Return To Sky Raven (Book 2) Page 3

  I nodded. “And it keeps you warm when it’s cold out, too.”

  “And to address your earlier statement about my countenance, there is another fantastic feature of this armor - the helmet. Not only does it not bend my ears all up, it seems to somehow channel sounds to me more efficiently so I can hear better when I’m wearing it - a very useful thing on a recon mission.” Maya sighed slightly and her voice became wistful. “My parents will be awestruck when I tell them about this armor, but I think they might actually die from shock when I show them Winya and, of course, introduce them to my betrothed.” Her head swiveled and I knew she was shooting me a sly grin under the helm - my mage sight helps a lot, too. “Of course, the whole human thing may drive them into an insane killing rage, but don’t worry, I’m sure they will warm to the idea eventually.”

  I took a deep sober breath, that thought was actually something I have been concerned about for some time. My friends back in Foalshead always told me that meeting your girl’s father for the first time was always a trial.

  “What’s the matter, Magic Boy?” she taunted impishly. “Getting cold feet already?”

  “Definitely not!”

  I heard a pair of soft sighs and a chittering noise that sounded remarkably like a bucktoothed giggle from behind me, and I twisted around in time to see a pair of small rodent-like heads dive back into the saddlebag I had personally packed before leaving. There was a fine line of cracker crumbs trailing down the flank of my horse as well.

  Maya saw them too and stared, and then looked back at me. “Um, did you see that?”

  Nia, in full bodyguard mode, took off from her perch on my shoulder and buzzed down to take a look. She lifted the saddlebag flap and stuck her body halfway inside, making some chittering noises of her own, then pulled back and flew up to my face.

  “Mister Alex, you have stowaways…actually, stowaways with horribly cheesy accents. I would barely even call that decent rodent-ese!”

  I gaped and leaned back to peer at the saddlebag. “How did rats get in my pack?”

  “Not rats,” Nia snorted, “faux chipmunks.”

  “Ahuh…alright, Lin and Jules, get out here now!” The saddlebag flap bounced up and two small brown chipmunks with stripes down their backs and cute white feet crawled out and perched themselves on the back of the saddle. The miscreants sat there washing their faces nervously with their paws, their whiskers moving constantly. My stallion stopped dead in his tracks and bent his huge head around and gave us all a look of equine disgust {Really?}. Then he turned back with an annoyed shake of his head and resumed his forward progress.

  Maya patted the side of her mare’s neck reassuringly, then glanced at the two druid girls and whispered to me, “I didn’t know they could do that!”

  “Yeah, Hons told me he was going to lift their training restrictions on animal shapes. Hopefully, they get good enough at it to be useful or can at least escape if they get trapped by the enemy. But I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean for them to go without permission on a possibly dangerous patrol. I sense extra chores in their futures.”

  Nia spoke up hopefully, “I guess we need to turn around and take them back then.”

  “No, I don’t think that’s necessary, I’m not expecting trouble. The pixie king must like me, he sent you to me after all!”

  Nia beamed and perked up.

  “Besides the edge of the forest is right in front of us…so Nia, what’s the plan?”

  She looked like we were asking her to jump into a pit with hungry wolves wearing a large amount of bloody meat wrapped around her. “I don’t know, the best plan I could come up with on the way down was to have Maya take off her helmet and hope they are mesmerized by her awesome beauty.”

  Somehow I didn’t think that would work, then again it would probably work on me. “Well then, I guess we just go right in and see what happens.”

  Maya nodded in agreement as we transitioned from bright sunlight to moist, humid forest gloom. The trail was still good, other than being largely obscured by decades of leaf litter and fallen branches. Enough light filtered through the scintillating movement of leaves to illuminate the tree line a dozen feet on either side of the road. I took a deep breath; it smelled like forest to me. Maya, however, jerked strangely and made a “hssst” sound before suddenly fading from view, her armor going transparent. It barely registered that she had slipped off the mare and was gone. Not a twig snapped or a blade of grass moved to mark her departure.

  I pulled up the stallion, slid out of the saddle and hurriedly un-dogged my shield from its tethers. Looking at the two confused chipmunks, I whispered, “Back in the pack, you two, and stay there! I’m not sure what alarmed Maya, but it shouldn’t be anything we can’t handle. The big guy here will protect you, but if he goes down for any reason, Lin, you and Jules turn into small birds or something and get back to camp. Don’t even think about trying to fight.”

  They obediently returned to the saddlebag as I removed my helm from the belt clip and looked at a confused Nia. “Better armor up, girl - something doesn’t feel right here.”

  She nodded mutely from her perch, and I heard her mutter the activation words “Combat Pixie” under her breath. Instantly, she was enveloped in a silvery outfit of pixie-sized plate with her two swords in a crossed pattern sticking out above her shoulders. Her helm, patterned after Maya’s, completed the look. But unlike my dark elf, Nia usually kept her faceplate locked open so it didn’t cover her face.

  I quickly tied the reins of both horses back so they wouldn’t get tangled in the brush, effectively giving them their heads to act independently. Shield in hand and war hammer out, I walked cautiously in the direction we were travelling, warhorses following alertly behind. The forest under the canopy was almost totally silent; no bugs, birds, squirrels, or anything else moved. It was like the world was holding its breath.

  “Mister Alex, this isn’t right,” Nia intoned quietly. “We should have been challenged by now, and this quiet is downright spooky. Do you want me to fly ahead and see what’s going on?”

  “No, Nia, Maya is scouting it out. Let’s give her time to do what she likes best, but you keep a sharp eye out to the sides and rear, and I will continue on point. How far to the pixie village?”

  “It’s not really like a human village with streets and houses. It’s just a stand of comfortable old fir trees that we persuaded the woodpeckers and owls to cut some cozy holes in high up near the tops. It’s been used for generations by my people, the R’dontha.”

  “Alex, Maya is approaching the place that you and Nia are discussing. It appears to be in some disarray but abandoned recently. The feeling of wrongness about this area is very strong. She sends you warm feelings but wants you to proceed with extreme caution.”

  “Thank you, Winya,” I said, as we continued. A couple hundred yards further down the road, Nia tapped the side of my helmet and pointed off the trail.

  “That way to the pixie roost.”

  “Alex, Maya has climbed to the top of a large tree to get a better look around. There appear to be some carrion birds circling an area to the west of the pixie homes. Please ask Nia if there is a second encampment in that direction.”

  I relayed that information to Nia and she shook her head. “No, there is only one camp; the only thing to the west is the Mother Tree.”

  “What’s the Mother Tree?” I asked, sensing that Winya was listening in and would pass the information on to Maya if it was important.

  Nia’s complexion darkened in some embarrassment. “It’s not something we generally broadcast to outsiders, but I guess you guys are my family.” She shook her head and sighed, then launched into an explanation. “I know we look like small humans, but we’re not even mammals, so we don’t exactly procreate like you, either. It’s more of a pollination process. Male pixies visit the Mother Tree in the spring, and females visit the tree in the fall. The tree acts as a repository of their essence and it decides what “pollen” the female rece
ives based on the needs of the tribe…it is a very old and wise tree!”

  “So you don’t really know who your father is?” I queried in surprise.

  “No, no pixie does, but males and females still form family units to care for the young, at least that’s how it usually works,” she sniffed sadly.

  …………………………………………………….

  Maya

  I dropped silently out of the tree. Dark elves know spooky dark woods; hell, we seek them out as places to build our homes. The darker and more foreboding, the better! But I had to admit that this place was starting to get on my nerves. There weren’t any animals above insect level to be found anywhere, not even sparrows or rodents.

  Cautiously, I headed in the direction of the only clue I had, the buzzards that I had spotted in the distance to the west. Generally speaking, carrion birds are a very bad sign; they usually don’t like forests. Because of their large wingspans, the trees growing so close together impede their ability to take off and land quickly. So for them to hazard a dense forest landing, there had to be a big food reward at stake and not just a single deer carcass would do, either.

  Winya was on full alert on my wrist, ready to change into either sword or crossbow if required. I could also feel that she had taken over some aspects of the suit’s operation, carefully monitoring the enchantments that Alex had placed on the boots to ensure that when I put a foot down, the heavy weight of the armor was precisely countered by a matching lift pressure. This way, I left no mark on even the softest of moss patches. Habits like stepping across and over rocks and deadfall instead of walking on them were trained into me since I took my first steps. Equally important was testing each step carefully before fully transferring weight onto the lead foot, being mindful of the wind direction, and taking the time to periodically stop and scan in all directions for trouble. These are skills dark elves learn quickly or don’t survive, but few humans ever fully master. As much as I adore Alex for all the right reasons, he is still a clueless human in the deep woods, and I could clearly hear him approaching the pixie camp several hundred yards to the east - I’m pretty sure the warhorses are quieter than he is!

  Crouching to break up my outline, I parted some branches and smelled cooked flesh, and not Alex’s voskk roast kind of good smell, either. A few steps out of my way took me to the body of a striped polecat, dead, half its body charred beyond recognition. From the marks in the leaf litter, it had dragged itself this far before succumbing to shock and died, and it had come from the direction I was headed. From what Winya had learned from Nia and Alex, there should be something called a “Mother Tree” nearby, but with all the hanging moss and dense low level branches, I probably couldn’t have seen it if it were more than twenty feet ahead of me. Moving ahead, I recognized signs of a clearing ahead, basically just a lessening of the gloom in that direction. As I approached the end of the trees, what little breeze that was apparent shifted and the smell of smoke and death hit hard. Stifling a gag, I parted the last of the branches and focused on what I saw. “By the Gods, no!”

  ………………………………………………..

  Alex

  The village was exactly as Maya had reported - empty. Nia flew up into the birdhouse rooms in the trees and came back confused, saying there was a lot of personal items and good food that would never have been left behind by any self-respecting pixie.

  “Alex, you need to come right away…it’s bad!”

  “Winya, is Maya in danger?” I asked worriedly and got mentally prepared to rush into battle.

  “Nothing immediate…everything’s dead here.” Even Winya’s normally crisp military-like mental voice faltered for a second. “Better keep a grip on Nia.”

  It took me a good five minutes, even with my enhanced speed and strength, to forge through all the marshy grass, deadfalls and overhangs bound tightly in parasitic moss, to reach the clearing which Winya had mentally directed me to. The scene looked like the description of one of Maya’s nightmares of horror, just no undead. The clearing itself was large, probably 200 paces in all directions. The middle was dominated by what had been a gargantuan willow-like tree, but now the branches smoldered lifelessly on the ground. The main trunk had been snapped off at about the twenty-foot mark, leaving a sharp, splintered mess on the top with piles of charred or smoking bark lying in disturbed piles around the base. It looked like something big had trampled its way around the base several times turning the burnt foliage to ash and leaving huge ragged gashes in the soil.

  Nia gasped and made a high pitched keening sound that went straight to the heart. Taking to the air, she darted back and forth, changing viewpoints as if she couldn’t wrap her head around what she was seeing. Radiating out in all directions from the tree were lumps of blackened fur, skin and feathers; the stench was incredible. It appeared every animal in the forest bigger than a rabbit had fought and died at this spot.

  Maya rushed up to me, now fully visible. I could hear her fighting back emotions within her helmet and her shoulders sagged with despair.

  “Alex, I’ve never seen anything like this…they were all so brave!”

  “What happened?”

  She stepped back, gesturing to the smoking battlefield as if it was self explanatory and needed no further comment. Perhaps in her military mindset the scene played out in real time as if she were watching it as a horrified spectator. Finally, she spoke in a hushed awestruck voice.

  “Wave after wave, they charged. They had to know it was hopeless, but still they threw themselves into the battle. Valiantly, they charged, the forest animals, the sylphs, and the nymphs, with the pixies in the air…and valiantly, they all died!”

  I reached out and enfolded her in my arms, her helmet dropping to the ground at our feet.

  “Alex, the pixies defended this tree and most of the creatures of this forest followed them into a suicidal battle. The little ones put it all on the line, for what I don’t know; we may never know. It appears they all lay dead at our feet. Amazing bravery and sacrifice against insurmountable odds, even I have never seen the like.”

  Nia weakly buzzed back, speechless in shock and pain, and tried to land on my shoulder but missed in the attempt twice and nearly fell to the ground. Maya tossed off her gauntlets reached for her tenderly, cradling her in her arms.

  “Nia, I…” I started.

  Maya shot me a warning look and proceeded to take the shattered pixie off to the side of the clearing and just held her until the tears would come no more. I backed up a little. The closer one got to the tree, the harder it became to avoid stepping on a charred body. There must have been thousands of them; it was mind numbing.

  About this time, I looked over and both horses had made their appearance. I never heard them enter the glade; they were just there, as were two now human green-robed druid girls who dropped to their knees in abject dismay at the scene. I knew how poignantly the scene was affecting me, but it was hard to imagine what it probably did to a druid who felt every breath, every heartbeat of the forest. Finally, tears streaming, Julia got up and ran over to throw herself into my arms for comfort.

  “Alex, why?”

  “I don’t know, Jules. I’m not even sure what could do this.”

  Lin walked up quietly, carrying something she picked up off the ground. “Pretty sure I know, big brother,” she said grimly, holding up what looked like a flat, dull red shard of pottery the size of an outstretched human hand.

  “It was a dragon! A big red one!” Maya spat out angrily, having come up beside me, still cradling Nia.

  Lin nodded. “This scale looks just like something we would find on the twins’ dorsal hides, other than the color, of course. And the fact that it’s three times the size of any scale they currently have. One problem though, the footprints that I can see all around the tree look like some form of big cat rather than a dragon.” She opened her sketchbook and rifled through it, finally coming up with a dragon-foot sketch, for which she had pr
obably used Dawn as a model. “See here, three toes and a sickle hind claw that doesn’t really make an impression when they are walking. The prints at the base of the tree are more like this.” She flipped through the sketchpad until she came upon another print with an obvious pad and four clawed toes. “This is the print of a civet wildcat that we discovered on one of our nature hikes. Of course, the prints here are way bigger, bigger than a lion or any other cat I’ve ever heard of.”

  Maya looked confused. “Most of the biggest cats in this area aren’t much larger than a human, pound for pound. Woodland cats are hunters and ambush predators; there’s no reason for them to get very large.” She carefully stalked over to the area indicated by Lin, still carrying Nia. “These are giant footprints.” Maya deactivated the enchantment in her boots and took tentative steps in the torn up soil, judging the weight of the creature against her own, and shook her head. “Whatever cat made these tracks weighed as much as a hill giant or more and that’s pretty impossible.”

  Lin grabbed Julia’s hand. “C’mon, Jules, let’s see if there are any survivors in the underbrush we can help.”

  As they left, Nia, still dazed, finally spoke up. “My people are dead, my race is dead. Without the Mother Tree, we are no more…I am the last. Mister Alex, they hated me, but I never wanted anything like this to happen.” Turning away from us all, she burrowed deeper into Maya’s embrace.

  A short distance away, I saw Julia freeze up as if clearing her mind of the horror. After making a fumbling motion with her hands, she stretched her right hand out pointing and called out, “Alex, over there is a section of hollow log. There’s something alive inside, but just barely.” Finding the log she indicated, I gently removed the remains of a red fox that had died covering the log’s open end. When I tipped it forward, a startled looking, badly burned toad slid out which Lin deftly snatched up and took away. I was about to lower the log back down into the ash, when I heard a whimper and a small hand appeared, pulling itself out of the mouth of the log,. Then a pixie head appeared, a male. I tossed my own gauntlets to the ground and reaching in, retrieved his small self out of the wood. It wasn’t good, the entire bottom half of his torso and wings were completely charred. Quickly, I rushed him over to the horses where I grabbed a clean cloth and some water out of the side bags. Placing him on the scrap of cloth, I leaned him against the pommel using it as a backrest and gave him a sip of water.