The Revenge of the Elves (14 page)

“No, but they will in a moment,” Caryssa replied. “Hunters from Sedahar, I suspect. Look at them. I do like the odds though,” she said, slowing down her heartbeat to prepare for what was coming.

Making a sharp turn, the leader of the group looked in their direction, yanking hard on his horse’s reins. Lifting the visor of his helm, he sniffed the air, then shook his head as if disappointed. He raised his sword above his shoulders and growled like the dark beast who’d sent him. They felt the earth tremble, pounded by the hooves of seven huntsmen.

They backed toward each other and moved as one, easily, effortlessly, as the attackers approached. From a conservative distance, the enemy fanned out around them, assessing its prey. Their big warhorses pranced in place, sweat gleaming from their sides in the last rays of the sun. With his whip ended, notched handled siege bow in hand, Fallean drew it to thirty two inches. Releasing the first arrow while they were still far away, it sailed straight and true. With a dull thump it pierced one of the riders clean through his studded collar just above his breastplate, and protruded out the back of his neck. Blood spurted all over the hunter beside him as he toppled to the earth, dead before he even realized what happened.

“Take the big one out,” Caryssa ordered. Her heart pumped and she was sharp and focused. “He’s the one giving orders. Watch me. Now. Now!”

The remaining six approached with caution after their companion succumbed without a fight. They hadn’t anticipated elfin arrows, confident their forged plating and the distance between them would allow them to draw near enough to attack, fools that they were. Staying behind the others, the leader motioned to the man on his left. The hunter dug his sharp heeled boot into the belly of his destrier, his weapon in his right hand, the reins in his other. Rearing, the animal lurched toward Lana, the only one of the three without an obvious weapon displayed.

Approaching rapidly, the earth trembled in his thunderous wake. Lana raised her hand above her head and didn’t retreat. Holding a yellow jewel in her fingers that she removed from its case within her cloak, she stood in the warrior’s way. Twenty yards. Fifteen. Ten. The stone burst into flame. Blinding the horse and the rider with its light, it enveloped them both in a fog of confusion.

“Press together. Quick! I’m moving,” Caryssa said. She somersaulted twice, tumbling forward under the legs of the attacker’s disoriented steed. Rising to her feet in one fluid motion, she swiveled and slashed with her dagger, lopping off the enemy’s limb at the knee. It fell down with the boot toe still stuck in the metal stirrup, dangling grotesquely. The rider yelped in pain, reaching for its severed leg, and before it could turn its spear to attack her, Caryssa leapt up behind it onto the flat back of the animal. She reached across his chest and slit his throat. Shoving the lifeless body off the saddle, she turned to the remaining five and stared at them with her blood drenched dagger raised in the air, dripping scarlet globules onto the horse’s black mane.

The remainder of the enemy charged.

“The pair on the left are mine. Take the two on the right, Fallean. Lana, go for the big one in the middle. Move!” Caryssa ordered, and they sprang into action.

Fallean loosed another arrow, taking down the first of his opponents. The shaft ripped through the leather under his arm. Gurgling frothing blood, he fell. But before Fallean could set the nock of the next shaft to the string, the second attacker was upon him, swinging his heavy blade. He pulled his sword from its sheath and parried the first blow. Sparks flew as the weapons met and Fallean collapsed to his knees from the impact. Turning his horse in a precise circle, the rider came about again, ready to strike, certain Fallean’s slender elfin sword couldn’t withstand a second assault from his own heavier brand. He underestimated the Elfin-forged metal’s strength along with the prowess of its wielder. A fatal miscalculation.

With his gloved hand encircling the hilt, the powerful hunter raised his weapon while Fallean struggled to his feet. Aiming for the center of the elf s unprotected head, he slashed down hard and fast with his sword, ripping through the air.

“Lormarion!” Fallean shouted through clenched teeth while stepping sprightly to the side and disappearing from view, only to reappear a few feet away, his body glowing an eerie blue in the fading sunlight. Spinning around like a dancer on a stage, he watched his enemy’s black metal slice the empty air beside him, as he swung his own sword up and around. The arm of his attacker hit the ground with a thud, its fingers still clutching the blade’s blood-smeared handle. Fallean whirled again and hurled his weapon in the same motion. It penetrated his armor and chest easily, emerging between the shoulder blades, the tip glittering starlike in the darkened sky. The rider slumped face first across his horse’s withers. Reaching up, Fallean pushed him backward, raised his leg for leverage and pulled his sword out of the dead body. Smacking the animal on the rump with its flat side, it bolted off into the distance with its dead master still in the saddle.

Caryssa slid into the saddle after the rider she dispatched hit the ground, and, grabbing the reins in one hand, she pulled hard upon them. The animal reared and she yanked its head while it was still on its hind legs. It twisted in the air and came down facing the two charging assailants, directly in their path. Putting the reins in her teeth, she pulled another dagger from her belt. She rose up in the saddle, balancing on the tops of the stirrups, and raised both of her arms as the enemy bore down upon her. Focusing each of her eyes separately upon them, she hurled her blades.

The hunter on her left gagged as the dagger punctured his windpipe and lodged in his throat, before the second blade hit her other target. He rode right by her, dead in his saddle, his hands clutching the hilt and his eyes wide open. The second blade struck the other one on his left shoulder, not his chest. He shifted sideways, distracted when his partner shrieked, lucky for him. Yanking the blade from his flesh, he tossed it to the ground and rode hard upon her, his sword held in his still good arm. Leaning down, Caryssa pulled a fine string from her boot with a crescent shaped piece of noban attached to it. She threw it sidearm like a boomerang, and it sliced through the air with the speed of a comet, whistling in a piercing tone. Before the rider even reached her, it wrapped itself around his neck a dozen times, the gut slicing clean through the skin just below his metal collar and bringing him to the ground in a bloody ruin.

Lana was the most vulnerable again, with no obvious weapons on her person. The enemy leader approached her, expecting to dispatch her with speed and ease. Raising his visor, he exposed his reddened eyes and leered, then he smiled obscenely at her through a broken row of rotting, brown teeth. His tongue curled and flicked his lips. She stood motionless before him, as if too frightened to move. She focused upon his pockmarked face and waited. Without altering her expression, she reached inside her cape, under her arm, and removed the small, five pointed star from its woven holster. It was cold to the touch and it felt smooth and powerful in her fingers. Her enemy stepped toward her, confident, cocky, his red tongue still licking his swollen lips. From fifteen feet away, she hurled the star sideways and stepped to the right. Making a shrill noise, it accelerated toward him, faster than his empty eyes could see. It lodged in his forehead, penetrating the bone and collapsing his skull, and he sank backward in his saddle. His body flopped and bobbed to one side, as his horse darted into the woods behind her.

Seven assailants, seven dead.

“Interesting feint and jab, Fallean,” Caryssa said, standing up and tucking the tail of her blouse into her suede pants. “I’m impressed.”

“How’d you have time to see me?” he asked. “You were pretty busy yourself.”

“I was, but I have to look out for the two of you no matter what,” she replied. “Good job as well, Lana. You throw the star with a master’s precision.”

“I wish one was still alive so we could find out how many more of them are out there,” Lana said. Walking to the motionless body that lay nearby, she pushed it over with her foot so that it lay face up. Bending over, she put the sole of her boot on its face and retrieved the star with a steady tug. After cleaning it off with the hem of her cape, she replaced it in its holster. The fatal wound was hardly visible aside from the small line of red that framed it, but his eyes were bloody and bulbous. “A painful way to die. Do you think they were looking for us? They seemed surprised when they spotted us.”

“Who else would they be seeking out here?” Fallean replied.

“But the big oaf was let down when he smelled us. I saw his expression change before they attacked,” Caryssa said.

“So did I. When he saw me close up he was disappointed,” Lana concurred. “We weren’t the ones they set out to find, I wager. Let’s search them.”

“I’ll do it,” Fallean said. “Why don’t you two retrieve the rest of our weapons. We should get to Tallon as soon as we can. The sun is almost gone. More of them may be lurking about and they’ll be harder to spot.”

They each went straightaway to work without another word. Retrieving the arrows, blades, and Caryssa’s noban kylie, all were cleaned and put away. One of Fallean’s swallow-tail arrows that had gone straight through his assailant was imbedded too far to withdraw, so Lana broke it off at the head and put the tip only in her pocket. Digging a hole with her heel, she buried the fletching and the remainder of the shaft under a clump of matted grass.

“Look at this!” Fallean shouted from where the leader had fallen off his horse a few yards ahead.

Walking to his side, Lana and Caryssa stood over the prone body and watched. Fallean crouched next to the corpse, holding something about three inches square in his hand. He laid it flat on a plot of smooth ground, and they crouched beside him. It was magenta in color and about a quarter of an inch thick. Its surface was burnished, and it looked like a stone of some kind, but appeared as if it were alive. Some power animated it.

“What is it?” Caryssa asked. “A weapon? Careful, Fallean.” She moved to protect him but he waved her away.

“I’m not certain what it is either,” he replied. “Lana?”

Lana brushed her fingers lightly over it and recoiled. She grimaced and rubbed her hands together.

“Take care. It’s from Sedahar, from the Dark One,” she said, leaning in but cautious not to touch it again. “Hmpff.” She bobbed her head. “Watch.” She removed the gemstone from her pocket that she’d used in the battle. Flaring brightly at her touch, she brought it close to the square stone. The yellow light reached it and the air crackled at the juncture, sending burnt amber sparks popping in their expectant faces. An image formed within the stone, an image of a face, an Elfin face, at first blurred and unclear. Leaning in to gaze upon it, it crystallized before their eyes.

“Alemar of Eleutheria!” Fallean gasped.

Chapter Fifteen

Davmiran sat cross-legged on the grassy hill, behind the north wall of the tower. His eyes were open wide, but they remained as silent and motionless as he was. His hands lay open, upside down atop his knees. Sitting straight-backed, his blonde hair tied behind his head by a simple rawhide cord, and clothed in a white tunic that hung loosely over his thin frame, he seemed at peace with everything. The storms raging beyond the walls of Parth were forgotten.

“Careful Dav,” Robyn said. “If you allow it to grow too large within you, when you release it, it will exhaust you, and whatever you seek to communicate with might be decimated. In those first few moments, the void it would leave would be most unsafe.”

The boy’s face was serene though his eyelids pulsed and his veins stood out on his arms.

“Focus on that bush ahead. Look at it. Look into it,” Robyn instructed him. “But be cautious. When you use your power on something living, you must always do so with the object’s consent. Never forget that.”

Dav turned his head toward the plant Robyn referred to. The light rose up inside of him. It expanded and grew whiter, more intense. Relaxing his muscles, he allowed it to wax freely. His body was warm and his vision sharp, as if he could see through the plant’s surface into its branches and leaves. He recognized when to release it and he let the light welling up in his head flow out through his forehead. Channeling it with great care, it felt as if he’d opened a third eye through which the power escaped. It felt like a part of him, an extension of his own life-force, no different than the words escaping from his mouth. This was just another way of talking, another way of communicating, and he knew how to speak this language as if he had always spoken it. It rolled off the tongue of his soul.

“Good. Very good,” Robyn said. Davmiran was remarkable. He learned so fast and his power was already strong. “You’ve touched it. Now relax and let it answer you. Don’t expect its first words to be comprehensible. Don’t judge them. Don’t value them. They will be primitive, hard to decipher. Mostly, they will be responses to the stimuli of your query, of your touch. But they are words nonetheless, no different than our own.”

Davmiran listened with his entire body. His probe contacted the physical structure of the plant, and it bent away at first, in fear, perhaps, or due to what it likely interpreted as an intrusion. Softening the flow in response, he mimicked the texture of the bush itself, without offending its integrity. He eliminated all sense of a threat and opened himself up, as if unfurling his soul across the vastness of his internal space.

“It has accepted you. It gives way to you,” Robyn said. Amazing. Effortless. His intuition was perfect. “Let it respond. Either it will shut itself off and harden the part of its surface that allows it to maintain its shape, or it will yield and give way to your touch. If it allows you in, move slowly, do not endanger its unity. Ease the light through its pores gently until you feel the harmony. You should feel as one with it soon, not as two distinct objects, separate and apart. If it rejects you, remove yourself quickly. Do not force yourself upon it or it must react. Easy now.” He gave him instructions but Dav would have found his way regardless. His abilities constantly exceeded Robyn’s expectations.

Dav felt the energy surging ahead. His vision shifted and he saw the world from inside the cells of the bush. The perspective was the strangest he had ever known but he didn’t react. He remained relaxed. Totally relaxed. The plant fed upon him, upon his energy, the cells nourished themselves, and it was grateful. He knew it. He felt the gratitude, the comfort of the sharing. He wanted to speak, to tell Robyn that the plant smiled, and though that description made sense to him now as meager as it was, no words could capture the intensity of the encounter. They’d spoken to one another.

Davmiran exhaled, then he blinked for the first time in what seemed a long while. The small bush that stood in front of him was a bit taller and thicker than before he had touched it. After the moment of acceptance, it drew in his power with a ravenous hunger, nurturing itself on the light he offered. Its roots spread into the soil, extending themselves, flush with life, and its branches stretched higher into the sky.

“Excellent. You’ve mastered this with ease. Of course, in battle you wouldn’t have the luxury of quiet and time that you have here with me. And yet it is often patience that is most critical in these situations. Much of what we see in nature has not the sentience to respond quickly to such entreaties, and you can’t rush it or force the object to yield. The defensive mechanism is the first one to respond, and a living thing naturally seeks its own salvation when it’s first touched,” Robyn explained. “But you did well, Davmiran. Very well.” He slapped him on the back in recognition.

Davmiran felt refreshed, not tired, after this exertion. He expected to be weakened by the encounter, but the intimate contact with the primitive consciousness of this plant uplifted him in its own way. The yearning he sensed in it reached beyond its desire to absorb the light he touched it with. The longing had no words and no shape, but it was potent, compelling, inexorable. Davmiran learned to recognize this feeling, and he was gradually coming to believe it was endemic to all that lived, this primordial drive to possess and to conquer thereby, rather than to surrender. He felt more than a desire for self-preservation, more than defensiveness alone. The yearning was for power, primal and pure. Therein lay the root of life. Therein lay the weapon. He was certain that if it could, it would have claimed him for its own.

“It too will fight,” he said to Robyn.