Elora kicked out. Reflexes already moving to her smuggler's pouch where she drew out her sword; the blade arcing around as she grasped her attacker and shoved it against the stable wall. Her fingers found a furry throat as she squeezed and lifted upwards.
The body of her attacker was small and squat. An overly large head was now level with her own as sharp pointy teeth reflected the inn’s lamps, beneath a short stubby muzzle. Small paws grasped her wrist that was pushing into him.
“Gurple?” Elora asked, hastily withdrawing her sword from his neck, his large frightened eyes focusing on the red glow of her blade. “I’m sorry Gurple, you startled me.”
She lowered the wood troll to the ground and placed her sword away. The little furry creature immediately stepped away from her, wringing his paws together, ears standing tall and erect.
Elora held a hand out to him and he flinched from it before hastily retreating.
“It’s ok Gurple, I won’t hurt you,” she said, but the little wood troll was already running towards the inn with his little feet thumping into the wet mud.
She wasn’t doing well, she thought and let out a heavy sigh. Less than an hour at Rams Keep Inn and she had already upset two out of the three inhabitants. Poor little Gurple, she must have frightened the life out of him and all he meant to do was greet her with a hug. What was she turning into?
The last few weeks had changed her, toughened her up, hammered the softness away and shaped the once quiet girl into a hardened killer. A demigod, the Shadojak.
Gurple gave her a final glance, his child-like body silhouetted in the inn’s doorway before he slammed it shut. She would try to be more like her old self around the wood troll, he wouldn’t understand. That is, if she could. Her reactions were now that of a swords master. The blade in her pouch giving her the reflexes of all that had wielded it since her father first created the sword thousands of years ago. Add to that her lineage, being the daughter of Chaos, the Queen of Darkness and you had an evil combination. Something which she needed to control. Her temper could cost the lives of innocents.
The rain lulled, the wind dropped and the only sound came from the water running from the inn’s gutters. She glanced over the shadows of the outbuildings, into the blackened windows and crevices, seeking out Jaygen, but the boy was long gone. Maybe Norgie was right, he needed time alone.
Resigning to the fact he wouldn’t be found unless he wanted to be, she crossed the muddy courtyard for the third time that night and went into the warmth of the inn.
Norgie had heated water for a bath and made a simple supper of cheese and biscuits. She was hungrier than she thought and ate until she was full before soaking in the bath. Not quite on the same level as the steam baths in Aslania, but very welcome all the same.
Gurple stayed hidden for the remainder of the night avoiding her, most probably still fearing her. She felt guilt at that, what a monster she must have appeared. She resolved to make things up to him in the morning.
It was almost midnight before Jaygen returned. Letting himself in through a back door he attempted to creep through to the kitchens but Elora had sat herself on a chair positioned half in the bar, half in the corridor with a view into the kitchen.
Jaygen’s shirt clung to him. It was wet from the rain and stuck to his slim frame. Sweat shone from his brow and his cheeks were ruddy as if he had just been running. When he noticed her, his hands paused midway to a plate of food that Norgie had left out.
“I’m sorry I ran out like that,” Jaygen said.
“It’s ok, don’t worry about it,” Elora said, offering him a reassuring smile. “Truth is; I probably would have done the same.”
He timidly reached for the food, his eyes glancing to the door again as if he wanted to make a hasty retreat.
“Thank you for taking care of my horse,” she said, willing him to talk.
He grunted a reply, she thought it might have been, you’re welcome. It was plain he had no intention of making conversation.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Elora offered.
Rain dripped from the ends of his long hair when he shook his head.
As he lurched passed to the corridor, Elora glimpsed a deep cut along the side of his neck and the back of his shirt was torn along one side, the pink welts of a scratch lay beneath on his pale skin. She wanted to ask him what had happened but he had already closed the door, leaving her alone. The injuries he had, didn’t seem to bother him, maybe she would enquire about them in the morning.
Her legs felt weary as she made her way to her bed chamber. Norgie had kept it aired and clean sheets were spread on the comfortable four poster bed. A loneliness crept over her as she climbed into it. This was the first night she would spend alone. Bray had shared her bed whilst in Aslania and she had slept alongside the others as she journeyed through Thea to reach God’s Peak.
She closed her eyes and sought sleep, hoping that Bray didn’t take too long in finding a way back to her.
Chapter 2
Survivors
Elora awoke to a grey morning, the remnants of a nightmare still lingering at the edges of her memory. The panicked feeling of being chased down, being beaten, being prey. Flashes of another’s life, another’s death long ago recorded in the blade and fed to her while she slept. The blade’s quickening; an ordeal that fresh Shadojaks accepted along with the title. They would haunt her dreams for years and maybe for all her remaining years.
Unwrapping the sheets which had tightened around her legs she sat up and stretched her neck. The loneliness from the previous night creeping back with the emptiness of the chamber. She was used to Bray being there when she woke. His warm body pressing against hers, his arm draped protectively over her shoulders. But he could be weeks away - months even.
The inn was quiet before she descended the creaking staircase, she guessed Norgie and Jaygen were still asleep and so crept outside to walk off the clinging thoughts of being hunted. The sun had yet to make an appearance, the pre-dawn light turning the scattered clouds pink as she trudged through the damp courtyard to the stone well. She turned the wheel that reeled the bucket up from the underground spring and splashed icy water on her face.
Rams Keep was so peaceful, the gentle swaying of the surrounding forest, a breeze sighing through the green canopy interlacing with the snickers from the stables and the occasional bleating from the goats. She wondered what life was like outside the fairy protection that surrounded the area. If there were any people still alive, still striving to make life or forming a resistance for themselves.
Elora meandered along a track towards the lake as the cockerel broke the peace, letting the inn know that morning had arrived.
The last time she had been at the lake was with her uncle Nat, when she had manipulated the wind element making a blade of grass hover and spin above her palm. She smiled at the memory, yet it fell from her lips as she realised that he hadn’t been her uncle then, but a spliceck. A creature similar to the takwich; a weapon of her father’s creation that would possess the host body of whomever it sunk its teeth into. In the end it was Ejan that had killed it, saving herself from being bitten and saving Nat with the same crushing blow.
Ducks broke away from their hiding place beneath a willow as Elora approached the water’s edge. Their wings flapping wildly and catching the lake’s smooth surface as they half flew, half paddled away. Elora watched the ripples left in their wake, felt the rhythm of the white crests upon the dark water and cocked her head. The pattern of the flowing element found her so naturally even though water was one of the harder elements to manipulate. Biting nervously on her lip she reached for that rhythm and teased at its edges.
In her mind’s eye she pictured the ripples turning the crests of the small waves to fall in a different way and swirl into circles. Coalescing into one another as they formed rings within rings. Yet in front of her, the water hadn’t altered.
When Nat had manipulated the elements, he hummed or sung to the rhythms, matching the beat before changing it. Elora knew the tune for wind, she had already changed the dance of that element and if she wanted to she could reach out and touch the rhythm easily. She recalled the song her uncle had sung back on the Molly.
The words wouldn’t come but the tune was a flowing melody with high notes swinging into low before rising again in a steady flow. The moment her mind began to run through the tune the water before her changed.
She meant for it to be a subtle shift upon the surface. Something small, but before she could reel the rhythm back in, the swirls and waves became deep troughs and peaks slapping together as the body of the lake became a broiling mass of turbulence, a maelstrom of dark water causing a wind to whip at the willow’s limbs.
Elora let go of the thread completely and was rewarded with a rogue wave crashing over the bank and slapping her across the face.
Anger sparked within her, fuelled by the mocking touch of the water. She scowled at the lake as its white foaming surface began to settle down and searched for the element of fire. She would flash boil the water and send it into the sky in a violent cloud of steam - see then who mocked who.
