Yelping in pain, Arvis tried to swing around. Instead of keeping his feet planted and merely shifting, Arvis lifted his left foot. The small man kicked the raised foot from under the bigger man as if the feat were nothing.

Off-balance, trying desperately to recover, Arvis fell to the ground, miraculously managing to land on his knee. His opponent walked to his side without apparent haste, but the effort was amazingly quick. Before Arvis could move, the warrior in hide armor kicked the bigger man's back foot, causing the younger man to sprawl out. Arvis toppled onto his outstretched hands, trapping his battle-axe against the ground under his own weight.

In a few seemingly effortless moves, the forest warrior had Arvis stretched out and the scimitar's blade against the young mercenary's throat like he was a pig awaiting the butcher's bloodletting. Coldly, the forest warrior glared at the other members of the wolf-hunting party, letting them all know that Arvis's life was forfeit if they made any sudden moves.

"Don't kill him," Druz repeated.

Kord started forward.

"If you value your brother's life, Kord," Druz said in a low, anxious voice as she glanced at the big man, "you'll stay back."

Kord hesitated.

"If you force him to deal with you," Druz went on, "he'll kill Arvis without blinking an eye. He'll have one less enemy to face."

Kord plucked the heavy quarrel from the crossbow and tossed it to the ground. He dropped the bow next and showed his empty hands.

"That's my brother," he croaked in a voice that broke. "If you'll allow it, I'll have him back in one piece. If you harm him in any way, know that I won't rest until one of us is dead. I swear that by Helm the Vigilant, god of protectors and guardians."

Arvis trembled, evidently trying to figure out a way to rescue himself.

"Stay," the forest warrior commanded. He pressed the scimitar against the younger man's throat meaningfully.

"If he's meaning to kill us," Tethys grated, "then we're better off working together. He can't get us all."

The forest warrior turned his dark green eyes on the mercenary leader. "Count up after the dust has settled."

No one moved.

Tethys swore black oaths, but he stayed where he was.

For all his mercenary experience, Druz knew that Tethys wasn't an overly courageous man. He was smart on a battlefield, and that made him a successful sellsword.

Making a decision, knowing no one else in the party knew for sure what the forest warrior was or whom he represented, Druz sheathed her sword then unbuckled the belt. She dropped it on the ground, then stepped forward with her empty hands held up before her.

The forest warrior watched her approach but said nothing.

"Clear a path to him, girl," Forras said. "You're blocking whatever chance one of us might have to get to him should it come to that."

Druz ignored the command. Part of the reason the forest warrior allowed her to move in was because she would serve as a human shield.

"Who are you?" Druz asked.

The forest warrior regarded her silently.

"What do you want?" Druz tried again.

"No more wolf hunting," the forest warrior replied, "and I want the scalps you've collected so far. Those that died will not be desecrated further."

"No," Tethys disagreed, placing a hand on the bag at his waist where the wolf scalps were stored. "We're keeping the scalps."

Druz spoke to the mercenaries without turning around or taking her eyes from the forest warrior. "You're going to have to give him the scalps."

"Are you insane?" Forras demanded. "Without those scalps we won't be able to collect our bounty."

"If you don't give him the scalps," Druz said in a measured voice, "he'll kill us, and you won't be able to collect your bounty."

"Why would he kill us?" Ennalt demanded, exasperated. "We don't even know this man." He paused. "Do you know him, Druz?"

"No," Druz answered. "I don't know him… but I know what he is."

She met the forest warrior's gaze boldly. Despite her fear of him, and the respect she had for what she guessed he was capable of, she wasn't going to flinch away from him. She wouldn't give him that; she gave no man that.

"He's one man," Tethys objected. "Even if he slays Arvis, there are eight of us."

"I don't want my brother killed," Kord said. "If you do something stupid to get him slain, I'll kill you, Tethys."

"Eight of us isn't enough " Druz said, "and he's not alone."

Warily, the men carrying lanterns moved them so the bull's-eye beams swept the trees around the glen. A wolf bayed in the distance, yipping at the moon that was high in the sky.

"I don't see anyone," Tethys replied.

"You won't see anyone until it's too late," Druz said.

She recalled the tales her blacksmith father had told her of men like the one standing so coolly in front of her with his scimitar at Arvis's throat.

"Who are you?" Tethys demanded of the forest warrior.

"This night," the man said quietly, "I'm a protector of the wolves you people would slay to line your palms with gold."

"He's a druid," Druz said. "One of the Emerald Enclave."

Her announcement started a quick chorus of conversation between the other mercenaries. Arvis, eyes straining in their sockets, looked at the man holding him captive with new-and perhaps fear-filled-respect.

Everyone in Turmish knew of the Emerald Enclave and the druids who filled the organization's ranks. Despite the power that the various cities wielded along the Turmish coastline fronting the Sea of Fallen Stars as well as the Vilhon Reach, no one did anything involving the land without the consent of the Emerald Enclave. The druids' first order of business was to preserve nature, and if that meant no civilization could invade pristine, sylvan glens or wooded areas that could be harvested by loggers, that was what it meant.

Tethys spat and growled a curse that offended even Druz, as hardened as she was to the ways of mercenary men and battle.

"Is that right?" he asked the forest warrior. "Are you a druid?"

"I won't allow the killing of any more wolves," the man replied.

"You can't stop us," Forras said.

The forest warrior turned his deep green eyes on the man. The moonlight threw emerald sparks from them.

Druz acted immediately, seeing the druid's left hand twitch. She shoved Forras away. The man stumbled when he had to unexpectedly shift all his weight to his weak leg. He turned to Druz, lifting his sword threateningly.

"You damned fool!" Druz snapped.

"Are you siding with him, then…?" Forras's voice trailed off when he spotted the long, thin wooden dart quivering in the trunk of the tree he'd been standing in front of only a moment before.

"He would have killed you," Druz said, glancing over her shoulder at the forest warrior. "He still might." She studied the elf's hand, looking for a telltale sign that he had another dart ready.

Tethys took affront at the druid's action. "You'd kill a man over a wolf?" he demanded in disbelief.

"Yes," the druid replied. "The balance of nature must be kept. Your actions here unsettle that balance."

Forras regained his composure but stayed within reaching distance of Druz. "The wolves are feeding on the herd stock nearby."

"The cattle and sheep being raised here by the stockmen living in these lands have become-by rights-part of the wolves' prey," the elf druid said. "Those creatures, brought in by farmers, unsettle the balance of these lands by grazing. The wolves only make the sharing of the land more equal."

Druz didn't agree, but she didn't offer her opinion either. Since the recent war, many countries and nations around the Sea of Fallen Stars had suffered. With so many ships lost to the sahuagin and pirates, trade had been bad. When countries didn't have goods for sale, they seldom brought in goods either.