Element wars; earth

Chapter 1

Turand rode expertly threw the forest; at breakneck speed for over an hour; face pressed so closely to Hiatha’s back that he saw nothing but her fur, smelled nothing but her fur. Hiatha avoided branches and vines with the ease that came from running through forest for years. Hiatha rode at a speed no horse could maintain, barely slowing even when, jumping over obstacles and wading across streams.
As they broke from the darkness of the forest into the small town of Neivar, Turand’s worst fears were confirmed. The normally peaceful village was swarming with people. A few of the rickety wooden houses were burning, but no one was making an effort to put them out.
Turand quickly accessed the situation. Soldiers dressed in dark uniforms roamed the streets, methodically entering every house and roughly forcing the occupants out into the open square which surrounded the well. A few villagers lay dead, probably the ones who tried to fight thought Turand analytically; his mind allowing no emotion to interfere.
The soldiers hadn’t yet noticed Turand standing along the edge of the clearing. He slowly backed into the forest trying successfully not to draw attention to himself. From there he weighed his options.
He could abandon the village and go back to his hut, but if these were the soldiers of the high king, as he suspected, they were looking for him and one of the villagers was bound to talk. He might be able to get back to Sevorin and run, but he couldn’t just leave the villagers to their deaths.
Quickly Turand picked a twig up from the ground; he said a few words and made a gesture over it. Then he turned to Hiatha through their connection to her mind he spoke to her telepathically “tell one of the squirrels to take this twig and give it to Sevorin” Hiatha had limited communication with other nature animals but was able to convey the message with a few movements and snorts.
A small brown squirrel came up to Turand and took the twig in its mouth, then set off at a run towards the hut.

Turand turned his attention back to the village and more importantly the soldiers. He carefully circled around the forest moving to the left coming ever nearer to the village square. The soldiers now stood in a circle around the group of villagers huddled on the ground. Now that he was closer Turand was able to see the emblem sewn on the chest of every soldier’s uniform.
The crest was formed of four swords lying across each other, each pointing to its left, to form a square; in the center of the square was a Corlithon. Corlithons were animals that had been created by the Combined Mages Guild, and were a perversion of magic - having been created by combining the sun, nature, water and air magic’s.
Corlithons had huge wings made of skin; the biggest of them had wingspans of nearly 50 feet, they could be used like flippers to propel them threw water as well as air. Their body was long and sinuous like a giant worm or a snake; it was said they could fold their wings in and burrow through in the earth at incredible speed. Like a dragon, their whole body was covered with multicolored scales that protected it from fire and most weapons.
The sun mages had also imbued the Corlithon with the ability to breathe fire, and like fire the Corlithon loved to destroy and consume anything that got in its path. The mages guild had only a limited capacity to control it; they often just pointed a group of them in the general of a castle or village that resisted them and everything in that area was quickly obliterated.
This crest confirmed Turand’s fear that these soldiers were from the Combined mages guild, and the only reason they would be here is if the guild had somehow found out that he was still alive and in this area.
He had to find a way to free save the villagers, but there was no way it could be done, unless he used himself as a distraction. His chances of survival if he did that would be almost none but what other choice did he have.
Stepping out of the woods to get a better view Turand’s began to whisper a spell; his hands moving rapidly.
Vines sprung up around the square, encircling the villagers and cutting them off from the soldiers; the vine twisted twirled about each other almost as if they were being woven together, in seconds there was a solid cage around the villagers. As the amazed soldiers watched the cage of vines began to grow larger until each vine was a thick as a man.
Then there came a shout from one of the soldiers, who had torn his eyes away from the vines and spotted Turand. Soon all the soldiers were running towards Turand. Pulling out swords and bows as they came.
Turand fell to the ground, having expended nearly all his energy in protecting the villagers. He dragged himself slowly towards the forest, but as the soldiers closed in he knew he wasn’t going to make it. Then out of the forest stepped Hiatha, she kneeled down beside Turand allowing him to grab onto her and pulled himself onto her back.
As Hiatha stood and ran into the forest arrows began to fall all around them. For a second Turand thought they were going to make it away then an arrow hit him in the back just below his neck, another hit his leg and he screamed out in pain. His screams mixed with Hiatha and for a second she stumbled and seemed ready to fall. She managed to recover her balance and was able to fight through her own pain and carry them out of the range of the soldiers.

Sevorin sat cross-leg on the ground staring at the garden, more specifically staring at each weed in turn. If he had been a sun mage he might have been able to burn the weeds to the ground one at a time, but as a nature he could not harm living things with his magic. He had tried to kill the weeds with magic once, Turand had warned him not, but he had tried anyway.
When he tried the magic wouldn’t come to him and after a few seconds he had felt a burning sensation inside of him, he hadn’t been able to perform magic till a week afterwards. Turand had told him if he had been an adult wizard he very well may have burned out his magic if he had tried that, or at very least would have gone months without being able to access his magic.
Instead he had to pull up every weed one at a time, wishing every moment that his magic could help him. Now though he wasn’t pulling the weeds, Turand had told him to practice using magic. As he stared at a specific weed it began to grow and twist together with the other weeds forming a long vine that pointed up towards the sky, slowly the vine began to fall under its own weight, and he twisted the end back around a lower point to form a large loop.
A squirrel jumped onto the vine causing him to lose concentration and the entire structure fell uncontrolled onto the ground, smashing quite a few tomato plants, he gave a guilty start as it fell, and looked around. Luckily Turand wasn’t back yet, he could clean it up; Turand would never know anything.
The squirrel jumped down of the mass of weeds and walked over to him it held a small twig in its mouth, it climbed into his lap and held the twig out towards his hand as if it wanted him to take the twig.
He reached out and gently to grabbed the twig; his instinct told him to be careful of being bitten, even though he knew all forest animals were friends to nature mages. As the twig touched his hand a voice issued forth from it, it took him a moment to recognize the voice of Turand, and before he could wonder how Turands voice was coming from a twig the voice grew louder, as if demanding his Attention.
Turands voice sounded hurried, and had an edge of desperation to it “Sevorin, the Mage Guilds soldiers are at Neivar, you must get out of here. Gather up what you can and head down river, when you reach the giant oak about a mile down wait for me. If I am not there in half a hour, then continue on I will try to meet up with you later if I can, if I am still alive” there was a pause, then “In the hut, move the cupboard and look under the floor boards, take what you find there. And use it wisely”
The voice went dead, the spell broken, leaving a dark, deathly silence. To quiet thought Sevorin, as if the animals knew that something was happening, or someone was coming. And if they made a noise they might be the next to die.
Sevorin quickly stood up and ran for the hut, normally he might believe that this was just another of Turands fantasies, but somehow the silence seemed so ominous that it was impossible not to believe that someone, or something was coming.

Sevorin quickly ransacked the hut stuffing a couple days’ provisions, rope, a lantern, clothing and a wool blanket into a pack before turning to the cupboard. He put his hands on the cupboard and gave it a shove.
To his surprise it slid easily along the floor, so easily that he nearly fell on the floor the cupboard had just vacated. Rikant quickly righted himself then, kneeling down and began testing the floorboards: knocking gently on top of each one and listening for the dull echo that would indicate that the floor underneath was hollow.
It took him only three tries before he found the hollow area under the floor, a few seconds of running his hand along the board revealed a small hole just large enough to stick him to stick his finger it, he gave the board a gentle pull, and a small section of floor rose so effortlessly from the ground it seemed to be floating.
Setting the boards aside he looked into the hole; it was only about a foot in all directions, and stuffed into it were numerous scrolls along with a small oddly shaped green rock, he quickly removed the scrolls and placed them gently into the pack.
The stone was like nothing Sevorin had ever seen. It was about an inch wide, an inch across and three inches long. The bottom was completely flat, the sides went strait up for about two inches before slowly coming to a point. The pyramid like top - as well as three sides and the bottom - was smooth. The forth side had numerous small notches cut into the top inch. Unsure what it did - but knowing he did not have much time - he stuck the rock into a small pocket in the pack.
Sevorin replaced the boards, making sure no part of the hole showed, and then slid the cupboard back over the hiding place. He glanced around the hut once more but saw nothing else to take with him; in his years with Turand he had not collected much of value.
As Sevorin left he looked over the small clearing with the hut sitting in the middle, probably, he thought to himself, for the last time in a long while (Unless as Sevorin had tried to convince himself, this had all been a figment of Turands imagination). To the outsider the hut looked like it was ready to collapse at any moment, and the vegetable garden didn’t look much better, with a huge mound of weeds in the center of if. But to Sevorin it was still home and now he was going out into the world, and might not have a place to call home for a long time.


The pack was fairly light compared to the vegetable laden packs he sometimes carried to Neivar, thought Sevorin as he cut through the forest to a lower bend in the river. The path he followed had originally been a deer path, but he and Turand had straitened - and widened - it out over the years.
Silence pervaded the forest making it seem somehow different from the one Sevorin had explored for all his life. As Sevorin ran down the small path, the only sound was that of his feet crushing sticks and leaves, the lack of animal sounds made the wood seem somehow dark and forbidding.
The sound of water rushing down a rocky slope greeted Sevorin as he left the woods. A valley had appeared out of the woods, cut out by the river; which had run through this land for thousands of years. He half slid, half ran down the steep pebble slope, to the riverbank which he followed until it opened up into a large pool.
There Sevorin stopped to get a drink from the river, and then stepped down into the water. The cool liquid came up to slightly above his knees, and he walked slowly to avoid tripping on unseen rocks, or holes. Sevorin believed it would be worth enduring the cool of the water, as it would mask his scent and cover his footsteps.
After walking down the river for about fifteen minutes, Sevorin was exhausted and soaked. He had begun to shiver, but hoped that the sun would warm him and the water up as the day went on. He had begun to recognize the area and knew the giant oak tree was close.
As he rounded a bend in the river, he spotted the tree. The Oak was enormous compared to the other trees; its bark was flaked and spotted with marks where it had fought off disease, fire or infestation. Its bottom was split wide enough to fit a person comfortably; Sevorin could imagine that animals often used it to shelter from storms. Now though someone else was using the hole for shelter.
Sevorin rushed to the oak and bent down over Turand’s bruised and bloody body, he felt for a pulse, still there. Turand lay face up his eyes closed; his breath came in sharp gasp like the air was too thick for him to take much of without choking. Sevorin knew there was no way to save Turand; he had seen animals die from wounds that were mild compared to these.
Two large gashes marred Turand one on his right shoulder, made by an arrow that had cut through muscle and then gone out the other side, another on his left leg that was caused by a glancing arrow, these Turand may have survived but there was a third. An arrow stuck point down into Turand just to the side of his heart, and even if it hadn’t punctured a lung Turand would soon die from internal bleeding.
Sevorin reached down and pulled out the arrow, which luckily was not barbed, his common sense told him that this was stupid and would only cause Turand to die faster. But in the back of his mind Sevorin still harbored hoped that Turand would manage to survive.
As Sevorin withdrew the arrow Turand moaned with pain, then slowly his eyes opened. Turand’s mouth started to move but all Sevorin could hear was a garbled jumble of soumnd. He leaned closer and was able to make out a little of what Turand gasped.
“Water” The voice was nothing like Turand’s normal strong slow voice, now it came weak and fast, as if it took all his strength just to move his mouth.
Taking a pouch from his pack Sevorin ran down to the stream and filled the pouch, as he turned back towards Turand, Sevorin noticed Hiatha crumpled on the side of the oak, wounds crisscrossed her body and arrows stuck from her like she was a pin cushion. He walked over to her body stroking the cold fur gently. She had given him a chance to talk to his teacher one last time. With a whispered “thank you” he walked back to Turand.