II
For those that could find it, the elven capitol of Oakenbough was indeed a wonder to behold. Built around and even within the branches of enormous oaks, the city was barely noticeable even to travelers within a hundred yards of its borders. Winding staircases around the trunks of the magnificent oaks brought one up into the very canopies of the great trees, and walkways led along the largest boughs to the homes of the elven nobles and the elegant King's Manse, a beautiful palace that had been literally grown out of the center of the largest oak in the elven capitol. On the ground or in the branches, the homes of the elves were built with great care to blend into the natural scenery, often appearing to an untrained human's eyes as little more than thick layers of leaves, heavy underbrush, or oddly jumbled stones.
To Valtaya, the masterfully hidden homes still seemed to stand out against the wooded backdrop.
Although the city of Oakenbough was a work of art and the epitome of living together with nature, Valtaya still longed for the western, untamed reaches of Argent. Although she had not seen the distant wilds for nearly a half century, the young druid's memories of the pristine, unspoiled wilderness constantly drove her to seek a way back to those lands. Even as she tended to the mystical groves that encompassed Oakenbough, among oaks that grew with supernatural vigor and hidden gardens of beautiful flowers and charming stands of white birch lining cheerfully bubbling streams, she continued to dream of the fast running brooks and trackless forests where she and her mother had once ventured. But after her moth's death nearly fifty years ago, she had been sent back from the wilds to live with her father, Lord Caradoc, as Lady Valtaya of the Elven Court of Oakenbough. The title and the position hardly seemed to fit a young druid. At least she had been given over to Druce, Caretaker of the Grove and one of the most powerful druids in Oakenbough, to continue her studies and look after the natural splendor of Argent's capitol. The druids of Argent were revered by their elven kinsmen, but Lord Caradoc had only grudgingly allowed his daughter to continue her studies with Druce, hoping instead that she would turn to the more arcane study of wizard's magic and marry into the elven nobility.
A whisper of footsteps on the lush grass behind her alerted Valtaya to the presence of another person in the small orchard where she had come to tend the flowering apple trees. Valtaya smiled as she turned around, already knowing who to expect behind her. Although he could move as silently as the stealthiest cat, Druce always allowed his apprentice the opportunity to hear him coming.
"Your ears are as good as ever," the old elf said, smiling as he joined his student in the orchard. Although he just into his third century, Druce was in impeccably good health, and his golden blond hair had not yet begun to show even the faintest streaks of gray. Many elves a full century younger than him could only envy the druid his fitness and vitality, reflected in his sparkling blue eyes. Although Druce was not exactly tall for an elf, standing just under five and a half feet tall, he practically towered over his far shorter apprentice, who did not quite reach five feet in height. For her part, Valtaya smiled at the routine compliment and bowed to her mentor.
"And you are as generous as ever for letting me hear you coming," the younger druid countered lightly, her smile growing wider. "Good morning."
"Good morning, Valtaya," Druce said with a smile. "I see you have taken excellent care of the orchards today, and it is not even noon."
"Anything to escape court life," Valtaya said, following Druce as the older druid started through the trees. Druce chuckled at the comment.
"Druids too have a place in the court," he observed, examining a particularly large flower on one of the apple trees. "We, after all, are the caretakers of the groves, and the ones that keep Argent from dying."
"I know, but I just can't stand the talking, and the posturing, and everything else that goes on in court," Valtaya complained, keeping one step beyond Druce as he started again through the orchard. "I just don't feel like I fit there."
"Yes, but you strike quite a lovely figure when you do dress for the occasion," Druce said, turning back to admire the young woman for a moment. Like most elves, she was very fair skinned, with deep blue, almost sapphire colored eyes and long, silvery blond hair that dropped almost to her waist. "I dare say a dress makes you look better than the simple robes of a druid. And silver hair is the mark of nobility."
"That was my father's fault," Valtaya said glumly, brushing her hair unconsciously back past her pointed ears. Druce laughed.
"Your father cares for you very much," the older druid remarked. "But you have to remember, he spent many years as emissary to the elves of Utrecht, and his time there has accustomed him more to the ways of Utrecht than Argent. They place far more value on arcane magic and far less on the Mother's ways than we do. They actually enjoy the human cities."
"I hope never to see a human city," Valtaya said, turning her nose up at the thought of elves taking after humans. "From what my father has said, they must be terribly crowded and filthy places."
"And without a druid in court, we may be living in them in a matter of only a century or two," Druce observed. Valtaya shook her head at the comment.
"And lose Argent? I don't think any sane elf in Argent would do such a thing," the young druid decided. Druce simply smirked, an expression that his student had seen many times when he decided to simply humor her. "It may have happened to Utrecht, but they are forced to live with humans all the time," Valtaya reasoned. "I've never even seen a human."
"They are an interesting breed," Druce said. "Perhaps some day we will travel east, to Woodline, and I shall introduce you to some of the Tourant."
"Perhaps," Valtaya said dubiously. While it would be interesting to meet the humans of their nation's southern neighbor, her curiosity was tempered by all she had heard in court over forty years. The humans of Tourant, and even of Mardan, the largely human kingdom to the north, were both bent on logging every last tree they could find to sail on distant oceans, build their cities, or farm enormous crops. Valtaya opened her mouth to speak, ready to voice her concerns, but before she could say anything the two were interrupted by a young elf that practically stumbled into the orchard, wearing the sash of a courier of the court.
"Caretaker Druce!" the messenger shouted. "There is an urgent request for you at the King's Manse, immediately!"
"Well, let us not keep the king waiting," Druce said, seemingly unconcerned with the younger elf's anxious demeanor. Valtaya hesitated for a moment, wondering what could have put the elves of the court on edge, until Druce turned back to her. "Are you coming, Lady Valtaya?"
"Of… of course," Valtaya agreed, hastily giving her interest in the mysterious subject precedence over her dislike of the elven court. Together, the two druids followed the messenger out of the orchard.
"A fire?"
"A fire," King Setanta repeated, standing over a large table in the center of his planning hall. While much of court life was conducted in the vast Great Hall where the king's throne was placed, Valtaya far preferred the sunny, almost cozy confines of the planning hall to the ballroom where Setanta entertained visiting dignitaries or convened his entire court. The elegant oaken table and chairs had been painstakingly carved with the swirls and pictograms of the forebears of the elven race, placed in the center of a room carved from the very oak that held the King's Manse. Even King Setanta himself was dressed down, abandoning his typical royal garments for a loose fitting, comfortable tunic and britches. Only Set anta's crown, a beautiful gold circlet in the shape of a wreath of leaves with emerald and jade insets, and his almost metallic silver hair revealed his noble station. The king pointed to a beautifully drawn and accurate map of the Forest of Argent, indicating the northwestern edge of the nation. "Some of our scouts have reported that it has burned for several days, and is moving slowly towards the treants that inhabit the wildest reaches of the forest."
"Some of our scouts?" Druce echoed, growing curious. "I would think that a fire of this size would have been noticed by all of them."
"Some of our scouts have not returned," Lord Caradoc, Valtaya's father, said as he too studied the map. Lord Caradoc was a century younger than Druce, his hair a royal silver and impeccably groomed even for a simple debate of strategy. Of all the elves in the room, Caradoc had gone to the greatest lengths to impress with his appearance, wearing the heavily embroidered, silver and green robes of a Court Wizard. His sapphire blue eyes, another common trait he shared with his daughter, barely turned to Valtaya, and the young druid could not tell if he was happy to see her in the chamber or if he was upset that she was dressed in the flat brown and green robes that were so common to druids. "Six in all have not been seen since the fire started. Two more were found dead, their mutilated bodies hung from the trees."
"Sounds like orcish work," Teirtu, the acting general of Argent's army, commented. Teirtu was possibly as old as Druce, but unlike the druid Teirtu's age was beginning to show. While powerfully built and deceptively fast, even for an elf, in combat, Teirtu's once jet black hair was beginning to show streaks of gray and the faintest lines of age began to show on his face. The general also was one of very few elves that Valtaya had ever seen wear metal armor, and even now he wore his beautifully cleaned and masterfully engraved breastplate as he considered tactics far from the lines of any potential battle. "While our winter was not trying, the south witnessed a very harsh series of blizzards, and the orcs may have come north to raid our food supplies."
"But why burn the forest, then?" Setanta inquired. Teirtu shrugged.
"They are orcs," the general said. "At any rate, Krysztof's hobgoblins do not display bodies in such a manner. They are professional warriors, and that is the only nice thing I can say about them."
"Orcs," Druce repeated, considering the possibility of barbarian tribes being behind the fires. Valtaya turned to her teacher, but she only dimly registered the concentration on Druce's face as she heard the word. Orcs, or at least half-orcs, had been behind her mother's death. She had even been killed in the same area where the fire now raged. If those orcs had come back to find something that had mother had hidden or protected so long ago…
"I would say it is goblins," Lord Caradoc decided, "pretending to be orcs. They are trying to disguise their presence until we send more elves out to meet them. I worry that this may be the first wave of an invasion."
"I would be inclined to agree, except for two things," Kling Setanta said. "One, the winter to the south was harsh, and the humans of Tourant and the barbarians seem to think it was an elf that made it harsh. Naturally, the orcs would want revenge for making things so difficult for them. And secondly, Krysztof must still deal with the threat Arnheim poses to them. To invade us now would be suicide for Trzebin."
"Guesses alone will not be enough to discover the reason for these fires, nor will it stop them," Druce put in. Valtaya glanced to the king as he turned from his advisors to the druid, realizing abruptly that Setanta had been waiting for Druce to make such a statement. "We will have to investigate firsthand to discover the culprit."
"We will need a druid, one who can summon the storms that will be necessary to douse the flames," King Setanta surmised. Druce nodded with a smile. Valtaya looked down to the floor, trying to hide the disgust on her face. Setanta was a good king and very fair, but the court method of asking-without-asking was one of the very things Valtaya disliked about the court. And she was always surprised at how well Druce seemed to know the rules of court, despite the fact that he spent almost all of his time either teaching Valtaya or caring for the trees of Oakenbough.
"I believe I can summon the storms necessary," Druce said with a nod. "I will travel to the fires myself and deal with it personally. Of course, however, I will need help on such an endeavor."
"And help you shall have," Teirtu said. "Three of my rangers have already volunteered to lead you to the fire and protect you should any danger arise from goblins or orcs."
"I also have help to give," Caradoc said. "One of my wizards has also volunteered to join your party. He may be of some help with the flames, but he is a capable battle mage as well and devoted to protecting Argent."
"And I'll go too," Valtaya said abruptly, joining the conversation for the first time. "The land will certainly need healing once the fires have died, and if there is combat these brave elves will certainly need someone skilled in healing."
"Yes, they will," Teirtu agreed reluctantly, glancing over to Valtaya's father. Caradoc seemed almost furious with his daughter's brash statement, but held his anger in check in the company of the king and the Caretaker. Setanta, however, fully realized the tension between father and daughter as he turned to Druce.
"She may be a bit young," the king said cautiously. Druce smiled slightly.
"She is very talented, especially in the healing arts," the Caretaker countered. "And she is right. Even if we encounter no resistance, the forest, and perhaps even the treants themselves, will need our help to heal. With due respect to Lord Caradoc, I need his daughter at my side."
Valtaya tried to hold in a broad grin as Druce spoke, but only partially succeeded. Her teacher had finally turned the court around on her father, and now all eyes turned to Caradoc to judge his response. The Lord obviously did not wish to be seen as one who would put something before the well being of his nation, but as a father he was ready to throttle Druce for the statement and then lock his daughter in the dungeon to keep her from venturing into such blatant danger. King Setanta said nothing and was almost unreadable as he waited for Caradoc's answer, while Teirtu seemed to be expecting a vicious tirade from the king's mystical advisor. Finally, with a last, furious glance to Valtaya for her part in his entrapment, Lord Caradoc nodded.
"Then by your side she shall be," the wizard said through gritted teeth.
"Thank you, Druce! Thank you thank you thank you!"
"I think you took my comments in the planning room the wrong way," Druce said, stepping back from Valtaya after she finally released him from a tight embrace. Valtaya could not stop grinning as she walked with her teacher along the walkways that led through the canopies from the King's Manse.
"It doesn't matter," Valtaya said happily, practically dancing along the walkway in front of her mentor. "I'm finally going back to the west! I'm finally released from taking care of apple orchards and waiting for the trees to grow! I'm finally going back to the real forest!"
"Then perhaps you should stay here," Druce said, a painfully serious tone to his voice. Valtaya's joy died immediately a the prospect of being left behind by her own teacher.
"But… why?" the young druid finally blurted out, stunned by Druce's sudden change of attitude.
"I am almost certain that this journey will not be easy," the older druid said sternly. "The place we are going is not the place you recall when you daydream in the orchards. You have never seen what can happen to a forest in the wake of devastating fires. I have, and it will break your heart. In addition, I fear that we will see combat, combat the likes of which you cannot understand without seeing. You must put all your thoughts of playing in the forest like you did when you were a child out of your mind. This is a terrible event unfolding before us, and you must be prepared for whatever dangers lie ahead. I accepted your decision to volunteer because I will need your help, but if you do not comprehend what we are about to face, you will be of no use to me."
"I… I'm prepared," Valtaya reassured her mentor solemnly. For the moment her happiness had been completely destroyed by Druce's words, but already the thoughts of twisted, blackened landscapes were being chased out of her mind again by the memories of lush green forests and clear, sparkling streams. "I… well, I just thought it would be nice to get away from Oakenbough, even for a little while. No more fancy dresses, no more tending orchards, and no more enduring my father's ultimate goal of finding me a suitable husband."
"By the time we are done, you may not find those things quite so disagreeable," Druce said with a bit of a smile. "Now, go prepare yourself for the journey. And sleep well tonight, for it may be the last good night of sleep that you have for some time."
Valtaya nodded and hurried off, trying to keep her teacher's words in mind as she climbed through the trees to her father's home to prepare for her return to the western forests. But by the time she had pushed through the door of the beautiful, tiny mansion set along the outer branches of the oaks, she had forgotten all about the possible dangers of the road ahead, and could only see herself happily at home amid the verdant forests.