We did not know. But we learned. They were the creatures out of nightmare, creatures told of in our oldest stories.
They were the Skaalden. And they were death.
—Excerpt found scrawled on the desk of a priest in his chamber before he took his own life.
Dalen had grown up in the woods, had spent practically his entire life there, back before he and his people—led by their two princes—had been forced to flee before the Skaalden. Creatures out of nightmare who healed from any wound, who did not require drink or sleep and who ate nothing save human flesh.
He and his people had tried to fight, of course, but they had not been prepared, had lived long on the land and grown fat from it, spoiled and weak, and so they had been driven from their homes, across the great ocean to this gods forsaken place dubbed “The Known Lands.” Here, they had at first been offered peace by the Fey but then, when the war began, they had been forced to call on the bitter lessons of war, ones taught them at the hands of the unstoppable Skaalden, to defend themselves against the Fey.
It had been over thirty years since they had abandoned their homeland to the Skaalden, over thirty years since Dalen had walked the lands of his father, and his father’s father before him, going back to time immemorable. Yet, he thought of those woods often, and it was only in such a place, in the forests that this new land offered, where he could ever find surcease from the nagging guilt and self-loathing which had plagued him since he and the rest of his people had abandoned their land, their birthright.
But these woods, this forest, known as the Black Woods, were different. There was no peace to find here unless it was the peace of the dead rotting in their graves, and there was no contemplative silence in which a man might consider the world and his place in it. The silence, instead, was a brooding, living thing, as if some great beast regarded him as he made his way through the forest, following the near-imperceptible signs of the man and the youth’s passage. A beast which might, at any moment, rouse itself to action and swallow whole this interloper who dared set foot in its demesne.
There was no love lost between his people and the Fey, that much Dalen knew. When they first arrived, fleeing the Skaalden invasion, the Fey had welcomed them with open arms, had even sympathized with their predicament so much as to offer them lands on which they might live and raise their children. At first, the princes had seemed to accept, and Dalen, along with the rest of his people, had been in a state of terrible relief and wonder. After having their homeland taken from them and seeing so many of their friends and loved ones killed—Dalen’s father among them—it had been almost too much to believe that they would now be given a chance to rebuild, to survive.
The princes, though had seen it differently, and no sooner had they organized a parley, a peace talk with the Fey king, than they had betrayed the magical creatures. Accounts varied on what had actually happened during that feast, one meant to celebrate the new friendship and alliance between mortal and Fey, but what could not be argued was that, at its end, the Fey king was dead, his head forcefully separated from his body.
What followed had been years of bloody struggle and, in the end, after heavy losses on both sides, the mortals had carved out a piece of land for themselves in this place, a piece, as it happened, that was smaller than the one they had originally been offered, pushing the Fey back to what came to be known as the Black Woods.
No, there was no love lost between Fey and mortal, not anymore, whatever bond had once been forming between the two peoples shattered irrevocably at that traitorous meeting, and even had he not known the history, even had he not lived it, still Dalen would know the hatred of the Fey. For he could feel it emanating from each branch and each leaf, could taste it in the air which was crisp with winter’s coming, yet somehow foul and unclean.
And yet, he was here. Here at the behest of his prince, and if that was not terrible enough, then he was forced to confront the fact that he had been sent on the unenviable task of tracking down what was perhaps the world’s most accomplished killer. A man that was known for his brutality and viciousness in battle, for his complete lack of mercy or kindness or anything at all but a thirst for blood that could never be slaked.
Once, in better times, his prince would have never sent him on such a mission, for Feledias had been known by all of his people as the exact opposite of his brother. Kind where his brother was cruel, merciful and warm where his brother was cold as winter’s coming. Wise and compassionate, and Dalen, along with all the rest of his people, had hated only that the man had been the younger of the two and therefore not the brother who would be granted power once their father, the king—who had been aged and sick with the fever that would eventually kill him—passed beyond the veil.
Then, it had happened. In the span of a day or a week—certainly, it had seemed no more than the time it took to draw a breath—something had changed. What that something was Dalen, like the rest of his people, did not know. All he knew for sure was that Prince Bernard vanished, never to be seen again, and Feledias did take over rule of his people. Only, the peace and joy they had expected if such a
