The elf's pale face colored.

"I was drinking at the river while thinking of a poem. Not paying attention. I got separated from my bow and had to run."

Kindbloom sniffed, "You were quick enough to shoot our people in the back when hiding in the forest!"

The elf drew up straight and said, "Such was I obligated by duty. Whether I liked to kill or not wasn't asked of me."

"And anyway," Blackblossom breezed, "that's in the past. We're allies now. Come, comrade." With a short nod and hint of a smile, she sashayed off.

"Wait!" called the poet. "What are your names?"

Kindbloom marched on, but Blackblossom turned back, teased, "Oh no, Sir Elf. We've heard that if an elf learns your name, he gains power over your soul. You'll just have to guess our names-Starvalley!"

Back at the log bridge, Kindbloom groused, "Consorting with elves, bah! Darkname and Firstfortune and Lightrobin must writhe in their graves!"

Blackblossom only mused, "Starvalley… And he favors poetry. These elven men are not uncomely, you know. Not big and sturdy like our breed, but spry like willows. Even… tingly."

"Tingly?" Kindbloom almost fell off the bridge as she said, "And comely? Are you mad?"

Blackblossom only whistled as they crossed the bridge.

Later that day, along the river…

A boy and a girl, Greatreeve and Meadowbear, squabbled as they overturned a rotten log and kicked at red-brown punk. Grubs and wood lice spilled loose, legs windmilling to escape the light. The pair scooped dozens of insects into a birch bark cup.

"I still say it's a waste of time!" Meadowbear stated. "We tried these bugs, and the fish won't bite!"

"What else is there?" demanded Greatreeve. "There aren't any worms. The dirt's too rocky."

"Quiet!" the girl shushed, though she was just as loud. "They'll hear us!" The two had sneaked away from their chores to try their luck with the rainbow-speckled fish in the river Delimbiyr. They'd never seen such fish before, but they looked succulent. And fussy, for the creatures rose to no bait the children offered. "And elves live in these-Aah!"

The children jumped so high their birch bark cup flew in the air. Bugs flitted across winter leaves. An elf, tall and green and black and wild-haired, had stepped from behind a tree as if invisible.

"Don't be frightened," the elf said. Calm and kind words belied the elf's fierce appearance. "I see you seek the shalass but lack luck."

"The what?" asked Meadowbear. "Oh, the fish? Is that what you call 'em?"

"How do you catch 'em?" asked Greatreeve.

The elf smiled, face lighting up. He pointed at the rotten log. "Not with those," he said. "The best bait is the grub of the mayfly in spring, when the shalass is hungriest, but there are none now. Rather, try here…" The elf crooked a finger and walked away smiling.

"What d'ya think?" Meadowbear hissed to her partner.

"Elves eat babies, my papa says," whispered the boy. "But we're not babies… And he lives here-"

"So he knows how to catch fish!" finished Meadowbear.

Together, the barbarian children picked on silent feet after the elf. The tall archer climbed into a tree with thick branches still adorned with dark green leaves. Jumping free of the trunk, the elf bent a branch for the children to reach. "Pick a few nuts," he told them. "Not too many."

Wondering, the children plucked a handful of dark green nuts like olives. Releasing the branch, the elf drew a wicked curved knife that made the children step back. The woods-dweller smiled as he peeled a green husk. Revealed was a nut white as chalk. Quartering the nut, the elf handed each child a white curl.

"The shalass is delicious but dim. Bait your hook with this nut and jig the line ever so gently, and Sir Shalass will mistake it for a mayfly grub. Trust me, it works."

The erstwhile fisherfolk looked at the nut hunks with awe. "My thanks…" said Meadowbear. Remembering her manners, she added, "But what do I owe you? Rengarth Barbarians always pay their debts."

The elf nodded and said, "Fair enough. Know you the names of the two women who entered the forest this morning? They came after axes soaking in yon stream. One was middling-high and dark, but the other was tall and graceful as a sandhill crane-"

"You mean Blackblossom?" blurted Greatreeve. Meadowbear jabbed him with an elbow, too late.

"Blackblossom." The elf tasted the name. "Apt, for one so rare and fair… My thanks, fishers. Our debt is square. Good luck!"

Swinging bow and sword hilt, the elf melted into the forest.

"Big mouth!" snarled the girl. "You blabbed Blackblossom's name. Now he'll get power over her soul!"

"I wonder why he wants it," said Greatreeve. "I hope he doesn't hurt her…"

On the slope between forest and prairie…

Strongsea threw down his axe in disgust. It bounced off a log and flipped over. "Gah!" he spat. "Next to useless!"

"Don't be silly," Graysky said as he patiently hammered the back of his axe with a wooden maul to split a log. "Just because you can't sharpen an axe-"

"It's not something you can learn. Either you're born knowing how to sharpen a blade, or you're not, and I'm not! And I'm damned to walk all the way to the mountain just to have a dwarf sharpen it for me! I hate walking as much as I hate sharpening."

The bigger man flopped down on a stump. There were stumps everywhere, scores of them, for the barbarians had labored to cut back the forest and build homes for the winter. Already a dozen longhouses striped the hillside and sent smoke curling into the blue-white sky. Stacks of cordwood and piles of burnable slash ran higgledy-piggledy up the slope.

"Everyone's busy," Graysky said as he hammered his maul a last time to divide the log, then leaned back and wiped his brow. "The dwarves are too busy forging tools to come sharpen them, so we needs-Hello! What are you?"

"A fairy!" Strongsea hopped off his stump to grab his fallen axe.

"No, sir, I'm not! Please don't hurt us!"

The barbarian men stared at the tiny being. Barely thigh-high, she was stooped and thin with a narrow head dominated by a bulbous nose and lank brown hair. She wore rags of red and blue once cut for humans, much too large. Huddled behind her legs were two tinier creatures, all noses and eyes.

"We're gnomes," explained the female. "Kin to dwarves, but city-dwellers. Or we were until the troubles. My husband was killed by a mob, so we fled with only our tools and the clothes on our backs. We heard this land still knew peace, and trekked across the tall grass-"

"Yes, yes, we know," Graysky said, shaking his head as he regarded the trio, mother and children, who'd appeared from the nearby woods. The barbarian had heard of gnomes, but had never seen one. These days all sorts of refugees streamed into this mighty triangle framed by prairie and forest and mountains, for the barbarian/elf/dwarf alliance kept at bay the wars and riots and plagues that raged elsewhere. "You're not the first, nor the last. I imagine you're hungry."

The gnomes' bright eyes glittered, but Strongsea ventured, "Don't feed 'em! It'll just encourage 'em to stick around like stray cats."

"I'll remember that when next you belly up to the trough," returned Graysky. He unwrapped an oilskin containing acorn bread and smoked elk meat. The gnomish mother saw that her two children ate before she wolfed down her own portion. Strongsea sighed in disgust.

Graysky sat on a stump and studied the gnome. Her hands were overlarge for her pipe stem arms, but long-fingered and clever. She wore a belt with many pouches of thin tools that jutted every which way. The barbarian asked, "Kin to dwarves, eh? What can you do with this?" Strongsea objected when Graysky plucked away his axe.