Hamertia: The Elven Folly
Chapter 17

Connak, Druin, and Dakath slowly approached Aodhan as centaurs began surrounding them on all sides. Not accustomed to feeling so exposed, the fire mages kept their eyes forward, not daring to look at the horde of beasts who could easily take their lives at any moment. They were well aware of the risk before embarking on their journey; that the Red Centaurs were an unpredictable, violent race, holding a hatred for anyone not of their clan, fire mage or not. Their feet stopped moving when Aodhan held up his hand.

“Why do you come to our land?” he bellowed in his usual authoritative tone. “An elven convoy sent to invade us? Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you where you stand.”

Connak cleared his throat and began to take a step forward, but halted when the centaur stomped his hoof into the red ash.

“We are not merely elves,” he began, trying to keep his voice steady. “We are elven fire mages. We have as much contempt for the rest of elven kind as you do. We seek to be accepted into your clan, the clan of the one true centaur race.”

The crowd erupted into an uproar, every centaur talking over each other. The majority of the voices did not seem to be supportive of the idea. Once again, Aodhan raised his hand and the murmurs quickly faded.

“Being fire mages does not make you one of us. Your feeble bodies and association with an inferior race prohibit you from joining the ranks of Volcanis Centaurin. I suggest you leave before you insult us any further.”

Connak remained silent for a moment, not sure of the best way to proceed. Sighing loudly, Druin took the opportunity to step forward, undeterred by the Red Centaur’s threatening glare.

“We are the superior race of the world,” he said, projecting his voice so the gathered crowd could hear. “Volcanis Centaurin and elven fire mages. We’ve travelled here to ask you to assist us, and in turn we will provide assistance to you. Together we can eradicate the inferior elven race from the face of our world. And afterwards…we will eliminate the woodlanders as well.”

Voices in the crowd erupted once more. More than one Red Centaur could be heard shouting “death to woodlanders!”

Once everything quieted down, Aodhan stepped forward. “What do you know of the woodlanders?” he asked, staring directly into Druin’s eyes.

“We fought alongside them not long ago,” he replied. “It is clear that they are not the true centaur race. I fear that since their battle with the northern trolls, they have become overconfident. They may be planning an attack on your sacred land. We, the elven fire mages, wish to fight alongside the true centaurs, Volcanis Centaurin.”

Never breaking his gaze, Aodhan remained silent for a long moment, studying Druin’s face and every word that had come out of his mouth. “What do you care if the woodlanders attack us? You’re not centaurs. Why concern yourself with such matters?”

“We are both the children of fire,” Druin replied calmly. “We simply wish to fight alongside our brothers.”

After another silent moment passed, Aodhan gently nodded his head and stepped back. Turning his head to the side, he shouted his orders, “Valnrin! Erbex! Escort our guests to their quarters and send the scrawny one on his way!”

Two centaurs emerged from a dome-shaped structure, followed closely by an elf with straggly black hair and tattered clothes that barely held to his body. He exchanged a look with the fire mages as he passed by but said not a word. The centaurs gestured for the trio to follow them into the dome, turning their attention away from Xander. The elves descended the stairs into the large room before each being offered a yam and cup of beet juice.

Back in the northern forest, a full moon was slowly rising in the sky and most of the inhabitants were in their rooms preparing for another night of peaceful sleep. As usual, Rydel was lounging on his bed while Athtar stood next to him enthusiastically recalling the day’s events.

“I can’t believe the gnomes know how to write, Ry! Who would’ve thought? I can’t wait for tomorrow! And they’ll be able to help us write about the gnome-boggart war because they were there! Isn’t that amazing?”

“It sure is, Ath,” Rydel smiled. “It’s good we found someone to help us. There was no way I was gonna figure this whole writing thing out.”

“You would’ve figured it out if you didn’t quit so early! But it’s ok, the gnomes sounded really excited to help us! I think they want their victory recorded as much as we do!”

“Well maybe as much as you do,” Rydel mumbled. “You know I don’t like this war stuff.”

“Ry,” Athtar said, letting out a loud sigh. “I told you, the gnomes just took back their land. There wasn’t even any blood or anything! Besides, we can’t just write books about nice things all the time. Everything should be written about!”

“You’re right, Ath,” he replied. “I’d just rather forget about all this stuff, ya know? All the fighting and everything is over with now, we shouldn’t have to dwell on it.”.

Athtar laughed. “What does this have to do with water?”

“Huh?”

“You said well.”

“It’s dwell, Ath.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway…we should be getting to sleep. I’m sure you’ll want to spend the whole day writing tomorrow.”

Athtar nodded, climbed into bed, and slid under the covers. He laid on his side facing Rydel and wrapped his arm around him.

“You know, I probably don’t even need to sleep,” he said softly, not something that happened very often. “It’s not like I ever run out of energy.”

“You tried that before, remember?” Rydel recalled, leaning his head to the side so it rested on top of Athtar’s. “And then you passed out when you were visiting the gnomes and crushed a bunch of their plants.”

“Oh yeah!” Athtar laughed. “Guess sleep isn’t such a bad idea then… Filwood didn’t seem too upset though.”

“Of course he didn’t. But I’m sure if anybody else did it they would refuse to share any of their food with us from then on,” Rydel grinned. “You should feel really lucky they like you so much.”

“If everybody else would go and visit them sometimes they would like them just as much as they like me!”

“Word salad, Ath.”

“Huh?”

“You said them and they too many times. It’s hard to tell who you’re talking about.”

A big smile spread across Athtar’s face as he repositioned himself, pulling himself closer to Rydel, putting a leg around his body and nuzzling his head on his shoulder. “See, you’re smart, Ry. You could’ve figured out how to write.”

“Thanks, Ath,” he said barely above a whisper, letting his eyelids fall shut. “I love you, buddy.”

“Love you too, Ry.”

Jastra lay in bed looking up into her lover’s eyes. Jharyn, who was presently hovering over her, put one hand behind her head and leaned his face down to kiss her. He pressed his body against hers, wishing it was possible to merge her soul with his own. As each of the elves came to the cusp of a feeling of pure ecstasy, they heard a knock on their door. Quickly being forced back to reality and swearing under his breath, Jharyn pulled himself off of Jastra and grabbed the blanket to cover themselves with.

“Come in.”

The door slowly creaked open and Feno stepped through the threshold.

“What do you need, Feno?” Jharyn asked, trying unsuccessfully to prevent irritation in his voice. “Jastra and I are sorta busy.”

“Sorry,” Feno said quietly, moving his eyes to look at the floor in front of his feet. “But this is kind of important.”

“What?” Jharyn inquired, not bothering to mask his impatience.

“You remember those centaurs I told you and the…others about?”

“Yeah,” he sighed, imploring the elf to move the conversation along.

“I still need to go get them, and Elluin won’t help me. He said they can come live with us, but I have to bring them here myself. I really don’t wanna go there alone, Jharyn. Could you come with me?”

“Feno,” Jharyn sighed, pausing for a moment to calm his demeanor. “They’re centaurs. They don’t belong in an elven forest. I mean don’t those things just eat grass? They’d kill all the plants we have here.”

“Heath gardens just like the gnomes do,” Feno responded, raising his face to look at Jharyn. “And if they don’t belong here, then neither do we. Low-borns aren’t supposed to live in the northern forest, Jharyn. But that didn’t stop you from accepting Elluin’s offer.”

“I’m sorry, Feno, but I’m not gonna risk getting trampled by a bunch of pissed off centaurs just to save a couple of kids. Besides, they’re better off with their own kind.”

Realizing that Jharyn wouldn’t listen to reason, he turned to look at Jastra. “Jastra?” he pleaded. “You’re not afraid of centaurs, are you? Please…I promised those guys I’d help them.”

Jastra sat in the bed and pondered what she should do. She admired Feno’s dedication to his centaur friends but agreed with Jharyn that they may be more trouble than they’re worth. After a long, suspenseful moment, she made up her mind.

“Tell you what, Feno. I’ll go with you to the woodlands to get them. But if things go bad, we might have to leave them behind. I’m not risking a war with the centaurs over this.”

Feno’s face beamed as he ran around to the side of the bed and wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you, Jastra!”

She smirked and returned the hug. “We’ll figure everything out tomorrow, alright? You go back to your room for now and get some sleep.”

Feno held onto her for a moment longer before nodding and hurrying out the door. Once the door was closed and the sound of footsteps faded, Jharyn turned to face Jastra.

“Are you sure that was a good idea?” he asked with a hint of concern. “You could’ve just told him no.”

Jastra shrugged. “He cares about his friends,” she replied nonchalantly. “I admire that. I’ll go down there with him and everything will be fine. The other centaurs won’t even know we’re there. I think you sometimes forget just how sneaky I can be,” she said with a wink.

“Oh I never forget,” he smirked, leaning in to kiss her.

With the intruder gone, Jharyn and Jastra resumed their private nightly activities before finally falling asleep together.

Connak, Druin, and Dakath awoke to the sound of hooves galloping down the staircase. After a night of sleeping on the hard floor, they stood up to stretch their arms and rub their eyes. The morning sun shone down through the opening and cast shadows on the ground in front of the three centaurs sent to retrieve them.

“Come along,” Aodhan said once the elves had all gotten up. “The morning is the best time to conduct the ceremony.”

“You won’t be throwing us into your volcano, will you?” Druin asked indifferently with his groggy early morning voice.

Connak nudged him with his elbow, taken aback by his fellow fire mage’s attitude. The Red Centaurs could kill them on the slightest whim and he didn’t understand how Druin could be so careless with his words.

Ignoring him, Aodhan continued. “We will go to the base of our volcano and implore the spirit of fire to initiate you into our clan. If all goes well, you will then be one of us.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Druin asked. “Will we have to battle all of you while the volcano vomits balls of fire onto us or something?”

This time it was Dakath who stepped forward and slapped Druin on the back of the head, nearly sending him flying into the centaurs. He turned around and exchanged a hostile glare with the silent warrior before once again facing Aodhan, who didn’t seem the least bit phased.

“You don’t seem very concerned that you stand before the strongest race in all the world,” the Red Centaur smirked. “Perhaps you don’t understand just how powerful we are.”

“I was just having some fun,” Druin replied, sounding a bit more defensive than he intended. “We’re all children of fire here, aren’t we? A callous attitude comes with the territory, even if I’m the only one who embraces it.”

Aodhan looked at the elven mage for a moment before grinning, which came as a great relief to Connak. “I like this one,” he said. “Truly embodies what it means to be of the fire tribe. I think you will have no trouble with your initiation. Now let’s get going and see if I’m right.”

“You two having fun?” Elluin called out as he and Folwin passed Onvyr and Rania.

Onvyr looked up from his book and smiled at them. He and Rania were doing what they loved most, sitting on their favorite bridge reading their favorite book together. Knowing that’s where they would be, Elluin and Folwin made it a point to include the spot on their morning walk with Puff.

“Of course we are,” he told them. “Can’t chat right now, though. We just reached the most interesting part of the book.”

“You two must have read that book a thousand times by now,” Folwin remarked. “How can it possibly be interesting anymore?”

“It’s a big book,” Rania replied. “We always learn something new about gnomes that we didn’t catch the last nine hundred ninety-nine times.”

“Whatever you say,” Elluin smirked. “Aren’t Athtar and Rydel supposed to be writing a book or something? You guys can read that…if they even get it started.”

“They’re in the library working on it right now,” Rania said.

“Yeah, there’s a few gnomes helping them,” Onvyr added. “Can you believe it? All the times we read this book and we never saw it mention anything about gnomes knowing how to write, much less being scholars like Filwood claimed earlier.”

Elluin and Folwin exchanged a look of disbelief. “Well, I guess we should go check that out then,” Elluin said. “See you two later.”

“See ya,” Onvyr and Rania said in unison.

“Jinx, you owe me a marshmallow,” Onvyr smiled, nudging her with his arm.

“What’s a marshmallow?”

Onvyr shrugged.

Each sitting on the back of a Red Centaur, Connak, Druin, and Dakath were taken to an open area at the base of the sacred volcano. The top of the monumental natural structure reached up to the clouds and became obscured by the time they arrived. Just as it was in all the Red Centaur’s homeland, the ground was red and granular. According to local folklore, this was due to an eruption in ancient times when the volcano covered the land in red ash.

To the relief of the elven fire mages, the ride to the volcano wasn’t quite as long as the trip from the woodlands to the trolls’ territory. When they finally hopped off the backs of their four-legged companions, their bodies weren’t nearly as stiff as after their first experience travelling with centaurs.

They gave their bare feet a moment to adjust to the ground beneath them. Aodhan had insisted that they leave their shoes behind as they are not allowed to be worn on sacred land. Connak wondered how this could be as no one besides the Red Centaurs had stepped hoof on the land before and they never wore shoes to begin with, but he decided not to question it. He was grateful Druin was too stupid to make the connection and open his big mouth on the subject.

Not wasting any time, the horde of Red Centaurs formed a circle around Aodhan and the new initiates. Trying hard not to convey it through their body language, the three elves were in fact quite nervous as they had not the slightest idea of what to expect. Nevertheless, they stood tall and maintained their composure as the ceremony began.

“Will the translator please step forward.”

A Red Centaur left the circle to stand at Aodhan’s side.

“Ve agat heras boret fer. Boret volcanis.”

“We come together here as children of fire. Children of the volcano.”

“Ve aat bronet fer. Centaurin ont Elt.

“We are brothers in fire. Centaur and Elf.”

“Ve Inve Elten fer agt stroret volcanis.”

“We implore the spirits of the volcano to initiate the elves in fire.”

“Sorsan raat treori.”

“That they may stand at our side.”

“Aset rak centaurin.”

“The one true centaur race.”

“Volcanis Centaurin!”

“Volcanis Centaurin!”

Aodhan reached down and scooped up a pile of red ash in his hand. One by one, he rubbed it on the faces of Connak, Druin, and Dakath. As soon as he stepped back, they heard the sound of rushing lava coming from inside the volcano. Following the Red Centaurs’ lead, the elves faced the volcano, got to their knees, and bowed their heads. After a suspenseful moment, smoke began billowing from the crater. Seeing this, Aodhan stood, with everyone else quickly following suit.

“The spirit of the volcano has accepted you. You are truly children of fire.”

“That’s it?” Druin smirked. “What would’ve happened if it didn’t accept us?”

“You’d be dead,” Aodhan replied. “As you said earlier, balls of fire would have enveloped you. Be very grateful that didn’t happen.”

Connak nudged Druin’s arm before he could open his mouth again. While Druin leered at him, the Red Centaurs began to disperse. Lasting only a few minutes, the elves were admittedly a bit disappointed at how anticlimactic their initiation ceremony had been.

“Come. We should be getting back now,” Aodhan said, regaining the elves’ attention. “The spirits don’t like it when we linger.”

Connak, Druin, and Dakath mounted their centaurs and began the journey back to the Red Centaur town center.

Athtar’s face lit up as the gnome guided his hand in writing out each letter of the alphabet.

“There you go, Ath,” the gnome said as they finished another line. “Just keep practicing that and your handwriting will improve in no time.”

“Thanks Rosner!”

“You know,” Rydel wondered out loud. “You gnomes are really good at this writing thing. Why don’t you write any books of your own?”

Rosner turned to look at Rydel. After giving him a dirty look and shaking his head, he returned his attention to Athtar. Rydel shrugged and stood up to stretch. Although he would like to learn to write as well, the gnome seemed to only be interested in working with one elf, and it certainly wasn’t him. As he stretched his arms above his head and turned his face toward the door, he saw Elluin and Folwin coming in.

“Hey guys,” he said, walking over to greet them.

“So is it true?” Elluin asked. “Do those gnomes really know how to write?”

Rydel nodded. “Rosner over there is helping Ath with his handwriting. I don’t think he likes me very much though…”

“Gnomes are strange creatures,” Folwin said. “Ath just seems to have a way with them. I don’t think I’ve ever even tried talking to one.”

“I wonder if Kellam understands them like Ath does,” Rydel pondered. “I haven’t seen him in forever though. What has he been up to?”

Elluin’s face dropped at the mention of that name. He hoped everyone would eventually just forget about the elusive naturalist, but this didn’t seem like it would be the case.

“Have you heard from him, El?” Folwin asked, pulling Elluin back into the moment.

“Huh? No. I told you he’s out on some sort of expedition. What makes you think I’d know when he’s coming back?”

Folwin shrugged. “Well you were the only one he told about this trip. So if anybody would know, I’d imagine it’d be you.”

“Well I don’t, alright? I’ll…I’ll see you guys later.”

Rydel gave Folwin a concerned look after Elluin stormed off.

“Is everything alright?”

Folwin shook his head. “I don’t know, he acts really weird whenever anybody brings up Kellam. But don’t worry too much about it, I’ll go talk to him.”

Folwin took off after Elluin, leaving Rydel alone with Athtar and gnome once again.

“So…what are you guys working on?”

Without warning, the gnome sent a pencil flying in his direction.

“He’s working on prepositions!”

Rydel sighed and stood in the corner.

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