“Yes. The water nearby is unfrozen underneath and the Ga-hon-ga and I will have the surface liquid by the time Élivágar arrives.”
Wendy yells across the clearing. “Tewow, we’re good to go. Libby, I guess it’s time for the blood to do its thing.”
Tewow and the Ga-hon-ga near him absently nod as their concentration is turned inward, focusing on the minds of the birds that have kept tabs on Élivágar for the past hour. The birds slowly begin to herd Élivágar towards the clearing. They use forest falcons for close contact as they easily maneuver between the trees and can fly near Élivágar but still stay outside the reach of its venom tipped claws. Ravens and other corvids stay in the periphery as they are intelligent enough to analyze the situation and provide basic tactics, stay on task, and keep other animals away thus freeing Tewow and the Ga-hon-ga to focus more on Élivágar.
“Libby, throw the open bottle of blood as high as you can. I am going to try to push the scent towards Élivágar without letting the wind catch too much of ours.”
“Sure Diego. Here you go.” With that, an unstoppered vial is launched high into the air. Libby then steps in an invisible circle beside Vito and Wendy feels a palpable force raise around them as Tiko activates his bone wards. He didn’t have the time or energy to spare making a one-way ward which would allow the people inside the ward to project out but prevent outside from coming in. His ward is a standard two way, constraining and protecting, which limited the people that can take advantage of the wards to just Libby and Vito. Maddie and Tewow are outside the wards as they need to communicate with the plants and animals and Sepulveda stays near them armed with a slingshot and a pile of limestone.
“Medical masks on, everyone.” Wendy calls out. She puts on hers, then looks to Sully on her left as they place their wooden masks over the medical masks. The oiled wooden masks are traditionally carved with subtle etchings. Wendy’s hints at a feminine cast with a shorter face, wider eyes, and a pale cedar color, all implying the female Mawu of Mawu-Lisa. If Wendy’s mask is the moon, then Sully’s mask of dark wood, a long smiling face, and slightly squinting eyes gives the impression of the bright male sun of Lisa. Sully is to assist her as he was trained to. He’s also at her side as protection, having worked with the Ga-hon-ga to produce limestone shotgun pellets. Then, the Oh-do-was converted his shotgun shells to hold the limestone pellets rather than the typical buck or birdshot. It seems complicated to Wendy, she would’ve just used a slingshot like Sepulveda.
Within a few minutes, the group hears the screeching and kraaing of falcons and forest ravens. They also hear rustling of the recently uncovered dead leaves. Either Élivágar had been nearby or it was a fast runner. Wendy hopes it’s the former as Élivágar bursts through the treeline.
Élivágar seems an innocuous name for such a dark entity. If she had to describe it, it’s the color of black ice. Which is odd as black ice is just a dark surface covered by a thin sheet of transparent ice, so it appears shiny. Nevertheless, the black iced Élivágar has difficult to define edges, either from the darkness of its shape or from the shiny surface blurring the edges. It’s bipedal, but a free-flowing kind that appears to freely form one limb while disappearing another. It doesn’t walk, it absorbs one leg and grows another farther in front, gliding like an amoeba. Wendy can’t tell if it has eyes, there are no whites that she can see so the eyes are entirely black to blend in to its body or it senses them in some other way. Élivágar has a mouth because she can see sickly-yellow sludge drip from what looks like very sharp teeth. That same sludge also drips from the tips of its clawed hands, and like the legs the arms are continually moving and reforming so you can’t anticipate where the claws will be striking from.
After Élivágar arrives at the clearing, Tewow, Maddie, and some of the Jo-gä-oh move to block the path back to forest leaving it with no other choice but the clearing. The group left a wide opening from the edge of the clearing up to the river with Tiko, Libby, and Vito bordering one side of the path and Diego, Sully, and Wendy on the other. The hope is that after cutting off escape back to forest or to the sides as well as preventing Élivágar using the plants to access the underground cave system, it will see the river as the path of least resistance. They want the confrontation to be as short and safe as possible, but it seems Élivágar does not share that wish.
Sensing them there, Élivágar slowly wanders to the center of the clearing. Wendy sees its mouth eerily appearing and disappearing randomly on multiple sides of its head. Much better to have a creature that merely turned its head. Élivágar puts a stop to the birds pestering it, first by growing a huge arm and swiping at the birds creating a large space around it. Then a yellow-green mist erupted from its mobile mouth, bathing the surrounding air with its poison.
“Tewow keep the birds away. I don’t know if the poison will kill them right away, but I doubt it’s safe. Diego, see if you can send the poisonous air over the frozen part of the Run or at least try to keep it away from us and the plants. I don’t know the effects on plants or how long it may linger in the area. Everyone, shallow breaths,” Wendy yells out.
They remain on alert, waiting for Élivágar’s next move. They don’t want to provoke it unless necessary. Suddenly, it blurs, disappearing
