Arden
I
By Felthar Arhain

As he stood silently in the great hall of his fathers, Felthar could not believe what had taken place in the space of a few short, and terrifying weeks. The loss of his father, the murder of his family, and his encounter with…. Evil.

One month ago, the Queen of Athel Loren had requested that Findecano Arhain, Felthar’s father, to lead an incursion to the Forest of Arden in the lands of the Bretonni. The purpose being to cleanse the said forest of Cyanthir the Corruptor and his twisted minions. Highborn Arhain reluctantly accepted, for although he knew his fate would be the same as the one that several other Highborns before him had met, a horrible mutation to one of Morghur’s followers, he would absolutely not disobey a direct request from her majesty Queen Ariel. So, he and the kinbands under his jurisdiction left dejectedly, but immediately for the Forest of Arden.

The spellsingers spoke to the trees and aided the concealment of the Asrai host from and Brettonians along their route. Traveling northwest, their encounters with peasants were non-existent, and the local populaces suspected almost nothing, except for the shortage of game wherever the elven host passed by. They were even forced to resist aiding a battling Brettonian army against the foul greenskins, but the Queen had given explicit instructions to remain concealed and make all haste to Arden.

The elven host finally reached the forest, and once within sight of its branches, nearly all of the elves began to weep as they silently marched towards the corrupted boughs. The outside looked absolutely natural, even beautiful, but the elves could easily see beneath the outer bark and into the hearts of the trees, whose spirits, although not nearly as complex as those in Athel Loren, were still real, and they were filled with corruption and agony.

The elves made their camp on the southern fringes of the forest, and sentries were pitched as the night came on, the sun casting its last crimson rays onto the trees before dipping below the horizon. No fires burned, for the summer air was warm, and the spites who had traveled with the elves came out and flitted about with a soft, glowing light. Sentinels took up their posts, and rotated every other hour until dawn.

Dawn brought silence. The forest was quiet, and an evil malice hung in the air. This was to be the norm as the Kinband of Arhain found marching through the forest. No birds, no insects, not even a light breeze gusted through the trees. The elves trudged on through the dreary forest as the waywatchers infiltrated into the undergrowth, and scouts forged ahead. An ever-growing weight seemed to perch itself on the shoulders of every elf as the sun passed from in front of the elves to behind the elves.

Soon, however, after a couple more days of marching and minor skirmishes, there was no more sunlight to be had, as the canopy had grown too thick, and the only illumination was made by great shafts of light shining through gaps in the leaves, illuminated tiny dust motes hanging in the air above the ground. As the Asrai began to make camp, some of the scouts reported back to Findecano. They reported that they had found the first of what was sure to be many of several herdstones in a glade not one mile more into the forest. Findecano opted to give the troops another nights rest before toppling the beastmen monolith.

This proved to be a costly mistake.

Striking out almost undetected out of the undergrowth, the beastmen ambushed the camp at midnight with an overwhelming force of twisted beastmen from Cyanthir. Spellsingers had no time to raise the spirits of the forest, and the army had little time to prepare. They were lucky to have even that, for the army was warned by chased waywatchers two minutes before the beastmen attacked.

The elves were massacared. The beastmen forces had ample time beforehand to surround and crush the kinband of Findecano Arhain while some Asrai were still rousing themselves from their beds. The wood elves fought bravely, but they were eventually reduced to the handful of Eternal Guard protecting Highborn Findecano Arhain and his family.

The beastmen made a large circle around the elven family. Their unruly ranks stepped back, and they lowered their weapons. The beastmen then parted, and Cyanthir himself came into the circle, bearing a stench on the outside of uncleanliness, and a sight from the inside the elves knew to be pure evil.

Seeing their hated enemy, the eternal guard sprang forward, yelling their warcry. Cyanthir's feral expression turned even more savage, and with one sweep of his mutaded arm, he forced the sylvan warriors to back away.

The corrupter then pointed a single finger at Findecanos warriors, who immediately fell to the ground screaming in agony, multicolored fire erupting from their eyes, hands, hearts and feet. They mutated into an elven likeness of the other creatures which surround the family of house Arhain, and they got up and joined the ranks of their new kin. The corruptor then spoke, in a deep, changing, rasping voice.

“Ariel sends her pitful weaklings to defeat the might of Cyanthir? How typical of your Queen. Sending someone else to do her dirty work. You whelps could not even take my minions in a real battle let alone being ambushed while sleeping. So much for heightened elven awareness. You should be punished for your lack of knowledge.”

With that, Cyanthir waved his hand in the direction of Findecano, whose eyes immediately glowed red, and his expression hardened into one of corrupted servitude.

“Now, I shall teach you first hand how to truly fight, and truly win, whelp. In doing this while you are my slave, I shall enjoy feeling how your feeble mind struggles against my magical might. I will torture you with visions of your precious forest corrupted and overrun, of your family being murdered while you stand on the sidelines, watching and uncaring, visions of your faerie queen and hunter king die and never return. For this is the best way to fight, elf. And the most pleasurable. Learn well."

After this statement, Cyanthir turned to Felthar’s mother, who immediately slipped something very heavy into Felthar’s robes, uttering an incantation under her breath. The corrupter howled with rage and lunged towards Felthar, but in that instant, the forest in front of Felthar shifted into that of the great roots of the young elf’s home, after which Felthar promptly dropped to the floor, hitting his head.

Stars exploded in front of young Felthar’s eyes, catapulting his mind into blackness.