Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2016 03:01:36 +0000
From: George Gauthier <georgegauthierdc@gmail.com>
Subject: Elf-Boy's Friends 40

			Elf-Boy's Friends 40
			Invasive Species
 			by George Gauthier

[The further adventures of characters from the novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends']

			Chapter 1. Skimmers

"Can I be of assistance, sir?" Corwin Klarendes asked of the city watchman
at the accident scene.

On a day off Corwin had been returning from an early morning run to the
rooms he shared with his friends, looking forward to a cool shower and a
late breakfast. An onlooker had told him that a teenage boy traveling too
fast on his skimmer board had collied with a lady in her thirties. She had
gone down hard. The boy had fallen too, but his injuries looked to be
nothing more than the scrapes and bruises he had picked up rolling along
the pavement till he had fetched up against a hitching post. The woman was
unconscious and perhaps seriously injured. For starters she had a nasty
forearm fracture with the ends of the bones visibly protruding from the
skin, and she was losing blood.

"Who are you, youngster, and what makes you think you might be able to
help?" the watchman asked Corwin dismissively, seeing the comely blond
youth as just another bare-ass pretty-boy, little different from the nude
youth who had recklessly ridden the lady down except his fine-boned
features indicated that this newcomer's ancestry was as much elven as it
was human.

"Let me see what I can do to stabilize her condition. I am both a combat
medic and a magical Healer."

"You'd better be able to prove that you are what you claim to be," the man
warned Corwin. "What's your name anyway? For the record."

"It's Corwin, Lord Klarendes of Dalnot." he said, invoking his seldom-used
title of nobility."

"Ah, you would be that journalist and author."

"Yes, I am, and if I were dressed professionally I would be wearing the
armbands certifying me as both combat medic and Healer. "

"I had no idea you had such credentials. By all means proceed."

Taking a knee beside the stricken lady, Corwin first checked for head
injuries. It was as he feared, the woman was in serious trouble, maybe
enough to kill her if the bleeding in her brain was not stopped, certainly
enough to cripple her. Corwin's gift confirmed that her other injuries were
survivable so he first tackled the brain injury.

As Corwin summoned his magic a pearly effulgence engulfed both him and the
casualty. Its color cycled from pale white to light green and back three
times before dying away. Corwin's magic had stopped the hemorrhaging in her
brain, repaired the damage to the brain tissue, and also realigned her arm
bones, stopped the bleeding, and closed the flesh around the break,
cleansing it to prevent infection.

"When she wakens, which will be soon enough, but see that she is taken to
an infirmary. The bones of her arm are knit but only weakly. A bonesetter
will have to put a cast on her arm to help it knit fully, but her body's
own recuperative powers will soon have her as good as new."

"Thank you young sir, or rather My Lord." the watchman said respectfully
acknowledging his status.

"Could you check on this young miscreant as well?" he asked hauling the boy
to his feet which caused him to yelp and clutch at his shoulder.

Corwin frowned. "Hold on a minute, sir. His shoulder looks dislocated. Here
let me pop the joint back into place." Corwin told him. Gripping the boy's
elbow he gave it a practiced yank which reset the joint.

"Yikes! That really hurt, and what about my scrapes and bruises?," the boy
asked plaintively. "Look I'm even bleeding some."

Corwin shrugged. "Slow seepage like that actually keeps the wounds clean
until you wash them with soap and water then apply an astringent to prevent
infection. Anyway your injuries are nothing which time and nature cannot
set right. I won't waste magical healing on any of them."

"We'll clean him up down at the station." the lawman promised as he took
the youth into custody, telling him:

"Let your injuries be a reminder of the hazards of racing along crowded
city streets on a skimmer board."

Skimmer boards were all the rage especially among the younger set. Both a
toy and a means of short-range transportation, they were the latest of
Karl-Eike Thyssen's inventions and were a best seller for his toy company.

Essentially a smaller terrestrial version of the paddle boards of the
Medkari, the narrow boards were about two and a half feet long and ran on
four small wheels attached to the board by a steel shank on the underside.

Most riders would scoot them forward with a sandaled foot letting their
momentum carry them along, steering by shifting their weight. Alternatively
some riders kept both feet on the board and propelled themselves by the
strength of their arms, pushing off with a light pole which had a rubber
tip at the bottom for better contact with the pavement.

Skimmers really came into their own with riders who were fetchers or
masters of magnetism. Their telekinetic or magnetic gift let them propel
the skimmer at dizzying speed, which is what made them exciting to teenage
boys and inspired impromptu races and daredevil antics.

Youths just coming into their powers and heedless of the consequences of
excess speed had caused any number of accidents, though this would have
been the first fatality. Some dangerous speedsters had been dealt with by
passers-by whose gifts had brought the headlong careening of the reckless
youths to a sudden halt, in some cases none too gently.

One boy had been Lifted telekinetically by a fetcher of middle years and
tossed onto a tussock of sword grass. The one thing fetchers cannot move
telekinetically is their own selves. Once lifted off his skimmer into the
air he was helpless. He yelped as the sharp blades cut his skin.

"Damn you, old man. My father is a district magistrate." the outraged boy
shouted. "He will make you pay for this."

The man shook his head.

"I think not." then raised his right hand and triggered the small magic
that made it glow, the unmistakable credentials of the Dread Hands of the
Commonwealth, the government's chief troubleshooters who were endowed with
plenipotentiary powers.

Another reckless youth got double-teamed by a fetcher and a firecaster as
wizards whose tutelary element was fire were known. The former dropped the
bare-assed boy into an ornamental pond which the latter had chilled halfway
to freezing.

Corwin resolved to write a short article for the Capitol Intelligencer
about the hazards of excess speed. He was back to working full-time now
that he had completed his medical training. The newly licensed magical
healer also volunteered four half-days a month at a local infirmary. There
were never enough magical healers to meet the need, which was why the
medical system in the Commonwealth incorporated the abilities of the allied
health professions of nurses, bonesetters, midwives, herbalists,
chirurgeons, and doctors of natural medicine, spreading best practices
across the entire health care sector.

The next day Corwin testified at the young miscreant's hearing, describing
the extent of the woman's injuries. The boy whose name was Poul Lander
seemed genuinely sorry that his heedlessness might have cost the life of a
nice lady who was a wife and mother of three. At Corwin's suggestion, the
magistrate sentenced him to a month of community service at the infirmary
where Corwin worked. It was often called upon to help with injuries ranging
from falls from ladders to mishaps with kitchen knives to crime victims,
mostly stab wounds or slashes or blunt force trauma.

Some weeks later, as Corwin got back from the infirmary Drew Altair
jokingly asked:

"How is that new boyfriend of yours getting along?"

"Poul is hardly my boyfriend, just a spirited kid who made a mistake and
got carried away with the thrill of speed. Fortunately I came upon the
scene of his accident in time to keep him from having to face a charge of
unintended homicide."

"He's been doing quite well at the infirmary. He is cheerful and
conscientious and not at all resentful of his sentence which he
acknowledges is no more than his just deserts. At our infirmary we mostly
treat accidental injuries rather than disease. So Poul has seen for himself
the damage that carelessness can produce. He'll soon be finished with his
community service. In my estimation, he has learned his lesson. More power
to him."

"Does he still race along the streets on his skimmer board?"

"Not like before. When he travels by skimmer, he not only moderates his
speed he also wears a bicycle crash helmet and the wrist braces which
Thyssen Toys recommends.

"No clothes though, right?"

"Of course not. What is the point of having a fine young body if you cannot
show it off?"

And indeed with nudity taboos for males virtually non-existent in the
Commonwealth of the Long River, except for dwarves and Frost Giants, young
human and elven males almost never wore clothing for exercise or for any
kind of dirty or sweaty work, not in that tropical climate. And if their
state of undress gave potential suitors a look see, well what could be
wrong with that?

Of course many riders who commuted to work on their skimmer board did dress
in sober tunics or trews and shirts. Some of the younger workers preferred
to wear the newly fashionable square-cut low-rise short-shorts which let
them show off their fine bodies in public then change into more appropriate
garb at the shop, manufactory, or bureau where they worked.

"So you really don't fancy this young fellow for yourself, do you?" Drew
wondered.

"Hardly. Oh, Poul is a nice looking kid, but he is only fifteen going on
sixteen. Besides he already has a special friend more his own age, a person
of the female persuasion."

"Oh, I see!"

"See what?" Eike asked as he breezed into the room.

Eike was a slightly built, slender, and smooth muscled blond boy. Though in
his twenties he looked to be no more than sixteen and would stay that way
for centuries thanks to druidical healing magic. Far prettier than any boy
rightly ought to be, he had a flawless complexion and fine boned features
including a broad brow that hinted at his intellect, high cheekbones, a
straight nose, plus subtly pointed ears and chin which gave him an elfin
appearance, His large green eyes were set wide apart under finely arched
brows, their lashes too long to have ever have been meant for a male.

In answer to Eike's question Drew explained:

"I just now realized why Poul wasn't Corwin's boyfriend after all."

"I never thought he was. That was just a notion in your own perfervid
imagination. You saw the boy only once and then very briefly. Anyway it was
obvious to me that this Poul wasn't interested in boys."

"Oh?"

Eike shrugged. "Just from the way he looked at me or rather did not look at
me, if you take my meaning."

"Come to think of it you're right. I should have picked up on that, social
butterfly that I am."

"How is the toy business?" Corwin asked, to change the subject.

"Better than ever, and now we are selling skimmers as fast as the
manufactory can make them. Plus we offer accessories like push poles, crash
helmets, wrist guards, and even sandals with tough soles which really grip
the pavement. You see I held off on offering skimmers till I had developed
a line of accessories to go with them. No point giving competitors an
uncontested opportunity at the aftermarket."

"You have become quite the shrewd man of affairs, Eike." Drew told him.

"I had a good mentor. Lennart is a great teacher as well as the outstanding
business innovator of the Commonwealth. He has midwifed more new companies
and industries than anyone else. And yes, as he predicted, my inventions
have made me rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Not that I really need the
money. I mean, what would I spend it on. Clothes?"

Corwin and Drew chuckled. Eike had nearly as little use for clothing as
elves did, going back to Karl-Eike Thyssen's five years as a castaway in
the Scilly Isles. Once his clothes rotted away he spent the whole time on
the island stark naked until he was rescued at the age of fifteen by Nathan
Lathrop and the crew of the Commonwealth frigate Petrel. Most days, if he
wore anything, it was only a skimpy breechclout and moccasins while on duty
as a a naval architect at the naval shipyard where he worked.

All of Eike's friends had become wealthy one way or another. Their
comfortable but modest life styles meant that most of their income was
plowed into long term investments, especially in new industries like iron
roads, street cars, refrigeration, aviation, bicycles, and even pencils,
though not the toy company of which Eike was the sole proprietor.

Ticking off the major inventions with his fingers, Drew said:

"Rigid wings for soaring, wire wheels, bicycles and tricycles, autogyros,
airguns, magnetic cannon, torpedoes, toys, skimmers. What's next, Eike?"

"That's the fun part. I won't know until the moment of inspiration, and
then I'll get carried away by the frenzy of design and innovation while
turning my original notion into physical reality. It's the greatest feeling
in the world. Well, the second greatest," he finished with a wink. Then as
Nathan and Liam arrived, he added:

"Speaking of which..."

"Save it for after supper!"

The trio of the inventor, the naval officer, and the war wizard shared a
bond nearly as strong as that between the twins Jemsen and Karel. For that
matter, the trio of Liam, Drew, and Axel Wilde were also close. The nine
young males including Corwin and Finn Ragnarson, who lived in the expanded
suite at their residential hotel shared not just rooms and bodies, but the
lives, their loves, their hopes, and their ambitions for a better future
for each other, their friends, and for their country, the Commonwealth of
the Long River of which they were proud to be citizens.

			Chapter 2. Flensborg, New Varangia

"Pardon me, Sir Giant. Could you direct me to the Wayfarers' Inn?" Corwin
asked.

The huge townsman peered quizzically at his diminutive interlocutor, a cute
blond youth whose green eyes and fine-boned features suggested a
considerable admixture of elfin and human blood in his ancestry. Even for a
human he was short and slight of build, standing but four inches over five
feet. Which made him quite the little guy in a town mostly inhabited by
Frost Giants, who might reach nine feet in height.

"Hmm, I did hear that Old Arn had a notion to hire another wine boy to
serve drinks and to entertain his customers upstairs. I suppose you might
be him, small though you are."

"What makes you think I'm a wine boy?"

"Well, for one thing, here you are running around town stark naked. Not
that I object, mind you, quite the contrary. You are a cute little thing to
be sure, but while casual public nudity is common practice for youths in
the Commonwealth proper, out here on the frontier and in a town inhabited
mostly by Frost Giants it is not. And even dusty and sweaty as you are, I
can see that your sexy little body is bronzed everywhere from the constant
kiss of the sun, as such bare-assed boys are wont to be from almost
constant exposure."

"In both senses of that word." he added smiling.

"Also your skin is utterly smooth -- with nary a feather anywhere -- not
even at the fork of your legs. Throw in that impossibly cute face of yours
with its delicate features and the sum of it is that you are likely a rent
boy and a supremely desirable one at that. Now I usually prefer to consort
with the female half of the species, but I do make an exception now and
then if a supremely cute boy crosses my path. What do you say that once you
get settled in, I call on you at Arn's place? Uh, no offense if I have
jumped to the wrong conclusion about you, pretty one."

"None taken, Sir Giant. Actually I get that a lot from strangers, so I have
learned to expect it. I am acutely aware that with my slight build,
androgynous looks, and glabrous skin, I fall considerably short of normal
male standards in height, muscular development, and secondary sexual
characteristics like beard, body hair, and voice register. And that goes
double around Frost Giants."

"But no, I am not a rent boy, nor even truly a boy anymore, not
chronologically anyway. Despite appearances I am of age, and I am as fully
grown as I will ever be. I realize that I might look to be no more than
sixteen, but I am actually in my twenties. And yes at home I often in the
nude for exercise, training, or relaxation, though I do dress
professionally when on assignment."

"What sort of work would that be, young one? From my years in the
Commonwealth, I know that most young humans and elves strip before sweaty
work if they aren't already naked to begin with. They don't dress up for
labor."

"That is true, but in my case I work with my head not my hands or my
back. I am a journalist and war correspondent for the Capital
Intelligencer, the most prominent news-paper in the Commonwealth, My byline
is Corwin Klarendes and my beat is national news and special features. As a
journalist, I always wear a tunic and sandals for interviews and public
events, professional garb which helps me be taken by my interlocutors as a
serious journalist rather than be dismissed as a nosy bare-assed kid who
asks too many questions."

"And for your information, I got to town only a little while ago, which is
why I am all hot and sweaty and dusty and in the nude. I ran the last dozen
miles of my journey after being dropped off by an autogyro. I like to keep
in shape, you see."

The giant nodded.

"That kind of strenuous exertion explains the sculpted musculature on your
wiry physique. Your stamina must be phenomenal too."

"I expect that is the case.  And the way to Old Arn's, if I may remind you,
sir?"

"Yes, well Arn's place lies just down the street and around the corner. I
am heading that way myself so you can tag along with me. How do you know
Arn, if I might ask?"

"He is a friend of good friends of mine, folks you may have heard of: Finn
Ragnarson, Drew Altair, and the twins Jemsen and Karel."

"Indeed. Those are famous names among us Frost Giants. You come
well-recommended, young Klarendes."

Arn's place was located on a sunny square with a public fountain in the
middle. Awnings and half-grown trees shaded the entrances to the shops and
taverns that lined the square including the two-storey building with a sign
proclaiming it to be the Wayfarers' Inn.

"There's your destination, youngling. My own business takes me farther down
this street. Good day to you."

"And to you, sir."

The common room at Arn's place was full of giants, all of them in a genial
mood and neatly if plainly dressed in linen or silk trews and shirts. As
Corwin stepped through the wide open double doors, the buzz of conversation
faltered as all eyes turned toward the newcomer. The faces of the patrons
were friendly enough though most registered surprise at the appearance of a
small, nude, and impossibly comely human youth in their favorite
tavern. Others leered at him, obviously taking him for the new wine boy
they had heard about.

"You sure know how to pick them, Arn." one giant told his host. "I'd gladly
pay a whole silver for a tumble with this new lad of yours. Pretty, petite,
blond, and green eyed, he's an exotic and arousing mix of human and elf."

"Yes, he is all those things, Donnar, except this blond beauty is no wine
boy. No, he is a paying guest so mind your manners and watch those roving
hands of yours. Fair warning to any of you who might be tempted to
aggressive tactics, this lad may not look like he can take care of himself,
but he is a powerful Healer whose magic can stop any or all three of your
hearts with a thought."

Frost Giant had two auxiliary hearts low in their trunk to raise blood from
the legs to the main heart and head while keeping blood pressure within the
safe zone.

"Oh I wouldn't do anything so drastic to an importunate suitor, Arn."
Corwin assured him. "I'd just disable his soldier, if you take my meaning."

Even Donnar joined in the chuckle which Corwin's remark provoked and asked
good-naturedly.

"At least set the boy atop a table where we can all get a good look at
him."

At Corwin's nod, Arn pulled out a chair to let him step easily to the top
of Donnar's own table which brought a big grin to his friendly face. Corwin
rewarded him with a wink.

He didn't mind showing off the taut and trim and tanned body he was so
proud of. Maybe he wasn't quite the shameless showoff that Drew Altair was,
but he did like people to admire him and to desire him, and here he was in
a roomful of giants, all fully clothed while he stood atop a table stark
naked for all to ogle. Corwin couldn't help but shiver deliciously with the
frisson of his own naughtiness.

Donnar's drinking companion Otho Strahl shook his head, telling his friend:

"I just don't get all this romantic fuss which fellows like you make over
pretty boys, no offense to either of you."

"None taken." Corwin allowed. "Most guys are like you; they fancy
girls. Many others fancy boys, and more than a few fancy both. One's
orientation is just something boys discover about themselves as they grow
up."

"What brings you to town, then?" Donnar asked.

"I am a journalist on assignment for the Capital Intelligencer. I am to
report on the progress you giants and the other races have made in settling
and developing New Varangia."

"What! You are a journalist and a Healer both?"

"Yes, I am, plus a combat medic and sometime soldier too."

"Corwin is a war hero, a decorated combat veteran of the Lightning War
against the eastern barbarians and of two campaigns in the war against the
trolls and the author of best-selling books on those campaigns. He also
fought the orcs in that brief war in the Eastern Mountains and against a
ring of slavers in the capital." Arn interjected, then let Corwin continue
with:

"Anyway I am here to follow up on reporting which my colleague Drew Altair
started years ago. He thought I should take the assignment for a change."

"Oh yes, the Drew Altair whom we all know as the Brave Little Fetcher who
stood with Old Arn and Young Finn in the Breach. In fact, Otho and I were
in that battle too and like those more famous three we are depicted in the
commemorative paintings which grace the walls of Arn's place."

At the Battle of the Ravine the Frost Giants had fought the centaurs,
carnivorous alien monsters with six limbs that resembled a cross between an
insect and a reptile, if such a thing can be imagined. During the battle,
the press of the centaur attack opened a breach in the shield wall of the
Frost Giants. Had they broken through in strength, their horde would have
turned both flanks of the line held by the giants and rolled it up.

At that crucial moment Arn and his protege Finn Ragnarson, still a
teenager, surged forward using their shields and bodies to block the
centaurs. Wielding their twelve foot spears they had stabbed and slashed at
their enemies for all they were worth. The pair held the breach long enough
for others to rally to them including Donnar and Otho. Their stand went
down in history as that of "Old Arn and Young Finn in the Breach".

A series of three dramatic paintings portrayed the action. In the first
picture, giants and centaurs in the front line go down in a tangle of
flailing limbs and weapons, opening the breach. In the second picture Arn
and Finn fight nearly alone in the breach. The blades of their spears
decapitate and eviscerate their enemies, holding them back by sheer courage
and ferocity.

Even so they likely would have gone under but for Drew's help. As shown in
the second picture Drew has taken a position directly behind Arn and Finn
and stands in the path of the centaur breakthrough. He wields steel spheres
about the size of a peach telekinetically with an unusual up and down or
'pile driver' motion to prevent potential fratricide among his allies. The
motions of his fists help him concentrate as he smashes the death-dealing
steel through the bodies of the centaurs and into the ground only to raise
them high again for the next strike with an uppercut motion.

Just behind the right end of the shield wall and up the slope of the
ravine, two splendid human youths, the twins Jemsen and Karel, send arrow
after arrow over the shield wall to pick off the unit commanders of the
centaurs, identifiable by the insignia painted on their chitinous armor,
throwing their attack into disarray.

In the final picture, with the integrity of the shield wall restored, Drew
goes back to controlling the flight of his spheres with his trademark
'shadow boxing' technique, sending them whirling through the heads and
upper torsos of the foul creatures. The disheartened centaur horde shows
the first signs of the panic that transformed an army into a disorganized
mob that the giants and their allies, the Commonwealth cavalry, soon cut to
pieces.

"See," Donnar said pointing at the second painting. That's me the fighter
with the blond braid. A centaur sword had knocked my steel cap off my
head. Before he could finish me I lobbed a clinging ball of fire at him,
engulfing his upper torso and head, cooking his brains in his skull. And
Otho is the fighter next to me throwing a levin bolt at another centaur."

"My bolts were not strong enough to blast a centaur apart so I aimed at the
sabers they wielded in either hand. Steel makes an excellent conductor of
electricity. My bolt would hit the blade then traverse the barrel of its
body into the ground, stopping its heart and cooking part of its innards."

"And Otho and I also fought at the battle of Flensborg again the
trolls. That was the day that Finn Ragnarson transformed into the avatar of
Thor and inspired us all. What a thrill that was! Arn was saying just now
that he had commissioned a pair of paintings of that battle for the other
wall."

"I was surprised to hear him say that you were a soldier yourself,
Corwin. No offense, but small as you are you don't look like you could hurt
a mouse."

"You'd be surprised, Otho. My small size can actually be an advantage. For
one thing I offer a much smaller target to missile weapons than a Frost
Giant does. And I am quick and agile. That plus my training with a kukri
make me effective in close combat, one-on-one. You are right though that a
little guy like me has no business standing in a shield wall and trading
sword or axe blows with centaurs, trolls, orcs or humans."

"Besides my physical abilities, there is my magical gift of ball lightning
which is more powerful and more flexible than either of your
gifts. Lightning bolts and fireballs are well and good, but they are all
offense and offer no defense. Ball lightning serves as both sword and
shield. A lightning ball three or four feet across can stop bolts,
fireballs, arrows, slung bullets, and even a charging horse and rider. Also
with my explosive technique I can take out a whole squad at a time. Finally
ball lightning can light up the night much like a ball of cold light though
admittedly less effectively."

Otho nodded and conceded: "The boy does have a point. Fighters come in all
sizes."

"On that note of agreement let me get my guest settled." Arn told
them. "Corwin, the folks at the airfield sent over your kit which I had put
up in your room. One thing more: the washroom is through that green
door. So get cleaned up, and I'll see you at supper."

			Chapter 3. Manticores

Over the next couple of weeks Corwin interviewed the inhabitants of the
city of Flensborg and its outlying settlements. These included the newly
re-elected governor Oddr Bjarnson who expressed his satisfaction that New
Varangia had reached its goal of settling half a million Frost Giants in
their second homeland, territories which they had wrested by force of arms
from the carnivorous centaurs who had looked on all the sentient races of
the planet as no more than meat animals.

Humans, elves, and dwarves added another eighty-five thousand to the mix
with more to come, especially dwarves, who were occupying the systems of
caverns in South Varangia as well as those in the mountains to the north of
the farming country which the giants had settled. The Sylvan Elves
preferred to live in secluded vales in the northern mountains where they
farmed both mulberry trees and the silkworms that fed on their leaves.

More recently the elves had created an industry to supply cut-flowers and
starter pots of medicinal and culinary herbs which were difficult to grow
from seed to the urban centers of New Varangia and even of the Far West via
air freight. Flensborg alone was a real city of some sixty-four
thousand. Its flower shops were no longer limited to what grew locally but
could offer exotic blooms nurtured by the Green Thumbs which elves were
famous for.

Most of Corwin's interlocutors were Frost Giants, though some were human,
often former nomads from the Western Plains whom the giants had invited to
settle among them to take care of the draft horses which drew stage and
freight wagons along the fine new roads the Commonwealth had built.

Frost Giants themselves were much too large for horses whether as riders or
even as teamsters. That was simple economics. A team of horses could pull
only so much weight. Human teamsters weighed only a hundred pounds or so
while giants could weigh five times as much, making for that much less
capacity for the payload. (That same logic applied to the humans and elves
and dwarves whose telekinetic gift powered autogyros like the one that had
brought Corwin to Flensborg.)

Frost Giants were a neat and orderly people. They had no patience with the
mess draft animals left behind, so horses were not allowed in town but were
stabled on the outskirts. In town goods were moved about by push carts
operated by the powerful giants themselves which rolled along streets paved
with well-set flat stones. The pavement let carts roll freely, and they
never get stuck in mud. They did not make much noise either with solid
rubber tires on the rims of the wheels.

Corwin knew Eike would have been pleased to see so many upright tricycles
on the streets, all of them built with the wire wheel technology he
licensed to the manufacturers. Three identical wheels nearly four feet
across could support the weight of even the burliest of giants. Wire wheels
only looked flimsy. In a wooden wheel the rim and spokes were thick and
rigid. With a wire wheel the metal rim was flexible and the load kept the
wire spokes under tension, a design that made the wire wheel light and
strong and with very little rolling resistance.

These days Flensborg and New Varangia were connected to the Commonwealth
proper not only by modern roads and a postal heliograph line but also by an
iron road which brought in beef from the Western Plains in refrigerated
freight wagons as well as manufactures and passengers from the settled
lands to the east. So far the iron road reached only to Flensborg. From
that point freight and passengers had to proceed by stage, wagon, river
boat, or autogyro. Roads and river and sea routes connected New Varangia to
the Far West.

The slaughterhouses which supplied the beef were situated in Plainsville,
the only town on the plains built by the Commonwealth on land leased from
the nomads. More than a few nomad families had settled in the town,
preferring a settled urban existence in nuclear families and paid
employment to the traditional life and extended families of the tribal
nomads. Their departure eased the population pressure on those left behind
so it was a win-win situation.

Corwin spent a day with Finn's brother Holgar who showed him around their
operation both at their lumber yard in town and at their sawmill upstream
where they owned extensive timberlands. Shipyards at the head of navigation
on the River Calyx turned their lumber into ships which plied the Great
Inland Freshwater Sea. The firm also supplied lumber to build houses in the
growing town. Much of Flensborg was built of wood rather than of brick or
stone which too expensive for most uses though a brickworks had opened
recently to exploit nearby clay pits, much to the satisfaction of the
volunteer firefighters of the city.

"The lumberjack first tops the tree then fells it with axe and cross-cut
saw. As you can see, I also have the men at work extending logging roads to
reach fresh stands of timber. We replant with seedlings after clearing a
parcel. We'll give it thirty years before we come back to harvest the
mature trees. That way our timberlands will yield quality wood
indefinitely. The only downside is that over time we transform a good part
of the forest into a tree plantation. But better than than encroaching
endlessly on virgin forest."

"Why are these axes so different?" Corwin asked pointing to tools laid out
in the bed of a wagon.

"Ah, this first one would be your basic felling axe. The bit or cutting
head has to be very sharp to sever the fibers as it cuts across the grain
of the wood. Now this splitting axe is shaped like a wedge and cuts with
the grain. It parts the fibers rather than cuts through them. This next
type is a broad axe which is swung with the grain of the wood to hew the
felled log and shape it into the squared-off timbers used in
construction. It is chisel-shaped with one flat and one beveled edge, for
better control as the flat cheek passes across the squared timber. This
final type of tool is called an adze. Its main differences from the others
is a side-to-side blade. We use the adze to rip the level surface off a
horizontal piece of wood. We also use it as a pickaxe for breaking up rocks
and clay when building logging roads."

"Now I understand. I am more familiar with war axes than any other
kind. Damn the trolls and their murderous ways."

Just then shouts and sounds of a fierce struggle came from up ahead, where
the road building crew was at work. Someone blew a horn to sound the alarm
and the call to arms. Everyone in the crew grabbed an axe or adze and
marched to the road head prepared for the worst, which is exactly what they
found.

Monsters out of legend had attacked the road building crew who were mostly
giants though with a few human teamsters to clear felled logs. Already two
giants were down while a human teamster had been dragged by his runaway
team and lay still, either injured or dead. The rest of the crew was
fighting as best they could wielding adzes and shovels instead of proper
weapons, but they were outnumbered, seven giants to a score of the
attackers.

Looking much like a pack of wolves with an extra set of legs, their
attackers were six limbed creatures the size of pony. Like the centaurs
they had internal cartilaginous skeletons. Unlike the extinct centaurs the
creatures ran on all six limbs which ended in paws with blunt claws, much
like those of dogs and wolves. The jaws were armed with shearing teeth
designed to tear the flesh of their prey, and they had tails as long as
their bodies equipped with a vicious stinger. Their external shell of
chitinous armor gave protection against the claws or fangs of their prey
but would not stop cold steel.

Holgar took in the situation and realized that their only chance was to
keep the beasts from surrounding them and attacking them from all
directions.

"Over to the rock face." he shouted. "Put your backs to it. Then the
creatures can come at us only from the front."

The giants and humans converged on the rock face, though not without
loss. Two more giants went down, swarmed over by the beasts.

"What are those things, anyway?" Corwin asked of no one in particular.

"Manticores." Holgar told him. "They were the hunting beasts of the
centaurs. After we wiped out their masters they must have run into the
forest where they turned feral and multiplied. To them we are just so much
prey."

The giants soon realized that work tools were not the best weapons for
fighting manticores. If you had to fight with edged weapons, better they be
boar spears to hold them at bay or a combination of buckler and sword. The
buckler would block a sting or a bite while the sword could sever the tail
or split a skull or stab into the guts of the manticore, something you
could not do with an axe.

That was when Corwin set to work with his ball lightning, sweeping a pair
of crackling and humming spheres four feet in diameter just in front of the
defensive line the giants were trying to hold. That drove the manticores
back far enough for a safety buffer for Corwin's explosive
technique. Targeting the milling manticores he launched balls of lighting
into their midst which burst with a flash and an electric crackle
electrocuting or tearing the beasts apart, leaving grisly piles of
disjointed limbs, guts, and charred body parts. He kept at it till he had
killed all but the final few which disappeared into the woods.

Corwin then checked on the fallen. The human teamster who had been dragged
by his team was only stunned and had scrapes on his arms and legs. Two
giants had had their throats torn out while another's arm was badly savaged
by the teeth of a manticore. Surprisingly, those who had been stung were
not dead, only comatose and still breathing.

"It seems that the sting of a manticore is not deadly, which kind of makes
sense."

"What do you mean, Corwin?" Holgar asked.

"The centaurs evidently needed the help of their manticores in running
their prey down but wanted to reserve the honor of the kill to
themselves. Hence the soporific venom. Here, let me see what I can do for
them."

Invoking his healing magic Corwin flushed the venom from the systems of the
manticore's victims, drawing it to the site of the sting and making it
dribble out of the puncture wound. That left the victims still feeling
terribly out of sorts from after effects, but Corwin was confident that
their natural recuperative powers would restore them to full health in very
short order. He then repaired the badly torn arm more fully than he would
have done if he had had medical supplies at hand. Magical Healing was
intended for when natural medicine could not do the job.

And that was how Corwin, Lord Klarendes of Dalnot, earned his tattoo as a
Giant-Friend.

The authorities at Flensborg realized that packs of manticores constituted
a danger to the public but not an existential threat to a land with nearly
six hundred thousand inhabitants, many of them trained to arms. As a long
term solution Governor Bjarnson put a bounty on their heads or rather their
stingers. In the short term he had the constabulary organize hunting teams
to track down packs of manticores living near any of the settled areas
including the caverns of the dwarves and the vales of the elves.

The hunting party from Flensborg set out two days later under the command
of Donnar, a woodsman from way back with Otho as his deputy, who were both
members of the constabulary. The party included six pairs of giants armed
with airguns. Two elves armed with long bows served as trackers. Humans
were represented by two fetchers named Hugh and Jules, cute sandy haired
lads with hazel eyes, but no dwarves were in the party. Dwarves did not
have the fieldcraft necessary for a hunt. Besides, their legs were too
short for them to keep up.

The veterans Donnar and Otho were the heavy hitters of the group, one a
firecaster the other a lightning thrower. Otho also had the gift of
Unerring Direction so he was their designated navigator. Corwin went with
them but as a reporter rather than a hunter or mage.

"So Donnar, why do we need both a navigator and a pair of trackers?" Corwin
asked.

Donner smiled. "The trackers can tell us where the manticores are. Otho can
tell us where we are.

"As I see it," Otho added, "on this hunt we Varangians are just finishing
the job of exterminating the centaurs. By the time we are through even
their hunting dogs will be but a memory. My levin bolts and Donnar's balls
of fire will ensure the safety of the hunters though I expect most of the
culling will be done with lead or cold steel."

"That includes the steel of our disks." the young fetchers reminded him.

Otho shrugged. "Let's hope so. I've never seen them in action."

The Navy had developed the disks for use in ship to ship combat. They were
shaped like a discus but with keen edges and were designed to cut apart
lines, sheets, shrouds, hawsers, and cables thereby rendering the ship
inoperable, an immobilized hulk on the water that could be dealt with
later.

Later the Army Air Corps adopted them for use against enemy flyers in the
anti-personnel role, as the military chillingly put it. Meanwhile fetchers
like Drew Altair and Liam also carried theirs in wooden holsters at their
hips to supplement their steel spheres. Spheres were for smashing and disks
for cutting.

The human fetchers in the hunting party both carried spears, partly as a
hiking pole and partly for psychological reasons. No one cared to confront
danger empty handed.

"Are you two boys twins?" Corwin asked the fetchers.

"No, though we get that a lot since we look so much alike, but we are
actually first cousins. It is our fathers who are the twins." Hugh told
him.

"We're not just first cousins; we are kissing cousins," Jules clarified
naughtily.

"Ah, boys after my own heart."

"Likewise" the fetchers responded in unison eyeing Corwin
appreciatively. "We three should get better acquainted while we are out
here in the woods."

"Count on it." Corwin told them.

The fetchers might not have been in Corwin's league in the looks
department, but they had fine athletic bodies and pleasant faces and were
outgoing and friendly and good company. The trackers were mature elves who
were not interested in a casual romance, not while on the job anyway.

Hugh and Jules told Corwin that they had been hired for Flensborg's first
street car line which was nearing completion. Now with Frost Giants for
riders, you needed a fairly strong fetcher to propel a streetcar, but Hugh
and Jules were fully up to the job.

Street cars had been pioneered in the Commonwealth capital by Sir Angus
McFarden, King of the Iron Roads, as Drew Altair had dubbed him in his
reporting. A single Fetcher propelled a car down steel tracks laid flush to
the paving stones. The street cars traveled at more than twice walking
speed and stopped at marked locations every three blocks. Passengers either
chucked two coppers into the fare box or flashed a monthly pass.

Streetcars were popular. They were fast, convenient, quiet, inexpensive,
and safe. Streetcars had an unblemished safety record. Running into a
pedestrian or vehicle was almost impossible with an operator who could
simply Lift anyone or anything off the tracks to safety. McFarden's firm
had licensed its technology to a start-up in Flensborg where the flat
terrain of the city was ideal for the purpose.

			Chapter 4. The Hunt

This was to be a hunt over rough country rather than a combat patrol so the
hunters wore little armor. The giants did wear caps with steel crowns but
those were to protect their heads from low hanging tree limbs. The gunmen
marched with socket bayonets fixed to the barrels of their weapons. The
ring of a socket bayonet fit over the muzzle and was locked in place by a
lug. That allowed guns to be discharged even with bayonets fixed.

The elves bore no armor either. The weight would only slow them
down. Neither did Corwin, but then his ball lightning was shield
enough. The fetchers did wear cuirasses of boiled leather, not so much for
protection as for the wooden yoke and straps built into it by which they
could Lift themselves and fly.

All the hunters except the elves were sturdily shod in the hobnailed
sandals the infantry wore, even Corwin who usually wore moccasins when he
wasn't barefoot. They all wore full shirts and trews since they might have
to push their way through brush and brambles or canebrakes. Everyone
carried some kind of short blade in a scabbard at their belt, mostly
kukris, Corwin's own choice since it was as much a handy tool as a
weapon. They did not rely on pack animals but carried their supplies in
their packs, enough for ten days, not counting whatever they might forage.

Their order of march had the elves in the lead searching for spoor, then
the strike force of four pairs of giants followed by the five magic
wielders in the center: Donnar and Otho, Hugh and Jules, plus Corwin, with
the final pair of giants as rear security. Since this was not a war patrol
they did not send a scout ahead of the column nor flankers to the
sides. Their quarry were feral animals not enemy soldiers.

On the second day the hunters came upon the lair of the pack Corwin had
destroyed at the road head including the body of one manticore which had
died of its wounds. The trackers examined the site trying to understand the
habits of the creatures they were hunting. That gave Corwin a chance to
look over the airguns the giants bore.

"That's a pretty hefty airgun you guys are carrying there."

"So it is, young sir." their sergeant agreed. "It's bigger than airguns
sized for humans. And though it fires the same lead bullets they pack a
greater punch. With barrels being so much longer, the outrushing air
accelerates the bullet down the bore for a longer interval, which imparts
greater speed and momentum. These airguns won't have any trouble putting
down a manticore. The bayonet is just in case."

"In case of what?" Corwin wondered.

"In case you empty either the magazine or the air reservoir or the
mechanism jams. The bayonet give us nearly the reach of a spear. And see
how this short spike unfolds from the butt plate of the gun and sticks out
at a ninety degree angle. That is for when an enemy gets within your
guard. You cannot use the blade then, but you can smash your foe with the
butt and the spike. Driven by the power of a frost giant, the spike will
punch right through a skull."

"Wicked!"

"It's a home grown modification we giants thought up ourselves. I
understand the Army is considering adopting it for general use, though with
the surplus of arms leftover from the troll war it will be a while before
the manufactories gear up to produce replacements for the airguns currently
in the inventory."

No one wanted to make camp by the lair of the manticores so the hunters
pushed on till they found a better site: a thorn thicket with a stream
running through it. The giants hacked away with their kukris to create a
clearing in the middle, piling some of the cuttings into the pathway by
which they had forced their way into the thicket. With no chance of the
manticores sneaking up at them, they needed only one sentry on duty during
the night. That meant easy watches of one hour for each of the frost
giants.

The next day was spent casting about for the spoor of another pack of
manticores. Late in the afternoon the hunters found promising sign but
decided not to follow it till early the next day. A defile in the rocks
provided a defensible camp site with just one entrance. They blocked it
with a fire which they kept blazing through all the hours of darkness
though that night they posted two sentries.

In the hours before dawn a pair of manticores tried to get past the fire by
clinging to walls of the defile. One made it but the manticore bringing up
the rear slipped and fell into the fire. It let out a yowl as it burst into
the camp scorched, hurt, and angry.

The two young fetchers who had been on sentry duty dealt with the
manticores while the others were still reaching for their weapons.

"I'll take the one on the left." Hugh told Jules who nodded and turned his
attention to the manticore on the right.

The fetchers Lifted the beasts some twenty feet into the air and held them
stationary, easy targets for their disks which they sent flying at the
manticores, cutting at them with half a dozen passes, literally
dismembering them before the eyes of the entire hunting party. After that
no one doubted the effectiveness of those steel disks of theirs.

"Good job there Hugh and Jules. The manticores didn't stand a chance
against your steel discs." Donnar said in praise of their actions.

Hugh and Jules beamed.

"And let me compliment the rest of you for your excellent fire
discipline. It would have been disastrous if everyone had cut loose at the
invaders at once. Just imagine the danger with lead bullets, arrows,
fireballs, and levin bolts flying every which way. Instead you all kept
your heads. No one started shooting wildly. This augurs well for our future
success."

With that they settled down and went back to sleep.

The rest of the manticore pack may have been lurking or at least hunting
nearby because they attacked the hunters half an hour after they broke camp
and passed through the defile. As the hunters crossed a meadow two dozen
manticores burst out of the tree line, howling as they raced at their prey.

The eight giants with airguns and the trackers with their long bows let
loose. The shooters had put nine manticores down when the mages stepped
in. Donnar himself threw two streams of fire which caught two closely
bunched pairs of monsters. Otho picked off three more beasts with his levin
bolts, while the fetchers whirled their disks through their dance of
death. Only three manticores made it close enough to finished off with
bayonets.

All it all it was a stunning success: all the manticores were dead and not
a single hunter was injured.

"Don't get too cocky. All our fights won't be so one-sided as this one,"
Donnar warned them. "If the beasts had caught us in brushy terrain, we
couldn't have aimed our stand-off weapons so well, allowing them get in
among us."

One of the trackers had a private word with Donnar.

"Some animals are smart enough to attack from two directions at once. You
really need to have some of us facing the other way when we are under
attack."

"That is good advice. And thanks for mentioning it to me privately."

The next encounter did degenerate into a close-quarters struggle when ten
manticores rose out of tall grass only a spear throw from the marching
column. The manticores got in among them, their proximity neutralizing the
powers of the mages. At such close quarters the fetchers couldn't wield
their discs, but they did keep the manticores off themselves by simply
hurling them back. They also tore away three manticores who had swarmed
over a giant and brought him down.

Cold steel settled the issue: bayonets, kukris, and butt spikes ended the
lives of the manticores though at a cost of several nasty bite wounds on
arms and legs. Two giants and an elf were left comatose by
stings. Thankfully Corwin's skills as a combat medic and as a magical
Healer were up to the challenge.

"No offense to you elves but archery is all offense and no defense." Otho
observed. "Now in military operations groups of archers can shelter behind
caltrops or stakes, and in the troll war they had the support of magnetic
cannon, but none of that works for a pair of archers in the wilderness."

"Right. From now on," Donnar told them, "whenever we are rushed, you
archers should rally to the gunmen but turn the other way to watch for an
attack from the rear."

With danger all around, Corwin and the fetchers Hugh and Jules decided to
hold their budding romance in abeyance till they got back to
civilization. No one wanted to be caught out in a vulnerable situation.

The hunters failed to make contact over the next few days. In need of
resupply they stopped by an elven vale where they could purchase the
supplies they needed. The hunters spent two nights there as guests of the
elves, glad for a chance to rest without worrying about what might be
lurking in the dark.

			Chapter 5. Centaurs

On their second patrol the hunters encountered manticores who did not run
in a feral pack but were under the control of their old masters the
centaurs. Those five centaurs sicced more than a hundred manticores on the
hunters.

Looking very different from the centaurs of mythology, the creatures on
Haven nevertheless walked on their four hind limbs while in front their
bodies angled up to a torso with long arms and a head, whence their
name. Their four hind limbs ended in hoof-like structures formed from fuzed
digits, but their arms had large hands with three fingers and a
semi-opposable thumb. They had internal cartilaginous skeletons, unlike
insects who wore their skeletons of chitin on the outside of their bodies.

Joined directly to their bodies without a true neck, their heads could not
swivel. To compensate, the beasts not only had two large eyes in front for
binocular vision, they also had two small eyes in the back of the
head. These small eyes could not swerve, but they extended the centaurs'
peripheral vision to 360 degrees.

The centaurs were not animals. They had the power of speech and could make
and use tools and weapons including javelins for the hunt and the sabers
they carried into battle, one in each hand. They did not practice
agriculture of any sort but lived entirely by the hunt, a way of life that
necessarily limited their numbers as with all apex predators.

Both centaurs and manticores were aliens, two of the very few species of
large hexapods on the planet of Haven. Invasive species like them and the
reptilian raptors must have been introduced to the planet by some
spacefaring race or races in days of yore.

In any event, given the disparity in numbers, the hunters had become the
hunted as the manticores and centaurs chased them across open ground with
nowhere to make a stand. The hunters had a decent lead of a mile and a
half, but that wouldn't last long. Manticores and centaurs were so much
faster than anything on two legs could ever be.

Donnar had Hugh Lift him into the air for a look at the terrain. He then
led the party to the opening of a narrow canyon in the otherwise impassible
mountain wall. Turning to the fetchers Donnar told them:

"I have a plan, but I need you to delay the pack till we get set up at the
far end of the passage."

Hugh and Jules nodded. "Can do. The pack is well within our range."

"After you have done what you can fly down the passage either when you hear
the signal horn or if they get too close, but don't let them see you doing
it. Flying is a trick I want to keep up my sleeve."

The rest of the party headed down the passage while the boys attacked the
pack throwing it into confusion as the leaders were killed or wounded. The
centaurs responded by halting the pack then directing it along the sunken
bed of a dry wash which hid them and gave them cover. No matter. That route
was longer than the direct route over open ground. Their job done, the
fetchers flew the length of the passage to rejoin their comrades.

What they found surprised them. The far end of the passage opened on a flat
plain, leaving nowhere to run or to hide.

"Some escape plan Donnar! What do we do now?" they asked.

"Who said anything about escape? Boys, you might not believe it, but I now
have our pursuers right where I want them." he said with a self-satisfied
grin.

"I don't get it either Donnar." Otho said in support of the fetcher
boys. "You deliberately let them drive us through this canyon, didn't you?"

Donnar nodded. "I saw it as our best chance to even the odds."

"So what is your plan?" Otho asked skeptically.

"Simple. We kill all of them before they kill all or any of us." Donnar
told him blandly.

"That's your plan!"

"Rather that is the objective of my plan. Now for the tactical details..."

Donnar explained that the canyon was a wind gap, a valley created by a
river which once ran though what was then a water gap before its headwaters
were diverted by stream capture. Back when water still flowed in the
channel the river had undercut the shale cliffs leaning in from either
side.

Donnar's plan was for Corwin to bring the walls of the canyon down on their
pursuers. To set the trap he had the hunters form a defensive arc as if
they were determined to make a last stand and to sell their lives dearly.

Donnar intended Corwin to use his ball lightning to undermine the unstable
shale beds along the final two hundred yards of the channel, finishing this
preparatory work before their pursuers reached the canyon and might see
what he was up to.

Then Corwin would wait till the manticores and centaurs were actually
racing down the last stretch of the channel before attacking the undermined
walls with his explosive ball lightning. The hope was that the walls would
give way and come down in a landslide to crush and bury the manticores and
their masters.

"What if your plan doesn't work, and the walls stubbornly stay in place as
they have down the ages?"

"In that case Otho we go with Plan B: the fetchers lift all of us out of
this trap to the top of the cliffs then fly up to join us. With that much
of a head start, we should be able to get away clean."

"Fiendishly clever. I especially like having a Plan B."

At the urging of their masters the manticores raced forward howling,
gnashing their teeth, and whipping their tails back and forth
menacingly. Still far out of range at the far end of the wind gap the
hunters put on a good show, brandishing weapons, calling out challenges,
shooting air guns, and even throwing a few fire balls and levin bolts to
make it look good.

In all the excitement the Centaurs did not notice that Corwin had
undermined both walls of the wind gap. His ball lightning had swept back
and forth to gouge the rock face, extending the overhang of the unsupported
shale beds till nothing kept them up except for their adhesion of stone to
the stone.

Hugh Lifted Corwin fifty feet into the air for a better view of the
attackers. Starting at the back of their column, his explosive ball
lightning caught the manticores and centaurs closely packed in the narrow
wind gap with nowhere to run but straight ahead. The centaurs worried about
the way the explosions were forcing them forward but realized that they and
their rabid hunting beasts had little choice but to press the attack.

The wind gap was so narrow that the manticores could advance on a front
only two or three across. The defensive arc of the hunters attacked the
first few ranks of manticores alternating bullets and arrows with levin
bolts, slashing steel disks, and streams of fire arcing over the front two
ranks to fall on those behind. That quickly created a pile up of dead and
wounded which slowed the rest of the pack as they struggled to clamber over
and get past their own dead.

The defenders held the pack off long enough for Corwin's efforts to
succeed. The weakened joints in the rock face suddenly fractured and gave
way. With a mighty roar great masses of stone detached themselves from the
sides of the wind gap and crashed onto the floor of the passage. The fallen
rock crushed the manticores and their centaur masters under tens of
thousands of tons of stone. After the dust settled the hunters could see no
sign of a living foe.

"The landslide got them all. Good work Corwin." Donnar told him. "And good
work the rest of you. You held the manticores at bay long enough for Corwin
to bring the rocks down on our foes."

"The good news is that this bunch of manticores is no more. The bad news is
that at least some centaurs are still alive. My guess is that the reason we
were attacked was to keep us from revealing their existence to the outside
world. They likely have a hunting camp nearby, something we would have been
sure to find if allowed to press on."

"Do you want us to fly and locate this camp?" Jules asked.

"No. They would only move it. Also I don't want the centaurs to know we
that we can fly, a capability we did not have in the last war. Let's keep
them in ignorance so they won't take measures against aerial observation by
our military.

"This information is more important than any number of manticores we might
kill by ourselves. We have to get back to Flensborg and tell the
authorities to recall the hunting parties and to dispatch a military
expedition into these forests and mountains to root out the last survivors
of the centaur race as well as kill all the manticores, whether feral or
domestic."

At least Corwin and Hugh and Jules had time for romance while the military
mobilized for war. The cousins were quite good in bed, making up with
teenage enthusiasm for what they lacked in practiced technique. And they
introduced Corwin to Flensborg's modest answer to Twinkle Town. Though none
of its dining establishments could match the cuisine at the Sign of the
Whale, the two dance clubs were lively enough. The bands played the latest
tunes from sheet music printed by the Altair plant back in the capital.

			Author's Note

This story is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any
person living or dead.

If you have enjoyed this story and others like it, consider making a
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This story is one of an occasional series about the further adventures of
the characters introduced in the fantasy novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends' and
published by Nifty Archive. The chief protagonist of the novel, Dahlderon,
elf-boy and druid, will appear in these stories in a supporting rather than
starring role. Each story in the sequence stands on its own, with the focus
on one or a few of the original characters.

Readers who like these stories might want to try my two series 'Daphne Boy'
and 'Naked Prey' in the Gay/Historical section of the Archive. My 'Jungle
Boy' series of Hollywood tales is posted in the Gay/Authoritarian
section. The recent series 'Andrew Jackson High' relates the trials and
tribulations of five of its gay students. For links to these and other
stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.