Kaille woke up alone in the evening light, body sore with bruises.
It took his mind a few seconds to start its rusty cogs, to remember what transpired earlier that day, or so he thinks.
Hoisting himself to standing with a frantic fervor, he picks up his bow, thankfully unhurt from the fall, and begins sprinting back towards his village.
He needs to warn them, of this…thing that somehow survived an arrow through the eye.
Rushing through the trees in a hurry his feet yet soar lightly over the ground, making a barely perceptible sound which one could mistake for the natural rustling of leaves and wind.
Within barely less than an hour he dives under the guard post that is well hidden in the trees above, ladled with sweat and continues towards the chieftain’s house still decently fresh.
Though he abruptly stops when turning a tree and collides into a figure pinchusioned by arrows.
Skewering himself with the notches of a few arrows, he winces in pain before standing up, stumbling away from the figure, almost slipping on the pool of blood slowly seeping into the grass.
“Kaille, watch out, that thing isn’t elf!” Korrian, his elder brother warns from the trees.
Nodding with dreading realization, he backs away from the slowly shifting figure as it tries to stand up.
As it does, a disheveled volley of arrows comes striking down, breaking upon the ones already stuck due to the sheer density of arrows already there.
“Hold!” The guard leader, his elder brother Korrian shouts towards the nervous and sick-looking members of his guard. Some even are flat out unconscious; their minds unable to fathom the reality of such a thing and simply giving out on them just like Kaille’s.
Many were young, yet some were still of a venerable age, but Kaille knew none could confess to seeing something like this before.
The figure, finally stood, breaks the arrows off where its mouth supposedly is and says something unintelligible in a surprisingly gentle voice.
“Stop where you are!” Korrian shouts in Elvish, drawing his bow, along with many others to promote his warning.
Seemingly, the figure understands and raises a mass of arrows in the air, possibly his arms.
While all wait with bated breath, holding their bows drawn with barely a twitch, Kaille rushes up a tree using the natural juts the tree to aid him.
After a minute of climbing, he makes it up, the last leg of the way helped by his brother as he pulls him up, before giving him a quick clap on the shoulder, before getting someone to bandage his little brother up.
The rest keep their bows drawn and aim at the thing, all waiting for something to happen, Kaille had no idea.
Though luckily his wait was not long, as their Chieftan and father, Veinor, walked onto the main guard platform, looks perturbed towards the figure.
The figure speaks in its strange language and oddly enough, Veinor responds in the same language, acting oddly peacefully.
All look towards him strangely.
“It is the common tongue, one spoken by humans mostly” He explains to all, not only the guards nearby, but the many families who wait, bows at the ready in case they’re needed.
Human?
Kaille was estranged by the word, for their village was far on the eastern edge of Caniia, near the orcs which were their only visitors and as such only the learned or very old residents knew of these so called humans
Again Veinor spoke in the common tongue, starting a conversation with the bundle of arrows, all his fear showing deeply in his eyes but not on his body.
The figure inside the arrows starts breaking them off one by one as he chatters calmly with the chief. Some thought the figure didn’t even notice pain since it kept pulling arrows out without the slightest bleep in his conversational tone.
Veinor finally ended the conversation and turned towards as many elves as he could see.
“This man is a priest and says he comes to bring no harm. He is allowed to stay the night and then he will be on his way” He announces lightly to the hidden crowd, although his face holds a more serious tone of deep thought.
With sluggishness befitting his old age, he beings hobbling back, drained, towards his small treehouse.
“Little brother” Korrian places a hand on his shoulder and sighs. “Since you failed on your duties as watchman, you’re going to be on watch with Layenna to make sure ‘that’-” He points towards the figure which is becoming more shapely as more blood soaked arrows are removed. “Doesn’t try anything”.
Kaille gives a curt nod and salutes, while his brother, checking the coast is clear gives him a gaudy, yet sneaky, wink.
Dammit, why do you do this brother?
Concentrating on keeping his flushing cheeks down, he approaches Layenna.
“So, seems like we’re partners” The words barely escape his twisted tongue “for the night, the watch of course” He mentally berates himself for being such a dollop.
“You alright?” The blonde haired maiden with a small line of freckles running across her petite nose and slightly bony cheeks, tilts her head in concern, showing off her long pointed ears.
“J-Just shaken up that’s all” He forcefully sits himself down cross-legged shutting himself up and concentrating on keeping his face the usual tanned colour.
She quickly joins him in cross legged seating, emerald green eyes peering down in both horror and curiosity towards the figure.
Catching himself staring, but thankfully she does not, he quickly corrects himself and looks towards the ‘human’ seeing that he is wearing a white top and white shorts, both magically unharmed.
The man itself is fine, with no visible puncture holes in sight, even to his keen elven sight.
“Just what is he?” A small gasp of both surprise and disgust brush out of Layenna’s small yet still quite full lips.
“A human” He responded fearfully, his mind filled to the brim with fantasies of these ‘humans’ and how they are all like the one on the forest floor right now.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
Once again, they lapsed into silence, watching the man stretch out and without a single care in the world, fall to sleep, using a large red tome with black pulsating lines as a head rest.
“Do you think he’s with the orcs?” Layenna once again starts the conversation, eyes flickering towards him before concentrating back on the man with a gleeful and sleepy smile on his face.
“No” Kaille somehow believed that, since the chieftain did not immediately ask them to kill him, not that they hadn’t tried, but nonetheless.
“Why not?” This time she looks at him, emerald eyes brimmed with concern and gazing into his own, her breath almost impercievable, as if she’d forgotten to breathe.
“Erm erm” He stammers for a second, lost in her gaze “Because the chieftain didn’t ask us to kill him!” Pumping out enthusiasm to drown out the other feeling, he gets a little too enthusiastic and his legs start shivering, although his nervousness helps influence it somewhat.
She doesn’t seem to care about his nervous and energetic shivering of his leg as she touches it, leaning slightly towards him as if interested by the conversation, yet offering no reply, just staring into his eyes, silent and almost breathless.
Heart thumping, he begins to blabber.
“But he c-cou-” His stammering is quickly cut off by her lips sealing his and instinctively he pulls her closer, feeling the warmth of her body on his chest and her small hands cupping the back of his head.
Closing his eyes, entranced with the swirling butterflies in his stomach and wrestling tongues in his mouth, he loses himself to the feeling.
Layenna quickly follows suit, but not after clenching her fist in delight; for she had finally gotten over her nervousness and done the first move.
In a distance away from the young, heated bubble of naïve passion that moaned through the night, was Korrian, drinking some fresh brandy with a smug smile on his face.
“Ah nothing like the sound of young love” He chuckles to himself and continues his nights watch since he knows those two are busy with other tasks.
…
Morning came soon enough and when the sun rose, so did the human, who stood up and yawned almightily which should wake up most of the small village.
However quite a few had been woken up early by the quite foreseen activity between the two official watchers.
Food quickly made their way around the village and many started scrunching on their fruits while peering down at the human, who was waving up towards them and rubbing his stomach.
Most just looked unbelieving at whatever the hell this ‘human’ is, since he had recovered full from all those arrows and was just casually asking for food.
They had all seen many horrors and strange things in their time, but nothing so terrifying and bizarre as this.
Korrian, making a quick decision, brought his breakfast; a bowl of fruit, down to the man, handing it to him, suppressing the mountain of fear that bridled inside him.
The chieftain seemed accepting of the man in the least and therefore so should he.
Everyone held their breath as the man reached out towards Korrian, moving past the bowl slowly and then suddenly grabbing a single berry, popping it into his mouth, accompanying the swallowing with a delighted sound.
He then motions at the bowl and then Korrian himself, repeating the gesture another time till he gets the message.
Oddened further by the strange man, Korrian climbs back up and eats the rest of his breakfast, while observing the man closely for signs of hunger.
Surely enough, the man seemed hungry by the sound of a rumbling stomach, but a hard, merciless punch to said stomach quietened it down somewhat.
“Veinor” The man spoke abruptly, speaking the name of Korrian’s father in elvish, striking everyone dumb with surprise for a second.
Quickly someone runs off to bring the chieftain while the rest try to go about their morning activites, but are too distracted by the strange being called a ‘human’ of which still no one had been told anything about the matter.
Although Korrian knew that the chieftain and the other leading members of the village had discussed the matter at length last night.
He was not able to hear the words due to the thick walls, but he is lucky to be situated so close to the chieftain’s house that he was able to hear hushed voices speaking throughout the night.
The chief pops into sight, his bony face and untrusting eyes peering down towards the man.
Once again they start conversation.
However merely a few words are said before a guttural roar comes from the forest to their east.
Following the sound came a small horde of green skinned, crazy axe wielding monsters that stood seven feet tall and as wide as even three elves, all charging with froth dripping from their tusked jaws.
They were spotted quickly while still at a distance, but were quickly closing in on the village hidden in the trees, obviously coming for them and not just running past in search of something else.
What the hell are they doing here?
“PREPARE FOR BATTLE” Korrian screams from the top of his lungs as he drops the bowl of fruit off the edge of the tree house and scrambles into his house, collecting his bow and sword, abandoning the leaf armor due to the time it takes to put it on.
Rushing out his house and standing facing the east, the small horde reaching three hundred feet, firing distance.
“FIRE AT WILL” With a war cry, the slaughter began.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Corner:
Hey and welcome to the new mini-arc; Elves!!!!
Right, hope you're enjoying the chapter so far as more is to come!!!
Also thank you whoever's reviewed, it's always nice to see my rating trickle up :D
-TRUE NORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD