The First Story - High Elf - (2)
Silence descended.
Narinhoon, the orcs, Arin still bleeding, and Rahan—all of them fixed their gazes on Vesta’s blade.
It blazed. No, it emitted flame of its own.
**Spirit Arts.**
One orc exhaled a sigh close to despair. The words were unthinkable, yet none dared contradict him.
**A human wielding Spirit Arts.**
The sigh spread like wildfire, igniting waves of doubt and shock.
Narinhoon alone remained silent.
The fire had held him in thrall for a single moment, loosening his guard.
Fire had been the primal terror of beasts for millennia. For orcs as well—illuminating the night that belonged to predators, both light and punishment.
What made it truly frightening was the way it danced with beauty, beckoning, drawing one toward joy-filled death.
Vesta raised his blade and took his stance. Narinhoon nearly retreated, then forced his lips upward.
**I admire you.**
Vesta did not understand.
**I will kill you and adorn your ear with my necklace.**
The remark was bitterly ironic.
Narinhoon was, after all, delivering the highest praise an orc could offer.
**If you ask why I proudly wear human ears on my own, I wear the ears of a warrior. That I promise.**
Narinhoon shouted, excitement rising.
**Now, let us fight.**
Pointing at Narinhoon with the flames clinging to his sword, Vesta declared, “I detest losing. Let us settle this.”
Narinhoon lunged low, almost on all fours, body shooting forward like a hunting dog.
*Ka-ha!*
The blade flashed. Even through his parched, dry eyes from the fire, Vesta traced the trajectory.
*Whoosh—*
Flames clung, consuming the air. Vesta’s sword clashed with Narinhoon’s.
*Um!*
Flames surged, searing the orc’s flesh. The phenomenon was impossible, yet the pain was brutally real.
Vesta seemed to grasp how to wield the fire. He advanced while parrying, driving his body forward.
*Whoosh—*
The flames followed his intent. They detonated against Narinhoon’s chest with a *Puk!*
*Wrrroooorr—*
Narinhoon’s face twisted. The agony was so intense that every muscle in his body momentarily lost control. Had he not been armored, his flesh would have fused to the ground.
**I survived the elf’s Spirit Arrow.**
*Even this isn’t enough to kill me.*
Narinhoon ground out through gritted teeth, then swung his blazing sword at Vesta’s while they locked blades.
*Clang!*
Vesta did not retreat.
**What sorcery did you cast?**
A human wielding Spirit Arts. Something unheard of.
**Especially fire.**
Most elf Spirit Arts proved useless in combat.
They could read the wind when shooting arrows for minor aid, but never summon storms or lightning.
And just as one could not forge steel into a sword with mere fire and iron, so too could elves not wield Spirit Arts as weapons without an appropriate medium.
**Is that even possible for a human?**
“Shut up.”
Flames erupted from Vesta’s blade. Had Narinhoon not dodged in haste, he would have been seared.
At the cost of his calf’s flesh melting away.
Vesta watched that leg closely. The one that reacted late. While facing Narinhoon, he naturally adjusted his own stance.
**Got you.**
He stomped on the orc’s foot. Narinhoon grinned.
**Yes! You stepped on it!**
Vesta’s flaming sword slashed diagonally across the orc’s torso. Narinhoon dropped to the ground like a crawling dog.
What he stared at was Vesta’s thigh. The orc’s gaping mouth aimed for the flesh.
**Hmm.**
Vesta admired the orc’s fighting style.
He raised his knee, altering the sword’s trajectory.
He brought the hilt down while thrusting his knee upward, intending to shatter Narinhoon’s skull.
*Chew on this. I’m going to kill you.*
But Vesta failed.
The instant he lifted his knee.
*Peep—*
An arrow flew straight at him.
“…!”
Vesta twisted unnaturally.
In that moment, Narinhoon reached out.
*Thud.*
**Why… could you not hold back?**
Narinhoon muttered while an arrow protruded from his arm.
Neither Vesta nor Narinhoon achieved their desired outcome.
**So should I have let you die?**
The archer spoke up.
**There is no more time. Step aside.**
**Shut your mouth.**
**If the Golden One arrives, will you grab him? After putting in all this effort for just a brat?**
Narinhoon laughed mockingly.
**What exactly do you want? Are you so desperate to die?**
**This is the first time I’ve truly lived. Yeah. Time’s up, though.**
Narinhoon backed away.
Vesta could not fathom the psychology of an archer who had just taken an arrow meant for him.
Narinhoon met Vesta’s gaze directly, voice laced with blood.
**It’s a pity, but the world doesn’t wait for us. We can only kill each other.**
Narinhoon raised his sword. Vesta saw his intent.
He gripped the handle with both hands, straining to add power. He felt the flames flicker.
He was weakening.
Vesta advanced.
Narinhoon charged, not leaped.
**Come with killing intent.**
No hesitation, he swung wildly.
*Kaboom!*
Sparks scattered like shrapnel.
Vesta’s blade split Narinhoon’s upper body.
No blood sprayed. The sharp line severed flesh cleanly, fusing it shut.
**Narinhoon!**
The archer shouted. Narinhoon heard nothing. His mangled body collapsed to the ground.
The archer notched an arrow. Vesta swung his sword wide.
*Whoosh.* The archer missed the young bull’s target in the wall of flame.
But.
There was no eternal flame. Vesta knew it.
The fire was weakening.
Only the blade grew hot; it could no longer generate flames.
The archer raised her bow with solemn dignity.
**You lost a precious brother.**
She looked at Vesta.
**By killing him, you saved every human and spirit of the prairie. I acknowledge that.**
**- You will be sung as a song.**
Arrows rained down.
Vesta rolled across the ground with difficulty, snatched up the fallen bow, and aimed.
He needed an arrow.
*Huff.*
Vesta chuckled in disbelief.
He possessed only one arrow.
The bow pointed skyward.
*
Khan and Asmur rode their horses with rough urgency.
Asmur said nothing, staring straight ahead with madness in her eyes.
Khan bit her lip, feeling the fading heat of the blade from afar.
**Too far. It’s impossibly distant.**
Even the girl who could shoot from anywhere in sight could not fell an invisible enemy.
Khan touched the ear pendant and thought.
If only they could mark a location at least.
*Beep…*
Her eyes widened.
*Beep… beep… beep…*
Asmur turned her head at the sound.
It was familiar.
For her, even more so.
The sound of the whistling arrow she herself wielded.
“…I see.”
Khan roughly tore at her ear pendant. Red drops fell. The metal attached to the arrowhead gleamed blood-red.
She placed the arrowhead directly on the bowstring. There was no arrowhead to speak of.
She closed her eyes atop her galloping horse.
She could see no target.
She could not make the unseen visible. She lacked such skill.
*Beep… beep… beep…*
She chased the thin sound. And she believed in the faint warmth still at her waist.
Khan’s hair whipped savagely in the wind.
*Thong.*
The wind roared up.
*
Vesta felt wind blowing from far away.
It was wild,
yet warm at the same time. The young man lowered his body, sensing the immense power.
The wind struck.
*Par-ang!*
It struck like lightning, whirling fiercely from inside to outside.
The orc’s wrist snapped. His head burst, his neck pierced, and his skull was severed.
Blood from the horses that fell together soaked the earth.
**God’s Arrow.**
Someone murmured.
A blood wind howled.
Screams and laments could not escape the gale and were swallowed.
The orcs belatedly lowered their bodies.
Every orc bowed their heads; none dared rise.
The orcs chanted a prayer.
Until the wind ceased.
And even after it stopped, for a long while.
**We must flee. The Spirit Princess is coming.**
**Khan is coming. Khan is coming.**
**- The Arrow Princess will kill us all.**
The orcs began to scatter.
Only the archer looked back.
A youth gasping for breath with his body lowered.
**If I don’t kill that brat and take him, how many orcs will he kill? Right now. My hand is the only one that can pull him out.**
But he knew Vesta had not yet knelt.
Unfaltering eyes and an unbroken body. The boy looked ready to fight.
The archer glared at Vesta, then turned her back.
Vesta stared blankly at that back.
He lacked the strength to chase or the ability to hit with an arrow.
Vesta simply breathed heavily atop the battlefield scorched by flames and storm, alone.
Until the shadows lengthened.
**Khan.**
Vesta spoke to the shadow. He was not certain it was Khan’s.
Yet the shadow could only mean Khan or something that had come to kill him. In the end, Khan would surely hold the funeral.
He called out to Ashtien.
**Magnificent. You’ve changed everything.**
She had. Khan approached.
Vesta said,
“I’m fine. The orcs who fled… rather than me…”
“Don’t worry.”
**- The Wilderness’s No. 1 spear master went after them.**
*
The archer who had led the fleeing orc band halted.
A woman appeared. She held a young boy in her arms.
The arrow in the boy’s thigh had been trimmed short to avoid reopening the wound, and his thigh was bandaged with cloth to staunch the blood.
The archer felt no guilt at the sight.
Yet she regretted it deeply.
**Silence.**
It was because she faced the woman’s gleaming eyes, tears and despair, and cold, shattered anger.
Her face resembled that of a mother who had nearly lost her child.
She held the boy with one hand, and gripped a long spear with the other.
The archer and the orcs she led drew their weapons.
Asmur, the woman known as Silence, opened her mouth before the orcs.
**I will prevent your corpses from being torn apart by dogs. I will tear you into pieces and scatter you across the earth, letting you rot as is.**
Asmur spoke those words.
And she kept them.
The first story of the High Elf has begun. The nomads of the Prairie now stand upon the threshold of ancient glory, where human and spirit blood intertwine in the wild wind.