The forests of Shalonesti reared up from the uninspiring landscape. As they had traveled northwesternly, the rolling desert had disappeared and the surroundings had begun to take on a grassy appearance though the Matron could think little of the scenery, bound as she was, carried by the two Sha'falas and led by a third.

Each step her captors made across the hilled plains jolted the woman's frail body, pain rolling over her rhythmically in agonizing waves as her spine bent ackwardly, stiff, the vertibrae refusing to bend and flex as those of a healthy elf her age.

And still the woman fought in their arms, kicking her feet, flailing her shoulders as her arms were bound, and shouting out behind the muffled constriction of the gag. She knew that no help was coming. These elves were swift, and despite her frantic scrambling, they overpowered the wraith of a woman easily.

Half mad with pain, her mind raced over various things: her husband, Nactonees, each members of Ka'vanth in turn. She marveled that no true warning was given. At the efficiency of her captors. One moment she was bowed in prayer, and the next moment she was grasped on all sides and bound as if she were a poisonous adder who might strike a mortal blow at any second.

She was on the edge of consciousness as pain bit into her. So this was the true Shalonesti, as she had always known: this sallow-faced, hateful warrior, the dark soul who had been her adversary for so long. She caught fleeting glances of them when she could, moaning out her curses, filled with shock and anger.

All their doing! She thought. From the beginning... They had always treated her people this way. Even when her ancestors had lived amongst them. The murder of so long ago was justified... She felt sick.

The Matron could now see the rise of gates above her, and half unconscious could hear the mad scurry of elves around her, and their frenzied shouting. Suddenly she was jolted as a heavy blow contacted the side of her jaw, and in confusion she was dropped down to the ground. She could scarecely hear the arguments that ensued around her, for now the blows were coming, more and more as hands and feet kicked and flailed toward her, angry words rising from hateful lips.

A few moved to come between the angry Shalonesti, and the whisp of a woman on the ground, but the beatings came. Over and over and over they came.

When at last the Ka'vanth woman was pulled into the Shalonesti jail, she was not conscious to know.