El-Vador's Travels (44 page)

Salvarius
opened his mouth to confirm the orders, but his words were drowned
out by a thunderous blast in the distance from whence they had came.

Harg's
mount panicked at the sound and it took some time before any of his
fellow warriors could get their beasts under control, when finally he
was able to turn he saw it and knew what had happened.

The
plain was littered with the figures of his force in various states of
disbelief, some of them sunk to their knees and weeping like babes
and others stock still as if the blast had rid them of their souls.

The
huge cloud of smoke differed greatly from the blinding explosion that
Harg had witnessed in the mountains, that traumatic event seemed a
lifetime ago. To think that it could happen again on Orcish soil
under his very watch beggared belief.

Many
would have broken down at the thought of their home being destroyed,
at their livelihood being taken from them in one cruel blast and the
consequences of such a failure with the council terrifying them into
inaction. Harg was not one to be intimidated by consequences, if
anything the sight of this blast differed in one great detail from
the previous one. This time he had a choice, he was not fleeing an
army, he was part of one. He was not escaping foreign lands with his
life barely intact, he was riding at the head of an Orcish horde.
This time he would not run from such a sound, this time he would do
no such thing.

'To
your feet, dogs!' he bellowed at the men, startling them out of their
grief-stricken stupor. 'The creature is within our very burrow, ride
with me now and we shall slay it so brutally that its ancestors shall
shiver in their graves!'

Not
looking to see if any of his men followed, Harg wheeled his mount
with a roar and charged off toward what remained of the burrow.

Salvarius
watched as his commanding officer galloped off at full speed with
what few mounted forces could follow in his wake. He knew that he
should find a mount, or that he should even risk one of the spares
that had not fully rested in order to keep up with his General.
Something stopped him, the inner turmoil had come to a head in their
previous conversation, and much like the Orcs surrounding him he had
eyes only for the great gout of smoke that stained the horizon.

The
difference was the cold smile of pleasure that had snaked across his
lips involuntarily, the Elf had done it. Somehow, in spite of his
previous double cross and imprisonment of his only capable ally,
Salvarius' plan had worked.
His ears rang as his frantic
fingers tried to claw a way out of the rubble and detritus that had
smothered him. As far as he could tell he was still whole, and the
billowing gale of laughter inside his head from the moment he had set
light to the trail had ceased.

As
he sprinted clear of the strange powder he had wondered if his
efforts had been precise enough, or whether it would fizzle out
before reaching the cache that Salvarius had inexplicably shown him.
He had been considering slowing his departure from the sewers and
re-checking his efforts when the first explosion hit and sent him
sprawling.

There
was no flash of blinding light from the subterranean depths of the
burrow, all the damage was hidden from his sight as the muffled
thunderclap stole his hearing. Then as if the earth itself had
fractured, the plains were torn apart and caved inward like the
crunching of bone from a hammer blow.

El-Vador
had stupidly watched, thinking himself immune to the process at such
a distance. Only to gaze wide-eyed as great hunks of earth and stone
were propelled into the air from this belching orifice of smoke and
crackling land.

Try
as he might, he could not evade every projectile, clods of earth and
rock finally sent him sprawling into the cracked remnants of the
plains he had traversed over. Crawling forward with his elbows, he
tried his best to shield his head from the incoming debris and hoped
that nothing heavier landed his way.

Eventually
the weight of the accumulated rock and earth was too much to fight
against, instead he simply flopped down and allowed himself to be
buried. Occasionally he listened to a thud as one of the larger rocks
impacted upon the inadvertent protection the soil offered him, after
a time, the patter of impacts slowed and then ceased. With the
ringing in his ears, the Elf could not tell whether it had been his
own hearing that had failed him entirely, the packed accumulation
above him that had rendered him senseless or the eruption of the
earth's innards that had finally stopped.

All
was darkness, and as he pushed up there was no give from the weight
of the land that had shifted atop his form.

Shifting
within the cramped space, it was with a rising panic that El-Vador
realised he could run out of air before breaching the surface.
Spurred on by this, he started clawing away at the rock and soil that
had encased him, trying to force his way from horizontal to vertical
and writhe out of the ground.

The
blood ran freely from his torn hands as he alternated between shoving
rock aside and digging through the dirt that constricted his passage.
The air was thinning and his breaths grew increasingly laboured,
although the corded muscle in his arms was used to exertion his limbs
had begun to shake with the exhaustion of his efforts.

He
was blinded by the light as he finally came up gasping for air, it
arrived with an immediacy that startled him. Surveying the scene
around him at a squint, it seemed as if he had tunnelled his way to
another land entirely.

The
rock he heaved clear was coated in his own blood, as it went tumbling
down the slope with a crash that caused El-Vador to realise that his
hearing was returning to him in spite of the incessant whine.

It
was then that he strained his ears, and heard the drumming of
approaching hooves.

Deception.
That's all it comes down to when the scales of power are so finely
balanced. Not the use and abuse of force to create an intended goal,
but instead the manipulation of the individual through lies and
subtle suggestions so that they may defeat themselves.

H
e
drew clear of the pile of rubble that had once been part of the
Orcish burrow and crept down one of the ravines that had been formed
from the explosion and
subsequent
caving in
of the home of his enemies. The lay of the land had been sufficiently
disrupted around this area that it now served as much better cover
than the flat plains of before, his first instinct was to crawl away
from the sound of the incoming hooves. He chose to make his way
toward it instead, a voice that was not his own subconsciously told
him that he was going to witness something important here.

A roar tore a rent through the air nearby, it drew out
for an indeterminable length of time and ended in a crack of grief
that broke it. El-Vador peered over the edge of the ravine and
spotted his former jailer slumped to his knees and fingering the
rocks slipping through his hands.

Harg seemed beaten, his drooping head slowly edging its
way closer and closer to the shattered remains of the burrow he had
been in charge of as if he wanted to lie down and crumble with the
rest of the detritus from the blast.

It was then that he stopped, and his nostrils flared
some of the dirt and dust clear of his resting place.

'I can smell the traitor's scent.' he growled, his voice
carrying far. 'I can smell his pestilence upon the stones of our
home!'

A tingling sensation crept down El-Vador's spine as the
Orc raised his head, there was blood lust and fury written in those
eyes. A madness of an unchained beast coached into violence, it
struck him still and sent goose flesh tingling down his arms. He was
almost overcome by the burning need to flee from this creature before
it spotted him, so close to the site of destruction.

'Inform the elders of what has happened here,' he said
to one of the other mounted figures behind him. 'Tell them that I
shall not be joining them until I drag the perpetrator's head with
me.'

With a silent nod, one of the riders set off in the
opposite direction.

'What of the people trapped within, General?' asked
another Orc, dismounting and joining the fuming leader's side.

A gauntlet struck out faster than El-Vador's eyes could
see and snapped back the head of the subordinate with a crack.

'Fool!' Harg roared. 'Look at the land surrounding you!
There are no survivors here!'

El-Vador watched as the Orcish General took several
steadying breaths before continuing to speak, clearly he wanted to
kill anyone and anything in his path, Elf or not.

'You will wait here and rendezvous with Salvarius and
the remaining scout parties as planned. The Elf was clearly hidden
near the burrow before we even set off. This means that he cannot
evade a second sweep.'

The man nodded, then ventured a tentative question.
'What will you be doing, my General?'

Harg offered him a crazed smile. 'I shall be following
the scent while it is fresh.'

El-Vador had heard enough, he felt no great influx of
power within him that suggested he was to strike out at Harg and his
forces. That left him with one possibility beyond capture and death.

He felt the net closing as he proceeded cautiously
through the torn plains, knowing that while the treacherous
conditions would hinder his progress away from the remnants of the
burrow, they would hide him from Orcish eyes on the horizon.

It was clear now that the scouting parties El-Vador had
avoided by sheer chance were all intending to come back this way, and
unless he buried himself under the earth again one of them would
catch his scent and proceed to find him. The only solution was to
punch through at a weak point in these returning forces and hope that
the powers given to him by the voice would come to his aid once
again. That is, if they weren't entirely depleted from his previous
efforts.

Fear threatened to grip the Elf as he made his way over
the vast wreckage of stone, what if all the Orcs travelled in large
numbers? What if there was no weak spot and no power to aid him?
There was no way he was going to overcome a vast crowd of them, all
keening for his blood.

Whether it was the voice or some other mental device,
El-Vador felt his fears slowly wash away. In their absence was a
certitude founded upon all the deaths he had seen in the mountains,
all the destruction that these green-skinned enemies had wrought upon
his people. To turn tail and run from them now would be a betrayal of
his entire kin, it would spit in the face of everything that had got
him to this point. He simply couldn't allow that to happen.

Steeling himself for whatever future trials awaited, he
continued to climb over the remnants of the Orcish burrow and toward
the closing search parties.

It did not take him long to come into contact with the
first search group, the ground was in his favour in this matter being
rocky and easy to hide upon in his area but levelling out into the
more familiar plains where the Orcs were.

Then in the middle distance, far from the wreckage of
the burrow, the Elf spotted something that almost made him laugh up
at the skies in disbelief.

It was a swathe of brown trees, extending for some
distance and not so different from his own forests back home. The
perfect place to hide until the power returned to him. Then again,
perhaps the Orcs thought so as well, would making his way toward this
leafy haven be his undoing?

After a short space of time deliberating over his
choices he realised that he didn't really have one. The Orcs would be
returning to the wreckage of the burrow across the flat plains, and
his attempts to traverse them without being seen were non-existent
when walking directly into the face of his hated enemy.

Shouldering his bow, he quickened his pace even further
and attempted to put as much of the plains behind him as possible
before pursuit caught his scent or emerged from the forest. He knew
that he was pinned on all sides by the eyes of his opposition, all he
could do was keep going and hope that his woodsmanship would suffice
in dispatching of the scout group that was sent out in that
direction.

His brain warned him against such violence, Harg was
expecting at least one of his groups never to return. A faint whiff
of a scent and a group not returning from the forests would give away
El-Vador's position immediately.

Realising he had to make the cover of the woods before
either party discovered him, the Elf broke out into a sustainable
sprint. His lithe legs ate up the barrens that surrounded him and
were hindered not by any inconsistencies in the harsh terrain,
leaving neither print nor mark wherever he fled. This slowly
degenerated into a limp over time as his wounds caught up with his
actions, but not before he had made the distance required of him.

The woods slowly grew before his sight, their shady
gloom offering him a shelter from hostile eyes and a respite from the
constant staggering run, as he willed and hoped that his power slowly
recovered.

He rested under the bole of a tree, stretching his
senses out into the rest of the wood and slowing his labouring heart
from the final sprint. His ears heard nothing and his eyes tracked
back over the plains, incapable of sighting pursuit. Even as he
watched the vast emptiness, his faithful nose caught scent of the
Orcs which in turn sent him sniffing at the air like a wild jungle
cat. El-Vador surmised that they had arrived only recently and while
they had proceeded deeper into the forest they were most likely only
doing a perfunctory scan of the area. He need just remove himself
from sight and await their departure for his escape to be entirely
successful.