Harlen was breathing heavily as he surveyed the two corpses. Then the girl's voice sounded again. "You are unhurt, I hope." She said in a lilting soprano. The voice did not sound right for a young girl, there was no high-end peal to it that marked most young women prior to their adulthood. He turned and discovered that it was also out of place on a girl of more advanced years.
It was no girl at all, but an elven maiden.
He stopped turning as soon as he caught full sight of her, and his limbs froze. He was literally too stunned to move. No elf had been seen in the Duchy for more than fifty years, or so the old-timers said. Harlen simply drank in the image of this legend made real standing before him and regarding him with large, golden eyes.
"This is the language you speak, yes?" She asked.
Her hair was the color of autumn, auburn with golden yellow, where the sun had bleached it, and bound into a pony tail, as he himself wore, displaying her elegantly pointed ears extremely well. She stood only to the middle of his chest, and could not weigh more than half his mass, and probably less than that. However, she was shaped perfectly, with gently curving hips and the swelling of small breasts beneath her clothing. Her arms and legs both were shapely with well-toned muscles for all their slenderness.
Her clothing, however, only seemed to cover as much as modesty demanded. It consisted of primarily a cloth half top that ended at her rib line at the bottom and had only two slender straps to her shoulders above her breasts. There was also a short skirt, which hung from her hips loosely and fell only about halfway to her knees. The front section of the loincloth she wore was visible hanging over the top of the skirt. For footwear, she wore boots that were only just taller than her tiny feet and seemed to be sewn from soft leather, probably doeskin. The whole of the outfit was gray in color, like rain clouds.
A slender sheath hung from a chain that looped her waist, with a shortish blade within, from the look of it. She also carried a finely carved bow with a great deal of ornate woodwork in its limbs. A few arrows protruded from over her shoulder, their fletching startlingly white.
He pulled his wits together and managed to blurt out, "Yes," after a long pause. He felt his limbs relaxing and was able to finish the turn. The elf was beautiful, as one would expect after hearing tales of elven folk. Even the males were said to be lovely. Harlen could not help but think that she was must be counted beautiful among her own folk, for he could feel grace and loveliness radiate from her, like a palpable thing. Something akin to the sense of power one gets seeing a bear. She smiled at him, and his heart missed a beat, so pleased was he to receive even that small gift.
"I chose correctly, and I am gladdened." She said. Her smile was wide, and very open. Her accent was melodic, precise, and smooth, almost like singing. She was not mocking him, but seemed to be truly happy that she had been correct. Her golden eyes flashed as she smiled and Harlen could have sworn that she was about to laugh, so light was her smile. "I am named Hyandai." She pointed to herself with her free hand. Then she bowed at the neck.
The hunter stood mutely for a moment. "I am Harlen of Morrovale." He said, finally. Then tried to impersonate the crisp head bow she had done but only managed to look like he was nodding in agreement with himself.
With that Hyandai did giggle. He might have been offended but the sound was so lovely that it simply left him feeling glad for having heard it. An image flashed in his mind of water rushing over small pebbles in a stream's bed after a small waterfall, it was soft, and glad, and it was without ridicule.
She stopped laughing after a brief moment and, with effort, straightened her face. "Well met, Harlen of Morrovale." Her eyes flickered over him briefly. "But you are hurt, Harlen." She said, looking at his injured thigh.
He took the invitation of her roving eye to look more closely at her, as well. His eyes moved down her form, taking in the slim torso and long legs, mostly bared, and the shapely, slender arms, also bared. The hunter had lain with women without ever seeing so much of their skin. It was very nice skin, too, free of blemish or mark and it was fair of color, only barely tanned by the sun. He let his eye linger over the feminine curves of the hips and the small, but nicely shaped breasts. Then his eyes tracked back to her thighs. She bore a wound similar to his own, just below the short skirt. "You are also hurt Hyandai." He said. Then he looked at his own wound, it was not terribly deep, but was painful. "My injury is a paltry thing." He looked at her injury, and blood was sliding slowly down her leg. "That one, however," he pointed at her deep cut, "is bleeding heartily, and you've not the bulk to take that sort of loss, milady."
She looked down and nodded. "You are right, and I should tend it." She said. "Sadly, my talents as a healer are lacking, and the best I can hope for is to staunch the bleeding."
Harlen looked about and spotted a largish stone protruding from the loamy soil of the forest. "Then, lady, sit upon that stone and I will tend it." The huntsman pointed at the rock. "I have some small skill at such things." He smiled lopsidedly. "It's a side effect of the profession I have chosen." He began to remove his pack.
She sat on the stone as requested. Hyandai was watching Harlen with those golden eyes. "If you can do more than I, then I welcome it." She said, lifting her skirt a bit higher to give him room to work, showing him more of that lovely, but wounded, leg.
From the backpack, Harlen produced a small leather roll, tied with rawhide straps. He opened it. There were numerous tiny pockets and pouches sewn into it. He produced a tiny vial from among the pockets and uncapped it. He then knelt beside her, as he held the vial over her wound, he noted a strong smell of cinnamon. He let a couple of drops fall into the wound and she gasped, her whole body tensing up.
"It will sting only a moment, Hyandai." He assured her, putting a hand on hers, where it rested on her other leg. "Then it will go numb, and the woundwort will also keep the wound from growing pustulant later."
He returned the vial to its assigned pouch. He then pulled forth a very small needle and a length of thread. He tried to thread the needle three times before Hyandai gently took the needle and thread from him and passed the thread through the eye as if the eye were as large as a finger ring. She smiled and handed it back to him.
Harlen looked at her tiny hands and slim fingers for a moment, then went back to his task. Stitching the wound shut, working from his left to right, he began to sew the rent in her flesh shut.
"I am making the stitches as small as I am able." Harlen said as he sewed. "There should be little scarring that way. It would be a shame to mar perfection."
She watched as he progressed, her eyes flicking with his fingers. He gave off a slight smell of hard work, of masculine perspiration. Hyandai liked the smell; it reminded her of days when her father would come in from smithing, only somehow more so, with this human. She had always been disappointed when her father had gone to the baths, for it was then time for her bed in those days of her youth. But until that time of the evening had come, he had spoken and played with her, and taught her many things. So, in her memories, the best of her days as a child were when her father smelled of hard work. This human did not really remind her of her father, but the smell of his manhood made her feel safer, and yet, in the same moment, more vulnerable. Each time he dragged the needle through her tender flesh she felt a soft pressure on her thigh, just below her loincloth and she felt a mild current from there twining its way up her spine, like a serpent crawling up a tree.
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