The patrol cheered. At the commander’s back, his second-in-command showered their tormentors with Sa’ida’s special libation. A golden globe fell out of formation, sputtering and sparking, and disappeared.
Three more were dispatched, and their loss seemed to confuse the rest. They darted higher in the air and collided with each other in sudden flares of colored light. Commander and second stood in their stirrups and flourished their brushes at the wayward lights. Four more died, and the others gave up. They darted away like minnows fleeing a pebble dropped in their pool, retreating behind a line of standing stones where they remained, pulsating rapidly.
The elves were elated. For the first time, they had defeated the will-o’-the-wisps. Many of them had known elves who served in the Lioness’s first expedition and who died silent, lonely deaths in the tunnels because of the bobbing lights. They were finally getting their own back.
Their commander wasn’t satisfied with leaving the lights cowering behind monoliths. He wanted to destroy them. He and his second each had half a pot of water remaining, and he intended to continue the fight. Ordering the rest of the patrol to remain at a safe distance, the two rode slowly toward the monoliths. Strange business, two veteran fighters stalking their enemy with nothing more lethal than a few cups of water and a pair of straw brushes. But there was no arguing with the efficacy of the human priestess’s preparation.
The elves veered apart, one passing on each side of a slender standing stone. The will-o’-the-wisps were clustered together, flying in tight circles. They were as far from the elves as they could get within the cluster of stones-only six feet away, the easiest of targets. The commander smiled grimly. What was the kender phrase? “Pickings easy as a one-eyed shopkeeper.”
He stood in his stirrups and flung drops at the mass of lights. Five or six immediately flashed out of existence. The rest reacted strangely. Instead of a last, blind charge at their tormentors, they swarmed even more tightly together and dived at the ground. With a loud crash like the fall of heavy stones, the lights bored into the soil. An aura shone briefly from the hole they’d made, then all was dark once more.
Commander and second exchanged an astonished look. They rode forward and the second dismounted to inspect the hole. Four feet wide, it bored straight down through the layers of blue-green soil. The sides were hot to the touch and smooth, but cool, stale air wafted from the hole. Evidently the lights had breached one of the many tunnels.
The warrior lying on the ground by the hole called a whimsical greeting. “Anybody there?”
“Yes! Keep calling! I am coming!”
The elf recoiled sharply and jumped to his feet. His commander set him to shouting into the hole then summoned the rest of the patrol. They all crowded into the grove of white stones, weapons bared. The unknown person in the tunnel drew near the opening and shouted his relief at being found. The commander demanded his identity.
“My name is Robien. I’m a Kagonesti bounty hunter. I met your General Taranath some days ago. He can vouch for me.”
They hauled him out, and he offered heartfelt thanks. The tale he told was a strange one—picked up bodily by the valley’s ghosts and tossed, weapons and all, down below..Just before he heard the warrior calling, the fleeing orbs had flown straight down the tunnel at him.
“I thought I was doomed! But they passed right through me, harmless as sunlight,” Robien finished.
The commander described his patrol’s defeat of the guardian lights and the lights’ desperate method of escape.
Robien accepted a skin of water from the riders but not their offer of a ride. His deadly encounters hadn’t dissuaded him from his original mission, the capture of the sorcerer Faeterus. He settled a pair of yellow-tinted spectacles on his nose.
“Give my regards to General Taranath,” he said and jogged away.
The warriors sat staring at each other for several seconds. If not for the hole in the ground, the entire affair would have seemed a collective illusion. One of the warriors, a soldier from western Qualinesti, had heard of Robien the Tireless. Kagonesti by birth, the bounty hunter had lived nearly his whole life among humans, which accounted for his foreign accent and odd appearance. It was said that in all his career, he had never failed to get his quarry. Some he did not return alive, but none ever escaped.
The commander turned his horse’s head back toward camp.
Despite the encounter with the bounty hunter, the real story of the night was the success of Sa’ida’s blessed water. General Hamaramis must be told how well it had worked. The riders followed their leader out of the grove of monoliths.
