They walked in silence for a time, as the golden light of the setting sun filtered through the canopy. Their journey took them closer to the ground, though Fletcher wished they would go all the way to the top, so he could look out over the Great Forest and catch a glimpse of the Beartooth Mountains.
Finally, they stopped, and Sylva called over a nearby elf when they reached the next branch, speaking in a lilting language. The elf bowed respectfully, then leaped on to the branch below, as nimble as a squirrel.
‘Forgive my elvish,’ Sylva said, reddening. ‘I was tutored in many languages, even orcish runes, but the other high elves have not been so fortunate. I sent him to fetch your King.’
‘Not at all,’ Fletcher replied with a smile. ‘I liked it.’
They were on a smooth, flat branch, only a few hundred feet from the ground. Sylva led him to the edge, where they sat together, looking out at the forest floor.
‘I wanted you to see this,’ Sylva said, waving out at the plains below.
Herds of deer moved slowly beneath them, a countless procession of thudding hooves. Along the edges, great stags clattered their antlers as they ducked and dodged, vying for the attention of the does who grazed nearby.
They were a mix of greys, browns and white spots; small deer, large deer and great, heavy-horned moose that stomped past.
The ground was covered in a thick layer of bright green moss, the same that had made up the mattress of his sickbed. The deer seemed to enjoy it, trimming the top layer like grass and chewing it slowly into pulpy cud, staining the edges of their mouths with green.
‘These are the riches of our people. The Great Herds of the forest. We raise every species of deer under the sun,’ Sylva said, her hand outstretched at the deer below.
Fletcher turned to look behind him, and saw an endless host of deer, fading into the depths of the forest. There must have been thousands of them – of all different sizes and breeds, from barking, muntjac deer with their long, tusk-like upper teeth, to red deer jousting back and forth as they interlocked their heavy crowns of antlers.
‘Look at those fawns, there’s at least a hundred of them,’ Fletcher said, pointing to a group of deer on the edge of the herd. They were tiny, barely larger than a wild hare.
‘Where are their mothers?’ he asked.
‘Those aren’t fawns, they’re pudus,’ Sylva laughed. ‘See the two spikes on some of their heads? Those are the males’ antlers.’
‘Oh,’ Fletcher said, marvelling at the miniature creatures. ‘You really do have every species.’
‘The herds give us everything we need: furs and leathers for clothing and blankets, meat and milk for our tables, bones and antlers for carving, sinews and rawhide for our bowstrings and stitching. We even render their fats for tallow, making soaps, candles and glues.’
She pointed to the far edges of the herd, where Fletcher could see elves astride the same elks he had seen in Ignatius’s memory, as large as horses but with splayed antlers that they tossed and jostled each other with. Ignatius yelped in recognition, startling the riders below.
The elves carried bows on their backs and long, supple sticks tipped with lassos, which they gently waved to scare wandering deer back into the herd. Their hair was long, streaming over their shoulders in waves of sable, russet and hazel, unlike the elves Fletcher had seen in the trees. They wore wolfskin cloaks, with the wolves’ upper jaws resting on their brows like helmets.
‘Our wood elves keep them safe, healing their injuries and helping to deliver their young, guiding them down the safe paths and protecting them from the predators of the forest.’
As Fletcher watched, a large bird swooped in from above, alighting on an elf’s wrist. It dug its talons into a thick leather wrist guard, and the elf offered it a morsel of raw meat as a reward.
‘You keep eagles as pets?’ Fletcher asked. ‘Why?’
For a moment he wondered if he was being too inquisitive, but Sylva answered readily enough. She seemed pleased he was so interested in the culture of her people.
‘We keep foxes too, as you do with dogs. But an eagle is strong enough to carry off a wolf if need be, and they keep watch for the hundreds of packs that forever roam behind the herds. But we can never keep all the deer safe, there’s just too much food in one place.’
Fletcher watched a nearby wood elf whip his pole down, slipping a lasso over an errant fawn’s legs and pulling it back to the safety of the herds like a trussed chicken.
Fletcher was going to ask more, but someone cleared his throat behind him.
‘Thank you, Sylva, for bringing him,’ King Harold said, settling down beside them. ‘I’ll see you at the council meeting.’
‘Council meeting?’ Fletcher asked, but Sylva simply smiled at him and gave him a squeeze on the shoulder as she got up to leave.
Then she was gone, leaving Fletcher alone with the king.
14
‘So, Fletcher. You’re still with us,’ Harold said. They were sitting, watching the deer herds below. The sun was near set, casting dappled shadows over the busy ground, and Fletcher heard the mournful howl of a wolf in the distance.