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.
Foxfire nodded, recognizing the truth of his friend's observation, though he himself had never thought long on the matter. Korrigash had a gift for saying much with few words.
"High-sun and two," Korrigash gritted out, naming a time of day and a direction.
Reflexively, his friend snapped up his bow and loosed an arrow ahead and to his right. The swirling smoke parted to reveal a human fighter, an elf-bolt buried in his gut and a look of surprise on hie face. In his bland was a length of chain-still whirling-that he'd been preparing to launch at Foxfire. The impromptu weapon wrapped around the human's arm with a sickening thud and a crack of bone. When the human opened his mouth to scream, all that emerged was a sudden bright gush.
Foxfire turned away from the sight, for the death of his enemies gave him no pleasure. He touched the other elf s arm in silent thanks and pulled his dagger. Suddenly there was no more time for words. The battle closed around them with a hellish cacophony: a roaring of flames, the shrieks of rage and pain, and the deafening pounding of their own blood against their ears. The two elves spun and stood back to back to confront together a horror that both had long feared and neither understood:
A war against the humans.
The door of the Breaching Whale tavern slammed open, sending shudders through the many-paned windows that fronted the dock. An elf woman burst into the taproom as if she'd been thrust through the door by the winds of a freak summer storm. She was uncommonly tall for an elf, white-skinned and raven-haired-a startling coloring common to the moon people. Vivid blue eyes flamed like wizard fire as she stalked across the suddenly silent room,
Sandusk Truffledigger, the halfling barkeep, watched warily as the elf woman descended upon him with the force of a funnel cloud.
"Where is Carreigh Macumail?" she demanded, punctuating her question by slamming both hands upon the polished wooden counter.
The halfling was gratified to note that her voice, a melodic alto despite her anger, was definitely that of a haff-elf-not as flat as a human's tones, but lacking the music and magic of an elven voice. Elves and human? both were trouble, but to Sandusk's way of thinking ai L elf-human hybrid was to be preferred over a pure-blooded version of either variety. Half-elves were treated well enough in Zazesspur, but they walked a thin rope and most of them knew it. The ever-increasing racial conflicts of Tethyr put half-elves in a tenuous position that prompted them to watch their manners and mind then-own affairs.
This one, however, seemed determined to be the exception. When the barkeep did not answer fast enough to suit her, the half-elf seized his tunic with both hands and pulled him up over the bar until they were eye-to-eye.
"I know and appreciate the Breached Whale's reputation for protecting its patrons, and I assure you I have no intention of harming Captain Macumail," she said softly. "You, however, are another matter entirely. Now talk."
"He's gone!" the barkeep squeaked. "He left!"
Arilyn gave him a sharp shake. "I know that. I also know that he routinely informs you of his next destination. Tell me, or 111 skewer you like a roasting rabbit!"
"But I'm a halfling," Suldusk protested in a piercing whine that carried to every corner of the tavern. He had long ago learned that those larger than he could easily be shamed, and like most halflings he doled out guilt with a lavish hand. "Fm but half your size!"
The half-elf smiled coldly. "So Til use a short sword,"
Suldusk considered the grim practicality of this solution. "He's not gone far," he said in tones more modulated toward discretion. "Mist-Walker raised anchor just this morning. Captain Macumail said something about hooking up with some pirate-hunters. Might be that you could still catch him."
Arilyn stared at the halfling for a moment; then she gave a curt nod and lowered him to the floor. She turned and strode from the tavern. Without pause, she went to the edge of the dock and dove cleanly into the water.
One of the bemused patrons shook his head and snorted. "By the wounds of Ilmater! What's the fool elf wench thinking of? Swimming out to Macumail's ship?"
The halfling heard in these words the voice of opportunity. He smoothed his tunic back into place and then topped off his customer's mug from a foaming pitcher. "My dear sir. that wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. And if you're a wagering man, I'll happily lay odds that she'll have him back here by sunrise."