“What you never asked, I will tell you.” Alteima offered. “A rare gift from a shaman to her stubborn acolyte: Did you think you were the only one who was visited by the spirits last night?”

  Simone blinked. It hadn’t occurred to her.

  Alteima laughed gently. “You thought I simply wanted to tease?” She got up, bending a little in the low tent, and moved towards one of the tribe’s prized possessions: a rare wooden chest.

  Since the elves of the plains avoided the forests, wood was scarce, so something like a chest was treasured.

  “A lesson, my acolyte: A shaman doesn’t reveal all she knows. That is one of the first lessons in wisdom.” Alteima offered.

  “Your human, Ash, left this for you.” Alteima explained as she rooted through the chests’ contents. “I thought it prudent to hold on to it-” She straightened, holding a roll of leather, which she passed to Simone, “-since there had never been a need for it, before.”

  Simone accepted the leather bundle; something hard was secured inside. She unrolled the leather to reveal a long, slender knife made of metal.

  “A human weapon.” Simone mused sourly. “I’m to have this?” She asked.

  Alteima nodded. “He gave it to me to give to you.” She offered by way of explanation. “I had originally thought to discard it, as we have no need of such things, but something- perhaps a far-seeing spirit- made me stay my hand. My vision last night clearly showed that you would have need of it, so-” She gestured at the long knife.

  Simone picked it up, fingers closing around the grip. For a moment, just a moment, the leather-wrapped grip seemed to warm in her hand, and there was a strange sensation, as if the grip was writhing under her hand. She immediately released it, and let it fall into her lap.

  “What- what was that?” She muttered, a faint expression of disgust flitting across her face. Was this really a gift from Ash? She thought back- even from the moment she’d met him, he’d been unarmed.

  Ash had explained to her that the boat he’d been travelling on had broken apart in a terrible storm... and that a giant bird had plucked him from the waves and deposited him upon the plains. She still wasn’t certain what a boat was, but the giant bird had to have been a thunderbird, a rare and powerful spirit-made-flesh.

  After recuperating in the village, he had spent time with the tribe, until one day, he decided that he needed to go north, to the forests. Simone had accompanied him across the plains, teaching him trailcraft. They’d parted ways after they’d reached the forest’s edge. He had been an extremely strange person.

  Simone looked up at Alteima.

  “He returned, didn’t he?” She suddenly asked, curious. “From the forest.”

  Alteima smiled enigmatically, provoking another frown from Simone.

  “Why would he leave me such a thing?” She asked, eyeing the blade distastefully. Knives were useful- the People of the Plains traded for them with the Sea Elves, who knew the secrets of metalworking- knives and hatchets both, but it obviously wasn’t a knife that was meant to be used as a tool. Even in the low lighting of Alteima’s tent it seemed to gleam with a hungry, murderous intent.

  This was a weapon.

  “We are, each of us, guided by our own motivations, just as we are also guided by the spirits.” Alteima replied. “Perhaps he felt it necessary to give it to you. Perhaps, in his own way, he was following the will of the spirits.” She lifted her hands and gave a small shrug.

  Simone picked up the long knife again, and once more the grip seemed to twist in Simone’s hand briefly. The feeling was there and gone in the space of an eyeblink, and once the feeling was gone, the knife itself seemed to feel like it was almost an extension of her own hand, her arm.

  She unconsciously lifted the knife from her lap and sighted down the blade; the edge seemed to gleam with a sharpness that seemed thirsty, as if begging for something to cut.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  She set it back down again, and wiped her hand unselfconsciously on her skirt, trying to scrub away that feeling, and glanced up at Alteima, who watched Simone placidly.

  Simone wanted wholeheartedly to refuse to leave. She was willing to stay and listen to a thousand lectures from Alteima on medicinal plants, on the stars, on the clouds, and the esoteric arts of communing with the spirits; she would even fetch water for the older woman if it meant that she didn’t have to leave.

  But it seemed as if the spirits had different plans for her.

  “Tell me everything I need to know before I leave.” She half-spat.

  Alteima smiled again. “If I taught you everything, you would be my age before you left... and I don’t think we have time enough for that. Instead, I will tell you...” She paused a moment in thought, “what I hope will be enough.”

  *****

  It was raining again.

  It seemed like it was always raining in the colony of New Degan, Mercedes mused as the rain tapped on the hood of her cloak and ran in thin streams down the sides. Her armored boots squelched in the mud as she led her horse out of the stables into the latest downpour.

  It was inevitable, storms blew in off the ocean all the time, and New Degan was a costal colony. Degan itself, a nation thousands of miles away across the ocean, wasn’t nearly as bad. Well, at least where Mercedes was from.

  “Well, that might be a lie.” She muttered to herself wryly, recalling the dreary spring rains that came to the capital every year. Still, how long had it been since she’d seen the sun?

  She swung into the saddle and urged her horse into a quick walk; she wanted to at least get out of the city and to one of the nearby villages before night set in.

  As she rode, she considered some of the things she’d learned since arriving on this new, untamed continent.

  The first thing she was amazed at was the number of elves- and of the seeming lack of humans. In Degan, in her homeland, elves had been a minority, a single race in a sea of humanity. Here, though, elves roamed the plains and forests, and fished in the sea- and the only humans of note were the ones that brought her to this land.

  It was the elves of Degan that brought the faith of the Goddess to the humans; teaching them the secrets of agriculture and medicine. At first, it was a single tribe of humans, rough and uncivilized, but eventually, tribes joined together, a village became a town, a town became a city, a city became a nation. The nation shivered apart into smaller nations, but even as things changed, the elves still maintained their faith in the Goddess, and so, for the humans, elves were synonymous with the church.

  As she left the city, a fierce gust of wind rushed into her from the side, blowing rain into her face, even forcing her horse to stagger. The clouds overhead opened up briefly, revealing an afternoon sky, the gust of wind died down; the rain ceased.

  Mercedes glanced up at the sky and closed her eyes for a moment, just letting the sun bathe her face in its warmth. Already the clouds were bunching together; the sunlight wouldn’t last long. She nudged her horses’ flanks, and began her journey west.

  The colony itself was loosely divided into three parts- there was the inner city, with stone buildings; the central keep where Lord Leonard lived; the Church, where Mercedes made her home, and important facilities that were necessary for the colony to function.

  Radiating out from the central part of the city were the less-important parts, blacksmiths, farriers, fletchers, inns and taverns, stores and warehouses.

  Beyond that were dirt roads that lead out to farmsteads, the furthest part of the colony- places where the only sign of human civilization was a few homes clustered together.

  She’d have miles to go, and days of travel ahead of her.

  The road that led from the capital to the northwest was muddy and ill-used, with deep cart tracks carved into the soil. It wound its way around hills and clusters of trees. Off in the distance was the gray-blue haze of mountains, their white tops disappearing into the clouds. As far as Mercedes knew, no one had attempted the climb up those peaks.

  Humans did that sometimes, and not just for the ever-elusive hunt for minerals like iron and gold. She’d met one once, back in Degan.

  “Why do you do it?” She’d asked him.

  He grinned unashamedly at her before answering, “Because it’s there.”

  She wondered if it was a human thing. Certainly, she’d never met any elf that wanted to climb a mountain simply because it was there.

  The wind was blowing steadily, constantly threatening to tug away the long and fur-trimmed cloak she wore. The chill in the wind sapped the sun’s warmth, but she still occasionally glanced up at it, if for nothing else than to feel its light on her cheeks.

  Eventually, she’d reach the hamlet where the farmers reported the “monstrous beasts”. Eventually, she’d make sure they felt the sting of her sword. And eventually, she hoped she’d find the reason why she chose to come to this strange continent.