"Better to lose an hour or two crossing rivers than half a company fighting an ambush."
Ryence's eyes flashed white, and he looked to Khelben's scout. "Did you see any ambushers atop the moor?" Somewhat reluctantly, the rider shook his head.
"He wouldn't," said Khelben. "Not if the phaerimm are using their magic." "I'm willing to take that chance."
"I'm not," said Khelben. "There must be enough of us left to hold after we raise our end of the gate. If the phaerimm destroy it, it will take a month for the army to reach Evereska."
"I am not surprised to hear such talk from a human," said Ryence. "The phaerimm are not threatening one of your cities."
"It may not be a human city they are attacking, but plenty of human blood will be spilled defending it." Khelben struggled to conceal the full depth of his contempt for this elf. He had witnessed enough noble ambition to recognize a lord trying to make a name for himself, and he knew that such fools rarely had the good taste to get only themselves killed. "You'd do well not to waste it."
"No elf has asked you to waste anything," said Bladuid, urging his horse alongside Ryence's. "As far as we are concerned, this an elf matter."
Though Khelben was well aware of the disdain in which most Gold elves held humans, he was unaccustomed to feeling its sting himself. Drawing himself to his full height, he glared past Ryence at the high mage.
"Perhaps you have forgotten who I am. My father was Arun Maerdrym, noble son to House Maerdrym of Myth Drannor." What Khelben did not add-though it was obvious by his entirely human appearance-was that Arun had been a half-elf, and as such the first son of mixed race to be acknowledged by a noble house. "And I, personally, am one of the few-human, elf, or otherwise-who actually recalls living in Myth Drannor."
"Then you should know what happens when elves and humans mix," the high mage replied. "How long ago was it that Myth Drannor fell?"
"More recently than Aryvandaar," Khelben shot back. "And you can hardly blame humans for that."
The gibe drew an angry snarl from Ryence and a black glare from Bladuid. No elf-especially no Gold elf-liked to be reminded of how the Crown Wars had shattered the golden age of elven civilization.
Khelben softened his tone. "Fortunately, the spirit of Myth Drannor still lives in some-even in Evereska. I myself have always found a warm welcome in the vale."
"Yes. Perhaps if more humans risked their lives helping elves instead of robbing their tombs, they would receive the same welcome you did." The high mage was referring to the time-nearly a thousand years earlier-that Khelben had almost died saving three Evereskans from a phaerimm ambush. When the grateful elves took him home to recover from his wounds, he became the first human ever allowed to see Evereska.
"If 1 may be so bold," said Khelben's scout, still flying just above his shoulder, "we are trying to help now."
"How very noble of you," Bladuid said. "And your generosity has nothing to do with what will become of human lands if the phaerimm succeed?" "Waterdeep is a long way from Evereska, mage." The scout looked back to Khelben and pointed up the trail. "There's the bend, milord. If you're going to cross, you'd better do it soon."
Khelben looked over to Ryence. "What say you? Will you humor me this once?"
The elf lord considered his request only a second. "There's no need. We must be two hundred miles from Evereska. The phaerimm are not going to ambush us here."
"Then I wish you well," said Khelben, pulling his horse out of line. Ryence's eyes widened. "What are you…"
That was all Khelben heard before Ryence was carried out of earshot. He raised his hand to call Waterdeep's riders to him, then watched with a heavy heart as the elf warriors streaked past, their heads swinging around to look in his direction. He would have felt better, had their expressions had been less indignant and more perplexed.
The scout landed beside Khelben, keeping a tight rein on his hippogriff so it did not try to snack on the gathering horses.
"A wise choice, milord." In the thickening cloud of steaming horse breath, the scout's invisible form was barely discernible even to Khelben. "That elf is too eager to find his death."
"Let us hope he finds it later rather than sooner. Ryence may be a fool and Bladuid a bigot, but their warriors are brave and worthy, else they would not have traveled so far to fight someone else's battle." Khelben looked away from the elves and fixed his attention on the scout. "Shandar, is it not?" "An excellent memory, Lord Blackstaff."
"There are only a dozen of you," said Khelben, dismissing the compliment with a wave of his hand. 'Tell me how the moor looked when you flew over it. Can a horse cross it?"
"The ground looked frozen enough, but it was too broken. I fear we'd cripple as many as we didn't." The last of the elf riders passed by, leaving the archmage alone with his company of volunteers — barely a hundred warriors and a quarter that many battle mages. The men looked nervously from one to another, waiting in silence for their commander to explain why he had divided the Swift Cavalry. Khelben paid them no attention, convinced they would learn the reason soon enough, but hoping they would not.
Shantar finally grew impatient. "Lord Blackstaff? The river?"
Khelben looked across the Winding Water to the barren trees, knowing how difficult it would be to return across the river if the elves were ambushed.
"We can't chance the river." Khelben dismounted and passed his reins to a nearby rider, then drew his staff from its holster and started up the slope. "We'll have need of those elves."
The first hint of the village was the fruity reek of fireweed smoke, a stench that had led Galaeron to the camp of more than one shiftless, tomb-robbing wizard unable to forgo his indulgence for a few nights. This particular smoke happened to be especially foul, and he had a sudden vision of his mother and her friends squatting in the snow outside their storm-lodge, their hands cupped around white meerschaum bowls and their heads swaddled in clouds of brown fume. Wood elves were the most capricious of Tel'Quess, ever ready to test some new delight or enliven a party with a touch of intemperance, and he could easily imagine them becoming slaves to the pipe after seeing some human wizard blow smoke rings through a yellow-stained beard.
As Turlang led the small company deeper into the village, they heard a male voice singing a bawdy tale of one-night love. A rush of laughter punctuated each verse, and it was not long before Galaeron could identify his own mother's voice among them. As always, it stirred in him a youthful longing he had long thought past-and also deeper, angrier emotions upon which he dared not dwell if he meant to keep his shadow at bay.
Like most Sy'Tel'Quess settlements, the winter village of Rheitheillaethor was more of a camp than a town. On the ground stood rough huts of log and mud meant only to deceive intruders, while the elves' true homes sat high among the trees. Modest both in size and construction, the nestings were usually no more than a waxed leather tent covering a platform of dead-fall logs. Often, the walls were decorated with elaborate dye-work grisaille depicting winter scenes, usually rendered so that the art enhanced the camouflage. To spare the residents the effort of descending to the forest floor when they wanted to go somewhere, the entire hamlet was linked by an intricate network of catwalks and swing-ropes, all cleverly disguised as crisscrossing limbs and draping vines. With a fresh twilight snow on the ground, as there was now, a careless observer might easily cross all of Rheitheillathor and never see the real village.
Galaeron's companions were not careless observers. Vala and Melegaunt pretended not to notice the eyes peering down from the sentry hollows, but the care they took to avoid fields of fire suggested they knew exactly where Rheitheillaethor stationed its archers. Aris was not so subtle. The stone giant simply stomped from one tree to another, studying the grisaille and mumbling to himself as he admired the most inspiring of the works. If he noticed the startled elf mothers herding their wide-eyed children out the opposite sides of the nestings, he showed no sign.