Chris Evans - A Darkness Forged in Fire

The Prince's eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open. He said nothing for a long moment. Konowa looked at him with the closest he could manage to complete innocence. A grin now would likely find him hanging from a noose.

The Prince finally downed his own drink and followed suit, breaking his own glass on the hard-packed dirt.

"You will explain to me later the traditional toast," the Prince said.

"Of course, Your Highness," Konowa said.

"Go collect my men."

"Yes, sir, at once," Konowa said, coming to attention. He offered the Prince a crisp salute before turning and stepping out of the tent, and into a whole new problem.

K onowa walked in a straight line, prepared to bludgeon the first person who crossed his path. Unfortunately, the first person was a horse, and Konowa's anger subsided into a crushing weight. This fool of a Prince was going to get them all killed.

"You appear to gravitate toward the more pungent these days," Jurwan Leaf Talker said, smiling broadly and startling Konowa as the wizard came around the other side of the horse.

Konowa shook his head. Too many musket salvos had permanently damaged his hearing.

"And you don't know when to leave well enough alone," Konowa said, walking past his father.

Jurwan reached out a hand, his fingertips brushing Konowa's arm. The touch was as light as a leaf floating on a stream, but it stopped him like a cannon firing canister shot at twenty yards. Bloody wizards.

"Judging by the color of your face and the tone of your voice, I'd say you've met the Prince," Jurwan said, chuckling softly, removing his hand to pat the horse's neck. His other hand reached into his hides and pulled out bits of keela fruit, which he offered to the animal. The red pulp dribbled down Jurwan's fingers as the horse nibbled at it, and Konowa felt a queasiness in his stomach.

"He is an arrogant little poppet who cares more about finding purple-winged moths and pleasing his mother than leading a regiment." Konowa kicked at a weed near his boot. " Regiment. It won't be anything close to what it was before. And when were you going to tell me the Iron Elves wouldn't actually have any elves in it?"

Jurwan slowly shook his head and clucked his tongue. He walked over to Konowa and bent down by his feet, gently straightening the weed. For an old elf, he still moved with fluid ease, a skill Konowa had long ago given up trying to master.

"The past is gone, my son, or at least, it used to be. For now, you must embrace the present, so that you may walk with a clear mind and free heart into the future, while being ever vigilant for that which went before you, for it may yet come again."

Konowa looked down at his father with wide eyes. "Is this mystical pap the counsel you give Ruwl? I mean, in between tending to blades of grass and injured mice?"

Jurwan stood up and smiled. "No, I only say it to annoy you, and because it's true. As for Ruwl, I tell him he needs to adapt to his surroundings, be open and malleable, not hard and stubborn, as some are wont to be. Oh, and that he should have more Tremkaberry tea shipped over from home. I find the local tea here rather bitter. Which reminds me," he continued, grabbing Konowa by the arm and steering him around the horse. "I am making dinner and am in need of a pair of strong hands to help me."

"I'm really not in the mood for roasted worms and grass soup, Father," Konowa said, allowing himself to be propelled along nonetheless.

"Wrong season for worms," Jurwan said absently, casting a quick glance down at the ground. "The earth is too dry at the moment; she waits for Sky Sister to cry."

Konowa looked up to the sky and sighed. "Rain, it's called rain. Look, is your tent much farther? I have many things to do before the regiment sets out on this mad adventure."

"And one of them is to eat a meal with your father, if that isn't too much to ask," Jurwan said, squeezing Konowa's arm as they walked. "Ah, here we are!"

"Where?" Konowa asked. Jurwan had taken him to the edge of the camp where an old willow tree bent over a stream. Its branches were thick with leaves and draped on the ground.

" Muh ko ji," Jurwan said, and the branches parted. For a moment, Konowa's body tingled and he heard, or thought he heard, a very old, very wise voice answer his father. He pushed his senses outward and listened, but there was nothing more to hear.

"Come, we have arrived just in time," Jurwan called from inside.

Konowa shrugged and stepped through the hanging branches. They closed behind him with a soft swish, and he was inside a cozy and surprisingly cool dwelling that was not at all obvious from the outside.

A large bowl, sanded and carved to a fluid smoothness, floated above a small fire in the center of the floor. Konowa couldn't help but smile. His father had mastery, not that the old elf would call it that, over the elements of life, yet used his great skills to cook with a wooden pot. The flames curled around it, trying to feed on the wood, yet the bowl remained a beautiful satin brown, its surface completely unblemished. Inside it, water was just starting to boil, thin beads of air bubbles winding their way to the surface to release tiny wisps of steam.

"A fire within the confines of a tree, Father?" Konowa asked, walking around the small area and marveling at the coolness of the air. He undid the chinstrap of his shako and took it off, running a hand through his sweat-soaked hair.

"Balance in all things, my son," Jurwan said, sitting cross-legged on the grass floor in front of the fire and motioning for Konowa to do the same. "The fuel is dead wood, and I have ensured the flames do not feed on more than that."

"Black Spike would not have been impressed," Konowa said, regretting it immediately. Jurwan's bond brother, one of the mightiest Wolf Oaks to have grown in the deep forest, had been killed many years ago, and it was a loss Konowa knew the old elf felt deeply.

Jurwan shook his head. "Not at all. My ryk faur, like most of the Wolf Oaks, was far more pragmatic than the Long Watch make them out to be. Fire, like all elementals, is necessary, even desired at times. Should an elf shun water because he might drown, and so die of thirst? My bond brother would not begrudge me a warm meal, may his ashes bring life to those that follow."

"Sounds more reasonable than the woman I just met," Konowa said. His heartbeat quickened at the thought of her, but he wasn't sure if it was passion or frustration.

Jurwan's eyebrows rose in exaggerated surprise. "You're courting then? Well. Perhaps she can knock some sense into that thick head of yours."

Konowa waved the thought away. "She's elfkynan, some kind of witch, too, for that matter. Our views on the world aren't exactly in harmony."

"A witch," Jurwan said, his voice taking on a dreamy quality. "I do hope the grandchildren take after her."

"Easy, Father, she hasn't even bothered to see me since we arrived in camp," Konowa said, pacing around the fire. "Not that it matters."

Jurwan shook his head slowly, letting a small sigh escape his lips. "Be not so sure of what matters and what does not. Drops of rain become an ocean. And if courting hasn't changed completely since I was your age, I think she might be waiting for you to visit her."

"I've been rather busy, what with this lunacy I've been dragged into," he said, putting a halt to his pacing and choosing a fallen log as a seat.

"The grass would be better, my son," Jurwan said.

And the lessons in life begin. "You can burn wood but I can't sit on it?" Konowa asked, throwing his shako to the ground beside him. "Or is it only that I am in touch with nature if my backside is flat on the earth?"

Jurwan began unfolding a cloth-wrapped bundle. "Don't be silly. But you may wish to reconsider your seat, as it is full of ants-a type of biting ant, actually."