Harlen chuckled and kissed her forehead. "When I locate one, I'll tell him." He said.
Wendy got a look of mock shock on her face and punched him in the arm, but softly. "You stop that." She chided. "If you can compliment me and I accept it, you can do the same, barbarian."
They crawled up onto the bed and tossed their towels onto the chair. Wendy curled up against Harlen's side, resting her head on his shoulder. He petted her hair as she sighed at his chest, washing over him with her warm breath.
"She is coming back, isn't she?" Wendy asked; her soft voice tinged with worry.
Harlen continued stroking her long brown hair. "Yes." He said, closing his mind to any other option. "She's coming back." He hoped his voice had more confidence in it than his head did.
After a few minutes, she dozed off, in that way women seem able to do. He regarded her slumbering face. She really was very pretty, and looked so innocent while sleeping. He kept right on stroking her soft hair, though, afraid if he stopped she would awaken. What would he do if Hyandai did not return? Would he go after her? Would he move on to another woman, perhaps even Wendy? Would he simply wander off into the woods and disappear? He did not know. He hoped fervently he would not have to find out.
He kept himself company with these dark thoughts for a long while into the deepening night, before sleep crept up on him and carried him off, as well, even as he resented its lack of arrival.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Leave me!" Hyandai screamed at Ceriandel. "I will not see the healers. There are people in greater need of their time." She stood up unsteadily from her bed. "I will be well, it is simply the load being thrust upon my shoulders."
Ceriandel backed out of the room, a look of deep worry lining his face. "But . . .."
She turned again, her eyes blazing bronze. He backed on out and turned onto the catwalk, walking around the high bower of Hyandai's room.
Hyandai was not eating, and what she ate would not stay down. She was weakening fast, and given to fits of anger now. How much of it was due to the inner workings of her mind? She was being forced to ram her mind through channels foreign to her, channels laid down several years ago when she had touched the mind of Abian Centurian.
His name had been Verus, and he had been a good man, gratefully, else she might have been driven insane by trying to call up his mind out of her own. The effect it was having upon her, even now, was terrible.
She came out of the room, moving with a definite air of purpose. "Send for my aides." she told the handmaiden who waited outside her door as she passed, walking across the long catwalk between her room and the higher room that was her 'command post.'
She stood over the faintly glowing model of Embalis. It was an exquisite replica of the town, down to the tiniest feature. She leaned close, eying herself in the little room in the model.
That always made her smile.
The smile was short-lived, as most were these days. As the first aide came stumbling in, still pulling her tunic into place, it evaporated.
"The Warleader summons me?" She said, standing at something of attention and bowing her head. They had originally genuflected fully to her, but she had put a quick stop to the time-wasting formality for the nonce.
"Yes, Ealina." Hyandai said. "First thing in the morning, you will gather a work team of twenty and begin pulling down those homes there on the ground." She pointed to the map, where a row of small ground-bound homes was located. "Relocate the people to the guard barracks emptied by the traitors who have left us."
Ealina, a young elven lass, not even yet of age, nodded. "Yes, Warleader." She stroked her own blonde hair and blinked a few times at the illusion.
"There is a problem?" Hyandai asked, her voice sounding terse.
"It is simply," the young elf said, "my home lies among those." She said, her eyes tearing up a little. "I will do as ordered, Lady Hyandai."
Hyandai's expression softened a little. "After the war, we will build you new homes, in the trees, where you deserve to live." She said.
Ealina smiled gratefully. "Yes, Warleader." She said.
"They need to be down by midday." Hyandai said. "If you wish to wake the people so they can get a head start on packing their goods, please do so, I will exempt them from duty tomorrow."
The girl dipped her head again and left the room, even as two more aides came in, better dressed but less timely in their arrival.
"Move more quickly next I call." Hyandai said negligently as they bowed their heads.
"Yes, Lady Hyandai." They said, almost in unison. They were two young lads, the same age as Ealina, or nearly so. Hyandai at merely fifty-nine regretted the necessity of putting even younger elves into harm's way the way she was going to. But there was nothing for it. They were nearly outnumbered two to one, even with the younger people in their ranks.
"Amtharlian, you are to pass word to the captains that I want four scouts sent out from each company immediately." Hyandai issued the terse commands. "They are to scour all about the town and try to get word of the enemy."
Amtharlian nodded and took off at a jog to do as she ordered without a word.
"Inlashe, you were charged with bringing in people from outlying homes last day." She said, looking down at the map. "Report."
"We recovered fifteen, Warleader." He said. "We found two homes empty and ransacked."
She looked at him. "Those people are being kept separate from the main troops?" She asked. She suspected some might be Isolationist spies, planted to get inside information from within Embalis.
"Per your orders, Lady Hyandai." Inlashe said. "Where should they be stationed?"
She looked at the map again. "Put them upon the wall, as arrow carriers and to assist with the wounded." Hyandai said. "They are not to have weapons issued. Place some spears near to them. If they are overrun, they can flee to those. Here and Here." She said this last while jabbing her slender finger at two points near a proposed palisade wall.
He nodded and fled the room. She glowered at the model village again. The sun was just barely hiding behind the horizon, and the sky was brightening with the first signs of morning. She rubbed her eyes. Another night without sleep, she thought.
"Perhaps the Warleader is sleepy?" A male voice said from the doorway, behind her.
She turned with a bit of peeve in her eyes. It evaporated as she looked upon her father. "Father." She said and smiled. "Is it so obvious?"
He nodded. "You are working yourself to death, my daughter." He said, walking toward her. "You should at least take a nap." His hand touched her shoulder.
"There is still much to do." She said, turning back to the map. "Things to prepare, walls, trenches . . .." She said.
"And they will be done." Emorianel said, interrupting her. "For now, you need rest and food. You have lost over ten pounds."
Hyandai shook her head. "I cannot eat." She said. "Keeping my mind in the Centurion's paths makes me ill. It simply does not stay."
He nodded. "I may know something that can help." He said. "Come. Take a moment and sit down with your old father and try his remedy." His hand was strong, like Harlen's but he held to her arm only enough to urge her out the door. She walked ahead of him across the footbridge to another platform, on another ornthalion, then across yet another to his small home.
She sat at the little table and smiled as he moved about the room. Her father had also been working hard these days. Forging weapons and even armor with incredible haste, leaving many items completely undecorated. She knew this pained him, but the items needed to work, and more importantly, needed to be finished, not still being inlayed as the traitors stormed the gates.
"Tell me about this man you have plaited." Her father said, starting something to boiling upon a small oval of stone that heated itself for cooking. His expression was not judgmental, simply interested.
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