“0h, how brave it is!” The elf man rested one foot lightly on a rock and leaned forward, fierce green gaze flicking over Kevin head to foot “Bah, look at yourself! Sleeping on bare ground when there are soft pine boughs to make you a bed. Aching with hunger when the forest holds more than enough to feed one scrawny human. Leaving a trail anyone could follow and carrying no useful weapon at all. How could we not insult such ignorance?”
The elf straightened, murmuring a short phrase in the elvish tongue to the others. They laughed and faded soundlessly into the night, but not before one of them had tossed a small sack at Kevin’s feet.
“Our gift, human,” the elf man said. “Inside is food enough to keep you alive. And no, it is not bespelled. We would not waste magic on you.”
With that, the elf turned to leave, then paused, looking back over his shoulder at the bardling. With inhuman bluntness, he said, “I hope, child, for your sake that you are simply naive and not stupid. In time, either flaw will get you killed, but at least the first can be corrected.”
The alien eyes blazed into Kevin’s own for a moment longer. Then the elf was gone, and the bardling was left alone in the night, more frightened than he would ever have admitted.
He’s wrong! Kevin told himself defiantly once his heart had stopped pounding. Just because I'm a bardling, not a
Deciding that didn’t stop him from rummaging in the little sack. The elvish idea of food that would keep him alive seemed to be nothing more exciting than flat wafers of bread. But when he managed to choke one of the dry things down, it calmed his complaining stomach so nicely that the bardling sighed with relief and actually slipped back into sleep.
Kevin stood with head craned back, sunlight warm on his face, feeling the last of last night’s fears melting away. How could he possibly hold onto fear when it was bright, dear morning and all around him the air was filled with bird song?
Maybe the whole thing had been only a dream?
No. The sack of wafers was quite real. Kevin gnawed thoughtfully on one, then gave another to his mule, which lipped it up with apparent delight. He saddled and bridled the animal, then climbed aboard, still trying to figure out what the purpose of that midnight meeting had been.
A. last he shook his head in dismissal. All the stories said the elf folk, being the nonhuman race they were, had truly bizarre senses of humor, sometimes outright cruel by human standards. What had happened last night must surely have been just another nasty Elvis idea of a joke.
“Come on, mule. Let’s get going.” At least he wasn’t hungry.
The road sloped up, first gently then more steeply, much to the mule’s distaste. When it grew too steep, Kevin dismounted now and again to give the animal a rest, climbing beside it.
But at last, after a quiet day of riding and walking, they reached the crest. Kevin stared out in awe at a wild mountain range of tall gray crags, some of them high enough to be snowcapped even in spring. They towered over rolling green fields neatly sectioned into farms. On the nearest crag, surrounded by open space stood:
“Count Volmar’s castle!” Kevin cried triumphantly. “It has to be!”
The castle hadn’t been built for beauty. Heavy and squat, it seemed to crouch possessively on its crag like some ancient grey beast of war staring down at the count’s lands. But Kevin didn’t care. It was the first castle he had ever seen, and he thought it was wonderful, a true war castle dating from the days when heroes held back the forces of Darkness. Bright banners flew from the many towers, softening some of the harshness, and the bardling could see from here that the castle’s gates were open. By squinting he could make out the devices on those banners: the count’s black boar on an azure field.
“We’ve done it,” he told the mule. “That is definitely the castle of Count Volmar.”
He forgot about elves and hunger, loneliness and mocking minstrels. Excitement shivering through him, the bardling kicked his mule forward. Soon, soon, the real adventure was going to begin!
The closer Kevin got to Count Volmar’s castle, the more impressive it seemed, looming up over him till he had to crane his head back to see the tops of the towers. The North Road ran right past the base of the crag, but the count’s own road led its winding way up and up to the castle gates. Just when the bardling had almost reached the top (riding all the way this time, in case someone in the castle was watching him), the mule stopped short, long ears shooting up. In the next moment, two knights in gleaming mail, faces hidden by their helms, came plunging skillfully down the steep road on their powerful destriers, trailed by two younger, more cautious, riders—squires, Kevin guessed—on smaller horses.
“Get out of the way, boy!” they shouted.
Kevin hastily kneed his mule aside. With a shout of “Peasant fool!” the riders were past him, showering him with dirt and pebbles, and gone.
