The first two men were senseless, so Duranix went over to the one he’d speared and hauled him to his feet. He tore the fearsome hood from the rider’s head, revealing him to be a young man with shaggy black hair and only the thinnest sprouts of beard on his chin.
“Speak,” Duranix said roughly. “Who are you? Where do you come from?”
The raider coughed blood. His eyes roved wildly, taking in the unmoving lumps that had been his comrades. “Takanu,” he gasped, “from Almurk.”
The disguised dragon recognized the latter name from Amero’s recital of Beramun’s escape. “Is your chief named Zannian?” he demanded.
The raider nodded feebly. Duranix dragged him to where his horse waited, cropping the spring grass a few paces away. Faint surprise registered in the dragon’s mind as he noted that all three horses had remained nearby. Unlike most of their kind, they didn’t seem alarmed by his dragon aura.
He held the reins of Takanu’s horse with one hand and, with the other, threw the raider onto the animal’s back.
“I’m going to spare you, Takanu, to go back to your chief and deliver this message — stay away from Yala- tene or face certain, swift death. Do you understand?”
The raider didn’t reach for the dangling rawhide reins. He sat slumped in his saddle, one hand clutching his wounded side, shaking his head.
Duranix repeated the message more loudly, adding, “Now go!”
“I can’t,” the raider groaned.
“Why not? Your wound isn’t fatal.”
“I can’t return defeated, spared by an enemy,” the raider insisted. “I’ll be punished. Better to die now.”
What kind of savages was he dealing with? “Then tell them you fought me and I ran away,” the dragon said with some asperity. “Tell them whatever you like, so long as you deliver my warning.”
Takanu slipped a hand into his shirt. When he brought it out again, there was an obsidian dagger in his fist. Quicker than thought, he stabbed himself in the stomach and slid sideways off his horse.
Deeply vexed, lightning snapping around his head, Duranix rolled the raider over. Takanu was dead. His hard landing had driven the dagger deep. Another messenger would have to be found.
The disguised dragon stripped the two unconscious men of their clothes and weapons. He retrieved their horses and lashed the raiders facedown across their mounts’ backs.
To make certain Sthenn knew exactly who was sending the message, Duranix reverted to dragon form and searched his body for a loose scale. He found one on the back of one knee. Tearing a long strip of buckskin from a raider’s shirt, the dragon tied the scale in place over the man’s face. He sent the horses on their way with slaps on their rumps.
Satisfied he’d made his point, Duranix turned his attention back to his voracious appetite.
Jenla could not believe her eyes. The day before, she and Tepa had found nothing in the orchard but muddy hay. This morning, the field was alive with thousands of tiny green seedlings, so densely packed she could barely see ground between them. Falling to her knees in the dirt, she touched the tender shoots with her fingers, hardly believing they were real.
“Believe what you see.”
Jenla’s head snapped around toward the unexpected voice. There stood Tiphan, looking strangely colorless in the golden light of morning.
“It’s amazing,” she said, breathless. “How could such a thing happen?”
“I did it.”
Her wordless shock seemed to please him. “I have acquired the spirit power previously known only to the elves.” With a beneficent smile Tiphan added, “Since our great protector misled us about the weather, it seemed only right that I repair his mistake.”
Though she knew his version of events wasn’t accurate, Jenla didn’t argue. Tiphan frightened her. What with his arrival in the Offertory in a flash of light and his strange new appearance. “Well,” he said, “aren’t you going to thank me?”
“Thank you, Tosen.” Frowning at the seedlings, she muttered, “These will have to be thinned, or they’ll choke each other out.”
“You’re welcome, Jenla. Peace to you.”
He wandered away, still smiling. Jenla dismissed the unfathomable Sensarku from her mind, her thoughts returning to the task before her.
She plucked out a handful of apple seedlings to make room for the others to grow. Tossing them over her shoulder, she loosened the soil with a sharp wooden stick. Tearing out more seedlings and throwing them behind her, she created a neat row where none had existed. After she’d worked down a few steps, she glanced back to survey her handiwork. What she saw stopped her cold.
The discarded seedlings, torn from the soil, were growing! They had already put down roots and were even now righting themselves. The thick mass of plants turned their leaves to the sun.
Unnerved, she dropped her stick and shouted, “Tepa! Udi! Tana! Come here!”
From other parts of the fields her friends came running. When close enough to behold the restored orchard, they halted abruptly, and their jaws dropped. At her impatient urging, they approached again, their eyes fastened on the writhing carpet of seedlings.
Jenla related Tiphan’s claim to have “repaired” the damage done by the too-early planting.
“He can do that?” asked Udi, awestruck.
“The proof is here,” Jenla said. “The seedlings are alive — unnaturally so! Torn out, they keep growing!” She gestured at the pile. “We have to find a way to thin them.”
Tepa pondered the problem. “Burn the unwanted ones,” he said. “That should take care of them.”
All around they could hear a faint but steady scratching sound. Astonished, they realized it was the sound of the orchard growing.
“Get help!” Tepa told his son. “Hurry! If we wait too long we’ll need axes to thin the saplings!”
Udi ran to the next vale to recruit the villagers working in the vegetable gardens. Tepa scrounged twigs and dry grass and started a small fire. They began thinning the seedlings and tossing the unwanted ones on the fire. Soon enough, the fire had grown to considerable size.
Across the lake, Amero noted the rising spiral of smoke and wondered what was burning. He was overseeing repairs of the foundry while waiting for Tiphan. He’d sent runners throughout the town, seeking the Sensarku chief. Tiphan finally arrived with a full entourage of acolytes, all starry-eyed and awestruck by their leader.
Outwardly calm, Amero inwardly seethed. He didn’t want the young, impressionable Sensarku present when he upbraided their leader. Sitting on a stone bench outside the ruined foundry, he pointedly did not rise when Tiphan reached him. Instead, he continued whittling a cedar stick with practiced nonchalance. Tiphan halted, and his acolytes spread out on each side.
“Welcome, Tiphan,” Amero said. “I hope you’re recovered from your journey?”
“Quite recovered, Arkuden.”
“Send your people back to the Offertory, please. This doesn’t concern them.”
The Sensarku leader spread his arms wide. “I have no secrets from my children.”
Disgusted by his turn of phrase, Amero almost cut through the aromatic stick with a single stroke. Recovering, he said, “Let me speak plainly. I’m concerned about you, Tiphan. You left here as one person and returned as another.”
“Is that wrong, Arkuden?”
Amero met his eyes. “No, but you brought something with you I cannot tolerate in Yala-tene.”
“What would that be?”
“Spirit power.”
Tiphan smiled broadly. “It’s no secret I have acquired the power known to the priests of the Silvanesti,” he said. “I have said so publicly.” The joy on the faces of his acolytes reflected his own. “What an elf can do, now I can do. What arts they master, I can master, too.”
“No one can control the spirits. To try is folly. You’re like a man who juggles flaming brands — as long as you
