Elvenbane

humans. Catching such a renegade as that would be as useful as capturing the unknown parties who had released the slaves...in fact, such a leader might well be the one who had released them.

He didn't need that, and neither did Shadow.

Cheynar didn't know Shadow was a halfblood, but if he decided to be ruthless and use his coercion-spells on Valyn again...

He just might babble it, he thought unhappily. Now he knew why Cheynar didn't use magic much. He saved it all for those moments when he really needed to know what was going on in someone's mind, what things they were hiding, and he was good at it. If he hadn't stopped questioning me, I would have told him about Mero, I know I would have.

'The bigger party went off that way,' he said, pointing. 'And I think with luck, this rain is going to wash the trail away long before Cheynar and the others find it. But the one halfblood we want to follow went off that way, or that's the way it looks, and she isn't making any attempt to hide her trail.'

'She's acting as a decoy,' Shadow said flatly, peering through the rain in the direction Valyn pointed. 'I'm sure of it. She's the best they've got...Valyn, I have to find her, or I'm never going to learn what I can do, because none of those others will ever trust someone...'

He broke off, and flushed with embarrassment. Valyn stood up, and patted his shoulder awkwardly. 'I know,' he said, a little sadly. 'I'm a liability to you, aren't I? If I just went back right now...'

'You can't, and we both know it,' Mero replied fiercely. 'If you go back now, heir or not, your father...I don't know what he'll do to you. He might even be willing to kill you. He'll certainly hurt you a lot, and...you know what he can do. He'll work spells on you, and when he's done, you won't be Valyn anymore. You don't have a choice. But she's the one who saved the humans, and she's the one who convinced the others to take the kids back to...wherever the other wizards are. If anybody will accept both of us, it's her. And I'm not going without you.'

Valyn swallowed the lump in his throat that threatened to choke off his words. Cheynar had discovered him scrying, tracing the movements and actions of the young wizards, where he and his men had been able to read little or nothing.

He had not been amused. Valyn should have come running to him with everything the young Lord had learned, and they both knew it. So he had used his toughest coercive spells to pry everything he could out of Valyn, and left him in his room, in a sweat-sodden, helpless heap, when he'd heard what he thought was the end of it; where the outlaws were, what they were doing, and that Valyn had been spying on them for his own purposes.

Cheynar thought he knew what those purposes were, that Valyn was working for Dyran, or possibly even working for himself against both Dyran and Cheynar. It was a logical assumption; it wouldn't have been the first time a son had acted against his father. Cheynar himself had done so, allying himself with Dyran and eventually taking the estate from his father.

Thank the Ancestors, Cheynar had been wrong about Valyn, and had been impatient to take up the hunt. If he'd questioned Valyn a moment longer...

But he hadn't. Shadow had come in sometime later...how long, he couldn't say, his mind was still fogged with the effects of Cheynar's spells...and managed to wake him up. That was when he realized exactly what the results of all this would be, when Lord Cheynar returned, successful or not, from his hunt.

First, as soon as he recovered from the draining of his own magic, he would be at Valyn again, and this time he would not stop until he knew everything the young elven mage did.

He would learn that Shadow was not the trained bodyguard he was supposed to be. He would learn why Shadow was with Valyn...and what Shadow was.

And he would have a halfblood in his possession.

Then he would report everything Valyn had done to Lord Dyran...possibly turning Shadow over to him, possibly not; he might choose to eliminate the 'dangerous halfblood' himself. It didn't much matter. The moment Cheynar returned, Shadow was doomed, and so was Valyn.

Though he had been weak-kneed and shaking, Valyn had laid his plans and packed everything he thought he might need...and so did Mero. In the morning, claiming that they were following Lord Cheynar on his orders, they set out for the wilderness with packs and horses.

Within hours of entering the confines of the forest, they lost the horses...one, while they were setting up their first camp, to something they never even saw, only heard; the second to a broken leg as it fled whatever had carried off the first.

At least they hadn't lost the packs.

Perhaps it was just as well. If the horses...or their remains...were ever found, it might be assumed that Valyn and Shadow had fallen victim to the unknown predator as well. A young and zealous elven lord might well have decided to follow Cheynar on his father's behalf, with or without orders. That would give them at least the semblance of innocence, and might prevent Cheynar from being suspicious about why they had left the estate so abruptly.

Losing the horses left them afoot, but gave them an unexpected advantage. Cheynar and his hunters completely overshot the actual location of the wizards, and were now far beyond them. Valyn and Shadow, on foot, but with superior information, found their campsite just before the rains came pouring down out of the leaden, sullen sky.

It would not be long until every trace of the trail of the group was wiped out. The girl's track, on the other hand, was so clear that it would probably withstand a flood...and that, given her actions so far, had to be deliberate.

Valyn hitched his pack a little higher on his shoulders, and set off on the girl's trail, bow in hand, with Shadow following closely behind, keeping mental track of her. In this much, at least, Valyn had an advantage over Shadow; one of the expected pastimes of young lords was hunting, and Valyn had a great deal more practice at handling his bow than Shadow had. In fact, it was a violation of rules that Shadow knew the use of weapons at all. Only fighters, gladiators, and assassins, all of them carefully conditioned and trained, with special coercions on their collars, were allowed the use or knowledge of anything other than a simple kitchen-knife. Mero's possession of weaponry had raised no eyebrows in Cheynar's household, since he was assumed to be an assassin/bodyguard...but in Dyran's, it could have been punished with death.

So Valyn took the lead, in case they roused something else as formidable as whatever killed their horses. And if an arrow tipped with elf-shot couldn't kill whatever came at them, magic certainly could.

Or so I delude myself. Valyn had taken a look at the prints left by the thing that killed their horse, and had a fair notion of its speed. If it or another like it was lying in ambush for them, he wasn't sure he'd have the time to get that first shot off.

But he wasn't going to tell that to Mero. The young man was already apprehensive enough about being out in this untamed forest. Mero knew life between four walls very well; he was adept at intrigue and the ways to circumvent nearly anything. Out here, he was quite lost.

'How far ahead of us is she?' he asked over his shoulder. Mero was plowing doggedly through the underbrush, plainly miserable, head down and shoulders hunched.

He couldn't help it; the cruelly logical and analytical part of him added: And paying no attention to anything around him, just on the ground in front of him.

'I think we can catch up with her just after dusk,' Mero said, his voice muffled and indistinct. 'She'll probably make camp about then. I doubt Cheynar will be close enough to pick up her trail until tomorrow, he's off west and south of here, sure as anything that the goat he's following is her.'

Valyn choked on a laugh.

'I just thought I'd tell you,' Mero continued, with just a hint of sullenness, 'there isn't anything close enough to be dangerous for...well, for a lot farther than we need to worry about. I am checking. I'm not as useless as you might think.'

Valyn flushed, wondering if Shadow had picked up some of his earlier thoughts. But then he remembered last night... and spoke, words he really hadn't meant to say, but said anyway.

'That's assuming it can't hide its mind from you,' he retorted. 'The thing last night could...or at least you didn't know it was there until it got the horse!'

'I wasn't looking for it!' Mero shot back resentfully, raising his head to glare at his cousin. 'I'm looking