The Gambler's Fortune

While a charming song, this favorite of Forest minstrels shows indisputably that however foreign that race may seem to us, we all give due reverence to the same gods.

The Great Forest, 13th of Aft-Spring

My thanks for a superb meal.” Sorgrad bowed to Almiar with consummate grace, the sweep of his velvet-clad arm defying the mud staining the amber fabric. The doublet glowed richly as the setting sun filtered through the trees.

“You are entirely welcome,” she replied, a little bemused.

“It takes no more than a good cook to satisfy hunger, but to delight the palate, that is the work of an artist.” He sounded like one of the Tormalin lordlings Ryshad must be trailing after and I stifled a grin. I’d known ’Gren and Sorgrad in the days when they owned three pairs of breeches, three shirts, two jerkins and a threadbare cloak between them.

“Yes, thank you.” I looked at the applewood bowl I was holding. “Can I help you clear away?”

“No,” Almiar took the bowl from me. “If I invite you to eat at my hearth, I do not expect you to work for the meal.”

I smiled at her; that was a civilized custom as far as I was concerned. “I want to check on Zenela. I’ll see you two back at the—”

“Roundhouse,” Almiar supplied, “sura, in the blood tongue.” She stacked the bowls inside a larger one that had held a mix of green leaves, some familiar to me, others strange but all palatable enough. An earthenware pot had proved to contain the shredded meat of an old hare, well flavored with herbs and cooked slow and solid, covered with a succulent layer of fat. My mother at her most censorious couldn’t have criticized the cook for sending that up to table. I didn’t think they ate that richly all the time, though; all these Folk looked as if they went a few meals short of a full belly as a rule.

We walked toward our own sura, other circles of Folk eating by the doorways to their homes. I wondered what the plural of the word might be. Would that signify the settlement as a whole? I knew precious little of these Folk whose blood I supposedly shared, didn’t I?

’Gren was still chewing on a piece of flatbread. “I don’t reckon to eat leaves, not as a rule.”

I grinned at him. “You’d better get used to it hereabouts.”

Sorgrad was studying the sura closest to our own. “How long do you suppose they’ve been settled here? That hare had been hung properly for one thing.”

I looked at the beaten earth between the houses and the lack of fallen wood beneath the nearest trees. “Long enough to be foraging farther afield for fuel.”

Sorgrad shrugged. “So, what now? Do you want to pursue this business with the songs some more?” I’d told them both of my earlier experiences.

“Frue’s still got the book and I think we owe him the time to get all he wants from it. We wouldn’t be getting this kind of hospitality without him.” I rubbed a hand over my hair, feeling mud still in it. “I reckon we need to find the nearest inn, don’t you? Get ourselves a game going and work out who’s going to be most usefully indiscreet in their cups?”

“And that inn would be, what, a couple of handful days’ walk back that way?” Sorgrad and I shared a rueful smile.

“Everyone’s friendly enough. Given a few more days, I’d say we could start asking a few more pointed questions.” I looked around at the little dwellings, doors open to any who might care to enter. The Folk seemed mighty trusting, I mused. Or was it just that they had nothing worth stealing? Their jewelry was valuable enough but they looked to keep that secure around hands and necks. “Everything the wizards have learned says aetheric magic came from the ancient races.”

“Who are you trying to convince?” asked ’Gren lightly.

As we passed Orial’s threshold, Frue emerged followed by a drift of steam redolent of thyme.

“How’s Zenela?” ’Gren asked a breath ahead of me.

“Orial thinks she will do well enough,” Frue said cheerfully. He fell in beside us and pulled up the deerskin that covered our doorway. “Did anyone rescue Zenela’s bag?”

We all shook our heads. “The river claimed that.” I ducked inside and poked at the little fire, laying on more sticks to give us both warmth and light. At least the Folk had been building these shelters long enough to master ventilation for their fires; I’d half expected we’d be smoked like eels on a stick.

“What does the lass want?” asked Sorgrad.

“Jewelry,” said Frue with some reluctance.

“Jewelry?” I echoed incredulous. “The girl gets half drowned, she’s all wrapped up in Drianon only knows what stinking poultice, and she wants to look her best in case anyone comes calling?”

“There’s a lot more to it than that,” Frue said with some harshness. “As you would know if you had any knowledge of the Folk to go with your blood.”

“There’s no call for that,” said Sorgrad sharply.

“No, it’s fair comment.” I hid an unexpected pang at the minstrel’s words. “What does she need jewelry for?”

The firelight cast harsh shadows from Frue’s face. “Zenela has a fancy to live among the Folk awhile.”

“But she’s not Forest blood,” said Sorgrad doubtfully.

“That’s no bar.” Frue’s eyes were hidden in the gloom but he sounded a little shame-faced. “She’s taken a fancy to the ballads and tales, especially the more romantic ones.”

The more fool her. I kept my face noncommittal. Another silly girl looking for love in all the wrong places was no concern of mine. “And the jewelry?”

“It’s customary among the Folk for men to give the women they, ah, favor, some token of gold or silver.” Frue’s delicacy was belied by his grin, teeth bright in the firelight. “For a woman to wear her jewelry signifies she is open to offers, and it’s generally reckoned that the more experience a woman has, the better a wife she’ll make.”

’Gren grinned lasciviously. “So what’s the going rate for a good favoring?”

“You outdwellers don’t understand, do you?” Frue shook his head. “Never mind.”

I wondered what the women were making of the fact that I wasn’t wearing any visible jewelry. “I think we might be able to come up with something.” I shot a meaningful glance at ’Gren.

Frue nodded without expectation. “Where’s Usara?”

“He was invited to supper with Ravin,” I explained. “Have you eaten?”

Frue nodded. “With Orial. You know you have to repay these courtesies at your own hearth?”

So that was the catch in all this cheerful open-handedness. “You’d better give it some thought,” I said to Sorgrad.

“What makes you think I’ll be cooking?” he retorted.

“You’re the one tells me I can’t boil water without putting out the fire,” I pointed out.

Frue stood up. “I want to see Ravin myself.” He left, picking up his lute from the pile of cheerful blankets we’d been given from various neighbors.

“See you later.” I turned to ’Gren. “Right, what did we get off those pony-boys that might get Zenela noticed by some handsome young buck out to try his horns?”

’Gren opened his shirt, untied a length of linen from around his waist and unrolled it. “I don’t know where they’d been hunting but the pickings had been rich enough.”

I held a small brooch set with amethyst closer to the firelight. “Wrede work, do you think?” I passed it to Sorgrad, who’s always had the edge on me over jewelry.

“Almost certainly. I’d say they’d been working the Lake Road.” Sorgrad was studying a necklace. “Coming down from Bytarne maybe. This is Lakeland-made, and so’s that leaf-pattern ring.”

I picked up the silver ring. ‘This would be about Zenela’s size. Since we had no real work to come by this, why not let her have a couple of pieces?”

“Give me one good reason, beyond the obvious,” challenged ’Gren.

“Sorgren! The girl’s ailing and stinking of garlic. Anyway, you said you weren’t interested,” I reminded him.

“That was when she was preening herself silly,” countered ’Gren, bright-eyed. “The boot’s on the other foot now.”

“We want to be on good terms with these people,” I pointed out. “If we’re to learn anything to turn to coin and advantage.”

“We help Livak get inside D’Olbriot’s favor, he’ll convince Draximal to call off his hounds.” Sorgrad fixed his brother with a stern eye.

“You don’t want to spend the next five years of your life rusticating in Solura, do you?” I hoped a noble refusal wouldn’t make a liar out of me. Ryshad would be best placed to broach such a topic, I decided. He could speak to Esquire Camarl, who was definitely edging ahead of the pack nosing around for favor with the Head of their House.

’Gren pretended to consider it. “No, I prefer my towns bigger and closer together and my women smaller and more open-minded.”

“You can look into attitudes hereabouts, with a few tokens of your esteem to offer,” Sorgrad pointed out.

’Gren laughed. “So how are we splitting this? A few bits for the lass and the rest three ways? I take it our mage doesn’t bother with trifles like this?”

“I don’t think he needs to be worried with such things,” I agreed.

Sorgrad rapidly sorted the spoils into three piles evenly matched for value and content. He set aside a gold necklace, the leaf-pattern ring and a copper bangle set with polished amber. “Zenela can have those.”

“That’s probably crediting her with more experience than she can boast,” I commented.

“Miaow.” Sorgrad grinned at me.

I scooped up my own portion and shoved it hastily in a pocket as steps outside brought a shadow to the threshold.

Usara lifted the door drape. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Did you have a good meal?” I adjusted my shirt casually to conceal the new fullness to my jerkin.

“Yes, very pleasant.” Usara was looking at us all with faint suspicion.

“Can you cook?” demanded Sorgrad, effectively quelling any question. “Does your magic extend to mundane tasks?”

“It can do, but my talents aren’t primarily with fire and its associated skills,” Usara replied cautiously.

“Are you saying fire mages are good cooks?” I interrupted, intrigued.

“As a rule,” Usara nodded.

“Then you’re in charge when we come to pay these folk back for the meals they’ve given us,” said Sorgrad firmly.

’Gren got up. “I’ll go and call on Zenela,” he said with a predatory smile and left.

“It’s her own fault for playing the unattainable fair maiden,” observed Sorgrad. “Tell ’Gren he can’t have something and that only makes him want it the more. He’s just been waiting for a chance to get her off guard.”

“True enough,” I admitted.

“So, what were you talking about just now?” Usara looked from me to Sorgrad.

“Did you know that Forest girls expect jewelry in return for their favors?” I asked him.

“Oh, no, I didn’t know that.” A blush was visible on Usara’s high cheekbones even in the firelight. He’d never have made a living from gambling, with that coloring to give him away so easily.

Sorgrad saw something I didn’t. “Have you been getting the eye from one?”

“A couple of the younger women have expressed interest in my magic.” Usara tried and failed to look unconcerned.

“Your magic?” repeated Sorgrad with delicate skepticism.

“That’s right.” Usara cleared his throat. “They seem quite intrigued by it, not like those mistrusting peasants.” That clearly still rankled with the mage.

Sorgrad tossed over a necklace of silver interlaced with diamond-shaped links, which the mage caught with a surprised reflex. “Something to brighten a girl’s eyes with, when you’ve given her a taste of your talents.” His meaning was as obvious as a pig in a priest’s robe.

“I don’t make a habit of casual conquests, thanks all the same,” replied Usara frostily.

“Do you have someone back in Hadrumal or—” I hesitated, “—are your tastes the same as Shiv’s?”

“I beg your pardon?” Usara looked startled. “No, no, my—tastes—are for women, when I choose to indulge them. And no, I have no particular understanding with anyone, not that I see that is any of your business.”

I raised a hand. “I didn’t mean to offend.”

“The disciplines of study in Hadrumal leave little time for indulging other appetites.” Usara tried to look forbidding but just sounded prissy.

“And it’s a small town so you don’t foul your own doorstep?” Sorgrad hazarded with a grin. “Why not enjoy yourself here while you’ve got the chance. Some girl might share what she knows, if you show her—your wizardry.” He got up and brushed at a stain on the front of his doublet. “If I can make myself presentable, I’ll go and see if these Folk are as handy with the runes as rumor claims.”

I looked at Usara as Sorgrad left. “Where did you get to this afternoon?”

“I was talking with Ravin, among others.” The mage sighed. “We’ve got Folk here from a handful or more distinct lineages, did you know that? This isn’t family in the usual sense of the word. These people might settle for the winter somewhere, different groups deciding to work together for a season or so. Come the spring, they split up, make new alliances, and move on. Some stay with their blood kin, others join troops traveling any amount of distance. None of them have any notion of a permanent home. Some of these Folk have been with Ravin for years, others joined him last autumn, this spring, even within the last few days.”

“Life is growth and change; bud, blossom and fruit.” Some long-ago words of my father came to me and before I realized I had spoken them aloud. “Sorry. Your point?”

“I really don’t see how you can expect to learn anything of value here,” he said dubiously. “There’s no continuity, of kinship or custom or history from what I can make out. I sat with Ravin and three others for most of the afternoon, discussing floods and such hereabouts. Even where they agreed on some particular incident, they all had a different version of events. How are we to tell what are additions or omissions, even completely false elements in such a story?”

“We’re not here to write a new chapter for the Annals of Col,” I reminded him. “We’re looking for any lore hidden in the songs.” I hid my own doubts firmly beneath an optimistic face.

“Have you found anyone to translate the pieces Frue failed with?” He sighed again. “From what I am seeing, these Folk travel so widely the current generation barely even speak their own tongue.”

“The older ones have been helpful,” I countered. “I’m not about to give up just yet.”

“There are precious few here beyond their second generation,” commented Usara with a shake of his head. “Dwelling in the wildwood means short measure in the cup of life from Misaen. If there are any wise ancients sitting over mysteries of lost magic in hidden glades, I’ll eat that song book.”

“Not all wisdom and learning has to be set down with ink and shut up in libraries,” I told him firmly. “If you make up your mind you’re going to find nothing, that’s just what you’ll do. You never know; the only certainties in this life are sunrise, sunset and Saedrin’s door at the end of it.”

The more defeated the mage sounded, the more determined I became to prove him wrong. “I’m going to see if Sorgrad’s found a game worth a gamble.”

Leaving the sura, I looked around the campground. Small children were being rounded up for bed, and some adults already sat by fires handily placed to rebuke small faces peering around door curtains with hopeful requests. A group of tired women relaxed over drink and conversation, needlework laid aside now that the light had failed. A knot of men with heads more white than copper were sitting by a rack of spears, expansive gestures doubtless recounting some notable escapade of youth.

It was a cozy scene and I felt utterly out of place. Fleeing stifling domesticity in Vanam and more recently in Zyoutessela, I’d hardly expected to find it in the wildwood. What of the songs my father taught me, of high adventure, untamed spirits, mischief and merriment pursued in equal measure? What of the ancient Artifice I’d been so certain would be at the root of such tales? Had I talked the others into chasing shades in the fog?

I set my jaw. I’d better find out and if so, we’d move on. Nor was there any profit in getting all regretful because the reality of life among the Folk didn’t match up to my idle fancies. I’d never pined over leaving Vanam behind so I wasn’t about to start hankering after a life I’d never even known. I looked around for the good-looking lad with the twisted necklace. He was nowhere to be seen, nor were his cheerful fellows. Nor were the brightly decorated girls who’d been carrying wood and water with gossip and flirtatious glances.

A snatch of music drifted along on a lazy evening breeze. I followed it into the darkness of the night-time Forest and smiled with faint humor. At least my Forest blood gave me better night-sight than the outdwellers, one useful legacy from my father in a traveling life. Beyond a gentle rise in the land, I saw a golden glow of firelight caged in a complex ring of tree trunks and picked my way cautiously toward it.

Alone in the gloom, I fingered my share of the raiders’ booty. I could deck myself out with choice enough pieces to reflect my conquests, but what would that achieve? I’d just jingle like a festival rattle and I wasn’t open to offers, was I?

I pulled out the leather thong I wear around my neck and weighed the rings on it in one hand. One gold ring was a boring piece, won from a particularly stupid cousin of Camarl at Solstice, nothing beyond a weight of sound metal to buy me out of trouble that I couldn’t talk my way clear of. The other was a narrow band of red gold, delicate beading on either edge, finely incised with the stylized wave patterns that the southern Tormalin are so fond of. Ryshad’s Solstice gift to me.

My conceit was hardly flattered by these people thinking Usara was the best I could attract, but if I wore this, as a remembrance of Ryshad, no one here would know what it signified. I hid the rings back beneath my shirt and stowed the other jewelry in my purse. Let these Folk think what they like about me; I had more important fish to fry.

The leaf mold of the Forest floor yielded to a soft carpet of fallen brown needles and the green spring undergrowth no longer brushed my legs. Moss clung to gnarled and twisted roots that grasped the swell of the earth like ancient fingers and I put one hand on the rough and flaky bark of a yew tree. This was a younger tree, upright and firm, heartwood strong and resilient. I moved closer to the light, where the trees bent beneath the weight of years, split to empty hearts where time and decay had eaten the dead wood away. But the outer shells grew strong and vigorous, new wood flowing like clay over the old. The firelight was brighter now, and I heard voices and laughter.

In the center of the grove was the oldest tree, a stumpy half-circle, deep fissures in the hollow wood, branches arching outward to curve back down to the soft layer of needles. Some were rooting themselves afresh to send out bright shoots, while fallen wood lay dead on either side. The central tree was crowned with spring green, feathery sprays of glossy needles rising from the ancient wood. I breathed in the resinous scent and childhood memory stirred. No, this untamed place bore scant resemblance to the groves maintained and trained for bow staves in the cities of Ensaimin. I’d once asked my mother why the mysterious trees were so strictly fenced, disappointed by her explanation of poisonous berries. Looking at this mighty tree claiming its ground and extending its domain with seedling and branch, I felt my childhood fancy had been justified. Those trees had been fenced to stop them getting loose and driving out the tyranny of stone and brick.

But that was just a child’s notion. For the moment, I’d found what I’d been seeking. Folk sat where fallen branches offered handy seats, or where the living arms of the tree dipped down to offer their embrace. Loose groups around the fire fed it with dead wood granted by the great tree and her lesser daughters. The flames burned bright yellow, white at their core, crackling and shifting like a living thing.

As I was wondering how to insinuate myself into the gathering, one of those closest looked around and I recognized the good-looking lad.

“Join us.” He extended a welcoming hand.

“Good evening to you all.” I sat next to him and smiled, friendly and unremarkable, that’s me. Three sets of female eyes examined me for adornment and I was flattered by a hint of disappointment in the men’s gazes.

“You are Livak?” one asked politely. “Of the blood but an outdweller?” His hair and close-trimmed beard looked brown rather than red, though that may have been the light. You could find his face anywhere in eastern Ensaimin, round-jawed with heavy brows, but his vivid green eyes were unmistakably of the Folk.

“That’s right.” I remembered a phrase from an old song. “My father cast his dreams upon the wind and followed them. He was a minstrel and he paused a while to sing for my mother who lived in a city of Ensaimin.” Who had never taken pleasure in music since his departure. I discarded that sudden, irrelevant thought.

The girl beside him said something that escaped me, her smile so sweet it was probably none too polite.

“I speak little of the tongue of the Folk.” I dimpled some charm at the man.

“Don’t concern yourself. We all learn the tongue of the outdwellers, for trade and travel. Folk who come from far distant can have speech strange to our ears as well,” he smiled back. “I am Parul.”

“I am Salkin,” the good-looking lad with the necklace offered and the rest introduced themselves. Nenad was a skinny youth with a raw-boned face and freckles more affliction than adornment. The girls, sisters with well-formed figures and tightly curling auburn hair, were, from youngest to oldest, Yefri, Gevalla and Rusia. All wore a couple of unremarkable trinkets and discreetly hopeful expressions.

“What are you doing?” A square of leather on the ground had a set of runes spread on it, wooden and each half the length of my hand rather than the finger-joint lengths of bone I carried. Three triangles made of three runes joined to make a large one, creating a fourth in the center, just like a birth sigil.

“Seeing what the fate sticks show us of the future,” one of the girls, Gevalla, giggled.

“How very interesting,” I said slowly.

“Do you do this, beyond the wildwood?” Salkin asked. I could smell the spicy scent of new sweat on his clean body.

“We game with runes, sometimes for coin,” I replied cautiously. “Do you?”

Parul nodded toward a lively circle on the far side of the fire. “Certainly.”

I looked over and saw two bright blond heads among the range of russet and brown. So ’Gren had decided to pursue more promising game than Zenela. That was probably just as well, because I couldn’t see her romantic virginal notions surviving an encounter with him.

“Do the fate sticks show you the truth?” Looking no more than idly curious, my thoughts raced; aetheric magic is a magic of the mind. I’ve seen enough fortune-tellers to know the charlatans deduce four parts from five in any prediction from clothing or accent or demeanor, but did the Folk somehow hold the missing fifth? Perhaps there was some Artifice hidden in the wildwood. I held my excitement firmly in check but wondered where I might find a less precious book for Usara to choke down.

“If you truly want to know, the runes will speak to you.” Rusia took the sticks, fitted the three-sided rods into a larger triangle and tapped their ends level.

“How?” A woman in Col who claims to be Aldabreshin does good business weaving mystery over a spread of colored stones. Her trick is statements so vague they answer any query.

“You can ask particular questions,” Gevalla volunteered, her face eager, “or lay the sticks for a foretelling.”

“Or for a picture of where you are and where you are going,” added Yefri.

“Are they an accurate guide?” I made sure my skepticism didn’t show.

“It depends.” Salkin spread his hands. “Those who trust the sticks are shown truth. For those who doubt, the runes fall without meaning.”

A convenient explanation for errors. “Who lays the sticks?” If the results were to be manipulated, there had to be a guiding hand.

“The seeker,” Yefri said, as if it were obvious.

“Would it work for me?” I asked slowly. “As an out-dweller and unsure of it?”

The two girls looked at Rusia, who rolled a rune stick between her fingers like a professional fixer. “It’s belief that governs the sticks. If you believe, they will speak true. I’ll read them for you if you like.”

“I’m curious,” I said slowly, “and willing to believe. Is that enough?” I let a hint of a challenge edge my words.

Rusia’s eyes shone dark and determined. She rolled the runes between her hands and pulled one free. “This is your birth rune?”

I held the polished yew wood between my hands, each image upright as I turned the three faces. The symbols were more fluidly carved than I was used to but were undeniably the Wellspring, the Harp and the Zephyr. I nodded slowly. “My father told me he drew this rune when I was born, that these are lucky symbols for me.” Could she have learned this from ’Gren or Sorgrad?

“Rusia’s always able to draw someone’s birth rune,” said Yefri with pride.

“Then he was truly of our blood,” commented Salkin. “Only the Folk take a single stick and read the three sides together. Outdwellers have all manner of strange rituals.”

“The Men of the Mountains draw a single rune,” Rusia corrected him with a hint of rebuke.

One chance in nine was not impossible odds. I looked at Rusia and pointed to ’Gren. “You’ve not spoken to him?”

“No, not at all.” She half turned in her seat. “Why?”

“Could you draw his birth rune, read something from it, even though you know nothing of him?”

Rusia nodded, a combative glint in her eye. “A test?”

“Go on, Rusia, we know you can do it,” Gevalla urged. The others all nodded, entirely confident in the girl’s talents.

Rusia took a moment to look thoughtfully at the nine sticks in her hand before taking a deep breath and plucking one from the bundle. “Are these his birth runes?”

“What do you read about him?” I countered.

Rusia pursed her lips. “The Storm is dominant of those three, a strong rune, masculine. He is inclined to temper and to trouble.”

Which could be true of any man, in the right circumstances.

Rusia turned the rune. “Lightning, so he is given to sudden inspiration but—” she hesitated. “A lightning strike can be calamitous, it sets fires and great destruction can result.”

I saw a curious detachment behind her eyes. The others were all intent upon her and I held my tongue. Rusia continued, her gaze fixed on something unseen. “The chime sounds as it is struck, so he has a reputation he does not care to deny or conceal. Striking is violence though—” She broke off. “I need his heavens sign.” She reached for another rune stick and made an inarticulate noise of surprise.

“This isn’t the heavens rune.” Yefri took the stick from her. “How ever did you mispick?”

Rusia colored and reached again but suddenly stayed her hand. “What ruled the heavens at his birth?” she demanded.

“I don’t know.” The question had never come up.

Rusia’s eyes were distant for a moment as she fingered the first stick she had drawn. “This is a rune of the mountains, linked to winds, to noise and disruption. There is something ill-omened—I cannot tell more without knowing his heavens sign.”

The group all turned to look rather dubiously at both brothers, deep in a game with a gang of young men. I walked over to stand at ’Gren’s shoulder. He turned his head briefly to acknowledge me.

“Your birth runes, ’Gren, do you reckon anything to them?” I kept my tone light.

’Gren glanced back to the noisy gambling. “Not beyond claiming that bone if we’re drawing lots.”

“What’s the heavens rune for your sigil?”

“Empty.” ’Gren turned with a wicked grin. “I was born at the dark of both moons.” He opened his eyes wide, white all around the startling blue. “Born to be hanged, that’s what they said.”

“Who said?”

“So did Sandy go off to find a pretty neck for that chain?” Sorgrad spoke over his brother with a malicious grin.

“When I left him he was tucking himself up for the night.” I looked at Sorgrad. “That was a costly gesture you made.”

He grinned in the flickering firelight. “I’d pay twice over in solid coin for that kind of entertainment. And now we know how to drive the mage out of any conversation.” He reached into a pocket and twirled an emerald signet ring on one finger. “What’ll you put up against this if I say some girl has that collar around her neck and Sandy’s got a spring in his step tomorrow morning?”

“No wager.” I shook my head. “Watch that one with the chain bracelets,” I whispered into ’Gren’s ear before returning to Salkin and his friends.

I sat down by the leather square. “He was born under no heaven’s sign, at the dark of both moons, Rusia.”

She muttered something in the Forest tongue and I cursed my lack of the language again. “What does that signify?” I asked.

“It is… ill omened,” Rusia said with a finality that forbade further inquiry.

Was this only superstitious nonsense or some lore shared by the ancient races?

“What could the runes tell you about me?”

She handed me the sticks with a challenge in her eyes. “Lay them as I tell you and we’ll see, shall we? Don’t look at them, don’t choose, just set them down.”

I took the runes from her and ran the smooth wood casually between my fingers. Polished from years of use, as far as I could tell there were none of the minute nicks or hollows that can tell practiced fingers so much more than the eye can see.

Rusia’s eyes held mine. “One first, laid crossways,” she commanded, “then two below it, crossways again and three in a line below that.” I did as I was bid. “The rest, one each at the corners of the triangle. No, pointing outward, like that.”

I sat back. “So, what do they say?”

Rusia picked up the single rune, the first I had laid. She held it up to show me the sign on its base. “You were born under the protection of the sun.”

“True enough,” I admitted, curious to find that I had laid the heavens stick first.

“This second row speaks of your character.” She looked at the two signs set upright beside each other. “Lightning, so you see yourself as creative, the Zephyr, so you consider yourself lucky.” She looked at the reversed runes on the other visible faces of the sticks. “How do other people see you? The Storm suggests they find you difficult, prone to disagreement. The Wellspring? They think you conceal a great deal.”

I smiled at her. She could try reading what I was concealing beneath my cheery unconcern if she liked.

She lifted the sticks to reveal the runes laid face to the leather. “And these speak of your true self. The Chime sounds for resolve, decisiveness. The Harp is a sign of craft, of skill, of cleverness.”

So Rusia was a shrewd judge of character, even on slight acquaintance. And news of newcomers runs around any village like a dog with a bone in its mouth. She’d doubtless been listening to gossip all day.

“What about the rest?” I pointed to the bottom row of three.

“Your mother, yourself and your father,” she said.

“Go on.” We might as well see this through. There might be something to this if Rusia could tell me anything of significance about my parents.

She showed me the Pine, first of the runes set upright and facing me. “Your mother is strong like the tree yet flexible enough to weather a storm.”

I’d certainly seen my grandmother’s anger come down like summer thunder, my mother passive yet ultimately resisting her fury.

“But there’s also adversity there. The Forest,” Rusia frowned as she looked at the next rune along. “That’s for resourcefulness but also for loss, getting lost. Reeds next, for flexibility but also for weakness.”

I kept my face a mask of polite interest, ignoring recollection of my mother’s laments, over being saddled with a minstrel’s bastard and then over her cowardice in not following him. But surely any combination of runes could be interpreted to strike a resonance from any life?

“I’ve heard those traits linked to those signs but plenty of others besides,” I said cautiously. “Tormalins call the Reeds Drianon’s sign for faithfulness in marriage. In Caladhria they signify Arimelin’s whispers carrying dreams.”

“Rusia always knows which aspect applies,” Yefri said, as if surprised I needed to ask. The others all nodded fervent agreement.

Rusia looked at me for a moment before considering the runes on the reverse faces. “For your father, the Wolf, that’s ambition but also hunger unsatisfied. The Oak is strength, vigor in life, but also stubbornness, hollowness. The Salmon, for travel, for fertility.” She smiled a little. “But also for a compulsion overriding all else. We can stop if you like,” she offered.

She knew full well my father had been a traveling musician, there was no ingenuity needed for these so-called insights. I spread my hands. “May as well finish what we’ve started.”

“Very well.” She picked the runes up to look at the hidden symbols on the bottom-most faces. “As their child, you have the Mountain, endurance and vision but also a lonely rune. The Stag, that’s for speed and courage, but can suggest running from things that you fear. The Sea, that’s power, hidden depths, but a lack of direction as well.”

I gave her a quelling look.

“The runes read your birth and family correctly, don’t they?” demanded Gevalla.

I took a slow breath before answering. “Well enough, in some senses.”

“Then let’s see what your future holds.” Salkin shifted his shoulder behind mine, keen to move closer. I smiled, a touch apprehensive, but I could hardly pull out now.

“Not just the future.” Rusia pointed at the three remaining rune sticks, the ones set at angles to the original layout. “What is just past, where you are at present and what is to come.”

Given the bizarre events I’d been caught up in over the past year and a half, any interpretation that even came close might suggest this was more than sideshow chicanery.

“The reversed runes are your recent past,” Rusia explained. “Fire, a new passion, maybe even true love.” She smiled at me and I grinned despite myself. “The Eagle, signs or omens, travel?” I nodded. “The Drum, secrets revealed, a break with something…” She looked uncertain.

I managed to look unconcerned. “I travel a lot, true enough.” Maybe they did have the missing fifth here.

Rusia looked at the three upright runes. “The Ushal…”

“The what?” I queried. “We call that the North Wind.”

“Outdwellers have lost much. Look at the rune, the wind coming off the mountains. It is the Ushal, the cold killing wind that comes off the heights in the cold days of winter.” Rusia looked serious. “Opposite to the Teshal, what you call the Zephyr, the warm wind from the southern seas that brings rain and life.” Her words tailed off, her manner distracted.

“So what does the Ushal mean for my present?” I prompted.

Rusia shook herself a little. “It’s either a destiny or something missing. Are you seeking something? Broom, that’s taking care of something, or maybe a blessing? The Calm, well, that could be a truth, study perhaps?” She looked frankly baffled.

“The mage and I have come to learn of Forest songs,” I offered.

“These are your runes, not his,” she said tartly. Again she fell silent, gazing perplexed at the symbols.

“So what of Livak’s future?” Salkin was sitting so close I guessed he was keen to figure in my immediate fate.

Rusia lifted the runes with reluctant hands. “The Plains. A lifetime, more than that, endlessness, timelessness. Or maybe just an inheritance.” She shrugged. “The Horn, a summoning, important news, but it might be for good or ill, perhaps a warning. The Earth, that’s success, hard work, some grand event.” She was speaking quickly now, running a hand through her hair. “You’ll know better as the moons unfold the seasons, but these are powerful runes, the pattern suggests something important.”

Doubtless I would, certainly it would be easy enough to find truths in such vague generalizations if I went looking for them. But what of her flights of fancy that had landed uncomfortably close to the mark?

Rusia was looking concerned again. “You are going to be moving on, aren’t you? If you’re going to be bringing down a storm on your head, I’d rather you did it somewhere else.” She was absolutely convinced of the truths revealed in the patterns, I realized. So who was she deceiving, herself or me?

“Let me have them.” Gevalla held out her hand. “I’m wondering whether I should travel beyond the wildwood this summer.” She laid six sticks in two rows of three. “The positive signs in the top row are reasons why I should travel, the negative ones below are reasons why I should not,” she explained.

“Is this just for journeys?” I asked.

“Or any question where you are looking for a yes or a no.” Nenad spoke up for the first time. I saw him looking at Gevalla with hope in his eyes and listened to see if he tried to influence her reading of the runes one way or another as the six of them discussed the symbols and their relevance to

Gevalla’s own wishes, her family, what travel might mean for her and for others. Nenad didn’t seem to be pushing any particular course and they all seemed to be taking it very seriously. Rather than try to follow the intense discussion, I drew my own pouch of runes out of a pocket, a shorter set carved in bone in the Caladhrian style, and fingered the little charms.

“You can’t lay a second reading in any one day.” Rusia looked up. “And it won’t work for you anyway, not unless you believe it will.”

I sat and thought for a while longer about the various symbols, the interpretations Rusia had given for them, and did a few calculations on the likelihood of those runes falling in those places and aspect. Then I looked for all the reasons Rusia’s guesswork could be intelligent enough to seem accurate. Did she have more than four-fifths on her side of the scale?

I felt suddenly tired, unsettled by memories of years and people long since discarded. “Thank you for sharing your skills,” I smiled at Rusia, “but it’s been a long day. I’ll bid you good night.”

“I’ll walk you back.” Salkin was on his feet, offering me his arm. I avoided meeting Yefri’s chagrined gaze.

I didn’t need the runes to deduce his intentions. As we picked our way through the trees, eyes adjusting to the gloom after the firelight, he took my hand to help me over some fallen wood. Then he put a companionable arm around my shoulders. When I did not object, he slid it down to my waist and drew me closer. The active life of the Forest kept him well muscled and lithe, the skin over his knuckles dry and rough as I laid my hand over his. Cold white moonlight was filtering down to the Forest floor through trees still to come into leaf. It leached all color, leaving ink-black shadows in hard-edged patterns.

Salkin stopped and turned to face me, bending his mouth to mine. He kissed me, softly at first, then with rising passion. I savored some unfamiliar spice on his lips and an an-swering heat rose deep within me. Opening my eyes, I saw his were closed, intensity in his face deepening with each breath. He pressed his hips to mine and I felt an urgency to match my own rising inclinations.

I broke away and took a pace backward, laying a hand on his broad chest. Fine auburn hair curled beneath my fingertips in the open neck of his tunic. “I don’t think—”

Salkin clasped my hand and I felt passion drumming beneath the warm slickness of sweat. “No?” His disappointment was evident.

“We’ll be moving on soon,” I said slowly. “I don’t want to leave unfinished business between us, so better not to start it, don’t you agree?”

Despite some of my girlhood escapades, Halcarion graciously decided not to drop a star on my head for that lie, so I smiled winningly at Salkin. “For the present, can we just be friends?”

Hearing myself sound like one of Niello’s less convincing heroines was almost too much. I was glad of the handy shadows hiding my smile. Men of sound character accept being turned down, be it with good or ill grace, but very few, even of the best, will take being laughed at.

Salkin heaved a sigh. “Then I’ll see you back to your threshold,” he said with a glumness that betrayed his youth.

“I can see the settlement fires from here.” I shook my head. “You go back and enjoy yourself. I’m sure Yefri will be glad to see you,” I couldn’t resist adding.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He kissed me with an intent that promised further pursuit and retraced his path to the yew grove.

I walked toward the ring of roundhouses, my spirits absurdly buoyed, but when I arrived back at our sura, there was no one there to share the joke. Where had the wizard gone? Expecting to be disturbed before long, I claimed the softest and prettiest of the blankets and wrapped myself up. But by the time the camp had fallen silent, none of the others had returned and I was feeling a little piqued. No, curiosity and passing fancy are not sufficient reason to take a young man to your bed, even one as tempting as Salkin, I told myself firmly. If I had been irresponsible in the past, no harm had come of it, not to me anyway, but things had changed. Besides, Ryshad had spoiled me for anyone else. Getting a tune out of a second-rate fiddler would only leave me missing him more. I’d found myself better suited with him than any previous bedmate and I had more basis for comparison than most girls would consider respectable, I privately acknowledged. But no amount of moping would shorten the leagues between us, so there was no profit in that.

What about Rusia’s little patter-game? But it wasn’t a patter-game, was it? She certainly believed in what she was saying and so did the others. Was there any significance to that? Was there any significance to the few things she’d said that were close enough to the truth to make me increasingly uncomfortable? Curse ’Gren and Sorgrad both; where were they? Making some girl’s eyes sparkle with a pretty trinket no doubt. I resolutely forced long-shunned memories of childhood, parents and everything else behind me. I was looking to the future, to new opportunities and hopefully sharing them with Ryshad. This was why I was failing to get to sleep in this uncomfortable, drafty, smoke-laden hole after all.

I nearly had myself convinced when unexpected slumber claimed me.

Teyvasoke, 17th of Aft-Spring, Late Afternoon

“What under the sun is that?” demanded Jeirran, astonished.

Keisyl squinted into the sun. “Carts, lowlanders, smoke…” A sound of hammering echoed around the smooth slopes of the valley.

“How dare they!” Teiriol looked around for agreement.

Eirys bent down from her rough-coated gray pony. “Don’t let’s get involved,” she pleaded. “Let’s get to the fess. They’ll be sorting it out, won’t they?”

“If they’ve any mettle in their bones.” Doubt shaded Jeirran’s words.

“Come on.” Keisyl pulled on the bridle of the pack mule he led. It followed him placidly, a string of others coming on behind. Jeirran and Teiriol were a little slower, glaring angrily at the activity they could now see clearly in a fold of land down by a stream. A handful of wagons were drawn up, awnings slung between them. Small figures were busy around a stack of fresh-felled trees, drifts of dust rising from a sawpit and one solitary man astride a massive log stripping bark and branches with an axe. Others were marking the unmistakable lines of a house with pegs and line in the muddied grass.

“Ho, you there!” The hail turned all their heads. A man in rough homespun came over a rise in the ground on a tall bay horse. “Where are you bound?” His tone was courteous but rang with unconscious authority that set Jeirran’s beard bristling.

“Teyvafess,” said Keisyl shortly.

The man shook his head. “What?”

“The fess,” repeated Jeirran with annoyance. “The stronghold, you would say.”

The rider nodded, absently wheeling his horse around. A bow was slung at his shoulder and a full quiver of arrows hung from his saddle. “You’ve no dogs with you?”

“No,” said Keisyl slowly. “Why?”

“We’re running sheep up by the river,” explained the horseman. “I’ll bid you good day.”

“Wait!” Jeirran dropped his lead mule’s reins and stepped forward. “What do you mean, you’re running sheep? On whose authority and what are you building? How dare you fell in these woods?”

The lowlander rode away without answering, cresting the rise and disappearing from view.

“The thrice-cursed sister-whelped—” Jeirran gaped after him.

“Don’t let’s get involved,” repeated Eirys. “The Teyvakin can tell us what is going on.”

“Could they have sold a grazing term to some lowlanders?” asked Keisyl doubtfully.

“With a grant to fell and build?” scoffed Jeirran.

Keisyl yanked on his mule’s halter. “Let’s see what the Teyvakin say.”

Their pace slowed as the long rise of the valley swelled up toward distant peaks. Bare rock crowned with shrinking snows split the forested glens, two long ridges enclosing a smaller shallow valley in watchful arms. A sturdy stone bridge spanned a rushing river foaming high over a stony bed, guarded by a solitary figure sitting kicking his heels against the parapet.

“Seric!” Jeirran tossed reins to Teiriol without a backward look and hurried forward. “What on earth is going on in the lower valley?”

The elderly Mountain Man looked dourly back down the slope and leaned on the shaft of the billhook he held. “Lowlanders, up from the Gap.” He spat his contempt in a wadded lump of chewing leaf. “Turned up maybe a few days after you headed down. Reckon they’re claiming all the land up to this bridge seeing as no one lives there!”

“But that’s your winter grazing,” protested Teiriol.

The bridge guard glared beneath bushy, snowy brows. “So you go and tell them that, youngling. Maybe they’ll pay heed to you instead of ignoring us!”

“Why are you here, at the bridge,” Keisyl nodded at Seric’s billhook, “with that?”

The man heaved a sigh. “There’s been trouble.”

“Bad?” Jeirran looked belligerent.

“Bad as it can be,” replied Seric morosely. “Gedres and his boy were coming back from the far woods when he finds all these sheep eating up the hay meadows. This Gap man, he tells Gedres to clear right out, curt as you like, get off his land. Gedres tells him to go tup his own ewes! Well, lowlander tries to fetch him a smack in the mouth so Gedres drops him. They’d been coursing, so he tells the lad to set the hounds on the misbegot and his sheep, see how he likes that. Lowlander whistles up a pack of thieves to help him.” Seric shook his head. “The lad’s none too clear on what happened after that but the long and the short of it, Gedres ends up dead with knife in his back.”

“Oh,” Eirys cried, distressed. “Poor Yevrein! Is there anything I can do—?”

Seric looked up at her, wrinkled face softening. “She’ll be glad to see you, I’ll warrant. Sheltya arrived this morning and they laid him out at noon so it’ll be a hard day for her.”

“How’s the lad?” asked Keisyl.

Seric shook his head. “Taking it hard but no one blames him. How could he take them all on, barely two-thirds grown? Bastards took a whip to him!”

Jeirran and Teiriol burst out with furious exclamations but Keisyl overrode them with a shout. “Enough! We’re doing no good here. Let’s get to the fess and offer what comfort we can.”

They crossed the bridge and made their way up a long valley where the wild beauty of trees and grass had long been turned over to ugly heaps of broken rock, the land scarred with diggings old and new. A few figures were busy damming a stream, diverting the water into a series of channels and sluices, and they stopped to watch the new arrivals. Teiriol’s cheery wave went unacknowledged and the men soon turned back to their work.

Eirys kicked on her pony and was at the gates of the stronghold well before the others. The wall was twice the height of any of the men—massive, irregular rocks fitted together with a precision that defied even a dagger blade to slip between them, a maze of joints and angles baffling the eye. Watchful figures patrolled the crenellated wall walk and one, spear in hand, peered over to hail the girl. Eirys stood in her stirrups to reply, and by the time Jeirran and the others had arrived the mighty gates were opened just sufficiently to admit the file of mules each in turn. Keisyl led his charges through the tapering tunnel made by the thickness of the wall.

“There’s room in the far stables.” The gatekeeper nodded to a youth who barred the heavy wooden doors at once.

“Hold there!” Keisyl braced himself as a mule backed nervously from the gatekeeper’s dog, a brindled animal high as a man’s waist with a questing face and lithe build. The rangy hound’s barks rose to a furious pitch, baying erupting from a distant kennel in answer.

“You’re keeping them hungry then?” shouted Keisyl.

The burly gatekeeper silenced his hound with a yank on the chain he held wrapped around one fist. “Hungry and fit for anything those lowland bastards might try.”

Eirys swung herself down from her saddle and hastily smoothed her skirts. “Where is Yevrein?”

“In the rekin.” The gatekeeper nodded to the square tower set in the center of the compound, narrow windows watchful as they rose above the height of the surrounding wall.

“Look after Dapple.” Eirys abandoned her pony to an indignant Teiriol and hurried for the broad steps leading to a wide double door.

“Take them around and get them settled.” Jeirran dropped his own reins and followed his wife.

The mules looked incuriously at Teiriol. “But—”

“Ask someone to help, Teir. I’ll be around as soon as I can.” Keisyl clapped his brother on the shoulder. “I want to hear the truth of this.”

Leaving Teiriol muttering crossly, Keisyl ran lightly up the steps of the rekin. Pushing the door open slowly, he slid in to stand silently behind Eirys. A single room took up most of the ground floor; sconces for lamps and candles were dark and all furnishings had been pushed back against the walls in disregarded confusion. The household stood in a loose circle, a discouraged sag to their shoulders, children huddling by mothers who held them close. Eirys clutched Jeirran’s hand, tears sliding down her face, eyes fixed on the woman by the broad hearth that dominated the center of the room. Pale and hollow-cheeked, eyes red with weeping, the woman tipped a bucket of ash onto the fire, stifling the bright flames. A chill fell heavily on the darkened room.

Two men stepped forward with metal pry-bars and wedges to move a heavy slab of hot stone from the edge of the plinth. Bending to the hollow revealed, the woman removed a small copper-bound casket of black wood. Selecting a key from the bunch hanging at her girdle, she opened the coffer. The older man beside her held it as she counted out the thick gold and silver coins it held.

“This is your patrimony, Nethin.” Her voice cracked as she turned to a youth a few seasons younger than Teiriol, gaunt with grief and guilt. The second man laid an encouraging hand on the lad’s shoulder. “Use it well to honor the memory of your father. He would have given it himself, when you came of age…” Anguish choked the woman and her voice failed.

A tall man in a gray robe stepped forward, shaven face somber. “That is sufficient.” He closed the lid of the casket and nodded to the older man, who replaced it beneath the hearthstone. The gray-robed man gave the weeping Yevrein into the embrace of caring women and gently led the boy Nethin out of the main door.

“Go on,” Jeirran nodded as Eirys turned to him, a question in her tearful face. She hurried over to join the women in their sorrow.

Keisyl heaved a sigh. “It’s a bad business, Jeir.”

“And a cursed sight too common since our fathers’ day,” spat Jeirran. “Every soke is being straitened and plundered.”

His word caught the attention of a man who turned to them. “Has the Othilsoke suffered like this?”

Keisyl shook his head. “Not thus far, but then we are that much farther from the Gap.”

“It’s just a matter of time,” growled Jeirran.

Keisyl went to help the man drag a sturdy wooden chest back to its customary position. “What do you reckon to do, Alured?”

“We’ve sent word to the upper diggings and the summer pastures but I don’t know what good that’ll do. Bringing the men back is all very well but we’ll lose the best part of the season’s work.” Alured took a stool from another man and set it down, his movement revealing a heavy limp.

“But you’ll drive those vermin out of the soke?” demanded Jeirran, arms folded, aloof from the rest of the men busy setting the room to rights.

“Maybe,” shrugged Alured. “If we can, but you’re right to call them vermin. They’re just like rats; for every one you kill, thrice three more are lurking unseen, just waiting to bleed you dry.”

“But you can’t just let them steal the land,” protested Jeirran.

“Later,” Keisyl scowled at him. “Make yourself useful.”

Jeirran glowered at him but took a hand in moving chairs and furniture. Gradually the room resumed its normal appearance; plainer cabinets and work benches set around with stools to one side, chairs softened with embroidered cushions, work baskets neatly arranged on shelves beside crudely carved animals or clumsily woven strips of colorful wool. Keisyl watched three men carefully laying the body of a new fire on the hearth, remembered grief darkening his eyes.

“See what I told you,” Jeirran began. “How many more—”

He fell silent as the gray-robed man entered the room and clapped his hands. He was not overly tall and showed no muscle built by years of toil, but his piercing blue eyes were dark with experience beyond his years. Everyone turned, expectant.

“Gedres was a good and honest man, faithful husband and caring father. His death diminishes us all. Our grief has quenched the flame that was lit at his marriage. The last rays of the sun have lit a new promise of life by the hand of his son. The eyes of the moons will guard his daughters now and always.”

Nethin stepped forward nervously, a burning smoky brand held in shaking hands. He thrust it into the heart of the hearth and something more potent than normal kindling caught in a burst of bluish flame. Muted cheers and a few handclaps brought a wavering smile to the lad’s face before it crumpled to be hidden in his grandfather’s embrace.

Jeirran sighed heavily and scrubbed an angry hand across his eyes.

“Time to drink to Gedres’ memory.” Alured’s voice was rough with emotion as he came over with a green glass flask and a handful of rough goblets. Other men were doing the same, sitting around the tables and sinking their sorrows beneath hasty swallows. Women were lighting spills at the rekindled fire, setting lamps and candles to brighten the room. They took their own seats on the far side of the hearth, flagons and glasses soon set out in turn. A couple of girls came out of a far door and began laying bread, meat and other plain food on the long table that ran the width of the room beyond the hearth, but no one paid it much attention. A few men wept openly and most of the women clutched damp handkerchiefs and paused frequently to wipe their eyes. Gradually the stifled conversations grew more animated with a few shamefaced laughs to break the hush of mourning.

Teiriol came in a while later with a handful of other men, indignation and hesitation warring in his expression. “You didn’t come,” he complained in a low tone.

“They were quenching the hearth,” apologized Keisyl. “Didn’t you see Sheltya just leave?”

Teiriol shook his head.

“When do you ever?” sneered Jeirran. “They disappear as soon as they step over the threshold! A man dies, Sheltya come, lay his body out on the charnel crag, do the trick with the burning glass and say no more about it. Misaen’s ravens do their work, Solstice comes, Sheltya lay the bones in Maewelin’s embrace and all’s done. How is that supposed to help Yevrein, widowed before her time and not even by honest accident? Where’s the consolation for Nethin, poor lad, no one to guide him, wandering and wondering till he comes of age and can claim his patrimony.”

“He’s got the entire Teyvakin to guide and guard him, Jeirran!” Alured looked affronted. “Don’t judge others by the failings of the Lidrasoke!”

Jeirran’s feet scraped on the flagstones as he sprang to his feet. “You know nothing of it,” he snarled.

“Enough!” Keisyl got between the two men. “Jeir, go and see if Eirys is coming down. Yevrein has plenty of sisters to console her and Eirys could lighten cares down here with news of the festival.”

“How did you fare in Selerima?” Alured looked up with interest.

Jeirran did not answer as he stalked over to the door leading to the stairs. It was some while before Eirys appeared, pink-faced and looking self-conscious. Keisyl watched her with half an eye, ignoring Jeirran, who appeared moments later and began to circulate, exchanging greetings and news. Satisfied Eirys was settled happily with two old friends and with Teiriol sharing nudges and low jokes with a gang of youths, Keisyl turned his full attention back to Alured, who was sharing a foaming jug with a new companion. “Hordist,” he nodded.

“Keisyl,” responded the newcomer, carefully lifting an earthenware beaker in hands bent by joint evil. “It’s a bad business, this.”

“True enough.“ Keisyl drained his own glass.

“So, what’s to be done?” Alured looked dispirited.

“Did anyone ask Sheltya’s counsel?” asked Keisyl slowly.

Hordist sucked at a swollen knuckle before answering. “Peider did. Sheltya said he’d ask the bones at Solstice, see what the light stirred in them.”

“What use are dry bones?” Jeirran crossed over from another table, goblet of clear liquor in one hand. “What we need are strong arms to drive these bastards out.”

“And when they come back from the upper diggings, maybe we will at that.” Hordist looked at Jeirran with dislike. “In the meantime, all we’ve got are part-grown lads and the halt and the lame.” He held up a twisted hand. “What am I supposed to do with Maewelin’s curse on me?”

“Your feet are strong enough,” said Jeirran with a harsh laugh. “You could kick the bastards to death.”

“I might at that.” Hordist drank noisily.

Alured refilled his beaker for him. “By the time the others are back, those vermin will have dug themselves in good and strong, felled half the woods, frightened every beast with fur on its back halfway to the high peaks and had their sheep crop the ground bare beneath them.”

“At least the beasts can leave,” grumbled Hordist. “Blood and bone bred to the soke can’t just take flight.”

His complaints were interrupted as the grandfather of the orphaned boy rapped a horny hand on a table. “I give you tales of fury,” he proclaimed thickly. “When Ceider rode the north. His mail of dragonscale, his wrath as dragons-breath!”

The four men sat and listened to the legend declaimed with burning passion. Evening closed in around the fess and the rekin as the old man retraced the steps of the myth.

“Shame Peider can’t summon up Ceider from his bones and find out how to set about raising a dragon himself,” muttered Hordist as the old man paused to wet his dry throat some verses later.

“No dragons nearer than the high peaks,” said Alured morosely. “Lowlanders hunted the wyrms out of the eastern ranges in my forefathers’ youth.”

“The fess, its walls thrown down, was scorched by fury’s flame. Vengeance true was claimed, ill faith was drowned in shame!” Peider’s voice rose to a shout as he wound the tale to its triumphant conclusion.

Rousing applause filled the room and a new energy revived conversation on all sides.

“Fire,” said Jeirran suddenly. His face flushed with excitement, eyes bright and not just from the alcohol he’d drunk. “Dragonsbreath, that’s fire! We could drive the lowlanders out with fire!”

“Where are you going to get a dragon?” demanded Alured Wearily. “Ask Misaen to lend one out of his forge?”

“You’ve got wood spirit, haven’t you?” Jeirran turned to Hordist, whose slower pace of drinking had left him slightly clearer-headed. “Resins, pine knots?”

“Yes.” Slow realization dawned in Hordist’s lined face. “I can’t hold an axe but I can throw a torch with the best of them!”

His voice was loud enough to turn heads at neighboring tables. “What do you say, Rakvar?”

“To what?”

“To burning out that nest of rats in the lower soke!” Alured said with growing eagerness. “They’ve cut us plenty of wood for a nice fire!”

“Green lumber won’t burn,” said a doubtful voice, but it sounded willing to be convinced.

“It will if you chuck a cask of stripping spirit on it first,” riposted Hordist.

Harsh laughter all around gave temporary release to simmering anger.

“A good fire would send those maggot-eaten sheep scurrying all the way down to the Gap,” commented another man with approval. “Let the lowlanders go chase them.”

“Never mind stripping spirit,” said a balding man with scarred hands. “Get some acid from the assay shed and see how they like a faceful of that!”

A few looked shocked at his vicious words but more nodded growing approval.

“So what are we waiting for?” demanded Jeirran. “Wait and there’ll be nine times their number by Solstice. Burn them out now and the bones will shout their approval to Sheltya when the sun strikes them!”

“It’s the full of both moons,” said the doubtful voice again.

“Good hunting light then,” Rakvar turned to rebuke him.

Eirys and the other women looked on in some bemusement as the men rose, laced heavy boots and found capes and stout gloves.

Teiriol came over, face eager. “What’s afoot?”

“We’re going to settle the lowlanders,” said Jeirran fervently.

“We’re going to drive them off.” Keisyl looked less zealous but more determined.

“I’ll get my boots!” exclaimed Teiriol.

Keisyl looked after him with some concern; as the men began hurrying out of the door, he caught the younger man’s arm. “You can come, Teir, but watch yourself. None of the younger lads though, no one not two-thirds grown. Tell them they are to stay behind and guard the fess and the women.”

The compound was a hive of activity; workshop doors standing open as axes, picks and even shovels were passed out to impatient hands. Blades caught the light of torches raised high and shouts warned caution as small iron-bound barrels were loaded onto a bemused mule blinking at the dark sky above. The women crowded the steps of the rekin, shouting out endorsement of the plan. Two hurried out with a basket full of narrow-necked jars and another brought an armful of tattered cloth. A second mule was dusted with black from sacks of charcoal slung over its back, yellow streaks soon added from a sulfurous jar.

“Covered lights only,” yelled Jeirran and there was a flurry to kindle lamps of pierced metal, slides lowered to mute their glimmer. The heavy doors of the fess were slowly opened and the mob passed beyond the wall. They moved slowly at first until eyes adjusted to the deep twilight of the spring night and the valley formed itself from the shadows hanging all around. Moving with the practiced stealth of hunters, the Mountain Men spread out and crept down the valley, over the bridge and past the unheeding sheep. A group split off in silent agreement and lay hidden in a hollow by the shuffling flock while the rest continued in small and furtive groups. Moving slowly, with halts and cautious pauses, they finally encircled the lowlander camp. A merry fire burned between the four wagons, an awning stretched between each pair of wains, men sleeping in shapeless rolls of blankets under each one. A single figure sat idly by the fire, throwing on scraps of wood.

“There are more than we reckoned,” said Keisyl dubiously.

“It’s all the ones in from the trees,” commented Teiriol. “They’ll have half the valley stripped before Solstice if we don’t drive them out.”

Keisyl nodded grimly. “True enough.”

“Who’s got the best throwing arm?” whispered Jeirran to Alured.

The older man thought for a moment. “Rogin. He can hit a single-stone from four score and one paces!”

Word was passed back and Rogin came forward, standing half a head taller than Jeirran with a beak of a nose and a shock of coarse hair. “Can you pitch this right into that fire?”

Rogin weighed the sloshing flagon bound around with lumpy resinous cloth in one hand. “No contest,” he said readily.

Jeirran looked around to see crouching men wrapping charcoal in sulfur-coated cloth, filling jars with liquid and jamming their necks with rag.

“For Gedres!” bellowed Rogin, standing and launching the vessel in a soaring arc with one fluid motion. The watchman was halfway to his feet when his fire erupted in searing flames that set his clothes and hair alight, sending him reeling. Inside a few breaths he was a figure of horror, screaming blindly, hair flaring like tow, skin charred and cracking, face blistering into a featureless mess. As the other men leaped from their blankets, more bright missiles came sailing in. The canvas of both awnings bloomed with flame and liquid fire ate greedily into the wood of the wagons. With roars of fury, the lowlanders grabbed any tools ready to hand, spades, adzes and billhooks, heads snapping from side to side as they looked for their enemy in the darkness. Their blankets went up behind them in a stink of burning wool.

With yells of defiance on the far side, a gang of Mountain Men flung trestles, tools and wood into the sawpit, brands and a barrel of fir-spirit following to burn a smoldering scar deep into the grass. Flames exploded upward, gouts spilling over the rim of the pit, bright as sunlight. The lowlanders ran at them, weapons lifted high, but the Mountain Men vanished into the darkness. As the lowlanders hesitated, uncertain, burning jars shattered at their feet, scattering them cursing. They tried to gather themselves, shouting in dismay as the firing of the lumber pile sent all their hard work up in smoke. Timbers cracked as the fire took hold, fueled by torches and volatile liquids. Heat battered them like the blast from the maw of a furnace.

“Get them!” Jeirran raised his pickaxe and led a furious charge at the disordered encampment. The men of the Teyvasoke came roaring in from all sides, breaking heads and legs. The lowlanders fell back toward the wagons where their picketed oxen were bellowing and wrenching at their tethers.

“Roast beef when the work’s done, lads!” shouted Jeirran. He swung at a shirt-sleeved lowlander who was thrusting a shovel at him. The tools met with a clang and the shovel went sailing away. Jeirran smashed the pick forward fall into the man’s belly, sending him backward onto his rump, all breath knocked out of him. The wedge end left the lowlander’s skull dented to the depth of a hand, hair matted into the mess of brain and blood. The man fell lifeless as Jeirran left a boot print on his shirt front, spurning the twitching corpse in his eagerness to meet the next.

Keisyl swung his axe in a wide defensive arc, standing his ground as two frantic lowlanders tried to jab past his guard with their billhooks. “Too stupid to run for it?” he shouted at them, but his words were lost in the commotion shattering the night all around. One of the lowlanders, hair in a long queue, ducked to scythe at Keisyl’s legs. Keisyl brought the flat of his weapon around to smack against the man’s ear, sending him flying, blood streaming from mouth and nose, the shattered bones of his face white in the firelight as they pierced his pockmarked cheek. The second thought he saw an opportunity, but the returning blade bit deep into his armpit as he raised his hedge-tool. Weapon falling from limp fingers, the man folded over the gory gash in his chest, choking and writhing until Keisyl decapitated him with one swift stroke.

“Down is good as dead,” snarled Jeirran, scorning this delay.

“Maewelin grants mercy to the merciful,” spat Keisyl. He looked for his brother and saw he had a thick-set lowlander trapped by the burning wreck of a wagon. Teiriol was feinting with a long pry-bar, the heavy iron easy in his hands. The lowlander had a turfing spade, the keen edge gleaming in the firelight. The man raised it, two-handed, stabbing forward at Teiriol’s face. The youth stepped back with contemptuous grace, shaking his head. The lowlander’s knuckles were white on the wood of the spade, buck teeth gnawing his lower lip. He stabbed forward again; Teiriol swept the pry-bar under and around in one swift movement and smashed the man’s elbow. Even above the chaos of the fight, Keisyl heard the sickening crack of bone. Blood spilled down the man’s unlaced shirt as he bit his lip clean through in his agony. Teiriol hesitated for a moment but Jeirran came storming past him with a shout of triumph to smash the lowlander’s face into bloody pulp, ripping his jaw half off with the fury of his pick.

A Mountain voice raised in anguish snapped Keisyl’s head around. Alured came stumbling toward them, a feathered shaft sticking out of his shoulder. More arrows hissed out of the darkness, biting deep into the leather-clad attackers. Shouts of dismay came from Rogin and his companions as they found themselves suddenly assailed from the shadows beyond the blinding pyre of the lumber pile.

“Come on, you bastards, let’s have them!” Jeirran turned in fury but could only peer vainly into the featureless blackness, unable to see anything beyond the circle of firelight.

“Ware behind!” Teiriol leaped forward to club down a lowlander, howling as he ripped an adze down at Jeirran’s unprotected back.

“It’s the shepherds!” someone yelled.

Keisyl squinted into the darkness. “We’re easy meat against the fires,” he shouted to Jeirran. “They’ll just pick us off one by one!”

A scream drowned out his words and Rogin’s voice lifted above the furor. “Fall back, fall back. Get out of the light.”

Keisyl grabbed Jeirran’s arm. “Move or do you want Eirys weeping with Yevrein?”

Mountain Men scattered into the darkness, leaving lowlanders dead and crippled on the blood-soaked grass. The fires burned on, consuming all within reach. Jeirran paused to rip a tangle of pegs and line out of the grass, flinging it away. “That’ll teach them to try taking our lands,” he cried.

Keisyl ignored him, one shoulder supporting Alured, whose cape was black with blood. “Are you all right?”

“Once we get this cursed arrow out,” gasped the older man, “I’ll be fine then.”

“You won’t feel a thing when you’ve drunk a few toasts to our success,” predicted Jeirran, boastfully.

Teiriol yelped as an arrow bit deep into the ground beside him. “Where are they?” He looked around wildly.

“Keep moving and weave as you run,” shouted Keisyl, virtually lifting Alured clean off his feet.

Jeirran cursed as he tripped over a body fallen just short of the bridge, hair fair in the moonlight, a curious breeze fingering torn linen, embroidery blotted and smudged with blood. Keisyl spared the corpse a regretful glance but saved breath and energy for the long haul back up past the spoil heaps to the shelter of the fess. Pursuit fell away once the Mountain Men were past the river, but several collapsed as they struggled up the long slope, companions unable to rouse them.

“Come on, come on!” Jeirran stood at the gate, waving exuberantly. “We’ve a victory to celebrate!”

Keisyl gave the white-faced Alured into the care of two women hurrying forward, pads of linen ready in their hands. Puffing as he walked slowly into the compound, he tallied at the number whose wounds were being tended by anxious women. The youths were busy bringing steaming bowls of water, carrying pots of salve and bandages, holding down those unfortunates struggling beneath the knife as arrows were cut from clinging flesh. In the shadows beyond the lamplight spilling from the rekin door, motionless figures were being laid in a row.

Eirys flung herself into Keisyl’s arms. “Is Jeirran all right? And Teiro? Are you hurt, any of you?”

“No, kidling, no.” He hugged her close. “We’re all fine and fit.”

“It was a success?” Eirys looked around with dismay. “You did win, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Keisyl slowly, “but many more victories like that and the lowlanders will be able to just walk up the soke and knock on the gates. They can stand their losses better than we can.”

“Don’t be such a doom-sayer,” said Jeirran, pulling Eirys free of Keisyl’s arms and folding her in a rough embrace. “We’ll do better next time.”

“Next time?” scowled Keisyl, incredulous.

Jeirran nodded firmly. “When we’ve allies to back us with real power.”

The Great Forest, 18th of Aft-Spring

Sudden brightness woke me fully from the comfortable drowse I was enjoying among my warm blankets. I opened one eye to see ’Gren throwing the deerskin up onto the roof to shed some light inside the sura.

“Good morning.” I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

“Good morning,” he yawned. “Do we have to start the day this early, or can I take a nap?”

“Haven’t you been to sleep?” I asked critically. “Been emptying your pockets for some willing maiden?”

He shook his head, another yawn cracking his jaw. “With those lads and their runes. I thought I could spot every trick of the hand in bad light or snowstorm, but Saedrin’s stones, I can’t begin to see how they are doing it.”

“You lost again?” I made no attempt to hide my incredulity.

“That’s right.” ’Gren pulled off his jerkin and dropped it to the floor. “Taken like some goatherd fresh off his mountain.” He sounded more amused than annoyed so, with luck, he wouldn’t go looking for a fight to console himself.

“Well, easy come, easy go,” I commented.

“True enough.” He shucked breeches and boots and rolled himself in a blanket. “I’d still like to know their tricks though. We could empty every strongbox between Vanam and Col.”

“Who was doing most of the winning?” I wanted to know who to avoid.

“Barben, that bull-necked type with the ears like a startled mouse.” ’Gren’s voice was muffled as he pulled a fold of wool over his head. “They all said he’s just lucky, known for it apparently. Lucky, my arse! The way the runes were running, Raeponin must have hung up his scales and taken a holiday.”

I closed my eyes, but now I’d been woken up I found I couldn’t get back to sleep. Sorgrad and Usara were still motionless heaps of frowsty blankets so I dressed, wrinkling my nose at wood smoke scenting my shirt. Outside, skeins of mists wove waist-high through the trees and the early sun hadn’t yet beaten the spring chill. The camp was barely stirring and I cursed ’Gren roundly as I realized how early it still was. Two Forest women passed me with nods of good will, heading for the stream. For want of anything better to do, I followed them. The brook was still bitter with lingering winter and washing brought me fully alert.

Lighting the fire with the incantation that the Folk were finding so entertaining, I set water to boil. Sitting and sipping hot wine and water, I watched fires being lit and breakfasts made, children emerging to get underfoot, still well shy of what anyone civilized could call a reasonable chime for waking. Ravin went past and I caught an unexpected shadow of resemblance to my father. Abrupt realization froze the cup at my lips. Since we arrived, I’d been unable to shake the absurd notion that all these Folk were far too short. Why in Drianon’s name had I been expecting these people to be taller than me when I knew full well all the ancient races were short stacks of coin? Because I had last seen my father as a child, looking up from a child’s short stature, as I did now when I was sitting down. Unwelcome doubts assailed me. The squirrel game, the deceptions of masquerades, all such things rely on the fallibility of memory. Had that little girl’s recollections, colored with wishes and longing, led me astray, convinced me the Forest must hold some wisdom unknown outside? In simpler terms, was I tying horns on a horse and hoping for milk?

No. I set my jaw. So far, I’d discovered jalquezan in songs the women used for lulling fractious babies to sleep, timing the boil of their cooking and when sitting their children down for a session with a fine-tooth comb. Unfortunately, given my lack of experience in any of these occupations, I was hard put to decide if the jalquezan was having a significant effect. These women might just be practiced nurses, experienced cooks and diligent in their pursuit of lice. None of these songs were ones in my book and, as with the Raven song, I’d found two or three versions of each.

I looked over toward Orial’s sura. Zenela had been sitting outside, taking the sun yesterday. That lass was recovering faster and more fully than simples and herbs could account for; she’d have been ashes in an urn by now, back in Ensaimin. Convincing Usara of that was going to be a different roll of the runes, though. What was I missing? There had to be something.

My thinking about him must have set the mage’s ears itching. Hearing a noise within, I looked into the sura to see him rummaging for clean linen and his razor a little selfconsciously.

“You were back very late last night, again,” I observed neutrally.

Usara smiled suddenly at me. “One of a mage’s most important skills is discretion, Livak, and besides, my father always said an honorable man never boasts.”

“All I have to do is look for that necklace,” I reminded him.

“You do that,” he advised with a chuckle as he departed for the stream and his ablutions.

I wondered what the joke was and then asked myself what to do for the best. The prospect of another day making myself agreeable to the women of the settlement didn’t thrill me. What would today hold? Another tedious walk in the forest trying to disguise my utter lack of interest in leaves or plants I might gather to eat? The only firm fact I’d learned so far on this sojourn is that Forest donkeys are considerably smaller and darker than those used by the rest of the world and that they can be loaded with so much firewood they look like a stack of faggots with legs.

Frue emerged from a nearby sura. “Good morning!” For all his cheery greeting, he was looking considerably less lively than the other Folk. Life in Ensaimin had accustomed him to more comfortable beds and routines.

“Good morning.” I hastily gathered my scattered wits.

“We’re going after boar.” He was carrying two spears and waved the thick-shafted weapons with their sturdy cross-pieces. “If Sorgrad or ’Gren come, they can claim a share of the kill and then you can repay your dinner debts.” This was the second time in as many days he’d mentioned this obligation.

“I’ll come.” After the last few days, no one was going to keep me away from excitement.

Frue rested his spears in the ground. “I didn’t think— you’re hardly a country girl, are you?” He fell silent at the irritation in my face.

“They’re going along, aren’t they?” I returned a wave from Gevalla and her sisters, all dressed for the worst the woods could do, hair braided close. Each had ropes slung crossways over both shoulders and they carried a roll of stout net. “Trust me, I can run, climb and hit a moving target as well as any.”

“Yes, but—” Frue shrugged off his uncertainty. “Just don’t get in anyone’s way.”

A reedy whistle sounded above the trills of the morning birdsong. “Ravin’s leading the hunt,” Frue said sternly. “If you foul the chase and he tells you to fall back, do it at once.”

I nodded shortly. It was Usara’s bad luck that he chose that moment to come up, eyes bright with curiosity as he saw the hunting party assembling with bows, spears and long knives. “Hunting? Can I come?”

“No,” I said repressively. “You’re not dressed for it.”

Usara looked at the skirts of his brown robe, unbelted over shirt and broadcloth breeches. “Someone could lend me a tunic, couldn’t they?”

“There’s no time.” I waved a hand at Ravin, who was moving off into the trees. “Anyway, I’m not sure your kind of help would be appreciated.”

“The right spell at the right time can drop an animal in its tracks, rope of air, for instance—”

“And what if these Folk consider that a capital offense against Talagrin?” I demanded. “Use the time to talk to some more of the elders. Remember what we’re here for.”

“Frue?” Usara appealed to the minstrel.

“You’d best keep to the camp,” Frue replied apologetically.

I nodded my agreement. City bred I might be but at least I knew my own limitations and had the wit to keep out of trouble. Even though Usara was one of the best of the mages I had met, he still had as much common sense as a frog has feathers. The wizard claiming the quarry with some pit of magic would leave these men as useless as eunuchs in a brothel and as pleased as if they’d caught a dose of the itch.

“Oh, very well,” Usara sniffed with audible annoyance. He stalked off toward Orial’s hut and I followed Frue. Hunters were gathering, fired with the eager anticipation that townsmen slake with bloody pursuits like baiting. Some were singing extravagant invocations to the Master of the Hunt and I itched to get closer, wondering if this was some new jalquezan.

I went to stand with Rusia and her sisters. Other women had rough bags and sacking strapped close to their bodies, skinning knives at their belts. Several honed blades with casual whetstones, chatting in low tones.

“So how will this play out?” I asked.

Yefri pointed at a man with a mane of unkempt graying hair and pale, intense eyes. “That’s Iamris. He’ll be finding boars for us.”

Ravin sounded a trill like a woodlark on a reed pipe and we moved into the woods.

“He’s a tracker?” I whispered to Yefri.

“He’s a finder of game,” she shrugged.

Parul joined us, bringing several sturdy spears. “Do you want to share in the killing?” Yefri shook her head and I did the same. When the nobility in Vanam go pig-sticking in the streets to clear the feral porkers to feed the indigent at Ostrin’s shrine, they do it from horseback. I reckon out-dwellers have the right of it.

“I’ll join you,” said Gevalla abruptly. She took a spear and stepped close to Parul.

“Geva!” Rusia looked daggers at her sister, who lifted her chin defiantly.

“She can come if she wants.” Parul put an arm around Gevalla’s shoulders.

“Watch yourself!” hissed Yefri before a shrill blast on Ravin’s whistle silenced us all. Iamris led us into the trees. I tried to take note of landmarks and to get a sight of the sun whenever I could, but after what felt like half a season moving slowly through the forest, I realized I’d need some notable favor from Trimon to get back to the settlement unaided.

I eased my way through early undergrowth and branches felled by buffets of winter storms. Skills I’d learned for moving noiselessly through someone’s house uninvited were easily as good as the woodcraft of Salkin and his fellows. We became more scattered, but all attention remained on Iamris. He wasn’t checking the ground or looking for spoor but then my notion of hunting for meat is limited to finding a butcher who keeps blowflies off his carcasses. Perhaps Iamris had been out scouting earlier. What he wasn’t doing was singing, not that I could hear, anyway.

A loud crack betrayed someone stepping on a dead stick. As I looked from side to side with everyone else, I caught Frue’s eye and he nodded approval at me. We crossed a little stream burbling its way between mossy banks and I lost the minstrel among the burgeoning woodland. Parul and Gevalla were no longer visible, so I made doubly sure I kept either Yefri or Rusia always in sight.

Ravin’s whistle mimicked an apple thrush up ahead, catching me unawares in a long narrow clearing. I moved hastily into the cover of a youthful beech. A motherly woman with a plain, kindly face lifted a wooden pipe and returned the signal. More piping replies suggested everyone had taken prearranged places and I wondered what my group was to do. We were notably short on spears, which had to be a good thing, didn’t it?

Rusia and the girls strung their long net across a gap in the trees. Others secured similar snares to branches and stumps. I put the net between me and the sounds of other hunters moving stealthily away from us. Whatever came down the track would hit the net before it got a sniff of me. I mentally recited a general supplication to Talagrin, hoping the Lord of the Wilds might turn an eye if something unexpected leaped out of a bush.

Yefri handed me the end of a rope. I joined her in stringing branches and greenery to fake a barrier to turn the quarry to the supposedly open space where the net lurked unseen. Sudden commotion erupted to the north of us; shouts, whistles, spears hammering on trees, driving the prey onward. Tumult headed for us, piercing squeals and menacing grunts, what sounded like a whole rampaging herd of boars. I checked a good sturdy tree was at hand for climbing and realized my hand was opening the belt-pouch that held my poisoned darts. I tucked it firmly through my belt. Never mind Usara; no one was going to be best pleased with dinner inedible because of an apothecary’s best venom.

A massive boar came plunging out of the undergrowth, black and hairy, snout low to the ground, heavy head swinging from side to side. A handful of arrows deep in either flank left a trail of red behind it. In the center of the clearing, it rounded on its pursuers with a bubbling snort of agony. Leaves and muck were stuck to brindled legs and belly, massive shoulders heaved as it gouged at the moss with vicious tusks. Bloody foam sprayed from vicious yellow teeth as it vainly tried to bite at the shafts dragging it down.

I moved closer to my chosen tree. Ravin appeared, moving slowly, planting the butt of his spear firmly against his foot and angling it lest the maddened beast run at him. At Ravin’s command, two men darted forward to plunge their spears deep into its ribs. The force of the blows sent the pig sprawling forward, bright blood gushing from its slack maw. It screamed, writhing and thrashing, but the men stood firm, sweat dripping down their faces as they wrestled with its death throes. Finally it lay limp and Nenad ran in to set a hefty hook under the jaw of the carcass, dragging the beast away with a rope. Some of the women stepped forward but sudden shouts from up the path halted them. Nenad’s mouth hung open as two youths came racing into the clearing, one white and wild-eyed, the other limping, blood all over torn leggings but running just as fast.

A younger boar was in hot pursuit, a clotted gash in the coarse hair of its flank showing where an arrow had failed to stick. The animal’s back was arched with anger, the wound only provoking it further as it snarled with outrage. For a clumsy-looking beast, it was still a solid mass of muscle and fury.

“Nenad, leave it!” Ravin shouted at the boy frozen with fear and indecision. The newly arrived boar turned malevolent black eyes on him and saliva dripped from its scarlet mouth. Nenad took a pace backward, but the rope caught his foot and he fell to one knee. The boar charged the boy as he scrambled backward on hands and rump. The bristling black fury ripped into his legs with ivory tusks, blood and spittle spattering the turf.

Men and women raced forward, spears and skinning knives flashing bright in the sunlight, rising dripping red. Someone else’s cries joined Nenad’s screams as the boar died hard, taking every chance at vengeance offered it.

“Get clear, get clear!” More commotion was heading our way.

The Forest Folk scattered, two men dragging Nenad between them. Another backed toward me clutching a badly bitten arm. Iamris, leading a solid phalanx of Folk, drove an enormous sow out of the trees. Spears jabbed and harried her, Gevalla wielding one with grim-faced determination. Stripy piglets squealed and fussed around their mother’s feet, her heavy teats swinging low. She snapped at the spears, huffing and snorting, the bite of the spears sending her back in baffled pain. In some instant of understanding between the hunters, two of the leaf-shaped blades plunged down either side of the sow’s neck, slicing through tough hide to sever the great vessels. Crimson blood gushed all over her forelegs, sending frantic piglets dashing hither and yon. Some snared in the nets were dispatched with spear butts, others caught in swathes of sacking were held up by hind legs, wriggling until a cut throat silenced their squeals.

I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until the thudding of my heart and faint buzzing in my ears told me to release it. Thinking I’d better do something useful if we were to claim some of this meat, I joined Rusia untangling suckling pigs from the netting. She was struggling with a particularly stubborn knot.

“Here, let me help.” I worked the point of the dagger in and twisted it to loosen the tangle. “Is Nenad all right?”

“Better than he deserves.” Irritation didn’t obscure her relief. “Freezing like a rabbit in front of a weasel, honestly!” The lad was sobbing as his wounds were treated on the far side of the clearing. I looked over to see the man with the bitten arm grimacing, tears running down his face as his wounds were roughly cleansed with spirit from a flask. I winced; the deep gashes were torn and filthy, dark red muscle bared beneath ripped, tanned skin, as likely to fester as any wound I’d ever seen.

“Has someone sent for Orial?” Gevalla appeared, blood on her leggings and a piglet dangling from her spear.

“Yes, Ravin sent Lisset.” Rusia pulled the net free. “Get that suckler bled; you know better than to waste time gossiping.”

The ringing sound of axe on timber echoed across the clearing. One cruck frame had already been lashed together and Ravin was directing Frue and some others in hauling the bigger boar up by its hind legs. Almiar pierced the neck vessels with a careful knife while two men caught the rich blood in waterskins. The sow was pierced through the hocks with a sharp stake and soon hung on a second frame, one woman making a slow incision down her belly while Ravin held the guts of the beast from spilling out too soon.

Rusia turned to ensuring all the other piglets were bled dry, briskly enlisting me for the smelly and unpleasant task. “Almiar says you’ve some knack for starting fires?”

I nodded and Rusia shouted to the lad passing by with his hands full of offal. “Etal! Give that to Dria and start finding lampthorn. Livak, light a fire and we can start singeing the hair off these sucklers.”

I gathered kindling from beneath the bushes and found a dry patch of earth, happy to do any task that didn’t involve getting up to my elbows in some animal’s innards. “Talmia megrala eldrin fres.”

The flames leaped up obediently and Rusia laughed. “Just like Viyenne in the Frost.”

Before I could ask what she meant, the piglet lying behind her was abruptly snatched away. Rusia yelped as a bright blade appeared in front of her face. A tree was hiding me from the knifeman who’d sprung from nowhere and I rolled sideways beneath the concealing spikes of a flourishing broom bush. Kneeling with palms flat I shifted my position with excruciating care as I sought a better view from my hollow at the heart of Drianon’s shrub.

A dirty gang of ruffians emerged on all sides, Forest Folk by the coloring beneath their mud and rags. I’d been wrong to think Ravin’s settlement looked a little starveling; compared to these, Rusia and the rest had been living on the fat of the land over winter. Several newcomers had the sores of low diet plain on their faces, others wore stained bandages around arms and hands that spoke of wounds long in the healing, or carried open, festering scars. A chance breeze carried the stink of them and I was hard put not to gag.

A leader stepped forward, an undersized runt, beak of a nose prominent in a sunken face, cadaverous eyes red-rimmed and staring. I could not follow his rapid speech but the malice in his tone needed no translation. He brandished his knife, a long blade with a serrated back, the only clean thing about him, and spat full in Ravin’s face. Parul took a half-step forward before a threatening spear halted him. Color rose in Ravin’s cheeks, but he stood, impassive, as the slime slid slowly down his face.

I tried to work out who might still be at large. I could see Frue, weaponless as he backed away from a raw-boned youth looking for any excuse for a fight. Yefri and Rusia were doing their best to hide behind Salkin, who glowered impotently at three men menacing him with long knives.

Whoever these newcomers were, they’d sprung their trap with no little skill, backed by impressive woodcraft to get so close without being noticed. Most of Ravin’s Folk had laid their weapons aside to deal with their kills but the thieves outnumbered the hunting party regardless. I wondered what to do for the best. The single-handed hero may do well enough in ballads, but this was real life. I moved closer to the tree trunk with agonizing care. Could I get away fast enough to foil pursuit? What good would that do, since I had no idea which direction to take? Getting help was one thing, getting lost in the Forest would do no one any good, least of all me. On the other hand, being found in hiding would make me a prime target for some additional punishment.

The skinny one with all the spittle had moved away from Ravin, insisting that Nenad be dragged to his feet and laughing at the bloody dressings covering both legs. He grabbed a spear to knock the supporting arms of his friends away, taunting the youth as his knees buckled under him and kicking him as he fell. The lad’s sobs sent a bird squawking skyward from its perch above my head and I froze.

The distraction seemed to remind Skinny what his thieves had come for. He set his men about cutting down the carcasses, some slinging them on carrying poles, others gathering up the offal and the suckling pigs. Ravin and the hunting party were sat in a circle, facing inward with hands on heads and ankles crossed. I resigned myself to waiting this game out, watching with regret as the prospects of a pork dinner retreated. When the thieves were laden with their spoils, the leader returned to Ravin.

Skinny pointed at one of the girls and barked a sharp command. I bit my lip; I’d been wondering about this, given there were no women among the raiders. If this was about to get nasty, I couldn’t see what I could do short of putting a dart into the little bastard’s back. All that would get me was first place in line for any filth looking to take his pleasure, so I wasn’t about to try that.

The girl stood slowly, head hanging. She was one of the youngest, a thin little thing with red-blond hair framing huge brown eyes in a pointed face white with apprehension. Skinny sneered at her and tears began to trickle down her cheeks. Raising her chin with the tip of his knife, he taunted her with something that provoked a furious blush. Laughing, he hooked the point under the binding at her neck, cutting it through with a quick flick of his wrist. Taking the edge in one hand, he sliced slowly through the leather of her tunic. I winced but the girl stood motionless as the razor-sharp metal slid slowly past her naked breasts.

She closed her eyes as the little turd stripped her to the waist and his cronies laughed appreciatively. I presumed they were admiring his bravery at taking on an unarmed lass a head shorter than himself.

All the raiders’ eyes were fixed on the spectacle and I was gauging the distance between my broom and the closest thicket when I saw movement in the leaves owing nothing to breeze or passing bird. I glanced briefly at the game in the center of the clearing where the hero with the knife was still enjoying himself. His little display was far more about humiliation than lust thus far at least.

I saw a flash of golden hair and my spirits rose further. Skinny finished stripping the lass, mocking her among the ruins of her garments. He was just pointing at Yefri when fury like Poldrion’s own demons erupted all around the clearing. As the grin vanished from the skinny man’s face, Salkin launched himself upward, hands around that filthy throat in the next breath. Sitting astride his chest, Salkin was giving the bastard the beating he deserved as what looked like the entire rest of the settlement surged out of the bushes, spears, rough-hewn clubs and simple lengths of fallen timber in wrathful hands. Ravin’s hunters joined battle, weaponless or not, and the thieves found themselves between hammer and anvil.

Before I moved, ’Gren came charging out of the undergrowth opposite my hiding place, eyes bright with delight. He swept a spear around to cut a raider’s knees out from under him. Dropping the shaft, ’Gren caught the man by the collar as he fell, bringing a gloved fist in to smash stained teeth loose. The man’s boots scrabbled on the mossy turf as ’Gren shook him like a terrier with a rat. Twisting his tunic ever tighter around his neck, ’Gren soon had the man beaten limply unconscious and tossed him aside with a satisfied air.

Sorgrad was watching his brother’s back, long knives in both hands. The pair of them turned on a barrel-chested, bandy-legged robber with thick brown hair curling above a matted beard, bare arms furred like an animal. Sorgrad feinted to drive the man back, ’Gren blocked his escape and the pair of them drove him back, ever closer to my hiding place.

His stout boots made hamstringing Hairy problematic at best. Reversing my grip on the dagger, I picked my moment and stabbed him in the side of the foot. Rolling out and sideways, I was up before Hairy’s howl was cut short by Sorgrad’s club knocking the senses out of him.

“How did you know we were in trouble?” I smiled with relief. “What’s-her-name must have got home quicker than a scandalous rumor!”

I saw Sorgrad shake his head out of the corner of my eye as we stood ready for trouble. “I’m not sure what raised the alarm. I was chatting to Sandy and all of a sudden the place was like a kicked anthill. Me and ’Gren came along to see the fun.”

“What there is of it,” ’Gren said glumly, seeing the last of the thieves disappearing into the sheltering embrace of the wildwood.

“What about Usara?” I looked around apprehensively.

“He should be somewhere about,” Sorgrad said vaguely.

I saw a stand of tall trees suddenly crowned with fire. This conflagration was heading our way but was leaving the leaves behind it untouched. A scarlet lattice of burning red light doubled and redoubled its length inside a heartbeat, an aberrant red rather than the orange and yellow of natural wildfire.

As the flames ran around to join hands and encircle the glade, Skinny and his dirty gang soon came scrambling out of the bushes. One of the raiders stood his ground, jaw set as the crimson flames edged nearer and nearer. He stuck out a defiant, trembling hand and howled as the flesh was seared red and blistered, stumbling backward to join his friends.

“I hope Usara doesn’t set the whole wood alight,” I murmured to Sorgrad.

“You’re a harsh, untrusting woman,” he mocked me. “Look.”

Through gaps in the flames I could see mist rising in defiance of the hot sun now bright above. The vapor was shot through with faint jade luster and moved without aid of any breeze to cling to the trees and bushes, coating grass and flowers, coalescing in any hollow or dip before flowing on.

“Very pretty,” ’Gren said with approval as Usara stepped through the ring of magic, gathering the flames in his upturned hands. His eyes were tired but he looked extremely pleased with himself.

“That man never had much chance to show off as a child, did he?” Sorgrad commented with amusement.

“What happens next?” I wondered, looking at the thieves, now cowering in a ragged circle.

“Taking some recompense,” answered Sorgrad, his tone thoughtful.

The runes were most definitely reversed now. Skinny was dragged roughly to his feet by Salkin, whose bloodied knuckles must have been aching fiercely. The thief was bleeding slowly from several gashes and a nasty cut below one ear. Ravin beckoned forward the girl who’d been subject to Skinny’s little game. After a brief consultation, she stepped forward, her pretty face set hard for vengeance. A full-blooded kick in the stones certainly got a reaction from Skinny, however dazed he was. He doubled up so fast he left a handful of hair in Salkin’s fingers.

Several of Ravin’s people cheered and clapped, but were waved to silence. The drive of blood lust that might have left all the raiders dead on the ground had passed. Ravin took charge with a few curt orders and his folk dispersed to reclaim the spoils of their hunt, Salkin and a couple of others set about stripping the robbers, roughly handling the unconscious and beating any remaining defiance out of the rest. We were soon ready to depart, leaving the would-be thieves cowering in nakedness and humiliation. Rusia and the other women were bundling up the looted clothing though I wondered what possible use they could make of it, even if the knives and spears were worth having.

“Perhaps those fools will think twice about listening to that one’s suggestions,” said Ravin to Usara, shoving the still uncaring Skinny with a contemptuous boot.

As we moved off, I glanced back to see a few slowly getting to their feet, some attempting to shoulder the unconscious, no easy task without belt or breeches to get a grip on. I kept an ear cocked for any hint of pursuit but heard none.

“Life in the greenwood’s not all nuts and niceness then,” said Sorgrad as we walked.

“No,” I agreed, thinking with some regret of the songs my father taught me. I abandoned that childishness when the settlement came into view. Orial and the other women were busy dismantling the roundhouses, packing frames, matting and everything else on the small donkeys brought in from their foraging in the woods by the lads who cared for them. “What’s happening?”

Orial looked up from securing a roll of leather with a thong. “We’re moving on.”

“They’ll come back, tomorrow or the next day.” Yefri came to fill in the hearth pit with stones from the edge of the sura circle.

“You’re not going to stand and fight?” I put a hand on the closest donkey’s harness to stop it fretting.

Orial stacked a nest of iron pots. “Why? There’s plenty of forest to be had with no vexation.”

“But then they’ve won,” I objected.

She regarded me with perplexity. “That ratshit gang? We could stripe their hides for them if we wanted, but why bother? Some of ours will only get hurt.”

“If we move on, they’ll find nothing and he’ll look even more stupid than he did with the breeze fingering his spotty arse,” grinned Yefri, lashing a bundle to the donkey, soothing its furry brown ears.

“Won’t they just track you and hit the next camp you make?” This might not be cowardice but it certainly sounded like foolishness to me.

“Not with Ravin covering our trail,” Rusia came to help her sister. “No one’s better at him than hiding a path, not since Seris himself.”

“Scavengers won’t follow a loser,” Orial folded a stack of blankets into an oiled skin. “That one will be foraging on his own, well this side of Solstice.”

Zenela walked up with her hands full of freshly washed crocks, wearing a Forest tunic over a divided skirt. She looked pale and drawn, eyes a little fever-bright, but I still wouldn’t have expected to see her up and about before the next moon turned dark. I turned to Orial but her eyes were on Usara as he talked with Ravin. I saw the diamond-link necklace shining in the throat of the herb woman’s tunic.

“He’ll be bound for Hadrumal again before the year’s out. You do know?” I said quietly over the donkey’s woolly back. “The Wizards’ Isle?”

“As I will be bound for the southern reaches of the Forest.” She was unperturbed. “With all manner of new cuttings to take root in warmer soil.”

“Is that what you came traveling for?” I was increasingly curious about this woman.

“Among other things.” She looked fondly at Usara’s back, laying a hand on her belt. “A herbalist should always look to bring long separated strains back to her garden.”

“That’s—” began Zenela but a spasm of coughing cut her short. Orial pulled a little vial from a pocket and held it for the girl to sniff.

“Do you want help with your sura?” asked Rusia with a hint of impatience.

“I’ll tell them to hurry.” I realized Sorgrad was mixing tisanes while ’Gren foraged among the pots and pans for something to eat.

“We’re supposed to be packing up,” I announced as I reached them.

“Drink this.” Sorgrad handed me a cup that I sniffed suspiciously. “Halcarion’s Heal-All.”

I drank it down and looked around. “Is there any flat-bread left?”

“Stale as stones but you can have it if you want it,” Gren offered generously. He was chewing on a strip of cold meat, dipping it in a bowl of congealed nut sauce. I took the flat-bread, dipping it in the tisane to soften it.

Usara came over and Sorgrad wordlessly handed him a cup.

“Are you all right?” I looked at him with some concern, but his color was improving

Usara wrapped his hands around the warmth of his cup, breathing in the steam. “Well enough, just weary. I think I’ve done more magic since Equinox than in the past half-year,” he said with a rueful smile. “It’s really not the same as just exploring the theories of wizardry. Still, one of the reasons I wanted to come with you was to test my skills.”

“We need to decide what we’re about here,” Sorgrad stated firmly. “Has anyone found so much as a sniff of aetheric lore among these folk?”

Usara shook his head. “Even supposing it was something they were keeping secret, I feel sure someone would have let something slip by now, given how open they are.”

I studied my bread for a moment. “I still think there’s something to this jalquezan. And there was the hunt today; that Iamris was finding game with something more than a good eye and a sharp nose, I’m sure of it. How did word of the trouble get back to the camp so quick? No one could have run that fast! What about Zenela? When did you see anyone heal so fast and so fully from putrid lungs? I’ve finally found someone who knows a ballad where someone uses a charm to light a fire like me—”

“Livak, I’ve spent the last three days listening to ballad after ballad after ballad,” said Usara, exasperated. “Every second person has a different version, some minstrel’s variant on the words or the order of narrative. It seems to be a point of honor to fiddle about with the tune and add embellishments. I’m sorry, believe me, but these stories are so fluid, so much changes from year to year, that whatever knowledge they might have once held is lost beyond retrieval. I could give you five different versions of ‘The Hunt of the White Stag’ for a start.” He shut his mouth with an obstinate snap.

“We’re not here to write a treatise on the history of the Folk.” I tried to contain my own annoyance. “Stop trying to pin down facts and look at the stories! Look at the unexpected, the remarkable, and the impossible and tell me you don’t think there’s magic involved. And where there is magic, there’s the jalquezan, every time.”

“Perhaps.” The skepticism in Usara’s voice left little doubt as to his opinion. “But how are they doing it? How do we test their abilities, determine the efficacy of whatever lore they might have?”

“Why do you wizards always have to pick and pry and pull things apart? Can’t you just believe it?” I glared at the mage.

“If we don’t know how they are doing something, how are we to repeat it?” demanded Usara.

I waved him to silence as an idea jumped up and bit me. “It was your own work that identified the collective belief of a group of people as the source of the power that Artifice draws on, wasn’t it?”

Usara looked perplexed. “The main credit belongs to Geris Armiger—”

I raised a hand, frowning as I struggled to find words for my new notion. “What if enough people believing a person can do something is enough to make it happen? What if that’s sufficient to bring aetheric influence to bear on someone’s abilities?” Now that I said it, it all made sense, the pieces falling into place like a child’s puzzle.

“I don’t follow you,” said Usara in weary tones.

“Everyone tells me Rusia is the best at reading the runes. She believes it and so does everyone else. That belief is enough to make it true. Orial is a noted healer; she sings the songs that she believes will add luck to her medicines. The words of the jalquezan don’t matter so much as the fact she believes in what she’s doing. That’s what makes it happen. Everyone knows that Iamris will find game, so he does. Every time it happens, it strengthens the belief, the expectation that it will happen next time, so it does!”

“Self-fulfilling prophecy,” murmured Sorgrad thoughtfully.

“But Guinalle and her Adepts studied Artifice back in the Tormalin Empire’s height,” protested Usara. “Her skills are born of discipline, not just blind belief.”

“Where does learning stop and belief begin?” countered Sorgrad. “Which comes first and then supports the other?”

I picked a twig from the ground, dead wood with a spray of parched and brown leaves still clinging to it. I’d spent too long with these mages with their questions and insatiable curiosity. “Talmia megrala eldrin fres.” The leaves crackled as they were instantly consumed, the dry bark split, the wood beneath charred. I dropped the twig to the ground and stamped on it, grinding it down beneath the top layer of dry litter into the damp leaf mold beneath. The sharp smell of smoke hovered in the air. “That’s Artifice. Tell me how I did it, wizard! I don’t know how but I believe I can and it’s never failed me yet.”

Usara opened his mouth and then shut it again. The mage’s essential honesty and scholarly training made it impossible for him to dismiss my idea out of hand, however much he might want to. “But how do we test the notion? We have to have some proof, if we’re to take anything to the Council or the Archmage.”

“Presumably, if someone started doubting their abilities they could lose them,” said Sorgrad slowly. “A bit like losing your place in a dance when you suddenly become conscious of what your feet are doing.”

I frowned. “How could you just choose to stop believing in something?”

“We could fuzz the runes in a game with Barben,” said ’Gren with feeling. “Or break his fingers. I wouldn’t mind seeing him learning it’s possible to lose. Everyone’s certainly convinced he can’t be beaten.”

“There’s another one,” I nodded to Usara. “He believes he’s lucky, and all the others believe it too; that invokes some unconscious element of Artifice and the runes run his way.”

“He’s certainly not cheating,” remarked Sorgrad. “Trust me, we’d know if he was.”

Usara brought his hands together, fingertips touching, tucking them beneath his chin. His eyes were distant among the bustle of the disintegrating camp. “It’s an interesting notion and who’s to say it’s wrong, we know so little of Artifice. But where’s the proof, where’s the trial?”

“Why do you need that?” I shook my head. “Does every mage in Hadrumal reduce a timepiece to cogs and springs before they accept it’ll mark the passing chimes?”

Usara grimaced. “We could find ourselves risking apples against ashes, couldn’t we? If we ask questions of Guinalle that start her doubting her own abilities, we’ve not only lost our most advanced practitioner of Artifice but also one of the main defenses the Kellarin colony has against Elietimm raids.”

He jumped as two Forest men swept a sheet of woven bark past his head. Our sura was being reclaimed as we spoke. We moved to one side and left them to it.

“Rusia says that Ravin will be able to hide them from any pursuit,” I said suddenly. “How about we test that?”

Usara looked blank for a moment. “How?”

“We let them go off, let them get a few chimes ahead, then see if we can track them.” I was hard put to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

“They’re going to have far more woodcraft—” began the mage.

“We grew up spending half the year tracking fur animals through thicker woods than this,” interrupted ’Gren, scornfully.

I could see the wizard was still looking doubtful and that Sorgrad was thinking the same as me. “We will try our best, you know. We won’t just lose them because we want it to be true!” Usara tried to look surprised but his fair color betrayed him with a blush of red.

“You’ll be trying to scry for them, won’t you?” Sorgrad was looking amused at something I was missing. “Artifice can hide from elemental magic, can’t it?”

Usara looked at him sharply. “It has seemed so.”

“Then put your money where your mouth is, mage,” Sorgrad said softly. “You wanted a test, let’s make one.”

I could see Usara was still looking for some trick or deception. “You’ve got to trust us sometime,” I pointed out. “You got close enough to Orial to be able to scry for her, didn’t you?”

Usara threw up his hands. “Very well. Let’s see where this takes us.”

I didn’t trust myself to talk to him for a while so busied myself helping the Folk dismantle their camp. ’Gren slipped away to bid some tactful farewells and I saw Sorgrad in seemingly casual conversation with Frue.

“Did you make our thank you?” I asked when he returned to my side. I wiped some sweat from my face with a rope-scorched hand.

He nodded. “Frue’s going to share out our cut of the meat and he said to tell you he was grateful for the new songs, or rather the ancient ones.”

We stood and waited in the middle of the trampled glade and watched as the Folk melted into the forest, leaving us and our donkey and a pile of baggage. I felt a pang I didn’t want to examine too closely. I wanted them to be my kin, but then again I didn’t. And wanting wouldn’t make it so, in any case. I didn’t belong here, any more than I belonged in Vanam. So it was up to me to make my own place, wasn’t it? With Ryshad, and that meant showing these skeptical wizards that I had found something worth solid coin. My spirits rose as I realized the song various voices were raising as the Folk moved away was a tale of Seris evading pursuit by Mazir. That was in my book and it had the jalquezan in every second verse.

“How about a hand or so of runes, to pass the time while we wait?” I took the bones from my pocket and sat down. By the time I’d taken all Usara’s small coin off him and what remained of Sorgrad’s loot from the raiders, the sun had slipped down to skirt the edge of the treetops.

“Now Livak’s got everything she wanted, how about we try to follow those Folk,” suggested Sorgrad with a grin.

“I’m game!” ’Gren sprang to his feet and began quartering the edges of the glade.

“We know they went in that direction,” pointed out Usara apologetically.

’Gren ignored him. “If we’re going to do this, we’ll do it properly,” Sorgrad said firmly.

“I’ve some tracking skills of my own,” I told the wizard. “You come last with the donkey so as not to foul the ground.”

“Right, we have hoof prints plain enough here,” called ’Gren. “Let’s see how far they go.”

The trail was plain enough and the brothers followed it with close attention. We moved steadily and silently, the two of them a way ahead, bending over scuffmarks, noting crashed flowers, bent twigs. I checked the sun and worked out we were bearing north and west. We’d be reaching the river soon, I judged. Usara walked behind me, idly plucking leaves from bushes and offering them to the donkey who mumbled them before letting the pieces fall to the damp earth.

’Gren and Sorgrad slowed and stopped, conferring in low voices. Separating, they cast about like hounds after a scent and after a while came back to Usara and me.

“Lost them,” said ’Gren baldly. “The trail’s been getting fainter and fainter and now it’s given out altogether.”

“Doesn’t that happen anyway, if someone is being careful to avoid pursuit?” asked Usara, choosing his words with care.

Sorgrad stepped forward and pressed his boot into a mossy patch. “On stony ground, on hard mud, maybe even on thick litter, if you’re very careful. Not on this terrain.”

“And we can track mice over a scree, if we put our minds to it,” added ’Gren with a hint of menace.

We looked at the deep imprint of Sorgrad’s foot and then at the soft, unmarked ground all around. “They were singing ‘The ballad of Mazir’s Search,’ ” I pointed out to the mage. “I can find that in the book, if you want to read it.”

Usara nodded. “Very well. Then let’s see if my magic can do any better than your woodcraft.”

I held my tongue and ’Gren and Sorgrad exchanged an amused glance. Usara dripped green magelight from one negligent hand and the boot print in the moss filled with water. Usara knelt, bending closer with a faint frown. ’Gren, uninterested, pulled up grass for the donkey, stroking its velvety nose. I watched Sorgrad, whose expression was a singular mixture of skepticism and curiosity. Birdsong fluted around and about as the creatures of the woods went about their business, unbothered by our arcane concerns.

I restrained my impatience with a firm hand. Usara had to come to this conclusion on his own, unhurried and unprompted, or he’d never acknowledge it wasn’t his own. I shoved my hands in my breeches pockets and fingered my rune bones. Sorgrad winked at me when I looked away, in case my gaze scorched the back of the mage’s neck. I stifled a laugh.

“I can’t scry them.” Usara sounded genuinely astounded. “I can find absolutely no trace!”

I bit my tongue.

“What else could explain that, other than Artifice?” asked Sorgrad in a neutral tone.

“At this distance, over this time, given the time we’ve spent with them—” Usara rubbed a thoughtful hand over his mouth. “You know, I really can’t think of anything.”

The arrogance that had these wizards thinking they could never be wrong was a coin with two sides, wasn’t it? I released my breath slowly. “So now you believe me?”

“I think you’ve an argument worth further consideration,” the mage admitted.

“So, what do we do now?” ’Gren had wandered back to us. He grinned. “You’re prepared to admit these Folk have some Artifice, but now we’ve gone and lost them. Do we go looking for another gang of them?”

“I’ll grant the Folk look to have real Artifice but there’s still no clear lore or anything we could put to immediate use,” frowned Usara.

“What about the song book?” I objected.

“Sing me something, make it work,” challenged Usara. “Do you believe it wholeheartedly enough to harness the aetheric influence? Show me how to explain it to Planir, to the scholars studying with Guinalle. Show me how to use it against the Elietimm!”

“Sheltya could,” suggested ’Gren obligingly.

“What?” Usara and I spoke as one, rounding on the Mountain Man who smiled cheerfully.

“That’s why you wanted to go into the uplands, isn’t it? To ask Sheltya’s help?” ’Gren looked at his brother, faint puzzlement wrinkling his brow.

“What is it you haven’t told us?” demanded Usara.

I stepped between him and Sorgrad. The only person who was going to take that tone with him was me. “Who or what is Sheltya? I’ve never heard the word before.”

Sorgrad’s face was a blank parchment, nothing to be read. “They hold the sagas and the histories of the mountains. If any Anyatimm know of aetheric magic, it’ll be Sheltya. Those Solurans straightening Halice’s leg after her breaking her thigh, even when it was half a year healed, that’s the kind of thing Sheltya are said to do.”

“Saedrin’s stones, man, why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” exclaimed Usara angrily. “Why’ve we been wasting our time here?”

“Because we were always coming to the Forest first anyway.” I took a pace forward and forced the wizard back a step. “You don’t head into the hills that early into the season and we needed to take the long route anyway to avoid trouble in the Gap.”

Usara retreated prudently. “Then let’s get back to the high road and get on our way.” He caught up the mule’s halter and set off determinedly. His scrying had at least given him his bearings.

I tried to catch Sorgrad’s eye as we followed but he avoided my gaze. I held my peace; he’d tell me what this was all about in his own good time. Then I’d tear strips off him for not telling me sooner, as soon as I could do it out of earshot of the wizard.