"It could be a trap!" Strongsea wheezed.
Forestvictory stared as if her brain were frozen. "What if we refuse?" she asked.
"Then keep your pride and die! It's nothing to me!" Sunbright lied. "I'm no longer Rengarth. Tell the others. Tomorrow."
Without waiting for an answer, he let the wind push him and his guards back toward the forest and the mountains.
"They killed Darkname! And Lightrobin! Shall we take blood money, and stain our name?"
"How do we know they won't kill us in our sleep? Lure us with kind words, and a knife behind their backs!"
"Aye, or poison the food?"
"I'd take orcs over these soulless monsters! An enemy you know is better than an unknown!"
"Elves eat babies! And suck the goodness out of food so there's nothing left to sustain a body!"
"I say we turn back for Scourge! We were happy there!"
Wrangling rang round the amphitheater. The barbarians had come, of course, lured by food. Sunbright and his protective elves and dwarves met them on the ill-fated camp between the sheltering highlands, then led the straggling band into the dark forest for nearly three miles. Here the barbarians found a natural amphitheater sunk into the ground below trees and wind. Ancient stones covered with moss ringed the circle, and at the bottom, a blazing bonfire consumed entire trees. Shivering, starved, dirty barbarians crept into the bowl so close to the fire their eyebrows singed. Set on stones were elven winter rations and fresh game: oat cakes with salt and maple syrup, dried herring, hunks of deer and bear and bison, even barrels of ale and a trough of spring water. The hungry barbarians fell on the meat barehanded and ate it raw.
During this orgy of warmth and food, Sunbright sat with his personal bodyguard: Knucklebones and Monkberry, three elven archers named Gladejoy, Deerspirit, and Lionmoon, and the two dwarves, Cappi and Pullor. They occupied a stone midway between the barbarians, the chief elven negotiators, and Drigor's band in shaggy winter hides.
The elven contingent was a vision from a dream. Thirty of them were led by a tall elven woman with cascading white hair. They were mostly dressed alike, in soft green shirts and fine boots and armor, with some differences in rank. The leader, Pleasantwalk, wore no boiled breastplate, instead a pair of black epaulets on a harness, gem-studded black gloves, and a black helmet adorned with black leaves. She sat on a throne of blond wood ornately carved with birds and animals, worn smooth by ages of monarchs. The throne had been toted through the forest on the shoulders of courtiers, who were armed with curved black bows and sheaves of slim, black arrows. Sunbright had not spoken to this elven queen (if such she was), but only to Tamechild, her chancellor, who conveyed the shaman's messages to the queen only twelve feet away.
For the first time in a long time, Sunbright wore no sword. Harvester's baldric and scabbard hung from a peg on a tree above the amphitheater. The barbarians had also left all weapons at the upper rim, while protesting they were being rounded up for slaughter. But the elves' calm poise, and the lure of heat and meat had finally spilled them over the edge like lemmings.
Now, with hunger and thirst and cold sated, the Rengarth Barbarians counseled-for Sunbright had added prayers and offerings to the elves' bonfire. As barbarian bodies warmed, so did tempers and grudges. Some humans hurled accusations and threats, hinted darkly of treachery and collusion between Sunbright and the Shadow Walkers. But most barbarians recognized that the elves were their hosts, had fed and warmed them, and so held their tongues. Sunbright was proud of them, but his heart was stricken as he counted their numbers. Just under three hundred arrived, while they'd enter the ancestral grasslands with over four hundred thirty. Still, Tamechild murmured, it showed the barbarians' toughness to survive this long on winter prairie.
Finally, after the stupid and stubborn aired their empty heads, Sunbright dusted his seat and walked to a small dais that each ring of the theater sported. He raised both hands and waited for silence, which meant from the barbarians, for the elves were quiet as graveyard ghouls.
"Rengarth!" Sunbright called. "You know who I am. Sunbright Steelshanks, son of Sevenhaunt and Monkberry of the Raven Clan."-Someone booed, yelled, "Not any more!" but was slapped quiet-"Know that I did not invite you! 'Twas our gracious hosts, the Moon Elves of the Far Forest, cousins to the High Elves of Cormanthyr in the west. They wished to council, not I. I am merely the mouthpiece between you."
The barbarians stirred, watched the silent elves with new interest, and listened.
"I don't need to tell you," Sunbright went on, "how harsh the world has grown. All lands suffer, their magic drained by forces unknown. Thin crops and scarcer game drive many peoples to move, including ourselves. In addition, the One King again leads armies to ravage both cities and hinterlands. So it proves here, for orcs and other vermin flow over the Barren Mountains like rats fleeing a fire. The elves doubled and tripled their efforts to keep the orcs out, and then we, the Rengarth, arrived. Since we invaded their forest, they worked to keep us out too."
Over shouts, he continued, "Now, I could talk all night, and we shall, but I'll lay out a simple plan to consider. Simply this. That Moon Elves, the Sons of Baltar, and the Rengarth Barbarians forget grudges, and declare peace! That the dwarves fortify the Barren Mountains. That the Moon Elves guard the Far Forest. And the Rengarth guard the prairie-"
A howl of protest went up, that the tribe would die, that they couldn't last the winter, that Sunbright plowed on, "Yes, yes, yes! True! And since the prairie can't support so many, the Moon Elves generously offer us the fringe of the forest for a depth of two leagues. From the grasslands, into the forest for six miles, to a river called the Delimbiyr. An escort will show you this boundary. A six-mile band, free, to use as we wish. In return, you must promise to guard the prairie from outside attack, and keep faith with elves and dwarves, and work together for the good of all. So elves may call on barbarians if needed, and humans might retreat to the dwarven mountains in an attack, or into the elven forest.
"In short," Sunbright droned to a mesmerized audience, "you will swear-by blood oath-to harm neither elf nor dwarf, but aid all to keep out the orcs and other villains. In short, we build an alliance of people secure on their own turf-prairie, forest, and mountain-with secure borders. A mighty triangle that can withstand any force, from any direction!"
Sunbright let his words die in the air, then shouted, "Children of the Rengarth, do you agree?"
Barbarians muttered, questioned, buzzed, and argued. Over the babble Forestvictory called, "We can cut trees to build huts? Shoot game and set snares? And we only need keep out raiders?"
Sunbright smiled. For the question gave the answer.
Chapter 18
Deep in the Barren Mountains…
With oil lamps and pickaxes, Oredola and Hachne explored a tall cave from which rust water trickled. Rust meant iron. But not far in they gagged on a gut-wrenching stink. A hashed coyote carcass writhed with maggots on the cave floor. The skull had been crushed as if by a stone, then gnawed by strong, dull teeth. Without a word, the dwarves pulled back.
Too late.
From the dark rustled something twice as tall as the dwarves, mottled green and scabrous black in the lamplight. Empty eye sockets drilled into their souls.