stone.
Finally, he lowered his head and cried.
CbApter 23
Iydahoe run for two days and nights, desperate to carry word to his people. He prayed that his father, Hawkan, would be there. The old shaman was the only person who might be able to explain the nightmare of the Silvertrout. Yet Hawkan had left only a fortnight before on a journey into the mountains, and the priest's meditative sojourns often lasted for several moons. The warrior feared that his father would still be gone.
The young Kagonesti runner reached the Whitetail village shortly after dawn, staggering with fatigue as he trotted into the compound.
Kawllaph, seated at his breakfast fire, sprang to his feet in alarm when he saw the grim, ragged expression on his younger brother's face.
'Iydahoe! What happened?' Kawllaph's voice was unusually deep for an elf, and now the barrel-chested warrior's words carried throughout the village.
'Has father returned?' gasped Iydahoe, vainly searching for a sign of Hawkan.
'Still gone,' Kawllaph said tersely. He took his brother's arm. 'We'll go to the council circle-there you must speak to the warriors.'
At the edge of the ceremonial ring they were met by the village chief, Tarrapin, who had been drawn by the commotion. Tarrapin's face was locked in an angry glare, the bear claw tattoos across his cheeks seeming to reach inward, ready to rend.
Quickly warriors gathered as Iydahoe recovered his breath, wondering how he could possibly convey the sense of disaster he felt.
He told the tale simply, starting with the smells and progressing to the scene of utter destruction. In two minutes, he had related the important details, and he knew that he could speak for two years and never communicate the true horror.
Yet his description was shocking enough to stun the gathered warriors, until Tarrapin flew into a rage. The gray-haired warrior, his face framed by the bear claw tattoo, drew his steel sword and brandished the weapon in the air. Iydahoe wondered, with the beginnings of outrage, if the chief might turn his blade against the young messenger. Stomping back and forth, shouting skyward, Tarrapin angrily declared that no Kagonesti village could be destroyed by such an attack, certainly not when the attackers were mere humans!
Iydahoe stood stoically before the elder's rage. He wished again that Hawkan was present to hear and believe the tale-and to stand up for his son. Yet that was obviously not to be.
Instead it was Kawllaph who came to his younger brother's aid. The warrior stood up and faced the raging Tarrapin. 'Let him speak!' demanded the brave. 'My brother knows what he has seen. Let him tell us!'
'I have proof. Here!' Iydahoe remembered his belt pouch and pulled forth the fragments he had gathered around the Pathfinder's hut. 'This is what is left of the Ram's Horn and Washallak Pathfinder's axe!'
Iydahoe produced the blackened, broken pieces of the horn, and Tarrapin grew silent. The lean, scar-faced chief sat numbly staring at the shards, turning his glittering eyes toward Iydahoe as if he still sought a way to blame the young warrior for the disaster. Iydahoe pulled another bit of proof from his pouch-the grimy head of an axe. The blade was long and thin, and a narrow spike extended from the back of the head. Though the shaft had burned away in the ruins of Washallak's hut, Iydahoe had found the metal remains of the unique weapon that had always been the axe of the Pathfinder.
Finally, Tarrapin nodded gruffly and rose. He ordered Kaheena and Altarath, both young warriors, to carry word of the disaster to the Bluelake and Black Feather tribes. Then he ordered additional warriors to man the many watch posts located throughout the surrounding forests. Finally-and though it was still early morning- he returned to his lodge to smoke and meditate with a half dozen of the tribe's veteran braves.
Iydahoe knelt and again gathered the fragments of horn and axe. When he stood, he saw that Kawllaph had gone to comfort Berriama. She clung to his shoulders, weeping, and Kawllaph finally had to pry her away so that he could join the warriors' meeting with the chief.
Standing straight, Iydahoe concentrated on the banishment of any trace of emotion from his face. Acutely conscious that several of the tribe's young females watched him from across the compound, he knew that they would never mistake him for the feckless, playful boy he had been just a few short weeks ago. But then the girls, too, seemed more serious, less carefree than they were a few minutes before. His village could never offer the serenity, the peace, that Iydahoe had known here through all the decades of his life.
Would life ever return to normal?
The girls, he saw, had gone back to tanning a rack of doeskins, perhaps sensing the harsh glare of the matron Puiquill, who squatted beside the rack and critically inspected the maidens' work. She was a stern taskmistress, but skilled with the bone needle and gut-filament thread with which the wild elves had made their clothing since the dawn of time.
The young brave's mind returned to the horror of Silvertrout, beginning to seethe with thoughts of the vengeance Iydahoe would someday exact against the hated legionnaires of Istar. He himself would slay, would cripple and burn, with the same ruthless-
'Will you take us fishing, Iydahoe?' asked a young boy, shyly approaching the warrior from behind. Iydahoe remembered that the youth's name was Dallatar. 'My father was going to show us the trout pools, but he has gone to speak with Tarrapin.'
Iydahoe turned, startled. How could he be expected to do anything so mundane at a time like this? Then, surprising himself, he nodded. 'Gather the youngsters. Make sure that each brings his spear. I will meet you at the head of the stream trail.'
Delighted, Dallatar ran off. As Iydahoe watched, his heart suddenly pounded as Moxilli came around the great smoking lodge in the village's center. Unlike the tanning girls, but like Iydahoe, Moxilli had recently passed the rituals of adulthood. Over the past sixty years the two of them had been children and adolescents together, though only recently had the young brave become aware of just how beautiful his youthful playmate was.
Moxilli had the long black hair of all Kagonesti, though her flowing locks seemed more iridescent, fuller, and shinier than the hair of any other tribal female. Unconsciously Iydahoe strutted proudly, his chest thrust out, his arms pumping with relaxed precision at his sides as he strode toward his hut to get his fishing spear, then went to the willow tree marking the trail head.
He was quickly joined by Bakall, a young, serious fellow who showed signs of one day becoming a patient, skillful hunter and warrior. Now he scowled toward the stream, as if willing the trout to be ready for his spear. Iydahoe sensed that Bakall would do quite well.
Within minutes, a dozen youths had gathered beside the great willow tree that marked the path down to the river. Each of the boys had a three-pronged spear, which he had carefully whittled from a maple sapling. The tines had been hardened by fire, and on the shank of each prong the boys had carved tiny barbs, designed to keep the pierced fish from wriggling off the weapon. Iydahoe did not inspect the spears, knowing that for each boy the most important lesson would come from the successful landing of a tasty dinner-or the teasing flick of tail as the trout wriggled free.
The lads had been boisterous and playful in the village, but, following Bakall's intent example, they lapsed into stealthy silence as they followed Iydahoe. Extending into a long, single file, the boys soundlessly padded down the winding trail. Thick-boled trees rose on all sides, while the forest floor off the trail was choked with underbrush that often included hook-thorned vines and dense, tangled brambles.
A sound carried through the woods, rising from the direction of the stream-but clearly unnatural in origin. It was a metallic 'clink,' or else the sound of something very hard striking a rock. Iydahoe froze, the boys doing likewise. The brave looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow, and Bakall nodded back, before peering into the woods. Apparently the boy had heard the same thing.
The sound was repeated, a muffled noise that nevertheless came clearly to alert, elven ears, probably
