It is still night. Sethlan’s eyelids flicker open, and starlight reaches him in the canopy of the tree he hides within. The elf twists his shoulder, careful of the many small wounds that mark him everywhere. Below, the ground is covered in mist – but it is not empty. The Udur are again looking for him. Hunting. He strayed too far, into where they were prowling, and they will not give up so easily. Neither would he. Sethlan suppresses the desire to focus in on every crunch, every rustle of leaf. To look over one’s shoulder and espy the threat. The predators are nearby, but they have not found him. Yet.
His head swivels left, and he peers through the tangle of leaves and vines like an owl looking for prey. He waits, feeling the dread the Udur push ebb and flow. They must be passing beneath him. He does not move. His breathing is slight. Patience is something that comes naturally to a ten-thousand-year-old elf.
One. He slides along branch he’d been resting on, letting his arms support all his weight. Two. He sucks in his breath, lowering himself along the slick bark. Then stops. A long three follows, as the spindly demons move soundlessly below. Four.
Wind rattles the branches at the same time Sethlan’s feet hit the undergrowth with an impact lost in the gust. He whips his hair back and quickly scans left and right after seeing thorns barring his way forward. Five.
A high wail from behind makes him wince, but nothing more. The bey is soon joined by others, farther away. Six. Seven. His throat tightens, and there is a sudden chill upon the elf’s back. He again holds his breath, letting the wave of fear pass over. Nine.
Like a loosed arrow Sethlan cuts through the forest, with the silent presence of the Udur in pursuit. No vision tells him this. He does not risk a look back or stops. Fear rides his heels. His head swivels ever so slightly as he bounds over rocks, saplings, and into the thick of the forest. Only the goosebumps down his arms tell him they continue to dog him.
At an overgrown path he hesitates, sliding over a patch of wet leaves, and filling his nose with the scent of their crushing. Sethlan pivots his hips, and sinks to the ground, realizing now that his mad dash has taken him back. Further from the river. Deeper into the forest. And deeper into the lion’s den.
He slashes wild at the air between his left hip and the darkness with his obsidian knife. Striking nothing. They are – a tendril of mist solidifies around a sapling, just to his right. At once thick. Then in an instant, gone. Immaterial. He steps forward, teeth barred. Above the crescent moon smiles back at him through a thin patch of trees. Each inch is bought in painful, slow breaths, as Sethlan finds his way. The dread of the Udur is almost palatable and hits him from every side.
In a patch of darkness to his left he again catches the quick change from mist. Beaks, this time, erupt from an undulating mass, then disappear in a cloud. Setlhan resists shaking his head. They are pulling the trap closed.
The knife mirrors the inky blackness of the dark around. Still, he careful hides the blade in his hand. Deep. Blankets of moss hang from a nearby tree, and the sweet smell ruins his sense of direction. To deep. But the sounds of the now more distant river tickle his ears, and he tilts his head this way and that, as quick as a deer, and as slight as the breeze.
Something else. He stands up from his crouch. Voices? He cups his ear and listens. Outside of the night fowl. Away from the crickets, the song of frogs. And close. Awfully close. Are the lilting tongue of the manneleigs. They sing a low, melancholy dirge that walks along the roots and ruts of the old forest. Sethlan’s heart lurches when he realizes the noises are coming closer.
He scans the forest left, right. Then remembers the old path just behind. The elf spins that way, and in doing so sees several shapes writhe in the periphery. Trapped. The old path is there though, only a few feet away. But if the E’tah even come, it will be too late.
Sethlan swallows. A ripple flows along the nameless dark before him, and the obsidian blade is cool in his hand. Reassuring. While the handle of his sword, too hot. Sweaty. The wheels of a cart squawk in the foreground. He draws both weapons and bares his teeth.
At once the night explodes in the Udur’s terrible cries. All other sounds, bird calls, the trespass of the men in the forest, quail before it. But Sethlan does not. Without a word, without a challenging shout, he launches himself at the formless mass.
The sword slides out and into his lunge, dipping low at the last point as Sethlan evades the beaks of an Udur suddenly bearing down. Yet, pain flares from seemingly every side, as old wounds mix with new, and tentacles –emerging out of the once empty air – hit, pierce, and slash into the elf. Sethlan’s lunge flows into a roll, which in turn sees the elf popping up and over another attack, and the thorny brush between them, where he hits the ground on his hands and knees. Clumsily.
Sweaty hands slap the ground in successive heart beats, and the elf wobbles in that split-second to his feet, then staggering once more into a run. The Udur, unaffected by sword or thorn, have no such issue. They swarm, flow, and shift through the bracken.
New pains mark the elf’s body. New wounds provide the Udur with a fresh trail. Grass, weeds, and growth softened by the mist – not all of it born from horrors – crush in sighs underneath his soft shoes. All around him the hounds of the Teamor pursue. I must keep to the path, which means-
A gust of wind forces his eyes briefly closed, letting the smell of livestock, the decay of the forest, and his own blood win over his senses. But the tendrils of the void spawn close in. Mist bleeds into the overgrown road. Sethlan lurches over obstacles seen and unseen, while the monsters in the periphery roar silently. He forces in breath. Then another. The elf must keep to the path, but they had already laid parallel as they encircled him.
A hidden root causes him to stumble. Sethlan throws his hands forward, as fatigue and injury bring him to the ground. The racket of the human’s passing is near, perhaps just on the other side of this thicket. He crawls, forcing himself to stare forward. The Udur’s presence laps at the corners of his perception like an ill tide. Why have they not struck?
…
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this little look into the Evercharm’s sequel, A Song in the Dark!
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