Eternal Forest: Savage Rising (25 page)

             
Viyana reached over and grabbed a battle-axe right out of the nearest dwarf’s hand. She charged the creature, needing only three, large paces, she closed the gap between her and the demon. With a mighty swing, she lobbed off the creature’s head.

             
Screaming in rage, Zehlyr kicked the demon’s body off his brother and dropped to his knees. Cherin was shaking. The driving rain washed away the blood on his chest as fast as it poured from the fresh wounds. He looked on with panic into his older brother’s fear-filled eyes. “Why?!” he screamed. “You goblin-brained idiot! Why did you do that?!”

             
Cherin lifted a shaking hand and clutched tightly to the hair on the back of Zehlyr’s head. A rumble of thunder echoed through the trees. “You’re…my little…brother,” he said in a weak, gargled voice. A trail of blood ran from the side of his mouth down into the mud.

             
Zehlyr could feel his brother’s hand shaking as he gripped tightly to the back of his head. “But, you hate me,” Zehlyr said. He could feel the tears coming.

             
Cherin smiled, though he coughed at the same time. “That doesn’t mean…you’re not family.”

             
Zehlyr cried as he placed a hand on his brother’s cheek. “Cherin…I…”

             
“I did good… in the end!” Cherin insisted. He lifted his head as well as he could, but weakness forced him to lower it back down into the mud. “Always remember…your big brother…didn’t die…a failure.”

             
“Of course,” Zehlyr responded.

             
“I did something…important,” Cherin continued. “Something to make my life…worthwhile.”

             
With tears pouring down his face, Zehlyr leaned down and placed a kiss on Cherin’s muddy forehead. “You are a hero of Meadowgold,” Zehlyr said softly. “That is how you will be remembered.”

             
Cherin let out another series of coughs before he finally became still. Even with the driving rain, Zehlyr was able to hear his brother’s last breath escape his lips. Just like that, he was gone.

             
“No!” Zehlyr cried out with his head thrown back. The raindrops beat across his face, becoming indistinguishable from his tears. Heeska, Viyana, Sunrise, Firefly, and the dwarves gathered around him.

Viyana placed a hand on his shoulder. She said nothing, but no words were appropriate. No words would bring him back, and no words would bring any of them comfort. Like the others, she knew they had to get moving. Killika’s forces were
far ahead of them. However, even she had grown a strange respect for the peasant boy from the new settlement, and she too needed a moment to mourn.

Chapter 25

              Cherin’s body still held a bit of warmth when Zehlyr and the others finally set off. It pained them all not to mourn him properly, not to give his body to the Lady in a respectful manner, but the situation was far too grim to pause any longer. Zehlyr choked back his tears as he turned the body of his big brother over to the dwarves. They promised to see him to the afterlife honorably, to give him the hero’s funeral he deserved. After all, they had done so much to help the city of Stonemouth, the dwarves felt it was the least they could do.

             
Losing his brother hit Zehlyr harder than he ever thought possible. Since Cherin’s last breath escaped his lips, Zehlyr found himself incapable of recalling one bad memory of their lives together. He knew they were there, and they were a significant part of their history, but all his mind could recall were the good times. He remembered their childhood before rivalry drove them apart. He remembered times they’d played in the small hut, running around mother and father’s ankles as they tried to either tidy up or prepare dinner. Now his family was all gone, and he felt more alone than he had after three years in the Wilds.

With Stonemouth and the dwarves behind them, Zehlyr, Viyana, Heeska, Firefly, and Sunrise moved swiftly through the forest towards elven territory. A small stream cutting through the brush served as their guide; for they knew its waters flowed towards Sky Lake, the body of water at the edge of Moon-hollow and the largest known lake in the forest. The journey was taken mostly in silence, with each traveler struggling inwardly with his or her own worries and burdens.

Zehlyr’s mind was a mess. Between losing Cherin and fearing for Azalea, he could find nothing hopeful upon which to set his mind. Besides the loss, he couldn’t deny the knowledge that, without Cherin’s sacrifice, he would have died. There was no escape from the fire demon, and every breath he took felt stolen from Cherin.

Viyana was plagued with an inescapable sense of guilt. She was the one who dragged Cherin along on this journey. Though the events that followed were unforeseeable, she couldn’t escape the fact that, without her involvement, the boy would still be in Meadowgold. He would be poor, hungry, and destitute, but he would be alive.

For Heeska, the hardest part of the journey was the knowledge that he would have to confront Lord Killika once again. Escaping from the balisekt territory in the Savage Lands had been no easy task. Killika treated his subjects like slaves, and their home was more like a prison. Stealing a Shadow Chaser robe and infiltrating the coven for their march south had taken months of planning and a tremendous amount of risk. Living in the Wilds with two humans had been difficult, but never before had he felt freer. He feared death, certainly, but not more than he feared being dragged back to that life.

Sunrise’s fear was with his fellow elves. He’d left his home and everything he knew in the elven territory when he was very young. Since then, his life had been filled with worship and training in Tranquility. Still, the elves were his kin, and Moon-hollow was his home. He didn’t know what to expect when they reached the shores of Sky Lake, but he couldn’t help but foresee only death and destruction.

Firefly was the only one feeling a glimmer of hope. Things were perilous and the future was far from certain, but she had experienced a rejuvenation of her faith. There was fear in her heart, but she took solace in the feeling that the Lady was on their side. When faith was all she had left, the Lady had come through for her. Now, nothing felt impossible. Still, she was unable to feel any magical energy in her body. There was no doubting her faith now, but she still couldn’t channel that faith into power as Sunrise and the other acolytes could.

Their hurried footsteps slowed to a stop as they came upon the aftermath of the battle.

Pools of blood started to dot the muddy forest floor. Elven corpses were scattered amongst the trees, illuminated by the beams of sunlight breaking through the canopy. It was as horrific a scene as the aftermath of the dwarven marketplace massacre, but this was far more worrisome. The slain dwarves were merchants and farmers, miners and mothers. These elves were soldiers; soldiers with fine armor, superior weapons, and finely honed skills. Yet, here they lay, slaughtered like cattle.

             
“Anyone else notice something rather disturbing about this scene?” Firefly said as she zipped about the bloody battlefield.

             
“Is it not disturbing enough on its own merits?” Sunrise asked. The sight of so many slain elves made his stomach turn.

             
“There are no fallen balisekts,” Zehlyr said.

             
“Killika’s army didn’t suffer a single casualty,” Viyana said. “These are trained warriors. How is that even possible?”

             
Zehlyr crouched down next to the corpse of a nearby elf soldier. The body was lying face down in the mud, his sword just a few inches from his open palm. There wasn’t a drop of blood on the blade. The poor elf’s neck had been sliced open in the back. He wasn’t even facing his enemy when the deathblow was delivered.

             
As Zehlyr’s eyes traveled down to the soldier’s feet, the truth of the situation became horrifyingly clear. Loosely around the elf’s foot was a small vine. With the position of the leafy sinew and the unnatural circumstances of its existence, there was only one conclusion to be drawn from it.

“Lady’s grace,” Zehlyr said softly. “She did this.” His head became dizzy with shock and sorrow, causing him to fall backwards onto his rear. He pressed his fingers against his forehead as his mouth gaped open. It couldn’t be true. Azalea’s power had always been used to bring about prosperity and happiness. She’d fed entire tribes and saved many from starvation. Now, her gift was a weapon of war, and the bloody massacre before him was the haunting proof.

“Her hand was forced,” Heeska said as he knelt beside his dumbstruck friend. “She never would have done this if she had a choice.”

“She did this to keep us alive,” Zehlyr responded. It was bad enough feeling that Cherin’s blood was on his hands, but now he’d learned an entire army was wiped out just to keep him breathing. It filled him with sorrow, but also with fury. Knowing Azalea had been forced to do such a terrible thing, with the threat of his death binding her will, burned his soul like an inferno.

Zehlyr sprang to his feet once again. Everyone watched in silent contemplation as he reached down and took up the slain soldier’s sword. “Gather weapons,” he said to his comrades. “Killika must be stopped.”

~~\*/~~

              With their army eradicated in the blink of an eye, Killika’s occupation of Moon-hollow was effortless. The village was built in harmony with the forest, without one single tree cut down for any purpose. Huts of grass, straw, twigs, and mud were fashioned around tree trunks and up atop the lower branches of the canopy. Bridges of vine and sticks crisscrossed the foliage above. To the northeast, the shores of Sky Lake reflected the high sun with a moving sheet of dazzling sparkles.

             
As Killika marched his army into the village, the elves ran to their homes for shelter. The balisekts moved as one, their many footsteps thundering against the muddy forest floor. Children whimpered at their parent’s sides. The parents, though terrified themselves, tried silently to quiet their children, fearing they may garner attention from the savages.

             
Killika emerged from the undergrowth of the Wilds and into the village, his dryad slave at his side. The grounds of Moon-hollow could grow no vegetation after countless years of being trampled by elven feet. Only beyond the borders of the settlement was anything but the centuries-old trees able to take root. Still the land was rich and fertile, with the bounty of the lake a stone’s throw away. Beyond the shore lay the southern range of the Eastern Mountains, rich in minerals and ores.

             
It was everything he had dreamed of, and now it was his.

             
Killika narrowed his eyes, focusing on a large hut sitting in the middle of the village. It was clearly the largest structure in all of Moon-hollow, covering roughly seventy square feet. It was built around the base of an enormous oak tree with branches reaching out more than twenty yards from the trunk. This tree, like the hut, had been well cared for over the years.

             
“Follow me,” Killika requested.

             
Doing as commanded, Azalea marched alongside the Balisekt Lord towards the hut. The wide entrance was covered with a green tapestry of the very tree the hut surrounded. Killika reached out and pushed back the finely made cloth, motioning with his empty hand in a strangely chivalrous manner. “After you,” he said.

             
Azalea entered the hut. Its twig and mud walls were adorned with animal skins and more tapestries. There was finely made furniture carved from full tree trunks, something only used by elves if the tree had fallen naturally and, thus, was reserved only for elven leadership. An elven woman in her early forties stood in the center of the room. She had long, chestnut brown hair and light skin.

             
“High priestess, I assume?” Killika said as he stepped into the hut.

             
Obviously hiding her anger, the elven woman nodded. “I am Maple-leaf, leader of the elves and servant of the Lady of the Forest. By Her grace, please tell me, what is the meaning of this invasion? What have we done to deserve such merciless treatment?”

             
“It is your ancestors that have committed the crimes, priestess,” Killika said calmly. He moved to the wall nearest to the door. His scaly fingers traced down the surface of a deer skin hanging by a simple rope. “Your sin is failing to atone for them.”

             
“I do not understand,” Maple-leaf said.

             
Losing his patience, Killika slammed his fingers against the deer skin. His claws pierced the surface, becoming embedded in the wall behind it. “Your territories and their resources will be held from balisekt kind no longer!” he hissed in anger.

             
“You expect us to lay down and die while you take what we have held for centuries?!” Maple-leaf shouted.

             
Killika met her anger with laughter. “If that is what you wish,” he said smugly. “If you do not wish to die, you may live off the Wilds as we have, or you may stay…as slaves.”

             
“How dare you!” the priestess yelled as she threw her hands high into the air. From each of her palms, a bolt of lightning formed and sailed towards the Balisekt Lord. Azalea dove out of the way, expecting the attack to knock Killika clear through the wall. To her shock, he whipped around in a flash. His eyes had changed. What once resembled the green, slender eyes of a lizard were now two glowing orbs of deep purple. Lifting his hands, Killika stopped the bolts inches from his chest.

             
Maple-leaf watched in awe as Killika turned her twin bolts of lightning into a floating ball of light. With a wave of his hands, the ball exploded into the air, sending a gust of wind throughout the hut.

             
“Your Lady isn’t the only one with great power, priestess,” Killika said in a low, menacing tone. With his palms turned upward, Killika slowly lifted his arms high over his head.

             
Maple-leaf’s eyes flew open in shock as her body was lifted slowly off the dirt floor of her hut. Her legs kicked wildly beneath her. “What is this?!” she shouted in disbelief.

             
“The end of your old ways,” Killika responded. The Balisekt Lord separated his arms out slowly to his sides. As if mimicking his movements, Maple-leaf’s arms started to stretch out. Reaching their limit, the elf’s limbs began to tug at her body, trying to break free from the rest of her.

             
“This…is…impossible!” Maple-leaf strained to say as she was slowly pulled in two.

             
“Do you surrender?” Killika asked.

             
Maple-leaf gritted her teeth, both from pain and from anger. She could feel her shoulders trying to dislocate. It wouldn’t be long before her body was ripped into pieces. “Yes!” she finally cried out. “I yield!”

             
With a baleful smile, Killika lowered his arms. His eyes returned to normal. Maple-leaf fell to the floor like a sack of grain. She panted and groaned from nearly being split in two, but was otherwise silent.

             
With slow, calm steps, Killika continued into the hut. He passed by the defeated priestess as though she were nothing more than a piece of furniture. On the table behind her, a small, ornate chest sat open. The chest was filled with fine jewels and gold chains. Killika dipped his clawed fingers into the chest and retrieved a fine chain adorned with blue stones. With his selection in hand, the Balisekt Lord returned to the door where Azalea stood silently. Much to her surprise, he placed the trinket around her neck almost lovingly.

             
“What are you doing?” Azalea asked. This was not the ruthless creature that had abused and threatened her the day before.