IX
"We should reach the treants in an hour, maybe less."
"The fires are getting closer," Valtaya said quietly, looking to the north as she joined Fife ahead of the two Mardanians. Aiken could move almost as swiftly and silently as the two elves, no doubt due to his elven blood, but Cyril seemed ill suited for a journey over even a scorched, burned out forest. Fife had made no attempt to wait for the human, and during the long, awkward silence of the day the gap between the elves and the humans had steadily widened. Now, with the sun rapidly setting behind the western horizon, almost twenty yards separated the elves from the Mardanians. "Perhaps we should wait for them."
"I'd prefer not to," Fife grumbled, closing his eyes as he did every time the druid mentioned their human companions. With Aiken and Cyril out of earshot, Valtaya turned to her elven partner.
"Why won't you trust them?" the druid asked, frustrated with Fife's unrelenting bias. Fife looked back to the humans for a moment, watching as Aiken lingered for a moment while Cyril fought his way through the charred undergrowth.
"This… this is an elven matter," the ranger finally said. "It should have been handled by elves, and elves alone."
"But, we can't do this alone," Valtaya countered, not quite comprehending the ranger's tone. Fife's words seemed completely racist, but there was a resignation in his voice that seemed out of place. "We need allies, today more than ever."
Fife hesitated for a long moment, carefully mulling over his words before he spoke. Again the ranger judged the distance to the Mardanians before speaking.
"Earlier I told you about Oakenbough's secrecy," Fife finally began. "As you grow older, Valtaya, you'll come to understand more and more that Argent's survival depends on the mystery and myths that the other races hold about us. To our south, Tourant grows stronger every day, and as they continually expand they try to log Argent itself. To our west, Herzog Krysztof has turned what was once a collection of squabbling, inbred goblin and orc tribes into a war machine the likes of which no one has ever seen. Even to our north, the Mardanians continue to probe our defenses, despite overtures of alliance. Our only true kin, the elves that now reside in Utrecht, have forgotten the Mother and the old ways, and now they are little more than the humans they coexist with. The appearance of drow on the surface chips away at the illusions of power and mystery that hold our enemies at bay. That we would need humans to help us, against a foe that we were supposed to have destroyed… do you understand?"
"I… sort of," Valtaya answered. While the druid had long been aware of the general mindset of her nation, she had never realized just how reclusive and wary Argent had become. Fife's words finally crystallized in the druid the growing paranoia of the elven nation, locked between twin human kingdoms and the constant threat of the goblin war machine. The elven leaders were terrified of allowing even the faintest hint of weakness show to the outside world, for fear that their nation would be instantly invaded and destroyed. Valtaya looked again to Cyril, then to Aiken. Was the half elven ranger the eventual evolution of her people? Mixed blood and only a partial understanding of the elven ways?
"This is the way it has to be," Fife said, pushing forward through the burned forest again. Valtaya watched the ranger as he walked ahead. "It's not the way I want it, but it there is no other way."
"There has to be another way," Valtaya whispered, too quietly for Fife to hear. Although she feared for Argent's way of life, such paranoia and fear of the outside world could not be the only way to exist.
"How much longer?"
"It should not be long now," Fychan said quietly, studying the smoking forest around him. While the fire line to their east had been in sight for almost the entire day, a dull, angry glow now lit the north as the last rays of the brutal sun disappeared behind the distant western mountains. "Although the fires have slowed since our meeting with the faeries, the tree things should not be more than a mile north of the fire line now."
"Lolth be praised," Cadwared grumbled, still taking the lead and studying the ground for any tracks. Talaith looked to the commoner as he spoke.
"Any sign of the faeries?" the priestess asked.
"None," Cadwared replied. "But if I were them I would not travel so close to the fire line."
"If they traveled west, it will cost them time," Fychan observed. "We will be able to beat them to the tree things."
"And then spark another fire?" Rhonwen inquired, turning to Talaith.
"It will be better to fight them separately," Talaith decided, nodding slightly. While the priestess knew very little of the tree things that Lolth wanted destroyed, some of the earliest drow legends, from their forgotten times on the surface, talked of tree beings called treants, immensely strong beings who could supposedly animate entire forests to fight for them. Killing the treants would call for a large number of fire spells. If the treants were indeed as powerful as the legends indicated, it would be better to remove them long before the faeries could join forces with them. "We kill the tree things before the faeries can warn them."
"We'll need a way through the flames," Fychan observed, taking a few steps to the north and watching the distant flames eat through the fresh vegetation. Talaith followed his line of sight to the fire line, noting how much the blaze had dimmed since they had been forced to focus their attention on the escaped faeries.
"That is up to you to find, brother," Talaith said, turning to the wizard. Fychan considered the flames for a moment, then sighed.
"An ice storm will not be subtle," Fychan explained. "If they are on the other side of the line, they will know we are coming."
"A risk we have to take," Talaith decided. "Create the hole."
"As you wish," Fychan said with a faint nod. The wizard took a scroll case from the folds of his robe and unfurled a sheet of parchment. With a quick incantation, a miniature storm of sleet and freezing rain fell on the fire line in front of them, rapidly dousing the flames and providing the drow with a means to cross the line. Fychan cut the spell short as the flames died down, leaving a smoking hole in the fire line to expose the verdant, rapidly darkening forest beyond it.
"Cadwared," Talaith said, pointing to the hole. Cadwared nodded quickly and stole ahead through the opening, disappearing into the undergrowth on the other side of the hole. After a moment the warrior reappeared, signaling the others forward. Talaith and Rhonwen started forward quickly, but Fychan lagged behind a moment as the wizard watched the smoking dead zone behind them. The priestess considered snapping an order to her brother to hurry along, but decided against it in her rush to find the tree things and possibly the surface elves.
"I see no faeries," Cadwared reported as the two priestesses joined him. "I see no tree things either, but I am not sure that I would recognize one if it was right next to me."
"Fychan!" Rhonwen whispered harshly, taking notice of the wizard's tardiness. Fychan hesitated a moment longer, but then turned and hurried through the smoking hole to join his companions. "Where are the tree things?"
"We should forget the tree things for now," Fychan said simply. Rhonwen opened her mouth to chastise the brazen male, But Talaith held up her hand as she noticed an anxious, almost eager set to her brother's features. In only a heartbeat the noble guessed her sibling's knowledge.
"The faeries are here!" Talaith breathed out. Fychan nodded eagerly in wordless agreement.
"I get the feeling they don't like us."
"You're just moving too slow for them, Cyril," Aiken said, turning a smile back to the wizard as Cyril struggled to keep pace with the others. Although Aiken had no problem managing the elves' quick, steady pace through the blackened forest, Cyril was not faring well in the skeletal underbrush and the uneven terrain. "After all, it's their forest that's burning."
"You can stop patronizing me now, Aiken," Cyril said with a smirk, looking past the warden to the elves. While the younger one, Valtaya, continued to glance over her shoulder with concern at the widening gap, Fife, the ranger, pushed ahead without paying heed to the humans' slower pace. "Maybe the girl doesn't mind having us along, but her partner wants nothing to do with us at all."
"Well, maybe they are a bit… uncomfortable around us," Aiken conceded, trying not to wholly agree with Cyril's assessment. The wizard clambered over a last fallen tree, then stopped with his hands on his knees as he tried to rest for a moment. "How are you feeling?" Aiken asked with a touch of concern.
"Like I've been raked over the coals," Cyril answered with a grin, looking up as he wiped some of the sweat from his grimy brow. "I don't suppose you could ask them to stop for a moment, could you?"
"I could try," Aiken answered, turning to the two elves. Surprisingly enough, the pair had already come to a halt, although Fife seemed furious with the delay. Valtaya said something to the ranger with a worried, look, then turned and hurried back to the two humans. "I don't thin it would be possible to take a moment to rest, would it?" Aiken inquired in elven as Valtaya reached him.
"We stopped for that reason," the druid said. "Is your friend well?"
"Wizards aren't exactly made for this kind of trek," Aiken explained with a bit of a smirk. Cyril seemed to pick up on at least part of his statement, showing a sardonic smirk as he sat back on the fallen tree he had crossed a minute ago. "Your care to his wounds earlier, however, was nothing short of excellent."
"I don't like to see people suffer," Valtaya said. "Not even humans."
"Your partner seems less concerned with us than you do," Aiken pointed out, nodding to Fife. Valtaya glanced over her shoulder to the ranger for a moment before dropping her eyes to the ground.
"He does not mean to be so rude," the druid said awkwardly.
"Yes he does," Aiken countered. Valtaya looked up, showing a hint of indignance. "I do not blame him though," the warden continued, watching his elven counterpart. "I don't hold any illusions about the way our two nations look at each other. In fact, Fife and I may have even fought each other in the past. Not every meeting between wardens and elves has ended peacefully."
"But we are supposed to be allies," Valtaya protested. "Why do we fight each other?"
"Greed, distrust, inability to compromise… there's probably hundreds of reasons," Aiken answered. "Who knows, maybe if the elves weren't so aloof, and if the humans less eager to log everything… but then again, we're not nobles. Until someone at the top fixes things, people like us on the bottom keep getting kicked."
"Oh," Valtaya said, lost in her own thoughts. Aiken watched her for a moment, uncertain if something he said had indirectly offended the young elf. "Maybe… maybe someone at the top will try to fix things," the druid said, though she only seemed to be half speaking to the warden.
"Maybe," Aiken agreed, keeping the skepticism out of his voice. The half elf paused for a moment. "Where are the treants?"
"We should almost be there," Valtaya replied, quickly pushing her thoughts to the side as she refocused on the conversation. "Fife knows the area better than I do. He says we're very close."
"Very close to the fire line, too," Aiken observed, seeing the dim glow of the fires ahead. "I hope the blaze hasn't run them over already."
"So do I," Valtaya agreed. Aiken nodded, and glanced back to the Cyril.
"Are you ready, wizard?" the warden asked, speaking slowly and deliberately in Argent. Cyril was no master of the Argent tongue, but the mage had asked Aiken specifically to use the language whenever possible to help him learn it.
"Ready," Cyril answered, standing up. Aiken smiled slightly at the wizard's tenuous grip of the elven language.
"You'll learn yet," the warden continued in Argent. Cyril nodded with a bit of a grin.
"I… groan?" Cyril said uncertainly. Valtaya giggled at the wizard's attempt. "Not right?" Cyril asked.
"Not right," Aiken confirmed, smiling a bit himself. "Try, not groan."
"I try," Cyril corrected. Then the wizard switched back to Mardanian. "Not exactly an easy language to learn," he decided. Aiken nodded with a smile.
"She'd probably say the same thing about Mardanian if we taught it to her," the warden remarked. Cyril shrugged with a bit of a smile, but his good humor faded away Fife returned to the group.
"We have to cross the fire line," the ranger stated simply. "There appears to be an opening, a spot where the fire burned down, ahead of us and slightly east of here. We can cross there."
"An opening?" Aiken repeated, looking ahead. In the distance, where the fire still raged, the warden could see a small area where the glow of the flames seemed to be less intense. Fife nodded.
"Aiken and I will go first," Fife said. "Valtaya, Cyril, you wait here for a moment."
"But, Fife, shouldn't we stay together?" Valtaya asked.
"I want to make certain the way is clear," the ranger explained. "Let's go, Aiken."
"Wait here for us," Aiken said, speaking in Mardanian to make sure Cyril understood. The wizard nodded. Without another word the two rangers stole ahead through the smoking remains of the forest, edging closer to the flames. Finally, as they closed to within fifty yards of the opening in the fire line, Fife motioned for the half elf to stop.
"Looks like we can get through," Aiken said quietly, his eyes on the opening. Fife shook his head.
"You don't see it," the ranger concluded. Aiken stared at the hole for a long moment. While it seemed curious that the opening had even appeared in the first place, the warden at first saw nothing out of the ordinary. But as he looked, he began to notice that the opening threw off heavy amounts of steam, much like when water or snow was used to smother a camp fire…
"It's a trap," Aiken concluded. The warden silently thanked Pelor that the elf had such keen vision; he and Cyril would have gone blindly through the hole and into the waiting hands of the drow. Fife nodded.
"Someone just extinguished that section," the elf confirmed. "We need to find another way through."
"Let's get back to the others," Aiken said quietly, his eyes on the hole as he tried to locate a potential ambush. Fife nodded wordlessly, and swiftly the two rangers dropped back to Valtaya and Cyril.
"Is everything all right?" the druid asked nervously.
"The drow are probably waiting for us on the other side," Fife said. Aiken translated to Cyril as the elf spoke. "We need to find another way through."
"But it's a solid wall of fire as far as we can see," Valtaya observed.
"If they're on the other side, they'll kill us," Fife said. Again Aiken repeated the elf in Mardanian.
"Then let them," Cyril suddenly said. Fife turned a shocked expression on the human wizard, and even Aiken had no idea how to reaction to his partner's suggestion.
"What are you talking about?" the elf demanded. Cyril simply smiled as he turned to Aiken.
"I have a plan," the wizard said simply, his smile growing even broader.