by Ronald Long
"No," Felicia replied. "They think they've won!"
It was true. Tory looked to the ship that was heading for them and saw that on its deck were several menacing looking crewmembers.
From this distance, it was hard to tell what race they were, but their swords and daggers were quite clearly showing that they meant business.
“We won't be able to out-sail them!” Felicia shouted over the cannon fire. “Prepare to fight!”
Gorplin drew his second axe and shouted dwarven curses at the approaching vessel. Tory thought he recognized a few.
He drew his own blade and steeled himself for being boarded. At his side, Jurrin's legs quivered but he held the dagger that he had brought back from his travels with Gorplin tightly in his hand.
“Make good use of that blade, Jurrin,” Tory said as the ship began to pull up even with them. Elves, he could now tell, were making ready to throw grappling hooks onto their ship.
Urt let another blast of the cannons go before taking up his own unique blade.
“I've never had to fight someone who wasn't a demon, Mister Tory,” Jurrin quaked. “A demon here or there, sure. But I've never killed a man or something that looked like one.”
Tory could understand his hesitation, but he also knew this was not the time for mercy if none was to be given them.
“If all you do is defend yourself and those you call friends,” Tory said as the first hooks flew at them from the enemy ship. “No one can call you a monster.”
“Hostiles aboard!” Felicia shouted as ten elves with gleaming blades swung onto the deck.
Chapter 10:
Prisoners
Tory fought with all of his might. The first elf that came at him had an eye patch over one eye and a scar across his left cheek. Tory gave him another that he wouldn't soon forget and shoved him overboard.
Urt was dancing across the deck, wielding his Skrilx blade with skill and dexterity. He leapt over one pirate, relieving him of his head and gave another a hole in his chest. The two fell to the deck of the ship, dead before they hit the wood.
Jurrin was not so clean or well put together.
His best defense was that the elf fighting him seemed put off to have a target so low to the ground. He kept bringing his sword down onto the deck time and time again, only to hit solid wood instead of the small halfling.
Jurrin finally dove between the elf's legs when his sword became lodged into the deck. With a swift jump from the railing, Jurrin grabbed hold of the pirate's neck and began to squeeze.
Tory had just kicked another elf, who would otherwise have boarded the ship, into the water before looking back to see the elf topple over on top of Jurrin, his face red.
Before he could do much about it, another three elves came over the sides of the boat and made for the captain's wheel. Felicia was not going to go down easily. While one tried to chop off her hand, she kicked the other square in the mouth. The elf flew backwards off the stairs and hit the bottom deck hard. The other, seeing his comrade fall so hard, hesitated.
That split second saw him crumple to the ground, Felicia's sword still stuck into his gut.
“Got any more!?” Felicia yelled to the ship, defiantly.
A blast of cannon fire was her answer.
Timber and fire surrounded Tory. He thought for a moment he was going to die and that the world had ended. His eyes were blurred with smoke and a ringing filled his ears.
Then everything came back into focus. The blast had blown a section of the main mast to dust and it fell, hard, onto the opposite side of the deck and into the water. An eerie silence followed after the great crash.
Tory got up and looked around the deck, his sword still clutched firmly in his hand. He didn't see any more pirates from the other ship coming to attack. Looking over the mast to the other vessel, he didn't notice any others over on the ship walking the deck either.
It was quiet.
“Hey!” Tory shouted, trying to make out anyone still with him on the boat.
“Murph!” came a muffled voice.
Tory ran to the sound and, under a pile of sails and a timber or two, he found Jurrin still laying underneath an unconscious elf.
“Grab hold!” Tory said, as he extended a hand and pulled Jurrin from the pile. The little halfling came up coughing and flinging bits of wood out of his hair.
“Thank you, sir,” he said as he stepped out onto a clear space of the deck. “Where's everyone else?”
Tory looked around.
Up on the deck, he saw Urt helping Felicia wrap up her forearm, which appeared to be bleeding from a cut. Other than the bloodied bandage, they both looked no worse for the wear.
“Gorplin?” Tory called out, expecting to find the dwarf still hacking away at anything that was moving.
“Over here, loudmouth!” came a voice from what sounded like further off than it should be.
Tory and Jurrin came to railing and looked over to see Gorplin standing on the deck of the other ship. His axe was bloody and his smile was wide.
“Just finishing up over here,” he said, cleaning his blade with a rag. “Looks like we've got ourselves a replacement boat if we're in the market!”
***
The other boat was also elvish and definitely owned by pirates.
What was more, all three masts were actually intact, unlike their own boat. After a few hours of carrying over supplies and finding a place for the two pirate elves who still lived to be locked up, the crew decided they were at the very least going to be able to make do in the new boat.
“Those black sails unnerve me a bit,” Jurrin said after most everything had been cleared away. They put all the bodies from their fight onto the old boat, the Willow's Flight and set it on fire.
“No sense in leaving any replacement parts for the other pirates,” Tory offered.
“Bah,” said Gorplin as he watched the flames take hold of the boat. “It was a good ship.”
"Getting sentimental?" Tory chided as he poked the dwarf.
He suffered another blow to his gut.
“What do you reckon the elves we've captured will think of us taking their boat?” Jurrin asked after Tory had finished coughing and regained his breath. “I'd be mighty irritated to be locked up on my own ship.”
Gorplin chuckled at the thought
“They've got more than being locked up on their minds,” he said. “I doubt either of them will want to stick around after Urt's gotten to them.”
“Urt?” Jurrin asked.
“Aye,” Felicia said, her arm in a sling and looking wistfully at the old boat go up in flames. “He's got questions for them and I've told him not to come back until he's got answers.”
Tory shuddered a bit. The Skrilx was bigger and stronger than any other person on this boat. He made another note of why it would be best to stay on Urt's good side.
Felicia ordered them to give full sail and to make their way back to Lone Peak. Tory, for once, was not going to argue with going back.
It had been a very long day.
***
Tory woke up in his hammock to the sound of seagulls cawing and the sun poking through a cannonball-sized hole in the ship's side.
The new ship was only slightly better sleeping than the old one.
Black sails, a red flag, and a dragon carved into the bow of the boat made for a pretty intimidating ship to sail on. The pirates who had been the masters of the boat until yesterday seemed more concerned about scaring off potential enemies than the amount of supplies on board.
“The Sword's Edge doesn't have a single barrel of food!” Felicia lamented. “What were they thinking?”
“What's the Sword's Edge?” Tory asked.
Felicia gave him an irritated look.
“Every ship needs a name, Master Tory,” Jurrin answered for her.
Tory shook his head.
Captains and their ships were something he didn't quite understand.
“Probably that they were about
to fill their ship to the brim with whatever they could find at Bestone,” Gorplin offered through a mouthful of bread. They had brought over several supplies from their former ship to help them return with enough to eat.
Tory agreed with the dwarf, but still had lots of questions.
How did the elves know the city was going to be attacked? Why come out of hiding if they didn't know? Were they planning on looting the city anyways and just happened to find a great deal of luck? Or was their arrival and the destruction of Bestone somehow related?
Urt had not yet gotten out enough information from the elven captives to satisfactorily answer any of those questions.
“I heard lots of growling last night,” Jurrin observed as he rolled out of his hammock and onto the ship's floor. “I feel bad for those elves having to be given such a rough time by Mister Urt.”
Tory shook his head.
“Leave it to Jurrin to feel bad for someone who just tried to kill him,” he said to Gorplin.
The two had been almost polite to one another since the pirates attacked. Tory was still thinking about what Gorplin had said.
Maybe soon they'd start finding out some answers as to what was going on around them and be off on more adventures.
Chapter 11:
Unwelcome Allies
Wisym stared into the eyes of the elf seated high up on a root. Rimstone protruded from the ground as if it were common rock and gave the meeting an eerie glow. Many pairs of eyes looked at her and her companion.
They were not welcome.
They had spent a solid month hoping to find these elves. Now that they had, Wisym was trying to discern whether or not she was glad they had done so. She could tell the female, who looked down on them from her perch, was wise and older than many of the elves she had ever served under. Perhaps even older than some of her elders back home.
Teresa seemed tense beside her.
She couldn't blame the princess. It was not a little intimidating to be surrounded by hundreds of these barbaric looking elves, all staring intently at them. Wisym felt a bit odd herself.
They were elves she was looking at, but each was so different than the elves of Ruyn that she was used to. Each seemed to be dressed in next to nothing, save those draped in furs. The others' clothes were put together with grass and vines and twigs.
It was very disconcerting. Wisym considered herself modest and respectable and kept company with those who were the same for years. She had never seen so many bare-skinned elves in her life.
So she kept her eyes on the white-haired female who sat high up and considered them with raised eyebrows.
“You are strangers,” the elf said in a voice that was not threatening, but unsure. “Your clothes are made from shining things and cloth. The leather on you reeks of death.”
She pointed at Teresa.
“You are a human. From Darrion no doubt, where they burn and cut without care to make their ships.”
With a look of great distaste, she turned to Wisym again.
“And you must be an elf as we are. Are you from Enoth where they consume the land of all that is good to build their towers?”
There was a grumbling of those around the circle. Some of them held up their sharpened branches and stone daggers in distaste.
“Enoth?” Wisym replied. “No, we are from Ruyn. A land across the sea.”
More murmurings came from the crowd. The white-haired elf sniffed.
“Then you came on large boats? Did you not?”
She walked gracefully down from her perch. Teresa tensed at her approach, but Wisym put a hand on her shoulder.
“Peace,” she whispered in her ear. “They've not attacked us.”
Teresa did not relax her muscles, but her hand was no longer reaching for a hidden dagger in her sleeve.
“Yet,” she breathed back at Wisym.
“My name is Ferinan,” the white-haired elf said as she reached the ground. She was as tall as Wisym and her eyes were bright. She began circling them.
“I am the elder of the Wood Walkers. We value the life of our forest above all else,” she said as she paced around them.
“I come from a land of elves who also...”
“You have interrupted me,” she said calmly to Wisym.
The younger elf bowed apologetically to more grumbles from the crowd.
“We value the forest more than life,” Ferinan continued. “You came to this land on boats, did you not? And how many lives were taken by the making of those boats?”
“None!” Teresa said defiantly, looking scandalous.
Ferinan scoffed.
“I do not mean lives of elves or people,” she corrected Teresa. “I mean trees. How many ancient sentinels were murdered for your own pleasure?”
“Far too many!”
“Murderer!”
The cries of the elves around them gave Wisym chills. Ferinan raised her hand for silence.
“For far too long, we Wood Walkers have protected the forest around us with our lives. We have sacrificed for the trees and the animals within. We alone understand and know the secrets of the woods.”
“Then maybe you can help us,” Wisym said, hoping to turn the conversation. “We are looking for a tree.”
A few elves around them laughed. Ferinan gave a wry smile.
“I dare say you've found many,” she said, motioning at the thousands that surrounded them.
Wisym shook her head.
“My apologies,” she said. “We are looking for an ancient tree. One that is of great legend, called The Everring Tree. Do you know it?”
Ferinan stopped circling them and examined them closely.
“The Everring Tree?” she repeated, her expression blank.
For a moment, the two elves, old and young, Wood Walker and Ruyn native, starred at each other.
Ferinan broke her gaze first and looked to the canopy above them.
“We elves hold many trees in high regard. They are what we worship as protectors and guides.”
With skill and dexterity uncommon with one so old, she returned to her seat high on the root and faced them.
“Those who brought you here said they found you just as a pack of Wrents attacked. Are you familiar with those beasts who burn and kill without considering the lives they take?”
Wisym and Teresa both shook their heads.
It had been the first time on their journey that they had seen the creatures many innkeepers and sailors spoke of with both fear and loathing. Wisym thought they may be a type of Skrilx, like a halfling is to a man, but had never bothered to ask Urt about it.
“These packs are becoming more and more troublesome for our people,” Ferinan said, looking over the crowd.
"If you will travel with the elves who go to face the foxes," Ferinan said as she considered them from above. "I will know that you do not have intentions to harm us and that you care for the forest. I will spare your lives as we spare the lives of the trees around us."
"And if we don't go with you, putting our lives on the line for a group of those who will only promise not to kill us if we do?" Teresa asked, not bothering to hide the contempt in her voice.
Ferinan smiled.
"We are willing to sacrifice our own for the good of the forest," she said. "While we value life, the well-being of the forest is more important than all. Especially to strangers who have yet to prove their worth to us."
"I expected as much," Teresa said as quietly as she could.
Wisym knew full well that everyone inside the circle heard Teresa's comment and wished the princess would remember how well elves could hear.
"Who are we to accompany?" Wisym asked before any more mutterings could take hold.
With that question, Ferinan addressed the crowd in front of her.
"Three great threats are before us. If the forest is in danger, there can be no food for us in the future. We must first look to the foxes, as well as to those who would endanger our sacred woods. We will scout out the
foxes first, and then we will see to the elves of the south and ensure they do not cross our borders."
There were cheers of agreement from the circle. Wisym noticed one scrawny looking male elf who sat close to a burly looking female.
"I will hunt the fox ears and avenge my father's death,” he said as he rose to his feet. “My gathering will come with me!"
Many of the elves standing around him stood up with fists in the air showing their agreement. The burly looking female, however, merely looked at the ground with her eyebrows furrowed.
Ferinan raised her hand for silence.
“The gathering of Colwe will go to the north and discover the intentions of our brethren. The rest of us will make ready to protect our borders and gather food if we can."
With those words, Wisym could tell this meeting of elves was dismissed.
The scrawny looking elf approached them.
"My name is Eren, leader of my gathering," he said, neither bowing nor giving a salute of any kind. Wisym knew he was asserting his dominance over them.
"Follow us," he said before turning his back on them and walking away from the circle.
To what fate or fortune, Wisym did not know, but, signaling Teresa, she followed.
***
Evening had come and the suns had sunk low over the horizon. In the midst of the trees, darkness had overcome those who had gathered under the protective canopy in earnest.
Wisym sat and leaned against a tree, weary from the day and ready to rest. Teresa seemed uneasy and paced as she observed those who were close by.
“You've fought alongside elves, trained them, and lived with them before,” Wisym said as she rummaged through her pack for something to eat. “Why are you so tense around these?”
Teresa stopped pacing, but continued to look left and right for a moment before taking a seat opposite Wisym.
“I'm just uncomfortable, that's all,” she said as she took off her pack and lay it next to her. “They've got too much love for inanimate objects and plants and not enough care for the living people around them.”