The Arrow
 

There were only two standing. Everyone else was dead or dying. She was not happy. She was looking at a man with a dagger and an arrow. The arrow he had plunged into her side. She was holding him by both wrists but he managed to push the arrow even farther in. She pushed his hand away from the arrow. Now they were concentrating on the dagger.

"Don't do this. Please. Please it’s not worth it." As soon as she said these words her vision started to fade. She fought to stay awake but she was too weak and she lost conciseness.

The blackness around her started to fade and she pushed forward hoping not to find a dagger rushing towards her. The world came back into focus and she sat up quickly. The man was gone and she was no longer on the field but instead sitting by a river. She started to push herself up but was stopped by a sharp pain in her left side. She looked down to find the arrow gone. She lifted up her shirt to find a bandage wrapped around her. The bleeding appeared to have stopped. She let her shirt fall back down and carefully pulled herself to her feet. She walked shakily to the river and sat down.

She leaned over to look in the river. She found in was a slow moving river and that her reflection shined back at her with slight ripples. She had scratches, burses, a bust lip, and dirt smeared all over her but even with that she could still she that she was attractive. At some point in the battle her hair had fallen down to lay tangled down to her waist. She loved her hair but it caused problems in the battle as it marked her immediately as part of the Xenian clan. Her hair was the clear blue that fell right in the middle of the blue shades that were found in her people.

She had the other features of her people. The long pointed ears that poked out past her hair. The pale skin, highly valued at home, that she had burnt to a slightly less pale shade. Like her people she was lean and tall coming to 6’1”. She had full lips and bright eyes that matched her hair.

Unlike the majority of her people she had scars all over her body from battle. Her people were peace loving and didn’t even eat meat. The only scars they got were from falling or when their knives slipped. While her hands were covered in fine scars, a thin scar on her arm from an arrow that barely missed its mark, a scar wrapped around her left ankle where she had been tethered, and the one that was assuredly forming on her side from the arrow. Since she had left home she had even started eating meat. While she didn’t eat a lot of meat or even many different kinds she did like fish and certain fowl.

She had left her people with some clothing, a little food, and four others. She left with a brother two years senior to her, a pair of twin brother and sister a year junior to her, and a woman five years older than her. They had heard of the war and saw it was coming closer. The tribe decided to pretend it wasn’t there but these five knew better. They ran and joined an army base. They were trained hard and all but the female twin took to the skills easily. The twin instead turned to healing and was kept busy in the camp. One by one the others were sent out to fight on their own teams. This had been just another battle for her but it turned out to be so much more.

She shook her head and noticed her hair wave. She reached forward and touched the water. The reason why she and her little group had been taken in so quickly into the battles was because a gift her people had. With clean water they could heal. It took a great amount out of them if the wound was bad but very minor injuries were healed just by the touch of water.

She looked around and still saw and heard no one. She carefully pulled her boots off, slipped her shirt over her head, and dragged her pants off. She was left wearing only her chest binding, the bandage, and her undergarment. She pushed herself into the river and lowered herself until she was completely under the water.

She opened her eyes and looked up at the sky. Suddenly the man from before was standing on the river bank looking down at her. She gasped sucking water into her lungs. She sat up quickly and started hacking the water back up.

Instead of attacking, as she thought he would, he reached out a hand. “Let me help you out.”

She wrapped one arm around her chest and one arm around her stomach and over her newest wound. She backed up to the far side of the river though it did not help much as the river was narrow enough to jump over. “Why should I trust you? Why take your help?”

He let his arm fall back by his side. “Because I did not kill you when I had the chance. Because you need my help. And because I need your help, as do others.” He paused then offered his hand again. “My name is Deirk and it seems like we have a lot of talking to do.”

She thought about what he said then reached towards him. She stopped short when she saw the blood drip off his arm. “Sit down. Let me see your wound.”

He sat down and pulled his shirt off exposing a lean chest and a large gash in his shoulder. She motioned him closer and looked closely at his wound. She cupped water into her hands then poured it on the wound. She did it a few more times than laid her hands on the wound. She closed her eyes and cleared her mind. A tingle ran down her arms and into her hands until her hands started to burn. When the tingling stopped and her hands cooled she opened her eyes and dropped her hands back into the water. The wound had stopped bleeding and had closed up to form a week old scar.

She pulled herself out of the water as Deirk stood back up. She pulled back on her pants then turned back to him. “My name is Emerald though everyone calls me Em. You said others need my help? Are there more survivors?”

Deirk stood up and looked her up and down. “Do you plan on going like that?”

“Not that it is any of your business but yes. My hair is too wet to put on my shirt yet and I can’t get my boots wet. Modesty is the least of my concerns and my feet will be fine. Now you were saying?” She grabbed her hair and twisted it trying to get as much water out as possible then spread it out to lay flat.

“Yes, there are more survivors… on both sides. Not many but a few.” He started to say more but was cut off by Em.

“The rest isn’t important right now. We need to go help them. It would be best if we could bring the people here but if we need to we can take water to them. Do you have anything the carry water in?”

Deirk walked over to a bush and pulled out two bags. He tossed one to her. “We’ll have to go to them. You weren’t out long but most of them were too bad to move. That’s your bag.” He pulled a water bottle from his bag and leaned over to fill it with water.

Em pulled out two water bottles and a large water pouch. She poured the water out of them then leaned over to fill them again.

As she filled the water she glanced over at Deirk. With his name and physic he had to be from the Raect tribe. Like them he was tall, at least 3 inches taller than her, was extremely tan, had dark hair that was worn long, had small pointed ears, green eyes, and pointier then average canine teeth. Unlike most of his tribe he had added changes. Both ears had a single stud and the right ear had seven small hoops running all the way to the tip of his ear. He had one thick streak of green in his hair and on the inside of his left wrist she saw a small leaf tattoo.

He glanced up at her and she quickly looked back down and finished filling the bottles and pouch. She stood back up and stashed the pouch and one of the bottles back in the bag before placing it back on the ground. She tied the other bottle to her hip and then grabbed her back then hefting it across her left shoulder.

“Ready?” Deirk asked her. She nodded and he turned away from the river and started a steady jog. She waited a second then easily took up the same pace as him. After a few minutes of jogging and still no sight of others she picked up her pace to a light run and passed him. He quickened his pace till he caught up with her then slowed to her pace.

They ran for a few minutes more before they came to a hill. Without slowing they both kept running and soon came to the top. Deirk slowed as he reached the top. Em kept running but stopped quickly when she got to the top and looked down.

She was looking down at the battlefield. She had forgotten about the hill. It hadn’t mattered durning the battle as it was too far away to put archers on but it did give an excellent view of the death and carnage.

Deirk walked past her and as her vision focused on her she noticed what she had missed much closer to them. At the bottom of the hill was a group of about twenty people. Even from a distance she could tell that at least five of them would not make it even with her help. If there were more of her people and if they had gotten to them right away they might have lived but there was no chance now. Of the other fifteen left two of them would need help right away or they would die too. Three of the others looked to only have very minor wounds and wouldn’t need help. They were trying to help the others. The rest were in varying levels between the others.

Em looked over at Deirk and quietly pointed out the ones she would not be able to help. Deirk nodded sadly. He had known there probably would be no help for them. He had already given them the special med pouches that blocked pain. The pouches were special ones that had not been approved. They blocked all pain but would stop any chance of the person fighting. They wouldn’t feel anything and would just fade away.

Em turned from the doomed fighters to the ones she might be able to help. The two next worse cases where laid next to each other. A female human was the worse of the two. It appeared that an archer or more likely a group of archers had sighted on her. The arrows had been removed along with her armor. Em could see the pile of armor. It appeared that this girl was a higher ranked knight with that had managed to buy or earn a high quality suit of armor. Luckily this meant her most vital areas had been covered. Em kneeled by the lady knight and looked her over. There had been an arrow through each arm and leg and the very edge of her left side had been sliced by an arrow. These wounds by themselves would not have endangered the girl so much but it appeared that she had received these wounds near the beginning of the battle. She had lost a lot of blood.

Em was very worried about this. The skill she was born with used water and her own energy to speed up the natural healing of the person she was healing. But she could not speed up the process of making blood. She could heal the wounds but she didn’t know if she would make it or not.

Em started on the wounds on the lady knights legs then moved up. She took the bindings of the wounds. Then poured a little water on the wound and on her hand. She laid her hand on the wound and willed the power to start. She only healed the wounds to a degree that they would not need to worry about any more blood loss or infection.

When she was done Em moved to the next. It was a young man of the Venix tribe. The Venix tribe was known for its vast uniqueness in its people. Their colors and sizes vary greatly. And in turn the gift given to them showed great uniqueness among them. Members of this tribe had the ability to change to the form of an animal. Each person could only change to one animal but that animal could be any kind. Their animal seemed to have no tie to their parents. They could also change partialy and take on the characteristics of their animal form while in their human form.

The man in front of her seemed to be some kind of canine, most likely a wolf, as he currently had the ears and tail of a wolf, along with slightly pointed teeth.

Hey Lilith! Were you looking for critiques, or did you just want to share your work with the world? It's very interesting and I'm already intrigued by the story! I love all the races.

I'm open for anything really. ^^
Really my hope for this is that I'll actually update it if it is on here.
I started it like a year ago, then stopped, started it back up a month ago, and then died again.
So maybe with the added bonus of gold I will actually work on it. lol

So critique away.
Glad you like it so far.
I'm thinking I'll be updating it some tomorrow.

It sounds a little unnecessary, and even a little funny. If you knew the character better you might be able to get away with it, but not at this stage.

Saying it that way makes her sound a little vain. You should probably do it form a third person point of view if you want to mention it here.

Maybe nitpicking, but twins already come in pairs. No need to mention it twice.

She does seem to trust him quickly. He was attacking her moments ago, after all. Maybe she should heisitate a little longer?

Um, what? I'm a little confused by that sentence.

She took off the bindings here, right? Forgot 'off'.

I can't wait to hear more! Mostly minor complaints anyways. I'm a nitpicker.