Paul Thompson - Firstborn

Kith-Kanan threw the knife away and stood up. “Who are you?”

“The one who is here. Who are you?” the painted elf said sharply.

“I am Kith, formerly of Silvanost. Why did you attack me?”

“You are in my house.”

Understanding quickly dawned. “Are you Ny?”

“The name of my birth was Anaya.” There was cool assurance in the voice.

He frowned. “That sounds like a female name.”

Anaya got up and kept a discreet distance from Kith-Kanan. He realized she was a female elf of the Kagonesti race. Her black hair was cut close to her head, except in back, where she wore a long braid. Anaya was shorter than Kith-Kanan by a head, and much slimmer. Her green-dyed deerskin tunic ended at her hips, leaving her legs bare. Like her face, her legs were covered with painted lines and decorations.

Her dark, hazel eyes darted left and right. “Where is Mackeli?”

“Out gathering nuts, I think,” he said, watching her keenly.

“Why did you come here?”

“The Forestmaster sent me,” the prince stated flatly.

In less time than it takes to tell, Anaya bolted from the clearing. She ran to an oak tree and, to Kith-Kanan’s astonishment, ran right up the broad trunk. She caught an overhead limb and swung into the midst of the leaves. Gaping, he made a few flatfooted steps forward, but the wild elf was completely lost from view.

“Anaya! Come back! I am a friend! The Forestmaster.”

“I will ask the Master if it is so.” Her clear, high voice came from somewhere above his line of sight. “If you speak the truth, I will return. If you say the Master’s name in vain, I will call down the Black Crawlers on you.”

“What?” Kith-Kanan spun around, looking up, trying to locate her. He could see nothing. “Who are the Black Crawlers?” But there was no answer, only the sighing of the wind through the leaves.

Night fell, and neither Mackeli nor Anaya had returned. Kith-Kanan began to fear that something might have happened to the boy. There were interlopers in the forest, the Forestmaster had said. Mackeli was clever, but he was innocent of the ways of ambush and murder. If the boy was in their hands…and Anaya. There was a strange creature! If he hadn’t actually fought with her, felt the solidness of her flesh, he would have called her a wraith, a forest spirit. But the bruise on his jaw was undeniably real.

Growing tired of the closeness of the hollow tree, the prince cleared a spot in the leaves to build a fire outside. He scraped down to bare soil and laid some stones for a hearth. Soon he had a fine fire blazing. The smoke wafted into the darkness, and sparks floated up, winking off like dying stars.

Though it was summer, Kith-Kanan felt a chill. He held his hands out to the fire, warming them. Crickets whirred in the dark beyond the firelight. Cicadas stirred in the trees, and bats swooped into the clearing to catch them. Suddenly the prince felt as if he was in the center of a seething, crawling pot. His eyes flicked back and forth, following odd rustlings and scrapings in the dry leaves. Things fluttered overhead, slithered behind his back. He grasped the unburned end of a stick of wood and pulled it out of the fire. Dark things seemed to leap back into the shadows when Kith-Kanan brought the burning torch near.

He stood with his back to the fire, breathing hard. With the blazing brand before him like a noble blade, the elf kept the darkness at bay. Gradually the incessant activity lessened. By the time Solinari rose above the trees, all was still.

After throwing the stump of the burned limb back on the dying fire, Kith-Kanan sat down again and faced the red coals. Like a thousand lonely travelers before him, the prince whistled a tune to keep the loneliness away. It was a tune from his childhood: “Children of the Stars.”

The chorus died when his lips went dry. He saw something that froze him completely. Between the black columns of two tree trunks were a pair of red staring eyes.

He tried to think what it could be. The possibilities were not good: wolf, bear, a tawny panther. The two eyes blinked and disappeared. Kith-Kanan jumped to his feet and snatched up a stone from the outside edge of his campfire. He hurled it at the spot where he’d last seen the eyes. The rock crashed into the underbrush. There was no other sound, Even the crickets had ceased their singing.

Then Kith-Kanan sensed he was being watched and turned to the right. The red eyes were back, creeping forward a foot or so off the ground, right toward him.

Darkness is the enemy, he suddenly realized. Whatever I can see, I can fight.

Scooping up a double handful of dead leaves, he threw them on the embers of the fire. Flames blazed up. He immediately saw a long, lean body close to the ground. The advance of the red eyes stopped, and suddenly they rose from the ground.

It was Anaya.

“I have spoken with the Forestmaster,” she said a little sulkily, her eyes glowing red in the light from the flames. “You said the truth.” Anaya walked sideways a few steps, never taking her eyes off Kith-Kanan. Despite this good news, he felt that she was about to spring on him. She dropped down on her haunches and looked into the fire. The leaves were consumed, and their remains sank onto the heap of dully glowing ashes.

“It is wise you laid a fire,” she said. “I called the Black Crawlers to watch over you while I spoke with the Forestmaster.”

He straightened his shoulders with studied nonchalance. “Who are the Black Crawlers?”

“I will show you.” Anaya picked up a dead dry branch and held it to the coals. It smoked heavily for an instant, then burst into flame. She carried the burning branch to the line of trees defining the clearing.

Kith-Kanan lost his hard-won composure when Anaya showed him what was waiting beyond the light.

Every tree trunk, every branch, every square inch of ground was covered with black, creeping things. Crickets, millipedes, leaf hoppers, spiders of every sort and size, earwigs, pill bugs, beetles up to the size of his fist, cockroaches, caterpillars, moths, flies of the largest sort, grasshoppers, cicadas with soft, pulpy bodies and gauzy wings…stretching as far as he could see, coating every surface. The horde was motionless, waiting.

Anaya returned to the fire. Kith-Kanan was white-faced with revulsion. “What sort of witch are you?” he gasped. “You command all these vermin?”

“I am no witch. This forest is my home, and I guard it closely. The Black Crawlers share the woodland with me. I gave them warning when I left you, and they gathered to keep you under watchful eyes.”

“Now that you know who I am, you can send them away,” he said.

“They have already departed. Could you not hear them go?” she scoffed.

“No, I couldn’t.” Kith-Kanan glanced around at the dark forest, blotting sweat from his face with his sleeve. He focussed his attention on the fascinating elf woman and blotted out the memory of the Crawlers. With her painted decorations, grime, and dyed deerskin, Kith-Kanan wasn’t sure how old Anaya might be, or even what she really looked like. She perched on her haunches, balancing on her toes. Kith-Kanan fed some twigs to the fire, and the scene slowly lightened.

“The Forestmaster says you are here to drive away the intruders,” Anaya said. “I have heard them, smelled them, seen the destruction they have caused. Though I have never doubted the word of the great unicorn, I do not see how you can drive anyone away. You are no ranger; you smell of a place where people are many and trees few.”

Kith-Kanan was tired of the Kagonesti’s casual rudeness. He excused it in Mackeli, who was only a boy, but it was too much coming from this wild woman.

“I am a prince of House Royal,” he said proudly. “I am trained in the arts of the warrior. I don’t know who or how many of these intruders there are, but I will do my best to find a way to get rid of them. You need not like me, Anaya, but you had better not insult me too often.” He leaned back on his elbows. “After all, who wrestled whom to the ground?”