Silver Shadows (27 page)

Holding her moonblade firmly in both hands, Arilyn swung upward, catching the wizard’s fire-enshrouded blade and throwing his arm up high. She continued the swing in a tight, abrupt downward arc, pivoting her body to one side to follow through. The moonblade’s point drove into the ground; Arilyn leaped, kicking out hard to the side and pushing herself off the embedded sword.

She aimed directly for the wizard’s metal cod piece, and her aim was true. Though the fiery shield kept her boots from connecting directly with the armor, the wizard’s shrill bellow announced that the fire had done its work well enough.

Arilyn scrambled to her feet and yanked her sword from the ground, blinking in the sudden darkness that followed the dissipation of the wizard’s shield. Apparently the surge of pain had sufficiently disrupted his concentration to dispel the protection. The wizard danced and howled, torn between removing the hot armor—and in the process searing his magic-wielding fingers—or leaving the cod piece where it was and suffering a somewhat more personal injury. Ultimately, his devotion to his Art took second place.

“Figures,” Arilyn muttered as she turned to survey

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the battle. The wizard frantically cast aside the steaming metal and fled stumbling into the forest, and she let him go. He wouldn’t be casting any more spells today, and the elves faced a more immediate threat.

One of them, a female who was little more than a child, had faced off against a swordsman who was easily four times her weight. The girl had the advantage of speed and stamina—large dark circles stained the sides and front of the man’s tunic, and his breath came in loud, snorting gasps—but still she was at a disadvantage in terms of strength, experience and—most importantly at this crucial moment—reach.

Even as Arilyn turned toward the duel, the swordsman lunged at the elf maid’s throat at the same time as the girl thrust toward his belly. She had a dagger; he held a hand-and-a-half sword that could run her through before she even came close.

Arilyn darted in and thrust her moonblade between the two combatants, catching the longer blade and forcing it up. The elf child ducked reflexively, but she did not turn aside her thrust. Her dagger plunged deep; she wrenched it free and whirled to face the nearest human, leaving Arilyn to finish the man or let him die in his own time.

The green elves, Arilyn noted, did not intend to take prisoners.

Even as this thought formed in her mind, a few humans broke ranks and fled into the forest. One of them stopped suddenly, his head jolting back and his arms outflung. Several arrows bristled from his back.

“Foxfire, no! Let them go!” Arilyn shouted as she turned toward two more combatants. There was a moment’s hesitation; then she heard the shrill, birdlike command that called off the vengeful elves.

Arilyn prodded the swordsman with the tip of her blade, drawing him away from the wounded and exhausted elf woman he was battling. The man whirled, lunged, and lunged again. A ranger, Arilyn noted with disgust,

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catching a glimpse of the unicorn pendant he wore at his neck—the symbol of the goddess Mielikki. There were few humans she held in higher regard than rangers, and none that she despised more than those handful of noble woodsmen-warriors who had forsaken their path.

This one fought in the style of the Dalelands—a single sword, a quick and aggressive attack. Arilyn fell back a step, drawing his next attack. Rather than parry it when it came, she leaped back. The sudden and unexpected lack of resistance threw the swordsman off-balance for a moment. That was enough. Arilyn spun away from his attack, pivoting on her outer foot and swinging her sword up and around as she circled behind him. She brought it down, hard, on the back of the man’s neck. The moonblade cut through bone and flesh in a single strike, beheading the faithless ranger.

“Give my regards to Mielikki,’
Arilyn muttered darkly and then turned to look for another fight.

There was none. All around her the elves were tending to their wounded, cleaning their weapons, collecting their spent arrows. Ferret, however, still had the light of battle in her black eyes; she came at Arilyn like a stooping falcon.

“Why did you let them go? What base treachery is this? They will be back; they are too near Talltrees!”

They had to go,” Arilyn said calmly, stooping to clean the former ranger’s blood from her sword. “Else, how would we follow them and find out to whom they reportr

Again the elves looked to Foxfire. He nodded, not once taking his eyes from the moon elf. “That is good counsel. Faunalyn, Wistari—you follow them and report what you learn.”

The two scouts left at once to do his bidding. Foxfire came over to Arilyn and offered her his hand. She took it and allowed him to help her to her feet.

“I have prayed to the Seldarine for guidance, and this is how they have rewarded me,” he said with a smile.

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“Only one god, the patron of the forest, would answer me so well; Rillifane Rallithil himself must have sent you!”

“Actually, that would be Amlaruil Moonflower. Not that there’s all that much difference between the two,” Arilyn said dryly as she tugged her fingers free.

To her surprise, this irreverent comment brought a grin to the green elf s bronzed face. She liked that. He had a steady nerve in battle but also possessed a warmth unusual among the aloof and insular People.

As Arilyn watched Foxfire move about the battlefield, she understood why this elf was a leader among his people. There was a natural charisma about him, an aura of confidence and energy that was contagious. They respected him, that was plain, but there was more than that. Arilyn noted that Foxfire had the gift of making each individual his eyes fell upon feel as if he or she were the most valued person beneath the stars. He greeted the adolescent elf maid with a warrior’s handclasp, which Arilyn suspected would please the fierce child more than any praise. And he let each elf tend the task to which he or she was best suited, giving no commands where none were needed. The young female—the one who had brought word of the battle to Arilyn and Ferret—was obviously some sort of healer. She moved from one wounded elf to another, judging the severity of their wounds and giving orders regarding their care. Foxfire had little need, it seemed, to stake out territory of his own for the sake of pride or status. What needed to be done was done as best it might; that was enough.

Enough? It was a damn sight more than most leaders accomplished, Arilyn noted with ever-growing admiration.

Later, after the wounded had been tended and litters fashioned from skins and poles to carry those who could not walk, the elves set out for Talltrees. Despite the success of her battle strategy, the elves seemed wary of Arilyn. She heard the whispers that explained her presence among them to those who had not witnessed her arrival—and noted wryly how frequently the word

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lythari” came into these explanations.

After a while Foxfire made his way to Arilyn’s side. Although he did not seem to share his people’s reservations, it was obvious that he was aware of them. “Your ways are strange to us, and the forest folk are slow to accept that which is new,” he said softly. “But in time, they will accept you as a leader.”

“Not a leader. An advisor. The People follow you.”

The elf considered this, then accepted with a nod, apparently seeing the wisdom of the arrangement she suggested. “How did you know what to do in battle?”

“I know these men. Not these very ones,” she amended, “but I have a knowledge of the breed.”

“You are a warrior of Evermeet. How is it that you know the ways of humankind?” he asked.

Arilyn was not one for talking, but she found she did not mind his questions. Unlike Ferret’s, these bore no note of accusation, but a genuine interest. “My clan is from Evermeet, but I have lived all my life upon the mainland.”

“Yet you do the bidding of Evenneet’s sovereign. Your devotion to Queen Amlaruil must be great indeed,” he said solemnly.

Arilyn did not miss the faint twinkle in his eyes, however, that marked his words as teasing. Nor did she miss the subtle question that lay under his words.

She did not answer at once, for nothing that came to mind would ring true. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed Ferret, who followed her like a shadow—far enough away to eschew suspicion, but close enough to come to the aid of her tribe’s war leader if Arilyn should lift a treacherous blade against him. She remembered something Ferret had said earlier that day, when she had unexpectedly spoken up in Arilyn’s behalf.

“I have a duty to the elven people, and all my life I have done what I could. This task, however, was laid upon me by the sword I carry. It is a matter of destiny,” she said quietly.

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The words were true; the fact that she was trying to avoid her likely destiny was one of those small details best left unexamined. Foxfire accepted her explanation without further questions. He pointed to the trees ahead, and to the thin wisps of smoke curling up toward the stars.

Talltrees,” he said with quiet satisfaction.

Contained in that word was more than Arilyn could explain—more than she had ever experienced. Never had she called a place home, not in the sense that Foxfire expressed with a single word: a yearning satisfied, a journey ended, a place to which a person belonged.

And a wondrous homecoming it was. The elves who had stayed behind came to greet their warriors with an outpouring of emotion that would amaze anyone who ever had thought of elves as cold and aloof. Among their own, in the security of Talltrees, the green elves showed a warmth that amazed Arilyn.

The wounded were tended first and the warriors fed; then all the tribe erupted into celebration. Those who could dance did so, to the pulsing of resonant skin-covered drum and the haunting music of reed pipes. Skin of berry wine, potent and deceptively sweet, were passed from elf to elf.

At last the revelry subsided into a contented calm. Rhothomir called for the lore-talker to tell the story of the day’s battle.

To Arilyn’s surprise, Ferret stepped forward. It still seemed odd to Arilyn, who was accustomed to hearing the female speak in whispers, to hear that low and resonant voice. But the elf woman’s love of story, and her duty to her role, was soon apparent. Ferret told the story of the battle, sparing none of the painful details—although Arilyn thought it odd that she did not give the names of the elves who were slain. Nor did she omit the contribution that Arilyn had made. It was a fair and evenhanded account, told with a flair any bard might envy.

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Seeing Arilyn’s puzzlement, Foxfire leaned in close to whisper, “The time for mourning will come with the dawn, or perhaps the day after—or perhaps not at all. The spirits of the green elves are slow to leave their forest home; we do not name them as lost who are still among us.”

Arilyn merely nodded, hoping her silence would signify respect rather than extreme lack of interest. The afterlife was not a matter she cared to discuss. Fortunately, Ferret had bowed to the request for another tale.

“In a time beyond the years of any here, our people walked beneath a forest far different from the one we now call home,” she began. “Cormanthor, it was called, and in its shadows thrived an elven kingdom of such might and wonder as this world has never known. But even there the elves glimpsed the coming twilight. The world changed, and Cormanthor fell.

“The People who survived were forced to flee. Many retreated to Evermeet, but there were tribes of green elves who would not forsake the land named Faerfin, in honor and in memory of the first elven home. These faithful scattered over the land, carrying with them seedlings from the sacred forest, the children of the maple, the oak, and the elm. We walk beneath these trees today, the children’s children of Cormanthor.

“Nor were these green folk the only ones who wished to keep alive that which was Cormanthor. There were many People, some of the moon and the gold races, who continued to walk upon Faerun. One of these is remembered with honor by all the People of Tethir: the moon fighter Soora Thea, who carried a sword of Myth Drannor.

There was in times past an evil race of beings, neither human nor ogrish, that made war upon the forest folk. Their power came from a vast image of stone, the hideous image of a creature from the dark planes. Long ago these people fell, but at certain times their restless undead ventured from the gorge in which they once bad

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lived to make war upon the goodly folk. With them were fearsome creatures from the dark planes. From all sides these creatures pressed the elves, and for a time it seemed as if the fall of Cormanthor would be a nightmare relived. But Soora Thea was a mighty war leader, and it is said she had the power to command the silver shadows. In the final great battle, the undead creatures and their Abyssal allies were utterly destroyed.

“What became of Soora Thea, we do not know. Unlike the green folk, she was a traveler, and her home was all of the land. But before she left Tethir, she promised that in times of greatest need, and for as long as the fires of Myth Drannor burned within her sword, a hero would return to the People.”

Ferret turned her burning black eyes directly upon Arilyn. There was nothing to be added, but the half-elf understood at last why Ferret had accepted her presence here. Even more than most elves, these folk revered the silver shadows. The very possibility that Arilyn might command the lythari gave them hope and awoke in them the strength that could be found only in ancient tales and traditions. She could see it in their eyes—the bright hope that spilled over into a uniquely elven display of joy.

The drums and reed flutes took up the refrain again, and every elf who could stand whirled into the.dance. Foxfire pulled Arilyn to her feet and into his arms. She rewarded his hospitality by treading squarely on his toes.

“I move better with a sword in my hand,” she said ruefully.