Divided Lands

Chapter 4

Jon pushed aside a messy lock of his wild black hair and narrowed his eyes, locking his focus onto the fuzzy squirrel picking up a nut a few yards away from the stone he hid behind. He climbed soundlessly onto the rock and settled into a deep crouch. His eyes narrowed into slits as he followed the tiny animal’s every move from the chomping of its jaws to the twitching of its tail.

“Sorry little guy, but I gotta eat.” He breathed. The second he spoke the squirrel perked up its ears, and Jon sprang toward it, tackling it and pinning it down by its squirrely paws. He raised his dagger into the air, ready to strike.

It gazed up at him with beady black eyes. If Jon didn’t know better he’d guess it was silently calling him a madman.

With a sigh, he released the squirrel and leaned back onto his hands. “I just pinned a squirrel to the ground and threatened it with a weapon.”

But damn, was he ever hungry. He could have waited for any other animal to take out, but when saw the squirrel, he lost it. It was meat, and meat was tasty.

“I’ll try again.” He mused. “And this time for something bigger.”

Jon rose to his feet and scanned the surrounding trees for signs that any sort of life had passed—broken twigs, flattened blades of grass, half chewed pieces of bark—anything would do. He tightened his fist and held his breath until the whistling of the breeze through the branches was the only sound he could hear.

Then came a soft rustling of leaves, followed by the sharp snap of a twig. Jon twitched in the direction of the sound, every muscle inforce in his body tensing with the effort to keep quiet. Whatever it was it was huge, almost the size of a man! In all honesty, he wasn’t even sure he could take it down with his dagger.

His stomach rumbled almost on cue, reminding him that even if the creature he was about to attempt to kill was the size of a moose it would be worth it. Moving as silently as one could with gnawing stomach pain, Jon crept alongside the trees with his hand resting on the rough bark. Curling his toes and gripping the hilt of his dagger, he prepared each of his senses to spring into action the moment he saw the slightest bit of movement.

Jon caught a brief glimpse of white just a few yards in front of him; before he even allowed himself a single second of forethought, he sprang into action much like he did with the squirrel and leapt through the air.

He collided chest-first with a slender form, which tumbled to the ground with an “Ooof!”  underneath Jon’s weight.

Like a pinned-down snake, he wriggled and writhed and tried to slide out from underneath the significantly heavier man. Jon, shaking the dirt out of his hair, rose to his feet and pulled his unwilling target up by the arm. He stepped back and dusted himself off.

“I’m sorry. You’re not hurt, are you? I thought you were some sort of…animal…” Jon blinked when he caught a glimpse of the “young man.”

The lad stood at least two heads shorter than Jon, but then again, so did most people in general. His hair was silver, and his skin was an ashen purple. His grey eyes were big, round, and frightened.

“You’re a dust elf, aren’t you?” he asked.

The young man tried to take a step back, but tripped over his feet and fell backwards onto his behind. Jon offered his hand again, but the elf only stared at it, speechless. If he didn’t look so much like a human Jon would have considered just stabbing him and eating him.

“Well? What are you doing down here?” Jon asked. Before the man could even figure out that he had moved, he reached down and pulled him back up by the arms again. “You people usually stay up north with your own kind.”

The elf swallowed hard and finally spoke, raising his hands palms-forward. “Just don’t hurt me, alright? I don’t have anything you want, and I promise I’m only passing through if this is your property or something.”

His eyes drifted to Jon’s dagger, and he bit his lip.

“Property?” Jon raised an eyebrow. “I don’t live anywhere, kid. Just let me warn you that you may have drifted a little too far south on one of your little leisure walks. You’d best be getting back where you came from.”

For a moment the elf’s cheeks flushed, and he shook visibly. “I can’t. Now I told you, I was just going to be passing through.”

He started forward, but Jon stopped him by placing a hand firmly on his chest. “They’ll eat you alive out there, kid. I’m not a racist or anything. I swear. It’s really the opposite of that; I’m just trying to help. Any other human you run across is going to skin you and hang you up to dry.”

The elf started to speak again, but Jon clamped a hand over his mouth.

“Shhh! Listen.”

While the elf couldn’t hear a thing himself, he kept quiet as Jon squinted his eyes and focused on the ground. Within a few moments, the earth began to tremble, almost so lightly that it was hard to notice at first. Then the strength of the shaking grew until there was no doubt that something was coming. Something big.

Jon wrapped his arm around the elf’s waist and dove behind the nearest tree trunk, dragging his new acquaintance down with him. He pushed aside the branches until he could see a clear view of a forest path just beyond. Marching in perfect time with one another was a group of very heavily armed soldiers, each with a giant iron sword swinging by his side. One by one they passed by Jon and the elf hidden behind the tree until the last one was out of sight. There weren’t very many of them at all, no more than a hundred or so.

“What’s your name, kid?” Jon asked, glancing down at the top of the elf’s head.

“N-Nalza.” the elf stammered, his arms trembling from fear of the parade of seven-foot soldiers.

“Well, come on Nalza. I don’t like the looks of this.”

Jon grabbed Nalza by the wrist and pulled him after the soldiers, creeping as silently as possible and always keeping behind the trees.