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Dagii returned the smile, then jerked his head dismissing all three. When they had gone, he looked down at Chetiin. “Maanin?”

The goblin seated himself on the pack by the fire. “You don’t want to be seen with Haruuc’s assassin, do you? Trying to defend my innocence to all your warriors would only raise more questions. Better that I be someone else for a while.”

“You could have stayed in hiding,” said Ekhaas. “Keraal knows something isn’t right.”

“Hiding isn’t always an advantage. Tell Keraal the truth later. When there are fewer things to concern him—and you.” Chetiin glanced up at them. “I followed the fleeing elves a short way. I doubt that they’ll return tonight, but the odd thing is that they had no horses.”

Ekhaas narrowed her eyes. “You told me that not all Valaes Tairn fight from horseback.”

“They don’t,” said Dagii, “but all of them use horses for transportation. If they didn’t ride, their camp must be close.” His smile became grim. “We can scout them out.”

“Marrow can track them by scent,” Chetiin said.

Dagii nodded. “Let me find some light armor. Something that won’t give us away.” He looked at Ekhaas. “You’ll come?”

“Try to stop me.”

“You should find some light armor and a less rattling weapon for Keraal and bring him too,” said Chetiin.

Dagii’s ears rose at the suggestion. So did Ekhaas’s.

“He’s already suspicious of you,” she said.

“Suspicions are like gardens—left untended, they grow wild.” The goblin’s thin lips pressed together for a moment. “But in this case, I like the idea of an extra sword at my side. The Valaes Tairn are cunning.”

“I’ll find Keraal,” said Dagii.

Keraal, outfitted in leather with a sword at his side, reacted to Marrow with surprise at first, then gave her a deep, respectful nod. The worg growled something to Chetiin, who smiled.

“What did she say?” asked Keraal.

“She appreciates your gesture of submission but says that only pups present the back of the neck.”

Keraal’s ears flicked and he addressed himself to Marrow, “I doubt I would survive your tenderness, mother.”

Marrow’s tail waved rapidly, her ears flipped forward, and her mouth opened so that her tongue hung out. She looked, Ekhaas decided, amused.

“Humor, Keraal?” asked Dagii.

The other warrior’s mouth set in a firm line. “It happens sometimes,” he said.

Marrow led them into the night. The campfires faded behind them, obscured by trees and the rolling landscape until only the sharp finger of the ruined clanhold was visible against the sky. Biiri and Uukam had orders to break camp and return to the main army if Dagii didn’t return by mid-morning. They had tried to persuade him not to go, but Dagii had insisted with the same argument he had given Ekhaas: he needed to see the Valaes Tairn forces for himself.

For a while, the trail of the fleeing elves was so easy to see that Ekhaas could have followed it herself. She supposed that the elf warriors she had frightened with her song had made it, driven by their fear without a thought for stealth. Here and there, blood made a smear on the ground or on a leaf, evidence that at least one of the elves had been wounded in the battle. As the obvious trail of broken branches and crushed grass faded, Marrow moved to the fore. She cast about, sniffing, then stopped, whuffed sharply, and growled at two trees.

Chetiin found a long branch on the ground and approached the trees cautiously, tapping ahead with the branch. It caught something. Chetiin peered at the trees though Ekhaas could see nothing. Taking a few steps back, the goblin flung the branch.

There was a snap and a short hiss. The branch jerked and fell apart in three pieces, the leafiest piece somehow remaining suspended and bobbing gently in the air. “Come look,” Chetiin said. “It’s safe now.”

Ekhaas ventured forward. Three thin dark wires curled up close to one of the tree trunks. The leafy branch was caught in the embrace of one. A broken tripwire showed how the trap had been triggered. “They were stretched between the