“You know, I’ve been this way before, on the way to Pax Tharkas,” she said. “But I’ve never seen the grasslands bloom like this. And in the heat of midsummer!”
Ahead of them, his rough horsehair poncho coated with yellow dust, Greenhands walked steadily onward. His simple, sturdy features took on a special nobility in the warm light of day, and Verhanna found herself studying him more and more as they traveled.
“Ushwah!” barked Rufus. “Dis is tewwibuh! I cand bweathe!”
The warrior maiden dug deep into her saddlebag. In a moment, she brought out a thin red pod, shriveled into a curl. “Here,” she said, tossing it to her scout. “Chew on that. It’ll clear your head.”
Rufus sniffed the tiny pod, but to no avail; nothing could penetrate his stuffy nose. “Whad is id?” he asked suspiciously.
“Give it back, then, if you don’t want it,” Verhanna said airily.
“Oh, all wide.” The kender stuck the stem end of the seed pod in his mouth and chewed. In seconds, his look of curiosity was replaced by one of horror.
“Ye-ow!” Rufus’s shriek rent the calm, flower-scented air. Greenhands halted and looked back, startled out of his unvarying gait. “Dat’s hot!” protested the kender, his small face purpling in distress.
“It’s a dragonseed pod,” Verhanna replied. “Of course it’s hot. But it will clear your head.” Despite its fearsome name, dragonseed was a common spice plant grown in the river delta region of Silvanesti. It was used to make the famous vantrea, a hot, spicy dried fish that was beloved by southern elves.
Their horses overtook Greenhands. Verhanna reined in and said, “Don’t worry. Wart was complaining about the pollen, so I did a little healing of my own.”
Tears running down his cheeks, Rufus sluiced his tingling mouth out with water. Then he sniffed, and a pleased expression spread across his florid features. “What do you know! I can breathe!” he declared.
Greenhands had been standing between their two horses. Now he headed out once more, and they rode after him.
Verhanna urged her mount forward until she was alongside the silver-haired elf. The day was quite warm, and he had flipped back the front edges of his makeshift poncho, exposing his chest to the sun. In secret, sidelong glances, the warrior maiden admired his physique. With a little training, perhaps he could become a formidable warrior.
“Why do you stare at me?” asked Greenhands, intruding on the captain’s thoughts.
“Tell me the truth, Greenhands,” she said in a low voice. “How is it you’re able to do the things you do? How did you heal my shoulder? How did you turn aside a herd of wild elk? Raise flowers out of dry soil?”
There was a long pause before he replied. Finally he said, “I’ve been thinking about those things. There seems to be something with me. Something I carry…like this garment.” He passed a hand over the coarse fabric of the blanket he wore. “I feel it around me and inside me, but I can’t set it aside. I can’t separate myself from it.”
Intrigued, Verhanna asked, “What does it feel like?”
Shutting his eyes, he lifted his face to the golden sunlight. “It’s like the heat of the sun,” he murmured. “I feel it, yet I can’t touch it. I carry it with me, but I can’t take it off.” He opened his eyes and regarded her. “Am I mad, Captain?”
“No,” she said, and her voice was soft. “You’re not mad.”
A piercing whistle cut her off. “Hey!” Rufus called from behind them. “Are you two going to walk right off the edge?”
Greenhands and Verhanna halted, taking in their surroundings. Not five paces in front of them was a deep ravine, cut through the grassy sod by some winter flood. They had been so absorbed in their conversation, neither had noticed the danger.
They turned and paralleled the rift for a dozen yards. Behind them, Rufus rode up to the lip of the ravine and gazed across. On the other side, the sere plain was covered with dry brown grass. At the kender’s back, the landscape was carpeted with lush green grass and a riot of blooming flowers.
“Wha-how!” A neck-snapping sneeze wrenched the kender. His nose felt like it was filling even as he sat. Kicking his heels against his horse’s red flanks, Rufus hastened after his captain. He hoped she could discover another dragonseed pod in her saddlebag.
Late in the afternoon, the trio was well into the shadowed presence of the Kharolis Mountains. Peaks welled up on three sides, and the open ground was ever steeper in grade. Hereabouts there was only one path through the mountains wide enough for horses, and it funneled directly to Pax Tharkas.
Once the carpet of grass and flowers thinned, Rufus found his head much clearer. He occupied his time by tootling discordantly on a reed pipe he’d made back at the Astradine River. The shrill cacophony got on Verhanna’s nerves, and finally she snatched the reed from the kender’s lips.
“Are you trying to drive me mad?” she snapped.
He bristled. “That was a kender ballad, ‘You Took My Heart While I Took Your Rings’.”
“Ha! Trust a wart like you to know a love song with theft in it.” Verhanna tossed the reed flute away, but Greenhands detoured from his path to retrieve it. The warrior maiden sighed. “Don’t you plague me with that thing either,” she warned.
Unheeding, the elf put the flute to his mouth and blew a few experimental notes. His fingers ran up and down the scale, and the instrument trilled melodically. Rufus raised his head and peered down at Greenhands.
“How did you do that?” he asked. Greenhands shrugged, a gesture he’d only lately acquired from Verhanna. Rufus asked for his flute back. When he had it, he piped several notes. Verhanna grimaced; it still sounded like the death throes of a crow.
Before she could voice her protest again, Rufus thrust the reed flute back at Greenhands. “You keep it,” he said generously. “It’s not refined enough for kender music.”
His captain snorted. The elf accepted the instrument gravely and walked along slowly, playing random notes. Without warning, a red-breasted songbird settled on his shoulder. The tiny bird regarded Greenhands curiously, its beady black eyes almost intelligent.
“Hello,” Greenhands said calmly. Verhanna and Rufus stared. The strange elf put the flute to his lips and played a fluttering trill. Much to his companions’ astonishment, his feathered friend imitated the sound perfectly.
“Very good. Now this.” He sounded a slightly more complex series of notes. The redbreast repeated the notes exactly.
A second bird, slightly larger and duller in color, circled the elf’s head and settled on the opposite shoulder. A funny sort of musical trio began, as Greenhands and the little songbird exchanged perfectly pitched notes, while the brown thrush added off-key harmonics.
“The big bird sounds like you,” Verhanna commented to the kender. Rufus answered her with a rude noise.
The captain’s mount danced in a circle. The greenfingered elf had attracted more and more birds; in seconds, he was wrapped in a cloud of wildly singing creatures. He seemed unworried by them, continuing to walk steadily forward as his flute trilled. However, the birds were unnerving the horses.
“Stop it !” Verhanna called to Greenhands. “Send them away!” He couldn’t hear her over the shrill sound of birdsongs. More and more birds appeared, zooming around the group, dipping, soaring, diving. Wing tips and tails grazed their faces. Their mounts bucked and danced.
“Yow!”
A sizable starling thudded into the kender’s back. He yanked off his hat and began swinging it at the darting creatures without success. A careening purple martin flew too close to Verhanna and smacked solidly into her neck. She quickly pulled her visor down to protect her eyes. Though her hands were full trying to calm her frantic horse, she managed to draw her sword.