The Last Satyr: The Company is Formed Part 1

With the dawn, they breakfasted on fish again, before following the stream that ran out of the lake. While they wouldn’t know their location once under the trees, they were confident the stream would eventually lead them to a village.

The higher trees above the lake were thin, but there was a much greater stand of forest ahead. While opportunity lasted, they feasted on wild blackberries while they could before reaching the heavy, dense and leafy, gray trunked wood that waited for them. But to enter, they first had to climb down rocks and slopes of tangles of rose-vines, honeysuckles, and morning-glories.

“We are in the forests of Danmire,” Graybeard told them. “It has been a long time since I have been here. Smile! We have friends here. And we are lucky it is spring. It is most beautiful here now.”

“It most certainly is,” Ronthiel agreed.

The boy stared into the forest. It was dark in there. No satyr likes darkness.

“Is there not a road we can take?” he asked.

“Why? What is the matter?” asked Ronthiel.

“I don’t like the confines of too many trees.”

“Just as I do not like the confines and darkness of a mine?”

“Yes. I suppose it is the same.”

Tall, dark trees were for elves and not satyrs. Ronthiel was quite at home here. The boy certainly wasn’t.

“There are no roads here or we would be taking them,” Graybeard said. “This is elf country. Here the roads are rivers and the carts, canoes.”

“Then lead on,” the boy reluctantly agreed. “Let Ronthiel be our guide to scout.”

That seemed agreeable to all. So they followed the stream with Ronthiel at their lead and Graybeard behind him. For the most part, they simply waded in the stream water or walked on the stream rocks, for it was seldom more than ankle-deep and the banks covered in brush. But, eventually, the stream joined another stream and, combined, the two became a creek and, further still, it joined another large creek with water too fast and deep to wade and they had to take to the banks of the shore, now free of brush in the absence of sunlight. They traveled now through bare dirt, moss, ferns, and flitting birds amid the rushing sounds of babbling brook water beneath rustling leaves.

“This creek should lead us to the Loren River,” said Graybeard as they moved along. “I seem to remember it now.”

“I have heard bad things of this place,” said young Joe.

“You should. Humans are seldom welcome here,” answered Amien in agreement. “But believe not the worst of your tales. Only evil humans are unwanted here and I can assure you, evil you are not.”

After a while, Ronthiel stopped, looking up for the hundredth time in curious wonder.

“I have not seen such trees before.”

“No. I suppose you haven’t,” Graybeard said. “And there are a great many of them. The trees on one side of a mountain are seldom the same as the trees on the other.”

They were so deep in the forest now that the great gray trees were of mighty girth but, unlike the giant conifers of Linthiel, these were not of needles but leaves and not of rough, dark bark but smooth gray.

“Less rain makes for different trees,” said Graybeard. “Even the squirrels are different here.”

The boy stopped and turned to look about, wondering what Ronthiel saw. Instead, he found himself looking into an arrow pointed straight to his head from but a foot away.

An elf dressed in grey held and aimed it, and who eyed him suspiciously.

Indeed! Now Marroh too faced an elf with an arrow drawn back and then young Joe, also. In mere seconds, they were surrounded by elves all dressed in grey with arrows pointed at each of them—all except Graybeard and Ronthiel.

Marroh turned a wary eye to the arrow pointed to his temple, and said to its owner, "If you're aiming for my best side, tis the other.”

“Are these your captors or your friends?” a blond-haired elf demanded of Graybeard, arrow ready.

“They are friends,” said Graybeard. “It has been a while, Halmuth.”

The elves lowered their bows and arrows. The boy gave out a welcome sigh.

“Why do you bring humans into our wood?” asked the one Graybeard had addressed as Halmuth. “They cut our trees and kill our deer.”

He looked momentarily at the dwarf but said nothing. Evidently, it was all right for him to be here.

“They serve my captain,” said Graybeard.

“Your captain?” asked Halmuth in surprise. “You mean Azazel?”

“I mean the satyr,” said Graybeard.

Halmuth gazed back at the old keeper, wondering about that. His keeper’s captain was a satyr? But if he wanted answers, Graybeard’s face was a mask of stone.

With no reply, Halmuth now investigated the satyr boy.

“Am I to believe,” he said, walking up to the boy to have a look at him, “that my keeper serves a satyr boy?”

“That would be correct,” answered Graybeard for him.

“I have not seen a satyr for quite a while now,” Halmuth stated of the boy. “They are liars and thieves.”

“That they are,” Graybeard agreed. “And they have a most keen and critical wit. I would be careful of the boy if I were you. You might just become the next victim of it.”

“I shall take that advice,” said Halmuth before turning back to Graybeard. “How many are you?”

“Six,” replied Graybeard. “But another follows behind.”

“We shall find the seventh,” said Halmuth.

“You shall not,” Graybeard stated evenly. “The seventh shall pass without your noticing.”

“Impossible! No one enters our forest without our knowing!”

“This one does.”

The boy realized Graybeard meant Ronthiel’s crow was the seventh behind them. That is why it would pass without their knowing.

“Where are you going?” asked Halmuth. “We shall take you there.”

“We are headed to the land of the Rim Riders,” said Graybeard.

Halmuth seemed to disagree with their destination.

“You are not their keeper,” insisted the elf. “What do you want of them?”

“Horses,” Graybeard explained.

“A dwarf and an elf in search of horses?” spoke Halmuth coolly. “Why does that not have a ring of truth?”

“It is what we seek,” Ronthiel assured his eastern cousin.

“And who are you?” demanded Halmuth of him. “And why are you dressed in the green of elves of the west instead of the grey of the elves of the east?”

“I am Ronthiel, son of Aram. I come from the west.”

Halmuth now recognized him.

“Ah! Yes! I once knew your father,” he said in recollection. “That was a very, very long time ago and before you were born. Much has changed since then. How did you come here? The pass is blocked by snow.”

“We passed through it by a mine.”

Halmuth stared at him in doubt. No elf enters a mine.

“Is your mother a dwarf?” he asked in disbelief to hear him say this.

“Do not insult my mother, Halmuth.”

“I see,” said Marroh of their exchange. “But it’s okay for him to insult mine?”

“I meant no insult to you,” replied Halmuth. “You are welcome here. Unlike these two humans and the satyr!”

“Enough!” cried Graybeard, interrupting. “You shall take us to the men of the Rim!”

“Very well,” Halmuth reluctantly complied. “But we shall stop along the way at Anathel for the elders to meet you. Is that agreeable to you?”

“It is,” answered the old keeper.

“And we shall all hear what they have to say about this!” stated a dissatisfied Halmuth.

Halmuth now wanted to divide his elf troop, leaving half to guard the wood to watch for the “seventh” that followed and the rest to escort them to their city of Anathel. Yet Graybeard strictly forbid it, saying that which followed them was not hunting elves but, interfere with it, and it would. The boy realized now he was not describing Ronthiel's crow but that thing in the mine.

Personally, the boy hoped they would stop it but Halmuth reluctantly obeyed and the boy's goal thwarted.

It was several days journey along the creek, which now became a river, just as Graybeard said it would. It transformed into a winding ribbon of liquid silver, guided them through the heart of Danmire Forest. Its gentle currents whispered secrets to the moss-covered stones, carrying tales of distant lands and forgotten times. The trees of Danmire Forest grew even heavier and darker still, until there was no light at all beneath them, not even enough for a fern to grow by, though it was mushroom paradise. It made the boy long for open spaces as the forest kept closing in around him.

For two days and one night, they traveled, being fed fair elfin food that was delightfully strange to all of them—even Ronthiel.

Yet the Gray Elves seemed to increasingly look back behind themselves as if they were being followed. Indeed, their tension increased by the hour. To the boy’s growing discomfort, he noticed the blond haired, blue eyed Halmuth abruptly stop, turn, study and listen. He even fitted an arrow to his bow while watching their backside. His keen eyes showed not only concern for what was back there but fear. It was the fear of the unknown, of knowing something's back there but not what it is. He knew he should see it and yet he couldn't. His sharp elven senses strained against the secrets of the forest. His gaze darted everywhere between the towering trees, searching for that threat which eluded even his heightened perceptions. The muscles in his jaw tensed, fully knowing it was there. It was if he could feel eyes boring into his and his troops. His grip tightened on the bow, a subtle sign betraying the unease that gripped him. Yet then he abruptly turned and followed the others.

In the late afternoon of the last day, they reached Anathel. The Gray Elves did so with relief.

Like Linthiel, it was built upon the river, and the elves had made their houses inside the trees. But, unlike Linthiel, they had changed the appearance of the place such that it wasn’t hidden at all.

Anathel, the elven city, emerged from the landscape like a mirage sculpted from dreams. Its homes nestled within trees resembled delicate birds’ nests, while the paths woven between them were like intricate threads of destiny connecting different lives. Though one still did not easily see the homes, the grounds were obvious. Some of the trees had been felled to let in light and create open spaces of lush green grass and the smaller trees had been sculpted by the elves into wondrous works of art—the boy saw trees shaped into various animals such as squirrels and birds, all beautifully done. And there were brick laid paths everywhere without a single weed to be found in them, and rock walls and stone bridges that could only have been made by dwarves. Gardens of sweet fragrance were opulently stocked with hollyhocks, marigolds, touch-me-nots, prince’s-feathers, and wild geraniums whose spread of intensely red blossoms accented the prevailing pink tint of the roses like an explosion of flame.

“Dwarf work,” said Marroh of the stone-cut paths and felled trees. “But not these fine gardens.”

“The dwarf is correct,” Halmuth said to them all. “The dwarves carved these rocks for us long ago when we sided with them in the First War of this earth and the final Kindred War of the last earth. It is the only elfin city of its kind.”

“I see there is cleared land ahead. Who cut the trees?” Amien asked. “And do you still have dwarves?”

For elves do not cut down trees.

“Lightning,” answered Halmuth. “They burned down in a freak summer storm, for we do not cut trees as you do, other than from within. But the fire stopped short of here. The new open land produces many tasty berries here now.”

“I like it,” said the boy, relieved of the darkness and the confined space.

“It is truly beautiful,” agreed Amien of the place.

“It is without blemish or deformity,” acknowledged Halmuth.

“It is like a spectacular garden,” said young Joe.

“In many ways, that’s exactly what it is,” returned Graybeard. “For the elves cultivate trees as you would a garden.”

There were ponds and pools of clean, clear, flowing water filled with trout that ran throughout the city, and white flowers decorated everything.

“How did you ever get the dwarves to leave this place after they were done building it?” wondered Marroh. “It’s too beautiful to even imagine!”

“I was not here then to witness that answer,” said Halmuth. “Come! Let us meet the Elders. They are waiting.”