Lofotan spat, “Coward!”
“If we were in Silvanost, I would challenge you for that insult!”
Lofotan repeated it. “It is easy to be brave in the city. Show your mettle here, pot-tender! Draw your blade or stand by your lord!”
Artyrith threw a riding glove in the grass at Lofotan’s feet. “Return that to me in Silvanost, and I will prove who is the coward!” With a final curt salute, he dug in his heels and rode swiftly away.
Lofotan shouted after him until Balif quietly asked him to cease. Artyrith rode due west, finally vanishing over the horizon. There was a long silence as everyone digested his sudden, surprising abandonment.
“He’ll never make it,” the old soldier swore finally. “Nomads will gut him like a trout!”
“He may reach home,” Balif said, grunting as he tried to walk. “He is a resourceful fellow.”
“Stiff-necked, overbred city fool,” Lofotan muttered.
Apart from the fur on his back, Balif looked the same. Mathi clasped his arm to help him walk, carefully noting his nails were quite unclawlike, as Rufe had discovered.
Shivering, he drew the robe close around his lean body. “So, my friends, we are down to three,” he said.
“Four.”
“You, little man? Since when do you belong to this company?”
“Since she started paying me.” Mathi tried not to look guilty. She failed.
They packed up their gear. Balif was too weak to help, so he sat in the grass and outlined his plans since his affliction had come to light. They would cross the Thon-Tanjan as planned and proceed with their mission.
“But, my lord, what about your condition?” asked his loyal retainer.
“At night you will bind me with chains a safe distance from the horses-and from you.”
“That’s not what I meant, my lord. Shouldn’t we seek a priest or sage who can help you?”
“Few are the practitioners who can reverse Vedvedsica’s spells,” Balif said calmly. “Gods willing, we will carry out the Speaker’s task and then find a cure for me … if one exists.”
Privately Mathi was in turmoil. She had no idea the Creator had cast such a spell on Balif. His sense of justice was worthy of a poet-to slowly turn the great general into a beast for his betrayal of Vedvedsica’s beast- children; that was godlike thinking. It wasn’t just the transformation and the loss of mind and faculties that would haunt Balif; it was knowing the horror and ignominy Balif would face in Silvanost if he ever returned.
But would he return ever? The last thing a proud, nobly born elf would want would be to display such an affliction to his peers. Artyrith’s revulsion was moderate compared to what Balif would encounter there. After all, Vedvedsica’s creatures, though innocent of their own origins, were rounded up, slain, or shipped off to eternal exile for simply existing. Balif was a victim, but under Silvanesti law, even the accursed were liable for exile or worse if their existence was deemed an affront to nature.
She helped Lofotan boost Balif onto his horse. The abused animal accepted his rider without a qualm. Mathi decided the horse was more tolerant than Artyrith.
They rode slowly down the sandy hill to the fast-flowing Tanjan. The ford was a series of pools and channels bounded by boulders that allowed travelers to pick their way across. Lofotan went first with the pack animals. Rufe the kender perched on the back of the last pack pony, looking back to the south bank where the other elves waited.
“Strange little fellow,” Treskan remarked.
“How do creatures like that get by in the world?” Mathi wondered.
“Oh, we manage.”
The scribe shouted with alarm. He and the others were surrounded by kender. They had arrived so quietly that neither he, Mathi, nor Balif had detected them. Among them was the Longwalker, a head taller than any other kender present.
“Excellent, friend,” Balif said. “You have a great talent for astonishment. Is it magic that allows you to move with such stealth?”
“Oh no,” the Longwalker said. “Most people just don’t pay good enough attention. That’s when we come and go.”
“Are you crossing the river?”
“I think so. The riders will soon be here, so we had better.”
By “riders” he meant humans. Glancing around, Mathi saw that many of the kender had injuries: sword cuts on their heads and shoulders, bruises on their faces, and battered hands. It turned out that the nomad band the elves had encountered earlier had returned in force. They were sweeping the bend of the river for kender, centaurs, and anyone else not of their band. Greath and the Hok-nu were fighting back, but the kender, being kender, chose to move on.
“How far behind are the humans?” asked Balif.
The Longwalker polled his comrades. Kender had little use for measurements of time or space, so no one had an adequate answer. “Close” was the best they could agree on.
Treskan took Balif’s reins. “Come, my lord.”
Lofotan gained the north bank and led the stubborn pack team ashore. The water had been cold, so it was good to get out in the summer sun. He saw the others linger on the far shore a while, surrounded by a large group of kender. Then they entered the shallow ford. The kender followed, and Lofotan was able to get a clear view of their progress. Being short and lightweight, they might have had a hard time crossing, but kender ingenuity prevailed. They waded where they could, clasping their hands together atop their heads. When the water grew too swift or deep, they clung together in living chains. The kender on the far end of the chain detached themselves one by one, clinging to their comrades as they crossed the hazard. First over was last to arrive. With a minimum of fuss, no equipment, and with considerable speed, the little folk were across the river.
Their escape was timely. Trios of riders appeared on the high ground overlooking the river. They had followed the clear tracks to the water’s edge, noting the last kender clambering out of the ford on the other side. Balif, Lofotan, Treskan, and Mathi sat on their horses in plain view too.
Lofotan said, “My lord, we should withdraw.”
“Not yet. Sometimes it is wise to let the enemy see your banners.”
He was right. Knowing there were Silvanesti around instead of wandering bands of kender made the humans hesitate to pursue them. The deadly work Artyrith and Balif did at the grassland trail was bearing fruit.
Leisurely, Balif turned his horse away and rode up the bank to the sandy flat above. At that point the Thon- Tanjan was a boundary between the fertile green plains south and arid land north. That was an expanse of desert that stretched from the Khalkist Mountains in the west to the eastern ocean. North of the desert was a land little known to the Silvanesti. East lay the disputed territory, bound on three sides by water and on the north by desert. It was good land, well watered by local streams and heavily forested along the watercourse. On official maps in the capital the elves called it “Silvanoth,” which literally rendered meant “Silvanos’s Holding,” implying it was the personal property of the Speaker of the Stars. No one living there called it that. The kender called it Treetops, in honor of the very tall trees growing there.
With trembling hands, Balif sighted with his sunstone. Southeast was their course. Treskan and Lofotan rode on either side of him, keeping a close eye on their afflicted leader. Mathi followed behind, exulting in her creator’s scheme. She wished she had known what was going to happen. Still, it explained why she had been sent to attach herself to the general. Mathi thought Balif was going to be kidnapped, to face the judgment of those he had betrayed. However, it seemed her role was to observe and report the metamorphosis of the mighty Balif into a wild beast.
So why did her joy prove so fleeting? With the sun hot on her face, Mathi soon lost her pride in her creator’s deed. Balif was a betrayer, responsible for many deaths and suffering among her brethren. But why could she not rejoice at his plight? Why did the sight of his frail figure, jouncing along on horseback, fill her with stirrings of pity?
The kender band around them waxed and waned as they went. A few, including Rufe, hitched rides on the packhorses until Mathi caught them rummaging through the baggage for souvenirs. Then Lofotan ran them off.
Balif grew stronger as the day went on. He ate and drank prodigiously, considering his usually abstemious
