Spoken For
A tale set in Bradley Ramsey's D'Veen universe, by CJ Knight
His family burned beneath a sky the colour of old silver. His exile removed the warmth from his heart long before the flames took his family. The elves had not watched. There was a cruelty in that. No jeers or stones. Just absence. It was a harsh lesson to know silence was louder than hatred.
Before exile, his name was Ashlon. It was a name long forgotten to time. To the few who’d seen him since, he was known simply as Dark Elf.
***
Years later, at the moment he found the blade buried beneath the roots of a dying willow, he recognised the same silence, waiting for him.
You are empty enough, she whispered. Dark Elf drew the sword free. Pale steel curved like a sliver of moonlight. It’s fuller dark as pooled ink. Willow the Creeping, she named herself. When he took her in hand, shadows gathered at his feet and did not release him.
***
Dragons were all but extinct. Not slain in glorious battle. Nor were they slain by the Titans. Instead, they were hunted. Driven from their mountain homes. Their eggs crushed. The elves called it necessity. Dwarves called it safety. The Rot called it an opportunity. The Dark Elf…He called it familiar.
***
Dark Elf followed the sound. A roar. Not of rage, but of pain and fear. It shook to the marrow.
Ahead, the forest thinned. Trees bowed and blistered, sap running black. And the smell. A stench of decay. The Rot. Where the land sagged into a shallow hollow, he saw them. Three bodies stood where they should have been buried. Grey skin, slack around bones, caught in a state between dust and rotten liquid. In front of them lay the dragon. Young, but still immense. Its scales of deep umber edged in copper. One wing pinned beneath a writhing lattice of rotten thorns pulsing with decay. The tendrils wound their way around the dragon’s throat and forelegs, tightening each time it thrashed.
The Rot was not attempting to kill the creature. They were speaking as one. “The age of your kind is finished. Serve and endure.” The dragon answered with a gout of flame, sputtering and weak. Fire licked against the creeping tendrils of the Rot and died. The dragon’s shadow stretched across the basin floor.
Willow stirred at the Dark Elf’s side. Oh, look how wide it reaches.
The three bodies of Rot raised their hands as one. The tendrils of rotten thorns constricted, breaking the dragon’s roar into a wail of agony.
Dark Elf stepped into the clearing. No announcement. No challenge.
The closest body of Rot noticed his presence. “You!” Its voice like a whetstone on a rusted blade. “Exile!”
Dark Elf said nothing. The dragon’s eye rolled toward him, a molten amber, clouded with pain and fear.
They have not hunted for death, Willow murmured. Their intention is to consume and command this creature? Shall we play in the shadows?
“Yes.” Without flair or spectacle, Dark Elf drew her.
Shadows deepened. The hollow was imperfectly lit. A faint glow pulsed from the Rot’s thorn tendril lattice, casting warped shadows. The sinking sun bled between the trees. Shadows stretched out, thick and layered.
The tallest body of the Rot hissed. “Kill the exile.” The other two advanced.
Dark Elf stepped backwards into his own shadow and dissolved. The ground where he stood remained undisturbed. Only his silhouette lingered before also flattening into darkness. He emerged from the shadow of the dragon’s wing as though pulled by an invisible thread. In this game, the one in shadow may strike into the light. Willow cut once. Her blade split the body of the first approaching Rot from shoulder to hip. The hollow filled with the stench of decay like fog as the Rot split and fell in a pile of rotten flesh and writhing insects. The second approaching Rot leapt backward. Dark Elf was already there, Willow’s blade piercing its throat. Its head exploded into a cloud of death, like rotten stew. Dark Elf withdrew the blade without flourish.
The remaining body of Rot lifted both arms. Thick tendrils of rot, emitting a faint glow, slithered from the trees into the hollow, filling it with light.
We have no shadow to claim. Willow hummed.
“Creep, Willow.” Dark Elf stabbed the tip of the blade into the earth beneath his feet. Crescents of shadow spilled outward. Not broad, but sharp. Where the shadows met the Rot light, edges formed. Edges create shadow.
The dragon thrashed, adding its frame to the edges. Dark Elf stepped into one and vanished. The final Rot body turned too late. Dark Elf rose from the shadow cast by its own outstretched arms and cut through its legs. Black liquid like rotten well water spewed from the wounds as the Rot collapsed to the ground. “You defend extinction?” It spat.
“I defend choice.”
A scrolled parchment appeared between the Rot’s decaying fingers. “Perhaps there’s a bargain to be struck.” It crawled forward. “I seek to destroy those who exiled you, and those who stand with them. Join me and have your satisfaction. Know unlimited power and return from your exile.”
“I’m already spoken for.” He thrust Willow forward, cleaving what remained of the Rot in two. It collapsed into a pile of rotten flesh and widow spiders.
Dark Elf turned to the dragon, still pinned by the Rot. He approached. The dragon’s eyes tracked him. Flames smouldered weakly at the edges of its maw. “You need not fear me.”
Its shadow is strong. Willow said.
Dark Elf stepped into the dragon’s shadow. Not to strike, but to feel it. It was vast, ancient, hungry for the sky. He reappeared by the dragon’s throat. Willow did not cut for death. She cut for certainty. The tendrils of Rot fell away like brittle parchment. Dark Elf vanished once more, reappearing, severing each binding within the dragon’s shadow. Its pinned wing tore free with a wet crack. The dragon staggered upright, towering over him. For a long moment, they regarded each other. The dragon lowered its head. Not in submission, but recognition.
It understands, Willow whispered. It too likes the shadows.
“Do you?” Dark Elf tilted his head.
It is known as Tenebris the Shadow by its own kind.
The dragon’s shadow pooled toward him. Dark Elf stepped into it. For the first time since exile, the surrounding darkness was not solely his own. The dragon exhaled, not in flame, but in shadow. The remaining tendrils of Rot retreated into the tree line, recoiling from the dragon.
Dark Elf nodded once. “Then come.”
The dragon tested its wings. Thunder filled the air as it lifted. Its shadow didn’t remain pinned to the earth. Like Dark Elf, it stayed with it, clinging.
This is interesting. Willow whispered.
The dragon circled once overhead, then descended. Not to land, but pass through. The shadow enveloped Dark Elf, and together they vanished. They emerged in the sky’s shadow, Dark Elf on the dragon’s back.
Dragons were hunted to extinction. So were the exiles. The world believed such things faded. That belief was wrong.
Do you intend to stand with the last Titan known as Merrybrook for the wars to come, Dark Elf?
“You should know by now, Willow, exiles don’t stand with anyone.”