His blade slid down the length of hers, coming to a sharp stop at the crossguard. Before she could react, he’d leaned in and forced her blade out to the side, moving in a curve that stretched her wrist to an angle she couldn’t follow. Her grip weakened with the awkward movement, and when he kept pushing, her sword fell from her hands and hit the ground with a sharp clang.
She stumbled backward out of range of his sword. A self-satisfied expression crossed the night elf’s face. He didn’t bother to follow her right away. There was no rush. He had her where he wanted her.
Novikke took another step back, breathing hard. Her heart was in her throat. She could run. Her legs itched to. But she knew they’d catch her again.
Was this really how she died? In a chance encounter in a place she hadn’t wanted to be in the first place?
She looked the night elf in the eyes as he came toward her. Behind the anger in his gaze, she saw a range of emotions. She saw sharp intelligence. And as he looked back at her, she wondered if he saw the same in her.
She didn’t believe they were unthinking, violent beasts. They must have had some sense of compassion. Maybe there was mercy in them, even if no one had yet discovered it.
Shaking, she raised her hands and stopped moving.
The night elf stopped and arched an eyebrow. Was he used to people running? That was what any sensible person would have done.
He said something in a language she didn’t understand and gestured toward the ground with his sword. A sense of dread went through her as she dropped to her knees, hands still up.
He came right up to her with easy steps, assured of his victory. He raised the blade to her throat, letting the cold metal press against her. The edge bit at her skin.
She could feel the Panic creeping up on her, making her heart beat faster and her throat tighten and her stomach twist in nauseating knots.
No. She wouldn’t let that be the last thing she felt before she died.
The sword held steady against her, but didn’t cut. She swallowed tightly. The night elf was staring at her again. She supposed she looked as strange to him as he did to her.
Behind him, the smiling one had finished executing the horse and was wiping blood off his sword. The poor animal lay motionless on the ground in a pool of blood and entrails, still harnessed to the wagon. Disgust curled through her. Maybe she’d been wrong and night elves were just beasts, after all.
Smiler came to stand next to the other one, looking bored and vaguely amused. The serious one just continued to frown sternly at her.
They spoke in their own language to each other, watching her—like they were discussing what to do with her. She allowed herself to breathe just a little. She doubted they spoke Ardanian. It probably wouldn’t do any good to try to explain herself. Maybe she should beg. Begging looked the same in every language, she was pretty sure.
The elves seemed to come to an agreement. To her immense relief, the sword moved away from her neck. Then it gestured to the dirt again.
She moved uncertainly to the ground, lying on her stomach. No good could come of being put into this position. She regretted not running.
Serious sheathed his sword and went back toward the wagon. Smiler didn’t move for a long moment. She couldn’t see him from her prostrated pose on the ground, but she had the sense that he was staring at her.
Then there was a quick movement, and pain exploded through her ribs. She cried out and curled on her side to protect her stomach. Another vicious kick came, this time striking her shoulder. Panicked, she rolled and tried to get up.
A dark, heavy bulk climbed on top of her, holding her down. She punched and missed.
An out-of-place sound came out of the shape above her. He was laughing.
Furious, she punched again. He ducked aside, and she clipped his cheek before he caught her wrist and held it to her chest. She saw his other hand coming toward her an instant before she felt the hard slap across her face.
There was a flash of movement—his arm swinging toward her face again—and she flinched, trying to block him with her arm. More blows came, anyway. She shrank into herself, covering her head.
Once he was satisfied with the beating he’d given her, he held her down and pulled at the lacing of her pants. She went cold.
She hadn’t had a bad episode in months. She’d almost thought that she’d gotten it under control. What a foolish thought.
The Panic came back to her as if it had never left, horrible and all too familiar. She couldn’t breathe. Her skin flushed with burning heat. And fear pulsed through her. Every muscle in her body went rigid.
Everything was suddenly too close and cramped, and far away at the same time. Like it wasn’t real. Like she was outside herself. Like she’d died inside her own body.
She felt his hands on her, pulling at clothes. One of her hands remained pinned against her chest, and the other was pushing ineffectually against him. She should have been fighting him, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. She wanted to sink into the ground and disappear.
He was still smiling. Her distress was funny to him.
She became aware of a voice coming from the wagon. Serious reappeared beside them. She saw him reach toward the one on top of her. She saw Smiler look up, and she listened distantly as an argument broke out.
Finally Serious pulled Smiler off her with a jerk. Novikke took a shaky breath as the hands on her moved away. Her heart pounded a deep rhythm in her ears, and it was all she could hear.
As soon as the night elf was off her, a jolt went through her limbs. A primal command to move that could not be ignored. She scrambled to her feet and ran.
Someone shouted. A hand grabbed her arm. Something hit her head. Then there was only blackness.
◆◆◆
She gradually awoke to the sound of voices.
She pried open her eyes, and her vision swam. A dark shape was in front of her. She flinched, remembering the pain from flying fists and feet. She was lying on the ground. The voices were becoming clearer, like cotton was being pulled out of her ears.
She’d been knocked out. Her head ached and she felt as if she might throw up. She got the sense that not much time had passed. It was still dark.
The face above her came closer, blurred at first and then clearer. The serious one. She froze. He frowned, then turned and snapped a string of complicated words to the other one, who apparently stood somewhere out of view. The hardness in his face and voice set her on edge. The other one’s response sounded equally irritated.
She swallowed. Her heart still pounded and her throat was constricted. The Panic hadn’t left her body, but it did not have dominion over her mind like it had before.
She felt so sick. She tried to lift her hands to rub at her temples and realized with a pang of misery that her hands were tied in front of her. There was a patch of stickiness on her hair and neck. Blood.
The elf’s eyes lingered on her face, as if checking for something.
The tiniest bit of hope rose in her. She was still alive. And he had protected her.
She tried to peer at the other one, but couldn’t move her head or eyes without everything spinning. She looked back at the one kneeling beside her. She didn’t like him. She didn’t trust him. She would have killed him if she’d had the strength. But at least he hadn’t kicked her and tried to force himself on her.
“Don’t let him,” she begged. She whispered it so quietly that it was almost inaudible, so that the other one wouldn’t hear. The elf stared at her. She couldn’t tell whether he understood. She thought something changed in his expression, but she couldn’t tell what it was.
But then he turned his attention away from her face. She tensed when she felt his hands at her waist, but he only removed her knife from her belt. He proceeded to dig into all her pockets and then search for hidden ones when he finished with the obvious ones.
Smiler approached. Novikke’s body was going tense again. Her breaths were tight and shallow. S
erious noticed it and gave her a curious glance. How annoyingly perceptive of him.
Smiler was holding her bag, which she’d left in the wagon. He’d taken the letters out of it and ripped them open. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was reading them. Could he understand Ardanian, then?
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his expression abruptly sharpen in surprise and anger. He looked up at her. Whatever was in that letter, he wasn’t happy about it.
He said something to the serious one, gesturing to the letters. They discussed something briefly. As the conversation ended, Serious shot Novikke a hateful look, and she felt her chances of surviving this plummet.
“Get up,” Smiler said to her. His voice was rough and low and thickly accented. The sound of it sent a cold shiver through her, but the knowledge that she could communicate with them was a small—very small—relief.
She slowly climbed to her knees. The world still spun around her. When she paused to steady herself, Smiler grabbed her and dragged her to her feet. He turned her toward the forest and gave her a shove. She caught herself on a tree before she fell.
“Go,” he said shortly.
Go. Into Kuda Varai.
They were taking her prisoner. That meant that they weren’t going to kill her. Not right away, at least.
She stared up at the dark trees. People who went into Kuda Varai didn’t come out again. Being taken captive was not much better than being killed on the spot.
Maybe it was worse. Maybe she should have run. Maybe she should have let them kill her.
The elf shoved at her shoulder again. Not wanting to attract his ire again, she walked into the forest.
Chapter 2
As they went deeper into the forest, the land changed. The plants turned unnatural hues of violet and blue and black and, occasionally, even green. Some of the flowers and fungi gave off a soft, pulsing glow, which she welcomed, because it was incredibly dark. The light from the moons barely penetrated the trees, as if the air had intentionally thickened to block it out.
Birds and insects chirped and sang in the middle of the night. The night elves weren’t the only nocturnal beings inhabiting the forest, it seemed. Maybe all the animals here were creatures of the night.
It was all strangely beautiful and fantastical, like something from a storybook, and it might have charmed her if it hadn’t been so terrifying.
She quietly pulled her mage torch from her pocket to light the ground at her feet. The night elves might be able to see in the dark, but she couldn’t. They gave her annoyed glances when the light flashed on, but didn’t object. A good thing, too, because if she hadn’t had the light, she would have spent the entire night tripping over roots and stones.
After a while, she realized that they were walking on a narrow path, still grassy because it was not well-trodden enough to be worn down to dirt. It was a barely-there trail that only the night elves must have known about. She’d never have noticed it if they hadn’t brought her to it.
Her feet were leaden with dread as she walked. She didn’t know where they were taking her, or why. Maybe they had allied with the sun elves and were taking her to a slow, tortuous death at the hands of Ardani’s enemies.
Or maybe they were bringing her back to the city in the center of the forest, Vondh Rav, to be sacrificed to their evil goddess.
The old couple had escaped. They’d tell someone what had happened. Even if no one found the wagon and Dimos’s body, the people at Fort Greenbar in Livaki would realize they’d gone missing when they didn’t arrive on time.
She shook her head. Knowing what the upper ranks thought of non-essential types like herself, they’d probably assume she was sleeping off a hangover somewhere, if they even noticed her absence at all.
And none of that mattered anyway, because even if she’d been someone important, they would not have come into the forest to rescue her. It was a fool’s errand.
No one went into the forest.
No humans, at least.
It was said that millennia ago, the night elves and sun elves had both been just elves. When ancient humans had pushed them to the brink of extinction, the goddess of the sun and the goddess of night had stepped in to defend them, giving each group a part of their respective power.
The goddess of night had transformed the forest and its inhabitants, infusing them with magic and giving them aspects of herself. Now the forest was a natural stronghold for the night elves.
They called themselves the Varai. Kuda Varai was theirs, and had been for as long as history could remember.
Novikke didn’t know that she believed in any sun or night goddesses. But regardless of their source, no one could deny the strange effects Kuda Varai had on visitors.
Outsiders who entered it became disoriented and inevitably lost their way without a night elf guide. Magic and supernatural beasts defended it from people who would do it harm. The trees resisted attempts to burn them. You might succeed in torching a single tree, but the fire never seemed to catch the surrounding brush.
She had little hope of escaping, even if she ran. Even if nothing attacked her, she’d get lost in the forest. So she was stuck with them and stuck with whatever fate they had planned for her.
The Panic had gone, though. At least she had that.
When the sun had brightened the sky to a dusty gray, they stopped under a hillside, beneath an overhang of rock that created a small cave. The elves set about making a camp. There was already a fire ring inside the space. It was a campsite that they, or someone, had used in the past.
They paid her no mind as they worked. She sat heavily against the wall of the cave. It felt better having a something solid against her back.
The elves pulled food from packs as a fire crackled to life in the fire ring. They spoke little. When they did, it sounded casual and unconcerned. Novikke frowned. It reminded her of the army camps she’d sometimes stopped at between runs. They behaved as if this was all completely normal. As if her life wasn’t at stake. As if they weren’t evil. As if nothing here was wrong.
As they cooked, Novikke worked up the courage to speak. She waited for Serious to look in her direction, and when she caught his eye, she quickly said, “Where are you taking me?”
He stared at her blankly.
“He does not understand Ardanian,” said the other one. He smiled in a way that felt like he was enjoying a joke at her expense. It was how he always looked at her. He was always smiling smugly at nothing, as if he knew perfectly well that he had complete control here and he liked it.
And the other one—she wasn’t sure yet what she thought of him. He seemed less loathsome than his companion, but that was a low bar. She eyed him again, watching the way his gaze went curiously from her to the other elf and back.
She had wondered if the two of them would fight again, after what had happened when they’d first encountered her. But the disagreement seemed to have deescalated. Smiler hadn’t tried to touch her again, and Serious hadn’t argued against anything else he’d done.
“We’re going to a ranger outpost,” Smiler went on.
Her jaw tensed. “And then what?”
He grinned at her instead of answering.
“Why?” she asked instead.
“Spies are taken to our superiors for questioning,” he said.
Of course that was what they thought. “I’m not a spy,” she said. “I’m a courier.”
“A spy,” he corrected her. “With the Ardanian army.”
She was suddenly hyperaware of her bright red and blue army uniform standing out in the midst of all this blackness. “I assure you, I’m not.”
He gave her an amused look. “Whatever you are, begging and arguing will not help you,” he said. “Be quiet and do as we tell you, and maybe I won’t need to beat the fight out of you again.”
Novikke’s jaw locked shut. She glared at him.
“Yes,” he said, knowing she was remembering what had happened on the road. “You are afraid of that. So be
quiet.”
The other one had been watching her impassively during the conversation. She glanced over at him. He said nothing. Both of them went back to cooking.
Exhausted, she curled up on the stone floor, resting her head on her hands. She shivered. She’d left her cloak and her bag on the road miles behind, so she had nothing to keep the cold at bay. Nonetheless, she was asleep before the elves started eating.
◆◆◆
She awoke to movement in early evening, before the sun had set. She opened her eyes and was alarmed to find herself alone in the cave with Smiler. She decided to pretend to be asleep, but then he looked over at her, as if he’d sensed her fear.
Night Elves of Ardani: Book One: Captive Page 2