Chapter 2
Something woke Tomas. It was night, that dead part of the night when the world was trying to decide whether today had become tomorrow, or remained yesterday. Even those handful of stars normally visible through the heavy evergreen canopy had been lost to inky darkness. Even the wind had retreated, leaving lifeless air to press down upon the shepherd’s chest. He glanced over, blinking, to their campfire, but saw the embers collapse, as though twisting into themselves in retreat from some horrid cold. The forest had gone silent. The birds and bugs, having begun rosing themselves, had fallen still. Tomas’ breath frosted in the night air, as though dead winter were forcing itself back into the newly-awakened Wildelves Wood.
Tomas tried to breathe, to steady his thumping heart. He shifted in his field blanket and adjusted his shirt. Alexia’s pin, the golden rose gifted to him months ago upon her death, rested as always on his collar. No matter the situation, Tomas always kept the pin as close as possible to where his dear friend had pinned it, at the pulse of his neck. Now, in his lose undershirt, it rested against his heart. The pin felt warm, the only warmth to be found as, somehow, the night’s chill had found its way under the shepherd’s blanket. Tomas put a hand on the golden rose, caressing it, as though to draw some of the warmth of his best memories of Alexia.
A sound. Not a whisper, not a moan, not a chime or a chirp or anything else natural. It was the last breath of a dead body, forced from its cooling board, sitting up to face its still-living family. Something awakened amidst the dark trees. Something moved, just outside the edge of living sight. Not a form, but just the movement of a form. And then another.
The horses, tied up but not hobbled on Rogan’s direct instruction, snorted. Stick, the knight’s own brutish warhorse, began stomping and pulling on his lead, disturbed by something in the air. Tomas, his eyes wide and his heart hammering in his chest, looked to Rogan. The knight was also awake. His blue eyes were open and steady, catching the sparks of their dying campfire. His hand was moving, sliding like a predatory serpent creeping upon ignorant prey. It moved to his side, to the short arming sword the knight called Fang. His fingers slowly constricted around the hilt… and waited.
Then, a sound, a true sound. From the forest came a twisted moan, like the warping of lake ice in a brutal winter. Tomas yelped and rolled out of his blankets, to crouch at Rogan’s feet, the experienced knight already standing with sword raised in one unwavering hand. Then there was another moan from behind, answered by more and more, all around. The last pitiful embers of their fire flickered once, then died. There was no moon, no stars, no light of any kind. The moans fell silent. The whole world slipped away, with only Tomas’ panicked breathing and Rogan’s unmoving body remaining.
Their dead campfire erupted then in a ghastly blue roar. No heat came from this ethereal fire, but rather seemed to pull at what little heat their bodies struggled to produce. A baleful cackling, like predatory birds chirping wrathfully whilst rending their still-living prey, emerged from the un-fire. Tomas and Rogan backed away uncertainly, not knowing whether safety lay in the oppressive darkness. Then, white bits of the blue un-fire pulled free. Rather than natural smoke, these bits twisted and stretched, growing rather than fading. They tumbled, as though caught in a horrid gale only they felt in the still air. Impossible faces emerged from the white forms, twisted mockeries of faces with extended chins, gaping holes for mouths, deeply-angular eyes, and ears that seemed as though pulled back into knife-like points.
“Lamashti!” Tomas gasped, his own eyes wide and his whole body trembling in mortal terror.
“What?” Rogan demanded, snarling and raising Fang in readiness to fight the unreal things.
“Spirits! Ghouls! We can’t see them! They can’t appear! They aren’t real!” The shepherd’s mind raced, twisting against madness at the sight of impossible nightmares.
The horses reared and broke their lines, fleeing into the forest. All but Stick. Rogan’s warhorse of midnight black snorted and snapped his line, moving forward. The beast thrashed his head and tail, digging up the earth and snorting his fury at the ethereal threat.
The Lamashti rose higher, twisting against the intangible winds, howling despair and wrath and pleas and envy all at once. They swirled out, away from the blue un-fire, growing skeletal, distended arms that ended in claw-like hands. Hands that reached towards Tomas and Rogan, though perhaps more towards the cringing young man. Seemingly unable to move of their own, the Lamashti were caught in some unknown tide, an irresistible current known only to them. They circled the blue un-fire, slowly moving further and further from that eerie light. Each orbit let them reach further away, closer to the mortals. With each trip around, the Lamashti lashed out, swiping their immaterial claws at the two men.
“Don’t let them touch you!” Tomas yelled, ducking behind Rogan.
“Yeah,” the knight grunted. “Figured that.” As one Lamashti came within reach, Rogan swung his sword, aiming to carve the thing in two. However, Fang passed through with no effect. Instead, the gnashing spirit reached out and raked its claws along Rogan’s arm. The knight screamed and dropped Fang, stumbling back against Tomas and falling to the ground. In the blue un-light of the Lamashti bonfire, the shepherd looked and saw Rogan’s wound. The sleeve of his undershirt was in tatters. Purplish lines ran the length of the warrior’s arm. The flesh around these gashes was turning blue and white, as though the worst icy blight of Underworld itself had been used to slash at Rogan. Stick lunged, but not at the Lamashti. Instead, the warhorse moved to his knight, standing between his fallen rider and the lashing spirits. “Stick, no!” Rogan barked, too late. The Lamashti swiped at Stick, ethereal claws carving frozen gashes on the animal’s hide and sending him squealing to the ground.
Rogan snarled and clenched his teeth, staring hate towards the nearing Lamashti. His eyes then darted to the side before snapping to Tomas. “The shield!”
Tomas moved without thinking, obeying immediately the snapped command. The young man dove around the small camp, desperately avoiding the lashing arms of the Lamashti as they hungrily, angrily, enviously reached for him while twirling helplessly in the unfelt gale. He tumbled into Rogan’s bags and ripped free the shield with its flashing blue and grey heraldry. A Lamashti reached out, able at last to lunge for the shepherd. Tomas ducked whimpering beneath the large shield. There was a thump, as though a playful child had thrown a large snowball that impacted harmlessly on the steel barrier. Tomas looked up and saw the Lamashti spinning away, back into the swirling vortex of its kind. He looked in wonder down at the shield but saw nothing, only the hated sigil of House Calonar: two crossed, four-sided diamonds, one silver the other white, on a field of blue and grey.
The young man shrugged away his hesitation, though, seeing that the Lamashti vortex had spread far enough away from their un-fire to reach Rogan. Tomas lunged, holding the shield between himself and the grasping Lamashti, diving onto the man who killed his father and covering them both with the shield of the heir of House Calonar. Again and again, Tomas felt the Lamashti hurl themselves onto the shield, clawing and beating upon the smooth metal. The creatures, though, could gain no purchase. They slipped from the shield as raindrops slip from a well-oiled sword.
The face of a Lamashti appeared over the rim of the shield, its gaping mouth growing hideous fangs. It hissed at the two men, staring envious hatred at Tomas, and reared back as though to strike. Then, a silvery bolt slashed through the face, dispersing the Lamashti like mist waved away. Tomas and Rogan looked at each other in confusion, then carefully pulled back the shield. More silvery bolts filled the air, as though the moon had shattered into a thousand, thousand shards and rained into their campsite. The two men started at the whooping cries now filling the woods. Echoes of that strange, almost joyful near-laughter harmonized with themselves, as though the whole forest had joined in the chorus. As the Humans watched, the trees themselves seemed to lean in, and upon each branch was a Sylvai warrior.
The Sylvai did not conduct war as did Humanity. They wore no true armor, but rather leather vests dyed a riot of naturally-blending colors. Their long manes of brown and blonde and red, some reaching past the neck and some spilling past the waist, were tied into lose braids and whipped about in the focused-frenzied of the sylvai wardance. They did not stand upon the swaying branches, but leapt among them, passing one another in midair and never resting in the same place for more than an instant. They were all small, androgynous things, indistinguishable from each other and uniform in their snarling hatred for the Lamashti.
The Sylvai whooped their bizarre warsong, and spun in their alien wardance, letting fly with bolt after bolt, fired from shortbows that held no arrows. Each Lamashti hit by a glowing missile was dispersed, but only for a moment. The creature reformed quickly, drawing more blue and white essence from their un-fire. Despite the intervention of the sylvai warriors, still the Lamashti vortex expanded. The warriors made no move to retreat, though. Nor did they try to extract the disabled humans.
At last, a shining light emerged from the surrounding Wood. Tomas blinked as his eyes struggled to adjust. The trees seemed to withdraw, as though to bow, in the presence of this newest arrival. The sylvai warsong did not stop, but it did shift, as though now singing a hymn. The young man saw a woman, no, a sylva. She was short, like all their kind, but carried herself like an empress: chin lifted, gaze unflinching and unforgiving, her gait steady and sure. She was beautiful, as all sylva were, despite what seemed great age. Her verdant, opalescent eyes glowed emerald with the use of her magic. A crown of silvery holly encircled her head, holding back blonde hair streaked with grey, a thick mane that spilled down in a very lose braid, falling past her knees. The Sylva held high a staff made of the same wood as the surrounding trees but that bore no sign of toolmark, as though it had been grown, rather than carved. The staff was twisted into a perfect mirror of the Sylva’s braided hair, with the same light coloring streaked with grey. At the tip of the spear was a hollow point, with parts of the staff grown up and around, like a hand gently clasping something. In the center of this hollow point shown the mystical light, a light from which the Lamashti retreated.
Words of magic filled the small clearing. The sylvai warriors had ceased their missile fire and their wardance, shifting their warsong to join in the sylva’s chant. She marched forward, the light from her raised staff seeming to enhance the song of the Sylvai, flickering a counterpoint, a harmony, with the song. In response, the Lamashti howled their renewed frustration, desperation, and pleas. They lashed against the sylvai light and chant, but were forced back. The vortex and the blue un-light retracted, twisting in on itself, and dragged the Lamashti with it. Further and further, the vortex collapsed, with the elder Sylva never hesitating in her march, walking straight to the former campfire. There, with the Lamashti wails a bare whisper and the blue un-fire nothing more than a flicker, the Sylva raised a foot and stamped the vortex out.
All was silent then, save only for the fading echo of the sylvai chant. The elder kept her staff raised, illuminating the clearing. She looked at where the two men lay, still cowering behind the shield, with a half-smile and a slight tilt to her head.. “I am Aya’tor’cel’asi, Speaker of the Lan’kystos’hama.” Her opalescent eyes sparkled with suppressed amusement. “Welcome home,” she said, “Heir of Calonar.”