The Centaurs
Today, mused the centaur lieutenant named One-Arrow was not a fine morning. The wind was blowing hard enough to rip foliage and needles of the trees itself, and it stirred the debris along the forest paths… Oh well.
It had been some time since One-Arrow's tribe had moved into that particular stretch of the forest, searching for a new place to live. Not that there was anything wrong with their old place, mind you, but for the slow and ponderous onslaught of the human 'civilization' as the latter-mentioned humans were slowly starting to approach the centaur lands. Personally, One-Arrow and his underlings would've preferred to fight rather than to submit, but One-Arrow wasn't the chief; Hawk's-eye was, and Hawk's-eye's orders were to move. And so, here they were Hawk's-eye and his tribe, in this fine new demesne, ready to settle in. So why was One-Arrow (and his followers) unhappy?
A number of reasons, and one of those reasons was actually the wild elves of the neighborhood. While the relationship between them and the centaurs was cordial enough, the elves also didn't hide the fact that they were happier when there was more distance (and game) between them and the centaurs. Also, the centaurs' relocation did portend a bad omen that the humans were coming, and the elves had an even lower opinion of humans than the centaurs, and that showed. And then to add to the fact that the two groups just didn't get along very well, was the occasional prank or something along those lines to make things worse.
One of those things was the withholding of the information about the satyrs that lived to the northeast of the centaurs, near a swampy patch of the land. The swamp itself was a relatively small affair, apparently inhabited by nothing more than various vermin – and the magically altered satyrs.
Once upon a time, the wild elves finally admitted, there was a dragon – a black or a green, most likely – that had made himself a lair in the stony hill that overshadowed the swamp. Apparently, the dragon had died during the Time of Troubles, but his hoard remained, and what's more, it remained intact. The satyrs – a relatively motley bunch, led by a rogue named Syrtak – decided to investigate it, and fell prey to some sort of a curse – or maybe even the dragon's ghost that was supposed to be haunting its' lair and the nearby swamps.
Magically-warped satyrs, cursed dragon hoards, draconic ghosts – this all spelled trouble, and wherever there was trouble, there were going to be adventures sooner or later, and given the luck of Hawk's-eye's tribe, they were going to be human adventures, or, almost as bad, dwarven: the centaurs distrusted dwarves, just as the dwarves distrusted most sylvan beings, including the wild (and the wood) elves.
One-Arrow sighed and shook his head in semi-despair. He could muse all he liked but the fact remained the same: they were stuck. They were stuck here, between the sullen elves and some very problematic and troublesome satyrs. Oh, and a swamp. Centaurs disliked swamps, because, well, they tended to get stuck and drown in them because of their equine bodybuild.
A polite cough caught One-Arrow's attention. "What is it, Acacia's-pod?" he asked the young messenger who caught his attention.
"The Venerable Leader told me to summon all to his dwelling," the latter replied. "He claims that Lurue came to him in a dream and told him something very important, Lieutenant. Now if you excuse me, I must be off." And he dashed away.
One-Arrow gazed after Acacia's-pod with a thoughtful, but not overly kind, gaze. Quite a long while ago he had made his own opinion about the venerability of Hawk's-eye, and he wasn't about to change it.
Just like One-Arrow and other lieutenants, the centaurs' Venerable Leader Hawk's-eye had spent the morning in quiet concentration and reverie. Only, unlike the younger stallions, Hawk's-eye concentration was much more intense, and he had much more to think about than just the uncomfortable new tribal location, or, more correctly, it was about the uncomfortable new tribal location, but in a much deeper way than another centaur like One-Arrow would think.
"Good morning, my people," his still-powerful voice carried over the clearing. "Last night, Lurue sent me a message to be shared among all-"
"Well, it'll have to wait," interrupted another voice, a mocking and a cracking one, and smack onto the leader's back landed a bat-winged, horned horror, and the centaurs gasped, as this was none other than one of the warped satyrs from the northeast area.
"You!" yelled Two-Feathers, One-Arrow's fellow lieutenant. "I remember you! You were one of the monstrosities harassing our scouting party!"
"Quiet, horse!" the satyr snarled, showing crooked, fang-like teeth. "I come bearing a message from Syrtak, our leader! We challenge you to an honorable battle at the black cypress that grows at about two miles at north-north-west. Do you know where it is, or should I draw you a picture?"
"Why you little…" Two-Feathers was never the most patient of centaurs, even One-Arrow had more tolerance than he, and at the moment Two-Feathers was reaching for his bow.
The warped satyr gestured; Two-Feathers stiffened and collapsed, snoring loudly. "Well?" the satyr turned back to Hawk's-Eye. "Will you meet us, or are you brave to merely shot from the cover of distance, horse?"
Hawk's-eye's eyes narrowed with suspicion and disgust. "You can tell your leader, vileness, that we will meet you – when do we meet you?"
"Tonight, an hour before sunset," the satyr replied.
Now Hawk's-eye's eyes widened slightly from surprise, but the satyr didn't notice it. "Very well, we'll meet you there," the Venerable Leader replied. "Is that all?"
"Indeed," the satyr nodded, and with the flapping of the wings vanished in the sky, leaving a rather shocked centaur gathering.
Hawk's-eye heavily exhaled. "This is- this is just like my dream," he said, his voice heavy with thought. "One-Arrow – you and Two-Feathers' teams will be the ones to meet the satyrs at that oak tree. Acacia's-pod – go to the wild elves, and tell them of the satyrs' challenge."
"I am on it, sir," the messenger replied and sped off. One-Arrow also nodded and taking the allocated number of the centaur warriors began to discuss the appropriate tactics with them.
Acacia's-pod was just a young centaur but he had a very good head for maps, and locations, and just local geography in general. That was why he became the tribe's number one scout and messenger.
Unfortunately, for all of his good qualities, Acacia's-pod was still a teenaged, inexperienced youngster, and so, when another one of the warped satyrs appeared in his path, he was unable to reach before he became enthralled.
"Good horse," the satyr then said, smirking. "Now here is what you are going to do and to say…"
Even Hagstrom's boots squelched with anger as he walked through the swampy, gassy, foul, bubbling grounds, looking for his goal. "Yo! You! Landwyrm! Come out, come out wherever you are, you gargantuan dunderhead! Come out from wherever you're lurking, before I fed you to my steed, may it have the biggest indigestion in all of Nine Hells! Come out, come out you embarrassment to a shambling mound and face me!" But there was no reply to all of the insults that Hagstrom had uttered.
Naturally, Hagstrom was a very patient creature – over four centuries of undeath could teach one that. But at this moment he didn't really have much time: he had to find swamp landwyrm and deal with it with the due hour quickly approaching.
To make matters worse, the kelpie – who still had forgiven Hagstrom for beating it up and introducing it to the undead dragon Dredhlammer – simply refused to help. And, to put a lid on affairs, the aforementioned Dredhlammer forced Hagstrom to submit and let the Fay be (alive and unhurt). So, right now, Hagstrom simply boiled with unspent anger, ready to let it rip at anyone, even a swamp landwyrm, a creature that could supposedly eat a tribe of lizardmen for breakfast and still feel hungry.
"Yo! Where are you, lizard breath?" Hagstrom yelled, and kicked a conveniently-lying pine cone into a nearby mossy hillock.
Wham! The cone struck the hillock and the latter feature of landscape shifted and produced a pair of eyes, set in a most unpleasant-looking muzzle.
"Well! That is better!" Hagstrom smiled to the landwyrm. "Tell me, my friend, how do you feel about centaurs?"
The landwyrm responded with laugher that was almost loud enough to shatter wooden barrels, and all that time Hagstrom patiently waited until he was finished. "Well?" he finally said after the landwyrm's laughter finally subsided. "How do you feel about centaurs?"
"You dare," the landwyrm replied in accented, but still quite passable common, "to offer me a deal after insulting me? How stupid do you think I am?"
"Hello! We've just met! Just how stupid should I think you are?"
For a few moments the landwyrm stared at Hagstrom as if the latter had agreed that the moon is made out of green cheese; then it shook its head and lunged.
Deftly, Hagstrom jumped out of the way of the landwyrm's gnashing jaws. "You know, this is just too much," he grumbled. "First Dredhlammer takes a bite of me, now this?"
"Wait!" the landwyrm froze. "What about Dredhlammer? Is he not dead?"
"No, not really. He was merely incapacitated, but now he intends to be back in charge."
Now the landwyrm looked
really thoughtful. "Dredhlammer is back?"
"Yes, and he fully
intends to be in charge."
"Then perhaps this can be to my benefit, yes," the landwyrm muttered, and then spoke much louder. "Lead the way, then, human – unless you're too tired and need a ride."
"I have walked this earth for more than four centuries, more than half of this time – in this body, and have never felt exhaustion," Hagstrom replied, flatly. "Please, sir or madam, follow me, and I'll lead you to Dredhlammer."
The kelpie nervously walked around a tiny clearing in the forest, chewing – even more nervously – some leaflets of a rowan tree. It was nervous. For over a century it had lived at the outskirts the swampland, going to pains unimaginable (for its' kind) to avoid FnlJann, the great swamp landwyrm, who would've probably eaten it if they met. Needless to say, this way of life left the kelpie half-starved and half-vegetarian and neither of these halves had made it any happy…
And then came the undead stranger and the kelpie's life had changed again, but whether for better or worse it couldn't say.
A twig snapped.
The kelpie whirled around and saw the latter stranger, standing alive (well, undead), and practically unharmed. "You!" he snarled, and his eyes flashed blood-red, and saliva fell from his mouth, and where it landed on the grass, the vegetation turned yellowish and diseased.
Now, a kelpie, although it is a Fay, is in practice a large horse that lives underwater. It doesn't know how to climb trees… so it was really surprising to see how quickly this particular kelpie acquired that skill.
"Come down," Hagstrom snarled, unwilling to endure any more "Faerie antics" than he had to. "Don't make me even angrier than how I am now."
"No!" the kelpie yelled back.
"Come down!"
"I'm scared."
"Ahem!" one of the warped satyrs descended, flapping his wings. "Sorry to interrupt, but is everything ready?"
"Yes," and the gargantuan swamp landwyrm crawled into the clearing, smashing through trees and rather deep shrubbery with ease.
Seeing that the situation has changed and it was no longer in danger of a beating, the kelpie jumped off the tree.
"Well, lead-on," Hagstrom turned his attention to the satyr. "We don't want to be late, do we?"
The warped satyr's bloodthirsty cackle was the only answer.
"This is just not fair!" Two-Feathers was saying loudly to One-Arrow as the two centaur lieutenants, flanked by their sergeants, were leading the way. "I made just one small mistake and you get to lead?"
"Quiet, fool!" One-Arrow snarled at the other lieutenant. "Don't distract me! That darn satyr had been too cocky by half! For all those months they had skulked at the swamp's outskirts, and now a challenge? No, when those elves will deign to appear-"
"If they'll deign to appear-"
"Acacia's-pod swore that they will," One-Feather said, but he didn't sound too certain himself. The younger centaur had acted oddly when he said that, like he wasn't sure that he was relaying the truth, but the elves didn't lie, did they?
"Hey, it's the clearing, now where are the goats?" one of the centaur warriors yelled loudly.
"We're here."
Before the centaurs could react, the whole gang of Syrtak, about a dozen of magically warped satyrs, lashed-out with their spell-like abilities, charming and enthralling centaurs as fast as they could. "Charge you fools! Don't stand there!" One-Arrow yelled, charging forwards.
Suddenly, a gargantuan mass burst through the trees, and stared directly into the centaur lieutenant's eyes. One-Arrow froze, and tried to resist, but the kelpie hit him with a charm, and he hopelessly succumbed.
With a blackening-out awareness, as he One-Arrow's longsword began to cut short lives of his own kin, he thought he noticed several of the nearby trees move, but it was probably just a trick of his mind…
"Very good," Dredhlammer rumbled, "very good. I am pleased." And he had good reasons. Between the bhut and the kelpie, between the satyrs and the swamp landwyrm, the centaurs were hopelessly routed. Few awakened and subjugated trees had sealed the first trap, and now Dredhlammer was ready to continue with his next part, and that, to Dredhlammer, was the most exciting part at all so far.
After all, he hadn't had many chances in creating corpse creatures in this millennium yet.
Hawk's-eye, the Venerable Leader of the Cat's-claw's tribe, was growing nervous. It was over an hour since sunset, and there was nothing. No noise, no anything, no yells – and a centaur's hearing was very good, and they can even see in the dark.
Now, usually a nocturnal forest is full of all sorts of little noises and movements that you can see from the corner of your eye, but this time were wasn't anything. The forest around the centaurs' settlement seemed to have died down, hid, withdrew. That was alarming. "Sentries!" Hawk's-eye shouted as alarm and fear seized his heart. "Light the warding fires!"
He barely finished when an arrow – a tall, feather-notched, centaur arrow came whistling through the air and struck him just where the neck connected to his body.
And then the corpse centaurs attacked en masse.
Acacia's-pod couldn't believe his eyes, as the tribesmen of the Cat's-claw warred and fell upon each other. But his horror grew greater, as he realized that the falling was done mainly by one side – the defending one. The attackers seemed to ignore more of their wounds, although some of them looked pretty wounded already – but they didn't bleed.
They did not bleed, even though some of their wounds looked pretty gristly, some even mortal! That meant that they were undead! Undead!
Neighing from fear the young scout whirled and tried to feel and hide in the nocturnal forest. He never made it far. Hagstrom, using his longspear, had nailed him neatly to a nearby oak-tree.
Dredhlammer openly celebrated. Forget the sunset fight, this was an open victory. Over a hundred dead and dying centaurs! Just what he needed to provide himself with new materials.
"This is all well and good," rumbled FnlJann, the landwyrm, "but when will come my payment? When we will move against that wretch DnrJann?"
"Patience," Dredhlammer said in a voice as cheery as he could manage. "This is only the beginning! We will destroy DnrJann as we have destroyed the centaur tribe!"
Neither he, nor the landwyrm noticed the odd look that had crossed Hagstrom's face. It looked almost like exasperation.
The kelpie, however, noticed it, and kept quiet…
And that was night. And after it came morning, and after morning – noon, and the wild elves of the Ezelochar clan finally received its' scouts with some sort of odd eagerness on their faces, and questions on their lips.
"Well?" the clan's leader - and also – pluralistically – its' priest, asked the scouts. "What have you found there?"
"Blood. Sir lots and lots of centaur blood, and centaur tracks, and some sort of foulness. But beyond that – no sign of neither life nor corpses. It's like the Cat's-claw tribe completely ceased to be!"
"Bad news you brought to me, young ones!" the ancient priest's face grew considerably cloudy. "Truly bad. I fear that we'll have to ask the Lady Mistielle for advice!"
"Should we get you an escort, sire?" the clan's war chief asked.
"Pick whom you see as the most worthy," the priest replied, his voice oddly flat. "I fear that on the journey to the sacred wood we may need them!"
The other elves wordlessly exchanged looks. This was completely out of the ancient elf's character.
"Yes, sire," the war chief nodded, to hide his concern. Apparently, bad tidings were brought back by his scouts indeed!
The tree of the dryad lady Mistielle was one of the finest elm trees that the wild elves had ever seen. Of course, seeing lady Mistielle herself was far more important.
"This is the first time you didn't come alone, as is your habit, old friend," she spoke to the elves' priest. "What brought that sudden change on?"
"Bad news, my lady," the ancient elf replied slowly. "An entire centaur tribe has vanished overnight, and I fear that the Slumbering Dragon had awakened!"
"Oh, he may well have," somebody else – not the dryad – spoke in an oddly accented Sylvan, and a large dragon-like creature came quietly into the view.
Immediately, the elves were on their feet and armed. In the next moment, the forest landwyrm DnrJann opened his frill and prepared to jump.
"Cease all violence!" the dryad lady said sharply, "for that is Lurue's law here, do you hear?"
"Sorry, lady," the forest landwyrm said almost sheepishly as the elves lowered their weapons as well. "But things are starting to get real bad real quick lately. The place of the centaur camp reeks of blood, and necromancy, and worst of all – the wretched FnlJann!"
"FnlJann?" an elf asked despite his reservations.
"FnlJann. One of my swamp-dwelling kin who is… bigger than I, and who used to serve the crazy dragon Dredhlammer, whom you know as the Slumbering Dragon."
"And he was there? Last night?"
"I don't know," DnrJann admitted. "I thought that he had died in the Time of Troubles. But only he could get FnlJann out of the swamps."
"Oh, the Slumbering Dragon slumbers no longer indeed," Mistielle nodded slowly. "But as the subterranean waters whisper to the stones, as the stones whisper to the sands, as the sands whisper to plants and as the plants whisper to me, Dredhlammer was awakened by someone or something, both hungry and evil."
"So what shall we tell our people?" the ancient elf asked just as the forest landwyrm asked: "So what shall I tell the gnomes?"
"Tell them," Mistielle said to both sides, "to avoid the northeastern swampland for a distance of one dragon flight. Can they do it?"
There were nods, and both the elves and DnrJann departed.
Mistielle slowly turned away from the departing groups with a heavy heart and sighed. "Oh Lurue," she whispered, looking at the impromptu altar of moss-covered stones. "I feel the darkness rising in my forest. What shall I do?"
But Lurue gave her no answer.
Darkness in the forest was rising and nothing at the moment could stop it.