"He does right," the warleader said softly.
Danilo realized the truth in it. He nodded to show that he understood, then put aside the elf's restraining hands and went to kneel beside his love and his elven friend. For several moments he could do nothing but watch as Elaith continued his brutal ministrations.
Arilyn suddenly drew breath in a sharp gasp. Her eyes shut as she struggled against the pain of her burns. When she had mastered herself, she opened her eyes and regarded the somber, watching elves.
"You have your sign," she said in a faint, ragged voice. "Do as the elf lord bids you."
A forest elf came forward, a small female, brown as a wren. "Go with the others," she told Danilo brusquely. "I am a shaman and will heal her." She looked to Foxfire to help her move the wounded half-elf. The warleader shook his head and nodded to Dan.
Danilo carefully eased Arilyn into his arms and followed the shaman out of the room. "You expected that to happen," he said softly.
She nodded once, with great effort, and turned to Elaith. The moon elf followed at Dan's side, his eyes intent on Arilyn. His inscrutable calm was gone, shattered by the sacrifice his "princess" had made for the elven folk, the family of her human love, and for him.
"You did not get the Mhaorkiira, but you have your answer," she said. "Are you content?"
An expression of wonder suffused the elf's face. "All these years," he marveled. "The things that I have done. I am beyond regret—beyond redemption, or so I thought."
"Sometimes the difference between a rogue and a hero," she said carefully, "comes down to who is telling the tale. Ask these elves who I am. They will speak of the moonblade. Ask humans, they will say assassin. It could be the same for you."
"You're talking too much," scolded the shaman.
Arilyn's eyes drifted shut. "Needed to be said."
Danilo left her with the fierce little elf woman and returned to the main hall. Since Elaith did not seem to want to discuss what had just happened, he left that conversation for later and sought out Foxfire.
"That was a noble gesture," he said. "A rare kindness to offer a stranger."
The forest elf gave him an enigmatic smile. "I have seen you before, once, in a battlefield near my forest. Arilyn called all the elfshadows from her sword. Yours was among them."
"No longer. That bond is broken."
"Changed," Foxfire corrected. "Never broken. She has need of you."
This surprised Danilo. "How so?"
"Arilyn is courage. Never have I seen an elf who embodied courage so completely. However, she is half-elven, and so there are some qualities she lacks. Music and light laughter—these are as important to the elven soul as starlight. These she finds in you. See that you give them to her, and I will always name you a friend."
There was truth in these words, and also the answer Danilo had long sought. He raised one hand in the elven pledge. Foxfire laughed and extended his hand for the salute that human comrades exchanged. They clasped wrists, then joined the others in preparation for the battle to come.
Twenty
Arilyn and the forest elves took to the rooftops. It felt odd, but amazingly right, to be back in the familiar company of her friends. The band took to the new challenge with ease, making their way across the uneven line of roofs as surefooted as squirrels.
They crept up to the Thann villa and circled the place where the tren attacks were to come: the garden shed with the false door that led into the tunnels. They got this in their sights and waited.
The night was dark, with a slim, fading moon and a thick mist. When the tren emerged from the shed, they blended into the shadows. Even to Arilyn's heat-sensitive eyes, they were little more than a cool blur.
"No one but elves would have seen them," the half-elf mused as she fitted her first arrow to her bow. "Oth wasn't expecting this."
At her side, Foxfire nodded and raised his bow. On his signal, all six elves fired.
The arrows dove in like silent, deadly falcons. A faint, rumbling cry drifted up to them, a sound that was abruptly and wetly silenced.
"We got at least one," Arilyn said.
"Two," the forest elf corrected. "There are three more. We should pursue?"
"No need. Listen." There was a faint hiss as the surviving tren dragged their slain kin beyond range. "They eat their own rather than leave evidence of their presence," she explained.
Foxfire shook his head in disgust. "All the same, some of us should stay here. You go along with the others."
She nodded and placed a hand on his shoulder in farewell, then was gone, running lightly over the rooftops toward the Ilzimmer estate. A large shape loomed up in front of her, springing up over the edge of the roof so suddenly that she nearly ran into it. It was the tren who called himself Knute, distinguished by the ridge of festering scar over one eye.
The tren touched the wound. "I think I die soon. Wounded clan chief doesn't live long—others will attack. But I will die wearing your blue hide."
Arilyn danced back and drew her sword. "Notions of fashion in this city," she said grimly as she circled in, "are getting entirely out of hand." She lunged at the creature, a quick attack that forced him back on his heels. Immediately she pivoted into a half turn and swept her sword in low.
Knute turned also, protecting his hamstrings and swatting away the blow with his thick, short tail. The blade sliced deep, but there was little blood. Almost casually, the tren kicked aside the severed appendage. He swiped at Arilyn, a knife in each clawed hand—two quick, slashing blows.
She parried them both, but the pain of the impact jolted through her hands. The prayers of the shaman had healed the blackened skin, but the blow from the moonblade's magic had dealt deep and possibly lasting damage. Arilyn fought aside a wave of weakness and fell back to prepare for the next attack.
To her surprise, it did not come. The tren looked confused, his tongue darting out and his huge head jerking back and forth as if he were trying to take stock of a host of new enemies. That, she realized, was precisely what he was trying to do. From the corner of her eye, Arilyn saw the ghostly image of a beautiful elf with enormous blue and gold eyes and hair the color of sapphires. The look that the elf gave her—at once bracingly stern and full of love—chased away any thought of weakness.
"Mother," Arilyn murmured, welcoming the apparition even though it was yet another sign that her sword's magic was breaking down.
She retreated another few steps and glanced around. All the elfshadows, all eight ancestors who had wielded her sword, prowled about the roof in battle-ready stance. The tren's gaze darted from one to another, his tongue flicking out to taste their scent. After a few moments of this, the creature began to advance. Unlike humans, he had no fear of spirits. If he could not smell them, they were not real enough to concern him.
Arilyn lifted her sword in guard position. The tren came in hard, slashing at her with both knives. She turned her sword this way and that to block the attacks. Each one throbbed through her battered hands, and the pain grew so intense that her vision began to blur into a red haze.
A musty, heavy weight sagged against her. For a moment Arilyn thought that she had taken too much punishment, that oblivion was claiming her. Suddenly the weight was gone, and the moonblade was torn from her slack hands.
For some reason, the sudden release steadied her. Her vision cleared, and settled upon Dan's stricken face. The tren lay dead at her feet, killed by three quick cuts of his sword.