Chapter 2

 

            Arateer opened his eyes, shivering slightly from the cold. He sat up, the snow crunching under him. The air was cold, and the woods around them were silent. Pushing himself up, Arateer emerged from the tent. Looking around, he realized Toreal was nowhere to be found. The fire was only a circle of ashes, a small wisp of smoke rising up into the air. He walked around, looking for his friend, his feet crunching through the snow.

            “Sneak attack!” The cry rang out from above. Arateer looked up and saw his friend dive from the branches above. He took a step to the side and his friend slammed face first into the ground. A muffled grunt came from beneath the snow. Laughing, Arateer helped his friend out of the snow.

            “Next time, Toreal, it would help if you didn’t yell sneak attack before you actually sneak attack.” He brushed the snow off of his friend and then made his way over the dwindling fire. After tossing in some branches, he sat down on the log, his friend joining him a few seconds later. “We have no food and no bow, so what are we going to do to eat?” Arateer asked.

            Toreal looked at him. “Honestly? I think it best if we just packed our stuff and went straight home. I don’t like this place and I have a strange feeling that those wolves will be back. Besides, we aren’t that far from home and we have plenty of food there. Before we leave, though, let’s at least sit by the fire for a few minutes.”

            Arateer had no complaints, so they sat beside the warm glowing fire, enjoying the warmth it gave. Thick gray clouds still covered the sky, continuously sprinkling snow upon the valley. Soon, Toreal got up and began to take down the tent. Arateer continued to sit on the log, content with watching his friend do the work. He stared into the fire, gazing at the dancing flames. They began to glow brighter, spinning slowly around.

The flames spun faster and faster into a column of fire, spiraling up into the sky. Just when it seemed the fire would reach the clouds, it stopped and dropped straight back towards the ground, slamming heavily into it, forming a small ball of brightly glowing blue fire.

            Arateer heard a deep unintelligible voice in his ears, mixed with the high-pitched scream from a girl. The fires surface became very smooth, and an image appeared on it. A hooded figure stood in the front, shrouded in shadows, reddish orange fire behind him. The deep voice continued, and Arateer knew it was coming from the figure. It said something, and the girl threw her head back and screamed, body tensed. Arateer was startled. The girl was his sister. He reached for her but the ball of fire exploded.

             A snowball slammed into his face, throwing back to the presence. The fire was back to its normal size, crackling merrily. He turned and glared at his friend, who was chuckling.

            “Why did you do that?” Arateer asked, bewildered.

Toreal looked at him like he was stupid. “That’s payback for yesterday and for not helping me break down camp. Instead you just sat there staring at the fire. Did you see something unusual? You had this really weird look on your face.”

“It…..It was nothing.” Arateer said, “Let’s head out, though. I want to get home by lunch so I can eat.” He stood up, stretching out his muscles.

“Let’s go then.” Toreal turned and headed back through the woods, snow crunching under his feet. Arateer jogged to his side and walked with him. The air was cold, colder than it had been the day before. Snow began to fall, soon becoming so thick they could barely see the trees in front of them. They pushed on, and soon came back to the pool with the waterfall.

“So how are we going to get up?” Toreal asked, looking at his friend. It seemed that there was no way up the giant cliff, which was covered in a layer of ice, supplied by the waterfall’s spray, which was then frozen. A fresh layer of snow already covered the old one, making their footsteps silent. Arateer looked around, thinking.

 “There’s a path somewhere over there that leads to the top of the cliff but we’ll have to be careful. The path is narrow and I’d rather make it back home,” he said. He started off into the snow, and then turned around. “Follow me.” Arateer continued walking and Toreal followed. Soon they found the path, which was very narrow. They started up it, making slow progress because the path was covered in ice and snow, making It very difficult to keep their footing.

Once, Arateer nearly fell, but he managed to steady himself just in time. After about an hour, they reached the top of the cliff and found themselves near the tree they had been at the day before. The made their away over to it and saw that the river was already frozen over again.

They found the path that led back to their village and began to walk home. Their village was named Miraden, and it was one of the seven elven villages. Their village was known for it’s very high caliber of warriors, but it was also one of the smallest. There were only about five hundred elves living in the town, with a few humans living there too. These humans were ones that had left their race, believing them to be too violent and narrow minded, which the humans were, and had instead devoted themselves to wisdom and learning, while also training with the elves to become master warriors.

As thy made their way through the woods, the snow began to let up, making the path ahead of them more visible. Soon they converged onto a more widely traveled path and were headed straight to their village. Smells and sounds began to break through the cold silence of the snow, and the village began to come into sight.

Their village was in a large clearing in the middle of a forest. There was another set of cliffs near their village in the front, but this was smaller and only covered one side of the village. Another waterfall cascaded over the edge of this cliff into a river, the same river that Arateer and Toreal had fallen into. When they stood in the entrance of their village, the cliffs were directly in front of them.

A forest surrounded the rest of the village, and only one path, not even big enough to be a road trailed through the woods to connect them to the rest of the elven villages and the world. There was no wall around their village, because they feared attacks from no one and were generally overlooked by everyone except the elves. Unlike humans, the elves didn’t clear out the trees and undergrowth to build their village but instead chose to build around any trees in their path, so there were a few large trees scattered throughout the village.

            There was no specific order for the way the buildings were set up, making it look like the buildings were just randomly scattered about, but Arateer loved it. Only about half the buildings were two stories high, the rest sitting at one story. The field in front was covered in snow, with the tips of long grass poking out of the snow.

Arateer and Toreal strolled through the buildings, calling out greetings to friends. They walked past the training hall where the younger elves were being taught to fight. There were only a few children in there, and the older ones trained in the woods, where they could do less damage to their surroundings.

“Where do you want to go,” Toreal asked.

“Let’s go to the Snow Wolf Inn. Maybe we can find people to talk to there.” When his friend did not object, Arateer began to weave through the buildings and soon found himself at the entrance to the inn, his friend beside him. They strode into the inn and a barrage of noises and smells assaulted their senses. Delicious smells of cooking food filled the air mixed with smoke from a fire on one side of the inn. They looked in the back and saw one of their friends, Morgatell, alone at a table. They walked up and sat down at the table, joining him.

“Hello Morgatell,” Arateer said. He looked around, seeing no one else and no food or drinks on the table. “Why are you here alone?” His friend looked at him, a bored look on his face. Morgatell was just as tall as Arateer, yet much more muscular. He had black hair and his nose, which had been broken in a training accident the year before, was slightly crooked. Although he wasn’t the smartest elf in the village, he was one of the nicest and most loyal.

He was one of the strongest elves in the village, and had thusly decided to fight with a unique weapon, a massive war hammer. The large head of the weapon was flat, but curved down to a spike on the other end, while the head was connected to a sturdy wooden pole that was close to Morgatell’s height in length.

“My day has been really boring and I couldn’t find anyone to talk to,” Morgatell replied, “But now that you guys are here, I think we should get some food and drinks!” He called a server over and ordered food and drinks for the three of them. “So how has your day been?”

Toreal leaned forward. “Our day has been pretty boring too. But yesterday was an entirely different story. We-“ Before he could continue, a voice cut him off.

“Is this going to be a good story?” They all turned and saw their friend, Erineya, standing behind them. She had been Arateer’s best friend for years, partially because they had trained together ever since they were children. Often called the beauty of the village, she was tall with long brown hair, a pretty face with a curvy figure and stunning green eyes. She was a very elegant figure and carried herself with dignity, but was also quiet and secretive, but was one of the best fighters Arateer had ever seen. She also lived right next to him, and they’d become very close. Arateer was very much in love with her, as he had been for years.

“Sit down and find out,” Toreal said. “Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted-“

“Hello.” They all turned and saw Arateer’s sister, Arraley, and another one of their friends, Oriadne, a vivacious and kind-hearted girl, were standing by the table. “May we join you?” Toreal looked around, trying to find another table because the one they were at was full. He spotted an empty one, but before he could go and get it, two elves came up with a table and another followed carrying some chairs.

“You can have these if we can join you.” The voice belonged to Iraslayne, and his best friend Filear. They put the table down and the elf holding the chairs, Theramon, placed them down without a word. They all gathered around the table, the girls taking their seats while Theramon, Iraslayne, and Filear went to each get a chair. They came back quickly and they all crowded around the table, enjoying the company of friends. The server came back and a look of surprise appeared on his face, the table now larger and filled with people.

Morgatell looked at him smiling. “We’re going to need more food and drinks. Without a word, the server put the food and drinks he had brought on the table and rushed back to the kitchen to get more. In the background, a musician began to play some music, adding the comfortable and happy atmosphere of the snug little inn. More people began to flood in, trying to escape the cold and enjoy a hot meal.

“Ah lunchtime my favorite time of the day,” Morgatell said, leaning back in his chair. Iraslayne gave a sly smile and kicked one of the back legs of Morgatell’s chair, causing him to tumble out onto the ground. Everyone burst out laughing, causing Morgatell’s face to turn a deep shade of red, but since he was a good sport, he joined in on the laughter. Before he could say anything to Iraslayne, the server returned, carrying so much food that the struggling elf was lost behind the pile.

A few minutes later, after helping the server, everyone was happily eating everything that had been brought to them, including roasted duck, rabbit, pig, and venison, with fresh vegetables and bread with it. They had water and Dragon’s Breath, elven mead that was laced with certain spices, giving it an incredible flavor with a fiery aftertaste, as well as assorted fruit juices ranging from incredibly sweet to slightly bitter.

“Did anything interesting happen to anyone today,” Morgatell asked, “Besides you, of course,” He added to Toreal. Everyone around the table looked at each other, seeing if someone had a story to tell. After about a minute of waiting, Morgatell turned to Toreal. “So what happened to you and Arateer yesterday?”

Toreal nodded and leaned in closer to the table. Everyone else leaned in closer too. “As I was starting to tell Morgatell before you all arrived, Arateer and I had a very interesting day yesterday. It all started when I followed Arateer to his hideout. I snuck up behind him and scared him out of the tree. He then knocked me out of the tree with a snowball, which knocked my arrows out of my quiver. We picked them up and were standing on the ice and it broke, throwing us into the river.” The group gasped, enthralled by his tale already.

“What happened next,” asked Oriadne, voice filled with wonder.

“I’ll continue the story from here,” Arateer said. “After we plunged into the river, we were thrown over the edge of the waterfall and down into the valley. When I was down in the pool, an ice chunk fell down and slashed my leg, which is why I’m wearing this,” He pulled his leg out from under the table and showed people the bandage quickly before putting it back under.

“We met up beside the water and we made our way quickly through the woods and found a nice campsite. I set up the campsite and he hunted and we were eating the rabbits that he caught when it happened. Three wolves charged out of the bushes and attacked us. Two went for me and the biggest and the leader of the group, at least I think it was the leader, went for Toreal.”

            “I killed one, but the other was at my throat. It would have killed me too, but Toreal here came in and saved me. He killed the one on top of me. The strangest part, though, is that the leader ran. After that, things went rather smoothly. I went to sleep and Toreal kept watch. In the morning, we just packed camp and we traveled back here and from there, we’ve been with you the rest of the time.”

            When he finished the story, the group remained silent. The only sound was coming from Morgatell, who was chewing a piece of meat loudly, and everyone turned to look at him. He looked up in mid chew, and a piece of meat fell out of his mouth.

            “What,” he asked. Everyone laughed, and he grinned sheepishly. The food was now nearly gone, and the group was just sitting there, enjoying the warmth from the fire and the company of friends. One of the servers in the restaurant walked over to the fire and added a few logs to the fire and then began to clear away the empty plates and mugs from the table.

            “Have you guys heard that the L’thorians are back,” asked Theramon. Everyone looked at him, surprised.

            “Where,” asked Arateer, shocked, “No one’s seen them in over a three hundred years.”

            “Even worse, they’re hunting the dragons again,” added Arraley. “They’ve come back with even larger numbers and the humans are beginning the crumble under their might. The Dwarves haven’t been seen in decades and the Elven Council has deemed us neutral in any conflicts not involving us.”

            “Wait,” Toreal started. “If the humans are losing, and we aren’t going to join in the fight, who is going to stand in the way of the L’thorians?”

            “No one can,” Iraslayne responded. “Honestly, we elves can survive even if the L’thorians who conquer Illeria, and if they try conquer us, we know we can beat them.”

            Before he could continue, the doors to the inn flew open, snow and wind coursing into the room, causing the flames in the room to sputter. One of the elves that was on watch was standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the sun behind him.

He stumbled forward, and leaned on a pole. Blood was streaming from a wound in his forehead and in his forearm. A broken arrow protruded from his side, and his left ankle was bent at a sickening angle. He gasped and blood began to drip from the edge of his mouth.

The elf opened his mouth. “The L’thorians are here.” He wheezed, and toppled to the ground, dead.