'Need help?'
The whisper startled him. And fuddled him. Knucklebones had skipped alongside without his knowing.
Dropping to one knee, Sunbright wrestled Magichunger off his shoulder. Low down, the smell of grass made him feel safe. 'Give me light!' he said.
'They'll see from the forest!' the thief objected.
'I need light, damn it! Crouch over it! No, better, light up his leg here! Give me your hand!'
Grabbing her small, cool hand, he directed it onto Magichunger's hot, wet leg. The rogue striped cold light from her fingertips. At the same time, she hunkered over the small glow to shield it from eyes in the forest.
After hours in the dark, the firefly light made Sunbright squint. He sucked his little finger, stuck it in an oozing hole, wiggled, felt it protrude past flesh out the other side. Quickly he bandaged the wound and tied it off. 'Lucky?' he muttered. 'Or maybe not. Magichunger would not faint from such a trifling… Oh, Moander's mirth!'
Exploring, his hands found a second arrow jutting from Magichunger's kidney. Then a third arrow standing from the point of his shoulder. 'Shroud of Selune!' Sunbright exclaimed. 'I owe Magichunger an apology. He's tough as a shark's tooth. More light, please-Who comes?'
Knucklebones had already seen the shape, but the dark figure didn't move like an attacker.
'Blackblossom!' the barbarian woman whispered, not joking for once. 'Need help?'
'No,' Sunbright answered. 'Stay out of the light! Get back to the tribe. We'll follow.' The woman didn't waste words, but faded away.
Knucklebones plied minute strips of light to help Sunbright bandage the wound. The shaman decided to cut out the kidney arrow lest the barbs work deeper into vitals with every jostle. The thief eased her dark blade alongside the arrowhead, sliced damaged and swelling muscle, and withdrew the barb. Blood welled black until Sunbright plugged and wrapped it. The shoulder arrow he left embedded, but he found the shaft too tough to break.
'What is this wood?'
'Let me,' Knucklebones whispered. By feel, the part-elf shaved hard splinters.
'If he lives, Magichunger will give orders from bed.' With gallows humor, he added, 'If he dies, we'll need a new war chief. You, perhaps.'
'Not I. Did you-' The elf stopped short as she wiggled the arrow, then shaved more. No wood could resist an elven blade for long.
'Did I what?' Sunbright asked.
'Did you-kill anyone?'
A strange question in an odd tone, the shaman thought. 'No,' he told her. 'Did you?'
'No. I don't-I don't want to kill anyone. Them.'
'Elves, you mean?'
She nodded, forgetting he couldn't see the motion in the dark, then said, 'Yes.'
'Because they're elves?' Sunbright asked. He watched for anyone lurking or advancing. But wavy grass made a darker line against a dark sky, and nothing broke the line.
'More than that,' she said, leaning on the arrow, then cursing under her breath. 'They look like me.'
'They do?' he asked, then the snap of the shaft ended the questions. 'Douse this magic light.'
'I can't,' Knucklebones said, sounding oddly hurt. 'Don't you know I can't dispel it? It fades on its own.'
'Oh,' he said awkwardly. 'No, I never knew that.'
There was much he didn't know about this part-elven thief from the future. Why didn't he? He'd known Greenwillow to her core, or thought he had. Then he was busy wrestling Magichunger onto his shoulders like a dead ox. Glancing around, he set off at a quick march.
'No! This way!' came the thief's whisper.
Flustered, Sunbright staggered after her voice. Normally he knew the compass with his eyes closed. He was rattled to mess up now. Rattled by Knucklebones's queer reticence about fighting, and killing, and not knowing magic, and much else that only a woman could know.
But one thing he knew: he didn't want to kill elves either. Not Greenwillow's kin.
Disgusted with his own maundering, he concentrated on lugging Magichunger to safety.
A glow silhouetted a grassy hummock to mark the main camp, though the barbarians were scattered along a five-mile line out in the prairie. Sunbright staggered toward the fire with his burden, Knucklebones dogging his heels. They didn't expect to be welcomed as heroes, but were unprepared for ugly wrath.
People spilled from the firelight to grab Magichunger, immediately shouting.
'Archloft says you left Nightchild's body to the wolves!' growled Mightylaugh.
'The Rengarth always bring out their dead!' shrilled Forestvictory. 'Always!'
'You must go back for him!' yelled another.
'And who made Sunbright war chief if Magichunger falls? A shaman is never war chief! It's not allowed!' called a fourth.
Yet their shouts died as Rightdove pointed to the blue-white gleam on Magichunger's leg. 'Witchlight!' Rightdove gasped. 'Did you do this, Sunbright?'
'It smacks of magic!' said Forestvictory.
Knucklebones piped up, 'That's my doing, a simple cantra. Everyone born to the empire can perform small magic-'
No one listened. 'Magic is forbidden!' a voice shouted.
'Taboo!'
'Hush, all!' Sunbright was exhausted in mind and body by the fight and panic, and drained of spirit. Taking Knucklebone's hand, he let others lug Magichunger to the fire, then asked, 'What is there to eat?'
'Nothing!' Goodbell spat. She nursed a fidgety child by the fire, her face drawn and lined. 'Our best hunters lie dead in the forest where the game must hide. The prairie offers nothing.'
Sunbright plunked on grass by the fire. Dried dung smoked and wafted into his eyes. 'I'll try tracking game at dawn,' he promised.
'Better hunt that fight!' Mightylaugh said as he strode to the fire. 'You learned nothing, Kindbloom tells us. You only got Magichunger shot full of arrows.'
'We learned plenty,' Sunbright snapped. 'Use your brains instead of your mouth.'
Magichunger's mother and sisters bandaged him, wrapped him in blankets, and rolled him near the fire. Fighters stood with empty hands, or swished swords in their anger. More barbarians came from the dark to hear the news and arguments. Mightylaugh demanded, 'What did we learn?'
The shaman scrubbed aching temples, and said, 'I'm guessing, but think on this: I don't believe the elves mean us harm-'
'No harm!' scoffed several.
'I think they simply bar us from the forest. They can see in the dark. They shot Magichunger three times, recognizing he's war chief, and could have shot me a dozen times as I lugged him out, yet they didn't. So-'
'You're an elf friend!' someone bawled from the dark. 'They wouldn't shoot you!'
Knucklebones's hand tightened on Sunbright's leg. The shaman refused to take the bait. 'Look at the evidence,' he demanded. 'They could have killed us all, but instead they let us escape, and didn't pursue.'
'They're afraid to fight us!' Kindbloom crowed. 'They're cowards, and know we're better warriors!'
'Further,' Sunbright plowed on, 'if they intended war, they could slip out here and slit our throats while we sleep. They could slide through this grass like snakes, but don't.'
'Get past our guards? Not likely!'
'Never! The prairie belongs to the Rengarth!'
'And,' hollered the shaman, 'I don't think there are many elves. We're only attacked by three dozen at most. Their tribe must be small. Legends say elves are scarce.'
'Legends say they turn invisible, and I don't see that!' argued Mightylaugh.
'If we could force them to fight here, we'd make mincemeat of 'em!' added Kindbloom. 'No elf can stand against a barbarian!'
'They're cowards! Skulking like coyotes in the dark!' chimed Archloft. 'We should burn the forest, drive them out like rats from grain!'
