Of Hatred Born

Merilin's story

Snap.

Laugher.

A soft feminine voice murmurs a curse in Elven. "Now, now Little Bird, the twigs were enough to give you away, no need to add your voice to the mix" Kithril landed silently beside the young elf, despite his teasing, he believed her to have an overabundance of potential, when she grew a bit older. "Well you must admit, until that twig, I’d not made a sound, and we’re now a quarter through the Deep Dreaming." Oddly blue eyes gazed at her mentor, she shifted a lock of gold from in front of them as he studied her. "All right, you did well enough" the dark haired elf allowed a smile for the elf maid. "But next time, toe first, not heel, and think of how the ground will shift under your weight. Try it again?" With a nod the girl rose, a saucy smile and she was off, not even seeing his pleased grin as she sped soundlessly from him. Yes. She had potential.

Merilin crouched silently by a small oak, her head slightly cocked as she tried to listen above the gurgling stream to the sounds of the forest around her. Quiet. Too quiet. It was days since Kithril had been seen last, and very unlike her elder mentor for him to disappear without word to even his wife, Sarlene. Wrong. The forest felt wrong. Nothing else to describe it, but also, nothing to explain it. She moved forward, eyes searching the ground. Telltale signs all about her, a clumsily covered campfire. The ground dusted with branches to erase passage, but the fool who dusted stood behind the branch, covering all but his, or her, prints. It did make it easy to track, but her quarry also made it impossible to gauge the number that had passed here. And the prints were like none she had ever seen before. Four toed and too long and for any elf, fifth toe notwithstanding. And the claws. Almost birdlike. So what was it? Certainly not a kobold. The prints were way too large, but whatever it was walked on two legs, and she thought as she gazed upwards, tall. Very tall. Some of the lower leaves had been bent with the passage of these beings. More than one, that was certain, too many bent leaves, and too silent the forest.

She moved onward, following the trail that many would never have noticed, each footfall silent, each breath softer than the breeze, and still nothing, day shifting into twilight, and twilight to a darkness that made her tracking impossible. With a disappointed sigh, she climbed a tree, nestling into the crook of the branch with the same ease a human child would nestle into its mother’s arms, and she tried to sleep, knowing that every moment her quarry might be moving farther from her, but also knowing the futility of tracking in the night, and the dangers a lit lantern might bring upon her.

A sigh. "Kithril. Where are you?" and then heavy lids finally fell, and uneasy sleep graced her.

Morning. A soft breeze and the sound of birds. Birds. Whatever danger had silenced them the day before must have passed. Merilin slipped out of her tree bed, landing feather soft on the loam below. She slipped a hand into her pouch, withdrawing a small waybread, enough to suppress her appetite at least, something she could eat as she moved. Within moments she picked up the trail again, and was off.

It was nearly noon when she emerged from the forest, before her lay open plains, and beyond that, beyond her line of vision the Falcon Mountains. Drawing her cloak about her she left her forest, for the first time in her young life, and set off across the plains. No tracking, just pure instinct. That was where she needed to go. Halfway through the plains, she found her sign. A small glimmer of gold amongst the green grass. She reached down, lifting a fine broken chain, and settling it into her hand, then her blue eyes narrowed, and she searched the ground relentlessly. With a sob she found what she was looking for. This WAS Kithril’s necklace, in her hand was a small golden pine cone, the sign of the Rangers of the Dreaming. Gently she touched the chain around her own neck, fingers closing around a twin pine cone to the one she held. With a determined look, the young elf maid continued onward, trying to fight down the dread in her heart.

It was the eve of the third day of her search. Her rations were low, much longer and she would have to turn back, but the sound of laughter drew her to a halt. Was that laughter? The sound was guttural. Choking guffaws and raised voices. Drum beats and the sound of feet pounding on rock and gravel. She was now at the base of the Falcon Mountains, and she knew, behind that rock before her, was her quarry.

Merilin crept around the boulder, gazing from her hiding spot to witness the nearly demonic scene below, her eyes widened in shock, and a cry came to her lips unbidden. Before she was aware of it, her bow was in her hands, and the arrow she had knocked was already in flight towards her first target, watching it fly she realized it was too late to run, her course was set, time to fight, or die.

Five lizardmen danced and drank and reveled, unaware of the hatred they were about to unleash against them and their kind. Their sacrifice, nailed to the very rocks, hung limp and bloody. His entrails twisted into a knot work pattern, runes written in his blood surrounding them. His long hair had been hacked from his head, made into a messy braid and tied to their priests staff, along side many other such braids. And as they danced, suddenly the very air of their revelry changed, first a cry of anguish, in a voice too smooth to be one of their own, then the sharp sound of an arrow hissing through the air, a gurgle, and one of their brethren fell, just like that, a stone to the ground, arrow protruding from his throat. They turned to meet their new foe, smelling on the breeze the spirit of the forest, their eyes alighting on the fair elf maid, a dark sound of steel as swords were drawn, and they charged.

Merilin’s arrow was cocked again, her bow taut. Too many, and they could outrun her on the plains, all she could do was pray that her arrows struck swift and true, before they were upon her. With grace and speed three more arrows flew, one went wide, careening off a boulder and shattering, much like she believed her heart had. Two others struck the same foe, one in the knee, and as he pitched forward, mouth wide in a scream of agony, the other sliced through his open mouth, to protrude from the back of his throat. He fell lifeless to the ground. And then they were on her, even as she thanked the stars for the lucky shot.

Within moments her bow was on the ground and she stood, a feral expression on a fair elven face, short sword in her left hand, long sword in her right. She deflected the first blow, turning aside the blade thrust at her, and driving her own sword into the exposed flesh of the reveler’s ribs. She saw the hatred for her in his eyes, and reflected her own, driving him back with unexpected ferocity. She didn’t even feel the sting of another attacker’s blade as it opened a wound in her thigh, as her blade sliced down again, hacking off the offending arm, her opponent backing away. She turned to her second assailant, blow matching blow, the ring of steel against steel echoing through the mountainside while the third lizard man circled, looking for an advantage. A dodge as she eluded the savage strikes, slashing forward with a vengeance, until the lizard man, a good foot and a half taller than her, was beaten back, and back, blocking first one blade, then deflecting the second. So focused was he on the whirling dervish of blades, that when her foot contacted his stomach, causing him to fall backwards, he was unable to even cry out as two blades made and X, and severed his head from his neck.

Number three...fled.

Merilin turned back to the remaining lizard man, who knelt on the ground murmuring inanely and trying to staunch the flow of blood from his severed arm. Her gaze swept around, noting the carnage that was both hers, and theirs, seeing Kithril’s form again, she lunged at the fallen lizardman, plunging her sword deep into his midsection, then watching as his bulk slid from her blade.

"This is for Kithril, and for Sarlene. Tell your damned god when you see him, that his will will be the downfall of your race. I’ll kill every damned one of you." Merilin sank to her knees, only now aware of the sharp pain in her side, in her leg, across her arm. The blood on the lizardman was not his alone. As darkness claimed her, she murmured, eyes on her defiled mentor. "I shall avenge. Every one of them will fall to my blade Kithril. This I swear to you. This I promise their wretched god. I will see the fall of his people, I will BE the fall of his people." And thus was hatred born.