The hike back to his hometown, Lletya, was a short distance, but took him the good part of that morning. The path was treacherous on many counts, deadly even, to those who had not grown up in its midst. Navigating the forest its self would challenge even the most experienced of elves, let alone a man; one has to know how to find the same paths created by the wildlife, trampled down over years, centuries even, of use.
Then there were the larger animals, the bears and dire-wolves, which had evolved exclusively to kill. And if that weren’t enough, over many years of trapping both animals and their enemies, the elves had littered their forest with pitfalls, tripwires and god knows what else. So many in fact, that they too often forgot where they were placed.
But it was child’s play to Ael; as he knowledgeably jumped a wire and ducked through a gap so small most wouldn’t even recognise its existence. Yet one hundred meters or so from his home of infancy, he stopped dead in his tracks and hurriedly fell to the ground behind a fallen tree.
The dense forest had ended, the traps he had known to avoid since his first hunting adventure were destroyed. Ael slowly rose above the log, raised his bow and scouted the area. The once lush, green and brown of the woodland was no more. Monstrous trees that had once seemed unshakable were lying on their sides, the low shrubs had been cut with long blades and trampled into the ground.
But the scene was devoid of living creatures, not even the insects dared trespass into this unknown site. Ael dropped to the ground again, this time searching the earth for clues. He saw the indents of metal horse shoes, the calling card of men.
15-Apr-2010 07:03:26
- Last edited on
16-Apr-2010 10:04:04
by
Eri Vi
