The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [2]
Even though he was eager to ride east to Deverry, Ebañy Salomonderiel would never have left the elven lands until he’d celebrated this most holy and terrifying of days. In the company of his father, Devaberiel Silverhand the bard, he rode up from the seacoast to the joining of the rivers Corapan and Delonderiel, near the stretch of primeval forest that marked the border of the grasslands. There, as they’d expected, they found an alardan, or clan meet. Scattered in the tall grass were two hundred painted tents, red and purple and blue, while the flocks and herds grazed peacefully a little distance away. A little apart from the rest stood ten unpainted tents, crudely stitched together from poorly tanned hides.
“By the Dark Sun herself,” Devaberiel remarked. “It looks like some of the Forest Folk have come to join us.”
“Good. It’s time they got over their fear of their own kind.”
Devaberiel nodded in agreement. He was an exceptionally handsome man, with hair pale as moonlight, deep-set dark blue eyes, slit vertically like a cat’s, and gracefully long pointed ears. Although Ebañy had inherited the pale hair, in other ways he took after his mother’s human folk; his smoky gray eyes had round irises, and his ears, while slightly sharp, passed unnoticed in the lands of men. They rode on, leading their eight horses, two of which dragged travois, loaded with everything they owned. Since Devaberiel was a bard and Ebañy, a gerthddyn—that is, a storyteller and minstrel—they didn’t need large herds to support themselves. As they rode up to the tents, the People ran out to greet them, hailing the bard and vying for the honor of feeding him and his son.
They chose to pitch the ruby-red tent near that of Tanidario, a woman who was an old friend of the bard’s. Although she’d often given his father advice and help as he raised his half-breed son alone, Ebañy found it hard to think of her as a mother. Unlike his own mother back in Eldidd, whom he vaguely remembered as soft, pale, and cuddly, Tanidario was a hunter, a hard-muscled woman who stood six feet tall and arrow-straight, with jet-black hair that hung in one tight braid to her waist. Yet when she greeted him, she kissed his cheek, caught his shoulders, and held him a bit away while she smiled as if to say how much he’d grown.
“I’ll wager you’re looking forward to the spring hunt,” he said.
“I certainly am, little one. I’ve been making friends with the Forest Folk, and they’ve offered to show me how to hunt with a spear in the deep woods. I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
Ebañy merely smiled.
“I know you,” Tanidario said with a laugh. “Your idea of hunting is finding a soft bed with a pretty lass in it. Well, maybe when you’re fully grown, you’ll see things more clearly.”
“I happen to be seventy-four this spring.”
“A mere child.” She tousled his hair with a callused hand. “Well, come along. The gathering’s already beginning. Where’s your father gotten himself to?”
“He went with the other bards. He’ll be singing right after the Retelling.”
Down by the river, some of the People had lashed together a rough platform out of travois poles, where Devaberiel stood conferring with four other bards. All around it the crowd spread out, the adults sitting cross-legged in the grass while restless children wandered around. Ebañy and Tanidario sat on the edge near a little group of Forest Folk. Although they looked like the other elves, they were dressed in rough leather clothes, and each man carried a small notched stick, bound with feathers and colored thread, which were considered magical among their kind. Although they normally lived in the dense forests to the north, at times they drifted south to trade with the rest of the People. Since they had never been truly civilized, the events that they were gathered to remember had spared them.
Gradually the crowd quieted, and the children sat down by their parents.