“They could come next month, but probably not too much later than that because they’ll be getting into the rainy season and winter. Or they may come back in the spring and start a real offensive against us — they may burn a trail of conquest all the way to Elmheng for all we know,” the colonel told Kestrel.
“We need your help Kestrel, even more than Commander Mastrim or I realized. We need you to go over to the human side and spy on them for us, so we can find out what their plans are,” Silvan said.
“I’m not ready to be a spy, my instructors said so,” Kestrel automatically replied.
“We’re not talking about immediately; we’ll send you back to Firheng for more training, before we send you out to the humans. My gut tells me that they will not attack again before the spring. We’ll have time to train and transport you so that you can infiltrate their army, learn what they have planned, and bring the information back to us.”
“I’m not ready, and I’m not human,” Kestrel repeated and enhanced his refusal.
“You are our best hope of preparing for the next attack, so that we can get revenge for the deaths of Lucretia and Mastrim. We don’t want to see others die just as pointlessly,” Silvan said intently. “I know this is asking a lot of you Kestrel, more than is fair to ask. But I believe you can do this, and you have the friendship of two sets of gods. You will be protected.”
“I’m not human,” Kestrel returned to his strongest argument. “My ears may not look perfect among elves, but they look even less like human ears, and my eyebrows are still strong for a human.”
“We can change that,” Silvan said haltingly. “We believe we can change your appearance. You’ve already got a build that’s almost human. You would fit in as if you were one of them.”
Kestrel’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “What do you have in mind?” he asked suspiciously, worried about what Silvan would propose.
“We have a doctor who can cut your ears so that they look human,” Silvan said. “They’ll grow back to about the shape they are now, but it will take a couple of years. You’ll have plenty of time to move about among the humans before there’s a problem.”
Kestrel flinched at the thought of someone carving his flesh, cutting away pieces of his ear as though it were a piece of clay to sculpt into shape. He knew that ears could regenerate, unlike among humans; one of his friends had lost part of an ear, and it had regrown within a few months. It hadn’t taken two years.
“Are you sure they’d grow back? I’m elven enough?” he asked.
“We think so,” Silvan said. “Honestly, Kestrel, we won’t know for sure until we go through with this, but we believe that since you’re three quarters elf, and your ears are mostly elven, they should grow back.”
“And if they don’t, I can just keep spying for you anyway?” Kestrel asked cynically.
“That thought has crossed my mind,” Silvan admitted. “But I really don’t think it will happen. I think that in two years’ time Lucretia or Mastrin wouldn’t even know anything had even been done to you.”
“How will the doctor cut it?” Kestrel asked, realizing that he was considering the question.
“We’ll knock you out so that you’re insensible — probably with ale, lots of ale,” Silvan explained. “And then it will be a very quick matter of a few snips and sewing some of the flesh back in place so that it grows back the right way. You could go back to Firheng right away, and the ears could heal while you continued your practices and studies.
“In a couple of months you’d be ready to go on some training excursions, and then you’d have the chance to go out on your own to help us protect the Eastern Forest,” Silvan finished.
“May I think about it?” Kestrel asked, fearful that he was going to say yes, fearful that he was going to be turned into a human, and never return to being an elf. Even with his semi-outsider status as a mixed breed member of the society, he felt a devotion to the Elven race and culture, and Silvan made everything sound a little too simple.
“Of course Kestrel. We’re asking a lot of you. Take some time to think about it, but don’t forget how much good you could potentially do. We might be able to turn the tables and defeat the very forces that killed Mastrin and Lucretia,” Silvan pressed him. “Why don’t you come back tomorrow morning and let me know what you’ve decided.
“You probably haven’t toured the city ever, have you?” Silvan asked. “Here,” he scribbled a note hastily, and gave it to Kestrel, standing to reach across his desk. “Give this to Giardell, and he’ll arrange for you to have a guide give you a tour of the city today, so you can relax and enjoy seeing the sights.”
“Thank you, sir,” Kestrel replied, standing, ready to leave the office and the sight of the wise face across the desk, the face that made the arguments that compelled him to want to agree to do everything asked of him.
He walked to the door and let himself out, then handed the note to Giardell. “The colonel said to give this to you,” he explained.
Giardell read it momentarily, then handed it back. “Go down to the first floor and go to the last door on the left, on the street side of the building. Give the note to Alicia and tell her she’s assigned to take you on a tour today.”
“Just like that?” Kestrel asked, surprised at the ease of the delegation of the duty.
“Just like that, you’ll be on your way to being led around the city by someone who was born and raised here. She’ll show you things you’ll never think to ask to see,” Giardell confirmed.
“A whole day’s worth? How much is there to see?” Kestrel skeptically quizzed.
“You’ll find out if you go see Alicia,” Giardell told him. First floor, last door on the left,” he gave a motion as if he were brushing Kestrel away, but it felt as though it were a friendly gesture, urging him to go off to have fun.
Kestrel turned and walked down the hallway, wondering how much fun he could have as he contemplated a future with painful bodily mutilation, cultural alienation, and a dangerous immersion in the land of a foreign race.
Downstairs he proceeded to the proper door and knocked. There was a moment of silence, then the sound of movement, and then a muffled voice called, “Come in.”
“So you’re Kestrel?” the girl in the room asked. She was sitting behind a desk, a desk that was covered in paper, and she looked as though she were engaged in an effort to organize the mounds of information before her.
“Yes; how’d you know?” he asked.
“Colonel Silvan asked if I could lead someone named Kestrel around the city today,” she said matter-of-factly. She shuffled another pile of papers, then stood and looked at him directly. “Of course I told him yes — who’s going to say ‘no’ to the colonel? And then you’ve walked in, a stranger, so it seems logical that you’d be Kestrel.”
She had dark hair, unusually dark for an elf, and it was piled high atop her head in a style that Kestrel had seldom seen before. She was dressed in a uniform, a military jacket over a blouse, along with a matching skirt, something else that Kestrel had rarely seen. All in all, her appearance was of someone who seemed naturally inclined to work behind a desk, and who would want to work behind a desk.
“If you’ve got work to do, we don’t have to go,” Kestrel motioned to the piles of paper.
“I better go,” she said, without warmth. “The colonel must have asked me for a reason.
“Where do you want to go?” she asked, stepping around her desk towards him.
He shook his head at the question, thinking to himself that if he knew what there was to see, he wouldn’t need a guide. “I’ve only seen this base and the field where the archery competition was held,” he told her. “Anything else would be new to me.”
“Let’s go to the palace,” she said decisively, and she walked past him to the door, then out of the room without a backward glance, leaving Kestrel to hastily exit the room as well, closing the door behind him as he hurried down the hallway to catch up.