Venom and Song

by Wayne Thomas Batson

“What’s our second lesson?” Johnny asked.

  “How to run,” Grimwarden said, to which the kids rolled their eyes. Then Grimwarden added, “In the dark.”

  “I can’t see anything,” Kat declared.

  “Hey! Watch it!” Johnny whined, giving Kat a push. “You stepped on my foot!”

  “Sor-ry!” Kat spat back. “Like I could see it.”

  “M’lords, please,” came Grimwarden’s voice from up ahead.

  “Grumpy,” Kat whispered at Johnny.

  “Geek,” he spat back.

  “It seems you’ve met your match, Johnny,” Autumn stated.

  Up until now, Tommy realized their relationships had been built on seemingly surreal circumstances, ones that did not truly reflect the normal everyday issues of being human, as Tommy put it. It was one thing to escape from school, fly across the globe, and flee through Gwar-invested territory, but it was quite another to, well, get along. As he had thought before, who among them would actually be friends given normal circumstances? Would they pick each other first at kickball? Would they sit at the same cafeteria table? Would they invite one another over to birthday parties? By the looks of things now, probably not. And it was about to get a whole lot worse.

  “All of you, enough. You are a team,” Grimwarden continued, “at least you will be.” Though they could not see him, Kat and Johnny knew he was staring at them. “Becoming a team means that you rely on one another . . . that you trust one another in everything, even with your very lives. Your destinies are not your own, but are intertwined with those of your people.”

  With his voice echoing down the cavern beyond them, Grimwarden emphasized just how deep they had journeyed beneath Whitehall, and just how helpless they were when there was no light, not even the flicker of a torch.

  “Everything I will teach you, from tactics of battle and skills with your weapons, to the history of your people and the legacy you carry, will be for naught if you do not know how to work together. And I can think of no better way to start than here, where all you have are your ears.”

  “Sir? What do you mean?” Jett asked.

  “Your ears, Lord Hamandar, so that you can listen to others more than you listen to yourself. It is an easy thing to speak. Anyone can do that. But it’s quite another thing to listen, and even further, to hear.”

  “But I thought you said we’d be running. How can we run in the dark?” Kiri Lee asked.

  “By listening to one another,” Grimwarden said. “Before you lies a tunnel that stretches deep into the heart of Mount Mystbane and under the Thousand-League Forest. It goes on for miles. Somewhere along its path I have placed a clay jar.

  “Now the rules: At least one of you must be moving forward at all times. Break the jar and you will start again. But bring the jar back to me and you will be allowed to have another of Mumthers’s delicious meals.”

  “Do you mean we can’t eat until we find the jar?” Johnny asked anxiously.

  “You are correct. Thus why you will run rather than walk—as the jar is, how can I say, not as close as you might prefer.”

  “I don’t like this at all,” Johnny interjected.

  “All the more reason for you to complete the task in a timely fashion, Johnny,” Grimwarden said. “If you don’t like this, believe you me, what is coming will make this one of your fonder memories.”

  The young lords were already uneasy, what with the pitch-black dark around them. And now they were supposed to journey farther into this cave? Without lights? Though no one dared speak out, Johnny wasn’t the only one who thought this was crazy. Cold fear began to wrap its tentacles around their chests.

  “Now”—Grimwarden’s voice came from behind them—“I’ll leave you to your chore.”

  The teens spun around. “Hey, how’d you get back there?” Johnny asked.

  “You weren’t listening,” Grimwarden said.

  “I still don’t get how we’re supposed to do this,” said Kiri Lee.

  “Let’s just think about it, Kiri Lee,” Tommy spoke up. “We’ll need to work together.” They couldn’t see it, but Tommy was running his fingers through his curly hair, as he did anytime he was deep in thought. “We could stretch out in a long line, evenly spaced. Then the person in the back will run all the way forward, using the voices of those in front to guide them. After each gets in the lead position, he or she could take four steps or something feeling around for the jar. Then the leader could yell back to the person in the rear. That person runs forward and does the same in front of you. When we actually find the jar and head back to Whitehall, the person in the rear always carries it, passing it off when it’s his or her turn to run forward.”

  “Almost like a type of relay race,” Autumn said.

  “Seems kinda silly if you ask me,” said Kat, trying to act as though she wasn’t impressed. Then she looked to where she thought Grimwarden stood. “Silly, right, Mr. Grimwarden?”

  “The lord does offer a workable solution,” answered Grimwarden.

  “But that’s going to take forever,” Kat said.

  “Then I suggest you get started. And remember: break the jar and you start over.”

  “This is impossible,” Johnny added.

  “Young Lord Johnny, when you start listening as much as you protest, you will begin to do the impossible instead of complain about it, I assure you.”

  “Yeah, Johnny,” Autumn chided him.

  Grimwarden responded, “And Lord Miarra”—she could tell by his tone Grimwarden was glaring at her through the darkness— “provoking your friends doesn’t become you.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied softly.

  There was no reply.

  “Commander Grimwarden?” Autumn’s voice echoed down the cavern. An eerie silence befell them all. “He’s gone!”

  The first hour was terrifying. And downright frustrating.

  None of the Seven had experienced utter darkness; most people rarely do. The feeling pushed all of them into a state of claustrophobia. Kiri Lee and Johnny had mild panic attacks, and Jett—despite his manly gift of strength—remained absolutely quiet.

  The pack followed Tommy’s idea to a tee: the person in the rear ran up the side of the pack, each member of the line making a ruckus and reaching out to guide the runner, until he or she arrived at the front and took four more steps, arms held out. But the speech was far from encouraging, each individual spouting off about how this was stupid or how it would be easier if they were just left alone to do it by themselves. As soon as the leader tripped—effectively stalling the progress while the leader recovered from a bloody knee or a scuffed hand—the entire group bickered. And then the tirade of insults really began as each new leader passed by, fumbling toward the front.

  “If you weren’t so clumsy”—said Jett, picking himself up off the tunnel floor—“maybe we’d have found the clay pot by now!”

  “Me?” cried Johnny, unable to see but glaring in the direction of Jett’s voice. “You stopped without any warning. I’m not the mind-reader, you know.” He groaned aloud. “Mannn, I think I broke my nose on your back.”

  “Ah, come on, it’s probably just a scratch,” Jett grumbled. “If I was doing this alone, I’d be back in the kitchen already.”

  “Of course you would,” said Autumn. “It takes a lot of food to feed that ego!”

  And so it continued: the lords tripping, stumbling, arguing, yelling, insulting each other as they searched for the clay pot Grimwarden had hidden in the tunnel. Until finally, frustrated, tired, and hungry, Autumn pronounced, “This is pointless!” Five voices agreed. . . .

  “Wait,” said Kat. “Where’s Tommy?”

  “Oh my gosh,” said Kiri Lee. “Tommy?”

  “C’mon, Tommy!” yelled Johnny. “Quit messing around.”

  “Guys, I think we lost Tommy,” said Autumn.

  “You sure did,” Tommy finally spoke up.

  “Tommy?” Jett asked. “You okay?”

  “You know, Jett, that
’s the first caring thing anyone has said since we started this challenge.” No one replied. “Look at us!” Then he thought better of it. “Nevermind.” He shook his head. “Here we are, stuck down who-knows-how-far underground, given the simple task of returning a jar to the surface, and we can’t even encourage each other. What’s up with that?”

  Again no one replied. For the first time in more than an hour, the Seven were utterly speechless.

  “Yeah, what’s up with that?” Kat finally admitted.

  Though none of the others could see it, each of them nodded.

  “Sorry, guys,” Johnny offered up first.

  “Me, too,” said Jimmy.

  Stepping on each other’s words, they all apologized at once, offering hands blindly for high fives, handshakes, or pats on the back.

  “Okay,” Tommy concluded. “We cool?”

  “Yeah, we’re cool,” said Jett on everyone’s behalf.

  “Now let’s go get this done. No more slams, got it?”

  “Got it,” they all said.

  “If what they say about us is true—and I tend to believe it is— then we’re like family. And we’d better start acting like it. And not the bickering kind.”

  “We got ya, Tommy,” said Kat. “Family.”

  “Family,” echoed all the others.

  “All right then,” Tommy said. “We have a jar to find!”

  In the next hour the Seven learned to work together, even encourage each other.

  “Keep it coming, Johnny. You’re doing great.”

  “On it, Autumn,” he replied.

  “Right here, Kiri Lee. I’m right here. Yu just give me yur hand.”

  “Okay,” she replied. “Don’t let me fall.”

  “You all right, T-man?” asked Jett.

  “Fine, thanks,” said Tommy. T-man. That’s kinda funny, he thought. But I like it.

  Under Tommy’s direction, they formed a kind of chain of Elves, navigating the twists and turns as one. They began to eat up the darkened terrain, moving much faster than before and making much better time. Of course they weren’t keeping track of the time, but someone else was.

  Tommy was in the lead and felt the floor slope sharply upward. “Hold on, guys,” he said. “The floor shoots up here . . . I just want to check and make sure that—” His hand brushed up against the smooth lines of a glazed terra-cotta vessel, pushing it over. “Whoa!” he exclaimed, reaching out to keep the jar from crashing. “It’s the jar!”

  “Don’t drop it!” Autumn hollered. “You got it?”

  “Do yu got it?” Jimmy asked.

  “I got it!” Tommy finally exclaimed, hugging the earthen vessel close to his chest.

  The Seven gave up a mutual cheer and surrounded their friend. They patted his back and then reached out to feel how big the jar was. It was no more than two feet tall and about twelve inches wide. It was adorned with two handles below the mouth, one on each side.

  “You did it!” Kiri Lee hugged Tommy.

  “We all did it,” he corrected her. “Our team. Our family. To us! The Seven Elven Lords of Berinfell!” Tommy yelled.

  “All right!” they all exclaimed, clapping loudly. All, that is, except Tommy, who clung tightly to the earthen jar.

  When the revelry calmed down, Tommy took a few steps forward, back the way they had come. “All right, gang. Who’s hungry?”

  With victory sweet in their chests, and the smell of Mumthers’s next meal swirling in their heads, the Seven made their best time yet, covering the same ground as before, but in less than two hours.

  They took even more care to guard the precious prize this time. Not a single team member fell, and again the jar didn’t endure so much as a scratch. By the time Kiri Lee first noticed the tunnel warming in both temperature and the faintest of glows, they were operating like an efficient machine. In less than five hours the team seemed just at home in the dark—relying solely upon their friends’ voices—as they did in broad daylight.

  Squinting painfully, they stepped into light. It was then that Grimwarden appeared . . . directly behind them.

  “Well done,” he said, clapping slowly. “Well done, indeed.”

  “Hey!” Autumn pointed. “How’d you get back there?”

  “Yeah,” the others joined in.

  “Back here? Why, I’ve been behind you the entire time.”

  “The entire—” Tommy thought it through. “So you heard—”

  “Everything,” finished Grimwarden.

  The revelry the Seven had felt just moments ago suddenly vanished, replaced now by the smothering grip of shame.

  “I was deeply moved by how much you care for one another,” he added. The Seven were sure he was being sarcastic. “Your encouraging words no doubt made all the difference. To date—as I have been training Elven soldiers for some time—you have accomplished this task in record time.”

  “Wait, so you’re serious?” Kat asked.

  “Absolutely. I always put the jar in the same place. You were the fastest to bring it back.”

  Johnny decided to ask what they were all thinking. “But what about all the bad—?”

  “Yes, but when that strategy didn’t work, you tried a different path. You are my greatest pupils yet. And will make fine leaders in battle when you are through here at Whitehall.” Grimwarden strode forward and took the jar from Tommy. “You picked it up, eh, Tommy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very good. Very good indeed.” He studied the boy’s face a moment longer, withdrew something from within the jar, and stuffed it inside his tunic next to his chest. “Now, to Mumthers’s hearth fire!” He swung his hand at them. “Off with you!”

  And as they raced back up through the sprawling halls and staircases of Whitehall, they each reveled in the valuable lesson they saw in Grimwarden’s praise: it’s anyone’s game to criticize, but it’s kingly to see only the good in others.

  12

  The Art of Discipline

  THE SEVEN found their first few days in Whitehall spent much like the first. Grimwarden had them embark on various exercises that he called team building, each of them holding the same reward: more of Mumthers’s delicious food. It was a trivial tactic, but it worked nonetheless. Quite well, as a matter of fact: a hungry stomach was good motivation for budding teenagers . . . especially the boys.

  The pupils slept in two rooms, boys in one, girls in the other. The furnishings were sparse—just a bed for each teen, two chairs beside a dusty writing desk, and a wardrobe shared by all. Large windows provided a commanding view in at least two different compass directions, overlooking the thick forest treetops that surrounded their mountaintop hideaway.

  The Seven found themselves awakened each morning by the sound of the most annoying forest bird they had ever heard. Much like a rooster crowing at the first rays of the sun, the stunted pigmy albatross—a much smaller and uglier cousin to the famed, large-winged flyer—cackled. And cackled. And cackled. The Seven thought the sound resembled something of a laughing hyena they’d seen on the Discovery Channel combined with a cat choking on a hairball. The irritating sound was unpleasant enough to rouse anyone from slumber, no matter how deep.

  They stumbled from their beds only to find themselves led down the barracks corridor by the aroma of freshly baked bread and frying bacon from a wild boar Mumthers had killed earlier that morning. They convened as before in the refectory and shared in light conversation, settling into the routine that the first week demonstrated. Each morning after breakfast, they were met with a new challenge by Grimwarden, testing their ability to work together—and to follow orders without compromise—while simultaneously developing their physical stamina and strength.

  They had races around Whitehall’s grounds, pairing off into teams and searching for hidden objects; they carefully maneuvered through the treetops in elaborate ropes courses, assisting one another and coming close to falling on more than one occasion; they even took a few trips to a nearby waterfall, swimming
back and forth across the rapids just above the headwater. But in each exercise, they learned a little more about the history of their people, and about one another.

  In the mornings Goldarrow sat the Seven down after each challenge and debriefed them, talking them through the finer points of the exercise—where they had excelled, where they had failed, and most importantly where they had overcome their fears and worked together. But always the conversation came back to lessons learned by the greater race of Elves, with Goldarrow sharing one of a thousand stories from the rich heritage of their people, most often setting a heavy tome of a book on the table and turning its ancient pages. She would read a passage, cite a particular tribe, and then point to a young lord and explain how he or she was related to the tribe in the story. The students grew more deeply connected with the history and the land than they ever could have imagined.

  The afternoons were not so exciting. Whitehall hadn’t been inhabited for almost a millennium, abandoned with the Fall of Berinfell and left to the hand of nature. Vines had crept into every available nook, splitting rock and allowing water to run its course, eroding mortar, and inspiring mildew. Heavy dust covered nearly every facet of the sprawling castle, and bird poop and rodent feces adorned places of prominence in every room. Grimwarden saw fit to make this the Seven’s post-lunch, pre-dinner ordeal. He passed out lye soap, buckets and bristles, spades and cement, and makeshift wheelbarrows, then sent the Seven on their way.

  For what felt like weeks, the teens worked their fingers raw, scrubbing and rinsing, lifting and dumping, hauling and fixing. It was tedious work, and eventually their complaints reached Grimwarden’s ears.

  “It’s just that we thought we were training to be warriors,” Jett protested in a group meeting. “Not janitors.”

  Grimwarden looked at him silently for a moment.

  Now you’ve done it, thought Tommy, feeling a little angry himself. He well remembered Mr. Charlie.

  When Grimwarden finally spoke, his voice was low and powerful. “Never mistake service for anything less than the highest form of nobility, Jett. Dictators and tyrants lead without serving; only true kings use their place of power to lead in the most humble of ways.”