Elvenbane

now!'

'Are you willing to bet your life on being able to'see' it?' Valyn said, after a moment of silence between them. 'I'm sorry, Mero...I'm not. I'm not willing to bet my life on much of anything right now.'

More silence. Valyn glanced back over his shoulder, to see Mero plodding along, head down again. Then...

'Neither am I,' came the quiet reply.

Valyn checked the arrows in his quiver, and the tension on his bowstring. 'Then let's both do the best we can,' he suggested gently, guilty for making the point in the first place, even if it was a good one. 'And let's find this girl as quickly as we can, because she's obviously better at this than both of us together!'

That earned him a wan chuckle and, feeling a little better, he turned his attention back to the trail.

Shana tensed, and snatched up the bow that had been lying beside her, as a chill of fear ran like icy lightning down her spine. She scanned the darkness beyond the range of the firelight, with eyes and mind; there was someone out there, out in the dark, watching them. Someone who hadn't been there a moment before...

Or who had been cloaking his presence until this moment, which meant magic, the kind of magic only an elven lord or a halfblood could use. Humans could hide their thoughts if they had the power, or if they had been collared, but only elven magic could hide someone's presence. The greatest of the wizards could, in the old days, even conceal the telltale 'sounds' of magic use. Elves could do it routinely, but seldom bothered. Which meant the intruder was either an elf, or a wizard more powerful than any Shana knew.

No, wait. Her chill deepened, and her hands closed harder on the bow. The unknown was cloaking a double presence. There were two of them out there. One of them moved, and the sharp scent of disturbed, wet leaves came to her nostrils.

:Yes,: came the halting voice in her mind, before she could barricade it. :There are two of us. We have been trying to find you. We need your help, most urgently.:

The 'voice' was uncertain, uneven in tone and strength, as if the 'speaker' was not used to communicating this way. Shana's fear did not lessen, however, and she remained tense; she had never yet come across a case where an elven lord had used a human or halfblood with wizard-powers, but that didn't mean it couldn't happen...there were those suspicions in the old journals after all. Was this, the worst of her fears, about to be shown as the truth?

'Come out here where I can see you,' she said aloud.

:Shana, one of them is...: Keman began, as the two lurking in the shadows stepped into the light of their fire. The light reflected off dark hair, slightly pointed ears and green eyes...and, features shadowed behind his companion, white-blond hair, sharply pointed ears, angular features, pale alabaster skin and green eyes.

:...an elven lord,: Keman concluded lamely.

Well, there was this much; the elven lord didn't look very lordly at the moment. Wet hair straggled down into his face, obscuring what the shadows didn't. They both looked very much the worse for wear, rain-soaked, dirty, and weary, with clothing torn by brambles, and faces pale with cold. The expression in the halfblood's eyes was one Shana might have empathized with: hopeful, and not a little desperate.

:My friend and cousin,: amended the halfblood defiantly. He stepped forward, placing himself between the young elven lord and Shana. 'We came to find help, Valyn and I. He's saved me so many times I've lost count,' the halfblood continued aloud. 'He's not like the others...and right now, he's in just as much danger as we are. Maybe more.'

A nice story, if it's true. Shana leveled her crossbow at his chest; at this range, especially with her own magics backing it, the powerful bow could quite easily send its single bolt through both of them. They both backed up a step, and she leveled an openly hostile gaze on them. 'That's exactly what you'd say if he was using you to find more wizards,' she pointed out, stalling for time while Keman readied himself for a quick change if need arose. 'You've come out of nowhere, when I know I'm being followed by elves, and you tell me that I should help you because you're in danger. That sounds like a trap to me. Right now I don't see any reason to believe you. He could easily be controlling you.'

The halfblood's reaction surprised her; he cursed, and reached up to his own throat, tearing off the collar and throwing it to the ground. 'There!' he said angrily. 'Does that convince you? Dammit, we're cold, we're hungry, we're tired, we're in as much danger as you are...and we're helpless!'

'All of which can be feigned,' she replied coldly. 'And he could be controlling you by some means other than a collar. Collars just happen to be a convenient vehicle for the coercion- and conditioning- spells.'

The elven lord...Valyn?...stepped out from behind his companion, though his face was still in the shadows. 'You seem to know quite a bit about it,' he said mildly. 'But Mero says you have much stronger mind-powers than he does. So why don't you read his thoughts and see if what he is saying is true. Ancestors, for that matter, you can read mine, and welcome!'

That rather surprised her. Shana looked over at Keman, who shrugged. 'I can watch them, if that's what you're worried about,' he said quietly. 'They won't be able to get past me, I don't care how good they are.'

Shana privately doubted that he could stop them, but she kept her doubts to herself. He'd been among elves for months, and he'd seen some of what they could do. If Keman thought he could counter the work of a powerful elven mage, then perhaps he could.

And perhaps he couldn't. There really was no telling. But right now the situation was at a stalemate; they couldn't trust these strangers, but neither could they drive them away.

She nodded reluctantly. 'All right,' she said, lowering her bow. And, to Keman, :I hope I know what I'm doing, here. And I hope you weren't boasting.:

She closed her eyes...

A moment later she opened them, grinning like a fool.

'Get in here and get warm,' she told them, as first Mero, then his cousin, relaxed visibly. 'We have a lot to talk about.'

Mero grinned uncertainly back, and moved aside to let his cousin get by him. Valyn raked his sodden hair out of his eyes, and smiled at her, and only then did she really see him.

She flushed, and stared at him, then quickly looked away from him. Rain-soaked, filthy, and worn as he was, she had never seen a more incredibly handsome being in her life...

And she hadn't the foggiest idea what to do about it.

Chapter 19

WE KNEW THE whereabouts of the elves by the aura, the sound of power wherever they were, and the location of their human slaves by the peculiar thought-void caused by the collars.

That quote came directly from Kalamadea's journal.

No matter where they were, nor how expert and powerful, they could not conceal those twin clues.

Shana'd had plenty of chances to test those journal entries over the past couple of days. The dragon-wizard had been correct. No matter what shielding the elven lords placed on themselves, that faint hum of magic, detectable only by one who herself was a mage, persisted, like the hum of a beehive in the distance.

She stared, not at the flames of their little fire, but through them, letting her mage-senses seek back along