Hall of the Elf Lord

Hall of the Elf Lord

Vesian IV

"Please, sir knight! You must help me!"

Vesian lowered a hand to his sword hilt as he brought his courser to a halt. The party approaching him on the road were well-dressed, perhaps merchants or the servants of some high lord, but their clothes were all a mess and their hair disheveled. Ever wary in sight of the enchanted forest, he watched them approach with suspicion.

The lead rider, a woman of near fifty in an embroidered dress of green wool, dismounted and fell to her knees before him.

"My mistress, the Lady Isabelle, is lost!" she wailed. Vesian raised a mailed hand.

"Calm yourself," he commanded, "Good woman, and explain what has happened."

One of her companions dismounted and laid a comforting arm around her shoulder. He looked up to Vesian, his face pale and drawn. "It is our lord's daughter," the man explained. "She has been taken from us.

"Taken?" Vesian inquired. "By whom?"

"By the forest!" the woman cried, a wrinkled hand thrust toward the foreboding face of the forest a mile distant. "We were riding, and..." she choked back a sob, and her companion continued.

"There was a strange sound on the wind, like flutes. Lady Isabelle's horse bolted, and ran straight for the woods. None of us could catch her, and she could not control the animal. Before we could do anything, she disappeared into the trees and was gone."

"She's like a daughter to me," the woman sobbed, bringing herself under control at last. "I am Basine, her nurse and guardian. Gods save me, it was just a few hours of hawking, and now my dear Isabelle is gone. Please, sir. You must save her!"

"Speak sense, Basine!" her companion admonished. "He can't go off into the Dalamari Forest! There's all manner of horrors in there! He'll be dead by sundown."

"And she's in there!" Basine shot back, shoving him away. "My dear girl is in that awful place alone! He has to go in after her. Are you not a knight, sir?"

"I am," Vesian sighed, already knowing that he would not make the tournament at Chateau Vauvert in time. "Tell me what you can, and I will search the forest for your Lady Isabelle."

Basine's face lit up in relief, though her companion looked at Vesian with a mixture of pity and bafflement.

"Aye, sir. She is a slight girl, with black hair, green eyes, and wide hips. I've always said she'd make someone a good wife. She was wearing a blue dress trimmed with sable and riding a red mare, though I'll have the traitorous beast put down if you bring it back. Damned thing, it could have gotten her killed!"

"It might have already," the man muttered, and Basine shot him a furious look.

"She's still alive," Basine snapped. "Now shut your damn fool mouth before the gods hear you!"

"Very well," Vesian replied. "I will search for her."

"Thank you, sir! Oh, the gods bless your travels! I could not bear to lose my Isabelle."

"And the marquis would have our hides if anything happened to her," the man added, though when Basine's eyes turned on him, Vesian knew he wished he had kept his mouth shut.

"There is a manor not far from here that belongs to his lordship," Basine went on when she had finished staring a hole through the man's soul. "We will wait for you there, for a dare not return to the castle without my charge. Please be quick about it, I fear for her safety in that wood. Beasts, fae, even dragons lurk beneath its boughs."

Vesian knew all of that and did not need a reminder of the dangers he had just agreed to brave on behalf of some damsel he had never met before. But he knew her father's reputation, and could expect a generous reward if the girl came home in one piece. He turned over his shoulder to see his squire struggling up the road behind him with their unruly packhorse in tow.

"Damned stubborn thing," Thibault muttered. "What's gotten into you?"

"It's the forest," Vesian called. Thibault looked to his master and shook his head.

"I told you we should have taken the eastern road. Just being in sight of the place is setting the horses off."

"We won't make it to Vauvert anyway," Vesian replied. "We're heading west."

"West... into the forest?" Thibault asked. "What? Why?"

Vesian pointed to Basine's party. "Lady Isabelle's horse carried her off into the forest, and we're her best hope of rescue."

"The forest claims better knights than you every year," Thibault countered. "Why should we fare any better?"

Vesian shrugged. "We have to try. Would you rather we leave the damsel to the mercy of the forest?"

Thibault sighed defeated. "Is it too much to ask that our deaths be quick?"

Vesian smiled. "That's the spirit. Now hand the reins over to Basine, we're going to have to travel light and a forest is no place for horses."

---

The shadowy forest loomed ahead of them, and Vesian stopped just before its edge. Towering trees thousands of years old spread a thick emerald canopy above him and dense undergrowth covered the forest floor. In the depths of the forest, he could see fae lights dancing slowly through the trees.

"Are you sure you want to go in?" Thibault asked from behind him. "Maybe she'll just come out on her own."

Vesian snorted. "Find your courage, Thibault. She needs our help. And besides, some knights do come out of the forest unscathed."

"Some? Vesian, the poor girl is probably already dead. What's the sense in us dying to bring back a corpse?"

"As long as there's a chance she's alive, I won't give up on her. I swore an oath. You can stay behind if you want. Tell everyone I wouldn't let you follow me. But I'm going in."

Without brooking further discussion, Vesian stepped across the green threshold of the forest. The world seemed to shift around him, taking on a strange, silvery hue. The sounds changed, the chirping of forest birds was now airier, at once more distant and more ever-present. Somewhere in the emerald depths of the forest, he briefly heard piping.

He turned toward Thibault, but behind him was not the open fields through which they had walked, but more of the verdant forest. In every direction it stretched away from him with no sign of where its edge lay.

"Thibault?" he called, but only the chirping of birds answered him. "Damn it."

Turning back again, he decided to forge ahead alone. The treetops loomed distantly overhead, the light streaming through the forest canopy in golden rays. Vesian drew his sword, for he could not shake the feeling that he was not alone.

The piping sounded again, and he cocked an ear to the wind. He turned his head this way and that way until he found that the sound was louder in one direction than the others, and set off in that direction. Sword in hand, he walked in the direction of the piping for what seemed to be hours, but the sun did not change position in the sky. The forest looked familiar everywhere and he came to worry that he was lost, stumbling around in circles. Will I ever become un-lost? He wondered as concern set in. Or am I doomed to wander this forest until I starve?

His worry soon gave way, however, for he came upon a rocky ridge within the forest. Its crest rose some fifty feet above the forest floor, and its stony flank offered many handholds for a climber. Sheathing his sword unbloodied, Vesian began to climb to the top. The climb was easy enough, and soon he crested the ridge.

But he was disappointed to find that he gained no great vantage from the top. Instead, all he could see was the same forest he had been roaming for hours now. Defeated, he sat himself down on the rock and laid his chin on his palm to think. Here and there he could see blue sky through the trees, but no landmarks presented themselves for him to orient himself around. He knew that, on the outside, the forest was perhaps three hundred miles across, but legends and folk tales claimed that the forest was far larger than its borders intimated. He might spend the rest of his life inside it and never see more than a tiny fraction of it all, let alone find Lady Isabelle.

The stone beneath him rumbled, and Vesian froze where he sat. Slowly, he turned to look around. He expected to see the trees shaking in an earthquake, but to his shock he saw that only the ridge where he sat was shaking. Off in the corner of his vision, a rocky spur shifted along the ground like a dog's leg moving as it slept.

With awed horror, Vesian realized that the ridge upon which he sat was in fact some enormous, stone-skinned behemoth, slumbering in the midst of this ancient forest. Slowly, in mortal fear of awakening the giant, he rose to his feet and began to pick his way down the slope to the forest floor again. The ground groaned beneath him, and he started.

His feet slipped on the rock, and he fell to his backside with a loud cry. His mail screeching against the rock, he slid three strides down the slope before he caught himself on a rocky protrusion. The ground shook again, and Vesian froze. Nothing moved, though his heart was pounding in his chest. He slowly picked himself up and continued down the slope.

The forest floor was in sight, and Vesian in his haste thought to jump the rest of the way, but feared the noise of hitting the grass might disturb the monster's slumber. Like a mere fly on the neck of a bull, he sought to tread lightly and escape notice. He crept closer to the grassy floor, ever fearful he would wake the beast.

At last it was within reach, and all too eager he put his armored feet on the forest floor and ran for the cover of the trees. Plunging through brush and brambles, he ran until the thundering of his heart threatened to overwhelm him. At last convinced that the behemoth was far behind him, Vesian leaned himself against a thick tree trunk to catch his breath. He cast a look back toward the ridge, now hidden behind the towering trees, and saw no motion.

He sighed, but quickly realized that whatever orientation he had had before was utterly ruined now. His dash through the forest had come without any thought beyond an instinctual fear of the massive creature he had inadvertently scaled, and now he felt even more lost than he had before.

Frustration boiling over, he drew his sword and slashed at a thicket. His blade cut through the tangle of vines, but from them burst forth a vast swarm of many-colored butterflies. He yelped in surprise as they poured past him, but the surprise soon turned to awe at the sight.

Vesian stood agape for a long moment. The forest occupied a place of great fear in the minds of Aquitaine, but here he was overwhelmed by its beauty. Blue, green, red, orange, and violet, they swirled past him in a great column spiraling upward toward the forest canopy. There they scattered in all directions, little motes of color sparkling across the emerald sky.

As the swarm dispersed, something caught his eye. It was a scarlet swan, winging its way through the trees in a straight path. There's a welcome sight, thought Vesian. He pushed himself off the tree and watched it sweep past. It was flying with purpose, and Vesian fell in behind it.

He soon lost the bird in the trees, but he followed the straight line it had flown until he detected the sound of running water. His heart lifted, and a mercifully short distance away he found a small stream. The water flowed clear and fast through a deep trough in the earth, and he saw little silver fish flitting through the cold depths. Streams eventually flow to the sea, he told himself, but the swan had flown upstream and he decided to follow its flight.

Feeling that he was getting closer to something, Vesian hurried his pace. Coming to a place where the stream passed through a thicket, he donned his helmet, drew his blade and forged ahead to the other side.

He emerged in a glade before a rockface that ran to either side out of his view. The glade was blessed with an abundance of flowers as colorful as the butterflies he had seen before, and sunlight streamed down from a hole in the forest canopy above. The stream he had been following emerged from a pool fed by a waterfall plunging over the rockface, and the scarlet swan swam lazily in circles around the pool, joined by two others of its kind.

There, in the spray of the waterfall, bathed a naked young woman. Her skin was pale, her hair dark gold, and her body slender. Vesian sucked in a breath at the sight of her, so lovely was the sight. Her body glistened in the mist, her wet skin was raked by delicate fingers as she ran her hands over her nude body. The pink nipples on her lively round breasts stood erect under the cold spray whose droplets glistened on her white flesh. Vesian unconsciously took a step forward, feeling the hardness of his cock against his hauberk already. He felt lust for her coursing through him, despite his apprehension about the forest. All he could think of was to mount the little nymph and fuck her silly.

He doffed his helm, pulled the mail and surcoat over his head, and threw it aside. His swordbelt fell to the grass as he advanced toward the pool as if in a dream. The nymph seemed unaware of him, instead bathing serenely in the rushing water of the falls. Vesian threw off his boots and clothes to wade naked into the pool.

His splashing through the water alerted her, and the nymph turned to look at him over her shoulder. She smiled coyly, stroking a long tress of her wet gold hair in her delicate hands. Her smile crooked up at the edges of her mouth and she arched her back to stick out her ass. It was a delicious ass, Vesian saw at once, his cock standing up stiffer. Her ass was round and smooth, at once both shapely and slender and it called to him as he approached.

The nymph's blue eyes flashed as he neared, surging through the thigh-deep water over the last strides to reach her. His heart was aflame, and he felt Nystra's own lust rushing through every inch of his being. He was enraptured by the nymph, unable to think of anything else but fucking her.

"Hello, mortal," the nymph purred. "Welcome to my glade."

Vesian did not reply, except to reach out and seize her by the waist. She squealed in delight as he pulled her close, thrusting his cock into her smooth and hairless sex without even a word of greeting. Each thrust sent ripples through her smooth, heart-shaped ass and the sight of it was mesmerizing. Vesian's hands clutched at her, clawing hungrily at her beautiful little breasts and the bead of her sex. She screamed and shuddered in his arms, but Vesian did not let up. He bit at her neck as he fucked her from behind, drawing a pleasured sigh from the nymph. Her hands reached back to caress him along his legs and flanks, feeling his powerful muscles that drove the cock into her pink purse.

He kissed her neck and grabbed at her breasts, feeling the soft orbs bounce in his hands with each stroke inside her. They were so round and perky, deliciously soft to the touch. Lust coursed through him and he crushed her slight body against him, grunting like an animal as he fucked.

"Such a strong man," the nymph crooned. She ground her perfectly shaped hips against his in rhythm with his cock's thrusting, her hands running all along his body. "You're just the thing I've been waiting for."

Vesian only grunted in reply. Her bold blue eyes staring up at him, the nymph giggled in his arms. The noise, so pure and raw with delight in the cool air of the primeval forest, set his hips thrusting even faster. A sodden lock of hair clung to her rosy cheek, and Vesian brushed it aside. She turned her head back to whisper in his ear.

"Come for me, my dear mortal."

"Not yet," he grunted, his fingers pinching her soft pink nipples between them. "Oh, Nystra's tits, not yet!"

She giggled again and bit softly at his ear. Vesian's eyes flew open and he was at once close to coming. The nymph was unlike any other woman he had had his cock inside of. Her skin was so soft and silky to the touch, he could not believe his own senses. It was all he could do to keep from coming inside her already, he did not want the moment to end.

"Almost there?" she giggled teasingly, "Let me help you." Her hot, soft lips brushed his jaw, but Vesian shoved her away. With a squeal of delight, her naked torso swung forward to hang parallel to the water's surface. Clutching her at the wrists, Vesian held her suspended there as he fucked her from behind, the slapping of his flesh against hers reverberating out into the towering trees beyond the glade.

Vesian felt his lust for her grow. He wormed his fingers into her mouth, pulling on the inside of her cheeks with his fingertips. The nymph moaned again and he fucked harder. One hand slid down her cheek and tightened around her throat. She coughed, her eyes rolling back in her head to stare up at him. Her head craned back to kiss him. He snarled with furious lust and squeezed her throat harder.

The nymph cackled with glee, her laugh half-strangled by his grasping hands. She ran her soft hands along his thighs, then up to wrap her fingers around the base of his cock as he drove it into her. The light touch of her fingers sent shivers up his spine. His toes curled in the soft mud of the pool and he could not contain himself any longer.

He came with a mighty groan, his cock opening to pour a seemingly unending stream of his seed into her pink purse. He squeezed her tightly with hands and arms, turning her pale flesh rosy red beneath his fingers. The nymph shuddered in his grasp, moaning loudly with orgasm. Vesian crushed her against him and raised her up on his cock, her delicate feet lifting from the water in his arms.

His cock throbbed, then spurted again inside her. Her overfull purse dripped hot white cum down his cock's shaft and to the clear, cool water below them. He lowered the nymph to her feet in the water. Still weak-kneed and murmuring with pleasure, she steadied herself against his powerful chest with one hand, fanning her rosy cheeks with the other.

"Well," she breathed, "That was quite the greeting. What is your name, mortal?"

Vesian only now became aware of how hard he was breathing. He took a deep breath to steady himself. "I am Sir Vesian de Surrac, a knight errant of the Order of the Griffon and servant to King Guntheric of Aquitaine."

"My, that is quite the name," she teased. "I am Idalia, and this is my grove. You are welcome here, Sir Vesian de Surrac."

"I thank you, good nymph, for both your hospitality and for... well..."

She laughed, silvery bells ringing in the cool forest air. One of the red swans took flight, its powerful wings lifting it into the air where it soared away into the trees.

"It is you who has done me a service," Idalia replied, rising on her toes to kiss his cheek. "It can be so lonely in this forest. I am always glad to fuck a handsome mortal."

She took his slackening cock in one hand and gently stroked it, smiling up at him as she did. His jaw sagged open, and he clenched his fists by his sides to regain his composure.

"Apologies, dear girl," he stammered, "But I am here on a quest that I dare not delay for too long."

"You were not so long in coming just now, perhaps we might fuck again? Lay yourself in the grass and rest a moment. I'm sure your cock will rally in no time."

Without waiting for an answer, she led him out of the pool to lay on the grass by where he had discarded his clothing and effects, pulling him gently by his cock the whole way. The green grass was soft beneath his naked skin, and Vesian felt a powerful drowsiness coming over him. Idalia lay herself beside him, one hand on his cock and the other stroking his hair.

"I am most pleased that the goddess led you to me," she murmured in his ear. Vesian raised an eyebrow.

"Was it the goddess? I followed a red swan."