Iydahoe's. Bakall bore the painful procedure without complaint, and when Hawkan had finished, the young initiate raised up a steel sword and whooped, promising to continue the vengeance against Istar.
Iydahoe led Bakall onto the ambush trail two mornings later. Each of them carried a quiver full of black- shafted arrows. They made their way to a place Iydahoe had chosen years before.
Not once did the warriors pause to reflect on the fantastic odds against them. Indeed, Iydahoe had grown used to attacking enemies who outnumbered him, relying on stealth and his knowledge of the forest to escape after inflicting as much damage as possible.
Based on his experience, Iydahoe expected that the two of them would shoot many arrows from ambush, hoping that each missile claimed a legionnaire's life. Then he and Bakall would melt into the forest, leaving only enough of a trail to lead pursuers in a direction opposite that of the village in its tiny, hidden grotto.
They found the caravan on the road, and for a full day the two elves observed the long column from hilltops, lofty trees, even thickets of thorns within a hundred feet of the road. They watched the golden-cloaked riders file past, heard the creaking of wagons, the snorting of the laboring horses. The commander of the Istarian legionnaires rode a gleaming white stallion with gilded bridle to match his tunic. His broad buttocks rested in an appropriately resplendent gem-studded saddle. The officer's eyes looked neither to the right nor to the left, his chin held proudly outthrust, as if by his presence itself he dared the forest and its denizens to throw a challenge at the invincible might of Istar.
That challenge, Iydahoe thought grimly, would soon be forthcoming.
By late afternoon, they had taken shelter in a dense, nearly lightless thicket fifty feet from the trail. The two Kagonesti lay flat on their bellies and watched the column file past. From here they could get an accurate count of its numbers and even discern details about individual riders.
About a hundred mounted legionnaires led the way, riding two abreast. All these riders, the elves noted, were dressed in bright ceremonial colors and bore themselves with a rigid pride that seemed more suited to a parade ground than a forest path. Never mind the pretty posture, Iydahoe silently counseled the humans-soon you will be glad to get out of here with your lives!
Abruptly the nature of the procession changed, following the long file of immaculate horsemen. Now the Kagonesti watched ornate, gilded wagons trundle past, each pulled by a pair of sleek white horses. The drivers of these wagons, Iydahoe saw, were House Elves-Silvanesti. Each was a warrior, with a steel breastplate and a sword close at hand. Doubtless the elves had bows and arrows within ready reach inside the wagons' covered beds.
The wild elves' questions about the contents of those wagons were answered, startlingly, as beautiful female voices rose in song. The sweet melodies were carried from wagon to wagon until nearly a score of the lurching conveyances had rumbled past. Then more legionnaires brought up the rear, another hundred in immaculate uniforms and riding proud, prancing horses.
As the Kagonesti watched the humans make their evening camp, Bakali trembled with excitement, and Iydahoe touched the younger Kagonesti's shoulder, silently counseling him to be patient. Iydahoe looked at the whole circles, so recently tattooed across his companion's chest, and felt a momentary pang of bitterness. Bakall was so young, lacking a full ten years on the traditional adulthood age of the Kagonesti warrior. Yet he was about to embark on his first attack.
The great column of Istar made too tempting a target for Iydahoe to ignore. The company obviously made its way northward from Silvanesti to the fabled city of Istar itself. Already the column had passed the thorn-hedge border in departing the elven realm, and for days it had hastened along the winding woodland trail as if the legionnaires and their captains sensed the danger that even a single Kagonesti might provide.
For the thousandth time, Iydahoe remembered, vividly, the massacre that had occurred fourteen years earlier. As always, the familiar rage welled up, the bitter fury that had made it so easy for the young warrior to look at the symbols of Istar, and then to kill and kill again.
In those intervening years, the deaths of a hundred elves of his tribe had been repaid by Iydahoe two or three times over-and he was only beginning to collect a deep and bloody debt. His arrows had slashed from the forest into Istarian road-building and trading parties. Logging camps had been burned, individual lumbermen discovered horrifyingly posed, their throats slit into garish, bleeding grins.
In the misty light of dawn, Iydahoe watched the column of legionnaires break camp and file onto the broad trail. He was almost ready to strike. Finally the last of the column moved onto the trail, and the two elves emerged from cover to work their way to the top of a nearby ridge and then jog easily through the more open forest there. They roughly paralleled the course of the caravan, and Iydahoe knew that they would soon pass it and regain a position for ambush. Calling on his memory of the geography, he had decided on the perfect place to make the attack. It had the further advantage of being one place on this road where he had never before struck, so perhaps the humans would be less vigilant than when they trooped past the scenes of his earlier ambushes.
'Those singers?' asked Bakali, loping easily behind the older warrior. 'Who do you think they were? Certainly not humans, were they?'
Iydahoe reflected on the glorious sound and shook his head. 'They must be elves. A long time ago I heard that some Silvanesti might journey to Istar to sing. Why they would go, I can't imagine.'
'Perhaps they were prisoners,' the younger brave suggested.
'Perhaps.' But Iydahoe was not convinced. 'I can't believe that anyone-especially an elf-who was held against his will would be able to create such beautiful music. No-I don't think they were prisoners.'
'But then why?' pressed Bakali.
Iydahoe's silence was his only reply, and his companion understood that the older brave had nothing more to say on the subject. For more than an hour they maintained the steady trot, moving swiftly along the ridgetop, until Iydahoe judged it was time to curve back toward the trail.
Now he led Bakali through slopes laden with sumac, already turned crimson as a harbinger of the coming season-Yule, as it was known to the humans. They skirted a rocky bluff, then found themselves on the height of a promontory, perhaps sixty feet above the trail. A sheer precipice of cracked and treacherous limestone formed an impassable barrier between the two warriors and the trail they could see winding directly below them. A hundred feet away, a similar cliff rose to an even greater height, and between them these rocky faces formed a canyon through which the Istarian procession would have to pass.
'This will give us vantage to shoot many arrows and still make our escape,' Iydahoe declared, and Bakali nodded approvingly-as if he, himself, had sought those exact advantages in the site of their ambush.
Taking shelter in a shaded nook that afforded them a good view of the approaching trail, the two wild elves settled down to wait. They carried some dried venison jerky and ate with the accompaniment of a few swigs from their water sacks. All the while they kept their gazes on the approaching path, staring with the patience that was such a vital characteristic of their kind.
'There!' whispered Bakall, pointing at a golden cloak that shimmered through the trees. Chagrined, Iydahoe realized that his young companion had seen the enemy first.
The captain of the legionnaires led his riders toward the steep, cliff-walled gorge, then reined in his horse and brought the whole procession to a halt. The elves watched him scrutinize the heights to each side of the trail, and Iydahoe sensed that the commander had some misgivings about the route. Obviously, he was not a fool.
Turning to his following riders, the man spoke some orders, and four men dismounted. Two went to each side of the trail, disappearing into the woods-though Iydahoe easily guessed their mission. Each pair of scouts had no doubt been ordered to inspect the looming heights, seeking just the sort of ambush that the two elves intended.
Nevertheless, the Kagonesti warrior was not worried. The bluff's top was rough, with too many hiding places to yield to anything but a sweep by a whole company of men. He took care to see that the two braves were fully concealed in the depths of a cedar bush. The scouts would not discover them unless they actually parted the branches, and there were far too many bushes up here for the two men to make such an exhaustive search.
As silent and still as the rocks around them, the two warriors waited for the scouts. True to Iydahoe's guess, the men appeared about an hour later, carefully working their way along the bluff top. Though they could have dropped the pair with two quick shots, the Kagonesti held their bows in reserve, not wanting to spoil the ambush before it had time to develop.
Grumbling angrily, the two men stalked past within a dozen paces of the hiding elves, but didn't come near the cedar bush. Iydahoe sneered at the carelessness, listening with amusement to their litany of complaints.
'Stinkin' elves, anyway,' one groused. 'Why we got to risk our lives to guard a wagonload of Silvanesti
