Lithoniel

Lithoniel could feel the fire, the inexorable heat brushing against her chiseled face and the tiny drops of sweat pouring from her chin. She was crouching down, hiding in a cleft grim and gray as the cloak enveloping her lean body. A ragged hood covered her face, except for a strand of curly hair, silver as moonlight during the day but darker and closer to ashes in the night. And dark was the night, but not dark enough, not for where they were hiding, even less for what they were hunting.

Lithoniel frowned and squinted her eyes when she heard another crackle, followed by a burst of heat and light. It came from below, where the fire dug deep inside the hard rock winning a fight lasted hundreds of years. The result was a canal slithering between the steep slopes of two mountains like a canyon crossed by a river in the middle. However, there was no water, only what humans and elves alike called muddyfire. Something close to magma, but way more volatile.

Lithoniel turned to the left, where her fellow hunters, the Phinoriel brothers laid, hidden behind a huge rock with the same size of a small hut. Rolim, the older of the two, shook his head at her mute question, as she knew he would. The frown on her face deepened. Her aversion to this plan was even greater than her dislike for its architect, the Nightstalker. She'd offered suggestions to the man, alternatives for something she'd believed to be dangerous and reckless. But why the glorious Nightstalker should have listened to her, a youngling that had seen less than twenty winters?

And this was the result. She was relegated to the back of the group, no more than a bystander to the events about to unfold.

She was about to recriminate again inside her mind when she heard a low whistle coming from below, at the base of the mountain where the slope was softer. She looked down while her almond eyes easily pierced the darkness and the thin layer of steam raising from the canal. The other hunters were spread thin in groups of two or three, with the veterans and Nightstalker in the front, merely fifty steps away from the canal. They were blended perfectly with the surrounding rocks.

When Rolim pointed to the middle of the canal, Lithoniel saw the ripples on the muddyfire orange surface, like bubbles rising from the deep. They were moving toward the left bank, where the Nightstalker and the others awaited.

When the hunters below began to unfasten their bows, Lithoniel saw the Phinoriel brothers doing the same. Not that it would do them any good, they were too far. When the bubbles were close to the left bank what they were looking for, the prey they were looking for, came out. The Zaruk colossal head rose, spraying incandescent magma all around it. Its black eyes, small like tiny holes for a body of its size, lazily peeked at the point just below the Nightstalker and his men.

It is huge. It was Lithoniel first thought. A huge beast with four legs, a round tortoise on its back and thick gray skin, hard as stone. It was close to a turtle, but the size was so different that it was hard to think they belonged to the same species. It was bigger than a horse, bigger than any house Lithoniel saw, even bigger than the mythical elephants of the east. The Zaruk stepped on a rock with its jagged, scaled foot before starting to climb the slope. At every step, Lithoniel could hear the vibrations transmitting from rock to rock and the fetid smell of brimstone coming out like a thick mist from the beast's mouth.

The Nightstalker lifted his arm with his palm open, waiting for the beast to take the bait and slip inside the path he'd made for it. He raised one finger, then two and pointed at the beast left side and back. The hunters repeated the signal to the men in the back, swarming like ants around the Zaruk in complete silence. They used every nook and cranny as cover, their gray cloak confounding with the rocks below.

When every hunter was in position, the formation took the shape of a prism with men awaiting at every angle surrounding the Zaruk like a net. The beast almost moved to the point they wanted before stopping. It sniffed crouching down, its head turning to the left, right and then in the front again. The bait waited there, inviting and unguarded. It was like a banquet for the Zaruk, an assortment of garnets, topaz, and rubies the turtle loved to eat.

One step, just one step. Lithoniel kept repeating inside her mind like a litany, hoping of being wrong. A man would have been suspicious, expected a trap, but the Zaruk was just a beast. Wasn't it?

However, her worries seemed unfounded. When the turtle finally stepped forward to take its prize, what seemed to be steady rocks collapsed under its foot.

The Zaruk crumbled downward, roaring and raging before vanishing inside the pitfall. A loud sound of broken rocks and a tremor, similar to an earthquake, shook the base of the mountain. The Zaruk roared again, but it seemed more like a soft wail this time, the beast last howl before death.

Lithoniel and the Phinoriel brothers exchanged a glance.

Did it work? It was the mute question in their eyes.

Lithoniel saw the bony figure of the Nightstalker, raising his hand, his palm open as he made the signal to wait. Then he moved closer to the pitfall. He bent over the edge of the scarp, squinting his eyes to see through the smoke and dust raised by the beast's fall. However, what he found were two black eyes, shining like obsidian and staring back at him. The Nightstalker didn't even have time to scream before the Zaruk's jaws were on him. The beast swallowed him whole. Then it roared, showing a row of rotten teeth, bulky but flat. It was roar that embodied pure rage, the Zaruk anger against the ants that dared to defy it.

Lithoniel saw the hunters releasing the arrows in their bows, some aiming at the beast's head, other simply shooting randomly at the tortoise, their minds twisted by fear.

"Stop!" Lithoniel shouted, but it was too late.

The flint heads were like toothpicks against the Zaruk's exoskeleton. Lithoniel saw one arrow hitting the Zaruk's eye, only to bounce back with the wooden shaft split in half at the impact with the hard pupil's membrane.

The Zaruk lifted its head without caring about the elves meaningless attacks. Its jaw, mouth, and chin began to tremble, and a thin line of smoke rose from its nostrils. Lithoniel knew what that meant. They all knew.

"Run!" She yelled, and the shout was repeated by the hunters around. However, some weren't fast enough or so terrorized, they simply stared at the colossal beast with their eyes wide open and a look of horror on their faces.

The Zaruk's head went down, opening its mouth to spray muddyfire in a semi-circle all around him. It was something way worse than simple fire, a cascade of magma turning into nothingness everything it found on its path.

Jumping from rock to rock as only an elf could, Lithoniel saw a hunter burning like a torch before becoming ashes, and a woman no older than her writhing in pain as she tried to put off the fire devouring her eye, only to discover that her hands too melted. A drop, a single tiny drop was enough to dig a hole through flesh and bone.

The well trained and experienced company quickly became a bunch of men and women running for their lives. Climbing the mountain with the Zaruk still on their tail was madness and jumping in the canal below was almost as bad as facing the beast. The only path was in the middle, flanking the mountain till the end of the canyon. However, the hunters weren't thinking straight anymore. Half dozen of them tried to climb up, only to slip on the rocks before crumbling down, screaming and disappearing inside the river below.

Others stumbled and fell, becoming food to appease the Zaruk's fury.

They are too close to each other!

"Scatter!"Lithoniel shouted. She was surprised to find that they actually did as she said. It was emblematic of how desperate they were.

However, it was too little too late.

She just delayed the inevitable. The beast was too close. She had to draw its attention and fast.

Damn it! She stopped and turned, taking up the bow.

"Lithoniel!" Rolim shouted, his voice urgent.

Lithoniel didn't look at him, she had no time. She notched an arrow and released the bowstring.

She didn't need to aim, the target was too big to fail. Then, she turned tail and run.

"Follow me!" She said to the Phinoriel brothers.

From the enraged roar coming from behind her, she did hit it. The beast was furious, charging without bothering to avoid the obstacles in its path. It simply smashed everything into smithereens.

I drew its attention. Now what? She could feel the rocks shaking. The Zaruk was getting closer. She turned her head to check its movements, only to see a gigantic leg raising over the last hunter in the back.

"Dodg.." She began, but the noise of smashed bones froze the words in her mouth. The hunter's body was flat and thin on the ground, his blood painting the beast's paw.

Lithoniel saw a glint of wisdom shining in the Zaruk small eyes, the cunningness coming from ages of undisturbed dominion over the Embersea. It wasn't simply picking the easiest target, but staring specifically at her. It was like it knew who was the leader as if it could understand their speech.

This is no beast! Her instinct was screaming. She rolled behind a rock just before the Zaruk opened his mouth, breathing death over her. It was simple fire this time, maybe less lethal but way more unpredictable.

Lithoniel gritted her teeth, her fear reflected in Rolim's eyes.

We're not gonna make it.

They couldn't lose the Zaruk over the rugged terrain, and the end of the canyon was still hundreds of feet away.

"Turn Left!"She shouted, pointing to a small pass less than fifty steps away.

From the look the brothers gave her, Lithoniel knew they understood what she was planning.

And they didn't like it.

The Zaruk kept chasing them, focusing its attention on Lithoniel. She jumped three meters over a crevice before rolling on the hard ground, feeling her arm cracking as she slammed against a rock. She winced but bolted up, zig-zagging on the mountainside without thinking about the pain. Every time the Zaruk was closer, and each time Lithoniel dodged just at the last moment.

No matter if it was luck or not, the Zaruk was was getting angry. Small spheres of fire came out from its nostrils, darting like tiny fireballs before spreading out on the ground. Lithoniel ducked to dodge one, crawled in a hollow to avoid the second and disappeared behind a rock when the Zaruk was ready to launch the third. It was like she had eyes behind her head, or she could predict the beast attacks.

The roar that followed was full of anger and frustration. The Zaruk charged head-on without caring about plans or tactics anymore. Exactly what she was aiming for.

When she turned to the small pass, the beast was on her tail. Lithoniel and the brothers plunged their grappling hooks on the rock's face and jumped down the ravine. In its madness, the Zaruk didn't even try to stop its momentum and opened its mouth to swallow her whole. It only saw the abyss below when it was too late, its mouth coming dangerously close to her as It fell down, releasing one last howl filled with rancor and anger.

Suspended in the void, Lithoniel sighed seeing the dust raised in the black valley, thousands of feet below.

It was over, but at what cost?