Chapter 8
The Elf came to a few minutes later. Jorn sat on the supposedly-reinforced stool in Berrythorn's tent and waited. Behind him, the wizard and his apprentices bustled to and fro, already starting the tedious process of packing all the fragile apparatus of his trade for the evening's move.
Curiosity of a certain type is a survival characteristic in a bandit, who is likely to face imminent starvation if he never goes looking for new avenues of risk. Jorn was beginning to be very curious about Priest.
"Not from the Alliance," Jorn mused aloud, but quietly. "Not with the Elves, 'cause there ain't any here any more. Not organized, anyhow. So you gotta be from somewhere else." He thought this over for a second as the Elf began to stir. I heard where there's Elves on Kalimdor, but they say they're tall, purple as a banshee.
Course, the Shandlewighters say there's humans on Kalimdor, too. And they left before the Elves left the Alliance.
"You from Kalimdor, Priest?" Jorn asked, as the Elf opened his eyes.
"From the Theramore Isles." Priest sat up slowly, swinging his legs over the side of the cot. "I don't suppose it matters if you know."
"Not likely," Jorn said. "Don't even know where that is."
"They're off Kalimdor," Priest said. "It is clear you've already guessed that I came here as a spy."
"Doesn't bother me," Jorn said. "Can't be here to spy on us, 'cause nobody has got a reason to care."
"We were here to observe the Forsaken," Priest said. "But I see no way to complete that mission now. I am not sure we were ever intended to complete it."
"You oughta eat something," Jorn said. "I can't be following you around catching you all the time."
"I'm sorry about that," the Elf said. "I suppose I hoped I would not wake up. Everything I came here to do is finished, now."
Jorn rubbed the back of his neck, trying to remember.
"Entweli vabit, kur na'een serel," he said.
The Elf stared at him for a second. Then his shoulders began to shake. He pulled his good knee up to his chest and bent forward, laughing silently. By the time he stopped, there were tears in his eyes.
"Do you know what you just said?" he asked.
"No," Jorn said.
"'Stop talking, or I will beat you with fish,'" the Elf said.
"Fish?"
"And your accent is terrible."
"Yeah, well, I haven't had a thousand years to learn it," Jorn said. It still worked.
"To be honest, neither have I," Priest said. "I was less than fully candid about my age when I volunteered to be trained."
"Yeah? How old are you?"
"Sixty-five," Priest said. Jorn raised his eyebrows. "Other than my teacher, you are the only one I have ever told."
"Sixty-five? I'd think you'd still be in nappies," Jorn said.
"Not exactly," the Priest said dryly. "Generally it is preferred that one gather a wider range of experience before seeking the training of a priest, but I did not wish to wait. No one can be certain of a long life, in this day."
"True enough," Jorn said. "Mirtib, you wanna hand that tray over here?"
"You were serious," the Elf said, as Jorn set the tray with soup, bread and tea on the cot beside him.
"Not cold yet, but it will be if you don't eat it soon," Jorn said.
"Do your men eat in front of their commander?" Priest asked, setting the tray across his knees.
Jorn snorted. "All the time. A bandit wants to stay a bandit, he can't keep regular hours. I'm gonna go make sure everyone's getting ready to go. Don't do anything fey before I get back."
"I wouldn't dare," the Elf said. "Thank you, Lord Raveloe."