“Sit down!” Rainith told Parnard. “If you keep hopping up and down, you will be worn out before we reach our destination.”
Parnard drew closer to the fire and glanced uneasily behind him. There was the dark form of Estarfin, keeping guard on a hillock near their camp. Beyond him, the towering Hithaeglir could be seen, stretching away to the horizon, each pinnacle topped with snow, gleaming cold and cruel as Estarfin’s spear. Parnard was confounded to see the warrior follow them out of the Valley, out onto the High Moor. It seemed he was coming with them, all the way to the Greenwood! Lady Danel was pleased, he could tell, and she had even favoured Estarfin with a warm smile. Parnard frowned and huddled closer to the campfire.
Estarfin complained when Belegos built it: he said it might attract unfriendly eyes. The fire crackled and hissed, and Parnard could not escape the thought that the moor-drakes loved fire, and would come crawling out of the woods in great numbers. “Perhaps the drakes will bring friends,” he fretted to Danel. The others hid their smiles from the nervous Wood-elf, but said nothing, although Danel laughed.
Mighty careless are these folk, Parnard thought scornfully; recognizing the dangers of the Wilderness is important, if they wished to return to the Valley safely. It was a good thing the Lady Danel had asked him to be their guide through the Greenwood. But what use was his guidance, if it were not heeded?
“Well, is it not unusual, lady, for malevolent creatures to forge alliances?” he said, somewhat annoyed. “In my country, the snakes of the forest act as allies to the spiders, so that an injury to one is avenged by all, but that does not stop my people from killing them as soon as we see them; so many come around to our homes, and sometimes their venom is deadly. It is said that he who sees one snake will soon see many others, and if the hunter kills too many, more snakes will come around every which way, that he will become dazed at the sight of their glistening eyes, and their darting tongues tasting the air, and the sight will enfeeble his wit, and make him wander about, crazed and unable to find his way through the woods. The snake hunter must carry a bunch of wild parsnips, which smell offensive, and makes the snakes flee in terror."
“Perhaps we should gather some of this plant, for our journey,” suggested Danel.
Belegos shook his head dismissively, surprise and amusement in his eyes as he listened to the Wood-elf’s strange ramblings. He had cautioned Parnard to keep his voice low, but he seemed to have forgotten this advice in his excitement, and he was now speaking rapidly, as if to be done telling of this unpleasantness as soon as possible.
“We do not say, 'Ai! I was bitten by a snake,'” Parnard cried, leaping up and clutching his foot in pantomime, “but very lightheartedly, 'I was scratched by a little briar,' because to talk of the snake will make the poison encouraged, and work itself deeper into the blood. But not all snakes have poison, and some are useful, and hunt vermin; therefore, we do not kill every snake we see, only the poisonous black forest adders, and the rarer tiny greensnake. We greatly prize the skins of the latter, because of the beautiful color and patterns thereon, which look like the imprint of willow leaves, a tree that does not grow in our darkened woods any longer. Once I had a beautiful pouch made from such a skin, but it was lost.” Parnard sighed wistfully at the sad memory, and paused for a moment in respectful silence for his beloved pouch.
“When we kill the snakes,” he continued, “we cut off their heads, and bury them deep in the ground, and hide the skinned bodies in a hollow log; if we leave them exposed, the spiders will see them, and be angered, and will rise up and spin their webs all about the woods, so that the streams will overflow their banks, and then our huts will be flooded. We tried to hunt the spiders when they came to our woods, but of all our daring warriors who started out in search of their huge nests, only a handful came back. Now the spiders have grown sly and fat, and have spun their webs to the south of our hunting paths, but they are not so bold to attack us as we feast, not yet: we have our greatest revels late in the autumn and winter, after their friends the snakes have all retired to their dens. Why we do not carry bouquets of wild parsnips to our feasting-places to keep the snakes away, I do not know, but perhaps it is because the flowers smell very bad, and we do not like to pick them, as it is very hard to wash the stink off our hands and clothing, and the oil on the leaves causes blistering.”
Parnard sat down again, breathless, and saw that his words had made a great impression on the three elves. Then he heard Estarfin snicker. Well! Let that one laugh; he already knew the grim warrior held him in derision. It is better to be laughed at than be broken, he reminded himself, and when the snake bites Estarfin, he would not be overly sorry.
