James Barclay - Rise of the TaiGethen

Auum pushed the body aside and bounced up onto his left foot, forced to leave the right one trailing. His stance was awkward, leaving him feeling clumsy. He smashed an elbow into the face of the second warrior and threw a jaqrui at the nearest mage, seeing it deflected by a buckler thrust out instinctively and fly up into his target’s face.

Auum hopped to the right, his left foot kicking down briefly but tellingly on the second warrior’s throat before he landed on solid ground. The remaining three rushed him. Behind them, two mages began to prepare castings and he could hear others racing in from the left and right. The attacking men slowed, seeing him crippled. They spaced out, intending to give him no chance.

Auum focused on the central figure. Clean-shaven and fresh-faced, he was a young man of little experience if the way his grip shifted on his sword was any guide. Auum watched him come in, striding quickly, confident in his chances against an injured elf.

Auum snatched a jaqrui from his belt and hurled it at neck height. The young man ducked. Auum flexed his left leg and jumped high, kicking out straight as he rose, catching the soldier on the top of his head and sending him sprawling backwards. The other two were running at him. He threw his blade at one, missing, and dragged out his other as he landed.

Auum turned to his left. He had little time. In his peripheral vision the mages had completed their preparations and Auum asked Yniss to preserve his soul. Auum dived headlong, his sword thrust out ahead of him, hoping he might evade whatever spells were coming.

His blade skewered the soldier in the gut. Auum’s body thumped into his as it fell and the two of them tumbled in a heap. The dying man landed on top of Auum’s injured leg. Auum screamed and tried to shove him off, scrabbling back and fighting a rising nausea. A mage appeared above him, his palm open to reveal blue fire growing within. The mage reached down towards Auum’s face.

A keening sound split the noise of the skirmish and the mage jerked, blood bursting from his mouth and flooding down his neck. He fell to the side, plucking at the jaqrui lodged just beneath his ear. TaiGethen hurdled Auum’s body as men called out frantically. Auum saw Ulysan poleaxe a warrior with a massive punch to the chin and Elyss ram a blade under his ribs.

A spell was cast. Brief flame shot out and Illast leapt, turned in the air above the flame and kissed back down to the ground, his blades already coming across his face in their killing strikes. Auum could hear swords clash further away. He heard more jaqrui sing through the air and a man howled briefly in agony. Running footsteps dwindled away into the forest and the last human voices faded away.

The dying human was pulled from atop Auum and his neck broken. Ulysan reached down a hand and Auum took it gratefully.

‘This is becoming a habit,’ he said. ‘Faleen’s after the others.’

‘I thought I told you all to run,’ said Auum.

Ulysan smiled and rubbed an ear theatrically. ‘Did you? Damned explosion must have left me half deaf because I’d never knowingly defy one of your orders.’

‘May Yniss keep your hearing muted, Ulysan,’ said Auum. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

The assault on Serrin’s sense of smell fed directly from his Claw and it was truly vile. He was travelling with eight pairs, tracking the human army and dreaming of their blood on his lips.

But this stink had driven all other thought from his mind. The air was laden with a multitude of scents: burned wood, ash, seared flesh and boiling sap just a few among them. Dominant, though, were the twin odours of magic, which hung heavy on the ground caught in the leaf litter and undergrowth, and elven blood, a great deal of which had been spilled.

Serrin walked into a blackened clearing and knew that much of the guilt rested with him. His Claw sampled the ground, finding a charred, fused crater smothered in the remnants of magic and the ashes of elves. Scattered across an area a quarter of a mile on a side, were the bodies of men. Some appeared to have thawed from frozen and all bore the wounds of jaqrui, elven blade or TaiGethen open-hand strike.

Serrin paused, his hand on his Claw’s head. She had moved from the crater and was nosing at a bloodstain on the ground. She breathed it in deep and Serrin experienced a pain of loss he thought never to feel again.

Auum.

His Claw could not be sure if he had perished here and been borne away by his Tais, but he had certainly fought and bled here, and one set of tracks leading away spoke of an elf with serious injuries. Serrin stared at the ground, looking for signs that Auum had moved away unaided, but the tracks were confused. Ten sets of prints crisscrossed the ground, led away, ran back and disappeared into the undergrowth, all of them heading for Aryndeneth, a day’s run to the east.

Serrin, or at least that part of him which glimmered with the memory of a Silent Priest, prayed to Yniss that Auum’s soul had been preserved, whether alive or dead. For those caught in the magical fire and the ensuing inferno, there could be no such hope.

The ClawBound were all assembled in the clearing. Each pair maintained physical contact while the shock of what they saw ebbed away to fuel their desire for blood. They all looked at Serrin, awaiting his signal to close on the tail of the human army and begin to seek their vengeance.

And so they would, but not like this. Serrin let his eyes travel the devastation once more and allowed the guilt to follow. He should have foreseen this reaction. He should have realised Ystormun would prefer to strike back at free elves rather than rip the hearts from his useful slaves in revenge. He should have listened to Auum. He should have stopped his cleansing. They were not strong enough to repel this invasion.

Serrin crouched on the ground and tears welled up in his eyes. He touched the earth and felt its pain. He sampled the air and smelled the death of the rainforest all around him. He listened and heard the desperate cries of Tual’s denizens, unable to comprehend the horror being visited upon them.

And all because the ClawBound had become more animal than elf.

‘Yniss forgive me,’ whispered Serrin. ‘We have fallen too far.’

Yniss walked the glory of the forest and marvelled at the colours and the sounds and the scents. He looked above him and saw the purity of the sky above and knew his tasks were not yet done. Yniss laid a hand to his right and it rested upon the head of Gyal, the most beautiful, the most effervescent and the most expressive of his kin. And Gyal’s tears began to fall, and where they struck the ground, life surged and blossomed. ‘I could give this gift to no other,’ said Yniss.

The Aryn Hiil

Auum awoke. The forest was peaceful and the temple was cool. He was lying in a priest’s chamber. The bed was comfortable. He lay quietly, listening to the ambient sounds outside and the movement of elves within Aryndeneth. Memories started to filter into his mind. The run from the fight was vague. And he didn’t remember getting here at all, certainly not into this chamber.

Auum sat up. Pain jabbed at his leg and his shoulder throbbed. He dragged the thin blanket from his body and looked down. He was wearing a clean loincloth. His ankle was strapped, the dressing was clean. His shoulder showed a mass of bruising but it was a couple of days old at least. His stomach was tender to the touch and when he stopped to think for a moment, his whole body ached.

Auum swung his legs out of the bed and stood on his left foot, using a bedpost for support and hopping towards the door. He swayed when the blood rushed from his head, sitting back down heavily until the nausea passed. He looked around the room and chuckled. Someone knew him well: a walking stick had been left by the open door. He levered himself up and made for it as a figure appeared in the doorway. The beautiful face and warm, welcoming eyes were wonderfully familiar and totally unexpected.