On the other side of this tree.
The trunk is thick, it is lush, boulders mound and curve all around it. I am protected by it. Shielded from whatever battle clashes on the other side.
But that might not be enough.
I lift my boot.
My movements are slow as I twist my leg around the side of the tree trunk, then flatten my boot on a patch of dirt. I lean my weight on it, slowly, my teeth gritted as though that’ll somehow help me keep quiet.
I slip around the tree, my shoulder so close to the bark that just one filling breath will close the distance and the tree will scrape along my sweater.
I peer around the thick brown trunk.
My throat tightens.
I should have been prepared for this. Better prepared for the… violence.
Dare taught me to hunt, to fish, to cook, to escape—he taught me a lot, but not to prepare for the grisly sight of the dead.
I am not a fae familiar with death. I saw no battles in my youth, I face no debt to the defence of the light lands. I am sheltered, a darling, raised to brandish brushes of lip paint, not swords.
I am ill-prepared for the grim sight in the clearing ahead. The portal spat out warriors here. Like where I fell, more landed nearby, some in clusters. Condensed areas.
This was one of them.
The clearing, if one can call it that, is a kill site of more than warriors. It’s cracked trees, bent and crooked, exploded by lightning strikes, and the bodies littered around the tree cemetery aren’t all that different.
A dokkalf landed in his own death. Impaled by the torn trunk of a split tree.
At least three others fell here.
Two more dokkalves—and one litalf.
But I don’t see the battle that I can hear ringing in the air. Metals colliding, grunts and the heavy thudding of punches.
That fight is close.
So close that I keep my breath bated and my steps soft as I inch closer to the dead.
Bent at the knees, I keep a low crouch as I sneak towards the clearing. My gaze sweeps the area, sweeps the bodies. A throat torn out, a limb shredded, as though it’s exploded into fleshy ribbons.
An acidic burn trickles up my throat.
I swallow it back and steel myself.
I’m not viewing the violence, the brutality for nothing. I search the faces for anyone I might know—and the breath that escapes me is curt, a soft relief, when I come up short.
I only recognise the litalf as someone I have seen around the High Court from time to time, and the vaguely familiar face of the impaled dokkalf as a face I saw around the barracks of Comlar. But no one Iknow.
Before the relief can slump my shoulders and relax the grimace of my face, a guttural cry disturbs the air.
I drop.
I fall to the forest floor, right behind the split tree. Above me, the gaping face of the impaled dokkalf drips blood.
A grimace steals me as I slide out of the way, but not before an inky droplet lands on my muddy shoulder.
Can’t worry about that now.