The Coming Night
A/N: I apologize and preemptively apologize for the lateness of this installment and the fact I probably won’t be able to update BoM with a chapter every week as I generally was able to in the past. School sucks.
Boundaries of Mirkwood
Chapter 16
“The Coming Night”
Time and space could slow for Arielle, but there was no turning it back. She was trapped under the weight of an image for something in her brain refused to process that Niobe had been run through, and she couldn’t find the strength to move, not when underneath all her uncertainty she’d wholeheartedly believed they would walk away. She’d believed she would ensure they’d walk away.
Arielle blinked and time was back; Niobe stumbled and the urk, made its escape as an enormous crème colored, long tailed panther bore down on it from the steep ravine wall. There were arrows and red sparks. Before Arielle could finish aiming a second shot, everything went pink. It felt as though a big happy bomb had gone off. A very pleasant, very relaxing sensation overcame Arielle. The air suddenly smelled of headily fragrant lilac, and she thought she was so very small and cradled in the branches of an ancient, flowering bush. It took a few seconds for her to regain a sense of danger, to again see the half-dead tree. Even then, she had to fight against the cozy heat which made her feet leaden and sneeze out the cloying sweet fragrance in order to move.
Arielle let herself drop and managed to stumble her way down into the ravine, fighting the warmfuzzies. Below, dead urk lay scattered amid long, white cocoons. Niobe knelt at the fore of the battle, staring into space and disturbingly cheerful for having a hole in her midsection. The blood blackened the purple of her concert gown.
“Niobe?!” Arielle’s panicked voice trilled, falling to her knees before her dazed friend. She grabbed Niobe’s shoulders. “Niobe, it’s the pink. You snap outta it this minute!”
There, Niobe blinked. Then gasped and wavered a bit, but Arielle held her firm, helping her to lie down. “You’re a goddamn idiot, so stupid.” She held back an I-told-you-so, because, obviously, words didn’t stop this, and they wouldn’t put Niobe right again.
Arielle wretched her the sword strap over her head and off, flinging it to the side, then removed her black cotton jacket. It would have to do as a temporary bandage. “Tie this around you, hold this here. ABBY! TY” Arielle didn’t know what else to do for the angry wound aside from adding pressure before Niobe bled to death, but the witch probably knew a spell or two, and Ty had his bag.
Niobe’s firm grip on her forearm caught Arielle off guard. The jedi had that deep, satisfied look of someone who feeling just a teensy bit smug, and for half a second, Arielle wondered how potent that pink stuff could be. Then a content, pleased voice in her head said, “I was right. His name was Aegnor.”
Niobe then started, trying to move as if to check the ravine opening against Arielle’s insistent grip, laboring for breath. “Darkness.”
When the bullet time hit her, Arielle had already was alert enough to lean back and watch as two immaculate arrows nearly skinned her chin flying overhead. Speeding it up, she snatched her gun and half flipped, half rolled over Niobe’s body to address the threat to the downed woman. Arielle aimed at her attackers and froze.
They were edhel. Two blond edhel; two deathly pale edhel; two edhel with bloody punctures marks covering their necks. Their eyes had the opaque, inconsistent look of distorted glass. Languidly, one’s head dropped to its shoulder, popping unnaturally, and both stared forth with unseeing, unblinking eyes.
With deftness and speed Arielle hadn’t expected of them, the second dead edhel drew and threw a knife. Easily, she dodged it, but hesitated to shoot out of sheer denial. They were dead. She’d seen their stiff bodies, they’d been very thoroughly dead and dead people were supposed to stay that way.
“Shoot!” Niobe gasped. Her disconcertion disconcerted Arielle and Niobe drew the white knives from sheathes about her waist, preparing for the edhel to come closer. At least there was one thing Arielle had learned in the past minute. If the jedi said to shoot something, it deserved to be shot. In quick succession, Arielle shot each edhel twice, head and heart.
The first edhel’s head, now with a large hole though it, lolled to the other shoulder. Together, they drew their swords.
“Fuck.”
Arielle threw her gun away and reached for her sword, only to recall a little too late that it wasn’t on her back anymore. The edhel zombies were on top of her. They moved with all of Tyelco’s deadly grace, forcing Arielle to twist and turn to dodge the double blades converging on her, forcing her to yield them ground. She caught one’s wrist, and as she crushed its radius and ulna between her fingers, the zombie casually tossed its weapon to the uninjured hand. As it swung the sword back around, it tried to bite her exposed arm; as said jaw was already cracked, its gnashing was lop sided. Allowing it to lean forward with its own momentum, Arielle leaned back and dropped to the deck, dragging it with her. It wasn’t hard to get her feet under the zombie and send it sprawling, only she had to roll to avoid the low swipe of the second. As it took half a second to reverse the maneuver, it gave her enough time to stand and draw them away from Niobe.
Turning to avoid a thrust from the second’s sword, her back to the zombie, she caught its arm under her own, and angled a good stomp against a shin behind her (something in its leg cracked and gave way under her foot). She jabbed her elbow into its solar plexus, then remembering that this probably wouldn’t have the desired effect as zombies don’t breathe; it wrapped a cold arm around her neck and began choking her.
Arielle violently bent forward, flipping the zombie over her back and into the other which had only just regained its footing. A white knife, certainly belonging to Niobe, went flying by her and embedded itself in one of the zombie’s legs. The zombie wretched it from its flesh and threw it back at Arielle who, in bullet time, easily snatched it out of the air. She flipped back, landing next to her discarded sword, and ground her teeth as she heard the sounds of another fight ringing out from the top of the ravine.
This fight had to end. It was yards from Niobe, and Yumiko and Abigail were in deep, deep trouble. Arielle lightly tossed the knife back to her immobile friend.
There were four dead edhel you fight only two. Arielle reminded herself. And you’ve seen zombie flicks; behead these fuckers.
With the grace of the bullet time, Arielle leapt forward with her pretty steel in the third circle of defense; the attack position. When she came down, the zombies barely managed to deflect her single swipe; she got in a good kick to ones chin, but that didn’t do much, if any, damage. Swift and agile, they were no novices even though they were dead. Parrying one blade at the hilt, she had to dodge the other, then avoided a leg sent to trip her while shoving the first back, freeing her steel from the gridlock. One momentarily lost balance and she violently attacked the second, slicing, parrying, twist, flick, and slash. Off with its head.
Before the second’s body hit the ground, the first was back and she wasn’t quite quick enough to avoid being raked shallowly across the shoulder blade; it wanted her head as well. As before, this one was good enough to meet Arielle blow for blow and stroke for stroke. It wanted to press her back toward Niobe; its head rolled around as if ungoverned by the force guiding the rest of the body. The puncture wound’s narrow slits on its grey neck mocked her with the supposed finality of death. She dropped down again, hoping to upset its balance as before, but this time it didn’t fall for it, zealously stabbing down, narrowly scratching her as she rolled to the side, then flipped back into the air and onto her feet behind the zombie preoccupied by pulling its sword back out of the ground. The thing narrowly ducked her first swipe at its head, and before it completely abandoned its sword, Arielle gave it a good, solid punch in the kidney. Its head rose involuntarily, and in one stroke, she swiped it off.
There was no time. Arielle flew back, grabbed her gun which only had one shot in it, and threw it to Niobe who shakily caught it. During the battle, she had dragged herself closer to the wall where she was partially sheltered by a fallen stone.
“Stay there; shoot if there’s trouble.” And Arielle left before she could think of what might happen if the pale Niobe passed out.
Easily, she leapt up over the ridge and spotted the girls; one undead zombie stood as if frozen in place, Yumiko lay unmoving upon the ground, with Neko on her chest and an ashen-faced Abigail stood beside them, lowering her wand as Arielle appeared.
“What—” Arielle demanded.
“She’s only unconscious, this one’s petrified, Tyelco,” Abigail fearfully pointed in the direction of clashing steel on steel.
Without giving the witch another chance to speak, Arielle commanded, “Watch her,”
and with one hand, grimly lopped the frozen zombie’s head off. She was then in the air, racing through branches to the sound of battle.
It only took her seconds to arrive and assess what had happened. The zombie was whole, wielding two long knives and Tyelco held one arm to his body, feinting with one long knife and being backed down. Arielle doubted either knew what had hit the second she dropped like a stone and sliced the zombie’s head off from behind. The head rolled away, and what remained of the body folded in, then stiffly hit the ground.
Tyelco, completely unhinged, staggered for a moment as he stared at the unmoving body in disbelief. Watching her composed friend slowly losing it again, Arielle wanted to kick something. Herself. Anything. Caught in the desperation of strange attack, she’d nearly forgotten these were once his friends.
“Ty?” Arielle asked, but received no response. His wide eyes seemed to take in the horror, but didn’t seem to actually be seeing the body. Cautiously she walked over to him. “Tyelco?”
He very clearly was not alright, and threw his knife down into the grown by his feet, the blade fully buried. Rage had replaced the confusion on his face, and he turned on Arielle, raised his hand.
Arielle saw the flash of anger in his eyes before he struck, and her senses did not fail to alert her to the danger. For that second, she panicked that he’d somehow become a zombie. But then she saw the sharpness of his breath, and zombies didn’t breathe. And she knew why he was distraught; he’d been hard pressed to chop the heads off his friends, just as Arielle would be to cut off his, were he a zombie. And he was pissed. And there was no other to lash out at. And she let his hand connect.
Arielle wasn’t usually the most understanding of creatures, but she wasn’t mad at him, even as he shook with unveiled furry. Not that she’d let that fly again “Ty?” Her voice carried warning. “You’re upset. That’s okay. If it were safe I’d let you go sulk, but right now we gotta go back. Okay?”
She reached out to tug on his sleeve, but he easily drew away and gazed on the body with such pitiable forlornness that Arielle didn’t know if she had the heart to force him away. Again, she reached out for his sleeve, and this time managed to give it a little tug. “Ty, come on.”
He spoke again, his voice pained and angry as if daring her to deny him his grief.
“I know, but our friends,” Arielle pointed toward the ravine, “the edhel Ty.”
Tyelco seemed to snap out of it at the mention of his people, looked back where Arielle indicated. She was relieved; he probably just remembered the cocoons, and she silently prayed none of them were dead as well. With a glance back at the corpse and a prominent, stark swallow, Tyelco bent and drew his knife out of the ground, then calmly walked over to retrieve its mate lost amid some black ivy. Moments later, they were away, running back.
Tyelco went straight down the side of the ravine. Arielle approached Abigail who was standing exactly where she’d been told. Neko was crouched possessively by her mistress and poignantly licking her paws clean.
“Abby, do you think you could. . .float Niobe up over there, the high ground where Ty was, without hurting her?” Arielle asked. They couldn’t leave her in the ravine, and she didn’t need any more injuries.
“Yes,” Abigail replied without hesitation.
Arielle grabbed her. “I’m carrying you down.” Before Abigail could stop it, Arielle had gathered her up and together they dropped down the sheer face. Abigail wobbled a bit when Arielle put her down, but any berating was put on hold at the sight of Niobe, curled up against the wall, pale and obviously in pain.
Abigail ran over, pulling out her wand. “Wingardium Leviosa!”
Niobe slowly left the ground, trembling and looking like she would faint.
“Over there.” Arielle pointed to the higher point of the hill where they could tend to all the injured and survey for further attacks.
“Mmm.” Abigail was concentrating very hard, and managed to quickly move around the corpses with Niobe before her, doing as Arielle bid.
“Do you think,” Arielle asked, unsuccessfully hiding the fear in her voice, “you might be able to mend her?”
Abigail’s mouth became a line. Though the daylight was very virtually gone, Arielle had been able to make out the dark patch on the ground where Niobe had lain. “We’ll see.”
Arielle didn’t like this answer, but was drawn to the sound of tearing nearby. Turning, she saw Tyelco working with grim determination, knife in his one good hand, to take a cocoon apart. She had half a mind to go over and help him, but Abigail nearly had Niobe up to the ridge.
“Do you have a good grip of her?” Arielle asked.
“Yes, why?”
“I’m gonna carry us back up so you can see where you’re setting her.” Arielle wasn’t about to do anything rash that would endanger Niobe.
Abigail nodded, as if steeling herself for this task. With utmost care not to disturb the wand, Arielle once again lifted her and leapt up the wall.
To all the girls’ relief, Abigail held Niobe firmly in the air and was able to set her lightly upon a patch of grass.
“Keep your mouth shut, Jedi,” Arielle ordered as Niobe attempted to speak. “Unless it’ll put you right again, you’re to rest, and do whatever Abby says.”
Abigail spoke up, “I’m afraid I only know a few healing spells. Don’t look at me like that! They’ll help her, certainly, but it’d be a good idea to have Tyelco look at her before she passes out; if he’s in the army, he’ll know more of the basics, and he brought that medicine bag.”
Arielle nodded and was away. In seconds she was beside Tyelco. Though the ravine was darkening, she could still make out the faint relief on his face. Before him, a body was lying on the ground without moving, but the words he greeted her with sounded relieved.
Arielle didn’t bother to hide her panic, not anymore, not with her being quite useless in patching people back together. “Ty, Ty up on the ledge, Niobe’s badly hurt.”
She didn’t need to say anything more; he’d seen Niobe float by, and could probably deduce that the girls didn’t have much more of a plan than to move the injured woman to higher ground. For a second, he hesitated, then handed Arielle his knife. He spoke aloud, but Arielle followed his gestures; he wanted her to cut his people free and bring them up the hill with her. Arielle affirmed his request with a nod, and pointed to where Yumiko lay protected only by Neko.
Tyelco nodded curtly, and was gone up toward Niobe. At least they were back on speaking terms, or whatever passed for speaking between them.
Up the side of the ravine, Arielle found Yumiko just as she’d left her; out like a light, sandwiched between her backpack and enigmatic pet cat. Neko watched with wide orange eyes as Arielle put on the pack, and then scooped Yumiko up.
“Hey,” Arielle warned the small kitten who had her hackles raised. “I’m helping.” She tightly closed her mouth, remembering it was just a cat. A cat which apparently could turn into a very big cat, but nonetheless a cat. It bounded up the hill after Arielle, close at her heels. There, at the top, she found Abigail and Tyelco working on Niobe, who appeared to be either unconscious or desperately trying to relax. There was an open bed of grass and ivy all around, spotted with trees, and really, she could put Yumiko anywhere. Setting her and the bag behind Tyelco, where Abigail could easily look over his shoulder and check on the girl, Arielle left them to their work feeling anxious.
Arielle spun Ty’s knife in her hand, then dropped down into the ravine. At least freeing the edhel meant she would be doing something productive and might stop her from feeling twitchy.
One might imagine this to be a simple task, but already pushed well beyond her usual stress tolerance, Arielle was in no mood to wrestle with line after line of sticky spider silk. Really, she was rather glad it was dark and no one was around to watch as she wrapped her arms around someone’s waist, held the shell down with her feet, and tried to pry him out. It was like pulling a matted batch of bubblegum from hair. If anyone around could have heard her, she’d have made a joke about peanut butter. Or ice. Or some other equally implausible solution to removing bubblegum from hair.
About fifteen minutes later, Arielle returned with one blond and one brunet edhel over each shoulder, mostly unsticky. Tyelco hurried over and helped lay them down. There was no need to check for pulses; their breath was shallow, but regular. Arielle caught a faint smile on his face as he carefully removed strands of silk from the blond’s hair.
“Nessimon,” he explained, and then pointed to the one Arielle situated. “Ristar.”
“Hello, Ristar,” Arielle said, for lack of any better response and plucked a few blades of grass off his face which had managed to get stuck. “We’ll see if we can’t get you some water, non?” She didn’t feel completely weird saying it because Tyelco was also talking to Nessimon. Yumiko remained sleeping with Neko crouched up her chest, as if the cat intended to be a physical barrier for anyone who might be after her mistress’ neck.
Arielle stood, then began shouting. “Oy! You, Jedi, lie down!” It was dark, but Niobe and Abigail weren’t far away and Arielle could plainly see the foolish woman trying to sit up.
“I’m finishing my tea; I wish to—” Niobe started, swaying a bit unsteadily, but clean and wearing a pair of striped pajamas. It was too dark to tell if she was pale or if her eyes were dilated
“What did we say about speaking?” Arielle shouted back and turned on Abigail. “You’re supposed to be helping.”
“I am,” Abigail snapped back. “She’s disinfected and the bleeding’s stopped, and we’re lucky her kidneys weren’t ruptured, because those are poison for everything else and I don’t think either Tyelco or I could’ve patched those back together, and as far as I can tell, I put the intestines right, though I’m not entirely sure how I managed it or if it’s a Jedi thing and Niobe did it herself, and the tea’s Tyelco’s solution for the pain and blood loss, as Niobe tells me.”
“Tastes terrible, works marvelously,” Niobe grinned swaying ever so slightly under the influence.
“I don’t know what we’d have done without Yumiko’s bag,” Abigail continued. “That’s where we got the boiled water and the blankets and pajamas.”
“Whatever,” Arielle said impatiently. “See that she drinks some more water with that stuff and goes to sleep if there’s nothing else we can do, okay?”
“Yes, yes, right away Dr. O’Neill,” Abigail scoffed. “I’m sure you know exactly what you’re talking about. Now run along and fetch the other sleeping beauties before they wake. And do watch out for whatever pit those things were using as a lavatory down there.”
Arielle pursed her lips together, seriously caught between punching Abigail and being too exhausted to bother. Niobe hid her expression by sipping her tea and kept her mouth shut. On her other side, Arielle caught Tyelco frowning at them while he was giving one of his friends water, as if their shouting would disturb their recovery.
“Well, I was going to ask you to give them water too, but Tyelco’s got that covered. If watching Niobe’s too hard, why don’t you just go to sleep while Ty and I tend to our ten wounded and watch out for more spiders and monsters and zombies who’d like nothing more than to eat you alive, K?” She didn’t stick around to hear a rebuttal. There were a lot more edhel down below, and she reminded herself that it still wasn’t safe; she should bring everyone up, cocoons and all.
***
“She’s incorrigible,” Abigail pronounced. “As if I she’s the only one of us who can carry on in a fight. If Yumiko hadn’t passed out after blasting everything pink, I would have gone after the other zombie myself. And she needn’t act as though the rest of us were only here to do what she says or completely useless. She shouldn’t be shouting or bullying, least of all at you.”
“Ashuly, I find it endearing,” Niobe slurred a bit.
“What is it about dictatorial egoists that you find endearing?”
Niobe chuckled, then winced. Laughing hurt. “Nothing. Only the spirit in whish,” she took a breath, “the dictator elected herself. And I think you,” breath, “you may be mistaken about the ‘egoist’ in Ari-Arielle.” She breathed, then laid back with Abigail’s help. Sitting and talking was too much. “She feels quite the failure. Likely, she could not have done more,” breath, “and it disturbs she and Tyelco the edhel bodies were used in such a way.” Breath, “And I was insistent, and she let me have my way.”
“You mean,” Abigail swallowed, “those zombie things—they were the ones Tyelco and Arielle found by the river?”
“Yes.”
“Then that would mean. . .oh God! Unless edhel corpses normally get up and walk around, whoever did this, they can’t be far away!” Abigail’s voice rose to a squeak.
“Yes. Whish reminds me,” Niobe’s attention was diverted to Arielle, carrying up one blond male, and another cocoon whose occupant needed freeing. “You better get her attention.”
“Arielle!” Abigail waved the other girl over. Arielle scowled, set the cocoons down with Tyelco (who set about cutting them open immediately), and walked over.
“You two didn’t notice Ty’s arm is still busted, did you?” Arielle asked irritably.
“He wouldn’t let me at it,” Abigail said, putting off the topic. “Listen, Niobe figures we’re in a lot of trouble right now.”
Arielle’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “How so?”
“If those are the same bodies you found by the river—”
“They are.”
“Then it would be logical to say that who or whatever made those corpses move was in the area shortly after our departure, wouldn’t you say? And maybe set them on us?” Abigail hinted.
Arielle locked her jaw, looking thoroughly angry. “Niobe, sleep. I’ll bring up the rest of the bodies, then decapitate anything dead down there. And I’ll sit watch tonight with Ty, if he’s up for it. And watch Neko; she can probably smell anything before you see it.”
She then dropped away, down below to fetch all the cocoons quickly.
“Niobe,” Abigail asked tentatively, “do you think that maybe, if something in this world can raise zombies, they might be able to bring in dead ones from other worlds? You know, us.”
“I cannot accept that as true,” Niobe spoke fervently, as much as her pained chest could allow.
“What—”
“What brought those bodies to life was evil; it filled them with the dark.” Breath, “I could feel it. If that something brought us here,” breath, breath, “we were brought to fulfill its design, and whatever that may be, I doubt it intends goodwill.” Niobe sighed, squeezed Abigail’s hand. “Help Tyelco with his arm before you rest, will you? And Arielle is injured, though she hides it. I saw the blood on her back.”
“Yes,” Abby said. “I promise I’ll take care of them.”
To herself, she added promises not to complain about the chill in the air, nor about how much easier it would be to see if there were a fire, nor sleep until everyone had a makeshift bed, nor to insinuate that Arielle wasn’t useful ever again.
urk (S) = ork; stupid, ugly, immoral, and violent bipedal creatures created by Morgoth; the perverse, involuntary corruption of elves, men, and perhaps even a variety of other creatures.
edhel (S) = elves
non (F) = no; makes sentence a question.
Boundaries of Mirkwood
Chapter 16
“The Coming Night”
Time and space could slow for Arielle, but there was no turning it back. She was trapped under the weight of an image for something in her brain refused to process that Niobe had been run through, and she couldn’t find the strength to move, not when underneath all her uncertainty she’d wholeheartedly believed they would walk away. She’d believed she would ensure they’d walk away.
Arielle blinked and time was back; Niobe stumbled and the urk, made its escape as an enormous crème colored, long tailed panther bore down on it from the steep ravine wall. There were arrows and red sparks. Before Arielle could finish aiming a second shot, everything went pink. It felt as though a big happy bomb had gone off. A very pleasant, very relaxing sensation overcame Arielle. The air suddenly smelled of headily fragrant lilac, and she thought she was so very small and cradled in the branches of an ancient, flowering bush. It took a few seconds for her to regain a sense of danger, to again see the half-dead tree. Even then, she had to fight against the cozy heat which made her feet leaden and sneeze out the cloying sweet fragrance in order to move.
Arielle let herself drop and managed to stumble her way down into the ravine, fighting the warmfuzzies. Below, dead urk lay scattered amid long, white cocoons. Niobe knelt at the fore of the battle, staring into space and disturbingly cheerful for having a hole in her midsection. The blood blackened the purple of her concert gown.
“Niobe?!” Arielle’s panicked voice trilled, falling to her knees before her dazed friend. She grabbed Niobe’s shoulders. “Niobe, it’s the pink. You snap outta it this minute!”
There, Niobe blinked. Then gasped and wavered a bit, but Arielle held her firm, helping her to lie down. “You’re a goddamn idiot, so stupid.” She held back an I-told-you-so, because, obviously, words didn’t stop this, and they wouldn’t put Niobe right again.
Arielle wretched her the sword strap over her head and off, flinging it to the side, then removed her black cotton jacket. It would have to do as a temporary bandage. “Tie this around you, hold this here. ABBY! TY” Arielle didn’t know what else to do for the angry wound aside from adding pressure before Niobe bled to death, but the witch probably knew a spell or two, and Ty had his bag.
Niobe’s firm grip on her forearm caught Arielle off guard. The jedi had that deep, satisfied look of someone who feeling just a teensy bit smug, and for half a second, Arielle wondered how potent that pink stuff could be. Then a content, pleased voice in her head said, “I was right. His name was Aegnor.”
Niobe then started, trying to move as if to check the ravine opening against Arielle’s insistent grip, laboring for breath. “Darkness.”
When the bullet time hit her, Arielle had already was alert enough to lean back and watch as two immaculate arrows nearly skinned her chin flying overhead. Speeding it up, she snatched her gun and half flipped, half rolled over Niobe’s body to address the threat to the downed woman. Arielle aimed at her attackers and froze.
They were edhel. Two blond edhel; two deathly pale edhel; two edhel with bloody punctures marks covering their necks. Their eyes had the opaque, inconsistent look of distorted glass. Languidly, one’s head dropped to its shoulder, popping unnaturally, and both stared forth with unseeing, unblinking eyes.
With deftness and speed Arielle hadn’t expected of them, the second dead edhel drew and threw a knife. Easily, she dodged it, but hesitated to shoot out of sheer denial. They were dead. She’d seen their stiff bodies, they’d been very thoroughly dead and dead people were supposed to stay that way.
“Shoot!” Niobe gasped. Her disconcertion disconcerted Arielle and Niobe drew the white knives from sheathes about her waist, preparing for the edhel to come closer. At least there was one thing Arielle had learned in the past minute. If the jedi said to shoot something, it deserved to be shot. In quick succession, Arielle shot each edhel twice, head and heart.
The first edhel’s head, now with a large hole though it, lolled to the other shoulder. Together, they drew their swords.
“Fuck.”
Arielle threw her gun away and reached for her sword, only to recall a little too late that it wasn’t on her back anymore. The edhel zombies were on top of her. They moved with all of Tyelco’s deadly grace, forcing Arielle to twist and turn to dodge the double blades converging on her, forcing her to yield them ground. She caught one’s wrist, and as she crushed its radius and ulna between her fingers, the zombie casually tossed its weapon to the uninjured hand. As it swung the sword back around, it tried to bite her exposed arm; as said jaw was already cracked, its gnashing was lop sided. Allowing it to lean forward with its own momentum, Arielle leaned back and dropped to the deck, dragging it with her. It wasn’t hard to get her feet under the zombie and send it sprawling, only she had to roll to avoid the low swipe of the second. As it took half a second to reverse the maneuver, it gave her enough time to stand and draw them away from Niobe.
Turning to avoid a thrust from the second’s sword, her back to the zombie, she caught its arm under her own, and angled a good stomp against a shin behind her (something in its leg cracked and gave way under her foot). She jabbed her elbow into its solar plexus, then remembering that this probably wouldn’t have the desired effect as zombies don’t breathe; it wrapped a cold arm around her neck and began choking her.
Arielle violently bent forward, flipping the zombie over her back and into the other which had only just regained its footing. A white knife, certainly belonging to Niobe, went flying by her and embedded itself in one of the zombie’s legs. The zombie wretched it from its flesh and threw it back at Arielle who, in bullet time, easily snatched it out of the air. She flipped back, landing next to her discarded sword, and ground her teeth as she heard the sounds of another fight ringing out from the top of the ravine.
This fight had to end. It was yards from Niobe, and Yumiko and Abigail were in deep, deep trouble. Arielle lightly tossed the knife back to her immobile friend.
There were four dead edhel you fight only two. Arielle reminded herself. And you’ve seen zombie flicks; behead these fuckers.
With the grace of the bullet time, Arielle leapt forward with her pretty steel in the third circle of defense; the attack position. When she came down, the zombies barely managed to deflect her single swipe; she got in a good kick to ones chin, but that didn’t do much, if any, damage. Swift and agile, they were no novices even though they were dead. Parrying one blade at the hilt, she had to dodge the other, then avoided a leg sent to trip her while shoving the first back, freeing her steel from the gridlock. One momentarily lost balance and she violently attacked the second, slicing, parrying, twist, flick, and slash. Off with its head.
Before the second’s body hit the ground, the first was back and she wasn’t quite quick enough to avoid being raked shallowly across the shoulder blade; it wanted her head as well. As before, this one was good enough to meet Arielle blow for blow and stroke for stroke. It wanted to press her back toward Niobe; its head rolled around as if ungoverned by the force guiding the rest of the body. The puncture wound’s narrow slits on its grey neck mocked her with the supposed finality of death. She dropped down again, hoping to upset its balance as before, but this time it didn’t fall for it, zealously stabbing down, narrowly scratching her as she rolled to the side, then flipped back into the air and onto her feet behind the zombie preoccupied by pulling its sword back out of the ground. The thing narrowly ducked her first swipe at its head, and before it completely abandoned its sword, Arielle gave it a good, solid punch in the kidney. Its head rose involuntarily, and in one stroke, she swiped it off.
There was no time. Arielle flew back, grabbed her gun which only had one shot in it, and threw it to Niobe who shakily caught it. During the battle, she had dragged herself closer to the wall where she was partially sheltered by a fallen stone.
“Stay there; shoot if there’s trouble.” And Arielle left before she could think of what might happen if the pale Niobe passed out.
Easily, she leapt up over the ridge and spotted the girls; one undead zombie stood as if frozen in place, Yumiko lay unmoving upon the ground, with Neko on her chest and an ashen-faced Abigail stood beside them, lowering her wand as Arielle appeared.
“What—” Arielle demanded.
“She’s only unconscious, this one’s petrified, Tyelco,” Abigail fearfully pointed in the direction of clashing steel on steel.
Without giving the witch another chance to speak, Arielle commanded, “Watch her,”
and with one hand, grimly lopped the frozen zombie’s head off. She was then in the air, racing through branches to the sound of battle.
It only took her seconds to arrive and assess what had happened. The zombie was whole, wielding two long knives and Tyelco held one arm to his body, feinting with one long knife and being backed down. Arielle doubted either knew what had hit the second she dropped like a stone and sliced the zombie’s head off from behind. The head rolled away, and what remained of the body folded in, then stiffly hit the ground.
Tyelco, completely unhinged, staggered for a moment as he stared at the unmoving body in disbelief. Watching her composed friend slowly losing it again, Arielle wanted to kick something. Herself. Anything. Caught in the desperation of strange attack, she’d nearly forgotten these were once his friends.
“Ty?” Arielle asked, but received no response. His wide eyes seemed to take in the horror, but didn’t seem to actually be seeing the body. Cautiously she walked over to him. “Tyelco?”
He very clearly was not alright, and threw his knife down into the grown by his feet, the blade fully buried. Rage had replaced the confusion on his face, and he turned on Arielle, raised his hand.
Arielle saw the flash of anger in his eyes before he struck, and her senses did not fail to alert her to the danger. For that second, she panicked that he’d somehow become a zombie. But then she saw the sharpness of his breath, and zombies didn’t breathe. And she knew why he was distraught; he’d been hard pressed to chop the heads off his friends, just as Arielle would be to cut off his, were he a zombie. And he was pissed. And there was no other to lash out at. And she let his hand connect.
Arielle wasn’t usually the most understanding of creatures, but she wasn’t mad at him, even as he shook with unveiled furry. Not that she’d let that fly again “Ty?” Her voice carried warning. “You’re upset. That’s okay. If it were safe I’d let you go sulk, but right now we gotta go back. Okay?”
She reached out to tug on his sleeve, but he easily drew away and gazed on the body with such pitiable forlornness that Arielle didn’t know if she had the heart to force him away. Again, she reached out for his sleeve, and this time managed to give it a little tug. “Ty, come on.”
He spoke again, his voice pained and angry as if daring her to deny him his grief.
“I know, but our friends,” Arielle pointed toward the ravine, “the edhel Ty.”
Tyelco seemed to snap out of it at the mention of his people, looked back where Arielle indicated. She was relieved; he probably just remembered the cocoons, and she silently prayed none of them were dead as well. With a glance back at the corpse and a prominent, stark swallow, Tyelco bent and drew his knife out of the ground, then calmly walked over to retrieve its mate lost amid some black ivy. Moments later, they were away, running back.
Tyelco went straight down the side of the ravine. Arielle approached Abigail who was standing exactly where she’d been told. Neko was crouched possessively by her mistress and poignantly licking her paws clean.
“Abby, do you think you could. . .float Niobe up over there, the high ground where Ty was, without hurting her?” Arielle asked. They couldn’t leave her in the ravine, and she didn’t need any more injuries.
“Yes,” Abigail replied without hesitation.
Arielle grabbed her. “I’m carrying you down.” Before Abigail could stop it, Arielle had gathered her up and together they dropped down the sheer face. Abigail wobbled a bit when Arielle put her down, but any berating was put on hold at the sight of Niobe, curled up against the wall, pale and obviously in pain.
Abigail ran over, pulling out her wand. “Wingardium Leviosa!”
Niobe slowly left the ground, trembling and looking like she would faint.
“Over there.” Arielle pointed to the higher point of the hill where they could tend to all the injured and survey for further attacks.
“Mmm.” Abigail was concentrating very hard, and managed to quickly move around the corpses with Niobe before her, doing as Arielle bid.
“Do you think,” Arielle asked, unsuccessfully hiding the fear in her voice, “you might be able to mend her?”
Abigail’s mouth became a line. Though the daylight was very virtually gone, Arielle had been able to make out the dark patch on the ground where Niobe had lain. “We’ll see.”
Arielle didn’t like this answer, but was drawn to the sound of tearing nearby. Turning, she saw Tyelco working with grim determination, knife in his one good hand, to take a cocoon apart. She had half a mind to go over and help him, but Abigail nearly had Niobe up to the ridge.
“Do you have a good grip of her?” Arielle asked.
“Yes, why?”
“I’m gonna carry us back up so you can see where you’re setting her.” Arielle wasn’t about to do anything rash that would endanger Niobe.
Abigail nodded, as if steeling herself for this task. With utmost care not to disturb the wand, Arielle once again lifted her and leapt up the wall.
To all the girls’ relief, Abigail held Niobe firmly in the air and was able to set her lightly upon a patch of grass.
“Keep your mouth shut, Jedi,” Arielle ordered as Niobe attempted to speak. “Unless it’ll put you right again, you’re to rest, and do whatever Abby says.”
Abigail spoke up, “I’m afraid I only know a few healing spells. Don’t look at me like that! They’ll help her, certainly, but it’d be a good idea to have Tyelco look at her before she passes out; if he’s in the army, he’ll know more of the basics, and he brought that medicine bag.”
Arielle nodded and was away. In seconds she was beside Tyelco. Though the ravine was darkening, she could still make out the faint relief on his face. Before him, a body was lying on the ground without moving, but the words he greeted her with sounded relieved.
Arielle didn’t bother to hide her panic, not anymore, not with her being quite useless in patching people back together. “Ty, Ty up on the ledge, Niobe’s badly hurt.”
She didn’t need to say anything more; he’d seen Niobe float by, and could probably deduce that the girls didn’t have much more of a plan than to move the injured woman to higher ground. For a second, he hesitated, then handed Arielle his knife. He spoke aloud, but Arielle followed his gestures; he wanted her to cut his people free and bring them up the hill with her. Arielle affirmed his request with a nod, and pointed to where Yumiko lay protected only by Neko.
Tyelco nodded curtly, and was gone up toward Niobe. At least they were back on speaking terms, or whatever passed for speaking between them.
Up the side of the ravine, Arielle found Yumiko just as she’d left her; out like a light, sandwiched between her backpack and enigmatic pet cat. Neko watched with wide orange eyes as Arielle put on the pack, and then scooped Yumiko up.
“Hey,” Arielle warned the small kitten who had her hackles raised. “I’m helping.” She tightly closed her mouth, remembering it was just a cat. A cat which apparently could turn into a very big cat, but nonetheless a cat. It bounded up the hill after Arielle, close at her heels. There, at the top, she found Abigail and Tyelco working on Niobe, who appeared to be either unconscious or desperately trying to relax. There was an open bed of grass and ivy all around, spotted with trees, and really, she could put Yumiko anywhere. Setting her and the bag behind Tyelco, where Abigail could easily look over his shoulder and check on the girl, Arielle left them to their work feeling anxious.
Arielle spun Ty’s knife in her hand, then dropped down into the ravine. At least freeing the edhel meant she would be doing something productive and might stop her from feeling twitchy.
One might imagine this to be a simple task, but already pushed well beyond her usual stress tolerance, Arielle was in no mood to wrestle with line after line of sticky spider silk. Really, she was rather glad it was dark and no one was around to watch as she wrapped her arms around someone’s waist, held the shell down with her feet, and tried to pry him out. It was like pulling a matted batch of bubblegum from hair. If anyone around could have heard her, she’d have made a joke about peanut butter. Or ice. Or some other equally implausible solution to removing bubblegum from hair.
About fifteen minutes later, Arielle returned with one blond and one brunet edhel over each shoulder, mostly unsticky. Tyelco hurried over and helped lay them down. There was no need to check for pulses; their breath was shallow, but regular. Arielle caught a faint smile on his face as he carefully removed strands of silk from the blond’s hair.
“Nessimon,” he explained, and then pointed to the one Arielle situated. “Ristar.”
“Hello, Ristar,” Arielle said, for lack of any better response and plucked a few blades of grass off his face which had managed to get stuck. “We’ll see if we can’t get you some water, non?” She didn’t feel completely weird saying it because Tyelco was also talking to Nessimon. Yumiko remained sleeping with Neko crouched up her chest, as if the cat intended to be a physical barrier for anyone who might be after her mistress’ neck.
Arielle stood, then began shouting. “Oy! You, Jedi, lie down!” It was dark, but Niobe and Abigail weren’t far away and Arielle could plainly see the foolish woman trying to sit up.
“I’m finishing my tea; I wish to—” Niobe started, swaying a bit unsteadily, but clean and wearing a pair of striped pajamas. It was too dark to tell if she was pale or if her eyes were dilated
“What did we say about speaking?” Arielle shouted back and turned on Abigail. “You’re supposed to be helping.”
“I am,” Abigail snapped back. “She’s disinfected and the bleeding’s stopped, and we’re lucky her kidneys weren’t ruptured, because those are poison for everything else and I don’t think either Tyelco or I could’ve patched those back together, and as far as I can tell, I put the intestines right, though I’m not entirely sure how I managed it or if it’s a Jedi thing and Niobe did it herself, and the tea’s Tyelco’s solution for the pain and blood loss, as Niobe tells me.”
“Tastes terrible, works marvelously,” Niobe grinned swaying ever so slightly under the influence.
“I don’t know what we’d have done without Yumiko’s bag,” Abigail continued. “That’s where we got the boiled water and the blankets and pajamas.”
“Whatever,” Arielle said impatiently. “See that she drinks some more water with that stuff and goes to sleep if there’s nothing else we can do, okay?”
“Yes, yes, right away Dr. O’Neill,” Abigail scoffed. “I’m sure you know exactly what you’re talking about. Now run along and fetch the other sleeping beauties before they wake. And do watch out for whatever pit those things were using as a lavatory down there.”
Arielle pursed her lips together, seriously caught between punching Abigail and being too exhausted to bother. Niobe hid her expression by sipping her tea and kept her mouth shut. On her other side, Arielle caught Tyelco frowning at them while he was giving one of his friends water, as if their shouting would disturb their recovery.
“Well, I was going to ask you to give them water too, but Tyelco’s got that covered. If watching Niobe’s too hard, why don’t you just go to sleep while Ty and I tend to our ten wounded and watch out for more spiders and monsters and zombies who’d like nothing more than to eat you alive, K?” She didn’t stick around to hear a rebuttal. There were a lot more edhel down below, and she reminded herself that it still wasn’t safe; she should bring everyone up, cocoons and all.
***
“She’s incorrigible,” Abigail pronounced. “As if I she’s the only one of us who can carry on in a fight. If Yumiko hadn’t passed out after blasting everything pink, I would have gone after the other zombie myself. And she needn’t act as though the rest of us were only here to do what she says or completely useless. She shouldn’t be shouting or bullying, least of all at you.”
“Ashuly, I find it endearing,” Niobe slurred a bit.
“What is it about dictatorial egoists that you find endearing?”
Niobe chuckled, then winced. Laughing hurt. “Nothing. Only the spirit in whish,” she took a breath, “the dictator elected herself. And I think you,” breath, “you may be mistaken about the ‘egoist’ in Ari-Arielle.” She breathed, then laid back with Abigail’s help. Sitting and talking was too much. “She feels quite the failure. Likely, she could not have done more,” breath, “and it disturbs she and Tyelco the edhel bodies were used in such a way.” Breath, “And I was insistent, and she let me have my way.”
“You mean,” Abigail swallowed, “those zombie things—they were the ones Tyelco and Arielle found by the river?”
“Yes.”
“Then that would mean. . .oh God! Unless edhel corpses normally get up and walk around, whoever did this, they can’t be far away!” Abigail’s voice rose to a squeak.
“Yes. Whish reminds me,” Niobe’s attention was diverted to Arielle, carrying up one blond male, and another cocoon whose occupant needed freeing. “You better get her attention.”
“Arielle!” Abigail waved the other girl over. Arielle scowled, set the cocoons down with Tyelco (who set about cutting them open immediately), and walked over.
“You two didn’t notice Ty’s arm is still busted, did you?” Arielle asked irritably.
“He wouldn’t let me at it,” Abigail said, putting off the topic. “Listen, Niobe figures we’re in a lot of trouble right now.”
Arielle’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “How so?”
“If those are the same bodies you found by the river—”
“They are.”
“Then it would be logical to say that who or whatever made those corpses move was in the area shortly after our departure, wouldn’t you say? And maybe set them on us?” Abigail hinted.
Arielle locked her jaw, looking thoroughly angry. “Niobe, sleep. I’ll bring up the rest of the bodies, then decapitate anything dead down there. And I’ll sit watch tonight with Ty, if he’s up for it. And watch Neko; she can probably smell anything before you see it.”
She then dropped away, down below to fetch all the cocoons quickly.
“Niobe,” Abigail asked tentatively, “do you think that maybe, if something in this world can raise zombies, they might be able to bring in dead ones from other worlds? You know, us.”
“I cannot accept that as true,” Niobe spoke fervently, as much as her pained chest could allow.
“What—”
“What brought those bodies to life was evil; it filled them with the dark.” Breath, “I could feel it. If that something brought us here,” breath, breath, “we were brought to fulfill its design, and whatever that may be, I doubt it intends goodwill.” Niobe sighed, squeezed Abigail’s hand. “Help Tyelco with his arm before you rest, will you? And Arielle is injured, though she hides it. I saw the blood on her back.”
“Yes,” Abby said. “I promise I’ll take care of them.”
To herself, she added promises not to complain about the chill in the air, nor about how much easier it would be to see if there were a fire, nor sleep until everyone had a makeshift bed, nor to insinuate that Arielle wasn’t useful ever again.
urk (S) = ork; stupid, ugly, immoral, and violent bipedal creatures created by Morgoth; the perverse, involuntary corruption of elves, men, and perhaps even a variety of other creatures.
edhel (S) = elves
non (F) = no; makes sentence a question.
Subtitles
- Darkness and Starlight
- Abigail of Wellington
- Niobe of St. Andrews
- Arielle of Cedar Brook
- Yumiko of Shinjuku
- The Banks of River Running
- Stiff and Stark
- Screams in the Dark
- The Red Bird
- Many Meetings
- Night Fight
- Yumiko's New Friend
- A Mind of One's Own
- Running in Circles
- The Price for Revenge
- The Coming Night
- It Speaks English!
- Fragile Things: I
- Lull