I am afraid, Uncle Mather, but I vow to you now that no matter how bleak the situation becomes, I will not surrender my hope. That is something not the demon dactyl, not the goblins, not all the evil in all the world, can take from me. Hope brings strength to my sword arm, that Tempest may cut true. Hope allows me to keep fashioning arrows as score after score are lost to goblin heartsa line of monsters that seems not at all diminished by my efforts.
Hope, Uncle Mather, that is the secret. I think that my enemies are not possessed of it. They are too selfish to understand sacrifice in the hope that it will bring better things for those who come after them. And without such foresight and optimism, they are often easily disheartened and chased from battle.
Hope, I have learned, is a prerequisite for altruism.
I will hope and I will fight on, and with every battle I am reminded that my attitude is not folly. Pony grows strong with the stones, and the magical forces she conjures are indeed incredible. Also, our enemies, for all their numbers, no longer fight in any coordinated fashion. Their binding force, the demon dactyl, is gone, and I have seen signs that goblin battles goblin.
The day is dark, Uncle Mather, but there may yet be a break in the clouds.
—ELBRYAN WYNDON
CHAPTER 1
Another Day
Elbryan Wyndon collected his wooden chair and his precious mirror and moved to the mouth of the small cave. He blinked as he pulled the blanket aside, surprised to see that the dawn was long past. Climbing out of the hole seemed no easy task for a man of Elbryan’s size, with his six-foot-three-inch muscular frame, but with the agility given him in years of training with the lithe elves of Caer’alfar, he had little trouble navigating the course.
He found his companion Jilseponie, Pony, awake and about, gathering up their bedrolls and utensils. Not so far away, the great horse Symphony nickered and stomped at sight of Elbryan, and that image of the stallion would have given most men pause. Symphony was tall, but not the least bit lanky, with a powerful, muscled chest, a coat so black and smooth over those rippling muscles that it glistened in the slightest light, and eyes that projected profound intelligence. A white diamond-shaped patch showed on the horse’s head, above the intelligent eyes, but other than that and a bit of white on the legs, the only thing that marred the perfect black coat was a turquoise gemstone, the link between Symphony and Elbryan, magically set in the middle of the horse’s chest.
For all the splendor, though, the ranger hardly paid Symphony any heed, for, as was so often the case, his gaze was locked on Pony. She was a few months younger than Elbryan, his childhood friend, his adult wife. Her hair, thick and golden, was just below her shoulders now, longer than Elbryan’s own light brown mop for the first time in years. The day was lightly overcast, the sky gray, but that did little to dim the shine of Pony’s huge blue eyes. She was his strength, the ranger knew, the bright spot in a dark world. Her energy seemed limitless, as did her ability to smile. No odds frightened her, no sight daunted her; she pressed on methodically, determinedly.
“Do we look for the camp north of End-o’-the-World?” she asked, the question shattering Elbryan’s contemplation.
He considered the thought. They had discerned that there were satellite camps in the region, clusters of goblins, mostly, supplied by the larger encampments set up in what used to be the three towns of Dundalis, Weedy Meadow, and End-o’-the-World. Because the towns were each separated by a day’s walk, Dundalis west to Weedy Meadow, and Weedy Meadow west to End-o’-the-World, these smaller outposts would be key to regaining the regionif ever an army from Honce-the-Bear made its way to the borders of the Wilderlands. If Elbryan and Pony could clear the monsters from the dense woods, there would remain little contact between the three towns.
“It seems as good a place as any to start,” the ranger replied.
“Start?” Pony asked incredulously, to which Elbryan could only shrug. Indeed, both were weary of battle now, though both knew that many, many more fights lay before them.
“Did you speak with Uncle Mather?” Pony asked, nodding toward the mirror. Elbryan had explained Oracle to her, that mysterious elven ceremony in which someone might converse with the dead.
“I spoke at him,” the ranger replied, his olive-green eyes flashing as a shiver coursed his spineas always happened when he considered the ghost of the great man who had gone before him.
“Does he ever answer?” Elbryan snorted, trying to figure out how he might better explain Oracle. “I answer myself,” he started. “Uncle Mather guides my thoughts, I believe, but in truth, he does not give me the answers.”
Pony’s nod showed that she understood perfectly what the young man was trying to say to her. Elbryan had not known his uncle Mather in life; the man had been lost to the family at a young age, before Olwan WyndonMather’s brother, Elbryan’s father had taken his wife and children to the wild Timberlands. But Mather, like Elbryan, had been taken in and trained by the Touel’alfar, the elves, to be a ranger. Now, in Oracle, Elbryan conjured his image of the man, an image of a perfect ranger, and when speaking to that image, Elbryan was forcing himself to uphold his own highest ideals.
“If I taught you Oracle, perhaps you could speak with Avelyn,” the ranger said, and it wasn’t the first time he had suggested as much. He had been hinting that Pony might try to contact their lost friend for several days now, ever since he himself tried, and failed, to reach Avelyn’s spirit at Oracle two days after they had started south from the blasted Barbacan.
“I do not need it,” Pony said softly, turning away, and for the first time Elbryan realized how disheveled she appeared.
“You do not believe in the ceremony,” he started to say, more to prompt than to accuse.
“Oh, but I do,” was her quick and sharp retort, but she lost momentum just as abruptly, as if fearing the turn in the conversation. “I… I might be experiencing much the same thing.”
Elbryan stared at her calmly, giving her the time to sort out her response.
As the seconds passed into minutes, he prompted, “You have learned Oracle?”
“No,” she answered, turning to look at the man. “Not quite the same as your own. I do not seek it. Rather, it seeks me.”
“It?”
“It is Avelyn,” Pony said with conviction. “He is with me, I feel, somehow a part of me, guiding me and strengthening me.”
“As I feel about my father,” Elbryan reasoned. “And you about yours. I do not doubt that Olwan is watching over…” His voice trailed away as he looked at her, for Pony was shaking her head before he finished.
“Stronger than that,” she explained. “When Avelyn first taught me to use the stones, he was badly injured. We joined, spirit to spirit, through use of the hematite, the soul stone. The result was so enlightening, for both of us, that Avelyn continued that joining over the weeks, as he showed me the secrets of the gemstones. In a mere month my understanding and capabilities with the stones progressed far beyond what a monk at St.-Mere-Abelle might learn in five years of training.”
“And you believe that he is still connecting with you in that spiritual manner?” Elbryan asked, and there was no skepticism in the question. The young ranger had seen too much, both enchanting and diabolical, to doubt such a possibilityor any possibility.
“He is,” Pony replied. “And every morning, I wake up to find that I know a bit more about the stones. Perhaps I dream about them, and in those dreams see new uses for any given stone, or new combinations between them.”
“Then it is not Avelyn, but Pony,” the ranger reasoned.
“It is Avelyn,” she said firmly. “He is with me, in me, a part of who I have become.”
She went quiet, and Elbryan did not respond, the two of them standing in silence, digesting the revelationone that Pony had not made even to herself until this very moment. Then a smile spread across Elbryan’s face, and Pony gradually joined him, both taking comfort that their friend, the Mad Friar, the runa
way monk from St.-Mere-Abelle, might still be with them.
“If your insight is true, then our business becomes easier,” Elbryan reasoned. He held his smile and offered a wink, then turned, moving to pack Symphony’s saddlebags.
Pony didn’t reply, just methodically went about closing down the campsite. They never stayed in a place more than a single nightoften not more than half the night if Elbryan determined there were goblin patrols in the area. The ranger finished his task first, and with a look to the woman, to which she responded with an assenting nod, he took his sword belt and wandered away.
Pony hurriedly finished her task, then silently stalked after him. She knew his destination to be a clearing they had passed right before they set camp, and knew, too, that she would find ample cover in the thick blueberry bushes on its northeastern end. Stalking quietly, as Elbryan had taught her, she finally settled into place.
The ranger was well into the dance by then. He was naked, except for a green armband set about his left biceps, and was holding his great sword Tempest, which had been given by the Touel’alfar to his uncle, Mather Wyndon. Gracefully, Elbryan went through the precise movements, muscles flowing in perfect harmony, legs turning, body shifting, keeping him always in balance.
Pony watched, mesmerized by the sheer beauty of the dance, which the elves calledbi’nelle dasada, and her love’s perfection of form. As always when she spied on Elbryan’s danceno, not Elbryan, for in this fighting form he was the one the elves had named Nightbird, and not Elbryan WyndonPony had pangs of guilt, feeling quite the voyeur. But there was nothing sexual or prurient here, just appreciation of the art and beauty of the interplay between her love’s powerful muscles. More than anything, she wanted to learn that dance, to weave her own sword in graceful circles, to feel her bare feet become so attuned to the moist grass below them that they could feel every blade and every contour in the ground.
Pony was no minor warrior herself, having served with distinction in the Coastpoint Guards. She had battled many goblins and powries, even giants, and few could outfight her. But in looking at Elbryan, the Nightbird, she felt herself to be a mere amateur.
That dance,bi’nelle dasada, was perfection of the art form, and her lover was perfection ofbi’nelle dasada. The ranger continued his slashing, weaving maneuvers, feet turning, stepping to the side, front, back, body going down low and then rising in graceful sequences. This was the traditional fighting style of the day, the slashing routines of the heavy, edged swords.
But then, abruptly, the ranger shifted his stance, heels together, feet perpendicular to each other. He stepped ahead, toe-heel, and went into a balanced crouch, his knees bending out over his toes, front arm cocked, elbow down, and rear arm similarly bent except that his upper arm was level with his shoulder, his hand up high and hanging loose. He went forward then retreated in short, measured, but impossibly quick and balanced steps, and then suddenly, right from one such retreat, his front arm extended and seemed to pull him. It happened in the blink of Pony’s eye, and this morning, as with every such strike, it stunned her. So suddenly, Nightbird had come forward, the tip of Tempest covering at least two feet of ground, his back arm turning down so he made one long and balanced line.
A shudder coursed down Pony’s spine as she pictured an enemy impaled on that deadly blade, staring wide-eyed in disbelief at the suddenness of the attack.
And then the ranger retracted, again quickly and in balanceno opening in his defenses throughout the moveand went back to his weaving dance.
With a sigh of both appreciation and frustration, Pony snuck away, back to finish closing down the camp. Elbryan returned to her soon after, showing sweat on his exposed arms but looking revitalized and ready for the trials of another day on the road.
They set out soon after, both astride the great stallion, with Symphony easily carrying them along. Elbryan guided them north, away from the line of the three towns, and then west, toward End-o’-the-World, and before midday they had found the smaller goblin encampment. A quick survey of the area provided the information they needed, and they retreated to the deeper woods to unlade Symphony and prepare their assault.
By early afternoon the ranger was creeping through the woods with Hawkwing, his elven-crafted bow, in hand. He came upon a group of three goblin perimeter guards soon enough, and, as was usually the case, the slovenly creatures were not on their best guarding posture. They were clustered about a wide elm, one leaning on the tree, one pacing before it and grumbling about something, and the third sitting at the base, back against the trunk, apparently asleep. The ranger was somewhat surprised to see that one of these guards carried a bow. Goblins usually fought with club, sword, or spear, and the sight of the bow tipped him off that there might well be powries in the vicinity.
The ranger did a silent circuit of the area, ensuring that no others were about, then found his best angle of attack. Up came Hawkwing, so named for the three feathers set on its top end, which separated like the feathered “fingers” on the end of a hawk’s extended wing when he drew back the bowstring. Those feathers went widely apart now as Elbryan lined up his shot.
Hawkwing hummed; the ranger had a second arrow up and away almost immediately. He was the Nightbird now, the elven-trained warrior, and the mere mention of his name sent trembles through the hearts of even the sturdiest powries.
The first arrow nailed the leaning goblin to the tree. The second took out its pacing companion before the creature had time to cry out its surprise.
“Duh?” the third asked, coming from its slumber when Nightbird prodded it The goblin looked up just in time to see Tempest’s descent, the mighty sword cleaving its head in half.
The ranger retrieved his arrows, then took a couple from the goblin’s quiver. They weren’t well-crafted, hardly straight, but would suit his purposes well enough.
On he went, drawing a complete perimeter of the encampment He encountered two more guard positions, and dispatched the guards with equal efficiency. Then he went back to Pony and Symphony, better detailing the layout his attack plans already formulated. The goblin camp itself was well-placed on a low bluff amidst a tumble of boulders. There were only two apparent approaches: one on the southeast up a trail between shoulder-high walls of stone, a path that turned in from a thirty-foot sheer drop; the second up the gentler-sloping western side of the hillock, a wide track of empty grass.
Nightbird positioned himself in a copse of trees on the western side, where he could find clearer shooting, while Pony made her tentative way along the top of the cliff face.
The ranger moved to a higher position, climbing from Symphony’s back to one of the lower branches of an oak. That still left him below the level of the goblin camp, but with more than half of it exposed. Pony would wait for him, he trusted, and so he took his time in selecting his first target, trying to get a feel for the hierarchy of this patrol. No two groups of goblins were alike, the ranger had learned, for the smallish, yellow-green creatures were purely selfish and not devoted to any greater cause than fulfillment of their present desires. The demon dactyl had changed thatthat sudden coordination of the monsters was the element that had made the darkness so completebut now the dactyl was gone and the wretched creatures were fast reverting to their previous, chaotic nature.
This encampment reflected that clearly. All the place was a tumult, pushing and shoving, shouting and grumbling.
“We goes south for killing!” Nightbird heard one creature shout.
“We goes the way I says we goes!” replied one especially weasely little runt, a spindly-armed and bowlegged wretch, short even by goblin standardswhich meant that it barely topped four feetand with a nose and chin so narrow that they appeared to be arrow shafts protruding from its ugly face.
The ranger saw the larger goblin standing before the runt clench its hands in rage, saw the group of three goblins closest himall carrying bows, he noted with disdainput hands near their quivers. The tension held, silent for many
seconds, just below an explosive level, and then another form rose up, a giant form, fifteen feet tall and more, two thousand pounds of muscle and bone.
The fomorian stretched away its sleepiness and ambled over to join the conversation. The giant beast said not a word, but stood right behind the weasely goblinand how that creature puffed its skinny chest with its bodyguard so near!
“South,” the other said again, but in a calm and unthreatening manner. “Peoples to kill to the south.”
“We was told to stay here and guard,” the weasely goblin insisted.
“Guard from what?” the other whined. “From bears or boars?”
“Me bored,” offered another, from the side, drawing a few halfhearted snickerslaughter that died away quickly when the weasely goblin put an unrelenting stare on the jokester.
It was all taking shape perfectly from Nightbird’s perspective, except of course for the appearance of a fomorian giant. His first instinct told him to put an arrow into that behemoth’s face, but as he considered the general dynamics of the group, another, more insightful plan began to unfold.
The arguing continued, followed by more than a few loud threats by the weasely goblin, the creature gaining in confidence with the giant standing right behind it. The goblin ended by promising a cruel death to any that defied its commands, and then it turned about, walking away.
Nightbird, using one of the arrows he had taken from the goblins, nailed it in the back, at an angle that sent the missile right between two of the archers at the camp’s edge. The goblin went down hard, squirming and screaming, trying to reach about to grab the painful bolt, and all the gathering erupted in pushing and shoving, in accusations and cries of murder.
The three archers were the most confused, each yelling at the other two, each counting the arrows in their counterparts’ quivers. One cried for a check of the shaft of the arrow in their leader’s back, claiming that its own arrows had specific markings.
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