The Darkling Tide

by Travis Simmons

  “Leo,” Rorick said. “Get behind me.”

  “Why?” she looked up to see the elle folk gathering at the edge of the trail, their weapons drawn.

  “I think they realize their weapons can get through the warding.”

  Daniken pushed Leona behind them.

  Cruel axes and wicked swords poked at the warding. They passed through without incident. A couple elle folk thought they would try their hand with pushing through the warding, but once their dark intent reached the warding, they were blasted backwards.

  “Elle folk, ready!” the king yelled.

  Leona crouched down. She wasn’t proud of herself, using her friends like a shield, but she couldn’t help it. She lay her body over the shivering body of her sister, watching the darkness spread up around Abagail’s ear, still creeping upwards.

  She was careful not to touch the shadow.

  Behind her came a flash of gold. The darkling birds screamed and the thunderous sound of wings hammered into the air as the birds fled.

  There was a clatter of weapons against weapons, and the sound of elle folk screaming. Leona peered between Daniken’s legs to see a golden orb shuttle through the chest one of the elle folk. When the orb burst through the back, the tiny figure collapsed to the ground, dead.

  There were more orbs, three altogether. They cut through the army, leaving a wake of destruction and dead bodies behind them.

  One of the golden orbs whizzed toward Leona’s group and alighted on the ground at Abagail’s head.

  Daphne flitted up to the orb, fluttering around the light as if she were happy about something.

  And then the light sloughed away like mist to reveal Celeste. She reached down to Abagail’s head, careful not to touch the darkness still creeping slowly around her ear.

  “She’s suffering from a wyrded attack?” Celeste asked, glancing up at Daniken.

  “Yes, she had a warding up, it rebounded on her,” the elf said. She crossed her arms and wouldn’t meet the gaze of her sister.

  “The elle folk are engaged, we have to move,” Celeste said.

  “They will only catch up with us,” Rorick said. “We need to end this now.”

  Leona looked back to the elle folk. The golden orbs were devastating the tiny army. The light was too fast, and the elle folk too slow. More and more fell with every passing moment. But the harpist and the king still glared at the group.

  “They will fall soon enough,” Celeste said. “We have to get Abagail out of here.”

  She drew the sun scepter from her back and drummed a tune on its crystalline surface. Golden light grew beneath Abagail, and lifted her up like a litter.

  “We need to find our way back to the other trail.” Celeste pointed behind them.

  “We can’t go back,” Leona said. “The trail is on fire that way.”

  Celeste frowned, sniffed the air, and then sighed. “I thought it had gone out,” she said to herself.

  “There’s no choice but to keep pushing through this way,” Daniken said.

  “And that’s the way you planned it, isn’t it?” Celeste said.

  Daniken didn’t answer, nor did she meet her sister’s gaze.

  “Planned what?” Rorick asked.

  “What other trail are you talking about?” Leona asked. “There’s never been any other trail.”

  “Oh, there was,” Celeste said. “But it was cloaked. There’s no time for this though. Skye and Mari will catch up to us, we need to press on.”

  Celeste led the way away from the melee, Abagail floating behind her on a cloud of golden light. Rorick and Leona kept their weapons in hand, and Daphne spiraled on before them, seemingly happy now that Celeste was back.

  Leona was happy Celeste was back.

  “Leona,” Daniken said when Celeste was far enough ahead of them that she couldn’t hear. “Remember what I said?”

  “You’ve said a lot,” Leona said, truly confused as to what Daniken was referring to.

  “The darkness is growing in your sister. She thought it was ok to use the power, and now look, the darkness is spreading. Remember what I told you. There will come a point when Abbie is too far gone to save.”

  Leona looked at her sister, shivering in the midst of some torment that Leona couldn’t understand. She closed her eyes and nodded.

  “I know.”

  Skye and Mari caught up with them as they were setting up camp that night. They settled on the ground, the golden light dissolving into elvish features as soon as the orb made contact with the earth.

  “Are they all dead?” Celeste asked joining her friends where they had landed some feet away from camp.

  “All except the king and his harpist,” Mari responded.

  Celeste nodded. “Hopefully they are too scared to challenge us again.”

  “I doubt that,” Sky said, his violet eyes studying the camp.

  Celeste agreed. They didn’t have much experience with the elle folk, but from what they knew, they didn’t give up, and fear wasn’t in their vocabulary.

  “What’s going on back there?” Skye asked.

  Celeste followed his eyes back to camp. Abagail was still out of it, but at least she’d stopped shaking and shivering. Celeste still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Leona sat beside her sister, careful not to touch her, but obviously worried. Daniken cast side-long looks at the sisters. Rorick was stationed some feet away in the opposite direction.

  Celeste shrugged. “I think Daniken has some kind of hold on the younger sister, but I can’t be certain.”

  “What about the man?” Mari asked.

  “I can’t be sure. He was pleasant the last time we met, but this time he doesn’t seem talkative at all.”

  “Has the dark elf been hunting in the woods?” Mari asked. Obviously she knew Daniken had called their dinner out of the forest, even now the other elf was skinning and gutting a rabbit.

  “She has,” Celeste said.

  Mari shook her head.

  “We need to break her hold,” Skye said.

  Celeste nodded, her eyes rooted on her sister. How had she gone so wrong? It wasn’t just because of the moon scepter. Not all of the dark elves suffered from the lunacy brought on by their weapons, some of them could still be reasoned with. It was the same with the light elves, some of them were of the belief that the scepters should be opened. Celeste just wasn’t sure where Daniken had gone wrong.

  “You could wield a scepter, you know,” Daniken said to Leona once everyone had cleared out of the camp and she was certain she was alone with Leona. The younger girl didn’t look up at her words, but Daniken knew that she’d heard her. “Maybe even a sun scepter.” She looked over at the group of light elves who’d recently arrived. “If we found one, and unlocked it, I could start teaching you how to use it.”

  Leona stared down at her sister, not speaking. What would she ever do if Abagail didn’t wake up? Would she be able to face this world alone? She needed to make a plan for if that happened.

  But she didn’t want to. Abbie had to wake up, didn’t she?

  “What’s wrong with her?” Leona asked.

  Daniken shrugged. “I’m not really sure. She was working with wyrd, and then the harpist undid her wyrding. Likely she’s suffering from some kind of shock.”

  “Will she wake up?” Leona asked.

  Daniken didn’t answer because just then Rorick came back to camp, Daphne trailing along over his shoulder. He settled down near the fire and picked up one of the rabbits to skin. Daphne settled on Abagail’s forehead, and her sister seemed to sigh at the presence of the pixie.

  “We need to discuss what the plan is,” Celeste said, rejoining the camp. The other two elves followed her, the man with the short hair and violet eyes, and the other woman with soft, almost child-like features.

  “To keep away from darklings,” Rorick muttered, casting a glance up at the elves.

  “No, that’s not the plan,” Leona said, more heat in her voice than she’d i
ntended. “The plan was to get Abagail to the harbingers so this damned plague didn’t poison her.”

  “That’s already happening,” Rorick said.

  Leona tightened her grip on Abagail’s sword.

  “The plan is to get Abagail to the harbingers,” Celeste cut in. “What I’m wondering is why you took this branch of the trail, and not the one some way back that would have taken you to New Landanten, and the harbingers?”

  “There wasn’t any other path,” Rorick said.

  “There was,” the guy named Skye said. “Only, Daniken here covered it up and brought you this way instead.”

  Leona studied Daniken’s face. “Is this true?” she asked.

  Daniken didn’t answer, just tore another pelt off a rabbit. She tossed it nonchalantly at Mari’s feet. The younger elf scowled at it and reached for her scepter, but her hand didn’t finish the movement, and instead dropped to her side.

  “Maybe we can talk instead about the darkling tide that’s taking over the Fay Forest, and how there’s a way to stop it,” Daniken said.

  “And if you hadn’t been so bent on coming here to mess with these humans, you would have been part of the meeting that just happened in New Landanten where we discussed that very thing.” Celeste crossed her arms.

  “Ah, yes, opening the scepters,” Daniken smiled, but there was no humor in it.

  “Yes, apparently the dark elves have worked their will on Garth. He’s agreed to open the scepters and cleanse the Fay Forest.” Skye said, his voice dark.

  “Good, it’s about time someone has decided to kill the darklings off,” Rorick said, meeting the eyes of the light elves.

  “Do you know why we don’t open the scepters?” Celeste asked Rorick. Her eyes were wild, her body nearly crackling with her anger.

  “I’ve been wondering about just that. Are you in league with the darklings?” Rorick fired back.

  “See, she’s gotten to them,” Skye muttered.

  Celeste bristled, but she didn’t respond to his goading. “It requires the blood of one infected with the shadow plague to open the scepters. Not only that, but the scepters, let off this close to where the veil is so thin between worlds could devastate the nine worlds.”

  “Devastate how?” Leona asked, cutting Rorick off before he could say anything else.

  “The scepter, once opened and detonated, wouldn’t just kill the darklings, but it would kill all that wasn’t of an elder race. It would kill all that wasn’t born of cosmic light,” Celeste told them.

  “Humans,” Leona breathed.

  Celeste nodded.

  “But the fay would remain,” Skye said.

  “Yes, they were born before the earth, and are made of starlight, moonlight, sunlight. We are the light of the cosmos made physical. Our shape can transform just as easily from physical to energy.” Mari said, her voice quiet enough that Leona could barely hear her.

  “And being that close to the thinning veil...” Rorick didn’t want to admit that Daniken almost had them doing precisely what she wanted, sacrificing Abagail to open the sun scepters.

  “It would have the same effect on all the nine worlds. It would kill off all humans along with the darklings,” Celeste said, visibly calming now that they were beginning to understand her.

  “Might,” Daniken said. “We don’t know that’s what would happen.” Daniken still didn’t look up, and Leona was too stunned to speak. Had the dark elf been looking out for them, or was she just trying to kill off Abagail for her own ends?

  Leona looked down at her sister, the plague had finally stopped creeping up her face and toward her eyes. She had seen men before with tattoos, it wasn’t a common practice on O, but some men who ventured to faraway lands came back with such art on their body. That’s what the shadow plague looked like on the side of Abagail’s face.

  If it wasn’t so toxic, it could almost be pretty, Leona thought.

  “That doesn’t change the fact that the darklings need to die,” Daniken said. “It also doesn’t change the fact that we have weapons at our disposal that can do just that.”

  “But at what cost?” Mari asked.

  “So one race is lost, we can’t be certain that when humans came from beyond the stars, that they didn’t bring the darklings with them,” Daniken fired back.

  “What does she mean?” Leona asked, glancing up at Celeste, but the elf shushed her.

  “There’s no way we can make them suffer because of—,” but whatever Celeste was trying to say was cut short by an ear splitting scream that tore from Abagail’s throat.

  The forest around them quivered with the wyrd released by her shout. Abagail convulsed, seethed on the forest floor. A cloud of darkness bloomed out from between her parted lips. Leona was pulled backwards by Skye, flung away from her sister.

  The cloud rose higher, shaping seeking tendrils of malaise in the air above Abagail. They arched out over the heads of the elves. The light elves were fast, however, and with a drumming of fingers on sun scepters, golden light bloomed around the clearing and contained the shadowed wyrd.

  Leona shivered, and Daniken came to her side, placing her hands comfortingly on the younger girl’s shoulders. Leona wanted to jerk away from the elf, but Daniken held firm. Leona was ashamed that the touch was so comforting to her. With everything she’d just learned, how could she find this comforting?

  Daphne circled above the scene, blasting down puffs of violet smoke that seemed to do little against the wyrded black cloud issuing up out of Abagail.

  Rorick stood on the other side of the clearing, the hammer Dolan had given him clutched in his hands. He waited, for what, Leona wasn’t sure.

  “The plague is taking her,” Daniken said.

  At the proclamation, tears streamed out of Leona’s eyes. She was sure the elf was right. Abagail was becoming lost to the shadow. Leona tried to see if the plague was spreading across her sister’s face, but she just couldn’t see through the golden light radiating from the three elves stationed around her sister.

  “Rorick knows what needs to happen,” Daniken said. “You need to help him. This is hard for him, just as I’m sure it’s hard for you. I told you that this would happen, though, and I hope you readied yourself for it.”

  Leona nodded woodenly. It was all happening so suddenly, so fast that she couldn’t make sense of it. How was she expected to kill her sister?

  Abagail screamed again. Her quivering body jerked upright into the air amidst a shifting cloud of blackness.

  “Be strong,” Daniken said. She drew her scepter, which by now didn’t glow much at all. She neared the gathering of light elves, and took a spot beside her sister. Celeste and her exchanged words, and the light elf nodded.

  Daniken raised her scepter, and it shone out a faint silver light. It needed to be recharged before it would be much help, but at that point, Leona imagined any help was at least something.

  She gathered Abagail’s sword and inched closer to Rorick, closer to the scene, and closer to Celeste and Daniken. She felt the weight of Abagail’s sword in her hand. A pommel that her sister had held many times. If she really thought about it, it almost seemed like Abagail was holding her hand, comforting her, letting her know that what she was about to do was the right thing.

  Abagail rose higher into the air. Daniken watched her, but continued pumping her silver wyrd into the throng of golden light.

  The cloud reared higher. Before the shadow wyrd could burst free from the confining light, Daniken grabbed Celeste’s sun scepter. She spun it around like a sword, and stabbed out with it. The tip slammed into Abagail’s stomach and blood shuttled over the length of the golden staff, clouding the light where it touched.

  Abagail gasped, and fell back to the ground, the cloud of darkness retreating back into her still body.

  “No!” Leona screamed. She acted before she had time to stop herself. She swung her sister’s sword with all of her might, burying it in Daniken’s neck. The steel stuck bone and lodged dee
p in the elf’s neck. Crimson blood spouted out of the wound, bathing Leona’s face in a scarlet mask.

  The dark elf dropped her scepter and stumbled away from the dark cloud, away from the light elves. Leona pulled back on the sword, using the force of her weight against Daniken’s stumbling to dislodge the weapon.

  Daniken tripped over a root and fell past the boundary of the trail and into the forest.

  Shadows gathered around her, conjured by the smell of her death, by the pulse of her blood as her heart began to slow.

  Daniken raised her hands to ward them off, but the shadows converged on her and soon she was lost from sight. There was a sound like trees splitting, and silver light cut through the shadows, pushing them away from Daniken. There was a concussion to the air, and Leona stumbled backwards, the sword dragging across the snow, painting it with the elf’s blood.

  Daniken erupted into a cloud of white light that swallowed the shadows gathered around her, and chased away others that were starting to converge on the scene.

  And then she was gone.

  There was no more trace of Daniken or the shadows that came to feast on her dying. Her scepter lay cold in the snow, all traces of light gone from its surface.

  Abagail lay once more on the ground, blood seeping out of her stomach wound and around the sun scepter.

  Celeste stepped forward. Her face a mask that Leona couldn’t read, but mostly she saw loss in the elf’s eyes, a sense of mourning so deep that Leona didn’t think she’d ever understand it. Tears spilled out of Celeste’s eyes, as she gripped the sun scepter buried deep in Abagail’s stomach.

  As the elf touched the scepter, golden light unfurled from within the staff and wrapped around her arm. It continued up her arm and around her body, like an aura of sunlight. A metallic clang issued into the air and golden dust fell away from the scepter, settling over Abagail like glitter.

  Celeste pulled the weapon free. Blood instantly filled the gap in Abagail’s stomach.

  “Mari, can you heal her?” Celeste asked.

  The younger elf nodded. “I can try.”

  “Be careful, don’t set her off again,” Skye said, crouching beside Mari, offering aid however he could.