two years old and a bit, and she stood seventeen inches tall. And as she sat at the feet of her da, Tip smiled down at her and began a haunting melody-Rynna softly accompanying him-and to the wonder and delight of all, Lark sang a wordless song in perfect accord, her voice now and again taking on the rustle of leaves in the wind.
It was as Tip played and sang the Elven song of the changing of the seasons, that Farly and Tynvyr and Picyn came riding through twilight and into the glade. And when the song was finished, Farly took Rynna and Tip aside and said, 'Something is afoot in the Rimmens.'
'Something afoot?' said Tip.
'What?' asked Rynna.
'I dunno,' said Farly, 'but there's a lot of movement.'
'Movement?'
'Right. Foul Folk seen moving eastward.'
'Eastward, eastward,' muttered Tip. 'What lies eastward?'
All gathered 'round in the candlelight as Tip laid out his maps on the small table. Once again Pysks stood about the edges, where they could see.
[This movement: where is it?] asked Tip.
[Up near the headwaters of the Rissanin,] said Farly, pointing into the Rimmen Ring. [Moving east within the crags.]
[Who brought this news?] asked Rynna, looking across at Tynvyr.
[Phero,] replied the Pysk. [She was scouting out the latest placement of Spaunen sentry posts when movement caught her eye. Great numbers of the Foul Folk move eastward, and they follow an old route where wagons can go, a supply train in their midst.]
[Where are they bound, I wonder?] asked Beau.
Tip shuffled his sketches about and then said, [Well, directly to the east lies Garia. It's mostly mountains-the Skarpals-where DelfLord Borl was killed. But why they would go there…]
[Oh, Tip, to the east also lies Bridgeton,] said Beau, stabbing a finger to the map. [Could that be their aim?]
Tip turned up his hands. [We won't know until we track them.]
[Track them?] Rynna looked at Tip, her eyes wide.
[Yes, love,] replied Tip. [Someone has to see what they are up to, and who better than us?]
'We are better at this than you,' came a voice speaking Common.
Tip and the others turned. Aylissa stood in the doorway. Beside the wee Pysk were two others, two Pysks neither Tip nor Beau nor any of the Warrows had seen before.
'Lady Aylissa,' exclaimed Tipperton.
Aylissa smiled. 'Sir Tipperton, Lady Rynna, may I present my sire and dam: Mistress Jinnarin and Master Farrix, once of Darda Glain of Rwn, an isle that is no more.'
'There they are,' murmured Rynna.
Tip's gaze followed her outstretched arm. In the light of a last-quarter moon just now rising in the east, along an old trail through the stony mountains wended a column of Foul Folk.
'How many can there be?' asked Beau.
'Four, five hundred or so, I gauge,' said Nix.
'No no, Nix. What I meant to ask was, how many have passed this point in the ten days since they were first spotted?'
'Oh,' said Nix. 'As to that, who can say?'
'Perhaps they are fleeing the fall of Crestan Pass,' said Linnet.
Farrix shook his head. 'Nay, Lady Linnet. They were on the move ere then. Marching south from the Grimwall, nigh where it joins the Gronfangs. We came to warn you.'
'As you can see, we are not the ones who need warning,' said Tipperton, 'but someone east.'
Rynna turned to Aylissa and Jinnarin and Farrix. 'You must outpace them if possible and warn the folk at Bridge-ton, should that seem to be their goal.'
Aylissa nodded, but it was Farrix who replied. 'Aye. We'll see where it is they are bound, but if it is somewhere past the Rimmens, we'll turn back after seeing that others carry the word beyond.'
Beau frowned and said, 'I say, by going to Bridgeton it seems you are not as shy about your presence as are the other Fox Riders we know.'
Jinnarin laughed. 'Not so, Sir Beau, although I must admit we may be bolder than most, for we have travelled around the world'-she reached out and took Farrix's hand-'Farrix and I, in Aravan's ship, the Eroean. Even so, it was necessity which drove us to such an uncommon act. And though we have sailed the world, still we let not just anyone see us, for our kind fear a repeat of foul deeds done to us long past. Yet, when necessity commands, there are those we turn to in trust: Elvenkind, Magekind, the Baeron… and now some Waerlinga. But even these we shun in ordinary times, lest our presence become commonplace.
'As to this mission, there are Baeron in the woods south of Bridgeton, and it is they whom we will ask to bear a warning unto the citizens of that town. Too, I deem they will carry on should we need give up the chase.'
Beau smiled. 'Oh, I see.'
Rynna knelt. 'You'll come back when you discern their goal.'
Aylissa nodded. 'Indeed, Adon willing, we shall return. Yet as to their goal, that we may never divine, for foul Modru drives them, and none knows his mind but his vile master Gyphon… and mayhap not even Him.'
'Come,' said Farrix. 'We must hie.' And he called his fox unto his side, Aylissa and Jinnarin doing likewise.
'Good fortune,' said Linnet, as the Pysks mounted up, their tiny bows slung across their backs, wee lethal arrows in quivers at each of their hips, diminutive knapsacks slung across their shoulders and hanging at their sides.
'Good fortune to you as well,' said Jinnarin.
And with cries of 'Hai, Rux!' and 'Hai, Rhu!'' and 'Hai, Vex!' the trio of riders darted away, the foxes scrambling down the back of the ridge through moonlight aslant and toward the foothills below.
A week passed, and then another, and then another still, and yet no word came from Aylissa or her sire or dam.
And still Spawn moved through the Rimmens, heading east, though their numbers diminished.
Toward the end of the seventh week there occurred a most peculiar thing: the Foul Folk patrols and sentries vanished from the eaves of Darda Erynian and the Greatwood: none were seen north or south on the wold nor in the Rimmens above.
Over the following month or so, cautious scouts searched along the wold and in the Rimmen Spur, yet no Spawn did they see.
And still Aylissa and Jinnarin and Farrix had not returned.
'Where have they gone?' asked Linnet, as she and Beau carried a table out from the withy bower, a table which soon would be laden with food for the Autumnday celebration. Beau shrugged his shoulders but otherwise did not reply.
Rynna, carrying a tablecloth, gestured toward the risen sun of the September morn as it burned away the lingering threads of mist in the vale, though vaporous filaments yet tarried among the trees. 'Mayhap east through the Rimmens… following the others.'
Nix growled, 'I said it before, and I'll say it again: something foul is afoot.'
'I agree, but what?' asked Farly.
Before Nix could answer, from the east there sounded a black-oxen horn.
'Oh my,' said Rynna, dropping the cloth and snatching up her bow from where it leaned against the bower. 'That's Tip's horn.'
She set an arrow to string, and her companions did likewise, all but Beau who laded a stone in his sling. And as they spread wide in a defensive stance, bursting out from the mist-entwined trees came Tipperton riding at a gallop, Kell on a fox running at his side. Tip set his horn to his lips once more and again belled its resonant cry.
