A New World

by Brendan O'Neill

  “The United States,” I returned in resignation.

  “I thought I was familiar with all the human empires,” she scoffed. “Humans breed so much like rabbits, they require a whole new empire to house their numbers!”

  A round of chuckles arose from the conscious elves. Except the two casters. The old elf didn’t laugh, but he didn’t stop the growing confrontation either. Melina, however, did speak.

  “They’re not like the humans here,” she huffed at the woman. “I met them on my exploration of their realm. While I can’t speak for all of their realm, these two are not like the humans you’re used to dealing with.”

  “Truly?” the elf woman asked, disbelief clear in her voice. She sat up to glare at Melina. The woman was beautiful, even with that old, angry scar. Her lavender eyes burned into Melina. “So the humans from that realm don’t destroy their environment and each other out of greed or spite?”

  Melina sat up level with the woman, but couldn’t meet her eyes. “Many do,” she said quietly. Then her voice rose in defiance as she pointed at us “But not these two. I’ve been in their world for decades. They have good hearts.”

  “That may be,” the elf woman said, her voice low and venomous. “Or perhaps your perspectives have shifted somewhat. Perhaps you have been tainted with their sadistic human ideals.”

  Melina’s eyes flashed and she leaned forward dangerously. Her mouth opened to speak but another voice cut her off.

  “Perhaps your perspectives have shifted as well.” Every head turned at the sound of ancient elvin wizard’s voice. “Or have you forgotten not every human on this world subscribes to their baser natures. The human druids for instance.”

  “They are the reason that the liskoja are here!” she growled pointing at us.

  “No!” Melina said. “It’s the fault of the fairies. They were supposed to bring me to the Weald’s Lei Point, not the swamp’s.” Both women laid back down, fuming and each staring at one of the many half inch wide holes that had opened in the vines.

  The show over, all attention turned back to the walls. We could see the lizards push and claw at each other through those many gaps, struggling to get an eye at one of the wall’s holes. Dozens of singular yellow eyes inspected the contents of the fortresses interior. There was no denying those beasts would be inside soon. Despite exhaustion and injuries having taken a severe toll, I and the elves pushed weakly to our feet for our final moments.

  I moved to a hole in the floor that was about an inch wide. When an eye appeared, I thrust with my sword. A horrible shriek followed by a thump issued from below and my sword came away with fresh blood.

  A lizard’s arm suddenly burst through the blockage at the stairway, accompanied by a host of energized howls from the creatures. They attacked the vines with a renewed vigor, and losing that arm to an elvin blade did nothing to temper their drive. Within a couple minutes liskoja arms, legs, and even heads were breaking through the protective vines throughout the fortress. We hacked and slashed, lizards dying by the droves, all the while the holes in our vine barriers growing wider. Blood dripped from the ceiling and poured down the walls like a horror movie.

  One elf went down when a lizard managed to force its body further through a narrow gap than he’d expected. He fell screaming, long parallel gashes through the chest of his lamellar armor. It was writhing to push itself all the way through when the elf woman with the scar on her face rushed in. Her blade flashed and its lifeblood sprayed from its throat.

  Holes in the vine walls were much larger now, but the bodies of slain lizards helped to act as stoppers to keep others out. Two lizards were trying to force their way past a corpse in the wall next to me. Their bodies were crushed grossly together in the hole, but they didn’t seem to notice any discomfort as they squirmed past. One of the beasts slashed open my left arm, but lost its life when the blade in my right drove into its chest. The other joined its partner in death when I stabbed down its throat a moment later.

  The elf next to me was so fatigued he got sloppy. He dodged a set of lizard jaws, only to step directly in front of another. His eyes widened in terror as the creature struck toward him like a snake. Teeth clamped down on the elf’s throat and his blade clattered to the vine floor. Weakened hands grabbed at the lizard’s jaws before falling limp to his sides. The liskoja pulled back and the elf fell away, a fist sized hole in his neck. I cut its triumphant howl short with a violent chop from my sword. The beast’s head dropped onto its floor, still wearing its sadistic grin.

  With a collection of lizard corpses forming a temporary patch in the wall’s hole near me, I looked back toward Melina and the old elf. They both worked furiously with swords, though they looked exhausted enough to drop at any second. In spite of her fatigue Melina worked like a professional, robotically going through the different sword forms she knew. It kept the lizards at bay, but the elder wizard was swinging his sword wildly as he used his free arm to cover his face.

  He didn’t see a lizard punch a hole in the vine wall to his left. Half its body was through the wall as it reached toward him, dull claws exposed to tear open his side. I let go of my sword, drawing my pistol before it clattered to the floor. My gun barked and the creature’s head rocked to the side before falling limp.

  Yet another lizard broke through our disintegrating wall. It slithered through its hole and I fired another precious bullet. The lizard died instantly but it wasn’t enough. Our walls were degenerating quickly, and both our wizards were too exhausted to regrow them. More lizards were forcing their way inside each second and more of us were falling each second.

  We couldn’t hold; we knew that. Our fate was sealed. We were so tired, so damned tired, that our movements were more automated than intentional. When you’re that tired you tend to miss things. Little things like the distant, mournful wail of a war horn or the twang of bowstrings. It wasn’t until the sudden lack of assaulting lizards that it dawned on us something had changed.

  It was like turning off a faucet. The streams of lizards pouring through the gaps in the vines instantly changed to streams of sunlight. Disbelief and confusion covered every face. At first, nobody was willing to step near the gaps, too afraid the lizards were pulling some sort of trick. But as each of us became aware of the distinctive sound of the elvin war horn, we found our way to one of the many holes in the wall.

  The scar-faced elf was the first to stand before one of the gaps. She stared out into the forest for only a moment before the other elf defenders shuffled to join her. As I approached, she turned to the old elf wizard.

  “Let us through,” she said, her voice weak but determined.

  The old elf was sitting on the floor, his head hanging and chest heaving. “Why?” he gasped without looking up. “They don’t need us.”

  “Rangers take care of Rangers.” The other elves nodded in agreement, and even a few of the seriously injured grabbed weapons and tried to stand.

  The elf closed his eyes and slowly, the vines parted just wide enough for the elves to slip through one at a time. I made my way to the opening as well, looking out at the forest. More than one hundred elves in camouflaged lamellar armor were surrounding the remaining dozens of liskoja. The beasts didn’t try to retreat, or even surrender. They just charged forward to die on glinting elvin steel.

  The Refuge

  “Again, human,” said the dark-haired elf. He circled around me, looking almost amused as he waited for me to climb to my feet.

  “An interesting training technique you elves got,” I said as I pulled myself onto to my hands and knees. “Beat some poor bastard to a pulp and hope he survives to learn something.” I crawled to where my wooden practice sword landed. The elf had a small smirk on his face as I struggled to my feet. The pain slowing my movements gave me ample time to consider the events of the past couple of months.

  At the outpost it had taken the elvin relief force only minutes to eradicate the last of the liskoja. The lizards didn’t even try to run and were sl
aughtered to the last. A number of the new Rangers were assigned to the outpost while the rest accompanied my sister, me, and the wounded to the Royal City.

  Most of the Rangers were tight lipped, especially to me and Kinsey. In fact, the scar-faced woman was outright hostile. She and I almost came to blows after I tried to extend the metaphorical olive branch. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but she almost took my head off. It took a pair of Rangers to pull her away. After that I was more than happy to give her space.

  Melina and the elder elf brought Kinsey out of her psychological shell within a few days. A combination of magic and elvin therapy proved astoundingly effective. She’d changed after the trauma, though. It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on, but there were little things. Like her sudden obsession with magic.

  One night Kinsey asked if she’d ever be able to cast magic. Melina told her not to get her hopes up, but agreed to test my sister. She placed a hand on Kinsey’s chest and a shocked look flew across Melina’s face. Kinsey’s training in the caster’s arts started that very night. From that point on, Melina and the old elf spellcaster spent most of their time working with Kinsey, teaching her the subtle and delicate skills needed.

  In my years away from family I’d learned to covet solitude, so I was more than happy to have the only two social elves spend their time with my sister. The rest of my trip was filled with blessed silence and solitude.

  Much like the outpost, the elvin city was all but invisible if you didn’t know what to look for. But, once again, I was shocked. The trunks of the trees of the Royal City varied in diameter from a few feet to almost two dozen, their leaves were broad and deep green. Vibrant pink and yellow flowers grew off the vines that made homes around the tallest and thickest trees. Sweet, fragrant smells from dozens of vine and ground flowers intermixed in the air, making me homesick for the Kingdom. The grass on the forest floor, a pure and brilliant malachite color, looked as though it were maintained by a professional groundskeeper. Forest animals grazed and played throughout the city showing absolutely no fear of the elves. Even birds would often land near a working or relaxing elf and chirp at them as though the elf was one of their own.

  Kinsey and I were brought before their king who resided in the highest and grandest tree of the forest. He regarded us coolly, even contemptuously the entire time Melina pleaded on our behalf. He listened as she told of how we came to be there, and that our only hope to ever return home lay with the elves. Only they could commune with the fairies and only fairies had the power to create portals to other worlds.

  Our plight carried no weight with him and he would have had us banished from the elvin forest, forever stranding us in this world, if the elder elf mage from the outpost hadn’t come to our aid. The old spellcaster was the grandfather of Melina and a prominent member of the Elvin Wizard’s Consortium. The Consortium was fascinated by my sister’s aptitude with magic, a phenomenon completely alien to our own world of television and fast food. Humans of this world found their connection with magic as children. Certainly not as adults like Kinsey. They insisted we be allowed to stay, so they could study Kinsey and help her to develop her skills.

  From the look of barely suppressed frustration and rage on his face, the king couldn’t ignore the influence of that powerful organization. After a long deliberation he decreed that we would have to earn the right to have the elves commune with the fairies, and if we were to remain in the elvin lands we would serve elvin purposes. Kinsey was to be trained in elvin magic, and I was to be trained as a Ranger. The king assigned his son Tallus to my training.

  My years of self-defense training made my hand to hand skills a rival of any elf I’d met so far, but my sword skills were sorely lacking. Elvin Rangers were trained from birth. There was just no way I’d ever catch up with the training they’d received.

  Unlike his father, Tallus was a decent man and determined to give me the best chance to survive. He pushed me as hard as possible to survive, often having me train from twelve to eighteen hours a day. He pushed my body to its limit, and would work on my forms and techniques after I’d passed the point of fatigue. Some nights I hurt so badly I couldn’t sleep and elvin healers were occasionally needed for my most serious injuries.

  His intense training certainly had the desired effect, however, and my sword skills improved dramatically. My sword-skills never quite reached that of the elves, but Tallus claimed I certainly surpassed the skill of most other humans. It was a nice sentiment but didn’t impart much in the way of confidence after he admitted he’d only met a handful of us.

  Today, Tallus decided to practice just outside the city. He picked a small meadow next to a 70 foot waterfall that spilled off a cliff behind us. Cool spray, a shining sun, and the babbling sound of a river that passed us by were my only pleasant experiences as he pounded me to a bloody paste.

  As usual, both of us practiced bare chested. It was less a demonstration of manliness and more to protect our clothing from blood. My blood. Which was flowing freely from several gashes thanks to Tallus’ wooden sword.

  “My father told me to train you for battle, so I train you,” Tallus said, that small smirk growing into a large grin. “You should feel honored. In our history, only a handful of outsiders have ever been given Ranger training.” His athletic build, high cheekbones, and shining dark hair that reached to his lower shoulder would have made him a fantastic model if he’d come from our world. Although the pointed ears might have ruined that career. “It’s not my fault you learn slower than our children.”

  “Your children learn from birth,” I griped stretching my back in the vein hope it would alleviate the pain from when he threw me across the glade earlier. “I’ve only been training with you for a couple months. Besides, my ASSAULTS self-defense training didn’t include fighting with a sword. Guns, knives, and hand to hand yeah, but not a sword.”

  “Then you should complain to your instructor!” Tallus said with a grin. “He’s cheating you out of the most important part of any battle skill.”

  “Our society doesn’t fight with swords anymore. It’s not really a necessary skill to learn.”

  “So you all use hands, knives, and those things,” the elf said nodding his head toward the pistol I’d left lying on the ground with our shirts.

  “For the most part, yeah,” I grunted as I took a defensive stance, sword ready.

  Tallus just smiled and shook his head. Then he was suddenly flying through the air at me. There was an instantaneous blur of movement from his sword, and I saw stars. When I finally was capable of coherent thought, I realized I was laying on the ground with a splitting pain in my forehead.

  “You dropped your guard again,” the elf prince said before he crunched into a crisp red apple, dark eyes sparkling.

  “How long was I out this time?” I groaned from the ground. I didn’t bother to add that I might have done better if he didn’t move like greased pig shit.

  “Just long enough for me to grab a quick snack.” Tallus smirked and nodded toward an apple laden tree near the river as he crunched noisily.

  “I don’t suppose…” thud! The apple I was going to ask about bounced off my chest and rolled into a tide pool on the river. “Thanks,” I said, rolling to grab my consolation prize.

  A group of footsteps from the direction of the city caught my attention. The king strolled into view from behind a thick huckleberry bush followed by Melina and my sister. He wore a tunic made from deep blue flower petals that looked like velvet scales. The gleaming dark hair of his head was encircled by a simple silver crown topped by a single polished stone of tiger jasper.

  Tallus bowed deeply. I would have as well except I was still laying on the ground. A weak attempt at a grandiose wave was all I could muster out of respect. Kinsey took one look at me and her hand flew to her mouth.

  “Oh my God! What happened to you?” she gasped rushing to me. One eye was stinging and fogging over. That meant blood was flowing into it.

  “J
ust a rousing bout of sword practice,” I said as she gently felt around the deep gash in my forehead. She placed a hand over my wound and closed her eyes. Instantly warmth flowed into my head and the pain started to recede. Seconds later, both pain and wound were in the past.

  “Well, at least one of us is improving,” I said struggling to my feet. My body may have been cured, but I was still exhausted.

  “Oh, your improving, human,” Tallus said, tossing his apple core to the edge of a meadow. “You’re just not at Ranger level.”

  “So I’m good enough?”

  “I believe you are,” the king cut in. “So I have a job for you.”

  “I’m at your disposal,” I said. Not as though I had much choice. The only way home was through the fairies, and they wouldn’t speak to humans. If Kinsey and I were to make it home, we needed the elves.

  “A human outpost was established on our northwestern border a few years ago. They use it to strip our lands of trees and other resources. I’ve sent forces against it several times, but it’s too well fortified. They also have a contingent of mages. It won’t fall without a massive commitment of our forces. You have afforded me an opportunity to avoid that.”

  I could see where this is going. “Since I’m human I can infiltrate that outpost.”

  “Indeed, human,” the king said. Unlike his son, when he used the term ‘human’, it was full of contempt. Tallus’s use was always more teasing. “I will send a force of two hundred elvin Rangers, and one hundred of my own personal guard.”

  “Your personal guard?” I ask. “Does that mean you will be joining us?”

  “Yes, human, I will. I wish to see first-hand how you manage your own people.”

  “We might share a race, your majesty,” I said, “but they are no more my people than they are yours.” The elf king raised a disbelieving, perhaps insulted, eyebrow but said nothing.