"What treachery is this?" demanded Faltath, his face taut behind the whorls of his tattoos. "You would lead a force of humans through the heart of our woodlands?" The elf's fist closed around the hilt of his sword, and for a moment Ash wondered if his old friend would draw his weapon and violate the protection extended to the human.
"We aren't coming to invade!" declared Sir Kamford.
Faltath raised his hand from the hilt of his sword and crossed his arms firmly over his chest. "Do you mean that we should welcome humans into these forests?" he demanded, his tone edging on mockery.
"Perhaps you would prefer to welcome red dragons, or ogres, into the woodlands," suggested Ashtaway tightly. He felt his own temper rising. Why couldn't Faltath understand?
"That's just the point!" Sir Kamford's voice was full of persuasive enthusiasm, though it sounded harsh and strident to the elven ears. Still, their attention was bound by the force of his conviction. "I can't promise that if we strike at Sanction, we'll win the war. Indeed, 1 suspect the issue will be decided in the west, dragon against dragon, in the skies over Solamnia. But our attack can weaken the Dark Queen's army just when it is most in need of strength!
"And make no mistake, my elven friends." Now the knight's tone dropped to an ominous timbre so portentous that none of the Kagonesti reacted to his categorization of them. "The victor in this war will have strong bearing on the future of Krynn-for all races, all peoples. It is an effect that will outlast the lifetime of even the most venerable elf."
"I have seen the dragons," Ashtaway noted. "If they return, the forests will not be safe for elf or man. Far better to cast our weight before the war is resolved, that the dragons of evil may be defeated."
He looked at Sir Kamford, and his hazel eyes were flat and cold. "After this war," he added meaningfully, "we can decide what to do about the humans."
"Fair enough," agreed the armored knight. "I offer my word-I shall describe your contribution to my lords, as well as your desire that we leave you alone. We pass through your realm only because it offers the best-the only-path against the Dark Queen's bastion."
Ashtaway felt a surge of apprehension. Was he doing the right thing?
If he made the wrong decision, and the village was attacked again, could they hope for a repeat of their recent good fortune? Or might they be attacked by dragons and ogres as well as by the dimwitted bakali? If so, Ash knew that it might mean the end of the tribe.
Yet if they left this place, they had no guarantee that they would find another site half as good-perhaps there would not even be woodlands, a range of pastoral forest in which to hunt and live. He knew how quickly humans bred and multiplied, about their insatiable thirst for land. It did not seem inconceivable that during the last thousand years they had claimed great sections of what had once been forest.
Finally Ashtaway sighed and opened his eyes, which he fixed upon the face of Sir Kamford Willis. "How long will it take you to reach Solamnia and return to the woodland with this army of knights?"
"Two weeks to walk home, a week to gather the force, and another week to return with riders-and myself back in a saddle. In four weeks, you could show us the way into Sanction."
"I do not know these 'weeks,'" replied the venerable Kagonesti. "What does this mean in the cycles of Krynn?"
Sir Kamford frowned in thought, then looked at the dawnlit sky. The sliver of Lunitari, barely past new, had just risen in the east. "When Lunitari grows to fullness, then fades, and then returns as a crescent such as it is now, I shall arrive with my knights."
"Very well. I will tell you of a place we can meet, in the foothills north of here," Iydaway agreed. "The tribe will remain beside the Bluelake for at least another season. By that time we should know if the menace of evil has been defeated or merely enraged such that we will need to flee."
"Splendid!" declared the knight. "I depart at once!"
"First, you must stay and eat with us," the young Pathfinder declared. "For it is bad fortune to start a journey on an empty stomach."
Chapter 15
The tribe remained at the Bluelake as the early summer advanced. The young Pathfinder suggested that they increase the number of warriors guarding the approaches to the village, and his tribemates welcomed the idea. The knowledge that he could help them pleased Ashtaway, but he missed his uncle greatly, seemingly more with each passing hour.
Geese had flocked to the shoreline marshes two days after the battle, winging from the south in great, cackling formations. Most of the tribe's hunters went out in search of game, and it seemed that, for the present, lack of food would not be a problem.
Ashtaway did not accompany the archers on the great stalking. Assured that the tribe would eat well, he left the village, climbing away from the lake and into the wooded foothills. He departed with a strange reluctance, as if he neglected a responsibility. Though he knew that Iydaway-and the earlier Pathfinders-had often vanished into the wilderness for months, even seasons, at a time, Ash felt the spiral horn as a surprisingly heavy weight at his side, an anchor that seemed to hold him close to the tribe. He missed the smiles, the jokes, and the boasts of his fellow warriors. Yet he loped easily through the forest for hour after hour, as cool morning passed into sun-soaked afternoon.
His mind, freed from battles and choices, dwelled on Lectral-and Hammana. It would be very good to see the dragon again, he knew. As to the elfmaid, he desperately wanted to see her, but because of the horn at his side, he was terribly afraid.
He reached the glade where, by Lectral's suggestion, he had earlier taken the deer, and was fortunate enough to bring down a young buck with barely an hour's stalking. Slinging the gutted carcass over his shoulders, he contin- ued on, climbing through the cut into the rocky crest, seeing the obsidian cliff rising beyond.
Shortly before dusk, he approached the sheltered cave where he had left Hammana and Lectral. Slowing to a walk, he followed the same trail on which he had met the elfwoman on their first visit to the silver dragon. Even before she came into sight, a waft of breeze carried Ham- mana's scent to him, and Ash knew that she was in the woods-no doubt gathering more medicinal herbs for her huge patient.
He found her kneeling in a meadow of columbine and honeysuckle, digging at a stubborn root. So as not to startle her, he coughed gently from the edge of the clearing.
Hammana leapt to her feet, whirling to face him, looking at once frightened, embarrassed, a little angry, and far more beautiful than his imagination had remembered. Her face flushed as she wiped the dirt from her hands and smoothed the supple doeskin of her skirt.
"I'm glad to see you again," Ash said, stepping toward her. For a moment, he was the young warrior again, carefree and confident-the Pathfinder's job was a task for someone else, someone wise, like his uncle.
"I-um-Lectral will be happy that you're back," she stammered, still startled by his sudden appearance. He dared to hope that the blush rising across her cheeks was a sign that their meeting brought her as much joy as it did him.
"I told your father that you would stay here for a while. I le was worried, but he trusts you."
"Thank you. Lectral's much better. I think the pouldces have helped a lot."
"There's not another in all the tribes who could tend him so well," Ash declared.
"And how fares the village?" she asked, allowing him to fall into step beside her as they started toward Lectral's cave.
"There was trouble," he admitted. He started to tell her about the bakali, but abruptly she froze, her eyes locked on the spiral hom at his side.