#elanthia

“I,” the black bird said proudly, “am a phoenix.”

Terje looked at the bird for a long moment. “You don’t look like a phoenix,” he said at last. “You look like a crow.”

The bird’s scorched feathers ruffled up with indignation.

“A crow who set itself on fire,” Terje added, in the interest of full fairness, and held out another bit of rabbit to that sharp beak.

“And that’s how you can tell I’m a phoenix,” the bird said, muffled by swallowing. “A juvenile phoenix, I should have said. We look like this when we’re young.”

“If you say so.” Terje shrugged.

“I do!” the bird said. “I do say so, because it’s true! And when I reach the Ever-Burning Pyre in the great far-southern city on the edge of the Circle Sea, and I come alight with my full power, you’ll see that I’m not lying. Take me there, and you will have earned the friendship and loyalty of a phoenix.”

"Oh, I’m not going to do that,” Terje said. “They say it never snows that far south, even on the shortest days of the year. You’ll have to travel south alone.”

The bird’s head tilted, one beady eye studying Terje with interest. “I didn’t think dead men could be touched by heat. Or by cold. Or by hunger or by thirst, or by wood or by iron-”

“But I’m not a dead man,” Terje said, speaking over the bird’s litany. “Or I wouldn’t be wearing furs and sitting by a fire, and I wouldn’t have needed to hunt a hare to eat, and I wouldn’t have it to share it with a burnt crow.”

“Maybe,” the bird said. “But dead men can be banished by being burnt, and drowning the ashes. Which would also harm a living man, if you are one. And the people of the Tall Elk, who two months ago buried a dead man, know that he is no longer in his grave, and intend to do something about it.”

Terje froze halfway through tearing off another bit of rabbit-flesh from the bone. He looked over at the fire, burning brightly, smoking steadily, unhidden from prying eyes. He thought about the traps he’d left strewn through the forest, a clear path if one knew how to look to the sheltered places like this where he spent his nights. He finally managed to breathe, a shuddering inhale, and looked back at the bird.

“They’re at least two days away, by human speeds,” the bird said. “I ask you nothing for the warning. It’s a fair exchange for the rescue and the food.”

AMAs coming up! 🎤 I'll be on r/DragonRealms (May 20) + r/GemStoneIV (May 27) at 7 PM EDT to talk DragonRealms, GemStone IV, SimuCon, my new book Champions of Elanthia + more. Ask live or submit questions early! 📚

r/DragonRealms AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonrealms/comments/1km2gd9/hey_everyone_im_kevin_mcdonald_ama_about/

Chapter One

Lii'shi set her staff-sling against a nearby cypress tree and turned her face into the slight breeze, her ears pivoting independently towards sounds up and downwind.  Kneeling, she pressed her palm against the ground, extending her senses downward through soggy moss, feeling for any vibration that might lead her to prey.  

Young for a hunter among the Lun'Shele, the young Trekhalo had demonstrated skill at tracking game along the near impassable trails of M'riss and as such had been granted the title of hunter years younger than her siblings.  Even before some of her tribes up and coming males she had been given the ceremonial cloak adorned in falcon feather, her tribes chieftain had herself carved and carefully balanced a war club for her, and her mother had given her fathers prized walnut sling-staff.

She sniffed at the light wind, the soft fur that covered her face danced ever so slightly against the barely stirring air, something was...different. Different was bad.  Her kind was brought to adulthood with this understanding once the outsiders began to arrive on the rocky, mountainous island that had been solitary home to her kind and their game since before the first stories were told.

Now, when Lun'Shele Trekhalo hunters as herself stalked these mountainous trails for the meat and pelt of peccaries, caracals and leopard, they did so in silence, their fur streaked in mud to camouflage them from their prey and interloper alike.  With the coming of the outsiders and their ways came also their magics and their gods, and, soon after, their judgement that Lii'shi's kind were primitive, wayward and deserving of no right to these homelands.  But this was long ago, told down from Lii'Shi's forefathers, and their forefathers before.  Since, a way of life hidden among the marshes and vine-laden cypress kept a delicate balance between her people, the newcomers and the ample game they all sought here.

Shifting her weight backward to the rear pads of her paws, she reached into the tattered feather adorned pouch made for her by her mother, and gingerly fingered through the clumps of black molten rock she had collected to use in her sling.  Like many of her kind, her instincts were as sharp as her experiences, but in the face of something unknown, something...disturbing, it could be difficult to separate gut from senses.  The marshy bogs and treacherous paths had claimed many of her kind due to failings in either or both.

Her large eyes widened suddenly at crashing sounds behind her, movement in the brush.  Rolling to the side in a single fluid movement, she arose to her feet with staff-sling in hand, loaded with a rocky clump of volcanic glass and scanning for a target.  From within the dense underbrush, a small pack of peccaries emerged, huffing and snorting as they charged her way, steamy breath against upturned tusks.  

Rolling out of the thicket on short, powerful legs they came, 2 large and several smaller ones, bristly black hairs along thick bodies that narrowed to tiny narrow eyes and massive snouts.  Lii'Shi whispered a breathy prayer to the Maker of All Things and as trained, braced her stance against the onrushing group.

   She held in her air and snapped the staff-sling in a whip-like motion at the pack, the glittering ebony stone rocketing through the air with a slight whistle towards the largest of the charging creatures.

The closest of the peccary, a large male with one broken tusk took the hit.  The volcanic clump struck it on the bridge of it's snout with a loud crack, and it's eyes instantly went dull as it's legs folded beneath it, having lost all momentum and strength.  The struck creature crashed to the ground, sliding towards Lii'Shi with blood pouring through a massive gash across it's face and head and came to a stop motionless before her.

The other peccaries squealed in fright and broke, scattering each in different directions in sheer panic as Lii'Shi loaded another stone into her sling.  The creatures hurled themselves into the surrounding brush and vanished, a noisy trail of breaking sticks and branches trailing off into the distance.

The cypress bog was still, quiet now save for the laboring last breaths of the lead peccary that lay beside her.  She slung her staff-sling across her shoulder and knelt beside the dying creature, her eyes softening with empathy.

   This was the way of all things, this was the circle of birth, consumption, death and destruction that all who the Maker of All Things brought into being.  As such, Lii'Shi bore no malice to this honorable prey, it's pelt would clothe and warm her kind, it's meat would nourish them.  "Ti ama soo da rayneh beh," she whispered, soothing the beast.  Your end continues the circle.

The beasts breaths drew shallower as she looked into it's narrow black eyes, hoping to give it an end without fear.  But curiously, the beasts eyes did not gaze back at her, but beyond, into the brush from where it had emerged. A detail like this would escape the notice of no Lun'Shele Hunter, no Trekhalo and Lii'Shi's ears swiveled purposely, her nostrils flaring and all senses around her drawn inward in search of what frightened this beast.

Just then, the air grew still and hot, the forest became utterly silent save for a a slow rhythmic pulsing of the wind above.  Lii'Shi froze, her gaze tracking the outline of a massive shadow that suddenly covered the forest around her.  As she tried to lift her gaze to the sky a shattering roar breached the silence, and a brilliant red light engulfed the world around her.

She tried to scream a prayer to her maker, a warning to her tribe, but was silenced as a searing heat engulfed and consumed her.  Without pain, without knowledge, with no time to think of anyone or anything, the Lun'Shele hunter turned instantly from blistering skin to powdery ash as the world around her exploded in flames. 

  Clumps of volcanic rock fell, as melted already as they ever could be, from what was once the pouch her mother made her to the now scorched and blackened ground, rolling to individual stops to stare reflectively at empty sky.   Where the young Lun'shele stood just a heartbeats moment ago, a shadow of black ash remained.  It crumbled in a brief and slight gust of breeze, tumbling to ashen dust against a now barren and burnt plain.

Yes, I am :3