The Hollow: At The Edge by Andrew Day

all around him.
    And the noises the
forest made at night. In his youth, Serrel had ventured into the
woods near his home town many times after the sun had gone down.
But those woods were to the forests of the Faelands as a rock pool
was to the ocean. The sounds that he heard echoing through the
trees were nothing like that of the woods back home. Out in the
blackness, there were creatures that none of the group had ever had
experience with before. Every so often, Serrel swore he saw flashes
of green eyes in the shadows.
    “Just animals, Fresh
Meat,” Caellix reassured him, when he pointed them out. “The Ferine
would have attacked us by now.”
    Serrel wondered, and
not for the first time, why everything in the forest had to have
the same creepy green eyes.
    After a long and
painful walk, Caellix finally called a halt.
    “That’s far enough,”
she announced. “We can camp here for the night.”
    “Thank the gods,”
Dhulrael breathed. He dropped to the ground and sat with his back
against a tree.
    “No fire,” Caellix
ordered. “I don’t want to attract attention. There’ll be a two man
watch at all times. Dogbreath and Holly, you first. Then Brant and
Fresh Meat. I’ll take the last shift with the elf.”
    “Does this mean you
might be willing to trust me?” Dhulrael asked.
    “Depends on what you
say next,” she replied.
    As Dogbreath and Holly
set out to keep watch, the others settled down amongst the roots of
a giant tree. Brant pulled out some of their rations of hard
biscuits and dried meat and handed them around. The elf took his
gladly, and ate ravenously.
    Serrel took his food,
but couldn’t eat. He sat on a tree root, his head swimming with
thoughts, and not all of them good.
    “Can I take this off
now, Sergeant?” he asked Caellix, pointing at the woad handprint on
his face.
    He saw Caellix nod her
head in the dark. He found a spare piece of cloth in his pack, and
wet it with water from his canteen. He was wiping furiously at his
face when he realised Caellix was staring at him. He ignored
her.
    “You should eat
something,” she told him.
    “I’m not hungry,” he
replied.
    “Doesn’t matter. It’s
going to be a long day tomorrow, and you need to keep up your
strength. Eat something.”
    Serrel held a strip of
dried, salted beef in his hand but didn’t eat it.
    “I can’t get that smell
out of my nose,” he said softly.
    “What smell?”
    “Burnt meat,” Serrel
replied.
    “Oh, that. Yes. That
takes some getting used to.”
    “Is it always like
this?” he asked weakly. He realised that he sounded like a
child.
    Caellix shrugged. “The
first time is always hard. But the second time, that’s usually
worse, because you know what it’s like now, and you dread having to
go through it again. After that, it just gets easier and easier.
Look on the bright side. At least they were only Ferine.”
    Serrel thought about
the elf woman, lying on the ground holding her guts in, cursing
Caellix with her last breaths.
    “They were people,” he
muttered.
    “They were not,” said a
voice sadly. They all looked at the elf. “Not anymore.”
    “Not feeling a lot of
sympathy for your fallen brethren, Pointy?” asked Caellix.
    “They were not my
brethren. They were hardly even elves anymore.”
    “See,” said Caellix.
“The elf doesn’t even shed a tear for them.”
    “They ate my friends,
Sergeant,” replied Dhulrael. “I have a great respect for all living
things, but there are limits.”
    Caellix snorted an
amused laugh.
    “What were those
things?” Serrel asked him.
    “The Ferine?” Dhulrael
frowned. “We do not really know. They were elves, once upon a time.
But they have changed themselves somehow, using magic.”
    “How?” Serrel pressed.
“How can someone change into something like that?”
    “Never seen a werewolf,
Fresh Meat?” Caellix asked.
    “Similar, but not quite
the same thing,” said Dhulrael. “I assume... And this is only a
theory, mind you. I cannot