Silver Shadows - Elaine Cunningham [0]
Songs and Swords 03 - Silver
Shadows
Prelude
Night fell quickly in the Forest of Tethir, and the caravan guards cast wary glances into the tall, dense foliage that walled either side of the trade route. The sounds of the forest seemed to grow louder, more ominous, as the darkness closed in around them. Overhead, the ancient trees met in a canopy too thick for the waning moon to penetrate, but the merchants pressed on, lighting torches and lanterns when their horses began to stumble.
The dim circle of firelight did little to push back the darkness or to assuage the merchants' unease. Their own torch-cast shadows seemed to taunt them, flickering capriciously and appearing as if they might at any moment break away and slip off into the trees.
There was an eeriness to this forest that made such things seem possible. All of the travelers had heard stories of the Watchers of Tethir, and there wasn't a man or woman in the caravan who did not feel the unseen eyes. Chadson Herrick, a grizzled sell-sword who'd made the road his home for more years than Ehninster had pipes, raised a hand to rub away the tingle at the back of his neck. "My hackles are up. I feel like a cornered wolf," he muttered to the man who rode beside him.
His companion responded with a terse nod. Chadson noted that his friend-a too-thin, nervous youth who at the best of times seemed as taut as a drawn bowstring-was clutching a holy symbol of Tymora, goddess of luck, in one white-knuckled hand. Chadson, for once, was not inclined to tease the lad for his superstitions.
"Just a few more miles," the young man said in a soft, singsong tone that suggested he'd been silently repeating those very words over and over, as if the phrase were a charm that could ward off danger.
Their whispered conversation earned them dark looks from several of the other guards, even though there was no real need to keep silent. The Watchers already knew of the caravan and had probably followed it all the way from Mosstone, the last human settlement on the trade route that cut through the forest. If anything, the travelers' tense silence seemed only to deepen the impending cloud that hung over the caravan.
A sudden wild impulse came upon Chadson. He was tempted to leap from his horse and dance upon the path, all the while hooting and cursing and thumbing his nose at their unseen escort. He imagined the reaction such an act would elicit from the unnerved merchants, and the mental image brought a wry grin to his face.
He was still smiling when the arrow took him through the heart.
Chadson's body tilted slowly to one side and fell to the path. For a moment the men nearest him merely stared, their faces registering horrified recognition of the slender, ebony-hued staff protruding from the dead man's chest. It was the dark-hued arrow of a wild elf, a bolt aptly known as "black lightning" to the humans.
The silence exploded into frenzied action. Following the shouted instructions of the guards, the merchants scrambled down from their wagons and, heedless of their precious cargo, overturned several of the wagons to form a makeshift shield wall. There was no time to cut the traces, and some of the draft horses went over with the wagons, falling heavily into piles of writhing, kicking horseflesh. The animals' shrieks of terror and pain mingled with the screams of dying men as the black arrows descended upon them like stooping falcons.
From behind the scant cover of the wagons, archers returned fire, but they were shooting blind into the heavy foliage and had little hope of actually finding a mark. Some of the more intrepid-and less experienced-of the caravan guards drew swords and crashed into the forest to take the offensive. These were sent reeling back onto the path, unarmed, their eyes wide with shock and their hands clutching at mortal wounds.
The fighting was over in minutes. Many of the men on horseback had fled at the first sign of battle, and a few of the merchant wagons had escaped as well, careening wildly along the path in the wake of the panicked horses.