On they rode easterly, along the Landover Road, now running parallel to the Skarpals in the south. And as they rode, there were signs all about that the summer was beginning to wane as farmers in their fields harvested grain and drovers with dogs rounded up livestock and herded them down from the mountain meadows and toward their winter pastures. And at these signals of the passing seasons Arin fretted, for she had had her vision on the first day of July, and now it was nearing September. She chafed at the pace she and her comrades maintained, yet they could go no faster for they had to spare the horses and mules. And so past ripened crops and fresh-cut fields they rode, and herds coming down from the mountains, and all the while Arin wondered if the terrible doom were rushing pell-mell toward them all and if it would fall ere she or any could do aught to avert its horror, if indeed it could be averted at all. And slowly the miles receded behind them as they crept across the face of the world.
Late in the evening of September thirteenth they finally arrived at Vorlo, the city along the west bank of the River Venn. And across the water on the opposite shore lay the realm of Aralan.
They spent that night and all the next day and night in this border town, resting and replenishing their depleted supplies, just as they had in Bridgeton, some eight hundred and fifty miles and thirty-four days behind. Eight leagues a day they had been riding, twenty-four miles each dawn to dusk, and another three hundred thirty or forty leagues lay before them, a thousand miles or so to Darda Vrka. Arin sighed. Surely we could have reached Rwn ere now, but for the rovers' blockade. Damn the Kistani pirates!
The following morn they led their animals down to the Vorlo Ferry, and across the river they fared and into Aralan. They followed the Overland Road another mile or so and then veered off to the left, heading northeastward across the open land, riding parallel to the River Venn, whose distant headwaters lay in the far-off mountains of the Grimwall. On the way to the Venn, down from these stark heights course a multitude of streams which converge in the vast Khalian Mire, where the turgid waters slowly ebb southward to ultimately seep into the Lesser Mire whose outflow in turn becomes the River Venn. And alongside this waterway rode the Elven band, at least for the next several days, for they were not bound for either the mires or the Grimwall, but for the Wolfwood instead.
Two weeks or so did they keep the valley of the Venn in sight, the trees along the river vale gradually changing color as the summer slowly waned. Deliberately their course and that of the channel diverged, till at last they could see the river vale no more as into the heart of Aralan they fared, still heading northeastward, following Rissa as she led them toward Darda Vrka.
It was during these same two weeks that the autumnal equinox came and went, and on the eve of the day when light and dark exactly balanced one another, near mid of night and in the western light of a yellow gibbous moon, the Dylvana and Silverleaf solemnly paced out the Elven rite celebrating the harvest and the turning of the seasons.
They dressed in their very best leathers and took their starting places, Darai facing north, Alori facing south, and then singing, chanting, and pacing, slowly pacing, they began a ritual reaching back through the ages. And enveloped by moonlight and melody and harmony and descant and counterpoint and the rustling brush of leather, the Elves trod gravely… yet their hearts were full of joy.
Step… pause… shift… pause… turn… pause… step.
Slowly, slowly, move and pause. Voices rising. Voices falling. Liquid notes,from the dawn of time. Harmony. Euphony. Step… pause… step. Arin turning. Rissa turning. Darai passing. Alori pausing. Counterpoint. Descant. Step… pause… step…
When the rite at last came to an end-voices dwindling, song diminishing, movement slowing, till all was silent and still-Darai and Alori once again stood in their beginning places: females facing north, males facing south. The motif of the pattern they had paced had not been random, but had had a specific design, had had a specific purpose, yet what that purpose was and is, only the Elves could say.
Comforted somewhat by the ancient ritual, Arin glanced at the starlit sky-the pale yellow moon had fallen nigh the western horizon, having covered a quarter of the spangled vault in its silent journey downward during the arcane dance. Its movement only served to remind her that time was irretrievably flowing into the past.
On the eve of the sixteenth of October they sighted the Skog, that hoary forest in the northern extent of Aralan. Autumn had fully come upon this woodland, for its leaves were now all golden and shimmering in the crisp wind blowing down from the distant Grimwall Mountains. And this wind carried with it the hint of the winter to come, and, gauging by the shag the horses and mules had taken on, it would be a brutal season.
Arin and her companions rode along the forest flank for nearly eight days as the gilded leaves turned scarlet and the nights grew even more chill, but at last they came to the margins of Darda Vrka.
Led by Rissa, they had reached the Wolfwood at last, and somewhere within they hoped to find Dalavar the Mage.
CHAPTER 17
Bounded on the north by the towering Grimwall Mountains, on the east by the swift-flowing Wolf River, on the south by the rolling plains of Aralan, and on the west by a broad, open stretch of prairie reaching across to the Khalian Mire, there lie two vast timberlands, joined flank to flank by a wide strip of forest running between. They are the Skog and Darda Vrka, and together they span four hundred miles west to east and two hundred and fifty north to south.
It is said that the Skog is the oldest forest in Mithgar, and perhaps this is true, for the Elves call it by no other name. They do not even call it Darda, but merely refer to it as the Skog. And so perhaps there is something to the tale that the Skog is the eldest… yet joined as it is to Darda Vrka, it is difficult to separate the age of the two.
Yet of the twain, it is Darda Vrka, the Wolfwood, captured forever in the songs of bards: songs which fill the very soul to the brim with a longing for the times of legend; songs that bring a glitter to the eyes of all who hear; songs of the Wolfwood where beasts of the elden days once and perhaps yet may dwelclass="underline" High Eagles, White Harts, horned horses named Unicorn, Bears that once were Men, and more, many more of these mystical, mythical creatures… the forest ruled o'er by great Silver Wolves- the Draega of Adonar-or mayhap the Wizard some say dwells within. Aye, it is the Wolfwood bards sing of: a wide forest, an ancient forest, an enchanted forest, a warded forest shunned by those who would do evil.
But the bards neither sing songs nor tell tales of the ancient, hoary Skog, nor speak a word of who or what dwells deep in the shadows therein.
CHAPTER 18
Rissa rode splashing across a swift-running stream and in among the gold and scarlet of the trees, Arin and the others following, and over the next two days they fared north and east, seeking the heart of Darda Vrka, covering forty miles in all. And yet by no earthbound sign could they tell that a Wizard lived herein, though for those same two days high in the cerulean sky above and nearly beyond the eye to see a snow-white falcon circled and circled, always overhead.
"Dalavar's eyes, I would imagine," said Biren when he first spied it.
"Dost thou really think so?" asked Perin, shading his brow and peering upward.