Chris Evans - A Darkness Forged in Fire

Alwyn avoided Yimt's look. The dwarf blinked a couple of times and then sighed.

"That was supposed to be a secret, but as it's out in the open I don't suppose there is much point in denying it."

The elf rose from the forest floor in one fluid motion. "We will accompany you, Yimt of the Warm Breeze. Prepare your men for the road; we travel at once." With that, Chayii walked into the forest and disappeared from sight. Bird calls rang out and the trees around them rustled in response.

"You heard the lady, let's get cracking," Yimt said, jumping to his feet and helping Alwyn to his. "Inkermon, make yourself useful and get Teeter and Scolly up. And you ain't doomed until I tell you you're doomed."

Inkermon quit mumbling and did as Yimt said. Teeter and Scolly were quickly roused, and the survivors of Three Section were soon armed and ready. Alwyn had to sling his musket over his right shoulder. His chest was in agony despite whatever spells or potions the elves must have used to heal him, and he seriously doubted he could make it all the way to Luuguth Jor.

"Drink this," Irkila said, appearing at his side and handing him a gourd. "It will lighten your feet for the coming journey."

"What is it?"

" Rok har -tree's blood."

Alwyn backed away. "I'm not drinking blood, I don't care where it came from."

Irkila pursed her lips and called out to another elf nearby. After a short exchange, she turned back to Alwyn with a smile on her face. "My use of your language is not as precise as it could be. I believe you call this вЂsap.'"

Alwyn let out a breath and held out his hand to accept the gourd. Other elves were offering the rest of Three Section similar gourds, so it couldn't be that bad. He removed the bark plug from the top of the gourd and took a drink. The sap, and Alwyn was sure it was more than just that, was cool and fresh, a wonderful mix of sweet and tang. Unlike the drake sweat Yimt preferred, this immediately made him feel better without trying to burn a hole in his stomach. He tried to hand the gourd back to Irkila, but she shook her head.

"Keep it and drink from it when you have need. We will not rest until we reach our destination."

"Thanks," Alwyn said. He walked over to where the others were standing.

"I feel twenty years younger!" Yimt said, rubbing a sleeve across his beard as he took another drink from his gourd. "Mix in a bit of twelve-year-old Sala brandy and you'd have the perfect elixir for what ails you. Probably sell it for quite a coin, too."

Inkermon still held his gourd in his hands, not yet taking a drink.

"If they were going to poison you, they would have done it by now," Yimt said, motioning with a thumb toward the elves. "Drink it."

Inkermon shook his head and held the gourd out to Yimt. "No spirits except the grace of the Creator shall pass into my body."

He half-expected Yimt to knock Inkermon flat, but instead Yimt just smiled and took the gourd. "You better keep up or you'll have a gullet full of arrows in your backside along with his grace. Teeter, Scolly, you watch the right side, Ally and me will take the left. The saint can keep an eye to the sky for divine intervention. Them rakkes are still out there, and so is Kritton…and some other creatures, too," he added, nodding at Alwyn. "Odds are these elves will see them long before we do, but you keep looking anyway."

Irkila reappeared and motioned for them to follow her. Alwyn put his shako on his head and then turned back to make sure they hadn't left anything behind. The rock in the clearing was bare. Satisfied, he started after Irkila and then remembered the black arrows. Before he could ask he saw them sticking out of the top of Yimt's knapsack.

"They'll see the arrows," he said, grabbing Yimt by the arm and bending down to whisper in his ear.

Yimt paused in the middle of putting a pinch of crute in his mouth. "Who do you think gave them to me? Ally, I know how to mind my manners among the fey folk."

"They gave them to you? Why?"

"Miss Red Owl said something about never leaving a weapon on a battlefield."

"She said that?" Alwyn asked.

Yimt shrugged his shoulders. "Well, that's the gist of it. There was something about dark magic and perversion of nature and the like, but it all adds up to the same thing; don't leave a weapon around for your enemy to find and use against you."

Alwyn couldn't argue with that logic, but he suspected there was probably a lot more to it.

He looked ahead and saw that the elves were already through the clearing and disappearing into the woods. Irkila motioned for them to hurry. He lengthened his stride, surprised at how well he felt. For someone who had just been shot by an arrow, and probably a cursed one at that, he was keeping up. The elves of the Long Watch could teach the army surgeons a thing or two, though he couldn't really imagine a human doctor using leaves and moss.

"Besides," Yimt continued, setting off at a slow trot while readjusting the bandage under his shako with one hand, "I think she might be a bit sweet on me. Did you hear how she called me Warm Breeze?"

To his credit, Alwyn nodded and said nothing, wondering whether it was worth telling Yimt that the elf had politely suggested he was full of hot air.

B odies weren't supposed to have trees growing out of them.

Five soldiers of the Thirty-fifth Foot lay sprawled in and around the mud-walled hut they'd commandeered as a forward outpost on the western bank of the river guarding the route toward Luuguth Jor. Each was impaled by a black sapling of a type of tree Konowa had only ever seen from a great distance until now.

It was late afternoon, and the Iron Elves were still a good two-hour march away from the village and the tiny fortress, but Konowa figured that even if they were only two minutes away it wouldn't matter. Luuguth Jor would be a forest of death.

Storm clouds threatened, but for the moment the sun did its best to burn everything beneath it, and the smell of the dead was strong. Most curiously, however, no flies buzzed around the bodies.

Konowa bent over in the saddle. The trees were excreting a dark ichor that ran over the deformed limbs and dripped off steel-colored leaves.

"What is this?" Lorian asked, kneeling beside one of the dead soldiers and reaching out a gloved hand toward the black sapling that grew out of his chest.

"A new forest for Her," Konowa said.

Lorian's hand froze just above the tree. "Then the Shadow Monarch really is behind all this," he said, looking up at Konowa and then at his ruined ear.

Konowa ignored his stare. He kicked his feet out of the stirrups and jumped off Zwindarra, throwing the reins over the horse's neck, giving him a pat on the withers, and telling him to stay. He walked to where Lorian was examining the body.

It was a corporal, the silver stripes on his jacket sleeve still visible through the mud-and blood-that covered his uniform. He crouched by the body, silently cursing as his knee tried to buckle beneath him.

"It's a sarka har," Konowa said, recognizing the twisted wood at once, "a blood tree." His father had told him many times of the High Forest and the fell magic that sustained the trees that fed on life.

"Do you think this happened to the scouts?" Lorian asked, voicing a fear that had been building in Konowa from the moment they came upon the scene.

"If they followed the river and were attacked, we would have seen this," he replied, pointing to the tree. "Either they are still ahead of us or they took a different route. The dwarf's a cagey one-I wouldn't count them out just yet." But Konowa wasn't really sure he believed Arkhorn could save his section from an evil like this.

"I picked them," Lorian said, standing up suddenly, his voice quavering. "I sentenced them to this fate."