The Raiden

by Shelley Cass

  He lifted his double edged Elvish weapon from where it had been discarded amongst the roots of the tree at his side. And he rose, ready for battle.

  His deep eyes were full of violence as he stepped towards me, for I had awoken him and had brought pain to the magical power he had been listening to.

  “Frarshk,” I gasped, and then held my hands up in an effort to pacify him. “Bard, I am a friend.”

  Then the lead ape blurred back into my vision, a blue flash of fur and muscle as teeth gnashed and it soared through the air towards me.

  Instinctively my blade rose, and I caught my tormentor in the side with my sword while the ape’s beady eyes blinked at me in surprise. It had at last been stopped, mid-air, to slide along my blade.

  I quickly withdrew my sword and delivered a death stroke so that, with a clean swipe, the body and head of the leader of the pack of our attackers were separated from each other.

  The powerful body sank to its knees and dropped at my feet.

  Yet I didn’t even have a moment to rejoice before Bard’s glowing green blade sped into my line of vision.

  “No!” I cried, though it made no difference.

  Bard was awake and moving, but his senses had not returned.

  Our weapons rang together in a harmony of ringing music and the two fine blades of his weapon darted at me, alight with his magic like striking green snakes. My own sword dashed against each blow, sparking from the heat of the magic.

  “Bard!” I heard Rond yell across the distance. “Bard! No!”

  “Bard, I am Dalin! The Raiden!” I tried to pant to him when he pressed close at one stage. “I came to help!” Gods, people were forever confusing me with enemies when they were delirious.

  We whirred around each other in a series of parries and strokes and my sword defended me from every blow, but I refused to attack in return.

  I lost myself in the flowing motions and it seemed our feet hardly touched the ground. Somehow I did not miss my footing until, suddenly, a blue shape plummeted angrily from the tree above, and landed on Bard’s shoulders, sinking brutish fangs into beautiful Elvish skin, and forcing Bard to his knees.

  It was one of the two beasts that had been sniffing at Bard before, and automatically I launched myself at the creature and stabbed at its clinging hands and feet.

  Yowling, it lifted its enraged face long enough for me to sink my sword through its eye and I heard its skull crack before it toppled off Bard. Then Bard looked at me, and truly saw me for the first time.

  “Raiden?” he gasped in the lilting accent of his kind.

  Then the last of my foes, the one with the scorched arm and maimed tail, tackled me from behind.

  Like a weightless toy I was lifted across strong shoulders.

  I had killed its leader, it had suffered injuries of its own, and perhaps it did not want the entire venture to go to waste. So it took me as a meal and left the carnage of its pack behind.

  It scampered toward the nearest tree, and as I fought to get free, trying to stab at its running legs with my sword, I felt it tense. Readying to jump.

  “Frarshk!” I groaned, knowing that I was at their mercy when in the trees.

  My teeth jarred together and my head lolled helplessly as we launched from the ground.

  But as soon as the creature had touched down on the closest bough, ready to launch off for the next one, I stabbed with all of my might into a hairy blue calf muscle.

  The creature yowled in a blood curdling cry and dropped me.

  I caught myself with one hand, clasping onto the edge of the mossy wood desperately while my legs dangled in the air, threatening to over balance me and break my hold.

  Furious, limping, the creature tried to lash out, but I lifted my sword hand and lopped its blue arm off so that the beast toppled forward with a startled mewl and could not catch itself.

  Crying wildly, it fell to the ground below and landed awkwardly in a heap, and while I had survived the same fall once, I wasn’t sure that the Gods would be so charitable as to save me twice in the same manner within such a short space of time.

  I gasped helplessly, my arm burning and shuddering under my own weight.

  “Raiden!” I heard Bard call up from below.

  I groaned in reply. Every breath was an effort that took energy away from my grip on the bough.

  “Raiden, I shall catch you!”

  “Frarshkkkkk ...” the word escaped my lips in a hiss of rushing air.

  Sweat dripped into my eyes.

  But Bard was certain of his abilities, and he was an Elf, so I decided grimly, that so was I.

  With a grimace, I released my hold.

  I toppled through emptiness and waited for obliteration as my body spun of its own accord in a downward spiral.

  Then, with a grunt of surprise, I felt Bard catch me easily with his good arm. And when I opened my tightly closed eyes, I was against his chest.

  “Raiden,” the Elf repeated. “I thank you, and I apologise.”

  “No harm, friend,” I shook my head tiredly as he lowered me to the ground.

  “I thought I had lost this realm,” Bard said quietly, as he turned to where the others were finishing their battles with only a few remaining challengers.

  “Come,” I told him. “We will be free of this place soon.”

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Kiana

  The Elves were exhausted as we finally staggered from the last trees of the Cursed Valley. They had faced a fierce mental battle to leave the calling of the wild magic.

  It was Dalin who asked them to continue on further from that place, when even I wavered in the face of their fatigue. But they unquestioningly followed him as he gently guided them for a distance to separate us from the alluring, repugnant site.

  The Elves were too tired to use their inhuman speed, but we worried that reaching for any kind of power at the moment would be too much for the Elves anyway, as they might lose focus and be drawn back into the recesses of their minds, or back to the Valley.

  “I think we have come far enough,” Dalin said quietly to me at last. His voice was thick and nasally through what was obviously a broken nose, though he had cleaned the dry blood from his face with water from his flask.

  I nodded in agreement and turned to the rest of the group. “We’ll stop here for the night.”

  The Elves sank down vacantly so I left Dalin and Noal to strike up a fire, and took two Nymphs with me to hunt for a meal. We came back with nuts, mushrooms and berries, as well as a boar that I had tussled with, and a squirrel and some rabbits found by the Nymphs.

  When everyone had eaten I checked Bard’s injuries and cleansed them as best I could to stave off infection. The elder Elf did not even frown at the pain it must have caused.

  Then the Nymphs purposefully snuggled into their Elves to keep watch over them lest their seriousness deepen and cause them to wander.

  “Dalin’s trapeze fight to kill the king of the creatures, and then his battle with Bard will be a City talking point,” Asha yawned as she nestled into Vidar’s arm.

  “I don’t even want to think about it,” Dalin groaned quietly. “Being an ape’s plaything was not a glamorous or admirable way to fight.”

  I observed him closely. “How is your nose?”

  “The swelling makes it hard to breathe,” he said ruefully. “But at least it’s not bleeding.” Dark circles had formed under his eyes.

  “If it were still bleeding, or looked overly crooked and made a grinding sound, I would worry,” I reassured him. “But nothing seems to need to be moved back into place. The blocked nasal passages will clear up eventually.”

  “I simply cannot believe how lightly you got out of that fall,” Noal told Dalin in wonder.

  “Twice,” Dalin affirmed. “I cannot believe it either. I should have broken my neck falling from that height. Instead I landed on my thick head and broke my nose. Hopefully my luck has not run out.”

  “Be careful when you nex
t do battle. Just in case,” Noal advised.

  I grimaced. “I just hope the Elves will return to their normal selves soon.”

  Asha sat up from where she had been curled on the sleeping Vidar’s chest. “What you witnessed today was nothing compared with what we had to snap them out of when we first met them. They will be much better when they wake tomorrow. Especially because,” she rubbed her hands together with a smile, “Flash and I had an idea earlier that might help them.”

  “Oh dear,” Dalin sighed. “Any idea from two such devious minds is sure to involve some kind of risk.”

  “Yes!” she exclaimed animatedly.

  “What do you mean?” I asked as her red eyes flashed with excitement.

  “As Kiana’s strength improves, the Three will want to train,” she explained. “Training with Elves could be a great advantage to you all. And could be a way to also help our serious friends to stay focused!” Asha continued.

  “How so?” Noal asked, clearly intrigued by the idea of training with the Elves.

  “Well if you’re all as apt as Dalin proved to be against Bard in a real fight, you may actually be able to keep up with the training,” Asha explained.

  “No,” Noal laughed without insult, “I meant how would this benefit the Elves as well?”

  “This group of Elves alone will need something physical to focus on after this. Concentrating on both fighting and educating you will do that. But there are others around the City who need a cause to awaken them too!”

  Noal and Dalin gradually became just as excited as Asha – though she told us with regret that the Nymphs would just have to watch to keep from getting too carried away.

  I listened to their discussion with interest. For it was an opportunity I would die for. But I couldn’t help wishing that I didn’t have to fear how my body would react.

  When fighting the Krall warriors I had been weakened with pain. Then in the battle with those creatures, I had felt nothing except out of practice. The unpredictability of it had me on edge.

  And I felt that all I could do was wait for the next internal attack.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Kiana

  “Fraaaarshk!” Dalin went flying in a graceful arc away from his fight with Bard to be caught easily by Astor. Astor placed Dalin harmlessly on the ground for the fifth time in a row, but Dalin had already sprinted back into the duel.

  Not far away Noal was in a similar situation with a female Elf. She couldn’t speak Awyalknian, but she could make duelling look like an art form, and I watched Noal thud into Quidel’s chest. Quidel was Noal’s catching buddy, and the Elf was having trouble blurring to each spot in time to catch Noal, despite his Elvish speed.

  Noal had experienced flight in every direction three times over. Nevertheless, he continued to plough determinedly back towards his elegant opponent and to everyone watching it was clear that the Princes had already been well trained by human standards. But in the days since we had returned from the Cursed Valley, it was also clear that they were beginning to evolve with new strengths and abilities.

  They seemed quicker and stronger, and it was not so easy for the Elves to simply sweep them aside anymore.

  Upon returning, Flash, Rebel and Asha had taken us around the City on a search for “drowsy looking Elves”. And Elves of all ages and temperaments had been driven from their contemplation by the pestering Nymphs, who were evilly enjoying building their collection of warriors to pit against us.

  One Elf had been dragged from the bough of a tree, where he had been playing a hauntingly beautiful lute melody. The tune had been cut off with a surprised choke as Asha had accosted him, though he had begun to play it again now, a distance away from us, after demonstrating his prowess until Asha had been satisfied.

  We had been practising for a week in this manner, and the Nymph population had decided that this was a new forum for entertainment, bringing Elves they thought could win with them to send into the arena. The Nymphs were casting bets.

  I’d had the opportunity to train in a different type of airborne combat to what the Princes were experiencing, working with Frey on aerial manoeuvres like using an opponent’s body to launch my own and to add power to my movements. Trees, other Elves, and any other environmental factor had been at our mercy as we had whirled around the clearing, making use of anything to anchor or launch ourselves into the air at each other. Some of the bets on us had involved who of the two of us would remain off the ground longest.

  But now I sat myself away from the chaotic cheers and duel manoeuvres. My shoulder had not troubled me so far, yet I hadn’t pushed it for long in an effort to avoid triggering the pain. I was content to lean back against the tree trunk I’d chosen to rest for a while.

  The lute player’s sweet tune rolled over me like water, and I listened to it peacefully until something glittering caught my eye and drew me to look around.

  Then I caught sight of a sparkle of white in a patch of sun through the trees. I saw tumbling auburn hair, eyes greener than emerald jewels, long limbs, and wisdom and wistfulness in a slight smile upon beautiful lips. And I felt such magic.

  The Lady of the Forest was waiting for me, and I rose to cross the distance between us with a glad heart.

  We walked together in silence for a short while, before she offered me her hand.

  Without hesitation I took it, and I smiled gaily as we suddenly swept away from the ground, spiralling upwards and twirling around each other like shooting stars until we landed safely on a thick tree bough.

  We could still see the battles below, and hear the lute player’s song, but now we sat side by side amongst the leafy vines, cushioned on moss, and watched the world together in companionable silence.

  I followed her gaze toward two elegant Elves stepping quietly through the trees below, away from the training. They were each cradling a Nymph in their arms, and they stepped closely side by side because the Nymphs had fallen asleep with their fingers entwined. I saw that it was Chloris and Silvanus, looking serene as they held the sleeping Sati and Shiva linked together.

  “It is bliss to see the cycle of life continuing even in these times,” the Lady said as she watched the Elves carrying the Nymphs home.

  “What do you see that I don’t?” I asked her curiously.

  Her green eyes were full of warmth. “Sati and Shiva have found such a bond, that they are now expecting a Nymphling.”

  The thought that such child-sized beings could even carry Nymphlings was incredible.

  “I feel that there is much I don’t know about the Forest dwellers,” I replied while Chloris, Silvanus and the sleeping Nymphs were lost to sight amongst the trees below.

  “There is much to know,” the Lady agreed. She placed her warm hand over mine where it rested on the mossy bark of the bough. “I will show you.”

  At once I could hear the lute more clearly. It was almost as if I could see the music. The notes swirled and twisted around the trees like smoke. The clang of weapons below seemed to add to the rhythm.

  Birds flitted from branch to branch, and everywhere I could hear and almost feel the warmth of life radiating from each leaf, burrow and home in the Forest.

  The sun rays seemed to smile and hum as they stroked the flowers and I could feel the clouds rolling above and the breeze playing across the skies. I could sense the life within the tree that sheltered me, as well as the energy surging throughout every other tree.

  My thoughts flickered back to Sati and Shiva, and I felt the Lady’s mind embrace mine, as if my soul and thoughts were being physically encompassed.

  At once she picked up my stream of thought, and with gentle steering, I was led into her own consciousness. My vision seemed to be one with hers so that I could see what she could in her mind’s eye and could hear her inner voice.

  With a flash of colour I saw a memory flit across her mind of a loud swarm of Nymphlings giggling and wreaking havoc around the City. They were so naughty, and so devastatingly adorable, a
nd even though they were few, they were hard to miss.

  “Nymphs are like humans in bearing children,” I heard the Lady’s voice as if it were being whispered into my ear, though her lips had not moved.

  An image of a tiny newborn Nymphling cuddled against its mother brought tears to my eyes.

  “The Nymphs rarely have Nymphlings because they know parenting is not for beings who can be selfish or wild. Nymphs are unable to fathom such a commitment unless totally bonded heart and soul with a life partner.”

  My own mind returned once more to the image of Sati and Shiva sleeping peacefully, their hands keeping them linked.

  “It is also dangerous for the Nymphs to try. They are so tiny and complications for a Nymph in childbirth, before they came to me in the Forest, were very common.” I shuddered at the thought of the heartbreak that could often replace the joy of birth. As the village healer in Bwintam my mother had experienced much of this.

  Like a stream, I felt the Lady’s thoughts flow on, and suddenly I saw a moonlit vision of two Elves I had never met sitting across from each other in a clearing. Their silvery white hair was glowing brighter than the stars above them.

  “Elves make their children in a very different way to humans and Nymphs,” the Lady’s voice explained then. “An intense experience that both Elves are only capable of performing once in a lifetime.”

  In the moonlit vision playing through my mind, the Elves leaned forward and took each other’s hands.

  “It has such risk involved that not all Elves who have chosen to bond decide to do it.”

  The Elves both lowered their entwined hands to the ground, and I watched in wonder as the light – sparkling like silver flame from their hair also appeared at their fingertips.

  “Physically, they are infertile. But their connection to the world that made them is not. They must put some of their own souls, joined together, into the earth and use their minds to channel Nature into forming a physical entity.”