by Ravek Hunter
Qel roused from his ruminations, focused on the view ahead. The expanse of the mountain range before them was overwhelming. “So now what? Do we wander around the mountains until we find one, or can you track it over the hard rock?”
Tridi appeared amused. “No, wizard, Aelrindel and I have decided on a new strategy: they will come to us.” Saying that, the elf dismounted and pulled out from his saddlebag what appeared to be a ram’s horn. This one must have been exceptional, as it was covered with gold leafing and bore several markings in the Elves’ ancient language that seemed to glow with a blue illumination of their own. Tridi walked a few feet ahead of the group and blew through the horn. Incredibly, the sound that erupted from it echoed across the entirety of the mountain range. He blew the horn one more time and then walked back to the others. “Now we wait,” he said.
Aelrindel dismounted and hobbled his horse near the tree line. “We might as well build a fire.”
Qel and Havacian dismounted as well and went about collecting scraps of wood.
Tridi blew the horn again around noon, and for the next two hours, the men sat at the edge of the forest around the small campfire, occasionally scanning the mountain range for any movement. So far they had seen nothing resembling an Ogre. Qel reasoned that the magically enhanced horn could probably be heard for leagues into the mountains, and whoever Tridi was expecting to respond to the call might still be far away.
Another hour passed, and then, to the apparent astonishment of even the Elves, a boulder rolled over not fifty paces away, and a head popped up from a hole underneath it.
“There,” Tridi announced and gestured in the direction of the rocky slope. “They have arrived.”
The head looked around, squinting in the sunlight, its saucer-sized eyes adjusting from the darkness it must have come from below. After a moment, a massive body followed the head out of the hole that was under the boulder.
“So that’s an Ogre,” Qel stated to no one in particular.
Tridi, very serious, nodded, “Yes, one of the smaller ones.”
The elf’s words sent a streak of ice up Qel’s spine. This was a smaller one? He studied the Ogre carefully as it began to walk toward them. The beast was ugly. There was no other way to describe it. Every part of the Ogre’s face was an exaggeration—large eyes, bulbous nose, wide mouth bearing a few grotesquely protruding teeth, elongated ears ending at a point on top similar to that of an elf but massively hairy. All of this atop a thick neck and an even thicker body ending with limbs as big around as many of the trees they had passed in the forest on their way to this place. With no other perspective to compare it to, one might think the ogre was very short. Just the opposite, this “small” Ogre easily towered over Atlantean and elf by at least its head and shoulders. They were, without a doubt, powerful humanoids capable of moving huge boulders and probably felling trees if they were of a mind to do so. The Ogre’s clothes were a patchwork of leather, furs, skins, and cloth with a pair of open-toed sandals laced up his muscular shins. From the top of his head, a tuft of unkempt brown hair swayed with each step he took on the hard rock.
The Ogre slowly walked up to stand in front of them, towering above them all, only a few paces away. Qel looked at Tridi, standing like a stone statue facing the Ogre, Aelrindel a pace behind him, leaning casually on a tree, and Havacian standing open-mouthed, as if unsure whether or not to believe what was happening in front of him. Aelrindel was leaning casually against a tree? What was wrong with that elf? The Ogre could be on top of them in half a heartbeat, and he leaned there as casually as if Tridi were facing down a chipmunk.
The Ogre began to speak; at least Qel realized he was speaking once the words started to form so that he could understand them. At first, he was startled by the strange, harsh speech that the Ogre was practically spitting out before realizing that his own language must be entirely different from the one they spoke among themselves.
“Tridi elf, why have you called me here?” The Ogre must have been annoyed at being summoned.
Tridi responded in the firm, confident voice of a man who expected to be listened to, “Elder, you know I would not call without urgent circumstance. For as long as the Elves and Ogres have lived in this land, we have depended upon each other for safety and survival. Your people guard the Azure Mountains against outsiders, and ours guard the Sylvan Forest. Your people stay in the mountains in peace, and ours stay in the forest in peace.”
The Ogre shrugged. “So it is. But you are not here for peace.”
Tridi shrugged back. “So it is. We are here because three of your own have come to our village and taken our little ones. One of yours died in the village, and we found one child; another threw our child into the river and then ran away. We found that child. The third one of yours ran away with a goat, which we did not recover.”
A thick, singular brow darkened the eyes of the Ogre. “Two of ours have returned to the mountains, two of yours have been found, and one of ours is no more. The debt has been paid with the life of our own, unless you are here for the goat.”
Tridi took a step forward, his voice heavy with anger. “I would not chase one of yours here for a goat! The debt has not been paid. You know that your own cannot come to the forest and ours may not enter the mountains. The two that violated the agreement between yours and mine must be punished.”
The Ogre was silent as he considered the obligation of his people. Then he turned around and bellowed deeply to the mountains behind him. Qel thought the move strange and wondered if the creature was wildly vocalizing its frustration. Tridi and Aelrindel never moved or reacted, and it wasn’t long before Qel realized that the bellow was a call.
And it was answered.
From behind boulders and out of the ground stepped three massive Ogres. Two were a head taller than and half again as wide as the Elder Ogre before them. They wore what appeared to be discarded parts and pieces of leather and metal armor, most of which looked to have once been worn by human-sized men. The style of it appeared to once have belonged to the Vikja. The third Ogre was about the same size and age of the elder and wore tattered robes in layers that hung down to his sandals, and he leaned on a staff the size of a small tree. As they moved slowly down the slope to where the elder stood, Qel detected a rustling from behind. He swung his gaze back in a panic, fearful they were being surrounded, only to see five colossal trees moving from the forest to stand behind their group. Their trunks were split at the base to form massive legs, and they had two thickly knotted arms that swayed as they walked. Looking closely, he could make out a rough outline of facial features high on their trunks just before branches split away, heavy with leaves. The most unnerving aspect of their features was their eyes, which glowed with a solid, silvery blue light from deep within. The last thing Qel noticed before turning back to the Ogres was that Aelrindel was no longer leaning on a damn tree. He appeared alert and ready. Ready. For what? Tridi still had not moved a muscle and stood his ground while he watched the Ogre Elders talk.
“That one must be a wizard or priest. I can sense something about him,” Havacian whispered to Qel.
Qel nodded. “I think you’re right. I can sense it too. If things go badly and this turns violent, let’s focus on that one.”
Finally, after some time in discussion with his fellow Ogres, the Elder turned back to Tridi. “It has been decided. The two who violated our pact will be beaten and sent to live by the sea until they learn wisdom. This should settle the debt.” If the expression it held was anything other than a scowl, Qel couldn’t imagine what it was, but the tone it took had softened.
Tridi did not immediately respond. Instead, he took a moment to consider each Ogre standing before him. “I agree to your terms. We leave the mountains and your own in peace.”
The Ogre responded in kind. “We leave the forest and your own in peace.”
Without another word, the Ogres disappeared into the rocky crevasses and holes they had so mysteriously appeared from while Tridi
walked the men and horses back into the forest. The animated Tree Guardians departed as well, in separate directions, disappearing into the shaded depths of the forest and leaving only a vague scent of oak in their wake.
Tridi expelled a deep breath and turned to face Qel and the others. “Well, that went better than expected. We are lucky to have had a reasonable Elder respond to the call rather than a belligerent one.”
Qel gestured back toward the forest. “I’m sure your tree friends were a motivating factor as well.”
Havacian sounded a little miffed. “You could have told us about the Tree Guardians in advance. I was so startled I almost loosed a lightning bolt.”
Aelrindel laughed from behind them. “What fun would we have together if there were no surprises?”
Chapter 12
Ἀτλαντίς
Braetling
“We are going back to Braetling now. Would you care to join us?” Tridi asked, looking at Qel.
Qel shifted his gaze to Havacian, who nodded vigorously, and Qel chuckled. “We would be pleased to.”
“Then let’s get underway. It’s going be dark in a few hours.” Tridi quickly mounted and led the small company north on the open, hard ground that bordered the forest and the mountains.
Qel rode up next to Tridi, leaving Havacian to chat with Aelrindel. “Why are we going north rather than back the way we came?”
Tridi gestured to the ground in front of them. “We can ride much faster without tiring the horses and avoid the hazards of the roots and pits hidden by the underbrush. Horses have never been a good choice for traveling through the Sylvan Forest.”
“Is there a better choice?”
“Obviously not.” Tridi smiled. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be riding them, now would we?”
Qel felt like he had just been the victim of a joke he didn’t understand. He was learning that Elves had a strange sense of humor. “What about the disks? I assume Elves have them just as we do. Wouldn’t they be a good choice for moving through the forest?”
“We rarely ride the disks, except maybe in Avalon City. You’ll have to ask Aelrindel about that. And you can’t carry packs on a disc like we can on our horses.” Tridi shook his head as if the answer were obvious. “A larger disc would be impractical in the dense forest.”
Qel decided to change the subject before he came off any dafter than the elf probably already thought he was. “What happens when we get to the Rayfin River?”
“We ride along the bank, following it west until we come to my village.”
Havacian rode up next to them and must have heard the last part of their conversation. “Why do you call it the Rayfin River?”
“I’ll show you when we get there,” Tridi replied.
Show us? Qel thought. What could that mean? Hopefully not another monster of their realm like the Ogres . . .
Two hours later, Tridi led them back into the forest along a game trail, and the mountains were soon obscured by the thick woods around them. How Tridi knew which way to go, Qel had no idea. He knew enough about the stars and the passage of the sun that he could determine any direction with a clear view of the sky, but in the Sylvan Forest, the canopy was so thick that only a small amount of light filtered through, let alone a view of the sky.
“Tridi, how can you ascertain our direction in the forest when you can’t see the sky?”
Tridi pointed to a tree ahead of them. “See that tree with the moss on it? In the Sylvan Forest, moss generally grows on the north-facing side of the trees.”
“Fascinating.” Qel studied the trees they passed. “I never would have thought of that.”
“I’m sure that your Discovery has been quite an education so far.”
“It has been,” Qel had to admit, “and in so many unexpected ways.”
Tridi burst out laughing. Had Qel said something funny? “Just wait, young Atlantean. There is so much more to come.”
Less than an hour later, they emerged from the forest and onto the banks of what Qel was sure must be the Rayfin River. Looking to the north, Qel could see the outline of the mountains, farther away than he would have expected, and he guessed that the mountain range had curved east while they had ridden north and west through the forest. The river flowed from the higher elevations on a much faster current here than where they had first met the Elves. It was also far wider, with less depth, than farther on, and it was frequently interrupted by clusters of jagged rocks that rose well above the surface.
Tridi pointed to silver fins of large fish swimming against the fast-moving water. “Those are Rayfin. They are abundant in this river and a source of food for our village. We prefer to smoke the meat to store longer and maintain the flavor.”
“So the river is named after the fish,” Havacian observed.
“Very astute of you,” Tridi replied wryly.
Havacian’s face darkened a little with embarrassment, but he did not say anything further. Poor Havacian, I hope you find I am good company in our troupe of imbeciles! Qel thought with little humor. He desperately wished that their days of Discovery were not just a long list of other people pointing out how little they knew outside of the City of Atlantis.
They followed the river southwest for the rest of the day, only stopping once to let the horses drink from the river and nibble a few blades of grass. Tridi announced that if they kept up their current pace, they would arrive at the village before evening the next day. Qel was glad for it since he was still not used to riding a horse for long periods of time. He was sure that when they eventually arrived in Avalon City, he would be walking bow-legged with thickly chaffed thighs. By late afternoon, they stopped to set camp in a clearing with dry ground, and Qel and Havacian got their first lesson in fishing for Rayfin.
Under Aelrindel’s tutelage, they pulled four large Rayfin out of the river, cleaned them, and set them to smoke over the campfire that Tridi built. Closer to the mountains and without the shelter of the thick forest all around them, it was much cooler in the evenings, and the biting breeze was more noticeable. They all sat close around the fire in their heavy cloaks with their hands soaking in the heat from the flames.
Qel finally felt the tension of the day slipping away as they laughed about their encounter with the Ogres. “You really handled yourself well,” he told Tridi. “I swear Havacian and I were trembling in our boots the entire time.”
Tridi laughed. “I was going through the same thing, only it was all on the inside.”
Qel gestured over to Aelrindel. “This one was acting as if he were witness to a discussion among milkmaids!”
Aelrindel feigned a look of innocence. “Did I miss something? I thought the whole thing was civil from the start!” The men laughed.
Havacian turned to Tridi, “You seem to have some authority with the Ogres. In an unorthodox way, I thought they actually respected you.”
“I am an Elder within our community, so I have dealt with the Ogres a few times in the past.” Tridi pulled one of the Rayfin out of the heat and began separating the meat.
“An Elder! I have always thought of elders as old men with nothing better to do than spew their opinion to anyone who would listen.” Qel was in a jovial mood now that they were warm and about to eat hot food.
“For the Elves, Elders are simply people who have knowledge and talent in certain specializations. It is true that many of those who are considered Elders are much older than I, but in our village, I am one of a group of Elders, even though I am only a little over a hundred and fifty years old. It was my family that was attacked, so the village allowed me to handle the infraction as I saw fit,” Tridi explained.
“A hundred and fifty!” Havacian exclaimed. “Any Atlantean would be blessed to live that long. We learn few details about the Elves, except in children’s stories. I don’t know why our people speak so little of your people.”
“The Atlanteans are the center of the world. Because of your people, there is balance, and the Elves are safe to live their l
ives in seclusion.” Aelrindel took a leaf piled with fish meat and handed it to Qel. “The Atlanteans speak so little of the Elves out of respect for our culture.”
“That is true,” agreed Tridi. “Among the leaders of the Elves and the Atlanteans, there is an important understanding. We bear the responsibility of protecting nature, and the Atlanteans keep the world safe for us to lead our way of life.”
“I’m glad we came to Avalon, even though the first few days have scared the hell out of me.” Qel paused to stuff a bit of the fish in his mouth. It was delicious. “We have learned so much about your culture, and we have made new friends. I hope we all remain friends for the rest of our days.”
“As well we should.” Aelrindel agreed.
Tridi allowed them to take their time breaking camp the next morning. Qel enjoyed not being in any particular hurry, a nice luxury after the last few days. The low roar of the fast-moving water over the rocks and boulders in the river formed the baseline of soothing sound that allowed Qel to sleep soundly through the night. When he awoke, he felt refreshed and energized and took a few moments to watch several large brown bears on the opposite bank swiping at the jumping Rayfin and chasing one another in the shallows. While Qel was sitting at the edge of the river, Tridi brought out a net and invited Qel to join him.