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unstoppable. He knew garonds never crossed rivers without bridges. He knew the area, the Eastern Meadowlands, the rivers, the roads and trails. He knew the garonds would travel far west around the Bairn River to reach their troops on the other side. He could cross the Bairn, he must cross the Bairn, and stop them before they reached their armies to the south.
     
    Haergill could feel the darkness encroaching. The sky was filling with clouds, heavy, black, rain clouds. The weather had been strange the last few years, too much rain, or not enough. And the lakes had been filling to their utmost levels. It was as if Oann was reshaping the earth for a new people, for a new age.
    Haergill tasted the blood pouring from his nose. He knew he didn’t have long to live. He wanted to press his daughter to his chest and tell her all would be well. Then he remembered that the garonds had taken her.
    A sense of urgency roused him. He motioned for Kellabald to come near. He had so much to tell and only moments to tell it.
    His sweet Halldora held him, looking down with such concern, but not crying, his brave woman. She was his strength when he had none. She was his sanity, always his sanity, when the wars between the humans had been their worst. The wars between the humans! Such stupidity! Such waste! Wynnfrith and Alrhett held Halldora as though they were sisters. The family of Bittel was a good family.
    But there was something so urgent, the secret that Kellabald had to know.
     
    The elf felt the flame of life ebbing from the red haired, male human. She had only known this family of humans half a day, but she could see the brilliant light shining in them, and knew they were good. She felt a particular pain for the red haired woman who was clearly the dying human’s mate. She would be cut in half. Maybe the humans didn’t understand, but as an elf, she knew that mates become one flame. And, the loss of one is indescribable and continuing pain to the other, until they are reunited again in eternity.
    The elf whispered a prayer to Wylkeho Daniei to guide this human’s flame back to the source of all unseen fire.
    She felt a strange attraction to this human family. The elf had only followed them knowing they would attract more garonds for her to kill.
    She felt a sudden pang of guilt. The bright life refrained from killing. But she had such a thirst for vengeance in her. It could not be stopped. She knew if she continued down this path, her flame would change and she would no longer be welcome among her rejoined ancestors.
    But the vision of the last fifty elves being slaughtered by the garond army danced before her eyes. She shut her eyes tight to make the image go away. But it was there, her family, her race, standing outside the walls of Lanis Rhyl Landemiriam welcoming the approaching garond armies.
    Although they lived mostly in the Far Grasslands, the garonds were always welcomed as shamans who were even closer to the earth than her blessed race.
    Their attack was a complete surprise. The elders of the now depleted city of the elves met their garond brothers with open arms and a grand reception. Iounelle knew something was wrong immediately. The garonds were dressed so strangely, armored. The swift, surprise attack was a complete shock. Iounelle’s brother, Albehthaire hit her hard on the back of the head, and must have concealed her in a thicket. . Nearly half the elves fell immediately with the onslaught. When she came to, the garond dead were in huge mounds, and the last of the elves, young and old, male and female, who had all come out of the city to aid their kin, were fighting for their lives. That last moment, seeing her brother look to her, his eyes flashing a plea for her to flee, her overwhelming horror as the garonds swarmed over him, still played before her mind’s eye. She fled in fear, and cried in shame for not dying honorably by her brother’s side. She was the only survivor, every elf killed, both her brother and