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She tightened the clawed gloves on her hands as she recovered. These wood elven bitches were starting to celebrate. The gruthir had broken, more than a dozen of them were fleeing. Their celebration would make her job easier.
She swept her eyes over the nearby soldiers, looking for a younger soldier. An older soldier might be able to resist better. There.
Her target selected, Sar’Vona stalked forward, until she could slide behind a ridge in the roots, just higher than an elf’s waist. The shade kept her hidden in her shadow cloak. This would take skill. Her victim made it easier for her, by leaning against the root, relieved that she wouldn’t have to fight this day.
Sar’Vona grinned, the bitch would suffer worse than if she had been forced to fight and die.
Sar’Vona moved quickly. Her clawed hands grabbed her victim, one hand over the wood elf’s mouth the other around her waist. She pulled her over the root, making her disappear from view behind the root in an instant. She stabbed her with the spike of paralysis, making her cease as the magic bound her body, limb and tongue. She grabbed a tether from her belt and bound her arm to the arm of the paralyzed elf, her eyes wide in terror.
Sar’Vona pulled out her last tool, a Rod of Return. “Release.” She hissed quietly, the rod pulled her and the tether brought the paralyzed young elf with her.
The paralysis spike expired, but the teleportation finished first. The young elf tried to draw her blade, her stomach churning, and she vomited. Her eyes raced around the dark room, lit by the blue flames of our fungal torches. The elf’s eyes spread with terror as she realized she was no longer in her forest.
By the time she finished, clawed gloves like mine held each of her limbs and a shadow elf mage, head half shaved and tattooed with swirling marks, chanted her magical words. As the mage’s chant finished, the wood elf’s eyes rolled in her head and she collapsed, asleep.
“Well done, Sar’Vona.” Kal’Rinath, head of my order, congratulated me. “Kathra will be pleased. Now, quickly, strip the slave and get her to the torturers’ chamber.”
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Tarq’Vreegan lay broken on the ground, her beast had been the first to fall and she was pretty sure her spin as well as both of her legs and one of her arms were broken. It was entirely possible more was broken, but if she could get home the healers could patch her up. Her main arm was useless. Her off hand tried to work underneath her to try to get to her pouch.
She’d seen it. Flashes of light, high in the leaves, just before the other gruthir had fallen. She had to get back and report. The wood elves were hiding their new weapon, whatever it was, in the trees at their back. She fished the tile from her pocket, she went to snap it in her hand and in her pain and haste, she didn’t hear the words carried on the wind. Words of magic. She snapped the tile and as the world swirled into a mix of symbols she finally heard the words.
“No!” Tarq’Vreengan gasped. She knew that voice, it was the voice of Sa’Grinda, matriarch of House Vlendrir. The teleportation was being rerouted!
“Damn you, Sa’Grinda!” Tarq’Vreengan screamed as the teleportation stretched out, “You need what I know!”
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll get along. Farewell.” The voice laughed.
The world reformed and she was furrow and furrows in the air, she got a good look at the mountains below as she fell, and luckily for her she passed out before becoming a colorful splash on the rocks of the southern mountains, her knowledge lost with her.
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Looking through my scope, I could tell that the majority of the shadow elves had been put out of action by the collapse of their battle beasts. In all fairness, falling the thirty knots, roughly twenty feet, to the grass below was not something most people could handle and still be in fighting shape. The elves that had been thrown into the sky by the collapse of their gruthir had fallen even farther. The shadow elves that could fight rallied, their spears raised as they charged.
“Do I neutralize them?” I asked Creadean.
“No. Leave them a chance to surrender.” Tavorwen asserted. “They won’t, but we must give them a chance. That is the Emerald Stag corp. They are skilled enough that two dozen shadow elves won’t be a problem. It will also be a good chance for some of the younger members to get some experience.”
I kept an eye out. The gruthir beasts I had hit were unmoving. The Emerald Stag corp deployed to surround the spear-wielding shadow elves. The shadow eleve created a very sparse wall of spears, with the just over twenty spears being far too spread to actually function as a proper spear wall. The wood elves called to the shadow elves, probably offering surrender. The shadow elves yelled something in return and charged, each running at the nearest wood elf they could. Their spears were deflected, and once the wood elves were inside the reach of their spears, before they could retrieve the shorter blades at their waists, the dark elves were cut down.
I lamented at the death of the shadow elf soldiers, since none of our numbers had been lost, but the shadow elves had chosen death.
“What would you do with the shadow elves if they surrendered?” I wondered, as the Emerald Stag corp spread out to check for surviving shadow elves.
“They would be taken, relieved of their weapons, and we have holding cells where we would keep them and care for them until they agreed to peaceful coexistence.” Tavorwen explained. “We have never been able to capture a living shadow elf, but we used to do that all the time with the other elves when they came against us to war. The agreement was reinforced with a sigil known as a Vow of Allegiance. The sigil manifested as a golden mark over the heart of the receiver and did nothing but prevent them from coming to war against us. Some Elders complained we were merely turning veteran soldiers into trainers for new soldiers, but that was the only acceptable option we had.”
I rubbed my shoulder. Shooting five times in rapid sequence like that had given me a good thumping. “What would happen if they tried?”NôvelDrama.Org is the owner.
“Well, it would cause their body to lock up, as though paralyzed, if they attempted to engage in warfare against the wood elven people. They could even still defend themselves if attacked, but they could not be the aggressor. Far kinder than something like the Slave Sigil employed by the shadow elves.” Creadean supplied this time.
“Slave Sigils?” I demanded incredulously. I remembered the angel mentioning how the enemy, or the shadow elves, utilized slavery. Magically enforced slavery was a horrific thought.
“Yes, Slave sigils manifest as a light ring around the neck of the bearer.” Tavorwen explained, “The bear is bound to a master… in a mockery of the bond we share with you. We are only bound to you by oath and emotional desire. A slave bearer must obey any command their master gives, or she will seize too, with pain, or death being the penalty for disobedience. A Master can even cause pain and suffering to their slave on a whim, and most dark elves seem to take pleasure in the suffering of their slaves, if our seers have the right of it.”
This idea was abhorrent to me. I couldn’t imagine submitting another person to that.
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Far away in the dungeons of El’muth’ran, the wood elf captive, Radrine, woke. The last thing she remembered was the horrific realization she was in a strange place, then hands had grabbed her and a dark face had said words of magic. Her shoulders were aching. She realized she was hanging from her wrists, shackles holding her with her toes not touching the floor.
“No!” She screamed. The cold air on her naked skin only increased her fear as panic set in. Radrine tried to move, maybe use her legs to get her free somehow, but she quickly realized her ankles were shackled, like her arms, the chains attached to her ankles however hung down and to the side, allowing her a small amount of space to move.
“Ah… my guest awakens…” A cold almost hissing voice breathed from the dimly lit room.
The dark elf came into view, wearing a loose cotton shirt, probably taken from a wood elven corpse by the blood stains. Over the shirt she wore a bloodstained leather apron, and her hips and pelvis were covered by a leather smalls, a garment that clung to her and only covered her hips, leaving her legs uncovered. She had small sandals on.
Her face was mutilated and tortured. Burn marks marred half what had been a beautiful face at one point. The marks of cuts and tears covered both sides of her face and down her neck, arms and legs. The burn marks covered her head, with not a hair to be seen from the burned flesh. Her eyes lit with hatred and pleasure as she gloated over her captive.
Radrine realized with horror that half of the light in the room came from a bed of red hot coals, with various barbs, hooks and blades resting in the heat. No one had ever heard of what happened to a captured elf, but the torture instraments in the fire, hung around the room, and the splatters of dried blood on the stones underneath her told Radrine exactly what the shadow elves did with their captives.
“Oh, I haven’t had a new toy in ages.” The marred shadow elf rasped, her damaged throat clearly affecting her voice. She grabbed the red hot hook, and started limping towards the struggling elf, horror rendering her mute.
“Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.” She grinned her hand running over the torso of the terrified wood elf.
“Please, no… don’t do this.” Radrine begged.