[Hlaeth] Ch 3 - Truth is in the Telling

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            All of her squad had bows nocked and poised to release on the human, who was just laying there in the ground in a patch of charred earth and greenery, like he was taking a nap in the sun. The fact they could all look directly above him and see the indent in Grandmother Dancing Moon where his face and body had impacted, and then see him directly below it, NOT crushed to paste, was pretty impressive, and rather unsettling.

            How fast did something have to be going to leave that kind of an impact hit? How could they possibly survive it?

            And yet he had, because his chest was rising and falling slowly and calmly, clearly alive and somehow recovering from the impact.

            “Captain, he is recovering from his burns. The red areas are slowly going down,” Malisoom, one of her best hunters, whispered in a voice that would travel only to her ears. “Do we kill him before he awakens?”

            They all looked at that indent in the tree. If he woke up, would they even be able to kill someone who could survive such a landing?

            Her eyes focused on the symbol he wore about his throat. Her eyes were good, but she didn’t have the angle, and the light was wrong. It was silvered, that she could see, but what it was wrought into was not visible, and she had the sudden impression it might be.

            It took only a handwave for them to pause and stay ready as she approached, making less noise than a butterfly flapping its wings as she stole over and through the branches. The fallen Father Windwhisper’s broken limbs extended in all directions as they piled up around the ancient tree that had seeded him long ago, and she easily found a branch to glide along to a position above the human.

            A Silver Sword upraised, between the crescents of a Silver Moon, stars agleam about them.

            She lowered her bow slowly, staring at the symbol, old tales and words coming back to her. Uncertainly, her squad also relaxed, looking at her in some confusion.

            “Human, are you awake?” she called down at him.

            There was not the slightest twitch of surprise or alarm. She wanted to say he opened his eyes, but that did not happen, either.

            There was a long black scar across his face, from right cheekbone to left ear, something which seemed… unclean to look upon. She had thought his eyes in shadow, but she was shocked as suddenly tiny little silver dots ignited in the depths of the sockets, and she realized he had no eyes at all!

            “Well, well, well.” His voice was deeper than almost any of her people’s, and it carried perfectly to all of them, vibrating with impressive power. He barely moved, only swinging his arm to plant his Staff, which now lit up and thrummed with a dangerous beat to it that raised the hackles on her neck to see and feel. “A native speaker of the Elven language. It seems the hour I invested into learning it wasn’t for nothing.”

            An hour to learn the language of their people? Fyanyl blinked in disbelief. The Elven language was a multi-layered harmony of voice and intent that could take centuries to master, and not even most elves would claim to know all of its intricacies. Yet this human was claiming to have learned it in an hour?

            His accent was extraordinary, however. Vibrant, powerful, confident, but not hostile in the slightest. It almost radiated benign goodwill.

            They watched as he got to his feet slowly and carefully, and with no signs of pain… meaning he was doing it slowly and carefully so as not to alarm them, Fyanyl realized quickly.

            Very importantly, there was not the slightest feeling of caution or fear about the human, extraordinary on the face of it, more for being surrounded, and more yet for being blind.

            Yet the slightest movements of his head indicated where each member of her team was situated, and that he knew exactly where each of them were. Which meant their stealthy approach had not surprised him at all, and he’d known what each of them were doing and where they were all along.

            The realization made her blood run cold. His careful lack of movement had been a trap to draw them in if they were hostile. He had been completely ready to fight and confront them if they had attacked him!

            “Identify yourself, human. You are trespassing here,” Fyanyl stated bluntly, “and we have reason to believe you are involved with the catastrophe behind us.”

            “I have been formally invited to help the forest heal and recover by the old duffer here.” His Staff reached out and precisely touched the towering root of Grandmother Moon Dancer next to him, his words shocking the elves yet again. “So, I am not trespassing here. I am Aelryinth of Heaven, magos. Who do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

            Fyanyl flushed at the very formal and courtly accent and flair to his speech. “I am Captain Fyanyl of the Eldari Emerald Guard, here with my patrol to investigate the horror that has transpired here behind us.” She hesitated as he waited there politely, listening. “Can you see the trail of fire that leads directly here to you from the point where the slaughter of the forest began?” she asked heatedly, unable to keep the anger from her voice.

            “No,” was the unconcerned reply, “although it does not surprise me. I had a very hot entry to this place.” The multi-level meanings to his words almost made her smile, bringing images of him flailing about with his ass on fire to her. “However, any fires I left would have proven little threat to the forest. It is the Dimensional Fracture that the orcs sent to clear the ground that did the damage here, and the horror they have wrought is only going to magnify at the dark of the night. How familiar are you with the undead, Captain?” he asked her calmly.

            “There are many tales told of the bloodless and the lifeless, which grow in the telling,” she sniffed, but her unease showed through as he raised his hand in a gesture sweeping precisely through an arc which defined the full area of the Reaving.

            “A massive amount of necromantic energy has come flooding into this place with the deaths of all the living creatures here. This energy was meant to be harvested by the shamans of the incoming orcs, used to open more Gates and change the terrain, perhaps break any Wards upon the area that might hinder them.

            “There is no such magic or Ritual going to be released now, meaning that this necromantic energy is uncontrolled and going to be finding the most viable method to manifest.

            “My vigilant captain, you are in the middle of what is going to be a massive uprising of undead beasts, monsters, and possibly mobile plant life, plus any sapients killed in this area, unless the whole area is promptly put to vivus.”

            A gentle flame, too white to be white, blossomed on the top of his Staff. While it billowed up like fire, mist fell off of it instead of rising as smoke, sinking gently down to the imprint he’d made in the ground.

            An imprint where the ground had actually melted, fused, and molded itself to him, clearly displaying his muscles where it had liquefied and then cooled about him.

            Just how hot had he been? Yet the redness was retreating from his browned skin.

            “What gods do you serve?” Fyanyl asked directly.

            “I have no idea if their names are known here, but I serve all the gods of Heaven under Aru. My personal fondness I reserve for Mithar, the Silver Son and Grand Master of Heaven, and Sylune the Silver Queen, who reigns over Silver Magic.” He tapped the medallion upon his chest. “I am no Paladin, merely Heavenbound, but I qualify to wear this as a Lorelord of Battle in the eyes of Mithar and Sylune.”

            “Mithar and Aru are names I’ve not heard, but Syluen is honored among our people as the Queen of the Moon and Stars, Magos Aelryinth,” Fyanyl breathed out warily.

            He tilted his head slightly. “They may or may not be the same goddess, Captain, but I doubt that a goddess of the boundless stars of the night and all its glories to be dark of heart and mien,” he replied honestly to her words, raising her estimation of him. After all the Names were similar, NOT the same. “I am going to be perfectly blunt here. I need to set this entire stretch of forest to burning vivic, eating away the necromantic energies, disposing of the slain, and Feeding it all to the Land to begin the restoration of the green here. I bear no malice and take no joy in the destruction of what has been wrought here.

            “I declare this in Truth, that I do this in only the best interests of the forest.”

            All of the elves rocked at that Word, Nihala and Onaihai, the most xenophobic of her band, convulsing and spitting blood, crimson tears falling out their eyes and nose as they were forced to confront their own prejudices and the lies they told themselves, and didn’t take it well.

            “I do not know of this vivus...” Fyanyl was wide-eyed, rocking on her feet at the power and cutting severity of that Word. It did not matter what anyone said, she was incapable of believing the human in front of her was lying about this matter.

            She turned to look at Grandmother Moon Dancer, whose leaves were dancing where there was no wind. She did not need to be a Treespeaker to know that was a sign of support.

            “Go, then,” she indicated with a helpless wave. “Stop this horror you say is rising from occurring.”

            “To forestall any sudden peremptory strikes, I shall ask you to accompany me. Feature! We’ve got some work to do already.”

            There was a swirl of motion. Bands of blackness rose from his cooling brown skin, growing and lengthening as they extended out from within from dark clothing that was repairing itself with visible speed. The bands swelled and grew, resolving into gleaming silver-edged scales of seeming obsidian.

            The elves all stumbled back in reflex as a serpentine dragon came out of nowhere with shocking speed, suddenly coiling about the human Aelryinth protectively and fiercely, lambent silver eyes studying them silently and not liking what it saw of them.

            Without any effort, the human hopped up onto the neck of the thick coils, standing there effortlessly. “Captain, if you would join me?” he asked calmly.

            Despite her instinctive fear at seeing such a large and powerful magical predator, especially one in service to a human, Fyanyl couldn’t hide her excitement. She had ridden hippogriffs before, on long trips to the capital, but only the most elite of the royal troops were allowed to ride a dragon!

            Three hops from her position, and she slid down a fallen branch, grasped the end of it, and dropped precisely onto the back of the dragon, the broad scales remarkably easy to retain her balance on.

            “You may stand or sit, as you wish,” the human said over his shoulder. Broad wings spread wide, jet black leather that seemed abruptly full of stars there, edged in silver that looked like nothing more than cutting blades. They still shouldn’t have been wide enough to support the dragon’s weight, but to her utter shock, one beat and they went soaring straight up over a hundred feet, as if they were weightless!

            Another beat, and they were above the limbs of the fallen trees, able to see the true length and breadth of the devastation.

            A strange fire, of electrum and pale white, lit up about the Orb atop the Staff the human held. “Before I begin, are there any trees you do NOT want to see reduced? I imagine there are a great many uses you could make of the fallen magical trees, if you are so inclined, and it will have little to no effect on the greater rebuilding.”

            Fyanyl blinked, looking down, then around slowly as she comprehended the enormity of what he was asking.

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