But when he landed on the branch behind the Swarm Claw, he realized that he had jumped too far. He fell on his knees, slipped from the branch with hand outstretched and was in danger of falling. With the greatest of difficulty he managed to get into a squatting position on the shaking branch with the help of his free hand, and clasped the hunting knife with his other hand.
The bird had meanwhile used the time to pull its head out of the hole and turned with a light hop. It seemed to be mocking the young Forest Guardian as he tried desperately to find his balance. The Swarm Claw spread its leathery wings in a threatening manner and swung its razor-sharp beak with lightning quick movements back and forth. Any normal bird would have taken flight at this point but the Dark One was having none of it. Ahren squatted lower and eventually managed to regain his balance, when the Swarm Claw’s beak lunged forward, almost catching his knee. He quickly brought his dagger between himself and his opponent. He forced himself to breathe deeply and fixed the bird with his watchful eyes, swinging the blade in easy circles here and there. For his own part, Ahren was being stared at by one fixed, red eye. The Swarm Claw had tilted its head to one side and was following the movements of the weapon.
And so these unequal opponents watched each other cagily, each ready to pounce on the other’s mistake. The attack on his knee showed Ahren the evil intelligence of the beast. The beak didn’t need to reach his face or his neck. It would be enough if he fell. Many people had fallen victim to the Dark Ones because they had only seen them as wild animals. But the will of the betrayer, who had forced himself on them, meant they were not only larger and faster, but also cleverer and more brutal. And it was these differences that made these creatures so dangerous. Ahren had already experienced this during the fight with Culhen’s mother, and also in the battle with the Fog Cats in Deepstone, but nowhere had he seen this so clearly and intensively as here, on this tree, in this duel of the eyes with a bird that would send him to his death if he made the smallest mistake.
Fifty heartbeats passed by and neither of them moved, only the arm with the knife weaved its defensive dance between them. The bird sat there as if frozen until Ahren had to shift his weight to relieve his protesting muscles. The blade swung to the side for a heartbeat as he turned his foot and suddenly the Swarm Claw was transformed into an explosive hail of beak thrusts. Ahren parried the attacks instinctively but had to endure two painful cuts to his left arm. Neither of them were particularly dangerous but they bled enough to make his knife hand slippery and they would weaken him if the duel dragged on.
The Swarm Claw was stock still again and looking at him with its smouldering eye, waiting for his next mistake. The young Forest Guardian feverishly considered his options, but he just couldn’t think of a way out of this dilemma. The Dark One was just as fast as he was, its small size was an advantage on this narrow branch, and even its beak was slightly longer than his blade, so his longer reach wasn’t an advantage. And he also had to protect his knees, which stuck out towards the bird because of the way he was squatting. The cuts in his forearm were burning, and so he was left with only one option. He would have to stab once with all his might, right into the Dark One’s breast and hope that the Swarm Claw wouldn’t injure him to the point where he’d fall from the tree.
Ahren gathered himself together and sank his doubts and fears into the Void, then tensed every muscle in his body as he prepared for the lunge. His opponent noticed the change and slowly began to spread its wings to go into attack mode. Ahren knew now that the element of surprise was gone so he prepared for the worst and threw himself forward on to the Swarm Claw and towards its terrifying beak.
The bird was about to react but suddenly there was a most terrifying, bloodcurdling howl from the foot of the tree that petrified any animal within a radius of five lengths. Ahren too would have flinched but for the fact that he was already in mid-flight, and so it was only the Swarm Claw that reacted, looking briefly to its side at the howling Culhen. It hesitated for less than half a heartbeat, but that was enough for Ahren’s blade to land with a heavy thud and it bore into the monster’s chest as far as the hilt. The beast swung its beak back but it was too late. Quick as a flash, Ahren let go of the grip and the bird fell from the tree, wildly hacking all around it and trying to hit out with its claws until it fell into Culhen’s waiting fangs and was torn to shreds by the angry wolf. Ahren collapsed onto his stomach, his arms and legs dangling on either side of the branch as he slowly returned from the Void, breathing deeply and trying to calm his shaking body.
He looked gratefully down at Culhen who was busily tearing the Swarm Claw apart. He enjoyed the coolness of the branch on his cheek and the aromatic smells of the forest in his lungs. He silently thanked the Three for the fact that he was still alive, then slowly picked himself up. Faint sounds and a tiny movement in the knothole reminded him that the Swarm Claw had been hunting something. It seems that its victim had survived. He pushed himself forward slowly. He had had enough confrontations with animals while balancing on a branch for one day. He turned his attention to the opening in the tree and he was struck by its frayed, irregular edging. He could see nicks everywhere and it took him a moment to understand what he was looking at. The Swarm Claw had widened the opening with its beak so it could push further inside. The actions of the monster were proving to be ever more peculiar and Ahren hoped that it hadn’t been infected with a disease, now that a large part of it had ended up in Culhen’s stomach.
He glanced down and saw that his friend was rolling around in the grass, trying to get the blood off before patiently starting to lick his fur clean. He then directed his attention back to the mistreated knothole and peeked carefully into it. Two curious eyes above a few shivering whiskers looked back at him. In front of him was a chipmunk with a nasty gash on one side of his fur.
An elf chipmunk, Ahren silently corrected himself. The fur was white, the stripes and eyes, silvery. She, who feels had a weakness for this combination of colours, thought Ahren, amused. The little animal made angry noises at him and he placed his uninjured hand, which had no specks of blood, carefully into the hole so that it could become familiar with his smell. He wasn’t sure how bad the injury was and there was no way he was going to leave the animal there to die after he had just risked his own life in his fight with the Swarm Claw.
He decided he would leave out the chipmunk when he reported back to Falk and concentrate instead on maintaining the secrecy of their whereabouts as his reason for killing the Dark One. That sounded much more heroic and there would be less likelihood of his master and Uldini collapsing into fits of laughter.
The chipmunk sniffed around at his hand, then jumped without hesitation onto his palm and curled up. Ahren raised his eyebrows in surprise.
‘Are you somebody’s pet?’ he whispered quietly. He slowly drew his hand back and looked down at the tiny animal. It was difficult to examine him up here and it was hard enough to climb down with an injured arm, let alone holding a chipmunk as well. With soothing sounds he placed the animal in the inside of his jerkin and began his slow descent. His injured arm was painful and the blood made the tree slippery, and he couldn’t lean against the tree-trunk for fear of squashing the chipmunk. It took him ten times longer than normal to get to the forest floor and by the time he got there he was bathed in sweat.
Culhen was waiting for him with his tail wagging, and began sniffing at his jerkin excitedly. Ahren couldn’t help smiling and gently pushed his head away.
‘Leave the tiny tot alone. He’ll hardly want to see an over-enthusiastic Blood Wolf after being attacked by a Swarm Claw’.
Culhen sat down on his hind paws and gave the young Forest Guardian a reproachful look. Ahren became serious, went down on one knee and pressed his head into his friend’s furry shoulder.
‘Thank you for your help’, he murmured. ‘You saved my life today’.
Cuhlen turned his head and licked his master’s face, then pressed his nose into Ahren’s jerkin again. The
young man shook his head and turned away, rolling back the torn sleeve on his injured forearm.
‘Here, stop frightening our guest and make yourself useful’. Ahren held his cuts in front of the wolf, who sniffed at them for a moment before beginning to lick Ahren’s forearm and hand clean. The animal’s tongue burned like fire but Falk and he had made the amazing discovery in the previous few months that Culhen’s saliva had a cleansing effect on cuts and abrasions. Blood Wolves had a reputation for recovering quickly from wounds but nobody had known how exactly they did it. His master was amazed to learn that there was something as profane as medicinal saliva. Culhen finished his work and began once again to sniff for the chipmunk. Now that his injured arm had been taken care of, Ahren reached carefully into his shirt and took out the shy animal, indicating to Culhen with his other arm that he should keep his distance. He held the chipmunk in front of his face and examined the cut he had noticed above in the animal’s flank. There was one good thing about the Swarm Claws’ razor-sharp beaks. The cuts were clean and the wound edges even. Normal claws would tear and fray the skin making treatment much more difficult and they would take longer to heal. A quick glance at his arms revealed that his wounds had already been transformed into fine, red lines, and a thin crust was beginning to grow on them. Culhen’s saliva seemed to thicken the blood somehow, which enabled them to close up sooner. But that was as far as it went. Now the wounds had to continue to heal normally.
Ahren turned his attention back to the little animal in his hand. It was lying on its uninjured side and seemed to be very weak. All of its left side was soaked in blood. The cut was not deep but very long, from its hind leg up to its left ear. Ahren chewed the inside of his cheek uncertainly while he considered what to do next.
He then spoke in a determined and urgent voice.
‘Culhen, listen to me now. You won’t eat this little fellow, will you? I know he looks really tasty but it would be terrible to rescue him first only to gobble him up later, don’t you agree? But you can sniff him and give him a good lick, what do you think?’
The Blood Wolf had tilted his head sideways and his eyes hadn’t left the chipmunk while he licked his chops. The young Forest Guardian hoped that his friend would react at the very least to his stern tone of voice. He slowly put his protective arm to the side and held the injured animal in front of Culhen’s mouth, still speaking to the Blood Wolf. If Culhen’s saliva didn’t seal the wound, then the little animal would die anyway, so it was worth the risk. Ahren had always asserted that the Blood Wolf understood more than simple commands even though Falk was sceptical. Now he’d find out if he had been right. The wolf sniffed at his potential prey and licked his chops again. Ahren spoke in a sterner voice and finally his friend’s head shot forward and sank over the helpless animal. The pink tongue, just as big as the rodent, licked the stripy body a couple of times and then Culhen sat back on his hind legs and looked up at Ahren with his head tilted.
‘Good wolf!’ cried Ahren and tickled his friend euphorically behind the ears, while still looking at the little patient. The animal was either sleeping or had fainted in panic, but the cut looked good and the blood was already coagulating. He would have to nurse his patient back to health for one or two days perhaps, but then he would be able to let him loose in the wild again with a good conscience. Ahren stood upright, stroked Culhen’s head again and headed back along the path towards the village.
The walk back was exactly as he imagined his entire stay in a protected elf forest would be. The singing of birds and the fluttering of leaves filled the air, a multitude of smells enlivened his steps and the soft forest floor turned the walk into a most enjoyable perambulation. The peace which he had felt inside him on their arrival was back again and Ahren noticed that he had taken the longer walk through the forest , which led to the ramp bringing them to the guest quarters. He wanted to get changed anyway before meeting up with Falk and his little stripy friend urgently needed something to eat in order to regain its strength. He came to their dwelling with the sun well past its zenith and he knew that Falk would be getting impatient. He quickly put on a new jerkin as well as his leather armour and also took his bow, swearing to himself never again to leave the weapon out of sight, just because he thought he was in a safe place. His encounter with the Swarm Claw would have been over in two heartbeats if he had had his bow with him.
He opened his rucksack with a shake of his head and set about making a little nest out of his ripped shirt, which he put on top of his other things. He carefully laid the sleeping chipmunk inside and closed the rucksack again but without pulling the straps so that enough light and air could get in. As long as Ahren walked at a leisurely pace and didn’t start to run with the rucksack, the little fellow would be warm and comfortable inside, and once he was strong enough he could dart off whenever he felt like it. Ahren went over to the fruit bowl and scrabbled around until he found some nuts that had gathered at the bottom of the bowl. He laid them beside the chipmunk’s nose, carefully closed the rucksack again, put it on his shoulders and went out into the sunshine. Pleased with himself, he hummed a tune and tickled Culhen’s fur absently and wondered to himself where they would be going next. The guest lodgings had been emptied of everything except for his own belongings which meant that the others had collected their things already. So Falk wasn’t reckoning that they would be returning there again. Now that he knew the way it wasn’t long before he was back on the central platform, where new groups of elves were now practising their trades. Ahren could see many of the mornings’ trade people slumbering peacefully on the floor. A vase was being created in a very impressive way beside where he was standing and he wanted to watch the whole creative process when he heard a sharp harrumph behind him. He spun around and there was Falk, his hands in fists on his hips and a face like thunder on him. There was no doubting his disapproval.
‘Finished dawdling?’
His master really angry and Ahren decided to play his trump card there and then.
‘Culhen flushed out a Swarm Claw and I had to kill it before it could lead the other ones to us’, he answered quickly.
Falk narrowed his eyes, his anger vanished and immediately he was in a state of high alert.
‘We’d better discuss this in peace and quiet’, he said and with a hand gesture indicated to his apprentice to follow him. The old man led Ahren silently to look for a free place. They walked through groups of craftspeople who were working at their trades without seeming to follow any recognizable pattern. Finally Ahren saw the rest of his companions standing at the other end of the platform and looking at them expectantly. Ahren corrected himself, all of them except for Selsena. The Titejunanwa was visiting her herd as long as they were in the forest, and maintained constant telepathic communication with Falk.
Falk indicated to the group that they should follow him and so they silently descended the ramp and went a little further into the forest, the others continually throwing questioning looks at him and Ahren.
Finally it was all too much for Uldini who stopped in his tracks. ‘Alright you secret-monger, what’s happened?’
Falk stopped too and turned around to the group. ‘Perhaps Ahren should first explain calmly what he’s experienced’, he said thoughtfully and looked at the young man hopefully.
Ahren quickly recounted his encounter with the Swarm Claw and how he had slain it with his hunting knife while balanced on a branch and how Culhen had helped him.
After he had finished, Jelninolan gave him a supportive and congratulatory smile while Uldini patted Culhen’s back and murmured, ‘well done, my boy’.
Falk stared at his apprentice for a few heartbeats and then responded. ‘You have a tendency to master a situation in the riskiest manner one can possibly imagine. We’ll talk about that later. However, your decision not to let the Swarm Claw escape was correct. In fact, a whole swarm of the beasts came into the elf forest last night. The elves plucked them all from the sky, or so they thought. One of them m
ust have given them the slip. I just don’t understand why a whole swarm of Swarm Claws was sacrificed in order to determine our location. An attack in the elf forest is bound to fail. We’re too well protected’.
‘You forget that He is in a deep sleep. His orders were probably quite imprecise’, interjected Uldini.
Falk nodded hesitantly. Even if he wasn’t quite convinced, he let it go at that. ‘Be that as it may, we have to collect Tanentan, and then we need to move on’.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Ahren curiously. At last he was going to find out more about their next step.
‘Not who, but what’, answered Jelninolan. ‘It’s an artefact of our goddess. In your language the name, roughly translated, means ‘the soundless lute’. Our legends have it that She, who feels taught the first elves with the help of Tanentan how they could live in unison with the world’.
Uldini joined in. ‘The lute can manipulate feelings. I have a less romantic theory that the first elves were brought under control that way, until they had learned how to master their strong emotions. But the result is the same either way’.
Jelninolan gave Uldini a withering look, but the master magician rose in the young Forest Guardian’s estimation, for he hadn’t flinched when she had looked at him. Nevertheless, the little figure became silent and winked at Ahren instead.
‘The problem is’, continued Falk, ‘that Tanentan was brought, by command of the Voice of the Forest, to a safe place, which happens to be the Weeping Valley’.
Uldini groaned and rolled his eyes which made look for all the world like a nine year old boy. He saw the questioning look on Ahren’s face and explained, ‘the Weeping Valley is the place where He, who forces first brought an animal under his control and corrupted it. Where the first Dark One was created’.
‘The goddess was beside herself with rage and sorrow’, continued Jelninolan. ‘In spite of her deep sleep she furnished Eathinian with the protection that it has enjoyed to this day and ordered the elves to protect every animal living in the forest. The valley has lain shrouded in a light mist since that day and nobody is allowed to enter it. Unless the Voice of the Forest has given permission’.
Ahren- the 13th Paladin Page 31
