Chapter 6

Part 2

She gave him an evil smile. “I poisoned almost all of them in the last few days. I couldn’t kill more than forty-three over most of the last year, but then the war ended and they stopped guarding their food supplies as they headed home. Actually they stopped guarding anything except their loot for a while, but after they started screaming and dying by the hundreds every day they started guarding things and posting sentries again. Now they’ve taken to traveling in squads at their own pace and choice of route so they don’t have to breath the dust of a marching army. That’s letting me pick them off a little easier, until this morning when I ran out of arrows again.

“My people are glad to re-supply me, as long as I don’t let any Taldrians see me coming or going from my nation. And I can make sure no Taldrians see me doing anything if I want to. I’m extremely stealthy, and I may not have much wizard power and even less skill at most spells, but I can do the Unseen spell as well as any wizard alive. And I have a talent for making the most of a very weak Movement.”

“Really? Would you show me?”

“Not now, I won’t waste the power. I’ll show you tomorrow morning when we kill the Taldrians. They’re sure to send a platoon of twenty-four after us, since we let those two live today. If only one had lived he’d have lied about it and said they were attacked by superior forces, but not two. So they’ll send enough to make sure they get us, since they’ll consider us an easy mission, whereas if they thought they were facing a dozen elves they might have let the deaths of two soldiers slide.”

She considered a moment, then asked him; “Do you really think those traps will kill all twenty-four of them?”

He shook his head. “No, unless we get lucky. As my father always said; strange things always happen in fights. But there is a pretty good chance that all the survivors will be badly injured.”

“Ah. Is there a high place we can go where we can watch when they get there, but they can’t reach quickly if they have able-bodied survivors?”

“Sure. There’s a peak only about two hundred meters from there, but we’ll have to hike over two hours to get to the top, and they’d have to do the same to get to us, as well as either tracking us or knowing the way. Unless of course they have some very expert cliff climbers who survive the traps and have all their gear with them, then they could reach it in thirty minutes, but if they do that we’ll just drop rocks on them while they’re climbing, and there’ll be nothing they can do about it.”

“Good.”

They sat silently for a while, except for the quiet sounds of his fletching, then he spoke again.

“You know, I’m surprised that your people let you go out to kill all the Taldrians by yourself, considering your age and your lack of wizard power.”

“I just didn’t want anyone else with me.” she shrugged. “Many would have come if I asked, and a few offered to, but I refused them. I’m old enough to have the right to do this my own way, especially considering what happened to my family.”

“Huh. You know, it’s going to take a long time to kill all the Taldrian soldiers, let alone all the humans.”

“I know, but I’m an elf. I have the time.”

“Huh. So you’re going to kill every human alive. You know, my soul may be dead, but yours isn’t exactly normal.”

She stared at him until he met her piercing gaze, then she fiercely declared; “No, it’s not. My soul is not normal. It’s bent and broken and sick and twisted. I wish it was dead. As I said, you’re lucky yours is, because that’s a lot better than what I’ve got. I wish I was dead, but I want to kill Vork The Third and all his sadistic brutes a lot more than I want to die.”

He nodded, and nothing more was said.

Four hours later he built a tiny fire, made a crude stew from the rest of the soldiers’ trail rations and some dried vegetables and spices from the cache, and they ate again.

When they slept they did it sitting and leaning back against the cave wall, so they only dozed lightly and woke often.

PART 3

Well before the rising of the sun she gave him a light shake and said; “Time to get ready and go.”

He just nodded, and rose. They ate the leftover stew, cold.

After they’d eaten he told her; “We might as well leave everything here except what we need for the next few hours. Bows, arrows, your knife, one short sword with a scabbard, one pack with two meals and one water skin. There’s good drinking water in streams along the way.”

She nodded, gathered the ashes and charcoal from the fire of the night before in a square of cloth, and tucked it into a pocket.

He had her go first while he carefully erased their tracks from the cave to the path, then he led the way back down toward the road for about eight minutes, to a barely visible game trail that branched off the path.

“Make sure we don’t leave any tracks on this trail for the next ten minutes or so, if you can.” he instructed.

“I can.” she nodded, and they made their way forward more slowly and carefully.

After they’d been hiking for almost an hour she asked him; “Did you dream last night?”

He replied without turning back to her. “Yes. I saw everything that happened the night before. I saw my family being killed again, except it was like it wasn’t happening to me. I was just watching, and I watched myself in it like he was someone else. And there were no feelings to it, no emotions. Just watching something happen, like watching any normal day.”

“Huh.” she said as she nodded. “You’ll probably dream it every night. Still, you’re so lucky. Every night I see my Great-grandfather’s view of my family getting trampled, and I feel it all again as I felt it that day. It only takes a minute, so if I even nod off for two minutes I see it. Sometimes I see it a dozen times a night.”

He didn’t reply for a few paces, then said; “You’re right. I’m very lucky.”

She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or sincere.

Finally they reached their lookout, and he took out his sword to point with it. “Okay, there’s the path down there. There’s the traps, there’s the rock pile.”

“All right.” she nodded as she doffed her mostly-empty pack and emptied it out on the ground. “If they’re coming they’ll be there soon. I want you to look exactly as you did yesterday when you killed that soldier. It was very sinister when you did that, and if the two who got away see you looking the same as you did then it’ll put some fear into them, which can spread to the rest of them. But don’t show yourself until after they’ve set off the traps.

“If there are any survivors, give them a few seconds to collect their wits, then yell your best insults at them in Taldrian until you have their attention. Try to do it in a Bhian accent if you can, and wave your sword around, I saved a bit of the berry juice to help make it look bloody. It’s not exactly the same red, but it’ll still help put some fear into them. After you have their attention, drop you sword, grab your bow, and shoot them.”