It was a dreamless sleep, where sheer exhaustion overruled the tumult of Cadderly’s emotions. That deep slumber made it all the more shocking to the young scholar when Danica’s cry shattered his serenity.
Cadderly jerked to a sitting position and made out a hulking form bending over Danica. He knew at once that it was Tiennek who’d come calling; he prayed that the barbarian hadn’t been in the tent very long.
Cadderly started toward his love, but found his wrists roughly grabbed and jerked painfully high behind him.
“If she fights, break the priest’s arms,” Tiennek said, and Danica, with one look Cadderly’s way, stopped her struggling. Tiennek heaved the young woman over his shoulder and started out, flanked by two orogs. The third beast, giving one final, painful tug on Cadderly’s arms, soon moved to follow. Cadderly stubbornly stood up behind the orog, but the beast spun about and smacked him to the floor.
The world became a blur of pain and unresolvable confusion. Cadderly noticed Elbereth, still seated at the back of the tent, struggling fiercely but futilely. The elf’s wrists were bound so tightly about his knees that he could not even begin to stand.
Growling, on the very edge of control, Cadderly started up, but the orog kicked him in the ribs and sent him crashing down again. He looked all about, to his feathered ring, to a cask on the side of the room, to Elbereth, but had no recourse. Danica was gone and in peril, and Cadderly had no way to fight back.
“No!” he snarled, drawing another kick from the orog. “No! No!” Like a man gone mad, Cadderly repeated the word, ignoring the outraged orog’s kicks.
“No! No! No!” But for all Cadderly’s stubbornness and anger, his words rang hollow, a puny retaliation.
Danica did not struggle atop Tiennek’s huge shoulder. She would bide her time, she decided, wait for an opportunity when she would have the bronze-skinned man alone. Or at least she hoped that she would have Tiennek alone. Tiennek’s obvious intentions revolted her, but the thought that orogs would be present was too much for her to bear.
Tiennek’s tent was the third and largest in the encampment, centered at the back side of the camp and doubling as a warehouse for the enemy troupe. The blond-haired barbarian, to Danica’s profound relief, told his flanking orogs to remain on guard outside, then pushed his way past stacked barrels and boxes to a pile of blankets and furs in the center of the room.
An oil lamp burned low in one corner; the smell of meat was strong in the air.
Tiennek lowered Danica to her feet, more gently than the young woman expected. He stared into her almond eyes and stroked her strawberry blond hair.
Play along, Danica told herself, against every instinct in her body. “Untie me,” she whispered to her huge captor. “It will be better for the both of us.”
Tiennek’s huge hand slid over Danica’s smooth cheek, barely touching her and sending shivers through her in spite of her revulsion.
“Untie me,” she whispered again.
Tiennek laughed at her. His gentle touch became an iron grasp on her face, nearly snapping her jaw apart. Danica jerked back from him, got free for an instant, but was then pulled back, this time with the barbarian tugging at a clump of her thick hair.
“You think me a foo—“ He stopped abruptly as Danica’s knee slammed into his groin—she had to hop off the ground to even reach her target.
Tiennek grimaced for just a moment, then flung Danica backward. She managed to keep her balance, and snapped a kick into the man’s rock-hard belly as he stalked her.
Tiennek, his face locked in a murderous stare, didn’t seemed to notice the kick, but Danica could tell from his slight limp that her first attack had done some damage.
This time Danica went for his knee, but she had to stop in midkick and dodge instead as Tiennek launched a heavy punch for her face. She was able to duck aside, awkwardly, but the agile barbarian’s second hand came in more quickly, clipping her on the cheek.
The tent spun about, and Danica was down to her knees. Tiennek had her and could do as he pleased with her, she knew; there was nothing she could do against such a mighty warrior with her hands bound behind her back. Danica tugged at her cords, ignoring the burn of rough rope on her wrists, and savagely fought to free herself.
Many moments passed. Danica could feel warm blood on her hands. Why hadn’t Tiennek continued his assault?
Danica dared to look over her shoulder, to see the giant limping away. That initial knee strike she had launched against him had apparently changed his lewd intentions, for the time being, at least.
The barbarian called a huge orog into the tent and gave it orders to watch Danica, but not to touch her unless she tried to escape. If she did, Tiennek explained, looking pointedly at Danica as he spoke, the orog could do whatever it wanted with the prisoner.
Tiennek eyed Danica slyly. “Give me your weapons,” he commanded the orog. The creature balked and put a hand defensively over its sword.
“Give them!” Tiennek growled. “That one will take them from you and kill you with them, do not doubt.” The orog continued to snarl, but it handed over the sword and the long dagger from its boot.
Then the bronze-skinned man was gone, and the orog cautiously stalked over to stand beside Danica, its breathing coming in short, hopeful gasps. “Make a break, pretty one,” it whispered under its stinking breath, thinking that this duty might turn out be a bit of fun.
“Could you help me to my feet?” Danica asked innocently after some time. She suspected that Tiennek would return before dawn, before Dorigen realized what had happened, and knew that sunrise was not too far away.
The orog reached down and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her roughly to a standing position. “Ye likes that better?” it growled, again putting its stinking breath in Danica’s face.
Danica nodded and told herself that she must act now, or never. She hoped she had loosened her bindings enough, prayed that she had, for the consequences of failure were too wretched for her to even imagine.
The young woman called upon all her discipline in that critical moment, mustering her courage. She dropped toward the floor, feigned that she was falling. The orog instinctively started down to catch her, but Danica’s legs coiled under her and she sprang past the surprised beast. She bent her knees up to her chest and whipped her bound hands down under her feet. Even as she descended, she launched her first attack, snapping one leg out straight to drive her foot under the orog’s chin.
The creature gasped and fell back. Danica was standing again, still bound, but with her hands now in front of her. The orog, stunned but barely hurt, whooped and charged back in. Danica slowed it considerably with a straight kick to the chest and another to the knee. She clenched her hands together and smacked the monster across the face, once and then again. Growling with every movement, her motions became a blur, kicking, kneeing, punching, and the orog could only hold its arms across its face and try to cover up.
The vicious attack abruptly ceased and the orog moved, just as Danica had expected, to the offensive. The creature lunged awkwardly for her, but caught only air as Danica took a quick step back. Before the overbalanced monster could recover, Danica attacked. She dove right over the orog’s shoulder, turning a somersault as she went and hooking her bindings around the monster’s thick neck.
The orog bent backward under the brutal pull; a man’s neck would have snapped under the great strain. Danica realized quickly that she could not hope to hold on long enough to choke such a thick-skinned and thick-muscled monster. Already the orog had begun to recover and had grabbed at Danica’s wrists, tugging and loosening the choking cords from about its neck.
Danica saw her chance was slipping away. She scanned the orog, but found no visible weapons. She scanned the room, but nothing presented itself as a club or knife. A desperate plan came to her. She reversed her grip suddenly, going along with the orog’s pull and turning about to face the creature as it tugged. Predictably, the orog swung about.
Danica caught its lumbering swing and yanked it along, then dropped and twisted, flipping the orog over her. Danica dove with it, guiding its descent, plopping it head down in an open water barrel. The monster disappeared up to its waist and Danica jumped atop it, threw one leg between its flailing legs and hung on for all her life.
The creature was much stronger than she, but Danica called upon powers that the orog couldn’t begin to understand. She locked her legs inside the rim of the barrel and clamped her hands vicelike on its rim for further support. The orog’s hands came up over the lip and it pulled mightily, but Danica held her position, using her stiffened legs as a wedge to prevent her from being dislodged.
The monster’s thrashing battered her and bruised her, but she reminded herself that it would not last for long.
Still, it seemed like hours to the weary, beaten woman as the orog fought wildly, trying to get its head up above the water. A knee bloodied her nose, a foot scraped across the side of her head so wickedly that Danica had to wonder if her ear had been torn off.
Then it stopped, suddenly. Almost surprised, Danica held her seat for many seconds longer, just to make sure. She realized that Tiennek might soon return, and she crawled off the barrel. Soaking wet, tears in her eyes, and blood running freely from her nose, she discerned which side of the tent would provide the best exit and rushed over, biting at her bindings as she went.
The orc rubbed its bleary eyes and looked to the east, hoping the dawn would come quickly and end its tedious watch. South of the monster, in its watch direction, was a field of tall grass, sparsely dotted by occasional trees.
The dawn’s light was not nearly in full, and the orc heard a distant rustle before it noticed the antlers moving steadily through the grass. At first, the creature lifted its spear, thinking a fine venison dinner had walked right up. Then the orc blinked and rubbed its eyes again, wondering how any deer with such a large rack could be small enough to be concealed by grass no more than three feet high.
The antlers came gliding on, still a fair distance away. They neared the trunk of a twisted apple tree, then the orc blinked again as the antlers passed by the barrier, one on either side.
“Molargro,” the orc called to its orog watch chief. The large and ugly orog, wanning its gnarly toes by the camp-fire, cast the sentry an indifferent look, then turned away.
“Molargro!” the orc called again, more insistently. The orog reluctantly rose and came over, not even bothering to put on its worn and tattered boots.
“Deer,” the orc explained when the orog arrived, pointing to the approaching antlers, now not so distant.
“Deer?” Molargro questioned, scratching its huge head. “Bah, ye’re a stupid one,” the orog said a moment later. “What kinda deer says ‘ooooo’?”
Both the orog and the orc crinkled their faces in confusion. They glanced back toward the approaching antlers and asked in unison, “Ooooo?”
They got their answer a split second later, at the end of Ivan’s great axe and Pikel’s tree-trunk club.
Crawling along the brush on the camp’s perimeter, Danica had nearly reached the prisoners’ tent when the cries of alarm rang out. At first she assumed that Tiennek had found the dead orog, but then she heard, “Oo oi!” above the commotion, followed by a heavy thud and the grunt of a wounded ogre.
“How?” Danica wondered, but, having no time to figure things out at that moment, she stood and ran the rest of the way, carefully slipping in under the loosely tied skins of the tent sides. She stopped halfway in and scrambled to the side, behind some piled crates, as Tiennek and an orc rushed in through the tent flap.
“Take the human to Dorigen!” the barbarian commanded, indicating Cadderly. Tiennek drew Elbereth’s finely crafted sword from his belt and grinned evilly. “I will deal with the elf.”
Danica’s first reaction, as Cadderly was whisked away, was to slip back out, encircle the tent, and go to his aid. She had to resist those urges, though, for Tiennek’s intentions concerning Elbereth were painfully obvious. The barbarian took a long stride toward the elf, but then, in the blink of an eye, Danica was between them.
“Flee!” she heard Elbereth say at her back. “I accept my doom. Do not die for me.”
Tiennek’s shock disappeared in the second it took him to conjure his mocking smile. “The orog is dead?” he asked, showing little concern. He nodded his handsome head as though he was not the least bit surprised.
Danica’s visage did not soften, nor did she move from her defensive crouch. Tiennek brought the sword her way.
“A great loss, I fear,” he said slyly. “My dear lady, I could have shown you pleasures you cannot imagine.”
“I am not your lady!” Danica growled, and she kicked him in the chest, driving him back a step.
“A great loss,” the barbarian said again, a bit breathless but otherwise appearing unshaken. He pulled a small net from his belt, holding it wrapped about his free hand.
Danica circled cautiously, understanding the potentially disastrous consequences of getting a kicking leg entangled in that net. She looked for openings, weaknesses, but saw none. The giant barbarian held the elf’s slender sword as though it had been designed for him; his balance remained perfect as he executed the circles to keep in step with the young woman.
Danica rushed forward and started to kick, then dropped to the floor suddenly and swept both legs across Tiennek’s ankles. The barbarian got one foot clear of the move, but did stumble as Danica’s flying feet clipped his other foot. He caught his balance quickly and leaned back in, meaning to hack at the prone woman while waving the net to keep her kicks away.
Danica was not so foolish as to continue her offensive move, though. She was back up and balanced before Tiennek took his first chop.
“I am the stronger,” the barbarian teased. “Better armed and equally skilled. You cannot hope to survive.”
Danica had trouble convincing herself that the big man was not speaking the truth. She had hit him with several solid shots, but he had barely flinched. She saw his obvious comfort in handling a sword and had already felt his iron grip.
He came straight at her then, in a vicious flurry, thrusting and chopping, weaving the net deftly around his flying blade.
Danica dodged and dove, deflected one thrust aside, though she gashed her arm in the process, and finally wound up in full retreat.
“Flee!” Elbereth cried, struggling futilely with his tight bonds. He rolled and kicked, pulled his arms until they bled, but the stubborn ropes would not relax their painful grip.
Danica was glad that Tiennek continued his pursuit of her. The barbarian could have turned about and easily finished Elbereth before she ever got close enough to interfere.
“He will die after I have defeated you,” Tiennek explained, as if he had read her thoughts. “After he has watched. After I have taken you!” Elbereth’s groan brought another smile to the cruel barbarian’s lips.
Tiennek charged again, but Danica was not caught off her guard. She lifted a foot, as if to kick straight out at her attacker, but kicked to the side instead, snapping the large tent’s center support. The roof drooped in around them, defeating Tiennek’s attack.
The barbarian thrashed about to get the drooping skins high enough in case Danica charged him, but the young woman was not to be seen.
“A worthy chase!” Tiennek howled, refusing to be intimidated. “And a prize worth catching.” He stalked off, pushing the skin roof from his path.
Danica easily could have slipped away and out of the collapsed tent, but that would have left Elbereth helpless. The barbarian, fearless and thinking this fight no contest, was making no secret of his whereabouts. And Danica, desperate for something to equalize this lopsided contest, determined to use that against him.
“Ye got that one!” Ivan bellowed, pointing to a fleeing orc.
Pikel stepped out from behind a tree, right in the orc’s path. Holding his club in both hands by its slender, tapered end, the dwarf leaned into a swing that blasted right through the miserable creature’s blocking arm and hit its head with enough force to snap its scrawny neck.
“Oo oi!” the happy dwarf squealed to his brother.
“Behind ye,” Ivan replied, and Pikel spun about, this time crunching an orc’s head between his flying club and the tree. The orc’s skull cracked apart with a sickening sound.
Bellowing advice to his brother did nothing to hinder Ivan’s own ferocious attacks. He stood atop the felled ogre’s back, chopping at the orogs and orcs encircling him. The ogre wasn’t quite dead yet, and every time it groaned or stirred a bit, Ivan made a point of stomping hard on the back of the monster’s fat head.
Sheer viciousness replaced finesse as the dwarf held several monsters at bay with deadly chops of his mighty axe. One orc managed to get upon the ogre behind Ivan, clubbing the dwarf solidly on the back of his head.
Ivan laughed at it, then sent it flying away with a cut that drove one side of his double-bladed axe halfway through the creature’s rib cage.
Tiennek stopped his thrashing and shouting and stalked about slowly, easing the fallen roof out of his way. “I am not a weakling fighter of civilized lands,” he said calmly. “I am Kura-winther!”
He sensed a bit of movement, a shift in the fallen tent roof, off to the side, and he took one small step that way. He raised one hand up high so that the roof would not sag, and bent as low as he could.
He saw Danica’s legs, under the low skins a few feet away. The game was over, Tiennek decided, knowing that he was needed in the battle outside.
“I know your tricks!” he cried, and he heaved at the roof and charged Danica’s way, sword leading. Tiennek grinned with the knowledge that his long reach would give the woman no opportunity to parry or counter.
What confident Tiennek didn’t know was that Danica had grabbed the broken bottom half of the center pole, a crude spear that was longer than his sword.
Tiennek’s eyes widened in disbelief as he impaled himself on Danica’s set weapon.
“Some of my tricks, perhaps,” the woman said icily, showing no remorse for the man’s demise. She drove the pole deeper and twisted it about.
Elbereth’s sword fell from Tiennek’s outstretched arm; the net in his other hand hung loosely. He dropped to his knees, and Danica released her grip.
The spear propped Tiennek up, supported him in that kneeling position, and the tent roof descended over him, a fitting death shroud.
Danica didn’t hesitate. Poor Elbereth, sitting blindly in the back of the collapsed tent, would simply have to wait. The young woman got her bearings and crawled and scrambled her way into the open air.
The dawn’s light was full now, early morning. Orogs and orcs were scattering and howling in chaos, with the exception of one group putting up a fair fight against the Bouldershoulder brothers, now standing back-to-back atop the felled ogre. Cadderly was off to the other side, still being pulled along by the orc.
Danica ran after her love, then skidded to a stop as the wizard appeared suddenly beside the tent Tiennek had used. Dorigen made several gestures, held something Danica could not discern in one outstretched hand, and uttered a triggering incantation.
Danica’s instincts sent her diving between two trees just as the wizard’s lightning bolt went off. The blast split one of the small trees and rebounded into the other, scorching it just above the sprawled woman’s head. Danica was up and running in an instant, but soon, too, came Dorigen’s second spell.
Sticky filaments filled the air, descending all around Danica and catching hold of the trees, the shrubs, anything at all, to form a thick web. Danica scrambled every which way, used her speed and agility to stay one step ahead of the forming trap.
Then she was clear of the tangle, though a bit to the side of her original course, and Dorigen was not so far away. She heard a flap of wings, but saw nothing. Suddenly, Druzil became visible right in her path, and the imp’s barbed tail shot at her shoulder.
The wound was minor, just a scratch, but the sudden tingling numbness and the burn in Danica’s arm told her that the imp had indeed poisoned her. She slumped back against a tree, Druzil hovering in front of her, smiling evilly and wagging his tail as though he meant to lash at her again.
Cadderly’s thrill at seeing Ivan and Pikel unexpectedly rushing to his aid was tempered by the fact that the dwarves were fully engaged and would not have the opportunity to prevent the orc from getting him to Dorigen. The creature’s grip on Cadderly’s arm was unrelenting, though the monster was looking more at its comrades’ fight than to its prisoner.
“No one but me,” Cadderly muttered under his breath. He saw an opportunity to pull away as the orc released its grasp for just an instant.
But it passed without Cadderly mustering the courage to make the attempt. He heard a blast to the side and saw Dorigen loosing some thunderous wizardry, though at what target he could not discern.
Another chance presented itself when they neared the fire, and this time, Cadderly was up to the test. He stumbled and dropped at the orc’s feet, groaning and feigning injury. When the startled creature reached for him, he swung his legs inside the creature’s, hooked the orc behind the knees, and heaved with all his strength. The startled orc tumbled headlong past him. Not a pretty maneuver, perhaps, but effective—and even more so since the camp-fire burned low just a few feet away. Sparks flew all about when the orc hit the embers. It came up shrieking and screaming and smacking at the sparks that had caught hold on its clothing.
Cadderly struggled to his feet and dove against the creature’s back, knocking it into the fire once again. This time the orc came up on the other side, running away and paying no more heed to the young scholar.
“Well done, lad!” Cadderly heard Ivan cry, and he turned about just in time to see the dwarf cleave an orog nearly in half with a mighty overhead chop. Cadderly was feeling good about his trickery, but for all he had accomplished, he still found himself in the middle of a battlefield unarmed—indeed, with his wrists bound behind his back! He scooted off to the quietest side and fell for cover behind a water trough.
Danica turned her thoughts inward, personified the poison as a tiny, devilish thing biting her shoulder. Her muscles became her tools, flexing and tightening, turning about to drive the insinuating intruder back toward the wound.
The poison devil was a stubborn one, gnawing and burning, but Danica, too, possessed determination far beyond that of an ordinary human. Her muscles worked intricately, shifting the poison to one side, then back an inch. She pictured the open wound as a doorway and, working relentlessly, finally drove the fiend through.
Waves of dizziness rolled over her when she opened her eyes. She saw Druzil again, still wagging his deadly tail, but wearing an expression that was considerably less cocksure. Danica followed the imp’s surprised gaze to her own shoulder, to the black liquid that had poured from her wound to roll down her arm.
Druzil’s tail whipped back and then shot forward, but Danica’s attack, a straight-ahead punch, came quicker, sending the hovering imp spinning head over heels.
Danica moved to give chase, but had to brace herself against a tree for a moment to stop from falling over. She saw the wizard scoop up the stunned imp and begin casting yet another spell, this time holding her closed fist out toward the monk, an onyx ring clearly visible.
Danica forced herself forward, ignored the dizziness, and focused on reaching Dorigen.
Dorigen abruptly changed her plans and uttered a few quick incantations instead. A shimmering blue light appeared in front of the wizard, and she and Druzil stepped through and were gone.
The six remaining orogs had no desire to continue their combat with the brutal dwarves. They took flight together, Ivan and Pikel right on their heels. The monsters took to the trees as soon as they crossed the clearing, figuring that the armored dwarves would have a harder time climbing.
Ivan and Pikel stopped at the trunk. Pikel hopped about, trying to reach a branch to pull himself up. Ivan had another course in mind. He dropped the head of his great axe between his feet, spit in both hands, then took up the weapon and stalked in for the trunk.
“Uh-uh,” Pikel, the would-be druid, growled, wagging his head and throwing his short arms wide about the precious trunk.
“What? Have ye gone bats?” Ivan cried. “There’s damned big orcs up there, me brother. Damned big!”
“Uh-uh.” There was no compromise in Pikel’s tone.
The discussion was resolved a second later, when Cadderly spotted a shimmering field of blue in the distance and saw Dorigen step out and begin casting a spell toward the camp.
“Ware the wizard!” the young scholar cried. Pikel just managed to reply, “Eh?” before the spell went off, engulfing the tree, and the dwarves, in a ball of flame.
Cadderly leaped up from the trough and rushed over.
Pikel emerged from the carnage first, his clothes and face blackened with soot and his beard singed and sticking wildly every which way. Ivan came behind, in a state of similar dishevelment. Worse off were the orogs, toasted in the branches of the leafless, charred tree.
“Boom!” the druid-minded dwarf said. Ivan toppled facedown in the dirt.
Cadderly started for him, but Pikel stopped the young scholar with an outstretched hand, pointing back toward the large tent at the rear of the compound, and to Danica, stumbling out of the brush.
Cadderly ran to her side while Pikel saw to his brother.
Danica’s face seemed too pale, too delicate, and Cadderly nearly screamed in rage. Danica assured him that she was all right—or that she would be—but then she collapsed against him and seemed on the verge of losing consciousness.
Riddled with guilt, the young scholar wondered how in the Nine Hells he had gotten her into this awful setting, into the middle of a war.
Cadderly saw the black liquid oozing from Danica’s wound and grew doubly concerned. He had seen the imp’s sting fell Pikel, and the dwarf would have died if it hadn’t been for a druid’s healing magic. How could a human survive a poison potent enough to overpower a dwarf?
Danica’s arm continued to twitch, and still more of the evil substance flowed out, mixing with her blood. Her breathing came slower, alarming Cadderly until he realized she was using a technique to keep herself calm. Then she opened her eyes and smiled at him, and he knew, though did not understand how, that she would be all right.
“A wicked sting,” she whispered. “And the burn . . .”
“I know,” Cadderly replied gently. “Rest easily. The battle is won.”
Danica’s eyes looked past Cadderly and she couldn’t suppress a chuckle. Cadderly turned and understood, for Ivan and Pikel, both covered head to toe in soot, rushed about the camp, searching the bodies of dead monsters.
Danica sat up, took a deep breath, and shook her head vigorously. “The poison is no more,” she announced, her voice suddenly solid again. “I have defeated it, forced it from my body.”
Cadderly could not begin to express his amazement. He shook his head slowly and made a mental note to question Danica on how she had overcome the deadly substance. But that would wait for another, more peaceful time. Now Cadderly had other concerns.
“Dorigen got away,” he said. Danica nodded and began working at the bindings on his wrists.
“You do not understand,” Cadderly continued, building himself into a minor fit of frenzy. “She has my crossbow. The weapon has fallen into the hands of an enemy!”
Danica didn’t seem overly concerned. “We are alive and free again,” she said. “That is all that matters. If you get into a fight again, you’ll find a way to win without that weapon.”
Danica’s confidence in his ingenuity touched Cadderly, but she had missed his point. It wasn’t for himself that he was frightened, it was for all the region. “She has the crossbow,” he said again. “And the explosive darts.”
“How many?”
Cadderly thought for a moment, trying to recall all those he had used and all the ones he had continued to make during his stay in Shilmista. “Six, I believe,” he said, then he sighed with relief as he remembered another important point. “But she does not have the flask containing more of the potion. I left that back at the elven camp.”
“Then fear not,” Danica said, still not understanding his concern.
“Fear not,” Cadderly echoed sarcastically, as though his worries should be plain to see. “She has it—do you not understand the implications? Dorigen could copy the design, unleash a new . . .” He stopped, unable to penetrate the frown on Danica’s face. She pointed behind him and he looked again over his shoulder.
Not even the dwarves were there. Cadderly didn’t understand.
“The tree,” Danica explained. “Look at the tree.”
Cadderly did as instructed. The proud elm, just moments before lush and vibrant in its late summer colors, remained only a charred and blackened skeleton. Small fires burned in several nooks; waves of rising heat distorted the air above and around the tree. Heaped, blackened forms of the dead orogs seemed to meld together with the dark limbs.
“Do you believe that a wizard who could wreak such sudden and terrible destruction would be impressed by your tiny crossbow?” Danica reasoned. “In Dorigen’s eyes, would the bow be worth the expense?”
“She raised it against you,” Cadderly argued, but he knew before Danica even scowled at him that Dorigen had threatened with the bow only to heighten the effect on Cadderly.
“Your bow is a fine weapon,” Danica said softly, “but one that a wizard of Dorigen’s power does not need.”
Cadderly could not argue that logic, but he was not comforted. Whatever the outcome, he could not ignore the fact that a weapon he had designed might be used against an innocent, perhaps even against someone close to him. Again the crossbow was a symbol of the insanity around him, the rushing violence that he could not control and from which he could not hide.
The haul was a bit meager by Ivan’s standards, and the stubborn dwarf refused to yield until he had searched every inch of the camp. He sent Pikel to a tent across the way while he moved to the collapsed one that Cadderly and Danica had exited.
He slapped at the fallen skins with his free hand and used his axe to hold enough of the roof up so that a monster wouldn’t crash into him. He came upon Tiennek’s body first, still kneeling, propped by the crude spear.
“I bet that hurt,” Ivan said, seeing the gruesome wound. He didn’t know whether this man had been friend or foe, so he didn’t go out of his way to search the body. Ivan did scoop up the fine sword that lay beside the dead man’s hand, though, muttering, “Ye won’t be needing this,” almost apologetically as he pressed farther under the fallen canopy.
“Another one,” the dwarf said in surprise, nearly stepping on poor Elbereth a moment later. “And still alive,” he added when Elbereth snarled and wriggled away.
Ivan’s expression turned sour when he saw it was an elf seated before him, but his disdain did not outdo the antipathy plainly exhibited on the elf’s face.
“You have my sword,” Elbereth said grimly, staring hard into the dwarfs dark eyes.
Ivan looked down to his belt. “So I do!” he replied, making no move toward the sword or the elf.
Elbereth waited as patiently as he could for a long moment. “I am still bound,” he said, his voice trembling with anger.
Ivan looked at him long and hard, finally bobbing his hairy head. “So ye are!” the dwarf agreed, and he walked away. He nearly bumped into Cadderly and Danica back outside the tent.
“Where is Elbereth?” Cadderly asked, surprised that Ivan had come out alone.
“What’s an Elbereth?” the dwarf answered smugly.
Cadderly wasn’t in the mood for bantering. “Ivan!” he shouted.
The dwarf’s eyes widened, two shining orbs in the middle of his blackened face. “That’s a fine ‘well met,’ ye ungrateful—“
“All of our thanks!” Danica interrupted, relieved to see the dwarf but also wanting to calm the increasingly volatile scholar. She stepped over and threw a huge hug around the dirty dwarf, even kissing him on his hairy cheek—and leaving a clean spot in the plane of soot.
“That’s better,” Ivan said, an inevitable tenderness emerging in his normally gruff voice as he looked at Danica.
“Now, where is Elbereth?” Danica asked calmly.
Ivan poked his thick thumb back over his shoulder. “In a foul mood, that one,” he explained. Danica started for the collapsed tent, and Cadderly, too, but Ivan stomped a boot on the young scholar’s foot, holding him in place.
“I still ain’t heard a word of thanks from yer mouth,” the dwarf growled.
Cadderly’s expression was warmly sincere. He bent over quickly and kissed Ivan’s other cheek, sending the dwarf in a sputtering tirade across the compound. “Burned fool boy!” Ivan growled, wiping at the wet mark. “Burned fool!” Cadderly enjoyed a much-needed smile at the spectacle.
The young man’s relief was short-lived, though, as Danica pulled him under the tent and led him to Tiennek’s body. She lifted the skin roof high to make sure that Cadderly had a good view of the corpse.
“Slain at my hands,” Danica announced, no pride evident in her voice. “I killed him, do you understand? I did as I had to do, as the barbarian forced me to do.”
Cadderly shuddered but did not seem to get Danica’s point, if there was any.
“Just as you did with the evil priest,” she said, putting it more bluntly.
“Why do you bring Barjin into this?” Cadderly demanded, horrified. That now-familiar image of the dead priest’s eyes came at him from the depths of his subconscious.
“I do not bring Barjin into it,” Danica corrected him. “You do.” She went on quickly, cutting short Cadderly’s forthcoming protest. “You bring Barjin with you wherever you go,” she explained, “a ghost that haunts your every thought.”
Cadderly’s expression reflected his confusion.
“As with the wounded orogs back in the foothills,” Danica said, her tone softening. “Leave dead Barjin behind. I beg you. His death was brought about by his own actions. You did only as you had to do.”
“You do not care that you killed this man?” Cadderly asked, almost accusingly.
“I care,” Danica snapped, “but I know that if I were given the chance to do it again, Tiennek would be dead exactly as he is now. Can you say differently about Barjin?”
Cadderly thought back to the events in the Edificant Library’s catacombs. They seemed as if they had happened just that morning and had occurred a hundred years before, all at the same time. Cadderly had no answer to Danica’s disturbing question, and she didn’t wait for any, remembering that Elbereth, bound and probably humiliated, awaited his rescue. Cadderly followed at Danica’s heels, his eyes locked on dead Tiennek until the drooping roof put the barbarian out of sight.
Elbereth didn’t blink through the long moments it took Danica and Cadderly to free him. He would not show weakness openly, would not reveal the humiliation in his helplessness and capture. Only anger shone in the elf’s silver eyes and showed in the set of his angular jaw. When he was free, he rushed from the collapsed tent, tearing through the skins with fury.
Ivan and Pikel stood beside the flap to Dorigen’s tent. Ivan fingered Danica’s crystal-bladed daggers, admiring the golden tiger hilt of one and the silver dragon hilt of the other. Pikel held a thick purple robe while trying futilely to get Cadderly’s spindle-disks to spin back up into his chubby palm. At the dwarves’ feet lay Cadderly’s pack and walking stick.
It wasn’t hard for Cadderly and Danica to guess where Elbereth was heading.
“My sword!” the elf prince shouted at the dwarf. Elbereth threw his slender hand out Ivan’s way. When Ivan didn’t immediately react, Elbereth grabbed the sword right from Ivan’s belt.
“Skinny thing anyway,” Ivan remarked to Pikel. “Probably break the first time I hit something with it.”
In the blink of an eye, Elbereth had his sword tip against Ivan’s thick throat.
“And ye’re welcome,” came the dwarf’s reply.
“Uh-oh,” remarked Pikel.
“Ye keep playing like that, and ye’re going to get hurt,” Ivan added evenly, locking stares with the silver-eyed elf.
It went on for a long, uncomfortable while, a battle of wills that teetered on the brink of violence.
“We have no time for this,” Cadderly said meekly, going to inspect his pack. The Tome of Universal Harmony was there, to his relief, as was his light tube. All his belongings remained, in fact, with the notable exception of his crossbow.
Danica’s approach was more straightforward. She casually pushed Elbereth’s sword aside and stepped between the elf and dwarf, alternately shaming each of them with her uncompromising glare.
“Haven’t we enough enemies?” the woman scolded. “An army of monsters surrounds us, and you two think to do battle with each other?”
“I have never seen much difference between an orc and a dwarf,” Elbereth spat.
“Oo,” answered a wounded Pikel.
“Ye view yer betters in a similar light, then,” Ivan fought back.
“Oo,” said Pikel, regarding Ivan with admiration.
Elbereth drew in his breath. Danica could see his grip tighten on his sword.
“They saved us,” Danica reminded Elbereth. “Without Ivan and Pikel, we would remain Dorigen’s prisoners—or we would be dead.”
Elbereth scowled at the notion. “You would have defeated the barbarian in any case,” he argued, “then we would have been free.”
“How many orogs and orcs would have come to Tiennek’s cries if the dwarves had not held them in battle outside our tent?” Cadderly interjected.
Elbereth’s scowl did not diminish, but he did slide his sword into its sheath. “When this is over . . .” he warned Ivan, letting the threat hang open-ended.
“When this is over, ye’re not likely to be around,” Ivan huffed back, and the smugness of his tone suggested that he knew something the others did not.
He let them wait a while before offering an explanation. “How many kinfolk ye got, elf?” he asked. “How many to fight against the army that’s come to yer wood?”
“Two more now,” Cadderly replied.
“If ye’re talking of me and me brother, then ye’re talking nonsense,” Ivan said. “I’m not about to die for the likes of some elves!”
“It is not just for the elves, Ivan,” Cadderly explained. He looked about to all of them to get their attention. “This battle—this war—goes beyond Shilmista, I fear.”
“How can you know?” Danica asked.
“Dorigen serves Talona,” Cadderly replied. “We suspected that from the gloves Elbereth took from the bugbears before we ever came here. Now the connection is undeniable.” He looked to Pikel. “Do you remember the imp that stung you?”
“Oo,” answered the dwarf, rubbing his shoulder.
“That very imp was with Dorigen in her tent,” Cadderly explained. “She and Barjin have come from the same source, and if they have attacked the library and now the forest, then . . .”
“Then all the region is in danger,” Danica finished for him, “and the headmasters’ worst fears shall be realized.”
“So, you and your brother will fight,” Cadderly said to Ivan. “If not for the elves, then for everyone else.”
Ivan’s dark eyes narrowed, but he did not refute the young scholar’s logic.
“This would seem the place to begin,” Cadderly went on, determined to forge an alliance. “We cannot allow our enemies a hold in Shilmista, and the Bouldershoulder brothers’ help would go far in accomplishing our tasks.”
“All right, elf,” Ivan said after looking to Pikel for confirmation. “We’ll help ye out, ungrateful though ye’re sure to be.”
“Do you believe I would accept . . .” Elbereth started, but Danica’s glare stopped him short.
“Then fight well,” Elbereth said instead. “But do not doubt, dwarf, that when this is ended, you and I will speak again about our meeting in the tent.”
“Ye won’t be here,” Ivan said again.
“Why do you keep saying that?” Cadderly asked.
“Because I seen the enemy, lad,” Ivan answered somberly. “Hundreds of them, I tell ye. Ye think the elves’ll beat that number?”
Elbereth shook his head and turned away.
“There,” Ivan said, pointing to a tree where he had spotted the elusive Hammadeen. “If ye don’t believe me, then ask the faerie-thing!”
Elbereth did just that, and when he returned from his private conversation with Hammadeen, his face was pale.
“We cannot stay here,” Danica said, trying to shake the elf from his concerns. “Do we go after the wizard?”
“No,” Elbereth replied absently, his eyes looking to the distant south. “They have battled at the Hill of the Stars. I must go to my people.”
“It would be a better course,” Cadderly agreed. “Dorigen is too dangerous. She has spies. . . .” he stopped to consider Danica, who was mouthing their missing companion’s name and pounding a fist into her hand. Cadderly didn’t indicate his agreement, though. He refused to believe that Kierkan Rufo, for all his faults, willingly would have given information to the evil wizard.
But Cadderly had to admit that, lately, he simply did not know what to believe.
Dorigen approached Ragnor’s camp tentatively, not certain of how the volatile ogrillon would act now that the battle had taken such an unexpected twist. She had been absent, away hunting Cadderly and his friends, when Ragnor had launched his attack on the elven camp. Even without her help, though, the ogrillon had routed the elves and driven them miles southward.
Dorigen cursed her own stupidity. She had supplied Ragnor with the elves’ position; she should have foreseen that the cocky brute would move against them, particularly if she would not be around to share in the victory.
Now Dorigen found herself in an awkward position, for while the ogrillon’s moves had met with success, Dorigen’s had met with disaster. She went to see Ragnor anyway. Her magical energies were all but exhausted this day and she needed Ragnor even if he did not need her.
“Where are my soldiers?” was the first thing the burly ogrillon barked at her when she entered his tent. Ragnor looked around slyly to his elite bugbear guard, realizing that this was the first time he had seen Dorigen without her barbarian escort. “And where is that slab of flesh you keep at your side?” he asked.
“We have powerful enemies,” Dorigen answered and countered all at once, raising her voice loud enough to silence the bugbear chuckles. “You should not be so smug in your temporary victory.”
“Temporary?” the ogrillon roared, and Dorigen wondered if perhaps she had pushed the ogrillon too far. She half expected Ragnor to rush over and tear her apart.
“Two score of the elves fell!” the ogrillon went on. “Six I killed myself!” Ragnor displayed a gruesome necklace featuring twelve elf ears.
“At what cost?” Dorigen asked.
“It does not matter,” Ragnor replied, and Dorigen knew by the way Ragnor winced that the elven camp had not been overrun easily. “The elves are few, but my troops are many,” the ogrillon went on. “I will not fear even a few thousand dead when Shilmista falls under my shadow.”
“My shadow?” Dorigen asked slyly, emphasizing Ragnor’s use of the personal pronoun. For the first time since she had entered the tent, she saw a hint of trepidation in the ogrillon’s eye.
“You were away on private matters,” Ragnor argued, somewhat subdued. “The time had come to attack, and I did. I struck with every soldier I could muster. I led the attack myself and carry the scars of battle!”
Dorigen bowed her head respectfully to calm the volatile beast. Ragnor had told her much more than he had intended. He mentioned that she was away, but she had not told him that she would be far from camp. For some reason, Ragnor had chosen that time to attack, without Dorigen to help him. With the ogrillon so adamant in his statement that Shilmista would fall under his control, and not to Castle Trinity, Dorigen worried just how far Ragnor’s newfound independence would take him.
She had no desire to be anywhere near the ogrillon when he decided he did not need Castle Trinity.
“I go to my rest,” she said, bowing again. “Accept my congratulations on your great victory, mighty General.” Ragnor couldn’t hide his thrill at hearing those words. Figuring that was a good note on which to depart, Dorigen left the tent, thinking it strange that a merciless brute such as Ragnor could be so easy a mark for flattery.
“He got scared,” Druzil remarked from his perch on Dorigen’s shoulder, soon after the wizard had departed the tent. The imp materialized. “He feared that you would control the battle and that he would not be needed.”
“Let us hope he still believes that I can be of some use to him,” Dorigen replied. “He will not be pleased to learn how many of his soldiers I have lost.”
“Do not mention them,” Druzil suggested. “I do not believe Ragnor can count anyway.”
Dorigen turned her head sharply to face the imp. “You will never underestimate the ogrillon again!” she growled. “Any mistakes could bring a swift end to our lives.”
Druzil snarled and grumbled but did not really argue. “What are your plans?” he asked after a long enough while for Dorigen to cool down.
Dorigen stopped her march to consider the question. “I will see where I may be of use,” she answered.
“Have you given up on Aballister’s son?” The imp sounded surprised.
“Never!” Dorigen snapped. “This Cadderly of Carradoon is a dangerous one, as are his friends. When this fight is over, whatever path Ragnor chooses, young Cadderly will prove valuable.” Her eyes narrowed as though she had reminded herself of something important.
“You can still contact Kierkan Rufo?” she asked.
Druzil chuckled, the rough laugh sounding almost like a cough in his raspy little voice. “Contact?” he echoed. “Intrude upon would be a better description. Kierkan Rufo wears the amulet. His mind is mine to explore.”
“Then hear his thoughts,” Dorigen instructed. “If Cadderly returns to the elven camp, I wish to know.”
Druzil muttered as usual and faded away, but Dorigen, too engrossed by the intrigue unfolding around her, paid his complaints little heed.
“Afore ye set yer sights on going back to the hill,” Ivan said gruffly, “me brother and me has got something ye should see.”
Elbereth eyed the dwarf curiously, wondering what cruel surprise Ivan had in store for him this time. But when they at last arrived at the dwarves’ small camp, just a mile or so out of their way, Elbereth cast a surprised look Ivan’s way. Buried under a cairn of piled rocks lay a partially burned elven body, which Elbereth knew at once was Ralmarith’s, his friend who had been slain in the enemy wizard’s initial attack.
“How did you come by this?” the elf demanded, his voice a mix of suspicion and relief.
“Took it from the goblins,” Ivan said, taking care to keep all hints of sympathy out of his gruff voice. “We figured that even an elf deserved a better resting place than a goblin’s belly.”
Elbereth turned back to Ralmarith’s body and said no more. Danica moved and knelt beside him, putting an arm over his slender shoulders.
“Them two’re a bit friendly, eh?” Ivan said to Cadderly, and the young scholar had to bite his lip to hold back his thoughts—indeed, to force them from his mind. He had to trust in Danica, and in their love, he knew, for their situation was too dangerous to allow for any rifts between him and Elbereth.
Danica nodded more than once Ivan and Pikel’s way, trying to prompt the elf to offer some thanks. Elbereth did not respond, though. He just whispered his farewells to his friend and carefully repacked the cairn, leaving Ralmarith’s body to the forest the slain elf had so loved.
Shilmista was strangely quiet as the five companions made their stealthy way toward Daoine Dun. They stopped once for a short break, with Elbereth heading off to scout the area and see if he might find Hammadeen or some other woodland being to gather some information.
“You must forgive Elbereth,” Cadderly said to Ivan, taking the opportunity to try to play peacemaker.
“What’s an Elbereth?” Ivan asked snootily, not looking up from his work resetting the antler in his helmet. The dwarf grimaced and tightened the screw as much as he could, since he had no lacquer to reinforce the fit.
“He is the prince of Shilmista,” Cadderly went on, wincing at, but otherwise ignoring, the dwarf’s unyielding stubbornness. “And Shilmista might prove the cornerstone to support our struggles.”
“I’m not for giving much hope to our struggles,” Ivan replied grimly. “Yer handful of elves won’t do much against the army that’s walked in.”
“If you really believed that, you would not have agreed to come along,” Cadderly reasoned, thinking he had found a chip in the dwarf’s iron facade.
The incredulous grin Ivan gave stole that thought away. “I’m not for missing a chance to bash a few orc brains,” the dwarf retorted. “And yerself and the girl needed me and me brother.”
Cadderly couldn’t compete with Ivan’s seemingly endless surliness, so he walked away, shaking his head at Danica and Pikel as he passed them. A few moments later, Elbereth came back to the camp and announced that the path to the hill was clear.
Daoine Dun was not as Cadderly remembered it. The once beautiful Hill of the Stars lay blasted and blackened, its thick grasses trampled under the charge of monstrous feet and its lush trees broken or burned. Even worse was the stench. Flocks of carrion birds flew off at the companions’ approach, for the dead—a fair number of elves among them—had been left out to rot.
Even Ivan had no comment in the face of Elbereth’s shock. Indeed, Ivan called Pikel to the side, and together they began to dig a common grave.
The elf prince wandered back and forth across the battlefield, checking the bodies of his kinfolk to see if he could determine which elves had fallen. Most had been mutilated, though, and the stoic elf just shook his head sadly at Danica and Cadderly as they followed him through his silent vigil.
They buried the fallen elves, Danica offering her thanks to the dwarves, though stubborn Elbereth would not, then they searched the whole hill. Elbereth kept to the trees, seeking to learn more of what had happened and where his friends and enemies might now be. Ivan and Pikel led the search of the caves. In one they found the half-eaten bodies of several horses, though, fortunately, Temmerisa was not among them.
In another chamber, in the cave that Galladel had used as his own, they made what Cadderly considered a remarkable discovery. Several books and scrolls were strewn about the floor, as if the elf king had hurriedly departed, quickly selecting what he should take with him and what to leave behind. Most of the writings were meaningless notes, but in one corner Cadderly found an ancient tome, bound in black leather and bearing the high elven runes for the letters “D,” “Q,” and “q.” Cadderly took up the book in trembling hands, suspecting its contents. He gingerly undid the snap and opened it.
The ink was faded and the page was filled with many symbols that Cadderly could not understand. It bore the name Cadderly expected to see, though, Dellanil Quil’quien, the long-dead king of Shilmista and one of the forest’s legendary heroes.
“What have you found?” came Elbereth’s call from the cave entrance. He stood beside Danica; Ivan and Pikel had moved on to the next hole.
“Your father would not have left this intentionally,” Cadderly explained, turning about and displaying the black-covered tome. “It is the book of Dellanil Quil’quien, a priceless work.”
“I am surprised my father brought it along at all,” Elbereth replied, “but I am not surprised that he left it behind. The book holds little value for him. Its writings are arcane, using many symbols that we of Shilmista can no longer comprehend. The book holds nothing for us. Take it back to your library if you desire.”
“Surely you err,” Cadderly said. “Dellanil Quil’quien was among your greatest heroes. His feats, his magic, could prove critical examples at this dire time.”
“As I have told you,” replied Elbereth, “we can no longer even read the work. Nor can you. Many of the symbols have not been used for centuries. Come now,” Elbereth bade the two humans. “We must move on. Even as we speak, my people may be in another battle, and I do not wish to remain at this scarred place any longer than is necessary.” The elf walked out into the afternoon sunlight. Danica waited by the entrance for Cadderly.
“You are keeping the book?” she asked, seeing him placing it in his pack.
“I do not agree with Elbereth’s estimation of the work,” Cadderly replied. “There may be something in Dellanil’s writings that will help us in our fight.”
“But you cannot even read it,” Danica said.
“We shall see,” Cadderly replied. “I have translated many works back at the library. Now, at least, I have a task that I am prepared to handle—as you might, when you are faced with physical battle.”
Danica nodded and said no more. She led Cadderly out of the cave and down to where the elf prince waited for the dwarves to complete their search.
For Cadderly, the book came as a godsend. He really didn’t believe, didn’t dare to hope, that he would find something important in the work, even if he could manage to translate the strange runes. But just working toward the common goal of saving the forest while using his unique skills added a bit of spring to the young scholar’s steps.
Most important of all, finding and working with the book of Dellanil Quil’quien would somewhat remove Cadderly from the violence. He longed for that time past, before Barjin had come to the Edificant Library, when adventures were found only in the words of ancient books.
Perhaps this work would block the harsh realities that had so suddenly surrounded the young scholar.
“We can get past them a mile to the east,” Danica explained when she rejoined the others in the small evergreen grove they had taken as shelter. “The enemy line is not deep there. We will be beyond them before they ever realize we have passed.”
The plan met with approval from Cadderly, but Ivan and Pikel did not seem too pleased to learn that they had marched this far and might not even get the chance to crunch an orog’s skull. The companions had journeyed several miles from Daoine Dun without incident, though signs of the enemy’s passing—hack marks and scorch marks on almost every tree—were painfully obvious. At last the companions had found the enemy along a rushing river, in a line that seemed to span the forest’s width. Elbereth’s people had apparently made a stand at the river and were now encamped beyond its protective banks.
Elbereth did not immediately embrace Danica’s plan.
He, too, had gone scouting, and while Danica had found a potential break to the east that might get them to the elven camp, the elf prince had found something that might alter the entire battle’s course.
A short distance west of their position, on a high ridge above the river and overlooking the lands to the south, lay an enemy camp dotted with tents—the only tents Elbereth had seen. “I have found their leader’s camp,” Elbereth explained to Danica. “Or so I believe.”
“Well guarded, no doubt,” Cadderly had to put in, especially when he saw a gleam in Danica’s almond eyes.
“Perhaps,” Elbereth answered, hardly paying any heed to the worried young scholar, “but no more than any other position in the enemy’s lines.”
“Except the break that Danica has found,” Cadderly replied, his desire to be rejoined with the elven host without further combat sounding obvious in his almost-frantic tone.
“Not to fear,” Ivan whispered to Cadderly. “Me brother and me can be making our own breaks.”
“What say you, Danica?” Elbereth asked. Cadderly wasn’t certain he liked that the elf prince, who always seemed to value nothing but his own opinions, had asked for Danica’s approval.
“If we can get to the enemy leader, we may be able to change the course of the war,” Elbereth added before the woman gave her answer.
Danica’s wry smile told Cadderly the adventurous woman’s answer before she opened her mouth to reply.
“It seems a desperate course,” she began, but her tone reflected no fear. “A desperate course for a desperate situation.”
“Oo oi!” Pikel heartily agreed. Cadderly gave the dwarf a frown that stole his widening smile.
Elbereth quickly knelt and cleared away some pine needles. He took up a stick and drew a map of the ridge area.
“There are only five of us,” Cadderly reminded them, though no one was listening.
“I have heard the leader’s name is Ragnor,” Elbereth began, “a monstrous beast, half-breed, my scouts believe, marked by a tusk protruding over his upper lip.”
“Wonderful,” Cadderly muttered grimly. This time, Ivan paid enough attention to kick him in the shin.
“If Ragnor is at the camp, then we can expect he will separate himself from us by whatever monstrous guards he can muster.”
“Wonderful,” Cadderly said again. Danica elbowed him hard in the ribs. The young scholar began to get the feeling that he wouldn’t even make it to the enemy camp if he kept commenting.
“And what monsters did ye see?” asked Ivan, leaning toward the crude map closer than anybody.
Elbereth seemed almost surprised at the dwarf’s interest. “Bugbears, mostly,” the elf answered. “Actually, I would have expected more obvious guards, ogres at least and perhaps a giant or two.”
Cadderly winced but held his thoughts silent. The orogs, large and powerful, had come as a shock to him; the ogres’ sheer size had nearly made him swoon. What would be his reaction, he wondered, if he found himself facing a true giant?
“Can you be certain, then, that this is the leader’s camp?” Danica asked.
Elbereth thought for a moment, then shook his head. “It is an assumption,” he admitted. “I saw no other tents anywhere along the line, just crude lean-tos of twigs. And this particular ridge is most favorable for the enemy leader to keep a watch on the action to the south.”
“Maybe it is Dorigen’s camp,” Cadderly put in.
“Either way,” Ivan boomed, slapping his great axe against his hand, “we’ll give the scum a thing or two to think about!”
Again, Elbereth was surprised by the dwarf’s interest.
“I do not know how we might best approach,” the elf said honestly. “If we sneak in as close as we may, perhaps we will discern an appropriate attack route.”
“In what order?” Ivan asked.
Elbereth looked at him blankly.
“As I thought,” remarked the dwarf. “Ye’re more for working on yer own than to leading a fight. Step aside, elf. I’ll give ye a plan!”
Elbereth neither moved nor blinked.
“Listen, ye stubborn son of a willow tree,” Ivan growled, poking a stubby finger Elbereth’s way. “I know ye’re doubting me friendship—and ye should be, for I’m not calling ye friend. And when the fighting’s done, yerself and me have a date. Don’t ye hope for a moment that I’m forgetting that! And I’m not caring a thing for yer people or yer stinking wood, neither!”
Pikel’s growl slowed Ivan’s budding momentum.
“Well, me brother likes yer wood,” Ivan said to calm the savage would-be druid. He spun back on Elbereth. “For all yer suspicions, though, don’t ye be doubting me friendship to Cadderly and Danica. If they’re to go in, then me and me brother are fighting aside them, and I’m betting that me axe takes more heads than yer skinny sword!”
“We shall learn the truth of that boast,” Elbereth said, his silver eyes narrowed. For all his pride, Elbereth had to admit that he was indeed more accustomed to working alone, and that Ivan might just be better suited to design the course of this attack. His grim expression did not relent, but he shifted away from the map, giving the dwarf full access.
Ivan bent low over the sketch, grunting and pulling at his still sooty beard. “How deep’s the river beyond the ridge?” he asked.
“To my waist, perhaps,” the elf replied.
“Hmmm,” mumbled the dwarf. “And the drop’s a bit high to take that course. We’ll have to hit them hard and get quick to the east, to where yerself”—he pointed to Danica—“saw a way through.”
“Our lives are not important,” said Elbereth. “If we can kill the enemy leader, whether or not we escape is of no concern.”
Cadderly’s mouth dropped open.
“Yer own life’s not important,” Ivan agreed, “but the rest of us would prefer to keep our skin, thank ye.”
Cadderly’s sigh sounded clearly like a note of gratitude to Ivan.
“But if we can hit them hard and fast enough, we’ll get our way back out,” Ivan went on. “We’d be better off if ye had yer bow, elf, to lead our way in, but I’ve got a hammer or two to spin into a bugbear’s eye. Here’s me thinking. Yerself, elf, and Danica will lead us in. The two of ye are the fastest and should get yer chance at the boss. Cadderly will come next, watching both sides to see where he’s most needed.”
Cadderly realized that Ivan had politely told him to keep out of the way—not that he minded.
“Me and me brother’ll take up the back end,” Ivan went on. “That way ye won’t need to be worrying that a bugbear will be crawling up yer backside.”
Elbereth studied the drawing and found little to complain about concerning Ivan’s plan. It seemed solid enough, though the elf was somewhat surprised that the dwarf had made allowances for him to personally battle Ragnor. Elbereth had presumed that Ivan would want that glory for himself.
“Suppose Dorigen is still there,” Cadderly interjected, still not thrilled with the whole idea.
“Then we can do even more harm to our enemies,” Elbereth replied.
“Many of my fighting styles are designed to deal with wizards,” Danica added, offering Cadderly the consolation that he obviously needed. “As in my previous encounter with Dorigen, I believe the wizard will have little in her repertoire to harm me.”
“Unless you are busy battling bugbears or some other monsters,” Cadderly retorted. “Then you might prove an easy target for one of Dorigen’s lightning blasts.”
“It’ll be up to yerself,” Ivan decided. “Keep yer watch for the wizard. If ye see her, then knock her down with yer fancy bow.”
“I do not have it,” Cadderly said.
“Then use yer stick, or that toy ye dance at the string’s end,” said Ivan.
“Dorigen has my crossbow,” Cadderly said, on the verge of panic. None of the others seemed to share his apprehension about that fact. In unison, they looked to Ivan to continue with his plotting.
“She has my crossbow and some of the magically loaded darts!” Cadderly said again, even more anxiously.
“If Dorigen is more concerned with that weapon than with her repertoire of spells, we’ll be better off,” Danica said, her calm tone mocking Cadderly’s concern.
“We’ll just hope she’s not as good a shot with the thing as yerself, lad,” Ivan added. Similarly unconcerned, he went back to his plan. “I’m thinking that twilight would be the best time to go, when the light’s down a bit but before the darkness takes advantage from our human friends.”
Elbereth looked to Danica, who nodded her accord.
“When ye’re done with the brute boss, ye’ll have me and Pikel to take ye back out again,” Ivan explained to Elbereth. “We’ll cut ye a path ye could ride yer horse through!”
“That we do not doubt,” Danica said, and even Elbereth, so angry at the dwarf just a short while before, made no sarcastic comments.
“We’re off then,” Ivan said, taking up his great axe. He motioned with his arm for Elbereth to take up the lead.
The group moved quietly into position under the widespread boughs of a pine tree and waited while the last of the daylight faded. Cadderly sat on the western edge of the shadows, trying to get every last moment of light as he worked hard over an open book. At first, Danica thought he was still trying to translate the book of Dellanil Quil’quien, but then she saw that he held the Tome of Universal Harmony, the Deneir bible.
“There are spells that might be of use,” Cadderly explained at her inquisitive glance.
Danica’s expression revealed her surprise; she had never seen Cadderly attempt any clerical magic beyond simple spells of healing, had never really considered him that manner of priest.
“I have spent my life in the order of Deneir!” Cadderly protested, drawing a slap from nearby Ivan and a profound “Sssshhh!” from Pikel.
Cadderly turned back to the book. “There is a spell of silence,” he whispered, “which might hinder Dorigen if she appears in the battle and attempts her magic.”
He saw that Danica didn’t appear convinced, and he couldn’t honestly find the words to argue against that look. Cadderly had performed minor ceremonies before, had once created a font of holy water (in which he had immersed the bottle containing the dreaded chaos curse), but in truth, he had never put much store in clerical magic. He was a disciple of Deneir, the god of art and literature, primarily because he had been raised among that sect at the Edificant Library and because Deneir’s edicts so befit Cadderly’s intelligent and kind nature. Cadderly had spent nearly as much time with the priests of Oghma, god of knowledge, and secretly considered himself a true priest of neither—to Headmaster Avery Schell’s ultimate frustration.
“Time to go,” Ivan whispered. Cadderly quickly perused the spell of silence one last time, hoping that if the need arose, he would find the strength to use it. Full of trepidation—should he have tried to study spells of healing instead?—he slipped the tome back into his pack beside Dellanil’s book.
They started off cautiously for the sloping, grassy incline that led to the tent-covered ridge. Danica stopped them a short distance out and disappeared into the brush, returning a few moments later.
“Sentry,” she explained when she came back to them.
“Bugbear?” Elbereth asked.
“Goblin.”
“Dead goblin,” Ivan muttered, giving Danica an appreciative wink, and Pikel added a happy, “Hee hee.”
They came to a halt crouched in a line of thick brush just below the enemy camp. The grassy slope was teasingly quiet. A couple of bugbears wandered along no apparent course, and, through the open flaps of one of the side tents, the companions could see others milling about. It was the topmost tent, on the crest of the ridge, that held the companions’ attention. Somewhat smaller than the other two tents, it was by far the finest and left little doubt where the enemy leader, if this was indeed Ragnor’s camp, would be located.
“Now or not at all,” Ivan whispered to Elbereth. The elf turned to the dwarf and gave a determined nod. Then Elbereth looked to Danica and they burst from the brush and began their wild charge up the hill.
Head low, arms and legs pumping in perfect harmony, Danica quickly outdistanced the elf. She hit the first two bugbears before they could guess that they were under attack. Knees and elbows flew wildly, then so did the bugbears, which tumbled to the grass with little desire to return to battle the frenzied woman.
Elbereth charged past Danica as the second bugbear flew away, the elf bearing down on a third monster, similarly surprised but with time enough to ready a long spear with which to meet the attackers.
The elf prince’s focus went beyond the creature, to the flap of the fine tent he knew was Ragnor’s. He hardly noticed the spear thrust his way.
His fine sword whipped across, snapping the bugbear’s crude weapon before it got near its mark. Elbereth ran right by the stunned bugbear, sticking his sword into its knee as he passed so that it could not follow him up the hill.
The unfortunate creature, clutching at its wound, unwittingly remained in Danica’s path as she followed the elf. Hardly slowing, she launched a perfectly synchronized kick with her running strides, catching the bending monster in the chin and laying it straight out on the ground.
The felled beast noticed another human running past a second later, then it felt the heavy stomps of dwarven boots. The last thing the bugbear saw was the swift descent of a huge axe.
Alarms rang out all through the encampment; the two side tents opened up, with many bugbears and several goblins spilling out onto the grassy hill.
“More than we thought!” Ivan bellowed.
Cadderly held his spindle-disks and his walking stick close, hoping he would not be forced to use them. He looked about frantically, expecting and fearing that Dorigen would make her appearance, and tried to keep the spell of silence in his thoughts through the growing tumult around him.
Danica and Elbereth widened the gap ahead of Cadderly, and suddenly Ivan and Pikel were fully engaged in combat right behind him. He turned about, then turned back, and looked all around as the bugbears—even more were pouring from the tents—began to surround the small group.
Elbereth and Danica paid no heed to the events behind them. Their goal was in plain sight, and their strides quickened when a burly, brutish monster stepped from the fine tent. Both knew at once that it was Ragnor come to meet them, huge and terrible and with that telltale single tusk sticking up over his lip.
Standing at the very top of the ridge, the ogrillon grinned evilly and beckoned them on.
Danica realized that they would not get to him, though. A group of three bugbears closed from the side, and the monsters’ angle would put them between their leader and the attackers. Danica was confident that she could outdistance them if she ran full stride, but Elbereth would have no chance of getting to Ragnor.
“Run on!” she cried to the elf, and she veered to the side to meet the interceptors.
She started in high, forcing the monsters to raise their spears, then dove to the grass and slid sideways, clipping their feet and sending all three tumbling down about her.
Elbereth’s first instincts were to go to her, caught in the middle of such powerful enemies, but the elf continued his course, realizing that Danica had made the move for his benefit and reminding himself that their lives were not important when weighed against the potential gains of destroying Ragnor.
If the ogrillon was afraid, he did not show it. Elbereth came fast and hard, his sword weaving and thrusting, using his momentum to get in strikes too quickly for Ragnor to defend.
Blood oozed from the monster’s shoulder. Another gash lined one cheek. Still Ragnor grinned, and Elbereth’s charging advantage quickly played itself out.
It was the ogrillon’s turn.
Cadderly had never seen such brilliant teamwork before. The dwarven brothers held the higher ground, but that still didn’t bring them close to eye level with gigantic bugbears, and they were outnumbered two to one.
That hardly seemed to matter.
Ivan cut a crossing swipe with his axe, not close to hitting the mark. A bugbear waded in behind, then Cadderly understood the dwarf’s attack to be no more than a feint, drawing the monster in. For Pikel suddenly broke from his own fight and followed up his brother’s swing with a low thrust from his tree-trunk club.
The lunging bugbear’s knee snapped backward—Cadderly thought that it resembled the gait of an exotic bird he had once read about—and the monster fell away, writhing in agony.
Ivan, meanwhile, had not been idle. He went with the momentum of his powerful cut, stepping right beside his dipping brother and taking Pikel’s place with the other two monsters. The surprised bugbears hardly seemed to comprehend what had happened—the dwarves’ movements were so in harmony—and they did not immediately understand the difference in this dwarfs fighting style.
They kept their arms extended, a proper style for defending against Pikel’s wide-armed club swings, but thoroughly useless against Ivan’s sheer ferocity. The dwarf charged inside their long reach, butting with his antlered head, biting, kicking with his heavy boots, and waggling his double-bladed axe through a series of short chops.
One of them was down, the other running away, before Cadderly had even remembered to draw breath.
“Oo!” Pikel howled appreciatively, seeing his brother make such quick work of the two, and purposely turning his back on his remaining bugbear in the process.
“Behind you!” Cadderly cried, not knowing that the dwarf was in complete control.
The bugbear raised its spear over its head and leaped, but Pikel dipped low and rushed backward, slamming his back into the monster’s knees. The bugbear barely caught its balance and didn’t go headlong over the dwarf, but it would have been better off if it had. Pikel dropped down to one knee, held his club on its narrow end, and drove it straight up between the bugbear’s legs, heaving the creature from the ground.
By the time the bugbear came back down, still standing but quite winded, Pikel was behind the monster and had realigned his grip on the club. The dwarf stepped into his swing with all his bulky weight, slamming the bugbear in the lower back.
The breathless monster tried to howl, and when that didn’t work, it settled instead for slumping to its knees, clutching its blasted back and watching the world spin.
“Wish we had the time to finish a few of these,” Ivan grumbled as he and Pikel moved higher up the hill. Many more bugbears came at them from both sides, and cries of alarm sounded all about the area now, not just on the grassy slope.
Cadderly clutched his weapons and continued his scan for Dorigen, though he was beginning to understand that the missing wizard was the least of their problems.
Every bugbear strike seemed to be just an inch behind the scrambling woman, and whatever contorted position Danica had to put herself into to avoid the attacks, she seemed quite able to launch her own. One bugbear yelped in glee, thinking it had finally caught up to its prey, only to catch Danica’s foot squarely in the face.
Danica sprang to her feet, a bugbear kneeling before her. She envisioned it immediately as a block of stone and slammed her head into the monster’s chest. Ribs—a dozen, perhaps—snapped apart, but they did so with a single sickening crack.
Then there were two.
“One more elf head for my trophy wall!” Ragnor laughed. Elbereth got his shield up to block the ogrillon’s heavy sword, but his arm went numb under the sheer weight of that incredibly powerful blow.
“You’ll look fine next to your kinfolk!” Ragnor boasted, wiggling his elf-ear necklace for his adversary to see. Thinking Elbereth distracted by the gruesome sight, Ragnor stepped in. Elbereth, horrified indeed, managed to skip back from the ogrillon’s strike, though he slipped on the thick grass and nearly went to one knee. He came up fast instead, stepping within Ragnor’s follow-up attack and driving his sword into the ogrillon’s thigh. A fine counter, except that Ragnor’s free hand grabbed the elf as he passed and, with tremendous strength, hurled Elbereth backward and to the ground.
The heavy sword sliced at him but buried itself halfway to the hilt into the soft ground as Elbereth frantically rolled aside.
The elf climbed back to his feet as Ragnor withdrew his sword. Elbereth took a quick glance around and saw that all sides seemed to be caving in on his companions. If he was to gain any semblance of a victory, he would have to strike Ragnor quickly. When he took a quick survey of the ogrillon, though, that didn’t seem likely. Speed and agility were on Elbereth’s side, but Ragnor could take anything Elbereth could throw his way. Defeating this brute would require time, plenty of time, to wear the heavier monster down, nicking and jabbing until Ragnor’s blood ran from a hundred grazing wounds.
“Damn you,” Elbereth muttered, and with all his world at stake, the valiant elf launched himself at Ragnor. He hacked once with his sword, then, when he was too close to use the long blade, punched fiercely with the weapon’s gem-encrusted hilt.
“No time!” Ivan bellowed, seeing that his plan could not succeed with so many bugbears, goblins, and now a host of orogs, appearing from all about the base of the ridge. He turned to Pikel and winked. “Second choice!”
“Oo oi!” Pikel heartily agreed.
Cadderly was about to ask what “second choice” might mean, when Pikel rushed right up to him, and right through him, barreling along up the hill with the stunned young scholar firmly in tow.
Ragnor and Elbereth held their deadly embrace. The elf’s punches had bent the ogrillon’s piglike snout every which way and lines of thick blood covered the monster’s face. Still Ragnor maintained his fiendish grin.
Finally, one huge hand clamped onto the back of the elf’s neck, and Elbereth was hauled out to arm’s length. They were still too close for any effective sword strikes, but Ragnor’s sword arm, held at the wrist by Elbereth’s shield hand, hovered dangerously above the elf’s head. Elbereth feared that the ogrillon would overpower him and drive his sword hilt down onto Elbereth’s head.
Elbereth’s fears trebled as Ragnor pushed a secret button on his weapon’s crosspiece and a second blade, a gleaming stiletto, protruded from the bottom of his sword, its wicked tip just an inch from Elbereth’s head.
Elbereth struggled wildly, kicked Ragnor repeatedly about the knees and groin. The ogrillon only grinned and forced his huge arm down.
Something slammed into Elbereth’s side. He saw the sudden confusion on Ragnor’s face, then the world went flying about him. He hit the waist-deep river hard, twisting an ankle and a knee in the process, then he understood, for he heard Ivan griping and water gurgling.
“You pulled me from my battle!” Elbereth roared as he grabbed his sword. “I could have—“
“Died,” Ivan finished evenly, though that wasn’t exactly what the elf had in mind. “Stop yer whining, elf,” said the dwarf with a derisive chuckle. “And get me helmet, would ye?”
Elbereth blustered and growled, looking for a retort. To Ivan’s surprise, the elf reached over and scooped the half-floating helmet from the water, even hopping a few steps downstream to recover one of the antlers, which had come loose.
Cadderly flew over the precipice next, backpedaling, his scrambling feet barely able to keep up at the end of Pikel’s thick club. Both man and dwarf hit the river just a few feet from their companions. Cadderly came up spitting a stream of water and sputtering in shock. He kept enough wits about him to pull his precious pack above the water and fish out his short and stunned companion’s head.
Pikel tried to squeak his thanks but wound up sending a stream of water into Cadderly’s eye instead. The dwarf shrugged meekly and smiled.
“There she is!” they heard Ivan cry, and they looked up to the ledge to see Danica spinning over. The incredible monk half-ran, half-fell down the bank, grabbing for root-holds with one hand but holding her other arm, her wounded arm, tight against her body. Somewhere in the fight, Danica had reopened the arrow wound, and the sleeve and side of her tunic were deeply stained.
She managed her controlled descent, though, coming lightly into the water at the river’s edge and easily outdistancing the two bugbears that pursued her. The monsters came on stubbornly, gingerly searching for handholds as they made their way down.
A hail of arrows whistled out of the trees beyond the far bank, every shot scoring a direct hit on the vulnerable monsters. Danica had to duck aside as the two hairy forms came crashing down.
There would be no cheers from the companions, though, for another arrow whistled from the trees, burying itself into Ivan’s leg and sending the startled dwarf spinning to the ground. Before Ivan could begin to recover, fine swords landed heavily on his shoulders, one against either side of his thick, but quite vulnerable, neck.
“Uh-oh,” muttered Pikel, who understood the misperceptions enough to slip behind the cover of Cadderly’s body.
“Hold! Hold!” Elbereth cried, splashing from the river and shoving aside the two elves holding swords to Ivan’s throat. “He is no enemy!”
The proclamation caught Ivan by surprise. “Thank ye, elf,” he said, grimacing in pain with every word. The black-shafted arrow was nearly halfway through his thick and muscled thigh.
The two elves, thoroughly flummoxed, dipped their shoulders under Ivan’s arms and hoisted the dwarf the rest of the way from the river. “Away, and quickly!” one of them said. “The enemy will cross after us if we remain in the open.” None of the weary band had to be asked twice to leave, especially since they could still hear Ragnor above the din of the rushing waters, back out of sight over the ridge, wildly bellowing orders to his soldiers.
Elbereth, most of all, looked back to that ridge. Never before had the elf prince been bested in battle, yet for all his complaining at Ivan, Elbereth had to admit that if the dwarf had not torn him from the fight, Ragnor would have killed him.
The elf prince left the river with that dark thought in mind.
The elven camp wasn’t formally an encampment. Rather, it was an area where the shadowy boughs of every tree seemed to hold an archer, grim-faced and ready should the enemy attempt to cross the river.
Elbereth and his companions were met in a small clearing by welcome faces, Shayleigh and Tintagel, two elves that the elf prince had feared slain at Daoine Dun. They offered no smiles as they walked over to join the companions; they even frowned at the sight and smell of the dwarves.
“It is good that you have returned,” Shayleigh said, her melodic voice more somber than Elbereth ever remembered hearing it. He stared long and hard at her, just then beginning to understand the depth of the defeat at Daoine Dun.
“Many have died,” added Tintagel, similarly reserved.
Elbereth nodded. “Who tends the wounded?” he asked. “Lady Maupoissant’s arm requires a new dressing and my”—he looked at Ivan curiously for a moment—“my friend has taken an arrow.”
Ivan’s eyes widened at the elf prince’s proclamation of him as a friend.
“Wow,” breathed Pikel.
“Bah! It’s nothing, elf,” Ivan growled, but when he pulled away from his supporters and tried to take a step, he nearly swooned from the pain and found that the leg would not support him.
Danica was beside the dwarf in an instant, propping him with her good arm. “Come,” she said, straining a smile. “We will go to be tended together.”
“Two old and broken travelers, eh?” chuckled Ivan.
“Not as broken as the enemies we left behind,” Danica pointed out. She noticed that Shayleigh and Tintagel had not relinquished their frowns, and she nearly growled at them as she and Ivan walked past.
“The dwarves are to be treated as allies,” Elbereth ordered, “for that they are, and let no elf consider them otherwise.”
“By whose command?” came a voice from the side, which Elbereth recognized as his father’s before he ever turned to regard the elven king.
“Have you taken command of the forces?” Galladel snarled, moving to his son. “Is it your right to choose our alliances?”
Danica and Ivan stopped and turned to watch; Cadderly and Pikel didn’t blink, but Cadderly dropped a hand on Pikel’s shoulder to keep the dwarf calm as the elf king walked close by them.
Elbereth wasn’t convinced that his father’s outburst was even worthy of an answer, but he knew that the trouble would only increase if he did not face Galladel then and there. “I did not believe we were in a favorable enough position to refuse offered help,” he said.
“I never claimed to help ye, elf,” barked Ivan, wanting to put the whole thing back into a perspective that his dwarven sensibilities could accept. “Me and me brother came to watch over Cadderly and Danica, not yerself!”
“Oo oi!” Pikel agreed firmly.
“Indeed,” said Galladel, putting his glare upon one brother, then the other. “Do watch over Cadderly and Danica, then, and keep out of my people’s way.”
“Father,” Elbereth began sharply.
“And I will hear no arguments from you, elf prince of Shilmista!” Galladel shouted sarcastically. “Where was Elbereth when Daoine Dun was overrun? Where was my son while his people were slaughtered?”
For the first time since he had met Elbereth, Cadderly thought that the elf prince looked very small. The young scholar looked past the elf, to Danica, and saw that a wetness rimmed her almond eyes. No jealousy came over the young scholar this time, for he shared Danica’s sympathy.
“Go off again, if you so desire,” growled Galladel. “Then, perhaps, you will not be forced to watch our final moments, the destruction of our home.” The elf king wheeled about and disappeared into the brush.
Elbereth stood long and silent in the deepening shadows.
“They’ll not attack at night,” Tintagel offered to the companions, hoping to break the grim mood.
“Darkness favors goblins,” Cadderly said, more to continue the conversation than to argue the point.
“Not in Shilmista!” the blue-eyed elven wizard replied, forcing a smile. “Our enemies have learned to fear the darkness. They attack only during the day. Such was the case at Daoine Dun.” Tintagel’s voice trailed away meekly as he mentioned the fateful battle.
Elbereth said nothing. He did not lower his face, refused to dip his proud chin, as he slowly walked away.
The night was extraordinarily chilly for late summer, and Cadderly was allowed a fire far back from the front lines. He took up his light tube and the book of Dellanil Quil’quien and began his task at translating, determined to do what he might to help the elven cause.
He became distracted soon after, though, by a night bird’s melodic cries a short distance away.
A thought came over Cadderly. He placed the ancient book down and recalled the spell of silence he had memorized earlier that day. It was not an easy spell; Cadderly had known all along that casting it would challenge him. While he was glad that Dorigen had not appeared in Ragnor’s camp, he almost wished he had found the opportunity to take that challenge.
“Why not?” the young scholar mused, and he slipped away from the fire, narrowing the light tube’s beam to better locate the bird.
He recited the runes exactly, not sure of his inflections, but confident that he would omit no words from the prescribed chant. Several seconds passed; Cadderly felt a strange energy building within him.
It gathered strength and urgency, called for him to let it loose. And he did so, uttering the last syllable with all the determination he could throw into his voice.
He paused a moment. The night bird was suddenly silent; all the forest was quiet.
Cadderly clenched his fist victoriously. He went back to the ancient book, feeling better about the role he might play in the coming battles.
His enthusiasm was stolen soon after, though, when Danica approached his fire. The young woman’s lips moved in greeting, but no words came from her mouth. She looked about, confused.
Cadderly understood, and he dropped his face into his hands.
His sigh, too, could not be heard, nor could the crackle of the fire, he then realized. Grabbing a stick, he wrote, “It will pass,” in the dirt and motioned for Danica to sit beside him.
“What has happened?” Danica asked a few minutes later, when the noise of the flames had returned.
“I have once again proved my uselessness,” Cadderly replied. He kicked his pack, containing the Tome of Universal Harmony. “I am no priest of Deneir. I am no priest at all. Even the simplest spells roll awkwardly from my lips, only then to fall upon targets I do not desire. I tried to silence a bird and quieted myself instead. We should be glad that the wizard did not appear at the last battle. We all would have died if she had, though no one would have heard our final screams.”
Despite Cadderly’s grave tone, despite everything around her and the pain in her injured arm, Danica laughed aloud at that thought.
“I am afraid to call for even the simplest healing spells,” Cadderly continued, “knowing that they would probably deepen a wound and not lessen it!”
Danica wanted to comfort him, to tell him that he was the most intelligent man she had ever met and the highest regarded young priest in the Edificant Library. But she found no sympathy for his minor problems, not with the weight of doom hanging heavily in Shilmista’s ancient boughs.
“Self-pity does not become you,” she remarked dryly.
“Self-truth,” Cadderly corrected.
“So it may be,” argued Danica, “but an irrelevant one now.”
“All my life—“ Cadderly began.
“Has not been wasted,” Danica interrupted before the young scholar could sink lower into despair. “All your life? You have just begun to live it.”
“I had thought to live it as a priest of Deneir,” Cadderly lamented, “but that does not seem my course.”
“You cannot know that,” Danica scolded.
“Agreed,” came a voice. They looked up and were surprised to see Kierkan Rufo approaching the fire.
Danica had nearly forgotten about the angular man, and seeing him now brought back many unpleasant thoughts. Cadderly sensed her sudden anger, and he put a hand upon her shoulder, fearing that she would spring at Rufo and throttle him.
“Some of the highest-ranking members of our order are inept at spellcasting,” Rufo went on, taking a seat on a log opposite the low fire and pointedly avoiding Danica’s cold stare. “Your friend, the headmistress, for example. Even the simplest spells often fail when uttered by Headmistress Pertelope.”
Rufo’s angular features seemed sharper in the flickering shadows, and Cadderly detected a tremor in his voice. The young scholar paid that fact little heed, though, more concerned with the revelation Rufo had given him.
“How can that be true?” Cadderly asked. “Pertelope is a leader among the order. How could she have attained such heights as headmistress at the Edificant Library if she cannot perform the simplest spells?”
“Because she is a scholar, as are you,” Rufo replied, “and in Deneir’s favor, do not doubt, even if that favor does not manifest itself in the form of clerical magic. Headmistress Pertelope is no pretender to her title.”
“How do you know this?” Danica asked, and she had many other questions she wanted to ask of Rufo, particularly concerning his interactions with Dorigen.
“I heard Avery talking once,” Rufo replied, trying to sound casual, though his monotone voice quivered with every word. “And I have been attentive since.” He leaned back on his bony elbows, again trying futilely to appear calm.
Cadderly realized that a lot more was going on in this conversation, both from Danica’s and Rufo’s perspectives, than the casual banter implied. Passing moments did little to dissipate the tension; indeed, it seemed to Cadderly to be mounting in both his fireside companions. Still, Cadderly was relieved to hear Rufo’s claims about Pertelope. He considered the words in light of his own experiences with the headmistress, and he had to agree that he had rarely seen Pertelope attempt any spellcasting at all.
Rufo stood stiffly. “I am glad that you have returned,” he said, somewhat strained. From his pack he produced Cadderly’s silken cape and wide-brimmed hat, the latter a bit crumpled. “I am glad,” Rufo said again. He half-bowed and started away, nearly tripping over the log as he went.
“Surprised to see us, do you think?” Danica remarked when Rufo was beyond hearing distance. “Certainly our friend was a bit nervous.”
“Kierkan Rufo has always been nervous,” Cadderly replied, his voice sounding relaxed for the first time since he had discovered the failure of his spell of silence.
“You think it is a coincidence, then,” Danica muttered. “And is it coincidence that Dorigen knew of him?”
“She may have learned of Rufo from the same source who told her of us,” Cadderly reasoned.
“Indeed,” the young woman agreed, and her wry tone shifted the connotation of Cadderly’s own words to sound like an accusation against their angular companion. “Indeed.”
Cadderly awakened to the sounds of battle shortly past dawn. He fumbled about his pack for his spindle-disks, grabbed his walking stick, and rushed away. The fight was over before he ever got close, with the elves successfully beating back yet another enemy probe.
Despite the success, though, neither Danica, Elbereth, nor the dwarves seemed pleased when Cadderly came upon them.
“I am sorry,” the young scholar apologized, stuttering the words. “I was asleep. No one told me. . . .”
“Fear not,” Elbereth replied. “You would have had little role in the fight. Elven archers turned the enemy back before very many of them even got across the river.”
“And them that did wished they had turned back!” added Ivan, seeming none the worse for his leg wound. He pointedly held out his bloodied axe for Cadderly to see. Pikel, meanwhile, was busily pulling a clump of goblin hair from a thin crack in his club.
Cadderly didn’t miss the appreciative stare Elbereth cast the dwarves’ way, though the elf obviously tried to mask the look. “Go and gather your strength now,” Elbereth said to Danica, then he looked around to indicate that his words were meant for all of them. “I must attend council with my father. Our scouts will return this morning with more complete estimates of the enemy’s strength.” The elf bowed and was gone.
Ivan and Pikel were asleep almost immediately after they returned to Cadderly’s small camp. The dwarves had been up all night, showing some of the more receptive elves how to construct a proper barricade, complete with cunning traps.
Danica, too, stretched out to rest, and Cadderly, after a quick meal of tasty biscuits, dove back into the book of Dellanil Quil’quien. His translating had gone slowly through the late hours; he thought he had discerned the meaning of just a single rune. A hundred more arcane symbols remained a mystery to him.
Elbereth came to see them later that morning, accompanied by Tintagel and Shayleigh. The elf prince’s grim expression revealed much about what the returning scouts had reported.
“Our enemy is more disciplined and organized than we had believed,” Elbereth admitted.
“And the enemy wizard returned this morning,” added Shayleigh. “She sent a line of fire from her hand, shrouding an unfortunate scout. He is alive, but our healers do not expect him to survive the day.”
Cadderly reflexively glanced over to his pack, to the Tome of Universal Harmony. What healing secrets might he discover there? he wondered. Could he find the strength to help the wounded elf?
He looked away, ashamed, admitting that he could not. He was no cleric of Deneir; he had established that fact the night before.
“What of allies?” Danica asked. “Has the Edificant Library responded to our call?”
“There has been no word of outside help,” Elbereth replied. “It is believed that the library could not muster sufficient force anyway, even if they could arrive in time.”
“Where does that leave us?” Cadderly asked.
“Galladel speaks of leaving Shilmista,” Elbereth said past the welling lump in his slender throat. “He talks often of Evermeet, and says that our day in the common Realms has passed.”
“And what do you say?” Danica asked, her question sounding almost like an accusation.
“It is not time to go,” the proud elf answered sternly.
“I’ll not leave Shilmista to the goblins, but . . .”
“But our hopes here are fast fading,” Shayleigh answered. Cadderly did not miss the edge of sadness in her violet eyes, a somber look that had stolen her vigor and heart for the fight.
“We cannot defeat so large an enemy,” the elven maiden admitted. “Many goblins will die, it is true, but our numbers will continue to dwindle until we are no more.”
To his own surprise, Cadderly abruptly broke the ensuing silence. “I have begun the translation of Dellanil’s book,” he said determinedly. “We will find our answers there.”
Elbereth shook his head. “You have little time,” he explained, “and we do not expect as much as you from the ancient work. The magic of the forest is not as it used to be—in that regard, I fear, my father is correct.”
“When will you decide our course?” Danica asked.
“Later this day,” replied the elf prince, “though I believe the meeting is just a formality, for the decision has already been made.”
There was no more to be said, but so much more to be done, and the three elves took their leave. Danica fell back to her blanket, squirming about in a futile attempt to find some sleep, and Cadderly went back to the ancient book.
He spent another hour, frustrated by two simple runes that appeared on nearly every page. If these two could take so much of his time, how then could he hope to complete the work in a single day?
He moved the book aside and stretched out, exhausted and defeated, filled with loathing for his own inadequacies. Cadderly the priest? Apparently not. Cadderly the fighter? Hardly. Cadderly the scholar?
Perhaps, but that talent suddenly seemed so very useless in the real and violent world. Cadderly could recount the adventures of a thousand ancient heroes, tell of long-past wars, and ascribe a wizard’s lost spellbook after having seen it only once. But he couldn’t turn the black tide from beautiful Shilmista, and now none of his other talents really seemed to matter.
Sleep did take him, mercifully, and in that sleep came a dream that Cadderly could not have expected.
He saw Shilmista under the light of an ancient sky, under starlight of violet and blue and crisp yellow rays, filtering softly through the thick leafy canopy. There danced the elves, ten times the number of Shilmista’s present host, led in song by the greatest of Shilmista’s kings.
The words were strange to Cadderly, though he fluently spoke the elvish language common to his day. Stranger still came the reaction of the forest around the elves, for the trees themselves reverberated with Dellanil’s song, answering the elf king. Only a slight breeze wafted through this ancient vision of Shilmista, yet the great and thick limbs bent and swayed, synchronous to the graceful movements of the sylvan folk.
Then the vision was gone, and Cadderly sat up, awakened by Ivan and Pikel’s thunderous snores. The young scholar shook his head and lay back, hoping to recapture that lost moment. His dreams were fast fading, only a blur, but he remembered the serenity, and the magic, acutely.
His eyes popped open wide and he scrambled for the black-bound book. Those unknown runes greeted him once again, but this time Cadderly threw aside his notes and logical, practiced techniques. This time, the young scholar used his emotional revelations, felt as Dellanil had felt in his dreamy vision, and sent his soul dancing as the elves and the trees had danced, their song sounding within him.
“Get out!” Kierkan Rufo growled, banging his arm against a tree trunk. “I did as you demanded, now leave me alone!” The angular man glanced around nervously, fearing that he had spoken too loudly. The elves were everywhere, it seemed, and Rufo did not doubt that one of them would gladly put an arrow into him if that elf ever discovered the source of Rufo’s dilemma.
He was alone in the forest, physically at least, and had been since his departure from Cadderly and Danica the previous night. Rufo could find no sleep—an impish voice in his head would not allow that. Already the angular man appeared haggard, haunted, for he could not be rid of Druzil’s telepathic intrusions.
What have you to lose? purred the imp’s raspy voice. All the world will be your gain.
“I do not know what they are planning, nor would I reveal it to you if I did,” Rufo insisted.
Oh, but you would, came Druzil’s confident reply. And you shall indeed.
“Never!”
You have once betrayed your friends, Kierkan Rufo, Druzil reminded him. How merciful would the elf prince be if he learned of your weakness?
Rufo’s breath came in short gasps. He understood that Druzil’s question was a direct threat.
But think not of such unpleasantness, Druzil continued. Aid us now. We will prove victorious—that is obvious—and you will be well rewarded when the battle is won. Scorn us, and you will pay.
Rufo didn’t realize his own movements, was oblivious to the sharp pain. He looked down in shock to his hand, holding a clump of his matted black hair.
“Our sincere pardon,” Danica said quietly when she and Cadderly entered the small glade beyond a thick grove of pines that blocked the outside world. Here the elven leaders gathered—Galladel and Elbereth, Shayleigh, Tintagel, and several others that Danica and Cadderly did not know. Their faces were grim indeed, and though Galladel said nothing immediately about the interruption, both friends could see that the elf king was not pleased by their appearance.
“I have translated the work,” Cadderly announced, holding up the book of Dellanil Quil’quien for all to see.
“Where did you get that?” Galladel demanded.
“He found it at Daoine Dun,” Elbereth explained, “and has it now with my permission.”
Galladel glowered at his son, but Elbereth turned to Cadderly. “You have not had time to read the entire tome,” the elf prince remarked. “How could you possibly have translated it?”
“I have not,” Cadderly replied guardedly. “I mean . . .” He paused to search for the correct way to explain what he had accomplished, and also to calm himself under Galladel’s imposing stare.
“I have deciphered the meanings, the connotations, of the ancient runes,” Cadderly continued. “The symbols pose no more difficulties. Together we can read through the work and see what secrets it might provide.”
Some of the elves, Elbereth and Shayleigh in particular, seemed intrigued. Elbereth rose and approached Cadderly, his silver eyes sparkling with a hint of renewed hope.
“What value do you expect to find within those pages?” Galladel asked sharply, his angry tone stopping his son in midstride. An expression of confusion crossed Cadderly’s face, for the young scholar certainly hadn’t expected that reaction.
“You bring us false hope,” the elf king went on, his anger unrelenting.
“There is more,” Cadderly argued. “In this work, I have read a most remarkable account of how King Dellanil Quil’quien awakened the trees of Shilmista, and of how those trees crushed an invading force of goblins!” With the parallels to their present dilemma so obvious, Cadderly didn’t see how that news could be met with anything other than joy. But Galladel seemed less impressed than ever.
“You tell us nothing that we do not know!” the elf king snapped. “Do you think that none among us has read the book of Dellanil?”
“I had thought the runes ancient and lost to understanding,” Cadderly stammered. Danica put her hand on his shoulder, and the young scholar appreciated the much needed support.
“Lost now,” Galladel replied, “but I, too, have read the work, centuries ago when those runes were not so uncommon. I could decipher them still, if I had the mind and the time to do so.”
“You did not think to awaken the trees?” Elbereth asked his father in disbelief.
Galladel’s glare bored into his impertinent son. “You speak of that act as though it were some simple magical spell.”
“It is not a spell,” Cadderly put in, “but a summons, a calling to awaken the powers of the forest.”
“Powers that are no more,” Galladel added.
“How can you—“ Elbereth began, but Galladel cut him short.
“This is not the first war that has come to Shilmista since I began my reign,” the elf king explained. He seemed suddenly old and vulnerable, his face pale and hollow. “And I read the account of Dellanil’s battle, as you have,” he offered sympathetically to Cadderly. “Like you, I was filled with hope on that long ago occasion, and filled with belief of the magic of Shilmista.
“But the trees did not come to my call,” the elf king continued, drawing nods of recognition from two other aged elves sitting by his side. “Not a single one. Many elves died repelling the invaders, more than should have, I fear, since their king was too busy to join in their fight.”
It seemed to Cadderly as if the aged elf’s shoulders sagged even lower as he recalled that tragic time.
“That is a summons for another age,” Galladel said, his voice resolute once more, “an age when the trees were the sentient sentinels of Shilmista Forest.”
“But are they not?” Shayleigh dared to interject. “Hammadeen bade us to hear their warning song.”
“Hammadeen is a dryad,” Galladel explained, “much more attuned to the flora than any elf ever could be. She would hear the song of any plant anywhere in the world. Do not allow her cryptic bidding to bring you false hope.”
“We have few options,” Elbereth reminded his father.
“The summons will not work,” Galladel insisted, his tone showing clearly that he considered the conversation at an end. “You do have our thanks, scholar Cadderly,” he said, somewhat condescendingly. “Your efforts have not gone unnoticed.”
“Come,” Danica whispered into Cadderly’s ear, pulling him by the hand back out of the glade.
“No!” Cadderly replied, twisting from her grasp. “What will you do?” he snapped at Galladel. He approached the elf king, sitting directly across the glade, pushing right by the shocked Elbereth on his way.
“I have heard many admit that the force opposing Shilmista is too great for the elves to defeat,” Cadderly went on. “I have heard that no help will arrive in time or in sufficient numbers to save the forest. If all that is true, then what will you do?”
“That is what we have gathered here to discuss—privately,” the elf king replied sternly.
“What have you who have gathered here decided?” Cadderly shot back, not backing down in the least. “Are you to run away, leave the forest for the invaders?”
Galladel stood and met Cadderly’s determined stare with one equally unyielding. Cadderly heard Danica rushing to corral him, then heard, to his surprise, Elbereth intercept her.
“Most will go,” Galladel admitted. “Some”—he spoke the word callously and looked pointedly at Elbereth as he uttered it—“wish to stay and fight, determined to hinder and punish the enemy until they have joined their elven kin in death.”
“And you will go . . . to the Edificant Library?” Cadderly asked. “Then away from there, to Evermeet perhaps?”
Galladel nodded gravely. “Our time in Shilmista has passed, young priest,” he admitted, and Cadderly could see that the words pained him deeply.
Cadderly was not unsympathetic, and he did not doubt the truth of Galladel’s claims, but there were other ramifications to their actions that the elves apparently had not considered, most prominently the fate of the region. “As an emissary of the Edificant Library, I can assure you that you and your people will be welcomed there for as long as you wish to stay,” Cadderly replied. “But as one who has seen what befell the library, and now Shilmista, I must beg you to reconsider your course. If the forest falls, then so, too, shall the men of the mountains, and of the lake region to the east, I fear. The enemy must not be allowed so easy a victory.”
Galladel seemed on the verge of exploding. “You would sacrifice us?” he growled, his face only inches from Cadderly’s. “You would give the lives of my people, that a few men might survive? We owe you nothing, I say! Do you believe it is with light hearts that we surrender our homeland? I have lived in Shilmista since before your precious library was even constructed!”
Cadderly wanted to argue that Galladel’s own claims proved that Shilmista, then, was worth fighting for, and that every possibility, even the attempt to awaken the trees, should be exhausted before the elves fled their homes. The young scholar couldn’t, though. He could find nothing to throw against Galladel’s outrage, nothing to diminish the elf king’s ire. When Danica again came to him and pulled him toward the glade entrance, he did not resist.
“I thought I could help them,” he said to her, and he did not look back at Galladel.
“We all wish to help,” Danica replied softly. “That is our frustration.”
They said nothing more as they walked slowly away and heard an argument raging behind them within the ring of pines. When they were back at the campsite with Kierkan Rufo and the dwarven brothers, the weight of the world seemed to bow Cadderly’s shoulders.
They were surprised an hour later, when Elbereth, Shayleigh, and Tintagel came to join them.
“You are certain that you have the runes deciphered?” Elbereth asked sternly, his jaw firm and eyes staring hard at Cadderly.
“I am certain,” Cadderly replied, jumping to his feet, suspecting what the bold elf prince had in mind.
The expressions splayed across the faces of both Shayleigh and Tintagel revealed their discomfort with this meeting.
“What was the council’s decision?” Danica asked of Elbereth. She rose beside Cadderly and looked hard at the elf prince.
Elbereth didn’t retreat from his stance. “By my father’s word, my people will depart the forest,” he admitted. “We surrender the ground in exchange for our lives, and never shall we return.”
“It was not an easy decision for Galladel to come by,” Tintagel offered. “Your father has witnessed the deaths of many elves these last days.”
The statement stung Elbereth, as Tintagel, obviously not pleased with Elbereth’s intentions, apparently had hoped it would.
“Their deaths will have been in vain if the enemy is handed Shilmista,” the elf prince declared. “We have options still, and I’ll not leave until they are exhausted.”
“You plan to awaken the trees,” Cadderly reasoned.
“Oo oi!” piped in a happy Pikel, who dearly wanted to see such druidlike magic.
All three elves cast a disconcerting look the round-shouldered dwarf’s way.
“Oo,” Pikel chirped, and he lowered his eyes.
“With your help,” Elbereth said to Cadderly, “we shall recapture the magic of days long past. We shall turn the forest against our enemies and drive them back to their mountain holes!”
Cadderly was excited by the thought, but he saw that he and Elbereth, and perhaps Pikel, were the only ones holding out much hope.
“You father does not believe that,” Danica reminded the elf prince.
“He would not approve of your actions,” added Shayleigh.
“How can we leave until we have tried?” Elbereth asked. “If we fail, then we shall go along with Galladel’s plans, and what have we lost? If we succeed, if the forest comes to life, if great trees walk beside us as allies . . .”
Tintagel and Shayleigh managed somewhat hopeful smiles. Danica looked to Cadderly, doubting, but ready to support him in whatever manner he required.
“I am ready to show you the words,” Cadderly said determinedly. “Together we shall find the song of Dellanil Quil’quien and implore the trees to our side!”
The three elves took their leave then, and Cadderly, visage set firm, took up the ancient book and flipped it open to the appropriate passage.
Danica wanted to tell him of the futility, wanted to warn him of the dire consequences his failure might have on the elven host’s already weakened morale, but looking at her love sitting so stern and determined as he pored through the book, she could not find the words.
None of them noticed Kierkan Rufo quietly slip away.
The elves will depart? came the telepathic voice, revealing the imp’s excitement. What defenses will they leave behind? And what of young Cadderly? Tell me of Cadderly!
“Leave me alone!” Rufo screamed back. “You have gained enough from me. Go and question another.” The angular man could sense the imp’s distant laughter.
“The elves will depart,” Rufo admitted, hoping to mask the more important news with something the enemy would discern soon enough in any case.
And that is all? came the expected question.
“That is all,” Rufo replied. “A few may remain, just to slow your advance, but the rest will go, never to return.”
And what of Cadderly?
“He will go with them, back to his home, the library,”
Rufo lied, knowing that to reveal anything else would invariably lead him into the middle of another conspiracy.
Again came the reverberations of the imp’s distant laughter. You have not told me all, came his thoughts, but you have revealed more than you intended simply by trying to hide that which you cannot. I will be with you, Kierkan Rufo, every step. And know that your unwillingness to cooperate will be revealed once our conquest is complete, once you face my mistress. I assure you that she is not a merciful victor. Go and reconsider your course and your untruths. Think of the path that lies ahead for Kierkan Rufo.
Rufo felt the connection break, then he was alone, stumbling through the woods, a haunted man.
Danica was glad of the change that came over Cadderly, whatever the outcome of their desperate attempt. She knew that Cadderly was a sensitive man, frustrated by the violence that had been forced upon him and by the destruction of so many wondrous things, both in beautiful Shilmista and back in the Edificant Library. Danica didn’t doubt Cadderly’s willingness to fight back however he could. They stood in the same glade that the elves had used earlier for council, wanting their attempt to be private in case it failed, as Galladel had predicted. Watching Cadderly and Elbereth in their preparations for the ceremony, the young scholar tutoring the elf on particular inflections and movements, Danica almost allowed herself to believe that the trees of Shilmista would awaken, and that the forest would be saved.
Tintagel, Shayleigh, and Pikel, beside Danica, seemed to hold similar, though unspoken, hopes. Ivan merely grumbled a stream of complaints, though, thinking that they should all be out “clobbering orcs” instead of wasting their time calling to “trees that ain’t got ears!”
Several other elves appeared when Elbereth began the song, an even-paced, melodic chant that sounded appropriate under the mystic evening canopy.
Pikel nearly swooned and began a dance, graceful by dwarven standards, but a bit strained in an elven wood. Still, Tintagel and Shayleigh couldn’t help smiling when they saw the would-be druid, his green-dyed and braided beard bouncing about his shoulders with every twirl.
Then Galladel stepped between Shayleigh and Danica, his scowl threatening the magical aura as surely as would a goblin attack.
“Do not disturb them, I beg,” Danica whispered to the elf king, and to her surprise, he nodded gravely and remained quiet. He glanced over to Pikel and frowned, then turned his attention back to his son, who was fully immersed in the ancient song.
Danica watched the elf king’s eyes well with tears, and she knew that Galladel looked upon an image of himself centuries ago, that he recalled that time when he had failed to awaken the trees at the cost of many elven lives.
Elbereth’s song reached out to Shilmista; Danica could not understand the words, but they seemed fitting for the forest, almost otherworldly and even more purely elven than Daoine Teague Feer had seemed. Those elves, many now, gathered around the small glade’s fringes did not even whisper among themselves, did nothing but hear their prince’s enchanting call.
A wolf howled somewhere in the distance; another took up the call, and another in response to that.
Then, too suddenly it seemed, Elbereth was done. He stood in the center of the glade, Cadderly moving beside him, and they, and all those about them, waited with held breath for Shilmista to respond.
There came nothing, save the howl of the wolves and the lamenting keen of the evening wind.
“Trees ain’t got ears,” Ivan muttered after a long while.
“I told you it would not work,” Galladel berated them, the anticipation of the moment stolen by the wide-eyed dwarf’s comment. “Are you finished with your folly? Might we get along with the business of saving our people?”
The look Elbereth gave Cadderly showed only remorse. “We have tried,” the elf prince offered. “We have tried.” He turned and walked slowly away to rejoin his father.
Truly perplexed, Cadderly stood in the middle of the glade, moving the beam of his light tube across the words of the ancient book.
“It was worth the attempt,” said Danica as she and the dwarven brothers came over to join him.
“Worthy indeed,” came a tittering voice that they recognized at once. In unison, they turned and spotted Hammadeen the dryad, standing beside a pine opposite from where Galladel and the others had just departed.
“What do you know?” Cadderly demanded, heading for the dryad. “You must tell us! The trees did not respond to the call, and you know the reason.”
“Oh, they did hear!” Hammadeen replied, clapping her hands happily. She moved behind the pine and was gone, reappearing a moment later behind another tree many feet from the volatile young man. “They did!”
“Have they begun their march upon our enemies?” Cadderly breathed, hardly daring to believe.
Hammadeen’s laughter mocked his hopes. “Of course they have not!” the dryad chirped. “These trees are young. They have not the power of the ancients. You are in the wrong place, do you not understand?”
Cadderly’s crestfallen look was matched by Danica’s and Pikel’s expressions. Ivan just grumbled something, huffed, and stormed away.
“But the trees in this region of the forest have heard the elven song,” Hammadeen offered to brighten their mood, “and they are pleased by it.”
“Lot o’ good that’ll do them,” the departing Ivan chided.
Danica echoed the thoughts of the remaining three perfectly when she whispered, “How pleased will the trees be to hear the crack of orcish axes?”
Hammadeen stopped laughing and faded into the pine.
The four companions were on the trail south later that same night, joined by Kierkan Rufo. Many elves accompanied them, though the fair folk did not walk the straight trails, as Cadderly and his friends had been told to do. Rather, they dipped in and out of the shadows to the sides, wary though weary, and those who were not riding often kept to the trees, crossing silently among high and intertwined branches.
Shayleigh found the travelers and dropped from her horse to walk beside them, but her presence did little to comfort them, particularly when it became apparent that she could not look Cadderly in the eye.
“They are fighting again, behind us,” the elf maiden said, “as it shall be all the way out of Shilmista.”
“Stupid orcs,” Ivan muttered, and that was the only response forthcoming from the group.
“This time it would seem King Galladel was correct,” Shayleigh went on.
“We had nothing to lose,” Cadderly replied, a bit more sharply than he had intended.
“But we did,” said Shayleigh. “For word has spread of our failure. All the elves know that Shilmista would not rise beside them. Our hearts are heavy. Few will remain beside Elbereth as he continues to hinder the enemy.”
Both Cadderly and Danica started to say something, but Ivan promptly diffused their stubborn enthusiasm.
“No, ye won’t!” the dwarf insisted to the two of them. “Ye won’t be staying, nor will me or me brother.”
“Oo,” said Pikel sadly.
“This ain’t our place,” Ivan roared on. “And there ain’t a thing we can do now to slow them monsters down! Too many of the damned things!”
Shayleigh left them then, and Danica and Cadderly couldn’t even muster the strength to bid her farewell.
Danica noticed a change in her companion during their long and dismal walk. It started with Cadderly glancing all around, staring into Shilmista’s shadows, his gray eyes rimmed with wetness. But the tears never came; they were replaced by an anger so profound that the young scholar could hardly keep his breathing steady, could hardly keep his fists unclenched.
He dropped out of the retreating line and pulled his pack off his back, offering no explanation to Danica, Rufo, and the dwarven brothers as they moved beside him.
“A bit of reading for the road?” Ivan asked, seeing Cadderly take out the ancient book of Dellanil Quil’quien.
“It should have worked,” Cadderly replied firmly. “The words were spoken correctly. Every syllable was as King Dellanil spoke them centuries ago.”
“Of course they were,” said Danica. “No one in all Shilmista doubts the sincerity of your attempt or that your heart was for the forest.”
“Flattery?” Cadderly barked at her, his voice more full of anger than it ever had been toward his love.
Danica backed away a step, stunned.
“Oo,” moaned Pikel.
“Ye’ve no right to be speaking to the lady that way,” Ivan said, slapping his axe loudly against his open hand.
Cadderly nodded in agreement but would not let his embarrassment steal his mounting determination. “The summons must work,” he declared. “We have nothing else—Shilmista has no other hope.”
“Then we have nothing at all,” Ivan replied evenly. “Ye heard the wood sprite yerself. Ye’re in the wrong place, lad. Shilmista will not come to yer call.”
Cadderly looked around at the trees that had deceived him, searching for escape from the apparent finality of the dryad’s claims. A thought struck him then, one so simple that it had not occurred to any of them.
“Hammadeen did not say that,” Cadderly told Ivan. The scholar turned to include the others in his revelation.
Danica’s head tilted curiously. “The dryad’s words were direct enough,” she argued.
“Hammadeen said we were in the wrong place,” Cadderly replied. “We took that to mean that Shilmista was the wrong place. Hammadeen said the trees of the region had heard the call. How wide a region was she speaking of?”
“What are ye babbling about?” Ivan demanded. “What other place might there be?”
“Think of where we were when Elbereth read the incantation,” Cadderly prompted.
“The clearing,” Ivan replied at once.
“But the trees around that grove!” Cadderly said. “Think of the trees.”
“I’m not for telling one tree from another,” Ivan protested. “Ask me brother if ye’re wanting to know—“
“Not the trees’ types,” Cadderly explained, “but their age.”
“The camp was surrounded by young growth,” Danica realized. “Even the circling pines were not so tall.”
“Yes, too young,” Cadderly explained. “Those trees were not alive when Dellanil intoned the ancient words, not alive even when Galladel tried to awaken the wood. They did not exist when magic filled Shilmista’s air.”
“Would that matter?” Danica asked. “A magical—“
“This is not a magical spell,” Cadderly interrupted. “It is a call to a once-sentient forest. The new trees might still speak so that a dryad would hear, but they have lost the ability to walk beside the elves. But the oldest ones, the ones from Dellanil’s time, may not have.”
“If any of those remain,” Danica stated.
“Not likely,” Kierkan Rufo had to add, fearing that Cadderly’s newest revelations would keep them all in the forest longer than the angular man desired.
“Oh, but there are,” came a voice from the side. An elf that none of them knew rose from the brush just a few feet away and smiled at Ivan’s glower and the others’ stupefied expressions.
“Pardon my eavesdropping,” the elf said. “Your conversation was much too interesting for me to interrupt, and I only speak now to tell you that there are indeed trees in Shilmista from the days of King Dellanil: a grove of huge oaks, west of here. The place is called Syldritch Trea, the Most Ancient Trees.”
“Did King Galladel go to Syldritch Trea when he failed in his attempt at the summoning?” Cadderly asked, already suspecting the answer but eager for confirmation.
The elf thought for a moment, then answered, “No, I do not believe he did. But neither was King Dellanil in Syldritch Trea when he called the trees.”
“Bring Elbereth, I beg, and hurry,” said Cadderly, ignoring the elf’s last statement. “Shilmista’s day may not be past.”
The elf nodded curtly and was gone, disappearing into the surrounding brush in the blink of an eye.
“Ye cannot be thinking . . .” Ivan began slowly.
“Indeed I can,” Cadderly replied evenly.
“He just said that Dellanil—“ Danica started to protest.
“Do not presume anything about the ancient forest,” Cadderly interrupted. “Perhaps, in that time, the trees called to each other after Dellanil began the enchantment. Perhaps the trees spread the summons throughout Shilmista.”
Ivan’s look reflected his doubts. Even Pikel, so hopeful when they had first tried to awaken the trees, frowned.
“It will work,” Cadderly growled at them, so determinedly that even Ivan did not try to tell him differently. Danica hooked his arm for support and gave him an approving wink.
Elbereth arrived a short while later, accompanied by Shayleigh and Galladel. The three had already heard of Cadderly’s latest revelation, and Galladel in particular seemed hardly pleased.
“Syldritch Trea,” Cadderly said as soon as they arrived, giving the pessimistic elf king no time to quash his momentum. “The summons will work in Syldritch Trea.”
“You cannot know that,” Elbereth replied, though the elf prince appeared intrigued.
“And we cannot afford to waste precious time,” King Galladel added sharply. “You have seen the despair your false hopes have given us, priest. It would be better now—for all concerned—if you continued on your way home.”
“Home,” Cadderly echoed wistfully, aiming his remark at Elbereth. “Quite a concept, that. A place to be defended, perhaps. At least, that is what I, who have never had a true home, was once told.”
Danica winced and gave Cadderly’s arm a jerk as Elbereth stormed over to stand before them.
“What do you know of it?” the elf prince demanded. “Do you believe it is with light hearts that we leave Shilmista?”
“I do not believe most of you wish to leave at all,” Cadderly replied, not bending an inch under Elbereth’s cold glare. “And perhaps you need not. Perhaps . . .”
“Ware his twisted tongue!” Galladel cried. “I understand you now, young priest,” the elf king roared, wagging an accusatory finger Cadderly’s way. “You have come to encourage us to continue this hopeless battle, to sacrifice us, that your precious home might be saved.”
“The library is not my home,” Cadderly muttered, but his words were lost in the ensuing explosion of protests aimed at the elf king from Ivan and Danica, a “Hey!” from Pikel, and even a few stern words from Elbereth.
When things quieted again, Cadderly gave Galladel’s accusation not another thought. He looked at Elbereth, and at Elbereth only, as he made his case. “The summons must work,” he said. “I believe in it with all my heart. This is no ruse, no deception to encourage an elven sacrifice. It is a hope that your home will not fall under our monstrous enemy’s shadow, that the elven dance will continue throughout my lifetime in this forest so dear.”
“Syldritch Trea lies to the west and north,” Elbereth replied. “To get there, I will have to cross the enemy lines once more, and far deeper this time. If the summons does not work . . .”
“You’ll not go alone,” Cadderly vowed, and he shot a glance Galladel’s way.
“He’ll not go at all!” the elf king growled.
“What say you, Elbereth?” Cadderly continued, holding the elf prince’s gaze from his father’s scowl. “Back on the paths of the Snowflakes you told me you would fight for Shilmista, that you would kill every invader without mercy. You were correct in your assumption—I have no home—but I will go with you, fight with you and die with you if that must be, on this last chance for the forest.”
“As will I,” Danica asserted.
“Seems we’re going for another walk, me brother,” Ivan piped in. Pikel’s head wagged in full approval.
Elbereth looked around to all of them, his smile growing wider with each second. “You have given me hope, friend,” he said to Cadderly. “I will read the words in Syldritch Trea, then let the forest decide its fate.”
“And yours,” Galladel snarled. “What will you do when the trees do not awaken? You will be caught in the open and vulnerable, surrounded by our merciless enemies. I hoped I would not live to see my son perish, but never would I have imagined that his death would come from his own foolishness!”
Shayleigh, for so long biting back her increasingly bitter thoughts, broke her silence at last. “Not foolishness,” she cried. “Courage. Many will go with you, Prince Elbereth, entrusting their lives to your hopes and to the forest.”
“That would not be wise,” Elbereth replied, but for purely practical reasons and not because of any doubts he had concerning the ancient summons. “A small band might slip through without a fight.”
“Then we shall meet your return,” Shayleigh promised. “With the trees of Syldritch Trea beside us, we will drive the enemy from our land!”
“I am still king of Shilmista,” Galladel, standing some distance from the conspirators, reminded them.
“You wish to come along and read the summons?” Cadderly asked, for he knew well that Galladel had no desire to do any such thing. Beside him, Danica gasped at his impudence.
“I could strike you down for that remark,” Galladel growled at him.
“I don’t think so,” Ivan remarked, his axe bouncing prominently on one shoulder.
“And you, dwarf,” spat the elven king. “When this is ended . . .”
“Aw, shut yer mouth and get in line behind yer son,” Ivan snapped. Galladel cast a murderous glare at all of them, turned about, and stormed away.
“How dare you speak to the king of Shilmista like that?” Danica scolded Cadderly, amazed, though obviously not as upset as her words made her sound.
Cadderly looked away from her, to Elbereth, more interested, in this instance, in what the elf might think. Elbereth said nothing, but his nod was one of approval.
“You have inspired my father’s hopes as well,” Elbereth said sincerely. “I do not doubt that King Galladel will be among those awaiting our return from Syldritch Trea, waiting to fight beside the forest itself to rid our land of the foul invaders.” The elf prince and Shayleigh followed Galladel away then, with many plans to be made.
Kierkan Rufo didn’t know what to make of Danica’s approach, or of her grim visage. Sensing another telepathic intrusion from that wretched imp, Rufo had wandered off alone, away from Cadderly and the others.
“And so I shall return to the library alone,” the angular man said meekly to the approaching woman. “To tell of your bravery, and of Cadderly’s, and to hope that all goes well in this ancient grove of oaks, this Syldritch Trea that the elves speak of so reverently.”
“Your hopes for our success had better be sincere,” Danica replied, “for you are coming with us.”
Rufo nearly toppled at the announcement. “I?” he balked. “What use could I be? I am hardly a fighter and am not knowledgeable of the woodlands in any way.”
“It is not for your value that I insist you come,” Danica explained. “I fear the consequences of leaving you here.”
“How dare you speak such words?” Rufo groused.
“I dare not hesitate to speak them,” Danica retorted. “I do not trust you, Kierkan Rufo. Know that and know that you shall accompany us.”
“I will not!”
Rufo didn’t even see her move, but suddenly he lay on his back, looking up at the stars with a burning pain behind his knees. Danica bent over him and scowled.
“You will not be left behind,” she said evenly. “Understand that, for the sake of your very life.”
By the time the sun began its ascent in the east, Elbereth, Shayleigh, and two score of other elves had found their way back to Cadderly and his companions.
“It is decided,” the elf prince announced. “We three—you, Danica, and I—shall go to Syldritch Trea.”
“Ahem.” Pikel cleared his throat.
Elbereth looked to Cadderly and Danica.
“They did save your—our—lives,” Cadderly reminded the elf prince. “And I would honestly feel safer with the brothers beside me.”
“Why would you wish to come along?” Elbereth asked Ivan. “This journey could prove ill-fated, and even if it is not, the gain will mean little to you.”
“Me brother likes trees,” Ivan answered without the slightest hesitation.
Elbereth shrugged hopelessly; Cadderly thought he saw the elf quickly dismiss an appreciative smile. “Then we five shall go—“
“Six,” Danica corrected.
Even Cadderly turned on her curiously.
“Kierkan Rufo insists that he come along,” Danica explained. “He fears being left alone in the forest with only the elves, who he does not understand.”
The notion seemed absurd—Rufo had already been left with the elves—but when Cadderly looked to the angular man, he was nodding his head, if somewhat gravely.
“Six, then,” said Elbereth.
“None of yer own folk got the belly for it?” Ivan asked.
“Perhaps when all of this is ended, I should get in line behind Elbereth and King Galladel,” Shayleigh answered sternly, before Elbereth could explain. She tried to cast a threatening glare but could not hold it in the face of Ivan’s amused chuckle.
“My people will be there,” Elbereth explained. “All of my people. Even my father. They’ll be not far from us, unseen in the boughs. They will bring about the distractions to allow us to get through to Syldritch Trea, and they will be ready to begin the final battle when the summons is complete.
“You must understand the risks,” Elbereth continued, mostly to Cadderly. “If the trees do not come to my call, then many, perhaps all, of Shilmista’s elves will die. In light of that, tell me again of your confidence in the ancient words.”
“If the trees do not answer, then my life, too, will be forfeit,” the scholar replied in defense of his claims. “As will Danica’s, which I treasure above my own.”
Danica glanced sidelong at Cadderly. He didn’t return the look, intent on Elbereth, but she knew he understood her approval of the change that had come over him.
They set off immediately after their morning meal, the company of six with a host of elves slipping all about them, clearing their path.
Kierkan Rufo was not pleased, though he was smart enough to keep his complaints silent. Merciless Danica had left him no choice, and so he had come along.
So, too, in Rufo’s mind, had Druzil, the imp.
Dorigen got the news of the departure only an hour later. She sat in her tent in Ragnor’s camp, trying to decide what course to take.
“They tried once before to awaken the trees,” Druzil reminded her, hoping to ease her obvious torment. “Why should we believe their luck will be any better this time?”
“We would be wise to fear anything involving the young scholar and his resourceful friends,” Dorigen replied.
“We can catch them,” Druzil said, eagerly rubbing his plump hands together.
Dorigen shook her head. “Not again.”
Druzil’s bulbous eyes narrowed. “Has Dorigen lost her courage along with her barbarian lover?”
Dorigen’s answering glare stole the bite from the absurd remark. “Dorigen’s wisdom has grown with her failures,” she corrected. “Our last defeat cost me much prestige in this camp, and in Ragnor’s eyes. I doubt the ogrillon would lend me the soldiers to capture that crew—and that number, I fear, would be considerable.”
“He is just a boy,” Druzil remarked, “and his friends as unlikely a group of heroes as ever there was.”
“He is a boy who nearly destroyed you in mental combat,” Dorigen reminded him, “and whose friends include an elf prince and a woman able to dodge lightning! Must I remind you of the mighty dwarves as well? Ogres, a dozen orogs . . .”
“Enough, enough,” Druzil conceded, not wanting to hear the disastrous battle recounted. “I had only hoped that we might discover some method to regain our advantage. Their course might prove dangerous to us all. I had thought to lessen—“
“You are correct,” Dorigen interrupted, rising determinedly from her seat. “This is too important to be concerned with the petty squabbles of Castle Trinity.”
“You are going to Ragnor?” Druzil asked. “What of the young priest?”
“I am,” Dorigen answered. “As for Cadderly, we two will look for a way to take him, as we had originally planned. If that way cannot be found, then he will die with the rest of them.”
She left the tent in a rush, leaving Druzil to sit alone on the small table with his private thoughts. “People,” the imp muttered.