by Noah Layton
Howling and chanting and yelping from above and behind, from either side too.
Even at the speed at which we were running they were keeping up with us. Vines crunched and cut air as the wood-elves swung through the trees.
If the sun were out, I would be able to see them crawling along the trees like spiders launching an assault.
Through the darkness, just a few yards ahead, a spear swept in front of me. It’s end slammed into a tree, the handle shuddering as I ducked past it, followed closely by the girls.
‘I can feel it,’ Elera shouted desperately. ‘It is here… It is…’
‘Hold, HOLD!’
I yelled the words back to my wives. Suddenly we had emerged through the thick foliage and onto the precipice of a cliff.
The moonlight shone down upon us at the exposed edge. Elera skidded to a halt at my side, placing her hands on my back to stop herself, while Lara managed to slow herself, kicking up dirt that tipped off the edge and into the abyss below.
If the drop from the treetop hideout had been bad, this spelled total doom. The cliff dropped fifty yards, stopping at a series of razor-sharp rocks, forming a riverbed to a rushing body of water below. The river here was gigantic, flowing to our left with intense power, so much so that we could hear its strikes against the cliff sides even from up here.
It was as if the land had cracked open.
The land itself restarted thirty yards across from us, the forest resuming densely as if the gap was nothing but a pause in the earth.
In the moonlight I glanced up and down the length of the gap.
‘Where the hell is the bridge?’ I asked myself frantically, my eyes darting about in search of it.
‘There,’ Lara said, pointing to our left. I followed her guidance and found it.
I hadn’t seen it because I was looking for something completely different; in my head I expected a grand piece of architecture crumbling to bits, as if laid there by a long forgotten king.
Maybe a king had placed it down, but it was nothing like that now.
Only a rickety rope bridge spanned the gap.
We hurried to it along the yard of space offered by the forest at the cliff’s edge. As we ran, rock and petrified clods of dirt cracked and dropped into the rushing waters below.
Even if they splashed, we wouldn’t have heard a damn thing.
As we arrived at the bridge the howls seemed all-encapsulating, taking over the forest in a torrent of animalistic screams.
A pair of chipped and battered podiums that had once held great statues flanked our way. We rushed past them, Elera first and then Lara.
I looked back into the forest, searching for some sign of the Ralos and his guards, but there was nothing.
Fuck.
I started across the bridge, feeling the swaying caused by the girls the moment I set foot on it.
Wooden panels beneath my feet cracked and splintered as I moved, but stopping was the last thing I wanted to do.
At any moment it could give out.
I looked up, focusing on the sight of the girls as they reached the halfway point.
It was holding.
As I set foot onto the halfway point myself, the bridge’s lowest, sagging part, I looked down into the depths that lurked below.
Black, rushing water slammed by. It wouldn’t have a second’s thought at taking me with it, nor would any of the creatures lurking in its invisible path.
I continued on, guiding myself with the battered, twining ropes that gave some semblance of steadiness in the constant, infernal rocking.
Elera made it first, then Lara.
They both spun to look over at me.
‘Move, Jack!’ Lara called out, ushering me to her.
I was heavier than they were, and as a result the balance of the structure only became worse.
Ten yards to go.
I let the ropes slip from my hands and sprinted forwards. The bridge creaked painfully in response.
A board cracked completely beneath my front foot and I lurched forwards, stumbling and leaping onto the cliff edge, into safety.
I turned to look back across the bridge in the dim moonlight.
‘What do we do, Tall-man?’ Elera asked, a shudder appearing in her voice.
‘We need to cut the bridge,’ I said.
‘But how will we get back?’
‘Do you really wish to go back that way?’ Lara said to Elera, readying her bow and several arrows. ‘We need to find an alternative way back… If we get out of here.’
‘Come on…’ I grunted to myself, looking across the bridge for any sign of the sun-elves. ‘Get out of there…’
I scanned the cliff edge that we had just been standing on searching for some sign of movement.
The forest had filled with wood-elves faster than I could believe, but there was a chance that Ralos and the guards were still alive.
A chance.
And still, the howling continued to grow.
‘Jack, we have to cut it,’ Lara said. ‘The place is going to be swarming in no time. The forest on this side is filled with enough of them, and it will be a miracle if they have not heard us already. We need to go.’
I gulped, scanning the trees obsessively.
‘Come on, you son of a bitch…’
Suddenly there was movement.
Lara drew an arrow, aiming.
‘No, wait…’
‘JACK!’
I had been living on a god damn prayer in the fractions of seconds from which I saw the figure. It was scrambling madly, almost inhuman in its movements.
It had to be a wood-elf.
Then-
The figure reached the bridge and exploded into a sprint.
In the moonlight its skin looked different, and even though it had spoken my name I thought that it was a wood-elf. I was ready to cut the bridge, but with a flash of light I saw that it wasn’t its skin, but the blood that covered its face.
It was Ralos. His guards were gone, and he was covered in the blood of his enemies, his clothes ripped and torn, but he was alive.
Just ten yards across the bridge a horde of wood-elves appeared from the trees, sprinting wildly after him.
To my side, Lara pulled an arrow and aimed past Ralos.
TWANG.
The arrow rocketed across the gap and slammed into the first wood-elf in pursuit of Ralos. It struck the wildling’s neck, after which he flailed madly to the side.
The second wood-elf behind him showed no regard for his falling comrade; he grabbed the dying wood-elf’s shoulders and cast him aside and off the bridge.
Lara drew another arrow as I readied my sword, preparing to cut the ropes the moment Ralos reached us.
Our sun-elf companion chanced a look over his shoulder to see the group chasing him – there were at least twelve pursuing him onto the bridge, and more crowding on the opposite ledge.
Ralos suddenly drew a knife from his belt.
He was ten yards from us.
He drew a swipe to the left and another to the right, slicing through the ropes.
Tonnes of pressure was released, and the structure gave out.
Unable to hold the weight, the panels dropped like piano keys into the darkness.
Ralos shouted out incoherently with supreme effort, leaping through the air with what little leverage he could muster from the falling panels.
Wood-elves screamed and yelped with terror as they dropped into the rushing abyss of water below. Their bodies fell against the backdrop of the cliff like dancing devils in a hellish landscape.
I threw my sword down and dropped to the ground, leaning over the edge and grasping out for Ralos’s hand.
I had gone too far – I was about to fall myself, even if I did get a hold of Ralos.
And I did.
His firm grip clasped around my hand, clinging onto me desperately.
And two more hands slammed down against my ankles, gripping onto my body weight as I clung onto Ral
os.
To my side Lara was firing off arrows towards the wood-elves crowding on the opposite side of the cliffs.
‘Pull him up, Tall-man!’
Everything had happened in seconds.
I looked back down to Ralos.
He smiled up at me, almost mad with relief that he had made it out.
With his free hand, he threw up his satchel to the ledge, relieving himself of a little weight.
‘Second time I had to save your ass from falling to your death,’ I grunted, tensing my arm to pull him up.
CRUNCH.
Ralos’s whole body suddenly jerked and tensed. It was like he was fighting against my grip.
His eyes went wide.
What happened?
Then I saw the long wooden handle sticking from Ralos’s back. The handle of a spear.
‘No…’
Ralos coughed harshly. This time the blood that appeared was his own.
‘No, no…’
‘Take the bag…’ He spluttered. ‘Go… They need you.’
Another spear slammed hard into the wall just a few feet from us.
In those moments, Ralos was still alive. It was the only reason I was still hanging on. I couldn’t drop a man to his death.
But I didn’t have to, because he had enough strength left within him to make the choice for me.
He wrenched his hand away from my grip, and then he was gone, plummeting into the water below.
‘NO!’
‘Jack, we need to go now!’
The screeches vanished, replaced by a high-pitched ringing in my ears that drowned every other sound around me.
We have to keep moving.
I turned and grabbed my sword and Ralos’s satchel as Lara fired a final arrow, just as another spear slammed into the ground at our feet.
We sprinted into the forest, unsure if I was leading us away from danger or deeper into it.
Chapter Twelve
My hearing only returned a minute later as we sprinted through the land of the wood-elves.
My bearings returned to me for the sake of my wives. Maybe I didn’t give a shit about my own safety, but I had to keep my wives safe. They were relying on me.
And if we were going to stay safe, we needed to find shelter.
The forest possessed a ferocity that was unmatched even by the one that surrounded my tribe. I had always been cautious of the wilds, but here everything took on a darker, more unforgiving sheen.
Eventually we came to a river flanked by jagged rocks that jutted out from the banks, overhanging the river like creeping claws.
‘Here,’ Elera said. ‘Right here. We can use this.’
She hurried over one of the smoother rocks and dropped into the water.
Lara and I followed her path, looking over the edge to see her ushering us down with a waving hand.
My head was too clouded to question Elera’s logic; with Lara just behind me, I dropped into the water, finding myself waist deep in it.
From the river bank, Elera’s hand beckoned us into the darkness beneath the jagged rocks.
Within a few yards total blackness had engulfed us, but I could hear Elera’s voice.
‘We will be safe here.’
I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, but after searching about in the rock and sand I found enough dried twigs and leaves to start a small fire using one of the torches.
After surrounding it with enough rocks to frame it, I found a moment to gather myself.
The cave was large enough to house the three of us for a little while, and the fire small enough that the light wouldn’t be seen from outside.
‘Fuck…’ I muttered, pacing around the fire while Elera and Lara warmed themselves by it. ‘What the fuck just happened…?’
I had known Ralos for less than a day, but when you fight alongside someone the bond becomes tough quickly.
Sure, we had hated each other to begin with, but after actually sitting down and talking to the guy…
‘You cannot blame yourself for his death, husband,’ Elera said. ‘Nor the deaths of his guards. You did all that you could.’
‘No, I didn’t. I could have helped them when we were on the other side of the river.’
‘He didn’t want to accept your help,’ Lara said. ‘You heard what he said.’
‘And I should have ignored it. I have magic on my side. I could have done more to save him… He set off out here to get his sister back, and now he’s gone. Their father has lost one of his children.’
‘Then…’ Elera said. ‘Let us make sure that he doesn’t lose a second.’
‘She’s right, Jack,’ Lara said, moving to my side and placing a hand tightly on my shoulder. ‘Ralos knew the consequences, and he knew the risks. That was a warrior’s death if I ever saw one. No screaming, no crying – just a desire to complete the mission.’
My wives were right. It had happened, and there was nothing that I could do about it.
I was going to get Santana back, and I was going to bring Mariana home too.
‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘He wouldn’t want us to sit here and mourn for him. He would want us to get his sister back. We’ll need to wait for the commotion out there to die down, then we can get moving.’
With the fire burning, we settled around it and took a few minutes to catch our bearings. While the girls checked each other’s grazes, Lara examined her bow and Elera drank deeply from her canteen of water, rubbing the remnants of the river that streaked her blue body into her skin.
I sat down by the fire and checked my own body for injuries. Aside from grazes and cuts, I was okay.
I turned my attention to the satchel that Ralos had handed me. I hadn’t even thought about it at the time; it was just what he wanted from me in his dying moment.
Why would he hand this to me when he knew he was going to die? Why is this the first thing that would come to mind?
I knew that satchels could be used for additional inventory spaces if they were necessary. What confused me more was the reasoning behind bringing a satchel in the first place.
The sun-elves didn’t seem the type to fill their inventories with crap, and Ralos above all was a military man. He would only bring what he needed.
There was only one way to find out.
I opened the satchel and tapped the innards. The inventory screen popped up, and I scanned the icons.
I felt my eyes go wide involuntarily. I looked past the screen to the girls, who were still taking care of themselves.
They couldn’t see what was in the satchel’s inventory slots, but my reaction would draw unwanted attention.
I straightened up my expression and looked back at the icons.
Infernal Fire Explosive x35
Infernal Fire Explosive. They weren’t like the long and short charge explosives that we had been supplied with by the sun-elves.
But I had little doubt what they were for. I had seen one before, back at the trading post north of my land, being sold by the wolf-headed traders for 1500GP a piece.
There was 52,500GP worth of explosives sitting in front of me.
These each held a fire demon within, things that could destroy life and reduce the land to cinders, and here Ralos was with a satchel filled with enough to wipe out an entire tribe.
‘Anything useful in there, Jack?’ Lara asked, scrubbing a patch of mud and dried wood-elf blood from her arm.
I looked past the window at them again. There was no way that I could keep this from them.
‘I need to show you something.’
I led the girls to the back of the cave and carefully removed one of the explosives.
‘I do not understand,’ Elera said. ‘Why would Ralos be in possession of such things? Of what use are they?’
‘There’s something that Artrix said,’ I continued, looking into the flaming depths of the explosive. ‘He said that the sun-elves don’t get involved with the politics that go on beyond their borders, unless it is in re
taliation for crimes committed against them. Then they are unrelenting.’
‘To…’ Elera said, looking between us. ‘No… I know that they have taken one of our people, not to mention a love of yours, husband, but… This would be an execution.’
‘That is what this is. Kidnapping a tribe master’s daughter and attacking his land is about as bad a crime as you can commit out here, and Artrix’s mind is made up. He doesn’t just want to rescue Mariana – that would not be enough. That isn’t retaliation, that’s just reclaiming something that’s been taken from you. He wants to destroy the wood-elves completely, and that’s what he sent Ralos to accomplish.’
We kneeled among our own flickering shadows, all three of us staring down at the fiery orbs. The energy that they held was captivating.
‘What do we do with them?’ Lara asked. For the first time in a long time she sounded unsure – her usual headstrong self had fallen aside.
I shook my head back into the moment and thought about our situation.
‘Artrix’s intention was to destroy the sun-elves. He doesn’t know that his son is dead, and he doesn’t know that we’re aware of his intentions. He didn’t tell me – probably because he didn’t know how I would react. The man is practically a mind-reader, but this is beyond the pale.’
‘Do you think he was using you?’ Elera asked.
‘How do you mean?’
‘He would have known that Santana’s kidnapping would affect you the same way Mariana’s had affected him. On a regular day you would probably not consider destroying an entire tribe-’
‘Probably wouldn’t,’ Lara interrupted. ‘Technically Jack has already done that.’
‘But they were just a small group, were they not?’ Elera continued. ‘When they take one of your own, though… Well, I remember quite clearly the anger I felt when my nymph-sisters were killed in the storm and the sirens surrounded me. I know the anger that comes about… It makes you capable of anything.’
My nymph was right. The rage I felt, even at the mention of Santana’s name, was almost unimaginable.
‘Are you considering this?’ Lara asked me in earnest, her penetrating eyes lighting up in the low glow of the fire.
‘I don’t know,’ I said honestly.