by K L Reinhart
“Did elves live here?” Terak asked, for the tree limbs ahead to scrape and scratch together alarmingly.
“Ha!” Kol laughed, as if the forest had told a particularly funny joke. “Hon is older than the elves. Nothing lives here but the wild things.” As the old storyteller turned back to the path ahead, one of the man’s eyes gleamed in some trick of the light, just like a bird’s.
Terak frowned as Kol kept on walking. The older human seemed to know where he was going, although Terak could read no sign or marker that revealed the way.
However, despite this lack of direction, Kol and Terak stepped into a small clearing where there was another of the black pillars surrounded by bleached bird skulls.
Terak got the sudden apprehension that Kol knew precisely what he was doing, just as the old man stooped to carefully pick up one of the tiny bleached bird skulls. He crushed it in one gloved hand.
“Kol?” Terak asked. The storyteller stooped to pick up another and crush it, too. It didn’t look like especially respectful behavior to the elf’s eyes.
The storyteller didn’t say another word as he picked up a third bleached-white bird skull, to crush it just like the others. “I’m sorry, elf,” Kol said. He cocked his head to one side to fix him with one glittering eye, before stepping back from the pillar toward the waiting anonymity of the edge of the clearing.
“Kol . . .” Terak started to growl warningly. Whatever the old man was doing, he didn’t like it. The elf took a step forward to stop the Emarii, only to find that he couldn’t. Somehow, although he was sure that there hadn’t been one before, his soft boot had become completely wedged inside a hoop of an ancient woody root.
Ridiculous . . . Terak raised the other foot to try and step. He found that it, too, was trapped. This time, the thick root had formed a bracelet as thick as his own wrist, completely encircling his ankle.
“What is the meaning of this?!” the elf demanded, seizing up one of the goblin’s curved daggers to bend down—but he paused when he saw the glitter of Kol’s side-long glance at his movements.
I should throw it right between your eyes! The elf thought as he hissed. He also remembered the words of advice that the storyteller himself had given him. Do not harm any tree . . . He paused with the curved blade. By the looks of that root, the elf thought, he would be hacking and sawing away at it for a long time anyway before he broke free.
“Is this a test?!” Terak demanded, straightening back up and slowly raising his hand with the dagger in the air, to show that he had learned it all the same.
“Maybe. More of a precaution,” Kol said. “The Elder Beings are wary of intruders. They want to know that you are the right sort of interloper.”
“I was sent here!” Terak cried out, just as there was a mighty crash from the tree canopy beyond them.
Ixcht! The elf blinked, tried to move his feet, but he was held fast. From the sudden jump of surprise from the storyteller, too, Terak could see that the crashing sound wasn’t a part of this bizarre ritual.
“Kol! Let me go!” the elf hissed, his voice rising as the crashing and thrashing sound drew closer.
“It’s–it’s not up to me!” the storyteller said. Something broke through the canopy to crash into the clearing awkwardly.
It was one of the orcish wyverns. Spilling from its harness and onto the floor rolled an orc. Kol immediately snarled, releasing the loop of black cord of weighted rope from his belt.
“Skreeeeyarkh!”
There was another crash from across the clearing, as another wyvern and orc smashed through the undergrowth, hunting their prey.
18
Forest-Fiend, Forest-Friend
“Kol! Release me!” Terak shouted. His eyes swept from the two snarling, snapping heads of the wyverns to the thrashing and angered orcs, still clearly slashing and beating back the snagging overhanging branches.
“I can’t!” the storyteller said, edging back to the clearing’s edge. He flung one arm forward and released the iron weight at the end of his black cord.
The weighted rope snapped forward across the clearing, cracking the side of one of the wyvern’s snouts with a sound like a thunder strike.
“SKREYCH!” The wyvern flailed to one side, spilling scales and drops of green-black ichor. But the thing, although dazed, was nowhere near dead as it hissed and shook its head.
“Human!” The orc that had been riding it bellowed at Kol, drawing himself up to his entire seven feet of height. In one hand, he held a short one-bladed ax, while in the other, he had a small buckler shield.
CRACK! Kol whirled the lead weight once more in the air of the clearing, bringing it down against the orc, only for the warrior to catch it on one iron-banded edge of the round buckler with a ringing thud. Splinters of wood sprang into the air, and the shield was terribly cracked, but the orc was unharmed as he leapt forward, snarling.
“Ixcht!” Terak took one look at the charging orc, the furious wyvern, and the other orc and wyvern as they freed themselves from the overgrown thorns and branches at the edge of the clearing. Terak hissed in frustration, dropping down to hack at the roots that held his ankle fast with enraged blows.
Don’t care how Ixchting disrespectful it is, Terak growled inwardly, casting glances back to where Kol was trying to dance out of the way, always keeping the black pillar between him and the charging orc.
“Rargh!” With a final smash, one of the roots revealed a heavy cream pulp. Terak dragged one foot out—
Just as the other wyvern and its accompanying orc rider sprang toward him.
The wyvern’s head snapped forward, aiming straight at Terak’s face. But the elf still had one ankle trapped. He ducked to one side. It was impossible to parry such an immense creature!
“Pointy!” screamed the orc rider atop it, already slinging one leg over to approach Terak on foot. There was no way that he could defend against both wyvern and orc with one foot trapped.
“Ack!” The elf heard a grunt of pain and saw the form of the storyteller, Kol, flying backwards into the undergrowth. The orc had shoulder-barged the human bodily with his shield boss.
I’m going to die. Again. The elf dropped to one knee as the wyvern, now freed of its rider, made another snap for him and met empty air where the elf’s head should have been.
Terak chopped downwards at the one remaining root that held him. He felt the blade bite wood, but he was not strong enough to cleave it in two. For a split second, he wondered at whether he should just let the orc chop his foot off with that massive sword—but it was a giddy, delirious sort of thought born out of desperation.
I was born for better than this! The calm terrible poise of the Path of Pain filled him as Terak concentrated. The orc rider had hit the ground, and it would only take one bounding step for that sword to reach him—
Terak waited. He held his body still for a fraction of a second.
You must prepare to both master your pain and win. How you do each is your path. But know that if you fail at one, you have failed at the other. The words of the Sixteenth Maxim were foremost in the elf’s mind.
The wyvern had coiled its neck back to make another darting bite toward his outstretched arm. The orc was at his side, swinging his sword around low, as the wyvern darted forward, high—
“Hyagh!” With his two blades in each hand, Terak threw his body forward—feeling the muscular pull and scream of his ankle. His right-handed dagger hit the orc’s sword, turning it upwards just in time.
Simultaneously, Terak swung his left hand in a hugging roundhouse—to plunge the other dagger straight into the wyvern’s eye socket.
“SKREYCKH!” There was a sudden squeal of pain as the wyvern jolted backwards in agony, with black-green ichor spilling all over the elf.
Terak’s arm felt like it was being wrenched out of his socket. He felt and heard an almighty sudden snap as the small bones in his foot broke. But the corded strength of the wyvern’s neck and back muscles did the job, wrenching Tera
k’s wounded foot free from the root as the elf was flung into the air, one hand still holding onto the embedded dagger.
“Hsss!” The elf hissed in agony as the wyvern shook his head, trying to dislodge both dagger and assassin. But pain was just a sensation, like any other, and Terak forced his legs to wrap around the base of the wyvern’s neck as he twisted the blade deeper.
“Rotfang!” He heard the orc bellow. In the middle of his swinging, thrown confusion, Terak suddenly realized that the orcs named their wyverns. He saw the form of the orc suddenly get closer as the wyvern’s neck thrashed toward his orcish companion. The same orcish companion who was swinging his broadsword upwards to dislodge the troublesome elf attached to his steed.
Terak let go of both wyvern and dagger, falling to the grass and moss of the clearing with a heavy thump as the orc’s heavy blade flashed past him.
And bit deep into the wildly thrashing wyvern’s neck, just under the jawline. The elf rolled, not away from the mortally wounded wyvern and frenzied orc, but toward them, sinking his second blade deep into the warrior’s foot.
“Rargh!” A grunt of pain sounded as the orc flinched backwards. Terak heard the screeching gurgle as the wyvern crashed on the other side of him, and Terak was looking up at the wounded enraged orc, his broadsword slick with his own steed’s blood. And Terak had no weapons in his hands, just the last remaining goblin dagger at his belt—
But orcs were a mighty and strong race, Terak knew. He had seen them be completely skewered with spears and have deep wounds riven straight through them and still fight. The assassin was almost more worried about the orc than he might have been about the wyvern, which at least was a lot less cunning.
Oh, Ixcht . . .
Terak rolled and scrabbled backwards as fast as he could. He had to drag his throbbing foot underneath him, as pain rippled up and down his leg, refusing to obey his mind.
“Grakh!” With a mighty chop, the orc’s blade bit deep into the dirt right between Terak’s legs. The elf fumbled at his belt, finding the hilt of the goblin’s dagger—and the small compartments of the remaining powders and poisons that Father Jacques had entrusted to him, so long ago.
What do I have? But Terak had no time to guess. The orc was already stomping forward.
“Ech!” The elf rolled to one side as one heavy metal-banded orc boot, still with Terak’s dagger stuck through it, smashed into the ground where he had been.
But the elf’s movement had slammed him into the stilled foreleg of the dead wyvern. There was nowhere left to run to now.
Terak tore at the belt, grabbing a handful that contained every paper wrap and lightly-pinned cloth bag he had, and crushed it in his fists. He threw the contents straight up toward the sword-swinging orc.
The collection of powders formed a plume of white mist as they left Terak’s hand, hitting the orc in the face, but also drifting backdown toward him. The elf had a moment to close his eyes and duck his head, holding his breath as he heard the sudden screams and howls of agony above him.
Choke-Powder, Blind-Eye, Skin-Burn . . . It was a heady mix of things that the elf had thrown up at his attacker, and the orc was wheeling and staggering away, dropping his sword as he scratched and clawed at his own face.
Terak saw his opportunity. He pushed himself forward to seize the dropped orcish broadsword. His eyes were starting to burn, and the skin of his face felt like it was being scalded with the hot breath of Grom the First Creature.
To walk the path of Corrections, you must first walk through pain, the words of the very First Maxim of the Book of Corrections. Terak used them to strike the broadsword into the dirt of the clearing, pushing himself up with its support.
“It burns! What did you do to me, elf?!!” the orc screamed, growling and frothing at the mouth. Terak planted his wounded foot on the ground.
His entire leg was so wrapped in agony that it almost had become numb once again. Terak used that pain, as he used the burning powders even now trying to attack his skin. He allowed these hurts to feed his anger and purpose, dragging the orc’s heavy broadsword, almost two-thirds the size of Terak from head to aching foot, into the air. He swung it in a deadly, dreadful arc.
“Hurk?” The orc lost his head. Terak overbalanced and fell to the floor, as the remaining body of the orc warrior stumbled forward and backward briefly, before realizing that it was dead. It fell against the black stone pillar like a sack of potatoes.
“Urgh . . .” Terak groaned, panting as his vision hazed and burned. He could see the edges of the green-and-gold canopy far above him, edged with blue skies.
No. Kol. The assassin forced himself to blink and to concentrate. He wouldn’t let himself faint from this torture. He would fight. He would endure.
With a feral growl, the elf once again used the stolen orc broadsword to push himself to his feet and stumbled on broken foot and sword toward the hole in the undergrowth through which must have crashed the wyvern, orc, and Kol.
Terak was sure that he would find the storyteller dead. How could one man, as old as he was, withstand two such mighty foes?
But I did. The elf stumbled on, hissing with every step as he rebounded from one tree to the next, following a trail of ruined twigs and blood spatters. Not a good sign.
“Human scum!” He heard a snarl up ahead—and there, standing before the prone form of the Emarii storyteller, was the final orc. His shield was now missing, and the heavyset arm that had held it appeared to be useless and smashed at one side. The storyteller with his whip-like weight hadn’t been an easy kill, it appeared.
Of the wyvern there was no sign, but Terak only had eyes on the wounded orc as it drew back its axe for the final, killing blow.
“Oi!” Terak stumbled away from the tree that he had crashed against, wavering on his feet as his vision burned. “You leave that human alone and leave this forest,” Terak hissed. “If you want to live, that is . . .”
The orc swung to confront his diminutive intruder. Blood was running down the side of the warrior’s face where doubtless his thick skull had taken another pounding by Kol’s metal weight.
“Bah!” But then, the orc started to chuckle, and then to laugh as he saw who dared think that they could face him. Terak was wobbling and barely remaining upright. Every step made a crunching sound in the sole of Terak’s foot. The elf’s thigh was still tight and pained from the previous orcish dagger that had impaled him. He had lost a lot of blood in the last couple days, and he barely had any strength left—and the skin of Terak’s face, his eyes, and his nose were on fire with the very poisons and powders that he had used against his own orc attacker.
“What? You think that you can defeat me!?” the orc bellowed with gales of hilarity as he hefted the axe in one hand and gave it an experimental chop in the air.
“All I got to worry about, pointy, is which one of you I kill first!” The orc looked from the groaning and barely conscious Emarii to the elf and then grinned at Terak.
“Neither.” A voice like the crackle of autumn leaves hissed through the woods. Suddenly the final orc gulped and flinched a little.
The orc made a confused sound. Then he looked down at his own chest, at the ichor-smeared point that extended there, thrust straight through him.
“You don’t get to leave this forest,” the voice like leaves and winter winds said. “My forest!”
The point was suddenly, forcefully pulled back from the orc’s chest, before the orc once again coughed, blinked, and fell forward.
Standing behind him was a small creature with long willowy limbs emerging from a mane of black feathers. It had thin legs and wore a sort of armor or tunic made out of the scales of mottled wood.
And the creature’s head was that of a bird with a pointed bone-white beak.
It was one of the Elder Beings. They had come to defend their home.
Terak swayed on his tripod of feet and war-blade as silence filled the darkling space under the trees. The Elder Being cocked its head to its
side to affix the elf with one hard glittering eye.
The elf said nothing, and right now he wasn’t sure what there was to say, apart from “Please help!”
In the Elder Being’s hand, there appeared a short spear made of a gleaming white wood that was whorled and knotted, threaded with silver lines like veins. The creature looked briefly down at the Emarii for a moment, before its side-long glance returned to the weakened elvish assassin before him.
“Elf of the Black Keep. Vardalion who is also the Dagger of this World. I know of you. The winds have whispered of you, of how you are the companion to my maker and friend, Grom,” the Elder Being said in a sighing voice.
Terak opened and closed his mouth, but the pain and the weakness were too much. He stumbled and then fell awkwardly to his knees.
“Hyx—” he breathed. “Hyxalion sent me . . .”
“The Little Sister still has a care for her Older Brother, I see. Where is Grom?!” The Elder Being asked more forcefully.
Terak blinked, tears running down his face as his eyes were still on fire. “I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “But my companions—and Grom—were traveling to the North to face the Blood Gate.”
There was a hiss through the air like a fierce wind, and Terak was scared that he had said the wrong thing, but then the Elder Being spoke once again.
“Not to face the Blood Gate, but what comes out of it,” the Elder Being said, its voice taking on a whistling twittering sort of quality.
“Grom goes to confront his sister, Ung’olut. To defend this world. Our world.” There was the sound of swaying branches from around them, and Terak blinked back tears to see what looked like other shapes moving from the canopy of the trees. In his delirious state, it appeared to Terak as though parts of the trees were reforming, coming alive, and gliding or climbing down from their arboreal homes.
