"They stayed aboard the ships the whole time and never came ashore. She probably didn't see them!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.
"Good! Good! As long as Mother didn't see them!" Sylvanas said.
"What's wrong?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk asked.
"Mother must have come here on some assignment from the Silvermoon Council!" Sylvanas's eyes darted about. "Normally, when she comes home, she goes to Windrunner Village or Windrunner Spire. But this time she came to Shalandis Isle, so something must be going on."
"Could your work have been too unconvincing? Maybe someone discovered that you dumped the troll prisoners near the villages and reported you to Silvermoon City!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk asked.
"No! Definitely not! We were very discreet about that!" Sylvanas said, shaking her head.
"Then what could it be?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk asked with a frown.
"Forget it! If we can't figure it out, let's leave it for now." As Sylvanas spoke, she found a military map of southern Eversong Woods in Quel'Thalas and spread it across the table with both hands. Then she took two small square map weights and set them on it to keep it from curling up.
Yu Lin Bloodhawk saw that, besides the small red dots densely scattered across large areas of the map, there were also four or five large circles.
"These circles mark relatively concentrated settlements of elf commoners. Most of these elves are subjects of the lords they each follow. You don't need to concern yourself with them.
"But these little red dots are elf commoners living scattered throughout the southern forest. They're spread far apart, sometimes a single household, sometimes three or five households living together. Most are free folk, but they refuse to choose a noble to follow or a territory to settle in, so they live scattered across remote,