novelxo Chapter Battle in the Dark
Leradien left the boy, then quickly searched for, found, and picked up Ronthiel’s tracks in the dark on the trail to Eagle’s House to ensure the elf reached home safely. Being half drow, she could track at night nearly as well as a Light Elf by day. With eight legs, she faced no difficulty keeping up, being four times faster than him.
Although she would get her kiss and be even with the two fairies that she had previously vowed to kill, she now felt the shunned thoughts of a drow. For, in truth, she sometimes had Light Elf thoughts and sometimes Dark Elf thoughts. When she had light elf thoughts, she called herself Leradien the Light. Yet when she had dark drow thoughts, she called herself Leradien the Dark, and right now she was Leradien the Dark.
“I should not be protecting elves, especially Ronthiel,” she complained aloud to herself. “He warns the boy against me. He is my enemy, and he knows me too well. But worst of all is his arrogance! That Ronthiel has obvious disdain for drow who have even more disdain for him! Yet, just like a drow, he condemns me for being a drider. That elf would just as soon put an arrow through me as be a friend. And now the boy wants me to protect that stupid elf! I should kill him myself and blame it on the displacer beast!”
It made her black blood boil just to think about it.
But she would do anything for the boy. She had to. Only he spared her from the terrible loneliness of being rejected by both elf and drow alike. Without him, she would already be insane by now. Leradien couldn’t let anyone steal him away from her or the inevitable madness would follow and it would come very quickly.
Ronthiel was a good two hours from home, she realized. She could cover that distance in well under half that time, and at just her normal speed. She would even have to slow down or she would catch up with him, the very last thing Leradien wanted to do. Elves may not see well in the dark, but they can hear quite keenly. And the boy was right. She was getting big. It’s not easy to be quiet when you’re the biggest thing in the woods. If she wasn’t careful, he’d hear her moving through the brush and know she was tracking him, and either put an arrow in her or demand to know why she was trailing him—and she wanted neither.
But she had another reason to slow down. Unfortunately, lots of elves made the trek from Linthiel to Eagle’s House and so there were a great many footprints along the way and she had to pay close attention to which ones were his. But his, being the last prints made on the trail, should always be clear and undisturbed.
So when she found one of his footprints partially obliterated on the trail, she stopped to find out why. Something else had stepped on his footprint after he had left it.
It was a huge cat’s paw mark.
Leradien studied the track of the cat. It was six-legged, and it was also moving in the direction of Eagle’s House. Being behind Ronthiel, its prints often stepped on and over Ronthiel’s tracks.
It was hunting him.
Yet Leradien did not hurry to the rescue. Her thoughts were a tangled web of conflicting emotions, each strand like a delicate thread of light and darkness, struggling for dominance in the depths of her mind. Leradien the Dark made her arguments against it.
“Does this cat not do me a favor?” she asked herself. “Why should I interfere? I’d just as soon let it kill him. If the boy has an elf for a friend, it means he will spend less time with me and more time with him!”
That was an almost unbearable thought. Leradien needed the satyr’s company—and he was the last one. After him, there were no others for her. No light elf or dark elf would ever have her. She was rejected by all. It was best if this Ronthiel fellow ended up dead and the quicker, the better. She could do it herself… or just let this displacer beast do it for her.
She moved ahead, considering her choices. Drow needn’t keep their word, and the last thing she ever wanted to do was protect a light elf. They were stupid, selfish, arrogant creatures. Their days were numbered on Earth and rightfully so. They were either too stupid to see it or, if they did, too stupid to do anything about it. And they were selfish. They never joined with the satyrs in the Second War even though the satyrs fought for them—or so she had been told by her drow father, Jaezred. They had even allowed the boy to become the last satyr and, if they had their way, he’d end his life that way. That crime alone was worth her killing them all for.
But, despite all her reasons not to, she sped up her pace. For now, Leradien the Light was arguing her case.
“If I give into Leradien the Dark, I shall go mad anyway, as all driders do. If I listen to my drow side, it shall work against me. I must obey the wishes of the boy,” she said to herself, “Even though I shall regret this.”
The moon’s silvery fingers reached through the tangled canopy, painting the forest floor with patches of spectral light as she pursued. The night was alive with the sound of rustling leaves, nocturnal creatures whispering secrets, and somewhere ahead the footfalls of an elf, oblivious to the lurking peril.
About halfway to Eagle’s House, the cat’s tracks abruptly stopped for some reason and had then jumped off the trail to the right. Ronthiel’s footprints continued to go straight ahead but, a short distance further she found where he had stopped and turned around. Ronthiel had evidently heard the cat behind him here, quiet though it was, and faced it. But his elfish eyes would have seen nothing in the dark. Yet the cat with its night eyes had seen him stopped and looking back, knew it was discovered, and so had veered off to the right.
Being a huntress herself, Leradien understood the cat’s plan. Having been heard from behind, it now sought instead to get ahead of Ronthiel so it could attack him from the front while silently crouched from a high place of hiding, a tree perhaps, or from on top of a rock. With the huge cat not moving and holding still in the dark, Ronthiel would now not hear it.
Ronthiel’s response could be seen in his tracks as well as she continued to follow them. He was still heading towards Eagle’s House but was now moving faster, more light of foot, and checking over his right shoulder. He was not in panic, but he knew something was behind him. She could also tell he was not expecting an attack from the front where the cat was now headed. At this point, the cat had the advantage.
Leradien left the path, veering off to the same side as the cat had, and looked to pick up its trail. Without Ronthiel’s and the boy’s weight now to slow her down as in their first encounter, and with eight legs to move on, she moved with greater speed than the cat did with six. Further, the cat, not knowing she was behind it, would be focused with eyes and ears ahead while making a quiet, comfortable, unhurried pace. She would definitely catch up with it—although Ronthiel might already be dead when she did.
She soon found the cat’s trail off to the right and plunged after it with incredible speed. Leradien was going much too fast now to be stealthy. There was no time for that. The cat would be looking for a place on the trail ahead of Ronthiel from which to spring on him. If it hadn’t already gotten Ronthiel, it soon would.
Leradien knew what would happen. At her speed, she would explode on the cat—unawares to either one of them. There would be a collision and an instant battle. She was not looking forward to that at all. The cat had six pairs of claws, biting tentacles, and sharp teeth. Nothing dared hunt a displacer beast—although nothing dared hunt a drider, either. They were an even match.
Maybe.
Suddenly, there it was!
The cat was in front of her, crouched in a tree and ready to spring on the trail below. But it was already leaping away as Leradien burst upon it. It had seen—or heard—her before she saw it. But she was at full speed whereas it had to first turn around to jump away and so was only just beginning to move.
Cats react by instinct when startled and, when something big and fast and unknown is coming upon them, their first instinct is to run. And Leradien was its equal size and weight and crashed into it with great force as she also cast fairy light to blind it. The cat let out a snarl, flicked its claws at her. When it could do no harm to her armored shell, it tried to bound away; only to be held fast fast by her eight legs. Yet it furiously fought to stay away from Leradien’s deadly bite.
The two adversaries locked, the moon’s silvery fingers reaching through the leaves to witness the climax of their nocturnal clash. The forest echoed with the resounding clash of their confrontation—a tempest of howls, growls and hisses waking up the night. The stalemate hung in the air, the moonlight casting an ethereal glow on the battlefield, frozen in the aftermath of a battle that would linger in the shadows of the forest.
And then the cat broke and ran away.
Leradien could have chased and might have caught it—but that was exactly why she didn’t chase. She didn’t want to catch it. To scare it off was one thing, to actually fight it was another. Its claws couldn’t scratch her shell but it had teeth and tentacles against her unprotected upper body.
“Zing!”
An arrow came her way from behind, slamming into her armored spider’s abdomen shell to shatter there harmlessly on impact without penetrating. Leradien barely even felt it as she now turned to face that stupid elf boy.
“Is this how you repay me for saving your life?”
Ronthiel came out of the dark, bow and arrow ready, yet shocked and surprised to see her.
“You!” he declared, recognizing her. His eyes narrowed, and his grip tightened on the bow. “I’m not surprised! I’ve been expecting you to follow me. You’ve come to murder me after I warned the satyr against you! I should kill you now—if that’s even possible to do!”
“Oh! Watch your tongue, elf boy! You think you can hurt me with an arrow?”
“You think I can’t?”
There was a pause during which she decided not to find out and so sullenly replied instead. “I’m here because the boy sent me!”
“That’s a crock! How long did it take for you to think that one up?”
“If it’s any consolation, I objected to the task,” she assured him.
“I’ll bet you did! I saw you with that cat! The two of you were going to jump me!”
“You know,” Leradien said softly, “I’m really, really starting to dislike you.”
“The feeling’s mutual, I assure you!”
“You are so dumb!” she said. “If the cat and I were waiting here to jump you, why didn’t we do it?”
“On account of the two of you had some sort of fight. I saw it by the light you cast!”
“You are even dumber than dumb,” said Leradien. “Yes. We fought. We fought over you. I cast the light to blind it in order to scare it off!”
“Why would you scare it off? Why defend me?”
A perplexed expression crossed Leradien’s face, and she tilted her head to the side. “Ah! At last an intelligent question and one I cannot answer. I don’t really know myself. I thought I was saving you but didn’t have time to think I was saving you only so you could put an arrow in me. But the next time the boy asks me to safeguard you home; I shall leave you to your fate!”
“You say the boy asked you to safeguard my way home? Why should you do that?”
“In exchange for a bargain. Trust me. It wasn’t worth it.”
The two of them fell silent for a moment.
“That thing I saw,” he now asked. “Was that the displacer beast?”
“It was and it has your scent. It hunts you, and the satyr boy as well. But you’re safe for the rest of the way home. I interrupted its concentration, for it knows not what I am, or why I attacked it. It also knows you’re on guard against it.”
“Am I to suddenly believe now I have been wrong about you?” challenged the elf. “Do you believe I am that foolish?”
Yes, Leradien did so believe. He was a prince of fools. The only reason he saw the cat at all was by the very fairy light she had used to blind and drive it off with. But she kept her opinion of him and all other Light Elves to herself.
“Believe what you want,” she said. “What do I care?”
Figuring he was safe now, Leradien was already moving back the way she had come, hurrying back to Linthiel. She had more important thoughts on her drow’s mind now. No fairies had better be kissing the boy!