by F. P. Spirit
Lloyd’s face flushed, a hot retort on his lips, but then just shook his head.
They had just rejoined the others when a group of riders appeared on the road off to the west. The lead rider was a familiar figure in black astride a large dog. He was accompanied by nine riders, one another little person straddling a second dog.
The group of riders halted a short distance from the companions, then eight of them dismounted and shifted into wolves. The eight wolves bolted off into the forest, leaving Seth and the one other rider alone to greet the companions.
“Ho, Seth!” Aksel cried, running forward to greet the halfling.
“Ho yourself!” Seth yelled back.
Lloyd grinned. Seth hadn’t changed in the slightest.
The second rider turned out to be a young woman, perhaps in her early twenties. She dressed in the green and brown leathers of a tracker, with a long bow slung across her back. The young woman dismounted, pushing a strand of long reddish-brown hair behind one ear, her mouth agape as she swept her sharp gray eyes around the group.
She clasped her hands together and practically squealed, “Oh my gods! You’re the Heroes of Ravenford!”
Seth’s mouth twisted into a thin smirk. “Who’d you think we were off to meet? The Duke of Dunwynn?”
The exuberant young woman fixed him with a grin, but before she could reply, Martan stepped out from behind the others.
“Kalyn?” the name barely passed Martan’s lips. He looked deathly pale, as if he’d seen a ghost.
The young woman shifted her gray eyes toward the archer, her expression immediately growing hard.
“Martan,” she responded icily, as if his name were a curse.
Seth swept his eyes between the two, his smirk widening. “You two know each other?”
Kalyn folded her arms across her chest, her voice remaining cold. “You could say that.”
Seth peered at Martan and then back at Kalyn. “Oh, this just keeps getting better and better.”
Kalyn looked away from the archer and flashed a big smile at the rest of the group, “Hi! I’m Kalyn!”
Lloyd found himself grinning back at the exuberant young woman. “Hi! I’m Lloyd.”
Kalyn’s mouth fell open. She gawked at him for a moment, before finding her voice again.
“The red warrior…” She spoke the words as if he were some sort of folk hero.
Lloyd’s cheeks suddenly turned hot, his hand going to the back of his neck. He fumbled with a response, but was interrupted by a hand on his shoulder.
“He’s been called worse—mostly by our enemies.”
Lloyd turned to see Elladan standing there with Glo and Donnie next to him. All three appeared quite amused.
Kalyn’s eyes went wide as they shifted to the trio. “By the giant faces of Deepwood—the tales are true! You’re elves! Real, honest-to-goodness elves!”
“What gave us away?” Donnie said with a sly grin.
Kalyn abruptly covered her mouth, her freckled face turning beet red.
Alana strode up to the young woman and cast a glare at Donnie. “Ignore him. He thinks he’s a jester.”
The lady knight then extended a gauntleted hand to the lady archer. “Alana Benefilla…”
“…Knight of the Rose,” Kalyn interrupted her, gushing once more. “The lady knight from the Battle of Ravenford!”
Lloyd peered at Seth. “The Battle of Ravenford?”
Seth merely shrugged in response. “That’s what they’re calling it. It appears we’re famous.”
Kalyn nodded her head vigorously. “Oh, you are. You all are. Tales of your adventures have traveled like wildfire even as far as Deepwood.”
Lloyd knit his brow. We’re famous?
Elladan, however, did not seem surprised. “I’ve sung about our exploits in a few taverns now. Stories like that tend to get around.”
A few murmurs went around the group before Aksel stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Ahem. That’s all well and fine, but we still have work to do, people.”
The little cleric then introduced himself to Kalyn. Seth explained she was a tracker from Deepwood and had helped him scout out Serpent’s Hollow. He had brought her along to lead them all there.
It was at that point that Kalyn noticed Cyclone. The stoic hunter stood to one side, his arms folded across his chest. Kalyn stared at him for a moment, then snapped her fingers. “You must be Donatello.”
A thin smirk crossed the hunter’s face. He pointed a thumb toward the wiry elf. “I’m Cyclone. That’s Donatello.”
Kalyn shifted her gaze toward the sandy-haired elf, her complexion reddening once more. “Oops. Sorry. My mistake. I just thought—you’d be more like him.”
Nearly everyone erupted into laughter. Even Cyclone appeared amused.
Donnie cast a dark gaze around the group. “I seem to be getting that a lot lately.”
With the introductions done, everyone chose a mount and saddled up. Kalyn took the lead, Martan trotting beside her, as she led them out of the woods and then north along the forest edge.
Lloyd noted with curiosity the strained silence between the two trackers. It seemed a stark contrast to the new girl’s bubbly personality. The young warrior spurred his horse up next to Seth, then whispered to the halfling, “Any idea what’s up with those two?”
Seth shook his head. “No idea, but whatever it is, I like it. I’ve been trying to get her to shut up for days now.”
Lloyd couldn’t help but chuckle. He hadn’t realized till that moment just how much he’d missed the halfling.
Tall Tales
Your little mishap has become the stuff of legends.
The afternoon wore on as the little band skirted the edge of the Bendenwoods. Seth trotted silently next to Aksel, his mind preoccupied by their missing companions.
The halfling had immediately noticed both Ruka and Elistra were gone from their ranks. Yet between Kalyn’s “fan-girling” and Aksel’s insistence on moving out, he never got the chance to broach the subject.
Seth brought it up to Aksel once they left the woods, but the gnome refused to discuss the topic. He had covertly glanced at Glo and whispered, “Not now.”
From Glo’s sullen expression, he was obviously pining away over the missing seeress. Seth decided to drop the subject, but continued to wonder at what had happened. The last time he had seen them, Elistra and Glo were practically inseparable.
Further, none of this explained Ruka’s disappearance. The dragon teen had been as glued to Donnie’s side as Elistra was to Glo’s. It would take an act of the gods to pry her from the slight elf.
An ironic smirk crossed the halfling’s lips. These elves have no luck with women.
The riders followed the edge of the Bendenwoods until a chain of rolling hills appeared ahead.
“Those must be the Vogels,” Elladan announced from his saddle.
“Yup. Sure are,” Kalyn called back from the head of the riders. The young tracker glanced over her shoulder and squinted at the bard. “Y’all been here before?”
Elladan snorted. “Ha! You could say that. Does nearly being buried in a cave-in count?”
The young woman’s face lit up at his mention of the incident. “That was here?” Her eyes swept across the landscape ahead of them. “I heard tales of your run-in with orc bandits. Guess I should’a realized their base was in the Vogel foothills.”
Elladan chuckled softly. “Yeah, well, you won’t find anything left of it. Titan saw to that. Nearly brought the whole thing down on our heads.”
“…and saved our lives in the process,” Lloyd added, in defense of their erstwhile companion.
Kalyn practically squealed with excitement. “Titan? Isn’t that the lady warrior who went up to Stone Hill with you guy
s?”
Lloyd grinned. “That’s her. She’s a regular force to be reckoned with.”
Kalyn seemed completely enamored with their old comrade. She spent the next hour pumping them for stories about the lady warrior. Elladan obliged with several tales about their adventures with Titan and her companion Brundon back at Stone Hill.
Seth half-listened to the stories, his thoughts straying back to Ruka and Elistra. While the others were preoccupied, Seth took advantage of the situation. He nudged Aksel in the shoulder and whispered, “Follow me.”
Seth reigned in his dog and fell back to the end of the line. Aksel followed shortly thereafter. Seth looked the little gnome carefully in the eye. “So, what happened to the others?”
Aksel held up a finger and gazed ahead. The rest of the party seemed so wrapped in Elladan’s narrative that they hardly noticed them back here. Aksel took a deep breath and filled Seth in on their run-in with the Princess of Lanfor.
Seth listened closely, barely commenting during Aksel’s recount. He found it rather interesting that this Anya could control dragons, and was not surprised in the slightest that she had kidnapped Ves.
Seth just shook his head when he heard they had boarded her airship. It was all he could do to keep from laughing out loud while Aksel described their frantic fall from Anya’s vessel. Ruka’s ditching of Donnie and Elladan in mid-air especially amused him.
When Aksel was done, Ruka’s departure finally made sense. Seth wasn’t worried about the dragon girls, though. He was certain they could handle themselves, other dragons or not. The only thing that nagged at him was Elistra’s abrupt departure.
Seth had never completely trusted the seeress. She was far too secretive, but he had liked the way she affected Glo. The elf had loosened up tremendously since he had met her. Yet now her questionable exit had left his elven friend shattered. What Seth really wanted was a look at that letter she had left him. There might be some clues in there as to the reason for her sudden disappearance.
In the meantime, Elladan finished his last tale. “…and so, the mighty Titan departed Ravenford with Brundon by her side, to seek out her place as a Knight of the Rose.”
Alana had trotted quietly next to Donnie during Elladan’s narrative. Yet now at the mention of her order, she finally spoke. “How long ago was this?”
“About two days before the Lady Andrella’s party,” Elladan responded. “How long is the journey to the Wind Tower from Ravenford?”
“About four days,” Alana said. “We were on the road well before they would have arrived.” The lady knight paused a moment, her brow furrowing. “Titan is a warrior name, right? What is her given name?”
“Delara. Delara Ranblade,” Lloyd answered.
Alana’s eyes widened with surprise. “Delara Ranblade? Well, praise be to Cormar, we did meet her! At the inn in Bendenwood. She came over and introduced herself. In fact, we even had dinner with them!”
Kalyn snorted. “As my friend, Fran, always says, it’s a rinky-dink world.” The lady tracker cast a side-long glance at Martan. “Maybe a bit too rinky-dink…”
Seth shifted his gaze between the pair. Martan had turned positively gray after Kalyn’s cutting remark. Whatever he had done, it wasn’t going away anytime soon.
Meanwhile, Alana swept her gaze around the riders, a wan smile on her lips. “The entire time I listened to your story, I thought this Titan sounded familiar. I should have known when you said Brundon.”
Lloyd gave the lady knight a sympathetic smile. “That’s alright. We knew Titan for quite a while before she told us her real name.”
Alana smiled kindly at the young man and nodded. “I will tell you this, though. From what I saw and heard just now, Delara will rise swiftly through the Knights of the Rose.”
A warm chuckle passed Elladan’s lips. “Trust me, Alana, of that we have little doubt!”
A short while later, the riders reached the Vogels. The grass-covered hills filled the sky to the east, their green and brown slopes dotted with trees. A sparsely-treed strip of grass, maybe a few hundred yards wide, separated the forest from those hills. The riders wound their way along the strip until they came across a spot that appeared quite familiar. There was an indentation in the hillside like the mouth of a cave, except that it was filled with rocks.
Kalyn’s keen eyes noticed it immediately. “Is that the remains of the orc cave?”
Elladan peered sharply at the hillside. “I believe it is.”
“It definitely is,” Lloyd declared. He pointed to a rather large tree not too far from the cave mouth. “That’s the place where the troll had Seth treed.”
A slight shiver passed up Seth’s spine. He remembered that incident far too well. The blood-red eyes of the troll peering up at him would be forever engrained in his brain.
Kalyn abruptly reigned in her horse and spun around in her saddle. “What? Seth, treed?” She peered back at the halfling with a wide smirk on her lips. “Really now? How come I’ve never heard that story?”
Seth glared at her darkly, refusing to comment.
Elladan responded with a short, closemouthed laugh. “That’s because I wasn’t around to tell it. Must have been just before I met these guys.”
Kalyn shifted her eyes back to Seth, her arms crossed and a smug expression on her face. “Well don’t be shy—spit it out, already!”
Seth fixed her with a scathing stare, his mouth remaining firmly shut. Lloyd, on the other hand, seemed more than willing to fulfill her request. The riders continued along the path while the young man relayed the tale. He vividly described Glo’s heat ray arcing through the air as it caught the troll in the chest. Lloyd then launched into how he and Titan tag-teamed the creature until it sent him sprawling with its huge club.
Kalyn appeared completely engrossed in the story. “So why ain’t you jelly under a troll’s heel? Did Titan save you?”
“Actually, it was Seth.”
All eyes turned to Glo. It was the first time the elf had spoken since they had set out on this journey. The corners of Glo’s mouth upturned slightly as he continued with the story.
“As you may already know, trolls are weak to fire. So, while the others kept the creature busy, Seth decided to light a torch. When Lloyd hit the deck, Seth ran up behind the creature and shoved that torch right up the troll’s butt.”
The group of riders came to an abrupt halt, most of them roaring with laughter. Kalyn practically snorted through her mouth. “Oh my gods! That’s hysterical!”
All eyes turned to Seth. The halfling shrugged, his mouth twisting into a thin smirk. “It was one of my finer moments.”
Much as Seth disliked rehashing the past, the story had lightened everyone’s mood, especially Glo. The elf remained talkative after that. He and Lloyd finished the troll story, and then went on along with Elladan to detail their adventures in the orc caves.
Darkness slowly blanketed the sky, stars twinkling into existence overhead when the riders finally left the Vogels behind. They continued along the edge of the forest for a few more hours until they spotted a break in the tree line. A smooth cobblestone road led out of the woods and headed off toward the northeast.
Donnie and Alana gazed back and forth along the roadway.
The sandy-haired elf wore a puzzled expression. “I wonder where that leads?”
“I’m guessing it comes from Bendenwood,” Alana hazarded.
Kalyn nodded. “Yup. Heads from Bendenwood all the way to Dunwynn.”
The young woman turned her head and spit on the road after answering. Seth was curious about the strange behavior, but was distracted by Aksel before he had a chance to comment. The gnome trotted his riding dog onto the road, then spun around to face Kalyn.
“It’s getting kind of late. How much farther to Serpent’s Hollow?”
&n
bsp; The young tracker glanced around, her brow knit in concentration. “Hmm, the mountains are just a stone’s throw away. We could reach them by midday tomorrow. From there it’s a hop, skip, and a jump to the hollow.”
Aksel’s brow furrowed in puzzlement, but Seth came to his rescue. The halfling held up three fingers and said, “That’s this many hours.”
Aksel stared at him, dumbfounded. “How do you get that out of what she just said?”
Seth smirked outrageously. “It’s Deepwood-ese. You pick it up after a while. A hop, skip and a jump are an hour apiece.”
Kalyn put her hands on her hips and stared at him. “Now what did you have to go and do that for? My directions was just fine. He’d a figured it out… eventually.”
Aksel shifted his gaze between the pair and just shook his head. “Anyway… I say we should make camp for the night.”
Kalyn gave him a sharp nod. “I know just the place.”
The young tracker spurred her horse along the road toward the woods, motioning for the others to follow.
Kalyn led them to a secluded clearing, surrounded by thick pine trees a short way off the road. It was the perfect spot for a campfire. Martan swiftly had one roaring. Elladan then pulled out his pots and prepared the base for a stew while the two trackers went out hunting.
As Seth predicted, the pair went out separately, Kalyn sticking to her icy treatment of Martan. When they returned a short while later, Kalyn practically crowed with triumph that her stag was bigger than the doe Martan had found.
The air around the little camp was soon filled with the delicious aroma of one of Elladan’s stews. Seth would never admit it out loud, but he had missed the elven bard’s cooking. Kalyn appeared impressed as well. She gingerly took the first bowl Elladan proffered her and after one bite gushed over its contents.
“This is the best stew I’ve ever tasted! What in the world did you do to this venison?”
Elladan’s eyes glinted with mirth. The bard leaned in close and whispered the same phrase Seth had heard him tell Ruka not so long ago. “Secret seasonings known only to elvish lords.”
