Traitor to the Blood

CHAPTER THREE

Four days' travel among the Warlands' forested hills left Leesil weary. So much was the same as when he'd fled eight years ago. That alone was enough to drain him, but by all they'd seen and heard so far, things were worse than when he'd left. He let Magiere or Wynn handle the wagon more often and sat alone in the back.

He'd forgotten the beauty of the land, even in its early winter. Thick-trunked spruce and fir trees surrounded the wagon's passage. They often passed through glens, fallow fields dusted with white snow, and spaces where the forest canopy opened to let in the sky. It was almost a welcome change after the dank forests of Droevinka, but any tingle of relief faded quickly. It was all more deceit to the eyes, as hollow and empty as the villages they'd passed by.

"Is this what you remember?" Wynn whispered.

"Yes," he answered. "No… worse."

When they'd first crossed Droevinka's border on the northward trek into Stravina, Leesil knew he would have to tell Wynn something about his past. He was reluctant, though not as much as when he'd confessed to Magiere during their hunt in Bela. When he'd finally told Magiere, his love for her had grown so much that he feared she would leave once she learned any part of the truth. But Magiere stayed by his side, drawing ever closer to him.

They were halfway to Soladran when he'd finally told Wynn a little of his youth. She remained silent while he spoke. Hesitant at first, she admitted her own long-held suspicions since helping him and Magiere in

Bela. She'd seen the strange way he fought, his weapons of choice hidden from plain sight, and his long wooden box containing more tools of his trade. But Leesil hadn't told her all. The young sage could only face so much. What little more he'd told Magiere wasn't enough for even her to understand his world.

When the wagon had passed the first empty village in Darmouth's province, Wynn's insatiable curiosity blossomed once again. She asked about the land and its people, and Leesil explained in sparse details.

Lord Darmouth's officers had standing orders to maintain the ranks by any means. Paying large numbers of mercenaries wasn't viable. Taxing oppressed people yielded little for the coffers, and any province's wealth wasn't much beyond what it took from its neighbors. Conscription was more cost-effective for a warlord with pretensions of monarchy.

After each fall harvest, any able-bodied male over fifteen years was herded away at sword point. It wasn't uncommon for the previous year's conscripts to be given this task under the watchful eye of an officer. Occasionally a village was passed over for several years, but this didn't happen often, and so… far too many women and children watched fathers and sons enslaved by their own countrymen, neighbors, or even kin.

Darmouth ruled a large territory to the southeast of the Warlands, but there were other lords like him who claimed territories to the north and the west. Skirmishes erupted regularly along province borders, and Darmouth's no less than any other. The rulers of the Warlands ceaselessly nipped and snapped at one another to see who was weakening.

In Darmouth's territory, conscripts were clothed and fed, and paid barely enough to care for those left at home. What little they were given sometimes depended on spoils and supplies taken in raids. This practice made them easily led astray by high-ranking officers or Darmouth's appointed "'nobles" into private armies for attempted takeovers. Most insurrections ended with the traitor's sudden death, the would-be upstart often dying before his scheme sprouted.

Deceit and betrayal thrived in this land, and everyone lived with the threat and promise of war that might come with the next dawn. This had been Leesil's first life and his youth.

As the wagon jostled along the empty road, he found himself viewing another empty village. Starvation was common, but the people had grown thin in number as well.

Magiere said little but glanced back at him every so often. She'd done this before in their time together, but instead of a scowl, there was something else in her face. Leesil hunched down in the wagon and stared out the back. He remained expressionless, offering her no reaction, but her gaze hurt him.

Was it fear he saw when she looked at him?

The nights grew so cold that they slept indoors whenever possible. Near dusk of the fourth day across the border stream, they reached a small village with decently thatched roofs. It was the first they'd found all day that wasn't deserted.

A young boy with a dirt-streaked face swung himself awkwardly on makeshift crutches down a side path through the village. He was missing his left leg from the knee downward. He froze at the sight of the wagon, and his face filled with alarm, like a yearling rabbit who'd wandered carelessly into the open and found himself facing a fox.

Magiere's falchion was stowed in back. She was dressed in breeches, a wool pullover shirt, and a heavy cloak, but not her hauberk. Wynn pulled back her coat's hood and smiled at the boy, her light-brown hair hanging loose about her face. But Chap and Leesil held the boy's attention the most.

At times Darmouth's press gangs used dogs to bring down runaways or sniff them out of hiding holes in the villages. Leesil pulled his cloak hood back, exposing the gray scarf tied over his hair and ears, then pushed Chap down in the wagon's bed. He didn't feel like smiling, but he could fake any expression when necessary.

"Hallo," he called. "Is there a place to sleep tonight? We can pay in coin or food."

The boy blinked twice. His smooth brow wrinkled in suspicion, but he wobbled slowly toward the wagon.

"Willem!"

A woman in a patched wool skirt and ragged cape bolted from the doorway of the nearest hut. She grabbed the boy around the shoulders and backed toward her hiding place. Her hair was so dirty that Leesil couldn't guess its color beyond a dull brown. She glared at him, and Leesil much preferred her anger to fear.

"They just wanna place outta the cold, Ma," the boy said. Several teeth were missing on the left side of his mouth. "Said they'd pay with food."

Magiere shifted uncomfortably on the wagon bench. "We're headed for Venjetz, but the nights are too cold. We have dried goods to trade for shelter."

At the mention of stores and fair trade, some of the woman's mistrust faded. She looked at Port and Imp and pursed her lips in thought. Both horses were healthy and bright-eyed, with thick, gray coats.

"We can hide em," Willem said.

Willem's mother lifted her chin at Magiere. She moved and held herself as if in her late twenties, but strands of gray stood out in her matted hair. There were soft lines around her eyes and the corners of her chapped lips. "We'll put you up, but do as my son says, or you might not find your horses come morning."

Magiere dropped down from the wagon's bench. Leesil climbed out behind her and took Port and Imp by the halters. As he led the wagon through the village on foot, he saw no other animals. Not a stray chicken, pig, or cow, and not even the goats or sheep more commonly kept in these northern territories.

The woman glanced at him, guessing his thoughts. "Soldiers took em. And any that come'll take your horses."

"They can try," Magiere replied with the cock of an eyebrow.

It was difficult to guess her age.

A few more villagers came out of hiding, taking cautious steps at the sight of strangers. All were women and younger children but for one old man, thin and bony. The short crop of his white hair and beard suggested he might be one of the few who ever lived to serve his time at arms and be released to go home. He wore a vestment of furred hide, and the ridge of an old scar ran down his right forearm to the back of his hand.

"Who do you have there, Helen?" he asked in a cracked voice.

"Lodgers that can pay."

"Best hide those horses," he said with a steady gaze. "And the wagon."

Helen didn't answer. Perhaps she did not care to be reminded of something she already knew.

A wide main way ran through the village's clustered huts, with four crossing paths that were barely more than muddy trails. Leesil spotted a communal smokehouse for drying meat, but it wasn't in use this late in the year. The only dwelling alive with activity was a rickety structure with bundles of ash tree branches piled out front beside an entrance covered with a deer-hide curtain. Three elder women sat there on a bench, splitting and trimming feathers.

"You make arrows?" Leesil asked.

"We can't do the heads anymore," Helen said. "My father was the smith, so the soldiers let him stay here when I was a girl. He taught me to make proper shafts. I taught the others. Captain Kevoc arrives in a few days, as he does once a moon. He trades us fair… or more so than most."

Leesil looked back at Chap and Wynn still riding in the wagon. The sage stared about the village. When she looked Leesil's way, her gaze passed beyond him into the distance. She raised a hand to point, and Leesil looked back ahead.

Rounding a bend through the forest near the village's far end, Leesil counted five-no, six-men on foot. Most wore mismatched leather armor, while the lead man wore a chain vest. They were armed with short-swords and longknives sheathed at their waists, the typical armaments given to soldiers. It seemed the village's benefactor had arrived early, but then Leesil abandoned such a notion. Foot soldiers were one thing, but an officer never walked. All of these men were on foot.

"Forgetful gods," Helen whispered.

Magiere cast her a startled look upon hearing the curse Leesil so often used. "Are they soldiers?" she asked.

Chap jumped down from the wagon. As the dog came up beside him, Leesil noticed Wynn digging through their belongings.

"Magiere," Wynn called softly. She lowered the falchion and punching blades over the wagon's side.

Magiere backed toward her, but Leesil kept his eyes on the newcomers.

"Not soldiers," Helen said. "Deserters. They just come to take what we have."

Magiere stepped up behind Leesil, and he slipped one hand behind his back. She placed the handles of his punching blades into his palm. He gripped them both as one.

"Helen, girl," the leader called out as he passed between the farthest huts. "You have company."

Villagers backed away as his men spread out to peer into and between the huts as they came. One behind the leader was little more than a nervous boy carrying the remains of a horse mace, its haft broken off near the butt. The man to the far right kicked open a hut's plank door and leaned halfway in to look about. When he backed out, Leesil saw he had a woman's tattered shawl wrapped about his head, its tail end covering the lower half of his face. A deep harrow of split scar tissue arched from his left eyebrow through the bridge of his nose to disappear beneath the fabric. He grunted at his leader, who didn't acknowledge him.

Tall and lean, the leader wore a shirt of torn quilted padding beneath his chain vest. His black hair was cropped almost to his scalp, and his square jaw was covered in stubble. He remained calm and poised, walking with slow care. There were no visible scars on his forearms, hands, or face, and that made Leesil wary.

Leesil had seen their hardened kind before. But in his youth, marauding bands of deserters had been rare. That they moved so openly meant patrols through the land had become scarce. The way the boy huddled close to the leader gave Leesil pause. The man in the chain vest wasn't old enough to be the father, nor did they look alike, yet there was some bond between them. A litany of Leesil's own father surfaced in his thoughts as he studied the two, and some part of him understood and accepted their way in this hopeless land.

Do what is necessary. Take care of your own. And consequence matters not until it comes.

Chap began to rumble.

Leesil expected the deserters to come straight for the horses, but the leader stopped near the fletcher's shack. The three old women splitting feathers had vanished.

"A new crop of shafts are ready," the man said.

Helen tensed and pushed Willem off to the side and behind her.

Leesil remained still. These men knew the village's trading schedule. They'd come to steal arrow shafts before they could be traded for winter supplies. The scarf-wrapped man pulled aside the hide on the shack's doorway.

"I wouldn't do that," Leesil warned.

The leader looked at him without reaction. The man's lack of expression made Leesil shift his feet, feeling the ground for footing. Even the undead, like Ratboy, showed rage or hatred or passion, but this man's eyes held nothing. He was dead and didn't know it yet, or he didn't care either way.

Leesil remembered what that was like, felt it even now.

"Hold your tongue, man," the leader said, "and lead those horses over."

Chap growled, and Leesil sidestepped to the right, letting Magiere move into the open with her falchion in plain sight.

"Turn back and walk out," Magiere said.

Chap's low growl quickened to a snarl. Leesil lifted his blades in front of himself, both appearing as but one weapon. He heard a click behind him and knew Wynn had managed to load one of their crossbows.

The leader blinked once. That was all the reaction Leesil caught. Perhaps the man did still care about his own death or those under his charge.

"Six to three," the leader said. "The odds don't favor you."

The old man with cropped white hair stepped out of his hut a few paces behind the leader. Leesil hadn't even noticed him disappear. One of the marauders skidded back from him, drawing a shortsword. The leader turned his head just enough to see what was happening.

The old soldier held a barkless wooden rod the length of his arm and as thick as his wrist. Its smooth surface looked polished. Most likely it had been ground down-boned-with a cow's bone to make the wood hard and tough. He stood quietly, looking to the leader, matching his dispassionate gaze.

To Leesil's eye, there seemed little difference between them other than the choice of what was theirs to keep and protect. The rest of the villagers remained silent, cowering back out of the way. Even the people of Magiere's village had gathered together in their superstitions to face down strangers thought "unnatural." It wasn't the same here, where peasants were beaten down one generation after another, and fighting back gained little more than retribution.

As the leader looked back to Leesil, Helen pulled her skirt up and jerked a long iron knife from her worn boot. Another long moment and an elder woman appeared from behind a hut with a woodsman's ax in her hand. None of the other villagers moved, and one woman pulled her two girls farther back against a hut wall. The boy with the broken mace stepped a little closer to his superior, eyes frightened.

"Odds change," Leesil countered, and he separated his blades so that it was clear he held two. "That's the way of luck."

The shawl-masked deserter stepped toward the old soldier, but the leader raised a hand as if he knew without looking. His man stopped short.

The leader backed up with the same slow and careful steps as when he'd first entered. He reached the village's far end, his men following, and just before he turned he cast one long look at Helen. Everyone remained silent and poised until the deserters were out of sight, and then Helen sighed.

"You just saved us a month's work," she finally said, now puzzled as she looked over Leesil and then Magiere. "You'll pay for nothing tonight. Let's hide those horses before they circle back through the woods to find them after dark. We'll lock em up in the smokehouse."

"What if those men come back after we leave?" Wynn called.

Leesil turned to see her standing in the wagon's bed, pale and distressed. He walked over and dropped his blades in the wagon's back. Wynn had seen many things on this journey that were almost beyond her ability to bear. He took the crossbow from her shaking hands and set it down next to his blades.

"We do what's necessary in the moment," Leesil said. "That's all there is."

"That is not enough," she whispered.

He didn't answer and turned to find Magiere watching him again.

The sleeper rolled, lost inside his dream of glittering stars all around. And the dark between began to undulate.

The movement sharpened slowly into clarity, and stars became glints of light upon massive black reptilian scales. The coils of its body were larger than the height of a man and circled on all sides of him, writhing with no beginning, no end, and no space between.

"Where?" the dreamer asked. "Show me where."

This time, no cryptic words came. Black coils faded away.

He found himself standing on a snow-covered slope looking into a valley locked in a perpetual winter. High mountains shot up on all sides like teeth into the cloud-smothered sky. And there in the maw of the valley stood a six-towered castle coated in ice. It was immense in size, but it was dwarfed by the white peaks that surrounded it.

"There?" he asked.

Look deeper. The orb is close.

The words slipped like a whisper into the dreamer's thoughts. He trudged downslope through snow so old it crackled under his boots as he sank knee-deep with each step. When he reached the valley floor, he made out the entrance through the high outer wall.

Twin gates of ornate iron curls joined together at the high top in an arched point. Beyond them were matching-shaped iron doors in the castle's front atop a wide cascade of steps. Mottled with rust, the gates were still sound in their place, sealing in whatever the castle held. Each of the tall towers was topped with a conical spire fringed with a curtain of ice suspended from its roof's lower edge.

As he approached, the left gate swung outward of its own accord on hinges as large as his own leg. Three ravens sat atop the wall staring down at him with pinprick eyes. One cawed in agitation. Beyond the gate, the barren courtyard was carpeted in snowfall that had crusted with years of cold. Except for the walkway and steps.

The iced stones were cleared all the way from the gate and up the stairs to the towering iron doors. Someone… something remained in this place.

He took a step across the gate's threshold.

Welstiel's eyelids opened. The castle faded beyond sight and touch.

"No! Show me more!"

Welstiel rolled to his feet, twisting about as he tried to get his bearings. The previous dawn rushed back to him.

He and Chane had found a deserted hovel and slumbered for the day on its floor, covered only by their cloaks. Broken pottery strewn about was the only sign that anyone had ever lived here. No stools, wooden table, or cook pot had been left behind.

For the first time, Welstiel's dream patron showed him the resting place of what he sought-an unknown treasure that could alter his detestable existence. He was certain, if astonished and more frustrated than ever before.

In the past few moons, his dream patron had begun whispering of the treasure by calling it an "orb." Welstiel had hoped for further enlightenment.

But this dream had been different from any other. His patron of dreams said little, yet there was this vision. Welstiel had seen an ancient and forgotten stronghold, and would recognize it, if he could find it. But why had the vision been stolen before he stepped in the gate? The waiting and half-hints took their toll upon him.

He stepped to the huts doorless opening and looked outside. Chane was nowhere to be seen, probably out hunting. Welstiel did not have the strength to go searching for him and squatted down. Since leaving Droevinka, he had awoken nearly every night with the same memory.

In the Apudalsat forest he had secretly watched Magiere and Chap circle in upon Ubad, his father's old retainer and confidant. The mad necromancer had cried out: "Il'Samar! Come to your servant and aid me!"

Coils like waves of vaporous and glinting black earth had appeared in the forest, circling on all sides of the clearing. The name by which Ubad made his plea was unfamiliar to Welstiel, but he knew those coils as well as his own reflection. He knew its whispering voice in the dark-his patron of dreams. And it had abandoned Ubad as Chap tore open the withered old schemer's throat.

How the coils had appeared outside of Welstiel's dreams was mystery enough, but how was the conjurer of the dead connected to Welstiel's patron? Most troubling was that the patron had abandoned Ubad in his final moment of need.

"But it has not abandoned me," Welstiel whispered to himself.

He believed the voice in his dreams assisted him, guided him. Soon he would never need to feed again-to debase himself with blood. The power of the orb would sustain him somehow. His longing for freedom was an ache that constantly nagged him.

Yet still there was Ubad, betrayed in the clearing. Welstiel tried to put this aside.

His patron had called Magiere "sister of the dead." Welstiel had slowly manipulated her for years to fulfill his plans, and he grew ever more certain of her role to play. The path to the castle doors had been clear of snow, as if something still resided there. Something for which he would need a killer of the dead.

Welstiel stood up, fastened his cloak, and attempted to smooth his hair back as he stepped outside. Tiny snowflakes drifted down through the dusk. It was time to search for his wayward companion.

In the previous night they had passed a few huts off the road among the trees. Chane had likely gone back.

Along with Magiere's frustrating deviations, Welstiel grew concerned over recent changes in Chane. Since rising from his second death, Chane's feedings grew more brutal. He singled out women with coal-black hair and the fairest complexions. The association to Magiere was obvious. Otherwise Chane remained silent and withdrawn. He had not spoken once of the sages' guild and took no further notes in his journals, but also showed neither satisfaction nor quiet euphoria after a kill. Careless in his feeding habits, Chane showed little to none of the resourcefulness Welstiel once valued.

And Chane still wondered how he had risen from a second grave.

Let him wonder.

Chane's begrudging awe helped maintain Welstiel's limited control of the tall undead. And after all, the resurrection was a simple thing, though Welstiel had been uncertain it would succeed until he made the attempt. It had started with little more than a hint acquired years ago, in the very land from which Chane's fledgling sage hailed, where the Guild of Sage-craft was founded. Welstiel had been well traveled in his early years as a Noble Dead. How else could he have promised Chane a letter of introduction to the guild there?

Gaining that hint, and other knowledge of vampiric nature, had been a dangerous exploit that nearly cost Welstiel his existence. An old vampire living secretly in Calm Seatt, the king's city in Malourne, did not care for his own kind invading his territory.

Pawl a'Seatt-even the old undead's surname was a puzzle. Little more than a reference to the city in which the vampire lived. Welstiel learned bits and pieces from him, such as one scornful proclamation.

Blood is not the life; life is the life.

At first it made no sense, but Welstiel's careful questions gained him more pieces to ponder in the following years. Blood, as an element of the living, was a medium and conduit that carried life energy upon which the undead thrived. The medium was convenient and quick, and nothing more. The very presence of an undead drew life energy to it in slower, unnoticed ways.

If that energy maintained a higher undead, a Noble Dead…

If that energy was how one healed its physical form…

There had never been a chance to test the theory, until Chane stupidly faced off with Magiere and was cut down.

As with so many folktales and superstitions of the living, beheading was not a permanent way to finish one of Welstiel's kind. Such severe damage merely incapacitated a vampire, placing it into a dark dormancy until enough life was absorbed to heal itself, or its separated parts rotted beyond recovery.

But Chane was suspicious, wary, and even in awe of what mysteries Welstiel seemed to know. This secret was just one of many that Welstiel would keep unto himself.

Welstiel left the horses tied to a tree and made his way on foot. He pushed branches aside and cut through the forest, back to where he remembered six intact huts with cookfires still smoking. Upon seeing the corner of a thatched roof through the branches, Welstiel slowed to listen.

Chane had become more adept at luring victims out of their homes. Welstiel was uncertain how or even why. He almost never caught Chane feeding inside of a dwelling since they had left Droevinka.

Welstiel closed his eyes and listened, letting his senses expand into the night. If Chane would only take more care in disposing of bodies, Welstiel would simply wait for him to return, but Chane could not be trusted anymore. One night south of Soladran, he had slaughtered a young, black-haired woman and her two small daughters right behind the woman's house, leaving the bodies where they fell. Welstiel had cleaned up after his companion once again.

He heard soft sounds, but not the drifting wind or skittering of a squirrel among the branches. He moved silently around the cluster of dwellings and through the forest, and the sounds grew more apparent. Heavy breathing and the thrash of a struggle.

Welstiel rounded the thick trunk of spruce to see Chane in profile.

He had a young woman pressed against the tree with his hand clamped over her mouth and jaw. Her eyes were wild, but her throat was mostly intact beneath Chane's teeth as he drained her slowly. Pale and cleaner than most peasants, she had long black hair, which was no surprise. From the corner of her eye, she saw Welstiel.

Her weakening expression filled with hope. She doubled her effort to shove Chane away and let out a muffled cry. Chane's hand closed tighter about her mouth. A muted crack of bone silenced her as she stiffened in pain, fingers twitching in the air.

Welstiel let his senses retreat until the darkness masked the detail of what he saw. He stood in silent distaste, waiting for it to end.

Chane must have noticed something, for he pulled his head back from the woman's throat. Even in Welstiel's normal night-shadowed sight, Chane looked like some beast come in from the wild. His cloak and shirt were halfway off one shoulder, and his face was smeared in blood. Some of his hair caught upon his bloodstained lips and stuck there.

Welstiel reached his limit of tolerance with Chane's recklessness. About to step in and end this night's butchery, he suddenly held his place and stared into Chane's eyes.

There was little intelligence or recognition there, but neither was there the savage pleasure Chane took at the end of his hunts. He looked lost to the world, as if not even aware of what he did. It was all a habit he mindlessly clung to.

"Finish it," Welstiel said.

The words must have registered. Chane wrapped his teeth halfway around the woman's throat and ripped outward. Blood and torn flesh came away in his mouth. He didn't bother to catch the girl as she dropped limp to the ground, flopping over when her shoulder hit an exposed tree root.

Chane spit flesh from his teeth and leaned against the tree. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, swallowing hard.

Welstiel looked down at the girl lying crooked on the ground. He felt disgust at Chane's need to touch this lowly peasant, to put his mouth on her, but still wondered at Chane's lack of pleasure.

"Did you plan to properly dispose of that?" Welstiel asked.

Chane did not answer.

Welstiel stepped in to pick up the body, then stopped, reaching a sudden decision. "I weary of this. Bargain or no, either you become useful once again, or leave and find your own way. Clean this up yourself."

Chane did not look at him, but after a moment he nodded once. Welstiel turned away, ever more puzzled.

Wynn was surprised when Helen led her into the smith's shop. Leesil, Magiere, and Chap followed, all looking about in mild confusion. Small tables, stools, and one old chair repaired with twine were placed around a crude stone forge. Stalls where horses once had been kept were barren, even of straw. Some stalls had meager stores of piled casks and canvas sacks.

"We've no iron or metal to work anymore," Helen said, tossing a split log into the open forge that now served as a fire pit. "We made this our common house. You can sleep here."

Gazing at the faded tables, Wynn realized these people had not given up. They scratched out a semblance of community as best they could. Other women and children began coming in. Visitors were unusual here, and, though wary, the people were curious.

Magiere unpacked a change of clothes, ignoring the growing numbers inside the smithy. Leesil settled in the back of the room, seeming reluctant to visit with any of the villagers. He had remained darkly quiet since the battle at the border. Only Chap took to the newfound company, letting the children scratch his ears and back.

Wynn shuddered once as Chap licked the smudges from a small girl's face. The child squealed and giggled over the wet attention of a large silvery dog come to visit. But Wynn heard the remembered buzz of a leaf-wing instead and turned back to Helen.

"Can I help you prepare supper?" Wynn asked, now that the fire was reviving.

Helen hesitated. "We'll have more food once we trade the arrow shafts. For now, all we've got is porridge and millet, and all of us ate once today already."

Wynn felt ashamed for even asking. At least in Droevinka, most villagers had food. Two small girls about four years of age inspected the hem of her sheepskin coat.

"If your men are conscripted… taken away," she said, "do they come home on leave?"

"Leave?" Helen blinked, then appeared to understand. "No. We've no grown men shy of forty winters since I was a girl. My father was allowed to stay and make arrowheads for a while, but they took him, too."

Wynn frowned and pointed at Willem. "Then where did the children…?"

She trailed off, second-guessing the politeness of her question. Helen simply tucked a loose strand of unwashed hair behind her ear.

"Soldiers take more than just livestock and grain. Then leave us with more mouths to feed."

Helen's meaning sank in as Wynn looked around at all the children. Their narrow, dirty faces and ragged clothing filled her with a need to do something. One little girl's arms were so thin that they reminded Wynn of the arrow shafts the women worked so hard to make.

She hurried toward the smithy's rear door, calling out, "I will be back in a moment."

She went to the wagon outside and climbed up into its back. Helen had hidden Port and Imp farther down in the smokehouse. Wynn pulled aside a canvas tarp used to pitch a lean-to tent on the wagon's side and began rummaging through their stores.

Back in Soladran, Leesil had sent her to purchase supplies. Tired of biscuits and jerky, especially since she did not care for meat, Wynn had purchased dried lentils, barley, onions, and carrots, as well as late pears and smoke-dried fish. She acquired a lidded clay pot, a small cauldron, and an iron hook pole for use at a fire. And she found grain and seed-oil for making flatbread.

At first Magiere was furious over what she spent in coin. But the following night Wynn hung the cauldron from the iron hook and made an herbed lentil soup for supper. She heard welcome sounds of satisfaction from Leesil as he took his first bite. Magiere did not comment, but she said nothing more about the money. This type of cooking was time-consuming, and Wynn tended to make large amounts during the nights. The clay pot was used to store the extra, and it was still half-full from the last meal she had prepared.

But now she dug through the supplies with a different purpose in mind, and hauled all that she could carry back into the smithy.

"Have someone fetch the largest cook pot any of you have," she told Helen.

"What're you doing?" Helen asked.

"Making supper. There are lentils, onions, and carrots. I have parsley and marjoram as well. We need to get water boiling, as it will take time to make enough for everyone."

Helen stared at the bounty Wynn pulled from burlap sacks, as if treasure were being poured out on the floor. She shook her head.

"This must be your whole supply. You can't mean-"

"No, she doesn't," Magiere said, striding over. "Wynn, what are you doing? We're trading for a night, not settling in until spring."

Wynn had tiptoed around Magiere until her own anger and anguish got the best of her. She was tired of being polite or bursting into bitter disputes that made her feel petty. In this moment she did not care about broken trust or good manners.

"Oh, yes, I mean it!" she snapped back. "We need only enough to get us to Venjetz, and we can replace all of this. Look at that little girl. She is having a decent supper tonight, and we will provide it!"

Wynn expected Magiere's assault to begin, but instead she cast a glance toward Leesil and fell silent. Chap trotted to Wynn's side and barked once at Magiere for "yes." Wynn flinched, almost pulling away from the dog's closeness before she could stop herself.

"He is on my side," she said to Magiere.

Helen and the other women looked on in tense silence.

Leesil got up from his stool and came to Wynn, quietly whispering in her ear, "The next village will be exactly the same. And the next."

His expression was dispassionate, but the sadness in his eyes washed away Wynn's anger.

"I do not care," she told him. "You said we should do what we can in the moment."

"All right." He stepped back. "Magiere?"

"Why ask me? You three have made up your minds."

Despite Magiere's annoyance, Wynn knew she would help and then never bring it up again.

Wynn turned back to Helen. "We need knives for chopping as well as the pot."

The village women set out to fetch the necessary items. No one smiled or muttered thanks, but rather hurried in a way that suggested this miracle might vanish if they did not move quickly enough. Leesil picked up a bucket and went to seek a well or rain barrel for water. Wynn followed him, and, alone outside, she grabbed his arm.

"Why is it so hard for you to assist these people?"

"Because I helped do this to them." He turned away, and Wynn saw only his tan profile in the dusk. "And nothing we do here will change anything."

He pulled free of her grasp and turned his back to her. Wynn watched him walk a slow and even gait down the village's main way. She was silent only because she did not know what else to say.

Chap slipped out the smithy's back door as meal preparations heightened to a flurry. Wynn had returned to oversee the work, but Leesil had not come with her. Sad frustration on the little sage's face made Chap wonder what passed between them while outside.

He circled around their wagon and along the smithy's side until he spotted Leesil walking slowly up the main way. A quick touch upon Leesil's mind found it empty.

Chap could not read thoughts, only memories surfacing to consciousness, and Leesil's mind was devoid of such. Most sentient beings had brief flickers of the past passing just below their awareness at any time. But even those were not present in Leesil. He held them down, shutting out everything.

Which was worse-suppression or immersion-to block all that was past until it welled up to consume one, or to dive into it and drown? Leesil was becoming a danger to himself, and Chap was at a loss for how to care for one of his charges.

Grass and leaves rustling and the sound of clicking branches chattered in the wind.

Chap lifted his head with perked ears and stared across the main way to the woods beyond the village. He felt them again. His kin, the Fay, called for him, demanding his presence among them.

He wrinkled his snout.

More talk was not needed. Perhaps he was corrupted by flesh, as they claimed. How could he not be, living encased in it, limited by it as compared to what he had once been among his kin? Or perhaps he had gained a perspective they did not possess. Either way, now was not the time for more of their admonishments.

Before their presence touched his spirit, Chap clung to the world around him. From sounds the wind made in the trees to the gritty touch of earth under his feet and the smell of the smithy's forge fire, Chap filled up his senses. With these he shut out his kin.

The presence of the Fay thinned and hided from around him.

Chap look backed down the main way. Leesil was gone, perhaps turning aside through the village to wherever the common well was located. Anxious concern over Leesil's foray into his past brought Chap his own memories.

He remembered being "born" into flesh.

The majay-hi were an old breed that ran among the elven forests. Intelligent compared to other animals, and intuitive beyond most, they were marked by long silvery fur of varied shades and crystalline blue eyes. They were sensitive to life and its balance or imbalance, and thereby sensed its unnatural opposite-the undead. But there had not been a majay-hi like Chap for so long that even the elves did not remember.

Not since the humans' Forgotten History and the war between the living of the world and the Enemy.

In the conflict's final days, a number of the Fay chose to defend the world of their making by taking flesh. They also wished to keep their presence unknown to most. Some of them entered the unborn young of animals, so they might live in flesh and blood. Among other forms chosen were the wolves of the forestlands. When the war ended, the conflict won but the world in ruins, the born-Fay remained bound in flesh. Some took solace in one another.

For decades they drifted near many forest settlements, and then gradually gravitated toward the varied lands of the elves. Rarely, a small group lingered near an elven clan for a time. One night, a female ready to give birth lumbered into an elven village, and they took her in. Her puppies were not Fay, but neither were they wolves. The first litter was born with coats of varied shades of silver-gray and crystalline eyes, unlike the wolf forms of born-Fay.

And these first ones mated, and the females gave birth to a second generation.

From these descended what were called the majay-hi, an ancient elvish word Wynn simplistically translated as "Fay-hound" or "hound of the Fay." The original born-Fay, though long-lived, passed away once [heir mortal flesh gave out. The descendants or their flesh still thrived in seclusion, roaming the elven forest as one of its natural guardians. Though more than animals, the majay-hi were but a shadow and a whisper of the original born-Fay.

Since the Forgotten History, no Fay had chosen to be born in flesh- until Chap.

One moment-or one eternity-he was with his kin, singular and many, all in one. In an instant, the first measure of time in his new awareness, he was a wet, squirming pup struggling against his siblings for a place to nurse from his mother. His birth was his own choice, for once again the Fay needed one of their own among mortals.

Unlike his brothers and sisters, he was fully aware of who and what he was. His first emotion was loneliness. His second was fear in isolation. Though flesh made him one of the litter, he was apart from them in his awareness. And apart from his kin, the Fay, lost in a prison of flesh.

Gone was his "touch" upon the essence of any thing in existence, to both know and be all that it truly was in its innate nature. He had only this body now. Gone was also his awareness of eternity as a whole, and he lived in "moments," one after the other. Even memory of his place among the Fay became mute and cloudy. For a living "mind" could never hold full awareness of all that was the Fay.

At first his small body seemed so useless. It took many days and nights before he understood the "how" and necessity of walking on legs. Then he was running before his siblings stopped falling on their snouts. He gained his first reprieve from grief and panic over all that he had given up.

He learned the delight of whipping grass and wind, the joy of mother's tongue on his stomach, and the comfort of sleep and food. There was also wrestling with his brothers and sisters. He learned compassion when he tried not to exploit his greater sentience by winning too often.

Memories were a thing for the living, limited and fragile. Not like the awareness within the Fay that Chap just barely… remembered. Like anyone's memories of an earlier past time.

And Leesil hid from his.

Chap stood alone outside the smithy, his frustration mounting. Part of the purpose he carried into flesh was to bring Leesil to Magiere, to save her from the Enemy. But what of saving Leesil?

Intimacy of body and spirit bonded them, but the bond now grew fragile as Leesil stepped farther into the past. Perhaps Magiere was all there was to keep him from being lost in the past he struggled against. Chap was uncertain how to foster this. And how much could Magiere herself face of what she learned of Leesil in this place the humans called the Warlands?

Something tugged on Chap's tail, and he jumped, startled.

A smudge-faced girl with bone-thin arms grasped at his switching tail with a wide grin. Chap turned about, sticking his nose into her. Beneath her burlap dress he felt the ridges of tiny ribs and the swell of a bloated belly. Prolonged hunger had begun to deform her.

Chap glanced once down the main way, but Leesil had not returned. He pushed at the little girl with his head, herding her toward the smithy's front door and the busy preparations for a hot meal.