Ash shook his head, unwilling to admit that his own suggestion for that tactic had been vetoed. He could clearly imagine the mass bakali escape, however, if Sir Kamford had not arrived when he did.
'The aim of our attack was to drive them off. Thanks to your help, the victory is-"
Ash froze, paralyzed by a look of alarm on Ampruss's face as the young brave dashed up to him. "It's the Pathfinder! You must see him-before it's too late!"
Panicked, the warrior raced to the ruins of his uncle's lodge. Ampruss ran beside him. "It was a bakali-it came out of the woods when the battle was almost over. I… I killed it, but too late!" The young warrior's voice choked, and Ashtaway sensed, with pain of his own, Ampruss's grief and guilt.
Iydaway lay on a straw mat just outside his former front door. Ash knelt beside him, sickened to see a deep, bubbling wound in the Pathfinder's frail chest.
The old elf's lips gasped reflexively, but no sounds emerged. Ash leaned close as his uncle desperately tried to speak.
"Here… take…"
At first the warrior didn't understand what Iydaway meant. The old elf's hands trembled, seemed to flail mean- inglessly. Or perhaps, Ashtaway didn't want to understand.
"The Ram's Horn, Pathfinder," Iydaway gasped. "It is yours now-yours as long as the gods allow."
"Don't talk!" urged Ashtaway, desperately frightened by the old man's weakness, and by his words as well.
"I… had hoped to teach you longer. But I have always suspected you would be the one-then, when you heard the second Ram's Horn, I knew."
"Please, Uncle-"
"Listen… no time… you are the Pathfinder. Go, now, speak to the tribe…"
"But-what can I say? Why should they listen?"
"Use the horn… it will know… play the horn, and Father Kagonesti will show you…"
For a time Iydaway was silent, and Ash feared he had died. Finally the wounded Pathfinder opened his eyes, inhaling a deep, bubbling breath.
"Take the tribe south… the central woodlands… find the path."
With a gurgling exhalation, the elder Kagonesti shuddered and lay still. Tears stung Ash's eyes, and he looked, with something like loathing, at the spiraled horn in his hands.
Then he thought of Hammana, of the potent force-he knew, now, too late, that it was love-growing between them. He truly hated the horn, hating even more the bonds of pledge and responsibility that were its potent companions.
But he could not ignore the command. Blindly he rose to his feet, stumbling away with a hand in front of his face-the hand that brandished the Ram's Horn. Vaguely he became aware that many eyes were turned to him. He blinked, and forced himself to stand tall.
"You are the Pathfinder," Faltath declared, his voice emerging from the mass of tattooed braves. Ashtaway didn't see his old friend, but he wanted, desperately, to argue with his words.
Ashtaway thought: My uncle has made a mistake! The young warrior wanted to shout the news to the tribe, to hold out the spiraled horn for any who would take it. But he couldn't do this any more than he could disobey Iydaway's command.
"He gave it to me because I heard the second Ram's Horn. Let us gather in the council circle, and I will tell the tale."
The wild elves ringed the central fire pit of the village. They listened raptly as Ashtaway told of the summons from Lectral, of the silver dragon that Hammana still tended. His voice tightened reflexively as he spoke of the beautiful healer, of her tender ministrations toward the mighty serpent.
After a time, one of the older warriors produced a pipe, and for several minutes the braves smoked, passing the ritual bowl from one to another-waiting silently while the young Pathfinder suspended the telling for his turn to inhale the aged tobacco. Ashtaway gave it to Sir Kamford and admired the human's fortitude as the knight drew in the harsh smoke and allowed it to breeze easily outward from his nostrils.
Pensively, Ash's mind returned to Hammana. More than ever before, he wanted to see her, to talk to her. But he had other things to do now, and to say.
"The tribe must make ready to depart," Ashtaway declared. "Such was my uncle's last wish, and it shall be done."
"You won the battle, and you're still going to leave?" The knight spoke more bluntly and hastily than an elf, and Ashtaway paused, startled.
"The village has never been attacked here," the Pathfinder explained shortly. "Now the bakali, and doubtlessly other minions of the Dark Queen, know that we are here. We fear for the lives of our elders and our children. Also, it seems that the war is creeping steadily closer."
"Aye, my friend. Those are good fears, right and proper. But as to the war, if you find a place where it's not encroaching, 1 wish you'd let me know. There's people all over Ansalon wishing for the same thing, but not one that I know of's been able to find it."
"We will move south, into the heart of the forest lands that divide Silvanesti and Qualinesti."
"Forests? Maybe in your granddaddy's time, I'll guess," Sir Kamford disputed, with a wry chuckle that struck a dissonant note in the contemplative elves. 'True, I'd heard tales going back to the time of Vinas Solamnus himself. Said that there used to be woodlands filling the whole gap between the Kharolis and Khalkist Ranges. Not anymore, I'm afraid. You're talking of migrating into some prime farmland now."
The Kagonesti warriors remained silent, but uneasy glances flickered among the tribe. None of them was prepared to believe the word of a savage human, but neither did any of the elves have personal knowledge of the southern forests. Not since the Kinslayer War had any of the wild elves dwelled there, and that was a thousand years in the past.
"It's not a surprise, I guess, that the lizardmen should have found you down here." The human rambled on with a garrulousness that rendered meditative discourse practically impossible. Ashtaway, however, was curious to hear what the man would say.
"The Dark Queen's armies are starting a big push to the west this year. By high summer, there'll be battles waged from here to Palanthas, if she has her way. It's only natural that she send some of her lizards into the forest, looking for a way around the knights."
"I first observed you with a small company of knights. Did you then seek to block this maneuver?" Ash asked. He began to wonder if, behind the knight's undeniable courage, there lurked the mind of a mad fool. His force of two dozen men seemed far too small to accomplish such a bold mission.
"We were not here as an army, either of invasion or defense," the knight assured him. "Our primary task was to explore the valleys in the foothills, to seek a route into the mountains."
"Not to defend Palanthas?" Ashtaway tried to picture a reason for the human's strategy.
"No, but, perhaps, to make the Queen's attack against Palanthas less successful. Takhisis, you see, has sent practically all of her dragons with the strike force of her armies. They make a formidable force, and we know their target is, eventually, Palanthas."
"Then the war may indeed be approaching its end," declared Faltath. His tone made it clear that he viewed the defeat of the knights as a thing of precious little consequence to himself or the tribe.
Once again, Ash found himself disagreeing with his lifelong friend. The prospect of dragons soaring over the woodland, of bakali legions roaming and plundering wherever they wanted to go, seemed like a chilling legacy for the years of his children and grandchildren-and then, with a cold shiver, he again felt the weight of the Ram's Horn. There would be no children for him.