story ch1
Fiction Rated: T - English - Fantasy/Tragedy - Published: 06-03-07 - Updated: 06-03-07
Finally, dawn came, not witness to the horrors and screams of the night, but merely to their echoes, smouldering fires, the smell of blood and burning flesh and wood. Towering trees lay toppled, or were charred hulks, remnants of rope and wood aerial walkways, homes in the trees, dangled limply in absolute surrender. Bodies dangled from some of these trees, some who were probably burnt alive, spiked to the trees, others dangled from ropes, their meat fresh and exposed, though drained of blood, some with their skin left carelessly on the ground beneath them. But no carrion had yet taken to the fallen. Perhaps, they, too, were still in sorrow, that the guardians of the forest had fallen.
All except one. A great, dark beast, a king amongst wolves, black thick fur blowing back, as it raced the wind, through the pathes of the forest, the scent of death growing stronger to it as it propelled itself with relentless speed. Onward, straight toward the ruins of the once-great hidden foresttop city.
The choking smoke of the night had mostly given way to morning mist, and the sun was melting the obscuring veil with its bold, unrelenting rays, revealing the truth of what had been, what remained. The wolf stalked through the bodies, but it did not feed. It surveyed the carnage carefully, an unyielding, unfathomable intelligence hidden behind its black eyes.
Hordes of tracks crossed the ground that was normally untouched, pristine in this forest. Booted tracks. The smell of blood. Elven blood... sylvan blood. But not all of it of the denizens of the forest city - Drow had been here. In great numbers. A mostly intact body of a fallen sylvan male elf warrior, still clasping to an ivory blade, was pierced through with arrows, some still oozing with black poison on their tips, mixed with blood.
Suddenly, the wolf stopped its wandering gait through the blackened bodies and undergrowth, turning it's head up, sniffing several times. Doppelgangers? Illithids? The smells of creatures and things of the deep dark... rare creatures to this forest... smells of things never welcomed into the secret forest city before.
The body of a male sylvan elf child, grip locked still around a small elvencraft bow, lay with its throat slit open, eyes rolled back, it's back bent and ribs broken from a fall. The wolf's dark black eyes absorbed it all, unflinching. It was a great city, and mostly there'd been bodies of the Drow littering the forest floor... where was the rest of the clan? Perhaps some had survived the onslaught. The wolf made its way purposefully towards the center of the city.
The trees and brush parted, and fresh smoke billowed into the sky still in the near distance, just past the imposing trees. Beyond them, the smouldering remnants of the spirit trees stood, their once silver, sparkling trunks and silver leaves now covered only in the gore of the masses of dismembered, mutilated, charred bodies nailed in various fashions over them. The wolf stopped, its huge form hunching, then let a bellowing, mournful howl that echoed with a wave of sadness, expanding outward from the city, the untouched trees beyond the city's reach bowing as if blown by a great wind as the howl passed over them.
Deep green eyes with specks of gold shot open, at the blood-curdling, mournful sound of a wolf, echoing from the heart of the city. Terror was etched on her face, tracks from silent tears still marred the small elven girl's face. She wore shorts of treated, leatherized leaves, and a top made of a band of woven moss that wrapped around her chest and waist, and over her shoulders. Her silver bangs were braided in a loop to a partial braid at the back of her head, but the hair, which had been carefully taken care of by her mother only the night before, was wet and clumped to her head from sweat. Her breath came in forced, quiet gasps, as she tried to stifle the sound of her breathing, as she looked out from her hiding place. It was a place meant to purify moonsilk, deep within a stone about 10' high and vaguely dome shaped, red on the outside, but from which you could see out perfectly - though no light - or traces of magic or psi - escaped from within - a perfect hiding place against the betrayers, and the brain-eaters.
But the psi-magic amplification of the bloodstone alcove had another, truly unfortunate effect: the emotions, the pain, the sorrow, the blood fervour of her kin, the pschic traces of the horrible ways they died, all these, too were amplified, and gathered and echoed in that little chamber. Her fists were still clenched tight, even when sleep had finally overcome her, long after the main of the battle was over, her kin slain. Her red-rimmed eyes were now locked open, huge saucers of eyes on such a young elven girl. She strained, listening intensely, fiercely at the quiet, the crackle of still burning wood startling and sudden in intensity to her - yet she did not move a muscle, nor let a whisper of a sound free. Terror had gotten deep into her soul, and had a stranglehold on it. The things she had seen and heard and felt that night would echo within her deeply, always that clenching stranglehold of terror, or horror, haunting her dreams, corrupting sweet youth with dreams of escape, and of vengeance... and of loss. And loneliness... loneliness that would hound her, find her in those times she sought the comfort of family.
Stirring on the cold, hard floor, she woke from the nightmare to see the others huddled in a circle still, the wizard sitting lotus with a closed blue-dragonskin spellbook floating before him, but obviously still in reverie. The feral halfling was half-snoring, half growling in his sleep; occasionally an ear would twitch as if hearing something, then an eye would snap open, then just as fast he would be asleep again. The dervish stood sentry, but they expected no more danger here, now - and he was focussed on spinning and whirling in intricate patterns with his pair of scimitars, one shining in the dim light like the moon, the other dark as night.
She let out her breath slowly, consciously, relaxing her clenched fists and jaw, sitting up and stretching briefly, her eyes taking in the dungeon beneath the ruins of Hornung's tower, a few hours outside of Achelar in Halrua. She thought of how big a change it had been, from their long journeying by caravan, or travelling weeks by ship in the Sea of Stars, to being able to jump half way across the known world in a matter of days. The wizard's power had increased; not only that, but they'd been joined by a Windwalker worshipper of Shaundakul, patron diety of travel and portals. Which had come in handy the past few days they'd been exploring the tower - some of the traps and barriers they couldn't disable, so to bipass them they would have to use travel magic. Thus the camping in the dungeon to save on magic.
She lay back down, flashes of her dreams still poking up from submersion in her still cobweb-covered subconscious. She inhaled deeply, feeling the cool, musty air fill her, putting her attention on it. fwoooo! She exhaled slowly through her mouth, keeping her attention on the feeling of breathing. Slowly, she brought her mind to one of her happy places, nestled snuggly in the boughs of a tree, the wind rocking her gently, far from the uncaring world below... and the even less caring world beneath it. Soon, she returned to reverie... and her troubled dreams.
The great wolf approached the spirit trees slowly at first, surveying the slaughter sharply, picking out faces, looking to identify individuals. With a bound the wolf burst into a run, towards one of the spirit trees - running headlong into the tree - then turning upwards and sprinting up the side of the tree, deftly slipping past bodies as smoke and char hissed and broke from its paws as it ran.
Instead of youthful elves, here, at this place, high up on this one great tree, were the elders of the tribe. One in particular had been dismembered, with parts spaced a meter or so from one another, somewhat haphazardly. But there, in the center, was the head of the high elder Ashimshi, nailed to the tree through the forehead with a shortsword of dark elven craftmanship. There, the wolf stopped, it's head an armslength away, panting loudly, precariously perched on the side of the tree.
The elder's pupils rolled back into view, looking at the wolf, seeing into it, and KNOWING.
"There is one... the bloodstone... go from here... they return for the trees," the elder's voice rasped like the sound of a breath of wind through leaves, answering questions left unasked. His eyes rolled back in his head, as his lifeforce finally fled, as wind suddenly stirred and blew ash and smoke into the air. The wolf turned and raced back down the tree.
She could hear it coming from far away... the heavy footsteps, bounding and tearing past brush and trees and bodies. Her tiny heart began to race, her eyes widening: it seemed to be heading straight for her. It was coming for her! They'd found her!
The footsteps slowed, and a beast twice her height at its shoulder came into view. It was cloaked in fur the colour of night, breathing hard, sniffing. It's black eyes stared through the walls of the alcove at her. She reminded herself that it could not see through, pleaded that the words her parents told her were true. She held her breath, as it's nose touched the side of the alcove, saw the red of the outside reflected in its black, lightless eyes. It growled in a bizarre fashion, as if speaking some unknown language, and began to push it's face through the side of the alcove. She reached over beside her, to grab the short elvencraft bow that lay beside her, starting to shake and jitter uncontrollably, holding her breath, her face tightening.
She held out hope until the very moment its head had pushed it's way through, until its eyes had penetrated, and she could see its eyes lock onto her, meet her eyes, and it seemed ready to lunge forward. That was when she started swinging, forcefully, with one hand wielding the bow like a club, flailing wildly at it, trying to hold it back, a scream caught in her throat, breaths coming in gasps as she could hold it no longer, but she couldn't bare to make a noise...
She may have struck it once, but then it knocked the bow from her hands. She squeezed her eyes shut, thrashing out with her hands, all the while keeping her left fist, and the treasure she held within it, closed...
A hand reached out and grabbed her forearm, held her, and she opened her eyes in surprise. The beast had grown an arm from its chest, and as she watched, the creature morphed and shifted, fur giving way to a flowing cloak. A man's face looked down at her, ancient yet vibrant. Deep blue eyes, holding the ocean and sky, gazed down at her, and the deep sorrow and compassion she saw in them gave her pause, startled her. There was something vaguely familiar about the face. She stopped fighting, and stared dumbfounded, eyes wide, as he pulled her into his arms and buried her head in the fabric of his cloak and his chest. Silently, tears began to stream down her face.
"What is your name, little one? Are you ok?" The little elven girl said nothing, her face empty of expression, her spirit exhausted, deadened with the ordeal, the weight of what she had seen. The druid looked and saw her left hand clenched.
"What are you holding there?" He reached to open her hand and see, but she pulled away from him and pulled it to her chest, her face contorting in protest. "Are these your things?" He said, gesturing toward a small satchel and the things within it, the bow on the ground, as he gathered them up and passed them to her. She accepted them blankly.
"We can't stay here," he said gently but firmly, as he guided her toward the wall, and they both began to merge with, and pass through the stone wall of the alcove.
"We must go, but there is something I must do first," he said calmly. Stepping away from her, and throwing his cloak back, revealing wide shoulders, the hilt of a scimitar, and some sort of well-crafted hide armour.
"Aiyashta Danaan shiii-daru ...-" the druid began to chant words, incomprehensible to her, that hinted of fey, sounding like each word was charged with magical energy and meaning. He spread his arms wide, and a sudden wind began to blow about him, and billow his cloak this way and that.
His words seemed to resonate, pierce through her soul: it was magic, she knew, but it was not like the magic of her people; but it was not entirely foreign either. She watched silently, for a moment, her fears forgotten.
"GIBRALTA NiNUMEN DIJENGIA," his voice boomed now, though gentle, it seemed to come from all around her, as the wind began to stir the forest all about them. The sky, empty and clear save for faded plumes of smoke, began to thicken, roil and churn, clouds forming. There was a low growl, that turned into a deep grumble, that rolled towards them from the distance. The sky began to darken, turning shades of purple and blue and green and all shades of gray. The wind began to whisper, then howl, chasing in chaotic cirles, blowing this way and that, then to shriek and whistle through the trees. Somehow the man seemed impossibly tall, his eyes seemed almost to glow with power, as his cloak whipped about him.
"Daish'tana Remaidu NiTara," there was a crack, a momentary, blast of wind, and then the sky blazed with light, an arc lancing from the heavens and striking in the distance, beyond their view, connecting with one of the spirit trees. The air roared as the heavens were split assunder, and she turned away from the blinding light, only faintly hearing the man's voice beneath the roaring.
A few seconds passed, then the roaring and light stopped. In the distance, a deep sound of wood cracking, and something immense falling; scarcely had the vibrations from the roaring thunder subsided than the ground shook as of something huge collapsing into it.
The wind grew cooler and wetter, then rain began to fall in a drizzle that whipped hard into her face, so she squeezed her eyes half closed, still listening to the druid's voice speaking words of power into the sky. Lightning shattered the sky again for many seconds, the wind blasting and roaring with fury, and there was another crash. She did not count the number of times, but she knew before he was done, that there would be one great bolt for each of the spirit trees.
He paused for a moment, only a moment, looking over to her, and spoke more words of power, "Clatou, verata, Nictou!" Brambles and thorns and growth began surging from the ground, growing to cover the forest floor, growing thickly together, making things nearly impassable, and covering over the bodies, drow and sylvan alike, that lay there. The rain began to beat down, beating in pulses with the wind.
The man stepped towards her, kneeling low, beckoning her to him, and she obliged hesitantly.
"Do not be afraid," he said to her calmly, with gentleness in his eyes. He stood and turned, and his form began to shift and darken, black fur sprouting from him all over, and a great dark beast stood before her once again.
It turned and grasped her gently in its maw, lifting her to its back. She straddled it and grabbed a fistfull of fur, feeling herself sink into its softness. It began to move, first a walk, then a run, the wind rushing by. They ran straight through brambles and bushes, but none touched nor snagged the wolf. They ran straight towards a mammoth tree on the outskirts of the village, that dwarfed all those around it. The wolf began to growl strange unintelligble, gutteral sounds, just as they burst headlong into the tree...
...and entered INTO it. There was an overwhelming feeling of lightness, of being one with the trees, their spirits, a pervading sense of gentleness and calmness. Then suddenly they burst out into the light and and world again, the sky only faintly overcast overhead here, with light shining brightly on the horizon. Illel Soroswol, the last of her clan, watched wide eyed as the world rushed past them. Then, slowly, her head lowered. She buried her face into the soft fur, her grip still tight on the fur, and let the world fade away from her.
m_G
Finally, dawn came, not witness to the horrors and screams of the night, but merely to their echoes, smouldering fires, the smell of blood and burning flesh and wood. Towering trees lay toppled, or were charred hulks, remnants of rope and wood aerial walkways, homes in the trees, dangled limply in absolute surrender. Bodies dangled from some of these trees, some who were probably burnt alive, spiked to the trees, others dangled from ropes, their meat fresh and exposed, though drained of blood, some with their skin left carelessly on the ground beneath them. But no carrion had yet taken to the fallen. Perhaps, they, too, were still in sorrow, that the guardians of the forest had fallen.
All except one. A great, dark beast, a king amongst wolves, black thick fur blowing back, as it raced the wind, through the pathes of the forest, the scent of death growing stronger to it as it propelled itself with relentless speed. Onward, straight toward the ruins of the once-great hidden foresttop city.
The choking smoke of the night had mostly given way to morning mist, and the sun was melting the obscuring veil with its bold, unrelenting rays, revealing the truth of what had been, what remained. The wolf stalked through the bodies, but it did not feed. It surveyed the carnage carefully, an unyielding, unfathomable intelligence hidden behind its black eyes.
Hordes of tracks crossed the ground that was normally untouched, pristine in this forest. Booted tracks. The smell of blood. Elven blood... sylvan blood. But not all of it of the denizens of the forest city - Drow had been here. In great numbers. A mostly intact body of a fallen sylvan male elf warrior, still clasping to an ivory blade, was pierced through with arrows, some still oozing with black poison on their tips, mixed with blood.
Suddenly, the wolf stopped its wandering gait through the blackened bodies and undergrowth, turning it's head up, sniffing several times. Doppelgangers? Illithids? The smells of creatures and things of the deep dark... rare creatures to this forest... smells of things never welcomed into the secret forest city before.
The body of a male sylvan elf child, grip locked still around a small elvencraft bow, lay with its throat slit open, eyes rolled back, it's back bent and ribs broken from a fall. The wolf's dark black eyes absorbed it all, unflinching. It was a great city, and mostly there'd been bodies of the Drow littering the forest floor... where was the rest of the clan? Perhaps some had survived the onslaught. The wolf made its way purposefully towards the center of the city.
The trees and brush parted, and fresh smoke billowed into the sky still in the near distance, just past the imposing trees. Beyond them, the smouldering remnants of the spirit trees stood, their once silver, sparkling trunks and silver leaves now covered only in the gore of the masses of dismembered, mutilated, charred bodies nailed in various fashions over them. The wolf stopped, its huge form hunching, then let a bellowing, mournful howl that echoed with a wave of sadness, expanding outward from the city, the untouched trees beyond the city's reach bowing as if blown by a great wind as the howl passed over them.
Deep green eyes with specks of gold shot open, at the blood-curdling, mournful sound of a wolf, echoing from the heart of the city. Terror was etched on her face, tracks from silent tears still marred the small elven girl's face. She wore shorts of treated, leatherized leaves, and a top made of a band of woven moss that wrapped around her chest and waist, and over her shoulders. Her silver bangs were braided in a loop to a partial braid at the back of her head, but the hair, which had been carefully taken care of by her mother only the night before, was wet and clumped to her head from sweat. Her breath came in forced, quiet gasps, as she tried to stifle the sound of her breathing, as she looked out from her hiding place. It was a place meant to purify moonsilk, deep within a stone about 10' high and vaguely dome shaped, red on the outside, but from which you could see out perfectly - though no light - or traces of magic or psi - escaped from within - a perfect hiding place against the betrayers, and the brain-eaters.
But the psi-magic amplification of the bloodstone alcove had another, truly unfortunate effect: the emotions, the pain, the sorrow, the blood fervour of her kin, the pschic traces of the horrible ways they died, all these, too were amplified, and gathered and echoed in that little chamber. Her fists were still clenched tight, even when sleep had finally overcome her, long after the main of the battle was over, her kin slain. Her red-rimmed eyes were now locked open, huge saucers of eyes on such a young elven girl. She strained, listening intensely, fiercely at the quiet, the crackle of still burning wood startling and sudden in intensity to her - yet she did not move a muscle, nor let a whisper of a sound free. Terror had gotten deep into her soul, and had a stranglehold on it. The things she had seen and heard and felt that night would echo within her deeply, always that clenching stranglehold of terror, or horror, haunting her dreams, corrupting sweet youth with dreams of escape, and of vengeance... and of loss. And loneliness... loneliness that would hound her, find her in those times she sought the comfort of family.
Stirring on the cold, hard floor, she woke from the nightmare to see the others huddled in a circle still, the wizard sitting lotus with a closed blue-dragonskin spellbook floating before him, but obviously still in reverie. The feral halfling was half-snoring, half growling in his sleep; occasionally an ear would twitch as if hearing something, then an eye would snap open, then just as fast he would be asleep again. The dervish stood sentry, but they expected no more danger here, now - and he was focussed on spinning and whirling in intricate patterns with his pair of scimitars, one shining in the dim light like the moon, the other dark as night.
She let out her breath slowly, consciously, relaxing her clenched fists and jaw, sitting up and stretching briefly, her eyes taking in the dungeon beneath the ruins of Hornung's tower, a few hours outside of Achelar in Halrua. She thought of how big a change it had been, from their long journeying by caravan, or travelling weeks by ship in the Sea of Stars, to being able to jump half way across the known world in a matter of days. The wizard's power had increased; not only that, but they'd been joined by a Windwalker worshipper of Shaundakul, patron diety of travel and portals. Which had come in handy the past few days they'd been exploring the tower - some of the traps and barriers they couldn't disable, so to bipass them they would have to use travel magic. Thus the camping in the dungeon to save on magic.
She lay back down, flashes of her dreams still poking up from submersion in her still cobweb-covered subconscious. She inhaled deeply, feeling the cool, musty air fill her, putting her attention on it. fwoooo! She exhaled slowly through her mouth, keeping her attention on the feeling of breathing. Slowly, she brought her mind to one of her happy places, nestled snuggly in the boughs of a tree, the wind rocking her gently, far from the uncaring world below... and the even less caring world beneath it. Soon, she returned to reverie... and her troubled dreams.
The great wolf approached the spirit trees slowly at first, surveying the slaughter sharply, picking out faces, looking to identify individuals. With a bound the wolf burst into a run, towards one of the spirit trees - running headlong into the tree - then turning upwards and sprinting up the side of the tree, deftly slipping past bodies as smoke and char hissed and broke from its paws as it ran.
Instead of youthful elves, here, at this place, high up on this one great tree, were the elders of the tribe. One in particular had been dismembered, with parts spaced a meter or so from one another, somewhat haphazardly. But there, in the center, was the head of the high elder Ashimshi, nailed to the tree through the forehead with a shortsword of dark elven craftmanship. There, the wolf stopped, it's head an armslength away, panting loudly, precariously perched on the side of the tree.
The elder's pupils rolled back into view, looking at the wolf, seeing into it, and KNOWING.
"There is one... the bloodstone... go from here... they return for the trees," the elder's voice rasped like the sound of a breath of wind through leaves, answering questions left unasked. His eyes rolled back in his head, as his lifeforce finally fled, as wind suddenly stirred and blew ash and smoke into the air. The wolf turned and raced back down the tree.
She could hear it coming from far away... the heavy footsteps, bounding and tearing past brush and trees and bodies. Her tiny heart began to race, her eyes widening: it seemed to be heading straight for her. It was coming for her! They'd found her!
The footsteps slowed, and a beast twice her height at its shoulder came into view. It was cloaked in fur the colour of night, breathing hard, sniffing. It's black eyes stared through the walls of the alcove at her. She reminded herself that it could not see through, pleaded that the words her parents told her were true. She held her breath, as it's nose touched the side of the alcove, saw the red of the outside reflected in its black, lightless eyes. It growled in a bizarre fashion, as if speaking some unknown language, and began to push it's face through the side of the alcove. She reached over beside her, to grab the short elvencraft bow that lay beside her, starting to shake and jitter uncontrollably, holding her breath, her face tightening.
She held out hope until the very moment its head had pushed it's way through, until its eyes had penetrated, and she could see its eyes lock onto her, meet her eyes, and it seemed ready to lunge forward. That was when she started swinging, forcefully, with one hand wielding the bow like a club, flailing wildly at it, trying to hold it back, a scream caught in her throat, breaths coming in gasps as she could hold it no longer, but she couldn't bare to make a noise...
She may have struck it once, but then it knocked the bow from her hands. She squeezed her eyes shut, thrashing out with her hands, all the while keeping her left fist, and the treasure she held within it, closed...
A hand reached out and grabbed her forearm, held her, and she opened her eyes in surprise. The beast had grown an arm from its chest, and as she watched, the creature morphed and shifted, fur giving way to a flowing cloak. A man's face looked down at her, ancient yet vibrant. Deep blue eyes, holding the ocean and sky, gazed down at her, and the deep sorrow and compassion she saw in them gave her pause, startled her. There was something vaguely familiar about the face. She stopped fighting, and stared dumbfounded, eyes wide, as he pulled her into his arms and buried her head in the fabric of his cloak and his chest. Silently, tears began to stream down her face.
"What is your name, little one? Are you ok?" The little elven girl said nothing, her face empty of expression, her spirit exhausted, deadened with the ordeal, the weight of what she had seen. The druid looked and saw her left hand clenched.
"What are you holding there?" He reached to open her hand and see, but she pulled away from him and pulled it to her chest, her face contorting in protest. "Are these your things?" He said, gesturing toward a small satchel and the things within it, the bow on the ground, as he gathered them up and passed them to her. She accepted them blankly.
"We can't stay here," he said gently but firmly, as he guided her toward the wall, and they both began to merge with, and pass through the stone wall of the alcove.
"We must go, but there is something I must do first," he said calmly. Stepping away from her, and throwing his cloak back, revealing wide shoulders, the hilt of a scimitar, and some sort of well-crafted hide armour.
"Aiyashta Danaan shiii-daru ...-" the druid began to chant words, incomprehensible to her, that hinted of fey, sounding like each word was charged with magical energy and meaning. He spread his arms wide, and a sudden wind began to blow about him, and billow his cloak this way and that.
His words seemed to resonate, pierce through her soul: it was magic, she knew, but it was not like the magic of her people; but it was not entirely foreign either. She watched silently, for a moment, her fears forgotten.
"GIBRALTA NiNUMEN DIJENGIA," his voice boomed now, though gentle, it seemed to come from all around her, as the wind began to stir the forest all about them. The sky, empty and clear save for faded plumes of smoke, began to thicken, roil and churn, clouds forming. There was a low growl, that turned into a deep grumble, that rolled towards them from the distance. The sky began to darken, turning shades of purple and blue and green and all shades of gray. The wind began to whisper, then howl, chasing in chaotic cirles, blowing this way and that, then to shriek and whistle through the trees. Somehow the man seemed impossibly tall, his eyes seemed almost to glow with power, as his cloak whipped about him.
"Daish'tana Remaidu NiTara," there was a crack, a momentary, blast of wind, and then the sky blazed with light, an arc lancing from the heavens and striking in the distance, beyond their view, connecting with one of the spirit trees. The air roared as the heavens were split assunder, and she turned away from the blinding light, only faintly hearing the man's voice beneath the roaring.
A few seconds passed, then the roaring and light stopped. In the distance, a deep sound of wood cracking, and something immense falling; scarcely had the vibrations from the roaring thunder subsided than the ground shook as of something huge collapsing into it.
The wind grew cooler and wetter, then rain began to fall in a drizzle that whipped hard into her face, so she squeezed her eyes half closed, still listening to the druid's voice speaking words of power into the sky. Lightning shattered the sky again for many seconds, the wind blasting and roaring with fury, and there was another crash. She did not count the number of times, but she knew before he was done, that there would be one great bolt for each of the spirit trees.
He paused for a moment, only a moment, looking over to her, and spoke more words of power, "Clatou, verata, Nictou!" Brambles and thorns and growth began surging from the ground, growing to cover the forest floor, growing thickly together, making things nearly impassable, and covering over the bodies, drow and sylvan alike, that lay there. The rain began to beat down, beating in pulses with the wind.
The man stepped towards her, kneeling low, beckoning her to him, and she obliged hesitantly.
"Do not be afraid," he said to her calmly, with gentleness in his eyes. He stood and turned, and his form began to shift and darken, black fur sprouting from him all over, and a great dark beast stood before her once again.
It turned and grasped her gently in its maw, lifting her to its back. She straddled it and grabbed a fistfull of fur, feeling herself sink into its softness. It began to move, first a walk, then a run, the wind rushing by. They ran straight through brambles and bushes, but none touched nor snagged the wolf. They ran straight towards a mammoth tree on the outskirts of the village, that dwarfed all those around it. The wolf began to growl strange unintelligble, gutteral sounds, just as they burst headlong into the tree...
...and entered INTO it. There was an overwhelming feeling of lightness, of being one with the trees, their spirits, a pervading sense of gentleness and calmness. Then suddenly they burst out into the light and and world again, the sky only faintly overcast overhead here, with light shining brightly on the horizon. Illel Soroswol, the last of her clan, watched wide eyed as the world rushed past them. Then, slowly, her head lowered. She buried her face into the soft fur, her grip still tight on the fur, and let the world fade away from her.
m_G