Cormyr

Chapter 4: The Raid

Year of Leather Shields (-75 DR)

Alea Dahast crept along the edge of the clearing, the dappled green and burnt orange hues of her hunting cape making her almost invisible in the long shadows of the Cormanthor sunset. All around her moved companions who were just as well concealed. The only sounds of their passing were occasional wolf whines in the brambles, each followed by a soft shushing noise, and then silence again.

They came down from the low hills, using the trees for cover. Ahead was the clearing: a scar carved out of the forest, which had once run unbroken to the rocky lakeshore beyond. Its edge was a rough pile of uprooted, close-tangled trees and brush. Alea was still amazed that these humans were so stupid as to think that this unguarded rampart of tumbled, ravaged forest would be enough to keep out a determined predator.

And she and the other elves in her hunting band were determined predators. They had carefully scouted, and easily found, passages through the maze of woody detritus, both the intentional routes and the ways left by carelessness. These humans aped the brambled fortifications of her people, but their work had none of the beauty of elven creations-and none of the security.

Another wolf whine, and another soft shush, the beasts were getting restless. Alea wondered about the wisdom of bringing them along, but they would undeniably be useful both for their speed and their ability to terrorize the humans.

Despite their growing restlessness, she gave the signal for a halt and heard the faint noises of the sign being passed among her people. She wanted to watch the humans for a moment. She wanted to be sure.

Inwardly she heard Iliphar’s voice. The old Lord of the Scepters always recommended calm, always recommended accommodation… always recommended negotiation. When the furry brutes had attacked the first elves they encountered, he’d recommended containment and observation.

Iliphar was letting the weight of his years rule him. There were more and more of these humans wandering through elven lands now, wreaking havoc as they went.

Typical humans were like orcs come down from the mountains-hunters seeking prey, refugees seeking settlement, merchants seeking stability. The great forest held no long-term lure for them, and when they saw that the land of trees was held by the elves, they drifted on, to wherever humans drifted on to. But these men were different. This breed of human cleared the forest, killing nearly all the trees. They piled the rent corpses of forest giants-and their own wastes-around their clearings and chased off the animals. And when they had done all this, they moved on to do it all again, in another part of the forest. Someday, if they were allowed to go on, there might be no forest.

Alea watched the human camp from her hiding place. The houses were little more than camp hovels, consisting of nothing more than bent saplings lashed together and topped with animal hides. Elves put together such flimsy quarters only for a evening’s housing against a stormy night, to be dismantled the following day. These humans made such crude sheds their permanent homes, to be used until the land was despoiled and sucked dry.

The largest of the huts was a common feast hall and sleeping quarters, and likely the home of the reigning petty lord. There was a scattering of smaller buildings, including one low hut with bars that Alea thought was for tamed beasts, but she’d seen no sign of goats, chickens, or the like.

The humans looked little better than beasts themselves. They were frightening parodies of the elven form, with too much skin, hair, and fat hung on oversized frames. They dressed in the same hides as wrapped their houses, with only slightly better tailoring. They were hairy and coarse and never seemed to have bathed since the last drenching rainfall. Alea had heard that they rolled around in the dirt to keep fleas at bay. Looking at these humans, she believed it. The elves had approached downwind from the campsite, since she was unsure if the humans could smell anything beyond their own pungent selves. The stench was strong, humans lived in their own waste… which was why the wolves were whining.

Most of this group was male. There were a few tough-looking women, their hair as matted and rough garb as stained as that of their mates. She’d seen no cubs, perhaps they were kept in the low, barred hut… or been abandoned early in life to fend for themselves.

The last of the camp dwellers were returning now, dragging a large buck behind them-more game poached from forests that belonged to the elves and wolves!

Two deer were already turning on rude spits over the fire, and another pair, badly dressed, hung amid buzzing flies nearby. Alea cursed. They didn’t even need the food, yet they continued to despoil the forest!

Two days ago she’d come across the site of a human kill. Something large, perhaps a bear, had been brought down. Both human and elf arrows were at the site, and from it led the trail of something heavy dragged off in this direction-passing the corpse of an elf of the Elian clan, who lay bristling with crude human arrows, his ears lopped off.

Alea had no doubt the elf had brought down the game, then been attacked by the humans afterward. She’d tracked the downed prey through the forest to this camp before gathering her hunting companions for the raid. Most of the elves around her had seen fewer than a hundred summers. The elders were discussing and mourning the dead Elian. While the elders talked, Alea’s hunters would do something about this outrage!

But a good hunter makes sure of his prey… and they had to be sure of these reeking humans. As the buck was brought into camp, the humans all shouted and waved, jabbering at each other in their mongrel tongue. So much like real speech, thought Alea, but all twisted, like the humans themselves. The buck’s slayers made big, sweeping hand signs, indicating the bulk of the stag that had escaped them. The others laughed and hooted, outlining with gestures their own rival escaped beasts, of even more impossibly large proportions.

Alea growled deep in her throat just as the wolves did. These human vermin poached on elven lands! Their clumsy butcherings were beginning to drive the game away, they didn’t even have the sense to move on and let the land recover from their depredations. Alea growled more loudly and almost rose to signal the attack, but Lord Iliphar’s admonitions held her in place. Were she wrong, she’d be little better than these rightly despised savages.

The door of the largest hut in the camp scraped open, and out strode the petty lord. Apparently he’d been waiting for the last hunters to return before making his own entrance. This one had leathers of a finer cut than most and was bedecked with polished gemstones on leather thongs. He was flanked by two equally tough-looking women. Consorts? Bodyguards? Both?

On one of the lordling’s thongs hung two pale slivers of meat, just starting to wrinkle and yellow with age. The ears of an elf.

Alea gave the signal to prepare for battle.

The hairy human lord strode to the fire pit at the center of the gathered humans and jabbered at them. They made assenting sounds. He jabbered at them some more. They grunted another assent. He pointed in Alea’s direction, and the elf froze for a moment. Did they know of her presence? But then the lordling marked off the other cardinal points, and Alea realized what he was doing.

He was staking his claim, like a cooshee marking its territory: all this land was his. A fire began to burn within her, rising up into her chest. How dare the savages claim elven hunting lands!

She was about to give the signal to attack when the human lord grunted and waved, and the two muscular bodyguard wives went to the low barricaded hut. One stood outside while the other entered and then dragged out some sort of prisoner.

At first Alea thought the prisoner was an elf, for he was thin and pale compared to the barbarians. But on closer examination, it was clear the prisoner was another human, tall and lean, with a ratty reddish beard. Half his face was puffy with a monstrous bruise, and he hobbled forward on an equally swollen ankle. His wrists were crossed before him and secured together with a single iron cuff. He wore loose, tattered trousers and a shirt of similar stuff all worn and filthy but still of finer cut than the garb of the humans of the camp. He didn’t look much like his captors.

The women dragged the frail human forward and forced him to his knees in front of the hairy lord. His lordship puffed out his chest and smiled. He was missing his front teeth, upper and lower.

His lordship barked a question in the mangled human language. Alea did not catch the wispy human’s response, but it was apparently insufficient. The lord cuffed him, hard, on the bruised side of his face. The captive’s eye on that side was swollen shut, and he did not see the blow coming. He went sprawling backward for his lack of awareness.

The crowd of watching humans shouted its approval. One of the muscular consorts dragged the thin human back to the barbarian lord’s feet. Again the question was jabbered. Again the damaged human said something. Again the local lord cuffed him, he sprawled, and the crowd hooted.

This apparently passed for human entertainment, and the crowd looked as if it could enjoy it all night. The local lord boasted of his accomplishments, pointed in all directions, and pulled the elven ears on the thong at his side, dancing them in front of the other human. And again he asked the question.

Alea raised her hand, and in the semicircle concealed around the camp other elves raised theirs as well, preparing to leap forward. Safety wedges were carefully unclipped from crossbows, and wolves were slipped silently from their harnesses.

The predictability of humans did not disappoint them. Once more the lord slapped his frail prisoner down and the crowd hooted their approval. Alea dropped her hand and charged forward.

It took more than a moment for the humans to react, to realize that the shouts they heard were not their own. By that time, the elves were fully free of the brambles. The wolves bounded in front of their masters but were beaten to the foe by elven crossbow quarrels, which hummed into the crowd of humans from both sides of the clearing. More than half a dozen human warriors toppled, clutching at transfixed stomachs and necks, and the beaten ground tasted barbarian blood.

Then the wolves struck as most of the humans were still grabbing for their blades. Alea had managed to gather only a dozen, but they were well trained, as responsive as an elven hound in the court of Myth Drannor. They knew to go for an arm holding a weapon, or if no weapon was obvious, bite at the crotch. Nine or ten humans crumpled under their assault as the rest scrambled to stand and fight.

Alea led the main charge, about twenty elves in all, with those who’d fired crossbows dropping their weapons and joining the assault in a second wave. The elves ran through the confusion of wolf-savaged warriors into the heart of the shouting, hurrying humans. Any chance of the hairy folk of the camp forming a battle line, if they even knew what one was, was gone in the space of a few breaths as the battle became a series of single combats.

As straight and unswerving as a leaping arrow, Alea made for the human lordling. He was the one most responsible for what these stinking folk did, the one who wore the ears of an elf of the Elian clan. He would pay the price for the crimes of his people.

The lordling was ready for her. He’d used the time bought in blood by his dying comrades to pull his own weapon from his scabbard. It was a heavy black sword, little more than a cold iron bar with a single rough edge. He snarled and jabbered something in barbarian-speak. Alea’s only reply was to draw back her lips in a grin that promised swift death.

The human lunged, and Alea dodged nimbly out of the way, her own narrow blade a mere ribbon of steel. As she glided past, she brought her blade up smoothly and was rewarded with the wet, tearing sound of leather and flesh parting. She danced back to face her foe and saw that the human was bleeding along his sword arm.

Bright rage flared in the human’s eyes, and he snarled, but then calmed visibly and went into a crouch. This was no battle-mad beast that would charge conveniently onto her sword. Instead, the human held his blade out, its point tracing a small circle in the air, waiting for her to come to him.

She took a step forward, and he lunged again. This time she brought her steel up against the human’s iron blade. The cold-wrought iron grated roughly against her own smooth-edged sword, and she caught the lordling’s blade against the guards of her own weapon. Straining, she turned it aside, stripping the weapon from her opponent’s hand. As it clattered to the ground, she danced back, and then darted in, blade sweeping up to gut the man from belly to throat.

Something large and furry thundered into her ribs from the right, and Alea was suddenly falling to the ground herself, rolling clear as she fell. The large furry thing was one of the female bodyguards, who loomed large above her-and then disappeared under the leap of another fur-covered streak, this time a wolf. The barbarian woman toppled backward with a scream that ended in a bloody gurgle.

Then Alea was on her feet again, shaking her head to clear her vision. The lordling had disappeared in the dust and confusion of the fray. Was he hunting for another weapon, or had he decided the surrounding woods would be a safer place for him than an encampment overrun by elves?

The frail human captive with the ragged red beard was stumbling up to her, holding his manacled wrists forward. In elvish, the rail-thin mortal said politely, “Unlock these, if you please.”

The words hit Alea with the force of a blow. She hadn’t expected any of these ground apes to know the True Tongue, and this one spoke it with only the barest hint of an accent. Who was he? And if she let him go, would he help or flee into the woods?

Across the dusty clearing, she spotted the hairy human lordling.

“Later,” she said, pushing past the manacled one. He bellowed something else at her back that she did not catch.

The lordling saw her about the same time and swatted aside an elven hunter to reach her. He hadn’t found another sword but instead wielded a long chain topped by a metal ball bristling with spikes.

He swung it at her when she was still out of range, the ball moaning an arc through the air. Alea lunged in behind it, hoping to skewer the shaggy human before he could react.

She’d misjudged, even as she moved, the human stepped forward, pulling his shoulders around, quickly reversing the direction of his swing. The chain wrapped tightly around her lower arm, the spikes at its end grabbing at her flesh.

Alea snarled, caught off-balance, as the human braced himself with both feet and pulled hard.

She was quicker and more nimble than the barbarian, but the human had the edge in height, weight, and strength. As she was hauled forward, she dropped her blade and toppled helplessly at the lordling’s feet. A boot stamped cruelly down, she twisted and took it on her shoulder rather than her throat.

He smiled, the last rays of the setting sun setting the scars on his face ablaze and highlighting the gap in his teeth. One hand firmly gripping the chain that held her braced against his planted boot, he used the other to draw a steel dagger the size of a dragon’s tooth from his belt.

Then a pair of frail hands reached up on either side of the lordling’s head, and Alea heard someone shout an ancient archaic word, a magical word, one that would trip a memorized spell.

The hands glowed a fierce blue, and the barbarian chieftain’s head disappeared in the radiance. When the glow vanished, the head was gone as well. Slowly, like a boat with a slow leak, the barbarian’s reeling body settled to the earth.

Behind the corpse stood the red-bearded wizard, who’d apparently gotten his manacles off after all. He offered a hand to Alea.

Alea grabbed her own blade and stood up, looking around the encampment. The fight was over. There was a snarling cluster of wolves atop one still-struggling human, but the other foes were now nothing but inanimate, shaggy lumps strewn on the ground.

Many of the elves had shed some blood, but none had fallen. There was not a human standing except for the pale, bearded one in the ragged finery. “You’re welcome,” he said quietly in the True Tongue.

Alea frowned. “You’re not with this lot, are you?” she asked gruffly, pulling the ear-laden thong from what was left of the human lord.

“Observant as well as strong,” murmured the human.

“No, I am not with them. These savages caught me, thought me an evil wizard, and were about to use me for the evening’s entertainment when you made your timely arrival.”

Alea put the elven ears into her pouch, to be returned to the Elian family and entombed with the rest of the elf’s body.

“So vengeance was your motivation,” said the pale human, still trying to strike up a conversation. “A pity. I thought it was concern about my impending doom.”

She looked hard at the human, as if seeing him for the first time. “You’re Netherese?”

The human moved his head in a half shake, half-nod. “Netheril is no more.”

“You can go your way then, human,” Alea declared, turning back to where the rest of her hunting group was gathering. The huts had been looted for what little treasure could be found, and one of the elves moved from hut to hut, setting fire to the buildings with a burning log. Thick smoke began to curl, and the elves started to toss human bodies into the huts, to be consumed in the blaze to come. Many had already had their ears removed.

“That won’t stop them, you know,” said the pale human.

Alea stopped again and looked hard at the human. She sighed. “What won’t stop who?”

“Killing. Humans. Well, these humans, at any rate.” He nudged a mauled corpse with one toe. “If you kill a human, you have to worry about his children coming after you. And grandchildren. And sister-kin, and distant kin, and friends and all-until whole peoples are arming against you. No, killing just encourages them.”

Alea’s upper lip curled back from her teeth. “The matter is more simple, you-who-love-to-talk. This is land is ours. We are its guardians. It is our hunting ground.”

The human nodded. “And other humans know this: the Dalesmen spilling across the Dragon Reach, and the greedy or desperate from the wealthy merchant nations of the south. They know of this land of forests now-a rich, untamed hunting ground, with only a few elves to defend it. Ripe for the taking.”

“A fair warning,” Alea said grudgingly, eyebrows lifting. “And yet I wonder why you make it. You are human, you know,” she said, curiosity twisting her voice as the last of the huts were set ablaze.

“Sometimes I wish I weren’t,” said the frail form, extending a hand. “Bacrauble Etharr.”

Alea looked at the man’s outstretched hand. He disdains humans, she thought, yet the pressing of palms was a very human action.

She looked back up the arm to its owner, his beard wild in the last fading light. He looked almost comical, though at the back of her mind, she was thinking his looks hardly mattered. He’d probably die out here in a matter of nights without elven protection.

And looking into his eyes, she realized that he knew it as well.

She took the offered hand and shook it warily. “Alea Dahast,” she replied. “Are you…?”

“Am 1 what?”

“An evil wizard?” she prompted calmly.

“Wizard, yes, evil, no,” Baerauble Etharr replied, and Alea saw a gleam in the human’s eye. “But as a mage, I find the boorish company of humans to be rather a strain at best.”

Alea turned and started walking back to her people again. The human kept pace alongside her, matching her smooth stride. After a few moments of ignoring him, she turned her head and asked, “So if we don’t kill human poachers, what do we do? Give them this land?”

“You can scare them.”

She stopped and looked questioningly at the mage. Facing her, he smiled slightly and added, “You have wolves here.”

“Observant as well as magical,” she murmured, making her words sound like his slight accent. It had to be northern. It resembled the chimelike speech of the Netherese.

“Many?” he asked, acknowledging her sally with the merest ghost of a smile.

“Some.”

“Get more. Feral ones, like dire wolves. And some owlbears, bugbears, and whatever other wood-dwelling horrors you can find. Not enough to burden the forest or make the hunting too perilous for your folk. Put them along the borders… particularly the eastern verges, near the human settlements.”

She stood there, thinking. “If humans see that there are dangerous creatures on the edges of the forest “

“… they’ll think worse beasts lurk in its depths. To some, this might be a peril to eradicate at all costs, but any man going near the forest will be so busy fighting the roaming beasts that very few humans will venture far inside the woods. And so you have-again-your unspoiled hunting preserve. One can’t possibly kill all the humans, but one can steer them aside.”

Alea managed a half-smile as she looked at the burning wreckage of the human camp. She felt the truth in his words warm her inwardly as much as the flaring flames heated her face.

Yes, Iliphar would raise bloody tumult over this when he found out, but this simple strategy, plus the returned ears, might buy her a little grace with the elders. And if she brought along the human mage as a prize…

“You’ll come with us,” she said flatly, then turned her head and shouted a command at her hunters, bidding them make ready to travel.

“Of course I shall,” said the lanky human. Alea did not see the gleam in his eye and the widening smile on his lips, but she knew it was there.