by Thomas Head
While we loaded our tents, he retrieved his pipe too.
He harrumphed. “At any rate,” he drawled, “it seems we have suffered little and gained a bit of information.”
* * *
We were not long in finding the narrow quickening of the river that the elves spoke of. It was only a half a day’s row south, even with the wind in our faces. Here, we saw that the river resulted from the confluence of two smaller ones, one from the south and one heading out of the west. The way south was flat, and we could see the little change in the river for miles ahead. We were stuck, it seemed. And portage was out of the question, for beyond carrying the vessel itself, there was also the matter of her cargo.
We pulled the Feisty-Goat up on a sandbar and stretched out our legs. Mighty Kenzo sat himself with a grunt on the gunwale while the rest of us waked around a bit.
“Now what do we do with the Goat, old boys?” he asked.
Frobhur grunted. “In the old days, we’d steal one of those naked she-elves and tell her husband that if he ever…”
But even hardened old Frobhur could not continue this thought with the look that Halvgar gave him.
“Delthal, my lad,” my uncle called. “You know the natives better than you know us! Prove yourself, sir! Suggest something!”
“Fie,” said Delthal.
“What?” I called out, already alarmed where this might go.
Delthal continued, not addressing me now. “Fie, I say, is the fairest among us fellows.”
“What the devil are you getting at?” I thundered.
“The she-elves, they ogle newcomers to the elf camps. I would suggest the favors of a chief’s daughter would be most beneficial.”
“Whoa there, sir!” I warned.
“Presently, we are in the land of the Crui Na. The naked ones. You won’t find so much as a loin cloth in your way, Mister Fie!”
“I’m going to pull out your tongue, dwarf!”
“May I suggest,” Delthal asked me with the charm of a diplomat, “that you consider pulling something else out?”
* * *
In the end, I could have gained the run of all the shaky wood-and-skin lodges. But the chief’s daughter, fat, bald, gray-toothed and possessing breasts like pillow cases that were half-filled with sand, was to gain my practiced attentions that night. This, of course, is only the opinion of an old boy who loved the work of nature. The jangle of so much bared flesh, which could stir no living thing that I knew existed, was my first obstacle. The awakening began on the inward journey. I had to think of younger, thinner flesh. But the new life hardly gained full possession before that dull mouth began kissing my face. It was like being attacked by a catfish straight out of the river.
The she-elf’s forwardness was exceeded only by her impatience. Before I could easily weasel from her attentions, she leapt atop me. I was not to be deterred. I charged straight into the fray, turning her over, and slapping her unbroken ocean of an arse. The love-blow sent tidal waves of flesh encircling the waist-line horizons. Of course, allowances must be made for a young man in his prime. Other folk might have discovered a worldful of horrors in her delight at this, or the way she turned me over and did the same to me. But I did not see the lonely calls of a fright I cried out as anything less than warcries, so I rallied back, charging into the mayhem of her ambitious lovemaking with all the vigor and determination of a berserker. It was a grand battle, worthy of the epic poems of dwarves or the ballads of men. I was drumming , chirping like a feathered creature through the pain, all of which could not have sounded less musical to my warrior’s mindset.
Now, I do not like to boast, not without a belly full of beer, but come morning, I needed more than a little diplomacy to save me from becoming the adopted son-in-law of one resolute old fellow. This was—well, a kind of embarrassment not wholly confined to adventures, stranded in the wild. But it was certainly one that one called even more of my cunning.
“I will return to this village,” I told the old man’s translator, “But in order to do so quickly, I needed horses enough to carry my party and our belongings.
* * *
It was no small ache, thinking about sweet Dhal the next morning—but by thunder, lightning, and whatever torrential force a fellow can dream of, I had earned us some horses. We were taken out into a valley some distance from the camp, then some distance off the trail to green valley, where horses as large as Little Fellow awaited us.
Returning with a team of riding mares, plus a pack horse for each of us, I heard a band of hunters grumbling. While my fellows climbed atop their monstrous horses, perching themselves up there like squirrels atop large dogs, I was sitting with a group of the elves, trying to save the lads the embarrassment of watching them struggle. I was squatted before my would-be father-law, when somebody rode up behind us and gave a long, low whistle. It was Old Jickie, signaling that the horses were packed with what would be carried.
His little booted feet hardly came down to horse’s ribs. The rest of the fellows were riding behind him, equally preposterous atop the shockingly large mounts.
The old elf evidently understood that we were ready to leave, for he turned and waved for his daughter to come.
I turned and shrugged at them, struggling not to chuckle.
They gave no sign of recognition.
When I turned around, I was given such a kiss that the old man and the hunters rolled about on the grass, slapping the earth as they rolled and laughed, gasping for air.
* * *
A touch of the spur to my horse and I was abreast of my fellows, Halvgar leading his horse aside to give me middle place.
They were silent as mice, and none were looking at me. And I knew what that meant. As Uncle Jickie used to put it in his peppery way, I always did have a knack of tumbling head first the instant an opportunity offered. This time, I had gone in heels and all, and now came up as bashful as any backwoods boy before a naked maid.
“You traded the ship for these horses, didn’t you, Uncle Jickie?”
He merely cocked his brow.
“I spent the night with that big nightmare of a she-elf for nothing?”
In reply, he and the rest of the party laughed so uproariously that the pack horses whinnied and bucked, and nearly started off into the fields in a sprint.
Chapter 20
I question if the old heroes of the sea could boast of a more thrilling adventure than the wild rush of thundering along atop Yrklandic horses, a small cavalcade of a man and six strong dwarves mounted on cantankerous beasts, eager for the furious dash through sweeping meadows and primeval forest to the lair of a thunderous old dragon. I say “question”, as I had no idea—because a dash, or indeed a good gallop, was impossible. The pack horses were simply too heavily burdened.
I rode a knob-kneed, muscular brute, which carried me like mad in precisely the opposite direction I steered him. It seemed we were hardly going faster than a brisk walk. In fact the she-elves, children, and a horde of ragged camp-followers straggled in long lines far to our side. Altogether, the host behind the flag numbered not less than a hundred. But soon our novelty was lost on them, and only their dogs remained to give chase.
The tenth day south we found some dragon’s clawprints on soggy ground. At once word was sent back to pitch camp on rolling land. A cordon of sharp swords were turned outward encircled the camping ground. At one end, the animals were tethered, at the other our tents were huddled together. There was no sense in luring the beast in with the horse, only for it to find us a tastier treat.
We tried to be silent, but all night mongrel elvish dogs went tearing about the enclosure in packs, keeping noisy watch. Twice, Halvgar and I went out to join Kenzo, who was on watch that night.
We saw only a whitish wolf, scurrying through the long grass.
Halvgar thought this is what had disturbed the dogs; but I was not so sure. Indeed, I felt very much prepared to trace those fearsome reptilian features that had nearly left me with shat tro
users back north, for I knew firsthand how suddenly even such a large beast could appear. I scanned under every tree grove, or low cloud, and I watched the sky, knowing how the cunning beast could appear from any direction.
I deemed it wise to have a larger watch, and I volunteered to remount and keep within call during the thick of night.
But in the morning, I knew this was a mistake. The tents were a beehive of activity. The horses, with almost human intelligence, were wild to be off. Riders could scarcely gain saddles, and before feet were well in the stirrups, the horses had reared and bolted away, only to be reined sharply in and brought back to the ranks. The dogs, too, were mad, tearing after unseen enemies and worrying one another till there were several curs less for the hunt.
At the next elvish encampment, Delthal and I offered what remained of our trading stock for a hunter to guide us.
The last elves, the naked ones, had kept well within the lines of good order. But the elf rabble we stumbled into then lashed their half-broken horses into a fury of excitement, which threatened to send our own mounts bucking us off to join them. The camp was strongly guarded. Fifty of them circled around us wildly, yelping, offering up confusion to spite any and all discipline. Delthal remained calm, though, whispering at me to keep smiling.
“Let them think you’re arse-sniffing loony.”
I tried.
I am quite sure that, instead, I looked the part of a fool idiot while I looked dumbly at their unusual longhouse. These were not normal elves. They built long halls, like men or dwarves—and what a structure it was. It resembled a hedgehog, bristling with thirty foot, sharpened logs. It looked more like a spikey beaver dam than any sort of dwelling.
“That’s just the entrance. These folk, they live under the earth,” he said, and hoisted the chest we carried.
Like the dwarves of old, I thought.
Inside their ranks, they were whistling orders back to their she-elves and scolding the naked little urchins that popped up here and there from the ground.
Half of them scampered in the way, and the whole encampment began setting up a din of yowling that might have scared lesser men and dwarves into endless flight. Luckily, all these people were known to Delthal, as I discovered when we reached the incredible hut.
Under the odd tangle of a roof, we watched the approach of the warden of the abode, what these people call a chieftain. He came quickly to the entry and nodded to Delthal, who sat on his knees in the style of the elves.
The fellow stood silently, staring at me. Clad in fringed buckskin from a knee to shin, with nothing else between his shriveled groin and us but the dusty air, he was as wild a figure as any one of the savage rabble. Pursuing big game across these meadows had left him bow-legged and leathery. But his eyes told a different tale than his body. Glossy with age, they had a playful kindness about them.
But as I plunked down the chest, he gave a scornful laugh and spoke in perfect Dwarvish.
“Your coming has been foretold to us, human. You come seeking scouts. Seeking warriors.”
I looked up at his eyes. They questioned nothing, and yet everything.
“Yes we have.”
He had an arm leaning on a long bow, which he used to bid me to sit. As I took my seat, he sat too, easing down the grace of a plainsman born and bred in the saddle.
“Faith, human,” he said. “It takes the faith of the fool to ride to battle against such a foe.”
As it usually was with these elves, I had only a vague sense of what he was talking about.
“I’m certain it does, master.”
“And what are the capers of this beast to warrant its assault, compared to the antics of the bear, or the fox?”
The wind caught his long, thinning hair and blew it about his face. Elf statements tended to be odd and unclear, but I had become acquainted with the elf habit of vague questions, it’s a trick they use to get at the nature of things without being direct.
“By my ancestors,” I said, “I’ve no mind to run amuck of bears and wolves! I’ll get out of your way, master, if the beast had done so little to your people as steal away with your fish and rob you of your venison.”
The elf smiled. “For bears, one needs a higher tree. For wolves, a simple wall of stone. To live with any beast you must know its ways. What does one need to fight a devil?”
Delthal’s lips began to frame some answer to the elvish elder. But he stopped himself.
I don’t know why my patience was suddenly so short.
“Faith, I already have sir!”
“Are you so certain? Have a care, young human,” he warned. “You’ve escaped the beast with your life, but look into your heart and see what it took. Look, and look again! You have been told, no doubt, that it takes them to eat, that it wraps them like a spider. But the little one would not fill its web, or its belly.”
“What?”
“You heard me, human. The dragon hoards gold, too—though it could never hope to spend a reel or a coin of it.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“When the dragon takes a child, it does not take the child to eat, but to keep!”
“Why! How do you know—agh, forget it. Save us! What are you talking about now?”
“Ha! You have your faith yet, do you?” said the old elf, and turned triumphantly to a figure that entered from the gloom of the woody home.
It was the half-elvish, dwarven shaman from the riverbank. That son of a bitch was everywhere! He was wearing a gown of skins now, tied at the waist. He still wore the dirk I had given him.
“Oh, this one again!”
The old elf laughed.
“Leave your heart behind, young human. For it would steal that! The beast would sooner give up its food than its gold. And it would sooner give up its gold than that child!”
I looked at him sternly. I had no idea what to say.
So I begged.
“Then I would ask for your help, if you would lend it, elf.”
“Oh, our time and our way on this land are beginning to fray, human; for change visits all, and it when it comes, it does not come for a short visit. The way of things will be but memories when the young ones are gray. They want adventures, and houses, and fineries for their necks. Because this has been seen, and it is known, we will captain our own fates. And we will end the age ourselves!”
“You mean?...”
Chapter 21
“Freedom is too costly, always. It must be stolen.”
—Dwarven wisdom.
The next day, after a feast of trout and venison, eaten among naked elves who eyed us as though they wondered what we tasted like, we headed south with twenty seven of the tribes finest hunters and scouts.
Scouts ahead, hunters to either side, we followed the course of a half-dried slough. Very soon, dragon tracks were visible.
Some two miles from camp, the out-runners returned with word that the beast was sleeping a short distance ahead, and that the marsh-bed widened to a banked ravine. The dragon could not have been found in a better place. There was a fine slope from the upper land to our game. We ascended the embankment and coursed cautiously along the cliff’s summit. Suddenly, we rounded an abrupt headland and gained full view of the monster. But it was a different beast. This one had no wings. It was a terrifying sixty foot long, about half the size of the one that flew over Foxwash. It was not truly a dragon or a wyvern, I supposed. Rather, it seemed like some meshing of the two.
“It is a drake,” Uncle Jickie answered, without me having to ask.
I raised my hand, stopping the march. My little fellows raised themselves in their stirrups to survey the creature.
A light mist screened us and a deep growth of the leathery grass, common to these marshy plains, half hid a multitude of broad humps, moving with its breath. Coal-black scales poked through the green stalks. In the next instant, its head rose a bit, sniffing the air suspiciously. But the creature was just restless, or dreaming. Protruding amber eyes glared
savagely sideways. The great, thick neck hulked forward in impatient jerks. Then the curved horns tossed broken tree trunks off in savage contempt.
From the headland beneath us, to the rolling prairie at the mouth of the valley, the earth seemed to sway with the giant form. I was dizzy just from the sight of it. And those dagger-pointed teeth, sharper than a pruning hook, flashed as it licked the air.
Some of the fellows grew excitedly profane, mumbling cursed under their breath. Others were fearful, breathing quickly. The elf hunters nocked arrows onto their bows and filled their mouths with the dirks we had given them.
Wheeling my horse in front, I looked once more at the beast.
Then I gave one short, quick whirl of my axe...
With a stormburst of galloping hoofs, we charged down the slope. At the sound of our whirlwind advance, the beast tossed up its heads and began pawing the ground angrily. From the hunters, there was no shouting, no warcries, but my fellows filled the air with screams so unearthly that the elves almost broke from our company.
The drake started up and turned, panic-stricken, bellowing roars down the valley, then tore for the open prairie. The ravine rocked with the plunging monster, echoing the crash of its thunderous tread.
We were closing in faster than I could have expected. Indeed, it was an alarmingly short chase. In the next moment, swift as lions, the swiftest riders darted towards the large animal and rode within a few yards before taking aim. Then showers of arrows from the elvish hunters sung through the air overhead.
Instantly, the beast roared, and the ravine was ablaze with fire. The two fastest hunters were unhorsed, their ponies thrown from their feet. Their blood splattered everywhere. The third elf was nearly gored by a long horn atop the beast’s back. It missed him, ripping his horse from shoulder to flank. Then, maddened by the creature’s blood, and before a shot from a second hunter ended the horse’s misery, the drake caught the man on its upturned horns and tossed him some thirty feet high.
