Authors: Kevin J Anderson
"In this
hexagon there's supposed to be a village of ylvan, the forest people. Maybe
we'll come across it."
Delrael trudged on.
He looked flustered from losing so many games to Journeyman at the campsite.
"How do you know that? I don't recall anything marked on our master map at
the Stronghold."
Vailret looked
around in the forest. "An ylvan village is hidden in the trees
―
you wouldn't know it was there until you were right under it." His eyes
gleamed. "They're said to be master woodsmen, like chameleons in the forest."
"But how do
you
know it's there, Journeyman?" Delrael asked.
Journeyman shrugged
his shoulders in a ripple of gray-brown clay. "It's marked on the map the
Rulewoman Melanie uses."
The forest all
around them looked the same as always, with tree and shrubs, vines, moss, and
the faint but clear trail leading toward the east.
But around midday
the birds and insects fell silent, replaced with the sounds of a struggle and a
chilling, familiar bellow.
"Haw! Haw!
Haw! BAM!"
Terror jabbed like
an icicle down Bryl's spine. He knew that sound
―
Gairoth. He
remembered being captured, drugged, placed inside a giant jellyfish in a
stinking cesspool in the swamps. The massive ogre had forced Bryl to teach him
how to use the Air Stone ... though an ogre should never have been able to use
magic.
Delrael stopped and
cocked his head. He looked concerned, then a smile drifted onto his face.
Vailret met his
cousin's eyes. "Be careful, Del. Gairoth almost got you last time."
Delrael appeared to
be intensely aware of everything around him. Bryl had seen him this way before.
The fighter motioned the rest of them to silence, then he crept ahead through
the underbrush.
Bryl would have
been perfectly content to remain where he was, to turn and bypass the ylvan
village. But then they heard a thin, angry voice piping out. "Go away and
eat rocks, you Loser! Why don't the rest of you help me?"
Vailret moved ahead
to join his cousin, and Journeyman nonchalantly shouldered branches aside. Bryl
held the Fire Stone in one hand and the Air Stone in the other
―
even with all that power, he felt frightened of Gairoth.
They looked through
a clearing of branches, dry moss, and some leaves blushing with color from an
early autumn frost. Massive trees stood straight and high, crowded together,
but the undergrowth in one area had been cleared away. Dangling from the lower
and intermediate branches of the great trees hung large globes of woven sticks
and grass and leaves, meshed together and sealed with hard golden sap. The sap
varnish glistened in the light of a small fire on the ground and the
green-filtered sunlight above.
The hanging
"nests" were the dwellings of the ylvan. Clumsily mounted pelts hung
drying, and rotting, on a few branches. On the ground, four of the little
people, about chest-high to Bryl, stood by a smoky fire. Beside them, arranged
rocks marked a communal gaming area that looked as if it hadn't been used in
weeks.
The ylvans' hair
was dark reddish brown, their eyes deep-set but dull, as if a milky film of
cataracts had crawled over them. The men wore trimmed and pointed beards; the
woman's hair had been tied in green ribbons. The ylvans all wore outfits of
leather dyed green and crosshatched with blotches and stripes that would make
them invisible as they moved among the tree branches.
The fire had died
to embers, untended. Too late, one of the ylvans had added a leafy green branch
to the fire, which only made pungent smoke curl up to the sky.
"Master
woodsmen?" Delrael whispered to Vailret. "Looks pretty sloppy to
me."
Vailret appeared
concerned. "But the ylvan are supposed to be shadows in the trees, expert
ambushers. Something's wrong."
Near the ylvans in
the clearing stood Gairoth the ogre, looking befuddled and angry. His muscles
knotted like a twisted tree trunk. His one eye glowered at the four listless
and dazed ylvans who stood by their fire and refused to shrink away from him in
terror, or even to take notice of the ogre at all.
Fear made Bryl
cringe even from his hiding place. Gairoth's furs were stained, worn, and
falling apart; the spikes on his wicked club were pitted and rusty. Gairoth's
eye was bloodshot, underhung with a bag of tired skin.
The ogre's skin was
grayish and unhealthy looking, peeling with splotches and rashes. He appeared
miserable and furious.
Journeyman had an
exaggerated expression of distaste sculpted onto his face. "Gross! Gag me
with a spoon!"
Gairoth waved a
ham-sized hand of dismissal at the four ylvans by the fire and looked around
the rest of the dangling settlement. He strained upward and swung the club to
rip out the bottom of one of the low-hanging nest dwellings. Dirt and twigs
pattered down onto the ogre's head, and he snorted in annoyance. But then some
ylvan possessions tumbled out: small wood carvings, colorful flowers, pots
containing gems and small bits of treasure.
Basket-like
furniture, a chair perhaps, fell partway through the opening and then caught.
One of the other
ylvan picked up a crossbow and turned it around. She paused, as if forgetting
what she had been about to do, and then reached for an arrow. The ylvan dropped
the arrow, bent over with sleepy slowness and tried three times before she
managed to pick it up. When she finally fitted it into the crossbow, she
gestured at the ogre and fired. The arrow missed.
Bryl heard a sound
inside the torn nest, a sluggish movement. Gairoth hooked the bottom of the
gash with the spikes of his club, then pulled it down until he could reach it
with his fingers. The branches above creaked.
The ogre pawed
around into the opening until he grabbed something. He tugged, and an old ylvan
tumbled out to land roughly on the ground with little more than a grunt of
surprise.
Gairoth scowled.
"Bah
―
too old."
The ylvan sat where
he was on the dirt. His dark eyes were also covered with a milky dullness. He
reached inside his camouflaged tunic, withdrew a knife, and stared at it.
"You leave him
alone!" The piping voice came again, and an arrow whizzed through the air
to stick in the ogre's furs. Gairoth roared.
Bryl looked around
to see. Finally he spotted another ylvan blending into the tree shadows. This
ylvan was younger than the others, with barely a fuzz of beard along his cheeks
and chin. He swung around from where he hung halfway up one of the trunks, then
slithered down looped ropes set into the side of the tree. He landed on his
feet.
"Come on, you
big clod!" The ylvan shot another crossbow arrow that nicked Gairoth's
chin, enough to make him roar.
The little man
crouched and glanced at the ylvans by the fire, at the old man who had been
torn out of his home. Bryl noticed other dull faces peering from openings in
the hanging dwellings. Somewhere above, in a long-delayed reaction, a child
screamed. No one seemed aware of what was going on. Some moved slowly,
half-asleep; others shook their heads, as if to drive away a buzzing that
overpowered their thoughts.
Gairoth strode
across the clearing. In only three steps he towered over the young forest man
who had defied him. The ylvan stood his ground.
The ogre yanked out
a sack tucked into his fur garment, popping another of the seams in the
shoulder. As the ylvan nocked another arrow, Gairoth scooped him up and pawed
him into the sack.
Two of the ylvans
by the fire had taken out their own crossbows. One tried to fire without first
nocking an arrow.
The young ylvan
continued to struggle, but Gairoth twisted the mouth of the sack shut and
tossed the bundle over his back. The little man cried out as he struck the
ogre's shoulder blades. The bag squirmed and kicked, venting forth muffled
curses, but Gairoth ignored it. He let out a gravelly sigh that sounded like heavy
furniture scraped across a stone floor.
Gairoth did not
look happy, but resigned. "Fresh meat not good like
aged
stuff."
He glared at the
other ylvans who stared down at their crossbows and knives, as if struggling to
remember what to do with them. Above, the child screamed again. Gairoth looked
at the broken nest home, at the dazed old ylvan man on the ground who had
finally succeeded in picking himself up.
The ogre sneered
and, swinging his club in front of him, he stomped off to the other side of the
clearing. Bryl could hear him mutter while he crashed along. Occasionally
Gairoth would smash his club against a tree, grumbling "Delroth! BAM!
Delroth! BAM!"
Vailret turned to
his cousin. "I think he still remembers us. Wasn't Delroth his name for
you?"
Delrael pursed his
lips and nodded. "Just no pleasing some people."
"Well, ah, we
should get on with our journey now." Bryl could not keep his voice firm.
He felt obligated to try and make them see sense, to set their priorities. But
he
knew
what they were going to do anyway.
"We have to go
rescue him. It's part of the Game, you know." Delrael sounded distracted
when he answered, already making plans.
"We need to
continue our quest and destroy Scartaris." Bryl tried one more time. "Journeyman,
you have to get there, too. We can't delay."
Journeyman pondered
before answering. "Incidental adventures don't happen by accident. There's
always something to be gained. Look in
The Book of Rules
."
Vailret raised his
eyebrows at him. "I thought you didn't want to go on this quest in the
first place, Bryl."
"I don't! But
I don't want to face Gairoth again, either. You don't know what he did to
me!"
"Yes we
do," Vailret and Delrael answered together. "You've told us enough
times."
"Well, why
didn't we fight back right then, when the other ylvans could help?"
"They didn't
help him," Delrael said.
Bryl sat down
heavily. Branches and leaves cracked beneath him, and he found his seat very
uncomfortable. Arguing further would be wasted effort.
He hated questing.
"The
Outsiders do not Play fair. Of all character races, ours is the smallest, the
weakest, the fewest. We ylvans have faced more persecution, a greater number of
attacks, a higher level of misery. We are the scapegoats of the Game."
―
Kellos, ylvan
village leader
Delrael led the
others along the path, waiting for the ogre to stop so they could put their
plan into action. The air around them smelled damp and muddy.
Gairoth found a
hollow where puddles of water stood among sunken trees and mashed leaves. Marks
showed where a creek gathered during the rains of the spring. He squatted down
on the wet earth, crossed his pale and puffy legs, then wiggled his buttocks
into a better position. He contemplated the squirming sack in front of him.
Gairoth had tied
the end in a knot, but now he couldn't get it undone with his clumsy fingers.
The ogre worked at it, trying not to tear the sack.
He pursed his thick
lips and glared at the bundle.
The scrappy ylvan
struggled inside the sack. "Let me out of here, you Loser! Your breath
smells like a dung heap!" One of the small arrows poked through the cloth
and jabbed Gairoth in the palm. The ogre cried out, then slapped at the sack with
enough force to roll it over.
Gairoth rose to his
feet. Clods of mud and dried leaves stuck to his backside. "Gairoth squash
you flat! Be like pudding! Haw! Too hungry to let you age right!" He
raised the spiked club over his head to pound the sack.
Delrael prodded
Journeyman's shoulder, but the golem was already in motion, striding through
the trees and making no effort to hide himself. He swelled up his clay chest,
contorted his facial features into an angry grimace, and cleared his throat.
"What's all this then?"
Gairoth bristled
for a moment, stunned. He held the club in front of him.
Journeyman
continued with a sigh of impatience. "Are you going to release that young
fellow without any trouble, or must we go through the motions of humiliating
you with a drawn-out defeat?"
Gairoth hefted the
giant club on his shoulder like a baseball bat. "No talk! You trick
Gairoth! I kill you!"
Journeyman waved
his wide clay hands in a gesture of dismissal. "Go away, boy, you bother
me. I'm not trying to trick you. I'm being perfectly up front with what I want.
Give us the little man back, that's all."
"Bam!"
Gairoth lurched one step forward, snarling.
Journeyman stood
his ground. The expression on his face became cold and tough. He intoned in a
low, threatening voice, "Go ahead, make my day!"
Gairoth swung the
club down with all his might
―
and squashed Journeyman flat with a
wet thud. The golem's head and chest caved in, oozed out to the side. He looked
like a giant mud ball someone had stepped on.