Rissa at last released the Wolf and looked up and about. Not finding who or what she sought, she turned to the animal at hand and said, "Thou must be one of Dalavar's. Where then is thy master?"

"I am here-" said the Mage.

"Vada!" cried Ruar, startled-as were all but Arin- for seemingly from thin air a Wizard appeared: first he wasn't, and then he was.

"-yet no master of these Draega am I," continued Dalavar. "Instead I would name them my friends."

Recovered from her shock, Rissa stepped forward smiling and embraced the Mage. " 'Tis meet to see thee again, Dalavar Wolfmage."

The Wizard smiled down at her and returned her embrace. Then he looked at the others questioningly.

Rissa turned. "Dalavar Wolfmage, vi didron enistor: Dara Arin, e Alori Vanidar, Ruar, Melor, e Perin e Biren." As Elves and Wizard canted their heads to one another in acknowledgment, Rissa turned back to the Mage. "We come on a mission of some urgency and seek thine aid."

The sun had burned away the morning mist during Arin's telling of her vision. Slowly Dalavar shook his head when her tale came to an end. He took a sip of his bracing hot tea while the Elves waited in silence. They sat in the campsite, and all about Draega lay but for the three on perimeter ward. At last Dalavar said, "I know nothing of this green stone."

Perin and Biren groaned together, and Arin sighed, crestfallen.

The Wolfmage turned up his hands. "It has been long since I have stepped from these woods… long since I've conferred with my Kind. Yet this I can say: if there are those among the Free Folk who know aught of such a thing as this green stone, you will find them at the Mage-holt of Black Mountain."

Silverleaf tilted his head. "Not at Rwn?"

Dalavar grunted. "Ah yes, Rwn too. It is a place of much lore, for there sits the Academy, and the libraries are extensive."

"Libraries?" asked Arin.

"Yes. At the Academy of Mages in the city of Kairn on the west coast of Rwn."

"Hmm," mused Arin. "Would that we could have gone there."

"The blockade," growled Ruar.

"Kha on all Kistani!" spat Rissa.

Dalavar raised an eyebrow. "Blockade?"

Ruar nodded. "Aye. They hold hostage the Straits of Kistan."

Dalavar sighed. "So the humans are still at it."

Ruar nodded, and Silverleaf added, "As bad as mankind is, the Spaunen are worse. At least there is some hope for the humans, but for the Rupt… -Let me tell thee of their latest vile deed."

"Vile deed?"

"Aye: the Felling of the Nine."

They spent a sevenday with Dalavar at his cottage in a central glade: resting, for they had journeyed far with little letup, and the horses and mules needed time to regain vigor. Too, they replenished their supplies from Dalavar's stores, for they had spent awhile out on the open plains, where there were few crofters and no villages to speak of. And during this time they told Dalavar what news they held, for the Magus had not been out in the world for nearly a hundred seasons. In turn he told them of the Wolfwood and of the creatures therein, but what he said is not recorded, and the Elves spoke to no one thereafter regarding his words.

And while they rested, the forest changed in color from gold and scarlet to russet and bronze and umber, and when it rained, barren branches were left starkly behind here and there.

On November third, one hundred and twenty-six days after Arin had had her vision, she and her companions said good-bye to Dalavar and set out for Black Mountain, the Wizardholt in Xian. And as they fared through the forest, a pair of Draega padded nearby, while brown leaves fell all around, the two Silver Wolves trailing, leading, and warding on distant flanks.

In midafternoon of the following day, Arin and her companions splashed out across a river ford and left the Wolfwood behind. Dalavar stood back among the barren trees and watched them ride away, and at his side sat a single Silver Wolf. When the Elves passed beyond sight 'round the flank of the hill, the Wolf mage turned toward the Draega beside him. "Come, Greylight, let us run." A dark shimmering came over Dalavar, and then two Silver Wolves loped away toward the heart of the wood as snow began to fall.

Light!" Ruar shouted the single word to Arin riding double behind, his voice barely heard above the howl of the blizzard.

Arin slipped back the cowl of her cloak and peered over Ruar's shoulder. Ahead up the mountain vale she, too, could see a flicker of yellow light glimmering through the shrieking darkness. Turning to the others strung out behind and barely glimpsed in the hurling snow, she beckoned to them and pointed ahead and called out, "Lantern-light! Mayhap a village!" but her words were shredded by squalling wind and lost in the yowl.

Struggling, up the vale labored the six horses, deep drifts barring the way. The seventh horse, Arin's, lay dead a hundred miles and twelve days arear; even farther back, nearly five hundred miles, were the corpses of the two mules. The mules had been blizzard-slain, having broken away from the campsite and gotten lost in the second of the howling winter storms. Their corpses had been found three days later when the blast had finally expired. Arin's horse, on the other hand, had simply collapsed and died; her heart had given out as she had labored in the deep snow left behind by another blizzard and another. And now the fifth winter blow whelmed upon the Elves, and they struggled through the thundering dark to find shelter…

… And up ahead they saw lanternlight, or so Arin believed.

But Ruar's horse had stopped, unable to go farther, its energy gone. "Down!" he called to Arin, and together they dismounted.

Floundering through a deep drift, Arin worked her way to the fore, and together, she and Ruar pulling and calling to the steed, they managed to get the horse moving again, the other Elves doing likewise in the track behind.

And with wind and snow battering at them, into the tiny mountain village of Doku they finally came, eight hundred miles and fifty-three days from the cote of Dalavar the Mage, fifty-one days of which had been through driven drifts of snow.

It was a village of huts and hovels, though it had a town square in the center of which stood the community well. All this they discovered as up the snow-covered frozen-mud streets came Arin and her band, while the unrelenting wind raged and clawed and battered at them with stinging ice crystals and tried to steal their heat away.

Since there didn't seem to be an inn or tavern, Arin chose one of the larger huts and bearing her quarterstaff knocked on the door, loudly, to be heard above the wind.

Nothing.

No response.

Again Arin knocked, this time with the butt of her staff.

Moments later the door slid aside, revealing a small yellow man. Surprised that he had a visitor, his gaze took her in-chestnut hair, alabaster skin, tilted hazel eyes, pointed ears, holding a big stick-

"Waugh!" he cried and leapt backwards, for surely this was a snow demon come to claim him, for who else would ride a howling blizzard down from the mountain and come to his very own door?

The demons spent two days sheltered in Doku, until the storm died, and when they left, the one who had ridden the blizzard was now mounted on a rugged mountain pony, with four more of the sturdy animals laden with supplies and trailing on tethers after.

The villagers behind were glad to see these demons go, even though they had not slain a single person, nor had changed a single time into the hideous monsters they truly were. Instead the demons had been polite and had enriched the village exceedingly with two gemstones in trade for the supply of food and five ponies and grain. Nevertheless, it was a great relief to see the seven demons gone.