now less than two days’ journey away.
“Just an ordinary forest,” said Hallas, squinting contemptuously at the trees with the golden leaves. “The Firstborn are always making themselves out to be some kind of chosen people! Anybody would think their shit was solid gold, too!”
“I hope you won’t get a chance to ask them, Hallas,” Eel said with an ominous laugh. “The orcs are not in the habit of answering questions like that.”
“Come on, we have to keep going.” Milord Alistan took off one of his boots, shook out a stone, and pulled it back onto his foot.
The Golden Forest was called such because, as well as all the ordinary trees, the golden-leafs grew here, too. They were majestic giants with dark orange trunks and broad leaves that looked as if they were cast out of pure gold. The golden-leafs only grew here, in the Golden Forest, and their timber was highly valued throughout the Northern Lands, not to mention both of the Empires and the Sultanate. If the orcs found a woodcutter felling a golden-leaf, first they chopped his arms off with his own ax, and then they did things to him that are too horrible even to mention.
“Harold, you should see how beautiful the golden-leafs are in the fall!” Kli-Kli gushed.
“Have you been here before?” Deler asked the jester.
Kli-Kli glared at the dwarf with theatrical disdain.
“For those who don’t know—the Golden Forest is my homeland. It reaches all the way to the Mountains of the Dwarves—and that’s all of eastern Zagraba, so it’s not really surprising that I know what it looks like in the fall.”
“It’s the fall already, as a matter of fact,” I said, just to provoke the goblin.
“Early September,” the jester exclaimed with a contemptuous sniff. “Just you wait till October comes. …”
“I’d like to be long gone from Zagraba before October comes.”
“Is your home very far from here?” asked Lamplighter, absentmindedly fingering the fresh scar on his forehead (a memento left by an orcish yataghan).
“Do you want to visit?” Kli-Kli chuckled merrily. “Then you’ll have to walk for about another three weeks until you reach the center of the orcs’ territory. Then another two weeks from there to the densest thickets in the forest, and then you have to trust in luck. Maybe you’ll be able to find some goblins; of course, if they want to be found. The orcs have taught us to be wary, and in the past you humans used to hunt us with those wonderful dogs of yours.”
Kli-Kli was right there—in olden times the goblins had been treated very badly by men, who had decided that the little green creatures were terrible monsters. Before they finally realized what was what, there were only a few tribes left of what had once been a large population.
“But the history of this forest is really interesting. Is it true that this is the place where elves and orcs both first appeared?”
“Yes.” Kli-Kli giggled. “And then they went straight for each other’s throats. I think the elves even have a song about it. ‘The Tale of the Gold,’ it’s called.”
“‘The Legend of the Soft Gold,’ Kli-Kli. You’ve got it all mixed up,” said Egrassa, who had overheard our conversation.
“Ah, what’s the difference!” Kli-Kli said with a careless wave of his hand. “Tale, legend … there still won’t be peace in Zagraba as long as there’s a single orc still alive.”
“Egrassa,” Mumr said to the elf. “Could you tell us this legend?”
“It has to be sung, not just told. I’ll sing it for you. At the next halt.”
“So you’ve decided to sing forbidden songs, cousin,” Miralissa chuckled, plucking a reddish-golden leaf from the nearest tree and crumpling it in her fingers.
“But why is it forbidden?” Kli-Kli immediately asked Miralissa.
“It’s not exactly forbidden, it’s just singing it in decent elfin company is regarded as the height of disrespect. But it is sung—mostly by rebellious youths, and mostly in secret, in dark corners, in order not to disgrace the honor of their ancestors.”
“What’s so bad about it?” asked Eel, raising one eyebrow.
“It doesn’t show the elves in the best of lights, Eel,” put in Milord Alistan Markauz, who had been silent so far, “and the orcs are shown as pure white lambs. I’d bet half my land that the song was made up by men.”
“Milord is mistaken, the song was composed by an elf. A very long time ago. Have you heard it?” Egrassa asked in surprise.
“Yes, in my young days. One of your light elf brothers sang it.”
“Yes, they could do that,” said the dark elf, adjusting the silver coronet on his head. “Our relatives rejected the magic of our ancestors, so it’s not surprising that they sing such things to strangers.”
“But you promised to sing it to us!” Kli-Kli teased Egrassa.
“That’s a different matter!” the elf snapped haughtily.
Whatever the dark elves might say to anyone, relations between them and their light brethren were not problem-free.
We marched for another three hours before the elf ordered a halt. The group stopped in a meadow overgrown with small forest daisies, and the white flowers made it look as if snow had fallen. The autumn had no power over the Land of Forests. At least, not yet. We still came across butterflies and summer flowers.
There was a small stream gurgling through the roots of a broad-trunked hornbeam at the edge of the meadow, so we were well provided with water.
“We’ll stay here tonight,” Miralissa said decisively.
Alistan nodded. From the moment we entered the forest he had completely surrendered his command to Miralissa and Egrassa, and he obeyed all their instructions. One thing you couldn’t accuse Milord Rat of was a lack of brains. The count understood perfectly well that the elves knew far more about the forest than he did and he should take whatever they suggested seriously. That is, drop the reins of command when necessary.
“Egrassa, you promised us a song,” Kli-Kli reminded the elf after supper.
“Let’s get some sleep instead,” Hallas said with a yawn. “It’s the middle of the night.”
The gnome only liked the songs of his own people. Like the “The Hammer on the Ax” or “The Song of the Crazy Miners.” He had absolutely no interest in anything else.
“Not on your life!” the goblin protested desperately.
“Hallas, you’re on watch tonight,” Eel reminded the gnome. “So don’t start settling down, you won’t be getting a good night’s sleep anyway.”
“Oh, no! The first watch is yours and Lamplighter’s. Deler and me only come on for the second half of the night, so I’ll have plenty of time.”
Hallas turned over on his side, ignoring everyone else, and immediately started snoring.
“So, are we going to hear the song?” asked Mumr, who had just had the stitches taken out of his wound by Miralissa.
Thanks to the elfess’s shamanic skills, instead of an ugly scar, all Lamplighter had as a reminder of his terrible wound was a faint pink line running across his forehead.
“Yes, just as I promised,” Egrassa replied. “But it requires music.”
“So what’s the problem? I’ve got my whistle with me,” said Lamplighter, reaching into his pocket.
“I’m afraid we need music that’s rather more gentle,” said the elf, declining Mumr’s offer. “Your whistle makes too much noise. I’ll just be a moment.”
Egrassa rose lightly off the grass, walked over to his bag, and took out a small board about the size of an open hand. There were thin silvery strings, barely visible in the moonlight, stretched across the board.
“What’s that?” Deler asked curiously.
“A g’dal,” Miralissa answered. “Egrassa likes to play it when he has the time.”
Egrassa likes to play music? Well, now, I’d never have guessed. At least, I’d never seen the elf doing anything of the kind in all the time we’d been traveling together.
The dark elf’s rough fingers ran across the fine strings with surprising agility and the strange instrument sang in a quiet voice. Egrassa kept plucking at the strings and the sleeping meadow was filled with the melody.
“Don’t forget that the legend should really be sung in orcic. It won’t sound as beautiful in human language,”
