Venick thought of the three southerners he had killed in the storm. That number felt suddenly small. Insignificant. Three deaths would not end this war. It would not change anything. Perhaps their deaths had already been noted. Perhaps this rain was conjuring and there were more southerners tracking him now.
The day wore on. Finally, the rain abated. Patches of blue sky appeared between the grey. But this time Venick knew better than to believe he was safe.
???
He missed having his own sword.
This was what Venick thought as he slid Dourin’s weapon from its scabbard one afternoon, as he slashed a few practice swipes through the air. The hiss of the green glass was quiet. Hardly even there.
Venick remembered following the sound of green glass in Kenath. He had always hated that sound. The eerie whisper. Yet as Venick listened to Dourin’s sword—now his—he thought maybe he had been wrong. Maybe it wasn’t the sound he hated, but the feelings that came with it. Fear. Powerlessness. The knowledge that green glass meant elven fighters, who were stronger and faster andbetterthan him.
He moved through an old set of training poses, learning his new sword, feeling its near weightlessness, its balance. He listened to it hiss and imagined what it would be like to fight with such a weapon. All the damage it could do.
No, Venick thought. He didn’t mind the sound so much after all.
???
He found the camp on the fourth day.
He practically stumbled into it, catching sight of the still-warm firepit a split-second too late. Venick froze, then skidded out of sight. Reeking gods, so much forsense. He had never been a scout, not a very good one, but at least he knew better than to walk with a wandering mind. He hadn’t been paying attention. Hadn’t even noticed the fire or the bedrolls until he was practically on top of them.
He was lucky, then, that the camp was empty.
Venick put some distance between himself and the fire. He crouched out of sight. He settled in and waited for the elves to return.
They did, after a time. Venick counted seven elves total. All southern, judging by their unadorned ears, and heavily armed, each with their own personal arsenal of swords and bows and knives. One, Venick noted with a strange stitch in his gut, even had a war hammer.
The elves settled into their camp. Dusk came. Nightfall. Venick’s legs cramped. He was unbearably thirsty. But he could not risk being discovered. He stayed where he was.
When the elves broke camp sometime after midnight, Venick followed.
???
The moon rose. Its light wasn’t much to see by, but the elves lit no torches and carried no lanterns. Wherever they were headed, they knew the way.
Venick hung back. Twice now he had stepped wrong, breaking a branch under a clumsy foot with asnapthat made him grimace. The elves—somehow, miraculously—didn’t notice.
God-touched, are you?
He’d never thought so. Even if he was, Venick knew better than to count on that luck to hold. It was too dark to watch his footing, too quiet to hide. He hung back yet farther still. The elves became ghosts in the distance. Soon, Venick lost sight of them altogether. But Venick didn’t need to see the elves to follow them.
They left a trail.
This was unusual. By habit, elves preferred to leave no mark of their presence. Yet Venick could see it clearly: seven sets of muddy tracks stamped into the earth.
Dawn came. The forest shifted from uncertain grey to brilliant green and gold. The day revealed more sets of tracks, shadowy indents in the forest floor. Venick counted ten, fifteen, twenty leather-shoe markings and more, so many more that each print became indistinguishable from the next, converging into a single, mud-stamped path.
He followed it.
The forest came to life as the day unfolded. White mossflowers opened, bending towards the sun. A dragonfly’s wings purred. Two squirrels squabbled in a tree overhead. They upset branches. Leaves rained.
And then, a different sound.
Venick slowed. His thoughts did. He knew that sound. The clink and buckle of metal. The gusty whuff of a horse. Voices, the low buzz of them. They were noises he had grown up with, sounds he had dreamed of long into his exile. Venick stepped quietly forward, inching around trees, breath caught somewhere between his heart and his throat.
They came into view, and then his breath was gone.
Elves. Hundreds of them, thousands. All gathered here in the forest together. Venick gaped, his thoughts spinning away.
