“If she shows her nose in town, she’ll be nabbed. The fire and the talk of demons have the townsfolk roused. Every street is watched by a hundred eyes.”

“Then no more hunting.” Dismarum swung away. “We’ll wait for her to come to us.” As he limped across the flagstone, he pictured the skal’tum crouched in its warren of cells, like a starved cur awaiting its bone.

To think of betraying its lust and the master it served was a madman’s folly.

But Dismarum had waited for so long.

From above the tree line, Elena spied the red roof of the town’s mill ahead. By now, the fire had been left far behind, though the smoke still chased her and her brother across the morning sky. The sight of the pitched roof gave renewed vigor to Elena’s steps. She caught up with Joach, dragging a protesting Mist by her lead.

“Almost there,” Joach said.

“What if Aunt Fila’s not at the bakery?”

“She always is, El. Don’t worry.”

The two of them had already decided to seek out their widowed aunt, who owned and operated Winterfell’s bakery. Their mother’s sister was a stern woman with a backbone of iron. She would know what to make of the previous night’s horrors.

As Elena followed her brother around a bend in the creek, the mill came fully into view. Its redbrick exterior and narrow windows were a comforting sight. She often ran errands here for her mother, collecting a bag of flour or bartering for corn-meal. Its large paddle wheel turned slowly in the deep silver current as the creek plummeted down a short wash. Just beyond the mill stood the Millbend Bridge, a stone span that forded the creek and connected the town road to the wagon ruts that led up into the sparsely populated highlands.

Joach held up a hand to stop Elena from proceeding out from under the canopy of the trees. “Let me see if anyone’s at the mill. You stay hidden.”

Elena nodded and pushed Mist’s nose to back her several steps. The mare shook her head in protest; a hoof stomped the ground. Elena knew the horse itched to get out from under the branches and reach the meadow that still grew green beyond the trees. “Shh, sweet one.” Elena scratched Mist behind an ear.

Her whispered consolations settled the anxious horse, but not herself.

She watched Joach steal across the open expanse to the mill’s door. He tried the iron latch. She saw him tug at it. It was locked. He climbed atop a flour barrel and peered through one of the windows. Then he hopped off. scratched his head, and disappeared around a corner.

Elena hated seeing the last member of her family vanish from sight. What if he never returned? What if she was left alone? Pictures of life without any family bloomed in her head. What if she was the last Morin’stal alive in the valley? She clutched her arms around her chest, holding her breath.

As she waited, a kak’ora bird sang from a nearby branch, a lonely song. The scent of dewflowers, open only during the first rays of the sun, perfumed the morning, strong enough to penetrate even the smoky pall. As she watched for Joach’s return, she saw a rabbit burst from hiding in the prairie grass and bound toward the trees. Disturbed by its passage, a flight of butterflies blew into the air. It was as if summer held eternal sway in this little meadow.

She sighed. As horrible as the night had been, she had somehow expected the land to be wildly changed once the sun rose: trees twisted, animals corrupted. But valley life continued undisturbed, like any other morning. Strangely, she found this reassuring.

Life continued and so could she.

Movement near the mill caught her eye. Joach reappeared from beyond the mill and waved her from hiding. Thank you, Sweet Mother! Elena flew forward, wanting to narrow the distance between them as soon as possible, though Mist kept grabbing mouthfuls of grass as Elena pulled her on. When she reached her brother, he shook his head. “Empty. Must be out trying to stop the fire.”

“What if Aunt Fila is out, too?” Elena asked as Mist attacked the leaves of a thrushbush.

“No, El. Our aunt’s a tough old lady, but the men wouldn’t let her battle the flame no matter how much she might kick a fuss. She’ll be home.“

“I suppose you’re right.”

“Let’s go.” Joach led the way to Millbend Bridge. Elena had to keep tugging Mist to get her to follow, but the mare was determined to get a full belly before leaving the meadow.

Finally, she did manage to get the horse on the bridge. The mare’s hooves clopped loudly on the stone as they crossed. As they reached the top of the bridge, Elena glanced back to the mill. She spotted a curtain snap shut across a window on the second floor. “Joach, someone is in the mill.” She motioned to the curtained window.

“Odd. They had to have heard me. I even pounded on a window in back.”

“Maybe it was one of the miller’s children, frightened while their parents were out.”

“I know Cesill and Garash. And they know me. I don’t like this.” Joach wore a stern expression.

From down the road, the wheels of an approaching wagon clattered toward them. Joach scooted them off the bridge and into the trees on the north side of the road. He pushed Mist back until they were well hidden.

“But it might be someone we know,” Elena said. “Someone to help us.”

“And it might be one of those men from last night.”

Elena bent closer to Mist. From their shadowed hiding place, she could spy the open wagon as it passed.

Men dressed in red and black crowded the buckboard and rails— garrison men. She remembered that the thin man from last night had claimed to be from the town’s garrison.

Neither she nor Joach called out to the wagon as it clattered past.

Joach motioned for her to slink deeper into the forest. She came upon a deer trail that gave them room to maneuver Mist around. From here, they could just discern the wagon. Soldiers hopped from the back to take up posts by the bridge. Two men marched toward the mill.

“We’d better get out of here,” Joach breathed in her ear.

Just as they turned to leave, Elena saw the mill’s door pop open. She watched the miller and his wife rush toward the soldiers. She couldn’t hear what the miller said, but his arm kept pointing toward the road to town.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“Get on Mist.” Joach boosted her onto the mare’s back. He jumped up behind her. “We need to reach Aunt Fila before anyone else sees us.”

“Why? Our family has plenty of friends in town.”

Joach shoved an arm toward the bridge. “Like the miller and his wife.” Frightened, she tapped Mist’s flanks to get her trotting down the deer trail. “Then what are we going to do?”

“Travel the wood. Aunt Fila’s place is closer to the north end of town. We’ll circle through the trees that way. There will be less of a chance of being spotted.”

She remained silent. As much as her heart railed against his words, her mind knew them to be true. For now, only their family could be trusted. Aunt Fila had a level head and a keen mind. She and her three grown sons would protect them and help straighten all this out.

She kicked Mist to a quicker gait. The sooner they reached Aunt Fila’s bakery, the safer they would be.

She watched the smoke trail across the sky from the scorched orchards in the distant foothills. What had happened to her valley, to her people? She remembered her moment of revelation as she stared at the calm meadow by the mill. She had been deluded.

Life was not the same in her home valley.

It had twisted into a cold and foreign place.

Er’ril left his porridge on the bar and nodded his head toward the door. “We’d better strike for the road.”

Nee’lahn cowered on a stool beside him. She was obviously still shaken by the rush of men who had crowded around them, trying to force more details of the dreadlord from Er’ril. His assurance that he knew no more than they about the creature, just old stories he had heard on the road, did little to dampen their curiosity. They persisted until finally Er’ril had unsheathed one of his juggling knives and waved away the last of the stragglers from his side.

By now, the talk of the commons had turned to what to do about the demon-spawn children. And this was a feeble discussion since most of the men had already left, thumbing their foreheads in superstition, to protect their own households from the cursed threat.

Only one patron still kept his eyes drilled toward Er’ril. Hunched over a mug of warmed ale, the mountain man did not seem in any rush to leave the inn. His stare made Er’ril edgy.

Er’ril stood up and turned his back on the giant. “We should go,” he repeated.

The nyphai did not move. Er’ril reached for Nee’lahn’s elbow, but she shied away.

“Can’t you feel it?” he continued. “The air is heavy with threat. The town is like dry tinder, and everyone is scurrying about with lighted torches. We need to leave.”

“What about the skal’tum?” she said meekly. “Maybe we’d be safer in town until it’s killed.”

“It won’t be killed.”

“Why?”

“The skal’tum are protected by dark magick.”

A deep voice grumbled from just behind his shoulder. “What is this dark magick you speak of?” Er’ril jumped at the words, startled that so large a man could move so quietly up on him. Nee’lahn’s eyes widened in fright.

He turned to face the mountain man, finding himself craning his neck back. “Excuse me, but our words are private.”

“I go to hunt a beast that makes you cower,” the big man answered with a coarse grumble, his nostrils flared. “If you have honor, you will tell me what I need to know.” Er’ril’s cheeks reddened. There was once a time when no one would question his honor. He felt a burn of shame that he had not felt in countless winters.

Nee’lahn spoke from her hiding place behind Er’ril’s back. “Perhaps he’s right. The man deserves to know.”

Er’ril clenched his one fist. “It would be best to leave this matter be, mountain man.” The giant drew back to his full height. Er’ril had not appreciated how bowed the man had been when among the townspeople. Behind him, he heard a maid drop a glass in fright at the sight of his towering bulk. Considered tall himself, Er’ril found himself at eye level with the giant’s belly. “I am called Krai a’Darvun, of the Senta flame,” he said sternly. “The creature has wounded the fire of my tribe. I cannot return without the head of the beast.”

Er’ril knew the fervor in which the mountain folk held honor. Among the treacherous icy passes, trust was crucial to survival. Er’ril pressed his fist to his own throat, acknowledging the oath pledge.

Krai mimicked the motion, a slightly startled look to his eyes. “You know of our ways, man of the lowlands.”

“I have traveled.”

“Then you know my will. Tell me of this dark magick.”

Er’ril swallowed, suddenly embarrassed by the lack of information he could extend to this man. “I don’t… don’t really know. The dark magick’s touch came to our land when the Gul’gotha invaded our shores. Scholars of my time believed its pestilence drove Chi away. When Chyric magick faded in the land to isolated whispers, the dark magick grew stronger. I have seen horrors during my travels that would shrivel the bravest man.”

Krai’s brow crinkled with his words. “You speak of times before my flame ventured from the Northern Waste. How could that be?”

Er’ril balked. He had spoken without thinking. One night of talking freely with Nee’lahn and the years of practiced constraint on his tongue had fallen away.

Nee’lahn spoke behind him. “Before you stands Er’ril of Stand:, called the Wandering Knight by storytellers.”

Krai’s eyes narrowed in distaste, but an edge of fear crinkled at the corners. “You tell tales when I ask for truth.”

“He is not myth,” she said. “He is the truth.”

Suddenly Krai thrust his hands forward and placed both palms on Er’ril’s temples. Er’ril knew what this meant and did not fight the large man. Nee’lahn, though, unacquainted with the custom, gasped.

The innkeeper, who had been sweeping broken glass across the common room, called to them. “No roughhousing in here! Take your argument to the street!”

Krai kept his hands steady.

Er’ril remained still as he spoke. “I am the one she named. I am Er’ril of the clan Standi.” Krai closed his eyes for a heartbeat. Then his lids whipped open wide. He stumbled a step away, crashing into a table and overturning it. “You tell the truth!” The innkeeper, red faced, his jowls shaking, raised his broom. “What did I say? Out before I call the town guard!”

Krai dropped to a knee. A floorboard cracked to splinters under his impact. “No! It cannot be.” His voice boomed across the room. Tears flowed to his beard.

Er’ril was shocked by the man’s reaction. He knew the mountain people had the ability to read the truth in another’s tongue due to some form of elemental rock magick that throbbed from the roots of their mountain home. But this reaction? Mountain men never shed tears, not even when horribly injured.

“You have come!” Krai’s voice was a rumbling moan. He sank to the floor. “Then the Rock speaks the truth. My people must die.”

The damp pants were too long, and Elena was forced to roll them up at the ankle. The tail of her green woolen shirt hung to her knees. Joach had stolen the clothes from a shepherd’s drying line. As she shoved the locks of her red hair under a hunter’s cap, she complained to Joach. “I look ridiculous. Must we really do this?”

They stood hidden under a willow tree, its branches a screen around them. A small brook gurgled past the tree, stirring the branches on one side.

“This’ll make it harder to recognize us.” She watched Joach scrub his face with his nightshirt. Once clean, he pulled into a ragged jacket with yellow patches on the elbows. “They’ll be watching for two on horseback. We should leave Mist tied to the willow tree here.”

“I don’t like leaving her alone,” Elena said. “What if some thief comes upon her and steals her?” Elena purposely straightened her purloined shirt and gave Joach an accusing look.

He ignored her glare. “From here, it’s only a short walk to Aunt Fila’s. We can send Bertol back for her.”

Elena pictured Aunt Fila’s hulking son. “Bertol could get lost in his own backyard. What if he can’t find her?”

“El, the mare will be fine. There’s plenty of grass, and she can reach the water.”

“But it’s like we’re abandoning her.”

“We’re not. She’s safer here than with us.”

Her brother was right. Still, she hated breaking up her family. After last night, she found some small security in their closeness. Wearily she patted Mist’s flank. “Don’t fret; we’ll be back soon.” Mist glanced up from where she chewed at the shoots of the scraggly grass that grew under the willow.

She flicked her tail at Elena for disturbing her.

“See, El; she’s fine.”

Slightly hurt, Elena tucked her shirt under her belt. “Let’s go,” she said with a sigh.

Joach pushed through the sweep of willow branches. He held them wide to allow Elena to duck through, then let them brush back into place. Elena glanced over her shoulder. The mare was just a pale shadow in the tree’s shade.

She sniffed and followed after Joach, who had stopped by a thin path. The dirt rut ran from the edge of Winterfell to a swimming hole popular among the town children. The pool, its waters now icy cold, lay abandoned for the season, so the path was empty of prying eyes.

With the sun close to its highest point, the path was bright after the shadows of the forest. As they approached closer to town, the path widened enough for Elena to walk abreast of her brother. She noted how Joach’s eyes darted back and forth and how stiffly his legs moved as he hiked. Her brother’s nervousness leaped to her. She found her hands tugging at her shirt and adjusting her cap.

“Look,” she said, pointing down the path. “There’s the butcher’s shack.” Ahead, buried under the eaves of the forest’s branches, stood the icehouse of the butcher. The limbs of the trees helped keep the sun’s warmth from its roof.

Joach only nodded and hurried ahead.

By the time they passed the icehouse and reached the end of the path, both were white-faced and sweating thickly. The town of thatched roofs and brick buildings loomed ahead. Chimney smoke drew black lines into the sky, joining with the haze from the orchard fire. The town seemed uncommonly quiet.

Usually bustling with the strident voices of stall merchants and shoppers, the streets ahead were silent except for an occasional shout.

Joach turned to her and offered a sick smile. “Ready? Walk fast, but not too fast.” She nodded. “Hold my hand.”

His hand reached for her palm, then froze. “No. We might draw attention. Maybe we should even walk a distance apart.”

She found tears coming to her eyes. “Please, Joach. I need you close.”

“Okay, El,” he said with a relieved rush. It seemed similar emotions warred within him, too. “But we’d still better not hold hands.”

She squeezed back her tears and forced her head to nod. Aunt Fila’s bakery stood only a handful of blocks from the edge of town. If Elena concentrated, she’d swear she could even smell the baking bread from where she stood. Actually, the whole town of Winterfell greeted her with its familiar smells: the roasting breakfast meats; the hickory wood smoke; the yeasty pungency from the cider mill nearby; even the sweet, loamy smell of horse dung from the unwashed streets and stables. Elena straightened her shoulders. “Okay, I’m ready,” she said in a calmer voice.

Joach bit at his lower lip and stepped toward a back street that led into the merchants’ quarter. Elena swallowed the hard knot of tears in her throat and followed her brother closely.

The first shop they came to was the butcher’s shop. His wares of carved pig, yellow mutton, and headless chickens buzzed with flies. The butcher himself could be seen through the doorway, a bloody cleaver in his hand. His coarse black hair always reminded Elena of a pig’s spiky stubble, especially set against the man’s pale skin, shining with sweat and oil.

Elena found herself cringing. The butcher, loud of voice and smelling of offal, always made her nervous.

He had a way of staring at Elena as if judging the quality of meat on her bones. This being the first shop greeting them upon entering Winterfell, Elena found herself clutching her baggy clothes tighter around her.

A sense of unease crept toward her heart.

She and Joach walked on the far side of the street.

As soon as they passed the butcher’s shop, a voice spat toward them from a shadowed doorway just ahead, startling them. “You there, boys! Hold it right there!” Both of them froze.

Joach stepped between her and the speaker. A soldier dressed in a red and black uniform, his sword still sheathed, sauntered from the doorway. His dark hair and brown eyes warned that he was not a local conscript but one of the foreigners manning the garrison. His knotted nose spoke of past fights that Elena suspected were not in the line of duty.

“Where you coming from, boys?”

Joach made a subtle motion for Elena to back farther behind him. “We was out checking our traps, sir!” The soldier’s eyes drifted behind them toward the forest. “Didn’t happen to see a boy and a girl with a horse, did you?”

“No, sir.”

The man’s dark eyes settled on Elena. She kept her head pointed to her feet and her stained hand buried deep in her pocket. “How about you, young ‘un?”

Elena, afraid her voice would betray her, just shook her head.

“Then be off with you two.” He waved them past with a swing of his chin.

Joach slipped past the soldier with Elena on his heels. She risked a glance behind her and saw the soldier, a hand raised to shade his eyes, surveying the forest’s edge. He then drifted back to his shaded doorway.

Neither spoke until they had turned a corner. “So they are hunting for us,” Joach whispered.

“But why? What did we do?”

“Let’s just get to Aunt Fila’s.”

Though they tried to keep their steps steady, their pace became hurried as they neared the corner beyond which Aunt Fila’s bakery stood. Elena nearly had to run to keep up with her brother’s frantic steps. Joach swung around the corner first and stopped so short she barreled into his back, pushing him a step forward. Elena could now see around the corner.

Where Aunt Fila’s bakery had once stood, smelling of fruited pastries and sugared cakes, only a smoldering skeleton of scorched posts and blackened beams remained. Elena’s first thought was that somehow her magickal fire had leaped from the orchards to strike down her aunt’s shop. But the milling crowd that sported torches quickly dismissed this worry.

“She’s in league with the demon!” someone yelled from the crowd.

“Mark her forehead with an evil eye!” screamed another.

“Anyone related to those cursed whelps should be banished from town!”

“No! Hung!”

Elena saw her Aunt Fila kneeling before the burned bakery. Her face, covered in smoke, ran black with tears. One of her sons, facedown on the cobblestones, lay in a pool of blood.

Elena’s vision blurred with tears. Though her fire had not directly burned her aunt’s shop, it had still destroyed more of her family. She took a step toward the crowd.

Joach stopped her. “No.”

They could have slipped back around the corner and maybe escaped, but Elena’s motion and Joach’s word drew the eyes of the crowd. Most simply ignored the two children dressed in crude clothes. But Aunt Fila’s son Bertol stared with eyes wide in recognition. He raised a finger to them. “There! There’s my cousins. See! See, we weren’t hiding them in our shop.”

One of Aunt Fila’s hands flew up toward her son, as if trying to force back his words and his betrayal.

Her eyes touched Elena’s for a heartbeat, full of sorrow and pain.

The crowd lunged toward them. Joach tried to pull Elena with him, but strong hands suddenly grabbed them from behind.

Elena screamed but could not break free. She and Joach were shoved toward the crowd. Elena stared up into her captor’s eyes. It was the butcher. Thick of limb, he held both of them easily. His lips were white with hate, his eyes red with murder.

“Call the guard!” someone in the crowd called as they descended on her and Joach. “We’ve caught the demon spawn!”

Er’ril frowned at the mountain man, who still knelt in tears at his feet. Nee’lahn seemed abashed at his outburst, one small hand covering her mouth. “Krai,” Er’ril said, “I know nothing to doom your people.

Stand up and put aside this foolishness.”

Krai only moaned, his face turned to the floor.

The innkeeper approached with his broom raised across his wide belly. “Out with the lot of you!” He made a sweeping motion with his broom, then pointed its handle at Krai. “Out before that lout passes out on my floor.”

Krai pushed to his feet, now towering like a bear over the rotund innkeeper. “Guard your tongue, keep, or I shall nail it to your door.”

The innkeeper blanched and took a step away. He raised his broom higher. “Don’t… don’t make me shout for the town guard.”

Krai started to reach for the innkeeper, but Er’ril laid a palm on his high shoulder. “He’s not worth the effort, Krai. Leave the man be.” Er’ril tugged the tall man toward the door. It was like moving a boulder settled deep in the dirt. But Er’ril felt the man’s shoulder relax, and Krai allowed himself to be pulled from the innkeeper’s throat.

Er’ril turned to the innkeeper. “In the future, mind your manners among the mountain folk.” With Krai in tow, Er’ril led the way to the inn’s door. Nee’lahn followed them outside, where the cobbled streets were oddly empty except for a pair of soldiers slouched at a corner near two tethered horses. One, with his jacket unbuttoned and his gut hanging over his belt, raised a bored eye toward them, then returned his attention to his companion, who continued to brag of the previous night’s gambling.

Er’ril ignored them and turned to Krai. “Here we part ways, mountain man,” he said. “You seek the skal’tum, and as much as this may anguish you, I pray you never find it. But for me, I seek only the road to the plains.” He turned to Nee’lahn, who still stared toward the guards. She nervously scuffed at a cobble with the toe of her boot. “And what path do you seek, bardswoman?” Er’ril never did get his answer from Nee’lahn, since a townsman suddenly rushed to the pair of soldiers from around a corner. “We’ve found them!” he yelled. “The demon children! We’ve got ‘em caught like rabbits in a snare! Come quick!”

The heavier of the guards pushed off the wall he had been leaning against and nodded to the other soldier. “Go alert the garrison,” he said in a bored voice, obviously doubting the agitated man. “I’ll check what this fellow has found.”

The other soldier nodded and untethered his horse. He mounted briskly and hurried past Er’ril and his two companions, the clatter of hooves deafening until he tugged the horse around a corner.

“Show me what you caught,” the remaining guard said.

“It’s those Morin’stal whelps, all right,” the townsman said, pointing down the street. “Their cousin even confirmed it.” He led the way for the guard and disappeared between the tailor’s shop and the shoemaker’s.

Nee’lahn was the first to speak. “What will they do with those children?” Er’ril stared down the road to where the townsman and soldier had disappeared. “The town is incensed.

Talk of demons in small towns is dealt with brutally. By the end of this day, they will probably beg for death.”

“But what if this is all gossip and rumor?” Nee’lahn said. “Then innocent blood will be shed.” Er’ril shrugged. “This has nothing to do with me.”

Nee’lahn’s eyes grew wider. “If you ignore this, then their blood is as much on your hands as on the townsfolk’s.”

“I already have blood on my hands,” he said bitterly. Er’ril pictured the night of the Book’s binding and the young mage slain in a pool of red with Er’ril’s sword sprouting from his back like a weed among stones. “An innocent’s blood.”

“I know your story, Er’ril. That was the past. This is now!” Nee’lahn’s eyes narrowed with anger. “Do not let one wrong stain your hands forever.”

Er’ril’s cheeks heated up—whether from anger or shame, even he couldn’t tell.

Thankfully, Krai interrupted. “If these whelps be demon spawn true,“ he said, ”then the skal’tum may be close. I will go see.“

Nee’lahn nodded her head. “I wish to go, too.” Both their eyes swung to him. One pair of eyes determined and proud, one pair concerned and passionate. Once he would have felt similar emotions at the thought of children in danger. But what did he truly feel now? He looked inward and found nothing.

This disturbed him more than their questioning eyes. What had the endless years done to him? He faced Nee’lahn and Krai. “Let us find the truth.”

Elena watched Joach struggle with the ropes that tied his wrists. Thick ropes secured her hands also, but she stood quietly. What was the use of struggle? She stared at the remains of her aunt’s bakery. The circle of townsfolk jeered and mocked. She knew most of them, had schooled with many of their children. Still their faces twisted with hate. Even if she and Joach could shed their bonds, where would they run? This was her home. This was her people.

A small stone flew from the crowd and struck her forehead, causing her to stumble. It stung and blood flowed from the welt. She saw her cousin Bertol reach for another stone, but Aunt Fila slapped his hand.

At least one person still cared for her. Tears began to flow, not from the pain, but from all that she had lost.

Joach stopped his struggle, obviously succumbing to the futility, too, and edged closer to her. He had no words.

The butcher strode from the crowd toward them. He reached a hand toward Elena. Joach tried to step between but was cuffed away by a meaty palm. Elena saw blood spill from her brother’s lips as he fell to his knees. The butcher ripped the hunter’s cap from her head and released the cascade of her red hair.

“See,” he said. “See the wit’ch! This is the demon that destroyed our lands and murdered good people.

Do not be fooled by her pretty face.”

The butcher ran a finger across her cheek and down her throat. “Or her innocent body!” He suddenly grabbed her shirt and ripped it open. Buttons danced across the cobbles.

Elena cried out at the violation.

The crowd gasped at the butcher’s actions. Joach fought to reach the man, but hands held him down.

The butcher traced a finger along the bare budding of her breasts. “So innocent in appearance!” His voice had become thick and husky. “But so foul its lusts!”

He swung away from Elena. “I can sense her evil trying to worm into me, tempting me with impure thoughts.” He faced Elena again. “Back, wit’ch; you will not win me over like you did your brother.” The butcher shaded his eyes and backed from her.

The crowd was hushed by the display until Aunt Fila pushed forward. “Enough!” she yelled to the crowd.

She crossed to Elena and pulled the torn shirt closed over Elena’s chest. Elena could smell the scent of flour and sugar on her aunt’s apron. She must have been working in the kitchen when the town rose up and mobbed her bakery. Elena leaned into her aunt’s embrace.

Aunt Fila faced the crowd. “She is a child! Can’t you see how terrified she is? Does a demon fear rope and mortal man? What proof is there that she did anything? Words and gossip! That’s all.” The crowd still rumbled with anger. “The orchards!” someone called out. “We lost almost a quarter of the crop!”

Aunt Fila did not retreat. She pushed a lock of gray hair from her face. Her words were ice from the mountains. “I have lost more this day than the lot of you put together. It is my son that was cruelly murdered trying to save my shop! It was not the child that harmed me this day, but madness!” She stabbed a finger at various townsfolk. “What if it was your child up here? Or yours, Gergana? Stop this madness! Look to your hearts!”

The crowd became subdued with her words.

“I know this girl and this boy. There is not an evil bone in their bodies! You know them, too! When has eitherof them displayed anything but good manners and a sweet countenance?”

“Fie!” cried the butcher. “We all heard talk of what a strange child she is, skulking in the woods by herself. Consorting with demons, I don’t doubt! She just now tried to be-wit’chme!“

“Lies!” Aunt Fila pointed a finger toward the butcher, her lips tight with suppressed anger. “There lies your evil. His behavior speaks of his own foulness—not the children’s. To assault a small girl in such a manner! That is evil, not the child!”

By now many eyes had turned toward the butcher with disgust. Elena allowed herself a moment of hope that perhaps Aunt Fila would win past this insanity. But then she heard words sound behind her in a voice from a moldy tomb: a familiar voice.

“Good woman, stand back from the girl. She has tricked you, tricked you all. She is a wit’ch, and I will give you proof!”

Elena twisted around to see the cowled figure of the old man who had murdered her parents. Soldiers stood behind him. Elena’s knees weakened as his dead eyes settled upon her.

Using his poi’wood staff, the old man hobbled toward her. “Stand back!” he suddenly hissed toward the crowd.

Aunt Fila ignored him and stepped between the crooked man and Elena. “You! You were the one who accused these children!”

Elena’s tongue froze with fear. She nudged her aunt’s arm with her elbow, trying to warn her away from the man, but was ignored.

The old man waved his staff to his dark partner. “Rocking-ham, remove this child to the garrison. There, we will conduct our interrogation and prove her demonic heart.” Rockingham strode forward with four guards beside him.

Aunt Fila grabbed Elena’s shoulder and tugged her away toward the crowd. “Like you did the Sesha girl two years ago. Her screaming still rings in my ears!” Aunt Fila raised an arm and waved it to the crowd.

“Who is willing to give another child to these monsters? This is our valley, our town!” Around Elena, townsfolk erupted with echoes of her aunt’s words. Elena’s heart stirred, freeing her tongue. “Aunt Fila! They are the ones who murdered Mother and Father.” The crowd heard her words. A gasp arose from the mingled townspeople.

Rockingham and the four soldiers balked as the crowd grew belligerent. Several townsmen unsheathed knives. Elena saw the town’s tailor slice free Joach’s ropes. He dashed to Elena’s side and untied her bonds. Freed, she rubbed her raw wrists.

“I told you Aunt Fila would help us,” Joach said, his face flushed.

Elena noticed Aunt Fila’s eyes widen at the sight of her stained right hand. Her aunt reached to cover it.

“Keep this hidden,” she whispered quickly and drew the oversized shirtsleeve down around Elena’s hand. Her aunt then turned her attention back to the brewing altercation.

The soldiers took a tentative step forward but were outnumbered by the townspeople.

“Leave the child be!” someone yelled.

Another raised a knife in the air and cried, “Protect the children!” Aunt Fila bent to Elena’s ear. “You’re safe now, dear. Don’t fear. I won’t let them harm our family anymore.”

But Elena hardly heard her aunt’s words. Her eyes were glued to the old man. She watched him raise his staff and tap it twice on the cobblestones. No one else took notice of the decrepit man’s action. But Elena remembered the signal. It was the same one he had used when he called the white worms upon her and her brother.

“No,” Elena’s voice squeaked. She clutched Joach’s arm, causing him to wince. “We must run!” But it was already too late.

Someone in the crowd screamed in terror. All eyes turned to the smoke-stained skies.

From beyond the roofline, it came. A huge shape flew into view. Wide wings smote the air. Elena recognized the leathery beat of its wings. Its screech scattered the townspeople, who scurried like mice before a pouncing barn cat. Though previously invisible in the night skies, there was no mistaking the sound of the creature that had plagued her and her brother as they fled through the burning orchard. Now revealed, Elena wished for darkness to return again and remove the loathsome sight from her eyes. Its very image seemed to taint her spirit.

“See!” the robed man screamed. He pointed with his other arm, revealing a smooth stump where his right hand had once sprouted. “There is her demon consort, come to rescue her!” The crowd erupted with screams, fleeing as the beast dove toward Elena. Only Joach and her aunt remained as it crashed to the street, taloned feet clawing the cobblestones. Through its skin, black blood could be seen churning in thick rivers. It folded its wings back and hissed at the townsfolk crammed into doorways and behind shop displays. Then its poisonous black eyes, glowing with malice, swung toward Elena.

Aunt Fila moved between her and the beast. “Run, children!” she said as she faced the creature. “Seek your uncle Bol!” Even before Aunt Fila had finished her command, Joach was yanking Elena toward the burned shell of the bakery.

Like a snake, the creature sprang forward and snatched up Aunt Fila.

“No!” Elena cried as it broke her aunt’s back, the snap distinct among the yelling. Then it tore Aunt Fila’s throat open with pointed teeth and flung her body to the ground. “No,” she moaned again as Joach pushed Elena away.

He was too slow. The creature shot out a claw and seized her brother by the neck.

“Joach!” she screamed as her brother was ripped from her side and hauled away choking, his eyes bulging.

BOL LEANED OVER HIS DUSTY BOOK. THE WEAK MIDDAY LIGHT shed only feeble fingers through the grimed window. The single candle on his desk, melted to a nub, waved a small yellow flame.

He had been reading all night, striving to glean the knowledge he needed. The stacks of moldy books and rows of cubbyholed scrolls were his only company.

“Fire will mark her coming,” he mumbled as he combed white hair from his tired eyes. He squinted at the other words on the page. His lips, hidden under a thick mustache, slowly translated the ancient words.

The portents of the Sisterhood spoke of this day. He glanced outside. The windows of his cottage, built high above the valley in a lonesome place called Winter’s Eyrie, had glowed red all night with the flames of burning trees.

Poor child. She should have been better prepared, warned.

Rubbing his white beard, Bol turned back to his tome, but as he paused with a finger gently turning a rat-nibbled page, his heart trembled a beat; then a loss larger than his house filled his chest. He placed both palms on his desk, keeping himself from tumbling to the plank floor. An intense sorrow threatened to swallow him away as he felt his twin sister die.

“Fila!” he moaned to his empty room.

Tears rose to his lids and fell to the yellowed pages. Usually so fiercely protective of these fragile texts, he let the salt of his tears smear old ink across the page.

He clutched an amulet through the coarse weave of his shirt. “Fila!” he called again.

And as always, she came to him.

The corner of the room by the hearth glowed softly like a will-o‘-the-wisp. The weak glow retreated inward, growing brighter as it shrank in size, until finally it formed the figure of his sister. Dressed only in sweeping eddies of white light, she frowned at him, more exasperated than sad.

“It’s time, Bol.”

As his tears welled, her image swirled. “Then it’s true!” he said.

“No tears.” She still wore her no-nonsense grimness. “Are you prepared?”

“I… I expected more time, years still.”

“We all did. But it begins now. Time to put aside your books, old man.”

“You leave me this chore?” he asked pleadingly. “To do alone?” Her stern look softened. “Brother, you know I have my own role.”

“I know: to seek the cursed bridge. But do you truly think you can find it?”

“If it exists, I will find it,” she said fiercely.

He sighed and looked upon his sister. “Always the will of cold iron,” he said with sadness, “even in death.”

“Always the caster of dreams,” she answered with a hint of a smile, “even alive.” Their lips formed twin smiles at the old argument, both so alike and yet so different. The pain of loss shone clear in each one’s eyes.

Fila’s apparition began to grow faint at the edges. “I can’t hold here any longer. Watch over her.” Her image faded to a vague glow. Her last words trailed as the light was vanquished by the library’s shadows.

“I love you, Bol.”

“Goodbye, Sister,” he mumbled to a room far emptier and lonelier than before.

Elena rushed toward her struggling brother. Time seemed to thicken and slow like sap in a winter’s maple. She watched Joach’s face turn a purplish hue, his throat closed in the claws of the skal’tum. Elena leaped and grabbed at the creature’s wrist, a cry trapped in her chest. Blind with fear, she dug her fingers into its clammy skin, refusing to lose her brother to the beast. “Let go!” she shrieked to the world.

In answer, her hand burst with flame. Heat like the touch of molten rock flowed from her fingers. She clenched her fist and found her fingers flowing through the beast’s wrist— through skin, muscle, and bone.

The creature howled and tugged its arm away, pulling back only a seared stump. Screeching, panicked by its maiming, it tumbled away from Elena and her brother.

Joach stumbled forward, pawing the severed hand from his neck. He threw it to the street. “Sweet Mother!” he blurted and dashed to Elena’s side.

Elena’s eyes flashed to her hand, expecting to see blackened bones and burned flesh, but all was normal—not even a hint of the red stain remained. Was she free of that curse?

“Run, El!” Joach cried. He hauled Elena toward the charred beams of the bakery.

But the howling beast was not the only menace on this street.

Joach skidded to a stop and pulled Elena to him. Between them and refuge stood the cowled man leaning on his staff. He wore a smile, as if this all served his purpose perfectly.

“Come to me, child. I’ve waited long enough.” With surprising speed, he whipped the heel of his staff toward Elena’s head.

Elena, her mind still muddled by the flow of power through her hand, could not quite comprehend the danger.

She stood frozen until Joach knocked her aside. With a gasp, she fell to the street, her knee striking the hard cobblestones. From the corner of her eye, she saw the staff smite Joach a glancing blow on the shoulder.

She scrambled to her feet, roused now, and began to flee. Joach, however, failed to follow. Elena swung to a stop and stared. Her brother’s upper body tried to heave his legs into motion, but like two rooted trees, his legs would not obey.

He looked up, eyes filled with horror, and saw that Elena had stopped running. “Go!” he yelled.

She stumbled back as she saw the bewit’ching spread through her brother’s body. Now even his arms couldn’t move, and in a heartbeat, his neck and head froze in position. Only a single tear rolled down his cheek.

“Do you abandon your brother, child?” The old man beckoned to her with a gnarled finger. “Come!” Townspeople fled past Er’ril as he fought his way toward the screaming. Like a rock in a fast-flowing river, he was buffeted by elbows and knees and could make no headway. Finally, Krai pushed forward and used his large bulk to forge a path ahead.

One of the townspeople, Er’ril judged him a butcher from his bloody apron, tried to pound Krai aside.

But with a shrug of the mountain man’s shoulder, the heavy man flew far. His head hit the brick wall, and he fell limp to the ground. Krai ignored him and continued on.

“Run!” another townsman called to them. “The demon has come!”

“Krai gave Er’ril a stern stare, then hastened his pace forward. Er’ril, with Nee’lahn in his shadow, followed in the mountain man’s wake. After several heartbeats, the street emptied around them, the crowd now fleeing behind.

“Use caution, Krai,” Er’ril said softly. “We’re close.”

They crept to the next corner and used a farrier’s wagon for cover. Er’ril peered over the edge of the cart to the street beyond.

His blood went cold. Only a stone’s toss away, before the burned-out skeleton of a building, stood a beast he had hoped never to see again. Wings stretched taut in pain, the skal’tum howled and held a wounded arm to its chest.

Wounded? Er’ril slunk back under cover. Who could harm such a beast?

Er’ril saw Krai begin to pull the ax from his belt. It was too small a weapon against a dreadlord. Er’ril raised a palm toward the mountain man, warning caution and patience. Krai’s brows knitted heavily.

Nee’lahn knelt beside them, peering down the street from under the wagon. “There are the children,” she whispered, pointing between the spokes of the wagon’s wheel. “Who is that man, the robed one?” Er’ril looked and spied the two youngsters crouched before a cowled figure near the edge of a scorched building. Though the cowled one’s face was hidden in shadow, Er’ril recognized the black robe. His lips thinned with menace. “A darkmage.”

“Come to me, child,” the robed figure said, his voice finally carrying to them as the shrieking of the skal’tum waned. “Or your brother dies.”

The skal’tum stalked toward the young people. Its voice cut through the air like a thrown dagger. “Give me the boy. I will rip his limbss, one by one, from his body as the other brat watchess.” Another man, dressed in the red and black of the garrison, quaked by a rain barrel. “Do what the master’s beast says, Dismarum! We don’t need the boy.”

“Still your tongue, Rockingham,” the one called Dismarum spat. Whatever look the darkmage gave the man caused him to pull farther behind his barrel.

The skal’tum repeated his demand. “Give me the boy! I will taste his young heart.”

“Demon!” Krai growled beside Er’ril, his voice thick with venom. Before Er’ril could raise a hand to stop him, Krai leaped forward over the wagon, his ax already raised above his head.

The skal’tum twisted to face the sudden assault.

The darkmage retreated toward the shadows of the burned building, his hand reaching for the young girl still frozen in place.

Fool of a mountain man! Before Er’ril could ponder his own response, his feet and heart betrayed him.

He found himself springing after Krai, his own sword drawn, prepared to join the battle.

Elena’s eyes were fixed on Joach’s. Though she was not bewit’ched like him, she could not flee. Other ties held her trapped to this spot. She refused to leave her brother’s side, even when the cowled man reached a clawed hand toward her.

But before his fingers could touch her skin, an elbow suddenly struck her chest and threw her backward.

A one-armed swordsman thrust between her and the old man. Tall, wide-shouldered, with the ruddy complexion of the plains people, he raised his sword. “You won’t have her, darkmage!” Before the cowled man could react, the winged beast screeched, drawing all eyes. The swordsman shoved Elena down as a wide wing ripped over their heads. “Flee, girl!” he yelled in her ear.

But her legs did not obey. Her heart, still attached by invisible bonds to the frozen Joach, would not budge. She crouched numb in the street.

Cringing, Elena saw a giant attack the winged monster, wielding an ax in a blurring pattern of honed edge and muscle. The winged demon retreated from his assault.

Suddenly a new hand rested on her shoulder. She looked up into the concerned face of a tiny woman.

“Come with me. Leave Er’ril to rescue your companion.” She shook her head. “My brother!” was all that came to her tongue, an arm pointing toward Joach.

But the woman was stronger than she appeared and pulled Elena to her feet.

“Nee’lahn!” the swordsman called. He crouched on one knee, his sword raised toward the robed figure.

“Get her to safety!”

The woman called Nee’lahn laid an arm over her shoulders and whispered in her ear. Her words, almost a soft song, were unintelligible, yet somehow pierced through the cloud in her mind. They reminded her of the words whispered to her by the Old Man in the orchard. Elena found the woman’s song freeing her legs, and she allowed herself to be guided away from the battle.

Nee’lahn coaxed the girl to the wagon’s shadow. Could this be the one? the nyphai wondered. She sang in the child’s ear, words she had been taught to woo the minds of humans. She brushed a strand of red hair from the child’s face and stared into eyes the color of green growth. Could it be?

Once the girl was safely hidden, Nee’lahn returned her attention to the street. Er’ril had climbed back to his feet, and now the darkmage cringed from the sword’s touch. Er’ril kept the cowled one from slipping away, but Nee’lahn noticed that they were both watching the battle raging between the skal’tum and the mountain man.

Krai attacked savagely, his swings wild and furious. But every strike was simply repelled by the beast’s tough skin. No blood was shed.

Yet even though Krai’s ax simply bounced off the creature, Nee’lahn noticed that the skal’tum appeared shaken by its previous injury. It kept the stumped arm far from harm, using wings to protect its flanks.

“Drive the skal’tum into the sunlight!” Er’ril called to his large companion. “There, you can wound it!” With a furious feint, Krai switched the direction of his assault and soon had the creature retreating toward a square of sunlight. But the skal’tum seemed to realize the approaching danger and began to fight back.

Its intact hand swiped black claws at the axman. Krai danced back. Quick and agile on his feet, the mountain man managed to escape injury, but he also lost ground. The beast now stood farther from the sunlight.

The skal’tum screeched in satisfaction, regained its confidence, and continued to thrust toward Krai, driving him around, almost toying with him. Soon their positions were reversed. The mountain man, sweating fiercely now, backed step by step toward the sunlight. Krai gasped for air, bent in exhaustion.

The beast spread its scabrous wings wide in victory, then swooped for the kill.

Nee’lahn raised a hand to her mouth in fright.

Krai suddenly darted backward with amazing speed—into the sunlight!

The creature drew up to the square of bright light and hissed at Krai. The beast balked at the sun’s touch, staying just behind the shadow line. It stalked in a circle around the mountain man.

“There’ss nowhere to run, little man-thing,” it said with laughter on its tongue.

Nee’lahn realized the creature was correct. The area of sunlight was a square island. Shadow lay on all sides. And in the shadows waited the beast.

Krai searched around, desperate for a solution.

Nee’lahn did the same. If the mountain man should fall, Er’ril would be trapped between the dreadlord and the darkmage. That must not happen! She twirled on one heel and grabbed up the tin top of a pickle barrel. Darting into another patch of sunlight, she caught the sun’s reflection in the tin and tilted it so the sun’s rays reflected into the face of the skal’tum.

The beast screamed and tried to dart away. Nee’lahn angled the tin to keep the beast in the light.

Krai seemed to realize his advantage and plunged forward with a bellow of rage. He swung his ax at the monster, striking the beast square in the neck. Exposed to the sun, the skin of the beast lost its dark protection. The blade sank home.

The beast stumbled back, pulling free of Krai’s weapon. It clutched its neck as a river of black blood flowed from between its claws. Swaying on weakening legs, it tried to unfold its wings but instead fell forward into the sunlight, its foul blood hissing and bubbling as it stained the cobblestones.

Krai crossed to the collapsed creature, his ax raised high above his head.

Er’ril did not watch Kral finish with the skal’tum. He turned his full attention back to the darkmage. The sight of the black robe sickened his stomach. How could any man give himself to the black magick that had poisoned the land? Er’ril felt his blood heat with an anger he had not felt in over a century. He found it a not unpleasant sensation.

“Your pet is dead, mage!” he spat at the hunched man. “Release the boy, or suffer the same fate.” With his cowl bowed, the mage crept behind the boy and leaned heavily on his staff as if exhausted.

“You interfere in matters you could not begin to comprehend.” The darkmage raised his other arm, revealing the stump of a wrist. Shadows rushed to the mage and flowed up his robe to his arm. The darkness then pulsed to his empty wrist and congealed there. Like a black rose budding, an ebony fist grew atop his stump, formed of black shadows. “And you make threats that you cannot possibly fulfill.”

Er’ril’s eyes narrowed. “Just test me.”

The darkmage opened his malignant fist. Fingers that drank the light stretched out. “One final time: Give me the girl. You don’t know what she is, what she means.”

“I refuse to do your bidding, foul one.” Er’ril raised his sword but held his position, fearful of injuring the frozen boy.

The darkmage switched his staff to his black fist. From his loathsome hand, the darkness swept down the gray wood until the entire shaft flowed with shades of night.

As Er’ril prepared for battle, the cowled figure instead put his hand of flesh on the boy’s shoulder.

“Leave the boy be!” Er’ril shouted, and rushed the man, determined to stop him before he harmed the youth.

The darkmage threw his head back, his cowl falling away, and for the first time, he stared Er’ril full in the face. Their eyes met, freezing Er’ril’s heart.

No! Er’ril stumbled to a stop. This could not be! His sword slipped down, scraping the cobblestones.

The robed figure raised his staff and struck the street. Blackness erupted up from the cobblestones to swallow mage and boy. The voice of the darkmage echoed up from the shadows. “Er’ril, have the ages taught you nothing? ”

In a blink, the well of shadows vanished like a black flame extinguished. Where the boy and the mage had stood, the street now lay empty.

Er’ril sank to his knees as the young girl shouted behind him, her cry full of anguish and tears.

Er’ril, though, barely heard her. His eyes still saw the face of the darkmage. It was a familiar face: the same broken nose, the uneven cheekbones, the thin lips. And then there was the stumped wrist.

He remembered the man crouched with his brother in a warding of wax drippings so long ago—the night the Blood Diary had been forged.

The darkmage’s true name tumbled from Er’ril’s lips. “Greshym! ” Book Two

HEARTHS AND HEARTSTONE

Tol’chuk sifted through the stones in the gully, which was bone dry from the summer’s drought. He glanced to the thunderheads building like an army beyond the peaks of the Teeth. The summit of the tallest of the mountains, the Great Fang of the North, swirled in black cloud. Soon the gully would be roiling again with muddy water from the stormy mountain heights.

He turned his attention back to the scree of boulders. Thunder rolled down from the perpetually frozen summit. He must hurry before the rains began. But low cliffs blocked the sun’s light, making it harder to spot the yellowish glint of scentstone. And this gully, dry all summer, had been carefully picked through for many moons.

He fingered the boulders apart, his grayish claws scraping each rock, searching for the characteristic color. His nostrils splayed wide as he hunted for the burning odor of raw scentstone.

There were more likely spots to find such rocks, but Tol’chuk preferred this route. Due to the scarcity of scentstone here, none of his people were around. Tol’chuk liked the isolation, free of the taunts from the other og’res. Especially now, with his magra ritual—the ceremony marking him as an adult among his tribe—beginning tomorrow. He needed a scentstone for tonight’s preparations, one picked out by himself on the eve of his magra.

He bent to a thick plate of stone and dragged a claw along it, gouging its surface. He sniffed his nail: no, just sandstone.

As he lowered again to push through the rubble of the wash and scree, a rock the size of a melon struck him in the shoulder, knocking him to the boulder-strewn ground. He landed hard and rolled to his side.

Fen’shwa leered over the lip of the cliff.

A sneer cracked Tol’chuk’s thick lips to expose his smooth, yellowed fangs. He pushed to his feet. With his back bent, his head reached only halfway up the cliff. He kept one hand knuckled on the ground for support. He twisted his neck and frowned toward his enemy.

Fen’shwa squatted like a craggy boulder by the cliff’s edge, his wide yellow eyes bulging. Bent like Tol’chuk, balancing on the callused knuckles of one hand as was custom for the og’res, his bristled, straw-colored hair crested the top of his head and trailed in a spiky stream down his arched back to disappear under his leather coverings. He smiled, his chipped fangs exposed. A winter older than Tol’chuk, he was always baring his teeth, displaying the chips on his fangs that marked him as having mated.

All the females worshipped Fen’shwa, brushing their full rumps against his sides as he lumbered past them. No female brushed against Tol’chuk in invitation, no matter how much he kept his back bent and knuckled as he walked. Tol’chuk knew he was ugly. Smaller than other adult og’res, his eyes were too almond shaped, and slitted, rather than the bold circles of Fen’shwa. His nose also stuck out too far, and his fangs were too short to excite a mate. Even his hair did not bristle on its own. Tol’chuk was forced to use beeswax to make it spike. But no matter how much he tried to hide it, everyone knew his shame.

Fen’shwa reached for a stone with his free hand and hefted it. “I’ll chip those teeth for you, half-breed!” he said with glee.

Tol’chuk burned at the insult. “Fen’shwa, you know the law. I am magra, not to be disturbed.”

“Not until the sun sets!” He threw his stone, but Tol’chuk dodged it easily enough. As much as his mixed breeding scarred his appearance, it gave him agility.

Fen’shwa picked up another rock, this one larger than the last. His eyes narrowed with menace.

“Leave me be, Fen’shwa.”

“You fear! You are not og’re in your heart!”

Even though Tol’chuk was used to ridicule, this was too foul an insult to leave unanswered. To call an og’re a coward! Tol’chuk put aside his charade and straightened his back until he towered on two legs—something no og’re could ever do. It was this ability that forged his name: Tol’chuk. In the ancient tongue it spoke his half-breed status and his shame: “He-who-walks-like-a-man.” Now erect, his head stretched to the height of the cliff. He saw Fen’shwa wince in disgust at the sight of his back straightening. Fen’shwa drew the rock back, preparing to attack.

Without thought, Tol’chuk shot his hands out and grabbed Fen’shwa’s supporting arm. He dragged him, shocked, over the edge of the cliff and threw him to the bouldered floor of the gully. Tol’chuk instantly regretted his sudden action. Fen’shwa was not an og’re to provoke.

Fen’shwa landed on his face in a sprawl across the rocky grade. Thick skinned and wide boned, Fen’shwa immediately scrambled up. Tol’chuk stepped back as Fen’shwa rolled to his feet. He sneered at Tol’chuk and raised a finger to his bruised lip. Fen’shwa probed his mouth, his eyes widening with shock as his finger came out bloody. A fire grew in Fen’shwa’s glare, his eyes dilating until the yellow in them became black.

Tol’chuk had never seen such rage!

Fen’shwa howled a battle cry, his bellow washing down the gully. Tol’chuk now saw the reason for the fury. One of Fen’shwa’s fangs had been broken off by the fall, a disfiguring injury that could cost the og’re significant rank among the tribe.

Fen’shwa screamed again in rage and leaped for Tol’chuk’s throat.

Tol’chuk ducked and rammed the bony crown of his head into the midriff of his attacker. The force of the impact knocked the air from Fen’shwa’s chest. Gasping, Fen’shwa flew back, landing hard on his backside.

But Tol’chuk’s attacker was an experienced fighter, in training with the warrior clan. Fen’shwa rolled back to his feet and lashed out with his callused hand, grabbing Tol’chuk by the ankle. Yanking on Tol’chuk’s leg, Fen’shwa toppled him to the ground.

Tol’chuk tried to bear the brunt of his fall on his shoulder. But his efforts still resulted in a crack to his skull. Pinpricks of light swam across his vision. Blurry eyed, he saw Fen’shwa leaping on top of him.

Tol’chuk tried to roll away but failed.

Fen’shwa landed on him and immediately began kicking at Tol’chuk’s exposed belly. Tol’chuk writhed, trying to limit the damage. Fen’shwa’s back claws dug ribbons of skin, while his front claws jabbed at Tol’chuk’s eyes.

Tol’chuk fought to free himself, but Fen’shwa outweighed him. If he could not break away soon, he would be gutted. Tol’chuk grabbed for Fen’shwa’s wrist, but from the corner of his eye he spotted Fen’shwa’s other hand slipping a hart-horn dagger from his belt.

When og’res struggled for mates, matching claw to claw, it was considered deceitful to use a weapon.

Thick of hide and hard of bone, seldom did these mating contests result in the death of an og’re. Within a tribe, og’re did not kill og’re. Only during a tribe war, when the og’re clans fought for territory, were weapons employed. It took a weapon to kill an og’re.

Fen’shwa raised his dagger, his eyes still aflame with hatred. “Half-breed,” he said between clenched fangs, blood flowing from his lips. “Today you haunt us no more!” This pause to gloat was Fen’shwa’s undoing. Tol’chuk realized Fen’shwa planned to do more than just bloody him. Tol’chuk grabbed a boulder in each of his hands and slammed them together against Fen’shwa’s ears. Tol’chuk heard the crack as rock met skull. The simultaneous blows at the only weak spots on an og’re’s skull were dramatic.

Tol’chuk only meant to stun Fen’shwa, to knock him unconscious until his reason returned. As the rocks struck, blood fountained from his attacker’s nostrils, spraying Tol’chuk with its heat. He watched Fen’shwa’s eyes roll to white and heard his breath gurgle on swallowed blood. The dagger tumbled from Fen’shwa’s fingers. His body followed the knife to lie limp on the boulders. Tol’chuk pushed the rest of Fen’shwa’s bulk off his legs and scrambled up. Blood flowed across the boulder from Fen’shwa’s nose and open mouth. His chest did not move.

Tol’chuk stood stunned, unable to breathe. What had he just done? Og’re must never kill og’re within a tribe!

He raised his hand and saw the bloody rock still clutched there. A corner had broken away when it struck Fen’shwa’s skull. A yellow glint sparked from the rock’s heart.

Scentstone.

The rock tumbled from his numb fingers.

MOGWEED STOOD AT THE EDGE OF THE GREEN FOREST THAT was the Western Reaches.

He slouched against a trunk, reluctant to leave his forest home. A breeze shook the dry leaves overhead, rattling them like the husks of dead beetles. Beyond the trees to the east, the wide expanse of climbing foothills seemed naked, covered only in yellow meadow grass. And beyond the foothills and open meadows climbed the peaks of the Teeth, the mountains he must cross to reach the lands of man.

Mogweed felt the rough bark with his cheek. But how could he leave here?

He raised a hand and stared at the thin fingers and smooth skin. He shuddered at the sight, then glanced to the clothes hanging from his body. A huntsman had shown him how to wear the strange garments.

Gray leggings over linen underclothes, and a red coat over a gray wool shirt. He wore them correctly.

Still, each stitch and weave of the fabric chafed against his tender skin. And the black boots were the worst. He refused to don them. Instead he carried them in a leather sack on his back. As long as he was in the forest, he would feel the loam between his toes!

He knew that once he left the shadow of the trees he would have to put the boots on his feet. He needed to appear to be a man. Once dressed, only his eyes would betray his heritage. With slit pupils instead of round, his eyes spoke his true nature.

He stood there, one arm against the tree, until he was nudged by a nose. “Quiet, Fardale. I need a moment to prepare.” He glanced down in irritation at the treewolf.

As massive as a man, Fardale sat on his haunches, his tongue lolling from the side of his mouth. His dense black hair, frosted with browns and grays, seemed like the dappled forest shadows given form and life.

The wolf’s pricked ears listened to the forest around them. His raised muzzle sniffed the air, checking for danger.

Mogweed’s nose crinkled with bitter envy. Fardale’s thick black fur was the only clothing he needed. No further adornment was necessary to complete his disguise. To almost anyone, Fardale would appear to be an ordinary treewolf, again except for his eyes. Like Mogweed’s, his pupils were slitted, too, more like a forest cat’s than a wolf’s. Their eyes were a sign of their true heritage: si’lura.

Fardale glanced toward him, their amber eyes meeting. A slight glow seemed to warm toward Mogweed from the tree-wolf’s eyes. Vague feelings formed in his head, whispers of thoughts and images from his wolf brother: A sun setting. A hungry belly. Legs wanting to run. Mogweed knew the meaning in these images. Fardale warned that daylight waned and that they still had much ground to cover before nightfall.

“I know,” Mogweed answered aloud. He, too, could speak with the whisper of his soul, as Fardale had done, as all si’lura could, but his tongue needed practice. He would be among men shortly and must perfect his disguise if they were to make their journey safely. He shuddered again. “But I hate leaving home.”

Images answered: A mother’s teat, heavy with milk. The scents of the forest, varied and thick.

Dappled shadows burned away by raw sunlight. Fardale also regretted abandoning their forest home.

But they must. The elder’root of their clan had ordered it, and his words must be obeyed.

Still… Did they truly need to listen to the ancient one’s command?

Mogweed took a deep breath and dropped his pack to the dirt. He bent and fished out his boots. Sitting at the edge of the forest, he slipped his boots over his feet, cringing as each foot sank into its leathery coffin. “We could just stay,” he said to his companion, his voice a bare whisper. “Live as outcasts.” Fardale growled, and the wolf’s thoughts shot deep into him: A poisonous tree frog. A pond scummed over with algae. A hoary oak rotted with yellow molds. The forest was poison to them now. To refuse the elder’root would bring no joy to them in the forest.

Mogweed knew Fardale spoke the truth, but still a fire grew in his belly. “I know, Fardale! But they’ve banished us! What do we owe them?” His words were etched with heat, but he kept most of his rage penned up within his breast. This was another reason he spoke with his tongue. He did not want Fardale to sense the true depth of his fury.

Fardale raised to his paws and lowered his head threateningly. His eyes glowed red: A trapdoor spider.

A littermate attacking another. A crow stealing a mottled egg from a nest. Fardale still accused him.

“I was just trying to free us of the curse,” Mogweed answered. “How could I know it would turn out so horribly?”

The wolf turned his head away, breaking eye contact, signaling the end of the conversation.

Mogweed blushed, not with shame, but with anger. Damn you, he thought. Fardale had been a choking yoke around his neck for long enough. The urge to leave the wolf behind and go out alone to seek his fortune among the human race thrilled through him.

Why did he need his own people anyway? They had always shunned him! He might better find his fortune among humans. Mogweed found his feet pulling him out from under the limbs of the trees and into the midafternoon sunshine.

He glanced around him. Free of the protective trees, the sky was so wide, so huge! Mogweed’s feet stumbled to a stop. He crouched before the big sky. Like a massive weight, it seemed to crush him toward the ground. He turned back to Fardale. “Are you coming?” He tried to sound acerbic, but fear laced his tremoring words. Going out into such a wide world without someone to lean on terrified him.

For now, he still needed Fardale—but only for now.

Fardale supped from the forest’s shadow. The wolf’s slitted eyes scanned the horizons calmly, the sight having little effect on him. He simply padded across the rocky soil, his fur reflecting the sunlight in oiled sheens.

Mogweed’s eyes narrowed. Fardale was always the cool one, the brave one, the noble one. One day, Mogweed hoped to see him break and prayed he would be the one to cause it.

Mogweed watched Fardale casually lumber past and continue into the barren foothills. With his neck still slightly bent away from the large sky, Mogweed followed his twin brother, cursing his sibling’s stout heart.

One day, dear brother, I will teach you to fear.

Tol’chuk carried the limp form of Fen’shwa in his arms. He stood upright, his back straight, needing two arms to cradle the heavy body. As he approached the village, he saw several females rooting for grubs in the thin soil. When they spotted him, their noses cringed with disgust at Tol’chuk’s upright posture.

Og’res normally used their backs and only one arm to haul tree trunks or other heavy objects, leaving the remaining arm to support their lumbering gait. Shocked by the sight of him, it was only when he continued closer that the females spied his burden. Eyelids flew wide, and a cacophony of bleating arose from their throats. The females fled, loping away. The musky scent of their fear still hung in the crisp highland air.

Tol’chuk took no notice, but trod up the worn path toward his tribe’s caves. His back and arms burned with exertion, but this was a small price for his atrocity. He had committed the worst violation of og’re law: An og’re never kills a fellow tribe member. During war, og’res could kill og’res of other tribes, but never of one’s own.

As he had stood over Fen’shwa’s bloody form, he had considered running, such was his shame. But by doing so, Tol’chuk would dishonor his dead father. And his birth was already enough of a disgrace for his family. How could he add to it by such cowardly actions? So he had collected Fen’shwa and begun his hike toward their caves, determined to face his tribe’s punishment.

Ahead, at the foot of towering granite cliffs, Tol‘ chuk spotted the black hole of his tribe’s home, easy to miss among the shadows clinging to the craggy and pocked rock face. The females had already alerted the village. Near the entrance to the caves, a crowd of og’res clustered—almost the entire tribe, even the bent backs of the old and the scurrying feet of the young. A few oak staves of the warriors bristled among them. Silence stood like a tribe member among his people. One weanling pulled a thumb from his tiny mouth and pointed at Tol’chuk, but before the child could utter a sound, his milk mother clamped a large hand over his mouth. No one spoke when the dead walked among them.

Tol’chuk was thankful for the silence. He would soon face those many questioning eyes again and speak his crime aloud, but first, he had a duty he must discharge.

Tol’chuk’s heart beat hard in his chest, and his legs began to shake. But he did not falter a step before his people. If he should hesitate, he might lose his momentum, and the growing fear could catch hold of his heart. So he forced each foot to follow the other and marched toward his home.

One thick-limbed adult og’re burst through the wall of onlookers. He leaned on an arm as thick around as a tree trunk. He raised his nose to the wind carrying toward him from Tol’chuk. Suddenly the huge og’re froze, his muscles tensed like a rocky ridge. After seasons of living in dim caves, og’res’ vision weakened as they aged, but their keen sense of smell grew more acute. The adult og’re raised his face to the cliff walls surrounding him and bellowed his grief, the sound shattering the silence. He had recognized the scent of Tol’chuk’s burden.

Fen’shwa’s father knew his son.

Tol’chuk almost stopped. How could he confess his guilt? The muscles of his jaw ached as he clenched his teeth together. He kept his eyes fixed on the hole in the cliff’s face and continued his march.

Fen’shwa’s father galloped toward him, his thick rear legs hammering the stone escarpment. He slid to a stop, showering Tol’chuk with a flurry of loose shale. He reached his free hand over to touch his son’s limp arm as it dragged along the ground. “Fen’shwa?”

Tol’chuk ignored him, as was the custom among his people. The grieving were not to be seen. He continued to march toward the yawning entrance. But Tol’chuk’s silence was answer enough to the father. His son was not just injured— Fen’shwa was dead. Behind him, Tol’chuk heard a keening wail from the father’s throat. He saw the other members of his tribe turn their backs on the grieving father.

Now stumbling with both exhaustion and fear, Tol’chuk swept through the parting crowd of og’res. No one touched him, no one hindered him: Let death pass quickly by. He carried his burden through the entrance into the darkness of the caves.

The roof of the large common chamber stretched beyond the reach of even the scattered cooking fires.

But fingers of rock dripped from the ceiling to point accusingly toward him. With his head bowed, he worked his way through the cooking section of the village. A few females stood hunched by their fires, wide eyes reflecting back the twitching flames of their hearths.

He crossed the living areas of the various families. Smaller entrances jutted off the common space to the private warrens of each family. Males of the tribe poked their heads out suspiciously as he passed, fearful that someone sought to steal one of their females. But when they saw what he carried, they disappeared back inside, fearful that death might hop into their warren.

As he passed the opening to his own family’s caves, no og’re peeked outside. He was the last of his family. His home caves echoed emptily since his father had gone to the spirits four winters ago.

Tol’chuk ignored the familiar scent of his home. He knew where he had to go before he could rest his responsibility—to the cavern of the spirits.

He continued to the deepest and blackest section of the cavern. Here a slitlike opening cracked the back wall of the cavern from floor to ceiling. For the first time during his trek, he dragged to a stop, frozen by the sight of that opening. The last time he had neared this dark path had been when his father had fallen during a battle with the Ku’ukla tribe. Tol’chuk had been too young to go with the warriors. When they returned, no one told him his father had died during the fight.

He had been playing toddledarts with a child still too young to fear and loathe him when they had dragged his father’s speared body past him. He had stood there stunned, a toddledart in his hand, as they hauled the last member of his family into the black crack on its journey to the cavern of the spirits beyond.

Now Tol’chuk had to walk this path. Before his legs grew roots of fear and locked him in place, he pulled his burden closer to his chest and continued. He was forced by the bulk of his burden to turn sideways to edge into the narrow slit. He squeezed down the black path, holding his breath. Sliding his back on one wall, he traveled the well-worn path until a weak blue glow flowed from beyond a bend in the corridor ahead. The light seemed to sap the strength from his legs and arms. His resolve faltered. He began to quake.

Then a voice whispered from ahead. “Come. We wait.” Tol’chuk stumbled in midstep. It was the voice of the Triad. He had hoped to drop the body in the spirit chamber and slip off to confess his atrocity to the tribe. The Triad were seldom seen. These ancient ones, blind with age, dwelled deep within the mountain’s heart. Only for the most solemn ceremonies would the Triad crawl from their residence beyond the spirit caves to join the og’re tribe.

Now the three ancient og’res waited for him. Did the Triad already know his foulness?

“Come, Tol’chuk.” The words trailed to him from ahead like an eyeless worm searching for light.

Tol’chuk dragged his feet toward the voice. He held the air trapped in his chest. His grip on Fen’shwa’s body grew slippery with sour sweat. Finally, the narrow path widened, and the stone walls pulled back.

He was able to twist forward again and walk straight.

With his arms trembling under Fen’shwa’s weight, he heaved into the chamber of the spirit. The cavern, lit by blue-flamed torches, stretched away to a black eye on the far side, the entrance to the Triad’s domain. No og’re except the ancient ones and the dead traveled that path.

Tol’chuk trembled at the edge of the cavern. He had only ventured to this chamber once in his life—during his naming ceremony when he was four winters of age. That day, one of the Triad had branded him with the cursed name He-who-walks-like-a-man—a shame he had had to bear for twelve winters now.

He had hoped never to step into the spirit-wrought cavern again, but Tol’chuk had been taught the custom. The og’re dead were left in this chamber, away from the eyes of the tribe. What became of their bodies was never even whispered or questioned. To talk of the dead could draw tragedy to a hearth.

The deceased were the Triad’s concern.

Tol’chuk took a single step into the chamber. In the center of the cavern, the three ancient ones hunched like rocky out-croppings sprouting from the stone floor. Naked and gnarled, more bone than flesh, the trio waited.

A voice rose from one of the Triad, though Tol’chuk could not say which one spoke. It seemed like the words flowed from all three. “Leave the dead.”

Tol’chuk meant to lower Fen’shwa’s body gently to the stone, to offer as much respect to his slain tribe member as possible so as not to offend the gods. But his muscles betrayed him, and Fen’shwa’s body tumbled from his exhausted arms. The skull hit the stone with a loud crack that echoed across the chamber.

Cringing, Tol’chuk bent his back into proper og’re form. His duty done, he began to step back toward the narrow path, away from the Triad.

“No. That path is no longer open to you.” Again the voice carried through the air from all three og’res.

“You have harmed one of your tribe.”

Tol’chuk stopped. His eyes fixed on the worn rock. The ancient ones knew of his violation of the law.

Words slipped from his lips. “I didn’t mean to kill—”

“Only one path is open to you now.”

Tol’chuk raised his head just enough to spy the hunched forms. Three arms were raised and pointed toward the distant black eye, the tunnel that no og’re except the Triad entered.

“You walk the path of the dead.”

MOGWEED HID IN THE SHADOW OF A HUGE BOULDER AND stared east toward the mountains. Fardale, with his keener senses, had gone ahead to scout the route forward. After crossing the golden meadows of the low foothills, they had reached a more rocky and treacherous terrain.

Gnarled oaks and an occasional spray of pine dotted the higher foothills, but spiked hawthorn bushes covered most of the dusty ground. Luckily, after struggling through rocky gulches and up steep cliffs, Fardale had come upon a more hospitable path leading up to the peaks. The trail was a welcome sight.

Ever cautious, Fardale insisted on investigating the trail before trusting it.

After the day’s journey, Mogweed’s clothes stank of sweat and clung awkwardly. He picked at them and wondered how humans tolerated living in the drapings. He closed his eyes and willed the change, wishing for the familiar feel of flowing flesh and bending bone. But as usual, nothing happened; the manlike form persisted. He swore under his breath and opened his eyes and looked east. Somewhere out there lay the cure to the curse on both him and Fardale.

Sweating from the climb, he stared longingly at the cold snow that tipped the tallest peak on the horizon, snow that even the hottest summer sun had failed to melt. The mountain, called the Great Fang of the North, towered over its many brethren. The range of craggy peaks, named the Teeth, ran from the frozen Ice Desert in the north to the Barren Wastes of the south, splitting the land in two.

Raising a hand to shade his eyes, Mogweed searched the range of mountains south. Somewhere thousands of leagues away rose this Fang’s twin sister, the Great Fang of the South. From here, the southern Fang remained beyond the horizon. Even though countless leagues separated the peaks, rumor had it that if someone stood on the top of each Fang they could speak to one another. Even whispers could be sent back and forth, spanning the distance.

Mogweed frowned at such a preposterous notion. He had more important concerns than a child’s fantasy. He hugged his arms around his chest and stared with a bitter expression at the wall of peaks, beyond which stretched the lands of the human race—territories he feared to tread, but knew he must.

Clouds began to build among the peaks, caught on the crags as the wind blew eastward. The snowy tip of the Great Fang was blotted out as black clouds churned. Lightning played among the thunderheads. If he and Fardale were to cross the Teeth before winter set its frozen hand upon the land, they needed to hurry.

Mogweed searched for his brother among the scraggly trees and brush. What was keeping that fool? A worry gnawed at his stomach. What if his brother had run off, abandoning him to this barren countryside?

As if he had heard him, Fardale suddenly appeared at the foot of the rocky slide. Anxious, panting from a sudden run, dancing on his paws, Fardale stared up toward Mogweed, requesting contact. Mogweed opened up.

Even from here, the wolf’s eyes glowed amber. Fardale’s thoughts whispered in his head: The stink of carrion rotting in the sun. Racing legs pursued by gnashing teeth. An arrow’s flight through the open sky. Hunters approached.

Men? Even though he appeared a man himself and would likely have to interact with men during the long journey ahead, Mogweed was in no hurry to meet any. He had secretly hoped to avoid the eyes of men, at least until they had passed through the Teeth.

Mogweed slid down the rocky grade to join his brother. “Where do we hide?” Racing legs. Pads cut by sharp stone. Fardale wanted them to run—and quickly.

Mogweed’s legs ached. The thought of fleeing through this rugged terrain sapped his will. He sagged.

“Why can’t we hole up somewhere until they pass, then return to the trail?” Razor teeth. Claws. Wide nostrils swelling for scent.

Mogweed tensed. Sniffers! Here? How? In the wild forest, the beasts traveled in packs. Ravenous in their appetites, the creatures used their keen sense of smell to track down isolated si’lura and attack. He had not known the beasts could be domesticated by humans. “Where do we go?” Fardale swung around and bounded up the trail, his tail flagging the way.

Mogweed hefted his pack higher on his shoulder and took off after his brother. His tired joints protested the sudden exertion. But the thought of the slavering sniffers and the beasts’ shredding teeth drove Mogweed past his aches.

As he rounded a bend in the trail, he saw Fardale stopped just ahead, his nose reading the air. Suddenly the wolf darted to the left, abandoning the trail.

With a groan, Mogweed pushed past a bramble bush, thorns tearing at his clothes, and followed his brother. Scrambling up a steep slope of sharp stones and loose dirt, Mogweed soon found himself crawling on all fours like his wolf brother. The footing was treacherous. Mogweed kept slipping and losing hard-won ground.

Gasping between dry lips, Mogweed stared up to the crest of the slope. Fardale had already reached the top and stood with his muzzle raised to the breeze. Damn this awkward body! Mogweed dug his raw fingers into the dirt and clawed his way upward. Slowly he fought the slope, careful where he placed each toe and hand. As he worked, a familiar buzzing bloomed behind his ears. Fardale sought contact.

Grimacing, Mogweed raised his eyes to meet his brother’s.

Fardale was crouched at the lip of the ridge, his eyes aglow. With the contact established, his brother’s images flowed into him: Teeth slashing at heels. A noose of hemp strangling. The hunters were closing in.

Fear igniting his effort, Mogweed scrambled up the last few spans of the slope. He crawled up next to his brother. “Wh-wh-where are they?”

Fardale turned away and pointed his nose east toward the mountains.

Mogweed searched. The trail they had left wound among the steep foothills, a worn track disappearing into the wilder country of the peaks. “Where—?” He clapped his lips shut.

He spotted movement on the trail, much closer than he had expected!

Men dressed in forest green, with bows slung over their shoulders and sheaves of arrows feathering their backs, marched down the trail. Mogweed melted lower. Three sniffers, attached by leather leads and muzzled in iron, strained against their master’s yoke. Even from this distance, Mogweed could see the wide nostrils fanning open and closed within the iron muzzles as the sniffers drank the scent of the trail.

Bulky with muscle and naked of fur, with skin the color of bruised flesh, they fought their leashes. Claws dug at the trail. Mogweed saw one pull back its lips in a snarl as another bumped into it, revealing the four rows of needle fangs that gnashed between powerful jaws.

Mogweed lowered himself closer to the ground. “Go!” he whispered to his brother. “What are you waiting for?”

Suddenly a shrieking wail erupted around them, echoing through the hills. Mogweed knew that wail. He had heard it sometimes at night coming from the deep forest. A sniffer screamed for blood!

Fardale’s eyes glowed toward him. Images intruded: A weanling pup scolded for mewling at night, revealing a hidden den. A nose glued to a trailing scent. The sniffers had caught Fardale’s scent on the upper trail.

Mogweed bit back a venomous rebuke as Fardale sprang away. He raced after his brother’s tail. The run was a blur of scraped skin and bruising falls. Screams chased them, but from how far behind was impossible to judge.

Using an old dry creek bed as a trail, Fardale led the way higher into the foothills. The water-smoothed rock that lined the dry bed made slippery footing. Mogweed’s boots betrayed him, and a heel twisted on a teetering stone. He fell to his knees, his ankle flaring hotly.

Mogweed fought back to his feet as a wail erupted behind him. The beasts were getting closer! Fardale danced anxiously just ahead. Mogweed tried to put weight on his injured foot, but red agony flared up his leg. He tried hobbling across the uneven surface and fell again. “I can’t run!” he called to his brother.

Fardale raced to him and sniffed at his boot.

“Don’t leave,” Mogweed moaned.

Fardale raised his eyes to meet Mogweed’s. Two wolves, back to back, protecting.

A scream echoed from behind them and was answered by another wail, closer still.

“What are we to do?”

A pack chasing a deer over a cliff. A flight of ducks taking to wing.

“What?” Fardale made no sense. Had his brother already been in this wolf shape too long? Was the wildness of the wolf overtaking his si’lura soul? Mogweed winced with pain, his shoulders hunched up in trepidation. “You send gibberish!”

A she-wolf leads a litter. Fardale twisted away and started to climb out of the shallow creek bed. He glanced behind to Mogweed.

Mogweed pushed up onto one leg, using just the toe of his other boot for balance. He snatched a handful of Fardale’s tail. Between his hopping and Fardale’s yanking, he scrambled out of the creek bed. But it took time, and Mogweed’s lips were pulled thin with pain. Once up, he collapsed against the trunk of a pine, gasping. “Maybe we should stay put,” he said. “Climb a tree. Wait for the hunters. In these forms, they may not know us as si’lura.”

Fardale’s eyes narrowed. The eye of an owl. Flesh torn from bone.

Mogweed groaned. But, of course, Fardale was right. These were forest men of the Western Reaches, not so easily tricked. Their only hope lay in avoiding men until they crossed the Teeth. It had been hundreds of winters since their people had ventured out of the forests and into the eastern lands. With luck, men on the far side of the Teeth would have forgotten the si’lura.

A scream echoed up from the lower washes of the creek bed.

Racing legs! The scent of the nearby pack. A mother’s teat near one’s nose.

Mogweed shoved off the tree. He hobbled beside his brother, one hand planted on Fardale’s shoulder for support. It was slow progress, but as his brother had hinted, they didn’t have far to go.

Fardale helped Mogweed over a rise to where even the thorn bushes failed to grow. Beyond the rise, only granite and shale spread before them, weatherworn rock where once an ancient glacier had carved a path through this region. Steep hills of gray rock were etched with black crevices.

The barren sight sucked hope from Mogweed’s chest. “No,” he whispered to the tumble of rock and shale. His brother was crazy! He stumbled back from the blighted area. “I would rather take my chances with the sniffers.” Mogweed turned eyes of disbelief toward Fardale.

A fledgling caught in a tanglebriar, its young blood sucked through piercing thorns until it lay still

. Behind lay certain death. A raging river beyond which the pack howled. As dangerous as it may seem, ahead lay a chance.

Suddenly a wail erupted behind them, and now even the crashing of hunter’s boots could be heard. A voice called out, echoing up from the hidden creek bed. “Lookie here! See them tracks! Looks like them shape-shifters climbed out right here. C’mon, Blackie. Git at ‘em!” The crack of a hand whip and the howl of the sniffers speared through the thin air. “Git them damn shifters!” Fardale’s eyes drilled into Mogweed, full of satisfaction. Fardale had been proven right. The keening frenzy of the sniffers had alerted the forest hunters to what scent had caught the beast’s attention: si’lura.

Or in the foul, thick-tongued language of the humans—-shape-shifters.

A moan escaped Mogweed’s clenched teeth. Why had he ever left his forest home? He should have just stayed and tried to make the best of it. So what if he remained an outcast? He would at least have survived.

But in his trembling heart, Mogweed knew the journey was necessary. The thought of being forever trapped in this one shape for all time scared him more than the howling sniffers or what might lie ahead.

Balanced on one boot, weak words tumbled from Mogweed’s lips. “Go… let’s go.” With Fardale’s shoulders for support, Mogweed and his brother crossed the threshold of thorn bushes and entered the land of scarred rock, a land all those of the Western Reaches knew to avoid: the land of the og’res.

Tol’chuk balked at stepping farther into the cham-ber of the spirits. He stood silently with Fen’shwa’s body sprawled at his feet. The trio of ancient og’res slowly swung and marched with bent backs toward the distant tunnel. Words trailed back to him from the Triad. “Follow. This is your path now.” Tol’chuk had known he’d be punished for his assault on Fen’shwa. Og’re law was strict and often brutal.

But this? He stared at the black eye in the far wall, the entrance to the path of the dead. He now regretted his choice in returning Fen’shwa’s body. He should have just fled into the wilds.

The last of the skeletal old og’res crept within the far tunnel. A single word echoed to him. “Come.” Advancing into the chamber of the spirits, Tol’chuk straightened his back and pulled upright. He had dishonored his tribe and no longer deserved to appear as an og’re. The need for pretense had died with Fen’shwa. He stepped over the body of his tribe member and crossed the cavern. Torches of blue flame hissed at him. His many shadows writhed on the walls as he passed, like twisted demons mocking his gait.

At the entrance to the tunnel, before his fright could drive him away howling, he bowed his head and pushed into the darkness. The scrape and shuffle of the ancient og’res led him farther into the bowels of their mountain home. No torches marked the walls here, and after rounding a bend in the tunnel, blackness swallowed him up. Only the scrape of claw on stone guided him forward.

Down this stone throat, his dead father’s body had been swallowed, dragged by the Triad to the land of the spirits. Now, like his father, it was Tol’chuk’s punishment to travel this path. He was as dead as Fen’shwa to his people.

What lay at the tunnel’s end was known only to the Triad. For as far back as Tol’chuk could remember, the members of the Triad had never changed. He had once asked his father what happened if any of the Triad died. His father had boxed him aside and mumbled that he didn’t know since no member of the Triad had died during his lifetime.

Tol’chuk knew little else about the three elders. To speak of them was frowned upon. Like mentioning the name of the dead, it was considered sour luck. Still, the Triad were a constant in the life of the tribe.

Old and crookbacked, the three og’res guarded the spiritual well-being of his people.

Only they and the dead knew what lay at the end of this black tunnel.

Tol’chuk’s feet began to slow as dread clutched his heart. His breathing rasped from his constricted throat, and a pain began to gnaw at his side. He crept more slowly down the twisting course as the air grew warm and dank. A whispering odor of salt and crusted mold penetrated his wide nostrils.

As he continued, the tunnel closed more tightly around him, as if trying to grab him and hold him from retreating. His head scraped the stone of the ceiling. Its touch sent shivers through his skin. He bowed his head away from the roof. The tunnel continued to lower as he wound into the depths of the mountain’s heart. Finally, Tol’chuk was forced to hunker down and use the knuckles of his hand for support, returning again to an og’re’s shuffling gait.

Tol’chuk’s knuckles were scraped and raw from crawling by the time a greenish light began glowing from the tunnel ahead. As he dragged himself forward, the light grew. He squinted in the light after so long in darkness.

The end of the tunnel must be near.

Deeper down the tunnel, the path began to widen again, and the source of the glow became clear. The walls of the tunnel crawled with thousands of thumb-sized glowworms emanating a pale green glow the color of pond scum. The worms undulated and throbbed, some in bunches tangled like roots, some on solitary trails that left an incandescent slime.

The mass of worms on the walls thickened and spread. As he continued, even the floor eventually churned with their grublike bodies. Dark splotches of crushed glowworms marked the footprints of the ancient og’res. Tol’chuk followed, trying to place his feet in the same steps as the others. Squashing the worms with his bare feet disgusted him. The sight of the writhing bodies made his stomach tighten.

With his attention on the worms, he was well into a large cavern before he was even aware of leaving the tunnel. Only the guttural intoning of the Triad drew his attention. The three og’res were huddled in a group, facing each other with heads bowed.

His eyes glanced beyond the Triad, and beheld a towering arch of ruby heartstone. Tol’chuk fell to his knees. Heart-stone was a jewel that the mountain seldom released to the miners. The last heartstone discovered, a sliver of jewel no larger than a sparrow’s eye, had caused such a stir among the og’res that a tribal war had begun for its possession. That war had killed his father.

The towering span dwarfed the three og’res huddled before it. Tol’chuk gawked at the bulk of heartstone, his neck straining back to see the distant peak of the arch.

Carved into countless facets, the surface reflected back the worm glow into countless colors, hues so stunning that his rough tongue had no way of describing them. He stood, basking in the light.

Where before the oozing sheen of the glowworms had sickened him, the reflected light now stirred something deep in his chest, penetrating even to the red core of his bones, and for the first time in his life, Tol’chuk felt whole. He sensed his spirit in every speck of his body. The bathing glow, like a cascading waterfall, washed clean the shame he felt in his body. He found his back straightening more fully than he had ever allowed it. Muscles knotted since he was young unclenched. He found his arms raising as he stretched his back up.

He was not a half-breed, not a fractured spirit. He was whole!

Tears coursed down his face as he sensed his complete spirit and the beauty his skin and bone hid. He breathed the radiant air deeply, drawing the reflected glow into him. He never wanted to move from where he stood. Here he could die.

Let the Triad cut my throat, he thought. Let my lifeblood sweep the worms from around my feet. Bone and muscle were just a cage, while his spirit buried within could not be sundered by ax or dagger. It was whole and always would be!

He wanted nothing more of life than this moment, but others intruded.

“Tol’chuk.”

His name only skittered at the edge of his awareness, but like a pebble dropped into a still pool, the word rippled away his sense of well-being.

His name was repeated. “Tol’chuk.”

His neck twisted in the direction of the voice. As he moved, his tranquility shattered. He shook his head, searching for what he had lost. But it failed to return. The heartstone arch continued to spark and glint, but nothing more.

Tol’chuk’s back began to bow, muscles knotting, as he discovered the three pairs of eyes studying him.

“Now it starts.” The Triad’s voice was more a moan than words.

Tol’chuk bowed his head. His heart thundered in fear.

One of the Triad crossed to him. He felt his wrist gripped by the bony paw of the og’re. Tol’chuk’s hand was raised, and something cool and hard was placed in his palm. The og’re backed away.

“See,” the Triad commanded. Again the word seemed to come from all three, like a hiss of wind between narrow cliffs.

Tol’chuk glanced to what lay heavy on his palm. It was a chunk of heartstone the size of a goat’s head.

“What… what is this?” His own voice sounded so loud in the chamber that Tol’chuk bowed his head from the noise.

The answer swirled from the clustered og’res. “It is the Heart of the Og’res, the spirit of our people given form.”

Tol’chuk’s trembling hand almost dropped the stone. He had heard whispers of this rock. A heartstone that conveyed the spirits of the og’res to the next land. He held the rock out toward the Triad, straining for them to take it away.

“Stare.” Their eyes seemed to glow in the worm light. “Stare deep within the rock.” Swallowing to wet his scratchy throat, he raised the stone toward his eyes. Though it glinted a thick red hue, it failed to spark and shine the way the arch did. He stared at the rock and failed to see anything of consequence. Confused, he began to lower the stone.

“Search beneath its surface,” their voices hissed again.

Tol’chuk clenched his face and narrowed his eyes. He concentrated on the heartstone. Though of exceptional size, it seemed an ordinary jewel. What did they want of him? If they wanted him dead, why fool with this? Just as his eyes started to turn away again, he spotted it. A flaw in the core of the rock. A black blemish buried deep within the jeweled facets. “What is—?” Suddenly the flaw moved! At first he thought he had shifted the stone himself. But as he watched, he saw the dark mass buried deep in the stone spasm once again. Frozen with fear, this time he knew he had not moved.

He squinted and held the rock higher to the light. He now saw what the layers of jewel tried to hide.

Deep in the rock was a worm. It could be a cousin of the wigglers coating the cavern walls, but this one was as black as the flaming oil found in pools deep under the mountain. What was this creature?

As if the Triad had read his thoughts, an answer was given. “It is the Bane. It feasts on the spirits of our dead as they enter the sacred stone.”

Three arms pointed to the Heart. “That is the true end to the path of the dead—in the belly of a worm.” Tol’chuk’s lips grimaced to expose his short fangs. How could this be? He had been taught that the og’re dead, assisted by the Triad, passed through the stone to a new world and life. He hefted the stone with its black heart. He had been taught a lie! This is where it all ended. “I don’t understand.” The Triad continued. “An og’re, many lifetimes ago, betrayed an oath to the land’s spirit. For this betrayal, we were cursed by the Bane.“

Tol’chuk lowered the heartstone and hung his head. “Why tell me all this?” The Triad remained silent.

A deep rumble shook the mountain roots, thunder from the distant top of the peak, what the og’res called “the mountain’s voice.” The threatening winter storm had finally struck.

As the echo died away, the Triad’s words flowed again. “You are magra, of proper age. Even the mountain calls for you.”

He raised his eyes toward the ancient og’res. “Why me?”

“You are og’re and not og’re. Spirits of two peoples mix in you.”

“I know,” Tol’chuk said. “Ahalf-breed. Og’re and human.”

The trio of og’res swung their eyes toward one another, quietly conferring. Tol’chuk’s ears strained toward them. Vague whisperings escaped their huddled mass, lone words and scattered phrases: “…

lies… he knows not… the book of blood… crystal fangs…” A final phrase slipped to his ear: “… the stone will kill the wit’ch.”

Tol’chuk waited, but no other words reached him. His heart thundered in his chest. He could not stand silent. “What do you want of me?” His words boomed in the quiet cavern.

The trio turned three sets of eyes on him, then their answer flowed to him: “Free our spirits. Kill the Bane.”

MOGWEED AND FARDALE HUDDLED UNDER AN OUTCROPping of rock. The shelf of stone offered little shelter, but the late afternoon storm had struck so suddenly and savagely that no other refuge could be found in these barren lands of the og’res.

Arms of lightning grabbed the mountain peak and shook the rock. Booming thunder crushed them both deeper under the stone roof. Whistling winds swept down from the heights, driving a hard rain.

After the hunters had balked at following them into the og’re land, Mogweed had assumed that the only risk of death lay in a chance meeting with one of the hulking denizens of these barren peaks.

He had not thought to worry about the weather.

Tiny freezing drops stung Mogweed’s exposed skin like the bite of wasps. “We must seek a better shelter,” Mogweed said as Fardale shook his thick coat. “We’ll freeze to death by nightfall.” Fardale kept his back to Mogweed, staring out into the rainswept gullies and cliffs. He seemed oblivious to the cold rain sluicing down from the cloud-choked skies. Like the feathers of a goose, his fur simply shed the rain, while Mogweed’s clothes absorbed the dampness and held its cold touch firm to his skin.

Mogweed’s teeth chattered, and his swollen ankle throbbed in his soggy boot. “We need at least a fire,” he said.

Fardale turned his eyes to Mogweed, their amber glow more cold than warm. An image coalesced, a warning: An eagle’s eye spies the wagging tail of a foolish squirrel.

Mogweed pulled farther under the rocky overhang. “Do you really think the og’res would spy our fire?

Surely this storm has driven them deep within their caves.” Fardale scanned the rocky terrain silently.

Mogweed did not press his brother. The cold was much less a threat than a band of og’res. Mogweed slipped his bag from his shoulder and plopped it on the floor of their shelter. He crouched down in an alcove farthest from the wind and the rain and hugged his knees to his chest, trying to offer the smallest target co the bitter gusts. For the thousandth time this day, he wished for even an iota of his former skills.

If only I could change into a bear form, he thought, then this rain and cold would be nothing but an inconvenience. He stared at his brother’s shaggy figure and grimaced. Fardale had always been the luckier of the twin brothers. Life had smiled on him with even his first breath. Born first, Fardale had been declared heir to their family’s properties. To match this position, Fardale was gifted with the tongue of an orator, knowing the exact thing to say when it needed saying. Whispers of his potential to become elder’root of the tribe were soon bandied about. But Mogweed always seemed to say the wrong thing at the worst time and chafed his clansfolk with each movement of his tongue. Few sought his company or council.

All this, while grating, was not what had truly bothered Mogweed about his brother. What drove Mogweed to shaking rages was Fardale’s simple acceptance of their cursed birth.

Born as identical twins in a world of shape-shifters, their birth had been a cause of excitement and celebration. Twins had been born to the si’lura before, but never identical ones. Mogweed and Fardale were the first. No one was able to tell them apart, not even their parents. Each brother was the exact twin of the other.

Among the clan, the brothers were initially a novelty and a delight. But the brothers had soon learned that whenever one twin altered his form, his brother’s body would spontaneously warp to match and maintain their identical natures, whether this change was welcome or not. This led to an ongoing war of control. If one twin should let his concentration weaken, his form was open to unexpected shifts by the other brother’s will. In a world where freedom of form was simply a matter of life, Mogweed and Fardale were chained together by birth.

Where this burden in life was simply accepted by Fardale, Mogweed had grown bitter, never content to stomach their fate. He had devoured old texts of their people, searching for a way to sunder the chains that tied brother to brother. And eventually he had discovered a way, a secret known only to the ancient si’lura of the deep forest.

Mogweed sighed aloud. If only I had been more cautious—

From an ancient worm-eaten text, he had discovered a little-known fact of si’lura nature: When two si’lura lovers were entwined in mating, neither partner could shift at the peak of their passionate fire.

Mogweed had pondered this revelation for many moons. He sensed that a key to freeing himself from Fardale’s yoke might lie in this small fact. Then a plan began to swell in his mind.

He knew that his brother had been courting a young female, the third daughter of the elder’root. Most si’lura over time developed a predilection for a certain form, and she had a preference for the shape and speed of the wolf. This young she-wolf, with her long legs and snow-white fur, had caught Fardale’s eye.

Soon talk of a union was in the mouths of many gossips.

As his brother’s romance bloomed, Mogweed clung to shadows. Here, perhaps, lay a chance. He studied, plotted, and waited.

One night, under a full moon, his patience won out. Mogweed crept after his brother and from the cover of a nearby bush watched Fardale’s dalliance with the lithe she-wolf. His brother nuzzled and coaxed the young female, her white fur aglow in the moonlight. She returned Fardale’s affection and soon stood for him. As Mogweed spied, Fardale mounted her, at first tenderly, with sweet nips at her ears and throat, then with rising passion.

Mogweed waited until a characteristic howl escaped his brother’s throat—then acted. Mogweed willed his own body to shift into that of a man, praying that his brother would be locked by his throes of passion into his present wolf form.

His plan succeeded…

Under the rocky overhang in the land of the og’res, Mogweed stared at the pale skin of his hands.

His plan had succeeded too well!

That cursed night, Mogweed had shifted into the form of a man, while Fardale had remained a wolf. But Mogweed soon learned that the cost of breaking their identical natures came with a price—a steep price.

Neither brother could shift again. Both brothers were eternally trapped in these separate shells.

If only he had been more cautious…

Nearby, Fardale growled in threat, drawing Mogweed’s attention fully back to the present. His brother’s hackles were raised, and his ears were pulled flat to his lowered head. The rumbling growl again flowed from Fardale’s throat.

Mogweed scooted closer to his brother. “What is it? Og’res?” Even bringing the name to his lips caused a tremble to shiver through him.

Suddenly a black-skinned creature stalked from out of the sheets of rain directly in front of them. An iron muzzle hung loose around its neck, and a broken chain dragged behind it. It lowered its head to match Fardale’s stance, its claws dug into the rock.

A sniffer!

It must have escaped the hunters and continued its own hunt. Mogweed backed behind Fardale, but the wolf offered little protection. Fardale weighed only a fraction of the snarling predator’s massive bulk, a mewling pup before a bear.

The beast’s shoulders bunched with thick muscle. Free of the iron muzzle, the sniffer opened its jaws, exposing rows of jagged teeth. It howled at them, its cry challenging the thunder among the mountain peaks.

Then it lunged.

Tol’chuk pushed the heartstone clutched in his hand toward the closest of the ancient og’res. His own heart felt as heavy in his chest as the rock in his hand. “I don’t know what you ask. How can I possibly destroy the Bane?”

The trio stood stone-still and silent. Three pairs of eyes studied him. He felt as if his very bones were being read and judged. Finally, words droned toward him. “You are the one.” Tol’chuk did not want to dishonor his tribe’s elders, but surely they were mad with age. “Who? Who do you think lam?”

He received no answer, just their unblinking stare.

The leagues of rock over Tol’chuk’s head seemed to press down at him. “Please. I am only half og’re.

The task you ask should be given to one of the warriors, a full-blood. Why me?” Words again flowed to him. “You are the last descendant of the Oathbreaker, he who betrayed the land and cursed our people with the Bane.”

Tol’chuk felt his arms weaken. Would his shame never end? Not only was he cursed as a half-breed, but if the Triad spoke true, he was also the offspring of the corrupt og’re who had damned his people. He found no words to answer this accusation, only denial, his voice a whisper. “This… this cannot be true.” The granite of the mountains edged the Triad’s tone. “You, son of Len’chuk, are the end of an ancient lineage. The last of the Oathbreaker’s seed.”

“But… what do you mean I am the last of his seed?”

“At your naming, an old healer examined you. Your mixed blood has corrupted your seed. You cannot father og’re offspring.”

Tears threatened to well; so many secrets. “Why was I not told all this?” His question was ignored. Their next words had the bite of command in them. “You are the last. You must restore the honor to your blood by correcting your ancestor’s betrayal.” Tol’chuk closed his eyes and clutched the black-hearted stone in his hand. His tongue caught in his throat. “What did this Oathbreaker do?”

The Triad withdrew inward again, necks bent, conferring among themselves. After several silent heartbeats, a whisper of words passed to him. “We do not know.”

“Then how am I to correct it?”

The words repeated. “We do not know.”

Tol’chuk’s eyes crinkled in confusion. “Then how am I to find out?”

“You must leave our lands with the Heart. Seek your answers beyond the Spirit Gate.” Tol’chuk heard nothing past the word leave. His shoulders shuddered at the thought. This was what he had most dreaded when he killed Fen’shwa: banishment. To be forced to leave his homelands for the larger world, a world that hated and feared his people. Tol’chuk shrank under their stares. “Where do I go?”

Three arms raised and pointed fingers to the massive arch of ruby heartstone. “Through the Spirit Gate.” Tol’chuk’s brows bunched. It was solid rock. How could he pass through there?

“Come.” Two of the ancient og’res crossed to the arch. One took up a post by the left foot of the arch, while another crossed slowly to the right foot. The third member of the Triad took Tol’chuk by the wrist and guided him toward the open arch.

“What am I supposed to do?” Tol’chuk asked in a tremulous voice.

The og’re beside him spoke. Broken from the others, his voice had a trace of warmth, more like a stern father. “Before the Bane appeared, the Gate collected the spirits from the Heart and carried them to the next world. Like the spirits, you must hold your desire firm, and the Gate will take you where you need to be. It is foretold that when the last descendant of the Oathbreaker crosses through the Spirit Gate, he will find the path to free our spirits.”

Tol’chuk nodded to the arch. “But I’m not a spirit. I can’t pass through solid rock.”

“You need not be a spirit.”

“Then how?”

No answer was given, but a low intoning arose from the og’res bowed at each foot of the sweeping stone arch. The thrumming of their voices seemed to sweep to Tol’chuk’s marrow. He felt a slightly giddy sensation. His ears buzzed, and the heartstone in his hand resonated to the og’res’ humming. As he watched, wide-eyed, the wall of rock contained within the heartstone arch changed. It still appeared outwardly the same—hard granite—but Tol’chuk knew it was now an illusion, like the phantom reflection of a cliff in still water. It had the appearance of rock but was no more substantial than the thin film that watersprites skimmed across on a calm pond.

As the throbbing hum grew, the heartstone in his hands drew toward the Spirit Gate like a mate seeking the warmth of a touch on a cold night. The stone’s gentle tugging urged his feet to follow. Tol’chuk found his legs obeying. With his ears still pounding to the intonations and hum, Tol’chuk barely noticed the old og’re leave his side. Tol’chuk proceeded alone toward the arch.

But words trailed to him from the lone member of the Triad behind him. “Listen to the heartstone. Though blackened, it is still our Heart. Listen, and it will guide you when it can.” The words wormed through to his fogged mind, but meaning failed to penetrate. He ignored the words.

As he stepped close to the Gate, the vibrations swept all thoughts aside. He opened himself to its touch, trusting the Gate to take him where he needed to be. Blind now, he took the next step—the first step on his journey to free his people—on faith.

As he passed through the veil of the Gate, the thrumming in his ears vanished in a heartbeat to be replaced with the ear-splitting howl of a hunter seeking blood.

MOGWEED SCUTTLED BACKWARD AS THE SNIFFER SCREAMED and lunged. Fardale burst from under the shelf of rock, his fangs bared. A roaring howl exploded from the wolf’s throat. Mogweed had never heard such a noise from his brother. The howl iced the blood and froze the heart. Even the sniffer balked in midcharge.

Wolf and sniffer now stood only a span apart. Each beast, head lowered, sought a weakness in the other.

Mogweed crouched motionless in his hiding place. A bolt of lightning struck a scraggled pine a league up the mountain, splitting the air with thunder. Rain swamped both combatants. The sniffer towered over Fardale, its bulk twice that of the wolf. The razor-edged teeth, daggered claws, and sheer ferocity of the beast left little doubt of who would walk away from this fight. The only unanswered question was if Mogweed could escape while the sniffer sated its hunger on Fardale’s corpse. Mogweed searched for a way to slip unseen from the overhang.

Suddenly, without warning, as if obeying some instinctual signal, both combatants flew at each other. The snapping of jaws and spurts of furious growls escaped the blur of black fur and bruise-colored skin.

Claws and teeth ripped flesh.

Mogweed sought to escape his hole, but as he neared the edge of the overhang, he was forced to dance back as the fighters tumbled near. With the combatants so close, Mogweed saw gouts of blood matting down Fardale’s fur. How much of it was Fardale’s own was impossible to judge. But it was clear the right could not last much longer.

Like the ebbing of a tide, the growling battle rolled away from Mogweed’s hiding place, freeing a route of escape. Mogweed edged from the security of the overhang, meaning to make his run. The cold rain again attacked the skin of his face with its rough affection. Mogweed ignored its bite. He kept one eye focused on the fight and the other on the dark path that led away among the rocks. Just as he began to turn his back on his brother, motion hooked his eye.

A large boulder tumbled from above to crash near the two fighters. Its cracking impact startled the combatants. Wolf and sniffer paused in midfight, bloody teeth poised at throat and belly.

Suddenly the boulder reached out and grabbed the sniffer.

It wasn’t a boulder but an og’re! Mogweed dashed back under the overhang and crammed himself into the darkest corner. Fardale scrambled in retreat, hindered by a broken forelimb that hung crooked and limp. Standing on three legs, the wolf stood guard at the entrance to the shelter, protecting Mogweed from this new threat.

From his hole, Mogweed watched the sniffer, one of the most savage predators of the Western Reaches, torn to raw-edged pieces at the hands of the og’re.

Once finished, still tangled in the entrails of the sniffer, the creature twisted toward them, its blunt face scarred by splashes of black blood, its yellowed fangs bared. Steam plumed from its wide, squashed nostrils. It boomed, in a crude approximation of the common tongue shared by many of the land’s peoples, “Who be you trespassers?”

Tol’chuk shook as he crouched among the shredded remains of the woodland beast, fighting his blood lust. His claws ached to rend the wolf who still stood near, and his tongue ran thick with saliva. The odor of blood, with its hint of iron like freshly mined ore, tinged his thoughts. He had heard warriors of his tribe speak of the fer’engata, the fire of the heart, during“ battles, of how the scent of an enemy’s blood could ignite an og’re to further savagery, until all control was lost.

Tol’chuk felt his heart thundering in his chest, the real thunder crashing around him only a pale imitation of his blood’s booming. Blood called for blood.

He fought the instinct. Now was not the time for blind actions. Such a path he had followed earlier in the day, and now Fen’shwa lay dead in the chamber of the spirits. His shoulders trembled, but he had control of his mind.

Since he had seen the small man-thing crawl under the shelf of rock, his wolf guarding him, Tol’chuk spoke in the common tongue used in trading with other mountain races. Tol’chuk struggled with his words. An og’re’s throat was not built for the subtleties of common speech. The og’re language was more gesture, posture, and a guttural grunting. Still, Tol’chuk knew that there must be some reason for the Spirit Gate sending him here. He remembered the Triad’s words: The Gate would send him where he needed to be. The appearance of a man in the lands of his people had to be significant. Humans had not ventured into this territory in ages. The skulls of the last still adorned the warriors’ drum chamber. So Tol’chuk fought his tongue to form the words needed. “Who be you?” he repeated. “What seek you in our lands?”

The only answer he got to his questions was a low growl from the wolf—not a threat or challenge, but a tentative warning.

Tol’chuk sensed from the wolf’s answer that the pair meant him no harm, only wished to be left alone.

But he also knew that their meeting here was not mere chance. This encounter was meant to be.

“Do not fear,” he said calmly and slowly. “Come. Speak.”

His soft words seemed to confuse the wolf. Tol’chuk saw the wolf glance back into the shadowed hole under the overhang. When the wolf’s eyes settled on his own again, Tol’chuk noticed something strange.

The wolf’s eyes, glowing a soft amber, had pupils slitted like his own—as unnatural for a wolf as his own eyes were for an og’re. Tol’chuk also sensed an intelligence behind those bright eyes equal to his own.

All at once, strange images formed in Tol’chuk’s head like suddenly remembered dreams.

A wolf greets another wolf nose to nose. Welcome to the pack.

MOGWEED STAYED CROUCHED DEEP UNDER THE OVERhang. Fardale must have struck his head on a rock during the battle with the sniffer. The creature out there was not si’lura! He refused to risk moving any closer to get a better look at the og’re’s eyes as Fardale insisted. He was not about to put himself within arm’s reach of the beast. He was determined to stay hidden until he died of starvation, rather than have his limbs rended as the dead sniffer’s had been.

But the og’re’s next words gave him pause. “How be it that your wolf’s thoughts are in my head?” the og’re said in a voice that sounded as if he had a throat packed with grating stones. “What trick be this?” The og’re could hear Fardale? Mogweed found himself creeping forward just enough to peek out from the shelter. The rain had stopped, and a few breaks in the clouds brightened the streaming landscape. He glanced toward the og’re, who stood only a few steps away. A wary expression clouded the og’re’s rocky features. Wearing only a leather loincloth and a pack strapped to its leg, it hunkered among the shreds of the sniffer. It looked like drawings he had seen of og’res, but this one did not seem so twisted and misshapen as the etchings had suggested. Perhaps the drawings had been exaggerated. This was the first og’re he had ever seen—if it was an og’re!

He saw the slitted eyes. Fardale was right. Si’lura perhaps… but this creature was huge. Si’lura could not swell their mass when altering form. Flesh was flesh. A si’lura’s weight stayed the same no matter which form was chosen: deer, wolf, bear, man, rok’eagle. The bulk of the si’lura stayed the same.

Fardale glanced back to Mogweed. His brother’s eyes glowed with curiosity. Fardale’s thoughts intruded on Mogweed: A wolf recognizes the howl of its pack.

So the og’re was sensing his brother’s touch! Mogweed crawled forward. How was this possible? The og’re was at least three times their weight. No si’lura had ever come close to matching this size.

“Come out, little man. Do not be afraid. I will not eat you.” Mogweed noticed the og’re’s eyes had picked him out of the black shadows. The og’re stared directly at him now. Its vision must be keen, heightened by life in the caverns.

“Come.” The voice boomed.

Mogweed stayed where he was, still partially hidden behind Fardale’s form. But the og’re’s words had somewhat calmed the terror around his heart. He loosened his tongue. “What do you want of us?” he called out, his voice a mere squeak when compared to the og’re’s.

“Come out. I then see you better.”

Mogweed tensed. Fardale turned his eyes on his brother. A hawk with a broken wing can’t fly. Forest cats prowl in the bushes. Fardale hinted that they would need help if they were to pass through og’re lands.

Fardale hopped on his three legs closer to the lumbering creature, leaving space for Mogweed to climb out. Still Mogweed hesitated. He knew he had no choice, but his legs refused to budge.

“I will not harm you, little man. My word be my heart.” The beast tapped a bloody claw to its chest. The og’re’s words had a trace of sorrow and weariness. It was more the voice than the words that finally freed Mogweed’s legs.

He climbed from under the overhang and straightened to face the og’re. Its flat, crushed face, with huge nostrils and thick lips, caused Mogweed’s mouth to twist in disgust. Its mountain of muscle and bone trapped Mogweed’s tongue.

og’re was not going to attack. “He is not a wolf. He is my brother. I am called Mogweed.”

“I be Tol’chuk.” The og’re nodded his chin in greeting. “But how be this wolf your brother?”

“We are si’lura—shape-shifters. We can speak through our spirit tongues to one another.” Tol’chuk stumbled back a step. His voice cracked across the stone. “You be tu’tura! Deceivers. Stealers of babies!”

Mogweed cringed. Why were his people so persecuted? A twinge of anger penetrated his fear. “That is a lie! We are simply a people of the forest, and much maligned by the other races. We harm no one and live our lives peacefully.”

Mogweed’s words sunk visibly into the og’re. Mogweed saw Tol’chuk narrow his eyes in thought.

When he spoke again, his voice was softer. “I hear truth in your words. I be sorry. I hear bad stories.”

“Not all tales are true.”

The og’re sagged, and his shoulders slumped. “I be taught that many times today.”

“We only mean to pass through here. That beast you killed drove us into your lands. Please let us pass.”

“I will not stop you. But you will not survive in our lands alone. The og’re tribes will hunt you down before you clear the pass.”

Mogweed winced.

A pack grows stronger as it grows in size.

Mogweed found himself nodding, but he could not take his eyes from the long fangs of the og’re before him. Let’s just hope, he thought, that the pack doesn’t get eaten by one of its members.

Tol’chuk stared across the fire at the two brothers. They had traveled well into the night before finally stopping to rest the few hours until daybreak. The wolf-brother already lay curled with his nose tucked under a sodden tail. The splinted forelimb stuck out and pointed at the crackling fire. Tol’chuk watched his even breathing. Fardale was fast asleep.

Movement caught Tol’chuk’s eyes. The other brother lay wrapped in a blanket on the far side of the fire, but from the open eyes reflecting the firelight, this brother did not sleep. The one called Mogweed had remained wary of Tol’chuk throughout the journey.

“You need sleep,” Tol’chuk said in a low voice, still struggling with the common tongue. “I guard. I do not need much sleep.”

“I’m not sleepy.” But Mogweed’s voice cracked with exhaustion. The man’s eyes were bloodshot, and bruised crescents outlined them.

Tol’chuk studied him. How frail was the human race. Such tiny arms, like budding sapling limbs, and a chest so small he iou cannoi cnangc:

“No. There was… an accident… and we became stuck in these forms. Like you, my brother and I are on a journey, to try to find a way to free our bodies. We seek a city of trace magick among the lands of the humans, a city named A’loa Glen.”

“The trip you take be a dangerous one. Why not be happy with the way you are now?” Tol’chuk saw Mogweed’s lips curl in disdain. “We are si’lura. If we remain in one form longer than fourteen moons, the memory of our si’lura heritage fades until we become that form. I do not want to forget who I am or where I came from—and most of all I don’t want to stay a man!” Mogweed’s voice had risen enough to cause Fardale to stir in his slumber.

This was obviously a sensitive matter to Mogweed. Tol’chuk crinkled his face, then rubbed his chin with a claw. When he spoke next, he changed the course of their talk. “Your wolf… I mean your brother…

he sends me the same picture over and over: A wolf sees a fellow brother. Over and over. I do not understand this picture.”

Mogweed hesitated. The silence stretched. If it weren’t for the reflection of the fire revealing Mogweed’s staring eyes, Tol’chuk would have thought him asleep. Finally, Mogweed spoke. “Are all og’res like you?”

This question startled Tol’chuk. Were his deformities so obvious that even another race could spot his ugliness? “No,”

ground suddenly chilled his bones. He remembered the Triad’s hushed response when he had spoken of his mixed blood. The words “he knows not” had flowed from them. If the Triad had known of his true heritage, why hadn’t they told him?

Tol’chuk shuddered. Mogweed’s words had the scent of truth—especially after seeing how weak and small the race of humans grew. A female of the human race could not withstand the mating with an og’re.

The og’re females, while weighing no more than a man, were squat and thick with bone. A human female could not withstand the mount and forcefulness of an adult rutting og’re. Even some of the toadish og’re females were crushed and broken under excited males. That’s why a male kept a harem of the small females: If one was crushed, there were always others.

Tol’chuk lowered his head into his hands, his mind spinning. A si’lura altered into the form of an og’re female could have survived his massive father. But did she do this deliberately, or had she become fixed in og’re form and forgotten her si’lura past? Tol’chuk would never know. She had died giving birth, or so he had been told. But what was true?

Mogweed must have sensed Tol’chuk’s shock. The man’s tongue clucked in his throat, obviously fearful he had offended him. “I… I’m sorry if—”

Tol’chuk held up a hand to quiet him, his jaw frozen. Words stayed buried in his throat. He only stared in silence at the two brothers across the fire. Here, too, was his tribe. He saw the fearful look in Mogweed’s eyes. And here, too, like his og’re home, was a place he would never be fully accepted. The og’re half of him would always offend and terrify this new tribe.

Tol’chuk watched Mogweed burrow into his blankets and pull a woolen corner over his head. Tol’chuk sat numb. The fire offered no warmth this night. He stared at the few stars winking through the breaks in the clouds. The fire popped as it devoured the bits of wood.

He had never felt so alone.

The next afternoon, Tol’chuk regretted his com-plaints of lonely solitude. Suddenly the mountain paths were too crowded. Mogweed’s words had kept Tol’chuk’s thoughts grinding throughout the night. Only the morning distraction of breaking camp interrupted his shock. It was this roiling consternation and lack of rest that weakened Tol’chuk’s keen wariness. Before Tol’chuk could hide his companions, three og’res had rushed them from a leeward slope of the mountain trail.

He stared at the three og’res of the Ku’ukla clan, the very tribe that had killed his father in the raids.

Thick with muscle and scar, these three had seen many battles and were well hardened by war. The leader of the pack towered over Tol’chuk.

“It’s the half-breed of the Toktala clan!” grunted this giant of an og’re. He pointed an oak log that he carried in his free hand in Tol’chuk’s direction. “Seems even a half-breed can capture a bit of game on these trails.”

Tol’chuk stepped in front of the cowering Mogweed. Fardale, listing on his three good legs, remained near the thick thigh of Tol’chuk. The wolf growled toward the band of og’res. Tol’chuk kept one hand knuckled on the wet stone to maintain as much true og’re form as possible. If he were to have any chance of surviving this assault, he must not provoke their disgust. Relieved to use the og’re language again, he forced his tongue to its most masculine guttural. “These are not blood meals. They are under my protection.”

The leader pulled back his lips to expose his fangs in an expression of amused menace. “Since when does an og’re do the bidding of a man? Or is the half of you that is human overwhelming the og’re?”

“I am og’re.” Toi’chuk allowed a hint of fang to slip free of his lips, warning that the words of the leader threatened retribution.

This show, though, only seemed to amuse the huge og’re. “So the son of Len’chuk thinks himself better than his father? Do not threaten the one who sent your father to the spirit cave.” Tol’chuk stiffened, and his neck muscles bunched up. If these were true words spoken, here stood his father’s killer! He remembered the Triad’s words that the Heart would guide him where he needed to be.

Tol’chuk fully exposed his fangs.

At this action, the amusement lighting the leader’s eyes died away, leaving only a sharp menace. “Do not bite more than you can swallow, little half-breed. Even this insult I’ll ignore and let you live—if you give your catch over to us.” The leader’s eyes pointed to the wolf and Mogweed. “They’ll make a tasty stew.”

Though they spoke in the og’re tongue, some meaning must have been transmitted to Mogweed. Or maybe it was the hungry lust in the leader’s eyes as they settled on the small man. Either way, Mogweed moaned and pulled farther behind Tol’chuk. Fardale stood stiff, but his growl thickened.

“They are under my protection,” Tol’chuk repeated. “They will pass unharmed.”

“Only strength of arm will decide that!” spat the leader. He slammed the oak log on the trail. The thud echoed off the peaks around them.

Tol’chuk glanced at his own empty hands. He had no weapon. He bared his empty hand. “Claw to claw, then.”

The giant og’re cackled. “The first law of war, half-breed. Never give up the high ground.” He kept the log.

Tol’chuk’s brows lowered. What chance did he have against this armed opponent? “So this is the honor of the Ku’ukla clan.”

“What is honor? Victory is the only true honor. The Ku’ukla clan will rule all the tribes!” As the leader huffed and prepared to attack, Tol’chuk rapidly scanned the trail for a weapon—rock, stick, anything. But the night’s rain had washed the trail clean of debris. He had no weapon.

Then he remembered. No, he had one weapon: a stone. He fumbled his thigh pack open and removed the huge heartstone.

The leader spotted the rock in Tol’chuk’s hand. The giant’s eyes widened with recognition.

“Heartstone!” Obvious lust trembled the og’re’s limbs. “Give it to me, and I will allow all of you to pass.”

“No.”

A bellow of rage exploded from the leader, and he raised the oak log high. Tol’chuk pushed Mogweed and Fardale aside. Facing the giant, Tol’chuk prepared to use the stone as a weapon. He had killed earlier with rocks, perhaps he would prevail here.

But he would never be given the chance to find out. As he raised the Heart of the Og‘ res, a shaft of sunlight pierced the clouds overhead and struck the stone. The sun’s touch on the stone burst into a thousand colors.

Tol’chuk winced at the bright light. Shading his eyes against the radiance, Tol’chuk saw the leader bathed in the Heart’s glow. A soft smoke drew forth from the giant’s body and maintained the shape of the leader for a single breath. Then, like a hearth’s soot drawn up a chute, the wispy smoke was sucked to the stone and vanished into its radiance.

As the smoke disappeared, the clouds closed overhead, and the sun vanished. The stone lost its luster.

Tol’chuk and the other two og’res stood like granite statues as the leader’s body teetered for two heartbeats, then collapsed to the trail. The log rolled from his limp claws. He was dead. The other two og’res stared with eyes stretched wide.

Then, as if on some unseen signal, both turned in unison; fled from the trail.

Mogweed stepped to Tol’chuk. “What happened?” he asked, his eyes also on the stone.

Tol’chuk stared at the corpse of his father’s killer. “Justice.” Over the next two days, Mogweed noticed a change in Tol’chuk. They traveled mostly at night to avoid the eyes of other og’re tribes. But even in darkness, Mogweed spied how the og’re lumbered as if shouldering a heavy burden. The creature seldom spoke, and his eyes had a distant glaze to them. Even Fardale’s sendings were ignored by the og’re.

So Tol’chuk knew of his heritage. Why did this news so damage the creature?

Mogweed dismissed his concerns about the og’re. He was just relieved that the party had crossed out of og’re territory and into safer lands this afternoon. The summit of the pass through the Teeth lay just ahead. Beyond the ridge lay the lands of the east—the lands of humans.

Even though nightfall approached and they would soon need to prepare a campsite, Tol’chuk trudged ahead of the others to the cusp of the ridge. Fardale followed at the og’re’s heels like a trained dog.

Mogweed watched his brother leap with difficulty atop a rock. The splinted forelimb hindered the wolf but did not stop him. Nothing seemed to slow him down for very long. Mogweed reached to his side and felt the iron ribbing of the muzzle through the leather of his pack. He had scavenged it from the dead sniffer when everyone’s eyes were busy elsewhere. It might come in handy if he ever needed to control Fardale. He patted the spot. It was best to be prepared.

Stopping next to the boulder, Mogweed gazed out at the eastern slopes. The shadows of the peaks stretched across the lands as the sun set behind him.

From here, all paths led down.

Fardale raised his nose to the breeze coming from the lower lands. Even Mogweed’s weaker nose could pick up traces of salt from the distant sea. Such a foreign and intriguing smell, Mogweed thought, so unlike home. But what also colored the air, almost overpowering the subtler scents, was a more familiar odor. “I smell smoke,” Mogweed warned.

“Old smoke,” Tol’chuk said, his voice stronger than it had been during the previous days. He seemed to be studying the scent, drawing it deep into his throat. “The fire be at least a day old.”

“So is it safe to continue?” Worries of a forest fire slid across Mogweed’s skin.

The og’re nodded. “And now that we be out of og’re lands, maybe it be time we parted ways.” Mogweed started to mumble words of thanks for Tol’chuk’s help when suddenly the og’re gasped and clutched a hand to his chest.

“What’s wrong?” Mogweed asked, searching right and left for danger. Fardale leaped off the boulder and loped to Tol’chuk’s side. The wolf placed a concerned paw on the og’re’s leg.

Tol’chuk straightened his back and lowered his hand to his pouch. He removed from among his belongings the huge jewel that had killed the og’re. The stone pulsed a ruby red in the dimness. Its brightness stung the eye. Then, as if it were a coal cooling after supper, the fire receded in the stone until the light vanished.

“What is that? You never did tell us.” Mogweed tried to suppress the greed in his voice. The jewel had to be of extreme value. It might come in handy if they needed to barter in the human lands.

“Heartstone.” Tol’chuk returned the jewel to his pouch. “A sacred stone of my people.” Mogweed’s eyes still stared at the pouch. “That glow? Why does the stone do that? What does it mean?”

“A sign. The spirits call me forward.”

“Where?”

Tol’chuk pointed to the spreading vistas of the eastern slopes of the peaks. Fingers of distant smoke climbed into the waning light. “If you will have me, I will journey with you into the human lands. It seems our paths are not yet meant to part. Ahead may lie the answers we both seek.“

“Or our doom,” Mogweed mumbled.