The plain simmered like a skillet over an open fire. The sun was shining off the ebony spikes of cactus thorns sprinkled throughout the vines, causing them to twinkle with something close to malevolence at the approaching flesh. Prince Tykkin had decided on this route, deeming it the least likely to be watched by enemy scouts. Konowa could see why.

The Prince led the regiment on a magnificent charger named Rolling Thunder, a silvery-gray, four-year-old Mernian gelding, a breed rare and much sought after among royalty and wealth for their precious-metal coloring. That Konowa knew this much about a horse was thanks entirely to the lengthy lectures Jaal had subjected him to over the years about the qualities and temperament of various horse breeds. It bordered on criminal in Konowa's eyes that a soldier got little more than a piece of silver a month in service to the Empire, while a horse like the Prince's could be worth hundreds of pieces of gold.

It was a bloody great waste of money, as far as Konowa could tell. Dust from the road had already dulled the animal's coat to pewter, and a large spotted animal skin made into a shabraque covered a large portion of its body, leaving very little of the horse's coat to be seen. More gold down the well cushioned the future King's behind. His saddle was wrapped in a thick, red fur from a bear the Prince himself had dispatched on an earlier expedition, which probably meant the Prince had been allowed to walk up and stab it with his sword after the poor animal had been dead for a day. And just in case that bit of tack didn't woo the damsels, the Prince had had the bridle and reins fitted with ornately decorated wrought silver and burnished brass. Konowa gave it less than a week before some enterprising soldier had pocketed a few bits of the finery.

Konowa squirmed in his saddle and looked over his shoulder at the troops marching behind them, then quickly faced front again. His embarrassment at riding when the soldiers had only their feet to move them was galling, but the Prince was adamant that they ride as befit the station of officers, so Konowa found himself bouncing along most unhappily on a large black gelding named Zwindarra, a loan from the Duke of Rakestraw. Unlike the glittering Prince and his steed, Konowa's tack was simple, sturdy brown leather, the shabraque a quickly converted caerna with the regimental crest sewn on either side. The saddle itself was covered with the softened hide of an animal Konowa thought might just be skunk dragon, no doubt a parting jest of Jaal's.

Konowa looked ahead to their chosen path with barely concealed dread. Everywhere he looked, vines lay across the plain like one great slithering mass heaped on top of itself in looping coils of green sinew. In places the stems were as thick as banyan trees, creating impenetrable walls every bit as daunting as those of a stone-and-mortar castle. The fortress at Luuguth Jor lay two hundred miles to the east through this morass, a journey of at least two weeks with no further impediments beyond what nasty surprises the land itself could spring. Konowa doubted, however, that nature would be their only foe.

"I think I'll check on the troops, sir," Konowa said, motioning back at the regiment.

"I won't have them mothered, Major," the Prince said, but waved him away all the same.

"Sir," Konowa replied, and swung Zwindarra in a short arc to allow the regiment to march past.

"Pasty twit," Konowa muttered, watching the Prince ride on. Unlike His Highness, he worried about the morale of the troops, but after the initial shock of the caerna, their sense of pride in their new regiment began to take over. He'd sensed as much as he'd seen their backs grow a little straighter, their chins lift until they were marching with purpose, only beginning to feel the mystique of belonging to the Iron Elves, no matter that most of them had never even seen an elf up close before in their lives.

Konowa readjusted himself in the saddle, patted the spot on his jacket where the pouch lay underneath, and watched the regiment pass. They marched in column, six elves—men, he corrected himself—abreast, their winged shakos bobbing in time. White flashes of knee sparkled where legs not normally exposed to the sun now gleamed between the hems of caernas and the edge of stockings.

A few shouted greetings to him as they marched past and Konowa nodded and smiled. Seeing soldiers once again wearing the uniform of the Iron Elves stirred mixed emotions in him, his mind seeing elves he once knew where a new and unfamiliar face now marched. I won't fail you again, he silently vowed.

"You almost look like you belong in a saddle, Swift Dragon," said the Duke of Rakestraw, sidling up to Konowa on a huge roan.

"Jaal! What are you doing here?"

"You didn't think I'd let you slip away without saying good-bye, now did you?" the Duke asked, smiling.

"I thought maybe you were here to check on your investment," Konowa said. "You let me drink your wine, bought my commission to major, and loaned me one of your own horses. I've only been out of the forest for a week and already my debt to you knows no bounds."

Jaal slapped his knee and both horses started. "Bah! You'd do the same for me; think nothing of it. Besides, Zwindarra here is no ordinary steed. His great-great-mare was a unicorn, and he's got a bit of the mystic about him. If you get into a bind, he'll stand firm and won't veer."

"Just like his master, then," Konowa said, leaning down to pat the horse on the neck. Zwindarra swung his head back and tried to bite Konowa's hand.

Jaal roared and shook his head, his red hair flying madly from underneath his helmet. "Oh, and he's a tad temperamental, but I figure you two should cancel each other out."

"Your kindness will not be forgotten."

The Duke laughed some more. "Just bring yourself and this motley crew back again and I'll consider your debt paid in full."

Konowa felt the sting, even though it wasn't Jaal's intention.

"It's a new day, my friend, a new beginning. They'll shape up, you'll see. By the way," the Duke said casually, "Lorian tells me you had a meeting with a veteran of the regiment."

For a long moment, all that could be heard was the creak of the saddle and the clomping of hooves. "I don't blame him, Jaal. I hate me, too."

The Duke's gloved hand came down hard on the front of Konowa's saddle as he leaned close to whisper in his ear. "You listen to me, laddie. You take that guilt and you shoot it, stab it, and bury it deep. The past is done. There's three hundred soldiers that are alive and would like to stay that way. Don't matter if they're elves or not. Don't matter if they like you or not. You don't have the luxury of feeling sorry for yourself or letting others carry around thoughts of revenge. First chance you get, you deal with him, hard."

He let go of the saddle and straightened up, smiling once again. "But look on the bright side. Those elfkynan get one look at your lads and their shapely legs and they'll die of laughter and everyone will come back a hero."

There was a sudden blaring of trumpets. The noise rattled around Konowa's head like marbles in an empty iron pot. Both he and Jaal turned in their saddles to look back over the path they had come.

A group of large brown animals with huge flapping ears, long trunks, and great curving tusks of black ivory trundled through the vines with no concern for where the path might be. "Muraphants," Konowa said, already feeling the ground shake beneath Zwindarra.

"Ten of them," the Duke said, shaking his head in clear amazement. "I passed them on my way out here. They're loaded with enough supplies for this little mission to last a year, or until His Highness gets bored."

"As long as none of them are carrying Sala brandy," Konowa remarked. As the animals drew closer, he was able to make out the huge wicker panniers strapped to the muraphants' sides and saw that they were absolutely bulging.

"Still room enough to bring back a bit of treasure, though," Jaal said casually.

Konowa looked closely at his friend. "Do you think a Star could really be there?"

Jaal shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows. I've had a devil of a time trying to get any scouts up north with this new Viceroy in place, but I've heard enough to tell me a myth about a Star is the least of your worries."

Konowa nodded, further talk pointless as the muraphants rumbled past. Atop each beast, just behind its head, sat a rider wielding a long feather. Whenever the rider wanted the animal to turn, the elfkynan would touch the feather to the muraphant's appropriate ear and the animal would respond by walking in that direction.

Zwindarra began to prance and Konowa had to squeeze hard with his knees to keep his balance. Jaal leaned over and whispered something into the gelding's ear, and he immediately calmed down.

"You'll have to show me how to do that," Konowa said.

Jaal looked absolutely shocked, lurching in his saddle as if struck by lightning. "You're the elf—aren't you in tune with nature? Speaking with animals, making magical weapons from trees and all that?"

Konowa took a hand off the reins and pointed at his chest, raising his eyebrows at his friend as he did so. "Iron elf. I…R…O…N. You're thinking of one of those squirrelly elves that eats berries and wears bark undergarments."

The Duke laughed, his eyes watering with the effort. A muraphant trumpeted in response, and the two friends nudged their horses out of the way as the massive beasts of burden rumbled past toward the marching column of soldiers up ahead.

Konowa craned his neck to take a look at the riders as they went by and recognized one.

"Visyna!"

She looked down at him but did not wave, instead tapping her muraphant with her feather and steering it toward him.

Konowa pulled back on the reins—Zwindarra whinnied and turned a baleful eye on him, but allowed himself to be nudged forward toward the huge animal and its waving trunk.

"What are you doing here?" Konowa yelled up at her when she was alongside.

She brushed the hair out of her face before answering, and Konowa was struck again by her beauty. She was dressed much the same as she had been in the forest, but instead of sandals wore toughened canvas boots. Her hands and arms were covered by wide-cuffed gauntlets of a silky material that looked like skillfully woven leaves. And there was something else, a coldness in her look that he didn't understand.

"The Prince commandeered these animals and supplies for this expedition," she said, not really looking at him, "and as my father's representative, I am coming along to safeguard our property. Besides, you have no surgeon, and I know how to treat the sick and wounded."

"This is hardly the kind of expedition a woman should be on," Konowa said. "We're sure to see battle."

"Then all the more reason for my coming along," she said, giving the feather a snap so that the muraphant veered closer, startling Zwindarra. The horse took a nip at its trunk, eliciting a bellowing roar from the beast.

"He always was the charmer," the Duke said, sidling his horse up to Zwindarra and giving the horse a pat. "Jaal Edrahar, Duke of Rakestraw, my lady," he said, looking up at Visyna. He doffed his helm and bowed low in the saddle in a single fluid motion that never failed to impress the ladies.

"Ah yes, the drinking partner. Shouldn't you be leading an expedition in the other direction?" she said, giving the feather a swish and swinging the muraphant back toward the rest of the herd as it followed after the regiment.

"A pleasure, my lady!" the Duke called after her, laughing loudly as he put his helmet back on. "And she only tried to kill you once, you say?" he asked Konowa.

"I didn't get a chance to turn on the charm," Konowa said, watching the muraphants disappear in a cloud of dust.

"Good lord, man, you had better start soon! I'm beginning to think there isn't a soul in this regiment who doesn't want to have a go at you."

"And my mother always said I played well with others."

"They weren't children, they were wolves. Didn't you wonder why the other tykes had furry tails?"

"I never did fit in with the tribe," Konowa said, a feeling of melancholy washing over him.

"You don't fit in anywhere, but when has that ever stopped you?"

It was Konowa's turn to laugh. "When I was seven, I was out running the hills when I came across a traveling bomak. He said he would tell me my future if I would pick him some apples high up in a tree. I did as he asked, he thanked me, and then he said, ‘One day, you are going to die.'"

"You should listen to your father," Jaal said, "get in touch with nature. Maybe that will give you a better attitude about things."

"Take my word for it, Jaal," Konowa said, "up close it's just a whole lot of dirt."

The Duke smiled ruefully at his friend and held out his hand. "Swift Dragon, you are without a doubt the least elvish elf I have ever met."

Konowa took the Duke's hand. "And you're the prettiest man I know."

For a long time after the Duke had ridden away to the west, Konowa held on to a smile, the sound of his friend's laughter ringing in his ears.