He had no doubt they were rear sentries of the army currently devastating Fhenahr. He could hear the discontent in their guttural voices. Though he didn’t understand their tongue, soldiers were the same in any language. He knew their thoughts as well as he did his own.
They milled about, restless, their reddened eyes on each other rather than the trees. They longed for the field, to blood their claws, assured of the safety inherent in their overwhelming numbers. They resented their assignment to the back ranks, far from the glory of battle.
Arrin felt his blood warm. While the Grol soldiers might well be right to presume their main force was shielded by numerical superiority, they were not afforded such certainty.
A grim smile twitched at Arrin’s lips as he drew in a slow, deep breath and crept forward. Staying low, he slipped without sound through the trees toward the rear of the clearing. The collar at his neck trembled, its symbols suffused with a muted, emerald green glow. He could feel its energy coursing mercurial through his body. His smile broadened at the reassuring presence of its power.
Though the Grol outnumbered him easily, they had never faced anyone like Arrin.
Furious at their destruction of Fhenahr, and what he imagined would come next, Arrin felt caution slip to the wayside. He eyed the hunched back of the closest Grol that sat on the stump of a fallen oak. He leapt at the creature before he could rein himself in.
The Grol heard him at the last moment, jumping to its feet as it fumbled for its weapon still in its sheath. Arrin’s blade was a silvered blur, almost invisible in its quickness. He slipped sideways and stepped over the log, past the Grol, heading for the next as the first creature’s neck exploded in a geyser of blackened claret.
He heard the first’s throat sucking air as he buried his blade in the belly of its shrieking compatriot. A twist of his wrist and a sideways tug tore the blade from the second Grol’s gut. Its intestines unraveled with a hissing sigh and put an end to its pitiful screams. Arrin, once again on the move, heard the two Grol crumple to the ground behind him.
The third fared only slightly better. It lurched toward him, black stained claws leading the charge. Arrin feinted with his upper body, as though he would come forward but instead took a half step back, sweeping his weapon in an arc across the creature’s path. The Grol stumbled back with stricken eyes, the squirting stumps of its arms held out before it. Its severed hands, cleaved clean through at its forearms, fell to the mossy earth in spasms.
His rage a palpable heat upon his face, Arrin thrust his sword into the Grol’s eye. It exploded with a muffled pop as the blade slid into the creature’s skull. A gush of blood and pus spewed from the ruined socket and splashed warm across Arrin’s lips and cheek.
He could taste its coppery thickness as he yanked his sword clear and spun about to face yet another of the creatures. It closed on him without confidence, using a blade instead of its claws. Its sword flashed once, twice, Arrin batting it away with contempt both times. As it readied a third attempt, Arrin let his own blade drop low to draw the beast’s attention before scything upward to catch it below its protruding snout.
As if through water, Arrin’s sword cleaved clean through its head. The Grol went rigid as the entirety of its face slid from its skull. It landed on the ground with a wet splash. Its red eyes still projected its rage, not yet realizing it was dead.
The mass of its oozing gray brain squeezed from the opening as though from the gallows trap. It swung upon its stem as the body gave a final, violent twitch and toppled alongside its face.
At that, the rest of the Grol kept their distance, circling Arrin with nervous growls. None looked eager to close the distance. Arrin beamed a goading smile, matched by the eerie glimmer of his collar, and waved them on with a flick of his sword. Drops of blood fluttered through the air, a crimson rain. Still, the Grol stood their ground.
“Cowards! I am but one Lathahn. Have you no heart so far from your lines?” he roared. “Fight me.”
Arrin cursed as he advanced, no longer leaving the choice to them. He swung left toward the sheltering tree line to keep from being flanked and hunted the Grol closest. As he prepared to pounce, he heard a howl erupt in the woods behind him. The Grol in the clearing barked in eager response. Relief flooded their worried eyes. A dozen or more howls erupted in quick succession a short distance away, and Arrin could hear movement through the clustered foliage.
More than willing to stand against a scouting party, surprise on his side, Arrin understood his limitations and what he must do. Though he would take his toll upon the Grol reinforcements that barreled through the woods, he knew not how many approached, the stomp of their feet in the underbrush blurring the accuracy of his count. There was a distinct possibility they would win out in the end by sheer dint of numbers. He could not take that risk.
Malya and his child forefront in his mind, Arrin felt no desire to give his life away. He lunged at the Grol before him, sending it stumbling backward, and dodged into the trees. The path of its fellow soldiers clearly delineated in their rush to get to him, Arrin circled away from their maddened shouts and bolted low through the woods. Leashed as they were to the army at Fhenahr, their chase would end short, discipline reasserted. Arrin knew it would resume soon after though, and with sufficient forces to overcome their fear.
The howls and barks fading into the distance, Arrin sheathed his sword and slowed his pace to collect his thoughts. His adrenaline flickered and he felt his heart begin to slow, its rhythmic thump easing from his ears. He stopped and wiped the foul tasting fluid from his face, and cleaned his hand in the damp dirt.
Assured of what he must do, he took a moment to correct his course by the jagged spine of the mountains and headed off once more through the trees, the collar speeding his steps.
War had come at the flickers of dawn and devastated Fhen. Arrin would be damned if he let the same happen to Lathah.
Chapter Two
Domor awoke to a commotion outside his hut. He wiped the crusted sleep from his eyes, and then crawled to the edge of his feathered mattress to sit up. The brilliant light of morning shined through the cracks in the latticed window. The scuffle of feet and excited voices drifted past.
Curiosity getting the best of him, he got to his feet and leveraged the window open, blinking his eyes against the day’s glare. Out on the dirt path a procession rumbled by, kicking up billows of dust. At first he thought it a funeral, for his people, the Velen, rarely gathered for anything less but to the tending of their fields. After just a moment, he knew it wasn’t so when he saw the cheerful smiles and bright eyes plastered across their obsidian faces. He realized it was something much more, catching the note of almost hysterical excitement in the tone of the crowd.
It was contagious. He rushed to change, casting aside his light sleeping robes for his thicker browns. He tugged the robes over his head, the threads catching on the stubble of his shaved scalp. He slipped on his sandals, tying the leather wraps with sloppy knots, and dashed out the door, foregoing the water basin set beside it.
Outside, Domor caught the tail end of the gathering as it wound its way down the path that led away from the homes of the village elders. The tall, gangly bodies of his brethren blocked his view. It was like peering through dark willow stalks that swayed in the wind, and Domor could see nothing but them.
With a snort, he raced toward the end of the line and began to push his way through. He ignored the muttered comments aimed at him as he bullied his way past, and barreled forward without heed to their complaints. As he drew closer to the center of the procession, he spied a pair traveling in the center of the commotion. All he could see was the silver of their concealing cloaks, but it was clear by their height and their graceful gait they were not of his people.
A chill prickled his arms. His stomach fluttered. It had been decades since the Velen had visitors save for their blood-companions, the Yvir. Cloaked as they were, it was clear these two were not Yvir, which made the mystery even more compelling.
He pushed forward more desperately as the strangeness of it all struck him. He cast a glance about and saw none of the Yviri warriors lurking in the crowd, nor even near it. That alone was curious, and somewhat disconcerting.
A pacifist race, the Velen had found themselves at the mercy of the wild races that savaged Ahreele since they first rose up upon the scared flesh of Ree. Were it not for the strength of the Yvir, the people of Vel would have long ago been dust in the memory of the world.
