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  Perhaps a couple of minutes later another dozen or so of his fellow huntsmen had joined him while a couple more were trying to sneak around through the woods behind him, no doubt thinking that they were unseen. They should have known better. They were a disreputable bunch, filled with darkness and anger, and they enjoyed seeing others suffer and die. That much he could tell from even the most casual glance at their souls, and he wasn’t game to look any deeper. But they should at least have been smart enough to guess who they were dealing with and fled. Perhaps it was time to remind them.

  Alan sighed quietly, as he rose to his feet and approached the hunters, knowing it was time to get his hands dirty again. For some this was what magic was all about, the using of it and the power it granted them over others. For Alan though it was really about the magic itself, feeling it swim through his veins like thousands of joyous electric eels, enjoying it as much as anything else in life. It was knowing the magic and feeling it which was always the true joy. Doing came second and enforcing his will on others a distant third. Sadly this was a time to act.

  “Murderers! Foul bastard spawn! Why have you invaded my lands again? Your comrades were told years ago that I will not tolerate the stench of your evil in my home and that there would be consequences should you return. Are you so stupid as to have forgotten that as you preyed on the innocent?” Suddenly he could see understanding growing in their eyes, as they finally recognized him from the tales of their former comrades in evil, and fear lay just behind it. But it was too late.

  A few quick words in ancient elvish and the huntsmen were all suddenly brought down to earth with a thump as their horses started bucking and kicking wildly, while the leather straps holding the saddles and bridles to them gave way. The huntsmen didn’t stand a chance, and they hit the ground hard. But they didn’t have time to complain as they had to dodge the flying hooves of their former steeds who, suddenly freed of their riders, were desperate to get away from what they were made to believe were wolves snapping at their feet. The huntsmen screamed, rolled and jumped, fearing every move could be their last, while the horses stampeded. It must have been one of the longest few moments of the huntsmen’s lives, but eventually even it ended. Sadly.

  In time as the huntsmen rubbed their bruises and cursed, and those that their horses hadn’t trampled more seriously tried to get to their feet, only to watch their steeds race away as if the demons of the Darkfire were on their tail, and curse some more. Not only were horses expensive, but they had been abandoned in dangerous territory, and with a demon wizard not a hundred paces from them. They might have been more upset if they’d known Alan’s plans for their steeds. Later Alan would summon them to him, give them all a good rub down and some food, and then in a few weeks’ time would take them to the markets for sale, profiting from the huntsmen’s suffering. It might have been theft but it seemed only fair since their former masters were murderers, and they had dared to enter his lands after his last warning. Besides, that was only the beginning of Alan’s work, and he intended to teach them a lesson they would never forget. A lesson that would probably leave them unable to harm any others for a long time to come, and that was a worthy service, one which he imagined those who would have become their future victims would happily support.

  Just as they were starting to reform into a group and started to draw their weapons while deciding whether to either attack or flee, the huntsmen’s leather armour and clothing suddenly rotted on them and collapsed around their feet like a pile of mouldy leaves. Next, anything steel such as their weapons caught fire, causing them to throw them away as fast as they could, lest they be burnt. In mere seconds they were naked and unarmed, exactly as Alan wanted. Throwing their weapons away didn’t stop them screaming in pain however, as a blast of wind filled with the biting grit of sand suddenly assailed them from out of nowhere, and began flaying the newly exposed and tender skin off their bodies.

  They tried to run of course, understanding their doom, but no matter which way they fled the wind just brought them back, picking them up the moment they got more than a dozen paces from the rest and tossing them back into the pile of wailing human wretchedness.

  In short order a pack of savage criminals with murder in their hearts had been reduced to a pack of small, naked boys, blood covered and crying in pain as they curled up into foetal positions on the ground and begged for him to stop.

  Though he knew it was a mistake and that they didn’t deserve such mercy, the softness of his heart made Alan do just that eventually. He could have continued flaying them until there was nothing left but bone, but he didn’t want even the deaths of these evildoers on his conscience. Not when he didn’t have to kill them. Besides, it would be a good lesson to send them back as they were, and perhaps an amusement for the town folk to talk about when they saw their former tormentors turned into victims. And yet he knew that in time they would return to their murderous ways, and others would suffer for his mercy. No good dead ever went unpunished.

  Another reluctant movement of his hands brought the flaying to an end as the wind ceased its work, leaving behind a pile of bleeding human wretchedness. A couple of words spoken while they moaned and cried like little children brought the earth elementals to his side, and then two more went off to return shortly with the two huntsmen that had tried to creep up on him from behind. They too were naked and bloody, a testament to how carefully he had prepared, and how poorly thought out their actions had been as they too had been disarmed, stripped and flayed alive.

  Then, flanked by a dozen earth elementals, each standing a dozen or more feet tall and suitably massive with it, he walked over to the fallen wretches, partly to survey his handiwork and make sure he hadn’t accidentally killed any of them, and partly to scare them senseless. The latter wasn’t very difficult as they stared at him with eyes opening wider in ever growing terror with every step he took towards them. Then again he was glowing with a white light designed to blind them and standing eight feet tall or so it seemed to them. Thus, though they were too battered and broken to run, they would have if they could. But in any case, even if they had had the wit, he would have stopped them. The lesson wasn’t yet taught.

  Shortly he stood perhaps twenty feet in front of them, and studied them, quietly pleased with how effective his defences had been. He’d never had to use them against so many armed men before, and it was comforting to know that if he had the need, he could do so again. But he doubted he’d have the need again anytime soon. They were so badly battered and grazed by his magic that it would be weeks if not months before even the fittest of them could ride a horse, wear armour or weld a weapon, and they would carry the scars of this encounter for the rest of their lives. That was good. Maybe they would learn a lesson from this. He could but hope.

  “What a pile of miserable wretches you are.” His words came from the heart, not so much because of the state they were in as because of the evil that owned their souls, and the closer he got to them, the more deeply he felt it. They also made him feel unclean just with their presence and he felt the need to wash.

  Apart from moaning and crying out in fear, the huntsmen said nothing. Probably they were too frightened to disagree with him since he could obviously kill them with ease, and if they were in his shoes he knew they would have done just that.

  “You terrify your fellow mortals, hunt and murder the innocent, strut around like peacocks full of your own power and call yourselves men. No longer.” A peal of thunder emphasized his words, and the lightning bolt that hit the ground nearby for effect made them grovel with fear once more. It was a powerful blast, setting the sky alight and shaking the ground, even if it wasn’t actually real.

  “Not on my land.”

  “Three maybe four years ago I spoke with some of your comrades, and I thought we had reached an understanding. I thought that they had listened and that they would have told you. Evil shall not be tolerated in my lands, my woods or my forest. Not the primitive, brutish savagery that is you an
d your filthy brethren, nor the arrogant vileness that is your Baron. Apparently you chose to ignore that understanding, to your cost.”

  “Tell your Baron this, and make sure he understands this time. Make sure he learns.” Of course the Baron would probably learn just how serious Alan was mainly from staring at their pitiful forms rather than anything they could tell him. But hopefully he would pay attention, before he killed them for failing him, and Alan knew that their lives were unlikely to be long even if he didn’t kill them.

  “I am the wild one, the demon spirit of the woods as you call me. These are my lands, and you are trespassing. Normally I care nothing for the lives of the mortals who choose to live alongside my lands, even miserable things such as you. But when armed people enter my lands, I care. And when evil such as you enters, I care very greatly. You are an offence to me and to the gods themselves and you should not have come.”

  “Know now that you are cursed beyond any hope of redemption. Your suffering when you die will be eternal as is only proper. I have already seen to that. I have ensured that you will be sent straight to the Darkfire to burn forever. Live this, your only life long and well as it is all you have. The sooner you die the sooner your eternal suffering begins. But if you ever return to my home, your suffering will begin early as I will remove even the slight reprieve I have given you. I will not permit murderers, thieves, rapists and cut-throats within my home as you would not accept spiders and snakes within your own - I assume.”

  “No evil will be tolerated within the Haellor Forest, ever. Should your Baron ever again send assassins, raiding parties, or armies into my home he will soon discover that all the armies in the world, all the castles, all the magicians and all the steel, will not protect him from my wrath. I will destroy them all, and then I will hunt him down and inflict a torment upon the evil little worm such as is only reserved for the worst of the worst in the depths of the Darkfire. And then, when he is finally unable to scream any longer, when his throat has lost its power to even whisper his blind terror, then I will send him there directly, still breathing!”

  “Is this clear!” And just to emphasize his words, he transformed himself from a seemingly mortal if glowing giant mythic being into a pillar of blinding white fire, so hot it scorched their already wounded bodies and dried their wounds. It was only an illusion for the most part, but it was an effective one and even as he watched them try to crawl away from him screaming in terror and pain, he saw a few heads bobbing up and down in agreement. They were terrified, and the tales they would tell when they arrived back in the kingdom, would be of a deity or woodland creature, not of a man as he intended.

  “Now get out of my forest!” Of course in the condition in which they were in he knew it would be a long time before they could do any such thing. The best of them could barely make it to all fours and bleed while many others just lay there and groaned. Instead the earth elementals who until then had simply accompanied him like a personal bodyguard suddenly walked over to them, picked them up, one in each enormous stone hand, and then started marching off down the trail towards the village of Silver Falls, the closest settlement in the Regency of Calumbria. Or was that now the empire?

  He watched them wander off down the trail, the huntsmen still bleeding and crying out in pain, begging for mercy. It was not to be as the elementals knew nothing of softness or emotion. They knew nothing at all. They simply obeyed. Their cold stone hands wrapped tightly around the evil doers’ waists could have crushed them as easily as he could have crushed his fingers around a flower bud. But the elementals wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t let them go either, and despite the huntsmen’s continual attacks on their hands with their own hands which were all the weapons they had left, they would neither tighten nor loosen their grips until they were ready to drop their naked and bloodied bodies in the village’s main street. They would simply do as they had been instructed. Alan thought it would make for some interesting gossip in the Proud Hen in a day or so when they arrived. The elementals weren’t particularly fast despite the length of their legs.

  Then the gossip would fly. Once more the wild demon god of the woods would be claimed to have intervened in the affairs of mortals. The locals of Silver Falls knew him no better than anyone else, despite the fact that he visited the village every few days or so to trade and for supplies. Of course, they didn’t realize he was the same man. They didn’t realize that the wild demon god as they called him, was a man at all. Instead they thought him nought but a legend, and Alan they believed was just a woodsman and silver miner as he claimed to be. They’d never connected the two but then why would they? Except for a few the humans weren’t a particularly magical people and his magic was far stronger than that of any human wizard he had ever heard of. It was also beyond that of most elven wizards as well, though he wasn’t about to discuss that with any should they show up. They tended to be an arrogant bunch.

  Happily they wouldn’t visit him either, as he well knew from experience. It wasn’t concern that the wild demon god of the forest might catch them. If the humans accepted him as they accepted most half breeds but didn’t understand him particularly well, the elves fell into the opposite camp. They'd see that he was half elf, half human, or they would if he ever revealed himself to them, and they'd guess he was a wizard. Indeed, they’d probably guessed long before that the wild demon of the woods was really a wizard of strength. But they would never accept him. To an elf, blood was blood, and the half elf side of his heritage was to them always and ever, dark elf. He would always be his mother’s son, or in their view, her dark child and a creature worthy only of their contempt, and an arrow. Blood will out as they said.

  It didn’t matter to them that his mother like her mother before her and most of her people had rejected the teachings of her people’s ancestors. That she had fallen for and wed the human paladin who had rescued her from her kin’s own evil, taken the vows of piety and purity upon herself, or that he had been raised until their deaths to be a healer and knight. A dark elf was a dark elf and there was no more to be said on the matter.

  And so he was stuck in between the two peoples, and ironically he chose to live in exactly the same place. It was the only place he could find peace, and he did find peace. He also found happiness there.

  Of course it was going to be fun in a few days when he went to town as he normally did and listened to the gossip which was sure to be all about the huntsmen delivered to their town naked and bloodied. He liked Silver Falls, he liked the people, and he liked spending time at the inns, playing games of chance, drinking a little ale, and chatting about everything from the hunting to the troublesome children of the town. Just the thought of what he would hear when he next visited brought a smile to his lips.

  Then too the first shear would begin in a few more days, and the streets would be overflowing with farmers selling their wool, and their hands drinking it up large in the hostelries. That was always a good time. The merchants would be crowding the town streets trying to sell their wares to those with a little coin in their pockets, the village fools and acrobats would be about as well, and the bards and minstrels would be thick on the ground, performing for the crowds.

  Maybe he would share another dance with Rosalie, she of the flowing blonde hair and surprisingly white teeth who it seemed lived to tease him. And she did it so well. Some times as she danced with him one day and then treated him with disdain the next, he felt almost as if he was a fish on a line being played with. But when she flashed that smile and rubbed her lithe body against him, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Until she didn’t want to see him again.

  The eldest daughter of Jorge the innkeeper of the White Tail Feather, Rosalie was younger than him, and neither of them were serious. For Rosalie wasn’t the sort of woman to be tied down to a man so soon in her life. He was sure she wanted to see a little adventure in her life first, complete her training as an apothecary, and maybe find a little wealth of her own as well. And she was a well rais
ed young woman, her parents had made sure of that. It was expected that she would marry well, and not to a mere woodsman like himself. Then again he hadn’t shared the secret of his magic with her either, and neither did she realise he was the noble born son of a knight. If she had he suspected, her playfulness would have become far more serious.

  Still they had fun, and they flirted a little, danced a little and played a few games that her father probably wouldn’t want to know about, though they never went too far. He would never dishonour her. And for the moment that was enough. In time maybe they’d have to make some decisions, maybe he’d have to tell her some private truths about himself, but not yet.

  Perhaps half an hour after the elementals and their captives had gone, and more importantly when he could no longer smell the stench of their evil in the pure air of the forest, Alan wandered back from the side of the trail to his home and more importantly, to the front porch where his tea pot still kept its warmth on the remaining heat of the hot stones he chose to use instead of an open fire. He poured himself another mug of the by then devilishly strong brew and took a seat in one of the rocking chairs, looking out over his once more tranquil clearing.

  The sun was already beginning to sink in the sky; this time of year the days were still too short, and soon the night’s cold air would force him indoors. And yet it was still a beautiful late afternoon and he intended to enjoy it for as long as he could. Though he had lived here ever since his parents’ untimely deaths, had even rebuilt much of his home with his own hands, and would have chosen to see out his days there, he knew on some level that his days in the forest were limited.