He feared that upon his return he would face some unknown assignment. Would Silvan send him back out to live among the humans, he wondered, subjected once again to Alicia’s ear-cutting artistry? Would he be assigned to stay among the elves, to live once again in Elmheng or Center Trunk or some other elven location where he would feel a disgruntled isolation from the world he now knew? Would the gods even allow him to remain apart from the battles that were going on, the battles in which he was expected to fight, and was named as a champion of a cause?
Whatever Silvan had expected Kestrel to do in the world – the simple idea of spying on the humans to learn of the next attack – was now inconsequential. Kestrel’s life and actions had deviated widely from it, and created events and consequences that were far from the original goals of the elves.
With those thoughts, Kestrel eventually fell asleep.
He awoke to Greysen shaking him awake. “Father says you’re leaving us this morning. Is that true?” the boy asked him as soon as he opened his eyes.
Kestrel studied the boy for a moment, noting the forehead that sloped back at just the same angle as his father’s, and the sparse stubble of whiskers that were starting to sprout from his chin.
“He and I both agree that I am not helping Yulia by staying here with her,” Kestrel answered. “There are too many people here who don’t see her as the next ruler of Hydrotaz; they see her as someone who has their enemy– the elves – following her around,” Kestrel said. “I need to leave so that I can help her.
“Your job is to stay with your father and help protect her. Trust your father. He’s a good man and a smart soldier. Take care of her, and maybe someday I can come back as the Elf ambassador to the court, eh?” he reached out and tousled Greysen’s hair.
“I’m going to miss you,” Greysen said simply. “I’ll never hate the elves the way these men do, because I know what you’ve done.”
“I’ll miss being a human, or a pretend human,” Kestrel told him as he stood and pulled on his clothes. “Are you going to take me to see Yulia now?”
“Those are my orders,” the boy answered.
“Let’s go then,” Kestrel said as he picked up his staff and opened the door.
They walked the short distance to the guarded door of the room where the princess was already awake. The guard allowed them both to enter, and Kestrel found Yulia inside, sitting in a chair, doing nothing but staring at the door.
“I told Ferris yesterday that this was wrong,” she told Kestrel as soon as he entered. She rose from her chair and glided towards him, then hugged him, and he realized that no matter how many people called her princess and reported to her about the advance of the campaign, she was still a young girl, with vulnerable spots that she worked to keep concealed.
“I knew it was the right thing to do before he even came to me,” Kestrel assured her, “I’m a distraction now, not anything else.”
“You’re a friend, and you’re a tie to other friends, and you’re a real person who isn’t doing anything to get more of this or that for yourself Kestrel. I curse Graylee for invading my country, I curse them for killing my brother, and most of all, I curse them for making me be exposed to and involved in the kinds of seamy things that rulers have to know and think about.”
Her hands rose to his face and forced him to look down into her eyes. “Will I ever see you again?”
“I hope so Yulia,” he said softly. “Maybe you and Philip and I and Margo can get together again someday. What would you say to that?” He watched her eyes light up at the mention of Philip’s name.
“I would love that. And we’ll have Greysen and Picco too, of course!” she added, smiling around Kestrel’s shoulder at the boy who stood by.
“When everything is settled someday, maybe you can send a messenger to the Eastern Forest, and ask for an ambassador to come to Hydrotaz to negotiate a treaty,” Kestrel told her softly. “Ask for me by name.
“Now, you need to tell your followers that you’ve sent me away, and don’t bring my name up again from now on. Focus on your war, and trust Ferris; if one hundred people tell you ‘yes’, and Ferris tells you ‘no’, the right answer is probably ‘no’,” he said.
“Good bye Yulia,” he kissed her forehead. “I’ll ask the goddess to watch over you and protect you.”
“You be careful Kestrel. I want to see you again – soon! Mark your busycalendar to come to Hydrotaz for my coronation someday,” she squeezed him in a tight hug, then released him as tears ran down her face.
Ten minutes later Kestrel sat atop his horse, a hat covering his long hair and his ears, his staff and his knife and his bow and arrows and his sword all attached around his saddle like a portable armory, all of his yeti skin protection assembled and wrapped around his body. He gave Greysen a final wave and Ferris a salute, then flicked the reins and set his horse in motion, riding north, back towards Trace. He decided he would ride up to the edge of the Water Mountains, then turn east and enter the Eastern Forest, up to the north of the one-eyed puma’s sector of the woods.
Or, he pretended not to tell himself, he could make a last minute decision to ride west along the foothills of the mountain, and so return to the manor of Margo’s family.
As he might have guessed, shortly after Kestrel rode out onto the main road, clouds moved in from the west, and an hour later a steady rain began to fall. The result was that the ride for the next two days was miserable. Kestrel turned his horse out into the fields to go around sizeable towns, while he held his face low and rode at a fast pace when he went through smaller villages. He slept in trees as night and felt fortunate to avoid any kind of scrutiny from the humans who passed him on the road.
On the third day of his journey the rains ended and a clear view of the mountains loomed on the near horizon. Kestrel stopped his horse at the point where he suspected his last crossroads offered access east and west, and looked indecisively down both branches of the narrow, rustic road, little used by the light population in the region. Whatever remained of his loyalty to the elven race told him that he had to turn right and return to the officers and the forces and the people who had sent him forth into the world. He could personally tell them about the evil power of Uniontown, and force them to understand that the future of the elves depended on the defeat of Uniontown specifically, more than just the ongoing war with humanity.
Or he could turn west and return to Margo, to help her and protect her, and try to find out if there was an understanding possible between them.
As he sat still at the crossroads, undecided, he saw a rabbit cautiously hop out from underneath a blackberry bush. The bush was losing its leaves, and the rabbit relied as much on its briars for protection as it did on the foliage for cover. But just beyond the bush was a dandelion whose leaves tempted the rabbit out into the open. As the rabbit began to nibble, a shadow suddenly crossed over it, and then a split second later a large hawk pounced on the animal and carried it away.
It was a sign, Kestrel knew. Not as obvious a sign as Dewberry’s interruption of his seduction of Merilla, but a sign from the gods nonetheless. There were dangers in the world, and he owed it to the rabbits of the world, the elves, to go and warn them of the hawks like Uniontown that circled overhead, growing dangerously close to plummeting down upon them to bring death and destruction.
He resolutely turned the horse to the right, and began his journey to ride back to the elves of Center Trunk.
Chapter 18– The Road to Center Trunk
There seemed to be a constant cool breeze that blew south out of the mountains over northern Hydrotaz, a place that took up empty space on the maps, but held few people to justify being named anything but wilderness. After riding for several days, Kestrel finally felt free to ride without a hat on, not worried about being spotted by humans in the sparsely populated area, too close to the dangers of the mountains to attract either humans or elves. The experience he had endured at Merilla’s homestead convinced Kestrel that the nonexistent
homesteaders were prudent in their absence. By the end of that day he was in a forest of tall trees, and he gladly climbed into a hickory tree that night to sleep soundly.
The next day’s journey brought upon him the rea lity check of interacting with elves in their home territory again for the first time in nearly a year. As he rode his horse through the woods he passed elves out collecting nuts, harvesting the food that would be stored as part of the winter’s supplies. Every elf he passed stopped to look at him, and he saw several run ahead of him at the high elven foot speed.
An hour later Kestrel was knocked from his horse by a barrage of arrows that struck his chest and propelled him to the ground, as the arrows spent their force bouncing off the yeti hide protection Kestrel wore.
Kestrel slowly sat upright, the breath knocked out of him by the contact with the ground. The stunned squad of elven guards who had shot him came slowly circling around, unable to comprehend how he could have repelled their arrows and still be alive.
“You blockheads!” Kestrel shouted. “What kind of cowardly ambush is a dozen men sneaking up on one?”
“He rides a horse and he speaks the human language,” one of the elves said to another. “I don’t care what his ears look like, he’s not one of us.”
Kestrel’s mind slowly translated the words, and then he realized he was translating his native tongue as though it were the foreign language.
“I said, ‘you block heads, what cowards are a dozen elves who sneak up on one man!’” he converted his language, and repeated his words for them, as he slowly stood up.
“Hold right there!” the apparent commander of the squad shouted back as all the guardsmen, including two women, he noted, hastily raised their bows. “Who are you, riding a horse like a human?”
“my name is Kestrel,” he said. “I’m on my way to Center Trunk to report to my commanding officer.
“You,” he noted the uniforms, “are local militia?” he tried to keep the scorn out of his voice.
Several of them stiffened. “We are,” the commander said.
“Why don’t you escort me to the nearest regular guard post, and let me communicate with them,” Kestrel suggested.
“We will, but you may not ride the animal any longer,” the commander said authoritatively.
Kestrel exaggeratedly stretched his back. “Let’s get going,” he said. “Where are we going?” he asked as he grasped his horse’s lead and began to run.
“We’ll head to Elmheng,” the commander told him.
“Let’s pick up the pace then. I’ve got friends there,” Kestrel said, and he began to run faster. In the past he typically could not win races among his comrades in the elven full time guard, but now, after his long stretch of work and battle in Hydrotaz and Graylee, he was in better shape than ever, while the militia was only able to muster the type of halfway effective effort they were mocked for by the regulars. Soon the militia escort was breathing heavily as they tried to keep up with Kestrel and his horse.
“Take a break,” the commander called at last. “All company halt!” he shouted, as Kestrel pulled away.
They were in territory Kestrel knew. They were in the sector of the one-eyed puma, and they could be in Elmheng within another hour if they kept moving. “We’re almost there,” he protested.
“Let’s have a short breather, and then we’ll take you to Zeibold,” the militia leader said.
Kestrel drew up short. He had been picturing the Elmheng he had lived in, the Elmheng in which Mastrin was commander, and Cheryl lived with the commander in his home. But that, he realized, was a past that was gone. Mastrin was dead in the battle against the Hydrotaz and Graylee forces, and Cheryl was somewhere unknown.
She’d never answered any of the letters he had sent from Firheng, something that had baffled him at the time. Lucretia hadn’t answered either, but she’d been changing assignments, and then in the battle on the front lines, as she’d told Kestrel; she’d never had time to catch her breath and catch up with one of his letters before another had belatedly followed her to her new location. His letters had been short and lacked in specifics in any event, he knew. He’d written them when he was most isolated and lonely in the beginning of his training at Firheng, when he’d been prevented from writing specific details of his life. And now, he feared, he might be entering another period of similar isolation among his own race.
“I’m anxious to get going,” Kestrel told the militia leader as he walked over to stand above the man who was sitting against a tree trunk.
“How did you survive those arrows?” the man asked Kestrel. “There must have been seven or eight that hit you squarely in the chest.”
“Why did you even tell you squad to shoot at me?” Kestrel responded. “I was riding along peacefully. Did it not occur to you to say ‘stop’ or ask a question first?”
“You were on a horse, and upsetting people,” the commander said calmly.
“I wasn’t upsetting people. I wasn’t talking to a single person. I was minding my own business. And I’d like to get moving along,” he announced. Until this moment he hadn’t been in a hurry to officially return to the knowledge of the Elvish military leaders, but now that he was under the pseudo-military control of this militia squad, he wanted to move forward quickly, to get the whole ordeal underway and over with sooner rather than later, if possible. He had relevant information that was of substantial significance to the future of the elves, and that could be prudently acted on quickly; at any rate it needed to be factored into the calculations that Silvan made about what to do next and what to advise was needed.
“Why don’t you ask for volunteers, and whoever’s in shape to do so can take me to Elmheng while the rest of you return home?It’ll save you alot of extra steps,” Kestrel asked facetiously.
“That makes sense,” the militia leader said, not recognizing the irony of Kestrel’s suggestion.
A few minutes later three elves who volunteered were once again in motion towards Elmheng with Kestrel, while the exhausted commander and the rest of the squad were dragging themselves back to their homes in the northern forest. The volunteers were apparently the better class of members of the militia, and were clearly curious about Kestrel and his horse.
“Have you been riding this thing for long?” one of them asked.
“I just learned last year how to ride a horse,” Kestrel answered. “It’s just a matter of getting comfortable with the animal. They make long trips a lot easier, and they can carry a fair amount of supplies. Plus they give you the advantage of being up higher to see the world around you.”
“They make you more visible as a target,” another elf pointed out.
“That’s true,” Kestrel said, “but it doesn’t happen often, and sometimes you just have to accept that.”
“You speak the human language?” another one asked.
“I learned it last year too,” Kestrel said.
“You haven’t known it all your life?” his guard asked, surprised, as they came within sight of Elmheng.
“I was raised here – lived heremost of my life,” Kestrel pointed to the town. “There’s the house that Glowsen built when he got married,” he pointed to a cottage in the distance. “There weren’t any teachers here who taught human language.”
As luck would have it, when they arrived in town, Kestrel directed them through town to the gate of the army base, where the guard offices were, and the sentry at the gate was Backsin, a friend who had served with Kestrel.
“Talk about a lost squirrel come home to the nest!” Backsin said enthusiastically. “Kestrel!” he abandoned his military posture at the gate to give his friend a hearty hug in celebration of his return.
“Where have you been?” Backsin asked. “Who are your friends?”
“These are some militia members from up north of the one- eyed puma,” Kestrel answered. “Their commander didn’t quite trust me, so he had me escorted back here.
“Would any of you like a drink or s
omething to eat before you turn around and run home?” he asked the trio.
They declined, and said farewell, then began to sprint home, leaving Kestrel to raise an eyebrow at Backsin.
“What are you doing with that animal?” his friend asked, looking at the horse whose reins he held. “And what are you going to do with it?”
“Well,” Kestrel paused, as he considered the reality that Elven military bases, and towns, didn’t have stables or facilities for handling horses, or their manure. “I think I’ll go back to Glowsen’s to see if he’ll let me keep my horse there while I’m in Elmheng.”
“How long are you going to be here? Are you not returning for duty?” Backsin asked.
“I’ve been on an assignment for the folks in Center Trunk,” Kestrel said. “I’m on my way back there now.”
“You’ll have to see Zeibold,” Backsin told him. “Having him as a commanding officer makes service here about ten times more of a headache– he wants to put his fingerprints on everything that happens
– he can’t delegate a thing. I’ve heard he’s been pretty annoyed about you being listed as stationed here but on ‘detached service’.”
“That’s funny,” Kestrel replied. “I’ve never thought about where I was assigned. I must have ayear’s wages waiting for me at the paymaster’s office.”
“I’ll be back,” Kestrel told his friend. “I’ll go see if I can find a home for Thunder,” he said as he turned around and went back out of town. Glowsen’s wife, Narthi,looked puzzled at Kestrel’s request, and fearful of the horse, until Kestrel let her stroke the animal, and they both fed it food from their hands.
“We’ll let you tie it up here. How long will it be?” she asked.
“I don’t really know; I think just a day or two,” he responded. Kestrel removed the saddle and the blanket from the animal, then took his staff and his bag of supplies and healing water, and walked back into town, back to the gate, and back to Backsin.
The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 02 - The Yellow Palace Page 28
