Greatheart
Dixie Lee McKeone
To Mikey Pendleton who is learning through role-playing games that heroism is a matter of heart.
Prologue
Lienwiel whistled a soft birdcall and leaned against a tree while he watched the caravan of ten wagons. His eyes were accustomed to the dimness beneath the trees of Sielwode, so he squinted against the glare on the bright, sunlit grasslands to the south. Still, his gaze was fixed on the tiny specks he knew to be humans. They were just over half a mile away and coming nearer, angling toward the ford in the Star Mirror Stream.
The wagons were heavily loaded, he decided. They moved slowly, though the trail was dry and hard. Because of the lack of rain, the stream could have been crossed farther south, but they were still aiming for the ford.
A soft step told him his call had been heard and answered. Mielinel, a young female warrior, came in sight between the trees and joined his watch.
“Trouble, do you think?” she asked as her eyes followed his gaze, her hand fingering her bow.
“Not likely,” Lienwiel replied. “They appear to be staying with the road, but we’ll watch them.”
The elves of Sielwode laid no claim to the ford. The elves considered the borders of their land to cease with the shadows at the eaves of the forest. Beyond lay the land of Markazor. Humans and humanoids sometimes fought for possession of it, but that was no business of the forest dwellers. As long as the humans kept to the rutted track on the plain, they had nothing to fear from the elves.
If they tried to enter the wood, they would die. Humans had no respect for the forest; they cut trees for firewood and building. Since their arrival on the continent of Cerilia a millennium before, they had ravaged entire forests. King Tieslin Krienelsira, ruler of Sielwode, had sworn to protect his forest against intrusion.
“They’re traveling north,” Lienwiel said, pointing out the obvious.
“Trying to settle northern Markazor again?” Mielinel asked.
They both knew the result of the first human effort to lay claim to the northern hill country beyond Sielwode. For five years, the elves had fought off the northbound settlers, who brought their axes to the edge of the forest for firewood. The goblin, gnoll, and orog population that had spread south from the Stone Crown Mountains, most under the control of the powerful awnshegh called the Gorgon, had driven the humans back. The survivors had straggled south again, dispirited and less a threat.
While the two elves watched, the wagons crossed the ford and halted for the day. The humans watered their animals, staked them out to graze, and then spread out on the plain, cutting the long dry grass. Half an hour after they returned to the wagons, thin tendrils of smoke rose from their campfires.
The elves exchanged glances, knowing they were seeing the result of a legend come to life. Neither had been in the western arm of Sielwode during the turbulent times, but both had heard the tales of Prince Eyrmin and his foster son, Cald Dasheft. It was said the young human, who had been raised in the forest, had taught a human family the elven art of cutting the dry grass, braiding it into logs, and using it for cookfires.
“We won’t need to fight these for firewood,” Lienwiel said softly.
“Still, if they continue north, they’ll bring more trouble with the Gorgon,” Mielinel remarked, her eyes filled with anger. Many of the inhabitants of Sielwode blamed the humans for the awnshegh’s attacks on the forest, which had occurred while the humans were trying to conquer Markazor.
“Not to us, unless he seeks the portal again,” Lienwiel replied. “Still, Relcan and the king should know the humans are traveling north. Take the message back to Reilmirid.”
With a nod, she turned away. Knowing she was new to the eaves of the forest, Lienwiel whistled a note of caution, but his warning seemed unnecessary. Her head turned, and her path through the thornbushes hid her from all but elven eyes. She looked up and sidestepped a tendril of a strangle vine that looped down from a tree; then she was lost to sight beyond the thick boles of the ancient trees.
Twenty paces from Lienwiel hung the half-clothed skeleton of a hapless gnoll. It had slipped into the forest and had been caught by a strangle vine. The elves valued the natural traps of their forest and regarded them as additional barriers to incursion. The eaves of the wood were filled with dangers, and Lienwiel had heard the other races thought all of Sielwode was dark and dangerous. Better they did not know of the beauties of the deep wood, he thought. In that belief, he was like all his kind.
The next morning he watched the wagons leave. By midday they were out of elven sight. He relaxed, giving an occasional glance toward the grasslands of Markazor, but most of his mind was tuned to the forest, communing with the trees. Joining minds with the forest was an elven pastime that delighted his race, even those who had lived through millennia.
Every hour or so he turned his eyes on the plain; toward evening he saw movement. A solitary figure crossed the plain, traveling toward Sielwode. Elf or human? The traveler was still too far away to tell, but he was definitely planning to enter the forest. Lienwiel slipped through the shadows, and when he had divined the path of the stranger, he concealed himself behind a thorny bush.
The hair on the back of the elf’s neck prickled as the stranger approached. A male, a human, and large, even for one of his race. He was a warrior, heavily armed with a broadsword in a tooled leather sheath, a longbow, and a full quiver of arrows. He wore a pair of loose trousers and a tunic of thin fabric that kept the rays of the sun from heating the armor beneath it; Lienwiel recognized the faint glimmer of metal beneath the cloth. The human’s dark head was bare, a concession to the heat, which would have made a metal helm an oven for his head in the sunlight of the plain.
And he walked with an elven step.
Humans usually led with their heels, their every step a demand that the land submit to their will; elves gave the world the respect that was its due. With each step they touched the ground lightly, asking the soil beneath their feet for permission to pass. They were taught this reverence for the land when they first learned to walk, and the first gentle touch of an elf’s footstep was so automatic and so natural it was only barely audible to even another elf—possibly this human.
The man’s ability to walk like an elf was puzzling, and the elf disliked the look in the man’s eyes. This warrior had come prepared to die—yet he would not go like a rabbit or a deer that recognizes death at last and closes its eyes, submitting to fate. This man would go to the netherworld still fighting and goring like the wild boar, and would likely take his adversary with him.
The human was a warrior; every inch of his six foot frame proclaimed it. His dark hair was nut-brown, worn short in a warrior’s cut. It waved lightly around an angular, strong-boned face. His sky-blue eyes snapped with intelligence and automatically recorded everything around him. They suddenly focused on the thornbush as if he could see Lienwiel on the other side.
It seemed impossible. The human was still in the bright sunlight of the plain and Lienwiel was concealed not only behind the bush, but in the black shadows of Sielwode. Nevertheless, the stranger stared straight at him as if looking into his eyes.
Lienwiel, a victor of many battles, knew he did not want to fight this intruder, but his task was to guard the eaves of the forest, and he would do his duty. As the stranger drew closer, he stepped from his concealment and threw out a challenge.
“ ’Ware, stranger. Death awaits any human who enters Sielwode! If you seek water, a stream lies half an hour to the south. If you need fuel for your fire, I will show you how to use the grass of the plain.” A few elven warriors who had just reasons for hating humans would refuse to instruct travelers in twisting and plaiting the dry grass for fuel, but Lienwiel obeyed his instructions, thinking it was not honorable to kill any being who only fought out of need to survive.