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Description
"I-is someone… is someone… there?" he asked.

Cursing herself, she stayed where she was, her knuckles growing paler as she waited for the end she knew was coming.

"Hello? Any-anyone?"

Confused, she relaxed her muscles. After a moment, she dared another peek. The figure had stopped, but he showed no indication that he knew she was there. His back was turned to her, his head lifted to the trees around him. Slowly, he pivoted, moving his gaze back and forth, and when his head turned in her direction, she could see the fear in his eyes even through the wispy air.

His head fell. "Lovely. Now I'm hearing things."

She broadened her peephole as marginally as she could to get a better look at him. He appeared to be around her age, though perhaps a bit taller. The tangled strands of his light brown hair were about the size of an index finger, and his clothes, a plain, white shirt tucked into brown pants, were tattered and covered in dirt. Yet the sword in his hand was remarkably silver and polished, almost seeming to glow through the mist, and the scabbard at his belt was patterned with striking scarlet and navy designs.

How did he get here? No Outsider had ever stepped into this forest, unless he or she was exiled. But even in that case, the people who were brought here and cast into the river that would carry them into the heart of the woods were always infants or young children. Furthermore, the Spirit that presided over the village usually foresaw when someone was abandoned, and she would've told the villagers so they could send a party to find the new Outcast. But as far as Zelda knew before she left for patrol, the Spirit hadn't made any predictions. In fact, from what she'd been told, the last person to be found caught at a river bank was an infant barely a year old, found thirteen years ago – her. All of the children younger than her had been born inside the village.

And yet, no Outsider had ever discovered the village or any of its vicinities since it was first established. Outsiders feared this eternally fogbound forest – village legends held that they believed the forest was tainted by evil spirits. For that reason, they disposed of the people cast out of their kingdom here, where the spirits supposedly would claim them as sacrifices. So why would an Outsider be wandering here?

Zelda was at a loss for what to do. This had never happened before in village history – she wasn't sure if there was even a law stating what to do with Outsiders who found the village. But there was no way this boy could be the source of the tension she'd felt, which had started to fade. He seemed harmless enough, even with his sword – he was just a teenager, not so different from the ones who inhabited her village: Bentelon, Tesser, Kalam… No. She clenched her teeth at the sound of Kalam's name – he was far from harmless.

Still, this Outsider had eyes and a mouth, and there was the potential threat that he might reveal the existence of a village of Outcasts, should he find it. The most logical course of action would be to eliminate the threat before it happened. It would take no effort on her part – her arrow would pierce his back before he even recognized the twang of the bowstring. Young though she was, Zelda was well-known among the villagers as one of their best archers – the fastest shot and one of the most accurate. But killing an innocent was a prospect abhorred by her people, who had been left for dead solely on the basis of their appearance. Taking him prisoner wouldn't work, either – it would be too much of a risk to lead someone who made so much noise back to the village for interrogation.

But could she just let him go with the unpromising hope that he might miss the village altogether and find a way out on his own? There were monsters prowling somewhere under this canopy, and even a sword was no guaranteed protection.

She stayed hidden, her eyes searching every inch of his body. Who was he – what¬ was he? From what she could see, he was nothing remarkable – just another human like her, like every person in her village. Yet his world, the kingdom stretching somewhere outside this forest, the kingdom she had only seen when she was too young to remember – his world saw him as more.

Her eyes fell to the locks of wavy blue hair that fell over her shoulder, the one trait that had branded her an Outcast, an aberration, a curse to humanity. If hair alone were the reason someone was exiled, there wouldn't be a village here, but rather a fingers' count of lost people with little hope of surviving. Yet there were over sixty Outcasts living in the village, most of whom were united by the fact that there was something deemed abnormal about their appearances. What was his secret – where in his features was the standard that made him desirable? What was it that made him so… so normal, while her people were so horrifyingly different that they had to die or be sacrificed, that they were forced to live a life hemmed by trees and mist?

The boy crossed out of view, his posture still tensed, his walk hesitant. Zelda stayed hidden, her hands finally lowering from the peephole, the leaves she released sealing it up. She still wasn't sure what she wanted to do, what she was supposed to do. But somehow, just letting him wander lost through the forest didn't feel right. It wasn't his territory – but more than that, the impending threat had yet to reveal itself.

Once she was certain his bootfalls had carried him far enough ahead, she rose from the brush as silently as the abundant brambles and leaves would allow and crept behind the nearest tree. With every few steps he took, she crept from behind one trunk to another further up, taking care to keep some distance between them so he wouldn't sense her presence – if he could sense her to begin with. The rumor was that Outsiders no longer communed with nature the way her people did and had long lost their intuitive senses.

Zelda leaned closer to the tree she stood behind, placing her hands upon the bark – and alarm speared her senses. She wasn't as strong at reading trees as some of her fellow villagers, but even she could feel the throbbing tension in the bark. Whatever it was, it was close.

"Pyron's sword," she heard the boy grumble under his breath, "how far do these woods–"

A yell broke his speech. Zelda's hands clenched against the bark as she watched the boy back up a step, holding his sword out in front of him. The tree's pulse thickened, and now she could sense it, too – predator's malice. Moments later, a thick glob of milky white shot out from somewhere she couldn't see, smacking the boy's sword and knocking it to the ground. He stared at the discarded weapon, now useless under the trappings of the web, and turned to run. Reflexively, Zelda pressed closer to the tree, hoping he wouldn't see her in his haste to escape. But before he could get far, another strand of web discharged, slamming him in the back so hard he stumbled and skidded as he collapsed.

Zelda nocked an arrow to her bow and applied some pressure to the string, but she kept the weapon lowered, fixing her eyes on the treeline behind the boy who was struggling to sit up. Her fears were confirmed when a pair of legs, sticklike but bent and lined with thin hair, emerged from the shadows, followed by the body of a massive spider. The brown hair covering its body belied a nearly impenetrable exoskeleton, and sickle-shaped chelicerae, a darker shade of brown than the rest of its hair-lined body, clicked feverishly as the aredulat crawled over the soil. The boy was in a sitting position, but when he turned and saw the predator close in on him, he could only gasp and scurry backward on his hands and legs.

Seeing how feeble his escape attempt was, Zelda drew the arrow back and raised her bow. She had a clear shot at any of the minuscule weak points on the monster's armored body – the black, dot-like eyes or the space between the wriggling fangs. The aredulat was practically on top of the boy – if she wanted him to escape unscathed, she'd have to act now.

But as much as her fingers wanted to let go, something held her back. Why? If the attacker had been a wolf or a leopard, she would have understood. But this monster's mind was nothing like an animal's – she couldn't read it at all, and there was no way she'd be able to breach it. So why wouldn't she shoot?

The aredulat reared and pinned its front legs against the boy's shoulders, shoving him to the ground with its weight. He grasped the legs and struggled to roll away, but even if he could lift the vice, the web on his back would anchor him to the ground. The creature lowered its body, the chelicerae extending like long-nailed fingers from a fist. Even from her distance, Zelda could see the sharp, black tips at the ends, the barbs that sank toward the exposed flesh of the boy's collar line.

Something gave within her, and she took aim at one of the aredulat's eyes and fired. The creature hissed when the arrowhead sank into its mark, a sound so eerie and unnatural for a spider that it made her skin crawl. The creature backed away, but the boy lay unmoving.

Was she too late?

Her chest tightening with anger, she seized another arrow from her quiver and fired it at the soft spot between the chelicerae. The creature hissed again, and this time, it turned in her direction. She moved far enough out from behind the tree to catch its attention, but shot back into hiding when the aredulat raised its hind end to spray a strand of web at her. When she heard the sound of legs thudding against the soil, she nocked another arrow, stepped out from behind the tree to aim, and fired again. The arrow speared the soft mouthpart, landing right next to the shaft launched before it. With three arrows protruding from its body, the spider began to stagger. It raised its abdomen for another shot at her, but she was quicker to the draw – her next arrow skewered the opened glands.

The hiss that emerged this time was shrill but stuttering. Dangling the bow across her body again, she drew the sword from her scabbard and rushed for the wobbling spider. Yanking the two arrows from its mouth, she thrust her blade through the opening, driving it as deep as it would go until only a hand's breadth of silver stood between the hilt and the brown body. The creature shrieked and writhed in her grasp, and she let go of the sword, backing away to wait for the death throes to cease.

At last, the aredulat's agony ended, and it collapsed on its side with its legs tugged inward. She waited, watching and listening for any sign of life. Once she was satisfied that it was dead, she approached the carcass. In hind sight, she had expected it to be bigger – most of the tales spoke of aredulath that could grow as tall as a human child standing on an adult's shoulders, but this one didn't even seem to be half that height. She would have to make note of where the body was so she could lead the villagers to it – they might be able to salvage the venom and some of the body parts for future use. Bracing her boot against its head, she struggled with the hilt of her sword until she managed to free it from the creature's mouth. The blade was covered in yellow and greenish-gray, and she dropped to the grass to wipe it clean.

The sound of sliding metal that emerged when she sheathed her sword reminded her of the boy who had been attacked. She ran around the aredulat's carcass to kneel beside the unconscious teen, noticing two dots of blood where the fangs had nicked his skin. The wounds didn't look too deep. She placed a hand on his chest and felt his heart throb against her palm, heat rising through his shirt.

Rolling him as far over on his side as he would go before his shirt snagged against the ground, she poured water from her flask over the fabric, letting it seep through to the webs twined underneath it. She knew why she'd hesitated, and she was ashamed of it. Outsider or not, she'd forgotten that he was still a human like her, soft-fleshed and vulnerable to monster predation.

She still didn't know what to do with him, or how her people would react if they discovered she'd rescued an Outsider. The last thing she needed was for him to wake up and see her, but now that she'd seen a real aredulat, she couldn't just leave him here, either. Finally, she sought out his trapped sword and used all but a thin layer of her remaining water to free it. She would have to leave him eventually, after all – what point was there in letting her effort go to waste if he was attacked again with no protection?

After sliding the blade back into his scabbard, she studied him, trying to think of the best way to move him. She hated the thought of the noise and trail she'd be leaving in their wake, but the thought of leaving him here was much worse. If there was one aredulat in the forest, there would undoubtedly be more, and she wouldn't want to be here when they picked up the scent of their slain kin. She slid her arms under his shoulders and lifted him as high off the ground as she could manage, grateful that he wasn't overly heavy or tall for his age. His boots skidded along the ground as she dragged him away.

Description
"I-is someone… is someone… there?" he asked.

Cursing herself, she stayed where she was, her knuckles growing paler as she waited for the end she knew was coming.

"Hello? Any-anyone?"

Confused, she relaxed her muscles. After a moment, she dared another peek. The figure had stopped, but he showed no indication that he knew she was there. His back was turned to her, his head lifted to the trees around him. Slowly, he pivoted, moving his gaze back and forth, and when his head turned in her direction, she could see the fear in his eyes even through the wispy air.

His head fell. "Lovely. Now I'm hearing things."

She broadened her peephole as marginally as she could to get a better look at him. He appeared to be around her age, though perhaps a bit taller. The tangled strands of his light brown hair were about the size of an index finger, and his clothes, a plain, white shirt tucked into brown pants, were tattered and covered in dirt. Yet the sword in his hand was remarkably silver and polished, almost seeming to glow through the mist, and the scabbard at his belt was patterned with striking scarlet and navy designs.

How did he get here? No Outsider had ever stepped into this forest, unless he or she was exiled. But even in that case, the people who were brought here and cast into the river that would carry them into the heart of the woods were always infants or young children. Furthermore, the Spirit that presided over the village usually foresaw when someone was abandoned, and she would've told the villagers so they could send a party to find the new Outcast. But as far as Zelda knew before she left for patrol, the Spirit hadn't made any predictions. In fact, from what she'd been told, the last person to be found caught at a river bank was an infant barely a year old, found thirteen years ago – her. All of the children younger than her had been born inside the village.

And yet, no Outsider had ever discovered the village or any of its vicinities since it was first established. Outsiders feared this eternally fogbound forest – village legends held that they believed the forest was tainted by evil spirits. For that reason, they disposed of the people cast out of their kingdom here, where the spirits supposedly would claim them as sacrifices. So why would an Outsider be wandering here?

Zelda was at a loss for what to do. This had never happened before in village history – she wasn't sure if there was even a law stating what to do with Outsiders who found the village. But there was no way this boy could be the source of the tension she'd felt, which had started to fade. He seemed harmless enough, even with his sword – he was just a teenager, not so different from the ones who inhabited her village: Bentelon, Tesser, Kalam… No. She clenched her teeth at the sound of Kalam's name – he was far from harmless.

Still, this Outsider had eyes and a mouth, and there was the potential threat that he might reveal the existence of a village of Outcasts, should he find it. The most logical course of action would be to eliminate the threat before it happened. It would take no effort on her part – her arrow would pierce his back before he even recognized the twang of the bowstring. Young though she was, Zelda was well-known among the villagers as one of their best archers – the fastest shot and one of the most accurate. But killing an innocent was a prospect abhorred by her people, who had been left for dead solely on the basis of their appearance. Taking him prisoner wouldn't work, either – it would be too much of a risk to lead someone who made so much noise back to the village for interrogation.

But could she just let him go with the unpromising hope that he might miss the village altogether and find a way out on his own? There were monsters prowling somewhere under this canopy, and even a sword was no guaranteed protection.

She stayed hidden, her eyes searching every inch of his body. Who was he – what¬ was he? From what she could see, he was nothing remarkable – just another human like her, like every person in her village. Yet his world, the kingdom stretching somewhere outside this forest, the kingdom she had only seen when she was too young to remember – his world saw him as more.

Her eyes fell to the locks of wavy blue hair that fell over her shoulder, the one trait that had branded her an Outcast, an aberration, a curse to humanity. If hair alone were the reason someone was exiled, there wouldn't be a village here, but rather a fingers' count of lost people with little hope of surviving. Yet there were over sixty Outcasts living in the village, most of whom were united by the fact that there was something deemed abnormal about their appearances. What was his secret – where in his features was the standard that made him desirable? What was it that made him so… so normal, while her people were so horrifyingly different that they had to die or be sacrificed, that they were forced to live a life hemmed by trees and mist?

The boy crossed out of view, his posture still tensed, his walk hesitant. Zelda stayed hidden, her hands finally lowering from the peephole, the leaves she released sealing it up. She still wasn't sure what she wanted to do, what she was supposed to do. But somehow, just letting him wander lost through the forest didn't feel right. It wasn't his territory – but more than that, the impending threat had yet to reveal itself.

Once she was certain his bootfalls had carried him far enough ahead, she rose from the brush as silently as the abundant brambles and leaves would allow and crept behind the nearest tree. With every few steps he took, she crept from behind one trunk to another further up, taking care to keep some distance between them so he wouldn't sense her presence – if he could sense her to begin with. The rumor was that Outsiders no longer communed with nature the way her people did and had long lost their intuitive senses.

Zelda leaned closer to the tree she stood behind, placing her hands upon the bark – and alarm speared her senses. She wasn't as strong at reading trees as some of her fellow villagers, but even she could feel the throbbing tension in the bark. Whatever it was, it was close.

"Pyron's sword," she heard the boy grumble under his breath, "how far do these woods–"

A yell broke his speech. Zelda's hands clenched against the bark as she watched the boy back up a step, holding his sword out in front of him. The tree's pulse thickened, and now she could sense it, too – predator's malice. Moments later, a thick glob of milky white shot out from somewhere she couldn't see, smacking the boy's sword and knocking it to the ground. He stared at the discarded weapon, now useless under the trappings of the web, and turned to run. Reflexively, Zelda pressed closer to the tree, hoping he wouldn't see her in his haste to escape. But before he could get far, another strand of web discharged, slamming him in the back so hard he stumbled and skidded as he collapsed.

Zelda nocked an arrow to her bow and applied some pressure to the string, but she kept the weapon lowered, fixing her eyes on the treeline behind the boy who was struggling to sit up. Her fears were confirmed when a pair of legs, sticklike but bent and lined with thin hair, emerged from the shadows, followed by the body of a massive spider. The brown hair covering its body belied a nearly impenetrable exoskeleton, and sickle-shaped chelicerae, a darker shade of brown than the rest of its hair-lined body, clicked feverishly as the aredulat crawled over the soil. The boy was in a sitting position, but when he turned and saw the predator close in on him, he could only gasp and scurry backward on his hands and legs.

Seeing how feeble his escape attempt was, Zelda drew the arrow back and raised her bow. She had a clear shot at any of the minuscule weak points on the monster's armored body – the black, dot-like eyes or the space between the wriggling fangs. The aredulat was practically on top of the boy – if she wanted him to escape unscathed, she'd have to act now.

But as much as her fingers wanted to let go, something held her back. Why? If the attacker had been a wolf or a leopard, she would have understood. But this monster's mind was nothing like an animal's – she couldn't read it at all, and there was no way she'd be able to breach it. So why wouldn't she shoot?

The aredulat reared and pinned its front legs against the boy's shoulders, shoving him to the ground with its weight. He grasped the legs and struggled to roll away, but even if he could lift the vice, the web on his back would anchor him to the ground. The creature lowered its body, the chelicerae extending like long-nailed fingers from a fist. Even from her distance, Zelda could see the sharp, black tips at the ends, the barbs that sank toward the exposed flesh of the boy's collar line.

Something gave within her, and she took aim at one of the aredulat's eyes and fired. The creature hissed when the arrowhead sank into its mark, a sound so eerie and unnatural for a spider that it made her skin crawl. The creature backed away, but the boy lay unmoving.

Was she too late?

Her chest tightening with anger, she seized another arrow from her quiver and fired it at the soft spot between the chelicerae. The creature hissed again, and this time, it turned in her direction. She moved far enough out from behind the tree to catch its attention, but shot back into hiding when the aredulat raised its hind end to spray a strand of web at her. When she heard the sound of legs thudding against the soil, she nocked another arrow, stepped out from behind the tree to aim, and fired again. The arrow speared the soft mouthpart, landing right next to the shaft launched before it. With three arrows protruding from its body, the spider began to stagger. It raised its abdomen for another shot at her, but she was quicker to the draw – her next arrow skewered the opened glands.

The hiss that emerged this time was shrill but stuttering. Dangling the bow across her body again, she drew the sword from her scabbard and rushed for the wobbling spider. Yanking the two arrows from its mouth, she thrust her blade through the opening, driving it as deep as it would go until only a hand's breadth of silver stood between the hilt and the brown body. The creature shrieked and writhed in her grasp, and she let go of the sword, backing away to wait for the death throes to cease.

At last, the aredulat's agony ended, and it collapsed on its side with its legs tugged inward. She waited, watching and listening for any sign of life. Once she was satisfied that it was dead, she approached the carcass. In hind sight, she had expected it to be bigger – most of the tales spoke of aredulath that could grow as tall as a human child standing on an adult's shoulders, but this one didn't even seem to be half that height. She would have to make note of where the body was so she could lead the villagers to it – they might be able to salvage the venom and some of the body parts for future use. Bracing her boot against its head, she struggled with the hilt of her sword until she managed to free it from the creature's mouth. The blade was covered in yellow and greenish-gray, and she dropped to the grass to wipe it clean.

The sound of sliding metal that emerged when she sheathed her sword reminded her of the boy who had been attacked. She ran around the aredulat's carcass to kneel beside the unconscious teen, noticing two dots of blood where the fangs had nicked his skin. The wounds didn't look too deep. She placed a hand on his chest and felt his heart throb against her palm, heat rising through his shirt.

Rolling him as far over on his side as he would go before his shirt snagged against the ground, she poured water from her flask over the fabric, letting it seep through to the webs twined underneath it. She knew why she'd hesitated, and she was ashamed of it. Outsider or not, she'd forgotten that he was still a human like her, soft-fleshed and vulnerable to monster predation.

She still didn't know what to do with him, or how her people would react if they discovered she'd rescued an Outsider. The last thing she needed was for him to wake up and see her, but now that she'd seen a real aredulat, she couldn't just leave him here, either. Finally, she sought out his trapped sword and used all but a thin layer of her remaining water to free it. She would have to leave him eventually, after all – what point was there in letting her effort go to waste if he was attacked again with no protection?

After sliding the blade back into his scabbard, she studied him, trying to think of the best way to move him. She hated the thought of the noise and trail she'd be leaving in their wake, but the thought of leaving him here was much worse. If there was one aredulat in the forest, there would undoubtedly be more, and she wouldn't want to be here when they picked up the scent of their slain kin. She slid her arms under his shoulders and lifted him as high off the ground as she could manage, grateful that he wasn't overly heavy or tall for his age. His boots skidded along the ground as she dragged him away.