David Policar 1991
His speed is impressive for one of his race, as is his silence as he stalks his quarry, but he is balked by the open clearing in which his deer grazes. While in dense forest, the darkhaired elf is as nearly invisible as I in his green tunic and leggings; in the open, he lacks that advantage.
He unlimbers his bow, notches an arrow, takes aim, and fires. The arrow grazes the stag's flank and flies on, embedding itself in the grass. The stag bolts, alerted and wounded. The elf curses and takes flight after him, all attempts at silence forgotten.
I follow. The tantalizing scent of the stag's blood invigorates me. I slow my pace despite this, lest I approach too closely the young elf. The stag is not the one I chase. I mark the mingled flavors of their sweat, deer and elf: the first succulent with fear, the second overpowering with excitement, tinged with exhaustion.
The chase is long, their trail clear, and I taste the hunt-love in the elf's spoor. I am surprised, and confused: this devotion to bringing down the quarry is not a trait I expect in the elves of Leadrian. Perhaps they are worthwhile after all... I dismiss the thought quickly, as unworthy of an emissary of the Aerie even in the privacy of her own mind.
A suggestion of laughter reminds me it is not so private, after all. But I have no attention to spare for Kiaee.
The trampling of feet and the crackling of leaves ends suddenly, leaving a startling silence. In a moment, the silence is broken by the dull sound of impact, and a faint crack. From the high branch where I crouch, I see the darkhaired elf unstring his bow, his brown eyes lit with delight, a slight smile quirking the corners of his mouth.
The stag is dead, no longer frightened, although a faint trace of that fear remains on its scent. The elf is peaceful, no longer a hunter, and shows no sign of hunger. Indeed, he is leaning against the base of a tree, closing his eyes.
This confuses me. I approach the resting elf, speaking in the language of the Aerie. "Why do you hunt and not feed? Do you require assistance?"
His eyes do not open. He responds in the same tongue. "No assistance is required, observer. I am merely resting. Such a chase is exhausting for me, and to return the stag to the palace will be equally exhausting."
"If you wish, I will help carry the beast to your kitchens."
Opening one eye, he looks me over as one would a stranger or intruder into one's packland. He smiles again.
"Yes, I suppose you are built for this sort of thing. Won't you get in trouble for being out here, though? Aren't you supposed to be observing the court?"
"No, leneral. I am here to observe you, in or out of the court. You will be ruler of Leadrian soon, and the Aerie must send a representative to testify as to your competence. Your performance in court is no more important to me than your performance in the fields. I have seen much of both since my arrival."
The decades-old elf, still a child by their standards, blushes a dark red (the furless ones do this when embarassed).
"Yes, well, what good is it to be leneral if I cannot occassionally indulge my pleasures? Would you have me be like my father, always bound by tradition and responsibility, deprived of all freedom? But I forget, you didn't know my father. Well then, like Cedric. Have you met Cedric?"
Cassandar, their previous ruler died nearly ten decades ago, a span twice the age of the oldest of my people (excepting Krisha, of course, but she is of the pack of the chief spirit, and is therefore not like other Hakhoww). To forget that I do not know a man three generations dead is typically elven.
"I have met him."
"Well, did you know that when Cedric was my age, he went on grand adventures? He is an excellent woodsman and a skilled fighter, and the bards still tell the tale of his lone battle in the Dreamer's Valley to seal off the goblin caves! Can you imagine, that stodgy old relic holding off an entire goblin horde single-handed?!?"
"No, I cannot. To defeat such an army is a difficult task, beyond the abilities of even our own warriors. One of your people could not have done so." He is angered by my precision, but conceals it. Good.
"Well, it's simple -- he tricked them. The Dreamer's Valley, you see, lies near a pass through Ruk Kragin, the dwarf clan in the north, and passes between two large mountains. Cedric arranged deadfalls, snares, and spirits only know what else along that pass, counting on sheer goblin obstinacy to drive them through it, building their bloodlust along the way. Then he stampeded a herd of deer off a steep cliff into the Dreamer's Valley. Of course, the goblins promptly fell upon the unexpected feast, crowding each other for access to it, and otherwise behaving like, well, goblins.
"Even when the boulders started tumbling down the mountainside, most of the creatures refused to leave their meat for the rest of the horde to take, and so when the dust settled, half the horde was dead and the other half trapped in the valley. By that time, Cedric had already alerted the Clan-Mother of Ruk Kragin of the danger, and she sealed the portal before another horde could pass through. Within the day, the dwarven armies had fallen upon the demoralized goblins and destroyed them!"
He stands, his eyes alive and sparkling with pleasure.
"But that was nearly three centuries ago. After that, Cedric returned to Leadrian and became my father's retainer. Now, he's just another huntsman, and I've never even seen him smile! Under no circumstances will I allow that to happen to me. I'll be king of Leadrian, and I'll enjoy it more than I've enjoyed anything in my life; make sure you tell your superiors that."
His tone is challenging, and his teeth are bared in a gesture that denotes joy in elves (and other races, as well). Without thinking, I bare mine in response; my hackles rise and claws extend in mild hrok-thar before his scent brings it under control -- there is no taste no challenge in it, no attempt at domination. He is elf! I remind myself, and imagine him crouched, his tail sagging, his fur slicked down. I retract my claws and relax my muscles.
calm... calm... Kiaee's mindspeech echoes with concern, fear that I might respond with action -- to an imagined challenge from a slave race in its own land! Her own challenge angers me more than the elf's accident of anatomy. Hrok-thar nearly ruined my first assignment from the Aerie, but even without the past-spirits to guide me I can still learn from experience. Else what purpose in my assignment?
I shape my feelings into the eagle-patterns, picturing Kiaee in my mind and pulsing my thoughts through that picture.
{immediate future}you::cease distractions
{now,before}self in control
{distant past}self complete-hatchling;{present, future}self NOT complete hatchling!
{now}self NOT need your manipulations
{now}Kiaee agrees, ceases, apologizes.
{still}Kiaee/Kirit young, learning.
{ÁÞó
The image shatters, torn by the last symbol, and I understand nothing more. I am often unable to grasp Kiaee's concepts of what she calls the "flow" of time, so much more subtle and dynamic than the constant imperative present of my people. To work with the Aerie I learn the slave tongues, master their nows and thens and oftens and agains and always. I renounce the spirits of past and future that give my people their strength. But the mindspeech of the eagles is far more subtle, and I follow it only dimly.
Still, her apology is clear, and gratifying. No more needs saying. I return to my senses, attracted by a stray northerly breeze that carries a burning scent I cannot mark precisely.
"What lies to the south of here, leneral? Something appears to be burning there."
"Burning? How odd! Um... not much of anything, really. The south courts are mostly deserted save for a few huntsman's cabins, and even they are empty this time of year, to let the livestock replenish itself. And the woods are far too damp now to catch fire. Are you sure something is burning?"
I scent the breeze again, and study it.
"Perhaps not. Burnt, rather. Similar to burnt coals. But different, somehow -- impure. And extremely faint."
I take another sniff, but the prevailing southerly winds reassert themselves.
"It is gone."
He glances at the fallen stag and shakes his head. "The deer will keep. This might be interesting, and I might be needed."
He hesitates for a moment. "If you can... I would appreciate your silence regarding my activities. It would be... difficult to explain my presence in the woods, in commoner's garb. The banleldorioin -- you would call her 'regent' --- would not approve."
"You realize, of course, that my position as your observer prohibits me from sharing my observations with any outside the Aerie, high one."
He hesitates again before departing, clearly startled by my use of his literal title. Like many others the Aerie visits, he assumes I am ignorant of his tongue. He dismisses my choice of words as coincidence, but I score a point regardless. (It is my duty to correct the elves' misunderstanding... "eventually." The timelessness of slave tongues does have uses.)
{now/later}ÖÖÕÀ§
Kiaee undoubtedly wishes to scold me for my playfulness, and for once I am pleased that I am not a full traveller, able to converse freely with my flyer. Her scolding will keep. I follow the elf.
We run south until I see a hut in the distance, appearing small and unused. In the grass around it there is rustling and the faint clinking sounds of armor, and within it there are sounds of speech. The smell of elves is strong, along with a faint touch of metal and leather, but much of it is overpowered by the now-familiar burnt odor carried from the hut.
Approaching, I make out the cloaks of Leadrian guards and the mantle of a guard commander. They surround the hut, moving silently and carefully but not noticing the leneral's approach or my own. There are two voices within the hut, speaking slowly and intermittently in a language I do not know.
Suddenly the forest reeks of thunder and lightning, and I nearly succumb to an atavistic urge to escape, hide, run!
The feeling subsides, and I note with relief that the forest is undamaged and what little sky I can see is clear. The elves, however, are no longer in the clearing, and I recall dimly a sudden silence from the hut, followed by the sounds of a door crashing.
The armored elves leave the hut again with a prisoner, whose dark hair and clothes remind me of the leneral, but who is not elven... nor of any other species known to me. I cannot discern his features from this distance, and for a moment I envy the sharp vision the elves and Kiaee share.
A whispered curse, too quiet for elven ears, reaches me in time to warn me of the leneral's rapid departure towards the palace. I follow. All creatures, I suppose, have their strengths.
Hidden in the forest yet still with me, Kiaee smiles.