Nathan considered himself a whiner. He complained often, vehemently, and about everything. Mostly he did so for fun but the sheer volume of bile annoyed even him sometimes. However, Nathan had a rule about all this moping: it had to be done entirely in his head. No one else asked to hear it, no one else wanted to hear it, so he kept it to himself.

Well, he tried.

After the first two hours of carrying Japheth, Nathan was seriously considering throwing this rule up a tree and leaving it there.

"Feel free to take a rest anytime, Nathan," the woodsman said, a slight tremor in his voice the only sign he was hurt at all. How Japheth was coping Nathan couldn't fathom. To be in that much pain...

"No..." Nathan croaked as he stumbled over a knotted mass of roots. "You... need help."

"I am not going to bleed out, boy. Sit down, there’s no rush."

"We're only... only a few... hours out... right?"

"One or two, yes, but I’m not an easy burden even if I have lost a little weight."

"That's sick." Nathan stopped, chuckling in spite of himself. "Okay, you win."

Nathan set him down as gently as he could, wincing as Japheth gasped in pain. "A little weight. Sick." Nathan glanced down. Japheth’s belt had been brutally cinched just a few inches above the sodden bandages where a leg used to be. "Really sick."

"It had... to be done." Japheth gasped.

Nathan uncorked a waterskin and handed it to the woodsman, shaking his head. "You could have let me do it, or anything else really."

Japheth took a heavy swig. "Better a steady blade and a good belt, boy. There is no saving a leg that badly gone. Besides, you could hardly dare look at it: I was not about to trust you with a sword that close to my nethers." He grimaced. "Heating up the sword, honestly. What on earth put such ideas in your head?"

Star Wars, Nathan thought for a moment. Perhaps not the best medical advice. "I hear cauterization's a thing." Nathan glanced down at the stump again. There was a strange, saplike quality to the woodsman's blood, and as Nathan had bandaged the stump at Japheth’s instruction the edges of the wound, already looking more like wood than flesh, had begun to curve inward, as though sealing itself the way a tree closes around a wound. "You really are kinda... chipper, I guess, about this whole thing. Aren't you worried about infection? Gangrene?"

"For a human perhaps that would be a concern. As it is, I do not get sick." The woodsman shifted in place, grimacing. "We stopped the bleeding. In a few days, provided I eat well I should be fine."

"Fine? Really?" Nathan crossed his arms. "No offense, man, but I doubt that. Unless..." Nathan squinted at the missing limb again. "Say, are you going to grow back that leg?"

The woodsman stared at him for a moment and Nathan hastily shook his head. "Never mind, J, stupid question. Where are we going?"

"Did you forget?"

"You never told me," Nathan said. "You were too busy calming me down."

"Ah," Japheth sighed.

When Japheth's pronouncement about the paths worked its way through Nathan's head the young artificer began to panic, and only grew worse when the woodsman told him that his leg was beyond saving. Nathan had begun gabbling about heating up the sword and cauterizing the wounds but the woodsman had simply pulled his knife and removed his belt, then bit down on the battered leather and, before Nathan could react, put the knife to his leg and pressed. The blade passed through his flesh like a ghost but the blood that came rushing from the wound was all too real, and after a muffled groan the woodsman cinched the belt tight around the stump in a makeshift tourniquet.

Nathan did much more than groan and none of the noises he made were muffled, but somehow Japheth calmed him down enough to give him instructions. It was only a few minutes afterward that Nathan had presence of mind enough to be acutely embarrassed that the one suffering from self-inflicted amputation was the calm, rational one. At least the instructions had been easy enough: bandage the leg, then pick up the woodsman and start walking.

"Actually, hold on," Nathan said. "Before you tell me where we're going I need you to explain something."

"Very well. What is it?"

Nathan leaned forward. "The paths change, right? Even if we knew where the others were, we wouldn't know how to get to them."

"Correct."

"And you have no idea where they are now."

The woodsman nodded and Nathan scratched his head. "Do you know where anything is?"

"Actually, yes. I know where the forest's edges are, and ways to them from any given point. I know where the great landmarks of the forest are, the safe streams from which to drink." The woodsman frowned. "Or... well, perhaps it is better to say that I feel these things."

"Instinct?"

"That's the word, yes."

"Then where are we going?"

"The shore of the Lake, a place we can reach at speed. A clan of elves dwells near there that owes me a favor, so they will be inclined to hear you out. You will need to do something for them, possibly unpleasant but worthwhile, and with... well, considerable luck, we will be able to find our friends. Elves have a gift for this manner of thing."

"Considerable luck?" Nathan felt his eyebrows rise. "What if we just have mediocre luck?!"

Japheth smiled grimly. "They will kill us on sight. With poor luck, they will do it slowly."

"Cheerful," Nathan said. "And let me guess, you have no idea where the village is, so we are hoping their hunters find us and are in a good mood when they do."

"Correct."

"Well, at least it's just elves."

The woodsman cocked his head but said nothing, silently staring at Nathan as though wondering if he was serious.

After a second he couldn't take it anymore and Nathan rolled his eyes. "What? They're just elves. After a goddess, fungus from Hell and a pack of giant cat-man-beasts, I would think a few twitchy midgets will be easy."

He smiled back hopefully but Japheth sighed and shook his head. "And how do you think these 'twitchy midgets,' as you say, survive all these things?" Nathan's smile flatlined and the woodsman chuckled. "Hmm. Well, are you ready, or shall we continue talking until something smells my wound and comes looking for us?"

Nathan rolled his eyes again and hoisted the woodsman to his back with a smile. "Yeah, cause that would be healthy for the stupid thing. I could use a nice fight to the death, spare me the trouble of lugging you."

Japheth let out a bark of pain, and then laughed. "I was right about this trip. Continue straight until we come to a fallen tree touched with red moss. After that, turn left."

"What do you mean about the trip? That it was a bad idea?"

"No, that it would prove interesting."

Nathan shook his head and smiled. "If losing a leg is interesting, I hate to see your definition of excitement."

It occurred to Nathan some time later that there was an uncanny similarity between this walk and an exhausted midnight drive while taking the toneless advice of a GPS: he kept expecting the woodsman to mumble "recalculating" or "continue for half a mile past the mossy knoll." Nathan considered sharing this insight with Japheth but decided he didn't want to spend ten minutes trying to explain... well, all of it.

Besides, Nathan had begun to notice changes in the wood. The trees were getting smaller, light was breaking through the canopy more often. There was even a faint breeze swirling the leaves underfoot and Nathan felt the tension reluctantly easing from his muscles, coaxed out by simple joys that had been forgotten in the dark.

There was an abrupt rushing of wind so fierce Nathan had to close his eyes and the path shifted slightly beneath his feet. After a few tottering, blinded steps he fell to his knees and marveled at the familiar, rasping sigh of sand beneath him.

Unwilling to open his eyes, Nathan smiled and basked in the sudden, unexpected glory of sunlight on his face. "We here?"

Japheth's voice came in his ear, a nervous amusement coloring his words. "Take a look, boy, and you tell me."

The wind kicked up again, more gently this time, and Nathan sighed. "Can't I just enjoy the momen..." Something caught in his nose then, a smell mixing pine sap with the musky stench of his own armpit.

"They've surrounded us, haven't they?"

A rasping chirp of a voice answered, the clicking tones of an elf seasoned with the wavering inflections of an older man. "One does not surround, manling, but one is enough."

Nathan opened his eyes and stared a moment. A lake broad enough that the opposite shore was just a strip of green filled the horizon, dotted here and there with tiny islands. Tiny boats made of hide and rough-hewn wood (Coracles, that's the word!) littered a near corner of the beach, and Nathan took that to mean they had come out almost on top of the village. The sunlight glittering off the lake might have been painful after the long dark of the forest, but standing between the worst of it and Nathan was the oldest elf he'd yet to see.

If he'd been human, Nathan would have placed the elf in his sixties: the creatures' green-tinged flesh was mottled with rippling, flaccid skin, and something of a potbelly was cradled between his legs. The elf was trembled slightly, only a dusty relic of strength in his movements as he knelt in the sand, the mouthpiece of what looked like a blowpipe quavering a finger's length from his lips.

Nathan smiled as politely as he could with a poisoned dart aimed at his face. "Can I take you not shooting us to mean you recognize him?" he shrugged gently to indicate Japheth, and the elf's' eyes narrowed.

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"If the tales of Elder Maia are true, you carry Japheth Tree-Raiser."

Nathan frowned. "Tree Razer? That hardly seems..."

"I plant a tree wherever I cut one down," Japheth interrupted. "One of its own seedlings, as my mother taught me to do. Maia gave me that name, after I cut her loose from a spider's web and coaxed its poison from her veins."

"Oh, Tree Raiser, that makes more−"

"The Elder remembers, and for that debt Muthrei is bound not to kill Tree-Raiser." The elf cut in. "Tree-Raiser, not you. She may speak for you before the tribe, but the tribe will decide your fate, not her." He leaned forward, his lips pulled into a grimace too wide and toothy to be a smile. "And Muthrei will give you that fate. Slowly."

Nathan opened his mouth but Japheth beat him to it. "You are Muthrei, then?" The elf nodded, and Japheth snorted with so much disdain Nathan was surprised a solid chunk of it didn't fly past his ear. "Then take us to Elder Maia and stop your voice, Muthrei, or we shall reach forty winters before you do."

Muthrei stared for a moment, his fingers tight around the stem of his weapon. Nathan worried for a moment that the elf would shoot them anyway but he only turned and hobbled down the beach, his left leg dragging behind him in a bad limp.

Nathan hiked the woodsman up his shoulders and followed. "Forty winters?" he muttered under his breath. "I thought elves were immortal."

The woodsman's incredulity could have burnt a hole in Nathan's neck. "Immortal? Gods, no, if one hasn't died of old age by forty-five they are considered blessed indeed. Who tells you these things?"

"Uh... guy named Tolkien?"

"Well 'Tolkien' is a fool, and you should ignore what he says."

Nathan considered dropping the woodsman but thought that would be a bad message to send to the... children? Elflets? What is the term for a young elf anyway? As he beat down his outrage elven villagers began to appear from the trees. One tiny elven girl even crawled out of a coracle with a pronged, sharpened stick in her hands, a still-wriggling fish skewered on one of the tines.

There was a little curiosity in the stares they drew as they walked and a great deal more hate, but to Nathan's surprise most of the glares were angled at Muthrei. The elf stared back just as angrily, then pointed at one of the younger ones and let out a clicking spurt of elvish. The youngster stared back defiantly until Muthrei snarled again and she fled into the woods.

"Say... Japheth, when your dad saved you from the spiders he got in trouble. Did you get in trouble when you saved the elf?"

"It was different."

"Different how?"

"Different in that I ate the spider’s heart before I saw to Maia." Japheth replied. "My mother taught me much when I was young; she did not want to lose me as she lost him."

Gross. "Speaking of young, where are all the young adults?"

"Hunting," The woodsman replied. "The young and fit live outside the village, protecting and feeding their children while the elders raise them. It is their way."

"Guess we were lucky to get past them, then."

"Indeed," The woodsman replied. "Fortune favors you, artificer."

Nathan glanced up as a hollow drumming sounded ahead, probably a signal they were coming, and faced the cold stares of the elves around them. "See if you can say that after we meet your Maia."

The... 'dwellings' was the only word Nathan could think of that fit. The dwellings of the elves put him in mind of bird nests, spun balls of twigs and leaves hung from the branches of the trees. They were woven into the branches, some big as small houses, others barely large enough to sleep in. Platforms of wood and braided webbing hung around some of the broader trees, supporting clusters of youngster elves gathered around their elders. Classrooms, maybe?

Muthrei lead them to the biggest of the platforms. A knotted rope came dangling down and he turned to Nathan, offering it to him. "The elders wait for you, manling. Leave the half-blood and go to them."

"Wait a second, how am I going to..." Nathan sputtered. "I have to go up alone? I thought..."

"It’s all right, boy." Japheth said reassuringly. " You faced down a goddess of the wood; you shall do well here."

"This Maia owes you, not me!" Nathan hissed as he set Japheth down. "How am I supposed to persuade a pack of angry old elves by myself−"

Japheth reached up and rested a hand on his shoulder. He pulled Nathan close and lowered his voice. "Word travels fast in the Weymaerii, boy. Like as not they know of you already. That you travel with me, that you are under my protection, what you have faced under their trees. Bow your head when you meet them, speak with respect and strength in equal measure, ask for nothing until asked yourself and nothing ill will come of this." He smiled fondly and patted Nathan's cheek. "Luck is with you, boy. Have faith. And for the sake of the gods give no more thought to this Tolkien. He knows nothing."

Nathan chuckled despite his jangling nerves, then reached for the rope. "Leave Tolkien out of it, ok? I'm going."

There were eight of them waiting when he reached the top, the woven mats they sat on the only feature on the otherwise empty platform. Nathan glanced at the ancient elves and knew which was Maia immediately. A tiny thing, so frail and bent with age the smallest gust might blow her away. Puckered scars from what could only be the fangs of a giant spider showed on her side, peeking out from under the scraps of hide she wore. Old as she was her eyes were clear and golden, glittering with cool intelligence as she spoke in a surprisingly deep, smooth voice. "You are shorter than we thought you to be, brave manling."

Nathan bowed his head and said nothing.

"And polite, too. You heed the Tree-Raiser well. Sit."

"When someone hires a guide, elder, they should take his advice about dangerous things." Nathan lowered himself to the empty mat at his feet and then looked up, relieved to see a faint smile on Maia's lips, though the rest of the elders might have been carved from stone.

"Are you in danger here? Tales spread in the turnings of the leaves, manling. Tales that fire dances from your hands, that you face the gods of the wood and give insult where others would show fear." She leaned forward, and her smile grew colder. "Are we not all at your mercy, wizard? Can you not burn our village down around you, summon monsters of cold steel and stone to your bidding, cast the long fang at your side into our flesh?"

Nathan blinked. "Well, yes, but I'm hoping to find help, so... no."

Another elder spoke, this one with dangling wattles and wearing a curious headdress made of bark and large, unpleasant teeth. "And so we must offer you hospitality." He pushed a cup toward Nathan, an empty smile on his thin lips.

Nathan glanced at Maia and met her cool, calculating stare for a moment, then took the cup. Dangerous people is right. "Thank you." He raised it to his lips, lowering his eyes for a moment. A few of the elves leaned forward and Nathan was glad he'd only pretended to drink. "I love the taste of lich root in the morning, but you needn’t have bothered. I know better."

Nathan smiled at the Wattle-Hat, who gaped like a fish. He then turned to Maia and was relieved to see approval in her smile.

"As I said, we know a little of you, but some of us think these things ought be tested." She sent a scathing glare at the Wattle-Hat. "They think it is our place to test one who has bested a goddess."

"He offered insult to one of our gods," piped the Wattle-Hat. "This must be corrected."

"Corrected? By taking her rightful prey?" Maia spat. "She would see him harmed by us, he who bound her by law to pass him by?"

Wattle-Hat opened his mouth but Maia ploughed on. "No and no. We serve Evienne, not the Nameless One. We do not bow to her, she who does not even give her name to our people, who spits on the prayers she demands of our kindred. Our clan does not give her our children in the spring, the hearts of our prey or the fangs of those who hunt us. For a man to insult her does us no harm and some good besides, for here the man is. We have a wonder here: a clever human."

A few of the elders chuckled and Nathan was surprised to see the Wattle-Hat blush. Another elder, this one female, tapped the floor sharply with a slender cane of bone. "Enough talk of gods," she rasped. "He comes to us for help. We must decide what use this man is and what use the one who bleeds below may be, that we might do as he would ask."

Maia shook her head. "Are we not indebted already?"

"Indebted how?" hissed the Wattle-Hat.

"Indebted in that our village yet owes Tree-Raiser," Maia replied. "For seven winters and forty I have hunted for our meat, taught the young, guided the hunters and spoken in council. How much has my life, the life given us by Tree-Raiser, brought to this village?"

"Much," Cane replied. "But a life is a life, not two."

"Strange that a human life is worth as much as an elven one." Maia remarked acidly, and Nathan laughed despite himself.

"The debt is owed your Tree-Raiser," the Wattle-Hat barked angrily. "We owe no debt to this wizard. We are not bound as our gods are. Our laws demand that each proves his worth. Men are worth little to us, wizards less. Men are greedy, and wizards worst of all. I say this man, this wizard, is worth nothing but trouble to our village and should not be given even a chance."

"I am going..." He was going to say 'home,' but the word caught in Nathan's throat as Japheth's voice seemed to float in his ears. You may go home, you may not, and maybe you are home already.

No time for that. "I am leaving your forest, one way or the other, and all the sooner if helped." Nathan sighed. "And the only thing I'm greedy for at the moment is a cheeseburger."

Wattle-Hat glared at Nathan and slowly began to slide a hand under his hide robes. "Little is any man's word worth, wizard. There are none who would be angered here, should I kill you."

"Do you really want to try?" Nathan asked.

Wattle-Hat met his eyes for a moment, then shivered and looked away. Nathan glanced at the others and found them staring with wary respect. Only the Cane seemed indifferent. She impatiently rapped her stick on the floor again.

"You speak bravely and well, wizard, and any with ears to listen can hear truth in your voice. Now hear the truth in mine. The Tree-Raiser did us great service in saving the life of a foolish young hunter. She has since brought us much with every season, and all she has brought us is owed to him. Him, not you. We owe you nothing and have little reason to let you live, let alone prove yourself. Before we decide, we should hear all that you can offer." She gave another tap of her cane. "What can you bring us we cannot bring ourselves? Speak, and then we shall decide."

Nathan folded his hands in his lap and bowed his head to her, his thoughts racing. I'm not just buying my life, here, I'm buying the lives of my friends. "Umm... I have lost my... a tool that helps me to make music, but I know many songs that I can teach you. I, uh, burn as a salamander does, and can... er..." Nathan winced. "Well, I have driven off manticores with it, and believe I can bring down anything that has issues with fire. I can tell you tales of my world, I can..." Nathan trailed off for a moment, and then nodded. "I have−"

"Enough," Wattle-Hat interrupted. "We shall talk now." The oldster turned to his fellows and rattled out a crackling stream of elvish. Maia and the Cane seemed to disagree with what he was saying but a few of the other elders nodded and slowly the rest came to agree. Maia argued last of all, but finally shook her head and turned to Nathan.

"Songs are worth much to us, but of our tribe only a few of us have any knowledge of man's tongue. Fewer still would care for human songs. We know of fire's calling, and while you may know more of it, we are content in our knowledge for we do not often have need of it." She leaned forward, a silent apology in her eyes as she continued. "Much as I might not wish it, mine is not the only voice in this council. We want nothing from you, young manling."

Nathan braced as Wattle-Hat smiled triumphantly and began to rise. Before either of them could move, however, the Cane rose and tottered to Wattle-Hat. Reaching him, she raised her cane and clouted him hard. She screeched in elvish at him for a moment before turning to Nathan. "Young. Maia may have saved you, manling. How old are you?"

Nathan ignored Wattle-Hat's blistering, suddenly bleary glare and turned, shaking. He had been more frightened than he wanted to admit. "I am eighteen years... I have seen eighteen winters."

The Cane turned to her fellows and gabbled in a sudden rush, and they all nodded enthusiastically after a moment. All except Wattle-Hat, who sulked in his corner with slightly crossed eyes, though no one seemed to be paying attention to him anymore. She smiled at Nathan. "You are young indeed, for a human. Have your elders permitted you to breed yet?"

"What?!" Nathan spluttered.

"Have you mated?" she said patiently. "Have you got another of your kind with child, or at least made the attempt?"

"Uh..." Nathan blushed. "Well, I've... uh... I've fooled around the bases but haven't, um, haven't quite made a home run yet."

"You are... what is the word..."

"A virgin?" Maia supplied.

"Yes, that." The Cane rasped. "You are virgin?"

"Yes?" Nathan replied quizzically before realizing his life depended on this and nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. I'm a virgin. I'm waiting... well, not for marriage, but−"

"Enough," Wattle-Hat groused. "The council is decided. If you speak truth then our choice is clear. On the far shore of the Lake there is a thing we cannot harm. It hunts our children when they wander. We would have you kill this thing. Return to us with proof it is dead and we will be in your debt. Then you may ask and then we may give."

"A side quest?" Nathan asked stupidly. "You're sending me on a side quest?"

They answered him with blank stares and he shook his head. "Never mind. What is this thing?"

"It is one of the great dangers of the world," Maia replied, and something like sorrow glittered in her eyes. "Even our gods will not work against it. Perhaps they cannot. The Mae 'Ruhk, some say, was created by your kind in times far gone. Others say it is simply a hunter like the manticore, a beast that hunts to bring death to others, not life to itself. It hunts the weak and young, delighting in their passing."

"Sounds awful," Nathan said slowly, thinking hard. "I've never heard of it."

"But you do know of it," Maia replied. "For its kind do not live only in the wood, and legends of it must surely have passed even to your world. A creature that seems like the deer and yet not, standing upon four legs with cloven hoof, whitest skin and sharpest teeth, a cruel horn on its brow with which it takes the heart of its prey."

Maia watched the recognition grow on Nathan's face and smiled sadly. "You know it then? It is the beast your race knows as 'unicorn.'"