Light in the Darkness

by CJ Brightley

  Felicia Stormchaser, their fearless captain, had at one point rolled her eyes at the whole thing and continued her conversation with the tall and dark skinned owner of the inn. The man had almost agreed to give them board for a few nights in exchange for a fair price. Then Gorplin was sent through one of his two good windows. Tory imagined they wouldn't be receiving a warm welcome at the Graceful Gabbin for a long time.

  He walked out of the inn to the cheers of the sailors, who had broken into song and a new round of drinks. For a moment, he just stood over Gorplin. The dwarf lay face down in the street, muttering curses in common speech and dwarven tongues alike.

  “Let me back in there,” he sputtered finally as he found that his hands were useful for more than wallowing and he began sitting himself up.

  Tory grabbed the back of his leather armor and pulled him into a sitting position. With Gorplin's considerable stockiness and current state, this was no small feat. He sat down next to the dwarf in the street and let out a deep breath.

  “I doubt they'll let us back in now,” he observed as the rest of their crew filed out of the doorway and into the street, prodded by a very annoyed looking inn keeper. Tory saw a few coins being pushed into his hands by Felicia.

  So had their journey gone since leaving Lone Peak and beginning their trip along the coast of Irradan. They would find a port, look around for inns and bars and the like to see what the local stories were about trees.

  A big waste of time, Tory thought.

  Not one pub from River Grove to Brewood had legends about trees, especially really big, important ones, which is what Tory always envisioned when he thought of what they were looking for. And so they either stayed at an inn, if funds allowed or if their crew could keep out of trouble, or else they slept on the boat. The Willow's Flight had served them well. The ship could take a beating in a storm and keep riding out the waves for a fortnight.

  Tory was not one to love sleeping on the vessel, however. He tried to make his hammock hang from some support beams in the direct middle of the boat. He had failed to find the center quite right. As a result, he claimed the off-balance rocking kept him awake at night.

  Felicia hadn't even considered his complaining worth a second conversation. Urt had held up a hand when Tory wanted to push her further. Being a hand shorter than Urt and nowhere near as broad, Tory did not dare defy the bulking, catlike man.

  Every night they slept on board the boat, then, was a constant battle between Tory trying to find just the right spot for his hammock and Gorplin complaining that he couldn't sleep with all the noise Tory was making. Even Jurrin, their ever-polite halfling companion, had taken to stuffing copious amounts of cloth into his ears to help him rest.

  Theirs was a ragtag crew, there was no denying it.

  “Back to the boat you lot,” Felicia said without giving Tory or Gorplin a second glance. “We sleep there tonight.”

  The walk back to the boat was a somber one. Tory was not at all looking forward to another restless night on the floating hammock holder and it seemed like Gorplin was going to continue to be a in bad mood for the rest of the evening.

  “Uncouth sailors...” he mumbled under his breath as he staggered down the road.

  Tory gave him a small push forward.

  “Who's uncouth?” he asked, feeling more than a little put out. “Didn't you call one of their mothers a...”

  “Stop yammerin',” Felicia said from the front of their group.

  Tory could tell her tone was one of annoyance.

  He didn't blame her.

  While Felicia could live on a boat for the rest of her days and be content, there was a slight disconcerting feeling Tory was getting from her. Perhaps she was just as disappointed as he was that they hadn't found any information about any trees or legends of trees. Brewood was the third city they had traveled to. There were still plenty more to try, but with their lack of any substantial leads, it was beginning to look bleak.

  Darrion was a kingdom that was wholly based off of their sea trade. Ships sailed from one port to another, carrying wool and wheat south, while furs and leather went north. Darrion had many legends and tales to share. Barmen told of elves who could build entire cities with just a thought. Sailors talked of pirates in the inner sea who could sneak upon a vessel undetected to attack it and then vanish without a trace. Monsters lived in the woods to the north. Giant spiders and elves who were as tall as three men stacked on top of one another.

  But not one story about a tree.

  Not one.

  The suns had set and the stars above were burning brightly in the crisp night air. Tory wrapped his arms around himself and thought about complaining of the cold. As if knowing what was on the tip of his tongue, Felicia gave him a hard look.

  It was more than enough to convince him to keep quiet.

  As they turned the corner of the street that would take them all the way down to the docks, a flash of orange and red came from the main thoroughfare. A commotion of people, torches, shadows, and various sharp and long objects pierced the night. The buildings along the street were red with firelight and shouts drifting over the deceptively peaceful area of town they had just walked through.

  “Draw swords,” Felicia commanded, unsheathing her blade and turning to look at them. “That's a riot if I've ever seen one.”

  6

  Revenge

  Cuno sniffed the night air. There were many scents that caught his keen snout.

  The long-legs were gathering up ahead of them. More than he had ever smelled before in his short life. Cuno grasped the shaft of his wooden spear and licked his lips. Perhaps tonight he would claim his first trophy. Domne was only a few steps beside him, his breathing heavy for a Wrent. The rest of their pack was close at hand.

  This was what they longed for.

  The pack stood hunched down, as their race typically did, ready to attack. Cuno was tall for his kind, standing nearly four feet. All Wrents had the heads of foxes, with their ears standing up and their mouths ending in long snouts. Each shared common yellow eyes. For clothes they wore simple belts with leather pouches and cloths.

  Every Wrent in the pack carried a wooden stone tipped spear with their front two paws and stood on their hind legs, preparing for their kill. If they needed speed, however, their spears would be shoved into their belts and then they ran on all fours.

  In the north, where their dwellings were, the Wrents lived in dens dug out of soft ground. Leather stretched over a wooden frame would often be enough for a door. Smaller holes dug into the ceiling of their den allowed for daylight to come in and smoke from their fires to go out.

  No hole had ornate furnishing, just rough-hewn rocks for tables and mats of grass for beds. Wrents weren't keen on decorating. Hunting was their first and greatest skill.

  Cuno wasn't sure of the origins of his race. To his knowledge, they had always lived in the north and hunted southwards. A tale or two told in between their boasting of the number of elvish heads they had claimed would sometimes speak of a long ago past. A past where the Wrents lived in the south and had free reign over the land.

  But that was before the elves.

  The Wrents may have come from a different land altogether, or emerged from the forest one day, ready to kill. His kind never cared much for stories of passing on traditions and origins.

  What was most important to a Wrent was how many of the long-legs one of their pack could kill.

  The fox race had always been at odds with the elves. From the south where the Wrents had long ago called home, the elves had learned how to build their walls tall enough and kill his kind from a distance. They were no longer able to fight the city dwellers. After hundreds of years battling and fighting the elves who hid behind their walls, the Wrents moved north to claim land for their own.

  Hundreds of thousands of them had once occupied the southern continent of Irradan. Before the great wars that drove them north, they were a proud and strong race. After generations of hiding
and rebuilding their kind, only ten or so thousand were left. The city elves had driven them nearly to extinction.

  So his kind traveled south again, feeling stronger and ready to hunt. They wanted to find new lands and new prey. And find them they did.

  A new kind of elf lived among the trees. Ones the Wrents did not know of before. These didn't hide behind thick, tall walls. The elves that walked among the trees were exposed and did not hide behind shield or plate armor. They did not possess the ornate weaponry of the city elves, nor did they charge out on horseback and trample their enemies.

  These elves were much easier for his pack to dispose of.

  Cuno had been told his entire life that the elves were to blame for their troubles. It was because of the elves that they lacked the food their tribe needed. It was because of the elves that his kind was no longer the strong race they had once been. It was because of the elves that they were treated so harshly.

  They were treated like filthy animals. Worse than livestock. The only remedy they had ever known was to fight. To kill the elf kind. To hope that one day, their efforts would mean the end of the elves and the beginning of a new age of Wrents.

  Cuno grasped his spear tightly in anticipation of a kill.

  This was his first raid on the long-legs and he desperately want to claim his first trophy. They had been sent from their tribe, the Arras. It was their mission to kill as many elves and return with their heads. By this, they would bring honor to their tribe and increase their tribe's reputation among the other Wrents.

  Cuno, personally, also wanted to impress his pack leader: Domne.

  Domne was an abnormal Wrent in that his coat wasn't gray or brown. He was albino: his entire coat was white as snow. He was broader and more muscular than most of the others in his tribe. His size was matched in his ferocity in battle.

  Under his leadership, the Wrent pack had seen their first few elves killed in revenge for past atrocities. A small hunting party of elves had been their first victims. A few of the deaths of their pack had been paid for.

  There were many more they planned to avenge.

  For hours they had been stalking through the woods, following the scent of elf. Their pack was quiet and quick, able to traverse many miles without becoming weary or hungry. The Wrents were a resilient race. After a time, new smells began to mix with the woods of the spring.

  "There something different in the air," Cuno said, taking deep breaths with his long snout.

  Heavy on the night breeze, the smell of elves penetrated his being. Cuno began to twist the spear shaft in his hand, hoping to find his first kill with it tonight.

  "Many elves are gathered together from all over," Domne said in his deep, growling voice.

  The collective breathing of those in their pack quickened as the possibility of killing an elf grew. By the smell of it, Cuno guessed, thousands of elves were meeting together in the trees ahead of them. None of the Wood Walker gatherings that they had encountered so far had held more than a few hundred. The long legs were gathering together for some reason, and Cuno wanted to know why.

  Only fifty of the fox creatures stalked through the woods that night. It was beyond their dreams to come upon such a large gathering of elves and beyond their capacity to take them on full force. So they would do what they had also done. Strike. Retreat. Strike again until they had found their trophies.

  Any death of a long legs was worth the death of an entire pack to Cuno's people.

  Domne shook his head. His massive paws gripped his long spear tightly.

  "Something not elf is in the air," he said as he took another long sniff. "It smells of...human."

  Those words had barely left his snout when an arrow pierced his heart. Domne let out a grunt of pain, then fell dead. The other foxes around him begin to howl in anger as arrows pierced through the air. Cuno hoisted his spear and ran in the direction he thought the arrow that had hit Domne had come from. His people had very little sense of remorse, but revenge was a common and celebrated trait among them. Long-legs dressed in leaves and furs shooting arrows with stone heads were bursting out of the woods all around them. Cuno began to run to the closest one to him and, snarling wildly he thrusts spear in the direction of the long legged elf.

  Instead of finding its mark as he had intended, the spear tip of his weapon was deflected by a shimmering silver blade.

  This new warrior was the human that he had smelled.

  Another female, dressed like a warrior and not like one of the wood dwellers burst out from underneath the foliage and began her assault on three different Wrents that assailed her. The one closest to Cuno glared down at him.

  Her hair was dark and short, but the look on her face was ferocious.

  He tried to thrust his clawed fist into this new threat, only to be smacked away again by the sword she held in her other hand. This enraged him. As his attention was focused solely on the dark-haired warrior, he hadn't realized that his original target had strung another arrow, his bow was aimed and the elf was about to release it from only a foot away from him. Cuno saw that the tip was pointing directly at his skull.

  The dark-haired woman shouted something that Cuno never heard and made a sudden movement, taking the elf by surprise and causing him to aim up. The arrow pierced Cuno's left ear and he shouted out in pain.

  He began to run as quickly as he could on all fours back in the direction they had came with a dozen or so of his pack at his heels. They were all that was left of those who had attacked. As he looked back over his shoulder, he saw that the Wood Walkers were now drawing new arrows and pointing them at the two female warriors.

  He only grimly wished that the pair would meet a painful and horrible death as he etched the face of the dark-haired woman into his mind.

  Revenge ran deeply in his tribe.

  Cuno would have his.

  7

  The Glorious Empire of Enoth

  The suns had yet to rise and still, Coriander had been awake for hours. This was a day of preparation. With rhythmic movements, the old elf polished his trusted blade as the tip of it rested on the ornate stool in front of him.

  Never before had this blade failed him, in his three hundred years of service to the Empire of Enoth. This blade was trustworthy and true. No enemy that had come before him left when faced with this sword. It was then with the utmost of care that he worked the cloth over the double folded steel.

  He knew that if the sword were to continue to serve him, he must serve it in exchange.

  Outside the window of his home, Coriander Baronde was beginning to hear the sounds of morning. Elves waking from their long night's sleep and preparing for a special day. Some merchants were up as early as he was, ensuring their wares were prepared for any who might need supplies on the long journey and be willing to pay a coin or two.

  Coriander chuckled to himself as he thought of those who were not already prepared for the trip. He had been ready to march at a moment's notice for a week. It was out of sheer habit that he polished his blade now. The metal could only glow so much. Yet still he worked. Once satisfied, he stood from his chair and surveyed his sword.

  Carved with ancient runes of the elves, the blade was twice as long as his forearm. The handle, which was the length of his two hands, was wrapped in beautiful red leather and adorned with a golden hilt and a blue rimstone gem. Not that Coriander could speak to the rock, but he knew its value both on the battlefield and off.

  Satisfied, he sheathed the sword and began making his way downstairs and out the door to the streets outside.

  “Do you require assistance?” a servant asked him as he neared his door. The elf lord's cloak was in the hands of this faithful servant. Coriander smiled.

  “Only to ensure the safety of this house while we are away, Poriad,” he replied kindly. “Do your best to see that when I return, it will be as if I never left.”

  He accepted the cloak and the servant assisted him in fastening it around him.

  “May the b
lessing of Enoth follow you on your journey,” Poriad replied when he finished fastening the cord to Coriander's breastplate. He bowed low in salute. His white hair was not a sign of old age. He was at least half the age of Coriander, if not a few years less so. The elf had been in his service for many years and Coriander was glad to have such a diligent worker and faithful servant.

  He returned the salute and continued through his entryway. Coriander walked out the front door of his house and was greeted by two elves in glowing silver armor. The symbol of the empire was emblazoned on their chest: nine stars encircling a red crown. Their robes, like Coriander's, were a dark purple, embroidered with gold.

  These were the finest royal guards, and Coriander's highest commanders.

  “Finore, Evelyn, greetings to you," Coriander said as he returned their salute. “Are the preparations ready?"

  Finore nodded.

  "Ten of our finest vessels await his Excellency. Fully stocked with supplies and elves to guard him safely to his destination.”

  Evelyn saluted again.

  "Our best troops have all been made ready for the expedition, sir,” she said smartly.

  Coriander smiled. He expected no less from his two finest officers.

  "May I have the pleasure of your company as I inform Emperor Rophilborn?"

  They both bowed deeply. Evelyn responded first.

  "It would be the highest of honors,” she said.

  Coriander could tell she meant it. It would be the first time either of them had ever seen His Excellency. Without further words he began a steady pace up the circular street that would lead them to the main stair.

  The elven capital, like most of their fine cities, was not some dirt patch with houses haphazardly scattered on it. The city was made up of nine levels of circular walls and fortifications, meticulously planned centuries ago under the founding of the empire. The lowest of the levels were for growing their crops and housing the animals necessary to keep their city well fed.