Aquila was home to tens of thousands of elves, refugees from the Underworld who were trapped in Xoran after their oppressors, the Lords of Shadow were defeated, and the doorways home were sealed forever. Because of the strong work ethic of the elves and the rich, fertile ground, the elves were rapidly growing their encampments into cities and trying to reacquire their lost culture. Aquila was a port city that was growing rapidly and was founded and governed by House Honor. The elves had also established the cities of Goda and Glaucia. All were in the southwestern tip of the continent of Pyrros. Three years ago, over a hundred thousand men, women, and children were forced through portals to do battle with the humans, Inoans, and Vinkul, only to turn on their evil masters. They endured many hard times, having come to this new land with nothing other than a few crude weapons and the clothes on their backs. Despite this new land’s great bounty, many elves starved or died of exposure in those first few months. They were clever and industrious and soon they were able to make sturdy shelters and collect enough food to sustain themselves. In three years, they had built farms and smiths, ranches, and factories. They followed the example of the humans who had saved them, taking family names and forming ‘royal’ lines.

Iovita Honor led a troupe of soldiers through the light forest that surrounded the base of Mount Deja. The elves had not been accustomed to riding horses, but they quickly learned the value of being mounted and obtained several thousand head from various Inoan tribes in exchange for intricate manufactured items.

Iovita was the third in her family to attain the title ‘knight’. Like most elven women, she was tall, nearly six foot tall. Breaking with tradition, she dyed her hair jet black. Her raven locks clashed with her pale skin and ruby lips. Her ears were not as long as some of her kind and flared up and back like the wings of a sparrow. She wore bronze-plated steel armor, making it look like she was encased in dull, unpolished gold. She was covered neck to toe in plate, elven style was to have the armor as form-fitting as possible. Most elven women were slight of figure, but her curves were immortalized in metal and made every man who saw her wonder at the treasure beneath. She had sharp edges at all of her joints, knees, elbows, and feet. The sword she carried was unique, a masterpiece of elven design. Though only a longsword, the hilt was long enough to accommodate a two-handed grip. The cross guard had long spikes that could be used as sword-breakers and the blade was long and jagged instead of a straight line from hilt to point.

Lady Honor had been sent with twenty soldiers to investigate a disturbance on the road between her city of Aquila and the inland city of Glaucia. The three cities were laid out in a triangle in the southwestern most part of Pyrros, between the Vinkul country Sicerra and the forbidden territory of Linor. The Inoans were not happy to have more of their great plains made off-limits to them, but in the end, there was not much that they could do about it. Many conflicts had arisen as the Inoan hunters wandered into lands that were now claimed. She thought that it might be more of the same, and a small show of force might be enough to put down whatever the disturbance was.

Coming down the road in their direction, they saw hundreds of elves fleeing on foot. Iovita urged her troops to ride faster and meet the terrified crowd. They looked relieved to see armed soldiers and knights coming, but that didn’t stop their flight.

“What do you run from?” she asked.

“Creatures most foul, milady!” a woman said, fear quite evident on her face.

“Tell me more! We’ve come to face whatever it is that threatens you.” The elves kept flowing around her, and she ordered a couple of her men to stop and question a few of the terrified townsfolk.

“We were walking along, heading towards Glaucia when the sky grew dark, and clouds nearly blotted out the sun. A chill wind swept across the fields, making the tall grasses look like waves on an ocean. We became wary, not sure how the weather could turn so quickly. Then there was a howl, the kind that cuts to the very heart.” The middle-aged elf hugged himself at the chill that was drifting in their direction. “A mournful sound, the sound of pain and suffering, but also the sound of menace. Men, women, and children were all affected, filled with an all too familiar terror. Then we saw it…”

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Iovita shook the man violently, “Speak man! What is it that you saw!”

“It was Nigide!”

Iovita was as shocked as her men. A frigid blast came from the direction that they had come, chilling everyone to the bone.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“No one has seen him for thousands of years, but it was he,” the man said, shivering.

Iovita thought for a moment, then turned to her second in command, “Assist the evacuation. Get these people out of here and we will guard their retreat,” she commanded.

Pulling her sword, she waited with a dozen of her squad. The wind increased in strength and the chill became biting. They could not explain it, but each of them shivered and felt as if insects were covering every inch of their skin. An unexplainable feeling of dread possessed them. The howling sound that they had heard before was now louder and they knew that what caused it was very close now. When their tension, their unease was at its greatest, the thing shambled out of the mist. When they saw it, they all knew that the frightened townsperson was correct. It was the elven god of death.

Nigide looked like the giant rotting carcass of a beast. He was more than twenty feet tall, thick through the chest which was comprised of a mostly hollow rib cage, and thin through the lower torso and legs. Patches of flesh and fur clung to his dirty gray bones. Great, long horns extended from his nearly bare skull, and furry long elven ears stuck straight out from his head. He had hollow eyes in his rotting, bony skull. His evil buffeted them from a hundred feet away, crushing them all under a tremendous weight of fear.

Iovita held forth her sword, painfully aware that her shaking did not convey the threat that she wanted. A majority of her soldiers ran when they saw Nigide, their sense of stealth was gone, and they crashed through the woods in the direction they had all come from. Some of her soldiers and one of her knights were suffering under the wave of fear, the sense of horror that permeated all of their beings. They curled up on the ground, their weapons and their duty forgotten. Strong elves clutched at their temples and one of them gouged out his own eyes to escape the terror he felt.

The god took a huge lumbering step towards them, directly at Iovita. His hollow maw opened, fangs sticking out of the dusky-colored jawbone. She looked down its gullet into absolute darkness. The evil god turned his eyeless sockets to her and leaned in, within a half dozen feet of her and her outstretched sword. A terrible sound issued from the black hole in its throat. The creature’s cry shook them all, vibrating their very bones and causing those who were closest to bleed from the nose, eyes, and ears. She felt like her head would explode and her eyes went white before she passed out.

The lady wasn’t sure how long she’d been unconscious, but the sun had that quality to it, that touch of light that softened the darkness and hinted at the dawning of a new day. Her head felt like a melon that had been thrown onto a paving stone with force, her mouth was dry, and her vision was blurry at best. She needed water for her dry, scratchy throat, but her canteen had been with her gear on her horse’s back and there were no horses anywhere in sight. She could feel dried blood on her face and a bump was forming on the side of her head and towards the front. She assumed that is where she hit the ground after losing consciousness.

One of her knights and a few soldiers were in a similar condition. The ground was littered with the corpses of those who, for whatever reason, were more susceptible to Nigide’s terror attack. She touched the necks of several of her men, finding them cold and dead for many hours.

“It looks like we lost all of our horses,” she remarked.

“Tracks led back the way we came, milady,” one of her Keshet said. He was a second cousin of hers. “Maybe horses have more sense than elves.

“I think we’re lucky to be alive.” She looked at the devastation. “We must bury our dead and then let us start walking back. This place must be put off limits to everyone.”

“Are you certain, my dear?” Lord Honor asked. He had every confidence in his daughter, but the idea of Nigide flying off the pages of a mythology book and coming to life seemed unbelievable.

“I lost more than half the men I took with me, and almost lost my life, father.” She loved her father, but even before becoming a knight, she was not very accepting of criticism and didn’t like having her word questioned.

“So, you want me to close the main highway between Aquila and Glaucia? That’s going to be a huge drag on our economy. Making a new road around that forest will cost us a ‘literal’ fortune.”

“Be that as it may, it is unsafe to travel that road. If you care about your knights and soldiers, you will bear the cost and commission a new road.”

“That’s easy for you to say, dear daughter. You’re no shirker, to be certain, but you’ve never worked to create anything near what I’ve created here in this new world.”

“I’m nearly one hundred years old. I have labored for the Lords of Shadow for decades, and for you, my whole life. On my honor, and as that is our family name, you will know that what I say now is incontestable. Anyone who passes through that stretch of road will be attacked and like my party, many will die without reprisal on the creature!”