The Clumsy Elf

"Tell us a story, Aquamarine," the young elvlings pleaded, pulling at the forest green tunic of the short, ungainly elf. He smiled, shrugged his muscular shoulders in resigned amusement, and putting an arm around the shoulder of the most insistant youngster, he escorted the children to a stone bench wreathed in ivy. Gently, almost reverently, he pushed away enough of the persistant vine to clear himself a place to sit. Good. Now he was ready to accommodate his eager audience.

He took a deep breath and gazed upward at the canopy of leaves that the Gathering Oak had spread to shield the elven glade from the noonday sun. The gently moving branches filtered light down upon them in an ever-changing kaeidoscope of shadow and light which played upon the beaming faces of the golden-haired children. He stroked the stubble left on his chin by an indifferent morning shave and smiled. Yes, he was ready to begin.

"You've all heard the stories, even some of mine, about Mored Gore the evil mage, and of the alliance between Farendane Sycamore the Elven hero and Grim Stonehewer the Dwarven King. Together they drove the evil from the land," he explained, telling the children history that he knew that they'd already been taught. "What happened next? Rose-Petal?" he asked a young girl whose bored expression let him know as only precocious children can that "this was stuff everybody had already heard."

"King Farendane and Grim Stonehewer both wanted the mage's scepter as a battle trophy, unaware that the wily wizard had bestowed it with a curse of discord. Both Kings suspected each other of stealing it. King Farendane set up a barricade walling off the road that led into the forest, and old Grim had a stone wall built around the mountain where the mage had built his tower and each forbade the other or his subjects to enter the other's country until the scepter was returned."

"What happened to the scepter?" asked Wilhemina Wildflower.

"Everybody knows that!" boasted Rose-Petal, annoyed that her explaination had been interrupted. That evil old wizard, Mored Gore, had planted a spell on it, causing it to vanish into another dimension."

"Thank you, Rose-Petal," Aquamarine whispered, "you're right. This is history that's been written for everyone to learn. Listen closely though and I'll tell you a story that you've never heard before. Let me tell you the tale of Blood Stonehewer."

"Who is he?" demanded Rose-Petal petulantly, as though offended that this was knowledge that she didn't already possess.

The other children took pleasure in hushing her with whispered warnings and fingers to their lips. Two adult elves standing to the rear of the crowd of children smiled, their feline faces smug in their knowledge of the tale about to be told.

"Blood Stonehewer was the youngest son of Grim the dwarvish King. Ever since the falling out Old Grim and his clan had dug deep into the Wizard's mountain, both seeking riches and fortifying it against their elvish foes. Old Grim had christened his son "Blood" in the hope that his birth in the month of the dwarf God of War would be the harbinger of a warrior king born to lead the dwarves to glory on the battlefield."

The storyteller laughed uncomfortably, then looked about and took a deep breath, savoring the scent of the pungent pines.

"Blood was a disappointment to old Grim though. The din of steel upon steel and the discipline of the drills that led to skill with an axe bored him, and young Blood would often be found in the library instead. The old scrolls which talked of a world of liquid called a sea, especially fascinated him. He was almost seventeen and had never set foot in the daylight world beyond the walls surrounding the Wizard's mountain, but oh, his imagination had fled to those lands of story countless times.

Old Grim would come looking for him, his eyes flashing like the coals used to heat the forge in the armory.

"What the fiery hell are you doing down here?' he'd demand, his jaw firm as his grip upon his axehandle.

"I like the smell of old books," Blood would defend himself sheepishly. "They smell friendly, like wise old guides in tired leather inviting you to join them on exciting quests to exotic places. They don't smell damp and musty like the cold clammy walls of our tunnel homes. How can you call something a home that feels like a lizard's skin and beckons arthritis in your joints?"

"Enough!" Old Grim finally roared one evening. "You want an exotic quest, I'll give you one. You can come with us tonight on our wood-stealing expedition."

Another wood-stealing expedition. Blood's heart sank. Over the years the dwarves had stripped the mountain of all the trees on it. Now they would occasionally leave the mines to enter the forest at night, when the blacjk of night would wrap them in its cloak and the damp of the dew would give the forest a less threatening, foreign feeling. They would fall a tree or two, limb it, then wrap chains around its trunk and drag it back behind their mountain barricade to be devoured by arms wielding axes like teeth to chew it into items that couldn't be made with stone. At night the dwarves were safe from the dreaded elvish longbows, but it was hard, backbreaking work. In the night stones and roots would lay in wait like little goblins to trip up unwary dwarves. Blood's face must have mirrored his unhappiness.

"You'll come with us and you'll like it, " Grim growled as he walked away.

At midnight the dwarves met at the barricade and then followed Old Grim out into the night. The smells of the forest reached out to intimidate Blood's nostrils with their strangeness, and the screeching communication of the forest night creatures sounded menacing as a horde of orcish marauders. Warily Blood tried to peer through the darkness. Limbs became writhing serpents and boulders trolls poised to spring. Blood looked about him in frightened fascination. The rest of the dwarves moved down the trail, stolidly unaware of anything but their mission. A stumble, a grunt or a curse was all the noise Blood would ever hear from them. They set an experienced pace though, and soon Blood found himself lagging behind.

Running to catch up with the group he felt something grab his foot. Tumbling forward, he felt his head strike something hard. He felt himself tumbling for a moment before unconsiousness engulfed him.

"That damn kid probably snuck back to the caverns," Grim grumbled, disgusted with his son. "Wrap your chains around this trunk and put your backs into it. We've got lots of work to get done before light comes and brings those accursed elves down upon us."

Blood awoke with a frightened start. His forehead was throbbing and a trickle of blood had run down into his right eye, clotting there, but he wiped it away and saw now what had happened. Daylight showed him the root that had tripped him up as he climbed out of the gully that ran adjacent to one side of the trail. Daylight! By Gore's scepter, the elves may be about! I'd better make tracks back to the mountain," the dwarve resolved, with a worried look about him.

Thoughts of elves fled from his mind as he became aware of the beauty of the forest. There is no damp here, he thought. The sun's rays drive it away. Red berries hung like rubies from thorny bushes along the trail. Blood tasted one; they were better than rubies; they were giving instead of hard and both smelled and tasted sweetly tart. He picked berries slowly, savoring each ones flavor and admiring the brilliant sunlight as it shattered through the leaves above him. Its golden warmth made the pile of rocks in the dwarves' treasure chamber pale to insignificance. Now Blood noticed the delicate white flowers that were scattered like strewn pearls along the trail. He knelt to learn if they too had a fragrance.

"Watch me split his shoulder blades with an arrow," whispered the younger of the two elvish scouts who had been watching Blood since he had crawled up from the gulley.

"Patience you fool!" the elder scout hissed. "You can pick him off at anytime. Let's see what he's up to." He shook his head disgustedly at his young partner's impetuosity. He watched from the corner of his eye as the young elf beside him smiled with the pleasure of an avenging spirit who finally has his enemy ready to topple to destruction.

Blood moved closer to them, but they were securely hidden from view. By this time the trail had come to a field, scarred only along the path where the dwarves had dragged their trees the night before. Along the other side of the trail long golden grasses moved in the breeze. Caught up in the peace of the surroundings, Blood walked into the billowing grasses and laid down to bask in their scent and watch the clouds. They looked friendlier in the daylight, having shed the looming dark menace of night. Still groggy from his knock on the head, Blood soon fell asleep.

"What's going on?" an imperial voice demanded of the two elvish scouts who had sent a runner back to the clan of the Gathering Oak to summon him.

The two elves saluted King Farendane. Then the younger one blurted out, "There's a dwarf skulking about in the field."

"In daylight?" Farendane questioned, his brow wrinkling as his mind tried to ferret out an explanation for this unusual behavior.

Meanwhile, King Grim had searched for his son; then all the dwarves had joined him in combing the mountain. Finally deducing that he had to have been lost during the night, the dwarvish warriors donned their armor and joined their king to search for his son in the forest.

A roaming scout ran breathlessly up to King Farendane. "The dwarves are on the move," he alerted his king. "I've taken the liberty of alerting the folk guarding the Gathering Oak community."

"Good," King Farendane commended him. "You wear initiative well. We'll meet them here. Take your positions on this side of the clearing. We'll drive them back 'neath a hail of arrows."

The elvish troops gather round the clearing. Soon they could hear the murmur of dwarves and the clanging of their armor as they approached. Old Grim was calling for his son. A sense of urgency had found its way into his voice now, as his son still hadn't answered his increasingly louder bellows.

The noise of the approaching dwarves awoke young Blood, who had sank back into the healing sleep that his throbbing head demanded. Rubbing his still tender bump, he stood up and managed a weak reply.

"I'm over here."

The young bowman next to King Farendane notched his arrow and pulled back the string. It was time to kill the lone dwarf in the field before his companions arrived.

The King silently laid his head on the bowman's shoulder. "Hold," he whispered. "This doesn't look like a raiding party. Stay silent and hold your fire. Let's see what they're about."

"There's Grim Stonehewer," the elder scout next to King Farendane observed, as the fierce dwarf chieftain ambled into the clearing. King Farendane scowled, but gave no further orders.

Blood walked unsteadily to his father who embraced him with relief. As though ashamed by this display of emotion, King Grim stepped back, looked at his son, and grunted. "What the hell happened to your head?" he demanded. "Some elf crack your skull?"

"I tripped last night," Blood confessed with embarrassment.

"You worried the hell out of us," Old Grim grumbled. "Come on. Let's go home."

The thought of returning to the damp, claustrophobic mines sent the shudder through the mind of the young dwarf. He took a deep breath, watching a monarch butterfly flutter above the long golden grass and spotting an eagle soaring off in the distance, perhaps to the shores of the sounding sea of topaz hue. To go back into a hole, like a serpent slithering back into its den of blackness. No. He wouldn't do that.

"Take a look around you, father," he pleaded. "Look at the beauty of the green leaves climbing toward the sky. Smell the freshness that envelopes you. Can't you feel the openness, the freedom that beckons you? How could you ever give this up?"

King Farendane, listening to the young man's impassioned speech, nodded approvingly. This young many wasn't a typical dwarf. Good thing we didn't shoot him.

"You know what happened," Grim growled angrily. "Farendane stole the scepter of Gore. By rights that belonged to me!"

"So you gave all this up in a petulant fit," Blood confronted him bitterly. "Sure makes a helll of a lot of sense to me."

King Grim, stung by his son throwing profanity back into his face, growled, "I won't live in the same land as a thieving elf."

Farendane, King of the Elves, stepped from the forest into sight. "I didn't steal the scepter, Grim," he spoke, controlling his anger with a great deal of effort. "I believe that you carried it off into your mountain hoard."

"I'm no thief," Grim growled, looking about hte elves who ringed the clearing, their bows at the ready. Three dwarves stepped up to protect their chief with their shields. The dwarves behind them knelt and put up their shields to use as a defense against a rain of arrows as well.

"Lower your weapons," Farendane ordered. "I can see you that you didn't come here today to quarrel. Let's have no bloodshed today."

Appreciating the generosity of his foe and letting him extract his forces from a tactically disadvantageous position, Old Grim was man enough to acknowledge the debt.

"Thank you for your courtesy, King Farendane of the Elves," Grim said in a gruff but subdued voice. He stepped forward to shake the warrior's hand.

King Farendane advanced to meet him. As their hands clasped the ground beneath them shimmered for an instant, and at their feet lay the scepter of Gore. The simple act of their handshake had broken the spell of discord.

"So you didn't have it!" both men exclaimed, both astonished at the innocence of their foe. Both looked at the scepter covetously for several moments. Blood Stonehewer finally spoke before either leader could spoil the moment.

"Let this be a moment of reconciliation," he urged. "If it meets Lord Farendane's approval, I'd like to purchase the scepter for my father by giving myself as hostage to the elves for the remainder of my days. I can aid you with stonework and I can fill your scholar's scrolls with tales of dwarish lore.

King Farendane had heard the young dwarve's exchange with his father. It rang to him as sincere as a thunderclap presaging a storm. "I'll go you one better," he smiled. "You're from this moment a free citizen of the Gathering Oak Community, should Lord Grim agree to let you come join us."

The clumsy elf grinned. The youngsters were beginning to guess the end of his story already. It was time to tie his tale together.

"The scepter lays under a monument showing Grim Stonehewer and Farendane Sycamore shaking hands. The statue is ringed by a grove of maples which flame a bright red in the autumn. Hopefully that's the closest thing to the color of blood that you youngsters will ever have to see." He paused.

"Oh yeah. "Blood" isn't much of a name for an elf, is it?" Rose-Petal raised her slender hand to offer to finish the story, but Aquamarine wanted to wrap this one up himself.

"The month of the dwarven God of War has another birthstone besides the bloodstone. One that evokes an image of blue seas under a sky of billowing white clouds. Can anyone tell me the name of that stone?"

The children shouted the answer, each happily trying to be heard over the others.

Smiling, Aquamarine waved them off, then stood up and stretched. The Gathering Oak was his home now, but next week he would be going back to the mountain to visit his father. Old Grim would be glad to see him, and glad to see Farendane Sycamore as well, who would accompany him on the journey. The two old warriors would swap tales of ancient battles and toast each other to a mellow torpid contentment., while the dwarve who'd found his niche as a clumsy elf would listen, and smile.