The Qualinesti

10 — The Knowing Child

Verhanna slept deeply for the rest of the night and well into the next day. When at last she stirred and sat up, she saw Rufus sitting on the ground beside her. A cool compress of damp moss fell away from her forehead when she moved. “What—what is this? Where are we?”

“The west bank of the Astradine River,” said the kender.

Rufus gave her a strand of venison jerky he’d bought from the Kagonesti settlers. Verhanna gnawed on the tough meat in silence for a while, then finally said, “Now I remember. The goblins!That rotten scab of a creature bit me. The wound festered.” Suddenly she twisted around and lifted the horsehair poncho draped over her. “It’s gone!” she shouted. Verhanna lowered the piece of blanket. “Who healed me? My muscles aren’t even sore!”

The kender pointed away from their campsite. “Him,” Rufus said simply.

Seated on a fallen log a dozen paces distant was Greenhands, bare-chested now since Verhanna was using his poncho. His hair, which had appeared yellow by torchlight, was revealed by the light of day to be of purest white. Kith-Kanan’s daughter picked her way down the mossy riverbank toward him. The strange elf was gazing placidly across the sluggish stream, which was still depleted by the three-day onslaught of the sun.

Verhanna opened her mouth—to demand, question, challenge—but she closed it again without speaking. There was something unsettling about this elf, something compelling. He was not handsome by elven standards. His cheeks were broad, but not high; his chin and nose were not fashionably narrow; his lips were full, not thin; and his forehead was massive, almost human in proportion. However, he was unmistakably elven, with almond-shaped eyes, elegantly pointed ears, and exquisitely long, tapering fingers. The expression on his face was serene.

“Hello,” the Qualinesti princess finally said. His green eyes left off their study of the river and found her. A chill passed through Verhanna. She’d never seen any elf with eyes that color, and his gaze was direct—unwavering and unnerving. “Can you speak?”

“I speak.”

“Thank Astra.” She paused, embarrassed at the debt she owed him and unsure what to say. After a long moment, during which the elf’s eyes never left her, she added rather hastily, “Rufus tells me you healed me. I—I wanted to thank you.”

“It needed to be done,” replied Greenhands. The wild elves whose wagon had been stuck in the mud hailed them, and the elder Kagonesti male called for Greenhands to join them.

“Come along,” the Kagonesti said. “We’re bound for Qualinost.”

The strange elf replied, “I cannot go.” Still his eyes remained on Verhanna.

The Kagonesti father tied off his reins and jumped down from the wagon. “What’s that? Is this warrior holding you back?” he asked, glaring at the warrior maiden.

“I am not,” she replied tartly.

“I must go to the west,” Greenhands said. He rose and faced in that direction. “To the High Place. They must come with me.” He indicated Verhanna and Rufus, who had managed to join them quietly for a change. Kivinellis, riding in the wagon with the Kagonesti’s family, jumped off and ran to Verhanna.

“I want to go, too!” he declared. The father protested strongly. A young boy couldn’t wander around with a kender, a warrior, and a simpleminded elf.

Verhanna ignored the Kagonesti and turned to Greenhands. “Why do you have to go west with us?” she wanted to know.

His brow furrowed in thought. “I have to find my father,” he said.

“Who is your father?”

“I do not know. I have never seen him.”

In spite of these vague replies, Greenhands was obstinate. He must go west, and Verhanna and Rufus must go with him. Defeated, the Kagonesti returned to his wagon, propelling Kivinellis ahead of him. The elf boy complained all the way.

“Poor little fellow,” said Rufus. “Couldn’t we keep him, my captain?”

Verhanna’s attention was all on Greenhands. “No, he’s better off with a family,” she said distantly. “Astra only knows where we’re headed—” The creak of wheels interrupted her. The loaded wagon lurched onto level ground and pulled away. Kivinellis, his blond head shining among the dark elves, waved forlornly from the back of the wagon. He was securely held by the Kagonesti’s wife. Verhanna returned the wave, then turned back to Greenhands.

“I need some answers,” Verhanna declared. “Who are you?”

“I have no name,” was the mild answer.

“Greenhands, that’s your name,” said the kender. He clasped the elf’s grass-hued hand in both of his small ones. “Pleased to meetcha. I’m Rufus Wrinklecap, forester and scout. And that’s my captain, Verhanna. Her father is Kith-Kanan, the Speaker of the Sun.”

Greenhands seemed startled, even bewildered, by this flood of information.

“Never mind,” said Verhanna, shaking her head. Awkwardly she put a hand on the elf’s bare shoulder. His skin was warm and smooth. When she touched him, Verhanna felt a tingle shoot up her arm. She didn’t know if it was due to some force passing between them or if it was simply her own nervousness. Greenhands didn’t seem to notice anything odd.

Looking him directly in the eyes, Verhanna asked firmly, “Who are you? Really?”

He shrugged. “Greenhands.”

A flush of irritation washed over the warrior maiden. She was intrigued by this odd fellow and deeply grateful that he’d saved her life, but his naive and evasive replies were getting under her skin.

“I guess you’d better come with us,” she stated. “My father would want me to bring you to Qualinost.”

“What about the slavers?” asked Rufus.

“This is more important.”

Greenhands shook his head. “I cannot go with you. I must go to the High Place.” He pointed west, toward the Kharolis Mountains. “There. To find my father.”

Verhanna’s eyes narrowed, and her jaw clenched. Rufus intervened quickly. “It’s not so far off the track to Qualinost, my captain. We could swing by the mountains first. You know,” he said, changing the subject completely, “my father was a famous pot thrower.”

Suitably distracted, Verhanna hitched the horse blanket up on her shoulders and looked at her scout. “You mean he made pots—threw them—on a wheel?” she asked.

“No, he threw them at my Uncle Four-Thumbs. In the carnival.”

Suddenly Verhanna realized Greenhands was no longer with them. He was twenty paces away, loping along with the morning sun at his back. She called out for him to stop.

“You must stay with us!” she shouted.

Wind stirred his long, loose hair. He stopped, eyes fixed on the western horizon, while Verhanna retired to a stand of trees to dress. Now that the perishing heat was over, she donned her breastplate, childrons, and greaves over a fresh haqueton. Rufus did one of his usual vaults to reach the broad back of his red-coated Thoradin mount, and together they rode to where Greenhands waited.

“Do you ride?” Verhanna asked, returning the poncho to Greenhands. “There’s room behind Wart if you do.”

“There’s room for most of Balifor up here,” opined Rufus.

Greenhands pulled the poncho on over his head. “I’ll walk,” he said.

“It’s a long way to the mountains,” she warned, leaning on the pommel of her saddle. “You’ll never be able to keep pace with the horses.”

“I’ll walk,” he repeated, with exactly the same intonation.

She shook her head. “Suit yourself.”

They topped a low rise and were out of the shallow valley cut by the river and back on the grass-covered plain. To the south, the blue humps of the Kharolis foothills were plainly visible in the clear morning sky, but Greenhands went resolutely west.

So intent were Verhanna and Rufus on keeping their eyes on Greenhands that neither bothered to look back at the riverbank. What had been a mud flat the night before was now a blossoming meadow. Grass had sprung up knee high in a few short hours, and a thousand colors of wild flowers bloomed where once there had been nothing but mud and cattails. Moreover, this strange growth narrowed as it entered the upland. Eventually it thinned to a point—the exact trail where Greenhands trod.

The day wore on, and Greenhands showed no signs of tiring.

Verhanna and Rufus ate in the saddle, passing a water bottle back and forth between them. Greenhands plucked a few stems of grass from the turf to nibble. He ate and drank nothing else.

By mid-afternoon the novelty of watching the strange elf had worn off. Rufus lay down on his horse’s back, clasping his hands behind his head and shading his face with his travel-worn hat. He gave his reins to his captain, and soon high-pitched snores whistled from his lips. Verhanna nodded a bit, but she was too conscious of her duty to falter and fought the sleep that tried to claim her.

Fatigue and the lingering shock of her healed goblin bite proved too strong, though, and she, too, eventually nodded off. When her charger stumbled slightly over a gopher mound, Verhanna jolted awake. Greenhands was no longer forging ahead on foot. The warrior maiden reined in and looked back. In the high grass fifteen yards behind them, the tall elf was kneeling.

“Wake up, Wart.” She called to the kender. Yawning, Rufus sat up and caught his reins as she tossed them.

“Hey,” the kender said sleepily, “where’d all the flowers come from?”

Verhanna looked past Greenhands and saw the vast trail of blooms that widened as it stretched out behind him. Not only flowers, but the dry prairie grass in the area had grown a foot taller.

“Look you,” she said, leaning down from the saddle. “What sort of magic is this?”

“Quiet,” he murmured. “The children call me.”

She bristled at his abrupt command. “I’ll speak when I like!”

The strange elf’s tense, prayerful posture suddenly relaxed. He inhaled deeply and said, “They come.”

Verhanna was about to make a rejoinder when a faint rumbling sound reached her ears. Heavy vibrations in the ground caused her mount to shift his feet and stamp nervously. Rufus sat up and called, “Captain, look!”

To the south, a dark brown line appeared on the horizon. It bulked larger and higher, and the rumbling grew louder. Swiftly the brown mass resolved into elk—thousands of them. A gigantic herd, stretching far to the left and right, was coming straight toward them.

“By Astra, it’s a stampede!” Verhanna cried. She twisted her horse around to ride hard in the same direction the elk were moving. Their only chance was to go with the flow and not fall under those churning hooves.

“Give me your hand!” she shouted to Greenhands. “We must flee!”

The elk were only a couple hundred paces off and gathering speed. Rufus turned his mount and urged it next to his captain’s. Bouncing to his feet in the saddle, he crowed with delight, “What a sight! Have you ever seen so many deer? If only I had a bow, we’d have venison for dinner forever!”

“You idiot, we’re going to be trampled!”

Then the elk herd was upon them like a living wall of hide, antlers, and sharp hooves. The musky smell of the animals mingled with the dry odor of trampled grass. Thinking first of her decision to bring Greenhands to Qualinost, Verhanna threw herself on top of the elf to shield him from harm. Only after an eternal, terrifying second did the realization sink in that the herd had split and was flowing around them. The patch of ground with Verhanna, Greenhands, Rufus, and the two horses had been spared.

Thousands of elk, with liquid brown eyes and gaping mouths, rushed past them, nose to flank, shoulder to hip. The noise of their passage was deafening. Verhanna raised her head just enough to see the kender, still standing on his quiescent horse, hands clamped over his ears. With great astonishment, the warrior maid discovered that the stupid fellow was grinning. His carroty topknot was whipped back by the wind of the herd’s passage, and a huge smile lit his pale eyes.

It seemed hours before the herd thinned. Alone or in pairs, the last few animals bounded in wide zigzags. In minutes more, the receding herd was again a brown line on the horizon. Then there was nothing but flying dust and the fading rumble of ten thousand hooves.

“E’li be merciful!” Verhanna breathed. “We are truly blessed!”

“Move away,” Greenhands grumbled from beneath her. “You smell terrible.”

She rolled smartly aside, and he sat up. Verhanna slipped the mail mitten back from her hand and slapped the elf across the jaw. She was instantly sorry, because tears formed in his vivid green eyes and his lips quivered.

“It’s the metal you wear,” he sniffled. One tear traced a shining path down his cheek. “It smells like death.”

“Yippee!”

The two of them turned to look up at Rufus. The kender was capering atop his horse. “What a sight!” he caroled gleefully. “That must be the biggest herd of elk in the world! Did you feel the wind they kicked up? The ground shook like a jelly pudding! What do you suppose made them run like that?”

“Thirst,” Greenhands said. He sniffed and touched a hand to his wet cheek. The sight of his own tears seemed to confound him. “The heat of days past made them mad with thirst.”

“How do you know?” Verhanna demanded.

“They called out to me. I told them how to get to the river.”

“You told them? I suppose you told them not to trample us, too?”

“Yes. I told the horses to stand still, and the elk would go around us.”

The tall elf rubbed his fingertips together till the tears were gone. Then he stood and walked slowly away, not west as they had been going, but veering south. Exasperated beyond words, Verhanna swung into her saddle and followed him. Rufus fell in beside her. He could hear her grumbling and grinding her teeth.

“Why so angry, my captain?” the kender asked, his eyes still bright at their encounter with the elk herd.

“We spend our time trailing after him like body servants!” She slapped her armored thigh. “And the lies he tells! He knows more than he’s telling, mark my words.”

The kender turned down his hat brim to shade his eyes from the lowering sun. “I don’t think he knows how to lie,” he said quietly. “The elk herd might’ve split by coincidence, but my horse just stood like a statue. It wasn’t even quivering. If you ask me my opinion, Greenhands did talk to the elk.”