Turlang regarded him for a long time, then said, "Your life means nothing to me. I know you for an Evereskan by your dress and speech, but there is a darkness in you I do not trust."
"There are more eye-devils coming," Aris called from the edge of the forest. "How many?" Vala called back, ever the battle chief.
'Too far to say," said the giant. "They are only specks, but there's also something that resembles a dust devil."
Galaeron and Vala exchanged nervous glances, and Melegaunt ran out of patience.
"We're out of time, tree," the wizard growled. "There is more at risk than your forest, and we will pass through-
"What we will do is abide by Turlang's will," Galaeron interrupted. Even were Melegaunt powerful enough to defeat Turlang and his many allies-and Galaeron suspected the battle would be closer than the wizard knew-for an elf to defy a treant in his own forest would be an act of wickedness as terrible as treason. Galaeron turned back to the treant. "If the great Turlang places no value in my promise, I am certain he will value my mother's."
"You would offer your mother's life in place of your own?" Turlang's voice was condemning. "Who is this lucky elf?"
Galaeron had to bite back a wave of anger. "Morgwais Nightmeadow." The burls above Turlang's eyes rose. "Morgwais?"
Galaeron nodded. "Known to the people of the High Forest as Morgwais the Red."
Vala and Melegaunt looked to each other with expressions of surprise. The treant considered Galaeron's claim for a long time, during which Aris kept up a running account of what he saw. "They're tiny circles… six of them, and something like a funnel with a tail. The one behind the hill is flying back to join them…"
Finally, Turlang spoke. "If you are lying about this, your lives are forfeit." He glanced to Vala and Melegaunt, then added, "All of them." "Agreed," said Galaeron.
Vala and Melegaunt were quick to nod their own agreement, and Arts said, "My life is Galaeron's to pledge."
"Then we have a bargain." Turlang lowered two branches. "I will need your weapons… and your pledge not to use your dark magic until you enter the Dire Wood."
Galaeron removed his scabbard and laid it into a tangle of gnarled sticks. "As you wish."
Vala removed her belt and wrapped it around the hilt of the weapon to prevent the black blade from slipping free, then laid it next to Galaeron's sword. Melegaunt pulled his sheathed dagger from its place, but hesitated before laying it alongside the other weapons.
"The dagger 111 yield happily," said the wizard, "but the magic I may need to confuse our foes." "They will be confused," said Turlang. "I will see to that."
'These are no ordinary beings," Melegaunt warned. "The phaerimm will not be fooled by normal magic, and the beholders can dispel it with a glance."
"It will not be magic that misleads them." Turlang's tone was uncharacteristically peevish for a treant. "Will you promise or not?" Melegaunt gave Galaeron a hesitant look.
"Decide now," said Galaeron. "It will mean my mother's life if you lie."
At the edge of the forest, Aris called out, "They're spreading out, and turning invisible-the cowards!" Melegaunt continued to look at Galaeron. "You're sure?" "It's the only way," Galaeron answered. Melegaunt shrugged. "Very well, I promise." Turlang studied the wizard for nearly a minute before shifting his gaze to Aris. "Are you ready, giant?"
For a moment, Aris continued to stare across the valley his lip curled into a hateful snarl. When he finally nodded and stepped into the forest, his gray eyes were as cold as ice. "Let's go."
Turlang stretched a branch toward the giant's wooden club. "Your weapon."
Aris passed the club over. The treant held it at limb's length and inspected it for a moment, then he seemed to realize that it had been fashioned from an entire tree trunk. His face twisted into a strange expression of sadness and revulsion, and he dropped the weapon into the snow. The wood grew instantly brown and soft and crumbled into humus. "Now we may go."
Turlang started into the dark forest, his enormous bulk gliding through trees as gracefully as any elf. Galaeron motioned the others after him, then took a place beside Vala at the end of the line.
She leaned close to him. "Did you see what became of Malik?"
"Not a hoof print," Galaeron replied. He glanced back and was not surprised to see a dozen trees arranging themselves into a boscage, while a like number of druids slipped quietly to and fro, eradicating all trace of the group's passing and laying a false trail in the opposite direction. "But I do hope he didn't go south."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
28 Nightal, the Year of the Unstrung Harp
The scout and his hippogriff wheeled down out of the gray sky, a ghostly rider on a ghostly mount, almost impossible to see against the steely clouds even with detection magics fully raised. Khelben glanced over at Laerm Ryence, his counterpart and co-commander of the Swift Cavalry, and found the elf s silver eyes fixed on the trail ahead. Here they were, racing toward an army of phaerimm as fast as their spell-driven mounts could gallop, and the fool still had not bothered to cast his detection magic. Such negligence did not speak well for Evermeet's expeditionary company
The scout swept up alongside the column, his hippogriff's wings thrumming air as he slowed. Lord Ryence jumped visibly, his free hand dropping to his belt of wands, his neck craning to look over the wrong shoulder.
"No need for alarm," Khelben yelled, his voice falling into the rhythm of his galloping mount. He wrapped his reins around his saddle's pommel, then worked a spell to mute the thundering hooves of the four hundred horses behind him. "It's my scout."
Ryence's fingers finally flashed through a detection spell. "So… 1… see." like most of the elves, he seemed ill-at-ease on the powerful chargers Lord Piergeiron had selected for their journey. "I am not blind."
Ignoring the testy reply, Khelben turned to his scout. "What is your report?"
The rider, a long-faced man with a two-day growth of beard, said, "About two miles ahead, the Winding Water bends within an arrow's flight of the High Moor. Not a thousand paces beyond, the Serpent's Tail forks north and blocks your way." "A good place for an ambush?"
"The best. You'd be trapped against the Winding Water, with the Serpent's Tail blocking the way ahead."
Khelben glanced at the steep slope flanking them to the north. Though the escarpment rose only a hundred feet to the High Moor, its face was soggy and slick-difficult climbing under the best of circumstances, impossible with arrows and lightning bolts raining down from above. Opposite the moor lay the Winding Water, easily two hundred paces across, with a dark central channel purling between two banks of solid ice.
"Well need to cross." Khelben nodded toward the river. "I can bridge the distance with a space-folding door, but we'd have to feed riders through one at a time. It might be faster for your Selu'taar to fashion a good-sized bridge."
Ryence tried to look surprised. "What makes you think there are high mages here?"
"You try my patience, Lord Ryence," Khelben said darkly Were Laeral there, she would have been proud of him for not calling the elf a liar. "Now is a poor time to insist on polite little secrets."
It was Ryence's aide, a venerable Gold male named Bladuid, who answered, "A bridging spell would not be difficult. Half an hour would be sufficient."
'Too much time," grouched Ryence, annoyed that Bladuid had betrayed his identity. The elf commander pointed his chin toward the wall of snow-caked trees along the river's southern bank. "And we would only have to cross again, or have the Forest of Wyrms to worry us for the next hundred miles."