Page 10 of Cursed Shadows 4 (The Dark Fae)

DAXEEL

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Insects crawling, skittering over a corpse. That is what comes to Daxeel’s mind as he realises the sheer rush of fae around him, light and dark, everywhere .

Even through the mist, with the crevasse far behind him, Daxeel can’t sprint more than a few steps before he sees another fae.

The portal spewed them out in a mess, disorganised, and most have apparently landed on the middle of the mountain, above the greener trees and the rivers, but—at a glance—a week’s trek from the summit.

Daxeel doubts there is a pattern to where the fae are deposited on the mountain. It’s a flurried reaction of intrusion. The portal flings them here, but the Mountain of Slumber resists the invasion, throws them at random.

The fae do not belong here.

The gods do not want them here.

It brings to mind a hand swatting away at flies—and they disperse. The fae are the flies, the fall is the scatter, the gods are the hand.

No matter who Daxeel stepped into the portal with, before or after, or even that he only moved into the portal a mere second after Nari, or that he held onto their bond like an anchor, one that slipped from his grip when the winds tore him away, wherever they land is unpredictable.

If he’s glad for anything, it’s that he landed near the battle on the crevasse, not Nari. Wherever she is, he can only hope it’s more secluded than here.

Because now, he charges through scattered chaos.

The mist was hiding this—a mass butchering.

Daxeel spears through it all, pockets of bloodshed, cold bodies bleeding out onto snow, distant cries and snarls that split the air, the clash of swords—

The turning gazes of the litalves flicker with recognition.

He doesn’t break pace as he dodges arrows that zip towards him, twists around a pair of axes aimed at him, ducks behind another dark one just as a litalf makes to barrel into him and tackle him to the snowy ground.

No matter the urge, Daxeel can’t waste time on these litalves. He has a goal, a destination, and he doesn’t break pace as he runs for it.

Daxeel and Rune knew they would find one another before anyone else. They knew that Samick and Dare would go off on their own to track Nari. That Caius would be determined to start—and perhaps finish—this alone.

So, Daxeel and Rune agreed upon a signal. One they could trace to the other, to find one another, fast.

Rune has ignited the signal.

It burns high up in the mist, above the span of white-dusted woods that Daxeel weaves through.

The blue of his eyes burns, locked onto the signal.

Black sparks crackle in the icy fog. Not unlike those smaller firecrackers that younglings will throw at the streets, the sparks arc metres above the ground before they erupt in a fist of sparks.

But they don’t last longer than some minutes.

Daxeel has no time to waste.

It was minutes ago he first spotted them, when he moved through the mist. Time is too short.

So he hunts the sparks, chases the crackle that—in the expanse of hollow, chilled air—ripples around the mountain.

Too loud, others will hunt it, more will be drawn from the battle beyond the mist. How many more, Daxeel can’t be sure. Most will chase it down to simply quench curiosity, or to hope that it’s Nari calling for help—and she’s as much as a target as he is, if not more.

Nari .

The thought of her twists his insides.

His teeth bare against the winds whipping him, the branches of the surrounding trees lashing him. But it’s the reminder of her, that he can’t feel her, that has his senses agitated.

A release of that agitation rises ahead.

A litalf scales boulders, where the trees are thin and willowy, bow and arrow strapped to her back. Sourcing the perfect vantage point.

Daxeel’s pace quickens.

He leans into the run, weapons holstered and belted, and he lets his natural weapons take hold, his nails sharpening, extending, into claws.

The litalf pauses. Her senses prickle.

Her head snaps to the side, her glaring gaze quick to land on Daxeel. But it’s too late for her—and she knows it. Her round face pales for a mere heartbeat before Daxeel has lunged up the boulders, towards the downhill slope.

He swipes once, mid-air, then propels himself off the bouldered slope. He lands, hard. The heel of his boots cut into the cracked earth—the litalf’s throat in his grip.

He doesn’t hear her body hit the boulders, roll, then smack down onto the packed dirt ground. He’s already too far ahead, his punishing pace pounding through the mist.

The earth frosts beneath his boots.

The mist thins, but doesn’t disperse.

And Daxeel barrels out of the woods, the last of the trees before the earth becomes flatlands.

He falters.

Gaze sweeping the landscape, he searches the sprawling, never-ending vastness of a glacier, searches for the source of the signal.

He finds it.

A cluster of fae, beyond reach, too far ahead on the glacier to make out more than the colour of their leathers.

Daxeel homes in on the fae wrapped in black leathers.

Two of them, dotted so far in the distance that Daxeel can’t make out the features of their faces. He doesn’t need to. He recognises the yellow hair of the one closest to this barren shore of woodland and ice.

The other dokkalf, the one farther back, wears braided hair as red as fire.

But this isn’t a battle Daxeel has found.

The warriors out there, they don’t clash and bring down swords or tear off faces with their teeth. They are close together, too close for them not to be battling, a litalf between the two dark leathers, another litalf advancing on the trio ahead.

A frown tugs at Daxeel’s brow.

He homes in on the yellow-haired fae, the one of buttery gold and slow, cautious steps. But they all take slow, cautious steps…

His frown deepens. His gloved hands flex at his sides.

Two litalves, one far out with the dokkalves, but not battling, all moving steadily.

Another litalf—of brown leathers—has his back to the shoreline. His steps are soft-footed, glacial in pace, but aimed in the other direction. He moves towards the other fae.

The scene isn’t unlike a sluggish beat of time, everything slowed down around him.

Rune moves in a measured zigzag, sidestepping and sliding, as though avoiding tricks on the ice.

Cracks , Daxeel realises.

Rune is surrounded by cracks.

The ice is unsteady.

And that is why Rune released the signal.

A fight breaks out on this glacier… they all go down.

Daxeel shoves into action. He runs along the border of the glacier.

Ahead, the brown leathered litalf is shaky on his feet. But with his back to Daxeel, he hasn’t noticed him as he focuses on the risk he takes—he heads deeper along the glacier, despite the cracks. The litalf apparently has decided that the dokkalves stranded up in the vastness are worthy targets.

In that, he makes a mistake.

Because it opens his back to Daxeel—and snatches the invitation. He skids onto the ice. His boots slide over the slippery surface, dampened by the faint sprinkle of snowfall. It eases the skid of his boots along the ice.

The cold bite of the howling wind is an ice-burn on his cheeks. It doesn’t slow him down.

His boots ease over the ice, smooth, and as he advances on the litalf, he drops into a crouch.

The litalf staggers around.

Wild pink eyes, the same fleshy colour of organs, swerve to Daxeel. But the litalf reacted too late, heard his advancement too late—and Daxeel spins around at the last moment.

His hands reach over his own shoulder for the light male’s neck. He twists—and yanks, hard.

The litalf’s neck shatters in his grip. Like a dried-out branch, the breaks crackle and snap.

He releases the suddenly limp weight of the light one. Digging his heels into the ice, he halts his pace, and dips down to snag the bow and arrow from the litalf’s dead grip.

He stays crouched.

Resting the arrow on his lap, he spindles out a fine rope—as thin as thread but as strong as metal—and fastens it around the arrowhead.

He lifts his gaze.

Closer now, Rune has turned his cheek to Daxeel.

His mouth moves, his hand waves, finger points—and he’s shouting at the dokkalf coming too close to him.

Daxeel frowns on the scene for a moment before he traces Rune’s gesture to the glacier.

And he understands it.

The ice is already cracking.

And the closer the other dokkalf gets to Rune, the farther those cracks will spread, the deeper they will run—until the ice breaks, and they both fall to their icy deaths.

Another problem looms over the glacier.

The mist is lightening. The steel grey of the skies is easing. Within the hour, it should turn into a cool fog—one brightened by the weak sun.

Weak, small, distant—but the sun is the sun.

And the dark males exposed to it will burn.

Daxeel firms his grip on the bow.

He notches the arrow as he rises up and faces the glacier.

Rune’s gaze latches onto him.

Daxeel aims. Finger coiling around the string, he looks down the arrow and narrows his gaze on the cracks.

Bows and arrows have never been his weapon of choice. His aim is accurate, but a blade is always more true.

He releases the arrow with a steady exhale.

It zips through the icy mist.

Rune homes in on it, muscles bolting to bone. His knee is bent, a half-crouch, and he’s still, prepared to pounce.

The arrow is faithful.

It strikes into a solid sweep of ice, a point without cracks—and just some reaches away from Rune.

Rune lunges for it.

The litalf behind him staggers after him.

The sudden strike of scattered movements sends cracks spearing all over the glacier.

The dokkalf behind wobbles with the sudden shudder of the ice.

Then it collapses beneath him.

The noise is harrowing. The cracks spearing all over chunks of ice before the thunderous collapse, that sound is a call of beasts, it is the source of fable and tales of monsters.

Daxeel’s breaths shudder with the glacier.

He fists his grip on the thin rope, his muscles tensing as he digs his boots into the ground.

Rune vanishes—gone with the collapse of the ice.

But the weight on the rope tells Daxeel he’s holding on, the weight that has his balance wobbling.

He leans his weight back.

Rune pulls on the silken rope—and drags himself over the edge of the broken ice. His leathers are slick with fresh, glacier water. Just seconds in that water, his lips have tinted blue.

His ability to move will suffer from that bout of freezing cold. Rune won’t be able to control his climb along the rope, it will be all that he can do right now to just hold on.

Digging his boots into the earth, Daxeel leans his weight back further and coils the slender rope around his fist. His arm tenses—and holds the weight dragging closer to him.

He reels him in.

His teeth bare from the strength he forces into it, one hand gripping onto the rope, then pulling back to his chest, and again and again, until Rune is dragged onto steadier ice.

Rune pauses, the rope coiled around his fist and turns his chin to his shoulder. He looks over the glacier to the litalf. The one still alive. The very one who crawls over the thin ground creaking under his weight. He moves around the fallen ice floor… closer to Rune.

The litalf advances… but he risks another collapse for it.

The added weight on the ice is enough to trigger those loud, growling howls. The glacier protests. It threatens them, threatens to collapse again, and drown the fae in the waters below.

Rune rolls onto the ice, then unwinds his fist. The rope slaps to the ice.

Panic flares in Daxeel’s eyes. He shoots the wild look at Rune, who simply jerks his chin to the litalf.

A subtle gesture.

It steals Daxeel back to their times in battle. Side by side, Rune and Dare and Daxeel and Samick learned each other. Learned each other’s gestures, thoughts, manners.

So Daxeel knows what’s about to happen.

Rune will make a run for it. The ice will crack, it will collapse. But the litalf will give chase.

And it’s Daxeel’s duty to take out the threat.

His answer is a mere tuck of the chin, the faintest of nods, one he doesn’t have to give, because Rune knows he will do it anyway.

It happens fast, in a blink, in a heartbeat.

Rune is suddenly on his feet, shoving into a run.

Daxeel has tossed aside the silken rope and notches a fresh arrow.

The litalf scrambles onto his boots, then chases after Rune.

And the glacier responds. Loud groaning floods the spanning landscape, cracks spearing like branches beneath every pounding boot step. Chunks start to break off. Their collapses are thunderous.

Rune outruns the fall of the ice.

Daxeel drops into a crouch and aims at the litalf. But this aim isn’t so faithful. It shoots over the head of the litalf, not even close enough to disturb his bark-hued hair.

He scrambles to re-notch. His final arrow. Not another in sight, not another in reach.

The litalf is closing in on Rune. Faster, smaller, more agile than a bulk of muscle. One of their advantages. Always so much lighter.

Rune is a blur of black. He barrels over the collapsing glacier. At his heels, the litalf is a smear of brown, a wisp of paint over a stark white canvas.

Daxeel traces him with the arrow.

His heart beats in his throat.

Behind the litalf, right at his heels, the ice just falls away into rushing, roaring waters; a current too strong to swim against.

“Move!” Daxeel shouts the same moment that his gloved finger slips from the bow string.

The arrow spears.

It cuts over Rune’s shoulder, a breath too close, but zips right by him… and before it can plunge into the chest of the litalf, he twists out of the way—and it strikes the muscle of his bicep.

The litalf’s shout of pain is drowned out by the roaring waters beneath the howling glacier. But Daxeel sees him strike the ice-floor, hard.

Then, in a blink, he’s vanished.

The ice collapses, still, and chases the heels of Rune’s boots.

Daxeel flings the bow aside just as Rune throws himself onto the shoreline.

He lands on the frosted earth.

But under his legs, the ice remains—until it crumbles.

Daxeel lunges for him, arm outstretched.

Before the waters can steal Rune away, drag him under and drown him, Daxeel’s hand smacks down on his wrist. His boots press into the frosted earth—and with a shout of strained muscles and aching bones, he wrenches Rune onto the shore.

They land with a thump.

Rune is splayed facedown.

His back, rising and falling, appeases the quick glance Daxeel shoots at him.

Forehead rested on the chilled ground, Rune is only taking a breath. Taking a moment they can’t afford.

Daxeel flips into a crouch. “Get up.”

The signal that Rune shot up into the misty skies, Daxeel won’t have been the only one to have seen it. More will come . There could be a dozen fae—half of them, litalves—racing their way now.

He grabs Rune by the arm and hoists him onto his feet.

Before they turn their backs on the glacier, Daxeel looks over at the gaping hole, half of the glacier gone. But his gaze homes in on the spot where the ice fell and stole the other dokkalf.

The other doesn’t emerge. The current beneath the glacier has swept him away.

If he’s lucky, he can reach the ice surface long enough to punch his way through it and climb onto the surface. But if the rush of the water is too strong, it will push him down and drown him.

That will take a while with a dark fae. Double the time that it takes to drown a litalf, almost ten times longer than to drown a human. It varies dokkalf by dokkalf, but most take an hour before death reaches them.

That male is still out there, under-ice, drowning, searching for a way out. If he does get out, the sun will scorch him the moment it’s up—and it’s just moments away now.

Daxeel turns his back on his brethren.

Another sacrifice in the face of the mission.

“We need to find shelter,” Daxeel says, but it didn’t need to be said.

They both know it.

Rune and Daxeel have just moments, a handful of minutes, to take cover. The clouds are softening, the mist lightening—the sun advancing.

So they are fast to move.