Page 27 of In Darkness Forged

The night elf released her as if she burned him, and his hand fell to his side. When he finally spoke, his anger was gone, along with all other inflection or feeling. “I’ve had more than enough of soft, helpless creatures dying in front of me,” he said coldly. “So I won’t be goaded, by you or by Vanadar. And I won’t need to kill you. The forests of Dunmaren will do that long before you ever come near me again.”

And then he was just… gone.

Aislin turned to call after him, but it was as if her feet refused to obey her. That final plea had depleted the last of her resources, and her body had no more to give.

Her lips parted, but there was not enough air in her lungs. The shadows of the forest deepened, then went altogether dark as she folded silently to the ground, wondering whether anyone would ever find her body.

CHAPTER7

The human was nothing like Lani.

Lani had been brave, yes, but never so confoundedly stubborn.

Foolish, too, but at least she’d not gone knowingly to her death.

That had been Paendreth’s doing. He’d toyed with an innocent child for his own amusement, abandoned her on a whim, and made no apologies for his actions. He felt no shame and accepted no debt.

Who, Tal wondered, would bear the shame and the debt when this human died alone in the forest?

The question nagged him, an insistent whisper in the back of his mind as he slipped between the trees, following the sounds of water.

He wanted no more deaths on his conscience. But was it already too late?

Behind him, Cuan whined plaintively and flopped to the ground, the very image of lupine suffering.

“Enough,” Tal growled over his shoulder. “We have a task to complete. One that is impossible enough without adding the responsibility for something soft and easily damaged.”

The wolf whined again. For all that he walked on four paws and wore fur, at times, he could be disconcertingly perceptive.

“If you think to delay us enough for her to catch up, I advise against it. We could be here until the mountains crumble.”

Come to think of it, even his own sharp ears had caught no hint of movement in the forest. The human should be blundering about in the dark, making more noise than a herd of stampeding goats. Had she given up at last?

Doubtful. That one didn’t know the first thing about quitting.

So why the silence? Had some predator already found her?

Swearing under his breath, Tal glared at Cuan. “We don’t have time for this.”

But blast it, he could already feel the gnawing ache of worry. He refused to care what became of the human, but he could tell that the question of her fate was going to haunt him until he knew. Already, his mind had begun to flay him with visions of another lifeless form, torn by teeth and claws, left lying in a forest clearing like so much refuse.

Shaking off the grim memories, he turned back towards the distant sounds of water falling into a pool, more than ready to throw himself into its welcome embrace and remove the filth of his captivity.

Cuan let out a short, sharp bark.

Curse it all. Tal had been sure that part of him was long dead, but it clung to life like the sapleech vine, wrapping itself around his heart while gradually stealing away his sanity. The memory of his own pain refused to let him walk away. He would be imagining the human’s death forever in spite of his determination not to care, and he could not afford such a distraction.

Muttering a vicious oath, he reversed direction and made his way back towards where he’d left the human staring blindly into the darkness.

He’d covered perhaps half the distance when new sounds crowded into the corners of his awareness—still distant and faint, but growing clearer.

Claws in the dirt. Snuffling and skulking. Sibilant hisses of possessive warning…

Renders.

Pale and hairless, with long, slender, claw-tipped limbs, the lynx-sized predators made their homes in the trees and hunted in darkness. They were rarely seen this close to settlements, preferring to haunt the deeper woods nearer the mountains, but when hungry, they occasionally risked the dangers of closer contact with night elf scouts.

Once seen, they were hunted down with single-minded determination. Renders killed anything that moved, leaving nothing behind but blood and bones. They were not fast, thankfully, but they hunted in groups, and could easily take down a human walking unaware through the forest at night.