Pain was a sharp, bright fire in his side. Karuk pushed himself upright, his back against the rough bark of the pine tree, and probed his ribs with trembling fingers. Nothing felt broken, but a deep, throbbing ache blossomed with every breath. A gash on his forearm wept blood, staining the hide wrapping. He was down. The impossible climb was over. But as he looked around, the true nature of his predicament solidified like ice in his gut.
He was in the underworld. The air down here was different—thicker, heavier, carrying a cocktail of alien scents: the crisp, clean smell of pine, undercut by the acrid tang of smoke, the metallic reek of blood, and a foul, musky odor he could not name. The sounds of battle were no longer a distant roar; they were intimate, immediate. The chittering barks and guttural snarls came from no more than a hundred paces away, punctuated by the sharp thwip of Elven arrows and the wet, tearing sounds of close-quarters combat.
You are in the territory of the Goblins, the Voice stated, its tone devoid of alarm, purely informational. They are numerous, but their sight is poor in the dark. Their strength is in the swarm. You must not be seen.
Karuk's heart hammered against his bruised ribs. He clutched his spear, the familiar weight of the flint point a small comfort. He had to move. Staying here was to wait for death.
Follow the sound of flowing water. The river is your path. It will mask your scent and your sound.
He could hear it now, beneath the cacophony of battle—a steady, rushing murmur to his left. Pushing away from the tree, he limped into the deeper darkness of the forest, moving from trunk to trunk, using the trees as shields. The moonlight that had guided his descent was fractured here, casting a chaotic pattern of light and shadow that played tricks on his eyes. Every shifting shape was a Goblin, every rustle of leaves an approaching enemy.
He moved in a low crouch, his breath held in his throat. The Voice guided him with simple, direct commands. Stop. Wait. Now, move quickly to the next tree. A fallen log ahead. Crawl over it.
He obeyed without question, his body operating on a primal instinct for survival. The forest floor was a treacherous carpet of roots and hidden holes. As he crept forward, the sounds of the nearby skirmish grew clearer. He heard a high-pitched Goblin shriek of triumph, cut short by the clean, musical tone of an Elven war-cry. A body, small and twisted, crashed through the undergrowth not twenty paces from him, landing in a heap, an Elven arrow protruding from its chest. Karuk froze, pressing himself into the hollow of a giant spruce, his hand clamped over his mouth to silence his breathing.
He waited, counting the frantic beats of his heart. The fight seemed to be moving away, the sounds receding slightly. He risked a glance around the tree.
The scene before him was a glimpse into a nightmare. In a small moonlit clearing, three Elves stood back-to-back, their movements a blur of impossible grace. Their bows were useless at this range; they fought with long, slender blades that gleamed with a cold, internal light, and with their magic. As a pack of a dozen Goblins swarmed them, one of the Elves gestured, and the very vines on the forest floor lashed out, entangling the creatures, holding them fast for the killing blows. Another Elf clapped his hands, and a concussive wave of air threw two Goblins backwards, their bones audibly snapping against a tree trunk.
They were beautiful and terrible to watch, the very forest itself their weapon. But for every Goblin they cut down, two more seemed to emerge from the shadows. They were small, wiry, with sallow greenish skin and large, luminous yellow eyes that glowed in the dark. They fought with a feral, mindless ferocity, armed with crude stone knives and jagged teeth.
Karuk knew he was witnessing a war between two peoples who had mastered this world, while his own tribe still struggled to knap flint. The feeling of his own insignificance was a physical weight.
Do not watch. Move. The river is close.
The Voice's command pulled him from his paralysis. He turned from the clearing and pushed on, the roar of the water growing louder with each step. He broke through a final line of bushes and there it was: a wide, fast-moving river, its surface churned to a frothy silver in the moonlight. The far bank was a dark, impenetrable wall of trees.
Cross it.
The water was liquid ice. The shock of it stole his breath as he waded in, the current immediately tugging at his legs, threatening to sweep him off his feet. He used his spear as a staff, probing the unseen bottom ahead of him. Halfway across, the water reached his chest, and the cold was a agony that seeped into his very marrow. He pushed on, his teeth chattering violently, his muscles burning with the effort of fighting the flow.
He stumbled onto the far bank, collapsing onto the gravel, shivering uncontrollably. He was across. He had put the river between himself and the immediate Goblin threat. But as he lay there, gasping and freezing, a new sound reached him, one that made the Goblin snarls seem almost friendly.
It was a slow, heavy, rhythmic crunch… crunch… crunch…
It was the sound of something massive, walking. Something that made the ground tremble with each step.
He lifted his head. Further down the riverbank, the trees were parting. Something was coming. Something that dwarfed the troll he had seen from the cliff. The crunch of its footsteps was accompanied by a low, grinding rumble, like boulders being ground together deep within the earth.
The Goblins and Elves on the far side of the river had fallen silent. Their petty war was forgotten in the face of this new, overwhelming presence.
Karuk scrambled backwards on his hands and knees, seeking the cover of the trees on this new bank, his heart frozen in a new kind of terror. He had escaped one danger only to find himself directly in the path of another. He had crossed the river, but he had not found safety. He had found something worse.