Elvenshore: 03 - Elf's Bane (2 page)

The gates swung open to allow Darnic to leave. There to meet him was his son Aron Tewl, with a cart and pony.

“Hello , Father,” Aron said as he embraced him.

H
e  put his father’s pack and bedroll in the back of the wagon. “It is good to see you. I was surprised to get your message. It is too soon for your normal visit home.”

They both climbed in the cart
and Aron grabbed the reins. A quick slap of the reigns got the pony started on the way home.

“I am coming ho
me to stay. I will not be going back,” Darnic announced.

Aron was shocked, but delighted
by this news. “Is something wrong then?”

Darnic turned to his son and sa
id, “Yes, something is wrong, very, very wrong. The Elves are building a village on the Mountain.”

Aron had a look of horror on his face
. “You did warn them?”

Darnic looked down and sighed, “Yes
, I did, but they no longer listen to me. Now I fear they will know a terror that they have never seen before.”

“What will we do
, Father?”

“I have sent messages out to all o
f the clans. We will wait until the mountain shakes, then we will make our way to the swamps, the swamplands have saved us before. Clan Lathan never moved back from the swamps, and they have told me that there will be a place there for all of us. The clan is already preparing us room by building shelters. They even say that they can place some of the Elves there if they need to, but not all.”

“I was hoping that I would not see the mountain awake in my lifetime, but I am glad that there is a place w
here we can be safe,” Aron said.

The cart rolled on across the dirt roads. The cobblestone of the Elves did not go past the gates. The Elves and Humans both used the old cart trails that the Humans had built many years ago, before the Elves arrived. For the most part the roads were
mere cart tracks in the grass- covered rolling hills. Where the soil was sandy or muddy, the Humans had brought in gravel to firm up the tracks. When they encountered rivers and streams, they used fords and went through the water to get across, unless it was too deep, then they built arched stone bridges. The stone work of these Humans did not match that of the Dwarves of Elvenshore, but the bridges were strong and sturdy.

The two continued on
. There was not much talking after that, as each one of them was lost in his thoughts and worries of what the coming weeks would bring. Darnic thought back about when the Elves first came to the Far Shore as the Elves called it. The Humans just referred to it as the mother land. The Elves were small in number and the Humans thought that there was plenty of room for both. They were a beautiful people, willing to work and master craftsmen in metals and wood.

Then the troubles started.
The Elves kept coming. More and more of the land was taken up and they did not respect the customs of the clans. When they started breaking ground for a settlement on Morgus Tier, clan Kaler, who revered Morgus Tier as holy ground, took up arms. It was easy for the Elves to defeat them in battle, but when all the clans started preparing for war against the Elves, the Elves brought in Darnic Tewl to settle their differences.

War was averted through a lot of negotiation. The clans
don’t have a central government, but they have a council of elders that settles the differences between the clans when they arise. It is called the council of sticks. That is because each of the clan elders meet in a large tent between the two clans that are in dispute, and each of the elders leaves his walking stick outside of the tent, while they resolve the issues before them. That way they don’t use the sticks as weapons. The Elders’ walking sticks were passed down from elder to elder of the clans. Some of them predated all written records.

It was a council of sticks that settled the differences between the Elves and the Humans. Rules were applied to who could settle in what lands, but there was no mention of settling on th
e mountain. To the Human, it did not need to be said, but the Elf always had it in the back of his mind.

The final decision for the
Elf was when they tested the soil on the mountain for the planting of grapes. The Elves had not had a good grape crop since they left Elvenshore. The excellent wines they had brought with them were almost all gone. The grapes that they planted on the Far Shore were of inferior quality. When the grapes they planted on Mount Ealdwine were harvested from the side of the mountain, they were found to be the best in the land, by far. It was then the Elves decided to settle on the Mountain.

Darnic came back from his thoughts
just as they passed Morgus Tier. It looked like just another hill, like all of the other hills around, green and rolling. It now had an Elf town on it. Clan Kaler had lost its elders and most of the men, so it disbanded and was taken in by the other clans in the area. Those that died defending their holy ground were allowed to be buried on the hill, just behind the town. The Elves now called the town Morgus Tier after the name the Humans had given it. The guard in the town’s watchtower waved as they passed. Both of the men waved back. It was the only Elf city that had a stone wall around it. Besides the Capital, it was the only other one with a wall around it at all.

Later in the day, Aron grabbed some bread from the back of the wagon. Without stopping both men broke chunks off the loaf and ate it.

“You mother’s bread,” Darnic said, “Oh, how I miss her cooking.”

“She misses you
, too,” Aron said, “She will be so glad to know you’re coming home to stay.”

“I hope so,” Darnic said, “Well, at least until she finds out that I failed to keep the Elves from building on Mount
Ealdwine.”

“As long as she has you near, she will be happy, even if she has to live in the swamps.”

 
Darnic and Aron stopped for the night in the little village of Bon Jul. Each town had an Inn where travelers were always welcome, even those from rival clans. The Inns, like most of the Human dwellings on the Far Shore, were built out of wood and sod. The Elves called them mud huts, but they were more than that. Outside, they had grass growing on the walls and thatched roofs, but on the inside, they were warm and comfortable and had wood walls and slate floors with rugs on them. A fireplace was always in the center of the building. How big the fireplace was depended on how many rooms it had to heat. This Inn had a large fireplace that had a small fire in it. The fire was just enough to fight the chilly nights of early spring. They sat down at one of the three tables in the main room where a server girl brought them some stew and biscuits. They were given meade to drink.

At one of the other tables sat a messenger.
He was easy to distinguish by their broad leather strap around his shoulder, from the parcel sack that they always wore. For a land that was without a central government, the Human messenger system was superb. Messengers were given standard routes, so the mail was delivered on a regular basis. It worked so well that the Elves used it also. The messenger system was also a good source of news and sometimes gossip as the carriers always had contact with each other in the Inns that they would stay in overnight. The old saying went, ‘If you want to know what is going on in the land, ask a messenger.’

Darnic always
took this saying to heart. It was through a messenger that he had learned that the Elves were building a settlement on the slopes of Mount Ealdwine.

“Hello
, my good man,” Darnic said, “What is the news from the mother land?”

The messenger stopped in the middle of a spoonful of stew
. “I hear that Darnic Tewl has left the Elfish capital because they have built on the Mountain,” the messenger said.

“That one is
true; I am Darnic Tewl. What other news do you have?”

“So it is true,” the
messenger said, and then he went on, “The Elf Calvary is on the move towards the mountains. Clan Regaulis and Clan Kartan are packing to leave for the swampland, and there is a Meeting of Sticks over where to put all the clans if the mountain awakes.”

“So everything is already set in motion through the land?” Darnic said, more of a statement than a question.

“Yes, all of the clans are upset and troubled. Some are asking why they let the Elves settle here to begin with and how they can get rid of them.”

Darnic thought for a minute and then said, “Tel
l all of the clans you run into to be ready to flee to the swamps. This time we will not try and fight the monsters, we will just leave. We can still use some of the huts that were built during our last exodus and we can repair the rest and build new ones. As for the Elves, they have made a mistake that they will pay for, just as we did.”

“Very well, Darnic Tewl, I will tell them,” the messenger said, and then he went back to eating his stew.
 

When Darnic and Aron were done eating
, they paid for the meal and the room, and then headed in to bed. The room was off the main eating area and was small. It just had enough space for two beds and an end table. It didn’t matter to the travelers as they were just there to sleep.

They were again on the road bright and early, after a hot breakfast. It did help that they were heading closer to the swamps as their home was between the Elf capital and the swamps.
Aron was urging the pony a little faster, although he didn’t really need to, since the pony had already sensed that he was heading home and was moving faster anyway. The Elves had taken up most of the forests, but not the Eaderwild near Bon Tewl. It had been too far from the sea when the Elves first arrived, then when the final treaty was reached, Darnic made sure that the Eaderwild was still in the hands of the Humans and not the Elves. His clan loved the woods, so he had done it for purely personal reasons.

The smell in the air was different and the pony now took no coaxing at all. It smelled like home. The odor was that of the forest and the swamp mixed with the grasslands of the rolling hills. There was no smell quite like it in all of the mother land. It was early afternoon when they could see the outline of the village. There were no walls or watchtowers, as the clans had lived in peace for many generations. Just an Inn, a few merchant stores and a collection of mud huts. It wasn’t much
to look at but it was home. Sali Tewl rushed out to embrace her husband as soon the cart rolled up to the house. He had been gone several months and it hurt her heart to be apart from him. She had tried to live in the Elf capital with Darnic for a time, but found it tedious and she had missed her children and grandchildren too much. So she had moved back home.

Two of the village elders, with their long sticks in
hand, came up to Darnic and Fritred, the smaller of the two asked, “Is it true what they say about the mountain awaking?”

Darnic looked at the ground and just said, “I tried to warn them, they wouldn’t listen.”

Greon, the taller and wider of the two elders said, “We cannot save them; do they know that?”

“They don’t want our help anyway,” Darnic replied.

The two elders grabbed Darnic’s things out of the wagon and after leaving their walking sticks outside, all five of them walked into the house. The four men sat around the table, while Sali busied herself getting out some shortbread and custard tarts for her unexpected guests.

“How soon can we be ready to leave for the swamps?” Darnic asked.

“In a day, two at the most,” replied Fritred.

“We will only have three days once the
mountain bestirs,” Darnic was wanting more urgency from his fellow elders.

“The monsters will attack close to home
first; they will attack the Elves on the mountain and that will give us a few days extra. Clan Regaulis and Clan Kartan have asked us not to completely abandon our village until they get this far. They should be about three days away, according to the latest news,” Greon reported. He was always up on the latest news.

“Three days!” exploded
Darnic. “It will be seven days before they reach the swamp. I was lucky to make it this far without the mountain awaking. I don’t think we will have seven more days.”

“Only volunteers will
stay, a half dozen at the most,” Greon said.

“We need to be on the road tomorrow, the road must be clear for Clan Regaulis and Clan Kartan when they get here. We cannot delay them further
.” Darnic was adamant.

“We will be alright
. We don’t want to upset the people. You have been too longs with the Elves; we do things a little slower here,” Fritred said as he reached for one of the cookies from the plate that Sali had just put on the table.

“Yes
, we do want to upset the people! I would rather have them upset today and still alive tomorrow,” Darnic was nearly shouting.

Greon spoke up
. “It is too late tonight and the people are not ready to go anyway. We will organize it tomorrow.”

Darnic gave up in disgust, “I hope we will not be too late.”

The two elders left and Aron excused himself too. When they were all gone Sali looked her husband in the eyes and said, “Don’t listen to those old fools. The women of Bon Tewl have been ready since the news broke. We can go as fast as the carts get packed.”