"The blood of Mather!" scoffed Tuntun, an elf maiden so slight of build that she could easily hide behind a third-year sapling. Tuntun's normally melodic voice turned squeaky whenever she got excited, and several of the others cringed and some even put their hands over their sensitive, pointed ears. Tuntun pretended not to notice. She batted her huge blue eyes and her translucent wings, and crossed her slender arms imperiously over her tiny, pointy breasts.
"Mather's nephew," replied Belli'mar Juraviel, never taking his gaze from Elbryan as the boy moved about the ruins of his house. Juraviel didn't have to look Tuntun's way to know her pose, for the obstinate elf struck it often.
"His father fought well," remarked a third of the gathering. "Were it not for the fomorian --"
"Mather would have slain the fomorian," Tuntun interrupted.
"Mather wielded Tempest," Juraviel said grimly. "The boy's father had nothing more than a simple club."
"Mather would have choked the fomorian with his bare --"
"Enough, Tuntun!" demanded Juraviel; even in a shout, the elf's voice rang like the clear chime of a bell:' It didn't bother Juraviel, or any of the others, how loud their conversation had become, for though Elbryan was barely fifteen yards away from them, they had erected a sound shield, and no human ear could have discerned anything more than a few chirps, squeaks, and whistles, sounds easily enough explained away by the natural creatures in the area. "Lady Dasslerond has declared this one a fitting choice," Juraviel finished, calming himself. "It is not your place to argue."
Tuntun knew she could not win this debate, so she held fast her defiant nose and began tapping her foot on the ground, all the while staring at young Elbryan and not liking what she saw. Tuntun had little fondness for the big, bumbling humans. Even Mather, a man she had trained and had known for more than four decades, had more often than not driven her away with his pretentious purpose and stoicism. Now, looking at Elbryan, this sniveling youngster, Tuntun could barely stand the thought of seven years of training!
Why did the world need rangers, anyway?
Belli'mar Juraviel suppressed a chuckle, for he liked seeing Tuntun flustered. He knew the maiden would make his life miserable if he embarrassed her now, though, so he leaped up high, his little wings beating hard, lifting him a dozen feet from the ground; he came to rest on a low branch, a better vantage point for watching the movements of this boy who would replace Mather.
Mercifully, Elbryan's grief had brought with it exhaustion, and the boy had found some sleep. He remained in the house, cradling his mother, gently stroking her hair even after the first waves of slumber had come over him. He awoke with the dawn -- and with resolve.
He came out of the house, eyes still moist with tears, his mother's body in his arms. Now Elbryan steeled himself against the scene of devastation. He found strength in duty, and that duty lay in burying the dead. He put his sword in his belt, found a spade; and began to dig. He buried his parents first, side by side, though the task of filling the grave, of putting cold dirt on the bodies of those whom he had most loved, nearly destroyed him.
He found Thomas Ault and several other men next, and only then did the already weary youngster realize the scope of his task. Dundalis had been home to more than a hundred folk; how long would it take to bury them all? And what of those youngsters who had been slaughtered on the hill? And of the other patrol, who had battled in the wide pine valley among the caribou moss?
"One day," Elbryan decided, and even his own voice sounded strange to him in this surreal situation. He would spend just this one day gathering the bodies, collecting them for a mass grave. That would have to suffice.
But then what? Elbryan wondered. What might he do after the task was completed? Where might he go? He thought of Weedy Meadow, a day of hard marching. He thought of pursuing the goblins, if he could find any tracks. Elbryan shook that away immediately, knowing the rage within him, the hunger for revenge, could cloud his judgment, could consume him. His next task was clear to him, for the moment at least, and though it pained him immeasurably to think of success, he knew he had to find the body of Jilseponie Ault, his dear Pony.
And so he searched, pulling corpses from the ruins of houses, collecting the fallen and laying the bodies side by side on the field that had been Bunker Crawyer's corral. Half the day slipped by, but Elbryan had no thoughts of food. His search for Jilseponie grew more agitated as the hours slipped by. Soon he was bypassing the closest bodies, leaving them where they lay, focusing his search, though he realized that in his desperation, he was, perhaps, being inefficient and he had little time to waste. Such a scene of carnage would no doubt bring other scavengers -- great cats and bears, perhaps -- and Elbryan couldn't be sure that the goblins wouldn't return. So he ran on, hauling bodies, peeking under rubble, kicking aside piles of dead goblins to see who might be underneath. He tried to keep a mental note of his macabre collection, tried to match it against the people of Dundalis by sorting their names house by house.
The task overwhelmed him; he couldn't be sure, couldn't even be certain of the identity of so many of the charred bodies. One of them must have been Pony.
By mid-afternoon, Elbryan knew he was defeated, knew he could not hope to properly bury all the corpses. He had two score lined up in the field, and so he decided to bury them alone. The rest...
Elbryan sighed helplessly. He took the spade, went to the field, and began to dig. He transferred the grief, rising again within him, into rage, and went at the earth as if it, and not the goblins, had assaulted Dundalis, had stolen from him everything in the world that was familiar and comforting. Everything, everyone that he loved.
His muscles complained, but he didn't know it; his stomach groaned from lack of food, but he didn't hear it.
Even Tuntun was impressed by his stamina.
Elbryan lay down to sleep at the base of the ridge that night, outside Dundalis. "Pony," he said aloud, needing to hear a voice, any voice, even his own.
The elves quietly encircling him paused and cocked curious ears. Tuntun thought the boy might be calling to his mount, but Juraviel, who had been more attentive to the boy and his relationships, knew the truth.
"Please don't be dead," Elbryan said to the quiet wind. He closed his eyes, wet again with tears for his mother and father, for all his friends and all his community. "I can survive this," Elbryan said determinedly, "but only with you." He lay back on the ground and crossed his forearms over his face. "I need you, Pony. I need you."
"A very needy young boy," Tuntun remarked.
"Some sympathy," Juraviel scolded.
A short distance away, Elbryan sat bolt upright, confused.
Juraviel glared at Tuntun, for the female's sour attitude had forced the words out before any sound screen could be cast up.
Elbryan drew out his short sword, glancing warily into the shadows. "Come out and face me!" he commanded, and there was no fear in his voice.
Tuntun nodded. "Oo, so brave," she said sarcastically.
Juraviel responded with a nod of his own, but his admiration was sincere. The young man, so suddenly no more a boy, had passed through grief and through fear. He was indeed brave -- it was no act -- and would willingly face whatever enemy he found without fear of his own death.
After a few moments, Elbryan's nerves began to wear thin. He moved to the nearest tree, stalked about it, then darted to the next. The elves, of course; had little trouble keeping ahead of him, silent and out of sight. After a few minutes, the young man began to relax, but, exhausted though he was, he realized he should not remain so vulnerable here out in the open. He couldn't think of any defensible spots nearby, but perhaps he could strengthen this one. He went to work quietly, methodically, using the lace of his shirt, his belt, anything he could find to secure saplings into snares:
The elves watched every move, some with respect, some with a hugely superior attitude. Elbryan's traps couldn't catch a squirrel; certainly any elf could run into one, untie it before it ever went off, then reset it as he scampered out the other side!
"Blood of Mather!" Tuntun remarked more than once.
Juraviel, Elbryan's chief sponsor with Lady Dasslerond, took it lightly. He remembered Mather at the start of the legendary ranger's career, a bumbling boy no more adept and probably not even as resourceful as this Elbryan.
Within the hour, Elbryan had done all he could -- and that was not much. He found a tall pine with low-hanging branches and slipped underneath them into the natural tent. Only the keenest of eyes could have picked him out within that blocking canopy, but of course, his field of vision likewise was severely limited. He put his back to the tree trunk, put his sword across his lap. Nagged by a distinct feeling that he was not alone and believing that he would be safe if he could just make it to the dawn, he tried hard to stay awake. But weariness overtook him, caught him where he sat, and brought his eyelids low.
The elves gradually closed in.
Something brought Elbryan awake. Music? A soft singing he could not quite discern? He had no idea how long he had slept. Was morning close? Or had he slumbered right through the next day?
He forced himself to his knees and crawled to the edge of the overhanging canopy, carefully pushing aside one of the branches.
The moon, Sheila, was up, but not yet directly overhead. Elbryan tried to calculate the duration of his rest, knew it had been no more than a couple of hours. He paused and listened hard, certain there was something out there beyond his vision.
A soft melody vibrated in his ear, somewhere just below his consciousness. Quiet and sweet were the notes, but that did little to comfort Elbryan.
It went on and on, sometimes seeming to rise, as if his enemies were about to rush out at him from the shadows but then it diminished to near nothingness once again. Elbryan clutched the sword hilt so hard his knuckles whitened. It wasn't Pony out there, he knew; it wasn't anything human. And to the young man who had somehow survived a goblin raid, such a conclusion meant it could only be one thing.
He should have stayed hidden. Rationally, Elbryan knew his best defense lay in concealment, the best he could hope for against returning goblins was to keep as far away from them as possible. But thoughts of his slain family and friends, of Pony, spurred him on. Despite very real fears, Elbryan wanted revenge.
"I told you he was brave," Juraviel whispered to Tuntun as Elbryan slipped out from under the pine boughs.
"Stupid," Tuntun corrected without hesitation.
Again Juraviel let the insult to Elbryan pass. Tuntun had thought Mather stupid, as well -- at first. Juraviel motioned to his companions and started away.
The teasing fairy song, remaining at the very edge of his consciousness, led Elbryan on for many minutes. Then abruptly it was no more, and for Elbryan, the sudden silence was like waking up from a dream. He found he was standing in the middle of a nearly circular clearing, a small meadow ringed by tall trees. The moon was above the easternmost boughs, casting slanted rays upon him, and he realized how foolish he had been and how vulnerable he now was. Ducking low, he started for the edge of the clearing but stopped almost immediately and stood up straight, eyes wide, mouth hanging open.
He spun in a complete circle, watching as they stepped into the clearing's perimeter, dozens of creatures of a type he did not know. They were no taller than he and couldn't have weighed close to his ninety pounds. They were slight of build, delicate, and beautiful, with angled features, pointed ears, and skin that seemed almost translucent in the soft light.
"Elves?" Elbryan whispered, the thought coming from somewhere far back in his memories, the stuff of legends so remote the flustered young man had no idea what to make of these creatures.
The elves joined hands and began to walk in a circle about him, and only then did Elbryan realize they were indeed singing. The syllables came clear to him, though they joined into words he could not understand, distant melodic sounds he somehow recognized as part of the earth itself. Soothing sounds, and that made defiant Elbryan panic even more. He glanced all around, tried to focus on individual creatures that he might discern their leader.
Their tempo increased. Sometimes they held hands, and other times they let go long enough for every other elf to turn a graceful pirouette. Elbryan couldn't focus; every time he sorted out an individual, some movement at the edge of his vision, or some higher note in the chorus, distracted him. And by the time he looked back to the original spot, the individual elf had blended away, for surely they all looked alike.
The dance intensified, the pace, the spins. Now whenever the elves broke apart for their pirouettes, those not spinning lifted off the ground as if by magic -- for Elbryan could not see their delicate wings in the moonlight -- floating and fluttering to land back in place.
Too many images assailed poor Elbryan. He tried to push them away, closed his eyes, and several times took up his sword and started a charge, meaning to break through the ring and run off into the forest. Every attempt proved futile, for though he started straight, the young man inevitably turned with the flow of the dancers, going around in a circle until the multitude of images and the sweet melody distracted him and defeated him.
He realized then he had dropped his sword and thought it might be a good idea to pick it up. But the song . . .
The song! There was something about it that would not let him go. He felt it, a tender vibration all along his frame, more than he heard it. It caressed him and beckoned him. It brought images of a younger world, a cleaner and more vibrant world. It told him these creatures were not of the evil goblin race; these were friends to be trusted.
Elbryan, so full of grief and rage, fought that last notion fiercely and so remained standing much longer than usual for a mere human. Gradually, though, his resolve drained away and so did his strength. He accepted the invitation of the soft earth.
He was lying down; that was the last thought that came to him.
"Blood of Mather," muttered Tuntun as the elvish caravan started off, Elbryan moving with their line on a floating bed woven of silken strands, feathers, and music.
"You keep saying that," replied Juraviel. As he spoke, the elf fingered a green stone, serpentine, feeling its subtle vibrations. Normally such trivial magic would prove useless against one as wise as Tuntun, who had seen the birth and death of several centuries, but the female was clearly distracted by her distaste for this night's work.
"I shall keep saying it!" Tuntun insisted, but her bluster was lost in the whoosh of a sapling. The agile elf managed to slip her foot out of Elbryan's belt snare and come dropping back to the ground, though even with her wings fluttering hard, she hit rather unceremoniously.
Her glare at Juraviel was almost threatening as laughter erupted about her. She knew, as did all the gathering, that there was no possible way she could have stumbled into such a coarse trap had not a bit of magic been worked.
It wasn't hard for Tuntun to guess who had worked it.