Elf Boy and Friends
Part 10 of 10
by George Gauthier
Chapter 41. Travels
The next morning the chief topic of conversation around the breakfast table was the Duel of the Titles, as the incident the previous evening would be called in local legend.
Aodh promised to compose a satirical ditty about the Duel and debut it at the summer festival. He also mentioned how gratified he was with his own modest title. As the legal spouse of a count, he already bore the courtesy title of Sir and thanked Balan for nominating him for one of the Commonwealth's orders of chivalry, as a reward for leading the spy mission. Once conferred by letters patent, Aodh's title of knighthood would become official.
"Sir Aodh!" I rather like the sound of that." [as always, he pronounced his name like the vowels in vein.]
"Oh, I don't know." Karel ventured. "I rather like the sound of Sir B or Sir C."
"Very funny."
"Seriously though," Karel continued, "from what I heard yesterday it sounds like Dahl and Count Klarendes have considerable judicial powers. What exactly does that all mean, the High, the Middle, and the Low Justice?"
"Well Karel," began the nobleman. " t is like this. As Chief District Magistrate I sit in judgement on civil matters and on minor crimes and misdemeanors, which carry penalties of no more than a moderate fine, a year in jail, or equivalent public service. Anything beyond that, including capital crimes, constitutes the High Justice. Now my authority comes from the state, that is the government of the Commonwealth. In addition, by the laws of every realm, Druids like our friend Dahl have concurrent plenipotentiary authority across the globe. Should he choose to, a druid can bypass the local authorities and courts entirely. He can make his own judgments about guilt and innocence and impose penalties including capital punishment. Just look what Dahl did to that army of Amazons and to their entire society for that matter."
Balandur continued the explanation.
"As a Hand, I have unrestricted discretion too, but I am answerable to the Chief of the Hands and to the Ruling Council. We Hands always report our actions and decisions. I cannot remember the last time a Hand exceeded his authority and was disowned by his superiors. Not even when, as happened last year, one of us provoked two corrupt battalion commanders to attack him, which allowedim to settle the issue without all the bothersome procedures."
"You mean he killed them." Aodh stated flatly. Balan nodded.
"Lopped their heads off is what he did. In legitimate self-defense, I should add. Had the miscreants surrendered, they would have have had their day in court. Having said that, we Hands do sometimes commit murder to avoid nasty political consequences or to rectify miscarriages of justice. It comes with the job. None of us is a bloodthirsty sort. We dare not be. We need the cooperation of the civil and military officers of the state. These men and women cooperate with us readily -- not out of fear but because we can solve problems they themselves could not resolve with regular measures."
"Many is a time our investigations have cleared men and women who were unjustly accused or convicted. You would be surprised how often officers of the law make snap judgments, then stop trying to find out what really happened. Because they were sure they knew what had transpired and by whose hand the evil deed was done, they bent their efforts to building a case against the hapless accused. That meant putting the worst possible interpretation on ambiguous or incomplete evidence, ignoring other possible suspects and investigative leads, over-reliance on informants with axes to grind, and so forth."
"Very often such miscarriages of justice are the fault of local officials, demagogues really, clamoring for a quick arrest. Now a quick arrest is easy enough -- if you don't care about guilt and innocence. Just pick some plausible scapegoat and chivvy him down the road to a conviction."
"It falls to the Hands then to investigate miscarriages of justice and recommend commutation of sentence or pardons with compensation. That is one of my most satisfying duties. In one case I was sure of my facts but could not prove in a court of law that the local authorities were perfectly well aware that a man serving a long prison sentence was really innocent. The investigators in the constabulary and the local magistrate had taken bribes to convict him and to protect the guilty party, an influential landowner. I granted the convict a full pardon and made him a financial settlement. The corrupt officials and the actual culprit later met with unfortunate accidents. I am quite good at arranging accidents, even if I do say so myself."
"Wow!" the youngsters breathed.
A year went by, pleasantly and largely uneventfully.
Although all the young males added a chronological year to their official ages, none of them aged physically thanks to the various magics which maintained their youth. Dahl and Aodh looked seventeen and sixteen respectively, the impish Ran fifteen or sixteen, the twins about eighteen, as did Owain. And all of them would stay that way for centuries. Thanks to his elven heritage Klarendes was unchanged as well. So were the long-lived giant, though he, like the count, looked like a man rather than a boy.
Dahl visited Elysion for a month. Klarendes graciously shared his boy with the young elven druid. The two younger males had been lovers before Aodh ever met the count, who was wise enough to see that Aodh's love for Dahl in no way diminished his bond with Klarendes. The two youths went swimming and canoeing at the lake, visited the scenic waterfall for which Elysion was famous, and even lent a hand when scholars examining the ancient henge of standing stones took ink rubbings of the carvings and dug exploratory trenches in search of artifacts. Quite a few of the local males took a fancy to these two nude youths of surpassing beauty and wished fervently they could bed one or both of them. Regardless of sexual fantasies, everyone thought they made a cute couple.
After that pleasant interlude, Dahl left to see how his friends the brontotheres were getting along. The young ones had matured and started to mate though there were no births as yet, given their long gestation period. The beasts were keeping to the transition zone between the mountains and the open plains. But then they liked to both graze and browse. The sunny and treeless grasslands occupied by ranchers held little attraction for them. No signs either of incursions by Frost Giants or centaurs nor did he expect any for some years to come.
Dahl returned to the Commonwealth proper via the tunnel through the mountains connecting with riverboats south to the mouth of the Long River and across the Great Inland Fresh Water Sea to check on his success in controlling an invasive species in the Ashokan Archipelago. Two years earlier Dahl had imported an epiphytic vine to control the Emerald Ash Borer which was destroying the forest cover and watersheds on the islands.
The twins and Ran, the so-called three twins, went on walkabout, visiting the lands around the Great Inland Fresh Water Sea before an extended visit with the druids of the Great Southern Forest. The Commonwealth financed their travels during which they were charged to update the very poor maps that existed of those regions. The small states along its shores had never let a survey team into their territory. The twins relied on their sense of direction and their magically enhanced skill at dead reckoning to establish reference points. They took detailed notes and drew sketch maps. From these they would later construct professional maps.
Their travels also took them to an enchanted vale inhabited by forest elves who dwelt in tree houses raised high off the ground to catch cooling breezes. Many of the trees and shrubs bore blossoms in season or at least were adorned with ornamental bracts or leaves. Babbling brooks threaded the whole area, supplying fresh water for gardens and for domestic use. A hot spring fed both baths and cooking basins. Ran introduced his game with the pie tin to the local youths who adopted it enthusiastically, both for the sport itself and for the chance it gave to show off the svelte and lissome bodies elven youths were noted for.
Later the trio visited the caverns of the dwarves of the Limestone Basin. Clever in business dealings, they had opened a portion of their scenic caves to visitors, creating a lucrative tourist industry that offered tours, lodging, food and drink, and souvenirs like geodes and other mineral specimens and crystals as well as trinkets and memorabilia the dwarves themselves manufactured.
The dwarves feted the three dwarf-friends as visiting dignitaries. Of course, cordial as their welcome was, there was no spark between the boys and their hosts the dwarves. Things were quite different with the elves. The social calendars of all three visitors were full during their sojourn in the vale of the elves. The local boys and adult elves could not believe their luck. Three blonds at once had come calling! They buzzed around the trio like bees around honey.
The only sour note was that sounded upon their arrival in the vale. The fastidious elves insisted that human visitors undergo a thorough purging and cleansing, inside and out. The twins had undergone this once before, but had assumed that, as they were now elf-friends, that rule no longer applied to them. Unfortunately it did. Nothing personal of course. Willy nilly, the twins had to comply.
They were handed over to four bath attendants who looked to be in their mid-teens, though with elves age was hard to tell. All four were cute lads whose eyes sparkled with more than a hint of mischief, a predilection that was borne out by the enthusiasm with which they carried out their duties. First they had the twins kneel with a bucket set in front of each. The attendants tickled the inside of the twins' throats to make them upchuck the contents of their stomachs. Then they had to swallow a purgative which ensured that their stomachs were entirely empty. A draught of cool spring cleansed their palates and settled their stomachs. After that, the attendants twice filled the the boys' bottoms with a warm enema which made them evacuate their bowels explosively. After this rather unpleasant episode came a bath which featured a good deal of hard scrubbing with soap and pumice stones.
A much more pleasant phase followed. The boyish bath attendants rubbed sweet smelling oils into their skin, taking care not to miss any nooks or crannies. Their attentions to the twins' manly parts produced a predictable reaction. Actually that part was a lot of fun. The bath boys helped the young humans out, relieving their arousals with their oral ministrations. All four attendants were cute kids, but then they were elves, weren't they.
Lastly the twins' heads were clipped extra short. True, the boys normally went about close-cropped, but this was ridiculous. Ran pointed at the hapless pair then laughed and laughed, holding his ribs.
"You should see yourselves, my friends, your skin are practically glowing red from the abrasive action of the pumice ,and you have little more than fuzz on your skulls. How fortunate it is, that I, as an elf, am exempt from such indignities."
Jemsen frowned.
"Isn't that because our hosts didn't realize that you were one-quarter human? Now since you thought to tease us in our time of tribulation, I am thinking we ought to correct that particular oversight. Bath boys, seize him!"
Poor Ran struggled uselessly, his tiny body snatched up by the four attendants, gleeful to have another victim to work on. Since he wore his dark blond locks a bit longer than the twins, he looked that much more forlorn afterwards, his shorn locks littering the floor. After which he suffered one personal indignity after another just like the twins had till he too was glowing with oils and good health.
That aside, their sojourn with the elves was a lot of fun. The ate well, slept late, and frolicked with the lively elves. Though the twins also got serious studying maps the elves kept in their libraries, that left plenty of time for fun and frolic in congenial surroundings. Virtually everyone offered hospitality to them as elf-friends. Singly or together, the twins and Ran had some of the best sex ever.
Finally the trio traveled to the stronghold of the druids and settled in for a long stay.
"You mean the Forest would not mind if we brought a deer down with our bows" Jemsen asked Owain at breakfast one morning.
"Not at all, as long as it was for food and not merely for sport. The Forest holds sentient species like ours to a higher standard that the animals. Nature is red in tooth and claw. Cats and shrews and wolverines often kill wantonly, but then they do not know any better, being driven by their instincts. Only sentient species are morally responsible for wanton killing."
The twins took the opportunity to improve their field craft under the tutelage of the druids. No one could track like a druid or knew the use of medicinal plants whether growing wild or in herb gardens. They also knew which ones were poisonous, and the best remedies to counter them.
Since the boys were now as long lived as their friends, the druids shared some of their philosophy and practical wisdom for living on when others you have befriended start dying on you. In time the twins expected those losses would include their friend Arik and the twins' kin in their native village. The twins resolved to make at least one more trip there before their own unchanging youth was noticed and provoked jealousy. Even a level-headed sort like their uncle might wonder why them and not himself. It was only human nature.
Jemsen, Karel and Ran were socially popular among the druids. Their sexy bodies and cute faces and outgoing personalities made for a welcome change of pace. The stronghold of the druids was a cheery place during the visit, though by the end, some of the older druids were glad to see or rather hear the end of the twins' endless questions. Didn't those two kids ever shut up?
Ran, scamp that he was, kept a running total of the druids he bedded, announcing at the end of their visit that only seven of twenty has escaped his net, three of whom were away on various missions. The other four preferred to consort exclusively with females. Their loss really, in Ran's not so humble estimation.
Chapter 42. The Raid
The "three twins" eventually went back to Elysion for an extended stay. That gave Ran a chance to renew his affair with Arik. Ardent though their feelings were for each other, both youths had now put their relationship into proper perspective. What they had was more serious than puppy love, but both youths also knew they were not each other's life partners. They were two good friends who enjoyed sharing their bodies whenever they could get together.
Also in residence was Balan, on a long-overdue and well-deserved vacation from his arduous duties as a Hand of the Commonwealth. The truth is that, at nearly one thousand, Balan was starting to feel his years. Oh he had a mission or two or three left in him, but already he could sense the onset of what, in only a handful of years, would be his kind's swift decline into decrepit old age. An unenviable prospect, he didn't mind admitting to his old friend, the count. He had left retirement till too late. There went his plan to spend his sunset years among the natural philosophers at the capital.
Balan and Klarendes spent long hours together talking, reminiscing, smoking their pipes, and playing a board game whose pieces represented cavalry, infantry, chariots, and olifants all of which moved in different ways. The object of the game was to capture the opposing army's general. Now Klarendes was considered to be quite good at the popular game, he had a real knack for strategy, but he was no match for his friend's centuries of experience. Still the count did sometimes win a match or two. Innate talent did count for something after all. Aodh merely watched. For all his keen intelligence, the boy just couldn't get his head around the subtle game of strategy, possibly due to the feline component of his nature.
All was well that spring in Elysion. The valley was peaceful and prosperous; its people were healthy and happy. The yields of wheat and rye and oats looked likely to set records. The boughs of the trees in the orchards bent down, heavy with fruit and nuts. Even the weather was unseasonably cool, still hot of course, but a welcome relief from the usually oppressive tropical heat. Life was good.
Till the day of the raid.
One fine morning in late spring, Arik went out to the forest to select and mark trees for lumberjacks to fell and drag to the sawmill. Their wood was destined for Master Justin's workshop. Arik still worked for the master carpenter who was also a joiner, that is a maker of furniture. The working of wood was in Arik's blood. It gave him a good deal of satisfaction to produce something tangible and useful. It was something he was good at, and his skills and hard work were appreciated by his community. Happy to have his former journeyman back with him after his adventures with Balan, Justin set him to working on his finer pieces, leaving the new apprentice to the humbler tasks.
For this outing task Arik wore a deerskin loincloth, the handle of his hatchet stuck through the thong around his hips. He had the horn of the Frost Giant slung over his shoulder intending to signal the lumberjacks when to set out with their gear. Ran went along with Arik to mark the trees, happy as any elf-boy should be, to find himself wholly surrounded by nature rather than the works of man. Ran was in the nude or, as the elves would have it "skin clad".
Off by themselves, halfway up on the slopes that ringed the green bowl that was Elysion, the two youths were the first to see the raiders that the Adversary had dispatched to Elysion, a mixed force of Frost Giants and Centaurs. A trio of Trackers led the way with five slash bears lumbering along in their wake. They were just cresting the lip of the bowl that held the secluded valley when the boys spotted them.
Arik raised the horn to his lips and sounded the alarm and call to arms. Ran took off at top speed to carry the specifics of the threat to the village and manor, leaving the much heavier and slower Arik to shadow the invaders. Here was where Arik's hard-earned field craft paid off. Completely unobserved by the raiders, Arik watched as four Frost Giants and twelve centaurs headed downslope toward the settlement in the center of the green bowl.
Looking very different from mythological centaurs, these creature were insect-like monsters who nevertheless walked on their four hind limbs while in front their bodies angled up to a torso with long arms and a head, whence their name. Their four hind limbs ended in hoof-like structures formed from fuzed digits, but their arms had large hands with three fingers and a semi-opposable thumb. The centaurs could and did make and use tools and weapons. In battle they slashed at their foes with a curved saber in each hand. Joined directly to their bodies without a true neck, their heads could not swivel. To compensate, the beasts not only had two large eyes in front for binocular vision, they also had two small eyes in the back of the head. These small eyes could not move, but they extended the centaurs' peripheral vision to 360 degrees.
Left behind atop the ridge was one lone figure standing on the rim of the valley, the leader of the raid, a human wizard in a cowled robe. Arik crept toward him as stealthily as he could. Nevertheless, just as the youth settled into what he thought a good spot from which to observe the man, the cloaked figured turned directly toward Arik.
"You might as well come out of the woods, young man. With my magic I can sense that you are crouched behind that split boulder. No doubt it was you who blew the horn to sound the alarm. My compliments on your courage and quick thinking. My raiders will now have their work cut out for them, attacking a militia mustered and braced for attack. Meanwhile, you interest me. Let's have a chat while we wait till my forces finish what I have sent them to do. I am afraid our talk will be a short one. Once I satisfy my curiosity about you, I will have to kill you. Nothing personal, of course."
"Also, though I do not know what your magical gift might be, I must warn you: don't try anything. Besides my own magic, I wear a charmed amulet that shields me from any magical attack."
There being no point in further concealment, Arik stepped out in plain sight.
"My oh my. I do so admire a big strapping youth such as yourself. I think I will spare you long enough for a proper shag. Meanwhile, why don't you get rid of that loincloth. There's a good lad."
Arik complied and stripped, turning slowly so that the man could get a good look at him. Meanwhile, with the wizard's attention focussed on his nude body, Arik used his gift to raise a good sized rock that lay on the ground behind the wizard to a position fifty feet above the man's head. Then Arik let it go. It fell and connected with a crunch. The wizard's head burst like a ballon, brain matter spurting from his crushed skull.
Arik had reasoned that while he could not have flung his poisoned arrowheads against the man even if he had brought them along, that amulet of his likely protected him only against direct attack by magic. All Arik had to do was to lift that rock into the air, turn his magic off, and let gravity do the rest.
Hearing Arik's signal the village militia had mobilized and formed up three hundred strong in a field just beyond the built-up area. The slinger boys lined up behind the shield wall, ready to throw oil-filled globes at the enemy. The women gathered up the children and forted up in their stout homes arming themselves with repeating crossbows. As captain of the militia, Klarendes climbed the watchtower to direct the battle. Aodh in his panther form went up there with him as his bodyguard, while the count's ten Molossian hounds stood guard at the base of the tower. Klarendes had to be protected at all costs. He was the key to victory with his ability to rain fiery destruction on the enemy.
The twins went around and distributed small bottles of Balan's silvered lacquer to some of the better bowmen, explaining that silver would burn the Trackers' flesh. The twins had coated their own arrowheads with it as well.
At Klarendes' request, Balan took command of the militia reserves, forty men stationed in a compact block a little behind the axe men and bowmen and slingers. Also under the giant's command were a dozen riders, Klarendes' arms men, who took the field mounted on war horses, their feet secure in the stirrups they had trained with over the past two years. The riders were armored and armed with lance and sword. Facing his forces, the giant raised his voice and told them:
"Men of Elysion. You don't need a speech from me to know what you are fighting for. Just remember this: we are the reserves. So we won't be the ones to start this fight, but we may well be the ones who finish it. Stand your ground no matter how much you want to rush forward and help your friends and neighbors when they clash with the enemy. Remember, they are depending on us to counter any surprises or turning movements or breakthroughs and to finish the enemy off. We can't let even one of these creatures get away. Can't have frost giants and centaurs and Trackers and slash bears lurking in the forests. I know, these creatures are fearsome, but believe me I also know from experience that they are mortal. Cut them and they bleed. They can die. We can kill them."
At their general murmur in the affirmative, Balan brandished his two-handed sword, confident that its silver inlays made it the weapon of choice against Trackers and its steel the best counter to Frost Giants.
The defenders could not know that Balan was himself the prime target of the raiders. Through his spies in the Commonwealth capital the Dark Prophet had learned that Balan was planning a strike at his own capital and center of power, a plan based on the intelligence gained more than a year earlier by the spy mission conceived by Aodh. Hence this preemptive strike to kill the giant before he could assemble his strike force. It was fortunate then that the giant commanded the militia reserves. Otherwise he would have stationed himself front and center where even he could have been overwhelmed as the raiders concentrated on him, no matter anyone else did.
The twins started things off; their long bows far outranged any crossbow. The Trackers were fast and did not run straight at the defenders but jinked left and right. It took a couple of missed shots for the twins to see the pattern, then they put arrows into two of the foul beasts. Both were lucky shots. Karel's arrow pierced the Tracker's heart killing it outright. Jemsen's arrow cut an abdominal artery, causing massive internal bleeding, taking most of the fight out of the demon beast. Next the twins shifted their aim to the bears, skewering three but to little effect. The bodies of the bears were just too big; their vitals protected by too much muscle and bone.
The slash bears surged forward, aiming to break the line and get at Balan. They failed. FIrst the bears and the single remaining Tracker ran into a storm of crossbow bolts shot by the crossbowmen. In terrific pain the bears nevertheless closed with the militia roaring and slashing. The militia roared and slashed right back with their axes, losing several men killed or wounded for each bear they stopped. It was over quickly with that last remaining Tracker and the slash bears literally chopped to pieces. Klarendes signaled the men to dress their lines and brace for the main attack.
The Frost Giants were bigger and more formidable than slash bears. They wore armor and carried shields and huge swords far outreaching the short handled axes of the villagers. The centaurs were nearly as massive as the giants though built lower to the ground. Though their chitinous armor protected their innards from arrows except at very close range, their limbs were vulnerable to axe blades. As the raiders got closer, the slingers flung volleys of glass globes which Klarendes ignited as they fell among the enemy. The flames had little effect on the armored Frost Giants who anyway blocked many of the globes with their shields.
The centaurs were another matter. The heat really got to them. First they had left the shade of the forests to march several miles under the grueling tropical sun. Now they had to contend with fire raining down on them from the sky. The burning oil clung to their chitinous armor, and the flames set fire to the field of ripe grain they were crossing to get at the militia. Scorched and enraged, they charged the line aiming to break through where the slash bears had tried. The doughty militia fought stubbornly to hold the line but were pushed aside by the sheer weight and savagery of the centaurs. Right behind them strode the Frost Giants. The slinger boys broke ranks and ran back to join the reserves with Balan.
That was Klarendes cue. He cast great balls of fire at the centaurs who had broken through the line and were now in the clear. The stricken creatures screeched horridly as the flames consumed them, literally cooking them alive, like lobsters in a pot.
Two Frost Giants turned toward the count up in the tower intending take him out of the fight. The Molossian hounds threw themselves at the giants, trying to hamstring their huge foes. Their attack hampered the giants, but the thick leather leggings the giants wore kept the hounds from inflicting disabling wounds. The hounds would have been more effective against the bears, had any survived.
The Frost Giant in the lead came close to the platform only to have Aodh leap on his head and tear his face off with claws and fangs. The wounded Frost Giant managed to grab the shapeshifter and fling him bodily against a stone wall, which left the wir stunned. The second Frost Giant moved toward the downed panther and raised a booted foot to stomp him into the earth.
"Oh no you don't!" Klarendes cried.
With a downward slash of his arm, Klarendes unleashed white fire at the Frost Giant cutting his foe in twain diagonally from shoulder to hip. The grisly halves fell apart and lay smoking. Then the count turned his white fire on the giant Aodh had blinded, cutting him in half at the waist.
Next Klarendes gave Balan the signal for the reserves to advance against the remaining centaurs, the ones Klarendes dared not target because they were too mixed in with the defenders. Axe men from the main line turned about and came at the centaurs from their rear. The riders circled to the right and charged the centaurs with lances lowered. With the momentum of horse and rider behind them, the spearpoints of the riders penetrated the chitinous armor of the centaurs to reach their vitals. The infantry then joined the attack from front and back. Their fighting spirit up, the men first hacked the limbs off the centaurs then crushed their skulls. The twins fought with the militia. Working as a team, the pair would thrust their long quarterstaffs to fend off a centaur with his flailing scimitars while the militia chopped away at its legs. Soon all the centaurs lay dead though at the cost of heavy casualties.
Balandur took on the remaining pair of Frost Giants. His two foes met him confident in their advantages of size and strength and numbers. Once again Balan's uncanny speed and magically enhanced strength came as a nasty surprise to his enemies. The Frost Giants learned, to their cost, why Balan and his kind were known as the Dread Hands of the Commonwealth. Balan not only killed them, he chopped their heads off and kicked them contemptuously toward the pile of dead centaurs.
"There, join your friends on their funeral pyre."
The villagers dragged the headless bodies and those of the other fallen giants and slash bears and Trackers and piled them on top. Klarendes set them alight and kept the flames burning till nothing was left but ashes.
The good count was relieved to see that Aodh was all right. The Frost Giant had broken some of his ribs, but his transformation back into human form fixed that handily.
The worst of it was that nearly thirty villagers had died, and twice that number lay wounded, many seriously. The healers did what they could for them, but those with the worst injuries died anyway.
Just as the count was absorbing this sad news, Arik came running up.
"Sorry I couldn't get here in time to join the fight, Captain Klarendes, sir. I did take out their wizard up on the rim of the valley. And I got a good look at the battle as I circled around to get here."
Klarendes nodded.
"You did your part and then some Arik, sounding the warning with that horn. Thanks to you and to Ran we were braced for their attack. And now you tell me that you killed their wizard too. Good work. Your actions saved many lives today. Never think otherwise."
"Speaking of Ran, where is he? Anyone seen him?" Arik asked anxiously.
"I have." Karel answered, his voice choked with emotion. "I went looking for him, and I found him."
Karel paused to gather himself to impart bad news.
"And??" Arik asked impatiently.
"It seems one of the centaurs tried to break into the school house where many children had taken shelter. Everyone else was occupied with other foes so Ran took it upon himself to defend the school. Taking up a spear, he climb the next roof over then jumped off, his spear aimed downward at the creature's armored carapace. Driven by his weight and momentum it penetrated and pierced the centaur's vitals but not before the dying creature lashed out at Ran. I found his broken body lying by the schoolhouse door. All the children inside were safe, thanks to him."
The boy then broke down, his grief overwhelming him. Jemsen held him, both twins sobbing and crying. Arik was stunned. He had never thought Ran would die before he did, not a long-lived elf-boy. That was so wrong. Such things should not happen in a well-ordered world.
Tears streaming from his eyes, Arik went over to the school and retrieved Ran's broken body, cradling it in his arms as he took Ran to the manor house where he cleaned the corpse and laid it out in the sitting room covering it with a sarong. It seem the versatile piece of cloth had found yet another use — as a shroud. As the news spread of what Ran had done and the price he had paid villagers filed in to pay their respects to the boy who had saved their children. With the shroud covering his broken body, Ran's face showed no trace of the trauma of his death. He lay as if in sleep, in death as in life, a pretty little elf-boy.
As his closest friends, the twins were inconsolable. So was Arik who vowed that someday he would make their Adversary pay. He asked Balan to include him in any strike planned against the foe.
This was not mere bravado from a grief stricken lover. Arik did not want to live in the shadow of Adversary, waiting for the inevitable blow to fall, always knowing that nothing anyone did mattered in the least. It would all be destroyed in fire and blood. What point then for a master joiner like Justin to produce quality furniture and cabinetry intended to be passed on down the generations as family heirlooms. A life lived in fear of impending doom was no sort of life at all.
Arik also pointed out that the power of his own magical gift, allied to Balan's strength and prowess with weapons, made them a formidable team. The two of them might do much together.
Balan agreed. He had been impressed by the way boy used his magical gift so cleverly and so flexibly. Look how he killed the wizard who thought himself protected against magic. Balan also felt the loss of Ran keenly. He had taken a real shine to the elf-boy; the pretty little imp was the sort you are happy to have around you. Then suddenly he was gone, slain by an evil creature. Gods, what a shame.
The funerals were held the next day, a necessity in that tropical climate, the bodies interred in the village cemetery, a sandy patch of ground half a mile distant from the village. Most of the populace were on hand to bury friends and neighbors. One of the mourners was a local girl and her year-old son, called Little Ran. Against all odds, the elf-boy had gotten her pregnant, and she elected to keep her baby. Klarendes provided a dowry and arranged a marriage with a decent lad who did not mind raising someone else's child. The young man wanted a big family and was pleased at this proof of the girl's fecundity.
The fallen were not buried in a mass grave but as individuals in their family plots, their names and dates to be inscribed by masons on stones set flat into the ground. Ran was laid to rest in the Klarendes family plot. The count had come to regard the irrepressible elven poplet as a sort of scapegrace but lovable nephew.
Klarendes spoke the eulogy for the fallen. No fancy words, just simple truths. He promised that the families of the fallen would never suffer from want. Elysion took care of its own.
Then Balan with Arik at his side spoke about Ran, about how, though an outsider he had put everything at risk to save the forty children barricaded in that school. It had cost him dearly, not mere decades but centuries of life. Nor was this the first time Ran had been so brave and selfless, for had he not done the same thing at Stone Mountain. That is what made his loss, his sacrifice so special. Arik described Ran as a bright ray of sunshine in the lives of all those who met him. Let no one forget his humor, his love of live, and yes, his impertinence and rambunctiousness. It was all a part of what made Ran who he was.
As Klarendes and Aodh left the cemetery, they saw Esmeralda settle herself down next to the twins who were keeping vigil over Ran's grave. She too was mourning the loss of her good friend and sometime partner in mischief.
Chapter 43. The Mission
The next spring Balan returned to Elysion for a final visit before heading off into the lands of the barbarians. With him came an unlikely ally, a tall skinny youth with gangly arms and legs dressed in a sleeveless tunic. Not particularly handsome nor yet unpleasant to look upon, he was well spoken and clearly well read and intelligent. More of a bookworm than an adventurer, he seemed ill-suited to venturing into enemy territory. While reticent about his past and abilities, he was friendly enough but seemed to have something weighing on his soul. He named himself Rolf.
"This cannot be your entire strike force, just you, Arik, and this Rolf." the count asked his old friend.
"No, Taitos, we have a military escort as well.There an entire battalion of mounted infantry under the command of Colonel Urqaart waiting at a rendezvous up north near the trade road. Dahl and Merry will go with us too. From the rendezvous we proceed east till we peel off from the soldiers, taking just five men disguised as caravan guards. We ourselves will be merchants from the North Country dealing in amber, aromatic gums, and medicinal plants which I asked you to supply."
"Your trade goods are gathered, as we agreed last time you were here."
"Fine. And since we have a little time, I hope you won't mind our imposing on your hospitality for a few days."
"Of course. Is it really true, my old friend that you won't be coming back to us?"
"I can guarantee it." the gawky visitor interrupted. "It is the only way we can prevail against the dark power that threatens the world."
"And just why is that?"
"We now know so much more about our adversaries than we did before, thanks to Aodh and the wirs he recruited. The enemy of old, the barbarians, are under new management, a new leader, much smarter than the former Dark Prophet, has displaced the original leader of the cult. This new leader, this Urloch is the head of both a cult and a great state built upon the original barbarian confederation. His capital is the political religious, economic, industrial, and military heart of our enemies. That is what we must destroy, not just the man himself who might be replaced in turn, as he superseded the Dark Prophet."
"His capital is ringed with army camps where they train and drill regular armies. Not just foot soldiers in formations, but officers in military academies. And they are equipping their armies not only with weapons but also supply trains and siege engines. Artificers and engineers work steadily at improving their equipment. Meanwhile they are building military roads west and south.
"Surrounding the capital are satellite cities that manufacture the implements of war and factories that turn out tons of rations that last indefinitely without spoilage. Meanwhile they keep shipping supplies to that staging area the Frost Giants are building, the one that Arik and Balan found nearly two years ago. Plus they supply the centaurs as well, who are still rebuilding after their losses on their long march across the Western Plains and the Hot lands."
"I estimate the population of the capital area, just the built up zone, including army camps and satellite cities, at over million, with two million more in the surrounding agricultural zones and industrial towns, mines and mills. And there are tens of millions in scattered settlements in their vast domain whose population must be nearly three times that of the Commonwealth."
Balan then added:
"If they all came against us at once, barbarians, Frost Giants, and centaurs, wave after wave in a war of attrition, I am afraid even the Commonwealth might fall. Even your final strike with white fire, Taitos, could not stop the forces they could bring against us, much less destroy their heartland."
"Then what can your small team do much against such vast power?"
The visitor spoke up again, his voice full of sorrow.
"That is where I come in -- to fulfill what I now know is my destiny. I will visit Death upon them, those who live in the capital zone, all of them, three million souls: soldiers, civilians, workers and farmers, all of them: men, women, and children. Even their dogs and cats. Wipe out their center and all will collapse. The confederation will shatter, the faithful will lose their prophet, the newly established state apparatus will wither. Soon the centaurs will starve, and the Frost Giants will disperse and return whence they came."
"Do you really have such awesome power?" Aohd asked.
"I am afraid I do. I am a death wizard, a sort of anti-druid, if you will. It is my magical gift, which turns their own life force against them. A fraction of a living being's life force suffices to kill him. I take the rest and I grow stronger as my power accumulates. I have been gathering this power to me for many centuries. Understand, despite my lethal gift I am not a heartless killer. I do not take pleasure in hurting people, much less killing them, but sometimes it is necessary. Let me give you a couple of examples."
"There was once an island in the Great Inland Sea that was quarantined because of a deadly plague. Even as the disease raged, word got out that gold and silver had been found there. Fortune hunters flocked there to mine the gold in its hills. They overwhelmed the small flotilla quarantining the island and its doomed population and set about unearthing precious metals. Afterwards the gold miners would have taken to their ships and scattered to the winds, carrying the pestilence with them to all the lands around the Inland Sea. To prevent that, I sailed out alone to the island and sterilized it. From the topmost hill to the shore line nothing lived, not a human, not an animal, not a plant, not even the smallest animalcules natural philosophers have seen with their microscopes. Nothing."
"Similarly I once stopped the spread of the red pestilence from a castle where the "quality" folk of the countryside thereabouts had retreated, trusting to isolation to protect them while leaving their dependents to die miserably in the surrounding villages and towns. Fortunately Healers and herbalists organized the populace and identified and isolated the carriers of the disease, sparing most of the people from the infection. Finally the red pest broke out in the castle as well but no healer would enter to help the selfish aristocrats. In panic, they readied themselves for an armed breakout to scatter and flee for their lives. I stopped them. That time I did spare the cats but nothing larger."
"For a while there, I became an avenging angel, going from town to town, slaying street criminals and road bandits or those moral monsters whose wealth and power put them above the law, but I stopped because I found myself enjoying it too much. Wielding Death is a heady power, best kept restrained lest it corrupt the soul."
"As to what happens afterwards, that will be up to the living to decide. I myself will die in that cataclysm as will Balan and Arik whom I need to get me into the throne room to confront this Urloch. Once I loose my final strike, killing everyone and every thing above the physiological level of a mouse out to a distance of half a day's ride, no one will escape, least of all us three."
"Nor would we ourselves want to survive and live with much blood on our hands, so many lives." Balan and Arik admitted. "We would be mass murderers on a scale never before surpassed. We take such a monstrous sin upon ourselves only to spare the world much worse, a future of unending darkness."
"Is that truly the only way?"
"I only wish it were not." the anti-druid replied for them all. "We have to strike now while their power is concentrated in one locale. The alternative is endless war and wholesale slaughter of populations in the tens of millions and after that the arbitrary rule of an undying dictator and the imposition of an intolerant and evil religion on everyone who is left. That is what we are willing to give our lives to stop. It is a sacrifice which all three of us are ready to make. Try not to think too harshly of us for what we must do."
"Never!" Klarendes and Aodh assured them. "You are courageous and moral persons trying to save all that is best in this world of ours."
As if to indorse their words Esmeralda climbed onto the giant's shoulders and rubbed her face against this cheek. Having marked the giant as one of her own, she settled down companionably on his shoulders and purred.
That evening Aodh slipped into Balan's room. No words needed to be said. They realized this was their final tryst. The boy melted into the giant's arms, determined to express physically the love and admiration he had for Balan. And so he did for the next three nights till they left on their mission.
Balan gave Klarendes a copy of his will by which he bequeathed his landed estates and personal effects to his brother but left his substantial financial assets to a trust he had set up for all the boys: Dahl, Aodh, and the twins. Ran would have been included too but for his untimely death. Count Klarendes would act as trustee for each beneficiary until he reached the age of twenty-five. With their financial futures secured in this way, each of them could live quite comfortably for the rest of their long lives. Of course, neither Dahl nor Aodh really needed Balan's money. With his earth magic, the young druid could draw precious metals from deep within the earth. And Aodh had his legal union with Klarendes, but having their own fortunes would establish all four youths as substantive persons in their own right to go along with their titles and continent-wide reputations.
The strike team's leave-taking was hard on everyone. The count and the giant had been best friends for twenty years, and Aodh was one of the great loves of Balan's life. The couple maintained their decorum even though their eyes were shining. Once the travelers drew away, Klarendes and Aodh wept in each other's arms. Sensitive to their moods, even Esmeralda felt forlorn.
As he rode off, Balan looked back and waved a final farewell to Klarendes, very likely the best friend he had ever had and to Aodh, his last great love. He was glad the two of them had each other. As for himself, a thousand years of life and adventure was a good run for anyone, even a giant. The grey coming into his hair was the first sign that he had reached an inflection point toward a physical decline that would accelerate in less than a decade. He was resigned to sacrificing his remaining years to save the world from unending darkness. Who would want to live in such a world anyway. Not Sir Balandur of Leinster.
Their trip north was not uneventful. The trio of travelers was set upon by bandits on their way to the trade road. Balan slew four with his sword and Arik blinded three more Fetching their eyes before finishing them off with his long knife. Meanwhile, trying to conceal his power from hidden lookouts, Rolf made it seem like his own pair of kills were the result of his skill with a blade. He stabbed his foes just after he cast death on them.
Arik and Balan were pleased when they joined up with Dahl and Merry at the rendezvous. Though the pair would not be joining them in the final assault, they would escort them a good deal of the way. Dahl and Merry were there to make sure the three reached their jumping off point into the lands of the barbarians. They were also the strike team's line of communications. Dahl and Merry would be watching through Balan's and Rolf's eyes when they finally confronted Urloch.
Balan introduced Rolf to his friends who explained the plan and his part in it.
"So are you really the Death Bringer of legend. Is Rolf your real name?" Dahl asked.
"Yes, it is. I have used many names over the centuries, but the one I was born with and soon shall die with is Rolf. That young elf-boy who went by the name of Rolf has faded almost entirely except for one treasured memory. The one shining highlight of my youth was a bittersweet love affair with another elf-boy my age. His was named Meirionnydd or Merry, like your unicorn friend. He had a good heart my Merry did and a sharp mind. I loved him inordinately, but his life magic lead him down a different path from mine. For all our love for each other, our magics were simply incompatible."
<But now that incompatibility had drawn us back together, Rolf.>
"What? M m merry?? Is that you in there? You're the unicorn!"
<Yes it is me, Rolf, Merry, your Merry. I am in my second life so I am unrecognizable in this equine form, but I have never forgotten you nor what we once had. I was so sorry we had to go our separate ways. I have to say that even after so many centuries you look much the same, only a little older and rather care-worn.>
"I come by that look honestly. I must say you are very handsome as a unicorn though it does look strange."
<I am accustomed to this form by now though I do very much miss having hands, especially those times when I want to pick something up off the ground, or to turn the pages of a book, or to caress a pretty elf-boy.>
"Ha! Some things never change!"
<It really is a small world isn't it, Rolf? I am so glad we have come together if only for this short while.>
The two old friends went off together and communed till late. After two magically extended lifetimes apart, they knew it was impossible to simply pick up where they left off, but they could be friends once more and share a final adventure. When Rolf and his strike team finally separated from the main party. he told Merry that through his magic he would bequeath the unicorn a gift, though he would not say just what it was.
Chapter 44. Destruction and Rebirth
The strike team peeled off from its escort just inside barbarian territory. Using forged transit papers, they passed the frontier. Unfortunately a few days later at a market town their guards were overheard speaking the language of the Commonwealth. When the town watch tried to arrest them, a running fight broke out. During the pursuit, the strike team lost contact with their men.
From that point on the three members of the strike team, Balan, Arik, and Rolf, were on their own. They made their way south, guided by the maps and the intel Aodh's team had developed the year before. They tried to avoid contact, but this proved impossible. In the fullness of time, after clashes with enemy patrols and many deaths among their pursuers, the three heroes were cornered and forced to surrender on a promise that they would not be slain out of hand. Finally they were led in chains into Urloch's richly appointed throne room.
The soldiers paraded their prisoners across a long marble floor and deposited their captives' weapons and gear at the feet of their Prophet and Ruler then withdrew, leaving only their captain remaining to explain the circumstances of their capture.
Urloch was a surprise. Not at all the man or the living fiend they expected to meet. About thirty he was soberly dressed looking rather like a barrister or a keeper of accounts, not the head of a great state and religion. Aside from a dozen guards in half armor, a scribe and two servants standing nearby, the Prophet met his "guests" by himself.
With a theatrical gesture the ruler lit a dozen candles in their sconces, then smiled wryly and admitted:
"With my modest gifts of calling light and igniting flame, my little demonstration is just about all I can do magically, though I can fling fire at an attacker's face, so be warned."
"You are probably wondering why I had you, my would-be assassins, brought before me. It is simple enough. I just could not resist the chance to gloat. Balan, did you really think you could keep your mission a secret from my spies in the Commonwealth? A strike against me was the obvious follow-up to your recent spy mission. No surprise that you would be its leader Balandur, being a Dread Hand of the Commonwealth and all that. I don't know this gawky fellow with you. Why is he along? And why ever did you drag a carpenter with you into this. As far as my spies could tell, there is nothing special about young Arik."
"Now here you are and have seen with your own eyes the heart of my power. It is an overwhelming complex of military, industrial, and economic power inspired by a proselytizing religious faith. Mostly done without magic on my part, just my own shrewd insight into character and organization. Well my unlamented predecessor, the Dark Prophet as you call him, did lay the foundation. He actually had a formidable magic, the power of compulsion, which got this enterprise started and well along before I took over more than a year ago. Alas he was no prophet, nor his god, the so-called Adversary no more real than any of the other gods of Haven, or he would have foreseen my coup against him."
"If such was his gift, why did he not compel your obedience or loyalty?"
"Because compulsion destroys initiative. As his vizier, he needed me to be energetic and clever. It was on my initiative that we dispatched that raid on Elysion as well as the attempt to poison the druids. Anyway, your mission is pointless, even if it succeeded. Killing me would not stop this war any more than the death of the Dark Prophet did. The key religious beliefs and state structures are now in place. If I fell, another leader or leaders would take over. No, this juggernaut we have created now has a life of its own and will not be so easily turned aside by killing a single person."
"I should tell you that this throne room you are standing in is strictly for ceremonial purposes. I actually work in an office beyond that door. Still, there is a place for pomp and circumstance in running an empire, which is why I have received you in this chamber. Yes, I said empire even though I do not call myself an emperor. That title is so shopworn. There have been so many emperors over the centuries, often with the same name so they have to assign numbers to distinguish one from the next. Absurd."
"I am unique and not really a human being despite outward appearances. I am very likely the last life-leech anywhere on Haven. I can suck the vital force from a young man to restore my own vitality. Understand, this power is an innate part of my being, not a magical gift. I only wish I could use it as a weapon, but it only works one on one and only when I need a recharge, which happens about once a year. In this way I will stride down the centuries forever. I am Urloch the Immortal, soon and forever afterwards Ruler of the World."
"Give me ten years, maybe twenty and all sentients on this continent will bow before me. In time the entirety of the planet will be mine. All will serve me. All will exist to serve me."
"Is that all the rest of humanity and the other races are good for: to be your servants? Did you never think they might want to serve their own ends?. To choose those ends too?" Arik challenged.
"But my dear Arik, the common herd often chooses so badly, even against their own long term interests. Here I am bringing this benighted land into the modern world, creating a functioning state apparatus staffed by competent administrators. I have suppressed inter-tribal warfare and blood feuds, introduced new crops on the farms and sewerage and sanitation in the newly built cities, and developed mining and manufactures. My regime provides schools, roads, and bridges."
"Yes," Arik affirmed, "you do those things but for your own benefit not theirs. Sewers and sanitation protect your workforce and military recruitment base from water borne disease. New crops feed your professional armies and legions of functionaries. Roads carry your armies to the borders and beyond to wars of conquest. You spend the lives of the male in endless wars. As for the women in your so-called modern state, even here in your capital city, they are treated as brood mares and drudges without minds or wills of their own. They suffer from the arbitrary authority of their menfolk. I would hate for my sisters to share their unhappy lot."
"Anyway, Urloch. What would you get out of world conquest beyond pride of ownership? You are already rich beyond the dreams of avarice. How much food can you eat, how many more girls, or is it boys, would you take to your bed were you the ruler of the world. Why not quit now? Be satisfied with what you already have. Lift these barbarians up to a civilization worthy of the name, not this sham of one you have created, nothing more than a military-industrial-religious nexus for conquest."
"Ah the cry of the downtrodden down the ages. No vision to see beyond the parochial and the immediate. As for me, it is not in my nature to be satisfied with less than I can seize. You ask why not quit. That is getting the question precisely backwards. Why should I quit?, I ask myself, and the answer I give myself is that there is no reason I should. Instead I shall push on and rule the entire planet, myself, alone, now and forever, world without end, amen."
Arik shook his head:
"And that sort of selfishness is why I decided to give my life to stop you and to save my homeland, my family and my friends, good people like Master Justin and Count Klarendes and his lover Aodh, and to avenge my lover Ran whom you murdered."
"Stoutly spoken, young Arik. though it was my predecessor who dispatched the strike force to Elysion, admittedly at my suggestion. Their target was Balan of course, not some no-account over-sexed elf-human hybrid. Maybe I will have your defiant words inscribed on your gravestone, something for me to look at from time to time as I contemplate eternity. Meanwhile in your last few moments, look on my works, Arik and mighty Balandur, and despair for your precious Commonwealth."
Rolf who had been silent up till then spoke up, interrupting the man's gloating.
"Only a madman would seek to conquer a whole world. Only a fool would want the burden of governing it. That is why you must be stopped. And we three are here to do just that."
"Even a so-called immortal like a life-leech can die or rather be killed. Know then that these are not only our own last moments but yours as well. I will let you live just long enough to despair as you see all your works crumble into dust. I am afraid that for all of your dreams of immortal glory, Urloch, 'Forever' will be a very short time indeed."
"Arik, the guards."
Arik reached out with his gift to Fetch poison arrowheads from the pouch lying at Urloch's feet and sent them flying at the guards before they could react. Like tiny black insects of death they flew down the length of the room and into the faces and necks of the armed men. Most of them dropped to the floor, their limbs quivering in a death rattle. Still, with so many arrowheads to control and so many targets, it was no surprise that three guards avoided Arik's attack. They drew their weapons and charged.
With a gesture, Rolf made their shackles rust through and fall away. Balan grinned as Arik Threw a sword into his hand. He met the remaining guards and cut them down.
"Nicely done." Urloch conceded, "but here in my throne room, I am prepared for any contingency."
He started to call for help but before he could say anything the gangly youth named Rolf raised his arms for dramatic effect and sent out a wave of psychic power, careful to shield the four of them in the throne room from its deadly effects. They came through unharmed, unaware that everyone else in the castle had just died.
Worried at the strange sensation he had just felt and by the two servants inexplicably fallen dead at his feet, Urloch called out in a strangled voice:
"Archers!"
But no arrows shot from hidden slots in the walls to impale his enemies.
"Guards! Urloch called desperately, but no one rushed in with weapons drawn. Rolf shook his head.
"No concealed archers behind the false wall, no squad of guards on call, nor any reaction force to muster in support of them. There is no one to succor you, Urloch. Every human being in the castle is dead except the four of us in this room. Their deaths gave me the last increment of power I needed to fuel my final strike. Look on your works, mighty Urloch and despair as they crumble all around you."
With that Rolf released his final strike, a wave of death that spread across the land, killing everyone and everything within half a day's ride of the castle. They died in an instant, unknowing, without pain or fear, dropping where they stood or sat or lay.
Very soon afterwards untended cook fires got loose and set the city of the newly dead ablaze, turning it into a gigantic funeral pyre for its populace.
Dahl and Merry witnessed all of it through Balan's and Rolf's eyes, for the giant and the anti-druid were the very last to die.
Immediately afterward, over their psychic link, came a rebound of life force from those whose lives Rolf's magic had extinguished. The surge was not a harbinger of death but of new life. Dahl's and Merry's inherent magics merged it, as he hoped it would, and transformed the unicorn back into the lovely elf-boy he had once been --except with hair turned snow white. This was Rolf's parting gift to his first love.
Merry ran his hands over his new body then held them out in front of him, looking at them wonderingly, his face reflecting his utter astonishment at his transformation back into an elf-boy. He opened and closed his fingers experimentally then clenched them into fists and raised them over his head shouting:
"Yes!"
Turning to Dahl he asked: <Did you know this would happen?>
"No, though Owain always hoped for something like this, to free the elf-boy living within your unicorn body."
.
"I hope his spirit in now with those of Balan and Arik."
"Well said, Dahl. We all feel their loss, but they made the supreme sacrifice so that others would live. As did Ran at the schoolhouse."
Then he looked over to Dahl and asked.
<I don't want to sound vain, but I am curious to see what I look like now. If only we had a mirror.>
The young druid shook his head.
"Trust me, you are absolutely lovely, Merry. You are exactly the comely elf-boy I always sensed living within your equine form. I don't know how to describe you other than to say that you are so beautiful, I find myself as much in love with your new form as with your old."
"Well for starters, you haven't realized it but you still have the power to speak mind to mind. I think you likely retain your other magical gifts as well. Well, maybe not that killer screech. Why don't you try calling a ball of light and starting a fire."
Merry did both handily. Then he and Dahl grappled in a test of strength, finding theirs matched pretty well.
"Now try making that shrub over there bloom out of season."
<But that is a task for a druid!>
"Try it anyway!"
Merry's pretty face scrunched up in an almost comical scowl as he concentrated on the bush. To his astonishment its buds split open and grew into bright yellow blossoms.
"You see. You absorbed some of my druidical magic as well. It is likely that with some months of study at Owain's feet, you could become a druid in your own right."
<Great, but what of us, Dahl.>
"Nothing is changed there, as far as I am concerned. I want the three of us to continue to be lovers: you, me, and Owain. We shall be life-partners, the three of us, living, learning, and loving together. And think of how much could we can do together for Haven and its peoples. Are you with me?"
<Yes, Dahl, count on it. I am with you and with Owain, the three of us together, now and forever after."
Author's Note
If you have enjoyed this story and others like it, consider making a donation to the Nifty Archive. It is so easy. They take credit cards.
This is my first pure fantasy tale for the Nifty Archive. It is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any person living or dead.
I decided to wind this tale up before I or my readers tired of it. I sometimes wish certain professional authors, who shall remain nameless, had refrained from extending a fantasy series to fourteen thick books. I mean, enough already.
I am sorry that I had to kill off that lively elven poplet Randell to provide Balan and Arik with a plausible motivation to sacrifice themselves to rid their world of the tyrant Urloch. I liked Ran a whole hell of a lot. It was not easy for me to write of his death. Sentimentalist that I am, the tears in my eyes made it hard to see the computer screen. I consoled myself with the thought that this fine boy would nevertheless live on in fond memory.
I really like all my characters. The youngsters are good kids, one and all. I think I might bring them back in a series of stand-alone tales, something on the order of 'Elf-Boy's Friends' where a single character from this novel becomes the protagonist of a particular story. We shall see if inspiration strikes.
Readers who like these stories might want to try my two series 'Daphne Boy' and 'Naked Prey' in the Gay/Historical section of the Archive. The newer series 'Andrew Jackson High' relates the trials and tribulations of five of its gay students. For links to these and other stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.
Comments and feedback welcome.