It was dark by the time the whale had brought the elves in past the coast. The passage of water through the elven town became narrow and so the whale could go no further. Elves along either side of the narrow river thrust harpoons into the whale’s side to steady it and push it back towards the open sea. Alaric wondered whether the harpoons and spears really had any effect. The whale was so large and strong that he doubted it had even felt the tips of the spears.

Lamps lit up the cottages and finely decorated huts along either bank. Bugs that lit up on their own swarmed inside the enclosed lamp ends—the like of which Alaric had never seen before. The group of twenty elves had left the crate upon the whale to enter onto small skiffs that drifted along the river. The current took the skiffs lightly. Oars were not needed despite them laying across the laps of the two elves that accompanied Alaric in his skiff. He looked behind him to wear Mott was staring back at him with a face that showed his awe.

“You are kind to save us,” said Alaric. “Thank you.”

“What kind we are?” replied the elf standing at the front of the skiff. It was the same elf who seemed to be the leader of the elves. “We are elves. We are last of our kind. Soon we are gone.”

Alaric considered clarifying his gratitude, but the elf’s response had taken him aback. “You are the last of your…erm, what shall I call you, elf?”

“I am called Arokas.” Arokas did not face Alaric as the skiff floated gently along the black waters. The moonlight glinted off the surface of the unperturbed waters. Mott stared in awe still, the little town along the water still lit by the little bugs that flung around inside the lamps that were made of a glass that he had never seen before.

The water town had seemed full of eyes but as they passed the first part of the water town the place had seemed deserted.

“What did you mean when you said you are the last of your kind?” asked Alaric. Their skiff rounded a bend and the five skiffs behind them followed close by.

“No more elf. Corpsia is bad place for an elf.” Arokas had trailed off. He became distracted by the skiff’s path as it had started to veer towards the wrong side of a fork in the river. He geared it towards the left where a cliff overhead poured thick sheets of gushing waters over its edge. Alaric glanced around as he realized they were meant to enter through it. He glanced behind him just as they entered the mist of the falls, preparing to be drenched by the thick sheets of water.

“What is that place this called?” Alaric had to yell over the loud noise of the waterfall.

Arokas waited until they passed under the great falls. Somehow not a drop of water touched the skiff. Alaric looked around confused. Arokas began as they entered what felt like a whole new realm. “Brymeria. Elf home.”

The elven home was just like something out of a fairytale. A tree larger than life sat at straight ahead. Its branches hung across overhead as one large canopy covering the area. The light from the moon and the stars was entirely blocked by the natural canopy and so the buzzing swarm of light bugs inside their glasses lit up either sides of the bank just as it had before they entered the waterfall. The skiff washed up onto dry land just beyond the waterfall. The land was encased by trees like a natural border. There was flat land all around in the shape of a square with huts, tents, cottages, and stables surrounding the perimeter of the landscape. The setup was quiet and peaceful, however. Alaric almost felt rude as he planted his feet upon fresh soil, fearing as though his heavy steps would disrupt the ambience. He watched Arokas land onto the dirt. Despite his strong frame and tall elven boots, his footsteps left no trace along the ground. Alaric looked where he had stepped off of the skiff to find that his feet left deep imprints in the loose mud.

“No worry. Mud is mud,” said Arokas. Alaric, of course, had endless questions but he held onto them. He wondered what the reason had been for their lack of caution or hostility. They had brought him and Mott, whose species they were not familiar with, straight into their secret home and they had only felt welcome thus far. Alaric eyed Arokas head to toe and realized he would likely crush him with his strong hands alone, not to mention his longsword that hung across his back.

Black ink markings littered Arokas’ arm and legs as he stepped aside, allowing the other skiffs to pull up along the bank of mud. Serving elves scurried to the skiffs to take them back to the other side of the waterfall. Alaric noticed they were much smaller, and they bore no black ink markings. They covered up with thick cloaks unlike the elves who had saved them from the wreckage—all of whom wore strips of leather and bore war swords.

Mott was not able to walk because of his leg, which Alaric noticed had been injured far worse than his own. Mott was laid along the bank and an elf with pointy ears and jet-black hair rushed to his side. The elf had a whole assortment of jugs and jars with a honey-like liquid inside. The elf forced the substance down Mott’s throat and set about rubbing crushed red leaves around the outside of the spot on his thigh where a plank of wood was still inserted.

“He be okay. Is no major hurt,” said Arokas. The elves finaly assembled together and Arokas led them past the muddy bank and through an array of neatly patterned tents. Alaric noticed the meticulousness behind every tent and every house. Nothing appeared random or out of place. The symmetry left his mouth in awe. The grass that grew beyond the mud banks flourished despite the lack of sunlight from above. Butterflies and moths with colors he had never seen fluttered past his face. One got in his mouth and he recoiled, sputtering his lips and waving his hands. The thin elf with the high-pitch voice he had spoken with on the back of the whale laughed beside him.

“You’ll get used to it. The imperial moths can smell you, most likely. You’re new.”

“Aye, thanks…What shall I call you?” Alaric wondered if a thank-you had been the appropriate response to his words.

“I am Shig. What do I call you?” Shig said it loud enough so that the group of twenty elves could all hear as they walked.

“I am Alaric Aymon, the lord of—well…I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.” Alaric stepped over a cat the color of the sun and it pawed at his bare foot with its fuzzy paw.

The elves tried pronouncing his name, joking and laughing with one another as they tried. “Alec,” one said. “Aric!” one proclaimed proudly. “Asslick,” said Arokas from the front. The elves laughed their high-pitch squeak and Alaric forced himself to laugh out of shyness.

Mott was still being tended to back by the mud bank that their skiffs had arrived at. He tried to push it from his mind. Part of him wondered if he was still dreaming and that he was still laying back by the wreckage. Maybe I was eaten by the serpent in the water and this is where you go when you die, thought the lord.

The elves arrived at a tent the size of a king’s hall and Arokas pushed open the flaps to allow Alaric inside. Only Arokas and Shig accompanied Alaric inside the tent. The tent was mostly empty except for shelves and shelves of scrolls and parchment along the outsides. Dimly lit candles kept the room visible, although barely.

A large chair that reminded Alaric of a throne sat at the far end of the tent. Arokas ushered Alaric forward towards it—a man swallowed in deep shadows sat there. The dirt underfoot was packed and hard. He stepped hard on a sharp rock, but he bit his tongue and pretended not to notice. He glanced at Arokas’ feet. They, too, had no shoes although his feet were much smaller than his own.

An elf stood still as a rock to either side of the man in the chair with their hands behind their backs. They were an identical height to Arokas and Shig. The man in the chair remained seated with his hands along the arm rest.

Arokas spoke to him in a language foreign to anything that Alaric had ever heard. The two spoke between each other for a few minutes with Shig interjected every few sentences. Shig’s seemed to go unheard but when Arokas spoke the man in the chair listened intently. Alaric could tell the man’s voice was ancient. It was coarse and rough but full of wisdom. His face was hidden in shadows, but Alaric could see his hands were wrinkly and old.

He finally rose from his chair once the talking was finished. He spoke the One Tongue as well as any human. “Welcome, human. I had not known that your kind still existed. Arokas tells me you washed up along the Hafforn Sea. We have long awaited your kind to return, although I did not expect it to happen quite the way that it has.”

“You’ve expected us?” asked Alaric.

“Of course, it has been foretold in folklore amongst elves for generations! Since before I was born these tales were told. And I’ve been around for two hundred years, the oldest of my kind.” The old elf removed the cowl of his blue and white cloak. The patterns along the silken cloak were immaculate. Alaric saw his face finally, and it sure was old. His eyes seemed black, although the bags around his eyes covered most of his eyes. His hair still hung in long wisps down his face and to his shoulders. His hair was not gray as he had expected, but instead it was a dark brown—although not as dark as Arokas or any of the other elves he had seen. His back hunched over and so he held a cane made of twisted tree wood for support.

Alaric was lost for words, so the old elf continued. “I assume you are feeling overwhelmed. I have read much and more about your kind, but I never expected for the day to come when I would meet one. Not even my father’s father saw a human, and he lived over six hundred years. ‘Twas a rarity, truly, but even still. I am honored to have you amongst the elves here in Brymeria. I trust you have come prepared?”

“Erm, prepared for what?” Alaric felt the heat rush to his face. What could he have prepared himself to do? He had only just discovered this land that same day.

“You are bringing your army of men to help us win the great fight, I trust? Or is it true what Arokas has told me—your entire fleet was wiped out by the dark serpent Klavoth? She is a vile creature, truly. She was once an elf though, believe it or not.” The old man was friendly and jovial, but somehow it had unnerved Alaric further. He feared what would happen should he burst that bubble with unwelcome news.

“Erm, yes, of course…we came prepared to fight until that creature tore our ship apart. Ripped it to shreds. Our entire fleet…wiped out…Mott and I are the only ones left. Unfortunate, really…”

The old man stared blankly at Alaric which made his face red again. He looked around nervously. The old man burst into a deep bellied laugh. His laughter filled the tent until he was able to calm himself. “So, it is true then? I was only making a jape. The human has good humor after all.”

“Good humor. Always good.” Arokas spoke again in his jarring, blunt statements.

Alaric laughed a sort of queasy laugh. “Yes, of course,” Alaric said. “I was only japing as well. Erm, no, yeah…truly. Our ship was taken down by a great storm and suddenly we were sucked in a maelstrom. We ended up here, although I have no idea how.”

The old man was serious again. “Well, it is good to have you here. Although you, should know, Alaric, this land is not safe for anyone who is not one of them.” He said the last word with a hint of contempt. Alaric furrowed his brows inquisitively.

“Ah, yes. The Wights. Do you know of the wights?”

“No, what…are…um, they?” Alaric tried to match the old elf’s contempt for the wights although he had no idea at all what he referred to.

“Ahh, it is okay. You are new here. We do not want to scare you off so quickly. I am Father Nhed, by the way. You can just call me Nhed. Oldest living elf. We are a dying breed.” He walked from his chair and put a wiry hand around Alaric. They walked in stride towards the tent’s openings and Arokas and Shig turned to follow them out. Alaric could feel his bony fingers digging into his shoulders as they walked.

“I want you to feel welcome here, Alaric. I do not know if we can get you home so you may plan to stay as long as you want—”

“—you don’t know how to get home? You mean to my own lands, to Osknia?”

“Yes, Alaric. I have read much of Osknia in my studies, although I do not know how much it has changed. The scrolls I read are from thousands of years ago. If we knew how to travel to those lands we would have been there long ago. This land has been cursed, I’m afraid. The spinners of the world’s webbing have decided it is time for our race to die out.”

“Die out? Why?” asked Alaric. He tried his best to match the old elf’s strides, but he walked incredibly slowly. He realized that his fingers dug deep into his shoulder because he walked without his cane.

“The race of elves is smaller than it has ever been. Just last week our count dipped below a hundred.” Father Nhed yelled back to Shig in a language Alaric did not know, and then he repeated Shig’s response in the One Tongue so Alaric could understand.

“Ninety-eight was the last count. We used to dominate this land. That was before the wights. The Wight Horsemen, as most call them. At least, I think that is the rough translation in your tongue.”

“What do you call them, Father Nhed?” The words felt terribly weird coming off his tongue. He wondered if any title for an elf would sound odd. He had only just met Nhed and so he did not want to disrespect the elf by skipping over his proper title.

“Ak Scuzuks. It means ‘the wights’, but it is in our own tongue.

“Ah, okay.” Alaric was only half listening, mesmerized by the array of lights, bugs, and the canopy of branches that covered the acres of flat land like a thatched roof.

Alaric looked around. Many elves peeked out of their tents and their small wooden houses to look at the human. They stared with beady eyes and their mouth in the shape of an “O”. Alaric furrowed his brow.

“What is it?” asked Nhed.

“These elves…they are all men. There are no children.” Alaric said it rather as a question than a statement.

“Indeed, Alaric. You are sharp to notice. Many of our eyes do not notice anymore, for it has been a long time since I have last seen a child. The wights wiped out most of our woman,” said Nhed. His voice had gone to a quiet whisper that Alaric had to lean in to hear. “There is only one she-elf among us now. Many have tried to bear her children in by entering inside of her, but none have been successful.”

“Where is she?” Alaric asked instinctively. He realized how many questions he had been asking, but he could not help it. His brothers always teased him about how many questions he would ask. Often times they were stupid questions that he knew the answer to, but somehow, he found that it evoked better responses than mere statements.

Nhed laughed. “Why? You hoping to try your luck?”

Arokas and Shig must have overheard Nhed because they laughed. Alaric felt sheepish, realizing how it had sounded. He had asked the question without thinking much of it, sampling meaning to carry on conversation.

“Never mind that,” said Nhed. “Here you will a place to sleep and to live. Shig will bring you that sword of yours and your friend will join you once he is healthy.” Nhed eyed the splinter in his thigh. “I will send someone in your quarters to tend to that. It looks quite nasty. Should be an easy fix and a quick healing. Food arrives at dawn. You won’t want to miss it. ‘Tis our only meal of the day and I have read that humans like to eat all day long.” Nhed snorted another croak of laughter before snorted through his nose. One of the elves that followed him from his side at his tent offered him the cane. Nhed took it and left Alaric’s new tent without another word. Arokas and Shig followed him out.

Shig held up for a moment once they left. He still faced the tent flaps as he spoke, “Alaric…one bit of advice.” Shig’s face was cold. “Don’t approach the she-elf. Unless you mean to be killed.”