The Hollow: At The Edge (10 page)

Brant stopped so
suddenly, Serrel only just avoided walking into him. He kicked
himself for being so clumsy. Brant pointed up at the trees, where
Serrel could just make out the form of an elf crouched in the
branches, a bow in hand. The elf was staring back at the camp,
watching the argument.

Serrel waited, tense
and on edge. He stared back and forth, trying to keep an eye on the
sentry, the camp and the surrounding forest all at the same time.
He noticed Brant’s lips moving silently as he counted to
himself.

Serrel didn’t want him
to finish counting. He didn’t like sitting there in the dark forest
listening to elves snarling at each other like animals, but he
dreaded what was about to happen. To make matters worse, a pained
scream suddenly rent the air, emanating from the camp. Serrel heard
the words, “Oh, Gods-,” then there was a wet ripping noise, and
silence fell.

Then the elves started
laughing.

“Oh, close enough,”
said Brant. He stood up, bow string pulled back, and fired at the
sentry. The arrow hit the elf right in the side, going up and under
the ribcage. The elf let out a surprised grunt, and lost balance.
He fell from the tree, bouncing off several branches before hitting
the ground with a loud crash.

The laughing stopped.
One elf started shouting, just as Caellix and her dogs burst into
camp, and the elf went down with a thrown axe stuck in its
head.

Brant turned and
charged at the camp. Without thinking, Serrel rose and ran after
him. Brant quickly pulled ahead, his arm reaching back to pull out
another arrow. As he reached the edge of the camp, Serrel saw
something move in the shadows. He saw the elf appear, a small
curved knife in its hand. The elf pulled back its arm and threw the
knife towards Brant, who spotted it too late.

Serrel lifted his
staff, and dropped a shield over the top of Brant. It covered him
like a dome, and just in time. The knife bounced off and went
flying, just as Brant slammed face first into the invisible barrier
and went sprawling on the ground.

The elf spun to face
Serrel, yanking an axe from its belt. Serrel let the shield
dissipate, and pointed his staff at the elf. It managed one step
towards him, as he weaved the ether into a bolt of pure energy and
fired it from his staff.

The trees were lit up
green as the blast of energy shot from the end of his staff and
struck the elf in its midsection. There was a loud crack as it
impacted, then the elf was flung backwards, its raggard clothes on
fire, and its flesh a smoking ruin.

Serrel didn’t pause, he
turned back to the camp as Brant scrambled to his feet. Inside the
camp the fighting was furious. Two elves lay dead on the ground as
the others fought for their lives. Brant leapt into the fray,
throwing his bow aside and pulled a sword from his back.

Caellix and Dogbreath
were wading into their opponents with swinging axes. The two dogs
were circling one elf together, dashing back and forth, biting and
snapping at it as the elf slashed its claws and snarled at
them.

Claws, Serrel realised.
Some of the elves had weapons, crude looking and improvised, with
handles made of bone, but they all had claws and fangs. Several of
the elves fought unarmed, swiping at their opponents with their
claws, ducking and weaving to avoid being struck before dashing in
to strike.

He saw the dogs take
down their target, Vost biting into the elf’s leg and taking it to
the ground, as Ripper lunged at its throat. He noticed Holly
fighting an elf on the opposite site of the camp to him, knife in
one hand and a short sword in the other. Her opponent was faster
than her, and dodged her attacks easily, and with a flurry of
swipes had her backed against a tree.

Serrel lifted his staff
and sighted at the elf, when he heard the twig snap behind him. He
spun, weaving a shield over himself, just as another elf pounced at
him. It was the sentry Brant had shot. Serrel saw the arrow
sticking out of its side as it smashed into his shield. Its claws
slid across the barrier, drawing green streaks of light in the air.
It came at him again and again, roaring like an animal as it tore
and hammered at his shield in a frenzy, every impact sending a
shudder through Serrel’s staff.

Out of the corner of
his eye, he saw Holly and the other elf still fighting. He saw the
elf duck under a wild swing, and kick Holly in the back of her
legs, sweeping her off her feet and dumping her on the ground. It
rose ready to deliver a killing blow.

As his own elf threw
itself once more at his shield, Serrel let the barrier fade away.
The elf’s claws passed harmlessly through the air. It had been
expecting resistance, and the strength of its intended blow sent it
twisting to its left, unbalanced. Serrel ducked under its arm, and
lashed out with his staff. He felt the wooden shaft impact into
flesh, and the elf growl in pain. Then he turned, and fired a blast
of energy at the elf attacking Holly.

He hadn’t had time to
aim, but the bolt of energy hit it in the arm and spun it around.
Holly took advantage of the moment and hacked at its legs with her
sword.

Serrel turned back to
his opponent, and leapt backwards with a yelp of surprise as the
elf came at him again. He heard cloth tearing as its claws raked
the front of his coat. Without thinking, he weaved the ether into
fire, and let the gout of flame shoot from the end of his staff and
engulf the elf.

The elf screamed and
threw itself backwards, giving Serrel enough room to raise his
staff and fire off a bolt of ether energy. The bolt struck the elf
in the shoulder, and twisted it around. The elf rolled with the
impact, spinning and twisting in the air like a cat, before landing
on all fours on the ground. It bared its teeth and snarled at
him.

Serrel levelled his
staff at it. “Don’t,” he warned.

The elf glared at him.
Its eyes were a bright green with slitted pupils. They shone like
an animal’s in the light of the camp fire. Its muscles tensed.

“Don’t,” Serrel
repeated.

It lunged, but barely
left the ground before Serrel fired. The bolt of energy knocked it
back down into the earth. It tried to right itself, but Serrel
fired again. Then again, and again, and again, until the elf
stopped twitching and looked like a blackened mass of scorched
meat.

He looked back in time
to see Dogbreath and Caellix hack the final defiant elf to death
with their axes.

Apart from the
crackling of fire and the panting of the two bloody dogs, there was
silence. Caellix looked about the group, her face splattered with
elven blood.

“Anyone hurt?” she
asked.

“I’m fine,” panted
Brant.

“Just a scratch,” said
Holly, tying a piece of cloth around her arm as a temporary
bandage.

Caellix looked over at
Serrel, who was staring into space. “Fresh Meat? You still
alive?”

She looked down at his
chest and frowned. Serrel followed her gaze, and saw he had four
neat slashes in the front of his coat. Underneath, his leather
jerkin had matching scrapes across its surface, but had kept his
flesh protected.

“I’m all right,” said
Serrel. He paused. “Um... Sorry, but I think I might need a
moment.”

With that, he turned
and vomited violently against the side of a nearby tree.

Dogbreath laughed.
“Finally mussed up that pretty uniform, heheh.”

Serrel stayed doubled
over for a while, until there was nothing left in his stomach to
void. When he glanced to his left, he saw the remains of the cooked
elf he’d killed, and dry heaved again. It took him a while for his
head to stop spinning, then he forced himself back upright, and
went to the elves’ camp.

The others were
searching the bodies for anything useful. Caellix pulled a crude
axe from one elf’s corpse. It was crudely made, with a rusty iron
head and a handle that had previously been someone’s thigh
bone.

“Hey, I found a live
one!” said Dogbreath happily.

He dragged a struggling
elf into the light of the camp fire by one leg. It clutched at its
stomach, where there was an awful lot of blood, and possibly a lot
worse, seeping through its claws. The elf growled weakly at Caellix
as she stood over it, hefting the crude Ferine axe in her hand.

“How many more of you
are there?” she asked it.

The elf attempted to
roll over, and Dogbreath kicked it viciously back down.

“I’m not going to
repeat myself,” warned Caellix.

“
Hilae va
snaer
!” the elf sneered at her. It’s voice was quite high
pitched, and Serrel realised that it was a woman.

“Huh?” said
Dogbreath.

“Don’t ask me,” replied
Caellix. “It sounded rude though, whatever it was.”

This was the first elf
Serrel had managed to get a good look at. She wasn’t what he was
expecting. What little clothes she wore were raggard and filthy,
covered in dirt and blood and gods only knew what else. Her skin
was hardly any better. Dark hair hung in filthy clumps over her
face, but Serrel could see she had the same eerie green, shining
eyes as the elf he’d...

He forced that thought
away. He didn’t want to think about that right now.

“If you aren’t going to
be polite,” said Caellix, “this is going to go hard for you.”

“Bitch,” the elf
replied.

“That I understood,”
said Dogbreath.

“I am Ferine,” the elf
went on. “You will get nothing from me. I will die free!”

Caellix regarded her
coldly. “That works for me.”

Serrel turned away as
Caellix swung the axe into the elf’s head. He heard the crack of
bone, and forced himself to take a deep breath.

“See if there’s
anything left we can take,” Caellix said aloud, as though nothing
had happened. “Fresh Meat, if you aren’t going to faint, make
yourself useful.”

“I found our man,” said
Holly in a low voice.

They joined her at one
end of the camp, where several bodies were piled up. They
recognised the green Legion uniform on a boy barely older that
Serrel.

“Sorry, Private,” said
Holly.

Caellix looked at the
boy’s face. “He’s been dead for hours. We couldn’t have saved
him.”

“Then... who was
screaming?” asked Serrel.

A quick search turned
up three more bodies, not Legion. They were clad in white clothes
that was covered in dirt, their hands and ankles bound together,
with sacks pulled over their heads as makeshift hoods. Two of the
bodies were ripped open, lying on blood soaked earth, the third lay
unmoving.

Caellix pulled the sack
from the head of the first body. Serrel saw bloodstained blonde
hair, and pointed ears.

“Guess we finally found
our mysterious elves,” said Caellix.

“Not much of an army,”
commented Dogbreath.

“Why kill them? They’re
elves as well,” said Serrel.

“They look like
prisoners,” said Caellix. “Whoever they were, they weren’t friends
of the Ferine. Come on, let’s-”

Unexpectedly, the third
body groaned and said in a weak voice, “Hello?”

The group fell silent.
Then Caellix reached over and tore the hood off the body. The elf
underneath blinked in the sudden light. He had matted white hair
stained with blood and dirt, and strange eyes that were so light
they were almost white in colour. His pupils were slitted, like a
cat’s.

The Hounds and the elf
regarded one another warily.

“Are you... Legion by
any chance?” the elf asked.

“What else would we
be?” replied Caellix.

The elf took in the
woad covering their faces, the huge grinning face of Dogbreath, the
scarred and dreadlocked sergeant, and the two dogs sniffing at his
bound feet and drooling.

“Norwen raiders with a
very poor sense of direction?” he suggested tentatively.

“Close, but no. We are
Legion. And just who in the hell are you suppose to be?”

“My name is Dhulrael
Halvaenas. And if you are Legion is there the possibility that you
are not going to kill me?”

“There’s always a
possibility, yes. A rather slim one, though. Why does your name
sound familiar to me?”

“Perhaps you have heard
it before. Would you be able to cut me loose?” the elf asked.

Caellix stared at him a
rather long time. Then she nodded to Brant. “Try anything, and I
will feed you to my dogs.”

The elf glanced at
Ripper and Vost, who started wagging their tails in anticipation.
“Understood,” he said.

Brant pulled a knife,
and cut the elf’s bonds. He darted back a safe distance as the elf
sat upright.

“Thank you.”

“You haven’t answered
my question, Dhulrael Halvaenas,” said Caellix. “Who are you? Why
did the Ferine take you prisoner?”

Dhulrael ignored her,
and instead turned to the bodies of the two other elves. He lowered
his head sadly, and muttered something in his own language.

“Oi, Pointy,” Dogbreath
nudged him roughly with his boot. “We asked you a question.”

Dhulrael sat with his
head lowered and his eyes closed for a moment, then he slowly stood
upright. He stood at least a head taller than all of them. Serrel
found himself gripping his staff tightly.

“If you are Legion,
then you are no doubt here because of the events in Vollumir,”
Dhulrael said. “In which case you would have heard my name
mentioned several times. I am... at least I
was
the
Patrician of Vollumir.”

“You have any proof of
that?” asked Caellix.

Dhulrael rolled up his
left sleeve to reveal a complex elven design tattooed on his
forearm. “This is the mark of office they gave me when I was
elected.”

“You think I know what
that’s supposed to look like?”

“Oh. Of course. I did
have the Patrician’s Seal on a chain around my neck, but the Ferine
took it from me when they captured me. So, no, I suppose I do not
have any proof of my identity. My apologies.”