Chap shook himself. He glanced about, circled around for Wynn to take hold, and padded off away from the sound of the deer.
A long arrow pierced the earth in front of Chap.
Leesil grabbed Wynn and jerked her back.
"Find cover!" he yelled.
With Wynn tucked behind him, he backed toward a moss-covered old log to his right. He heard a knock as something struck wood.
Wynn gasped. "Leesil!"
Another long arrow shuddered where it stood, embedded in the log. The shining metal head was familiar enough, like the bright-bladed stilettos his mother had once given him.
"Smother the crystal," he whispered.
Wynn closed the crystal in her fist, stuffed it into her coat pocket, and its light vanished.
Leesil couldn't see anything up in the branches, but he didn't wish to give their attackers the advantage of light. He heard something strike the earth to his rear, and then Magiere's voice.
"Damn it!"
Leesil didn't need to look for the arrow that had cut her off. "Get up against that tree, and don't move until we see them. We're open targets down here."
Chap rumbled from somewhere out in the darkness.
Leesil knew the dog was trying to sniff out their assailants. None of the three shafts had struck them but rather blocked any attempt at escape. He reached under with his left hand and undid the catch-strap of the stiletto on his right wrist.
A dark form dropped through the branches of the fir tree ahead of him.
Leesil heard another to his right, and then again to the rear.
One came forward out of the shadows.
Leesil aimed the crossbow at its center mass, ready to fire and then drop it to pull his blades or stilettos. Figures took shape as they approached with quiet footsteps.
"I've got two," Magiere whispered behind him.
A rustle of brush pulled his glance. A fourth figure rose from behind the old log. The one in front stepped into plain sight.
Each tall and slender figure wore a wrap across the lower half of its face. They'd tied the trailing corners of their cloaks across their waists. All of their attire was a dark blend of gray and forest green. Two carried short bows with metal grips as bright as the arrowhead in the log.
Anmaglahk.
Desperation filled Leesil. Four assassins had intercepted him and his companions before they'd finished one day's travel into this immense land. How could the Anmaglahk have known, let alone found him so quickly?
He slowly twisted the ball of his foot on the earth, rooting himself for an ugly fight, one that he and Magiere probably couldn't win against four of them.
"Wynn!" he whispered. "Run!"
Leesil swung the crossbow one-handed, over Wynn's head to his right, and fired. The gray-green figure behind the log twisted away to the earth as the quarrel hissed by.
He released the crossbow from his right hand and snapped it like a whip. The hilt of the unclasped stiletto slid sharply across his palm. He snatched the blade's tip as it passed, his arm cocked back to throw.
"Leshil, stop!" A deep and lyrical voice spoke in clear Belaskian. "No harm will come to you and yours!"
Leesil halted in midthrow. The lead anmaglahk raised empty gloved hands, palms out to him, and quickly spread them wide toward his companions.
"Bartva'na!"
The one to Leesil's left cautiously lowered his bow, but kept his arrow drawn and ready. As the leader lifted one hand to his cowl, Leesil spotted Chap behind the elf. The dog crept in low and silent beneath the very tree the man had dropped from.
Leesil shook his head slightly, and Chap halted.
"We mean no threat to you," the leader said as he pulled back his cowl and, with one finger, lowered the wrap across his face.
Leesil sucked air through gritted teeth.
The man's narrow, deeply tanned face was unmistakable. His dark amber eyes were so slanted that their outer corners reached his temples. His nose was straight and sharp, like his cheekbones. He wore his thick, white-blond hair tied back at the nape of his neck, exposing his pointed ears. Everything about his appearance seemed elongated... and foreign.
"Sgaile," Leesil whispered.
Just last autumn, this one had come to Bela with an order to kill him, and then changed his mind. Sgaile was the one who'd first hinted that Leesil's mother might still be alive.
Before anyone spoke, Sgaile motioned to his companions. All removed their cowls and face wraps. Chap rushed in snarling, and Sgaile spun away, startled.
Chap circled around, placing himself between Sgaile and Leesil. Sgaile's companions' eyes went wide.
"He remembers you," Leesil spit out.
Sgaile glanced once at Leesil, then kept his amber eyes steadily on Chap.
Among Sgaile's companions were two men and one young woman with glowing white hair. She didn't linger as long as the others in studying Chap and turned her attention upon Leesil. While the others were still shocked by the dog's action, this female's feather eyebrows cinched together and open hatred wrinkled her angular features.
Leesil had never seen an elven woman besides his mother.
In spite of this one's expression, he couldn't take his eyes off of her. She didn't look anything like Nein'a. Her skin was darker and her features were almost gaunt in their narrow construction. He made out a prominent scar hiding beneath the feathering of her left eyebrow. Still, her white silky hair and peaked ears made his heart pound as he thought of his mother.
One of the men looked about middle-aged, perhaps even older than Sgaile, though how many human years that meant was beyond Leesil to guess. Though taller than Leesil, he was the shortest of the males, with a rough complexion compared to the others.
The fourth was even taller than Sgaile and young. He looked no more than twenty by human standards and was the most stricken by Chap's savage entrance.
Light erupted behind Leesil.
Wynn stepped close beside him, her expression awash with fascination as she held up the crystal.
"What do you want?" Magiere demanded.
"Lower your weapons," Sgaile said, slow and soft. "Please, put them away."
The elven woman stepped closer to him but didn't sheathe her stilettos. They were longer of blade than any Leesil had seen, perhaps a third the length of a sword. She gestured with one toward Magiere and Wynn.
"Lhagshuilean... schi cher ayag," she hissed, and then pointed the blade toward Leesil. "Ag'us so tru, mish meas-"
"Tosajij!" Sgaile returned sharply.
She never looked at him but hissed and fell silent, her eyes still locked on Leesil.
Leesil didn't understand what either had said. Except for one word so close to what he'd heard from a young anmaglahk in Darmouth's crypt.
Tru... True ... traitor. He'd never have trouble understanding that. ... traitor. He'd never have trouble understanding that.
Sgaile's half hints were the reason he'd come here. The reason he'd dragged Magiere and Wynn and Chap halfway across the continent. He wanted answers, and he kept his stiletto at ready. His own anger sharpened, and he stepped closer.
"We're not putting anything away," he said right into Sgaile's face, "until you tell us why you've come... and where my mother is."
The younger male had circumvented Magiere, coming up near Sgaile. His expression changed to nearly visible surprise at either Leesil's words or his tone, possibly both. He wasn't carrying a bow, but a boning knife appeared in his hand. From behind Leesil. Wynn spoke out in a long string of Elvish.
All four anmaglahk turned full attention upon the sage with guarded surprise.
"You speak our language," Sgaile replied in Belaskian. "Yet strangely."
"Bitha," Wynn answered.
The young female hissed something in Sgaile's ear.
"Do not let your grief breach our ways," said the older male with the rough face.
He stood off to the left but clearly spoke to the woman. She turned on him, but fell silent.
Leesil wondered what grief the elder elf spoke of.
"Where did you learn our language?" Sgaile asked, refusing to speak to Wynn in his own tongue.
"On my own continent," she answered. "There are elves south of the Numan countries."
"Liar!" the female snapped. "Deceitful, like all humans."
These were the first non-Elvish words she'd spoken. Magiere had kept her eyes on the older Anmaglahk to the left, but her attention shifted to the woman, and her voice crackled low like Chap's growl.
"How rich... coming from the likes of you."
She swung her falchion slowly around toward the woman. Sgaile raised an arm in front of his comrade, but it wasn't clear exactly who he protected or restrained.
Leesil was getting tired of all this. "You aren't going to keep us out of this forest. Where is my mother? Is she still alive?"
Sgaile's expression remained guarded, but a flicker of discomfort crossed his narrow face. "Cuirin'nen'a lives, I assure you."
Leesil quivered in sudden weakness, and the chest's rope halter seemed to bite deeper into his shoulders.
"We would never kill one of our own," Sgaile continued. "But she is a great distance off, and the forest will not long tolerate your companions... or perhaps even you. We were sent to guide and protect you."
"And we're supposed to trust you?" Magiere asked.
"No," Sgaile answered politely. "I offer guardianship... and the safe passage of Aoishenis-Ahare himself." His gaze shifted back to Leesil. "Do you ac-cept?
Leesil's anger got the better of him. "Not by every dead deity that I can- "We accept your guardianship," Wynn cut in, "and that of your... greatgrandfather?"
Leesil turned bewildered outrage on Wynn. She remained calm and composed, facing only Sgaile as he returned a gracious nod.
"Wynn!" Magiere hissed. "What do you think you're doing?"
"What you brought me for," she answered flatly. "You do not understand what is happening, and there is no time to explain it all now."
"My caste is trusted by all of our clans," Sgaile added. "I will not allow harm upon you, so long as you are under my guardianship... and how else will you find Cuirin'nen'a but through us? She was once one of our caste."
Those last words taunted Leesil. Who else among the elves but the An-maglahk would know his mother's location? They had imprisoned her as a traitor, and it seemed this "great-grandfather" had authority over the whole caste.
"If she's still alive," Leesil asked bitterly, "did you leave her suffering in some cell all these years?"
The thought made him ill, for he blamed himself as much as the An-maglahk-as much as Sgaile. Nein'a had twisted Leesil's life to a hidden purpose, but he was the one who'd abandoned his parents eight years ago.
Sgaile's features twisted in revulsion, and his eyes flashed with anger.
"I did not leave Cuirin'nen'a anywhere! She is safe and well-and that is all I may tell you. I am a messenger and your assigned guardian. Aoishenis-Ahare"-he glanced at Wynn-"Most Aged Father will answer your questions."
Leesil turned to Magiere; her white skin glowed in the crystal's light.
"I don't think we have a choice," he said quietly.
Magiere let out a derisive snort. "They're only concerned for themselves and their own goals! Every one of them we've met... they're all butchers who use the truth like a lie. They'll twist you around, Leesil, until you wouldn't know your own choice from theirs... until it's too late!"
Leesil flinched at her thinly veiled reference. Brot'an had tricked him into murdering Darmouth to start a war among the Warlands' provinces. But he still saw no alternative.
"Then believe in guardianship," Wynn said. "They would put their lives at stake to fulfill it. If you cannot trust them, then trust what I tell you. The way of guardianship is an old tradition and a serious matter."
Chap had remained silent and still all this time. His eyes held uncertainty and the quiver of his jowls echoed Magiere's distrust. As he crept around next to Wynn, he huffed sharply once in agreement.
"All right then," Leesil said with restraint. "As Wynn said, we accept... for now."
Sgaile nodded. "We will set camp through those trees. I will bring food and fresh water."
Wynn appeared to sag at those words, letting out all her fatigue.
Leesil sheathed his stiletto but had to nudge Magiere. She glared at him before doing likewise with her falchion, and then took Wynn by the arm with a frown at Chap.
"You two better be right."
Chap huffed three times for "maybe."