Malcolm goes down

Sir Malcolm felt a prickling all across his shoulders and down his spine. He could almost feel the fur of some phantom tail puffing out to make him appear larger, and his lips twitched with a desire to bare his teeth.

Malcolm had always fancied he had a secret sense that allowed him to detect when he was being watched or followed, but since the night he had been attacked by an elf – that night when he had been certain but had not wanted to believe he was being followed – he had paid close attention to such feelings.

It was easiest if he simply allowed himself to pretend he was some animal – cat or wolf, perhaps – and let his cat body or wolf body be his guide. He could sense the presence of others as a cat or a wolf; could sense the damp heat of breath, the metallic odor of sweat or blood, the faint clicking of lips or tongue moving over wet teeth.

Now he could sense several of them.

It had been, he recalled, a night of the full moon when the elf had attacked him. Tonight the moon was again full. This time he would not be caught unprepared. He walked with his sword in one hand and his long knife in the other. He was almost home. His feet were on the path.

He walked into a place that was like a hollow in the air that had been filled with the heat and odors of bodies.

He stopped, and then he turned to look behind him just as the elves swarmed out of the trees and surrounded him.

He could not see how many there were, but he sensed four. In any case, he was one, and so he would have to handle them one at a time.

He did not try to speak with them, for he sensed their menace. Still, he did not strike to kill the one before him, but only slashed at his thigh, thinking to cripple him for the moment–

But his sword buckled and folded against the elf’s leg as if it had been made of shiny foil.

Before he could react, the elf at his left had twisted his knife out of his hand, and then they were upon him: one on the left, one on the right, and one somewhere behind.

The elf before him only shrugged helplessly and said, “We are sorry to do.”

Malcolm was not strong enough to wrestle even one of them alone. He saw he was seconds away from being incapacitated, if not killed.

“Baby!” he shouted.

He meant to warn her, to tell her to take the baby and hide, but before he could say another word, the elf before him – who had been so sorry only a moment ago – drove his knee into Malcolm’s stomach with such force that Malcolm supposed they meant to kill him by bleeding him to death on the inside.

He had no voice left to cry out, but he could hiss his hatred and claw at them as they wrestled with him. They took him down, but he went down hissing and snarling and scratching like a cat.