Elvenbane

don't have any of that...'

'We have something like it,' Shana interrupted. :Keman, should we let them know what you are?:

Keman shrugged slightly. I don't know why not. Between Mother and me, we've pretty well let the secret out.:

:Then go ahead. Just don't fill up the room, please.:

'Oh?' Denelor said, turning back to Shana. 'And just what is this...my word]'

Keman, who had transformed himself back into his real shape, though at less than one quarter of his real size, grinned toothily. Shana's bed creaked and threatened to collapse, and he slid quickly from it to the floor. Zed and Mero scrambled hastily out of the way, and Zed's eyes were as big and round as wine goblets. Shana couldn't help herself; she chuckled, just a little, to see the otherwise unflappable Zed so thoroughly discomfited.

'Dragon-claws, Master Denelor,' Keman said, hissing the sillibants just a trifle. 'You may ask Valyn if they are effective. Clippings from my claws can be made into an arrow-point, just as elf-shot can be. They pass magic- shields, and they are quite poisonous to those of elven blood.'

He transformed again, back to his halfblood shape, and Zed moved cautiously back to his place, although he kept a wary eye on the young dragon.

'My word,' Denelor said weakly. 'This is...rather astonishing. But...there is nothing of magic about you, no telltale...how...'

'It's not an illusion, Master Denelor,' Shana told him. 'It's a true shape-shift. Use an illusion-breaking spell on him and he'll look exactly the same. That's dragon magic, to change the shapes of things, including themselves.'

Denelor mopped his brow with his sleeve. 'Well,' he said, after a long pause. 'I thought I would come down here to consult with you about our present situation, then bring something to the elders as a kind of given...but I'm going to bring back a great deal more than even I bargained for. Well.' He sat there for a moment longer, looking at each pf them in turn, then heaved an enormous sigh. 'Let's get on with it, then, shall we? There's no point in wasting time.'

Valyn slipped from tree to tree, letting his clothing blend in with the bark as he came up on the enemy's rear.

Thank the Ancestors he finally had something to do. Something he could do. He felt so...useless. He hadn't been able to think of anything for himself lately...his mind just wasn't working. And every time Shana came up with another brilliant idea, he felt more and more inadequate. He'd assumed he would be pivotal in this whole rebellion...

Not only was he not pivotal, he wasn't particularly useful.

It was not a good feeling. And all his life, he'd thought of women as being the useless ones...not really consciously, of course, but...it was one of the 'givens,' like the fact that the sun set in the west. Shana had turned his 'given' on its ear. Sometimes he half expected to find that the sun was not setting at all anymore.

Compared to that, finding himself working against Dyran was hardly worth thinking about.

Though it was odd to think of his father as the enemy. And yet, not odd at all. Somehow they had always been enemies, from the very beginning; and only now had the hostilities come out into the open. He had never really known his father, he thought, as he froze behind a tree trunk. It was strange, but he felt more kinship with old Denelor than he did with his own father.

As far as that went, he'd never really had the sense of family with anyone that the humans and halfbloods seemed to take for granted. Even Mero had always been...kind of an extension of himself. The shadow he had been nicknamed for. Mero had never seemed to have a life or a mind of his own...and one of the few times he'd balked, over handfasting to Shana, Valyn had never once hesitated to use a glamorie to change his mind.

In fact, the only time he'd done something against Valyn's wishes when Valyn hadn't used a glamorie to bring him round, was over Triana.

And was that because he didn't think he should...or because he didn't want to go head-to-head with Triana, he asked himself soberly.

He had found himself feeling very isolated and alone, watching the affection that Shana and Keman shared, the relationships between the older wizards and the children they had adopted. There was room in a relationship like that for quarrels and disagreements, for each party going his own way. There didn't seem to be that kind of freedom in the bond between himself and Shadow. It would indubitably have been better for both of them if there had been.

Those were uncomfortable thoughts, and he left them gladly enough as he neared the enemy encampment.

He just couldn't seem to...cope with feeling.

The encampment wasn't hard to find. The humans of the army were noisy, and they were patently afraid of the forest, covering that fear by making still more noise. Most of them had never been in this wilderland, but they had heard terrible stories about the beasts and monsters that supposedly ranged it. They didn't know they were about to have their fears realized.

Valyn sought for the peculiar blank spot that was the creature he had nicknamed the 'snatcher.' There were several of them in the forest, but this one happened to den very near the elven lords' line of march. It was, in fact, the same creature that had taken his horse the first night in the wilderlands. It wasn't nearly as dangerous as he had thought...it seldom went after two-legged targets, and it never killed more than it could eat...but they didn't know that.

He crept as close as he dared to the den, then froze where he was still safe...the snatcher hunted by movement...and sent out a delicate little thread of magic, creating an illusion of a fat pony just outside tangle of fallen tree trunks and thornbushes that hid its den, an illusion complete with rustling leaves and the sound of equine jaws tearing up grass.

The snatcher lunged, traveling so fast that it was a mere blur, the 'pony' leapt away, then turned back to look at it with astonished eyes. It was very hard to see, once it stopped moving; it was able to change the coloration of its skin to blend in perfectly with its surroundings.

The snatcher lunged again. Again, the pony escaped, and to the snatcher it must have seemed oblivious to its danger.

Three more lunges and escapes, and the snatcher was within sight of the army's picket lines. The horses sensed something wrong; they began whinnying and stamping nervously just as Valyn banished the illusion. Hungry, frustrated by the inexplicable disappearance of its quarry, and already farther from its den than it like to be, the snatcher saw the picketed horses, and gave way to temptation.

This time the prey did not escape; one poor, unfortunate beast wound up in the snatcher's jaws, and the picket line exploded in panic as the snatcher snapped the ropes with a claw and retired swiftly to its den. Horses crashed through the underbrush as the ropes holding them broke and let them fly to the four winds. Some plunged through the camp, scattering gear and trampling people and equipment in their panic. Others plunged off into the forest, with handlers shouting after them.

Valyn withdrew discretely, before any of the elven lords thought to look for traces of magic, chuckling quietly to himself.

Mero waited patiently, lying along the tree limb, a position he had taken up as soon as he had determined where they planned to camp. Knowing, as he did, how the current hierarchy was constructed, and knowing where the choice campsites were, it didn't take a great deal of thought to determine where the various leaders would choose to have their tents pitched and arrange to be in the vicinity.

He had an excellent view of the encampment. Lord Cheynar paced outside his tent beneath the boughs of another tree not far away. Finally, after what probably seemed like an indecently long time to the elven lord, the person he was waiting for appeared.

Cheynar started to relax...then Mero nudged his mind, just a little. Safer, far, than using magic that the elves could set traps for.

:Stupid wench...spends all her time at the mirror...thinks it's all a game...should never trust women with power...should never permit a woman to command troops.:

'You took your time getting here, Triana,' he snarled. 'Couldn't you decide what dress to wear?'

Triana, who was garbed quite practically in leather armor very similar to Cheynar's, frowned.