"My lord!"

Tellin's face grew red, and his eyes bulged wide-a man strangling. In the sky over the glen, the hand was now a fist showing white knuckles.

"No!" In rage, Dalamar whirled on the red-armored mage. "Let him go!"

The mage laughed-a bitter, groaning sound-and fell over onto the stony floor of the glen in a rattling, clanking heap. Tellin gagged and crashed to his knees. Now his lips were turning blue, his face white.

"Tellin…"

Dalamar scrambled up the path and caught the cleric just as he collapsed. In the sky, the hand remained, squeezing. In Dalamar's arms, the cleric choked, a haze of disbelief on his eyes, as though the hand he saw, that red hand hanging over the glen, were the hand of some terrible demon.

"E'li." The name of the god came out from his blue lips like a groan of agony. He lifted his own hand, but not so far. His eyes on Dalamar's, the last of light and life fading, he said again, "E'li…"

But the god who had not answered the prayers of all the elves in Silvanesti in many long months did not answer the dying prayer of his cleric now. The light went from the eyes of Lord Tellin Windglimmer, and the soul departed from his body. Only lifeless clay remained, heavy in Dalamar's arms, the burden of it weighing far more than it would have seemed to in life. The magic-made hand faded, drifting away like mist before a breeze. Upon the floor of the glen lay the remains of Ylle Savath and Benen Summergrace, of the cleric felled by the dragon, and the red-armored mage himself.

There was not much of the last. No body lay there-only the helm and armor, and these were empty, a shell. What had been of the mage was gone, fallen to earth. Nothing but dust lay within the armor. Ah, but he wasn't dead, though no flesh lay within the armor. Like a ghost on the night, a wailing ran along Dalamar's nerves, not a sound to hear but a thing to feel, as one feels the first cold wind of winter.

Shivering, Dalamar turned to the dead man in his arms, the lord who had come all the way to the border questing after a dream he would likely never have realized. On the ground, dropped on the stony path, lay something bright. Dalamar reached for it, taking up the embroidered scrollcase Tellin had carried out of Silvanost, the gift returned and the gift granted. He turned it over in his hand, the humming-birds hovered over ruby red roses, their tiny needle-like beaks dipping into pearly dew. He brushed it clean against the sleeve of his robe. The dust did not all come off, much of it ground into the delicate needlework, dulling the rose to brown.

"Is he dead?" asked a woman, a Wildrunner on the path above. She stood bleeding, her arm in a rough sling, her head wrapped in a rag through which her blood seeped. This one had come off a battleground, only recently come from the front lines. "The cleric, is he dead?"

Dalamar nodded, and he tried to hand her the scroll case, for it seemed to him that it weighed as heavily as the dead man did.

She shook her head.

"Didn't you serve him back in Silvanost, at the Temple of E'li?"

Again, Dalamar nodded.

The Wildrunner looked up the hill to where the dragon's corpse lay, to where the bright flames of fire shone not so far away. "Keep it, mage. Maybe you can get it back to his family and get yourself a reward for your trouble. But now"-she jerked her head back toward the forest and the fire-"now, leave the dead and come help me get the living out of here."

Thus do soldiers speak who are often in the company of corpses. Dalamar nodded, and he eased the body of Tellin Windglimmer onto the stone, arranging his limbs in some decent order and bending to close his eyes. That was not easily done, for he had been as well strangled as though he'd been hung with a noose.

"My lord," he said, but he didn't know what else to say. He hadn't known this cleric long, and they had not shared much more than unreasonable dreams and this plan that might see those dreams realized.

Dalamar smiled, a bitter twist of his lips. How fast dreams die!

"My lord, you saved for me my life." It was an old phrase, something out of poetry or prayer-he didn't remember which. The kind of thing Tellin Windglimmer would have liked and written out in lovely script with shining illuminations. Dalamar offered it in gratitude and folded the cleric's hands on his breast. "Go with E'li, for you will find with him your peace."

But if the old phrase fit, it seemed to Dalamar that the traditional blessing was awkward as a lie.

Down through the forest ran the mages and their escort of Wildrunners, though they did not run hard, and they did not run long before stopping often to rest. Too weary, the mages and many of the Wildrunners were weakened by wounds. They crossed the King's Road in two days' time, and by then no sign of a great burning could be seen in the north. It had rained there, heavily if the massing clouds were to be believed. If the fire was not drowned, it was no longer strong.

Other things the people had to grieve for, though, for upon the King's Road they found the forest in ruin, fouled by the leavings of a horde of refugees-the campfires, the bones of old kills, boots that had failed, torn clothing, sometimes even a kettle or a pot that had grown too heavy to carry. Among this lay the refugee dead, those who had lost will and strength and could go no farther than where they fell. Ravens picked over these, cleaning the bones of elves who ran from the dragonarmy only to find death in the sweet forest miles away from Silvanost.

Some wept to see the dead, the picked bones, the ragged clothing fluttering on corpses like pennons to call the scavengers. These wanted to bury the corpses, but they were convinced after long arguing that they had neither the time nor the tools for this. The same had been said of the dead in the glen. It seemed to Dalamar that the forest must be strewn north and south with corpses. The Wildrunners did the convincing, but they were not unmoved. One said to another, "I don't care if Phair Caron doubles her army. I don't care if she triples it! I am going back to fight, I swear it, and no one will stop me."

"Will she double her army?" Dalamar asked as they crossed the road and went into the forest again. They would not follow this weary path, for the refugees now clogged the broad highway. He looked back over his shoulder at the ruin, the dead, and the ravens.

The Wildrunner-she who had called him out of the glen-shrugged. "That's what we heard on the way down from the battle. Lord Garan doesn't care. He's asking for more soldiers from the Speaker. He's sent word by Windrider."

All agreed, almost with one voice, that Lorac would give the Lord of House Protector all the help he needed. How not?

Once more Dalamar looked back at the dead. They were all old, none of fighting age. Phair Caron had seen to it that the war-worthy were killed in their villages and towns. Where would Lorac find more men and women to fight? From the sparsely settled southern part of the kingdom? From the east where they were sailors but not fighters?

A light mist of rain began to fall, chilling the skin. Dalamar hunched his shoulders against the cold and pulled up the hood of his filthy white robe. The trees all around seemed to fade, even the bright gold of the aspen leaves did not shine. It was, Dalamar thought, as though the forest were fading around them, vanishing before their eyes.

A day later, when they crossed the Thon-Thalas on the ferry and entered Silvanost in the first hour of the morning, nothing seemed more substantial to him. The scent of baking drifted through the broad streets, dogs barked, children ran chasing each other through the gardens. Sun shone on the towers. Dew glittered in the grass. The temples gathered round the Garden of Astarin rang with prayer-chants, and the air hung with the smoke of incense. Dalamar saw it all, he smelled the city, he heard it, and it all felt like a dream of a place he used to know.