As the Dagger Thrusts Home
by Christopher Huff

As the dagger thrust home, his world collapsed.

He could see the thousands of possibilities of his life—the things that could have been: a legendary knight; a leader of his people; a loving father; a guardian of the Forest protecting the verdant wilderness from orcs and other evils.

That was his truest destiny. Thaderillis Tel’Blaquilrii trained as a ranger since he could walk and pull a bowstring. He was being groomed to become a protector of the Great Forest and the small community of wood elves that made their home near the Grandfather Tree. He trained as his father had been so many centuries ago.

His father had died when Thaderillis was very young-not even into his third decade- defending the Grandfather Tree from an army of orcs and ogres led by a priest of Malar, the Beastlord. The priest had schemed to turn the scared ground into a temple dedicated to his dark god, but the rangers of the Great Forest had turned them back.

Many had paid the ultimate price for their victory. Landil Tel’Blaquilrii had been one of their greatest warriors and had not fallen until the Beastlord’s servants fled the forest. The tales say the remaining protectors found Landil still standing over the dead cleric’s body, his lifeless eyes still watching the horizon for other enemies.

It is not an easy thing to grow up with a legend for a father, but Thaderillis had proven up to the task. Always at the top of his classes, Landil’s son was thought by many of his instructors to soon become the youngest elf to join the ranks of the protectors.

That destiny was not to be.

The dagger twisted, and the memories came back to him. Memories that he desperately wanted to forget before—no, needed to forget—before he could move on.

Thaderillis had grown up to become very much like the father he had barely known. Many in the community of Cyrthalin-zir remarked on how he resembled his father in looks- both were tall elves with naturally tan skin, oak-brown hair and eyes the color of summer foliage. Both were proud and stubborn. According to a few, both were just as cocksure and arrogant.

Jaerllit, Thaderillis’ mentor and one of his father’s closest friends, had just finished telling the young elf this fact as they sat around the campfire.

Thaderillis had passed his final test and was to be awarded the rank of Ranger. In his excitement of graduation, Thaderillis had remarked to his mentor that he believed the test had been too easy and did not give him a chance to demonstrate the full range of his skill.

“You have your father’s confidence,” Jaerllit had said. “Let us hope when the time comes, you will be able to prove it as your father did.”

As Thaderillis began to form a retort, the wind shifted suddenly and the young elf caught the scent of fire and the far off cries of elves dying. 

In that instant, Thaderillis knew something terrible was happening at Cyrthalin-zir and that his mother was in danger.

Faster than Jaerllit could believe possible, the young ranger was gone from his sight.

The elder ranger took off after his student, calling for him. Then the wind shifted again, and Jaerllit understood and doubled his speed.

The pair was a day’s walk from their home, but Thaderillis did not care. He ran.  When the terrain began to hinder him, He took to the trees, climbing, leaping and swinging from oak to maple to walnut. He pushed himself to levels beyond anything he dared to try in the past–levels beyond what even Jaerllit believed elvenly possible.

Realizing he could not keep up with the possessed elf, the older ranger turned to the things he could do. He called to the birds to send the alarm to the other rangers in the wood and to the larger beast to lend their claws to the coming battle.

Hours later, Thaderillis looked down upon the burning village of Cyrthalin-zir from the top of a tall aspen. Humans of all sizes scurried about looting the households and killing any surviving elves. Thaderillis knew that he had to do something, but he also knew any aid was still hours behind him. The elf drew his bow and notched an arrow. If he kept moving, maybe he could snipe at them and keep them busy until others arrived.

A bone-chilling scream reached his ears, and he knew it was his mother’s.

Forgetting everything as his vision turned red, Thaderillis dropped his bow. By the time it hit the ground, Thaderillis was rolling to his feet with his scimitar and dagger–the same weapons his father had died fighting with a century ago–drawn and was running in the direction of his mother’s house.

The humans each bore the mark of a skull over crossed battle-axes on their shields or tabards. Each one that crossed Thaderillis’s path did not see him coming and were not alive to watch him move on.

Thaderillis found them in his mother’s study. His mother, Adellis, was a sorceress very attuned to The Weave. The many human corpses that littered her house were a cold testament to the powerful magics she wielded.

Nevertheless, in the end, Thaderillis found her lying on a table, her robes in tatters and a hairy, half-clothed human grunting on top of her. A half- dozen of his kind surrounded them, cheering the man on. Another human, this one older (at least Thaderillis took the gray-haired human to be older) and better equipped than the others, was going through his mother’s scrolls and spell books.

None noticed him until his dagger arced past their heads and imbedded itself in the gyrating buttocks of the human dog defiling his mother.

All heads turned to him.

His mother’s dazed eyes focused on her son for a second and she screamed, “No! Thad---,” before the human atop of her bashed her head into the desk, silencing her with a sickening crack.

“So, Thade, were you her son or lover?” asked the gray-haired human, as he drew finely crafted rapier from the jeweled scabbard on his hip. 

The other humans fanned out behind their leader- one limping as he tried to pull up his trousers over his injury. Only the leader stepped forward to face the young elf.

Thaderillis immediately regretted tossing away his dagger in the heat of the moment, as he struggled to defend himself against the surprisingly fast human. He fought the human, but Thaderillis knew it was hopeless. Whatever strength had sustained him thus far had fled his spirit at the sight of his mother’s horrible death.

Suddenly, There was a dagger in the human’s other hand. Then he felt the warmth of his own blood running down his neck. Blackness followed.

Weeks passed before he awakened.

As it turned out, a circle of druids had been making a pilgrimage to the Grandfather Tree and had heard Jaerllit’s call for help. The mercenaries were hired by the human foresters frustrated by the elves’ refusal to allow logging in the Great Forest, Jaerllit told him, had not been prepared to deal with a Great Druid and his fellow priests. They had retreated from the forest chased by sword, bow, and claw and animated trees.

They had found Thaderillis on the edge of death, but the druids’ magics were able to keep him alive and mend his wounds. He was the only one found alive in Cyrthalin-zir.

Some had fled the city and were still alive, but Cyrthalin-zir would never live again. The wood elves would make a new home somewhere else. The forest would reclaim Cyrthalin-zir so the wound to the land would heal.

“Just as your wounds will heal in time, Thaderillis,” Jaerllit told him.

But the elf – he could no longer be described as young – knew that Jaerllit’s words would never come true until he avenged the death of his home, his friends and his mother. Not until the gray-haired human and his band of murderers paid for their transgressions.

The dagger twisted again and then was pulled from the lifeless body.

Thaderillis Tel’Blaquilrii was dead. The elf who had dreamed of living in his father’s footsteps—defending his people; becoming a hero to be admired and envied for generations—was gone.

It had been three years since the Elven ranger had left the ruins of his home. He had tracked down the mercenary band – known as the Battleskulls. He had captured a younger member, one who had not joined the band until after the raid on Cyrthalin-zir. He had tortured him until he revealed the name of his leader.

Thaderillis now had a name to go with his vengeance: Terriz DelRega.

“You said he you would let me go now,” the terrified human stuttered through a mouth full of broken teeth and bruised jaw.

“Yes, I did,” said Thade.

He had made that promise. Thadehrillis had intended to keep it. Thade knew better now. He knew he lied.

As the dagger thrust home, Thaderillis Tel’Blaquilrii died, and a killer was born.