“Maanin,” he said. He looked back to Dagii. “One of the Silent Blades instead of one of the Silent Wolves?”
“Do you want to argue with four more elves dead?” Ekhaas asked him.
Keraal’s eyes narrowed but he bent his neck in the slightest of nods.
“Maanin’s place here is not the issue,” Dagii said. “Ten elves dead here, four and three dead below the hill, twelve fled in fear or defeat.” He put his hands on his hips and looked around at all of them. “Twenty-nine Valaes Tairn sent against forty Darguuls. If not for Ekhaas’s song, I think that more than half our number would be dead right now. Don’t claim a victory here-claim a lesson learned.”
The others had no response.
Dagii nodded. “Uukam, Biiri, give the warriors a short time to celebrate, then order them back to discipline. The camp needs to be restored and sentries set again. It’s possible the elves may try their luck again. Keraal, pick out those who fought worst in the battle-they’re to collect the dead and bury them in the morning.”
Keraal’s ears flicked. “Those who fought worst are already among the dead,” he said with the ghost of a smile.
Dagii returned the smile, then jerked his head dismissing all three. When they had gone, he looked down at Chetiin. “Maanin?”
The goblin seated himself on the pack by the fire. “You don’t want to be seen with Haruuc’s assassin, do you? Trying to defend my innocence to all your warriors would only raise more questions. Better that I be someone else for a while.”
“You could have stayed in hiding,” said Ekhaas. “Keraal knows something isn’t right.”
“Hiding isn’t always an advantage. Tell Keraal the truth later. When there are fewer things to concern him- and you.” Chetiin glanced up at them. “I followed the fleeing elves a short way. I doubt that they’ll return tonight, but the odd thing is that they had no horses.”
Ekhaas narrowed her eyes. “You told me that not all Valaes Tairn fight from horseback.”
“They don’t,” said Dagii, “but all of them use horses for transportation. If they didn’t ride, their camp must be close.” His smile became grim. “We can scout them out.”
“Marrow can track them by scent,” Chetiin said.
Dagii nodded. “Let me find some light armor. Something that won’t give us away.” He looked at Ekhaas. “You’ll come?”
“Try to stop me.”
“You should find some light armor and a less rattling weapon for Keraal and bring him too,” said Chetiin.
Dagii’s ears rose at the suggestion. So did Ekhaas’s.
“He’s already suspicious of you,” she said.
“Suspicions are like gardens-left untended, they grow wild.” The goblin’s thin lips pressed together for a moment. “But in this case, I like the idea of an extra sword at my side. The Valaes Tairn are cunning.”
“I’ll find Keraal,” said Dagii.
Keraal, outfitted in leather with a sword at his side, reacted to Marrow with surprise at first, then gave her a deep, respectful nod. The worg growled something to Chetiin, who smiled.
“What did she say?” asked Keraal.
“She appreciates your gesture of submission but says that only pups present the back of the neck.”
Keraal’s ears flicked and he addressed himself to Marrow, “I doubt I would survive your tenderness, mother.”
Marrow’s tail waved rapidly, her ears flipped forward, and her mouth opened so that her tongue hung out. She looked, Ekhaas decided, amused.
“Humor, Keraal?” asked Dagii.
The other warrior’s mouth set in a firm line. “It happens sometimes,” he said.
Marrow led them into the night. The campfires faded behind them, obscured by trees and the rolling landscape until only the sharp finger of the ruined clanhold was visible against the sky. Biiri and Uukam had orders to break camp and return to the main army if Dagii didn’t return by mid-morning. They had tried to persuade him not to go, but Dagii had insisted with the same argument he had given Ekhaas: he needed to see the Valaes Tairn forces for himself.
For a while, the trail of the fleeing elves was so easy to see that Ekhaas could have followed it herself. She supposed that the elf warriors she had frightened with her song had made it, driven by their fear without a thought for stealth. Here and there, blood made a smear on the ground or on a leaf, evidence that at least one of the elves had been wounded in the battle. As the obvious trail of broken branches and crushed grass faded, Marrow moved to the fore. She cast about, sniffing, then stopped, whuffed sharply, and growled at two trees.
Chetiin found a long branch on the ground and approached the trees cautiously, tapping ahead with the branch. It caught something. Chetiin peered at the trees though Ekhaas could see nothing. Taking a few steps back, the goblin flung the branch.
There was a snap and a short hiss. The branch jerked and fell apart in three pieces, the leafiest piece somehow remaining suspended and bobbing gently in the air. “Come look,” Chetiin said. “It’s safe now.”
Ekhaas ventured forward. Three thin dark wires curled up close to one of the tree trunks. The leafy branch was caught in the embrace of one. A broken tripwire showed how the trap had been triggered. “They were stretched between the trees,” said Chetiin. “A goblin walking into that trap would have been seriously injured.”
“Will there be more traps?” asked Keraal.
“There might be,” Chetiin admitted. “But I think it’s more likely this was set as a warning, to deter pursuers or at least make them wary and slow them down. We should be fine.”
“Should be?” Keraal said.
Chetiin shrugged.
“Keep alert,” ordered Dagii. “Marrow, show us the way.”
The elves must not have anticipated the presence of a scent-tracker-the worg was able to follow their trail with ease, even when there was absolutely no visible sign of their passage. Once or twice, false trails appeared, seemingly accidental traces indicating that the elves had turned this way or that, but Marrow led them right past. Just as Chetiin had suggested, there were no more traps. Accounting for variations forced by the landscape, it seemed to Ekhaas that they were heading consistently to the east.
The realization brought a chill to her flesh. She leaned close to Dagii. “We’re heading for the Mournland.”
“I know.” His voice was taut. “They must make their camp close to the border. No one would be likely to wander this close.”
The guess was proved wrong as they came around the shoulder of a hill. Across a broad, very shallow valley the dead-gray mists of the Mournland’s border rose into the sky. Ekhaas had been close to the mists before, close enough to hear the screams and roars of the unseen monsters that made the cursed land beyond their home. Tonight, in this place, the mists were quiet, hanging like a drifting, billowing curtain. The valley, marked by the small, dry riverbed, lay empty but for a few withered trees under the moonlight. There was no elf camp.
They all stopped and stared. Ekhaas looked away to the north and the south. “Maybe they turned aside here,” she said.
Marrow’s hackles rose and she growled. “They didn’t,” Chetiin translated.
“Who would want to make camp in the Mournland?” asked Keraal with a grimace.
“Someone who wanted to hide from prying eyes or magics,” said Dagii. “Someone desperate or frightened enough might flee there to throw off pursuit.”
“Do you think the Valaes Tairn were that frightened of us?”
“No,” Dagii said. “All the more reason to believe they’ve camped there.” He slipped off down the gentle slope into the valley, moving from stunted tree to stunted tree.
“He is mad, isn’t he?” muttered Chetiin, but he moved down after the young warlord.
One by one, they followed Dagii in to the valley. Only Marrow didn’t stick to the dubious cover of the trees, instead flowing like a sleek black shadow along the faint rise and fall of the valley floor. Nose to the ground, she trotted all the way to the very edge of the mists before returning to join them in the shadow of the crumbling
