An Excerpt from the forthcoming novelette, The Lay of Legorel

Sunbeams filtered through the canopy. The air was warm and heavy with the rich smells of loam and vegetation. A fecund day! Legorel had to run at a jog to keep the bugs from biting. But it didn’t stop them from finding their way into his eyes—or his mouth when he forgot to breathe through his nose. He recalled the tale of the human who’d come down with a fever after falling into a swamp. He had lain in bed for a week, so the story went, until green things began to sprout from his nose and ears. He lived a few more days, they said, and then the swamp finally claimed him in his own bed.

But Legorel was too careful to stumble into quick mud. No self-respecting elf could live that down. Elves were born with woodcraft ingrained in their blood, right?

Legorel smiled. He was an able woodsman. But he was no scout. He preferred the bard’s lute to the hunter’s bow, and the poet’s quill to the soldier’s sword.

Despite the smells of damp earth, he was leagues from the the swamps of the Geornlice Delta, east of Shenn Frith. So he was in no danger of becoming fertilizer. He was here to visit one of his sweethearts!

Ysabella had lost her husband a year before to an accident while he was felling a tree. Unlike many of his people, or the Shenn Frith, Legorel was indulgent about humans harvesting trees. Or at least men like Ysabella’s late husband. He’d taken only the trees he needed. And he’d been selective in a way that reminded Legorel of the elven huntsmen culling the weakest harts from the forest to keep their line healthy.

Legorel had known the man before he’d died. And the man’s darling wife. After the woodsman had passed, Legorel had begun his courtship innocently enough. Checking on her to make sure she had everything she needed. Helping her with simple chores. Splitting wood and digging out a dried-up well. She had plied him with bread and sweet pies to thank him. Eventually, many months after her husband’s death, when he had run out of heavy work to do for her, she had asked for his help with her baking. He had never had to cook for himself before. But she was a frail thing. And kneading tired her out quickly. In little time he came to match her skills in the art of achieving a flaky crust! He smiled again. And he slowed his pace. He would reach her clearing soon.

Her late husband had chosen his spot well. Their cottage backed up against a ridge in the woods. He had dug a shallow cellar and built part of the home’s rear into the side of the hill. The earth surrounding half the building would keep it warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. And it was only a short walk to a small brook nearby. Legorel followed the course of the water and its gentle murmur as he walked the last several yards before entering the clearing where Ysabella was trying to grow some vegetables. In the warmth of late summer, the small garden should have been lush and full. But there weren’t enough hours of sunlight here in the woods for her plants to flourish properly.

He’d put off telling her as much, but he feared she would not be able to manage this small plot in the woods for very long without her husband. Legorel’s efforts, such as they were, had been but a delaying action. He thought once again about suggesting she might move to a city, and find work that could sustain her better than her hopeless efforts here in the forest. She was a fine baker. Surely she could find work in the city.

He frowned. Perhaps better than the city, he thought she might be taken on at a country estate somewhere. That would suit her. He caught himself becoming saddened at the prospect. And he forced himself to smile as he approached her cottage.