“Last time we did it your way,” Demaria said. “It didn’t go so well, as I remember.”

“It went well enough. We have the egg and we got the coin off that fellow with the earing.”

“How’s your head?”

Merek rubbed the spot where he’d been punched. The soreness was fading, but he saw her point. “Alright, so we do things your way, the elven way. Whatever that may be.”

Demaria peeked around the brush. Merek did, too. The hovership wasn’t far away. It’s bright oak planks and rippling cotton sails were hard to miss. It was hard to see the men, though. They were standing somewhere off to the left, putting up a road block. He imagined they had spiked wood set into the ground to discourage a charging horse or wagon.

“Subterfuge, that's the way the East Shore elves operate, Merek. We’ll use the hovership as a distraction. Cut the lines tying it down and the hoverstones on the bottom of the ship will float it away.”

“The men will try to stop it from floating off and we’ll be able to slip past the checkpoint, leaving everyone unharmed.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I prefer stealing the hovership. It would sure make our ride to the East Shore easier.”

“The easier way is not always the better way.”

“Rhetorical nonsense.”

“Maybe. But its the way of my people, Merek. Besides, hoverships are easy to spot from the above and below. This way we’ll stay hidden beneath the forest.”

Merek nodded to the ship. “So, how do we proceed, Miss Elf.”

She rolled her eyes but then looked at the boat quizzically. “One of us charges on horse and cuts the mooring. The other goes through the checkpoint when the men run over to try to grab the hovership.”

“Who’s charging.”

“I have to do it. Should something happen to me...”

“If something happens to you, the chances are good that something will happen to me, too. I’ll be charging a picket line with no distraction to hold the men’s attention.”

“True, but you have the egg, and as I’ve explained, I cannot possess it. Only watch over it.”

“Yeah, I’m still not clear as to why that is.”

She shrugged. His puzzlement did not seem to matter to her. Elves, he thought. Just met them and I'm already not sure I like them. “Shall we go?”

“Lets.”

He watched Demaria sneak off into the bushes, her blonde hair whisps of broom straw sweeping behind her. He trucked his tongue between his teeth and shook his head. He meant to get answers after this was over. This, meaning getting through the barricade. He wasn’t so sure he wanted to reach the East Shore without knowing who this elf was or what the other elves wanted. It occurred to him that he’d been less suspicious than normal. Usually, he was confident in his abilities and so wasn’t too bothered by other people from either three lands. But after seeing what Demaria did back at the Inn--shouldn’t he be even a little concerned? He thought so. Then why wasn’t he? He didn’t really know.

A spell?

He got on his horse and clicked at it. It snorted, unhappily, but got back on the main road. He spurred it towards the barricade, which was just around the bend.

He didn’t think elves casted spells. He didn't even think spells were real, just stories made up to scare children, witches and all that. Were there truth to those stories? After all, he thought elves were a myth and look at where he was now. Still...he'd never seen a woman accused of being a witch without some kind of politics in the background, scheming or some kind broken religious taboo. He'd had to put a stop to a few...rituals, they called it...to cleanse a witch. Burn them at the stake and if they're witches, they won't burn, but if they're not witches, they'll burn and meet the Fates in the afterlife. Not his favorite line of argumentation. He'd never heard of anyone surviving that--but then, if I witch was real and didn't burn, maybe you wouldn't hear about it. She'd want revenge for being tied to the stake in the first place, wouldn't she? Merek snorted. Some of the things that went on in the Flatlands he couldn't explain. But what was that thing around Demaria's neck that did...whatever it did. Kept her alive. What was that? An enchantment? What was the difference. Was there a difference? He shrugged and ducked down, putting his chest to the horse's neck. He'd ask Demaria about that later, too.

His horse charged the barricade.

It was like he thought. The barricade was a fence with a bunch of wooden spikes sticking out of it. There were two, one on the left and right side, with just enough space in the middle for a horse to pass through. Men stood on either side to block the way around, and the middle was guarded, too. Or it was. Currently guards were shouting and sprinting, their armor clattering and boots falling heavy onto the ground.

His horse blew past the barricade. He laughed out loud as he went. A few guards tried to double back, diving as though they he was a child-aged thief trying to duck away. It was sad. But he looked to the right and saw why, and of course it was Demaria, who had cut the ties to the hovership. The ship was floating off the Flatlands. Men were jumping, trying desperately to grab the ropes that had tethered it to the ground. Hoverships were expensive. The men had the Jorbert sigil on their chests and flew their colors. If they lost the hovership, Merek knew they’d pay in more than one way for it.

Demaria he didn’t see at first, but as he rode a little ways down the path and turned back--making sure he was well enough away from the men--he saw her peek out from the bushes, her tongue between her lips, off to the side. He reached out and put something down the neck of one man’s armor. That man slapped at like an insect had skittered under his tunic. Then Merek marveled as the man started to float off the ground. A hoverstone, he thought. She put a small hoverstone into his armor and--

Fresh yelps from the men. Some turned their attention from the hovership towards the guard, grasping at his knees to keep him from rising higher. Demaria leaned out and got another one from another angle. He started to lift off the ground, too.

A few seconds later, he heard a whinny and then galloping hooves. Demaria sped through the barricade and joined Merek’s side. One man was floating seven feet off the ground by then; the other men flailed as they jumped for him. The hovership was twenty feet overhead, rising fast. “How high will the men float?” He asked wearily. “They won’t just...”

“Float into the sky forever?” She shook her head. “No. Those hoverstones were little. Ten feet at most. Easily retrievable by ship--or climbing a tree.”

“And the ship?”

“It could float up to the same level as Frostfight’s hoverstone, I suppose. That’s if not one comes for it. And someone will. Its sails are Jorbert colors, red. That won’t go unnoticed.”

“Neither will we, if we stay here, chatting.”

“Lead the way, then.”

They rode until the men were long behind them.

Merek felt that was too easy, and what was too easy was often paid for later, somehow. He glanced at Demaria and spoke over the wind in his ears. “What can I expect when I meet the elves of the East Shore?” He leaned over in his saddle. “And why can’t you carry the egg?”