Little had been said the night before when they had stopped since Thal had fallen asleep mid-sentence, unaware that the others had already fallen asleep. All of them had been exhausted by the day's events and journey.
That afternoon, the four of them set off into the next forest district that Elder Elowin had marked off on her makeshift map. As they walked, Thal told them of his sleepwalking, the sigils he'd been marking around the village and what Elder Elowin had told him about them. He told them about the first time he had heard the voice, whose name he had not yet learned, and about The Grimma.
The three had listened in silence, becoming more aware with each step of the danger that they may face. Finally, Thal had also stopped talking, spent with the emotion of it all, and worried that the others would desert him.
This challenge of finding Kael was no different. Failure was not an option, and the gnoll chief began to realize that he had finally met an opponent who could actually destroy them once and for all.
*~*~*
Almost three forests behind the four young wood elves and their quest to find Queen Legodia's throne, Alexander was on his own quest to find Kael. However, his pursuit was both driven and hampered by his slippery descent into madness after being made a fool of by Kael's escape.
As each night passed, with the gnolls returning to feast at his expense without producing the elf he blamed for his fall from grace, Alexander became more and more obsessed with finding Kael. Finally, he put his foot down to put a stop to it all. He told the chief gnoll that there would be no more feasting until the elf was found. As expected, this did not sit well with the gnoll chief, and there began an almost comical argument between the two. Scribbling cartoonish images of elves and gnolls on loose paper, Alexander demanded that the chief was to recruit better and smarter gnolls to search for the elf villages and leave no survivors until Kael had been found.
It was no longer about finding any elf to sell to the highest bidder; it was about revenge for an imagined slight. Alexander had never learned how to concede defeat when he was a boy under his father's tutelage. When he went off to boarding school at the young age of six, he became aggressively competitive. For him, there was no losing. Whenever he was even threatened with a loss, he sought to completely annihilate his opponent.
Expulsion from the school would soon follow, and a transfer to a new school until finally their screening processes improved, and he could no longer gain entrance. His father then paid someone to complete his final exams and admission tests for university, and Alexander found himself in an enhanced business program learning about foreign trade and other topics he really didn't care for. His professors learned quickly that it was better to give him passing grades than try to discuss his failings with him or his father.
This challenge of finding Kael was no different. Failure was not an option, and the gnoll chief began to realize that he had finally met an opponent who could actually destroy them once and for all.
~*~*~
The four elves had stopped in the early hour before daylight, having put most of another forest between them and Alexander, although they were still unaware of his pursuit. They hadn't spoken much after Thal's description of The Grimma, but each of them recalled hearing stories of it when they were very young. Stories that they had grown up believing were just fairy tales to frighten children into behaving but now realized that such tales were often based on truths.
Lyri had prepared another meal of the fruit Eldrin had provided and suggested that they begin to look for other food along the way the next day to supplement their dwindling supply. As they built the lean-to that would protect them from the sun and spying eyes, they also gathered some yellow straw found in a small open area to sleep on a little more comfortably than the hard ground.
As the four lay down to sleep, Kael looked up and gasped. Two large bears had stepped between the trees and placed themselves at opposite ends of the lean-to, head to toe as the four laid, so that they could guard the front and rear while the elves slept. The largest of the two looked directly into Thal's eyes and slowly nodded at him before taking his place on the ground.
"Apparently, the forest animals also have a vested interest in our success," Thal said as he watched the sky brighten with the rising sun before he found himself dreaming and once again hearing the voice of the heir.
The animals know the elves will protect them, humans may not. I am very much enjoying the story.
ReplyDelete