She looked at him. “What does that mean?”
His frown deepened. “It means that there’s something about all this that bothers me. Don’t you think this boy is an odd choice for the job of carrying word to us about the free-born?”
She stared at him wordlessly for a moment, considering. “He’s young, yes. But he would be less likely to be noticed because of it. And he seems confident enough about himself.” She paused. “You don’t trust him, Tiger Ty?”
“I’m not saying that.” The other’s brows knitted fiercely. “I just think we ought to be careful.”
She nodded, knowing better than to dismiss Tiger Ty’s suspicion out of hand. “Triss?”
The Captain of the Home Guard was tugging at the bindings on his broken arm. The sling had come off yesterday before the attack, and all that remained was a pair of narrow splints laced about his forearm.
He did not glance up as he tightened a loosening knot. “I think Tiger Ty is right. It doesn’t hurt to be careful.”
She folded her arms. “All right. Assign someone to keep an eye on him.” She turned to Tiger Ty. “I have something important I want you to do. I want you to pick up where Tib left off. Take Spirit and fly east. See if you can find the free-born and lead them here, just in case they’re having trouble reaching us. It may take you several days, and you’ll have to track them without much help from us. I don’t have any idea where to tell you to start, but if there are five thousand of them they shouldn’t be hard to find.”
Tiger Ty frowned anew. “I don’t like leaving you. Send someone else.”
She shook her head. “No, it has to be you. I can trust you to make certain the search is successful. Don’t worry about me. Triss and the Home Guard will keep me safe. I’ll be fine.”
The gnarled Wing Rider shook his head. “I don’t like it, but I’ll go if you tell me to.”
On the chance that he might encounter Par or Coll Ohmsford or Walker Boh or even Morgan Leah in his travels, she gave him a brief description of each and a means by which he could be certain who they were. When she had finished, she gave him her hand and wished him well.
“Be careful, Wren of the Elves,” he cautioned gruffly, keeping her hand firmly tucked in his own for a moment. “The dangers of this world are not so different from Morrowindl’s.”
She smiled, nodded, and he was gone. She watched him gather a pack of stores and blankets together, strap them atop Spirit, board, and wing off into the gray. She stared skyward for a long time after he was lost from sight. The clouds were turning darker. It would be raining by nightfall.
We’ll need better shelter, she thought. We’ll need to move.
“Call Desidio over,” she ordered Triss.
A heavy enough rain would mire the whole of the grasslands on which the Federation camped. It was too much to hope for, but she couldn’t help herself.
Just give us a week, she begged, eyes fixed on the roiling gray. Just a week.
The first drop of rain splashed on her face.
The Elven vanguard assembled, packed up, and moved back into the heavy trees within Drey Wood, there to wait for the storm to pass. It began to rain more heavily as the day edged toward nightfall, and by dusk it was pouring. The Wing Riders had tethered their Rocs apart from the horses, and the men had stretched canvas sheets between trees to keep themselves and their stores dry. The patrols had come in, returned from everywhere but Arborlon, with word that nothing was approaching from any direction and there was no sign of any other Federation force.
They ate a hot meal, the smoke concealed by the downpour, and retired to sleep. Wren was preoccupied with dozens of possibilities of what might happen next and thought she would be awake for hours, but she fell asleep almost instantly, her last conscious thought of Triss and the two Home Guard who stood watch close by.
It was still raining when she awoke, as steady as before. The skies were clouded, and the earth was sodden and turning to mud. It rained all that day and into the next. Scouts went forth to check on the Federation army’s progress and returned to advise that there was none. As Wren had hoped, the grasslands were soggy and treacherous, and the Southland army had pulled up its collective collar and was waiting out the storm. She remembered Tiger Ty’s admonition not to be fooled into thinking that the Federation was doing nothing simply because it was not moving, but the weather was so bad that the Wing Riders did not wish to fly and there was little to discover while they were grounded.
Word arrived from Arborlon that the main body of the Elven army was still several days from being ready to begin its march south. Wren ground her teeth in frustration. The weather wasn’t helping the Elves either.
She spent some of her time with Tib, curious to know more about him, wondering if there was any basis for Tiger Ty’s suspicions. Tib was open and cheerful, except when Gloon was mentioned. Encouraged by her attention, he was eager to talk about himself. He told her he had grown up in Varfleet, subsequently lost his parents to the Federation prisons, had been recruited by the free-born to help in the Resistance, and had lived with the outlaws ever since. He carried messages mostly, able to pass almost anywhere because he looked as if he wasn’t a danger to anyone. He laughed about that, and made Wren laugh, too. He said he had traveled north once or twice to the outlaw strongholds in the Dragon’s Teeth, but hadn’t gone there to live because he was too valuable in the cities. He spoke glowingly of the free-born cause and of the need to free the Borderlands from Federation rule. He did not speak of the Shadowen or indicate that he knew anything about them. She listened carefully to everything he said and heard nothing that suggested Tib was anything other than what he claimed.
She asked Triss to speak with the boy as well so that he might decide. Triss did, and his opinion was the same as her own. Tib Arne seemed to be who and what he claimed. Wren was persuaded. After that, she let the matter drop.
The rain ended on the third day, disappearing at midmorning as clouds dispersed and skies cleared into bright sunlight. Water dripped off leaves and puddled in hollows, and the air turned steamy and damp. Desidio sent riders back to the plains, and Erring Rift dispatched a pair of Wing Riders south. The Elves moved out of the deep forest to the edge of the grasslands and settled down to wait.
The scouts and the Wing Riders returned at midday with varying reports. The Elven Hunters had found nothing, but the Wing Riders reported that the Federation camp was being struck, and the army was preparing to move. As it was already midday, it was uncertain as to what this meant since the army could not hope to progress more than a few miles before dusk. Wren listened to all the reports, had them repeated a second time, thought the matter through, then summoned Erring Rift.
“I want to go up for a look,” she advised him. “Can you choose someone to take me?”
The black-bearded Rift laughed. “And have to face Tiger Ty if something goes wrong? Not a chance! I’ll take you myself, my queen. That way if anything bad happens at least I won’t be around to answer for it!”
She told Triss what she was about, declined his offer to accompany her, and moved to where Rift was strapping himself onto Grayl. Tib caught up with her, wide-eyed and anxious, and asked if he might go as well. She laughed and told him no, but spurred by his mix of eagerness and disappointment promised that he might go another time.
Minutes later she was winging her way southward atop Grayl, peering down at the damp canopy of the forests below and the windswept carpet of the grasslands east. Mist rose off the land in steamy waves, and the air shimmered like bright cloth. Grayl sped quickly down the forest line past the Pykon until they were within sight of the Federation army. Rift guided the Roc close against the backdrop of trees and mountains, keeping between the Southlanders and the glare of the midafternoon sun.