The lordling was ready for her. He’d used the time bought in blood by his dying comrades to pull his own weapon from his scabbard. It was a heavy black sword, little more than a cold iron bar with a single rough edge. He snarled and jabbered something in barbarian-speak. Alea’s only reply was to draw back her lips in a grin that promised swift death.
The human lunged, and Alea dodged nimbly out of the way, her own narrow blade a mere ribbon of steel. As she glided past, she brought her blade up smoothly and was rewarded with the wet, tearing sound of leather and flesh parting. She danced back to face her foe and saw that the human was bleeding along his sword arm.
Bright rage flared in the human’s eyes, and he snarled, but then calmed visibly and went into a crouch. This was no battle-mad beast that would charge conveniently onto her sword. Instead, the human held his blade out, its point tracing a small circle in the air, waiting for her to come to him.
She took a step forward, and he lunged again. This time she brought her steel up against the human’s iron blade. The cold-wrought iron grated roughly against her own smooth-edged sword, and she caught the lordling’s blade against the guards of her own weapon. Straining, she turned it aside, stripping the weapon from her opponent’s hand. As it clattered to the ground, she danced back, and then darted in, blade sweeping up to gut the man from belly to throat.
Something large and furry thundered into her ribs from the right, and Alea was suddenly falling to the ground herself, rolling clear as she fell. The large furry thing was one of the female bodyguards, who loomed large above her-and then disappeared under the leap of another fur-covered streak, this time a wolf. The barbarian woman toppled backward with a scream that ended in a bloody gurgle.
Then Alea was on her feet again, shaking her head to clear her vision. The lordling had disappeared in the dust and confusion of the fray. Was he hunting for another weapon, or had he decided the surrounding woods would be a safer place for him than an encampment overrun by elves?
The frail human captive with the ragged red beard was stumbling up to her, holding his manacled wrists forward. In elvish, the rail-thin mortal said politely, “Unlock these, if you please.”
The words hit Alea with the force of a blow. She hadn’t expected any of these ground apes to know the True Tongue, and this one spoke it with only the barest hint of an accent. Who was he? And if she let him go, would he help or flee into the woods?
Across the dusty clearing, she spotted the hairy human lordling.
“Later,” she said, pushing past the manacled one. He bellowed something else at her back that she did not catch.
The lordling saw her about the same time and swatted aside an elven hunter to reach her. He hadn’t found another sword but instead wielded a long chain topped by a metal ball bristling with spikes.
He swung it at her when she was still out of range, the ball moaning an arc through the air. Alea lunged in behind it, hoping to skewer the shaggy human before he could react.
She’d misjudged, even as she moved, the human stepped forward, pulling his shoulders around, quickly reversing the direction of his swing. The chain wrapped tightly around her lower arm, the spikes at its end grabbing at her flesh.
Alea snarled, caught off-balance, as the human braced himself with both feet and pulled hard.
She was quicker and more nimble than the barbarian, but the human had the edge in height, weight, and strength. As she was hauled forward, she dropped her blade and toppled helplessly at the lordling’s feet. A boot stamped cruelly down, she twisted and took it on her shoulder rather than her throat.
He smiled, the last rays of the setting sun setting the scars on his face ablaze and highlighting the gap in his teeth. One hand firmly gripping the chain that held her braced against his planted boot, he used the other to draw a steel dagger the size of a dragon’s tooth from his belt.
Then a pair of frail hands reached up on either side of the lordling’s head, and Alea heard someone shout an ancient archaic word, a magical word, one that would trip a memorized spell.
The hands glowed a fierce blue, and the barbarian chieftain’s head disappeared in the radiance. When the glow vanished, the head was gone as well. Slowly, like a boat with a slow leak, the barbarian’s reeling body settled to the earth.
Behind the corpse stood the red-bearded wizard, who’d apparently gotten his manacles off after all. He offered a hand to Alea.
Alea grabbed her own blade and stood up, looking around the encampment. The fight was over. There was a snarling cluster of wolves atop one still-struggling human, but the other foes were now nothing but inanimate, shaggy lumps strewn on the ground.
Many of the elves had shed some blood, but none had fallen. There was not a human standing except for the pale, bearded one in the ragged finery. “You’re welcome,” he said quietly in the True Tongue.
Alea frowned. “You’re not with this lot, are you?” she asked gruffly, pulling the ear-laden thong from what was left of the human lord.
“Observant as well as strong,” murmured the human.
“No, I am not with them. These savages caught me, thought me an evil wizard, and were about to use me for the evening’s entertainment when you made your timely arrival.”
Alea put the elven ears into her pouch, to be returned to the Elian family and entombed with the rest of the elf’s body.
“So vengeance was your motivation,” said the pale human, still trying to strike up a conversation. “A pity. I thought it was concern about my impending doom.”
She looked hard at the human, as if seeing him for the first time. “You’re Netherese?”
The human moved his head in a half shake, half-nod. “Netheril is no more.”
“You can go your way then, human,” Alea declared, turning back to where the rest of her hunting group was gathering. The huts had been looted for what little treasure could be found, and one of the elves moved from hut to hut, setting fire to the buildings with a burning log. Thick smoke began to curl, and the elves started to toss human bodies into the huts, to be consumed in the blaze to come. Many had already had their ears removed.
“That won’t stop them, you know,” said the pale human.
Alea stopped again and looked hard at the human. She sighed. “What won’t stop who?”
“Killing. Humans. Well, these humans, at any rate.” He nudged a mauled corpse with one toe. “If you kill a human, you have to worry about his children coming after you. And grandchildren. And sister-kin, and distant kin, and friends and all-until whole peoples are arming against you. No, killing just encourages them.”
Alea’s upper lip curled back from her teeth. “The matter is more simple, you-who-love-to-talk. This is land is ours. We are its guardians. It is our hunting ground.”
The human nodded. “And other humans know this: the Dalesmen spilling across the Dragon Reach, and the greedy or desperate from the wealthy merchant nations of the south. They know of this land of forests now-a rich, untamed hunting ground, with only a few elves to defend it. Ripe for the taking.”
“A fair warning,” Alea said grudgingly, eyebrows lifting. “And yet I wonder why you make it. You are human, you know,” she said, curiosity twisting her voice as the last of the huts were set ablaze.
“Sometimes I wish I weren’t,” said the frail form, extending a hand. “Bacrauble Etharr.”
Alea looked at the man’s outstretched hand. He disdains humans, she thought, yet the pressing of palms was a very human action.
She looked back up the arm to its owner, his beard wild in the last fading light. He looked almost comical, though at the back of her mind, she was thinking his looks hardly mattered. He’d probably die out here in a matter of nights without elven protection.