Chapter 442

442 342 – Go Around

“I’m sorry.” Maximus said. “Say that again.”

The tiny elf lad inhaled, taking an extended blink. When his eyes opened, they were clear and determined and the deep green I usually associated with emeralds. “It is fairly easy to understand. Your evil is unwanted here. You may go around, but not through, the sylvan woods.”

“We bring our own food.” Imperious said. “We literally need only enough land to set our hooves upon, and set up camp twice, and only for the time it takes us to cross your forest.”

“That,” the lad said, “was impressively stated. However...”

He looked at me. “Your choice of guides could be better.”

“I’ve done nothing against the elves.” I said.

“Hmm, and yet we seem to have a rampaging minotaur. A minotaur whom... ah, yes, you were supposed to kill.”

Maximus and his fellows enjoyed a chuckle at my expense. “Young one,” Basilicus said, “if you expected THAT to kill any but the oldest and most crippled of minotaurs through anything other than luck, you don’t understand what a minotaur is.”

“The second problem would be your treatment of our neighbors, the deer. Or perhaps I should say former neighbors? How much of your food ration is venison?”

.....

“All right, quite a bit of it.” Maximus said. “Your neighbors chose to attack us.”

“If it helps any, they did put up a considerable fight.” Imperious said.

“It does not.” the lad said. “There is no way that you can cross the sylvan woods. You may turn north, you may turn south. Those are you only options.”

There was a distant rustling, growing closer. It was accompanied by some creative, if anatomically impossible, comments.

“I recommend you hold here, Maximus.”

“More options?”

“Unless I miss my guess.”

“This is a sylvan wood. An alvish wood. Homeland to the elves. You are not welcome here. Go around.”

“Ahoy!” yelled the elderly domug who had made so much noise. “I need to know your name, snake-skin.”

“My name is Rhishisikk...” I said.

“Yah-yah-yah. Good! You and your guests are welcome in domug lands, if they be willing to take an oath of hospitality.”

“You have no right!” the lad said.

“We have the right. And if we needed it, we have the left, as well! This young man...” he pointed at me, “treated my brothers and sisters with respect. I name him friend to the Greywood Domug, and grant him passage, and the right to pee on any of our trees he wishes.”

“Don’t you dare.” the lad said to me.

“I’ve never heard a tree complain about a little extra water.” I said.

His face reddened, if only briefly. “You are denied the Elven Greywood.”

I turned to Maximus. “An oath of hospitality is regarded as sacred to the domug people. Don’t lightly take...”

“Tell us the terms of hospitality, as it is practiced in this land, foreign and distant to us.” Imperious said.

Well, perhaps you don’t know the terms. They promised to be good guests, so long as the domug were good hosts; they promised to leave violence at the eaves of the wood, save to protect their hosts. The domug promised to keep them safe, and warm, with food and drink. And there were other conditions unique unto the domug, none of them too onerous.

In the distance, elves came out of hiding, unstrung their bows, and began wandering off. Save for those who watched us.

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“That... will widen our breach.” the lad said to the domug.

“Haysbury Stalwart.” the domug said, extending a paw toward the lad. To us, he said, “You lot can call me pale mask, on account of this patch of color around my eyes.”

WHAT? How did I not know this? Well, I filed it away under what I knew about the domug now.

“And for YOUR reference,” he said, putting away his untouched paw. “I choose to think that we are merely improving upon the rift between our peoples that already exists. But, oh, it does warm my heart that I get to both do that AND help a friend of my people.”

“Are they all so...” Maximus asked.

“We are, we are.” Mask assured him. “Wait until the exhale is done, and speak quickly, or else you’ll not get in a word edgewise.”

“Seriously,” he asked me, “did you teach them nothing about our people?”

“Enough that they were supposed to bring tea.” I said. I saw Basilicus making negation motions. “Though, regretably, we have lost many of our number.”

His nose twitched. “Well, I hope there is something of cuisine. You big ones bring food of some sort, yes?”

“Venison.” Basilicus said, smiling broadly.

Mask shook himself. “That meat, you can keep to yourselves. But well enough. Well enough. Food is for sharing, and we’ve got ourselves a few herbs and such that we can share.”

“Tell me.” Maximus said. “We have members with as low as four Might, and the movement speeds to match. Might we move at a faster pace?”

“Oh no,” said Mask. “I am old, and cannot move so fast as once I did. And it would be unseemly, unforgiveable, to ask for one of you strong folk to serve as a mount.”

“Ask?” Imperious said. “Elder, let me offer my shoulders as a platform from which to see the world.”

And... we did make better pace.

Although the better camp sites in the Greywood are in elven territory, the domug were not slouches. Their alcohol was sharp and bitter, but they supplied it in kegs large enough that the minotaurs preferred to hold them in both hands. There was lively exchange of beaded leathers and tools both improvised and crafted.

The stories exchanged... perhaps I shall get to them some day. Being a people small and agile, it is little wonder that many of their fables were of the Bow Hero, although it was supposedly the Beads Hero who had taught them the ways of ancient Pictland, and brought them from litters into proper tribes.

Suffice to say, it was a pleasant two days of healing, if one discounts the occasional sour-looking elf, gazing at us.

“Ahoy, Mask.” I said on the third day?

“Yes? Yes? Should have gone on a tree before we left, lad. No time now. Do what you must and catch up.”

“Mask, I notice us bearing to the right compared to the path I thought we were taking.”

“Well, then good thing that I, at least, know where we’re going. Deathbriar Hill, oh yes, yes indeed.”

“Deathbriar?” Basilicus asked. “It sounds just delightful.”

Maximus nodded at Mask. “Please do tell us, please and thank you.”

“Very well.” he said, “I produce for you the tale of Rhishisikk, Scaled Speaker of Truth, and the Sting of the Deathbriar.”

“What?” I asked. “Surely there is a better story than...”

“Yes!” screamed Paisley from behind us. “He is smug and distant and arrogant! Knock him down and drag him through the mud!”

“Yes!” Imperious said. “Through the mud!”

I sighed. “In my defense, I was little more than a year old.”

“Oh no you don’t!” mask barked. “This is MY story, and I shall tell it as I heard it. This, you see, is a tale of one of our scouts, a man named Avery, though he tells strangers to call him Socks.”

Socks, you rotten cat. Why don’t you just invent a song, perhaps a play? Take in on tour across the Tidelands... no, wait. I remember you now. That was not a challenge, and definitely NOT a bet. Just... fine.

“Well, let me start with the innocent here, if you can ever call Deathbriar that. It stings and burns, you see. Covered with thorns, and the thorns with sulfur oil, and the sap of the nasty stuff almost toxic. It’s insidious stuff, that sticks to your hairs and slowly works its way inward.”

“And oh, the stuff stings, and ever worse as you scratch it. So among the kind things our scouts do is they bundle and burn this foul weed where they can find it. Well, on this day we speak of, White Socks had found a substantial pile of the stuff, and pulled it up. He rolled it all up and left it to dry, promising himself to burn it in the morning fire.”

“But what beheld his sleepy eyes, but the very reptile, right there? And what do you think he’s doing with the stuff?”

Basilicus let out a laugh. “He was polishing his scales with the stuff.”

“No.” Imperious said. “Oh, surely he wasn’t EATING it?”

“See? Courteous AND smart.” Mask patted Imperious on the head. “He was slicing the vines open, the better to suck out the juicy innards.”

The entire herd let loose in laughter.

I’m told it’s funnier because it’s actually true. What I find funny is that my System never warned me about anything other than dehydration as I drank down the tasty pulpy insides of those vines. Not a...

“I hear fighting up ahead!” I said.

“Ah, well, this is where you put me down, lad.” Mask told Imperious.

And YES, some of them moved with us, watching from the borders of elven and domug lands, though they never approached us.