Firstborn

20 — Day of Metamorphosis

The humans were breaking camp and getting ready to return to their ship. They worked with haste, and it was clear to Kith-Kanan that they wanted nothing more than to be away from such an accursed place. While they worked, Voltorno went to the elf prince. He had his men pry the stake out of the ground, then he grabbed Kith-Kanan’s shackles and dragged him to the edge of the clearing.

“You out there! Woman and boy! I have your friend here! If any more of my men are so much as scratched, I’ll make your royal friend suffer for it. I’ll give him something more than a scar on his cheek. How do you think he’d look without an arm, a hand, or a leg? Do you hear me?”

The only answer was the soft sighing of wind in the still bare branches.

“We’re ready to go, master,” said one of the humans.

“Then get moving, dolt.” Voltorno was losing his air of confidence. Despite his aching limbs and the stinging sword cut on his cheek, Kith-Kanan was pleased. The angrier Voltorno got, the greater advantage Anaya and Mackeli would have.

The raiders marched down the path single file, with Kith-Kanan leading. Voltorno gave the prince over to one of his men and moved out ahead as the band left the path and entered the woods.

They snaked silently through the forest. In spite of their master’s assurances, the men adopted a crouching walk, swinging their loaded bows slowly from side to side. Their fear was palpable, like a foul odor.

As they reached the old, deep forest, the trees got larger and farther apart. The raiders moved more quickly, using the trail they’d made on their way to the clearing. Occasionally Voltorno scanned the high tree branches, alert to any ambush from above. This added greatly to the alarm of his men. They started glancing up frequently, stumbling and bumping into each other.

Disgusted, Voltorno turned on them. “You make more noise than a pen of squealing pigs!” he hissed.

“And you don’t breathe correctly either,” Kith-Kanan put in.

Voltorno gave him a venomous glance and turned to resume the march. Just then, a loud cracking sound filled the air. The men stood, paralyzed, trying to find the source of the noise. A tree branch broke off a nearby oak and dropped to the ground ahead. The men started laughing with relief.

Behind them, a figure popped up out of the leaves and aimed a stolen crossbow at the back of the last man in line. The quarrel loosed, the dark figure slipped silently back into the bed of leaves. The wounded man made a gurgling sound, staggered forward a few steps, and collapsed.

“It’s Favius! He’s been shot!”

“Mind your front! Look for your target before you shoot!” Voltorno barked. The six men remaining formed a ring with Kith-Kanan in the center. Voltorno walked slowly around the ring, staring hard at the empty woods. There was nothing and no one to be seen.

He halted when he noticed one of his men holding an empty bow. “Meldren,” he said glacially, “why is your bow not loaded?”

The man named Meldren looked at his weapon in surprise. “I must have triggered it off,” he muttered.

“Yes, into Favius’s back!”

“No, master! Favius was behind me!”

“Don’t lie to me!” Fiercely Voltorno struck the man with the flat of his sword. Meldren dropped his crossbow and fell to the ground. None of the other men offered to help him or supported his story.

Voltorno picked up the man’s crossbow and handed it to another of his company. “Meldren will walk in the rear,” he ordered. “With any luck, the witch will kill him next.”

The raiders relieved the dead man of his weapons and gear and moved on. The wretched Meldren, with only a short sword for defense, brought up the rear.

The trail they followed led them down a draw, between a pair of giant oaks. Voltorno went down on one knee and held up his hand to halt the group. He studied the ground and then looked ahead.

“This has the look of a trap,” he said with a wise air. “We’ll not go through the draw. Four of you men go along the right edge. The rest follow me on the left.”

The draw was a V-shaped ditch, twenty feet wide and eight feet deep at its lowest point. Four men crept along the right rim of the gully while Voltorno, Kith-Kanan, and two others walked along the left. As the half-human circled around, he clucked his tongue triumphantly.

“See?” he said. Leaning against an oak on the left was a thick log, poised to roll down into the draw if anyone disturbed the web of vines attached to it. This web extended down into the draw and covered the ground there. The men on the right came around their oak. Voltorno waved to them. The lead man waved back-and the ground beneath him gave way.

The “ground” they’d been standing on was nothing but a large log, covered loosely with dirt and leaves. Held in place by slender windfall limbs, the log collapsed under the men’s weight. With shouts and cries for help, the four tumbled into the gully.

“No!” Voltorno shouted.

The men received only bruises and cuts from falling the eight feet into the ravine, but they rolled onto the mat of vines that was the trigger for the six-foot-thick log poised on the left bank. The vines snapped taut, the log rolled down, and the men were crushed beneath it. Voltorno, Kith-Kanan, and the remaining two raiders could only stand by and watch as this occurred.

Suddenly there was a whirring sound and a thump. One of the two humans dropped, a crossbow quarrel in his back. The last human gave a shriek. He flung down his weapon and ran off into the woods, screaming without letup. Voltorno shouted for him to come back, but the hysterical raider disappeared into the trees.

“It appears you’re on your own, Voltorno,” Kith-Kanan said triumphantly.

The half-human seized the prince and held him in front of his body like a shield. “I’ll kill him, witch!” he screamed into the trees. He turned from side to side, searching madly for Anaya or Mackeli. “I swear I will kill him!”

“You won’t live that long,” a voice uttered behind him.

In shock, the half-human whirled. Anaya, still painted sooty black, stood nonchalantly before him, just out of sword’s reach. Mackeli was behind her, his bow poised. Taking advantage of his captor’s obvious shock at seeing these two foes so close by, Kith-Kanan wrenched himself from Voltorno’s grasp and jumped away from him.

“Shoot her!” Voltorno cried dazedly. “Shoot her, men!”

Remembering belatedly that he had no one left to command, the half-human lunged at Anaya. Mackeli started to react, but the keeper shouted, “No, he’s mine!”

Despite his wife’s shouted claim, Kith-Kanan slogged forward under the burden of his chains. The prince was certain that Anaya didn’t have a chance against a fine duelist like Voltorno. Her agility was drastically reduced, and the only weapon she carried was her flint knife.

The half-human thrust at her twice, then a third time. She dodged, adequately but without her old preternatural grace. He cut and slashed the air, and as Anaya scampered aside, the Ergothian blade bit into a tree. She ducked under Voltorno’s reach and jabbed at his stomach. The half-human brought the sword’s hilt down on her head. With a grunt of pain, Anaya sprawled on her face.

“Shoot!” Kith-Kanan cried. As Mackeli’s finger closed on the trigger bar, Anaya rolled away from Voltorno’s killing strike and repeated her warning to her friends.

“Only I may shed his blood!” she declared.

Voltorno laughed in response, but it was a laugh shrill with desperation.

Anaya got to her feet clumsily and stumbled in the thick leaves and fallen branches. As best she could, she jerked back, out of the way of Voltorno’s sweeping slash, but she could not avoid the straight thrust that followed.

Mackeli’s green eyes widened in shock and he uttered a strangled cry as the blade pierced Anaya’s brown deerskin tunic.

Though he saw what happened, Kith-Kanan was more shocked by what he heard—a roaring in his ears. For a moment, he didn’t know what he was hearing. Then he realized that the sound was Anaya’s pulse. It hammered at the prince like thunder, and he felt as if he would collapse from the pain of it. Time seemed to slow for Kith-Kanan as he watched Anaya. His beloved’s face showed no pain, only an unshakable determination.

Voltorno’s lips widened in a smile. Though he would surely die himself, at least he’d killed the witch. That smile froze as Anaya grasped the sword that pierced her stomach and rammed it farther in. His fingers still locked around the handle, the half-human was jerked toward her. His puzzlement turned to horror as Anaya brought up her free hand and drove her flint knife into his heart.

Voltorno collapsed. So tightly did he grip the sword that, when he fell backward, he pulled it from Anaya’s body. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Kith-Kanan struggled to Anaya’s side and caught her as she collapsed. “Anaya,” the prince said desperately. The front of her tunic was covered in blood. “Anaya, please…”

“Take me home,” she said and fainted.

Mackeli found the key to Kith-Kanan’s shackles in Voltorno’s belt pouch. Freed of his bonds, the prince lifted Anaya in his arms. Mackeli offered to help.

“No, I have her,” Kith-Kanan said brokenly. “She weighs nothing.”

He strode away from the gully, past the places where Voltorno’s men had died. Inside, Kith-Kanan concentrated on the sound and sensation of Anaya’s heartbeat. It was there. Slow, labored, but it was there. He walked faster. At home there would be medicines. Mackeli knew things. He knew about roots and poultices. At the hollow tree there would be medicines.

“You have to live,” he told Anaya, staring straight ahead. “By Astarin, you have to live! We’ve not had enough time together!”

The sun flickered through the leafless trees as they hurried toward the clearing. By now Kith-Kanan was almost running. Anaya was strong, he repeated over and over in his mind. Mackeli would be able to save her.

In the clearing, Arcuballis reared up on its hinds legs and spread its wings in greeting. The beast had returned from hunting to find everyone gone. Kith-Kanan paid it no heed as he rushed toward Anaya’s home—their home.

The prince ran to the hollow tree and laid Anaya on a silver wolf pelt that Mackeli had dragged outside. Her eyes were closed and her skin was ice cold. Kith-Kanan felt for a pulse. There was none.

“Do something!” he screamed at Mackeli. The boy stared at Anaya, his mouth open. Kith-Kanan grabbed the front of his tunic. “Do something, I said!”

“I don’t know anything!”

“You know about roots and herbs!” he begged.

“Ny is dead, Kith. I cannot call her back to life. I wish I could, but I can’t!”

When the prince saw the tears in Mackeli’s eyes, he knew that the boy spoke the truth. Kith-Kanan let go of Mackeli’s tunic and rocked back on his heels, staring down at the still form of Anaya. Anaya.

Rage and anguish boiled up inside the prince. His sword lay on the ground by the tree, where Voltorno had found and discarded it. Kith-Kanan picked up the blade and stared at it. The half-human had murdered his wife, and he had done nothing. He’d let Voltorno murder his wife and child-to-be.

Kith-Kanan screamed—a horrible, deep, wrenching cry—then slammed the flat of the blade against the oak tree. The cold iron snapped five inches above the hilt. In anger he threw the sword hilt as far as he could.

Night. Mackeli and Kith-Kanan sat inside the tree, not moving, not talking. They had covered Anaya with her favorite blanket, one made from the pelts of a dozen rabbits. Now they sat in darkness. The broken blade of his sword lay across Kith-Kanan’s lap.

He was cursed. He felt it in his heart. Love always eluded him. First Hermathya had been taken away. So be it. He had found a better life and a better wife than Hermathya would ever have been. His life had just begun again. And now it had ended. Anaya was dead. Their unborn child was dead. He was cursed.

A gust of wind blew in the open door, sweeping leaves and dust in tiny whirlwinds around Mackeli’s ankles. He sat with his head on his knees, staring blankly at the floor. The shriveled brown oak leaves were lifted from the ground and spun around. He followed their dancing path toward the doorway, and his eyes widened.

The green glow that filled the open entrance to the hollow tree transfixed Mackeli. It washed his face and silver hair.

“Kith,” he murmured. “Look.”

“What is it?” the prince asked tiredly. He looked toward the doorway, and a frown creased his forehead. Then, throwing the mantle off his shoulders, he got up. With a hand on the door edge, Kith-Kanan looked outside. The soft mound that was Anaya beneath her blanket was the source of the strange green light. The Silvanesti prince stepped outside. Mackeli followed.

The light was cool as Kith-Kanan knelt by Anaya’s body and slowly pulled the rabbit-fur blanket back. It was Anaya herself that was glowing.

Her emerald eyes sprang open.

With a strangled cry, Kith-Kanan fell back. Anaya sat up. The strong light diminished, leaving only a mild verdant aura surrounding the elf woman. She was green from hair to toes.

“Y-You’re alive!” he stuttered.

“No,” Anaya said sadly. She stood, and he did likewise. “This is part of the change. This was meant to happen. All the animal life has left me, and now, Kith, I am becoming one with the forest.”

“I don’t understand.” To speak with his wife when he’d all but resigned himself to never seeing her again brought Kith-Kanan great joy. But her manner, the tone of her words, frightened him more than her death. He couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

The green Anaya put a hand to his cheek. It was cool and gentle. She smiled at him, and a lump grew in his throat. “This happened to the other keepers. When their time was done, they became one with the forest, too. I am dead, dear Kith, but I will be here for thousands of years. I am joining the wildwood.”

Kith-Kanan took her in his arms. “What about us? Is this what you want?” he asked, and fear made his voice harsh.

“I love you, Kith” Anaya said passionately, “but I am content now. This is my destiny. I am glad I was able to explain it to you.” She pulled free of his embrace and walked off a few yards.

“I have always liked this spot in the clearing. It is a good place”, she said with satisfaction.

“Good-bye, Ny!” Mackeli called tearfully. “You were a good sister!”

“Good-bye, Keli. Live well.”

Kith-Kanan rushed to her. He couldn’t accept this. It was all too strange. It was happening too quickly! He tried to take Anaya in his arms once more, but her feet were fixed to the ground.

Her eyes rebuked him gently as she said consolingly, “Don’t fight it, Kith.” Her voice becoming faint, the keeper added, “It is right.”

“What of our child?” he asked desperately.

Anaya placed a hand on her belly. “He is there still. He was not part of the plan. A long, long time from now he will be born…” The light slowly dwindled in her eyes. “Farewell, my love.”

Kith-Kanan held Anaya’s face between his hands and kissed her. For a moment only, her lips had the yielding quality of flesh. Then a firmness crept in. The elf prince pulled back and, even as he touched her face for the last time, Anaya’s features slowly vanished. What had been skin roughened into bark. By the time Kith-Kanan spoke her name once more, Anaya had found her destiny. At the clearing’s edge, the prince of the Silvanesti was embracing a fine young oak tree.