The Paladins of Naretia

by TP Keane

Chapter 24

  "Ol?rin, look," Bernard said, jabbing him in the ribs with a thick finger.

  Ol?rin lifted his head and felt his breath leave him. The forest had come alive as its vines slithered through the trees. Each one wrapped itself around the waist of an elf and gracefully carried them across the gorge. They stopped a few feet away and hung precariously over the violent waters. The vines danced over the gorge as though a breeze swayed them, but the air was quiet now.

  Ten elves, each one with long flowing silver hair, azure lips, and silver eyes, raised their bows and took aim at Aramus. 'How much they look like the Goddess,' Ol?rin thought. 'A truly handsome race.' They were not adorned in armour, but rather in simple clothes. Foraging for ore from the ground was seen as nothing short of rape to the elves. The only metal they used was for their weapons, and that was said to have fallen from the sky as a gift from Edwina herself.

  While the women bore the most striking resemblance to the Goddess Edwina, the men had an androgynous beauty about them and Ol?rin couldn't help but stare. Each elf was different, some pale as the moon, others as tanned as Aramus, but it was the ones whose dark skin contrasted against the brightness of their silver hair, which attracted Ol?rin the most. As if to announce the equality between the sexes, the slightly pointed ears of both the men and the women were adorned with delicately crafted cuffs of tiny woodland flowers that most in Lothangard would regard as a female accessory.

  Ol?rin heard Aramus take in a sharp breath. Turning toward his young companion, Aramus's face was one of lure and interest as he gazed at the elves. Struggling to his feet, he leaned heavily against Aria. To his knowledge, it was the first time that Aramus had seen an elf. 'Of course, why wouldn't he be attracted to them?' It seemed that his father's genetics predisposed him to admiring the likeness of Edwina. Ol?rin wasn't sure if Aria had noticed it too, but her brow furrowed at Aramus's ostensive adoration.

  "Why do you come here?" one of the elves asked.

  Her vine brought her closer to Ol?rin, but her eyes, and arrow, were fixed on Aramus.

  "We come to speak to your Elders," Ol?rin replied. "We are not an army, and we mean you no harm."

  "But you attack us," a male elf said, joining the first. "Your companion wields the power of Dantet. Were it not for your attempts to stop him from striking us, and the queen's also, our arrows would have been more accurate, and you would have been slain. You say you are not here to harm us, but yet harm has been done to the forest around us. Why should we trust you?"

  "Eh, I think ye'll find that it was you lot who fired first," Bernard spat. "Whot, did ye expect that we wouldnae fire back? Just lie down and die fer ya, is it? Yev got another thing coming if ye think that's what's going tae happen."

  "Do not speak to me of lying down and dying, dwarf," the female said with a deadly tone. The elf's sliver eyes, punctuated with dark pupils, flashed a warning, and Ol?rin placed a hand on the dwarf's shoulder to tell him to be quiet. "Your people have raped and pillaged this land with your mining. Every night I hear the creatures you enslave, and the lands, cry in pain. Just be grateful that we fired at your Etherium armour, knowing full well that you would not be hurt.

  "It was a test, to see how far your aggression would take you. And you, dwarf, reacted with anger, foregoing any intelligent thoughts your head might contain. You didn't even try save the queen when we dislodged her boulder with our arrows. You would have seen her killed."

  Ol?rin wondered how the elves knew about Etherium when it had only come to his attention upon his visit to Balbuldor. He surmised it must be because the elves were widely versed in all things natural and unnatural.

  "You did that?" Aria almost shrieked. "You would have killed your queen, and all for the sake of a test?"

  "We are ruled by none," said the closest elf to the queen. "The water would have lifted you to safety if we had asked it to."

  Aria shot the elf a deadly look but said nothing to his denouncement of her title, for which Ol?rin was grateful. Instead, she occupied herself with trying to shift Aramus's weight on her shoulders, a difficult task with bound hands.

  "Aria has shown her bravery when she stood between the winged man and us. She has shown she is capable of caring for her enemy and is, therefore, allowed to proceed through the forest," said the female elf. "Ol?rin Talfan, you tried to stop this demon from attacking us, despite the fact we were the aggressor. You may also proceed through the forest."

  The female elf's vine swung her closer to examine Aramus, and for a long time she just stared into his amber eyes. Pain was very clearly etched across his pale face as he struggled to stay upright.

  "You saved the queen, your prisoner," she said, slowly lowering her bow and slinging it onto her shoulder. "Even though you did, I can still see a great darkness within you. You hide something in the deepest places that I cannot see. I am not sure if it is simply a hurt that was caused to you, or if it is something more sinister."

  The elf girl paused, and then reached out and roughly pulled the arrow from Aramus's wing. He cried out in pain and collapsed onto the stoney path again. Ol?rin gasped and started toward Aramus, only to be held in place by the sharp point of an arrow aimed between his eyes.

  "What's wrong with you?" Aria shouted at the elf, desperately trying to stem the bleeding with her bound hands. The elf ignored Aria and lifted Aramus's chin to examining his eyes. He stared back at her for as long as he could before his eyes rolled backward his head.

  "There is no fire," she said, satisfied. "His father's powers are subdued for now. He may continue with Ol?rin and the queen. However," she said turning toward the dwarf again. "I cannot allow you through. You show no care for others, nor do you show any redeeming characteristics that I have seen. You, dwarf, may not enter."

  "Whot! Yer kicking me outta here cos I didnae save the growler who murdered me brother?" Bernard raged. "Yer a bloody, head-banging, cuddie-loving, oaf-looking, back end of a scrote, if that's what ye were expecting me tae do? You dinnae know me, ye dinnae know any of us. Whot makes you the judge, jury, and executioner?"

  "Do you hear any arguments?" the elf girl said, gesturing to her silent companions.

  "You will have to forgive my friend here," Ol?rin interrupted Bernard before he could say the litany of curses that were visibly teetering on the edge of his tongue. "There has been no time at all since his brothers passing, and I fear his emotions have clouded any normal reaction he might have. However, he carries with him an important item, one that I am loath to be separated from. Could you not see it in your heart to be lenient toward his manner, knowing his pain?"

  Ol?rin had hoped that a vote of confidence from another caste of Naretia would sway the elves opinion of Aramus. But it seemed that they had a long seated resentment toward the dwarfs that Ol?rin knew nothing about, and Bernard wasn't helping matters with his temper. Today, as with every other day, it seemed their puritanistic views would remain unsullied by outsiders.

  "We could not," replied the male elf. "He will not be harmed, but he shall travel no further either."

  Without warning, Bernard was lifted off his feet by a thick vine and carried back in the direction they had come. The air turned blue with the vile curses coming from his mouth, and time after time, he sliced his way out of the liana with his axe, only to be caught again by another.

  "Bernard, wait for us outside of Elwood," Ol?rin shouted after him.

  "Whot do ye think I am, some kinda lap dog? No, I willnae wait. I will return to Balbuldor and inform the king of Angus's passing."

  "You will remember your promise?"

  "Aye, I'll remember it all right. I'll be back here wih' reinforcements in three days, and if I have tae level the forest tae find ye, I will. Ya hear me elf? I'll flatten thas place. Stick that in yer pipe and smoke it. Ha!"

  Bernard disappeared through the thick trees and Ol?rin was sure he would cut as many vines as he would curse. It worried him too that the Valefire was carried away with the wilful d
warf. He wondered if Bernard would, indeed, return for them in three days' time. It worried him more that Bernard might anger the elves by desecrating their sanctum if they were not there to meet him. But fate had seen fit to take this part of his quest out of Ol?rin's hands. So, he had no choice but to trust, and fear, that Bernard would be true to his word.

  "Come, your friend needs to be healed," said the girl elf. "We must continue on to the city of Rhidwynn."

  Ol?rin glanced at Aramus and was alarmed to see that his tanned face was now a deathly shade of grey. Elf arrows were imbued with Edwina's magic, poison to the young man. Dark veins pulsated down Aramus's right arm, and as much as Aria tried, she could not stem the flow of black blood. Ol?rin rushed to his side, but before he could reach him, a vine wrapped itself around his waist and lifted him high into the air.

  "No, wait. I must help him," Ol?rin said as he came level with the dark skinned elf girl.

  No sooner had he said it then Aramus and Aria were separated, and lifted into the air beside him, Aramus dangling limply in his vine.

  "My name is Sudia," the girl said. "I am one of Rhidwynn's most formidable healers. I have seen these kinds of wounds before in Dark Ones, and can tell you he yet has some time. But not much. We must travel to the city where I can syphon the magic from his wounds. Then, and only then, will he recover."

  "You are sure?" Aria questioned. "It is imperative he does not die."

  It seemed to Ol?rin that the queen understood the nature of their quest, or perhaps she was just saying all the right things until she could be freed to kill him herself. Either way, it was too early to tell her true intentions.

  "I cannot be certain. But, if he only had dark blood inside of him, our arrows would have killed him outright," she replied. "It is only by his human side that he still lives, and only by his human side that we will cure him. It was his final test."

  With more grace and less haste than Ol?rin would have cared for, the vines moved through the forest and followed the gorge until it came to a thunderous waterfall. Sudia raised her hand and, without a word, the torrent parted in the middle, like the side-ways mouth of some watery beast. From within the darkened tunnel, more vines reached out their woody tendrils and took hold of the party. Aramus's body fell limply into the waiting liana before they were all swallowed by the watery maw.