Burning the Shadows: Book One of The Elementals Series

A Strange Situation

   Oh hello there. Would you like to hear a story? A story of magic, mythical creatures, and epic fights? And perhaps a dash of romance? Of course you do. Everyone does. However this story is quite different than all the others and you'll see why. I begin this particular story on a country called Halbarvey.

   On this particular country, there is a mine, a coal mine. Now from this coal mine emerges a young teen. Coal dust clung to this young man's skin as he leaves, tired but happy. The coal that he mined rests in a bag gripped in his left hand. As he leaves, he hears a commotion in the nearby forest. Curiosity gripped him, hung on tight, and guided him towards the commotion, into the heart of the forest itself.

   Now, let me paint you this particular picture among the inhabitants of the forest , imagine several men chasing a girl, got that? Good. Then imagine this girl stopping in the middle of a clearing and stood there. See that? This is the exact situation that Anvil found herself in. Quite a predicament isn't it.

    Twelve or some men came out of the forest and they surrounded her, completely barricaded her. 'Too easy' they thought. Or at least that's what they think. Three of the men sneaked up behind her, one signaled for the others to stay put. 

   Anvil eyes the men in front of her,eased a knife out of her pocket on her green camouflage pants, gripping the knife with her right hand. Suddenly she whipped around and plunged her knife through the man's mouth, yanks back, sliced through the necks of the two men. They fell in one ungraceful heap. Someone shouted to get moving and quite frankly, that's a very stupid decision on their part.

    She swung her left arm and sent a knife flying in the other direction while she occupied herself with killing. It's remarkable how stupid some people could be.  One prime example is this: one of them moved at the exact moment Anvil threw the knife distractedly, and with every cause, there's the effect. And the effect you might ask? Being pinned to a tree with a knife. Specifically, with the knife through your head.

   The leader of this foolish group paled when he saw what happened, panic ran through him and left him soaking in dread. For the first time in his life,he felt scared and he froze in fear, in shock, in dread of what will happen to him. 

   Anvil feels annoyed. And bothered. Quite bothered that these men thought she was easy prey. She should be pissed, she should! But the feeling doesn't go away. 

"What?" she looked around. 

    The men? They didn't say anything, why? Because they couldn't. 

   The dead can't speak sweetie. 

   She looked up and spots someone standing as though facing death in the face. In a way, that have been true. She steps over the dead bodies littered on the earthy floor. Once she almost tripped and would have face planted if it weren't for another body to land on. How clumsy of her. She got up, faced him and extended her arm.

    Right at the last second, he jerked out of his trance and high tailed it out of there. Or at least tried to because the next thing he knew, he was held against another's body with a blade pressing into his neck while he eyes the trees in front of him.

"Who the hell are you?" He asks stupidly. 

She smirked and pressed the blade harder, drawing a little blood.

"Why should I tell you that?"

He squirmed but she held on tighter. Little rivers of blood trickled down his neck.

"They told us, you would be easy" he says, completely unconcerned that Anvil froze,dropping her cocky facade. 

    Her eyes narrowed darkly, her stance stiff, and the knife burrowed deeper in his neck. He did, however, register that blood stains his clothing.

"Who's 'they'?" Anvil asks innocently, while she searches through his mind. 

She found her answer, and he never suspected a single thing. His eyes went wide, realizing he screwed up.

"Nothing!" he said, a little too quickly.  

  Anvil smirked, her cockiness made an appearance and stayed.

"Of course" She said soothingly, he breathed out in relief. 

  In one swift motion, his head toppled off and she released the headless body. She turned around, stashes her knife back inside her pants and leaves the clearing full of dead bodies.

  In the eerie silence of the forest, Victor carefully stepped over the fallen branches and crumpled leaves. The small bag of coal jostles around happily in his inner pocket of his jacket. He then comes across a strange clearing. 

A clearing of dead bodies.

  He scanned around, eyes wide, and occasionally stumbling over a body in his haste to get away. Now he stood, in the center, wondering 'the hell is going on here'

"Who would do this?" He wondered aloud, and wincing from the emptiness of the forest. 

He heads north, hoping to find the person responsible. 

He moved through the forest at a steady pace,heart beating quickly, footsteps loud on the silent ground. He breathes in small puffs as he ducks under tree branches and stepped around bushes. He lifted his eyes and sees a figure. Hope danced and swirled through him.

"Hey, wait!" Victor calls to the figure, pushing himself to meet the figure. The figure stops in the shadows of the trees, the sunlight peeking through the arms of the trees. 

As Victor straightens up from his short run, he sees black sturdy boots, green camouflage pants, midback length midnight hair twisted in a braid, a medium sized pack strapped on.

Victor initially wanted to learn who killed those men back there, but now that the chance is here and now, he's scared to ask. Even if he does know, it doesn't exactly put him at ease. It only seems to worsen. 

"Were... were you the one who...killed all those men? Or..." Victor stuttered. 

"And?" the question rolled around her lips. 

 Victor gulped nerviously and thought 'This is bad'

Anvil turned around to face Victor when she felt, rather than heard, the familiar crackle of magic above her. Her instict told her to grab Victor and she did as told. Her eyes landed on a forearm which she immediately gripped and teleported. 

Anvil teleported to an area of trees, clustered close and intertwined, thick trunks with roots overlapping at the base. Stretching towards the sky were thick and heavy branches laden with leaves. She releases him, walks off to one side of the  circle, pressed her hand on a trunk, muttered a charm under her breath and waited. Meanwhile, Victor looked around in confusion, he was quite sure he's never this place before. 

   If they were to leave this particular circle,travel south-western for a few miles, they would stumble in the town of Tobstones, the town where Anvil grew up in. Or rather, she was adopted by the citizens of Tobstones. But as it were, we're not going there just yet. There's still a matter of solving a small problem. A simple problem, that's going to prove quite difficult to solve, for you see, way before Anvil met Victor in the forest, Anvil had left Tobstones under an enchantment. 

   That enchantment causes everyone else in the entire world to completely forget the simple town of Tobstones. Everyone who lives in Tobstones are unaffected, including miss Anvil Kito herself, but to everyone else, there never was a town called Tobstones. It has been competely been wiped off the maps. But what about the newborns, will they know? Let me ask you, if their parents didn't know about Tobstones, you can certainly deduce that they will never know of Tobstones.

  But, of course, there's always more to this then meets the eye. Have another look around, will you.