Drumwe Isles

chapter nineteen

(tw: descriptive violence)

Light was creeping through her tent when Lynet opened her eyes. Alais had snuggled up against her back in a little ball and was sleeping soundly. Lynet strained her ears suddenly for sound, sure that something had woken her. For a few moments she heard nothing but wind and birds and almost allowed her eyes to drift back closed.

Then a noise came again. It was a whizzing sort of sound. This time, it was followed by a scream. Lynet jumped up quickly, shaking the bed enough that Alais jumped to a sitting position. Upon seeing Lynet's alarmed expression she gathered her daggers and sat at the ready. Lynet holds up a finger before her mouth telling Alais to keep quiet.

"What is it?"

The whisper was expertly low.

"Stay here, try to hide if you're able."

Lynet gathered her warhammer and crept up to her tent's entrance, peeking out carefully into the camp. In a glimpse, as the wind blew her tent slightly out of the way she was just in time to see the third arrow strike Fowke's shoulder. Fowke yelped in pain, doing his best to take cover behind a rock as Botolfe rushed over to shield the two of them.

"We're being attacked!"

Botolfe's gruff voice sounded aloud, waking any of the others who had been sleeping. At that, Lynet barged out of the tent and scanned the area. In the trees on the east side of their camp, she could just barely make out three sets of eyes and bodies with arrows in their direction.

"Randoul, the trees, they're in the trees."

The boy turned his head to where Lynet's eyes landed and he swiftly drew an arrow and began firing back at their attackers. Sukie dove out of her tent, armour on and swords drawn. She nodded at Lynet when the woman directed her to tend to Fowke.

"Botolfe, follow me."

The old man obeyed and followed Lynet as she darted in the direction of the bases to the trees. As they darted, an arrow or two was fired in their direction, very narrowly missing Botolfe. When they got to the bottom of the trees, one of the Elven bodies cascaded down and thumped against the forest floor somewhere off to their right. Randoul had gotten one of them. Lynet knew there were more than the ones she'd spotted but still, maybe they'd be able to fight them off.

Elves began sliding down the trees and onto the forest floor all around Botolfe and Lynet. They got back to back and prepared to fight off as many of them as they could. Botolfe swung his large hammer at one, knocking them into a tree a ways away. Lynet began swinging her greatsword as the ones before her wildly, and with all the force she could manage. Whilst she had gone to hit one, another lunged forward and slashed open her thigh pretty deeply.

Lynet let out a hiss before snapping her leg forward and shifting her weight to kick the elf in the face. Their nose cracked and they stumbled backward some but two others were on her now. The group was greatly outnumbered. Boolfe had managed to kill two of them so far but three others had happened upon him, giving a few of them the opportunity to land hits on him.

Somewhere behind her, Lynet heard a blood curdling scream that she recognised all too well. Her head snapped in the direction and Botolfe grabbed her arm firmly.

"Sukie is there, she'll be okay."

Lynet begrudgingly accepted his lie and continued to fight off the Elves around them. As she fought one of them landed a kick to her stomach and she had to fight very hard not to keel over or vomit. Enraged, Lynet went into a sort of blind fury of adrenaline and slashing. When she gathered her senses again, the Elves around her were very much dead and she turned to see Botolfe stab the final one on his side. Just as she went to congratulate him, an arrow found itself lodged in his throat.

Botolfe tumbled over at her side, blood spurting from the wound as he choked to death on his own blood. Lynet felt herself going into shock and started running towards the earlier scream she'd heard. On her way there she was halfway aware of Fowke and Randoul's dead bodies and a struggling Sukie in the arms of two Elven warriors. When she got to her tent, she saw two Elves dragging a disoriented Alais away. She ran after them, throwing one of her daggers and watching it lodge itself in the man's back as he fell over.

Then she felt an arm hook onto her and a heavy weight beat the base of the back of her neck. The last thing Lynet was able to do before losing consciousness was scream Alais' name.

Lynet awoke to the scene from her worst nightmares. She was tightly chained to a tree, suspended in the air above a fire and gathering of some sorts. Before her, down on the forest floor, she could see Alais and Sukie in similar chains, set on their knees with a great many Elves surrounding them. She tried to scream but her mouth had been tightly bound and all that escaped was a smothered noise of discontent. Sukie's head turned to her and she felt her blood run cold. They'd cut one of her eyes from her head and beaten the side of her face until it was a deep and ugly bluish colour.

She couldn't bear to let her eyes scan Alais' face. As Sukie stared at her she had an apologetic look in her eyes, but she said nothing. One of the Elven men stepped forward and relieved her head of its shoulders. Sukie's body slumped over slowly like a great tree which had been chopped down. Lynet struggled with a great and futile effort. They were going to kill Alais. Dear and sweet Alais. This was the end of the line. Lynet had always known it would end this way, for that was the fate of a bandit, but she hadn't considered how the fate would look for her companions.

Hot and angry tears fought their way out of her eyes, dampening her face and neck. There was nothing she could do. Absolutely nothing. The Elves grabbed Alais' dishevelled blonde braids and turned so that Lynet was staring completely at her. They'd left the girl with her eyes but had made work of her face. It was an unrecognisable tapestry. They'd taken a great deal of the skin off and busted up her lip for good measure. What bothered Lynet most was the complete emptiness she saw in Alais' beautiful blue eyes. Whatever light she'd had before, whatever demons she'd been battling; they were gone. The thing that was left in Alais' body was not Alais.

It was but the shell of a shell and Lynet felt her heart snapping into a place of irredeemable brokenness. This was indeed the end. The Elf made a slice to cut the girl's head off but failed to completely lop it the first time. Lynet felt herself screaming hoarsely against the bound on her mouth. They could hear her screams and made no move to react. The Elf swung again, much harder this time and Lynet could hear the bones in Alais' neck break with a crunch as her head fell off, part of the blonde locks being burnt away when it fell too close to the fire. Her body fell over in a very similar manner to the way Sukie's had. Lynet was numb now. The shock and horror of it all had exhausted her.

The Elves turned to her and she begged in her mind that they would kill her. Even if they tortured her first or threw her into the fire whilst alive, Lynet wanted it to be so. She could not bear the loss she had just undergone and she slumped submissively against the chains. She was no longer screaming. The Elves then set to setting their camp on fire. They hadn't taken any of the supplies. Hadn't buried or touched Sukie and Alais' bodies since they fell. Lynet watched everything she had built burn. She watched the Elves walk away into the forest too. They were going to leave her there, suspended by chain to a random tree in a forest she hardly knew the landscape of. Lynet would die slowly, having watched all of her friends die first.

Lynet was broken. 

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