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  The Healing Spring

  ( The Inner Seas kingdoms - 1 )

  Jeffrey Quyle

  Jeffrey Quyle

  The Healing Spring

  List of Characters

  Ferris, Hydrotaz squad commander

  Nicholai, seneschal of Hydrotaz

  Kestrel, Elven guard in the Eastern Forest

  Backsin, Elven guard at Elmheng

  Cheryl, daughter of Mastrin

  Mastrin, commander of Elmheng guard post

  Malsten, shopkeeper, suitor to Cheryl

  Dewberry, princess of the sprites

  Vinetia, Center Trunk guard archer

  Lucretia, Center Trunk guard archer

  Casimo, commander of Firheng Guard post

  Belinda, Casiom’s assistant at Firheng

  Gion, Firheng commander’s guard

  Arlen, Firheng weapons and combat instructor

  Artur, Firheng language and culture instructor

  Alicia, Center Trunk surgeon

  Merilla, human widow in the Water Mountain wilderness

  Castona, human trader in Estone

  Hammon, Estone leathermonger and shopkeeper

  Doge Deloco, leader of Estone nation

  Moresond, herald at Doge’s palace in Estone

  Daley, Estone shopkeeper, Merilla’s father

  Durille, Merilla’s mother

  Termine, elven slave in Green Water

  Hinger, Elven slave in Green Water

  Amyrilon, Uniontown ambassador to Esotne

  The Human Deities:

  Kai — goddess of the air

  Growelf — god of fire

  Krusima — god of earth

  Shaish — goddess of water

  The Elven Deities:

  Kere — goddess of fortune

  Norvell — god of light

  Tamson — god of force

  Were — goddess of sound

  Morph — god of speed

  Powson — god of weight

  Tere — goddess of size

  Chapter 1 — The Blaze Begins

  Ferris waited idly in a small, green pasture, watching his squad lounge in the shade of the trees along the large creek on the eastern border of the field. The sky was cloudless; he looked up at the sun, and judged that it was close enough to straight overhead to meet the specifications of his orders. They weren’t typical orders, but they were his to carry out, and so he needed to tell his men it was time for action, that their unusual assignment, one that had taken them away from the routine life on their regular army base, would finally produce some results. It had only been a few days prior that his squad had been detached without explanation from the main army in the capital and sent on the week-long journey to reach the Forest Wardens, who had explained the role that Ferris and his men were now assigned to carry out.

  It didn’t seem like an extraordinary assignment to Ferris, not one that really called for a squad to be sent all the way across the small, proud nation of Hydrotaz to perform, but he was trained to follow orders, and as far as these orders went, there seemed to be no challenge at all. The major in charge of the Forest Wardens had assured him that it was an easy assignment before he had sent Ferris’s squad up to the specified location, the pasture next to the forest. So Ferris and his men had left the Wardens the previous afternoon, and marched north to their position, then camped out of sight of the forest, and waited until mid-morning to move towards the tree line.

  His men respected him, and obeyed him, and Ferris appreciated that. He was the youngest son of a family in the minor nobility, with no prospects of significant inheritance, and so his family had purchased a commission for him and wished him well in the army. He had done well, studied briefly at the academy, then taken a field post, and earned an early promotion, though still in charge of just a single squad. Without any war, or prospect of war, his opportunities for advancement would be slow in an army that was already overstaffed with older officers who saw no need to retire. His squad had served near the capital, finding excitement only when they supplemented the border patrol or the coast guard by hunting down smugglers, until they had been reassigned to this mission with the Forest Wardens, who were the specialized, detached portions of the army who served along the western border. So far during the assignment, the main thing Ferris had discovered was that he felt uncomfortable around the Eastern Forest. He’d gone a few yards in, a time or two, to get a feel for the woodlands. It felt overwhelming and oppressive, and judgmental in a way that made him feel he was lacking in something the forest wanted; he’d been glad to get out of the trees and move back into open lands.

  As far as Ferris knew the overall plan, the Wardens should have launched a surprise attack into the southern portion of the forest shortly after the break of dawn, drawing the attention of all the elves who patrolled the Eastern Forest border with Hydrotaz’s lands. By drawing the elves away to the battle, the Wardens should have made the northern sector of the edge of the forest safe and free for Ferris and his men to begin their assignment — starting a fire to burn the forest, trying to drive it back and claim land from the trees and the elves so that the people of Hydrotaz could cultivate more acreage.

  If not the poorest, Hydrotaz was one of the poorest cities of the Ten Kingdoms culture around the Inland Seas. Hydrotaz was the farthest from the ocean, had one of the smallest territories, and was bounded in by the Dark Swamp, the East Sea, and the Water Mountains, as well as the kingdom of Graylee. Taking land from the Eastern Forest presented the best option the Prince of Hydrotaz had for acquiring more territory.

  Hydrotaz and Graylee were different in their wealth, side by side though they were, but they were alike in their lack of regard for the elven race that lived in the forest. Elves were forbidden in both realms, except as slaves, and any elf found at large in either kingdom was subject to death, imprisonment, or enslavement. Few elves traveled in any of the human lands, and they did occasionally trade or travel through most of them, especially Estone to the north of the Eastern forest, but no elves ever entered Hydrotaz, except in chains; given the elves’ prowess at battle, few of them were ever taken captive in battle, and given their sylvan lifestyle, they never wandered into the human lands.

  It was time to get moving, Ferris concluded. “Adole, Mitchell, it’s time,” he called as he stood up, his raspy voice carrying across the meadow. All the men started to rise, and the two of them he named promptly picked up their axes and sacks of supplies before they crossed the creek and disappeared into the forest ahead of the others, one a tall, thin scarecrow of a man, the other a short, rotund clown who usually kept the squad laughing with his pratfall jokes. Ferris was glad he had a disciplined group to work with — he wouldn’t have to waste any breath or time re-explaining assignments to anyone of the men he’d been on duty with for the past few years, including the past few days dedicated to the fire-starting assignment. All his men had heard the assignment explained numerous times, they understood it, and now that the time for action had come, they’d carry it out efficiently and swiftly, provided the diversion down south had truly drawn all the elves way from this sector.

  Ferris watched briefly until Adole and Mitchell were quickly out of sight in the forest gloom, then turned to help the rest of his squad prepare to follow them in. Adole and Mitchell were solid, reliable men; they were sprouting gray at their temples, signs that they were career members of the army; they were men he could count on. He knew that they would blaze a trail, notching a tree trunk every twenty feet or so, as they headed straight into the forest, moving inward for fifteen minutes, then stopping. They were supposed to gather tinder, start a fire in the forest, and erect a tripod over the fire.

  Ferris and the rest of the
men would follow them into the forest, traveling more slowly as they carried the needed tools for their assignment — in this case, a large iron pot and heavy bags filled with lumps of pitch, accompanied by four archers. They all prayed that the archers would not be called upon for their primary purpose — to try to defend them from attack by the elves, because none of them had any illusions about the probability of surviving an attack by forest elves defending their home territory; hopefully the feint down south was successful in drawing the elves away from this seldom-visited portion of the border, so that there would be no elves present to attack them.

  Presuming the elves did not attack, the squad would arrive at Adole and Mitchell’s fire, finding it blazing away, and then place an iron pot upon the tripod, so that they could fill it with the pitch they carried. When the pitch liquefied from the heat of the fire, the squad members would begin to take it around the forest in their vicinity, smearing it on tree trunks and setting them aflame. They hoped to set numerous trees on fire, and then begin their retreat back out of the forest, setting more trees ablaze on their way out; a successful fire would hopefully burn out thousands or even tens of thousands of acres of land that could eventually be cultivated and claimed as territory of Hydrotaz instead of the forest elves.

  Ferris was the first of his men to cross the stream. His eyes shifted rapidly, looking at the tree trunks around him for signs of blaze marks that would show which way the first two soldiers had gone, then his gaze quickly lifted upward into the trees, looking for indications that the elves might be up among the branches, arrows already aimed with deadly accuracy at Ferris’s men. He spotted a blaze, and began to move towards the bright white notch in the tree trunk, then took a look upward. There was nothing in the tree limbs, not even a squirrel or a bird. He stumbled over a tree branch on the forest floor, making him look back at ground level as his arms flew up to catch his balance, then he resumed moving forward, searching for the next blaze. No one laughed at his stumble, the way the members of his squad usually jibed one another; they were all fully aware of the importance of scanning the trees, and were as likely to stumble themselves before they got to the fire that they hoped to find inside the forest.

  Ten minutes later they spotted a bright set of flames within the gloomy forest, and Ferris breathed a sigh of relief at the sight. He urged his squad forward and had them begin to quickly manhandle the iron pot onto the tripod, fingertips getting scorched without sympathy as everyone hurried to get the pitch melted and spread upon the trees. Seven men knelt with arrows drawn on their bows, searching the tree branches in all directions as the first bubbles began to rise through the pitch, and the other soldiers in the squad began to fill rough wooden ladles with pitch, then carried it out into the nearby forest.

  The firemen traveled in pairs, one carrying the pitch, the other carrying a burning branch. Ferris remained by the fire, tending it, feeding new pitch into the pot, watching in all directions, sending men back out into the woods again and again with new supplies of pitch, running in directions that he hoped would establish the widest front for the fire to spread throughout the forest.

  Within half an hour thick smoke began to roll along the ground, and a wide semicircle of numerous tree trunks were vibrantly lit with flames that danced high into the upper branches. “Fall back! Everyone back to the center and prepare to depart!” he called loudly. The fire start had been a success, he judged, and he thanked his stars that the forces down south had so effectively removed the elves from his remote corner of the forest, allowing his squad to live.

  The iron pot was still half full with boiling pitch, but the smoke and the increasing heat made the site no longer tenable for the squad to use, and they had a fire burning brightly throughout the forest. They would have to abandon the pot and tripod Ferris quickly concluded, with no safe way to carry such searing hot pieces of metal out of the woods. He did a quick head count of the men around him, and determined that the whole squad was together. “Lead us out, Adole!” he called out, and with that the squad of armsmen began their withdrawal from the successful mission, confident that they were going to make Hydrotaz a little bit bigger.

  Chapter 2 — The Smell of Danger

  Kestrel sat in the forest, watching a cricket crawl along the branch next to him. It was unusual to see a cricket so high up in the tree, above the litter on the forest floor where most crickets resided, but the insect provided a distraction from his troubled thoughts. Crickets were considered an enjoyable snack by most elves, an easy source of nutrition with a nutty, earthy flavor that appealed to the elven palate. His hand darted out and grabbed the unfortunate climber, then popped it in his mouth, as he sat atop his favorite chestnut, stewing over the recent orders that had arrived, calling for every elf of fighting age, every elf but him, to hurry south towards the double border, when a large force of men from Hydrotaz were invading the forest.

  Kestrel had been excluded from the call to arms, and told to remain on duty in the central portion of the border, the area where the red stag deer maintained his dominance over the other local deer, an antlered patriarch whose large size and deep reddish-brown color set him apart from the rest of the herd; the red stag stood out so much that the elves used him as a reference point, naming that area of the forest after him, just as the one-eyed puma to the north and the tusked boars to the south provided other area references in the Eastern Forest closest to Hydrotaz.

  There hadn’t been a war with the men of Hydrotaz in thirty years, and that had only been a minor skirmish back in the days before Kestrel was born. All the young starry-eyed elves in the western section of the Eastern Forest had longed for the prospect of glory and violence that came with fighting in a war, and now, based on the reports from down south, at last it was about to happen — for everyone except him.

  Kestrel’s unhappy heritage, the fractional strain of human blood that tainted his appearance, made him suspect with regards to a war against the humans. When the time had come to engage in battle, the leaders of the elven forces had made the snap decision to not trust him in the fray, and had kept him away from the battle, where he couldn’t potentially betray his elven comrades. And so he stewed, and contemplated how to address his frustration. He’d end up in a fight with someone, sooner or later, he was sure. He’d just wait for the elven militia members to come back to their homes after the battle, and when the first one of them made some cheap, cutting remark about Kestrel missing the fighting, he’d end up in a fight that would let him land several satisfying blows on some too-smug elf.

  Cheryl had seen the hurt in his eyes when he’d been dispatched up to the red stag patch of woods, and had tried to comfort him, but he’d wanted no pity, and had brusquely left her behind when he’d stormed out of the guard lodge and left everyone behind. He felt badly for having been rude to Cheryl, and he knew he needed to apologize. Their relationship was on undecided ground as it was, as Kestrel competed with every other full-blooded elf in the western end of the forest to capture the affection of the lovely girl. Kestrel couldn’t compose bad poetry that compared her red hair to the flowers that blossomed in the spring, nor could he offer her combs of honey that the bees magically led some elves to find and confiscate, nor could he offer her riches and prestige, especially not prestige with his shameful heritage. He knew that all of those elements were part of the wooing campaigns that were vigorously exercised by his competitors for her affection.

  But he could make her laugh, and he could listen to her talk about her dreams, and he could empathize with her, in a genuine way, as they shared the same dream of a peaceful glade in a distant forest, where they would be isolated from the worries and petty jealousies of the world. And he was the fascinating, unusual member of the elven race who could successfully appeal to the human race’s deities, which made him a fascinating subject that Cheryl liked to scrutinize, as she bombarded him with questions about the how and the why and the feel of those inscrutable communications.

  There was no commitmen
t between them, but it felt like more than friendship.

  Suddenly, Kestrel’s nostril flared with the faint scent of wood smoke, and his mind almost seized up in panic at the possibility that there might be a fire in his sector of the forest. Kestrel hastily rose from the fork in the tree where he comfortably sat, and began to climb higher, up to where the thin, high branches of the chestnut swayed and bent dangerously, even under his light elven build — light for a human, though Kestrel was comparatively heavy for an elf. Once he was in the topmost branches, Kestrel was above nearly every other tree in that portion of the forest, for the chestnut grew atop a small upward buckle in the ground, giving it an advantage over the others. That was why he had settled into the chestnut for his assignment, that and the fact that it gave him a perfect view of the wide forest track that qualified as the only road in that sector of the forest

  Far to his right Kestrel saw smoke rising from the forest, a considerable, roiling mass of dark smoke that filled his heart with pain and fear as it rose in a pillar. Although he knew the elven commanders hadn’t known what they were doing when they had dispatched him to this distant patch of forest, far removed from the battle, it turned out that they had made a brilliant assignment, for only Kestrel had any hope of fighting the forest fire before it became a threat to the safety of the elven woods.

  Chapter 3 — Prayers for Rain

  Kestrel shut his eyes and grabbed tightly to the tree branches around him as he considered what he needed to do. There was heavy smoke rising from a location deep in the forest. Kestrel couldn’t imagine how a fire could have started there — the sky was clear, without any possibility that lightning had struck, and he couldn’t imagine any other likely cause of a fire. But the smoke from the fire was clearly evident, and posed a clear threat to the inhabitants of the forest.