Yarmarion followed in Raidon's wake. The elderly elf was more spry than he looked. Raidon worried briefly about Adrik, then shrugged. Nothing was likely to befall a man sleeping on a tavern floor worse than burglary.
A half-elf woman in ragged, blood-stained clothing stood at the square's center, accompanied by elves clad in militaristic outfits of green, gold, and dun. Their clothing was resplendent. From the way the patterns on their clothes shifted and changed, Raidon guessed the colors would blend perfectly into forestlike hues and textures should one of them step into the pathless wild.
Raidon touched Yarmarion on the sleeve. "Are those the Masters of the Yuirwood?"
"Yes. But not the woman. I've never seen her before."
Three of the Masters continued to blow long, shrill notes on brass horns.
"Masters—are they called that because they rule this forest?"
Yarmarion replied, "They do not rule. But their order is elite. They are afforded great respect because they keep the ancient Yuirwood free of evil influence. Without their efforts, the forest's slow retreat would proceed all the faster. The Yuirwood once covered all the peninsula."
"They must know many things."
"They lay claim to ancient lores, and know all the secrets of the menhir circles that dot the Yuirwood deeps."
The Masters gave one last long tone, then stowed the instruments at their belts. One of the regally accoutered half-elves stepped forward. A great yew bow was strapped on his back. He projected, "Invaders threaten our forest borders! This wood elf, called Janesta, witnessed their terrible attack, and is the lone survivor of her tribe!"
The assembled audience, which hadn't completely quieted when the Master had started speaking, now hushed as one.
The speaker continued. "The attack was launched from within the eaves of the Yuirwood. The attack was carried out by strange, kin-slaying elves. And no, I do not mean our long-sundered brethren, the drow."
The silence was broken by gasps, protestations, and cries of surprise. The man spoke over the turmoil. "It is true—Janesta describes her attackers as steely eyed elves more noble and terrible even than gray elves, mail-clad, and astride mailed steeds. Her description matches the likeness of the long-vanished Yuir elves who ranged these woods when the trees ruled all. Whatever nobility they once possessed, it is clear some surviving splinter of that race lives still, old, corrupt, and senile with age!"
A voice rang out from above—the princess. She asked, "Where have these stagnant Yuir resided all these centuries without our knowledge, we who now claim the wide woods?"
"They linger behind the wood, we guess, in a veiled space to which the menhir paths lead for those who know the route."
The princess called down, "This is possible? Do the Masters not know all the routes?"
The speaker shook his head. "We know many—not all. We've long suspected that deeper, more tangled paths lay outside our lore. Now we know it is true."
"Let Janesta speak," said the princess, from where she stood as if on a mighty branch, not empty space. "From whence came these awful destroyers? Tell us, for we are kin of your kin. We will avenge your tribe's memory and defend the sanctity of the forest."
The wood elf, disoriented and pale, looked up into the sky and said in a weak voice, "They came from across a causeway—a causeway fronted by two soaring obelisks. We set our encampment nearby to study the stones, and the strange mist that so often obscured the causeway from sight and even touch."
"Tell us more of this causeway," commanded the princess when the woman faltered.
"The day prior to the attack, my friend Natal Peacethorn and I. .." Janesta choked, wiped at her eyes, then continued. "Natal and I found the causeway clear for the first time. We crossed it. On the other side we found a massive granite gate sealed against all entry. And above.. . stars wheeled in the sky, though Natal and I crossed the causeway in full daylight."
The assembled Masters looked at her with consternation, though a few nodded, as if her words confirmed a long-held conjecture.
"The gates were closed, thick with glyphs we couldn't decipher. Above the gate was scribed a single massive symbol—a white, treelike symbol surrounded by a field of flickering blue-tinged darkness."
Raidon's eyes did their best to leap from their sockets just as his jaw threatened to detach from his skull and clatter to the ground.
Yarmarion turned and fixed Raidon Kane with a measuring glance. He said, "It would seem your arrival today is not accidental, traveler."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Stardeep, The Causeway
Elven warhorses cantered down the narrow Causeway, their hooves striking thunder through the glade. Empyrean Knights sat astride them, a rush of silvery mail, righteous fury alive in their eyes. On they raced, across the narrow lane, three dozen star elves draped in pleated mithral hauberks worn over silk. Their swift steeds were sheathed in plate that glinted in the morning sun. Those in the vanguard drew down the tips of their lances, those in the rear unsheathed great swords.
Arrows burst from the boughs of the encircling forest, a rain of flint-tipped death, falling among the Knights, dealing death or mercy at random. The screams of horses and Knights marked a sudden and growing knot at the Causeway's middle—horses went down, breaking Knights beneath them, but worse, clogging the charge line.
Figures clad in green, gold, and dun broke from the eaves, light and silent, drawing bowstrings for another flight even as they ran. Astonished shouts greeted the attack, followed closely by the ring of sword on steel, axe on bow. The narrow line of the Causeway became choked at its head with grappling, hacking figures. The blood of wood elf, half-elf, and star elf mingled in the dark waters of the hidden Chabala Mere.
The Empyrean Knights were outnumbered, but despite the bloody toll exacted by their foes, and regardless of the fair-featured nature of their enemy, the defenders slashed the wood elves, split chests protected only by stitched leather, cracked wooden shields, and finally slew the Yuirwood elves to the last man and woman.
Silence descended for a beat, followed by a victory shout. The Empyrean Knights had again defended Stardeep's entrance from the latest infiltrating attack by the suddenly, unaccountably warlike wild and mixed elves of Aglarond.
* * * * *
Kiril topped a wooded rise and saw the great boulder beneath which she had once so often rested, though now it was tufted with patches of snow. A little farther, there was the old birch tree, still standing tall and regal among the conifers after so many years. Here was the narrow ravine that sheltered a small, trickling tributary to the Chabala River, which fed into the Mere—on which sat the Causeway.
"We're close," she threw back over her shoulder—her right shoulder; Xet perched on the left. Gage stiffened, as if hearing difficult news, then showed her his impish smile. Her self-proclaimed friend seemed oddly shaken since their encounter with Sathra. His jokes were few and far between, and forced. A strange melancholia gripped him. Of course, she didn't have time to worry about him now. She could be moments from finding Nangulis!
If she allowed herself, she could project herself back into the memories of her life before the events of the last decade, before she'd become merely a "swordswoman." When she had been a Keeper of the Cerulean Sign. When she had performed an important duty, one she had executed for years. She and Nangulis both—he in the Inner Bastion, she in the Outer, though no day passed that didn't allow time for them to be together, either within the guarded bulk of Stardeep, or beyond its dimensional veil in the sunlit groves of the Yuirwood.