The kender cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted at the trees, “We need a way across the river!”
A voice unseen on the other side called back, “All right, boss.” For a time the only sound were the whine and buzz of insects. A loud snapping filled the air. It came from across the river.
“What are they doing?” Lofotan wondered.
He quickly had an answer. Nine kender came into view on the eastern shore, backs bent over a large log. They were rolling it down the hill, pushing it with their hands. Mathi wanted to shout at them to be careful. When the slope got too steep it was bound to get away from them. She didn’t have time. The log gathered momentum. It outraced its little drivers, smashing down bushes and saplings in its path.
“Look out below!”
A stump stuck up on the east bank. The big log came rumbling down, parallel with the stream. If it hit the water at this angle it would simply crash into the water and float away, but that’s not what happened. The end of the log smacked into the stump, which deflected the log enough to cause the free end to swing around in a half- circle. When the stump gave way, it allowed the other end of the log to slide through the green fronds to the water, halting when the far end buried itself in the mud of the west bank.
Even Lofotan could not refrain from laughing. Engineers trained in the finest schools in Silvanost could not have done a faster job bridging the river.
“Tell me they did not do that on purpose,” Treskan exclaimed.
Rufe ate a grape. “Do what on purpose?”
Balif ignored him. He went to the log and planted a foot on it, testing it with his weight. It held. He started across.
“My lord, what about the horses?” asked Lofotan. The log wasn’t wide enough to allow them to cross.
“Tie them on that side.”
Lofotan tried to enlist some kender to ferry the elves’ baggage, but as soon as he mentioned it the riverbank emptied in no time. The ones fishing vanished, leaving their poles stuck in the mud. Rufe disappeared too, which surprised everyone but Mathi. Kender were willing to do many things, but manual labor did not seem to be one of them.
Ferry duty fell to Treskan. He made many trips back and forth bearing their gear. The river was shallow enough that the big log had a damming effect on the flow, and by Treskan’s last crossing the water had risen enough to lap over the log. It was a dicey journey bearing heavy equipment on his back, trying to keep his footing on a slick, wet trunk. That he made it without falling in was counted a blessing of the gods.
They found a deer track up the steep hill. At the top the trees cleared out, revealing a wide promontory about forty feet above the river. They found Balif out on the very tip gazing into the distance. He was perched on a slender spire of clay, not sturdy looking at all. Lofotan gently suggested the general come back to firmer ground.
“This is a magnificent site for a fortified town,” Balif declared. “Look here!”
They did, from a good ten feet back. Two muddy streams met at the point below, combining to form a broader version of its two branches. The Thon-Haddaras was muddy and slow, but the banks were wide and largely clear of the creeping growth choking the western branch. If it was navigable down to the sea, it would be an invaluable trading asset for any settlement atop the bluff.
“What now, my lord?”
“We must fortify this spot.”
Mathi said, “How, general? The wanderfolk are strangers to picks and shovels.”
“They can fell trees, can’t they? We need a stockade as wide as this point to stop any mounted charges.” He turned and strode rapidly past his companions, gesturing to the weedy meadow on the wide side of the hill.
“This land needs to be cleared as far back as possible to deny cover to the enemy.” He pulled up a handful of weeds, crushing them in his fingers. “Burning it off is the quickest way. Won’t be easy. Everything’s green.” Balif dug his fingers into the dirt. “A lot of thatch, though. It will burn.”
Good soldier that he was, Lofotan was an elf, and the idea of burning an entire hillside clearly appalled him. The Balif he had served under so long would never have suggested such a course, except in the direst straits.
“My lord, is all this feasible?”
“What can be imagined can be done, captain, if we are bold enough.”
He strode briskly to the nearest tree, a sapling about as thick as Mathi’s wrist. With a single chop of his sword Balif cut it down. He came back, slicing off the small branches with deft strokes of his blade.
“We shall raise our standard here,” he said, “so that all may rally to it.”
He ordered Mathi to search through the baggage and find his personal flag, the one his troops had carried into forty battles. Mathi found a cylindrical silk case and loosened the drawstring. Out came a long, heavy pennant made of dark green leather. There was nothing on the triangular banner but an odd brown shape-something like a square with a off-center triangle attached to one side. Balif attached the banner to the sapling with a couple of horseshoe nails and raised the pole skyward.
“Spread the word!” he announced to any kender in earshot. “All who suffer under the heel of the human raiders should come here. Here all will be protected!”
Standing near Lofotan, Mathi felt strangely embarrassed. Kender were not the sort to rally to a flag, especially an uninspiring pennant like Balif’s. She asked the old warrior what the symbol on the flag represented.
“It is the sign of the Brown Hoods,” Lofotan said, “proscribed by the Speaker over a century ago.”
He returned to his commander’s side. Ever loyal, Lofotan trailed behind Balif as the general stalked back and forth, drawing grandiose fortifications in the air.
Days passed. The oppressed did not flock to Balif’s banner.
A few kender arrived to look the place over, curious about the proclaimed safe haven. They looked at the pole with its flag, the empty hilltop, and went on their way. Mathi couldn’t blame them. The whole thing smelled like a nomad plot to concentrate their enemies in one spot to ensure their utter destruction. Only the magic of Balif’s name drew anyone there. Once they saw there were no defenses and no one to fight off Bulnac’s experienced warriors, the curious kender melted into the greenwood. If she hadn’t grown to care about the elf general, Mathi would have left too.
The Longwalker remained. At times in the following days he was the only one of two kender on the bluff. He had another with him-white-haired and wizened. The Longwalker produced swaths of different colored cloth, gave them to the oldster, and in a days’ time a second flag flew from the sapling. It was a bold blue rectangle covered in tiny brace-shaped crosses made of red silk. It was the banner of the united kender clans, the Longwalker explained. It attracted no more support than Balif’s.
The whole thing began to feel farcical until a band of centaurs arrived. They came through the lowland woods late one day. Their arrival sent ripples of alarm all the way to Balif. He ordered that the centaurs be welcomed as friends. The next morning they reached the hill. They were eleven strong, all warriors. It turned out they were all that was left of a much larger band wiped out by Bulnac’s tribe.
“Greath’s band?” said Balif, recognizing their tribal tattoos. Sadly, the centaurs nodded. “Where is the mighty chief?”
“Slain, wise one! Slain by the two-and-ones!” Centaurs, being half human and half horse, considered themselves whole people, while horse riding humans were only half normal. The combination of a human on horseback they called a two-and-one.
It was grave news. Greath had declared his friendship to Balif, an oath unbreakable. The general had hoped to cultivate Greath’s band as allies against the humans. Now they were gone.
“You are welcome to stay among us,” he told the centaurs. They were stout fighters, loyal and fierce, and they stayed. Whatever qualms the kender had about Balif’s fortress, the centaurs remained. Not one of them complained about their position. Why should they? They had nowhere else to go.
Each night Balif disappeared into the woods alone. That was unsettling enough, but on the third night Mathi discovered his clothes in a pile by the general’s tent. Balif had gone off without them, carrying only his knife. She told Lofotan. The old captain tried tracking his commander, but lost him in the swamp a few miles upstream from the bluff. When he returned to camp, Mathi questioned how an experienced Silvanesti soldier like Lofotan could
