Demlin dropped his own mount’s reins and leaped, grabbing Elansa by the arm. Yanking hard, he dragged her from the mare's back. Cursing filled the air. Something buzzed overhead as Elansa tumbled from the saddle. A warrior shouted, and another cried, "Protect the princess!" Around them, a maelstrom of shouting and cursing erupted like the high, savage hooting of predators hunting.
Elansa hit the stony ground and the breath blasted from her lungs. Her left ankle wrenched, caught in the stirrup. In the moment she realized this, the mare hurtled forward. Stone slammed into Elansa’s shoulder. Panicked, she tried to curl and protect her head. Another stone tore at her face, but she saw only the ground and the bright flash of iron-shod hooves, then two legs clad in blue wool and brown boots. The mare staggered, flinging and trying to turn.
Demlin sliced the stirrup from the mare’s saddle. Elansa fell, at last, gasping to get her breath back. The thick scent of blood filled the air-hers and the mare’s. She struggled to stand. Demlin took her hard by the elbows, yanking her to her feet. All around her horses swirled, bright hooves thundering on the ground and flashing sparks from stone. Her knees sagged, and pain lanced through her shoulder, through her ankle, throbbing in her head. Demlin caught her and held her up as cries of "Protect the princess!" filled the forest. Shouts and laughter followed. Out of the forest, like a dark tide, armed goblins overtook the trail. Orange-skinned, teeth filed to needle sharpness, they came howling like beasts, their weapons gleaming as they swarmed out of the shadows. One, and then another of Elansa’s guard fell, some arrow-shot, others bleeding from sword cuts.
An elf screamed, and another. Elansa’s stomach turned weakly. If she counted them by their death-cries, not but three of Keth’s warriors remained. She cried out in grief and terror as another elf fell, an arrow through the neck.
"We mourn later, my lady," Demlin said, his voice low and shaking as he dragged her off the path and into the shadows of the wood. "Now we flee."
They ran through the trees, and each step Elansa took made her head rock with pain. She dared not slow; she dared not stop. The cries of goblins followed, a guttural speech that sounded like cursing. Goblins in the Qualinesti Forest-unthinkable!
Forest shadow closed out the sunlight, and Elansa tripped over a writhing root, stumbling to her knees on the stony, rising path. Before Demlin could drag her up, she staggered to her feet, feeling but never looking at the shredded and bruised skin on the heels of her hands. Her shoulder throbbed with pain, the skin raw, the sleeve of her blouse tom and bloodied. Lights danced before her eyes, bitter sparks from the fiery pain in her head.
The way grew narrow. On either side gray lichened boulders made walls that, as they ran, grew higher. With bandits behind and stone to either side, they could go only forward. The sounds of fighting grew faint, then vanished altogether. Death cries, battle cries, they were all silent. One rough peal of laughter rang out, then a sudden shout of anger and a swiftly killed cry of pain. Again Elansa stumbled, her wrenched ankle betraying her. Demlin steadied her, putting her back to a boulder.
"Take a breath, my lady, but we can't linger long. They know we're gone and-"
A twig snapped ahead of them. Elansa cast a swift glance up the trail, expecting to see a horde of bandits. She saw only one person, and this one was human. More, she was a woman. In the first glance, Elansa took in the cut of her-tall in hunting gear, her boots of tanned leather, the fringed shirt untied at the neck to show a V of golden skin. Hope rose, foolish and faithful. Surely here was no bandit but a traveler soon to be caught by the same ill luck that had snared Elansa and her party.
"Lady," she said, in a ragged shaking voice naming the stranger courteously. "There are goblins behind…"
The woman's lips pulled into a lean feral grin, like a wolf's, her long curling dark hair thick as a pelt, her gray eyes hard and without any light of mercy as she lifted her bow. "And there are bandits ahead, elf girl."
Demlin stepped in front of Elansa. She could smell sweat and the stink of his fear. The dark-haired woman laughed. "You're a loyal servant, but you make a puny shield. I think one bolt will pin you both. Want me to try and see?"
The woman's knuckles whitened, those of the hand that gripped the bow, and those of the one that held the arrow steady at nock.
"In the name of all gods," Elansa whispered, her voice threadbare as a beggar's hope. She put her hands on Demlin’s shoulders. "Let my servant go."
The woman said nothing. Elansa moved Demlin away from her, gently insisting when Demlin refused.
"Let him go, please. He has nothing you need."
"He doesn't?" The woman looked at her long, her eyes glittering. "He has you, doesn't he?"
Again her grip on the bow and the nocked arrow tightened.
"Please…" Elansa said. "Let him-"
"Dell!" A man's voice, deep and rough, snapped the name like a command. "Hold!"
Without thinking, Elansa looked up, but she saw only the shape of a man, tall and thick in the shoulders, standing on the rock above her. Like the woman, he was human. The sun was behind him, so she saw no features, only his dark shape and a spill of sunlight along the edge of a sword's long blade.
"Dell," he said, a harder edge to his voice. "I said hold."
Dell hesitated another moment, then tossed her head in obvious disgust. "Brand, he's no use to us, just let me-"
"No. Go get Char and the others." He looked at her sternly. "And keep away from the goblins. That’s for later."
Elansa let go a breath she'd not known she was holding. Turning and looking up into his shadow-hidden face, she said, "Thank you."
The man, the one the woman had named Brand, lifted his sword, stood a moment watching the sun slide on the blade, then sprang down from the boulder. The scent of him, woodsmoke and sour sweat and leather, made Elansa want to turn her head. She dared not risk the insult, so she stood straight and as tall as she could, though her head did not reach as high as his chin.
The man's eyes narrowed. He snatched her little knife and the leather pouch from her belt. For only a moment, his hands lingered at her waist. So close, she saw his eyes. In them she read hatred. Elansa’s stomach clenched with fear, and her blood ran chill in her veins. He looked higher, hooked two fingers under the silver chain round her neck, felt the weight of the sapphire phoenix, and lifted it out from her blouse. With one swift motion he took from her neck the chain and the sapphire phoenix. The weight of it was gone from her breast, the pulse of its magic vanished as though it had never been. It would not have beat in the hand of an elf who was not a woodshaper, and it did not beat in the human’s hand. He held it as though it were only cold crystal as he stuffed it into the pouch at his belt, then shoved her own little pouch in on top of that.
Shaking and cold, Elansa moved to wrap her arms around herself to hide her trembling, then stopped. That gesture would have served only to call attention to what she wanted hidden, her fear.
"Sir," she said, surprised to find her voice holding steady as she accorded to an outlaw the respectful address she'd have given a lord among the Qualinesti. "I thank you for my servant's life. Please, will you let him go?"
"Let him go?" His voice sounded like winter's wind, cold and hateful. With the tip of his sword, he gestured to Demlin, who glared in outraged silence, a silence kept because Elansa’s swift glance commanded. "Isn't his life enough? You want his freedom too?"
Dry-mouthed with fear and trembling with anger, Elansa lifted her chin. "I ask for what I ask," she said.
The bandit took a step back, not a long one, only a half-pace. He, who seemed to like the slip and slide of light on his sword’s blade, turned his wrist a little as though to see it again. Caught by the dazzle, Elansa looked where he did, to the silver shining, the light gliding.