There wasn’t much to hide behind on the small island—just a couple of thick trees and a few jutting rocks, which were about the extent of Emily’s options. She was currently peeking out from behind a particularly tall rock outcropping, watching the tribe of elves gathered in small clusters of ten to twenty. Individuals drifted from group to group, some chattering and scuffling over scraps of food, while others appeared to be seeking mates.
Emily wouldn’t exactly call it a settlement, more a band of creatures gathering together for survival. Still, the presence of several larger burrows suggested communal housing, though the arrangements felt rough and temporary.
As far as Emily could tell the scruffy little creatures had their own hierarchy in place, but Emily couldn’t figure out exactly what that was, even after over three hours of observing them. The other thing was that these elves weren’t particularly observant.
The elves in the forest were ambush predators, but these ones seemed to have evolved in a completely different direction.
Emily hadn’t seen it earlier because the differences in their muscle mass weren’t that great but these elves seemed more catered to confrontation. Instead of blending in with the foliage they looked more like the surrounding rock, but even that didn’t help them much.
The large open landscape meant that they charged as a group the moment they were spotted. If they got to their prey, they would surround it, and try and bludgeon it to death with their meaty forearms or a club if they had managed to procure one. Though there wasn’t much prey on this island to begin with, just a few smaller rock rodents and many insects. Luckily the elves were not at all picky as Emily spotted them crunching merrily on grey locusts and blackened centipedes. Only the trees were spared their hungry wrath as Emily was fairly certain the leaves were poisonous even to the elves. Either way, they all went about their day-to-day in their little primitive society.
Emily watched with rapt attention as a male elf presented what looked like a tasty rock ferret to a female elf. How Emily knew it was a female was beyond her, but the little creature seemed pleased with the offering. Then, with little hesitation, they got down to business.
Emily leaned back quickly, a mild wave of nausea rising in her throat as a familiar voice whispered from just behind her, “Enjoying the show?” She nearly jumped; she hadn’t heard Atticus approach, but then, he was a Scout.
“Well to be quite honest, I’m curious, these little guys look like their species is mildly intelligent if they were left alone could they evolve into something civil?”
Atticus rolled his eyes as he lowered himself to the ground next to her.
“Unlikely, people have tried that before, and they do get more intelligent as they acquire titles, but all they use it for is war and death. Elf sympathizers aren't looked fondly on in any settlement, now do you have their numbers?”
Emily shrugged, more surprised that elves could get titles than anything else.
“Yeah, we’re looking at about two hundred elves. I could slaughter them all if I had enough time, but the plan is more important. Still, such a waste of resources.”
Emily stared out at the little tribe, a faint look of melancholy on her face. When she turned back, Atticus was looking at her with a strange expression. It was as if he were just now realizing he was totally alone with a Blood mage, or at least what he thought was a blood user, not that she would correct him.
“There isn’t time to kill them all, I have everything on my end ready so as soon as you are in place, we’ll begin.”
Emily shot the man a skeptical look and grunted.
“You don’t have to worry about that, it was my plan in the first place, remember?”
Emily turned back to face the ‘settlement’ and crushed herself lower to the rock.
“Watch for the signal near the tree, don’t go before then,” Atticus said, still feeling the need to remind her.
Emily made a shooing motion at Atticus as she prepared herself.
Atticus pressed his lips together like he wanted to wish her luck but then he turned and slipped away.
Emily had found when they were on open land the man could be incredibly nimble when he wanted to be, and in minutes he’d slipped away down the hill, unseen by all.
The drizzle that had started a couple of hours ago had still yet to let up, but the silver lining was that it hadn’t gotten any worse so Emily used her tarp to protect herself from the incessant march of rain. All the while her eye never drifted from a particular point on the shore.
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
She was currently situated much further up the mountain so she could make out the entire shoreline from up here.
The elven ‘village’ was directly downwind from her and as Emily readjusted her footing, dozens of tiny shards of rock went tumbling a little ways down. This entire area was unstable, so Mist had kept away. Plus he stuck out too much for what came next.
Emily was growing impatient by the time a flicker of lamplight caught her attention. Glancing toward a distant tree, she saw a lantern flickering in the dark—she couldn’t make out Atticus from this distance, but it could only be him.
Emily looked up toward the peak. Seeing nothing unusual, she folded up the tarp and pulled her scepter from her waist.
Then, with the same air of someone stepping up to the plate, Emily gripped the handle with both hands and swung the weapon like a bat.
Metal hit the grey stone, creating a dull ringing sound and sending shockwaves up Emily’s arms. The sound wasn’t loud but the resulting hit sent cracks spreading through the brittle stone, yet Emily didn’t stop there, she continued to smack out the supports from her creation. It was surprising how little the elves noticed about their surroundings.
Emily had been slowly building a dam of rocks just above them for what felt like forever and they still hadn’t noticed the distant growing rock outcroping. Granted she’d purposefully kept the spell going incredibly slowly but still one would think they would notice a change in the landscape. She’d used the blood ward Ashe had made for her to gather grit and pebbles ever so slowly just up steam of the settlement.
Now, all it took was a few well-placed breaks in the rocks balanced on the slope to really get things rolling.
Emily continued to walk down the line, uncaring whether she was seen at this stage, cracking her metal rod against the supports.
Behind her she could hear some commotion happening and took that to mean she’d been spotted, but instead, she looked to the skies to make sure didn’t see anything yet.
Tiny pebbles were trailing down the mountainside like dunes being whittled away. This caused more and more of the upper parts of the mountainside to become unstable as its base continued to slide out from underneath it.
Emily just kept walking and displacing the larger boulders and when she finally got to the end of the line she turned around to see her work.
Surprisingly the elves were already more than halfway to her with rage and excitment dripping from their hollow eyes. Emily stared down at them impassively as they got neared. That’s when they hit the little tides of pebbles and slowed, but they were no less enthusiastic.
Emily knew they weren’t close enough for life conduit to draw them in but she’d hoped they’d be a little closer by now.
At least then when they died she would have gotten something but alas the dam broke before even a single one of them got near, and when it did, the unnaturally placed rocks caused a very real rock fall.
The elves that had been approaching so hastily earlier suddenly turned right around and rushed back toward their caves.
Emily watched them struggle against the current for a few seconds before the dirt and pebbles swallowed them, their screams of pain rising into the air.
She clenched her fist, still not hearing what she was hoping for. Just as she prepared to make her way down to start killing, a roar shook the peak.
Emily’s head snapped round and a smile fell into place across her face.
“Took you long enough…”
That said, Emily made a break for it. She needed to find what little cover she could while there was still time, because if she were to follow, then all of this planning would have been for nothing.
Diving down the decline, Emily ran over freshly loose rocks, doing her best to avoid slipping in the mess of pebbles and rocks. She let the downhill carry her as the wind howled past her ears, and the spittle from the clouds clung to her hair.
Emily got away from the worst of the rockslide and slipped under a nearby tree glancing up to see two Wyrms descending from the peak.
Pursing her lips she didn’t even dare curse out loud as the heavy wing falls grew neared, bringing with them that sweet musk. When she was certain they weren’t looking in her direction she dashed out to the next nearest tree, using the moment of the rock slide as cover.
Glancing over her shoulder at the elves, she saw many of them still alive, the initial fall of the rocks having killed over half of them. Those that remained seemed dazed and limped about aimlessly.
When the Wrms landed, they scented the air and looked about, eyes transfixed on the elves. Emily kept moving to the next tree even as the elves screeched at the Wrms who ignored them.
The massive beast went about sifting through the rubble, pulling elven corpses from the rockslide and swallowing them whole. The elven defenders were scattered and seemed to back off, allowing their overseers the feast on the dead.
Emily hadn’t expected the distraction to work so well and from the looks of things the elves were too scared of the Wrms to give chase yet, so she kept moving toward the meat-up point.
It took her a while to get there but eventually, she got to a collection of four larger trees.
Mist saw her coming and Emily slipped into the cover for a final time.
“Excellent job!” Atticus exclaimed having just looked up from the newest vessel he’d been carving into with his blade.
They’d used another tree, but learning from their mistakes they made this one a little better, even going so far as to cut a hollow into it so that if they got hit in the water they wouldn’t slide off it. Atticus had also managed to dry the wood somewhat, so hopefully that would help.
“Did they see you?”
Emily shrugged her shoulder and looked at the boat.
“Yeah, not as far as I could tell, but they were having a feast back there, once they get back to their nest they’ll probably sleep, I know that’s what I’d do after gorging myself like that.”
All of this had been for that exact purpose. Somehow they had been lucky enough to get to the island but leaving would be a completely different story, as they had to launch from the banks with very little cover.
They would be in direct line of sight for a long while, so when Emily suggested that they cause a distraction, Atticus thought it might be their only ticket off the island. As they couldn’t fight the Wyrms in the middle of the lake, the serpents were bad enough.
That meant that right now they were playing a waiting game. They had a very small window to leave because the moment the Wyms left, the elves might try to track them down. So when Emily spotted the Wrms flying up above the elven settlement again she got Mist ready.
Only once the duo had landed back on the peak did they take off, launching the new boat on its maiden voyage.
Hopefully, this journey was longer and contained significantly fewer snakes.
Blood points: 182