Forest in flames

Edgerinn sat trembling on the coarse ground. His bloody hands held up his sore torso, his shirt still smoldering from near death. The reality settled in his mind, mere seconds from suffering the same fate of the hundreds-strong brigade laying dead in the woods below. Hundreds of feet above the massacre, they took shelter- the Cierring (a descendant of elves), the human "Deen," and a female drid named “L'Taliianne”- above the flames.
The human laid his fractured body across a stack of leaves created by the boiling breeze.
L'Taliiiane sat against a tree stump. Her wrist dangled as she wrapped it tight with tape, holding it in place, biting away whatever whatever she needed with her teeth and tossing it to the red haired human strung out in the leaves.
Edgerinn staggered to his feet. "Deen... you okay." His concern for the human was strong. He was doubly hurt to see Deen broken the way he was. He'd always thought of him as indestructible. Though, the fact Deen was injured did nothing to sway his opinion.
Deen rolled onto his back, putting his hands over his face to block the sun, shining hard into his eyes and clear across the hilly horizon. "How long was I out?"
"Not long," Edgerinn replied, glad to see Deen moving around, and talking.
Deen sat up. "Tally... You're good to go?"
"Almost," she replied, shaking to her wrist to see if her tape was tight enough. She clenched her fist then released with her untaped hand, to see if it was right- it didn’t feel right. Though she was able to move it, her hand to hand confidence was at a low, unsure how well her pugilism would work if they needed her.
Deen reached his hands into the leaf pile, drawing a pistol from the stack after a moment's search. "Edgerinn... everything alright? Are you good to go?"
"I'm fine, just a little shaken up, thats all." Edgerinn used two fingers to shelter his lustrous black hair behind his short, prickly ears.
Deen, L'tallianne, and Edgerinn were all to their feet, walking towards the hill's edge. Deen approached with his pistol drawn, rage flowing through his veins. L’Tallianne approached, her broken wrist cradled in her chest as she approached with uncertainty. Edgerinn approached with fear, anxiety, nausea… he froze, allowing the Drid and the Human to walk ahead of him.
"Move it... Now's not the time to be a coward," Drid commanded him in a tone that was low but brash. "We have to find the General."
"Maybe the blast killed him," Edgerin suggested, taking a big step backward.
“Careless to just write that off as a conclusion,” said Deen. “I’d rather we go down there to see for ourselves.”
“I’d rather not,” Edgerinn replied, taking a second and third step back. He was tempted to just spread wings and fly far away from the place just under the mount, but he didn’t want Deen to be disappointed in him. .
Deen approached him, placing his pistol hand on his top of his head as he stood before him. He was two feet greater than Edgerinn in stature, so he kneeling partially to brush the dirt from his shoulder. "We have to be sure... you know that."
"Deen... We must make haste," Tally informed them, overlooking the hill, eyes fixed on the chaos below.
"Just hold your horses okay," Deen Replied. He turned his attention back to. The reality settled in his mind, mere seconds from suffering the same fate of the hundreds-strong brigade laying dead in the woods below. Hundreds of feet above the massacre, they took shelter- the Cierring (a descendant of elves), the human "Deen," and a female drid named L'Taliianne.
The human laid his fractured body across a stack of leaves created by the boiling breeze.
L'Taliiiane sat against a tree stump. Her wrist dangled as she wrapped it tight with tape, holding it in place, biting away whatever whatever she needed with her teeth and tossing it to the red haired human strung out in the leaves.
Edgerinn staggered to his feet. "Deen... you okay." His concern for the human was strong. He was doubly hurt to see Deen broken the way he was. He'd always thought of him as indestructible. Though, te fact Deen was injured did nothing to sway his opinion.
Deen rolled onto his back, putting his hands over his face to block the sun, shining hard across the hilly horizon. "How long was I out?"
"Not long," Edgerinn replied, glad to see Deen was moving around, and talking.
Deen sat up. "Tally... You're good to go?"
"Almost," she replied, shaking to her wrist to see if her tape was tight enough. She clenched her fist then released with her untaped hand, to see if it was right. Though she was able to move it, her hand to hand confidence was at a low.
Deen reached his hands into the leaf pile, drawing a pistol from the stack after a moment's search. "Edgerinn... everything alright? Are you good to go?"
"I'm fine, just a little shaken up, thats all." Edgerinn used two fingers to shelter his lustrous black hair behind his short, prickly ears.
Deen, L'tallianne, and Edgerinn were all to their feet, walking towards the hill's edge with hesitation. Edgerinn stopped, letting the Drid and the Human to walk ahead of him.
"Move it... Now's not the time to be a coward," the jade faced Drid commanded him in a tone that was low but awfully brash. "We have to find the General."
"Maybe the blast killed him," Edgerin suggested, taking a big step backward.
Deen approached him, placing his pistol hand on his top of his head as he before him. He was two feet greater than Edgerinn in stature, so he kneeled partially to reach his shoulder. "We have to be sure... you know that."
"Deen... We must make haste," Tally informed them, overlooking the hill, eyes fixed on the chaos below.
"Just hold your horses okay," Deen Replied. He turned his attention back to Edgerinn, hoping his words were getting through to him. "Come on..."
The both walked to the edge. Memories of the massacre just moment's earlier returned in a flood. He was down there; with. "Come on..."
Deen frazzled his hair then shoved him playfully in the forehead.
The both walked to the edge. Memories of the massacre just moment's earlier returned in a flood. They were down there, standing side by side with the fallen; particularly the one’s still covered in white hot flame.
“Do your thing Edgerinn.”
Edgerinn nodded, acknowledging the human’s order. He lifted his chin, swollen with pride to be under Deen’s command. He reached under his shirt, unearthing a large pendant: a beetle with swirls of black and gold engraved in its shell, with an underbelly rich and clear like sapphire. He removed it from his neck, lifting his hear, leaving a clear passage to the top of his spine. His neck was tattered in a circular symbol, reminiscent of a chakram. He cut his finger with the one of the pendant’s forelegs, causing blood to flow down the back of his thumb. He placed the beetle pendant on top of his hand nearest the blood flow. The beetle vibrated. Its legs came to life, disappearing below his sleeve, reappearing above his color, working its way to the tattoo on his lower skull where it rested. It sank its teeth into his neck. His eyes became two tiny pools of oil, his skin bubbled and fluctuated. His fear vanished. He felt nothing but unbreakable fortitude. He changed form and color; once the complexion of pure porcelain, his skin melted and swirled into a dark silver. His features faded. His form was the only thing left to identify him.
“I will climb down the mountain on my own,” said L’tallianne, not staying long enough to witness the transformation.
Deen and Edgerinn waited below for L’tallianne to finish her climb down the mountain. L’Tallianne reached. She had obvious difficulty scaling the rocks with one good wrist. Why not allow Edgerinn to fly her down in his current form? Deen questioned her refusal from a tactical point of view. Edgerinn just wondered why she still didn’t like him after all they’d been through to that point.
“You could have saved your strength…”
“I do not like his power… it’s corrupt,” she replied sneeringly. “I’d rather I climb, walk, or crawl.”
She didn’t look either in the eye. She believed them both to be corrupted by the beetle’s power, though only one allowed the parasite free passage to their mind.
The flames subsided, though some bodies continued to burn. The fires burned red, smaller, and a thousand degrees cooler than the white flames which massacred the front line of the battalion.
“Any idea what happened?” Deen referred all explanation of the event to the being with a much deeper connection to the earth- the Drid
“No clue. But whatever it was, it drained the life of the wielder.”
Deen thought they were either lucky or stupid, overstepping bones and burnt weaponry. “So much for protective armor,” he quipped. He reached down, shaking the bones off the grip of a knife, using the ground to wipe slime off its edges. “Weapons seem okay though.”
“I don’t sense the general,” Edgerinne said nervously walking close to Deen.
“Neither does the land,” L’Tallianne added.
Frustration began to boil within Deen. All those month’s they’d spent pretending, lying, lying in wait, having to watch that evil general stain the region in steel, working to sabotage while trying to get close enough; and for what?
It felt like they’d walked hundreds of yards of scattered bodies. Most weren’t whole, leaving many of their limbs a hundred yards elsewhere, in every direction.
“Deen…” Edgerinn whispered over his shoulder.
“What is it rinn…”
“I know these were bad people… but how come the General would leave his own solders to die like this?”
“Because he’s evil… which is why we need to find him… and put a shot in him before he grows in power.” He aimed his revolver pistol towards the horizon, wishing the General were at least a mile within his sights.
L’Tallianne had a thought, powerful enough to freeze her steps. “You think he might have done this to his own?”
Deen and Edgerinn caught up to the curious Drid. It was the closest she’d allowed Edgerinn to stand next to her while he was in his “state.”
“Why would he do that?” Deen found himself asking the same question the Cierring asked just moments ago. Though, he wouldn’t be satisfied if she offered him the same answer he offered.
“This is merely a theory… For the last few months, there was talk amongst the leading commanders under the general. There was talk of coupes, assassinations, upheavals… insurgents- us.” She urged them to follow as she spoke. “I think he believed there were traitors, but he is so blind with power and vanity, he couldn’t lower himself to imagine somebody even thinking of trying to kill him. So, no possibilities, no deductive reasoning, no suspects… But he knew the threat was there.”
Deen tapped the revolver gage against his temples. “So rather than try to root out the enemy, why not kill everyone and start over?”
“As I said… it’s a theory.”
“But we know he’s capable of this,” Deen added. “But it still doesn’t make any sense. He isn’t a force without his brigades. Why dust a whole battlefield of his own troops?”
“Maybe… he didn’t need them anymore,” Edgerinn said. They’d almost forgotten he was there.
“Maybe,” said Deen.
“I can see that,” L’Tallianne added.
All three grew quiet, forced to ponder the thought of the General with more power as they were close to stepping clear of the chaos. The stench was unbearable. They chose not to speak in risk they might swallow the local air.
Edgerinn was frightened. He wanted to take Deen’s hand for comfort but wasn’t sure how he’d react to. He was left alone for a good while as Deen and L’tallianne checked opposite sides of the smoldering field. He was happy to see Deen return.
“I checked every body… No general,” Deen declared, disappointed with the outcome. “All this for nothing.”
“Everything happens for a reason… It’s never for nothing,” L’Tallianne rebutted his negativity with her own beliefs, which is what she’d normally do.
“Deen!” Edgerrin took the form of a bird, soaring angrily to the sky. He flew forth, diving close enough to the ground to whiff the terrain, rocketing towards the crystal blue void forming in the distance.
Deen ran forth with his pistol at the ready. “What the hell are you doing Edgerinn, get back here!”
L’Tallianne whistled. Giant horns exploded through the dirt below her. She joined the pursuit atop an elk with husks of gold and stone.
They chased him halfway to the void, both wondering where and when the vortex was formed, who formed it, and why Edgerinn took off like a bat out of hell.
The ink colored bird in the sky circled before meeting the void, returning to land in front of the giant moose and the pistol carrying man.
“What… was that about?!”
“You made me summon Contessa for nothing. I told you that power will drive you mad.”
Edgerinn took human shape, breathing heavily. “It wasn’t nothing… Somebody was here… They heard everything we said.”
“I didn’t see anyone,” said Deen, waving his pistol in a circle.
They were invisible.
“How were you able to sense them,” L’Tallianne dismounted from her elk.
“I didn’t. She whispered something in my ear.”
“A spirit?” Deen lowered his knee to the dirt, opening his gun, filling the blanks with both water and dirt pills, then snapping it close.
“No… she was alive.”
“Well…,” what did she say?
“She said she told the General that the survivors of this massacre will be the insurgents…”
“Will be?” L’Tallianne folded her good arm over the taped one, rubbing sensation into the muscles. “A seer…”
“An invisible, undetectable psychic chick told you that she told the general we’d survive this?” Deen itched his stomach with his revolver.
“That still doesn’t answer the circumstances behind the massacre.”
“What do the circumstances matter? Whether he barbecued his own troop matter not… our cover is blown… according to mystery voice.” He raised his pistol. “She here now?”
“I don’t know. The vortex opened after she spoke.”
“Think she could’ve caused this?”
“It’s a possibility,” L’Tallianne replied. “The vortex remains open for a reason.”
“Whatever caused this could’ve come from the vortex,” Deen added.
“I don’t think so,” said Edgerrin.
“How do you know?” L’Tallianne was suspicious of his tone of certainty.
“Because… that doesn’t seem right.”
They approached the vortex; all four with their weapons at the ready.
On the way to the vortex; they stepped clear of the massacre, right into a beautiful green prairie eerily untouched by the flames. It was as if heaven and hell were separated by a line of ash.
“Stop,” Deen demanded. “This could be a trick.”
“Maybe we could draw straws to check,” Edgerinn suggested.
L’Tallianne sighed in reply. “That’s such a waste of time. I’ll test.” She reached her hands into the blades of grass, apologizing to the earth as the stripped a handful for herself. She approached the vortex, her elk not far behind.
Deen was about to follow, but a liquid hand wrapped around his wrist.
“What?”
“That’s not all the voice said to me.” Edgerrin’s neck stretched high to his ear. “It said… one of us will murder the others.”
Deen stepped away. “That’s bull. She has to be messing with us.”
“I don’t think so... I think she know something.” Edgerinn turned twisted his face towards Drid with the Elk. “I would never hurt you… and I know you would never hurt me. But…”
“No way... I can’t believe that. All three of this are in this for a reason.”
“I know… but the voice isn’t wrong. I know it. She's too cold to be a liar.”
Deen felt hollowness in his stomach. He didn’t know about the invisible-undetectable- psychic; but he knew Edgerinn. And when that little guy was sure about something, he’s accurate 99% of the time.