Chapter 15 - Part 11

The girl was human, and a young member of her species, perhaps eleven years of age. Her mother was a herbalist, a brewer and a healer, and the girl was her apprentice. Even as young as she was, she was proficient as diagnosing disease and analyzing injury.

Her father had practiced war, quite the opposite of her mother. An arrow from Aundair had killed him. She had been very small at the time, and had barely known him.

Now the girl was hurrying to get back from the market where she had been buying rare herbs from druids that had come for the conclave. She took a short path home, one that ran right behind the market, and past a thick clump of ferns.

She paused, seeing a pair of boots, and beyond it, another pair of boots. Parting the tall ferns with her hands, she saw two elves, each unconscious. From the bruises on their faces and throats she could tell that they had been attacked quickly and efficiently, although some of the finger-marks were short, like the inflictor of the blows did not have all five. The elves were battered, but nothing permanent had been done to them.

As she went to tell her mother, who would in turn tell the Wardens, she spied what she thought were four curved daggers. Later the Wardens would realize that they were Valenar double scimitars, each hewn into halves. There weren’t that many weapons that could cut so cleanly through Valenar steel. In fact, in all of Greenheart, there was currently only one.