Resigned, as well as frustrated and angry, Kestrel continued to stand in his spot in the darkening hallway for nearly another hour, until a door a few feet away opened suddenly, and a kindly, grandfatherly appearing elf, one who had more hair growing out of his ears than on the top of his head, glanced down the hallway. “Come in here Kestrel,” he said, then disappeared, leaving Kestrel with the impression that the man had hardly looked at him at all.
Kestrel looked at the motionless guard, but received no hint of direction. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped over to the open door, then entered the room behind it. The room was even darker than the hallway, with only two dim candles in hurricane glasses set on a desk, where the old man already sat, patiently watching Kestrel as he examined the room. “Take a seat here,” the man gestured to a chair in front of the desk, then picked up a roll of paper, and smoothed it out flat, laying in on the desktop and placing small weights on the four corners to hold the paper flat.
The rolled character of the paper told Kestrel it was the contents of his message tube, the cylinder that had brought him to Center Trunk, through his unlikely adventures along the course of the journey.
Kestrel was seated, and his eyes looked up from the paper to the officer, who was studying him closely, he realized.
“My apologies for asking you to wait for so long,” the officer said, though Kestrel wasn’t sure if he was apologizing for making him wait, or for making him wait for such a long time. “I’ve read the extraordinary report you’ve brought. It’s an interesting and disturbing story that your commander tells. I’d like to hear your version of it, if you’ll be so kind,” the grandfather spoke in a gentle voice; Kestrel appreciated the kind way in which the order was given, and he wanted to cooperate.
“Are you Colonel Silvan?” Kestrel asked, just to confirm the identity of the man he was with.
“I am Colonel Silvan,” the officer agreed. “I’m disturbed by this report of coordinated attacks by Hydrotaz’s forces, using a feint to try to distract us from the fire that was set. The report indicates that you were the guard who detected the fire.
“We’re fortunate that the rainstorm happened at the right time, in the right place,” Silvan added. Three code words in the message had indicated that there was much more information available from this courier, information that the commander had not wished to put in writing. Silvan was extremely interested to learn what the hidden news was, and he scrutinized the messenger closely, noting the boy’s obvious mixed blood, a heritage of humanity written noticeably in the body structure and the face, especially his ears. The codes had not indicated any treachery or dishonesty in the boy however; the information would not reveal that the boy was a traitor, or any additional negative aspect of the fire that Silvan needed to know, and the colonel was glad of that; there was something appealing about this youth. “What can you tell me about this situation?”
Kestrel thought back — back through the journey and the sprite and the healing spring, back through the Goddess Kere, and the militia ruffians, back to the broken arm and the fire and the Goddess Kai. It had been less than a week ago that all those incredible events had begun to descend upon him. How much of it was he supposed to tell this officer, he wondered. Commander Mastrin had trusted this officer, had told Kestrel he was a trustworthy person to whom Kestrel could reveal his full story; or at least, Mastrin had thought Kestrel could reveal all of his story that the commander knew about. The rest of the story, the encounter with Kere and the sprite, seemed even more fantastic and unbelievable than the first part, and Kestrel’s mind whirled with conflicting considerations of what to reveal while retaining some credibility.
“The rainstorm was more than good luck,” Kestrel replied. He would tell his story and judge his listener as he went along, he decided.
“I said a prayer to the human goddess, Kai, asking for help, and she created the storm that put the fire out. She made it rain, such a rain as you’ve never seen!” Kestrel spoke enthusiastically momentarily.
“You prayed to a human goddess? Where did you learn to do that?” Silvan asked.
“I taught myself,” Kestrel answered. “My mother taught me to pray to the Elven gods and goddesses, and that’s what I did. But as I grew older, I just felt a calling to try something different, so I started trying to pray to the human gods; and Kai responded. So when I spotted the fire, well, the smoke from the fire, and when I prayed to Kai, she answered me. She told me I would be in her debt, and someday I would have to repay her favor.”
“The human goddess worked against the humans’ own plan to burn the forest? She did it for you?” Silvan sounded skeptical.
“Yes,” Kestrel affirmed.
“Did you pray to her in the humans’ language?” the colonel asked.
“No, I don’t know their language,” Kestrel told him. “I just used my own words and prayers.”
“So the human goddess counts you as one of her own. That’s interesting, in the extreme,” Silvan said softly. “Well, don’t let me interrupt your story,” he said. “Go on.”
Kestrel continued, telling of his broken arm, and his meeting with Mastrin that had sent him on his way to Center Trunk.
“And so then you had a quick, uneventful trip through the eastern forest to Center Trunk,” Silvan finished the story for Kestrel, and looked back down at the paper report. The candles were burning low in their holders.
The boy looked at the officer, his tongue frozen as his mind scrambled to find the proper answer.
“There were one or two things that happened on the way,” Kestrel answered.
“Oh? Such as?” Silvan felt obliged to ask, as he studied the paper and let the wheels in his mind turn, absently evaluating the usefulness of a half-human/half-elf guard who communed with human gods.
Kestrel told the story of his beating by the militia. He noted that Silvan’s attention to him grew as the story unfolded, and he detected a sympathetic expression on the officer’s face.
“You seem to be in good shape for having been beaten so badly,” Silvan commented.
He was going to tell the story of the visit from Kere, Kestrel decided, since Silvan was paying attention.
“There is a healing spring outside a small village on the way here. The goddess Kere told me about it and told me to go there,” Kestrel said, watching Silvan as he spoke.
The colonel sat silently, staring first at the wall behind Kestrel, then directly at Kestrel. “The goddess of fortune spoke to you, gave you direction?”
Kestrel nodded.
“Did you hear her in your heart?” Silvan asked.
“With my ears,” Kestrel corrected. “At first she was a little old lady at the inn. She gave me a room assignment, then sent me to the spring. When I got there she was a beautiful girl.”
“Kere took a direct interest in you? She declared you one of her chosen?” Silvan was sitting forward.
“She said she would protect me when I deserved it, when I was within her area to protect,” Kestrel tried to remember exactly what the goddess had told him. “She said I would have a mission to rescue someone, a girl who had mixed blood like me.
“At first I thought she meant the sprite, but then I remembered the part about mixed blood,” Kestrel explained. “She never said I was one of her chosen; she said I was unusual to be under both sets of gods.”
One of the two candles guttered out, and the room grew even dimmer and murkier. Kestrel found it harder to see Silvan’s features.
“What sprite are you talking about?” Silvan asked. He was leaning far forward on his elbows, but the candle light reflecting brightly off his eyes was the clearest thing Kestrel could see.
The story of the wolf, and the healing spring, and the confrontations and conversations in the hotel room followed, interrupted frequently by many questions from Silvan.
The second candle flickered, them died, and the two men sat in the office in the darkness, each of them silent. Kestrel heard a scrapin
g noise, and saw a shadow arise from behind the desk, there was a thud and a gentle curse, then the sound of movement. The door to the hallway opened, letting in a stream of dim light, but within a moment the light was blocked by the shadow of the guard in the hallway, filling the doorframe.
“You’ve been in consultation for a long time sir, is everything alright?” the guard asked.
“It’s fine Giardell. Would you fetch a fresh candle for us?” Silvan asked. The guard left, and Silvan returned to his desk.
“Kestrel, I’d like you to stay here in Center Trunk for a few days as my guest while I check on a few things; enjoy the city. I imagine we’ll have you serve as a courier to take a message back to Elmheng,” Silvan explained. “When we have some light I’ll write orders and a chit to arrange for lodging and board for you here in the city.”
They waited until Giardell returned with a lantern, allowing Silvan to write temporary orders for Kestrel to have free reign of the city. “Giardell, take Kestrel down to the checkpoint and have a guard show him to his quarters, then return here,” Silvan directed. “Thank you Kestrel, for the delivery of the message and the rest of your story. I’ll have something to discuss with you in a few days. Enjoy your free time — the city celebrates the king’s birthday for the next couple of days, so have a good time.”
Giardell returned to Silvan’s office soon thereafter, after he had handed Kestrel off to another guard at the front door to the building. “Giardell, send a pair of guards back along the trail to Elmheng, and check on reports of our courier coming through in the past couple of days. Have the reports brought back here immediately. The boy has some interesting stories, but I’d like to hear some corroboration,” he spoke with his usual understatement, letting the guard know that something extraordinary had happened on the trip.
Kestrel followed his guide to a plain building, one built of brick and stone, with a first floor set only a few feet above the ground. “Any vacant room is yours,” the guide told Kestrel. “The chow line in the commissary will be open for just a few minutes longer, in the low building across the way,” he motioned. “If you want something to eat, get over there and show them your chit from the spies.”
“Spies?” Kestrel asked in surprise. “Colonel Silvan is a spy?”
“I think the polite word is ‘intelligence,’” his guide replied.
“Who does he spy on? The humans?” Kestrel asked in astonishment.
“You’ll have to ask them; I don’t know, and I don’t want to,” the guide said with a hint of disdain. “I’m happy to carry a bow and shoot at whoever they tell me to. Which is why I’ll be in the archery contest during the festival tomorrow. Do you need anything else?” he asked, clearly prepared to part ways with Kestrel.
“No. Thanks,” Kestrel lamely replied, then watched the guard quickly leave the building.
Kestrel went to the upper floor of the building, found no obvious empty rooms, then came back downstairs and settled for a lower room that at least was on a corner, with windows on two sides. With his bag lying on his cot, he left the building and walked across the dim yard inside the military base to where he hoped to find some dinner — food of any sort was appealing in his state of hunger.
Kestrel sat alone at a table in the empty commissary room chewing desultorily on the food that the server provided as he wondered at the notion that he had been sent to carry a message to a spy, and had sat in a room with one, talking candidly, revealing all of his new secrets. He would surely be seen as some kind of freak, a part-human, part-elf plaything of the supernatural powers, unstable and dangerous, Kestrel surmised about himself.
He wondered darkly how long he would be held in Center Trunk while the spies tried to decide what to do with him. There was no telling what he was going to face, and the unpleasant irony of his situation was that he had gotten himself into it by successfully putting out the forest fire that the humans had started. He rose with a sour disposition and returned to his room, where he settled into an uneasy sleep in the strange quarters that were to be his home for some time to come.
Chapter 10 — Arrows for the Tourney
When Kestrel awoke in the morning, he felt tired. His sleep had been fitful, disturbed by dreams that he had turned into a spy himself, sneaking round among the humans to find out what plots they had planned to launch against the eastern elves. He shook his head, which failed to clear any of the cobwebs away, then lazily trudged to the commissary, where he was one of the first to have a plate of hot food.
He looked around and saw a table of four soldiers wearing red hats, but they glanced at him with a cold, unfriendly stare that drove him away. Instead, he sat alone, and listened to the conversation of a different nearby table, where a half dozen guards of both genders discussed plans for the festival day.
“We have to work late shift on duty,” one complained, nudging his partner. “There’s no point in us starting the archery competition.”
“We’ll shoot a couple for you — the ones that miss!” another guard jeered.
Kestrel listened with interest. He was a good marksman among the elves of Elmheng; his human heritage gave him strength to draw a stronger bow than the other elves, giving him an advantage that grew in value when the distance to the target increased. He had no plans for the day, or for the next several days, and felt a sudden, impulsive boldness sweep through him. “Can I go with you?” he called to the adjacent table.
All heads in the other group turned to look at Kestrel, and he saw nothing in their expressions warmer than curiosity, though there was no outright hostility as the guards examined his humanesque features.
“Who are you?” one of the guards asked.
“Kestrel, from Elmheng,” he replied. “I came here as a courier and have to wait for my new assignment.”
There was a round of glances exchanged. “Are you human?” one of the women at the table asked.
“Partly,” Kestrel answered. “Mostly elf,” he added.
“A bow isn’t a human weapon; they use swords,” another guard chimed in.
“And I’m an elf,” Kestrel clarified.
“Let him come along,” the woman decided.
“Got a taste for something exotic, Vinetia?” one of the other guards chided her immediately. “You have to take him as your doubles partner.”
“Oh for the love of branch and leaf — grow up, Hitchens!” Vinetia growled. “Are you any good?” she spoke directly to Kestrel.
He studied her, a stout elf guard who was studying him in return. “I think I‘m pretty good,” he answered.
“I’ll trust you on that, for now,” she answered ominously.
“Vinetia, look at it this way, even if you don’t win the competition, the two of you can still try to win the scariest couple contest,” one of the other guards jibed, but Kestrel could hear the humor in the man’s voice, and recognized the camaraderie of squad members who had served together.
Everyone started to rise, and Kestrel stood as well. “Go on, go get your bow and arrow. I’ll meet you outside the commissary,” Vinetia told him, starting Kestrel off on a jog back to his room to retrieve his weapon. Minutes later he was among the group that left the guard compound to walk through the city towards the competition grounds.
Center Trunk felt vast to Kestrel, after having spent his life in Elmheng. The walk to the competition grounds took him through both busy commercial areas and crowded residential areas, where he realized more elves lived than he had ever seen together before. The end of the stroll across the city was a large field where few trees grew. Ropes and barriers created numerous separate competition areas, and several competitions were already underway around the periphery of the field, with the twang of bow strings constantly sounding throughout the area.
“We register here,” Vinetia told Kestrel as she grabbed his arm and led him towards a line that waited at a table. “We’re going to register as individuals, and as a team,” she told him. “That lets us compete both ways — so if on
e of us has a bad match, we can stay in competition, provided the partner has a decent match.”
“How big is the field for a match?” Kestrel asked her.
“For these qualifying matches this morning there will be twenty five shooting in each match, and the top five will go on to the next round,” Vinetia explained as they inched forward. “The ones who don’t qualify get a second chance, but only the top competitor from the consolation matches goes on.
“Then this afternoon, everyone who made it through the morning goes through the second round — along with their partners, if they have one, where the organizers move the targets back further, and the game starts to get challenging. Only the top three of each match move on, and eventually the tournament comes down to a final field of a dozen or so, where we get a winner to be the princess’s champion for the year,” she summed up as they reached the table and completed their registration, the official at the table giving Kestrel an unfriendly look before distributing colored arm bands that denoted their competition fields and starting times.
“Is there a place to practice?” Kestrel asked, concerned that he hadn’t used or even checked his equipment in several days.
“No time for that, rookie,” his partner told him. “We did that this morning before breakfast. You’ve got to do your homework in advance.”
“You go that way, I’m over here,” Vinetia gave Kestrel a gentle shove. “After the match, let them know you’re my partner, and meet me over there,” she pointed to a solitary linden tree. “That’s where our squad usually meets; if there’s a fight, which has been known to happen, stick with our side — the judge has a son in our squad,” she winked at him, then sent him on his way. “There’s the red flag flying over at the far field — that’s you! Get over there and hit your targets!”
Kestrel hustled across the competition spaces to get to the target range where the red flag was flying, and arrived barely in time, as some competitors were already shooting their first arrows.
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