by RG Long
Ealrin was determined to keep running until his feet fell from his body. But if they kept this pace, that would happen sooner than later. For four days, their party had moved as quickly as they could into the forest. Amrolan and Panto continually warned them against their pursuers. The elf constantly raised himself to listen to the noises of the forest, while the bear sniffed constantly. Though they had to stop and eat and rest, Ealrin was sure that the ones chasing them needed less of both than they did.
He was still trying to understand what had happened. Teresa, Wisym and Elen, the ones they had attempted to rescue from the clutches of the Enoth empire, were under some spell or enchantment that made them attack their friends. That wasn’t too hard to believe, seeing as how he had been enchanted to do terrible things.
Ealrin shook himself to remove that thought from his mind.
It wasn’t his fault. He would never have hurt Jurgon if he were in his right mind. But would he have been able to repel the spell if he had seen it coming? He had seen himself deliver the killing blow. And had been powerless to stop it.
Still, he had no time to consider that at the moment. Now he needed to be quick and to encourage everyone to keep going, even though he wanted so desperately to rest himself.
Roots and trees grew larger with every passing length. They were heading deep into the forest, into its very heart. The forests of Ruyn had been impressive to Ealrin. This was beyond anything he had imagined. Trees that were as round as towers and taller than any he had encountered. Roots that rose far above your head and then dove back down into the earth. And the rocks. Not just any stone, but stones that glowed with faint light and power. Rimstone.
It was wonderful to behold.
But yet.
“I thought elves lived in these woods,” he said out loud on the fifth day of their flight north. They had paused for just a moment to eat. Most of their meals they had with half of them sitting and the other half watching. It was a tiring kind of rest.
Amrolan was guiding them to where his master lived. Who his master was or where exactly they were going, Amrolan didn’t tell them. But Holve said it was in their best interest to trust the elf. So trust they did.
For a moment, the elf said nothing in reply. He patted Panto, who carried Blume on his back. She was riding up there much against her will at the moment. But when she had nearly fallen over with weariness, the entire party insisted she ride. After getting used to the bear’s bulk, she didn’t seem to mind too much.
“I’m worried,” Amrolan finally admitted. “We’ve passed two Wood Walker gatherings. Parts of the forest the elves call home, but I’ve seen and felt nothing. All tracks lead north.”
“Two? I haven’t seen anything,” Silverwolf said, balancing a blade on her finger as she walked. “No dwellings or fires or other signs of camps. Are you sure you didn’t misplace them, long legs?”
Amrolan ignored the last comment, but explained his reasoning.
“You look for signs of destruction of the forest,” he said. “The elves leave none because they are one with the forest. There are other signs you must look for to see. As for tracks.”
He let out a small chuckle.
“I would give you Panto if you could find a single footprint of a Wood Walker in this forest without my eyes,” he said.
Panto grunted and Amrolan put his hand on the bear’s head.
“Not really,” he whispered, so that only the bear, Blume, and Ealrin, who was standing closest to him, could hear.
The smile vanished off of his face as he looked up suddenly. His eyes narrowed and scanned the trees. Ealrin tried to look into the forest to see what the elf could, but knew it would be in vain. His eyes would never rival the longer-lived race.
“Move,” Amrolan said with force and without explanation. “Now.”
The group had traveled like this for so long now that they needed no further command. No bags had been unpacked. No feet had been freed from their shoes. They quickly shoved the leftover dried meat strips and stale bread into their mouths and followed Amrolan and Panto, who had already set a challenging pace.
“There’s one gathering that I want to try before we speak to my master,” Amrolan said as they marched on.
“Are you worried there won’t be any elves there either?” Blume asked over the noise of their party venturing deeper into the woods.
“Not at all,” Amrolan replied. The elf looked up at Blume. Ealrin could see the concern etched into his brow. “I’m worried they’re all there.”
IF EALRIN COULD SEE the suns from under the canopy of the forest, he would have guessed that they had been marching from sunlight until close to sunset. But since his eyes couldn’t penetrate the leaves above him, he could only judge the time of day by the amount of light that surrounded him.
By which, without the experience of a few days, he would have normally said it was midnight.
The only thing that kept him from stumbling upon every rock and root was the eerie glow that emanated from every stone he could see. A soft green light illuminated their path, but only by just enough to cast shadows and guide his careful steps.
“Why does it do that?” Silverwolf asked.
“Do what?” Amrolan asked.
“The glowing thing.”
The party looked around for a bit as they walked on. The phenomenon had not only increased in the past day; there seemed to be more concentrated portions of it here in the deep forest. Ealrin was just as curious as Silverwolf, but the long, hard march had kept him from asking any questions.
“It’s Rimstone,” Amrolan answered, his armor hitting a few branches and making a distinct ringing sound. “It glows with a magical power as it reacts to the elements.”
“I know what it is, clanks,” she shot back. “But why is it glowing? I thought it had to have a Speaker working magic to do that?”
“Clanks?” Blume asked as she looked back at Silverwolf with a brow raised.
“The grown-ups are talking,” Silverwolf said without looking her direction.
Ealrin was grateful Holve cut in before the two could start arguing.
“Rimstone is a living rock,” he said. “It’s not like a normal stone that just lies there. Think of it as a blooming flower instead. It’s petals bud when the suns are out, but it goes dormant at night. The same is true of Rimstone, only instead of reacting to the suns, it reacts to its surroundings. These stones are ancient and untouched by the refining that normally goes into mining the stone. They’ll glow at the slightest whisper of magic.”
Blume let out a deep, steadying breath and several rocks close to her began to glow a little brighter. Ealrin knew she was still working out how her magic was lost and how she could regain it. He looked up at her as she reached for her amulet and held it in her hand for a moment.
Then a blade stuck into the tree right beside Ealrin’s head. He whirled around in time to see a flash of metal coming right at him. The party was in arms and yelling in all directions. Ealrin brought up his blade to defend against the spear that came crashing down on him.
“Go, Blume!” he yelled, putting himself between her and the attacker. Though his assailant wore a helmet, he was certain it was one of his three friends still enchanted. He fought hard but did not seek to deliver a killing blow. The thought tore at him. He could be dueling with Wisym or Teresa or the Wood Walker, Elen. How could he kill one of them?
Holve and Silverwolf fought one armor clad warrior while Amrolan took on another with Panto at his side. Blume was no longer on the beast.
This thought registered in Ealrin’s mind just as soon as the spear butt came into his gut. He doubled over in pain, gasping involuntarily as all the air was knocked from him. It wasn’t a noble way to die, he thought as he prepared himself for the sharp end of the spear.
But it didn’t come.
“Halt!” came a commanding voice.
Still gasping, Ealrin looked up to see that his attacker held her spear at his heart, but did not fi
nish him. Clutching the side of a nearby tree for support, Ealrin stood up straight. He saw the blade that protruded from the trunk and shuddered. He had felt the wind of it on his ear.
“Death is an inevitable reality for all things,” the same voice continued, though Ealrin did not yet see its owner. It sounded both muffled and familiar. Then a black robed elf came striding out of the trees, wearing a silver mask that Ealrin recognized. It was the one who had enchanted him, Holve, and Jurgon.
The one who had forced him to kill his little companion.
He tensed and took a half step forward, but found his way blocked by the spear point. The masked elf looked at him calmly.
“And what death shall you die?” he asked him. “Defending a friend while fighting a friend? How ironic. These are your companions, are they not?”
With a wave of his hand, the helmets on each of the three attackers lifted off of their heads so they could be seen properly. Ealrin was held at bay by Elen. Holve and Silverwolf were facing Teresa, whose blades were trained on both of them. Wisym snarled fiercely at Amrolan. Ealrin had never seen her face look so anguished and enraged.
“Of course,” the elf said, waving his hand and returning their helmets to their heads. “They believe they are fighting entirely different foes than what their eyes should be telling them. A gift from my master.”
He placed his hand on his heart and bowed slightly.
“Since death will come to you all eventually,” he continued. “What type of death shall you die? Defending an innocent, perhaps?”
Another wave of his hand lifted Blume from the ground where she had fallen and, suspended by her shoulders, floated her over to him. Her eyes were wide, but her jaw was set. Fear and defiance all rolled into one.
“You will escape death for this day,” he said, raising her up until she was eye level with him. “You are to return with me to my master. He has something to learn from you.”
Blume was now attempting to struggle out of the elf’s control. Ealrin could see her fists clenched and her arms shaking.
“Who are you?” she asked. “I’ve never thought people in masks could be trusted.”
The elf tilted his head. Ealrin could imagine a smile on the masked Speaker’s face.
“I?” he asked. “I am a fleeting vapor. I am a puff of smoke. In the great dance of life and death, I am nothing. But I serve that which never dies and always grows. I am the Face of the Eternal. I am the slave of death itself.”
Blume glared hard at him for a moment as a cold wind blew through the night air.
“Yeah. Not buying it,” Silverwolf said under her breath, though Teresa’s blade was at her neck.
The masked elf turned to the assassin and, with a wave of his hand, threw her against a tree. He returned his masked face back to Blume, who was still shaking.
“Why do you struggle?” the masked elf asked. “It would be much easier if you accepted your fate.”
Sweat was pouring down her forehead now.
“I’ve never been one to blindly accept my fate,” she said.
Her words were punctuated by a brilliant explosion of green and yellow sparks. Ealrin saw her arms yank from her sides, as if pulled by strings, and then fall just before the blast. He ran forward to see where she had fallen. But Blume ran by him and grabbed his arm, pulling him away from the elf in the mask and the others.
“Run!” she yelled. The group followed her command and bolted from the masked elf.
Ealrin ran as hard as he could. He was exhausted, but adrenaline ran through his veins from that last confrontation. He looked over his shoulder and saw Holve with Silverwolf’s arm over his shoulder. Panto and Amrolan came behind them all. Dust and debris filled the woods. There was no sign of the attackers following him. Ealrin was exhausted and hurt. He couldn’t keep this pace up much longer.
“Over here,” Amrolan called. The group turned to follow his lead. He was heading down into a small river bed that ran through the forest. They ran alongside it for several long and agonizing moments before he called for them to stop.
“Panto and I will stand guard,” he said, panting heavily. “We should refill our water skins and regroup.”
They all were breathing hard. Ealrin gulped down several mouthfuls of water before filling his own skin. After doing so, he looked at Blume and raised his brow.
“Did you do that?” he asked.
Her eyebrows wrinkled in thought.
“I was certainly trying to,” she said. “But I didn’t feel anything. Not like I normally do when I Speak.”
“It was me,” Holve said, leaning on his spear and breathing hard. “And I don’t think I could do it again anytime soon. We had best keep moving.”
Begrudgingly, Ealrin stood and looked to the south from the river bank. Through the tangle of trees and vines he saw a strange glow. It wasn’t green like the Rimstone they had seen for so long. Instead, it was a deep blue, almost purple.
“Amrolan,” he said. The elf was already looking in that direction as well.
He heaved a sigh and then the elf turned to face the group.
“I fear we’ve arrived only a moment before our enemies.”
“You mean the crazies who keep attacking us?” Silverwolf asked with loathing in her voice.
Amrolan turned back to the purple glow.
“No,” he said. “The army of Enoth.”
42: The Battle Outside the Wall
Blume was running full tilt away from two women she greatly respected, one she had sought to save from the Enoth Empire, and a masked elf whose voice she could not get out of her head.
I am the slave of death.
What was that masked elf about anyways? she thought as they continued to run through the woods, guided by Amrolan and Panto. She shook herself to get the image of his mask and sound of his voice out of her head.
She looked around and saw that, unlike earlier when they had been marching through the forest, the rocks they came upon now had a shape to them. It was as if they had once been shaped for a greater purpose than lying on the forest floor.
A loud cry rang out through the forest. Amrolan looked back over his shoulder, Ealrin presumed in order to see if they were being pursued. He held up a hand to stop them. The cry echoed all around them and then became louder. In an instant, it died away.
The silence had not endured long when a bright and blinding green light shot up into the sky from deeper into the forest.
“What in the name of the suns was that?” Holve asked, looking over the head of Silverwolf, whom he still led along by the arm.
“Better have a closer look,” she said as she freed herself from his grip and walked shakily for a few steps before leaning up against a tree.
“You ok?” Ealrin asked her, looking from Blume to the leaning assassin, who was holding her stomach.
In response, Silverwolf vomited.
More cries came rolling over through the trees in their direction. To Ealrin, it sounded like they came from the direction of the light.
“Enemies behind,” Amrolan said as he continued to look behind their group. “And an army ahead. This is what my master feared.”
“He feared you’d be trapped between a rock and a hard place?” Holve asked.
Ealrin noted Blume trying to walk over to Silverwolf and hand her a water skin. The silver-haired woman took it from her without a thanks and cleaned out her mouth twice before finally drinking some. She shoved it back into Blume’s hands without a word.
“No,” Amrolan replied, looking down at them. “He feared bloodshed on a scale Irradan has not seen in centuries.”
“And here we are, powerless to stop it,” Holve replied, resting on his spear. He glanced up at the sky for a moment, and Blume followed his gaze. There was still no gap through the trees. “I wonder if Tory and Gorplin ever made it to warn the elves of the woods.”
Another blast of light came from the direction of the shouting and clamor. This time, the light was a dark blue.
“We’ve got to get around the fighting,” Amrolan said. “My master is beyond. To the north.”
“What about sleeping?” Blume asked, coming back to Ealrin’s side.
“We’ll have to forgo rest tonight, I think,” Amrolan replied. “We’ve already lingered longer than we should.”
With that, he started moving again, not towards the fighting and the noise, but north of it. It felt like an eternity to Blume, who was so weary from the heavy marching and the lack of sleep tonight, but she was sure in reality it was only two hours before she heard a familiar sound. Sniffing the cool air, it smelled of fish and water plants.
“Is there more water nearby? A lake?” she asked.
“The Great Sea lies just beyond the trees,” Amrolan answered. “We’ve come a long way from Horritoft. Once we reach the water we can follow it behind the ancient city and beyond the battle.”
“The Great Sea, huh?” Silverwolf asked, walking on her own now, but gingerly.
“Care to swim some of the way?” Blume asked her.
Silverwolf glared but didn’t respond.
They kept heading in the direction of the sea and the smell grew in Blume’s nose. As soon as they came through the trees to the beach, however, a new smell hit her in the face. The wind had shifted and an orange glow was growing on the horizon. This time, however, it wasn’t the glow of Rimstone or other magic. It was fire.
Amrolan dropped to his knees and a strange gurgling noise came from his throat. Panto came next to him, sniffing the air and putting his massive head next to Amrolan’s.
“No...” he choked. “It can’t... It’s not possible.”
But it was.
Blume could see for herself. Miles upon miles of the ancient forest of the elves was ablaze. The black smoke rose into the night, blocking out the stars. The only sight they could make out in the heavens was a large, orange shape that Blume recognized at once.
“The Dark Comet burns tonight,” Holve said, looking up.
“So does the forest,” Blume said.
It was at that exact moment that they heard a commotion from their east. The masked elf had returned. And with him came Wisym, Teresa, Elen, and an entire company of elven warriors. Their battle cries echoed across the dark waters.
