plenty of young and unattached women in town, particularly the daughters of the Silver brothers, he never stepped beyond mild flirtation with any of them. At least not at first.
Knowledge held him in check-the knowledge held by the folk of Suzail. Most knew Suzara, and knew about the heated rows she and her husband had shared. Ondeth had never convinced his wife that this was a place worth staying in, and all the stone foundations and swelling population in Faerun would not keep her here. Once, early on, there’d been a chance Ondeth might change his mind about carving a home from the wilderness, but that chance had died in one afternoon of elven horns and lights in the trees… and with it, their relationship.
Suzara took the youngest lad and returned to Impiltur, sailing away on the first boat to moor at the new dock. Ondeth did not see her off, but Faerlthann did. In the new settlement, he’d grown to be taller than his father, his muscles hardened by work, his face tanned by the sun, and his eyes keen. And there was something else in those eyes from time to time: a faraway misty look the young man would get when Baerauble would visit, with his tales of elven kingdoms and their wild hunts.
Yet in the four years since Suzara’s sailing, father and son had settled into their roles. Faerlthann was the dutiful son, Ondeth the desolate father, and both seemed comfortable in their parts. The young women of the Silver households respected old Ondeth, but their eyes lit up for young Faerlthann.
So things had gone until Minda Bleth arrived, after Mondar her brother. Mondar had shown up six years ago, hard behind Jaquor and Tristan, the Silver brothers. But while the twin Silvers had agreed to settle within the confines of the already cleared area, Mondar would have none of that. There was a glade a mile northwest of the main settlement, little more than a clearing burnt bare by some elder wyrm or lightning strike. It had water and wood close at hand, and the place was far enough away from Suzail to allow privacy and close enough to afford protection.
Or at least that was Mondar’s opinion in the matter, voiced loudly enough to ring from the rafters of Ondeth’s first house. Mondar was as massive as a thundercloud, with a temper to match. He was already balding, but he kept a thick beard that reached nearly to his belt. His forehead was plowed with deep lines, and when he was in full fury, which was often, he could outbellow, outshout, and outargue any man in the colony, including Ondeth. It was generally agreed that by allowing Mondar to settle elsewhere, Ondeth was keeping a potential rival at a safe distance.
Oddly enough, the two had eventually become friends and allies, sharing a love of both the land and of home-brewed ale. Ondeth was at the bedside when Mondar’s wife died giving birth to Arphoind. The night that Suzara left the town named for her, Mondar and Ondeth had gone on a roaring drunk, wandering in the night together bellowing out rude, impromptu lyrics to all the elven tunes they could recall.
Mondar and Baerauble hated each other instantly, of course, and the elder Bleth did not miss an opportunity to goad the elf-friend. Yet despite this and Mondar’s rapid clearing of the glade, the sky did not fall, the elves did not attack, and the world did not end. Suzail continued to grow, and others besides Mondar began to say that perhaps the elven restrictions were just grand old words, that perhaps by now the elves had come to terms with humans moving into their lands.
Ondeth held to the limits set down by Baerauble, for there was still more than enough land within the rambling town wall. Still, a distance had grown between the old farmer and the wizard, and when Baerauble came to visit, he spent more time with Faerltbann and the youngsters than with his old friend.
The arrival of Mondar’s sister, Minda, strained the new friendship between Mondar and Ondeth. She’d come to Suzail a year ago, as fair as her brother was rough-hewn. Her hair was the color of the darkest night, and her eyes glowed like bits of silver. Her face was unmarked and had a golden sheen to it. She was as tall as her brother and Ondeth and, like her brother, wouldn’t take no for an answer. Even if Mondar disliked the attention Minda paid to the older farmer, he could do little to dissuade her.
Minda spent more and more time in the manor hall. She brought gossip and tales from old Impiltur and told them with colorful flourishes. In a private moment, she told Ondeth that Suzara had officially dissolved the marriage and remarried a Theskan merchant. Ondeth never told Faerlthann, but afterward Minda’s presence in the Obarskyr manor became more frequent.
Until one day when she didn’t go home at all, and the morning brought spirals of black smoke rising from Mondar’s homestead.
The wizard appeared as they were laying Mondar’s corpse atop the others. Suddenly he was there, at the corner of the glade, as if he had just stepped out of the woods. For years Ondeth bad thought that the spell hurler walked through the woods, until finally he noticed the bending of light around the wizard when he first appeared. The mage arrived by wizardry and probably did not walk anywhere.
The passing decade had changed Baerauble not a whit, he was still lanky and emaciated, his hair and beard unbroken auburn. He carried a heavy, gnarled staff now, but Ondeth never saw him use it for support.
As the elf-friend approached, the Silvers and others pulled back. Several laid hands on their blades, ready to draw them if the wizard showed any sign of menace.
Ondeth and Faerlthann held their ground. The older Obarskyr nodded to the mage and spoke quietly. “Were you involved in this?”
“Not directly,” Baerauble replied, his face haggard and worn. Faerlthann noted that no shock chased across the wizard’s features as he glanced at the heap of corpses. “You need fire?”
Ondeth shrugged and turned to the carrion pile. He offered a prayer to Lathander and Tyche and all the old gods for the safe passage of those slain “to their fitting final fates.”
Baerauble bowed his head along with everyone else, muttered a few quiet phrases, and stretched out his hands. A gout of fire burst from his outstretched palms.
The wood beneath the bodies caught in an instant, and in the space of a few breaths, the entire pyre was ablaze. A new column of smoke rose into the Cormyrean sky.
The settlers and the wizard watched the flames catch hold of Mondar’s shirt and flesh, then crackle along his beard. “What do you mean, ‘not directly’?” asked Ondeth at last.
“Iliphar’s court has been debating the fate of this farm for some time,” said Baerauble.
“This farm has been here for six years,” said Ondeth sharply.
“A pleasant day for an elf,” said Baeraubie calmly. “The briefest slumber for a dragon. Elves decide things slowly.”
“And act quickly,” said Ondeth. “So quickly you had no chance to warn us?”
Ondeth expected a denial, one that would have shattered the last remains of their friendship. Instead Baerauble sighed. “Would a warning have helped? Would it have been better for you to have died here, sword in hand, helping an ally who was clearly in the wrong?”
“‘Twas six years, man!” said Ondeth hotly, his brows coming together in a fierce line.
“Aye, and I would have thought you could talk some sense into the man in that time,” Baerauble replied. “You know the elves only allow slow growth, and only where we have permitted it. Now the rest of the human settlers will stay closer to Suzara’s town and leave the elves to their hunting.”
“You think that?” said Ondeth. “You honestly think that my people will not seek revenge? You honestly think they’ll agree to protect your precious forests out of fear?”
The two older men, with young Faerlthann beside them, watched the flames dance among the dead. Mondar and his family were little more than black lumps among leaping red and orange fiery tendrils now, only vaguely human in form.
“No, I do not,” said the mage at length. “But my voice does not carry the weight it once did in Iliphar’s court. There are those who point to my human blood and call me your puppet and spy. Some were expecting me to ride with a warning to you, and so betray myself.” He looked at the grim, watching men with their hands on their swords, and then back to Ondeth. “Tell me, are these men loyal?”
Ondeth looked at the mage and said nothing.
“Are these men loyal to you?” Baerauble asked again. “Will they do as you ask?”
Ondeth looked at the others. The Silver brothers, Rayburton, Jolias Smye the smith. Faerlthann. Without thought to the choosing in his haste, he’d chosen them to ride here with him.
“Yes, they are loyal,” he said slowly, eyes narrowing as he looked at the wizard.
“Loyal enough to kill for you?” pressed Baerauble, “Or, more importantly, not to kill?”
“What are you getting at, wizard?” snapped Ondeth.
“I could not stop this attack, but we can stop the war,” said the elf-friend. “The elves have no argument with
