Regardless of what the old wizard said, Captain Knife Hand and the sergeant major weren’t having any of this “Let’s Take a Hippy Walk,” as the command sergeant major had bluntly termed Vandahar’s guidance for the next phase of the march.
It was still a combat patrol. Noise discipline and good Rangering skills would be applied and practiced at all times. Except you couldn’t get the scouts, usually grim and determined even for Rangers, to shut up and stop making jokes.
“I feel Rockstar, man,” said one of ’em. And then they all started regurgitating their favorite Air Force memes and laughing.
That was the first time Sergeant Hard yelled at them to “get it together.” Apparently Hard was immune to Good Vibe Well Potion. I was betting Kurtz was too.
Then the scouts started whispering about surfing in Mexico next time they were on leave and that they should take some of their canteen water then so they could hit the cantinas all night long and be up by dawn to hit the waves.
This may seem stupid. But the Ranger scout section of an endless summer via thirty days of leave sounded rational and sane compared to the If I die this is how I’d spend my Army life insurance money conversation I’d once been forced to listen to on a long road march during Basic. That one still hurt my brain to think about. Tanner told me it was called “the SGLI Sweepstakes.” SGLI is Servicemember Group Life Insurance.
I’m sure there were still waves in some place the map had once called Mexico. There had to be waves somewhere. Still, the experience the scout section was all excited about was about ten thousand years cerrado. Which means closed in Spanish. I said nothing and listened to the general good vibes they couldn’t contain until Hard showed up from the op order for the march and told them to once more “get it together.” And even then, they could barely stop whispering about surfing, fish tacos, and tequila.
Gandalf, or rather Vandahar the Wise or whatever, sidled up next to me as I watched the vibing Rangers get themselves fanned out and scouting. Sergeant Hardt running them with no small amount of vitriol.
“’Tis the old Well of Illathor that does cause them to behave so. Its power is deep and old in a world long gone to ruin.”
We were speaking in Gray Speech. Grau Sprache. Germanic. But my version. Meaning Vandahar was speaking fluently in what I would call “modern German” and anyone from this time would call ancient. His vocabulary was a little on the fancy side, but otherwise he would have blended in perfectly in the Berlin or Stuttgart I had left behind.
The mysterious old man was full of surprises.
“They will feel that way until the morrow. Tell your war captain not to worry. It does not dull the edges. They are more ready for battle now than they were in the days leading to your company’s battle with the Guzzim Hazadi.”
I knew from Jabba that the Guzzim Hazadi were one of the tribes of orcs that had attacked us. It seemed they’d had some kind of leadership role in the opposing forces. It was time for me to start collecting more intel about this world, and walking next to the wizard should provide that. So I stayed close and followed him as he wandered behind the scouts.
I looked behind to see Last of Autumn leading her horse away from the other Ranger teams already rucking up for the last hump. I waved, but she didn’t seem to see me. She seemed lost in thought. Or maybe it was fatigue. She’d been fighting and sneaking as long as we had. Now she seemed tired and content to just walk her horse while not being too concerned about enemies.
Vandahar lit his pipe, and for some time we walked in the old forest and he murmured to himself or pointed out various trees using Tolkien words to name them. This was Elven High Speech. I listened and tried to learn what I could learn. Autumn had been feeding me some of the more basic words, and while I certainly wasn’t fluent yet, I was picking it up, starting to understand what I needed for rudimentary communication.
The walk was quiet for the most part. But if the Rangers were expecting a patrol through the bush, a creep up onto an enemy objective or movement to contact, what they got instead was something much closer to what the wizard had said it would be. A Hippy Walk.
A peaceful walk with nothing to fear.
And the part Vandahar didn’t mention was… with much to be amazed
at.
That was the best part of the long march through the mysterious forest. “The Upper Charwood is an old forest. As old as the time when the
stars fell and cleaved the Ruin into what it is now,” mused the wizard as we walked along, passing strange stones and twisting trees that smelled of sandalwood. The scouts were out and forward. “It’s truly another realm altogether. It was once called The Green Walk, in another language long lost to the current age of darkness. In those days the Dragon Elves ruled the west and rivaled even the growing power of the Saur in the south. But in the time since, the spreading evil of the Southern Charwood has almost enveloped the Old Green Walk, and now most who still study the ways of the great forests consider the separate parts a whole.”
He stopped to examine a cluster of beautiful mushrooms that seemed made of gold and smelled like fresh laundry. He bent and scratched at them. Then sniffed.
“Not ready just yet. One more moon and they’ll be fine for a good meal.” He stood and sighed. Then we continued on into the emerald halls of the forest.
The wood around us grew tall, the trees reaching higher, the canopy slowly enveloping the whole world. Soon the sky was lost and it seemed like we were moving through a vast vibrant green gem of a hidden cathedral. Unfamiliar birds cried out happily, calling to one another musically as they flapped through the invisible upper reaches of trees that were even taller and stronger than the redwoods of ten thousand years ago.
An hour later we stopped at the remains of an old stone bridge that crossed over a lake laden with giant lily pads. There was no scent of death or decay here, like in swamps. Instead the air was heavy with the scent of magnolia and jasmine, and fish swam and jumped in the lake.
“Sit here for a while, lad,” said the wizard. He’d found a couple of old stones carved with ancient runes, long overgrown by moss. Vandahar pulled out his pipe once more and began to make it ready. When he had it to his liking, he turned to Autumn, who still followed along behind us.
“Lead on with the scouts, girl. And make sure the Fae do not give them a hard time or pull the finer-looking ones of these… Rangers… down into one of their secret holes. We’ll never find them again. They’ll never give those up.”
“Who are the… Fae?” I asked.
The old man worked at his pipe and muttered, “They’re worse than a jealous woman when they find one they like, mind you.”
“Are they friendly?” I asked, prompting a more coherent response. If there was some kind of danger here, then I needed to make sure the captain knew about it.
“Dangerous?” The old wizard guffawed as his pipe came to life. “Yes. Quite dangerous. ’Tis they who have guarded this old forest since long before the Dragon Elves. I can see you love the old languages—do you know what Fae means in Eld Ruin? Do you know Eld Ruin? No? It means from. It means they are from somewhere… how shall we say… other. In my long experience they are things you do not wake lightly. But they are also, to be honest, they who keep the Eld asleep, which is generally the best for all of us if you know the history of the Ruin.
“Yes,” he said to himself, staring off into the emerald-green canopy as the next team of Rangers passed by, following the trail of the scouts. “Yes, that is for the best if we consider the consequences of what waking an Eld would portend. We don’t need them mucking about just yet, going to war on one another. Bad enough Cloodmoor is now under the sway of the Black Prince.” At this the wizards brows furrowed. “He’s from those Eld days. He should know better. Though… he’s the least from those Eld Days.”
Vandahar’s voice trailed off. He was speaking to himself more than to me, it seemed. “Why… imagine if Bothmaug the Devourer were to be set free from his prison beneath the remotest regions of the Dire Frost? Where no living man has tread? It would mean an age of war few still living could remember. It would crack the foundations once more.”
I stood, feeling the need to alert the captain regarding the Fae. They sounded like something we needed to be concerned about.
“Nay, Speaker of Languages,” said the old wizard, sensing my intent. “They will do ye and yours no harm today. They smell upon you the orc blood. If there is anything that unites the Fae it is their hatred of orcish kind. Your killing them has earned you passage this day. I’ve already talked with Marvella of Sunken Pond. She says we may pass on to the Hidden Cave, but to be quick about it. Best to heed the pond maid and be on to the cave with some haste.”
The wizard went on like this. Speaking as though I should have some sense of who these people were and why they were important.
“Aye, ye are safe to pass on as long as none of yours are lured off into the deeps of this haunted place. Deeps and hidden places even I am not allowed to enter unless the circumstances are dire. Eld places from when the first kings came forth and hoarded their magical treasures in deep tombs and grottos guarded by ferocious servants of the old Eld, still powerful, even in these darkest days.”
If he had meant to put my fears at ease, he should have stopped after Aye, ye are safe to pass. I wondered how to get on the comm and let the sergeant major know his Rangers weren’t supposed to get “lured” off into the woods. Without sounding like a freak who was enjoying the Good Vibe Potion and the Hippy Walk a little too much.
“What do these… Fae… look like?” I asked after a moment. “In my world, where we are from—”
I wanted to say that I knew the word fae. I knew it meant fairy. So were we dealing with vicious Tinkerbells or what here? But the old man interrupted me with something even more stunning.
“Your world! This is your world, Speaker of Languages. I know where ye are from. I’ve studied the lost pages of the Book of Skelos. And I’m far older than I might look. Ye and your kind are from the Before, and ye are not the first.”
Intel!
Intel that indicated there were others from the mission that had started at Area 51. I needed to develop it. Look at me… I’m doing intel.
“We know,” I said. “We met one. One of ours who seems to have been here for at least twenty years.”
“Aye,” said the wizard. “I can guess which one you mean. A bad sort, that one. And it was the council’s concern that ye could be more from the same bolt of cloth, as it were.”
“King Triton?” I blurted out, and the old wizard, who seemed to have been working himself up to tell some fascinating tale probably just to hear the sound of his own voice made a face that indicated I was very rude in spoiling his ending.
”Yes. King Triton is the one.” Vandahar stood with a groan. “You’ve deprived the storyteller of his right. An old man of his enjoyment.”
“Sorry,” I said. I meant it.
The wizard put away his pipe, apparently still miffed about me spoiling
his story. “But… yes. Yes, that’s one from the before. Before the Ruin and the time of the Titans. No good is he, and now he serves a dark master indeed.”
“We knew him as Chief McCluskey. He was a SEAL. And do you mean he serves that… the Dark Prince… you mentioned earlier?”
The wizard harrumphed and we set off along the trail again, falling in behind another team of Rangers making their way. We entered into a series of forested hills beyond the quiet and fragrant pond we’d sat beside.
“Not Dark Prince, Speaker of Languages. The Black Prince. Lord of Vampires and ruler of all the Crow’s March. But no, such is not that one’s master, even though we of the Hidden Council have long suspected he mayhaps indeed be have the same curse as the nightwalkers.
“King Triton is a thrall of the Nether Sorcerer, who rules and watches from distant Umnoth. He was broken in the tower and he has only recently returned to this region of the Ruin. Tales abound that he fought in the War Against Skeletos with the shadow companies and was there when the great wall tumbled down and the city collapsed.
“His master then sent him into the west, allied to the Black Prince, with the charge of making war against Mourne. The last kingdom of the elves that lies against the edge of the world and the Lost Sea beyond.”
That was a lot to keep track of. But it was intel and I was sure if I could break it down into some format the captain and the sergeant major found digestible, and not crazy, it might help us navigate the world we found ourselves in. I was making mental notes on what to clarify and what needed to be explored and expanded, but I didn’t want to stop the flow of information coming from the old man. So I let the wizard continue as we walked into the sunshine of the forested hills, following an old road that twisted and turned about their rises, weaving in and out of fantastic trees that seemed to have kindly faces if you didn’t look too close. I was sure it was just a trick of the light. But the more and more we passed others with the same phantom disposition, the more it became obvious that the trees were like living sentient things with smiling, peaceful old faces in their knotty trunks. Their eyes closed as though dreaming. Dozing in the hot sunshine filtering down through their soft leafy tops.
Then again, maybe that was just the Good Vibe Potion and the Hippy Walk.
This day was pleasant and the opposite of everything we’d experienced here so far. You know, back when an entire orc horde had been intent on wiping us all out at Ranger Alamo. This forest was dark and mysterious, but in an exciting way. And maybe there was something to that.
The wizard went on and on about enigmatic events. He hinted at old grudges this world seemed to have against itself, but in time, as the day turned toward the afternoon, he turned to me and said…
“But these are things that were going on long before ye and yours arrived here in the midst of events, Speaker. And soon your king must make a choice as to whom he will serve, and to what cause your warriors will fight for. Mind me well: there can be no middling ground here. Choose, or events will choose for you. Darkness waxes full, and the little good that is left in this world wanes indeed.”
He began to walk once more but continued talking, expecting me to keep pace.
“The Shadow Elves, who have offered you safe harbor here, are guests and outcasts themselves. And truth be told, not all their kind are expecting good of you. Only that girl who braved death and fangs to see if there was some… light… that could be had in fellowship with you… only she believes. The days of the Shadow Elves are numbered more than most. It is the age of men now. The elves have been hidden since the fall of Ruined Tarragon. Never mind what they say about Mourne. ’Tis a kingdom of death with foolish notions about glory and honor. But…”
Here he sighed and stared at the ruins of a tower we could see from our vantage point along the side of a hill. Carved in stone, giants with wings held up the sides of the tower. The top was like the flared points of an iron crown. It seemed a dark and moody place and different from the other ruins and places we had passed.
“But… I must say,” continued Vandahar, “their cause is just. The Shadow Elves, that is. They have come a very long way to fulfill a promise. Unfortunate for them it was a bad bargain to begin with. But they aim to see it done despite the odds and great creatures who serve the Nether Sorcerer and who are allied against them at this very hour. Though they are alone… they are not without possible allies. There are many who strive against a common enemy. Perhaps, Speaker of Languages, that is why you’ve come here… ye and yours… perhaps these… Rangers as you say you are…
perhaps they might lead the way forward and bind to them many in a final war against a dark force like nothing the world that was, or the world that is now, has ever seen before. Perhaps the Shadow Elves are the last flame that flickers before the approaching storm. Perhaps they will show the Kingdoms of Men… the way through.”
Then he turned toward Last of Autumn, who had fallen away from the scouts after safely passing the Fae and retaken her position following behind us a ways off. Head down as though praying, or tired. “She seems to think so, and though I am old, Speaker of Languages, and at the last of my time, so do I. Perhaps things turn now. And perhaps they turn for the better.”
He began to walk again, mumbling “perhaps” to himself as we started back down into the forest.
