Chris Evans - A Darkness Forged in Fire

Without any warning, three elves materialized out of the forest. Their raiment of leaves was similar to that of the elf Alwyn had seen in the tree, but he couldn't tell if one of them was him. The three elves stopped short of the mounds, notching arrows they drew from quivers hidden somewhere among the leaves that obscured their forms. They drew back the strings on their longbows as one and shot an arrow into each mound. Several more elves had arrows at the ready.

"What are you doing?" Alwyn cried, looking at Chayii. When she gave no indication of answering, he turned to Yimt. "Stop them." The dwarf tugged on his beard and said nothing.

The clearing shuddered, as if a stone had been dropped into still water.

A sensation that Alwyn could only describe as cold heat washed over him. Flames of frost began to crawl along the leaves of two of the three mounds, burning them to ash. Chayii stepped forward and began to chant again, her voice louder than before. A wind whipped up from nowhere and began to beat back at the unnatural fire. The air in the clearing chilled and Chayii's breath misted with each word. Black-tinged tongues of icy fire stabbed deeper into the mounds, consuming everything. Chayii's voice faltered, but immediately the other elves added their voices to hers. They moved closer to the whirling, burning leaves, reaching out their hands and grabbing hold of one another. Alwyn and the others were drawn into the circle with them. As soon as his hand touched Chayii's, his mouth opened and he began to speak, but they were not his words:

Ni Unka Ro JГ©j

Ne Har Ro LГ©j

Tokma Ka Г†ri

Ni Swik Ro Triv

Ne Ull Ro Ulmriv

Tokma Ka Г†ri

Wih Shir Ser

Ock-al Shir Ser

Ki Rorjer Ka Г†ri

His voice rose with theirs until he was shouting, and though there was not a word he could relate, the meaning was quite clear:

Flesh and bone,

Wood and loam,

Nothing forged in fire.

Grass and leaves,

Sky and seas,

Nothing forged in fire.

Long we watch,

Forever we watch,

For Darkness forged in fire.

The flames of ice finally faltered and disappeared, but it wasn't because of the elves' magic; there was nothing left for the icy flames to consume. N'bhat lay on his back, his face slack in death, his arms crossed over his chest with one of the arrows in his heart. Beside him, where Alik and Buuko had been laid to rest, the other arrows, blackened and seared with frost, stuck out of bare earth.

"What just happened…? Where are they?" Alwyn asked.

Chayii shook her head. "They walk the world between, as does Meri, as do those who went before. Too late did I realize the strength of the ties that bind you, and bind you to each other, though I do not yet understand how it has happened."

Tears rolled down her cheeks, and there was such sorrow in her voice that Alwyn could barely breathe.

"What does it all mean?"

"It means, Alwyn of the Empire, that you may know death, and leave this life behind, but you are forever bound to serve in the Iron Elves."

W e're doomed, we're doomed." Inkermon kept rocking himself back and forth as he sat under a tree. Yimt looked at him and made a noise and turned away.

"So much for his creator," the dwarf muttered, sitting down on the ground and idly running his fingers through the dirt.

Teeter and Scolly were both sleeping, their snores a source of great interest to the elf who stood guard over them. To a being who could walk through a bed of crisp autumn leaves and not be heard, Alwyn figured, the soldiers must have sounded like a herd of muraphants.

"Do you think Miss Red Owl is right?" Alwyn asked. The moon was slowly sliding down the sky, but dawn was still a couple of hours off. The heat of the forest had returned, but it wasn't as humid as before. Alwyn was trying and failing to direct his thoughts to everything but what he had seen in the clearing and having no success. Even the pain in his chest wasn't enough to distract him.

"What, that we're bespelled and all that? I'm not sure how to break it to you, Ally, but we ain't actually elves. That stuff only works on them."

"What about that oath we took in the vines? I didn't say anything, but I think I felt something happen, you know? And I saw one of…them."

"One of who?"

"One of Hers-it was horrible. And it had a black ear tip, you know, one of the tainted ones, sort of like Kritton and the major."

Yimt steepled his fingers. "Rakkes come in different shapes and sizes, Ally. You sure you didn't mix up seeing Kritton and one of them beasties? People see all kinds of things in battle when they get worked up."

Alwyn shook his head. "No rakke shot those arrows. And you saw what happened to Alik and Buuko. They're gone…but they aren't, not really, just like Meri."

Yimt sighed and rubbed his beard. "Now I'm not saying nothing by this, but you are a bit of a sensitive fellow, Ally. You take things to heart a bit faster than the rest of us. You're the only one that thinks he saw Meri, or this black elf, and for all I know, Alik and Buuko were buried somewhere else and all that stuff out there was just a bit of a show."

Alwyn felt his face flush. "What, you think I'm lying?"

Yimt lifted up the leaf-and-moss bandage on his head and scratched at the raw skin underneath. "Did I say you were a liar? I just said you've seen things the rest of us haven't. Maybe what they say is true, or maybe they're playing at games. Just because they get their wind up about the Shadow Monarch and all that doesn't mean we have to."

"But what about Meri and the others?"

Yimt stopped scratching for a moment. "I'm not saying there ain't no such thing as ghosts, I just don't know that I buy into the rest of it is all. Maybe you really did see him, or his shade. Did he still have that snuffbox in his eye socket? Now if he had that, I'd say it probably was him. I doubt many ghosts go around with one of them tucked into their skull. Good stuff, too, I meant to ask him what brand it was."

Alwyn stared at Yimt. Yimt stared back, one hand still half under his bandage.

"How can you not take this seriously, Yimt? She said we're bound to an eternity of serving in the regiment. An eternity."

Yimt rolled his eyes and patted down his bandage. He looked around and snapped a small twig from a nearby bush. He started rubbing the broken end against his metal teeth. It made a high-pitched noise.

"Whether I take it serious or not doesn't really make a difference, now does it? If it's true, I don't see what getting all worked up about it will do, and if it ain't, then there was nothing to worry about in the first place."

The elf guarding them raised his eyebrows as Yimt dug at something stuck between a couple of molars. Alwyn nudged Yimt and motioned toward the elf.

"What?" Yimt asked. He looked over at the elf, pulling the twig out of his mouth and waving it at him. "Just polishing the silver," he said cheerfully, and went back to brushing his teeth.

"Trees," Alwyn whispered, "they really, really like trees."

Yimt pulled the twig out of his mouth and looked at it closer. "What, this? It's just a little branch, no harm. And that ain't no tree no how, more a really tall bushy weed, if you ask me."

"And what if they see it as a baby?"

Yimt paused in his oral hygiene and gave it some thought, chewing on the end of the twig as he did so. The elf appeared to be gripping his bow rather tightly.

Finally, Yimt pulled the twig back out and jabbed it into the ground. "Grow tall and proud, O weed of the forest," he said, blowing the twig a kiss.

"A most interesting blessing," came Chayii's voice as she leaped down from a tree to stand beside them. "I was not aware dwarves cared for the trees of the world."