CARAVAN

She was old, in her seventies. Her skin was dark and lined and her hair shot with white. She was tough and stringy as boiled leather. Her voice lashed out like a cornered mountain lion. They called her Caravan Mother.

Few remained who remembered her as the scoutmaster. Even fewer were those who remembered her when she was a scout. She had three puncture wounds in her back, pockmarks of white scar tissue against the tan of her skin. She would brag about them around the Sunday fires when she drank too much wine. Elves gave me these two, she would say. Fucking pointies.

She never spoke about the third scar, and no one ever asked.

When she died her friends dipped their hands in black ink and wore a wreath of grass and holly in their hair for three days as is proper. When she was buried they drove her car in three wide circles around the rest of the caravan in order to send off her spirit where the necromancers wouldn’t be able to get at it. When the time of mourning and necessary rites had ended they opened her car to divide up her belongings. When they opened the trunk, amid the canned food and emergency water and gasoline rations was a crate full of books.

Every page began with “Dear Tiny Tim,” and followed up with several very neat, precise lines of handwriting, then ended with a signature and a drawing of a pair of eyes. There were also things taped to some pages, mostly leaves and flowers. But one book contained a particularly heavy and elaborate golden coin. A scholar that they were transporting from Nauth to the college at Rhode Isle identified the coin as Elvin in origin.

The rest of the caravan was more interested in her supplies than her personal effects. The scholar requested that he be given the books. This was highly irregular. Carless passengers have no business dealing with caravan matters. It was taken before the Commander, a small but imposing man named Gerard.

“What do you want with them?” Commander Gerard asked. “You never even seemed to like her much. You didn’t paint your hands black for her.”

The scholar, who’s name was Matheo, struggled to find an answer that wouldn’t make him sound greedy. “She was speciesist. I didn’t like to hear her call Elves ‘pointies.’ I understand that she’s from a different generation, and that she fought with them, but I don’t think that excuses her from common courtesy.”

Commander Gerard lifted an eyebrow. “That’s all fine and dandy, boy, but what do you want with the books? They worth money?”

“Not money, sir. But there must be thirty years worth of history there. She was a caravan woman all her life if your padre speaks truthful. She must have gone through the mage wars. It’s so rare that we get first-person documents this expansive.”

“How do you know it’ll be useful at all? It could just be a diary of day to day events. It can get awful boring being a caravan scout.”

“Let me read them at least. They won’t take up too much space in my bunk. Besides, I’m paying you enough that you should...”

“Fine.” The Commander interrupted him. “Take them. We’d probably have burned them anyway.”

Matheo read the books every day. There were dozens and dozens of them, and some were hundreds of pages long. He immersed himself in the world of a girl named Eyes Ahead Lamour, and in his scribbled notes he pieced together her story.

part two

Michelle “Eyes Ahead” Lamour reached behind her and scratched at her back. She’d gotten a tattoo of a pair of eyes across one shoulder blade at Meridian City and it itched to high heaven. While on-duty she was supposed to keep her full attention on the road, but she found that completely impossible.

“This,” she said aloud, “was the stupidest idea I have ever had. In my life.”

She was about ten miles ahead of the caravan proper. She had her comms radio on, and was half listening to the chatter of the other scouts. It was their duty to alert the rest of the caravan to potential dangers in the road ahead. Road blocks, for instance. Fallen trees. Large animals. The occasional militantly xenophobic elf bent on causing all sorts of misery and unhappiness. However, day was clear and calm and they were on familiar ground, headed for Lancaster refueling station.

Lancaster began as an oil rig and refinery where the caravans would stop to refuel. Eventually a trading post was set up that sold canned goods and water. Once the elves stopped killing humans on sight, folk started leaving the coastlines and settled nearby the refinery and set up their own shops. After an Elvin raid they built a large wall of reinforced concrete around the city. The mages guild moved in. It became the largest city off of the coastlines.

Eyes Ahead adored cities. Cities meant hostels, which meant real beds. Not the narrow, hard bunks in a residence truck. Not a swaying, unsteady hammock. Not the folded out back seat of her car. A real bed. With posts and pillows and sheets and a big fluffy comforter filled with synthetic fibers. And before the bed... a real bath. With factory-made soap. She ran her hand over the stubble of her hair. And maybe, just maybe, she could get a haircut.

She rambled along for a while, trying very hard to pay attention to the road ahead. Then she saw something move in the brush by the side of the road. Something very large.

She picked up her comms unit. “This is Eyes Ahead to Scout Central. I’ve spotted something alongside the road here. Permission to investigate?”

Scout Central responded quickly. “This is Scout Central. We read you. Describe what you saw.”

“Large, a little bigger than six feet. Dark. Could be an Elf, but I didn’t see any ears and it was moving slow. Might be injured.”

There was a pause. “Investigate. But take your shotgun and exercise extreme caution.”

Eyes Ahead gave a clipped affirmation and signed off. She grabbed her shotgun, a walkie talkie, and a small medical supply kit. Then she shut the car door, locked it, and set off into the woods.

Whatever it was that had ducked behind the bush, it hadn’t done a particularly good job at covering up its trail. It had left a complete mess behind it, broken branches and footprints in the mud and so forth. Even a novice like could follow him. This made Eyes Ahead rethink her theory of an injured Elf. Elves were very crafty in the woods. They were nigh impossible to see with their dark greyish-brown skins against the trees. Their long, broad and tufted bat-like ears let them hear nearly everything around them. This guy, Eyes Ahead decided, was probably a hermit; hermits sometimes happened in the woods around cities. But not an Elf.

She pushed through the foliage, following the path the hermit had left behind until she reached a clearing in the middle of a circle of holly trees. The tracks stopped in the very middle. Eyes Ahead paused only for a moment before walking right up to where the tracks ended.

“Hello!” She shouted. “Anybody out there?”

An unearthly scream from a bush answered her. She leaped back with a squeal of terror, then blushed pink when she saw the pair of pheasants flap up from the bushes. Scared by birds, she thought. Stupid stupid.

“Anybody out there?” She repeated. “Anybody but pheasents?”

“Any body.” Eyes Ahead spun around. The rasping voice seemed to come from behind her, but she couldn’t see anyone. “...Any body any body is there any bodies around?”

Slipping the shotgun off her back, Eyes Ahead scanned the trees. “No bodies.” She answered. “No bodies, just folk. Where you at?”

The voice mimicked her. “Where you at? Where you? Were you? Are you?”

“All right, parrot boy. It’s getting annoying. Come out where I can see you.”

“Seeing is believing, so the wise men say.” Something huge and dark leaped from tree to tree above her head, disappearing again among the branches. “But I am not any body. I am many bodies.”

Eyes Ahead swore. It was an Elf after all. It had that distinct accent, pronouncing the letter “d” as “th” and hissing over the “s.” It looked bigger than the Elves she’d seen though. And it hadn’t tried to kill her yet. She hoped that it wouldn’t.

“Okay, Pointy.” She said. “Listen, I’ll put down my gun and leave if you leave our caravan alone. You got me?” She was bluffing. The Elf could probably take both barrels of the shotgun and still manage to cut her up real bad. If it had any magic then she would be dead sure as moonrise.

Instead of attacking, it stuck its ugly head out of a holly tree, treating Eyes Ahead to a good look at it’s bizarre upturned nose, extremely prominent cheekbones, and shaved head. “Lords of the roads make demands of the forest folk. But you are in my forest, caravan-daughter. I think you will not shoot me, will you?”

She dropped the gun. She had no choice. It had the suggestive magic. Eyes Ahead was totally screwed.

It leaped down from the tree and landed in front of her. Eyes Ahead gaped. It was male and very naked. It wasn’t his “equipment” that she was staring at, though. His body was stitched together, like a rag-doll, and a pair of pale, leathery wings hung limp from his shoulders.

He grinned with a mouth full of pointed teeth. “No muscles.” He said. “No muscles in the wings. But many bodies in me. Many, many. And the magics are in me too, caravan-daughter. You follow me to the woods. Why?”

She was compelled to speak. “I’m a scout. It’s my job to look for potential threats.”

His grin grew wider. “Potential threat, I am. Not yet a kinetic threat though. Except when I fall out of the tree at you.” He laughed very loud. Eyes Ahead gazed longingly at her shotgun. He saw where she was looking and wagged a finger in her face. “No, no, caravan-lady. You do not shoot at me. It would not work. Why do the road-lords come this way?”

“We’re going to Lancaster. We come here twice a year. Always the same route.” She paused. “...If these really were your woods, wouldn’t you know that?”

The Elf stared at her, then started laughing again. Eyes Ahead wasn’t entirely sure that this was the good sort of laughter. “Oh little road-girl. This is not my real forest. But you should not know that, should you?”

He smiled, very friendly. “I am going to hit you very hard now, okay?”

part three

Before Eyes Ahead could protest, his fists connected with the back of her skull. A brief firework of pain, and then everything went black.

She woke up inside the medical car. The caravan leader, Commander Callahan, was glowering at her.

“Eyes Ahead Lamour. You were found asleep behind the wheel. Explain yourself. Now.”

She related the story as best she could. At the end the Commander maintained his dark scowl. “Ms. Lamour. There was no evidence of a trail. No evidence of any Elf. You are not a liar, Ms. Lamour, so I am going to assume that you were tired and were dreaming.”

Eyes Ahead tried to protest, but he cut her off. “Do not interrupt me. This is a serious breach of trust. You are a scout, Ms. Lamour. We cannot tolerate such a lapse in concentration from you. I am suspending you from scout duty for three months and reassigning you to transport duty.”

She was silent for a minute. It would be a lenient punishment had she actually fallen asleep, but her pounding headache refuted that theory. “Who am I transporting?” She asked in a dull voice.

Commander Callahan sighed and leaned against the car wall. “A troupe of mages from the guild at Lancaster are requesting transport into Elvin territory.”

She couldn’t help interrupting now. “But sir! Mages? Since when were we their taxi service? Since when did we jump at the whim of those... those thaums?”

“I’ll thank you to not use such terms in front of me.”

“Sorry sir, but I don’t trust those magic folk. And Elves? When did dealing with crazy, human-hating spell-flingers become a good idea? When was the last time you saw an Elf and weren’t shooting at it?”

Eyes Ahead fell silent. Commander Callahan gave her a look that could freeze mercury.

“First of all.” He said quietly. “For interrupting me I will be docking your pay for a month. Secondly. The Mages have their own car and fuel and are paying us very handsomely besides. Thirdly. If I hear a single complaint from you I will leave you on the side of the road and let Antwan drive Tiny Tim.

“Now get up and get out. We’re scheduled to enter Lancaster in half an hour. The other scouts are already there.”

Shamed, Eyes Ahead left the medic’s car. The entire caravan had stopped because of her. She could feel their eyes on her back, accusing her of slowing them down. Slamming Tiny Tim’s door, she drove away from the caravan proper. “It’s not fair.” She said to her car. “I know what I saw. I’m not crazy and I wasn’t dreaming.”

The purr of the engine was her only answer as she sped toward Lancaster.