The raven seemed interested in the
Falwood acorn. Elinyra admitted to herself that she would miss this little trinket, but maybe this was an omen for her. It was time to fully let go of the homeland she had left behind.
With a wistful sigh, Elinyra put the other items back in the bag and watched Leyik’s departure. When she was alone again, she returned to the task of packing up; gloves, bedroll, pack, quiver, cloak, staff. Once all was in place, she abandoned the hollow and was again on the long trail towards the
Eldyr Tree.
The morning’s rain had made the trail slick with mud, so she took to walking on the living mats of grass and moss along its edges. She cast her focus to the nearby woodland animals one by one, borrowing their senses for brief glimpses of the landscape ahead and the dangers it might present. Her eyes changed subtly with each passing consciousness she shared, from deer to hawk to hedgehog to fox, and each ally left an impression of her surroundings.
All was peaceful for the first few miles, if not gloomy. The morning sun glowed only dimly through ragged clouds and an encompassing overstory. It wasn’t long into her day, however, before Elinyra got the feeling that something was amiss. The shared thoughts became more sparse, more agitated. She warped staff into bow and kept it strung as a precaution.
A subtle noise, like a stone thrown against a tree, disturbed the silence of the wilderness and drew Elinyra’s attention. Before she had the chance to see the source, she caught the flicker of movement from the corner of her eye and heard the whistle of air being split.
She ducked behind a half-rotted stump as an arrow buried itself into the trunk of a tree behind where she’d been standing a moment ago.
“The prey’s quick,” a man’s voice growled from somewhere in the woods. “But how strong?”
Another arrow thunked into the stump to her other side, at a slightly different angle. Her attacker was changing positions. Glancing around for better cover, the druid made herself as low as possible. She rolled towards the largest tree near her, a red-barked cedar, and placed it between herself and the archer.
Silence closed in. Elinyra stilled her breaths, listening for any sound that might give away her unseen opponent’s location. Slowly, quietly, she nocked an arrow while shifting part of her will to the trees around her.
Be my senses.
Briefly, she felt the roots beneath her feet like an extension of her nerves, feeling the soil and the air and the water; and the footfalls of one humanoid. She made a mental request of the roots to hinder her stalker, but neither felt nor heard a response.
She leaned out from the cover of the tree and loosed an arrow at the place she’d sensed the attacking man’s presence, but her projectile only buried itself deep in a thicket.
Another whistle from beside her, a sudden pain as a sharp-tipped wooden shaft plunged into her side. Bracing against the tree, she stumbled to the side and finally saw her attacker.
Half of him was undeniably human, light of skin and hair, with just the bare stubble of a beard. The other half, from his left hand up his arm to his shoulder, up his throat and across his left cheek was a blackened, bark-like flesh. He was dressed in the typical leathers and furs of a hunter, except where this putrescence had jaggedly ripped through and formed a thorny armor. Animal skulls, skins, tails and teeth adorned this horrific growth.
“My equal? No! Hardly a worthy trophy. Trophy is power, what power have you?” the half-man creature laughed, waving a hand holding a bow lazily at her. The bow was strange, larger than a normal longbow and shaped crudely, as if some soot-black branch had grown into that form.
“I’m no man’s prey,” Elinyra retorted through teeth gritted against pain. Her right hand was throbbing, as if demanding her attention.
The hunter smirked and drew his bow. He had no quiver; a wooden spike simply sprouted from his bow as he aimed it at her, point-blank.
A stupid move. She lunged towards him and pushed his bow aside just enough for his shot to deflect over her shoulder. She kept her forward momentum while he was surprised, until she’d pinned the
weapon against him so he couldn’t shoot another. He put his own momentum into shoving her away. She spun around to his human side and her bow met his face. It only took him a moment to recover, but in that moment the blighted whip exploded from Elinyra’s hand and ensnared the bow.
The whip bit into the hunter’s weapon as she pulled on it. She expected she might disarm him, but instead one of the limbs broke. The creature reeled back, as if she’d struck a blow, still holding onto the weapon.
She noticed it now as a crack spread across the hunter’s left hand and arm – the weapon was
part of this
monster.
The hunter stared in shock at the whip in her hand and started to retreat. Elinyra let him go. She was in no shape to continue this fight.
“Trophy is power, I need more! Will be back, prey!” a manic shout echoed through the trees before it was silent once more.
Once again, the whip decayed into dust over a matter of seconds; just as when the wraith slugs on the
Sea Demon had been dealt with during her journey to
Alliria. Elinyra was more concerned with the arrow in her side than the state of her hand, for the moment. She felt nauseous from the pain, and she knew it only would get worse when she removed it.
Breathing heavily, she tore some feathery
yarrow leaves she’d seen growing in a nearby spot along the trail. These she crushed between her teeth while she collected a few clumps of moss to help prevent her bleeding to death.
She laid down and gathered her strength as she reached for what amounted to the largest splinter she’d ever seen, but her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn’t get a grip, and the blood from her hand only made it slippery.
No good. Her vision was blurring now. Lying at the side of the trail with clumps of moss pressed against her side, the druid did the only thing she could think of; she appealed to the birds of the air and the beasts of the land for aid.
Something listened...
