His curiosity piqued, he said grudgingly, “I’ll stay … until I’ve heard you out, but then I must go.”
“Fair enough,” Thamalon said. He motioned to a bench under one of the windows. Leifander sat on it, on the far side from where Thamalon settled. Sire this man might be, but father? Never.
The older man looked off through the window at the stars, and absently tapped a finger against his chin, thinking.
“Well then,” the human mused. “Where to begin?”
CHAPTER 5
Larajin followed the wild elves east through the forest. The route they took was a winding one, along game trails all but invisible to Larajin’s eyes. Even before dusk fell, she was completely turned around. When the darkness became complete, she would have lost her way entirely, save for the firm grip Doriantha had on her elbow.
Larajin expected the elves to halt for the night, but they stopped only briefly to eat a few handfuls of dried berries and to drink from a stream. Then they journeyed on through the darkness, winding their way between the trees as if they had the eyesight of owls. Even Larajin, with her excellent night vision, was hard-pressed to keep up the pace.
By the time morning dawned, she was exhausted. Even if they had stopped long enough for her to perform the morning devotions, she would have been too tired to do them properly. She kept hoping that Doriantha would at last announce that they had reached the Tangled Trees, but the march east continued as the sun rose in the sky. The farther they got from Rauthauvyr’s Road, the thicker the forest became. Larajin stumbled over roots and fought her way through prickling branches, skinning her hands and muddying the knees of her trouser skirt in scrambles up steep slopes.
The elves seemed unperturbed by the forest, moving through it with the quiet canniness of wild animals. Their bare feet skipped lightly across moss-slick stones that sent Larajin skidding into icy streams. They deftly avoided the broken branches of wind-fallen trees that snagged and tore Larajin’s clothing and knew how to space themselves so that a branch bent by the elf ahead did not strike the person following.
After receiving yet another stinging slap in the face from the bent branch of a fir, Larajin wondered if the elves were deliberately leading her through the densest forest growth in an effort to test her ability to follow them. Resolving not to appear weak, she blinked the grit out of her eyes and stumbled stubbornly on, hot, sweaty, and footsore. More than once she heard low mutters from those ahead, always including a word that was spoken as though it were a curse-a word in the Elvish tongue she was coming to recognize-the word for human.
Larajin glanced up at the sky frequently, hoping to see Goldheart winging her way above the treetops. Once, she saw a flash of crimson and her heart leaped-until she realized that it was only the brilliant red plumage of a woodpecker. Reminding herself that she had released the tressym from any further obligation, Larajin eventually stopped looking for her. It was all she could do to keep her exhausted eyes open-and to watch for the next tree root.
When the elves paused at a stream to drink, Larajin noticed with dismay that sweat had long since washed away the gold eye the priest had painted on her midriff. She offered a quick prayer of apology to Sune, asking forgiveness for her disheveled condition, and another to Hanali Celanil. She’d had no opportunity to sing the Song of Sunrise that morning or pay reverent homage to the sunset the night before. Perhaps these transgressions were the reason Sune was ignoring her prayers. It was Hanali Celanil who answered. The air filled with the floral scent of Hanali’s Heart, and Larajin’s exhaustion floated away, the blisters on her feet closed, and the ache in her muscles eased.
Thankful for this boon, Larajin pulled the tressym’s broken feather from the pocket of her shirt and cast it into the water, commending it to the goddess. The broken feather twirled a moment in a pool, flashing red and turquoise and yellow, then it was caught by the current and carried away.
The elves set out again a few moments later, bidding with curt gestures for Larajin to follow. They didn’t seem to want her with them and did little enough to aid her but kept her in sight even so, as if worried she would become lost. They were probably just following Doriantha’s orders, since none seemed inclined toward friendship. They spoke no Common and glared at Larajin with fierce looks when she tried to speak to them in the language of the wild elves. Even Doriantha said little, preferring to save her breath for the tromp through the woods.
Doriantha, however, did seem to care how Larajin was faring. From time to time she doubled back to point out the best path through a thicket or to lend a steadying hand as Larajin tried to cross a stream on a narrow log. When Larajin lagged behind, Doriantha appeared at her side, giving her a drink from her waterskin. Even so, the pace was so rapid that Larajin’s strength began to flag once more as the afternoon wore on. With every step, she prayed it would be the last one necessary to take her to the Tangled Trees.
The elves seemed to be in a hurry to get there. Larajin could guess why. They feared retribution, once the humans discovered what they had done.
When they’d crossed Rauthauvyr’s Road, Larajin had caught a glimpse of the aftermath of their attack on the caravan. It hadn’t been a pretty sight. The elves had smashed the cargo and left the bodies strewn on the road for the crows to pick at. Larajin had nearly tripped over one sellsword whose body was so pincushioned with arrows that Larajin suspected the elves had used him for target practice as he lay dying. After that, she’d averted her eyes, not wanting to see any more bodies. She’d been glad once they were across the road and into the woods once more.
She’d felt no pity for the sellswords, only revulsion at the brutality of the elves’ attack. The only one whose fate she cared about was Dray-the poor dupe. Not only had he fallen for Enik’s ruse, he’d also had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She hadn’t seen his corpse as the elves hurried her across the road, but there was little hope that he had survived the attack.
She whispered a prayer for his soul, hoping whatever god he’d worshiped had taken pity on him. Dray was only a merchant; he hadn’t deserved to be slaughtered with the rest of them. Once the Foxmantles learned of this atrocity their wrath would know no bounds. Not even the deepest shadows of the Tangled Trees would provide a hiding place for Doriantha and her band.
In contrast to their callous indifference toward the humans they had killed, the elves had shown a reverence for their own kind. Despite their rush to get away from the road, they had tarried long enough to gather up the bones and weapons from the tomb that Klarsh had unearthed. They packed these gruesome relics along with them still-probably carrying them home for reburial, Larajin guessed.
Struggling through the forest behind Doriantha, Larajin wondered if she was doing the right thing in following the elves. Doriantha’s band had done Larajin a favor by saving her from Enik and his men, but that aid was only coincidental. What sort of reception would Larajin face once she reached the Tangled Trees? Judging by the attitudes of these elves, it wouldn’t be the homecoming Larajin had naively imagined, back in the comfort of Stormweather Towers.
As darkness descended on the forest for the second time since their journey began, the elves at last stopped to make camp. They gathered clumps of pale green moss that hung from tree branches, long and lacy as an old man’s beard, and formed it into nestlike pillows. They splashed their sweaty faces in a nearby stream, stretched their muscles, and ate a cold supper of leathery slabs of dried mushroom and a cold paste made by adding water to a powder of dried fish. Then they sank cross-legged onto the moss, weapons within hand’s reach on the forest floor beside them, and sank into the meditative state unique to elves, known as the Reverie.