The Cycle of Fire

Nymph

We burst outside just as three elves jumped from the trees, knives in hand. Two went for Ruza and the third helped the male elf restrain Elzia. Her face was a picture of hurt and betrayal, “What’s going on?”

But it was clear she already knew, and the elf just laughed harshly, without humour, “Elzia, I always knew you to be naïve but even you can figure out what is going on here.” Elzia bowed her head ashamed, “And yet, I wish I was naïve enough to be blind of your actions.” The elf just finished tying up her hands and pushed her roughly away.

I wasn’t aware of any of this at the time, it was explained to me afterwards because as soon as I saw Ruza and her magical herbs against two sharp blades I ran forwards unthinkingly and threw myself into their path. When the first hit an invisible obstacle he was confused enough that he didn’t react, the second was more witted and lunged blindly with his knife, but I couldn’t even tell where he had hit me, because of the adrenalin coursing through me. I pushed them both backwards and stepped to the side, as they raced past I grabbed each by the backs of their shirts and hung on tight as I tried to keep them off balance. They were slashing closer and closer to me, but I only had to distract them long enough for Ruza to pull out the right potion from her ever entangled hair, only I didn’t know when that was because I couldn’t quite see her. It was working quite well until I shimmered into view just as the two other elves turned from Elzia to help their buddies.

I think Damini must have zapped the first one because it was only Elzia’s former friend that reached me, luckily he was the only unarmed of the group so I was met with a punch rather than a blade. But that’s where my luck ended, the punch dazed me into letting go of the two elves who both leapt forward towards Ruza. I rolled to the side and shakily got to my feet.

In the time it took me to roll away Damini had zapped through Elzia’s ties and the female elf smashed her former friend with an elegant swipe of her leg that made a crunching sound as it connected with the back of his knee and Ruza had thrown a small explosive at her two attackers leaving all four immobilized for a short while, it was unclear who made the decision but the four of us were tearing through the village running for Arifs house.

While we were running Ruza shouted, “We need to grab our stuff and leave, they won’t follow us out of the village.”

We grabbed out stuff from Arifs’ house and I saw the book, still open at the fire dragon page so I ripped it out and shoved it with the prophecy in my pocket. Then we ran for the trees and kept running until we couldn’t see the village anymore, and then we kept running until the adrenalin wore off and I began to black out.

I woke up lying on my front dazed and confused. I felt a strange coolness on my back and I blinked furiously. I tried to turn around but immediately two cool hands held me in place, “I don’t think so.” I was out of sorts but that was defiantly Ruzas’ voice so I relaxed, assured. “How bad is it?” I asked Ruza feeling only numbness.

“It’s just a shallow cut, but then when we ran away you lost a lot of blood,” Ruza explained worriedly. “I put a healing mixture on it, a combination of knotgrass, dock leaves and tare. It should speed the healing process and stop the majority of the pain.”

“You made a healing potion out of weeds?” I asked rhetorically. I of course already knew she had, but it was an impressive feat considering pretty much every plant looked the same. I figured by now that I was allowed to stand so I did haltingly under Ruza’s watchful gaze. Then Damini fluttered over a huge piece of fabric in hand and promptly dropped it on my head. “And this is your newly washed shirt.” It still had a brownish stain and a small slit in the back but I pulled it over my bare shoulders regardless.

Ruza began to talk, “Elzia left, but she teleported a few things to us. She picked up a bag a slapped it into me, “This is all for you.” I stumbled backwards wondering how anyone could go from worrying to rough in such a short time. “And I don’t think they’ll come after us but let’s not chance it, I want to get as far away from here as possible, and then form a new plan.”