Chapter 14

Dev and Rufio were traveling along the Western Road. They had left Westford just that morning and was making their way towards Spriggans. That is where they would pick up the trail of the Elves.

Rufio was leading a third horse on a lead. It had backpacks on it, as the two would stable their horses in Spriggans, and then walk westward from there. Rufio said they could not take horses where they were going, thus the reason for the packs.

Rufio was as good as his word. He started teaching Dev the Elvish language on the trip to Spriggans. By the time they got there, Dev had a good idea of the names of things. For example he could name several types of leaves, a rock, a stick, a horse, a saddle, reins, food items, the sky, clouds, the morning, the middle of the day, the evening, the sun, the moon, and so on.

Rufio helped Dev's learning, with a small spell to help facilitate the memorization of the words. After he had memorized the names of things, Rufio started him in on verbs. Dev had never taken the time to break down talking into parts of speech. It was much more complicated than he had realized.

After stabling the horses and walking westward for a couple days, Dev was always ready to stop and make camp by late afternoon. They did not have a proper tent. Rufio had two large pieces of canvas, one to a person, and they made a lean-to out of them.

"You have gotten lazy in the army, Devlin," Rufio told his grandson.

"I wouldn't have thought it, but I am out of condition for this type of work," Dev responded sheepishly.

Rufio snorted and started cooking them a meal over an open fire, which was mostly coals. It was simple fair, porridge and cheese with bread.

"Tomorrow we might want to hunt some meat," Rufio stated as he divided the porridge into two copper bowls.

"Why do you have copper bowls? Aren't they a bit expensive and extravagant for camping out?" Dev asked curiously.

"Wooden bowls absorb whatever you put into them. They soak up food residue like a sponge. Unless you clean them very thoroughly, you will have left over food from previous meals, and I have found this can often cause sickness.

"With the copper bowls, I know it is clean when I clean it, and you can see if it is not clean. More people get ill over dirty plates, than you could ever imagine," Rufio told his grandson.

Dev nodded thoughtfully. He had seen the way wooden bowls seemed to absorb stew juices or even soups. It made sense when he thought about it. Another thing his grandfather had given him was an unusual silverware set. There was a knife, a spoon, and another thing with two prongs coming out the end of it, that you could use to spear meat with. Most useful and ingenious.

Days turned into a week, and then another week. The weather was cold. A light snow fell occasionally, which they marched through without thought. While Dev walked, Rufio continued the language lessons in Elvish.

Rufio was looking at the sky one afternoon, when he said they had to get to shelter, and quickly. Dev asked what was wrong, and Rufio didn't answer. He just increased his pace and even stopped teaching Dev Elvish.

They pushed on, and then it started to snow, hard. Rufio cursed, and increased the pace a bit. He was moving through the forest at a pace that was almost impossible for Dev to follow. How the man managed not to trip over roots or get snagged by the underbrush was impressive.

"Why are we hurrying, and where are we going?" Dev asked his grandfather a bit breathlessly.

"I recognized the signs that an Elf shelter is located not far from here. We need to get there before the storm hits. It's going to be a bad storm," Rufio said, and increased the pace again.

There had been signs? Dev had not noticed anything indicating that a shelter was located anywhere near here. As they moved through the forest, the snow started coming down thicker and heavier.

Dev thought the snow in the woods was beautiful. Huge flakes drifted down silently and it didn't even feel that cold. There was a sort of muffled quality to the forest now, and that too was interesting to Dev.

Rufio paused a moment, looked around and muttered, "Ah ha!"

He went to a pile of brush that was laying against a huge tree. He pulled at the brush, and it came away, revealing a hole that was located under the tree.

"Come on, go in," Rufio told Dev.

Shrugging to himself, Dev removed his pack and entered the hole. It was pitch black inside, and Dev came to a halt quickly. Rufio came in behind Dev, and pulled the brush door closed behind himself.

"Lethem," Rufio said in Elvish, and light bloomed inside the dark hole.

Dev gasped at what he saw. First, a silver shimmering light seemed to spring into being at Rufio's command. Then there was the fact that they were inside a well appointed room! While the tree had been large, the room was far larger than the tree was in diameter. This did not make sense to Dev.

Rufio chuckled at the expression on Dev's face.

"You are privileged more than you know, to be in an Elf shelter. This will serve us well until the storm passes," Rufio said.

Dev looked around in amazement. There were ledges that seemed to have grown out of the wall or maybe carved out, he was unsure. They were just the right size to sleep on. The interior wood seemed to glow with an inner light of some sort.

There was a pool of water that Rufio went over and dipped a cup into. He drank it down and refilled it. As he finished the second cup he looked at Dev.

"The water is fresh. It is replaced every day by an ingenious little system I have never figured out. Here is something else that is interesting, which is done by a spell," Rufio said and went to a part of the wall of the tree.

He pressed on it, and it opened with a little click. Dev's eyes widened as he saw what was contained within. There were pottery bowls full of nuts of all types as well as berries. It seemed that an entire season of nuts and berries was there, and fresh! There was also something like ground flour.

"How?" Dev asked as he ate a fresh strawberry.