Yet it was not even hunting. He did not have to seek them out as they hid and evaded, not at first. They ran directly at him, away from Tilanne and into the lethal arc of his blades. He wielded one in each hand, Discordant in the right and Lionheart on the left. He was not so adept at this as some he'd known, but the magical keenness and balance of the blades as well as his natural skill compensated nicely.

Not hunting . . . harvesting.

He laughed aloud as that thought came to him. Harvesting, yes, cutting them down like wheat. Like their own accursed crop, now burned and gone.

A few, in their frenzied terror, struck out at him with whatever tools and burdens they held. Their blows were clumsy and ill-aimed. The only wound he sustained came more by accident than design when a shrieking woman missed Tiercel's head altogether with a wildly-waved meat cleaver and hit a stony outcrop in a sputter of blue sparks. The blade of the cleaver snapped from the haft, rebounded, and gashed him along the side of the thigh. It penetrated the meshed chainmail and drew blood.

Not a single one of them utilized the foreign magic that their wagoncade counterparts had. No fists of force, no summoned swarms. He did not stop to ponder it, except to be grateful.

Tilanne approached from the other direction, the remnants of the humans now trapped between them. Some flung down their burdens and sought safety in the woods. Others thought their sheer numbers would let them overwhelm him. They were grievously in error.

He and Tilanne came face to face amid the groaning or silent bodies. She met his gaze with detached dispassion. He jerked his head by way of acknowledgement.

"A wizard of theirs I saw," she said. "In armor woven of the grass, as thou surmised, he was arrayed."

"Did you deal with him?"

"To stone I turned him." She nodded in the direction of her dripping sword and he recalled its power, akin to the stony gaze that lore attributed to the basilisk. "Once transformed, no longer did the grass my eyes cause to sting."

"Excellent. Some have escaped, but their village is no more."

"Do we the others find, and finish?"

"No." He wiped his eyes. The wind was rising, coming from the sea and carrying smoke and ash from the scorched fields. "Let us put this place behind us. If any of them survive, they can tell their fellows what just two of our kind did to many times that number. They'll think twice before invading our land again."

"And the fire?"

"The rain is mastering the rest of it," he said. "We need not worry that we've set fire to the Emerin."

She cleaned her blade, and he did the same with both of his. Not staying to search, they hastened back to the faraway spot where they'd left their horses and packs. The storm, fire, and sounds of battle had stirred both steeds to nervousness, and they were glad to be away.

They rode the rest of the night and well into the morning, putting the remains of the village well behind them. The storm settled into a steady rain as the sky lightened. At last, Tiercel signaled for a halt and they made their camp, both exhausted and neither in much of a mood for talk.

Tiercel woke first, every part of him aching from the night's exertions. His eyes felt sore and abused but the rash on his skin had faded and he no longer breathed through a raw and rasping throat. Drops beat against the walls of his tent. He donned fresh clothing and sat cross-legged by a small fire shielded from the rain by a stretched oilcloth, examining his armor and tending to it with a rag of cleaning. When that was done, he moved on to pay careful attention to his swords, and the remainder of his gear.

He heard stirring in the other tent and moments later, Kai Tilanne's dark head appeared. The rest of her, in a loose, sleeveless shift that fell to her knees, emerged and she stood as straight as their shelter would allow, stretching.

How different she looked out of armor. It never failed to surprise him. The black corselet with its design of roses and basilisks lent her an imposing aura, made her stature seem great. Without it, she could have been any elfmaid, provided one did not look too closely and note the strong lines of her arms and legs. She seemed younger, less severe, her heart-shaped face not quite so stern. Pretty...she was pretty, and that was a term he never would have thought he'd ascribe to a Rhunvala.

Not that he was overly affected by her prettiness. He had seen too many good men ruined by women's beauty. They would pine for an unrequited love, or be trapped into a marriage they'd later come to regret, or be misled and tormented by feminine wiles. More than once, he'd known two men, dear friends, closer than brothers, come to deadly rivalry by a woman's whim. Oh, they well knew the use of their fair weapon, women did. They excelled at it.

It was, perhaps, much more an Emerinian than Morvalan view. Tiercel knew that things were different indeed in the southern lands. None of the artful games of Emerinian courtship were played there. Men were men, women were women, each elf knew his or her place and role, and they had no patience for, and little understanding of, the societal manipulations of their northern kin.

Thus, Tiercel supposed that there would be no harm in enjoying a physical relationship with a Morvalan woman...barring the risk of children. The spells so commonplace in the north were not much found in the south. They bred large families and quickly, too. He had no wish to become a father, not yet, not even if he was not expected to marry the mother.

Further, even if he had been interested in a Morvalan female, he was not at all sure about Tilanne. She was no typical example of the breed. She was Rhunvala. Chosen of Kaledhol. Hardly the sort that he felt at ease dallying with. She had that air about her, that air of knowing. As if she could see into him and knew more about him than he did himself.

So he settled for admiring her legs on an aesthetic level, and did not let any other desire stir his blood. There would be time enough for all that when he was ready to wed. In another century or two...

Or sooner, if Elyvorrin has his way.

This thought came into his head as if spoken from afar, and he groaned aloud. He had tried not to dwell on it, on the count's insistence that Tiercel take his widowed daughter-in-law to wife and become stepfather and guardian to Elyvorrin's grandson.

Faessia. What to do about Faessia? She feared him, and he did not trust what the strain of a forced match might do to her brittle mind. He had told her that theirs would be a union in name only, and he would be free as any Emerinian would to seek other lovers-discreet affairs were to be expected; it was the having of illegitimate children that was strictly frowned upon. But someday, far in the future, he might wish for a genuine wife and family of his own. Carry on the Reyes name and all that.

It was a worthy name of a long and glorious tradition. He could not trust his elder brother to live up to it. Trevorn's wife had died birthing a daughter, and if Treilla were left to be the only heir, the family name would die out.

"My uncle had no sons, did he?" Tiercel asked.

Tilanne, in the act of heating water for a morning tea, turned to him with a raised eyebrow at the sudden question. "Kai Terindor a wife had, and children, but his grandchildren mostly girls were."

"So there are no more by the Reyes name in the southlands."

"To my knowledge, no."

He sighed and set down his swords, the blades of which formed an X. "My other uncle, Tanneivan, was married as well. But when his wife learned of his...well, occupation, shall we say?...she took the children and left him and resumed her family's name."

"Thou, then, the last of thy line art?" She smiled slyly, seeming to read his thoughts in that way she had. "But fear not, Tiercel, for soon shall thou wed."

He made a sour face. "I have no wish to get sons on Faessia Elyvorrin, as you well know. But neither can I let the Reyes name die out. What would come of my family if I did not return from this journey? If the basilisks had slain me? I have no heir."

"A problem indeed, I see." She sat opposite him and worked her hair into a plait.

"You do not seem greatly concerned."

"Thy people little awareness of death have," she said with a shrug. "Complacent they are, in their longevity secure. Centuries they have, or so they believe, and unprepared are when violence or illness their lives cut short. We no such illusions of immortality have. We full well know how fragile, and precious, is life. Yet also do we know that a life well lived in Kaledhol's service a reward shall earn, that not wasted shall our time in this world be. Thy people, whose backs to the gods they've turned, lack even this."

"Thy people, thy people," he mocked irritably. "I am as much of the south as of the north."

"Art thou truly, Tiercel? Still so accustomed to the Emerin's comforts thou art, to the Emerin's ways. Thou thy own needs and wishes before that of others put."

"The entire reason I've come all this way is for the good of elvenkind," he snapped.

Her amethyst eyes were direct and deep. "Thou hast long of the Phial known."

"It isn't as if I could very easily come and fetch it before. I had to have something to trade. You yourself told me of the interactions the Morvalan have had with Racandros in the past. He trades, he barters. For goods or for lore or for items of treasure."

"Yes. But only when the Emerald into thy hands did fall didst thou this plan devise. Why hadst thou not by some other means tried?"

Tiercel shot her a glare. "I haven't had the time, have I? In case you weren't aware, there was a war on."

"Which five years ago did end."

"Five years is nothing. I've been busy. And I don't think I care for your tone. Of what, Kai Tilanne, are you accusing me?"

"I accuse thee not. I wonder, only, if the timing of thy mission more for thy own benefit is."

"Were you anyone else, I'd answer that with a duel," he said coldly. "I have done much for the elven race. I kept us at war when others would have brought peace, and the war ran a far costlier toll in human lives than it did elves or dwarves. Further, and perhaps you overlooked this in assuming that I've arranged all this solely for my own benefit, those additional years of war saw to the utter destruction of Keyda. Do you know what that means, Tilanne?"

"That all the land from the edge of the Emerin to the mountains near Thanis as a wasteland is," she said. "That untamed magic and dwarven devices a taint upon the land have put. That no one there can live, that nothing there will grow, except that which is twisted and strange."

"Exactly. And where, do you know, does the Northlands get the bulk of its food? All of Keyda was grainfields and pasturelands, orchards and crops. They raised most of the Northlands' food there, you see. What the Highlord has in his granaries and storehouses will last them a while, but Gamelin and Goldenfields cannot possibly hope to grow enough to make up for it. They'll starve. In ten years or less, there will be famine among the human realms. They'll starve."

She looked at him, startled.

"I saw to it. They will starve. And with Keyda, damaged Keyda, between us and them, they can hardly seek to raid us. They'll turn west to Hachland, and within a generation there will be war again. War among the humans. Montennor will not intervene. Nor will we. All we'll have to do is sit back and let them slay each other."

"I confess, Tiercel, I had not this extent of the war foreseen," Tilanne whispered.

"Of course, that doesn't affect the rest of them much. Not the Mountain King or the Plainsfolk or the Islanders, or Hramad. But that's where the Phial comes in. One thing at a time, you see. I am using my wits. This is not just so that I, Tiercel, can have fortune and power."

Silently, almost contritely, she inclined her head.

"They'll be gone," he said, gazing at the rain-drenched trees as if seeing beyond them to a better place. "The greatest threat to us will be gone. Oh, there will still be other matters to deal with . . . the orcs might run rampant with the humans out of their way, and we'll still have the minotaurs and other shaper-spawned abominations to contend with...but in the end, and hopefully within our lifetimes, we shall see elvenkind be as we were meant to be. As we once were. The rightful rulers of this entire world."

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