Chapter 21

  There is shame in our history.

  The words ran through Hitasa’s head as she saw the mutts drag Dalex over the edge of the cliff. It was not an unfamiliar sight, but this time felt different. Three mutts at once and a fall of indeterminate height. Surely even he could not overcome those odds.

  Dava and his fellow hunters rushed forward, but were far too late to do anything. Hitasa didn’t move. She felt the stillness coming. The words she and Sitoa had drafted together washed over her in a torrent.

  Dignity was our ancestors’ weakness.

  “Behind us, high!” Staja shouted. The young elf pointed somewhere over the tunnel exit, out of Hitasa’s sight.

  “TO ME!” Dava bellowed. “TO ME!”

  He sprinted to Hitasa’s right, and his companions immediately followed after him. Just as they cleared the edge of the cliff, another mutt pounced on the ground they left behind. Had Dava not called them away, it would have crushed both Metsa and Oyuun. Its weight shook the earth beneath Hitasa’s feet, and she let herself fall to her knees.

  Why did she feel like this? Why did Dalex’s impending death bring the text back to her?

  It is all they left for us, so we must make it our strength.

  “Where’s Hitasa?” Metsa shouted.

  “Over there, still in the tunnel,” her son answered.

  “What is she doing?”

  The mutt pawed the ground and turned toward the hunters. It spread its paws wide in a show of intimidation. A low growl escaped its snout, loud enough to vibrate in Hitasa’s chest cavity. And then it saw her, kneeling at the threshold of the tunnel like some sort of supplicant to the beast’s might. But she did not meet its gaze. She just stared past the edge of the cliff towards the far wall of the chamber. The mutt, between her and the cliff, may as well not have been there.

  I would not be anything other than who I am.

  The mutt lunged toward her.

  “Neahthowl means your predator calls!” Dava shouted.

  In response to Dava’s voice, a different roar exploded through the cavern, so loud that it burst one of Hitasa’s eardrums. The world partially muted itself. She had heard the sound once before, far away in the skies over Batulan-bar. It was the voice of a dragon, close and magnified by the claustrophobic space.

  The mutt dropped to a crouch and backed quickly away from the source of the roar. It whimpered in fear. Metsa sprinted to her, a strung bow in one hand with an arrow nocked. With her free hand, the elven matron grabbed Hitasa by the collar and dragged her away from the tunnel mouth toward the other hunters. Hitasa’s feet and hands reflexively kept her from scraping her face on the rocky floor of the cave, but she made it to the group only thanks to Metsa’s strength.

  “Get ahold of yourself, girl!”

  I would not be anything other than an elf.

  Dava held his hammer across his body. Oyuun and Staja assumed firm sword forms. Together they formed a wall between her and the mutts, one of the beasts cowering on their level and two more still above them on another cliff. They had staked a claim to one half of the precipice but were cut off from escape except over the cliff’s edge.

  Metsa let Hitasa fall from her grasp and stood tall, extending her bow and drawing the nocked arrow to her cheek.

  “My arrows darken the eyes.”

  She let the arrow fly. It struck the lower mutt between the eyes, sticking a finger length into its skin. The mutt flinched but did not appear otherwise fazed by the projectile. It pawed at its muzzle, breaking the shaft and leaving the tip embedded. Some of its fear from the dragon roar subsided. It came back to its full height, head shifting to scan the cave for the dragon.

  I will not recount to you the suffering of our people.

  The two mutts above dropped down with rumbling crashes, and the three beasts nipped at each other playfully before turning their attention back to the beastkin and elves. The first mutt with the arrow in its brow resumed its threatening growl and then charged, taking a path that angled to the group’s right side.

  “Left!” Dava called, and the hunters dodged left away from the cliff. Metsa grabbed Hitasa at the last second and threw her toward the cavern wall. The mutt flew by them and slammed into the adjacent wall, crumpling against its face. Metsa’s arrow had done the trick. It couldn’t see them in the darkness.

  Before any of the other mutts could move, Oyuun lifted her sword toward them and shouted, “Fortesse erects a stout wall.”

  The stone of the cavern floor erupted in a long flat barrier. It joined the natural wall next to the tunnel and extended past the cliff face, cutting the two mutts off from their visually impaired packmate. They mutts dragged their claws against the new wall’s face, trying to break through it.

  That suffering has been yours as it has been mine.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “NOW!” Dava shouted, hurling himself toward the lone mutt on the hunters’ side of the wall. It was still trying to get to its feet. Dava led with the hammer and screamed, “This hammer drives a nail!”

  He slammed the face of the hammer into the mutt’s side. The hammer crushed the beast’s ribs and ejected a thin metal rod into its sternum. The mutt howled in pain and tried to kick him away, but Dava dodged back, barely avoiding the swipe.

  Oyuun followed after his attack, shouting, “My sword slashes thrice!” She dragged the blade of her sword across the back right leg of the mutt, cutting a black gash through its fur and skin. Two parallel gashes appeared above and below the slash, and when the mutt tried to stand, its leg buckled, tearing apart at the trio of wounds.

  At the same time, Staja yelled, “My sword is a spear!” and the double edged blade in the young elf’s hands extended into a full-length halberd. He stiffly gripped the shaft and plunged its point into the mutt’s throat, digging around to cause as much damage as possible. The mutt’s howls became wet as it coughed on its own dark blood.

  Metsa, still standing over Hitasa’s limp body, drew her bow back again. “My arrows drive through steel.”

  She loosed the arrow and it slammed into the side of the mutt’s head, disappearing into its skull and piercing the beast’s brain. It jolted and then froze. Its eyes rolled back white and then filled black with blood.

  You carry it every day in your heart.

  “Was that enough?” Staja asked, already panting.

  Just as the question left his mouth, Oyuun’s wall crumbled, and the other mutts crashed through into the hunters’ territory. One swiped at Dava, catching him in the side and sending him flying into the cavern wall next to Hitasa. He hit the rock with a sickening crunch and slumped to the ground.

  Human nobility has cracked.

  Metsa nocked another arrow and drew to her cheek. “My arrows darken the eyes.”

  She loosed it into the rampaging mutt, then drew and nocked another shaft in less than a second. “My arrows stop the nose.”

  When the second arrow struck true, she turned to the next mutt and drew again. “My arrows darken the eyes.” Loose. Draw. “My arrows stop the nose.” She let four arrows fly in almost as many seconds. Then she looped her bow over her head and shoulder and ran to Dava’s broken body.

  They revel in their narcissistic self-righteousness.

  Staja and Oyuun charged the mutt Metsa had targeted. It bore down on Oyuun, and the damekin danced away, swiping with her sword but only managing to nick the beast just above its wrist. Staja took advantage of the mutt’s attention on Oyuun to strike at its other foreleg.

  “My spear is a sword!” he screamed, and suddenly he swung a sword again, hacking through the skin and then the tendons of the mutt’s limb. He hit it once, twice, and then the leg came free from the rest of the body. The beast slouched but kept its balance.

  The final mutt surged forward, knocking its crippled partner aside and bearing down on Staja with its claws. Staja jumped out of the way, but the beast still managed to drag a single claw down the young elf’s thigh. Staja hit the ground with a grunt and immediately rolled away, leaving a trail of crimson blood.

  Our ancestors lost respect for the ferocity and power of an ambitious dragon.

  Metsa laid both hands on the injured Dava. “Wolevelon means my touch mends wounds.”

  A shock ran through the beastkin’s body. He took in a deep breath and expelled it with a hacking, bloody cough. But he did not move.

  Again, Metsa said, “Wolevelon means my touch mends wounds.”

  A second shock hit him, this one less pronounced. His eyes fluttered open, taking in his two subordinates fighting for their lives with the mutts. He grabbed Metsa’s arm. “Hitasa?”

  She pointed in Hitasa’s direction. “Hasn’t moved a muscle. So much for ancient elven words of power.”

  Now, we cannot possibly forget draconic menace and power.

  “Go,” Dava choked out. “Take your son and go. Oyuun will cover you.”

  The truth left to us is that dragon and human domination has uprooted elven kind in a manner that no drake or man cares to understand.

  “I can’t leave you here,” Metsa said.

  “Your people need you. I need you. No one else can prepare Gaia Eta for what’s coming. You can’t die here.”

  Oyuun and Staja fought on, managing to bring one of the mutts to its belly by mangling its back legs. It snapped at them with its massive mouth, coming close to catching Oyuun’s arm and almost biting it off at the shoulder. The mutilated meat of the mutt’s haunches slowly mended itself, filling in gashes and closing puncture wounds. On the other side of the cave, the first mutt—skewered with Dava’s iron rod, its eyes still flooded with blood—moaned and shifted.

  It was not dead.

  We must cultivate new forests and restore old.

  “What can I do without you,” Metsa whispered, her voice barely audible above the howling of beasts and the striking of steel on keratin claw. “What is my cause without its backbone? Without my friend?”

  “You have to try, Metsa,” Dava croaked. “You can’t give up.”

  Hitasa clenched her fist. Sitoa’s word, mixed with her own, reached her heart.

  There can be no room among our trees for the smog of human industry or the fires of draconic greed.

  “Go,” Dava insisted, blood dripping from the edge of his pale mouth. “Go, while you still can.”

  Every elf must recognize him and herself as part of one unified people.

  “… not alone,” Hitasa whispered.

  Metsa’s head came up. She looked back at Hitasa, confused. Metsa’s eyes opened wide. The elven matriarch clearly hadn’t expected to see her fellow elf standing. Hitasa hadn’t expected it herself. A new voice coursed through her mind, neither Sitoa’s nor her own. You know, I can get you paper. I can probably get you more paper than you know what to do with.

  Dalex wasn’t dead. If one mutt couldn’t scratch him when he was already in its jaws, three couldn’t either. A fall off a cliff was nothing for a man who could fly. He still lived, and he could still get her paper.

  “And I am not alone!” She raised her hand to the slowly rising mutt, its injured hindlegs almost fully healed, and said, “Ragnatura means the wrath of the flourish.”

  The ground rumbled. Green sprouts of plant life burst from the rocky floor, growing into thick roots and sturdy branches that snaked over the mutt’s body and wrapped around its torso and limbs. Leaves grew and flowers blossomed all across the spreading garden as it ensnared the beast. When the growth covered its entire body, it squeezed, holding the mutt in place.

  The common health and freedom of Gaia Eta is the common health and freedom of all elves.

  “Leave that one for now,” Hitasa ordered Staja and Oyuun. “Take care of the other two first.” She turned around and crouched down next to Dava, putting a hand on Metsa’s shoulder. “See to your son. I will heal Dava.”

  “What are you–” Metsa began, but Hitasa was already chanting.

  “Cardiameetsa means the forest beats with your heart.”

  More plant tendrils popped from the ground. Green and thin, they snuck up the sides of Dava’s body. Where they found open wounds, they injected themselves beneath his flesh. They wrapped around his broken bones and began to undulate, massaging his fractures through the skin. He groaned and panted, but the color returned to his skin.

  Look to our ancestors to see our victory. They were defeated by their age and their complacency.

  “Go,” Hitasa told Metsa. “Kill the mutts. He will be fine.”

  Metsa stood straight and unslung her bow from her back. She drew an arrow and nocked it, turning toward the battle.

  “I am not alone,” Hitasa whispered to herself. “And I can get paper.”

  What is more aged and complacent than a dragon asleep on its hoard?

  https://www.patreon.com/wjeffersonsmith