Chapter 105:

Janet didn’t have the luxury to go to sleep. If she did she had no idea what time she would wake up. While her body was new her mind still lingered in her old body and liked to sleep in. She sat on the side of the bed and glanced out the wooden slat window. The stars were mostly hidden from view but Janet wasn’t using that to determine the passing of time. She watched the Wood Elves walking past. As the night dragged on they became fewer and fewer until she didn’t see any pass for seemingly an hour. She opened the window and peered out. The Wood Elven houses were almost all completely dark with only a few twinkling lights dotting the hundreds of homes. If she was going to go try and get a hold of that map it was now.

She checked her clothes over for anything that might rattle or make a noise. When she found nothing she took a deep breath and made for the door.

Just as her hand reached for the handle the door flew open. A fully armoured Wood Elf soldier stood on the other side, surprise on his face.

Shit! They know! Did they manage to listen in?

“Thank the Gods that you’re up.” He said. Janet suppressed the need to question his words. “Get ready for combat right now.”

“What’s happening?”

The soldier didn’t ask and knocked on the next door. Screams and sounds of breaking wood came from outside. Janet looked through the open window to see lights emerging in all the houses. Another three soldiers knocked on the doors to wake the others. The people that stumbled out were tired and rubbing their eyes and their long ears. Janet realised that she was the odd one out, even her other colleagues looked just as tired and disorientated.

Jeffrey stumbled out, groaning as he rubbed his ruffled hair. “What is it this time?”

This time?

“Demons.” The soldier replied without looking back. “They’ve breached the outer perimeter and are coming here. Everyone needs to get their weapons and armour right now.”

“But you twats keep those,” Jeffrey grumbled. The soldier stopped for a moment to think. “So go get them.”

The entrance burst open and Taranath stepped forward, flanked by heavily armoured soldiers. “Outside everyone! Right now! We’ll get your armour and weapons soon.”

“How are supposed to fight?” Janet asked.

Taranath barely spared her a glance. “You aren’t to fight. Not this time. You are to hang back and observe. Observe the horrors that come for us all.”

“But-”

“No time. They-”

A rushing wind, and the beating of wings came from above the barracks, the wood groaned loudly and violently as everyone stood still and silent. From outside distant screams started to flow, the clash of metal on stone followed soon after.

Taranath scowled and left the barracks. The soldiers followed him and motioned for them to follow. Janet saw the confused and somewhat terrified look on their faces. If she had time, and they hadn’t been forced to fight so quickly, she would have spoken to each to try and raise their spirits. While she and Jeffrey had formed their own little groups of support everyone else simply retreated away from their new reality. It would take a gentle hand or a shocking push to bring them out of their stupor.

The ground outside glowed a faint orange. In the distance the forest was on fire, great plumes of roaring orange fire and thick smoke rose far into the night sky. Screams and shouts came from the burning forest alongside the snapping of wood. Wood Elves of all ages ran about in a state of complete panic. The children, though Janet knew they were several hundred years old and still looked to be below ten, followed their parents terrified of the growing sounds of violence.

“There!” Taranath pointed to the top of the smoke plume. “That is what we fight!”

Through the smoke and illuminated by the fire a giant snake trailed through the sky. Its head looked like a snake, except elongated downwards and angular, with six red slit eyes above an open mouth leaking copious amounts of orange liquid. Behind the head lay several large fish-like fins, the veins pulsing with a faint orange hue. Many more of these fins grew along its body cumulating in a massive thin tail that whipped through the air.

Janet’s mind returned to their first meeting. She remembered the first meeting they saw images of the Demons in the strange flame. In the back of her mind, she considered them very far away if they were even real. But now they were here…

“Sir!” A female Wood Elf soldier, very heavily armoured with a dark wooden bow with gold ornamentation, ran up to Taranath. She was covered in cuts and deep burns. Janet’s medical training tugged on her mind to rush to her aid but she held herself back. “Two of the Serpent Queens have already been fought off but one still remains.”

“Yes.” Taranath nodded towards the snake above the smoke clouds. “We can’t reach it from here. A Treant Archer might.”

“But they’re fighting still fighting the Drones and Guardians in the forest.”

The Serpent Queen above shrieked and its body undulated violently. From each segment six small and one large black spheres dropped into the fire. She didn’t hear them land but the sounds of fighting quickly grew more intense.

“Bitch is still bringing more friends for us to fight.” Taranath held the soldier's hand. She flushed brightly as he muttered something. From his hand, several small green vines grew around her hand. She winced in pain as the wounds faded away with brushes of the vines.

“Try and find the Treants and get their archers here. If we don’t take down the Queen they’ll keep dropping more things for us to fight.” The woman looked to where Taranath touched her. “Go!”

She jumped in surprise, a flush of embarrassment, and ran into the forest. Taranath shook his head. “Like I actually have time for such things.”

Several lightly armoured elven soldiers returned to their side with their armour. Taranath stepped away from them while he directed the battle from inside the city. The chaos began to calm somewhat and the people started to behave more rationally.

For people that live for thousands of years...I thought you'd be better at it than this.

When everyone had their armour fastened and their weapons ready terrified and panicked yells came from the edge of the city. Thirty heavily armoured Elven soldiers fought something in the darkness of the city edge. They flew back, some torn in half with blood sprayed everywhere, as eight black skinned creatures darted through their lines.

“Drones!” Taranath yelled.

The Demon Drones were humanoid creatures a little taller than two meters with six arms. Their skin was black and looked like a mixture of snakeskin and charcoal. Their small bulbous heads, with two large orange glowing compound insect eyes, were sunk low into their body, visually raising their shoulders almost to eye level. A terrifying set of white teeth jutted out beneath the eyes, many chunks of flesh stained the white teeth. Blood dribbled down their bodies.

Janet drew her sword, but it felt heavy in her hand. The Goblins had been terrifying enough but these were something else entirely. And the name Drone hinted that these were the weakest of the Demons.

An elf shot one of the Drones in the side of the head. The arrow pierced the black hide and stunned the Drone. From the wounds, a small bundle of vines grew into the blackened hide. It howled in pain before it ripped the arrow out, took a step towards the elf and fell down. The vines continued to grow and destroyed the creature’s head. Unfortunately, another Drone ran at the elf, its hands, wielding deadly bone bleached white claws, outstretched to fight. The elf dropped its bow and drew its sword. The Drone swiped and two of its hands connected with the sword. The silver sword dug deep into its hide, but that left four arms free. It pushed forward and swiped with its other hands. They struck the armour and dug deep, the elf coughing up blood as the Drone dug its claws deeper into his flesh. Before it could tear the poor elf in two another elf shot the Drone in the head again. This time the arrow struck between the eyes and the creature went limp, its four hands slid out of the elf and blood flowed out. The rescuing elf started to drag his wounded colleague away. The remaining drones fought on but were quickly dispatched without any further losses, though many were wounded.

“Get them to the healers!” Taranath yelled.

If these are Drones what chance do we have?

The wounded elves, those still breathing at least, even those missing limbs, arrived at their feet. Taranath saw Janet’s concern as he knelt down to the side of the most heavily injured soldier.

“Rest.” Taranath patted the head of the shaking man as a green glow emanated from his hand. “The vast majority of our soldiers are fighting near the Shifting Isles, where these things come through. These are just militia wearing armour. But they fight like the bravest of soldiers.”

“They’re so fast.” The wounded elf muttered as the green glowing vines raked over his body, licking at and repairing the wounds. “And so many of them…”

“Rest,” Taranath ordered. He stood up as four Wood Elves arrived, wearing monk styled clothes, and began casting the same green magic. “I-”

“More are coming!” Another voice yelled out.

Tarnath grumbled and looked at the first breach. The defending Wood Elves had retreated from that section and allowed more Drones to pour through. Dozens of them, and all running towards them.

Taranath looked at them. “This is your chance to prove that you are worthy of Nithroel’s blessing.”

A glow emanated from his hand and a vine bow grew. Janet stepped forward, alongside Dustine, Percy and Sandy. Jeffrey grumbled something and he, and his thugs stepped forward as well. It felt strange they would be fighting alongside them. The others slowly advanced though Janet saw that some wanted to just run. Taranath fired his first vine arrow. It struck and instantly consumed the closest Drone and transformed into a green parody of itself. The Drones ignored it and ran at full speed towards them. Taranath dispatched another five Drones before he released the bow, the vine bow vanishing into a green light mist, and drew his sword. Several Drones peeled off towards Taranath while the others continued their charge towards them. They howled something unintelligible as they opened their mouths and readied their hands to strike. Janet heard something behind her, some of the Heroes had turned and fled. Though she wanted to survive as well something made her stay and gave her the determination to fight. Was it the injured people behind her? Or something else to do with her new body? It didn’t matter, but a little under half of the Heroes remained to fight.

The Drones spread out and picked one person to descend upon. There was almost a smile on their weird faces as they attacked. Janet tried her best to remember Taranath’s training, though that was a almost impossible when facing down something so terrifying. She crouched low and readied to lunge forward and strike the Drone in the chest. If she missed or tried to defend she would be torn apart by one of its six hands.

The moment it was in range Janet lunged forward with all her might. Their Wood Elven bodies moved so much faster than their old human forms. She reached the Drone in a blink of an eye, the creature’s own compound eyes appeared to widen in shock before she struck the centre of its body. The tip pierced through its hide, the grinding sensation transferred through the blade to her hand as it pushed through with relative ease. The Drone stopped and swiped at her head but the attacks were weak and uncoordinated. She pushed the blade as hard as she could until she felt something shatter. The Drone shuddered and fell backwards, its body turned limp as it crashed onto the ground. The other Drones passed her by only to fly backwards. The other Heroes followed her lead and struck at once. Their swords pierced through their hides and found something near their heart, the cracking so loud that Janet could hear it over the fighting, and they fell back dead. The remaining Drones stopped, their numbers cut down to just a few and tried to flee. Janet drew her sword out of its corpse and turned to fight the remaining Drones. A thin orange blood stained the silver of the sword. Janet wasn’t too surprised that it didn’t bleed red, not with the Drones looking like they did. Something told her not to let it touch her skin.

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

“Just die already!” Jeffrey yelled as he stabbed the Drone’s head repeatedly. He and his thugs tore through the Drones they attacked, while those they missed stepped back while they barred their white teeth.

Something bumped into Janet’s side. Dustine, blood trailing down her face from a claw wound, smiled as she stood to her side with her orange blood-stained sword. Percy and Sandy quickly came to their side, fewer wounds but panting furiously as their eyes darted about.

Janet readied to fight the remaining Drones, along with the other Heroes, before they exploded in a shower of green sparks. Their intact lower bodies slumped to the ground and leaked copious amounts of orange blood onto the grass. The grass shrivelled and burst into flames as green spheres descended around them. The faeries held out their hands and shot more green blasts at the Drones. They dispatched the remaining Drones except those fighting Taranath. All of those had been cut in half while only one remained. Taranath was completely unharmed, not even a scratch on his golden armour or his pale skin. His eyes were hard and unflinching. The remaining Drone panicked as its feet danced on the grass. A faery zipped by, its hand outstretched to fire a green bolt. The Drone turned its head a little to twist its compound eyes to face the faery but took its attention off Taranath for a crucial second. By the time it realised its mistake Taranath had already cut it in two. A look of stupefaction washed over its charred face as its body slid apart. Taranath stepped back to avoid any of the burning orange blood.

“Thanks, Cintrine.” Taranath smiled at the faery floating around his head. “You saved me a bit of trouble.”

She huffed and turned away from him. “You shouldn’t ever put yourself in such situations. You mean too much to our kind for you to die here like this.” She turned to him, tiny tears falling down her face. When they left her body they disintegrated into green sparkles of light.

Taranath chuckled. “I don’t intend to die today, or for a long time yet.” He looked to the rest of the Heroes. “Good decision to attack first. You didn’t have the skill or strength to fight them properly so it was the right decision to take the initiative and attack with a killing blow in mind.”

Cintrine buzzed near his head, throwing his a deep frown.

“Sorry. I can get a little distracted by war. It is a fascinating thing.” Taranath shook his head. “And trying to over analyse things.”

He looked to Cintrine and the other Faeries. “Can you help us find Anthurium? I think he’s the only one strong enough to reach the Serpent Queen now.”

The Serpent Queen shrieked again and released another batch of small black balls into the flames beneath it. Taranath clicked his tongue as the sounds of fighting grew once again.

“I think I saw him before.” Cintrine nodded to the centre of the noise. “He’s fighting the Guardians in the forest.”

“That’ll be the end of him if he’s not careful. Get him here right now and we’ll deal with the Serpent Queen.”

Cintrine nodded and fluttered away, followed by the rest of the faeries. As they flew into the dark forest the Demons screamed as they blasted through their numbers. Taranath smiled as he walked up to them.

“Is everyone alright?”

“I think so,” Janet replied.

She looked around, only to see one of the Heroes lying on the ground with their stomach torn open, their guts spilt onto the grass. His eyes were empty and stared up at the night sky, his face forever contorted in pain and fear. White claws jutted from his wound, broken off in his armour. Taranath rushed to his side and knelt down to check his pulse. He stood up a few seconds later.

“Sorry.” He mumbled. “There’s nothing that can done now.”

Janet felt her heart sink. Someone they should have helped, someone they should have talked with and tried to work together with had just died. She didn’t even know his name. Did anyone?

“This is why you need to train.” He scowled at most of them, avoiding Janet and her colleagues. “Hard. Only a few of you did anything more than the bare minimum of training. You are absolutely pathetic.”

“This isn’t our fight.” Someone spoke up that clearly made Taranath’s blood boil. “We didn’t ask to be here.”

Janet didn’t know who it was but it was a woman that had tried to flee and had strangely returned. Not so strange when she saw the Wood Elven soldiers standing a few meters away.

“Well, you’re fucking here now!” Taranath grabbed the woman by the neck and lifted her off the ground. “You don’t have a choice. They!” He pointed to the dead Drones, still able to hold her up with one hand, then to the dead Hero. “They want to kill you. They want to kill everything in this world. They don’t give a shit where you are or what you’ve done. And the only person that’s going to stop them is you. Standing up for yourself against this…Do you even know who that was?”

She shook her head as her hands tried to pry at his.

“No. Of course not. Most of you just retreated rather than confronting your new reality.” Taranath shook his head again. “It is tough and terrible. But you all need to grow a spine. Well, after this I won’t give you the chance to hide anymore.”

“But-”

“But nothing.” Taranath released his grip and let her drop to the ground. “You humans are like children. Stupid children. I’ve been too lenient with you while I tried to deal with Aeirlaya’s interference. To hell what my brother says about her.” He looked towards the forest and smiled when he saw the faeries swarming close to the clearing. “Especially with all the bullshit he put us through.”

Jeffrey laughed. “Nice one. Taking control from the King’s daughter during the war.” He sniggered, a wicked smile forming on his handsome face, one made worse by the knowledge of what he really looked like. “That’s a real low move. Though I agree with it, really. Someone once lectured me about-”

“And you.” Taranath turned to Jeffrey. “You’re just as bad as them. I’ve seen you and the way you act. You’re strong, yes. But you’re just a thug, who’s just a good hitter but not good at anything else. We need people better than that in order to push these things back. Ones that can use the gifts that you were given, but there’s not much else going on up there. Is there?”

“What did you say?” Jeffrey’s eye twitched.

Taranath turned and slapped Jeffrey’s head. He stumbled from the strike and fell to a knee. Jeffrey looked up at Taranath in shock, slowly a smile falling on his face.

“Ha! And I thought you were just an old bustard in the world of these eternal children.” Jeffrey laughed. “Oh, you’re good. You’re good for a laugh. But don’t think I’ll forget that.”

“You would need another thousand winters to get even close enough to be able to strike me.”

“Why do you call it that?” Jeffrey stood back up and massaged his reddening long ear. “Why don’t you-”

A faery flashed past Taranath’s face. Janet’s fingers reached for her sword when she saw something massive moving behind them, easily ten meters tall. It wasn’t a Demon but rather…a walking tree. Some sort of a walking tree. A thick cylindrical body walked towards them with a face embedded into the central trunk. Its arms and legs were long and groaned as it slowly walked, long spindly branches made up its hands while for its feet it had root and moss covered stumps. It lumbered towards them while the faeries darted around it.

Taranath smiled. “Everyone, this is Anthurium. He is an Ancient Treant, one of the very few.”

“I’m not that old,” Anthurium replied. He spoke slowly and every word was difficult to understand, the sound of grinding wood permeated every word. “But there are so few of us left now.”

“Compared to us you’re old.”

Anthurium chuckled. “Yes. I guess we are. What did you want? Cintrine didn’t say.”

Cintrine buzzed to the side of Taranath’s head. “I did. But he doesn’t listen. He’s too slow and stupid to understand half of the things we say.”

“No.” Anthurium shook his trunk head. “We just don’t have the strength to deal with all your incessant chattering. Especially when everything you say in your homes can be heard throughout the forest.”

“What?” Cintrine hid behind Taranath’s head. “What did you hear?”

“Everything that you’ve been complaining about. Such as your unrequited love.” Cintrine burst into a flush, a much brighter green shade covered her skin. “At least I think it was. I don’t remember. Memories…”

“Please, you two.” Taranath brushed Cintrine back to the side of his head. “I need your help to deal with the Serpent Queen.”

Anthurium nodded. “Yes. That snake is very annoying. And very fast. Why haven’t you killed it yet?”

“Because I still want to move in the morning.” Taranath nodded towards the Heroes. “I need to start training these people tomorrow morning.”

“So these are them.” Anthurium leant forward. “They don’t seem like much.”

“Because Aeirlaya and I have been fighting over what to do and we’ve been getting nowhere.”

“Hmm…Never liked her. Or her father. It should have been you.” Anthurium looked at the Serpent Queen swimming through the sky. “If you had-”

“Another time.” Taranath opened his hand and grew another vine bow. “Take this and shoot her down.”

Anthurium extended his hand and took the bow. His body glowed and the vine bow grew until it was nearly as large as him. He turned to the Serpent Queen and began to ready the bow.

“Guardian!” a voice came from the forest.

Janet felt her heart drop when the trees were thrown aside once again. This time a single massive creature came through. It looked like a burnt dog, though much, much larger. The Demon Guardian stood six or seven meters tall with six horizontal orange slits for eyes. A think orange liquid wept from its eyes down its downward elongated face. A large forked tongue lapped up the liquid as it darted in and out of a mouth framed by massive obsidian teeth. While the Drones had a mixture of snakeskin and charcoal this was entirely covered in a thick charcoal hide that buckled and bulged in strange and odd ways. The Guardian snarled as it looked at Anthurium and charged. Janet reached for her blade but didn’t know how they could defeat the creature.

Cintrine and the faeries flew forward and fired green blasts at its face. Each shot blew away a fragment of armour but it wasn’t enough to stop it. Anthurium lowered the bow and shot the Guardian in the head. The giant vine arrow smashed through its skull and penetrated deep into its flesh. Almost immediately the transformation began to tear through its skin, the Guardian struggled and twitched as its body was remade into vines. The transformation was nowhere near as fast as the Drones or the Goblins. Puffs of smoke emanated from the vines as they burst into flames even as they were continued to grow through and consumed its body.

“The blood of the Demons.” Anthurium turned to them. “Burns. And slows magic.”

“Damn things are bristling with Ghlyirl,” Taranath grumbled. “We found that out pretty quickly.”

“And that is?” Janet quietly asked, all attention falling on her.

Cintrine floated in front of her face. “Ghlyirl is a metal that inhibits magic. And nearly all the Demons have it coursing through their blood.”

“So if it touched you…”

Cintrine smiled bitterly and nodded. “Yes. I would die.”

Anthurium readied another vine arrow and aimed it at the Serpent Queens head. He drew the bow to its maximum draw and released. The vine arrow shot through the air like a bullet and struck the jaw of the Serpent Queen. It howled in pain as the vines immediately began transforming its body. The giant body undulated and it tried to force the vines loose. It was no use and its howling stopped as the vines reached its head and enveloped its mouth. The Serpent Queen thrashed one last time before its head slumped down and its massive body fell lifelessly towards the ground. It fell through the air, almost silently, until it crashed into the forest. Plumes of cinders and smoke burst into the air as it disappeared beneath the trees.

Anthurium chuckled and handed the bow back to Taranath. “You could have done that.”

“As I said, I want to move tomorrow.”

“There’s still a lot of Drones and Guardian’s in the forest.” Anthurium looked at Cintrine and the other faeries. “We’ll need your help to get rid of them.”

Cintrine nodded and signalled for her to fellow faeries to follow her. They swarmed in front of Anthurium and fluttered into the forest. More bright green flashes erupted in the forest as the Demons screamed in panic.

Taranath shook his head. “This is merely a small strike force. They could never hold this city, just enough to cause havoc. And to kill you. I don’t know if they can sense you but it’s strange they would come here. There’s no way for them to make it back before we would crush them.”

Taranath smiled as the flashes of green light quickly became less frequent. “The threat is dealt with, for now. Everyone is to return to their bunks. Training will begin at first light tomorrow morning.”

Janet waited before everyone started to leave before she spoke. “What about Aeirlaya?”

Taranath shrugged. “I’ll deal with her. You four show the most promise, and it’s a shame that we had been fighting for so long. Those damn fanatics of Nithroel are an unending source of worry.” He sighed again. “But that’s not for you to worry about. At least you now know what it is that we fight. And they’ve got a whole bunch more things to throw at us than these.”

“Is it really that bad?”

Taranath nodded. “We wouldn’t just bring your souls to this world because we were bored. We need more than just physical strength. In the next few days, we’ll start practising your magic. With training, you should be able to do far more than even Anthurium could with that bow.”

“Wow…I…I have a lot to think about.”

“I bet you do.” Taranath turned to the injured Elves. “Go to bed. I’ll give the final rites to your fallen comrade.”

Janet looked down at the dead Wood Elf, actually a human inhabiting its body.

What fears, hopes and dreams did you have? Did you really want to go home or were you just lost like so many of us? I don’t think there’s a way to bring you back, that’s beyond even God’s power, or this Nithroel’s too.

Janet glanced at the burning forest.

We could flee, but is that right? After seeing how these people, and creatures, struggle so valiantly just to survive…I don’t think we should run. Not yet at least. There are some good ones here, even amongst us. I don’t think we’d last long against the Demons if we ran anyway.

Janet stepped around the dead Hero, his body was being tended to by the Wood Elf soldiers, and towards the barracks and the awaiting Dustine. Questions swarmed through her mind but she had no answers as she fell into a troubled sleep.