She focused on the humans. Her body tensed and her hackles rose. Prey.
Serrin stroked her flank and rested a hand on the top of her head. Rain began to fall. It was heavy and the darkness of the cloud cover suggested it would be prolonged.
Soon, he pulsed.
‘I hate this.’ Jeral stared up at the sky, revealed now that the trees had been cleared back from the river bank in a growing swathe cut into the forest. He shouldn’t have bothered. Though it was daytime, the mass of black cloud had obscured any hint of sunshine or warmth, leaving the world grey and dismal. ‘I just fucking hate this.’
‘Well, that’s good to hear. Again. Because having counted almost as far as ten since you last opened your fat mouth to moan, I thought you’d changed your mind, I really did.’
Jeral glanced to his left. He couldn’t see Nuin’s face. The mage was staring at the logging operation, his features hidden by the deep hood of his cloak. His hoarse voice was just audible over the sound of rain hammering on the deck of their barge, spattering off Jeral’s bald head and the leather of his high-collared coat.
‘Well, you don’t have to be scared, do you? One whiff of them and you can just fly off.’
Nuin turned to him, his features still hidden but this time by the gloom of the day. Jeral could just about see his mouth move and the dark gleam of his eyes.
‘You really think I’d abandon you?’
‘I would,’ said Jeral.
‘You worry too much.’
‘Really?’
Jeral gestured beyond the stern of the barge. They were anchored midstream, flanked on either side by similar barges. A net was strung between the vessels, holding back the growing mass of logs harvested from the forest. This stretch of the River Ix had been chosen for its particularly sluggish flow but, even so, the mass of wood floating in the water worried Jeral.
On land a working party of a hundred and five Sharps felled timber as slowly as the whips and threats of their guards allowed. The Sharps never spoke. Their eyes, though, spoke enough. A crime was being perpetrated here and they were complicit in it. Jeral didn’t get it. Big forest, countless trees; a few hundred less was like taking a single drip from the Southern Ocean, and he was bored to tears by their endless bloody praying.
‘Yes, really,’ said Nuin. ‘Three days, no sightings. They don’t know we’re here.’
‘They don’t know we’re here yet.’
‘You’re such a pessimist.’
‘And you’re just an idiot. By your reckoning, the longer we stay here, the more likely it is they’ll never find us. Me, I believe the opposite. That’s why I fucking hate it here. Not because of the rain, but because anytime, anytime, they could appear and slaughter us all.’
‘But they don’t, do they?’ said Nuin. ‘They just watch. It’s been like that for decades. Since—’
‘I am well aware of Ystormun’s interesting reprisal rules, thank you. But you feel something’s changed, don’t you?’
Nuin shook his head. ‘Frankly, no. It’ll be like every other time. They’ll show up, posture a bit and we’ll pack up and move on when the Sharps get too twitchy. It’s a big forest and it’s a very, very long river.’
The rain thrashed across the deck of the barge. Jeral stared at the Sharps again and for a moment he was in sympathy with their mournful expressions. The sounds of axes hammering at the base of another trunk fell into rhythm with his heartbeat, or so it seemed. It was mesmeric. Then an order was barked out by one of his men, followed by a shout of warning.
With attendant cracking, splintering, rustling and rushing, the great tree fell, toppling to land with its crown in the water. The thump of the trunk hitting the ground reverberated across the river, spray flew up in a shroud and ripples rocked the barges at anchor. A team of Sharps moved to divest the tree of unwanted greenery. The sound of multiple small axes striking wood filled the air.
One more down. One more towards the moment they could leave. Jeral shuddered. Even then their safety was hardly guaranteed. It was a long slow trip to the logging station built to the south of Ysundeneth, at least two days on the river – and all the while prey to the TaiGethen should they choose to break their decades-long abstinence from slaughter.
‘Never mind prey, think I might just pray,’ muttered Jeral.
‘What was that?’
‘Nothing, my magical friend. Just a hilarious play on words designed to kill the merest fraction of time.’ Jeral stared into the sodden gloom of the rainforest. ‘I just fucking hate this.’
The sky darkened further. The rain intensified. Jeral closed his eyes while the water slapped onto his skull and poured down his face. He shook his head, wondering if it could really get any worse. He opened his eyes again to see Nuin’s pained expression. He found it lifted his mood just a tiny bit.
‘Guess how close I got to ten, that time,’ said Nuin.
‘Amaze me,’ said Jeral and found himself smiling.
A shadow flashed across his vision and Nuin was gone. Jeral stumbled back a couple of paces, registering the panther’s roar. Nuin had been carried right into the middle of the deck. The panther was on top of him. Jeral saw its claws rake and its jaws bite down hard. Blood spurted from Nuin’s neck.
Jeral shouted to distract the animal, drawing his sword and advancing across the deck though he knew he was too late. The panther turned its head towards him, bared its fangs and sprang away. Jeral tracked its movement, watching it skip across the treacherous log jam and back to the river bank.
Jeral looked back at Nuin. ‘Why you?’
The river bank was cluttered with humans and elves. All easier, closer targets, none of whom seemed to know what had just happened. And Nuin had just been, well, executed for want of a better word.
Jeral looked back towards the panther. The animal had stopped at the edge of the forest not fifty yards away, where the trees met the river on the border of the cleared land. An elf stood there, at least Jeral assumed he was an elf.
His face was painted half white. The other half was covered in piercings and tattoos. His ears and nose were pierced, his teeth filed to points as were his fingernails. His body, naked but for a loincloth, was densely stitched with tattoos.
Jeral, rain beating on his head and leathers, shivered. The elf opened his mouth and uttered a guttural cry. It was taken up across the forest surrounding the clearing and the roars of panthers joined it. As one, the Sharps downed tools and gathered together, kneeling in prayer.
Jeral went cold. He began to run, vaulting over the rail and onto the treacherous logs, which rolled and sank beneath his feet, heading for the river bank. That panther had taken Nuin out because he was a mage, and because he’d been separated from the others. It was a ridiculous notion but he could find no other explanation.
‘It’s an attack! Guard the mages. Get to barge one now!’
Tall, white-painted and tattooed elves melted out of the forest. Each had a panther by his side. At a single call, they began to run. Fast. Impossibly fast, to Jeral’s eyes. He watched them break, elves and panthers streaking towards their targets.
‘It can’t be,’ he breathed. ‘It can’t be.’
Jeral’s feet hit the river bank.
‘Barge one. Run!’ he yelled, sprinting along the shore towards the muster point. ‘Get the mages behind you.’
His message wasn’t getting through above the tumult of the downpour. No one else could see it: the panthers and elves were working together. It was like they could read each other’s minds. Jeral ran past the barge towards a knot of soldiers surrounding two mages. They were standing still.
‘Move! Back away,’ he ordered. ‘To me.’
A panther roared and attacked from the right. It leapt at the head of one warrior, bearing him back into the knot of men. Three went down, three still stood, disoriented. Two of them were mages. A second panther was coming from the left flanked by two elves.
‘Cast something, damn you,’ Jeral roared.
Jeral shuddered and slowed. He was only ten paces from them and he was already far too late. The three on the ground were already dead. A second elf grabbed the surviving mage by the sides of his head. As the mage wailed, begging for mercy, the elf tipped his head back and buried his teeth in the exposed neck. Blood fountained into the dark sky.
Jeral cried out, he couldn’t help it. He cast around for more survivors. He saw a mage and warrior running towards the forest, chased by an elf and panther pair. He had to watch, couldn’t drag his eyes away, as the panther pounced on the warrior, jaws grabbing the base of his skull and front paws thudding into his shoulders. The elf ran on another pace and leapt into the air. He cycled his legs, reached out with one long arm and lashed his needle-sharp nails down the back of his victim’s neck. The mage fell face first into the mud, twitching momentarily, and it was over.
Jeral turned again, a full circle this time. His breathing was ragged and he couldn’t keep the heat from his face or the thundering from his chest. He gasped in air. The rain was getting lighter. The ground was covered in bodies, drenched with blood mixed with water and mud, and the last of his men had been slaughtered.
There was nowhere to run.
Jeral backed away towards the river. Maybe if he jumped in . . .
Elves and panthers watched him dispassionately. All but one pair disappeared back into the forest, ignoring the elves they had presumably come to save. One pair remained. They walked towards him. The elf, his teeth and fingers glistening with fresh blood, had one hand on the panther’s head. The animal was growling deep in its throat.
Jeral felt water swirling around his feet and heard the splashes of his boots in the shallows. He stopped; it was pointless to attempt an escape.
‘Please,’ he said in elvish. He dropped his sword. ‘Please let me live.’
Jeral had never thought of himself as a coward but the notion that he might attack this solitary pair to avenge his command never entered his head. The elf stared at him and closed to within a pace. Jeral’s nostrils were filled with the scents of blood and beast. He knew he was trembling. It took all of his courage to hang on to his bowels.
The elf reached out a hand, slowly and deliberately, gripping Jeral’s lower jaw. His fingernails cut Jeral’s cheeks and the pressure he exerted grew painfully intense. He pushed his face into Jeral’s. Jeral could feel his raw power and the enormity of his hatred.
‘We are ClawBound,’ he said, his voice hoarse and quiet. ‘Fear us.’
The elf relaxed his grip and released Jeral, letting his fingernails scratch deep into Jeral’s cheeks. Jeral felt the blood begin to gather and bead.
‘We will come. We will destroy you,’ he said, finding a modicum of bravado if his life was to be spared.
The elf cocked his head. ‘You are mistaken.’
They walked away back into the forest, which Jeral continued to watch long after they had disappeared. One last time, he let his gaze travel over the scene of slaughter. He tried not to focus on the dead. A hundred yards from him, the Sharps were still praying. Not one of them had moved.
Jeral shook his head. He felt sick. He turned back to the river, its barges and its nets full of logs waiting to float downstream. He wondered, bleakly, how hard it would be to steer a barge alone.
Chapter 5
They are either examples of elven perfection and purity, or are symptomatic of our descent to inevitable extinction. They could very well be both.
Auum, Arch of the TaiGethen
Auum lifted the human’s head from the mud by his hair. He examined the wounds and let it drop. He wiped his hands on his thighs and stood up.
‘Five,’ he said. ‘Malaar?’
Malaar straightened from the body he’d been examining. He nodded.
‘One more,’ he said. ‘But that’s all.’
‘Six ClawBound pairs,’ said Auum, walking towards him. ‘And look what they did. This was no battle, it was butchery. Follow their tracks back into the forest, see if there’s a single direction or if they split.’
‘Or we could ask them.’
Malaar indicated the elven working party. Auum didn’t know whether to feel pity or contempt for them. Three hours and more must have passed since the ClawBound attack and the liberated elves still sat by their axes and the desecration they had been forced to wreak on the rainforest. They were watching the TaiGethen with a wariness that was close to suspicion.
‘I’ll speak to them,’ said Auum. ‘Follow the tracks. Tell me what you find.’
‘Auum!’
Auum turned. Elyss was staring down at the ground on the river bank. The hulks of barges sat in the water, ugly and with nets still bulging with stolen timber. Auum trotted over to her across the blood-soaked churned mud surrounding the multiple mutilated corpses.
‘What have you got?’
Elyss crouched and indicated a line of impressions in the silt leading north along the bank. After three hours, rain and river had erased most of the tracks but the story they told was clear enough.
‘They let one go,’ said Elyss. ‘He can’t be far away.’
‘Serrin, what have you done?’
‘We can still catch him. Stop word getting back to Ysundeneth.’
Auum looked at the three barges stretched across the fast-flowing river. Two had rowing boats strapped to their sterns. One did not.
‘He’s a lot further away than you think.’
‘We have to stop him. Don’t we?’ asked Elyss.
‘It won’t stop what’s coming,’ said Auum. He stared into the forest, his sense of frustration growing. ‘Our efforts would be better spent stopping the ClawBound repeating this. Though, Yniss knows, part of me has no desire to hold them back.’
Auum stood up, his gaze falling on the elves gathered near the eaves of the forest. Their prayers of lament had been like a murmur through the forest, leading the TaiGethen to this scene of carnage. They had not turned from their prayers in the time Auum and his people had been picking over the site.
Auum walked to them, for the first time listening to the words of the chant. He frowned. It was a lament for the lost. The ClawBound would not have so much as scratched an elf, so who was lost? Auum glanced over his shoulder at the flies clouding over the bodies now the rain had ceased. Surely not for their captors?
One elf, an Apposan by his broad back and muscular arms, was leading the service. Auum knelt by him, laying a hand on his shoulder and pressing the other to the mud.
‘Yniss blesses you and saves you for greater tasks than being the slave of man. You need not mourn them, no matter what they may have become to you.’
The Apposan turned his head but he would not look Auum in the face, keeping his eyes a little to the left and focused down at the TaiGethen’s shoulder level.
‘Humans defile the rainforest even in death,’ he said. ‘Their blood will poison our river. We do not mourn them. We mourn those this attack has condemned.’
‘Is it really so certain?’
‘Ten elves will die for every man lying here.’
‘Ten?’ Auum heard Elyss gasp behind him. ‘I am truly sorry we were too late to stop them.’
The Apposan nodded. Silence had fallen across the clearing. Auum lifted his head with a hand placed gently under his chin.
‘You can look at me,’ he said softly. ‘I am no human. I am Auum, Arch of the TaiGethen. And you are free, all of you.’
The elf shook his head. He had a powerful frame but his face held the stress of his captivity and the wrinkles on his face and thinning dark hair gave him age beyond his years.
‘I am Koel. I speak for this gang and we are not free. We will never be free.’
Auum pushed
back so that he could see Koel’s eyes. A hundred and fifty years of captivity had beaten his will down to nothing but there was still something there that man could not kill.
‘You’re going back,’ said Auum quietly. ‘Aren’t you?’
Koel nodded and dropped his gaze to the ground once again.
‘You can’t!’ Elyss stepped up, her voice shockingly loud in the quiet before the rains came again. ‘You’re free. You can join the fight. Liberate your comrades!’
Koel looked back at Auum. ‘There have to be some left alive to liberate.’
‘How many will they kill?’
‘They kill ten for every one of us that escapes. Elves dragged from the pens and strung up in the Park of Penitence. Our people are eviscerated and left to die with the lizards, rats and birds feasting on them. The old, the sick and the weak go first. Those of us who can’t see them can smell them. So no one tries to escape. We must not.’
‘Then what are you doing?’ asked Auum, flicking a hand gesture at Elyss to stop another outburst. ‘How are you fighting to liberate yourselves?’
Koel shrugged. ‘We’re waiting for you, the TaiGethen. Only you can save us.’
Auum had never felt so humbled. He let his head drop while he composed himself, then stood so he could take in the whole slave gang.
‘Your honour and your strength take mine from me. You are the reason that the TaiGethen work every day to rid Calaius of man. No elf may rest until mankind is gone. Your task is to stay alive. Ours is to free you. You have the respect of the TaiGethen. You have my promise that we will fight to free you until the day Shorth takes us for other tasks.
‘But today we have an opportunity. Malaar, Elyss, a fire and hot food. Raid the barges or hunt for meat for our brethren. Koel, walk with me. Talk to me.’
So Koel spoke as they walked. And Auum listened.
Elves: Rise of the TaiGethen Page 4
