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Isengrim and his elves make good time through the forest. A westerly wind keeps them downwind of their target, and makes enough noise that they can risk being less careful than usual. When Isengrim first catches a glimpse of distant light through the trees, it’s barely midnight.
With a low whistle he signals for his elves to halt, and crouches behind a bush.
The light seems to be a small one, and doesn’t move. A lantern, perhaps. The wind is still on their side, and Isengrim listens carefully but catches no hint of voices, nothing to confirm that the small flickering light in the distance marks the presence of the village they’ve been stalking towards.
He knows this forest, though, and knows this is the place.
Which means they’re early.
There’s an almost imperceptible rustle of the undergrowth as one of the other elves moves up beside him. When Isengrim turns to look, Iorveth’s eyes are shining back at him in the moonlight. He leans in close to whisper directly into Isengrim’s ear.
“It’s still two hours until moonset.”
Isengrim nods, and turns his head to whisper back. “So we wait.”
Iorveth sighs, a soft puff of breath that Isengrim feels more than hears. Then he slips away again, and despite the wind Isengrim catches more hints of whispering and movement. When Iorveth returns, he settles in on the ground next to Isengrim, and then his breath is on Isengrim’s ear again.
“I’ve sent Finan and Maeve to circle north, Lynne and Rhona to the south. They’ll keep close enough to whistle, give us some extra vantage points.”
Isengrim feels his lip twitch. “They answer to you now, do they?”
Again he feels more than hears Iorveth’s soft laugh. “They do when I speak for you.”
“Mm.” Isengrim sits down on the ground himself, getting comfortable for the wait. Iorveth rearranges himself so that their shoulders are pressed together in the dark.
—
As the moonlight fades, Iorveth shifts to his knees and starts quietly checking his weapons. Isengrim does the same, and while they work the other elves rejoin them. Isengrim dips his fingers in a jar of dark oil and drags them over his face, then passes the jar to Iorveth.
The next time their eyes meet Isengrim finds no trace of the soft amusement from earlier. Iorveth’s eyes are cold and determined, the angles of his face distorted by jagged dark streaks. Isengrim’s heart picks up with a swell of adrenaline and pride, and he turns to address all five of them.
“Nobody breaks cover until we hear the signal.”
They nod and then, moving as one, they make for the village.
—
The signal comes in the form of a horrendous shrieking wail, and within moments the village is in chaos. Humans with torches erupt from buildings up and down the street, in various states of undress. Isengrim and his elves ignore the unarmed, unarmoured ones and make for the large hall at the south of the village, which according to Coinneach’s intelligence has been co-opted into a barracks for Northern soldiers.
They’re still a hundred paces away when Iorveth puts an arrow through the eye of one of the guards outside the main door. He has another arrow notched and loosed in an eyeblink, but the second guard manages to throw himself behind a crate. Seventy paces, and the first bleary-eyed soldier stumbles out of the makeshift barracks with his armour half-fastened.
A human lunges from a cottage to their left, wielding a pitchfork, but Maeve dispatches him with an almost careless swipe of her sword. Forty paces, and there are half a dozen soldiers arrayed outside the hall and looking more awake by the second.
Then the top half of the hall erupts in an explosion of flame.
Coinneach’s elves—who had been using the cover of the commotion to run back and forth across the roof with buckets of oil—sprint away, whooping and cheering. Isengrim’s group reaches the hall a split second later, and falls upon the Northerners who manage to make it out of the flames.
—
After that, it’s mostly a cleanup operation.
Coinneach begins rounding up the villagers who aren’t dead or dying into what passes for a town square, under the lantern Isengrim had first spied from the forest. Isengrim’s elves split into pairs again, and he leads Iorveth through a sweep of the houses.
As they pass by a particularly run-down little hut they hear a sound from inside, and Iorveth steps forward to kick in the door. Isengrim glances around for threats before following him inside—and almost runs straight into Iorveth’s back.
Isengrim immediately steps back to cover the other elf, sword at the ready. “What is it?”
But Iorveth’s holding his own sword low at his hip—whatever he sees inside, he clearly doesn’t perceive it as dangerous. After a long moment he looks over his shoulder and catches Isengrim’s eyes. Before Isengrim has time to decipher his expression, Iorveth steps aside.
Inside the hut, clutching a large sword with white-knuckled hands, is a human boy. It’s impossible to tell how old he is, with his scrawny frame covered in layers of rags and the only light coming from the coals under the stove in the corner. Isengrim guesses he could be anything from eight to eighteen.
Not that it matters, of course. A human is a human.
But he knows what Iorveth sees.
The hair and the eyes are wrong. But the fire in the boy’s eyes, the way his arms tremble with the strain of wielding a sword clearly meant for someone much larger—even Isengrim is reminded of the scrawny young elf he took under his wing all those years ago.
“I’ll handle it,” he says, but as he steps forward Iorveth catches his arm.
“Let’s just round him up with the others.” He still hasn’t looked away from the boy.
Isengrim suppresses a sigh. “He’s raised a sword against us. He’s a threat.”
“He can barely hold it steady. He’s a child.” The boy still hasn’t moved, eyes darting between Isengrim and Iorveth where they stand in the doorway.
“Human children grow into human adults.”
The boy tenses at the word human, then runs at them with a cry. Isengrim steps forward to cut him down—then at the last second swears and steps aside, letting the boy stumble past. Isengrim slams the hilt of his sword into the base of the boy’s skull, and he drops like he’s been shot in the throat.
He avoids Iorveth’s eyes as he drags the boy out of the house and back towards the main square.
—
A few other villagers try to resist. None succeed.
Once they’ve scoured the buildings for anything valuable, they set the rest of the village alight, taking the horses they can find and making for the west, back towards Brokilon.
They’re a fair way out of the village when Iorveth brings his horse up alongside Isengrim’s.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
Isengrim glances over, but Iorveth’s eyes are focussed somewhere off in the distance. “He’s likely to die anyway. He had little enough before we burned his village to the ground.”
“I know,” Iorveth says, and nudges his horse on ahead.
Behind them, on the horizon, the fires light up the sky like a false dawn.