Chapter Six

Southwest Reaches,

Shetna Forest

7th Day of Pendelius, 247 A.C.

Morning

“It went this way,” Illora informed the rest of the patrol as they caught up with her atop the small rise, one silver-blue hand pointing to the west of their current position.

“You’re sure?” Tarafen asked, staring in the direction the still crouching tracker indicated, wishing she had pointed anywhere else.

The lithe lun’ilvar warrior gave him a slightly exasperated look as she replied in a slightly terse tone, “I would not have led us here were I not, Shahara.”

Tarafen nodded, silently berating himself for questioning her; she was their best tracker, after all. The lun’ilvar captains amber eyes swung to the towering trunks of dead oak, poplar, and maple that spotted the ground below the group, a feeling of unease growing inside of him.

None of the trees had leaves on them, and what bark some had was blackened, seeming as if it was burnt. Unlike the lush, verdant forest that stood just paces behind them, which was in full bloom with leaves of varying colours and hues, the trees spread out before them were dead. There was no thick undergrowth, no litter of leaves on the ground beneath those trunks that still stood. From behind there came the usual sounds of birds chirping, of rodents skittering on the ground; from ahead, nothing.

The land ahead was dead, unnaturally so.

Holth Adûr.

He had never before been so close to the cursed place.

Here, the humans of Cedirc had unleashed unimaginable amounts of vita decades before, slaughtering thousands of ilvarri in moments as they fought the Cedircians in what the humans called the Second Battle of the Tovar Grasslands. The Cedircian army had suffered massive losses as well, as those that conjured the spell had either been unable to control the gathered energies, or had been consumed by it. The ilvarri had a different name for that dark day.

Dorreth’nich; or, in the common tongue: the Day of the Torrent.

An apt name, given that roiling waves of sorcery had flooded the battlefield like the rushing waters of a fast flowing river, obliterating men and women on both sides of the battle, turning them to ash in mere seconds. It was the first time the ilvarri had seen humans use magic in such a way, and it had scarred the land irreparably, staining it for miles in all directions from the spells epicenter. It had not only killed every living creature within a large area, it had also made the ground itself barren, killing all the grasses, weeds, trees, and shrubs within the area affected by the unleashed vita.

To make matters even worse, the scar had continued to spread in the years following the battle. Two decades on, it spanned more than a dozen leagues in each direction from the torn, blasted rends in the earth and rock that formed the epicenter of Holth Adûr.

It had even spread into the fringes of Shetna Forest, as evidenced by the towering remains of ancient oaks and maples before him.

The magics of the ilvarri had been unable to stop its encroachment, even with the lun’ilvarri—the sect of ilvarri most attuned to nature and the vitarus—leading the defense. They had succeeded at slowing the expansion of the blighted land that came to be known as Holth Adûr, but had been unable to stop its seemingly inexorable spread east into the western reaches of their beloved forest. Every ilvar within Shetna knew the story well, especially those who had trained at Esta’Vellan. It was viewed as a stark reminder that, in spite of the truce between the two peoples that had as of yet been unbroken, the humans could never be fully trusted.

Staring at the towering trunks of trees long dead, with all but their largest structural limbs having rotted and fallen to the ground long ago, Tarafen could well imagine what was going through Illora’s mind at that moment. He had only heard the stories of that terrible day from within the safe confines of the academy, but she had witnessed it. She had been present for the brutal massacre, and had been one of the few ilvar to survive it.

He eyed the other lun’ilvar out of the corner of his eye with concern, noting the quick, rapid breaths of her chest as she stared hard at the dead forest spread out before them. His eyes were inevitably drawn to the black onyx stone she wore in the fourth lobe of her left ear, the gem signifying that she had been present at and survived that dark day. As he stared at that symbolic jewel, he felt a momentary sense of guilt wash over him; he had not expected their night long pursuit to lead them here.

The ilvarri patrol had been pursuing the gal’roth survivor through the western reaches of Shetna the remainder of the previous night, pausing only for a couple of brief rests to have light meals of dried fruits and nuts, washed down with water.

They were, in a word, exhausted.

As if the encounter with the twisted creatures the night before had not been tiring enough in and of itself, the group of ilvarri had not had a full rest since early the previous day, before they had searched the ruined ilvar village. Upon finding the trail leading from the ruined village of Sillar’neth, the ilvarri had rushed off in pursuit of the raiders, not stopping until they had fought them the night before. Sure, they had had a moment to breath immediately after the fight, but that had hardly counted as a rest. Their bodies filled with adrenaline and a thirst for vengeance for the death of Falorn, they had begun their second chase of the night seemingly filled with energy.

As the night had stretched on, however, with no sight of the gal’roth in spite of its wounds, that anger had slowly transformed into a sense of weariness.

With the tip of Aelith’s spear still embedded within the creature’s back—they had found the snapped off shaft of the spear shortly after heading out from the meadow—the five ilvarri had assumed it would be a quick, short pursuit. But they were wrong. The creature had thus far managed to stay ahead of them, in spite of the fact that it was leaving a trail that was clear and easy to follow through the forest.

And now the gal’roth had left Shetna behind.

Teirin, Erothel, and Seonid came to a halt behind him, and he knew they had to be feeling the same as he did as they looked upon this place of death. Even the air here felt thicker, heavier than it did within Shetna Forest, though there home was not even a league distant, and the musty smell of old rot permeated the air about them, though from what the ilvar could see the trees were well beyond rotting now.

“They’re partially petrified!”

Teirin’s voice, a mix of wonder and more than a little bit of confusion, brought Tarafen back from his thoughts. He turned and saw that the sol’ilvar had stopped at the base of one of the towering trees, one hand against what had once been the heartwood of an ancient oak. Seonid was even then heading towards her companion, guided by the same curiosity that pulled at Tarafen himself, urging him to inspect it himself, but he decided that he should remain close to Illora. He did not Erothel staring at Seonid and Teirin, an lips thinned in disapproval as the cal’ilvar and sol’ilvar inspected the trunk of the tree together, arms crossed across the blackened wooden cuirass the sol’ilvar wore.

Tarafen found he could not stop himself fully as he listened to the exclamations of Seonid as she joined Teirin, and his amber eyes were drawn to the partially debarked trunk of a long dead tree that he judged, based on the deep furrows in the remaining bark, to be the remains of a maple. The tree’s largest structural limbs had rotted and fallen to the ground long ago, leaving the five remaining twisting trunks of the codominant tree to stick up from the ground like some sort of deformed hand, as if some large entity was reaching up from the beneath the ground, grasping for something known only to it. He squinted his eyes, and saw that Teirin’s observation was correct.

The sunlight reflected off the base of the tree, below where the limbs split off the main trunk. From a spot where the rough bark had sloughed away, the heartwood glinted, as if the tree had indeed gone through the crystallization process over thousands of years. But that was impossible.

As with everything else he could see, he attributed the rapid petrification to the spell that the humans had cast on that far off day.

Thoughts brought back full circle to the day of the Torrent, Tarafen pulled his attention from the petrified tree and glanced again to Illora as she continued to stare at the dead lands before them, her breaths still coming in quick, short bursts. He crouched beside her, noticing the hard set of her eyes that shimmered with unshed tears.

“Are you alright?” he asked her, speaking softly, keenly aware of the others standing close behind them.

Blinking away her tears, she closed her brown eyes and inhaled deeply, filling her lungs and letting the breath out slowly to settle her breathing. She opened her eyes and slowly stood, Tarafen following suit as she turned to face him, in control once again.

“I will be,” she replied softly yet firmly, her eyes flicking to Holth Adûr once again as she set her jaw, “Once we catch the bastard.”

The captain eyed her for a long moment, then, satisfied, nodded and motioned for her to lead on.

“It is forbidden!”

He had not even managed a step before the words, shouted in a mix of anger and disbelief, turned him about to face the others. His eyes fixed on Erothel as the bronze skinned sol’ilvar stepped forward, his eye narrowed.

“We cannot pursue the creature further!” Erothel added, heat still present in his voice, “It is forbidden to leave the forest without permission of the Elders!”

“They would give leave without hesitation,” Tarafen replied, just as heatedly, “To wait for that permission, to receive those orders, would only waste time and allow that damnable creature to escape!”

“It. Is. Forbidden,” Erothel reiterated, setting his narrow jaw stubbornly, “We should not even be out this far from the forest! Can you not feel the very wrongness of this fell place?”

“You would give in to fear and let Falorn’s killer escape?” Tarafen demanded in disbelief, an undercurrent of accusation slipping into his tone.

That set Erothel back a step.

The proud sol’ilvar looked past Tarafen to Illora, who had likewise turned to regard Erothel with disbelief, her arms crossed before her. Erothel spun to look at their other companions, looking for support, but only finding the same stony regard from both Teirin and Seonid. Finding no help from either of them, he turned back to Tarafen, shoulders slumping slightly.

“Very well,” he said, though Tarafen saw the disapproval clearly in his dark eyes. The sol’ilvar moved back to Seonid and Teirin without another word, the female cal’ilvar putting a hand on his arm to calm him and speaking softly to him. Tarafen trusted that she would do her best to calm the sol’ilvar, who was particularly volatile, even by the standards of his sun-kissed kin.

The lun’ilvar captain nodded to Illora, who had re-shouldered he pack and stood waiting for his signal. The auburn haired woman returned his nod and, taking another deep breath as she once more eyed the fell wasteland stretching out before them, began picking her way down the rocky rise upon which they stood. With a last, lingering look at the lush greens, blues, and browns of his forest home behind them, Tarafen moved to follow, his multi-lobed ears hearing the other three falling in behind. Erothel and Seonid were locked in a heated, whispered discussion, with Teirin interjecting every now and again as they descended the side of the steep hill as the sun rose behind them.

It was immediately evident that the terrain here was radically different from what the ilvarri were used to within the confines of Shetna Forest.

Where Shetna was filled with gently rolling, tree and shrub covered hills that grew steadily larger the closer one get to the Fareltzar Mountains along the eastern and northern borders of the forest, the land here was full of sharp, sudden dips and rises, often dropping off without warning. Tarafen wondered how much of that was natural, thinking of the stories of the brutal unleashing of magic that had taken place here. Was it that unlikely that that same spell that had killed thousands in a heartbeat had also created the uneven ground across which they now passed?

He did not think it was too much of a stretch. He thought to ask Illora about it, to see what she remembered of the area from before the battle, but one look at the stiff, straight shouldered gait of the normally relaxed lun’ilvar deterred him. Perhaps when they were back within Shetna following the gal’roth’s demise he would ask, but not now.

He did, however, note with a small amount of hope that some of the information they had been taught of Holth Adûr was inaccurate. Though the air here was certainly filled with some pervasive wrongness, as if all the vita had been pulled from it, the land was not entirely devoid of life. Here and there, small patches of green-yellow grasses grew in the thin layer of topsoil that remained, and he even saw a few shot, stunted shrubs of a variety he could not place growing from splits in the rock, though these latter were rarer. But some life was clearly returning, and that was something, was it not?

Gone, too, were the usual signs that he would have used to follow the injured gal’roth. There was no leaf litter to be disturbed, no scuffed bark or torn branches as they had followed within the forest. Here, Illora had to search the rocky ground for any slight sign of disruption, a task that Tarafen was not sure he would have been up to, and his respect for Illora grew. She did not utter a word of complaint, though the only sign of their quarry he could see was the occasional drop of black blood from the gal’roth’s apparently still dripping wound, shining darkly on the yellow-grey limestone over which they passed.

In spite of that, she led them confidently, though more than once they had to double back to find the trail anew. She never showed any hint of frustration, and his admiration in her only grew each time.

After a half day of travel through the rocky, unfamiliar ground, with the occasional backtracking or second guessing slowing their progress, the ilvarri were several leagues from their shaded forest home.

The standing corpses of long dead trees had disappeared an hour earlier, marking the edge of the old boundary of Shetna. Forest, and the midday sun beat down harshly upon them in the cloudless sky above, it’s heat reflected off the rocky ground all around them. It was an effect that none of the ilvarri—save Illora—had ever experienced, and combined with the fact that they had had no sight of their quarry since the battle in the clearing the night before, tensions were again starting to rise amongst the pursuers.

Tarafen heard the grumbling from Erothel starting once again, and Seonid and Teirin seemed less inclined than the previous times to dissuade him. Seeing that Illora was clearly pushing herself, and knowing that he, too, was feeling the effects of this unusual—at least to them—heat, Tarafen decided it was time for a slightly longer break.

Tired, hungry, and thirsty, the usually disciplined group of ilvarri all but collapsed when the captain called for a halt as they were passing beneath a rocky overhang, offering protection from the harsh sunlight. A small pond with a handful of bushes growing around it stood nearby, though Tarafen could not see any stream that would be feeding the small oasis. Illora immediately went to test the water, splashing her silver-blue face with it and tasting it before grabbing her water skin and submerging it beneath the cool waters, filling it. The others, dropping their packs in the shade of the outcropping, followed her lead, filling their skins and splashing the cool water across their faces before settling down in the relatively cool shade offered by the overhang, grateful one and all to be out of the intense sunlight.

Tarafen handed out bread, nuts, and dried fruit to each of them once each had settled before taking a seat himself, grateful for the opportunity to rest. It did not take long for Erothel, Seonid, and Teirin to doze off, barely finishing their food before giving in to the demands of their tired bodies. He noticed Illora fighting her own weariness, as he endeavored to, though she did her best to try to hide it, rubbing her feet that he knew must be aching the same as his. Their soft soled boots were not made for traveling such rough terrain, made instead for the soft loam and leaf litter of the forest. And so he decided to allow them more of a rest than he had initially intended, admitting to himself that they needed the respite more than he had anticipated. The lun’ilvar captain adjusted his bedroll so it was behind him, and leaned his head against it, closing his amber eyes for a short while, though he was determined to not let himself sleep.

After what must have been an hour or so, based on the movement of the sun, he roused himself and got up. Stretching his tired, aching muscles as he went, he moved to each of the other ilvarri, waking them. Seonid, Illora and Teirin got up immediately, joining Tarafen in stretching tired muscles; Erothel took a bit more rousing, and his eyes shimmered with annoyance at Tarafen’s insistence that he get up. The sol’ilvar begrudgingly joined the others in preparing to move out.

With a nod to Illora, Tarafen grabbed his sword belt and strapped it back on as he moved to the end of the outcropping nearest where the tracker believed the gal’roth had gone, waiting for the others to finish readying themselves. As usual, Illora was ready first, and helped the others ready themselves before moving to stand beside Tarafen, Seonid and Teirin close behind.

His pack slung over one shoulder, Erothel looked to where Tarafen and the others stood, then back in the direction of Shetna, a confused look on his face.

“We are not going back to Shetna, Shahara?”

Tarafen regarded Erothel a moment, noting the others as they stopped halfway between Tarafen and Erothel as they waited for a response from the captain, their eyes flitting back and forth between the silvery-blond lun’ilvar and the brown haired sol’ilvar. The tension that had dissipated during the break was back in a heartbeat as Tarafen considered his reply, knowing he had to handle this perfectly. Finally, fighting to hold back his irritation at Erothel’s continued impertinence, he simply arched an eyebrow, inviting the sol’ilvar to elaborate.

Clearing his throat, Erothel took a step forward, his dark red eyes narrowed as he spoke determinedly, “With respect, Shahara, we have already gone well past the borders of our homeland. Surely you cannot intend for us to go any further? We will already be punished for going this far!”

“Our—my punishment will be the same regardless of it we turn back now,” Tarafen decided it was best not to argue the point, instead deciding to emphasize that it would be he who bore the brunt of the blame upon their return. “We go on.”

Teirin and Seonid saluted and began striding once more for his side of the outcropping, adjusting their packs on their backs as they went. Erothel remained where he stood, however, dark red eyes staring daggers at Tarafen.

“We cannot go on,” the fiery sol’ilvar insisted, “We must return to Shetna!”

“And let Falorn’s killer get away?”

It was not Tarafen but Seonid who responded, dropping her own pack to the ground as she spun to face Erothel, taking long strides towards him. Anger replacing the weariness that had covered her fair features just moments earlier, she came to a stop in front of Erothel and glared down at the shorter sol’ilvar, waiting for a response.

Erothel, to his credit, did not blink as he redirected his glare to her, though he had to tilt his head back to meet her gaze, “I am just as upset over his death as any of you, but killing that gal’roth will not bring him back!” he looked around her to Tarafen as he went on, “It will get us nothing. It is not worth the consequences of going even further from our borders. We have not even caught sight of the wretched beast!” he threw his hands up with a disgusted sigh as he finished.

None of the ilvarri spoke for a long moment. Once again, it was Seonid who eventually broke the tense silence as Tarafen and Erothel continued to glare at one another, “You would not think such were it Teirin who had been killed. Or Hasfid, or any of the rest of us,” the black haired cal’ilvar said in a low tone, though one no less hard than had she shouted, as she crossed her arms across her chest.

Erothel was silent, taken aback by her train of thought.

“If it were myself being borne back to Shara’neth, shroud covered on a litter, for by body to be returned to the trees, Erothel would not rest until whomever was responsible was dead, be they gal’roth, human, or even a great wyrm! No matter what it cost him in the end, be it his career or his very life, he would avenge them, the consequences be damned!”

“How could I do any less?” Erothel exclaimed, clearly louder than he had intended as his voice echoed off the stone of the outcropping. He lowered his voice as he continued, “We—all of us here—have fought together for decades. I would gladly give my life to save any of you, “he cast his eyes about to the other ilvarri present as he finished, “Or, Tristus forfend, to avenge any of you.”

“But not so for Falorn.”

There was no missing the accusation in her sharp tone, and Erothel rocked back a step before replying, “He was not of our group, not truly.”

Seonid looked at him incredulously as the sol’ilvar spoke the words, the disbelief shared by the other three ilvarri present. Seeing the judgment at his words writ plain across their faces, Erothel hurried to go on, determined to make his point.

“He was sent out with us for training, as was Aelith. And we all know they were sent with us because none expected us to wet our blades,” he threw an accusatory look Tarafen’s way as he made that last statement before again focusing on Seonid, “His death is tragic, yes, but he was inexperienced, and he paid the ultimate price due to a reckless decision. He was not ready.”

“Falorn died not because of a reckless decision, but because of his poor landing. It could have happened to any of us,” Seonid retorted, and Tarafen nodded in appreciation of her defense, though he could not refute Erothel’s other statements: they had been sent out on a simple scouting mission to the village, and it had been he who had ordered the pursuit of the marauders.

“And yet it did not.”

The simple reply from the sol’ilvar cut the captain deep; as much as Tarafen appreciated Seonid’s defense, he knew that blame did rest on his shoulders. He was in command, after all, and had issued the orders that led to the recruits unfortunate demise, regardless of ill fortune.

“And where was your complaint when we pursued the creatures from the village?” Seonid retorted, drawing Tarafen back to the exchange.

“What?” Erothel, clearly caught off guard by the question, rocked back on his heels as he searched for an answer.

“You did not voice concerns when the Shahara issued the command in Shilla’neth,” she pressed, stepping towards Erothel, “Nor did Erothel speak up when the battle plan was laid out for us. Where was your voice then?”

“Enough,” Tarafen said, cutting off the no doubt heated response from Erothel as the sol’ilvar opened his mouth. “Now is not the time to lay blame. Such will not change Falorn’s fate.”

“And neither will vengeance,” Erothel shot back, stubborn as ever.

“No, but—”

“But he was of Shien’tar. That is enough,” Seonid interrupted what Tarafen had been about to say, meeting Erothel’s gaze for a moment before turning away as she added softly, “At least it should be.”

Erothel fingered the sapphire embedded in the third lobe of his right ear—the same gem that adorned each member of the patrol, and the ears of all those in Shien’tar—at her words. The heat in his eyes lost some of its intensity as he dropped his hand back to his side.

“It is,” Tarafen replied in a firm voice after a moment, raising his light blue hand to stop any further arguments as he took a step towards Erothel, putting a hand on Seonid’s shoulder and squeezing it to show his appreciation as he met Erothel’s still angry gaze with his own. “He was a member of Shien’tar. Our brother. One of us, no matter how short his tenure may have been. And we will avenge him as we would any of our brothers or sisters,” he stated with finality, eyes flashing a warning to Erothel not to push the subject more than he already had.

Tarafen was done with this debate

The sol’ilvar was quiet for a long moment as he looked from one stern faced companion to another, searching for any sign of support, no matter how small. Finding none, he let out a long sigh and ran a copper coloured hand through his short cut, fiery red hair, dropping his eyes to the stony ground in front of him before once again meeting the gaze of the shahara. Though the anger and defiance still remained, Tarafen also saw acceptance across the sol’ilvar’s angular features. It would have to do, Tarafen knew.

“Forgive me, Shahara. I… I forgot myself in my frustration and exhaustion,” he said at length, looking and sounding properly chagrined, “And in my sorrow. Of course her was our brother. I would do no less than what we now do for any of you, and I will not for him. Forgive me,” he said again, this time directing the words at Seonid and the others; the cal’ilvar warrior nodded her acceptance of the apology, though her arms remained crossed as she stared at him.

“This place has us all on edge,” Tarafen replied, letting his tone soften slightly, “It is forgotten, brother.”

Erothel nodded his gratitude, bowing his head again—but not before Tarafen saw another flash of anger in his red eyes. No, in spite of his agreement now, Tarafen knew that he had not heard the last on this from Erothel. But he trusted that the sol’ilvar would not bring it up again.

At least for now.

“If there are no more complaints, we are losing ground the longer we tarry here.”

Four heads swiveled to regard Illora, who alone stood at the far end of the outcropping, as she spoke. Tarafen nodded his ascent, and the tracker set off once more, the bright sunlight making her silver-blue lun’ilvar skin seem more silver than blue as she exited the shade of the overhang.

With one last look of warning to Erothel, and a nod to the others, Tarafen followed her out from under the outcropping, immediately feeling the heat of the sun on his skin. Teirin walked back to Erothel as Seonid followed on Tarafen’s heels, the taller sol’ilvar placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder as his other hand picked up Erothel’s pack from the ground. Without a word, Erothel took it from his kin, and slung it over his shoulders, readjusting the straps as Teirin, too, turned and trotted after the others.

Left alone in the shade of the overhang, Erothel took one last, longing look back in the direction of Shetna and, heaving a heavy sigh, made one last adjustment to the chest strap of his pack. He set off after the others, jogging to catch up as the troupe began making their way out of the depression the pond filled the bottom of.

Erothel fervently hoped he would not come to regret giving in to the desires of the others.

The weary, sore complement of ilvarri continued on through the afternoon, trusting that the skilled Illora would lead them on the correct path through this magically deadened wasteland to their quarry. They had long past the point where the others could follow, with any accuracy, the signs of the gal’roth’s passage. Illora figured the creature’s wounds must have finally scabbed over, for there had been no further spatters of blood to follow since the leaving the outcropping at midday.

None had thought it possible, but the ground itself had become even rockier the further west into Holth Adûr they traveled.

Gone were the occasional patches of grass and shrubbery they had stumbled upon earlier in the day, for there were no patches of topsoil left for them to find root in. Here, they ran across the exposed limestone bedrock, with no dirt to soften their footfalls across the broken ground. The crevasses that had been sporadic along the fringes of this fell place were now common, causing them to either jump across the narrower chasms, or find a place that was safe to cross. He glimpsed down on more than a few occasions, and could not see the bottom of those he looked into.

At times, Tarafen admitted to himself, even he was unsure if Illora knew where she was headed.

The further they went, the more she had to stop for increasingly lengthy intervals of time to find the trail once more, and more than once they ended up retracing their steps, though there was no indication one way or the other of the gal’roth’s direction that the others could see.

Still, he trusted the lun’ilvar tracker implicitly; the black haired Illora had the most experience out of any of them present, Tarafen included, both within Shetna’s borders and without.

Sadly, it appeared that not all in their group shared his confidence in her, and after the second time they had had to retrace their steps, he heard Erothel muttering to Teirin in a low voice that she had lost the trail, and the fiery sol’ilvar had shot Tarafen an angry look. Even Teirin’s visage had darkened momentarily as he responded to his friend, though the words had not reached the captain’s ears. In spite of that look, Teirin had clearly been trying to calm his friend, as Erothel quieted shortly after.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Seonid moved to join them the last couple of times the unimpressed sol’ilvar had began grumbling once more, and enough of her sharp words to the pair of sol’ilvar had reached his ears to tell Tarafen that, thankfully, she was still not pleased with Erothel. Between her and Teirin, they managed to keep the disgruntled Erothel under control without the need for Tarafen to intervene once more, for which the captain was grateful.

He would not say it aloud, but he was beginning to lose his own convictions, debating whether they should abandon the pursuit and return to Shetna.

It galled him to even consider it, but as the day stretched on, with no sign of their quarry that any but Illora could see, Erothel’s words echoed louder in the lun’ilvar’s mind. They were out of their element here, and beyond that, they were exhausted, dark bags evident under their eyes on all their sun-kissed faces.

Illora, for her part, either ignored the discontent growing within Erothel or did not notice it, so focused was she on following the trail only she could see.

And so, as the sun began it’s descent towards the distant horizon in the still cloudless sky, and as Illora stopped at the edge of a wide, semi circular ravine, waiting for the others to catch her up, Tarafen was ready to order them back to Shetna. Illora glanced at him as he moved beside her, wincing a the raw heat in the soles of his feet, knowing without looking there mist be several blisters on each, and he opened his mouth to tell her they were turning back.

The words never came out, for the tracker spoke first, in a voice soft yet thick with emotion

“This is it.”

It took the tired captain a long moment to realize what she meant, and in that time the others had caught up to them. Her eyes moved back to stare across the broken terrain ahead of them, and he noticed for the first time the distinctiveness of it. He had gotten so used to passing crevices and chasms that he had just taken this to be another one, albeit one far wider and deeper than the rest, stretching far in either direction from their current position.

But it was not just another chasm, he saw now.

Following Illora’s gaze, he realized the crevice atop which they stood looked to be half a league wide, and was fully circular in shape, though the edges were rough. In the centre of the chasm was a plateau, shorter than the cliffs on their side of the chasm. Glancing back, he realized they had been moving uphill at a slant for the last while, and all around the jagged gash in the ground he could see the same slope, as if the earth had been pushed out by an immense release of energy.

Because, he knew, it had.

The plateau across from them was the centre of Holth Adûr

That was where the Torrent had been cast.

And this chasm was Galden’s Rift, so named for the human magus who had led and unleashed that dreadful spell.

They stood upon the very ground where thousands of their kin had died on Dorreth’nich, killed by the roiling waves of vita unleashed by the wretched humans.

He had thought that the remains of the dead trees along the edge of Shetna Forest had prepared him for anything they might find out here. He had been gravel mistaken. This was worse than anything he had imagined, anything he could ever imagine.

He heard gasps from behind him, and he saw that Illora had sunk to her knees, head bowed forward so her body was leaning perilously close to the edge of the chasm. He quickly stepped closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. She gave no reaction to his touch.

“Tristus sha’har iegen fledari,” she whispered, the words barely perceptible even though he was right beside her.

They were not meant for him, he knew, as the light from the setting sun glittered off the tears that spilled out of her eyes, running down her sunburned cheeks, unchecked as she beheld the site of that great, horrible massacre. He had no doubt that she was reliving memories of that terrible day, and he knew too that there was no way he could begin to even comprehend what she had to have feeling in that moment. He was hit hard enough by the knowledge of what had happened here, so many lives snuffed out needlessly by an unhinged act.

But Illora had lived through it—she and Hasfid both had.

She was one of the relative few who had, by sheer luck, survived, while so many of her friends and companions had not. Illora had not talked of it much, but he knew she still felt an intense guilt for having been spared while so many had perished. All of the survivors of that dark day felt the same, especially since their had been no rhyme or reason to who lived.

The Torrent had killed randomly, indiscriminately.

He squeezed his friend’s shoulder again, wanting to comfort her but knowing there was nothing he could say to help her. One thought fought to the fore of his mind as he looked down at her tear streaked face: he should have turned them back.

They should never have come here.

“I woke in the bottom of this crevasse,” she spoke softly, breaking through his self-recriminations to focus on her once more. She had turned her head slightly towards him, though her eyes were still staring down into the blasted canyon below.

He did not respond, instead waited in silence for her to go on, knowing that she was not so much talking to him as she was just talking. He was faintly aware that the voices of the others fell silent in the wake of her statement, the shuffle and scraping of their boots on the bedrock telling him they had moved closer to them to hear what Illora said. After a long moment, the lun’ilvar warrior spoke again, her voice oddly devoid of emotion.

“All around me were the bodies of our kin—those who had not been destroyed on the spot, at least. So many sol’ilvar, lun’ilvar, and cal’ilvar lying still, covered in blood and dust,” Illora took a shaky breath before proceeding, eyes staring sightlessly into the chasm, “One was lying atop me, making it difficult to breath. Brerin was his name. His lifeless eyes were the first thing I saw when I opened my own,” tears shimmered orange in the fading sunlight as they ran down her silvery cheek. She gave a bitter chuckle, “Well, the one eye I could open, at any rate. He was still warm… It took me a long while to finally push him off me—not only was my left arm broken, but I discovered that he had been crushed beneath fallen rocks. His body had shielded mine; his life had paid for mine.”

“Thanks to his unknowing sacrifice, I had somehow survived with relatively minor injuries. My arm was broken, yes, but my legs were not, thank Tristus. Oh, they were bruised and scraped, but not broken or even sprained. I had just gotten Brerin off of me, blood from his caved in skull spilling on me, when I heard shuffling off in the darkness. I reached about myself for a weapon—any weapon, for mine had been lost in the fall. My hand finally found a rock, and I managed to get my feet under myself enough to crouch over Brerin’s corpse as a figure stumbled around a corner in the newly formed chasm. I almost let lose at them; only his cry stopped me. It was Hasfid,” she choked on the name, blinking more tears from her eyes, “I could hardly recognize him for the purple blood of our kin drenching his armour and skin…”

She trailed off, and it was another long moment before the lun’ilvar continued. None of the others dared to speak, knowing she needed to do this in her own time.

Tarafen glanced back and saw that all of them, even Erothel, watched her with expressions of sympathy and concern, with an undercurrent of anger. Not at Illora, but what had happened to her, to their kin, in this dark place.

A slight breeze blew across from the west as he turned back to Illora, and the lun’ilvar’s black hair flowed out behind her. He noted that she now clutched her left arm with her right hand, as if again feeling the pain of that long ago wound.

“His leg was torn and scraped worse than mine—without the rocky wall of the cliff, I don’t think he would have been able to stand, much less walk,” she said at last, breaking her silence, “It took us days to find a way out. Between his leg and my arm, we had to find a shallow enough grade to allow us to climb. By then, the humans were long gone. From what I have been told since, they left as soon as the dorreth was unleashed, certain in their victory,” she let out a bitter, twisted half laugh, half sob at that, “I guess they had every reason to assume that, I suppose. We had found other survivors down there, in the depths of the chasms, but lost most on our journey out of that forsaken crevasse. Some starved—we had lost all our provisions, save what we could find down there—while others fell while trying to scale the cliffs.

Tarafen could not suppress a shudder at that last image, of ilvarri—driven to desperation by hunger—trying and failing to climb out of one of the dozens of chasms that surrounded them. He could not imagine how horrific that must have been for those that had survived.

“When we at last reached the surface, it took us some time to realize what had happened. It was beyond comprehension. All of this,” she gestured to the landscape before them with a shaking blue-silver hand, “Had been rolling hills, covered with lush grasslands and flowers only a few day before, as welcoming as any forest meadow. What the humans did here… it goes beyond them killing us. They killed the very land itself. What they did is an affront to nature itself, a twisting of the vitarus upon itself,” her voice rose in anger briefly, then she let out a sigh and finished in a softer voice, “It looks almost exactly as it did that day. It’s like I never left.”

“But you did,” Tarafen reached out and squeezed his friend’s shoulder again as he crouched beside her, “You and Hasfid survived Dorreth’nich, along with many others.”

“Not enough!” she snapped angrily, wrenching her shoulder from his hand as she spun to glare at him, eyes burning with an anger he had never before seen from her.

Tarafen had to force himself not to back away from her as she turned her baleful look upon him, but her visage softened almost immediately when she saw the concern on his face. She looked past him to the others, and he knew she must have seem similar expressions on their faces before she turned back to the blasted plain before them as she repeated, softly, “Not enough.”

A contemplative silence reigned over the group following her last words as they digested her words, broken only by the whistling of the wind that grew stronger as the sun continued its fiery descent. Tarafen placed a hand gently on her shoulder again as it began to gently bob up and down, tears streaming unchecked down her face as she quietly wept in the wake of her memories. He felt a twinge of regret at bringing her here; he had not realized the emotions that returning to this place would dredge up within her.

Every ilvar knew well the tale of what had happened here, knew the terrible act perpetrated by the people of Cedirc on Dorreth’nich. But knowing the history and actually living through it were two very different things. He and the others will them had the luxury of being detached from those events, whereas Illora was being forced to relive them.

He tried to picture the grasslands that she had described, tried to see the barren vista before him as it may have looked before the battle, but he was unable to see past the blasted rock and terrible rends in the ground. Tarafen could simply not fathom the force that must have been required to break the land in such an irrevocable way.

Like all ilvarri, Tarafen could feel the energy of the world around him, could sense the vitarus in all things. They were far more attuned to nature than the humans, and he could not believe they had twisted the beautiful, live giving energy that was the vitarus in such a way.

Even now, three decades hence, life had not returned to the ares. It was as if the vita that had sustained all life in the grasslands that had once been here had been completely sucked out of the ground, leaving it barren in more ways than one. It occurred to the lun’ilvar that he had not seen so much as a mouse in the last hours of their journey, since nearing the epicentre of the Torrent, and he shuddered at the realization.

He squeezed Illora’s shoulder one last time before standing and retreating back a step, leaving the veteran lun’ilvar warrior alone at the cliff’s edge. Tarafen shared a look with Seonid, shaking his head as she nodded her head towards Illora in an unspoken question. They needed to give her this moment.

He owed her that much for bringing her back to this place.

Some time later—he was not certain how much time had past, but he and the others had settled on the ground and the sun had almost reached the horizon—Illora sniffed one last time and ran the back of her hand across her face, scrubbing away the tears as she slowly stood. She brushed the dirt from her worn breeches, and, taking a deep breath, turned to face the others, who had regained their feet at her movement.

“Illora—“

“We have lost much time,” she said brusquely, cutting off whatever Seonid had been about to say as she focused on Tarafen with her hard emerald eyes, “We need to keep moving.”

Tarafen hesitated, opening his mouth to ask if he was sure, but the question died before he could even begin to speak as her eyes narrowed into slits. Suppressing a sigh, and not even trying to hide his worried expression, he simply nodded. Arguing would get them nowhere, he knew, not now.

She had faced her past for this pursuit, and so she would see it through. Illora would not be deterred, no matter what any of them said.

And, he admitted to himself with more than a little guilt, he did not want her to stop now, either; more than ever, he wanted to catch Falorn’s killer.

He saw that sentiment reflected in her hard, emerald eyes.

“Lead on,” he said simply, knowing nothing more need be said.

With a satisfied nod, the black-haired lun’ilvar turned back to face the chasm, peering over the edge. She moved back and forth a few times, pacing back and forth as she determined the best way forward for the group.

“Keep an eye on her,” Tarafen instructed softly—and needlessly, he knew—to Seonid and the others as he turned toward them.

“We will, shahara,” Teirin confirmed just a softly as Seonid nodded her agreement. Behind the two, Erothel nodded his agreement as well, his anger towards Tarafen apparently forgotten for the moment as he, too, watched the lun’ilvar warrior at the chasm’s edge with concern writ upon his narrow face.

The captain gave them all a grateful look before returning his regard to Illora once more. She had moved even further away from the group, crouching down to inspect something on the ground frequently. Finally, she seemed satisfied with what she found, and waved the rest of the patrol over. Readjusting their packs on their shoulders once again, the four ilvarri made their way to the fifth, quickly crossing the hundred or so feet between them.

“It’s not going to be an easy descent,” the tracker said as they approached her, her tone more than her words giving him a strong suspicion of what he would find when he looked for himself

He barely suppressed a sigh as he peered over the edge, seeing for himself what had elicited her statement. She was right, after all; there would be no easy way down.

It was almost a sheer incline, the sheets of limestone seemingly having been forced up—or down, he considered, given the nature of this place’s creation—in one piece, along the natural layers of the strata. At a glance, there seemed to be very little in the way of hand and foot holds to use on their way down. In fact, he was not sure how she intended to enter the canyon from this location at all.

Confused, he looked askance at Illora, who simply gestured once more over the edge, prompting him to look a second time.

He obliged, narrowing his amber eyes to search the cliff face below more thoroughly, even has he heard the others move up beside him to see for themselves. After a few long moments of searching, he noticed what appeared to be a narrow ledge, no more than a couple feet in width at it’s widest point. Tarafen judged it to be the natural shear plane between two layers of bedrock, based on the difference in colour between the rock of the ledge and that of the cliff wall immediately above it. From what he could see, it ran from the top of the chasm a couple of feet from where Illora stood all the way to the bottom of the crevasse, though he could not tell for certain in the dim light of the setting sun.

He could, however, see that the ledge looked extremely narrow at many points along it’s length, and there did not seem to be much in the way of hand-holds to offer balance.

“You expect us to go down that?”

Erothel’s voice was filled with incredulity and, for the first time this day, Tarafen found he did not disagree with the sol’ilvar’s outburst. The path down did not look to be encouraging or inviting in the slightest.

“The gal’roth did,” Illora replied simply.

And confidently.

That last struck him, especially in light of what she had revealed not long before. He eyed her, seeing that, though her eyes were still red rimmed and hard set, she no longer trembled as she had when they had first came to the edge of this chasm. She had regained her composure since ending her tale. Tarafen reminded himself that she and Hasfid had climbed up a similar ledge in the canyon wall on that long ago day—and they had done so while tired, hungry, thirsty, and injured, no less.

All he and his companions had to contend with was exhaustion.

Compared to what she and Hasfid had faced, that was nothing.

“See these scrapes?” the tracker pointed to some scuffs in the dirt near the edge of the cliff, by the top of the ledge she had pointed out to them.

To Tarafen’s eyes, they could have been made by any passing creature. There were multiple sets of tracks in what little topsoil remained here, some moving towards the trail down, others coming from it. But to him, they were indistinct and rough, the edges undefined due to how little dirt remained covering the rocky ground.

How could she be so certain that they were from the gal’roth?

“There are no other creatures around,” Teirin said in a soft voice, as if answering Tarafen’s unspoken question, more than a hint of admiration ringing clear as he said it.

Of course.

The lack of any native flora and fauna made it unlikely that there would be any tracks here. They had not seen not so much as a mouse or mosquito as they had traversed this dead land, after all. So, logically, the tracks had to have been left by the gal’roth—and it’s companions.

They must have come from this damnable place to begin with.

He wondered if all the gal’roth that the ilvarri had had to contend with in the intervening decades since the end of the war had also come from here.

Is that why the High Council had forbidden any to come here?

He would have to seek answers when they returned to Esta’Vellan.

After they dealt with the lone surviving monster.

They were close, he knew.

He turned to Illora, his narrow face a mask of determination that was reflected in hers.

“Lead on.”

With a curt nod, Illora stepped onto the ledge to begin her descent. With a look to the others, Tarafen followed her, pressing himself against the warm stone of the cliff wall, avoiding looking to the canyon floor hundreds of feet below. The other three ilvarri exchanged looks before following their captain.

And so the five ilvarri began their long, slow descent into the deep, dark chasm as the sun began to slip behind the distant horizon.

Focused on maintaining their footing along the way, none noticed the hulking figure watching them from below, half hidden behind a tumble of boulders, tracking their progress through narrowed yellow eyes.

Watching them, and waiting.

* * *

“No! I will not go. I will remain here with you and await the others!”

Hasfid’s orange-bronze fingers pinched the bridge of his narrow nose as the sol’ilvar did his best to control his building frustration with Aelith.

The brash young recruit had been vocal about her displeasure at being denied the opportunity to avenge her friend on the journey back to Sildar Istan, and though Hasfid had done his best to be understanding—she had not only witnessed the first death of a colleague, but that colleague had been her dearest friend, after all—he was beginning to lose his patience for her continued impertinence.

Yes, what had been meant to be a simple scouting mission had turned into something much worse, but that did not excuse these continued outbursts. He truly sympathized with the tumult of emotions the maiden must be feeling right now, but that did not mean she could blatantly disregard his commands, nor those of Setra’al Shione, the commander of Sildar Istan.

And these latest orders had come from Shione herself, not Hasfid.

The weary group had arrived in the early hours of the morning, having traveled almost without break from the site of the battle with the gal’roth the previous night. Though they had not known for certain in which direction the outpost lay from the meadow, Hasfid and Shara had been able to make an educated guess based on the direction in which they had pursued the creatures, and without much backtracking, they had made it to Sildar Istan with the first rays of dawn passing down through the thick boughs of the forest. Almost immediately after upon their arrival, Hasfid and the others had been brought trays of food and skins of water before Hasfid had been brought before Setra’al Shione for an accounting of what had happened on the expedition.

The setra’al had not been pleased to hear that Tarafen had once again taken it upon himself to go beyond the scope of his mission—a fact that had given Hasfid a small amount of satisfaction. She had been angry enough when he had confirmed that they had not found the gal’roth in the village, but rather had pursued them to the southwest for hours before catching up to them in the clearing where the battle had been fought. Her lips had thinned to a line when he had told of Tarafen’s decision to split the group into two with one contingent continuing in pursuit of Falorn’s killer while the other brought his body back. Setra’al Shione had quickly recovered herself though, and though her gratitude for the detailed nature of his report was curt and his dismissal soon after perfunctory, he knew that her ire was not directed towards him.

Soon after, they had been given accommodations within the fort to rest, since they had had little of that since setting out from this very place well over a day ago. After the respite, Shione had decided, they would set out for Shara’neth, bearing Falorn’s body and news of the tragedy that had taken the young warriors life to the High Council. Hasfid, however, had been granted permission to remain at Sildar Istan, to await the arrival of the others.

Truth be told, Hasfid would have been content to have them all remain with him, that the eleven members of the patrol could return to Shara’neth together.

There were more than enough resources at the outpost to allow for proper care for Kan’il and Casgin—indeed, the two wounded ilvarri had been seen to while Hasfid had been making his report to Shione, and both were already showing signs of improvement. Since the application of a healing unguent and poultice, Kan’il was walking about almost as if the blast that had given him such serious burns had occurred weeks ago, not the previous night. If not for the occasional wince from the stolid lun’ilvar, and the slight limp that still accompanied his movements, someone not at the fight could be forgiven for not noticing Kan’il had ever been wounded. Casgin was even better off, having only been singed on the arm in the first place, and likewise had had that limb slathered in a healing unguent before having it re-wrapped in sterile clothe to heal. The grey-skinned cal’ilvar was even now sparring with Shara as they awaited Hasfid and Aelith, testing his arm to ensure he could still ably wield his sword and shield on the return journey to Shara’neth should the need arise.

Behind the three of them, on the opposite side of the path that lead to Shara’neth, two of Sildar Istan’s complement—a male cal’ilvar and female sol’ilvar who looked to be of middling age, somewhere in the third centuries of their lives—stood at either end of the litter that still bore Falorn’s shrouded body. They were studiously not looking in the direction of Hasfid and Aelith, though Hasfid had no doubt they were listening to every word that was said between them.

The seven ilvarri—eight, if you included Falorn’s corpse—were just outside the wooden gates of Sildar Istan, which were swung wide behind them. A faint blue haze seemed to shimmer within the arch of the yawning gates, the only visible indication of the barrier that still protected the outpost in spite of the open gates. Should anyone not bearing the ensorcelled amulet worn by all members of Shien’tar try to pass through uninvited, they would be unable to penetrate the ward.

Above the gate, along the wall made of many trees grown tight together, a handful of ilvarri watched out over the forest, with more than a few sets of eyes on the five below, specifically on he and Aelith as the woman continued protesting loudly.

“You will go with Shara and the others, and report back to Esta’Vellan,” he ordered sternly, not for the first time, as his attention came back to her. He went on before she could protest yet again, lowering his voice in response to the watching eyes, “The Council must be told of what has happened.”

“The others can tell them just as much as I!”

“Enough, Aelith,” he snapped, his patience at an end, narrowing his eyes at her. Some of his anger at Tarafen over creating this situation in the first place bled into his voice as well, and the recruit took an unconscious step back, and he noted that, off to the side, Casgin and Shara had ceased their sparring, and they and Kan’il all regarded the two of them with concern.

“Enough,” he repeated in a more controlled tone, pushing back his anger with Tarafen once more; it was not fair of him to take it out on Aelith.

She had enough to worry about as it was.

“You will go back to Shara’neth with the others,” he said again, and this time Aelith did not argue. The black haired lun’ilvar still looked taken aback at his outburst, and so he went on, keeping a more conciliatory tone, “Casgin and Kan’il are still injured, in spite of what they, too, seem to think,” he said as the other three walked up, grinning as Casgin sheepishly sheathed his sword and began to unstrap his shield at his words, “Should anything happen upon them on the road, they will need you and Shara.”

“And what good will I be in battle?”

The words, said with such bitterness, stopped Hasfid from saying what he had planned next, and he regarded the recruit more carefully, considering her words.

“You have been trained for battle, Aelith, and deemed worthy, else you would not be with us,” Shara said into the silence that followed her question, putting a hand on the younger ilvar’s shoulder.

“Clearly they were wrong to do so,” Aelith replied, shrugging off the hand as she crossed her arms in front of her, tears shimmering in her eyes once more.

Thinking of how she had froze in the battle with the gal’roth, Hasfid found that, though he desperately wanted to argue with her, he could not. After all, because of the way she had lost her nerve, Falorn was dead.

Yes, there were many other circumstances and decisions that had lead to that unfortunate outcome—Falorn twisting his ankle upon landing foremost among them, in Hasfid’s mind—but had Aelith not stood still for several crucial moments while Falorn desperately fought off the gal’roth, it was likely that her friend would still be alive. Of course, they should never have been put in that position in the first place. There orders had been to simply scout out the village and determine what had happened to the ilvarri there. Once they had determined that it was likely gal’roth, Tarafen should have lead them back to Sildar Istan for further orders.

Instead, the brash captain had lead them in pursuit of the raiders, and as a result of the disastrous battle that followed, a recruit was dead.

As he had when Tarafen had lead Erothel, Illora, Seonid and Teirin in pursuit of Falorn’s killer, Hasfid had argued vehemently against pursuing the marauding creatures, trying to make Tarafen see reason and follow orders. But Tarafen would not be deterred, and so Hasfid had reluctantly followed his orders. After all, despite his greater experience, Tarafen, not Hasfid, was in command of the patrol. His role was to advise, not to lead, and so long as Tarafen had listened to what he had to say, there had been nothing else the sol’ilvar could do without breaking the chain of command, and that the sol’ilvar could not do.

How he regretted that now as he saw the turmoil within Aelith, as he came to better understand her fear—yes, fear—and self doubt.

She had been a promising recruit, he knew. Being Tarafen’s second, he had been there when Falorn and Aelith had been assigned to their patrol, and knew well that they were top in their class when it came to combat, and in knowledge of the forest. All they had lacked was practical experience.

Well, now she had that as well.

She still was a promising recruit, he knew, but only if she could overcome her own self doubt and loathing. It was not anger over Falorn’s death that so provoked her refusal to return to Shara’neth and Esta’Vellan, he saw now

It was guilt.

He glanced at Shara, and saw that she, too, had realized what was truly going on with Aelith.

“Aelith,” he met her wet eyes, and made his voice as soft as he could, “No mistake was made. You were ready—no,” he corrected himself quickly mid-sentence, “You are ready.”

“Then why is Falorn dead?”

Hasfid hesitated, then, carefully choosing his words, replied, “Falorn’s death was unfortunate, and a loss for us all, but it is not your fault.”

“Had I not froze—“

“He still could have died,” Hasfid cut her off, not willing to let her finish the thought. He gripped her shoulders with his hands, forcing her to look at him as she started to turn away, “Falorn’s death was not of your making, Aelith. In battle, you can do everything right, and still lose. Still die. That is the truth of things. There are no certainties in battle.”

“It could have been any of us,” Casgin spoke, the cal’ilvar lifting his wrapped arm as she looked to him, “had I been a second slower, the fireball would have consumed me.”

“And me as well,” Kan’il added, grimacing as he stepped towards her, putting too much weight on his injured leg.

“It is a danger we all face when we leave the walls of our cities,” Hasfid continued, throwing grateful looks to both the injured ilvarri as he saw Aelith considering their injuries—and, more importantly, their words.

“Do not blame yourself for Falorn’s death, Aelith,” Shara added from behind her, the female cal’ilvar’s voice tinged with sympathy.

“But…” Aelith trailed off, blinking tears from her eyes.

“It was not your fault,” Hasfid insisted, anger at Tarafen flaring inside him once more as he saw clearly how Aelith held herself to blame for Falorn’s demise, “If anything, the blame lies with Tara—the shahara,” he barely caught the slip in time.

“The shahara?” Aelith repeated his words, clearly confused, “But he saved me! He tried to save Falorn!”

“Yes, he did,” Shara interjected, her pale blue eyes flashing a warning at Hasfid as she continued, “The blame lies with the gal’roth, not the shahara. Had they not attacked our people, we would not have gone after them.”

Silence followed the black haired cal’ilvar’s statement, and Hasfid met her gaze, seeing the challenge in them. He was grateful she had caught him before he said more, he realized as he thought about it. She had stopped him from saying things that should not be said in front of the recruit. He could see clearly that Shara did not necessarily disagree with what Hasfid had been about to say, but she knew, too, that this was not the time nor the place for that discussion.

“Yes, you are right, Shara,” he nodded his appreciation to her, and she gave a curt nod in response, “Regardless, Aelith,” he turned his attention back to her, “do not saddle yourself with the blame. It is not your burden to bear.”

“If you say so…” she still did not sound convinced, but neither did she argue any more, and so Hasfid knew he would have to be content with that.

For now.

He knew that this would not be the last time they talked of this. The blame most certainly did not lie solely with the gal’roth.

“Now, gather your packs. You are losing daylight the longer you stand here,” he ordered, removing his hands from her shoulders. He was relieved when Aelith moved to follow his command with only the barest of hesitation.

Kan’il and Casgin followed her, moving to where they had all set their packs down beside Falorn’s litter. Shara moved to follow as well, but Hasfid stopped her by grabbing her arm. She turned and looked up at the taller sol’ilvar with an arched eyebrow, pale eyes meeting his dark ones in silent question.

“Watch her,” he instructed quietly, eyes leading hers to Aelith for a moment.

“Of course,” she scoffed, as if insulted that he felt the need to instruct her to.

“She doubts herself.”

“I know,” her grey visage softened slightly, “We will make sure she makes it back safely, Hasfid.”

“It is not her physical well being I am worried about.”

“I know,” she said again, “We all do.”

“She may not recover from this,” he said, voicing his concern aloud in spite of himself.

Shara was quiet a moment, then said, “We have all lost friends in battle, Hasfid.”

“Not like this.”

“No,” she agreed, eyes shifting back to Aelith, who stood watching them intently, though Casgin and Kan’il blocked her from coming back over, “Not like this.”

“They should never have been there,” he began, only to cut himself off as Shara pulled her arm from him abruptly, turning to face him fully.

“Enough, Hasfid,” she whispered angrily, pale eyes flashing again, “You have made your opinions on what went wrong well known,” Shara sighed, then turned to walk away once more, throwing back over her shoulder, “We will watch out for her. You have my word.”

He knew he would have to be satisfied with that, and so said nothing, simply nodding as Shara returned to the others.

Minutes later, the two ilvarri from Sildar Istan had lifted Falorn’s litter and, the others surrounding them, the group of six set off down the trail to Shara’neth, leaving Hasfid behind.

The sol’ilvar watched until they disappeared around a corner in the trail, and stood longer still, staring out into the trees.

Watching, and waiting.

He hoped the others were on their way back even now.

He hoped against hope that Tarafen had not done anything else rash.

The sol’ilvar well knew which direction the gal’roth had been fleeing, first from the burnt remains of Sillar’neth, then from the site of the failed ambush. It had been in the back of his mind during the first pursuit, and then in the forefront of it as he and those under his command had made their tired way back to the safety of Sildar Istan. He had confirmed his suspicion, his fear, on a map within Shione’s office after giving his report.

Holth Adûr.

The creatures had come from that cursed place, Hasfid was sure of it, and had been returning to it when they had been ambushed. The survivor would continue to flee that direction.

Hasfid prayed to Tristus that Tarafen and the others had caught it before it reached the edge of the forest, for if they had not, Hasfid had little doubt that Tarafen would have pursued it beyond the border of Shetna. Given that the others had not yet returned, Hasfid was all but certain that that was what had happened, that Tarafen, Illora, Seonid, Teirin, and Erothel had gone into that fell place.

He fervently hoped he was wrong.

Hasfid shuddered at the thought, and ran a hand through his dark brown hair before turning to reenter the outpost, keenly aware of the eyes watching him from above.

It would not be an easy wait.