The first thing Liv remembered was how she jumped between moss-covered stones with one arm over Kaan’s shoulders. The morning light was growing brighter, but it was still too early in the day for the sun to give off any warmth. Cold sweat soaked her clothes so she must have been hot before, but now she shivered despite moving at a pace which made her calves scream in protest.

She smelled of smoke and realized that her hair was as crispy as burned grass when she stroked it from her face. Her left arm had gone numb and felt detached, then tingling pain trickled up from her fingers the moment she thought about it. The fire had scrubbed away the skin from her elbow halfway to the wrist and exposed red muscles on the inside of her arm.

They stopped by a small stream to drink and rinse the wound. Then Kaan told her what had happened.

“The king of the forest came when I called for him. You lost consciousness in the fall, so I carried you up to the ravine where we hid under a fir tree until you woke up. The bear kept the villagers away, then men with crossbows walked up from the poor people’s houses, and the king fled into the forest.” He closed his eyes and held up his hand. “Someone’s following us. They are not close but I sense their presence.”

They ran on through the mountain pass for another hour before they left the path they had arrived by a few days earlier. Instead of heading south they followed the northern slope of Mount Domedus, where the forest was denser and fallen branches and roots hid the ground. They entered a narrow gorge that lay in constant shadow between the two highest summits of the mountain massif. Rocks the size of small cottages covered the path and forced them to zigzag their way forward. Rain began pouring from the sky and they had to take care not to slip on the stony trail.

They gained altitude, yet the sharp peaks remained distant. The ravine swung west in the same direction as Saint Rafael, but it was now too late to turn back and choose another path around the mountain. Clouds descended from the sky and embraced them like a winter morning’s mist. The relentless rain increased in strength.

Around noon, the fog dispersed for a second and revealed a wooden building a hundred strides down the path. It was no cottage or shed, but a modern construction with a large railroad track leading into its cellar.

“Go back!” Liv shouted as she realized that it was the top station of a cable-railway and dragged Kaan in the opposite direction.

Something snapped around her ankles and she lunged forward with no time to raise her arms to protect herself as she struck the ground. The next second Kaan crashed onto the pebbles beside her and a large net landed on top of them. A dozen men materialized in the mist and encircled them. Each man held a long black lance in his hands, reminding her of the lances worn by the soldiers in old paintings. But these were not soldiers. She could say that for sure. Nor did they resemble the members of Pastor Brock’s parish. They were thugs and bandits. Men who needed no religion as an excuse for violence.

Liv was well aware that the men surrounded them and had them trapped under a large net. Still, she could not prevent herself from threatening them.

“Go back, you idiots! We’ll kill you if you come closer.” She struggled with the net, but only entangled herself more. “Summon the king of the forest,” she pleaded to Kaan.

“He’s not nearby.”

The men were now so close that they could poke them with their lances. She recognized one of them as the fence, but he did not let his fellows know they had met before.

“Be careful with the elf, he’s dangerous. Nobody kills the girl. There’ll be no reward if she’s dead,” he said. “Nothing stops us from having a little fun with her though,” he added, and most of the thugs laughed. Next to him was the man who had guided them to the fence’s door their first morning in Saint Rafael. He did not laugh and just stared at Liv, making her stomach twist.

Out of the mist stormed a fuzzy shadow. It was a Being covered in brown hair, similar to a human in shape and size, though with a disproportionately long torso. The Being jumped onto the back of one man and bit him in the neck with its sharp fangs, paralyzing him. He collapsed without a word, making no resistance. Before anyone could understand what was happening, two more men lay on the ground, their necks pierced by the Being’s teeth. It reared up on its hind legs, stretched its body to full length and hissed. All men were now pointing their lances at it, but none of them dared charge. The beast stamped its paws, tore its claws against the rocks, opened its mouth, and gave off a wretched cry.

An object whistled past Liv’s head, followed by a gobbling sound. The shaft of an arrow pushed its way through the fence’s throat, blood spraying as he staggered backwards. An elf came running from the opposite direction. He shot one thug from a close distance before he dropped his bow and stabbed another in the neck with a long knife. One more arrow flew past and struck the fence in the chest. After a few fumbling steps, he lost his balance and fell dead on top of Liv and Kaan. They could then no longer see the fight, but they heard the surrounding men scream in panic.

Someone gave away a last howl of pain, but the sound of wet steel interrupted him. Everything became quiet, then another moan rose nearby, but someone silenced that too. Two small hands with thick fingers and hard skin that testified to a life of physical labor pulled the dead body off Liv and Kaan. A little man, not much taller than a child, appeared and began cutting them loose from the net.

“My name is Paul,” he said and wiped his bloody fingers on his pants before he held out his hand.

“You have gnome blood in you,” noted Kaan as they shook hands.

“Leon brought me here,” said the half-gnome and nodded behind them. The large elf knelt over the furred beast’s lifeless body.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Brother!” exclaimed Kaan.

Leon stood up and walked over to them with long strides.

“Kaan,” he said and put his hand around his brother’s shoulder. They pressed their foreheads together, then he turned to Liv. “Half-blood, we meet again.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“We are heading to the other side of the mountains,” he answered. “Now we climb Domedus. It’s the shortest way and a necessary trial of strength.”

“You are lucky we arrived here in time.” The half-gnome’s voice was a whisper compared to the elf’s. “Leon felt your presence, but it was he who caught your scent,” he said and pointed at the dead Being.

“Who is that?” asked Kaan. “What is that?”

“I don’t know what kind of breed that is. He could not speak, but he understood us,” said Leon. “I sensed him from afar and found him chained up in a stable in the Lowlands. They must have used him for hunting or as a watchdog.”

“I feel safer when that creature is dead,” said Paul. “He caught a fox in the forest and ate it raw. One should stay away from a predator that eats predators.”

*

They left the dead bodies and the ravine behind and climbed up the steep slopes into denser clouds. Leon asked them what remained of the Dream Park’s predecessor, and they told him that there was nothing to see apart from a few monuments and burned-down house foundations.

They moved in silence, except for Paul's panting breath as he tried to keep up with the elves’ quick pace. In the afternoon, the little man fell to the stony ground, exhausted and cold to the bone. Leon muttered that the human blood in Paul weakened him, then threw the half-gnome over his shoulder and carried him for the rest of the day. The thick mist made it impossible to see further than an arm’s length ahead. Sometimes they had to ascend high looming rock faces, and it was almost relieving that the fog hid the ground as they climbed. The gloomy night surrounded them and painted everything black, yet they struggled onwards. A fierce wind blew up and brought with it tiny snowflakes, which stung like icy needles against their skin.

“We are inside a storm!” Kaan had to shout although the others stood beside him. “Why are we not taking shelter?”

Their clothes were as wet as clothes can be. When they stopped for a quick break, Kaan and Liv fell shivering onto a pile of snow. Leon put the frozen half-gnome next to them, stretched his back and peered up the steep slope.

“We cannot stay here. If the clouds dissolve, they’ll spot us from below,” he said. He stroked his snow-covered hair and threw a lump of white slush on the ground. “We come above the weather soon and reach the mountain crest before dawn,” he continued, as if he could see through both bad weather and darkness. “From there it’s an easy march downhill.”

They did as Leon ordered and kept on climbing throughout the night, over sharp rocks and up slippery slopes, in the ever increasing storm. Long after Liv’s legs started protesting, and she risked twisting her ankle with every step, the mist faded and the first light of day dazzled her eyes. They had reached a high plateau covered in glossy ice and crusty snow. Behind them, a blanket of clouds stretched out as far as the eye could see, but in front of them the sky was clean. Their mood brightened as they stopped to watch the sun rise from the purple horizon. To their side, the mountain crest wound its way up the snow-capped peak of Mount Domedus, which still seemed as distant as when they first spotted it in Southport.

They took a quick break to eat a pack of crumbled biscuits that Paul had brought with him, then set off to cross the plateau without a break. The half-gnome tried to walk by himself, but the deep snow reached to his waist and before long he had to climb up on Leon’s back again. Where the ground started tilting downwards, they stopped.

“You can rest once we reach the tree line. Then we walk through the forest to the northeastern slope of Domedus. A factory lies there.”

Liv asked why they were heading to a factory hidden in the mountains.

“To find recruits,” the elf said and headed down the hill.

*

Liv awoke by an elf-boy staring at her. He sat on a stump a few strides away. Behind him stood an elf-lady with waist-long hair as black as a raven, leaning against a long spear. There were slight signs of wrinkles on her pale skin, but it only made her look fairer than if it had been blank and smooth. Liv reckoned she was around the same age as her mother would have been. The boy was slim and of similar height as the woman, and his messy hair had the same black color. His eyes were empty as a starless sky, and his unseasoned face was impassive. The strangers met her gaze. No one dared to move.

“Who are you?” she asked and woke up Kaan with a discrete kick on his leg. The elves gave no reply. Something moved behind her, and in the next moment Leon jumped over them. He reached the boy before anyone else could react. The woman swung her spear, but he read her move before she even started it. He grabbed the weapon by the shaft and pulled it away from her, then took a paralyzing grip around the boy’s neck and lifted him off the ground.

“What are you doing here?” asked the big elf, his face firm and sinister.

Neither of the elves spoke. Paul rose from his sleeping place in the high grass, yawned and gaped at the strangers.

“You had the last watch! These could have killed us in our sleep,” roared Leon. The half-gnome shrank back, more afraid than ashamed. “Well, why are you here?” The big elf strengthened his grip around the boy’s neck and forced him down on his knees. Tears ran down the young elf’s cheeks, though Liv could tell that he did his best to stay strong and silent.

At last the woman spoke. “This morning we saw you come down the mountain. We have lived in these forests for a long time, since my husband and I escaped from Skyberg.”

“Where is he now?”

“He died many years ago. The townspeople hunted us and shot him.”

Leon let go of the elf-boy and ruffled his hair and a smile materialized on his thin lips. For an instant, he almost seemed likeable.

“Then you are my friends. My brother Kaan and I come from Skyberg too, but we spent most of our lives in another town. We have escaped to liberate the Beings of Anland.”

“You are mad,” said the woman and shook her head in doubt. “My name is Lira. This is my son, Finn. He might be Anland’s only Being not born in captivity.”

The big elf nodded approvingly. “These two half-bloods are Liv and Paul. I am Leon.”

When they finished talking, the newcomers disappeared into the forest. They soon returned with pieces of dried fruit, a loaf of bark bread and a handful of fried worms, which both Liv and Paul refused to eat. Finn did not speak and sat silent on a stone away from the others, his wide eyes fixed on the big elf. After many years of hiding with only her taciturn son as company, Lira was eager to chat and left little room for anyone else to talk. Liv warned them that people persecuted them wherever they went, but they only listened to Leon. He promised to protect them and claimed that it was safer to show them the quickest path to Arthur Greene’s factory than to remain hidden. Thus the two elves joined their small group and became their guides for the rest of that day.