Twilight of the Elves

by Zack Loran Clark

  Zed searched the chaos for his friends and found Jayna battering a swarm of the undead with mystical darts. Behind her, Jett and Micah nervously gripped their weapons.

  The queen and her ministers fought with sword and spell, but Zed caught a glimpse of Thorn, the sword sister, lying prone on the ground. Her body was limp and covered with dots of snow. Was she . . . ?

  Thorn’s body shivered. An arm struck out, moving stiffly. The sword sister propped herself up, and Zed could see her eyes were wide and vacant. She lurched to her feet, her head lolling to the side.

  Then she raised her sword and aimed for the queen’s back.

  Zed bumbled forward, and the world exploded into mist around him. As he careened out of the fog, his shoulder smashed into Thorn’s stomach. Both Zed and the elf went down, sliding away into the snow.

  Thorn recovered first. In an instant she was on top of him, scratching at his face and tearing at his hair, digging her thumb into his cheek. Zed screamed. He tried in vain to grab at her wrists, but she was too strong. The elf’s eyes were empty of emotion. The centers of her pupils glowed with pinpricks of violet.

  Zed heard a loud crack, accompanied by a strobe of light. The weight disappeared from his ribs. Panting, he pushed himself up to find the elf twitching on the ground several feet away. A small line of smoke rose from a singed spot on her chest.

  Above him, Me’Shala stood with her hand raised, grimacing at the body of someone who had once been her protector.

  “Make for the palace!” Frond’s voice bellowed over the tumult.

  The queen locked eyes with Zed. Then she swept away without a word.

  Zed climbed to his feet, searching for Frond and the others. Snow billowed through the air in heavy white sails. He could no longer see the queen or his guildmates. Zed took a tentative step forward, paused, then turned around.

  Which way was the palace?

  He spun in a circle, hoping to catch a glimpse of something recognizable. Fear crept through Zed’s limbs, a different sort of chill altogether.

  “Hello?” Zed called out. “Hey! Is anybody there?” He received no answer.

  Until he did.

  A horrid keening issued from the storm, shrill and gravelly. Two shining eyes stalked toward him, beaming with malice, even through the snow. They glared hatefully at Zed.

  It was a look that he knew well.

  “Mousebane!” he called with relief. He trudged toward the cat, which took several steps back and hissed at his approach. She eyed him distrustfully, perhaps suspecting he might try to pet her.

  “Zed! Over here!”

  Zed spotted Fel’s small shape nearby, waving at him. He huffed after her with Mousebane beside him, just hoping she could still navigate her way through the city in this.

  Llethanyl had disappeared behind the curtains of snow. Figures large and small were concealed within the blizzard, their shapes blurred into ominous shadows. Zed kept his eyes on Fel while he walked, afraid to lose sight of her for even a moment.

  Which was why he missed the armored skeleton until it leaped out of the din.

  “Fel!” Zed shouted, as Mousebane took off like a bolt.

  Both were too slow. Fel screamed as the Danger seized her arm, wrenching her to the ground. It lifted a rusted javelin into the air, stabbing downward.

  A second figure emerged from the snow, cleaving forward with a scream. Threya plowed into the skeleton with her enormous swords, then hurled it back into the snowfall as two distinct halves.

  The minister stood over Fel, breathing raggedly. She looked down at the young night elf whose life she’d just saved—and then at the blood that began to pour from her own side, where the skeleton’s javelin still pierced her.

  “Oh,” Threya murmured. Her voice was hushed with surprise. “Oh, no . . .” She teetered, then fell into the snow.

  “No!” Fel scrambled up, rushing to the minister. “Please, no. Please, please . . .” She ripped off her cloak, wrapping it around the javelin to try and stanch the bleeding. Mousebane trotted to her, watching with wide, curious eyes.

  “Help!” Zed cupped his hands and turned around in a circle, searching for any familiar figures. “Callum! Micah!” he bellowed into the blizzard. “Anybody . . .”

  No response came. The city had gone silent.

  “Be quiet,” Threya said. “You’ll just bring more of those things to us.”

  “But why?” Fel asked hoarsely. “Why would you save me? I thought you hated night elves. I thought you hated me.”

  “Tell me, deathling . . .” The minister’s chest rose and fell with crackling breaths. “Do you really think me such a monster? That I’d let a child die right in front of me?” Her eyes were wide and wet.

  “Yes,” Fel hissed. “Yes, I did. As a minister, you spoke against the dro’shea many times. You took every chance to make our lives harder.”

  “To be hated by one so young . . .” The minister closed her eyes and grimaced. “Selby was right. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but you must . . .” Threya’s eyes bulged open again, though she now gazed toward some unseeable distance. “Run,” she rasped.

  “We aren’t leaving you!” Fel said. “Just hold on!”

  “Go now.” Threya’s grip tightened. “Before I become . . . one more weapon . . . of his. Stop the Lich. . . . I beg you.”

  Zed remembered how quickly the sword sister had turned on her own queen once she’d fallen. He took Fel’s shoulder, pulling her gently away from the minister. Threya released her hand without a fight. “She’s right,” he whispered. “We have to go, before she—”

  “I know,” Fel snapped, shrugging his hand away.

  Mousebane rubbed her face against the girl’s leg, mewling. Fel looked down at the cat. She took a deep breath. “I know,” she said again, dismally. “I’m sorry, Zed. Let’s go.”

  They went.

  Zed couldn’t see far through the blizzard, but luckily Fel seemed to know the way. The two trudged side by side, with Mousebane prowling low to the ground. All around them, Llethanyl was hushed, except for the wind and the crunching of their own boots in the snow. They’d had a couple close encounters with crowds of shambling dead, but the blizzard helped to hide them just as well from their pursuers.

  The closer they came to the palace, however, the fewer Dangers they saw. The dead seemed to be giving it a wide berth. Zed wasn’t sure he wanted to know why. Glancing up, he could just make out the variegated towers spiraling into the clouds. It was a wondrous, dreadful view.

  Soon a pillar even larger than the others loomed through the murk, as thick as a city block. It took Zed several moments to realize that this wasn’t another tower but the base of the enormous tree he’d seen from the city’s outskirts.

  “The palace is built into the roots,” Fel explained, taking in his wide-eyed gaze.

  Zed nodded, frowning. “Do you think the others made it?”

  “I don’t know,” Fel said. “I hope so.”

  “We need Micah,” Zed muttered. “He might be the key to ending this.” He cursed himself for not telling Frond when he’d had the chance.

  “Frond ordered everyone to the palace.” Fel pointed to a shape just beyond. “That’s the entrance. And the most likely place they’d all go.”

  Zed squinted, finally noticing the shrouded white archway hidden within the snow. A great tree decorated the front, wreathed by a halo of soaring birds. The doors were slightly ajar. He nodded, and they began trudging closer.

  Before they’d gotten even halfway there, an enormous shadow fell over the square. It appeared without a sound, just a crush of sudden darkness. Zed stumbled back as the shadow descended, and the dracolich landed heavily before the archway. Its impact shook the ground. Zed had to fight to keep upright against the beating of those great wings.

  The gargantuan monster turned its gaze upon them. Even through the snow, its two purple eyes shone brightly.

  “Hasss osss stahvraaaah.” The creature spoke in a ton
gue Zed had never heard before. It didn’t even sound like something a person could produce—equal parts thunder, rattle, and snake hiss. Zed felt the vibration of its voice in his chest.

  “Back!” He reached for his scepter and sent a warning gout of green fire in an arc over their heads. “Don’t come any closer!”

  “Hmmmm. I smell Fie.”

  Zed’s mouth fell open. What had it just said?

  “My master has bid me kill the sorcerer without completely destroying its body.” The dracolich issued a rattling sound from the back of its throat, then opened its mouth. Inside was a nightmare landscape of tongue and teeth. “He wishes to add it to his army. This will not be easy, I think.”

  The creature snaked forward with alarming speed for something so huge. Zed was reminded of the lizards that scurried across Freestone’s cobblestones in the summer. The dracolich lowered its face and peered at them. Its maw was as large as an outtown home. The smell of decay threatened to overwhelm Zed.

  The dragon’s burning purple eyes passed from Zed to Fel.

  “Any others, I may eat,” it rumbled. “Though I do not hunger so much anymore. Perhaps this was meant as an insult. Death has made me slow . . . confused. In my time I was grand.”

  “Let us pass and we can free you!” Zed said, stepping in front of Fel. Slowly, carefully, he drew upon his mana, pooling it into the scepter. “We’re here to stop the Lich.”

  “I know why you have come,” the dragon boomed. “As does he. Your hunt was always misguided. You do not understand your prey.” The dragon reared up again, its muzzle rising several stories. It snorted, and a vivid gush of orange flame erupted from its nostrils. “But the time for speaking is over, I think. Perhaps the flames will leave enough of you behind.” The dracolich opened its mouth, wide enough for Zed to see something spark within its throat.

  He raised his scepter, and threw everything he could at that spark.

  The explosion was unlike anything Zed had ever seen before, larger and more awful than even the blast that had destroyed Mother Brenner. There was a sucking sound like a great deep breath, and then silence, as Zed and Fel were blown from their feet and tossed through the air.

  When Zed came to he was lying in the snow. His clothes smoked. Fel was beside him, and she was saying something, though Zed couldn’t make it out over the high-pitched whine in his ears.

  The fire . . .

  He followed Fel’s finger as it pointed up and away.

  It burns, Zed.

  The dracolich was on fire. It watched them from the center of a circle of meltwater, a black skeleton outlined in emerald flames. But even within all that green, two purple lights shone bright and clear from the sockets of its skull.

  The flames had eaten the dragon’s skin, and eaten it hungrily. The oily mass of shadows that covered it dripped apart, globs burning to ash before they reached the ground. Soon the flames, too, had guttered away, extinguished by the cold.

  The skeleton still remained, grinning calmly at Zed.

  “Interesting . . .” the dracolich cooed. “But not enough, I think.”

  It roared, sending snow crashing from the surrounding towers into the streets. Clouds of it washed over Zed and Fel, choking the air.

  The dragon’s enormous skeletal wings unfolded, the tips disappearing into the mist. It raised a great taloned foot.

  Slowly the snow settled, and in the haze Zed could make out figures filling the streets of Llethanyl. An army of the dead was arriving to block their way out. They were surrounded. Beaten.

  “Seebul.”

  Zed snapped around, searching for the voice that had spoken.

  “Grishta.”

  These were words he knew. He’d heard them just recently.

  Lights began to ripple out from the surrounding figures, filling the square with an amber radiance. They shimmered prettily against the snow, transforming each flake into a sparkling mote.

  The snow suddenly stopped in midair.

  Zed gasped. He reached out to touch one of the suspended snowflakes, and it melted against his touch. Then all the snow followed, water cascading to the ground in a wash of warm rain like a summer storm. In moments, the air was clear and bright.

  And elves surrounded him. Living, breathing elves. Druids filled the square, clad in their indigo robes and all wearing pristine white masks. The Prime Druid stood ahead of the others, carrying an ornate wooden crook topped with blue toadstools. He stamped the staff against the stone avenue. Light rippled from his feet along the ground, and in its wake bursts of green sprouted from the earth.

  Behind the skeletal dragon, the great tree, too, began to shimmer with light. Pink flowers erupted from its branches, filling the air with a sudden, sweet aroma. The tree’s bark brightened, until it glowed so white-hot that Zed had to look away.

  “This light . . .” The dragon’s voice was soft. Covetous.

  The branches of the great tree creaked in a jangling chorus. Then, with a huge crack, one of the boughs reached out and snagged the dracolich’s wing like a grasping hand. The dragon roared. Where the tree’s glowing bark touched it, the skeleton began to sizzle and smoke. The dracolich tried to pull away, clawing against the trunk of the tree, but vines lashed out where it made contact, and moss engulfed the talon.

  One of the druids approached Zed and Fel, helping them to their feet. “Cresca dilane,” the druid said, her voice muffled from behind her mask. She pointed urgently to the archway. Zed recognized the voice of Lanaya, the young druid he’d spoken with at Duskhaven. He didn’t understand her words, but figured he got the point.

  “Fel, come on,” he said. “I think they’re going to hold it off for us.”

  Fel nodded. Her eyes were wide as she took in the assembled elves. “They came. . . .” A huge smile graced her face. “They actually came!” Fel bounded to the young druid. “Savasche,” she said, with real conviction. “Savasche, savasche, savasche!”

  Lanaya laughed and took Fel’s hands in her own. “Al de nos,” she answered warmly. Then she pointed to the archway, her tone serious. “Cresca,” she said again. “Unlat comini.”

  “Time to go,” said Zed.

  “Yes,” Fel agreed. “Time to go save my city.”

  “I really am sorry about this,” Brock said. “So, so, so sorry.”

  “Finally, an apology from the mouth of Brock Dunderfel,” Liza said. “And it’s addressed to the severed head of an undead assassin. Typical.”

  “None of this is typical,” Brock groaned. “Please don’t let this be our new normal.”

  They’d found a shuttered lantern with a circular handle, just big enough, once emptied of wick and oil, to contain the revenant’s head. Now Liza held it aloft as if she were holding any other lantern.

  The revenant had tried its best to kill them, but Brock still felt guilty carrying its head around like this. It felt like making a mockery out of another being’s death, and that sat uneasy with him.

  Then again, it eased his guilt a little that the revenant was such a jerk. It kept gloating about their imminent doom, which was no way to make friends.

  Several long minutes ago, they’d entered a subterranean tunnel, and the immaculate stonework of the crypts had given way to hard-packed dirt. Brock assumed magic had been used to form the tunnel, for its sides were perfectly flat, and plant roots almost seemed to hold the soil in place like a net. As they walked, the roots grew thicker, until the walls were more wood than soil, and Brock realized they were seeing the root structure of the massive tree at Llethanyl’s heart.

  “The Lich will cut out your tongues!” cried the revenant. “Oh, could I but see it. Still, I’ll savor the silence, oh yes.”

  “I think your new friend is telling us to shut up,” Liza said.

  “How is it even talking?” Brock asked. “It doesn’t have any lungs.”

  Liza shrugged. “Magic? All right, the Lich is going to eat our tongues. I guess that means we’re still going the right way.”

  I
n truth, there was only one way to go.

  “Do you feel that?” Liza asked.

  “What?”

  She paused. “I can’t describe it. I feel like something’s happened up there. . . . The sword is buzzing.”

  Brock raised an eyebrow. “How hard did you hit your head before?”

  “Never mind. Come on.”

  “Forward,” said the revenant. “Forward to doom.”

  The tunnel began to incline, and the soil gave way entirely to wood. Brock marveled at how gradually, how organically, one setting transitioned to the next. Eventually they were walking a hallway of polished wood—until the hall came to an abrupt end.

  “Keep going,” rasped the head.

  “I guess you can’t see through all the maggots,” Brock said. “But you led us to a dead end.”

  “Never the end,” said the revenant. “Never dead . . .”

  “Brock, here.” Liza had set the revenant’s lantern down to consider the wall. “I think . . . I think it’s a door.” She rapped her knuckles lightly against it, and the space behind it sounded hollow. But when she pushed, nothing happened.

  “If this actually opens into the palace, it’s probably a hidden door,” Brock said. “Don’t push. Try sliding.”

  Liza pressed her palms to the wall and pivoted. It slid open without a sound. A curtain hung in the recess beyond, blocking their view, but Brock could tell it was a well-lit interior space. “We made it,” he said.

  “So eager,” said the head. “So eager to die.”

  Brock stuck his tongue out.

  “And what about you?” Liza asked. Her voice was husky. “Do you want to die?”

  The head chuckled. “I cannot die. My new lord will not allow it.”

  “But if it were possible,” Liza insisted. “If you had a choice.”

  The head stilled, though the maggots upon it still writhed. It appeared thoughtful—even sad. “I . . . do not . . . There is no choice. There is only the Lich.”

  “Brock,” Liza said. “Look away.”

  Brock considered the curtain. There was a flash of green, and the sound of metal piercing metal. Liza had plunged her sword through the lantern.