A/N: Ah, how I adore all of thy reviews. Keep them coming! Please! They mean a lot to me—and all writers… but me especially, because… well… because! ;; I really don't have anything more to write here. So… yeah. On to Chapter Six! dance of chapter six Oh, and SweetLee, yeah, everyone—meaning… Ulath—picks on Kalten's lack of brains… but we all know that he actually does have some… and Ulath's only doing it because, well… he's Ulath. Speak of the devil, I think I may have another pairing here. Since when did this become a romance story? blinks Ah, well… I'll add in some tactical stuff… but of what? Well, you'll just have to read on and see, won't you? cackles
Sorry about the delay, everyone. I got stuck on the fluff between Elledra, Ulath, and Kalten, and I also got bogged down in the new language, because I wanted to keep it consistent. Loser stuff like that. I can't help it; I have fun making up languages. Anywho… It's finally done. So no more hate mail, threatening to hunt me down and throw me in a room with locked doors and windows and not giving my food or water until I'm done with this chapter. ;;; Okay, so no one really did that, but I got yelled at. So, here it is. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that belongs to Eddings… which… makes sense. scratches head But hey, it works. Oh, and Nightflash, Valmai, Caedryn, Tsaran, Bevier's mother, and anyone else that decides to make an appearance in my story belongs to me—unless said otherwise.
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Chapter Five
Ulath kicked the big man lying at his feet.
"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty," Ulath told him.
The big man grunted and rolled over, his blonde hair falling from his sleeping face. Ulath kicked him again, and the prostrate man opened his blue eyes and growled at the Thalesian. Ulath grinned.
"Ready for another day of searching?"
"Rrrrrrr," Kalten said inhospitably.
"You're cheery this morning," Ulath noted, pointing to their fire, which had a spit holding a pot over top, "and I even cooked you breakfast."
"Breakfast?" The big Pandion sat up, bright-eyed.
"Yup. It's leftovers."
Kalten groaned. "I didn't think that stuff you tried to feed me last night could get any worse."
"Oh, shut your mouth. I cooked some deer into my stew. I deliberately made it bad last night. I'm not as bad a cook as you," the Genidian replied indignantly.
"I'm not that bad a cook!"
"And ogres are fairy tales," Ulath said, scooping some of the stew out for himself and Kalten.
"What's got you in such a good mood? Just yesterday morning you were ready to rip Bevier and me to shreds just because you woke up." Kalten looked down at the stew—which he had to admit didn't look too bad.
The Thalesian shrugged. "I happen to like morning watches." He neglected to mention the fact that he had seen something strange—yet undeniably welcome—in those early morning hours.
While Ulath's big companion had been sleeping not three hours ago, the Thalesian had heard the light laughter of young women not far from their camp. It sounded as if there were two of three, but he would never know for sure unless he went and looked, now would he? And so, look he did. What he found were three young women with delicate, fae-like features. They were perched among the trees, dressed in what looked like little dresses that were made of leaves that left their slim shoulders bare. Two of them had brown hair that spilled over their shoulders and slowly blended into what could only be described as a healthy green. Their eyes were almond-shaped and variations of hazel. One, however, stood out in Ulath's mind. The particular woman that had caught his attention had luminous azure eyes and wore a dress of rust-coloured leaves, contrasting sharply with the green of her hair. Her hair, unlike the other two, was fully green—and very vibrant.
He had watched them talk in a strange, musically wispy sort of language for perhaps twenty minutes when something started crashing about behind him. A young arrogant buck had been chased away by a larger male in the age-old fight to see who got to mate with which doe, and the self-important deer was a bit angered by his loss. When Ulath looked back to where the women had been, they were gone. He decided that the buck and he were overdue for a nice, long chat. He paused a moment at their camp to pick up his axe, then stalked after the unsuspecting buck.
Kalten shovelled the stew into his mouth, and Ulath shook his head, then delved into his own portion, both too busy to talk much.
Bevier's horse lowered his head and tore off some grass. The knights' eyes were drawn over to the riderless horse. Kalten looked as if he were about to say something, but Ulath cut in before the Pandion had a chance.
"I saw something strange this morning," the Genidian said.
Kalten looked at him. "Oh?"
"There were some women in the woods today."
"That's not strange, that's good news!" Kalten's face brightened again.
Ulath shook his head. "I thought so too, but they weren't normal-looking women."
"What, did they have horns, green hair, and tails?"
"Close." Kalten stared at him. "The ends of their hair were green." He paused a moment to reflect on his earlier viewing. "Though one's hair was entirely green." Ulath cast his Pandion brother a look. "Stop staring at me like that; you're eyes will fall out."
"Did they actually have green hair?"
"No, I'm lying to you." Ulath rolled his eyes skyward. "Yes, they actually had green hair—at least, at the tips."
"Are you sure you weren't dreaming?"
"The deer," Ulath grunted.
Kalten blinked. "Pardon?"
"A haughty young buck disturbed me when I was watching them. We had a talk about it." The Genidian pointedly skewered a piece of meat in his bowl and ate it.
"So quickly?" Kalten asked dubiously, looking down at the stew.
Ulath shrugged. "We had a disagreement in our talk."
"Did you?"
"He thought that he should continue living for some reason. I convinced him otherwise."
"What happened to the rest of the deer?"
"I left it as a gift for the wolves."
"You're so generous."
"I try," the massive Thalesian said with a casual shrug.
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Elledra hated them. Not because of who they were, or what they did, but how they were. She inwardly sighed and put on another fake smile. It didn't take much to keep them amused, and until she found out where in the name of the Goddess Tree they were, Elledra would just have to keep Sh'nedra and Messedra As appealing as it sounded to her, Elledra couldn't just let them wander free on whatever world they were on. Someone might see them.
"Sirinico mijalai tyalla," Messedra was saying. The trees feel so strange.
"Myca's morou," Sh'nedra replied. I wonder why?
Elledra opted not to tell them about their sudden relocation. It had all happened so suddenly. She let her mind drift from the idle, mindless chatter that the other two were spouting and rethought recent past events.
Seor had just marked its seventeenth hour, and a deadly calm had settled over the entire forest. It was late autumn, so the sun was methodically nearing the northern horizon, sinking slowly under the mountains. The calm soon fell into a silence, though it was one that no one really welcomed. It was oppressive, and even the idle chatter of the forest animals stopped. Aryuna, her tree, brought this to her attention, and Elledra had crept slowly from the safety of the trunk and looked about. She felt a certain responsibility to this forest; the current Guardian was aging, and though none of them liked to admit it, she would pass on soon. Knowing this, the Guardian had chosen Elledra to be her successor.
And so, it worried her slightly when everything living in the forest stopped. Not stopped as in stopped to smell the flowers (or your neighbour), but just… stopped. The wind had even seemed to freeze in place.
"Myca's saruu nep taenik," she murmured softly, her voice sounding loud in the deadly silence. I wonder what has happened.
Aryuna rustled an almost inaudible reply to her, the tree's leaves flashing crimson in the setting sun's light. At any other time, if Elledra had noticed the colour, she would have thought nothing of it, but now, with an ominous feeling tingling at the back recess of her mind, the colour looked all too much like blood to her. Her azure eyes narrowed a bit, but before she had time to do anything, her pointed ears picked up a distant sound. It sounded like drums. Turning her attention away from Aryuna, she walked to the edge of the stout branch she perched on to peer out into the forest. The sounds weren't coming from within, however, so she climbed swiftly and silently up the tree until she had a clear view of the forest canopy and the lands beyond her small world. Her eyes widened at the horror they beheld.
The sky to the northwest was aflame with the crimson scales of so many red dragons—Baladrierans. It wasn't just the dragons, however; Elledra could plainly see long, vicious lances protruding upward into the heavens from each of the dragons, and a few banners, with a strange insignia on them, were streaming behind those designated as flag-bearers. It was a winged army, and it was heading straight for her forest. Panic gripped and twisted her stomach, for, even as powerful as a whole host of dryads could be if they set their minds to it, they could never stand against such a coalition of Baladrierans. Especially since they were all working together—a small wonder in of itself—and since it was obvious someone was in league with them. As her emerald hair was whipped about wildly as the wind created from the legion—for, indeed, it was an entire legion, perhaps even more—of leathery wings bearing down upon her, Elledra's mind raced to try and think what any Baladrieran would want from conquering her insignificant forest. Perhaps they were going to fly overtop—yes, that was it. The Baladrierans were heading southeast past her forest to wage war on the Calithans—the blue dragons. The Calithans and the Baladrierans hated each other, and were always finding some way or another to rip each other to shreds. That was it. The red dragons didn't have any concern for her forest, other than perhaps to feed on some of the larger deer in it. Yet she couldn't help but feel she was making excuses and refusing to see it for what it really was: scorched earth warfare. Aryuna shuddered as the thought registered in Elledra's mind. As the dryad looked on, the force of dragons paused momentarily, then a red of a particularly bloody colour soared in front from near the back somewhere and hovered for what seemed an eternity, just surveying the forest. The rider, clad in black and red armour, with a dragon's head helm, motioned for two others to join him after some time of observance. The three exchanged words, then the two twisted back and called out orders to the rest of the legion. Large portions of it broke off and flew over the forest, but a small regiment, what was known as a wing in sky warfare, stayed behind with the armoured rider who had flown to the front moments before.
The rider, who seemed to be a leader of sorts, conferred with the wing a moment, and she thought she saw the armoured hand point to her, but she must have been imagining things. The red dragon turned itself about to face the quiet forest. Dragonfear swept over them like waves rushing to submerge everything in its path. Elledra had never experienced this sort of fear before, and nothing else in the forest had. They would have been in hysterics, if they had not been rendered immobile by the dragonfear. The bloody-scaled Baladrieran grinned toothily, and needed no urging from its rider to bear down on the forest as if with a vengeance. Elledra managed to let loose a piteous squeak and tore herself away from the impending doom before her to rush back into her tree. She collapsed on the floor and hugged herself, tears streaming down her cheeks. They were all going to die, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. All around her, she heard the screams of her dying forest: the trees as they were ripped to shreds or burned away with merciless flames, the animals, still unable to move, crying out with their minds, their souls, their very existences in pain as they were slaughtered. She heard and felt the deaths of so many of her sisters, weeping, trying to protect their trees and their lives until the very end.
And then everything stopped.
All at once, there were no more screams. No more deaths. Everything was silent. Opening her eyes and uncovering her ears, she listened. All she could hear were the fading sounds of leathery wings slicing through the air. And one other thing. No, three other things. The soft sobbing of her tree sisters from their rooms below her, and the faint but steady beating of wings… right… outside… Slowly Elledra got shakily to her feet, leaning heavily against Aryuna's trunk, and walked over to where she had stood before the massacre. She hesitated a long moment before she exited, listening to the still remaining wingbeats. Deciding that she didn't really have anything else to live for—other than Aryuna, of course, and her tree sisters—she left the relative safety of the trunk to walk out on that branch once more.
The bloody-scaled dragon was hovering very close to the branch, its gold-embezzled underbelly facing her. Its rider, the red and black armoured one, was resting a hand almost nonchalantly on the thin shaft of his dragonlance, waiting for her, it seemed.
"Ne'debina j'ynaris setijég myco'l tyalla pequa debian," the rider, a man, said in flawless dryadian I see you have finally left the safety of your tree.
"Saruu nagam debino kes?" she asked warily. What do you want?
"Debino'na sepoht cuma inichi emni'tich, " he replied calmly instead. You were watching us before we attacked.
"Myco'san inu sepoht. Jy saruu'th?" she snapped, her emotions getting the better of her, no matter that this dragonrider had just slaughtered all she had ever known and loved. Yes, I was watching. What of it?
"Estuma kesra debino'tira ent emni dwara, Mytyall." His voice seemed to smirk at her. You didn't do anything to stop us, Guardian.
"Myco kes poto saruu denistuuth jy'syara eliné yallat nama looch rho kek?" she answered bitterly, the tears threatening to come back. What could I do to prevent a wing of dragons bent on destroying my home?
"Roat debino'tira ent seme ynej," he said coldly, then asked, "Debino kes morou kho myco debino'tya pask?" Yet you didn't even try. Do you know why I let you live?
"Ke'th cosko?" Does it matter?
He ignored that. "Debino'toht jy'saruu toulisk xet etam taenik nep turin," he ordered, quite obviously used to being in command. There was something about his voice and his mannerisms that suggested he was a born leader. You will travel and tell people of what has happened here.
"Moto morou ne'debino kesra té esha?" she inquired, suspicious. Why would you have me do that?
"Ete'th l'kruu thif raet nehmu pa pask debino'n xet debino tecol debian reet doah jy'nep modino xi'th debian ent'pask quith," he replied simply, then touched the dragon's great neck lightly, almost with affection, and they flew off to follow their wing. It's easier to conquer the world if people know you're coming and give you their land instead of having to wrest it from their unknowing grasps.
She watched him go, baffled. He was going to conquer the world? Was he mad? And yet, Elledra had to admit that he emitted an aura that dictated authority, though she wasn't sure if it was a good kind or not. She suspected not. She must go and warn people—not for the reasons he had in mind, but to allow them to gather their forces and counterattack this madman's ambitions. Elledra ran back inside and rushed down the trunk to her tree sisters' rooms to tell them of their duty, but just as she went to open their doors, a searing kind of shock ripped through her slender frame, and she cried out. Her sisters ran out of their rooms and wailed, holding her. Then she blacked out.
And had awoken on this strange new world. Her tree sisters, never the brightest, hadn't noticed the change, but Elledra had almost right away. They hadn't seen the destruction, she reminded herself. They went out into the new forest, and her tree sisters, quite unaware, were their usual mindless, carefree selves, laughing and joking about everything.
The dryad closed her eyes and massaged her temples. For the life of her, she couldn't figure out how exactly they had arrived here, nor could she even begin to guess at the reasons why. Letting out an exasperated sigh, she glared at her sisters, and was about to say something when a crashing interrupted her before a sound had escaped.
"Leka turin," she ordered her tree sisters. Stay here.
Elledra slipped through the forest with almost the same assurance she would have had she been in her own. The dryad soon came upon two mounted humans, leading a riderless horse behind them. They were plodding through the forest with no regard of how much noise they were making at all. She rolled her eyes. Humans were notorious for that on her world, and she could plainly see that they were basically the same anywhere, even another planet. Yet, they were different then the humans she had seen before--then again, she hadn't seen that many humans since she never left her forest. They were both wearing chain mail and were both large and blond, though one wore his hair in braids. Furrowing her brow a bit, she watched the one with braids for a moment longer, moving ahead of them quickly, staying up in the trees. They seemed to be arguing back and forth; she couldn't understand what they were saying, but she heard their tone and understood that well enough. Abruptly, the one with braids stopped talking and looked up into the trees, scanning them. Elledra froze. She was more than fairly sure that she hadn't made any noise as she was following them, but still, one could never be too sure. The man's blue eyes narrowed, and paused where she was, but then moved on. The dryad let out a sigh of relief—too soon. Without any warning at all, the branch that she was on snapped and she plummeted to the ground with a cry. The humans reigned in their horses and kept the animals still; Elledra had fallen right beside them, and horses don't take too kindly to surprises.
The two humans exchanged glances, and the braided one dismounted and slowly walked over to her, obviously wary, his guard up. He said something in a strange language to her, and she stared at him, wide-eyed. Sighing a bit, the man rolled his eyes skyward and said some more words in a harsh tongue. To her surprise, the sky talked back to him. She stared even more. What a strange world this was.
Quite unexpectedly, a large, glowing figure appeared on the ground beside the braided man, and scrutinised her for a moment. It made guttural noises and pointed at her, looking back at the blonde man. He nodded, and said something else to the glowing figure. The other blonde man just stared at her as if he had never seen anything like her in his life. He didn't seem to understand what the braided man and the glowing figure were talking about.
"Can you understand me?" she heard a definitely male voice ask her.
Her azure eyes locked on the man with the braids. "What?" she found herself asking, though she knew that he couldn't understand her. Or, at least, that's what she thought.
To her amazement, he smiled, then spoke a few moments more with the glowing figure, which made frightening motions at her and said some more words. Then it vanished. Elledra chewed on her lower lip and stared at the spot where the glowing figure had been not moments before, unsure of what to make of the situation.
"Now, since we can all understand one another now, what's your name?"
Elledra turned to look at the men again, her hands held protectively up at her chest. "You can understand me?"
"Yes, we can."
"You speak my language? Why didn't you before? What was that glowing figure? Who are you? Where am I—" The braided man held up his hand to stop her.
"Let me answer the first wave before we go onto a new one, all right?" Elledra nodded.
"First off, no, I don't speak your language. But you can speak mine. The glowing figure was the Troll God of Eat, Gnomb. He taught you Elenish—my language—in about thirty seconds. I'm Ulath, a Genidian knight, and this is Kalten, a Pandion knight. You're in Eosia." He paused. "Did that about cover it?
She stared at him again. "So you're telling me that I just learned an entire language in under a minute?"
"That's about right."
"And that you're a knight?"
"Last time I checked."
"And he is too?" She looked past the one called Ulath at the one called Kalten with a look of doubt. "Neither of you look much like the knights I'm used to."
"We're special like that. And yes, believe it or not, but Kalten really is a knight."
"Hey!" Kalten interjected indignantly, taking a step forward. "I earned my knighthood just as much as you did."
"Vanion must have had a slow week when you were in." Ulath raised his hand. "Let's not argue your credibility right now. We can do that later, over a few kegs of Arcian red." He turned his blue eyes back to Elledra. "Now, I believe it's your turn to answer some of our questions."
"Alright."
"Where are you from?" Kalten inquired.
"I'm from… a forest—" she winced slightly at the words—"just south of the Tiran River on Miomir." It felt strange saying her world's name. It wasn't that it was a bad name—in fact, she thought it was beautiful, and the dryads hadn't even changed it to fit their language—but no one had ever asked her what world she was from.
"What's your name?" Ulath asked her.
"Elledra."
"Why do you have green hair?"
"I'm a dryad."
"A dryad?"
"People who live in forests, and who are connected to their trees. If we die, they die, but if our trees die, we don't die. We can leave them—obviously—but we don't like to."
"How does that dying thing work out?" Kalten asked.
"I'm not sure, actually. We don't really have an explanation for it; we just accept it." She shrugged.
"Are there any others like you here?" Ulath, after a moment's silence, enquired.
Elledra closed her eyes and sighed. She has hoped they weren't going to ask that. "Yes," she replied after a time. "My two tree sisters are with me."
"Don't you like them?"
The dryad looked up sharply. "That's none of your business, Knight Ulath." She hoped it was the one named Ulath. She was still having a bit of trouble telling the two apart, though she was able to see few minor differences. Her azure eyes hardened into dark ice.
He half-grinned. "I'll take that as a no, then."
She was about to make a heated reply when the one named Kalten cleared his throat. "As much as I like to see Ulath fight with someone other than myself, we really should get back to looking for our companion."
"You mean the other one?" Elledra asked. She had seen another man in armour earlier, with a dragon knight—whom she assumed was from Miomir, since the dryad had recognised her class.
"You've seen Bevier?" Kalten asked excitedly.
"I don't know his name, but I saw another man that wore armour like yours with dark hair, and a knight of my world earlier." Elledra shook her head a bit.
"Where were they?"
"In a clearing about two, three hundred yards away from where my tree sisters and I were resting"
"Can you take us to him?"
"I could…" she answered vaguely.
"Then why don't you?" Ulath suggested.
"The dragon knight," was her reply.
Kalten groaned. "Not another one…"
Elledra looked at him questionably. "You've seen another dragon knight?"
"No, you just say a word or two and expect us to know what it means. Ulath does the same thing. Most annoying thing in the world."
"That's just because you can't keep up with my thinking, Kalten. I tend to skip around in my mind, then just blurt out the end result. Process is really boring, actually." Ulath dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand. "But that's not important. What about the dragon knight?"
"They tend to move around a lot, since people generally don't care for them. The whole, 'burning villages' thing turns people off toward dragons and their riders. So I doubt that they would still be where I saw them."
Ulath arched a brow. "Even on a strange world?"
Elledra thought this over. "You may be right, Knight Ulath. But the dragon knight might not know that they're on a different world."
"There's only one way to find out, isn't there?" Ulath said, then nodded to Caedryn. "Need a ride?"
Elledra wrinkled her nose. "No thanks. I'm allergic to horses."
Kalten and Ulath exchanged glances.
"Not severely allergic, but I can't ride them without sneezing constantly. It's the close proximity thing. Besides, I'll be able to find your friend and the dragon knight better from the trees." She flashed them a stunning grin. "You just have to keep up with me."
She started walking through the forest, then swung up onto a low branch and was off. Ulath and Kalten spurred the horses into motion, following her. Kalten snorted.
" 'Keep up', she says. How fast can she get through the trees?"
"Are you guys coming, or what?" Elledra's voice called to them from down the path.
"That fast," was Ulath's answer as he urged his horse into a canter, keeping up with the darting dryad. Kalten merely trailed behind Ulath's big horse, leading Bevier's behind his.
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A/N: For all of you who don't know… which would be… virtually all of you, I'm surmising, the references to the other world—Miomir, as Valmai so graciously told us last chapter—are to a world that my friend and I are creating for our book—books, hopefully. So… Seor is a little red moon, I believe, that has an hourly orbit around the world, and when it reaches its zenith, the inhabitants use that as a sort of, uh, moon-dial for the hours. Also, no I didn't make a mistake when I said that the sun was setting on the northern horizon. The sun rises in the south on Miomir… what can I say? It made for an interesting time on where and how to place the equator. v.v;;; I've got a story started that's called Saturnine Relic on and that's set on Miomir. It's one of the funniest things—I think—that I've ever written… and it only has one review. It's very lonely. So… glances to either side go visit it. nod nod