The girl remained silent, evidently considering the question. Finally she nodded. "All right, we'll try it your way. I'll wait for you to call out before I start shooting."
Daried nodded once and slipped away into the forest-shadow. He circled away from Nilsa's position, moving slowly and carefully. He did not know whether the girl's shooting would help him at all, so he determined to dismiss it from his plan. If she managed to injure or kill some of his foes, well, good. If not, even wild arrows fired into the fight would add to the chaos he intended to create in the Chondathans' camp.
When he reached a good position, he paused and whispered the words of a few spells to aid him in the fight-a spell of supernatural agility and quickness, and another that would ward him from enemy blades. A bladesinger's training combined the study of magic with the study of swordplay, and Daried was a competent wizard as well as an accomplished swordsman. He would need both arts for the task ahead of him.
Guarded by his enchantments, Daried stole closer to the camp and approached the first two sentries. They stood in the trees, well away from the firelight, about twenty feet apart. Again, he found that he had to give the mercenaries marks for experience. A single sentry would have been easy to neutralize in silence, but two close enough to see each other but disciplined enough to remain apart were much harder to deal with. For this, he would need magic.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Daried waited for the next faint flicker of light in the distance, silently counting for the thunderclap. Then, as the low rumble washed over the forest, he quickly spoke the words of another spell, using the thunder to drown out the sounds of the arcane syllables. The nearer sentry heard something anyway and started to turn toward him, but then his chin drooped to his chest and he folded to the ground, fast asleep. The other sentry simply sank down, his back to a tree.
He probably could have left them, since it was not likely they would wake on their own for a time, but the approaching storm concerned him. A loud thunderclap might rouse the sentries again, and he did not want to have to elude them when he left the camp. So Daried bound and gagged both men thoroughly before moving on to the next two sentries. Killing men in their sleep was a hard thing to do, even men such as these.
The next two sentries were a little less wary then their fellows. A thick stand of trees stood between them, so that it was hard to keep each other in view. Daried simply distracted the one on the left with a magic word and a nick of his hand, creating a rustle in the underbrush near the guard's feet. While that man looked down and backed up a step, Daried glided close behind the second and killed him with a sword-thrust through the throat. It was not a nobly struck blow, but he reminded himself that these Chondathans were murderers and robbers. He'd seen what they had left behind in the farmsteads they'd plundered south of Glen. The man at his feet died far better and more swiftly than many of the mercenaries' victims.
"Roldo?" called the first man. "Did you hear something?"
The remaining sentry took two steps toward the place where his fellow had fallen, and Daried stepped out of the shadows and whispered another spell.
"Swift and silent," he hissed, "run back to the Ashaba and keep watch over the crossing there."
The big human stared at him slack-jawed for three heartbeats, caught in the power of Daried's spell. Then he nodded vigorously and hurried off into the night, vanishing into the forest. The Ashaba was better than ten miles off in that direction. Daried wondered whether the man would reach the river before the enchantment wore off, or if he would come to his senses somewhere in the middle of the forest.
Four sentries dealt with; the two on the other side of the camp would not be relevant to Daried's efforts. A few fat, warm raindrops began to patter down in the branches overhead. It seemed likely that there would be a downpour within a matter of minutes, but the bladesinger decided that heavy rain would only help him. He ignored the raindrops and glided toward the firelight.
A couple of the Chondathans still sat up, talking with each other near the fire. Better than a score of their fellows lay scattered about the clearing, lying on top of their bedrolls since it was a warm night. Among the sleeping men were three big war-hounds with iron-spiked collars, drowsing with their masters.
The hounds were dangerous… but if things went as he planned, they would not trouble him much.
He took a deep breath, and waited for another rumble of thunder. It was not long in coming, and as the treetops sighed and shook in the warm night wind, he whispered the words of an invisibility spell. Then he advanced into the camp, picking his way past the sleeping men all around his feet. The captain slept in a tent apart from his men. It was a surprisingly large and well-made pavilion that must have weighed hundreds of pounds. No elf leader would have burdened himself with such an ostentatious shelter, but Daried supposed that the mercenary captain had likely taken it from some pillaged enemy camp long ago, and had his men carry it along to put on airs of nobility.
Daried slipped into the tent, steel in his hand. He could not help disturbing the flap that served as the tent's entrance, but he did it in silence. Heaps of plunder filled the inside of the tent, the wreckage of dozens of lives ground out in the last few days by the mercenary band. The bladesinger moved past the sacks and bundles. A small partition separated the sleeping area. Grimly, he used the point of his sword to edge the drape out of his way.
The mercenary captain sat facing him behind a small camp desk, his bared sword leaning against the table. He glanced up at the motion of the drapery and frowned, perhaps puzzled by the strange motion of the partition. His eyes gleamed oddly in the faint light of an oil lamp.
On the folding cot, the Morvaeril moonblade sat in its human-made scabbard of red leather. Rain began to patter more heavily against the heavy canvas of the tent, and the air smelled of distant lightning.
Daried smiled coldly and returned his attention to the mercenary leader. The fellow glanced over at the ancient sword lying on the cot, and glanced back in Daried's direction. A tiny motion of his eyebrow betrayed a hint of surprise.
He sees me, Daried realized. He sees me!
Whether the captain knew some magic of his own, or possessed some enchanted token that allowed him to discern magical invisibility, Daried did not know. But now he had to strike and strike quickly, because his advantage was gone. In the space of a heartbeat he leaped forward, his swordpoint aimed at the lean man's heart.
But the human captain reached the same conclusion Daried did, and just as quickly. He seized his own sword and with one powerful shove flung the light camp desk into Daried's path. Daried tried to jump over the desk but failed, and found himself sprawling at the feet of the man he'd intended to kill. And his invisibility-spell faded, spoiled by the attack he'd just launched against his foe.
"To arms! To arms!" the captain shouted to his men outside. "We are attacked!" Then he stabbed viciously at Daried, his sword darting and striking like a silver shadow in the darkened tent.
Daried's magical agility saved his life. He threw himself aside, fetching up against the foot of the cot.
"Damn it all to Lolth's black hells!" he growled in Elvish. Then he rolled back in the other direction and threw out a hand to lever himself to his feet, only to snatch it back a moment later as a small viper with jade-green scales struck at his outflung arm. The little serpent's eyes glittered with unnatural intelligence, and it hissed at him maliciously.
A wizard's familiar, the elf realized. That explained much. The leader of the mercenaries was more than he seemed, and Daried would have to live with the consequences of his unfounded assumptions.
"I do not know what your quarrel with me is, elf, but you won't have long to regret your mistake," the human snarled.
He pressed close and slashed at Daried's legs, but Daried finished his roll and got to his knees and one hand. The bladesinger snapped out the words of a spell of his own, a burst of eldritch fire that seared everything around him. The viper recoiled and slithered into the pi
le of loot it had been hiding in, and the captain roared in rage and staggered back.
Finally free to stand, Daried took a deep breath and threw himself into the state of perfect clarity, of action without thought, that marked the bladesinger's dance. He moved his swordpoint through the familiar passes, and arcane symbols formed in his mind. He retreated out of the mercenary's tent, since he fought best with plenty of clear space, and he would not want to be trapped in the tent between the captain and his warriors.
He emerged into a scene of complete chaos. All around him men struggled to their feet and groped for weapons, shouting to each other. More than a few simply stared in astonishment as he appeared from their captain's tent, an elflord in golden mail whose sword whirled about in a dizzying weave of bright steel.
Only three steps in front of him a scar-faced swordsman with rotten teeth glared at Daried in dull fury. "What in the Nine screaming Hells is going on here?" he roared, sweeping a curved tulwar from his belt.
"The elf tried to kill Lord Sarthos!" someone cried.
The scarred swordsman grunted and threw himself forward. But Daried barked out another spell and shrouded himself in a brilliant aura of blue flame. He reached out to take the scarred man with a thrust to the throat. Like a zephyr of white steel and deadly magic, he danced across the clearing. Lost in the bladesong he hardly knew what he was doing. He slipped into the space between eyeblinks, sharpening his perceptions until it seemed that raindrops sank slowly through the night and lightning-swift swordstrokes were languid and slow.
He cut the legs out from another man and turned to find a war-hound bounding at him. He crouched and readied himself to let the animal have his forearm instead of his throat, but the animal shied away from the magical flame wreathing his body. It growled savagely, filling the night with its barking, but it dared not come any closer. A mercenary nearby was not so lucky. He managed to land a shallow cut across Daried's shoulderblade, but Daried's flame-aura returned the blow with searing heat. Wrapped in blue flame, the man stumbled screaming into the night.
This might work after all, Daried thought. Then the captain-Lord Sarthos, he guessed-came out of his tent. Snarling his own dire invocation, Sarthos threw out his hand and scoured Daried with a bolt of crawling black power. Even in his trance Daried cried out in pain as his side sizzled and smoked, and the strength drained away from his limbs. He stumbled into the path of a grizzled old sergeant with a poleaxe, who nearly took his arm with a powerful overhead chop, and a small wiry man with a pair of curved daggers got close enough to slash him badly across the midsection before the flame-shield drove him back, blinded and screaming.
I have to deal with the wizard, he decided. With the right spell the mercenary lord might immobilize or cripple Daried outright, and he would be cut down in a heartbeat.
Fighting through his exhaustion, Daried threw himself toward the enemy lord. He thrust at the wizard's midsection, but the man easily beat his blade aside with his own.
"Don't use your swords, lads!" Sarthos called to his men. "The elfs guarded by a fire-shield. You'll need spears or arrows for this work."
Stepping back from Daried, the mercenary lord snatched a wand from his belt and riddled Daried within the armor over his heart. Daried stumbled and went to one knee, his bladesinger's trance finally broken by the pain and fatigue. Only his fire-shield served to protect him, and as he looked up, he saw a half-dozen mercenaries approaching with long spears to transfix him where he kneeled.
I underestimated them, he realized. I thought my skill and magic would be enough.
He looked back to the Chondathan lord, who watched him with his teeth bared in a bloodthirsty grin. "You're not as good as you thought, are you?" Sarthos sneered. He gestured to the spearmen.
An arrow flashed in the firelight and struck the pock-faced lord on the right side of his chest, spinning him to the ground. Then another one took a spearman approaching Daried in the eye, dropping the warrior like a puppet with its strings cut. A third arrow lodged in the small of the sergeant's back, driving him to the ground with a strangled cry.
"Archers!" shouted one of the men. "Archers!"
"She shoots as well as she said," Daried murmured in surprise.
He glanced at Lord Sarthos, who sat up on one elbow, grimly wrestling with the arrow in his chest as blood streamed from his wound. The man's breastplate had taken much of the blow, but he gasped with pain and paid no attention to the bladesinger. Other men thrashed into the woods, seeking to flush out their attackers and get out of the firelight.
The Morvaeril moonblade was only fifteen feet away. But it would cost him his life to try for it. With a snarl of frustration, Daried wove a spell of darkness over the camp, plunging the clearing into utter blackness. Then, allowing his fire-shield to gutter out, he staggered to his feet and groped his way out of the mercenaries' camp.
The ill effects of the mercenary lord's black ray seemed to wear off with time. By the time Daried reached a good spot half a mile north of the Chondathan camp, he no longer shook with complete exhaustion. His wounds troubled him, of course, but in a few moments of work he bound the worst of them and decided that he could fight again if he had to. Moving a few yards off the trail, he settled in to wait and watch, wrapped up in his gray-green cloak with little more than his eyes showing in the darkness.
The thunderstorm slowly moved off, leaving the forest dripping wet but noticeably cooler in its wake. It was past midnight, and the moon was sinking quickly toward the west. Another elf might have replayed the skirmish in the camp in his head while he waited, but Daried was not given to regret or wishful thinking. What was done was done; there was no point in wishing otherwise. He would not underestimate his adversaries again.
He more than half-expected the whole band of human sellswords to come crashing down the path at any time, but to his surprise, they did not pursue him. Perhaps they thought there were more elf archers roaming around in the night. With the failing moonlight and the overcast skies, he found it dark indeed under the trees. To human eyes it was likely pitch-black, and even the most bloodthirsty mercenary would think twice about blundering around blindly in the dark.
An hour passed before he began to worry about Nilsa.
At first, he told himself that she was simply circling away from the trail, swinging wide of the camp so as to throw off pursuit. That could easily turn a ten-minute trot into the work of a long, slow hour. But as one hour stretched toward two, he found it harder to remain patient. Did she simply become lost in the darkness? he wondered. Her woodcraft seemed better than that, but in the confusion of the fight at the camp, who knew? Or had she fallen into the hands of the mercenaries? If that was the case… Daried sincerely hoped that she'd forced them to kill her instead of taking her captive. He had an idea of what men such as the Chondathans were capable of, and death would have been preferable.
He was wrestling with the question of whether to head back to the camp when she finally appeared, picking her way down the trail. Every few steps she paused and spent three heartbeats listening and peering into the woods.
When she drew closer he stood and called softly, "Here, Nilsa."
The girl started. "You scared me half to death, elf," she muttered. She hurried off the trail and joined him in the shadows.
"Where have you been? What happened?" he demanded.
"I was going to ask you the same thing. You were supposed to run off the whole camp. That was your plan, I seem to recall."
"I did not expect to meet with a competent wizard. Things would have gone differently otherwise."
"If you say so." She snorted softly in the darkness. "After you cast that darkness spell, I tried to lay low and wait out the Chondathans. But they turned loose their hounds, and I realized I couldn't stay hidden for long. So I shot the two dogs that were left, and evaded the men by circling way to the south before doubling back in this direction."
Daried stared at her in the shadows. He knew more than one skilled elf warrior
who wouldn't have had the nerve to he still that close to so many enemies, or the cold calculation to kill the hounds in order to stymie pursuit.
"I misjudged you," he murmured aloud. "I am sorry that I did not think better of you. Or our adversaries, for that matter."
"You don't know the half of it," Nilsa answered. "When I circled to the south, I came across a very large camp, a little less than a mile farther down toward Battledale. Chondathans, just like the others, but I'd guess their numbers at three hundred, perhaps more."
"Three hundred?" Daried repeated. His heart grew cold. "Are you certain?"
"I didn't count heads, but I know what I saw. Does the exact number matter?"
Daried shook his head. A couple of hours ago he would have dismissed the girl's claim as wild exaggeration, but he was coming to learn that he could take her at her word.
"If you are right, they must be on their way north to invade the western portions of the dale, behind our defenses along the Ashaba. The marauders that came to Glen were scouting the route for the main force."
"That's what I make of it, too," Nilsa said. She sighed and looked away. "Naturally, they indulged themselves in any murder or mayhem they liked while they were at it. Glen just happened to be in their way."
Daried quickly gathered his belongings. "Come. We have not a moment to lose," he said. "By daybreak these woods will be swarming with the Sembians' mercenaries."
He hurried back to the trail, Nilsa a couple of steps behind him, and set off at once. By his reckoning they had twenty-five miles, perhaps a little more, back to the human village. The bladesinger was tired and his wounds felt stiff, but with luck he thought he might be able to reach his warriors sometime in the late afternoon. The question was how much the half-human girl would slow him down. If she couldn't keep up, he didn't see any alternative to leaving her behind and making the best speed he could alone.
He took a quick glance over his shoulder to see how Nilsa was faring. She jogged along a short distance behind him, a sheen of sweat over her brow, but her breathing was easy and even.
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