Tymora's Luck - Kate Novak [22]
"Not to worry," the kender said. He pulled a small torch from his backpack and flint and steel from one of the pockets of his vest. With expert ease, he lit the torch from sparks in a matter of moments. Jas applauded his skill. Emilo bowed and handed the torch to the winged woman.
They plunged into the forest, moving at a quick pace down the road. The ground was dry, but not dusty. The canopy of leaves overhead blocked their view of the stars and moon, but the forest itself twinkled with fireflies.
They'd traveled for some time when Emilo reported he heard someone coming toward them from up ahead. A few minutes later, they saw lights and heard shouts and laughter. Despite Joel's protests that there could be no harm in greeting the natives, Jas was loath to encounter strangers. She insisted they put out their torch in the dirt and take cover. Once Emilo smothered the torch in the dirt, Jas flew the kender and the bard to a branch high overhead, then settled beside them.
The strangers, dozens of them, moved as one, not like a troop of soldiers but more like a mob of revelers. Occasionally one stumbled but was kept from falling by a companion. There were both men and women in the group, all shabbily dressed and dirty. They passed about wineskins from which they drank as if they were dying of thirst. Arguments broke out whenever one failed to pass a wineskin quickly enough to suit his or her companions. One of the women carried an enormous rat in her arms, which she stroked as if it were a pet cat. As the mob passed below the trees where Joel, Jas, and Emilo hid, the stench of wine and unwashed human bodies assaulted the adventurers' noses.
When the last of the strangers' torches had disappeared behind a bend in the road, Jas turned to Joel. "Not the sort of natives we really needed to greet, were they?" she asked with an air of the worldly wise.
"I take my hat off to your superior distrust," Joel replied.
Jas harrumphed. When they'd relit their torch and were once again safely on the ground, they continued through the forest more warily. Emilo traveled in the front since he had the best hearing of the three.
By the time they finally came out of the forest, the moon had set. Some distance ahead of them, the sky was noticeably lighter, as if from a well-lit city. The road now passed through meadows and fields planted with grain and grapes.
The road led through a grove of ancient oaks, and Jas tripped over a huge tree root.
"That's it," the winged woman said. "Time to make camp."
"But it can't be far now," Joel protested.
"Joel, I'm dead on my feet, and I'm willing to bet you've been overly optimistic about the distance we have to travel. Besides, in the dark we might miss the path to Fermata. I think we should rest here until dawn."
"I think she's right," Emilo said. "I'm beginning to feel stretched a bit thin."
Joel sighed. He was eager to see Finder again and excited about the prospect of visiting Fermata, but he knew Jas and the kender were right. It was too late to continue, He nodded in agreement.
Nestled between the roots of the largest oak tree in the grove and wrapped in their capes, Jas and Emilo were soon asleep. Joel, less tired than the others, sat up and kept watch. A trio of raccoons, a mother and her young, trundled past and climbed into their lair in a hole in a nearby tree, but otherwise the grove was peaceful save for Emilo's soft snoring.
As the sky began to lighten, Joel softly hummed a song to greet the dawn. Songbirds began to stir and chirp in the trees. Teasingly Joel began whistling back replies. He felt a gentle hand touch his shoulder.
"Good morning," he said, turning about, expecting to see Jas.
The hand did not belong to Jas, however, but to another woman. An elf maiden was Joel's first guess, until he saw that her curly hair was as deep green as the leaves on the oak trees that surrounded them. Still, she was very, very lovely, slender and graceful, with dark amber-colored eyes and skin as smooth as satin. She wore a gown pieced together of light, shimmering bits of fabric in a