Long after night had fallen, Talina lay upon the branch of a great Talonwood on the edge of the meadow surrounding her family's home. The meadow was one of those rare clearings that exist for no obvious reason in the middle of the forest. Instead of thinning out, the forest ended abruptly, giving way to a grassy hill upon which her distant ancestors had built their home. All around the clearing towered the Talonwood, the wall of greenery higher than the clearing was wide, and it was within this wall of living forest the killer would have to hide. If he was there, lying in wait, he would try to finish her as she crossed the clearing. She saw no sign of her would-be killer during her trek through the branches of the Talonwood, however, and she had lain upon her perch for over an hour now, watching for any signs of wrongness around her. There were none, and she was nearly certain he wasn't lurking anywhere near. Slowly, still scanning her surroundings, Talina began to descend. When she reached the ground, she gave one long look around then stepped from the forest and strode toward the house. Her instinct was to run for the house and shelter, but something in her balked. Running from shadows showed weakness, and she was no mouse... Besides, she thought, her lips twisting ironically, considering the skill her assassin had shown, it would make little difference anyway. On her way to the house, Talina neither hurried nor looked over her shoulder, but her back hunched in anticipation of the arrow she half expected to come hurtling out of the darkness. No arrow came. As she approached, however, the focus of her attention turned from the forest around her to the buildings, and she gasped aloud. In all the time she watched for her assassin, she had somehow neglected to study the house closely, and now it was obvious to her that something was very wrong. The house was dark, not particularly odd for so late at night, but there was a stillness to it that was... out of place. The stables too were quiet, for one, and Talina felt a finger of dread creeping up her back as she hurried to the door. When she opened it, the smell stopped her as suddenly as if she had run into a stone wall. It was a smell of wrongness, of a dark evil that set her teeth on edge and made her stomach hollow. That scent had first come to her in the black northern mountains, in the same woods where she and her companions fled for their lives from the Nameless One's pursuing minions. The smell was as foreign to nature as it was possible to be—the ancient, fetid stench of the perverted land that had once belonged to the Nameless One. Only two thousand turnings before, his warped magic had corrupted the people and creatures of the land he ruled into an army of hate-consumed demons. Some were taken against their will and twisted into malformed things—tortured and repulsive, desiring only their own deaths. Others… others had been his willing tools, and those he had remade—stretching and reshaping the bodies and souls of men and animals alike until they became his minions, remade to pollute and destroy the rest of creation. Talina's eyes worked nearly as well in the darkness as in sunlight, so she could see everything as she opened the door and gazed into the room. Nothing inside moved, and nothing seemed out of place…except a dark mound in the center of the entry-hall floor. It looked like… oh dear light! Talina stepped forward and knelt, her heart skipping wildly. She reached out and slowly drew aside the cloak hiding the corpse's face. It was her sister, Estella. Half of her face was gone, torn away, and what remained shone a sickly green. The wound was black and jagged, and the smell of poisonous death hung about her. Talina leapt to her feet, her stomach trying to empty itself, mind rebounding in shock and pain. The move probably saved her life. As her head came up, she caught sight of two glowing red eyes in the shadows at the end of the entry hall. The smell of twisted wrongness increased three-fold, and Talina reached blindly for the rack beside the door where her family kept the walking staves. The staves were specially formed from the seasoned wood of the oak trees that grew at the outskirts of the Talonwood. Most were hundreds of years old, and they had been used as weapons on more than one occasion. Staring down the hall, Talina knew she would need the best weapon she could lay hand to. In front of her, a creature slowly emerged from the shadows. It had a cat-like frame covered completely in fine, black fur, ending in a tail tipped with a dagger-like sting. Talina's people did not purposefully teach their children about the Nameless One's creatures, but many of their legends and fables were based on the time of the Great War. If Talina's memory served her as well as usual, the creature's tail and claws carried deadly venom. The Bastithria's red eyes were already focused on her, and it stalked forward another pace. It was beautiful in a terrible, twisted way. No. It might have been breathtakingly beautiful, had it not been twisted into a foul mockery of beauty. Its streamlined body was designed for the pursuit and destruction of anything lesser—over land or through the trees. It seemed that it might move unpredictably, faster than sight like a striking snake, and looking at it left no doubt of the latent power in its wiry muscles. Then its mouth opened and an unearthly screech filled the hall. Baring its fangs, it leaped forward almost too fast for her to register. Talina threw herself back out the door a split second before the beast's fangs closed where her shoulder had been. Her staff came up and she struck at it. Her blow caught nothing but air, and she was barely able to bring up her staff around to block the next lightning-swift strike from its paw. She didn't dare take even a flesh wound. Those teeth and claws were as poisonous as the tail that now whipped at her. Talina never remembered how she survived the next few minutes. She only knew that she and the creature fought in circles in front of her family's home for seconds that were days to her. She became more and more desperate as the battle continued. She was beginning to tire, and she didn't dare turn to run. The thing was more agile in the trees than on the ground. She had nowhere to retreat other than the house, and who knew what else might be inside? Moments later, Talina found herself backed against a wall with the creature poised for a final leap. She slid sideways, trying to escape, and stumbled backward through the doorway. The creature changed direction to follow her, and she threw her staff at it. The two met in mid air, and the Bastithria swatted the staff aside with the sweep of a paw, landing directly in front of her. Talina backed up frantically and tripped over her sister's sprawled body. The creature hissed and spat as it stalked forward, stepping casually onto Estella, and Talina felt her eyes filling with tears of pain, sorrow... and rage as she held her torn arm to her chest—an arm that she could not remember hurting. No, no, NO! This could NOT happen! She would NOT die on a cold floor to this gods-blighted creature! It killed her family, but it would NOT kill her. Not now. She could not leave her people, unsuspecting, directly in the Nameless One's path. Talina's rage built until a red haze formed in front of her eyes. Curiously, in what must be her last moments, her mind seemed to retreat within her to all the times she had shared with her family and to growing up in the Talonwood. She remembered her first climb, the hours she had spent learning the ancient "il alka le'Enai," the ways of the forest, and elf lore. It had all come to this. Her life was done, her message still undelivered. It was NOT right! The Bastithria crouched, its tail poised to strike, and Talina cried out in despair and frustration, screaming words that she would not remember until much later, "Eanai! Eanai! Eanai al e'Ayaia! Tarios il Madradaria! Bicole Eanai o'Talania!" With her utterance, the creature hesitated, as if in surprise. Then, a moment later, it froze completely, its body totally still except for its terrible eyes, which darted side to side. With a howl it shrank back from her, eyes rolling in what was unmistakably fear. Then, turning, it leaped out the door, fleeing for the forest. Halfway across the clearing, something seized the creature mid-leap and pulled it violently to earth. Screaming in pain, it writhed and howled, dark vines like coarse ropes reaching from the ground to ensnare it and pull it down. Soon one limb was caught, then another. Before long, the Bastithria was pinned completely. Then the writhing mass, now more vine than beast, began to contract. From her half-reclined sprawl, propped on one arm in the entry hall of her parents' house, Talina heard bones snap. One final anguished scream filled the air, tearing at the last of her sanity, and there was silence. The forest, however, was not done. The mass of vines continued to writhe long after Talina had blacked out from pain, exhaustion, and relief.