Part 20 (2/2)
The same three elves on the same mission They stood, not sat, in the lowere outside, a crack in the ave entrance to a squat chah The floor then slanted uphere dwarves had built ladders of tree branches to access the various splintered caves within the mountain The damp cleft reeked of brown bears, the for sht glittered on frost
”I cannot approach or, Knucklebones, and Monkberry ”I aer a member of their tribe”
”They are less a nuisance now,” said the elven wouard, and shoot those who trespass We would rather you huht better repel the orcs who streaht are of the orc proble
”I'e for food and wood in your forest” Sunbright said, tired and ironic
”Yet there's nothing-eh?”
A tug on his belt Monkberry's wrinkled face was thoughtful ”Son,” she said ”I must talk to you”
”Now? Can't it wait?”
Monkberry caught Sunbright's ear and towed him toward the cave entrance Bent allittering cold and bitter wind, Sunbright rubbed his ear while Monkberry clasped arthritic hands and glared up at her son
”I've thought about our troubles, Sunbright A lot You've been away and busy while I've tended the fire, and watching flaives one ideas I have one for you You must convey this truce offer to our tribe”
”Not I,” he said, annoyed ”I couldn't ithin arrow range of the Rengarth”
Monkberry ignored his objections ”Our tribe needs help,” she insisted ”They'll die on the prairie in winter Already the children hunger, you tell ive it So you shall”
”What help?” Warriors were not to be scolded by theirapples
”I don't know I'm only an old woman who's outlived her usefulness But you're shaination You can't lounge around a drafty cave and o near them, I'll be killed!”
”So be it,” she said ”Go anyway”
”Hunh?” Sunbright started as if his mother had pulled a knife Monkberry took her son's calloused hands in her twisted ones ”Son, we mustn't question the will of the Gods Our job is to endure Suffer sometimes, but endure You've been selected as shaman by blood and birth, by the Gods and the tribe And by your father and myself Your destiny was laid before you were born” Her voice grew softer and she said, ”I have only one son If I lose you, I have nothing Then would I walk into the first snowstorm and lie down to pass into the next world But I'll sacrifice you, and arth For our people must endure Do you understand?”
Tears in her eyes spoke louder than words Sunbright Steelshanks of the Raven Clan hugged his mother, and said thickly, ”Yes,me”
The mother pushed her son aiped her wrinkled face, and said, ”Now What shall you propose? Those elves inside ht help us And the dwarves And what you think up You're clever when you don't hed, scratched his head, fiddled with the thongs of his horsetail ”Well” he said ”I had the geror's blather about a homeland planted a seed in my brain And those hostlers we met, with the horses, made me wonder
”But come inside, Mother It's chilly”
He steered the old woman into the cave ”You know, to claim you've outlived your usefulness is foolish talk,” he told her ”Almost as foolish as h Sunbright's bearskin vest, stung his face so hard that ice particles drew blood, nue hands, and rass crunched underfoot, frozen solid Behind hied Knucklebones, huddled in her lion skin
She'd insisted on co winter night, Sunbright worried they'da ridge no higher than his shoulder, he spotted crude sod houses Only half a dozen, for the tribe had scattered overwind
Sunbright staggered to the biggest sod hut, perhaps twenty feet across and knee-high, put his mouth to the smoke hole, and shouted, ”Meet me outside!”
His small party shi+vered while sods were unpacked from a hole in the hut's side Finally, hunched and dirty as moles, a few barbarians crept out with bronze swords in blue fists They were so filthy, with hair grown in and thick beards on nize Forestvictory, no longer fat, and Strongsea, who reseht of the shaht stepped aside to reveal his companions Three elves in black capes and ar Tarves bundled in bearskin and horsehide
The shaman warned, ”Don't!”
”What do you want?” asked Forestvictory The former trail chief's eyes were pouchy
”You're invited to council!” Sunbright had to shout above the wind ”With the elves and dwarves and me Don't protest, just shut up and listen We can hahted plain, if you'll listen Tell the others, the whole tribe, to come to the vale where we camped
You'll be unharmed if you keep swords in sheathes, and there'll be food The elves and dwarves will feed you while we council Bring the children, if only for that Tell the rest Tosea wheezed
Forestvictory stared as if her brain were frozen ”What if we refuse?” she asked
”Then keep your pride and die! It's nothing to arth Tell the others To for an answer, he let the wind push hiuards back toward the forest and the htrobin! Shall we take blood money, and stain our name?”
”Hoe know they won't kill us in our sleep? Lure us with kind words, and a knife behind their backs!”
”Aye, or poison the food?”
”I'd take orcs over these soulless monsters! An enemy you know is better than an unknown!”
”Elves eat babies! And suck the goodness out of food so there's nothing left to sustain a body!” ”I say we turn back for Scourge! We were happy there!”
Wrangling rang round the amphitheater The barbarians had coht and his protective elves and dwarves hlands, then led the straggling band into the dark forest for nearly three miles Here the barbarians found a natural around below trees and wind Ancient stones covered withbonfire consu, starved, dirty barbarians crept into the bowl so close to the fire their eyebrows singed Set on stones were elven winter rations and fresh ga, hunks of deer and bear and bison, even barrels of ale and a trough of spring water The hungry barbarians fell on the y of waruard: Knucklebones and Monkberry, three elven archers named Gladejoy, Deerspirit, and Lionmoon, and the tarves, Cappi and Pullor They occupied a stone otiators, and Drigor's band in shaggy winter hides
The elven contingent was a vision from a dream Thirty of the white hair They were reen shi+rts and fine boots and armor, with some differences in rank The leader, Pleasantwalk, wore no boiled breastplate, instead a pair of black epaulets on a harness, geloves, and a black helmet adorned with black leaves She sat on a throne of blond wood ornately carved with birds and anies of h the forest on the shoulders of courtiers, ere armed with curved black bows and sheaves of sliht had not spoken to this elven queen (if such she was), but only to Taes to the queen only twelve feet away
For the first tiht wore no sword Harvester's baldric and scabbard hung fro on a tree above the amphitheater The barbarians had also left all weapons at the upper rihter But the elves' calm poise, and the lure of heat and s
Noith hunger and thirst and cold sated, the Rengarth Barbarians counseled-for Sunbright had added prayers and offerings to the elves' bonfire As barbarian bodies wares Some humans hurled accusations and threats, hinted darkly of treachery and collusion between Sunbright and the Shadow Walkers But nized that the elves were their hosts, had fed and warht was proud of them, but his heart was stricken as he counted their numbers Just under three hundred arrived, while they'd enter the ancestral grasslands with over four hundred thirty Still, Tahness to survive this long on winter prairie
Finally, after the stupid and stubborn aired their eht dusted his seat and walked to a s of the theater sported He raised both hands and waited for silence, which raveyard ghouls