Son of the Hero

With the sword in my hand now, I could feel its magic.

14 – Elflord

We chased our shadows away from the Mist after we washed off the gore of battle. Despite the continuing risk of being discovered along the beach, all four of us went into the sea to get clean. The salt water stung our minor cuts from the fight with the swamp trolls, but I figured that that was all to the good. It might clean them out, lessen the chance of infection. We headed northeast then, deeper into Fairy. At first, I aimed that way just because it seemed to be the fastest route away from the carnage on the beach. Then it seemed right for a couple of better reasons. Most important, any pursuit would look to the south if anyone suspected that we had come up from Varay. And going north might actually give me a chance to sow some of that confusion I had bragged about, my wild idea to make the Elflord of Xayber think that one of his peers was raiding his territory.

Sunset caught us before we had traveled far, but we kept going as long as we had enough light to navigate by in the open. We stayed clear of the swamp and even avoided the gnarled forest as much as possible. After two hours of riding, we found a sheltered area away from the road that looked decent. There was fresh ru

I didn't tell the others that I pla

I took the first watch again and sat with the two-handed elf sword in my lap. Dragon's Death. The blade felt sharp enough to shave metal with but so strong that it couldn't be nicked or damaged in a fight. Even after seeing the blade in action, I thought that it was an impossible combination. The hilt of Dragon's Death was designed for larger hands than mine, but I could hold it. I might even be able to wield it in a fight-but not a marathon. It was a magic blade. I was still new at all this magic hocus-pocus, but I could feel the sword's magic in my mind, and that's something else that is hard to explain. On the simplest level, it was something like the static electricity discharged when two sets of the family rings touched, an aura, or maybe a physical field. I wished that I knew what the sword's magic was, precisely, how it might help or hurt me. Maybe Parthet would be able to puzzle it out when we got back to Varay. Using a magic I didn't fully understand could be dangerous. I had no trouble thinking of magic as a weapon-a weapon with all the potential of a gun or a sword. Of course, I was already using a lot of magic I didn't really comprehend-the magic of the Hero, the magic of the doors, the magic of the land itself.

It all needed a lot of thought, and I was too tired to do it all that night. I hadn't had a full night's sleep since leaving Varay, and our last night in the swamp had been almost sleepless. An exhausting day had followed. Gil Tyner-Dragon Slayer. Another ludicrous title to add to my collection. Fortunately, my danger sense didn't kick up all night. I woke A

We crossed the spine of the isthmus early that morning and turned north between the main ridge and a line of lower hills to the east. The paths were narrow, often steep, but at least we didn't have the swamp or low-hanging branches to worry about. After the past couple of days, it was almost a picnic. No one had any idea how far we might have to go to find a village or town to harass. I had a rough idea of racing through some sleepy little burg and setting fire to a few buildings before we turned around and scooted south. I didn't want to skulk around slitting throats in the night. Maybe I would face the warriors of Fairy in battle someday, but I had no taste for the kind of action that A

Since my danger sense remained quiescent-just barely ticking over-we didn't push our horses while we headed deeper into Fairy. I wanted to save their speed for our escape. Late that afternoon, I used my bow to bring down a miniature mountain goat after Lesh said that they made good eating. There was a sheltered dent in the hillside nearby, and Lesh assured me that he could make a smokeless fire, so we made camp early and got ready for a hot meal. We hadn't seen anyone on the road all day, hadn't even heard any horn calls.

Lesh did the cooking. Harkane tended the horses. I climbed the ridge to get a better view of the countryside. A

"You don't think much of me, do you?" she asked when I stopped just below the crest, maybe 150 feet above our camp.

I peeked out over the top of the ridge, careful not to stick my head up too far. There was nothing special to see, just more country like that we had been riding through. Then I sat on a rock and looked at A

"You get too much pleasure out of killing," I said. I kept my voice as neutral as possible.

"They were our enemies-my enemies, at least."

"What you did that first time wasn't an act of war. It was something private and dirty-murder, nothing more."

"Vengeance is my right!" She flared the way I had expected her to. Maybe vengeance was her right, in Varay. Maybe, in the skewed logic of the buffer zone, it was even her duty. But…

"That's not the point. What I said is that you enjoy it too much. In my world…" I shook my head. "Let's just say that the standards of my world and yours are considerably different." I didn't want to get into an argument with her. I was afraid that it would get out of hand.

"I've never seen your world." She didn't sound as though she had much interest in it either. "All I have is my world. Why are you here?"

"Damn good question. I wish I had a good answer," I said, still hoping to avoid an argument. It was a question I had asked myself often enough. I still wasn't sure. "I guess I'm here because I'm the son of my parents." I told A

"You're here because it's your duty to be here," A

"That's what everyone seems to think," I conceded.

"You do your duty. I do mine. Is it so wrong to want to do what you're bound to anyway? To enjoy fulfilling your destiny?"

I didn't continue the argument-ah, discussion-because I could smell supper, and if A

Lesh did a bang-up job on supper. He had roasted the meat with the last of our onions stuffed into small cavities he had carved into the meat, and had collected the drippings and heated them with water to give us juice to spoon over the meat and to dip our hard bread in. It tasted like a feast after the days of dried, salted beef. All that was lacking was the beer. The four of us ate about twenty pounds of meat, and there was enough left over for breakfast and lunch the next day-that much longer before we would have to return to our jerky.