The orcs of Clan Yellowtusk swept into the forest from the north, attacking trees as if avenging some heinous crime perpetrated upon them by the inanimate plants. Axes chopped and fires flared to life, and the group, as ordered, made as much noise as they could.
On a hillside to the east, Dnark, Toogwik Tuk, and Ung-thol crouched and waited nervously, while Clan Karuck crept along the low ground behind them and to the south.
"This is too brazen," Ung-thol warned. "The elves will come out in force."
Dnark knew that his shaman's words were not without merit, for they'd encroached on the Moonwood, the home of a deadly clan of elves.
"We will be gone across the river before the main groups arrive," Toogwik Tuk replied. "Grguch and Hakuun have planned this carefully."
"We are exposed!" Ung-thol protested. "If we are seen here on open ground..."
"Their eyes will be to the north, to the flames that eat their beloved god-trees," said Toogwik Tuk.
"It is a gamble," Dnark interjected, calming both shamans.
"It is the way of the warrior," said Toogwik Tuk. "The way of the orc. It is something Obould Many-Arrows would have once done, but no more."
Truth resonated in those words to both Dnark and Ung-thol. The chieftain glanced down at the creeping warriors of Clan Karuck, many shrouded by branches they had attached to their dark armor and clothing. Further to the side, tight around the trees of a small copse, a band of ogre javelin throwers held still and quiet, atlatl throwing sticks in hand.
The day could bring disaster, a ruination of all of their plans to force Obould forward, Dnark knew. Or it could bring glory, which would then only push their plans all the more. In any event, a blow struck here would sound like the shredding of a treaty, and that, the chieftain thought, could only be a good thing.
He crouched back low in the grass and watched the scene unfolding before him. He wouldn't likely see the approach of the cunning elves, of course, but he would know of their arrival by the screams of Clan Yellowtusk's sacrificed forward warriors.
A moment later, and not so far to the north, one such cry of orc agony rent the air.
Dnark glanced down at Clan Karuck, who continued their methodical encirclement.
Innovindil could only shake her head in dismay to see the dark lines of smoke rising from the northern end of the Moonwood yet again. The orcs were nothing if not stubborn.
Her bow across her saddle before her, the elf brought Sunset up above the treetops, but kept the pegasus low. The forward scouts would engage the orcs before her arrival, no doubt, but she still hoped to get some shots in from above with the element of surprise working for her.
She banked the pegasus left, toward the river, thinking to come around the back of the orc mob so that she could better direct the battle to her companions on the ground. She went even lower as she broke clear of the thick tree line and eased Sunset's reins, letting the pegasus fly full out. The wind whipped through the elf's blond locks, her hair and cape flapping out behind her, her eyes tearing from the refreshingly chilly breeze. Her rhythm held perfect, posting smoothly with the rise and fall of her steed's powerful shoulders, her balance so centered and complete that she seemed an extension of the pegasus rather than a separate being. She let the fingers of one hand feel the fine design of her bow, while her other hand slipped down to brush the feathered fletching of the arrows set in a quiver on the side of her saddle. She rolled an arrow with her fingers, anticipating when she could let it fly for the face of an orc marauder.
Keeping the river on her left and the trees on her right, Innovindil cruised along. She came up on one hillock and had nearly flown over it by the time she noticed carefully camouflaged forms creeping along.
Orcs. South of the fires and the noise. South of the forward scouts.
The veteran elf warrior recognized an ambush when she saw one. A second group of orcs were set to swing against the rear flank of the Moonwood elves, which meant that the noisemakers and fire-starters in the north were nothing more than a diversion.
Innovindil did a quick scan of the forest beyond and the movement before her, and understood the danger. She took up the reins and banked Sunset hard to the right, flying over a copse of trees that left only a short open expanse to the forest proper. She focused on the greater forest ahead, trying to gauge the fight, the location of the orcs and of her people.
Still, the perceptive elf caught the movements around the trees below her, for she could hardly have missed the brutish behemoths scrambling in the leafless copse. They stood twice her height, with shoulders more than thrice her girth.
She saw them, and they saw her, and they rushed around below her, lifting heavy javelins on notched atlatls.
"Fly on, Sunset!" Innovindil cried, recognizing the danger even before one of the missiles soared her way. She pulled back the reins hard, angling her mount higher, and Sunset, understanding the danger, beat his wings with all his strength and speed.
A javelin cracked the air as it flew past, narrowly missing her, and Innovindil couldn't believe the power behind that throw.
She banked the pegasus left and right, not wanting to present an easy target or a predictable path. She and Sunset had to be at their best in the next few moments, and Innovindil steeled her gaze, ready to meet that challenge.
She couldn't know that she had been expected, and she was too busy dodging huge javelins to take note of the small flying serpent soaring along the treetops parallel to her.
Chieftain Grguch watched the darting and swerving pegasus with amusement and grudging respect. It quickly became clear to him that the ogres would not take the flying pair down, as his closest advisor had predicted. He turned to the prescient Hakuun then, his smile wide.
"This is why I keep you beside me," he said, though he doubted that the shaman, deep in the throes of casting a spell he had prepared precisely for that eventuality, even heard him.
The sight of a ridden pegasus over the previous battle with the elves had greatly angered Grguch, for he had thought on that occasion that his ambush had the raiding group fooled. The flyer had precipitated the elves' escape, Grguch believed, and so he had feared it would happen again - and worse, feared that an elf on high might discover the vulnerable Clan Karuck as well.
Hakuun had given him his answer, and that answer played out in full as the shaman lifted his arms skyward and shouted the last few words of his spell. The air before Hakuun's lips shuddered, a wave of shocking energy blaring forth, distorting images like a rolling ball of water or extreme heat rising from hot stone.
Hakuun's spell exploded around the dodging elf and pegasus, the air itself trembling and quaking in shock waves that buffeted and battered both rider and mount.
Hakuun turned a superior expression his beloved chieftain's way, as if to report simply, "Problem solved."
Innovindil didn't know what hit her, and perhaps more importantly, hit Sunset. They held motionless for a heartbeat, sudden, crackling gusts battering them from all sides. Then they were falling, dazed, but only for a short span before Sunset spread his wings and caught the updrafts.
But they were lower again, too near the ground, and with all momentum stolen. No skill, in rider or in mount, could counter that sudden reversal. Luck alone would get them through.
Sunset whinnied in pain and Innovindil felt a jolt behind her leg. She looked down to see a javelin buried deep in the pegasus's flank, bright blood dripping out on the great steed's white coat.
"Fly on!" Innovindil implored, for what choice did they have?
Another spear flew past, and another sent Sunset into a sudden turn as it shot up in front of them.
Innovindil hung on for all her life, knuckles whitening, legs clamping the flying horse's flanks. She wanted to reach back and pull out the javelin, which clearly dragged at the pegasus, but she couldn't risk it in that moment of frantic twisting and dodging.
The Moonwood rose up before her, dark and inviting, the place she had known as her home for centuries. If she could just get there, the clerics would tend to Sunset.
She got hit hard on the side and nearly thrown from her perch, unexpectedly buffeted by Sunset's right wing. It hit her again, and the horse dropped suddenly. A javelin had driven through the poor pegasus's wing, right at the joint.
Innovindil leaned forward, imploring the horse for his own sake and for hers, to fight through the pain.
She got hit again, harder.
Sunset managed to stop thrashing and extend his wings enough to catch the updraft and keep them moving along.
As they left the copse behind, Innovindil believed that they could make it, that her magnificent pegasus had enough determination and fortitude to get them through. She turned again to see to the javelin in Sunset's flank - or tried to.
For as Innovindil pivoted in her saddle, a fiery pain shot through her side, nearly taking her from consciousness. The elf somehow settled and turned just her head, and realized then that the last buffet she had taken hadn't been from Sunset's wing, for a dart of some unknown origin hung from her hip, and she could feel it pulsing with magical energy, beating like a heart and flushing painful acid into her side. The closer line of blood pouring down Sunset's flank was her own and not the pegasus's.
Her right leg had gone completely numb, and patches of blackness flitted about her field of vision.
"Fly on," she murmured to the pegasus, though she knew that every stroke of wings brought agony to her beloved equine friend. But they had to get over the forward elf line. Nothing else mattered.
Valiant Sunset rose up over the nearest trees of the Moonwood, and brave Innovindil called down to her people, who she knew to be moving through the trees. "Flee to the south and west," she begged in a voice growing weaker by the syllable. "Ambush! Trap!"
Sunset beat his wings again then whinnied in pain and jerked to the left. They couldn't hold. Somewhere in the back of her mind, in a place caught between consciousness and blackness, Innovindil knew the pegasus could not go on.
She thought that the way before them was clear, but suddenly a large tree loomed where before there had been only empty space. It made no sense to her. She didn't even begin to think that a wizard might be nearby, casting illusions to deceive her. She was only dimly aware as she and Sunset plowed into the tangle of the large tree, and she felt no real pain as she and the horse crashed in headlong, tumbling and twisting in a bone-crunching descent through the branches and to the ground. At one point she caught a curious sight indeed, though it hardly registered: a little, aged gnome with only slight tufts of white hair above his considerable ears and dressed in beautiful shimmering robes of purple and red sat on a branch, legs crossed at the ankles and rocking childlike back and forth, staring at her with an amused expression.
Delirium, the presage to death, she briefly thought. It had to be.
Sunset hit the ground first, in a twisted and broken heap, and Innovindil fell atop him, her face close to his.
She heard his last breath.
She died atop him.
Back on the hillside, the three orcs lost sight of the elf and her flying horse long before the crash, but they had witnessed the javelin strikes, and had cheered each.