asked. “I guess you were caught in the battle at the fire?”
“We were,” Hinger, the other elf confirmed, as they took turns eating and talking. “Our squad watched Commander Mastrin took a group out to try to break up the firethrowers, and we and the others were instructed to try to run south and get around the end of the fires, so we could take shelter in the safe part of the forest.
“Mastrin’s forces went down too quickly though; the humans just waited for them and butchered them, and we weren’t able to make it to safety,” he continued. “The humans came at us, and we put up a fight, but not many survived.”
“They rounded up the survivors, tied us all in ropes, and herded us together,” Hinger added.
“Was there a girl named Lucretia?” Kestrel asked with a lump in his throat.
“There were four or five score captured altogether,” Hinger continued. “I didn’t know many of them; I barely knew Termine. There were a few females, but they were separated from us pretty quickly.”
“Then after the first day, they didn’t attack any further. They could have burned the whole Eastern Forest — there weren’t any other defenders left, but instead they packed everything up and left the battlefield, taking us with them,” he explained. “It was a horrible march. They didn’t feed us much, they beat us just because they could, they left our dead lying by the side of the road — a lot didn’t survive. Maybe two score or three score made it to their city.
“Then things happened to us and to them. They fought among themselves; a lot of them were killed, and they attacked the city. Then they took an ax and cut off our feet, so we couldn’t run away, I guess,” he stopped talking, emotion overcoming him, and Termine picked up the story.
“We were put on a ship after the humans’ war with themselves was done, those that survived, that is, and we went across the sea to another great city, and we were sold off at auction. Hinger and I were bought together by a trader, and we worked on his ships, getting whipped and mistreated terribly,” he said. “The trader came up here on a voyage and must have lost money at the gambling house, because we were given to the house, and have worked there the past week.”
Kestrel felt the tears rolling down his cheeks at the bleak recital of the horrific events.
“All praise to Kai for sending you to save us,” Hinger said. “I’ll make an extra devotion and pledge to the temple to thank her.”
“As will I,” Termine agreed.
“As will I,” Kestrel concurred.
“Since there are three of us, we’ll take turns on watch,” Kestrel announced. “I’ll take the first shift, then wake Hinger for second, and Termine can take the third,” he directed.
The two ex-slaves fell immediately asleep, while Kestrel walked around the perimeter of the campsite, and came back to add new tinder to the fire from time to time. It was that fire that gave their location away to the gambler’s men who were still following them, and Kestrel’s watchfulness that saved them.
Near the end of his shift Kestrel heard the men approaching, and woke the other two elves. He gave them his bow and arrows to use, while he went out into the darkness of the trees, and waited for the men to pass by him. There were eight men, walking in a cluster towards the flames of the camp fire, and when Kestrel was sure they were within the range of the elven archers who were hidden in the darkness, he began his attack. He swung his staff with full force at the back of the head of one man, then jabbed and twisted the newly spiked end of the staff into the throat of the man next to him.
He heard the twinge of his bow, and one of the humans screamed, while the others realized they had been ambushed, and began to shout and flail. One of the men swung his sword blindly, but managed to score it across Kestrel’s stomach, a painful cut that he ignored as he twisted his staff between the man’s legs to trip him, then ripped the hooks across his opponent’s throat, and heard a gurgling noise as another arrow found its target.
There were three humans still left, blindly thrashing about in the forest. One was clearly running away, he could tell by the receding sounds, while one was still approaching the fire, and one was near him. With one hand holding his injury, he dropped the staff in the other hand and pulled out his sword, then snuck beside the human closest to him and stabbed the man in his kidneys. His victim gave a loud, sobbing scream of pain as he fell, and Kestrel administered a lethal blow out of mercy.
The bow sounded again, and Kestrel heard the final human hunter fall among the leaves on the forest floor. “That’s all of them,” he called out to the other two elves, “ and I’m coming in to the fire now.”
The other two returned to the fire as well, and met him there. “Kestrel, you’re hurt!” Hinger exclaimed as they came face to face. “Do you want to drink some of the healing water?” he asked, preparing to go in search of the water skin.
“No,” Kestrel answered sharply, and they both looked at him in surprise. “If I touch it, my ears and eyebrows will start to grow back to elven form,” he belatedly explained. “I’ve learned that the hard way, and had to undergo surgery twice to look human.
“’I’d rather not have a third surgery,” he added with a grin. “Hinger, you’re on duty now,” he told the elf, and he went to his bedroll to lay down. He slept uneasily that night, as the pain of the cut across his stomach troubled him, but awoke shortly after dawn nonetheless, and helped prepare the camp for their departure. He went out into the forest and raided the packs and pockets of the dead men, then they resumed their journey, and he jogged alongside the horse with its double load of elves into the southeast.
That night they had another fire to provide some warmth as the evening grew cooler, as Hinger and Termine debated whether their feet were healing, or if it was just their imagination. By the third evening of their journey they concluded that they were regrowing the lost limbs, and they mounted no watch as they decided they were beyond danger of discovery.
Seven days later the group reached Firheng, a return to the Elven nation that made the two former slaves cry with appreciation. They walked in through the city gate with less in the way of a limp as their feet continued to regenerate, and Kestrel led them into Belinda’s office to report to Commander Cosima.
“Kestrel! My husband whispered my name this morning!” Belinda cried tears of real joy when she saw him. “I’m really going to have him back!”
Cosima listened in amazement to Kestrel’s story of rescue. “I had no idea you would do any more than see the edge of the city and return,” he exclaimed when Kestrel was finished recounting the tale.
“Colonel Silvan will want to hear your stories,” Cosima told the two returned guards. “He’ll ask you so many questions you’ll discover that you know and remember things you couldn’t possibly be aware of during your time in captivity.”
“And his wife will have more of the healing water, to help your feet grow back further. You’ll not need anything else,” Kestrel assured them. It was true that their sores had disappeared and the scars they bore had shrank and faded into relative obscurity. “When you see Alicia, tell her Kestrel says thank you.”
They drank ale that night and talked with Arlen over dinner to celebrate their safety back among elves. “You know,” said Termine, “after a while I didn’t even notice he looked like a human,” he observed late that night, as he placed a hand on Kestrel’s shoulder. Kestrel grinned at the backhanded compliment.
The next morning Termine and Hinger were given a messenger tube to take to Colonel Silvan, and they left Firheng to make their way back to Center Trunk, the first elves to return from their captivity among the humans. After he watched them limp away from the gate of the guard base, Kestrel went back to see Commander Cosima again.
“You made more of your training trip than I expected Kestrel, and you did great work that was good in more than one way — it was good for those two men, it was good for our people, and I suspect it might even have been good for you,” Cosima said.
Kestrel nodded his head in agreement. It had been an eye-opening trip. He had started the trip with his memories of the prejudices that elves had shown against him because of his human characteristics, and questioning the moral values of elves versus humans. The decadence he had seen in Green Water, particularly the practice of slavery, showed him that humans did not occupy a moral high ground versus elves. And the eye- opening exposure to seeing elves as slaves had awakened a passion in him to achieve another goal while he infiltrated the humans — he would seek to rescue other elven slaves as well, if they were to be found.
“So, the seasons have moved along, and we need to get you up to Estone so that you can sail out before the shipping lanes freeze closed for the winter. Here are your orders from Silvan, with details on how you should plan to send messages back to our side once you’re over in Hydrotaz,” Cosima passed a folded sheet of paper to Kestrel.
