The river was about 300 feet wide. His best record for a long jump, if he could get enough speed and the terrain was just right, was 182 feet. Most elves could jump 150 feet without the need of an extra puff of air.
“No. We don’t cross here. The water is too deep and too fast. We need to walk further up. It will widen and there will be rocks and boulders that we can step on.”
They leisurely sauntered upstream, admiring the scene on both banks. It was the first time the elf had ever been here. He lived way upstream. And for the little girl, she had not been here since she had become a little girl. It had not changed a bit. But the girl remembered it to be a bit more bustling.
“So you jump over rivers?” Elena asked.
“Yeah, back home, the rivers are smaller. Cause we live so much more upstream from here. So we just jump over them. We don’t even build bridges. But the low elves have much bigger rivers. So they build a lot of bridges.”
“Hmm, interesting. So they‘re the low elves and that makes you the high elf.”
“High altitude elves, to be more precise. Have you been to Everglades?”
“No, that’s too far. I’ve only been around here.”
“Whoa, you’ve lived for four hundred years and you’ve only been around here. How boring is that?”
“Pretty boring. But that’s the way it is.”
“It doesn’t have to be. You can always travel. Do you want to come for a visit? After you get your pea, I mean. I can bring you to my home, the land of the elves. It’s very nice and breezy.” The elf continued to describe the pristine condition of the villages and towns in Everglades for as long as they walked.
The river slowly widened and so did the banks. The forest had gladly moved out of the river’s way. By the look of the banks, desolate and the complete absence of vegetation, the river must have frequently flooded over in violent gushes washing away all traces of lives.
After three hours of strolling on the bank, they reached the area where the river abruptly widened up three times and the river opened up wide, as wide as a little lake, and the section went on for another five thousand feet before it narrowed back to its normal width. The river here was much slower and calmer and smoother compared to the rapid flow further downstream because the water could now spread over a larger area. Not far from the river, a massive granite mountain about three thousand feet high and three times as wide stretching far into the forest stood erect with a rather flat top. It was grey in colour and inhospitable to life. The face towards the river was a sheer cliff and rugged. At some point in the past, the mountain had broken up in a devastating landslide and littered its pieces all over the river, which still could be seen as the many big greyish boulders dotting the greenish clear water. Besides that, a number of shoals and islands of gravels and sands lined the river.
“Now, this looks more manageable. It’s less deep,” the elf said. “If we can find a shallow path, we can waddle across. But how come it looks so lonely, like it’s … empty. But it’s beautiful here. We can have a picnic. Eat some berries. Drink some crystal clear water.”
“We don’t have time to picnic. And there’s no shallower path so you cannot waddle. I’ve been here many times. And I don’t want to get wet,” said Elena.
“So, how did you cross the last time?” asked Darius and the girl looked at Darius with a funny smile.
“By riding on the back of my pets.”
“Seriously?” And the elf realized the awkwardness of the matter, “You are not suggesting that you’ll ride on my back and I’ll take you across the river.”
“Yes, I’ll be riding on you and you’ll jump, since you’re a good jumper, and bring me across. You’re my pet, aren’t you? Now, be a good pet.”
Darius would be more than obliging if she was pubescent, properly grown up and attractive. But she was a little girl who was in fact a grandmother. He shook his head smiling and turned to contemplate the river.
“You do know how to plan.” The elf did not know what else to say. “It would probably take me ten jumps to get across, using those boulders and sandbanks. There’re solid, I reckon.”
“Yes, they are. Can we start?”
The elf got down on a kneeling position and the girl climbed on. He was not that willing but he was not too reluctant also. “You don’t seem to be very heavy. That’s good. Cause if you are, you’ll pull me down and affect my jumps.”
The elf prepared himself and backed up a few steps. In his mind, he had already worked out the sequence of jumps and the stepping stones that he was going to use. He must do it all in one go, follow through each jump with the next, nonstop. No sightseeing here. It might be difficult to execute the next jump if he stopped at one of them. There might not be room to back up and run to get the needed momentum.
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“Hold on tight,” the elf said and he felt the girl clung at him tightly. He could smell her flowery scent and hear her breathing. Vaguely, he could feel her beating heart through his back. It’s so sweet. Taking a little girl across a river. What a peculiar sensation, he thought. And off he went. He ran towards the water and at the last step, his leg pushed and launched him and the girl into the air. The elf’s legs were running on air. In a second or two, he was about to reach the first boulder. Picking a correct spot, his leg pushed as he landed on the boulder and he was off again cutting through the air. He reached the next one and bounced off that much like a pebble bouncing off water when thrown at a flat angle and at a quick enough speed. When he landed on a sandbank, he ran a few steps before thrusting himself back into mid-air to regain some of the lost momentum. In total, the elf executed nine jumps to cross the river.
He was gasping for air when he reached the opposite bank.
“Your stamina don’t seem too good,” commented the girl.
Darius looked at her with a rather strained ironic look. “From someone who couldn’t even jump …”
“I don’t need to jump. I have pets. Now come along, we don’t have all day,” said the girl simply.
“That’s my best jump, ever. I’ve never in my life made ten jumps in a row.”
“Nine.”
“That’s still remarkable,” said the elf indignantly.
The two backtracked the river to get back to the confluence. But it took them an hour more because it was harder to walk on this side of the river. The bank was much narrower and uneven.
“Why don’t we just walk through the forest till we reach the next tributary?” asked Darius.
“We are no longer in Oldbark’s domain. There’s no protection anymore. It’s a wilderness in there. It’s safer to walk closer to the bank.”
“Wild animals come out for water too.”
“At least, you’ll see them.”
When they reached the confluence, they turned right. They walked on the bank nearer to the forest. The bank near the river was rather muddy and they saw some animal tracks fresh on the bank.
“Those are deer tracks,” said Elena. “When there are deer, there are carnivores. So, keep a look out.”
On hearing that, Darius was bit worried. He had never been in a forest with a small girl and without weapons. And now, there were carnivores.
“Just for your information, at this state, I can’t fight a wild beast,” said Darius.
“Why, you’ve suddenly turned humble,” chaffed the girl.
“I don’t have any weapons. Your old pal grew roots into my sleeve arrow. Remember. And what happened to caravan trail?”
“It’s on the other side.”
The elf looked across the brownish river and a earth road, neat and flat, was running along the river. ”Then, why are we not on the other side?”
“I’d told you before. There’re dangerous beings on the other side.”
“In that case, why is the trail over on that side and not here? Isn’t it dangerous for the caravans also?”
“When you get back home, you should ask your father.”
“Why? What does this has to do with my father? Why can’t you tell me?”
“I think, for this part of the history, your father is the proper person to tell you.”
The trail on the opposite bank ran all the way to the Big Fork, where the caravan could cross the little Arwen on an old log bridge built by the elves centuries ago. They would then end up on the north bank of Mother Arwen and continue on to Boarbourg.
“But many don’t use it anymore,” said the girl walking very attentively so that the mud did not get on her dress and shoes. ”Some still do, but many don’t. They prefer to go straight and round the Big Fork and then crossed the bridge to the south bank. That will take them straight to Rock Bottom, you know, the place where you were thrown out. All the business now goes on over that side.”
At the mention of the incident, the elf was discombobulated. He kept quiet and looked down. The burning eyes of the old goat came to his mind again. Is he terrified of him now? Has the old goat turned into a perpetual nightmare?
After a while, the girl asked, for the sake of breaking the silence, “So, what have your father taught you? I thought the fish race is a race of formidable warrior and you can’t fight a wild beast without weapon,” asked the girl after walking for a half hour in silence.
“If I’m my father, I could kill any beast with a flick of my finger,” replied Darius. He was disheartened by his earlier thought. He was not in a mood for small chat.
“Really?” the girl said casually.
“Yes, he’s pretty advance in his training.”
“And you?”
“I’m … somewhere there, not too advance.”
“That means you’re still at the basic level.”
“Approaching intermediate, to be precise,” snapped the elf but then, his tone came down. “Anyway, I don’t have much time for training. I like to train more. But I have no time.”
“0h, why is that?”
“It’s my mother. She always asked me to study … study this and study that … study the mechanics of the machines, study the methodologies of warfare, study the laws of nature, the elaborate system of counting, the secret of the stars … It goes on and on and on. And what’s the worst? She plans on sending me to the dwarves. To study the ways of the dwarves. An elf,” he emphasized the word elf, “studying from the dwarves, how … ridiculous is that.”
“And what did your father say?”
“He’s scared of mother. He didn’t say a word. I begged him, I begged him to stop mother, but he won’t.”
The elf almost cried as he said it.
“I’m sixty three now. I’ve been training since I was ten. If I could really train, I would be approaching advance and not nowhere. All of my friends have surpassed me. They all get to train this and that. But I’m stuck with the books and the scriptures and the scrolls.”
“If you hated it so much, you should talk to your mother.”
“She won’t listen. I think something is seriously wrong with her. I mean no disrespect. For example, she thought that it’s already enough to master the Butterfly Dance. There’s no need to go further and learn the Bee Sting. It’s enough to know how to run away. There’s no need to fight back.”
As the elf explained, his grief slowly turned into resentment, the logical conclusion of the fact of how weak he was. And he blamed his mother totally for this.
“If I’ve learned a few fightcraft, I could have taken down that old goat. I can kill any beast that is going to pounce on us.”
“There’s no need to kill the beast that is going to pounce on us. There’s always another way.”
“Like what?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. You are the pet. And I’m the master. And, please, you won’t be able to take down the chimera. Don’t ever think even for a second that you can. Not even your father, the great Haleth can take him on. Remember that. You will get killed.”
“How do you know my father’s name? I didn’t tell you. Or, at least I didn’t remember that I told you. Did I tell you?” asked Darius, very much intrigued.