“And in the year of the United Era, thirty thousand elves died in battle, and five thousand more who were captured were slain. Fifty thousand warriors of men died, and fifteen thousand men and women were taken captive.

  Then the Etnfrandians retreated into their barrier, disappearing into their walls to never reemerge, while outside the battle raged on. Beheadings were the easiest of deaths. Most were cut by limbs, dissected, mutilated, and violated as punishment for their non-submission. None of the captured elves were left alive, and few of those died swiftly. Fifteen thousand men and women of humankind were made into slaves.

  Only one returned to Etnfrandia, the Witness. He was sent by the Night Elves to tell all that was done to those they had abandoned; all that was done in the name of a betrayer goddess, the adulteress, and her lover.

  So the Etnfrandians never forgave what the Night Elves did, and never forgot. Even when the rest of history faded from memory, still they clung to the hatred that festered in ancient wounds. Wounds may heal; scars may fade; but the Night Elves would be forever loathed by their highland brethren for the deaths they dealt that day.”

  -Scrivener’s Reflection

  From The Chronicles of King Accardi, UE 966

  The next “morning,” there were no signs of the flood at all. They carried on at a steady pace, but Gale did notice that it was slower than Krid’s pace from before, as though he hoped Fenn would catch up. No more than an hour or two had passed when the drakeman raised his fist, huffing the humid air. She tip-toed to him. “What is it?”

  He shook his head mutely.

  Her ears soon told her. A boisterous rustling drew near, erupting from a group of those great pig-beasts. She stared at Krid, unsure what to do next: run for a tree and clamber up as he’d suggested the day before, or stay still, as he’d previously instructed about these creatures. He didn’t look at her to tell her. In fact, he didn’t move at all, so neither did she. Only her heart moved, thumping at a harrying pace.

  Finally they appeared, razor tusks first, from a cluster of ferns. They lifted plants on those tusks, slurping up bugs and replacing the ferns gently, breaking neither root nor leaf. One passed in front of Gale so closely that she could have reached out and petted the plates on its arched spine. Not that she wanted to.

  It turned toward her, snuffing at her foot. She held her breath. In a quick motion, it stabbed its tusks into the ground and heaved. She had no choice but to balance on one foot. The posture leaned her just enough to shift the arrows in her quiver. They rattled softly. All three eyeless heads perked up, turning droopy ears towards her. It took every bit of her self-control to withhold her whimper.

  One snorted. Another pawed the earth with its stony toes.

  Krid moved first. His sword was through the side of the one closest to her before she could realize what the clang of his metal sheath meant.

  Bang! His shield pounded into another as it charged, throwing it off balance. “Tree!” He ordered.

  She scrambled away, leaping up into a low bough. A cladafrum rammed into the trunk at her heels. In another breath, she had the bow in her hands, and in another an arrow nocked. Syrdin was out of sight, but Krid battled two cladafrum on his own, the first unaware of the blood frothing from the stab wound in its side.

  She focused on that one, aiming to hit it in the exposed flesh. The bow moved easily in her hands, responding greedily to her pull. Her surprise at the ease made the shot land wide in the beast’s haunch. It screamed as, starting from the arrow, a pulse of burning, white light washed through its body. It only lasted a moment. The creature, alive and enraged, made another jab at Krid.

  He slapped away the jab with his shield, busy with his sword on the other side where it was lodged between two bone plates on his other attacker’s neck.

  Gale readied her next shot. It landed in the wounded flesh, sending another pulse through the cladafrum. It reared and stuck a tusk into Krid’s thigh–or his equivalent of one. The drakeman roared and pulled his sword out, stabbing the creature at his leg through the skull. It fell silent and still.

  Dead.

  Gale’s stomach turned.

  Its companion took the opportunity to charge in, but Krid had anticipated this. He backhanded the smaller creature away with his shield in a deft spin.

  Gale didn’t have time for remorse yet. With shaking hands, she raised another arrow. But this cladafrum was directly on Krid’s other side. She couldn’t get a clear shot.

  The creature backed away from Krid, stamping to prepare a charge. As Krid braced with a growl, Gale slid quietly from the tree. Gingerly, she stepped around, pulling back an arrow. The beast charged into Krid’s shield, one tusk running through the wood with a loud crack. The creature was stuck. Perfect. It jerked, but it couldn’t pull away. She took aim. Krid had hacked at this one’s neck. Maybe that’s vulnerable. She fought the shudder that ran through her. Releasing a steadying breath, she–.

  An eruption of noise behind her made her release the arrow with a flinch. It flew high over the beast’s plated back.

  Gale spun to discover the missing third cladafrum charging at her. Panic froze her. Then, a flurry of dark motion pounced out from behind a tree, crashing into the beast. It screamed and stumbled, bucking in protest of Syrdin’s weight clinging to it with daggers. Zhe had swung over the side of it, so the rearing legs missed, but its plate scraped at zheir shoulder. The motion loosened zheir hood, slipping back from outlandish purple skin and white hair.

  Syrdin grunted in pain and blood began to trickle over the beast’s backplates. “Shoot it in the ears, idiot!”

  Of course! Gale jumped into action, nocking another arrow. Skulls have holes behind the eyes and ears. In this case, there were no eyes. She pulled, letting the bow’s magic ease it into a full draw. She breathed in, following the stumbling creature with her point of aim. She released.

  Zip. Plunk. Pulse.

  The beast went rigid and fell with a final breath, tossing Syrdin over its side. Gale stared. A beast let out a dying scream behind her. Vaguely, she heard Krid say something.

  I killed it.

  I did.

  She wanted to cry. Or puke. She could only stare at the dead beast.

  Syrdin rolled up, hood torn back, foreign features a blur behind the fallen creature.

  “What do you mean ‘well done!” zheir words barely broke through Gale’s trance, but the next ones, addressed directly to her, blew away the fog. “What’s wrong with you! At that range, you should have been able to shoot all three in seconds! But you just had to take your time!”

  Had I been slow? Gale blinked. “I–” She cut off when she realized what she saw. A flat face with angled eyes and long ears, humanoid. Elven. Dark skin, greyish mottled with white and purple. Red irises. Night elf.

  The wind left her at the same time that Krid clapped her shoulder. “It was a valiant effort from someone new to combat.”

  A growl scratched her throat, her fingers doubling their grip on the bow as bile rose from her stomach. Syrdin was a Night Elf. She’d killed a mere beast to save a monster.

  “You cost us two wounds.” Syrdin was pressing a gloved hand to zheir shoulder, the arm at the end of it hanging limp. “And a shield.”

  Gale glanced at Krid's shield, then his blood-stained knickers. She had been faster than when she aimed at archery competitions–and those had been a long time ago. She’d hit a moving target. That was good.

  “Enough.” Krid stuffed a clawed hand into Syrdin’s bare face, apparently unfazed. “She’s no warrior. Can’t you see?” He moved away from Syrdin then, coming close to Gale.

  She met his slitted yellow eyes, but thought of no words at all. Her breath hitched in her throat. His were animal eyes. Better than red ones, but not much.

  “What’s wrong, Fair Galendria?” His voice rumbled softly.

  Her teeth ground together as her mind grappled with the new information.

  He followed her gaze to Syrdin. “Ah.” He knelt, grasping her arms in his claws. “Zhe is not your enemy now, Fair one.”

  The bile burned in her mouth. “You knew?” she rasped.

  “We all did.”

  “No,” she tried to take a step back, shoving at his arms. Not all. “That’s not possible.”

  “Breath, Gale.”

  But the air head turned to lead in her lungs. She wanted to bolt, go calling for Fenn. He couldn’t have known. He wouldn’t have let zhem come.

  Krid held her arms, patient while she writhed and spluttered on her words. He was all the more infuriating for it. “H-how could you?! Why would you allow zhem to come? How could you betray Fenn?!”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Zhe is not a warrior for the Night Elves, Gale. Zhe is a mercenary. A hired hand.”

  “They’re evil!” She spat.

  Krid pointed to the cladafrum. “That is evil. It kills and maims without reason. You’ve done well to kill it. But zhe–” he shifted his claw to point at Syrdin, “–has order and reason to guide zhem, even if at times the reason is money.”

  She shook her head. More growling moans escaped against her will. Her blood-parents had died at the hands of Syrdin’s people. For all she knew, it could have been Syrdin. With the mottling–was it scarring?--and foreign features, it was impossible to tell zheir age. It was recent history, not ready to be forgotten. The Night Elves were what they had always been: warmongers and servants of evil.

  “Forget it, Krid. Even if I did just save her skin, she won’t believe you.” Syrdin’s teeth were gritted in a pained grimace, revealing incisors that were just a bit too sharp–too predatory. Zhe still gripped zheir shoulder. “She thinks we’re all the same.”

  “That doesn’t mean she should shoot you.” Krid pried at Gale’s hand, and she saw a goosefeather arrow there, gripped tightly. She didn’t remember grabbing it. “Come now, Fair Gale, you’re no killer. And we will survive better as three.”

  She shuddered. If she wasn’t a killer, why had she murdered another creature moments before? Why couldn’t she kill one who deserved it? Senseless, unbiased killing was far more forgivable than calculated assassinations that sewed chaos and war.

  “You don’t want to be a killer, Fair Gale.”

  She peered into Krid’s face. His brows were knit, his pupils wide with worry, even in their yellow setting. He wasn’t an animal. He was a man, a friend of Fenn’s. And he spoke the truth.

  She shoved the bow and arrow into his hands and turned away, letting her fear and anger melt into forlorn betrayal. She was stuck with a Night Elf.

  “Now put your hand here.”

  She glanced dubiously back to see where Krid pointed at his forearm. Her hesitation must have shown, because he grabbed her forearm instead.

  “Like this,” he said.

  Surprised and unsure what else to do, she returned his grip.

  He stared her straight in the face. His next words were a soft rumble. “If every living creature is of the same worth to you, then these and the panthrae have been your first kills. The first are the hardest, and, for you, I hope Fate will provide that you never must kill again. But for every enemy you kill, you kill not only for yourself, but for everyone you love. These creatures, these are violent. Even the forest doesn’t care when they die. By killing one, you save one-hundred. Possibly one Fenn. But killing Syrdin would kill an ally in this. And zheir life is as valuable as any.”

  She swallowed, digesting his words. “How does that save Fenn?” She jerked her forehead toward a carcass.

  “A dead beast is a beast who can’t find and kill him while he’s away from us.”

  Her chest tightened. She had considered how he might already be dead or hurt, but the thought that he might be fighting alone with no one strong to protect him was too much. Her jaw tensed–and incidentally her clasp on Krid–as she tried to hold herself steady. Trying not to break at the thought that Fenn could be fighting for his life. She would never know unless he lived to rejoin them. He’ll be fine, she told herself. He is fine.

  And the Night Elf could keep Gale alive long enough to find him again. She shivered.

  Krid loosed his grip and gave her shoulder a rhythmic pat. “And if you wouldn’t mind, my leg could use your help.”

  She shook herself. Krid was wounded. And in her defense no less. That had been the reason she shot the cladafrum. To protect. Perhaps Krid killed when he had to, but he was a protector of his people, a warrior with honor. “Of course.” She gave him healing, and at his prompting, extended the same begrudging aid to Syrdin. Zheir skin closed in a shade of purple between the tears in zheir cloak. Night Elves were supposed to be grey-complexioned. She didn’t want to ask about the mottling.

  “And, as a bonus, one of these will also feed us for some time.” Krid lifted the largest cladafrum by its feet and slung it over his shoulder like a great sack.

  “OH! Ribs for dinner!” Syrdin bounded to his side, taking on a lazy stroll. “But are you really going to baby her with a soldier’s talk over some pigs?”

  Feed? “You eat–?” She couldn't finish the thought.

  “It may be as strange to me as a sea is to a horny toad, but I don’t believe her people kill even animals, beast or bird. So I treated it as a first kill. It can only help her,” Krid explained with a shrug. “What I want to know is why you hid.”

  “Well I wasn’t about to out-brute the things like you.” Syrdin punched Krid’s side lightly.

  “Oh heavenly stars,”Gale whispered. Her stomach trembled. She’d seen the jerky. She’d known deep down what it was. But to witness that they both ate meat–fresh, unashamed, and as a preference–was another matter altogether.

  I’m the strange one here, she realized. Loneliness like she’d never known washed over her. She was outnumbered, stuck with trained fighters–voluntary killers–not knowing whether she would ever make it out from the Wildlands.

  “What’s holding you up, sharpshooter? You didn’t think your martial arts were only an art, did you?” Syrdin tossed the snide question over zheir shoulder, not caring for an answer.

  The Etnfrandians had fought in wars before as defenders, long ago. She knew that. Krid’s words were right. She didn’t like them, but they were. She squared herself and followed the others. Still, she could not prevent the escape of a few renegade tears as waves of loneliness and rage washed over her in turns.

  They pressed their pace hard. Along the way, Fenn left what bread remained to Mell and scavenged yuka, but he didn’t have Syrdin’s stealth. He was often harassed by pixies and had quite a bit of egg and dirt strewn across his shirt after each encounter–if not a few magic-lance cuts to accompany them.

  They walked mostly in silence, listening to the squalls and growls of the forest. A strange, yowling growl erupted from nearby. They both froze, their eyes meeting. It sounded like panthrae’s cry of pain.

  “Lorthen help us,” Mell breathed.

  They scuttled away, only to hear another yowl, and then a growl and hiss. Two of the beasts were fighting. “I don’t think they know we’re here,” Fenn whispered.

  “I don’t want to take any chances,” Mell whispered back.

  The next growl was strangely punctuated, with an odd, “nom nom nom” rhythm to it.

  “Sounds like they’re eating,” Mell noted.

  Fear spiked through him. “What if–”

  “No, it’s unlikely.” Mell cut him off.

  Fenn turned toward the source of the sound. When Mell had last scried, the others had all been together, walking. “But what if?”

  She put a hand on his arm. “It’s not safe to check.”

  “Mell, I need to know.”

  She gripped him, as though she would hold him back. He met her stare with his most determined gaze. If the others were being eaten, he’d rather see and at least know. Then they could make a tactical retreat to Etnfrandia and face prison instead of certain death.

  Mell sighed, loosening her grip. “Lorthen guide you, then.” Her circlet flashed vaguely in the bright sunlight, releasing the blessing into him as magic.

  He nodded his thanks, then stole away. He wasn’t as quiet as Syrdin, but compared to Mell, he was light-footed and lithe. He crept through fingery brush, pressing close to trees. As he grew near, the foliage crowded to an impassable thicket in front of him.

  Instead of pushing through into something unknown, he hopped up a tree to peer over. Sure enough, several panthrae feasted on two carcasses. The skin of both were dark and gnarled, and matted tufts of fur lay strewn on the ground. From one of the dead beasts’ plated necks, a stick of wood protruded, fletched at the end with a goosefeather.

  “Gale,” he gasped. In their last scry, she’d had the bow on her back.

  A panthrae jerked his head up from the cladafrum carcass. It stared at him, unblinking. Fenn froze. The beast snorted and took another bite, keeping one suspicious eye on Fenn. Of course; it’s not hungry. Why hunt me if it has food? He scooted slowly back, dropped quietly from the tree, and snuck back to Mell.

  “We’re close, Mell. It wasn’t them, but cladafrum they killed,” he whispered.

  Her expression went wide with hope. “How do you know?”

  “Goosefeather arrow in the neck of one.”

  “Goose.” Mell took a deep breath and broke into a smile. “Well, that’s not Faerie. And I recall Syrdin once stole a bow and arrows from a bandit.”

  Stole from a bandit. He refrained from musing on the morality of it. “I think Syrdin shared them with Gale. She had a bow when we looked last.”

  Mell nodded, beginning to tiptoe away from where the beasts ate. “Gale can shoot?”

  “She was a competition champion during her conscription period.”

  “You should’ve said so before. We could’ve given her Anruwan’s–wait, she was conscripted, too?”

  “Naturally. We all are around age 70. Why?”

  “Well, human women never are, but I guess that’s because of the gender dimorphism and childrearing. But if only a tenth of your life is dedicated to childbearing like the elves, then…” she shrugged between whispers, “well, why not?”

  “And only a fiftieth of our lives go to conscription for Etnfrandians. Unless they volunteer for more.”

  “That’d be less than two years for us…” Mell shook herself. “But back to the topic on hand, Gale should have the b—” She cut off as her expression twisted into confusion. “Do you smell that?”

  “Smell what?” he asked before taking a deep sniff. He could smell the dead creatures nearby already souring, but there was a faint smell on the wind, one that made his stomach growl.

  “Smoke,” Mell said.

  “Barbeque.”

  Their gazes met, both realizing what this meant. “This way.” He barely remembered to whisper as he took off at a trot he knew she could follow.

  He pushed through the brush, not caring for his weariness, only delaying to hold back difficult branches for Mell. With every step, the scent of roast meat grew stronger until at last he could hear the crackle of the fire. He stumbled through the last patch of tall, leafy plants and saw first Krid by the fire, his knickers stained red. Then there was Gale, directly across the small clearing they’d found.

  She stood erect, the bow of Anruwan drawn in her hand. Sunlight sparkled on the gold details of both the bow and her eyes. Nearly, it glowed against the bronze of her skin. It suited her, this bow, as though made for her complexion.

  “Fennorin!” The desperation in her voice awoke him to another detail: she was exhausted, and even though her face and hands were clean, her hair and dress were more bedraggled than a beggar’s. Guilt washed over him anew.

  Then she dropped her bow and ran to him.