Lara's Wanderings

“If the jewels in the backside of the earth’s crust could sparkle down on us any brighter, they would still pale to her inexhaustible beauty,” said Sage, the sixteen-year-old Huldra.

He leaned against a pathetic gnarled tree, just taller than a bush, watching their small herd of four ugly goats. Sage’s brown fox-like tail causally moved in a brushing motion in the red sand dreamily, and his eyes changed color from green to blue.

“She’s the one. I know it,” he told the old Dryad sitting at the doorway of the dark goat hair tent they called home.

The old man just grunted.

Sage put his hands behind his head full of overgrown dark brown hair. He was a strong, thin youth who had earned extra money by doing chores in the small stone town such as digging ditches, hauling rocks, hunting coyotes, or not bothering grumpy tradespeople. His academic education had ended when he fled from the palace of Vervain at eleven years old. His education since was how to survive by getting in and out of trouble. He watched the vast empty desert with the pleasure of one newly in love… again.

“I think the desert wind must pivot around her dainty figure,” said Sage. ” Or would it be better to say rotate? Or perhaps, pirouette? I know! Circumvolve!”

The old man grunted again.

Sage sighed and looked back out at the desert panorama from his home.

The Nomad Desert was named so because it was full of… well, Nomads. It was the place one went when one wasn’t safe or wanted anywhere else. The red sandy wilderness was scattered with precarious rocky formations leaning and tilting in unnatural directions, tempting gravity to pull them down on someone’s head at any moment. The gravelly ground was hard and unforgiving to most soft-footed animal life, including the bipedal kind. A few villages interrupted the naked desert in pure randomness, not regular enough to be found when you really needed them. Tufts of long silver grass scatted the otherwise monochrome desert landscape like a hairy old Dryad who never bothered to pluck his nose or ear hairs. It was a hard place to live. The outcroppings of rocks, caves, and canyons provided an excellent place for Trolls and thieves to congregate for their routine activities of terror. The sun could easily deep fry your skin without the loose Nomad trousers, tunic, and keffiyeh. The massive sandstorms, like the chaos of a black cat’s fury, could kill a man without proper shelter, and the boring substance of water was always in short supply. Yet, the Nomad Desert was a safe place where one can hide from their enemies, at least if you consider your enemies worse than all of the above.

Sage and Toble were exiled in the desert for this very reason, to escape an enemy much worse than the desert, or so they believed. The odd pair had come to the Sprite Nomad village near a muddy spring about five years ago after fleeing for their lives. The races, even in the desert, lived among their own kind in anti-democratic fashion. The Nomads weren’t a race of faerie, just like taco seasoning isn’t a spice, but instead, a collection of the races from the nine countries of Gryphendale with a few odd races sprinkled in for good measure. Sage and Toble weren’t welcomed among the Sprites, so they had bought a goat’s hair tent and settled outside of town. Sage and Toble were also afraid to go among their kind. The Huldra owned the Dryads as slaves. Sage looked up to Toble as a father when his own parents had been murdered. The other reason they didn’t want to go among their kind was that Sage’s cousin, Turmeric, one of the most powerful people in the world, had killed Sage’s parents. They hoped Turmeric had forgotten about Sage, and they didn’t want the Huldra to remind him of their existence.

“You said that about Hazel last week. Cherry hates your guts,” said Toble after a moment of silence. He didn’t bother to look up from a wooden contraption with wings he was trying to fix. “I think it is unwise to set your heart on a girl who told you she would rather sleep with pigs than be in your presence. Besides, she’s a Sprite. Her father would kill you if he thought you were interested in her.”

Toble’s wild white hair stuck out from his head as much as his long pointed ears. He furrowed his thick eyebrows under the layers of glass lenses that were mounted on a massive helmet with other lenses flipped up. The effect was that his eyes looked huge, and light reflected all over the place in strange beams. Toble picked up a metal pick from a long leather roll lined with oddly shaped metal objects so that he could adjust a tiny spring in his device. The disheveled old man was far different than the ambassador fighting for his people’s freedom he had once been. Sage’s father, the captain of the Queen’s guard, had paid for Toble’s freedom and had helped him in his efforts to stop Dryad slavery, but all of that was gone now. He was now just a Dryad tinkerer who sold odd toys in town to affluent travelers for more money than they were worth. His loyalty to Sage was the continuation of his gratitude to Sage’s father.

“She just isn’t used to me yet,” said Sage as his eyes turned green from blue. “Master Kenworth is teaching me how to sword fight, and then she will be impressed. Once I woo her, then we will marry and…”

“More beautiful than Peony or Iris? Are you now calling that over-grown knife you have been carrying around a sword?” said Toble still trying to get his contraption to move properly when he pulled on a string. “No, wait. You thought Jessica was the most beautiful woman you had ever seen last week. I can’t keep up with you.”

“That was before her uncle tried to kill me, and they moved on to another town,” said Sage. “Sprites are by far the most beautiful of the faerie races.”

“And what about the Undine girl last month or the mixed-blood before that. Then there was the human girl,” said Toble still messing with his device. “Drat, I know a spring is loose in your head, my friend, and your nut is too loose.”

Sage sat up wondering if Toble had said that last statement to him, but then he noticed that the wooden device he was working on was a model of a Sprite man. Sage leaned back without concern. He had a hard time finding the right girl, that was all. He was sure he finally found her, but then he started to think about the other girls he knew, and his conviction began to waver. They were each lovely in their way. As soon as they smiled at him, his heart turned to mush, along with his brain. He loved to make them laugh and to see their eyes sparkle. Nothing else mattered after that.

“Aha!” exclaimed Toble with satisfaction as his model of a Sprite with working moth wings finally started to flap its wings.

“I like girls,” said Sage. “I see a damsel in distress, and I want to rescue them. Life out here is tough.”

“We need to move on,” said Toble trying to remove his helmet and then getting it stuck in his white messy hair. “Your brain is starting to rot. You don’t rescue a person from carrying a cup of water or walk down a deserted street in the middle of the day.”

Sage glanced at the old man as he reached for scissors to cut his hair out of the helmet.

“Blah!” said Sage. “I like it here.”

“What about helping the other town’s people?” said Toble in the process of butchering his hair. “You could be learning a trade rather than just sitting around watching the goats. Chasing girls doesn’t earn you a living, you know, and it doesn’t make life any easier for their worried parents.”

“I haven’t done anything to the girls,” said Sage. “So, they like kissing me. I like it too. Why should their parents get so upset? So, what about the other townspeople? They can take care of themselves. Why do I need a trade? I am happy and fine.”

Toble looked up at the young man with a serious expression, at least as serious as one can look with a helmet hanging from your hair.

“Sage, you will never return to your old life,” said the old Dryad. “One day you will want to marry and settle down. How will you feed your family? How are you going to live? You need to start thinking about the future.”

Sage sat up a bit stunned as Toble went back to cutting his hair.

“Think?” said Sage. “Like really work? I suppose the girls might want a real house to live in rather than a tent, but I’m not good at anything. I just do odd things to help people around the town. Sometimes they don’t have more than an apple to pay me with. I can’t make a trade out of that.”

He looked out at the desert sand and the barren wildness. He had always thought this would be temporary, but temporary until what? He had nowhere else to go. He glanced back at the village of stone houses built to last generations. At first, Toble had been worried about being followed, but now they should be making plans. They were poor, and life was just moving on. They lived from day to day on what they could throw together.

It was as though Sage suddenly saw his life from a different perspective, and it shook him. It was the first time Toble had ever said they weren’t ever going back. There was nothing to go back to. They just never talked about it much especially as Sage had been grieving his parents.

Was he supposed to do something with his life? He had never even thought about it since he left the palace. It was as though for years he couldn’t think past today. He had lost his whole life, and there had not been a future except surviving one more day.

Suddenly, Sage sat up and glanced to the east. Riders in black were riding their horses towards them fast. Both Sage and Toble got to their feet as quickly as possible watching the oddity. It couldn’t be official soldiers. Those weren’t Huldra uniforms, and those weren’t shod horses with expensive saddles, and those couldn’t possibly be swords strapped to their sides. The light was playing with his eyes.

The Huldra men in black rode into the small village and stopped at the first Sprite man they saw. Sage recognized him as Tansy’s father. He was a potter and was sitting in front of his house working on his wears. The lead rider dismounted and approached the Sprite.

“Where is Sage Goliad?” asked a Huldra man that Sage immediately recognized from his nightmares, Turmeric, his cousin. “A Sprite man in the village east of here said he tried to seduce his daughter.”

Tansy’s father smirked. The hair on the back of Sage’s neck stood up.

“And everyone else’s daughter too,” said the potter and immediately pointed toward Toble and Sage.

Toble dropped his helmet cracking a lens.

“I didn’t do anything!” said Sage.

“Run boy!” said Toble as he spread his arms out and transforming his arms into vines.

Sage turned and ran as hard as he could into the desert. Within moments, horses galloped up and were surrounding him. Sage was knocked over by a club and fell into the rocky sand. A soldier jumped on top of him and tied his arms behind his back with a rope. Sage tried to fight the man off, but the other soldiers dismounted and restrained him. Sage glanced back seeing Toble calling up plants and vines to fight Turmeric. The power of swinging greenery is nothing to the Huldra flame. Turmeric threw red fireballs burning all the plants, their tent, and what life they had built. Then Turmeric rushed Toble and punched him in the face. The old Dryad immediately crumpled under the blow. Turmeric continued punching. Toble was soon overwhelmed, the plants went limp, and the fight was over. Turmeric grabbed Toble’s tunic and dragged him over to where Sage laid.

“Are you Sage?” asked Turmeric as a soldier began to tie Toble’s arms behind his back. “I must assume that you are.”

“You don’t need my name, you have one of your own,” said Sage still laying in the sand.

“You have your entire life to be a jerk. Why not take today off?” said Turmeric.

“I don’t like procrastinating,” said Sage.

“I have been searching for you for a long time,” said Turmeric. “You have made quite a few enemies.”

“Just the fathers of the nineteen girls I’ve dated,” said Sage.

Turmeric blinked.

“Nineteen? How old are you?” asked Turmeric. “There aren’t even nineteen girls in this godforsaken place.”

“He finds them,” grumbled Toble.

Sage glanced at Toble’s bruised face and then looked away with guilt. He had been reckless, and it was coming back to get him. Then he smirked. It had been fun, though. He liked girls.

“Set-up camp,” said Turmeric. “I have plans for my cousin.”

***

A camp of ten white canvas tents was soon set up with one tall one in the middle. The goats from Toble and Sage’s herd was slaughtered to roast over the fires for dinner. Sage watched all that happened from where he laid in the sand. He counted twenty Huldra soldiers in black uniforms. Five of the soldiers were women. One of the women, the youngest prettiest one, Sage watched with particular interest. He heard one of the soldiers call her Poppy. He smiled at her every time she looked in his direction. She noticed after a while and continued to glance back at him with curiosity.

“Are you going to flirt now?” whispered Toble.

“What else am I going to do?” whispered Sage.

“Think of a way out,” whispered Toble.

“That’s what I’m doing,” whispered Sage.

Toble snorted and then started to cough on the sand he breathed in. The guard watching them raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Sage and Toble were left outside while the soldiers ate in front of their tent by the various fires. The smell of the food made Sage’s stomach growl loudly. He looked up at the reddish sunset.

“Sandstorm is coming,” whispered Sage.

Toble looked up as well.

“I don’t think they would leave us out here unless they want us dead,” said Toble.

“That’s an idea,” said Sage.

Toble glanced at him with a scowl, and Sage smirked at him.

“Sandstorm is coming,” Sage shouted to the guard by them. “You might want your master to know his cargo might get damaged laying here.”

The wind began to pick up, and the guard looked around. He stopped Poppy who was walking by.

“Tell Lord Turmeric that the young man predicts a sandstorm,” said the older soldier.

Poppy saluted.

“Maybe he’ll put me in your tent, beautiful,” said Sage.

The female soldier looked down at Sage still laying in the red sand. Sage winked at her. She kicked his face with her leather riding boot. Sage screamed out with a bloody nose. She then marched off to the large canvas tent.

“Sage, you might want to rethink your life of chasing girls,” said Toble. “You did deserve that.”

“It’s part of the plan,” said Sage.

Toble rolled his eyes.

“I have never heard you be so rude to a girl,” said Toble. “You used to have good manners. It’s almost like you want to be killed.”

Before Sage could respond, Poppy reappeared and motioned for them to come. Three soldiers gathered around Sage and Toble and hauled them to their feet. They walked into the tallest tent that barely had headroom. Inside, a rug, stolen from the village, was laid out with a feast on silver platters.

“Sandstorm, eh?” said Turmeric sitting cross-legged at a lavish meal next to another female soldier. “Sit cousin. Your slave can stay standing.”

Sage’s expression grew dark, and he remained standing. Toble was not his slave, and such a statement boiled Sage’s blood. He may chase after girls, but he did care about people genuinely, especially Toble.

“That wasn’t a request,” said Turmeric.

A soldier kicked the back of Sage’s knees causing him to fall into a kneeling position.

“That’s better,” said Turmeric ripping apart some flatbread. “I have a proposition for you. I think you have potential, and you are wasted exiled in this cow paddy on the backside of the civilized world. After all, you have my blood in your veins. I would like to train you as my apprentice in fire magic. You know I am a powerful man. I can give you anything you want or dream, money, power, fame, mansions, and more. The only thing I ask is for your unwavering loyalty.”

Sage glanced around the tent. Five soldiers and Turmeric were crowded in there with Toble and Sage. The wheels of his underused brain creaked past its rusted static state and began moving in new ways. He had once been called clever before he had been obsessed with girls.

“Anything?” asked Sage.

He then glanced up at Poppy, the young female soldier he had been flirting with earlier. Her face turned as red as her hair, and the corner of Sage’s mouth curled up. Turmeric’s eyes followed Sage’s gaze. He smirked.

“Ah, yes, you do have a thing for women,” said Turmeric continuing to eat. “Yes, young cousin, I can give you anything.”

Poppy stiffened as she glanced at Turmeric and back at Sage. Her expression grew dark. Sage had heard how this new government worked. People were just things that it used and threw away. Male and female soldiers were disposable, but people continued to join the army because it was better than starving to death.

“How soon do we begin?” asked Sage. “Do I get all the girls I want?”

Toble choked and gaged. Then he cried out.

“Sage! All for the sake of a girl!”

The old Dryad fought his bonds until a soldier kicked him into submission. He landed on his knees behind Sage. It was hard for Sage to keep his gaze on Turmeric. He cared about Toble, but this was important. Outwardly, Sage’s expression was hard, and he didn’t look back. Instead, he waited for Turmeric’s answer.

“Wonderful,” said Turmeric as the wind picked up and howled outside. “Yes, yes. You can have as many girls as you want. It’s good for dark magic anyway.”

“But I want her now,” said Sage. “Right here, right now. I am sure she really wants it too. She has been drooling over me the whole time I had been outside. It was a good thing you had a guard because she might have…”

The young female soldier turned even redder, pulled out her dagger, and leaped towards Sage. Turmeric looked up startled.

Sage sprung to his feet. He twisted his arms over his head with a popping sound in his shoulders of a double-jointed acrobat. His hands came down in time to catch Poppy’s dagger aimed for his gut in the ropes around his hands.

His hand began to bleed, but he twisted the rope with a jerk pulling the dagger from the soldier’s hand. In the process, the knife cut his rope loose. Everyone in the tent stood stunned for a moment. As Sage turned to Toble and sliced through his rope tied hands, everyone leaped towards him. Sage could feel hands grabbing at him. He pulled Poppy with him as he fell to the ground. He pushed Toble back, so the old man fell almost out of the tent. Then Sage pulled down all the other soldiers around him until everyone was in a huge dog pile of fight wiggling bodies. Turmeric was dragged into the mess because of a lack of space. Food flew the air. The storm grew louder and shook the tent adding to the general chaos.

Sage manage to wiggle out of the pile and drag Toble with him in a crawl out of the tent. He cut the anchor ropes to the tent as he and Toble ran into the whirling sandstorm. The front of the tent collapsed on the pill of soldiers.

“Have you lost your mind!” screamed Toble over the storm.

“Later!” shouted Sage as he searched the landscape quickly.

The soldiers outside were struggling with the frantic horses and flying tents. The sandstorm was here and growing stronger. No one paid any attention to the men running away.

Sage headed to an outcropping of rocks where he knew there was a cave. It was not too far away, but in the storm, it seemed forever to get there. The wind threatened to knock them completely over. As they approached the massive rock formation, a ten-foot-tall Troll stepped out into their path.

“I don’t have time for this!” shouted Sage.

The hairy creature looked almost human except for its long arms, gnarled heavy features, and bulbous nose. It hardly even knew how to speak. Instead, it roared happily lifting his fists as he started to come after them. There was nothing Trolls like better than fresh meat.

Toble immediate threw up his arms and transformed into a large oak tree.

“What are you doing?” shouted Sage.

“They don’t eat wood, just meat,” shouted the oak tree.

“Yeah! Well that doesn’t help me!” shouted Sage as his voice cracked.

“Then run!” said the oak tree.

Sage turned to run. His only choices were to go to the village that betrayed him or to Turmeric’s camp which was in the process of flying away. He ran as hard as he could towards the village as the wind tore at his clothes. It was as though he had to run perpendicular to the ground to keep the wind from knocking him over. He could hear the Troll behind him as he slid in the sand and fell over a rock. He pushed himself up and continued to run. The sandstorm was making his skin feel rare, but it was better to have raw skin than no skin at all. He could move faster than the lumbering giant as long as the wind didn’t knock him over again.

He recognized the first stone house on the edge of town. That was Jackie’s home. She was another Sprite girl Sage had liked and whose father hated him. What had happened? He used to be known as the nice boy in town who did all sorts of helpful things. Now everyone hated him. Sage barely pondered this as he jumped up and climbed into the window of Jackie’s bedroom.

Immediately, Jackie gave a loud scream from her bed and pulled the cover-up in fear.

“No wait,” said Sage as Jackie continued to scream at him. “I’m just running from a Troll.”

“Who are you?” bellowed a Sprite man running in through Jackie’s door with a sword.

Sage recognized her father and his deadly expression immediately. That was how he looked the last time they met, but he didn’t have a sword then.

“No wait,” said Sage holding his hands up in surrender. “It’s a misunderstanding.”

“You’re that boy who keeps bothering the girls in this town,” growled the Sprite man. “I am going to teach you a lesson.”

Sage backed up towards the window. Now what?

“I never hurt any one of them,” said Sage. “but there’s a sandstorm outside and a Troll and… “

“And you thought you could hide in my girl’s bedroom?”

The Sprite man lunged towards him and swung with his sword at Sage. Sage ducked. A massive hairy arm reached into the window just in time to get hit with the sword. The Troll bellowed out in anger.

“See!” shouted Sage as he darted past the man through the house.

Sage heard two or three more screams from various people in the house before he found the front door. He burst back out into the sandstorm and was nearly blown over. He had to find shelter, but no one in this town liked him much anymore. He felt the full consequence of his reputation hit him. Then again, that might just be the debris in the storm.

The Troll was roaring with anger and banging on the wall of the stone house trying to break it down. Turmeric’s camp was still being blown around wildly, but all the soldiers and Turmeric were trying to run toward the village. Sage wasn’t sure if they were coming after him or trying to find shelter from the storm. Their canvas tents weren’t strong enough to endure this kind of weather.

Sage found a large rock and ran around to the other side of the house to where the Troll was. He threw the rock into the Troll as hard as he could.

“Here I am you over-grown wart!” shouted Sage.

The Troll roared and turned around toward Sage. The sound was enough to make Sage’s legs feel weak. Sage took off running back around the house towards the Huldra soldiers. As soon as they spotted him, they changed course towards him.

“Save me!” shouted Sage. “Save me!”

The soldiers immediately grabbed Sage and held him. One soldier tied Sage’s hands with a rope. Poppy punched him in the face.

“Yep, I deserved that,” he muttered as his bloody noses started to bleed again.

A roar followed from behind Sage, and Sage smirked. The Huldra soldiers all looked wide-eyed as the Troll emerged from behind the house and stood ten feet tall with the sandstorm swirling around him. Turmeric immediately formed red fireballs in each hand. A few of the soldiers took off running. The rest of the soldiers drew their weapons. The Troll lumbered towards them.

A few more soldiers ran off. One started cussing. Another soldier wetted himself.

“Yep,” shouted Sage with a nod. “I make enemies pretty quickly.”

Turmeric glanced at Sage and then back at the Troll. The soldiers tried to hold onto Sage with their free arm as they backed up. Turmeric shot his fireballs at the monster, but that only enraged him. The Troll leaped toward the group. Sage fell backward on purpose and rolled on the ground on of the way of the soldier’s feet. The Troll grabbed a solder in each hand and knocked their heads together. Sage continued to roll like a log away from the fight. The Huldra soldiers then used their swords to cut at the thick skin of the Troll but didn’t stop him. Sage rolled some more towards the desert. A mighty battle ensued as fire magic, swords, the sandstorm, and the enraged Troll converged. Sage kept rolling quietly away.

To be continued… Part 2

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