Notes: Kriolin is the leader of a splinter faction of the wood elves that a friend of mine plays. She let me play with them.Far from sunlit glades, in a gloomy cavern of branch and fern, the forest lay sullen and still. Single shafts of light quested down, hesitantly, calling forth golden motes from stagnant air. The rich scent of black loam, of thirsting leaves welcoming rain, lingered on the air. Nothing moved.
A dim shape among many, all but invisible to the eye, Eilethym bided. The rhythms of the forest, the distant but elemental beat of its primordial heart, pulsed through her being. She perched on a branch projecting from a great oak. A murky pool stretched out below her, an unmoving mass of water lilies and green froth. There were those, most of her kin, who would gather in glades, prance through welcoming forests, would compose bittersweet ballads with the same infectious joy they took in performing them. And there were others who, upon seeing it, would look askance at such conduct, deeming it a mask to shield against the face of nature, cruel and unfettered. Eilethym was neither. She was waywatcher, silent and aware.
The heavy air and the shadows draped about her. The hooded cloak of the waywatcher, a layer of what looked like stitched-together leaves, hung from her shoulders. By instincts particular to a waywatcher rather than conscious thought, the cloak had come to rest in such a way as to blend her shape with that of the branch. It covered fully the good steel of her long dagger. At her back, an extension of her form and being, was a recurve bow of one piece. Its haft, were one to look closer, had been burnished to a fine gloss.
Something was amiss. Eilethym did not move, but her alertness smoldered to life like hot coals in a gust of wind. Her eyes, slanted and feral, snapped open, focused. Nostrils twitched, taking in every stray scent, every dissonant sliver of a detail.
There, a rustle born of volition. There, a whiff of stench most unnatural. Still passively waiting, Eilethym allowed her surroundings unhurried time to paint the picture she needed. This, too, was nature; your ally, your enemy, even your lover... but always at your side.
She rose and unhooked her bow in a single fluid motion, a shaft nocked and ready. A breeze began to flatten the leaves overhead. The musty tang of cured leather wafted past, riding upon the vile musk of Chaos. Hooves gouged the soil.
With unhurried grace, she broke into a loping run, clearing the gap over the pond in a single bound. There were no embellishments to her form, no dazzling acrobaticism to amaze spectators. She had grown past that, grown into the forest, divider of life and death. Let her timorous kin play at performance.
Another leap, a short race along a the leaning bole of a tree, as a shriek rent the air. One ear twitched, the only acknowledgement of the sound. Brown hair flared behind her like a banner.
She leapt to land on the soil itself now, struck it fully on soft boots, felt the earth receive and take the force of impact on itself. Moss-covered rocks dotted a tangle of briars. She slipped thrugh the thorny barrier like mist.
A shout of challenge up ahead, almost drowned in the bleating, snarling roar of the Enemy. The sounds of struggle were secondary to her; the stink of blood and the uncaring stampede formed a maelstrom of impressions that a child could interpret. A bird burst squawking from a nearby thicket, clawing skyward. With no apparent provocation, Eilethym came to a halt, poised and ready. Her bow sang, once, twice, then another time, each time realigning, each shot following the next with the unnerving speed of a striking viper.
Something crashed in the bushes. A distance to the left, an animal bellow became a rattling cough, then fell silent. Eilethym, grim-faced, lowered her bow, slowly breathing out. She raised an eyebrow. Then, abruptly, she whirled.
Boughs bent and snapped as the huge form of a goatman tore through a the living barricade at her flank. Bawling an ululating war cry, the hulking Chaos warrior bore down upon Eilethym. He hefted his battle-axe, huge and steaming with blood, above his ram-horned head for the downstroke. Red eyes peered at her with the bottomless malice of Chaos.
The axe-head, tarnished, flaring with sullen red runes, sang through the air at a blur. With preternatural grace, Eilethym didn't so much move as flit aside, contorting around the blow with impossible lightness. She spun, instinctually searching the distance favoured by waywatcher, falling into foot-patterns carefully drilled into her centuries before. The axe struck with savage sweeps, cleaving grass, slashing boles, its foul magic hanging like a miasma about her. But this beastman had speed to match his power, and cunning enough to prevent her escape.
He struck again, raving in the tongues of Chaos, calling upon his twisted gods. Her evasion, this time, came but a shade too late. The two broken halves of her bow spun into the underbrush. The Beastman paused fractionally. Unholy satisfaction burned in his eyes as he took in his enemy, now weaponless. With slow deliberation, he smiled. The runes on the axe flickered like fire, and a distant moan seemed to rise from the blade. Spinning it triumphantly, he charged.
Eilethym stood, watching the oncoming brute. Her expression, dark and aloof, did not change. She did, in fact, not move until the last instant, until the axe was in motion. Stepping into the blow, which would have otherwise bisected her from left shoulder to right hip, she cleared her war-knife from its sheath. The motion was as quick, as inevitable, as that of a snapping branch. The blade glinted in the stabbing rays of the sun, once, flicking past his face, laying open the goat-man's throat in a gush of black blood. She dove with unhurried speed below the follow-up cut of the axe, her knife licking down to sever his femoral artery, then sprang back to observe the results.
As the goat-man's death throes were beginning to abate, the bushes rustled. Two elves, bloodied and battered staggered into the clearing. They looked about in disbelief. One deigned to approach the lone way-watcher, who did not seem to have noticed their arrival, until she turned to fix them with a gaze that halted them.
"Worthy waywatcher," said the first, "I bring you word from Kriolin. We are to break camp at best speed, for there are beastmen in the woods." He looked about, belatedly realizing the possible redundancy of that statement.
The waywatcher did not seem to listen. Slowly, she turned toward the underbrush, searching, seeking. Finally, just as the courier was about to speak again, she strode a few paces away, and stooped to pick up an elven bow, shattered in two. Wisely, he said nothing.
"Honorable warrior," she said, not turning, "please convey my regards to the General. I shall follow you after a matter is attended to."
"What matter is to be concluded? I ask only on part of the General."
Her voice, rusty as if from disuse, whispered even as she strode from the clearing. "A fallen friend will return to the wood."
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