Heir To The Nova (Book 3) (13 page)

Something else was bothering me. “Hey, wait a minute. If you figured out I had no defense against women’s tears the day we met…”

“Don’t say it! Believe me, you don’t want to know,” Nia interrupted, laughing sardonically. “Now do you want your alone time with Mom or not?”

She flew away on treacherous gossamer wings, and I reached for my dark elf sweetheart.

By the end of the third day, we had fallen into a routine. Rise early, eat, break camp, travel until late afternoon, make camp, eat, talk, go to bed, repeat. At least, we had decent food for the journey, the dark elves had given us generous supplies of fresh food for the trip, and Maya, Nia and I did our best to make up for lost weight.

On the trail, the girls in the wagon chatted incessantly; the two dragons seemed to just fall into a trance of sorts unless they were part of the conversation. I began to suspect that Dawn and Dusk could sleep perfectly well with their eyes wide open, which was a good thing since the two of them insisted on standing watch all night while the rest of us slept.

The oddest friendship that the trip sparked was between Mingt and Nia. She sat for hours on his shoulder while he drove the wagon, the two of them conversing in a language I didn’t identify. About once or twice a day if a particularly good target presented itself, Nia would fly out to a dead tree or rock pile and verify it wasn’t the home of a marmot or some truly innocent creature. If it was clear, she would zip back and Mingt would watch as she became the Combat Pixie and blasted the offending target into smithereens. Then the two of them would apparently critique the work, smiling and waving their hands expressively like old colleagues.

When the girls grew tired of talking–rare, but it did happen–they would occasionally change Ryliss into whatever animal form caught their fancy. The process was the same as they used to break Maya out of the dungeon. Then the two druids would copy that form and go for a run or fly. It wasn’t unusual to see our group flanked by greyhounds or over flown by painted hawks.

Maya watched all this in fond amusement and commented through our link with Winya,
“I don’t see how Ryliss manages that so easily. When Julia turned me into a rat, it was extremely disorienting, not to mention I may never be able to eat marmot again. She seems to pick up every form they throw at her without missing a step.”

I nodded in agreement.
“I remember her from our old village; it’s a really odd memory because she was physically bigger than me then. Anyway, her nose was always in a book, not adventure books like I read, but history and travel accounts of other lands. It’s sad, but six months before we left to go live in Foalshead, her mother and baby brother both died in childbirth. Ryliss and Ollis both took it really hard. She was a nice lady, a terrible cook, but a nice lady. I was surprised Ollis agreed to let Ryliss out of his sight for this trip; she’s pretty much all he has left.”

Maya nodded.
“There comes a time when parents need to let their children free to forge their own destinies. Before we left, my mother confided to me that she and my father were both heartsick the entire time I was in Xarparion. But somehow, they felt that was where I needed to be. Perhaps Ryliss needs to be with us now.”
She paused and I felt a tinge of amusement transmit through. “
Besides, Ollis will be just fine. He’s not that old, he’s best friends with the King; and once the Lifebane is defeated and peace restored, there will be a lot of beautiful dark elf widows seeking solace.”

“Beautiful dark elf widows, you say?”
I grinned, flashing a mischievous look in her direction.

Maya gave me a flinty look and Winya broke in worriedly
. “Alex! Don’t even joke about things like that! It riles the cat up something awful, and she’s been on edge as it is. Down, bad, bad kitty!”

I laughed out loud.
“Well, Winya, at least I know how to get back at you for all those times you teased and made fun of me. All I have to do is think of other women.”

Maya abruptly moved Kaima up against Somnus and reached over and grabbed the back of my neck. Bringing her emerald eyes in direct alignment with mine, she growled, “That would be very inadvisable, Magic Boy. I will repeat this one last time; you are mine and only mine! There are no other women!” With that rebuke still ringing in my head, she pulled me down further and roughly pressed her soft lips upon my own, her tongue tantalizing mine until I’m pretty sure I was seeing stars…oh yeah, those were her tattoos. This behavior eventually elicited a loud, irritated clearing of the throat from her grandfather in the trailing wagon. Maya withdrew, smiling lazily
. “Is the cat happy now, Winya?”

At the end of day four, we were about to start looking for a suitable campsite when Maya smelled smoke and, slipping off Kaima, put on her helm and ghosted out ahead of the party. A few minutes later she was back and reappeared in the middle of the road. Remounting effortlessly, she leaned around and called back to the wagon. “Nothing to worry about, it’s just the rest of our party around the next bend.”

We approached, and with our high vantage points on the Vakhas, we could see a small camp set off the road about thirty paces. Two donkeys were munching grass contentedly a few yards away from where a single tent was set up. There was a small campfire smoldering in the center, with some logs drawn up for chairs. The donkey wagon sat still laden with metal off to one side.

Maya looked inquisitively at me. We pulled up our horses about ten feet from the tent, and I called out, “Hello, the camp,” only to hear a muffled curse and some excited whispering coming from within.

“Darroth, dark elves have excellent hearing, you remember,” Maya giggled. The front flap of the tent flew open and a flustered, shirtless Darroth roared out, taking great pains not to let us see into the tent.

“What the…? You two should know better than to sneak up on people out in the wilderness! Why, I could have mistook you for bandits or something,” he groused nervously. He looked back and forth between Maya and me, then his eyes lit on the wagon full of people behind us all staring at him, and he really began to turn interesting colors.

“Darroth, what are you still doing here? You should have been almost to Sky Raven by now; you had a huge head start.”

“Umm, well…umm…you see, Lady Gemma bruised the frog on one of her hooves and we were just giving her a couple days to heal up. These roads are brutal on tender jenny feet.”

About that time, I could hear rustling from within the tent. It sounded like the back flap facing away from us was slowly being pulled back, and someone was attempting to sneak out. Maya heard it too, and she was gamely trying to cover her mouth to avoid giggling even more.

Suddenly, a dwarf appeared from the other side of the tent, as if just returning from a walk in the forest. Her long yellow braids were let down, and she had a decidedly disheveled appearance, as well as a sheepish grin on her face.

“Oh, hello, Sir Alex! I’m glad to see you back, and this must be your girl, Maya, that I have heard so much about.”

“Hello, Elsa,” I chuckled. “Yes, this is very much the love of my life, Maya.” I glanced at my dark elf, who shot me a delighted look and then looked down at Elsa and accepted a cordial handshake from the tall blonde dwarf. “Maya, only daughter of King Talmin, this is Princess Elsa of the dwarves, although she prefers to be called just Elsa.”

“That’s right, just Elsa.” She smiled at Maya. “I’m glad to see you and Alex have worked things out. I’ve never seen a man mope around the way he did at the capital. For a while there I wasn’t sure which was going to kill him first, the chimera or a broken heart.”

Maya frowned and nodded. “That’s all behind us now, Elsa. If you don’t mind, we’ll join your camp for the night. We have more of our friends and family to introduce, too.”

Introductions were made, and by the time the others had unpacked and attended to the animals, I had a decent supper going on the fire. Elsa had a thousand questions for the dark elves. I’m not sure she had ever met one of Maya’s people in person before when weapons weren’t involved. Equally interesting were the twins, but I got the impression she was a bit daunted yet and wanted to get to know them better. All this was left behind, however, as soon as the smells from my quick stew and grilled bread and meats started to fill the campsite. Elsa’s nose shot up in the air and she was practically on top of me trying to see what I was doing.

“What’s that, Alex?”

“Cheese.”

“Hmm…any schrooms in it?”

“No.”

“Good! What’s that?” She pointed.

“Voskk stew.”

“Any schrooms in it?”

“No.”

“Good! Is that real bread?”

“Yes, Elsa, it’s real bread made from grain.”

“Hmphh. Now that’s a waste of good ale.”

“You won’t think so after you try it,” I grinned, starting to plate up some of the food.

Meanwhile, everyone else around the campfire was watching in amazement. Darroth watched their faces and spread his hands in a placating gesture and smiled. “You’ll have to forgive Elsa, she doesn’t get out much.”

As the evening wore on, everyone loosened up and once again we were a cohesive, happy group. As usual, Lin, Julia, and Ryliss insisted on checking over the animals, while the twins cleaned up after dinner. Lin came sauntering back and strolled up to Darroth with a gleam of mischief in her eyes.

“Darroth, you’ll be happy to know that Lady Gemma and Miss Clara like you very much now, especially since you didn’t sell them off for stew meat at the dwarf capital. You seem to have really bonded with them, I’m very impressed.”

“Well, you know, it just takes a firm but gentle hand…but…wow, isn’t that a bright moon out tonight,” he said evasively, pointing dramatically up into the sky.

Lin snickered. “But you didn’t have to stop on Gemma’s account. She says there was never anything wrong with her feet, or Clara’s, either.”

Darroth’s gaze slid guiltily across the camp ring to Elsa, whose eyebrows began to rise suspiciously. “Umm…well, it sure looked inflamed to me.”

“Ahuh…well, she says to tell you that they appreciated the long break anyway, even if you did ignore them shamelessly and spend all your time in the tent.”

Darroth coughed and tried to loosen his collar. “Well…umm…I need a drink, anyone for ale?” With that he leaped up and practically ran off into the darkness. A few seconds later, I heard the lid pop off of the keg attached to the donkey cart.

Elsa got up and favored each of us with a prim smile, but her eyes were glittering dangerously. “Well, thank you all for a lovely evening, but you’ll have to excuse me; I need to go check on Darroth. I would be heartbroken if something awful happened to him–like he happened to drown in that ale keg!” I tried to ignore the muffled blows that followed thereafter in the darkness.

Another day’s travel and we would be within a day of our return to Sky Raven.

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Ryliss

“Is this great or what?”
Lin screamed excitedly into the cold air rushing by. Of course, she wasn’t speaking common, elf or any spoken word. It sounded more like ‘wee-aaaaaaa’ and was accentuated by a wing dip followed by a fancy roll. The white tips of her wing feathers splayed slightly, catching the afternoon light. We were on another of our little field trips away from the boredom of riding in the wagon.

I’m flying, and I’m not sure if I should be afraid or just give in to the wonder of it all. Strangely, even though we three are almost two miles in the air, I feel totally at home, peaceful even. Right now we are just coasting gently on some high thermals and making lazy circles in the sky.

“Look, there’s Sky Raven!”
Jules said, a little behind and below me. Of course, with the expanded field of vision that came with this body, I could still see her perfectly. Jules was a beautiful blue- and white-tinted Fenorian eagle, as were we all at the moment. Beyond where her head inclined, in the distance I caught sight of a storybook palace. My vision immediately locked onto the sight and sharpened into clear focus. My breath caught in my throat briefly, I had seen an ancient sketch of this place in a dusty old tome in the library, although it wasn’t named. I was sure that sketch was nearly two thousand years old, and yet here it was; and even from this distance, it sparkled like new.

The river that roared down the front walls and peeled off into two directions sent up geysers of steam into the sky, shrouding the place in an eerie fog. Farther back from the main walls appeared to be a small town of wooden and stone buildings. And beyond that even, backed up against the top of the mountain was a spectacular blue and white keep. I would have liked to study the fortress some more, but my companions were already turning away, gliding in another direction.

I grinned; I would get to see the place up close by tomorrow evening. I had to admit I was nervous about what kind of reception a dark elf would receive at a castle full of human wizards, but Jules said not to worry. My life has changed so much in these past few exhilarating days. My usual routine of library chores, weapons training and studying was totally disrupted by the arrival of the druids, now my friends. ‘Friends’, that sounds so strange to the tongue, especially friends who are human girls. I don’t have many friends, as many younger dark elves consider reading a worthless endeavor.