by Sam Ferguson
*****
Twenty minutes had passed since the encounter with the elves, and Talon grew weary of running. Guessing that he was far enough away he slowed his pace as he continued further into the dense forest. He massaged the stitch in his left side with his knuckles and slowed to a stop and leaned up against a large tree, placing his hand high on the tree above his head and then planting his forehead right against the bark of the tree. Although he was not caught he could not help but feel defeated. He had the Tomni’Tai Scroll, but no way to get off of the island and pursue the next relic. His only option was to take refuge in the forest and try to circle back around to get to the port.
He cursed himself. He should have stayed in the city. How could he hope to survive in the forest with elves hunting him? This was their territory, not his. He should have hidden himself in a cottage somewhere in Bluewater.
Talon pushed himself away from the tree and shook his head. He knew staying in Bluewater would have been suicide. He had already battled with a group of Kruks on his way from Medlas to Bluewater, and another three patrolmen inside of Bluewater. That wasn’t even counting this latest battle with the armored elf and Talon’s old friend from Medlas.
“I hate elves,” Talon mumbled to the tree.
A few birds sang overhead up in the high branches of the trees. He turned and looked up in the direction of the sound. Even if Talon had not been running for his life he probably would not have enjoyed the bird’s song, he was not fond of such things and found them to be rather annoying.
“But not as annoying as that cursed elf!” Talon spoke to the tree. “He will prove to be a thorn in my side for sure. I should have killed him in Medlas when I had the chance!” Then Talon recalled the human who had helped the Svetli’Tai Kruk. The image of the man diving to save the elf was engrained into Talon’s mind. Who was he, and where had he come from? Talon could have ended the Kruk if not for the human’s interference.
Talon yelled and slammed the tree with the bottom part of his fist. He knew that he would have to shift his game to that of stealth. His blades would have to be used sparingly if he was going to live long enough to find a way off the island without drawing too much attention to himself. Talon laughed then as he realized that it was already too late. As it was he knew that the citizens of Bluewater and Medlas would be willing to use whatever means necessary to bring him down. The thought of his infamy put a twisted smile on his face. Talon chuckled and continued walking due east looking for a shelter to rest in while he waited for the night to approach. He recalled the great beast that had attacked him the first night he was in the forest on this island. He had no desire to have another such encounter. Things would be more than difficult enough with the elves searching for him.
He soon found shelter as he walked around a large hillock to see that the backside was a rigid rock face extending fifteen feet in height and over twenty feet in width. Talon smiled when he spied the tiny entrance to an old, abandoned mine shaft. On the off chance the old mine was inhabited, he drew his scimitar and then went inside.
To his satisfaction he found no creatures of any kind dwelling in the shaft. In fact he found hardly anything at all. There was one small torch on the floor near the entrance which he lit to brighten his path, but other than that the shaft was empty. Talon could tell the place had not been used for many decades, the wooden support beams were aged and looked the worse for wear. The dust he stirred up while walking assaulted his nostrils until he sneezed. The loud sound thundered down the shaft as the echoes bounced from wall to wall. Talon walked a long way down the tunnel to see where it led. To his surprise he found no sign of mining, no tools, no marks in the wall, not even so much as a small hole anywhere.
He was curious as to what the tunnel had been used for, so he continued walking through the tunnel, descending deeper below the surface. He could not be sure, but he felt as though the tunnels were winding back in the direction of Bluewater.
Ten minutes later Talon stopped as he came to a large chamber. His torch just barely provided enough light for him to expel the darkness from the area. The ceiling was well over thirty feet above him, the width of the chamber was maybe thirty yards, and it continued straight forward for another fifty yards from where Talon stood. He entered slowly, cautiously, still holding his scimitar in his right hand. His eyes grew wide as he saw a plethora of symbols painted into the walls, and even a few on the ceiling. He could not make out the runes, but he did notice a few pictures which he did recognize.
One was a mural of a black dragon flying with a short rider on his back, holding a long spear. This was a drawing of Lemork. Talon knew of the story, although admittedly he did not know it well. He knew that Lemork had been the great Sierri’Tai leader who had set the dark elf clans against all who would oppose them, especially the other elf races. If he was to believe Jahre, then King Lemork ultimately intended to slay Basei.
Talon was sorry that Lemork had not succeeded. Maybe if he had Talon’s life would have gone down a very different path.
Talon had read once of how the Elf War had been of an almost unimaginable scale. The losses on both sides were high, but Lemork’s forces were winning. Lemork would have completed his conquest and eradicated the elves, securing the entire lower islands for the exclusive use of the Sierri’Tai, except a human king had come down from Raia, the continent now divided into the kingdoms of Shausmat and Zinferth. Dailex, as the human king was called, rode upon a white dragon and was a terribly formidable warrior. He arrived with thousands of the best human soldiers and bolstered the courage of the elves. He led the united force against Lemork and the Sierri’Tai.
Talon knew that King Dailex had suffered mortal injuries in his great battle with King Lemork. So, while he succeeded in defeating Lemork, he had not the strength to return to his own kingdom. Thus, Raia fractured from within as different factions grappled with each other for power until the land finally came under the rule of two houses.
A picture next to this mural showed a smaller, but equally important historical scene. A group of elves stood around an altar. They fashioned the relics necessary to banish the rest of the Sierri’Tai. With King Dailex dead, there was no one willing to oppose this final solution to the Sierri’Tai problem. The Svetli’Tai elders worked with a pair of Tomni’Tai elves to banish every Sierri’Tai to the Netherworld. That was the part that Talon found disgusting.
For him, it was enough to destroy the enemy. He also understood, and accepted the real possibility of collateral damage during war—Talon certainly didn’t lose sleep over any elf he may have inadvertently killed in the fiery explosions in Medlas—but to purposefully and willfully kill women and children was repulsive, even to him. The fact that the elders banished all of the Sierri’Tai to the Netherworld, and essentially damned them all to either a horrid death or a nightmarish existence running from creatures and demons that made dragons seem like house cats was unfathomable to Talon. He understood vengeance more than most, and was willing to do a lot of damage to enact his justice, but even he had his limits.
Talon sighed as he came to the end of the mural. He continued to scan the walls for more runes or paintings as he walked across the floor, then he heard a slight movement coming from behind him. He turned quickly to see a small, ancient being coming into the view of torchlight.
“So, you have finally come,” the figure said. The figure reached up and slowly drew back his tattered hood to reveal his wrinkled face and stringy, long silver hair. Talon noted that the humanoid resembled an elf, but something was amiss. The skin was too dark, although it did hold a sort of milky quality mixed in with almost black undertones of flesh it was obviously very different from the elves in Bluewater or Medlas. Talon watched as the dark elf moved slowly, holding its left arm up to shield its eyes from the torchlight. “You have the scroll with you, yes?” the dark elf asked.
“Who are you?” Talon inquired, still holding his scimitar at the ready.
The dark elf smiled eerily. “
You haven’t heard of me?” he asked sarcastically. “I am the troll who eats little elf children that wander too close to my cave.” He cackled maniacally and bent to sit upon a stone bench. “The better question is who are you, and why have you come to the final resting chamber of the great and dreadful King Lemork?”
“You are not King Lemork,” Talon said quickly. He studied the drow carefully, trying to assess whether this elf was a threat.
The drow shook his head and folded his hands in his lap. “No, I am not Lemork. But this is where his bones are laid to rest.” The drow pointed to the small pouch hanging from Talon’s belt. “I see you have the gorlung’s fang in your satchel. Tell me, how did you defeat the beast?”
Talon looked down to his belt and knit his brow together. “What is a gorlung?” he asked.
The drow waved a dismissive hand and shook his head while he mumbled something that Talon couldn’t understand. “How is it you have the beast’s fang in your satchel and yet you ask me what a gorlung is? It is the giant, sable colored cat that you obviously killed.” The drow fussed with his tattered cloak, trying to stretch it enough to cover the front of his legs while he sat. “That’s how I knew it was you, I could sense the fang’s presence.”
Talon nodded his head as if he understood, but he was still trying to decide whether the old drow was crazy. “You are a Sierri’Tai?” Talon asked.
“Of course I am,” the drow quipped. “What else would I be if I wasn’t a Sierri’Tai?”
Talon let out a small chuckle. “You still haven’t explained how you know about the fang.”
The old drow smiled and nodded slowly. “You still haven’t answered whether you have the scroll,” the drow said.
Talon nodded slowly and relaxed his stance somewhat. “I have slain Jahre and taken the Tomni’Tai Scroll.”
The drow’s lips drew tight as a wide grin stretched across his wrinkled, ashen face. “Truly?” the Drow asked wryly. “That is wonderful.” A few moments later the small Drow motioned for Talon to follow him. “I mean you no harm, human,” the drow promised. “I have long seen you in my dreams and waited for you to come and release my people. Come with me.”
“In your dreams?” Talon asked skeptically.
“Yes,” the drow responded. “In my dream you arrived here riding the magnificent gorlung like a horse. It was symbolic, of course, meant as a way for me to recognize you when you finally arrived. It helped me understand that I was looking for someone who could conquer the gorlung.”
“How could you know I have conquered it?”
The drow pointed to the small pouch hanging from Talon’s belt. “The gorlung is a beast from the Netherworld. Its magic is unlike anything on this plane of Terramyr. I can sense the fang’s presence within your bag there. I don’t know everything about it, of course, but I know enough to know that a gorlung can live nearly forever, and it is almost impossible to kill. Scores of Svetli’Tai men have tried to hunt it over the centuries. It ate most of them.” The drow sneered at the thought. “As you can imagine, I am happy to see you, but also a bit saddened by the gorlung’s death. I rather enjoyed watching it scourge the elves here.”
Talon opened the pouch and removed the tooth. “It was a mighty foe,” he admitted. “I won by lighting a fire in its mouth and removing its head.”
The drow sniggered. “Incredible,” he commented. Then he waved again and started to walk away. “Come, follow me.”
Talon sheathed his scimitar and then followed the drow. Of course Talon needed to adjust his pace to a painfully slow shuffle to accommodate the old drow, but that did not matter too much. Talon was interested to hear this creature’s tale.
As they neared the back of the cavern Talon noticed that one of the walls was lined with roots and shoots of plants from the surface above, a small hole in the floor opened up to an underground stream, a source of water and fish. “So that is how you have survived this long?” Talon observed as he pointed in the direction of the stream.
“Yes. The stream goes all the way to the sea. The fish are small, but I also eat of the roots coming in through the wall. It has been a long time that I have been down here.”
Talon let his gaze wander to the right where he noticed an incredibly large skeleton. Before he even saw the whole thing and knew what it was the drow turned to him and lifted his hand up to stop Talon.
“This is the final resting place of the black dragon,” the drow grew very solemn as he spoke. “After the last battle the mighty dragon entered into this cave with King Lemork’s remains to hide and recover, but then the Svetli’Tai arrived with their earth magic.” The drow spit on the ground then in disgust. “They shrank the passageway down so that only a humanoid could fit through, leaving only this chamber big enough for the dragon to move in. He tried for days to break through the tunnel, but the magic made it so that even his mighty claws could not tear through the rock. He was trapped.”
“How did you get here?” Talon asked.
“I was injured in the battle and had crawled into this cave myself, hoping to recover, or to at least die without the agony of an elf blade running through my gut. I had found this cave before the great dragon. I was just over there,” the drow pointed toward the far end of the chamber, “when the dragon came into the cave and then I watched helplessly as the tunnel shrank. The dragon and I tried different methods to escape. Of course, I could walk out of here freely, but I would die quickly unless I had the dragon with me. So our plan was to escape and then free our brethren and attack the Svetli’Tai and Nizhni’Tai for our revenge.” The drow extended a hand to the rock wall and leaned his weight against it and gazed downward into the floor of the stone chamber for a few moments.
“After several days, we knew there was nothing we could do. I buried my king in a small antechamber off of this chamber and began to look for ways to sustain myself and the dragon while we tried to think of ways to escape. Every so often we would try to break through the spell that binds the rocks of this cave together, but the spell never weakened. After a year I had my first vision of you, coming into the cave with the scroll and riding the gorlung. So, we conserved our strength and waited for you to come. I have waited even to this day, but the dragon died long ago. There just was not enough food to keep him alive for long, and the Svetli’Tai magic prevented him from hibernating. He died an agonizing death. It is not easy to watch a dragon starve.”
“What did you do after he perished?” Talon asked.
“I then did what I could to survive. I ate his flesh until his carcass was consumed. I continued to scout around, trying to find a way to release my brothers from their banishment. I would steal into the nearby city and search for clues, but nothing ever turned up. As the years passed, the elves forgot about the cave and the patrols stopped coming around.”
“They just forgot about you?” Talon questioned. “I find that hard to believe.”
The drow smiled. “I am a powerful wizard,” he said. “That is how I managed to survive the great final battle in the first place. After the great dragon passed on, I knew the elves would venture inside to ensure it was dead. Instead of fighting them, I chose to hide, trusting in my visions that you would eventually come.”
“An elf is nothing if not patient,” Talon commented with a nod.
“Precisely,” the drow replied. “When they arrived, I cast a spell over the cave so they could see the dead dragon, and they saw an illusion of my skeleton as well. They reported that the cave was clear, but the council decreed it off limits to elves, just to be safe.”
“And they never patrolled the area after that?”
“Oh no, of course they did. They came around a couple times a week for the next twenty years, but I maintained my spells until the patrols finally ceased.” The drow chuckled to himself and stared at the floor, seemingly remembering something. He looked up again and winked. “Occasionally a young elf or two would venture into the cave with the dream of removing the dragon’s skull. I was not strong e
nough to attack the city, of course, but I was more than able to take care of a couple of daring elves. After a few elves failed to return the rumors of a ‘legendary elf-eating cave troll’ began.” The drow stopped and turned a keen eye on Talon. “I didn’t eat them, mind you, but I did kill intruders of course, as a matter of self-preservation.” The drow shrugged.
“But you never thought of leaving?” Talon asked.
The drow sighed and closed his eyes. “Now I am too old to fight. So, instead I have done only as much as was necessary to conceal my existence until you arrived. You see, I have had dreams, so many dreams which gave me hope.” The old drow narrowed his beady eyes on Talon and looked the assassin up and down. “I dreamt of a man who would bring about a mighty change and right all of the wrongs which were done to us. That man is you.” The drow pointed at Talon with a feeble finger as he finished his speech. Talon felt a shiver run down his spine as he surveyed the skeleton of the once mighty dragon again. “The power of the Tomni’Tai Scroll must be used to set my brothers free.”
“I have a question,” Talon interjected. “I never understood why the scroll was named after the Tomni’Tai if the Sierri’Tai were the ones who were banished?”
“That is a long story in itself. Simply put, both the Tomni’Tai and Sierri’Tai are drow races. The Sierri’Tai had several falling outs with the Tomni’Tai and when it came time to banish my brethren, the Tomni’Tai were all too eager to help. They are the ones who fashioned the spells that banished my brothers to the Netherworld. Hence, it is called the Tomni’Tai Scroll.”
“I see,” Talon replied.
Both fell silent for a while.
