Feasting with Elves After Freedom: The Darkness Before the Dawn Chapter 1
The book opens with a slave caravan burning in the desert while a tribe of elves throws a party around the wreckage.
Jedra and Kayan are watching from a dune. The Jura-Dai elves attacked the caravan to free their tribesman Galar, who had been captured and forced to fight as a gladiator. The slave runners are dead. The caravan is a bonfire. And the elves are celebrating like it is the best night of their lives. Some of them are having a contest to see who can urinate on the flames before the heat drives them back. This book does not waste time establishing that Athas is a rough place.
Jedra is a half-elf, and right away we learn something important about his wild psionic talent. He accidentally links with one of the elf warriors emotionally. The guy is roasting meat way too close to the fire, and Jedra starts feeling the heat on his own arm. He breaks contact fast, but the elf has no idea what just happened. Jedra makes a mental note to keep a tighter leash on his abilities. He has only known about them for a few days.
Galar spots them and drags them into the party. “You cannot intrude upon a celebration held in your honor,” he says, because it was Jedra and Kayan’s psionic abilities that helped the elves locate the caravan in the first place. They get mugs of mead and slices of roast inix on bread with pickled vegetables. The food was originally headed for the sorcerer-king Kalak’s table before the elves stole it from the wagon. So basically they are eating a king’s dinner while sitting in the sand next to a burning slave ship. Athas is weird.
The Jealousy
An elf woman starts flirting with Jedra. Hard. She tells him she likes them “young and naive” and offers to educate him. Jedra blushes. But Kayan, listening through their mental link, gets immediately territorial. If you touch her, I’ll… she threatens psionically. Jedra promises he will get away before anything happens.
Here is the thing about Jedra and Kayan. They have known each other for about a week, chained side by side in a slave hold. They share a mental bond that lets them communicate telepathically. But they are not actually a couple. Not officially. The jealousy is real though, and it comes through the mindlink whether they want it to or not. Their relationship is this weird mix of forced intimacy and genuine uncertainty about where they stand.
They share kank honey together, licking the sticky green stuff off their fingers, and it is oddly sweet as a scene. Then they get baths. On Athas, a bath is an almost unheard-of luxury. The elves set up two tents with water barrels and everyone gets one minute to climb in and soak. Jedra’s total life experience with being submerged in water before this was reaching his arm into a cask once to grab a coin. The sensation of water sliding up his body is described as the most alarming and most sensuous thing he has ever felt. That gives you a sense of just how scarce water is on this world.
Kayan comes out smelling like flowers because the women added perfume to their barrel. Jedra works up the courage to hold her hand. They walk through the camp, share some kank honey, and for a brief moment everything is actually nice.
Sahalik Shows Up
Then it gets bad.
Sahalik is the tribe’s best warrior and next in line to be chief. He is massive, hairy-chested, and missing two teeth. He finds Jedra and Kayan by the fire and immediately starts hitting on Kayan. She shuts him down cold. “I prefer to stay with Jedra,” she says. Sahalik pushes. “I’ve got a fine tent all to my own, and a soft…”
“I said no.” Kayan’s voice cuts through the night like a thunderclap. Everyone goes silent. A burning timber pops and sends sparks into the air.
Sahalik is stunned. Nobody has ever refused him this publicly. Galar arrives just in time to break the tension by demanding the bard sing his song, and the tribe gets a long, funny, mostly inaccurate retelling of how Galar ended up enslaved and how Jedra and Kayan helped with the rescue. The bard makes Kayan sound like a loose woman and Jedra sound like a street thief. Neither of them is thrilled.
But all through the song, Jedra can feel Sahalik staring at him from across the fire. Cold. Hostile. Waiting.
After the song, Sahalik escalates. He “accidentally” knocks Jedra into the sand. Jedra does a clever trick where he draws a line in the sand, dares Sahalik to cross it, and then dives into Sahalik’s vacated seat when the big elf steps forward. The elves laugh, but Sahalik is not amused.
“I challenge you to prove your worth to the tribe,” Sahalik announces.
The chief arrives. Jedra is sure the old elf will put a stop to this. But no. The chief tells Jedra he must accept the challenge or leave. That is the rule of the desert. Fight or go.
And just like that, the feast is over.
Book: The Darkness Before the Dawn Author: Ryan Hughes (Jerry Oltion) Series: Dark Sun, Chronicles of Athas #2 ISBN: 0-7869-0104-7