As the duo entered the office he answered, “What a coincidence, Bethany. I was just thinking of me too.”
“Don’t be an ass.”
Once their eyes adjusted to the light they beheld the grandmaster of the Foresters of the Three Baronies. Bethany Kinsley was a short thin woman of perhaps forty-five summers. Her dark brown hair was shot through with grey streaks and it was pulled into a tight bun on the back of her head. Her face was angular and pretty despite its newly-acquired wrinkles, and was it not for the familiar uniform of the Foresters one would think it impossible for this lithe, five foot tall woman of about one hundred pounds to be a member of the order, much less its grandmaster. She was far smaller than Ethan even, but her clear green eyes echoed as much wisdom, if not more, than the storyteller.
Her office was a small featureless chamber, save for the one window, and her large oak desk was piled with scrolls, books, maps, quills, and inks. O’Dell came forward and sat on the side of the desk as Ethan nervously and awkwardly struggled to find an inconspicuous place to stand where he could feel somewhat comfortable considering the circumstances in which he now found himself. “I love it when you talk mean to me,” O’Dell jested leisurely.
“Listen, get off of my desk,” she began, and with a sigh he stood up from her desk, crossed his arms behind his back, and stood at rapt attention. She continued, “It has been a very long time, O’Dell, since you were bestowed this mission, ten years in fact, and yet I see no progress. You have made contacts with the Woodfolk of the nearby tribes, and for that I commend you, but the Troll still walks the Three Baronies. Are you any nearer to ending its threat?”
“I don’t know,” answered O’Dell, “but I fought it twice since last you saw me, and both times I received not a wound. The Troll on the other hand received devastating wounds on both occasions, but like always it quickly regenerated.”
“So in a nut shell we are no closer than we were a decade ago?”
O’Dell said nothing but looked down at his feet. “You have two days of rest here, but then you are ordered to again go out on the hunt. If the Troll is not dead by spring, this mission will be reassigned to a more-capable Forester. Am I understood, O’Dell Dunwood?”
When he didn’t immediately reply she said more forcefully, “Understood, Forester?”
O’Dell stood up straighter and looked into her penetrating green gaze before answering, “Yes, grandmaster.”
“You are dismissed.”
O’Dell turned on his heel and began his brisk walk out of the office, but he stopped in the threshold of the room and with his back to her he said, “I am sorry for our losses, Sir.”
Bethany’s eyes turned misty and she whispered, “Speak to me before you depart, Dunwood.”
O’Dell’s only answer was a terse nod and he marched out into the corridor. Ethan was thus left standing alone in the office of the grandmaster of the Foresters of the Three Baronies, completely dumbfounded that O’Dell had forgotten to explain the situation and walked out on him. Her steady stare looked him up and down and Ethan was suddenly aware of his whiskered disheveled appearance, bootless feet, and dirty clothes borrowed from O’Dell.
When Bethany didn’t say anything after awhile Ethan cleared his throat and introduced himself in his best storytelling voice, “I am Ethan Skalderholt. I am originally a storyteller out of the village of North Ridge in the heart of the Vhar Mountains, but I have journeyed southward to Greenwell City in the hope of proudly becoming a Forester of the Three Baronies.”
Bethany didn’t reply to him but for a firm wave of her hand that he eventually realized was ordering him to step to the side. When he suddenly and shamefully did so he realized that another Forester had been standing behind him. Into the office strode the other member of the order, garbed as always in the typical Forester’s uniform over a long-sleeved shirt of lavender linen and black velvet trousers. She was somewhat pretty with her straight blond hair that flowed down to the middle of her neck and brilliant blue eyes. Cuteness was proclaimed through a slight dusting of pale freckles upon her cheeks and her small nose. Otherwise she wasn’t entirely remarkable in appearance. She stood about as tall as Ethan at about five and a half feet and she appeared to weigh about as much as he. But he had to admit to himself that she had a far better figure—softer and healthier—than his wiry thin frame. Her nicely-cut face appeared slightly childlike due to a slight roundness of her cheeks. She was a pretty woman, but Ethan had seen better in the streets en route to the Forester’s Compound.
“Mother, you wanted me?” inquired the young woman in an eloquent voice, accented of course.
Ethan did a double-take between the two women. They looked nothing akin to one another in any way that he could see, and the storyteller figured that the daughter must take primarily after her father in every physical characteristic.
“Yes, May, I did. I have received word that you stirred up a local nest of bandits just to the east of the city.”
“Yeah, so what?” returned the girl, May.
“Well,” Bethany began, “you have received no such orders from me and it was something the Knights can handle. It is in their jurisdiction.”
“They did handle it.”
“Not until after you killed two of the brigands yourself and became surrounded by half a dozen more. You would have been killed had not a patrol happened by at that time!” exclaimed the grandmaster, and worried mother, her voice steadily increasing with each word.
“Well, maybe you should send me on an actual assignment for once, mother! I’ve been a Forester of the Three Baronies for three years, since I was seventeen, and I still haven’t been beyond Maple Bridge!”
When Bethany was about to respond May continued, “I’m aware that seven more of us are in the Ancestor Lands and are never coming home, but that doesn’t mean you should, nor can, show me any favoritism. As I sit here in Greenwell City bored off of my ass, doing tiny local patrols just for show, my friends are out there dying. Kraegovich, who seems more of a father to me than my real one ever did, is traveling to the ends of Greenwell and I won’t see him until spring, which is if he comes back at all. And O’Dell is being sent back out alone and exhausted to play cat and mouse with the most fearsome creature in all the Three Baronies, like he has done for ten years. You don’t even seem to care that he is now married to a Woodfolk and has numerous children of his own that he never gets to see!”
Bethany fumed and looked humbled with a single expression on her weary visage and she leaned back in her high-backed chair, her lithe frame making her appear as a little girl in her father’s big chair. “Alright, May, you win. May Kinsley, meet Ethan Skalderholt, our newest Forester.”
May turned and laid her first measuring stare on Ethan since she had entered the office. He obviously came up far below her expectations for she replied, “Uh, I think you’re making a mistake, mother. He’s not even wearing any shoes!”
“Nonsense, you are to get him acquainted with our headquarters here, make sure he is bathed, assign him his uniform and weapon, and show him where to sleep. On the morrow you two will depart on his Errand upriver to Stone’s Shore and then return home,” explained Bethany in a hard tone.
All Foresters were assigned to go on their Errand upon being enlisted. It consisted of a more-experienced Forester guiding you on your first patrol to acquaint one with the way of the woods and the lifestyle of the Forester. It appeared that May didn’t know whether to be overjoyed at the authority and freedom she was about to endure, despite their patrol route being among the safest in Greenwell, or distraught at the miserable company that this new scrawny Forester was likely to provide.
“Come forward, Ethan,” stated Bethany, and when Ethan stood before her desk, barely in control of his anxiety and excitement, she said, “Repeat this oath after me and abide by it till the end of your days.”
Ethan nodded and he repeated the following oath:
From here until I stride into the Ancestor Lands
> May I live to make safe all of the Three Baronies
For all who dwell in our land
I will endure the hazards of the wild
I will endure beasts of the woods
I will endure the cruel and villainous
I will endure the fiercest weather
All dangers our land has to offer
I will endure loneliness and fear
I will endure hardships unnumbered
In hopes that none may have to
By the Golden Eagle I vow
To live a good life and promote safety in the wilds
In honor and duty.
Thus Ethan Skalderholt was made a Forester of the Three Baronies.
Immediately after he was sworn in by Bethany, May turned on her heel and marched from the office. With a gracious nod to the grandmaster of the Foresters Ethan turned to follow the young woman. After leaving the office he jogged up to stride beside May, with her swift stride, as she marched down the shadowy corridor towards a stairwell to the second floor of the compound.
“It’s, uh, nice to meet you, May,” remarked Ethan happily, yet slightly unsure if conversation with the obviously-disgruntled Forester would be wise.
She said nothing in reply but trotted down the stairwell, her woolen cloak bouncing upon her shoulders with each heavy step. Ethan let out a sigh at the top of the stairs and then plunged down after her. He followed her in silence through a different corridor, a long hallway lined with about a score of thick dark doors on each wall, which he hadn’t previously seen when he and O’Dell had hiked to the third floor of the headquarters. May suddenly spoke in a hollow tone reminiscent of an emotionless recital of some pointless information, “This, Ethan Skalderholt, is our Living Hall. This is where you will sleep and bathe. Follow me, I will show you to your room.”
Ethan’s belly rumbled slightly as the two of them strode down the hall towards the far end. When they reached his door and she pushed open the portal, Ethan asked conversationally, “Where do we eat, milady?”
May whirled around and said in her matter-of-fact tone, “Don’t call me milady, if you please. My name is May. I’m a Forester, the same as you, Ethan Skalderholt.”
Ethan was getting tired of the woman’s attitude. He was exhilarated beyond anything he had ever experienced thus far in his twenty-four years. He had just been sworn in as a Forester of the Three Baronies. His dreams had been fulfilled. He didn’t know if becoming a Forester was the right thing for him to do, nor the smartest, but it had happened and he was going to make the most of it while it lasted. But this woman, May, the daughter of the grandmaster of the order, was immediately ruining the experience for him.
“Okay sorry, ‘Your Highness May’. Listen to me for a change. I don’t know what the story is beyond your tremendous attitude and frankly, I don’t really care. I’ve been through fist-throwing drunks, Deep Wolves, and that Troll beast these last couple weeks, and don’t have the patience for the grumpiness of some spoiled brat that has barely left Greenwell City. We are going to be working together for the next few weeks, and I am eager to get started with my new duties, but to tell you the truth you’re making me regret coming here. If I hadn’t already met Foresters such as O’Dell, Kraegovich, and my own grandmother, Foresters with such good dispositions and kindness, I would most likely already be gone, back to where I could be respected in my homeland. So if you would be so generous, tell my where in the Soul Wastes I can get some damn food!”
Ethan stood there facing her with his fierce yellow eyes ablaze and May returned a somewhat vacant look of her own. She then said softly in her Greenwellian accent, “The, uh, Mess Hall is just off the foyer on the ground floor.”
“Alright, thank you, May. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to take a bath.”
At that Ethan whirled around and strode into his chamber, slamming the door behind him. May stood alone in the hall for a moment before striding at a slow pace the way she had come.
The water pumping systems in the headquarters of the Foresters seemed like the ancient enchantments of the myths of old. His small chamber located on the second floor of the compound had a metal hand pump at the top of a vertical pipe that ascended out of the hardwood floor near the back wall. Underneath the faucet of the pump was a large wooden bathing tub, and when Ethan was alone in his room and prepared to get a bath ready he was somewhat confused about how to go ahead and do this.
In his home in North Ridge when one wanted to bathe, a monthly occasion for most inhabitants, you had to go to the village well that tapped into an underground spring and make numerous trips to and from the well to your abode with buckets of cold water. When you had enough for a bath you were to warm the water in your hearth or cooking oven or, more commonly one would just bathe in cold water. It was simply a long and arduous task meant not to be enjoyed. At least when he was in Lumberwall, which was built over a piece of land churning with geothermal activity, the buckets of water were taken from hot springs and thus did not need to be warmed.
But here, in the Forester’s Compound, things ran much more smoothly. The pumps that sprouted from the floor of each living chamber descended into a sublevel of the building to a very large iron basin, perhaps holding about eight-hundred gallons of water. This basin was secured directly above a large mound of flame and embers that was continuously stoked by non-Forester employees, common folk that also kept the iron basin filled to the brim with fresh water. Thus when Ethan began curiously pumping the handle he was shocked and overjoyed to find that piping hot water poured out into the washtub.
In only a few minutes it was filled and steaming and Ethan stripped down. His slender form was streaked in dirt and he felt oily with sweat and grim. As he eased himself slowly into the hot water he noticed a small table next to the washtub topped by a small silver dish. As he found a comfortable relaxed position in the tub, leaning back against the worn wood and sitting in a loose cross-legged position, he lifted the dish and examined its contents. It held a bar of white soap that smelled faintly of roses and an intricate wooden comb engraved with the eagle sigil that was emblazoned on the front of every Forester’s cuirass.
He quickly scrubbed himself down with the soap and washed his hair so he could spend some time relaxing, despite his hunger. Suddenly there was a gentle knock on the door to his chamber; a simple square room that was empty but for the small cozy bed topped with dark green wool blankets, a small wooden dresser, and the washtub. “Yes, who is it?” inquired the new Forester as he moved his long wet hair out from in front of his face.
“It’s May,” was the quiet reply.
Ethan suddenly felt guilty at having snapped at her in the hall, and he responded in a cheerful voice, “What is it?”
“I have your uniform and equipment.”
Exhilaration and excitement flooded into the core of Ethan’s being and he shouted, “Just one moment. I’ll be right there!”
He practically bounded from the wash tub, snatching up a soft towel of thick white cotton, and he wrapped it around his lower torso. He quickly opened the door to see May, her face still expressionless, and she was holding a bulky wooden crate. If Ethan wasn’t holding the towel around his nakedness he would have offered to help her carry it into his chamber, but as he was he just hurriedly stepped to the side and held the door open with a smile. May walked into his chamber, her elbow brushing across Ethan’s firm, wet abdomen, and with a grunt she dropped the load onto his bed.
Ethan stood there wondering if he should close the door or leave it open, but he finally decided to just leave it slightly ajar. He strode across the room towards her with the light of the room’s single small window reflecting of the droplets of water on his pale skin. “What do we got?” he asked excitedly.
Her eyes quickly darted up to his before she dropped them back to the crate and its contents. “Well,” she said as she lifted out the first piece of gear, “this is one of your most important pieces of equipment, the Cuirass of the Forester.”
May then withdrew a pair of tight-fitting boots and gauntlets of the same flexible dark hide as the cuirass, and she set them out on the bed. Next she lifted out a new leather satchel with a single long strap, intended to be worn on one side with the strap diagonally across his chest. The satchel was empty but May remarked, “When we depart on your Errand tomorrow, we will first get supplies to put in our satchels.”
She then drew out the thick dark brown wool hooded cloak of the Foresters. It was clasped with a golden cloak pin of their eagle symbol. Ethan’s smile and enthusiasm overflowed when she drew out the final piece of supplies, the Forester’s hand axe. Its smooth silver flawlessness gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight and Ethan admired its beauty, the crescent-shaped blade decorated with sinuous engravings of leafy coiling ivy vines and the straight silver shaft which was wrapped tightly in green-dyed leather to offer its wielder a better grip. The pommel of the shaft was a thick heavy silver head of an eagle, its stern eyes silver and all-knowing and its sharp beak closed for the moment.
May looked up into Ethan’s shiny amber eyes and she said, “This, Ethan Skalderholt, is no weapon. This is a tool. We Foresters pray to all in the Ancestor Lands that we won’t come across combat while on patrol. We rarely even hunt, only when we have no other option, and we thus live off of the natural sustenance that the land has to offer us. This axe is used to chop firewood, clear trails, create sparks, and cut fabric and leather. Yet if you are forced to defend yourself this tool can easily become a weapon, a brutal weapon, and it will quickly end a fight. Just pray to Lady Quinn and the Ancestors that such an experience doesn’t soon come to pass for you, Ethan.”
The Azure Wizard Page 9
