Greystone found her battered and bloody and too dazed even to think about trying to climb back up to her friend. Her friend! Colleen ached in heart more than body when she looked up that slope, to where Pony lay at the mercy of that strange beast. But she couldn't get to her friend, and even if she could have managed the climb, the tiger would merely beat her down again.
It was a moot point, though, and Colleen knew it. She could hardly get up on Greystone's back, and once there, she only managed to turn the horse north and urge him on. She slipped in and out of consciousness many times over the next hour, but had had the presence of mind to tie herself to the saddle.
And so she went on alone, knowing that the terrible man-tiger was not far behind.
She didn't camp that night. She couldn't even find the strength to climb down from the horse. Greystone walked on, eating as he went, pausing every now and then, sleeping as the woman slept on his back.
If Pony held any thoughts of speaking with King Danube, they were dashed immediately. On orders from Father Abbot Markwart - and with not a word of complaint from Danube or his entourage - a host of monks surrounded Pony, cut her loose from the tree, and shuffled her away. She saw Markwart showing her gems to the King and heard him remark about some "missing lodestone." King Danube looked over at her, his expression a mixture of pity and disgust.
And then he turned away, and Pony knew that she was doomed.
A few moments later, De'Unnero joined those escorting her, moving right beside her. "You are to run on," he explained. "The brothers will support you, will carry you when your legs give out." Two strong monks moved next to her as he spoke, pulling her arms across their shoulders, hoisting her so that her feet were barely touching the ground.
"You should reconsider your position before we return to Palmaris," De'Unnero said to her. "What a pity that one as strong of mind and body as you will be so horribly and publicly executed." He spun away as he fin-ished, his step light and fast.
Pony didn't know how to interpret his words. Was he showing sincere concern? Or was he playing with her, taunting her within the guise of con-cern? Or was it, perhaps, something more sinister? Was De'Unnero pre-tending to be her friend, playing off against the Father Abbot, to keep her off guard?
Whatever it might be, Pony determined that she would not play along. They had beaten her, so it seemed, had taken everything from her, but she would face death with one thing intact: her convictions.
And she was glad to see De'Unnero, she decided. If the dangerous man was here, then he was not out hunting Colleen; though Pony couldn't even be certain whether her friend was alive, or if De'Unnero had killed her before he had come back.
"I will hold my convictions and my hope," she whispered, needing to hear the words, although as soon as she said them, she feared that she might elicit some taunting response from the monks holding her. Neither replied, though one did turn to regard her, eyeing her with some respect.
Pony met that gaze, drawing strength from it. Even if dying bravely was no great accomplishment, it was all she had left.
The pain wasn't so bad the next day, replaced by a grim determination in Colleen that she would get to Nightbird, whatever it took, and tell him of the fate of his lover. She knew that her wounds were serious. One arm was broken and one ankle so swollen that she had to remove her boot. And she had lost blood, and was so very cold.
But Colleen focused only on the road ahead and urged Greystone, won-derful Greystone, ahead, step after step.
Day and night blended together, one long, rolling agony. A rain fell the third day after De'Unnero's attack, but Colleen, delirious, didn't even notice. The soldiers and monks gained on her daily, though she rode long into the night, but again, she didn't, couldn't, notice.
All she knew was the road ahead, the road to Dundalis, the road to the place where she would at last allow herself some rest.
She collapsed on the side of the trail the afternoon of the fourth day, sliding from Greystone, hanging down at the end of the tether, her shoul-ders and head brushing the ground. The horse knew enough to stop, but there was little else that Greystone, or Colleen, could do. The woman made one attempt to right herself, but only fell back, scraping the side of her face against some crusted snow.
The sun rode low in the western sky. The darkness took her.
Tiel'marawee moved with the grace and speed that no race other than Touel'alfar could match, skipping over mounds of drifted snow immedi-ately south of the Barbacan, and then running lightly, half flying, over stretches of open ground in the south. She took no meandering course this time, despite her elven love of song and dance, for her heart remained heavy with the loss of Ni'estiel.
Lady Dasslerond had to know: about the dead elf, about the mur-derous Bishop, and most of all, about the strange magic that had saved Nightbird - and Tiel'marawee - on the plateau of Mount Aida.
With hardly a thought, the elf rushed past Dundalis, passing under the tower on the north slope without disturbing the two sentries. She knew that she should turn west soon, if her destination was Andur'Blough Inninness, but she suspected that her lady might still be in Palmaris, or that Dassle-rond would come north first before turning for home.
She listened intently fortiest-tiel, the star song.
What she heard instead was the soft nicker of a horse and the groans of a woman.
Tiel'marawee didn't know Colleen Kilronney, nor did she recognize the horse that had served as mount for Jilseponie. But though her business was urgent, the elf couldn't leave the woman like this, hanging upside down under the belly of a horse. With her fine elvish blade, she cut Colleen down, doing her best to pad the woman's fall to the ground. At the very least, she decided to unsaddle the poor horse, for festering sores were showing around the edges of the leather, and perhaps wrap the woman in the blanket, that she might die comfortably.
Colleen managed to open one eye, though the other remained closed, caked with dried blood. "Nightbird," she whispered through parched, cracked lips. "Pony caught."
Tiel'marawee's eyes widened as the meaning of the words came clear to her. "Pony?" she asked, lightly slapping the sides of the woman's face. "Jilseponie? Caught by whom? By the Abellican Church?"
But thinking her message delivered, the delirious Colleen had slipped far away.
Tiel'marawee didn't know where to turn. She hated the thought of slowing her progress to the south, but understood that this might be some-thing significant. She ran back to the north and again passed Dundalis, moving to the bottom of the sentry tower. "A woman on the road," she called up.
The guards scrambled; Tiel'marawee heard their boots and the tumult as they reached for weapons.
"A woman on the road," she called again, "gravely injured. To the south!"
"Who is there?" one guard called back.
But Tiel'marawee was already gone.
Soon after, the elf watched with relief as a group of men rushed down one of the southern trails. They would not have found Colleen, but the elf called out to them, imitating the sounds of a woman in distress, guid-ing them.
"Palmaris guard," one man remarked, rushing to Colleen's side and gently turning her to her back, while a companion grabbed Greystone's reins and led the horse aside.
"Cousin of Shamus Kilronney," another man, a large man with dark black hair, replied. "Colleen, by name. She came to us in Caer Tinella, with news of the dead Baron."
"She may be soon to join him," a third man remarked. The first, inspecting her wounds, shook his head.
"Not so bad," he said. "Nothing a bit of food and a warm bed won't help. She's been on the road, and injured, for several days, at least, probably tied to the saddle the whole time."
"Good horse," the third man remarked, and only then did the large black- haired man take a moment to regard the animal, haggard-looking and with open sores. How the man's eyes widened!
"But who unsaddled the mount?" the man bending over Colleen asked.
"And who told us about the fallen woman?" the third added.
Tomas Gingerwart could hardly reply for the lump in his throat. He knew that animal, weary and haggard though it was. That was Greystone, Pony's mount! "Get her into town quickly," he bade his companions. "Get her warm and get her fed, and get her, by all means, ready to speak! Now go!"
The other two jumped at the command, gently lifting Colleen and laying her across Greystone's back, then leading the horse away.
Tomas lingered behind, looking around at the forest and the trail, appearing distressed.
Tiel'marawee took a chance, slipping out of the foliage.
Immediately the big man's hands came up, palms outward, showing that he held no weapon and would make no threatening moves. "I am no enemy of the elves," he said, not showing his amazement at seeing one of the diminutive folk.
"You know of us, and know something of the fallen woman," Tiel'mara-wee reasoned.
"I am Tomas Gingerwart," he explained, "friend of Nightbird, friend of Jilseponie, whose horse carried the stricken woman."
Tiel'marawee did well to hide her concern; if this was Pony's horse, then what had happened to Lady Dasslerond?
"Friend of Belli'mar Juraviel," Tomas finished, "or companion, at least - for he accompanied us to this place before turning for home."
"I am Tiel'marawee," the elf replied, bending low. "The woman has information concerning Jilseponie, I am sure."
"Pray join me, then," Tomas offered, turning for Dundalis.
The elf considered the invitation, then nodded and followed.
Many stares followed her, but none of them threatening, as she and Tomas rushed through the town to Colleen's bedside.
They found poor Colleen half conscious, still mumbling about Pony's being captured, and about the need to inform Nightbird.
"I left Nightbird at the Barbacan," Tiel'marawee explained, "locked in by a winter storm. There he must stay for several more days, at least, and many more than that if winter strikes the northland again."
"But you came through it," Tomas reasoned. "And you can get back."
The elf looked at him long and hard.
"If Pony is in trouble, then Nightbird has to know," the big man said.
"Then go tell him," Tiel'marawee said coldly, her tone leaving no doubt that, by her thinking, her role in this had come to an end.
Tomas looked at her. "You just said that Nightbird could not get through," he replied. "If that is so, then how are any of us to get to him?"
Before Tiel'marawee could answer, the door burst open and a flustered woman staggered into the room. "Soldiers coming," she said breathlessly, "and monks besides. Many monks."
Tomas turned back to Tiel'marawee - and saw the elf scrambling through a side window.
"By the gods," the big man muttered grimly. "Keep her hidden," he instructed those in the room. "By our word of friendship to Nightbird, we know nothing about her." He rushed out of the house, moving fast to join some other folk gathered at the southern end of town, awaiting the arrival of the soldiers. He looked around many times, hoping to catch sight of the elf, though he suspected, correctly, that Tiel'marawee was already far away.
"Now what are ye supposin' soldiers'll be wantin' with us?" one man asked.
"Or monks?" another added with obvious disdain, for he had been out in the forest with Tomas when the dangerous, vicious monk with the tiger's paw had come through, had been the companion of the man whose tunic the monk had shredded with a single swipe.
"Allheart," one of the others whispered to Tomas when the unit came into clear view, the strong, muscled horses churning the turf. "And several with plumed helmets."
"The ornament of a champion," another finished grimly. "The King's own."
"And a far way from Ursal," another man remarked.
They were a spectacular sight, but Tomas looked more to the group wearing the brown robes of Abellican monks running beside the mounted soldiers. One in particular caught his attention, the monk he had encoun-tered in the forest outside of town a couple of weeks before, the monk who had named Tomas and his companions as friends of Nightbird, and thus, as enemies of the Church.
The carriage bearing Markwart came into sight, and a chorus of gasps erupted about Tomas.
Tomas had never seen the Father Abbot of the Abellican Church before, but this man's rank was obvious even before one of the others, one who had seen Markwart, named the old monk as the Church's supreme leader.
"What've we done to bring such attention?" someone asked.
"More likely Nightbird than us," another answered.
Tomas didn't disagree, nor did he bother to comment, so intense was his focus on the approaching procession. And then he saw Pony, bedraggled, propped between two monks, and his heart fell. He thought of all the months that woman and her lover had kept him and his friends alive, remembered the fight with the great giant leader, when the behemoth made the error of following Nightbird into the forest. Only then, seeing Pony so helpless, did Tomas realize how much he loved her and Nightbird, how much they had become heroes to him.
The procession pulled up some twenty feet away from the Dundalis folk. The soldiers formed two rows, their horses side by side, so close together that Tomas and the others couldn't make out the forms of those in the second row.
"Allheart," the other man whispered again, obviously awed, "best in all the world."
Given the soldiers' companions this day, Tomas was not so sure.
A man of about forty years, handsome and strong and quite at ease on his spirited horse, trotted out from the group. On cue, one of the monks rushed out to accompany him, and Tomas gritted his teeth as he recognized the robed man.
"I am Duke Targon Bree Kalas," the rider said.
"And I am Abbot De'Unnero of St. Precious," the monk added. "Do you still call yourself the leader of the folk of Dundalis, Tomas Gingerwart?"
De'Unnero's familiarity with the man obviously caught the Duke off guard, the man glaring down at the monk from his saddle.
"We would have prepared a better reception had we known that such important men were on their way," Tomas replied, dipping a low bow.
"I am well acquainted with your receptions," the abbot said.
Tomas held out his hands. "A stranger approached us unannounced in the forest," he replied. "These are not tame lands, good abbot."
"Good?" De'Unnero echoed skeptically.
"Enough of this banter," the Duke said, jumping down to stand between Tomas and the monk. De'Unnero quickly moved around the Duke as Kalas removed his two-plumed helm. "We have ridden north from Palmaris in search of the one called Nightbird," Kalas explained. "Do you know him?"
"He knows the man well," De'Unnero replied before Tomas could begin to speak, "an ally of the man, and of our guest, Jilseponie, disciple of Avelyn, would-be assassin of Father Abbot Markwart."
Kalas glared at the monk, but De'Unnero did not back down. "I warn you, Tomas Gingerwart," he said in a low and threatening tone, "but only one last time."
"I know of the man called Nightbird," Tomas admitted. "A great hero."
De'Unnero sneered.
"Nightbird," Tomas went on stubbornly, "who, along with Pony - the woman you hold now, beaten and captive - saved us all before the minions of the demon dactyl were driven from the region. And now you claim that you seek him. Hunt him, you mean! And I - and the others who owe their lives to him - are to open our arms and our doors, lending aid to an enemy of our friend?"
"You are to do as you are told," De'Unnero remarked, stepping up to Tomas as if he meant to strike him.
"Good Master Gingerwart," Duke Kalas intervened, "I speak for King Danube himself. Nightbird and the woman have been declared outlaws for their crimes against the Church and the state. We will find him and bring him to Palmaris for trial, with or without the help of the folk of Dundalis."
"These are the Timberlands, not the realm of Honce-the-Bear," a man standing to the side of Tomas remarked.
"I could have your tongue for that," Duke Kalas assured him.
"This is not the domain of our King," Tomas dared to say.
"As you insist that it is not the domain of the Church," De'Unnero put in. "You should be more careful of the enemies you make, Master Gingerwart."
"I desire no enemies," Tomas replied calmly.
"Then know this," Kalas answered forcefully, cutting short De'Unnero, who had started to speak once more. "Those who do not aid us, aid Night-bird, and if he is found guilty of the crimes with which he is charged, then those who aided him will not find Danube to be a merciful King."
He let the words hang in the air for a moment, locking Tomas' eyes with his own, showing the man that there would be no compromise here, that he was of one mind with Abbot De'Unnero.
"Is he here?" Kalas asked calmly.
"No," Tomas replied. "He left many days ago. I know not where."
"You know indeed," De'Unnero remarked. "He went north to the Bar-bacan, but may have returned by now."
"He is not here," Tomas insisted.
"Search the town!" De'Unnero called out, spinning about and waving his monks to action.
Not to be outdone, Duke Kalas did the same. The Allheart Brigade leaped their horses forward, filtering between the buildings.
"Any who resist will be cut down," Kalas informed Tomas. The big man didn't have to hear a similar promise from the vicious De'Unnero to realize that the monks would be even less forgiving.
The folk had done a fine job of hiding Colleen Kilronney. So fine, in fact, that she would not have been found, except for Greystone. De'Unnero spotted the weary horse, pointed it out, and laughed. "So you have found Jilseponie's horse," he cried. "Good. And pray tell me, good Master Gingerwart, where is the rider who brought the beast in?"
"He walked in of his own accord," Tomas answered, stiffening his jaw.
"Indeed!" De'Unnero exclaimed dramatically. "All the way from Caer Tinella! What a wise creature he is!" The man's eyes narrowed dangerously and he came up suddenly, putting his face right in front of Tomas'. "She is here," he said. "I can smell her."
"Find the red-haired woman!" De'Unnero called to his monks. "A Pal-maris soldier, and wounded, I am sure.
Not to be outdone, Duke Kalas similarly ordered his men. Monks and soldiers shoved into every house, beating down any who opposed them.
Tomas Gingerwart, the leader, the one the folk looked to for answers, had seen enough. He started yelling at De'Unnero, but the monk pushed him aside and started searching the town on his own. Tomas then turned his ire on Duke Kalas, but his protest was short-lived, falling away into stunned silence when another man came out from the Allheart ranks.
"Tomas Gingerwart," King Danube said sternly, moving to stand before the man. "You will interfere no more and speak not another word. I would not have come out here if this matter was not of the utmost urgency. Stand aside, and instruct the folk to do likewise."
"M-my King," Tomas stammered, bowing low.
"Even in the Timberlands," Danube remarked slyly, gazing at the man who had claimed that the Timberlands were not the King's domain. Tomas trembled before the power of the King, then fell to his knees, begging for mercy.
But then Abbot De'Unnero came back, two monks behind him dragging Colleen Kilronney.
Tomas Gingerwart closed his eyes and felt as if he was falling far away. He hardly heard the pronouncements of Abbot De'Unnero or the voice of Markwart, proclaiming him a criminal, a conspirator in a plot against Church and state.
"Not state!" another Dundalis man dared to reply - or started to reply, for his words were cut off abruptly by a smacking sound. Tomas opened his eyes to see the man facedown beside him, Abbot De'Unnero standing behind him.
Tomas looked to King Danube for leniency, but the King walked away.
By the time De'Unnero completed his inquisition, Tomas, five other men, and two women had been taken prisoner. Nine horses were confis-cated by the Father Abbot, and the new prisoners and Pony were uncere-moniously strapped sideways across their backs, wrists and ankles tied below the horses' bellies.
On the procession rolled through Dundalis, along the road to the north, the same trail Nightbird and his companions had taken.
Both the wounded soldier woman and the leader of Dundalis had charged Tiel'marawee with going to the Barbacan to tell Nightbird of Pony's di-lemma. Had the ranger been of the Touel'alfar, the elf would have been long on her way to the north by the time the soldiers and monks had crossed through the small Timberlands town.
But he wasn'Touel'alfar, as was Pony, and Tiel'marawee's path led to the south, her choice of direction further affirmed that same night, when she heardtiest-tiel drifting on the evening breeze.
By the end of the second day, the elf had found Dasslerond and the others. Predictably, her tale of Pony's woe and the impending danger to Nightbird weighed heavily on the shoulders of her kin, particularly on Belli'mar Juraviel.
"We cannot allow this," he said to the lady of Andur'Blough Inninness.
"Both the King of Honce-the-Bear and the Father Abbot of the Abel-lican Church lead the procession," Lady Dasslerond reminded him. "Are we to start a war with all the humans of the world?"
Juraviel recognized that she spoke the truth, and he bowed his head. "But these events are not distanced from us," he reminded her. "The dis-position of Nightbird may well hold implications for the Touel'alfar."
Lady Dasslerond - so tired of it all, wanting only to go back to Andur'-Blough Inninness - could not deny Juraviel's words. She looked around at her kin, all the elves moving closer to hear her every word.
"It is time for the Touel'alfar to return to their home," Dasslerond pro-claimed. Every elven head, even Juraviel's, bobbed in agreement. "The situation has become too complicated and too dangerous. Thus, we go home and shut our valley and our eyes to the affairs of the humans.
"But not our ears," Dasslerond continued after a long, pondering pause. "We go home, except for you, Belli'mar Juraviel."
Juraviel turned a surprised eye on his lady.
"You have named yourself as a friend of Nightbird and the woman," Dasslerond explained.
"We have all named Nightbird as our friend," Juraviel replied.
"But not as intimately as Belli'mar Juraviel," Dasslerond went on. "You who fought beside Nightbird and the woman for so long must bear witness to their fate now."
"I thank you, my lady," Juraviel replied.
"Bear witness," Lady Dasslerond repeated firmly. "We are not a part of this, Belli'mar Juraviel. Nightbird and Pony must see their own way, or they will fall. Bear witness and return to us."
Belli'mar Juraviel did not for a moment discount the great honor and trust Lady Dasslerond had just afforded him. She knew his heart con-cerning Nightbird and Pony, and knew that his love for the two would tempt him to intervene, for Belli'mar Juraviel was their friend.
But more important, Belli'mar Juraviel was Touel'alfar.
