Metal Mage 5, page 7
Relief came to the half-elf’s face, and she pulled Shoshanne into a hug.
“Thank you,” she murmured into the copper curls. Then she added, “I’m sorry I yelled at you. It just really fucking hurt.”
Shoshanne chuckled as she pulled away. “It’s fine, you’re not the most difficult patient I’ve ever had, actually.”
Aurora laughed at this and looked back to her leg, and then she let out a long sigh. “It ate my boot,” she said, and the disappointment on her face was kind of adorable. She reached to remove the other one, and as she wiggled her bare toes against the dirt, the Aer Mage gave her an apologetic smile.
“Still,” Shoshanne offered, “you have a leg, right?”
“Exactly,” Cayla chuckled, and she wrapped her arm around the half-elf’s shoulder. “Let’s get you wrapped up, and the first town we come to we’ll find something to put on those feet.”
“Deal.” Aurora nodded.
I propped the half-elf against me while the Aer Mage applied another poultice to her leg, but as she pulled the gauze tight, yellow goo oozed out and Aurora lurched from the pain.
“Damn,” Shoshanne breathed, and she started over with the green paste. She took the spoiled gauze away and tossed it, and as I watched, the rag lifted onto a soft breeze and flitted several feet to land in the sidecar.
“Woah,” I said as I turned to the Aer Mage. “Did you do that?”
“Do what?” she asked without looking up.
“The rag,” I clarified. “You made it fly.”
“It didn’t fly,” she said with a smirk as she dropped some purple oil into the wound. “It floated. I’m an Aer Mage, remember?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know you could do that,” I told her as an idea began to form in my mind.
“It’s kind of like the snow,” she explained as she began to wind the gauze around Aurora’s leg, and this time, no yellow goo seeped out. “I can control the breeze that lifts it, so I can sort of guide things where I want them to go, as long as their light enough.”
“So … ” I mused, “if I threw something, you could direct it?”
Shoshanne thought about this for a second. “I guess. Throw that stick, let’s see.”
I reached for a twig and tossed it like a frisbee across the clearing. Shoshanne’s curls shifted, and I felt a breeze brush past me as the stick lifted slightly and curved off to the right before it fell to the ground.
A grin spread across my face, and I turned back to the Aer Mage. “I think I just found your weapon.”
“Really?” she asked, and her eyes brightened. “What is it?”
“Nope.” I shook my head and helped Aurora to stand, and the woman was able to put some of her weight on the leg.
“I want to know,” the half-elf chimed in, but I shook my head to her coy little smile.
“Nope, not gonna spoil the surprise. Let’s just get on our way before anything else tries to eat you.” I pulled the half-elf in for a kiss and wrapped her in a hug. “You scared the hell out of me, by the way,” I murmured into her blue braids. “Let’s all agree the plants are not a safe space, okay?”
“Agreed,” she chuckled as she buried her face against my chest. Then she left a little trail of kisses up to my neck, but before she could lay her teeth in, I pulled away.
“No way, you’re not distracting me that easily,” I warned, and I gave the woman a stern look. “You almost got eaten five minutes ago.”
Aurora smirked and slowly licked her plush lip as she dragged a finger down my chest.
I couldn’t help but smirk back, but I refused to be roped in. I shook my head and scooped the woman off her feet. Then I turned toward Bobbie, and she had the audacity to let out a giggle.
“What am I gonna do with you?” I sighed.
“I’ve got a few ideas … ” she purred.
I pinched her thigh, and she gave a little start.
Cayla and Shoshanne laughed as they followed behind us.
“You believe this woman?” I asked over my shoulder, but it seemed I was the only one who could see any sense.
“I think it’s cute,” Cayla giggled. “She’s feisty when she’s injured.”
“Yeah,” Shoshanne chimed in. “No sense in letting a little scrape spoil the mood.”
“Fucking unbelievable.” I shook my head once more as I set Aurora down beside Bobbie, and I was just about to help her mount up, when we heard a loud rustling, and five elves suddenly burst from the wall of plants to our right.
The black eyes of the elf who stood at the front of the group flashed with pure hatred, and I glanced down to see that the long, curved blade he directed toward us was heavily serrated.
Shit.
Chapter 5
I felt Aurora tense in the crook of my arm, and I shifted so I was between her and the blade.
Then I carefully sized up the group of elves and caught the twitch of a lip as one of them looked at Aurora with blatant disgust. Another flushed with anger as he eyed the point of her ear that stuck out from behind a braid, but they seemed to look away from the half-elf as quickly as they had noticed what she was.
I cleared my throat and decided to address them all as if none of this had happened.
“Hello,” I started casually and tried to ignore the blade that twisted by a degree in front of me. “We’re here by invitation from the Elven Council to--”
The long metallic hiss of a blade being unsheathed cut me off, and I eyed the elf who’d armed himself. His silver hair hung nearly to his waist and was knotted all over and tied with bits of leather, and he flashed his teeth at me with a deadly sneer, but his eyes grabbed my attention the most.
The murky blue irises were elongated in a slightly serpentine way, and as I looked over the rest of the elves, I realized they all shared this eerie trait. Each pair of eyes tipped up at the outer corners and held similarly serpentine centers, though some were a deep gold, and others a mottled orange. One elf toward the back of the group even had eyes that were an unsettling shade of red darker than wine.
They all had equally vibrant and tangled hair knotted all over with leather ties, but there was a black-eyed elf wore his own silver hair straight and loose. As I eyed the silent and scowling elf, I noticed his ears were different from Aurora’s as well, which I hadn’t expected, but it made sense. The points were several inches longer and settled at more of an angle on the heads of the elves, but overall, I could make out a vague resemblance between my lover and the elven race.
Except she wasn’t nearly as fucking creepy looking.
The elves gave the impression of being much wilder than the dwarves, and the poorly cut black leather that padded their forearms and chests added to the unkempt appearance of their knotted hair. I could just make out the dirty turquoise of their tunics beneath the hefty straps that held their glaives to their backs. The cloth was shredded and looked like it had been burnt in a few places, and most of the elves had torn the sleeves completely off so the ridged muscles of their arms were fully exposed except for their leather vambraces.
Over their shoulders, I could see the metal of their glaives had been notched here and there with curved prongs that looped back toward the stock like a fishing hook. A couple of them looked more like elaborately cut axes than glaives, and each edge of a blade came to a sharp and deadly point.
I swallowed hard against my nerves, and I was about to explain our errand, but the elf at the front raised the serrated saber a couple of inches and tipped it so it hovered at the height of my neck.
Honestly, I really didn’t want to blow the brains out of the first elves I met in Nalnora. It seemed like too big of a risk to kill a bunch of unknown elves on my way to a meeting with the Elven Council, but it also seemed pretty fucking rude to walk up and wave a blade in someone’s face unprovoked. Maybe that was just the Chicago in me, though.
The black eyes narrowed, and the elf’s devilish sneer twisted at the corners as he let a single word slip between his teeth. “Trespasser.”
I took a step back and raised my hands up beside me. “Didn’t mean to trespass,” I said steadily. “We’re lost is all. We’re on our way to Rhoemir to meet with the Elven Council, so if you--”
The elf with the murky blue eyes interrupted me as he addressed the elf with the saber, and he spoke in a language nearly as strange as the dwarves’. Except it sounded much softer, more lyrical, and lilted in a way that contrasted with the cold looks on their faces. The r’s trilled slightly in some places, and it could have even been called a beautiful language under completely different circumstances.
Finally, the black eyed elf hissed over his shoulder, and that brought the conversation to a close. Then he turned his sneer back to us.
“The Elven Council will have to excuse us,” the elf said, and as if on cue, the others pulled out their swords and daggers.
They were much less hefty than the dwarven sword on my hip, but I didn’t doubt they’d be just as unforgiving. Many of the swords and daggers curved elegantly into an S-shape as they sloped cleanly to their dark wooden hilts, while others looked to be made of some strange material that shone pale and iridescent in the dappled light from the trees. These were mounted in silver hilts with thin leather straps wound around in intricate knots.
I was briefly distracted by the odd weapons, when the black eyes of the elf in front of me suddenly narrowed, and he pulled the serrated blade back for a deadly blow.
My hand flicked to my revolver, but before I’d pulled it out, the plants behind us began to rustle loudly, and a second group up elves broke through the thicket of leaves.
There were at least eight of these elves, and they were dressed distinctly different than the ones in front of us. They had thin golden ropes to strap their weapons in place and dirty white tunics beneath brown leather padding. The simple bands across their foreheads were clearly made of gold and were woven into place by their thick braids that gathered at the base of their necks. Still, the eyes of these elves burned with as much hatred as the others had, only this time it seemed wholly directed at the turquoise clad group.
Everything became tense and confused in the small clearing the moment they arrived. The elves who had been ready to kill us turned the tips of their blades away and leveled them instead on the newcomers, while a couple spat toward their boots.
“Rhys,” the black-eyed elf hissed.
One elf chuckled and brushed past the others with a sleek sword at the ready.
I guessed this must be the elf called Rhys, and I eyed the serrated tips of the arrows in his quiver as he passed within a foot of me. His dark green hair was intricately knotted at the back of his head, and he had thick swaths of brown leather tied across his broad shoulders by slender strands of the golden rope. He spared half a glance in my direction, but it was clear that at the moment, I provoked him less than the turquoise clad elves.
“You trespass, Onym,” Rhys warned in a low voice, but his words only seemed to please the black-eyed elf, whose lips returned to their devilish grin.
“Half a league from the River East says it is you who trespass,” Onym hissed.
“One league south of Black Rock,” the green-haired elf returned.
The two circled one another as their eyes remained locked in their hatred for one another, and I took advantage of their distraction to slowly move myself and my women back another few feet.
Onym took a warning swipe at his opponent. “You lost that league to me not a week past,” he growled, and Rhys’ thick green brows furrowed immediately with anger.
“The blood stains south of here,” Rhys spat before the standoff was broken by the heavy clash of their blades.
We had just managed to back ourselves to the trees at the edge of the clearing when the two groups let out furious howls and were suddenly in an all-out war.
Two of the elves from the gilded group swiftly shot arrows from only a foot away as their attackers dove at them with their blades.
I cringed as the serrated tips tore straight through their chests and jutted out from their backs. Then they were violently ripped out of their twitching bodies before they’d even hit the ground. The gilded elves restrung the arrows quickly, and apparently without any thought to the bloodied lumps of tissue that dangled from the tips.
One gilded elf was about to let a filthy arrow loose again, when he was jumped from behind, and a blade wrenched clean through his throat. Blood spewed down his front as his knees buckled, and the turquoise clad elf who’d killed him let out a mirthless laugh before he leapt like a cat to the back of another and drove his dagger into his victim’s heart.
I raised my eyebrows and glanced to the women at my back, who all stared wide eyed at the slaughter in front of us. I began to calculate a diversion and decided if I raised the ground enough to fell a tree, we could make it to Bobbie and veer off into the forest on the right, and the elves could go ahead and finish killing each other in the jungle.
Before I could put the plan into action, though, the elf named Onym cut the hand of another off at the wrist, and since there were no other elves directly around him when he’d finished him off, he turned his deadly sights back to us.
The black eyes flashed as something like a growl left Onym’s lips, and two other turquoise clad elves threw their victims hard into the ground before they came forward to flank their leader. I could see the gilded elves they’d discarded as they fought hard to right themselves, and I imagined their skulls no doubt spun completely around from the force of their falls.
Then Onym and his two comrades prowled closer and made to lunge, and as I realized all of them happened to have metal swords, I lifted my hand out in front of me.
The three swords instantly went limp like wet noodles, and I couldn’t help but smirk at the bewildered look on the faces of the elves as they stopped halfway to us.
Onym’s bewilderment was short lived, though.
The eerie black eyes narrowed into slits of rage, and the elf wrenched an iridescent dagger from his belt. The silver hilt instantly melted right through his grip, and the blade dropped with a thud to the dirt.
Before he could even react, the two elves who flanked Onym were pierced with serrated arrows, and Onym ignored the bodies that fell beside him as he quickly snatched up the strange blade off the ground. Just as he’d stowed it in its leather sheath, he was caught off guard by a gilded elf who jumped onto his back.
I watched as the black-eyed elf ripped his claw-like nails through his assailant’s arm, but as he struggled and stumbled back into the fray, I could see several of the elves had witnessed what I’d done with the blades. They exchanged glances between blows, and their eyes flicked uneasily toward me in the interim, but my sights locked on the elf named Rhys.
He eyed me with an unreadable expression as he stabbed blindly through the turquoise arm of an elf he had clutched to him by a leather strap.
Then a serrated arrow flew over his shoulder on its way to Onym.
It found its mark in the leg of the gilded elf who was still fighting to strangle him, and the yowl and shock of the pain that came after provided an opening for the black-eyed elf.
Onym flipped the flailing elf from his back and crouched to flatten him to the ground. Then he yanked another strange dagger from his boot, and the stout blade glistened as it caught the light, but just as quickly as it had been drawn, it was buried into the eye of the gilded elf who was pinned against the earth.
There was a disgusting gurgle as the elf twitched violently under Onym’s boot. Then the black-eyed elf whipped around and leapt back into the thick of the fight. He wrenched a sword from the belt of a comrade on his way toward Rhys and swung it high just as Rhys ripped his sword from the gut of an elf.
Rhys and the gilded elves moved more quickly than Onym’s group, and they used subtle, but practiced maneuvers to nimbly dodge the blades that came at them.
The turquoise clad elves didn’t bother to take as much care with their precision or timing. They simply fought dirtier.
I’d already seen them snatch the ankles of their foes as the gilded elves fought with another, and from what I could tell, the game was to hook them as they fell if they could catch them quick enough. Most of the gilded elves flipped easily and escaped their grip, but if any were caught, things got dark real fast. One of Onym’s elves would lock him to his place as another dragged their blade along their flesh in some tortuous way.
One drove a serrated blade hard into a gut, only to grin and twist it slowly until the elf went unconscious from the pain. Another snickered as he sliced through the tendons of an elf’s bicep, then released him and prodded him with the point of his glaive as he goaded him to raise his sword.
The elf they’d done this to had actually managed to lift the sword, but he was stabbed through the back of his skull by Onym’s dagger before he could fight back.
It was disgusting to watch the unbridled way they ripped into each other, and I realized even though death was clearly the aim, Onym’s side took pleasure in getting to that part as painfully as possible.
I saw the black-eyed elf discreetly shove the strange dagger back into his boot, but Rhys seemed to have noticed as well, and he ducked and groped for it more than once as the two fell back into their combat. Each attempt brought an angry hiss from Onym, before he finally managed to plant his foot into the face of the green-haired elf.
Blood oozed from Rhys’ face, and I thought it was finally his turn for the slow torture, but he struck out blindly and managed to slice straight across the muscle of Onym’s thigh.
As the black-eyed elf staggered back, he fell against another gilded elf, who swiftly turned to bury his dagger deep into his shoulder.
Two turquoise clad elves leapt to defend their leader, but it seemed like the injuries didn’t even matter to Onym. He switched his sword to the other hand and drove it forward with a vengeance. Even as he limped, he managed to catch the arm of the green-haired elf just as a serrated arrow grazed the tip of his ear.
