Enrie’s Friends

by Ken Barnett

Enrie, as if arriving fashionably late to a noble’s soirée, strolled into the mildew-reeking warren of the druid cult. 

Seven druids gathered around a glowing firepit. They were still bloodied and soot-stained from their raid on Enoi, the third town bordering the forest to suffer an attack. Their boastful chatter ceased as they turned and scowled at Enrie’s unexpected intrusion.

Nonplussed, Enrie tucked a loose strand of orange hair behind her elven ear, her iron inquisitor’s ring glinting in the firelight. She smiled sweetly at the druids. “Your crusade to expand nature’s borders by bloodshed and terror is at an end. I’ll give you one chance to surrender peacefully.”

Derisive laughter swelled within the warren. A dwarf woman shrouded in wolf fur and with flowering vines woven into her beard stepped forward. She grasped a thick tree root sprouting from the soft-soil walls. Behind Enrie, hundreds of roots and vines wove together like mating serpents, closing off the tunnel and trapping her there.

Enrie raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Cornered and alone,” the dwarf woman said, sneering. “I think you’ll be the one surrendering.”

Enrie mimed cleaning dirt from her long fingernails. Using the sharp nail of her thumb, she subtly carved a glyph into the flesh of her palm. “I’m not alone,” she said.

The dwarf spread her arms wide. “You’ve no friends here, inquisitor. Whereas I have many.” The other druids grunted and laughed assurances.

Enrie smirked. “Oh, I have friends.” The blood-drawn glyph glowed with sickly felfire. Enrie slashed her hand through the air, causing green flames to tear a seam in reality. The druids sprang back. Sulfur and brimstone suffused the warren. Enrie’s smirk grew into a wide, toothy grin. “They’re just not from around here.”

A triplet of spindly imps, borne upon bat-like wings, crackling with felfire, emerged from the glowing seam. Enrie, accompanied by her cackling, devilish allies, danced. ‘Twas a vigorous dance that set the warren ablaze and, by the final step, left the druids breathless as corpses.

Enrie departed the soirée having had an absolutely marvelous time.

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This flash fiction piece was inspired by Max Dunbar’s wonderful illustration, Elf Warlock: https://twitter.com/Max_Dunbar/status/1624135623887192064