The Realms of the Elves

THE BLADESINGERS LESSON

Flamerule, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

Daried Selsherryn prowled through the warm green shadows of the ruined palace. Cold hate gleamed in his perfect eyes. He was attired for battle in a long shirt of golden mail so fine that it might have been made of snakeskin, and in his hand he carried a deadly elven thinblade imbued with potent magic. He was strikingly handsome, even by the high standards of the sun elves, but in his wrath his fine features darkened into the image of an angel wronged.

He measured the damage he could see-the black scars of an old fire, the ruined courtyard, the broken windows and holed roof-and slammed his sword back into his sheath without a flourish. He simply could not see the reason for it, and that angered him until his head swam with bright rage.

"They have made a ruin of my home!" he snarled, then he took a deep breath to compose himself.

Seventy summers ago he had left the old manor of his mother's family warded by strong spells against weather, time, and thieves. But it seemed that his careful labor had been for nothing. His spells had been broken, and strong young trees stood in the overgrown courts and halls amid thick undergrowth and the damp smell of rotten wood.

Root and rain had wreaked their damage on the old manor, but that was the way of growing things and fleeting seasons. What was the point of finding fault with nature's work? No, he would be wiser to save his anger for the plunderers and looters who had battered down the ancient doors his grandfather had made, dispelling the enchantments woven to preserve the Morvaeril palace for the day when once again an elf s foot might tread its marble-floored halls.

Daried turned in a slow circle, studying the manor's empty rooms. Nothing to do now but learn the extent of the damage and try to piece together what happened in the long years the house had stood silent and empty in the forest. The tale of the front hall was easy enough to descry. The strong old doors had been battered down. The beautiful carvings of his grandfather's hand had been bludgeoned and dented by the impact of a rough-hewn timber that still lay just outside the entranceway. Nothing remained of the improvised battering-ram except for a ten-foot long outline of rotted wood, but the splintered doors were just inside the hall.

"How long for a fresh-hewn tree to molder so?" he wondered aloud. "Forty years? Fifty?"

Evidently, the thieves had come not very long after he and his family had Retreated, abandoning Cormanthor for the green haven of Evermeet. He would have hoped that a few generations might pass before the humans set about despoiling the old places of the People. But patience had never been a human virtue, had it?

Daried followed the old signs into the house. The front hall itself had been turned into someone's stable, at least for a time. Low heaps of rich black compost showed where straw bedding and animal dung had been allowed to fall. Thick greasy soot streaked the wall above a haphazard circle of fist-sized stones, telling of campfires long ago. Daried poked around in the old ashes, and found charred bits of bone, the remains of a leather jack, a wooden spoon carelessly discarded. Human work, all of it.

He straightened and brushed off his hands. Then he followed the trail of damage deeper into the house. Each room showed more of the same. Not a single furnishing remained in the old elven manor; everything had been carried away.

He came to the steep stone stair that led to the vaults below the house, and there Daried smiled for the first time in an hour. One of the old invaders had fallen afoul of the house's magical guardians. The chamber had been warded by a living statue, a warrior of stone animated by elven spells. The statue itself lay broken into pieces nearby, but against one wall a human skeleton slumped, blank eye-sockets gazing up at the holed roof overhead. One side of the skull had been staved in-the work of the stone guardian, Daried supposed.

"At least one of you paid for your greed," he told the yellowing bones. "But it seems your comrades didn't think enough of you to bury or burn you. You had poor luck in choosing your friends, didn't you?"

He knelt beside the skeleton and examined it closely. A rusty shirt of mail hung loosely over the bones. Beneath the mail a glint of metal caught his eye, and he carefully drew out a small pendant of tarnished silver from the dead man's tunic. A running horse of dark, tarnished silver raced across the faded green enamel of the charm.

I've seen that emblem before, Daried realized. Some of the Riders of Mistledale wore such a device. In the fly-speck human village not far off from the Morvaeril manor, there stood a rough and grimy taphouse with that symbol hanging above its door.

"Dalesfolk pillaged my house?" he muttered. He tore the pendant from the skeleton's neck and stood with the tarnished charm clenched in his fist.

The sheer ingratitude of the thing simply stunned him. Daried Selsherryn had returned to the forests of Cormanthor with the army of Seiveril Miritar, in order to destroy the daemonfey who had attacked Evermeet. The wretched hellspawn hid themselves in ruined Myth Drannor, threatening all the surrounding human lands with their conjured demons and fell sorceries. Daried and all who marched in the Crusade hazarded their lives to oppose that evil. Elf blood and valor stood as the only shield between those same Dalesfolk and a nightmare of hellfire and ancient wrath. Not five miles from where he stood twenty more elf warriors in the service of Lord Miritar's Crusade guarded that miserable human village. Yet he could see all around him how the wretched human thieves and squatters who'd inherited stewardship over Cormanthor had treated the things Daried's People had left behind.

Did they forget us in less than a hundred years? he fumed silently. Why should a single elf warrior risk harm in order to protect such creatures? What sort of fool was Seiveril Miritar, to waste even one hour in seeking out the goodwill and aid of the Dalesfolk, or any humans for that matter?

Grimacing in distaste, Daried wrapped the dead thief s pendant in a small cloth and dropped it into a pouch at his belt. He meant to ask hard questions about that emblem, and soon. Then he ducked his head beneath the low stone lintel of the stairs leading below the manor-house, and descended into the chambers below.

The air grew cool and musty, a striking change from the humid warmth of the summer woodland above. He didn't bother to strike a light; enough of the bright midday sun above glimmered down the stair for his elf eyes to make out the state of the vault below.

It, too, had been despoiled.

Jagged pock-marks of bubbled stone showed where some fierce and crude battle-magic had been unleashed. The old summoning-traps that would have confronted the intruders with noble celestial beasts, loyal and true, had been scoured from the walls.

Five pointed archways led away from the room at the foot of the stair, and the adamantine doors that had sealed each one were simply gone. Destroyed by acid, disintegrated by magic, perhaps carried away as loot-it didn't matter, did it? What mattered was that the old vaults stood open, unguarded.

Daried's clan had not left any secret hoards of treasure behind in a manor they abandoned, of course. But they had certainly thought that the long-buried dead of the family would be safe behind walls of powerful magic and elven stonework. One by one Daried glanced into each vault, and found dozens of his mother's ancestors and kin stripped of any funereal jewelry they might once have possessed. Their bones lay strewn about in thoughtless disorder, rummaged through and discarded like trash.

Hot tears gathered in Daried's eyes, but he did not allow himself to avert his gaze. Having come this far, he would not allow himself to turn away until he had seen all that there was to be seen.

It was not the elven way to send the dead to Arvandor with roomfuls of precious jewels or wealth for use in the next life. Sun elves were not humans, so frightened of death that they hoped such rites and treasures promised dominion in ages to come. Most sun elves of high family were interred in their finest clothes, wearing the jewels and diadems that went with such formal dress, as a simple matter of reverence. But that did not mean that the remains of the honored dead were to be picked over by whatever scavenger happened along.

He came to the last vault, and there the loss was bitter indeed. It was the resting place of his mother's cousin Alvanir, last of the Morvaerils. He had been interred with the ancient moonblade of House Morvaeril, since with the passing of the last of the line the sword of the Morvaeril clan had itself faded into powerlessness and slumber. Each moonblade was meant for one elven House, and if the House failed, the moonblade was of use to no other.

The ancient sword had been taken too, of course.

Even though the blade was dormant or extinguished outright, it was still a treasure of House Morvaeril, and through Daried's mother, House Selsherryn as well. All else Daried could bear, bitter as it was, but the theft of a dead moonblade left a deep, hot ache in the center of his chest.

"What good is it to you?" he asked the long-vanished plunderers of the tomb. "Is there nothing you hold sacred?"

He drifted back to the central chamber, and wept silently in the gloom and shadows. He'd been born in this house, seventeen decades ago. He remembered the soft lanterns swaying in the chill evening breezes of the spring, the green and lush canopy of leaf and vine that had roofed the courtyard in summer, the tall windows of the library gleaming orange and gold on a frosty autumn morning. Nothing else was left to him of his youth, so many years ago.

The soft click of a taloned claw on the steps behind him saved his life.

Daried roused himself from his sorrow just in time to leap aside, as the foul hellborn monster threw itself on him from the stairs. In a dark rush the thing bounded past him, its hooked talons hissing through the air where the elf s face and throat had been an instant earlier. A hot sharp claw grazed Daried's cheek, and the thing's powerful rush sent him spinning to one side as the creature missed its chance to bear him to the ground and rip out his throat.

Daried grunted once in surprise and backstepped, gaining a double arm's-reach of space to get his bearings and sweep out his sword. His adversary had a shape not unlike that of a man, but a long, thick tail twisted behind it like a hungry serpent, and from head to toe it was studded with barbs of steel-hard horn as long as daggers.

Its skin was crimson and hot, and its eyes glowed like balls of green flame in the shadows of the crypt.

"You weep for the dead, elf?" it hissed. "Be at ease. I will leave your bones here with the rest of this dry old wreckage."

"You mock my ancestors at your peril, hellspawn," Daried growled, keeping his swordpoint between the monster and himself.

The creature grinned with a mouthful of sharp, carious fangs, and leaped at the elf with a flurry of jabbing barbs and slashing talons. But Daried was ready for the monster; he allowed himself to slide easily into the bladesinger's waking trance, a timeless state of mind and body in which each movement became a choreographed dance. With calm deliberation Daried moved his sword to guide the monster's talons away from his flesh, parry the stabbing tail, disguise delicate ripostes and counters.

The thinblade's razorlike point darted between barbs and spikes to pierce infernal flesh, then again and again. Hot spatters of black blood fell to the dusty floor, but the creature gave no sign that it had been hurt. It snapped and flailed wildly, claws and fangs and stabbing spikes whistling past Daried. Elf and devil fought in grim silence, with no sound other than the dull click and scrape of talons against steel. Sharp barbs gouged Daried's limbs and talons raked his shining mail, but he battled on, refusing to allow pain or fatigue a foothold in his concentration.

The devil managed to seize Daried's sleeve in one tal-oned hand, and it hurled itself on him, trying to impale him like a living bed of nails. But Daried twisted away, turning the creature's hand over as he spun. At the same instant he barked out syllables of a deadly spell, and with his free hand grasped the monster's arm. Golden lightning exploded from the bladesinger's touch, charring his adversary's arm into useless black ruin.

With a low hiss the devil recoiled, its grip on Daried failing. It crouched low and whirled, bringing its fiercely spiked tail whistling around in a blow powerful enough to crush stone. But Daried leaped over the devil's strike, and with one smooth motion he sank a foot of his thinblade into the hollow of the monster's throat.

The devil drove him back with a frenzy of slashes and jabbing barbs. But black blood fumed in its mouth and ran between its yellow fangs. It took two more steps toward Daried, the green flame in its eyes dimming, and it stumbled to the floor in a pool of its own foul ichor.

Daried took careful aim and transfixed its head with one more thrust. Then he backed away, waiting for the corpse to vanish. Summoned monsters always did. But nothing happened; the hellspawn's body remained where it had fallen.

"It wasn't summoned?" he muttered in dismay. It hadn't been called to Faerun by a conjuring spell, it had traversed some sort of gate between the planes of its own volition. It was as real in this world as he was.

An ill omen indeed. Was the creature's presence in the world the work of the daemonfey, or did some other peril confront Daried and the elves who followed him?

Whatever the answer, it did not seem likely that he would find out more in the ruins of the Morvaeril manor. Nor, for that matter, would he learn anything about who had taken the ancient moonblade and what the Dalesfolk had had to do with the theft.

Battered and heartsick, Daried shook the foul blood from his sword and climbed back up the stairs to the summer warmth above.

Daried returned to the encampment an hour before sunset. It was a pleasant spot, a well-shaded forest glade a stone's throw from the gravel-voiced Ashaba, where a score of elf warriors under Daried's command kept watch. It was their task to make sure that the Sembian mercenaries in Battledale-allies or dupes of the daemonfey,

Daried did not know or care which-did not reach the west bank of the river by crossing unopposed in the green depths of the forest. Should the Sembians get across the Ashaba here, they would outflank the elf legions that stood ready to defend the main crossing at the town of Ashabenford fifteen miles farther north.

It struck Daried as a fool's errand. No one considered it very likely that the Sembians would search for a path through the trackless depths of the forest in order to try a river crossing where no easy fording-point existed. That was why Vesilde Gaerth, the knight-commander who captained the Crusade forces in Mistledale, had detached only two dozen warriors to guard against the possibility. If, by some amazing feat of endurance, the Sembians succeeded in the forest march and river crossing, Vesilde Gaerth needed a few hours' warning so that he could abandon his defenses at Ashabenford and retreat out of the trap.

Gaerth had also told Daried that he was to capture, drive off, or kill any Sembian scouts who tried to spy out the elven defenses in the southern verge of the dale. And for that matter, he was supposed to do what he could to deal with any demons, devils, or similar monsters who appeared to harry the human villagers and farmers who lived nearby. In fact, that was why Daried had been given this task. As a bladesinger, he at least had a chance of dealing with such monsters using his skill and magic. Most of the other elves in his small company would have been overwhelmed by a hellspawn of any real strength.

"Lord Selsherryn returns!" called a clear voice. Daried glanced up; the moon elf Andariel stood atop a large boulder-fall overlooking the camp, raising his bow in welcome. Young and impetuous, Andariel regarded Daried's high family and personal accomplishment with such seriousness that Daried sometimes suspected secret mockery in his manner. But he had never found a trace of sarcasm behind the younger elfs earnestness.

Daried returned Andariel's salute with a curt wave, and made his way to the temporary shelter that served as his resting-place and command post. Two more elves awaited him there-Hycellyn, another moon elf, and the sun elf mage Teriandyln, who might have been the closest Daried had to a true friend in all the Crusade. Very unusually for an elf, Teriandyln possessed a thin, pointed goatee of fine golden whiskers. Along with his grim manner and brilliant green eyes, the trace of beard lent him an acutely sinister, almost feral, appearance.

The mage glanced up at Daried and frowned. "What in the world happened to you?"

"I met a devil in the wreckage of the Morvaeril manor."

"A devil?" Hycellyn asked sharply. She set down the arrow she was fletching. "Are you hurt, Lord Selsherryn?"

"Nothing serious," Daried answered. He directed his attention to Teriandyln. "I slew it, but its body did not vanish. It was not summoned."

"The daemonfey must control a gate of some kind. Or perhaps the creature was one of the devils trapped in Myth Drannor. I have heard that many such monsters have roamed the ruins for years." Teriandyln frowned deeper. "What sort of creature was it? Do you know?"

"A half-foot taller than a tall elf, with a heavier build. It had no wings, but it was covered in great jutting spikes or barbs."

"A hamatula, then-a barbed devil, as they are sometimes known." The sharp-faced sun elf looked at Daried more closely. "You are fortunate to have walked away from that fight, Daried."

Daried shrugged and said nothing. But Hycellyn retrieved a slender wand of white ashwood from her belt and knelt beside him, murmuring the words of a healing prayer. The bladesinger winced as punctures, gouges, and bruises announced themselves again, but the pain of each injury faded at once, soothed away by the moon elf s magic. He took a deeper breath, and gave her a nod of gratitude.

"So what was a devil doing in the Morvaeril manor?" she asked as she put away the wand.

"The house lies in ruins now," Daried said. "It has been plundered, its warding spells broken. Even the vaults underneath have been despoiled. My mother's kin were robbed in their eternal sleep and left to lie wherever they fell. The thieves even stole the Morvaeril moonblade, dead for a hundred years now. Nothing is left.

"I grew up in that house. It's only been seventy summers since I left it. To see it now you might think our People's absence from this place had been counted in centuries, not decades."

"Who would do such a thing?" Hycellyn wondered aloud.

"Someone who wore this emblem." Daried held out his hand, showing the others the pendant with its image of the running horse. "I found it on the skeleton of a human lying in the house."

"I know that sign," Teriandyln said. "It hangs above the inn that stands in the human village called Glen."

Daried closed his list around the pendant, and slipped it back into his tunic. "I know."

Hycellyn sighed and shook her head. "Lord Selsherryn- Daried-how long has that skeleton been there? How long ago was your family's house broken into? Ten years? Twenty? Fifty? The humans who live in Glen now may have had nothing to do with it."

"For their sake, I hope that is true." Daried stood, and glanced at the sun sinking in the west. "Have our scouts seen anything worth reporting this afternoon?"

"No, it has been quiet," said Teriandyln. "But Ilidyrr and Sarran are not due to report for a couple of hours yet, and they are the farthest east of any of our folk."

"If nothing is happening, then I will leave you in charge for a while longer," Daried told him. "I am going to Glen. Someone there has much to answer for."

Entered green tavern-sign in the human village of Glen. The emblem of a running horse graced the signboard, but the bright silver-white paint was threadbare and peeling. Insects buzzed in the summer twilight, filling the air with chirps and rasping calls. Thousands of tiny midges fluttered around the bright lanterns hanging from light-posts scattered through the hamlet.

Human farmers and townsfolk stood in pairs here and there throughout the village, dressed in ill-fitting leather jerkins and gripping rusty pikes or old bows. Since the daemonfey had begun stirring up old evils in Myth Drannor's ruins, the Dalesfolk had been subjected to deadly raids and rampages by all sorts of monsters and demons. They'd been posting a village watch for two or three tendays-not that some untried farmer had much of a chance against the sorts of infernal creatures Sarya Dlardrageth might send to harry Mistledale. Daried had heard from other elves that there was often more to the Dalesfolk than met the eye, and not a few of those who stood guard were seasoned veterans or onetime sellswords who still remembered how to swing a sword. But he hadn't seen any human watchmen in Glen that he'd trust with a sharp fork, let alone a spear or a sword.

The muted sounds of thick human voices and the clumsy strumming of a crude stringed instrument spilled out of the door. Setting his face in a scowl, Daried pushed open the door and entered the taproom.

It was a smoke-filled, low-ceilinged room with heavy black timbers for beams and posts. The sight made him wince. Could they have killed any more trees when they raised up this oversized kennel? he wondered. He shook his head and turned his attention to the people in the room.

A half-dozen humans sat staring at him, their conversations faltering in mid-word. Between the smoke and the humid warmth of the night, the taproom was quite warm, and sweat flowed freely over hairy faces and around thick homespun tunics. One tall, lanky fellow with long hands and a lanternlike jaw stood behind a weathered bar-the innkeeper, or so Daried assumed.

The tall man managed an awkward bow, and addressed Daried in the common speech the humans used. "Good evening, sir. We heard that some of the Fair Folk were camped in the forest nearby. What can I get for you?"

"Answers," Daried grated. He dropped the tarnished emblem on the rough countertop before the innkeeper. "This pendant was left in an elf manor five miles east of here. The human who wore it has lain dead in that house for some time, but I know he visited that manor no more than seventy years ago. Who among you would know anything about what happened there?"

The innkeeper frowned and shuffled his feet. Daried's vehemence had taken him by surprise, and he finally turned away to wipe his hands on his apron and back a couple of steps away from the bladesinger.

"Are you speaking of the House of Pale Stone?" he asked over his shoulder. "An old unwalled villa of white stone, over on the east bank of the river, its walls covered with green growing vines?"

The House of Pale Stone? Daried had never heard the Morvaeril palace called any such thing, but it seemed apt enough. "The doors to the house lie battered down outside. They are carved in the image of a crescent moon rising above a forest glade, with seven seven-pointed stars at the top."

"Yes, that's the place," the innkeeper said. "I visited the place once when I was a young lad. I remember the sign on the old doors. I didn't dare go in, though. Everyone knows that deadly magic and restless spirits lurk in the ruins." He looked down at the pendant again. "You mean to tell me that you found this in the House of Pale Stone?"

"If you did not enter the house, who did?"

The innkeeper wrung his hands in his apron again, drying them anxiously. "I did not break down those doors, sir elf. Nor did anyone I know. The place has been like that

Q since my father's time, maybe my grandfather's time. It's haunted. Sometimes bold young lads of the town go and have a look, like I did when I was a boy. But we've all heard stories of the dangers of that old manor. Sellswords and freebooters have died in that house."

"Red Harvald did not fear that old dusty tomb!"

Daried turned his head, surprised. By the cold fireplace an old townsman sat smoking a long-stemmed pipe, grinning at him. He hadn't realized that all the folk in the taproom were watching his interrogation of the innkeeper. Deliberately, he put his back to the wall and shifted so that he had a better view of the room.

"Vada, you mean to say that Red Harvald dared the House of Pale Stone?" the innkeeper asked the old man.

"Aye, and a dozen tombs, crypts, and palaces more. The woods are full of places the Fair Folk left empty. Red Harvald had a look in every one within forty miles." The old man-Vada-nodded at his own musty memories. "I remember the day that Red Harvald and his bold fellows sat right at that table over there and recounted the harrowing traps and fearsome dangers they met in the House of Pale Stone. Half the folk of Glen crowded into this very room to hear the tale."

"How long ago was this?" Daried demanded.

The old man drew his pipe from his mouth and frowned in thought. He tapped out the ashes on the stones of the hearth, and blew the bowl clean with an expert puff of breath. "It was a few days before midsummer, in the Year of the Striking Falcon. Forty years, good sir. Not much time as you reckon it, I suppose, but long enough for a human. Why, Earek there-" he nodded at the tall innkeeper-"was only a toddler then."

The bladesinger motioned the man to silence with a curt gesture. "Where is this Red Harvald now?"

Vada blinked, taken aback. After a moment he smiled again. "Why, he is dead, sir elf. Twenty-five years, it must be."

Daried glowered at him. "I suppose the thieving dog finally met a just end in one of the houses he plundered."

"You misunderstand, sir. Red Harvald was a hero, not a thief. He was the most courageous man I've ever met, and generous too. Oh, he had a quick temper sometimes, but he never remained angry for long. He hunted down highwaymen, scattered brigands and bandits, warded Glen from more ore and ogre-raids than I could care to count, and even faced stranger and more deadly monsters when they emerged from the depths of the forest to harrow our town. And when true tomb-plunderers and over-eager freebooters drifted through the Dale and risked stirring up real trouble, well, he'd run them off with nothing but a hard look and a few quiet words. I owed him my life at least twice over. Many Glen-folk did."

Daried stared hard at the garrulous old fellow, weighing the truthfulness of his words and manner. Vada's bland smile seemed less warm than it had been before, but the elf could sense no duplicity in it. He scowled and turned back to the innkeeper, searching for a sly grin or insincere smirk that might give the lie to the old man's story, but Earek merely nodded in agreement.

"He was always kind to me when I was a lad," the innkeeper said. "A good man, a hero who never treated others like they were somehow less than he was. Red Harvald was a leader of this town for many years. He was no thief."

It's only to be expected that they would band together to defend their own, Daried told himself. Likely this Harvald fellow bought himself a town full of friends and admirers with the fine things he stole from the honored dead. Even so, the sun elf could see that he was not going to get far by lashing out with more accusations. The townsfolk remembered the man as a hero, and in Daried's experience, no one liked to learn about their hero's failings.

Besides, if Vada and Earek were telling the truth, then this Harvald fellow had spent his plunder well for many years. By now the funerary wealth of the Morvaeril dead must be scattered across half of Faerun, traded and sold a dozen times over.

The humans in the taproom watched him warily. Daried resigned himself to a more patient approach, and let the doubt and hostility fall from his face.

"As you must have guessed, the ruin that you name the House of Pale Stone was once my family's home," he began. "I have but lately returned from Evermeet, and I was appalled to discover that the palace had been broken into and the crypts denied. I hope that you can see why I was upset."

Earek the innkeeper nodded cautiously. "Anyone would be," he agreed. He waited for Daried to continue.

"Perhaps the man you call Red Harvald was the one who opened our vaults, or perhaps someone else pillaged the place before he ever set foot in it. The gems and jewelry removed from our dead are not that important to me. I wish that my ancestors' sleep had not been disturbed, but it is done, and I will speak no more of it.

"But there is one thing I ask of you, only one heirloom of my mother's family that I would wish to recover. It was a sword of fine elven steel, with three pearls set in its crossguard and a hilt shaped like a sea serpent. A design like a row of breaking waves graced its blade. Once it was enchanted, but its magic faded away centuries ago. It is nothing more or less than a beautiful old sword now, but it would please me greatly to find it." Daried felt his temper rising again at the idea of the Morvaeril moonblade in the hands of some human brigand, but he checked his anger with a deep breath. "I will, of course, pay a very handsome finder's fee to the current owner. I pass no judgment on anyone who happens to own it now. I will be satisfied with its return."

The innkeeper's eyes narrowed as Daried described the blade. When he finished, Earek glanced past the blade-singer's shoulder at Vada, seated by the hearth. Daried turned slowly, but Vada made no secret of his assent.

"I believe him," the old man told Earek. "He and his people have come a long way to shield us from terrible foes. It would be ungrateful-and stupid-of us to ignore his grievances."

The innkeeper nodded, and returned his attention to Daried. "I've seen that sword," he told the bladesinger. "It hung in a scabbard of red dragon-leather above the fireplace of a man named Andar, the son of Harvald. He lived in the house Harvald built."

"Very good," said Daried. "I will-"

Earek stopped him with a raised hand. "Andar was killed two days ago, sir. He led some of our folk against a large warband of Chondathan marauders. But after he drove them away, some of the mercenaries decided to follow him back to his manor. They killed him, looted the place, and burned much of it to the ground. I don't know if your sword is still there or not."

Daried grimaced. He remembered his scouts telling him of a skirmish near the town a couple of days past, but he had given it little thought. Gangs of desperate men and bands of reavers roamed the dale; he and his elves drove off or slew the ones they caught, but some eluded them. After all, they were watching the forests to the southeast, not the open lands to the west.

"Chondathans? I thought your enemies were Sembians."

The innkeeper snorted. "The Sembians don't do much of their own fighting, sir. They hire companies of mercenaries from all over Faerun to serve as their army. Hard, cruel men, all too eager to add some plunder to their Sembian gold."

"Where can I find the manor?"

"You'll find the place a little less than two miles southwest of the town," the innkeeper said. "It's a strong fieldstone farmhouse on the top of a small hill, with a big apple-orchard all around it. Just look for the smoke."

The bladesinger nodded and turned to go, but paused. Two or three violent deaths in a village the size of Glen was a hard thing to bear, even for humans. The Glen-folk hadn't despoiled his family's palace or stripped elven dead of their funerary attire, even if it was likely that their fathers had. They didn't deserve the brunt of his anger. He looked back to Earek and Vada from the door. "Do any of the family survive?" he asked.

"Andar's sons and their families live here in the town; they weren't there," Vada said. "Nilsa lived with her father, but she went up to Ashabenford earlier that day. She didn't return until the morning after." The old man fixed his watery gaze on Daried, and pointed the stem of his pipe at the elf. "If you should meet them at Harvald's house, remember that they've lost enough in the last few days. Speak less harshly to them than you did to us, if you have a dram of compassion in your heart."

Daried nodded once and left, shrugging off the weight of the human gazes on his back.

The warmth of the day did not diminish noticeably when the sun set. The long, hot afternoon simply faded into a humid, clinging night. The moon was only a thin crescent in the southeast, and the stars were faint and few. If there had been no moonlight at all, it might have been difficult for Daried, but as it was, he could easily follow the trail left by the marauders who had pillaged and burned Harvald's old house. They were driving most of the farmstead's livestock with them and moving slowly, as one might expect of a band of raiders burdened with loot.

They think that no one dares to chase them, Daried decided. They are that stupid, or that arrogant. Perhaps they figured that no village in this empty corner of the Dale would be able to muster enough skilled warriors to challenge thirty-five or forty seasoned mercenaries. That was Daried's guess as to the size of the warband. It could be larger, if there were other bands who had split off to roam in different directions before he had picked up their trail.

He'd found the farmstead half-burned, as Earek had told him. The walls of the old fieldstone house survived, but the roof was mostly gone, and the various outbuildings were all burned. An astonishing array of mundane possessions-pots and kettles, stools and chairs, chests and cabinets-had been dragged out of the house and strewn around. Three fresh-dug graves lay a short distance from the house. He didn't know who else beside Harvald's son had died there, but there had been no one at the burned manor to ask.

A quick divination spell had confirmed his suspicion: the Morvaeril moonblade was no longer there, carried off by the marauders who had pillaged the place. Without a moment's hesitation, Daried had set off in pursuit.

Humans were unlikely to travel all night long, and the raiders were not moving quickly in any event. Elves, on the other hand, traveled swiftly indeed by night or day and could go for days with minimal rest. Even with their head start, he thought he might be able to overtake the marauders before they reached the Sembian encampment in Battledale. It was his only chance to regain the Morvaeril moonblade.

Besides, dealing with murderous scum such as the marauders he pursued was one of the reasons Vesilde Gaerth had posted Daried and his small company to Glen in the first place. Corellon only knew what other acts of violence and robbery they had already committed elsewhere in the Dale, or would commit given the chance.

Daried trotted southward throughout the night, following the swath the mercenaries left behind. Instead of making straight for Battledale, the mercenaries seemed to have veered west for a few miles, skirting the forest border as they made their way south. No doubt they hadn't yet had their fill of blood and loot, and hoped for more opportunities for mayhem before turning homeward. On two occasions he passed lonely farmsteads, sacked by the marauders he followed. Whatever the reason, each detour the murderers took gave Daried more time to catch them before they rejoined the Sembian army.

At daybreak he allowed himself an hour of rest, eating a little bread and dried fruit he carried in a pouch by his belt. Then he roused himself and pushed on. In the mid-morning the marauders' trail finally turned eastward and disappeared into the shadows of Cormanthor.

Beneath the trees the day was still quite warm; not a breath of wind stirred the branches. The raiders' path followed an old track in the woods-not an elfroad, for it would have taken elven woodcraft to find and follow one of Cormanthyr's hidden highways. This was a woodcutter's foot-track, for Daried passed a number of old stumps, (zees cut down years ago. He paused to examine the first few he found, and discovered that the old woodcutter had gone out of his way to take only dead or dying trees. At least some humans took elven teachings to heart, though elves wouldn't have scarred the forest so much with their harvesting of wood.

A little more than ten miles from the place where the marauder's trail entered the forest, Daried came to the Ashaba. And there, in the middle of the forest, he found abridge. it was not a human-built bridge, of course. Instead, it was one of the old elven crossings, a set of submerged and semi-submerged boulders that had been surreptitiously arranged to form an easy path across the river. The riverbed itself was arranged to accommodate flooding by spreading the water out across a wide, shallow gravel bank instead of drowning the crossing altogether. Long ago spells of illusion had concealed parts of the span, so that anyone who came across it without knowing its secret would have seen no crossing there. But those spells had failed with time, and the whole pathway was there for anyone to see. Even forest-blind humans couldn't miss it-and in fact they hadn't, because the marauders' trail led over the old crossing.

The bladesinger halted in amazement. There were supposed to be no easy crossings of the great forest river between Ashabenford and the Pool of Yeven. His company was keeping watch twelve miles upstream, ignorant of a perfectly serviceable crossing that at least some of the Sembian sellswords knew about and made use of. The Sembian army hardly needed to improvise a crossing near Glen, when this one would serve almost as well. It was farther from Ashabenford, of course, but it also had a fine path leading right into the western portions of Mistledale.

Daried thought for a moment. He and his archers could hold the bridge against a small company of human sellswords, but if a few hundred human warriors went that way, they could do little more than slow the attack. But there was a chance at least that the leaders of the Sembian army did not know of the crossing. The mercenaries in Sembia's service might not have reported the crossing to their employers-not before they had an opportunity to do some pillaging first.

After all, if the Sembians had known about the crossing, why would they not have attacked already?

"That is tenuous reasoning, Daried," he told himself.

But if there was even the slightest chance that he could keep knowledge of the crossing from finding its way back to the Sembian commanders, he had to try. And it also meant that he could continue his pursuit of the marauders, didn't it?

Striding easily from boulder to boulder, he hurried across the hidden bridge and picked up the path on the east bank of the Ashaba. He redoubled his pace and ran through the long, warm hours of the afternoon, gliding through the tree-gloom and brush like a silent green shadow. Sweat glistened on his brow, and his eyes ached from lack of rest, but he refused to slack his pace. Only the soft thudding of his footfalls on the forest loam and the light creaking of his armor betrayed his haste.

He slowed only when he heard the sounds of human voices ahead of him on the trail.

Carefully, Daried raised the hood of his cloak and drew it closer around his shoulders despite the heat of the day.

Its dappled gray-green hue and concealing enchantments would make him much more difficult to see. Then he closed in on his quarry.

The mercenaries had halted near a dark, still forest pool, setting their camp for the night. They were big, dirty men, dressed in hauberks of heavy mail and leather. Sweat soaked their brows and dripped from their faces, staining their arming coats and tunics. They were crude, callous, and slovenly, but Daried did not miss the care with which they set their sentries or the alertness of those who remained on watch. They might have been mercenaries of the lowest sort, but that also meant that they were professional fighters, and they knew enough to be careful of Cormanthor's watchful silence.

In an hour of watching, he counted thirty-one of them. He also earmarked the leader of the rough band, a tall, thin fellow with a badly pocked face and a scalp shaven down to short stubble. Most of the mercenaries satisfied themselves with arranging simple lean-tos or rigging open-sided awnings of canvas to keep off any rain, but the leader had a tent, in which he kept most of the band's loot. Several fierce war-hounds prowled about the camp, and in a small hollow nearby the mercenaries created a small corral for the cows, pigs, and horses they'd carried off from the Dalesfolk. The air reeked of dung, sweat, and woodsmoke.

After a time, Daried withdrew a few hundred yards and found himself a good spot to lie out of sight and rest. He ate a light meal, and permitted himself several hours of Reverie in order to refresh himself and regain his strength. The humans would be there all night; he could afford a few hours' rest.

Three hours after dusk, he arose from his hiding place. The night was even warmer than the previous one, and the air felt heavy and still-there would be a thunderstorm before long. Avoiding the path, Daried returned to the mercenaries' camp through the trackless forest. He spotted a pair of sentries watching over the path leading back toward Mistledale, and two more keeping an eye on the forest nearby. After watching for a time, he decided that two more sentries guarded the other side of the camp.

And he found someone else watching the camp, too.

A short distance ahead of him, a young woman crouched behind a tree, a powerful bow in her hands. She wore a tunic of homespun linen, breeches rather than a skirt, and a green cloak with its hood drawn. She was dressed like one of the Dalesfolk, but it seemed unlikely that one girl would have tracked a whole band of mercenaries into the forest. Of course, Daried himself had done just that, but he was a highly skilled bladesinger and a seasoned warrior; he knew what he was about.

The girl drew a deep breath, and raised her bow, sighting on the nearest sentry, a shot of twenty yards or so from where she crouched. Daried scowled-if she started shooting mercenaries, she'd rouse the whole camp and likely get herself killed. It certainly would not aid his efforts at all.

He glided closer and whispered, "Do not shoot. You'll wake them all."

The girl whirled in surprise, bringing her bow around to aim at him, but Daried had been careful enough to place a tree between them. He made a small motion of his hand: "Wait."

Slowly, the girl lowered her bow. She studied Daried with suspicion. She was unusually fine-featured for a human, with delicate eyes, a narrow face, and ears that showed just the subtlest of points.

She has elf blood! Daried realized. Of course. The humans plundered everything else of ours. Why not take what they wanted from our women as well?

He considered leaving, and allowing the girl to simply get herself killed. She was born in violence and robbery; why should he intervene to spare her from the consequences of human rashness? But before he decided to abandon her, she spoke.

"I am Daried Selsherryn, of Evermeet," he answered, keeping his voice low. "Those sellswords have something that belongs to my family, and I mean to get it back."

"Fine, you are welcome to search their belongings when I am done with them." She turned her back on him and raised her bow again.

Daried had certainly not expected to be ignored. He was so nonplussed that he almost let her begin her fight without another word. But he took two soft steps closer and shook his head. "I can't have you put them on their guard yet. Now, who are you? And why is one human girl seeking her own death by attacking a camp full of hardened sellswords?"

"I am Nilsa Harvalmeer. These murderers killed my father and burned my home. I am going to see them pay for what they have done."

Daried looked at her more closely. "Nilsa, the daughter of Andar?"

"Yes. How do you know me?"

"I followed this band of mercenaries from your father's house."

The girl studied him. "You're the elf captain whose archers are near Glen, aren't you?"

"I am." He hadn't realized that any of the Glen-folk knew who he was.

"Are the rest of your warriors nearby? Can you wipe out this whole band?"

Daried shook his head. "I am the only one here," he said.

Nilsa frowned. "Why are you here by yourself?"

Do I explain myself? he wondered. She might regard the Morvaeril moonblade as a heirloom of her House, not mine. Still, in his experience, it was always better to be truthful, even when the words would be hard to hear.

"I came for the sword your grandfather took from my family's ancestral home," he said. "I only learned two days ago that it was missing. The townspeople told me that it was in your family's keeping. When I found that your house had been plundered, I decided to follow the marauders and take it back."

She stared at him in disbelief. "You came here to take back a sword?"

"Yes, but now that I am here, I think I'll discourage these brigands from raiding your Dale again. It would be unconscionable to leave them free to murder and rob anybody else."

"You have a high opinion of your ability to discourage them."

"I know what I can do," he said. He looked at the bow in her hands. "Are you skilled with that weapon?"

"I know what I can do," Nilsa answered him. "At this range, I'll kill a man each time I shoot."

Reading her face, Daried decided that she believed she was speaking the truth. That was no more or less than he would expect from an elf archer, after all. Whether or not her opinion of her own archery was founded on truth, he could not say. Most likely, she'd manage a couple of good shots, but she'd lose her nerve and her aim when the surprise of her attack faded. But still, he could use a couple of good arrows at the right moment.

"All right," he said. "I will take care of the sentries on this side of the camp, then slip in and slay their captain. Then I will call out for you in Elvish. You will shoot any man you see in the middle of the camp. Fire five arrows, and withdraw. Accurate fire is more important than rapid fire. I'd rather have one man dead or wounded than five men missed. I will trust that you do not shoot me.

"After I have caused a little more havoc, I will also withdraw. I will meet you a half-mile back down the trail, and we will set an ambush in case we are pursued."

Nilsa scowled in the shadows. "Who decided that you were in charge of this?"

"I did. Do you have a better plan?"

The girl remained silent, evidently considering the question. Finally she nodded. "All right, we'll try it your way. I'll wait for you to call out before I start shooting."

Daried nodded once and slipped away into the forest-shadow. He circled away from Nilsa's position, moving slowly and carefully. He did not know whether the girl's shooting would help him at all, so he determined to dismiss it from his plan. If she managed to injure or kill some of his foes, well, good. If not, even wild arrows fired into the fight would add to the chaos he intended to create in the Chondathans' camp.

When he reached a good position, he paused and whispered the words of a few spells to aid him in the fight-a spell of supernatural agility and quickness, and another that would ward him from enemy blades. A bladesinger's training combined the study of magic with the study of swordplay, and Daried was a competent wizard as well as an accomplished swordsman. He would need both arts for the task ahead of him.

Guarded by his enchantments, Daried stole closer to the camp and approached the first two sentries. They stood in the trees, well away from the firelight, about twenty feet apart. Again, he found that he had to give the mercenaries marks for experience. A single sentry would have been easy to neutralize in silence, but two close enough to see each other but disciplined enough to remain apart were much harder to deal with. For this, he would need magic.

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Daried waited for the next faint flicker of light in the distance, silently counting for the thunderclap. Then, as the low rumble washed over the forest, he quickly spoke the words of another spell, using the thunder to drown out the sounds of the arcane syllables. The nearer sentry heard something anyway and started to turn toward him, but then his chin drooped to his chest and he folded to the ground, fast asleep. The other sentry simply sank down, his back to a tree.

He probably could have left them, since it was not likely they would wake on their own for a time, but the approaching storm concerned him. A loud thunderclap might rouse the sentries again, and he did not want to have to elude them when he left the camp. So Daried bound and gagged both men thoroughly before moving on to the next two sentries. Killing men in their sleep was a hard thing to do, even men such as these.

The next two sentries were a little less wary then their fellows. A thick stand of trees stood between them, so that it was hard to keep each other in view. Daried simply distracted the one on the left with a magic word and a nick of his hand, creating a rustle in the underbrush near the guard's feet. While that man looked down and backed up a step, Daried glided close behind the second and killed him with a sword-thrust through the throat. It was not a nobly struck blow, but he reminded himself that these Chondathans were murderers and robbers. He'd seen what they had left behind in the farmsteads they'd plundered south of Glen. The man at his feet died far better and more swiftly than many of the mercenaries' victims.

"Roldo?" called the first man. "Did you hear something?"

The remaining sentry took two steps toward the place where his fellow had fallen, and Daried stepped out of the shadows and whispered another spell.

"Swift and silent," he hissed, "run back to the Ashaba and keep watch over the crossing there."

The big human stared at him slack-jawed for three heartbeats, caught in the power of Daried's spell. Then he nodded vigorously and hurried off into the night, vanishing into the forest. The Ashaba was better than ten miles off in that direction. Daried wondered whether the man would reach the river before the enchantment wore off, or if he would come to his senses somewhere in the middle of the forest.

Four sentries dealt with; the two on the other side of the camp would not be relevant to Daried's efforts. A few fat, warm raindrops began to patter down in the branches overhead. It seemed likely that there would be a downpour within a matter of minutes, but the bladesinger decided that heavy rain would only help him. He ignored the raindrops and glided toward the firelight.

A couple of the Chondathans still sat up, talking with each other near the fire. Better than a score of their fellows lay scattered about the clearing, lying on top of their bedrolls since it was a warm night. Among the sleeping men were three big war-hounds with iron-spiked collars, drowsing with their masters.

The hounds were dangerous… but if things went as he planned, they would not trouble him much.

He took a deep breath, and waited for another rumble of thunder. It was not long in coming, and as the treetops sighed and shook in the warm night wind, he whispered the words of an invisibility spell. Then he advanced into the camp, picking his way past the sleeping men all around his feet. The captain slept in a tent apart from his men. It was a surprisingly large and well-made pavilion that must have weighed hundreds of pounds. No elf leader would have burdened himself with such an ostentatious shelter, but Daried supposed that the mercenary captain had likely taken it from some pillaged enemy camp long ago, and had his men carry it along to put on airs of nobility.

Daried slipped into the tent, steel in his hand. He could not help disturbing the flap that served as the tent's entrance, but he did it in silence. Heaps of plunder filled the inside of the tent, the wreckage of dozens of lives ground out in the last few days by the mercenary band. The bladesinger moved past the sacks and bundles. A small partition separated the sleeping area. Grimly, he used the point of his sword to edge the drape out of his way.

The mercenary captain sat facing him behind a small camp desk, his bared sword leaning against the table. He glanced up at the motion of the drapery and frowned, perhaps puzzled by the strange motion of the partition. His eyes gleamed oddly in the faint light of an oil lamp.

On the folding cot, the Morvaeril moonblade sat in its human-made scabbard of red leather. Rain began to patter more heavily against the heavy canvas of the tent, and the air smelled of distant lightning.

Daried smiled coldly and returned his attention to the mercenary leader. The fellow glanced over at the ancient sword lying on the cot, and glanced back in Daried's direction. A tiny motion of his eyebrow betrayed a hint of surprise.

He sees me, Daried realized. He sees me!

Whether the captain knew some magic of his own, or possessed some enchanted token that allowed him to discern magical invisibility, Daried did not know. But now he had to strike and strike quickly, because his advantage was gone. In the space of a heartbeat he leaped forward, his swordpoint aimed at the lean man's heart.

But the human captain reached the same conclusion Daried did, and just as quickly. He seized his own sword and with one powerful shove flung the light camp desk into Daried's path. Daried tried to jump over the desk but failed, and found himself sprawling at the feet of the man he'd intended to kill. And his invisibility-spell faded, spoiled by the attack he'd just launched against his foe.

"To arms! To arms!" the captain shouted to his men outside. "We are attacked!" Then he stabbed viciously at Daried, his sword darting and striking like a silver shadow in the darkened tent.

Daried's magical agility saved his life. He threw himself aside, fetching up against the foot of the cot.

"Damn it all to Lolth's black hells!" he growled in Elvish. Then he rolled back in the other direction and threw out a hand to lever himself to his feet, only to snatch it back a moment later as a small viper with jade-green scales struck at his outflung arm. The little serpent's eyes glittered with unnatural intelligence, and it hissed at him maliciously.

A wizard's familiar, the elf realized. That explained much. The leader of the mercenaries was more than he seemed, and Daried would have to live with the consequences of his unfounded assumptions.

"I do not know what your quarrel with me is, elf, but you won't have long to regret your mistake," the human snarled.

He pressed close and slashed at Daried's legs, but Daried finished his roll and got to his knees and one hand. The bladesinger snapped out the words of a spell of his own, a burst of eldritch fire that seared everything around him. The viper recoiled and slithered into the pile of loot it had been hiding in, and the captain roared in rage and staggered back.

Finally free to stand, Daried took a deep breath and threw himself into the state of perfect clarity, of action without thought, that marked the bladesinger's dance. He moved his swordpoint through the familiar passes, and arcane symbols formed in his mind. He retreated out of the mercenary's tent, since he fought best with plenty of clear space, and he would not want to be trapped in the tent between the captain and his warriors.

He emerged into a scene of complete chaos. All around him men struggled to their feet and groped for weapons, shouting to each other. More than a few simply stared in astonishment as he appeared from their captain's tent, an elflord in golden mail whose sword whirled about in a dizzying weave of bright steel.

Only three steps in front of him a scar-faced swordsman with rotten teeth glared at Daried in dull fury. "What in the Nine screaming Hells is going on here?" he roared, sweeping a curved tulwar from his belt.

"The elf tried to kill Lord Sarthos!" someone cried.

The scarred swordsman grunted and threw himself forward. But Daried barked out another spell and shrouded himself in a brilliant aura of blue flame. He reached out to take the scarred man with a thrust to the throat. Like a zephyr of white steel and deadly magic, he danced across the clearing. Lost in the bladesong he hardly knew what he was doing. He slipped into the space between eyeblinks, sharpening his perceptions until it seemed that raindrops sank slowly through the night and lightning-swift swordstrokes were languid and slow.

He cut the legs out from another man and turned to find a war-hound bounding at him. He crouched and readied himself to let the animal have his forearm instead of his throat, but the animal shied away from the magical flame wreathing his body. It growled savagely, filling the night with its barking, but it dared not come any closer. A mercenary nearby was not so lucky. He managed to land a shallow cut across Daried's shoulderblade, but Daried's flame-aura returned the blow with searing heat. Wrapped in blue flame, the man stumbled screaming into the night.

This might work after all, Daried thought. Then the captain-Lord Sarthos, he guessed-came out of his tent. Snarling his own dire invocation, Sarthos threw out his hand and scoured Daried with a bolt of crawling black power. Even in his trance Daried cried out in pain as his side sizzled and smoked, and the strength drained away from his limbs. He stumbled into the path of a grizzled old sergeant with a poleaxe, who nearly took his arm with a powerful overhead chop, and a small wiry man with a pair of curved daggers got close enough to slash him badly across the midsection before the flame-shield drove him back, blinded and screaming.

I have to deal with the wizard, he decided. With the right spell the mercenary lord might immobilize or cripple Daried outright, and he would be cut down in a heartbeat.

Fighting through his exhaustion, Daried threw himself toward the enemy lord. He thrust at the wizard's midsection, but the man easily beat his blade aside with his own.

"Don't use your swords, lads!" Sarthos called to his men. "The elfs guarded by a fire-shield. You'll need spears or arrows for this work."

Stepping back from Daried, the mercenary lord snatched a wand from his belt and riddled Daried within the armor over his heart. Daried stumbled and went to one knee, his bladesinger's trance finally broken by the pain and fatigue. Only his fire-shield served to protect him, and as he looked up, he saw a half-dozen mercenaries approaching with long spears to transfix him where he kneeled.

I underestimated them, he realized. I thought my skill and magic would be enough.

He looked back to the Chondathan lord, who watched him with his teeth bared in a bloodthirsty grin. "You're not as good as you thought, are you?" Sarthos sneered. He gestured to the spearmen.

An arrow flashed in the firelight and struck the pock-faced lord on the right side of his chest, spinning him to the ground. Then another one took a spearman approaching Daried in the eye, dropping the warrior like a puppet with its strings cut. A third arrow lodged in the small of the sergeant's back, driving him to the ground with a strangled cry.

"Archers!" shouted one of the men. "Archers!"

"She shoots as well as she said," Daried murmured in surprise.

He glanced at Lord Sarthos, who sat up on one elbow, grimly wrestling with the arrow in his chest as blood streamed from his wound. The man's breastplate had taken much of the blow, but he gasped with pain and paid no attention to the bladesinger. Other men thrashed into the woods, seeking to flush out their attackers and get out of the firelight.

The Morvaeril moonblade was only fifteen feet away. But it would cost him his life to try for it. With a snarl of frustration, Daried wove a spell of darkness over the camp, plunging the clearing into utter blackness. Then, allowing his fire-shield to gutter out, he staggered to his feet and groped his way out of the mercenaries' camp.

The ill effects of the mercenary lord's black ray seemed to wear off with time. By the time Daried reached a good spot half a mile north of the Chondathan camp, he no longer shook with complete exhaustion. His wounds troubled him, of course, but in a few moments of work he bound the worst of them and decided that he could fight again if he had to. Moving a few yards off the trail, he settled in to wait and watch, wrapped up in his gray-green cloak with little more than his eyes showing in the darkness.

The thunderstorm slowly moved off, leaving the forest dripping wet but noticeably cooler in its wake. It was past midnight, and the moon was sinking quickly toward the west. Another elf might have replayed the skirmish in the camp in his head while he waited, but Daried was not given to regret or wishful thinking. What was done was done; there was no point in wishing otherwise. He would not underestimate his adversaries again.

He more than half-expected the whole band of human sellswords to come crashing down the path at any time, but to his surprise, they did not pursue him. Perhaps they thought there were more elf archers roaming around in the night. With the failing moonlight and the overcast skies, he found it dark indeed under the trees. To human eyes it was likely pitch-black, and even the most bloodthirsty mercenary would think twice about blundering around blindly in the dark.

An hour passed before he began to worry about Nilsa.

At first, he told himself that she was simply circling away from the trail, swinging wide of the camp so as to throw off pursuit. That could easily turn a ten-minute trot into the work of a long, slow hour. But as one hour stretched toward two, he found it harder to remain patient. Did she simply become lost in the darkness? he wondered. Her woodcraft seemed better than that, but in the confusion of the fight at the camp, who knew? Or had she fallen into the hands of the mercenaries? If that was the case… Daried sincerely hoped that she'd forced them to kill her instead of taking her captive. He had an idea of what men such as the Chondathans were capable of, and death would have been preferable.

He was wrestling with the question of whether to head back to the camp when she finally appeared, picking her way down the trail. Every few steps she paused and spent three heartbeats listening and peering into the woods.

When she drew closer he stood and called softly, "Here, Nilsa."

The girl started. "You scared me half to death, elf," she muttered. She hurried off the trail and joined him in the shadows.

"Where have you been? What happened?" he demanded.

"I was going to ask you the same thing. You were supposed to run off the whole camp. That was your plan, I seem to recall."

"I did not expect to meet with a competent wizard. Things would have gone differently otherwise."

"If you say so." She snorted softly in the darkness. "After you cast that darkness spell, I tried to lay low and wait out the Chondathans. But they turned loose their hounds, and I realized I couldn't stay hidden for long. So I shot the two dogs that were left, and evaded the men by circling way to the south before doubling back in this direction."

Daried stared at her in the shadows. He knew more than one skilled elf warrior who wouldn't have had the nerve to he still that close to so many enemies, or the cold calculation to kill the hounds in order to stymie pursuit.

"I misjudged you," he murmured aloud. "I am sorry that I did not think better of you. Or our adversaries, for that matter."

"You don't know the half of it," Nilsa answered. "When I circled to the south, I came across a very large camp, a little less than a mile farther down toward Battledale. Chondathans, just like the others, but I'd guess their numbers at three hundred, perhaps more."

"Three hundred?" Daried repeated. His heart grew cold. "Are you certain?"

"I didn't count heads, but I know what I saw. Does the exact number matter?"

Daried shook his head. A couple of hours ago he would have dismissed the girl's claim as wild exaggeration, but he was coming to learn that he could take her at her word.

"If you are right, they must be on their way north to invade the western portions of the dale, behind our defenses along the Ashaba. The marauders that came to Glen were scouting the route for the main force."

"That's what I make of it, too," Nilsa said. She sighed and looked away. "Naturally, they indulged themselves in any murder or mayhem they liked while they were at it. Glen just happened to be in their way."

Daried quickly gathered his belongings. "Come. We have not a moment to lose," he said. "By daybreak these woods will be swarming with the Sembians' mercenaries."

He hurried back to the trail, Nilsa a couple of steps behind him, and set off at once. By his reckoning they had twenty-five miles, perhaps a little more, back to the human village. The bladesinger was tired and his wounds felt stiff, but with luck he thought he might be able to reach his warriors sometime in the late afternoon. The question was how much the half-human girl would slow him down. If she couldn't keep up, he didn't see any alternative to leaving her behind and making the best speed he could alone.

He took a quick glance over his shoulder to see how Nilsa was faring. She jogged along a short distance behind him, a sheen of sweat over her brow, but her breathing was easy and even.

They ran together through the summer night, slowing only a little when the moon finally faded altogether. He noticed that Nilsa managed better in the darkness than a full-blooded human would have-one small gift of her unfortunate elf ancestor, whoever he or she had been. Perhaps it also meant that she'd tire less easily, too.

Nilsa caught him looking back at her. Between strides she asked, "Can you stop them, elf?"

"If they are as strong as you say, then they are too many for us."

"Then what will you do?"

"This attack will turn the flank of our army at Ashaben-ford. I have to get word to Lord Gaerth and warn him."

Daried returned his attention to the trail at his feet. The last thing he needed was to turn an ankle on an unseen root.

"Will he be able to fight them off?" Nilsa asked.

"He could, but it would be a mistake. We can't risk getting trapped between the Sembian army east of the Ashaba and these mercenaries coming up from the south." He trotted on a few steps, gathering his breath. "Gaerth will abandon the Ashaba defenses and pull back before we are trapped and destroyed along the river."

Nilsa kept up in silence for a time before she spoke again. "That wont do much to help the folk in Glen or Ashabenford."

"There is no help for it," he told her. "Enemies on this side of the Ashaba makes the defense of Ashabenford pointless. There is nothing to be served by allowing our warriors to be destroyed here."

"While your elf warriors are abandoning the dale, mercenary bands will ravage my home!" Nilsa snapped. She stumbled in the darkness and swore to herself. Daried turned back and offered her a hand, but the girl waved him off angrily.

"I do not know what you think I can do," Daried said. "I have scarcely twenty warriors under my command. We do not suffice to stop a warband of hundreds. As matters stand, flight is our only option."

"We can muster close to a hundred bows in our own defense. If you aid us, we might be able to drive off the attack."

Farmers and merchants, fighting against hardened sellswords three times their number? Daried shook his head. There was no sense in it. If he had fifty or sixty skilled elf warriors, he could whittle down their strength with a strategy of ambush-and-retreat, keeping ahead of the slow-footed humans and avoiding a stand-up fight. But the folk of Glen would get themselves slaughtered if they tried any such thing-especially since the Chonda-thans evidently had at least one capable wizard leading their troops. It would be a slaughter.

They reached the old elven crossing about an hour before daybreak, and paused to splash cold water over their faces and brows. Daried's legs burned with fatigue and his wounds ached abominably, but he knew his own endurance. He'd be exhausted when he reached the town, but he would reach it.

Nilsa's hair was plastered to her head by sweat and the morning damp, and she looked pale in the gray glimmers of daybreak. She was careful not to sit down while they rested, walking in slow circles by the riverbank as she studied the old river-crossing. The river's song filled the air, murmuring of gravel and worn stone.

"I don't suppose you have any magic to make this place unusable, do you?" she asked Daried.

He shook his head. "I have no illusions suitable for concealing it, and much of my battle magic is exhausted. Given a few hours of work with my hands, I could do something. But I do not think we have the time." He glanced up at the gray streaks brightening the sky in the east. "I expect the Chondathans are already marching. They know they've been found out. That means speed is their best weapon now."

"Lathander preserve us, you're right," Nilsa muttered. She turned away from the coming dawn, and hugged her arms to her chest. "Could I have been any more stupid? The whole warband will be on our heels. I thought I was going to kill my father's murderers, but all IVe done is lead the rest of them back to Glen."

Daried grimaced. In truth, he had no answers for her. He had little gift for meaningless words of comfort, and he simply couldn't lie about what he saw coming for the tiny village of Glen and its folk in the next few days. He'd seen the marauder's handiwork at the home of Nilsa's father and the homesteads along their bloodstained trail. Still, he tried.

"They were marching against Glen anyway, Nilsa," he said. "If you hadn't pursued the marauders, you would not have discovered the danger that approaches your village. And you would not have been close at hand to rescue me from the consequences of my own foolishness."

She looked over her shoulder at him. "My father's death is only the beginning, isn't it?"

The bladesinger studied the girl. In the growing half-light he could see the elf traces in her features more clearly. Her eyes were as green as spring, and yet she had a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Whatever else she was, she was hardly unfortunate in her heritage. In her face an elf's timelessness met a human's youth, a human's passion, and was transformed into something new again. He could read the despair, the exhaustion, the grief in her features, and yet fire and determination still nickered in her eyes. She was the daughter of heroes, after all. And a daughter of the People, too.

He met her eyes evenly. "It will be hard on you and your people, Nilsa. But nothing is written yet. This is what we have won with our foolish chase-a few hours to make our choices. Perhaps we will choose more wisely today than we did yesterday."

The girl shivered in the cool damp air. She glanced to the north, perhaps imagining the long miles still ahead of them. Then she looked down at her feet and said, "Daried, I am sorry you weren't able to get your family's sword back. My grandfather shouldn't have taken it. I don't think he meant to hurt you or your folk, but that doesn't make it right."

He shrugged awkwardly. "I should have held my temper in check," he said. "Besides, I am not sure that I have lost my chance to get the Morvaeril moonblade back. I think I am not done yet with Lord Sarthos. Our paths will cross soon enough."

Nilsa gave him a sharp look. "You are going to help us fight the sellswords?"

Daried nodded. "Yes… I owe you that much for saving my life in the marauders' camp." He shouldered his pack again, and gestured at the river-crossing. "Come, we have a hard day's travel ahead of us still."

An hour before sunset, Daried and Nilsa parted ways at the smoking ruin of her father's farm. The girl hurried back to the town to carry warning of the Sembian column marching up from the south, while Daried sped back to his warriors' encampment by the banks of the Ashaba.

He stumbled into camp covered with road dust, his legs hollow and weak, his wounds throbbing and blazing like lines of fire drawn across his limbs and body. Distantly he noted the high clear call of welcome from the sentry, and the rustle of activity as elves emerged from shelters or came running from work in the woods nearby to hail his return. "It seems I've been missed," he muttered to no one in particular. Grimacing in pain, he allowed himself to fall to the ground by the shelter he used as his own. He seized a waterskin close at hand and drank long and deep, then upended the rest of its contents over his head.

"By Corellon's sword, Daried, what happened to you?" The mage Teriandyln appeared and knelt by his side. His face was sharp with anxiety. "Where have you been?"

"Summon Andariel," Daried said. "I must have him carry a message to Lord Gaerth right away."

Teriandyln frowned, but he motioned to a warrior standing nearby. The fellow nodded and hurried off to find the young moon elf. Daried forestalled the wizard's questions with a raised hand, fighting against his exhaustion and organizing his thoughts. "Have our scouts found any sign of the Sembians in the area?"

"No, we have seen no signs that the Sembians are nearby. Another demon appeared yesterday, though. We spent the day tracking the monster." The wizard paused, then added, "Your sword was missed, Daried. Rollael and Feldyrr were badly wounded fighting the hellspawn."

"I am sorry for that," Daried said. He looked away. "I should not have been so quick to set aside my responsibilities here. But it may have been for the best that I did."

The moon elf Andariel ran up to the shelter and sketched a hasty bow. "You sent for me, Lord Selsherryn?"

"I did. You must ride to Ashabenford at once, and take this message to Vesilde Gaerth-or whomever you find in command, if Gaerth is not there. Tell him that a strong force of Chondathan mercenaries is marching north through the forest. They've found an old trail through Cormanthor that opens into the western verge of the dale. It seems that there is an old elven crossing of the Ashaba there that we did not know about."

The warriors around him exchanged grim looks at that. They understood the peril that threatened the elf army in Ashabenford.

"They are at least three hundred strong," Daried continued, "but there may be more following. As of moonset last night, they were about five miles south of the river, and twenty miles west of Glen. I think they will reach us here around sunset tomorrow, and Ashabenford late in the day after.

"It is my intention to oppose their march for as long as possible, and help the Glen-folk to defend their town."

The other elves did not manage to conceal their surprise at that, either. They knew that he had had no plan to skirmish against such a large force or to let the elf company be tied down in the defense of a nameless human village. If he were not so tired, Daried would have found their guarded glances more than a little amusing. As it was, he pretended that he simply didn't notice. He looked up at Andariel, and said, "Repeat what I have just told you."

Andariel repeated his message, almost word for word. Daried judged it good enough. With a weary nod, he clasped Andariel's shoulder. "You are our swiftest rider. Ride quickly, but ride safe. It is more important for the message to get to Gaerth than it is for you to astonish us with your speed."

"I will not fail you, Lord Selsherryn," the serious young moon elf replied. He bowed again and hurried off.

"That's taken care of," Daried sighed. Wearily he pulled his dusty gauntlets from his hands, and began to unbuckle his fine golden mail. After three days of constant wear the armor, light and well-fitted as it was, felt like a lead shroud.

Teriandyln seated himself on the ground nearby. "I don't recall that you had any intention of fighting such a strong force," he said, speaking to Daried alone. "Are you sure this is wise, my friend?"

"We need to give Lord Gaerth time to slip away from Ashabenford. Every hour we delay the Sembians' mercenaries gives our warriors a better chance to withdraw without a fight. And we will provide the folk who live in the eastern portion of this dale with a chance to escape the armies converging here."

"If you are right, they are ten times our number, Daried. Perhaps twenty times."

"We do not have to face them alone. The Glen-folk can muster a hundred bows in their own defense."

The wizard looked at Daried thoughtfully. "You did not give much account to that when we first took up our watch here."

"I hadn't seen any of them shoot then. Now I have." Daried laid his armor on the ground, and stretched himself out on the blankets, loosening his tunic. He could already feel Reverie stealing over him, but he resisted long enough to add, "Make sure you set watchers along the track leading southwest out of Glen. That's the road the mercenaries will follow. We need to find the mercenaries and shadow them until they get here."

"It will be as you say," Teriandyln answered. "Get some rest, Daried. We will rouse you when we need you."

The bladesinger nodded once, and sank into silence.

Late the following afternoon, scouts sighted the mercenary warband marching on Glen. They had moved faster than Daried expected, but many of the mercenaries were mounted. A few of the Chondathans rode big warhorses draped in leather barding, while most of the other riders made do with a saddle and blanket. The men who weren't riding simply walked alongside the column, with dust caking their faces and sweat staining their dirty leather jerkins.

They must have brought most of the horses with them, Daried decided. It seemed unlikely that the marauders could have appropriated so many horses from the farmsteads dotting the countryside south of Glen. And that meant they faced even more enemies than he'd feared- Nilsa would certainly have noticed any horses corralled near the camp she had found. Given that, Daried couldn't avoid concluding that some of them at least were mercenaries they had not yet encountered.

"I did not expect so many riders," Teriandyln said softly.

"Nor did I," Daried admitted.

He brushed the hair out of his eyes. It was another hot day. Insects hummed and chirped in the still air. They stood in the apple orchards of Andar's manor, warm and fragrant in the late afternoon sun. The blossoms had fallen long ago, and small, tart golden fruit clustered in the branches. In a tenday or so they'd be ready to pick, but Daried wondered if anyone would be left to tend to that work by the time the apples ripened.

The Chondathans approached slowly, following the dusty cart track through broad grainfields that shone golden in the sun. A few hundred yards farther, and their road would lead them past the orchard where Daried and his warriors waited.

The sharp-featured mage frowned. "The cavalry ruin your battle plan, Daried. Perhaps it would be wiser to just let them pass. Most of the Glen-folk have taken shelter across the Ashaba in Cormanthor. These marauders will find nothing but an empty village."

The bladesinger studied the approaching warriors, taking their measure for a long moment. Then he shook his head. "No, we will continue. I suspect that many of those fellows won't handle their horses well in a fight."

"Do not underestimate them, my friend."

"Trust me, Teriandyln, I am through with making that mistake. I would have liked fewer riders or more bows, but this is the fight we have, and we will do our best." Daried did not take his eyes away from the approaching band. "Pass word to our warriors to aim first at any man riding a barded horse-those will be the men who have skill in fighting on horseback."

He waited for a short time, as the mercenaries came closer. The air was heavy and humid, as it always was in this wide green land in summer. The scent of vanished apple blossoms lingered in his memory. Evermeet had no season like it; the fair island of the west was kissed by ocean breezes throughout the year. He hadn't realized how much he had missed the lush richness of Corman-thor's summers in the decades he'd been away.

"Now?" Teriandyln asked.

The bladesinger drew in one deep breath. "Yes," he answered, and made a single curt gesture with his hand.

Twenty elves hidden among the apple trees bent their white bows and loosed arrows at the hundreds of mercenaries marching north toward Glen.

In the space of three heartbeats, chaos erupted in the mercenary ranks. Silver death sleeted into the horsemen. Men slumped from their saddles, arrows feathering throat or chest. Others roared in sudden pain and anguish, pinioned by elven shafts that did not kill in a single stroke. Horses screamed and reared, footmen scattered, and another round of arrows struck, moving farther back into the human ranks.

Despite their surprise, the Chondathans were not easily broken. Shouting and swearing, the human mercenaries began moving while the third flight was still in the air. Footmen shrugged large diamond-shaped shields off their shoulders and hurried to kneel shoulder-to-shoulder, interlocking their shields to form a wall of wood and leather against the elven arrows. Crossbow-men closed up behind the shield wall and began to fire blindly back into the trees. Quarrels hissed and whirred through the air over Daried's head.

Sweeping his sword from its sheath, a captain near the head of the mercenaries avoided several arrows whistling past him. "Come on, you dogs!" he roared. Shouting defiance at the unseen archers, he led a score of the riders straight into the orchard.

Farther down the Chondathan column, large bands of cavalry swept out into the open grain fields on either side of the track and rode hard, circling wide around the covered ground.

"Watch the flanks!" Teriandyln warned. "They're trying to trap us here."

"I see them," Daried replied. But first they had to deal with the Chondathans storming the orchard. He pointed at the captain and riders thundering toward the elves' hiding places. "Take that one first!"

The mage nodded once. Deftly he retrieved a pinch of silvery dust from a pouch at his side. With a weaving motion of his hand he cast the dust into the air, then snapped out the words of a deadly spell and gestured at the approaching riders. Each mote of dust hanging in the air above his fingertips grew into a long needle of silver-white ice, and flew swifter than an arrow at the charging horsemen. The brilliant shards punched through steel breastplates and mail shirts like paper, only to explode an instant later in a white flash of deadly frost. The first impulsive rush of the Chondathan horsemen disintegrated in the lethal hail of frost-needles, man and beast alike pierced through or seared by cold so intense that flesh whitened and blood froze.

Glistening frost and dark blood blighted the apple trees. Daried winced, but he clapped the mage on the shoulder and ordered, "Now move! They may have mages of their own."

The two elves dashed back thirty yards, darting between the trees. Behind them a great blast of fire erupted in the orchard, just where they had been standing. A wave of sulfurous hot air flapped Daried's cloak around his shoulders and singed the hair on the back of his head. Daried went another ten yards or so, crouched behind a tree, and quickly surveyed the skirmish.

Arrows still hissed into the ranks of the Chondathans on the road, but they were far fewer. The elf archers moved between shots, trying to avoid being spotted. And Daried could see at a glance that the riders sweeping through the fields around the orchard were drawing the fire of the archers on his flanks. In a matter of moments he and his warriors would be trapped in the grove, and that would be all for them.

He clutched a silver medallion hanging above his heart, and whispered the words of a spell. The magic carried his words to all the elves in the grove, whether close by or a hundred yards away.

"Fall back now!" he commanded them. "To the second line, quickly!"

Together, the bladesinger and the wizard turned and sprinted toward the north, heading for the far side of the great orchard. Daried glimpsed more of his warriors, appearing and disappearing as they ran through the trees alongside them. He could hear the distant shouts of the humans behind him-it had not taken the Chondathans long at all to realize that their ambushers were in flight.

They know what they're doing, he decided. After meeting the wizard-warrior Sarthos two nights ago he hadn't really expected that the mercenary leaders would prove incompetent, but he'd still hoped to surprise them with his show of resistance.

They reached the edge of the orchard and broke into the open fields beyond. Daried lengthened his stride and ran at his best pace, all too aware of the lack of cover around him and his warriors. At a glance it seemed that most of his warriors were still with him-more than a dozen elves silently dashed across the field at his heels. But sweeping up from the west, only a couple of hundred yards away, threescore cavalrymen appeared, galloping furiously around the great orchard.

"Daried!" called Teriandyln.

"I see them!" he replied. "Keep on!"

Across the fields a long, low ridge covered by a dense thicket lay like a green wall across their path. Daried risked another glance over his shoulder, and altered his course to the right, veering away from the oncoming horsemen so that they would take just a little longer to overtake his warriors. The hot sun beat down on him, and the golden wheat weaving around his waist forced him to take high, plunging strides, wading more than running. He kept his eyes fixed on the dark thicket ahead and did not allow himself to slow down, even though sweat streamed down his face and the humid air seemed as thick as molasses in his lungs.

Behind him, he could hear the drumming hooves of the riders following. The shouts and cries of the mercenaries took on a savage, triumphal tone-and the elf warriors were still fifty yards short of the copse ahead.

A single horn-call sounded from somewhere in the woods ahead. Instantly Daried shouted to his warriors, "Down!" He threw himself into the tall grain and rolled, wheat stalks whipping his face and arms.

Over his head better than eighty bows thrummed at once. In the shelter of the trees ahead, just about every man of Glen who could pull a bow-and some of the women, as well-rose up and fired at the cavalrymen intent on riding down the withdrawing elves. They did not all shoot as well as elf warriors would have, but some did, and the rest certainly shot well enough. Horses screamed and reared, riders toppled from saddles, and others wheeled in panic beneath the withering fire. After three quick volleys the Chondathan mercenaries spun around and spurred away from the green thicket, leaving half their number dead or dying at the feet of the elves they'd intended to ride down.

Daried and his warriors leaped back to their feet, and trotted into the shelter of the thickets. The bladesinger found Nilsa waiting for him, alongside Earek, the tall innkeeper from the White Horse. More villagers and farmers stood nearby, grim looks of satisfaction on their faces. They were dressed in a ragged collection of armor ranging from none at all to old mail shirts or jerkins of rivet-studded leather, but all carried well-cared for bows, and many wore swords or axes at their belts, too.

There's more to these Dalesfolk than meets the eye, Daried decided. "That was well done, Nilsa. We would have been ridden down if you and your folk had not shot so well."

"I waited as long as I could before sounding the signal," Nilsa said. She shrugged awkwardly. "I didn't think they would be after you so quickly. It's a good thing you are fleet of foot, or you never would have gotten away from them."

"So?" Earek asked Daried. He served as the town's militia captain, since the death of Nilsa's father. The easygoing innkeeper became a different man in the field. His bland smile and easy laugh were gone, replaced by determination and worry. "How many do we face?"

Daried took a quick tally of the elf warriors who remained with him. Of the twenty he had had in the orchard, sixteen stood with him. Two were wounded, and Hycellyn, who had waited with the Dalesfolk, tended to them with her healing spells. There was a small chance that his missing warriors might still be hiding in the orchard, unable to rejoin him, but it was more likely that they had been caught before they could make their escape.

He sighed and turned back to his human allies. "We counted about two hundred on foot and the same number mounted. We shot many riders, but not enough to even the odds. I think you should consider abandoning your plan, and withdraw while you still can."

Earek watched the mercenary riders, hovering out of bowshot near the apple orchard. The riders milled about, glaring fiercely at the treeline in which the elves and the Mistledalefolk waited.

He shook his head. "You did your part, now we will do ours. They won't get across those fields without losing a lot of men, and they can see that already. Remember, they're mercenaries-they're paid to fight, not to die. If we can wound or kill a good number, the rest might decide it isn't worth it to press the attack."

" hope he is right," Teriandyln murmured in Elvish. "Many of these folk will die if the mercenaries decide that dead comrades make for bigger shares of the plunder,"

Daried studied the land carefully. It was a good place to stand, and the densely wooded ridge offered a covered retreat, at least for a couple hundred yards. But behind the hill lay open farmland around the Harvalmeer manor. If enemy horsemen broke through the woods into the fields behind them, few of the defenders would escape from their line.

"Nilsa, can men on horseback get around this ridge?" he asked.

"Not easily. It runs for several miles like this. To the east it gets higher and rockier until it meets the forest and the Ashaba. To the west, it runs out into a wide stretch of difficult woods."

"You've barricaded the cut where the road passes through?"

"As best we could," Earek answered for her. "We felled several trees across the road, and made a thornbrake a good ten feet thick. I've got more archers covering the cut."

Nothing to do but wait, the bladesinger decided. "I'll keep four of my warriors with me, and intersperse the rest in pairs along the line," he told the Glen-folk. "If we have to give ground, we'll withdraw to the west, staying in the woods along the ridge."

"That would place the Chondathans between us and our families," one of the men nearby grumbled.

"Yes, but if we fell back toward the east, I am afraid that we could get trapped with the river at our back. Or, worse yet, we might lead the battle to the refuge where the rest of your people are hiding." Daried knew that his warriors could escape across the Ashaba even if the mercenaries were on their heels, but he did not think that the villagers could manage it.

"If we hold them here, we won't have to make that choice," Nilsa said.

Daried quickly counted off his warriors and sent them to their places in the villagers' ranks. Then, just in case, he sent a pair of scouts to the back side of the ridge to provide warning in case the Chondathans surprised them by finding a way to get around or through the ridge unseen. Then he settled in to watch and wait.

The Chondathan riders gathered at the far side of the field, under the shade of the orchard. Men rode back and forth, carrying messages and orders. Standard-bearers unfurled their scarlet flags and took up positions. Then rank after rank of footmen emerged from the orchard, arranging themselves behind the standards. Men buckled on heavier armor and unslung their shields, making ready for battle. The elves watched while the Dalesfolk fidgeted and muttered nervously to one another.

"Something is happening," Nilsa said.

Daried followed her gaze. Beneath the main standard a number of sellswords arrayed in fine armor with plumed helmets arranged themselves in ranks. Even from a distance, he could see the difference in arms and armor between the men by the standard and the rest of the mercenaries. Then he caught a glimpse of a tall, lean man standing behind the others, weaving his arms in the sinuous motions of a spellcaster.

"That's Sarthos," he said. "The wizard-captain from the camp."

"What is he doing?" Nilsa asked.

"Working magic," the bladesinger answered. He glanced at Teriandyln. "I can't make it out at this distance. Can you?"

The sun elf wizard shook his head. "No, it's too far. But I think he is not the only wizard among the Chondathans. I've seen a couple of others casting spells."

Horns sounded somewhere in the mass of the Chondathan fighters. Raggedly the footsoldiers started forward, marching across the yellow field behind their banners. Rows of interlocked shields guarded the front ranks, while the men in the second and third ranks kept their shields raised overhead. Bands of horsemen pranced and waited back in the orchard.

"They're coming!" cried voices all up and down the line.

"Steady!" Earek called.

"The horsemen are waiting to ride us down after we rout," Teriandyln observed quietly to Daried.

"Possibly," Daried answered. He wasn't certain of that yet. Sarthos and his Chondathans were up to something sinister; he could feel it. He thought again of calling for the retreat, but it would be hard to get the Glen-folk away at this point… even if they would agree to go. They were not likely to flee until they had seen whether the Chondathans could hurt them or not.

"Let them get closer, lads!" Earek called to the villagers. "Don't waste arrows on those shields yet. Wait until you can choose your marks and make your arrows count!"

The footmen slogged closer, crouching behind their shields. The line began to drift to their right, as each man in the line consciously or unconsciously closed up under the shield of the man beside him. Steel and leather rasped with each step, and a chorus of challenges, catcalls, and foul oaths rose up from those sellswords who were inclined to shout or snarl defiance at the archers waiting for them.

"Fire!" Earek shouted.

The bows of the Dalesfolk thrummed, and arrows streaked out from the thicket, buzzing like angry wasps. Many glanced from shields or breastplates, but the Dales-folk had waited for such a short range that their powerful bows were perfectly capable of driving a yard-long shaft through armor, given a clean hit. For their part, the elf archers did not try to power their missiles through a foe's armor. Instead, elven arrows found throats, eyes, or underarms, places where a swordsman's cuirass did not guard him. Mercenaries shrieked, swore, or stumbled to the ground, wounded or dying. With each man that fell, gaps appeared in the shield wall, and more arrows sleeted into the mass of soldiers.

The Chondathans let out a roar of rage and surged forward, charging to bring the archers to sword's reach. Despite the weight of their steel, they covered the last few yards of the open field faster than Daried could have imagined. Men dropped and died with every step, but still they came on-and now Daried saw their plan. Across the field, the waiting horsemen spurred their mounts forward, charging in the wake of the armored footsoldiers. With the Dalesfolk and elves occupied in shooting the men right in front of them, the riders covered the open space unmolested.

"Teriandyln! Stop the cavalry!" Daried cried.

The wizard barked out the words of a spell, and hurled a scathing blast of fire at the oncoming riders. A tremendous detonation left a dozen men and horses dead in the field, and a black pall of smoke rose over the field. At once Teriandyln turned and threw another spell at a different group of riders. "There are too many!" he shouted back at Daried.

While the wizard wove his deadly spells and arrows continued to scythe through the Chondathan ranks, Daried drew a slender wand from his belt and turned his attention to the line of swordsmen swarming into the trees. The wand was Teriandyln's, but Daried could use it well enough. He leveled it at the first group of Chondathans and snapped out its activating word. A brilliant blue stroke of lightning blasted five men from their feet. Recklessly Daried triggered the wand again and again, trying to stop the attack in its tracks.

For a moment, he thought they might succeed. Scoured by arrows and lightning, the footsoldiers faltered at the very edge of the woods, and the wheeling bands of horsemen beyond shied away from Teriandyln's fiery blasts. But then a wave of dull thuds or booms like distant thunder rippled through the woods behind Daried and his warriors, filling the shadows beneath the trees with a sulfurlike stench.

"Devils! Devils!" came the cry.

Daried wheeled in sudden horror, and found a gang of hamatulas-barbed devils-materializing in the middle of the defender's ranks. Eyes aglow with emerald hate, the fearsome creatures immediately tore into any villager or elf hapless enough to be within talon's reach. Blasts of hellfire blackened the trees and seared flesh.

Without a moment's thought, Daried slid easily into the bladesinger's trance and glided forward to meet the hell-born fiends. The furious battle around him faded into a strange, dull silence. Distantly he noted the skirmish of Chondathan swordsmen and Dalesfolk archers around him, the desperate cut and parry of men and women fighting for their lives, but he simply avoided the fray and moved to the first of the monsters.

The creature grinned maliciously and hurled a great orb of green fire at Daried, but the bladesinger whispered the word of a spell and caught the whirling ball of flame on his swordpoint. He flicked it over his shoulder at a Chondathan swordsman behind him, immolating the man with the devil's fire. Then there was a sudden clash of talons and barbs against elven steel, and the creature recoiled, bleeding from several deep cuts. Daried spun from a high guard to a low crouch, and used the lightning wand in his left hand to strike down another three swordsmen before returning to his duel against the hamatula.

"Now you die, elf!" the hamatula hissed.

It sprang at him, arms spread wide, seeking to impale the bladesinger on the forest of spikes covering its body. Daried folded to the ground and ran it through the belly, rolling under its feet as it crashed to the ground behind him. Jagged spines caught him at the shoulder and the top of his back, but he simply set the pain aside and rolled up onto his feet, continuing his blade-dance.

More battle magic crashed and thundered in the thicket, blasts of fire and stabbing forks of lightning. He glimpsed Nilsa, moving gracefully among the trees as she drew and shot, taking a man with every arrow. Then he spotted another barbed devil, crouching over the torn body of Feldyrr, a moon elf. The monster leered at the dying elf as it clenched its talons in his chest.

Daried knocked the devil away from his warrior with darting daggers of magic. The devil staggered to its feet with a hiss of rage. It hurled its fearsome will against the bladesinger, trying to paralyze him with its terrible magic, but in his trance Daried was hardly conscious of such things. While the devil glared at him, he spun close and sliced its throat open with a long draw cut, leaving it to crumple to the ground beside Feldyrr's body.

He danced through a knot of mercenary swordsmen next, leaving one man blinded with his magic and another dying from a thrust through the belly. But then he was driven out of his trance by the staggering impact of a barbed devil hurling itself into his back like a battering ram of red-hot steel. Agonizing hooks and spikes pierced Daried's flesh in a dozen places, but his golden mail held just enough to keep him from being killed at once.

The devil on his back hissed and spat fire, burning Daried as it tried to clamp its foul black fangs in the back of the bladesinger's neck. He struggled in the dirt and underbrush to get his feet under him or get an arm free so that he could get away, but the devil's strength was terrible. It tore a bloody gobbet of flesh from his shoulder, and despite himself Daried screamed.

"Get off me!" he snarled.

"You did not like that?" the creature hissed in his ear. "Ah, how you will sing before I am through with you, delicious elfling!"

Daried reversed his grip on his thinblade and tried to stab at the monster, but the devil swatted the blade out of his hand. Desperately Daried rolled back in the other direction, and found the lightning wand with his groping fingers. Quick as a cat he jammed the end of the wand over his shoulder into the devil's face, and blew its head apart with a stroke of lightning that picked him up and flung him down a dozen feet away.

His mail charred and smoking, Daried climbed unsteadily to his feet. The arming-coat under his mail was sopping wet with his own blood. Ignoring the clamor of battle all around, he staggered over to the devil's twitching corpse and retrieved his thinblade. Then he straightened up as much as he could, and tried to make sense of what was going on around him. It seemed that the battle still continued, though scores of dead or dying humans-and some elves, too-littered the ground.

"Aillesil Seldarie," he breathed.

The Dalesfolk hadn't been overcome yet, but it didn't seem possible that they could keep fighting against such odds. At least no more barbed devils remained in the fight.

"I had a feeling we would meet again, elf." Daried wheeled and found himself facing the wizard Sarthos. The Chondathan lord wore a breastplate worked in the image of a snarling dragon, and wore an ornate helm over his stubbled scalp. The human smiled cruelly.

"A shame you are wounded already," he said. "I hoped to try you at your best. That would have been a contest to remember."

He carried the Morvaeril moonblade bared in his hand.

"You should take care with your wishes, Chondathan," the bladesinger rasped. "You might get exactly what you want."

Ignoring the hollow unsteadiness of his legs and the stabbing aches that crisscrossed his back, he raised his thinblade in challenge. Slowly he circled Sarthos, taking the measure of his opponent while the battle raged all around them.

The mercenary struck first. Snarling the words of a sinister spell, he threw out his arm and launched a black bolt of crackling power at the bladesinger. But Daried was still warded by the parrying spell he'd used to deflect the fireball the first barbed devil had thrown at him. He managed to interpose his thinblade and bat the ebon ray back at Sarthos. The ray caught the mercenary wizard on his side and spun him half around, its frigid darkness draining away strength and vitality.

Sarthos struggled to fight off the effects of his own spell, and Daried saw his chance. He stumbled in close to the Chondathan and managed to cut the man badly across the arm and face before Sarthos reeled away, blood streaming from his wounds. The bladesinger pressed his attack, stretching for his last reserves of strength as his blade glittered and flew, weaving in the complex and perfect patterns taught by the swordmasters of Evermeet.

But Sarthos was almost as skilled as Daried in bladework. He matched Daried's attacks for five heartbeats, steel leaping to meet steel, and Daried managed a quick spiraling riposte that caught the moonblade in the human's hands and sent it spinning through the air. It landed point-down in the forest loam and stuck there, quivering.

The Chondathan lord fell back from Daried's attack and cried out in a harsh, hissing language that brought stabbing pain to the elfs ears. "Nevarhem! Sheor! Aid me!" he shrieked.

In the space of an instant, two more barbed devils appeared in clouds of brimstone smoke, displacing the air in twin thunderclaps as they teleported to their master's aid.

The bladesinger eyed his new adversaries without fear. He had no strength to meet them, but he would try anyway, and death came to everyone in time, didn't it? He could only meet it as best he could. He turned back to Sarthos and smiled coldly through his pain and exhaustion.

"It seems that we have determined who is the better swordsman," he remarked.

"You'll find that little comfort when you're dead!" the Chondathan snarled. He motioned to the devils, and the creatures advanced on Daried, claws and spikes reaching for him.

"You'll precede him, murderer!" Nilsa called.

She stood near the Morvaeril moonblade, drew her bowstring to her ear, and took aim at the warlord. But the barbed devils stalking Daried leaped for her so swiftly that she couldn't take the shot. She whirled and buried her white arrow feather-deep in the chest of the first monster, staggering it in its tracks. Then, out of arrows, she dropped her bow and seized the hilt of the sword in the ground before her.

The instant her hand touched the hilt, the Morvaeril moonblade flared to life. A shock of brilliant white light flashed from the ancient elven steel, and a row of incandescent runes marking the blade flared so brightly that Daried had to look away.

"Impossible," he breathed. "That moonblade was dead. Dead!"

Sarthos and the remaining devil hesitated, blinded and astonished as much as Daried himself. For that matter, Nilsa herself stood staring dumbly at the sword in her hand, struck senseless in amazement. But then the last of the devils recovered from its surprise. With a shrill screech, it hurled itself against Nilsa, talons and spikes reaching for her heart.

"Nilsa, the devil!" the bladesinger cried.

The girl glanced up just in time to bring the swordpoint up. The hamatula halted its mad rush and tried to leap around the blade, but with one efficient turn and cut Nilsa took its foul head clean off its shoulders. The moonblade's white fire seared through its infernal flesh like sunshine burning through a mist. The first hamatula, the one that she had shot, scrambled to its feet and surged at her, but Nilsa backed away two quick steps and slashed its foul talon off its arm as it reached for her. The monster shrieked and stumbled. She stabbed the moonblade through the devil's heart, and sent it back to the foul hell it had been summoned from.

Sarthos paled, then he started to speak the words of a deadly spell against her. But Daried found the strength for one final leap of his own. Spinning through a low crouch he cut Sarthos's legs out from under him, and sent the Chondathan warlord to the ground. The wizard gaped at him in shock and astonishment-and Daried's thinblade pinned him to the ground.

"That was for Nilsa's father," the bladesinger said.

Sarthos gaped up at him, blood starting from his mouth. Then, to Daried's surprise, his features seemed to melt and shift, becoming leaner, more angular. Black-ribbed wings grew from the dying wizard's shoulders, and his pockmarked human face became scarlet and flecked with fine scales. His ears changed from rounded to pointed, and his eyes took on an elfs slant.

"I'll be damned," Daried muttered. "You're a fey'ri."

No wonder Sarthos had shown such skill with both blade and spell. He was likely as much a bladesinger as Daried himself, for the fey'ri were ancient sun elves touched by demonic blood. They wielded magic and blades with the same skill and traditions as Daried or any other son of Evermeet.

"Daried!" Nilsa hurried to his side. "You're wounded." "It's nothing," the bladesinger said. "Go aid your folk, if you can."

He stood over his foe, watching the fey'ri lord die. Then his own strength gave out too, and he toppled to the ground an arm's reach from his adversary.

The last thing Daried saw of the battle was Nilsa raising the Morvaeril moonblade to the setting sun, as the Chondathans staggered away from the deadly woods.

At daybreak of the second day following the Battle of Glen, Daried and his surviving warriors rode slowly out of the town. Only eleven of his small company remained. Hycellyn lived, but Daried's friend Teriandyln had fallen in the fighting along the ridge, killed by the fey'ri's devils while he flung spell after spell with the last of his strength.

The elves found Nilsa and Earek waiting by the White Horse, standing alongside the road to see them off. Nilsa wore a plain blue dress, looking for all the world like a simple village girl instead of a skilled warrior and the heroine of her people. She stood stiffly, her back straight as an iron-beneath her blouse she was bandaged tightly around her ribs, where she'd taken a bad sword-cut during the fighting in the woods. But other than a faint wince of discomfort, she did not let her pain show.

"So that's it?" she asked Daried as he rode past. "You're just going to leave?"

Daried reined in his mount. The rest of his company halted as well, waiting on him. "Yes, I am afraid so," he said. "Vesilde Gaerth is drawing back from Ashabenford. We must rejoin the Crusade."

Earek stepped forward and met Daried's eyes. "Lord Selsherryn, I don't know how to say this, but I'll try: Thank you for helping us against the Chondathans. There is no way we can repay you for the lives of your comrades, other than to promise that we will honor their sacrifice for as long as we and our descendants live in this place."

"We were glad to help. And we will not forget the valor of the folk of Glen, Earek. I am sorry that I did not think better of your people before I had the honor to fight alongside them."

"It's never too late to make a fresh start," the tall innkeeper said with a smile. "Or a first impression."

What a uniquely human way of seeing the world, Daried thought. He shook his head. "One of many things I've learned in the last few days, I think. Good luck to you, Earek."

He picked up his reins again and started to urge his horse forward, but Nilsa held up her hand and stopped him.

"There is something else," she said. She picked up a long, thin bundle from the ground by her feet, and offered it to Daried. "The moonblade of your House."

The bladesinger stopped and stared at the girl for a long moment. Moving slowly and stiffly himself-he had more injuries than he could count, it seemed-he slid out of the saddle and faced her. He accepted the sword from her, but then he gravely bowed and placed it back in her hands.

"It is not mine now, Nilsa," he told her. "The moonblade answered to your hand. For hundreds of years it recognized no elf as a suitable heir to the Morvaerils. But it knew you when you set your hand on it, and it accepted you. Carry the Morvaeril blade for the rest of your days, Nilsa Harvalmeer. Raise your children to be true and strong, so that they will be worthy of it too."

"I can't accept this, Daried. I am not an elf!"

"It's not a question of whether you accept the blade, Nilsa. It's whether the blade accepts you." Daried smiled. "As for whether you are an elf, well, you are clearly elf enough. Perhaps there is more to being Tel'Quessir than an accident of heritage, and this moonblade intends to show us that."

Nilsa snorted, and wrapped the moonblade back in its blanket. "If you have that much faith in the sword's judgment, I guess I do too," she said. Then she leaned forward and kissed Daried on the cheek. "Take care of yourself, bladesinger. Sweet water and light laughter until we meet again."

"Sweet water and light laughter, Nilsa," Daried answered. "I hope we meet again in better times." Moving carefully, the bladesinger climbed back into the saddle, and tapped his heels against the horse's flanks. He waved once in the human manner, and he turned his face to the west and led his comrades into the shadows of morning.