"But more than that, he wants me," the mercenary captain continued with dark satisfaction. "I've looked into that elf s eyes. He's the sort who likes to think of himself as a noble leader, but deep down he's the same as I am. For both of us, this has become personal."
The elven maiden stumbled into the forest and into the wailing arms of Tamara Oakstaff, the only female in the war party. The young fighter steadied the child, then held her out at arm's length. Tamara's expert gaze slid over the girl, measuring her hurts.
These were many and considerable: welts and gashes dealt by the whip, skin rubbed into raw, angry wounds by rusted chains, a frail body weakened by lack of food and water and rest. There were unseen hurts, too, apparent only to Tamara's fey eyes. For a moment the elf woman flinched away from the terrors the child had endured. But any thought of pity died when Tamara's gaze reached the girl's fierce eyes. The older female nodded approval. This one would not only survive, but fight!
"Give the little hawk some water," she said with a smile, "and then give her a bow and quiver!"
But the elf maid waved away both and pointed to the retreating humans. "Too late for that," she said. “
They are beyond range," Foxfire agreed.
As the leader handed the girl a watersMn and indicated that she must drink, his eyes searched the windows placed high on the large wooden structure that stood at the far side of the field.
There archers lay in wait for them. As he'd expected, this was an ambush. What he hadn't bargained on was that Bunlap would use elven children and females to lure his opponents into the trap. Silently Foxfire berated himself. He should have foreseen something like this, given what he knew of the man.
Tell us of our foe. How many humans do we face?" he asked the elf maid, speaking as one warrior to another.
This show of respect brightened the child's eyes. She bit her lip, concentrating, nodding off the count as she silently tallied their foe. "More than a hundred men attacked Council Glade; of that number, perhaps half survived. We six managed to kill a few more since we were brought here, but there were far too many for us!"
"A familiar story, when dealing with humans," muttered Tamsin, Tamara's twin-born brother.
"And in the barn?" Foxfire pressed.
Ten, maybe more," she said. "There were twelve guards in the field, and two patrols of ten each in the forest."
Tou needn't worry about them," Tamsin assured her in a tone that left little doubt as to their fate.
"A score of humans. We outnumber them three to two," exulted Tamara.
"And in the forest, that would be overwhelming odds," the leader said. "But the humans have turned this battle around, forcing us into a stupid and suicidal charge while they fight from cover as forest people do!"
"It is not our way, but if you say it must be done we will follow you," one of the warriors said. The others, thirty in all, nodded and raised their hands in a silent gesture of assent, as the elves of Talltrees pledged their lives to their war leader.
Foxfire thanked them with a nod, then turned back to study the unfamiliar battleground. For a long moment the warriors at his back remained silent in the shadows, waiting with elven patience for his decision. As the darkness around them deepened, the only sounds were the night songs of birds and the quickening chirp of crickets.
Then the quiet twilight was rent by the sound of a female's scream, high and piercing and anguished. The elves tensed, their dark fingers curving around their bows and their muscles tensing as they prepared to sprint through the deadly field.
"Do not," Foxfire said softly, though his own face was twisted with distress. "They are baiting us, and their archers will pick us off long before we reach our people. Your deaths will only speed theirs!"
"What, then?" demanded Korrigash, coming up to his friend's side.
With a strange smile, the leader pulled his bone knife from his belt and cut the thong that bound his forehead and held back his fox-colored hair. From it hung a number of ornaments that helped his bright russet locks to blend in with the forest: feathers, cunningly woven reeds, a dried cattail he'd cut that spring from the Swanmay's glade.
Foxfire's hands moved deftly as he slid the cattail onto an arrow's shaft. Murmuring a quick prayer of explanation and apology, Foxfire slashed at the bark of a scrubby pine until it bled thick sap. He scraped up the pine pitch with his knife and pressed it into the cattail, then called for the loan of a fire-forged knife.
Wordlessly Korrigash handed one over. The horrified expression in his black eyes was echoed on the face of every elf in the company as Foxfire struck steel against stone. What the leader proposed to do was unthinkable to the forest elves, for in their world no force was as feared or as destructive as the one Foxfire prepared to unleash."
"The plants in that field are green and fresh," he said softly as he struck a second spark. "And water runs between the barn and the trees. The barn will burn, but fire will not reach the forest. When the humans are forced from the building, we will attack. They force us into the open; we will do the same."
"But they will not let our people live that long!" protested Tamsin.
"They will," Foxfire said with absolute certainty. "They will keep them alive, and in torment, for as long as it takes to bring us to them. There is much about the humans I do not understand, but this thing I know: their leader will not rest easy until he has washed his pride with my blood."
Another scream pierced the night. Foxfire winced and bent over his fearful task. Again he struck steel to stone; this time the spark fell upon the pitch-coated cattail. The elf blew softly upon it, coaxing the makeshift torch into flame. When the arrow was ready, he quickly fitted it to his bow. With a strength far beyond that suggested by his slender frame, the elf pulled the arrow back to its flaming point. For a moment he held it, drawing up strength from the forest floor beneath him. Then he loosed both the arrow and a hawklike cry.
The fire-bearing arrow streaked through the night like a falling star, plummeting into the dried weeds, crushed and matted by the passage of many feet, that surrounded the wooden building. As smoke spiraled upward toward the stars, elven arrows kept at bay all those who tried to quench the gathering flames.
Vile oaths and shouts of anger and fear poured from the building like smoke, but at last the humans were forced to stagger from the burning barn into the night.
"Shoot while you can, fight hand-to-hand when you must," Foxfire said tersely. "Have ready a second weapon; as soon as possible we must arm any of the captives who are still able to fight. You, little sister, bide here and await our return."
But the rescued elf maid seized the steel knife from his hands. "For my mother," she said before he could protest, and she showed him the bone dagger Tamara had already given her.
"You are a brave and blooded warrior, but you are hurt," he said gently.
"I can still fight," she insisted. Her eyes glowed with intense fervor as she seized his hand and pressed it to her lips. "And I will follow you to death and beyond!"
With these words, the elf maid darted out into the field, her thin, dark form silhouetted against the leaping flames. The other elves followed suit at once, fanning out as they went, running as silently as a pack of wolves.
Foxfire and Korrigash exchanged a wry glance and then kicked into a run. "I used to wonder why, of the two of us, you ended up as war leader," the dark-haired elf observed. "Especially seeing as how I can outrun, out-shoot, and outfight you."
A fleeting grin softened Foxfire's grim face. "Ill remember that challenge, my friend, and disprove it another day! So what is this secret?"
"You know when to follow," Korrigash said.
The elven leader's black eyes settled upon the child warrior. She was the first to reach the humans. Her frail form was barely visible in the roiling smoke, crouched as she was astride a fallen man, but her arm rose again and again as the steel sank home.