stories you have told her about your experiences. That is an order given to her, Kestrel,” Silvan emphasized.
“I don’t want to be a spy,” Kestrel tried to protest. “Why Firheng?”
“I am just using you as a courier at this point. No one has decided that you have to be a spy, and no one will force you against your will to carry out any spy activities,” Silvan answered. “Is there anything else?”
There was. There was so much more Kestrel wanted to know, and so much he wanted to protest, but he couldn’t put it all into words. He was frustrated by the way such a glorious day had been ripped from the calendar of his life before it had even finished, and been made into a distant and pointless memory.
He was standing and saluting, he realized. “I’ll see you again, Kestrel, and you’ll understand more next time,” the colonel was saying. “And we will have a discussion.”
“Thank you sir,” he said, still not able to verbalize, or even understand, all that he felt. He left the room in a daze, then paused in the hallway as he tried to get his bearings.
“Do you want these?” Giardell asked after a moment of observing the immobilized, uncomprehending look on Kestrel’s face as he struggled to cope with the unseen wall his life had been dashed against. Giardell hold up the knapsack of supplies and materials that were prepared for Kestrel.
“Thank you,” Kestrel said automatically as he stepped over and accepted the offered items. He placed the straps over his shoulder, then went down the hall and out the door without a backwards glance.
Silvan’s door opened, and he came out into the hallway to stand by his guard. “I didn’t expect to have to set him in motion so quickly; I had thought we’d have a little more time to prepare him,” the officer said.
“His actions didn’t leave you any choice sir, not that the lad had any ill-intent,” Giardell replied. “If he had simply gone about the festival listening to the minstrels or playing the games or chasing the doxies, none of this would have happened.”
“He’s going to need time to forgive us for what we’re doing to him,” Silvan mused.
“Maybe you could send his girlfriend, Lucretia, up to see him at Firheng?” Giardell suggested.
“That might be worth thinking about in a month or so, although I’d prefer that he make a clean break with everyone in Center Trunk besides us,” Silvan nodded. “We’ll see how his evaluations come in from Cosima, and then decide.” Silvan left the guard and returned to his room, as he pondered the plot he was setting in motion.
Chapter 11 — Fight Like a Human
Kestrel awoke just after sunrise, already late for his departure to Firheng. He had slept poorly throughout the evening, and he awoke without energy or enthusiasm. He stood by the window of his room and opened the bag that Giardell had given him the night before. The knapsack provided two changes of shirts, roughly five days’ worth of food, a knife, and a sturdy coil of rope, plus a small leather bag that contained a generous cache of small coins, enough to take him through a few situations.
His attention to the contents of his luggage was distracted by a movement out the window. He glanced and saw Vinetia and Lucretia talking intently as they walked along the boulevard of the military camp. He hurriedly stuffed his assigned materials into the bag, pulled the bag, his bow and his arrows over his shoulder, and rushed out the door of his room. He went down the hall and exited on the wrong side of his dormitory, then raced around the length of the building to see the two elven maids sauntering away from him.
He stopped and thought about Colonel Silvan’s comments the night before. Lucretia knew that she was not going to see him again, which was probably what she was telling Vinetia as they walked. For Kestrel, the obvious proper choice was to let the two of them walk away from him, unaware of his proximity. But the thought of doing that left him feeling sorely pained. With a rash decision, he began to run down the lane after them.
“Wait up!” he called when he had closed more than half the distance.
Both girls turned in response to the call, and he saw the surprise on Lucretia’s face, and the puzzled look on Vinetia’s face as she looked at him and then at her companion. “I thought you told me we weren’t going to see him today!” she cried.
“I can’t compete today,” Kestrel said breathlessly as he joined them. They had stopped walking, and the three of them stood together in the middle of the empty lane on the quiet military base, where only a few scattered noises indicated that some others were awake on the second morning of the festival. “I’m late getting started on my mission,” he held up the tube with the blue ribbon. “And I saw you walking by.”
He looked back and forth from one to the other. “I’m sorry I can’t stay today. I didn’t know they’d have an assignment for me so soon,” he explained.
“Are you a spy?” Lucretia asked.
“I’ve only carried a message here, and now I’m taking one away. I don’t think that makes me a spy,” he answered.
“Well, whatever it makes you, it makes me mad! I was counting on seeing you win the championship today,” Vinetia told him, with a rough thump on his arm.
“You’ll have to go out and win it instead,” Kestrel said affectionately.
“When will you be back?” Lucretia asked.
“I don’t know,” Kestrel said. “I hope soon.”
The three of them stood there silently, Lucretia and Kestrel studying each other’s faces.
“I’ve got to go,” he said at last. “Thank you for being so good to me yesterday, and taking me with you.”
“Kestrel, let me know when you return,” Lucretia said in reply.
“I will,” he promised, and then after another pause, he stepped backwards, turned around and started to walk away. Should he have kissed her or hugged her, he wondered. With Vinetia at the scene he had felt awkward. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the women had also started to walk away, and Lucretia was likewise looking back at him. They grinned at one another, then Lucretia stopped, and waited as Kestrel came running back to her and awkwardly enveloped her in a hug.
“How can I hug you back with all this gear you’re carrying?” she complained. “Be careful out there.”
“I will,” he answered. “I hope you find some adventure soon.”
“Yesterday showed me that it lurks around in some surprising places, so maybe I will,” she smiled in response.
“I’ll see you again someday, I promise,” he pledged as he started to back away, and then they parted again.
Kestrel did not turn around again, but kept on walking in the direction of the gate, and when he reached it, he stepped off the base and back into the city, back out among the civilian population of Center Trunk, most of which seemed to still be sleeping off the celebration of the previous night of the festival. The streets were empty and easy to negotiate, so that he made quick progress as he jogged his way north out of the city and towards the long road that led through the forest to Firheng, and then on further north to the human land of Estone.
His journey to Firheng was much less eventful that his journey to Center Trunk had been. He spent four days of travel, one of them through constant rain, but was never injured, never beaten, and never confronted with any supernatural or extraordinary events. The forest was a different one; with many more evergreens in the north, and Kestrel understood the appropriateness of Firheng’s name.
“Messenger Kestrel arriving with a message tube,” he told the sentry at the gate of the administration building, “here for Commander Cosima,” when he arrived in mid-afternoon.
“Go inside, turn down the right hand hallway, knock at the third door on the right,” the sentry said after inspecting Kestrel casually.
Kestrel did as told, and found a guard posted at the door he expected to enter. “Is this Commander Cosima’s office?” Kestrel asked the man.
“It was at the start of the day, and as far as I know, it still is,” the sentry replied with a grin. “Go on in and see the executive aide.”
Inside the door was a large room, one that was long, with many windows along one side, and at the far end of the room was a desk, where a dark-haired elf matron sat. She looked up at Kestrel, then smiled a cheery smile that seemed to erase her age and enhance her beauty.
