Lisa Smedman - Heirs of Prophecy

Almost.

Angrily, Leifander shook his head. He flapped his wings harder, beating the weak notion from his mind with strong, sure strokes. Just because one human was benevolent toward the elves didn’t mean the rest could be trusted, he reminded himself. Thamalon was an aberration: hardly representative of his race. Just look at the sprawling city below, at the people scurrying through it like ants. If their leaders told them to kill every last elf, they would do it without question.

As the pink rays of the sun slanted over the river, illuminating the walls and towers that surrounded the city, dark shapes began to rise into the air above a wide swath of greenery, itself enclosed by walls. Hearing the hoarse caws of his feathered kin, Leifander wheeled toward the flock. The crows-more than a hundred of them-were rising from their nesting place, a grove of trees beside a lake far too symmetrical to be natural. Now they were wheeling in the air above the lake, forming up for the flight to their daytime feeding grounds.

Leifander joined them, losing himself in their mid-air teasing and games. He tested his speed in a race against another young male, dived playfully at a female who avoided him with an adroit slip to the side, then found a strong current of salt-tanged air coming off the sea and showed off with a series of dives and loops that left the others croaking with envy. These birds were animals, not skinwalkers, but Leifander felt at home among them. They were his totem animal, their souls kindred to his own. Among them, he could lose himself in simple, mindless play. He could-

Flashes of sunlight from the ground below caught his eye. Wheeling in a tight circle, he passed over a wide, cobblestoned plaza a second time, and saw a group of several dozen archers beside caravan wagons, their brightly polished helmets reflecting the sun like mirrors. They looked as though they had lined up to receive rations-or perhaps a shipment of arms. Curious, he dived from the flock for a closer look. It wouldn’t hurt to do a bit of spying while he was there.

Settling onto the cool slate of a rooftop beside the plaza, Leifander hopped to the edge. From this vantage point two stories above the plaza, he could catch the scents of freshly sawn boards and the stink of the humans below, already sweating in their armor. The archers were carrying strung bows, and a few held quivers of arrows, but none had yet been nocked. Man-shaped targets-some made of wood, others sacks that had been stuffed with straw-lined two sides of the plaza, half hidden behind potted trees. Behind the targets, the ground floor windows of the shops had been closed and shuttered. Each of the streets leading to the plaza had been blocked by a wooden bar, beyond which a soldier stood guard. It looked as though the humans had assembled to practice their archery, but as yet the targets were unfeathered by arrows.

The four wagons were larger than those usually found in caravans and had been drawn up in a line. They looked newly made and were as yet unpainted. They were without horses, their traces and harnesses coiled in a heap in front of each wagon. Strangely, though, a driver sat in each wagon’s seat, just ahead of the enclosed cargo area, holding the reins as if driving an invisible team.

A sergeant shouted orders, and the archer closest to the back of each wagon opened its rear doors. His curiosity fully aroused now, Leifander hopped sideways along the edge of the rooftop, trying to see inside. He had almost reached a good vantage point when he saw a flash of a mailed arm as one of the archers pointed him out. A heartbeat later, the archer beside him raised his bow and nocked an arrow.

Leifander hurled himself sideways, wings flapping, as the arrow skittered against the slate tile beside him, knocking loose a tile. As the archer below laughed and swiftly drew another arrow, he hopped back out of sight. They probably thought him nothing more than a crow-but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t skewer him with an arrow, just for sport.

Hopping across this rooftop to seek another, Leifander heard the sergeant shouting at his men to stop wasting their arrows, then voices arguing, pitched too low for him to make out the words. A moment later came an order to “mount up” followed by creaking noises below.

By the time he risked a peek down into the plaza again, all of the archers had disappeared. For a moment, Leifander wondered where they had gone but then saw the wagons shifting as the men inside them repositioned themselves. The sergeant walked from one wagon to the next, closing the rear doors, then strode out of the plaza at a brisk pace. From somewhere out of sight, came his shout: “Ready?”

The drivers stiffened in their seats. “Ready!” the lead one cried. “Ready!” the next called out, then the next, and the next.

The wagons ceased swaying and grew still. Soon the only sounds came from outside the plaza, the murmur of citizens going about their business, and the rumble of carts through the streets.

For several long moments, nothing happened. The drivers sat ready in their seats, hands occasionally flicking the reins. A whistle shrilled and as one, the drivers dropped the reins and lunged sideways on their seats, pushing hard on levers that Leifander assumed were brakes.

Hinges squealed and, with loud thumps and bangs, the sides of each wagon fell open, revealing a flat platform behind the driver’s seat. Archers stood on it, facing outward, arrows nocked and bows at full draw. Taking only a heartbeat to aim, they loosed their arrows, which sang through the air toward the targets. They drew again, and shot, and again, and shot, filling the plaza with a deadly rain of arrows. Many struck the wooden walls or shutters of the buildings behind-but many more thudded into their targets. One of these, battered by a flurry of arrows, topped sideways and fell, like a man slowly dying. Others jerked and tore apart into sprays of straw. Only after each archer had shot an entire quiverful of arrows did the thrumming bows at last fall silent.

A whistle shrilled a second time, the archers lowered their empty bows, and the sergeant strode back into the plaza.

Leifander grimaced at he had just witnessed: a deadly trap that would take the forest elves completely by surprise-a trap that could be made even more deadly still if any of the hidden warriors were capable of wielding magic. The elves would come willingly to the bait, thinking the unguarded wagons soft and ripe, like jawa fruits ready to be plucked and peeled. When they attacked the “caravan,” they would be cut down in droves.

Leifander crouched and spread his wings, preparing to take off from the rooftop. He needed to get back to the forest as quickly as he could, to warn the others. He-

Could not move. His body had become as rigid as a statue. He tried to draw in his wings, but though his muscles ached with the strain, not a single feather ruffled. His legs were likewise frozen in place, and though he continued breathing, his breath came short and shallow, drawn in and out of a chest that barely moved. With a rising panic, he realized he must be the victim of a spell.

He heard the scrape of a boot on the slate behind him and tried to cock his head but could not. Peripheral vision showed him the outline of a human climbing up from behind the peak of the roof and silhouetted against the morning sun, but the only detail he could make out was the fellow’s raised hand. With a sinking heart, he realized he must be a wizard or cleric-one who had crept up on him and used a spell to immobilize him.

In the plaza below, the archers were pointing in his direction and talking in low voices. Cursing himself for a fool, Leifander realized that he had tarried there too long-that the humans must have been anticipating a spy. Whether they thought Leifander a wizard’s familiar or knew that he was a shapeshifter didn’t really matter. Either way, he had been caught and now would be executed. Worse yet, he had failed his people. If he didn’t manage to warn the elves about what the wagons concealed, he wouldn’t be the only one to die.