That war was a year past, but employment for mercenaries willing to battle the pirates, the shark-worshiping sahuagin now freed throughout the sea, and the nations that battled each other for shipping lanes, salvage from the battles above and below the sea, and trading rights with the newly re-discovered city of Myth Nantar burgeoned. It was one of those battles between shipping guilds that had drawn Druz to Alagh?n.
Studying the slim elf before her, Druz felt certain that her luck had completely soured. That man, dressed as he was in hide armor, his wild black hair pulled back to lay on his shoulders and festooned with sprigs of wood and blossoms of a half-dozen plants, might look like a vagabond or a madman, but the mercenary felt certain she knew what the man was. Trying to kill him would amount to a death wish.
"Feather the damn dandelion-sipper and be done with it," Tethys growled again. "I won't have any man threatening to kill me."
But that won't stop you from threatening to kill another man, will it? Druz mused.
The crossbowmen stood on either side of Druz. One of them was Ennalt and the other was Kord-brothers who had signed on with the ragtag outfit. Both of them held their weapons pointed at the forest warrior.
"Don't," Druz commanded.
In her days she'd sometimes served as a unit commander. She'd learned how to pitch her voice so that it garnered instant respect and attention. Kord hesitated and raised the crossbow to aim into the star-filled sky.
"To hell with that," Tethys growled. "Feather that bastard, Ennalt."
Ennalt's trigger knuckle whitened as the man took up the crossbow's slack.
Without hesitation, Druz swung around, bringing her arm up in a powerful sweep that knocked the crossbow up. The catgut string slid across the stock with a short hiss, and the stubby quarrel took flight.
Arvis, Kord's younger brother by a year, and more impulsive than his older brother who was known for his steadfast pace and unwavering commitment, closed on the forest warrior. Arvis stood head and shoulders taller than the forest warrior and normally brimmed with over-confidence anyway. Facing the much smaller man, Arvis showed no hesitation at all as he whirled his battle-axe effortlessly before him.
"Don't fret over this one," Arvis boomed in his deep voice. "I have him." He stepped forward, his grin lighted by the flickering lanterns in the hands of the men around him.
The forest warrior's attention never seemed to break from the men in front of him. His dark green eyes, glimmering in the lantern light somewhat like a cat's, regarded Druz curiously. His head cocked slightly, as if he didn't notice the way the bigger man closed on him. The forest warrior's scimitar stayed mostly out of sight beside his back leg.
"Don't kill him," Druz pleaded. "He's little more than a boy."
Arvis, she knew, would resent her deeply for the comment, but if it would help save his life, she didn't care. Arvis and Kord, though both blooded in skirmishes around Alagh?n and some of the cities along the western coast of the Sea of Fallen Stars, hadn't yet seen twenty.
"Don't kill him?" Forras repeated, shifting on his bad leg. "Why, Arvis will break this little upstart in half."
Druz watched, feeling a chill like icy cat's paws kneading between her shoulders. She liked Arvis, though his aggressive nature made him somewhat hard to take.
Arvis made his situation even worse by not taking the threat the smaller man offered more seriously. He stepped in and casually feinted with the battle-axe.
Before he could pull back, the smaller man stepped in quickly, going to Arvis's left. Anticipating the big warrior's attempt to block with the battle-axe haft, the small man backhanded his opponent in the nose with his empty fist.
Yelping in pain, Arvis tried to swing around. Instead of keeping his feet planted and merely shifting, Arvis lifted his left foot. The small man kicked the raised foot from under the bigger man as if the feat were nothing.
Off-balance, trying desperately to recover, Arvis fell to the ground, miraculously managing to land on his knee. His opponent walked to his side without apparent haste, but the effort was amazingly quick. Before Arvis could move, the warrior in hide armor kicked the bigger man's back foot, causing the younger man to sprawl out. Arvis toppled onto his outstretched hands, trapping his battle-axe against the ground under his own weight.
In a few seemingly effortless moves, the forest warrior had Arvis stretched out and the scimitar's blade against the young mercenary's throat like he was a pig awaiting the butcher's bloodletting. Coldly, the forest warrior glared at the other members of the wolf-hunting party, letting them all know that Arvis's life was forfeit if they made any sudden moves.
"Don't kill him," Druz repeated.
Kord started forward.
"If you value your brother's life, Kord," Druz said in a low, anxious voice as she glanced at the big man, "you'll stay back."
Kord hesitated.
"If you force him to deal with you," Druz went on, "he'll kill Arvis without blinking an eye. He'll have one less enemy to face."
Kord plucked the heavy quarrel from the crossbow and tossed it to the ground. He dropped the bow next and showed his empty hands.
"That's my brother," he croaked in a voice that broke. "If you'll allow it, I'll have him back in one piece. If you harm him in any way, know that I won't rest until one of us is dead. I swear that by Helm the Vigilant, god of protectors and guardians."
Arvis trembled, evidently trying to figure out a way to rescue himself.
"Stay," the forest warrior commanded. He pressed the scimitar against the younger man's throat meaningfully.
"If he's meaning to kill us," Tethys grated, "then we're better off working together. He can't get us all."
The forest warrior turned his dark green eyes on the mercenary leader. "Count up after the dust has settled."
No one moved.
Tethys swore black oaths, but he stayed where he was.
For all his mercenary experience, Druz knew that Tethys wasn't an overly courageous man. He was smart on a battlefield, and that made him a successful sellsword.
Making a decision, knowing no one else in the party knew for sure what the forest warrior was or whom he represented, Druz sheathed her sword then unbuckled the belt. She dropped it on the ground, then stepped forward with her empty hands held up before her.
The forest warrior watched her approach but said nothing.
"Clear a path to him, girl," Forras said. "You're blocking whatever chance one of us might have to get to him should it come to that."
Druz ignored the command. Part of the reason the forest warrior allowed her to move in was because she would serve as a human shield.
"Who are you?" Druz asked.
The forest warrior regarded her silently.
"What do you want?" Druz tried again.
"No more wolf hunting," the forest warrior replied, "and I want the scalps you've collected so far. Those that died will not be desecrated further."
"No," Tethys disagreed, placing a hand on the bag at his waist where the wolf scalps were stored. "We're keeping the scalps."
Druz spoke to the mercenaries without turning around or taking her eyes from the forest warrior. "You're going to have to give him the scalps."
"Are you insane?" Forras demanded. "Without those scalps we won't be able to collect our bounty."
"If you don't give him the scalps," Druz said in a measured voice, "he'll kill us, and you won't be able to collect your bounty."
"Why would he kill us?" Ennalt demanded, exasperated. "We don't even know this man." He paused. "Do you know him, Druz?"
"No," Druz answered. "I don't know him… but I know what he is."
She met the forest warrior's gaze boldly. Despite her fear of him, and the respect she had for what she guessed he was capable of, she wasn't going to flinch away from him. She wouldn't give him that; she gave no man that.
"He's one man," Tethys objected. "Even if he slays Arvis, there are eight of us."
"I don't want my brother killed," Kord said. "If you do something stupid to get him slain, I'll kill you, Tethys."
"Eight of us isn't enough " Druz said, "and he's not alone."
Warily, the men carrying lanterns moved them so the bull's-eye beams swept the trees around the glen. A wolf bayed in the distance, yipping at the moon that was high in the sky.
"I don't see anyone," Tethys replied.
"You won't see anyone until it's too late," Druz said.
She recalled the tales her blacksmith father had told her of men like the one standing so coolly in front of her with his scimitar at Arvis's throat.
"Who are you?" Tethys demanded of the forest warrior.
"This night," the man said quietly, "I'm a protector of the wolves you people would slay to line your palms with gold."
"He's a druid," Druz said. "One of the Emerald Enclave."
Her announcement started a quick chorus of conversation between the other mercenaries. Arvis, eyes straining in their sockets, looked at the man holding him captive with new-and perhaps fear-filled-respect.
Everyone in Turmish knew of the Emerald Enclave and the druids who filled the organization's ranks. Despite the power that the various cities wielded along the Turmish coastline fronting the Sea of Fallen Stars as well as the Vilhon Reach, no one did anything involving the land without the consent of the Emerald Enclave. The druids' first order of business was to preserve nature, and if that meant no civilization could invade pristine, sylvan glens or wooded areas that could be harvested by loggers, that was what it meant.