by Ronald Long
Some Speakers used herbs and plants to augment their magic and if Blume had learned anything from those books, it was eating unfamiliar plants often led to a long, painful death.
She contented herself with a few apples that looked alright from a nearby tree. Taking a bite out of one, she began thinking of how she could get herself back to the wall without having to ride underneath Ealrin's disapproving glare.
With a great sigh, she threw herself down on the ground next to the stream. Snowy was still chomping away at the grass within the reach of his rope. Blume absentmindedly handled the necklace around her neck.
Why had she been so upset with Ealrin?
Was it because he had spoken out loud what she feared most of all? That she had lost her magic? And if it was gone, could she ever relearn the skill that had once come so easily. She sat up and looked around her. Snowy gave a snort and lifted his head up, smelling the air.
Blume ignored him. She wasn't ready to return yet.
She focused her attention on a rock in front of her, almost the size of her fist. She grabbed her Rimstone and began to mutter the words of magic under her breath.
A faint green glow came from her necklace. Slowly, the rock on the ground began to fidget. Slowly, it rose just a hand's breadth off of the ground. Blume was sweating and already feeling the weight of the burden that the magic was costing her. She hadn't eaten properly at all today.
Stubbornly, she continued on. The rock rose now just to her eye level.
Exhilaration filled her. She was controlling the rock. Elements of the earth were responding to her guiding. Magic was beginning to work again for her. For the length of a breath, Blume felt like she had regained her powers and would be able to Speak again like she had before. She felt her confidence returning and could almost hear herself confronting Ealrin about his lack of faith in her.
For a glorious moment, Blume felt like all was right.
But that moment was also when she saw the bear.
***
The rock fell back among its fellows with a clatter that startled even Blume, though she was aware of the entire scene in great detail. She didn't know when she had gotten to her feet, but she was acutely aware of how dizzy she suddenly felt.
Even though the ground threatened to leave from underneath her, Blume kept the bear that was across the stream in her sight. She knew that to look away from the bear would mean death.
She stared into the bear's eyes and, unnervingly, the bear stared back.
For a moment, Blume considered using her magic to try to distract the bear. When she reached up to her necklace, however, the world beneath her seemed to spin in parallel circles. She did not have the energy. She knew any magic she produced would be sporadic at best. She was desperately trying to conceive what to do. Throw a rock into the creek? Back away slowly and try to ride Snowy away?
Before she could decide on a plan, the bear began to growl and take menacing steps in her direction.
It was then Blume noticed something odd about the animal across the creek. It wasn't a bear with fur alone.
Plates of metal we're strapped to its top and sides. A helmet of sorts covered its head. Blume had never seen a bear fitted for war, but if she had imagined a bear taking part in an epic battle, this creature would have been it.
She was going to run for it. The bear was only a few paces away, and it was possible he would reach her before she could throw herself onto the horse.
Her foot was about to leave the ground when she heard words she did not know or understand. The voice came from her right. It was young but strong sounding. Not daring to take her eyes off the bear, Blume spoke a warning.
"Stop moving or you might provoke it," she said, throwing out a hand to signal whomever it was walking her direction.
"The bear is mine," the voice said.
Perplexed by this statement, Blume dared to look right and saw a fully armored elf slowly walking towards her. He was tall and broader than the elves Blume had seen in her time on Ruyn. In his full plated armor, he looked fierce.
But behind the helmet, just through the visor, were soft and friendly eyes. Blume let her guard down just long enough to take a deep breath. Then the bear let out an earsplitting roar.
Snowy whinnied and, jumping madly, pulled on his rope.
The elf ran towards Blume who, not knowing any other course of action, reached down for a rock to throw at him. Perhaps those eyes hadn't been so friendly after all.
Splashing feet and a few loud but unfamiliar words confused Blume enough to make her pause. She looked and saw that the elf had climbed onto the bear and was now riding away west with the speed of the wind.
She looked out after him for what could have been several long minutes, but then a trumpet blast brought her back to her surroundings.
An army carrying purple banners with golden stars on them was now marching up the cliff road, not a stone's throw away.
Chapter 21:
Out of the Woods
Teresa was quite ready to be back among more civilized people.
The elves she had commanded back on Ruyn as one of the generals of Thoran's army had been people of nobility. They spoke with grace and elegance and carried themselves in the same manner.
The elves she walked alongside now, however, seemed almost feral. They hardly covered themselves at all and seemed to have no concern about decency in their dress. Both males and females were draped in leaves and vines and little else.
If anything, Teresa had always been modest to a fault. The fact that there was so much exposed skin around her at all times was unnerving.
"Are you really that uncomfortable?" Wisym had asked her on their second day of hunting the foxlike monsters who had fled from their attack on the Wood Walker gathering.
Teresa did not reply, but rather huffed and trudged on through the small forest path.
Because the Wood Walkers refused to cut down any tree or destroy any bush needlessly, the party found themselves weaving in and out of old dirt paths that had been in use for hundreds of years. Animals had used these trails as well, and Teresa had stepped in the evidence of this twice already.
The foxes, however, did not heed to the path nor care how much of a trail they left behind.
Elen, the broad female elf who led the warriors from her gathering, said that, normally, the creatures were experts at sneaking through the woods without being detected. Their brashness at leaving such an obvious trail either told how desperate they were to flee, or how brave they had become due to their increased numbers.
"Either way, they will become more dangerous with time," she had said as they had first discussed their strategy for hunting down the creatures.
It was with a calculated quickness they now followed the trail left by the Wrents. They did not stop for midday breaks and only rested from just after sunset to just before sunrise.
The first morning after their meeting with the Wood Walkers, Teresa had woken up covered in dew and freezing cold. The fire that had been lit by the elves was small and had died out well before the night was finished.
Not enough dead branches had been found to keep one going for long.
Her bones and joints ached as she stood and began walking around the camp in order to warm her body. The suns had not yet risen over the horizon, but she was also not the first one awake.
Eren, the scrawny male elf who was the leader of this gathering, was sitting on a lower branch of a tree chewing on some berries. He nodded to Teresa and beckoned to her to come over. For a moment, he stared at her without offering any of his breakfast that he continued to chew.
"Tell me more about the land you hail from," he commanded without introduction.
Teresa did not appreciate being addressed so.
Knowing that the success of their mission depended on her willingness to go along with this expedition, however, she did not correct him nor say he should address her as “Your Highness.”
It had not been something she ha
d waned in Thoran. Here, among strangers, she felt that some rank would aid her.
Instead, she began telling him of their glorious homeland. The mountainous castle of Thoran and the kingdom she had grown up in and ruled for a brief time.
She only mentioned her father once. He had perished leading his troops into battle at the beginning of the war that had consumed their home. She drove the thought of him still being gone from her mind and instead filled her words with pride for her kingdom.
It had been no small task to leave her nation in the hands of her younger brother. Staying, however, would have incited a civil war she did not want to fight after so much bloodshed had already occurred. For the good of her people, and to save what lives she could, she left.
Eren did not say a word. He continued to eat the berries from his hand and looked at Teresa with an expression of reflection.
When Teresa finished, he simply nodded and tossed the three berries he had left uneaten in his hand on the ground before standing up from his seat.
Teresa noticed he took care to step on them as he rose.
"You were a leader of a great many people?" he asked, looking at her disdainfully now. It was less of a question and more of a clarification.
"I am the leader of all those who gather near me," he continued.
Eren took a step and was almost shoulder to shoulder with Teresa. Looking down on her, he finished "That means you as well."
It took all of Teresa's restraint not to show him how strong a princess of Thoran really was.
She must have been walking without paying attention to her surroundings. Wisym's tap on her shoulder caught her off guard and she cursed herself for allowing her thoughts to wander. She looked back at Wisym and acknowledged her with a nod. An alert expression on the elf's face, however, forced Teresa to look around quickly.
The forest had become quiet.
Songbirds had been singing their songs of spring this morning. Now there was not a single bird heralding the day.
"Draw swords," Teresa said quietly in the stillness.
No sooner had her blade left its sheath than they were set on by fifty of the fox beasts.
Two of the creatures were just a few paces from Teresa in a breath. They both lashed out at her with wooden spears.
Hunger, coldness, and pains all forgotten, Teresa began to defend herself from the attacks that came at her. With one sword, she swiped away the first spear that was thrust at her chest. Her other blade drove deep into the creature that snarled its teeth at her. The grimace on its face froze as the life faded from its eyes.
All around her, the Wrents were chasing down the Wood Walkers. None of them seemed to know how to attack, nor how to repel such a force. Some picked up sticks from the ground and tried to defend themselves. Others used rocks. Not one was doing so well. They needed leadership.
They needed the strangers from another continent.
“Wisym!” Teresa shouted, looking around quickly while her attackers abated. The elf was just a few paces away, but the din of the battle was loud.
“Circle formation!” Wisym replied loudly to all the elves at large. “Fight with elves at your backs! To us!”
The first to respond was Elen, the broad female elf who Teresa had just watched kill a Wrent with its own spear. She put herself by Teresa and faced out. Wisym was at their backs.
Soon a circle began to form and the elves were able to repel the Wrents that were attacking them. A few elves still fought outside the circle, but once the foxes saw that many of their comrades had fallen, their spirit seemed to falter.
With a howl from the one strange fox, a male with red fur on its right arm, the Wrents began their retreat. Teresa breathed deeply. The first test was over.
She looked around to see the elves around her still tense and unsure. These were no warriors, she could tell. They were scared.
Where were the archers they had encountered back at the gathering before? Apparently, none of them had come from Tacut. Why had Eren volunteered his meager force to search for the Wrents when they were obviously unprepared for battle?
Some looked down at their hands and the Wrent blood that had soiled them. Terror filled the eyes of a few, even though the threat had dispersed. She saw one elf desperately trying to wipe his hands clean on the grass below him. Then came wails of sorrow.
From the other side of the circle, a male elf was holding the still body of a female. From what Teresa could see, she was quite young, even in elf years. She was burned badly across her face and neck. Looking around for the source of the flame, Teresa was lost for how she would have been burned so badly. There was no smell of smoke or flash of fire that she could see.
“This is why we fight the Wrents,” Elen said as she looked on the scene, interrupting Teresa's search. There was no helping the girl. A spear protruded from her heart. “They destroy what we would protect. They kill what we hold most precious. They steal life from us when we seek to preserve it.”
Several of the elves gathered around the sad scene. Others who had been injured in the fight were being attended to by their nearby comrades.
“Where are they heading?” Teresa asked, wiping the blood from her blades on the leaves of a nearby bush.
“North,” came the reply, but not from Elen.
Eren had walked up beside them. Teresa could see no blood on his hands, nor signs that he was even short of breath.
“They follow the river that flows nearby, back to the hollows they've made by the shore.”
He looked resolute, like his mind was calculating many things and yet resolved on one thing in particular.
“We must pursue them,” he said clearly. “The advantage is ours now. You are warriors, yes?”
Teresa looked over at Wisym, who had come from the man who still wept over the still body of the elven girl. She nodded at Eren, but wiped at her eye. Teresa knew what the elf was trying to conceal.
“You must teach us to fight,” Eren said.
Elen turned to look at him with an odd expression on her face.
“Teach us to repel the foxes,” he repeated, gritting his teeth and furrowing his brow.
***
For the next two days, the elves and their strange warriors traveled north following the course of the river. Teresa recognized that she, Silverwolf, and Wisym had crossed this river using an ancient looking bridge on their journey south towards the gathering of Wood Walkers.
That same bridge still stood.
Intricately carved stones made beautiful arches over the river and held up a seamless walk from one side of the river to the other. It was the work of master builders and stone workers. Had Teresa seen any on the continent, other than the outspoken Gorplin, she would have said it was the work of dwarves. But the sons of the earth were nowhere to be found on Irradan. The Wood Walkers who stepped onto the bridge did so with loathing. It was as if every step hurt them.
“They don't like to have stones used for such purposes,” Wisym said quietly to Teresa. “They believe they've been hurt.”
The only ones who were hurt were the elves who are bandaged and bruised from the previous attack, Teresa thought.
Water glided underneath them as they crossed the bridge. It was nearly nightfall and still they had not seen any of the Wrents who had attacked them previously. They seemed to be keeping their distance.
The elves made camp just on the other shore of the river and waited until daybreak to continue. When evening came and the suns began to drop below the horizon, the elves began to practice how to wield a spear and defend themselves. When the suns were up they were back on the trail of the Wrents.
This was how they had traveled for the last two days.
The elves had refused to cut any branch down to make a weapon, even to defend themselves. Instead, they scoured the ground while they walked and found dead branches that they sharpened, some quite unwillingly, with Teresa and Wisym's swords.
Wisym was an excellent teacher. Each session was mos
tly her performing a move that the elves would emulate. Then she began to teach them how to defend against that same move. Eventually, she split the groups into those who learned quickly and could begin sparring with one another and those who needed more guidance from her.
Teresa spent her time drawing in the dirt with the stick and talking tactics with Eren and Elen.
Elen, the only true warrior by Teresa's reckoning among the group of elves, was able to spot simple tactics and how to lead others in defending against them. Eren, however, was showing that what he did not have in the way of brute strength was made up for in cunning.
He could easily predict the moves Teresa would suggest of their troops and how to counter attack them. He was also quickly realizing the potential of stealth techniques than marching directly at an enemy.
Whether his new skills and leading others in battle would prove to be an asset or not, Teresa did not yet know. But he continued to prove himself a masterful strategist.
After the third day of traveling north and eating nothing but berries and nuts since their traveling stores had run dry, Teresa was extremely relieved to see the sea. The forest came to the very edge of the waters, with some trees stretching their roots into the sea itself. Many elves came to the water with looks of awe on their faces. Teresa assumed they had never laid eyes on the sight.
Inside the continent of Irradan was the largest body of water outside the ocean Teresa had ever seen. The different people of that land had many names for it: the Barren Sea, The Big Waters, and the Sea of Storms were just a few. Not many sailed those waters as its name suggested. Storms were frequent and attacks by rogue pirates more so. It was the largest body of freshwater on the planet, or so some of the scribes in Lone Peak had claimed.
"The tracks end here," Elen said as they stood on the shores of the Barren Sea. She was looking down at the muddy banks, looking at the tracks that lead right into the water. "It's like they kept walking."