Elf Killers Read Online Free PDF Page B

us here at all unless there was a good chance that they were here to help us. I was in here on a dare years ago and met them. They were as frightened of us as we were of them."
    "So they speak our language?"
    "No, but they can read what you're thinking at the same time that they put their  thoughts into your heart."
    "I see. Like the terraing pictiur."
    "Not quite. I don't think you need a special gift, as you must have with picture catcher unicorns, and they speak with words instead of pictures. And here they come..."
    With a wave of gasps, the Elves froze in shocked silence as a radiantly glowing head furtively peeped at them from beyond a bend in the tunnel and darted out of sight. Directly, it peeked at them again, withdrew for a moment and then stepped lightly into plain sight, cautiously coming forth, lighting the tunnel bright as midday.
    Before them stood a little woman, half as tall as they, giving off such a brilliant yellow light that they could not quite make out the features of her face, though they could plainly make out her pointed ears. "What are you?" she thought in Olloo's head.
    "My word," said Olloo. "I'm an Elf."
    "Peace, Olloo," thought the Sprite as she paused to come at Olloo and Doona as if she were sniffing them.
    "How do you know my name?" said Olloo, jerking back to keep from being burnt.
    "By the same means which you hear my thoughts. And by the way, you've nothing to fear. I'm as cold as you are. My eldest sister has told me many times about finding an Elf in this tube years and years ago. Is this girl your sister? What became of her soul? I can't find her name or any of her thoughts at all."
    "She's Doona. She is indeed my sister, and her soul was frightened clean out of her by the trolls."
    "Is that why you're here, to flee the Elf Killers? I pray you've not brought them in behind you."
    "That would be awful."
    "But something to keep in mind. They've been known to kidnap us, and this is our home, after all..."
    "What happens when the vulcan mountain shakes and spews out burning rock?"
    "We don't discuss it..." she thought firmly.
    "So what's your name?" said Olloo.
    "Well I wasn't withholding it, but since you're still babbling your incomprehensible tongue, I can see that you don't know how to simply reach in for it," she thought. "I've always been called Alvina."
    "Do you have a language?”
    "Of course, but we seldom use it except to sing, and you certainly wouldn't understand it."
    "Alvina," said Oisin, who had been allowed to hear her thoughts from the start, "Would you know of a Fire Sprite by the name of Radella?"
    "She's the elder sister I was thinking about for Olloo," thought Alvina.
    "Then I be the very Elf she met in this tunnel..."
    "Ha!" came a very different thought. "I thought so." And with that, a larger woman Sprite, who burnt with a more yellow flame tinged with pink, stepped into view. "I'm Radella... My, Oisin. I remember you being much smaller."
    Oisin was surprised and quite relieved to feel her great pleasure at seeing him being planted in his mind.
    "How do those things keep from burning up?” said Mian.
    "What keeps you from freezing, Mian?" thought Alvina in Mian's head.
    Mian grabbed at his ears with a start. "What happens if I touch you?"
    "The same thing which happens when you touch a firefly."
    "Come," thought Radella in everyone's head as she stood with her outstretched arms, filling the tunnel with a sudden flash of violet aura. "Follow us to the great pocket in a nearby tube which has water and even a fine new crop of mushrooms where you can refresh yourselves and spend the night in safety and comfort. Once you have rested we'll take you to the surface so that you'll not be trapped by the trolls."
     
    Sigurd grimaced from time to time as he lay staring at the shadows dancing up the canvass in the candlelight while Edard, the only healer who had stayed behind, squinted and peered at his broken knees. "How many of us survived the raid, Jamys?" he said with a