  “It’s all a bad dream,” Shimmer answered in almost a whisper. “Lady please, make it all just be a bad dream.”

  “You’re not dreaming,” Valdin said as he stepped in front of her. On her knees, his muscular thighs were at her eye level. His trousers were torn and stained with dirt and blood. His blade hung in its sheath at his side and he stunk of blood and sweat.

  Shimmer thrust the tip of her blade into the soft soil and pressed against the helm as she rose to her feet. She kept her gaze down, not wanting to look this mysterious and yet incredibly rude human in the eyes. She couldn’t believe she had found him so intriguing earlier that evening. He was clearly reprehensible. With her head still down, she turned to walk away.

  “Hey,” Valdin called out.

  She didn’t know why she bothered stopping, or even turning to face him finally. There was still just something about him that kept enticing her. In some way she could not understand, he was attached to her, like a parasite on the soul. She said nothing in response, only raising her eyebrows and turning her palms upward.

  Valdin reached down and pulled the short sword from the ground. “You may want to keep this in case they come back,” he said. “I won’t be there to babysit you next time.”

  “You don’t have to be so mean to her!” Snowflake snapped. “She didn’t do anything to you!”

  “I didn’t ask you to stay with me anyway,” Shimmer declared coldly.

  “You begged me to save that one from being a troll’s rag doll,” Valdin said calmly with a small gesture towards Snowflake.

  “I have a name you know,” Snowflake retorted.

  Valdin shrugged as he stuck the sword back in the ground. “You may want to practice with that,” he said as he turned away.

  “Where are you going?” Shimmer asked. More importantly, she wondered why she continued to care.

  “Where do you think?” Valdin asked as he continued walking away. “I’m going to follow the hoard and get back what they took.”

  Shimmer laughed. “By yourself?” she asked. “Someone thinks highly of himself. You think you’ll be able to take them all on your own?”

  “I’ll have a better chance without you two running around me.”

  Shimmer’s blood boiled. Valdin’s arrogance was unbearable. She locked her feet in place and her mouth shut. If she gave no response then he’d be out of her hair in a few seconds, allowing her to focus on finding her family and making sure they were alright. There were far more important matters at hand than this ill-mannered Harmonious.

  Valdin’s boots crunched the underbrush and debris below his feet as he trudged onward. He didn’t know why he’d wasted so much time keeping these two elves from becoming goblin food. He didn’t expect every elf in Moon-hollow to be an expert swordsman, but these two barely knew which end to hold. He didn’t have the time or patience to look after two females with no survival skills, not with all that had happened this night. He may be a human, but Moon-hollow was his home, too. He and the other Harmonious humans had worked to fill the silos for winter just like the elves, and he would be damned if he let these savage brutes take all of that away from them.

  Lost in thought, Valdin didn’t even stop until he found an object suddenly blocking his path. Looking down, he saw the staff of Rosewood extending out from the high priestess’ arm, holding him back at his chest. “Your grace?” he asked.

  “They’re right, Harmonious,” she said. “All you can do on your own is get yourself killed.”

  “We’re losing ground on them!” he shouted. “We should be following them and getting back what they took!”

  “We are scattered, beaten, and unorganized!” Rosewood shouted as she moved her body into his path. “No one leaves this village until after the elders have assembled.”

  “You can’t stop me,” he said with a cocky smirk.

  Rosewood’s eyes burned with rage. “You may be human, but as long as you wish to be a part of this community you will live under my rule.” She leaned in close to him. Valdin was easily twice her size, but she wouldn’t be intimidated. She craned her neck back, getting her eyes as close to his as she could. “If you don’t like it, you can crawl back to the rest of your kind in the north.”

  Valdin paused as sense finally overcame his frustration. He loved the forest, and the Lady that watched over all living things. He never wanted to live like his blasphemous kin who defied her grace and cleared the forest to build their city in Meadowgold. He, like the other Harmonious humans in Moon-hollow, had deep respect for the forest and lived as one with it like the elves did. This was his high priestess he was insulting. “Forgive me, exalted one,” Valdin said humbly as he bowed away. “I forget my place.”

  “You are a shining example for your wayward race,” Rosewood said in a motherly tone. “I pray you never lose sight of that.”

  Valdin stood reverently at attention at the side of the high priestess.

  “Let every ear hear me,” Rosewood declared in a loud, authoritative tone. Her voice began drawing a crowd. From amongst the trees and broken huts, scores of elves of all ages began gathering into a group in front of their exalted leader. They were bloodied and dirty, their fine, formal clothing stained and torn. Their cheeks were soaked with tears shed until they had none left to cry. The Harmonious were among them, too. A handful had survived the attack, at least a dozen, and they stood together with their elven brethren. There was no fear to stand close, no call for segregation. At least in this time of peril, they were all in this together.

  “Elves of Moon-hollow, humans who embrace the ways of the Lady, I know you are frightened. I know you are angry and confused. I know you mourn your loved ones taken away in the blink of an eye and you fear the loss of our harvest at such a perilous time. I wish I had answers for you, but this attack came with no warning. This hoard of savages was upon us before we could react, and their efforts have cost us dearly.”

  “What will we do?!” a woman screamed from the crowd as she held her crying infant close to her chest. A chorus of murmurs and shouts rose to second her cry.

  Rosewood raised her hands high into the air. “Silence!” she demanded. At her order, the crowd was hushed. “At dawn I will meet with the elders and we will weigh the options before us.” Rosewood turned to look upon Valdin. She remembered how valiantly he’d fought, how bravely he had acted in the service of a people that were not his. “However, this Harmonious is right, we must go after the hoard before the trail goes cold and we lose our food forever.”

  “The path of fleeing trolls will not be hard to follow as long as they’re moving as a unit,” Valdin said as he stepped forward. “But we don’t know how long these goblins and trolls will stay together. No doubt they will march together through Windsong and to the edge of faerie territory, but once they reach the boarders of the Savage Lands, there’s no way of knowing what they’ll do.”

  “Then we must monitor their movements and pray they stay banded,” Rosewood said. “I will need every able-bodied elf and human who can wield a sword to follow this human as he tracks the hoard. I know we wish to mourn and rebuild, and that pain and shock are still heavy on our hearts, but we have already lost precious time. Gather together and go now. May the Lady’s grace be ever with you.”

  The crowd dispersed. Valdin led the way to Rosewood’s ruined hut where the stash of weaponry lay ready for the gathering army. Valdin, with his weapons already in tow, acted as the lead off. Following their Harmonious leader, scores of elves began moving into the trees and undergrowth beyond the borders of the village.

  Shimmer reached down and wrapped her fingers around the hilt of her blade. It still felt so foreign to her, like shaking hands with an intimidating stranger. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath before tugging up on the blade, stopping only as Rosewood’s hand rested on the butt of the hilt and forced it back down gently. Shimmer looked up into the ey
es of her high priestess. She was confused.

  “Don’t you dare,” Rosewood said like a stern mother warning her child.

  Shimmer quickly released the blade and took a step back. “Your grace, I…”

  “Now is not the time for reckless pride,” Rosewood declared. “He was right that you have no skills. If you go with them you’ll only get yourself killed.”

  “So I’m to stand idly by and do nothing?” Shimmer retorted. She couldn’t help but snap, though she knew it was foolish. The high priestess had no reason to be speaking with her privately like this. Though they had recently fought side by side, Shimmer was just a common elf and not worthy of the individual attention she was receiving. Showing anything other than absolute gratitude was very rash, but she was beyond rational thoughts and emotions at this point.

  “See to your families, both of you,” Rosewood said to her and Snowflake. “Hands are needed here to help rebuild. Don’t go chasing battle and danger to prove anything to yourselves or to him.”

  Shimmer and Snowflake both bowed. “Of course, your grace,” they said together.

  With a nod, Rosewood took her leave of the two young girls.

  “She’s right, you know,” Snowflake said. “There’s nothing we could do if we followed them.”

  Shimmer didn’t know what to say. Never in her life had she felt so useless. Her eyes were open now, open to the horrors the world could throw in her path, and she hadn’t any skills to survive them. The night had begun with such wonder and promise. Now she questioned her very place in the whole, wide forest.

  Snowflake’s hand rested upon the shoulder of her troubled friend. “Shimmer, we need to find our folks. We need to make sure everyone is alright.”

  Shimmer nodded, but did not look up at Snowflake. Her mind was a mess with too many thoughts, but she knew it was time to push them aside and concentrate on the task at hand. It embarrassed her that, with all the commotion and the tension between her and that dreadful human, she hadn’t given enough thought to her family’s wellbeing. Abandoning the blade in the dirt, Shimmer allowed herself to be led away by Snowflake into the crowds of elves scurrying about the ruined village.

  “Mother! Father!” Shimmer cried out as she wandered through the crowd. Moon-hollow held a greater population than any other village within elven territory and the crowd was three times as big with the festival drawing elves from neighboring villages, but these were still mostly faces she’d seen before, faces she’d grown up around her entire life. These were her neighbors, her friends, her mentors. These were the parents of the children she’d played together with, and the children themselves that were now all grown up. It was a sea of familiar faces, but none belonging to the people she sought.

  “Snowflake!” shouted a woman from across the crowd.

  Shimmer and Snowflake turned in unison in the direction the voice was coming from. Bounding through the crowd with a look of excited relief came a short woman with fair skin and long, flowing golden hair. The woman pushed through the crowd politely but forcefully, determined to get to Snowflake as fast as possible.

  “Mother!” Snowflake shouted as tears of relief filled her eyes.

  Snowflake’s mother reached them and mother and daughter wrapped arms around one another. Snowflake’s mother grasped the back of her daughter’s head and pulled her in close as a tear rolled down her cheek. “Thank the Lady you’re safe,” she said softly.

  “Father,” Snowflake said as she quickly pulled away. “What about father? Is he…?”

  “He’s injured, but he lives,” she said. “Damn goblin broke his foot. Can’t even stand up.”

  “At least he’s alive,” Snowflake said with a sigh of relief. The family reunion turned its attention to Shimmer.

  Snowflake’s mother put a hand on Shimmer’s shoulder. “My dear, are you alright? Where are your parents?”

  “I’m fine, Dawnglow,” Shimmer replied. “But I haven’t found them yet.”

  Dawnglow’s grip on Shimmer’s shoulder tightened. Shimmer and Snowflake had been friends for so long that she was practically her daughter, too. “I must bring Snowflake back to her father,” she said. “If we see them, we will come for you. Do not lose hope.”

  Shimmer nodded. “I won’t.”

  Dawnglow pulled Shimmer in close and hugged her tightly. “Lady watch over you,” she said as she choked back tears.

  “You as well,” Shimmer replied. There was another quick hug between the two dear friends before Snowflake and her mother made their way back into the crowd. Being led by the hand, Snowflake’s eyes stayed back upon Shimmer’s face until she disappeared from view.

  Now Shimmer was all alone, though amidst a sea of elves and humans. There were many standing around her, but none standing with her. It was time to resume her search. “Mother! Father!” she shouted as she made her way through the crowd. Once again, a multitude of faces looked back upon her, but none belonging to the elves she sought.

  The crowds were getting dense as she moved closer to the center of the village. Moon-hollow could barely hold these numbers during the celebration on the shore, let alone during a time of pandemonium such as this. It was impossible to pick anyone out of this large a crowd, especially when she had only scattered torches to illuminate their faces.

  Switching tactics, she decided to move to the outskirts of the village and back towards the water. There was less of a chance of seeing her parents, but there was a greater chance of being seen herself. Besides, if her parents were… dead… they would still be on the shore. Though she feared the task at hand, the anticipation and the unknown plagued her more.

  As she drew closer to the shore, the crowd of elves became less dense. By the time she reached the last row of trees before the shore, there was barely a soul to be seen. It wasn’t a place where anyone wanted to be, for they would rather be packed together like seeds in a pomegranate than to stand in the aftermath of the battle. Shimmer shared their feeling, but she had to know… for certain.

  The sky was lightening with the coming dawn as Shimmer stepped past the trees and onto the rocky ground on the shores of Sky Lake. There was still little light to illuminate her surroundings, but what little was revealed with the sun’s first rays was more than enough to let her witness the horror all around her. She could barely see the ground for all the dead that lay upon it. Bodies of men, women, even children, lay like oversized dolls on the rocky soil. The tableau of bodies was covered in blood. Their eyes still open, displaying the look of sheer terror that was their final moments. The scene reeked of blood and death, but was completely, hauntingly, silent.

  Shimmer didn’t know what to think, what to feel. There were too many emotions at once to sort through. It was a spectacle beyond anything she could have even conjured in her nightmares. These were her people, her neighbors and friends, all lying motionless on the ground beneath her feet. Their faces haunted her, as if she could hear their screams of terror echoing from the past within the silence.

  Tears began to pour down her face. It was all too much to bear, too much to absorb. She knew of war, but she’d never truly known it. There had been tales, stories of the Great War long ago between the great tribes; five races, all foolishly fighting and dying over a forest more than big enough for them all. Those had been savage, barbaric times, and the Tri-leaf Pact had been formed to create civility and peace in the Lands of Order. After hundreds of years without any threat to that peace, many thought the days of war and death were over.

  How could it have come to this?

  A movement to her right caught her attention. She could make nothing out with her peripheral vision, but it was movement for sure and, therefore, a sign of life. Shimmer quickly spun around in time to see a mysterious figure disappear into the trees on the far edge of the clearing to the southeast. “Hello?” Shimmer called out. There was no response. Curious, she made her way across the shore, treading carefully around the carcasses splayed about the ground.

  “Is any
one there?” she called out again. Her voice was weak and unsure. She was walking through a battlefield chasing a phantom. It may not have been her wisest action, but standing alone in a sea of death, she was naturally drawn to anything still moving, still living. It wasn’t until she reached the trees at the southeast edge that she saw the movement again. It was in the forest now, deep amongst the trees and shrubs growing wild outside the borders of Moon-hollow. It was strange; Shimmer could see the movement, but no form that stood out amongst the foliage. It was as if the forest itself were moving. Shimmer swallowed hard. Perhaps she truly was chasing a phantom, some troubled spirit now destined to haunt the battlefield upon which it was slain.

  Curiosity overtook fear, forcing her to push on into the trees. The movement had stopped, but Shimmer kept moving towards the last point she’d seen it. Twigs and leaves crunched under her bare feet as she moved quietly and slowly into the woods. Her ears were perked up, analyzing in detail each and every sound they picked up. “Is someone out there?” she called out again, only to receive no reply.

  She finally stopped at the point she’d seen the movement last. Taking a deep breath, she gazed about at her surroundings. This was where she’d seen the mysterious entity last, she was sure of it, but there was nothing here. Not only was it gone, but it had left no trace behind. There was no foot prints, no broken twigs, no foliage pushed aside. There was no one here but her, and no signs to prove otherwise.

  Puzzled, she turned back to return to the shore, but the sight before her made her freeze in her tracks. Standing a few feet away was a creature the likes of which she’d never seen before. It was a girl, elven in shape, but this was no elf, nor was it any other creature she had seen nor heard of. Her skin was a very pale green with spots of what was unmistakably tree bark dotting its surface. Small branches, covered in tiny leaves, grew sporadically out from her body from head to toe. Her hair was a wild and beautiful mess of straw, leaves, ivy vines, flowers, and thin branches. The strange creature stared back at Shimmer through eyes as red as rubies sparkling in the sunlight.