Dallatar took the meat from Iydahoe while several girls gathered wet wood for the smokehouse. Some of the venison they would eat fresh, but the rest would be smoked and dried as additions to their winter stores. The warrior squatted beside his father, silently watching as Hawkan meditated above the fragments of the horn. Bakall returned to his watch post overlooking the approach to the grotto.
The young elf had been gone for only a few minutes when Iydahoe heard the rattling whistle of a crane- Bakall's symbol that a member of the tribe approached with important news. The warrior picked up his weapons and trotted through the narrow cut leading out of their grotto. In moments, he met sweat-streaked Kagwallas, one of the boys a bit younger than Bakall. The younger elf staggered to a stop as he saw Iydahoe.
"I come from Kaheena," Kagwallas declared, forcing his words between deep gulps of breath. "He has taken a House Elf captive. He wants you to come to him."
"A captive?" Iydahoe was alarmed. What use did they have for a House Elf? He was relieved that Kaheena had not brought the prisoner toward the grotto, but nevertheless disturbed by the news of his presence.
"Where is he?"
"In the valley above the twin waterfalls, just beyond the pool where the trout swarm."
Iydahoe knew the place, for it was one of Kaheena's favorite fishing spots. It was only four or five hours from the grotto-distressingly close to have a House Elf. The warrior wasted no time in further conversation. Loping into the woods and maintaining a steady pace, he found the Kagonesti warrior and his prisoner exactly where Kagwallas had said.
The captive was a golden-haired elf sitting sullenly on the ground, hands behind his back. Kaheena squatted nearby, staring at the House Elf as if his hazel eyes would bore through the fellow's light-colored flesh. The warrior barely looked up as Iydahoe joined him in the small clearing. "Who is he?" asked Iydahoe.
"Не claims to be a trail finder. He says that the House Elves and the humans of Istar will make a great road through the forest. He scouts a path to mark the way."
The prisoner's eyes, glaring with hatred, flickered between the two wild elves. Remembering the humans he had encountered, and the strange way they had been marking trees, Iydahoe shivered apprehensively.
"Do the House Elves make peace with Istar?" he asked, suspicious.
The golden-haired elf shrugged. "Who can say what the Kingpriest will do?" He seemed bored, as if resigned to a brutal fate.
"Why do the Silvanesti want a road to Istar?"
Again the House Elf shrugged. "For the singers, perhaps. Every year we send a choir of our apprentice clerics. They sing at the high festivals in the Kingpriest's cathedral, and in return receive training from some of the human priests."
Iydahoe had nothing but scorn for elves who would thus submit themselves to human control, but he bit back his contempt as he pressed for information. "And this is to be the site of the road?" he asked, gesturing to the blazes made along several nearby trees.
"It is one place. In truth, we thought that you Painted Elves were gone, that there would be none to bother the caravans here."
Now the warrior's eyes flashed. "We will release you, House Elf-but when you go back to your city, tell your masters that the Kagonesti are not gone! Any men, any elves, who come to build a road here will be slain!"
The House Elf laughed contemptuously. "You may kill a few, perhaps even many, but if you think you will stop this road, you are a fool. The Kingpriest of Istar sends his men where he wants, with no care for how manу of them die."
'Then ive will kill them all!" Iydahoe's fury clouded his eyes, as the full memory of the massacre came back to him. He could kill many soldiers of Istar every day-and yet he would never fully avenge that brutal attack.
Perhaps it was his rage or the distracting image of his human foes, or the fear that again began to insinuate itself into the warrior's mind. In any event, Iydahoe was slow to see the House Elf's hand emerge from behind his back- unbound! In that hand was a tiny, silver-bladed knife, a weapon that Kaheena had somehow not discovered when he had tied the prisoner's hands.
The Silvanesti lunged upward, driving the blade toward Iydahoe, as the young warrior's mind froze under the strain of apprehension and responsibility. He didn't recognize the danger, couldn't move to respond.
But Kaheena saw. The brave leapt forward, trying to grasp the attacker's hand-and failing. The knife plunged into Kaheena's breast, and the wild elf grunted as Iydahoe finally reacted, raising his steel-bladed axe and slicing it through the Silvanesti's throat. The two elves fell together, blood mingling in the dust before it soaked into the ground.
"No!" hissed Iydahoe, shocked by the gouts of crimson liquid pouring from the knife wound. Kaheena looked very surprised, until his eyes half-closed. Except for the horrid pallor of his face, he might have been sleeping.
When he pulled the bodies apart, Iydahoe noticed a tiny scabbard at the back of the House Elf's belt-the place he had concealed the deadly knife. Iydahoe buried Kaheena where he had fallen, leaving the Silvanesti for the crows.
As the wild elf started back to the grotto, he all but wept at a sense of supreme loneliness and bitter irony. Two elves had killed each other, pouring their lifeblood together as a sanctifier or a curse on the route of the King-priest's road.
Chapter 25
The Istarians spent four years on the building of their road. It was not an easy task. The woods were thick, the ground rough. Even worse, many workers died, pierced by black arrows released with deadly accuracy by an unseen archer in the forest-a bowman who melted into the woods, disappearing before any humans could locate him. Despite this harassment, the broad track was finally, inevitably completed.
For nine more years, caravans traveled back and forth between Istar and Silvanesti. Though Iydahoe never let one of these pass unmolested, his arrows were little more than pinpricks in the flanks of a great, all but unfeeling, behemoth.
During those years, Iydahoe perfected his skills as a hunter-of game, and of humans. The warrior labored to vanquish his fear of failure. Though he was the lone hunter of the tribe, he kept the others fed, and he taught the older youths, such as Bakall, Dallatar and Kagwallas, many things about the taking of game. Eventually the three of them did most of the hunting, allowing Iydahoe to devote his attentions toward his vengeance against Istar.
True, the Kingpriest sent companies, even full legions, on sweeps through the forest, but the village grotto was so well concealed that the humans never came close to finding it. Sometimes Iydahoe worried about the gray-robed wizard, wondering if the mage was powerful enough to find the tribe through some arcane means. A small part of the wild elf longed to see the man again, to punish him for all the hurts the elves had suffered.
He continued to ambush the caravans whenever he found them. Still, the amount of damage Iydahoe could do by himself was sorely limited, and he began to wonder whether Bakall was ready for his initiation as a true warrior. The youngster was unusually serious and intent, and seemed to be a good candidate for the tattoos of adulthood.
Indeed, all the younger Kagonesti had quickly learned the skills of the wild elves-at least, those that Iydahoe and Hawkan could teach. The older boys had been forced to act like men, the adolescent girls taking on the roles of the tribe's women-though, as yet, none of them had married. Ambra, however, showed every sign of becoming a desirable young elfmaid, and Iydahoe had noticed Bakall, Kagwallas, and Dallatar all preening and boasting for her benefit.