The light subsided and Bardiya fell back, exhausted. He slumped to the ground, striking his elbow on an exposed root. It hurt, but he was too drained to utter a cry of pain. He heard the shuffling of a body hastily retreating and opened his eyes.
Davishon was kicking himself across the ground, backing up until he collided with the base of a tree. When he could move no more, he glanced over himself, as if in disbelief. His eyes flicked up and met Bardiya’s, his hands touching the spot on his chest where his rib had pushed through.
“You…you healed me?” he whispered.
Bardiya nodded.
Davishon’s eyes darted to his shattered bow, then up into the treetops, where a quiver full of arrows dangled from a branch high above. Once more he turned to the giant who had healed his mortal wounds, and his lips quivered.
“Why?”
“I harmed you with my actions,” Bardiya sighed. “I have sworn to protect life, not harm it. It was only right to mend the body that I broke.”
Davishon stared at him blankly.
The female wolf, still sitting obediently as Bardiya had left her, let out a low, threatening growl. Bardiya gestured toward it.
“I feel you owe someone an apology,” he said. “You killed her mate, whom she’d been with since she was just one year old.”
The elf glanced from Bardiya to the wolf and then back again, but said nothing.
Bardiya drew in a deep breath, gathering his patience. “Davishon, I know you do not like me-perhaps even hate me. But I ask again…why did you try to kill me?”
Davishon’s eyes widened.
Bardiya touched the now-healed slice where the arrow had grazed him. “Please, Davishon. For the respect of this land and its beauty, tell me.”
“I’m sorry,” said the elf. His expression became one of angst-ridden regret, even as he suddenly jumped to his feet. “If you hurry, there still may be time.”
“Time for what?”
Davishon’s eyes, glowing as the sun began to melt away the cloud cover, grew wide with despair. “The morning prayers. The mangold grove. Be quick. And again, I’m sorry.”
The elf disappeared into the cover of trees. Bardiya heard splashing as Davishon crossed the river at a breakneck pace. He mulled over the elf’s words, completely befuddled, until the wolf beside him whimpered. He glanced over and saw that she was once again lying against her dead mate. He watched the blood that still flowed around the base of the arrow shaft, dripping over the creature’s unblinking eyes and pooling on the ground. Bardiya gasped, a lightning bolt of horror piercing his soul.
There may still be time. The mangold grove.
He leapt to his feet and ran. He ran faster than he ever had before, his long legs covering yards with each stride. In a span of mere moments he was out of the Stonewood borderlands and dashing across open fields that stretched out as far as his eyes could see.
The mangold grove. Morning prayers.
He ran faster.
A few miles outside the village of Ang there lay an isolated grove overflowing with broad-leafed flora whose stems shone red as blood. The mangolds were abundant there, the only place in all of Ashhur’s Paradise they could be found. Bessus often talked of how the air was different in the grove, sweeter and more life sustaining. His father also spoke of how the mangolds were red because their roots were connected to the heart of the land. Much like the black spire, it was a wholly unique place, which was why Bardiya’s parents and a select few of their people gathered there each morning to bestow their blessings on Ashhur in thanks for the life the god had given them.
If Davishon knew about the grove, and about the prayers conducted there, then so did others of his race.…
He shoved his sore, oversized body to its limits. He ran over the hilly ground, grass whipping against him like a million tiny knives, opening slender cuts on his bare shins and knees, while roots, briars, and stray twigs gouged the bottoms of his bare feet. As he ran, the sun slowly climbed higher in the sky, and his body soaked with sweat that evaporated beneath its heat.
It was closing in on late morning by the time he heard the first of the shouts. The bunching of willow and palm trees that contoured the grove came into view. Bardiya pushed himself harder, the echo of those pained, continuous wails piercing his ears like a flaming knife. He roared, moving much too quickly as he came upon the bordering trees and ground cover, his right foot catching a vine and sending him sprawling. Soaring forward, his side struck a thick trunk, which sent him spiraling in the other direction. He put out his hands to brace his fall as he flipped over and over again, his vision a wash of coalescing color. His hip struck the ground first, sending a bolt of pain across his abdomen, and when his back struck something fleshy yet substantive he heard a shout of surprise.
He came to rest on his hands and knees, panting, the ache in his bones cramping his gut and making it difficult to focus. The red and green of the mangolds were beneath him now, but there was something strange about it; the red stems glistened in the soft glow of the late morning sun, appearing much more visceral than they should have.
People bellowed orders. Others howled in misery. A shadow loomed over him, as giant as he, and the sound of displaced air swooshed past his ear. He flinched and was struck with a jolt, something sharp sinking into in his collarbone. Whatever it was didn’t strike him deep-Bardiya’s bones were thick and strong, and they had never been broken in all his long life.
He snapped to attention, flicking his massive hands out in a warding off motion, sending the figure before him flying. He sat up then, grabbed the object jutting from his flesh, and tore it free. It was a slender blade, a khandar of the sort he had often seen the elves wield in their sparring matches. The steel was soaked red. The air grew thick with an eerie silence. His gaze shifted from the blade to the grove before him, and his heart caught in his throat. The strange color infusing the mangold was blood; the ground was coated with it. There were bodies resting in the tangled plants, unmoving, their forms athletic, their flesh dark. There were eight elves before him, all armed with blood-soaked swords of their own, save the one closest to him. They formed a semicircle around three terrified, huddled forms: Gordo and Tulani Hempsmen, and their young daughter, Keisha. Their water-rimmed eyes lifted to meet his, and they huddled even closer together.
The elves made no move against him. They froze as if they knew not what to do, like a group of deer mesmerized by a predator. Bardiya shut his mouth and breathed deeply through his nose, trying to steady himself, trying to quell the pain that squeezed his bones. Slowly he rose to his feet. He approached the first prone body and used his foot to roll it over. It was Zulon Logoros, his father’s most ardent spiritual advisor. Zulon’s neck had been split from ear to ear. Blood-bubbled gasps still issued from his mouth, even though the man’s heart no longer beat and breath no longer blew from his lungs.
There were six bodies beside that one. He knew who two of them were without turning them over. His ardent desire was to collapse beside his parents’ remains, to weep and howl over them and bathe their faces with his tears. Bessus and Damaspia Gorgoros, First Family of Ker, embraced even in death, their eyes shut against the horror of their fate.