Elf-Boy's Friends 37
The Rescue
by George Gauthier
[The further adventures of characters from the novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends']
Chapter 1. The New Forest
"These are the claw marks of a slash bear," the young shapeshifter named Brand said to his companions, pointing to the trunk of a dead tree which bore the deep grooves cut by the long claws characteristic of that species of bear. "It's a big one too, that is, big as ordinary bears go."
That was an acknowledgement that his companions, the giant white Kodiaks named Bjorn and Bjarni were three times its size. Bjorn and his brother Bjarni were the guardians of the band of Snow Elves, shape shifting elves who lived a nomadic existence on perpetual walkabout.
Bjorn answered Brand via Mind Speech, as telepathy was usually called on the planet of Haven.
<No doubt he was after the honey in the hollow of the trunk. Realizing he could not get at it, the bear vented his frustration on the tree which houses the hive. Now the marks are fresh, and he's likely to be hostile to interlopers so keep your eyes peeled.>
White Kodiaks were the ursine equivalent of unicorns and like their equine counterparts had the telepathic gift though their range was much shorter, four miles or so. Their projective telepathy let them link all the wirs and themselves to coordinate movement during a hunt. Although they could not understand sonic speech directly, their elven companions often spoke to them aloud, knowing that the bears would pick up the thoughts behind their words. When the situation called for silence and stealth, the elves readily shifted to thinking back at their protectors.
The Kodiaks were huge, massing a ton or more. They stood nearly seven foot high at the shoulder when on all fours. When they reared up on two legs, their heads towered twelve foot above the ground. They weren't shape shifters, which was just as well. A biped that large and heavy was simply not viable.
And though they sometimes envied the boys their hands as when they gathered tasty berries, the bears could sit back on their haunches and use their paws to hold and manipulate objects. They might not have opposable thumbs but they did have opposable paws, as Bjorn liked to put it.
Snow Elves were named not for their preferred climate but for their alabaster skin, shoulder length ash-blond hair, and icy grey eyes. They generally stood an inch or so under six feet with the willowy physiques and lissome bodies and glabrous skin typical of elves. Their skins were white because, like all shape shifters, they never tanned nor burned despite nearly constant exposure to the sun's rays.
By contrast the much more numerous Sylvan Elves were dark haired with eyes the color of growing things. Not surprisingly many of them had the gift of a Green Thumb. Sylvan Elves tanned easily. Most lived in permanent agricultural settlements called vales where they cultivated mulberry trees and raised silkworms and spun and wove silk cloth. Both sorts of elves were talented trackers and woodsmen whose field craft was unsurpassed and doubly so for wirs. Hence the more adventuresome hired out as woods guides, trackers, and army scouts.
Even more than their sylvan cousins, Snow Elves elected to go about skin clad or sky clad as they would have it. Shape shifters spent nearly as much time in their animal forms as in their human bodies. So garments were an encumbrance and regarded as both unnecessary and inconvenient. Which was just fine for boys who, as elves, were wholly oriented toward their own gender and loved to display and share their sexy bodies, whether by twos or by threes.
Now it wasn't only the slash bear who liked honey. So did the Kodiaks and the six elven youths they protected. But Kodiaks were messy eaters. They normally just broke into a hive and tore out big hunks of honey comb and ate it all, honey, comb, and the bees crawling on it, inadvertently crushing many others as they did so. Their long fur made them invulnerable to bee stings.
So it usually fell to the boys to gather the honey with minimal damage to the hive. They would set a fire going in a smoker -- a device which generated smoke from the incomplete burning of a fuel like pine needles which were everywhere in the New Forest.
The smoke pacified the bees in a paradoxical way. The bees took the smoke as an indication of a forest fire that might force the abandonment of the hive. That triggered a feeding response which was their way to save their store of honey. Smoke also masked the pheromones released by guard bees to signal an alarm. In the ensuing confusion a raider could open the hive and extract the sweet reward without triggering a general attack.
Of course naked boys did sometimes get stung, but that was of little concern to wirs who could move out of range and transform, which healed all their hurts and perpetuated their youth indefinitely. Wirs had no fixed life span but continued till misadventure or foul play ended their existence.
Brand knew that the Kodiaks were so big and powerful they could knock the dead tree right over. Wir were magical creatures in and of themselves. As such Kodiaks had twice the strength natural to their form and size. Wanting to spare the bees, Brand prepared to climb the trunk to get at the beehive.
"I'll extract enough honey for all of us." he promised.
Now the trunk was smooth and had no branches save a couple at the very top. A boy could not climb that smooth column, but a spotted leopard might. Morphing into his animal form, Brand dug his claws into the wood and climbed to the top where he transformed back into human shape and sat astraddle a high branch. His cousin Leon tossed him the end of a rope to which was attached the smoker, already lit, and a basket for collecting the honeycomb.
With a practiced technique indicating considerable experiences in raiding beehives, Brand blew smoke into the hive to calm the bees then extracted a goodly amount of honeycomb but not enough to threaten the integrity and survival of the hive. After lowering it to his friends, Brand slid down the rope, released the slip knot, coiled the rope for future use, and placed it in the pack with the rest of their gear. It was the Kodiaks who carried the packs since to them the weight was negligible and it was important to wirs to be unburdened so they could transform and not leave their gear behind.
In any event the packs were no burden since the material needs of the six were simple: rope, kukris, smoker, ground sheet, far-viewer tube, burning lens for starting fires, and such items. The six had little need for coin, and when they were short of funds they took temporary jobs in taverns as wine boys, a lucrative profession. Even more than sylvan elves, svelte snow elf-boys were prized by males who fancied pretty boys and engaged them for short trysts.
Of the six, seventeen year old Brand and his cousin Leo were spotted leopards and had rather more robust builds than the trio named Lobo, Lupo, and Volf who were dire wolves and one year older with Lobo the senior by twelve minutes. A younger elf-boy, Gulo, a teenager of just sixteen was a wir wolverine.
Beyond their innate magical nature as shape shifters their gifts were modest enough. Like all Snow Elves they had the gift of Unerring Direction; the triplets could Call Light; the wolverine could Kindle Fire; while the leopards could snap Electrum Sparks.
As yet none had manifested a major magical gift, but the bears had taught them how to use the gifts they did have in combat, should it ever come to that, as it nearly had during their confrontation with a vengeful posse in the Northlands. The lawmen had mistaken the cousins for a pair of man-eating leopards who had been preying on the ranches and farms on the edge of the forest. Fortunately no blood was spilled thanks to Finn Ragnarson and the other members of the Corps of Discovery who proved them innocent.
In bipedal form the elves might fight with either of their standard weapons, the kukri and the sling, even while employing their gifts in combat mode. Electrum sparks delivered both an electric jolt and a nasty burn which were impossible to ignore and distracted a foe at the worst possible moment, and not just the foes the cousins faced themselves but those of their comrades as well.
Englobing the head of of foe when Calling Light would scramble the electrical circuits of the brain and kill almost instantly though Lobo had set his gift only once -- on a wild boar which threatened to gore Lupo. As for Gulo's gift, a foe's clothing and effects could be set on fire as easily as the twigs and branches of a camp fire.
None of them had a Green Thumb, which was quite unusual for any group of six Sylvan Elves but not at all for Snow Elves.
"Mmm mmm good!" Brand pronounced as he licked the sticky honey from his fingers.
A contented rumble from the Kodiaks signified their assent to that sentiment.
They decided to make camp just where they were and had hardly got started setting up when the slash bear emerged from the shrubbery. At first he saw only the elves in their human form and bristled threatening to charge. That was when the Kodiaks rose from the ground where they had been lounging.
Bjorn coughed to get the slash bear's attention, but otherwise made no hostile move. He didn't have to. Three times its size, solidly built and armed with strong claws and sharp teeth, the Kodiaks were the embodiment of raw power, and when they put their minds to it, they could be as ferocious as any wolverine.
Turning aside as if he had suddenly remembered urgent business elsewhere, the slash bear stalked away with as much dignity as he could muster. The Kodiaks did not chase him. There was no point in humiliating the creature which, after all, was not evil, only a wild animal acting as his instincts drove him.
Not just an expanse of trees and the animals and plants which sheltered beneath it canopy, the New Forest was itself a magically sentient and self-aware entity that encompassed all the life forms under its boughs, both animals and plants, ranging from the lowliest creepy crawlies living amidst the leaf litter on the forest floor to apex predators like slash bears, wolves, and tawny panthers. It was a recently established exclave of the much vaster Great Southern Forest, within which lay the stronghold of the druidic order.
Now the Forest did not speak to the Kodiaks in words. Their psychic link was different from the projective telepathy which linked the bears with the shape shifters. Instead the forest communicated with symbolic imagery and feelings. You might say that it hinted and whispered rather than stated things out loud.
The Forest did not to intrude too far into the thoughts and lives of the sentient beings who lived within its borders. As moral agents they had a right to their thoughts. For another thing the forest's thought processes were much slower -- though far deeper -- than those of sentient creatures like Kodiaks and elves. Nevertheless its mind was always there in the background, a reassuring presence.
At camp that night the boys built a fire and roasted a wild turkey which one of the dire wolves had taken. It was the work of moments to pluck, wash, and spit the bird and set it to cooking atop a fire pit. With antelope and deer and other animals with smooth skins where the meat was easy to get at, they were as likely to eat the flesh raw while in their animal forms.
The bears had eaten their full earlier. As omnivores the bears would eat just about anything: wild onions and carrots, yarrow and other greens, fruits and nuts and berries, even carrion, though only when fresh, and grubs which they found by pulling apart rotting logs, something easily within the power of creatures nearly four times the size of a Frost Giant.
For entertainment the boys often joined in choral singing, favoring songs of love won and lost or old ballads about quests and mighty deeds. Sometimes they challenged each other with riddles, a game of which the feline cousins Leon and Brand were especially fond. Competitive story telling was a specialty of the lupine triplets who would propose a theme for a story contest two days ahead of time, then listen as each of the boys related the tale he had thought up. Theirs was a mostly oral culture, not because they were illiterate, not at all, but, as nomads, they could hardly lug books around with them.
Which was why the elf-boys appreciated access to libraries like those at Elysion where their new friends the druids and the Klarendes both maintained sizable collections of history, geography, natural philosophy, travel, technical subjects, poetry, and imaginative literature plus the complete works of their journalist friends Drew Altair and Corwin Klarendes. Indeed the Snow Elves were headed south once again toward Elysion though that secluded valley still lay a couple of hundred miles away.
At night the six paired off in an ever changing constellation of partners and positions. All were versatile though Gulo the wir wolverine, bottomed more than he topped. But then he was the youngest, sweet sixteen going on seventeen but looking no more than fifteen, and much the smallest, standing only five and a half feet, which was short for an elf. As teenagers their lovemaking owed more to enthusiasm than practiced technique, but they had centuries of perpetual youth ahead of them.
Chapter 2. The Hill Station
"Another heat wave!" Drew Altair grumbled as he and his friends sat down to their evening meal. Except for Finn Ragnarson, all were dressed in the square-cut short-shorts which the boys had recently made fashionable plus moccasins. The shorts the twins wore were color coded, green for Jemsen and blue for Karel. Drew, Liam, Axel Wilde, Corwin Klarendes, Eike Thyssen, Nathan Lathrop wore white which contrasted nicely with their tanned torsos and limbs.
"The heat and humidity outdoors are truly oppressive. It is tolerable here indoors only because of the modern cooling system in our hotel."
The three storey hotel building used wind catchers to direct the airflow downward and through one of the city's underground aqueducts where the warm air gave up its heat to the cool earth and subterranean water. Natural air pressure then forced the flow back up into and through the buildings. No machinery required. It helped that awnings blocked direct sunlight from window openings which were not glassed in but set with wood lattices that afforded privacy without blocking ventilation.
"I sometimes think the Frost Giants have the right of it, living in a temperate climate where they enjoy four distinct seasons during one of which it actually gets cold enough for snow and ice."
"True," Finn Ragnarson rumbled, "though in high summer our weather is nearly as hot as your year round tropical weather here in the capital."
"I just wish we could get to some place cool for a while, at least till the heat wave breaks." Drew told him.
"Oh, oh! Here we go again." Karel warned, only half in jest. "Both times you inveigled us to travel to a cool clime we got into trouble."
"Right!" his twin Jemsen chimed in. "That first time, we found ourselves in a war with the orcs, and on the second occasion we had to fight a dragon. I shudder to think what might happen the third time out."
"Ah, but the third time is the charm, my friends," Drew asserted airily. "So who wants to decamp to a hill station in the eastern mountains where cool weather prevails thanks to the altitude? In fact we should all go back to the Sign of the Bow only this time for a full three weeks."
"Wouldn't that be tempting fate, Drew?" Karel teased.
Oh, I don't know." Axel ventured. "I'd could combine a stay at the Sign of the Bow with a past due visit to the orc enclave to see how things are going."
"The Capital Intelligencer has commissioned me to write a series of articles about the way of life of the orcs. It's my first venture into journalism, not that I plan to change careers, but I would like to promote greater understanding among all peoples."
"Already some of the orcs are liquidating their assets in preparation for their pending migration to Amazonia. I'll travel there too next year and the year after that taking advantage of the fact the Sir Willet once opened a space portal for me and the orc inspection team."
Axel's gift of teleportation allowed him to Jump directly to anyplace he had once reached via a space portal. Alternatively he could jump to any place visible to him including through a far-viewer tube, which meant that trips over the horizon had to be done in long hops of twenty or forty miles or more.
Finn nodded. "Sounds like a plan. You can count on a significant readership since your name is already well known to the public thanks to your exploits, chronicled so ably by Drew and Corwin."
"A visit to that hill station appeals to me too. Firstly, I'd like to see the site of your battle against the orcs. Second, this hot weather bothers me much more than any of you, slender as you all are. Even with two auxiliary hearts to circulate my blood and help me shed body heat via vasodilation I am really feeling the heat."
Frost Giants had a pair of two-chambered hearts low in the trunk which pumped blood from the legs up to the heart and lungs and head. That kept their blood pressure within safe limits. The dilation of the blood vessels just under the skin not only decreased vascular resistance, it carried more heated blood to the skin, where it could be more easily got rid of by convection, radiation, and perspiration.
"Er what about you Corwin?" Axel asked. "Would it be too much, going back to the scene of hard fighting so soon after Amazonia?"
"I think I'll be all right, Axel. Better to be with all my friends than moping around here alone, all by myself, with only my job to keep me occupied. And I actually found it cathartic to write my book on our campaigns in Amazonia. I've finished it and will look over the galleys when I get back."
"Good!"
"So how shall we travel: by coach, autogyro, or space portal?" Eike asked.
"Travel by space portal is much too quick." Jemsen objected. "Getting there is half the fun. You see what lies between, and the time it takes to get there provides a sense of separation from your normal haunts."
"In that case," Liam began," lets go by autogyro. Finn can take the twins up, as he did on our expedition. Drew can take Axel, and I can carry the rest in one of those big transports like the one I flew before. We'll borrow one from the Navy and take it out for what I'll call a shakedown cruise. After all, two of us now work for Admiral Van Zant, Eike as a naval architect and Nathan as a member of staff. I am sure it will be all right with him. Eike is the apple of his eye."
A few days later after making reservations via the heliograph line the Army had put in while the resort was used as a military base, they boarded their three aerocraft and flew northeast, passing west of the walled garrison town of Bled, the starting point for the winding road which threaded the mountains and debouched on to the Eastern Plains. In time they neared the highest part of the mountain range where some peaks rose above two miles.
The hill station which was their destination lay at seven thousand feet. A rambling low-slung marvel of rustic architecture, it was built of wood and stone atop a saddle-back ridge which connected two prominent peaks. The main house faced east with outbuildings mostly to the west including the stable. Toward the south were a pond used for swimming and boating and ornamental gardens which included two hedge mazes, the smaller for kids and the larger for adults and courting couples.
The damage the main building took during the fight had been superficial and quickly remedied. The outbuildings which the defenders had set on fire had been completely rebuilt by the Army.
"Now this is more like it!" Drew enthused. "Feel that cool mountain air. And look, no one is sweating. I am so looking forward to the next three weeks."
The nine friends settled their kit in their rooms and joined the other guests on the dining terrace for a mid-afternoon snack, which was a light meal of finger foods and hot and cold beverages the hotel offered to its guests to tide them over till the evening. The Sign of the Bow was an upscale establishment where everything was included in the price. Its rates were steep, but all of the nine were quite well off.
These days even Liam was flush thanks to going in with Axel when his business agent Lennart suggested investing in the pencil business, which turned out to be big success. The innovative production lines of its two manufactories turned out more than a million pencils yearly which were sold both domestically and abroad.
The proprietor Rayburn Bullock greeted them warmly, seeing their return as an augury of good fortune. Not only was it good publicity to host national heroes in his establishment, but this bevy of clean limbed youths in their oh-so fashionable short-shorts, their hard bodies bared to the hip bones, were fetching eye candy, just perfect for guys or gals who liked to ogle sexy young guys, especially when they went for swim in the pond and engaged in the horseplay of which young males were so fond.
"As you can see, once again the Sign of the Bow is a sylvan paradise where guests can enjoy fresh air, dramatic landscapes, scenic wonders, leisure, good company, fine food and drink, and the quiet of the wilderness far away from the clamor and bustle of the big city."
"Not that our guests are completely cut off from the course of events. These days the businesses situated along our access road maintain the two heliograph stations that the Army built to connect with the military and postal heliograph lines that run parallel to the mountains."
"Fine," Finn nodded, "but with a war wizard who can open space portals, a jumper who can teleport directly to the capital and many other cities, an air wizard who can employ infrasound for long distance communication, and three autogyros, we have our own ways of staying in touch."
The nine friends visited the scenic wonders of the region taking tours conducted by wilderness guides. In a gorge at the foot of a waterfall they a fully circular rainbows form from the spray of the spectacular cataracts into a river flowed into deep pools perfect for swimming. In one vale stood groves of forest giants rising to the sky like the pillars of a vast temple to the gods of nature.
When they ventured underground to tour limestone caverns the boys dressed for the cool climate below, putting on shirts and trews and stout sandals to protect their feet. Finn also donned his flying helmet to protect his head from low ceilings. The tours were led by guides who could Call Light to create cool blue-white globes of illumination which hovered overhead.
The boys took in weird formations which looked like curtains of stone or the pipes of an organ. One oddly shaped boulder looked a giant frog squatting on a lily pad. A section of wall farther on looked like melted wax. Stalagmites rose from the floor to join with stalactites growing from the ceiling to form natural pillars. A smooth walled gallery could carry whispers a hundred yards.
Here and there deposits of fluorescent minerals glittered like gemstones. Their colors were due to the ability of certain minerals to absorb the ultraviolet component of the light of a globe and retransmit it as light at a lower energy level, hence in the range of the visible spectrum.
Beyond the fluorescent rocks lay an underground lake. No wind, not even the slightest zephyr disturbed its surface. The dark mirror reflected the globes of light the guides had called and the faces of the tourists sitting in the flat-bottomed boat which the guides poled across the shallow waters. After fair warning the guides extinguished their lights to let the passengers appreciate how utterly dark it was underground. Actually the guides kept it dark a little longer than Axel was comfortable with so he Called Light himself.
"Afraid of the dark?" Karel teased.
"No, not of the dark itself," Axel countered, "but I am afraid of what might be lurking out there. Or have you already forgotten how that dragon rose from the inky depths of another labyrinth of limestone caverns?"
"Not to worry Axel," Nathan assured him. "Both Jemsen and I can delve or sound our surroundings. Nothing can creep up on us no matter how dark it is. As a naval officer I automatically sound any body of water I am sailing over, so even before the lights went out, I sounded the inky depths around us."
"Me too." Jemsen added. "Ever since our encounter with that mosasaur, I delve any body of water I am crossing."
"Good. Still it would be better if more than one of us could call light to let the others see too." Axel countered.
"You wish is my command!" Corwin declared gesturing expansively. "These days my ball lightning delivers more than an electric charge and intense heat. It can also light up an area. I have been practicing forming a single ball only a foot across and having it hover ten or twenty feet off the ground. So that makes two of us who can call light."
"Three actually," Finn began: "I too have been practicing a lighting technique of my own devising. Behold:"
Raising his mighty war hammer Mjolnir, Finn invoked his magic to cause small lightnings to crackle around the hammerhead thereby turning it into a torch of sorts. It did not provide anywhere near as much light as a globe or ball lightning but it was certainly enough to see by.
"Behold?" Axel asked. "Isn't that a bit much? Why not simply ask us to watch?"
"It is all right for a mere mortal like Finn Ragnarson to ask folks to watch, but for Thor, an avatar of a god, the locution must be something grander, hence 'behold'. Get it?"
"Sure Finn -- I mean Thor!" Axel said with a wink.
Finn clapped him on the shoulder.
Chapter 3. Elysion
Behind the Klarendes manor house in Elysion, two splendid youths grappled and twisted as they sought advantage in a practice bout, the sweat on their nude bodies glistening in the bright sun of early afternoon. Both youths were well-trained in unarmed combat, a traditional sport for the people of the secluded valley of Elysion and of the original homeland of the smaller of the two.
The taller of the combatants was Artor, first born son of the local nobleman, landowner, and district judge Lord Taitos Klarendes. A good looking lad in his twenties with his father's sandy hair, Artor stood above medium height and was blessed with the deeply tanned athletic build of a swimmer: narrow hips, strong shoulders, and large hands.
His opponent Aodh was a much smaller youth, one who barely reached five feet in height and weighed only a couple of pounds over a hundred-weight. Small, skinny, and smooth muscled, comely as an angel, with skin like porcelain which never tanned or burned, the raven-haired beauty looked utterly fragile and vulnerable. In actuality the epicene youth was easily three as strong as he looked to be thanks to his magical nature.
Aodh was a shapeshifter or wir, which in his case meant he could take on the shape of a black panther. The magical process of transformation also healed wounds, injuries, and disease and kept him perpetually young, looking no more than sixteen though chronologically, if in no other way, he was not far short of thirty.
The foes separated to catch their breath. Artor shook his head.
"How can such a tiny body could be so strong! Father, I find myself to be even more overmatched than in the old days before the New Forest strengthened his skeleton and muscles to an ever greater degree than before.
His father laughed.
"Indeed Artor, Aodh's petite physique is much stronger than it looks, but the greatest advantage conferred by magically enhanced strength is the element of surprise, which should no longer apply in your case. By now, you should be thoroughly familiar with all his moves. Anyway as a Dread Hand of the Commonwealth, aren't you supposed to be an expert in all forms of combat, unarmed as well as armed?"
"Training goes only so far, Father. It cannot entirely overcome Aodh's advantage in speed. His tripled strength and faster reactions let him move his limbs much faster than I possibly can."
"Oh come now Artor," the young wir teased. "A fine strong fellow such as yourself shouldn't have any trouble taking on a little bitty kitty kat like me, and here I am not even using either claws or fangs."
Just then Klarendes steward approached escorting a visitor, a pleasant looking human male who stood nearly six feet tall He nodded to the youths then addressed the count.
"Good afternoon, Count Klarendes. My name is Stefan Dellane. As you can see from my uniform and rank insignia I am a lieutenant in the rural constabulary."
Unlike the patrolmen of the City Watch, the Constabulary operated in rural zones and in the wilderness areas which was why its constables were recruited from country lads who were good riders, scouts, and trackers. Quite a few also had the gift of Unerring Direction.
"It seems that an autogyro went done in the New Forest yesterday afternoon. Actually all we definitely know is that it is overdue. It was a large passenger transport used for sightseeing tours originating in a resort on the other side of the mountains. Flying overhead is the easiest way to tour the New Forest which has no real roads, only game trails. In any event seven passengers and the pilot have gone missing."
"Why have you come to me?"
"Headquarters in Dalnot wants to enlist not only your aid, that is yours and your Molossian hounds, but also the help of the druids and through them the Forest Rangers and perhaps the Snow Elves who have taken up residence in the New Forest."
"By all means then let's go talk to them."
In the east wing of the manor house Lieutenant Dellane met with the druids Dahlderon, Owain, and Meirionnydd plus two of the forest rangers who had been gearing up to go out on patrol: Maddon Sexton and the beast master Dylan. The lieutenant told them what he knew, which was not really all that much, though the staff of the resort was still being questioned about the itinerary of the sightseeing tour. It was known to range widely over the mountains. The best estimate was that the aerocraft had gone done in a rectangular area running northwest for sixty miles starting ten miles from Elysion.
"My Molossian hounds, Aodh, Artor, and I can be ready to leave within the hour. I propose one of you druids open a portal to the southern edge of the search area. From there we will sweep north. My hounds are excellent trackers. Do the same for the forest rangers only they should start at the northern edge and sweep south. Dylan, you can enlist the animals of the forest to scout for you, can't you."
"Indeed. I'll set every critter within my range to looking for the crash site while I myself look for it through the eyes of an eagle soaring overhead."
"The autogyro is painted bright yellow so it should be easy to spot against the green of the forest." Dellane noted.
Owain nodded. "That sounds like a good plan. In addition we druids can contact the Snow Elves via Mind Speech. If they are anywhere near the search area we can set them to looking for the crash site. Between them the six shape shifters and two Kodiaks can cover a lot of territory. Er Aodh, you look like you wanted to add something."
"Just this. Our friends from the Corps of Discovery are staying at that hill station on the other side of the mountains, the one they once defended from the orcs. They flew there in their autogyros. So let's get them involved in the aerial search too."
"Good idea. Dahl, contact Finn Ragnarson via Mind Speech and ask if he and the others can help."
"Will do."
We druids will remain here in Elysion to coordinate the search via Mind Speech. Remember we can also relay messages between groups of searchers. Every hour we will contact one person in each group very briefly to check whether you have anything to share. Any other ideas?"
No one had anything to add.
It took little more than an hour to get things rolling. Merry contacted the Snow Elves who agreed to join the search since they thought they might be in the general area. Dahl got the Corps of Discovery involved while Owain opened space portals for the three members of the Klarendes family: father, spouse, son, and the hounds then did the same for the two forest rangers.
The search was on.
Chapter 4. Rescue
On this trip to the Sign of the Bow Axel and Corwin had made sure to bring along their combat medic kits. The equipment and their training would enable them to stabilize the injured till they could be taken to an infirmary. With downed aerocraft there were sure to be injuries and possibly deaths.
As before Axel rode in the passenger seat of Drew's red speedster, far-viewer tube in hand while Corwin shared the enclosed passenger compartment of Liam's transport with Nathan, Eike, and Nathan who all looked out the portholes. Finn and the twins flew in the Frost Giant's steel framed autogyro.
The pilots split the search area into three, one for each team of pilot and observers. They hoped the druids would be able to relay better information gathered by the constabulary from questioning the resort staff.
On the ground the Klarendes family split into two teams led by father and son each with half the hounds which moved on parallel axes. The count and the hounds advanced on foot while Aodh transformed into a black panther. He stayed close to his spouse but took to the trees for a better view. The limbs of many of the forest giants interlocked forming an aerial highway easily navigable by a nimble panther. Even when branches were not close, Aodh simply jumped the gap, digging his claws into the bark of the trunk of the next tree till he climbed back into the sub-canopy to resume his progress.
Madden Sexton and Dylan stayed together. The animals under Dylan's control gave them an wide search range. Dylan did not set the critters to actively searching. He simply asked if any of them had seen something unusual, especially a big bright yellow something, though the color did not mean anything to the many creatures which were color blind. Still the forest rangers could be sure that they would not pass by the crash site all unbeknownst especially since Dylan also scanned the ground through the eyes of soaring eagles or hawks, whichever was handy.
In the end it was the Snow Elves who found the downed autogyro. Leon and Brand had climbed up into the trees in their alternate form as spotted leopards. Now these felines were heavier and less nimble than Aodh as a black panther, but they still could climb pretty well. For their aerial perch they spotted the tail assembly of the down aerocraft. It had been ripped off in the crash and got hung up in a tree. Over their mental link the Kodiaks had directed the wirs to converge on the scene. Below them lay a heavily wooded vertiginous canyon which split the eastern face of the mountains. The wreck lay near the bottom.
Moments later when Merry contacted the Snow Elves via the Kodiaks for an hourly check they reported that they had found the crash site. That was the good news. The bad news was that the Snow Elves could not tell Merry precisely where they were or where to send the medical help they were sure to need.
<Surely you don't mean that you guys are lost?> Merry asked in surprise, directing his question to all of them but especially Lobo, their leader.
Jemsen and Karel were listening in and got an idea. They asked a shrewd question.
<You must know your azimuth to Elysion. That is a place you have been to, and it IS on the map. So what is it?>
<Er... Elysion lies SSE on a bearing of 157 degrees from where we are.>
Jemsen said. <Now is there any other locale you can take a bearing on?>
<Sorry, but we don't know any other locales or landmarks in this part of the continent. Remember we got to Elysion via a space portal, bypassing all the territory in between.>
Jemsen concluded. <All right, the only thing to do is follow that line till the flyers reach their location.>
On their maps the aerial observers in the three autogyros drew a back azimuth of 203 degrees from Elysion. The Snow Elves had to be somewhere along that line. Adjusting the search pattern accordingly they all flew on with more hope than they had had before.
Dylan had an idea too. The next time the druids networked him with the others via Mind Speech he proposed it:
<You wir wolves can Call Light, right? So you should stay high up on the rim of that canyon and raise globes of light above the tree tops. It is starting to get dark with the sun already behind the mountains so the globes should be visible for a hundred miles.>
While the wirs Gulo, Leon, Brand and the Kodiaks Bjorn and Bjarni climbed down to the wrecked autogyro, Lobo, Lupo, and Volf raised three great glowing globes of light above the forest canopy which were spotted by the observers in the aerocraft. Since they were following the back azimuth from Elysion, the location was dead ahead. Now they knew how far they had to fly along that line.
Liam set down in a treeless rocky area nearby, and they all piled out. Corwin got his medic kit and made his way to the crash site with the others coming behind with tools like an axe and a pry bar. Axel could see the lights too, but he did not wait till Drew flew closer and set his autogyro on the ground next to the transport. Instead Axel Jumped to just above the lights then jumped to the ground next to the broken aerocraft.
The passengers had been trapped inside the wreck, but the powerful Kodiaks had simply torn the fuselage apart to free them and to give the rescuers access. The two combat medics went to work.
Nothing could be done for the pilot. He had died in the crash. Of the others a teenage boy was by far the worst off. The fifteen year old had been impaled on a broken strut and was bleeding both internally and externally. His legs were entangled in the cabling that maneuvered the control surfaces in the tail and he had a scalp wound in his blond hair. While Axel untangled the cables Corwin used a hacksaw to cut off the head of the strut then lifted the boy off it. Laying him on the tilted floor of the cabin, Corwin tried to control the bleeding, but the boy was too far gone. A soft sigh marked his passing.
His mother cried out the boy's name: "Colin!"
"What?" the young medic asked, startled to hear a name so similar to his own.
"That's his name. That WAS his name." she corrected, then burst into tears.
The boy's death got to Corwin. Similar name, same blond good looks. It was impossible not to identify with the victim. Tears filled Corwin's eyes, but he had to push past his emotions if he was to help the others. Pulling himself together, he set splints to broken limbs, stitched and bandaged lacerations, and put seat cushions under the heads of the two passengers who looked concussed.
The survivors had a variety of injuries: broken bones, concussions, cuts and abrasions some quite serious. As the medics worked on them a survivors related how it was a bird strike that had caused the autogyro to go down. A bustard had flown through the windshield and into the pilot's face. That knocked him out and maybe snapped his neck -- either that or the crash itself did it.
"The damn bird came out of nowhere, and it must have weighed thirty pounds. So it is entirely possible that the impact alone was fatal to the pilot."
"So why didn't the autogyro autorotate safely to the ground?" Eike asked the surviving adults.
"It did at first but as it descended the rotor hit the cliff face and snapped in two. That made the autogyro tumble. And since we were flying above this canyon at the time we plunged a lot farther than we might have otherwise. Fortunately the trees we hit on the way down slowed our tumble and cushioned the impact"
"We should evacuate those with head injuries first." Axel suggested. Corwin shook his head.
"Normally that would be true Axel but look here at this girl's thigh. It got pinned between her seat and a rock. What you see might not be just a bad bruise, it might be a deadly crush injury. I learned about this recently during my training as a combat medic, though they told us that such injuries were rare among soldiers and sailors."
"You may well be right, Corwin."
"What is a crush injury?" Eike asked, but it was Drew who answered.
"Something I myself have seen when rescuing people from buildings collapsed by earthquakes. What looks like a very bad bruise is flesh that has been crushed to death. Give it a couple of days and it will suppurate from within and fatally poison a person's system."
Axel nodded. "Okay so I'd better jump her out first. Now as to which hospital..."
"Dalnot!" Her father told him. "We come from Dalnot -- all of us. The hospital there is one of the finest."
"Dalnot it is, then."
Axel teleported father and daughter to the Army town on the Eastern Plains. It took strong magical healing to save the girl's limb and life. She would return to normal within a month as her body restored itself and replaced the dead tissue which had been dissolved safely and passed through pores in the skin. Meanwhile Axel came back for the other four survivors. For most the attentions of practitioners of natural medicine and bone setting were all they needed -- that and time for their bodies' own recuperative powers to restore their wellbeing.
Meanwhile the Klarendes family and their hounds turned about and headed to Elysion on foot. In the gathering gloom on the forest floor, Aodh lead the way thanks to night vision as good as any feline's. But then he was a feline.
The two smaller autogyros flew directly to Elysion, while Liam opened a portal to Elysion for the Snow Elves and the Kodiak bears then flew the transport on an intercept course to pick up the forest rangers who had taken an azimuth on the lights.
Hours later they all gathered in the dining room for a very late supper and reviewed the events of the day. The Kodiak bears poked their heads through an open window and joined the discussion via their short-range version of Mind Speech. Though the others used sonic speech, the bears had no trouble picking up the thoughts behind their words.
Klarendes addressed the druids:
"Although we ourselves did not get anywhere close to the crash site, I cannot fault our search strategy. With a wide search area, most searchers are destined to come up empty, which is no reflection on anyone or on the basic strategy of covering all the bases."
"Besides, my Molossian hounds were happy for a chance to run free in the woods. It was they who brought down that deer which the cooks will turn into venison for tomorrow's dinner. Luckily we were practically in sight of the valley at the time so we did not have to carry the weighty carcass too far."
"We?" Aodh teased. "May I point out that all the aforementioned weighty carrying was done by your son and myself."
<For which we Kodiaks at least are grateful, as we are to our host for providing us a with a haunch for our evening meal. As carnivores we can dispense with the formalities which those who walk on two legs are so fond of: cooking and table manners."
"Don't discount the value of cooking." Maddon Sexton cautioned.
"In my animal form I am as much a carnivore as you two, but cooking in its broadest sense of food preparation was the most important invention in human history. It multiplied the types of foods which humans could chew and digest. Humans even found ways to turn a poisonous starchy tuber of the tropics into a staple which today feeds half the continent of Karelia."
"Actually we often share cooked food with our Kodiak protectors." Lobo pointed out. "I have yet to see them turn their noses up at anything on offer."
<Naturally, lad. We are omnivores. We eat practically everything.>
"Oh? How do you feel about garlic?" Axel asked provocatively, which brought a rumble of amusement from the bruins.
Eike focussed on the mishap itself.
"There is going to be an investigation, as there is nowadays after every crash. It's not to apportion blame but to find out what went wrong and how to prevent that particular problem in the future. As the inventor of the autogyro and one who was on the scene and interviewed witnesses I am sure to be called to testify."
"No doubt your recommendations will carry great weight." Klarendes observed. "Any first impressions?"
"Actually the bird strike problem has an obvious solution: a grill to protect the windscreen. Narrow steel bars maybe three or four inches apart will fend off the large birds which are the real problem. Small birds could not break the safety glass. The bars would not really impair the pilot's view out the cockpit. I'll work up a proposal to present to the board of inquiry."
As one of the two medics on the scene Axel's remarks centered on the victims.
"We got lucky finding them so soon, only thirty hours after their autogyro went down. That girl in particular. Good pickup there Corwin on her crush injury."
"Thanks but the death of that boy really got to me. I felt so helpless watching his young life drain away. And it happened in front of his mother. I feel just awful."
Speaking for the druids Owain told Corwin:
"It was not your fault. You did everything you could. Only Healing Magic might have saved him."
"That's the problem. Our problem really."
"What do you mean Corwin?"
"What I mean is that all nine of us who live together in the capital have magical powers. The forest rangers too, but one sort of magic is missing from our repertoire: healing magic."
"Look at how we are always heading into danger, whether from misadventure, foul play, or in combat. Medics like me and Axel can do only so much. Yes, Axel can Jump a victim to a hospital or infirmary, and Liam can open a portal, but they are not always with us, not all the time nor we with them. We have redundancy now in lighting don't we. Why not with healing."
"What are you getting at?"
"We need a magical Healer on our team, and I don't mean you druids who do come along on our adventures but only infrequently. A regular member of the team."
"But who and how?"
"That I don't know." Corwin admitted.
"Can the New Forest do anything about this?" Madden Sexton asked. "It did enhance our physiques and even gave some of us new powers. True it was easier with wirs whose own transformative magic could be enlisted in the change, but what about someone like Corwin, a human with a strong admixture of elven blood?"
"Maybe. Do you want to become a Healer yourself Corwin?"
"Why yes. Is that really possible?"
"It just might be with all three of us druids joining our powers with those of the New Forest. It's worth a try."
"Are there risks?"
"Possibly. We just don't know."
"I'd like to try."
"All right Corwin. Give us a day to check with our colleagues in the Great Southern Forest. If they give us the go-ahead, we will give it a try."
Two days later Corwin and the three druids visited a glade in the New Forest which housed one of the three semi-crystalline living matrices which had carried the essence of the Great Southern Forest to what was to become its first exclave, the New Forest. In this locale its magic was strongest.
Corwin disrobed then lay atop a bed of moss. The druids joined hands and invoked their healing magic, which manifested as a pearly white nimbus which engulfed the nude boy lying in front of them. The crystal matrix extended a nimbus of its own, only bright green, the color of growing things, which settled over Corwin. A wild riot of plant life grew up around the supine boy and covered him completely, wrapping shoots and runners around his limbs and even penetrating his orifices: nostrils, mouth, ears, and even those of his nether regions.
The air crackle with electricity as the nimbus of the forest mixed with that of the druids, pulsating and cycling through all the colors of the visible spectrum plus some in the infrared or ultraviolet ranges which only druids could see. After ten minutes the magic faded away, the plant life withdrew from Corwin's body then withered and crumbled into dust.
Dahl helped Corwin sit up and asked him how he felt.
"Fine. No ill effects at all. If anything I feel energized."
"Yes that would be your healing magic working on your own body."
"So I now have healing powers?"
"Yes. We can sense the healing magic in you though you must not try to use it till you complete your medical studies at the Healer's collegium where you will study anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and other medical subjects. Such knowledge will let you use your powers effectively. A healer has to be distinguish between ills which can be dealt with by herbalists, chirurgeons, midwives, and other specialists in natural medicine. Magical healing is for when ordinary methods won't work."
"Can I study part time. I don't want to quit my day job at the Capital Intelligencer."
"I am sure that can be arranged."
"Can you still wield ball lightning?" Owain wondered.
Corwin tried and found that his original powers were undiminished.
"It is good that I can now heal as well as fight in a good cause."
"No offense, Corwin" Merry joked, "but you should have seen yourself just now. You must be the first boy in the history of the world ever to get fucked by a plant."
"How very droll." Corwin gave back dryly.
Author's Note
This story is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any person living or dead.
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This story is one of an occasional series about the further adventures of the characters introduced in the fantasy novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends' and published by Nifty Archive. The chief protagonist of the novel, Dahlderon, elf-boy and druid, will appear in these stories in a supporting rather than starring role. Each story in the sequence stands on its own, with the focus on one or a few of the original characters.
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 recent 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.