Impatience at the bottleneck by the ford set his mind to working, and the resentment of his self-appointed guards gave it direction. As his party slowed, he walked around a tree, came to an abrupt halt, and backed up, giving a respectful bow though nothing visible barred his way.
“Your pardon, brave warrior, I did not see you,” he said, changing course to walk around the other side of the tree. As he turned away, he saw the looks of astonishment and discomfort that passed between Belrinien and Flamarier.
As he continued toward the stream, he paused twice again. He begged pardon and turned sideways, as if he worked his way through an unseen crowd. The two elves followed in his footsteps, turning as he did, taking extreme care to keep their spear points and the ends of their bows from injuring the spirit warriors.
Cald grinned at their discomfort. Still, he was taking unfair advantage of the old lie that he could see the ghost warriors. He had been careful never again to actually say he had seen the ghosts of the grove. His reticence had given him a reputation for modesty. His revenge had been shabby, but he was stuck with it.
Less than half a mile beyond the Moon Stream, the low trills of bird whistles alerted the elves to take cover. Cald worked his way forward from tree to tree and found himself sharing the shelter of a bush with the one elf he had hoped to avoid.
Eyrmin, crouched to take advantage of a thick clump of bushes while he watched for the enemy, spared Cald an angry glance.
“I must teach you to obey orders,” he snapped.
“Do the rest of your lessons mean nothing?” Cald retorted. “If your purpose is just, can you deny me a right to uphold it? How can I gain manhood if I turn my back on honor?” He had worked on that speech during his run through the forest, and he saw his success as Eyrmin’s eyes clouded with doubt. When the prince looked away, watching for the approaching enemy, Cald knew he had won his right to participate in this battle.
And the fight was not long in coming. The elves had carefully chosen their place of ambush. They had stopped at the western edge of a dry wash, a fifty-yard-wide strip of sturdy grass and rock that often flooded in times of heavy rains. No saplings could stand against the spates of water that occasionally flowed through it, but the recent rains had not been of sufficient force to prevent the enemy from crossing.
The guardians of the forest watched in silence as they heard a sound of breaking twigs. The canine snout of a gnoll appeared from behind a tree. The creature sniffed the air, but gnolls were not overly sensitive to smell and the wind was blowing from the east. Every elf had an arrow knocked to his bow, but they waited, knowing Eyrmin’s first shot would signal the attack.
Two more gnolls peered out from the cover on the eastern side of the wash, suspicious of the open area. Behind the last appeared a human in a cloak that seemed to fade into his surroundings. Only his uncovered head was clearly visible. He stared out across the clearing, saw nothing, and roughly pushed one of the gnolls into the open.
“Get going,” he snarled, and followed the humanoid, urging him on to greater speed.
Cald kept a tight grip on the arrow he held nocked to the string, but he had not drawn it. He was afraid to, afraid his excitement might cause him to loose the shaft before Eyrmin gave the order. The prince was also ready with his bow, kneeling, relaxed, waiting.
The three gnolls were two yards ahead of the first human and several paces out into the clearing when behind them appeared at first a score, and then more than twice that number of humans, all cased in strange armor. A few wore conventional metal breastplates, tasses, and cuisses; none wore greaves; most were loosely covered with the two-foot-wide, gray-green leaves of the swamp-growing atwer bush. The wide, thin leaves were loosely tied to cover the trunks of their bodies, arms, and legs with an unlikely protection. As they came closer, the prince frowned and seemed puzzled. Like the cloak of the human leader, the leaves faded into their surroundings.
“It’s some sort of magic,” Cald breathed, wondering if the elven arrows could penetrate the dweomered leaves.
Eyrmin gave no sign that he had heard. He held his shot until the gnolls were within ten paces of the western edge of the wash. They had relaxed and were hurrying forward with confidence when he loosed his arrow. Eyrmin’s shaft was aimed at the human leader, and his aim was true, but when the arrow was within three feet of the strangely cloaked man, it veered away as if it had ricocheted.
Cald had better luck. His missile caught the first of the gnolls in the throat.
True to Eyrmin’s teachings, he immediately jumped away from the place where he had been kneeling; a clump of bushes was an adequate shelter from enemy vision, but offered little protection from a retaliating spear or arrow. Unlike Eyrmin, he was unable to use elf magic to leap away faster than the eye could see. He felt the heat of a fire bolt thrown by the cloaked human but had moved quickly enough to escape being scorched.
Elven arrows showered the intruders, but only two reached vital targets. The other missiles veered away as Eyrmin’s had done. One dropped a human warrior by catching him in the side, where the leaves did not cover, the other caught a man in the throat as Cald had caught the gnoll.
“Human magic,” a voice behind Cald hissed, and he turned to see Belrinien. The elf glared at Cald as if it were his fault. “If you are loyal to Sielwode as you say, tell us how to fight this abomination.”
Cald stared at the elf. Didn’t the warrior know Cald had been raised in Sielwode? If there was any way a human could hold off human magic, he knew nothing of it. Before he could explain, Belrinien stepped out from behind the shelter of the tree and raised his bow. Cald peered around the other side and saw another cloaked and hooded figure raising his hand. The young human reached out and grabbed at the elf, jerking him back. He saw the hatred flash in Belrinien’s eyes, but Cald’s attention was on a bush just behind where the elven warrior had stood.
Half the bush remained. As he watched, the rest was withering into a dead and shriveled shape. Belrinien saw it and stared at Cald, his distrust lost beneath the realization that he had just had a brush with death.
“That could have been me,” he muttered.
“I think you fight this magic by avoiding it until you get a clear target,” Cald said slowly, still staring at the bush.
“That sounds like wisdom,” the elf replied and stayed closer to the tree, peering out with more caution.
The elves kept showering the invaders with arrows that arced toward their targets and veered off like stones skimmed across a pond. They could not understand their failure, and their lack of success heartened the magically protected humans.
Eyrmin gave the call to withhold their shots, and for a moment quiet reigned in Sielwode. In the clearing, the robed leader stared into the shadows beneath the western eaves and ordered his troops forward. They were an undisciplined lot, laughing at the failure of the elves and making shying motions with their hands, mimicking the arrows that had turned away from the magic that protected them.
“Forward!” roared the robed leader, but they seemed disinclined to follow his orders until two of the warriors, too confident of their protection, had turned to speak to their companions. When Eyrmin put an arrow into the side of one, and another elf dropped a warrior farther up the line, they started backing away, toward the eastern eaves of the wide, dry wash.