25.

How someone had the voice of the evening summer wind, I had no idea. It made sense to me, in my heart and mind a picture was crafted with every singing syllable. I was frozen, my heart a hammer in my chest as sweat rolled down my forehead in a sheet of perspiration. The voice was heavenly. Serenity itself. Inhumane beauty.

I peered out of the corner of my eye, frozen to the spot I had stopped in to stare at Bobby. She had just emerged from behind me. Her pale features had drained of what little color decorated her face, looking like a bloodless statue as she stood as frozen as me. Our eyes drifted to a patch of shadows at the edge of the forest, where the whispering wind was emanating from. Hidden there, blanketed by shadow, was a rough human-like outline.

I stalked forward. Each step cracking the frozen ground beneath my feet. I could hear Bobby’s footsteps behind me, but the vast bulk of my attention was focused on that veil of shadows. Each step closer allowed me to discern more and more of the shape. Legs, a torso, two arms, a charred spear lay abandoned a foot away from a ruined arm. The smell of scorched leather and cooking meat wafted off of the figure, every step closer increased the smell of pork. I ignored the hungry rumble in my stomach and flood of saliva at the tantalizing smell.

“Help. Me.” Each word a gust of enlightenment. Each growing weaker than the last. Bobby stood next to me, both of us peering down at the angular features. The lavender skin. The black tattoos that swirled across her cheekbones. Amber eyes that gently glowed in the deepening twilight. The long pointed ears that peaked through the curtain of black hair.

“Holy fuck. That’s an elf,” the words tumbled free of me. I was staring at an elf. A half cooked elf, but still an elf. Every portion of my inner nerd was screaming and running around in circles.

“She’s hurt, we need to help her,” Bobby’s voice lacked any type of emotion, each word empty and hollow. Shock. She was in shock.

Shit, I was in shock.

I was tugging at my pack, as I heard more and more people coming behind us. I looked back to see Miguel as he stared with wide eyes at the slumped figure. Agatha took one look and spun around, waving people to keep moving and leaving us be. Olivia stuck to her grandma's side as she shooed everyone else away. I would have to thank her later. Finding the healing draught, I stepped forward and started to pour it on the terrible burns that decorated her left side.

“Can you understand us?” Bobby spoke, but it was in the wind whistling language the elf had been speaking in. It was enough of a shock to cause me to spill the healing draught over the elfs face and shoulder. Where the elf’s voice had been a warm summer night breeze, Bobby’s was colder. Harsher. Clear. It was the howling winds that whistled over the frozen slopes of a mountain. Unyielding, uncaring, and untouched by the world.

“Bobby, you’re speaking that language,” I told her and she looked at me with only the slightest expression of surprise. The translation skill apparently did more than just translate for us. Very useful.

“Thank you. I have a debt of death to you,” The elf whispered. Her eyes were drooping, whether in exhaustion or succumbing to her wounds, I couldn’t tell. I grabbed a second draught and knelt closer to her. Her clothes were as ruined as her, just ragged remnants preserving her modesty. It did allow me to pour the healing draught directly on the worst of the cracked and burned skin.

I had seen the healing work before, but never with something so severe. To see burnt and cracked skin weeping blood and clear liquid simply close. The charred skin sloughed free as fresh skin appeared below it. Her arm was mostly bone before I poured the draught on her. Muscle and sinew wove together from nothing before becoming covered in a layer of unblemished skin. Three more draughts were used and discarded before the worst of her wounds were sealed. Her eyes were closed and her chest rose and fell in slow breaths of a deep sleep.

“We camp here for the night. Two squads on alert at all times. Nobody but us comes near her.” I gave my orders and watched as everyone else started to follow them. Agatha had pulled a spare blanket from somewhere and covered the slumbering elf. The blanket would have to be burned, the remnants of her burnt body still clung to her and I didn’t think any type of scrubbing could get that out of the blanket's fibers.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Bro. That’s a fucking elf,” Miguel whispered excitedly to us as we walked away. I mean, I couldn’t blame him. How fucking cool was it that there were elves. I was working hard not to explode into my own theatrics. I’d have to find a ring later to cast into the flames. I mean she didn’t look like those elves, but I mean, close enough. Agatha scowled at Miguel for his poor language, but Olivia kept sneaking glimpses back at the sleeping elf too.

“I knew there were other groups here. Elves though? What’s next, Dwarves?” Miguel muttered as we huddled up.

“As long as there are no abominations of shadow and flame, we’ll be fine,” I consoled him. Bobby was fighting off a smile while Agatha merely rolled her eyes. Miguel and Olivia were standing side by side and excitedly talking to each other. They had fast bonded, seeing as they were roughly the same age and had no one else to talk to.

“We need to figure out what we are doing with her before she wakes up,” Bobby said as Agatha nodded along. The two teenagers were lost in their own world. They both looked at me. I had momentarily forgotten I was in charge while lost in the fact that THERE'S A FUCKING ELF HERE!

“Something powerful hurt her. You saw the remnants of that battle. We need to figure out what that was before we commit. Bobby, you’ll tackle the talking for now. We’ll scrounge up some food and spare clothes for her and ease her into talking. We just need her to wake up sooner rather than later. In the meantime, two of us at all times watching her. No one else gets close to her.”

They both nodded, while after a moment of prodding, the teenagers agreed. Bobby and Olivia went over to the sleeping elf while I found Hayden and started organizing our camp. We were in a zone that had nightly attacks and I didn’t know if we would end up fighting anything. The find of the elf derailed my hopes of getting to the keep now, we’d just have to hunker down and hope. Fires had to be lit; those who hadn’t amassed nearly double their starting constitution, the nights were still bitter enough to cause injury if not death.

I ordered the fires kept as small as possible and moved the camp into the cover of the forest. Our watch sat outside of the small fires, blending in with the shadows cast by the trees. I even had Miguel move around the perimeter to see if he could easily discern the watch, telling them when they were too obvious. One of the idiots was standing backlit by the fire. Then we waited as the night grew darker and the cold more bitter.

I couldn’t sleep. The increases in constitution helped, but I had an inkling that if I increased endurance and vitality more, I wouldn’t have to sleep more than a few hours a day. All of the stat increases were life changing, something none of us had really had time to stop and think about. I wanted to see what the buff to perception would do. It was the only stat I hadn’t increased yet. Was it just vision? Or would it increase all of the senses? Perception and Endurance were the only mana hearts we hadn’t found yet. I had a feeling that wouldn’t last much longer. This region was starting to tip toward the endgame.

Three forts and keeps were already secured and we were now fighting for a fourth. Once we had five areas secured, I think then we would unlock the next section of the tutorial. The final run for the North Sea Region. I would have to have my own faction under control by then. Luke would need to die. Dan needed to obey or die. Then, and only then, would I have true control. I glanced at my companions.

That quiet part whispered to kill them. Agatha was too strong. Bobby was scary, her will was cast of iron and she ruled herself with a discipline that was awe inspiring. Miguel was fast becoming a burst damage dealer, his speed would surpass the warden and his strength would allow him to actually deal damage. He was the one who was adapting the fastest, spent the most time sparring in the courtyard. Olivia, well, her grandmother was terrifying and she was following in the old woman's footsteps. If we found another skill stone I’d need to claim it regardless.

That quiet part was dumb though. It was fear and anxiety and insecurity. None of these people wanted to lead. They were stronger than me, but we were greater than the sum of our parts. Luke wouldn’t bow, wouldn’t yield to anyone. He was a killer and chasing a bloodthirsty high. Dan was the unrelenting soldier and he wished to be in command simply because he was the best suited for it in his opinion. They needed to be displaced. My teammates didn’t. The dark still whispered to me though, regardless of my intellectualizing away the urges.

The night grew later. The sounds of fighting, far in the distance, drifted to us. A flash split the night, white lights blanketing the horizon. Storm elementals. A few miles from us, there’d be a fierce battle waging. We still hadn’t seen what the newest waves would be like now that we had claimed all of the far North. The escalations were intense and I had no desire to meet them out in the open. Behind nice thick walls with scores of fighters and scorpions and golems. Not out in a creepy forest with a small handful of under-leveled and untested fighters.

The wind picked up, the smell of ozone and rain and salt blowing from the sea. My people shivered and crawled closer to their small fires. More cut free limbs and fed the flickering flames. The elf slept through it all. Agatha had joined the other girls, the three of them huddled together for warmth. They had heaped more blankets on the wounded elf to provide a modicum of protection. The irony of her dying from freezing after nearly being burned to death had me chuckling.

Shouts and cries of pain came on the wind. The fighting had grown closer, away from the fort on the ocean and to the keep. It should be less than a mile away. Maybe twenty to thirty minutes of marching. A second flash lit the sky and a rumble rattled the earth. Anyone who had been sleeping was immediately roused by this. Figures were rising up all around the campfires. Scores of them who were indistinct in the dim light.

Scores? I counted again. There were too many. Dozens of extra figures moving around the camp. Surrounding the camp. How had they gotten past our guards? I started to move, to push off the ground, to cry forth and bring us to our guard. Then cold steel pressed against my throat. The cry to alert everyone else faded as the blade was pressed firm. The chill of the blade bit deeper than the wind, affecting me even through my high constitution.

“Where is Sulian?” The voice hissed into my ear. The same magical voice of the elf who lay sleeping only feet away from us. The smell of decay and rot, of fetid dark places filled my mind. This was not the hot summer breeze of the elf maid, but something much more foul. My heart stirred, blood pounding through me, the song of battle rising forth.