His elvensight revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Tanis relaxed. It must have been the birds, he reasoned.

He started walking again, debating what he would say if he found Brandella and Kishpa together. How would the half-elf explain his presence? Perhaps he could say, "The whole village is looking for you, Kishpa. Please hurry. The elders are making new plans for the defense of the village. You must be there!" Once the mage was gone, Tanis reasoned, he could get Brandella alone and tell her why he had come for her. And then, he thought sourly, she'd think I'm a dimwitted fool.

Like a child, he kicked at the sand. Then he stopped. There was that sound again. He turned and looked back at the pier, staring intently into the dark shadows beneath the wooden structure, holding his breath, listening. What he heard had sounded like a muffled cry. Or maybe it was the flapping of wings-except this time there were no birds to be seen. And wasn't that a faint red glow he saw under the pier? Perhaps his elvensight, which caught the aura of living things even in little light, had focused on a shore animal.

His pulse quickened. It wasn't the birds he'd heard before at all. The birds flew away when they were startled by a sound, the same sound he'd heard. And now he heard it again. It was a cry.

As swiftly as his legs could carry him through the soft sand, Tanis dashed toward the pier. He could hear nothing over the sound of his own deep breaths and pounding legs, but the memory of that cry kept him running.

No light shone beneath the warped and rotting wooden boards of the pier. Tanis couldn't see details of who was there, but his elvensight revealed something large, shaped like a man. And surely, with the light of Lunitari behind Tanis, whoever or whatever was there could plainly see him.

In the darkness, a tall, powerfully built man with a barrel chest crouched over the bruised body of a terrified woman. He held a long, thin-bladed knife in one hand and an ornate, heavy shield in the other. The human jammed his knee into the woman's throat to keep her from crying out as he watched the intruder approach. He could tell by the interloper's forthright stride that they would do battle. He smiled at the thought.

The human had killed twelve elves after he'd scaled the barricade. He had thought that his fellow soldiers were going to overrun the village, but for some reason, few troops had followed him. Trapped inside the elven stronghold, he had killed seven more villagers since nightfall, weaving in and out of back alleys, using the shadows for cover. But elven patrols were getting closer all the time. He needed a hostage to keep them at bay until his fellow soldiers attacked again on the morrow.

Providence provided one.

She had been walking alone along the beach when he saw her. He'd leaped out from his cover, grabbed her around the mouth and throat, and dragged her, kicking and thrashing, back into the darkness beneath the rotting old pier.

Barely able to breathe, the woman lay near unconsciousness, no longer struggling. As he heard someone approaching, the human paid her no mind, lifting out of his crouch and edging toward an outer wooden pillar. He didn't need a hostage to protect him from a single elf. Hiding, the human waited.

As Tanis reached the pier, he slowed, not out of fear, but out of caution. He didn't want to walk into a trap. Before he went any farther, he called out, "Is anyone there? Are you all right?"

No answer.

That troubled him.

Someone was there. Someone had cried out. Of this, Tanis was certain. Wisely, the half-elf stepped just inside the blackness under the pier and then dropped silently to the sand, no longer silhouetted against the moonlight.

Tanis strained to hear any telltale sounds. All he heard were waves breaking against the front of the pier and the water roiling against the pillars that stretched out into the sea. He heard no voices, saw no movement. The only smell was that of the sea and shoreline.

The human was startled. Where had the interloper gone? He'd disappeared. The human, unused to fear, didn't panic now. He realized that his enemy was smart. It would be a good battle, he thdught, one to savor in tales told over the crackling coals of a fire.

Tanis inched his way deeper into the darkness.

The human didn't move. He knew the game well. The first one to show himself would likely be the one to die.

Despite the sound of the sea, it was as if the darkness under the pier was deathly quiet. It was its own world of silent treachery and stealth.

Tanis, his face pressed into the cold sand, began berating himself for having strayed from his duty. Finding Brandella had been the task at hand. He had no reason to be under this pier, searching for the gods knew what. Soon, he began thinking, he should give this up; he was losing valuable time. What he did here would make no difference to the world, or even to Kishpa.

He had almost convinced himself to get up and take his leave when he heard the faint sound of someone breathing off to his right. He had called out before, and the person had not answered. That might mean that an enemy hid here in the dark.

The half-elf moved closer, his hand on the grip of his broadsword. From the sound of the breathing, Tanis gauged that he was just a few feet away from his foe. His enemy had given himself away, and he would die for that mistake.

In one fluid motion, Tanis rolled to his feet, pulled his broadsword from its scabbard, and swung its deadly blade in the direction of the sound.

12

As soon as Tanis unsheathed his sworb, the blade gave off its shimmering red glow, casting a dim, otherworldly light on the underbelly of the pier. Only then did Tanis see his terrible mistake. The sharp edge of his broadsword was swooping down on the neck of an unmoving, defenseless dwarf. Tanis's blade was in full motion; he couldn't stop it. All he could do was throw his body to the left, away from the woman, and hope that he somehow missed. The blade whooshed through the damp night air and came down hard, burying itself deep in the sand just above the woman's head.

The human heard the sound of the broadsword coming free of its scabbard and readied himself for the kill. The red glow of the sword surprised him, but the light it threw off made his attack that much simpler. He saw his enemy clearly and dove at him with his knife pointing directly at the middle of Tanis's back. But the human did not expect his enemy to spin away from him at the last possible moment.

Tanis felt the impact of a glancing blow to the shoulder when the human hurtled past. The half-elf rolled over and came to his feet in one easy'motion, his glowing sword held high. The human recovered just as quickly, squaring off with his knife and shield. The creaky pier stood an arm's length above them.

The two men locked eyes. The human saw a half-elf who looked physically formidable, yet confused and unsure of himself: an easy kill.

Tanis saw himself.

They had the same eyes, the same mouth, the same shaped face. The man had the badly broken nose and long black hair that Clotnik had described. The only thing missing from the juggler's description of his father was the slash wound on his right leg.

This was the man Tanis so much wanted to discover, to meet, to learn about, but now that he had come face to face with him, Tanis didn't know what to do. Perhaps a gesture, he thought. What if he showed the man he meant no harm?

Tanis lowered his sword, hoping that his father would be struck by their resemblance and do the same.

The human saw his chance. He lunged forward with his knife hand to slit the throat of the half-elf.