Arc 1: Chapter 22: The Oradyn
The elves brought us deep into the Irkwood. So deep, in fact, that I suspected we drew very close to the border of one world and the precipice of another.
I knew the signs. The trees grew taller, and less quiet. More Wil-O’ Wisps and wraiths began to gather, their ethereal voices intermixing to form a ghostly ambiance. The shadows sunk into depthless pools of liquid shadow, and light clung to the woods from no apparent source, as though it grew as moss or mushrooms might, or gathered in lambent springs.
It might have been beautiful, but there was a dreadful alien quality to the hidden realm. My eyes were tormented by confusing shapes, overwhelmed by half-heard sounds or phantom scents.
I focused on the elves who’d taken us captive instead. They were unearthly in their own way, but in a manner I was at least somewhat familiar with. “My companion needs that arrow taken out,” I said. “It’s hurting her.”
Catrin was being guided along by two elven warriors, both clad in light armor of a pale metal inscribed with intricate patterns like overlaid leaves. What was visible of the bodies beneath were tightly bound in strips of cloth, as though they were mimicking the mummies of ancient human kings. Each held one of the dhampir’s arms in an ungentle grip. She shivered violently, her flesh pallid and coated with a thin sheen of sweat. Her form seemed nearly liquid, shifting from the mildly pretty young woman she usually resembled to the ghastly creature I’d glimpsed the night before, then back again. The bane-metal arrow remained embedded in her left shoulder.
The one leading the band was a tall elf clad in armor fashioned of a pale blue starmetal, beautifully made, with a horned helm revealing nothing of the face beneath. A faerie knight wrapped in moonlight. They had been the one to shoot the dhampir, and the towering warbow in the elf’s hand quietly hummed with sorcery.
The elf knight turned an eye that shone like distant starlight from the depths of their helm’s eye slits on the changeling. Though I couldn't see it beneath the helm, I could almost imagine immortal lips curling into a sneer.
“The half breed will live. The azsilver tortures the dark spirit in her, but it is bound in her tightly as any living mortal’s essence. Her fate is for the oradyn to decide.”
That word took me aback. Oradyn was an elven word for one of their military commanders. It meant something close to captain, but had a deeper meaning than mere rank. A champion. A hero of their people.
My trepidation grew teeth.
They hadn’t taken my axe. None of the elves seemed willing to touch it, but neither had they allowed me to put it away beneath my cloak.