The crowd held back longer, but Moresond led a squad of troops forward to see Kestrel. “My lord, what has happened here?” the herald asked in an awed voice.
There was a clap of thunder directly overhead, seemingly from inside the hall itself, so terrifyingly loud and close that people covered their ears with their hands.
“You all have been witness to the victory of your champion, and his emergence as the standard-bearer of your society, and all of humanity,” a deep feminine voice spoke from a point somewhere overhead, a voice that Kestrel recognized “Evil is coming among us with a strength and profundity that our age has never seen before. This small victory is a first step, and an important one in the war that is coming. Estone must prepare, and be prepared to make sacrifices in order to preserve the future from evil and slavery.
“You have done well tonight, my champion,” the voice spoke directly to Kestrel. “Be ready for greater challenges to come as you journey to the Inner Seas.” There was another clap of thunder, and the voice and its presence were gone from the hall. And then Kestrel passed out as his blood continued to seep away through the deep cut in his leg.
Chapter 32 — Filing the Report
Kestrel was resting in his palace chamber. There was clear morning light slanting in through his window that illuminated the weary beauty on Merilla’s face as she slept beside him. He looked down at his leg, where the painful stitches installed by the court physician three nights before were starkly visible against his skin; he wished with all his heart he could use the water of the healing spring, but he knew that it was something he could not touch for the next several months, except in situations of extreme need.
Merilla was staying in the palace with him as his nurse and his friend. The two of them understood that any relationship greater thank friendship was prohibited by the gods, and would become impractical once Kestrel left the palace to journey away, without any reasonable expectations of when he might return to Estone.
Her mother had swallowed any objections to her temporary residence at the palace when she and her father, as well as Merilla’s sons, and even her erstwhile fiance-to-be, had all been invited to the palace and seen Kestrel’s chambers there.
Castona had also come to see Kestrel, at his invitation, and informed Kestrel of the salacious details that had emerged in the aftermath of the defeat of the ambassador. The local police had stormed the ambassador’s residence early in the morning after the battle at the palace, and discovered no one left alive there, except a pair of elven slaves, kept in cages like animals, and the remains of two others, who had apparently been slaughtered in some ritual whose bloody evidence had turned the stomachs of those who had witnessed it. And a large, monstrous lizard was found in a pool that had been dug in the basement; the lizard had been killed by the palace guards, but had been difficult to kill — cunning in its efforts to evade attack and counterattack, as well as tough- skinned with a hide that was not easy to penetrate.
“Get descriptions of everything that was seen there,” Kestrel had urged. “Write it all down, and send it to the elves; escort the freed slaves and send them to Firheng with the report. Cosima will know to send it to Silvan.”
Kestrel blanched at the notion of human sacrifice and the whispered rumors of cannibalism as well. The ambassador had been a frightening person, a frightening entity; Kestrel knew that he had managed to win the battle and stay alive only because of divine intervention. The thought that there were other divinely appointed champions, appointed as the ambassador had been, by diabolical divinities, was frightening, and Kestrel intuitively sensed that the apparent, disruptive rise of an unknown evil force might be a factor in the battle the elves had suffered such grievous losses in.
The Doge had told Kestrel not to worry about missing the cutter he was scheduled to take passage on. Regardless of the weather, the Doge would make another ship available for Kestrel’s use. That new departure date appeared to be five days later than the original departure, based on bullying the palace doctor to release him from medical care sooner than the doctor wished to.
Kestrel picked up the paper and pen on his bedside table. He looked at Merilla once more, then set his pen to scratching across the surface of the paper. He was writing a long, rambling epistle that recorded his thoughts and impressions and plans. As soon as he was finished with the third page of Elvish writing, he blew on the paper to dry the ink, then softly called with his voice and his heart and his mind. “Dewberry, Dewberry, Dewberry.”
Seconds later the small blue sprite appeared, lying on the bed with him, between he and Merilla.
“Friend-hero Kestrel, how are you?” Dewberry asked in genuine concern.
“I’m doing fine Dewberry, getting better all the time. How are you? How are Reasion and Jonson?” he asked.
“Reasion is well, and back to normal. Jonson is impatient and grumpy — he wants his legs to grow back all in one day, instead only a little each day,” she replied.
“That great lizard that he fought in the swamp, had the imps ever seen anything like that before?” Kestrel asked.
“They have never seen anything like it, and they are scared of it, and any others like it that may still be in the swamp. They think there may be more,” she told him. “All the men want to be heroes and go out to hunt them like Jonson, while I tell Jonson to tell them to be better at it than he was!” she smiled gently. “And I think he understands.”
“Will you do a favor for me Dewberry, a small favor?” Kestrel asked.
“Anything I can, if I can,” she said brightly.
“This letter — would you deliver it to Alicia for me? She and the elves at Center Trunk need to know about the evil that visited Estone, the sooner the better,” he explained.
He heard Merilla yawn and stir behind his back, and he saw Dewberry’s eyes flicker from him to the woman behind him.
The sprite accepted the letter from Kestrel’s hand, then stood on the mattress, looking down at him. “So you want me to deliver this letter to the elf woman who is beautiful, but not as beautiful as me, while you are sleeping here with the human woman who is beautiful, but also not as beautiful as me, according to what you’ve told me in the past? Of course I will!” she mischievously said.
“Take care friend Kestrel,” Dewberry said, then vanished from the morning light that filled the bedroom.
“So you prefer small, blue sprites to normal, healthy humans and elves?” Merilla asked from behind his back, as she poked him in his ribs. He rolled over to see her rising from the bed and pulling a robe over her gown.
“I’ll go see if breakfast is available for me; maybe your sprite-lover can bring some back for you?” she grinned down at him.
“If it’s not too inconvenient, I’d appreciate you providing some breakfast, since you’re already up,” Kestrel replied. “And could you hand me my staff so I can hobble to the bathroom?”
Not much later, as they sat eating breakfast at the dining table in Kestrel’s suite, Merilla spoke. “Will you be able to leave as you plan, or should you stay here a few days more, so that the doctor can make sure your leg heals all the way?”
“I feel the need to leave,” Kestrel said. “There’s something out there I need to do,” he replied.
“You’re sure that you just don’t want to escape from the human lover who cannot be your lover?” she asked with a smile. “Are you on your way to some lovely elf?”
“She cannot be my lover either,” Kestrel replied. “And I’m going as far away from her as I am from you on this journey. But in the end, I’ll always know that there’s a good-hearted friend here in Estone I can always come back to and rely on if I need a friend’s help.”
“Yes you can Kestrel, yes you can. You’re a great person, we’re all discovering, and I hope that you find you always have friends available to help you be our champion and fight this battle that you think is coming,” she replied. “And may the gods continue to help you.”
