Elf-Boy and Friends

Elf Boy and Friends

Part 9 of 10

by George Gauthier

Chapter 37. The Giant and the Carpenter

"So, Taitos, my old friend. It's just the two of us now." Balandur mused.

"Well three of us, counting Esmeralda there." the giant amended as the ginger cat climbed onto the nobleman's lap. She turned in a circle then settled down, curling up with her head on her paws, the very picture of feline domesticity. The giant smiled at the personable feline.

Balandur was sitting on the veranda with his host Taitos Klarendes, Count of the Eastern March. With brandy snifters in hand both men were swirling, sniffing, and slowly sipping the strong spirit, as brandy aficionados were wont to do.

"You must miss him terribly."

The count was roused from his brown study long enough to nod and give his friend a rueful nod.

"Aodh is the light of life. No offense to any of the other lovely youths whose presence has graced these ancient halls, but no one comes close to matching him in youthful male beauty. Sometimes when he is in this big chair with me, I look down at his comely face and that sexy body which he is kind enough to put on display at all times, and... well he just takes my breath away."

"Then, when the inevitable physical reaction occurs, when he feels my manhood pressing against his hip, he looks up at me with that naughty smile of his, a smile that promises such excitement and delight."

"It's a wonder I haven't taken him more often right here, out on the veranda. The only thing that restrains me is the knowledge that sounds of lusty sexual congress might reach the ears of my sons. Much as they accept the wir boy as my lover, I know they would prefer that such activities be confined to their father's bed chamber."

"Not that we always do so. We both enjoy making love under the open sky. Early in our relationship, we went swimming near that honeymoon resort by the scenic waterfall here in Elysion. We swam and canoed and made love right there on the shore, where anyone walking the circuit of the lake might see us. We did the same thing during our idyll at Stone Mountain, after the battle."

"All I can do now is wait here at home and keep myself busy. Work helps take my mind off a separation that weighs heavily after only two months. It seems more like two years. And this mission is dangerous. There is a real chance he might not make it back at all."

The giant nodded. He knew the count was using him as a sounding board. Fine with him. Quite aside from his sympathy for a friend, he himself was a sometime lover of the young minstrel cum secret agent cum wir-panther.

"You know Taitos, by the time I met you twenty years ago, I had stopped cultivating close friendships. With my longevity, I had often outlived the good people I met and come to like. Eventually I vowed to never let anyone get close. Then you came along, someone with a lifespan of centuries thanks to your elven blood. So I let our initial contact ripen into a real friendship. I am so very glad that I let it happen."

"I remember those early days too, Balan. It was right after the great battle, the one where I went kill crazy. The Army sent you to do an assessment of the military campaign, an after-action report you called it. When you interviewed me, you found me a psychological basket case. You could have moved on. Yet you were patient with me and spent time helping me get over the loss of my friends and neighbors especially the horrid death of my lover Ahndray. Soon we found we had common interests. So we became friends and remain so to this day."

"And it's not our friendship, Taitos. You were the catalyst for other recent friendships, notably with these fine youngsters who are now so much a part of our lives: Dahl and Aodh, Jemsen and Karel, Ran and Arik.

"Yes and history repeats itself. Back when I was their age, like them, I found myself recruited for your clandestine missions in far off lands. Which was just what I needed. Our adventures took me away from my old haunts and gave me something constructive to do. I got to see the world or at least a good deal of it. And we did have fun didn't we?"

"Didn't we ever! Remember that time you fell off a roof into a hog wallow. You landed with a big kerplop right in among the porkers. Then when you tried to get to your feet, the pigs bowled you over. I don't know whether they were just hungry or maybe trying to mount you."

"Oh, very funny, Balan. Thanks to those damn pigs, I got completely coated with muck, making me look like a man made from mud, and I reeked to high heaven!"

"Which is why you flash incinerated the clothes and muck right off your body. That left you standing there stark naked your skin coated in gray ash. You looked like a statue carved from granite by a talented sculptor. There you were: a vision of youthful male pulchritude apparently preserved in stone. Funny how despite your youth and attractiveness, we kept our relationship platonic. It was enough for us to be firm friends."

"Enough for us, maybe, but you Balan were the only one there who knew we were not lovers. Everyone else assumed that the two of us, the huge man and his companion, the slender pretty boy all of sixteen, had to be lovers. My ears burned at the cat calls and suggestions they taunted me with, especially pungent comments about our mis-matched proportions!"

"It did not help that I had also burned off all my hair. I didn't have a feather anywhere, not on the top of my head nor at the fork of my legs, not even eyebrows, which is damnably inconvenient when you sweat. My magical immunity to my own fire does not extend beyond my skin."

"I thought your plight was funny as hell. And so did you Taitos, in the end. Once it sank in how ridiculous the situation was, you burst out laughing. I knew then that you were on your way to recovery."

Klarendes nodded ruefully at the memory of that embarrassing moment, but the look he gave his old friend was one of gratitude. Balan had been there for him in his time of need, something he would never forget.

As it happened, Balan had resumed his recurring romance with Arik, the young carpenter whom Klarendes had graciously invited to stay at the manor while Balan was in residence. The three of them sat were in the habit of sitting around the supper table after the meal and chatting into the evening.

After one particular supper, as Balan stood up, he jostled the table causing his empty goblet to fall off the edge. He didn't notice it himself but Arik did. Though the big youth was in no position to catch it, he tried anyway extending his arm toward it as it fell. The cup stopped in mid-air then flew into Arik's hand who held it up looking at it flabbergasted.

"What just happened?" he wondered aloud. Balan answered him.

"It must be your magical gift finally manifesting itself, Arik. Yours would be the gift of Fetching. Actually you will be able to Throw and Lift as well as Fetch. You can move things just by thinking about it. Now nothing will ever be out of reach, whether succulent apples high in the tree or a tool hanging on the far wall of your workshop. You will never miss with your sling either. In fact you don't even need a sling any more. Just Throw the stone or lead bullet right at the hare or pheasant. You can adjust its flight as your quarry twists and turns, so you cannot miss. If an enemy raises his sword to you, Fetch it out of his hand then Throw it back to him point first."

"So I can Fetch and Throw and Lift can I." Arik said looking around for something to try it on.

"Whoa! Careful there Arik. With your gift you might bonk someone with a flying object or break something. Practice alone for a while in an empty field. Set up stones or busted crockery. Sharpen your control. Only then use your skill indoors and around people."

"That sounds like good advice. I will do that, and thank you Balan."

"One further note, Arik," the giant continued, "I am thinking that you should carry a set of poison darts or better yet arrowheads. Fling them at a foe singly or in a bunch. You could bring down anyone or anything, even a Frost Giant or an aurochs. And another thing. Fetch the points back afterwards. Not only will you never run out of ammunition, you will leave your foes scratching their heads trying to figure out just how their fallen comrades were slain. Nothing like that kind of uncertainty to put fear into them."

Arik nodded, realizing that his gift was powerful indeed if used shrewdly. He decided he would carry his points in a wood lined pouch for safety. Arik couldn't help thinking that maybe now Balan would take him along on one of his missions. Arik's magical gift would surely come in handy on a reconnaissance mission. His magical gift would make him more of an equal partner with Balan rather than just a youth employed in his service. They might do great things together. Arik could take out sentries quietly or disarm opponents by Fetching their weapons from their scabbards. People often hung their keys on a nail or peg. Simple enough for Arik to have them jump into his hand.

Why, when he thought about it, his power could be used in dozens of ways. Which was great. Now he would be a real asset on future missions, with his Fetching and Throwing and Lifting plus his fieldcraft and skill with long knife. Admittedly he did need more practice with the quarterstaff.

When he broached his hopes to the giant, Balan agreed. He did need someone to travel with him on his new mission. It was always wise to have another pair of eyes to watch your back or simply to stand watch when you yourself slept. With the twins, Aodh, and Ran away on their mission, that left Balan short handed.

"So why are you so ready to take me along, Balan, me, of all people, a simple carpenter. Do I strike you as adventurer?"

"You are more of an adventurer than you give yourself credit for son, else you would not have volunteered as you did."

Arik rather liked thinking of himself as an adventurer. After meeting real heroes like Aodh and Dahlderon, the twins Jemsen and Karel, and even that little scamp Ran with his girl-magnet battle scar on his ribs, Arik realized that he hadn't done that much with his life so far, had not made his mark nor joined the fight against the common foe. Here was a chance to do something noteworthy.

A patriotic youth, he wanted to protect his homeland from its enemies. That meant not only Elysion but the Commonwealth at large, the heart and shield of civilization on the continent. Like many a brawny nineteen year old youth Arik had a head full of dreams in which he fantasized himself the hero in great adventures without really expecting to participate in one. Now he was about to set forth on secret mission with Balandur, a legendary Hand of the Commonwealth.

"Thank you for the endorsement, Arik, but being a legend is a handicap in my work. Too many people now know who I am and what I am. We Hands are not supposed to be public figures, after all. I can no longer go undercover as a mercenary, bodyguard, or caravan rider."

Balan later spoke to Klarendes.

"I have asked Arik to join me on this mission. He is willing but cannot just abandon his position as a journeyman carpenter. That would leave his master in the lurch. Could you have a word with the man. Ask him to release the boy into my service? I can authorize payment of funds to hire temporary help with something extra for his trouble."

"I don't see a problem with any of that. I will speak with Master Justin in the morning. Consider it settled."

"Can I ask where you are going, Balan?"

"Not only can you ask, this time I can answer you."

"Hallelujah! Will wonders never cease?"

"Come on, Taitos. I am not as close-mouthed as all that."

There ensued a pregnant pause during which the amused nobleman said nothing but simply looked steadily at his friend, one eyebrow raised skeptically.

"All right, all right. So maybe I am."

The two good friends chuckled companionably.

"We need to know what the Frost Giants are up to. Our scouts tell us they have dropped from sight. Large as they are even giants can hide under a forest canopy, maybe even camouflage themselves in open country with the right training. I hope they don't have magic cloaks like the druids, but who knows. So that's my job."

"What about the centaurs?"

"We know where they are encamped. You cannot hide the passage of an entire people across the open plains. We keep them under aerial or should I say avian observation thanks to a journeyman druid lent us by Owain, Dahl's mentor. They are still in the far north but no longer in the Hot Lands. The centaurs need a breather after the ordeal of their crossing. Their line of march is littered with corpses of centaurs overcome by heat and thirst. Two thousand of them and good riddance I say. I only wish more had died, but they travelled by night, from one fresh-dug waterhole to the next. By day they sheltered under canopies relying on the winds to carry off excess body heat. It bears out what you said about someone on the other side finally using his head. And providing the means, like those white canopies."

A few days later, the two adventurers set out on foot. It wasn't just that Arik did not know how to ride. It was easier to travel stealthily on foot. Horses are big and easy to spot in open country. Their riders make fine targets perched in a saddle. A horse's tracks are unmistakeable and a dead giveaway since horses generally did not run wild in those parts. Find a hoof print, you can expect a rider. Horses can be tracked by the piles of dung they dump along the way or near camps. The smell itself is a giveaway. Finally, horses have an annoying tendency to communicate with others of their kind with nickers and neighs, just when you are trying to avoid discovery by riders whom you would rather avoid.

For this mission, Arik set aside his habitual nudity for a modest loincloth that not only girded his loins physically and psychologically, but gave him a belt to hang the scabbard of his long knife plus the pouch of poison arrowheads. The rest of his kit went into a pack hung from the end of the quarterstaff which he rested on his shoulder, balancing it with his left arm. Arik's skills with a staff were merely adequate so Balan wanted to train him as they went.

Maybe Arik was just a carpenter, but his magical gift made him a more powerful ally than both the twins put together or even the young wir-panther for that matter. Of all their company only Dahl's druidic powers and Klarendes firecasting were more powerful than Fetching.

Nevertheless Arik did wonder if he were Balan's second or even third choice. So he put it to the giant:

"Would you have taken Aodh with you instead of me, if he were available?"

"Don't try to compare yourself to someone who isn't fully human. You have a lot that recommends you, Arik, your strength, martial arts training, your skill with a knife, and now there is your Fetching power. Anyway taking Aodh along was never in the cards. The only thing that could tear him away from Count Klarendes was his sense of duty to his homeland and to our cause. He will be back in your valley soon enough. That will make the count very happy. Those two lovebirds are an inspiration to all of us.

"Speaking of lovebirds, do you expect to take me to your bed tonight?"

"Now that is a clever transition to a new subject of conversation. Here is my answer: take you, no. Invite you to join me, yes. And no hard feelings if say no."

They both grinned knowing that would not happen.

Now Arik was a big lad, but even he could not take Balandur's giant cock all the way. The giant was hugely endowed, even in proportion to his size. And he towered more than a foot and a half over the red-haired youth. As ever with all the youths he had swived over the years, Balan exercised great care lest he inflict injury with his dimensions, his bulk, and his strength.

Which is why he usually let his partners straddle him as he lay supine, letting them position their hungry holes over his rampant member, letting them set the rhythm and pace and control how far they would sink down onto it. Meanwhile Balan himself got to play with their tits and boy cocks, a fair arrangement in his mind. His boys seemed to agree. Many of them had kept coming back for more.

For all his vigor as a lover, the giant was not only careful but attentive to the needs of his partners. Sexual pleasure should be shared not just taken by one from another. The giant was fully aware of the virtues of foreplay, disdaining overly assertive males who seemed to reduce lovemaking to simple animal rut. Kissing, petting, murmuring sweet nothings were part of it too, and those who did not understand that, well more fools they.

Balan loved to watch the faces of the boys he was fucking, first that look of alarm as they realized the dimensions of their undertaking, so to speak, then the uncertainty and fear. Gosh a pretty boy could look ever so cute biting his lower lip nervously in anticipation. But a boy with spunk would soon exchange that pusillanimous mien for one of determination that showed that, no matter what, he was resolved to take it. And it made him shed his virgin's blood, well, what a way to go!

As the boy let his weight slip the head of that giant cock past his sphincters, his face would contort with pain while sweat erupted from his brow and ran down his brows and nose. Gulping at the enormity of the task before him, or was't it really behind him, the boy would grit his teeth and give the giant another inch of two then take time out for a breather, to let his body adjust to the intruder pushing into his guts. Once the lover moved past that stage, things would became easier. Pain receded, replaced by visceral pleasure. Soon a boy was delirious with lust, riding his lover to an eruptive climax.

Which was just how things went between the giant and his newest conquest, the handsome carpenter from the secluded vale of Elysion.

Ironically the first real use Arik made of his new found magical gift was to Fetch one of Esmeralda's kittens down from a tree. The runt of her fifth litter, the little ball of fluff had gotten himself stranded up an apple tree. Esmeralda had come up to Arik meowing, obviously wanting him to follow her and perform some service. He did so and found the treed kitten mewling piteously. Poor little thing. Arik Fetched it into his hands and held the warm little body to his face close enough to feel the beat of its tiny heart. Then using both hands he placed the kitten ever so gently on the ground in front of his mother who picked him by the scruff of the neck in her jaws and carried him away to her nest.

That earned him a nod of thanks from Lord Klarendes. Everyone knew how he and Aodh doted on the personable ginger cat. Folks said she was the true mistress of the manor. A pardonable exaggeration, though Arik himself was well aware of her imperious ways. And even one those occasions when her mischief got her into momentary disfavor, she soon got back into the good graces of whomever she had offended. After allowing her target enough time for his or her temper to cool she launched a charm offensive. Of course her targets knew they were being manipulated but that was no defense. If you weren't vulnerable to a feline charm offensive, you would not be living with a cat in the first place.

1. Frost Giants

"So Balan. When are we going to see a Frost Giant. We have been on the trail for weeks now, and so far we have seen nothing."

"We will see them all too soon, I am afraid. I just hope they don't see us."

"Where do Frost Giants come from anyway?"

"From a land far away, in the northern hemisphere actually. But they have the wanderlust and can be found almost anywhere on this planet, whether alone or in small groups. Actually we are practically neighbors, my people and the Frost Giants. Our lands lie on opposite sides of a mountain range running east and west. They live to the north, we to the south in a climate sheltered by the mountains. Relations are amicable and we trade peacefully and sometimes intermarry. The Frost Giants are not an evil lot, but they look down on other peoples as beneath them, and I don't just mean that physically. The Frost Giants might not be full-fledged barbarians, but they are not fully housebroken either, if you take my meaning."

"Why the name Frost Giants?"

They live at the end of a broad peninsula that projects into the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere and atop a high plateau that allows snow to fall and accumulate in winter. It turns cold enough to freeze the still water in ponds though not the running water in rivers and streams. It is not perpetual winter like in the polar islands, but it gets chilly enough, believe me. Brrr."

"So why are the Frost Giants here in the tropics, and how many do you think there are?"

"If I knew that, I would never have undertaken this trek. No doubt our Adversary or his Dark Prophet has promised them something, gold maybe, or land, even commercial monopolies or the right to tithe trade caravans. A conqueror has many boons within his gift, if only he wins."

Suddenly a gigantic figure burst through the surrounding brush.

"Aha, interlopers, just as I suspected,. I spotted your fire from the fell above, probably from the only angle it was visible. That is good fieldcraft, I will give you that much. Now what would a human boy and a mongrel aspiring to be a giant be doing in these parts? Up to no good certainly."

The Frost Giant raised his horn to signal the rest of his patrol. Quick as thought, Arik Fetched it right out of his hand. Arik held the horn up and grinned at the Frost Giant's discomfiture.

"You would signal for help, would you?" Balan sneered. "Surely you aren't afraid of this boy and me. Does a genuine Frost Giant nearly twice our size really need help to handle a youth and a giant-human mongrel? Friend Arik, I think this over-grown fellow here might be a coward. On second thought, maybe he is not so stupid as he looks. Perhaps he realizes that he confronts a Dread Hand of the Commonwealth, and not just any Hand but the fearsome Balandur himself."

"Never heard of you, Dread Hand or not."

"So you pretend."

"What are you getting at?"

"A fair fight. We square off, bare-handed, just you and me. The boy stays out of it. If you win, you can question the boy and get from him what he knows. If I win, we smash your horn and you go on your way but do not track us yourself. The delay should give us time to go to ground or put some distance between us."

"What if I don't like that deal?"

"Then I attack before you can summon help, the two of us taking our chances in armed combat with the advantage going not to the strongest nor to the bravest, but to the one with the better weapons and with the advantages of skill and speed and agility."

"Which would be you?"

"Which would be me. Remember I am a Dread Hand of the Commonwealth. I do this for a living."

"Agreed, then. No tricks now, Balandur."

"You have the word of a Hand of the Commonwealth."

"That is precisely what worries me." the Frost Giant retorted.

The two of them dropped their weaponry and set themselves for a brawl. The Frost Giant topped Balan by more than a head and was broader. It looked like an unequal contest till Balan moved. He feinted left then spun to his right, taking his opponent from the side, kicking his left knee hard, breaking the joint and bringing his opponent down.

The giant let out a roar of pain as he fell to earth with a crash. As the frost giant struggled to right himself, Balan snapped a kick to his head, stunning him. Pouncing on his back, the Hand gripped the Frost Giant's hair and chin and rotated the head like an owl's. Only Frost Giants are not owls, and their heads do not rotate well at all. The neck bones snapped, and, as the Hand of the Commonwealth let go, his enemy's limp body fell dead against the earth."

"Wow! How did you do that Balan. You were so strong and moved so fast?"

"One of my magical gifts doubles my strength, which makes me as strong as most Frost Giants but with less bulk to move around. That is why I could move so much faster than he was prepared for. Remember too that regardless of size the knee is a vulnerable joint which shatters when bent the wrong way"

"But what if the Frost Giant had won?"

"With your gift, you could have taken the Frost Giant down yourself by Throwing a few of those poison arrowheads of yours into his body. I really like that tactic you invented for attacking from all sides at once. It's impossible to defend against. More power to you, Arik."

"Thanks. The idea just came to me one day during practice. I realized that if I first flung a few points in a high arc then Throwing others straight at the target, I could simply let the second bunch proceed on their own, with the impetus I had given them, while Fetching the others back towards me with the target in between. No way any shield or armor can cover all directions at once. And to make it just that much easier, I could blind my foe right at the beginning by Fetching his eyeballs out of his head."

"Wicked. You are learning to think like a real fighter, Arik. Here let me take a look at that horn, will you?"

Arik smiled and nodded, pleased at the giant's endorsement of his abilities.

The giant examined the incised designs on the horn. He explained that he knew the signals Frost Giants used, which were the same the world over. The horn just might come in handy for misdirection. Not having a convenient place for it on his weapons belt he gave it back into Arik's safekeeping. The boy slung its cord over his chest and shoulder where the horn would be handy but out of the way.

They set off at a good pace though not at a run. There was no need to hurry and every reason for caution. Balan knew not to push his luck even it it seemed like it would be easy to elude any local pursuit from scouts as yet unaware that one of their own had been killed or that the enemy was on the prowl. The enemy patrols were carried out by more than Frost Giants. Humans from the barbarian lands were also in evidence. Fortunately their fieldcraft was poor and Balan's was excellent, and the enemy scouts were basically going through the motions, complacent about their security this far north.

During their reconnaissance Balan occasionally used the horn for misdirection, signaling all clear when he thought patrols might be closing on his and Arik's position accidentally. He was sure they were never actually spotted nor their spoor tracked.

Arik was impressed by the giant's field craft. For all his size he trod the earth lightly, nearly silently and somehow managed to push through tangled brush without making a whole lot of noise. Though there was that one time his foot dislodged loose rocks knocking them over the edge of a ravine. The giant grimaced at the sound the rocks would make as they bounced down the rocky slope or when they hit the bottom, but Arik's quick thinking saved the day. With his gift he snatched all the stones out of the air even as they fell and placed them gently and quietly on a mossy bed. That drew an approving nod from the giant. This young carpenter made a fine ally indeed.

Balan had Arik dig sanitary holes deep and cover them with earth mixed with strong smelling leaves to conceal the smell of their bodily waste. The second step was to sweep all traces away and lay twigs or leaves or other litter on the ground to match the surroundings. As the giant explained, their own poo smelled different from that of Frost Giants or even their human barbarian allies because of dissimilar diets. A scout could tell a lot from such a deposit, including not only their species but likely how long ago the deposit was made.

They often slept up a tree but not so far up that they could not climb down quickly and take off. Balan showed his young companion how to cut a vine loose at the roots and drag the end up with him into his lair in the trees. If need be, the boy could swing on the vine out of reach of anyone at the foot of the trunk, to later join up with Balan at a rally point. Too bad Balan could not use that tactic. Giants aren't any good at swinging from trees. He used a vine merely to keep himself from rolling out of the tree in his sleep.

Such security measures took time but were worth it. They let the scouts get a good night's sleep. Fortunately neither of them snored. The rumbling sound of a human snore is distinctive and it carries surprisingly far in the still of the night. They knew that they both were silent sleepers from their trysts at the Klarendes' manor house.

Each evening the giant went over the day's events with his helper, pointing out lessons in tactics and fieldcraft and surveillance. He reviewed what he had done wrong, what he had done right, and where he might have done worse or better. He was giving the boy a good grounding in the age old techniques scouts use to get the intel they sought and get back with it alive. One strict rule: don't write anything down. Memorize till you were safe and only then put it on paper.

Eventually after long wanderings in the Northlands, the Commonwealth scouts discovered that the Frost Giants were building a stronghold and staging area for great armies, both human and centaur. This would be the assembly area for the eventual invasion.

The decision to call in the giants was an inspired one. With their great strength the giants needed neither large numbers nor draft animals to carry the work forward, making it much easier to keep hidden. The enemy had started the project by planting a belt of fast growing birch and alder across the only sightline into the building site. Camouflage netting hid most of the construction from aerial reconnaissance, however unlikely that was this far north. The over-stretched druids could not spare more than one journeyman druid for the task.

From the pace of the work and its ambitious dimensions, it looked like it might take two years to complete even with a labor force of giants. Then would come the chore of stocking the installation with food and fodder and clothing in barns, storehouses, and granaries. Weapons and ammunition would go into the armories. The giants also built the workshops any army needs: forges for blacksmiths and farriers, leather works for tack and saddlers, woodsheds for carpenters, etc. It was a vast undertaking and all part of a long range plan aimed at the complete destruction of the Commonwealth.

Still, Balan could not help wondering what stroke the enemy was preparing against its other great enemy, the druids in their forest fastness to the south. It surely would not be another clumsy invasion. Balan was totally at a loss, but he had a very bad feeling about it. He only hoped the planners in the capital could devise a plan based on Dahl's intelligence whereby a strike force might decapitate the enemy state or cult or alliance, or whatever it really was.

Chapter 39. Elf-boys and Druid

Dahl and Aodh and Ran soaked their tired bodies in the large hot tub the twins and Ran had constructed during their long vigil at the safe house. It was big enough for all three of their diminutive bodies. None of three young males stood more than Dahl's five foot one with Aodh an inch shorter and Ran at tad shorter than that. Their slender wiry physiques left plenty of room to stretch their legs for a good soak.

Ran ducked his head underwater, tossing his dark blond locks as he emerged. Blond elves were a rarity, in his case due to his one quarter human blood. Dahl and Aodh wore their dark hair medium length. The young druid had decided he did not care for the long mane that Merry had promised he would grow. It just got in the way. And as nearly a senior druid himself, Dahl was his own man, still Merry's friend, but no longer his protege.

It was Ran who had come across the hot spring bubbling out of the ground on the bluff behind the farm they were staying at. Dahl used earth magic to re-route its waters past the farmhouse to fill the wood lined pit that was their hot tub. To make the temperature tolerable, he mixed the hot water from the spring with a second flow from the stream that ran through the property.

"Ah, I can finally relax." the weary wir sighed. "All this running around in panther form takes its toll. As a cat, I am not built for long distance travel except at a walk. No wonder I am worn out after the better part of a month on circuit collecting intel from our string of wir agents. It didn't help that on my return, as I got close to base, I had to outfox, you should pardon my vocabulary, a bunch of angry farmers who pinned the blame for recent losses of lambs and calves on a black panther. I happen to know their livestock were taken by a pack of wolves which recently moved into the area."

"Did you take it out on the wolves?" the druid asked anxiously. As a druid he was a defender of Nature's way.

"Of course not, Dahl. Wolves do not kill wantonly but only at need. It is in their nature, as natural predators. Who would understand that better than a wir-panther? And no, I did not take it out on the farmers either, who were just defending their legitimate interests. Nobody is at fault so there is nobody to punish, including me. I mean, this close in to our base, I know better than to kill local livestock and rouse the country folk."

"The farmers had thought they had surrounded their quarry, but I tricked them and avoided a confrontation by changing back to human form. I walked right past a dozen of them, greeting everyone politely, looking much like any other naked farm boy on an errand. Some of the hunters were grown men in tunics or loincloths with a few youths and young men as naked as myself. Folks around here are like those across the continent, juveniles usually run around nude while older males have the option of clothing."

"As I understand it, young males here live with their families rather than in communal youth lodges. Even so they are still socially if not spatially segregated from nubile females in other households. No wonder I drew such hungry looks from them. To explain my presence in these parts, I reminded a couple of farmers whom I had met before that I worked for the twins in their orchards."

"Naturally, with your epicene look, they assumed you not only worked here, you bent over for your employers."

"Which is only the truth. I do the same for all of you except Merry, who does not know what he is missing."

<I heard that!> the unicorn snorted in mind speech.

Actually Aodh was very choosy these days about whom took him to bed. He was loyal to Count Klarendes, his lover in Elysion but he also cared for those with whom he had forged a bond during their trek crossing the continent. That short list included Dahl and the twins and, by extension, their "third twin" Randell. Aodh and Balan often found themselves widely separated though he knew the giant still fancied him and vice-versa.

Dahl was well past his rent boy days too. There was Aodh, the twins and Ran too as a fellow elf-boy. Merry was still a lover but not Balan any longer. His other lover was his mentor Owain who was far away in the stronghold of the druids in the Great Southern Forest. Not just an expanse of trees, the Forest was a million square miles of green sentience and was the ally of the druids and through them of the Commonwealth.

As part of their intelligence work in the barbarian lands, Aodh and Dahl did seduce a number of comely young men and boys and subtlety questioned them during pillow talk. But that was business, not love. Still all of the five young males had put their period of promiscuity behind them. In the past, they had financed their long journey across the continent buy selling their charms. They had had no problem attracting custom.

Dahl and Aodh, were taking a well-deserved break from their arduous traveling as spies in enemy territory, the lands of the Eastern Barbarians. The safe house lay in friendly territory, far to the south and east of that vast realm.

Their field agents, seven wirs from Aodh's homeland, gathered the raw intel and turned it over to Dahl and Aodh, who brought it back to the safe house. To maintain security, the other seven never got anywhere close. At their base, the blond human twins Jemsen and Karol compiled all reports into a systematic description of the barbarian lands and society, and drew maps of their vast lands.

Which was why Ran was also there. Where the twins went, so went the elf-boy Ran, their Boy Friday and general factotum and boy toy and vice-versa. None of them bothered with clothing, as only fitting for elf-boys and the human elf-friends who had reverted to the clothing free life-style of the elves. Also their preference for same gender sexual relationships.

Of full human stock, the twins Jemsen and Karel, now twenty, were of medium height, slender, crowned with cornsilk blond hair, and incredibly cute and sexy. At eighteen Ran was the youngest by almost two years, barely five foot tall, lithe and svelte, his dark blond hair cut short.

Dahl was a walking wet dream, slender yet muscular, tanned, taut and toned with good shoulders, a ripped torso with corrugated abdominals, a flat belly and narrow hips. He had one of those impossibly small waists you could almost put your hands around and a pert rump, with small but firm and shapely buns. No hair interrupted the flow of his faultless lines. Elves never grow body hair, even at the fork of the legs, and are beardless. The same was true of the others though in the case of the twins it was due to potions the elves had applied to their skins when they were adopted as elf-friends.

As for Aodh, small, skinny, and smooth muscled, comely as an angel, with a skin like porcelain, and looking utterly fragile and vulnerable, his large green eyes dominated the stunning face of an androgynous youth which tapered from a broad brow down a pert nose to a narrow chin. Adding to his fey look, the wir boy cum minstrel was sloe-eyed, his orbs shaped like almonds and slanted faintly upward above prominent cheekbones.

The epicene youth was actually two or three times as strong as he looked thanks to his magical wir nature. Dahl was much the same standing some five feet one even and even stronger from druidical magic. He also had superhuman reflexes and senses.

Except for the identical twins, each of the five youths was distinctly different in looks, each the epitome of his type. The young druid was the raven maned filly of the bunch and preternaturally lovely. The rangy twins were a pair of palomino colts, boisterous and rambunctious, exuding good health and sex appeal. With the sleek and smooth physique of a dancer and an impossibly cute face, the wir and sometime minstrel was the playful kitten of the bunch and the only left hander. Ran was a little imp or scamp, irrepressible and impossible both, not to mention both ambidextrous and bisexual.

Just then Ran was horsing around in the bath, splashing the twins, tossing bath water into the air with cupped hands, squeezing his palms together to force water to shoot up like a water spout.

'Thar she blows!" he called in imitation of the sailors on the Great Inland Freshwater Sea. Karel rubbed his head affectionately.

"Have you ever wondered why same sex relationships are so common on Haven?" Dahl ventured to ask.

"Actually, Dahl, I never thought it the least bit strange. It seems perfectly natural to me. Part of the order of things" Karel replied. Otherwise you can be sure I would have asked professor Balandur about it.

"Isn't that the truth!" Ran piped.

"You are right. Same sex seems natural now, here on Haven, but it was not always so. Ages ago humans lived on a single planet with many different cultures, some hostile to same gender relationships. In time the mechanical arts and knowledge of natural philosophy of the humans became so advanced they allowed mankind to spread to many worlds around distant suns. In that long ago age, humans experimented with their heredity, modifying their bodies to create sentient races that had existed only in myths and legends like elves, dwarves, and giants."

"Those who favored sex with other males combined with others of like mind to pool their wealth and power and knowledge to create the race of elves, Women who favored women joined them, providing for the propagation of new generations, in ways you are familiar with. The elves settled many planets and sought to live in peace with others and in communion with nature."

"The civilization of the ancients reached stupendous heights. It lasted for millennia before crashing down in great wars and ecological collapse. It survives in isolated and remote enclaves in cultures that now accept the need for limits and caution. The heedlessness of the ancients led them to poison and deplete the environments of most of their planets. Even worse, intolerance among the different species lead to wars of unimaginable ferocity, some of them fueled by religious zealotry and social prejudice, especially against the worlds of the elves who were damned and condemned for their nigh unto universal practice and approval of same gender sex. Worlds ruled by the zealots waged holy war against the elves and their allies, giants, humans, and others. Eventually the losers retreated through a portal in space to planets like Haven, lying in an island universe far far away from their origins."

The twins nodded and said: "Even here on Haven there is a degree of social prejudice and religious zealotry and intolerance. The barbarians are the prime example but there are also those backward peoples of the desert who oppress their females and ban the display of the human body, whether male or female."

"Enough history for today. Who is for supper? Personally I am famished."

The unicorn Meirionnydd or Merry was on hand for long distance communications. He could reach Balan anywhere on the planet with his mind speech. More than that, he could transmit images of the twins' maps and drawings to Balan in a sort of reverse of the magic by which druids sent their consciousness into animal scouts. Balan had no particular ability in making maps, but he was an good sketch artist, as anyone involved in reconnaissance would have to be. He caught the transmitted images then sketched them out quickly and also transcribed the textual material.

The idea was that even if the safe house were discovered and overrun, much of their intel would already be in the hands of the Commonwealth.

The payoff was so great that the Forces of Light, as they now knew their enemies called them, had risked so many of their best people on the perilous venture.

At night, Ran slept sandwiched with the twins on a triple bed he had constructed early on. Dahl and Aodh took the guest room together. Given all their hard work, it is not surprising that sleep rather than frolic was on the agenda.

Chapter 40. Barbarian Raids

About mid-morning a ten-day later, the local shire reeve, Sir Tomas Drew, came by with a posse of locals. The twins were at work in the orchards, up in the trees, checking grafts and evaluating new growth. Ignoring scratches and scrapes on the rough bark, the nude boys gave a convincing portrayal of horticulturalists at work, which was the cover for the spy operation. As the locals approached, the blond boys waved cheerily and called the news of the arriving visitors to the others.

Merry made himself scarce. It was not generally known that a unicorn lived at the farm and he preferred to keep it that way, lest he draw attention to their operation. Dahl and Ran went out to greet the visitors, showing their peaceful intentions by leaving their weapons in the farm house. The posse of seven men and youths surely had nothing to fear from two tiny nude elf-boys greeting them with empty hands.

"Good morrow, Sir Tomas", Dahl offered. "What brings you way out here, and in such company?"

Which was a subtle reminder that Dahl had paid the man to discourage visitors and idle curiosity.

"Barbarians. Raiders have infiltrated over the mountains. So far just probes, though just what they are looking for is anyone's guess. They question those they seize about foreigners operating in these parts, persons who have an unhealthy interest in the goings-on in the lands of the barbarians. The raiders sometimes leave those whom they question unmolested, though they kill anyone who resists. I have to wonder why anyone from around here would be spying on their lands. I don't suppose you would know anything about that, would you now?" he asked shrewdly.

Evidently his duty to respond to the threat to his own people meant more to him than any bribe from Dahl. A honest man then, even if his curiosity was rather inconvenient.

"What can I say, sir reeve? Obviously such an intelligence operation as you suppose is going on would have to maintain plausible deniability. What then would you have us do, sir? Even if what you suspect were true and we cleared out, would that stop these raids?"

"It very well might, in time, if you fellas were no longer stirring the pot."

"So you figured it all out, then."

"Son, I always figured the bunch of you for secret agents of the Commonwealth. That was why I was so cooperative. I support the Commonwealth and its aims. It is just too bad the Commonwealth is so far away, otherwise I wouldn't mind if my own country became an associated state. Everyone knows the chief enemy of the barbarians and the defender of civilization is the Commonwealth of the Long River. Still, there is no way they can protect my people, not from so far away."

"So I have to ask you to clear out entirely. And that means all of you, those on four feet as well as those who go about on two. Did your unicorn friend really think that a snow white horse with a long horn would go unnoticed in these parts."

Merry sent ruefully, clopping into view.

"Meanwhile these men and I are heading out to check reports of raiders operating a little north of here. You are welcome to come along."

Which was a test of their good intentions. Smart man, this shire reeve.

"We'll get our kit and be ready in no time."

So Dahl and the twins collected their weapons and packs and joined the posse. Merry insisted on going along after being cooped up on the farm for so long. Meanwhile Ran would watch over the base of operations, while Aodh took off in panther form to reel in the spy network and send his operatives home. He expected to be gone for three weeks.

Whistles greeted the sight of three lovely nude youths marching as to war. A triple vision of youthful male pulchritude, smoothly muscled and with tawny glabrous skins, the boys looked even younger and more inviting than their tender years would suggest. None of them had an extra ounce on their trim and taut physiques, their wiry musculatures a testimony to clean living and hard work.

The twins had brought their bows and kukris while the young druid brought along just a staff, which drew a skeptical response from the shire reeve.

"Just a stick, youngling? That is good for close-in work but what about fighting at a distance. You don't have a sling or bow or even throwing knives."

"Don't worry" the twins assured him. "Dahl is a distance weapon all by himself. With any luck, he'll whistle up a herd of brontotheres to deal with the problem."

Seeing he wasn't going to get an explanation for that cryptic remark, the good man turned and lead the way down the trail. As they walked the druid assured the shire reeve that their agents would soon withdraw from the lands of the barbarians. A liaison officer was on his way even as they spoke.

"A liaison officer, eh? That wouldn't be a certain sloe-eyed raven-haired beauty in his kitty-kat form, now would it?"

"Dahl laughed ruefully. "And here we thought we were being so discreet and so clever about the whole thing. How did you know Aodh was a wir?"

"I could just say it was those cat-like eyes of his or his panther-like grace plus the reports of a black panther seem coming and going though never making a confirmed kill. We don't have panthers around here. Fact is though, once I knew how he pronounced and spelled his name, I knew him for a wir. No other people writes with so little regard for phonetic accuracy."

That set the twins to chuckling. "Karel has been saying that for years." Jemsen said, grinning. "And it is not just wirs. My brother and I once worked for a man whose name was spelled W-R-O-C-L-A-W, but he pronounced it Vrot-swaf."

The shire reeve shook his head in mock regret. "Clever men go to all the trouble to invent an alphabet making literacy easier to acquire, and these characters spoil it. Pun intended."

"You are a man after my own heart!" Karel assured him.

"I'll hold you to that, pretty one, say tonight, in my bed roll."

Karel's mouth dropped open in surprise. For once he was blessedly speechless.

"My brother is shameless, Sir Tomas, but very good in bed, as you may soon find out for yourself."

Seeing himself entrapped by his own wit, Karel decided to be a good sport about it. After all, though the reeve was in his late thirties and with some gray at his temples, the tall lean official was a man of striking looks, if not classically handsome. So why not take a tumble with him? Besides Karel did not want to be thought a cock tease, prancing around in the nude, letting everyone see the clench and twitch of his buns as he walked along. Let good man Drew take those as a foretaste of good things to come. And anyway, cooped up as they were on the farm, Karel had an itch that needed scratching and ached for a change of pace.

They reached the first of the burnt-out homesteads near evening. Three dead including a woman lay sprawled out in grisly death, but no children, fortunately. The posse buried the remains in the farmer's own herb garden marking the common grave with a cairn, then set up their camp. Within the shelter of the standing walls and hearth the shire reeve insisted they make a small smokeless fire to cook their supper. A hot meal was important to keep up not only their strength but also their morale.

The reeve talked with Dahl and the twins companionably enough. "So what are your magical gifts, youngsters?"

Most sentients on the planet had a magical gift. One of the most common was calling light, a globe of illumination without heat hovering overhead. Two of the locals in the posse had that gift, though they knew not to invoke it lest the glow gave away their position. The shire reeve himself was an empath, a person who could sense the emotions of others though not read specific thoughts. His gift allowed the shire reeve to separate truth from falsehood, a talent of obvious use in law enforcement. More generally it helped him understand and to gauge other people. For their part, the twins told him that theirs was the gift of unerring direction, useful for their original role as hunters and bowmen and then as military scouts during the Second War for the Plains.

"There must be more to it than that." the reeve said. "Oh you two look like young innocents, but you don't earn a designation as elf-friend or dwarf-friend, much less both, without some extraordinary accomplishments."

Jemsen admitted that was true but suggested the man question his brother Karel further when he took him to his bed. Which was also a good way for him to deflect inquiries about Dahl's magical gifts. Jemsen knew that Dahl was reluctant to admit that he was a druid and one of the most powerful magic wielders on the planet.

That night, the lawman did take Karel to his bed roll, commandeering one corner of the common room to spread it out. The couple had no privacy, but Karel was a former rent boy and not shy about making love in public. The shire reeve was so excited to take such a lovely creature to bed he couldn't have cared less if his wife were watching. So with much oohing and aching and cries and moans, they consummated the man's longing for the boy he fancied. Karel was surprised to find the man ready for a second go before they went to sleep and once again in the morning. A lusty man was the good shire reeve Tomas Drew.

In the morning they set out once more. They had marched only an hour before Merry caught a scent and sent warning.

A bowstring twanged and an arrow thrummed through the air aimed straight at the shire reeve. Just before it pierced the man's breast, Dahl reached out and snatched in from the air. He then used it as a stick to swat a second arrow out of the way. The man was so astonished he stood there mouth agape. Dahl dragged them both to safety as the twins gave covering fire with their bows. Dahl smiled as he handed the man the arrow that would have slain him.

"Keep it as a souvenir, with my compliments. We must have been under observation for a while, for them to pick you out as our leader. You have been quite circumspect about your exercise of authority. Let me guess. You were in the military for a while."

"Aye. During my misspent youth, it was. I actually joined a mercenary outfit. Now that I am older, I know better than to go looking for trouble. So what's next? That herd of brontotheres, maybe?"

Dahl ignored his friendly jibe and reached out with his senses, finding only three raiders concealed in the brush lying in the ambush. It took but a thought for the druid to have the plants twine themselves around the raiders' limbs and hold them in place.

"It's all right." Dahl called out to his own side. "They are helpless, held fast right over there in that clump of brush."

As members of the posse collected their prisoners, the shire reeve looked at him appraisingly.

"So, my young friend; you are a druid. That is not something I suspected though I would dearly love to say I had, if only to reinforce my reputation for omniscience."

"Now you know why I do not bear a blade into combat nor need a distance weapon."

Their prisoners screamed defiance and would tell them nothing till Dahl had them staked out on the ground, their clothing cut off.

"Shall I invite the swarm of red ants in that big earthen nest yonder to feast on your flesh? It is a bad way to go, getting eaten alive by such small creatures. They start with the soft parts, like the eyes and the testicles, then the lips and the nose and the eyelids. Some of them infiltrate through the ears, nose, or mouth, penetrate inwards, then start to chew their way out. I'll bet we could rig something to keep your nether holes open as another entry into your bodies."

To add credence to his threat he had marched a couple of thousand ants close by. They waved their antennae and clicked their mandibles hungrily. That broke the raiders. They could not talk fast enough.

Not that they knew the big picture. Only that their leaders had finally realized that there were spies operating in their midst, spies who had been tracked in this general direction. No, their leaders did not know who might be behind it. The job of the raiders was to look for anyone and anything out of the ordinary in the borderlands. This was a purely defensive operation, not a prelude to an invasion. Their leaders had their gaze fixed firmly west toward the Commonwealth and southward to the Great Southern Forest and its druids.

That satisfied the shire reeve. With the end of the spy operation, his people would be safe. On his orders, his men gave the raiders a quick and almost painless death with blades thrust into their brains.

Karel asked if anyone had a shovel to bury them.

"Why bother? Did they give their victims a decent burial?" Sir Tomas answered.

Karel turned to Dahl.

"You could make the earth open up and swallow them, couldn't you?"

"Yes, Karel, I could do that, but the shire reeve is right too. One way or another, the flesh of their bodies will return to the earth, though in their case first through the droppings of vultures. As a giant of our acquaintance once told me in a similar situation: 'Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.'"

Karel looked hurt as he muttered. "That is cold, Dahl. Very cold."

The druid wanted so much to reassure his friend. He could have reminded him that no one had buried the Dark Riders they had slain on the Western Plains. Better for Karel to remember that on his own. Karel was a sweet boy with a good heart, but he needed to steel himself. So Dahl said nothing.

It took rather more than three weeks for Aodh to return. His operatives had been sent home. Everyone at the farm packed up their gear and set out on the long trek south and west. Dahl turned the farm over to the shire reeve, enjoining him to get someone to work the orchards and share the cuttings with the farmers all around. He promised that the upland landholders in those parts would see a great increase in yields and quality. Coming from a druid, that was good enough for the shire reeve. He made it his business to see it done.

Chapter 41. Elysion

Their return to Elysion brought joy to the heart of the lonely nobleman. Lookouts had relayed word of their approach and he was waiting for them at the gate of the manor. Aodh broke away from the pack and raced ahead, flinging himself into Klarendes arms. Tears of joy streamed unashamedly down their cheeks. Jemsen assured him that the rest of them could find their own rooms. The count should not stand on ceremony.

With a nod of thanks, Klarendes carried the boy in his arms straight to their bed chamber for a proper reunion. They did not come down till well after breakfast the next day. If the count looked happy, the young wir was practically glowing with youth, giddiness, and sex appeal. They made a very happy couple.

The count later apologized to Esmeralda for banishing her from his bed chamber for his reunion with Aodh. The ginger cat graciously allowed herself to be mollified with an offering of her favorite cat treats. Meanwhile the count asked for a light meal in lieu of breakfast. He and his lover were famished from their exertions.

Meanwhile Dahl had stayed behind at the stronghold of the druids in the Great Southern Forest. He also had a happy reunion with his mentor and lover Owain. The pair frolicked on the lawn, in the baths, and in the bed chamber. Business could wait. This was their time together to renew what they both hoped would be a lifelong partnership. They went swimming in the lake and ran the trails with Merry joining them in a muscular celebration of life and love. It was a glorious two weeks for the trio.

Then it was time for the ceremony that marked Dahl's advance to the status of a senior druid, the second in his cohort of trainees to do so. (Xebrek counted as the first.) Dressed in his formal robes for once, Dahl pledged himself to the defense of the living biosphere of the planet. He declared enmity toward the death cult of the Adversary and his Dark Prophet. He also promised not to take himself too seriously, but to recognize that fun and pleasure were part of the good life too. There was something to be said for the pleasures of the table and of the bed and of the library as well. The good life was a balance between meaningful work, physical pleasure and the life of the mind. Even for druids, life should not be all grim duty.

All the other journeymen had completed two of their challenges. None of them had been lost like Xebrek. Within the year or two, the Druidic Council could expect to field a score of senior druids, though the new ones would take the better part of a century to match the original seven in raw power, much less experience. But that was only a matter of time. Every year that went by without an attack would only strengthen their order. In time the druidic order would resume recruiting, with so many potential teachers and mentors now available. A world protected by fifty druids would be nigh unto unassailable.

All the more reason to guard against stealthy attack through deliberate poisoning like the giant had warned about. Security at fairs and celebrations was nowhere near as tight as in their own kitchens. The druids devised spells to detect a wide spectrum of poisons and used them on all their foodstuffs. They actually uncovered one such plot against them, the workings of the usual suspects.

The dark cloud on the horizon was in the northwest, once again centered on the Eastern Plains. When would the centaurs, Frost Giants, and barbarian hordes invade that much fought over land? How much blood would be spilled in its defense, how many lives lost, how many wives made widows, how many children made orphans, and how much of the land itself would be ravaged by scorched earth tactics? It did look like they had some years to prepare, perhaps as much as a decade or two. Best to use their time wisely. A good start was to implement Dahl's plan to recruit brontotheres.

During his stay, the Druidic Council approved Dahl's plan to augment the Commonwealth by establishing a herd of brontotheres on the Eastern Plains. While in the land of the Wirs the young druid piqued the interest of the matriarchs. Via mental images, he had explained his plan to the great beasts, showing them the wide expanse of the northern stretch of the Eastern Plains. The transition lands between mountains and open grasslands would be an ideal homeland for a colony of brontotheres. They would have room to breathe and to breed beyond the confines of the lovely but geographically constrained home of the wirs.

To sweeten the deal their human allies would build a farm protected by ditches, the kind they were familiar with, but most of the produce of those acres would go to the beasts themselves rather than the colony of farmers. Meanwhile the open grasslands would remain in the hands of farmers and ranchers and townsmen. An equitable arrangement.

Dahl explained the risks from the barbarians and soon Frost Giants and centaurs. The brontotheres were unimpressed and unafraid. Once they got their numbers up, no one would dare challenge them. If they did, then they would meet the fate of all their foes down the ages. No one messed with brontotheres. Doubly so if they had human allies to clear traps that would turn their size and strength against them. Caltrops and concealed trenches were good examples.

They were ready to face the risks of a long sea voyage. The journey would be made in stages to give the great beasts occasional chances to stretch their legs and to fill their lungs with fresh air. As his third challenge a journeyman druid of human stock was assigned to accompanying them as liaison. The track from the land of the Wirs lead southeast to the seacoast, along the eastern shore of the continent to where it bent west. Sailing in that direction they would eventually disembark at the port nearest the Great Inland Fresh Water Sea. From there it would still be a long trip but a comparatively easy passage across the pacific waters of the gigantic lake. Next they would sail north up the Long River by riverboat and take the road to the great tunnel though the Eastern Mountains at the foot of which lay their new stomping grounds.

A year's time would see the great beasts installed on the Eastern Plains. Within ten years, with room to reproduce at will, there would be two hundred of them, rising to more than a thousand when they filled their range, forming another shield for the Commonwealth.

As it turned out. Dahl met the convoy at the southern port on the Inland Sea and took ship with his animal friends. He escorted them all the way across the lake, up the river and through the tunnel and finally set them loose. There to greet them were all his best friends: Balan and Arik, the three twins, plus Klarendes and Aodh.

"I believe you have already met the matriarch of the herd." Dahl mentioned to Aodh. The young wir look closely then shouted.

"Manda!" He ran forward and threw his arms around her great neck.

The great beast recognized him and greeted him with a friendly rumble. Aodh clambered aboard, a tiny boy astride a beast of eight tons, never no mind that stiff hairs on her skin scratched his bare bottom. Like many of his people, Aodh had ridden brontotheres in the past but always as just a passenger. The great beast let their human friends climb aboard but they were not biddable. They went where they wanted to go and that was that. Only Dahl was a true brontothere rider, and he was alway polite enough to ask rather than command.

At Aodh's bidding Dahl asked Manda to circle around the small herd of breeding stock which amounted to seventeen younglings chosen from different blood lines. How the beasts knew about the danger of inbreeding was their own affair.

The great beast was agreeable to Dahl's request and set off at a much faster pace than her rider expected. No placid walk this, she made good speed, charging at and deliberately plowing through patches of brush in her way, as if attacking a foe. Dahl had asked her to give their friend a taste of what it must have been like when he had lead that charge of brontotheres against the army of Amazons. Quickly tumbling to the game and holding on tight to the front fold of her thick skin with his left hand, her happy passenger raised his right hand in a fist and yelled "Charge!". Both rider and mount had a grand old time.

Klarendes smiled at his lover's boyish enthusiasm and nodded his thanks to the young druid.

When the ride was done, farmers brought up a cart bearing a load of sugar beets. Two farm lads tossed the treats to the young brontotheres who happily gobbled them up. Aodh dismounted and fetched several beets for Manda, and hand fed his old friend. After which the matriarch lead her youngsters to a nearby pool to bathe.

Several days later, Dahl decided it was time to reward the twins for their many services to Haven by extending their youth and longevity. He was finally ready for it after months of research. Owain had inspired his research when he told Dahl what he himself had done years earlier for his first lover Will. Dahl got further inspiration while in the lands of the Amazons. The herbs those women used to maintain their power were now extinct, thanks to a blight Dahl had raised to kill them. But the druid had noticed that the herbs delivered via the mother's placenta kept the males not only small but youthful and under-developed. They could perform sexually well enough to procreate but their males never really grew up or filled out. For instance, they never grew a beard. It was an example of unintended neoteny, the retention of juvenile features in an adult.

That realization inspired Dahl researches. Also, as a senior druid himself, there was no one to tell him no, and anyway Owain had urged him to go ahead. If ever two young humans deserved this gift it was Jemsen and Karel for their great contributions to humans, elves, dwarves, the Commonwealth, and the planet in general. And this would spare the twins the heartbreak of growing old while their closest friends continued youthful for centuries. And it would spare those friends the anguish of witnessing the decline and loss of two such beautiful youths.

After doses of potions administered over some weeks, Dahl was ready. He had the twins recline on couches then invoked his powers, visibly glowing with a pearly effulgence which engulfed the boys too as the druid directed his magic at them. The glow of his healing magic pulsed from pearly to light green and back again several times. After it faded the young druid slumped in exhaustion. Even for one as magically powerful as he, this had been a major effort. As for the twins, they reported that they did feel anything except a sense of wellbeing.

"Thank you, Dahl. I think. Actually I don't feel any different. Do you Karel?"

His brother shook his head. Dahl smiled.

"That is the whole point my friends. You are not supposed to feel different, not today not tomorrow, not next year or decades from now. Also you will find that your magically enhanced vitality will improve your reflexes, double your strength and stamina, increase your resistance to disease, and stimulate your sexual potency, as if you really needed any help on that score. As with us druids your increased strength does not show, giving you the advantage of surprise over a foe. Actually I might have to repeat this spell once or twice to make it permanent. Meanwhile, you are now one of us, magically enhanced beings with very long lives ahead of you."

How can one express gratitude for the gift of centuries of youth and life? The twins were so overwhelmed they could not speak, which is really saying something for those incessant chatterboxes. They held Dahl close for a very long time.

To no one's surprise, by the next day the twins were their usual loquacious and inquisitive selves, bubbling with questions about magical healing and about magic in general. They asked Dahl where magic really came from.

"Ah! Thereby hangs a tale...

"We can thank the wizards and natural philosophers who opened the space portal to Haven for the gift of magic. The civilization they had left behind was far advanced in natural philosophy and the mechanical arts. It is said that they had ships that could cross the emptiness between the planets and the stars and devices that connected everyone on a planet in a vast web of communication and information. Their carts propelled themselves; some even floated a couple of feet off the ground, if you can believe the tales."

"These wonders and many more were the product of a vast machine civilization that largely ran itself. There was no way they could transplant such a civilization to a virgin planet. Once the machines they had brought with them wore out or exhausted their power sources, the refugees would be left to fend for themselves with only the most primitive technology such as windmills and water wheels and animal drawn vehicles. Most of their knowledge disappeared with the loss of the devices that stored it. They knew it would take millennia for the various sentient races to populate the planet and start the long climb of our civilization back to the stars."

"To tide us over, so to speak, these wise beings gave us magic. Magic is only a partial recompense for what we lost but it does help. We have our healing magic to replace their advanced form of medicine. We can call light to illuminate the darkness. We can use mind speech to communicate at a distance, and so forth."

"How did they do this? First their artificers built a great engine, one that could maintain and repair itself in perpetuity without any outside intervention. That engine tunneled its way deep into the planet, filling in the shaft behind it, down to where it could tap Haven's internal heat to power its transmitter, which is a kind of sending device. These 'transmissions' resonate with the minds of sentient beings allowing us to tap into and modulate the base power of the universe, said to be a field of energy that exists everywhere. That energy field is what powers our magic."

Dahl's account left even the twins astounded and speechless.

The next day Balan got them all together at the manor house and explained that the strike against the center of power of the barbarians was set for the following year, after the alert for spies died down. Before that, Balan had to travel to the western continent to recruit a wizard with the special talent this job required. When all was ready, his strike force would take the Northern Trade Route to its nearest approach to the enemy heartland then infiltrate till they were close enough to attack its capital.

He himself would lead the strike force, and no, he would not be taking any of them. As to why he would not take any of his friends with him, he reluctantly admitted that the only way this could work was as a suicide mission. He simply could not take any of those he loved with him. With their potential longevity, they had too much to lose. On that point he was adamant.

Meanwhile it was time to celebrate. And there was so much to celebrate: the success of the spy mission to the east and Balan and Arik's mission to the north to reconnoiter the activities of the Frost Giants, plus the safe return of all the wirs to their homeland and of Dahl and his team to the Commonwealth. Not to mention Dahl's elevation as senior druid and the twins' new found longevity.

Balan offered toasts to all these worthy accomplishments. Then he added one more.

"Finally let us celebrate the reunion of a pair of lovers who are destined to be long remembered and celebrated in song and story, the sometime minstrel cum wir-panther Sir Aodh of Llangollen and the love of his life and vice vera, the Honorable Taitos Klarendes, Chief District Magistrate, Dispenser of the Middle Justice and the Low, Dwarf Friend, Lord-Zamindar of Elysion, and Count of the Eastern March".

Before any of the others could mention their own titles, irrepressible Ran piped up with an impudent question for Klarendes.

"I'll raise my glass to that, all right, but could someone explain why the Eastern March isn't under a marquess instead of a mere count?" he ventured, mischievously. He started to grin at his own cleverness but subsided under the count's frown.

"Politics." was all the nobleman would say on that subject.

"Hey, those two aren't the only ones around here with grand titles." Dahl grumbled jocularly. "I am after all, ahem, 'Lord Dahlderon, Dwarf-Friend and Senior Druid of the Exalted Order of the Druids of Haven'. Not to mention 'Dispenser of the High, the Middle, and the Low Justice' so I am one up on Lord Klarendes in judicial powers."

"And lest you overlook us as well," the twins piped up, "know gentles that you stand in the august presence of no less than Sirs Jemsen and Karel, Holders of the Military Cross for Valor, Elf-Friends, Dwarf-Friends, and Masters in the Honorable Guild of Cartographers"

Ran's eyes glittered with merriment as he listened to this duel of impressive titles. Finally it was Balan's turn.

"In that case, dear friends, know that you may address me in full as 'Sir Balandur of Leinster, Laird of Roxley, Dread Hand of the Commonwealth, and Baron of Saragozza'. That last one is my court rank in a kingdom on the next continent eastward.

"Gosh, all those capital letters! I am feeling so left out!" complained the irrepressible Ran in a exaggeratedly vexed tone of voice.

They all laughed.

A short while later the good count drew the young scamp aside and putting a hand reassuringly to his shoulder and said to him softly.

"You know Ran, you really shouldn't feel left out. You earned your own titles with capital letters. Were you not designated a Dwarf Friend, tattoo and all? And you have also earned a place in our hearts. If you ever weary of chasing all over the planet with the twins on their adventures, you can settle down to life here as a Citizen of Elysion. You are not just a Dwarf Friend; you are Our Friend."

Hearing the carefully enunciated capital letters Ron nodded, too choked up with emotion to speak, as tears glistened in his sky-blue eyes.

Author's Note

I owe the saying: 'Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.' to Clint Eastwood in his role as the Outlaw Josey Wales.

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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.

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. My 'Jungle Boy' series of Hollywood tales is posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section. 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.

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