She expected to be savaged. Deep in her soul she had flashes of such a fight-hounds surrounding her, yellow teeth snapping, the baying of the pack as it closed in. It was night then too, and Mathi had drowned the lead dogs one by one when they tried to seize her in the midst of a swift-running stream. There was no water there, only stars and bloodthirsty hounds and the smell of smoke.
Whistles split the night air, and the dogs kept tight hold of her, but they didn’t tear her flesh. The torches grew brighter. She smelled pine burning. A band of nomads, their faces black against the sky, stood around her.
“What is it? A brace of rabbits?”
“A couple of those little thieves, damn them!”
Fire was thrust in her face.
“No! The elder kind! And female!”
“This one too!”
More whistles in short, sharp blasts made the dog pack back off. Hard hands took hold of Treskan and Mathi and dragged them to their feet.
“Who is you?” asked one of the nomads in poor Elvish. “Why you here is?”
“My name is Mathani Arborelinex,” she replied in their own tongue. One of the benefits of living on the fringes of elf society was that she had come into contact with many races. Mathi understood a good part of eight tongues, including Ogrish.
“Hey, Vollman, two of your dogs are dead,” called out another human.
One of the nomads holding Treskan’s arms gave the limb a wrench. The scribe yelped. “Kill my boys, will you? Maybe I’ll take an eye or a finger for each one you slew!” The one called Vollman jerked a long-bladed dagger from his belt.
Treskan struggled in the grip of two brawny nomads. Mathi fought hard until a similar weapon was pressed against her throat. She felt her heart contract to a small, hard knot.
“Be still or be dead!”
“Stop it, Vollman. They will answer questions for the chief first. Then we’ll decide what to do with them.”
With buffets to the head and kicks in the backside, Mathi and Treskan were marched to the nomads’ camp. Glancing left and right, she saw that her captors were fiercely tattooed men with light-colored hair worn in tight braids. They wore deerskins beaded with bold designs. Metal was a mark of status, she guessed. The leader of the party that caught her wore a crescent-shaped strip of brass around his neck and had yellow metal plugs through his earlobes.
In camp, a crowd of nomads had gathered to see the night’s catch. A few were women, warriors too, but most of them were men of fighting age. Mathi and the scribe were driven like wild stags to the door of a large, dome-shaped tent.
The gorget-wearer called out, “Chief! Come out! We caught us something!”
The chief came out. He was the tallest man Mathi had ever seen, nearly seven feet tall. He was darkly tanned, but in the torchlight his eyes were slate gray. His head was shaved except for a single long lock on the back of his head, which he wore thickly braided and pulled forward over his shoulder.
“What’s this?” His voice was as big as his frame.
“We found these elder kind hiding in the bushes,” said the man called Vollman. “She speaks our tongue good.”
“Oh?” said the giant, advancing a step until he towered over Mathi. “I never met a big-ears who could speak our language well. Maybe you’ve spent some time around people, yes?”
Mathi didn’t answer. She wasn’t being sullen or stalwart; she was just scared. The chief took her silence for resistance. He backhanded Mathi so hard that she fell backward into the arms of the surrounding nomads. Laughing, they boosted her back on her feet. Mathi tasted blood.
“Where do you come from?” the chief bellowed at Treskan. His mumbled “Silvanost” was the wrong answer.
“Spying on us, yes? How many elder kind have we seen on our journey, Nurna?”
A muscular young nomad said, “Three, four, chief. Always on hilltops far away, watching us.”
“Collecting news for their king, yes?” To the men holding the captives, he barked, “Search them!”
They did with brutal thoroughness. Her gown was torn in several places. She did not scream, and the violation did not go any further. They found the secret mark of the brethren under her right arm. The blue tattoo surprised the nomads. They had never seen an elf with marks before. There was some excitement when they found Treskan’s stylus-it was metal and nicely turned-and the talisman Rufe had taken and Mathi had returned. The jeweled gold ornament got everyone’s attention.
Vollman claimed the talisman against the loss of his two deerhounds. There were a few protests, but the lofty chief awarded the trinket to Vollman. Mathi had nothing of the tiniest value on her: a few scraps of parchment purloined from Treskan, some charred wood to write with, a few beads, and a wooden amulet carved in the image of Quenesti Pah, part of her disguise as a former resident of the Haven of the Lost.
The chief examined the small harvest taken from the prisoners. Aside from Treskan’s talisman, there was nothing very rich or revealing about any of it.
To Mathi he said in passable Elvish, “Is this all you got?”
“I am just a poor traveler,” Mathi replied in the same language.
The chief threw the trinkets on the ground. “They know more than they’re telling. Tie them to the cage.”
They dragged them to the roofed-in box in the center of the camp they’d seen earlier, the one made of lashed-together saplings. Mathi was shoved face-first against the rails. Her wrists and ankles were tied with thongs. Treskan was slammed into place beside her.
From within the dark cage, a pair of eyes met hers. Mathi could not tell whom she was seeing, but she heard a whisper say, “Tell them what they want to know. They’ll lash you to death if you don’t.”
Nurna appeared with a rawhide whip. Mathi felt her knees give way. She had not bargained for such treatment. Where was Lofotan? How could he leave her to the savages?
Nurna nodded and two nomads tore the cloth from Mathi’s and Treskan’s backs. She clenched her eyes shut and braced herself for the sting of the lash. It didn’t come. Trembling, she opened her eyes. Twisting her head around, she saw Nurna and others speaking together with hushed urgency. One nomad ran off. Nurna came closer, coiling the whip in his hand.
“Too bad,” he said. “May the great gods pity you.”
Before she had the slightest understanding of what was happening, Mathi and Treskan were cut loose and thrown into the cage. They crouched on their knees-the roof was too low to allow her to stand-and watched in amazement as the nomads dispersed.
“Merciful gods,” he muttered. What stayed their hand? Mathi had no idea.
“You heard the man,” said their unseen companion. “They pity you.”
“Who’s there?” Mathi said sharply, drawing closer to Treskan.
“A brother.”
Their fellow prisoner crawled out of the shadows on his hands and knees. Treskan drew in a loud breath. The stranger’s hands and forearms were covered in short, stiff fur. Where a man or elf had nails, their companion had curving, yellow claws. His face emerged from the deeper darkness. Mathi must have stared too hard, for the creature halted his advance.
“Forgive me. As another mistake, I thought you one of us,” he said. His Elvish was excellent, and his accent urban. If an elf closed his eyes, he would think he was speaking to an articulate resident of Silvanost.
“I am one of you-one of us! Who are you?”
“Taius.” The name rhymed with bias.
“I am Mathani Arborelinex. This is Treskan.”
Taius laughed or coughed. It was hard to tell through the fangs and fur. “He’s not what he seems either, is he?” Neither of them answered. Taius said, “You still use a Silvanesti name?”
“Why not? You do,” Mathi replied.
Taius withdrew into the shadows again. “I no longer claim Silvanesti as my race.” He chuckled, an unnervingly beastly sound. “Do you know your mother and father?”
“No, but I know my creator.”