“What have you learned?” Tintagel asked Shayleigh when he found her atop Daoine Dun, the Hill of the Stars. Another day neared its end in Shilmista, another day of hit-and-run battles against the overwhelming force of invaders.
“Fifty goblins were killed in one fight,” Shayleigh replied, but there was no smile on her face, fair and undeniably beautiful even though one side remained bright red from Tintagel’s lightning bolt of a few days earlier. “And a giant was brought down in another. We suffered a few wounded, but none too seriously.”
“That is good news,” the elf wizard said, his smile intentionally wide in an effort to cheer the young maiden. It was a meager attempt, though, for Tintagel knew as well as Shayleigh that victory or defeat could not be measured by counting dead bodies. The enemy forces had indeed, as Hammadeen had told them, taken to the march, and for all the devastation the elves were handing them, they slowly but steadily progressed through beautiful Shilmista, scarring the land as they passed.
“They have taken a hundred square miles,” Shayleigh said grimly. “They are burning the wood in the northwest.”
Tintagel, for all his strained optimism, understood that Shayleigh was not alone among the elves in despair. “The night will be clear and dark, for the moon is new,” the elf wizard offered hopefully, lifting his light blue eyes heavenward. “Might King Galladel call for Daoine Teague Feer?”
“The Star Enchantment?” Shayleigh echoed softly in the Common tongue. Without even considering the motion, she ran her slender fingers through her hair—and her face crinkled in obvious disgust, for her golden locks, were matted with blood and grime. Shayleigh felt dirty, as did many of Shilmista’s elves. The woodland folk had a way of countering those negative thoughts, though, with a cleansing of body and soul, an ancient ritual of rejuvenation.
Daoine Teague Feer.
“Let us go to Galladel,” Shayleigh said, hope and excitement in her melodic voice for the first time in many days.
They found the aged king in one of the caves along the side of the hill that had become the elves’ sanctuary. From this cave, Galladel directed the scouting missions, coordinating patrol times and designating group members. It was a heroic task, surely, for the elf king had to keep in mind which of his people were experienced fighters and which were novices, and ensure a proper blend in each party. Even more complicated, many of the elves had been injured and required rest.
As soon as they entered the torchlit cave, both Shayleigh and Tintagel recognized how heavy Galladel’s burden had become. His once-straight shoulders sagged and circles lined his eyes.
“What do you want?” the elf king snapped. He threw his hands out to the side, unintentionally knocking several parchments from the chamber’s main table. Obviously embarrassed, Galladel’s visage softened immediately and he reiterated his question in a quieter tone.
“The moon is new,” Shayleigh said, hoping that the hint would be enough. Galladel just stared at her blankly, though, and he seemed to grow angry, as if the two were wasting his precious time.
“The sky is clear,” added Tintagel. “A million stars will show themselves to us, lend us their strength for the morrow’s fight.”
“Daoine Teague Feer?” Galladel asked. “You wish to dance and play?”
“It is more than play,” Shayleigh reminded him.
“The millions of stars will not complete my million tasks!” cried the frustrated elf king.
Shayleigh had to bite her lip to keep from responding. She and a dozen others had offered to assist the king in his planning when they were not out on patrol, but Galladel had taken it all on himself, called it his duty despite the obvious fact that he could not carry the burden alone.
“Forgive me,” the king said quietly, seeing Shayleigh’s wounded expression. “I have not the time for Daoine Teague Feer. Perform the celebration in my absence,” he offered graciously.
Shayleigh was not ungrateful, but the king’s request was impossible. “Only one of the ruling line may perform Daoine Teague Feer,” she reminded Galladel. The look on the elf king’s face explained much to Shayleigh and Tintagel. Galladel was old and tired and made no secret of the fact that he no longer held much faith for Shilmista’s ancient magic. Daoine Teague Feer was indeed just play to him, a dance with little value beyond its immediate enjoyment. If taken from the king’s disbelieving perspective, then, what did it matter who led the celebration?
Still, Shayleigh could not hide her frown. Her king had grown pragmatic, even humanlike, and she could not find the courage to blame him. When she was but a child, only a short two centuries before, a thousand elves had danced in Shilmista. The whole forest, from north to south, echoed with their unending song. Those days seemed far removed now. How many of Shilmista’s children had passed to Evermeet, never to return?
Tintagel tapped the maiden on the elbow and nodded to the exit. “You are due on patrol,” the elf wizard whispered to prompt the maiden along.
Shayleigh had the presence of mind to dip a bow as she left, but Galladel, already back to poring over the many parchments, did not even notice.
A mood of similar frustration gripped the invaders’ camp as twilight descended over Shilmista. Ragnor’s march was making gains, but they came painfully slow and at incredible expense. The elves were fighting better than the ogrillon had expected; he thought he would be more than halfway through Shilmista by this time, but his forces had put only ten to fifteen of the hundred-and-fifty-mile expanse behind them—and they hadn’t even secured those miles they had covered! Ragnor feared that his troops were looking more to the sides for fear of concealed archers than ahead to the trails of conquest.
Better news came from the flanks, where resistance had been minimal. Orogs and orcs, running in the foothills of the Snowflake Mountains, had passed the forest’s halfway point, and a tribe of goblins out on the plains to the west had nearly entered the southwestern pass around the forest, where they would set up camp and discourage any reinforcements from the city of Riatavin.
But Ragnor knew he did not have the numbers to surround the forest, and if the elves continued to hold him off at the present rate, they would surely find allies before the ogrillon claimed Shilmista for Castle Trinity. And what of the coming winter? Even cocky Ragnor did not believe he could hold the goblinoid rabble at his side when the first snows fell on the forest. Time worked against him, and the brutal elves intended to fight him every step of the way.
If the ogrillon had any doubts of the elves’ intent, he had the proof right before him. Looking out across a steep valley and a rushing river, Ragnor watched the latest skirmish. A mixed group of goblins, orcs, and a few ogres had been surprised by a band of elves. Ragnor’s troops had been crossing a field, approaching a thick grove, when a hail of arrows had sent them scrambling for cover. From this far back, the ogrillon had no idea how many enemies his forces faced, but he suspected that the elves were not numerous. Still, they were undeniably effective, for the orcs and goblins had not come out of hiding, and those few brave and stupid ogres who had rushed the tree line had gone crashing down with a score of arrows in their bodies.
“Have you sent the giant and a band of bugbears?” the ogrillon snapped at his closest lieutenant, a weak but cunning goblin.
“Yesses, my general,” the goblin replied, cowering, and with good reason. Ragnor’s first few “closest advisors” now numbered among the dead, though none of them had gotten anywhere near any elves.
Ragnor glared at the goblin, and it cowered even lower, nearly rubbing its belly on the turf. Fortunately for the pitiful creature, the ogrillon had other business on his mind. Ragnor looked back out to the distant battle scene, trying to figure how long it would take his giant to get across the river and within boulder-throwing range.
Another anguished cry split the morning air as yet another monstrous soldier caught an elven arrow. Ragnor reflexively swung his hand out to the side, catching his advisor with a backhand slap that sent the goblin tumbling away.
“That should inspire loyalty,” came a woman’s voice from behind. The ogrillon spun about to see the wizard Dorigen, a bat-winged imp on her shoulder and a huge human at her flank.
“What are you doing here, wizard?” the ogrillon spat. “This is not your place, nor the place of your favored boy!” He eyed Tiennek dangerously and Dorigen feared she might already have to intervene between the two.
“Well met, to you as well,” the wizard replied. She hadn’t expected a warm reception from Ragnor; he was smart enough to understand that Aballister had sent her to spy on his progress and his ambitions.
Ragnor took a threatening step Tiennek’s way, and Dorigen wondered honestly if she had anything in her magical repertoire that could stop the monstrous general. She fingered her magical onyx ring, considering the time it would take for her to loose its fiery fury, and the potential for that fury to stop the brutish ogrillon.
“I am here because I was commanded to be here,” she said sternly, hiding her concerns. “You have been out of Castle Trinity for many days, Ragnor, but you seem to be stumbling about the northern woods with few clear gains to show for our considerable expense.” Ragnor backed off a bit and Dorigen hid her smile, amazed at how easily she had put the powerful beast on the defensive. Her conclusions had been no more than an educated guess—she had no way of knowing how Ragnor’s battle plan was progressing—but the ogrillon’s reaction had confirmed that she wasn’t far from the mark.
“We are concerned,” Dorigen continued, mellow and nonthreatening. “The summer is nearly past, and Aballister wants to take Carradoon before the first snow.”
“So he sent you,” huffed Ragnor, “thinking that you might help poor Ragnor.”
“Perhaps,” Dorigen purred noncommittally.
“You need the help,” Druzil added, then he dropped back under his bat wings to escape the ogrillon’s glare.
“I need no weakling wizards in my camp!” Ragnor growled. “Be gone, and take Aballister’s bat and your boy with you.” He turned back to the valley and the river and tried to look busy.
“Then all goes well?” Dorigen asked, using the most innocent tones she could muster, cocking her head coyly.
When Ragnor didn’t react, Dorigen got more direct—after selecting the components for a defensive spell from one of her deep pockets, in case Ragnor seriously objected. “You are stopped, Ragnor,” she declared. “Admit it before you fall like Barjin did.” The ogrillon spun on her, but she did not relent.
Did you have to make that reference? Druzil asked telepathically, for the imp most certainly did not like the way Ragnor was now looking at him.
“And have you come to bring that about?” Ragnor spat.
“I have come as an agent of Talona,” Dorigen insisted, “to aid an ally, even one too foolish to accept the help he needs!”
Dorigen looked past the ogrillon then, to the distant valley and the battle that was not going Ragnor’s way. She waved her hand and chanted, and a block of shimmering, flickering blue light appeared before her.
Ragnor took a tentative step backward. Dorigen handed Druzil over to Tiennek, took one step forward, into the light, and was gone.
After a split second to consider his new position, Druzil dove into the portal behind her.
Ragnor instinctively spun about and saw a similar field of blue flickering beyond the river. It diminished as soon as Dorigen stepped through, Druzil again on her shoulder.
“I do not like elves,” Druzil whispered, and he faded into invisibility. “Nasty creatures!”
Dorigen paid him no heed, except to offer a scowl to let him know that she had wanted him to remain with Tiennek. Dorigen had no time to worry about the bothersome imp, though. She studied the battle, trying to get a perspective on what was happening around her. She saw orcs and goblins far ahead of her, crouched behind fallen logs, small ridges, anything they could find to shelter them from the tree line. Other monsters lay dead or dying, some of the ogres covered with arrows. Dorigen followed Druzil’s lead and became invisible, not trusting the range of fine elven bows.
Even with the masking spell, Dorigen dared not approach the trees. Elves, being magically inclined, had a natural sense for such magic. Dorigen considered her options for a moment, then fumbled about in the many pockets of her robes.
“Damn!” she growled, then, with sudden insight, she reached up, felt for Druzil, and tore a bit of fur from the joint at the base of the imp’s wing. The movement, offensive in nature, forced the wizard back to visibility.
“What are you doing?” Druzil demanded, shifting about and digging his claws into Dorigen’s shoulder. He, too, became visible, only to fade away a moment later.
“Sit still!” Dorigen commanded. She felt the tuft for a moment, hoping it would suffice. The spell called for bat fur, but the wizard couldn’t seem to find any among her components at the moment, and she had no time to go hunting bats. Dorigen found some natural cover behind a tree and prepared herself.
For several minutes, for this spell was not a quick and easy one to cast, the wizard went through the designated motions, chanting softly. Another goblin died in that time, but Dorigen considered it a minor loss in light of the coming gains.
Then it was done and an eyeball hovered in the air a few feet ahead of Dorigen. It became translucent almost immediately and, following Dorigen’s mental commands, floated off toward the tree line.
Dorigen closed her own eyes and saw through the detached orb. It made the trees and flitted about, looking this way and that, floating the length of the elven line. Dorigen kept it moving swiftly, but even so, several elves stiffened and looked about nervously as it passed.
Dorigen soon came to the conclusion that all of the elves—not a substantial number—were above the ground in the trees. The greatest factor working against the orcs and goblins was their own fear, for a bold charge would dislodge the few elves from their tenuous positions.
“I must begin the charge,” the wizard whispered.
She chose as her target a large elm in the center of the elven line. The detached eyeball floated in so that the wizard could make a count of her intended victims. One maiden, golden haired and with striking violet eyes, turned abruptly, following the floating orb’s path.
Dorigen released her thoughts from the eyeball, pulled a different component from her robe, and began another spell.
“Down! Down!” she heard the distant elven maiden cry. “Wizard! They have a wizard! Get down!”
Dorigen moved her next spell along with all the speed she could muster. She saw a slender form drop from the distant tree, then another, but she hardly cared, for her spell was done and the rest would not escape.
A tiny ball of fire flew from Dorigen’s fingers, making great speed for the tree. Dorigen had to stand partly in the open to direct its course, but she knew the elves would be too busy to bother with her.
The ball disappeared into the elm’s boughs. In the blink of a magical eye, the great tree became a fiery torch.
The savage flames quickly consumed all the fuel that the elm, and the elves in its boughs, could offer. Branches crackled and tumbled down beside the charred bodies and blackened suits of fine mesh armor.
Dorigen aimed her next spell at her own troops.
Do not hesitate! she roared in a magically enhanced, thunderous voice. Charge them! Kill them!
The sheer power of her command, a voice as great as a dragon’s roar, sent the orcs and goblins scrambling toward the tree line. A few died from random bow shots, but most tore right into the brush. They found only one living elf to hack, a pitifully wounded creature at the base of the ruined elm. Near death even before the goblins arrived, he offered only minor resistance. With wicked glee, the goblins took him apart.
Just as satisfying, the monsters recovered bodies, the first enemy bodies they had seen since the start of the campaign: charred and blackened elves.
Gratified by their whoops of joy, Dorigen turned about, conjured another extradimensional door of shimmering light, and stepped through, back to the high ground beyond the river.
“I believe they killed one wounded elf,” the wizard said calmly, walking by the stunned ogrillon. “Foolish. He might have made a valuable prisoner. You should better control your bloodthirsty troops, General Ragnor.”
Ragnor’s sudden burst of laughter turned her about.
“Have I welcomed you to Shilmista?” the ogrillon offered, his tusk-adorned smile stretching from ear to ear.
Dorigen was glad she had improved the surly monster’s mood.
The forest was eerily still. No birdcalls greeted the dawn. No animals scurried through the thick branches overhead.
Elbereth glanced back to the others every few steps, a look of dread clear on his face.
“At least there are no battles in the area,” Danica offered, her voice a whisper, but still seeming loud in the quiet wood.
Elbereth moved back to join them. “The paths are clear, but I fear to ride,” he said softly. “Even leading the horses at so slow a pace, their hoofbeats can be heard many yards away.”
Cadderly snapped his fingers, then cringed at the sharp sound. Ignoring the surprised looks, and a scowl from Elbereth, the young scholar pulled his pack from Temmerisa, the horse he had been leading. The bells had been removed and muffled with clothing, then packed away in saddlebags.
“Wrap them,” Cadderly said, producing a thick woolen blanket. The others didn’t seem to understand.
“The hooves,” Cadderly explained. “Rip the blanket into strips . . .” His voice trailed off as he locked gazes with the stern elf. Elbereth eyed him curiously—Cadderly thought he noted a flash of admiration in Elbereth’s silver eyes.
Without another word, Elbereth pulled out his knife and took the blanket from Cadderly. In a few minutes, they were moving again, the hoofbeats still audible but somewhat muffled. When Elbereth looked back again and nodded his approval, Danica nudged Cadderly and smiled.
They stopped for a short rest late that morning, far from the wood’s eastern edge. Still the forest was quiet; they had found no sign of anyone, friend or foe.
“My people will fight in quick skirmishes,” Elbereth explained. “They are not numerous enough to afford the losses of any large battles. They will move swiftly and silently, striking at the enemy from afar and being gone when he moves against them.”
“Then our chances of finding them are not promising,” said Danica. “More likely, they will find us.”
“Not so,” the elf explained. “They have horses to tend, and undoubtedly”—the next words came hard to him—“wounded who will need to rest in a secure place. Shilmista was not caught without plans for defense, no matter how sudden the attack was. We are not many, and not allied with any great powers. We of Shilmista have rehearsed our home’s defense since the first elf walked into this wood many centuries ago.”
“Predetermined camps,” Cadderly reasoned.
Elbereth nodded. He picked up a twig and drew a rough map of the forest on the ground. “By the location of the rising smoke, the fight is up here,” he said, pointing to the northern section.
“Then we need not muffle the horses,” Rufo put in, “and we might ride instead of walk.” The angular man’s suggestion met with only tentative acceptance.
“We are near the center of the wood,” Elbereth went on, leaving Rufo’s thoughts hanging unanswered for the moment. “The first camp would have been here, just south of a defensible region known as the Dells.” Again the elf seemed to fight past a lump in his throat. “I would presume that camp has been deserted by now.”
“And the next?” Cadderly asked, simply because he thought Elbereth needed a moment to recover.
“Here,” the elf said, indicating an area not too far from their present position. He looked up to find a break in the trees, then pointed out a fair sized hill, poking out of the green canopy several miles to the north.
“Daoine Dun, Hill of the Stars,” the elf prince explained. “Its sides are thick with pine and blocked by tangled birch to the north and west. There are many caves, easily concealed, and some large enough to house the horses.”
“How long to get there?” Danica asked.
“Faster if we ride,” said Rufo.
“Before we decide to ride,” Cadderly cut in, drawing Elbereth’s attention before the elf had time to answer the angular man, “explain to me why the wood is so quiet?”
“It hangs thick with dread,” Danica agreed.
Elbereth nodded. “I think it better that we walk. Even so, we can make Daoine Dun soon after sunset. I will go first, far in front.”
“And I will go to the side of the trail,” offered Danica, “concealed in the brush.” She looked to Cadderly. “You can lead two mounts.”
Cadderly’s nod set them off again, plodding slowly and as quietly as possible through the forest. Rufo, pausing to rub his feet every so often, was not happy to be walking again, but he didn’t complain with anything more than occasional sour looks toward Cadderly.
Three hours later, with the sun beginning its western descent in earnest, Danica whispered for Cadderly and Rufo to hold the horses still. Both were amazed at how close the woman actually was to them, for though the brush beside the path was thick and tangled, they had not heard a sound of her passing.
Elbereth came rushing back then, motioning for the two men to lead the horses from the open path.
“Goblins,” the elf explained when they were all under the thick cover. “Many goblins, spread out east and west. Their eyes are on Daoine Dun, but they have guards, archers, posted along the way.”
“Can we go around them?” Cadderly asked.
“I do not know,” the elf answered honestly. “Their line is long, I believe, and to pass beyond them we will have to go far from the road, among tangles that our mounts may not be able to cross.”
Danica was shaking her head. “If their line is long,” she reasoned, “then likely it is not deep. We could charge right through them.”
“And the archers?” Rufo reminded her.
“How many are along the road?” Danica asked Elbereth.
“I saw two,” the elf replied, “but I believe there were others, at least a few, hidden in the brush.”
“I can get them,” the woman promised.
Elbereth started to protest, but Cadderly grabbed his elbow. The young scholar’s nod took the bite from the elf’s argument.
Danica drew a rough sketch of the road in the dirt. “You take a position here,” she explained. She gave Elbereth a wink. “Be ready with your bow!” she offered, pointedly including the elf in her plans.
She remained cryptic, though, completing the plans by merely stating, “When you hear the jay, charge on.” With no reply forthcoming, and not wanting to waste a moment, Danica started quietly off along the bushes.
“I will catch you as I pass,” Cadderly promised at her back. Danica didn’t doubt that for a minute.
Elbereth and Cadderly took up positions near a bend in the road that allowed them to watch the distant goblins, while Rufo stayed back with the three horses, ready to spring ahead at the elf’s call. Elbereth, keen-eyed and attuned to the forest, pointed out Danica’s progress as the young woman made her silent way through the bushes on the right side of the road. Barely visible even though she had just set out, Danica soon disappeared altogether, not a shaking twig to mark her movement.
There came a sudden rustle beside the goblins. Elbereth leveled his bow, but Cadderly put a hand on the elf’s arm, reminding him to keep patient. Apparently the movement had been more obvious to Cadderly and Elbereth than to the two goblin sentries on the road, for the monsters did not even turn toward it.
All was quiet again for seconds that seemed like hours to the nervous companions.
“Where are you?” Cadderly whispered to the empty path ahead, trusting in Danica’s skills but fearful nonetheless. He held his small crossbow, cranked and ready, and had to remind himself several times, as he had reminded Elbereth, to have patience and trust in Danica. “Where are you?”
As if in reply, Danica shot up suddenly behind one of the goblin guards. Her arm flicked, then she reached around the goblin’s head, put her hand over its mouth, and pulled it down into the bushes.
The other guard slumped to its knees, clutching at the dagger embedded deeply into its chest.
The cry of a jay sounded almost immediately, and Elbereth echoed it back to Rufo. In seconds, they were up and riding, with powerful Temmerisa easily outpacing the lesser mounts.
To the left of the road, an archer popped up, but Elbereth was quicker on the draw and the goblin went down in a heap.
Two other archers appeared from the brush farther down the road. Danica noticed them and rushed ahead. She spun to the side, dodging one arrow, and stopped her spin perfectly to continue her charge, then dove flat to her belly to avoid another arrow. She never slowed through the evasive movements, and the goblins never had the time to ready their bows again before Danica leaped at them, turning flat out and horizontal in midair to knock both of them to the ground.
His blue silk cape flying behind him, Cadderly put his head down, held on to his wide-brimmed hat, and spurred his horse on, desperate to get beside Danica. He could see the bushes shaking with the struggle. A goblin arm shot up, holding a sword, then chopped down wickedly.
“No!” Cadderly cried. Then the same sword reappeared above the brush, this time in Danica’s hand. When it descended, a goblin squealed in agony.
Elbereth’s mount reared as it passed the wounded guard on the road. The elf finished the monster off with his sword, then bent low in his saddle to retrieve Danica’s valuable dagger. A goblin rushed out from the brush on the other side, intent on the elf.
Using his now favorite tactic, Kierkan Rufo—or, more accurately, Kierkan Rufo’s horse—promptly ran the creature down.
Danica was back to the edge of the road, crouching low and waiting for Cadderly to get to her. Another goblin appeared, rushing toward her with sword drawn.
Cadderly’s wide-brimmed hat flew off, bouncing behind his neck at the end of its tie and flying with his silken cape. He drew his loaded crossbow and tried to get a shot at the creature. Frustrated by the bounce of the horse’s gallop, he spurred his mount on, thundering right up behind the goblin. The goblin turned, growled, and waved its sword about.
It never got the chance to use it. Just a couple of feet away, Cadderly let the dart fly. Another long horse stride took him right by the goblin, within the creature’s sword reach, but the goblin was in the air, flying away into the brush, already dead.
Cadderly hadn’t escaped unscathed, though. So close to his target, the flash of the exploding dart burned and blinded him, and he nearly lost his seat. Then Danica was up behind him, guiding the horse back to the center of the path and holding Cadderly steady.
Elbereth and Rufo were right behind; hoots and calls went up all about them.
“Ride on!” the elf prince cried, rearing and spinning Temmerisa about. His great bow twanged again, then again, each shot sending another enemy to the grave.
Rufo’s horse, with just one rider, got a few paces ahead of Cadderly’s, making Cadderly and Danica the prime targets for those goblins springing from the brush along the road. A few clumsily thrown spears bounced harmlessly short, one arrow whistled by, and another came in, straight for Cadderly’s back.
Danica noticed it at the last instant and threw her arm up to block.
“What?” came Cadderly’s alarmed cry.
“It is nothing!” Danica replied. “Ride on!” She figured that now was not the time to show Cadderly the arrow sticking right through her forearm.
A few more strides, and they were running free. Then came Temmerisa, as fast as an arrow. In mere seconds, Elbereth was beside them again, grim-faced but unhurt.
When they had put half a mile behind them, they slowed their pace and dismounted. It was then that they noticed Danica’s wound.
Cadderly nearly fell over, seeing the bloody arrow shaft protruding from both sides of Danica’s delicate arm. Elbereth rushed over to her, spurring the young scholar to do the same.
“It is not serious,” Danica said to calm them.
“How can you say that?” came Cadderly’s retort. He went back to the horse to retrieve his pack and returned bearing bandages and a jar of salve. By the time he was back beside her, Danica had pulled the arrow all the way through and was deep in concentration, using her meditative powers to gather the strength she would need to battle the pain.
Cadderly tried not to disturb her concentration as he gently wrapped the wound. Danica’s mental powers were truly amazing; Cadderly had once seen her force a two-inch sliver from her leg without even touching it with her hands, using nothing but sheer concentration and muscle control. He did the best he could in wrapping the arm, then hesitated, a trapped expression clouding his face.
“What is it?” Elbereth demanded.
Cadderly ignored him and summoned the courage to call upon Deneir. He muttered the chants of minor healing spells, one after another (though he wasn’t well-versed in the art and didn’t know how much good he was doing).
Reluctantly, for he had hoped to save his curative spells for himself, Kierkan Rufo came over to join him.
Before Rufo could begin to work on the arm, though, Danica opened her eyes. “That will not be necessary,” she said calmly to the sharp-featured priest, her eyes glazed and a look of sincere contentment on her smooth face. Elbereth and Cadderly both started to protest, but then Cadderly looked more closely at the wrapping and realized that the wound had already stopped bleeding. He couldn’t be sure if his spells or Danica’s own concentration had stemmed the flow, and he honestly didn’t care either way.
“We must continue,” Danica said, her voice almost sleepy, “as before, with Elbereth in front and me to the side.”
Elbereth protested. “I will take the lead,” he agreed, “but you will stay with the others and the horses. We are not so far from Daoine Dun. If that is my people’s camp, I do not believe we will encounter any more enemies between here and there.”
Cadderly was surprised when Danica did not argue. He knew then that her wound was much more serious and painful than she had let on.
They walked on into the twilight, when all the wood, shrouded in deepening gloom, took on an even more ominous appearance to Cadderly. He grew alarmed as Elbereth disappeared from sight, slipping suddenly into the trees. Soon, though, the elf was back on the path and approaching, two other tall and grim-faced elves beside him. He introduced them as his cousins and was glad to report that his people had indeed set camp on the Hill of the Stars, just a mile north.
One of the elves accompanied them the rest of the way; the other went back to his watch.
Their escort told Elbereth of the battles; Cadderly saw the elf prince grimace as the other elf described the last skirmish, wherein a wizard had appeared and turned a tree to flames.
“Ralmarith is dead,” the elf said grimly, “and Shayleigh . . .”
Elbereth spun on him and grabbed him by the shoulders.
“She lives,” the elf said immediately, “though she is sorely wounded, and sorely wounded, too, is her heart. She was the last to leave Ralmarith and had to be pulled away.”
Elbereth was not surprised. “She is a loyal friend,” he agreed solemnly.
Elbereth went first to find Shayleigh when they reached Daoine Dun, though word was quickly (and often) passed to him that his father, the king, wished to speak with him.
Cadderly was amazed at how easily the elf prince seemed to ignore that request and follow his own agenda. It reminded the young scholar somewhat of himself on one of the many occasions he had avoided a summons from Headmaster Avery. Cadderly dismissed the thought quickly, not yet comfortable with any comparisons between himself and the arrogant, unmerciful Elbereth.
They found the wounded maiden on a cot in a small cave that had been set up to care for the injured. She was heavily bandaged in several places but did not seem so bad to Cadderly—until he looked into her eyes. There loomed a sadness the young scholar thought would never diminish.
“We left Ralmarith,” the maiden whispered, her voice choked, as soon as Elbereth moved beside her. “They killed him, hacked his body . . .”
“Shhhh.” Elbereth tried to calm her. “Ralmarith lies with the gods now. Do not fear for him.”
Shayleigh nodded but had to look away.
They sat in silence for many minutes. Another elf entered and immediately moved to tend Danica’s injured arm. The stubborn monk politely refused, but Cadderly nudged her hard and reminded her that the dressing had to be changed. With a defeated sigh, Danica moved off with the elf.
“When will you be back in the fighting?” Elbereth asked Shayleigh at length. Both looked the attendant’s way.
“Tomorrow!” the maiden said firmly. The attendant just shrugged and nodded helplessly.
“That is good,” said Elbereth. “Rest well this night. Tomorrow we shall fight together, and together avenge Ralmarith!” He took a step toward the entrance.
“You are leaving?” Shayleigh asked, alarmed.
“There are goblins to the south,” Elbereth explained. “They intend to surround the hill, I would guess. We cannot allow that.” He looked over to Danica. “She will remain beside you,” he said to Shayleigh. “A fine warrior and ally for our struggle.”
“Are you going after the goblins tonight?” Cadderly asked, behind Elbereth. “The day would seem more favorable,” he explained when Elbereth turned to him. “Goblins do not fight well in sunlight.”
“This is Shilmista,” Elbereth reminded him, as though that fact alone explained everything. The elf prince stood tall and straight, his jaw firm, his silver eyes narrowed and stern. “The goblins shall die, day or night.”
“I will go with you,” Cadderly offered.
“I will not have you,” Elbereth replied, turning back to Shayleigh. “You are not elven and will not see through the darkness.” To the maiden he asked, “Where is Tintagel?”
“With your father,” Shayleigh replied. “We have called for Daoine Teague Feer, but Galladel has refused thus far.”
Elbereth considered that news for a few moments but had no time to worry about it. He swept out of the tent, telling Cadderly and Rufo to rest easily and find a fine meal.
Ten minutes later, fifty elves set out on the goblin hunt, Elbereth leading upon Temmerisa, and the wizard Tintagel at his side. They returned at midnight, reporting a hundred goblins slain and scores more sent running. Not a single elf had been wounded.
Cadderly was too excited to sleep, weary though he was. He had read much about elves over the years, but had met only a few—and those only at the library. Something about being in Shilmista, on a hill under the stars, surrounded by elves, transcended the experience of reading about the people. There was a flavor here, an eldritch aura, that mere words, however well constructed, could not hope to capture.
He wandered about the camp, greeted by smiles on otherwise grim faces at every turn, noting the rich colors, even in the quiet darkness, of elven hair and eyes. All those stirring in the camp were too busy to be disturbed, he figured, so he didn’t bother to introduce himself, just tipped his wide-brimmed hat and wandered past.
He had known from the moment he had left the Edificant Library that this journey would change his life, and he had feared that. He feared it still, for already the world seemed a wider place—more dangerous and more wonderful all at once.
What of Elbereth? Cadderly didn’t like the elf or the way the elf treated him, but instincts told him differently, told him of the elf’s honor and loyalty.
When his thoughts inevitably turned to Danica, he found a rocky seat on the north side of the hill and dropped his chin into his hands. Danica, it seemed, held no reservations concerning Elbereth; she had accepted the elf fully, as friend and companion. That fact bothered Cadderly more than he cared to admit.
Cadderly sat for a long while, long after the elven war party had returned. In the end, he resolved nothing.
Many elven eyes had opened wide when Elbereth had entered the encampment escorted by three humans, for few visitors came to Shilmista, and, with the battle raging, none had been expected. Another set of eyes opened even wider, though, evil yellow eyes sown with tiny red arteries.
Druzil nearly fell out of his perch, high in a thin beech overlooking the camp, when he saw Rufo, Danica, and especially Cadderly. The imp recognized the young scholar at once and instinctively rubbed the remnants of a bruise on his flank where Cadderly had once popped him with a poisoned dart.
Druzil felt suddenly vulnerable, despite the fact that he was invisible and in a tree too weak-limbed for even the lithe elves to climb. He hadn’t approached the camp too closely, fearing that the elves would discover him, but now, with this devilish young man in the area, the imp wondered what distance might be safe.
Immediately Druzil sent his thoughts back to Dorigen, who awaited his return a mile to the north. Druzil let the wizard fully into his mind, allowing her to see through his eyes as he followed Cadderly’s progress through the camp.
What is he doing here? Druzil demanded, as though he expected Dorigen to know.
He? came her incredulous thoughts. Who is he?
The young priest! the imp shot back. His thoughts almost screamed that Cadderly was Aballister’s son, but Druzil deflected that notion, preferring to hold that bit of news until he could watch Dorigen’s facial response.
He is from the Edificant Library, the one who defeated Barjin! the imp continued. From the long pause, Druzil could tell that Dorigen had caught on to his sense of urgency. The imp recalled the battle in which Cadderly had brought him down with a dart coated in sleep poison. Druzil thought he sensed Dorigen’s amusement at the mental recounting, and he sent a stream of curses her way.
Another thought struck Druzil and he looked all about the camp, searching for the two dwarves that had accompanied Cadderly on that previous occasion. They were not to be found, though, and Druzil hoped they were dead.
Who are the others? Dorigen asked, growing impatient after many uneventful moments had passed.
The girl was beside the priest, though I do not know what role she played, the imp explained. The other . . . Druzil paused, recalling the description Barjin had given him of the fool who had initially aided the evil priest’s cause: angular and tall, and walking with a slight tilt to his stance.
Kierkan Rufo, Druzil decided, figuring that there could not be two priests at the library who so accurately fit Barjin’s description. Dorigen didn’t immediately press him further, and Druzil decided to be blunt with the wizard.
I wish to be gone from here, the imp communicated clearly. Around him, the camp seemed to come alive with activity, elves running about and shouting that Prince Elbereth had returned.
Come to me, Druzil, Dorigen bade, apparently seeing the imp’s wisdom. She didn’t have to ask twice.
“I requested your presence some hours ago,” Galladel said coldly when Elbereth finally walked into his chamber. “In times of peace, I can overlook your irrespon—“
“A force of goblins had set up to the south of Daoine Dun,” Elbereth interrupted. “Would you rather I had allowed them to fortify and entrench? They are gone now, and the way is clear if we are forced to flee—as I suspect we might if rumors of the approaching northern force are true.”
The news took the momentum from the aged king’s ire. He abruptly turned to the many parchments strewn across the wide stone table.
“I will need your assistance,” he said sharply. “The patrols need to be coordinated. We must keep count of weapons and food.” He roughed the papers around a bit, just to show his obvious displeasure.
Elbereth watched his father with growing concern. There was something too restrictive about Galladel’s movements and tactics, something too humanlike for the younger elf’s liking.
“The forest is our home,” Elbereth said, as though that remark alone explained his disrespect.
Galladel glared at him, suspecting he had just been insulted.
“We must be out fighting,” Elbereth continued, “freely, as our instincts and the trees guide us.”
“Our attacks must be planned,” the older elf argued. “Our enemy is many times stronger than we, and well organized.”
“Then awaken the wood,” Elbereth said matter-of-factly.
Galladel’s silver eyes, so similar to his son’s, widened in disbelief.
“Awaken the trees,” Elbereth said again, more firmly. “Call up the allies of our past, that together we might destroy those who have come to conquer Shilmista!”
Galladel’s soft laughter mocked him. “You know nothing of what you speak,” he said. “You talk of the task as though it were a foregone event, easily manifested. Even in the older days, when I, Galladel, was a young elf, the trees would no longer come to the elf king’s call.”
Elbereth had only made the remark to draw a response from his weary father. When he saw the sadness creep into Galladel’s eyes, he came to doubt his own wisdom.
“The ancient magic is gone, my son,” Galladel continued, his voice subdued, “as faded as the days when the world belonged to the older races. Legends for fireside tales and no more. We will win this war, but we will win it through blood and arrows.”
“You have sent emissaries to the Edificant Library, begging aid?” Elbereth asked.
Galladel paled noticeably. “I sent you,” he replied defensively.
“I was sent to gather information. I knew nothing of the start of a war,” Elbereth argued calmly, for he knew that he was in the right, but knew, too, that his father’s patience had worn thin. “The library must be asked for aid, and the legion of Carradoon raised.”
“Send the emissary,” Galladel replied absently, seeming very tired. “Go now. I have much to prepare.”
“There is one other matter,” Elbereth pressed.
The king gave him a sour look, as though he understood what was coming.
“Some of the people have requested Daoine Teague Feer,” Elbereth said.
“We have no time—“ Galladel started to protest.
“We could not spend our time in any better manner,” the younger elf insisted. “Our people carry many wounds. They wear the blood of enemies and friends alike. They see the smoke of their burning forest and find goblins and orogs in every direction. Blood and arrows, yes, but battles are fought with emotion, my father. They are won by those willing to die if that must be, and by those eager to kill. Our spirits will carry us where your parchments”—he waved a hand derisively at the stone table—“cannot!”
Galladel neither blinked nor made any move to reply.
“Daoine Teague Feer will lift those spirits,” Elbereth said quietly, trying to bring the conversation back to a reasonable level.
“You are of noble blood,” answered Galladel, an unmistakable edge of anger and disappointment to his voice. “You perform the ceremony.” He looked back to his parchments then, taking particular interest in one and purposely avoiding lifting his eyes his son’s way.
Elbereth waited a few moments, torn between what he knew was the right course and the fact that his course would wound his father. Galladel’s invitation to perform Daoine Teague Feer was wrought of sarcasm, and if Elbereth went through with the ritual, his father certainly would not be pleased. But Elbereth, for all his loyalty to Galladel, had to follow his heart. He left the small cave to find his ceremonial robes and tell all the others to find theirs.
“Aballister’s son?” Dorigen could hardly believe the news. This young priest, Cadderly by name, was the estranged son of Aballister Bonaduce!
“I battled him in the library,” Druzil rasped, not liking the taste of the bitter words, “as I showed you when we communicated from afar. He is a trickster—take heed! And he surrounds himself with powerful friends.”
“Does Aballister know of him?” Dorigen asked, wondering what intrigue might be going on about her. Was Aballister, perhaps, in contact with this young priest in those fateful moments of Barjin’s demise? she wondered. Could it be possible that the wizard had aided his son in defeating Barjin?
Druzil nodded, his tall, doglike ears flipping forward. “Aballister learned of Cadderly when the priest battled Barjin,” he explained. “Aballister was not pleased to find Cadderly in the library. He will be most upset to learn that the trickster aids the elves!”
A hundred possibilities whirled through Dorigen’s mind then, of how she might gain the uppermost hand in this conflict against the elves, and in her own struggles within the hierarchy of Castle Trinity.
“You are sure that this Rufo is the fool Barjin spoke of?” she asked eagerly.
“I am,” Druzil lied, hoping that his guess was correct, but not daring to disappoint Dorigen when she was so excited. He studied her amber eyes, sparkling dots straddling the bridge of her disfigured nose.
“Go back to the elves,” Dorigen commanded. She had to lift her voice over Druzil’s whine to complete her orders. “Arrange a meeting with this Kierkan Rufo. If he was Barjin’s fool, then he will be mine as well.”
Druzil groaned but flapped his wings and obediently started off.
“And Druzil,” Dorigen called, “I trust that you will make no contact with Aballister, or that, if you do, nothing of this will be mentioned.”
Druzil nodded. “What would be my gain?” he asked innocently, then continued on his way.
Dorigen considered the question carefully, and she knew that the best way to trust the imp was to keep him well advised. Indeed, what would be Druzil’s gain in telling Aballister of these latest events? Dorigen clapped her hands. Unlike the imp, she was not sorry that the young scholar and his friends had come to help the elves. With Ragnor and his huge force finding a foothold in the forest, and with her beside them, Dorigen believed Shilmista’s fate sealed anyway, and she resolved then to add to her personal gains, at the expense of Aballister’s son.
“Tonight,” Elbereth whispered into the wounded maiden’s ear.
Shayleigh stirred and opened a sleepy eye.
Cadderly and Danica watched from across the cave, Cadderly still thinking that Shayleigh would have been better off left asleep. He had protested that the wounded elf needed her sleep, but Elbereth had waved his doubts away, assuring Cadderly that Daoine Teague Feer would do much more to improve Shayleigh’s health and strength than any amount of rest.
“Tonight?” Shayleigh echoed, her voice melodic even through her drowsiness and pain.
“Tonight we gather strength from the stars,” Elbereth replied.
Shayleigh was up in a moment, to Cadderly’s surprise. Just the mention of Daoine Teague Feer seemed to pump new vitality into the elven maiden. Elbereth bade Danica to help Shayleigh dress, and he and Cadderly exited the cave.
“Do we get to watch this celebration?” Cadderly asked. “Or would you prefer privacy?” Elbereth’s answer surprised him.
“You have become a part of our struggle,” the elf prince replied. “You have earned the right to partake of this ritual. The choice is yours.”
Cadderly understood the honor that had just been given him and his companions, and he was truly overwhelmed—and amazed. “Forgive my arguments against waking Shayleigh,” he said.
Elbereth nodded. “Your concern for my friend did not escape me.” Elbereth glanced back toward the cave, his expression grim. “Our enemies have found a powerful ally,” he said. “This wizard must not be allowed to appear on any other battlefield.”
Cadderly understood the proud elf’s meaning and intentions and he was not the least bit surprised by Elbereth’s ensuing vow.
“When the celebration is complete and my people are prepared to take up the fight, I will hunt the wizard, whose head shall avenge Ralmarith’s death and Shayleigh’s wounds.
“Go now and find your remaining companion,” Elbereth instructed. “Daoine Teague Feer will begin atop the hill as soon as the others are gathered.”
Cadderly, Danica and Rufo sat to the side of the gathered elves, talking quietly among themselves. Cadderly told them of Elbereth’s vow to go after the wizard, and again was not surprised when Danica vowed that she would hunt beside the elf.
More and more elves gathered atop the hill; nearly all the camp was there—the guards had decided to rotate their watch so that all might enjoy the celebration for at least a while—with the notable exception of King Galladel. Elbereth gave apologies for his father, explaining that the king had many duties to attend to and would come out later if he found the time. Whispers around Cadderly and Danica told them the elves doubted the truth of that explanation, and hinted that the king hadn’t come out because he thought the whole thing a waste of time.
As soon as the ceremony began, any doubts those whispers had placed in the young scholar’s mind washed away.
All the elves rose up and formed a circle atop the hill. Hands were offered to the visitors. Rufo declined immediately, seeming uncomfortable. Danica looked to Cadderly with a wishful smile, and he nodded for her to go, but said that he would rather watch the beginning, at least, from the side. He took out his writing kit and his light tube, smoothed a parchment in front of him, determined to prepare a firsthand account of the rarely watched ritual. He took care, though, to shield the light. Somehow it did not seem fitting, magical though it was, in the starlight of the enchanted forest.
The elven song began slowly, almost as a spoken chant. The elves, and Danica, lifted bowls to the sky and began to walk the circle. Their walk became a dance, their chant a melodic song. Though he couldn’t understand all of the words, the emotions evoked by the song affected Cadderly as much as any of the elves. Sad and sweet at the same time, and edged by the experiences of centuries long past, the Song of Shilmista offered the elven experience more fully than any book ever could. Cadderly came to understand then that the elves were a people of feeling, a race of aesthetics, spiritual and at one with their natural surroundings, even more so than the humans who dedicated their lives as woodland priests. Cadderly thought of the three druids who had come to the Edificant Library not so long ago, particularly Newander, who had died at Barjin’s hands.
He thought of Pikel, who longed to be a druid, and knew then, with a touch of sadness, that the dwarf, however unlike his gruff and pragmatic kin, could never achieve this level of spirituality.
The song went on for more than an hour and ended, not suddenly, but gently, becoming a walk and a chant and fading away as subtly as the setting moon. The elves and Danica still stood holding their bowls to the sky, and Cadderly wished then that he had joined them from the start. He diligently kept to his recording, though when he looked to the parchment he wondered honestly whether his god would have preferred him to write about Daoine Teague Feer or experience it.
Elbereth, splendid in his purple robes, moved to the closest elf and took the bowl. He began a quiet chant to the heavens, to the millions of stars that dotted the night sky, then he reached into the bowl and threw its contents heavenward.
The glitter of Stardust filled the air, descending over the targeted elf. His eyes sparkled, his rich golden hair seemed to shine more brightly, and when the Stardust had settled, he stood perfectly still, glowing with inner contentment.
Cadderly could hardly find the words to express this transformation. He sat dumbfounded as Elbereth moved about the ring, repeating the ceremony. Most dramatic was the change that came over Shayleigh. Before the star-dust descended over her, she had hardly been able to stand and had seemed more concerned with keeping her balance than in any precise movements of the dance.
But after the Stardust! Cadderly had seen many healers at work in the Edificant Library, powerful clerics with powerful spells, but none of them could compare to the healing that took place in Shayleigh. Her smile returned, dazzling, the blood washed from her hair. Even her burned face took on the tanned, creamy complexion of her elven kin.
Elbereth went to Danica last, and though the Stardust did not affect her as it had affected the elves, the woman seemed much comforted and much pleased. She stared at the elf prince with sincere admiration, unblinking.
A twinge of jealousy shot through Cadderly, but he found that he could not sustain it. Unexpectedly, Elbereth took a bowl from another elf and came over to him. Cadderly looked to where Rufo had been seated, excited, but the angular man was gone.
“You wished to record the ceremony,” the elf prince said, towering over Cadderly, “and watch from afar, that you might better understand it.”
“That was my mistake,” Cadderly admitted.
“Stand, friend,” Elbereth bade, and Cadderly slowly rose to his feet. Elbereth looked around to his people, all nodding, and to Danica, who smiled with anticipation. The prince began the chant and sprinkled the Stardust.
From inside the shower, the view was even more glorious. Cadderly saw a million stars reflected a million times. They reached out to him, communicated to him a sense of universal harmony, a rightness of nature. He thought that, for that too short moment, he saw the world as an elf saw the world, and when it was over, he found himself looking at Elbereth in the same appreciative way that Danica had.
Never again would Cadderly feel jealousy toward his wonderful new friend, he vowed, and his sudden determination to save Shilmista was no less than that of any elf in the forest.
Kierkan Rufo wandered down the side of Daoine Dun, secure that no goblins would stray too near the enchanted mound that night. The elven celebration had meant little to the angular man; like King Galladel, he considered it a waste of time. All Rufo wanted was to be out of the forest and back to the security of the Edificant Library. He was never a warrior by choice and had no intention of dying to save someone else’s homeland.
He thought himself incredibly stupid then, for giving in to his guilt and offering, begging, to go along with Cadderly.
“Greetings, Kierkan Rufo,” said a raspy voice behind him. Rufo spun about to see a grotesque, dog-faced and bat-winged imp staring at him from a perch on a branch just a few feet away. Instinctively, the tall man backed away and looked for an escape route, but the imp stopped him short.
“If you try to flee or call out, I will kill you,” Druzil promised. He looped his barbed tail, dripping venom, over his shoulder in prominent display.
Rufo steadied himself and tried to appear unafraid. “Who are you?” he demanded. “And how do you know my name?”
“A mutual friend once told me,” Druzil replied cryptically, hiding his relief that this man was indeed the priest Barjin had so easily charmed. “I never forget names, you see. They are so important in choosing future allies.”
“Enough of your riddles!” snapped Rufo.
“As you wish,” said the imp. “My mistress wishes to meet with you—to the benefit of both.”
“The wizard?” Rufo reasoned. “If she wishes to parley with an emissary—“
“She wishes to meet with you,” Druzil interrupted, “only you. And if you do not agree, I am instructed to kill you.
“But you shall agree, shan’t you?” Druzil went on. “What have you to lose? My mistress will not harm you in any way, but the gains . . .” He let the implication hang, a teasing glimmer in his rodentlike black eyes.
“How do you know my name?” Rufo asked again, intrigued, but not yet convinced of anything.
“Meet with my mistress and find out,” the imp replied. “Tomorrow night, soon after sunset, I will come for you. You need not pack anything, for you will be returned to the elven camp long before dawn. Are we agreed?”
Rufo hesitated, looking at the poison-tipped tail. To his horror, Druzil gave a flap of leathery wings and, before Rufo could even react, landed upon his shoulder. Rufo nodded weakly, having little choice but to agree with the poisonous stinger so close to his exposed neck.
Druzil eyed him for a while, then grabbed him by the front of his tunic and tossed out a threatening snarl. The imp locked Rufo’s stare with his own, purposely keeping the man’s gaze high so that Rufo would not notice Druzil’s hand movements.
“If you do not come along tomorrow, or if you tell anyone of this meeting, then you will become my mistress’s marked target,” Druzil warned. “Do not doubt that she will see to your death before your friends can find her, Kierkan Rufo!” The imp laughed its wicked, rasping laugh, then was gone, fading away to invisibility.
Rufo stood there, alone on the trail, for some time. He considered going immediately to tell Elbereth and the others, to surround himself with the elven host, but Rufo feared magic-users and had no desire to cross an imp, a creature that no doubt had allies in the dreaded lower planes. The angular priest went to his cave instead of to the elves and tried to lose himself in sleep.
He twisted and turned on his blankets, never noticing the tiny amulet that Druzil had pinned to an inside fold of his tan tunic.
The elven camp was astir the next morning, the revitalized elves eager to find enemies to battle. Cadderly, Danica, and Rufo tried their best to keep out of the way as the fair folk rushed about, resupplying their patrol groups with rope and arrows.
“I am going with Elbereth in his hunt,” Danica insisted to her two friends. “Wizards are not such a threat to one of my training.”
“You do not even know if Elbereth is going at all,” Cadderly retorted. Indeed, in the central cave before them, the elf prince and his father were engaged in a terrible argument.
“Elbereth will go as he promised,” remarked Shayleigh, who, looking much better than she had before Daoine Teague Feer, approached the friends. “Just as he went in to King Galladel this day to argue the value of last night’s celebration. The whispers say the king was not pleased that Elbereth presided over Daoine Teague Feer.” As if to accentuate the maiden’s point, several loud shouts echoed out of the cave.
Shayleigh shook her head and walked away. She could not go out on patrol this day, but those tending her agreed that she would not be much longer in healing.
Cadderly considered the noise from the cave in light of Shayleigh’s words. He knew that Danica would not listen to him; the monk was as headstrong as he. “If you are going, then so am I,” the young scholar said.
Danica scowled at him. “You are not trained in stealth,” she said. “You may hinder us and endanger us.”
“Priests have measures to counter a wizard’s powers,” Kierkan Rufo reminded her.
Danica balked. “You intend to go as well?”
“Not I,” Rufo assured her. “I did not come here to do battle, and the elves will be better for it if I do not!”
His admission did little to diminish Danica’s scowl. Her continued dislike of the angular man was obvious.
“I will do what I must,” said Cadderly. “By word of Dean Thobicus, I am the leader of our party. If you choose to go with Elbereth, I will not stop you, but I must go beside you.”
“I am not of your order,” she reminded Cadderly, “nor am I bound to your library.”
“To disobey Dean Thobicus would prevent you from ever returning there,” Cadderly warned, “would prevent you from resuming your studies of Penpahg D’Ahn.”
Danica’s glower intensified, but she gave no retort.
Elbereth came out of Galladel’s chambers then, his face flushed with anger. He mellowed when he saw Danica and the others, and came straight over to join them.
“Your father is not pleased with you,” Danica remarked.
“He never is,” said Elbereth, managing a weak smile, “but we share respect, and do not doubt our love.”
Cadderly did not doubt, and that left him with a hollow, empty feeling. He would have liked to have had a father, if only to argue with the man!
“Are you to join any patrols this day?” Danica asked.
“I will scout alone,” the elf prince replied, looking to the dark forest spread below them. “I must find and destroy the wizard before more harm is done.”
“You will not be alone,” said Danica. Elbereth understood her intent as soon as he looked into her brown, almond-shaped eyes. He did not appear pleased.
“Danica and I wish to go with you,” Cadderly explained. Many expressions crossed Elbereth’s face as he considered the unexpected request.
“I will not be riding,” he said at length, “and I expect to pass far beyond the closest lines of goblins.”
“More the reason to have companions,” said Cadderly.
“Perhaps,” the elf admitted, eyeing Danica more carefully. Elbereth certainly couldn’t deny the young woman’s value if it came to battle. “And none of my own people might be spared,” he said, “but I can offer no guaran—“
“We need no guarantees,” Cadderly assured him. “We understand the dangers.” The young scholar flashed his boyish smile at Elbereth, and then to Danica. “Consider it repayment for Daoine Teague Feer.”
That thought touched Elbereth, and he soon agreed that the two could accompany him. He told them that an elven warrior would also leave for the Edificant Library, an emissary asking for aid, and that they or Rufo were welcome to go along with that elf if they so chose.
“You have heard our choice,” Danica insisted.
“And I cannot go,” Kierkan Rufo stammered, coming back over when he heard his name. “Back to the library, I mean.”
Danica looked at the angular man curiously, thinking it would be more to Rufo’s character to simply run away. Cadderly congratulated his fellow priest on his brave decision to remain in Shilmista.
Danica was too suspicious to agree.
In truth, Rufo would have liked nothing better than to go back with the elven emissary, but he dared not miss a certain meeting he had arranged the previous night.
“A wise decision,” the imp said, again from behind, when Rufo came down from the hill shortly after sunset.
Rufo spun on him angrily. “You left me with little choice,” he growled, his volume causing Druzil to look around nervously.
“Follow!” the imp commanded, thinking it prudent that they get as far from the enchanted hill as possible. He led Rufo through the dark trees to the appointed meeting place with Dorigen. Rufo was surprised to find a woman before him, a not-unattractive woman, though she was older than he and sported a severely crooked nose.
The wizard and Rufo stared at each other for a long while, neither moving to begin the conversation. Finally, Rufo could bear the suspense no longer.
“You called me out here,” he protested.
Dorigen let her stare linger a bit longer, let Rufo shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other several times before offering any explanation. “I need information,” she eventually replied.
“You would ask me to betray my companions?” Rufo asked, trying to sound incredulous. “Perhaps I should go back. . . .”
“Do not sound so surprised,” Dorigen scolded. “You understood the purpose of this meeting before you ever agreed to it.”
“I only agreed because I was left with no choice,” Rufo argued.
“You are left with no choice again,” Dorigen said coldly. “Consider yourself my prisoner, if that might ease your pitiful conscience. I need information, Kierkan Rufo, he who aided Barjin. . . .” Rufo’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“Yes, I know who you are,” Dorigen continued, thinking she had gained the upper hand. “You were Barjin’s pawn, and so you shall be mine!”
“No!” Rufo roared, but when he turned to leave, he found himself facing Druzil’s poison-tipped tail. The angular priest’s bluster flew away in the blink of an eye.
“Do not be angry, dear man,” Dorigen purred. “I have done you a favor, though you do not yet understand that. The forest is doomed, and so, too, are all who fight beside the elves.”
“Then why do you need me?” Rufo asked.
“That does not concern the war,” Dorigen replied. She paused for a moment to discern how she might explain without giving away too much. “Consider it a personal matter, between me and those who accompanied you to Shilmista.”
“The elf prince?” Rufo asked.
“Perhaps,” Dorigen answered slyly, thinking it best that Rufo be kept guessing. Not wanting to lose momentum, she pressed on again, her amber eyes flickering with growing delight. “It does not matter. I offer you survival, Kierkan Rufo. When I claim victory, your life will be spared. You might even find a place among my ranks of advisors.”
Rufo appeared intrigued, but not convinced.
“And if the elves should somehow escape, and your friends along with them,” Dorigen added, “then none will know of your deceit and still you will emerge with nothing lost.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Must I go into the unpleasant details?” Dorigen replied, her voice so calm and even-toned that it sent shivers up Rufo’s spine. “Oh, I might not kill you now,” Dorigen continued. “No, it would be a sweeter thing to see you dishonored for your actions beside Barjin, to lay public those deeds you committed in the library’s cellar.” Dorigen enjoyed the way Rufo squirmed, and she gave Druzil an approving nod for supplying her with such valuable information.
“How do you know about that?” Rufo asked, as though he had read her thoughts.
“I am not without my sources.” Dorigen stated the obvious. “And do not think that your torment shall end with disgrace,” she went on, her voice taking a distinctly evil edge. “After your humiliation has ebbed, I will have you killed—in time. Consider the life you will lead if you disappoint me now, Kierkan Rufo. Consider years of looking over your shoulder for assassins.”
Rufo again shifted from foot to foot.
“And know that your grave will not be sanctified by the Edificant Library, for certainly your indiscretions with Barjin shall come out in full—I will see to it that they are not easily forgotten—to dishonor you even in death.”
The weight of the threat lay heavy on the angular man, both because of the deadly imp just a few feet behind him and the fact that he was indeed vulnerable to the wizard’s accusations.
“But let us not focus on such unpleasantness,” Dorigen offered. “I require very little of you, and then you may go on your way, secure that whatever the outcome of this war, you will be safe.”
Rufo could hardly believe the words as they escaped his thin lips. “What do you wish to know?”
Cadderly felt clumsy, crunching through the brush beside the stealthy Danica and Elbereth. He did not regret his decision to accompany the two, though, and neither of them gave more than a slight frown at the young scholar’s loudest crackles.
They had passed several goblin and orc encampments, the creatures sleeping under the light of day, with the exception of a few bleary-eyed and hardly alert guards. Elbereth’s planned destination was the same grove in which the wizard had appeared, where Ralmarith had been killed. The elf prince hoped he could pick up the trail from there.
He never would have imagined that finding Dorigen could be so easy.
They had believed their progress exceptional, for they had moved unhindered long after dusk. The forest grew quiet around them as they rested.
Too quiet.
Elbereth sat regarding his sword. “I had thought to bloody it before now,” he whispered to the others. “I did not expect that the resistance would be so meager. Perhaps our enemies are not as many as we have been led to believe.”
Cadderly had a sickening thought. “Or perhaps . . .” he began, but he never got the chance to finish the sentence, for Elbereth, detecting movement in the thick brush to the west of their hasty camp, motioned for silence and crept away.
Danica, too, went on the alert, only she crouched low and turned toward the snap of a twig in the shadows to the east.
“I have a bad feeling,” Cadderly remarked. He quickly loaded a dart on his crossbow and took up his spindle-disks in his other hand.
“Ogres!” cried Elbereth. Cadderly spun about to see the elf engaged with two of the gigantic creatures. Danica disappeared into the brush back to the east, forcing Cadderly’s attention.
He turned again just in time to see an ogre bearing down on him, a net held wide in its long arms. Ten ogre strides away, the monster lurched suddenly, as Danica burst out of the brush and rammed her shoulder against the inside of the monster’s knee.
Cadderly heard the crack of the huge bone, but the ogre remained standing, though dazed—until Danica came charging back in, leaped high in the air, and double-kicked it in the chest. It flew down into a patch of brambles.
Danica had no time to finish it off; a group of orogs appeared, and orcs beside them. Danica went into a fighting fury, spinning and kicking as the creatures flowed around her.
An orc was the first to get to Cadderly. The young scholar leveled his crossbow to blast it away, but wisely decided to hold that shot until sheer desperation forced it. As the orc came in, slowly now, measuring its enemy, Cadderly set his spindle-disks spinning down to the length of their string.
Cadderly was not well-versed in the orcish tongue, but he had picked up a few words and phrases from his readings. “Watch!” he said to the orc, trying to sound excited, and he sent the disks into a wide, looping circuit.
The orc did watch, almost mesmerized.
Cadderly snapped the disks back into his hand, continued his arm’s circular motion to confuse the stupid monster, and waded ahead a long stride.
The orc’s head went back up, expecting the disks to go flying up into the air.
Cadderly snapped them straight out instead, where they slammed under the orc’s raised chin and into the creature’s exposed throat. It went down on its back, clutching at its crushed windpipe.
Cadderly had barely registered that the orc was down when he heard a rush behind him. He spun and fired his crossbow point blank into an orog that had charged in to tackle him. The dart hit the mark and exploded, but the heavy creature slammed into Cadderly anyway and bore him to the ground.
Cadderly struggled and thrashed for many moments before he realized that the orog’s chest was blown wide open and that the creature was quite dead.
Elbereth spent a long time parrying, keeping out of the huge ogres’ tremendous reach and the paths of their monstrous clubs. For some reason, the monsters seemed to be only half-swinging, as though they didn’t want to crush the elf completely.
Elbereth wasn’t about to let them hit him in any case.
An orc sprang up from a bush to the side, just a couple of feet from Elbereth, and readied to throw a net. Elbereth was quicker, though, and his side-cut opened a gash in the monster’s face and sent it tumbling.
The battle had begun in full behind the elf—he heard one of Cadderly’s darts go off—and he knew that he could afford no more delays. He waited for the exact moment, then charged between the ogres, slashing and sticking as he passed.
More harmful to the beasts, though, were their own clubs. They turned to swipe at the elf, but could not match his quickness and wound up slamming each other instead. One of the unfortunate ogres caught its companion’s club in the head as it bent low to grab the elf. It spun two full circles before winding down to the ground.
Elbereth was back on the other before it could recover from the force of the clubbing and the shock of downing its companion. The elf leaped right up the creature’s chest and drove his sword hard into its neck. The magical blade bent as it slipped into the thick hide, but its steel proved stronger than ogre flesh.
The doomed monster did manage to slap Elbereth from it before it died, sending the elf flying into the brush between two wide elms. Elbereth was not badly hurt, but he knew he was in trouble. He looked up to see the tree full of waiting orcs. He scrambled desperately as the first of the monsters dropped on him.
Danica met the monstrous charge head-on, though she feared straying too far from Cadderly, still back in the original camp, and Elbereth, all the way over to the other side. She kicked one orc in the throat and took another down with three quick punches to the face.
There were too many targets. Danica blocked one orog club between crossed arms and quickly snapped her arms back out wide, tearing the weapon from the monster’s grip. Her foot came straight up, catching the orog under the chin and launching it head-over-heels backward. Another orc rushed in from the side, and Danica, frantically turning, sent her foot flying out to meet it.
A club smashed into her back, blasting her breath away. Danica resisted the urge to fall and stubbornly turned to meet this newest orc attacker, but an ogre crashed out of the brush suddenly and locked its huge hand on her head, twisting her neck dangerously to the side.
Danica started to counter, but the orc’s club hit her again, then orogs grabbed her arms and pressed against her.
She thought her head would burst as the ogre’s great hand clenched and twisted some more.
Back near the camp’s center, warm blood dripped over Cadderly’s face and neck. By the time he was able to push his way out from under the dead orog, he was drenched with the gruesome stuff. He scrambled to his feet and loaded another dart.
A large group of orogs, orcs, and a single ogre approached from the east; desperate, Cadderly didn’t know who to shoot first, then he saw the ogre’s cargo: Danica, held firmly by the head, with two orogs loosely holding her arms. The ogre eyed Cadderly and gave a quick twist, and Danica’s face contorted in pain.
“Enough!” roared an orc from behind the lead rank. The creature moved cautiously around its ogre companion. “Surrender or me ogre breakses the girl’s neck!”
Cadderly wanted to swing his bow around and destroy the arrogant orc, but he couldn’t deny Danica’s predicament. He looked to his love helplessly. He thought of his ring and poisoned dart but dismissed the notion. He didn’t even have his walking stick and doubted that the dosage on the tiny cat’s claw would even affect the large ogre.
Then another thought came to him.
Danica eyed him curiously, then flashed him a wistful smile, and Cadderly knew she understood.
Slowly, Cadderly lowered the crossbow toward the ground. It swung back up suddenly and the young scholar fired the dart into the ogre’s shoulder. The ogre hardly flinched at the explosion, but Cadderly knew he had hurt the creature badly.
Danica knew it, too, could tell from the way the monster’s grip suddenly loosened. She dipped free, snapping her arms from her orog captors as she continued to drop. Her crouch brought her right to the ground before she reversed her momentum and leaped straight up.
The stunned orogs stared dumbfounded as the powerful monk soared into the air, rising above them. They had only barely begun to react when Danica kicked out to the sides, each foot smashing an orog in the face and sending it flying away.
Danica hit the ground and whirled about, punching straight out at her shoulder level, which was the same level as the wounded ogre’s groin. The monster bellowed and went back on its heels, and ferocious Danica pounded it again.
“Stop them!” the orc to her side screeched. Another explosion sounded and the monster fell silent—several feet from where it had been standing.
Cadderly wondered if their last ploy had been worth it as he watched Danica batter the ogre’s midsection. Would death be preferable to capture at the hands of such vile monsters?
Orogs came at the young scholar slowly, fearing his deadly crossbow. Cadderly knew he was doomed, though he didn’t even realize that Elbereth was no longer fighting and a host of orcs was rushing in from behind.
He felt a hot explosion as a club slammed against the back of his neck. His last sensation was the taste of dirt in his mouth.
The goblin kept its back pressed against the tree for a very long time, not even daring to breathe. A dozen of its companions lay dead, their lives snuffed out in the blink of an eye, it seemed. The frightened goblin heard the steadily diminishing screams of its only living companion, the terrified creature putting more and more distance between itself and the massacre site.
Finally, the remaining goblin mustered the courage to slip out from the tree. It peeked around the trunk’s huge girth, looked to its hacked and battered companions.
No sign of the murderous monsters.
The goblin crept out a bit farther and glanced all about.
Still nothing.
Hugging the trunk, it moved around one more step.
“I knowed ye was there!” cried a yellow-bearded dwarf.
The goblin fell back and looked up to see a swiftly descending double-bladed axe.
That business finished, the dwarf turned about to see how his brother was doing.
“Aiyeegh!” the last living goblin screamed, running full speed, knowing that the dwarf with the nasty club was just a few steps behind.
“Oo oi!” the dwarf answered happily.
“Aiyeegh!” The goblin made straight for a row of enormous beech trees, thinking it might find an escape route through the massive trunks and thick roots. It saw, then, a beautiful human female, tan-skinned and with green hair, beckoning it her way. The woman pointed to the side, revealing a tunnel leading right into one tree.
With no other options, the goblin asked no questions. It bent its gruesome head low and ran full speed, hoping the tunnel didn’t turn too sharply a few feet into the blackness.
The goblin hit the tree like a ram. The monster bounced back two steps, not understanding that the tunnel was no more than a dryad’s illusion. Blood flowed from a dozen gashes on the goblin’s face and chest; it nearly swooned, but stubbornly held its footing, stupid thing.
The dwarf, lowering a club that more resembled a tree trunk, never slowed. The club hit the goblin, and the goblin hit the tree again, this time with considerable weight behind it. This impact hurt less than the last, though, for the wretched creature was dead before it realized what had happened.
Pikel Bouldershoulder spent a moment considering the squashed object between his club and the great beech, honestly wondering how it once might have resembled a living goblin. Then the dwarf looked over to Hammadeen and gave a resounding “Oo oi!”
The dryad blushed in response and disappeared into the grove.
“Ye hit him hard,” Pikel’s brother, Ivan, remarked a bit later as he came up behind. The yellow-bearded dwarf held his great axe over his shoulder with an impaled goblin still stuck to one blade.
Pikel regarded it curiously and scratched at his green-dyed hair and beard. Unlike his brother, who tucked his long beard into his belt, Pikel pulled his back over his ears and braided it along with his top hair down his back.
Ivan heaved the impaled goblin over his shoulder and let it fall in front of him. “Hit mine hard, too,” he explained. He put one foot on the dead monster’s shoulder, spat in both his gnarly, calloused hands, and clenching the axe handle tightly.
Bone crackled as the dwarf stubbornly tugged. “Didn’t want to wait and do this back there,” he explained between grunts. “Thought ye might be needing me help.”
“Uh-uh,” Pikel replied, shaking his head and looking to the splattered goblin still stuck against the tree.
Ivan finally wrenched his axe free. “Messy things,” he remarked.
“Another battle mars the forest just a few miles west,” came the melodic voice of Hammadeen.
Ivan shook his head in disbelief. “Always another battle!” he growled at the dryad, then he looked incredulously at Pikel. “Bloody life, this druid thing.”
“Doo-dad!” Pikel howled enthusiastically.
“We ain’t found a day’s quiet since we came to this stinking”—he glanced at Hammadeen and winced—“this pretty forest.”
Pikel shrugged, having no explanation. Indeed, the dwarven brothers had discovered one fight after another since their arrival in Shilmista more than a week before. Not that they minded, given the nature of their opponents, but even Ivan was beginning to worry about the sheer number of goblinoids and giant-kin in the supposedly peaceful wood.
The dryad put her ear and gentle hands against the oak’s rough bark, as though listening to the tree. “The fight is just ended,” she announced.
“Elves win?” asked Ivan. “Not that I’m caring!” he quickly clarified. Ivan was not fond of elves; they were too fanciful and scatterbrained for his dwarven sensibilities.
“Eh?” Pikel prodded, nudging his brother hard in the arm as though he had just caught Ivan in a rare moment of compassion.
“They’re a better lot than orcs,” Ivan admitted, “but I’ve no heart for sharing a meal with either breed!” Pikel joined in with his gruff chuckle, then they both turned on Hammadeen.
“Well, did they win?” Ivan asked again.
The dryad drew a blank and somewhat worried look, having no answers.
“Me guess’s that we should go and see what we can do,” Ivan said grudgingly. “We got the one body away from them under the burned tree—even an elf deserves better than to be served up on a goblin’s dinner table!”
They reached the battlefield about an hour later. Pikel was the first to spot a victim, a slashed orc lying in a thick bush.
“Oo!” the dwarf squealed with delight when he got to the body and found four other orcs in similar states.
“Oo!” he howled even more enthusiastically when he spotted two dead ogres a few paces away, one with its throat pierced and the other with its head caved in.
“Someone did some fine fighting,” Ivan agreed, circling wide about the area. He saw a dead orc and orog lying beside what looked to be a small campsite, but continued on around the camp to an area that apparently had seen even more action.
Two orogs lay dead, their heads twisted almost all the way around to the back, and several orcs and orogs were strewn about the ground a short distance from them. Ivan spent a while inspecting the creatures and their curious wounds. None had been slashed by sword or pierced by spear or arrow, and even the killing, crushing blows did not resemble any mace or hammer marks the dwarf had ever seen. Also, the way the two orogs had died, their necks snapped in strikingly similar manners, did not seem the work of any elf.
Pikel’s call turned the dwarf about. Ivan’s brother was in the campsite then, holding high the head and chest of the dead orog and pointing to the creature’s scorched wound. Only one weapon Ivan had ever seen could have caused that mark. He glanced back at the two dead orogs, an image of Danica suddenly coming to his mind.
“Wizard’s work,” Ivan offered hopefully, moving to join his brother. “Or . . .”
That last thought was answered soon enough as Pikel dropped the orog suddenly, leaped over to some brush, and produced a familiar ram’s-head walking stick.
“Uh-oh,” said Pikel.
“Dryad!” Ivan bellowed.
“Quiet would serve better in the dangerous forest,” Hammadeen offered as she appeared from a tree behind the dwarf. She gave Ivan a wink and a wistful smile.
“None o’ yer charming stuff!” the dwarf yelled at her, but even gruff Ivan mellowed when Hammadeen’s disarming smile became a frown. “This is too important,” Ivan explained. “Who fought the fight?”
The dryad shrugged.
“Well ask yer trees!” roared the dwarf. “Was it elves or humans?”
Hammadeen turned about for just a moment, then announced, “Both.”
“Where’d they go?” Ivan asked, looking all around.
Hammadeen pointed to the northeast. Ivan and Pikel ran off at once, Ivan begging the dryad to lead them.
They were relieved when they caught up to the capture party, to find Cadderly and Danica still alive, though badly beaten. Danica was held suspended from the ground by two ogres holding a large stick tied across her shoulders and along the back of her neck. The giant monsters showed the woman plenty of respect, keeping far from her, even though her arms and legs were securely bound. One of them limped badly; the other was all scratched and bruised. The dwarves could easily guess that the ogres had found the misfortune of tangling with Danica back in the camp.
Cadderly came next, walking with his hands tied behind his back, a hood over his head, and four orogs surrounding him and prodding him every step. Last in line was an elf, being dragged by a host of orcs, his ankles bound to a plank.
“Too many,” Ivan muttered, and indeed, no fewer than twenty formidable monsters surrounded their helpless friends. He looked to his brother and smiled. “We need to set us a trap.”
“Oo oi,” Pikel agreed, and they ran off, circling far ahead of the caravan. Some time later, they stopped in a small clearing. Ivan glanced all about and scratched at his beard. He looked up a thick-limbed elm, to a tumble of boulders a short distance away, and then back down the path to where the caravan would make its approach.
“If we can get a few of them rocks up the tree,” the dwarf mused. His dark eyes sparkled, and he slammed his hands together twice in rapid succession. “Thump! Thump! And two less ogres to fight!”
“Uh-oh,” Pikel whispered ominously, rolling his eyes about. A chuckle from the boughs showed that the dryad saw the same disastrous possibilities as the doubting dwarf.
Ivan had no time to hear any protests. He pulled his brother along and together they managed to roll one large rock under the overhanging limb. Ivan scratched his yellow beard and considered how they might get the boulder up the tree, for at its lowest point, the branch was still eight or nine feet from the ground—and it was the lowest branch in the elm.
“Ye pick up the stone and get on me shoulders,” Ivan said. “Stick it in the crook and we’ll climb up and sort it out later.”
Pikel eyed the stone and the branch and shook his head doubtfully.
“Do it!” Ivan commanded. “Ye want to see Cadderly and Danica served up for ogre snacks?”
Grunting and groaning every inch, Pikel managed to heave the two-hundred-pound rock up to his chest. Ivan dropped his deer-horned helmet to the side, stepped up behind Pikel, and dipped his head between his brother’s legs. The mighty dwarf heaved with all his might, finally bringing Pikel unsteadily into the air.
“Put it up! Put it up!” Ivan begged between grunts. In the wavering seat, Pikel couldn’t hope to get the stone far enough from his body to clear the thick branch.
“I’ll take a run at it,” Ivan offered, seeing his brother’s dilemma. He swerved back a few steps from the tree, then charged ahead, hoping his momentum would aid Pikel.
Pikel heaved mightily, pushing the stone out to arm’s length, then slammed into the branch. Oblivious to his brother’s sudden dilemma, Ivan continued on, stretching poor Pikel to his limit. The rock went atop the branch and rolled over, dropping straight at Ivan’s head.
“Oops!” came Pikel’s warning. Ivan managed to get his arms up to deflect the bomb, but he went sprawling anyway, leaving Pikel hanging from the branch by his fingertips.
“Oooooo!” Pikel wailed, and he fell, his landing cushioned by Ivan’s chest.
Unseen but not unheard, Hammadeen’s titters didn’t do much to improve Ivan’s mood.
When they had recovered a few minutes later, they next tried using their ropes to coax the boulder up. It slipped out of their noose a few times—until they got the hang of properly tying it—and bounced once off Ivan’s foot. They nearly had it to the branch, when the rope snapped.
Pikel wagged his head and looked nervously back down the path, thinking that their time was just about up.
“Ye’re the druid!” Ivan growled at him. “Tell yer tree to bend down and pick the damned thing up!”
Pikel threw his hands on hips and scowled fiercely.
Ivan put his fist in Pikel’s eye; Pikel grabbed the hand and bit Ivan’s knuckle. They rolled about the dirt, pinching, biting, kicking—whatever worked in the close quarters—until Ivan broke off, a grin of inspiration spread across his thick-skinned face.
“I get ye up the tree and toss ye the rock!” he beamed.
Pikel looked about, then grinned similarly.
Putting Pikel up was no problem, but the stubborn rock proved a different matter. As strong as he was, Ivan couldn’t hope to heave the boulder high enough for Pikel to catch it. Growing as frustrated as his brother, Pikel turned around, hooked his stubby legs at the knees over the branch and reached down as far as he could.
The rock hit him square in the face and chest, but he managed to hold his precarious perch, though he had no idea of how he was going to right himself with the heavy stone.
Ivan called out support, urging his brother on. He realized—too late—that he had wandered directly under his brother.
Pikel had just about turned upright when his legs let go. Ivan managed a single desperate step before his brother and the boulder buried him.
Hammadeen’s laughter echoed louder.
“That did it!” Ivan bellowed, hopping to his feet. He grabbed the stone and tried to pry it away from Pikel, who just lay there, saying “Oo,” over and over and clutching the rock like it was some dwarf baby—and, in truth, it somewhat resembled one.
Then Ivan had the stone. He charged the tree and hurled it at where the limb met the trunk. It bounced off, but Ivan scooped it back up and heaved it again, and then again, and again after that.
Pikel just sat in the dirt, watching his brother in disbelief.
Then, amazingly, the stone wedged into the crook and held, and Ivan turned about triumphantly.
“They’ll get here soon,” he observed, gathering the rope. “No time for another rock.”
“Phew,” Pikel remarked under his breath.
They looped the rope over the branch and started up, one on either side. Pikel, less armored and less laden than his brother, gained a quick advantage, then put his sandal on Ivan’s shoulder (waggling his smelly toes in his brother’s face), and pushed off. His momentum carried him the rest of the way, and he pulled himself over and sat up, forgetting to keep his weight on the rope. He watched, mesmerized, as it flew by, and Ivan plummeted back to the dirt.
The yellow-bearded dwarf sat up, spitting twigs and pebbles and scolding himself for not knowing better.
“Oops,” Pikel offered apologetically.
“Tie off the rope!” Ivan growled. Pikel considered the task and the consequences of letting his angry brother get near him, then shook his head.
“Tie it off!” Ivan roared. “Or I’ll cut the tree down!” He picked up his axe and took a stride toward the thick trunk before Hammadeen appeared between him and his target.
“Do not do that,” the dryad warned. Of more concern to Ivan was his brother, the would-be druid, who had slid down the branch near the crook and the heavy rock’s precarious perch. Ivan had no doubts that if he went to chop at the tree, Pikel would drop the stone on his head.
Ivan crossed his burly arms in front of his chest and stood staring up at Pikel. Finally, the seated dwarf relented and tied off the rope, motioning for his brother to climb up. Soon then they sat together on the branch, Ivan impatient and uncomfortable, but Pikel, thinking his perch very druidlike, quite content.
“What are ye laughing about now?” Ivan demanded of the pesky dryad some time later. Hammadeen appeared on a branch above them, pointing to the north.
“The ogres did not come this way,” she said. Sure enough, peering through the trees, Ivan and Pikel could just make out the distant commotion of the prisoner caravan, some distance north and moving away.
Pikel looked to Ivan, then to the rock, then back to Ivan, a sour expression on his cherubic face.
“Shut—“ Ivan started, but he stopped abruptly, noticing some movement in the not-too-distant brush. A moment later, he made out an orc, foraging through the trees, cutting pieces of kindling with a long knife. Ivan considered the creature’s path and realized it would pass not too far from the trap.
“Get it over here,” he whispered to Pikel.
His brother squeaked and poked a finger into his own chest.
“Yeah, yerself!” Ivan whispered harshly, and he slapped Pikel on the back of his head, dislodging him from the branch.
“Oooooo!” Pikel wailed before hitting the ground with a thud.
Ivan paid his brother no heed. He was more concerned with the orc, who had noticed the noise. The creature crept in slowly, knife held ready.
Pikel rolled about for a moment, then glared up at Ivan, but kept enough wits to move to the clearing’s far side. He turned his back to the approaching orc, put his hands in his pockets, and began to whistle nonchalantly.
The orc slipped up to the tree trunk, oblivious of Ivan, holding the rock above its head. One step out, then two, then it broke into a run.
Then it was dead.
Ivan looped the rope and swung down. He slammed a heavy boot atop his squashed victim, pounding a hand triumphantly against his barrellike chest. “I telled ye it would work!” he proclaimed.
Pikel looked to the crushed orc and up the branch, an amused expression splayed across his face. Ivan knew what his brother was thinking: that it would have been much easier just to walk over and put an axe through the orc’s thick head.
“Don’t ye say a word!” Ivan growled ominously. Fortunately, Pikel never had trouble following that particular command.
“I think we can get the rock back in place,” Ivan started, looking back to the crook. “If I can . . .”
Pikel ran him down, and the fight was on. Quite unknown to the battling dwarves, another orc was nearby, collecting wood. It came to the clearing, noticed its squashed companion, and considered the titanic struggle. It looked discomfitedly at its meager knife.
The orc shrugged and moved along, thinking that some sights were better forgotten.
“Cadderly.” The word came from a great distance, from beyond the edge of the young scholar’s consciousness. “Cadderly,” it came again, more insistent.
Cadderly strained to open his eyes. He recognized the voice, and he recognized the caring eyes he found himself looking into, rich brown and exotic. Still, it took him a while to remember the woman’s name.
“Danica?”
“I feared you would never awaken,” Danica replied. “The bruise on your lower neck is wicked indeed.” Cadderly didn’t doubt that; even the slightest shift of his head hurt him.
He gradually came back to consciousness. He and she were in a tent of animal skins, Cadderly’s hands tightly bound behind his back and Danica’s behind hers. Danica sat with Cadderly’s head and shoulders gently propped on her lap. No guards were in sight, but Cadderly heard the guttural grunts of orcs and orogs outside, and that noise inevitably led him to recall the battle, and the last desperate act in which he had blasted the ogre’s shoulder.
“They did not kill us?” he asked, confused. He wriggled his hands about and could feel that he still wore his feathered ring.
Danica shook her head. “They were under orders not to, I must assume—strict orders,” she replied. “The orc that struck you was punished by the orogs for hitting you so hard. They all feared you would die.”
Cadderly considered the news for a moment, but found no solution to this puzzle. “Elbereth?” he asked, panic obvious in his voice.
Danica looked beyond the young scholar, to the back of the skin tent. With some effort, Cadderly managed to shift around for a glance as well. Elbereth, the elf prince, seemed far removed from royalty at that moment. Dirty and bloodstained, he sat with his head down, his arms tied to his knees, with one eye bruised so badly that it would not open.
He sensed the stares and looked up.
“I caused our capture,” he admitted, his choked voice barely more than a whisper. “It was I they sought, an elf prince to ransom.”
“You cannot know that,” Danica offered, trying to comfort the distraught elf. There was little conviction in the young woman’s voice—Elbereth’s guess seemed logical. The elf put his head back down and did not answer.
“Orogs,” Cadderly muttered, trying to jog his memory. He had read several passages concerning the brutes and searched now for some answers to the situation. Had he and his companions, perhaps, been taken prisoner to become sacrifices in some horrible ritual? Were they to be the meat of an orog’s dinner? Neither explanation offered much solace, and Cadderly nearly jumped upright when the flap of the tent was thrown aside.
It was no orog that walked in from the dusky light, but a man, great and tall, bronze-skinned and golden-haired. A tattoo of some strange creature was centered in his forehead, between his ice-blue, piercing eyes.
Cadderly studied him intently, thinking that the tattoo—Cadderly recognized it as a remorhaz, a polar worm—should tell him something.
The huge man walked over to Danica and gave a leer that sent shivers through her spine and evoked silent rage in Cadderly. Then, casually, with the slightest flick of his muscled arm, he tossed the young woman aside. With one hand and similar ease, he grabbed the front of Cadderly’s tunic and hoisted the young scholar to his feet.
“White Worm,” Cadderly muttered, unconsciously thinking aloud, the words brought on by the man’s sheer size. He was nearly a foot taller than Cadderly’s six feet, and easily a hundred pounds heavier, though there wasn’t a bit of softness on his mighty frame.
The bronze-skinned giant’s frown quickly became a threatening scowl aimed at Cadderly. “What do you know of the White Worm?” he demanded, his voice edged by the hint of an accent from a distant land.
It was Cadderly’s turn to frown. The big man’s command of the language seemed too smooth and unaccented for the young scholar’s budding theory to be correct. Also, the man’s clothes were richly made, of silk and other fine materials, cut as a king might wear them, or a servant of a king’s court. The man seemed quite comfortable in them—too comfortable, Cadderly noted, for a barbarian.
“What do you know?” the man demanded, and he lifted Cadderly from the floor again with one gigantic hand.
“The painting on your forehead,” Cadderly gasped. “It is a remorhaz, a white worm, an uncommon beast, even in the northern reaches, and known not at all among the Snowflake Mountains and the Shining Plains.”
The large man’s scowl did not relent. He eyed Cadderly for some time, as if waiting for the young priest to elaborate on his explanation.
There came a rustle from the door, and the giant promptly lowered Cadderly to the floor. In walked a black-haired woman, a wizard, judging from the robes she wore. She reminded Cadderly somewhat of a younger Pertelope, except that her eyes were dots of amber, not hazel, and she wore her hair longer and less tended than the neatly groomed Pertelope. And while Pertelope’s nose was arrow straight, the wizard’s had obviously been broken and forever bent to the side.
“Welcome, dear Cadderly,” the wizard said, her words drawing surprised looks from both Cadderly and Danica. Even Elbereth looked up. “Have you enjoyed your visit to Shilmista? I know Kierkan Rufo longs for home.”
Danica sucked in her breath at the mention of Rufo. Cadderly turned to her, anticipating her anger and trying to diffuse it for the time being.
“Yes, I know your name, young priest of the Edificant Library,” the woman continued, reveling in her superior position. “You will come to understand that I know many things.”
“Then you are at an advantage,” Cadderly dared to remark, “for I know nothing of you.”
“Nothing?” The woman chuckled. “If you knew nothing of me, then surely you would not have come out to kill me.” This time, Cadderly and Danica could not even manage to stifle gasps, their astonishment plain on their faces.
Cadderly heard Danica mutter, “Rufo.”
“I do not wish to die, you must understand,” the wizard said sarcastically.
Not as Barjin died, rang a voice inside Cadderly’s head. He glanced around at Danica, then realized that the words had been telepathic, not audible communication. The unexpected connection to the slain priest brought a thousand questions rushing through Cadderly’s thoughts. He settled them quickly, though, asking himself if someone, or something, had actually communicated with him, or if that inner voice had been his own, reasonably placing this wizard in the same conspiracy as the slain priest.
Cadderly looked the wizard over, up and down. Her dress was unremarkable enough, certainly not as ornamented as Barjin’s clerical robes had been. The young scholar strained his neck, trying to get a better view of the wizard’s rings. She wore three, and one of them appeared to hold an insignia.
The wizard smiled at him, drawing his eyes to hers, then pointedly slipped her hands into her pockets.
“Always curious,” she mumbled, but loud enough so that Cadderly could hear. “So similar to that other one.”
The way she spoke that reference surprised Cadderly.
“Yes, young priest,” the woman continued, “you will prove a valuable well of information.”
Cadderly wanted to spit on her foot—he knew that his dwarven friend Ivan would have without a second thought—but he couldn’t muster the courage. His sour expression revealed his feelings, though.
That disdainful, uncompromising expression gave way to despair when the wizard took her hand back out of her deep pocket. She held something, something terrible by Cadderly’s estimation.
Dorigen leveled Cadderly’s deadly crossbow, cocked and loaded with an explosive dart, at Danica. Cadderly didn’t breathe for what seemed like minutes.
“You will do as I command you,” the wizard said, glaring at Cadderly, her visage suddenly icy and removed. “Say it!”
Cadderly couldn’t say anything past the lump in his throat.
“Say it!” the wizard cried, jerking the crossbow Danica’s way. For a split second, Cadderly thought she had pulled the trigger, and he nearly fainted away.
“I will do as you command!” he cried desperately as soon as he realized that the bow hadn’t fired.
“No!” Danica shouted at him.
“A well of information,” the wizard said again, her lips turning up in a comfortable smile. She turned to her bronze-skinned soldier. “Take him.”
Stubborn Danica was up in a second, cutting between Cadderly and the huge man. She tugged at her ropes, but was unable to get her hands free and settled instead for kicking at the large man.
His agility and quick reactions surprised the young woman. He was down in a crouch even as Danica’s foot flew up, and he caught her leg cleanly. A subtle twist of his powerful arms sent Danica off balance, gritting her teeth in pain. The huge man tossed her aside, again with no more than a casual flick of his hands.
“Enough!” the wizard commanded. “Do not kill her.” She gave Cadderly an awful smile. “Fear not young priest, I will not kill those who allow me to control you like a marionette! Ah, to have my prize, and an elf prince thrown into the package by sheer chance! Yes, I know of you, too, Elbereth, and do not doubt that you shall be reunited with your people soon. You are much too dangerous a prisoner for me to keep.” Dorigen snickered again. “Or at least, your head will soon be reunited with your father.”
Her words renewed Elbereth’s futile struggling with his tight bonds. The wizard laughed aloud, mocking him. “Take him!” she said again to the warrior, indicating Cadderly.
The huge man grabbed Cadderly quickly, before Danica could react, and wrapped him in a tight headlock, the great man’s other hand waving ready in case the fiery woman decided to come back for more.
“Stay back!” Cadderly called out meekly, and Danica did, for she saw that the warrior could snap Cadderly’s neck with ease.
“Stay back,” the huge man echoed. “Come only when you are summoned.” The manner in which he spoke, through a lascivious grin, renewed the shivers along the young woman’s spine.
Behind the huge man, the wizard frowned, and Danica was quick to understand the jealousy behind that look.
At the wizard’s snapping command, two orogs took up positions inside the tent as she and her giant lackey departed with Cadderly in tow.
The camp itself struck Cadderly as out of place, as wrong, from the moment he was half-dragged, half-carried outside. Even in the fading daylight he could see that beautiful Shilmista had been scarred and torn, with trees that had lived a hundred years ripped down and broken apart. It was an odd feeling for the young scholar, something he hadn’t expected. He himself had used firewood back at the Edificant Library, had plucked a flower from the roadside to give to Danica without a second thought. But there was a majesty about Shilmista that Cadderly had never known, a raw and natural beauty that even the print of a boot seemed to mar.
Watching filthy orogs and orcs milling about the forest pained Cadderly’s heart profoundly.
He recognized many of the creatures, mostly from wounds—such as the profound limp one ogre exhibited and the heavy bandage on its shoulder. The monster noticed Cadderly, too, and its scowl promised death if the thing ever got its hands on the young scholar.
The wizard’s tent was on the far side of the camp. While on the outside it seemed a normal skin canopy, the inside revealed that this wizard enjoyed her niceties. Plush cloth covered the one table and the four chairs around it; the bed was thick and soft—no blanket on the ground for this woman; and a silver serving set was perched upon a cart off to the side.
The bronze giant roughly placed Cadderly in one of the chairs.
“You may leave us, Tiennek,” the wizard said, taking a seat opposite the young scholar.
Tiennek didn’t seem overly pleased by that idea. He scowled at Cadderly and made no move toward the flap.
“Oh, be gone!” his mistress scolded, waving her hand.
“Do you believe I cannot protect myself from the likes of this one?”
Tiennek bent close to Cadderly and issued a threatening growl, then bowed low to his lady and departed.
Cadderly shifted in his seat, letting the wizard know that his bindings were uncomfortable. Now was the time for him to take command, he decided, to let his enemy understand that he was not some coward she could do with as she pleased. Cadderly wasn’t certain he could hold up that facade, especially not with Danica and Elbereth’s lives hanging so tenuously before him. But that facade, he realized, might be the only thing that kept them all alive.
The wizard considered him for a long while, then muttered some words under her breath. Cadderly felt the ties about his wrists being undone, and soon his aching arms were free.
His first thoughts centered on his feathered ring. If he could manage to get the cat’s claw out and stick the wizard . . .
Cadderly dismissed that notion. He didn’t even know if the drow sleep poison was still active. If he made his attempt and failed, he did not doubt that the wizard would punish him severely—or, more likely, punish his helpless friends.
“He is cultured beyond what one would expect from a barbarian,” the young scholar said, thinking to catch the wizard off her guard.
The wizard’s chuckle mocked him. “Deductive, as I expected,” she said, more to herself than to Cadderly. Again her tone gave Cadderly pause.
“The marking on his forehead, I mean,” Cadderly stammered, trying to regain his composure. “Tiennek is of the White Worm, the barbarian tribe living under the shadows of the Great Glacier.”
“Is he?” the wizard purred, leaning forward in her chair, as if to better hear Cadderly’s startling revelations.
Cadderly realized that it was useless to continue.
The wizard fell back comfortably in her seat. “You are correct, young priest,” she said sincerely. “Amazingly so. Few from the region would recognize the remorhaz at all, let alone connect the marking to an obscure barbarian tribe that never ventures south of the Galena Mountains. I congratulate you as you have congratulated me.”
Cadderly’s eyebrows rolled up with curiosity.
“Tiennek’s mannerisms are indeed an aberration,” the wizard explained, “far from what one would expect from the savage warriors of the White Worm.”
“You taught him that culture,” Cadderly added.
“It was necessary if he was to properly serve me,” the wizard explained.
The casual conversation put Cadderly at ease enough to offer a prompt. “Does he properly serve his lady . . . ?”
“Dorigen,” the wizard said. “I am Dorigen Kel Lamond.”
“Of?”
Again came that mocking chuckle. “Yes, you are inquisitive,” she said, her excitement mounting. “I have dealt far too long with one too much like you for your words to entangle me.” She calmed immediately, putting the conversation back into a casual mode. “So many things have happened so quickly, and Cadderly Bo—“ Dorigen paused and smiled, seeing his reaction. It was true, Dorigen realized, the young priest did not know his heritage, or even his family name.
“You will pardon me,” Dorigen went on. “For all my knowledge, I fear I know not your surname.”
Cadderly slumped back, understanding that Dorigen had lied to him. What was the significance of that single syllable the wizard had uttered? he wondered. Did Dorigen know of his parentage? Determinedly, Cadderly resolved not to play this mocking game with the wizard. To do so would put Dorigen in an even higher position of authority, something he and his friends could not afford.
“Cadderly of Carradoon,” he answered curtly. “That is all.”
“Is it?” Dorigen teased, and Cadderly had to concentrate hard to hide his interest.
Dorigen broke the ensuing silence with a heartfelt laugh. “Let me answer some of your questions, young priest,” she said, and she tapped her shoulder, or rather, she tapped something invisible that was perched upon her shoulder.
Druzil, the imp, faded into view.
So they were connected! Cadderly realized, recognizing the imp, the same imp who had poisoned Pikel back in the library’s catacombs. There could be no doubt. Barjin and this wizard had come from the same source. Cadderly understood then the silent voice he had heard back in the other tent. He looked immediately to Dorigen’s delicate hand and the signet ring, recognizing it now that he realized what should be upon it. The trident and bottle design, the variation of Talona’s holy symbol that had so quickly become a mark of disaster to the region.
“Greetings again, young priest,” the imp said in his raspy voice. Druzil’s forked tongue flicked, lizardlike, between his pointed yellow teeth, and he leered at Cadderly as an ogre might stare at a piece of roasting mutton. “You have been well, I presume?”
Cadderly didn’t blink, refused to show any weakness. “And you have recovered from your flight into a wall?” he replied evenly.
Druzil growled and disappeared from view.
Dorigen laughed again. “Very fine,” she congratulated Cadderly. “Druzil usually is not so easily intimidated.”
Still Cadderly did not blink. He felt an intrusion in his mind, an empathic bond he knew was coming from the imp.
“Let him in,” Dorigen instructed. “He challenges you. Do you fear to learn who is the stronger?”
Cadderly didn’t understand, but, still determined not to reveal any weakness, he closed his eyes and lowered his mental defenses.
He heard Dorigen chanting softly, heard Druzil snicker, then felt the energy of a magical spell fall over him. His mind became a tangible blackness, as though he had been mentally transported to an empty place. Then a light, a glowing and sparkling orb, appeared in the distance, floating toward Cadderly.
His mind watched the orb curiously as it neared, not understanding the danger. Then it was upon him, a part of his thoughts, burning him like a flame! A thousand fiery explosions went off inside his brain, a thousand searing blasts of agony.
Cadderly grimaced, thrashed about in his seat, and opened his eyes. Through a dark cloud he saw the wizard, and the imp, seated, smiling, on her shoulder. The pain intensified; Cadderly cried out and feared he would fall unconscious—or dead, and he almost wished that he would.
He closed his eyes again, tried to concentrate and find some way to relieve the agony.
“Push it away,” came a distant voice that Cadderly recognized as Dorigen’s. “Use your will, young priest, and push the fire away.”
Cadderly heard her and understood her words, but he could hardly find his focus through the pain. He took a deep breath and slammed his fists on the table before him, determined to distract himself from the ball of fiery light.
Still it burned. He heard Druzil snicker.
Cadderly mentally reached for his meditation techniques, tried to blot out the light as he could blot out the material world, bit by bit.
It would not go away. Druzil snickered again.
Anger replaced the vacuum of meditation, destroyed any serenity the young scholar had managed to create. The light became his enemy; he convinced himself that it would turn on Danica after it devoured him.
“No!” Cadderly growled, and suddenly the ball was moving away, out of the void he had entered. It wavered for many moments, then slipped beyond Cadderly’s mentality. The pain was no more, and no more were Druzil’s snickers.
Cadderly realized another void, another hole of blackness beyond his own, and he knew instinctively that it belonged to the imp, to the one who had forced the pain upon him. His anger did not relent; the ball of sparkling light moved toward the other blackness.
“Enough,” he heard Druzil cry, to which Dorigen merely laughed.
Cadderly forced the orb into Druzil’s thoughts. The imp squealed out, and that only prompted Cadderly on. He would show no mercy; he would hold the fire in Druzil’s mind until it burned the imp away to nothing!
Then it was over, abruptly, and Cadderly found himself seated at a table opposite Dorigen and Druzil, the imp reeling, his bulbous eyes promising death to the young scholar.
“Excellent!” Dorigen cried, clapping her hands together. “You are powerful indeed if you can defeat Druzil, who is practiced in the game. Perhaps even more powerful than your—“ She stopped and tossed Cadderly a teasing stare. “You will do well beside me.”
Again the young scholar would not play along. “I do not serve Talona,” he announced, and it was Dorigen’s turn to try to hide her surprise. “I never shall, whatever the price.”
“We shall see,” Dorigen replied after a short pause. “Tiennek!”
The barbarian was upon Cadderly in an instant, fiercely tugging his arms behind his back and retying his hands so tightly that the cords cut into his wrists. The young scholar was hoisted into the air and briskly carried away.
Cadderly struggled to sit up when the barbarian dropped him back in his tent. Tiennek offered one more leer Danica’s way before he departed.
“What happened to you?” Danica asked when the barbarian was gone. She shuffled over to Cadderly, resting her head against his.
Cadderly, still overwhelmed and with too many questions whirling about in his thoughts, did not answer.
Danica gave a concerned look Elbereth’s way.
“Alas for my studies,” the woman lamented.
Cadderly looked at her in disbelief.
“Physical suspension,” Danica explained. “If I could achieve that state, slow my heart so that its beating could not be detected . . .”
Cadderly’s incredulous stare did not diminish.
“But I cannot,” Danica said, lowering her eyes. “That feat is beyond me.” Her declaration rang ominously for the prisoners, a general sound of doom. Cadderly, too, allowed his head to bow.
“I shall kill that wizard,” Cadderly heard the elf vow. “And I, her giant lackey,” Danica added, a ring of determination returning to her voice. That thought did little to comfort Cadderly, though, given his new insight concerning Tiennek.
“He is of the White Worm,” Cadderly said, turning to Danica.
She shrugged; the words meant nothing to her.
“A barbarian tribe of the north,” Cadderly explained. “Savage, living—surviving—in brutal conditions. And Tiennek—that is his name—is of Kura-winther, the elite warriors, unless I am mistaken.”
Danica looked at him curiously, and he realized that his words still meant little to her.
“Fear him,” Cadderly said grimly. “Do not underestimate his prowess. Kura-winther,” he said again, closing his eyes to recall all he had read of the White Worm. “To get the marking upon his forehead, Tiennek would have had to kill a polar worm, a remorhaz, single-handedly. He is an elite warrior of a tribe of warriors.” Cadderly’s expression, sincerely terrified, unnerved Danica more than any words ever could.
“Fear him,” Cadderly said again.
“There’s the camp,” Ivan whispered to Pikel, “though I’m not fond of fighting orc-types in a dark forest night.”
Pikel wagged his head in agreement; dwarves were more accustomed to the blackness of a deep cave, a much different situation than the starlit forest.
“We could get after them just afore the dawn,” Ivan offered, talking as much to himself as to his brother. “Yeah, that’d do fine. But there’s too many. We can’t just go walking into them. We’re needing a plan.”
“Uh-oh.”
Ivan glared at his doubting brother, but his expression lightened considerably when a thought came to him. He pulled his deer-antler helm from his head, fished a small hammer from one impossibly deep pocket, and began chipping away at the lacquer holding one of the antlers firmly in place.
Pikel wagged his head fearfully and tried not to watch.
Ivan had done well in making the helmet, and it was a long time before he had the lacquer cleared enough to unscrew the antler, and even then, he had to fight with the firm hold of his setting. He got it free, finally, and handed it to Pikel, putting the now-lopsided helmet back in place on his hairy head.
“When we go, ye hold it up atop ye and keep close by me,” Ivan instructed.
Pikel prudently waited for Ivan to take up a more distant spying position before uttering “Uh-oh” again. Somewhere unseen in the shadows of the trees behind him, Hammadeen tittered.