Still, Kagonesti life was not bad-in fact, Iydahoe could imagine nothing better. They had the vast wealth of untrammeled forest, the lakes and the heights… They had the freedom to go where they wanted, to take the food that was offered everywhere by bountiful Ansalon.

His regrets vanishing in the cool stillness of the woods, Iydahoe raced easily along the forest trail, skirting the deeper woods to run among widely spaced pine trunks. This was the second day of his journey, and he would need to travel all day tomorrow before he reached the Silvertrout village.

Iydahoe tried to play over his arrival in his mind. The Pathfinder was a revered figure, after all, and the young warrior wanted to convey the invitation with proper formality. He would greet Washallak Pathfinder at his lodge on the low hillock, politely asking if the bearer of the Ram's Horn would journey to the settlement of the White- tail tribe at his earliest convenience to preside over the wedding of Kawllaph and Berriama.

Iydahoe welcomed his mission, grateful that his status as a warrior gave him the right to perform it. The stinging pain of the tattoo needle had faded weeks earlier, within hours after his father, the tribal shaman, had ritually marked him. Perhaps it was his imagination, but the twin symbols on his face still seemed to warm his skin in a way that was not a source of irritation as much as of wonder.

His left eye was encircled by the ornately detailed outline of a long-lobed oak leaf, with extensions reaching around his forehead and a stem that trailed down to one side of his chin. A plain circle enclosed the other hazel eye, and though Iydahoe would have loved to wear the spirals of a veteran warrior, for now he had to settle for the unadorned roundel of the untested but battle-ready brave.

A feather, Iydahoe thought, returning to the pleasant contemplation of his status. He would need to get one or two bright feathers to complete his adornment as a proud Kagonesti brave. Perhaps he would trek all the way to the coast and seek a snow goose. He imagined the pristine plumage against his black hair and tattooed, sun-bronzed skin. The picture was fierce and gratifying. Perhaps he would even tie one of the rare plumes to the haft of his long-bladed knife.

His thoughts wandering, Iydahoe was only vaguely aware of the mountainous shelves rising to his left, the great sprawl of the Solamnic flatland to his right. This was wild elf territory, well south of the Black Feather and Blue- lake villages but still near the wild heart of Kagonesti forest.

Iydahoe recalled his surroundings quickly when he saw a rising, crested pillar of rock. The unique structure triggered one of his prouder memories-knowledge of a place that he alone knew. Along the crest of the foothills, just beyond the rocky pillar, a narrow gorge twisted into the sheltered depths of a granite ridge. Delicate mosses grew on the floor of the gorge and showed no sign that any elf or human had ever visited the shadowy cut or the shady grotto hidden deep within. Iydahoe had found that path when he was younger-a decade before he had gotten his first warrior's tattoo. He had shown it to no one, preferring to keep the place as his own private sanctuary. Now, as a warrior, he felt that it was right and natural to know of such a place.

Before sunset, he killed a grouse with a quick arrow, cooking the unexpected delight on a small, smokeless fire. He reflected with serene pleasure on the bounty that the vast forest so willingly provided to the tribes. For a thousand years, the braves of the Kagonesti had been the sole explorers of this vast realm of forest land. Since the departure of the dragons, the servants of the Dark Queen had mostly left the wild elves alone. The bakali had vanished into their swamps; some said that the race had been exterminated, though elder warriors cautioned against this rash assumption. Ogres still lived among the high valleys of the Khalkists, but these were many marches to the north. Iydahoe, like many other young warriors, had never even seen an ogre, much less been forced to battle one.

Humans, of course, remained the eternal problem. For the first centuries after the Dragon War, mankind had ignored this vast woodland. A hundred years before Iyda- hoe's birth, however, human emissaries had once again tried to claim portions of these wilds. They came from a place so distant that Iydahoe could not imagine it-a mighty city and palace they called Istar. Only a few of these humans had been bold enough to reach the deep forests, and Kagonesti warriors had wiped them out with a savage efficiency that should ensure against further trespasses.

Iydahoe knew that the warriors of the Kagonesti were smarter, faster, and quieter than any of their foes. The elves had better eyesight and a far keener sense of smell. These facts, coupled with nearly endless patience and a complete familiarity with their woodland home, kept the wild elves confident that they could quickly terrify or destroy any invader.

The young warrior slept comfortably under the stars, then rose with the dawn as quickly as any awakening wild animal. Stopping only to drink fresh water from a splashing creek, he started the last day of his journey.

Shortly after noon, a waft of wind swirled around him and Iydahoe smelled the fires of the Silvertrouts. He sniffed again, surprised, then alarmed. The smoke had an acrid taint, and the odor was strong, yet the village of the Silvertrouts was sdll several hours away.

The fires that sent smoke to his nostrils must be burning somewhere else-or else they were much larger than any cook's blaze. He sniffed again, taut with alarm. Mixed with smoke of wood and charcoal were other things-the smell of wet leather, steaming… and the stench of charred, blackened flesh.

Iydahoe sprinted, racing like a deer as he curved along the narrow forest paths. The malodorousness increased, and he knew it originated in the Silvertrout village. But these were not the odors of cooking, of tanned hides and smoking jerky. Instead, Iydahoe knew that he raced toward a scene of destruction and death.

Yet even that foreknowledge could not prepare him for the horror that met his eyes when at last he broke from the woods into the once-familiar village of the Silvertrouts. He saw charred ruins, still smoldering, where huts had stood. Grotesque shapes sprawled everywhere. He had to force his mind toward the realization that these blackened forms were bodies, the corpses of brutally murdered Kagonesti.

Like all of the wild elves, Iydahoe had visited the home village of the Pathfinder on many occasions, and he knew well the orderly layout of lodges, the ceremonial ring in the middle, and the watch posts mounted high in the sprawling oaks surrounding the community. Now those posts-and even the oaks that had borne them-were gone, scattered in the wreckage of felled trunks, shattered branches, and more bodies.

Iydahoe walked through the village in a daze. He stepped over a ragged shape, only afterward realizing that it was-had been-a child. Some force of unspeakable evil had torn it nearly in half.

Nearby, another blackened form was sprawled with sticklike appendages-arms?-stretched toward the mangled child. A steel shaft emerged from the back of the larger form, and Iydahoe recognized it as the arrow that had brought the wild elf down, too late to help its tiny offspring.

All around was evidence of more killing, butchery on a scale that staggered Iydahoe's senses. Over where the ceremonial ring had been surrounded by the lodges of great warriors, he saw only charcoal and the irregular shapes that he had come to accept as bodies. The warrior was not aware of the trembling in his own limbs until he started down the steps into the ceremonial pit. Then his heel slipped off the ground and he tumbled heavily to his side, rolling the last few steps until he lay on his back.