The Woodsman: Chapter Six

His eye caught the movement right before his lips met hers. A tree branch does not move on its own.

She gasped as he shoved her against the tree trunk and leaped to his feet. The first spider jumped onto the shore and hissed. He put his boot on the log and shoved, rolling it over and sending the other three spiders into the same river which nearly claimed her. They hissed and thrashed as they were washed away into the black water.

The giant log floated after them, rolling over, crushing one, and trapping the other two underneath to drown as the fallen tree was swept down the river.

Strong spider legs cut through the air toward his bare chest, and he fell backward, rolling over and grabbing a large rock. The last spider hissed, and his eyes darted toward the fire. Ophelia pressed herself against the trunk, eyes wide with fear.

The spider’s fangs dripped venom, and the beast snapped at him twice, using its fangs to try to lure him into the spider’s spear-like front legs. Each time he jumped back, using the rock to deflect the sharp swipes of spider-leg.

He raised the rock over his head and threw it at the beast, which bounced off the spider’s hard shell. It shook its head, stared at him with its hundred eyes, and hissed.

He snarled. “Haven’t I killed enough of you?”

The spider charged him, and he backpedaled between two trees, narrow enough to catch the beast between them. His back hit a tree behind him, and the giant spider snapped at his face, the venomous fangs coming within inches of his jaw.

He motioned to the right, and the beast went right as well. He did the same for the left, and the beast did the same. Right or left, he was dinner to the creature.

He grabbed a branch above his head and kicked the beast in the face with both feet, sending the spider backward. It hissed and thrashed, sending debris everywhere as its legs righted themselves. The spider turned towards the fire and Ophelia.

The beast dashed her, and he realized he could not make it to her in time.

In Ophelia’s hand was charcoal from the fire, and her eyes turned into a solid glow of light. She tossed the charcoal at the charging spider into the beast’s many eyes.

But instead of blinding the eight-legged devil, a jet of orange-white flame erupted from her hand like a fire thrower. He could feel the heat from here.

The spider ran face-first into the white-hot jet of flame and was engulfed.

The beast ignited and screamed a loud squeal. It hurt his ears and thrashed about in a death throe as her hand poured fire forth in a searing hot stream of death. Bushes, grass, and small trees behind the burning spider were set on fire, and a column of steam rose from the water where the fire impacted. The water, as it rolled away, was boiling.

It hurt his eyes to look at the flame.

And the spider gave a last thrash of life and died in a pile of ashes, its legs wholly burned away, its carcass burned open like the remains of a smoldering skull.

The flame from her hand stopped, and she collapsed onto the ground.

The fires beside the river flickered and burned.

He ran to her, fearing she was dead.

She was breathing, and he held her in his arms. He cried and rocked her against his body, stroking her hair as she lay in his arms.

“You are far too weak to be casting magic! My Lady, do not do that again!”

The pendant on her chest glowed a soft glow.

He grabbed the pendant in his hand, and the sensation burned. Still, he held it tight.

“Listen to me, Goddess! Do not let your magic take her from me! I have given you everything I have! What more do you want from me? Do you want my life for hers? Then it is yours!”

He let go of the pendant.

Still, his hand burned.

He cried, stroked her unconscious face, and kissed her forehead softly.

“I love you, I have no idea who you are, but I love you like I would love the trees or the rain, the mountains or the spring showers; I would love you as much as I love life. I would love you until my final breath on this world.”

Her eyes opened to narrow slits, a tear running down her cheek.

He wiped it away.

She was alive.

“Don’t cry; elves don’t cry.”

She smiled.

“I thought I lost you.”

She nodded, her voice barely a whisper. “He had it coming.”

He smiled, the wrinkles beside his eyes deepening. “You are an extraordinary woman, Ophelia Kya Leigh.”

She whispered through a soft laugh. “You get my name so wrong, woodsman.”

He nodded and held her head against his chest, holding her close to the fire to keep them both warm. He stared at the dying fires beside the river where the spider died. A strange piece of glowing glass distracted his eye as the smoke swirled and wisped around the smoldering embers.

It was the rock he had thrown at the beast.

She had melted it.

He wrapped her tight and picked her up, kicking dirt over the fire, and her spell had left behind what was left of the molten area. He needed to get her back to camp.

“As much as I enjoy staring at you in a state of undress, Milady, I should return you to camp so you may dress and be warm. And I apologize for looking at you, but it was necessary.”

She rested her face upon his shoulder and smiled, her voice sweet and soft in his ear. “I don’t mind. I enjoy you seeing me undressed.”

He felt his face flush as he blushed, something he never does. He cleared his throat as he carried her down the riverbank’s side, careful not to tangle her bare feet in the passing branches.

“Ophelia, such behavior is not ladylike, you know. No proper woman-”

“Do you consider me proper, woodsman?”

“I do not know you that well, Milady.”

“What if I wished you to know me? Fully and with nothing between? You did profess your love.”

He smiled.

“I suppose I did. And I am a man of my word. Do you love me?”

She nodded and kept her head on his shoulder.

He walked alongside the river, moving from rock to rock in a part where the thickets grew deep, and walking through the woods meant he would constantly be pushing through them with her. Some of those thickets were the ones he ran through at full speed, and the cuts he had dressed still burned from the lashing he took.

“Loving you, woodsman would mean hurting you.”

He nodded. “You mean making my life more difficult? I know your kind are not welcome in my homelands, but I could keep you far away from any who would know if that were what you wish. I can return to my old life and sell trees to the lumberyard, trap, and skin. It is good money.”

She sighed.

“I know the lands,” she said, “and you come here from across the sea. You would have to spirit me away on a ship full of the Queen’s Men and her navy to take me to where you come from. And that sort of agreement with a ship’s captain is not easy. If I go aboard that boat, I go straight to the Queen as a prisoner.”

She was correct; he didn’t know the captains well or the admiral of the expedition’s fleet. There are very few places aboard a ship anyone could stow away, and he could never think she should hide amongst cargo in the cold with the vermin and darkness.

“We could plead our case; she is a good queen and-“

“I would be the seventh dark elf to defect,” she sighed. “Our spies said they never leave the Queen’s castle. They are too valuable ever to let go. The dark elven language and runic magic are tens of thousands of years old and are difficult to translate. And even then, I would be held in confinement until they were sure I wasn’t a spy myself sent to kill the others.”

“You would be old and dead before they let me out.”

He blinked. “Have they ever sent an assassin?”

She nodded. “Two. One is still held, and the other escaped from what I heard. Still out there and looking for a way to finish the job.”

He nodded. He never knew. No wonder the Queen’s castle seemed so well guarded, and all the royal events were watched with heavy security.

“Would this assassin strike the Queen, or was the killer sent for other dark elves?”

She groaned.

“Dark elves only, and I would be one.”

He growled.

“Then let the bastard come through me.”

He returned to the side of the river when the rocks stopped being the most straightforward path and worked them closer to the camp. They should be there very soon, given what he remembered. He had chased her down nearly a mile of river and knew he would have chased her to the end of the world if he had to.

She jerked in his arms and sat up straight.

“Stop!” she whispered.

Instinctively, he ducked behind a tree with her and set her on the ground. She kneeled and held onto the trunk for support.

“What? What is it?”

Her violet eyes peered around the tree towards the camp. She reached back, grabbed him by the hair, and barely pulled his head around the edge of the tree.

The camp sat just forty paces ahead. The fire was still lit, though it had diminished. The cart and horse were still there. He didn’t see-

Dark, shadowlike figures wandered around the camp.

The dark elves were there.