Tales from the Woodfolk: A collection of short stories

Lair of the Dark Elf - Part 7: Leap

It was impossible to tell dusk from dawn in the space of caged darkness, with only ghostly hanging acorns that glowed like ghouls for lamps. Nor was it possible to perceive any possibility of fresh air.

Though it hadn't been ten hours since they were captured by the ancient creature, the Dark Elf of the Tree Castle of Modriel, their sense of time was already slipping away, as if being elongated in a dark black hole.

"We must get out." The words escaped with her desperate breath as she tried for the hundredth time to cut through the cage. There they dangled, hundreds of pixie feet above the abyss of its lair.

Perhaps they were already ensnared in its inner chambers; keeping a distinction was merely served to refill disappearing hope. Above, the acorns continued to glow. There was no telling which was the top and the bottom anymore. The bars of their cell would not budge, echoing some curse of an ancient tongue every time they were struck, as though bound by a seal of fate uttered by none other than the fallen Fae.

"There is one way..." a weak voice struggled to say behind her. It sounded nothing like how he would sound before everything in days of the past, but it was him, and it struck her heart's chords. She dropped her dagger and rushed to the limp body on the ground. It was the first time he had said something ever since they had been imprisoned.

"How are you feeling?" She kissed his forehead. Now that his wounds had been treated with plum ointment, he looked better. But pixie magic and herbs of these are only a temporary cure. He needed more help from a healer, a more advanced, professional one. As much as she tried, her powers were not there yet. She feared – out of everything, that he would die there in the swollen catastrophe of the dark.

I'm not afraid...

His voice echoed in her mind. At such critical levels of health, he was still able to use head-speak. What energy it takes.

As long as I can...keep protecting you...

He was growing faint, even in her mind. She placed her hands on his forehead and concentrated with every fiber of her heart. He can't go now. There would be green trees and hills to see again, with warm sunsets and rushing waters of clarity to grace his body.

Anywhere but here, please...

Tears began dropping from her eyes and onto his lips. They wet his cracked skin. There was no more water left in her haversack to give to him. At least she could give him this. At least.

Mustering her strength, she wiped her tears and asked, "What did you mean by 'a way'?" Was he becoming delusional?

He seemed to recover some strength after her energy transfer, but his eyes stared dully into the ceiling of unending darkness.

When I looked into my mother's mind during her sleep one night, I found out.

It was the night when I found out about the scheme, and I saw the image of you and Kris in the Tree. Not only that was another image, the image of a skull. It looked like the creature we had seen; the creature that had put us here. It had one dagger in its eye – a tiny opening on the top of its nose. But, after that image came another...it was the image of two skulls – our skulls. We either get eaten by it at dawn or kill it before sunset.

There was no telling of real time in the hole that they had sunk into, for not even the sound of birds could pierce its sheath of darkness. But the ticking in their hearts told them, time was drawing near – to the point of their fate's decision. Dusk was encroaching.

We must pierce its eye. Its eye is the only point where it can feel any pain.

Not its heart? She remembered seeing a bulge in its chest; it throbbed like a giant oyster in its rotted shell.

Its heart has been hollowed out by greed for blood. In order to fill the gaping hole, it has been stuffing cadavers to feel whole. But whatever is pushed into its searing hole becomes burnt to dust. And so, it keeps doing this after drinking the blood of its prey. We are next. After it wakes.

Kris's body was probably in there. Along the sorrowful souls of other victims whose fates were more worthy of mourning than his.

Anita sat still, hands growing cold. Despite the freezing air in the deep parts of the cave, she failed to notice its frigidity earlier, what with the surge of adrenaline to get them out. Despite knowing of the way, the warmth that coursed her blood dropped.

How could they even touch the giant creature? Let alone stab his eye?

Continue what you are doing...but with my sword. It'll create a din ten times as loud...

Cullen mumbled in his head-speak. He was growing fainter and more distant. She rushed to his side and sent another surge of energy through his temples. Her own strength was depleting as well. It felt like days since they had eaten or heard the sound of crystal wells.

His sword was made of steel and silver – a rare metal traded from the Silver Pine Pixies. As the heir of the band, he was the only one to wield such weapons of high status.

Anita had little hope in the plan. She wondered if they would even survive once the creature got to them. She thought of the sparrow that died once more. And the squirrel. All had died in the hands of fate. Was it also their time to die?

You have one chance, dear. There's still one in a million.

The words echoed softly yet clearly in her heart. They sounded like her mother's. Passed at childbirth she had not been able to see through her daughter's growth, but she never seemed entirely gone. In times of danger she had always perceived this strange voice and took it as a sign.

Hesitantly, she picked up the sword by Cullen's side. It was heavy in her grasp, shining back at her with an imminent light. It cast away some of her fear. Raising it as high as she could, she struck the spines of the cage, blow after blow, each sending a loud crack as the metal struck the charmed wood. Down into the depths of the shadows the sounds echoed, loud and clear, until they pricked and stabbed the ears of the sleeping monster.

It rose, furious. Its eternity in darkness have made it sensitive to sounds of such, and the nerves in its puny eye twisted in agitation. It could not rest!

Roaring loudly, it ascended from its trove of carcasses and erupted towards the top of the cave. At the sight of the little creature hitting the cursed pine cage it laughed and shook the cage in a bid to make it stop. The creature, appearing to be female, fell and screamed. But she got up again and continued to hit the pine cage.

Stop this at once, it hissed in its dark language.

To add oil to fire, the creature ignored its command and continued to hit the spines of the cage, sending piercing rattles that hurt its congested nerves.

The monster screamed, its breath shaking the cage itself. Anita rushed to Cullen' side to pull him close. Once it stopped screaming, however, she hit the nearest pine grille once more, then twice, thrice, and again and again and again...

Finally, the monster could stand it no longer and raised the cage close to its face.

Should I just eat you? It hissed.

"If you don't, we will continue to hurt you. Like this!!" Anita shouted, hitting at the grille with all her strength. As if feeling its forehead being ripped by a thousand daggers, the monster grabbed at the small between two gaping holes that looked to once hold eyes and moaned.