Rune Bearer

#12. Dead or alive

    

    She cringes trying to turn on her back to her side. Elrond's blood boils. Indeed, they weren't expecting to see any tribespeople but when they were on the outcast side out of the wall of Cirdanoth, the place was unusually flat.

    

    "What business have you got trespassing, Elves?" They heard the deep timbre of the word, if there was cowardice in person, Elrond cringes more like a spasm.

    

    "The voice in your head, Aurora." And she remembered she told him of manipulators, the siren of the night. "Beware of it, such creatures are never quite what they seem."

    

    She stared at him in surprise. "I did not know you were listening."

    

    Hooves thunder from behind them. A quarter mile to the northwest, a band of men and horses appears atop a mound. Even at a distance, one of the forms flickers strangely. It swings its head toward them.

    

    Two sun eyes penetrate across the distance, pinning Elrond like an insect on a wall.

    

    “Elrond,” Aurora whispered. “Elrond, it’s a link, the siren—”

    Silence. They looked at each other ruin, fear in their eyes and they turned to look behind them as the first man eased from the horse removing his helmet, they gasped, the head fumed of ashes and nothing to identify him as a human, Ginn is known to change to human form but whatever it is standing before them is cursed and they wondered if it could see them. Aurora knew one of his powers was that he could find them and walk them out of there instantly, she asked him to wind walk them away. But as she scanned the tree line, her stomach sank. There was no help and Elrond is an amateur in magic. Her wound hurts as it parted open again.

    

    

 Elrond screamed power building in his fingertip against his wish until it finally formed into a ball of fire. "What is this coming out?"

 "What are you doing Elrond?" Aurora asked, Elrond gasped, breathing heavily, his eyes darted to the monster that reeked of coal, pure ebony smoke, confusion on his face he groaned, shaking his head off.

 Unaware of what was happening and kept building the ball of power, he jerked up and launched forward. His weight had become a hot air balloon moving against some force he wasn't sure of, and his left hand galloped onto his left hand to stop what had gathered around there, if he should be then he would do just that.

 "I don't know!" He screamed, the size of the fire kept on building until it was the size of a boulder and then he threw a synthesis of men as they were watching and they matched forward. The headless soldier tilted himself to one side and the flame flew past him catching the snow-covered tree behind him, the flame was dim blue, magic-filled until it started burning the tree from its branch. The creature darted its gaze back at them. Elrond's foot crawled against the snow carving lines on it he screamed as he launched forward.

 "No, no, stay put!" The soldier started balling it is own darker ball fuming with smoke, it grew bigger and by the time he threw it, Elrond's body dodged and the tree fell into ashes without burning.

 "Bullseye," Elrond yelled as he threw his fist backwards ready to lunch at the Siren.

 The other soldiers saw what was happening and fired their smoky, dark selves closer.

 Aurora's eyes swirled as the snow flew around them, her blood running cold, and Elrond's hands were still surging with energy.

 He launched forward, and the monster bent him on his back, his hand resting above his head tracing to his back where he felt his flesh encompassed with the Elderwood.

 "Did you think you could defeat me with your human trick?"

 Unable to hold himself he set himself free of the monster's grasp and eased, had tried to stop himself but the monster fell up he chuckled behind his mask and then hiss escaped.

 He swirled his shadow sword in the air until a surge of energy erupted through it, his eyes closed, and the instant he opened it glowed as he pointed it at Elrond.

 "The bearer of the rune? A human?" He muttered that the sword was held in the air by such strong power overpowering him.

 A knife slashed in the air cutting through the horse rider and he stood, you could skin whatever he was going through as choking, he choked and like the breeze, he decomposed into the air.

 Behind him, Elrond squeezed his eyes, but there was something behind him that got his leg parted and his knife on the edge ready to aim.

 The rest that was hiding in the like hounds turned their back and vanished.

 The dead yew in the man's dew as he drove closer gave bears the brunt of Elrond's frustration.

 The wood creaked as he pulled his water jar from there and rushed to Aurora.

 "You should have told me before leaving. Were you so confident that you would defeat whatever is out here? A ginn at that."

 "That shouldn't bother you. I didn't come all wet at your feet, I got the situation under control." He rolled harshly.

 The druid rushed to taint Aurora, feeling her pulse. "Yet you've got the condition under control?"

 "The girl will be fine, she's brave and clever, she possesses magic, she will be fine."

 "Shut up! She's not a she, she's Aurora of Veturius and if she dies it's your bleeding fault."

 "She was injured by one of them. One of her own."

 "Shut up!" The druid muttered, delivering a savage blow to the trunk of the tree. A nearby crow squawked and flew into the clear winter sky. "You're a fool." The voice hissed deriding him as it has for the past week he had encountered the man, the druid, 

 "Ever since we left the waiting place we were fine."

 "Not until she's dead and you get to break out a war among your kind and the Elves."

 He checked the injury, his hand digging into it bringing out the black blood that seemed out.

 "Poison. Where did she get this."

 "At the mine."

 They arrived under the rock, Elrond gathered the firewood and the boar roast just above it, the boar was appetizing as he tended to Aurora's wound.

 "She will take days to heal."

 The druid turned over facing Elrond as he bit and devoured through the meat. His gaze met the druid, the meat fell from his hand at the stern glare he received.

 "How did you get to us?"

 "I have got my ways and I can't leave you both out in the boundary like this."

 "It wasn't the commander or anyone, something like—"

 "Sara? She and her generation are known for having the poison that Elves can not easily heal from."

 Elrond yawned, the sky was deep with darkness as it was already deep in the night. Exhaustion bone deep within him, a product of sleep rice with nightmares and waking thoughts consumed by him.

 "You have got the rune. It's long in history even before the war of power, your energy senses the Siren and acts on its whim to destroy them. Now they have seen that word will spread."

 "I wanted this at first but I don't want it again. I only came out here where you took me in there to be killed, so you could have the rune extracted for yourself. I can't trust you. I shall journey at sunset while you take Aurora back."

 "I'm not your servant."

 "You said you would protect me where you let me off to die, even your coming here doesn't surprise me."

 "I was wrong, confused at the same time, maybe you're right but I realized the truth after my quest for a region."

 "What did you realize?"

 "That I was stupid to follow their flimsy plan to get the rune out of you because of the schism on the ground."

 Elrond turned over to his side, his face filled with tears, facing the war while the druid talked to him to some extent about what they might encounter should they keep in this wing of the forest.