The old warrior moved like a cloud, hardly stirring the leaves as he passed. Mathi slipped along, trying to match the elf’s deftness. Treskan had a harder time. If Mathi hadn’t already known he was a human in disguise, she would have figured it out. His progress was labored and noisy.
The route wasn’t easy. Roots tripped their toes, thorny branches ripped their elbows, and insects swarmed around their faces. The ground was a hazard covered with fallen tree limbs. She avoided them all, but Treskan stepped down on an unseen burrow. The turf broke loudly, and the scribe sprawled on his hands and knees. By the time he got up, Lofotan was standing over him.
“Give our position away once more, scribbler, and I’ll take you back and chain you to our lord!” he hissed. Treskan swallowed hard and swore he would be more careful.
They began to hear voices. Without warning, Lofotan angled toward some good-sized trees off to the left. They were dogwoods, very old and gnarled. He climbed the twisted trunk. Casting around, Mathi and Treskan saw others and hauled themselves up as well.
Two nomads appeared, laughing and talking loudly. Each carried a large canvas bucket. They passed right under Mathi.
“-he said he could do it, so I said try. He strung his bow and
“Daxas never was a good bowman,” said the other.
They stopped on either side of a freshly dug hole in the turf. Dumping out the buckets, they retraced their path and disappeared in the cleft between the hills.
They swung down. Treskan clamped a hand over his nose. “What was in the hole?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Offal,” Mathi whispered. The humans had butchered a deer and disposed of the parts they didn’t want. The smell of blood made Mathi tingle in ways she had not experienced in a very long time. She found herself staring at the noisome pit until Lofotan called her away.
Rather than follow the two nomads, Lofotan went up the dark side of the hill to the summit. With great care, Mathi and Treskan shadowed him, trying to step in the same spots as their leader. They arrived at the top soundlessly. They found the old warrior crouched by a boulder. Below, a broad hollow lay spread out before them. Lofotan pointed down at the fire-lit expanse.
The camp was large indeed. It filled the hollow from end to end. Surrounding the sprawl of rude tents was a palisade of spears driven butt-first into the ground. Nomad spears had metal or stone end caps that allowed them to be driven in like stakes. Inside that fence lay tents, pens, and corrals, laid out in disorganized fashion. Lofotan said nomads shared their tents with up to five comrades. Counting the shelters, he reckoned they were looking at a camp of more than one thousand. They could not see any children or elders. That meant one thing: it was a war party.
Lofotan spotted odd pens in the camp. Tied to stakes inside one pen were eight centaurs, heads bowed and legs folded. Beside them was another pen with a top made of lashed saplings. Something stirred within the dark confines of the makeshift cage: more captives, obviously smaller than centaurs.
Lofotan signed for them to follow. He had seen enough. Sliding backward on his belly, he eased back into the darkness. Mathi was about to join him when she heard a sound that made her blood turn cold.
Dogs were baying inside the camp. Mathi froze. They hadn’t counted on dogs. Sure enough, a pack of ten hounds came springing through the lanes between the tents, each one baying to be first after their prey. Nomads left their bowls and cups when they heard the animals’ commotion.
“No time for stealth,” Lofotan said, rising to his feet. “Run!”
Mathi and Treskan tried. She fled down the hill, kicking high to avoid branches and burrows. In an instant she lost sight of her companions. She didn’t have any time to wonder where they had gone before the pack was at her heels. More than a dozen deerhounds with long, thin legs; white teeth; and tails like whips came bounding after her. They spilled right and left, seeking to cut her off. Running downhill helped, but Mathi soon saw flashes of gray and brown ahead of her. The dogs had her ringed in. She dragged at the sword Lofotan had foisted on her, trying to draw it as she ran. Heavy tramping in the grass to her left turned out to be Treskan, running for his life.
The animals in front of her halted with fangs bared. She ran right at the closest one, sword upraised. It was a brave beast and stood its ground. Mathi sent its head flying with a single swing. A dog behind her bit at her leg but got only the hem of her gown. Mathi shortened it by a head as well. Treskan swung wildly at the hounds swarming around him. They darted in after each swing, got between his legs, and brought him down in the high grass.
The pack was closing in on Mathi too. Where was Lofotan? Torches appeared at the top of the hill. The nomads were coming. Where was Lofotan?
She waited for the comforting snap of a bowstring and the flicker of deadly arrows foiling her pursuit. None came. With horror Mathi remembered it was Artyrith who was the superb archer.
A lean, muscular hound leaped at her, catching her sword hand in its jaws. The dog’s weight spun her around, and two more jumped on her, catching hold of her cloak. She staggered as they tugged hard in all directions. Mathi couldn’t raise her sword with the dog on her arm. The hand guard saved her hand from being mangled, but it also gave the hound something to hold on to. A fourth animal clamped on to her dress. With a cry, Mathi went down.
She expected to be savaged. Deep in her soul she had flashes of such a fight-hounds surrounding her, yellow teeth snapping, the baying of the pack as it closed in. It was night then too, and Mathi had drowned the lead dogs one by one when they tried to seize her in the midst of a swift-running stream. There was no water there, only stars and bloodthirsty hounds and the smell of smoke.
Whistles split the night air, and the dogs kept tight hold of her, but they didn’t tear her flesh. The torches grew brighter. She smelled pine burning. A band of nomads, their faces black against the sky, stood around her.
“What is it? A brace of rabbits?”
“A couple of those little thieves, damn them!”
Fire was thrust in her face.
“No! The elder kind! And female!”
“This one too!”
More whistles in short, sharp blasts made the dog pack back off. Hard hands took hold of Treskan and Mathi and dragged them to their feet.
“Who is you?” asked one of the nomads in poor Elvish. “Why you here is?”
“My name is Mathani Arborelinex,” she replied in their own tongue. One of the benefits of living on the fringes of elf society was that she had come into contact with many races. Mathi understood a good part of eight tongues, including Ogrish.
“Hey, Vollman, two of your dogs are dead,” called out another human.
One of the nomads holding Treskan’s arms gave the limb a wrench. The scribe yelped. “Kill my boys, will you? Maybe I’ll take an eye or a finger for each one you slew!” The one called Vollman jerked a long-bladed dagger from his belt.
Treskan struggled in the grip of two brawny nomads. Mathi fought hard until a similar weapon was pressed against her throat. She felt her heart contract to a small, hard knot.
“Be still or be dead!”
“Stop it, Vollman. They will answer questions for the chief first. Then we’ll decide what to do with them.”
With buffets to the head and kicks in the backside, Mathi and Treskan were marched to the nomads’ camp. Glancing left and right, she saw that her captors were fiercely tattooed men with light-colored hair worn in tight braids. They wore deerskins beaded with bold designs. Metal was a mark of status, she guessed. The leader of the party that caught her wore a crescent-shaped strip of brass around his neck and had yellow metal plugs through his earlobes.
In camp, a crowd of nomads had gathered to see the night’s catch. A few were women, warriors too, but most of them were men of fighting age. Mathi and the scribe were driven like wild stags to the door of a large, dome-shaped tent.
