“Good. Go tell Arlen what you’re going to do, and get on a horse as soon as possible,” Cosima ordered. “Any questions?”
“No,” Kestrel said after a moment’s thought. Within three hours, after a long, friendly reunion with Arlen, Kestrel was in the saddle and traveling alone to Green Water.
The journey was simple at first. He rode through the forest, past the nut gatherers, into more sparsely populated parts of the forest, and then into parts where there seemed to be virtually no one at all except the occasional settler. The forest switched to a large marsh, and he rode around the north end of that, taking a day of riding in the rain just to get past the bog. By then he was in an open country, with few trees and open plains which stretched without interruption until he reached the coast. He was eight days into his trip by then, and he and his horse were partners that understood one another very well.
For two more days he rode along the coastline, captivated by the beauty and the smell and the birds and animals that inhabited it. On the second day along the coast he rode through rain until he smelled smoke, and he came to farms and then his narrow road merged with a larger, busier one that came down out of the mountains that he could barely see through the misty rains, a road that led him directly into Green Water within another hour.
The town was both old and raw, it seemed. There were some structures that were aged and solid, such as the temple to Shaish, the goddess of the water. But most of the buildings were raw wood, looking cheap and temporary. Some were burnt shells, sitting empty along the main road that led from the south straight to the docks in the small harbor. The road was a busy one, with constant traffic, consisting mostly of mules carrying cargo towards the seafront.
“Come in, come in handsome man. We’ve got the best-looking women in the town. Come in while you’re still good-looking and you can have a discount,” a man called from a balcony where he stood above the street, sheltered from rain by a canvas awning, while a number of women sat idly by, paying attention to nothing in particular.
Kestrel rode on by, trying to figure out what the barker was selling. “How much for the horse?” another man asked as Kestrel continued down the road. “I’ll give you top dollar. You’ll have enough to outfit yourself for a good gold stake in the mountains,” he called as Kestrel passed. “Or enough to gamble for a week, longer if you’re good!” the horse-buyer offered.
Two men came stumbling out of a bar, walking into the road directly in front of his horse. Kestrel pulled up the reins to prevent an accident, and as he did, one of the men suddenly grabbed the halter, while another man came from behind Kestrel and tried to pull him out of the saddle.
Kestrel started to fall backwards. He flailed his left hand out wide, and grabbed hold of his staff. In one fluid motion he lifted it and swung it in a wide arc that struck solidly on the head of the man behind his back, who was trying to pull him down. The man let go and Kestrel struggled up, then swung his staff again, aiming for the man at the halter, and rapping his knuckles sharply.
He dug his heels into his horse’s ribs, not caring if he trampled the hijackers he had encountered, and swung his staff wide on each side as his horse jumped in response to his command. The trio around him scattered in self-preservation, and Kestrel reined his horse around, and rode carefully back away from the center of town, past the places that he had seen.
After fifteen minutes he came back to the quieter part of the city, the eastern edge, away from the mountain road, and away from the dockyard. He saw a blacksmith shop that appeared to have a stable, and he rode into the yard, where he dismounted.
“Can I leave my horse here in your stables?” he asked a boy who was crossing the yard with a pail of water in each hand.
“Hold on!” the boy shouted as he hurried on his way into the forge. He came back out two minutes later, as Kestrel dismounted and waited with his horse.
“Here he is,” the boy called over his shoulder, and a large man came out behind him.
“What do you need?” the apparent blacksmith asked.
“I wondered if I could stable my horse here while I go into the town,” Kestrel restated his intention.
“Why?” the blacksmith asked simply.
Kestrel told his tale. “So it seems safer on foot, maybe,” he ended, suddenly wondering if he had any cause at all to really go into the city. His test had been to ride and bond with the horse, he felt, not to brawl and get robbed pointlessly.
“You fought off three of them?” the blacksmith asked.
“With my staff,” Kestrel reached back and rested his hand on the length of wood demonstrably.
“I tell you what,” the blacksmith said. “I won’t rent a stall in my stables,” he saw the look of disappointment on Kestrel’s face, and held a hand up. “But for a customer I would let your horse stay here at no charge while I do a job for you.”
“I have no work I need done,” Kestrel protested.
“Sure you do,” the blacksmith said. “In Green Water you need to have metal caps on the ends of your staff. It’s a much more effective tool. I’ll fabricate and install ends on your staff for you for five silvers, while your horse stays here, and you can borrow one of my staffs to carry into town. How does that sound?”
“What kinds of caps do you install?” Kestrel asked. “Five silvers is a lot.”
The blacksmith sent his assistant into the forge, and the boy came immediately back with a staff, which he handed to Kestrel. Kestrel held the staff in front of his face as he examined the metal ends. The caps were heavy; they’d throw his balance off until he got used to them. But they were intriguing; one end had a number of small spikes that jutted out, while the other end had a pair of sturdy looking hooks.
He thought immediately of the additional abilities the tools would provide, both lethal and useful. “Step back,” he motioned for some open space, and then he began to practice the forms and positions Arlen had taught him, feeling the extra weight, and adjusting to it as he swung and poked and ripped the wooden staff in the space all around him.
“Alright; it’s a deal,” he agreed, as he walked back to the blacksmith.
“You know how to handle that; you’ve had training. Where are you from, and why are you here?” the blacksmith asked as he watched Kestrel count the coins out of the purse on his belt.
“I’ve been in Estone, and I came here because I’ve never been here before,” Kestrel answered easily.
“How long will we keep the horse?” the stable boy asked.
“This afternoon, maybe into the night,” Kestrel said. “Will you be here when I return?”
“I sleep in the loft, with three blankets,” the boy answered.
“Try to find a clean doxy,” the blacksmith advised. When Kestrel looked at him blankly, he added, “You don’t want to get a pox do you? Try to pick a woman who hasn’t been in the house long. It probably won’t help, but you ought to have the sense to try.”
Recognition dawned in Kestrel. “I’m not here to try that,” he said, finally understanding what he had seen earlier in the town. His cheeks grew red, and the blacksmith laughed.
“You take that staff along to protect yourself from the doxies and you’ll be fine. Watch out for the pickpockets and the drunks too,” the smith turned and carried Kestrel’s staff into the smithy. Kestrel went back to his horse and grabbed his sword, wrapping the belt around his hips, and for good measure he pulled his bow and arrows free as well.
The rain had stopped falling as he talked to the smith, so he pulled his hood down as he started walking back into town. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see or accomplish, but he had been sent all the way to Green Water, and he wasn’t going to turn around to leave without seeing something of the town.
The trip was slower, and dirtier, as he traveled afoot, stepping repeated around or over droppings from the mules and horses that were prevalent along the main road. With the end of the rain the mist began to dissipate, and Kestrel became aware for the first time o
f the full view of the ring of mountains that came virtually to the edge of the water and the town. They were imposing, tall mountains. They looked stony, with cliffs and steep rock slide areas interspersed among the evergreen trees. They were the Water Mountains, a large, impenetrable chain of mountains that separated the lands of the North Sea from the lands of the Inland Seas. They were the home to yetis and gnomes and miners and outlaws, an area as unknown to the elves of the Eastern Forest as the lands of the humans.
Kestrel continued to walk along the side of the road, and soon passed the house of the doxies again, but drew no sales pitch as he walked modestly along on his own feet instead of an expensive horse. Looking down side streets he saw similar establishments too, he now realized.
As he passed by one large, nondescript building, there was a loud and sustained roar of delight from inside, and several men came flowing out of the wide double doors, happy and flourishing cash in their hands. Curious, Kestrel turned towards the building and started to enter, only to be stopped at the door by a pair of bulky men. “No weapons allowed,” one of the men told him.
“What’s in there?” Kestrel asked.
The two men grinned at each other.
“Dreams,” one said. “Hope,” the other said.
“Suckers,” they both laughed.
“It’s gambling!” said the first who had spoken to him. “Did you just arrive in town fresh from your mother’s apron?”
“I’ve never been around it, I guess,” Kestrel answered, abashed.
“Well, if you leave your weapons here, we’ll let you in. Then you can probably leave your money here too,” the guard grinned at Kestrel’s naivete.
“Go in Kestrel. Help our people,” Kestrel heard a woman’s voice softly whisper.
He turned his head to look around, but saw no one.
“Are you going in? If so, put your weapons in the locker; if not, move out of the way,” the second guard spoke to Kestrel.
Unnerved, Kestrel stepped over to the row of open lockers, and placed his weapons within one of the empty ones. “Goddess, was that you?” he asked silently, but there was no answer.
Cautiously, Kestrel entered the doors of the gambling hall. “Save some money for breakfast, tomorrow,” one of the guards advised as he passed them.
The hall was much larger than he would have guessed from the outside, as it seemed to stretch for a city block or more. It was dim and noisy and smelled of alcohol. Men, and a few women, stood or sat around various tables, focusing on the activities before them. Some laughed and talked, but most were silent, and a few looked desperate or anguished.
Were these people the ones the goddess wanted Kestrel to save, he wondered. There was no evidence that they needed his help, but the goddess had sent him in. He walked around the room, occasionally looking at the tables, trying to understand the games, failing to see the appeal. By the time he reached the far end of the game room he had concluded that there was no obvious need for his help for anyone in the building. Yet he knew the goddess would not have spoken without reason, if he really had heard her voice.
He stood against the wall, and watched as a door opened, and a pair of workers began to limp across the room, carrying a large platter of food to serve to the customers. Kestrel idly examined the tray, wondering what kind of food was eaten in the hall, when his attention was dramatically drawn to the limping workers who carried the trays — they were elves!
The two men were elves, each wore chains between their legs, and each was missing most of a foot. They looked thin, haggard, and scarred extensively — scars on their faces, their arms, their shoulders and backs that were visible through rents in their clothes. He recollected Silvan’s bleak report that elves in the battle against the human fire-starters had been captured and turned into slaves. Here were two of them, somehow transported all the way from the western border of the forest to this lawless corner of Estone.
Kestrel blanched at the thought. He understood now — the voice he had heard had been the elven goddess Kere, not the human Kai. She was an elven goddess, commanding him to set these elven slaves free. He needed to find a way to do it, and then he could transport them back to Firheng and return them to their own people, to freedom and their families, away from captivity. He could even give them a dose of healing water to fix the injured feet and the scarred bodies they had suffered.
Carefully, Kestrel began to walk towards the elves, to study them closely, to possibly talk to them, to figure out how best to set them free. He was only steps along his route when a man stepped in his way, blocking his access to the slaves.
“I’m sorry, that food is reserved for our paying customers, the ones who are in the gambling hall to gamble,” the man said forthrightly. “We don’t serve food to people who just stand against the wall.”
Kestrel was taken by surprise; he hadn’t realized he was under observation.
“This is all new to me, and I want to take it in before I try anything,” he told the gambling hall manager. “I won’t eat any of your food. I just want to watch and think for a while.”
“That’s fine,” the manager said, “for a while. But sooner or later, if you don’t plan to do any gambling, we’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“Understood,” Kestrel acknowledged, and he turned away from the manager and the food. He went to stand beside a table of gamblers who were on the path the slaves would have to take to return to their entry door, where he planned to wait for their empty-handed return.
“Are you going to play?” a man asked Kestrel.
“What?” Kestrel was taken by surprise. He looked at the man, standing at the table, holding a cup in his hands. There were others at the table watching too.
“If you’re going to stand at the table, you need to put your money down,” the gambler said. “I’m getting ready to toss, and I’m hot! Put some money down on me,” he nodded to the table below, an intricate checkerboard of colors, shapes and numbers.
Embarrassed, Kestrel reached for his purse. He didn’t have a lot of money with him, but he’d spent nothing so far. Other than the caps on his staff, he had no other planned expenditures. He pulled out the first unseen coin his fingers grasped in his purse, and looked at the numerous small piles of coins atop squares on the left side of the table. In bewilderment he placed his coin on an empty square next to the others.
“An optimist, eh?” the man with the cup in his hand commented. He shook the cup, his hands holding the open end closed, then flung his hand away as he threw its contents down on the table.
Kestrel looked up to see that the slaves were hobbling around, distributing food from their platter to a pair of tables on the other side of the hall. He looked back down, and saw that there were five small wooden cubes on the table.
“You lucky son of a doxy!” the cupholder shouted to Kestrel. “You got the purple!”
Kestrel felt someone pound his back in congratulations, and a tall stack of coins was pushed towards him. He examined the cubes on the table again, and saw that all five had a purple surface facing upward.
“Here,” the cupholder pressed the leather container towards him, as the others at the table stared at Kestrel with smiles. “You’re so lucky, you throw the squares!”
“I don’t really know the rules,” Kestrel protested.
“You don’t have to know anything; you just have to be lucky!” the only woman at the table screeched at him as her partner draped his arm possessively over her shoulder.
“What do I do?” Kestrel asked as the other man released the leather cup, leaving it in Kestrel’s possession.
“Pick up the squares, pick your bet, let everyone else pick their bet, then throw them,” the former explained.
Kestrel looked at the silent man who wore a vest, the one who had pushed the coins towards him. The man nodded discretely, and Kestrel reached for the wooden cubes. He glanced over at the working slaves, who seemed to still be occupied with their duties, then took a pair of coins from his p
ile and put them on two different squares.
He watched as others placed their bets, then he shook the cup and released the wooden squares. They five cubes flew out of the cup, spinning and revealing their varied colors and symbols as they flew, then hit the table and each other and bounced against the restraining wall, before coming to settle in place. The others at the table gave a great whoop, and the man in the vest began to push forward coins to match several of the bets, including one of Kestrel’s.
The shouts attracted others to come over, and as Kestrel pulled his new pile of coins in and picked up the cubes, a buzz of chatter surrounded him as news of his luck was transmitted.
He placed a small pile of chips on a spot at random, and then watched as other coins quickly fell around it in a pattern he couldn’t figure out. All eyes went to his hands, and he began to shake the cup, listening to the wooden pieces within randomly clatter against each other, until he heard a peculiar chiming clack. He released his hand, and the stream of squares poured from the cup and onto the table top. Kestrel knew, as soon as the first wooden block hit the table, he knew he had somehow won again. When the cubes finished knocking each other against the table top and finally came to rest, there was another loud cry of triumph, as multiple hands thumped him on the back and hugged his shoulders, while a woman leaned in to kiss him.
The man in the vest looked at Kestrel with an unfathomable warning in his eyes, then began to push more coins towards the players’ bets. He raised a hand with two fingers extended, and another man in a vest carried over a heavy box of additional coins, and laid it down in front of the man who distributed the winnings. Kestrel saw the manager who had blocked his path walking over towards the table, and he took a look over at the enslaved elves. The two men were still working, he saw, so he reached for the cubes, and realized that more gamblers were arriving at his table to take advantage of his lucky streak.
Kestrel looked at the table top, placed another bet, and the whole process began again under the watchful eye of the new arrivals, both those who gambled, and those who worked in the gambling house. Kestrel’s bet and those of the other gamblers won again, and Kestrel belatedly realized that the money the gamblers won was money that the gambling hall lost. Another box of coins was carried to the table, and more gamblers surrounded the prime attraction. A glance at the elves showed that many other tables were emptied as Kestrel drew in people looking to ride his luck.
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