A Song and Ale

by M E Wolf

The red tent was slightly larger than the one she spent the previous night and part of the morning in. Lifting the tent flap, Alexandra entered the red tent and was immediately greeted by a slender but tough looking elf woman,

  “Hello, I supply and acquire weapons for the Elvin military. My name is Elmindara. There are particular items I was told to give you. These items are particularly valuable and not unlike the armour that you now wear.

  “They have been in Elvin hands since the beginning of the Elvin race. One of our ancestral Dochani had killed the last of the dragons that had lived here and fashioned arms and armour from its thick hide and bones.

  “Some say that they were Fenshians, but since no elf remembers that detail and none are old enough to have that account as one of their experiences so we cannot be sure of that. The armour you now wear is that armour or so it has been said to be as the properties are the same.

  “Many elves died trying the armour ’till we had realized that it only responded with a pure Dochani’s blood and would kill all others. Even the Elvin chain mail, leather and cloth have pieces of that ancient dragon in it. The entire set down to the small clothes have been around for tens of thousands of years, and are always like putting clean ones on every minute you are in them.

  “So I am told, and the writings about the armour suggest. After the weapons are settled with you, I will tell you and help you to understand and get used to using the special properties of the armour and weapons that are your birthright. First let me get you the weapons.

  “Here!”

  Elmindara handed Alexandra a weapon belt with various weapons and other useful tools on it. She buckled the belt to her waist. The belt had three sheaths that contained bladed weapons. On the right hip was a long sword fashioned with a thin double razor-edged blade that was straight and only was one inch wide and three feet long of black steel, which on closer inspection was made from the bone of the dragon that her armour came from.

  Its hilt was unadorned except for the engraving of an ancient script that Alexandra did not recognize, but felt that she should recognize and was made of the same dragon scale that was evident in her armour. Her left hip a small dagger, which was actually a miniature of the long sword at her right, was sheathed and had only about one foot of dragon bone as the blade.

  The sheath in the back contained a small stiletto type blade made in the same fashion as the other two blades and had a round four inch blade instead of a typical flat blade like the other two blades. Two loops in the front contained a small hatchet and a mace, both of which were made of the same material as the other weapons. The mace head and axe head were made from dragon bone and the shafts were made from some type of black wood that Alexandra did not recognize.

  Once she was done inspecting the weapons on the belt, Elmindara handed her a long bow that was made of dragon bone and dragon scale. The bow was six feet long. Its string was well oiled even though she knew it did not need to be oiled at all and probably never was really oiled since its creation. It was the first bow that Alexandra had ever held besides the short bow long ago that she had hardly used if at all in the last three hundred years.

  Last item that was handed to her was a quiver that did not look like it could hold any more arrows, but surprisingly was very light in her hands. The arrowheads and arrow shafts were made from dragon bone and the fletchings and flight notches were made from a wing like membrane, possibly from the wings of a dragon. After fastening the quiver between her shoulder blades, Elmindara started to speak again,

  “Ok, now that you are in possession of both armour and weapons I can instruct you on their use. Being organic your armour and weapons will develop a bond with you and you will in turn develop a bond with them.” Elmindara looked in an ancient looking book and then continued her instructions.

  “It says in this book that you must concentrate on an item that is either the armour or weapons. Try to make it so that I can see your face. Picture your face without the helmet. A little too much, now you are completely naked my dear.

  “Try again. That is better. Try different combinations. Good, good you are doing well. Try summoning your weapons. Good, very good. You are ready for your training. Go to the training area to the east of here. Have your bow and quiver ready. One thing to remember is that you will never run out of arrows.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Alexandra arrived at the archery training area fifteen minutes later. She spotted the archery targets and various elves practicing with their bows. Most of them were men so she was a little uncomfortable. One elf looked to be overseeing everything, but still did not look much older than her.

  He spoke, and did not look too happy when he did,

  “I suppose that you are Alexandra. It is my duty to train you in the bow that you carry, but I don’t have to like it. They picked me to train you because I am the best at it, but I would rather be on campaign with everyone else.

  “While you walked here I examined you and do grant you your beauty, but by the grimace on your face you are not interested in being anywhere close to me either.

  “Being more than eight hundred years old and nearly nine hundred, I do not want any more relationships.

  “By the time I get interested in a woman, she dies on me. I have had more than thirty-five wives and am widowed from every one of them. Ironically I have no children from any of them.

  “That is what hurts the most. They made me aware of what happened to you and I assure you I will not ever think of doing anything to you and that is why they chose me.

  “It is time to start training you. Your first lessons will be in the bow. Have you ever used a bow?” The elf looked at the bow over her shoulder. Alexandra answered his question.

  “Nope, at least not a long bow, never have had the need to learn. This is my first bow of this size. You will train me well, I am sure.” Alexandra awaited his response and he spoke after he grimaced, and snickered.

  “I suppose it will take a while then. At first our bows were made from hickory wood and progressed till we started using yew wood for our bows. The wood in your bow is quite different.

  “There used to be a tree back when the dragons inhabited this world that was living. Very few bows are made from that ebony tree and yours happens to be one of the best that were made.

  “The Dochani that were here a while ago made your armour as well as made all of those bows. It was usually fused to the person it was made for. What I mean is that once used by someone it could not be used by another while they still lived and thus it became a part of their inherent being.

  “Your bow is a part of you now. I suppose you were told that you would never run out of arrows. This is a correct assumption. However, it is not entirely the truth.

  “You are limited to the arrows in your quiver, but those arrows are recalled back to the quiver. It just saves time when you do not have to keep picking up arrows.

  “I am now going to go over a brief construction of the bow and arrow. Hold out your bow. You see how your bow’s top and bottom tapers out away from you and the middle of the bow curves away from you? Well this is a recurve bow that you have.

  “Some bows are flat sticks that have a slight curve in them when a bow string is strung on them and others have complex pulleys and gears to allow for a greater distance and may have one or two cams attached to them too.

  “One is just a regular bow and another is a composite bow. Your bow uses sinew from a dragon for a bowstring. Other bows use various other bowstring material depending on where and what time period they were made.

  “Arrow construction is a bit more difficult and there are a wider variety of ways to make the arrows even though their basic construction is the same. The arrowhead is usually either one of these basic types: hooked, broad point, flight, barbed or blunt.

  “Hooked arrow heads don’t really have a point and are split into three hooks, which burrow into the target. Broad point arrowheads are meant to do more damage than the regular flight arrowhea
d and sacrifice some distance in their use.

  “Flight point arrowheads on the other hand sacrifice damage for distance. Barbed arrowheads make it hard to remove an arrow from a target and thus causing a little extra damage to the target, which also makes the target bleed more.

  “A blunt arrowhead is used in some combat simulations we have and can do some damage as well. The next part of the arrow is the shaft, which is the long rod between the head and tail of the arrow.

  “It is usually made with different wood from whichever tree happens to be around at the time or bone is used. Your shafts are made from ebony wood like your bow and your flight point arrowheads are from dragon bone.

  “A fletching is done with feathers or some other material that allows a straight flight to a target. The fletching in your arrows are made with the wings of the last dragon that the Dochani had slain.

  “A final notch is at the end of the arrow. Come let’s get you some practice drawing the bow.” The elf directed Alexandra to follow him to an area away from the main targets to an area that had a bench that had a chalk line drawn in front of it with a target about three yards in front of it.

  She would have taken an arrow out to fire at the target, but upon doing so was told that an arrow was not needed yet. Instructed to pull back on the bowstring with her right hand while her left firmly grasped the middle of the bow, she soon found out why she was not using arrows yet. Alexandra barely had any strength to pull the string a couple of inches from the bow.

  Pulling the string as much as she could and letting it go was what she was instructed to keep doing. When she could fully draw the bow without straining, it would be then that she would be allowed to shoot at the target. She pulled on the bowstring for a while.

  Every once in a while the elf training her would come and check up on her. Katlin and Tasheia would come and she would talk with them drinking tea and eating warm biscuits. Her muscles grew under the strain of the bow and eventually she was able to draw the string to full length.

  Upon reaching the fully drawn position she had to spend even more time being used to drawing the bow without straining. Now, at the stage where she could draw the bow to its full drawing length the elf let her fire an arrow at the target that was three yards from her position and she missed the target entirely and embedded an arrow into a tree so that the fletching was all that showed.

  The elf told her that it would be summoned back to the quiver once she emptied the quiver of eighty arrows. Her first eighty arrows missed the target. Soon, she had realized that even if she mastered the bow, it would take more time to master the firing of an arrow and was instructed to continue to fire arrows into the target until all eighty arrows went through the center of the bull’s eye. Her quiver emptied over and over again. Just how many times it emptied she did not really know.

  Most of the time she missed the target with all eighty arrows and other times she would get two of the arrows into the target, but not even into the edge of the bull’s eye. After a while Alexandra developed some calluses on the fingers of her right hand from pulling on the string with the arrow in the first three fingers and thumb of her right hand. Days upon days would begin and end and she would start everyday with the firing of an arrow after another arrow.

  A long time passed and someone came by and noticed she was aiming too high. She mentioned it to the elf and he said that she had to learn how to aim on her own and that that was the real lesson of the first target. Alexandra was soon putting more arrows into the target until she did not miss the target anymore even though she still did not get all of her arrows into the bull’s eye. A while later Alexandra was getting half of the arrows into the bull’s eye. It seemed days, between her advancements, took place before she could finally sink all but one into the bull’s eye of the target. The elf came back to test her and when she got all eighty arrows into the bull’s eye he congratulated her and then brought her to another red chalk line.

  He then spoke to her,

  “Any questions before we begin with the next target?” He awaited her response.

  Alexandra had many questions for the elf, but limited it to two questions,

  “I have two questions for you. How long have I spent in total drawing the bowstring and firing arrows at the target? The other question is, what is your name?” She waited patiently for his answer.

  “You have been training for a short time now. It has been only six years so far that you have been training. You are going to be a very good archer, the strongest giant cannot even draw that bow of yours, but you do it now with ease.

  “Your training is going fairly well. My name is Zoilex. I am surprised that you have waited six years to ask me that.” Zoilex waited to see if she had more to say before they went further in her training.

  Alexandra realized that it really was a short time spent doing this. She remembered everything clearly from her training as if it was yesterday. It was like that with all of her memories and wondered why SilverFox had not talked to her recently. She did know that she was quite strong because a husky looking elf earlier in the day was trying to show off and she beat him in an arm wrestling match even though his muscles looked bigger than hers.

  After realizing that she was just in deep thought Zoilex began to speak again,

  “This target is roughly ten yards from the red chalk line. The same rules apply to this target as the last ones, but you will have to sleep here on the ground because there are no benches here. Get all of your eighty arrows into the bull’s eye and you will go to the next target. Remember to focus on the target and aim to hit the bull’s eye.

  “Food and drink will be brought to you as you continue to fire your arrows into the target and you will be told when you can retire for the night.” Zoilex left Alexandra at the red chalk line and went to check out some elves to see their progress.

  Alexandra braced herself for a long time in firing arrows at the target. At first she missed the target entirely, hitting trees, metal poles, the ground and various other inanimate objects. It took her less time to get all of these arrows into the bull’s eye and Zoilex soon advanced her to the next target, which had a distance of twenty yards from the red chalk line. This was harder, but not by much and she was starting to learn faster and was able to eventually fire all eighty arrows into the bull’s eye.

  Zoilex systematically showed her to target after target through many years as she progressed in her training till she was at the last and hardest target that was one thousand yards or three thousand feet from the red chalk line. Alexandra spent more time here than all of the other areas combined and still missed the target with all of her arrows, but one. This target seemed to elude her.

  Sure she could see the target from the red chalk line, but it was slightly a blur at this distance and they also made the target a lot smaller than the other targets. At least it seemed that way. More days and years passed as she fired arrow after arrow at the target and missed most of them until Katlin came by one day and told her that she would never get the arrow into the bull’s eye until she learned to focus not with her physical eye but with her spiritual eye. Many more years went by that Alexandra attempted to focus with her spiritual eye. As time went by she got better and better at seeing with her spiritual eye until she finally could actually see the bull’s eye in her target clearly.

  Finally after being able to aim with her spiritual eye she was getting all of her arrows into the target, and a few actually went into the bull’s eye. A few more years went by and she was able to get all of the eighty arrows into the bull’s eye of the target.

  Zoilex and some other elves congratulated her on completing her accuracy training in the bow and wished her luck in her speed training. Alexandra noticed that Zoilex had a little grey showing on his beard and side-burns and wondered how much time had passed this time to make him have some grey hair.

  He spoke to her as everyone quieted down after congratulating her,

  “You have performed well Alexandra. Th
rough the many years we have had you training with us your progress has been astounding. I even have my first grey hair.

  “The years are catching up on me and I may have to join the other elves that went on their final journeys in search of Peria soon and you will have to continue your training with another elf. Any questions my dear.” Zoilex awaited her questions because he knew that there had to be quite a few of them.

  Alexandra only had one question so she was quick to ask it,

  “How long has it been since I asked how long my training was?” Zoilex somehow knew that she would ask this question, but thought that she would have more for such a long time in training.

  “It has been forty four years since you asked that last, meaning you have been training for fifty years now. Your friends Katlin and Tasheia here are over two hundred years old now. You need to get your training done so that we can get you some combat experience.

  “A great evil is said to visit our planet some time in the future and will devour us without a champion to lead our armies. That champion is you, without you we are lost.

  “The evil to befall us is said to have been here before and they need to come again and reclaim this world. They are an ancient race called the Fenshian and said to come from a planet unknown to us and live just as long as the Dochani race does.”

  Zoilex paused for a few minutes and Alexandra spoke,

  “That would mean that I am now over seven hundred thirty years old and don’t look older than twenty. Do the Dochani feel the passage of time differently than other races?

  “I feel the years go by as though only a day passed. It feels so natural to hold the bow in my hand I do not realize I am firing arrows into a target anymore.

  “Regarding this enemy that will come to this world, would I not need more than the knowledge of using a bow to defeat them even if I was to lead an army that I do not yet know how to lead?” Alexandra waited for a response from Zoilex, but Katlin spoke instead.