Silver Shadows - Elaine Cunningham [93]
The words were true; the fact that she was trying to avoid her likely destiny was one of those small details best left unexamined. Foxfire accepted her explanation without further questions. He pointed to the trees ahead, and to the thin wisps of smoke curling up toward the stars.
"Talltrees," he said with quiet satisfaction.
Contained in that word was more than Arilyn could explain-more than she had ever experienced. Never had she called a place home, not in the sense that Foxfire expressed with a single word: a yearning satisfied, a journey ended, a place to which a person belonged.
And a wondrous homecoming it was. The elves who had stayed behind came to greet their warriors with an outpouring of emotion that would amaze anyone who ever had thought of elves as cold and aloof. Among their own, in the security of Talltrees, the green elves showed a warmth that amazed Arilyn.
The wounded were tended first and the warriors fed; then all the tribe erupted into celebration. Those who could dance did so, to the pulsing of resonant skin-covered drum and the haunting music of reed pipes. Skin of berry wine, potent and deceptively sweet, were passed from elf to elf.
At last the revelry subsided into a contented calm. Rhothomir called for the lore-talker to tell the story of the day's battle.
To Arilyn's surprise, Ferret stepped forward. It still seemed odd to Arilyn, who was accustomed to hearing the female speak in whispers, to hear that low and resonant voice. But the elf woman's love of story, and her duty to her role, was soon apparent. Ferret told the story of the battle, sparing none of the painful details-although Arilyn thought it odd that she did not give the names of the elves who were slain. Nor did she omit the contribution that Arilyn had made. It was a fair and evenhanded account, told with a flair any bard might envy.
Seeing Arilyn's puzzlement, Foxfire leaned in close to whisper, "The time for mourning will come with the dawn, or perhaps the day after-or perhaps not at all. The spirits of the green elves are slow to leave their forest home; we do not name them as lost who are still among us."
Arilyn merely nodded, hoping her silence would signify respect rather than extreme lack of interest. The afterlife was not a matter she cared to discuss. Fortunately, Ferret had bowed to the request for another tale.
"In a time beyond the years of any here, our people walked beneath a forest far different from the one we now call home," she began. "Cormanthor, it was called, and in its shadows thrived an elven kingdom of such might and wonder as this world has never known. But even there the elves glimpsed the coming twilight. The world changed, and Cormanthor fell.
"The People who survived were forced to flee. Many retreated to Evermeet, but there were tribes of green elves who would not forsake the land named Faerfin, in honor and in memory of the first elven home. These faithful scattered over the land, carrying with them seedlings from the sacred forest, the children of the maple, the oak, and the elm. We walk beneath these trees today, the children's children of Cormanthor.
"Nor were these green folk the only ones who wished to keep alive that which was Cormanthor. There were many People, some of the moon and the gold races, who continued to walk upon Faerun. One of these is remembered with honor by all the People of Tethir: the moon fighter Soora Thea, who carried a sword of Myth Drannor.
There was in times past an evil race of beings, neither human nor ogrish, that made war upon the forest folk. Their power came from a vast image of stone, the hideous image of a creature from the dark planes. Long ago these people fell, but at certain times their restless undead ventured from the gorge in which they once bad lived to make war upon the goodly folk. With them were fearsome creatures from the dark planes. From all sides these creatures pressed the elves, and for a time it seemed as if the fall of Cormanthor