The Last Satyr: The Company is Formed Part 1

Ronthiel grew open eyed in alarm. He could see this was headed for a conflict. A fight between an elf and a satyr! No one had ever seen such a thing!

What the other elf had said was, again, intended as an insult, but Draugo spoke the truth. Satyrs did lie most of the time, or, at least, the boy did.

Draugo was waiting for a reply and the boy, fearing the knife, gave him one. “There are some stories I’ve stretched but mainly I tell the truth.”

“Don’t you have that backward and that you mainly tell lies?”

That was true too, but if the elf thought he was insulting the boy, he wasn’t. The boy took pride in his ability to spin a good tale. He was spinning one right now, just evidently not a very good one.

Now the boy had never seen anybody that didn’t lie at one time or another, except if they were an elf, but he guessed that was the other’s point. But, if so, it put them back where they started from.

“I mostly tell the truth, with some fibs, as I said before,” he answered.

Of course, that answer was, again, a fib. Most elves found it easier to count the grains of sand on a beach than the boy’s honest words in a day.

“Don’t you want to fight?” demanded the elf. “Don’t you know when you’ve been insulted? Are you that dumb?”

“You’re the one with the knife,” said the boy. “I don’t have one. But, I’ll tell you what, if you give me your knife, I’ll fight you.”

Now Draugo quickly did the math and, what with their only being one of them with a knife, the one without it was at a considerable disadvantage to the other. “Go get your own!”

“Don’t have one to get,” said the boy. “But, if you think it’s a fair fight for one to have a knife and the other not to, I’ll agree to take your knife and fight you with it, which seems to be fair terms to you.”

Draugo’s mind kicked into gear, assessing the offered situation with a glance. The realization settled on him—the odds of the exchange weren’t in his favor. “I’m not giving up my knife!”

“Figure you can’t win without it, do you? Who is the coward here?”

“All right!” said Draugo. “I’ll put it away.”

And then he sheathed it. “There!” he said. “Now it’s fair!”

“I don’t know,” the boy countered in disagreement. “I’m still bigger and stronger than you and have hooves. That doesn’t sound fair to me at all. It sounds like you’re going to get hurt pretty bad.”

That Draugo fellow still looked fit to fight for a few more moments until the light came on over his head and he realized his physical disadvantage. Once again, his knife came whooping out.

“All right!” he said. “Now, it’s fair - My knife to your hooves!”

“I don’t know. You can throw a knife but I can’t throw a hoof.”

That was true, the other realized. “All right!” he agreed. “How do we make this fair?”

“Well!” the boy offered, “I could use your bow and arrow and you could use your knife.”

“What?” demanded the white-haired elf. “That ain’t fair at all! You could kill me where I stood!”

“Then I guess it wouldn’t be fair if I gave you the bow, and you gave me the knife?”

Now the boy had no intention of fighting no matter what the choice of weapons was. His choice was to keep the battle to words, which was how satyrs fought (and won) but Draugo didn’t know that. He was still taking it seriously and Ronthiel, who was looking on, was starting to smile with laughter at the standoff.

“So?” the elf insisted, still wanting to know. “How do we do this fair?”

“Well! If you want to do it with knives,” the boy offered, “then I think you ought to fight my big brother. He’s an elf too, and he’s got a knife. He kills people like you all the time.”

Now, this was another fib. Oh! The boy had a bigger half-brother named Sith, and he was an elf and he did have a knife. But he’d have never offered to fight for the boy. Indeed! If he were to take sides, it would most likely be Draugo’s. But Draugo didn’t know that.

“Well! I’ve got a big brother too,” said Draugo. “And he can kill your big brother!”

“I think you’re lying,” answered the boy. “Ain’t nobody yet killed my big brother.”

Which was mostly on account of the fact that he’d never fought anybody yet either.

“Well! There’s always a first time!” Draugo argued.

So they agreed on the time and place where Draugo’s big brother would meet the boy’s big brother in a duel of knives to the death. Of course; the boy had no intention of honoring the agreement. As long as he wasn’t present for it, that was all that mattered. Little did he realize Draugo didn’t have an older brother either and so also had no plan of keeping the scheduled appointment.

So each was left thinking they had outsmarted the other. That is, until Ronthiel spoke up.

“You don’t have an older brother,” he told Draugo.

Exposed, Draugo turned and charged at the boy, drawing his knife as he did so. The boy's decision to fight with words alone had just been called.

Yet the elf had made a mistake. The boy had self-preservation instincts. His right hoof kicked out and connected with Draugo's shin as an amazed Ronthiel watched.

Draugo’s face went red and contorted into a grimace. He collapsed to the ground with a sharp gasp. He clutched his left shin tightly, tears coming to his eyes, and his knuckles turning white from the intensity of the pain. His attempts to stand were feeble, each movement marked by a wince and a soft moan, revealing the depths of his agony. He might as well have been kicked by a mule. In truth, he was lucky he didn’t have a broken leg.

The boy could have finished him off then, but that isn’t how satyrs fight. The best time to leave is with the upper hand. He did as all satyrs did. He lit out for home. Draugo found a rock and threw it after him, hitting the boy square in the back, even at a distance, as only an elf could do.

But there was no pain, and it was worth it. The boy laughed.

He ran home with the elf boy hobbling after him. Once he got inside the door, the elf boy had to stop outside and the boy made faces at him from inside at the tree house window, jeering him.

“What are you doing?” Athiel wanted to know.

“Nothing,” the boy answered, leaving the window. “There’s this new boy outside looking for trouble.”

Her response was to go outside and order the white-haired elf away. While she did so, the boy made more faces at him from the window from behind her. Of course, he and the elf would meet again, but nothing would come of it. The elf went away limping and would not soon forget being kicked by a satyr.

As for the boy, it was time for supper and his Aunt’s waiting inquisition as to what he’d been stealing today and from whom, in order to force him to return his spoils of ill gotten treasure.

For this, he would now have to be on his best guard at the table or risk being caught in a lie. For every dinner with his aunt always became a duel of wits.

It quickly began.