"Ancestors!" he breathed, in profoundest relief. The men said nothing; they simply guided their weary beasts back towards him until once again they formed a coherent group.
"Everyone all right?" he asked, as their horses stood with heads hanging, and flanks a-foam with sweat. Only the mules looked unperturbed.
"I've been worse," replied Noet laconically. "Gonna kill whoever designed this saddle with a pommel right where it don't belong, though."
Noet did look a little pale, and in a certain amount of pain. Kyrtian winced, and hastily changed the subject. "Does anyone know where we are?"
"We bolted in the general direction of where we wanted to go," reported Shalvan. "So the stream should still be that way—" he pointed with his chin, rather than his hand. "We might as well get on with it, the horses aren't going to be the better for standing in the cold and rain, and they're going to need water after this."
Once again they formed up, but this time not in single file since they weren't following a trail; Halean rode on the right flank and Resso on the left. And, not too much later, they came to the stream, much to everyone's relief.
There wasn't much time before nightfall, and with the overcast skies and the forest all around, darkness would come soon. They quickly made camp, with Kyrtian tending to the fire-making chores. They pitched their three tents in a triangle, with the fire in the center. Once the tents were pitched and Resso took up the cooking, the rest gathered more firewood while Kyrtian ran a circle of mage-lights around the tents to stand between them and whatever was in the woods or across the stream. As firewood was brought in, he stacked it near enough to the fire that it stood a decent chance of drying out some before it was used.
The last thing he did was to run a string hung with small bells around the trunks of trees beyond the glow of the magelight at
about ankle-height. Anything that brushed against that string would set the bells jingling.
"Do you think we need to worry about something coming in from above?" he asked Noet, with a frown of concern.
Noet glanced up. "Not through branches that thick," he replied. "I wouldn't think, anyway."
Darkness, as Kyrtian had anticipated, came quickly. They tethered the horses—and tethered the mules to the horses— within the circle of magelight. The rain actually stopped once darkness fell, and as they gathered around their fire, Kyrtian felt their mutual fear of what lurked outside that magic circle drawing them all together despite rank and race.
Resso had managed to grill the day's catch tastily, with a minimum of burning, skewered on twigs over the fire. With that and journey-cake, and sweet water from the stream at their backs, they made a satisfying meal. They had thrown the bones into the fire and were ready to divide the night into watches, when a voice from the darkness saluted them.
"Hello the camp!"
Kyrtian knew that voice, and had been hoping to hear it. He stood up eagerly and waved in the direction from which it had come. The Elvenbane walked calmly into the magelight circle without tripping over the line of bells.
"Well met, Lord Kyrtian! Good idea, those bells," she remarked cheerfully, as she joined them beside the fire and offered Kyrtian her hand. Today she was wearing a pair of breeches and a tunic of something glittering and blue, covered with jewel-like scales, a wicked-looking knife strapped over it. Her abundant auburn hair had been bound back at the nape of her neck in a severe knot.
The men were staring at this unexpected visitor with their mouths dropping wide open.
"Gentlemen," Kyrtian said solemnly, firmly repressing the urge to laugh at them as he accepted Lashana's hand. "May I present to you Lashana? Also known as the Elvenbane—"
If he had set off another of those explosive levin-bolts in their midst he couldn't have gotten a more interesting reaction.
Noet practically choked, Hobie and Shalvan let out involuntary whoops of surprise, Resso leapt to his feet wearing an expression of such utter shock that Kyrtian would not have been surprised to see him faint dead away in the next moment. Only Lynder managed to retain his composure. He got to his feet, gathered his young dignity about him, and took the hand that Kyrtian relinquished.
"My lady, this is an honor, and a privilege," he replied, bowing over the hand before releasing it.
"Oh pish," she said, blushing a little, but clearly pleased. "Didn't Lord Kyrtian tell you that I'd be intercepting you out here?"
"Lord Kyrtian didn't know you would, he only hoped you would," Kyrtian replied for himself. "Won't you join us?"
How she had gotten there, how long she had been out in the woods watching them, he didn't know. And, truth to tell, it didn't matter. As his men took their seats again and Lashana settled easily among them, it was very clear why this young lady wizard had become a leader. She drew all eyes towards her in a way that had nothing to do with her looks or her sex.
"Well, here's what I can tell you," she began. "We—the Wizards—have got watchers on your estate, my Lord, and that of Lady Morthena. If anything should threaten them, we'll know, and we'll be able to evacuate as many or as few people need to be gotten out." She dimpled. "And may I say, that is quite a celebration your people are putting on! I'd like to ask your mother if she would organize one for us, some day, when things are—more stable."
Kyrtian felt a great weight lift from his shoulders, but Lashana's next words made him tense again. "A certain Lady Triana—" she arched her brow at him, and he nodded grimly his acknowledgement that he knew the Lady, "—paid another, very short visit to Lady Morthena after you left. She claimed that she wished to consult Lady Morthena's favorite library, and indeed, she left again within a few hours. She arrived and departed by means of a temporary Gate set up just outside the Lady's estate. I don't suppose you can cast any light on what she was looking for?"
Kyrtian shook his head reluctantly. "I haven't a clue. But knowing Triana, it can't be for anyone's good but her own."
Lashana snorted. "Believe me, I know. I've had—some experience of the Lady myself."
"My condolences." That response startled a smile from her.
"The army—minus your contribution of troops—has moved nearer to the trade-city of Prethon, where it's easier to supply. I'm assuming that in the absence of an actual place to put them permanently, that's where they'll stay, camped just outside the city walls." Lashana's green eyes twinkled. "Which is, of course, precisely where we'd like them, as far from our new Citadel as possible, which was why we suggested this place as the location of the imaginary Wizards. Even if they decided you weren't moving fast enough for them, this is miserable country to try and do any hunting of invisible people in, and the place is absolutely hollow with caves. You could spend a century trying to hunt through them all!"
"Actually—I wanted to ask you about that, Lashana," Kyrtian said hesitantly. "Do you have the time to hear some history?"
When she nodded, he launched into the story—as he had puzzled it out—of the Ancestors' arrival in this world, and followed it with the more personal tale of his father's own interest in that arrival and the things that might have been left behind. "So the last place where he was doing research before he disappeared was Lady Moth's library—and that was where I found some personal journals that gave descriptions that sounded like this area—" He waved his hand at the dripping forest beyond the camp. "You must admit that it's pretty distinctive. And the very few passages that described the Crossing made me think that the Ancestors might have come out into a cave, and not aboveground as everyone has always assumed. Then when we staged at Lord Cheynar's," he concluded triumphantly, "Lord Cheynar admitted that my father had gone off into these forests, and that he was probably the last Elvenlord to see my father alive!"
Lashana pursed her lips thoughtfully. "That—that's interesting. You know, I discovered that Wizards, at least, can use gem-stones to help concentrate and amplify their powers. I don't
know if they'll work for Elvenlords that way, but it stands to reason that if our powers can be amplified by something, so can yours."
"I can't see any other way that the Ancestors could have built the things that they did," he admitted. She tilted her head to the side.
"It's a very good thing that I trust you, Lord Kyrtian," she said in a measured tone. "Otherwise I don't think I could allow you to leave these woods alive."
Lynder leapt to his feet, his hand on his dagger-hilt, and the others weren't far behind. Lashana appeared unconcerned.
And she probably has good reason to be. She'd be a fool to have come here alone, and no matter what the Elvenbane is, no one has ever suspected her of being a fool.
"Sit down, all of you," he said mildly. "Don't you realize what a horrible menace would be let loose in the world if someone like Aelmarkin got his hands on a way to make himself as strong as Lord Kyndreth? She's only speaking sense."
She made a little gesture of thanks in his direction. "Now, there's one other thing I'd like to show you, something my people will shortly be handing out to Moth's and yours, among others, then distributing covertly among the field-slaves." She held out a little object, shaped rather like an open clamshell, of a dull grey metal. He started to reach for it, and she hastily pulled it back.
"Don't touch it, Lord Kyrtian!" she warned. "At least, not with your bare hand! That's what you call Death Metal—forged iron."
He hastily drew back his fingers. He'd touched unprotected steel before, in the shape of one of the iron collars that Moth's own slaves wore under their pseudo-slave collars, and it had burned him like acid. He was in no hurry to repeat the experience.
"I brought an active slave-collar with me to show you what it does," she continued. "Watch—with your magic-senses." She took out a leather slave-collar set with a cloudy beryl, which was, indeed, active. She fitted the back half of the clamshell de-
vice behind the beryl, then snapped the top half over it, and nipped a catch to squeeze it closed and lock it.