Merlina stared at the parchment. Hemkaraho, the man she had trusted, the man she had called her husband had betrayed her. As she stared at the parchment it darkened, smoldered, and turned to ash in her hands. She let it scatter in the wind. She cried out in anguish, her voice echoing from the mountain peaks. Eventually, her wrath cooled a little. She had to plan for the assault, later she would take her vengeance. The raven leader Kata-Karkar was watching her from the safety of a tree. She told him to keep a lookout for elves.
Hemkaraho and Chigatsay returned the morning of the following day. Merlina greeted them but did not say anything about the message she had intercepted. They were both weary from the journey and Hemkaraho immediately retired to his room.
It was afternoon when the raven sentries spotted a patrol of rangers moving through the fir forest. The ravens indicated that there were at least three of them, but Merlina thought it likely there were at least ten. The ravens were notoriously unreliable when it came to numbers.
Merlina was not sure she could trust Chigatsay, but she knew she would have to take a chance. She entered the tower and found him in his room. The oni sat in the center of the room with his legs crossed and his hands resting on his knees, his palms upward. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing slowly through flared nostrils. Merlina wasn’t sure if he was sleeping. She rushed to him and wrapped her arms around him.
“Chigatsay, I need your help,” Merlina pleaded. “They have come for me. Please say that you will help me.”
Chigatsay’s eyes snapped open. “What is the matter, Lina?” Chigatsay said. “Who has come for you? Where are they?”
“My captors have found me. They are in the vale. Don’t let them take me away!”
“We shall see about that!” Chigatsay said as he sprang up and reached for his jade glaive.
They rushed outside and surveyed the landscape. The tower stood near the top of a high hill with the remains of some ruined fortifications surrounding it. Green slopes and rocky meadows spread from the tower to the north and east. Behind the tower to the west was a rocky peak. There was a path that wound down from the south side of the tower to the valley below. At one time there had been stairs ornamented with pillars, arches, and statues. Now it was little more than a tumble of lichen-covered boulders surrounded by spreading junipers that flooded with water during the spring. It gradually transitioned into a narrow gulley as it reached the valley. Summer wildflowers lined a stream that ran from the mountains in the north through the meadow before disappearing into the fir wood to the east. There were still a few patches of icy snow this high in the mountains even after midsummer.
Chigatsay stood tall, planted the butt of his glaive on the ground, and called out loudly in his deep voice. “Whoever comes to Barakundi must seek my leave!”
Suddenly an elf appeared from behind a section of ruined fortification directly in front of them.
“My name is Gemma,” she called. “I am a Ranger of the Enclave. I have been sent to seek an audience with Faroh Hemkaraho.” She looked at Merlina and smirked as she recognized her.
Merlina clutched at Chigatsay and urgently whispered to him. “I know her. She is one of those who held me captive. They will try to trick us. You must attack now!”
Chigatsay seemed conflicted. The elf was saying they had come to see the sorcerer, yet he had no reason to mistrust Merlina.
Merlina knew she must act quickly. She reached out with her mind as Hemkaraho had taught her. She could sense another elf lurking behind the wall next to Gemma. Her mind was weak and pliable. It was Bethi. She seemed as nervous as a rabbit in a den full of foxes. Merlina focused on Bethi’s mind.
Bethi was sure that Chigatsay was about to strike Gemma with the glaive. She had to stop him. Her arrow was already nocked and targeting him. She let it fly.
Chigatsay saw the arrow and spun his glaive to knock it out of the air. He continued to spin on the ball of his foot and planted his other foot to advance on Gemma. He came down with the glaive. Bethi threw herself at Gemma knocking her out of the way. She raised her bow over her head to block the glaive, but it cut through the bow with ease. Then it cut through Bethi. Chigatsay pulled his blade out of the body as it fell. Gemma caught Bethi’s body and Bethi looked into Gemma’s face for a moment before her eyes turned dull. Blood sprayed from her wound onto the grass. Gemma cradled Bethi’s head in her lap.
“Oh, Bethi, no,” said Gemma. “Bethi…”
Chigatsay scooped up Merlina and dashed for cover. Arrows filled the air and began raining down on them. Chigatsay spun his glaive so fast it became a green and yellow blur, a moving shield that knocked arrows away from him. He lifted Merlina and made a mighty leap down into a depression in the path that was sheltered by two boulders. They crouched close to the ground.
“Merlina!” Gemma’s anguished voice raged across the valley. “You will pay for this!”
“Lina, we are in a bad situation,” Chigatsay said. “Their arrows can strike us from a distance, but I must be close to attack with my glaive. I will go and distract them while you try to get back to the tower and rouse the sorcerer.” Chigatsay prepared to run out into the open.
“No, wait,” Merlina said. She decided it was time to reveal her secret. “I may be able to do something to help.” She cast a camouflage spell on the oni and herself. “This will work best if we remain completely still.”
Chigatsay held his hand in front of a rock, and it gradually took on a gray texture that matched the rock. He smiled. “This may give me the advantage I need,” he said. “If I can draw them into the fir wood, the bows will have limited range. I may be able to take them out one at a time.”
Chigatsay gripped his glaive and bolted from cover, sprinting downhill. Arrows whizzed around him, but he was able to dodge them or knock them out of the air with his glaive. He took cover behind what remained of a huge, stone, bearded head. He dashed from cover and leaped over some stonework. A downward thrust of the glaive took an elf by surprise and cut him down with a single stroke. Chigatsay began sprinting downhill again, but an arrow struck him in the back. It came from the companion of the elf he had cut down. Merlina saw Chigatsay stumble and fall, disappearing behind a broken pillar.
“Don’t be a ‘fraidy, Lina!” Alffy said.
You’re not real. Besides, I’m the one who said that, not you.
Merlina saw Alffy’s corpse standing before her. His eyes were white, and his bloated body was coated with ice. A moment later two other figures appeared next to him, her aunt and uncle who had been her stepparents. Their bodies were mutilated and punctured with many holes; their clothes were stained with blood.
“We are waiting for you, Merlina.”
A fourth figure appeared next to them. It was a young elf, her body cut nearly in half. Bethi.
“We are waiting for you, Merlina,” They called. “We’re all waiting for you to join us.”
Merlina closed her eyes and pushed her fists into her temples. They’re not real! When she opened her eyes, the apparitions had disappeared.
Merlina knew she needed to help Chigatsay get across the meadow to the forest. She began rotating her body with her arms outstretched as she did when she used her cleaning spell, except now she was pulling air towards her. A small whirlwind began to form around her. She pulled her arms in towards her body and began spinning faster pulling more air to her. The little whirlwind grew larger. Merlina stretched out her arms again reaching out with her magic to gather more wind. Her body seemed lighter and felt like it was expanding. She looked down and saw her body below her standing still with arms outstretched apparently in a trance. She had taken on a new body, the nude avatar of a primordial goddess. Her black hair billowed into the sky and seemed to merge with the dark clouds forming there. Her legs were surrounded by dust and debris as the winds twisted about her ankles. She continued growing larger as the tempest grew stronger.
Merlina could see Chigatsay far below her sheltering in a gully near the edge of the meadow. A dead elf lay next to him. Broken shafts of arrows were sticking from his back and blood streamed from the wounds. Elven archers were approaching in pairs across the valley. There was also a cluster of archers stationed along the edge of the forest close to the stream. She strode down the hill to the meadow. She spread her legs until they stretched across the valley positioning herself between the archers and Chigatsay. She bent over the meadow and her breasts loomed like two swollen clouds in the sky. She released a torrent of rain from her loins and the elves began fleeing from the deluge. Merlina squeezed her breasts and streams of hail spurted from them like mother’s milk pelting the ground below. She reached her arms to the skies, and they crackled with blue electricity as she absorbed the charge from the gathering storm. She thrust her arms downward and lightning surged from her fingertips. Lightning bolts struck the ground in front of the elves throwing clumps of sod and mud into the sky, leaving craters behind. Some elves tried to shoot her down, but the arrows passed through her avatar as if it was made of air.
Chigatsay saw his chance and raced across the open field. The battering storm rendered the arrows of the elves useless. He ran south to where a portion of the forest extended into the field. A pair of elves waited at the edge of the forest with drawn swords. Chigatsay held his glaive horizontally in front of him by one hand and waited for their attack. An elf charged at him wielding twin blades. A blade slashed Chigatsay’s leg before he was able to cut her down with his glaive. Another elf approached from the other side. He slashed Chigatsay’s shoulder with a sword, but Chigatsay thrust with the butt end of the glaive and knocked him down. Chigatsay slipped into the forest and disappeared.
Suddenly Merlina felt as if something was choking her. She was back in her own body between the boulders. The avatar collapsed in a final torrent of rain and hail until nothing remained but a heavy fog that lay over the valley. Merlina grasped her neck and felt a spiked metal collar had been placed around it. She turned and saw Silona behind her. She tried to cast a spell but all that happened was the collar seemed to grow warm for a few moments.
“It won’t work, Merlina,” Silona said. “The collar absorbs magic. You can’t use magic with the collar on.”
Silona waved her finger and the collar tightened around Merlina’s neck choking her so she couldn’t breathe. She struggled against it but finally fell to her knees.
+++++
Merlina felt nauseous. Her arms and legs were bound, and she could feel the spiked collar around her neck. She had been flung over the shoulder of a tall male elf that Silona referred to as Delfarin. They were moving quickly through the forest following the stream. The stream lost its way through this part of the forest forming a swampy region. There was a mixture of dead and living trees. The sky was glowing orange as the sun sank towards the horizon. At this rate, they would be able to reach the waterfall by midnight. Merlina had no idea how they intended to descend the escarpment.
“Let me kill her!” Gemma said. “Let me just slit her throat and be done with it.”
“You can’t do that,” Silona replied. “She is our captive. That would be murder.”
“We could say she got free and attacked us. No one would know differently.”
“No, Gemma, then we would be as bad as her.”
“And what of the ogre?”
“That is why we are moving as fast as we can. We know he is injured. We will have to outpace him.”
“Outpace an ogre…”
“Hush!” Silona interrupted, her ears erect and attentive. “I think I hear something.”
Can elves hear a bird soaring in the wind? Soon even Merlina could hear the flapping of wings around them as dark shapes flitted from tree to tree. Suddenly there was a raucous cawing as the ravens began harrying the elves. The elves were inclined to shoo them away rather than attempt to kill them since the ravens could not do any significant damage. Suddenly a tree seemed to explode beside Merlina and the elves. Shards of wood flew everywhere knocking them down. Delfarin dropped Merlina as he sprawled on the ground. Silona and Gemma were knocked senseless. Delfarin was just beginning to scramble to his feet when a jade glaive cut his legs from under him. The next thing Merlina knew, Chigatsay had scooped her up and was carrying her away. He raced through the forest knocking branches and small trees out of the way. Gradually the cries of the elves grew more distant. Chigatsay climbed uphill until he reached a rocky clearing where he lay Merlina down. The last sliver of the sun was sinking behind the mountain peaks, and everything seemed to be glowing with a golden light.