Three Trite Tales
Chapter the First
In which our intrepid Wolfrider chief returns to the forest, Rayek saves a drowning squirrel, and our heroes have an unfortunate run-in with a certain Symbol Maker.
“Ecch,” Rayek complained as he struggled to get his foot free of the decaying plant matter. The two elves had been travelling on foot through the swampland for a full two days. They had abandoned the no-humps at the edge of the marsh and continued on foot while Nightrunner followed them with a bit of a lingering limp.
“How are you holding up, blackhair?” Swift called back.
“I hate this place. Too much water.”
Swift smiled. Her lifemate was not used to this terrain. Since leaving Sorrow’s End, they had crossed some of the most breathtaking landscapes and seen the strangest sights. After crossing the Burning Waste on the back of zwoots, they had navigated through the troll caves, only to emerge in the lifeless plain where the stumps of the Wolfriders’ native forest had once stood.
Swift’s heart still ached to think of that burned-out wasteland. She was glad that Skywise and the other Wolfriders hadn’t come along with her and Rayek on their Quest to find fellow elves. It would have destroyed the elders to see what had become of their home.
She missed Sorrow’s End. She missed the cubs.
A little run-in with the trolls best forgotten and they had crossed into a vast land of endless grasses and hillsides. For three moons they had ridden their no-humps, just the chieftess, the hunter, and one lone old wolf all alone under the changing faces of the moons. Now they were trapped in an endless bog, trying desperately to keep the fetid water from seeping into their boots.
“I know there are other elves somewhere,” Swift whispered to herself. It had become a droning chant in the back of her head. Ever since those humans had invaded Sorrow’s End, she could think of nothing else but finding her long-lost cousins.
“Are you cold, Rayek?” she called back.
“No.”
“I can hear your teeth chattering.”
“I’m not used to this... moisture.”
“Don’t worry, brownskin. It’s almost sunrise. It’ll warm up.” Swift glanced back at Rayek, struggling to avoid the dark puddles of water. He wore a cunning smoke-blue leather jumpsuit Moonshade had sewn up for the journey to keep him warm on the journey north. The early rays of daylight pierced the mist and glinted off the clearstone collar he wore around his neck.
He had remade his collar the summer earlier, taking out one of the red gems and redistributing the remaining stones through the woven fibers and gold wire framework. Swift thought of that missing clearstone gem, now a pendant around little Suntop’s neck. She remembered how Suntop’s eyes had lit up at the present.
“It’s only fair,” Rayek had said with a smile. “Venka has her headband reworked from your mother’s old leathers – why shouldn’t you have a little something of your father’s?”
Rayek’s eyes met hers. **The cubs?**
Swift nodded. “I know we’ll be back to see them within the year. And I know this quest can’t wait. But now that we’re away from them... I just want to run back to Sorrow’s End and hold them again.”
“They’re safe. I told Skywise I’d skin him myself if he didn’t take good care of them.”
Swift glanced down at the lodestone, hanging around her neck. Skywise had given it to her when she had Rayek set out from Sorrow’s End. She lifted the piece of stone and looked it over. A piece of the North Star as Skywise believed? Maybe.
Would it show them the way to new elves? Would it even lead them to the lost dwelling of the High Ones? Maybe.
Maybe not. Maybe they would be lost in the mire forever.
Rayek squinted ahead into the mist. “Swift... look!”
She turned. The rising sun was already burning off the mist, and through the growing brightness, Swift could make out the towering shapes of hardwoods and conifers. She stood still, watching the forest grow as the mist cleared.
“Is that your green-growing place?” Rayek breathed.
Swift could not find her voice. Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“It’s... home,” she whispered.
They hurried across the bog towards the beckoning trees. Suddenly a splashing sound stopped Swift in her tracks. She turned and saw a small animal thrashing in the dirty water.
“What is it?” Rayek asked.
“Just a squirrel. It’s drowning.”
Rayek held out his hand and the squirrel floated out of the water. He drew his hand to the side and his floating powers dumped the squirrel safely on the shore of the pool.
Swift beamed at her lifemate. “I love you.”
Rayek straightened imperiously. “Oh, I know.”
“Strutter-cock!” she swatted at his topknot of hair, then wrapped her arm around his shoulder possessively. “Come on, I’ll show you what a real green-growing place is like.”
The foliage was so thick that they could not see the morning sky through the layers of leaves and moss. Rayek squinted in the gloom, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the twilight of the forest floor. But Swift was grinning ear to ear, drinking in the sights sounds and smells of the forest. “Ohhh.... I can feel it all coming back...” she breathed. “How could I have been away so long?”
As Nightrunner panted with delight, Rayek began to slowly pace in a circle, staring up the forest. He had never expected it to be so... lush and full of life. Even in Swift’s sending pictures, he saw a far simpler, one-dimensional forest with clear-cut lines and symmetry. But this wood was a wild, rambling world, in which light and shadow spilled into each other would clear lines, and in which all his senses seemed poised to betray him.
He heard a loud rip and turned. Swift had shucked her leather vest and now tore off her linen shirt. She threw the shirt high in the air and pulled an arrow from her quiver. Before the shirt began to fall back to earth, she had the arrow nocked in the bow. She released the dart and it stuck the shirt to the tree with a definite thok!
“It didn’t take you long to become a barbarian again,” Rayek smirked.
“I want to feel the breath of the trees all over me!” Swift laughed. She held her arms out wide. “By the High Ones! Sand and stone and thorny desert shrubs can’t compare with this!”
“And what about me?” Rayek asked wryly.
Swift grinned, then reached for her discarded vest.
“Oh no,” Rayek held up his hand. “There’s no need. Leave it off.”
Swift glanced down at her bared breasts, then shook her head and swatted at Rayek with her vest. As he sidestepped the blow, she slipped the vest back over her shoulders and buttoned it up. Then she leapt up into the tree to retrieve her arrow. She left the linen to fall into the underbrush.
“Do you feel it?” Rayek whispered as Swift climbed back down.
Swift opened her mind to the distant call of magic. “They were here. Elves – treeshapers. But the traces are so old....”
“Elves were here,” Rayek flashed her one of his rare grins. “What do you know? My barbarian’s hunch has proved out.”
“Come on,” Swift laughed. “Let’s take to the trees. We can cover more ground.”
“The... trees?” Rayek gulped. “Um... but what about Nightrunner?”
“Oh, he can follow us on the ground.”
“Perhaps... I should keep him company. Because... he is so old, after all. He might become lost. It’s – it’s the least I could do.”
Swift smiled. “All right, Rayek. If you’re too scared to walk a tree branch...”
Rayek glared at her. He pointedly turned and began to scramble up into the tree. Swift swung her bow over her shoulder and climbed up after him.
“Think of this as practice for your floating powers,” she said as she led the desert-dweller through the jungle of branches. She skipped and leapt from branch to branch without fear, while Rayek took smaller steps, holding his arms out for balance. Sure enough, he soon began to tip over, and he clenched his fists as he willed his floating powers to hold him aloft. His Recognition with Swift seven years earlier seemed to have triggered some latent powers within him, and he had been patiently training himself to float heavier and heavier objects. Now he could easily float Suntop or Venka high overhead – one of their favourite games. But he still was uncertain floating his own weight.
“Come on, keep up,” Swift goaded. “Catch me if you can, mountain lion.”
Rayek set his jaw in predatory resolution and jogged after her, summoning his powers to keep him balanced on the short skips from branch to vine to branch. Swift laughed and increased her pace. She caught trailing vines and swung over small gap between the old growth. Rayek glided like a hawk over the same breaks in the aerial highway. Swift let out a little squeal of feigned terror when he glanced over her shoulder and saw him gaining on him. She leapt into the twilight air, then caught a branch and swung herself down to a lower level of the understory. Rayek wove through the branches, now relying entirely on his magic.
“Got you!” he cried, tackling her from above. But Swift’s extra weight was a little too much for his powers, and the two fell towards the forest floor. Rayek grit his teeth and focussed his thoughts. His magic caught them and slowed their descent so that they gently collapsed into a large cluster of soft ferns.
He caught her wrists and pinned her arms high over her head. “Got you,” he repeated, huskily, and kissed her on the lips.
“Um... Rayek,” she whispered against his mouth as he kissed her again, more hungry now that the chase was over.
“Mmm?”
“I should probably tell you... we’re lying in poison-frond ferns.”
“We are?” Rayek sat up in horror.
“No. I just made that up.” And then Swift fell into laughter. Rayek glared at her, then fell back on top of her and rolled her on her stomach, trying to force her face into the foliage as she continued to laugh.
The two lifemates wrestled playfully, laughing together, then rolled onto their backs and contemplated the canopy high above in silence. A few seeds from the tallest trees were slowly drifting down through the thick air. Occasionally a dew drop fell to the floor.
One drop hit Rayek on the nose. Swift giggled. Rayek blew out of the corner of his mouth to push the water droplet away. Rayek finally lifted his hand to brush away the water, then laced his hand behind his head. “You realize of course, that if you tell anyone about this, I will have to kill you.”
“Of course,” Swift nodded.
And the two lifemates resumed their pensive canopy-gazing.
For the rest of the day they continued on the ground. “The trees are too hazardous to our health,” Swift joked. “Not to mention our progress.”
“We’ll have to find a place to spend the night,” Rayek said. “In the trees, I suppose.”
“Of course. Just like a treewee.”
“What is a... ‘treewee.’”
Swift smiled. “I love it when your nose wrinkles like that. A treewee is a little monkey-thing like those creatures you took me to see in the World’s Spine. But cuter.”
“Everything in the forest is better than in the desert, eh, Tam?”
“Well.... not everything,” she gave him a flirtatious look.
He wrapped his hand around her waist. At his side, Nightrunner paced along gamely. His sore pads after the long desert travel had healed up nicely, and the old wolf seemed filled with a new life.
They parted a heavy curtain of weeds and trailing moss-laden vines, and recoiled as they found themselves staring at the backs of two humans. Somehow they had missed the humans’ scent completely – had the olfactory overloading of the forest been too much for Nightrunner and Swift after seven years in the desert?
The humans turned from their work at the edge of the stream and gaped at the two elves and their lupine companion. The humans were clad in remarkably deftly-sewn leathers and the female carrying a strange sieve that she was using to skim the water in the stream. The dark-bearded male frowned in confusion, but the brunette female got to her feet and spread out her arms.
“Welcome, my beloved bird-spirits!”
“What the–” Rayek murmured.
And then the female frowned too. “Wait a minute.” She pointed at Rayek. “You’re not supposed to be here. And you –” she looked Swift over. “You’re–”
“Puckernuts!” Swift cried. “They’re on to us.”
“What?” Rayek asked.
“Run!” she grabbed his hand and fled back into the forest.
Chapter the Second
In which tragedy strikes the Sun Village, our intrepid Wolfrider chief and her lifemate spy on a human festival, and the Wolfrider proves themselves to be terrible forensic pathologists.
“Look at that girl,” Leetah scoffed as she filled her water jug from the well. “Down on all fours, just as I predicted.”
Skywise grinned. He took a full bite of his apple. “Wait until she sprouts a fur and a tail.”
“She’ll what?” Leetah gaped.
Skywise only waggled his eyebrows, then took another bite of his apple.
“Ohh... you infuriating oaf,” Leetah huffed. She glanced over her shoulder. “And what is wrong with Suntop? Have you ever seen him look so odd. You’d think he’d been struck by the sun!”
Venka got up from the ground and gathered her new wolf-cub in her arms. “He’s having his magic feeling again, I’m sure.”
“Is that it, cub?” Skywise asked. He strode over and ruffled Suntop’s golden hair. “Don’t go losing your head, or your father will make a rug out of my hair.”
“No, it’s Savah. I knew she ‘went out’ again today, but something’s wrong. She can’t come back.”
“Huh,” Skywise scratched the back of his head. “Well, I’m sure she’ll come back in a moment or two.”
“HEALER!” Savah’s handmaiden, Ahdri, came running out of Savah’s hut. “Healer!” she screamed. “Come quickly! Quickly!” she seized Leetah’s hand. “The Mother of Memory needs you!”
Venka dropped Patch to the ground and ran after them. Skywise tossed the apple aside and followed.
Inside Savah’s hut, the clearstone mural behind her throne was dark. The light of her magic no longer made it dance with colours. Savah sat tall in her throne, staring dead into space.
“Great Sun!” Leetah cried. “She’s all but completely left her body! This is not an injury, Ahdri. I haven’t the power to call back a spirit that has taken flight of its accord.”
“Find Rain,” Skywise told one of the Sun Villagers. “Bring him here.”
Leetah turned from the throne. “I cannot do anything, Skywise," she snapped in frustration. "And my powers are greater than his.”
Skywise sneered. “Not too serious that you can’t rub that in, eh, Leetah?”
Leetah hissed through her clenched teeth, then turned back to Savah. But Suntop was already climbing into Savah’s lap. He touched his forehead to hers and immediately fell into a deep trance. The entire chamber fell deathly silent as the elves watched.
Oh, Swift... I know he’s probably doing well up there, Skywise thought. But it’s taking all I have not to wrench him away from her and shake him back awake.
At length Suntop’s grip around Savah’s shoulder began to slacken. Tears were running down his face as he turned around. “Skywise?” he wept.
Skywise leapt up to the throne and scooped Suntop up in his arms. “What is it, cub?”
“I went to see Savah, Skywise. It’s dark there. And scary. She’s trying to get back.”
“Ohh, poor cub!” Skywise hugged him close.
“Mother...” Suntop wept. “I have to see Mother.”
“Shhh, it’s all right.”
“No!” Suntop struggled, and Skywise set him down on the floor. “Skywise, please take me to Mother. Please! I’ve got to tell her what Savah sees – I mean feels! I’ve got to warn her.”
“Can’t you tell us?” Skywise asked.
“No! Only Mother. It’s all my head and it won’t come out ‘til I’m with her.”
“But... we don’t know where she and Father are,” Venka protested.
“Savah knows where she will be! And it’s not good. Oh, it’s not good at all. But we still have time to get there. I can show you the way. Oh, Skywise, please.”
Venka was on the brink of tears now, as she felt the turmoil in her twin brother’s mind. “Yes! Yes, Skywise. We have to find Mother and Father. We have to find them now!”
Skywise glanced back at the Wolfriders, all gathered now in the throne room. Both children were now clinging to Skywise, crying softly in fear. Skywise met his uncle Pike’s eyes, then glanced at his parents, Shale and Eyes High.
There seemed no alternative. They had to find Swift.
The humans danced wildly to the rhythm beaten on an old hollow log. Long tanned arms and legs flailed in uninhibited movements. Humans of all shapes and sizes fought over the bite-sized morsels of crudely baked flatbread, and drink deep from the birch-bark tankards filled with fermenting berry juice.
**They have no rhythm,** Rayek proclaimed.
Swift stretched out on his stomach and watched the dances from their safe hideout – atop the only flat-roofed hut in the entire human camp. **I don’t know. There’s a certain... charm.**
**They smell so bad.**
**Imagine what it’s like for me. It’s all that hair on their bodies – it traps in their stench.** She smiled at Rayek. **Aren’t you glad we elves don’t that problem?**
Finally the dancing began to subside, and the monstrous human that appeared to be the chief of the village stood on a small platform of flat stones. He was swaying a little on his feet. He must have already had too much of the human equivalent of dreamberry wine. Rayek could empathize. Picknose and Old Maggoty had forced a good draught of that horrible wine down his throat over three moons ago, and his head still ached to remember it.
“Tonight, my kin, we sing and dance to honour the spirits, and to keep them safely appeased and far from our village!” the human announced.
**Translate, please.** Rayek said. He still hadn’t learned the human tongue.
“Lest we forget the danger that lurks in the woods, the punishments that befall those who do not respect the spirits’ boundaries.”
Swift translated the words for her lifemate. Now humans sitting in the half-circle around the chief were swaying to his words and murmuring agreement.
“It is now one year to the day since I lost my beloved daughter Selah to the winged spirits of the Forbidden Grove!”
**Hello!** Swift propped herself up on her elbows. **Spirits? Does he mean elves?**
**Translate, please,** Rayek sent, more urgently. **What’s he saying?**
Now the chief was getting emotional. He wiped at his eyes with a meaty fist. “My poor Selah, tempted away from my side by that weak-spined youth Malak. You all remember how I tried in vain to retrieve her and punish that despicable youth. But I was vain, and proud. I forget to give the spirits the respect they deserved. I didn’t believe in the legends. How wrong I was! My hunting party – you all remember. How we were all driven off by those tiny, winged spirits, covered in enchanted webs and chased half-way back to the Death Water. Let this be a lesson to us all. Hear the words of Olbar the Mountain-Tall! Respect the spirits and the borders of the spirit world. Go not beyond where the Death Water Falls! Do not follow the river into the Valley of Endless Sleep!”
Swift finished translating for Rayek. **What do you think?**
**Olbar the Mountain-Tall. He is aptly named.**
**Hah. That he is. But I’m intrigued by those spirits of his.**
**You said that humans are always spinning fantasies. How are we to know if those tiny, winged spirits really exist?**
**Who knows? But “spirits” usually mean “demons”, and “demons” usually mean elves. And to someone as huge as Olbar, someone our height might well be tiny.**
**And the wings? I wonder... do the tiny, winged spirits he was talking about have anything to do with that crazy human we met a few days earlier? She was talking about bird spirits.**
Swift looked a little nervous. **Yes... that... crazy human. Let’s hope we don’t run into her again.**
**Death Water Falls. That must be to the west, further downstream from here.**
**Sun-goes-down. Yes. See, I told you it was in our best interest to follow the river.**
**Are you going to be sending “I told you so”s for the rest of the quest?**
**Probably.**
He gave her a wry shake of the head. **There’s my Tam. We are freakishly well suited, aren’t we?**
**High Ones bless Recognition.** Swift then shot a glance down at the humans. They were dancing again, shamanistic dances designed to repel the spirits. **What do you think? Wager you we could... sport up here without them hearing us.**
**You’re incorrigible.**
Swift smirked. **Well, come on. I think we’ve learned all we can. Let’s get back to Nightrunner. He’s getting so tired these days, I don’t like to leave him for long.**
Rayek gave her a hopeful look. **And... the sport?**
**All the more reason to hurry back, hey?**
After ten long nights crossing the Burning Waste, the Wolfriders reached the towering cliffside that signalled the northern limits of the desert. The elves sought shelter from the sun under a large silken tent. The two zwoots seemed oblivious to the heat, but the wolves huddled under the ten with their elf-friends.
The elders were exhausted and frustrated after so long in the desert. Strongbow especially was pensive and withdrawn. His son Dart had decided to stay behind with Newstar, Wing, Woodlock, Rainsong and the Sun Folk. The archer had resigned himself to parting with his half-brother Grayling, who stayed behind in Sorrow’s End with his lifemate, the metalworker Hansha. But he had not been prepared for Dart’s sudden decision to teach the Sun Folk how to defend themselves.
**If only Suntop could tell us more about where we’re going,** he sent. **We’ve got get out of this desert soon!**
“Aye,” One-Eye replied. “The cubs can’t really know what it’s like to suffer in this wilderness.”
Outside the tent, Treestump led the cubs up to the sandstone cliffs, one twin holding fast to either hand. “You’ve seen these rocks before, Treestump?” Venka asked.
“Aye, cubling – seven turns of the seasons ago – but I saw a different part of ‘em in a different place. We left the Tunnel of Golden Light and started across the sands... somewhere along this bank of rocks. Mind you, we had no food, no tent, and precious little water. Your mother led us for three days through heat and thirst. She wouldn’t give up, even when most of us were ready to.”
“Ooh,” Venka broke away. “Look over there. A cave.”
She dashed to the small entrance and stuck her head inside while Patch whined urgently at her feet.
“Careful, Venka,” Treestump called. “Watch for snakes.”
Venka’s golden eyes were glowing in the darkness. “There are no snakes in here, Uncle, but I can smell something.”
Treestump sent a call to the other elves as Venka shimmied into the cave, her sandaled feet hanging over the lip for a moment before she pulled them in as well. Patch stood on his hind legs, propped up against the wall, trying to see his elf-friend. Suntop peered anxiously into the darkness.
“Venka?”
“Suntop!” she called back. “Look what I found! Bones!”
She crawled back out, carrying several bleached bones. “Here’s a very strange looking one. Could it be an elf’s skull?”
Skywise took the skull from her hands. It was indeed an elf’s skull, with huge slanted eye-sockets, pronounced cheekbones, and a little ridge of bone over either ear-hole to support the long, pointed cartilage of the outer ear.
“There are more,” Venka held out a thigh-bone and a small finger-bone.
Skywise held to the bone to his nose and sniffed. “I can’t smell anything familiar. The sand and heat have stripped it of all flesh. It’s fresh bone, though. It couldn’t have been bared from more than a year or two.”
“Possibly less...” Treestump rubbed his bearded chin. “We all know how the sands can strip bones clean. And the sands hide all sorts of maggots and bugs.”
“But whose skull is it?” Nightfall wondered.
“Skywise! Venka!” Suntop was bent over, examining the rocks with his fingertips. ‘These rocks were moved by magic! I can feel it.”
Moved by magic...
Skywise looked up Nightfall and Treestump, terror in his eyes. They knew of only one elf who could move rocks by magic. Could it be... could Swift and Rayek have come here, to this place, lost in the desert and exhausted from heatstroke? They could have been caught in a sandstorm – the lodestone could have failed them. Rayek could have moved the rocks to crawl into the cave... to escape the heat. And then...
Chieftess and hunter had been lost for months. Could this be all that remained of Rayek? And if so, where was Swift?
“Why is everyone so quiet?” Venka asked as she climbed down from the cave.
Suntop looked over the Wolfriders. “What is it?”
“Oh... Suntop... cubling...” Nightfall breathed.
Suntop wrinkled his nose. “They think it’s Father. They think that’s Father’s skull.”
“Suntop–” Treestump began.
Venka burst into laughter and slapped her thigh. “That’s not Father! We’d know if it was. It’s just another elf, that’s all.” She picked up her wolf pup. “Come on, Patch, it’s time to go.”
Skywise blinked in bewilderment. Then he exchanged a glance with Treestump and grinned. He set the skull back inside the small tomb, and after a moment, pocketed the finger-bone. Swift and Rayek would enjoy the joke when he found them.
“Thank High Ones for cubs, eh?” he laughed.
“Death water!” Rayek shouted over the roar of the rushing water. The river the elves had been steadily following for days had long since turned from idle current to roaring rapids. And now the churning foam plunged over a sharp cliff. As Rayek leaned over the edge of the cliff, he saw the waterfall crashing over the jagged rocks... far, far below.
“I can see now why the humans chose that name!”
**Send, Rayek. You’ll save your voice.** Swift looked over the edge of the falls. **What about Nightrunner. He can’t follow us this way.**
**Maybe he could take a longer away around... meet us later in the valley.**
Swift turned back to her wolf. **Nightrunner?**
The wolf growled. When Swift reached out, he snapped at her. **Nightrunner?** she sent. **Why?**
Nightrunner turned away and hunched his back. Swift bent down and looked into his tired eyes. **He’s... he’s all worn out, Rayek. He won’t be travelling with us anymore.**
**You... you mean...?**
Swift nuzzled her face into Nightrunner’s thick coat. **My first wolf. Oohh, why isn’t Rain here? I promised he’d be here to heal you when you were too tired to go on. I promised you I’d keep you going as long as I could. But these old bones ache, don’t they? Oh, Nightrunner.”
She hugged Nightrunner farewell. For a moment the wolf seemed young again, and he rolled on his back for one last belly-scratch. Then he lifted his head and licked the tears from Swift’s cheeks. How lucky he is to be a wolf, she thought. He’s doesn’t know that this is our last wrestle. He doesn’t know that I’ll never see him again. He only knows that he’s tired... he wants to rest.
Finally Nightrunner got to his feet. He limped over to Rayek and gave the brown-skinned elf a lick on the hand. Then he turned and slowly paced towards the shade of the forest.
**Swift?** Rayek asked.
Swift collapsed against him, silently sobbing. He helped her to sit on the cold stone riverbank and held her close as she wept for her lost wolf-friend.
**Your Way is very cruel sometimes...** he sent at last.
**Oh, I know...** she buried her face against his shoulder. **Why can’t wolves live long as elves? We Wolfriders have a drop of wolfblood... and our wolves have a drop of elfblood. So why can’t they live as long as elves?**
Rayek had no answer for her. And so he simply held her close.
As the sun slowly crossed the sky, Swift’s sobs eased, and at last she straightened and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m all right,” she said. “We can go on.”
Rayek helped her to her feet. **I’ll tend to the vines. We’ll have a good rope strong enough to hold eight of us.**
**It’ll feel good to get moving again. I’ll feel better I think...**
“Eeee heee heee!” a voice like crackling autumn leaves crowed. The two elves turned just as a squat crone and an unwashed human sprang out of the undergrowth.
“What the bloody–”
“Eeee heee heee!” the ugly human female cackled, bouncing up and down and setting the bones that made up her clothing to rattling. “Kill them! Kill them! Kill the spirits and take their magic stone! Do it! Do it! Kill them, and then you will be chief! Chief! Chief in Olbar’s place! Kill them! Kill! Kill!”
“Yes, Bone Woman!” the man said as he slipped a stone into his leather sling. “Death to the spirits! Death!” He began to spin the sling around. “Death!”
Swift heaved a sigh. “Rayek?”
“Mm-hm,” Rayek nodded.
The two elves pulled their bows from their shoulders and each nocked an arrow to their bowstrings. The arrows hit home, and the Bone Woman and Thief fell back dead. The sling and its projectile dropped harmless to the rocks.
“Well, that was unexpected,” Swift drawled.
Chapter the Third
In which our intrepid Wolfrider chief scores with her lifemate under the watchful eyes of some voyeuristic Preservers, and is reunited with her children in the Forbidden Grove.
Rayek and Swift stared into the foreboding darkness of the forest. Ancient trees were gnarled and twisted into shapes out of nightmares. Sticky webs hung from the trees, clinging to the undergrowth.
“This is the Forbidden Grove?”
“Olbar claimed his daughter went in there and never came out,” Swift said. “I wonder what happened to him, here, that’s he is so afraid of this wood.”
“Humans are afraid of their own shadows,” Rayek scoffed.
**I feel like I ought to send. It seems... wrong somehow, to break this silence. It’s so quiet and still you can’t even feel the night breeze.**
**The valley of Endless Sleep,** Rayek nodded. **Augh, you can feel these spider webs! Do all your forest spiders spin such sticky webs? It makes me long for the desert spiders. At least their webs are smaller.**
Swift looked over the huge bulges covered in silken thread, bound to every tree branch and boulder. **Your desert spiders jump! I’ll take my forest ones. They’re easier to kill. By the High Ones, look at these cocoons. No spider or caterpillar I’ve ever seen spins this many.**
**Great Sun! You’re curious again, aren’t you?**
She winked at him. Rayek heaved a sigh. “Whenever you’re curious, something bad usually happens to us.”
Swift drew New Moon and began to slice through the strands of the closest cocoon. “Let’s cut one open and see what it holds.”
The cocoon fell open and a chirping songbird burst out, flapping its wings in Swift’s face. The bird soared out of the understory and made straight for the clear night sky.
“Great Sun...” Rayek breathed.
“Meat eaters! They trap living creatures in their cocoons to keep the blood warm.”
Rayek looked over the many other cocoons. “But if so, then why is there so much meat here, and none of it eaten? All the cocoons are unbroken.”
“It’s weird.”
“That, my love, is an understatement.”
Swift tucked New Moon back into its sheath. “Skywise would love this place. I wonder... I wonder who – what – made these webs.”
“Olbar’s ‘winged spirits?’”
“Maybe. Come on, I’d like to do a little more exploring.”
She jogged ahead, and Rayek hurried after her. “Wait for me.”
“Scared in the green-growing place?”
“Just eager to keep you out of trouble, Tam.” Rayek slipped his arm around her shoulder.
The lifemates pushed their way through creepers and discarded spider webs. “Augh... filthy things–” Rayek began. But his voice caught in his throat as they stumbled into a beautiful glade. A soft creek ran through the soft grasses and ferns, babbling against the moss-covered rocks. Creepers as soft as feathers dangled over the brook. And lighting up the scene were countless little lights, dancing over the creek.
“Tam?” Rayek frowned. “Have the stars come down from the sky?”
Swift smiled. “Those are fireflies. Skywise likes to call them ‘little star cousins.’”
He shot her a wry look. “No more about Skywise tonight.”
“Jealous?”
“Not at all. In fact, Leetah always used to say that–”
Swift gave him a little shove. “Point taken. Though I could point out that I was never lovemates with Skywise...”
He drew her into his arms. “But you are soul siblings. Call me jealous if you will. But I’d rather have you all to myself.”
Swift drew in a breath as Rayek’s nose brushed against hers. “You know... the fireflies are performing their dance of joining.”
“Are they?”
“No. But it makes for a good opportunity.”
His lips brushed hers. “Opportunity for what... my Tam?”
Swift reached around his neck and unclasped the clearstone collar. “I’ll leave that to your imagination.”
He kissed her deeply, and Swift wrapped her arms tight about his shoulders, slipping her hands under the edge of his open-fronted jumpsuit. **Why is it I can never get enough of you...?**
**Tam...** Rayek reached up and gingerly untied the little leather thong that held up Swift’s blond topknot. Swift leaned into the kiss, letting him take down the chief’s lock. She imagined most of the Wolfrider chiefs had worn their chief’s locks until their deaths. But Rayek had made it a ritual of theirs, to take down the top knot every night and tie it back up every morning. An intensely intimate ritual. It was as if Swift, Blood of Ten Chiefs, no longer existed. When her hair came down and Rayek drew her into his arms, she was only Tam.
The night wound on as the fireflies danced overhead. Finally, spent at last, the lifemates fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Swift giggled as she clutched the water-pot to her breast. “Please, Rayek, you’ll make me spill the water!”
“How long will you torrent me, Swift?” Rayek purred against her ear. “I have asked you to be my lifemate. Any maiden would say yes.”
She inclined her head in a coquettish manner. “Then why pursue me, my arrogant one?”
Rayek’s eyes darted briefly to the enraged Sun Villager standing in front of the healer’s hut, then back to Swift. “Because you are the only one worth having!” And he wrapped his arms about her waist, drawing her against him.
“Oh,” Swift giggled. “You’re holding me too tight.” **Is she still watching?**
**Shooting daggers.** “Do you truly mind?”
Swift let the clay jug shatter on the ground. Water spilled everywhere in a shameful display of waste. The Wolfrider turned in Rayek’s arms and cast her arms about his neck. “If I don’t give you an answer, you might just squeeze the breath out of me.”
“Then you had best answer quickly.”
“Then yes, I will gladly be your lifemate, my love.”
Swift hugged Rayek close, casting a glance over his shoulder at Leetah, fist clenched and face flushed with anger.
Swift waggled her eyebrows and flashed Leetah a smirk. The healer stalked away in fury.
A sticky sensation in her ankles snapped Swift out of her dream. She sat up with a start, in time to see a swarm of strange, winged creatures spitting out the same silken webs over her and Rayek’s legs.
“Hey!” Swift leapt forward and caught one of the bugs in her hand. “Get away!” She swatted at the others, and swung her sword wildly.
“Cur dung!” Rayek shouted as he awoke. He tried to tug the webs off his calves. “It’s stickier than... than anything!”
“Get away! You greedy little – get out of here!”
“Noisybad highthing!” the largest of the creatures trilled, and spat a mess of web in Swift’s face.
She sprang up and caught the bug. “Gotcha! You spit those webs on me again and I’ll crush you into nutmush!”
The strange creature, a sexless miniature of an elf’s body with translucent wings and a jaunty hat, only laughed. “Hee hee hee hee! Highthing can’t squash Petalwing. Try, try!”
Swift squeezed the creature’s midsection, but the dull green skin was as hard as rawhide. “Umph!” Swift grunted. And then a malevolent smile touched her lips. She caught one of the creature’s wings, and the thing cried out.
“We scratch, we sting!” another screamed, coming to its comrade’s aid.
“We chase away bad highthing!” another dove at Rayek’s head, spitting webs.
“Stop!” Swift barked. “or I’ll pull this one’s wings off!”
“Ooohh, poor Petalwing,” the creature cooed. “Don’t pull. Don’t pull. Nice highthing, nice highthing.”
“Tell your friends to buzz off.”
“Go way! Go way! Petalwing say so!”
Reluctantly the strange creatures flew away, disappearing in the shadows of the trees.
“Get dressed,” Swift told Rayek. But the hunter was already on his feet, gathering together his discarded clothing. “You!” Swift glared at the creature. “You are... Petalwing?”
“Oohh, good highthing. Nice highthing. No hurt Petalwing.”
“What manner of creature are you? And why are you spinning these webs?”
“Wrapstuff keep soft-pretty highthings safe and sound. Petalwing show.”
“No, you won’t, bug.”
Rayek tugged on his boots and clasped his collar back around his neck. “Here,” Swift handed him Petalwing. “Hold him tight.” Then she pulled her own leathers out of the remains of the webs. “So these are Olbar’s tiny winged spirits! Bah, good-for-nothing bugs. You spit goo on everything.”
“Soft-pretty highthing,” Petalwing cooed to Rayek. When Rayek brought the creature closer for inspection, Petalwing shot a delicate hand out and caught up a lock of Rayek’s unbound hair. “Soft-pretty highthing,” Petalwing repeated, holding Rayek’s hair to its face.
“This is a joke,” Rayek moaned.
Swift hastily laced up her trousers, then knotted her little triangular breechcloth overtop. She picked up her vest and buttoned it tight. “What are you good for, bug? Why do you cocoon everything?”
“Make wrapstuff for stillquiets. All stillquiets. Wrapstuff keep stillquiets safe and sound. Petalwing keeps everything safe and sound. Fursoft cradlebabies... flapflap scarybirds... fursoft yapthings and growlers... and highthings. Keep them all snugsoft and safe. Highthings very important. Petalwing take care of highthings.”
“Hmph,” Swift tucked New Moon in the waistband of her breechcloth, then bend down and retrieved the lodestone from the grass. She hung the compass around her neck. “Why? Why ‘snugsoft?’ Why do you wrap up any thing that happens to fall asleep?”
“Troublemuch out there. Petalwing keep highthings safe and sound.” And then the creature giggled. “Highthings make nice-nice. Petalwing see. Petalwing remember.”
“Nice-nice? What... augh!” Rayek wrinkled his nose. “Those... things were watching us?”
“No tumble-rumble. Petalwing take care of soft-pretty highthing. No spoot-spoot wrapstuff. Petalwing promise.”
Swift stalked away from the stream, leaving Rayek to follow, still clutching the struggling Petalwing. “You are useless, bug!” Swift spat, drawing her sword. She sliced through a cocoon fixed fast to a gnarled root. A little bird escaped, chirping in confusion.
“Aww.... twitterchirp featherthing fly away.”
Swift sliced through another cocoon, this time releasing a large moth. “Are you supposed to protect moths from trouble, Petalwing? What about–” she sliced through another cocoon, freeing a small mouse. “You are a joke, bug!”
She strode over a large cocoon nestled between two fern-covered roots. “Tanner’s needles, what’s inside this one?” Swift demanded.
The sticky webs fell away from her sword’s sharp blade, revealing a lump of fur inside the broken cocoon. The fur stirred, and a little wolf cub slowly yawned and stretched its front legs. It was plump and gray-furred, with a distinctive black patch on the top of its muzzle. Huge gold eyes looked up at Swift expectantly.
Rayek frowned. Petalwing thrashed in his grip. “No! Bad highthing. Don’t cut wrapstuff. Leave fursoft yapthing.”
Swift’s anger had melted away. She bent down and scooped up the whining cub. “Hello there. Where did you come from?”
“Swift?” Rayek asked.
“Heh – you’re a friendly one. And well-fed too! Your pack can’t have abandoned you too long ago. Poor thing, did you fall asleep and get covered up by the bugs?” She held the cub up to her face and smiled as it licked her cheek. “You know... Nightrunner wasn’t much than you when and I bonded...”
And suddenly Swift held the cub out at arm’s length.
“By all the children of the High Ones...”
“What, Swift? What is it?”
“Venka! This cubs has Venka’s scent all over him.”
“Venka? Are you serious?”
“You can’t fool a Wolfrider’s nose, much less a mother’s. You!” she turned on the bug. “My lifemate will rip your wings right off your back if you won’t tell me where this cub came from. And no tricks!”
“No tricks. No tricks. Fursoft yapthing came two darks ago. Come with other highthings. Two little... one big!”
“Where are they? Where are they?”
“Won’t tell!” Petalwing spat a mouthful of web in Swift’s eyes, blinding her.
“Swift!” Rayek cried. In his moment of surprise, Petalwing dug its claws into his hand. He cried out in pain, and the bug escaped his grasp.
Swift brushed the sticky webs out of her eyes. “Come on.”
“Hey! Where are you going?” Rayek hurried after her.
The wolf cub tried to follow, then whined when he couldn’t keep up. Rayek heaved a sigh, then turned around and scooped it up in his arms. “Swift, wait for me.”
She ran through the forest, as if possessed. By the time Rayek caught up with her, she had come a sharp halt, and was now staring into the darkness purposefully.
Is she sending? Rayek wondered. Surely she doesn’t believe the bug?
Swift’s eyes lit up as a faint whisper of thought answered her call. She tore through the underbrush, cleaving a path with New Moon. At length she came to a huge cocoon, far larger than any she had seen before. Gently she alighted on the cocoon and began to slice through the glossy webbing.
“Bad highthing!” Petalwing reprimanded.
“Go away, bug.”
Carefully, she began to uncover hints of an elfin body under the web, then two, then three. With each layer of discarded wrapstuff, more details came into view. Her breath caught in her throat as she uncovered a glint of smoky-blue metal and a wisp of white hair. But she didn’t trust her own eyes until she had brushed the last of the wrapstuff away from Skywise’s sleeping face.
The silver-haired elf moaned and stirred sleepily as Swift gently parted the curtain of webbing to reveal a dark-haired girl and a golden-haired boy snuggled tight against their uncle.
Skywise blinked. “Tam?” he murmured.
“Tam!!” He cried, and sprang free of the wrapstuff to wrap his arms tight about Swift’s neck. Swift reached out and enveloped her twins and her soulbrother in her arms.
The twins crawled over his other, fighting for precedence in their mother’s crushing bear hug. Skywise drew back and saw Rayek standing the shadows.
“So...” Rayek said tightly. “He knows your soulname. I suppose you know his.”
Swift could only shrug helplessly.
“Father!” Suntop and Venka ran to embrace Rayek, and the hunter bent down to scoop them up in his arms.
“Patch!” Venka cried out at the sight of the little wolf pup. “Father – you found Patch!”
“Is that his name? Actually, your mother did the finding.”
Patch squealed and yipped in delight, and Venka caught him up against her. “He’s my wolf-friend. Isn’t he beautiful, Father?”
“So...” Skywise looked over Rayek’s unbound hair, and noted Swift’s lack of a chief’s lock. “What were you up to before you found us?”
“Go drown yourself,” Rayek sneered. And then he self-consciously finger combed his hair back up into his ponytail, only to realize he had left his headband at the stream. He smiled wryly at his predicament, then sauntered over to the stargazer and gave Skywise an affectionate shove to the shoulder. “Great Sun, what is an oaf like you doing with my kitlings in the middle of this grove, anyway?”
Swift sat down on the ground and gathered her twins in her arms. They were both talking at once now, drowning Swift in a flurry of excited answers. Swift could only laugh and hug them close. Finally, Swift turned to Skywise, and the elf nodded. Instantly a stream of sending images filled Swift’s and Rayek’s heads. The three adults lock-sent with the youngsters to tie all the images together into one clear narrative.
Swift saw everything. She saw the Wolfriders leave Sorrow’s End. She saw them stop to rest in the great plains. She saw Strongbow shoot down the giant bird – with a wingspan as great as six wolves lined nose to tail – while Suntop begged him not to. And then she saw the other, larger hawks descend on the Wolfriders.
Strongbow disappeared first, drawn up into the sky by the first hawk. A second hawk fell on his wolf, Briersting, and tore the beast to shreds. As the Wolfriders tried to defend their wolf, a third hawk swooped on Moonshade. And then another hawk descended. And then another.
Suntop broke from the chaos, crying that he had to find his mother. He scrambled up into the saddle of the zwoot, and Venka hurried after him. Skywise forced them deep into the supply baskets as one of the hawks dove at them. And then Skywise hid under the zwoot’s belly. But the zwoot panicked and burst into a gallop. And Skywise was forced to hang on to the harness as the zwoots dragged him across the grasslands, and deep into the forest.
Skywise was barely conscious when the reached the Forbidden Grove, but Venka and Suntop tended to him until he regained his strength. “It’s all right, Uncle Skywise,” Suntop said. “I know we’ll find Mother and Father soon. They’re here... somewhere in here.”
The three elves and the little wolf pup searched the forest for hours until... predictably, they fell asleep. And then Swift and Rayek finished the story for them. Petalwing and his bugs came for them.
“Where did the birds take the elves?” Swift asked.
“I didn’t see,” Skywise shrugged helplessly.
“They took them towards sun-goes-down!” Venka piped up. “I saw them. I peeked out of the basket – I wasn’t afraid, Mother. They flew towards sun-goes-down, towards the big blue-gray mountain on the horizon.”
“The blue mountain...” Swift breathed. “But why? Why come all this way, risk everything to find us?”
“I have a message from Savah!” Suntop cried. “She went out of her body to help you, Mother. But something... something bad happened. She found something... something you mustn’t go near. I went out to see her, and she told me to warn you. But... we came all this way and now... I don’t know how to do what she told me.”
Swift took his hand. “Come. Let’s go find a quiet place. You’ll find the way to tell me. You’re my sunny sun-top, after all.”
The two disappeared into the underbrush, leaving Rayek alone with Venka and Skywise. Venka contently took up her favourite seat in her father’s lap, and Patch leapt into her arms.
“So...” Rayek looked at Skywise. “This is keeping my cubs safe?”
“High Ones know I tried. You try to reason with these two when they get an notion in their heads. They’re just as stubborn as you and Swift – even worse!”
Rayek smiled down at Venka. “Were you tormenting your uncle Skywise?”
“Yes, Father,” she nodded eagerly. “Just like you told me.”
“Good girl.” He dropped a kiss to the crown of her head.
Swift and Suntop returned a few minutes later, no closer to unravelling the riddle of Savah’s message. “It can’t be explained in words. Savah was right. There is a danger... and it has to do with the blue mountain. But the pictures and feelings in her warning are not very clear. Suntop and I have to try again later to make sense of it all. Right now we’ve got to find out what happened to the Wolfriders.”
“But... but what if the hawks tool them all to the blue mountain?” Suntop cried. “We can’t go there, Mother! Something bad is waiting for us. You mustn’t go near the mountain!”
Swift hugged him close. “Ohh... Suntop... my brave little cub, I’m so proud of you. But if the tribe has been take there, then that’s where we have to go. Whatever danger is there, we’ll have to face it.”
Suntop bowed his head uncertainly. Swift hugged him again. “Don’t worry, cubling. Whatever we might find there, we’ll overcome it. And maybe we can even find a way to help Savah.” Swift straightened. “Can you take guide us to the place where you were attacked, Skywise?”
“Probably. Ahem,” he held out his hand. “The lodestone would probably help.”
Swift obligingly slipped it off and handed it back to him.
Skywise wiped the stone off on his vest. “You didn’t let him wear it... did you?”
Rayek glared at Skywise. Swift shook her head.
“Good.”
They walked through the forest, picking their way through the cocoons as Swift and Rayek explained about Petalwing and his fellow bugs.
“He’s following us, you know,” Rayek said at length.
Swift cast a glance over her shoulder at the creature. “Go away, Petalwing.”
“No. Petalwing go with. Take good care of highthings.” And then the bug landed in Rayek’s hair. “Good soft-pretty highthing!” it cooed.
“Stop calling me that!” Rayek shouted.
They travellers made their way back to the creek, where Rayek retrieved his headband and quickly put his hair back up in its trademark style. A few of the fireflies still lingered in the air.
**Nice place,** Skywise said. **Did you tell him the fireflies were doing their joining dance?**
**Yep. Worked like a charm.**
The two elves clapped hands conspiratorally.
“Mother! Mother!” Venka called. “I found another cocoon. It’s huge!”
They found the large bundle of wrapstuff, serenely lying at the foot of a large oak tree. Petalwing flew over the cocoon proudly. “This biggest wrapstuff we ever do! Bigthings been stillquiet here long time!”
“What’s in it?” Skywise wondered.
Rayek and Swift exchanged knowing glances. “Stay out of sight,” Swift said. She leapt atop the cocoon and began cutting threads. “Petalwing! Quit sealing up ever cut I make. I know what I’m doing, so go away.”
At last Swift cut the last threads, and leapt back into the underbrush. Two young humans, a woman and her lover, slowly emerged from the cocoon, yawning and brushing the webs from their bodies.
**Well, fell me and tie me and fry me in a fire,** Skywise sent as he watched the lovers embrace. **Here I thought humans were all monsters.**
Suddenly a howl rose in the distance. Malak and Selah shuddered in fear and raced for cover. Swift and Skywise grinned from ear to ear.
“That’s no wolf!” Swift laughed. “It’s Nightfall.”
“And Redlance,” Skywise said. “Someone did escape the hawks’ attack.”
“Come on, let’s go!” Swift cried.
“Here we go again,” Rayek murmured under his breath.
Elfquest copyright 2014 Warp Graphics, Inc. Elfquest, its logos, characters, situations, all related indicia, and their distinctive likenesses are trademarks of Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Some dialogue taken from Elfquest comics. All such dialogue copyright 2014 Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Alternaverse characters and insanity copyright 2014 Jane Senese and Erin Roberts.