Nightfall (Book 1)

by L. R. Flint

  ~ ~ ~

  I had given up on any thoughts other than avoiding trees or fallen branches that could trip me and raced at a breakneck pace, almost in a trance, as I let my legs carry me as fast and far as possible from my pursuer, whose thundering gait I could still hear a distance behind me. Something appeared in front of me so suddenly that I had no time to react, before I had bowled right into it. I and whatever I had hit went flying through the air and I landed with a thud thirty feet from the point of impact. I groaned, feeling as if every bone in my body had been pulverized, and seemingly everything that should not get bruised, got bruised.

  I sat up and spat out a mouthful of dirt and moss and rose to see what sort of damage I had done, luckily I was not dead or broken into pieces, I only felt as if I were. An elf girl about my age was sprawled in the ferns, her long brown hair flung about her beautiful face like a fan. She lay perfectly still as I approached her. I quickly knelt at her side, worried that I had killed her. “Oh no,” I whispered. At the sound of my voice she drew in a long, thin breath.

  I touched her shoulder softly and asked if she was alright. “Up until you ran into me,” she coughed.

  “I am…incredibly sorry,” I attempted at reconciliation as she sat up, stretched her neck and limbs, and flexed different muscles and joints to make sure they were still intact. Knowing she was alright allowed my thoughts to return to the beast that was now catching up with us, hurtling across the ground, ignorant of anything the size of, or smaller than, itself. Although I had left it far in my wake, it was easily making up the distance.

  “Look, I need you to get up. Something is coming. And fast.”

  She grimaced as she arched her back and it popped multiple times. “Yes, I can hear it.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for? Let us be gone,” I insisted.

  She chuckled grimly. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” I did not point out that, to me, it seemed she had the two of us confused; after all, I had not been the one to step directly into her path, nor was I the one contentedly sitting on the ground while the creature bore down upon us. “That troll will run forever until it finds you. It will never give up and it will not tire—not nearly as fast as you will.”

  “Are you suggesting that we just give up?”

  “Not a chance.” She gathered her hair and tied it behind her head with a leather cord, before leaping to her feet. “Follow me.” Her eyes were teasing as she climbed the tree nearest us and then leapt from it to the branches of another tree. We switched trees a few more times and then climbed into the higher reaches of an ancient oak. I opened my mouth to speak but before a single sound had passed my lips she slapped a hand over my mouth, pinning me to the trunk of the oak. She lifted a slender finger to her own lips, commanding silence. I nodded as best I could, with my head held immobile.

  I could hear the troll approaching long before I could see it and the next warning was the smell. It was the smell of a carcass that had been sitting around moldering for weeks before the troll had stumbled upon its scent and then gorged upon the vile meat. A slight trembling trailed up through the solid trunk as the pounding footsteps drew nearer and the beast thundered into view. It screamed in outrage as another scent mingled with the one it had been following, but it easily parted one scent from the other. Its musky breath left patches of fog as it took in the scent, following it to the base of a small oak. Small only in comparison to the others surrounding it, for in girth it was much larger than the troll. The beast reared up on its hind legs, sounding out a challenge, as it believed its prey was cowering in the branches of the tree rising before it.

  Watch. The voice penetrating my skull was that of the girl who sat next to me on the branch.

  What? The troll? I seemed to recall her using that particular name for the creature below us.

  Yes.

  As we had been speaking, the beast had dropped back to all fours and meandered away from the small tree but then, without warning, it charged the towering wooden statue, crashing into it with awful force. The tree shuddered and I could almost feel its pain as its whole frame shook from the shock of the blow.

  We need to stop it, I hissed at the girl.

  What are you talking about?

  The troll is killing the tree. I did not want to say more for fear that she would think I was insane—I was already contemplating it and did not want her to confirm the idea—but solemnly I added, I can feel it dying. Tell me how to stop it.

  She sat there for a moment, not responding to what I was saying until finally she said, Give me your knife. Instead I called upon Lietha and dropped the new weapon into her hand and she dropped to the branch below. I waited patiently for instructions, but none came as she made her way silently to the lowest branch. I was afraid that the troll would hear her coming, but the branches made no sound, as if even the smallest of them were ignoring her subtle weight, understanding her intentions. The troll backed away from the tree a second time, lowering its head as it came to a stop directly beneath the elf’s position.

  The troll growled menacingly as it prepared to ram the tree again. It took in a deep breath as it gathered its strength for a repeat attack and at that exact moment the girl dropped from her perch. She landed on its back, digging the knife into its neck, just below the skull, as the creature sprang forward. She flung herself from the troll’s back as it tumbled forward, carried by its own momentum and left a trail of uprooted ferns, until it came to a stop at the foot of the beaten tree. The troll’s breath gushed from its lungs and it lay there, motionless.

  I made my way from the branches of the tree and dropped to the ground, then walked over to the body of the stilled giant. “Izotz, no,” the girl shouted as the troll reared up, rage in its filmy-red eyes as it bellowed my death sentence. I let loose a handful of metal splinters that pierced its chest, but I was too late, the beast was already upon me and I was suddenly engulfed by its enormous weight.

  The venom hissed as it dropped to the ground and began pooling near my face, which was buried halfway in the soft ground. The fumes from the poisonous liquid began bleeding into each of my gasping breaths. I was getting little enough air as it was, with the troll’s crushing weight pinning me down and constricting my lungs, but now the poison was getting into my lungs and I knew it would not be long before it had entered my bloodstream. After that it would only take moments for it to reach my heart and other vital organs, where I was sure it would wreak some kind of havoc.

  The faces of my friends appeared in my mind’s eye and then the faithful gaze of Koldobika as he had parted, trusting that we would meet again. I had failed them. “I am sorry,” I whispered, even though I knew they could not hear me from such a distance. Then everything went black.

  ~ ~ ~

  The young elf leapt to her feet and raced to the fallen mound of fur that had been the troll. She shoved against its unmoving mass, but it was a futile endeavor, the creature was more than ten times her size and it was now deadweight. She kicked the corpse again and again. “No,” she screamed. It had been her job to get the boy back alive. He had died on her watch and she would never be able to face the disappointment she would find in the eyes and minds of her leaders and everyone she knew. “No,” she whispered again, sinking to her knees in despair. The boy, Itzal Izotz, had been their only hope and she had just watched him die.

  A gentle hand lighted on her shoulder, so soft that she barely noticed it. She looked up into the misty face of a woman whose hair flowed around her as if caught up in an ethereal breeze. The serene figure before her was the spirit of a tree, likely the one that had just been saved by Itzal Izotz. “You did not believe him.” The woman’s mouth did not move as she spoke—the words seemed to emanate from her entire being.

  The elf’s soul sank deeper with regret. “Forgive me, but we have not seen your kind in these parts for nearly a hundred years.”

  “That is because your kind fails to protect us and without you, we are being killed off—one by one.�
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  The elf shook her head, not agreeing with the spirit’s point of view. “No. You left us when we most needed your help. We were hunted down and killed and the forest would no longer come to our aid—when we so desperately needed it.” She stood up. “Your kind turned your backs on us.”

  The tree spirit raised herself, growing dark as anger bled into her. “Not all of us. Some of us were still at your side, though you were blinded by fear and pride and failed to see it.” The elf opened her mouth to defend her people with a scathing remark, but the tree spirit raised her hand for silence, her face bending toward the mound of flesh, her eyes seeing what the elf could not.

  “He still lives.” The words were silent as a breath of air, but they gave the elf hope. She jumped at the carcass again, vainly attempting to move it.

  The spirit held back a laugh at the elf’s attempt and raised her arms. Her eyes closed and her form grew less visible as she used her strength to call upon the forest, calling the trees to life. The ground rumbled and shook, and then suddenly was pierced by hundreds of roots. The roots moved as living creatures, swarming about the troll’s body, and lifting it into the air where they swarmed about it, weaving through and around one another until they had created a cocoon around the beast. Ferns and flowering moss sprang up all across the cocoon as it hung there, like a fly caught in a spider’s web. The elf girl’s attention was consumed by the writhing, living roots of the trees. The spirit passed by her, sinking to the ground at the boy’s side and leaned in close, breathing onto his face.

  ~ ~ ~

  I gasped and then coughed, as breath flowed into me and my consciousness suddenly returned. A transparent face moved away from mine as I sat up and looked around, wondering where the troll had disappeared to. An enormous knot of plants hung over my head, it had not been there before and I wondered just how long I had been unconscious. Or dead. I was unsure which had been the case; I had a vague memory of mist wreathed planes but recalled little else. I saw the elf girl sitting a few feet from me, her eyes wide in surprise. “Does nothing die out here?” I asked.

  The girl laughed in relief. “Oh you stupid—stupid—fool.” She stood and held her hand out to help me to my feet.

  I turned to the spirit to thank it, for I assumed that it had been the one to restore my life, but it had disappeared entirely. “A life for a life,” the words were whispered on the air as the presence disappeared from the area.

  “Let us get you to safety before you do something else to jeopardize your life.” I turned back to the elf, remembering that she was there.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “A tree spirit,” she replied solemnly. “I had thought they were gone from this place.”

  “Oh. Earlier you said my name,” I paused. “How do you know who I am?”

  “I know Koldobika.” She said nothing else as she walked away from me, headed East and slightly North.

  12 REUNION

  As nightfall began to settle upon the surrounding forest our pace slowed to no more than a meandering walk. I could not help but occasionally glance at the girl’s face, wondering where I had met her before. I knew I had to have met her at some point, maybe long ago, maybe not, but her face was so familiar, the memory just out of reach. I had a hunch but I was not going to say anything before I was positive that I was right.

  “I do not think it is fair, you knowing my name while I do not have the faintest idea who you are.” She stopped dead in her tracks.

  “I am called Izar.” She tilted her head, raising an eyebrow as she turned to look at me. “Any more questions?”

  I smiled, avoiding her gaze. I did not recognize the name, but I was still sure I knew her face. “No. I am content for now.”

  She lifted a reed whistle to her lips that had been hanging around her neck and began playing a short tune consisting of only a few notes. As the last note faded away, a warm glow began emanating from a tree a distance ahead of us. Izar trotted to the foot of the tree and immediately began scaling it. “Hurry,” she called back to me. More than halfway up the tree trunk, a platform of light spread out, rising at the edges to form a dome. When Izar touched the underside of the platform, a hole appeared near the trunk and she hoisted herself through it, waving for me to follow. As I climbed through after her the outer lights began to dim and just after I pulled my feet inside, the hole disappeared, securing us in a round room with cheerful lights dancing near the walls.

  The suddenly wakened lights roused a figure that had been curled in his cloak on the floor, at the far side of the room. “Who is there?” he asked, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

  “It is just me, Izar, and a fellow traveler, Izotz.” The grown elf nodded his head in greeting and I did the same when Izar introduced him as Amets, one of the scouts. What scouts she was talking about, I had no idea, but I took everything in stride, believing that when I saw Koldobika he would be explaining quite a few things to me.

  Amets nestled back into his blanket on the floor, closed his eyes, and seemed to fall instantly back to sleep. Can he seriously do that? I asked Izar. She shrugged and made a tossing motion; a blanket appeared just as it fell over my head. She smiled as I extricated myself from the folds of the mass, and she settled into her own heap of a blanket.

  “Thanks,” I whispered, knowing there was hardly a chance I would freeze, wrapped in the layers of warm fabric. Her reply was no more than a sigh, her mind already drifting off into the realm of sleep. I noticed, as I also began to nod off, that the lights in the room were slowly dimming, the shadows bobbing on the walls like the flickering of firelight.

  ~ ~ ~

  A low rumbling sound emanated from a foot below my head. Below? I jolted awake, looking around in the dim light to see that Izar was still asleep and the older elf had already departed. Izar’s eyes moved back and forth beneath her closed lids as they followed the scenes in her dream. Something rustled the leaves in the branches just beneath me, headed in the direction of the girl. I followed its path, silent as the night air, and the growling began again.

  I clapped my hand over Izar’s mouth as her eyes flew open and I crossed a finger over my lips in an added warning for silence, as the growl continued directly beneath us. I looked out across the room again and was glad to see that the doorway had not appeared in the presence of whatever waited below. Izar slid her hand over mine, reminding me that I was still clamping it over her face, and I quickly removed it. The creature in the branches below us suddenly went silent, leaving us in an uncomfortable and wary silence of our own.

  Is it gone? I was not sure if the thought was Izar’s or my own. Our eyes met and locked, both wondering the same thing. We kept silent, both of us holding perfectly still as the seconds stretched to minutes and the minutes seemed to stretch into hours beyond measure. All of a sudden there was a movement in the branches beneath the loft and the creature descended to the ground.

  I sighed as we relaxed and I walked quietly over to my bedding, and curled back into its folds. I kept my eyes closed but listened for the subtle sounds of Izar’s breath calming to the pace of sleep. Once that happened, I opened my eyes and scanned the room and found no traces of the green light from her eyes. I leaned back against the outer wall and slipped my dagger from its sheath. Making no noise, I set the dagger softly on the floor at my side, as I began my watch over the remainder of the night.

  ~ ~ ~

  A soft hissing permeated my sleep, digging its way into my thoughts and eventually waking me. “Hey, wake up.”

  “What?” I grumbled.

  “The sun is up, we have to leave now,” Izar said. I groaned, buried my head back in my blanket, and wished fiercely that the happenings of the past few weeks had been nothing more than dreams. I missed my friends. I even missed my home, boring as it was. I missed knowing everything about my surroundings and not being constantly surprised by the appearance of arcane beings and treacherous creatures.

  The blanket disappeared into thin air as Izar return
ed it to its natural state. I sighed, knowing that wishing would never change reality. “Come on. It is not that bad.”

  “How do you know what I am thinking?”

  Izar just laughed for a moment. “Because you look absolutely miserable.”

  ~ ~ ~

  As we neared the elf haven where Koldobika was staying, the atmosphere of the forest began to change from one of menacing darkness to one of calm and light. The coloring of the trees and forest flora grew lighter, and it seemed that we were passing from a land of snowless winter into a place of thriving springtime. Further on we came across a network of bare paths, leading between the trees which now were mostly long limbed willows, instead of the towering black oaks.

  Soft and lilting voices floated on the air, but no one ever appeared along the paths we took. Izar left the path and slipped through the draping wall of branches and leaves surrounding a willow. I followed her through the waterfall of silvery-green leaves and found her kneeling on the soft mossy floor next to an older elf and an old wizard draped in long, grey robes. “Koldobika,” I shouted his name in surprise as he and the male elf rose to their feet.

  The wizard held out a small dagger to me and I looked at it with confusion before remembering that I had given it to him as a token of remembrance. “I never had to use it.”

  I chuckled. “That is good.” As I said that, the blade disappeared, drawn back to Lietha.

  “Now, where is Alaia?” queried the elf, whose face I also recognized from somewhere.

  At the mention of that name, Izar’s head shot up and she added, “Yes, where is she?”

  “I have not seen her since she left Caernadvall.” Looks of disbelief and concern were the only reactions I got. “She left more than a week before I did, when the Guards nearly caught her.”