3. *The Tale of Green Starfire*

*The Tale of Green Starfire*

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    Little Green

    The little elf-girl sat on her rock in the upper glade of Wolf Mountain, looking out over the vast wilderness of Werelungia. She was a solitary child, often speaking little for days at a time, but she was wise for her years and at one with her surroundings in ways that many folk never can be.

    You see, while she seldom spoke aloud in the tongues of men or elf or dwarves, still she sang with the voice of nature.

    She knew Mielikki without knowing her name. She felt her laughter in the brooks that fell from the stony mountains of the region, and felt her gentle touch on her scarred bare feet in the gentle grasses on which yellow mountain goats fed.

    It was Mielikki that taught little Green to listen for the sounds of hidden beasts, and again this Goddess, in her mercy, that allowed this elf maid to survive long enough to learn to hide herself so that no evil thing could touch her.

    Mielikki had some hidden purpose for this girl, and the little elf listened to everything that was whispered with open green eyes and a kind and giving heart.

    She was an elf who knew little of her own peoples language, sundered from her father since she was but four, and from that time she had found herself under the stoic care of an aged dwarf who spoke even less than she. What common they spoke was of everyday necessities. Often Unca Glum resorted back to the language of his kin, whenever things went amiss, or problems arose.

    Hers was a language of many tongues mixed in a pot of chance, and often, she relied on shrugs and smiles to make her self known to the few of Glum Grimbold's friends who still visited this eccentric dwarf who tied himself to this orphaned elf.

    These dwarves did not look upon her kindly. To them old Glum seemed to have gone a bit mad, to take the whelp of such a foreign race as his own, no matter how fast a friend Grimbold's elf companion may once have been, nor how tragic his demise.

    They had no room in their stony hearts for such charity, and Glum's friendship with his old campaigner friends was lessened, and though he did not tell the child, he missed his drinking companions, and his past, freer life.

    Glum still worshipped the old God, the One God of Dwarves who is these days forgotten by most modern folk. While many younger dwarves look today upon specific dieties who favor War or Mithril or Deep Places, old Glum worshipped The Great Father Niblungeon, even though Niblungeon had long ago locked his heart against his sturdy creations, perhaps forever, and has been largely forgotten by dwarves and men alike of modern Narfell.

    This rough old dwarf often sat now on his little stone bench outside his stone cottage, built in the manner of men of the province of Belesar, on which borders of which he had settled, forever, he now supposed. He often felt too creaky to wander far, let alone fight were-rats and such things that dwelt in the region.

    He could no longer hear, as his working his little forge for a multitude of lives of men had destroyed his hearing. He worried at times about his little charge, knowing that if she called, in that birdlike way she had, he would no longer be able to come to her aid.

    While he did not miss the sound of regular songbirds particularly, being a dwarf, he grudgingly admitted to himself that he would very much like to hear Green sing once more. While this elf-whelp was a stone around his aged neck that weighed him down with his comrades, she never, ever complained about his untidy cabin, nor his snoring, his pipes, or any of his other dwarvish vices.

    She was becoming a wonderful cook, and even brought home the supper these past years.

    If she ever fell to a werebear….

    The hoary dwarf pretended to brush an annoying fly away from his right eye.

    Perhaps even a werebear would not slay her now, he thought, chuckling to himself. He had to admit, for an elf-maid of 35 years, she was blinding quick. Nothing seemed to daunt her, and even the orcs of the upper wood let her be. Damnation, they feared her quick ferocity.

    She had come home chagrined and red faced some months back, as if she had committed some mistaken bit of elvish etiquette that caused her embarrassment. At first, he clucked at her funny look, but then, his alarm grew as his gaze followed the red spatter down her left arm, onto his stone floor, and out and up the trail.

    Upon further inspection it was clear that her bowstring had caused the grievious injury, ripping a huge swath across her tiny forearm, right to the bone.

    She stood there embarrassed, showing no pain, only an aggrieved look of have bumbled an orcs point-blank charge. It had wrestled for her bow, and i the end, she had had to stab it with her good arm it the eyes with a shaft.

    From that day, after clumsily bandaging her wound, he knew that she was somehow no longer his charge, but her his. He relaxed a little in his treatment of her, and was less gruff.

    He often wondered about that bow of hers though.

    Now, as he sat lazily on his granite bench, he lazily scratched his ragged leather britches puzzling this over with a sour look. He HADNT showed her any weaponry besides simple staff and knife work....and a little of the double handed fancy stuff with some old blades of her Pappa.

    How DID she make that bow? Who in Baldazar's blazes showed 'er how to manage ta string it? An whar' she get those purty metal-headed arrows. Surely she didnt MAKE 'em 'erself?

    Uneasily, Glum thought of the young girl's superb woodcraft, of how her fires seemed to leap up in the hearth of their own accord, and the strange way in which the little 'lass, as he referred to her, could get the wee birds to alight on her little arms and seemingly converse with the critters.

    Real tears, like huge round raindrops, suddenly smote the grass at the round dwarfs feet, as the image of little Green blurred to another elf, the best friend he had ever had in his long years, who often had similarly held a great hawk on his green leather-gloved arm. Truly, this was his friend’s daughter then in more than name.

    The hawk lifted off on the desert updraft, leaving the elf's arm, climbing high into the air. Sand whipped below the elf's lightly armored pony as the bird lifted up above the golden floor.

    Wing Captain Orion Starfire loved these Campaigns. The hot sun baking ones armor, the sand, the breeze from these Scout-Hawks, everything about it made him feel alive. Out here, on the desert plain, was the true test of all the training and preparation his three companies had undergone.

    Behind him, some 20 leagues south, the hazy mountain ring of his homeland sat, visible through waves of heat, like a fluttering mirage. His Wing had halted, in three carefully arranged columns, as the Scouts picketed the rocky terrain ahead. Beside him, his Orderly patiently sat on his Gray, staring ahead into the north. All the men were eager for action, but the signs pointed that the enemy was two days ride North-west, in the vicinity of Captain Findin's Wing.

    The Darra Aswak stretched like a crescent around Gallandar. Each year it grew a little larger, and the Elvish Engineer Corp would measure it's progress. 10 meters a season, the Elvish Kingdom was being encircled. Twas not a natural thing, but some mighty Sorcery from the Great Beast that lie ahead, protected by his tens of thousands of Minions, mostly Orcs on fell Wargs, but other un-named terrors lurked there as well.

    All knew that time was against the elves, that as the desert grew, so His power also waxed, and the Magic of the Elves waned. The inevitablity of it all was lost on no one. But fight on they would. They had no other recourse.

    The Companies ate a light lunch of rations on their ponies, stout little beasts who seemed to fly about the desert when called upon. The companies were arranged by color, Grays for Falcon, Tans for Eagle, Whites for Hawk. They were 97 strong today, all experianced Bowmen, and a very potent force, each Company accompanied by a healer and a mage, and Captain Starfire at their head.

    A large force of some three thousands of the enemy had been discovered by scouts from Fortress Wallendar some six days past, and a full Host of four Wings had been dispatched to discover their purpose, and drive them back if possible. Orion's Wing was most Eastern, and in the likely, (and perilous), position of encountering any further activity on their right flank, where the desert terminated in the foul and rocky cities of the Enemy.

    The two middle Wings had the job of eliminating the direct threat. Probably, Wing Starfire would not be involved, and would only watch the flank.

    As a matter of safety, the pickets had ventured in pairs some leagues ahead north-easterly that morning, and now the time had arrived for their signal back to the Hawks. Gazing up, shading his green eyes against the great orb that was the sun in this place, Starfire watched the three birds circle.

    Their pattern, at first circular and slow, was changing dramatically. The bird’s speed increased until they formed soaring figure eights flying at incredible speed. The young Captain's training now took hold, although he already knew in his heart what the result of the impending events would mean.

    The Hawks were trained to signal enemy numbers, distance and disposition by their movements. Starfire had, as a regular 'Rider in Wing', experienced scores of skirmishes and engagements, but in his long years, he had never witness an intelligence like the Hawks were conveying.

    His Scouts would have to be dead. The enemy was on three sides, within 4 leagues, mounted, and moving towards him.

    There were fifteen thousand of them.

    He did not fear then for the life of his men, or doubt that they would stand. None would flee. The elves of Gallendar survived only because of the discipline that they held, they were trained to fight against overwhelming numbers until death took them or the order given.

    What he did have to hold back from creeping into his thoughts, with great difficulty, were the thoughts of Wallen, nestled in the distant mountains behind him. It was only a small, walled settlement of mostly Druidic folk, animal herders, farmers, and gentle sheepherders. Beside it, a league or two west, at most, lie the safety of Wallendar, perched in the cliffs, it's 70 foot, massive walls proof against any attack of only orcs.

    But, there would be little warning if Wing Starfire was swept aside, and the fact that there were enemy charging in on both his flanks hammered the hard fact into this Captain's mind that his companion WIng to his west was either destroyed or badly overrun.

    He alone would have to stop this charge, and he knew they could not.

    But the fear of the loss of these civilians was not his worst nightmare, for not only strangers lived midst the settlement of Wallen.

    The young Captains mate Celantra, heavy with their first child, a young priestess of Mielikki, lived in the grove near Wallen.

    Holding back his horror, Captain Starfire barked the neccessary orders.

    His two fastest riders were sped off to warn Wallen and Wallendar of the impending major attack. The garrison at Wallendar was well stocked and could survive any fifteen thousand orcs. The determined Captain was going to see they faced many less, and buy time for the inhabitants of Wallen to reach safety with the lives of his men.

    He order the Wing to a low, curved rise just ahead. Company Eagle formed a skirmish line to the west along the narrow hill, and the Whites of Hawk formed along the higher eastern prominance. Starfire's elves would hold the center. He pulled 10 elves back to his rear as a support reserve, some 200 yards behind the main force, on a tiny rocky cleft.

    The Wing's Archers formed up quietly, with no visual signs of distress. Each archer remained mounted, some three yards apart. In this way, the force was stretched out a considerable distance in the form of a slight Bow Formation. Each archer possessed a large pack of available arrows, all enchanted, 300 per Rider. The Mage artillerists were sent to the far flanks to help staunch flanking maneuvers by the superior force. The Healers stood behind the line, and the Officers to the front on the slight grade.

    Three Golden Banners rippled in the slight breeze, and a calm settled upon the proud force.

    The ground was not the best, but it was the only decent place to make a stand. The Captain made note of the time, and ordered his senior artillerist to fire a warning flare for the benefit of any friendly forces nearby. "Overwhelming mounted enemy force", was the high, bright flares meaning.

    A pity, thought the young Captain, that it was too far to be visible to the poor inhabitants of Wallen.

    A Siege Host of Morthrab The Dark struck the right, and best situated flank of Captain Orion Starfire's Wing late in that afternoon. Company Eagle, commanded by a feisty young Lieutenant, opened fire at 100 yards. The enemy force was composed of mostly well motivated orcs on worgs, followed by whip wielding ogres. Upon command, the elves let loose a wall of death, and several hundred orcs perished.

    The elves kept up a hot fire, pouring arrows into the advancing lines of orcs at incredible speed. The rise here was steeper than further to the west, and the wargs and orcs began to pile up along an impossible to cross line midway up the slope.

    To their left, the Orcan force struck the Captains men, followed finally by the tans to the west. All held, and the Mage-elf on the eastern flank cast a mighty bolt of lightning enfielding the sand covered slope, slaying 50 orcs himself at Captain Starfire's front.

    They held long.

    Line after line broke on the shining elven force. Thousands of wargs and orcs, intermixed, lie dead and dying under the harsh sun, but their numbers began to work around the stronger positioned right flank.

    Many of the orcs carried heavy crossbows, slow to load, but deadly to a lightly armored, mounted elf.

    Soon the healers had their hands full. They each carried a sack full of healing scrolls, but the limited number of healers made the end inevitable.

    The artillerists were soon forced to begin falling back and into the center of the Bow, as the flanks began to be breached by single orcs.

    To the rear, for a while, the reserve kept these creatures down with long, well placed shots.

    Starfire fought at the forefront of his Company, rallying his wounded men, seemingly everywhere, with a determined, unbeatable look about him. The line still held an hour from the start of the bloody battle, although many elves now lay amongst the orcs.

    The dark force made no pause in their concentrated attack, driven by some unseen intelligence quite beyond them. It was clear that the way to crush the Elvish Bow on the rise was simply to exhaust it, and this, at the cost of thousands of their comrades, they efficiently proceeded to do.

    The collapse finally came about on the right, where the enemy force was heaviest. Suddenly the trickle of orcs became a flood, and two, five and more elves simply were caught in a bloody tide of death as the line collapsed from right to left. Many of the ponies were now badly wounded and unmanagable, and the entire right company seemed to simply melt away as Captain Starfire watched in horror.

    He gave the only order left to him. An ivory horn sounded, and those that could, spurred their mounts back towards the reserve unit, who still occupied the rocky outcropping.

    Order had collapsed at last, as there was no place left to fall back to not occupied by the enemy, except the outcrop. The Captain, with a few elves still around him, made the top of the rocks. He surveyed the scene, which now, in the late red afternoon sun, resembled some ocean of hell, boiling with orcs, ogres, worgs and a few doomed elves.

    Reining up to the little group who still were firing madly, the remnants of Company Hawk joined their companions on the little rocky hill. The Captain was now wounded with a pair of orc shafts in his right shoulder. There were but twelve left, all with horses still.

    Orion Starfire saw that the time for standing valiantly to hold off the tide had past, and that their only hope was a mad dash, along and through the unorganized ranks of damaged forward orcs, back towards Gallendar. He had the wild thought that he might yet reach his wife alive.

    The twelve rode for their lives.

    The ponies of Gallendar are without measure in endurance, but surely here was the bravest test any rider and steed have faced.

    Through a cloud of desert sand they raced, as dusk settled and orcs wildly plunged about, and many beast and monster fell, as these archers seemed to improve at speed, rather than decrease in accuracy.

    It was deep night when Captain Starfire made the remains of Wallen with 6 of his comrades still in the saddle. The houses burned, the beautiful fountains were spoiled, and even the trees themselves were ruined. But still, there was hope. A Company from the Fortress had beaten the orcs to the village, and held back much of the initial skirmishing orcs, and now a much larger elven force was beating off the remnants that marauded here still.

    The Captain was tired beyond reckoning, injured grieviously, nearly blinded with blood as he reached the once neat cottage he had shared with his beloved, Celantra.

    Alas.

    She lie in the wreckage of the garden. She had not heard any warning. While she lived yet, the young Captain knew that his wife would not survive to walk with him again in the woods that she so loved.

    He was unable to pick her up. Starfire's aide had survived the battle, and carried her as the Captain stumbled along beside him. With the sad remains of his devastated Company behind, Orion Starfire returned to Fortress Wallendar no longer a Captain. He was the husband of a dying wife and child.

    Celantra lived for five days with her wounds. In that time, her husband neither rested nor ate, taking only a little water. His own wounds were easily treatable, but he fiercely refused, and it seemed to his own men that he perhaps was losing his mind.

    She delivered her daughter on the fourth day, and it seemed to take the last of her strength. She held her a while, and named her Green, for the color of her eyes and her hair, and the child's eyes seemed to reflect those of her father, melancholy at losing a mother she would know only for a moment.

    Celantra was wise, and saw in her daughter special gifts, and that Mielikki would love her in her absence.

    _"Born, with the Moon in Cancer,
    Choose her a name,
    She will answer too.

    Call her Green,
    So the winters cannot fade her.

    Little Green,
    For the season that we made her.

    My little Green,
    Have a happy ending."_

    (Derived from “Little Green”, by Joni Mitchell)

    With the passing of Celantra, it seemed to all that knew him, something of Orion Starfire left as well. He no longer had the heart for soldiering, though his talent was great.

    He requested and was granted a long absence from service, and quietly left the elvish lands of Gallendar, with his tiny daughter Green, and passed from the Record Halls of those lands for all time.

    The day had ended, and a cool dusk had descended on the Mountain. Green sat on her haunches, in a grassy meadow in front of a massive opening that led back into a dark cavern. The place was fraught with death, full of unseen creatures of the night, but the girl often came here to dig wild sweet potatoes for her and Unca’s evening meal. He would be hungry soon.

    She carried on one side a curious bag on a strap, made of the same leafy-fabric that passed as clothes for her. On the other side she carried a small woven basket, with an attached lid. The basket was open, and half full of roots.

    The girls actions were puzzling. She carried a little knife, and carefully proceeded to dig up the little round, red roots. The larger ones she slid off the blade into her basket, but the smaller ones she flicked deftly skyward, where they seemed to magically shoot into the darkening sky, entirely out of sight. Then, she would pause, head cocked, eyes shut, frozen in time.

    Suddenly, her basket arm would move, and the little potato would come sailing back, plopping into the pile precisely in the basket’s center.

    For a while she continued this, quietly, like some peculiar mantra of harvesting. She never missed, and her eyes remained shut.

    Then, as one particular root sailed up, a dark cry emerged from the cavern, and an incredibly fast, black, flying thing sailed into the darkling sky. Its wingspan was three feet, and it moved faster than a human can follow, disappearing up into the night sky above the young elf’s head.

    Her head cocked, and she leapt. The wicker basket snapped shut with her momentum, with no potatoes lost, and the little elf’s toes reached a point in the sky higher than her own standing height.

    Elf and bat met at a little falling potato. Her knife, tiny by a warrior’s standards, skewered the potato and wild thing in a quick embrace of death.

    She landed on her feet, placing bat and sweet potato neatly into her basket, and began the ascent to the rocky peak to complete her nightly prayers with her supper feast safely tucked away.

    Glum Grimbold’s simple, rocky cabin on the side of the wild’s of Wolf Mountain, had been the only home that Green could remember. She knew each rock, every rabbit hole and all of the place’s hidden secrets. In truth, she could walk it’s treacherous cliff trails and terrible rocky landscape safely blindfolded, another game that she often played to pass her days here.

    This mountain had shaped her into a wane, hard little thing on the outside, and she seemed more a little mountain-lizard than an elf. Her face was hard and serious, and she looked older than her years.

    The top of the mountain was the tallest thing in the Province. It was treeless, and looked down upon lesser peaks surrounded with soft, white mist, now blue in the gathering darkness.

    Here was the place where Green felt what little comfort she ever gathered for herself. Here, she felt, she could talk to her momma, whose note she held close to her heart always. Surely here, if anywhere her words could be heard.

    Likewise, from this vantage point, she might watch poppa ride the night sky, ever the warrior. His constellation rode the Sothron sky here, three stars on his belt for his lost Companies, still loyal and following their Captain, evermore through the night.

    Green prayed as these thoughts passed through her simple head. She did not know the name of the Great Goddess who watched her young days, but she felt her presence and kept true always to her wishes,

    Intuitive and giving as had been her mother, Green understood that everything worked in a balanced circle, that good deeds wrought them back upon oneself, and that there was a place for all of Nature’s creatures.

    Always, she tried her best to please Mielikki, but the young daughter of Captain Starfire and gentle Celantra felt a great emptiness within her, a yearning for folks to share her days with.

    Green gazed out towards the east. For long she looked, with the eyes of an elf who has grown accustomed to looking far. She was rewarded with a distant, feeble light, atop some distant, unseen peak. A beacon, that she knew, was lit atop Dragontooth Keep, on the mighty river Beles, two weeks journey away. Beyond that, somewhere, were the lands of her parents.

    In his last years, Glum Grimbold related to Green, her poppa had grown tired of the injustices found in the government of Belesar. Although a stranger in the land, Starfire was a mighty warrior by any countries measure, and together with Grimbold, and Lasko One-Hand, and other wandering soldiers of fortune, they had formed a respected little Guild of Adventurers. Their deeds had brought reknown, and they had all amassed considerable coin, magic trinkets, and gems.

    Rather than riches, or drink or song, Starfire had turned to the poor and ill treated Underzens of the land, the Gnomes, who suffered greatly under the human rule of Belesar. No lands could these peoples own, nor homes, nor decent jobs. They were doomed to slavery by their race, and this, Unca Glum related, was something that Orion Starfire’s heart could not accept.

    At great cost, he had purchased a mighty estate around the ruins of an old, rubbled castle keep, and had set about building it anew. He hired Gnomish architects and diggers, and open the lands to all free peoples to come and live. Glum himself, being the oldest and tiredest member of the Adventuring Guild, set about managing the construction while Starfire led the Adventurers on yet more Quests.

    It was in her fourth year that tragedy struck, and her Poppa fell, in some terrible and dark place. The work on the Keep, her Poppa’s dream, was stopped.

    Unca Glum had tried, on many occasions, to relate the story to Green, but always, the tale ended in silence and hidden dwarvish tears, and Little Green would have to console her overcome old Uncle.

    But, she had memorized each word of the parts of her father’s history that he did tell, and she held close to her heart her Poppa’s equality and understanding of other races and peoples, and vowed that her life would be spent in continuing his work. All folks were the same in Mielikki’s eyes. All the good races were truly Brethren, Brethren of Orion, her father, and of her, his daughter.

    The light of Dragontooth was lost to little Green as whispy clouds blew in, and Green’s heart was saddened.

    She would go there, when she was ready, and her skills with a bow were well honed, and she would climb to the top of that never to be finished Keep, where the light was kept lit by the Gnomes who remembered her Poppa, and there, she promised Mielikki, she would listen to the great Goddesses subtle whispers, and pick another point to travel to, and her boots would carry her there, following the blowing leaves, to whatever end Mielikki chose for her.

    The little elf finished her prayer, and started home with her little basket of bat and potatoes.

    Green Starfire, Bowstress of Mielikki
    Played by The Great Balls O'Fyre


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