The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 04 - A Foreign Heart

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Where’re you from?” the counterman asked.

  “I just got here today,” Kestrel answered. He had violated some rule in some manner, he sensed. The bakery was less active, and he realized that he was the cause of the slowdown.

  “I asked you where you’re from, not when you got here,” the baker said.

  “I’m from the Eastern Forest,” Kestrel answered plainly.

  “The Eastern Forest? You’re an elf from the Eastern Forest? Well, mostly an elf,” the elf behind him in line, an elf who looked to be a few years older than Kestrel, spoke up.

  “Yes,” Kestrel answered. “I was born and raised there, but I’ve been traveling the past couple of years.”

  “No wonder he talks so slow. Or else maybe he’s just slow,” someone further back in line said, drawing a few guffaws.

  “I’d like to have a roll,” Kestrel turned to the baker.

  “We don’t have pine nut rolls,” he responded. “Is there something else you’d like?”

  “What else do you have?” Kestrel asked.

  “They’ve got a lot of customers in a hurry; come on and order already,” a voice behind called out.

  “We’ve got berry jelly-filled, sugar-frosted, plain, peanut, and braided,” the list whipped from the baker’s mouth.

  “Peanut? Is that like pine nut? I’ll take one of those,” Kestrel said desperately, realizing that he had misheard the peanut name pronounced as pine nut by the others who had quickly spoken familiarly to one another.

  He placed a coin on the counter. The baker took the coin, handed him the roll, then stopped and looked at the coin. “Where’s this from?” he asked.

  Kestrel looked at the small bronze coin, one that he had received in Graylee, though he saw that it was a Hydrotaz coin. The money between the two countries flowed easily from one to the other, he knew.

  “Hydrotaz,” he said promptly.

  The baker slung the coin into a slot. “Never saw one of those before,” he muttered.

  Kestrel took the roll and bolted out of the bakery as quickly as his dignity allowed.

  The flow of customers resumed its quick pace, and Kestrel realized that these were people in a hurry – self-important city folks going to work, or anxious to run an errand in a busy center of commerce. He was not in such a hurry, nor had he been prepared to assume the pace of such a hurry. He was traveling without a deadline, possibly without a goal even, he knew, and he was in a strange land where he apparently didn’t quite fit in.

  Was the accent he had faced the accent of the city alone, or the accent of all the elves in the north he wondered. He started to eat his roll as he walked northward through the city environ, among the twisting roads, always trying to keep the rising sun on his right side.

  When he passed the guards at the gate in the city wall, he was done with his roll, and ready to leave North Harbor behind. He stopped at a small shop, one that was run by a watchful human woman at the counter. He wanted to buy some food to eat on the road, however long the journey was likely to be, and he wanted to ask some questions, to get some information. The store was nearly deserted, and he thought he could take the time to talk to the proprietor as he bought his goods.

  ‘I’d like some of those,” he remembered to switch to the human tongue as he pointed to a basket on a shelf behind the counter, asking the saleslady to grab some of the small loaves of bread there.

  “What’d you say?” the lady asked.

  “The basket with the bread – I’d like to try one of those,” he spoke as slowly and clearly as he thought he could accomplish.

  The woman grabbed one of the small loaves and handed it to him. It had a tough crust; it would be very chewy, but it might retain moisture on the inside longer too. “How long do these stay fresh?” he asked.

  He watched the woman’s lips flutter as she repeated back his question, turning the sounds into words. It was evident that there was a problem with the accent the people of the north had. Or, he sheepishly corrected himself, there was a problem with his accent – in two languages.

  “Yes,” the woman suddenly said, speaking slowly, “this bread will stay fresh for three or four days. Is that long enough?” she paused, then spoke again. “Are you going on a journey?”

  He felt relief to hear her questions; she had understood his words, and even better, she understood his need.

  “I want to go to Kirevee,” he said, “How long is that trip?”

  “This gets easier the longer it goes,” the woman muttered. “Kirevee? Three days. You go there in three days,” she spoke a little louder than seemed necessary in the small space between them, then pulled several more of the loaves of bread out of the basket.

  “Apples? Peaches?” Kestrel asked. He assumed he could probably pick a couple of apples along the way if he passed an orchard, but it seemed better to buy the goods from this woman who had taken time to give him some information.

  “I’ve got apples,” she replied promptly. She stepped to her right and bent down beneath the counter, to come up with an apple.

  Kestrel held up five fingers, and she pulled out four more.

  He opened his pouch and tried to guess how much he owed. He put a selection of coins on the counter. He felt it would be more than enough to cover his costs, but he left them all in sight of the sales lady as he began to put the food in his bag, filling the empty crannies in his pack.

  “Here’s your change,” the woman spoke, and Kestrel saw that a pair of coins remained on the counter.

  “Thank you. Do you know the way to Kirevee? What roads to take?” he asked.

  “Follow the road north until you cross a big river on a bridge made of blue stone, then go left, follow the fork that goes north west,” she seemed to know the way.

  “Where are you from?” she asked.

  “The Eastern Forest, out south of Estone,” he answered.

  “I’ve never met an elf from the east before. Have a safe journey,” she told him, as he walked away.

  The road to Kirevee was a relatively busy one, with enough traffic to give Kestrel people to watch or something new to see very few minutes. One thing he saw three times was a horse ridden by an elf, answering that question that he had wondered about. He shifted quickly into a jog, not satisfied with the pace of walking, and he came up upon a group of a dozen elves who were also running as a group along the road, going in the same direction he was headed. He stayed with them for more than three hours, and realized that they took turns rotating the leadership of the pack, taking turns serving as the windbreak for the others behind. And so when the rotation turned around to him, he silently accepted the role and stayed out in front as the leader of the group.

  After a stretch of time he began to wonder how to trade the leadership role to the next person, what signal to use after expending so much extra energy to help the others along, but just as he was ready to simply drop out of the lead, they came to a blue stone bridge. They were hours into the journey for the day, through fields and villages, before the group had reached the fork in the road on the far side of the river. He unintentionally slowed down as he contemplated the appearances of the two forks, knowing that he was going to take the one on the left, and looking to see the relative aspects of each road.

  As his steps shortened, another elf flew past him and took the lead. “Nice work,” he heard a pair of voices murmur behind him.

  At the fork in the road every member of the group but two went to the left.

  “Ta,” he heard a couple of voices say, while others said “toodles,” to the parting pair, but the group moved on without slowing down, and Kestrel stayed with them. They hadn’t stopped for lunch, or for any other purpose, and Kestrel was beginning to think about leaving the group for a stop in a small clump of trees they had entered. He’d miss being part of the running cluster; there was a comfort in being around others who ran so well, and shared the common goal of staying in motion, and there was an additional element of safety and protection i
nvolved in the running group as well.

  Just as he prepared to drop out, the group leader held up a hand, and the whole pack slowed to a walk. Kestrel nearly bumped into the elf in front of him, an older woman who might have been his mother, before he realized what has happening and put his brakes on. Without comment the running elves scattered out into the trees of the woods, and Kestrel found his own patch of bushes. When he returned to the road the rest of the elves were milling around.

  “Good, you’re the last one,” a man said in the fast, clipped accent that Kestrel was coming to understand better. “We’ll try to get through the bad woods without trouble, and then spend the night on the other side. You all know the rules: call ‘left’ or ‘right’ if you see trouble, stay with a partner.”

  Kestrel listened to the odd speech, wondering what had prompted it, and what it meant. Just then the woman he had almost bumped into came up to him. “Want to partner up?” she asked.

  “What is this all about?” he asked her.

  She looked at him, and he knew she was trying to understand his speech. “What is happening?” he repeated each word slowly.

  “Where are you from?” she asked in surprise. The other elves all seemed ready to go, and were looking at the two of them.

  Kestrel gave a sigh. “I’m from the Eastern Forest, south of Estone,” he spoke slowly.

  “Does everyone there talk like you?” someone asked.

  “What are we going to go through?” Kestrel ignored the question. “What is this about?”

  “You mean you don’t know? Haven’t you ever been here before?” a pretty girl asked.

  Kestrel shook his head.

  “Well how about that!” the man who had given the speech spoke. “We’ve got a virgin!” he caused a round of small twitters.

  “We’re heading to Kirevee, but there’s a lawless stretch of the road where a gang of human thieves often demand ransom or just plain theft and plunder from travelers. Elves have started travelling in packs like this to try to have safety in numbers,” the man explained.

  “Do you understand me?” he asked, and Kestrel nodded.

  “We’ll be in the dark forest in about a half hour, and it’ll take an hour to pass through,” he explained. “We’ll hit it about at sundown, and the darkness will work to our advantage because of our better eyes. Do you have good vision?” he asked. Kestrel nodded. “I wasn’t sure about those purple peepers of yours,” the man grinned.

  “So stay beside your partner,” he nodded towards the woman who had asked Kestrel to partner up, “watch for trouble, and keep up a good pace through the forest.

  “We’ll talk when we’re on the other side. There’s an inn we’ll probably stay at,” the man gave Kestrel a pat on the shoulder, then walked back to the front of the double line that was forming up. Kestrel edged over to stand next to the woman who he was teamed with.

  “I’m Winne,” she told him, sticking a hand out to shake.

  “I’m Kestrel,” he reciprocated, and then they shook hands momentarily just before the line began to move.

  The countryside was getting dark, as the sun sank towards the horizon, looking unusually red as it hung above the fields to their left. After several minutes they entered a deep forest, and Kestrel sensed the tension level rising among his companions. He looked around constantly, behind the trees, into the bushes, up at the overhanging branches in the canopy that spread above the road, alertly watching for trouble.

  The last dim red light from the sunset faded away, and the forest grew dark, filled with a deep blackness that even the elven eyes of the group members had trouble penetrating. For several long minutes they ran on without any events, until a small light appeared ahead. As they ran closer, Kestrel saw that it was a line of torches on either side of the road, set there for no apparent reason. There was no bridge or house or other justification for the seemingly random placement of the burning torches in the heart of the empty forest.

  “Don’t look at the lights! You’ll ruin your night vision,” the leader called from the front of the line. “This is likely to be a trap; we’ll accelerate in three seconds to sprint through.

  “Three, two,” he counted down as they approached the first of the torches.

  Kestrel didn’t hear him say “one,” for at that moment an arrow flew out of the darkness and hit him in the right shoulder, and then a second arrow hit him in the left kidney. The two blows spun him around and knocked him down. He heard shouting and screams and angry voices as he lay in the dust of the road writhing in pain.

  After seconds of agony, Kestrel opened his eyes, and saw a human man holding a knife to Winne’s throat. With a grunt of pain, Kestrel’s hand crept to his hip and he pulled Lucretia loose, then let his fingers gingerly flip the knife forward. Driven by the divine powers that it possessed, the knife flew through the air and struck the man in the throat, releasing a great deal of blood as the man fell to the ground and Winne was free.

  “Lucretia, return,” Kestrel croaked. He looked and saw two men attacked one elf, and he flipped the knife away again.

  There were at least two men for every elf in the group, and at least two other elves were down, Kestrel thought.

  “Lucretia, return,” he called again. He saw a man ready to stab an elf, the pretty girl who had spoken to him earlier, and he flipped the knife again.

  “Stillwater, Stillwater, Stillwater, I need many warriors to help,” he gasped out a message, then closed his eyes, overcome by pain again.

  The tone of the screams around him changed, and he opened his eyes to see a dozen imps in the air. “Attack the humans! Protect the elves,” he spoke as loudly as he could, then saw the imps start diving into the fray.

  “Kestrel bloody elf, can you hear me?” he realized that Odare was beside him.

  “I hear you, my friend,” he answered.

  “How can we help you? What do you need?” he heard the worry in her voice.

  “Win this battle,” he said.

  “We are; we have. The humans are fleeing,” the imp told him.

  “Go get Alicia. Go back to Center Trunk and get her. Tell her there are elves who are injured and we need her help. Tell her to bring her instruments,” Kestrel closed his eyes.

  “I’ll go, Kestrel friend. Hang on please, dear one,” Odare responded, and then Kestrel sensed she was gone.

  Kestrel opened his eyes. There were six elves standing, and three others who were lying on the ground, as well as many humans down. The elves were all standing with drawn weapons, looking at the imps that circled overhead.

  “They’re friendly,” Kestrel called out. “The imps are friendly,” he said, not sure if anyone heard him.

  There was another squeal of panic, and Kestrel opened his eyes to see Alicia looking about in bewilderment, surrounded by imps, as the northern elves looked at her fearfully.

  “Oh Kestrel!” she cried as she recognized him in the light of the still-burning torches, and then ran over to him, dropping to her knees. “We need to get you to the healing spring,” she said as she examined his wounds. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it gently; he squeezed back.

  “Go check the others,” he told her. “Thank you for coming.”

  She stood and went to see the other elves prone on the ground, then spoke to the apparent leader of the elves, the one who had explained the situation to Kestrel. She came back to see the injured eastern elf.

  “It’s hard to understand them,” she muttered. “Can your imps take all the injured elves to the spring?” she asked.

  “Stillwater,” Kestrel raised his voice and spoke up. “Can you take us all to the healing spring?” he asked.

  “We will do it in shifts,” the imp replied.

  “Take Alicia first, and then the wounded ones,” Kestrel directed.

  “I’ll see you in a moment,” Alicia told him as the imps immediately surrounded her, and then she was gone.

  Another trio of imps settled around one of the wounded elves
on the ground, and then he disappeared, drawing cries from the other elves.

  “What is happening?” the standing elf leader came over and knelt by Kestrel. “What are you doing?”

  Two more injured elves were engulfed in imps and disappeared.

  “We’re going to where we can be healed,” Kestrel told the man, as imps descended around him, and then he was in the gray emptiness between places.

  The imps laid him gently on the ground. “Would you bring the healthy ones too, please?” Kestrel asked.

  Killcen was among the imps around him, and nodded agreement, then left. Kestrel lay prone on the grass, and looked over to see that Alicia was busy tending the wounds of one of the other elves.

  Winne arrived just then. “That was horrible! Where are we?” she looked around in the dim starlight that was the only illumination, and saw the other elves on the ground.

  “Winne, help Alicia,” Kestrel called to her. “Move the wounded elves into the water. It has magical healing powers,” he grunted in pain, then closed his eyes.

  He took several deep breaths then opened his eyes and saw Winne and Alicia working together to lay the wounded in the water, still clothed, apparently in need of immediate treatment.

  “Kestrel friend, the others refuse to let us bring them,” Canyon was suddenly beside Kestrel.

  “Winne,” Kestrel called. The elf woman looked up at him. He motioned weakly with his hand, and she came over.

  “Do you need to get in the water?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “The other elves won’t come here with the imps. Will you go back and tell them it’s safe to travel?”

  Winne paused, and Kestrel knew she was deciphering his words. She seemed to understand, and looked over at where Alicia was busily at work.

  “Yes,” she said simply.

  “Take her back as a messenger,” Kestrel told Canyon. He felt suddenly lightheaded, and closed his eyes, then passed out.

  Chapter 12 – Visiting Kirevee