Now my friend has become my enemy. The moment had been fast approaching. He thought it would have been when the Wild Elf saw the hair upon his flesh. Instead, it was like when Ashyn had been the child in the ravine. His actions had somehow confirmed to the elf that he was indeed a dui Nuchada.
The grim moment of clarity was cut short as the bull’s camouflage vanished, and it held its impaled hand, howling in pain. The power of its magic severed from the staff. It reached out with impressive willpower and pulled the long weapon through its shattered hand.
Ashyn focused on the large monstrosity, but he noticed that Jenhiro was still staring at him. He knew Jenhiro felt betrayed. Ashyn did not feel guilty. He was tired of feeling guilty for what he was. Tired of having to fight for his right to exist. If anything, he was elated. The secret was out, and by it he once again touched magic! That meant he was truly healing, and if so, soon he would be able to save Julietta.
Ashyn stowed his feelings, screaming at Jenhiro to look at the bovine creature. Despite that, he was transfixed by Ashyn. Some ingrained emotions were just too hard to shake. Hate for skewers clearly being one.
Only at the last minute did the Wild Elf sense the danger. He broke his gaze away from the wizard just in time to see his own javelin stabbing forth through the spikey bramble. He moved to avoid it, but wasn’t fast enough.
Ashyn could only watch as the javelin buried itself deep in the Ferhym’s chest, inches beneath his right collarbone. Blood plumed a vibrant red mist, but quickly diluted into a murky pink within the heavy rainfall.
The javelin exited his back, just beneath his shoulder-blade. Jenhiro’s screams of agony cut through the wind and shook Ashyn down to his core. He looked upon the ground for more javelins, but there were none. He tried to call upon the anger again, to call upon the feeling but it was gone, the moment had passed.
Ashyn ran to the base of the tree and tried to grab onto the trunk to climb it. Water coursed through finger wide gaps between the thick and gnarled bark. Ashyn pried his own fingers into the slick gaps and forced himself to scale the tree. He made it only a foot before his fingers gave out, and his own weight ripped him from the tree taking the skin of his fingertips and pieces of his fingernails with it. He growled at his inability to climb the tree like the Ferhym of forest. He looked back to the Wild Elf.
Jenhiro, though clearly in crushing pain, continued to fight against the bull. The wiry Wild Elf used his own weight as leverage, and in a last ditch effort pulled his whole body onto the bull’s extended arm.
The creature effortlessly held Jenhiro’s weight, and in what it must have thought was its moment of victory, pulled the elf over the spiked bramble to revel in the closeness of its kill. Ashyn saw the tactical error. A second later so did the bull. Jenhiro, summoned his remaining strength and lashed out with his coiled feet. He kicked the bull in its wounded hand. Both feet landed so powerfully against the open wound that Ashyn clearly saw blood, for the first time, fly from the rent whole. A hot crimson spray dowsed the forearm of the massive hunter. The bull cried out and dropped the impaled elf against the thick limb, inches from the spike like branches.
Jenhiro staggered to his feet. He used the moment to his advantage. Jenhiro high kicked the goliath ox in the face. The creature, now wounded and weaponless, backpedaled, stunned. A hoof slipped on the edge of the timber arm that held them aloft so high above. The bull swung his arms wide for balance. Jenhiro gave no quarter, and rammed his knee into the creature. The bull pitched backwards, tumbling over the side.
The bovine flailed, grabbing the nearest thing it could reach. Jenhiro scooted away, but not before the hunter latched onto the end of the javelin. Jenhiro jerked forward violently as the javelin ripped back out of his body. His feet skidded across the thick branch but his pain-addled mind could find no solid perch. He made eye contact with Ashyn Rune one last time, and the wizard could see the betrayal he felt and the knowledge that he couldn’t recover from this. Silently he slipped from the ledge. Ashyn watched as the Ferhym hunter hurtled to the ground thirty feet below.
~ ~ ~
Ashyn ran towards the plummeting duo. They hit the hard packed earth, one after another, with two sickening thuds. Both lay unmoving. Blood poured liberally from Jenhiro’s mouth and his chest wound quickly colored the ground beneath him.
No! he thought, noticing the bull’s hand beginning to heal. The creature shuddered, and the wizard heard a half dozen loud cracks as bones re-aligned themselves. The bull roared in pain as its eyes flared back to life.
Jenhiro lay still, but Ashyn could see his chest rising and falling very slightly. The elf too was still alive, but in much worse shape.
He stared down at them both. They wanted him dead, each for their own reasons. One he could relate to, the other he couldn’t quite grasp. The best thing to do would be to end them both here and now. Eliminate his harriers and get back on track of finding his sister. Yet he knew he didn’t have it in him to kill either of them. Not even with the obvious risk of either of them hunting him again. No, he needed to end this a different way. This battle had gone on for far too long.
Besides, Jenhiro was still his best bet for finding Feydras’ Anula. The Shalis-Fey had proven to be far more daunting than the young wizard initially assumed. He had hoped his zeal and determination alone would help him find the hidden city of elves. It still may, he reasoned, but a much more obvious route lay at his feet.
Ashyn looked back to the large feline that followed him for so long, “Find us cover.”
Ginger didn’t need the question repeated. With eyes that fixed upon him with far too much intelligence, the cat bolted into the woods.
As much as the wizard wanted to help Jenhiro, regardless of the elf’s feelings for him, he knew he needed to incapacitate the bull.
Ashyn shrugged off his pack and rummaged through the contents he took from the Onyx Tower’s storage room. His eyes stopped on a pair of gloves for only a moment, and then he pushed them aside for what lay underneath.
Ashyn Rune hadn’t known what to expect of the city of Feydras’ Anula so he didn’t want to be unprepared. He still didn’t rule out the possibility that the Wild Elves did actually live in the trees. He’d packed fifty feet of strong hemp rope and a grappling hook. He almost laughed at the thought, looking at the base of the sequoia now. It was worthless trying to climb the trees here. But the strands of rope bound together were thick and could support the weight of hundreds, if not a thousand pounds. Could it hold the strength of a massive ox creature? Perhaps. It was used in tethering wagons pulled by domesticated beasts of burden.
Knowing that Jenhiro had little time, he set to work on binding the bull’s hands and hooves. He was careful not to disrupt the large creature’s bizarre healing process as another bone snapped back into place. When he was confident that the bull could not escape its binds he, drug the rest of the rope and tied it around a boulder.
When he was finished, Ashyn searched for anything that could help the bull escape his bonds. Minus the horns on his head, which Ashyn was not about to cut off, the only thing he found was his own skinning knife.
He grabbed the cherry wood handle and tucked the blade back against his belt. Confident his ghostly hunter was secure for the next several minutes he broke off to examine the Elf.
Jenhiro was in bad shape. The javelin had completely penetrated his body, and he had no way of knowing if it ruptured anything vital. Blood wept heavily from both holes and ran in small drips from his lips and nose. Ashyn studied the chest wound to make sure it wasn’t sucking, wheezing, or bubbling, fearing that his lungs may be ruptured. Lucky for Jenhiro, that did not appear to be the case, and so Ashyn rummaged once more in his pack and found gauss and bandages.
He whispered, knowing his voice was lost to the heavy gale, “This is going to hurt; I hope the shock doesn’t kill you. I still need you alive.” Ashyn then wrapped the gauze around his pointer finger and buried it as deeply as he could into the raw gash. Blood jetted up from the ravaged flesh around his finger like a small geyser. Jenhiro’s eyes shot open, and he gasped with barely another sound. Jenhiro’s brown eyes searched wildly, and then mercifully he passed out. Ashyn removed his finger from the gauze, bundled up more, and then he pressed even further into the perforated hole in Jenhiro’s body. He did the same for the hole in the Wild Elf’s back. It was the only way he knew to mitigate the bleeding until he could get the elf under cover.
Doused up to his elbows in the Ferhym’s blood, Ashyn was just grateful the sight hadn’t made him queasy. He supposed the first few winters of his life spent hunting and skinning with his father helped. Right now keeping Jenhiro alive was an obligation. Once he was stable, or dead, then Ashyn would allow the emotions to seep through.
Ashyn searched Jenhiro’s body for broken bones. He could tell by the angle of the Ferhym’s right leg that it was broken at the shin, and it judging by the growing swelling of his left forearm, it looked to be broken as well. He had no idea what damage may have happened to Jenhiro’s neck and spine, and didn’t want to risk carrying the elf. That meant he needed to fashion a litter, in the middle of a storm.
Ashyn wiped the water from his eyes, and was disturbed to see he had created a long smear against the rich red that soaked his hands. He suddenly could feel the pressure of the blood on his face. He ignored it. There was little to be done about that now.
What he needed was two sticks long enough and stable enough to hold the elf. Wind billowed between the trees pushing much of the lighter bramble around in frenzy. Even some of the heavy sticks from above had snapped off and were now skirting across the ground in nature’s chaos. After three minutes, Ashyn had what he needed: two sticks, his own leather tunic, and the cording from his armor.
Ashyn carefully laid the improvised litter down next to Jenhiro. The hot stormy waters doused his sweaty back. Trying to save the elf was tense, rigorous work.
Cradling Jenhiro’s head and inching his battered body from top to bottom onto the litter, Ashyn secured the elf’s upper half with more of his armor straps. His torn fingers fumbled during the attempt. The elf’s pale skin added to his concern.
Shifting to Jenhiro’s lower half, Ashyn engineered makeshift splints with the use of some more gauss and cording from his quiver. The cannibalization of gear left the man very much exposed.
Ginger returned, and rubbed its soaked body against the wizard’s leg. Ashyn looked down, tired, but grateful. “Did you find something?”
The cat walked in two circles and then moved back in the direction it came. Ashyn hefted the litter behind him, making sure Jenhiro still looked as secure as he could possibly be. “Let’s go.”
Ginger took off, and the wizard followed.
~ ~ ~
The cat came through once again. Ashyn moved to the entrance what may possibly be waiting out the storm inside and if it would be friendly to new visitors. He hesitated, knowing how dangerous everything in the Shalis-Fey was. When he looked to the one who had guided him there, Ginger looked up at him with an expression he took to mean “get inside the damn cave.”
Ashyn sighed, ducked low, and stepped inside. From the cavern mouth the sound of the wind echoed behind him like a roar. At least he hoped it was the wind. He could hear the sound of running water all around him faintly through the overbearing winds.
As his eyes adjusted he saw the cavern opened up considerably into three sections. If he had to hazard a guess at the size of them, he would say that each hollowed out section was around the size of the dining room back in the onyx tower. Perhaps only fifteen feet wide, with a length slightly longer, the gloomy aura from the outside barely could illuminate the first of the sections. The other two sections appeared as little more than open portals that housed eerie silhouettes, only giving a dark hint at what may lay beyond, and letting his imagination get the better of him.
One thing was certain, though. He found the source of the trickling water. There were small pools, dozens of them, within the first section of the cavern. They ran against both walls and through the center, separated by stalagmites and other low outcroppings of rock.
These pools seemed to be natural to the cavern, and not a collection of the rain water from outside, though Ashyn was sure the torrential downpour was helping to brim the small bodies.
Ashyn pulled in his charge. Now out of the rain, he had to try to get the elf dry, before any kind of shock might set in.
The wizard looked around for anything that he might be able to use to start a fire. The entire cavern was humid and damp. Outside, everything was even wetter. Ashyn would have sacrificed his robes to aid the Ferhym, but they were now drenched as well. He would just have to make due.
Ashyn ached as he sat himself down with less grace than normal. Next to the wounded elf, he absent-mindedly closed his eyes. The events of the last hour replayed in his head. His heartbeat sped at the memory of the elf and the bull tumbling down from over thirty feet in the air.
Ashyn thought about the feeling he had, about the momentary surge of anger and how it had unlocked that well of magic within him for just a flicker of a moment. He was elated that he had touched it again. It at least assuaged his fear that he would never be able to use it again. After only a few weeks, already hints of it were coming back, just like when he first touched it as a child.
His emotions could reach that place where his power resided quicker it seemed than his rational mind. Now older, Ashyn began to realize why the Ferhym might find such a thing dangerous. He didn’t agree at all with their methods, but an emotional dui Nuchada accessing whatever that font within them may be could be outright devastating.
Hells, Ashyn blew up a field, and took a good amount of elves with him. If all dui Nuchada were capable of such a thing…Ashyn shook his head and looked down at the wounded elf. “Great, now I’m starting to think like you. Punishment before the crime.”
He replayed the moment again in his mind, the exact second his mind instinctually leapt for the magic and it broke through the prison of his injury and responded. It was at the injustice of the bull’s actions. His fuel had been his own anger. His feedback had only come at the cost of his emotion. It fed on the anger and then left him strangely indifferent. He should have been terrified at losing Jenhiro. At watching the creature impale and nearly kill the elf. Now he was just apathetic.
What surprised him though was that in his rage he didn’t attack the bull, but the true source of the power that was going to kill Jenhiro.
Ashyn blinked back the thoughts as the realization hit him. Instinct drove him not to attack the wielder, but its staff. A staff that controlled nature around him. Ashyn wondered if such a thing could dry out wood, or even start a fire.
He looked down to the elf who was growing paler by the moment. His saturated bandages were beginning to turn a distinctly pinkish hue. Unless Ashyn found a true way to mitigate the bleeding and control his shock, it was likely Jenhiro wouldn’t even make it a day. That meant Ashyn needed fire in a water-deluged place.
Ashyn held out his hand in front of him and tried to use the anger of his predicament to reignite that feeling inside of him. If he could, he could create the fire he needed. Ashyn thought once more of the moment that had set him off, of how far he had come, and now the possibility of losing it, losing Jenhiro because of the bull. He tried to summon every bit of his anger into a single thought. Fire.
Ashyn closed his eyes and imagined what the burning ball of flame used to feel like inches from his skin. The warmth it would imbue, without burning him. He opened his eyes hoping to see it there, hovering above his outstretched fingers, illuminating the dark cavern. There was nothing.
Ashyn sighed, ran his fingers through his wet, limp hair and looked down to Ginger who was trying vainly to lick the water off soaked fur. Situated as it was, Ashyn noticed for the first time that the cat might be male. “Looks like I’m going back out there.” The feline looked up, cocked his head slightly, then resumed his efforts.
“You stay here,” he ordered, and before the foul weather could change his mind, he turned and walked back out of the cavern.
~ ~ ~
The rain was coming down more severely than ever. Ashyn pulled the drenched hood tighter over his head in a pointless attempt to deflect the water that already soaked him to the bone. He looked both ways, trying to get his bearings. Ginger led him to this point, and he had been focusing on dragging the makeshift litter, but he still paid enough attention that he thought he could get back to where the staff was lost.
Finding it in the storm, however, was another matter entirely. Though, since he could no longer conjure fire from thin air, the bull’s staff was a long shot worth trying.
The wizard took a few steps forward and looked back. In the heavy deluge and turbulent winds, it was impossible to see the cavern behind him unless you knew where to look. How Ginger had found it, Ashyn had no clue. More to the point, he didn’t know if he could get back again. Ashyn tried to memorize everything he saw, and then with shaky steps disappeared into the violent storm.