"Let me go, Ra... Run, Kadar!"
He didn't even wait for his father's shocked voice. The vampire's eyes had put him on high alert - his body screamed for escape and he listened.
Mayiawiel was close behind him as he turned corner after corner, navigating the alleys to shake off the hunting vampire.
"To the main square! We'll lose them in the crowd!" Mayiawiel called after him.
Neither his legs nor his head found peace. He tried to organize his thoughts somehow. He roughly understood what he had just heard... but not really.
What was undeniable, however, was that his father feared for him. And if even Elanor was worried, no good could come his way. He had to leave, as soon as possible.
They reached the festival again and entered the main square. It was still in full swing... the elves ran past Kadar as he hurried toward the Mothertree.
They ran away?
His mind didn't even realize it. Then he saw and heard it before he could understand.
The music was gone, replaced by panicked screams.
He stopped abruptly, and Mayiawiel looked around in confusion as well. An elf bumped into Kadar, knocking him down and knocking his hood off. For a moment he panicked.
But no one paid him any attention. They ran away. Away from the main square, away from the Mothertree.
His eyes fell on the source of the chaos.
Kadar froze.
In the middle of the main square, under the mighty branches of the Mothertree, lay the body of the Archdruid Ivnel - or rather, it had been lying there. Now it stirred. An impossible, nightmarish sight that silenced every thought in Kadar's head.
The flowers that had adorned the druid's body fell from him like autumn leaves. His movements were slow and jerky, as if invisible strings were pulling him like a puppet. The elven spectators, who had been singing with joy, fled in fear, while others stared at him in horrified silence.
"The Archdruid?" Kadar murmured, his voice barely audible. His throat was dry.
The being - was it still Ivnel? It rose. His eyes were empty, dead, but glowing with an eerie, deep green light. His body was pale, like a corpse.
He should be a corpse. What was happening?
The air around the Archdruid flickered, and a distorted melody seemed to come from the void between his lips.
He seemed to be singing, but there was something terribly wrong with it. Not even Kadar could have mangled the Mothertree's melody so cruelly.
"What in the..." Mayiawiel whispered. Her voice trembled.
Suddenly, Ivnel - or what was left of him - raised a hand. The fingers curled, as if grasping some unseen force, and the ground shook. Vines shot up from the ground, but they were not the vibrant greens and browns of the forest, but pitch black, streaked with red veins that looked like poisonous wounds.
A tree at the edge of the square began to shake. Its branches twisted like living limbs, and slowly, agonizingly slowly, its canopy opened into a faceless maw that emitted an ominous sound. It was waking and then, it changed. The bark turned a deep black, rotting right before Kadar's eyes.
"Run!" someone shouted in the crowd, and then true chaos broke out.
The elves screamed and ran, knocking each other down as the dead trees reached out to catch them.
Kadar saw an elf being caught and lifted by a giant root. The man's scream was abruptly interrupted by a crunching sound.
An elven woman in front of him stumbled and fell to the ground. Her face was filled with terror as a root impaled her. Her pierced body lifted, her head fell back, and her mouth opened in a gruesome waterfall of blood.
Kadar and Mayiawiel stood rooted to the spot, their eyes fixed on Ivnel. The Archdruid, or what was left of him, stirred again. And he sang. He sang that terrible, twisted melody of the elves.
A shadow of his former self. And around him, the pitch-black trees danced like malevolent guardians.
The sight was a nightmare.
"Kadar," Mayiawiel whispered, her voice almost choked.
"What... what is this?"
Kadar could not answer. His mind was a whirlwind of fear and confusion. He is dead... or is he?
"Welcome to the first act of the Play of Doom."
Suddenly Kadar felt movement behind him. He turned - and looked directly into Radoslav's red eyes.
"And you are needed in the finale, human," the vampire said, his tone half mocking, half astonished.
His fangs glistened and a cruel smile spread across his face.
"May I ask you to come with me?"
He reached for Kadar, but Mayiawiel was quicker. She jumped between the vampire and Kadar, her arms spread protectively.
"Don't touch him!" she shouted, her voice shaking with determination.
The vampire stopped, his grin widening.
"Really?" he asked, a hint of amusement in his voice.
Then he pointed at the crowd with a casual motion.
"Look around you, little princess. Your people are dying. The end has begun. Evil is feasting on the soul of your beloved Archdruid, and you want to watch?"
Mayiawiel hesitated. Her eyes flickered, her resolve seemed to waver for a moment. Screams, all around her.
The green of the forest turned as red as the vampire's eyes.
For Kadar, the world seemed to stand still. Too much was happening at once, so his mind did the only thing it could do at the moment.
Act.
The elves were dying. The Archdruid was slaughtering everything around him. Finally, the first arrows flashed and the first Hymns of War were sung. But it was not enough. Dozens more of the ruined, black trees of murder came to life under the howling of the dead Archdruid.
Kadar was not strong enough to protect himself and the elves. And neither was Mayiawiel.
Therefore, he must not put her in this position.
"Mayia!" he called, his voice piercing.
"Don't worry about me! Help them!"
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and ran. His legs felt heavy, his breathing was short, but he ran. Behind him he heard Mayiawiel's voice calling to him, but he ignored it. His heart beat wildly in his chest, and the shouts of the crowd merged in his mind into an ominous chorus.
The black trees towered over the square like giants, and Kadar felt the shadows closing in on him.
But he couldn't stop. Not now.
A head rolled in front of him. Just a head.
'This is madness!'
He collided with a fleeing elf, and they both fell to the ground. Kadar tried to get up immediately, but the elf looked at him in horror.
"A human... you brought this disaster-"
The wailing elf was interrupted as a black root grabbed him by the throat - and crushed him like an unpleasant apple.
Kadar screamed and looked to the side. Death loomed right beside him. It had been an oak - or rather, it had been. Now the tree was a puppet of Death, black and rotten, the cracks in its deceased bark glowing a cursed red.
And though the tree had no face, Kadar knew it was staring at him.
"This is the end," he thought, as the root shot out at him like a poisonous claw.
Suddenly, Radoslav appeared in front of him and grabbed the roots. His hands ended in pointed, pale fingers. He hissed at Kadar before raising his arms and biting the roots. After a moment he spat out the pieces.
"Horrible!"
Kadar didn't know why the vampire had saved him, but he wasn't going to wait around to find out. He pulled himself to his feet and started running again. Radoslav was about to follow when more rotten vines shot out and grabbed him. The vampire snarled with his fangs.
Kadar didn't stop to watch the end of the fight, but he glanced back just before he left the main square. Mayiawiel had drawn her bow and was fighting the horror with a few other elf warriors. The Archdruid's corpse was still singing and dancing as his people died.
"Protect the Mother Tree!" Kadar heard someone cry out before a final scream sounded from the same direction.
Radoslav was gone - nowhere to be seen in the chaos. Nor was the black tree that had almost crushed him earlier.
This was Kadar's chance. He could use the confusion to escape from the capital. The thick of the forest was close; he could hide there and hopefully meet Elanor. His father would know what was happening. He could explain why a vampire was after him, why Ivnel was slaughtering his people.
Yes, that was a plan. A reasonable plan. A plan a wise man would follow.
But Kadar was Elanor's son, and sanity was not a legacy his father had left him.
Another tree, black and twisted, blocked his path. And not just his. For in the shadow of its dead branches, above the pile of corpses, two living elves lingered, at the mercy of the Unforgiving.
The mother and the little girl he had followed at the beginning of the festival. The girl who had innocently asked her mother why Ivnel could not return. Now he had returned, only to kill her.
She lay crying in her mother's arms. The woman, trembling and paralyzed with fear, held her child. Her head fell on her narrow shoulders and she began to sing - a faint, broken melody. It was not a song of return, but a sound of despair. A song of grief and fear.
The tragedy took place in a side street, under the hanging bridges that connected the treetops of the capital. The mighty Mothertree was close by, but her protection was not enough. In the shadow of its sacred trunk, something happened that no one could understand. Their own guardians, the trees, the forest, turned against their people.
The mother and the girl awaited death at the hands of the creature who had once claimed to be the Archdruid.
The house of the elves was massacred... The people were dying, but...
Were they his people too?
He stood motionless, the scene before him like a nightmare from which he could not wake. He could slip away now. The tree was distracted. He could turn around, find another way, a safer one. That would be wise. That would be right.
He didn't have to save them.
The elves never saved him. Why should he?
The elves hadn't... but his father had.
His father had saved him - a human, a child of the past. Elanor could have looked the other way. But he hadn't.
Kadar swallowed. His throat was dry, his heart pounding like thunder. He let the backpack slip from his shoulders and ripped it open.
'What a fool I am.'
His hands found the crossbow. With a jerk he pulled it out. The shaft felt heavy, colder than ever. He knelt, his fingers finding the string, and when he found it, he pulled.
The string cut deep into his skin. Blood gushed, dripping to the ground. He gritted his teeth. It didn't matter. The pain meant he was still alive.
'An elf had raised me. Protected me. Loved me. '
It had mattered to Elanor, too, that he was human. But he had been his son. And as the son of Elanor Caelith, former Seer of the House of Elves, he could not stand by and watch.
With bloody fingers, he finally cocked the crossbowstring.
'Let them hate me. I won't.'
The black tree was now in front of him, above the two crouching figures. Its branches twisted like hungry claws.
Kadar had nothing to load the crossbow with except the arrow Mayiawiel had let him pick up, broken in half.
He narrowed his eyes as he pulled out the broken arrow with one hand. The only one he had left.
He placed it in the slit and stood up.
He didn't know if he was human or elf, if he was anything at all in this damned world.
But he didn't want to be someone who let an innocent child die. His father had done the same, and without him he wouldn't be here today.
Kadar raised the crossbow, his eyes not on the monster, but on the rope of the massive suspension bridge made of tree trunks that hung above it.
'Perhaps I am neither human nor elf. But I am here.'
The broken arrow flew. It hissed through the air, a splinter against the darkness.
It hit the rope. The wood of the suspension bridge creaked, groaned - and snapped.
The suspension bridge fell, and then wood met wood.