Wonderful. Just what he wanted: a babysitter. Kevin tried not to scowl as he watched Lydia prowl up and down the rows of stalls. “Which is Lady Charina’s horse?” she called out. “This? Should have known. Dainty little creature. A real lady’s palfrey. Couldn’t stand a day on the trail ... Hold still, horse.”
She lifted a foreleg, examining the hoof and shoe, then waved the others to her side—
“Distinctive shoeing. See the slight ridging here, and here? If this beast left hoofprints, I can follow them.”
“My ... uh ... lady?”
Lydia glanced up and grinned. “Ah, here we go!”
As she had ordered, the stable hand had brought them not only their horses, but a laden pack horse as well.
As they rode down from the casde and out over the fields, Lydia crouched low over the neck other horse, studying the ground, finally dismounting to study what looked like a perfectly unremarkable patch of earth to Kevin.
“This is where the girl was seized, all right,” she said. “See how the grass has been torn up?”
Eliathanis dismounted as well, then drew back in distaste. “It stinks of sorcery.”
“It does,” Naitachal agreed softly, joining him. “Sorcery cold enough to slay a man.” Wrapped in his black cloak, hood up against the sun (which must be uncomfortably bright, Kevin thought, to someone used to darker lands), the Dark Elf was a sinister, faceless figure. “Do you not feel the echo of his death?” Naitachal sighed in regret. “Were it only a tiny bit stronger, I could call his spirit to us and learn the truth.”
“Necromancy!” Eliathanis spat,
“Oh, indeed.” Kevin thought he caught the barest hint of a sardonic smile from under that black hood. “What was worked here.” the Dark Elf continued softly, “was not the magic of my folk, nor yours, nor even that of the humans. Not ... quite, at any rate. Intriguing. But I can’t pick up a clear enough trace for it to be very helpful. What of you. White Elf?”
Eliathanis shook his head. “Whoever it was took great pains to cover his tracks.”
“His?”
“Or hers. Or even theirs. I can’t be sure.”
Lydia glanced from one elf to the other, then shrugged. “We didn’t expect things to be easy, did we?” Bending to examine the ground, the woman gave a soft laugh of triumph. “Maybe there aren’t any clear magical traces, but at least there is a physical track. See, here’s where Charina’s palfrey bolted back to its stable. But here ... these are the tracks of a different horse. Bigger ... heavier ... maybe a destrier?” She swung lithely back into the saddle. “It has to be the horse the kidnapper was riding. Look, the tracks are faint enough as they are. Let’s get going before something destroys them altogether.”
As the small party rode on out of field into scrubland then forest, following an overgrown trail that must originally have been cut by woodsmen, Kevin wondered bitterly if he really was the leader. Lydia was doing the tracking, and the two elves had their magic to help them, while he—he was nothing but an untried bardling who didn’t even know about—
Hey, wait a minute! “Naitachal?”
The Dark Elf had pushed back his hood as soon as the first trees had screened off the sun—His fair hair gleamed, startling bright against the darkness of skin and clothing, as he brought his horse up beside Kevin’s. “Yes?”
Naitachal’s eyes, disconcertingly, glinted red in the dim light, sending echoes of every eerie tale he’d ever heard flashing through Kevin’s mind. Don’t be stupid! he scolded himself. He’s an ally. For now, anyhow. “Were you in the castle when the groom’s body was brought in?”
“1 was,” Naitachal said softly. “And yes, I did ask to be allowed to examine it”
Eliathanis’ keen elf ears caught that murmur. “To work your spells on it, you mean!”
The Dark Elf smiled without rancor. “Exactly. I have been well trained in the sorceries that can draw back the dead. One would think Count Volmar would have been anxious to learn anything that might have helped him recover his niece. And yet I was refused.”
“Not surprising,” the White Elf snapped. “He didn’t want anything tainted by Darkness in his castle.”
