DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

Tyravasiel-Llir does not see the arrows coming, does not hear them singing through the air, sent by thrumming shortbows.

He barely feels the first one pierce through his shoulder before the second takes him high on the chest, just below his throat. A third flies past, but it is not needed: Ty is finished, and sinking to his knees as his blood runs.

At first he is bewildered.

Why has his breath seized in his lungs? Why this tremor, then sudden lassitude in his limbs, as if he had slept too long upon them and lost all feeling? As the mithril javelin and the wolf-spear of the Ulfheonar tumble from his grasp, Ty scrabbles feebly for them with fingers that no longer obey his will. Then his legs go out from under him, and the elf topples sideways into the brush and leaf litter.

And then there is pain. Terrible, pulsing pain-- but also briefer than Tyravasiel-Llir would have thought. Already his eyes have filled with tears, and made of the arrow-shaft in his chest a strange, impressionistic watercolor. Already his pulse is slowing, and his life's blood pools around him with a welcome warmth.

If he could make his throat work, the elf might laugh to think it will all end here. Here in this haggard forest, miles from even the squalid civilization of Hirot. At least, he thinks, at least he's cheated the women who have hemmed about the last chapters of his long life with their imperious and conflicting wills: the Three Sisters who drove him onward and the Lady of Flowers who gave him chase. They will not even find his bones.

Good. To hell with the lot of them.

Tyravasiel's breathing grows shallow and faint. His eyes-- wilder and greener than the woods around him will ever be-- dim.

EPILOGUE

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THE TOMB OF THE ULFHEONAR

Twilight comes to the now silent tomb, and it is not long before night mantles the mound and its surrounds. The waters flow and the guardian lies dormant again, unaware that the treasures it was summoned and bound to protect have now been plundered.

And near the slow-moving stream that passes by the broken flank of the mound there lies not a body, but a growth of wildflowers in the shape of one. Silvery moonlight, the kind that a certain priest would have sworn at, illuminates that faerie garden, those tiny cowslips and foxgloves, bluebells and impatiens.

Whether the fae hounds and hunters sent by the Mistress of the Ninth Blossom finally found their quarry, or whether they search still... only The Three Fates know.

And in the heart of the tomb, beneath all that earth and stone? A sound. Then another. A scrabbling, a scratching, a hiss of breath... or perhaps of death.

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THE VILLAGE OF HIROT

Hearts pound as the church bell rings, signaling everyone to batten shutters and lock doors, to hide children and secure weapons. The Hound comes, its awful baying sure sign of that. No heroes returned from the tomb to stand strong against the beast, but a relic has been found, the famed wolf-spear that the Haverson's inn is named for! A weapon that offers the doomed village a glimmer, if no more than that, of hope.

In the dark woods, the demon hound approaches, eyes blazing. Its desire to rend manflesh is feverish, for by now it had expected to have already bloodied its terrible muzzle. A man alone, crashing desperately in the woods is easy prey for the thing. Easy prey unless that man carries a certain lion-headed, gleaming shield of bronze. Proof against the fiery boil of chaos and entropy, that shield dissuaded the Hound, caused it to shrink back... and to turn for Hirot.

Hirot... where a bloody night awaits.

Fin!