“We are privileged to have in our presence today,” said the innkeeper, “the world famous storyteller Eaglethorn Beltbuckle.”
Ellwood snorted into his recently filled cup. Was it his twelfth or thirteenth refill? I stood up.
“Eaglethorpe Buxton at your service.” I casually moved around the room to find the best spot for story-telling, eventually settling on a stool near the fireplace. “And this is the story of the Queen of Aerithraine.”
“Oh God! Not her again!” shouted Ellwood. “Don’t you have any new material?”
The sellsword at the bar began to get up, whether in defense of the Queen or of my story-telling or just to make for the outhouse I don’ t know, but a single steely look from Ellwood put him in his seat again. Apparently neither of them had any doubt who was top dog.
“I shall recount the tale of how I sold my sword to get a poor but beautiful farm girl out of prison and then slew a werewolf using only this fork!” I triumphantly pulled the fork from my fork pocket.
Suddenly the darkly cloaked figure in the corner jumped to his feet. He swept aside his cloak to reveal black armor and a dozen long thin knifes on a bandolier across his chest. He began plucking the knives and launching them directly at Ellwood Cyrene, so quickly that seven were in flight at one time before the first met its destination. That destination was not, as had been intended, the torso of my friend, for Ellwood had jumped up at almost the same instant. With a quick flick of his wrist, he deflected the first two knives toward the wooden bar, where they stuck with loud thunks. He ducked to the side of the third and fourth knife, and then grabbed the fifth, sixth, and seventh right out of the air and sent them back at the cloaked figure. By this time the assailant had thrown two more knives, but Ellwood easily dodged them. One of them hit the wall just near my head. The other went into the fireplace causing a cloud of embers to float up into the air like fireflies. And then it was all over, for the three knives that my friend had returned to the would-be assassin had all found their marks—one in the man’s right hand, one in his chest, and one in his throat.
Everything was quiet for one moment, and then chaos erupted as the townsfolk and the traveling tinker rushed this way and that to get out of the way of a battle that was already over. In thirty seconds, the three of us and the darkly-cloaked dead body were the only ones left in the room. Even the sellsword had fled.
“That’s better,” said Ellwood. “Everyone likes a werewolf story.”
I recounted my story of the farm girl and the werewolf, at least so far as I had revised it up to that time, to my friend and my half-orphan companion. I’m not going to tell it now, because I want to make some final editing before it sees print. You should always get a true story just right before you print it.
Afterwards we made our way up to our rooms and I have to say that they were quite nice. I would have half a mind to write up a review for a travel company and give that particular inn three stars if only I could remember what the name of the little town was. In any case the rooms were very nice, all the more so since they were free to me. I made sure that my little elf princess was settled in and had the door locked before preparing for bed myself and was just about to lie down when there was a knock at my door.
I pulled the portal open a crack to find Ellwood Cyrene. He leaned in very close to me. I could smell the ale on his breath.
“I have something to tell you,” he said.
“Yes?” I leaned closer only to better hear him.
“I’ll be gone when you wake Eaglethorpe,” said he. “Don’t continue on the East Road. There will be a battle fifteen miles east of here tomorrow. You will have to make a detour.”
“All right.”
“And Eaglethorpe?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful, won’t you?” He reached up his hand and brushed aside a strand of hair from my forehead. Then he turned and walked down the hallway to his room.
Chapter Fifteen: Wherein we take the road less traveled.
The following morning found both Jholeira and me awake and refreshed. So we made an early start. It was not as early as Ellwood Cyrene who had left at the crack of dawn. However when I went down to the common room that morning, not only did I find that my friend had paid for breakfast for my elf girl and myself, but he had left a package for me as well. Wrapped in a large oiled cloth were several pounds of dried beef, a wheel of yellow cheese, two or three pounds of raisins and a small cloth sack with a half dozen coins in it.
Ellwood Cyrene never seemed to be in need of money, despite the fact that he seldom took payment for his many acts of manly heroism. I have seen a bucket of gold coins gathered together by a town to pay the hero that saved them from the threat of a raging monster, only to have it politely refused by a smiling Ellwood Cyrene. I have seen him pass out coppers to every orphan in a six block radius of the inn in which he was staying. To be fair I have seen him plunder more than one baggage train, and on numerous occasions he has rifled through the pockets of a man he has just stabbed—but who hasn’t done that, when you get right down to it.
I was not able to procure any oats for my poor steed, which is to say Hysteria, but I did get a small bundle of dried hay to supplement the small amount of forage we were likely to find in that country in winter.
We set off on the East Road, but following the advice I had been given, we soon turned off to the north, following a cattle path that wandered over the hills and down into the valley. Our new path veered off from our previous course, but not enough that I thought we would lose our way. In fact at teatime, we stopped among a small copse of trees at the top of a hill. From this point we were able to look down to the south across a vast valley. True to Ellwood’s warning, a great battle was being fought. It was impossible to tell who the two sides were, as their banners at this distance were too difficult to read. All that was certain was that both sides were humans. I took some small pains to make sure that we weren’t spotted, but considering the distance and the chaos on the battlefield, I judged that there was little chance of it.
After journeying the remainder of the day, we made camp just off the path in a little hollow which had been formed by three massive boulders piled one atop of the other two. I can only imagine that some giant piled them up thus as there was no nearby mountain down which they might have slid to come to rest in such a fortuitous configuration, which is to say a pretty good shape.
“We should reach the edge of Elven Wood tomorrow,” I told my companion.
“Really? I don’t seem to recognize any landmarks.”
“Maybe when we get closer,” I offered. “How long since you’ve been home?”
“Six or seven years I would suppose.”
“That must be tough, being without your family for so long.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “And what about you? You’ve been without your family for quite a while now too.”
“What?”
“How long has it been?”
“How long has what been?”
“How long has it been since your family disappeared?”
“Oh. That. I really can’t say.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking.” Jholeira stood up and began to pace back and forth beside the campfire. “The purple drops on the floor, as I’ve already said, could be from the blueberry pie you were expecting.”
“Fiends!” said I.
“As far as Gervil’s knife being stuck in his bed is concerned, that could be an indicator of foul play or of nothing at all.”
“I see.”
“The floorboards being pried up however tells us something. Whoever the culprit or culprits were, they were looking for something hidden under the floor. Money maybe? Family jewels?”
“The unpublished manuscripts of the world famous Eaglethorpe Buxton,” I offered.
“I suppose that is conceivable,” said she. “What I don’t understand is the onions in the rafters. The only thing
I can think of is that they were trying to ward off vampires.”
“Monsters!” said I. “But wait. Isn’t that supposed to be garlic?”
“Maybe they couldn’t find any. Or maybe they didn’t know the difference. Garlic looks a lot like an onion.”
“Oh, my family would know the difference,” said I. “My poor old father was a fine onion farmer. In fact one variety, the Winter Margram onion was named for him. My cousin Gervil wrote an epic poem about onions, though I was never able to memorize more than the first five hundred twelve lines.”
“Is that all?” she wondered.
“Tuki was Onion Queen three years running.”
“So it is possible that your family would have had onions around? Say, hanging from the rafters?”
“Only at harvest time.”
“Was it harvest time?”
“Was what harvest time?”
“Was it harvest time when your family disappeared?”
“It could have been.”
“So there really are no clues at all,” postulated the half-orphan.
“What about the tracks?” I asked. “What about the tracks that ended mysteriously after only fifty feet?”
“You said it was a stormy night. The rain probably washed the tracks away.”
“You’re right,” said I. “The next time it will be morning.”
“What do you mean next time?”
“Um, nothing.”
“You mean the next time your family gets kidnapped or the next time you tell this?”
“Well…”
“Your family never was stolen at all!” She stood up with back straight and finger pointed accusingly. She looked quite intimidating. “You lied!”
“It’s wasn’t a lie,” I explained. “It was a story. Well, it was a first draft.”
Chapter Sixteen: Wherein we travel for two days without my companion uttering a single word.
Jholeira curled up in my blanket next to the fire and went to sleep without another word. I didn’t think this strange, but when she did not deign to speak to me the following morning I began to feel a little put off. I decided that if she wasn’t going to speak to me, then I wouldn’t speak to her either. We packed up and left our campsite in complete silence. By elevenses I was getting rather tired of the quiet. Over a brief meal of raisins and cheese I tried first to coax her and then to trick her into speaking. She would have none of it however and I eventually stopped trying.
The little path that we followed wound down through a series of small valleys, eventually coming to the stream. The trees grew thick on both sides of the stream and indeed on the far side there was a vast expanse of forest that is Elven Wood. The stream itself was no more than twenty feet wide and its broadest expanse and in those places where it widened out thus, it was only a few inches deep. Though the banks were icy, the water was clear and free flowing. Upon reaching it in late afternoon, we followed it southeast until, finding a narrow spot where the water deepened to several feet, I stopped to drink and look for fish.
The greatest skill I ever learned, with the single possible exception of story-telling which is more of an art form than a skill, is that of guddling fish. Fish that have swum up the shallow part of a stream, will often take shelter under a rock or a ledge when they come to a deeper and slower moving part of a river. When they do, they become prey for the guddler. He reaches his hand under the ledge, knowing where a fish ought to be, and carefully locates the fish’s tail. Then he begins tickling the fish with his finger, tickling its tail, then tickling its belly, and finally tickling right under the gills. Then with a quick grasp, he pulls the fish from the water and tosses it up onto the shore, ready to be cleaned, cooked, and eaten. If the temperature of the water made the fish sluggish, you couldn’t tell it by the ones I found, though it didn’t do me any good sticking my arm in. I caught two lovely river trout that day, one which I cleaned and cooked over the fire for our supper, and the other which I kept captive by running a string through its gill, and tying one end to a sapling, and tossing the other end, attached to the fish, back in the water. This second fish we ate for breakfast.
It was late the following afternoon before we reached the intersection of the stream with the East Road. By this time I had resolved myself to the fact that my little orphan boy/girl was never going to speak to me again, but as we crossed the small bridge, which spanned the juxtaposition of the road and the stream, as bridges are wont to do, she at last broke her silence.
“We should spend the night on this side of the stream.”
“Why?”
“The forest is dangerous, especially at night.”
“I don’t care,” said I. “I’m not talking to you.”
“Yes you are,” she replied.
“No. I am not.”
“I was not talking to you, but now I am. But you are definitively talking to me.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes you are.”
“I’m not talking to you. I’m just telling you that I’m not talking to you.”
“That means that you are talking to me, because in order to tell a person something you have to talk to them.”
“No you don’t.”
“Now you are just being contrary,” said she.
“No I’m not.”
“Fine,” said she. “I don’t care whether you are talking to me or not…”
“Yes you do.”
“I don’t care whether you are talking to me or not and I don’t care whether you are being contrary or not. In either case we should spend the night on this side of the stream.”
“No we shouldn’t,” said I.
“No?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” I explained.
“Well as long as your reasoning is sound,” said she.
“No it isn’t.”
We spent the night on the west side of the bridge, just at the edge of the trees on that side of the stream. By the time we made camp, it was too late for me to find any fish to guddle, so we ate dried beef and drank coffee for our supper. Jholeira curled up in the only blanket while I snuggled up in my coat and set my head upon a large flat rock to use as a pillow.
“Are you cold?” she asked.
“No.”
“I’m sorry I stopped talking to you. You have been a very great help to me and you didn’t have to and here I am wrapped up in your only blanket while you have nothing but your coat to keep you warm.”
“I have the fire. Besides, it is only fitting that you have the blanket, being an orphan or a girl or a princess or some combination of the three.”
I stayed awake quite late watching the stars and listening to Hysteria complain about her lack of oats. She should have been happy, as in that particular spot by the bridge there grew not only an abundance of grass but some early flowering szigimon, which any stable master can tell you is the very best horse feed in the world. Many times she has had to make due with busy grass, which is the least best horse feed in the world—not that it is bad for horses, but it does nothing more than give them something to chew on and doesn’t provide any real nourishment. You would think by now she would know when she had it good.
“What are you doing?” asked a small voice from the other side of the campfire.
“I’m pondering horse feed,” said I.
“Well, go to sleep.” It must have been some kind of elf magic, because no sooner had she said this than my eyes closed, seemingly of their own volition.
Chapter Seventeen: Wherein I become prisoner of the elves.
I must admit that I slept well, notwithstanding the fact that I was using a rock for my pillow, and I had no mattress but the bare ground, and I hadn’t even my own blanket to keep warm. I slept well. I slept well until just before dawn, when suddenly, which is to say all of a sudden and without warning, I felt the weight of several bodies fall upon me. I struggled and threw one o
r two punches that found their targets, but having been attacked in my sleep and no doubt lulled into a state of drowsiness by elven magic, it was inevitable that I was overpowered. They took me captive, which is to say they tied my hands behind my back, gagged me, and put a sack over my head. Then they hobbled my legs with a piece of rope so that I could take only the most mincing of steps.
I heard some shouting and I thought I recognized Jholiera’s voice, but with the bag over my head it was impossible to make out what was being said. Once I thought I heard her demand my release, but I wasn’t released. I wasn’t sure who had attacked me, but I was relatively sure that it wasn’t goblins. Oh to be sure, goblins are thick in those parts. But had goblins come upon a sleeping man, they would have sliced his throat rather than taken him captive.
The point of something sharp jabbed me in the back. I didn’t know if it was a dagger or a sword or a pike or a javelin or a sharp stick, but the meaning behind it seemed clear enough to me. I was to go in the direction opposite from the side in which I was being jabbed, which is to say the back of me, so I should go forward. I did, but I didn’t go very fast, being hobbled as I was. Despite the fact that it had been my captors who had hobbled me, they didn’t seem to want to take that into consideration, for they kept jabbing me to hurry me up.
It is hard to judge time when your senses are deprived, which is to say your head is in a sack. But as I was marched along, enough light came in through the weave of the cloth that I could tell when dawn arrived and could more or less make out in which direction the sun was to be found as it move up and across the sky. We didn’t stop to break our fast, and we didn’t stop for elevenses, and we didn’t stop for lunch. When we didn’t stop for tea, I tried to protest by planting my feet on the ground and refusing to go on. The only effect that my protest had was an even fiercer jab with a dagger or a sword or a pike or a javelin or a sharp stick right below my left shoulder blade—fierce enough to draw blood. This, as you can imagine, didn’t make the walk any more fun at all.