He glanced around. There was no one he could see. The only movement was the falling snow. The stillness was both eerie and peaceful, as if the wood waited for him to decide.
His legs were weak, his feet and hands numb. Royce had never liked invitations, but he guessed following the prints would once again be the easier route. He looked up at the slope and sighed. After following the tracks only a few hundred feet more, he spotted a pair of fur mittens dangling from the branch of a tree. Royce slipped them on and found they were still warm.
“Okay, that’s creepy,” Royce said aloud. He raised his voice and added, “I’d love a skin of water, a hot steak with onions, and perhaps some fresh-baked bread with butter.”
All around him was the tranquil silence of a dark wood in falling snow. Royce shrugged and continued onward. The trail eventually hooked left, but by then the steep bluff was little more than a mild incline. Royce half expected to find a dinner waiting for him when he reached the crest, but the hilltop was bare. In the distance was a light, and the footprints headed straight toward it.
Royce ticked through the possibilities and concluded nothing. There was no chance imperial soldiers were leading him through the forest, and he was too far from Windermere for it to be monks. Dozens of legends spoke of fairies and ghosts inhabiting the woods of western Melengar, but none mentioned denizens that left footprints and warm mittens.
No matter how he ran the scenarios, he could find no way to justify an impending trap. Still, Royce gripped the handle of Alverstone and trudged forward. As he closed the distance, he saw that the light came from a small house built high in the limbs of a large oak tree. Below the tree house, a ring of thick evergreens surrounded a livestock pen, where a dark horse pawed the snow beside a wooden lean-to.
“Hello?” Royce called.
“Climb up,” a voice yelled down. “If you’re not too tired.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m a friend. An old friend—or rather, you’re mine.”
“What’s your name… friend?” Royce stared up at the opening on the underside of the tree house.
“Ryn.”
“Now see, that’s a bit odd, as I have few friends, and none of them is called Ryn.”
“I never told you my name before. Now, are you going to come up and have some food or simply steal my horse and ride off? Personally, I suggest a bite to eat first.”
Royce looked at the horse for a long moment before grabbing the knotted rope dangling along the side of the tree trunk and pulling himself up. Reaching the floor of the house, he peeked inside. The space was larger than he had expected, was oven warm, and smelled of meat stew. Branches reached out in all directions, each one rubbed smooth as a banister. Pots and scarves hung from the limbs, and several layers of mats and blankets hid the wooden floor.
In a chair crafted from branches, a slim figure smoked a pipe. “Welcome, Mr. Royce,” Ryn said with a smile.
He wore crudely stitched clothes made from rough, treated hides. On his head was a hat that looked like an old flopped sack. Even with his ears hidden, his slanted eyes and high cheekbones betrayed his elven heritage.
On the other side of the room, a woman and a small boy chopped mushrooms and placed them in a battered pot suspended in a small fireplace made of what looked to be river stones. They too were mir—a half-breed mix of human and elf—like Royce himself. Neither said a word, but they glanced over at him from time to time while adding vegetables to the pot.
“You know my name?” Royce asked.
“Of course. It isn’t a name I could easily forget. Please, come in. My home is yours.”
“How do you know me?” Royce pulled up his legs and closed the door.
“Three autumns ago, just after Amrath’s murder, you were at The Silver Pitcher.”
Royce thought back. The hat!
“They were sick.” Ryn tilted his head toward his family. “Fever—the both of them. We were out of food and I spent my last coin on some old bread and a turnip from Mr. Hall. I knew it wouldn’t be enough, but there was nothing else I could do.”
“You were the elf that they accused of thieving. They pulled your hat off.”
Ryn nodded. He puffed on his pipe and said, “You and your friend were organizing a group of men to save the Prince of Melengar. You asked me to join. You promised a reward—a fair share.”