Chapter 6: Return to Dawn

It was spring and new life was everywhere. I glanced at the three elves as I walked, they were here to make a trip to what their people called Dawn’s step. It was an ancient city at least two months to the far northeast where they had first stepped out onto this world. It was long abandoned and almost forgotten by man.

Aveline and I were going along with them. I watched as one lifted his sling for a fat grouse and a stone from Aveline’s struck it. I grinned as he shifted and grumbled while the others laughed softly. We had been gone from Blue Pass for a week and none had been able to best her with a sling.

I stopped grinning and held up a hand at the change in the forest around us. I lifted my bow and notched an arrow, a moment later the worg and rider leaped out from between trees. My arrow sank into the animals throat, another arrow took the orc in the chest as he lifted a horn. They crashed to the ground as I looked around before moving to them.

I pulled a large canine and then began to skin the worg. I rolled the hide as the elves looked around nervously. I smiled and opened a pouch and sprinkled a fine powder around the body. Aveline snorted and then smiled as I shouldered my pack and the rolled pelt. I started walking again and they fell in beside me.

One elf hissed, “Did you have to take the hide?”

I smiled, “Yes. They fear us now more then ever.”

They looked at each other before shaking their heads. It was the first worg we killed and after I cleaned the hide I cut it into a bed roll before tanning it and giving it to one of the elves. Two weeks later we all had new worg fur bed rolls and my collection of teeth was growing. I was tempted to stop when we went by Delf but we continued east.

A week after Delf we turned north to cross the plains. We followed a wide valley that spanned the plains where trees grew tall. Orcs patrolled the valley but did not linger. Once we reached the frost mountains we turned east once more. They were more like large rolling hills than mountains.

A couple of weeks and we came to the Green Marsh and the elves began to lead. The orcs and other foul ones would not venture into this marsh, when they did they never came out. We moved single file through ways that looked like no one could pass. Each evening we slept up in a tree and listened to strange sounds and sometimes screams.

There were lights that floated on the air and under the water. Sometimes when we walked I could see faces of elves in the water. The elves and even Aveline were silent as they walked. She had taken to holding me while we slept in the tress and more than once I heard her quiet sobs. When we walked out of the marsh it was into a forest of huge tall trees.

They stretched so high and spread out so far it was like I was as small as an insect. It felt as if eyes watched us as we walked through the trees but the watcher remained hidden. It was almost dark when we came to the first building. That was when they attacked, rushing out of cover silently with short curved swords.

They walked the pattern but it was different and I pulled my short swords. I slashed and blocked a lunging sword from another before taking the hand and then cutting his throat. They never made a sound while we fought and another took the fallen one’s place. I blocked and slipped swords away.

I slid my right sword around and across towards the other one as my left sank into him under his arm. He fell as I yanked my sword out and blocked a sword with my right and then the left. I parried and suddenly stepped through the pattern to slash open his stomach. I moved towards Aveline who was struggling to keep three from killing her.

One slipped his sword through and stabbed into her chest. She staggered back as I brought one sword down on the back of the neck of one and lunged into the side of another. They fell and the third spun towards me which left him open to Aveline. She took his arm and then stabbed into his neck before rippling her sword free.

I glanced at her, “You okay?”

She nodded and I turned to go help the others, “Remember what I told you about the pattern and fighting through it.”

I lunged and stabbed one in the back as she attacked another. I twisted and blocked a sword and slid another aside before he stiffed as an elf plunged his sword into his back. I moved towards the last two fighting one elf and one turned and swung. I moved aside and deflected his sword before stabbing the point of my other sword through his arm and twisting.

He shifted and opened his mouth but there was no noise. I brought my other sword across and cut his throat before looking around to see them all dead or dying. I knelt to clean my weapons, “Dark brothers?”

The elf close to me shook his head, “Lost ones. After we arrived here they lost their sanity.”

I looked at him and then the others before I finished cleaning my weapons. I went to each and removed the sheathes and star silver short swords. We move camp inside the building and I pushed Aveline’s hands away while I checked her. The faintly glowing scale shirt had stopped the sword but she would have a bruise.

When I was satisfied she would be okay I turned to help with dinner, “Insane people do not work together like they did.”

The elves looked at me and then each other before returning to the task of making the old building into someplace we could defend. I slept lightly with Aveline against my back. I was up before the sun and went outside to watch it rise. Aveline slipped up next to me and sighed, “It is strange but it is almost feels peaceful.”

I gestured to the bodies we had pulled away, “It is a false feeling.”

She nodded and leaned against me until the sun was up. It took two more days before we walked into the large empty city. The wide street was paved with cut stone that led to the other end where there was a huge circle of columns. Inside was grass and a single white stone. Halfway down on the left was a large smooth area with white foot prints.