Night Elves of Ardani: Book Two: Sacrifice

by Nina K. Westra

  He shifted. “I’ve seen them before. There are slaves in Vondh Rav.”

  A flicker of indignation went through her. “They keep slaves in Vondh Rav?”

  “Yes. Varai are also barbarians,” he said quietly, not rising to her hard tone. “And the Ysurans, too. And probably every other people from here to the ends of the world. Maybe if we traveled far enough, someday, we’d find someplace where people aren’t.”

  Novikke looked silently up at the apex of the tent for a long time before replying. “Not everyone is unredeemable,” she said. “The world isn’t as dark as you make it sound.”

  “It looks quite dark from where I’m standing,” he said.

  She couldn’t argue with that.

  “Are you really going to take them to the ruins?” she whispered, fearing both possible answers to the question.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It isn’t your fault,” he said. “Thank you for what you did earlier.”

  She raised her eyebrows at his shrouded face. “Don’t thank me for being a fool.”

  There was a short silence, and she saw his face twitch, but couldn’t make out his expression. He turned, looking up at the ceiling.

  “Is it so foolish for someone to show kindness to a Varai?” he asked, with a sharp edge to his voice.

  Novikke blinked, surprised. Then she snorted. Aruna looked over at her, confused. “No,” she said. “I was a fool for not doing a better job of it.”

  She wished she could see him, so she could guess what he was thinking. He wasn’t saying anything. He did that too often.

  “I’m sorry that I’m not stronger,” she said. “Or smarter. Or braver. I’m not the type of person who was meant to do important things. I’m just a letter-carrier. I wanted to do for you what you did for me. I just couldn’t.”

  Aruna’s hands shifted against hers. The backs of his fingers rested against the backs of hers. She could feel and hear him breathing quietly. The air in the tent was still crisp, but the space under their blankets had warmed quickly.

  “I wish we could have met under different circumstances,” came Aruna’s voice through the dark.

  Novikke sighed. “So do I.”

  “What will they do to you when this is over?”

  “I don’t know.” It could be anything from a discharge to execution, depending on how seriously they’d taken it. She was leaning more toward the latter end of the scale.

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the darkness will take them all before we reach the ruins.”

  Novikke smiled. His voice, when he was being sarcastic, had a subtle musical lilt to it, cutting through an unimpressed drone.

  “Ravi will take them, you mean?” she asked.

  She saw him turn to look over at her. “Is…that what you felt?” he asked. “Was she there, in the darkness?”

  Was she?

  The thought filled her with a strange combination of fear and comfort. “Something was there,” she said noncommittally.

  Chapter 7

  The next day, Aruna guided them toward the ruins. For Novikke.

  Novikke guessed that Theros planned to have Kadaki mark the ruins somehow so they could find their way back again later without Aruna’s help.

  Later. After they had killed Aruna, and maybe herself as well, when they had outlived their usefulness.

  Novikke’s cuffs were hard against the bones of her wrists, bruising her. She was made to walk with Vissarion. She caught him glancing over at her once or twice, looking surprisingly guilty. Mostly he avoided looking at her.

  Everyone was on edge, expecting another attack around every corner. It was not an unreasonable fear. That terrifying darkness had not returned, but other things did. That night, one of the forest’s enormous shadowy animals had attacked the camp and killed another soldier before they’d managed to put it down.

  The day after that, several of them almost walked into a pool of what looked like dark water—and would have done so if Aruna had not been there to stop them. When they brushed off his warnings, he demonstrated the danger by dipping a branch into the pool. When he pulled it back out, it was coated in a sticky black substance that spontaneously caught fire.

  The thing that unnerved Novikke the most was the unshakable feeling that she was being watched. Once or twice she heard the snap of a twig underfoot or the squelch of a boot in mud, but saw nothing when she turned toward the sound.

  She’d heard animal sounds in the forest many times. But never the sounds of booted feet.

  “This is too much,” Thala whispered to Vissarion as they walked. “We weren’t prepared for all this. We’ve got to turn back and return later with more men and more supplies. If at all.”

  “Your opinion is noted, second lieutenant,” Vissarion said quietly.

  “You know I’m right,” said Thala. “We’re all going to die out here if we don’t do something. How do we know the night elf is really taking us to the right place this time, anyway? He’s probably leading us to our deaths. And that business with Novikke…”

  “What are you suggesting, Thala?”

  She lowered her voice until it was barely audible. “You know what I’m suggesting, first lieutenant.” She glanced back at Novikke, knowing she’d overheard, but she didn’t take any of it back.

  Vissarion’s eyes widened slightly. To Novikke’s surprise, he didn’t respond right away, as if he was actually considering it.

  “Kadaki is with me,” Thala continued at a whisper. “Some of the others, too. And I bet we can convince the rest to follow us.”

  “Absolutely not. The last thing we need is to split ourselves up and start fighting. It will weaken us, and we’re weak enough as it is. What if we run into more night elves?”

  “We’ve got Kadaki.”

  Vissarion stopped and whirled on her. “No, Thala,” he whispered sharply. “This isn’t the time. You’ll put us all at risk if you do this. I won’t go along with it.”

  Thala scowled. “We’re already at risk,” she said, but she backed off after that.

  ◆◆◆

  Just after the sun had set, they came over the top of a ridge, and something pale appeared in the distance. The dying light illuminated pillars of white stone sticking up on the edge of a cliff across a valley.

  The Auren-Li ruins.

  Theros gave Aruna a satisfied look. Aruna stared tiredly out at the ruins.

  “Well. I guess you can be made to behave sensibly, after all,” Theros said. “Given the proper motivation.”

  Aruna didn’t reply. Novikke’s stomach turned. The relief from the entire group was palpable—for everyone except Aruna and herself.

  In the silence that followed as everyone stared in awe at their destination across the valley, there was a strange absence of sounds.

  She had grown accustomed to occasional calls of birds and insects in the evenings. Now, there was nothing. As if the pulse of the forest had stopped. No one else seemed to have noticed.

  No one except Aruna.

  He was staring into the trees behind them. Novikke followed his gaze, and could see only darkness. The pupils of his eyes were wide, almost consuming the bright blue around them. The way he was watching, unmoving, like a hawk tracking a mouse, made her heart speed up. She watched his eyes flick from tree to tree.

  He saw something that no one else was seeing.

  He looked in her direction, and must have realized by the look on her face that she knew something was happening. He shook his head slightly—asking her not to alert the others.

  Novikke swallowed hard. She looked toward Kadaki and Thala. At least they were in the middle of the group, not easily reachable from any attackers who might surprise them.

  Words of warning danced on her tongue, ready to be spoken. But she never opened her mouth to let them out. Aruna looked relieved when, after a few moments, she hadn’t given anything away.

  He glanced around at the others, then slowly walked to her side.
His hand went to her elbow.

  “Stay near me,” he said quietly.

  And then there was a wet sound behind them. Novikke turned to see a gush of blood streaming from a soldier’s neck.

  She flinched in shock, and then there was a strangled cry from the other side of the group, and then another.

  All at once, shadows were stepping out from behind trees all around them. Blades flashed silver in the waning light, slitting the throats of the unfortunate people standing toward the edges of the group before they could react. An arrow shot across the ridge, glancing off Thala’s chest plate.

  There was shouting all around. People stumbled toward cover, drawing swords. Theros was shouting something over the din. A few steps away from Novikke, a night elf dropped out of a tree and jabbed a sword through someone’s neck.

  Novikke turned to look behind them, and one of the Varai was coming toward her, sword up. She flinched, raising her chained hands to block him, but then Aruna stepped in front of her. The attacker’s sword angled away just in time to avoid running him through. Aruna grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shoved him away.

  “Not her,” he snarled. He jabbed a finger toward Theros. “Get that one. The leader.”

  The other Varai looked confused, but moved on.

  It was chaos. Several Varai lay dead already, and more than several Ardanians. Kadaki was throwing fireballs that flashed by like comets.

  Aruna took Novikke’s hand, pulling. “Come on.”

  “Where—?”

  “I don’t know. Come.”

  She looked toward the place she’d last seen Neiryn, and he was gone. Maybe he’d managed to run off as well. Reluctantly, she let Aruna pull her into the dark beneath the trees.

  They raced through the woods, and Novikke kept tripping over hidden roots and rocks, but they kept running anyway. Soon she became aware of footsteps gaining on them.

  Aruna stopped and turned to face their pursuer. It was a dark figure that Novikke couldn’t quite make out.

  There was a sudden flash of light—fire in the figure’s palm. She was briefly relieved, thinking Neiryn had found them. And then the fire illuminated the figure’s face.

  It was the mage from the outpost. She spat an indecipherable sentence at Aruna, brandishing her fire in one hand and a sword in the other.

  “Go. Run,” Aruna said to Novikke, pushing her away.

  She hesitated, then did as he asked. The woman would kill her if given the opportunity, but she’d take Aruna alive. The Varai were kinder to their own than they were to foreigners.

  She stumbled blindly away from the fighting, and didn’t look back until she was fifty paces away. She crouched against a tree, looking toward where she’d left Aruna. Both he and the woman were gone. She didn’t know whether that was a good or bad sign.

  The Ardanians were losing the fight, despite having greater numbers. Of course they were. What chance did they have in a fight against Varai, in Kuda Varai, at night?

  Kadaki was their best chance. If she lived long enough, a mage could turn the tide of a battle. If they released Neiryn as well, they would almost certainly win. But they’d never do that. They knew he’d turn on them the moment he got the opportunity.

  The flashes of fireballs had ceased, and she couldn’t see where either Kadaki or Neiryn had gone. Thala was still fighting at the edge of the ridge. Novikke saw an arrow shoot across the space and land in Vissarion’s thigh, making him stumble and fall.

  The fight was splitting into duels that spilled off the trail and into the forest. Screams of pain echoed across the woods. Figures ran through trees, and it was hard to tell which ones were fleeing and which were pursuing. Even seasoned warriors balked when faced with a night elf ambush. The Varai hid in the trees better than any of them had expected. They’d been silent and invisible right up until they attacked.

  Novikke leaned her head against the tree, catching her breath. She was still trying to decide whether to stay put and hide or to keep running when she heard the soft, almost inaudible crunch of a footstep on leaves near her. Her head jerked up in alarm.

  “Well. I must say, I did not think I would have the pleasure of seeing you again.”

  She stiffened. A dark figure stood a few paces from her, twirling a dagger that glinted slightly in the distant moonlight. He stepped closer.

  Novikke carefully slid to her feet, her back still against the tree. She silently cursed whatever vindictive god had allowed him to live. She couldn’t really see him, but she’d recognize Zaiur’s voice anywhere, even if his rancid personality hadn’t given him away.

  “Stay the fuck away from me,” she said.

  The glint of the blade shifted as he stopped twirling it and lowered it into shadow. “Hold still and this will hurt less.” He took another step, slowly blocking her in against the tree.

  She lunged forward, arms blindly outstretched. She hit something that felt like his chest, so she shifted her arms down to the shadow that was his arm. He tried to lift the dagger, and his forearm caught on the chain between her cuffs. Her hands clenched around his wrist, trying to keep the blade away from her.

  Something collided with the side of her head, and she stumbled but didn’t let go. She tried to knee him in the groin and hit his leg instead. There was a brief struggle, a battle of yanking arms, twisting bodies, and legs struggling to keep both of them upright, and then he pushed her off-balance.

  She fell hard to the ground and immediately twisted to get back up. Her hand rested on a thick root as she tried to push herself up, and then something impacted her hand.

  It took a fraction of a second for the pain to come. Then it flooded into her. She screamed.

  He’d stabbed the dagger through the flesh of her palm, nailing her to the root. She tried to move, and pain froze her. Then his knee was digging into her back, his weight crushing her.

  “Let’s…pick up where we left off,” Zaiur said between breaths.

  “Zaiur,” Novikke panted, “Why are you doing this? What do you really want?” She blinked, and tears squeezed from her eyes. Blood ran down her hand.

  “Why?” he laughed, perplexed. “What a question. The audacity to ask something like that…”

  She felt his fingers weaving through her hair. The touch was grotesque. He closed his fist, pulling. She winced. He shifted, straddling her waist and squeezing his knees on either side of her, and she wished she could leave her body.

  “No one is coming for you. The humans are all dead, or will be soon.” He laughed suddenly. “Why are you bound? Your own people did this to you? Are you a traitor, too? You and Aruna were made for each other.”

  Many paces away, she could hear yelling and see movement, but things were slowing down. He was right. Everyone would be dead soon, including Aruna. No one was coming for her.

  She tried again to move her hand, and pain sliced through her. Her fingers twitched. She couldn’t move them. At least he couldn’t use the dagger to cut up the rest of her as long as it was sheathed in her hand.

  He leaned over her head to look her in the eye, upside down. With one hand he gathered her hair up, pulling it away from her neck with an uncomfortable gentleness. His fingers brushed against her neck. Another knife appeared in his hand—of course he had another one. The flat of the blade dragged across her face and he dug the point lightly into her cheek. She flinched.

  “You are probably hoping I won’t hurt you too much,” he said. His teeth shone in the darkness as he smiled. His hand inched across her jaw and closed around her throat.

  Every touch was fire on her skin. Panic was rattling through her head. The world around her was melting away in its wake.

  “How about this: I will only hurt you as much as it hurt when Aruna stabbed that dagger into me. Only as much as my brother hurt when your kin murdered him. Only as much as your people have hurt mine, every chance they have gotten, for millennia.”

  Surprise managed to worm through the web of fear coating her mind. “I di
dn’t kill your brother, Zaiur,” she said coldly, her voice strained from the weight of him on top of her.

  “You may as well have,” he said, all the teasing amusement gone from his voice.

  There was a sound beside them. Zaiur looked up. There was a flash of blinding light.

  Zaiur screamed.

  He tipped sideways, limbs flailing, as the scream turned into a choking groan. Novikke craned her neck to look back. Zaiur was on the ground, his face, hair, and shoulders aflame. After a moment, he went quiet. His body twitched, still alive but not conscious.