Colo crept forward, looking around warily. Reaching Cinnamon, the tracker gave the dead horse a hard kick, raising nothing but flies. Likewise she gave Droopface a push. Though the sad-faced one swung back and forth crazily, there was no other movement or sound. Cleverdon had been dead for many hours.

Confident that no one else was around, Colo stalked back to Kit and shoved her in the back.

"What's that for?" demanded Kit hotly, jumping up to face Colo with a hard-set jaw.

"Because we don't have time for that schoolgirl stuff," Colo said angrily.

"That was my father's horse," said Kit softly.

"So what? Who's your father?"

"Gregor Uth Matar," Kit said dejectedly. Her father seemed farther away now than ever.

Colo looked surprised by this information. "The one Ursa rode with?"

"Ursa!" responded Kit, even more astonished than her companion. "What do you mean? He never said anything about riding with my father."

"I don't know," said Colo guardedly. "Maybe I'm wrong. I have a knack for getting names mixed up."

"Tell me what you know." Kit pushed her.

"I don't know anything," insisted Colo. She stood chin to chin with Kitiara, not in the least intimidated.

Although Kit wanted to fight it out, she also had to admit that she trusted Colo, who had saved her life-twice so far. Perhaps Colo was honestly mistaken. Anyway, how could Ursa have ridden with her father and never mentioned it?

"We don't have time for this anyway," Colo repeated.

"What do you mean?"

"They killed your horse, but not the others. That means three horses might be running free in the woods. We have to find at least one of them if we are going to stand a chance of catching up."

Kit thought a moment. "If the raiders didn't take them, the horses would have followed our scent and ended by the waterfall and the slig's cave. That means if we keep going in this direction we stand a good chance of running across them."

"Right," said Colo, setting off again through the woods. Kit looked over her shoulder at Droopface and Cinnamon. Colo turned around. "Coming?"

"Yes," said Kit, hurrying after her.

After another two hours of slowly making their way, they came upon the knoll within sight of the waterfall, the same spot where they had made camp, and been attacked, the night before.

The sight that greeted them was even more eerie than the one in the other clearing. Trees were bent and twisted, even uprooted. The ground had been swept clean of rocks, leaves, and everything else. Over the site hung a strong, gassy odor.

There was no evidence of Ursa or the slig's head or the guard whom Colo had killed, no evidence of anyone or anything from the day before. The place looked not destroyed, but strangely emptied.

"What does it mean?" asked Kit, unnerved.

Colo was stomping around, trying to pick up a trail of something. "Powerful magic. Evil magic. I think they were after Ursa and, for some reason, you. When they captured him, they spirited him away-somewhere. That great cyclone was a magic wind. It took him and everything else away."

"A powerful mage must be his enemy," said Kit wonderingly. She was thinking about what Colo said, and wondering why anyone would be after both her and Ursa.

"Or somebody with enough money to hire a powerful mage," added Colo thoughtfully. Suddenly she cocked her head. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" asked Kit.

"There it is again!" shouted Colo and took off, sprinting through the forest. Kit had to run as fast as she could, leaping over branches and rocks, to keep her in sight. They burst into a clearing, and there was Droopface's mule, calmly munching grass. The mule shied away from them, but Colo grabbed it. Stroking its head soothingly, she jumped on and then extended an arm down to Kit, pulling her up.

It took them all afternoon, traveling in ever-widening circles, to pick up a trail, although they did not understand why there were signs of only two horses, heading west.

After another hour it grew dark, but Kit and Colo kept going. They only had Beck's sword between them, so Kitiara wondered not only who they were following, but what they would do when they caught up. Long past midnight they saw a campfire ahead. They dismounted and crept forward on their hands and knees.

Once they got closer, Kit saw that it was the two dark elves, who were bickering. Closer still, Kit could make out some of the words. She realized they were arguing over her-"the shadow girl," as one of them put it-and which of them was to blame that she had absconded.

"If you had done it my way-"

"You agreed!"

"Well, it will be your job to explain."

Colo put a finger to her lips and circled to the right. Kit had no idea what her plan was, but she held the hilt of her sword firmly, waiting for some signal.

Colo emerged from behind the elves, leaping at them with such breathtaking speed that Kit was taken aback. The tracker carried a big rock. She flung herself on the back of one of the dark elves, bringing her rock down on his head with a sickening crunch.

Even as she did so, Kit sprang out of hiding and rushed ahead with an impromptu battle cry. The other elf had jumped up and grabbed a dagger. Now he rushed toward Kit, but she had the advantage of surprise and a longer reach. She knocked his blade out of his hand with one swipe of her arm, then plunged her weapon into his chest. He fell dead.

It was over in a matter of seconds. Kit saw that Colo was stripping the weapons off her unconscious victim, attaching a knife and various pouches to her belt. She looked up at Kitiara with a confident grin.

"What now?" asked Kit, wiping her sword blade.

Colo sat down on a log and took a bite out of the haunch of venison that was roasting over the fire.

"We wait," she said, gesturing to the elf she had downed, "until this one wakes up."

Eventually, the dark elf groggily came to. His expression hardened when he saw Kit and Colo standing over him. He squirmed to sit up. Colo had bound his hands and feet, and tied a rope around his neck, then to a tree branch, so that he could not move very far without cutting off his breath.

It was the elf Kitiara remembered from the Silver Gar. For the first time Kit could see him close up, with his almond-shaped face, large, pointed ears, and haughty expression. The dark elf refused to show any fear and, struggling to stand, stared at them insolently.

Colo matter-of-factly hit him across the face, drawing a streak of blood from his lip. There was a long pause, and the dark elf slowly bared his teeth in a bitter smile. Colo hit him again.

"Where is he? Where did they go?" she demanded.

"Far away from here," he answered tightly.

"How?" she asked.

"Magic wind."

Colo nodded to Kit.

"Why didn't you go with them?" she asked.

"Because we lost the girl," he said, indicating Kit.

Kit's eyes widened. "You were following me on the boat, weren't you?" she probed.

"No," he said. "That was accidental. I wasn't following anyone. Then I noticed the sword that Patric was carrying."

"You killed him!" Kit said fiercely.

Now Colo was listening with wide eyes, trying to add it all up.

"I killed him," the dark elf said, "and I was going to steal the sword, but I was interrupted. The sword disappeared, and I realized you had taken it. I thought you had drowned, but after your horse was stolen, I began to figure it all out.

It wasn't Patric I should have killed, it was you. Who are you anyway?"

"Kitiara Uth Matar," she said proudly. "What is that to you?"