• The elf urged the infant to be quiet. He held the baby in the crook of his right arm and jostled it gently in an attempt to comfort it. It was a dark cloudless night and he was tensed and braced for action. His dark hair and complexion contrasted against the infant’s invisible platinum blonde fuzz and porcelain skin. The child looked at him with its sea green eyes about to tear. The shadows of the bushes he hid behind flickered over him as the goblins’ lamps passed on the compact dirt road. The steady beat of their run echoed in his ears.
    He looked through a break in the leaves to watch the goblin troops pass. Despite all his years a cold shiver went up his spine. Goblins were the ugliest creatures in existence and their ugliness seeped from their souls. The pure acrid presence of the foul beings literally made the Elven kind sick to the stomach. It was only through years of discipline that one could overcome the symptoms for the management consisted of pure willpower. Elven healing abilities could not be used on the self.
    The infant, to say the least, did not have years of practice and was feeling quite ill. The older elf was spending endless energy to continuously send the healing that negated the symptoms. Energy that weakened his own barrier of willpower as his fatigue grew stronger.
    Once the troops had moved out of sight and not a sound could be heard, he looked to the infant, now asleep after the pressure of the goblins’ presence had faded. The elf released his energy from the child and darted across the road, as fast and silent as the shadows that had flickered across him before. Once in the coverage of foliage again he abandoned part of his stealth for speed. He broke through the underbrush at a break neck speed any experienced rider would find reckless.
    He hoped fervently that all those back in the burrows were safe. If the goblins discovered them not only would the elves be outnumbered but left with nowhere to run as well. The plague had hit the Elven kind hard. It had struck six months ago with the yearly winds. It had lay undiscovered until the symptoms of coughing caused by the dust thrown up in the winds had failed to cease after the winds had passed.
    Not one disease had ever affected the Elven kind before and they found themselves completely unprepared when bodies started dropping in large numbers. The death rate for the disease was fifty-fifty. The disease had a short life span. Time from infection to death was two weeks. It started with coughing that grew in intensity till the subject coughed up his own lungs. All those able bodied enough to work were caring for the sick, but there was nothing that could be done. The elves simply didn’t have any kind of medical knowledge in the area. The most they could do was ease the pain and prolong the inevitable. Those that recovered did so on their own. They’d get to the stage of coughing blood, then for no reason that could be identified would slowly recover. The amount of able bodied was rapidly decreasing. The sick by far outnumbered the healthy.
    It was at this time the Goblins had attacked. They didn’t even have the manpower for the plague, never mind to fight a war as well. The outcome for the elves was grim.
    The infant was the only child of their clan. Elven children were born rarely and far apart as elves were mostly infertile. The infertility was a balance for their long life, and an imperviousness to disease and aging. that had only too recently been discovered imperfect. The child was but an infant and would not fare well against a plague wiping out those who’d already finished their growth and stood in their prime. The infant had been born to an uninfected mother. The child needed to be stolen away from the clutches of the disease, but with it rapidly spreading through their land there was only one way to do it. The child was to be sent to the human realm where no disease had ever affected them.
    This had its own dangers. The chances of the child appearing in a populated area were dismal. When compared to the likelihood that should the infant miraculously survive the plague it would only be to be slaughtered by the goblins however, it was decided that dismal prospects were promising.
    The older elf lost in thought had been delayed in discovering the goblins on his trail. He cursed. He picked up his pace even faster, now doing everything he could do, just to keep his balance. Reaching his destination in a small clearing among the woods, he quickly laid the child down and started on the transportation portal spell. It required patience and concentration he could barley spare. He completed it just as the goblins broke cover of the trees. No time for delicacies the elf picked up the child a tossed it through the portal just as the goblins converged and took him down. The portal closed with a snap of both sound and light. The only remnants a small puff of smoke.