Again Rynna sighed. "Yet no matter how well laid our plans, still there were casualties. Finally we-" Abruptly Rynna stopped before a hallway door. "Oh, here we are."

Rynna reached up and slipped the latchstring. "You can bunk in here," she said, pushing open the panel to reveal a small room, small for a Human or Elf, that is, but quite adequate for Warrows.

"These used to be Elven monks' cells, I am told," said Rynna, stepping inward, Tip and Beau following. "They worshipped someone called the Great Creator."

"We've heard of the Great Creator," said Tip. "-But go on with your tale."

"Oh, that. There's little more. When we were driven into the woods, we knew that we would need help in the destruction of the Horde, and so we came here. -Say, is that a lute?"

Tip nodded as he placed the instrument in its casings on one of the two bunks.

Rynna smiled at him. "I play a pennywhistle and I know quite a few tunes. Do you think we can make music together?"

Beau laughed and dropped his bedroll on a locker at the foot of his bunk.

"O-o-oh, yes," said Tip. "Though I don't know very many songs."

"I'll teach you some then… but later. For now we've got to get to the war room. Silverleaf awaits."

Silverleaf shook his head, then passed on the pewter token to the tall, black-haired Lian. "What dost thou think, Aravan? Canst thou sense any peril?"

Setting aside his crystal-bladed spear, Aravan took the disk and examined it, his sapphire-blue eyes full of curiosity. After a moment he shook his head. "Nay, Silverleaf, no peril do I sense." He frowned. "It seems nought more than a plain pewter coin minted with a hole in it, like many found throughout the world, though this has no stamp of the realm where it was struck. As to why Blaine would send such unto Agron…" Aravan shrugged and held out the token to a giant of a man, fully ten or twelve inches taller than Aravan's own considerable six-foot height. "Urel?"

Before the big man reached for the coin, he looked at Aravan. "Your stone?"

Aravan touched a small blue stone on a thong ' round his neck. "As I said, Urel, I sense no harm. Yet Tarquin's gift does not warn against all peril, and so as to the token I cannot say."

Somewhat assured, the brown-haired, brown-eyed Baeran took the coin. "I do not think that Blaine would send something of peril unto Agron. After all, they were fast friends when my father taught them the ways of the woods."

"The ways of the woods?" asked Beau.

"Aye. Kings oft send their children to the Baeron to learn the ways of the land and to learn to husband its wealth. 'Tis a manner of teaching young Princes of the keeping of the world."

Urel frowned at the pewter disk, then muttering, "Commander," he gave it over to Rynna, who held out her hand, tiny when compared to the Baeran's.

"Commander?" said Beau, looking at Rynna.

"Aye," replied Silverleaf. "Ryn leads the Waerlinga on our raiding forays."

"And better scouts we could not ask," added Aravan.

Beau's gaze flew wide, but Ryn looked up from the coin at Tip and closed one eye in a wink.

And Tipperton blushed and looked away, looked at Urel, and the big man rumbled, "If I were you, wee one, I would have a Mage examine that coin at first chance."

Now it was Tip's eyes that widened, and he glanced from Urel to the token. "Mage?"

Urel nodded, and glanced at Aravan's amulet and then at Aravan's spear, with its dark crystal and the long black shaft, the weapon nearly eight feet overall in length. "It could hold some kind of charm."

"Charm? M-magic? -Oh, Rynna, perhaps you ought not to handle it." Tip reached out.

She laughed her silvery laugh and tossed the disk and thong in the air and caught it. Then she sobered when she saw how serious he was. "Oh, Tipperton, I don't think it carries peril. I mean, you've told us your tale, and it seems you've borne it many a day without coming to harm."

Tip frowned. "I don't know about that, Ryn. I mean, we, Beau and I, well, ever since we got hold of this coin, we've nearly been killed a goodly number of times."

"Say," piped up Beau, "you don't think it attracts peril to the holder, do you now?"

Ryn frowned at the token, then smiled. "Oh, I think not, for you've also met up with many a good friend as well- those in Arden Vale and Darda Galion and elsewhere- Loric, Phais, Silverleaf, Aravan, Urel, the Dwarves in Annory, and many others"-she looked at Tipperton with her golden eyes-"me…"

At her gaze, Tip felt his heart leap.

"Lor', Beau, but she's the most beautiful damman I've ever seen."

"Bucco, she's the only damman you've ever seen."

Tip frowned, but then his smile beamed forth again. "You're forgetting my dam."

"I thought you told me you could but barely remember her."

"Well, I did," snapped Tip. "I mean, that's right. Yet I just wanted to, to-"

"You just wanted to show my words false, eh?" said Beau, grinning. "Well, here's what I'll concede: she's one of two female Warrows you've seen. Yet even with all your vast experience, bucco, I will tell you this about Rynna: I've never seen a damman in the Bosky more comely, and that's saying some. And she can really shoot an arrow."

"Oh, but that's not all, Beau. She's witty and clever and has got a temper and-"

A soft tap came on the door.

Tip opened it to find Ryn standing with a tin whistle in hand, her amber-gold eyes aglitter. "Take up your lute, Tipperton. We'll go to the battlements after we eat and play a tune or two."

Of the songs Rynna taught him that night, the second was a simple but sad tune: "The Waiting Maiden."

And when they had played it through several times, Tipperton gaining in mastery, Rynna asked, "Um, Tipperton, do you have anyone waiting for you back home?"

Tip frowned over the silver frets and set his fingers to play the most difficult chord in the tune. "Unh-uh," he muttered, yet concentrating on barring and placement. "No one." Then he struck the chord, followed quickly by a fingered progression, and silver notes cascaded forth as Rynna laughed gaily. When the last of the notes faded to silence, he looked up smiling to find Rynna smiling back.

"Now let me teach you a more lively tune," she said, picking up her penny whistle, "and I'll teach you the words as well."

And so they played and sang, as a gibbous moon rode among clouds across slashes of starry sky, while warders atop the battlements paced their rounds and smiled.

Over the next seven days, as they waited for reports on the location of the eastward Horde, although Beau met the remaining Springwater Warrows-buccen all, but for Ryn-and many of the Baeron and Elves, he saw little of Loric and Phais, off in their privacy. He saw little of Tipperton, too, and when he did espy the buccan, Rynna was ever at his side, those two walking about as if they were alone in a bubble, Tipperton meeting other buccen and Lian and men, yet seeming to have time only for the damman, and she seeming to have eyes only for him.

"Canoodling," Beau muttered, grinning as he watched them stroll by, oblivious to all others, the buccan using a word his Aunt Rose had taught him-"Canoodling, indeed"-yet Beau had seen how thunderstruck Tip was, not that she wasn't stricken likewise. Even so, they both had sworn missions to fulfill: Tip to deliver a small pewter coin; Rynna to command the Warrows on their frequent forays, as became all too apparent -For on the eve of that seventh day in Caer Lindor, word came that Foul Folk roamed along this side of the Argon, somewhere above Olorin Isle. And hastily a warband was assembled by Silverleaf, of Elves and men and Waer-linga, Rynna in command of the scouts.

And they rode out in the night, heading westward through Darda Erynian-Warrows upon ponies, Elves and men upon horses, Silverleaf in the lead, his bow of white horn in hand. And Tip stood on the battlements above and watched by the glimmering light of the stars as Ryn rode out from the caer and across the bridge and into the woods beyond, she looking back over her shoulder and up, letting her pony find the way.