7

Buhawk

We had traveled for days without seeing hardly a soul. We were traveling on the back roads.

"Mahura, how close are we now?"

"We are still many days away from our destination." She said to me. "But we are close to a village where maybe we can spend a night in a bed for once."

"Oh, really? Nice. What's it called?"

"Heh, it's got an odd name actually, The Village of Sorrow."

"Does that make it a sad place?" I asked. I hoped it wouldn't be too depressing. I'd seen enough of that when we'd passed a few battlefields.

"I don't know." She looked liked she hoped the same as me. And Dewdrop said "Well I'm curious to see why they call it that."

Just then my horse started acting strange, she was snorting and fidgeting. Mahura's horse began to do the same. "The horses sense danger." Mahura said as she cautiously looked around. I was alert as well, though my senses were probably not as good as Mahura's.

And there coming out of the trees was a pack of scary and hungry looking wolves. Mahura looked almost relieved "these wolves don't look to tough, I can blast them with a spell." Then she got out her staff and yelled "FIRE! Burn the flesh of my enemies!" And then fire shot from her staff like an arm striking the wolves with such force they went running with their tails between their legs. "That was awesome!" I said to Mahura. "Thank you. I specialize in the black magic arts." We started to go on our way when we herd a loud roar, and the thumping of huge feet crashing through the trees. What we saw in front of us was two gigantic boars, at least that's what I thought they looked like but these were a lot scarier. Mahura didn't look confident this time. "W…w…what are those Mahura?" I stuttered "I'll tell you later, for now we have to RUN!" She kicked her horse into a gallop. I followed. But these things were fast, and were catching up to us. Then in front of us we saw a third!. We were trapped, and these things were coming fast. Things slowed down to slow motion. Then something pulsed within me. I felt it deep in my soul. And everything went black.

I woke up in a cabin, by a fireplace. Something smelled good. Then I remembered what happened. "Mahura!" I yelled. A large man with a big beard came up to me and said. "Ah, you're awake that's good. Don't worry, both of you friends are fine." He had flecks of grey in his beard and a weathered face.

"W…what happened?"

"Something I didn't understand." Mahura said as she came inside. "I was sure we were dead meat. Then I felt something pulsing, It was coming from you. There was a flash of light and then we were surrounded by fire. It was like a shield. It kept us alive long enough for Buhawk here to save us. He is a very powerful man. He took down all three beasts single handedly." Wow, I was disappointed that I'd passed out for all that. But from the sound of it something I did helped save us, I had no idea what though.

"So what were those things?"

"They were Shadow Boars." Buhawk said. "It is very strange to see shadow creatures so far from there caves. And it was only getting close to night, they are never seen in the daytime. And there were three of them. They were at least some of the weaker shadows." Shadow Creatures, Dewdrop had told me about them, but she had talked about them like there was no way we'd ever see one, let alone three. "So what happened was out of the ordinary?" I asked him. He said it was very much out of the ordinary and would I like some soup? I ate the soup (it was delicious) in silence, in my mind I was trying to make sense of all that had happened so far. "Are the horses ok?"

"Yes." Mahura said.

"Good." The others slept soundly that night, but my mind was racing.

The next morning I found that we were in the Village of Sorrow. Which ironically was quite a peaceful and happy place. Even with the frost approaching, it was a beautiful place. The trees still had multi colored leaves. A small breeze was blowing leaves down ever so gently. There was a lake shimmering in the sun. And farmers out harvesting the food before it froze. The people looked happy and friendly.

"So why do they call it the Village of Sorrow?" I asked Buhawk who was chopping wood on a stump.

"Because this village was founded in a time of great sorrow. It was in the time of the hero Ceatus. There was lots of war then. After the war ended there was a time of peace and the villagers eventually became happy again. And now their keeping a positive attitude even though war has returned. That's why it is now contradicting itself." He guffawed loudly then and went back to his work.

I decided to check the place out. As I walked among the people, nearly everyone said good morning cheerfully to me. A ball bounced my way. I caught it and then a kid yelled over. "Hey! Could ya throw it back!" I said sure and threw it back. This place is nice I thought. I saw Dewdrop playing with some small children. "Takeshi! Good Morning. The people here are so nice and they like fairies!" She said to me. "That's awesome Dew." I said. I saw Mahura standing by the lake. "You go play Dew I'm gonna look at the lake." She giggled and said ok. I had a feeling she knew why I was really going over there. I went over and just looked at Mahura for a bit before she noticed me. "Good Morning, Takeshi,"

"Mornin,"

"You know I really like this village. These are the nicest humans I've ever met." I had a felling she hadn't met very many humans that liked elvens. "Yeah, me too" We just stood in companionable silence and looked at the beautiful scenery.