War Of The Wildlands (11 page)

A
bright but cold
morning arrived over the Sycamore Clan’s village. The entire clan was already
stirring as the sun came up, and Yori felt more refreshed than he had in years.
Sleeping in a hut under the forest canopy was good for his soul, and he enjoyed
it in spite of the cold. His grandfather had already made his way to the forge,
and Yori hurried to dress and join him.

“Good morning,” Darin said as Yori came into view.

“Good morning,” he replied, heading straight for
the furnace. He checked the fire to be sure it was hot enough to begin working.

“Your cousin Lem tends to that,” Darin said with a
smirk. “Looks like you already know more about smithing than he does.” The old
elf chuckled while his apprentice stared blankly at him. “Come over here,
Yori.”

Yori obeyed. On the workbench in front of him were
several scrolls. Taking one and spreading it across the bench, Darin said,
“You’re going to have to learn Ancient Elvish if you want to etch runes.” He
pointed to the symbols on the scroll.

“You expect me to learn to read that?” Yori asked.

“Of course I do. It will be as easy as the first
time you learned to read.”

“I never learned,” he replied.

“What do human mothers teach their children?”
Darin asked, bewildered.

Yori gave it some thought and said, “I suppose she
couldn’t teach me what she didn’t know herself. It’s not a necessary skill for
common people in Na’zora.”

“Well, you’re going to learn Ancient Elvish. No
one here speaks or reads it except me. They use it a lot in the Sunswept Isles,
but they’re just a bunch of uppity bastards.”

Yori smiled, remembering how Atti had described
the Enlightened Elves in a very similar fashion. “How long will it take me to
learn?”

“Not long, I hope,” Darin replied. “Please tell me
you’re smarter than this one.” He gestured his thumb at Lem, who was fighting
with a pair of pliers. “While you’re at it, you can learn to read the common
language too.”

Yori focused all of his attention on his reading
lessons. There were thirty-two Ancient Elvish symbols to learn, each one representing
a different sound in the ancient dialect. By noon, he could recite them in
order, but his head felt like it was about to burst.

Taking pity on his grandson, Darin decided to take
a break from the lessons. “I’ve got lots of weapons that need etching, so we’ll
concentrate on that after we have a bite to eat. You can learn something a
little more useful than just letters.”

“Sounds great,” Yori said, grateful for the chance
to get away from the scrolls. “Will I have to speak this old language?”

“Not really,” Darin replied. “You just have to
know enough to put the right runes in the right order. It’s not like you want
to converse with a bunch of smart assed, magic-loving, sugar-sucking, full of
shit elves anyway.”

“Have you had many dealings with Enlightened
Elves?” Yori asked.

“A long time ago,” he replied. “They’re worse than
you’ve heard. They’ll ask you to do something, but no matter what you do it’s
never good enough for them. Never trust them. They’ll cheat you if they can.”

Lem fetched three bowls of stew from the gathering
area of the village. Yori had hoped they could join the rest of the clan as
they ate, but Darin had too much work to do and wouldn’t leave the forge.
Getting to know his kinsmen would have to wait for another day.

Once they had finished eating, Darin placed a pile
of iron arrow tips on the workbench. “You know how to forge these, I presume,”
he said.

Yori nodded. Na’zorans did not typically use
arrows, but Yori had crafted them many times for visitors to Enald’s
marketplace.

“Good. We can skip that part.” He fetched a bundle
of tools rolled up in a wide leather strip. Inside were thirteen different
chisels, each resting in its own leather pocket. Darin took out a chisel and
handed it to Yori. “What do you think?” he asked.

Yori examined the chisel, turning it over in his
hand. “The iron work is good,” he said. “The tip is very fine and quite sharp.
Back in Enald I would have used this to etch my uncle’s mark onto the blade of
a sword or dagger.”

“We’re going to do something much better with it,”
he replied. “But it’s good to know you’ve done a bit of delicate work and not
just a bunch of hammering. Lem is great with a hammer but terrible with a
chisel.”

Yori observed as his grandfather began to etch
runes into an arrow tip. It appeared to him nothing more than etching any other
mark or design into the metal. There were no magic words, no chanting, and no
beams of magical light. The entire process seemed a little unimpressive.

“This arrow tip will now explode when it hits its
target. Whatever is struck will burst into flame.” Darin handed Yori the arrow
tip.

As he looked at the runes, he saw a faint red glow
within the etching. Stunned, he asked, “How did you do that?”

“Do what?” he asked, giggling.

“The runes are glowing,” Yori said. “How do you
give them their power?”

“It’s the blood in my veins, Yori, and it’s in
yours as well.” He patted Yori on the shoulder and grabbed a second arrow tip.
Yori bent down to watch more closely as his grandfather again chiseled a series
of four runes into the arrow tip. To his amazement, Darin’s eyes flashed green
as he chiseled into the metal. Yori realized that the process wasn’t the
important part. The person doing the etching was what mattered.

“Can anyone learn this?” Yori asked.

“Any elf probably could, but I can’t say they’d
all be as good at it.” He handed the second arrow tip to Yori. “Your father was
really something special. He could finish these twice as fast as I ever could.
You have his eyes, you know.”

“How do these runes work, exactly?” Yori asked. “I
don’t understand the process.”

“Like all elven magic, it comes from within.
You’ll need to learn a bit of earth magic, but that will come naturally to you.
Then it’s just a matter of putting the runes in the proper order. As long as you
have talent with the metal, you can etch runes. Poor Lem just can’t seem to
master the fine details. I suppose it takes an artistic talent as well.”

Yori had never considered himself particularly
artistic. He did enjoy creating the fine details of a sword rather than the
everyday tools he used to make back in Ren’s shop. He remembered the pride he
had felt when he finished the inlay for Aelryk’s court sword. The process had
taken many long hours, but the joy he felt upon seeing the finished product had
been its own reward. It was truly a thing of beauty to behold, and Yori had
impressed even himself with the quality of his work.

“Let’s see how well you can copy a line of runes,”
Darin said. “Grab some scrap metal and give it a try. Don’t worry about it blowing
up on you. The runes you etch won’t have any magical properties to them just
yet.”

Slowly, Yori began to etch the same runes onto the
scrap metal that his grandfather had etched onto the arrow tips. Still
unfamiliar with the symbols, he would pause halfway through each line to double
check the shape of the rune. He did not intend for a single rune to look
different from his grandfather’s. If he could not yet imbue them with magic, he
would certainly learn to etch the correct shape in the meantime. Once he had
finally finished, he pushed the scrap metal toward his grandfather for
inspection.

Bending down close to the runes, Darin said, “This
is very good for a first try. This would actually be good for tenth try.” He
smiled at Yori and nodded approvingly. “You’re going to be good at this,” he
said. “I can already tell.”

Relieved, Yori finally remembered to exhale. He
smiled back at his grandfather, who was beaming with pride. Yori had proven
himself a fast learner. Now all he had to do was memorize the runes, learn what
to etch for a desired effect, and unlock the magical secrets that would give
the runes their power. The thought made him nervous but excited too. Before him
was the opportunity to do something very few elves could do. As a half-breed he
had always been treated as an undesirable. Now he had the chance to become
something special.

M
oving quietly
through the forest, Reylin scouted ahead of his warriors. He stopped suddenly,
hearing footsteps nearby. Just ahead, a small caravan was heading south just
outside of Na’zora’s border. Reylin wondered who would be stupid enough to
travel away from the road in a war zone. He sprinted back to his kinsmen to
deliver the news.

“Essa,” he said as he reached the group. “There’s
a small caravan ahead. It looked like merchants, and I saw no guards escorting
them.”

“Let’s get them, then,” she said with a smile.

Drawing their weapons, the warriors advanced
through the forest to meet the caravan. The wagons stopped short as the elves
emerged from the woods. Arrows began to fly through the air, catching the wagon
drivers before they knew what hit them. The maidens rushed to open the doors of
the rear carriage and ordered the men inside to step out.

A finely dressed man in a feathered hat emerged
slowly from the carriage, followed by a balding man with a round, protruding
belly. “Don’t kill us! Please!” the fat man begged, falling to his knees.

Essa could not abide a cowardly man, and she ran
him through without a second thought. The finely dressed man held up his arms
in surrender and remained silent.

Reylin approached the man and asked, “What kind of
dumbass leads a caravan through a war zone?”

“Apparently a dead one,” the man replied.

Reylin laughed. “What was your purpose here?”

“I collect taxes for King Domren,” the man
responded. “We had confiscated some goods from merchants who refused to pay
their fair share. I was taking them back to the palace district.”

“You were going the wrong way,” Reylin said. “It
seems to me you were taking them someplace other than to your pig king.”

“The king does not need all of these items. I was
bringing them to the market myself and would have given him the profits.”

Again Reylin laughed. “I’m sure you would have.
You’re an important man I take it?”

“I am,” he replied. “I am also very wealthy and
will fetch a good ransom should you return me safely to my family.”

“I don’t bargain with Na’zorans,” Reylin replied,
his eyes cold and full of hate. “You bring gold to a king who uses it to murder
my people. You don’t deserve to live.”

“Reylin,” Essa said. “Maybe he’s right, and we
could trade him for more weapons.”

“You want to trust this one? What’s wrong with
you?”

“I want to do whatever will be best for our kind,”
she said, shaking her head. “If he’s important, the humans might retaliate.”

“They’re going to retaliate anyway. Have you
forgotten what happened to our village?”

The archers were growing impatient with the
conversation, and one of them yelled, “Burn him!” Several voices spoke up in
agreement.

“No,” Reylin said. “Let’s peel the skin from his
bones and send him home.”

The elves cheered at the suggestion and rushed in
to perform the grizzly deed. The man screamed and flailed as the elves
descended upon him, stabbing him repeatedly with their knives. When they had
finished, nothing remained of a man except a red mass of flesh. They loaded the
remains into the wagon, and Reylin turned the horses to face east. With a slap
of his hand, he sent the horses racing towards Duana. He only wished he could
hear their screams when they opened the wagon to discover the grim spectacle
within.

After the attack, the elves were in high spirits.
They moved back into the forest and away from Na’zora’s border. Suddenly,
Reylin heard the call of a bird that no longer existed in the Wildlands. That
could only mean another clan was nearby. Responding with a similar whistle,
Reylin slowly walked in the direction of the sound. The bird continued to call
until Reylin was upon it. A scout descended from a branch high overhead and landed
in front of him.

“Greetings, Brother,” the elf said. “I am Niko of
the Mulberry Clan.”

“Reylin of the Oak Leaf Clan,” he replied. “Is
your village nearby?”

“It’s a few hours north of here,” Niko said. “Our
warriors have come to find you. We want to join the fighting.”

“That is good to hear.”

Niko whistled for the rest of the Mulberry Clan’s
warriors to join him. Reylin was pleased to see they still had over three hundred
warriors in their ranks. They would certainly be stronger now that they had
joined forces.

“Do you have any idea where they will strike
next?” Reylin asked.

“No, our Overseer has refused all negotiation with
the Na’zorans. One member of our clan had been captured but returned home
bearing a message from the prince. He claimed he wanted peace, but it was most
likely a trick. One of your clan visited us and told us where we might find
you. He was old and not feeling well, so he stayed behind in the village.”

“Who is protecting your village?” Reylin asked.

“We left behind a few archers. I doubt the humans
could have slipped past without our knowledge. They move too loudly through the
woods.”

A gnawing feeling came over Reylin. Without a
decent number of warriors, the Mulberry Clan’s village would not stand a chance
against an attack. “We should head for your village. Your people aren’t safe
there, and we need to evacuate them across the river.”

Niko nodded his agreement, and the two companies
joined ranks before heading north. Night began to fall as they reached the
devastation that had once been home to the Mulberry Clan. Piles of rubble that
had formerly been huts still smoldered, and the smell of death filled the air.
Warriors cried out in agony as they saw their loved ones lying dead upon the
earth. Solemnly, they began the grim task of placing the corpses among the
trees to honor them in death.

“We should travel to the other villages and
evacuate them before it’s too late,” Essa suggested. “This cannot be allowed to
continue.”

“The Mountain Clan is the nearest to ours,” Niko
said. “We should head that way first.”

“I’ve never been that far north,” Reylin said.
“You will have to lead the way. We should stay close to Na’zora’s border,
though. If they send out more soldiers, we might be able to stop them before
they reach the village.”

“Agreed,” Niko said. “We can head out in the
morning. It appears our Overseer was among the dead.” He shook his head. “He
was my father.”

“I’m sorry,” Essa replied softly. “You must lead
your people now. I can see strength in your eyes.”

He nodded and let out a long, slow breath. “I’ll
do what I can. Just yesterday we were not at war. We had everything we needed,
and our homes were safe. Now we must fight to keep what is ours.” He strode off
into the darkness, contemplating the road ahead.