“Later,” she said, pushing past the manacled one. He bellowed something else at her back that she did not catch.
The lordling saw her about the same time and swatted aside an elven hunter to reach her. He hadn’t found another sword but instead wielded a long chain topped by a metal ball bristling with spikes.
He swung it at her when she was still out of range, the ball moaning an arc through the air. Alea lunged in behind it, hoping to skewer the shaggy human before he could react.
She’d misjudged, even as she moved, the human stepped forward, pulling his shoulders around, quickly reversing the direction of his swing. The chain wrapped tightly around her lower arm, the spikes at its end grabbing at her flesh.
Alea snarled, caught off-balance, as the human braced himself with both feet and pulled hard.
She was quicker and more nimble than the barbarian, but the human had the edge in height, weight, and strength. As she was hauled forward, she dropped her blade and toppled helplessly at the lordling’s feet. A boot stamped cruelly down, she twisted and took it on her shoulder rather than her throat.
He smiled, the last rays of the setting sun setting the scars on his face ablaze and highlighting the gap in his teeth. One hand firmly gripping the chain that held her braced against his planted boot, he used the other to draw a steel dagger the size of a dragon’s tooth from his belt.
Then a pair of frail hands reached up on either side of the lordling’s head, and Alea heard someone shout an ancient archaic word, a magical word, one that would trip a memorized spell.
The hands glowed a fierce blue, and the barbarian chieftain’s head disappeared in the radiance. When the glow vanished, the head was gone as well. Slowly, like a boat with a slow leak, the barbarian’s reeling body settled to the earth.
Behind the corpse stood the red-bearded wizard, who’d apparently gotten his manacles off after all. He offered a hand to Alea.
Alea grabbed her own blade and stood up, looking around the encampment. The fight was over. There was a snarling cluster of wolves atop one still-struggling human, but the other foes were now nothing but inanimate, shaggy lumps strewn on the ground.
Many of the elves had shed some blood, but none had fallen. There was not a human standing except for the pale, bearded one in the ragged finery. “You’re welcome,” he said quietly in the True Tongue.
Alea frowned. “You’re not with this lot, are you?” she asked gruffly, pulling the ear-laden thong from what was left of the human lord.
“Observant as well as strong,” murmured the human.
“No, I am not with them. These savages caught me, thought me an evil wizard, and were about to use me for the evening’s entertainment when you made your timely arrival.”
Alea put the elven ears into her pouch, to be returned to the Elian family and entombed with the rest of the elf’s body.
“So vengeance was your motivation,” said the pale human, still trying to strike up a conversation. “A pity. I thought it was concern about my impending doom.”
She looked hard at the human, as if seeing him for the first time. “You’re Netherese?”
The human moved his head in a half shake, half-nod. “Netheril is no more.”
“You can go your way then, human,” Alea declared, turning back to where the rest of her hunting group was gathering. The huts had been looted for what little treasure could be found, and one of the elves moved from hut to hut, setting fire to the buildings with a burning log. Thick smoke began to curl, and the elves started to toss human bodies into the huts, to be consumed in the blaze to come. Many had already had their ears removed.
“That won’t stop them, you know,” said the pale human.
Alea stopped again and looked hard at the human. She sighed. “What won’t stop who?”
“Killing. Humans. Well, these humans, at any rate.” He nudged a mauled corpse with one toe. “If you kill a human, you have to worry about his children coming after you. And grandchildren. And sister-kin, and distant kin, and friends and all-until whole peoples are arming against you. No, killing just encourages them.”
Alea’s upper lip curled back from her teeth. “The matter is more simple, you-who-love-to-talk. This is land is ours. We are its guardians. It is our hunting ground.”
The human nodded. “And other humans know this: the Dalesmen spilling across the Dragon Reach, and the greedy or desperate from the wealthy merchant nations of the south. They know of this land of forests now-a rich, untamed hunting ground, with only a few elves to defend it. Ripe for the taking.”
“A fair warning,” Alea said grudgingly, eyebrows lifting. “And yet I wonder why you make it. You are human, you know,” she said, curiosity twisting her voice as the last of the huts were set ablaze.
“Sometimes I wish I weren’t,” said the frail form, extending a hand. “Bacrauble Etharr.”
Alea looked at the man’s outstretched hand. He disdains humans, she thought, yet the pressing of palms was a very human action.
She looked back up the arm to its owner, his beard wild in the last fading light. He looked almost comical, though at the back of her mind, she was thinking his looks hardly mattered. He’d probably die out here in a matter of nights without elven protection.
And looking into his eyes, she realized that he knew it as well.
She took the offered hand and shook it warily. “Alea Dahast,” she replied. “Are you…?”
“Am 1 what?”
“An evil wizard?” she prompted calmly.
“Wizard, yes, evil, no,” Baerauble Etharr replied, and Alea saw a gleam in the human’s eye. “But as a mage, I find the boorish company of humans to be rather a strain at best.”
Alea turned and started walking back to her people again. The human kept pace alongside her, matching her smooth stride. After a few moments of ignoring him, she turned her head and asked, “So if we don’t kill human poachers, what do we do? Give them this land?”
“You can scare them.”
She stopped and looked questioningly at the mage. Facing her, he smiled slightly and added, “You have wolves here.”
“Observant as well as magical,” she murmured, making her words sound like his slight accent. It had to be northern. It resembled the chimelike speech of the Netherese.
“Many?” he asked, acknowledging her sally with the merest ghost of a smile.
“Some.”
“Get more. Feral ones, like dire wolves. And some owlbears, bugbears, and whatever other wood-dwelling horrors you can find. Not enough to burden the forest or make the hunting too perilous for your folk. Put them along the borders… particularly the eastern verges, near the human settlements.”
She stood there, thinking. “If humans see that there are dangerous creatures on the edges of the forest “
“… they’ll think worse beasts lurk in its depths. To some, this might be a peril to eradicate at all costs, but any man going near the forest will be so busy fighting the roaming beasts that very few humans will venture far inside the woods. And so you have-again-your unspoiled hunting preserve. One can’t possibly kill all the humans, but one can steer them aside.”
Alea managed a half-smile as she looked at the burning wreckage of the human camp. She felt the truth in his words warm her inwardly as much as the flaring flames heated her face.
Yes, Iliphar would raise bloody tumult over this when he found out, but this simple strategy, plus the returned ears, might buy her a little grace with the elders. And if she brought along the human mage as a prize…
“You’ll come with us,” she said flatly, then turned her head and shouted a command at her hunters, bidding them make ready to travel.
“Of course I shall,” said the lanky human. Alea did not see the gleam in his eye and the widening smile on his lips, but she knew it was there.
Chapter 5: The Abraxus
