The others laughed, too, while Ambra blushed furiously and then lunged for Dallatar-who skipped lightly out of her reach.

"Iydahoe! I have news!" Bakali jogged into the grotto, observing the antics of his tribemates with a disapproving frown. Ever serious, Bakali still scowled as he squatted beside Iydahoe and Hawkan.

"A big caravan comes," he announced breathlessly. "It has moved past the borders of Silvanesti and now has turned up the Istar road."

"How big?" wondered the warrior.

"Many hundreds of horses, and twenty great wagons." Bakali hesitated, then blundered ahead. "Warrior Iydahoe, cannot this be my time to help you in the attack?"

Iydahoe looked at his father, certain that Hawkan would say Bakali was still too young-but the shaman lqoked down at his mossy blanket, where he busily studied the shards of the Ram's Horn. The warrior knew that the decision was his.

He looked at the young elf. Bakali was lanky and tough, though he had not filled out his adult sinew. He was also quick, keen-eyed, and very patient-the most important attributes of a Kagonesti brave.

"Very well. If the shaman will mark your tattoos, you may join me in the ambush."

"I have collected more snails over this past season," Hawkan said with a nod. Iydahoe knew that the black dye used in the tattooing process was obtained from these dirt-dwelling slugs. "I have enough to mark Bakall as a warrior."

That night, the tribe gathered solemnly as the old shaman took a sharp porcupine quill and inserted bits of the black ink under Bakall's skin. He marked his chest with twin circles and his face with an oak leaf to match Iydahoe's. Bakall bore the painful procedure without complaint, and when Hawkan had finished, the young initiate raised up a steel sword and whooped, promising to continue the vengeance against Istar.

Iydahoe led Bakall onto the ambush trail two mornings later. Each of them carried a quiver full of black-shafted arrows. They made their way to a place Iydahoe had chosen years before.

Not once did the warriors pause to reflect on the fantastic odds against them. Indeed, Iydahoe had grown used to attacking enemies who outnumbered him, relying on stealth and his knowledge of the forest to escape after inflicting as much damage as possible.

Based on his experience, Iydahoe expected that the two of them would shoot many arrows from ambush, hoping that each missile claimed a legionnaire's life. Then he and Bakall would melt into the forest, leaving only enough of a trail to lead pursuers in a direction opposite that of the village in its tiny, hidden grotto.

They found the caravan on the road, and for a full day the two elves observed the long column from hilltops, lofty trees, even thickets of thorns within a hundred feet of the road. They watched the golden-cloaked riders file past, heard the creaking of wagons, the snorting of the laboring horses. The commander of the Istarian legionnaires rode a gleaming white stallion with gilded bridle to match his tunic. His broad buttocks rested in an appropriately resplendent gem-studded saddle. The officer's eyes looked neither to the right nor to the left, his chin held proudly outthrust, as if by his presence itself he dared the forest and its denizens to throw a challenge at the invincible might of Istar.

That challenge, Iydahoe thought grimly, would soon be forthcoming.

By late afternoon, they had taken shelter in a dense, nearly lightless thicket fifty feet from the trail. The two Kagonesti lay flat on their bellies and watched the column file past. From here they could get an accurate count of its numbers and even discern details about individual riders.

About a hundred mounted legionnaires led the way, riding two abreast. All these riders, the elves noted, were dressed in bright ceremonial colors and bore themselves with a rigid pride that seemed more suited to a parade ground than a forest path. Never mind the pretty posture, Iydahoe silently counseled the humans-soon you will be glad to get out of here with your lives!

Abruptly the nature of the procession changed, following the long file of immaculate horsemen. Now the Kagonesti watched ornate, gilded wagons trundle past, each pulled by a pair of sleek white horses. The drivers of these wagons, Iydahoe saw, were House Elves-Silvanesti. Each was a warrior, with a steel breastplate and a sword close at hand. Doubtless the elves had bows and arrows within ready reach inside the wagons' covered beds.

The wild elves' questions about the contents of those wagons were answered, startlingly, as beautiful female voices rose in song. The sweet melodies were carried from wagon to wagon until nearly a score of the lurching conveyances had rumbled past. Then more legionnaires brought up the rear, another hundred in immaculate uniforms and riding proud, prancing horses.

As the Kagonesti watched the humans make their evening camp, Bakali trembled with excitement, and Iydahoe touched the younger Kagonesti's shoulder, silently counseling him to be patient. Iydahoe looked at the whole circles, so recently tattooed across his companion's chest, and felt a momentary pang of bitterness. Bakall was so young, lacking a full ten years on the traditional adulthood age of the Kagonesti warrior. Yet he was about to embark on his first attack.

The great column of Istar made too tempting a target for Iydahoe to ignore. The company obviously made its way northward from Silvanesti to the fabled city of Istar itself. Already the column had passed the thorn-hedge border in departing the elven realm, and for days it had hastened along the winding woodland trail as if the legionnaires and their captains sensed the danger that even a single Kagonesti might provide.

For the thousandth time, Iydahoe remembered, vividly, the massacre that had occurred fourteen years earlier. As always, the familiar rage welled up, the bitter fury that had made it so easy for the young warrior to look at the symbols of Istar, and then to kill and kill again.

In those intervening years, the deaths of a hundred elves of his tribe had been repaid by Iydahoe two or three times over-and he was only beginning to collect a deep and bloody debt. His arrows had slashed from the forest into Istarian road-building and trading parties. Logging camps had been burned, individual lumbermen discovered horrifyingly posed, their throats slit into garish, bleeding grins.

In the misty light of dawn, Iydahoe watched the column of legionnaires break camp and file onto the broad trail. He was almost ready to strike. Finally the last of the column moved onto the trail, and the two elves emerged from cover to work their way to the top of a nearby ridge and then jog easily through the more open forest there. They roughly paralleled the course of the caravan, and Iydahoe knew that they would soon pass it and regain a position for ambush. Calling on his memory of the geography, he had decided on the perfect place to make the attack. It had the further advantage of being one place on this road where he had never before struck, so perhaps the humans would be less vigilant than when they trooped past the scenes of his earlier ambushes.

'Those singers?" asked Bakali, loping easily behind the older warrior. "Who do you think they were? Certainly not humans, were they?"

Iydahoe reflected on the glorious sound and shook his head. "They must be elves. A long time ago I heard that some Silvanesti might journey to Istar to sing. Why they would go, I can't imagine."

"Perhaps they were prisoners," the younger brave suggested.

"Perhaps." But Iydahoe was not convinced. "I can't believe that anyone-especially an elf-who was held against his will would be able to create such beautiful music. No-I don't think they were prisoners."

"But then why?" pressed Bakali.

Iydahoe's silence was his only reply, and his companion understood that the older brave had nothing more to say on the subject. For more than an hour they maintained the steady trot, moving swiftly along the ridgetop, until Iydahoe judged it was time to curve back toward the trail.