Elfborn

Chapter 2: Pursuit

By all rights, it should have ended there. But, as he piled the heavy sacks of feed corn into the back of the big wagon several minutes later, moving smoothly and quickly despite the sacks' weight, Lash found himself thinking back on the brief, yet intriguing conversation he had with the mysterious Master Mordekai.

'Who was this Mordekai?' he wondered with a frown, a heavy sack of corn over his shoulder as he strode back towards the wagon. Behind him, from a large set of double doors, Master de Whittier was stacking the other burlap sacks of grain he had purchased from Master Humble on the low porch that fronted the mercantile store. Beside the double door was a smaller, man-sized door that led into the business part of the store, the double doors servicing the storage area.

'And how did he know so much about elves? Hrumph. Maybe he doesn't,' Lash mused, throwing the sack of corn on top of the others before turning to go back for the others. 'He didn't really give me any information, just names. In fact, he had more questions for me than I had for him!'

Lash was still pondering Mordekai and his oddly coincidental appearance when they finished loading the wagon. Scrambling up beside Master de Whittier, Lash gave the almost hidden Markus a final wave before settling in. Chucking the reins, Master de Whittier then urged Champ forward to make their way around the still mostly wagon-filled meadow.

As they reached the road, Lash happened to look back at the doorway to the pub, almost by accident. And felt a chill race up his spine when he spotted Mordekai standing there. The big man in black raised his gloved hand in farewell, as if nothing was amiss, before turning and disappearing back inside.

It seemed innocent enough, coincidence perhaps. But Lash couldn't shake the feeling that Mordekai had been watching them.

And the feeling persisted, even through the trip home and the unloading of the wagon. In fact, it weighed so heavily upon Lash's mind that he didn't even think to look for more pairs of red eyes glaring out at him from the brush. Something was going on here, and he intended to find out what!

But as Master de Whittier's farm moved into full-scale harvest mode for the rest of the month and into the next, Lash soon found enough things to occupy his attention other than the mysterious Mordekai, all dressed in black. As each day of harvesting, winnowing, sacking the grain and gathering the straw went by, thoughts of elves, fairies, orcs and Mordekai slipped further and further into the back of Lash's mind.

Until one day, dawning bright and clear with just a hint of frost in the air, Lash rolled out of the hay in the barn and found himself with a spare day on his hands. On the rare occasion that one of his hired hands actually got all of their assigned tasks done, Master de Whittier gave that man the day off from any work on the farm, whether there was work to do or not. And Lash had managed to do just that, the day before.

Grinning, Lash brushed the hay from his clothes, settled them about his body and almost slid down the ladder to the barn floor. From there he swiftly made his way out to the trough where he broke the thin layer of ice and took a double handful of the cold stuff, splashing it up into his face.

The young man gasped as the cool air combined with the frigid water to cut away the last of his sleep cobwebs. Despite the chill, however, he grinned as he reached out to pump out more water from the well. This he used to clean his teeth and body, making the best use of a cloth he had brought for that purpose, swabbing every centimetre of his body that he could reach.

He had a day off! And, by the Maker, he was going to make the best of it. After finishing his morning ablutions, and with a quick detour into the house for a bite of breakfast and a packed up lunch of dried meat, cheese and bread, Lash was on his way into King's Grove, plans dancing in his mind's eye.