Elf-Boy's Friends 40
Invasive Species
by George Gauthier
[The further adventures of characters from the novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends']
Chapter 1. Skimmers
"Can I be of assistance, sir?" Corwin Klarendes asked of the city watchman at the accident scene.
On a day off Corwin had been returning from an early morning run to the rooms he shared with his friends, looking forward to a cool shower and a late breakfast. An onlooker had told him that a teenage boy traveling too fast on his skimmer board had collied with a lady in her thirties. She had gone down hard. The boy had fallen too, but his injuries looked to be nothing more than the scrapes and bruises he had picked up rolling along the pavement till he had fetched up against a hitching post. The woman was unconscious and perhaps seriously injured. For starters she had a nasty forearm fracture with the ends of the bones visibly protruding from the skin, and she was losing blood.
"Who are you, youngster, and what makes you think you might be able to help?" the watchman asked Corwin dismissively, seeing the comely blond youth as just another bare-ass pretty-boy, little different from the nude youth who had recklessly ridden the lady down except his fine-boned features indicated that this newcomer's ancestry was as much elven as it was human.
"Let me see what I can do to stabilize her condition. I am both a combat medic and a magical Healer."
"You'd better be able to prove that you are what you claim to be," the man warned Corwin. "What's your name anyway? For the record."
"It's Corwin, Lord Klarendes of Dalnot." he said, invoking his seldom-used title of nobility."
"Ah, you would be that journalist and author."
"Yes, I am, and if I were dressed professionally I would be wearing the armbands certifying me as both combat medic and Healer. "
"I had no idea you had such credentials. By all means proceed."
Taking a knee beside the stricken lady, Corwin first checked for head injuries. It was as he feared, the woman was in serious trouble, maybe enough to kill her if the bleeding in her brain was not stopped, certainly enough to cripple her. Corwin's gift confirmed that her other injuries were survivable so he first tackled the brain injury.
As Corwin summoned his magic a pearly effulgence engulfed both him and the casualty. Its color cycled from pale white to light green and back three times before dying away. Corwin's magic had stopped the hemorrhaging in her brain, repaired the damage to the brain tissue, and also realigned her arm bones, stopped the bleeding, and closed the flesh around the break, cleansing it to prevent infection.
"When she wakens, which will be soon enough, but see that she is taken to an infirmary. The bones of her arm are knit but only weakly. A bonesetter will have to put a cast on her arm to help it knit fully, but her body's own recuperative powers will soon have her as good as new."
"Thank you young sir, or rather My Lord." the watchman said respectfully acknowledging his status.
"Could you check on this young miscreant as well?" he asked hauling the boy to his feet which caused him to yelp and clutch at his shoulder.
Corwin frowned. "Hold on a minute, sir. His shoulder looks dislocated. Here let me pop the joint back into place." Corwin told him. Gripping the boy's elbow he gave it a practiced yank which reset the joint.
"Yikes! That really hurt, and what about my scrapes and bruises?," the boy asked plaintively. "Look I'm even bleeding some."
Corwin shrugged. "Slow seepage like that actually keeps the wounds clean until you wash them with soap and water then apply an astringent to prevent infection. Anyway your injuries are nothing which time and nature cannot set right. I won't waste magical healing on any of them."
"We'll clean him up down at the station." the lawman promised as he took the youth into custody, telling him:
"Let your injuries be a reminder of the hazards of racing along crowded city streets on a skimmer board."
Skimmer boards were all the rage especially among the younger set. Both a toy and a means of short-range transportation, they were the latest of Karl-Eike Thyssen's inventions and were a best seller for his toy company.
Essentially a smaller terrestrial version of the paddle boards of the Medkari, the narrow boards were about two and a half feet long and ran on four small wheels attached to the board by a steel shank on the underside.
Most riders would scoot them forward with a sandaled foot letting their momentum carry them along, steering by shifting their weight. Alternatively some riders kept both feet on the board and propelled themselves by the strength of their arms, pushing off with a light pole which had a rubber tip at the bottom for better contact with the pavement.
Skimmers really came into their own with riders who were fetchers or masters of magnetism. Their telekinetic or magnetic gift let them propel the skimmer at dizzying speed, which is what made them exciting to teenage boys and inspired impromptu races and daredevil antics.
Youths just coming into their powers and heedless of the consequences of excess speed had caused any number of accidents, though this would have been the first fatality. Some dangerous speedsters had been dealt with by passers-by whose gifts had brought the headlong careening of the reckless youths to a sudden halt, in some cases none too gently.
One boy had been Lifted telekinetically by a fetcher of middle years and tossed onto a tussock of sword grass. The one thing fetchers cannot move telekinetically is their own selves. Once lifted off his skimmer into the air he was helpless. He yelped as the sharp blades cut his skin.
"Damn you, old man. My father is a district magistrate." the outraged boy shouted. "He will make you pay for this."
The man shook his head.
"I think not." then raised his right hand and triggered the small magic that made it glow, the unmistakable credentials of the Dread Hands of the Commonwealth, the government's chief troubleshooters who were endowed with plenipotentiary powers.
Another reckless youth got double-teamed by a fetcher and a firecaster as wizards whose tutelary element was fire were known. The former dropped the bare-assed boy into an ornamental pond which the latter had chilled halfway to freezing.
Corwin resolved to write a short article for the Capitol Intelligencer about the hazards of excess speed. He was back to working full-time now that he had completed his medical training. The newly licensed magical healer also volunteered four half-days a month at a local infirmary. There were never enough magical healers to meet the need, which was why the medical system in the Commonwealth incorporated the abilities of the allied health professions of nurses, bonesetters, midwives, herbalists, chirurgeons, and doctors of natural medicine, spreading best practices across the entire health care sector.
The next day Corwin testified at the young miscreant's hearing, describing the extent of the woman's injuries. The boy whose name was Poul Lander seemed genuinely sorry that his heedlessness might have cost the life of a nice lady who was a wife and mother of three. At Corwin's suggestion, the magistrate sentenced him to a month of community service at the infirmary where Corwin worked. It was often called upon to help with injuries ranging from falls from ladders to mishaps with kitchen knives to crime victims, mostly stab wounds or slashes or blunt force trauma.
Some weeks later, as Corwin got back from the infirmary Drew Altair jokingly asked:
"How is that new boyfriend of yours getting along?"
"Poul is hardly my boyfriend, just a spirited kid who made a mistake and got carried away with the thrill of speed. Fortunately I came upon the scene of his accident in time to keep him from having to face a charge of unintended homicide."
"He's been doing quite well at the infirmary. He is cheerful and conscientious and not at all resentful of his sentence which he acknowledges is no more than his just deserts. At our infirmary we mostly treat accidental injuries rather than disease. So Poul has seen for himself the damage that carelessness can produce. He'll soon be finished with his community service. In my estimation, he has learned his lesson. More power to him."
"Does he still race along the streets on his skimmer board?"
"Not like before. When he travels by skimmer, he not only moderates his speed he also wears a bicycle crash helmet and the wrist braces which Thyssen Toys recommends.
"No clothes though, right?"
"Of course not. What is the point of having a fine young body if you cannot show it off?"
And indeed with nudity taboos for males virtually non-existent in the Commonwealth of the Long River, except for dwarves and Frost Giants, young human and elven males almost never wore clothing for exercise or for any kind of dirty or sweaty work, not in that tropical climate. And if their state of undress gave potential suitors a look see, well what could be wrong with that?
Of course many riders who commuted to work on their skimmer board did dress in sober tunics or trews and shirts. Some of the younger workers preferred to wear the newly fashionable square-cut low-rise short-shorts which let them show off their fine bodies in public then change into more appropriate garb at the shop, manufactory, or bureau where they worked.
"So you really don't fancy this young fellow for yourself, do you?" Drew wondered.
"Hardly. Oh, Poul is a nice looking kid, but he is only fifteen going on sixteen. Besides he already has a special friend more his own age, a person of the female persuasion."
"Oh, I see!"
"See what?" Eike asked as he breezed into the room.
Eike was a slightly built, slender, and smooth muscled blond boy. Though in his twenties he looked to be no more than sixteen and would stay that way for centuries thanks to druidical healing magic. Far prettier than any boy rightly ought to be, he had a flawless complexion and fine boned features including a broad brow that hinted at his intellect, high cheekbones, a straight nose, plus subtly pointed ears and chin which gave him an elfin appearance, His large green eyes were set wide apart under finely arched brows, their lashes too long to have ever have been meant for a male.
In answer to Eike's question Drew explained:
"I just now realized why Poul wasn't Corwin's boyfriend after all."
"I never thought he was. That was just a notion in your own perfervid imagination. You saw the boy only once and then very briefly. Anyway it was obvious to me that this Poul wasn't interested in boys."
"Oh?"
Eike shrugged. "Just from the way he looked at me or rather did not look at me, if you take my meaning."
"Come to think of it you're right. I should have picked up on that, social butterfly that I am."
"How is the toy business?" Corwin asked, to change the subject.
"Better than ever, and now we are selling skimmers as fast as the manufactory can make them. Plus we offer accessories like push poles, crash helmets, wrist guards, and even sandals with tough soles which really grip the pavement. You see I held off on offering skimmers till I had developed a line of accessories to go with them. No point giving competitors an uncontested opportunity at the aftermarket."
"You have become quite the shrewd man of affairs, Eike." Drew told him.
"I had a good mentor. Lennart is a great teacher as well as the outstanding business innovator of the Commonwealth. He has midwifed more new companies and industries than anyone else. And yes, as he predicted, my inventions have made me rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Not that I really need the money. I mean, what would I spend it on. Clothes?"
Corwin and Drew chuckled. Eike had nearly as little use for clothing as elves did, going back to Karl-Eike Thyssen's five years as a castaway in the Scilly Isles. Once his clothes rotted away he spent the whole time on the island stark naked until he was rescued at the age of fifteen by Nathan Lathrop and the crew of the Commonwealth frigate Petrel. Most days, if he wore anything, it was only a skimpy breechclout and moccasins while on duty as a a naval architect at the naval shipyard where he worked.
All of Eike's friends had become wealthy one way or another. Their comfortable but modest life styles meant that most of their income was plowed into long term investments, especially in new industries like iron roads, street cars, refrigeration, aviation, bicycles, and even pencils, though not the toy company of which Eike was the sole proprietor.
Ticking off the major inventions with his fingers, Drew said:
"Rigid wings for soaring, wire wheels, bicycles and tricycles, autogyros, airguns, magnetic cannon, torpedoes, toys, skimmers. What's next, Eike?"
"That's the fun part. I won't know until the moment of inspiration, and then I'll get carried away by the frenzy of design and innovation while turning my original notion into physical reality. It's the greatest feeling in the world. Well, the second greatest," he finished with a wink. Then as Nathan and Liam arrived, he added:
"Speaking of which..."
"Save it for after supper!"
The trio of the inventor, the naval officer, and the war wizard shared a bond nearly as strong as that between the twins Jemsen and Karel. For that matter, the trio of Liam, Drew, and Axel Wilde were also close. The nine young males including Corwin and Finn Ragnarson, who lived in the expanded suite at their residential hotel shared not just rooms and bodies, but the lives, their loves, their hopes, and their ambitions for a better future for each other, their friends, and for their country, the Commonwealth of the Long River of which they were proud to be citizens.
Chapter 2. Flensborg, New Varangia
"Pardon me, Sir Giant. Could you direct me to the Wayfarers' Inn?" Corwin asked.
The huge townsman peered quizzically at his diminutive interlocutor, a cute blond youth whose green eyes and fine-boned features suggested a considerable admixture of elfin and human blood in his ancestry. Even for a human he was short and slight of build, standing but four inches over five feet. Which made him quite the little guy in a town mostly inhabited by Frost Giants, who might reach nine feet in height.
"Hmm, I did hear that Old Arn had a notion to hire another wine boy to serve drinks and to entertain his customers upstairs. I suppose you might be him, small though you are."
"What makes you think I'm a wine boy?"
"Well, for one thing, here you are running around town stark naked. Not that I object, mind you, quite the contrary. You are a cute little thing to be sure, but while casual public nudity is common practice for youths in the Commonwealth proper, out here on the frontier and in a town inhabited mostly by Frost Giants it is not. And even dusty and sweaty as you are, I can see that your sexy little body is bronzed everywhere from the constant kiss of the sun, as such bare-assed boys are wont to be from almost constant exposure."
"In both senses of that word." he added smiling.
"Also your skin is utterly smooth -- with nary a feather anywhere -- not even at the fork of your legs. Throw in that impossibly cute face of yours with its delicate features and the sum of it is that you are likely a rent boy and a supremely desirable one at that. Now I usually prefer to consort with the female half of the species, but I do make an exception now and then if a supremely cute boy crosses my path. What do you say that once you get settled in, I call on you at Arn's place? Uh, no offense if I have jumped to the wrong conclusion about you, pretty one."
"None taken, Sir Giant. Actually I get that a lot from strangers, so I have learned to expect it. I am acutely aware that with my slight build, androgynous looks, and glabrous skin, I fall considerably short of normal male standards in height, muscular development, and secondary sexual characteristics like beard, body hair, and voice register. And that goes double around Frost Giants."
"But no, I am not a rent boy, nor even truly a boy anymore, not chronologically anyway. Despite appearances I am of age, and I am as fully grown as I will ever be. I realize that I might look to be no more than sixteen, but I am actually in my twenties. And yes at home I often in the nude for exercise, training, or relaxation, though I do dress professionally when on assignment."
"What sort of work would that be, young one? From my years in the Commonwealth, I know that most young humans and elves strip before sweaty work if they aren't already naked to begin with. They don't dress up for labor."
"That is true, but in my case I work with my head not my hands or my back. I am a journalist and war correspondent for the Capital Intelligencer, the most prominent news-paper in the Commonwealth, My byline is Corwin Klarendes and my beat is national news and special features. As a journalist, I always wear a tunic and sandals for interviews and public events, professional garb which helps me be taken by my interlocutors as a serious journalist rather than be dismissed as a nosy bare-assed kid who asks too many questions."
"And for your information, I got to town only a little while ago, which is why I am all hot and sweaty and dusty and in the nude. I ran the last dozen miles of my journey after being dropped off by an autogyro. I like to keep in shape, you see."
The giant nodded.
"That kind of strenuous exertion explains the sculpted musculature on your wiry physique. Your stamina must be phenomenal too."
"I expect that is the case. And the way to Old Arn's, if I may remind you, sir?"
"Yes, well Arn's place lies just down the street and around the corner. I am heading that way myself so you can tag along with me. How do you know Arn, if I might ask?"
"He is a friend of good friends of mine, folks you may have heard of: Finn Ragnarson, Drew Altair, and the twins Jemsen and Karel."
"Indeed. Those are famous names among us Frost Giants. You come well-recommended, young Klarendes."
Arn's place was located on a sunny square with a public fountain in the middle. Awnings and half-grown trees shaded the entrances to the shops and taverns that lined the square including the two-storey building with a sign proclaiming it to be the Wayfarers' Inn.
"There's your destination, youngling. My own business takes me farther down this street. Good day to you."
"And to you, sir."
The common room at Arn's place was full of giants, all of them in a genial mood and neatly if plainly dressed in linen or silk trews and shirts. As Corwin stepped through the wide open double doors, the buzz of conversation faltered as all eyes turned toward the newcomer. The faces of the patrons were friendly enough though most registered surprise at the appearance of a small, nude, and impossibly comely human youth in their favorite tavern. Others leered at him, obviously taking him for the new wine boy they had heard about.
"You sure know how to pick them, Arn." one giant told his host. "I'd gladly pay a whole silver for a tumble with this new lad of yours. Pretty, petite, blond, and green eyed, he's an exotic and arousing mix of human and elf."
"Yes, he is all those things, Donnar, except this blond beauty is no wine boy. No, he is a paying guest so mind your manners and watch those roving hands of yours. Fair warning to any of you who might be tempted to aggressive tactics, this lad may not look like he can take care of himself, but he is a powerful Healer whose magic can stop any or all three of your hearts with a thought."
Frost Giant had two auxiliary hearts low in their trunk to raise blood from the legs to the main heart and head while keeping blood pressure within the safe zone.
"Oh I wouldn't do anything so drastic to an importunate suitor, Arn." Corwin assured him. "I'd just disable his soldier, if you take my meaning."
Even Donnar joined in the chuckle which Corwin's remark provoked and asked good-naturedly.
"At least set the boy atop a table where we can all get a good look at him."
At Corwin's nod, Arn pulled out a chair to let him step easily to the top of Donnar's own table which brought a big grin to his friendly face. Corwin rewarded him with a wink.
He didn't mind showing off the taut and trim and tanned body he was so proud of. Maybe he wasn't quite the shameless showoff that Drew Altair was, but he did like people to admire him and to desire him, and here he was in a roomful of giants, all fully clothed while he stood atop a table stark naked for all to ogle. Corwin couldn't help but shiver deliciously with the frisson of his own naughtiness.
Donnar's drinking companion Otho Strahl shook his head, telling his friend:
"I just don't get all this romantic fuss which fellows like you make over pretty boys, no offense to either of you."
"None taken." Corwin allowed. "Most guys are like you; they fancy girls. Many others fancy boys, and more than a few fancy both. One's orientation is just something boys discover about themselves as they grow up."
"What brings you to town, then?" Donnar asked.
"I am a journalist on assignment for the Capital Intelligencer. I am to report on the progress you giants and the other races have made in settling and developing New Varangia."
"What! You are a journalist and a Healer both?"
"Yes, I am, plus a combat medic and sometime soldier too."
"Corwin is a war hero, a decorated combat veteran of the Lightning War against the eastern barbarians and of two campaigns in the war against the trolls and the author of best-selling books on those campaigns. He also fought the orcs in that brief war in the Eastern Mountains and against a ring of slavers in the capital." Arn interjected, then let Corwin continue with:
"Anyway I am here to follow up on reporting which my colleague Drew Altair started years ago. He thought I should take the assignment for a change."
"Oh yes, the Drew Altair whom we all know as the Brave Little Fetcher who stood with Old Arn and Young Finn in the Breach. In fact, Otho and I were in that battle too and like those more famous three we are depicted in the commemorative paintings which grace the walls of Arn's place."
At the Battle of the Ravine the Frost Giants had fought the centaurs, carnivorous alien monsters with six limbs that resembled a cross between an insect and a reptile, if such a thing can be imagined. During the battle, the press of the centaur attack opened a breach in the shield wall of the Frost Giants. Had they broken through in strength, their horde would have turned both flanks of the line held by the giants and rolled it up.
At that crucial moment Arn and his protege Finn Ragnarson, still a teenager, surged forward using their shields and bodies to block the centaurs. Wielding their twelve foot spears they had stabbed and slashed at their enemies for all they were worth. The pair held the breach long enough for others to rally to them including Donnar and Otho. Their stand went down in history as that of "Old Arn and Young Finn in the Breach".
A series of three dramatic paintings portrayed the action. In the first picture, giants and centaurs in the front line go down in a tangle of flailing limbs and weapons, opening the breach. In the second picture Arn and Finn fight nearly alone in the breach. The blades of their spears decapitate and eviscerate their enemies, holding them back by sheer courage and ferocity.
Even so they likely would have gone under but for Drew's help. As shown in the second picture Drew has taken a position directly behind Arn and Finn and stands in the path of the centaur breakthrough. He wields steel spheres about the size of a peach telekinetically with an unusual up and down or 'pile driver' motion to prevent potential fratricide among his allies. The motions of his fists help him concentrate as he smashes the death-dealing steel through the bodies of the centaurs and into the ground only to raise them high again for the next strike with an uppercut motion.
Just behind the right end of the shield wall and up the slope of the ravine, two splendid human youths, the twins Jemsen and Karel, send arrow after arrow over the shield wall to pick off the unit commanders of the centaurs, identifiable by the insignia painted on their chitinous armor, throwing their attack into disarray.
In the final picture, with the integrity of the shield wall restored, Drew goes back to controlling the flight of his spheres with his trademark 'shadow boxing' technique, sending them whirling through the heads and upper torsos of the foul creatures. The disheartened centaur horde shows the first signs of the panic that transformed an army into a disorganized mob that the giants and their allies, the Commonwealth cavalry, soon cut to pieces.
"See," Donnar said pointing at the second painting. That's me the fighter with the blond braid. A centaur sword had knocked my steel cap off my head. Before he could finish me I lobbed a clinging ball of fire at him, engulfing his upper torso and head, cooking his brains in his skull. And Otho is the fighter next to me throwing a levin bolt at another centaur."
"My bolts were not strong enough to blast a centaur apart so I aimed at the sabers they wielded in either hand. Steel makes an excellent conductor of electricity. My bolt would hit the blade then traverse the barrel of its body into the ground, stopping its heart and cooking part of its innards."
"And Otho and I also fought at the battle of Flensborg again the trolls. That was the day that Finn Ragnarson transformed into the avatar of Thor and inspired us all. What a thrill that was! Arn was saying just now that he had commissioned a pair of paintings of that battle for the other wall."
"I was surprised to hear him say that you were a soldier yourself, Corwin. No offense, but small as you are you don't look like you could hurt a mouse."
"You'd be surprised, Otho. My small size can actually be an advantage. For one thing I offer a much smaller target to missile weapons than a Frost Giant does. And I am quick and agile. That plus my training with a kukri make me effective in close combat, one-on-one. You are right though that a little guy like me has no business standing in a shield wall and trading sword or axe blows with centaurs, trolls, orcs or humans."
"Besides my physical abilities, there is my magical gift of ball lightning which is more powerful and more flexible than either of your gifts. Lightning bolts and fireballs are well and good, but they are all offense and offer no defense. Ball lightning serves as both sword and shield. A lightning ball three or four feet across can stop bolts, fireballs, arrows, slung bullets, and even a charging horse and rider. Also with my explosive technique I can take out a whole squad at a time. Finally ball lightning can light up the night much like a ball of cold light though admittedly less effectively."
Otho nodded and conceded: "The boy does have a point. Fighters come in all sizes."
"On that note of agreement let me get my guest settled." Arn told them. "Corwin, the folks at the airfield sent over your kit which I had put up in your room. One thing more: the washroom is through that green door. So get cleaned up, and I'll see you at supper."
Chapter 3. Manticores
Over the next couple of weeks Corwin interviewed the inhabitants of the city of Flensborg and its outlying settlements. These included the newly re-elected governor Oddr Bjarnson who expressed his satisfaction that New Varangia had reached its goal of settling half a million Frost Giants in their second homeland, territories which they had wrested by force of arms from the carnivorous centaurs who had looked on all the sentient races of the planet as no more than meat animals.
Humans, elves, and dwarves added another eighty-five thousand to the mix with more to come, especially dwarves, who were occupying the systems of caverns in South Varangia as well as those in the mountains to the north of the farming country which the giants had settled. The Sylvan Elves preferred to live in secluded vales in the northern mountains where they farmed both mulberry trees and the silkworms that fed on their leaves.
More recently the elves had created an industry to supply cut-flowers and starter pots of medicinal and culinary herbs which were difficult to grow from seed to the urban centers of New Varangia and even of the Far West via air freight. Flensborg alone was a real city of some sixty-four thousand. Its flower shops were no longer limited to what grew locally but could offer exotic blooms nurtured by the Green Thumbs which elves were famous for.
Most of Corwin's interlocutors were Frost Giants, though some were human, often former nomads from the Western Plains whom the giants had invited to settle among them to take care of the draft horses which drew stage and freight wagons along the fine new roads the Commonwealth had built.
Frost Giants themselves were much too large for horses whether as riders or even as teamsters. That was simple economics. A team of horses could pull only so much weight. Human teamsters weighed only a hundred pounds or so while giants could weigh five times as much, making for that much less capacity for the payload. (That same logic applied to the humans and elves and dwarves whose telekinetic gift powered autogyros like the one that had brought Corwin to Flensborg.)
Frost Giants were a neat and orderly people. They had no patience with the mess draft animals left behind, so horses were not allowed in town but were stabled on the outskirts. In town goods were moved about by push carts operated by the powerful giants themselves which rolled along streets paved with well-set flat stones. The pavement let carts roll freely, and they never get stuck in mud. They did not make much noise either with solid rubber tires on the rims of the wheels.
Corwin knew Eike would have been pleased to see so many upright tricycles on the streets, all of them built with the wire wheel technology he licensed to the manufacturers. Three identical wheels nearly four feet across could support the weight of even the burliest of giants. Wire wheels only looked flimsy. In a wooden wheel the rim and spokes were thick and rigid. With a wire wheel the metal rim was flexible and the load kept the wire spokes under tension, a design that made the wire wheel light and strong and with very little rolling resistance.
These days Flensborg and New Varangia were connected to the Commonwealth proper not only by modern roads and a postal heliograph line but also by an iron road which brought in beef from the Western Plains in refrigerated freight wagons as well as manufactures and passengers from the settled lands to the east. So far the iron road reached only to Flensborg. From that point freight and passengers had to proceed by stage, wagon, river boat, or autogyro. Roads and river and sea routes connected New Varangia to the Far West.
The slaughterhouses which supplied the beef were situated in Plainsville, the only town on the plains built by the Commonwealth on land leased from the nomads. More than a few nomad families had settled in the town, preferring a settled urban existence in nuclear families and paid employment to the traditional life and extended families of the tribal nomads. Their departure eased the population pressure on those left behind so it was a win-win situation.
Corwin spent a day with Finn's brother Holgar who showed him around their operation both at their lumber yard in town and at their sawmill upstream where they owned extensive timberlands. Shipyards at the head of navigation on the River Calyx turned their lumber into ships which plied the Great Inland Freshwater Sea. The firm also supplied lumber to build houses in the growing town. Much of Flensborg was built of wood rather than of brick or stone which too expensive for most uses though a brickworks had opened recently to exploit nearby clay pits, much to the satisfaction of the volunteer firefighters of the city.
"The lumberjack first tops the tree then fells it with axe and cross-cut saw. As you can see, I also have the men at work extending logging roads to reach fresh stands of timber. We replant with seedlings after clearing a parcel. We'll give it thirty years before we come back to harvest the mature trees. That way our timberlands will yield quality wood indefinitely. The only downside is that over time we transform a good part of the forest into a tree plantation. But better than than encroaching endlessly on virgin forest."
"Why are these axes so different?" Corwin asked pointing to tools laid out in the bed of a wagon.
"Ah, this first one would be your basic felling axe. The bit or cutting head has to be very sharp to sever the fibers as it cuts across the grain of the wood. Now this splitting axe is shaped like a wedge and cuts with the grain. It parts the fibers rather than cuts through them. This next type is a broad axe which is swung with the grain of the wood to hew the felled log and shape it into the squared-off timbers used in construction. It is chisel-shaped with one flat and one beveled edge, for better control as the flat cheek passes across the squared timber. This final type of tool is called an adze. Its main differences from the others is a side-to-side blade. We use the adze to rip the level surface off a horizontal piece of wood. We also use it as a pickaxe for breaking up rocks and clay when building logging roads."
"Now I understand. I am more familiar with war axes than any other kind. Damn the trolls and their murderous ways."
Just then shouts and sounds of a fierce struggle came from up ahead, where the road building crew was at work. Someone blew a horn to sound the alarm and the call to arms. Everyone in the crew grabbed an axe or adze and marched to the road head prepared for the worst, which is exactly what they found.
Monsters out of legend had attacked the road building crew who were mostly giants though with a few human teamsters to clear felled logs. Already two giants were down while a human teamster had been dragged by his runaway team and lay still, either injured or dead. The rest of the crew was fighting as best they could wielding adzes and shovels instead of proper weapons, but they were outnumbered, seven giants to a score of the attackers.
Looking much like a pack of wolves with an extra set of legs, their attackers were six limbed creatures the size of pony. Like the centaurs they had internal cartilaginous skeletons. Unlike the extinct centaurs the creatures ran on all six limbs which ended in paws with blunt claws, much like those of dogs and wolves. The jaws were armed with shearing teeth designed to tear the flesh of their prey, and they had tails as long as their bodies equipped with a vicious stinger. Their external shell of chitinous armor gave protection against the claws or fangs of their prey but would not stop cold steel.
Holgar took in the situation and realized that their only chance was to keep the beasts from surrounding them and attacking them from all directions.
"Over to the rock face." he shouted. "Put your backs to it. Then the creatures can come at us only from the front."
The giants and humans converged on the rock face, though not without loss. Two more giants went down, swarmed over by the beasts.
"What are those things, anyway?" Corwin asked of no one in particular.
"Manticores." Holgar told him. "They were the hunting beasts of the centaurs. After we wiped out their masters they must have run into the forest where they turned feral and multiplied. To them we are just so much prey."
The giants soon realized that work tools were not the best weapons for fighting manticores. If you had to fight with edged weapons, better they be boar spears to hold them at bay or a combination of buckler and sword. The buckler would block a sting or a bite while the sword could sever the tail or split a skull or stab into the guts of the manticore, something you could not do with an axe.
That was when Corwin set to work with his ball lightning, sweeping a pair of crackling and humming spheres four feet in diameter just in front of the defensive line the giants were trying to hold. That drove the manticores back far enough for a safety buffer for Corwin's explosive technique. Targeting the milling manticores he launched balls of lighting into their midst which burst with a flash and an electric crackle electrocuting or tearing the beasts apart, leaving grisly piles of disjointed limbs, guts, and charred body parts. He kept at it till he had killed all but the final few which disappeared into the woods.
Corwin then checked on the fallen. The human teamster who had been dragged by his team was only stunned and had scrapes on his arms and legs. Two giants had had their throats torn out while another's arm was badly savaged by the teeth of a manticore. Surprisingly, those who had been stung were not dead, only comatose and still breathing.
"It seems that the sting of a manticore is not deadly, which kind of makes sense."
"What do you mean, Corwin?" Holgar asked.
"The centaurs evidently needed the help of their manticores in running their prey down but wanted to reserve the honor of the kill to themselves. Hence the soporific venom. Here, let me see what I can do for them."
Invoking his healing magic Corwin flushed the venom from the systems of the manticore's victims, drawing it to the site of the sting and making it dribble out of the puncture wound. That left the victims still feeling terribly out of sorts from after effects, but Corwin was confident that their natural recuperative powers would restore them to full health in very short order. He then repaired the badly torn arm more fully than he would have done if he had had medical supplies at hand. Magical Healing was intended for when natural medicine could not do the job.
And that was how Corwin, Lord Klarendes of Dalnot, earned his tattoo as a Giant-Friend.
The authorities at Flensborg realized that packs of manticores constituted a danger to the public but not an existential threat to a land with nearly six hundred thousand inhabitants, many of them trained to arms. As a long term solution Governor Bjarnson put a bounty on their heads or rather their stingers. In the short term he had the constabulary organize hunting teams to track down packs of manticores living near any of the settled areas including the caverns of the dwarves and the vales of the elves.
The hunting party from Flensborg set out two days later under the command of Donnar, a woodsman from way back with Otho as his deputy, who were both members of the constabulary. The party included six pairs of giants armed with airguns. Two elves armed with long bows served as trackers. Humans were represented by two fetchers named Hugh and Jules, cute sandy haired lads with hazel eyes, but no dwarves were in the party. Dwarves did not have the fieldcraft necessary for a hunt. Besides, their legs were too short for them to keep up.
The veterans Donnar and Otho were the heavy hitters of the group, one a firecaster the other a lightning thrower. Otho also had the gift of Unerring Direction so he was their designated navigator. Corwin went with them but as a reporter rather than a hunter or mage.
"So Donnar, why do we need both a navigator and a pair of trackers?" Corwin asked.
Donner smiled. "The trackers can tell us where the manticores are. Otho can tell us where we are.
"As I see it," Otho added, "on this hunt we Varangians are just finishing the job of exterminating the centaurs. By the time we are through even their hunting dogs will be but a memory. My levin bolts and Donnar's balls of fire will ensure the safety of the hunters though I expect most of the culling will be done with lead or cold steel."
"That includes the steel of our disks." the young fetchers reminded him.
Otho shrugged. "Let's hope so. I've never seen them in action."
The Navy had developed the disks for use in ship to ship combat. They were shaped like a discus but with keen edges and were designed to cut apart lines, sheets, shrouds, hawsers, and cables thereby rendering the ship inoperable, an immobilized hulk on the water that could be dealt with later.
Later the Army Air Corps adopted them for use against enemy flyers in the anti-personnel role, as the military chillingly put it. Meanwhile fetchers like Drew Altair and Liam also carried theirs in wooden holsters at their hips to supplement their steel spheres. Spheres were for smashing and disks for cutting.
The human fetchers in the hunting party both carried spears, partly as a hiking pole and partly for psychological reasons. No one cared to confront danger empty handed.
"Are you two boys twins?" Corwin asked the fetchers.
"No, though we get that a lot since we look so much alike, but we are actually first cousins. It is our fathers who are the twins." Hugh told him.
"We're not just first cousins; we are kissing cousins," Jules clarified naughtily.
"Ah, boys after my own heart."
"Likewise" the fetchers responded in unison eyeing Corwin appreciatively. "We three should get better acquainted while we are out here in the woods."
"Count on it." Corwin told them.
The fetchers might not have been in Corwin's league in the looks department, but they had fine athletic bodies and pleasant faces and were outgoing and friendly and good company. The trackers were mature elves who were not interested in a casual romance, not while on the job anyway.
Hugh and Jules told Corwin that they had been hired for Flensborg's first street car line which was nearing completion. Now with Frost Giants for riders, you needed a fairly strong fetcher to propel a streetcar, but Hugh and Jules were fully up to the job.
Street cars had been pioneered in the Commonwealth capital by Sir Angus McFarden, King of the Iron Roads, as Drew Altair had dubbed him in his reporting. A single Fetcher propelled a car down steel tracks laid flush to the paving stones. The street cars traveled at more than twice walking speed and stopped at marked locations every three blocks. Passengers either chucked two coppers into the fare box or flashed a monthly pass.
Streetcars were popular. They were fast, convenient, quiet, inexpensive, and safe. Streetcars had an unblemished safety record. Running into a pedestrian or vehicle was almost impossible with an operator who could simply Lift anyone or anything off the tracks to safety. McFarden's firm had licensed its technology to a start-up in Flensborg where the flat terrain of the city was ideal for the purpose.
Chapter 4. The Hunt
This was to be a hunt over rough country rather than a combat patrol so the hunters wore little armor. The giants did wear caps with steel crowns but those were to protect their heads from low hanging tree limbs. The gunmen marched with socket bayonets fixed to the barrels of their weapons. The ring of a socket bayonet fit over the muzzle and was locked in place by a lug. That allowed guns to be discharged even with bayonets fixed.
The elves bore no armor either. The weight would only slow them down. Neither did Corwin, but then his ball lightning was shield enough. The fetchers did wear cuirasses of boiled leather, not so much for protection as for the wooden yoke and straps built into it by which they could Lift themselves and fly.
All the hunters except the elves were sturdily shod in the hobnailed sandals the infantry wore, even Corwin who usually wore moccasins when he wasn't barefoot. They all wore full shirts and trews since they might have to push their way through brush and brambles or canebrakes. Everyone carried some kind of short blade in a scabbard at their belt, mostly kukris, Corwin's own choice since it was as much a handy tool as a weapon. They did not rely on pack animals but carried their supplies in their packs, enough for ten days, not counting whatever they might forage.
Their order of march had the elves in the lead searching for spoor, then the strike force of four pairs of giants followed by the five magic wielders in the center: Donnar and Otho, Hugh and Jules, plus Corwin, with the final pair of giants as rear security. Since this was not a war patrol they did not send a scout ahead of the column nor flankers to the sides. Their quarry were feral animals not enemy soldiers.
On the second day the hunters came upon the lair of the pack Corwin had destroyed at the road head including the body of one manticore which had died of its wounds. The trackers examined the site trying to understand the habits of the creatures they were hunting. That gave Corwin a chance to look over the airguns the giants bore.
"That's a pretty hefty airgun you guys are carrying there."
"So it is, young sir." their sergeant agreed. "It's bigger than airguns sized for humans. And though it fires the same lead bullets they pack a greater punch. With barrels being so much longer, the outrushing air accelerates the bullet down the bore for a longer interval, which imparts greater speed and momentum. These airguns won't have any trouble putting down a manticore. The bayonet is just in case."
"In case of what?" Corwin wondered.
"In case you empty either the magazine or the air reservoir or the mechanism jams. The bayonet give us nearly the reach of a spear. And see how this short spike unfolds from the butt plate of the gun and sticks out at a ninety degree angle. That is for when an enemy gets within your guard. You cannot use the blade then, but you can smash your foe with the butt and the spike. Driven by the power of a frost giant, the spike will punch right through a skull."
"Wicked!"
"It's a home grown modification we giants thought up ourselves. I understand the Army is considering adopting it for general use, though with the surplus of arms leftover from the troll war it will be a while before the manufactories gear up to produce replacements for the airguns currently in the inventory."
No one wanted to make camp by the lair of the manticores so the hunters pushed on till they found a better site: a thorn thicket with a stream running through it. The giants hacked away with their kukris to create a clearing in the middle, piling some of the cuttings into the pathway by which they had forced their way into the thicket. With no chance of the manticores sneaking up at them, they needed only one sentry on duty during the night. That meant easy watches of one hour for each of the frost giants.
The next day was spent casting about for the spoor of another pack of manticores. Late in the afternoon the hunters found promising sign but decided not to follow it till early the next day. A defile in the rocks provided a defensible camp site with just one entrance. They blocked it with a fire which they kept blazing through all the hours of darkness though that night they posted two sentries.
In the hours before dawn a pair of manticores tried to get past the fire by clinging to walls of the defile. One made it but the manticore bringing up the rear slipped and fell into the fire. It let out a yowl as it burst into the camp scorched, hurt, and angry.
The two young fetchers who had been on sentry duty dealt with the manticores while the others were still reaching for their weapons.
"I'll take the one on the left." Hugh told Jules who nodded and turned his attention to the manticore on the right.
The fetchers Lifted the beasts some twenty feet into the air and held them stationary, easy targets for their disks which they sent flying at the manticores, cutting at them with half a dozen passes, literally dismembering them before the eyes of the entire hunting party. After that no one doubted the effectiveness of those steel disks of theirs.
"Good job there Hugh and Jules. The manticores didn't stand a chance against your steel discs." Donnar said in praise of their actions.
Hugh and Jules beamed.
"And let me compliment the rest of you for your excellent fire discipline. It would have been disastrous if everyone had cut loose at the invaders at once. Just imagine the danger with lead bullets, arrows, fireballs, and levin bolts flying every which way. Instead you all kept your heads. No one started shooting wildly. This augurs well for our future success."
With that they settled down and went back to sleep.
The rest of the manticore pack may have been lurking or at least hunting nearby because they attacked the hunters half an hour after they broke camp and passed through the defile. As the hunters crossed a meadow two dozen manticores burst out of the tree line, howling as they raced at their prey.
The eight giants with airguns and the trackers with their long bows let loose. The shooters had put nine manticores down when the mages stepped in. Donnar himself threw two streams of fire which caught two closely bunched pairs of monsters. Otho picked off three more beasts with his levin bolts, while the fetchers whirled their disks through their dance of death. Only three manticores made it close enough to finished off with bayonets.
All it all it was a stunning success: all the manticores were dead and not a single hunter was injured.
"Don't get too cocky. All our fights won't be so one-sided as this one," Donnar warned them. "If the beasts had caught us in brushy terrain, we couldn't have aimed our stand-off weapons so well, allowing them get in among us."
One of the trackers had a private word with Donnar.
"Some animals are smart enough to attack from two directions at once. You really need to have some of us facing the other way when we are under attack."
"That is good advice. And thanks for mentioning it to me privately."
The next encounter did degenerate into a close-quarters struggle when ten manticores rose out of tall grass only a spear throw from the marching column. The manticores got in among them, their proximity neutralizing the powers of the mages. At such close quarters the fetchers couldn't wield their discs, but they did keep the manticores off themselves by simply hurling them back. They also tore away three manticores who had swarmed over a giant and brought him down.
Cold steel settled the issue: bayonets, kukris, and butt spikes ended the lives of the manticores though at a cost of several nasty bite wounds on arms and legs. Two giants and an elf were left comatose by stings. Thankfully Corwin's skills as a combat medic and as a magical Healer were up to the challenge.
"No offense to you elves but archery is all offense and no defense." Otho observed. "Now in military operations groups of archers can shelter behind caltrops or stakes, and in the troll war they had the support of magnetic cannon, but none of that works for a pair of archers in the wilderness."
"Right. From now on," Donnar told them, "whenever we are rushed, you archers should rally to the gunmen but turn the other way to watch for an attack from the rear."
With danger all around, Corwin and the fetchers Hugh and Jules decided to hold their budding romance in abeyance till they got back to civilization. No one wanted to be caught out in a vulnerable situation.
The hunters failed to make contact over the next few days. In need of resupply they stopped by an elven vale where they could purchase the supplies they needed. The hunters spent two nights there as guests of the elves, glad for a chance to rest without worrying about what might be lurking in the dark.
Chapter 5. Centaurs
On their second patrol the hunters encountered manticores who did not run in a feral pack but were under the control of their old masters the centaurs. Those five centaurs sicced more than a hundred manticores on the hunters.
Looking very different from the centaurs of mythology, the creatures on Haven nevertheless walked on their four hind limbs while in front their bodies angled up to a torso with long arms and a head, whence their name. Their four hind limbs ended in hoof-like structures formed from fuzed digits, but their arms had large hands with three fingers and a semi-opposable thumb. They had internal cartilaginous skeletons, unlike insects who wore their skeletons of chitin on the outside of their bodies.
Joined directly to their bodies without a true neck, their heads could not swivel. To compensate, the beasts not only had two large eyes in front for binocular vision, they also had two small eyes in the back of the head. These small eyes could not swerve, but they extended the centaurs' peripheral vision to 360 degrees.
The centaurs were not animals. They had the power of speech and could make and use tools and weapons including javelins for the hunt and the sabers they carried into battle, one in each hand. They did not practice agriculture of any sort but lived entirely by the hunt, a way of life that necessarily limited their numbers as with all apex predators.
Both centaurs and manticores were aliens, two of the very few species of large hexapods on the planet of Haven. Invasive species like them and the reptilian raptors must have been introduced to the planet by some spacefaring race or races in days of yore.
In any event, given the disparity in numbers, the hunters had become the hunted as the manticores and centaurs chased them across open ground with nowhere to make a stand. The hunters had a decent lead of a mile and a half, but that wouldn't last long. Manticores and centaurs were so much faster than anything on two legs could ever be.
Donnar had Hugh Lift him into the air for a look at the terrain. He then led the party to the opening of a narrow canyon in the otherwise impassible mountain wall. Turning to the fetchers Donnar told them:
"I have a plan, but I need you to delay the pack till we get set up at the far end of the passage."
Hugh and Jules nodded. "Can do. The pack is well within our range."
"After you have done what you can fly down the passage either when you hear the signal horn or if they get too close, but don't let them see you doing it. Flying is a trick I want to keep up my sleeve."
The rest of the party headed down the passage while the boys attacked the pack throwing it into confusion as the leaders were killed or wounded. The centaurs responded by halting the pack then directing it along the sunken bed of a dry wash which hid them and gave them cover. No matter. That route was longer than the direct route over open ground. Their job done, the fetchers flew the length of the passage to rejoin their comrades.
What they found surprised them. The far end of the passage opened on a flat plain, leaving nowhere to run or to hide.
"Some escape plan Donnar! What do we do now?" they asked.
"Who said anything about escape? Boys, you might not believe it, but I now have our pursuers right where I want them." he said with a self-satisfied grin.
"I don't get it either Donnar." Otho said in support of the fetcher boys. "You deliberately let them drive us through this canyon, didn't you?"
Donnar nodded. "I saw it as our best chance to even the odds."
"So what is your plan?" Otho asked skeptically.
"Simple. We kill all of them before they kill all or any of us." Donnar told him blandly.
"That's your plan!"
"Rather that is the objective of my plan. Now for the tactical details..."
Donnar explained that the canyon was a wind gap, a valley created by a river which once ran though what was then a water gap before its headwaters were diverted by stream capture. Back when water still flowed in the channel the river had undercut the shale cliffs leaning in from either side.
Donnar's plan was for Corwin to bring the walls of the canyon down on their pursuers. To set the trap he had the hunters form a defensive arc as if they were determined to make a last stand and to sell their lives dearly.
Donnar intended Corwin to use his ball lightning to undermine the unstable shale beds along the final two hundred yards of the channel, finishing this preparatory work before their pursuers reached the canyon and might see what he was up to.
Then Corwin would wait till the manticores and centaurs were actually racing down the last stretch of the channel before attacking the undermined walls with his explosive ball lightning. The hope was that the walls would give way and come down in a landslide to crush and bury the manticores and their masters.
"What if your plan doesn't work, and the walls stubbornly stay in place as they have down the ages?"
"In that case Otho we go with Plan B: the fetchers lift all of us out of this trap to the top of the cliffs then fly up to join us. With that much of a head start, we should be able to get away clean."
"Fiendishly clever. I especially like having a Plan B."
At the urging of their masters the manticores raced forward howling, gnashing their teeth, and whipping their tails back and forth menacingly. Still far out of range at the far end of the wind gap the hunters put on a good show, brandishing weapons, calling out challenges, shooting air guns, and even throwing a few fire balls and levin bolts to make it look good.
In all the excitement the Centaurs did not notice that Corwin had undermined both walls of the wind gap. His ball lightning had swept back and forth to gouge the rock face, extending the overhang of the unsupported shale beds till nothing kept them up except for their adhesion of stone to the stone.
Hugh Lifted Corwin fifty feet into the air for a better view of the attackers. Starting at the back of their column, his explosive ball lightning caught the manticores and centaurs closely packed in the narrow wind gap with nowhere to run but straight ahead. The centaurs worried about the way the explosions were forcing them forward but realized that they and their rabid hunting beasts had little choice but to press the attack.
The wind gap was so narrow that the manticores could advance on a front only two or three across. The defensive arc of the hunters attacked the first few ranks of manticores alternating bullets and arrows with levin bolts, slashing steel disks, and streams of fire arcing over the front two ranks to fall on those behind. That quickly created a pile up of dead and wounded which slowed the rest of the pack as they struggled to clamber over and get past their own dead.
The defenders held the pack off long enough for Corwin's efforts to succeed. The weakened joints in the rock face suddenly fractured and gave way. With a mighty roar great masses of stone detached themselves from the sides of the wind gap and crashed onto the floor of the passage. The fallen rock crushed the manticores and their centaur masters under tens of thousands of tons of stone. After the dust settled the hunters could see no sign of a living foe.
"The landslide got them all. Good work Corwin." Donnar told him. "And good work the rest of you. You held the manticores at bay long enough for Corwin to bring the rocks down on our foes."
"The good news is that this bunch of manticores is no more. The bad news is that at least some centaurs are still alive. My guess is that the reason we were attacked was to keep us from revealing their existence to the outside world. They likely have a hunting camp nearby, something we would have been sure to find if allowed to press on."
"Do you want us to fly and locate this camp?" Jules asked.
"No. They would only move it. Also I don't want the centaurs to know we that we can fly, a capability we did not have in the last war. Let's keep them in ignorance so they won't take measures against aerial observation by our military.
"This information is more important than any number of manticores we might kill by ourselves. We have to get back to Flensborg and tell the authorities to recall the hunting parties and to dispatch a military expedition into these forests and mountains to root out the last survivors of the centaur race as well as kill all the manticores, whether feral or domestic."
At least Corwin and Hugh and Jules had time for romance while the military mobilized for war. The cousins were quite good in bed, making up with teenage enthusiasm for what they lacked in practiced technique. And they introduced Corwin to Flensborg's modest answer to Twinkle Town. Though none of its dining establishments could match the cuisine at the Sign of the Whale, the two dance clubs were lively enough. The bands played the latest tunes from sheet music printed by the Altair plant back in the capital.
Author's Note
This story is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any person living or dead.
If you have enjoyed this story and others like it, consider making a donation to the Nifty Archive. It is so easy. They take credit cards. Point your browser to http://donate.nifty.org/donate.htm
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.