Gaerradh kept her bow at hand and maintained her watch as the first of the marching elves lightly leaped from stone to stone across the stream. So far, they'd avoided additional battles with the demon-elves or their orc marauders, but only by fleeing deeper into the forest. All across the western High Forest, the wood elves were in flight, abandoning their camps and villages to seek shelter in the trackless depths of the immense woodland. Not all of the elven villages had managed to escape the invaders. In four days Gaerradh's company had found one band of refugees slaughtered in a burned glade, and a village that had been surrounded and systematically exterminated. She still saw the flayed bodies every time she closed her eyes.
"Rillifane Rallathil, Master of the Forest, hide us from our enemies," she prayed under her breath. "Spread your branches out over your People, and conceal us from our foes."
Somewhere ahead they would find sanctuary. The High Forest was simply too large a hiding place, and even the most determined pursuer couldn't hope to run all the fleeing bands to ground.
But they might catch up to a few.
A low whistle caught Gaerradh's ear. She looked back at the column beside her. Lady Morgwais stood nearby, speaking words of encouragement to each elf passing by.
"We will halt for a short time on the other side of the stream," she called out. "Move well under the trees, so that we will be hidden from any foes flying over the riverbed. Take care to build smokeless fires, but build them anyway. We all need a hot meal and a little warmth after this dreary day."
Morgwais watched the last of the elves cross the stream. Small and sprightly, she had passed up and down the marching band constantly for days, her light laughter an instant cure for fatigue or despondency. The Lady of the Wood seemed indefatigable, and her unwavering confidence had done wonders for keeping the band moving in the face of the waning winter. She gazed after the company, and Gaerradh caught a glimpse of utter exhaustion as the lady's energetic mask crumbled.
The ranger quickly slid down the boulder to the trail. Sheeril followed, leaping down beside her.
"Lady Morgwais, are you well?" Gaerradh asked.
Morgwais rallied with a smile and replied, "As well as any of us."
"Nonsense. You've marched twice as far as anyone, and you've kept a song for us all and a laugh on your lips for days now. You must make sure to rest, too."
"I'll thank you to keep that thought to yourself. Besides, you and the rest of our scouts have covered far more ground than I have," Morgwais said. She moved a short distance under the spreading boughs of a blueleaf and found a reasonably dry log to sit on. "Come, you've earned a break as well."
Gaerradh started to decline, but then she realized that Morgwais might need some encouragement of her own. She agreed with a nod, and joined the lady on the stump, Sheeril curled up at her feet. They sat together in silence, listening to the voice of the stream and the rainwater dripping through the branches.
"Do you think they'll follow us all the way to the Lost Peak strongholds?" Gaerradh said finally. "It's nearly two hundred miles from Rheitheillaethor to the mountains."
"I don't know," Morgwais said with a sigh, "but I fear so. Look around you. What do you see?"
"The forest. A stand of blueleafs here. The Ilthaelrun, there. There's a nest of snow owls above us in this tree. The female is watching us with no small alarm."
"It's a pretty spot. We could raise a camp here and stay a season or two, and we wouldn't lack for anything," Morgwais said. "The whole of the High Forest is more or less the same to us, isn't it? Our people have no need to till a river plain, or trade at a crossroads, or build a town to house our craftsmen and merchants. We could easily settle anywhere in the forest. In fact, there is no reason we couldn't march another hundred miles farther south and hide among the Starmounts. One place in the forest is much the same as any other, so why not abandon the eastern reaches for a time? Let the orcs and the tainted ones have it."
"I don't care for the idea of giving such murderous beasts leave to poison our homeland."
"Nor do I, but that is not the mark I was shooting at. Nothing in the lands we hold in the eastern reaches of the forest is particularly valuable to us, really, which suggests to me that territory in the forest is not particularly important to the daemonfey, either, at least not for its own sake. Oh, there are plenty of old ruins they may have an interest in, but we only guard a handful of those places." Morgwais met Gaerradh's gaze and said, "They are here for us, Gaerradh. Not our lands, not our possessions. They intend to break our strength and scatter us, perhaps drive us out of the forest all together. And that means they will follow us wherever we flee."
Gaerradh drew in a breath. She had been looking forward to the refuges of the Lost Peaks, the secret glens and hidden vales in the heart of the forest, long since prepared as havens and strongholds in times of trouble. But if Lady Morgwais was right…
"We will have to stand and fight, then," she said quietly. "Not yet, perhaps, and not here. But soon."
The lady nodded and said, "We are not prepared for an enemy like this. There are a hundred or more bands and companies of our folk scattered over this forest, but only a handful of those can muster even fifty warriors. Until we gather our strength somewhere, we will be harried and hunted. Somehow I must summon all the companies, all the clans and villages, together, and build an army to meet these foes. And I must pray that we have the strength to defeat them."
"I cannot remember any such gathering of the People in this forest."
"It hasn't happened since the days of Eaerlann, and Eaerlann fell almost five hundred years ago-long before your time, and even a little before mine."
"What of our kinfolk in Evereska or Evermeet? Have we heard from them?" Gaerradh asked. "We have no experience in raising armies, but they do."
Morgwais looked away.
"Evereska is endangered, too," she said. "I have spoken to Turlang the treant, and he tells me that armies of evil creatures, including more of the demonspawn, are marching south through the Delimbiyr Vale toward the Shaeradim. After the war against the phaerimm, Evereska has no strength to spare for us."
"Well, what of Evermeet, then?"
"I do not know. I have sent word to Amlaruil's court, but I have heard no response."
"Do you think they would refuse us help?" Gaerradh asked with alarm.
"No, I doubt that. But I do think it is entirely possible that Evermeet might take months to decide how to help, and we might not have that much time for the sun elves to think over our situation for us." Morgwais stood and dusted off her seat, shaking her head. "You know sun elves. Anything worth doing deserves ten years of second-guessing before they'll agree to it. Sometimes I wonder how they manage to pick out their clothes in the morning."
Gaerradh looked up at Morgwais and asked, "Were you not married to a sun elf?"
"Yes, long ago. It took him fifty years to propose to me," Morgwais said with a laugh. "Listen, Gaerradh, there is something I want you to do. Go north to the Silver Marches and tell Alustriel of Silverymoon what is happening here in the forest. I have no doubt that she knows much of it already, but you have followed and fought this new foe for days now. She will want to know what you have seen, and what you think."
"Do you think she will help us?"
"I don't know. The cities of the Silver Marches have enemies of their own to guard against. But she and her sisters have always been friends of the People, and she is a Chosen of Mystra." Morgwais rested a hand on Gaerradh's shoulder. "And… if we are driven from our refuges, then Silverymoon must know that they could face this peril next. If I cannot contain the daemonfey, it will fall to Alustriel and her confederation to do it."