Page 40 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

Then, he leaped suddenly to his feet, still blank-faced. He stripped down to his underwear and started jogging circles through the snow around them.

The group laughed. Crow wiped the anger from her face and smiled easily as she returned to Garros, who was grinning like a wolf.

“If I were you, I’d do that all day,” he said. “How long will he keep going?”

“A minute or so.”

“Ah. Is that all?”

“You want him to go longer? He’ll freeze.”

Vaara slowly got to his feet, glancing around the circle. A few of them looked in his direction, but evidently they’d deemed him less than a significant threat, because no one stopped him when he sidled into the trees as if he merely needed to relieve himself. He did see Crow glancing nervously at him as he went, as if afraid of being left alone. The binding twinged in his chest.

He walked into the trees until he was a good distance from the camp, and then faded. He circled around before moving back toward the camp, his feet silent in the snow. The footprints he left were unfortunate, but unavoidable.

Thilo had stopped jogging and was hurriedly putting his clothes back on. None of the bandits were looking in Vaara’s direction. He crept toward the cluster of tents behind the fire, and peered inside one of them. There was a bedroll, a small pack, and little else. He moved on.

He needed a weapon. A spare sword. A kitchen knife, maybe. Even a big stick would be better than nothing.

He moved toward the next tent and stopped when he heard a low voice.

“...say we take her now. I don’t want to give her a chance to do to the rest of us what she just did to Thilo.”

Vaara dropped low to the ground in the shadow of the tent. Around the corner, he could just see Garros and one of the other men standing beneath a tree, out of hearing range from the fire.

“You sure this is worth it?” the other man said.

“She’s Ashara,” Garros said. “Do you know how difficult it is to find one in Ardani? She’s worth a fortune.”

“What about that man she works for?”

“He won’t know who took her, will he?

A pause. “How do we fight her?”

“She has no power unless you touch her. Keep your gloves on when you hold her, and she’s just an ordinary woman.”

“And the night elf?”

“You’re worried about that skinny bastard?” Garros said.

The other one shrugged, nervous. “He’s a night elf.”

“I’ll take care of him.”

“Should we take him, too?”

Garros shook his head. “Night elves don’t sell. No one wants to deal with them. They’re untrainable. Not worth the trouble.”

“Then kill him?”

“Yeah.”

Vaara suppressed a sigh.Fuck, he mouthed silently.

The binding was already squeezing in his arm and chest. It wanted to protect her. It would not allow him to make his escape without her.

He slipped away from the tents and back into the woods, following his own footprints toward the fire.

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