The Qualinesti

12 — The Green and Golden Way

The high plains in summer were a harsh place. Dry and barren, they were frequently swept by grass fires that would burn right up to the stony bases of the Kharolis Mountains before dying out from lack of tinder. Yet as Verhanna, Rufus, and Greenhands ascended the sloping plain toward the distant blue peaks, the grassland was not only green, but also covered with flowers.

“Aashoo!” The kender sneezed loudly. “Where did all dese flowers come fum?” he muttered through a clogged nose. The air was thick with blowing pollen, released by the thousands of wild flowers. Verhanna wasn’t much bothered by it, though she was startled by the vigor and variety of the flowers around them. The plain was an ocean of crimson, yellow, blue, and purple blossoms, all nodding gently in the breeze.

“You know, I’ve been this way before, on the way to Pax Tharkas,” she said. “But I’ve never seen the grasslands bloom like this. And in the heat of midsummer!”

Ahead of them, his rough horsehair poncho coated with yellow dust, Greenhands walked steadily onward. His simple, sturdy features took on a special nobility in the warm light of day, and Verhanna found herself studying him more and more as they traveled.

“Ushwah!” barked Rufus. “Dis is tewwibuh! I cand bweathe!”

The warrior maiden dug deep into her saddlebag. In a moment, she brought out a thin red pod, shriveled into a curl. “Here,” she said, tossing it to her scout. “Chew on that. It’ll clear your head.”

Rufus sniffed the tiny pod, but to no avail; nothing could penetrate his stuffy nose. “Whad is id?” he asked suspiciously.

“Give it back, then, if you don’t want it,” Verhanna said airily.

“Oh, all wide.” The kender stuck the stem end of the seed pod in his mouth and chewed. In seconds, his look of curiosity was replaced by one of horror.

“Ye-ow!” Rufus’s shriek rent the calm, flower-scented air. Greenhands halted and looked back, startled out of his unvarying gait. “Dat’s hot!” protested the kender, his small face purpling in distress.

“It’s a dragonseed pod,” Verhanna replied. “Of course it’s hot. But it will clear your head.” Despite its fearsome name, dragonseed was a common spice plant grown in the river delta region of Silvanesti. It was used to make the famous vantrea, a hot, spicy dried fish that was beloved by southern elves.

Their horses overtook Greenhands. Verhanna reined in and said, “Don’t worry. Wart was complaining about the pollen, so I did a little healing of my own.”

Tears running down his cheeks, Rufus sluiced his tingling mouth out with water. Then he sniffed, and a pleased expression spread across his florid features. “What do you know! I can breathe!” he declared.

Greenhands had been standing between their two horses. Now he headed out once more, and they rode after him.

Verhanna urged her mount forward until she was alongside the silver-haired elf. The day was quite warm, and he had flipped back the front edges of his makeshift poncho, exposing his chest to the sun. In secret, sidelong glances, the warrior maiden admired his physique. With a little training, perhaps he could become a formidable warrior.

“Why do you stare at me?” asked Greenhands, intruding on the captain’s thoughts.

“Tell me the truth, Greenhands,” she said in a low voice. “How is it you’re able to do the things you do? How did you heal my shoulder? How did you turn aside a herd of wild elk? Raise flowers out of dry soil?”

There was a long pause before he replied. Finally he said, “I’ve been thinking about those things. There seems to be something with me. Something I carry…like this garment.” He passed a hand over the coarse fabric of the blanket he wore. “I feel it around me and inside me, but I can’t set it aside. I can’t separate myself from it.”

Intrigued, Verhanna asked, “What does it feel like?”

Shutting his eyes, he lifted his face to the golden sunlight. “It’s like the heat of the sun,” he murmured. “I feel it, yet I can’t touch it. I carry it with me, but I can’t take it off.” He opened his eyes and regarded her. “Am I mad, Captain?”

“No,” she said, and her voice was soft. “You’re not mad.”

A piercing whistle cut her off. “Hey!” Rufus called from behind them. “Are you two going to walk right off the edge?”

Greenhands and Verhanna halted, taking in their surroundings. Not five paces in front of them was a deep ravine, cut through the grassy sod by some winter flood. They had been so absorbed in their conversation, neither had noticed the danger.

They turned and paralleled the rift for a dozen yards. Behind them, Rufus rode up to the lip of the ravine and gazed across. On the other side, the sere plain was covered with dry brown grass. At the kender’s back, the landscape was carpeted with lush green grass and a riot of blooming flowers.

“Wha-how!” A neck-snapping sneeze wrenched the kender. His nose felt like it was filling even as he sat. Kicking his heels against his horse’s red flanks, Rufus hastened after his captain. He hoped she could discover another dragonseed pod in her saddlebag.

Late in the afternoon, the trio was well into the shadowed presence of the Kharolis Mountains. Peaks welled up on three sides, and the open ground was ever steeper in grade. Hereabouts there was only one path through the mountains wide enough for horses, and it funneled directly to Pax Tharkas.

Once the carpet of grass and flowers thinned, Rufus found his head much clearer. He occupied his time by tootling discordantly on a reed pipe he’d made back at the Astradine River. The shrill cacophony got on Verhanna’s nerves, and finally she snatched the reed from the kender’s lips.

“Are you trying to drive me mad?” she snapped.

He bristled. “That was a kender ballad, ‘You Took My Heart While I Took Your Rings’.”

“Ha! Trust a wart like you to know a love song with theft in it.” Verhanna tossed the reed flute away, but Greenhands detoured from his path to retrieve it. The warrior maiden sighed. “Don’t you plague me with that thing either,” she warned.

Unheeding, the elf put the flute to his mouth and blew a few experimental notes. His fingers ran up and down the scale, and the instrument trilled melodically. Rufus raised his head and peered down at Greenhands.

“How did you do that?” he asked. Greenhands shrugged, a gesture he’d only lately acquired from Verhanna. Rufus asked for his flute back. When he had it, he piped several notes. Verhanna grimaced; it still sounded like the death throes of a crow.

Before she could voice her protest again, Rufus thrust the reed flute back at Greenhands. “You keep it,” he said generously. “It’s not refined enough for kender music.”

His captain snorted. The elf accepted the instrument gravely and walked along slowly, playing random notes. Without warning, a red-breasted songbird settled on his shoulder. The tiny bird regarded Greenhands curiously, its beady black eyes almost intelligent.

“Hello,” Greenhands said calmly. Verhanna and Rufus stared. The strange elf put the flute to his lips and played a fluttering trill. Much to his companions’ astonishment, his feathered friend imitated the sound perfectly.

“Very good. Now this.” He sounded a slightly more complex series of notes. The redbreast repeated the notes exactly.

A second bird, slightly larger and duller in color, circled the elf’s head and settled on the opposite shoulder. A funny sort of musical trio began, as Greenhands and the little songbird exchanged perfectly pitched notes, while the brown thrush added off-key harmonics.

“The big bird sounds like you,” Verhanna commented to the kender. Rufus answered her with a rude noise.

The captain’s mount danced in a circle. The greenfingered elf had attracted more and more birds; in seconds, he was wrapped in a cloud of wildly singing creatures. He seemed unworried by them, continuing to walk steadily forward as his flute trilled. However, the birds were unnerving the horses.

“Stop it !” Verhanna called to Greenhands. “Send them away!” He couldn’t hear her over the shrill sound of birdsongs. More and more birds appeared, zooming around the group, dipping, soaring, diving. Wing tips and tails grazed their faces. Their mounts bucked and danced.

“Yow!”

A sizable starling thudded into the kender’s back. He yanked off his hat and began swinging it at the darting creatures without success. A careening purple martin flew too close to Verhanna and smacked solidly into her neck. She quickly pulled her visor down to protect her eyes. Though her hands were full trying to calm her frantic horse, she managed to draw her sword.

With a loud war cry, the captain drove her nervous mount hard at Greenhands. Birds thumped off her armored head and against her horse. Verhanna pushed through the swarm. Completely unaware of the havoc he was causing, the elf was walking along in the center of an avian maelstrom, playing Rufus’s flute.

Verhanna struck the pipe from the elf’s hands with the flat of her blade. The instant the notes ceased, the birds stopped their mad whirling and dispersed quickly in all directions.

Greenhands stared at the broken flute lying in the grass. He picked up the two halves and then turned accusing eyes upon Verhanna.

“Your playing drove those birds mad,” she explained, panting. He clearly had no idea what she was talking about. “We could’ve been killed!”

Understanding dawned on his face, and he apologized. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make trouble.”

Rufus rode up, brushing feathers from his topknot. “Blind me with beeswax! What was that all about?”

Verhanna pointed to the chastened Greenhands. “Our friend here doesn’t understand the power he has.”

Humbly he repeated, “I’m sorry.”

They resumed their march, guided by Greenhands. Though he honestly disavowed any knowledge of the fortress, it was obviously their destination.

The flowering grassland gave way to piles of boulders spotted by patches of dark green lichen. Coolness crept into the warm air of daytime, promising a brisk night. The sun sank behind the mountain peaks, washing the sky in gold, crimson, and finally deepest burgundy. As the last of the light was dying from the day, Verhanna dismounted. They had come to a wide spot in the pass, only a few hundred paces from the entrance. “We can camp here for the night,” she decided.

The kender and the elf were agreeable. They tethered their horses and built a campfire. Rufus did the cooking for the little band. Considering a kender’s ideas about dinner, things weren’t bad. He busied himself warming a soup of dried vegetables, bread crumbs, and water while his captain curried their animals.

Greenhands settled down by the fire, staring unblinking into the flames. The yellow light made his green eyes and fingers stand out against the dark background of his poncho. Verhanna found herself peering at him over the back of her horse. Her right hand, wielding the curry comb, slowed and stopped in its motion as her scrutiny of the elf intensified. The light tan of his skin was deepened by the golden glow of the firelight. Though at rest, his well-formed body showed a lithe grace and beauty she found arresting. His profile was somehow quite attractive. Strong brow, rather a long nose, firm lips, a good chin….

She brought herself up short. What was she doing? So many unfamiliar thoughts tumbled in her head. But one, quite odd, idea took precedence.

Could Greenhands be the husband she never thought she’d find?

A smile tugged the corners of her mouth upward. Wouldn’t her father be surprised? He’d wanted her to marry for a long time. Though he never pushed openly, the warrior maiden knew he longed for her to be wife and mother. As quickly as this thought occurred to her, a sharp chill set her to shuddering. The mountain air had cooled rapidly with the setting of the sun.

When she’d finished with the horses, Verhanna wrapped her bedroll around her shoulders and settled by the fire. The kender was just downing the last of his soup. He handed her a bowl and, while she ate, he skipped around the campsite, humming his tuneless kender songs.

“What are you so happy about?” Verhanna asked him with a smile.

“I like the mountains,” he said. “When the air is thin and the nights are cold, then Rufus Wrinklecap is at home!”

Verhanna laughed, but Greenhands’ eyes were closed, and gentle snores issued from his mouth. Though still sitting upright, the elf had fallen fast asleep.

The kender scaled a pile of boulders resting against the sheer wall of the mountain behind the warrior maiden. When she asked what he was doing, Rufus replied, “In these parts, it’s not wise to lie on low ground.”

Her brow wrinkled in thought. “Why not?”

“Falling rocks, sudden floods, prowling wolves, poisonous snakes ….” The kender spoke a cheerful litany of disaster. He stopped and added a blithe “Good night, my captain. Sleep well!”

How well could she sleep after his listing of all those dangers? Her brown eyes searched the darkness beyond their dying fire. Moonlight and starlight washed the mountain pass, and the air was filled with the faint but normal sounds of night. The warrior maiden set her empty soup bowl down and sidled around the fire until she was close to Greenhands. Laying her head down by his crossed legs, she reasoned that since he seemed so connected to the wild, then he was probably safe from any natural disasters or creatures of the night.

The strange elf still slept upright, his head drooping toward the embers. The white light of Solinari washed his hair in silver. The dying firelight tinged the silver with rose. A single coral-hued strand had fallen across his closed eyes. Verhanna put up a hand to brush it away, but as her finger drew near, she shivered violently. It wasn’t the cold of the night, for under her bedroll, by the fire, she was quite warm.

It must be tiredness, she decided, and the lingering effects of the goblin bite. The Qualinesti princess withdrew her hand and put her head down to sleep.

Verhanna’s rest was troubled. She wasn’t usually prone to disturbing dreams, but on this occasion, visions appeared in her mind, images of magic and power in a dark forest peopled by her father, Ulvian, Greenhands, and some others she didn’t recognize. One countenance appeared frequently—a Kagonesti woman unknown to her. The wild elf woman had eyes the same brilliant green as Greenhands, and her face was painted with yellow and red lines. Her expression was ineffably sad, but in spite of the barbaric face paint, it was also regal and proud.

A faint noise intruded on Verhanna’s visions. The warrior maiden’s trained senses brought her fully awake. Only her eyes shifted as she tried to discover what had disturbed her. The fire was out, though a thin ribbon of white smoke rose from the bed of cinders. Her half-human eyes weren’t as sharp as those of her fullblooded elf kin, but they were better than any human’s. The moons had set, but the light of the stars was enough for her to make out a dark shape hovering over their pile of baggage, only a few yards from where she lay.

Kender, if you’re trying to scare me, I’ll have your topknot for a feather duster, she vowed silently. The black shape rose from its crouch. It was far too tall to be Rufus Wrinklecap.

In a flash, Verhanna rolled to her feet and drew her sword. She’d been lying on it, just in case Rufus was right about wolves. The intruder flinched and backed away. She heard hooves striking the stony ground. Her opponent must be mounted.

“Who are you?” Verhanna demanded. A strong animal smell invaded her nostrils.

More hoofbeats thumped in the shadows beyond Verhanna’s line of sight. She was getting worried; there was no telling how many foes she faced. Advancing to the firepit, she kicked some of the kindling Rufus had piled up onto the coals. The dry bark caught quickly and blazed up.

“Kothlolo!” With a loud bass cry, the thing near their baggage threw up an arm to shield its eyes. Verhanna gasped when she saw it clearly—it had the head, arms, and torso of a man, but four legs and a swishing horse’s tail. A centaur!

“Kothlolo!” shouted the centaur again. The circle of firelight caught the movement of other centaurs a few paces away. Verhanna shouted to Rufus and Greenhands to wake up.

“Rufus! Rufus, you dung beetle! Where are you?” she called.

“Here, my captain.” He was just behind her. She wrenched her gaze from the nearest centaur long enough to spy the kender sitting atop a large boulder. “Who are your new friends?” he asked innocently.

“Idiot! Centaurs murder travelers! Some of them are cannibals!”

“Ho,” rumbled the nearest centaur. “Only eat ugly two-legs.”

She almost dropped her sword in surprise. “You speak Elven?”

“Some.” On Verhanna’s left and right, half-man, half-horse creatures pressed in toward the fire. She counted seven of them, five brown and two black. They carried rusty iron swords and spears or crude clubs made from small tree trunks. The one who had spoken to Verhanna carried a bow and quiver of arrows slung across his body.

“You do not fight, we do not fight,” he said, cocking his brown head at her. Verhanna put her back against the boulder and kept her sword ready. Above her, Rufus loaded his sling.

“What do you want?” asked the warrior maiden.

“I am Koth, leader of this band. We follow the jerda, we hunt them,” said the centaur. He held up hairy brown fingers to his forehead to imitate horns. Understanding dawned on Verhanna. He meant the elk herd. “Jerda ran hard, and we lost them. Kothlolo are very hungry.”

Kothlolo must be the centaur word for “centaur,” Verhanna decided. “We haven’t much food ourselves,” she said. “We did see the elk herd. It was heading toward the Astradine River.”

A black-coated centaur picked up her saddlebags and pawed through them. He found a lump of bacon and shoved it in his mouth. Immediately those nearest him swarmed over him, trying to snatch the smoked meat from his lips. The centaurs dissolved into a bucking, scrabbling fight, with only the bass-voiced Koth remaining aloof.

“They are pretty hungry,” Rufus observed.

“And numerous,” mumbled Verhanna. She couldn’t very well start a fight with so many centaurs. She and Rufus might well end up as the main course at a losers’ banquet.

“Where’s Greenhands?” she said softly, looking around.

Through all the talking and squabbling over food, Greenhands had sat unmoving, lost in slumber. So complete was his sleep, Verhanna felt obliged to see if he was breathing. He was.

“By Astra, when he sleeps, he sleeps,” she muttered.

A centaur found Rufus’s store of walnuts in his ration bag. The others tore at his hand, scattering the nuts over the campsite. A few landed on Greenhands’ head, and he finally stirred.

“You’re alive,” Verhanna said caustically. “I thought I was going to have to beat a gong.”

The elf’s face was blank. He licked his dry lips and said, “I’ve been away. Far away. I saw my mother and spoke to her.” Looking up at Verhanna, he added, “You were with me for a time. In the forest, with others I did not know.”

Had they been sharing the same dream? At another time, Verhanna might have been curious, but just now she had other worries. “Never mind that now,” she said to the elf. “We’ve got a camp full of wild, starving centaurs.”

Greenhands started in surprise. He jumped to his feet and walked right up to the centaur leader.

“Greetings, uncle,” he said. “How fare you?”

As Rufus and Verhanna exchanged looks of consternation, Koth bowed and replied, “I am a dried gourd, my cousin. And my cousins here are likewise empty.”

“My friends have little to eat, uncle. May I show you to a stand of mountain apples? They are nearby and very sweet.”

The centaur laughed, showing fearsome yellow teeth. “Ho, little cousin! I am not so young in the world that I think there are apples in early summer!”

Greenhands pressed a hand to his heart. “They are there, uncle. Will you come?”

The sincerity of his manner won over the centaur’s natural skepticism. He snapped an order to his squabbling comrades, and the band of centaurs formed behind Greenhands. Then, without a brand to light the way, he stepped into the darkness, up the far slope. The centaurs followed, their small, worn hooves fitting deftly into the clefts in the rocks.

Rufus jumped off his boulder and started after them. “You, too?” snorted the warrior woman.

“My captain, I doubt nothing about that elf.”

Sheathing her sword, Verhanna found herself alone by the campfire. With a long-suffering sigh, she reluctantly followed the troop. Rufus made his way easily up the slope; the going was less easy for her, being larger and burdened with armor. Soon Rufus pulled away from her, and the only sign she had of him was the steady trickle of pebbles he dislodged on his way up.

The slope ended suddenly. A ravine plunged down in front of Verhanna, and she almost fell face first into it. She flung her hands wide on the crumbling, gravelly soil and cursed herself for following Greenhands in the middle of the night. Once she’d gotten to her feet and dusted the dirt from her palms, Verhanna looked down into the shallow ravine. She was amazed by what she saw. There, nestled close to the sheer wall of the rising mountain, was a stand of apple trees, heavy with fruit. The Qualinesti princess moved down for a closer look.

The ground around the trees was littered with fallen apples, some rotten-soft, and the air was spiced by their fermented odor. The centaurs appeared to esteem these, for they galloped up and down the ravine, filling their arms with the fallen fruit. Greenhands, Rufus, and Koth, the centaur leader, were standing together under the largest apple tree. The ancient tree was warped by wind and frost, yet its gnarled roots gripped the stony earth tenaciously.

“How did you know these were here?” Verhanna asked.

Greenhands looked at the laden branches close to his head. “I heard them. Old trees have loud voices,” he said.

Verhanna was speechless. His words seemed completely ridiculous to her, yet she couldn’t dispute the find.

Rufus went to the tree and climbed up to a triple fork of branches. He inched out on a branch until he could just reach a ripe fruit still hanging from the tree. Before his fingers could close on it, Greenhands was there, his moss-colored fingers wrapping tightly around the kender’s wrist.

“No, little friend,” he chided. “You mustn’t take what the tree has not offered!”

Koth popped a whole apple in his mouth and chewed it up—stem, seeds, skin, and all. He grinned at Verhanna. “Your cousin with the green fingers is one of the old ones,” he said.

“Old ones” was a common epithet given to members of the elven race. Verhanna, still ill-at-ease around the centaur band, said, “He’s not my cousin.”

“All peoples are cousins,” answered Koth. Bits of overripe apple flew from his mouth. The other centaurs were racing around the ravine, yelling and dancing. Verhanna realized that the fermented fruit was making them tipsy. Soon the centaurs were singing, arms looped around their fellows’ shoulders. Their bass and baritone voices sounded surprisingly harmonious.

Koth sang:

“You made up a song about Greenhands,” Rufus said admiringly. “That part about crowns, though—”

“It is a very sad song,” Koth interrupted. “My grandfather’s grandfather sang it, and ’twas ancient then.”

Verhanna was growing tired of the drunken, bumptious centaurs. When one thumped into her for the second time, she announced she was going back to get some sleep. She strongly hinted that Rufus and Greenhands should do likewise.

“Cousin,” said Koth to Greenhands, “You travel far?”

The centaurs quieted down and gathered around the green-fingered elf. “Yes, uncle. My father awaits me in a high place of stone,” replied Greenhands.

“Then take this with you, gentle cousin.” Koth took a ram’s horn that hung by a strap around his neck and gave it to the elf. “If ever you need the Sons of the Wind, blow hard on this horn and we shall come.”

“Thank you, uncle, and all my cousins,” Greenhands said, looping the strap around his neck.

He led the warrior maiden and the kender back to their camp. No one spoke. The shouts of the centaurs echoed once more through the peaks, slurred now as they continued to eat the fermented apples. Greenhands returned to the same boulder he’d sat by before, and he was asleep nearly as soon as he sat down. Rufus climbed back up to his safe perch, and Verhanna curled up by the dying fire. The smell of the centaurs lingered in her nostrils a long time. So did the words to Koth’s ancient song.