Bleak with despair, his skull ringing from the force of the blow, Iydahoe lumbered groggily to his feet and shook his head to clear the sudden fog. He looked toward the drying racks to see Puiquill stand courageously as a man charged forward. The fellow cut her down with a single blow, kicking her corpse to the side as he turned toward the huddling children. Bakali, with a shriek of rage, stabbed upward, but the man knocked the youth aside with a contemptuous laugh. Grinning cruelly, the fellow raised his gory sword for another fatal blow.
Somehow Iydahoe's feet obeyed his mind, and he sprang toward the drying rack, raising his knife in time to deflect the man's powerful blow. With a grunt of surprise, the legionnaire looked at the warrior, his red eyes gleaming with fury and hatred, but before he could raise his sword, Iydahoe had cut him down with a slashing blow to the neck.
More men turned toward the tiny knot of young Kagonesti, while horsemen continued to pour into the camp from the marsh trail. Behind the drying racks plunged a narrow draw leading down to the water, and though normally the ravine was too tangled for anyone to think of going there, now it seemed the only chance.
"Fly!" hissed the brave, urging the sobbing children into the shadowy depression. A girl, Ambra, clutched Iydahoe's leg, and he pushed her away, relieved when Dallatar helped her toward the underbrush. Several of the boys led the way, while Bakall stood beside Iydahoe, driving the first of the pursuers back. When the young elves had slipped out of sight, the warrior pushed Bakall after them, then dove into the brambles himself, Istarian swords slashing at his heels.
For desperate minutes the tiny band of survivors struggled down the tangled gully. The young elves, fortunately, were so small that they could wriggle under the worst of the tangle, and Iydahoe ignored the cuts on his own skin. Finally the group of terrified, weary elves collapsed, gasping for breath, in a deep forest grove. When Iydahoe backtracked to check for pursuit, he could hear nothing.
"We're safe, at least for the moment," he said, creeping back to the little band. He counted ten boys and an equal number of girls there and realized with a sickening sense of responsibility that he-who had been a warrior for less than a full season-was perhaps the senior surviving member of the tribe.
"Are we the only ones left?" asked Tiffli, a wisp of a girl who struggled bravely against an urge to cry.
"Is my mummy killed?" asked another waif, whose name Iydahoe didn't know. That lack of knowledge brought him a pang of guilt, and he wished he could give her a hopeful answer.
He remembered Moxilli, felled by the cruel steel bolt, and all the other elves who had been hacked to death by the swords of the human butchers.
"If we are all that are left," Bakall stated, the boldness of his tone not quite denying the quaver in his voice, "then we shall be the tribe. I am ready to be a warrior!"
"And I," declared Dallatar, looking much older than he had when he'd earlier asked Iydahoe to take them fishing.
Iydahoe nodded absently, despair rising in a wave within him. How could he be mother and father to these elves? He could teach them a few things, but so many things he wouldn't know. Would he have to do it alone?
Then the branches parted beside them and Iydahoe looked into the reddened, horrified eyes of his father, Hawkan. The elder Kagonesti stumbled into the little group, shaking his head in horror.
"On the mountaintop I saw a portent of evil-I returned • at once, but never could I imagine anything like…" His words trailed off, and he looked at his son seriously. "I am glad you have saved some of the tribe."
"For what?" demanded the young warrior. "To die in the winter, or to hide from the legionnaire butchers? How can this be a tribe-?"
"Do not speak such dark thoughts," Hawkan said firmly.
"But the humans had a wizard! The men of Istar were invisible. We couldn't see them approach! How can we survive against powers like that?"
"We have life, still, and therefore we must have hope. Now, how many of you are hurt?"
With shame, Iydahoe realized that he had not even checked the young elves for injury. An older girl, Ambra, had suffered a cut on her leg, and Bakali had taken a deep slash on his arm. Hawkan's knowing fingers probed at the girl's wound as he murmured a quiet prayer to the gods of the forest. In moments, Ambra's bleeding had stopped, and in another minute, Bakali, too, had been healed.
"What do we do now, Father?" asked Iydahoe, still reeling at the brink of despair.
"We move from here, to the place for a new village, though where that should be I haven't decided." Iydahoe noted a strong hint of doubt in the shaman's voice, but now it was the younger warrior who offered a tiny flicker of hope.
"This way," Iydahoe said firmly. He remembered the little grotto, with its fresh water and almost invisible approach, which he had discovered many years before. "I think I know where we can go to hide."
Chapter 24
Iydahoe, bow and arrow in his hand, crouched in a thicket and trembled with fear. These days he was always afraid, it seemed, often nearly paralyzed by a terror beyond any he had ever known. He tried to remain motionless, to steady his weapon in case a deer trotted into sight, but still his hands shook with the tremors of his deep, abiding dread. He did not shiver under a fear of pain, or of any suffering that might be visited upon himself. That kind of fear Iydahoe could face, could vanquish or ignore. The terror that gnawed at him now was deeper, a more fundamental and unanswerable menace. It was the fear that he would fail. If Iydahoe was not successful on his hunts, if he could not return regularly with fresh meat, then the Kagonesti of his little tribe would become hungry. This was the fear that threatened to crush him, borne of the knowledge that a score of wild elf lives depended on his skill with the bow and arrow. Though three braves-Kaheena and Hawkan in addition to himself-had survived the massacre, Iydahoe was recognized by all as the only true stalker. In an earlier era this knowledge might have swelled his chest with pride, but now it made him only more afraid.
Iydahoe had learned that there was only one way to counter this consuming dread: he almost never failed.
Yet he had stalked this game trail for more than twenty- four hours, hidden upwind of the path, as silent as a ghost. The tracks in the mud had been plentiful-dozens of deer had come by here on the previous day-yet in all the time he had waited he had seen not even a tremulous fawn. The clear water hole in the nearby valley was one of the few good drinking places in this part of the forest, and the deer and other forest creatures depended on it. Yet many hours had passed without sign of his shy quarry. If no deer came this afternoon or evening, Iydahoe's worst fears would materialize-he would have to return to the little tribe empty-handed.
Of course, there was always the hope that Kaheena would bring in some game. Still, Iydahoe knew that his fellow warrior did not have the steady hand of the deadly hunter-and Kaheena lacked the patience to sit, motionless, as Iydahoe had been doing since before sunrise today.
But all the patience coupled with the steadiest hands on Ansaion could not avail a hunter who never saw any game. Now, in the grip of his fear, Iydahoe grew more and more convinced that no deer would walk down this trail in the foreseeable future.
But why not? The tracks from two days earlier were clear and frequent-what would cause such a dramatic change in the animals' grazing and drinking habits? He couldn't just sit here and wait to find out. He had to do something!
His suspicions at last quelled the trembling of his fear and Iydahoe cautiously rose to his feet. Nothing stirred in the woods as he stepped onto the trail and started the long, winding descent toward the water hole in the valley.