Chapter 10
Kestrel lay upon the stones for two days in an unconscious state, as the waters of the spring healed his battered body. The burns and lacerations and bruises were washed with the energy of the warm waters, and he slumbered through the process of his body’s revitalization. The burned and ripped rags of his clothes clung to him, and his enchanted knife remained belted to his hip.
When he awoke in the middle of the evening, two days after his miraculous arrival, he still felt the aches and the pains of his experience.
He relaxed as he felt the familiar waters flowing over him, then opened his eyes in shock at the realization of where he was.
“Stillwater? Odare? Mulberry? Dewberry?” he called without expectations of answers, but simply out of habit, for he’d always been a visitor at the spring in the company of one of his small friends.
“Kere?” he called as well.
I hear you, my battered son, the goddess’s voice was weak, but clear.
“Kere? Mother goddess? Can you speak to me?” he asked in astonishment.
No, the voice replied.
I can – you are at my spring, my healing spring, are you not? This place, perhaps alone in all the world during the Rishiare Estelle, is a place where I can reach and touch you, she answered.
Your father is back, I sense. I have had some contact with him, as best we are able during these limiting circumstances. I believe he has been changed by his experience, at least for a little while. And he says nothing but the best – with pride – about you, she informed him.
You did so well to make that journey, and to do all that you did. You did even better to return, she added.
“I was with Wren – she’s a marvel,” Kestrel told the goddess. He slowly climbed off the stones and waded across the spring.
“And Stuart was a good leader. Have they all made it back safely?” Kestrel asked.
Morph said that all were on their ways to their respective homes, directly or indirectly, the goddess said.
Kestrel heaved himself up out of the water, and sat on the bank.
It takes effort to reach you Kestrel, Kere said, and her voice was fainter.
You have a hope, perhaps a dream, her voice told him. Beware, the single word was spoken, and then there was silence.
“My goddess? Kere? What is it? Beware what danger?” he asked frantically.
Three times, she answered
“Kai said three times too! What is it?” Kestrel asked. He rose to his feet and stood, looking up into the stars of the clear autumn evening. He waited but received no answer.
After long minutes of silence, he closed his eyes. “Thank you Kere; I loved to hear your voice again. I’ll talk to you every day when the Rishiare Estelle is over, I promise!” he spoke loudly.
Kestrel was sure that Kere smiled, and he smiled too, happy that he had heard from the elven goddess of fate, heard that his father, Morph – the god of speed – was back, and heard that his companions from the trip to the world of the Skyes were on their ways to their homes. He hoped they all had safe trips, and he hoped he could see them all soon. The adventure in the Eastern Forest had already taken many days that he had not expected, and he knew more time would be needed to put an end to the inexplicable tyranny that prevailed.
He wanted to fulfill his promise to return to Uniontown. The only way to meet that promise was to finish the work in the Eastern Forest as quickly as possible, he decided, and that meant he needed to return to Firheng.
He didn’t know how he had gotten to the healing spring. The imps could not have brought him, nor could the gods have delivered him. But he looked at the injuries that were still evident on his body, and he remembered the beginning of the explosion that had taken place around him, one that would have been larger and more powerful that the one that had wrecked the walls of Firheng. He was lucky to be alive, and to be at the healing spring, however he had been transported.
He jogged to the end of the spring, pressed his way through the bushes and empty branches of the underbrush, and then started running along the trail that led to the nearest village.
Minutes later, he stopped in the center of the village, the place he had visited once – long, long ago. The evening air was growing colder, and he felt hungry, after having not eaten for however long it had been.
He stood not far from the front door of the inn in the town, the inn where he had first met Kere, in her guise as an elderly woman, and where he’d taken Dewberry after rescuing her from the wolf that had attacked her at the healing spring. He’d made the innkeeper look like a fool, he smiled as he recollected the comedy of errors of the sprite’s appearances and disappearances that had baffled the innkeeper.
There was nothing to be lost by entering the inn and asking for charity, Kestrel decided. He approached the door, found it unlocked, and opened it, thankful to feel the relative warmth inside the shelter.
The innkeeper – the very one Kestrel recollected – was banking the fire in the public room fireplace, and he looked up at the sound of a new arrival.
“Who’s there? It’s late to be arriving,” he said, standing up and holding onto a metal rod he used to meddle with the coals and ashes.
“I’m just looking for shelter, and food if you have any to spare. I have no money,” Kestrel said immediately.
“Another charity case?” the innkeeper asked. He walked towards Kestrel, the poker held as though it could be a weapon. Kestrel placed his hand on the door handle behind his back, ready to leave rather than get into a fight.
“These trash from Center Trunk are going to make me go broke, with all the folks they’re driving from their homes,” he said, and he laid the poker on a table he passed as he turned towards the kitchen.
“Come with me. I expect there’s some bread back here. It may be dry, though,” he said.
The innkeeper reached the kitchen door. “Be quiet; the drudge is sleeping here tonight,” he said hoarsely.
He looked at Kestrel again in the darkness of the unlit space, then stopped before he pressed the door open.
“You’re familiar,” he said.
“Those ears!” he exclaimed, ignoring his own admonishment “I know you! You’ve been here before! Made quite a ruckus,” he remembered.
“So you’re on the wrong side of Center Trunk?” he asked. “That’s not surprising, saying nothing against you, of course,” the elf said apologetically. “Here, have some bread,” he opened the kitchen door and led Kestrel into the work space. He silently picked up the heel of a loaf of acorn bread, which he tossed to Kestrel, then he found half a cooked squash and handed it to Kestrel as well, before motioning him out of the kitchen.
“I’m going to Firheng,” Kestrel explained himself when they were back in the dining room.
“I’ve seen others pass through here on their way there,” the innkeeper told Kestrel as they sat at a table. “Folks seem to think they can resist the princess’s forces up there.”
“I think they can,” Kestrel agreed. He took a bite of the bread and chewed it.
“You may be right,” the other replied. He stood up. “There are no rooms. You can sleep here, by the fire; I’ll put another log on it for you.
“You’d best be gone early. There’s a regular patrol that stops in here every midmorning, and you don’t want to meet them, I’m sure,” he said, then fetched a piece of wood to add to the fire he’d been ready to bank just a few minutes earlier.
“Good night to you, and safe travels,” he said, then he left the dining room and headed up the stairs.
Kestrel hungrily ate the food the innkeeper had generously given him, then stretched out atop a table. He was on his way, back to Firheng. He had no idea what he would find – a triumphant city, a Center Trunk army that had conquered the rebels, or perhaps both sides had been decimated by the explosion he had ignited. The situation was certain to be different from what he had left, of that much he was sure.
He left early the next morning, as
soon as the sun rose. He crept along in the trees behind the village homes, staying out of sight until he cleared the boundaries of the settlement. At that point he angled onto the northern trail out of the nameless village and started running. Another night of sleep, his body given the opportunity to continue to heal as the waters of the spring had promoted, made him feel stronger and freer of pain.
He spent three days wandering among the paths, trails, and roads of the Eastern Forest, always angling towards Firheng. He avoided patrols, but only at infrequent times, as few guards seemed to be out and about in the kingdom of the elves. He slept in trees, and ate any food he could find, which included pilfering from a kitchen in a village one evening when he was desperate for something to eat.
He finally reached Firheng in the middle of a morning, and stopped to observe the changed circumstances. The walls of the small city were further damaged than he had last seen them, as the massive explosion had torn another chunk of the masonry and timbers away.
Kestrel paid little attention to the conditions of the city walls though, because he was astonished by the ferocious conflict taking place on the western side of the city, outside the walls. The Center Trunk forces were heavily concentrated there, fighting a deadly battle against a new army that appeared to have come out of the Water Mountains – an army of gnomes!
Kestrel climbed a tall tree, one whose branches had been largely stripped away by the force of the explosion on the east side of the city, and he observed the dynamics of the battle. The gnomes were arranged in a wide, half circle front that sandwiched the Center Trunk army between gnomes and the city walls. The guards from the city were atop their walls, firing arrows when they judged that their opponents had come within range.
Stunned by the unpredictable battle, Kestrel ran towards Firheng, among the damaged trees of the forest, then across the open space closest to the walls.
“Kestrel!” he heard his name called, and turned to see Putienne running towards him. A thin trail of black dust hung in the air as she passed over the burned remnants of the forest, and her feet and lower legs were growing dark from the ashes she stirred up.
“Putienne!” his heart felt lighter at the sight of the girl.
“Kestrel! I knew you were alive!” she shouted as she drew closer.
He started running towards her, and the two of them embraced. “I told them you weren’t dead! Moorin believed me, but no one else did,” she told him as they hugged one another tightly. “I saw you running through the forest just now.”
“What’s happening? Why are there gnomes attacking?” Kestrel asked her.
“We don’t know. They just appeared right after dawn this morning. The Center Trunk army hasn’t been very active since you blew them up, and now this new attack has happened,” she told him.
”I missed you,” he spontaneously said, looking at her and grinning.
“I missed you too, but not as much as before,” she told him. “Do you mind?”
“No, I understand,” he answered. “Let’s go find Casimo on the walls and see what he thinks,” Kestrel led her by the hand, and the two ran across the city to the western wall.
“Kestrel!” Casimo shouted in delight. “First our rescuers arrive this morning, and now you return from the dead!”
“I wasn’t dead,” Kestrel said absentmindedly, as he looked out over the battlefield below. The Center Trunk forces were clearly losing; it was only a matter of time before their chance to escape would be cut off by the gnomes who were methodically moving to extend their lines in a tighter and tighter circle.
“Where did they come from?” Kestrel asked.
“Arlen brought them. That’s apparently why he slipped out of the city, was to go get help,” Casimo answered. “I saw him once, conversing with some of the gnomes in the trees.
“They’re extraordinary – look at the way they throw!” the commander commented.
Kestrel thought back to Arlen, and his mysterious purple eyes. The Firheng instructor had never explained his eye color to Kestrel, and Kestrel had remained uninformed about the meaning of the purple eyes until he had spent his own time living among the Water Mountain elves during one winter. The eye color was a mark of respect and authority that was not granted lightly, and the high esteem that Arlen was apparently held in by the gnomes had enabled him to persuade the Water Mountain race to take the unprecedented step of going to war.
“Look! They’re starting to pull back,” Hampus said to Casimo as he ran across the ramparts to join the Firheng leader. “Kestrel! You’re alive!” he shouted as his attention was diverted.
His observation was correct. The Center Trunk leaders had concluded that they needed to escape while they could, and they were disengaging from the gnomes, flowing around the north and south sides of Firheng to reposition themselves on the east side, in the ruins of the forest that had been destroyed by the great explosion.
Kestrel spent time with all of his friends inside Firheng, greeting them all while the besieged city watched the dramatic change in circumstances take place around it over the course of the day.
“Kestrel friend, where have you been? How did you survive?” Mulberry asked as the imps all came to see him, leaving their scouting duties behind as they greeted him.
“I made myself travel to the healing spring, somehow!” Kestrel told the imps around him, drawing squeals.
“How can you do so if we can’t?” Acanthus asked.
“Kestrel cheater, why didn’t you take us with you?” Odare demanded.
“I don’t even know how I took myself,” Kestrel explained. “I was at the start of the explosion, and then I woke up in the spring water.”
“But we want to go there, and we can’t! It’s just not fair!” Odare said. “And now the first day of winter arrives tomorrow, and even if Rishiare Estelle were to end, we still wouldn’t be able to go there.”
“I spoke to Kere. She told me that all my friends made it safely back from the other world. That means that Stillwater is out there somewhere,” Kestrel tried to redirect the conversation.
“He isn’t at the healing spring, is he?” Odare asked suspiciously. “Because it wouldn’t be fair if he got to go on the adventure with you in the other world, and got to be at the healing spring too!”
“No, Stillwater was not at the healing spring,” Kestrel assured her. “He’s probably with Wren, wherever they are now.”
“That’s not fair either!” Odare further protested. “Lady Wren friend is fun! You’re just being a stick in the mud, not sharing the healing spring with us. Hmph!” she harrumphed, and flew back into the air to resume watching the battle outside the city walls.
Kestrel shook his head, then traded a small smile with Killcen.
“They are leaving!” Odare flew back to report an hour later, pointedly giving the information to Putienne instead of Kestrel.
“Who’s leaving?” Kestrel asked.
“Tell Stillwater’s friend that the Center Trunk forces are retreating back towards where they came from, and the gnomes are returning towards the mountains – grumpy gnomes,” the imp opined.
“Both armies are leaving?” Hampus asked, as he stood with Kestrel atop the wall.
“Yes, that is what I said,” Odare affirmed.
“I’m going to go see Arlen and the gnomes,” Kestrel said. “I’ll be back.” He took off running down the steps from the wall and then through the city streets, and out into the forest beyond the walls.
“Arlen! Friends!” he called in the language of the gnomes. He couldn’t see any movement, and was afraid the gnomes were already beyond his reach. He redoubled his efforts, and shouted again. “Friend gnomes, wait!”
A hurled rock struck a glancing blow on his shoulder, knocking him to the ground. He struck the layer of dead leaves under the trees, rolled over, and immediately lit up his protective blue energy shield. He rose to his feet, grimacing as he grabbed his wounded shoulder.
“I called you friends – I did no
harm!” he shouted. “What foolishness is this, attacking someone who speaks your language?”
He walked forward, looking in all directions for any sign of the gnomes, his feelings for them no longer as warm as they had been.
“Kestrel?” a voice called.
He stopped, and saw Arlen drop down from a tree branch overhead, and trot towards him. “By the roots of the great elm – it is Kestrel!” Arlen shouted exuberantly in elvish.
“I’ll drop my shield if you promise I won’t be attacked,” Kestrel said.
“Hold – he is a friend! He has the eyes of Amethysaquina,” Arlen shouted over his shoulder, as the two of them came face to face.
There was silence, and Arlen nodded. Kestrel released his use of his energy, and as soon as the shield disappeared, Arlen rushed in and embraced him, making Kestrel wince from the pressure on his tender shoulder.
“When did you get here?” Arlen asked. “And are you still doing such things as you’re doing?” he waved his hand in a vague motion in the air.
A pair of gnomes appeared in the distant woods, and cautiously stepped forward. As they hesitantly approached, Arlen waved them forward.
“Come and see – look at his eyes. Listen to him speak in your own language,” Arlen urged, as a few other gnomes stepped into the open further away.
“We apologize for harming you, great lord,” one of the gnomes spoke to Kestrel.
“I accept the apology. I know you have just finished a great battle, and tempers are still hot,” he replied.
“You truly do have the purple eyes of our people. Are you the elf visitor we heard about two years ago?” the other gnome asked. “Are you the one who killed the yeti and saved two boys?”
“That was me,” Kestrel confirmed. “I lived in the village of Yeowan,” he named the tribal chieftain of his gnomish home.
“I came to find Arlen, and to thank all of you for rescuing our city. Your battle has chased away our attackers. We would welcome you to come and receive our thanks in the city,” he said.
A Marriage of Friends (The Inner Seas Kingdoms Book 8) Page 12