| 1 |  | Hawk hates Greylone, thinking he is trying to get control over Windblade as if he has some hidden motive. Purebreeze doesn't think so. In a woodelf cabin, Greylone has healed Bran, Turo, and the other two wounded elves. The other four are paralyzed by the darts. Greylone and Windy combined, revive the others. Cloudshadow has a mustard haired elf in a red loin cloth tied up. His friends in the tribe of forest elves were to stop Hawk. His tribe is in her dungeons. She drops his tied up form off the castle tower. As they climb up the rocks to Cloudshadow's castle, Greylone tells Hawk a story: Secret Island is where the white haired elves went after the Great War. There, they created 13 Elfheimbane to protect 13 white haired elves who were sent into the world as babes with their Elfheimbane guardians and bred within the heart of the black hairs is the code of the warriors, to fight to the last. The last pair will inherit the crown of the white hairs and lead them back to the world. Hawk doubts it. Greylone tells them Springstorm, a slaver, was going to bring Hawk's head to the Queen for a reward. At first, it was true, Springstorm admits but not anymore. Purebreeze and Hawk give Springstorm the cold shoulder. Turo puts his arm around Windy when the white haired, freckled boy—elf worries about Hawk and Greylone fighting all the time and how the two hate each other. Bran believes Greylone is nothing but trouble and calls Turo and Windy children. Windy says he can be so cruel but Turo says he is just trying to impress everyone. Springstorm notes to Hawk that bones they find look as if they have been eaten. Two blond elf boys smell something rotten. A Srith spears one of them in the lower stomach and far out his back, dangling him over a ledge. The other is grabbed up and tossed (and apparently slammed so hard he dies) as Hawk and Springstorm attack the Srith——but there are two of them. Hawk, Purebreeze, and Springstorm all hit one in the belly. Cloudshadow tells her demon man that Greylone has used Hawk and Windblade to get to her. If she perishes, her power would pass into Greylone. There are elf boys of the tribe in gray metal shoulder harnesses with a piece running down their front and back, a kind of metal thong in front and back, the rest of their bodies are naked. Worm creatures in the full helmet are placed over the attachments: the things will crawl into their brains and make them able to command. The others with Hawk and Greylone still at odds a bit, get the doors open to Cloudshadow's. Greeting them are an army of metal attachment wearing naked tribe elf—boys! One of the blond page boys gets trampled over by the army. The others hide, Windy spraining his ankle. Hawk stays with him, "Then we die together." Springstorm turns, "Like blazes you do." Springstorm smashes a path through the tribe, who run straight———off the cliff. Hawk tells Springstorm he was wrong about him. Springstorm takes a helmet off one of the tribe boys and worms crawl out. Cloudshadow arrives and turns into a fire—bird, then a giant, towering snake headed demon lizard with pointed tail!
By Barry Blair, inks: Craig Taillefer. |