Only the end of the horses’ leads, still tied to the stakes in the ground, could be seen. Someone had sliced through them, but they had no time to speculate on whether the horses had been stolen or merely driven off. Did more members of this gang of ruffians, now with their horses, lie in wait someplace for them, in the woods? Euris simply had to push that thought aside, and would deal with any more problems when they happened, and not before. She glanced wildly around on the ground, but could find no definite trail. The grass in the clearing was too thick for the hooves to have left any solid prints, and she did not have time to track more closely.

Gath said: “We’ll have to run!” Euris looked away from the ground, towards him, and he was standing facing the wight, watching it closely, while it was still investigating the corpse. She could not tell what the wight was doing to the corpse, and imagined it was better not to know. “Shrouded,” Gath whispered, “so run into the brambles. See if it follows.” She had not thought of that. Did the wight even have hands? Could it follow them into the prickly bushes and keep its shroud about itself? She took Gath’s hand in her left, non-sword hand and pulled him along. They plunged into the undergrowth, and the noise made the wight scream its chilling wail. Euris looked back once, and the wight had stopped at the bodies of the man with the moustache and his henchman, investigating them. Under the direct sunlight, the wight seemed to be confused and disoriented, even under its shroud. The tattered black shroud flapped a little in the light breeze, the only movement as the wight bent over the corpse.

They did not make good time in the undergrowth, but after a few yards it thinned out and they tried to run. Gath was exhausted from all the magic he had expended, and could manage only a jog. Euris pushed him as hard as she dared, pulling him along with an iron grip on his hand. She went ahead, trying to keep branches and trailers out of their way as much as possible so Gath would not have to fend them off. Even through the trees, Euris could tell that the sun had already slanted some in the sky, meaning it was past midday, and their time was growing short. If they wanted to take advantage of the wight’s reduced powers in daylight, they had to get away as quickly as possible.

Euris did not know where they were going, and she did not know if the wight followed or not. She drug Gath through the underbrush, trying to pick a trail where the going would be easy, while also going through enough rougher patches to obscure their trail, even if only a little. She wished she knew if the wight could track them, or even see. Gath was too winded to talk, especially on the run, or she would have asked him if he sensed the wight. A few times, he stumbled and fell over roots or folds in the ground, and was several long heartbeats before getting back up. When this happened, Euris was about ready to carry him, when he struggled to his feet. She wondered if he was using some sort of magic to keep going, because his eyes had a glazed look. They were roughly heading east, since the sunlight came from behind them down through the leaves above them. She thought that east was as good as any direction. The road back to Pollar led southwards out of the clearing, but she rejected heading back to the town, since they would lead the wight directly to the tiny settlement.

Eventually, they stumbled through a thick patch of scrub brush, and stumbled across a tiny track that led northeast through the forest, barely visible in places. The trail wound around small hills and large tree trunks, curving and meandering ahead as far as they could see. Behind them, the trail stretched back southwest, and likely met up with the road to Pollar at some point, or another track that did, although the view back was obscured by a large hill around which the trail bent until it was out of sight.

Taking the trail was a dangerous thing, since the wight would be able to fly along it once it tracked them, if it indeed could track them at all. At the same time, though, they couldn’t keep trying to make a path through the dense forest with Gath barely able to walk. They had to take the trail to make any time at all before the sun was gone. After all, the trip through the brush had served its purpose, to present a barrier to slow down the wight, and they would be little served by continuing to cut cross-country through pathless wilderness. Daylight was going to run out long before they were far away enough to suit their comfort level. Speed was of the essence, and the trail offered much greater speed than the wilderness.

She decided it was best to go northeast, since she was still counting on the wight to be trailing them, and if it was she did not want to lead it back to Pollar so easily. More urgently, she wondered if the wight had any idea about the local trails, and had not simply gone down the Pollar road and was coming up along this trail now. That thought made her shudder. While she was making her decision, Gath had taken quite a blow, raggedly trying to breathe enough oxygen into his lungs to replenish his strength.

Gath picked up his pace noticeably, after the breather and once they were on the smoother trail. He managed to go from a jog to a lope, at least for stretches. Euris was amazed at how he was able to keep up the brutal pace, and again wondered if he was not magically doing something to himself to allow it. She had always heard such magic was dangerous, because a Sorcerer was very likely to be unaware of crossing the line between using the overflow of magical energy and dipping into his own life-force, once the magic had covered up his own body’s warning signals. Whatever Gath did to keep up, she had little choice but to accept it, until they were out of immediate danger.

They plunged headlong down the track, heedless of where it went, as fast as they could. Around a corner of the path, where it curved to avoid a mossy old rock, Euris was pulled up short by the tip of an arrow pointed at her face. Behind the arrow was a long, recurve hunter’s bow whose string touched the archer’s cheek, and behind that were the serious eyes of a woman. The woman was tall, and had blonde hair pulled back behind leaf-shape ears and tied in a high ponytail. She was extremely thin, little more than skin and bones, but with the look of wiry strength. At her belt was a quiver, and a long knife.

Gath screamed a couple of words in a in a language Euris had never heard. The archer’s eyes widened, and she did not shoot, but she also did not lower her bow. Whatever language Gath was using, he began to speak in it quickly and urgently, gesticulating to amplify his point. He pulled his College of Sorcery pendant out from his chest, which caused the archer to aim directly at him, and showed it to her. Gath then gestured back along the trail, and Euris could imagine he was at least trying to convince this woman that whatever followed them presented a bigger danger than the two weary humans. At this point, the woman seemed convinced that he was at least no immediate threat, and lowered her bow. She whistled twice in a birdcall Euris had never heard.

Before she had finished the second whistle, two others stepped out of the woods to the side of the path where they had lurked completely camouflaged. Perhaps if Euris had not had an arrowhead pointed at her nose, she might have seen them. Like the woman, they were tall and had the same leaf-shaped ears, and were dressed similarly, except one wore a sword. One was a man, and the other a dark-haired woman with a bow of her own. The man seemed to be in charge of the group of hunters. He came to Gath and spoke in the same language for a moment. The back-and-forth went on for some moments, as Gath was apparently trying to explain the situation, but with increasing agitation and gestures down the path. When the man had heard enough, he motioned for them to come down the path. He and the dark-haired woman went first, and the blonde archer motioned for Gath and Euris to come next, and she followed in the rear. The pace was slower, and the hunters seemed to be slowing themselves for the humans to stay with them.

“These are elves,” Gath whispered to Euris. “I’ve convinced them to take us someplace safe, at least for the night, where we can build a fire in case the wight comes.”

Euris was beginning to tire herself, and she could not imagine what sort of nightmare Gath was going through. He had begun leaning heavily on Euris, and his walk slowed until he was barely moving. Finally, the elf behind them said something short and impatient to the ones in front, and she and the man got on either side of Gath to support him. Euris did not know where they were going, but soon the sun was setting and twilight shadowed the path as they walked. She was too tired to worry about pursuit now, and wondered if she’d have the strength to fight if the wight did come upon them.

At long last, or what seemed to be at long last, they stumbled across a dell filled with pine trees, where at one end was a rocky hillside with a dominating cliff above it. At the bottom of this steep, rocky slope lay a hidden cave. In the dark, it was almost impossible to even see, and Euris wondered if she would have seen it if she had walked past it in broad daylight. A rock jutted out of the cliff at an angle, and behind it was a fold of rock that led to a crack running back under the hill. From the path, the mouth of the crack could not be seen at all. Even a fire, she realized, would not be visible to anyone on the path, unless it gave off a lot of smoke.

The elves had no choice but to let the humans flop to the ground in exhaustion, near the back of the cave, beside a pile of wood. The elves themselves showed no sign of being tired at all, but then Euris reflected that they had not been running through undergrowth most of the day. As the humans panted and rested, the elves set themselves to building a fire, and soon had a blaze near the mouth of the cave.

Euris was too tired to know anything but that they were safe, at least as safe as they could be. She supposed they were safer than they had been since they entered the ruins, although being safe was a relative term when Gath at his strongest could not do much to stop what perused them. She did not know the intention of these elf hunters, and suspected Gath did not either, and the elves would not harm them only as long as they believed his story. She supposed the pendant of the College of Sorcery was the main thing that had gotten them this far, and most likely someone with that pendant would be taken to a high-ranking elf before anything else, if there was such a thing as a high-ranking elf. She had heard vague stories about the earlking in his hall of trees, but imagined these were mostly legend. At least they would not be skewered by elf-arrows this night.

Gath had leaned his head against Euris’ shoulder, once his breathing had slowed to normal. She put a protective arm around his shoulders. He was most likely too tired to go to sleep immediately, and too tired to even eat, although she did not know whether they would ask the elves for food or not. The dark-haired woman poured some water into two cups and brought it to them.

“Water,” she said with a thick accent. “Drink. Thirsty. I speak not your tongue, much, and seeing few humans.” She smiled, in the universal language of friendship. At least, Euris hoped, for elves, a smile also meant what humans meant by a smile.

She smiled back as she took a cup and gave it to Gath, and the took her own. “Thank you,” Euris answered. The elf woman nodded, and went back to the fire.

Euris tried to relax, and slowly let go of her tension. Now that she was out of immediate danger, she could not stop her thoughts, which, with a certain inevitability, back to the events of the day. She was surprised by how little use she had been, and how little she had done. Some Protector! Gath fought the wight underground, a magical battle she could not have participated in and about which she did not feel bad. He had also, though, somehow single-handedly killed two ruffians while she had fought ineffectively. That wasn’t quite right, she knew, since her fighting had distracted them while he killed them, but still found it hard to accept. She knew it was her mistake that allowed the ruffian attack to catch them by surprise in the first place, and she had severely underestimated Brakka’s wiles which had gotten them into trouble that almost killed them. She should have guarded the horses better, or something. Certainly, she had killed Brakka himself, the most dangerous of the three, but she had not fully accepted taking another life with her sword. Swords had always been fun to her, a challenge of skill, to see if she was better and faster and smarter than her opponent. She had known, on some level, that the only point of her training was to teach her how to fight, and kill, but had not fully accepted it. Now, she did not know what she felt.

She muttered aloud: “I’ve been some kind of Protector. We’re lucky to be alive.”

Her hand was holding the empty cup of water, and Gath put his hand over hers. “We’re a great team. I couldn’t ask for a better Protector. I would never have made it without you.” His sweat-soaked hair had dried wildly, and she could not see his eyes. The elves chittered among themselves by the fire as the humans in the back of the cave embraced each other and then settled down to sleep.

Euris woke up, feeling a warm weight on her shoulder. Gath’s head. He had used her as a pillow, since they had no bedrolls or even cloaks. She regretted not having a pillow of her own, feeling her neck was stiff and sore. Gath stirred, burrowing more tightly into her shoulder for a moment before waking up. His dark black eyes, heavy with sleep, blinked at her for a moment as he realized where he was. He got up and stretched, and then winced. He responded to her concern by assuring her he felt much better, but could use a meal.

Gath said a mouthful to the elves with them in the cave, and Euris thought the elf language must be convoluted if it took him that long to ask for a piece of bread. They were both ravenously hungry, and devoured the food the elves offered them. As they ate, Gath kept up a running conversation with the dark-haired woman, who tried to speak a few words of the human language, but mostly had to resort to her own. She had been scouting for hours in the daylight while the humans slept. No sign of the wight could be found anywhere within an hour’s walk of the cave. She had been too afraid to go to the clearing that Gath had described the day before. Gath did not blame her. Euris pieced all this together by trying to follow the elf’s few human words, and Gath’s summary translations of what was spoken in the elf language.

Euris stepped out of the cave, without putting her boots on. Her feet were still sore from the previous day, and the grass felt good to her toes. The sunlight felt warm on her face, and the images and shocks from the events of the previous day had receded somewhat in Euris’ mind, and even the wight did not seem as frightening in the early morning sunlight.

Behind her, the elves still conversed with Gath in their own language. After a long time, Gath came to stand beside her, and relate what he had learned. “I’m not sure they believe me,” he said, “but the rule is anyone with a pendant will be given safe passage.” He explained the elves would take them to a leader in a place whose name Euris thought her own mouth was completely incapable of saying. She stammered trying to repeat it, and never came close. Gath said, “The name means Arbor-Sanctuary. It is the elf homeland for this tribe, and the tribal leaders will make the decision about what to do with us. Don’t be alarmed: I was half hoping to go by Arbor-Sanctuary after we found the book, and pay them a visit. It’s where I spent my time among the elves, and someone there will know me.” He said “someone” as if he meant “someone in particular” instead of “someone at random”. Reassured by this, and even more reassured by the food the elves produced (for why would they bother feeding anyone they were going to kill?), Euris went back into the cave and put her boots on. She was certain she was in for even more walking today, and hoped her feet would not swell to the point she could not get the boots off again.

They left the cave, following the elves through the forest. Again, the blonde archer went behind them, both as a rearguard and to watch them. As they moved into the deep forest, with trees hundreds of feet tall, the trail they were following would sometimes be so faint that Euris would never have known it was a trail had the elves not gone first. Sometimes they went through a secret way, under an arch made of logs or behind a hill, which seemed to cut them off from where they had been before. Soon enough, Euris knew she could never get back to where they were. Gath seemed to have recovered his strength, because he kept up with the elves fairly well. She wondered what had become of their horses.

On to ... Chapter Eight: Arbor-Sanctuary