"So tell me," she said, to get matters rolling along.
Captain Macumail winked and reached for the flat leather pouch he wore strapped over one shoulder. Tve some fascinating reading for you," he said as he removed a sheaf of papers from the pouch. "Have a look at this, if you will."
The Harper glanced at the parchment that Carreigh Macumail thrust into her hands. The captain had provided her with bogus documents several times before, and each one had held up to the closest scrutiny. This sample was especially well done, from the delicate Elvish script to a reproduction of the seal of the Moonflowers, Evermeet's royal family. It was a masterful forgery.
Arilyn let out a low whistle of appreciation. "Nice work."
"And don't I wish I could take credit for it." Macumail touched the creamy, luminous parchment with some-tiling approaching awe. That, my dear lady, is the genuine article, and it's addressed to you."
The half-elf stared at him. "You can't be serious."
"Read it," he urged. It looks serious enough to me."
"Retreat to the Island Home… find a welcome in the deep forests of Evermeet," Arilyn muttered, scanning the pronouncement and automatically translating from Elvish to the widely used trade tongue known as Common.
At length she lifted incredulous eyes to Macumail's face. "This is from Amlaruil of Evermeet. An official missive, and a commission naming me as her ambassador!"
"Aye, that it is," he agreed. "I took it from her hand myself. The Lady Laeral Silverhand was with the queen. There's a letter from her in that lot, as well."
Laeral Silverhand was one of the few magic-users whom Arilyn trusted and respected. Unlike most arcane scholars, who all too often seemed detached from the world around them and indifferent to the impact their spells might have on others, Laeral possessed a refreshing streak of practicality. A former adventurer and still a bit of a rogue, Lady Arunsun valued results over protocol. She and Arilyn got along just fine, and the half-elf was usually inclined to listen when Laeral spoke.
Still feeling stunned, Arilyn sorted through the pages until she found Laeral's letter. It urged her to act on Queen Amlaruil's behalf, to combine this mission with a task that would soon be offered to her by the Harpers.
The half-elf let the parchment sheets fall to the table. She leaned back and dug one hand into her hair as she considered this unexpected turn of events. In some ways, this was the answer she had been looking for. She didn't believe the forest elves would entertain the idea of compromise, but maybe-just maybe-they would consider retreating to Evermeet.
But the question remained: Why send her? Why had she been chosen as an emissary of Evermeet, she who had no claim to her elven heritage but the moonblade strapped to her side?
A small, cynical smile tightened the half-elf s lips. Perhaps that was it, Arilyn thought. Perhaps the royal family had finally contrived an honorable way to reclaim Amnestria's sword!
They'd wanted it some thirty years ago, when Arilyn's mother-the exiled princess Amnestria-had been murdered in distant Evereska, leaving her moonblade to her half-elven daughter. Amnestria's family had come to her funeral-from where, Arilyn had no idea-but she remembered with knife-edged clarity the elves' chagrin when they learned of this bequest, their impassioned claims that only a moon elf of pure blood and noble heart could carry such a sword. Although Amnestria's family had discussed the matter in Arilyn's presence, not one of them had a single word to spare for the grieving child-not one word of comfort or even of acknowledgment. The royal elves had worn mourning veils that obscured their identities. They had not given Arilyn so much as a glimpse of their faces. Now, all of a sudden, this aloof, faceless queen decided to grant Arilyn the honor of a royal mission? One that was most likely impossible and, Arilyn noted cynically, possibly suicidal?
In truth, the half-elf didn't believe the elven queen was deliberately contriving her death. But Arilyn could not fathom what the reasoning behind this commission might be, and not knowing-combined with her painful memories-made her deeply angry.
Arilyn reached for the royal commission. Slowly, deliberately, she crumpled up the parchment into a tight wad and dropped it into her half-empty wine goblet.
**I trust you will be so kind as to relay my answer to the queen," she said in a parody of a courtier's respectful tones.
"That's your final word?" Carreigh Macumail asked, dismay written across his bewhiskered countenance.
The half-elf leaned back and folded her arms over her chest. "Actually, I have a few more thoughts on the matter. Repeat them or not, as you choose." She then proceeded to describe what the elven queen could do with her offer, at length, in precise detail, and vividly enough to drain the color from the captain's ruddy face.
For a long moment the sea captain merely stared at Arilyn. His barrel chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh. "Well, it's been said there's no wind so strong but that it can't change direction," he observed. "Mist-Walker will be in port for a ten-day or two, should you decide you want to do business."
"I wouldn't lay odds on it," Arilyn advised him as she rose to her feet. She tossed a pair of coins onto the table to pay her portion of the tab and then stalked off.
Macumail watched the half-elf go. A tipsy female sailor rose to block Arilyn's path, her hand on her dagger's hilt and a leer of challenge twisting her lips. The half-elf did not even slow down. She backhanded the woman, who spun on one heel and fell face first onto a small gaming table. Dice and half-emptied mugs went flying, and the sharp crack of splintering wood mingled with the startled oaths of the interrupted gamblers. The woman lay groaning amid the wreckage of the table. Arilyn did not bother to look back.
The captain's gaze shifted from the downed sailor to the wine-soaked parchment. He regarded the ruined document with regret. Then he sighed again and took a duplicate copy from his bag.
Upon Laeral's advice, the elven queen had had five copies of Arilyn Moonblade's commission made. Laeral had warned both queen and captain that persistence would most likely be in order.
After witnessing the Harper's first rejection, Carreigh Macumail sincerely hoped five copies would be enough!
Three
The baying of the hounds was louder now, and the dogs were so close that the fleeing elves could almost smell the fetid scent of their fur and feel their frenzy. They were like humans, these dogs, hunting ____________________ not for food and survival, but for the
sordid pleasure of the kill.
It was not the first time such animals had been brought into the forest. Great mastiffs, they were, so powerful that two or three of them might bring down a full-grown bear, yet fleet enough to run down a deer. They crashed through the underbrush on massive paws, slavering like moon-mad wolves as they closed in on their prey.
The elven leader, a young male known as Foxfire for his russet-colored hair, shot a grim look over his shoulder. All too soon, the hounds would have them in sight. The humans would not be far behind. It took little skill to follow the trail of crushed foliage the hunting dogs left behind like a thick and jagged scar on the forest.
Foxfire was not certain which of the intruders was the less natural-dog or master. He'd seen what the mastiffs could do to a captured elf. Gaylia, a young priestess of his tribe, had been herded by such dogs into the iron jaws of a foot-hold trap and then worried to death. The humans had left her torn and savaged body there for the elves to find. Left behind, too, were the tracks that told Foxfire the humans had stood by watching as their dogs killed the helpless priestess.
"To the trees," Foxfire ordered tersely. "Scatter, but do not let them follow you. Meet me at dusk in the ash grove."
The elves, seven of them, all armed with bows and quivers full of jet-black arrows, scrambled up the ancient trees as lightly as squirrels. There they would be invisible to the eyes of the humans and beyond the snapping jaws of the humans' four-legged counterparts. They disappeared into the thick canopy, making their separate ways from tree to tree.
Only Foxfire stayed behin
d, feeling uncomfortably like a treed raccoon as he waited for the human hunters to come to the call of their hounds. The mastiffs circled the giant cedar, baying and snarling and leaping against the massive trunk. Foxfire was fully aware of the danger of his position, and never would he have asked this of any elf under his command. There were answers, however, that he must have.
The elf waited patiently until the humans came into view. There were twenty of them, but Foxfire had eyes for only one. He knew this human by his massive size, by the dark gray cloak that flowed behind him like a storm cloud, and by the iron-toed hoots he wore. The elf had found large, unusual boot prints very close to the place of Gaylia's death-bloodless prints upon blood-soaked earth, prints that indicated the man had stood by and watched the elf woman's horrible fate. And after a battle that had cost the lives of two elven fighters, Foxfire had glimpsed the swirl of that dark caps, as the human shouldered the body of one of the elf warriors and bore him away-for what purpose, Foxfire could not begin to guess. He knew only that in this man the elves of Tethir had a formidable and evil enemy.
Carefully he committed the man's face to memory. It was a face easily remembered, a visage that matched the grim deeds of its owner: black-bearded, with a scimitar of a nose and eyes as cold and gray as the snow clouds that gathered around the peaks of the Starspire Mountains.
The man stalked toward the yapping hounds, his face a mask of fury. He kicked out hard, and his iron-clad boot caught one of the mastiffs in the ribs. The force of the blow lifted the large dog off its feet. It fell heavily on its side and lay there, kicking and yelping piteously. The others cringed away with then- tails tucked tightly between their legs.
"Useless curs!" the man swore and kicked out again. This tune the dogs mustered enough wit to dodge.
"Set the tree afire, Bunlap?" one of the men inquired. "That'd smoke the long-eared bastards out!"
The leader whirled on the fighter. "If you had the sense the gods gave a dung beetle," he said coldly, "you would know that the elves are long gone. They leap from tree to tree like Chultan monkeys."
"What, then?" another man demanded.
The man called Bunlap shrugged his massive shoulders. "We call the hunt a loss. Too bad. That farm south of Mosstone-the one that grows pipeweed-would've paid well for more wild-elf slaves! Best workers they've got, or so the man tells me."
"Seems to me those scrawny elves wouldn't be worth the trouble it takes to break 'em," observed another man, a thin, rangy fellow who carried the bow of a forest elf. Foxfire's eyes narrowed as he took note of that bow. He had little doubt how the man had obtained it, for no elf would part willingly with such a treasure.
Bunlap responded to the archer's comment with an ugly smile. "Not if you've a taste for that sort of thing."
It was all Foxfire could do to keep from sending a storm of black arrows into the twisted and murderous humans. He could certainly do it; he was accounted the finest archer in the Elmanesse tribe. And surely, the world would be a better place without such foul creatures! Yet he could not, for he was a leader among his people and had more important things to consider than his own outrage. The humans were harrying the elves. This was nothing new, but there was a taunting quality to many of the attacks that puzzled Foxfire. It was as if these men were goading the forest folk, prodding them toward… Toward what, he could not say.
"Leash the dogs, and let's head out," Bunlap ordered.
Foxfire waited until the mastiffs had been secured and the men began to retrace their steps out of the forest. As he'd expected, the tall leader took his place in the rear, as was his custom. Foxfire noted that Bunlap was more alert and observant than most of his comrades. This made the man all the more dangerous.
High overhead, the elf followed, creeping along the branches and slowly, silently working his way down toward the humans. The heavy-footed tread and the constant, boasting chatter of the men made his task an easy one.
When the moment was right, Foxfire dropped lightly to the ground behind Bunlap. The man responded to the faint sound with a startled oath, but before he could turn around Foxfire seized a handful of the human's black hair and reached around to press a bone knife to his throat. Fire-forged weapons were rare in the forest, but this knife was long and boasted a keen, serrated edge. The man seemed to understand that the weapon was equal to the task, for he slowly lifted both hands into the air.
"You are far from home," Foxfire observed as calmly as if the two were sharing wild-mead and discussing the weather.
At the sound of his voice-a sound too musical to have come from a human throat-the other fighters whirled. Their eyes went wide with fear and wonder at the sight of the copper-skinned elf who had appeared in their midst. None of them had ever seen a wild elf up close-at least, not one that was alive and unharmed- and this creature possessed a deadly beauty that compelled both dread and awe.
"Hold fast the dogs and leave your weapons where they are," the elf advised them. "This is a matter between this man and me-a council of leaders, if you will."
"Do as he says," Bunlap said coolly. "You speak the Common tongue," he observed, his voice as steady as the elf s.
"I am Elmanesse. My tribe used to trade with your people until the risks became too high. But this is not a time for the telling of old tales. Why have you come to the forest?"
"Justice," the man said in a grim tone.
Foxfire blinked. On the lips of such a man, the lofty declaration seemed strangely out of place. "How so?" the elf demanded, giving his knife a little twitch to speed the man's reply.
"Come now," Bunlap chided him. "Do you claim to have no knowledge of the attacks your people have made upon human caravans and settlements? The looting, the helpless people they have slain?"
This cannot be," the elf protested, although in truth he was not entirely certain it might not be so. The vast forest was home to several small groups, and there was little contact between them. It was entirely possible that some of the more reclusive and mysterious elven clans had decided to take up arms against the humans.
The human leader seemed to sense the doubt in Foxfire's voice. "I myself have done battle with wild elves," Bunlap asserted. "I stood beside the farm folk they tried to massacre. Some of the surviving marauders have been put to work, to take the place of the men they felled with their accursed black arrows!"
"Forest People, enslaved?" the elf demanded incredulously. Even among the lawless humans of Tethyr, there were strictures against such things!
"A life for a life," Bunlap said coldly. "Justice comes in many forms."
For a moment Foxfire stood silent as he tried to assimilate the possibilities. But even if the man's claim of elven attacks held some truth, they did not begin-to explain all the things this particular human had done. Nor could Foxfire overlook the fact that these men had come to the forest for the purpose of taking more elves as slaves, perhaps to satisfy this bizarre and illogical code of justice. Was it possible these humans actually believed that the death or enslavement of one elf could redress the grievances caused by another?
By the sky and spirits, he swore silently, if the forest People thought that way, they would slay every human who ventured within reach of their arrows! In truth, some elves did think along these terms, and at the moment Foxfire was less inclined to disagree with them than usual.
"My tribe will not stand by to see the People enslaved. If you come to the forest again, my warriors will be here to meet you," Foxfire said softly. "I myself will be watching for you. I know your face, and I have seen your mark. Know me by mine."
The bone knife slashed up, tracing a tightly curved arch through Bunlap's thick beard and up onto his cheek. With astonishing speed, the elf changed the direction of the cut, curving the knife down and then lifting it for another deft, curving slash. The man let out a roar of pain and rage as he clapped one hand to his bleeding face. Bringing his other arm up, he lashed back hard with his elbow.
And met nothing but air. The elf was gone.
"Release the dogs!" Bunlap yelled, and the mop. hastened to obey, although they suspected it would do no good. The animals dutifully put their noses down and circled and sniffed, but the wild elf had well and truly disappeared.
The man with the elven bow pulled a wad of dirty cloth from his pack and offered it to the leader. Bunlap pressed the makeshift bandage to his cheek and glared into the silent forest.
"Think he took the bait?" the archer ventured.
A slow, grim smile spread across the leader's face, made ghastly by the smears of drying blood. "I would wager on it. They will come, and we'll be ready to greet them. But mark me: that elf is mine."
"I thought you wanted to stir up their war leaders, not take 'em out!"
Bunlap turned his cold gaze upon the archer. "My dear Vhenlar, this is no longer merely a business venture. This has become personal."
The archer blanched. He'd heard those words before, many times, and each time as a prelude to serious trouble. The first incident had been several years back, when he and Bunlap were soldiers stationed in the fortress of Darkhold. They'd been assigned to escort an envoy from Zhentil Keep through Yellow Snake Pass. One evening he, Bunlap, and one of their charges had entered into a discussion of the dark gods, one that quickly degenerated into a quarrel. Bunlap "took matters personally" and beat his opponent nearly to death. When they learned that the injured man was a high-ranking priest of Cyric, the new god of strife, they did not stay around to see how the situation played out. They'd headed south until Bunlap thought them beyond the reach of the Dark Network, settled down in Tethyr, and built a mercenary band of considerable strength. But though Bunlap might have left the Zhentilar behind, his goals and methods had not changed for the better. In truth, there were times when Vhenlar dearly wished he could be rid of the man. His own love of profit,
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