Into the fire

And so, in addition to a celebration of the turning of the seasons, and in addition to the Warrows celebrating the birthdays of everyone who'd had a birthday in the past year, Year's Long Day also became a victory celebration as well.

In the glade of the campsite, there was food and drink and singing and dancing, all to the lively melodies Tip and Ry

It was as Tip played and sang the Elven song of the changing of the seasons, that Farly and Tynvyr and Picyn came riding through twilight and into the glade. And when the song was finished, Farly took Ry

"Something afoot?" said Tip.

"What?" asked Ry

"I du

"Movement?"

"Right. Foul Folk seen moving eastward."

"Eastward, eastward," muttered Tip. "What lies eastward?"

All gathered 'round in the candlelight as Tip laid out his maps on the small table. Once again Pysks stood about the edges, where they could see.

[This movement: where is it?] asked Tip.

[Up near the headwaters of the Rissanin,] said Farly, pointing into the Rimmen Ring. [Moving east within the crags.]

[Who brought this news?] asked Ry

[Phero,] replied the Pysk. [She was scouting out the latest placement of Spaunen sentry posts when movement caught her eye. Great numbers of the Foul Folk move eastward, and they follow an old route where wagons can go, a supply train in their midst.]

[Where are they bound, I wonder?] asked Beau.

Tip shuffled his sketches about and then said, [Well, directly to the east lies Garia. It's mostly mountains-the Skarpals-where DelfLord Borl was killed. But why they would go there…]

[Oh, Tip, to the east also lies Bridgeton,] said Beau, stabbing a finger to the map. [Could that be their aim?]

Tip turned up his hands. [We won't know until we track them.]

[Track them?] Ry

[Yes, love,] replied Tip. [Someone has to see what they are up to, and who better than us?]

"We are better at this than you," came a voice speaking Common.

Tip and the others turned. Aylissa stood in the doorway. Beside the wee Pysk were two others, two Pysks neither Tip nor Beau nor any of the Warrows had seen before.

"Lady Aylissa," exclaimed Tipperton.

Aylissa smiled. "Sir Tipperton, Lady Ry

"There they are," murmured Ry

Tip's gaze followed her outstretched arm. In the light of a last-quarter moon just now rising in the east, along an old trail through the stony mountains wended a column of Foul Folk.

"How many can there be?" asked Beau.

"Four, five hundred or so, I gauge," said Nix.

"No no, Nix. What I meant to ask was, how many have passed this point in the ten days since they were first spotted?"

"Oh," said Nix. "As to that, who can say?"

"Perhaps they are fleeing the fall of Crestan Pass," said Li

Farrix shook his head. "Nay, Lady Li

"As you can see, we are not the ones who need warning," said Tipperton, "but someone east."

Ry

Aylissa nodded, but it was Farrix who replied. "Aye. We'll see where it is they are bound, but if it is somewhere past the Rimmens, we'll turn back after seeing that others carry the word beyond."

Beau frowned and said, "I say, by going to Bridgeton it seems you are not as shy about your presence as are the other Fox Riders we know."

Ji

"As to this mission, there are Baeron in the woods south of Bridgeton, and it is they whom we will ask to bear a warning unto the citizens of that town. Too, I deem they will carry on should we need give up the chase."

Beau smiled. "Oh, I see."

Ry

Aylissa nodded. "Indeed, Adon willing, we shall return. Yet as to their goal, that we may never divine, for foul Modru drives them, and none knows his mind but his vile master Gyphon… and mayhap not even Him."

"Come," said Farrix. "We must hie." And he called his fox unto his side, Aylissa and Ji

"Good fortune," said Li

"Good fortune to you as well," said Ji

And with cries of "Hai, Rux!" and "Hai, Rhu!'" and "Hai, Vex!" the trio of riders darted away, the foxes scrambling down the back of the ridge through moonlight aslant and toward the foothills below.

A week passed, and then another, and then another still, and yet no word came from Aylissa or her sire or dam.

And still Spawn moved through the Rimmens, heading east, though their numbers diminished.

Toward the end of the seventh week there occurred a most peculiar thing: the Foul Folk patrols and sentries vanished from the eaves of Darda Erynian and the Greatwood: none were seen north or south on the wold nor in the Rimmens above.

Over the following month or so, cautious scouts searched along the wold and in the Rimmen Spur, yet no Spawn did they see.

And still Aylissa and Ji

"Where have they gone?" asked Li

Ry

Nix growled, "I said it before, and I'll say it again: something foul is afoot."

"I agree, but what?" asked Farly.

Before Nix could answer, from the east there sounded a black-oxen horn.

"Oh my," said Ry

She set an arrow to string, and her companions did likewise, all but Beau who laded a stone in his sling. And as they spread wide in a defensive stance, bursting out from the mist-entwined trees came Tipperton riding at a gallop, Kell on a fox ru