Fade crouched on the tree limb, a clutch of arrows grasped in one hand, his songwood bow at the ready in the other. He touched an arrow to the bowstring, letting his focus expand to encompass the three dark shadows below him. He needed to take them fast, before they could register his presence. The Gnamorg’s Arachnae possessed little intelligence, but they had the speed of eight legs to his two. And there was no telling how close reinforcements were.

In this the shadows were his friends. He felt comforted by their weight as they covered him like a cloak. In them he became the hunter. He became the arrow in the dark, and the Arachnae below him became the target. Without a sound he dropped from the tree limb, his hand a blur as it fixed and fired the wooden missiles into the chitinous skin of the Arachnae, taking one in its eye, one in its neck, and the last in the abdomen.

Two dropped without a sound. The other fell over with a keening hiss as Fade landed and put away his bow in favor of his ironwood sword. It shone luminous in the darkness, and its cross guarded leather wrapped hilt felt comfortable in his hand as its runewarded length stilled the hideous creatures cries. Quiet returned to the night as the natural order of things was set right for a moment. But just as every moment has done throughout history, the moment passed. Fade pulled free his other sword from his back, holding two blades of equal length out to either side, an angel of death come bearing gifts. Around him dark shapes stalked towards him, some on the ground, some among the trees.

“I will take your lives, as you have taken those of my kin,” Fade said in a whisper, stepping with light feet as he positioned himself to intercept his first attacker. Instinct told him where it would be, experience showed him how to meet it. There was no response from the Arachnae, the mouths of the soldiers were not made for speech. They were made for paralyzing prey, for feeding with their venomous mandibles.

It came at him like lightning, firing a swab of thick webbing from the spinneret on its abdomen, and following with the sharpened spikes on its forelegs. Fade was not surprised by the attack. He dodged with the dexterity of his Qua heritage, and countered with a diagonal wind-milling slash that severed a forelimb and the creatures clicking, mandibled head. The body of the decapitated creature staggered back, thrashing like a man drowning as its insectoid heart voided its white, viscous lifeblood in a torrential gout.

“This is the reward for your trespass.” Fade said, pointing a gore covered blade at the creeping shapes that surrounded him.

“You will find no mercy here.”

Fade flipped backwards with lupine grace, impaling an Arachnae through its thorax where its primitive brain resided.

“Only pain.”

Fade struck forward and back in a split stabbing motion that put him face to mandible with one of the creatures while the other drove itself deeper on his blade in an attempt to catch him in its wicked embrace. It smelled of dried blood and damp earth as it hissed and thrashed in agony on his sword’s edge. Fade was no longer there.

Like a wraith he danced in darkness. Here, he drove double blades down on an Arachnae soldiers back, pinning it momentarily to the ground. There, he dove low beneath scythe like arms before slicing limbs that supported a grotesque insectile body. For centuries the Gnamorg had birthed these abominations to plague his people, taking over his ancestral home and turning it into a graveyard. So many Qua lives lost trying to connect with the heart of the forest. He would avenge them, today. As he did every day since the fall of Athos.

Fade stopped when the forest became as death, still and silent. Breathing heavy, Fade flicked the blood from his blades with a savage wrist twist, before sheathing them once more. This wasn’t the last of the Arachnae. More would come to aid the fallen. Too many for him to handle alone. They would not find him.

“May your spirits wander in rot and ruin.” Fade said as he returned to the tree’s with a spectacular leap. With the deftness of a simian he scurried up the massive tree trunk and ran along the roadway of intersecting limbs that made up the Qua main roads in the heights.

It was a thing of beauty, the way he slipped through the boughs, changing levels in the heights as seamless as if he traversed flat ground. He reached for a thin limb, using it to propel himself over an Arachnae web trap in a feat of acrobatic finesse that would put a Shaoryn monk to shame. Centuries of patrolling Athos trained him to recognize the patterns of his enemy, where the natural met the supernatural. Even though the Arachnae webbing was near invisible in the dark, its faint gleam gave it away to the watchful eye.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

As he found purchase on the other side, Fade used the bend of the branch to spring him into the air, where he tucked into a twisting summersault. He came out of the rapid turn to take hold of a willow vine, which he used to propel him across an expanse to a great oak. Feats such as this were nothing unusual to a Qua, theirs was a legacy of strength and grace, coupled with immortality and stunning beauty. Being immortal had its advantages. Because of the great amount of time doing the same things, whether fighting, or traveling, or creating works of immense imagination, the Qua became exceptional at it.

It was a half hour before Fade reached his destination. He crouched in the heights, holding his bow in one hand as he gazed upon the lodestation that powered the Wardwall. It was immense, a literal fort, alien to the Qua in its lifelessness. It had been built after the rift to Hystal, the realm of the Gnamorg, had been opened in the Magustatrium at the heart of Athos. The fall of their great city had been quick, and only the intercession of a few Magus had kept the Gnamorg from getting free of the forest.

Now, the remnants of his people lived outside the forest of their birth, safe on the outside of the Wardwall. Until they had to make a run to the Heart tree in the center of Athos, that is. Without this commune with the Heart tree, the Qua would grow weak, and die. Those who made the lonely run often as not died anyway, or were taken and changed into Qua’naerog, the damned.

Fade clenched his teeth in a flash of rage, his knuckles turning white as he squeezed his bow so hard that the wood creaked. He almost turned back to the hunt, when he noticed a door in the lodestation open. Out stepped a Qua with white hair and green robes, holding aloft a globe of light.

“Hail, Faydalion Agisrym Del’Athosani.” The Qua called to him in a deep, melodic voice.

“Hail, Everlorn Tirgam Del'Athosani.” Fade responded. “What brings you out on this forsaken night?”

The magus’ expression was grim. “Necessity, Forestral.” With an elegant hand, Everlorn bade Fade to follow him before turning back to the open entrance. “Time is of the essence, and your services are required.”

“When are they ever not?” Fade responded as he dropped to the ground. His landing made no sound, which would be odd to anyone not of the Qua. Everlorn took it in stride, and continued into the illuminated interior of the lodestation, leaving it up to Fade to catch up.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen a Queenling?” Everlorn asked in a conversational manner.

“If you mean how long has it been since I’ve killed a Queenling, then it’s been nine waxings of Lunar.”

“So a long time then.” Everlorn waved his hand over an edifice in the wood beside a circular door. It opened like an iris, admitting them to a great chamber. It was an ovular room, with great, white stonewood tables piled with dusty tomes, and hanging lamps with weeping branches that glowed with a faint luminescence. This light was more than sufficient for Qua eyes, which looked crystalline with their wide spectrum of colors. These marvelous faculties drank in the slightest light, and magnified it so much that what would seem night to humans became as day to the Qua.

“The RuneMatrix detected a breach in the Wardwall last night.” Everlorn continued as he led Fade across the chamber. “We sent a clutch of Magus with Forestral escorts to repair the breach. When they arrived, they found the eviscerated body of a human Magus outside the Wardwall.”

Fade raised an eyebrow in surprise. “The body of a human Magus? How did the Gnamorg get ahold of a human Magus?”

“There was a human Magus that disappeared two waxings ago who thought he had a way to defeat the Gnamorg. It seems time has proven his folly.” Everlorn replied gravely. “This human Magus was seeded by the Gnamorg. He was husked in the way of the Taken.”

“How did he escape?” Fade asked in disbelief. “No Magus has escaped the Gnamorg’s control since the Fall.”

“That is something we would very much like to know.” Everlorn replied, stopping at a circular tree stump table. As Everlorn put his hand on it, the lines of a map appeared in its surface.

“Here was the breach.” Everlorn speared an opening depicted in the Wardwall. Beyond a small figure etched itself, the figure of the husked human Magus, and another figure cradling an infant. It was a Huen, short, stocky, and bearded.

“Is that…” Fade asked, unbelief in his tone.

“A Huen.” Everlorn said with a twist of his mouth as if he had just sucked on a very sour lemon. “After the Queenlings birth, a Huen found her. Since we did not find either Huen or Queenling with the Human Magus, we assume the Huen has taken it with him.”

Fade’s hands tightened on his bow, the knuckles white as rage built within him. He would not allow the Fall to happen again. Not to his people, or any other.

“We need you to track this Queenling down, and destroy her.” Everlorn said with finality. “We can not allow the Gnamorg’s influence to spread. Her evil must be contained.”

“I am your hands, ArchMagus.” Fade said with a swift bow. “I will find this Queenling, and destroy her. I will let nothing stop me.”

“The Ascended guide your steps.” Everlorn intoned in dismissal.