"slide5" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katharine - Deverry 05 - The Westlands 01 - A Time of Exile 4.0.html)

---

THE COLD AUTUMN rains slashed down over the town of Cernmeton and sent water sheeting across the cobbles and pooling in the gutters. Wrapped in his heavy winter cloak of dark blue wool, Cinvan rode fast through the twisting streets and left it up to the few townsfolk abroad to get out of his horse’s way. He clattered through the gates of the tieryn’s dun, a walled compound centered round a stone broch, rode round to the back stables, and yelled for a groom. A stable boy came running.
“So you’re back, are you? How was your visit home?”
“As good as it needed to be. Did I miss any excitement?”
“You didn’t, unless you count getting drunk in our lord’s hall as excitement.” He sighed in a melancholy way. “We’ve got a tournament going on Carnoic. So far Edyl’s ahead by six games.”
“I’ll see if I can give him a run for his coin, then.” In the great hall smoke from the two huge hearths drifted in blue wisps across the round room. On one side the warband of thirty-five men was sitting and drinking at their tables. Up by the honor hearth, Tieryn Melaudd was slouched in his carved chair and drinking with his two sons, Waldyn and Dovyn. The tieryn was a florid-faced, raven-haired man, heavy with middle age but still capable of swinging steel. Of the sons, Waldyn, the elder, had the blond hair he’d inherited from his Deverry mother, but the younger looked much like a slender version of his father. Everyone knew that Dovyn was his father’s favorite son, too—a pity, since under the new laws he could never inherit a share of the demesne. Cinvan knelt before the tieryn, who gave him leave to speak with a wave of his hand.
“I’ve returned to your service as I pledged you, my lord. A thousand humble thanks for giving me leave.”
“Welcome, lad. And how fares your kin?”
“They’re doing well, my lord.” Cinvan was lying, but he saw no need to burden the tieryn with a problem he could do nothing about.
“Good, good. Get yourself some ale and join your comrades.”
Cinvan rose, bowed, and made his escape from the awesome presence of the noble-born. He dipped himself a tankard of ale from the open barrel in the curve of the wall, then strolled over to join the warband. Most of the men were watching Edyl and Peddyc play Carnoic, a board game where the players moved black or white stones along a pattern of triangles in attempts to capture each other’s men. Every move the two of them made was slow, studied, and accompanied by either cheers or oaths from the rest of the warband. As Cinvan stood watching them, Garedd came over and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“So our falcon’s flown back to the nest, has he? Pity—I was hoping you’d drown on the road.”
Cinvan threw a mock punch his way.
“Bastard! Anything happen while I was gone?”
“Naught. And how was Elrydd?”
“As well as it needed to be.”
Garedd shot him a look of honest sympathy. They took their tankards and sat down at a table far from the crowd around the game.
“And your sister?” Garedd said.
“That’s the cursed worst thing of all. By the hells, I was minded to beat her black and blue. First she has to go and get herself a bastard, and now she’s given it up.”
“She what?”
“Gave the babe up. To her rotten cat-eyed man. He rides in and wants the little lass—because she’ll only be a burden on our Dewigga, or so he says, and so she up and lets him take her away.” Cinvan slammed the tankard down on the table. “And Da was too cursed drunk to know or care. Ah, horseshit!”
“Now here, maybe it’s for the best. Your sister’s got a chance at a decent marriage someday now.”
“Ah, that’s what she said, blast her! But the shame of it, my own niece, one of my blood kin, riding with the Westfolk! What’s her da going to do, I says to Dewigga, teach her to steal? And she’s got the gall to slap me across the face and tell me to hold my tongue! Women!”
Garedd nodded in silent sympathy. Cinvan drew his dagger and began fiddling with it, just for comfort. On the hilt was graved his personal mark, the striking falcon that had earned him his nickname in the warband. He ran a heavily callused thumb over the mark and had thoughts of slitting this Gaverenteriel’s throat for him one sweet day.
“And you know what else Dewigga had the gall to say? She’s always known her man was going to take the babe when she was old enough. ‘You’re cursed lucky you didn’t let me know,’ says I. ‘Why do you think I held my tongue?’ says she. ‘Cursed good thing,’ says I, and she slaps me again.”
“Why didn’t you beat her black and blue?” Garedd said.
Cinvan shrugged, laying the dagger down on the table and picking up his tankard. The truth was too bitter to tell: he’d seen too much of that already, with his father beating his mother half to death every time she looked at the old man wrong. Her sobs still echoed through his dreams.
“Ah, wouldn’t be worth the trouble,” Cinvan said. “I just tell her that if she has another bastard, don’t come running to me for coin for the midwife this time, and she flounces out of the room like a highborn lady with her nose in the air.”
“Good for you. Women need to be kept in their place.”
“Cursed right.”
They finished their ale in silence. At the far table, Edyl’s howl of rage—he always was a rotten loser—announced that Peddyc had won the game. Amid laughter and jests, coin changed hands all around the warband.
“And here’s our falcon back,” Ynryc called out, pocketing a silver piece from the defeated side. “Come on, Cinvan—give Peddyc here a game. You’ve got a good hand with the stones.”
“Maybe I will, if he’ll take me on.”
“Oh, I’m always game,” Peddyc said, grinning. “Let’s see if I can keep my winnings.”
Edyl rose from his place at the board.
“Welcome back, falcon. And has your sister given you a nephew yet? But with proper ears this time?”
The world went red. Cinvan stepped forward, hit Edyl hard in the stomach with his right, and swung up to clip his jaw with his left. Edyl went down like a sack of grain as the hall exploded in shouting. Cinvan felt men grabbing his arms, heard Garedd yelling at him to calm down. Abruptly the red fog cleared. Cinvan knelt to his lord in a cold, shaking sweat.
“And what’s all this? By the hells, you haven’t been back for one wretched hour, Cinvan.”
Cinvan nodded in dumb agreement. He was so sure that he was in for a flogging that he could already feel the whip on his back. Young Dovyn caught his father’s arm and whispered something to him.
“Oh.” Melaudd turned to Peddyc. “Did Edyl make remarks about Cinvan’s sister?”
“He did, my lord.”
“Well, then, he’s gotten what he deserved. Tell him I said so when you bring him round. But here, Cinvan, try to keep peace in my hall, will you? If you’d only ignore these stupid foul jests, they’d stop making them after a while.”
“True-spoken, my lord, and my apologies.”
Later that day, when Melaudd and Waldyn’s wives and their serving women came down from the women’s hall to sit with the noble lords at the table of honor, Dovyn came to drink with his father’s warband. Cinvan wondered if he felt more at home with the men now that his brother had an infant son, another heir between him and Cernmeton.
“Good to see you back, falcon.”
“My thanks, my lord. For a lot of things.”
“Most welcome, truly. I’ve got somewhat to ask you. I’ll be riding down to Aberwyn soon. My father’s given me leave to take some of his men along for an escort. I was thinking of you, Garedd, Peddyc, and Tauryn. Are you game for a wet ride?”
“Gladly, my lord. Your father’s a generous man with his ale, but time hangs heavy in winter.”
“Just that.” Dovyn gave him a grin. “We might have a bit of sport in the spring, though. Here, I’ll tell you the news. I’m riding to Aberwyn to lay claim to some of that empty land up by the Peddroloc. If I can gather the farmers and suchlike, by the gods, why shouldn’t I have land and a dun of my own?”
“Why not?” Cinvan pledged him with his tankard. “Good for you, my lord. I take it your father’s sponsoring you.”
“Just that.” Dovyn’s smile was full of boyish hopes and pride. “He says he’ll back me with the warband if any of the cursed Westfolk try to argue about it. I can fancy myself spreading the Bear clan’s name a little farther west.”
“And your clan’s glory.” Cinvan had a swallow of ale. “May the Bear roam where he will.”
Two days later, when the storm broke, Lord Dovyn and his escort set out for Aberwyn. All along the way, Melaudd’s personal vassals and allies gave them a roof over their heads and ale to drink, which was all that mattered to Cinvan. Dovyn was full of his plans, chattering about them in a most unlordly manner. Since the Old Ones had already fled this part of the country, his new demesne would have to be tilled by free farmers, but there were plenty of younger sons among the Eldidd freemen. Among the commoners, a freeman could divide his property up among his heirs when he died, but who would settle for some part of a farm when he could win a whole one? With a noble lord and his warband to protect them against the Westfolk, they would be glad to move and break new land, which would become theirs in freehold in return for dues. (Back in the Homeland, the noble-born had always divided their property, too, but here in the new and hostile country, with empty land all around them, they preferred to keep holdings strong by passing them intact to one heir.) Lord Dovyn would be a poor lord at first, but his wealthy father was willing to tide him over with cattle and extra horses until the crops—and the taxes—began coming in.
About halfway through the trip, they stayed with Tieryn Braur of Belglaedd, who greeted Dovyn warmly and made sure his men had shelter in the barracks instead of the stables. At dinner that night, the four Bear riders were given decent seats at a table near the fire and all the meat and mead they wanted, though Cinvan drank little. Up at the table of honor, the young lord was talking with his host and a pretty young woman who seemed to be the tieryn’s daughter. From their long distance away, Garedd watched them with a sentimental smile.
“I think our Dovyn’s picked out the lady of this new demesne.”
“Huh?” Cinvan, said “Who?”
“The daughter, you dolt! Look.”
Obligingly Cinvan looked. Dovyn and the lass were smiling at each other’s every word.
“Now, that warms a man’s heart.” Garedd paused to belch. “What do you wager he had no chance of winning her before? But now he’ll have land to offer.”
“You’re drunk.”
“I am, but so what? It’s just like somewhat in a bard’s tale. He’ll win the land and all for her sake.”
Cinvan ignored him and had another swallow of mead.
Since the men of the Bear were direct personal vassals of the princes of Aberwyn, Dovyn and his escort sheltered in the royal dun itself, a vast many-towered broch in the middle of Aberwyn. At meals, the Bearsmen sat at one side of an enormous great hall that had room enough to seat two hundred and watched their lord, far away at the other side near a hearth made of fine pale stone, all carved with the princely dragons of the rhan. During the day, they had leave to wander round the town, which with its twenty-thousand inhabitants was the biggest place Cinvan had ever seen. Every morning he and Garedd walked down to the harbor, where the prince’s four war galleys rode at anchor and merchant ships came and went. In the afternoon they would go to one of the taverns that the prince’s men recommended and pick up a couple of cheap whores, or sometimes only one to spare the extra cost. As Garedd remarked one day, life in Aberwyn was a cursed sight more amusing than playing Carnoic in Melaudd’s hall or badgering a kitchen maid into taking a tumble with them out in the hayloft.
Unfortunately, every earthly paradise comes to an end sooner or later. On their last day in Aberwyn, Cinvan and Garedd went down to their favorite tavern to say a sentimental farewell to the lasses there. As they were sitting over a couple of tankards, a stout gray-haired fellow in red-and-white-checked brigga came into the room. Uneasily he threw his fur-lined cloak back from his shoulders and looked with disdain at the chipped tables, straw-strewn floor, and blowsy wenches.
“Now, what’s he doing in here?” Garedd said.
“Looking for us. See? Here he comes.”
The merchant strode over to their table with a friendly, if somewhat fixed smile.
“My name’s Namydd. I see you ride for the Bear clan.”
“Well, so we do,” Garedd said, and he was the one who went on talking to the merchant while Cinvan sat and glowered. “And what can we do for you, good sir?”
Namydd brushed off the wooden bench with the side of his hand, then sat down and ordered ale all round. When the wench brought it, he inspected the rim of his tankard and wiped it on his sleeve before he drank.
“Now, I’ve heard an interesting piece of news about your Lord Dovyn. Some of my connections in the prince’s court tell me he’s filed a claim to land around the Four Lakes.”
“He has. What’s it to you?”
“A matter of great profit and one to your lord as well. I’m a merchant, you see, and I’d be willing to pay him for the rights to have a trading depot in his village.”
“Well, he doesn’t have a village yet, good sir. But he’ll probably need the coin.”
“Most lords in his position do. Now, I’d like to approach him about this, but I wanted to have a word with one or two of his men first. Tell me, is your lord the approachable sort?”
“He is. As decent a young man as you could ask for.”
“Splendid! How soon will he be making his move on the land?”
“Oh, sometime in the summer. As far as I understand these things, anyway, they’ve got all sorts of legal matters to tend to first. Why don’t you ride to Cernmeton later in the winter? Doubtless he can tell you more then.”
“I will, I will.”
Namydd smiled all round, but Cinvan kept on scowling. Although he couldn’t say why, he was sure this merchant had some game of his own afoot, and one that might not be to his lordship’s advantage.

For some weeks the elves drifted south, heading for the warmer seacoast and the winter camps. Although Aderyn slept in Halaberiel’s tent, he rode with Nananna and Dallandra, ate with them at meals, and spent most evenings, too, at the Wise One’s side. Starting at first principles, they compared their two systems of magic a piece at a time—or, to be exact, Aderyn had a system of magic, while Nananna had a body of lore. Her dweomer was all of the greatest power, mind, and in line with the true principles of the universe, but there was no doubt that it was a thing of pieces and fragments. For instance, she knew nothing about astrology and only scraps of information about the levels of the universe beyond the astral. When it came to walking the secret paths, her lore was all jumbled, based only on the raw experience of her teacher and herself. He finally realized, in fact, that Nananna’s teacher had discovered the technique very late in her life and almost by accident. One evening, using every bit of tact he possessed, he asked Nananna if she realized that the fabric of her magic was a bit frayed. Rather than being offended, she laughed with an earthy good humor.
“Frayed, young Aderyn? Shredded and full of holes, more like, I’d say. It’s because of the Great Burning, of course. We lost all our books then, and along with them such niceties as tracts on the motions of the stars and long tables of ritual correspondences.”
“Burning? Did someone just burn all the magical books?”
“A bit more than the books. Oh, of course, you wouldn’t know about that, would you?” She paused for a long moment, and grief bit deep into her face. “Maybe my broken dweomer suits us, because the People, young Aderyn, are naught but a remnant themselves. Long, long ago we lived in cities, the seven cities of the far mountains, ruled over by a council of seven kings. There were paved streets and big houses, beautiful temples and libraries filled with books that everyone was allowed to read, or so I’ve been told—I’ve never seen such things myself, mind. Old as I am, it was before my time, a good eight hundred years ago now when the Hordes came. They were demons, some say, ugly, squat, hairy creatures with fangs and big noses. I suspect they were real flesh and blood myself. Be that as it may, they came by the hundreds of thousands, fleeing south from the northern forests for some reason of their own, and as they came they burned and looted and killed. They destroyed the cities in a few short years, and all that’s left of the People is this remnant, wandering the grasslands. We’re the children of those who managed to get away in time, you see, and our families were all country people, farmers, most of them, or we never would have survived at all. Two women learned in magic managed to escape the burning of the cities and reach the grasslands, where the other refugees took them in, but they didn’t bring any books and so on with them. They were lucky to escape with their heads still on their shoulders, and they didn’t have time to pack properly, you might say, before they left.”
“Two? That’s all?”
“That’s all, out of all the grand schools and the temples. They did their best to pass on what they knew, but among us, as among you, talented sorcerers aren’t exactly as common as sheep in a fold. One of them was old, too, and died soon, worn out by the horrors she’d seen. My teacher studied with the other.”
“But these Hordes—why? Why did they just destroy everything?”
“I only wish I knew. No one does.”
“Uh, you said somewhat about these Hordes taking heads. I, er, well, wonder, er, does anyone remember what they looked like exactly?”
Nananna laughed, a bitter mutter under her breath.
“They may not have been actual demons, but they weren’t your people, young Aderyn, so rest your heart about that. All the old tales agree that they only had three fingers on each hand, for one thing, and that their faces, especially round the jaws, were all swollen and deformed, for another. Now, when I was a lass I heard one of the elders talk about those deformed faces, and he said it looked to him like they were actually covered with scar tissue in some kind of ritual pattern, maybe with some charcoal powder added in, like, to make the scars more prominent. I’ve never heard of a Deverry man doing such a thing.”
“And we all have five fingers, too. I can’t tell you how happy I am—for a moment I was sure that we were all somehow to blame.”
“Indeed? Why? Your folk’s general, nature?”
“Well, that, too, but when I had my vision, I, heard a voice telling me to go west. And it said, ‘Make restitution.’ So I thought, well, maybe we owed you somewhat.”
“Eldidd men owe us a great deal, but not because of the Burning, not as far as I know, anyway.” Nananna paused abruptly. “What’s all that noise out there?”
Aderyn heard urgent voices and footsteps, Just as Dallandra rose to go look, Halaberiel pushed open, the tent flap.
“Wise One, my apologies for disturbing you, but Namydd the merchant is here with talk of trouble.”
When Dallandra spoke in Elvish, Nananna made an impatient wave in her direction.
“Aderyn has to understand this, too. Speak in his tongue. If you would, Banadar, bring Namydd to me.”
In a few minutes Halaberiel returned with a paunchy graying man in the checked brigga and elaborate shirt of a merchant. He was obviously exhausted, his eyes dazed, his movements stiff as he bowed to Nananna.
“My thanks for seeing me, Wise One,” Namydd said. “I’ve brought you some gifts, just tokens of my respect, but my son is still unloading our horses. We’ve ridden night and day to reach you.”
“Then sit down and rest. Dalla, fetch the poor man some mead. Banadar, stay with us. Now, what brings you here in such a hurry?”
“Great trouble, O Wise One,” Namydd said. “One of the northern lords, Dovyn of the Bear by name, is laying a formal claim to the lands by Loc Cyrtaer—the very place where we meet to trade every fall.”
“Oh, is he now?” Halaberiel broke in. “And does he think he’s going to cut the trees on our death-ground, too?”
“I know these lands are sacred to your people.” Namydd paused to take a wooden bowl of mead from Dallandra. “The merchant guild of Aberwyn is totally on your side. We tried to intervene with the prince, but all he’d say is that you’ll have to come to his court and file a legal counterclaim.”
When Halaberiel swore in Elvish, Nananna scowled him into silence.
“Then we shall do just that,” Nananna said. “I’m sure the prince will agree when he sees the justice of the thing. Now here, Namydd, has this lord chosen the death-ground itself?”
“Land that’s very close, but I think—I hope and pray—that the prince will listen to reason about such a sacred thing. Now, the guild sent me here with offers of aid. Your people can shelter with us if you come to Aberwyn. We have a man trained in our laws to act as your counsel—all at our expense, of course.”
“My thanks,” Nananna said with one of her wry smiles. “I forget sometimes how rich trading with us has made you.”
Namydd winced.
“Well, so it has. The Wise One is wise enough to know that when a man’s self-interest is at stake, he’s most trustworthy. If the banadar agrees, I think he’d be the best one to ride to Aberwyn. Our people have a great respect for those of high standing.”
“So they do,” Aderyn put in. “And even greater respect for those of royal blood. Hal, you wouldn’t happen to be descended from the kings of the seven cities, would you?” He glanced at Nananna. “There were seven, didn’t you say?”
“There were.” Halaberiel forgot himself enough to interrupt the Wise One. “Ye gods, you must have a grand sort of magic if you could see that in me! For what it’s worth, I am indeed—a pitiful sort of inheritance, but mine.”
“Then if you’ll listen to my humble council, I think you’d best travel as a prince—in the fullest sense of the word.”
Halaberiel looked briefly puzzled, then grinned.
“It might be amusing to try a bit of the pomp and mincing that pleases the Blue-eyes,” Halaberiel said. “What does the Wise One think?”
“Oh, I agree. Banadar? Take poor Namydd to your tent so he can get some sleep. Then return to me so we can plan things out. Namydd, you and your guild have my deep and heartfelt thanks.”
Namydd bowed, nearly fell from weariness, then let Halaberiel lead him away. Once they were gone, Nananna turned to Aderyn.
“Will you ride with the banadar?” Nananna said. “I’d be grateful if you would. I can give you a scrying stone so you can send me news, and I think it would be wise to have a man who understands the Light along on this little matter.”
“Gladly, Wise One.”
“But let me give you a warning. You can never truly desert your own kind, no matter how much loyalty you give to us. You must be scrupulously fair, not partisan. Do you understand? If the Lords of Light had wanted you to be an elf, you would have been born in an elven body.”
“I do understand that, O Wise One, and I’ll think well about what you say.”
Almost against his will, Aderyn glanced at Dallandra. Her storm-gray eyes were distant, cool, judging him, as if she were wondering if he could truly live up to his fine words. Aderyn vowed to do the best he could, and all for her sake.
By morning, the news was all over the camp. Young men and women hefted weapons and swore bloody vengeance if the Round-ears so much as touched the death-ground. The older members of the group flocked round Halaberiel and offered advice, warnings, and general opinions. Every man and woman who owned horses had a right to speak out about such an important matter, but finally, by nightfall, they reached a decision. The camp went through its material goods and donated twenty-one matched golden horses, twenty-one fancy saddles and bridles, a heap of new clothes and all the jewelry they owned to make Prince Halaberiel and his escort look as rich as the Dragon Throne itself. Halaberiel himself owned a gem that impressed even Aderyn, an enormous sapphire as blue as the winter sea, set in a pendant of reddish gold some three inches across and ornamented with golden roses in bas-relief. When the warband saw him wearing it, they fell silent; Jezryaladar even held up his hands and nodded to the pendant in a sign of respect.
“It belonged to my grandfather, Ranadar of the High Mountain,” Halaberiel said to Aderyn. “For all the good it ever did him.”
As a last touch, Aderyn took the warband aside and instructed them in the courtesies that a Round-ear warband would show a man of royal blood. Finally they chose some packhorses—duns and roans, these—and a couple of young men to come along and pretend to be servants. Since Aderyn himself would be the prince’s councillor, he too got fancy clothes but a silvery-gray horse to ride.
On his last night in camp, Aderyn and Dallandra wrapped themselves in heavy cloaks and walked a little ways away through the silent grasslands. The night was clear, streaked with moonlight, and so cold that their breath puffed as they walked.
“Be careful, won’t you, Aderyn?” Dallandra said abruptly. I’ve got a bad feeling about all of this.”
“A dweomer warning?”
“I don’t know if I’d call it that. Just a bad feeling. I’m sorry, but I just don’t trust your people.”
“I can’t say I blame you. Ye gods, it makes me sick, thinking about how much you’ve all lost already, and now my folk come riding in trying to take away what little you’ve got left.”
“There’s plenty of land for all of us, though. That’s the sad thing. There truly is plenty for all, if the Round-ears would only see that. The grasslands stretch way far away to the west, and way up north, too, before you come to the mountains.”
“How far away were the seven cities?”
She shrugged, thinking hard.
“I have no idea. Months’ worth of riding, I guess. We never go there anymore.”
“Why not? Are the ruins haunted or suchlike?”
“Most like, but that’s not why. Wait—I heard some old tale about a plague—that’s right! At the end, it was plague that destroyed the Hordes, and the bards say that their corpses choked the gutters and paved the streets. If you want to know about all that old stuff, you should ask a bard at the winter meetings. They keep the lore alive.”
“You don’t seem to care much about it, do you?”
“Ye gods, I grew up hearing about the Burning till I was sick of it. So we lived in splendor once! Who cares? The past is dead, say I, and we’ve got to make the best of what we’ve got now.”
Yet her voice cracked with bitterness and regret.

Since Lord Dovyn and his escort left Aberwyn before the merchant guild sent its representatives to the prince, they rode back home thinking that the matter of Dovyn’s new lands was settled. Life for Cinvan and the warband settled into a drowsy autumn routine: exercising their horses in good weather, and in bad, gathering in the great hall to drink ale and keep the Carnoic tournament going, which by then was a close and heated affair. Garedd marked one of his silver pieces and kept a record of its progress through the wagers—sure enough, every time he lost it, it eventually came back to him. Cinvan took up the battle in earnest and fought his way to the front rank of contenders. He liked the cold pure strategy of the game, where a single mistake was fatal, and had put in long hours studying the various moves and tactics. Often on the long afternoons, while the wives were up doing whatever it was that women did in the women’s hall, Melaudd, Waldyn, and Dovyn would stroll over, tankards in hand, to watch the games and lay an occasional wager themselves.
When the message arrived, they were all gathered at the riders’ side of the hall. Cinvan was playing a particularly difficult game with Peddyc, who was almost his equal. He was debating whether to sacrifice one of his stones in order to jump and capture two of Peddyc’s when there was a bustle at the door. The gatekeeper came running in with an exhausted rider, his cloak pinned with the dragon brooch of Aberwyn.
“My lord Dovyn, an urgent message for you.”
Swearing under their breath, Peddyc and Cinvan stopped their game. A servant hurried off to find the scribe, who duly appeared to take the piece of parchment and read it aloud. The warband clustered round to hear.
“To Dovyn, lesser lord of the Bears, newly designated lord of Loc Cyrtaer, I, Addryc, prince of Aberwyn by the grace of his highness, Waryn, king of Eldidd, send greetings,” the scribe began. “My lord, a matter of great difficulty has been set before me by Prince Halaberiel, son of Berenaladar, son of Ranadar, a king of the Westfolk. The land on which you laid recent claim in my court is under prior claim to said Halaberiel as part of his royal hunting preserve. Certain sections of said land have also served as tribal burial ground for the ancestors of the Westfolk since time immemorial. I most urgently summon and request you to appear in my palace so that this matter may be discussed and settled in my court of law under my personal arbitration. Under my seal and mark, Addryc, prince of Aberwyn.”
“Oh, by the asses of the gods!” Dovyn burst out. “Those cursed Westfolk! The gall! Prince, is he? I’ll just wager!” He turned to his father in mute appeal.
“Whether he’s a prince or not, Addryc’s a prince for sure,” Melaudd said. “We’d best ride south and take a look at this.”
Dovyn began pacing restlessly back and forth.
“Why didn’t this cursed horse herder come forward before? The rotten gall! This is going to delay everything.”
“Maybe it will, maybe it won’t,” Waldyn put in. “Now calm yourself, brother. No need to draw steel and strike sparks until you see how the prince’s judgment goes.”
“Just so.” Melaudd turned to the messenger. “Did this Halaberiel ride in with an armed escort?”
“He did, my lord. Twenty men.”
“Well and good. Then we’ll take twenty of mine and leave the rest with Waldyn.”
Much to their delight, Cinvan and Garedd were chosen to be part of the escort and have another chance at the marvels of life in Aberwyn. At the meal that night, while the men who were going to be left behind grumbled, swore, and generally cursed the others for their good fortune, Cinvan and Garedd pumped the messenger for every scrap of news he had, which, as a common rider like themselves, was little enough.
“Well, here,” Garedd said at last. “Do you think this Hala what’s-it is truly a prince?”
“Well, now, I know this isn’t a friendly sort of thing to say, but I wouldn’t doubt it. I’ve never seen so many jewels on a lord! And this escort of his is always bowing and scraping around him, saying ‘my prince this’ and ‘my prince that,’ fetching him mead and bringing him cushions. You know, there’s one good thing you’ve got to say about the Westfolk—they blasted well can hold their mead. I’ve never seen a man drink the way this prince can.”
“I’m more interested in how they hold their swords,” Cinvan said.
“Now listen, lad.” The messenger shot him a sharp glance. “Naught’s going to come to bloodshed in Aberwyn’s court. A man who draws steel there gets twenty-five lashes, and if he’s still alive when they’re done with him, they throw him out of the warband onto the roads to starve.”
“I know that as well as you do,” Cinvan snapped. “I was just wondering if things would come to a war.”
“Now here,” Garedd broke in. “That’s for the lords to decide. If Dovyn takes the judgment, then he’ll be looking for land elsewhere, that’s all. God knows, there’s enough of it, out to the west.”
Cinvan turned to look across the hall to the table of honor, where Melaudd and Dovyn were talking urgently, heads together, and Melaudd’s lady watched, shredding a piece of bread with frightened fingers.

Halaberiel and his retinue had been gone three days before Nananna heard from Aderyn. Impressively enough, he could reach her mind directly, rather than wait for a dream. One evening Dallandra was adding a few twigs and chips of wood to their tiny fire when the old woman suddenly went still and stared off into midair.
“Everything’s going smoothly so far,” Nananna said at last. “They crossed into Round-ear territory with no trouble, and now they’re about a day and half’s ride from the city itself.”
“Is Aderyn all right?”
“Of course, or he could hardly contact me, could he?”
“I’m sorry. I’m just so worried, thinking they’ll be poisoned or ambushed or murdered by the Round-ears one way or another.”
“Have you had a true dream or a vision?”
“No, it’s just my fears talking to me. I even know it, but I can’t seem to stop.”
“Don’t try to stop. Let the voices talk, but ignore them.”
Nananna tilted her head to one side to study her apprentice. “You’re coming to like Aderyn, aren’t you?”
“Oh, he’s nice enough.” She kept her voice casual. “For a Round-ear. No, that’s mean of me. He’s been a good friend so far, and whether or not he’s a Round-ear has nothing to do with it.”
“That’s better, yes. I like him myself, but even more to the point, he’s willing to help us beyond measure. He has knowledge that’s been lost to the People for eight hundred years, and he’s willing to share it for the asking. I call that admirable myself.”
“So do I, Wise One. Maybe I’ve misjudged the Round-ears. Let’s just hope that there’s more men like Aderyn in Eldidd.”

“On the trip south, Melandd kept the warband riding fast from dun to dun of his allies and vassals. Everywhere they stopped, the lords offered encouragement and support. The consensus seemed to be that these blasted Westfolk had caused enough trouble, and the sooner they were shoved back to open land, the better. But when they reached Aberwyn, they had a nasty surprise waiting for them. They would, of course, be staying in the dun of the Dragon Prince, but so, it turned out, was this prince of the Westfolk and his escort. Out of simple fairness, Addryc had offered Halaberiel his shelter and protection. Every man in the warband saw this courtesy as a betrayal. Dovyn was furious enough to talk openly in front of the men.
“What do you wager those cursed merchants are behind this? Piss-poor coin, polishers!”
“Now here, lad,” Melandd said, and sharply. “Trade’s important to Aberwyn. I’m as angry as you are, but you have to understand his highness’s position. Watch your tongue while we’re here.”
“How can you insult our prince, Father? Do you really think he values coin more than honor?
“I said, hold your tongue! You’re a young cub yet and not quite licked into shape, so you leave all the talking to me.”
When the Bear’s warband came into the hall for dinner, they found their rivals there ahead of them, seated as far across the riders’ side of the hall as possible and surrounded by Aberwyn’s men. Another portion of Addryc’s warband surrounded the Bears—in the friendliest possible way, of course—and sat them down. Cinvan accepted a tankard of ale from a servant girl and peered across the vast smoky hall to the honor hearth, where the noble-bom and their guests were drinking mead. Prince Addryc was seated at the head of the table with Melaudd and Dovyn to his left and the elven leader at his right. The fellow was tall, even for one of the Westfolk, and he certainly looked like a prince; it wasn’t just his finery, Cinvan decided, it was the way he moved and talked with the ease of someone who’s used to being obeyed. Next to him sat a slender young man, quite human-looking, with untidy brown hair and dark eyes, who seemed to be included in whatever important conversation was going on. Cinvan tapped one of the Aberwyn men on the shoulder.
“Who’s that next to that Halaberiel fellow?” Cinvan said. “The skinny fellow swimming in his fancy shirt.”
“The prince’s councillor, Aderyn. Everyone says he’s got dweomer.”
“Ah, horseshit. Old wives’ tale.”
“Oh, is it now? I wouldn’t be so sure, lad.”
Cinvan turned to Garedd, who merely shrugged to suspended judgment. Cinvan felt a small cold fear at the very possibility of dweomer. It was as if he should remember something, or know something, or take some warning—he simply couldn’t understand his own thoughts. Fortunately the servants came to the table with roast beef and bread to distract him from the unfamiliar and painful process of introspection.
Later that night, though, Cinvan came face to face with this mysterious young councillor. He went out to the ward to relieve himself of some of the prince’s ale, and as he was coming back in, he met Aderyn going out, doubtless for the same reason. Just to case this unprepossessing lad did have some kind of magic, Ctovan made him a civil bow and stepped aside. Aderyn nodded pleas- antly, then stopped to look him full in the face. As he stared into those owl-dark eyes, Cinvan turned cold. He felt pierced and pinned to the wall behind him like a rabbit skin stretched out to dry. At last Aderyn smiled and released him.
“Here, good sir,” Cinvan stammered, “do I know you from somewhere?”
“Oh, you do indeed, but you won’t remember.”
Aderyn walked on, leaving Cinvan shaking behind him. Cinvan hurried back to the table and the comfort of Garedd’s company. He picked up his tankard and drank a good bit of it straight off.
“What did the councillor say to you?’” Garedd said. “There at the door, I mean.”
“Oh, naught that counted for much, but he’s got dweomer, sure enough.”

Dinner that night at the prince’s table was a tense affair, with conversation not likely to help one’s digestion. With the roast pork Addryc demanded and got statements from both claimants, then let them glare at each other while he considered the matter. With the baked apples he remarked that he was sure that some treaty or another could be worked out, once he’d consulted the priests on the laws.
“A treaty, Your Highness?” Halaberiel remarked. “We’ve had experience of your treaties before, I’m afraid.”
“And what do you mean by that, my prince?” Addryc said in a smooth and level voice.
“The matter of the lands beyond that village of yours; the one called Cannobaen.”
Addryc winced and considered his apple, swimming in cream in a silver bowl.
“My heart aches with shame over that matter, but there was naught I could, do. I forbade the lords in question to settle out beyond the treaty boundary.”
““Then why, pray tell, are they still there?”
“Because they removed themselves from my jurisdiction and bound themselves in personal fealty to my father, the king. I was furious, frankly, but what could I do? Declare war on my own father? That was my only choice.”
Halaberiel raised one eyebrow in polite disbelief, but he did allow the prince to change the subject.
Rather than prolong the agony of having rivals eating at his table, Prince Addryc held malover on the disputed land near Loc Cyrtaer the morning after the Bears’ arrival. They met in a half-round of a room where the dragon banner of Aberwyn and the hippogriff blazon of all Eldidd draped damp stone walls. Bronze charcoal braziers, glowing cherry red against the chill, stood as common as chairs. The prince sat at a narrow writing desk with the ceremonial sword of Aberwyn in front of him and a scribe with pens and parchment at his right hand. Behind him stood two councillors and a priest of Bel, there to advise on the holy laws. In front of him, Aderyn and Halaberiel had chairs to the right while Melaudd and his son sat off to the left. Although the prince was an imposing man, sitting straight and tall, with touches of wisdom’s gray in his raven-dark hair and the snap of command in his dark blue eyes, Aderyn felt sorry for Addryc, who was also intelligent enough to see that any decision he made would be the wrong one, caught as he was between the powerful merchant guild on the one hand and his noble vassals on the other. In hopes of bringing the banadar to a mood to compromise, Aderyn had told him the truth, that if Addryc ruled totally in favor of the Westfolk he would be sowing the seeds of a possible rebellion. The legal councillor for the merchant guild had tried to counsel patience, but Aderyn doubted that the banadar had paid much attention to either of them. As they sat together and waited for the proceedings to begin, Halaberiel’s face was set, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, merely distant. It was impossible to tell what he might be thinking. Melaudd and his son, however, were as open as the meadowlands—a barely controlled fury showed in every line of their faces, that anyone, for any reason at all, should cross their will.
“Very well, my lords,” Addryc said at last. “We discussed this matter extensively last night I see no need to chew over the stale meat of the case again.”
Halaberiel and the two lords nodded their agreement.
“I have consulted also with his holiness here.” Addryc indicated the priest. “He tells me that it would be a grave and impious thing for any man to settle upon, cut wood upon, or plow a sacred burial ground. No doubt the gods of the Westfolk would join great Bel in cursing such an action.”
When Dovyn began to speak, Melaudd glared him into silence.
“I assure Your Highness and his holiness both that never would my son or I commit such an impiety,” Melaudd said. “If his highness, the prince of the Westfolk, will see to it that the limits of this sacred ground are clearly marked, I will see to it that no man steps upon it unless for some sacred purpose.”
“Well and good, then.” Addryc turned to Halaberiel. “And will his highness so undertake to mark the land?”
“I will,” Halaberiel said “With swords, if need be.”
Addryc winced. Melaudd rose from his chair.
“And does the prince doubt my word?”
“Never,” Halaberiel said calmly. “But my lord will not live forever, and who knows what men will come after him?”
The moment was saved. Melaudd bowed and sat back. The two Aberwyn councillors sighed in relief. Aderyn himself found that he’d been holding his breath and let it out again.
“Very well, then,” Addryc said. “I shall have a formal writ drawn up, declaring the sanctity of those forests, and posted publicly in both Cernmeton and Elrydd for all to see.”
The scribe dipped a pen in an inkwell and wrote a few notes, the pen scratching painfully loud in the silence.
“Now, to turn to the remainder of the land under dispute,” Addryc said. “My lord Dovyn, the prince has offered you a compromise, land that you may settle upon farther north and east.”
“And why should I compromise?” Dovyn snapped. “Does he claim every bit of land in Eldidd?”
Melaudd forgot himself enough to slap his son on the shoulder, but the damage was done. Halaberiel rose and looked thai young lad over.
“My lord, I own nothing,” Halaberiel said, “any more than any noble lord of your people owns the land lent to him by the gods. The only property that either of us may claim with any certainty is the six feet of land that your kin will use to bury you someday, and the single tree that my kin will cut to burn me in that same future. There is, however, land that the People use, and land that we never travel upon. I merely suggest to your arrogant soul that you might take land that’s of no use to other men and thus spare us all a good deal of trouble.”
Dovyn flushed a scarlet red. Halaberiel sat back down and looked the prince’s way.
“My prince Halaberiel.” Addryc shot a nervous glance at Melaudd. “I’ve explained the laws of Eldidd to you. If you wish to make certain your claim to this hunting preserve is honored by our laws, then you must be in residence upon the land for a certain portion of every year. A man who lets land lie unused forfeits all claims to it.”
“I understand, and it’s a sensible ruling in its way. You’ll find me there every spring.”
“Done, then.” Addryc turned to Melaudd. “My lord, there is land for the taking just north of your demesne along the banks of the Gwynaver. May I ask why your son didn’t put in a claim to that empty land?”
“Because he wanted to settle on the lakeshore, Your Highness,” Melaudd said. “There aren’t any settlements on the lakes, and it’s rich land and a strong defensive position.” He shot Halaberiel a daggered glance. “The day may come when Your Highness wishes there were a strong and loyal dun there.”
Addryc blinked twice. The priest looked as if he were silently praying.
“And I’ll say something else, by your leave,” Melaudd went on. “I ve never heard of Westfolk having kings until we received your message, and I’ll wager you never did either. It strikes me as strange that you’d turn away from the men who’ve served you loyally for so long in favor of a stranger.”
“And have I turned away from you yet?” Addryc said levelly. “I have yet to pronounce my judgment.”
Abashed, Melaudd looked away.
“My prince.” Addryc turned to Halaberiel. “I’m considering asking you to surrender land for Dovyn’s demesne at the lake-shore. In return, I’ll grant you and your people a clear, formal, and indisputable title to the land along the west bank of the Gwynaver. With my seal upon the charter, this matter will never rise again. The burying ground and the north shore of the lake will be yours. The south shore and a dun at the river’s mouth will be Dovyn’s. All the land between the lake and the Gwynaver will be yours to hunt in or to fortify as you think fit.”
“With Bears on the south shore, fortification might be in order,” Halaberiel said. “Your Highness, I realize that this is a difficult judgment for you. You have offered a generous settlement, one which I’m minded to take. On the other hand, I have vassals just as you do. No one among my people will give up the south shore easily—I warn you. You’re sitting there squirming, wondering if your lords will cause you trouble if you favor me. I’m sitting here squirming just as hard, wondering what my people will think of me if I take this bargain. Do you understand?”
It was so high-handed, foreign, and utterly honest that the councillors and priests gasped aloud. Addryc leaned back in his chair and sighed, running his fingers over the hilt of the ornate ceremonial sword—he understood all too well. Halaberiel turned to Aderyn with one pale eyebrow raised.
“And what does my honored councillor advise?” Halaberiel said.
For privacy Aderyn rose, bowed to the prince, and led Halaberiel outside to the hall.
“I think we should take it, Hal. It’s the best we’re going to get, and Nananna will work on keeping down resentment. You’re not truly the kind of prince who has to worry about rebellions, and Addryc is.”
“Poor old Addryc. Well, we’ve saved the death-ground, and truly, that was first in my mind. I don’t trust these Bears, though. How long will it be before they push their greedy snouts northward? That young cub needs to be turned over someone’s knee and spanked.”
“Well, you’re right enough, but if you turn down the judgment, then it’s war. Melaudd can rally the prince’s other vassals against you because you’ve refused the prince’s judgment.”
“Indeed?” Halaberiel considered for a moment. “Well, let me see if I can wring one more concession out of his harried highness.”
They returned to the dead-silent room. Halaberiel bowed, then stayed standing to address his royal counterpart.
“Your Highness, your judgment seems fair to me, except for one small point. Will you guarantee me and my people access to the northern lands from the south? The best ford lies in the land you would give the Bears.”
“I see no reason why you can’t have road rights. The road should be a public one, anyway, so the merchants can use it.”
When Dovyn started to speak, his father laid a warning hand on his arm.
“That seems only just, Your Highness,” Melaudd said. “If the prince will guarantee the good conduct of his people as they pass through. I know they travel with sheep and horses, and farmers can’t afford the loss if stock wanders off into their fields.”
“We shall make a formal pact,” Halaberiel said. “Any trampled grain shall be paid for in mutton and wool.”
Pleased, Melaudd nodded; the prince smiled; the councillors gave Aderyn small nods of satisfaction that reason had prevailed.
“And what about when your people steal mine blind?” Dovyn snapped.
Every seated man in the room rose. The priest of Bel stepped forward, watchful to prevent bloodshed. Halaberiel shook off Aderyn’s restraining hand and strode over to face Dovyn.
“Just what are you calling me?”
“Everyone knows the Westfolk are a pack of thieves. Why shouldn’t you be a prince of thieves?”
With a startled gasp, Melaudd threw himself forward, but too late. Halaberiel slapped Dovyn backhanded across the face so hard that the lad staggered back. Halaberiel turned to the prince in appeal.
“So this is the kind of court you keep in Eldidd,” Halaberiel said. “Where a man who puts himself under your judgment must listen to insults and lies.”
“Naught of the sort,” Addryc said levelly. “Lord Dovyn will tender you a formal apology. I trust his father agrees with me on this.”
“His father does indeed, Your Highness.” Melaudd’s voice shook. “And I’ll tender my own apology first and freely.”
Everyone was watching the two princes, suddenly united against this presumption of a lesser lord. Aderyn felt a cold dweomer touch and turned to see Dovyn sliding his sword free of its sheath.
“Don’t!” Aderyn yelled. “Hal, watch out!”
Halaberiel spun around just as Dovyn drew and swung. Aderyn threw himself forward and took a blow on his left hand— mercifully only a glancing one as Dovyn tried to hold up, or he would have been known as Aderyn One-hand forever after. He heard the crack of breaking bone and stared numbly at a surge of blood as the room exploded—yelling, swearing, scuffling among the onlookers, the princes shouting for order, the priest invoking Bel’s name. Melaudd made a frantic grab at his son, pinned him from behind, and shook him so hard that Dovyn dropped the sword. Halaberiel caught Aderyn’s shoulder, steadied him, and swore at the sight of the wound. The priest of Bel ran forward and grabbed Aderyn’s arm just as the door flew open and the prince’s guard shoved their way in. His face purple with rage, Addryc waved them back, but they stood ready out in the corridor.
“So, Melaudd,” Addryc growled, “is this how you raise your sons—drawing on a man in my hall? My hall? By the name of every god of our people! In my very chamber of justice!”
Melaudd tried to answer, but he was shaking too hard. Dovyn broke free and threw himself down at the prince’s feet.
“I beg your forgiveness, Your Highness. I . . . I . . . I just forgot myself.”
Halaberiel left Aderyn to the priest and stepped forward.
“And how soon would you remember his highness’s judgment, then? Your Highness, do you truly expect me to strike a bargain with men like these?”
Aderyn suddenly realized that he was close to fainting, a luxury that he couldn’t afford in this dangerous pass. He staggered to a chair and sat down hard. The priest knelt beside him and tried desperately to stanch the running wound with a scarf that the scribe handed him.
“Look at this!” Addryc’s voice growled with indignation. “He’s wounded a councillor and an unarmed man! Guard! Run and fetch the chirurgeon!”
“I’ll be all right in a minute,” Aderyn gasped.
Although the white scarf was soaking with bright red blood, and his fingers stuck out at an unnatural angle, Aderyn felt no pain. His mind noted his own symptoms from a detached distance: shaking, chills, a dry mouth—oh, he was in shock, all right. He looked up and tried to concentrate on the strange tableau in front of him: Dovyn scarlet with shame at the prince’s feet; Halaberiel frozen with rage; Melaudd pale, his mouth working as if he were praying to the gods to let him wake from what had to be a nightmare.
“Your Highness,” Aderyn whispered, “please don’t make a decision in fury. My prince, that goes for you, too.”
Then he fainted dead away. He seemed to be standing in a swirling dark void, flecked with gold light like fish scales. In the midst of a rushy hiss of noise, he heard someone call his name, and Nananna came striding out of the mists. Here on the inner planes, her image was young and beautiful, her stance that of a warrior.
“What have they done to you? Does the banadar still live?”
“He does. I just fainted, that’s all. The lad who hurt me has been arrested.”
Although Aderyn tried to tell her more, he began floating away, swimming up from the bottom of a dark gold-flecked river. The rushy hiss grew louder and louder; then suddenly he broke the surface and found himself awake, lying on a feather bed. A heavyset man with a blond mustache was bandaging his splinted fingers. Aderyn smelled the clean sharp scent of bruised comfrey root packed in his wound.
“Should heal up fine,” the chirurgeon was saying over his shoulder. “A superficial slice. These things cut a lot of minor blood vessels, looks like the third hell, but nothing dangerous. Now, as for the fingers, he’s got two broken, but it’s a clean fracture.”
“Just so,” Aderyn gasped out. “I need water to restore my humors, too.”
“Aha, you’re awake, are you? They told me you were a physician of sorts.”
The chirurgeon gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder and stood up to make room for Halaberiel, who brought Aderyn water in a silver goblet. He sat down on the bed, slipped one arm under Aderyn’s shoulders, and helped him drink.
“You took the cut intended for me. I’ll never forget this. You’re a friend of the People now and forever.”
“Most welcome.” Aderyn was still too groggy to appreciate the force of that promise. “What did you and the prince determine?”
“Naught yet.” Addryc himself stepped forward. “Prince Halaberiel and I decided to take the last bit of wise advice you gave us. Lord Dovyn is shut up in a chamber under house arrest. His father gave me a personal pledge of security for him. Here, Aderyn, Melaudd is a good man, and he’s truly shattered by his son’s arrogance.”
“No doubt,” Aderyn said. “My heart aches for any father with a son like that.”
Aderyn drank several goblets of water, then lay back exhausted on the pillows. He was in Halaberiel’s luxurious chamber, he realized, and it was full of people. Over by the unglazed windows the other elves were sitting on the floor in grim silence. Two of the prince’s guard were standing in the doorway to wait upon their liege’s orders. At the polished wood table, the chirurgeon was packing up his gear and talking quietly to his young apprentice.
“I’ll make a decision about young Dovyn tonight,” Addryc said. “The chirurgeon tells me you’d better rest for a while, and I want you there to testify as the victim of this outrage.”
“Well and good, Your Highness, but what about the land?”
The prince turned to Halaberiel, who merely shrugged.
“If naught else,” Addryc ventured, “my decree about the sacred burial ground will stand in all perpetuity.”
“Indeed?” Halaberiel turned to Aderyn. “I’ll consider the matter later.”
Addryc nodded in defeat. For a few moments he hovered there uneasily, then took his leave with a gracious bow and a few muttered words about letting Aderyn rest. Once the chirurgeon was gone, too, the other elves got up and moved closer to Aderyn’s bedside, all twenty of them in a disorderly circle.
“I say we ride out of here and go burn Melaudd’s dun,” Calonderiel said. “That blow was intended for the banadar.”
There was a muttered chorus of agreement.
“Oh, hold your tongue, Cal!” Halaberiel snapped. “Since when do we visit the son’s crime on the mother? And there’s more than one woman in that dun.”
“Well, true, but it would have been satisfying, somehow, to see his tents go up in flames.”
“We should just move to the west and let them have the rotten land,” Jezryaladar put in. “Who wants a cursed thing to do with men like this?”
“What?” Albaral snarled. “And let the horse turds win?”
Eight or nine men began talking and arguing at once. Halaberiel shouted them into silence.
“Now listen, I’m minded two ways. It depends on what Addryc does to atone for Dovyn’s crime. If he offers me fair justice, well, then, I say we take the compromise. We’re not doing this just for ourselves. The People need the merchants and their iron and grain, and we have to be able to guard that death-ground. There’s a lot more of the Round-ears than there are of us. They can afford a wretched war a lot better than we can.”
Calonderiel started to speak, then thought better of it. Everyone else nodded in agreement as Halaberiel went on.
“But what we do next depends on what happens with young Dovyn. If I decide to take the compromise, think of it this way: if we control the Gwynaver, we control one of their main routes north. If they want to ride up our river, we can say no and have their prince behind us.”
“That river turns west a ways up north,” Calonderiel expanded the thought. “If we can block a main route west, so much the better.”
“Good, Cal. Now that’s thinking.” He glanced at Aderyn. “You’re dead pale, Councillor.”
“I need to sleep. Take the lads away, will you, but please, by the gods of both our peoples, keep them out of trouble.”
Close to sunset, Aderyn woke from the pain of his wound. He found strong wine in a flagon by his bed, drank some to ease the ache, then lay quiet for a while, watching the late golden sun cast long shadows across the Bardek rugs on the polished floor. He was just considering getting up and trying to light some candles when there was a timid knock at the door.
“Come in.”
Much to his surprise, Cinvan the Bearsman hurried into the room and knelt beside the bed in sincere humility. As he looked down into Cinvan’s hard young face, Aderyn was remembering looking up at this same soul in another body—Tanyc as a seemingly giant young man, and him a small boy of seven. It was a shock to run across Tanyc’s soul at all, and even more of one to find him reborn so soon.
“And what can I do for you, lad?” Aderyn said.
“Well, I don’t truly know. I shouldn’t be here at all, I suppose. Am I tiring you? I can just go away.”
“If you’re troubled enough to come here, then I’ll certainly listen. I take it the news of what happened in the chamber of justice has gotten itself spread around.”
“Just that, but I’ll wager you don’t know the half of it yet. Garedd said I shouldn’t be bothering you like this. Garedd’s somewhat of a friend of mine, you see, and he usually does the thinking for the pair of us, but I had to come ask you. You see, they say Addryc’s as mad as mad at Lord Dovyn, and he wants to have him flogged like a common rider for drawing on you.”
“You’re right—I hadn’t heard that.”
“So, well, you see, our young lord saved me from getting flogged once, and so I thought, well, maybe, you being a councillor and all, you’d see things a bit different than most, and speak up for mercy, like.”
“I usually speak up for mercy whenever I can, so you can put your heart at rest about that. But I’m afraid that the matter’s likely to be out of my hands.”
Cinvan nodded, thinking this over. He was much like Tanyc, Aderyn decided, probably as arrogant in normal circumstances. Yet Aderyn was touched that he would break all protocol to plead for mercy for his young lord.
“How’s that cut?” Cinvan said. “From what I hear it’ll heal up clean, but it ached my heart, to think of my lord dishonoring himself by hurting an unarmed councillor. Uh, well, I mean, I’m sorry you’re hurt, too.”
“My thanks.” Aderyn began to see why this Garedd generally did the thinking for Cinvan. “Well, maybe the prince will think differently about flogging your lord tonight, when his rage has had a chance to cool. He’s not going to want to offend Lord Melaudd, after all.”
And yet it turned that this reasonable statement was overly optimistic. After the evening meal, the prince called a meeting in his chamber of justice. By candlelight they assembled, Aderyn and Halaberiel, Melaudd and Dovyn, the grave gray councillors, the priest of Bel, the nervous young scribe. Addryc laid the ceremonial sword of Aberwyn onto the writing table to open the court. Candlelight sparked on the golden blade and glittered on the jeweled hilt and the hand guard, formed into a dragon shape. Addryc sat down behind the table and motioned to Dovyn to kneel in front of him, a harsh gesture that made Melaudd wince.
“We are here to consider what to do with you, Lord Dovyn. Let me remind you of your fault. Just when the victory you desired was within your grasp, you turned it to defeat. You insulted a man of royal blood. You broke every law of order by drawing your sword in my presence and my dun. In your clumsiness, you wounded not your target, which would have been grave enough, but an unarmed man who had no chance to defend himself. You spilled blood in the prince’s chamber of justice. You have brought a grave shame to your father’s heart. You have disgraced your kin and clan. If your father were to pronounce you exiled, I would put my seal on his decree without a moment’s thought.”
Dovyn slumped almost to the floor, his head bowed, his face drained of all color.
“Do you have anything to say in your own defense?” Addryc said.
“Naught, Your Highness,” Dovyn whispered.
“So I thought. Tieryn Melaudd, do you have aught to say for your own son?”

“Naught, Your Highness, except that I love the young cub.” He paused, honestly baffled, staring around the chamber as if he still couldn’t believe that he was here to witness his son’s disgrace. “Truly, I’ve tried to raise him right. I feel his shame as mine. Freely will I offer to pay the prince the full blood-price for his councillor, just as if my son had killed the man, not just wounded him.”
“You what, my lord?” Halaberiel sat straight up in his chair. “Is it the custom of your country to buy justice, then?”
“My prince, please,” Aderyn said. “You don’t understand the laws of Eldidd. He’s not trying to buy justice, but to fulfill it. Every man has his lwdd, his blood-price. If he’s killed or maimed, the criminal’s kin must pay that price to his clan. Melaudd is being incredibly generous to offer so much without even waiting for the prince’s decree.”
“I see.” Halaberiel turned to Melaudd. “Then my apologies, my lord, for my misunderstanding.”
Melaudd only nodded as if he no longer cared what the prince might or might not do. A faint look of disgust lingered around Halaberiel’s mouth, as if he’d bitten into rotten fruit.
“You’re truly fortunate, my prince,” Addryc said, “to have such a wise man of our people to advise you. But in my heart I agree with you. The lwdd is indeed fit recompense for the wrong done Councillor Aderyn, and in his name, I accept it from you, Melaudd.” He jerked his head at the scribe, who began writing. “But there remains the fact, Lord Dovyn, that you broke geis by drawing steel in my dun. If this offense had happened in the great hall, when you and the prince had been drinking mead, well, then, I’d be minded to mercy. But in cold blood, in perfect sobriety, you drew a blade in the very chamber of justice, and you did so in front of your outraged father’s very eyes.”
Dovyn was slumped so low that his forehead almost touched the floor. Melaudd leaned back in his chair, his hands twisted together, the broad knuckles bloodless.
“Therefore,” Addryc went on, “I demand a recompense for this fault beyond the wounding of Councillor Aderyn. The laws have no lwdd to pay for their bleeding, Tieryn Melaudd. The penalty for this offense is twenty-five lashes in the public ward.”
“Your Highness.” Melaudd rose and flung himself down beside his son in the same smooth motion. “I’ll beg of you, if ever I’ve served you, to spare him the shame of it. Not the lashes so much, Your Highness, but the shame—strung up in the ward like a common rider.”
“I fear he’s comported himself like a common rider, Tieryn Melaudd.”
“Your Highness?” Aderyn rose and bowed. “I, too, will beg for mercy. The lad is very young.”
“Old enough to know the laws. This injury doesn’t concern you, good councillor.”
“Your Highness?” Halaberiel rose and bowed. “Never would I question the wisdom of your judgment, but may I ask one thing?”
“You may, my prince.”
“Is the penalty for this offense death?”
“It’s not.”
“But the lad’s young and might well die from so many lashes.”
“Just so,” Addryc said with a nod. “Very well. I hereby lower the penalty to fifteen. Dovyn, raise your head and look at the man you thought your enemy. He’s brought you mercy.”
Slowly Lord Dovyn raised his head and turned Halaberiel’s way, but his cornflower-blue eyes, blackish in the candlelight, burned with hatred.
Prince Addryc picked up the ceremonial sword and flipped it point upward, holding it high.
“Hear then my decree,” Addryc said. “Tieryn Melaudd will pay the full lwdd for Councillor Aderyn’s wound. Lord Dovyn will receive fifteen lashes in the public ward from my executioner tomorrow at dawn.” He lowered the sword and rapped the pommel three times on the table. “So be it.”
Melaudd began to weep, a little sob under his breath, the rusty tears of a man who hasn’t wept since he was a little lad. At Addryc’s call, two guards stepped in, hauled Dovyn to his feet and marched him out, with Melaudd trailing after. Halaberiel caught Aderyn’s elbow and helped him bow to the prince; then they left Addryc alone with his righteous rage.
“How do you feel, Ado? Well enough to come to my suite for a goblet of mead?”
“I’m not a drinking man, but tonight I will. But I have to go down to the great hall first—there’s someone I need to see.”
In the great hall, they found the various human warbands drinking quietly, free of elven presence, as Halaberiel had told the men of the Westfolk to stay up in their own quarters. Off to one side Aderyn found Cinvan sitting with a beefy blond lad whom he introduced as Garedd.
“I’m sorry, lad,” Aderyn said. “I tried to speak for mercy, but the prince judged otherwise. I’m afraid they’re going to flog your lord tomorrow.”
“So we heard. The guards came out and told us the news. It aches my heart, but I’m no man to question a prince.”
“It aches mine, too,” Garedd said. “Here, sir, is it true that your prince spoke for mercy?”
“It is. It’s thanks to him that the lad will get only fifteen strokes.”
On the morrow, Aderyn stayed in his chamber when the prince’s justice met Dovyn’s bare back. From his refuge up in the main broch, he heard the distant noise of the various warbands being marched out to witness what happened to a man who broke the prince’s discipline. Then there was a deadly silence. Once he heard a faint sound that might have been a scream. Aderyn did his best to think of other things until he heard the crowd breaking up down below. In a few minutes, Halaberiel and the rest of the elves came up and crowded into his chamber.
“I’ve never seen such a barbarous thing,” Halaberiel said.
Jezryaladar untied a skin of mead, took a long swallow, and passed it to the prince, who downed a good bit of it before he passed it on. Halaberiel began pacing back and forth in silence. The skin of mead went round till it was empty.
Late that morning, a page came, asking the prince and his councillor to attend upon Addryc. Aderyn and Halaberiel followed the lad into the prince’s private chambers in one of the secondary towers. This was a comfortable room, furnished with carpets and tapestries, carved chairs set by a small hearth of pink sandstone, and windows open to a view of a garden. Goblet of mead in hand, Addryc was standing by the hearth, and Melaudd was sitting slumped in one of the chairs. Addryc had the page serve Halaberiel and Aderyn mead, then sent the lad away. During all of this, Melaudd never moved or took his eyes from the floor.
“I see no reason to drag this discussion into open court,” Addryc said. “Now, as far as I’m concerned, Lord Dovyn has paid the price the law demands, and that matter is over and done with. Do you and your councillor agree, my prince?”
“We do,” Halaberiel said. “Tieryn Melaudd, you have my honest sympathy.”
Melaudd turned his way slack-eyed. He seemed to have aged ten years in this single morning.
“I suppose I should thank you, but I can’t find it in my heart.”
Addryc went tense and stepped forward.
“Well, by the hells! What am I supposed to do—mince and grovel before the cause of my son’s shame? Before this prince rode in, everything was as smooth as cream, but now I see the man I serve twisted this way and that by a foreigner!”
“Tieryn Melaudd.” Addryc’s voice was silky. “You forget yourself.”
Melaudd opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, and rose to bow to the prince.
“Now, here, my lord,” Aderyn said to Melaudd. “We still need to reach accommodation over the matter of the land.”
“Perhaps. But I wonder in my heart why I should be forced to accommodate.”
“Do you?” Halaberiel snapped. “Now you listen to me! That land is ours, not yours, not the prince’s, not any man in Eldidd’s. Do you understand me, Melaudd? The only claim you have is the one I allow you to have.”
“Oh, is it now? For years and years I haven’t seen one man or woman either on that land. It’s been lying there going to waste—”
“Melaudd!” Addryc took another step forward. “We determined the question of use in the malover.”
Melaudd swallowed his words with a dagger glance at both princes. Halaberiel nodded Addryc’s way, then went on.
“I came in here willing to offer your cursed whelp a demesne out of my ancestral territory, and all I get is arrogance. Very well, then. A prince of my line can be just as arrogant when he needs to be. If your son or one of his blasted riders sets one horse’s hoof on that land, then some of my people will be there to spear him off his wretched saddle.”
The tieryn turned to Addryc with a snarl.
“And I suppose I’m expected to take this in your palace, Your Highness?”
Addryc hesitated, a man walking the edge of a sword with bare feet.
“I’ve given my judgment. If the prince of the Westfolk withdraws the matter from my arbitration, there’s naught I can do.”
“Naught?” Melaudd’s word was a howl of rage.
“Just that. I can neither furnish you with aid nor stand in the way of what you see fit in this matter. But the decree about the burial ground still stands. If ever that sacred ground is despoiled, my personal guard will deal with the criminals, and I will lead them myself.”
“Indeed?” Halaberiel said. “My respect for Eldidd justice has just shattered, Your Highness, no matter what fine words you use. You’re giving Melaudd the right to wage war on my folk.”
“I’m giving him naught of the sort! You don’t understand! By relinquishing my jurisdiction, I’ve opened the way for you to appeal directly to my father, the king, himself. I’ll see to it that he takes the matter up straightaway.”
“The king!” Melaudd sputtered. “You’d let this . . . this creature go to the king!”
Addryc flung up one hand for a slap, caught himself, and froze.
“Don’t distress yourself over it, Melaudd,” Halaberiel said. “I have no desire to deal with weasels any longer, not even the king of weasels. Well and good then, Prince Addryc. You’ve made your decision, and I’ve made mine. We will be leaving your hospitality this very afternoon. I only wish now that you’d given Dovyn the full twenty-five strokes.”
Motioning to his councillor, Halaberiel strode out of the chamber. When he looked back, Aderyn saw Addryc grabbing Melaudd’s arm; then a page closed the heavy door with a bow. As they made their way through the twisting corridors of Aberwyn’s broch, Halaberiel said not a word, and Aderyn was afraid to speak to him. When they got back to his suite, though, they found Namydd waiting anxiously among the elves.
“My thanks for your help, good merchant,” Halaberiel said, “but the weasels have found a nice hole in the fence. I warn you—if you come to the Lake of the Leaping Trout to trade, ride prepared to find yourself in the middle of a war.”
Namydd groaned aloud. Halaberiel paced back and forth as he told the story, pausing often to curse by elven gods, while the others merely listened, hands on sword hilts.
“Hal, please!” Aderyn said at last. “Try to understand Addryc’s position. Deverry lords like to bluster about Great Bel’s will, but they don’t rule by some kind of divine right, you know. Even high kings have been overthrown before, and they doubtless will be again. The prince can’t risk open rebellion in the north.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly. It’s because I understand that I see no use in dealing with him further or with his blasted father, the king, either. He sees the honorable thing but he simply won’t do it. All of the Round-ears are that way. This is the Cannobaen Treaty affair all over again. They speak fine words, but when it comes to giving up one little thing they want, well, then, they’re ever so sorry, but . . . it’s always but, isn’t it? It would be better if they gobbled openly like the swine they are, instead of mincing around and giving themselves airs. I’ve tried to mince around like they do, and now I’m sick of it. We’ll mark the death-ground and see if the good prince honors his most noble pledge. We’ll also see what Dovyn does. We may have to teach him a lesson. And then, good Namydd, we shall see what happens next.”
The twenty men jumped to their feet and cheered, but Halaberiel cut them short with a wave of his hand.
“We’re discussing death. Don’t act as hungry for it as the wretched Round-ears. Go on—start getting your gear together. We’re leaving this stinking hole this very afternoon.”

His eyes bright, Garedd leaned close to Cinvan to whisper.
“It’s all getting blasted interesting.”
“Is there going to be war? That’s all that interests me.”
“Just like a falcon—your mind always on meat. But listen, Cinno, when I was down at the stables this afternoon, I heard our Melaudd talking with Lord Ynydd of the Red Lion. Melaudd’s sounding his allies out, like, trying to see how far they’ll back him and Dovyn against these cursed Westfolk.”
“Indeed? And what did Ynydd say?”
“Blasted little. He’s playing it cautious, like, saying Dovyn got himself into it, so he’ll have to get himself out. But I’ll wager he’s just afraid of the prince.”
“Huh.” Cinvan glanced around the luxurious great hall. “Then the sooner we’re out of Aberwyn, the better. Men have got more guts farther north.”

“They’re leaving Aberwyn now,” Nananna said. “There’s been trouble.”
The old woman slumped forward over her scrying stones. With a little cry Dallandra caught her in her arms, but Nananna raised her head and managed a faint smile.
“I’m not dying yet, child, but I’ll admit to being very tired. Will you help me to my bed?”
Dallandra got her settled among the cushions, spread a fur robe over her, then dismissed the dweomer light when Nananna fell straight asleep. After she put the scrying stones away, she lingered, feeling helpless, for a few minutes; finally she left the tent lest her very anxiety wake the old woman. Outside, the alar was at its communal dinner. When Dallandra joined them, Enabrilia handed her a wooden bowl of venison stew.
“How’s the Wise One?”
“Very tired. Bril, there’s been trouble. The men are on their way home as fast as they can ride.”
The talk and the singing died abruptly. Dallandra felt more helpless than before.
“That’s all I know. Aderyn couldn’t spare a moment to tell us more.”
“And just how do we know we can trust this Round-ear sorcerer?” Talbrennon snapped.
“Because Nananna said we could, you moldy horse apple!” Dallandra was shocked by the rage in her own voice. “Ye gods, don’t we have enough trouble on hand without you looking for more?”
In the deepening silence the crackling of the fire sounded like the rage of a forest in full flame. Dallandra handed the bowl back to her friend, then turned and ran out of the camp. She had to be alone.
Earlier that evening, their alar, in the company of several others they’d met, had camped about eighty miles south of the Lake of the Leaping Trout. Although they were out on the high plateau of the grasslands, the edge of the primeval forest lay only a few miles away, down in the lowlands that also held the farms of the Round-ear lords. With a flock of Wildfolk darting around her, Dallandra wandered downhill, heading to the forest for comfort as even the most civilized elves are prone to do in troubled times. Once she was well among the scrubby new growth, mostly beeches and bracken, at the forest edge, she sat down on a fallen log and opened her mind to thoughts of Aderyn. She could pick up his existence dimly—very dimly—as a feeling of dread for the future and a very much present pain in his hand; once she received a brief visual impression of him clinging to the saddle as the warband rode hard through the dark. That was all, and as much as she hated to admit that she could care about a Round-ear, she felt sick with worry.
All at once she realized that she wasn’t alone. The night was far too quiet: no owls called, no animals were abroad and moving in the undergrowth. She was miles from camp without even a knife. As she stood up, the Wildfolk vanished in a skittering of fear. Dallandra took a deep breath and tried to ignore her pounding heart; if the Round-ears were prowling around, the only weapon she had was her magic. Although she thought of running, movement and noise would give her away. Off to the south she saw a bobbing sphere of light, heading her way; twigs cracked; shrubs whispered against passing bodies. A hunting horn blew, clear and melancholy. Suddenly the light split, multiplied into a line of lights dancing along like a parade of torches, and singing drifted through the chilly air as the procession came closer, circled round, ever nearer, the singing louder—definitely Elvish, but wild, somehow, and hard to follow—the lights blinding as they ringed her round and flared up.
Out of the circling light stepped a woman. She was tall, even for one of the People, and slender, with her silver-pale hair cascading wild down to her waist. Her yellow eyes were huge and slit with emerald pupils. At first Dallandra thought that she was wearing a dress made of beaten gold, but it must have been some trick of the light, because suddenly it seemed that she was wearing only a knee-length tunic of some coarse linen. Her hair seemed darker, too, almost blond. In her hands she carried a slacked bow, and at her hip was a quiver of arrows.
“Do you know who I am?”
“I . . . I . . . I’ve heard tales of the Blessed Court. The ghosts of the seven kings and the faithful who died with them.”
The woman laughed, a peal of scorn. She was wearing a golden diadem round her forehead, jewels winked at her throat, and her dress gleamed again with gold. The bow was gone.
“Tales and nothing more, girl, tales and nothing more. We are the Blessed Court, sure enough, but we were here long before your kings and their stinking iron and their ghastly cities.” She turned to address someone over her shoulder. “Do you hear that? Do you hear how our fame suffers? Reduced to being labeled ghosts and nothing more and by our own people at that.”
Rage howled and pealed through the forest on a blast of icy wind. Strain her eyes as she might, Dallandra could see nothing beyond the circle of torches. When the woman turned back, she was wearing the rough tunic again and hunting boots; the bow in her hands was drawn, a silver-tipped arrow nocked at the ready.
“Tell me our name, or we’ll hunt you through the forests like a beast, girl. You stink of the demon metal.”
What struck Dallandra the hardest was the irony of it, that she was going to die before Nananna, when all along she’d been bracing herself for her teacher’s death. The woman smiled, revealing long pointed teeth like a sprite’s. Dallandra tried to speak, failed, swallowed, and blurted the only answer she could think of.
“The Guardians.”
The woman laughed, the bow gone, her dress now of silk and a deep soothing blue.
“Right you are. Remember us.”
With a howl and an upflung arm she turned and plunged through the circle of torches. Whoever the others were, they laughed and howled and sang with her as the procession rushed off, as fast and smooth as if they floated above the ground. Perhaps they did. Dallandra was shaking too hard to speculate. She sank to her knees and trembled, while the lights bobbed away, farther and farther, the song fading, the laughter only a sigh of wind: then gone. Finally Dallandra forced a few words through dry lips.
“I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
With one last convulsive shudder she looked around her and saw, sticking point down into the earth, an arrow. When she drew it out she heard the woman’s voice whispering from the wind.
“A gift for you. Remember.”
Dallandra ran all the way back to the comfort of the fire and the camp. Still shaking, still gasping for breath, she stammered out the story between gasps while everyone crowded round and passed the silver-tipped arrow from hand to hand.
“After all,” Wylenteriel remarked, “we’d better take a good look at it now, because it’ll probably turn into a twisted stick or something when the sun comes up.”
Only then did Dallandra remember all the old stories about the Guardians that she’d heard as a child, fantastic tales for the little ones, or so they’d always been called. Now she knew that in some measure at least they were true. Yet, when the sun came up on the morrow, the arrow was still an arrow, beautifully worked from some dark wood and fletched with blue feathers from, most likely, a jay. Dallandra took it in to show Nananna along with breakfast.
Nananna was slow to wake that morning. As she sat up, she plucked at the cushions with frail and clumsy fingers as if they annoyed her. For the briefest of moments she couldn’t remember her apprentice’s name. Dallandra felt tears spring to her eyes from fear as well as grief. She turned away and hid them.
“What’s this arrow?” Nananna’s voice was suddenly full again, and in control. “It’s got a dangerous dweomer upon it.”
“Dangerous?”
“Deadly to the likes of us, child. I can feel a destiny upon it. It will kill a shape-changer as he flies and turn his body to elven form, too, when he falls dying from the sky.”
“I didn’t know, Wise One, but truly, I never did trust the giver of it. A strange thing happened to me last night.”
When Dallandra started to tell the story, Nananna was all attention, but in a bit her mind seemed to drift away. She ran slow fingers over the polished shaft, then let it fall from her lap.
“Well, child, this puzzle is yours, not mine,” she said at last. “I . . . I know nothing of these things.”
The fear turned to a presence, cold and menacing behind her, as if a murderer had crept into the tent.
“Well, it probably doesn’t mean much.” Dallandra forced herself to sound brisk and cheerful. “Would you like some porridge? Namydd the merchant brought us some nice Eldidd oats the last time he came.”
Later, when she was alone, Dallandra wept for hours.

Just north of Cannobaen, Halaberiel’s warband crossed a shallow stream with no name (although it was known the Badger in later years) which should have marked the limits of Eldidd territory, or so the prince told Aderyn, even though some twenty-odd miles west stood the dun and farms of the treaty-breakers’ holding. Aderyn, however, never saw that dun, because they turned north, heading for the forest edge, long before they reached it. By then Aderyn was exhausted, riding wounded and worried for long hours as Halaberiel pushed both his men and his horses hard. Tree meadow, rock and road—they all blurred together into the endless ache of that long ride. Finally they reached a camp, though not Nananna’s, and Aderyn was bundled off to a tent to sleep on leather cushions while the prince talked with the leaders of the various alarli.
In the morning when they rode out, twenty more warriors came with them and a herd of extra horses, too. Aderyn was shocked when he realized that some of those warriors were women. At noon that day they met up with a single alar, heading south, which donated six fighting men, three women archers, and a horse laden with arrows. At sunset, they rode into Nananna’s camp to find it huge. Other dweomermasters had heard Nananna’s call for help and sent their people, among them sixty warriors with spare horses and weapons both. After all, Halaberiel remarked, they were going to need every sword they could get.
“Our longbows are just hunting weapons. I don’t imagine they’ll be much good against Eldidd armor. I don’t know, of course—we’ve never tried it.”
“Ah.” Aderyn tried to nod sagaciously, then fainted dead away.
He woke to find himself lying on his back on a spread of cushions in Halaberiel’s enormous tent. Dweomer light shimmered near the smoke hole. At first he thought his injured hand was bleeding badly; then he realized that it was draped into a wooden bowl of warm herb water to soak. When someone knelt beside him he turned his head to find, Dallandra, her beautiful eyes all grave concern. He thought that all his pain was well worth it, just to see her worried about him.
“That rotten Round-ear chirurgeon did a clumsy enough job on your hand,” she snapped. “We’re just lucky that the humors haven’t turned foul.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly follow his orders. Ye gods, my mouth! Is there water?”
She handed him a wooden cup of spring water and watched while he drank it all, then refilled it from a skin lying nearby.
“How do you feel, other than your hand?”
“A little tired, but I’ll be all right. It’s just that the beastly thing aches so much.”
She got up and moved round to lift his hand out of the water and dry it off on a scrap of clean cloth. Her touch was so light that he felt no pain, not even in his splinted fingers.
“I’ve gotten the bindings wet,” she remarked, “so they’ll shrink as they dry and pull the splints tighter.” With a little frown she laid her hand on his and stared at the splints, her lips a little parted in hard thought. The pain seemed to run out of the wounds like spilled water. “There. Better?”
“Much! My thanks, truly, a thousand times over.”
“When it starts hurting again, come to me and I’ll do it again.” Gently she laid the hand down on a cushion and picked up the bowl of filthy herb water. “I’ll just throw this away.”
As she left, Aderyn heard her speak with someone; in a moment Halaberiel came in. The prince had traded his fine clothes for a pair of tight leather trousers, a plain shirt, and a heavy leather jerkin that looked as if it would turn a blade or two.
“Dallandra says you’ll recover. I’m glad to hear it.”
“My thanks, Banadar. I hear a lot of noise outside. Have more men ridden in?”
“Fifteen, that’s all. But we’ve got a good-sized warband now, and we may pick up a few more as we ride north. I imagine Melaudd’s scraping up every man he can, too. I’ve sent a scouting party ahead to the lake. The rest of us will leave tomorrow.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Are you sure? There’s no need . . . ”
“There is. I’m a herbman, aren’t I? If things come to battle, you’ll need me more than five swords.”
“Done then, and my thanks.”
As it turned out, Aderyn wasn’t the only healer and dweomermaster who insisted on riding with the army. That night, when Dallandra came in to tend his wounds again, she was close to tears.
“What’s so wrong?” Aderyn said.
“Nananna. She’s coming with you to the Lake of the Leaping Trout.”
“What? It’s going to be a forced march. She’ll get exhausted.”
“She’s exhausted already. It’s time. She’s going to die.”
Dallandra wept, her face running tears while her whole body shook in silent grief. When Aderyn scrambled to his feet and flung his good arm around her in a clumsy attempt to comfort her, she pulled away.
“It’s wrong of me to weep like this. It’s her time, and that’s that.” She busied herself in wiping her face on her sleeve. “I should accept it and be done with it.”
“Easy to say. Not so easy to do.”
She nodded a distracted agreement
“Are you coming with her?” Aderyn said. “And us, I mean?”
“Of course. Do you think I’d let her go alone?” She turned on him with an expression so fierce that he stepped back. “Oh, I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m all to pieces over this.”
“As well you might be. It’s all right. I was just worried about her.”
“So am I. I’m bringing Enabrilia along, too, to help me tend her. She’s sending the baby and her man off with the others. I’m sorry. Ado. I meant to tell you, earlier.”
He hugged it to himself like a treasure: she’d used his nickname, just casually, as if they’d known each other a good long time.
During the long, hard march to the lake, Aderyn traveled at the rear of the line with the two elven women. Thanks to Dallandra’s healing dweomer, his wounded hand bothered him hardly at all, but even if it had pained him, he would have ignored it in his concern for Nananna. Often he wondered if the old woman would live to reach the burial ground. In the mornings she mounted her horse easily enough, but after a few hours her energy would ebb, and she would ride hunched over, clinging to the saddle with both hands, her frail fingers like the talons of some ancient bird, gripping its perch in a desperate fear of falling. By their late camps she would be unable to dismount—Aderyn and Dallandra would lift her down from her horse and carry her like a child to her blankets. Since she could barely eat, she grew lighter every day, all bone and sheer will.
“I’ll live long enough to see the death-ground,” she would say, “Don’t fuss over me, children.”
In the end, she was right. Just at noon on a late autumn day, warm and hazy with false summer, Halaberiel led his army— because an army of some two hundred warriors it was by then—up a low grassy rise. Riding in the rear, Aderyn heard sudden yells. Since he couldn’t understand the words, he thought the men in the van were seeing the enemy, drawn up and ready for them.
“Stay here with Nananna!” he yelled at Dallandra.
He turned his horse out of line and rode hard, heading for the head of the line. As he rode, the shouts resolved themselves, then spread down the line of march: dal-en! dal-en! the lake! the lake! Just at the crest of the rise Aderyn came up to Halaberiel, who was calling for a temporary halt. Far down the green slope lay the silver lake, a long finger of water caught in a narrow valley pointing southeast to northwest. To the north a thick forest spread along the valley floor, the dark pines standing in such orderly rows that obviously they were no natural growth. Halaberiel waved his hand in their direction.
“The death-ground. And the trees of my ancestors.”
They set up camp that afternoon between the forest and the north shore of the lake in a grassy meadow clearly planned as a campground: there were stone fire pits at regular intervals and small sheds, too, for keeping firewood dry and food safe from prowling animals. After he helped Dallandra make camp—as best he could with his clumsy broken hand—Aderyn joined the council of war, consisting of Halaberiel and ten other elves, hastily elected squad leaders and temporary captains. For over an hour they argued strategy in Elvish while Aderyn tried to pick out the few words he knew; eventually he gave it up and drowsed. After the council disbanded, some of the men from the banadar’s personal warband joined them and, out of deference to the dweomerman, spoke in Deverrian. After more talk of arrows, Calonderiel said something so odd that it caught Aderyn’s attention.
“How many trees should we cut, Banadar?”
“I don’t know. A lot. Too many—ah, by the Dark Sun, far too many no matter how few it is! We need to go into the forest and see how much stacked wood’s there already, I suppose.” Halaberiel caught the puzzlement on Aderyn’s face and smiled, a painful twist of his mouth. “Come with us. There’s somewhat you need to see.”
In the last of the afternoon sun, they left the camp and crossed the neatly tended boundary of the forest into the dark and spicy-scented corridors of trees. In a clearing, not ten yards in, stood a structure of dry-walled stone and rough-cut timber about thirty feet on a side. When Halaberiel pushed open the creaking wooden door, Aderyn could see that it was stacked about a third full with firewood. Since by then he’d grown used to the parsimonious elven fires of dried horse dung and twigs, he stared at the wood as if it were a dragon’s hoard of gold and jewels.
“When one of the People dies,” Halaberiel said, “we take some of this seasoned wood to burn the body. Then we cut a tree to replace it and plant a new one. So, every time one of the People dies, a tree dies, too, and another is born. Normally, it all works out. Now, though, there’s going to be a war.”
“And you’ll need dry wood.” Aderyn felt abruptly weary. “Lots of it.”
“Just so. But it’s going to be a problem. Even if we start cutting tomorrow, the wood’s going to be green for a long time. Ah, by the gods of both our people! If this place weren’t so sacred, I’d just withdraw and let the rotten-hearted Hound-ears have the lakes.”
“Never!” Galonderiel’s voice was a snarl. “Banadar, how could you even say it?”
With a shrug Halaberiel shut the doors again and turned away, waving to the others to follow him. They were almost back to the camp when they saw Dallandra’s friend Enabrilia racing toward them, her long hair streaming behind her, her hands waving as she called out.
“Aderyn, Aderyn, hurry! Nananna’s dying!”
Aderyn was running before he quite realized it. Following Enabrilia, he dodged through the camp and came panting at last to Nananna’s tent. When he ducked through the flap, Enabrilia stayed outside. He could hear her ordering other people to stand back and keep quiet; then her voice faded away. Inside the tent, a pale dweomer light cast soft shadows. On a heap of leather cushions Nananna lay, her head cradled in Dallandra’s arms, her white hair unbound and streaming over her shoulders like a drift of snow. The old woman’s face was as pale and dry as parchment, the skin stretched tight over bone, her eyes huge and staring and dark as her cat-slit pupils strained to catch the fading light.
“Here’s Aderyn,” Dallandra whispered. “He’ll get out his medicines and help you.”
“There’s no need of that.” Nananna’s voice was a rasp of whisper. “Come here, child.”
Aderyn knelt in front of her and took one withered hand in both of his.
“Tell me, Aderyn, will you stay with us?”
“I will. My Wyrd lies here. I know that, even though I’m not sure what it is.”
“I know.” Her voice was faint, drawing him closer. “I’ve had one last dream. Teach my people, Aderyn. Teach them your dweomer to mend their shattered magicks. Teach them herb lore, too, to replace the physicians they lost so long ago.”
“Gladly, Wise One. Everything I know will be theirs.”
She smiled, a draw of bloodless lips, and rested for a long moment before she spoke again.
“Dalla, you shall teach him how to grow a pair of wings like yours. That will be his payment, to fly where he wills.”
“Done, then.” Dallandra’s voice was steady, but when Aderyn looked up, he saw tears streaming down her face. “Everything I know will be his.”
“Good.” Nananna’s breath came in a long sigh. “There must no secrets between you, none, do you hear? Only with the dweomer can our two races meet in peace, and naught must be held back.”
“Well and good, Wise One,” Aderyn said. “But what do you mean, grow wings?”
“Our dweomer has a strange trick or two to show you.” Nananna managed a smile. “Dallandra and I are shape-changers. Someday you, too, will learn to take on the body and flight of a bird—an owl, I think, to judge from those big eyes of yours.”
Aderyn caught his breath with a gasp.
“A thousand thanks, I swear I’ll be worthy of it, and only use it to serve the Light.”
“Good. Very well, then. I have set you both on your course. It’s time for me to depart. Child, let me lie down now.”
Dallandra settled her on the cushions and moved aside to kneel by Aderyn. For a moment Nananna lay still, gathering her energy; then slowly, softly under her breath, she began to chant, and her voice took on a last brief flower of strength.
“The river opens before me. I see the light upon the river. It is time to sail to the sea.”
When Dallandra sobbed aloud, Aderyn realized that she was too distraught to fulfill the ritual, and that he would have to take her rightful place.
“May the sun shine on you as you, sail the river,” he whispered. “May the current be fast.”
“The sun gathers around me. I step into the boat at the river-bank.”
“I see the silver river flowing west, the dark rushes and the boat, ready for you.”
As he spoke, Aderyn did indeed see in his mind the vision that they were building together as they went on speaking, describing the scene back and forth to each other. Wrapped in the golden light of the sun, the soul stepped into it—a pale flame of silver light, flickering at first, then towering up strong, far different from a human soul.
“Sun and, moon, shine upon her!” Aderyn cried out “Bring her to the sea of light, love, and life.”
The boat was drifting downriver, the silver flame glowing as she rode proudly on. He seemed to drift above it on a bird’s wings and see, in the gleaming sunset ahead, Others coming to meet them on a vast wave of light. Nananna rose free of the boat and flew to join them in a sudden blaze that left him blind. Blinking his physical eyes and shaking his head, he brought himself back to find her body lying dead on the cushions.
“It is over,” Aderyn called out. “She has gone to her true home.”
Like thunder came a booming hollow drumbeat in answer, three great knocks rolling over the camp. From outside he heard a shout, then voices raised in keening, a high and musical wailing for the dead. Aderyn slapped his open palm once on the ground to earth the final force. It was finished. Her trained soul had no need to hang around near its corpse for three days; she had left cleanly and gone free. Aderyn crossed the frail arms over the slender chest and closed the eyes that the soul no longer needed for seeing.
“We should burn the body soon,” Aderyn said. “Or do your people lay out the dead to weep over them?”
Dallandra looked at him, then threw back her head and howled. Tears ran down her face as she keened over and over, reaching up, pulling at her hair, unloosening the braids in a silvery spill of mourning, rocking herself from side to side so violently that Aderyn threw his arms around her and pulled her tight. She wept against him, sobbing like a child, her pale soft hair like a cloud over his arms, while outside the People sang in a long wail of grief.
“Hush, hush, it was time.”
As violently as it had come, her weeping left her. He could see her wrench her will under control as she looked up, her eyes as calm and gray as fog over sea.
“So it was. And someday we’ll meet again in some land or another.”
“Just so. Have faith in the Light.”
In simple exhaustion, Dallandra leaned her head against his shoulder. As Aderyn held her, his heart pounding, he realized that had fallen in love.
That night they burned Nananna and scattered her ashes under the trees of the sacred grove, in a spot where the moon fell through the branches and touched the ground with silver. On her grave Halaberiel swore an oath that never would the race of men defile this spot. All night, the People wept and sang songs of mourning, but when the sun rose, their grief was gone.
There was nothing left but to wait and see what move the Bear clan made next.

“Four hundred men!” Garedd said. “I never thought our lord could raise so many.”
“I told you that the men of the north had guts, didn’t I?” Cinvan said. “We’ll shove those stinking Westfolk off Lord Dovyn’s land, sure enough.”
They were standing on the roof of Tieryn Melaudd’s dun, ostensibly on guard duty, but they’d spent most of the afternoon leaning on the railing and watching the last preparations for the march west. In those days, four hundred men was a sizable army, and the ward below was a cram and clutter of horses, supply wagons, and men, the servants rushing back and forth loading provisions, the lords and riders standing around and talking over the campaign ahead.
“Tomorrow,” Cinvan said. “We ride tomorrow. Cursed well about time, too.”
“I’m just glad we didn’t draw fort guard.”
“Cursed right. The sooner we get the fighting started, the better.”
Garedd nodded his agreement, then went back to watching the bustle below. Cinvan walked across the tower roof and looked off to the west, where, far out of sight, the enemy lay, no doubt waiting for them. Normally, on a night before a march to battle, he would have been as eager as he was trying to act, but this time, he was troubled by thoughts that he could barely understand. As a matter of course he wanted battle glory, and he wasn’t afraid of battle pain—that wasn’t the problem. He was simply having trouble convincing himself that he hated the Westfolk as much as be should, considering that they were now his sworn lord’s enemies.
No matter how hard he tried to banish the memory, he kept thinking of Prince Halaberiel, demanding and getting mercy for Lord Dovyn. And what about his sister’s man, too? What if Gaverro was part of the elven warband? Cinvan cordially hated the elf, but what about his little daughter, so far away from her mother now? What if his own niece ended up an orphan after this fight? Back and forth Cinvan prowled, struggling with an utterly unfamiliar conscience. Finally, when the sunset was turning the west a gilded pink, he reminded himself that as an oath-sworn rider there was absolutely nothing he could do about anything except follow his lord’s orders.
“We’re off watch,” Garedd called out. “You coming? What’s wrong with you, anyway?”
“Naught. I’m on my way.”
Yet he paused for one last look to the west, and he shuddered, wondering for the first time in his life if he might die in a coming war. Then he shook the feeling off and clattered downstairs to the warmth and noisy cheer of the great hall.

Three days after Nananna died, the first scouts came in. Aderyn was having dinner with Prince Halaberiel when they arrived at the camp; at the sudden gleeful shouts the banadar left his meal and hurried to meet them, with Aderyn trailing after. Although Aderyn couldn’t understand the Elvish reports, in time Calonderiel remembered his manners and translated for him.
“The Bears are here, camping down on the strip of land that Dovyn wanted. They’ve sent out scouts of their own. Our men spotted a couple of them crashing their way through the woods and killed them. When they don’t come back, the Bears should be able to guess that we know they’re here. They let a third Round-ear live, so he could tell the Bears about the terrain. That was Halaberiel’s orders, you see, to let one live. Why, I don’t know.”
“How many men does Melaudd have?”
“ About four hundred.”
“Oh, ye gods.”
“Bad odds, sure enough.” Calonderiel paused, rubbing his chin. “Well, if we die defending the death-ground, it’ll have a certain poetry to it.” He caught Aderyn’s arm and began leading him away from the others. “Will you promise me somewhat? When the battle starts, you and Dallandra will be in camp, waiting to heal the wounded, right?”
“That’s our plan, truly.”
“Well and good, then. If our line breaks, and we’re all slain, will you make sure she gets to safety?”
“I will, I promise you on the gods of my people.”
“My humble thanks. I know she’ll never love me, but at least I can die content, knowing she’ll live.”
“You might not die at all, dimwit.” It was Jezryaladar, strolling over to them, “The banadar has. a trick planned. That was the reason they let one scout get away, as you might have known if you’d only listened more carefully.”
“With these odds, a trick’s not going to do much good, no matter how clever it is, and don’t you call me a dimwit.”
“My humble apologies.” Grinning, Jezryaladar sketched a bow. “And your intellect does seem to be catching fire, truly, if you realize that you’ve got no chance with Dalla.”
Calonderiel howled, and slapped him across the face so hard that he staggered back. Before he could recover or speak, Calonderiel had stalked off into the night. Jezryaladar rubbed his face and swore softly to himself.
“Are you all right?” Aderyn said.
“I am, and, you know, I deserved that. We’re all on edge tonight, I’m, afraid.”
“Do you think Cal’s right, and things are hopeless?’”
“I don’t, but blast me if I can tell why. I’ve just got this certainty deep in my heart: that somehow or other Halaberiel’s going to get us a victory out of this, but I doubt me if the banadar believes it himself.”

The valley that sheltered the Lake of the Leaping Trout fell steeply to the water along its eastern side, but on the western, gentle hills rolled down, forming a strip of fairly flat ground, at least twenty yards wide, often wider, edging the entire length of the lake. When the lone scout came back with the news that the Westfolk were camped up at the far end, Melaudd and his allies automatically decided to move up on this flat ground, where they could ride three and four abreast in battle order, safe from some sudden ambush.
“Not that there’s going to be an ambush,” Garedd remarked. “From what I hear, the Westfolk only have about eighty riders with swords.”
“That troubles my heart,” Cinvan said, and he meant it. “I hate to fight with this kind of odds on our side. I’m an oath-sworn warrior, not a pig butcher.”
“Well, Melaudd’s an honorable man. He won’t let all four hundred men charge a tiny warband like that. Probably just half of the army will ride in the first wave, and then we’ll see what happens.”
“That’s a little better, anyway.”
As the Bear clan’s sworn men, Cinvan and Garedd were in that first wave when the army rode out on the morrow. Four hundred horsemen jammed onto a narrow strip of ground tend to spread out, and the day was hot with the last of false summer, too, making the animals a little lazy and the men overconfident, with the end result that the line of march was over a quarter mile long as it wound its way toward the battle. At the time, since everyone assumed that the men in the rear would take no part in the fighting, it worried no one that they had no way of seeing what was happening in the van, if indeed anyone even thought of it. Cinvan and Garedd, riding some twelve ranks behind Tieryn Melaudd and Lord Dovyn, had as much of a view as they needed, especially since their route rose and fell to give them the occasional high ground. It was on one of these small rises, in fact, that they got their first good look at the elven line.
“Are they daft?” Melaudd said it so loud that Cinvan could hear him over the muffled clop of hooves on grass and the clinking of battle gear.
“Must be,” Garedd muttered in an answer unheard by their lord.
The elven swordsmen were dismounted. In regular ranks they stood some hundreds of yards ahead in a crescent formation, its open and embracing end toward the oncoming Bears. To one side of them was the lake itself, and on the other, a line of sharpened wooden stakes pounded at regular intervals into the slope, with the points slanting uphill.
“Clever, that,” Cinvan said grudgingly. “We can’t outflank them and ride them down.”
“Just so. But wait a minute, what’s that behind them? Looks like a crowd of women.”
“With stakes in front of them, too. What?! By all the ice in all the hells, what are those females doing there? Are they going to cheer their men on?”
“Savages, these people. That’s all I can say. Howling savages.”
“Look.” Cinvan pointed uphill. “There’s some more men, running into position, but they’re not swordsmen. Oh, ye gods, they’re carrying bows.”
“So what?”
All this time, the army had been traveling forward, a little faster now, the men pressing their horses to close the line and bunch together into a tight formation. Cinvan saw silver wink as Tieryn Melaudd blew his horn for his men to draw swords and ride ready to charge. Up ahead the elven line held steady, waiting, the swordsmen rock-still as the horsemen trotted forward, and forward again, until they were only some hundred yards from the mouth of the crescent. All at once a distant voice cried out in Elvish; at the signal it seemed that a wind swept through the waiting Westfolk and made the line shudder in a long flex like grass before a storm. Bows swung up, arrow points winked and glittered, there was a sound, a rushy hiss, a whistle, a flutter, as over a hundred cloth-yard arrows arced up high, then plunged down at full force into the mail-clad riders and their unarmored horses.
Screams burst out as horses reared and staggered, and men fell, some bucked off, others stabbed and bleeding right through their mail. Again came the hiss and rush of death; Lord Dovyn’s horn blew in a long sob for a charge, then cut off in mid-wail as a third rain stabbed into the ranks. Horses were panicking, and worse yet, falling; charging was impossible as the dead or merely wounded bodies of men and beasts alike began to litter, then block the road. Carrying an empty, blood-streaked saddle, young Lord Dovyn’s horse burst free of the mob at the van and staggered uphill. Again the arrows, ever again—screaming out every foul oath he knew, Cinvan tried to force his horse through the mob by sheer will to reach the wounded tieryn’s side. All around him riders were trying to break free, to turn out to go up the hill or splash through the shallow edge of the lake, but inexorably behind came the press of their own allies, who could see nothing of the slaughter ahead, who only knew by the sound of things that the Bear clan was in danger and who out of sheer force of a deadly honor were rushing forward to join the battle and thus to trap the men they were trying to save.
Again the arrows, again and again, and now the Westfolk were cheering and screaming. As he reached the front rank and caught up with Melaudd, Cinvan saw that the women he’d so despised were archers, too, raining death down as hard as their men as they aimed at the exposed positions to the flanks. He wanted to weep—there was no time—the sword in his hand was useless—he went on cursing as the arrows came flying, again and again and again.
“Cinno! They’re trying to desert us!” Garedd yelled. “The allies! They’re pulling back!”
Cinvan turned his head to shout an answer just in time to see Garedd die, spitted through the chest by a broad-head arrow that snapped the rings of his mail front and back. With a cough and bubble of blood he fell sideways, only to be trampled by the horses of other Bearsmen as they desperately tried to turn and flee. Hissing and whistling, the deadly rain came again. Cinvan’s horse screamed and reared, kicking, as hard iron grazed its flank, but it came down able to stand. Silver horns rang out: retreat, retreat! in a blare of hysteria. Still untouched, Cinvan wrenched his horse around and kicked it into one last burst of gallop. He could see Tieryn Melaudd’s broad back just ahead and followed it blindly, unthinkingly, right into the shallow water at the lake edge. Behind him he could hear a few more men cursing and yelling as they splashed after to skirt the battle and turn round the archers’ position.
“To their camp!” Melaudd screamed. “Trample it! Vengeance! To their camp!”
Then the tieryn laughed, a madman’s howl, a keen of grief, equally mad. Out of loyalty alone Cinvan followed his lord, while his mind screamed against the dishonor of such a low trick

As best he could with his left hand, Aderyn was organizing his packets of herbs to treat the wounded when he heard the horses coming. His first thought was that the elven side had lost and was retreating; then he heard the battle cries, Eldidd voices, shrieking in rage and hatred. Dallandra screamed and came running toward him.
“The Bears! They’re heading here!”
“Get into the forest. Run!”
She obeyed without a moment’s thought, racing through the tents. Aderyn started to follow, then turned back. If he abandoned his medicinals, wounded men would die. He could see the horses by then, a squad of some fifty out of an army of four hundred, heading in a cloud of dust straight for the defenseless camp. Distantly he could hear elven war cries, chasing after. He grabbed his heavy packs, then froze in sudden panic as the lead horsemen swung round and headed straight for him, swords flashing, slashing the tents, hooves pounding, kicking, trampling bedrolls and cooking pots alike in empty revenge. Aderyn knew he should run, could hear his own voice speaking aloud and begging himself to run, but the panic bit deep and froze the blood in his veins like snakebite as two horsemen charged, closer, closer, closer.
“Not the councillor!” A third horseman burst past a tent and swung by him at an angle to meet the others. “Turn off!”
Swords flashed; one of the charging men screamed and pitched over his horse’s neck.
“I said turn off!”
The second horseman did just that, dodging back the way he came, only to meet elven riders as Halaberiel led his swordsmen, mounted now, into camp. Dust plumed with the battle cries as the last few Bearsmen fled, screaming and cursing as they headed south. Aderyn’s rescuer turned his horse to follow, then pulled his blowing horse to a stop and slumped in the saddle. Aderyn ran to him just in time to catch him as he slid to the ground in a welling of blood. An arrow had pierced his mail just at the armpit, where the arteries were pumping his life away. Aderyn pulled off his pot helm and eased the padding back from his death-pale face: Cinvan.
“A councillor and an unarmed man,” the lad whispered. “Couldn’t let my lord disgrace himself a second time.”
Then he died with a stiffening and a shake of his whole body.
“Are you all right?” It was Halaberiel, rushing over, bloody sword in one hand, helm in the other, blood flecking his face and pale hair.
“I am. Are we retreating?”
“Retreating?” Halaberiel howled with laughter. “We’ve carried the day, man! We slaughtered the ugly lot of them!”
Aderyn wept like a child, but as he looked into Cinvan’s eyes, he wasn’t sure if his tears were joy or grief. In that last battle in the camp, fought against men sworn in their hearts to die and put an end to shame, the elven forces took casualties, but with only nine elven dead and some twenty wounded against the hideous human losses, Halaberiel was right enough to claim a complete victory. All that day Aderyn and Dallandra worked over the wounded with a swarm of volunteers to help them until the two of them were as gory as corpses themselves. By moonlight they swam in the lake shallows to wash themselves clean, then returned to the camp to find the dead laid out, ready for cremating on the morrow. Dallandra was so weary and heartsick that she crept into her tent to sleep without even a bite to eat, but Aderyn, who was used to battle wounds from his apprenticeship, joined in the victory feast. Since in honor of the battle Halaberiel decided that they could squander seasoned wood and build a proper bonfire, light blazed and danced through the camp along with music from drum and harp. Drunk and howling, the banadar’s own warband ran from group to group of celebrating elves, while Halaberiel himself sat off to one side on a pile of cushions and merely watched. When Aderyn joined him, Halaberiel handed him a skin of mead. Aderyn had a few cautious sips to ease his aching muscles.
“Over a hundred Round-ears escaped,” Halaberiel said abruptly. “All men from the rear of the line, so they were probably Melaudd’s allies rather than Bearsmen. Think they’ll raise an army and come back for revenge?”
“I don’t. Melaudd’s other son will rage and bluster and try to call in alliances, but who’s going to join him after this? And he himself can’t have more than a handful of men left—the ones that stayed behind on fort guard, no more.”
“Good. We’ll leave marking the death-ground for later, then. I want to ride before the winter rains come in earnest.”
“Indeed? Ride where?”
“South.” Halaberiel gave him a tight and terrifying smile. “To wipe out that settlement west of Cannobaen.”
Aderyn stared in helpless confusion.
“I’ve learned somewhat today,” Halaberiel went on. “These bows of ours are good for bringing down more than the gray deer. Never again am I going to creep around and humble myself to the dog-vomit Round-ear lords. Eldidd they may have, but no more.” He threw back his head and laughed, aloud. “Not one stinking cursed, inch more, by every god of both our peoples!” Then he let his face soften. “My apologies, Aderyn. I forget that I’m talking about your folk. There’s no reason for you to ride south with us when we go. You and Dallandra can just rejoin the alar and wait for us there.”
Aderyn rose, staring blankly into the leaping fire.
“Unless you’ll be leaving us?” Halaberiel got up to join him. “Never would any man of the People nor a woman either stop you if you choose to ride away, even if you go right to our enemies and warn them.”
Aderyn turned and walked off, heading blindly for the meadow beyond the campground, only to stop abruptly when he reached it. Out on the flat the warbands were dancing, winding in long lines through a scatter of tiny fires. The People danced single-file, arms held rigid shoulder-high, heads tossed back while their feet skipped and stamped through intricate measures in time to the drum and harp. Over the music wailed voices, half a keen of grief tonight, yet half a cry of triumph. When the revelers drew close he could see sweaty, impassive faces bob by in a surge of quarter tones, wavering and rising like the firelight; then with a sway and shudder the dancers spun past and were gone. Halaberiel came up behind him and laid a paternal hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” the warleader said. “But that dun has to be destroyed. We’ll spare the women and children, of course, and every man’s life that we can.”
“I know.” Aderyn found his voice at last. “What can I say? I’ve already seen my people muster an army to attack you, haven’t I? If it weren’t for your longbows, they would have slaughtered you like cattle.”
“Just so. But you didn’t ride west to watch men die, either. Do you want to go back to Eldidd? I’ll give you an escort if you do.”
For a moment Aderyn wavered. Even though he’d promised Nananna that he’d stay, he knew that she never would have held him to the promise under these circumstances, when the action at Cannobaen might lead to a full-fledged war. If it did, he belonged with his own kind, he supposed. His revulsion welled up, almost physical; his own kind, who broke their word and murdered and swaggered and enslaved and stole other men’s land all in the name of honor? He saw then that he could never go back to Deverry and take up some sort of community life, not even as a healer and herbman. But what else was left for him? The life of a hermit on the edge of the wilderness? He could see himself turning into a recluse, hoarding his secret knowledge for its own sake until the knowledge turned bitter and drove him mad. Halaberiel waited patiently, his eyes shadowed in the flickering light.
“You’re my people now,” Aderyn said. “Here I stay.”
Then he strode forward and took a place at the end of a line of dancers. Although the only steps he knew were from Deverry ring dances, they fit in well enough as the tune swept him away across the meadow. All through the long fire-shot night he swayed and bobbed to the wail and the pounding of the music until it seemed in his exhaustion that he had no body left at all, that he floated with the elven warriors far above the grassy meadow and the dark. Yet toward dawn, when he was stumbling toward his tent, Aderyn realized that he would stay behind when the warband rode south. There were other healers among the elves; one of them would have to take his place for the slaughter out west of Cannobaen.
Everyone slept late that day, then woke, cursing and weeping, to the grim task of burning their own dead and giving Melaudd’s army a decent burial in long trenches—after the bodies of men and horse alike had been stripped of every bit of metal, whether armor or tool. Out of respect for the prejudices of the noble-born, Halaberiel ordered Melaudd, his son Dovyn, and the two allied lords who’d died with them buried in a separate grave, though he did make sharp remarks about the foolishness of men who worried about their corpses. They packed and sodded a shallow mound over all the burials, too, and chipped the story of the battle onto a rough stone plaque. The job took days, and all during it, scouts rode out to the south and east to keep an eye on the Round-ears. Aderyn and Dallandra worked from dawn to dusk and then worked some more by torchlight as they tried to save the wounded horses as well as the wounded men. The elven casualties would mend fast, especially compared with the human beings, and without a trace of infection in all but the worst cases. The riders who had once ridden for Tieryn Melaudd were another matter entirely. Their worst cases all died; the rest were as sullen and misery-wrapped as only defeated men living on the charity of the enemy can be. Aderyn tended them alone to spare Dallandra the job.
“And I appreciate it, too,” she remarked one morning. “But what are we going to do with them? They’re prisoners, I suppose. Is Halaberiel going to use them to bargain terms or suchlike?”
“There’s naught he wants to bargain for, he says, so he’ll just release them.” Aderyn hesitated, studying her pale face and the dark shadows smudging under her eyes. “How do you fare, Dalla? You’ve been working yourself blind.”
“It keeps me from missing Nananna. And if I’m tired enough, I don’t have bad dreams.”
“Dreams about her, you mean?”
“Not truly.” She turned away and seemed to be studying the white clouds billowing up from the south. “I hope we leave here soon. Winter’s on the way, sure enough.”
Aderyn saw that he’d been shut out of some mental chamber as surely as if she’d slammed a door in his face.
When the camp did break, Halaberiel divided his forces. The least-skilled warriors escorted the prisoners south to the Eldidd border, where they’d leave them before turning west to rejoin their alarli. The best of the fighters went with the banadar on a forced march for the treaty-breaking dun beyond Cannobaen. Aderyn, Dallandra, the elven wounded, the injured horses saved from the battle, and a small escort of those archers who were simply sick of fighting headed back west to the place where they’d fit the rest of the alarli—left them years ago, or so it seemed to Aderyn, back in some other lifetime. The day they marched, it rained and it kept raining, too, a good long period of drizzle every day as wave after wave of clouds swept in, dropped their burden, then rolled on. Since with so many injured people and animals along, their small column moved a scant twelve miles a day, by the time that they did rejoin the alarli, those waiting for them were frantic for news. When they rode up, in fact, a huge wail of grief went up from the camp, because everyone assumed that they were the only survivors of some horrible defeat. Once the truth went round, everyone was as much furious as relieved.
“Isn’t that just like the wretched banadar!” Enabrilia snapped. “He never even sent them a message!”
“My apologies, truly,” Aderyn said. “If I’d known, I would have sent someone on ahead. We just assumed—”
“That Halaberiel had thought to tell them. I know, I know, Not your fault. The grazing’s getting really poor around here, by the way.”
“Well, we’ll move out tomorrow. The banadar wanted everyone to head for the winter camps. He said he’d find us there.”
“Good. With this rotten weather we’ve been having, winter can’t be far away.”
At that point Aderyn realized that she and the others in the camp were treating him as Halaberiel’s second-in-command and taking his orders without question, just as they took Dallandra’s. Whether he felt himself worthy or not, these people now considered him a Wise One.

Far to the west of Cannobaen the seacoast turns jagged, rising into precarious cliffs, reaching long fingers of hill out into the ocean, and, sinking into deep canyons where the winter rains flow into rocky riverbeds. These canyons provide some shelter from the constant wet winds, and here, at the time of which we speak, the People set up their semi-permanent winter tents, even though changing shifts of horsemen still had to ride guard on the grazing herds up in the exposed grasslands, because the fodder in the canyons themselves was sparse. Aderyn and Dallandra got their people settled safely in one of these camps some four nights before Halaberiel and the warband caught up with them. Exhausted, men and horses both dragged into camp late on a day turned foul and dark by a slantwise drizzle. Although there were eight fewer swordsmen than had ridden out, and some twenty wounded archers, even in their weariness they crowed with victory: in a surprise attack they’d wiped out the lord and his warband, then forced the dun to surrender. Aderyn was kept so busy tending the wounded that he didn’t see the banadar until late that night, when Halaberiel summoned him to a council in his tent. Although six elven leaders sat round the fire, Halaberiel spoke in Deverrian for Aderyn’s sake.
“We need your advice. Do you think the prince is going to send an army against us in the spring?”
“I doubt it very much. I suspect that Addryc is pouring vinegar into his vassals’ wounds right now, pointing out what happens to men who disobey their prince’s decrees. You’ve punished his rebels for him, and on top of that, you’ve gotten rid of that dun. Do you think he liked having men loyal to another overlord out on his western flank?”
“But that overlord was Addryc’s own father.”
“Among the noble-born that kind of sentiment counts for very little.”
Halaberiel considered for a long moment.
“Well and good, then,” he said at last. “I’ll send him some kind of formal apology the next time we meet a Round-ear merchant—I don’t trust the Eldidd lords enough to send them a messenger. And when spring comes we’ll ride to the lake and mark the death-ground. After all, it was part of the settlement I made with the prince, that I’d make sure the Round-ears saw me on my land.”
“Just so, and I’m willing to bet that it’ll settle the matter.”
“Good. I did send Addryc one message. I gave it to the refugees who were going to Cannobaen. Just a little note, truly, asking him what he thinks of the Westfolk’s style of justice.” He smiled gently. “It seems to be a good bit more rigorous than his own.”

---

---

THE COLD AUTUMN rains slashed down over the town of Cernmeton and sent water sheeting across the cobbles and pooling in the gutters. Wrapped in his heavy winter cloak of dark blue wool, Cinvan rode fast through the twisting streets and left it up to the few townsfolk abroad to get out of his horse’s way. He clattered through the gates of the tieryn’s dun, a walled compound centered round a stone broch, rode round to the back stables, and yelled for a groom. A stable boy came running.
“So you’re back, are you? How was your visit home?”
“As good as it needed to be. Did I miss any excitement?”
“You didn’t, unless you count getting drunk in our lord’s hall as excitement.” He sighed in a melancholy way. “We’ve got a tournament going on Carnoic. So far Edyl’s ahead by six games.”
“I’ll see if I can give him a run for his coin, then.” In the great hall smoke from the two huge hearths drifted in blue wisps across the round room. On one side the warband of thirty-five men was sitting and drinking at their tables. Up by the honor hearth, Tieryn Melaudd was slouched in his carved chair and drinking with his two sons, Waldyn and Dovyn. The tieryn was a florid-faced, raven-haired man, heavy with middle age but still capable of swinging steel. Of the sons, Waldyn, the elder, had the blond hair he’d inherited from his Deverry mother, but the younger looked much like a slender version of his father. Everyone knew that Dovyn was his father’s favorite son, too—a pity, since under the new laws he could never inherit a share of the demesne. Cinvan knelt before the tieryn, who gave him leave to speak with a wave of his hand.
“I’ve returned to your service as I pledged you, my lord. A thousand humble thanks for giving me leave.”
“Welcome, lad. And how fares your kin?”
“They’re doing well, my lord.” Cinvan was lying, but he saw no need to burden the tieryn with a problem he could do nothing about.
“Good, good. Get yourself some ale and join your comrades.”
Cinvan rose, bowed, and made his escape from the awesome presence of the noble-born. He dipped himself a tankard of ale from the open barrel in the curve of the wall, then strolled over to join the warband. Most of the men were watching Edyl and Peddyc play Carnoic, a board game where the players moved black or white stones along a pattern of triangles in attempts to capture each other’s men. Every move the two of them made was slow, studied, and accompanied by either cheers or oaths from the rest of the warband. As Cinvan stood watching them, Garedd came over and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“So our falcon’s flown back to the nest, has he? Pity—I was hoping you’d drown on the road.”
Cinvan threw a mock punch his way.
“Bastard! Anything happen while I was gone?”
“Naught. And how was Elrydd?”
“As well as it needed to be.”
Garedd shot him a look of honest sympathy. They took their tankards and sat down at a table far from the crowd around the game.
“And your sister?” Garedd said.
“That’s the cursed worst thing of all. By the hells, I was minded to beat her black and blue. First she has to go and get herself a bastard, and now she’s given it up.”
“She what?”
“Gave the babe up. To her rotten cat-eyed man. He rides in and wants the little lass—because she’ll only be a burden on our Dewigga, or so he says, and so she up and lets him take her away.” Cinvan slammed the tankard down on the table. “And Da was too cursed drunk to know or care. Ah, horseshit!”
“Now here, maybe it’s for the best. Your sister’s got a chance at a decent marriage someday now.”
“Ah, that’s what she said, blast her! But the shame of it, my own niece, one of my blood kin, riding with the Westfolk! What’s her da going to do, I says to Dewigga, teach her to steal? And she’s got the gall to slap me across the face and tell me to hold my tongue! Women!”
Garedd nodded in silent sympathy. Cinvan drew his dagger and began fiddling with it, just for comfort. On the hilt was graved his personal mark, the striking falcon that had earned him his nickname in the warband. He ran a heavily callused thumb over the mark and had thoughts of slitting this Gaverenteriel’s throat for him one sweet day.
“And you know what else Dewigga had the gall to say? She’s always known her man was going to take the babe when she was old enough. ‘You’re cursed lucky you didn’t let me know,’ says I. ‘Why do you think I held my tongue?’ says she. ‘Cursed good thing,’ says I, and she slaps me again.”
“Why didn’t you beat her black and blue?” Garedd said.
Cinvan shrugged, laying the dagger down on the table and picking up his tankard. The truth was too bitter to tell: he’d seen too much of that already, with his father beating his mother half to death every time she looked at the old man wrong. Her sobs still echoed through his dreams.
“Ah, wouldn’t be worth the trouble,” Cinvan said. “I just tell her that if she has another bastard, don’t come running to me for coin for the midwife this time, and she flounces out of the room like a highborn lady with her nose in the air.”
“Good for you. Women need to be kept in their place.”
“Cursed right.”
They finished their ale in silence. At the far table, Edyl’s howl of rage—he always was a rotten loser—announced that Peddyc had won the game. Amid laughter and jests, coin changed hands all around the warband.
“And here’s our falcon back,” Ynryc called out, pocketing a silver piece from the defeated side. “Come on, Cinvan—give Peddyc here a game. You’ve got a good hand with the stones.”
“Maybe I will, if he’ll take me on.”
“Oh, I’m always game,” Peddyc said, grinning. “Let’s see if I can keep my winnings.”
Edyl rose from his place at the board.
“Welcome back, falcon. And has your sister given you a nephew yet? But with proper ears this time?”
The world went red. Cinvan stepped forward, hit Edyl hard in the stomach with his right, and swung up to clip his jaw with his left. Edyl went down like a sack of grain as the hall exploded in shouting. Cinvan felt men grabbing his arms, heard Garedd yelling at him to calm down. Abruptly the red fog cleared. Cinvan knelt to his lord in a cold, shaking sweat.
“And what’s all this? By the hells, you haven’t been back for one wretched hour, Cinvan.”
Cinvan nodded in dumb agreement. He was so sure that he was in for a flogging that he could already feel the whip on his back. Young Dovyn caught his father’s arm and whispered something to him.
“Oh.” Melaudd turned to Peddyc. “Did Edyl make remarks about Cinvan’s sister?”
“He did, my lord.”
“Well, then, he’s gotten what he deserved. Tell him I said so when you bring him round. But here, Cinvan, try to keep peace in my hall, will you? If you’d only ignore these stupid foul jests, they’d stop making them after a while.”
“True-spoken, my lord, and my apologies.”
Later that day, when Melaudd and Waldyn’s wives and their serving women came down from the women’s hall to sit with the noble lords at the table of honor, Dovyn came to drink with his father’s warband. Cinvan wondered if he felt more at home with the men now that his brother had an infant son, another heir between him and Cernmeton.
“Good to see you back, falcon.”
“My thanks, my lord. For a lot of things.”
“Most welcome, truly. I’ve got somewhat to ask you. I’ll be riding down to Aberwyn soon. My father’s given me leave to take some of his men along for an escort. I was thinking of you, Garedd, Peddyc, and Tauryn. Are you game for a wet ride?”
“Gladly, my lord. Your father’s a generous man with his ale, but time hangs heavy in winter.”
“Just that.” Dovyn gave him a grin. “We might have a bit of sport in the spring, though. Here, I’ll tell you the news. I’m riding to Aberwyn to lay claim to some of that empty land up by the Peddroloc. If I can gather the farmers and suchlike, by the gods, why shouldn’t I have land and a dun of my own?”
“Why not?” Cinvan pledged him with his tankard. “Good for you, my lord. I take it your father’s sponsoring you.”
“Just that.” Dovyn’s smile was full of boyish hopes and pride. “He says he’ll back me with the warband if any of the cursed Westfolk try to argue about it. I can fancy myself spreading the Bear clan’s name a little farther west.”
“And your clan’s glory.” Cinvan had a swallow of ale. “May the Bear roam where he will.”
Two days later, when the storm broke, Lord Dovyn and his escort set out for Aberwyn. All along the way, Melaudd’s personal vassals and allies gave them a roof over their heads and ale to drink, which was all that mattered to Cinvan. Dovyn was full of his plans, chattering about them in a most unlordly manner. Since the Old Ones had already fled this part of the country, his new demesne would have to be tilled by free farmers, but there were plenty of younger sons among the Eldidd freemen. Among the commoners, a freeman could divide his property up among his heirs when he died, but who would settle for some part of a farm when he could win a whole one? With a noble lord and his warband to protect them against the Westfolk, they would be glad to move and break new land, which would become theirs in freehold in return for dues. (Back in the Homeland, the noble-born had always divided their property, too, but here in the new and hostile country, with empty land all around them, they preferred to keep holdings strong by passing them intact to one heir.) Lord Dovyn would be a poor lord at first, but his wealthy father was willing to tide him over with cattle and extra horses until the crops—and the taxes—began coming in.
About halfway through the trip, they stayed with Tieryn Braur of Belglaedd, who greeted Dovyn warmly and made sure his men had shelter in the barracks instead of the stables. At dinner that night, the four Bear riders were given decent seats at a table near the fire and all the meat and mead they wanted, though Cinvan drank little. Up at the table of honor, the young lord was talking with his host and a pretty young woman who seemed to be the tieryn’s daughter. From their long distance away, Garedd watched them with a sentimental smile.
“I think our Dovyn’s picked out the lady of this new demesne.”
“Huh?” Cinvan, said “Who?”
“The daughter, you dolt! Look.”
Obligingly Cinvan looked. Dovyn and the lass were smiling at each other’s every word.
“Now, that warms a man’s heart.” Garedd paused to belch. “What do you wager he had no chance of winning her before? But now he’ll have land to offer.”
“You’re drunk.”
“I am, but so what? It’s just like somewhat in a bard’s tale. He’ll win the land and all for her sake.”
Cinvan ignored him and had another swallow of mead.
Since the men of the Bear were direct personal vassals of the princes of Aberwyn, Dovyn and his escort sheltered in the royal dun itself, a vast many-towered broch in the middle of Aberwyn. At meals, the Bearsmen sat at one side of an enormous great hall that had room enough to seat two hundred and watched their lord, far away at the other side near a hearth made of fine pale stone, all carved with the princely dragons of the rhan. During the day, they had leave to wander round the town, which with its twenty-thousand inhabitants was the biggest place Cinvan had ever seen. Every morning he and Garedd walked down to the harbor, where the prince’s four war galleys rode at anchor and merchant ships came and went. In the afternoon they would go to one of the taverns that the prince’s men recommended and pick up a couple of cheap whores, or sometimes only one to spare the extra cost. As Garedd remarked one day, life in Aberwyn was a cursed sight more amusing than playing Carnoic in Melaudd’s hall or badgering a kitchen maid into taking a tumble with them out in the hayloft.
Unfortunately, every earthly paradise comes to an end sooner or later. On their last day in Aberwyn, Cinvan and Garedd went down to their favorite tavern to say a sentimental farewell to the lasses there. As they were sitting over a couple of tankards, a stout gray-haired fellow in red-and-white-checked brigga came into the room. Uneasily he threw his fur-lined cloak back from his shoulders and looked with disdain at the chipped tables, straw-strewn floor, and blowsy wenches.
“Now, what’s he doing in here?” Garedd said.
“Looking for us. See? Here he comes.”
The merchant strode over to their table with a friendly, if somewhat fixed smile.
“My name’s Namydd. I see you ride for the Bear clan.”
“Well, so we do,” Garedd said, and he was the one who went on talking to the merchant while Cinvan sat and glowered. “And what can we do for you, good sir?”
Namydd brushed off the wooden bench with the side of his hand, then sat down and ordered ale all round. When the wench brought it, he inspected the rim of his tankard and wiped it on his sleeve before he drank.
“Now, I’ve heard an interesting piece of news about your Lord Dovyn. Some of my connections in the prince’s court tell me he’s filed a claim to land around the Four Lakes.”
“He has. What’s it to you?”
“A matter of great profit and one to your lord as well. I’m a merchant, you see, and I’d be willing to pay him for the rights to have a trading depot in his village.”
“Well, he doesn’t have a village yet, good sir. But he’ll probably need the coin.”
“Most lords in his position do. Now, I’d like to approach him about this, but I wanted to have a word with one or two of his men first. Tell me, is your lord the approachable sort?”
“He is. As decent a young man as you could ask for.”
“Splendid! How soon will he be making his move on the land?”
“Oh, sometime in the summer. As far as I understand these things, anyway, they’ve got all sorts of legal matters to tend to first. Why don’t you ride to Cernmeton later in the winter? Doubtless he can tell you more then.”
“I will, I will.”
Namydd smiled all round, but Cinvan kept on scowling. Although he couldn’t say why, he was sure this merchant had some game of his own afoot, and one that might not be to his lordship’s advantage.

For some weeks the elves drifted south, heading for the warmer seacoast and the winter camps. Although Aderyn slept in Halaberiel’s tent, he rode with Nananna and Dallandra, ate with them at meals, and spent most evenings, too, at the Wise One’s side. Starting at first principles, they compared their two systems of magic a piece at a time—or, to be exact, Aderyn had a system of magic, while Nananna had a body of lore. Her dweomer was all of the greatest power, mind, and in line with the true principles of the universe, but there was no doubt that it was a thing of pieces and fragments. For instance, she knew nothing about astrology and only scraps of information about the levels of the universe beyond the astral. When it came to walking the secret paths, her lore was all jumbled, based only on the raw experience of her teacher and herself. He finally realized, in fact, that Nananna’s teacher had discovered the technique very late in her life and almost by accident. One evening, using every bit of tact he possessed, he asked Nananna if she realized that the fabric of her magic was a bit frayed. Rather than being offended, she laughed with an earthy good humor.
“Frayed, young Aderyn? Shredded and full of holes, more like, I’d say. It’s because of the Great Burning, of course. We lost all our books then, and along with them such niceties as tracts on the motions of the stars and long tables of ritual correspondences.”
“Burning? Did someone just burn all the magical books?”
“A bit more than the books. Oh, of course, you wouldn’t know about that, would you?” She paused for a long moment, and grief bit deep into her face. “Maybe my broken dweomer suits us, because the People, young Aderyn, are naught but a remnant themselves. Long, long ago we lived in cities, the seven cities of the far mountains, ruled over by a council of seven kings. There were paved streets and big houses, beautiful temples and libraries filled with books that everyone was allowed to read, or so I’ve been told—I’ve never seen such things myself, mind. Old as I am, it was before my time, a good eight hundred years ago now when the Hordes came. They were demons, some say, ugly, squat, hairy creatures with fangs and big noses. I suspect they were real flesh and blood myself. Be that as it may, they came by the hundreds of thousands, fleeing south from the northern forests for some reason of their own, and as they came they burned and looted and killed. They destroyed the cities in a few short years, and all that’s left of the People is this remnant, wandering the grasslands. We’re the children of those who managed to get away in time, you see, and our families were all country people, farmers, most of them, or we never would have survived at all. Two women learned in magic managed to escape the burning of the cities and reach the grasslands, where the other refugees took them in, but they didn’t bring any books and so on with them. They were lucky to escape with their heads still on their shoulders, and they didn’t have time to pack properly, you might say, before they left.”
“Two? That’s all?”
“That’s all, out of all the grand schools and the temples. They did their best to pass on what they knew, but among us, as among you, talented sorcerers aren’t exactly as common as sheep in a fold. One of them was old, too, and died soon, worn out by the horrors she’d seen. My teacher studied with the other.”
“But these Hordes—why? Why did they just destroy everything?”
“I only wish I knew. No one does.”
“Uh, you said somewhat about these Hordes taking heads. I, er, well, wonder, er, does anyone remember what they looked like exactly?”
Nananna laughed, a bitter mutter under her breath.
“They may not have been actual demons, but they weren’t your people, young Aderyn, so rest your heart about that. All the old tales agree that they only had three fingers on each hand, for one thing, and that their faces, especially round the jaws, were all swollen and deformed, for another. Now, when I was a lass I heard one of the elders talk about those deformed faces, and he said it looked to him like they were actually covered with scar tissue in some kind of ritual pattern, maybe with some charcoal powder added in, like, to make the scars more prominent. I’ve never heard of a Deverry man doing such a thing.”
“And we all have five fingers, too. I can’t tell you how happy I am—for a moment I was sure that we were all somehow to blame.”
“Indeed? Why? Your folk’s general, nature?”
“Well, that, too, but when I had my vision, I, heard a voice telling me to go west. And it said, ‘Make restitution.’ So I thought, well, maybe we owed you somewhat.”
“Eldidd men owe us a great deal, but not because of the Burning, not as far as I know, anyway.” Nananna paused abruptly. “What’s all that noise out there?”
Aderyn heard urgent voices and footsteps, Just as Dallandra rose to go look, Halaberiel pushed open, the tent flap.
“Wise One, my apologies for disturbing you, but Namydd the merchant is here with talk of trouble.”
When Dallandra spoke in Elvish, Nananna made an impatient wave in her direction.
“Aderyn has to understand this, too. Speak in his tongue. If you would, Banadar, bring Namydd to me.”
In a few minutes Halaberiel returned with a paunchy graying man in the checked brigga and elaborate shirt of a merchant. He was obviously exhausted, his eyes dazed, his movements stiff as he bowed to Nananna.
“My thanks for seeing me, Wise One,” Namydd said. “I’ve brought you some gifts, just tokens of my respect, but my son is still unloading our horses. We’ve ridden night and day to reach you.”
“Then sit down and rest. Dalla, fetch the poor man some mead. Banadar, stay with us. Now, what brings you here in such a hurry?”
“Great trouble, O Wise One,” Namydd said. “One of the northern lords, Dovyn of the Bear by name, is laying a formal claim to the lands by Loc Cyrtaer—the very place where we meet to trade every fall.”
“Oh, is he now?” Halaberiel broke in. “And does he think he’s going to cut the trees on our death-ground, too?”
“I know these lands are sacred to your people.” Namydd paused to take a wooden bowl of mead from Dallandra. “The merchant guild of Aberwyn is totally on your side. We tried to intervene with the prince, but all he’d say is that you’ll have to come to his court and file a legal counterclaim.”
When Halaberiel swore in Elvish, Nananna scowled him into silence.
“Then we shall do just that,” Nananna said. “I’m sure the prince will agree when he sees the justice of the thing. Now here, Namydd, has this lord chosen the death-ground itself?”
“Land that’s very close, but I think—I hope and pray—that the prince will listen to reason about such a sacred thing. Now, the guild sent me here with offers of aid. Your people can shelter with us if you come to Aberwyn. We have a man trained in our laws to act as your counsel—all at our expense, of course.”
“My thanks,” Nananna said with one of her wry smiles. “I forget sometimes how rich trading with us has made you.”
Namydd winced.
“Well, so it has. The Wise One is wise enough to know that when a man’s self-interest is at stake, he’s most trustworthy. If the banadar agrees, I think he’d be the best one to ride to Aberwyn. Our people have a great respect for those of high standing.”
“So they do,” Aderyn put in. “And even greater respect for those of royal blood. Hal, you wouldn’t happen to be descended from the kings of the seven cities, would you?” He glanced at Nananna. “There were seven, didn’t you say?”
“There were.” Halaberiel forgot himself enough to interrupt the Wise One. “Ye gods, you must have a grand sort of magic if you could see that in me! For what it’s worth, I am indeed—a pitiful sort of inheritance, but mine.”
“Then if you’ll listen to my humble council, I think you’d best travel as a prince—in the fullest sense of the word.”
Halaberiel looked briefly puzzled, then grinned.
“It might be amusing to try a bit of the pomp and mincing that pleases the Blue-eyes,” Halaberiel said. “What does the Wise One think?”
“Oh, I agree. Banadar? Take poor Namydd to your tent so he can get some sleep. Then return to me so we can plan things out. Namydd, you and your guild have my deep and heartfelt thanks.”
Namydd bowed, nearly fell from weariness, then let Halaberiel lead him away. Once they were gone, Nananna turned to Aderyn.
“Will you ride with the banadar?” Nananna said. “I’d be grateful if you would. I can give you a scrying stone so you can send me news, and I think it would be wise to have a man who understands the Light along on this little matter.”
“Gladly, Wise One.”
“But let me give you a warning. You can never truly desert your own kind, no matter how much loyalty you give to us. You must be scrupulously fair, not partisan. Do you understand? If the Lords of Light had wanted you to be an elf, you would have been born in an elven body.”
“I do understand that, O Wise One, and I’ll think well about what you say.”
Almost against his will, Aderyn glanced at Dallandra. Her storm-gray eyes were distant, cool, judging him, as if she were wondering if he could truly live up to his fine words. Aderyn vowed to do the best he could, and all for her sake.
By morning, the news was all over the camp. Young men and women hefted weapons and swore bloody vengeance if the Round-ears so much as touched the death-ground. The older members of the group flocked round Halaberiel and offered advice, warnings, and general opinions. Every man and woman who owned horses had a right to speak out about such an important matter, but finally, by nightfall, they reached a decision. The camp went through its material goods and donated twenty-one matched golden horses, twenty-one fancy saddles and bridles, a heap of new clothes and all the jewelry they owned to make Prince Halaberiel and his escort look as rich as the Dragon Throne itself. Halaberiel himself owned a gem that impressed even Aderyn, an enormous sapphire as blue as the winter sea, set in a pendant of reddish gold some three inches across and ornamented with golden roses in bas-relief. When the warband saw him wearing it, they fell silent; Jezryaladar even held up his hands and nodded to the pendant in a sign of respect.
“It belonged to my grandfather, Ranadar of the High Mountain,” Halaberiel said to Aderyn. “For all the good it ever did him.”
As a last touch, Aderyn took the warband aside and instructed them in the courtesies that a Round-ear warband would show a man of royal blood. Finally they chose some packhorses—duns and roans, these—and a couple of young men to come along and pretend to be servants. Since Aderyn himself would be the prince’s councillor, he too got fancy clothes but a silvery-gray horse to ride.
On his last night in camp, Aderyn and Dallandra wrapped themselves in heavy cloaks and walked a little ways away through the silent grasslands. The night was clear, streaked with moonlight, and so cold that their breath puffed as they walked.
“Be careful, won’t you, Aderyn?” Dallandra said abruptly. I’ve got a bad feeling about all of this.”
“A dweomer warning?”
“I don’t know if I’d call it that. Just a bad feeling. I’m sorry, but I just don’t trust your people.”
“I can’t say I blame you. Ye gods, it makes me sick, thinking about how much you’ve all lost already, and now my folk come riding in trying to take away what little you’ve got left.”
“There’s plenty of land for all of us, though. That’s the sad thing. There truly is plenty for all, if the Round-ears would only see that. The grasslands stretch way far away to the west, and way up north, too, before you come to the mountains.”
“How far away were the seven cities?”
She shrugged, thinking hard.
“I have no idea. Months’ worth of riding, I guess. We never go there anymore.”
“Why not? Are the ruins haunted or suchlike?”
“Most like, but that’s not why. Wait—I heard some old tale about a plague—that’s right! At the end, it was plague that destroyed the Hordes, and the bards say that their corpses choked the gutters and paved the streets. If you want to know about all that old stuff, you should ask a bard at the winter meetings. They keep the lore alive.”
“You don’t seem to care much about it, do you?”
“Ye gods, I grew up hearing about the Burning till I was sick of it. So we lived in splendor once! Who cares? The past is dead, say I, and we’ve got to make the best of what we’ve got now.”
Yet her voice cracked with bitterness and regret.

Since Lord Dovyn and his escort left Aberwyn before the merchant guild sent its representatives to the prince, they rode back home thinking that the matter of Dovyn’s new lands was settled. Life for Cinvan and the warband settled into a drowsy autumn routine: exercising their horses in good weather, and in bad, gathering in the great hall to drink ale and keep the Carnoic tournament going, which by then was a close and heated affair. Garedd marked one of his silver pieces and kept a record of its progress through the wagers—sure enough, every time he lost it, it eventually came back to him. Cinvan took up the battle in earnest and fought his way to the front rank of contenders. He liked the cold pure strategy of the game, where a single mistake was fatal, and had put in long hours studying the various moves and tactics. Often on the long afternoons, while the wives were up doing whatever it was that women did in the women’s hall, Melaudd, Waldyn, and Dovyn would stroll over, tankards in hand, to watch the games and lay an occasional wager themselves.
When the message arrived, they were all gathered at the riders’ side of the hall. Cinvan was playing a particularly difficult game with Peddyc, who was almost his equal. He was debating whether to sacrifice one of his stones in order to jump and capture two of Peddyc’s when there was a bustle at the door. The gatekeeper came running in with an exhausted rider, his cloak pinned with the dragon brooch of Aberwyn.
“My lord Dovyn, an urgent message for you.”
Swearing under their breath, Peddyc and Cinvan stopped their game. A servant hurried off to find the scribe, who duly appeared to take the piece of parchment and read it aloud. The warband clustered round to hear.
“To Dovyn, lesser lord of the Bears, newly designated lord of Loc Cyrtaer, I, Addryc, prince of Aberwyn by the grace of his highness, Waryn, king of Eldidd, send greetings,” the scribe began. “My lord, a matter of great difficulty has been set before me by Prince Halaberiel, son of Berenaladar, son of Ranadar, a king of the Westfolk. The land on which you laid recent claim in my court is under prior claim to said Halaberiel as part of his royal hunting preserve. Certain sections of said land have also served as tribal burial ground for the ancestors of the Westfolk since time immemorial. I most urgently summon and request you to appear in my palace so that this matter may be discussed and settled in my court of law under my personal arbitration. Under my seal and mark, Addryc, prince of Aberwyn.”
“Oh, by the asses of the gods!” Dovyn burst out. “Those cursed Westfolk! The gall! Prince, is he? I’ll just wager!” He turned to his father in mute appeal.
“Whether he’s a prince or not, Addryc’s a prince for sure,” Melaudd said. “We’d best ride south and take a look at this.”
Dovyn began pacing restlessly back and forth.
“Why didn’t this cursed horse herder come forward before? The rotten gall! This is going to delay everything.”
“Maybe it will, maybe it won’t,” Waldyn put in. “Now calm yourself, brother. No need to draw steel and strike sparks until you see how the prince’s judgment goes.”
“Just so.” Melaudd turned to the messenger. “Did this Halaberiel ride in with an armed escort?”
“He did, my lord. Twenty men.”
“Well and good. Then we’ll take twenty of mine and leave the rest with Waldyn.”
Much to their delight, Cinvan and Garedd were chosen to be part of the escort and have another chance at the marvels of life in Aberwyn. At the meal that night, while the men who were going to be left behind grumbled, swore, and generally cursed the others for their good fortune, Cinvan and Garedd pumped the messenger for every scrap of news he had, which, as a common rider like themselves, was little enough.
“Well, here,” Garedd said at last. “Do you think this Hala what’s-it is truly a prince?”
“Well, now, I know this isn’t a friendly sort of thing to say, but I wouldn’t doubt it. I’ve never seen so many jewels on a lord! And this escort of his is always bowing and scraping around him, saying ‘my prince this’ and ‘my prince that,’ fetching him mead and bringing him cushions. You know, there’s one good thing you’ve got to say about the Westfolk—they blasted well can hold their mead. I’ve never seen a man drink the way this prince can.”
“I’m more interested in how they hold their swords,” Cinvan said.
“Now listen, lad.” The messenger shot him a sharp glance. “Naught’s going to come to bloodshed in Aberwyn’s court. A man who draws steel there gets twenty-five lashes, and if he’s still alive when they’re done with him, they throw him out of the warband onto the roads to starve.”
“I know that as well as you do,” Cinvan snapped. “I was just wondering if things would come to a war.”
“Now here,” Garedd broke in. “That’s for the lords to decide. If Dovyn takes the judgment, then he’ll be looking for land elsewhere, that’s all. God knows, there’s enough of it, out to the west.”
Cinvan turned to look across the hall to the table of honor, where Melaudd and Dovyn were talking urgently, heads together, and Melaudd’s lady watched, shredding a piece of bread with frightened fingers.

Halaberiel and his retinue had been gone three days before Nananna heard from Aderyn. Impressively enough, he could reach her mind directly, rather than wait for a dream. One evening Dallandra was adding a few twigs and chips of wood to their tiny fire when the old woman suddenly went still and stared off into midair.
“Everything’s going smoothly so far,” Nananna said at last. “They crossed into Round-ear territory with no trouble, and now they’re about a day and half’s ride from the city itself.”
“Is Aderyn all right?”
“Of course, or he could hardly contact me, could he?”
“I’m sorry. I’m just so worried, thinking they’ll be poisoned or ambushed or murdered by the Round-ears one way or another.”
“Have you had a true dream or a vision?”
“No, it’s just my fears talking to me. I even know it, but I can’t seem to stop.”
“Don’t try to stop. Let the voices talk, but ignore them.”
Nananna tilted her head to one side to study her apprentice. “You’re coming to like Aderyn, aren’t you?”
“Oh, he’s nice enough.” She kept her voice casual. “For a Round-ear. No, that’s mean of me. He’s been a good friend so far, and whether or not he’s a Round-ear has nothing to do with it.”
“That’s better, yes. I like him myself, but even more to the point, he’s willing to help us beyond measure. He has knowledge that’s been lost to the People for eight hundred years, and he’s willing to share it for the asking. I call that admirable myself.”
“So do I, Wise One. Maybe I’ve misjudged the Round-ears. Let’s just hope that there’s more men like Aderyn in Eldidd.”

“On the trip south, Melandd kept the warband riding fast from dun to dun of his allies and vassals. Everywhere they stopped, the lords offered encouragement and support. The consensus seemed to be that these blasted Westfolk had caused enough trouble, and the sooner they were shoved back to open land, the better. But when they reached Aberwyn, they had a nasty surprise waiting for them. They would, of course, be staying in the dun of the Dragon Prince, but so, it turned out, was this prince of the Westfolk and his escort. Out of simple fairness, Addryc had offered Halaberiel his shelter and protection. Every man in the warband saw this courtesy as a betrayal. Dovyn was furious enough to talk openly in front of the men.
“What do you wager those cursed merchants are behind this? Piss-poor coin, polishers!”
“Now here, lad,” Melandd said, and sharply. “Trade’s important to Aberwyn. I’m as angry as you are, but you have to understand his highness’s position. Watch your tongue while we’re here.”
“How can you insult our prince, Father? Do you really think he values coin more than honor?
“I said, hold your tongue! You’re a young cub yet and not quite licked into shape, so you leave all the talking to me.”
When the Bear’s warband came into the hall for dinner, they found their rivals there ahead of them, seated as far across the riders’ side of the hall as possible and surrounded by Aberwyn’s men. Another portion of Addryc’s warband surrounded the Bears—in the friendliest possible way, of course—and sat them down. Cinvan accepted a tankard of ale from a servant girl and peered across the vast smoky hall to the honor hearth, where the noble-bom and their guests were drinking mead. Prince Addryc was seated at the head of the table with Melaudd and Dovyn to his left and the elven leader at his right. The fellow was tall, even for one of the Westfolk, and he certainly looked like a prince; it wasn’t just his finery, Cinvan decided, it was the way he moved and talked with the ease of someone who’s used to being obeyed. Next to him sat a slender young man, quite human-looking, with untidy brown hair and dark eyes, who seemed to be included in whatever important conversation was going on. Cinvan tapped one of the Aberwyn men on the shoulder.
“Who’s that next to that Halaberiel fellow?” Cinvan said. “The skinny fellow swimming in his fancy shirt.”
“The prince’s councillor, Aderyn. Everyone says he’s got dweomer.”
“Ah, horseshit. Old wives’ tale.”
“Oh, is it now? I wouldn’t be so sure, lad.”
Cinvan turned to Garedd, who merely shrugged to suspended judgment. Cinvan felt a small cold fear at the very possibility of dweomer. It was as if he should remember something, or know something, or take some warning—he simply couldn’t understand his own thoughts. Fortunately the servants came to the table with roast beef and bread to distract him from the unfamiliar and painful process of introspection.
Later that night, though, Cinvan came face to face with this mysterious young councillor. He went out to the ward to relieve himself of some of the prince’s ale, and as he was coming back in, he met Aderyn going out, doubtless for the same reason. Just to case this unprepossessing lad did have some kind of magic, Ctovan made him a civil bow and stepped aside. Aderyn nodded pleas- antly, then stopped to look him full in the face. As he stared into those owl-dark eyes, Cinvan turned cold. He felt pierced and pinned to the wall behind him like a rabbit skin stretched out to dry. At last Aderyn smiled and released him.
“Here, good sir,” Cinvan stammered, “do I know you from somewhere?”
“Oh, you do indeed, but you won’t remember.”
Aderyn walked on, leaving Cinvan shaking behind him. Cinvan hurried back to the table and the comfort of Garedd’s company. He picked up his tankard and drank a good bit of it straight off.
“What did the councillor say to you?’” Garedd said. “There at the door, I mean.”
“Oh, naught that counted for much, but he’s got dweomer, sure enough.”

Dinner that night at the prince’s table was a tense affair, with conversation not likely to help one’s digestion. With the roast pork Addryc demanded and got statements from both claimants, then let them glare at each other while he considered the matter. With the baked apples he remarked that he was sure that some treaty or another could be worked out, once he’d consulted the priests on the laws.
“A treaty, Your Highness?” Halaberiel remarked. “We’ve had experience of your treaties before, I’m afraid.”
“And what do you mean by that, my prince?” Addryc said in a smooth and level voice.
“The matter of the lands beyond that village of yours; the one called Cannobaen.”
Addryc winced and considered his apple, swimming in cream in a silver bowl.
“My heart aches with shame over that matter, but there was naught I could, do. I forbade the lords in question to settle out beyond the treaty boundary.”
““Then why, pray tell, are they still there?”
“Because they removed themselves from my jurisdiction and bound themselves in personal fealty to my father, the king. I was furious, frankly, but what could I do? Declare war on my own father? That was my only choice.”
Halaberiel raised one eyebrow in polite disbelief, but he did allow the prince to change the subject.
Rather than prolong the agony of having rivals eating at his table, Prince Addryc held malover on the disputed land near Loc Cyrtaer the morning after the Bears’ arrival. They met in a half-round of a room where the dragon banner of Aberwyn and the hippogriff blazon of all Eldidd draped damp stone walls. Bronze charcoal braziers, glowing cherry red against the chill, stood as common as chairs. The prince sat at a narrow writing desk with the ceremonial sword of Aberwyn in front of him and a scribe with pens and parchment at his right hand. Behind him stood two councillors and a priest of Bel, there to advise on the holy laws. In front of him, Aderyn and Halaberiel had chairs to the right while Melaudd and his son sat off to the left. Although the prince was an imposing man, sitting straight and tall, with touches of wisdom’s gray in his raven-dark hair and the snap of command in his dark blue eyes, Aderyn felt sorry for Addryc, who was also intelligent enough to see that any decision he made would be the wrong one, caught as he was between the powerful merchant guild on the one hand and his noble vassals on the other. In hopes of bringing the banadar to a mood to compromise, Aderyn had told him the truth, that if Addryc ruled totally in favor of the Westfolk he would be sowing the seeds of a possible rebellion. The legal councillor for the merchant guild had tried to counsel patience, but Aderyn doubted that the banadar had paid much attention to either of them. As they sat together and waited for the proceedings to begin, Halaberiel’s face was set, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, merely distant. It was impossible to tell what he might be thinking. Melaudd and his son, however, were as open as the meadowlands—a barely controlled fury showed in every line of their faces, that anyone, for any reason at all, should cross their will.
“Very well, my lords,” Addryc said at last. “We discussed this matter extensively last night I see no need to chew over the stale meat of the case again.”
Halaberiel and the two lords nodded their agreement.
“I have consulted also with his holiness here.” Addryc indicated the priest. “He tells me that it would be a grave and impious thing for any man to settle upon, cut wood upon, or plow a sacred burial ground. No doubt the gods of the Westfolk would join great Bel in cursing such an action.”
When Dovyn began to speak, Melaudd glared him into silence.
“I assure Your Highness and his holiness both that never would my son or I commit such an impiety,” Melaudd said. “If his highness, the prince of the Westfolk, will see to it that the limits of this sacred ground are clearly marked, I will see to it that no man steps upon it unless for some sacred purpose.”
“Well and good, then.” Addryc turned to Halaberiel. “And will his highness so undertake to mark the land?”
“I will,” Halaberiel said “With swords, if need be.”
Addryc winced. Melaudd rose from his chair.
“And does the prince doubt my word?”
“Never,” Halaberiel said calmly. “But my lord will not live forever, and who knows what men will come after him?”
The moment was saved. Melaudd bowed and sat back. The two Aberwyn councillors sighed in relief. Aderyn himself found that he’d been holding his breath and let it out again.
“Very well, then,” Addryc said. “I shall have a formal writ drawn up, declaring the sanctity of those forests, and posted publicly in both Cernmeton and Elrydd for all to see.”
The scribe dipped a pen in an inkwell and wrote a few notes, the pen scratching painfully loud in the silence.
“Now, to turn to the remainder of the land under dispute,” Addryc said. “My lord Dovyn, the prince has offered you a compromise, land that you may settle upon farther north and east.”
“And why should I compromise?” Dovyn snapped. “Does he claim every bit of land in Eldidd?”
Melaudd forgot himself enough to slap his son on the shoulder, but the damage was done. Halaberiel rose and looked thai young lad over.
“My lord, I own nothing,” Halaberiel said, “any more than any noble lord of your people owns the land lent to him by the gods. The only property that either of us may claim with any certainty is the six feet of land that your kin will use to bury you someday, and the single tree that my kin will cut to burn me in that same future. There is, however, land that the People use, and land that we never travel upon. I merely suggest to your arrogant soul that you might take land that’s of no use to other men and thus spare us all a good deal of trouble.”
Dovyn flushed a scarlet red. Halaberiel sat back down and looked the prince’s way.
“My prince Halaberiel.” Addryc shot a nervous glance at Melaudd. “I’ve explained the laws of Eldidd to you. If you wish to make certain your claim to this hunting preserve is honored by our laws, then you must be in residence upon the land for a certain portion of every year. A man who lets land lie unused forfeits all claims to it.”
“I understand, and it’s a sensible ruling in its way. You’ll find me there every spring.”
“Done, then.” Addryc turned to Melaudd. “My lord, there is land for the taking just north of your demesne along the banks of the Gwynaver. May I ask why your son didn’t put in a claim to that empty land?”
“Because he wanted to settle on the lakeshore, Your Highness,” Melaudd said. “There aren’t any settlements on the lakes, and it’s rich land and a strong defensive position.” He shot Halaberiel a daggered glance. “The day may come when Your Highness wishes there were a strong and loyal dun there.”
Addryc blinked twice. The priest looked as if he were silently praying.
“And I’ll say something else, by your leave,” Melaudd went on. “I ve never heard of Westfolk having kings until we received your message, and I’ll wager you never did either. It strikes me as strange that you’d turn away from the men who’ve served you loyally for so long in favor of a stranger.”
“And have I turned away from you yet?” Addryc said levelly. “I have yet to pronounce my judgment.”
Abashed, Melaudd looked away.
“My prince.” Addryc turned to Halaberiel. “I’m considering asking you to surrender land for Dovyn’s demesne at the lake-shore. In return, I’ll grant you and your people a clear, formal, and indisputable title to the land along the west bank of the Gwynaver. With my seal upon the charter, this matter will never rise again. The burying ground and the north shore of the lake will be yours. The south shore and a dun at the river’s mouth will be Dovyn’s. All the land between the lake and the Gwynaver will be yours to hunt in or to fortify as you think fit.”
“With Bears on the south shore, fortification might be in order,” Halaberiel said. “Your Highness, I realize that this is a difficult judgment for you. You have offered a generous settlement, one which I’m minded to take. On the other hand, I have vassals just as you do. No one among my people will give up the south shore easily—I warn you. You’re sitting there squirming, wondering if your lords will cause you trouble if you favor me. I’m sitting here squirming just as hard, wondering what my people will think of me if I take this bargain. Do you understand?”
It was so high-handed, foreign, and utterly honest that the councillors and priests gasped aloud. Addryc leaned back in his chair and sighed, running his fingers over the hilt of the ornate ceremonial sword—he understood all too well. Halaberiel turned to Aderyn with one pale eyebrow raised.
“And what does my honored councillor advise?” Halaberiel said.
For privacy Aderyn rose, bowed to the prince, and led Halaberiel outside to the hall.
“I think we should take it, Hal. It’s the best we’re going to get, and Nananna will work on keeping down resentment. You’re not truly the kind of prince who has to worry about rebellions, and Addryc is.”
“Poor old Addryc. Well, we’ve saved the death-ground, and truly, that was first in my mind. I don’t trust these Bears, though. How long will it be before they push their greedy snouts northward? That young cub needs to be turned over someone’s knee and spanked.”
“Well, you’re right enough, but if you turn down the judgment, then it’s war. Melaudd can rally the prince’s other vassals against you because you’ve refused the prince’s judgment.”
“Indeed?” Halaberiel considered for a moment. “Well, let me see if I can wring one more concession out of his harried highness.”
They returned to the dead-silent room. Halaberiel bowed, then stayed standing to address his royal counterpart.
“Your Highness, your judgment seems fair to me, except for one small point. Will you guarantee me and my people access to the northern lands from the south? The best ford lies in the land you would give the Bears.”
“I see no reason why you can’t have road rights. The road should be a public one, anyway, so the merchants can use it.”
When Dovyn started to speak, his father laid a warning hand on his arm.
“That seems only just, Your Highness,” Melaudd said. “If the prince will guarantee the good conduct of his people as they pass through. I know they travel with sheep and horses, and farmers can’t afford the loss if stock wanders off into their fields.”
“We shall make a formal pact,” Halaberiel said. “Any trampled grain shall be paid for in mutton and wool.”
Pleased, Melaudd nodded; the prince smiled; the councillors gave Aderyn small nods of satisfaction that reason had prevailed.
“And what about when your people steal mine blind?” Dovyn snapped.
Every seated man in the room rose. The priest of Bel stepped forward, watchful to prevent bloodshed. Halaberiel shook off Aderyn’s restraining hand and strode over to face Dovyn.
“Just what are you calling me?”
“Everyone knows the Westfolk are a pack of thieves. Why shouldn’t you be a prince of thieves?”
With a startled gasp, Melaudd threw himself forward, but too late. Halaberiel slapped Dovyn backhanded across the face so hard that the lad staggered back. Halaberiel turned to the prince in appeal.
“So this is the kind of court you keep in Eldidd,” Halaberiel said. “Where a man who puts himself under your judgment must listen to insults and lies.”
“Naught of the sort,” Addryc said levelly. “Lord Dovyn will tender you a formal apology. I trust his father agrees with me on this.”
“His father does indeed, Your Highness.” Melaudd’s voice shook. “And I’ll tender my own apology first and freely.”
Everyone was watching the two princes, suddenly united against this presumption of a lesser lord. Aderyn felt a cold dweomer touch and turned to see Dovyn sliding his sword free of its sheath.
“Don’t!” Aderyn yelled. “Hal, watch out!”
Halaberiel spun around just as Dovyn drew and swung. Aderyn threw himself forward and took a blow on his left hand— mercifully only a glancing one as Dovyn tried to hold up, or he would have been known as Aderyn One-hand forever after. He heard the crack of breaking bone and stared numbly at a surge of blood as the room exploded—yelling, swearing, scuffling among the onlookers, the princes shouting for order, the priest invoking Bel’s name. Melaudd made a frantic grab at his son, pinned him from behind, and shook him so hard that Dovyn dropped the sword. Halaberiel caught Aderyn’s shoulder, steadied him, and swore at the sight of the wound. The priest of Bel ran forward and grabbed Aderyn’s arm just as the door flew open and the prince’s guard shoved their way in. His face purple with rage, Addryc waved them back, but they stood ready out in the corridor.
“So, Melaudd,” Addryc growled, “is this how you raise your sons—drawing on a man in my hall? My hall? By the name of every god of our people! In my very chamber of justice!”
Melaudd tried to answer, but he was shaking too hard. Dovyn broke free and threw himself down at the prince’s feet.
“I beg your forgiveness, Your Highness. I . . . I . . . I just forgot myself.”
Halaberiel left Aderyn to the priest and stepped forward.
“And how soon would you remember his highness’s judgment, then? Your Highness, do you truly expect me to strike a bargain with men like these?”
Aderyn suddenly realized that he was close to fainting, a luxury that he couldn’t afford in this dangerous pass. He staggered to a chair and sat down hard. The priest knelt beside him and tried desperately to stanch the running wound with a scarf that the scribe handed him.
“Look at this!” Addryc’s voice growled with indignation. “He’s wounded a councillor and an unarmed man! Guard! Run and fetch the chirurgeon!”
“I’ll be all right in a minute,” Aderyn gasped.
Although the white scarf was soaking with bright red blood, and his fingers stuck out at an unnatural angle, Aderyn felt no pain. His mind noted his own symptoms from a detached distance: shaking, chills, a dry mouth—oh, he was in shock, all right. He looked up and tried to concentrate on the strange tableau in front of him: Dovyn scarlet with shame at the prince’s feet; Halaberiel frozen with rage; Melaudd pale, his mouth working as if he were praying to the gods to let him wake from what had to be a nightmare.
“Your Highness,” Aderyn whispered, “please don’t make a decision in fury. My prince, that goes for you, too.”
Then he fainted dead away. He seemed to be standing in a swirling dark void, flecked with gold light like fish scales. In the midst of a rushy hiss of noise, he heard someone call his name, and Nananna came striding out of the mists. Here on the inner planes, her image was young and beautiful, her stance that of a warrior.
“What have they done to you? Does the banadar still live?”
“He does. I just fainted, that’s all. The lad who hurt me has been arrested.”
Although Aderyn tried to tell her more, he began floating away, swimming up from the bottom of a dark gold-flecked river. The rushy hiss grew louder and louder; then suddenly he broke the surface and found himself awake, lying on a feather bed. A heavyset man with a blond mustache was bandaging his splinted fingers. Aderyn smelled the clean sharp scent of bruised comfrey root packed in his wound.
“Should heal up fine,” the chirurgeon was saying over his shoulder. “A superficial slice. These things cut a lot of minor blood vessels, looks like the third hell, but nothing dangerous. Now, as for the fingers, he’s got two broken, but it’s a clean fracture.”
“Just so,” Aderyn gasped out. “I need water to restore my humors, too.”
“Aha, you’re awake, are you? They told me you were a physician of sorts.”
The chirurgeon gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder and stood up to make room for Halaberiel, who brought Aderyn water in a silver goblet. He sat down on the bed, slipped one arm under Aderyn’s shoulders, and helped him drink.
“You took the cut intended for me. I’ll never forget this. You’re a friend of the People now and forever.”
“Most welcome.” Aderyn was still too groggy to appreciate the force of that promise. “What did you and the prince determine?”
“Naught yet.” Addryc himself stepped forward. “Prince Halaberiel and I decided to take the last bit of wise advice you gave us. Lord Dovyn is shut up in a chamber under house arrest. His father gave me a personal pledge of security for him. Here, Aderyn, Melaudd is a good man, and he’s truly shattered by his son’s arrogance.”
“No doubt,” Aderyn said. “My heart aches for any father with a son like that.”
Aderyn drank several goblets of water, then lay back exhausted on the pillows. He was in Halaberiel’s luxurious chamber, he realized, and it was full of people. Over by the unglazed windows the other elves were sitting on the floor in grim silence. Two of the prince’s guard were standing in the doorway to wait upon their liege’s orders. At the polished wood table, the chirurgeon was packing up his gear and talking quietly to his young apprentice.
“I’ll make a decision about young Dovyn tonight,” Addryc said. “The chirurgeon tells me you’d better rest for a while, and I want you there to testify as the victim of this outrage.”
“Well and good, Your Highness, but what about the land?”
The prince turned to Halaberiel, who merely shrugged.
“If naught else,” Addryc ventured, “my decree about the sacred burial ground will stand in all perpetuity.”
“Indeed?” Halaberiel turned to Aderyn. “I’ll consider the matter later.”
Addryc nodded in defeat. For a few moments he hovered there uneasily, then took his leave with a gracious bow and a few muttered words about letting Aderyn rest. Once the chirurgeon was gone, too, the other elves got up and moved closer to Aderyn’s bedside, all twenty of them in a disorderly circle.
“I say we ride out of here and go burn Melaudd’s dun,” Calonderiel said. “That blow was intended for the banadar.”
There was a muttered chorus of agreement.
“Oh, hold your tongue, Cal!” Halaberiel snapped. “Since when do we visit the son’s crime on the mother? And there’s more than one woman in that dun.”
“Well, true, but it would have been satisfying, somehow, to see his tents go up in flames.”
“We should just move to the west and let them have the rotten land,” Jezryaladar put in. “Who wants a cursed thing to do with men like this?”
“What?” Albaral snarled. “And let the horse turds win?”
Eight or nine men began talking and arguing at once. Halaberiel shouted them into silence.
“Now listen, I’m minded two ways. It depends on what Addryc does to atone for Dovyn’s crime. If he offers me fair justice, well, then, I say we take the compromise. We’re not doing this just for ourselves. The People need the merchants and their iron and grain, and we have to be able to guard that death-ground. There’s a lot more of the Round-ears than there are of us. They can afford a wretched war a lot better than we can.”
Calonderiel started to speak, then thought better of it. Everyone else nodded in agreement as Halaberiel went on.
“But what we do next depends on what happens with young Dovyn. If I decide to take the compromise, think of it this way: if we control the Gwynaver, we control one of their main routes north. If they want to ride up our river, we can say no and have their prince behind us.”
“That river turns west a ways up north,” Calonderiel expanded the thought. “If we can block a main route west, so much the better.”
“Good, Cal. Now that’s thinking.” He glanced at Aderyn. “You’re dead pale, Councillor.”
“I need to sleep. Take the lads away, will you, but please, by the gods of both our peoples, keep them out of trouble.”
Close to sunset, Aderyn woke from the pain of his wound. He found strong wine in a flagon by his bed, drank some to ease the ache, then lay quiet for a while, watching the late golden sun cast long shadows across the Bardek rugs on the polished floor. He was just considering getting up and trying to light some candles when there was a timid knock at the door.
“Come in.”
Much to his surprise, Cinvan the Bearsman hurried into the room and knelt beside the bed in sincere humility. As he looked down into Cinvan’s hard young face, Aderyn was remembering looking up at this same soul in another body—Tanyc as a seemingly giant young man, and him a small boy of seven. It was a shock to run across Tanyc’s soul at all, and even more of one to find him reborn so soon.
“And what can I do for you, lad?” Aderyn said.
“Well, I don’t truly know. I shouldn’t be here at all, I suppose. Am I tiring you? I can just go away.”
“If you’re troubled enough to come here, then I’ll certainly listen. I take it the news of what happened in the chamber of justice has gotten itself spread around.”
“Just that, but I’ll wager you don’t know the half of it yet. Garedd said I shouldn’t be bothering you like this. Garedd’s somewhat of a friend of mine, you see, and he usually does the thinking for the pair of us, but I had to come ask you. You see, they say Addryc’s as mad as mad at Lord Dovyn, and he wants to have him flogged like a common rider for drawing on you.”
“You’re right—I hadn’t heard that.”
“So, well, you see, our young lord saved me from getting flogged once, and so I thought, well, maybe, you being a councillor and all, you’d see things a bit different than most, and speak up for mercy, like.”
“I usually speak up for mercy whenever I can, so you can put your heart at rest about that. But I’m afraid that the matter’s likely to be out of my hands.”
Cinvan nodded, thinking this over. He was much like Tanyc, Aderyn decided, probably as arrogant in normal circumstances. Yet Aderyn was touched that he would break all protocol to plead for mercy for his young lord.
“How’s that cut?” Cinvan said. “From what I hear it’ll heal up clean, but it ached my heart, to think of my lord dishonoring himself by hurting an unarmed councillor. Uh, well, I mean, I’m sorry you’re hurt, too.”
“My thanks.” Aderyn began to see why this Garedd generally did the thinking for Cinvan. “Well, maybe the prince will think differently about flogging your lord tonight, when his rage has had a chance to cool. He’s not going to want to offend Lord Melaudd, after all.”
And yet it turned that this reasonable statement was overly optimistic. After the evening meal, the prince called a meeting in his chamber of justice. By candlelight they assembled, Aderyn and Halaberiel, Melaudd and Dovyn, the grave gray councillors, the priest of Bel, the nervous young scribe. Addryc laid the ceremonial sword of Aberwyn onto the writing table to open the court. Candlelight sparked on the golden blade and glittered on the jeweled hilt and the hand guard, formed into a dragon shape. Addryc sat down behind the table and motioned to Dovyn to kneel in front of him, a harsh gesture that made Melaudd wince.
“We are here to consider what to do with you, Lord Dovyn. Let me remind you of your fault. Just when the victory you desired was within your grasp, you turned it to defeat. You insulted a man of royal blood. You broke every law of order by drawing your sword in my presence and my dun. In your clumsiness, you wounded not your target, which would have been grave enough, but an unarmed man who had no chance to defend himself. You spilled blood in the prince’s chamber of justice. You have brought a grave shame to your father’s heart. You have disgraced your kin and clan. If your father were to pronounce you exiled, I would put my seal on his decree without a moment’s thought.”
Dovyn slumped almost to the floor, his head bowed, his face drained of all color.
“Do you have anything to say in your own defense?” Addryc said.
“Naught, Your Highness,” Dovyn whispered.
“So I thought. Tieryn Melaudd, do you have aught to say for your own son?”
“Naught, Your Highness, except that I love the young cub.” He paused, honestly baffled, staring around the chamber as if he still couldn’t believe that he was here to witness his son’s disgrace. “Truly, I’ve tried to raise him right. I feel his shame as mine. Freely will I offer to pay the prince the full blood-price for his councillor, just as if my son had killed the man, not just wounded him.”
“You what, my lord?” Halaberiel sat straight up in his chair. “Is it the custom of your country to buy justice, then?”
“My prince, please,” Aderyn said. “You don’t understand the laws of Eldidd. He’s not trying to buy justice, but to fulfill it. Every man has his lwdd, his blood-price. If he’s killed or maimed, the criminal’s kin must pay that price to his clan. Melaudd is being incredibly generous to offer so much without even waiting for the prince’s decree.”
“I see.” Halaberiel turned to Melaudd. “Then my apologies, my lord, for my misunderstanding.”
Melaudd only nodded as if he no longer cared what the prince might or might not do. A faint look of disgust lingered around Halaberiel’s mouth, as if he’d bitten into rotten fruit.
“You’re truly fortunate, my prince,” Addryc said, “to have such a wise man of our people to advise you. But in my heart I agree with you. The lwdd is indeed fit recompense for the wrong done Councillor Aderyn, and in his name, I accept it from you, Melaudd.” He jerked his head at the scribe, who began writing. “But there remains the fact, Lord Dovyn, that you broke geis by drawing steel in my dun. If this offense had happened in the great hall, when you and the prince had been drinking mead, well, then, I’d be minded to mercy. But in cold blood, in perfect sobriety, you drew a blade in the very chamber of justice, and you did so in front of your outraged father’s very eyes.”
Dovyn was slumped so low that his forehead almost touched the floor. Melaudd leaned back in his chair, his hands twisted together, the broad knuckles bloodless.
“Therefore,” Addryc went on, “I demand a recompense for this fault beyond the wounding of Councillor Aderyn. The laws have no lwdd to pay for their bleeding, Tieryn Melaudd. The penalty for this offense is twenty-five lashes in the public ward.”
“Your Highness.” Melaudd rose and flung himself down beside his son in the same smooth motion. “I’ll beg of you, if ever I’ve served you, to spare him the shame of it. Not the lashes so much, Your Highness, but the shame—strung up in the ward like a common rider.”
“I fear he’s comported himself like a common rider, Tieryn Melaudd.”
“Your Highness?” Aderyn rose and bowed. “I, too, will beg for mercy. The lad is very young.”
“Old enough to know the laws. This injury doesn’t concern you, good councillor.”
“Your Highness?” Halaberiel rose and bowed. “Never would I question the wisdom of your judgment, but may I ask one thing?”
“You may, my prince.”
“Is the penalty for this offense death?”
“It’s not.”
“But the lad’s young and might well die from so many lashes.”
“Just so,” Addryc said with a nod. “Very well. I hereby lower the penalty to fifteen. Dovyn, raise your head and look at the man you thought your enemy. He’s brought you mercy.”
Slowly Lord Dovyn raised his head and turned Halaberiel’s way, but his cornflower-blue eyes, blackish in the candlelight, burned with hatred.
Prince Addryc picked up the ceremonial sword and flipped it point upward, holding it high.
“Hear then my decree,” Addryc said. “Tieryn Melaudd will pay the full lwdd for Councillor Aderyn’s wound. Lord Dovyn will receive fifteen lashes in the public ward from my executioner tomorrow at dawn.” He lowered the sword and rapped the pommel three times on the table. “So be it.”
Melaudd began to weep, a little sob under his breath, the rusty tears of a man who hasn’t wept since he was a little lad. At Addryc’s call, two guards stepped in, hauled Dovyn to his feet and marched him out, with Melaudd trailing after. Halaberiel caught Aderyn’s elbow and helped him bow to the prince; then they left Addryc alone with his righteous rage.
“How do you feel, Ado? Well enough to come to my suite for a goblet of mead?”
“I’m not a drinking man, but tonight I will. But I have to go down to the great hall first—there’s someone I need to see.”
In the great hall, they found the various human warbands drinking quietly, free of elven presence, as Halaberiel had told the men of the Westfolk to stay up in their own quarters. Off to one side Aderyn found Cinvan sitting with a beefy blond lad whom he introduced as Garedd.
“I’m sorry, lad,” Aderyn said. “I tried to speak for mercy, but the prince judged otherwise. I’m afraid they’re going to flog your lord tomorrow.”
“So we heard. The guards came out and told us the news. It aches my heart, but I’m no man to question a prince.”
“It aches mine, too,” Garedd said. “Here, sir, is it true that your prince spoke for mercy?”
“It is. It’s thanks to him that the lad will get only fifteen strokes.”
On the morrow, Aderyn stayed in his chamber when the prince’s justice met Dovyn’s bare back. From his refuge up in the main broch, he heard the distant noise of the various warbands being marched out to witness what happened to a man who broke the prince’s discipline. Then there was a deadly silence. Once he heard a faint sound that might have been a scream. Aderyn did his best to think of other things until he heard the crowd breaking up down below. In a few minutes, Halaberiel and the rest of the elves came up and crowded into his chamber.
“I’ve never seen such a barbarous thing,” Halaberiel said.
Jezryaladar untied a skin of mead, took a long swallow, and passed it to the prince, who downed a good bit of it before he passed it on. Halaberiel began pacing back and forth in silence. The skin of mead went round till it was empty.
Late that morning, a page came, asking the prince and his councillor to attend upon Addryc. Aderyn and Halaberiel followed the lad into the prince’s private chambers in one of the secondary towers. This was a comfortable room, furnished with carpets and tapestries, carved chairs set by a small hearth of pink sandstone, and windows open to a view of a garden. Goblet of mead in hand, Addryc was standing by the hearth, and Melaudd was sitting slumped in one of the chairs. Addryc had the page serve Halaberiel and Aderyn mead, then sent the lad away. During all of this, Melaudd never moved or took his eyes from the floor.
“I see no reason to drag this discussion into open court,” Addryc said. “Now, as far as I’m concerned, Lord Dovyn has paid the price the law demands, and that matter is over and done with. Do you and your councillor agree, my prince?”
“We do,” Halaberiel said. “Tieryn Melaudd, you have my honest sympathy.”
Melaudd turned his way slack-eyed. He seemed to have aged ten years in this single morning.
“I suppose I should thank you, but I can’t find it in my heart.”
Addryc went tense and stepped forward.
“Well, by the hells! What am I supposed to do—mince and grovel before the cause of my son’s shame? Before this prince rode in, everything was as smooth as cream, but now I see the man I serve twisted this way and that by a foreigner!”
“Tieryn Melaudd.” Addryc’s voice was silky. “You forget yourself.”
Melaudd opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, and rose to bow to the prince.
“Now, here, my lord,” Aderyn said to Melaudd. “We still need to reach accommodation over the matter of the land.”
“Perhaps. But I wonder in my heart why I should be forced to accommodate.”
“Do you?” Halaberiel snapped. “Now you listen to me! That land is ours, not yours, not the prince’s, not any man in Eldidd’s. Do you understand me, Melaudd? The only claim you have is the one I allow you to have.”
“Oh, is it now? For years and years I haven’t seen one man or woman either on that land. It’s been lying there going to waste—”
“Melaudd!” Addryc took another step forward. “We determined the question of use in the malover.”
Melaudd swallowed his words with a dagger glance at both princes. Halaberiel nodded Addryc’s way, then went on.
“I came in here willing to offer your cursed whelp a demesne out of my ancestral territory, and all I get is arrogance. Very well, then. A prince of my line can be just as arrogant when he needs to be. If your son or one of his blasted riders sets one horse’s hoof on that land, then some of my people will be there to spear him off his wretched saddle.”
The tieryn turned to Addryc with a snarl.
“And I suppose I’m expected to take this in your palace, Your Highness?”
Addryc hesitated, a man walking the edge of a sword with bare feet.
“I’ve given my judgment. If the prince of the Westfolk withdraws the matter from my arbitration, there’s naught I can do.”
“Naught?” Melaudd’s word was a howl of rage.
“Just that. I can neither furnish you with aid nor stand in the way of what you see fit in this matter. But the decree about the burial ground still stands. If ever that sacred ground is despoiled, my personal guard will deal with the criminals, and I will lead them myself.”
“Indeed?” Halaberiel said. “My respect for Eldidd justice has just shattered, Your Highness, no matter what fine words you use. You’re giving Melaudd the right to wage war on my folk.”
“I’m giving him naught of the sort! You don’t understand! By relinquishing my jurisdiction, I’ve opened the way for you to appeal directly to my father, the king, himself. I’ll see to it that he takes the matter up straightaway.”
“The king!” Melaudd sputtered. “You’d let this . . . this creature go to the king!”
Addryc flung up one hand for a slap, caught himself, and froze.
“Don’t distress yourself over it, Melaudd,” Halaberiel said. “I have no desire to deal with weasels any longer, not even the king of weasels. Well and good then, Prince Addryc. You’ve made your decision, and I’ve made mine. We will be leaving your hospitality this very afternoon. I only wish now that you’d given Dovyn the full twenty-five strokes.”
Motioning to his councillor, Halaberiel strode out of the chamber. When he looked back, Aderyn saw Addryc grabbing Melaudd’s arm; then a page closed the heavy door with a bow. As they made their way through the twisting corridors of Aberwyn’s broch, Halaberiel said not a word, and Aderyn was afraid to speak to him. When they got back to his suite, though, they found Namydd waiting anxiously among the elves.
“My thanks for your help, good merchant,” Halaberiel said, “but the weasels have found a nice hole in the fence. I warn you—if you come to the Lake of the Leaping Trout to trade, ride prepared to find yourself in the middle of a war.”
Namydd groaned aloud. Halaberiel paced back and forth as he told the story, pausing often to curse by elven gods, while the others merely listened, hands on sword hilts.
“Hal, please!” Aderyn said at last. “Try to understand Addryc’s position. Deverry lords like to bluster about Great Bel’s will, but they don’t rule by some kind of divine right, you know. Even high kings have been overthrown before, and they doubtless will be again. The prince can’t risk open rebellion in the north.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly. It’s because I understand that I see no use in dealing with him further or with his blasted father, the king, either. He sees the honorable thing but he simply won’t do it. All of the Round-ears are that way. This is the Cannobaen Treaty affair all over again. They speak fine words, but when it comes to giving up one little thing they want, well, then, they’re ever so sorry, but . . . it’s always but, isn’t it? It would be better if they gobbled openly like the swine they are, instead of mincing around and giving themselves airs. I’ve tried to mince around like they do, and now I’m sick of it. We’ll mark the death-ground and see if the good prince honors his most noble pledge. We’ll also see what Dovyn does. We may have to teach him a lesson. And then, good Namydd, we shall see what happens next.”
The twenty men jumped to their feet and cheered, but Halaberiel cut them short with a wave of his hand.
“We’re discussing death. Don’t act as hungry for it as the wretched Round-ears. Go on—start getting your gear together. We’re leaving this stinking hole this very afternoon.”

His eyes bright, Garedd leaned close to Cinvan to whisper.
“It’s all getting blasted interesting.”
“Is there going to be war? That’s all that interests me.”
“Just like a falcon—your mind always on meat. But listen, Cinno, when I was down at the stables this afternoon, I heard our Melaudd talking with Lord Ynydd of the Red Lion. Melaudd’s sounding his allies out, like, trying to see how far they’ll back him and Dovyn against these cursed Westfolk.”
“Indeed? And what did Ynydd say?”
“Blasted little. He’s playing it cautious, like, saying Dovyn got himself into it, so he’ll have to get himself out. But I’ll wager he’s just afraid of the prince.”
“Huh.” Cinvan glanced around the luxurious great hall. “Then the sooner we’re out of Aberwyn, the better. Men have got more guts farther north.”

“They’re leaving Aberwyn now,” Nananna said. “There’s been trouble.”
The old woman slumped forward over her scrying stones. With a little cry Dallandra caught her in her arms, but Nananna raised her head and managed a faint smile.
“I’m not dying yet, child, but I’ll admit to being very tired. Will you help me to my bed?”
Dallandra got her settled among the cushions, spread a fur robe over her, then dismissed the dweomer light when Nananna fell straight asleep. After she put the scrying stones away, she lingered, feeling helpless, for a few minutes; finally she left the tent lest her very anxiety wake the old woman. Outside, the alar was at its communal dinner. When Dallandra joined them, Enabrilia handed her a wooden bowl of venison stew.
“How’s the Wise One?”
“Very tired. Bril, there’s been trouble. The men are on their way home as fast as they can ride.”
The talk and the singing died abruptly. Dallandra felt more helpless than before.
“That’s all I know. Aderyn couldn’t spare a moment to tell us more.”
“And just how do we know we can trust this Round-ear sorcerer?” Talbrennon snapped.
“Because Nananna said we could, you moldy horse apple!” Dallandra was shocked by the rage in her own voice. “Ye gods, don’t we have enough trouble on hand without you looking for more?”
In the deepening silence the crackling of the fire sounded like the rage of a forest in full flame. Dallandra handed the bowl back to her friend, then turned and ran out of the camp. She had to be alone.
Earlier that evening, their alar, in the company of several others they’d met, had camped about eighty miles south of the Lake of the Leaping Trout. Although they were out on the high plateau of the grasslands, the edge of the primeval forest lay only a few miles away, down in the lowlands that also held the farms of the Round-ear lords. With a flock of Wildfolk darting around her, Dallandra wandered downhill, heading to the forest for comfort as even the most civilized elves are prone to do in troubled times. Once she was well among the scrubby new growth, mostly beeches and bracken, at the forest edge, she sat down on a fallen log and opened her mind to thoughts of Aderyn. She could pick up his existence dimly—very dimly—as a feeling of dread for the future and a very much present pain in his hand; once she received a brief visual impression of him clinging to the saddle as the warband rode hard through the dark. That was all, and as much as she hated to admit that she could care about a Round-ear, she felt sick with worry.
All at once she realized that she wasn’t alone. The night was far too quiet: no owls called, no animals were abroad and moving in the undergrowth. She was miles from camp without even a knife. As she stood up, the Wildfolk vanished in a skittering of fear. Dallandra took a deep breath and tried to ignore her pounding heart; if the Round-ears were prowling around, the only weapon she had was her magic. Although she thought of running, movement and noise would give her away. Off to the south she saw a bobbing sphere of light, heading her way; twigs cracked; shrubs whispered against passing bodies. A hunting horn blew, clear and melancholy. Suddenly the light split, multiplied into a line of lights dancing along like a parade of torches, and singing drifted through the chilly air as the procession came closer, circled round, ever nearer, the singing louder—definitely Elvish, but wild, somehow, and hard to follow—the lights blinding as they ringed her round and flared up.
Out of the circling light stepped a woman. She was tall, even for one of the People, and slender, with her silver-pale hair cascading wild down to her waist. Her yellow eyes were huge and slit with emerald pupils. At first Dallandra thought that she was wearing a dress made of beaten gold, but it must have been some trick of the light, because suddenly it seemed that she was wearing only a knee-length tunic of some coarse linen. Her hair seemed darker, too, almost blond. In her hands she carried a slacked bow, and at her hip was a quiver of arrows.
“Do you know who I am?”
“I . . . I . . . I’ve heard tales of the Blessed Court. The ghosts of the seven kings and the faithful who died with them.”
The woman laughed, a peal of scorn. She was wearing a golden diadem round her forehead, jewels winked at her throat, and her dress gleamed again with gold. The bow was gone.
“Tales and nothing more, girl, tales and nothing more. We are the Blessed Court, sure enough, but we were here long before your kings and their stinking iron and their ghastly cities.” She turned to address someone over her shoulder. “Do you hear that? Do you hear how our fame suffers? Reduced to being labeled ghosts and nothing more and by our own people at that.”
Rage howled and pealed through the forest on a blast of icy wind. Strain her eyes as she might, Dallandra could see nothing beyond the circle of torches. When the woman turned back, she was wearing the rough tunic again and hunting boots; the bow in her hands was drawn, a silver-tipped arrow nocked at the ready.
“Tell me our name, or we’ll hunt you through the forests like a beast, girl. You stink of the demon metal.”
What struck Dallandra the hardest was the irony of it, that she was going to die before Nananna, when all along she’d been bracing herself for her teacher’s death. The woman smiled, revealing long pointed teeth like a sprite’s. Dallandra tried to speak, failed, swallowed, and blurted the only answer she could think of.
“The Guardians.”
The woman laughed, the bow gone, her dress now of silk and a deep soothing blue.
“Right you are. Remember us.”
With a howl and an upflung arm she turned and plunged through the circle of torches. Whoever the others were, they laughed and howled and sang with her as the procession rushed off, as fast and smooth as if they floated above the ground. Perhaps they did. Dallandra was shaking too hard to speculate. She sank to her knees and trembled, while the lights bobbed away, farther and farther, the song fading, the laughter only a sigh of wind: then gone. Finally Dallandra forced a few words through dry lips.
“I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
With one last convulsive shudder she looked around her and saw, sticking point down into the earth, an arrow. When she drew it out she heard the woman’s voice whispering from the wind.
“A gift for you. Remember.”
Dallandra ran all the way back to the comfort of the fire and the camp. Still shaking, still gasping for breath, she stammered out the story between gasps while everyone crowded round and passed the silver-tipped arrow from hand to hand.
“After all,” Wylenteriel remarked, “we’d better take a good look at it now, because it’ll probably turn into a twisted stick or something when the sun comes up.”
Only then did Dallandra remember all the old stories about the Guardians that she’d heard as a child, fantastic tales for the little ones, or so they’d always been called. Now she knew that in some measure at least they were true. Yet, when the sun came up on the morrow, the arrow was still an arrow, beautifully worked from some dark wood and fletched with blue feathers from, most likely, a jay. Dallandra took it in to show Nananna along with breakfast.
Nananna was slow to wake that morning. As she sat up, she plucked at the cushions with frail and clumsy fingers as if they annoyed her. For the briefest of moments she couldn’t remember her apprentice’s name. Dallandra felt tears spring to her eyes from fear as well as grief. She turned away and hid them.
“What’s this arrow?” Nananna’s voice was suddenly full again, and in control. “It’s got a dangerous dweomer upon it.”
“Dangerous?”
“Deadly to the likes of us, child. I can feel a destiny upon it. It will kill a shape-changer as he flies and turn his body to elven form, too, when he falls dying from the sky.”
“I didn’t know, Wise One, but truly, I never did trust the giver of it. A strange thing happened to me last night.”
When Dallandra started to tell the story, Nananna was all attention, but in a bit her mind seemed to drift away. She ran slow fingers over the polished shaft, then let it fall from her lap.
“Well, child, this puzzle is yours, not mine,” she said at last. “I . . . I know nothing of these things.”
The fear turned to a presence, cold and menacing behind her, as if a murderer had crept into the tent.
“Well, it probably doesn’t mean much.” Dallandra forced herself to sound brisk and cheerful. “Would you like some porridge? Namydd the merchant brought us some nice Eldidd oats the last time he came.”
Later, when she was alone, Dallandra wept for hours.

Just north of Cannobaen, Halaberiel’s warband crossed a shallow stream with no name (although it was known the Badger in later years) which should have marked the limits of Eldidd territory, or so the prince told Aderyn, even though some twenty-odd miles west stood the dun and farms of the treaty-breakers’ holding. Aderyn, however, never saw that dun, because they turned north, heading for the forest edge, long before they reached it. By then Aderyn was exhausted, riding wounded and worried for long hours as Halaberiel pushed both his men and his horses hard. Tree meadow, rock and road—they all blurred together into the endless ache of that long ride. Finally they reached a camp, though not Nananna’s, and Aderyn was bundled off to a tent to sleep on leather cushions while the prince talked with the leaders of the various alarli.
In the morning when they rode out, twenty more warriors came with them and a herd of extra horses, too. Aderyn was shocked when he realized that some of those warriors were women. At noon that day they met up with a single alar, heading south, which donated six fighting men, three women archers, and a horse laden with arrows. At sunset, they rode into Nananna’s camp to find it huge. Other dweomermasters had heard Nananna’s call for help and sent their people, among them sixty warriors with spare horses and weapons both. After all, Halaberiel remarked, they were going to need every sword they could get.
“Our longbows are just hunting weapons. I don’t imagine they’ll be much good against Eldidd armor. I don’t know, of course—we’ve never tried it.”
“Ah.” Aderyn tried to nod sagaciously, then fainted dead away.
He woke to find himself lying on his back on a spread of cushions in Halaberiel’s enormous tent. Dweomer light shimmered near the smoke hole. At first he thought his injured hand was bleeding badly; then he realized that it was draped into a wooden bowl of warm herb water to soak. When someone knelt beside him he turned his head to find, Dallandra, her beautiful eyes all grave concern. He thought that all his pain was well worth it, just to see her worried about him.
“That rotten Round-ear chirurgeon did a clumsy enough job on your hand,” she snapped. “We’re just lucky that the humors haven’t turned foul.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly follow his orders. Ye gods, my mouth! Is there water?”
She handed him a wooden cup of spring water and watched while he drank it all, then refilled it from a skin lying nearby.
“How do you feel, other than your hand?”
“A little tired, but I’ll be all right. It’s just that the beastly thing aches so much.”
She got up and moved round to lift his hand out of the water and dry it off on a scrap of clean cloth. Her touch was so light that he felt no pain, not even in his splinted fingers.
“I’ve gotten the bindings wet,” she remarked, “so they’ll shrink as they dry and pull the splints tighter.” With a little frown she laid her hand on his and stared at the splints, her lips a little parted in hard thought. The pain seemed to run out of the wounds like spilled water. “There. Better?”
“Much! My thanks, truly, a thousand times over.”
“When it starts hurting again, come to me and I’ll do it again.” Gently she laid the hand down on a cushion and picked up the bowl of filthy herb water. “I’ll just throw this away.”
As she left, Aderyn heard her speak with someone; in a moment Halaberiel came in. The prince had traded his fine clothes for a pair of tight leather trousers, a plain shirt, and a heavy leather jerkin that looked as if it would turn a blade or two.
“Dallandra says you’ll recover. I’m glad to hear it.”
“My thanks, Banadar. I hear a lot of noise outside. Have more men ridden in?”
“Fifteen, that’s all. But we’ve got a good-sized warband now, and we may pick up a few more as we ride north. I imagine Melaudd’s scraping up every man he can, too. I’ve sent a scouting party ahead to the lake. The rest of us will leave tomorrow.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Are you sure? There’s no need . . . ”
“There is. I’m a herbman, aren’t I? If things come to battle, you’ll need me more than five swords.”
“Done then, and my thanks.”
As it turned out, Aderyn wasn’t the only healer and dweomermaster who insisted on riding with the army. That night, when Dallandra came in to tend his wounds again, she was close to tears.
“What’s so wrong?” Aderyn said.
“Nananna. She’s coming with you to the Lake of the Leaping Trout.”
“What? It’s going to be a forced march. She’ll get exhausted.”
“She’s exhausted already. It’s time. She’s going to die.”
Dallandra wept, her face running tears while her whole body shook in silent grief. When Aderyn scrambled to his feet and flung his good arm around her in a clumsy attempt to comfort her, she pulled away.
“It’s wrong of me to weep like this. It’s her time, and that’s that.” She busied herself in wiping her face on her sleeve. “I should accept it and be done with it.”
“Easy to say. Not so easy to do.”
She nodded a distracted agreement
“Are you coming with her?” Aderyn said. “And us, I mean?”
“Of course. Do you think I’d let her go alone?” She turned on him with an expression so fierce that he stepped back. “Oh, I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m all to pieces over this.”
“As well you might be. It’s all right. I was just worried about her.”
“So am I. I’m bringing Enabrilia along, too, to help me tend her. She’s sending the baby and her man off with the others. I’m sorry. Ado. I meant to tell you, earlier.”
He hugged it to himself like a treasure: she’d used his nickname, just casually, as if they’d known each other a good long time.
During the long, hard march to the lake, Aderyn traveled at the rear of the line with the two elven women. Thanks to Dallandra’s healing dweomer, his wounded hand bothered him hardly at all, but even if it had pained him, he would have ignored it in his concern for Nananna. Often he wondered if the old woman would live to reach the burial ground. In the mornings she mounted her horse easily enough, but after a few hours her energy would ebb, and she would ride hunched over, clinging to the saddle with both hands, her frail fingers like the talons of some ancient bird, gripping its perch in a desperate fear of falling. By their late camps she would be unable to dismount—Aderyn and Dallandra would lift her down from her horse and carry her like a child to her blankets. Since she could barely eat, she grew lighter every day, all bone and sheer will.
“I’ll live long enough to see the death-ground,” she would say, “Don’t fuss over me, children.”
In the end, she was right. Just at noon on a late autumn day, warm and hazy with false summer, Halaberiel led his army— because an army of some two hundred warriors it was by then—up a low grassy rise. Riding in the rear, Aderyn heard sudden yells. Since he couldn’t understand the words, he thought the men in the van were seeing the enemy, drawn up and ready for them.
“Stay here with Nananna!” he yelled at Dallandra.
He turned his horse out of line and rode hard, heading for the head of the line. As he rode, the shouts resolved themselves, then spread down the line of march: dal-en! dal-en! the lake! the lake! Just at the crest of the rise Aderyn came up to Halaberiel, who was calling for a temporary halt. Far down the green slope lay the silver lake, a long finger of water caught in a narrow valley pointing southeast to northwest. To the north a thick forest spread along the valley floor, the dark pines standing in such orderly rows that obviously they were no natural growth. Halaberiel waved his hand in their direction.
“The death-ground. And the trees of my ancestors.”
They set up camp that afternoon between the forest and the north shore of the lake in a grassy meadow clearly planned as a campground: there were stone fire pits at regular intervals and small sheds, too, for keeping firewood dry and food safe from prowling animals. After he helped Dallandra make camp—as best he could with his clumsy broken hand—Aderyn joined the council of war, consisting of Halaberiel and ten other elves, hastily elected squad leaders and temporary captains. For over an hour they argued strategy in Elvish while Aderyn tried to pick out the few words he knew; eventually he gave it up and drowsed. After the council disbanded, some of the men from the banadar’s personal warband joined them and, out of deference to the dweomerman, spoke in Deverrian. After more talk of arrows, Calonderiel said something so odd that it caught Aderyn’s attention.
“How many trees should we cut, Banadar?”
“I don’t know. A lot. Too many—ah, by the Dark Sun, far too many no matter how few it is! We need to go into the forest and see how much stacked wood’s there already, I suppose.” Halaberiel caught the puzzlement on Aderyn’s face and smiled, a painful twist of his mouth. “Come with us. There’s somewhat you need to see.”
In the last of the afternoon sun, they left the camp and crossed the neatly tended boundary of the forest into the dark and spicy-scented corridors of trees. In a clearing, not ten yards in, stood a structure of dry-walled stone and rough-cut timber about thirty feet on a side. When Halaberiel pushed open the creaking wooden door, Aderyn could see that it was stacked about a third full with firewood. Since by then he’d grown used to the parsimonious elven fires of dried horse dung and twigs, he stared at the wood as if it were a dragon’s hoard of gold and jewels.
“When one of the People dies,” Halaberiel said, “we take some of this seasoned wood to burn the body. Then we cut a tree to replace it and plant a new one. So, every time one of the People dies, a tree dies, too, and another is born. Normally, it all works out. Now, though, there’s going to be a war.”
“And you’ll need dry wood.” Aderyn felt abruptly weary. “Lots of it.”
“Just so. But it’s going to be a problem. Even if we start cutting tomorrow, the wood’s going to be green for a long time. Ah, by the gods of both our people! If this place weren’t so sacred, I’d just withdraw and let the rotten-hearted Hound-ears have the lakes.”
“Never!” Galonderiel’s voice was a snarl. “Banadar, how could you even say it?”
With a shrug Halaberiel shut the doors again and turned away, waving to the others to follow him. They were almost back to the camp when they saw Dallandra’s friend Enabrilia racing toward them, her long hair streaming behind her, her hands waving as she called out.
“Aderyn, Aderyn, hurry! Nananna’s dying!”
Aderyn was running before he quite realized it. Following Enabrilia, he dodged through the camp and came panting at last to Nananna’s tent. When he ducked through the flap, Enabrilia stayed outside. He could hear her ordering other people to stand back and keep quiet; then her voice faded away. Inside the tent, a pale dweomer light cast soft shadows. On a heap of leather cushions Nananna lay, her head cradled in Dallandra’s arms, her white hair unbound and streaming over her shoulders like a drift of snow. The old woman’s face was as pale and dry as parchment, the skin stretched tight over bone, her eyes huge and staring and dark as her cat-slit pupils strained to catch the fading light.
“Here’s Aderyn,” Dallandra whispered. “He’ll get out his medicines and help you.”
“There’s no need of that.” Nananna’s voice was a rasp of whisper. “Come here, child.”
Aderyn knelt in front of her and took one withered hand in both of his.
“Tell me, Aderyn, will you stay with us?”
“I will. My Wyrd lies here. I know that, even though I’m not sure what it is.”
“I know.” Her voice was faint, drawing him closer. “I’ve had one last dream. Teach my people, Aderyn. Teach them your dweomer to mend their shattered magicks. Teach them herb lore, too, to replace the physicians they lost so long ago.”
“Gladly, Wise One. Everything I know will be theirs.”
She smiled, a draw of bloodless lips, and rested for a long moment before she spoke again.
“Dalla, you shall teach him how to grow a pair of wings like yours. That will be his payment, to fly where he wills.”
“Done, then.” Dallandra’s voice was steady, but when Aderyn looked up, he saw tears streaming down her face. “Everything I know will be his.”
“Good.” Nananna’s breath came in a long sigh. “There must no secrets between you, none, do you hear? Only with the dweomer can our two races meet in peace, and naught must be held back.”
“Well and good, Wise One,” Aderyn said. “But what do you mean, grow wings?”
“Our dweomer has a strange trick or two to show you.” Nananna managed a smile. “Dallandra and I are shape-changers. Someday you, too, will learn to take on the body and flight of a bird—an owl, I think, to judge from those big eyes of yours.”
Aderyn caught his breath with a gasp.
“A thousand thanks, I swear I’ll be worthy of it, and only use it to serve the Light.”
“Good. Very well, then. I have set you both on your course. It’s time for me to depart. Child, let me lie down now.”
Dallandra settled her on the cushions and moved aside to kneel by Aderyn. For a moment Nananna lay still, gathering her energy; then slowly, softly under her breath, she began to chant, and her voice took on a last brief flower of strength.
“The river opens before me. I see the light upon the river. It is time to sail to the sea.”
When Dallandra sobbed aloud, Aderyn realized that she was too distraught to fulfill the ritual, and that he would have to take her rightful place.
“May the sun shine on you as you, sail the river,” he whispered. “May the current be fast.”
“The sun gathers around me. I step into the boat at the river-bank.”
“I see the silver river flowing west, the dark rushes and the boat, ready for you.”
As he spoke, Aderyn did indeed see in his mind the vision that they were building together as they went on speaking, describing the scene back and forth to each other. Wrapped in the golden light of the sun, the soul stepped into it—a pale flame of silver light, flickering at first, then towering up strong, far different from a human soul.
“Sun and, moon, shine upon her!” Aderyn cried out “Bring her to the sea of light, love, and life.”
The boat was drifting downriver, the silver flame glowing as she rode proudly on. He seemed to drift above it on a bird’s wings and see, in the gleaming sunset ahead, Others coming to meet them on a vast wave of light. Nananna rose free of the boat and flew to join them in a sudden blaze that left him blind. Blinking his physical eyes and shaking his head, he brought himself back to find her body lying dead on the cushions.
“It is over,” Aderyn called out. “She has gone to her true home.”
Like thunder came a booming hollow drumbeat in answer, three great knocks rolling over the camp. From outside he heard a shout, then voices raised in keening, a high and musical wailing for the dead. Aderyn slapped his open palm once on the ground to earth the final force. It was finished. Her trained soul had no need to hang around near its corpse for three days; she had left cleanly and gone free. Aderyn crossed the frail arms over the slender chest and closed the eyes that the soul no longer needed for seeing.
“We should burn the body soon,” Aderyn said. “Or do your people lay out the dead to weep over them?”
Dallandra looked at him, then threw back her head and howled. Tears ran down her face as she keened over and over, reaching up, pulling at her hair, unloosening the braids in a silvery spill of mourning, rocking herself from side to side so violently that Aderyn threw his arms around her and pulled her tight. She wept against him, sobbing like a child, her pale soft hair like a cloud over his arms, while outside the People sang in a long wail of grief.
“Hush, hush, it was time.”
As violently as it had come, her weeping left her. He could see her wrench her will under control as she looked up, her eyes as calm and gray as fog over sea.
“So it was. And someday we’ll meet again in some land or another.”
“Just so. Have faith in the Light.”
In simple exhaustion, Dallandra leaned her head against his shoulder. As Aderyn held her, his heart pounding, he realized that had fallen in love.
That night they burned Nananna and scattered her ashes under the trees of the sacred grove, in a spot where the moon fell through the branches and touched the ground with silver. On her grave Halaberiel swore an oath that never would the race of men defile this spot. All night, the People wept and sang songs of mourning, but when the sun rose, their grief was gone.
There was nothing left but to wait and see what move the Bear clan made next.

“Four hundred men!” Garedd said. “I never thought our lord could raise so many.”
“I told you that the men of the north had guts, didn’t I?” Cinvan said. “We’ll shove those stinking Westfolk off Lord Dovyn’s land, sure enough.”
They were standing on the roof of Tieryn Melaudd’s dun, ostensibly on guard duty, but they’d spent most of the afternoon leaning on the railing and watching the last preparations for the march west. In those days, four hundred men was a sizable army, and the ward below was a cram and clutter of horses, supply wagons, and men, the servants rushing back and forth loading provisions, the lords and riders standing around and talking over the campaign ahead.
“Tomorrow,” Cinvan said. “We ride tomorrow. Cursed well about time, too.”
“I’m just glad we didn’t draw fort guard.”
“Cursed right. The sooner we get the fighting started, the better.”
Garedd nodded his agreement, then went back to watching the bustle below. Cinvan walked across the tower roof and looked off to the west, where, far out of sight, the enemy lay, no doubt waiting for them. Normally, on a night before a march to battle, he would have been as eager as he was trying to act, but this time, he was troubled by thoughts that he could barely understand. As a matter of course he wanted battle glory, and he wasn’t afraid of battle pain—that wasn’t the problem. He was simply having trouble convincing himself that he hated the Westfolk as much as be should, considering that they were now his sworn lord’s enemies.
No matter how hard he tried to banish the memory, he kept thinking of Prince Halaberiel, demanding and getting mercy for Lord Dovyn. And what about his sister’s man, too? What if Gaverro was part of the elven warband? Cinvan cordially hated the elf, but what about his little daughter, so far away from her mother now? What if his own niece ended up an orphan after this fight? Back and forth Cinvan prowled, struggling with an utterly unfamiliar conscience. Finally, when the sunset was turning the west a gilded pink, he reminded himself that as an oath-sworn rider there was absolutely nothing he could do about anything except follow his lord’s orders.
“We’re off watch,” Garedd called out. “You coming? What’s wrong with you, anyway?”
“Naught. I’m on my way.”
Yet he paused for one last look to the west, and he shuddered, wondering for the first time in his life if he might die in a coming war. Then he shook the feeling off and clattered downstairs to the warmth and noisy cheer of the great hall.

Three days after Nananna died, the first scouts came in. Aderyn was having dinner with Prince Halaberiel when they arrived at the camp; at the sudden gleeful shouts the banadar left his meal and hurried to meet them, with Aderyn trailing after. Although Aderyn couldn’t understand the Elvish reports, in time Calonderiel remembered his manners and translated for him.
“The Bears are here, camping down on the strip of land that Dovyn wanted. They’ve sent out scouts of their own. Our men spotted a couple of them crashing their way through the woods and killed them. When they don’t come back, the Bears should be able to guess that we know they’re here. They let a third Round-ear live, so he could tell the Bears about the terrain. That was Halaberiel’s orders, you see, to let one live. Why, I don’t know.”
“How many men does Melaudd have?”
“ About four hundred.”
“Oh, ye gods.”
“Bad odds, sure enough.” Calonderiel paused, rubbing his chin. “Well, if we die defending the death-ground, it’ll have a certain poetry to it.” He caught Aderyn’s arm and began leading him away from the others. “Will you promise me somewhat? When the battle starts, you and Dallandra will be in camp, waiting to heal the wounded, right?”
“That’s our plan, truly.”
“Well and good, then. If our line breaks, and we’re all slain, will you make sure she gets to safety?”
“I will, I promise you on the gods of my people.”
“My humble thanks. I know she’ll never love me, but at least I can die content, knowing she’ll live.”
“You might not die at all, dimwit.” It was Jezryaladar, strolling over to them, “The banadar has. a trick planned. That was the reason they let one scout get away, as you might have known if you’d only listened more carefully.”
“With these odds, a trick’s not going to do much good, no matter how clever it is, and don’t you call me a dimwit.”
“My humble apologies.” Grinning, Jezryaladar sketched a bow. “And your intellect does seem to be catching fire, truly, if you realize that you’ve got no chance with Dalla.”
Calonderiel howled, and slapped him across the face so hard that he staggered back. Before he could recover or speak, Calonderiel had stalked off into the night. Jezryaladar rubbed his face and swore softly to himself.
“Are you all right?” Aderyn said.
“I am, and, you know, I deserved that. We’re all on edge tonight, I’m, afraid.”
“Do you think Cal’s right, and things are hopeless?’”
“I don’t, but blast me if I can tell why. I’ve just got this certainty deep in my heart: that somehow or other Halaberiel’s going to get us a victory out of this, but I doubt me if the banadar believes it himself.”

The valley that sheltered the Lake of the Leaping Trout fell steeply to the water along its eastern side, but on the western, gentle hills rolled down, forming a strip of fairly flat ground, at least twenty yards wide, often wider, edging the entire length of the lake. When the lone scout came back with the news that the Westfolk were camped up at the far end, Melaudd and his allies automatically decided to move up on this flat ground, where they could ride three and four abreast in battle order, safe from some sudden ambush.
“Not that there’s going to be an ambush,” Garedd remarked. “From what I hear, the Westfolk only have about eighty riders with swords.”
“That troubles my heart,” Cinvan said, and he meant it. “I hate to fight with this kind of odds on our side. I’m an oath-sworn warrior, not a pig butcher.”
“Well, Melaudd’s an honorable man. He won’t let all four hundred men charge a tiny warband like that. Probably just half of the army will ride in the first wave, and then we’ll see what happens.”
“That’s a little better, anyway.”
As the Bear clan’s sworn men, Cinvan and Garedd were in that first wave when the army rode out on the morrow. Four hundred horsemen jammed onto a narrow strip of ground tend to spread out, and the day was hot with the last of false summer, too, making the animals a little lazy and the men overconfident, with the end result that the line of march was over a quarter mile long as it wound its way toward the battle. At the time, since everyone assumed that the men in the rear would take no part in the fighting, it worried no one that they had no way of seeing what was happening in the van, if indeed anyone even thought of it. Cinvan and Garedd, riding some twelve ranks behind Tieryn Melaudd and Lord Dovyn, had as much of a view as they needed, especially since their route rose and fell to give them the occasional high ground. It was on one of these small rises, in fact, that they got their first good look at the elven line.
“Are they daft?” Melaudd said it so loud that Cinvan could hear him over the muffled clop of hooves on grass and the clinking of battle gear.
“Must be,” Garedd muttered in an answer unheard by their lord.
The elven swordsmen were dismounted. In regular ranks they stood some hundreds of yards ahead in a crescent formation, its open and embracing end toward the oncoming Bears. To one side of them was the lake itself, and on the other, a line of sharpened wooden stakes pounded at regular intervals into the slope, with the points slanting uphill.
“Clever, that,” Cinvan said grudgingly. “We can’t outflank them and ride them down.”
“Just so. But wait a minute, what’s that behind them? Looks like a crowd of women.”
“With stakes in front of them, too. What?! By all the ice in all the hells, what are those females doing there? Are they going to cheer their men on?”
“Savages, these people. That’s all I can say. Howling savages.”
“Look.” Cinvan pointed uphill. “There’s some more men, running into position, but they’re not swordsmen. Oh, ye gods, they’re carrying bows.”
“So what?”
All this time, the army had been traveling forward, a little faster now, the men pressing their horses to close the line and bunch together into a tight formation. Cinvan saw silver wink as Tieryn Melaudd blew his horn for his men to draw swords and ride ready to charge. Up ahead the elven line held steady, waiting, the swordsmen rock-still as the horsemen trotted forward, and forward again, until they were only some hundred yards from the mouth of the crescent. All at once a distant voice cried out in Elvish; at the signal it seemed that a wind swept through the waiting Westfolk and made the line shudder in a long flex like grass before a storm. Bows swung up, arrow points winked and glittered, there was a sound, a rushy hiss, a whistle, a flutter, as over a hundred cloth-yard arrows arced up high, then plunged down at full force into the mail-clad riders and their unarmored horses.
Screams burst out as horses reared and staggered, and men fell, some bucked off, others stabbed and bleeding right through their mail. Again came the hiss and rush of death; Lord Dovyn’s horn blew in a long sob for a charge, then cut off in mid-wail as a third rain stabbed into the ranks. Horses were panicking, and worse yet, falling; charging was impossible as the dead or merely wounded bodies of men and beasts alike began to litter, then block the road. Carrying an empty, blood-streaked saddle, young Lord Dovyn’s horse burst free of the mob at the van and staggered uphill. Again the arrows, ever again—screaming out every foul oath he knew, Cinvan tried to force his horse through the mob by sheer will to reach the wounded tieryn’s side. All around him riders were trying to break free, to turn out to go up the hill or splash through the shallow edge of the lake, but inexorably behind came the press of their own allies, who could see nothing of the slaughter ahead, who only knew by the sound of things that the Bear clan was in danger and who out of sheer force of a deadly honor were rushing forward to join the battle and thus to trap the men they were trying to save.
Again the arrows, again and again, and now the Westfolk were cheering and screaming. As he reached the front rank and caught up with Melaudd, Cinvan saw that the women he’d so despised were archers, too, raining death down as hard as their men as they aimed at the exposed positions to the flanks. He wanted to weep—there was no time—the sword in his hand was useless—he went on cursing as the arrows came flying, again and again and again.
“Cinno! They’re trying to desert us!” Garedd yelled. “The allies! They’re pulling back!”
Cinvan turned his head to shout an answer just in time to see Garedd die, spitted through the chest by a broad-head arrow that snapped the rings of his mail front and back. With a cough and bubble of blood he fell sideways, only to be trampled by the horses of other Bearsmen as they desperately tried to turn and flee. Hissing and whistling, the deadly rain came again. Cinvan’s horse screamed and reared, kicking, as hard iron grazed its flank, but it came down able to stand. Silver horns rang out: retreat, retreat! in a blare of hysteria. Still untouched, Cinvan wrenched his horse around and kicked it into one last burst of gallop. He could see Tieryn Melaudd’s broad back just ahead and followed it blindly, unthinkingly, right into the shallow water at the lake edge. Behind him he could hear a few more men cursing and yelling as they splashed after to skirt the battle and turn round the archers’ position.
“To their camp!” Melaudd screamed. “Trample it! Vengeance! To their camp!”
Then the tieryn laughed, a madman’s howl, a keen of grief, equally mad. Out of loyalty alone Cinvan followed his lord, while his mind screamed against the dishonor of such a low trick

As best he could with his left hand, Aderyn was organizing his packets of herbs to treat the wounded when he heard the horses coming. His first thought was that the elven side had lost and was retreating; then he heard the battle cries, Eldidd voices, shrieking in rage and hatred. Dallandra screamed and came running toward him.
“The Bears! They’re heading here!”
“Get into the forest. Run!”
She obeyed without a moment’s thought, racing through the tents. Aderyn started to follow, then turned back. If he abandoned his medicinals, wounded men would die. He could see the horses by then, a squad of some fifty out of an army of four hundred, heading in a cloud of dust straight for the defenseless camp. Distantly he could hear elven war cries, chasing after. He grabbed his heavy packs, then froze in sudden panic as the lead horsemen swung round and headed straight for him, swords flashing, slashing the tents, hooves pounding, kicking, trampling bedrolls and cooking pots alike in empty revenge. Aderyn knew he should run, could hear his own voice speaking aloud and begging himself to run, but the panic bit deep and froze the blood in his veins like snakebite as two horsemen charged, closer, closer, closer.
“Not the councillor!” A third horseman burst past a tent and swung by him at an angle to meet the others. “Turn off!”
Swords flashed; one of the charging men screamed and pitched over his horse’s neck.
“I said turn off!”
The second horseman did just that, dodging back the way he came, only to meet elven riders as Halaberiel led his swordsmen, mounted now, into camp. Dust plumed with the battle cries as the last few Bearsmen fled, screaming and cursing as they headed south. Aderyn’s rescuer turned his horse to follow, then pulled his blowing horse to a stop and slumped in the saddle. Aderyn ran to him just in time to catch him as he slid to the ground in a welling of blood. An arrow had pierced his mail just at the armpit, where the arteries were pumping his life away. Aderyn pulled off his pot helm and eased the padding back from his death-pale face: Cinvan.
“A councillor and an unarmed man,” the lad whispered. “Couldn’t let my lord disgrace himself a second time.”
Then he died with a stiffening and a shake of his whole body.
“Are you all right?” It was Halaberiel, rushing over, bloody sword in one hand, helm in the other, blood flecking his face and pale hair.
“I am. Are we retreating?”
“Retreating?” Halaberiel howled with laughter. “We’ve carried the day, man! We slaughtered the ugly lot of them!”
Aderyn wept like a child, but as he looked into Cinvan’s eyes, he wasn’t sure if his tears were joy or grief. In that last battle in the camp, fought against men sworn in their hearts to die and put an end to shame, the elven forces took casualties, but with only nine elven dead and some twenty wounded against the hideous human losses, Halaberiel was right enough to claim a complete victory. All that day Aderyn and Dallandra worked over the wounded with a swarm of volunteers to help them until the two of them were as gory as corpses themselves. By moonlight they swam in the lake shallows to wash themselves clean, then returned to the camp to find the dead laid out, ready for cremating on the morrow. Dallandra was so weary and heartsick that she crept into her tent to sleep without even a bite to eat, but Aderyn, who was used to battle wounds from his apprenticeship, joined in the victory feast. Since in honor of the battle Halaberiel decided that they could squander seasoned wood and build a proper bonfire, light blazed and danced through the camp along with music from drum and harp. Drunk and howling, the banadar’s own warband ran from group to group of celebrating elves, while Halaberiel himself sat off to one side on a pile of cushions and merely watched. When Aderyn joined him, Halaberiel handed him a skin of mead. Aderyn had a few cautious sips to ease his aching muscles.
“Over a hundred Round-ears escaped,” Halaberiel said abruptly. “All men from the rear of the line, so they were probably Melaudd’s allies rather than Bearsmen. Think they’ll raise an army and come back for revenge?”
“I don’t. Melaudd’s other son will rage and bluster and try to call in alliances, but who’s going to join him after this? And he himself can’t have more than a handful of men left—the ones that stayed behind on fort guard, no more.”
“Good. We’ll leave marking the death-ground for later, then. I want to ride before the winter rains come in earnest.”
“Indeed? Ride where?”
“South.” Halaberiel gave him a tight and terrifying smile. “To wipe out that settlement west of Cannobaen.”
Aderyn stared in helpless confusion.
“I’ve learned somewhat today,” Halaberiel went on. “These bows of ours are good for bringing down more than the gray deer. Never again am I going to creep around and humble myself to the dog-vomit Round-ear lords. Eldidd they may have, but no more.” He threw back his head and laughed, aloud. “Not one stinking cursed, inch more, by every god of both our peoples!” Then he let his face soften. “My apologies, Aderyn. I forget that I’m talking about your folk. There’s no reason for you to ride south with us when we go. You and Dallandra can just rejoin the alar and wait for us there.”
Aderyn rose, staring blankly into the leaping fire.
“Unless you’ll be leaving us?” Halaberiel got up to join him. “Never would any man of the People nor a woman either stop you if you choose to ride away, even if you go right to our enemies and warn them.”
Aderyn turned and walked off, heading blindly for the meadow beyond the campground, only to stop abruptly when he reached it. Out on the flat the warbands were dancing, winding in long lines through a scatter of tiny fires. The People danced single-file, arms held rigid shoulder-high, heads tossed back while their feet skipped and stamped through intricate measures in time to the drum and harp. Over the music wailed voices, half a keen of grief tonight, yet half a cry of triumph. When the revelers drew close he could see sweaty, impassive faces bob by in a surge of quarter tones, wavering and rising like the firelight; then with a sway and shudder the dancers spun past and were gone. Halaberiel came up behind him and laid a paternal hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” the warleader said. “But that dun has to be destroyed. We’ll spare the women and children, of course, and every man’s life that we can.”
“I know.” Aderyn found his voice at last. “What can I say? I’ve already seen my people muster an army to attack you, haven’t I? If it weren’t for your longbows, they would have slaughtered you like cattle.”
“Just so. But you didn’t ride west to watch men die, either. Do you want to go back to Eldidd? I’ll give you an escort if you do.”
For a moment Aderyn wavered. Even though he’d promised Nananna that he’d stay, he knew that she never would have held him to the promise under these circumstances, when the action at Cannobaen might lead to a full-fledged war. If it did, he belonged with his own kind, he supposed. His revulsion welled up, almost physical; his own kind, who broke their word and murdered and swaggered and enslaved and stole other men’s land all in the name of honor? He saw then that he could never go back to Deverry and take up some sort of community life, not even as a healer and herbman. But what else was left for him? The life of a hermit on the edge of the wilderness? He could see himself turning into a recluse, hoarding his secret knowledge for its own sake until the knowledge turned bitter and drove him mad. Halaberiel waited patiently, his eyes shadowed in the flickering light.
“You’re my people now,” Aderyn said. “Here I stay.”
Then he strode forward and took a place at the end of a line of dancers. Although the only steps he knew were from Deverry ring dances, they fit in well enough as the tune swept him away across the meadow. All through the long fire-shot night he swayed and bobbed to the wail and the pounding of the music until it seemed in his exhaustion that he had no body left at all, that he floated with the elven warriors far above the grassy meadow and the dark. Yet toward dawn, when he was stumbling toward his tent, Aderyn realized that he would stay behind when the warband rode south. There were other healers among the elves; one of them would have to take his place for the slaughter out west of Cannobaen.
Everyone slept late that day, then woke, cursing and weeping, to the grim task of burning their own dead and giving Melaudd’s army a decent burial in long trenches—after the bodies of men and horse alike had been stripped of every bit of metal, whether armor or tool. Out of respect for the prejudices of the noble-born, Halaberiel ordered Melaudd, his son Dovyn, and the two allied lords who’d died with them buried in a separate grave, though he did make sharp remarks about the foolishness of men who worried about their corpses. They packed and sodded a shallow mound over all the burials, too, and chipped the story of the battle onto a rough stone plaque. The job took days, and all during it, scouts rode out to the south and east to keep an eye on the Round-ears. Aderyn and Dallandra worked from dawn to dusk and then worked some more by torchlight as they tried to save the wounded horses as well as the wounded men. The elven casualties would mend fast, especially compared with the human beings, and without a trace of infection in all but the worst cases. The riders who had once ridden for Tieryn Melaudd were another matter entirely. Their worst cases all died; the rest were as sullen and misery-wrapped as only defeated men living on the charity of the enemy can be. Aderyn tended them alone to spare Dallandra the job.
“And I appreciate it, too,” she remarked one morning. “But what are we going to do with them? They’re prisoners, I suppose. Is Halaberiel going to use them to bargain terms or suchlike?”
“There’s naught he wants to bargain for, he says, so he’ll just release them.” Aderyn hesitated, studying her pale face and the dark shadows smudging under her eyes. “How do you fare, Dalla? You’ve been working yourself blind.”
“It keeps me from missing Nananna. And if I’m tired enough, I don’t have bad dreams.”
“Dreams about her, you mean?”
“Not truly.” She turned away and seemed to be studying the white clouds billowing up from the south. “I hope we leave here soon. Winter’s on the way, sure enough.”
Aderyn saw that he’d been shut out of some mental chamber as surely as if she’d slammed a door in his face.
When the camp did break, Halaberiel divided his forces. The least-skilled warriors escorted the prisoners south to the Eldidd border, where they’d leave them before turning west to rejoin their alarli. The best of the fighters went with the banadar on a forced march for the treaty-breaking dun beyond Cannobaen. Aderyn, Dallandra, the elven wounded, the injured horses saved from the battle, and a small escort of those archers who were simply sick of fighting headed back west to the place where they’d fit the rest of the alarli—left them years ago, or so it seemed to Aderyn, back in some other lifetime. The day they marched, it rained and it kept raining, too, a good long period of drizzle every day as wave after wave of clouds swept in, dropped their burden, then rolled on. Since with so many injured people and animals along, their small column moved a scant twelve miles a day, by the time that they did rejoin the alarli, those waiting for them were frantic for news. When they rode up, in fact, a huge wail of grief went up from the camp, because everyone assumed that they were the only survivors of some horrible defeat. Once the truth went round, everyone was as much furious as relieved.
“Isn’t that just like the wretched banadar!” Enabrilia snapped. “He never even sent them a message!”
“My apologies, truly,” Aderyn said. “If I’d known, I would have sent someone on ahead. We just assumed—”
“That Halaberiel had thought to tell them. I know, I know, Not your fault. The grazing’s getting really poor around here, by the way.”
“Well, we’ll move out tomorrow. The banadar wanted everyone to head for the winter camps. He said he’d find us there.”
“Good. With this rotten weather we’ve been having, winter can’t be far away.”
At that point Aderyn realized that she and the others in the camp were treating him as Halaberiel’s second-in-command and taking his orders without question, just as they took Dallandra’s. Whether he felt himself worthy or not, these people now considered him a Wise One.

Far to the west of Cannobaen the seacoast turns jagged, rising into precarious cliffs, reaching long fingers of hill out into the ocean, and, sinking into deep canyons where the winter rains flow into rocky riverbeds. These canyons provide some shelter from the constant wet winds, and here, at the time of which we speak, the People set up their semi-permanent winter tents, even though changing shifts of horsemen still had to ride guard on the grazing herds up in the exposed grasslands, because the fodder in the canyons themselves was sparse. Aderyn and Dallandra got their people settled safely in one of these camps some four nights before Halaberiel and the warband caught up with them. Exhausted, men and horses both dragged into camp late on a day turned foul and dark by a slantwise drizzle. Although there were eight fewer swordsmen than had ridden out, and some twenty wounded archers, even in their weariness they crowed with victory: in a surprise attack they’d wiped out the lord and his warband, then forced the dun to surrender. Aderyn was kept so busy tending the wounded that he didn’t see the banadar until late that night, when Halaberiel summoned him to a council in his tent. Although six elven leaders sat round the fire, Halaberiel spoke in Deverrian for Aderyn’s sake.
“We need your advice. Do you think the prince is going to send an army against us in the spring?”
“I doubt it very much. I suspect that Addryc is pouring vinegar into his vassals’ wounds right now, pointing out what happens to men who disobey their prince’s decrees. You’ve punished his rebels for him, and on top of that, you’ve gotten rid of that dun. Do you think he liked having men loyal to another overlord out on his western flank?”
“But that overlord was Addryc’s own father.”
“Among the noble-born that kind of sentiment counts for very little.”
Halaberiel considered for a long moment.
“Well and good, then,” he said at last. “I’ll send him some kind of formal apology the next time we meet a Round-ear merchant—I don’t trust the Eldidd lords enough to send them a messenger. And when spring comes we’ll ride to the lake and mark the death-ground. After all, it was part of the settlement I made with the prince, that I’d make sure the Round-ears saw me on my land.”
“Just so, and I’m willing to bet that it’ll settle the matter.”
“Good. I did send Addryc one message. I gave it to the refugees who were going to Cannobaen. Just a little note, truly, asking him what he thinks of the Westfolk’s style of justice.” He smiled gently. “It seems to be a good bit more rigorous than his own.”

---