The Hollow: At The Edge

by Andrew Day

  Serrel turned back to his opponent, and leapt backwards with a yelp of surprise as the elf came at him again. He heard cloth tearing as its claws raked the front of his coat. Without thinking, he weaved the ether into fire, and let the gout of flame shoot from the end of his staff and engulf the elf.

  The elf screamed and threw itself backwards, giving Serrel enough room to raise his staff and fire off a bolt of ether energy. The bolt struck the elf in the shoulder, and twisted it around. The elf rolled with the impact, spinning and twisting in the air like a cat, before landing on all fours on the ground. It bared its teeth and snarled at him.

  Serrel levelled his staff at it. “Don’t,” he warned.

  The elf glared at him. Its eyes were a bright green with slitted pupils. They shone like an animal’s in the light of the camp fire. Its muscles tensed.

  “Don’t,” Serrel repeated.

  It lunged, but barely left the ground before Serrel fired. The bolt of energy knocked it back down into the earth. It tried to right itself, but Serrel fired again. Then again, and again, and again, until the elf stopped twitching and looked like a blackened mass of scorched meat.

  He looked back in time to see Dogbreath and Caellix hack the final defiant elf to death with their axes.

  Apart from the crackling of fire and the panting of the two bloody dogs, there was silence. Caellix looked about the group, her face splattered with elven blood.

  “Anyone hurt?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” panted Brant.

  “Just a scratch,” said Holly, tying a piece of cloth around her arm as a temporary bandage.

  Caellix looked over at Serrel, who was staring into space. “Fresh Meat? You still alive?”

  She looked down at his chest and frowned. Serrel followed her gaze, and saw he had four neat slashes in the front of his coat. Underneath, his leather jerkin had matching scrapes across its surface, but had kept his flesh protected.

  “I’m all right,” said Serrel. He paused. “Um... Sorry, but I think I might need a moment.”

  With that, he turned and vomited violently against the side of a nearby tree.

  Dogbreath laughed. “Finally mussed up that pretty uniform, heheh.”

  Serrel stayed doubled over for a while, until there was nothing left in his stomach to void. When he glanced to his left, he saw the remains of the cooked elf he’d killed, and dry heaved again. It took him a while for his head to stop spinning, then he forced himself back upright, and went to the elves’ camp.

  The others were searching the bodies for anything useful. Caellix pulled a crude axe from one elf’s corpse. It was crudely made, with a rusty iron head and a handle that had previously been someone’s thigh bone.

  “Hey, I found a live one!” said Dogbreath happily.

  He dragged a struggling elf into the light of the camp fire by one leg. It clutched at its stomach, where there was an awful lot of blood, and possibly a lot worse, seeping through its claws. The elf growled weakly at Caellix as she stood over it, hefting the crude Ferine axe in her hand.

  “How many more of you are there?” she asked it.

  The elf attempted to roll over, and Dogbreath kicked it viciously back down.

  “I’m not going to repeat myself,” warned Caellix.

  “Hilae va snaer!” the elf sneered at her. It’s voice was quite high pitched, and Serrel realised that it was a woman.

  “Huh?” said Dogbreath.

  “Don’t ask me,” replied Caellix. “It sounded rude though, whatever it was.”

  This was the first elf Serrel had managed to get a good look at. She wasn’t what he was expecting. What little clothes she wore were raggard and filthy, covered in dirt and blood and gods only knew what else. Her skin was hardly any better. Dark hair hung in filthy clumps over her face, but Serrel could see she had the same eerie green, shining eyes as the elf he’d...

  He forced that thought away. He didn’t want to think about that right now.

  “If you aren’t going to be polite,” said Caellix, “this is going to go hard for you.”

  “Bitch,” the elf replied.

  “That I understood,” said Dogbreath.

  “I am Ferine,” the elf went on. “You will get nothing from me. I will die free!”

  Caellix regarded her coldly. “That works for me.”

  Serrel turned away as Caellix swung the axe into the elf’s head. He heard the crack of bone, and forced himself to take a deep breath.

  “See if there’s anything left we can take,” Caellix said aloud, as though nothing had happened. “Fresh Meat, if you aren’t going to faint, make yourself useful.”

  “I found our man,” said Holly in a low voice.

  They joined her at one end of the camp, where several bodies were piled up. They recognised the green Legion uniform on a boy barely older that Serrel.

  “Sorry, Private,” said Holly.

  Caellix looked at the boy’s face. “He’s been dead for hours. We couldn’t have saved him.”

  “Then... who was screaming?” asked Serrel.

  A quick search turned up three more bodies, not Legion. They were clad in white clothes that was covered in dirt, their hands and ankles bound together, with sacks pulled over their heads as makeshift hoods. Two of the bodies were ripped open, lying on blood soaked earth, the third lay unmoving.

  Caellix pulled the sack from the head of the first body. Serrel saw bloodstained blonde hair, and pointed ears.

  “Guess we finally found our mysterious elves,” said Caellix.

  “Not much of an army,” commented Dogbreath.

  “Why kill them? They’re elves as well,” said Serrel.

  “They look like prisoners,” said Caellix. “Whoever they were, they weren’t friends of the Ferine. Come on, let’s-”

  Unexpectedly, the third body groaned and said in a weak voice, “Hello?”

  The group fell silent. Then Caellix reached over and tore the hood off the body. The elf underneath blinked in the sudden light. He had matted white hair stained with blood and dirt, and strange eyes that were so light they were almost white in colour. His pupils were slitted, like a cat’s.

  The Hounds and the elf regarded one another warily.

  “Are you... Legion by any chance?” the elf asked.

  “What else would we be?” replied Caellix.

  The elf took in the woad covering their faces, the huge grinning face of Dogbreath, the scarred and dreadlocked sergeant, and the two dogs sniffing at his bound feet and drooling.

  “Norwen raiders with a very poor sense of direction?” he suggested tentatively.

  “Close, but no. We are Legion. And just who in the hell are you suppose to be?”

  “My name is Dhulrael Halvaenas. And if you are Legion is there the possibility that you are not going to kill me?”

  “There’s always a possibility, yes. A rather slim one, though. Why does your name sound familiar to me?”

  “Perhaps you have heard it before. Would you be able to cut me loose?” the elf asked.

  Caellix stared at him a rather long time. Then she nodded to Brant. “Try anything, and I will feed you to my dogs.”

  The elf glanced at Ripper and Vost, who started wagging their tails in anticipation. “Understood,” he said.

  Brant pulled a knife, and cut the elf’s bonds. He darted back a safe distance as the elf sat upright.

  “Thank you.”

  “You haven’t answered my question, Dhulrael Halvaenas,” said Caellix. “Who are you? Why did the Ferine take you prisoner?”

  Dhulrael ignored her, and instead turned to the bodies of the two other elves. He lowered his head sadly, and muttered something in his own language.

  “Oi, Pointy,” Dogbreath nudged him roughly with his boot. “We asked you a question.”

  Dhulrael sat with his head lowered and his eyes closed for a moment, then he slowly stood upright. He stood at least a head taller than all of them. Serrel found himself gripping his staff tightly.
>
  “If you are Legion, then you are no doubt here because of the events in Vollumir,” Dhulrael said. “In which case you would have heard my name mentioned several times. I am... at least I was the Patrician of Vollumir.”

  “You have any proof of that?” asked Caellix.

  Dhulrael rolled up his left sleeve to reveal a complex elven design tattooed on his forearm. “This is the mark of office they gave me when I was elected.”

  “You think I know what that’s supposed to look like?”

  “Oh. Of course. I did have the Patrician’s Seal on a chain around my neck, but the Ferine took it from me when they captured me. So, no, I suppose I do not have any proof of my identity. My apologies.”

  Caellix sniffed. “We don’t have time for this. Brant, Holly, grab any of those supplies the Ferine took. Dogbreath, find us any weapons that aren’t broken. Let’s get out of here before any more of these bastards show up.”

  “And Pointy?” Dogbreath asked.

  “He comes with us. And if I find out he’s lying...”

  “Yes, fed to your dogs,” said the elf with a weak smile. “I understand.”

  “Fresh Meat, watch him.”

  Serrel stood a safe distance away, his staff pointed at the elf in a manner that he hoped was threatening as the others began collecting up supplies. A few moments later Caellix returned, a new Legion issue bow and a quiver of arrows slung over one shoulder.

  “All right, move out. And don’t even think about getting clever with us, elf.”

  “If I were clever,” the elf replied sadly. “I do not think any of us would be here.”

  Dogbreath kicked dirt over the campfire, and doused the flames. In the darkness, Caellix led the group out into the now black forest to where they had left their packs. She had an amazing sense of direction, even in the dark.

  Then, with Dhulrael watched by two dogs, and with a staff and at least two sharp weapons aimed at his back, the group disappeared into the shadows.

  Part 3: Hunted.

  Serrel found it was, unsurprisingly, much harder to move through the forest at night than it had been during the day. Even with the stars and the moon shining brightly, he was still unprepared for the pure darkness that was all around him.

  And the noises the forest made at night. In his youth, Serrel had ventured into the woods near his home town many times after the sun had gone down. But those woods were to the forests of the Faelands as a rock pool was to the ocean. The sounds that he heard echoing through the trees were nothing like that of the woods back home. Out in the blackness, there were creatures that none of the group had ever had experience with before. Every so often, Serrel swore he saw flashes of green eyes in the shadows.

  “Just animals, Fresh Meat,” Caellix reassured him, when he pointed them out. “The Ferine would have attacked us by now.”

  Serrel wondered, and not for the first time, why everything in the forest had to have the same creepy green eyes.

  After a long and painful walk, Caellix finally called a halt.

  “That’s far enough,” she announced. “We can camp here for the night.”

  “Thank the gods,” Dhulrael breathed. He dropped to the ground and sat with his back against a tree.

  “No fire,” Caellix ordered. “I don’t want to attract attention. There’ll be a two man watch at all times. Dogbreath and Holly, you first. Then Brant and Fresh Meat. I’ll take the last shift with the elf.”

  “Does this mean you might be willing to trust me?” Dhulrael asked.

  “Depends on what you say next,” she replied.

  As Dogbreath and Holly set out to keep watch, the others settled down amongst the roots of a giant tree. Brant pulled out some of their rations of hard biscuits and dried meat and handed them around. The elf took his gladly, and ate ravenously.

  Serrel took his food, but couldn’t eat. He sat on a tree root, his head swimming with thoughts, and not all of them good.

  “Can I take this off now, Sergeant?” he asked Caellix, pointing at the woad handprint on his face.

  He saw Caellix nod her head in the dark. He found a spare piece of cloth in his pack, and wet it with water from his canteen. He was wiping furiously at his face when he realised Caellix was staring at him. He ignored her.

  “You should eat something,” she told him.

  “I’m not hungry,” he replied.

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow, and you need to keep up your strength. Eat something.”

  Serrel held a strip of dried, salted beef in his hand but didn’t eat it.

  “I can’t get that smell out of my nose,” he said softly.

  “What smell?”

  “Burnt meat,” Serrel replied.

  “Oh, that. Yes. That takes some getting used to.”

  “Is it always like this?” he asked weakly. He realised that he sounded like a child.

  Caellix shrugged. “The first time is always hard. But the second time, that’s usually worse, because you know what it’s like now, and you dread having to go through it again. After that, it just gets easier and easier. Look on the bright side. At least they were only Ferine.”

  Serrel thought about the elf woman, lying on the ground holding her guts in, cursing Caellix with her last breaths.

  “They were people,” he muttered.

  “They were not,” said a voice sadly. They all looked at the elf. “Not anymore.”

  “Not feeling a lot of sympathy for your fallen brethren, Pointy?” asked Caellix.

  “They were not my brethren. They were hardly even elves anymore.”

  “See,” said Caellix. “The elf doesn’t even shed a tear for them.”

  “They ate my friends, Sergeant,” replied Dhulrael. “I have a great respect for all living things, but there are limits.”

  Caellix snorted an amused laugh.

  “What were those things?” Serrel asked him.

  “The Ferine?” Dhulrael frowned. “We do not really know. They were elves, once upon a time. But they have changed themselves somehow, using magic.”

  “How?” Serrel pressed. “How can someone change into something like that?”

  “Never seen a werewolf, Fresh Meat?” Caellix asked.

  “Similar, but not quite the same thing,” said Dhulrael. “I assume... And this is only a theory, mind you. I cannot know for certain. But I assume that what they must do, I mean the only thing that can make sense is for them to somehow infect themselves with the primordial ether.”

  Serrel looked at him. “Do what with the what now?”

  “Sorry. Let me try again... You are a mage, correct? You know about the ether?”

  “Of course.”

  “Mages like yourself are, shall we say, doorways to the ether. You are linked to it, and act as reservoirs of its energy.”

  “Yes, yes, I learnt about all this on my first day of training. We’re permeable. I had to look that word up.”

  “Exactly. Permeable. Some humans are permeable, absorbing energy from the ether. But most of you are not, like the Sergeant here.”

  “And thank the gods for that,” said Caellix.

  “We elves are different. Here is this land, the world is thinner. The energy passes from the ether much more easily. Have you performed any weaving whilst you have been here?”

  Serrel thought about seared elf flesh. “Some.”

  “Did you find it easier than normal? That the energy flowed far quicker, and returned to you more rapidly?”

  Serrel tried to think about that. The fight had happened so fast, and he’d acted almost without thinking. He tended to find weaving to be easy in any case. He was good at it. Then again, he was more weary from the act of killing than he had been from weaving. He didn’t feel fatigued by his spellcasting at all.

  “I suppose,” he said.

  “The ether here in Elsbareth has a tendency to... leak, as it were, into our world. As a result, it shapes the world around it. It has shaped the elves into what
we are. All elves are able to tap into the ether, unlike most humans. We vary in our abilities to a certain degree, but from an early age, most elves are able to weave.”

  Dhulrael paused. This was apparently the most he had spoken in some time. He went on, “In some places in Elsbareth, the ether leaks energy into our world. Mostly the energy disperses itself as light, such as the Aurora Ethereal. Sometimes it releases itself in other ways, causing what we call ether storms. But in some places, very, very rare places, the energy simply collects, and... I suppose you would say goes stagnant. Some of these places have held energy for centuries, possibly longer. The energy from these places is called primordial ether. It comes from a time when humans were still nothing more than animals, banging rocks together.”

  “This is all very interesting,” put in Caellix. “What does this have to do with the Ferine?”

  “Well, a mage uses their energy, and then the ether fills them again. But can you imagine if instead of tapping the ether, you allowed yourself to absorb some of the primordial ether? That is what I believe the Ferine have done. They have found somewhere in Elsbareth that contains primordial ether from a time when we, the elves, were ourselves still barely more than animals. They emptied themselves of energy, to the point where they would have fallen into the waking abyss, what Imperials call the Hollow, and they allowed the primordial ether to fill them. As a result, they have changed, regressed if you will, to a form more like that of our elvish forbears. Something primitive and bestial.”

  “So they turned themselves into animals,” said Caellix impatiently. “You could have just said that.”

  “But not just animals,” said Dhulrael darkly. “Animals hunt for food. For survival. The Ferine, they pervert the natural order. They take pleasure in the hunt, the kill. They like the blood and the violence. Their own twisted desires have warped them into monsters.” He sighed. “Of course, this is only a theory. Perhaps the truth will be something far worse. It usually is.”

  Caellix stared at him. “You seem to know an awful lot about these things.”

  “I have had little else to think about, apart from having to listen to my friends being brutally murdered, and awaiting my own violent and bloody end. It pays to keep the mind busy. I hope that one day I might finance an expedition to find the Ferine’s source of primordial ether. Then I will take great pleasure in destroying it forever.” He fell silent. “Should we survive upcoming events, of course.”