The Eternal Flame Read Online Free PDF Page A

willing to go with you to meet Belamir and his advisors, my bow and arrows will be close at hand. Changelings always have some sort of telltale physical flaw, you know, something quite unnatural. And I’ll be looking for it.”
    “With my blessing. Just be sure you’re right before you shoot.”
    “Wood elves never kill anything unless we must,” she answered. “Which is why it’s worth trying to turn Belamir around.” She tapped her bow again. “But if we fail, I am going straight to Isenwy.”
    “As am I.”
    A loud crash came from the spruces. Then, in rapid succession, came a shout of pain, the sound of someone tripping over some roots, the thhhwack of a bent branch springing back and smacking someone very hard, a mumbled string of curses, and yet another crash.
    Brionna and Lleu traded knowing glances, while the falcon released a glum whistle.
    “Sounds like Shim has caught up with us,” said Lleu.
    Shaking her head, the elf remarked, “How anyone so small can make so much noise is totally beyond me.”
    Just then a dwarf-size fellow burst out of the branches. From his white mop of hair down to the bottom of his baggy leggings, he was covered with broken twigs, cones, needles, leaves, fern fronds, and at least one spiderweb. Wiping a clump of wet leaves off his potato-shaped nose, he started toward his companions—but suddenly tripped on a sapling and fell into a patch of daffodils growing under the beech tree.
    “Not fairly!” he groused. “Back in the olden daylies, I could walk anywheres at all with no problem. Bigsy I was, as bigsy as the highliest tree, and no little daffodilly could trip me up.”
    Brionna strode over and helped him stand again. “Thanks, Rowanna,” he told her, his eyes shining. “You’re a goodsy lass. As well as me favorite niece.”
    Though she scowled at his old joke, she wasn’t offended. “I’m just glad you’re not hurt.”
    “Sad for hot dirt?” He scrunched his nose at her. “That’s a confudoozedly thing to say! But I’ll tells you one nicely thing. At least I’m not hurt.”
    “And your hearing’s still great,” she added wryly.
    “Earrings will skate?” He studied her with concern. “Rowanna, you is speaking most funnily today. Maybily your hearing isn’t rightly?”
    Before she could try again to speak, he shook his white head, spraying twigs and needles all around. “No, no, I’m sure it’s old Shim who isn’t rightly. Why did that giantly miss, Bonlog Mountain-Mouth, ever make me so smallsy and shrunkelled? Just because I ran away when she tries to give me a kiss, so disgustingly slobberly.”
    Brionna placed her hand upon his shoulder and gave him a gentle squeeze.
    But Shim merely scowled and muttered, “That was a meanly thing for her to do! Certainly, definitely, absolutely.”
    Just then Brionna heard something that sounded like the nearby hoot of an owl. She tensed, because no owl would be hunting at this time of day. Catha, too, seemed agitated, ruffling her wings.
    At that instant, eight green-clad men, with bowstrings drawn and arrows nocked, stepped out of the trees. Brionna and her companions were surrounded! Scanning the deadly arrows aimed at their chests, the elf maiden cursed herself for letting down her guard, even for an instant.
    “We come in peace,” protested Lleu.
    “No, ye don’t,” growled the voice of one of the men. He stood directly behind Brionna and Lleu, so they couldn’t see him, nor could they risk turning around to face him.
    “It’s true,” Lleu declared. “We have come to visit Hanwan Belamir.”
    “To kill him, more likely,” replied the man. “We trust nobody who comes this close to the village o’ Prosperity, ‘specially in times like this.” Behind them, he spat. “And most ‘specially if they’re travelin’ with a dirty elf and a dwarf.”
    Brionna, her body as tight as one of their bowstrings, quivered with rage.
    “Ye think yer kind is the best at woodland trackin’ and hunting