"To arms!" From up the slope, the alarm-giver's voice broke, "To arms!"
Whirling, the impromptu council saw Firstfortune stumble down the slope. She dragged Lightrobin, an arrow jutting from her back. Not a barbarian arrow of plain wood, but a long, black arrow fletched with white. Firstfortune gave one more alarm, then was knocked sprawling by another arrow that slammed into her hip.
Magichunger howled to grab bows, parents shrieked for children, Goodbell yelled for non-fighters to take cover and ready bandages, Sunbright shouted for Knucklebones and his mother to duck behind trees. Even as they bolted in different directions, slow-thinking Wreathhonor caught an arrow in his lower belly. He collapsed, holding the shaft and crying like a child.
Sunbright left Goodbell to tend the wounded, and dodged from tree to tree up the slope to fetch his longbow and quiver. He already wore Harvester on his back, indeed took it off only to sleep or bathe. By the time he reached the pocket they'd selected, Knucklebones had shoved Monkberry flat and flipped the flimsy travois over her. The thief had shucked to her leathers, loosened her dagger in its sheath, and hunted a dozen round rocks for her sling. Between two trunks with one eye she studied dark spruces thick as walls of thorns.
Sunbright grabbed his tackle and flopped on his belly beside her. As he hauled an arrow around to check the fletching he asked, "See anything?"
"Movement, very low, like rabbits creeping. Whoever they are, they're good. Silent, too."
"I'm not surprised. That was an elven arrow."
"Elven?" piped the woman with pointed ears.
"Very long, thin shaft, black. More a bird arrow than a war arrow." The shaman craned to see his tribe, most out of sight. Fighters with nocked bows crept up the slope. Sunbright touched his mother's shoulder, and said, "I'll cover you. Get down the slope toward the middle." Wasting no words, Monkberry scurried to the next tree.
In that instant, the attack broke.
Two spruces parted six feet in the air before Sunbright's eyes. Like a black panther, an elven warrior burst screaming from the green cover. The shaman glimpsed gleaming black armor, a shimmering green shirt, long, wild black hair and pointed ears, a black headband studded with white feathers, a curved bow and quiver. And swinging to meet the shaman, a sword with an ornate handle and a deadly, slim blade.
Before he was even sure of his target, Sunbright jumped to his feet and loosed. His broad arrowhead punched through the elf-woman's boiled-leather cuirass. Her screech cut off as her lung collapsed and her heart stopped. She'd bounded so close her dead body cannoned into the shaman's. He smelled wood smoke and sage, a painfully familiar perfume. The dying elf slumped, and Sunbright kicked her away with sudden, savage fury.
As he untangled his bow, another black ball exploded from high between trees. Knucklebones shrieked her own cry-oddly, "Kar-sus!"-and slashed the air with her long knife. An elven warrior slapped his feet in a fighting stance, and grabbed his sword in two hands to swing and chop the thief in half. But Sunbright hopped over the dead elf, lurched in a long reach, and banged his bow against the warrior's sword to spoil his aim. The bowstring parted with a twunk!, the elf hesitated, and Knucklebones lunged. Sliding her dark dagger under the warrior's shirt, she slashed him behind the knee. Hamstrung, the leg collapsed, but he still slashed sidelong and almost parted Knucklebones's hair. As he fell, she twirled the blade and severed an artery. Bright, frothy blood skyrocketed. The elf dropped his sword to grab at the wound. Sunbright kicked his weapon away, kicking the elf's head to stun him. Lost blood and the blow laid him out, and he died in a pool of blood.
"Back!" Sunbright hollered. "Down the slope!"
Barefoot and nimble, the thief hopped backward in giant leaps like a hare's, knife out, ready to kill. Sunbright jigged and jogged, shuffling to keep his feet without tripping. They retreated, for a quick glance showed the elves weren't the only ones dying. The barbarians were attacked from three sides by dozens of black-wrapped, screaming elves.
Sunbright lurched, grabbed a tree for support, and skipped after Knucklebones to regain the ring of barbarians.
But inside he was stunned and heartsick. For he recognized these elves, their armor and weapons, their clothes, even the cut of their faces. He knew who they were.
Cormanthyran Elves of the High Forest.
Greenwillow's people!
Chapter 14
The next attack came by night.
Barbarians were stripped to essentials. Sunbright wore only his shirt and wide belt and moosehide boots, and he'd even cut the iron rings off them. Harvester's scabbard was pulled tight to his back, for he carried the sword naked in his hand. Magichunger, Kindbloom, Blackblossom, Archloft, and a few others did the same.
The hunting party had returned to the forest in hopes of learning something-anything-about the enemy. The attack of three days before, where dozens of green-and black-clad elves had burst through the woods had ended almost before the barbarians could grab weapons. The elves had hit and run, killing two in the process before disappearing into the blue-black spruces. Whether that had been a warning, a testing of mettle, or a berserker raid, the humans didn't know. The only thing they knew was to retreat miles into the prairie and await the advice of the hunter scouts.
The hunters never returned. Six lost to the forest. Captured? Alive? Dead? Sacrificed? They had no hint. Another war party went out yesterday at dawn, saw nothing, but collected three arrows in their hides. Kingfeather was killed, and angry barbarians retreated farther into the prairie.
Now a group of volunteers went forth, by night, to seek the missing, or the elves' camp, or a whiff of campfire smoke, a trail, blazes on trees-any knowledge that might show how many they fought and how to fight back.
With superior night vision, Knucklebones the part-elf led the way up a shallow slope, from black tree bole to bole. Her pointed ears almost swivelled like a cat's to catch sound. She could barely hear the warriors tread silently behind.
Still, they were ambushed, for this forest belonged to the elves.
The first hint of danger was an arrow that punched Magichunger's thigh. Sunbright heard the sizzle of its flight, the smack as it struck flesh, and the thump as it slammed the earth beyond. Yet all he heard from Magichunger was a sharp gasp before the war chief hissed, "We're attacked! Take cover!"
Veteran of a hundred battles, Sunbright was already diving headlong, rolling as he hit the leafy loam, then twisting in a different direction lest he roll into someone's sights. The shaman thought again that, for all Magichunger threw his weight around to give orders, he took them too, and maintained the silence he'd demanded of everyone else. Yet their enemy were elves, the shaman knew, with ears sharp as foxes. Even brushing a leaf could bring a rush.
And they came, not screeching this time, but silent as owls swooping on mice.
Sunbright felt a faint thrum through the forest floor, rolled on his hams, and swung. Harvester slammed the trunk of a tree, cutting to heartwood. The wild swing never touched the elf, but it made him balk and lose the element of surprise. Snapping to a halt before the barrier of sharp steel, the dark figure ducked and stabbed with a long, slim blade at Sunbright's calf. The thrust missed, but only because, scrambling to gain his feet, the shaman slipped in hide-soled boots and flopped on his rump. A shadow and faint gleam on a blade was all he saw. He kicked at the gleam, hoping to break or bend the blade, but the fine steel only bowed under his kick, and, hastily withdrawn, sprang back straight.