Down the hill from the garden was a cottage, a solid homestead built of stone and thatch. Gray smoke spiraled from its chimney. As the dog barked, he heard the cottage door bang open and a youthful voice call, “Wolf! Wolf, where are you?”
He backed away on his hands and haunches, keeping his face toward the dog. It followed, head down, ears laid back, barking. His fingers found a rock just under the surface of the tilled earth. He pulled it free of the soil and hurled it at the dog.
The effort made his arm and shoulder muscles sing with pain, but the stone found the dog’s forehead. Yelping, it ran down the hill to the farmhouse.
He staggered to his feet, a half-chewed carrot still in his teeth, and made for a nearby canebrake, pushing through the wall of green. Bladelike leaves scored his ruined skin in a dozen places, the wounds like fresh fire. Dropping into the cover of the tall cane, he choked back sobs.
Rapid footfalls announced the arrival of Wolf’s master. He glimpsed a shock of sandy hair, a homespun tunic, and tanned bare feet. With two fingers he parted the cane a little wider.
“Is someone there? Wolf, what is it?”
The youth was an elf, with the sharp chin, narrow nose, and upturned ears of a pure-blooded Qualinesti. The boy was a fine-looking lad, and despite the caution ingrained over the untold weeks since the burning, he was moved to speak.
“Forgive me for stealing. I was hungry.”
Actually, those were the words he intended to say. All that came out was a series of loud, dry croaks.
The young elf heard. Shouting for Wolf, he lashed out with the staff, laying open a gash in the cane and revealing the intruder crouched within. Shock and horror twisted his fine features.
“Goblin!” he cried. “Stay back! Wolf, help!”
He tried to reassure the boy, but his scorched throat wouldn’t form words, only inarticulate grunts. He held out a hand, meaning to show the boy he intended no harm, but the young elf recoiled, screaming, and tripped over a furrow. Wolf rushed forward and buried its fangs in the outstretched arm.
Indescribable agony jolted through him, equal parts pain and fury. He jerked his arm, hauling the dog close, and grabbed it by the throat. He would have throttled the animal had not the boy begun raining blows on his shoulders with the staff.
New pain raced through his body. He hurled the dog aside and reeled away, deeper into the scissorlike cane stalks. The elf boy ran down the hill, shouting for help.
Deeply wounded in body and soul, he fled to the deeper woods, resolving never to show his face to the world again. In the days that followed, he was chased by his own kind, harassed by flies and mosquitoes, and treed by a wandering panther. Where insects bit him, boils erupted. He covered the wounds with mud and kept moving. The urge to go home died, destroyed by the elf boy’s reaction and by the glimpse he caught of his own reflection in a pool of water. The monstrosity that stared back at him was so horrible, he actually recoiled from the sight. The reaction was instinctive, but his was a nightmare from which there was no waking.
The day finally came when his hunger could no longer be denied. Berries, beetles, and snails were not enough. His healing body demanded more. One day deep in the woods, far from any habitation, he smelled the fecund aroma of bread baking. Like a marooned drunkard sniffing wine for the first time in a month, he sought the tantalizing odor, braving discovery.
The aroma drew him to a clearing. He hid behind a thick elm tree and studied what lay beyond. The center of the clearing held a crude hut constructed from rough-hewn trees—a human habitation. It was their way to build shelters from freshly killed trees. Besides, the fire hadn’t stolen his senses completely; he smelled the humans before he saw them.
There were three in view, male and bearded. Were their beards not of different colors he doubted he’d be able to tell them apart. Judging by the row of axes leaning against the hut, the three were foresters. A smoky fire burned in a ring of scavenged stones. The red-bearded man tended a flat iron pan by the fire. The smell of bread rose from the pan. However, the sight of the humans caused something other than hunger to twist in his belly: hatred. These three were invaders in his forest.
“Who’s there?”
Without realizing it, he had allowed himself to be glimpsed by the red-bearded man. He moved as quickly as fire-ravaged muscles and taunt, scarred skin allowed, crouching in a dense thicket. His grotesque shape was barely concealed as the other two humans approached.
“What’s wrong?” called the one on the left, yellow bearded and younger than the others.
“I saw something,” Red Beard replied, standing up from the fire.
“Man or beast?” asked Black Beard.
“Maybe neither.”
Black Beard snorted. “What, again? You see elves behind every tree, Gaff. I told you, the only ones in forty miles of here are in Olin’s slave pens.”
“You don’t know that for sure. I heard a bunch of Wilder folk raided Aymar’s camp just two nights past.”
Yellow Beard agreed. “He’s right. We don’t know what might be out here.” He retreated to the campfire. “I’ll be glad to get the job done and get out of here.”
“Not me,” said Black Beard. “I haven’t seen this much virgin timber in ages. There’s a fortune all around us—”
“Three fortunes,” put in Yellow Beard pointedly. “But we have to be alive to enjoy them!”
The two humans persuaded their black-bearded comrade to abandon the camp. Sunset was not far off, and they’d be safer at the logging camp, where there were soldiers.
The three shouldered their axes and departed. He had no trouble following their heavy-footed progress through the forest. He emerged from hiding and crept forward in a stoop, his fingers touching the leafy ground lightly. Beneath the grime, each hand was a mass of fibrous scars, the nails black and hard as talons; he still could not make a tight fist.
The men had dumped the bread in the ashes, taking the pan with them. The bread was underdone, black with soot, but he’d never tasted anything so wonderful in his life. He finished every ash-covered bite.
In the hut he found a half-eaten fowl and two wizened apples. After stripping the bird’s bones of meat and eating the apples whole, he searched for clothing. A pile of rags in one corner proved to be a robe. It was heavy, made of coarse brown cloth, and ragged at its hem, but he pulled it on quickly. Sized for a human, it easily covered his slighter frame from neck to heels. He hiked the trailing hem up so he could walk without tripping and cinched the sash tight. The garment’s deep cowl was a gift from the gods, but he supplemented its concealment with an old flour sack. With two ragged holes for him to see through, the sack made a fine mask.
Tired as he was, he left the clearing quickly. The loggers might return, might bring soldiers.
He followed a narrow stream until the water suddenly vanished. A few yards farther on, he came to the edge of a ravine. Descending, he found a cave perhaps twelve feet deep and eight high. The stream dripped down from the ceiling, pooled on the floor, and flowed out the opening to continue on its way.
Heart hammering, he curled himself into the deepest corner of the cave. The makeshift mask filled his head with the dry odor of old flour. That, and the unaccustomed heaviness of the food he’d so rapidly consumed, caused his stomach to rebel. He crawled to one side of the little cave and was thoroughly sick.
When his stomach was empty and the heaving had stopped, he dragged himself to the other side of the cave and lay on his back, staring into the darkness.
Birds alighted on him, unaware they perched on a living being. Troops of forest ants, black as polished jet, marched over the twin hills of his feet. Still he did not move, only remembered.