Elfhunter

  Elfhunter

  A Tale of Alterra:

  The World that Is

  By

  C.S. MARKS

  Elfhunter

  by

  C. S. Marks

  Published by Parthian Press at Smashwords

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2013 C. S. Marks

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover Art and Illustrations by Hope Hoover

  Maps by Carrie Nixon

  Edited by Leslie Wainger

  The characters and events in this book are entirely fictional. No similarity between any of the names, characters, persons, and/or institutions in this book with those of any living or dead person or institutions is intended, and any such similarity which may exist is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photo- copying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.

  Published by Parthian Press, all rights reserved

  ParthianPress.com

  ISBN: 978-0-9859182-2-4

  The Author’s Website:CSMarks.com

  Book Website: Elfhunter.net

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  Two campfires come alight in the winter wood.

  Both encircle their makers in welcome warmth. Each is a wild hearth—the gathering-place of friends.

  One hears only laughter, good-natured argument, and the reassuring cry of an owl. The other bears witness to the tearing of breath from body, the loss of hope, and the triumph of hatred. No owl calls there, but the fire hears the cries of the innocent. It cannot answer, flaming in silence beneath a suffocating cloud of shadow.

  It marks the return of a monster.

  Chapter 1: The Trail Begins

  The darkness came early in midwinter, especially in the Greatwood. Even in the height of summer the forest was not a bright place. Very little sunlight penetrated the vast canopy, hence the overall effect of a cool, dark haven shot with green and gold. In winter more light could pass through the layers of skeletal branches, but it was a cold light, thin and grey. In the ever-present mists of winter, a traveler who ventured into the depths of the forest unprepared might find himself lost, chilled to death in the long dark. Fire, in this realm, was life.

  Gaelen Taldin, a Wood-elf of the Greatwood Realm, was glad to have been sent out into the deep woods. As with most of her kind, Gaelen was most content among the trees, and she had dedicated herself to the guardianship of her forest home. She paused in her gathering of dead wood for the fire that she would soon need, appraising the leaden, tree-netted sky to the northwest. It looked as though it might start snowing at any minute.

  She struck a spark to the tinder she had collected, carefully tending the fragile flame until it was truly kindled, and wrapped her winter cloak about her. She had lived through well over a thousand such winters and was not disquieted, for she was resistant to the elements and the cold bothered her little. Still, the fire was most welcome.

  Just as Gaelen realized that she was truly hungry, her cousin Nelwyn appeared with two fine game-birds in her hand. She tossed them to Gaelen, who nodded in approval. Drawing a small, curved blade from the top of her boot, she split the breasts of the birds, pulling back the skin and removing it with a few expert strokes. She hated plucking feathers; they stuck to her fingers and would cling to her clothing for hours afterward. She tossed the skin aside with satisfaction and reached inside the birds, extracting the innards with strong, clever fingers. Tossing the carcasses to Nelwyn, she cleaned the blood from her hands by stripping a piece of fragrant bark from a nearby spice-bush. Then she settled down to watch her cousin at work. Nelwyn rubbed the meat with the previous summer’s dried herbs, wrapped it in softened sheets of fire-birch bark sprinkled with sweet oil, and set them aside. She would roast them when the coals were just right.

  In the depths of winter the sunrise would come late, but Gaelen didn’t mind. The cold darkness was not to be feared, at least so long as the warmth of the fire continued. Her enemies were unlikely to be abroad in the cold, especially so deep within the boundaries of the Elven-realm. Even if they were, she had already noted the presence of at least one owl in the vicinity. Owls made excellent sentinels, and as long as these kept calling, she knew the area was secure. She and Nelwyn sat together in an enormous, hollow tree-trunk beside the well-concealed fire, quietly singing songs and telling tales, laughing and making merry until dawn.

  The snow that Gaelen had sensed upon the wind finally came in the early morning, but by that time she was refreshed and ready to move on, hoping for a warmer day. She and Nelwyn had been sent by the King to patrol the eastern border of the realm, for Ri-Aruin appreciated information concerning who or what was abroad in his lands. Gaelen and Nelwyn were excellent scouts; they could travel without being seen or heard if they wished, and they had often warned the King of trespassers. They had permission to deal with certain of these on their own; Ulcas, in particular, would fall quickly.

  Gaelen had always regarded these misbegotten creatures with a mixture of loathing and disgust, though she felt a small amount of pity for them. From a distance they almost looked human, but a closer look revealed their lumpy, discolored flesh, muddy, unintelligent eyes, and twisted limbs. Even more disturbing to the Elves was their utter hairlessness—Ulcas lacked even eyelashes. Gaelen had seen a bald man before, but he still had eyelashes, eyebrows, and hair on his exposed arms. She found the sight of Ulcas—especially unclothed—revolting. They reminded her of the blind, squirming things that lived under rotting logs.

  She packed up her gear and made for the eastern boundary, the silent snow falling around her. She expected nothing out of the ordinary in the coming daylight, but would have to put some miles behind her if she and Nelwyn would reach their intended encampment by nightfall. Swift and silent, scanning the forest in all directions as she ran, Gaelen hoped for an interesting encounter. Her blood was up, and she was in the mood for adventure—hopefully her impetuous nature and irrepressible curiosity wouldn’t result in more than she bargained for. Again.

  After the sun had risen, Nelwyn, who was especially good at climbing, scaled one of the taller trees and surveyed the sky and the canopy, looking for signs. Gaelen, whose talents ran more to tracking, listening, and scenting, stayed on the ground. She put her sensitive nose to work, surprised to find the unmistakable tang of wood-smoke carried on the breeze from the southwest.

  Nelwyn climbed back down and dropped lightly beside her cousin. “There’s a fire burning southwest of here,” she said.

  “I know. I smelled it. I suppose we should investigate.”

  Nelwyn sighed. “Is there any more to be gained from the signs?”

  Gaelen looked around her and shrugged. “Nothing that I can see…not here, anyway. What do you wish to do?”

  “We must go and see who burns a wood-fire in the Greatwood. I don’t believe our folk would be out this way, burning a campfire at mid-morning.”

  Wood-elves certainly didn’t call attention to themselves in the deep forest by risking a smoky fire in daylight. At night it would be different, as a properly concealed campfire would be
difficult to see from any distance. Gaelen wondered whether the fire was accidental—a remnant of the last night’s camp that someone had failed to extinguish. If so, that someone was either careless, overconfident, or dead.

  As they made their way toward the rising column of smoke, Nelwyn risked climbing again to see how near they were to it. Gaelen’s heart sank as she picked up a darker, more sinister undercurrent beneath the odor of wood-smoke. She shivered, the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck raised in suppressed alarm. This was no longer a simple matter of a neglected campfire, and she knew it.

  As if she could sense her cousin’s distress, Nelwyn returned to her at once. “What is it?”

  “I don’t think we need to worry about whoever made that fire—we’re too late. It’s an old fire, made last night, if I am not mistaken, and now...” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “…I smell burning flesh.”

  Nelwyn drew closer to her cousin, shuddering slightly at the thought. “I suppose it’s a vain hope that you are mistaken?”

  “Definitely flesh burning, and not Ulca-flesh, either. We’d best go carefully and see if anything can be done.”

  They proceeded to track their way to the source of the burning. There had been a properly made encampment there the previous night, much like their own. A fire had been built in concealment amid a ring of large stones in a fair clearing, where the occupants could have seen the stars until the clouds rolled in at midnight. The remains of the fire were still smoldering as Gaelen and Nelwyn crept in from downwind to behold a terrible scene.

  Two Wood-elves lay dead in the clearing. One had fallen into the fire with an enormous, ungainly arrow in his chest. At least he would have perished quickly. The other appeared to have been hacked at with a dull blade...his blood was everywhere. From the look of it, he had died while trying to pull his companion out of the fire. Apparently, they had been caught completely unaware. Nelwyn, horrified, had started toward them when Gaelen grabbed her upper arm.

  “No! It hasn’t been that long since they were as alive as we are now. We must make sure that whoever did this is gone. You take the east, and I will circle west.”

  Gaelen surveyed the area, her senses sharpened and her body tense. Both she and Nelwyn had their bows at the ready; they would not be taken so easily. As Gaelen circled closer to the fire, she searched for signs--clues as to what had taken place, what might be lurking still--but she found none. As they drew near their fallen comrades, she saw tears of recognition in Nelwyn’s eyes.

  “Oh…Gaelen, it’s Talrodin and…and Halrodin.”

  They were brothers, inseparable both in life and now in death.

  Gaelen gasped and ran to Halrodin’s side. His strong, dead hands grasped his brother’s arm with desperate effort. His sightless eyes stared up at the sky, but he was still warm enough that the snowflakes melted as they touched him. She brushed away tears and helped Nelwyn pull Talrodin from the smoldering ashes, noting the look of pure astonishment on his face.

  Gaelen tried not to gag at the stench of charred flesh and fabric. She didn’t know which was worse, that or the underlying smell of roasted meat, normally tantalizing and inviting. She bit her own lip, disgusted that she found it so.

  She returned to Halrodin, who had been her friend, and knelt beside him, looking intently into his eyes and grasping his cold hands with her own. Gaelen possessed a unique talent—one she had revealed to no one except Nelwyn—and she searched Halrodin’s eyes for what they might reveal. She knew that the dead may speak to the living and, if one could perceive it, the tale of their last moments lingered for a while. She concentrated and focused her will, locking her bright hazel-green eyes with Halrodin’s glassy, lifeless ones. The violence of his last moments was clearly written there, but there was something else, as well. Revulsion, a kind of fascinated horror, came clearly to Gaelen’s mind. Though she could not see the image of the enemy through Halrodin’s eyes, she could feel his last thoughts. She could also feel some of the malevolence of the thing that had tortured and killed him.

  At least the brothers hadn’t been dragged off and eaten, and their few belongings remained with them—all except one. Halrodin’s beautiful, elegant sword, his most prized possession, was missing, along with the curved, silver-clad leather sheath that had fitted it so well. Gaelen’s slight frame shook with cold fury, and she looked over at Nelwyn with an expression of determination the younger Elf had seen before: Gaelen wouldn’t rest until she had recovered that sword and restored it to Halrodin’s family.

  Nelwyn sighed, considering the immediate task before them. “We had best get to work. The carrion beasts will be drawn to blood on the wind.”

  Gaelen worked beside Nelwyn in silence, wrapping her fallen friends in their cloaks and covering them with stones to keep them safe from the scavengers. Then she sang a lament of the ancient line of High-elves known as the Èolar, for their sad songs were hauntingly beautiful. The anger smoldering within her did an excellent job of steadying her voice, which did not waver despite her grief. Nelwyn wept openly, especially for Talrodin. They had spent untold hours sharing herb-lore, and she had been fond of him.

  When Gaelen had placed the last stone, and the last notes of her lament had faded into the forest, her thoughts turned to her new enemy. This was a wanton, senseless act against two innocents who had every right to be where they were. They weren’t unwary travelers, but clever, wood-wise forest dwellers with keen senses and quick reflexes. That someone should have taken them unaware and with such crude weaponry was inexplicable. What sort of being could have strung a bow so powerful with an arrow so large that it had pinned Talrodin to the ground, and then hacked Halrodin to pieces—taking plenty of time about it—before vanishing with little trace? It had to be huge, heartless, and incredibly strong. Gaelen knew that she could track it, but not easily. The snow had not been falling long, but it covered what little sign had been left. Progress would be slow, as careful tracking took time and effort.

  There was an unfamiliar and very unpleasant stench about the place, but it was fading rapidly, also blunted by the snow. Gaelen committed it to memory; she would know it if she ever encountered it again. She saw no blood other than that of the two brothers. Her small frame shuddered, momentarily overcome with a mixture of horror and rage.

  Nelwyn placed a concerned hand on her arm. “I wonder if it would be best to return home…to tell our people what has happened. Then we could come back with many others to help us in hunting down this enemy.”

  Gaelen closed her eyes. “That will take too long. We might as well just say fare-thee-well and give up. If we want to hunt this…this thing, we must hunt it now!”

  “But…”

  Gaelen’s eyes flashed. “Don’t even consider delaying this.”

  In answer, Nelwyn’s gaze hardened. “Just remember what this scene might have been had it taken place in a different encampment last night. You will not avenge our friends by falling to the same foe.”

  But Gaelen, as usual, had the last word. It was a single word, spoken through clenched teeth, and Nelwyn could offer no argument.

  “Thaldallen.”

  Five days later, their tracking had turned them south near the eastern forest boundary, then eastward toward the River Ambros. Gaelen was determined to catch up with their quarry before they reached the Great River; she feared all signs would be lost in the crossing, and she knew they would be difficult to pick up again on the other side.

  Her tracking efforts had confirmed that she pursued a lone enemy. That was of little comfort, but at least there was only one pair of eyes and ears that could turn back toward them. At first, she gritted her teeth at Nelwyn’s constant admonitions that she not go too fast, that she would surely miss some sign, but these were getting harder to ignore. They had neither rested nor eaten, and both were weary from the tiresome, close work of tracking. The only good news was that the killer had become more careless as it drew farther away from the kill. That, and the simple fact that both
Elves were becoming more familiar with their enemy, had increased the speed of the pursuit considerably.

  “If we don’t stop to rest and eat soon, I shall not be strong enough to contend with this marauder when we do catch it.” Nelwyn had been trying to get Gaelen to stop for hours, undoubtedly wishing she had convinced her cousin to give in to the sensible suggestion to return home.

  Gaelen snorted. “As if either of us would ever be strong enough to contend with a creature that could do what was done!

  My only plan is to get close enough to shoot the cursed evil wretch in the throat.”

  Still, Nelwyn’s request made sense; Gaelen realized that she needed to rest and renew her strength, as she was becoming a bit reckless. She stretched her lithe form toward the cold, pale blue winter sky, and then rummaged in her food pouch for a few dried apples, some dried mushrooms, and strips of dried, salted venison that chewed rather like leather. She and Nelwyn ate quickly, washing down the dry, salty meal with refreshing cold draughts from their flasks. Then they rested a little, knowing they could not linger beyond sunset.

  They had been tracking even in the dark, for it had been clear and moonlit these last nights, and they could see well enough. Nelwyn had noted that the creature moved much faster by night, though she estimated that it was now only one or two hours ahead of them. Once or twice it veered from its course, and they found the remains of a deer that had been slain and partially devoured, torn to pieces and eaten raw. No fire had been built, and if their enemy had taken rest, it was not obvious.