 
New World: a Frontier Fantasy Novel

Published by Steven W. White at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Steven W. White

"How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't!"

– William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1611

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!"

– Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus," 1883

Prologue

As the stink of low tide washed over the village of Fort Sanctuary, a little boy named Simon Jones didn't want to get punched again. His nemesis, a seventeen-year-old thug named Marshall Dunster, was stalking him.

Stealth, that was the key. Change the usual routine. Don't walk home from the printing house down Sunrise Street like always, but turn left at Fife's pub, the Mermaid, where his father spent Friday evenings. Simon's skinny, nervous legs whipped along, taking him through that left turn–

"Gotcha!" Marshall's iron grip found his neck and pulled at his collar.

Simon almost worked free, but Marshall punched the side of his head, which rang like a cow bell at his ear. "Give me your money."

Simon's Adam's apple struggled up and down past Marshall's rough fingers. "My money?"

"I get bored just pounding you. Your dad's got money... so you got money. Hand it over."

"You've graduated to petty larceny. Lovely."

Another punch to his head. The noise made his knees wobbly. "Coin," Marshall said. "Now. And quit using words I don't know."

Simon reached into his trousers pocket and withdrew a few coppers. Marshall released Simon's neck and clawed at the coins in his fist. Simon let them fall to the dust.

"Hey!" Marshall threw another punch at Simon's head, but Simon dashed away, and Marshall's fist only swooped through the air.

Simon ran down the alley beside the Mermaid and crashed into a wall of muscle in a cotton shirt, stinking of beer and sweat.

Yohann Gordon, the brewer's son, had caught him. Marshall's friend. "I never seen a worm move so fast. Hey, Marsh, where's this twerp off to?"

Marshall didn't answer. Marshall never answered. The groan of yielding wood, then the heavy crack of splitting beams, came from the front gate. All three boys froze, and the screams that followed chilled their blood.

#

Chapter One

Tiberius Bogg's borderline malnourishment had grown to a powerful hunger that drove him back toward -- he hated to even think the word -- civilization.

The wilderness was different things to different people. To many, it was some sort of bloodthirsty predator that would eat your guts out if it could get close enough. Plenty of those folks back in the old country -- they would never come here, and just as well -- but some with that sort of thinking whiled away their lives in the settler towns with the high walls.

To others the wilderness was treasure. This was a more common sentiment among folk on this side of the ocean. To still more, the wilderness was a sort of shrine, a sign of the glorious nature of the Creator. Seemed fair enough. Bogg had no quarrel with those folk.

Bogg reckoned they were all close enough to the mark. For his own self, he'd call the wilderness a hunter, treasure, shrine... and home.

His stomach had cinched into a tight ball since his last meal of boiled pine cones yesterday. His feet, pounded past sore and into the pleasant territory of numb, had carried him down below the tree line and into the hills of golden grass. On occasion, as he walked, the deep blue of the ocean winked at him between the hills, a wedge of twilight in the middle of the day.

He didn't hurry. Food was nice, and tables and chairs and wood floors and fireplaces and soft beds were a curious luxury that he found himself missing at times. But they were like maple candy for a child. Not healthy, by any means.

Instead, he stopped to look behind him. Back there, the land was nothing but pines, shaggy green pillars like the grizzly hairs on the back of some beast big as the land, bigger than any in all the stories he had ever heard. The pines rose and fell in waves, not like the soft yellow hills near the coast, but steeper, more treacherous, like the waves out on the deep ocean that rise higher than the mainmast.

Back there in the pine storm, you felt small and lost, like the forest would see you and see a bug and not be clear as to which was which. That feeling pulled at Bogg. He wanted it.

But he wanted supplies, too. He was plumb out. And he was merely a man, not a badger or a coneybuck or a red rhino. So he walked on, travelling eost out of the woods.

With some disappointment, he stepped onto a road, with wagonwheel ruts ankle deep. The road ran sept-aust, and would take him to the coastal village of Sanctuary, where his oldest brother lived with his family. Bogg took in a breath of piney air, tightened the rope belt around his tattered deerskin coat, pulled his coonskin cap low over his grimy forehead, and turned sept.

After a mile he spied a furry lump on the road, bloody and still. He couldn't judge what kind of critter it was until he passed it, because its head was clove completely off.

Mongrel dog. It weren't that ripe yet. The buzzing flies had just lately made their joyous discovery. But by the end of the day, it would be boiling with stink.

Bogg spotted the head on the other side of the road. The deed was done by a single strike with a blade uncommonly keen. The sight pulled at his heart a little. Bogg had nothing against dogs. This one didn't seem like it had been the biting kind -- he didn't picture a body defending himself against it. It was more the type to yap and nip his ankles.

Bogg went on edge. His boots came down softer and more quietly on the road, and he considered in turn each sound he heard.

Birds and wind.

He reckoned the only body who would kill a dog like that and leave it to rot must have wanted to shut it up, or else was a powerful cruel creature.

Uncommonly keen. Muscle behind it, too.

Birds and wind, birds and wind.

The road curved gently to the eost and sloped down toward the coast. Patches of weeds sprouted now and then between the wheel ruts. Birch and maple trees grew in clumps on either side of him, and some were tapped with spiles and trays to catch the sap. It was the first sign of human beings Bogg had seen in eight months, unless he counted the dog.

The road met a low fence of crossed slender timbers. A gate hung from a leather hinge. Bogg opened it and passed an orchard of neatly spaced apple trees. The road continued around a bend to a stout fort's wall of sharpened posts. The gate here had been knocked flat. It lay in the path, bits of dirt trampled onto it.

Bogg wore a black cloak over his deerskin coat, and he drew it about him. His right hand came to rest on his sabertooth knife, in its sheath at his hip.

As he placed his foot on the fallen gate to pass into Sanctuary, a woman's scream split the air.

She emerged from beyond one of the timber-framed, stone-ender houses that lined the road past the gate. A headscarf covered her gray hair, and her eyes were glazed with terror. Her wrinkled face twisted up and she pointed a bony finger at him. "Clovis! They're back!"

A man strode through the open doorway of a house on the other side of the path. A full white beard lay on his scrawny chest, and in a frail arm he pointed a firelock at Bogg. "Stop yourself where you stand, stranger! Step over that gate and I'll knock a hole in you."

Bogg jutted his chin forward. Firelocks didn't scare him. "You'd better step closer before you let fly, if you mean to hit me with that thing, if'n it goes off at all. I allow this is Fort Sanctuary, but it's high time you changed the name if this is how you greet people."

#

Chapter 2

Clovis squinted at Bogg. The firelock drooped. "Sigrid! This ain't one of them. What are you hollering on about?"

She pressed her hands to her mouth. "Good land, I lost my senses. Who are you, then, stranger?"

"I'm the little brother of Ackerley Bogg. I heard he lived here."

Clovis turned to Sigrid. "Ackerley?" he asked uncertainly.

Sigrid sadly shook her head.

Bogg buried his fingers in the sandy blond of his beard to rub his chin. Clovis had emerged from a house with no door on its hinges. Instead it lay on the front step in two pieces, not split, not broken or shattered, but cut neatly in two, as if by an axe.

Fort Sanctuary had been sacked, that was plain to see. "When did this happen?"

"Sigrid..." Clovis thumbed over his shoulder, toward the rest of the village. "Better show him." Sigrid nodded, and Clovis disappeared back inside the house.

The old woman said, "I'm Sigrid Minder, maven of this bereaved community." She turned her plump body away from him. "Best follow me."

They walked down the uncobbled main avenue. Untended brood hens scratched and clucked aimlessly, passing in and out of the houses with the doors chopped down. Nobody else was about.

"Early this morning. Five men."

"Only five?"

"No more. In helms, mail, and heraldry -- traps of the old country. One with an axe, another with a warhammer. Their leader carried a broadsword with a golden pommel and guard. A wicked, wicked thing."

Bogg thought of the dog. "Mercenaries. Or pirates on a land raid." Bogg stepped over a dark stain of blood in the dust.

People had fled the old country to get away from broadswords, and all the armies that hefted them, in all the wars waged by all the power-mad kings of that overused and worn-out land.

Not to mention all the damned dragons.

That land across the sea was called Algolus, but it was so cursed in the minds and hearts of the settlers here that they called it the old country, rather than sound the name. And when most people left it, they left it for good.

Some didn't. Some carried Algolus with them still, and sailed all the way to Mira only to pillage this new land and bullyrag the settlers and condemn them as rebels and heretics.

A long streak of blood, sprayed on the clapboards of a house, was drying to brown in the afternoon sun.

"My brother is dead?"

"Ackerley, yes. And his wife, Vespera. And their son-in-law, Oliver."

"Jupiter Pluvius!" Bogg's lips drew back from his teeth. "The bloody rapscallions. How many altogether?"

Sigrid let out a whimper before she answered. "Eighteen. Those five cut through the three watchmen on duty, then they stormed house to house, killing anyone who tried to stand up to them. They took provisions, quick as lightning, and made off cleaner than a hound's tooth."

Sigrid and Bogg came to the square, an open patch of earth where the two main paths of the village crossed. Bodies were laid out in a row here. Bogg looked as little as he could. "Broadsword, all right."

The smell wasn't as bad as it would be soon, but all the same, it was getting to him. Bogg was in a sweat to run or fight, he wasn't sure which.

He had seen more death than most, and of the least pleasant kind. In the wilderness, it could come quick as the fang of a rattlesnake. It could also come slow as starvation, or frostbite, or gangrene. He knew there were worse ways to end up than lying in a village square like a side of beef, and he steeled himself as he walked past the bodies.

There were five women here. The sight of them tightened up his guts.

Then Bogg came to the body of a man with shaggy hair and beard like his, only white instead of blond. He had been slashed across the arm -- a blow he blocked -- and through the heart, a blow he didn't.

"Ackerley," Bogg muttered.

"That's right," Sigrid said.

"It can't stand." Bogg cast his gaze around the lonely stone buildings at the plaza's four corners, to keep from looking at the bodies. No one else was about. Bogg heard a woman weeping in a house nearby. "What are you people going to do about this?"

Sigrid never looked away from the dead. "Do? Nothing. Not a thing that'll answer."

"You won't go after them? They're murderers."

Sigrid shook her head. "We ain't got men enough. There's our finest, lying there. We need who's left to watch over us. What if those unbearables come back?"

Bogg stomped a boot. "By jings! Give me provisions and I'll go!"

"You?"

"I ain't afeared of these old-country mercenaries. I'll pay for my supplies with broadswords. I'll break those thugs in half."

Sigrid looked up from the bodies and focused her tired gaze on him. "Think on what you say. I can equip you with victuals and any such truck as you need, and further, if you were to bring even one of their weapons back to us, as maven I could pay you. A pretty penny. Say, a thousand gold."

Bogg's spit trickled back down the wrong pipe, and he hacked and coughed. At last, he whistled through the gap of his missing tooth. "How can you possibly afford to pay that?"

A brown and white chicken burst clucking into the square from an alley, and an instant later came the boy who had spooked it. The boy was in wide-eyed flight from something himself, and Bogg's hand found his knife handle.

"As of today," Sigrid Minder said quietly as she watched the boy, "Fort Sanctuary has a surplus of two things. Estates..."

The boy was skinny, no more than twelve, with hair dark as black cats in a sack and skin white as a bucket of cow's milk. He stumbled over the chicken and sprawled in the road, grinding dirt into his starched white shirt. He was on his feet and running again as an older boy, eighteen maybe, appeared and ripped after him.

"And orphans," Sigrid finished.

#

Chapter 3

The second boy was built like a stone wall. He tripped the skinny boy, who went into the dust again, and hauled him to his feet. "Take it back!"

"Marshall Dunster!" screeched Sigrid. "This is no day for shenanigans. Unhand that child!"

Dunster drove a fist into the boy's stomach and let him drop to the ground. "He said I was a liar!"

"Liability," moaned the kid on the ground. Marshall Dunster kicked him in the ribs.

This was more than Bogg could stand. He marched over, taking time to circle around the poor stiff dead. "Lad! We're all on the hairy edge, and we all mourn in different ways, but you step away from that child or by Jove I'll take you down a peg."

Dunster hauled the boy to his feet and held his limp body as a shield to ward off Bogg. "Who the hell are you?"

"I ain't no matter. But you're about to know me real well."

"You ain't nothing but a dirty mountain man. Go back to the woods."

The boy's head lolled back onto Dunster's shoulder, his face a grimace of pain. Not a day over twelve! Bogg let fly with his left fist, his knuckles breezing past the boy's ear, and bashed Dunster between his dumb bully's eyes.

"Mr. Bogg!" cried Sigrid.

Dunster stared at Bogg hard for a second, without really seeing him. Then Dunster seated himself in the street. Bogg snatched the boy as Dunster fell, and laid him down easy.

Dunster picked himself up before he was ready, wobbled a little, and reached behind his back. His hand whipped out a blade and pointed it at Bogg. It glinted steely in the afternoon sunlight.

Bogg's body went on edge. "That's an expensive knife," he said quietly.

Blood dripped from Dunster's nose, and he wiped it with his free hand. "I ain't afraid to cheapen it on you."

Bogg's right hand crept slowly to his hip. "Boy, you're looking at a world of troubles. Let's call it a day, you and me."

"You're just a scaredy, stinky mountain man. Eat any squirrels today, mountain man?"

"I'd ruther fight the men who did this than fight you. But then again--" Bogg's blade flashed out. The sabertooth canine seemed to reach out from its antler handle and rawhide lashing, pure white in the sun, smooth as Dunster's steel and a hand longer. It gently curved, as the fangs of that animal did, and the natural serrations lined the inside of the curve like the teeth of a saw blade.

Dunster took pause on seeing it, a pause which Bogg used to whip his knife across Dunster's, slicing it clean in half. The steel tip stuck itself in the dust between Dunster's feet, and Dunster gazed at the hilt in his hand, looking dumb as a stump.

"The sabertooth cat ain't no normal critter," Bogg said. "You ever see one in the wild, you run."

Bogg lifted his bone knife over his head until Dunster got the point. Dunster backed away and ran.

"Pa!" he called. "Pa!"

Sigrid had approached, but stood ten feet off until Bogg sheathed the knife. Then she helped him lift the boy to his feet.

"That offer still stand?" Bogg asked.

"It stands," Sigrid answered.

Bogg nodded. "Because I don't reckon I'll be staying in Sanctuary long." It wasn't the first time Bogg had caused a ruction in his first hour on returning to civilization. It just wasn't for him. He was a better man when he was out there, on his own.

The woman had said a thousand gold. Bogg had no love for money -- a prime reason, he suspicioned, as to why he never seemed to have any. There was no shame in poverty. It was just damned inconvenient at times. But with a thousand yellow-boys, he could... why, he could buy enough gear for the trip he had always wanted to make. All the way across Mira, past the Starry Mountains to the sea. That was as far into the wilderness as anybody could go. To lay eyes on the Hestern Ocean! He had never heard of anyone making that trip. Bogg could be the first.

"That might be for the best." She hunkered close to the boy. "Simon? Are you all right?"

"Just a minute," the lad said. "I'll be all right."

Sigrid held him close. "Poor Simon lost his father today. How young boys can torture each other like that I'll never understand."

The lad managed to straighten up and stand on his own. His black hair was properly mussed now, after the rumpus, but still parted in the middle and combed back over his ears, which stuck out like jug handles over his narrow shoulders. He looked up to Bogg with eyes a stormcloud gray that made Bogg think of rain.

"Thank you, sir," Simon said.

"How old are you, pup?"

"Twelve, sir."

Bogg grunted. "A sad thing about your father."

Simon's eyes dropped. "Yes, sir."

"I'm going to get the people who did this--" Bogg stopped. Simon wouldn't look at him, and Bogg knew that the boy might never admit it, but his father had treated him little better than Marshall Dunster.

Bogg rocked his jaw back and forth. "I reckon you served as your father's apprentice. That right?"

The boy looked at his fingers. Under the dust of the street, his fingertips were stained black. "Printer."

"What was his name?"

"Oliver Jones."

Sigrid's old gray eyebrows shot up. "Why for gracious' sakes!" She turned to Bogg. "You're the brother of Ackerley Bogg?"

"That's right."

"Well, it's the beatenest thing I ever struck." She pressed a wrinkled hand to the side of her head. "Ackerley Bogg and Oliver Jones."

Tight-lipped, Bogg pressed his tongue into his tooth hole, waiting for the woman to make some sense.

"It's just that," she went on, "Oliver didn't get along with many. Kept to himself, mostly, since his wife died. We hardly keep in mind..."

"What?" Bogg asked.

"Why, that Oliver Jones was Ackerley Bogg's son-in-law. Simon's mother, Penelope Jones, died of a fever when Simon was a baby. She was Ackerley's daughter, born Penelope Bogg. Why, Simon, say hello to your great uncle... what was it? Tiberius?"

Bogg looked askance at the boy. He didn't see any reason to fuss. Gaining a nephew was hardly compensation for losing a brother. And to someone like Bogg, who didn't take much stock in family, the lad mattered even less.

Just the same, Bogg stuck out his hand. "How do, then, Simon Jones. Well met."

Simon placed his slender white hand inside Bogg's tan grimy paw. Bogg pumped the lad's arm once, grunted, and released.

With that done, Bogg reckoned he'd better lay on supplies and be on his way before the trail got any colder. His quarry was some hours ahead of him, but they didn't seem especially stealthy. If they kept leaving headless dogs in their wake, Bogg would catch them easy--

Sigrid heaved an easy sigh. "You can take him, then."

Everything inside Bogg twisted up and froze. "What?"

"He's yours," Sigrid declared. "He's got no family left here. Simon, go with Mr. Bogg."

#

Chapter 4

"What rot and slush is this?" Bogg roared. "Where I'm going ain't no place for him! It's too dangersome!"

"You'd do well not to take that tone with me, Mr. Bogg. As I said, a surplus of orphans." She focused a cool stare on him and didn't budge nor say another word.

Bogg looked from her, to the boy, to her... and back to the boy. "What say you, pup? You don't want to go out there and get starved and et by wildlife, do you?"

Simon squeezed his dirty hands into his trouser pockets. "I'm going with you."

"Godzooks!" Bogg cried. Back to Sigrid, "don't you care about this boy being killed?"

"There's no one to care for him here. I know how safe he'd be with you. I seen you defend him already."

"But a printer's son? He'll slow me up. I'd as soon shin up a thorn tree with an armload of eels! I'll never catch--"

"Well," said Sigrid Minder. "Now that that's settled." She turned and strode off.

"Woman--" Bogg began.

"Sorry!" she called without facing him. "More important things to do."

Bogg watched, in his mind's eye, all his hopes dry up and blow away. Without catching those mercenaries, he'd never come back with that broadsword, never get the thousand in gold, and never make that trip to the Hestern Sea. And until he found someone to take the pup off his hands, he'd never have a moment's peace.

The pup was staring up at him. "You seem to think I won't be able to help you. I think I can, sir. I'm not experienced, but I'm smart. You'll see."

Bogg sighed. "Look at you, lad. What do you weigh, eighty pounds? You got no muscle, you got no fat to fight off the hunger or the cold. You got no skills. A stiff breeze would blow you over. I reckon once you collapse, it won't be much work to carry you--"

"Uncle Tiberius--"

"Nope, no, none of it! Call me sir, call me Bogg, call me a damn hairy mountain man, but don't call me uncle! You got that, pup?"

"Yes, sir." And the lad grinned!

Like he knew something Bogg didn't.

#

After a bit of figuring, Bogg judged that all was not lost. The boy would start out, get tired, get hungry, and give up. Civilized folk tended to forget that the wilderness was just plain uncomfortable.

He'd last a day, maybe. Not a night. Bogg would mark the trail as they went, so Simon could find his way back alone with no problem.

With this plan fixed in his mind, Bogg set about laying on supplies. He figured it might be straightforward to simply rummage through any house with a broken door, but Sigrid Minder was shrieking at him before he set foot across the first threshold. "Don't you stir up these poor folk by stomping through their homes like those plunderers did! I'll fetch what you need. Leave it to me."

"That's sensible enough. But you don't know what I need."

"You tell me. I'll git it."

Food first. Bogg told her, and she hustled about, gathering all manner of truck: dried pork, salted venison, hominy for ash cake, and unhusked rice. Oil, good for cooking and suffocating ticks. Salt, good for all manner of things. A couple of waterskins, holding a pottle each. A pint of rum. All fixings to make an easy sojourn.

She brought two forks and two small stoneware bowls. That soured his mood. But he allowed them to be packed.

She found him a new pair of boots that fit all right. He kept his old pair, in case the new turned out hard on his feet. He refilled his own tinderbox and found a decent chewing stick.

He nearly rejected spare clothes, being so used to skins, but took on woolens and osnaburgs in case the weather turned. The fall equinox was closing on them, and it was bound to happen sooner or later.

He talked Sigrid Minder into a couple of horses. They'd only be useful so long as the terrain stayed horse-friendly and there was grazing pasture. After that, he'd slap them home. More likely, Simon would lead both of them home. But even a single day on a horse would bring Bogg close enough to breath down the necks of those Algolan mercenaries, or whoever they were.

Just who were they?

Any group of self-respecting raiders would have taken money, and had a ship anchored off the coast. These five had left wealth untouched and taken just the sort of thing Bogg was gathering now. So... no ship. They were land trekking, and set on survival. Trekking where? And where did they come from?

Simon appeared with his own sundries packed. Bogg threw most of them away.

"Even the soap?" Simon asked.

"I can make soap from fat and potash, when the spirit moves me."

Bogg approved of the spermaceti candles, but couldn't make sense of another thing Simon wanted to bring -- a wood-handled glass lens as big around as a pint mug.

"Its a magnifier," the boy said. "I read with it."

"What for?"

He showed Bogg the book he wanted to bring. "Survival in the Miran Wilds, by Dugan Wisefoot."

"Never heard of it." But it was slim and didn't weigh much, so Bogg allowed it.

If he had been traveling alone, Bogg would have started out that evening and rode most of the night. Haggling with the boy about gear had slowed him up, and he decided to start in the morning. He had wanted rest and a couple of hot meals, anyway.

Bogg awoke naturally at dawn. He found Simon at the stable, wide awake and standing in loose hay and horse apples, saddling their two mares.

"This one's Jouster," Simon said. It was a smooth gray color, a bit like the boy's eyes, with a white star on its forehead. "And that one's Daisy. She's yours." Daisy was plumper, brown and white, with brown head and mane. They both had fine smooth coats and smelled earthy and healthy. Clean, like city horses.

Not once did the boy hesitate or show a shred of doubt. Maybe he'd stick for that night after all.

Sigrid Minder cooked them a final breakfast of salt bacon, sweet potatoes, and chicken eggs. Bogg chewed sullenly, and before long they rode out of Fort Sanctuary together.

#

The land of Mira was discovered, it is believed by most reputable historians, in the twenty-third year of the reign of Lord Barriyour, the Bold. It first appears in the testimony of a convicted privateer named Usrigoth, during his trial for crimes against Lord Barriyour's marine estates. Usrigoth spoke during his trial of his many methods of eluding capture, one of which was to 'fly on, fly on to the hest when the Bold's navy is hot for you, fly on, and you'll reach the edge of the world. And what's there, you'll find, when your hold is dry, and your beams are shrinking, and your teeth are loosening, is a new world, a miraculous land where you can hide, that will save you from the navy, but kill you, kill you in its own way.'

In the decades that followed, other reports of a distant land beyond the great ocean could be heard, and its rough coast began to appear on the charts of pirates and other rogues. Later, the name 'Mira Land' or simply 'Mira' appeared as well.

Then, in the second year of the rule of Bartimeus the Grand, the first royal expedition to the new land was funded and launched. This expedition, led by Duke Alirthron the Navigator aboard the vessel _Griffon_ , never returned. During the rule of Bartimeus and his nephew Bartimeus II, three more expeditions were launched to survey the coasts of Mira.

None returned.

Excerpt from the Introduction to _Survival in the Miran Wilds_

by Dugan Wisefoot

#

Simon Jones found himself riding out of his accursed village at last. Beyond the wall of sharpened posts, the wagon road led them through orchards and fields of tall grass that clung to the last of the morning dew. Hooves thumped steadily in the road's damp earth, beating out a hypnotic song.

His mind boggled at the hand fate had dealt him. No longer a printer's apprentice! No more long nights in the hot stinking basement, nursing the machine, hauling the paper, mixing the ink. No more exhausted sleep on the bundles of warm freshly-printed journals and pamphlets bound for cities up and down the coast, only to be roused by a kick from his father.

He had expected six more years of this torture, denied any freedom until he was eighteen, and perhaps not even then. Simon's father had a fortune in printing equipment, and took jobs from a dozen papers, far more than he could handle. He depended on Simon for his very livelihood, and knowing Oliver Jones's wiles, he would have found a way to declare Simon in debt somehow and indentured to his old man before Simon could escape. Then, he would never escape.

Jouster picked her way along and sniffed at Daisy's tail. Simon rubbed at the black patina of ink on his fingers. When it finally wore away, it would be gone forever, like his enslavement. Erased, like his father.

The sob came up quickly, choking his throat. Simon's weeping shook his body more intensely than any crying he had done before, as if pain had been chained up in him and just now burst out.

Bogg rode silently and didn't look back.

The horses followed the wagon road as it curved around hills and yielded occasional glimpses of the ocean to the eost of them. To the hest, morning fog sank down the mountain slopes and vanished among the trees, unable to stand the sunlight. At last, Simon's body stopped shaking and he was quiet.

"I was crying about my father," he said lamely.

Bogg kept one hand on the reins and another resting on the back of the saddle. He didn't turn. "I reckoned."

"I'm through now, I think."

Simon's uncle rode some time before answering, with a voice that sounded like boulders rubbing together. "Just as well."

Bogg was the strangest man Simon had ever seen. Of course there were stories about mountain men who could strangle grizzly bears, but there were also stories about hodags and thunderbirds and fur-bearing trout. Simon had figured they were fanciful, or at least exaggerated, fueled by misperception and a lack of context newly-arrived Algolans had for Mira. Yet here Bogg was, with his sabertooth knife that was stronger than steel.

Bogg's blond hair was dirty and full of snarls, hanging almost as low as the end of the furry ringed tail from his raccoon hat. His clothes were deerskin over deerskin, tied with strips of more deerskin -- he didn't seem to own a single piece of sewn clothing, although with Bogg's back to Simon, Simon could only see the black cloak tied at his neck and flowing over Daisy's rump. The cloak was irregular in shape, and earlier, Simon had noticed it was actually velvety black fur. Another skin.

Whatever it was, Bogg had killed it himself. He did everything himself. Bogg didn't work for anybody, didn't need anybody, didn't owe anybody, sought permission from no one. He was everything that Simon was not.

But that would change. Simon was free now, and following the one person who, however uneducated, however unwitting, possessed all of Simon's lessons.

#

The sun sank low over the green mountains, and tree shadows cut across the road in front of them.

Bogg reckoned he had nicely shrunk the day-and-night lead his quarry had on him. The horses had been a good idea. They were plumb wore out after a single day's ride, and by the time Bogg would stop for the night, they'd be thirsty and hungry.

So Simon could take them home. Bogg frowned and stuck his tongue in his tooth hole. He hadn't heard a peep from the pup since his wailing hours ago. The boy had to be as wore out as the horses.

Bogg gripped the saddle's horn and turned to face him. Crackling came from his spine as he stretched it out. "Hey, lad, how do you fare?"

The boy stirred up, like he'd been dozing. "I'm all right. How much farther?"

Bogg grinned. That was more like it. "Two hours, at least."

"That's all? Shouldn't we keep going as long as there's light?"

Bogg's eyes narrowed and his jaw worked back and forth. He faced forward again. "We'll need some daylight to make camp."

Ahead of the horses, a foot trail split off from the road and cut through the grass to the left until it disappeared in the trees. Bogg had caught glimpses of his quarry's boot prints on the road all day, and at the split he pulled his mare to a stop. Which way?

The pup stopped behind him. "What is it?"

Bogg didn't answer. He urged Daisy to trotting for a spell along the road they'd been following, and sure enough, not a fresh mark anywhere past the split. So his quarry had left the wagon road. He pulled the reins and turned around. "Up there." Bogg pressed his new bootheels to Daisy's flanks and she slogged up the path. The ground was softer and showed tracks better.

After a time, Bogg could see the marks clearly. Five big men on foot. Algolan leather boots. One with a walking stick, or maybe a pike or spear.

Soon after that, passing through a thick grove of hemlock and birch trees, Bogg spied the remains of a campfire. Both he and the lad stepped down, and Simon held the horses while Bogg explored. The stones in the pit were still warm. There was no sign that a firewall had been built, but the pile of ash spoke to a mess of wood being burnt. Charred ribs of a beaver and a piece of muskrat skull in there, too. The pit wasn't laid like locals or greenies would lay it. Bogg cast about and found the place where each man had slept. He deduced that one of them was a fair sight bigger and heavier than the others. No other wisdom suggested itself to him.

"Pup," Bogg said.

"Yes, sir?" The boy stood between the horses, holding the reins, and they were fearsomely sizeable critters compared to him. "They camped here, didn't they?"

"We're going to really close on them now." Bogg faced him squarely. "It's time you told me all you seen and heard morning before last."

#

Chapter 5

In the alley beside the Mermaid, Simon gagged on Yohann's beer smell while Yohann held him and Marshall felt all of his pockets for more money. A single startling boom came from the front gate, followed by screams of men and women.

"Hear that?" said Yohann. "Dog my cats, somebody's busting in! Quick, Marshall, where's your knife?" He released Simon and darted down the alley. Marshall hesitated, slugged Simon in the stomach, and raced after Yohann. They both disappeared around the stone endwall.

Simon limped to the end of the alley but the pain in his stomach was too great. He collapsed before he reached the corner. He heard yelling, then the blast of a firelock. Then screams like nothing he'd ever heard, shrieks that held shock and horror in them, and terrible things came to his mind -- he couldn't help imagining what was happening to whom.

Simon sat up with his back against the wall. What was happening? Maybe the vivets everyone was afraid of had finally chosen to strike. Or stampeding red rhinos, all shaggy fur and black horns. Or had the endless Miran forests borne something new?

He could only see a narrow range of the main avenue between the Mermaid and the stone wall of the barber's office. Two women, Hildretha and Iola Baker, sprinted by, their eyes wide and their breathing so hard and fast it was like they were screaming in little bits.

A man in chain mail armor strolled after them, carrying a long javelin and a round wooden shield, white with blue trim. His hair was silver, like his beard, and it ran down his back. He walked casually, looking around, like he was sizing up the village, deciding what to take. His eyes fell on Simon, and Simon felt his body turn to cold stone. The man grinned and nodded to him and strolled on. Blood ran from the javelin's head down the slender shaft. There was an emblem on his shield. A blue unicorn against white.

A second man appeared, an armored giant with a hammer swinging in his right hand and a slain sow over his left shoulder. His face was clean-shaven and his head was bald and tan, like a hen's egg. He noticed the Mermaid. "Look, Uilleam. A pub!" His voice was deep, but it didn't hide the Algolan accent, which sounded to Simon like people from sept of the badlands.

The silver-haired man didn't answer. The giant dropped his pig on the front stoop and ducked inside.

A third invader stomped up the street in plate armor, with red braids and beard, grinning. He dragged Yohann Gordon under his right arm, and balanced a battle axe on his left shoulder. "This one came at me with his bare hands." He threw Yohann down in the street. "You've got courage, whelp. You'll make a fine warrior one day."

Yohann sat up, dazed, and spat blood and dirt from his mouth. The red-haired man laughed, lifted his axe off his shoulder with both hands, and lopped Yohann's head off. Blood sprayed clear across the street.

Simon's scream caught in his throat. He was dizzy with terror. Yohann had been a prince among bullies, but no one deserved that!

Uilleam scowled at the axe-wielding killer. "Food, Cadogan. And at speed. Or Tyrus will have your ears."

Cadogan looked petulant. "Where is Yolaf? In the bar?"

"We've no time."

"There's plenty here. Why don't we stay for a bit? Zane would approve."

Uilleam shook his silver hair and beat his javelin on his shield. "Gather food. Now!"

Cadogan spotted Simon in the alley and leveled his bloody axe at him. "What about that one? He's little more than a morsel--"

Simon was on his feet and sprinting down the alley. Cadogan's laugh echoed after him.

#

"I hid after that." Simon's chest felt tight, and he didn't say any more. He only looked at the buckles on his shoes. There was more to tell, of course, but Simon wasn't ready to tell it. The memories were too painful, and his recall seemed to drag under the strain and finally give up, like an old horse run ragged, or a poorly oiled printing press, shrieking and grinding until the air stank of burning metal.

Bogg had wandered around the camp as Simon spoke, and Simon wondered if he had even listened. Bogg scraped some gray lichen off a rock and nibbled contemplatively. "The blue unicorn. You know it?"

Simon had read plenty of stories from the old world. "Freelance privateers. Pirates that sell their booty to any crown that hires them. The unicorn symbol is supposed to be more regal, more refined, than the death's head and crossed bones." Simon frowned. "That's all I know. Bogg... have you ever seen a unicorn?"

Bogg pulled up a small green fern and tore off a leaf. "Ain't no such animal. Just stories about a regular horse with a whale tusk on its head."

"A whale with tusks?"

Bogg blinked. "Now, when you put it like that... maybe's there's unicorns somewhere after all. But I don't take stock in them." He chewed the leaf, made a face like it was bitter... and kept chewing. "As for our quarry, it don't answer. They should have a war galleon off the coast."

Simon nodded. "Full of sailors. The fighters fight, the sailors sail. Where's their crew? What are they doing on land?"

Bogg stuffed the rest of the fern in his mouth. "Why are they taking food and not booty? And where are they headed?"

Simon grinned. "Let's go ask them."

Bogg stopped chewing. "What's wrong with you, pup? Ain't you tired, or scared, or nothing?"

"No. Not anymore."

"It's been easy so far. You just dwell on that."

"I know."

"What do you want from this? Vengeance for your pa?"

Simon thought a moment. "Of course."

"Horsefeathers."

"Well... what do you want?"

"You heard your maven Minder. There's a bounty on them boys. I aim to collect."

"Money? You?"

"Don't sass me, pup. Truth is, we're on the same page. Algolans are unsavory, and pirates are downright bastards. Hell must be so full of the sons of bitches that you can see their feet sticking out of the winders. Right now, those five are marching sept and laying a trail of waste. I'd like to catch them before they reach another town."

That sounded right to Simon. He didn't know how he would help -- he didn't know how he would survive -- he only knew that this path was more noble than the basement of the printshop. Maybe Bogg was right. Maybe Simon would get scared and run, like he had when Cadogan came at him yesterday morning. Or maybe he wouldn't run (or starve or freeze) and he would fight his way to the blue unicorn privateers until, at last, Cadogan or one of the others chopped off Simon's head. "I don't know about the same page, sir. But at least we're reading the same book."

"Never was much of a reader. I look at pictures, though." Bogg spat a glob of green goo that splashed neatly on Daisy's hoof. The horse whinnied and stepped back, and Bogg chuckled.

Simon worked up some saliva in his mouth, aimed at Daisy's other hoof, and spat. It drooled down his chin.

Bogg chuckled on as they mounted and continued the pursuit.

#

The sun dropped beyond the hestern mountains, setting all in cool shadow. Bogg knew it was time to stop, any minute now. The boy was still behind him, and he hadn't complained a whit. Bogg tried to imagine that the boy weren't with him. Indeedy, Bogg saw himself riding into the thickening wilderness alone, master of his domain... but there in his ears was that second set of hoofbeats. He couldn't make himself believe it.

They were fairly deep in the sticks. The narrow trail they followed wasn't used by much other than deer, mountain men like Bogg, and the occasional lost soul and the hidebehind that et him. "Hey, pup."

"Yes sir?"

"You ever heard of a hidebehind?" This story, Bogg reckoned, might help send Simon packing home.

"No, sir. Is it a kind of shelter?"

So the lad was thinking of stopping for the night after all. "No, it's a kind of critter. Only I can't tell you what it looks like, because nobody's ever seen one."

"Not even you?"

Damn the boy's sass. "Not even me. Folks get to walking lost out in the woods. Out of food, out of courage. Walking on, not knowing the way. The fear, it changes them. Changes their tread, you see. Changes their breathing, changes the kind of noises they make. Probably changes their smell. The hidebehind gets wind of that and starts following."

Bogg let that image take root, as the horses picked their way along. "The hidebehind makes noise, but only on purpose. It'll snap a twig, rustle a leaf, to let the feller know it's there. Feller looks around, but sees nothing, because the hidebehind ducked back of a tree or suchlike cover. Wicked fast, you see. The feller scoots on, more scared, and the hidebehind stays on him. Every time he looks back, he don't see it. But he hears it all the time. Pretty soon, he panics and runs himself ragged. And when he's got no more strength, the hidebehind saunters up and eats his entrails."

Bogg waited for a reply from the lad. He was quiet a long time.

"Sir?"

Bogg grinned. "Yeah?"

"Have you ever seen a vivet?"

Bogg frowned. "A what? You mean a greenie?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, of course I have! They're only scattered from here to the Starry Mountains and back."

"What are they like?"

Bogg drew his hand down over his face, straightening his beard. After his scary story, the lad just wanted more. "What are they like? They're like all kinds of things. I reckon all the stories about them are true, even the ones that don't set with each other. See, greenies live in flocks... or herds--"

"Tribes?"

"Tribes, that'll answer. Families. Some are friendly enough. Some'll kill you soon as look at you. And some are probably so deep in the wild that they ain't seen nothing like us in their wildest dreams. Yeah, I reckon they dream. They're wee critters -- your size, near enough -- and green as swamp water, and they practically walk up and down trees. I seen them riding elks like they were horses. And I hear tell some of them ride red rhinos and four-legged hills."

"Do you think we'll see any?"

"I hope not. I hope to catch our quarry before that. When greenies get the notion to kill you, that tends to settle it. They use slings for weapons, and rather than sling stones, they use little pellets of gold. It don't have no worth to them, other than being twice as heavy as lead, and with those slings, they can get those pellets ripping near as fast as a firelock ball. A number of ferocious folk have gone after the source of that gold, but none ever come back. I reckon the greenies just et 'em."

"Vivets don't eat people." The boy rode quiet for a bit. "Do they?"

Bogg grinned. That was the sort of thing he wanted to pup to wonder about. "This here is a prime spot to make camp."

#

Chapter 6

At last, in the final year in the reign of Erikus III, the Hawk, prison ships were sent to Mira to create a penal colony. No one expected the prisoners to survive, and this was a tolerable situation for Erikus II, who in the midst of the Great Rebellion, had more prisoners than he could house.

To everyone's surprise, one of the empty prison ships returned, the Stiletto, and it is from her sailors that we have the first reports of the land of Mira.

Excerpt from the Introduction to _Survival in the Miran Wilds_

by Dugan Wisefoot

#

Simon's stomach groaned and constricted, desperate for anything. Once he stepped down from Jouster, he could barely stand. He staggered bow-legged, aching from the ride, over to a knee-high rock and sat down.

There were ten or more rocks like this one at the site, gray and rough, and each big enough to serve as a chair or stool... or a hiding place for a crouching vivet. The trees grew closer together than earlier on the trail, barely six feet between them here. All the trunks and branches blended in the distance, obscuring everything that was more than a dozen yards away. The ground was soft, dense with brown tree litter and deadwood.

Simon listened for a hidebehind in spite of himself. He heard mockingbirds, and under that, an occasional gust of cooling breeze whispering through the branches.

A scratching sound came from the tree behind him. He whipped around--

\-- and saw a gray squirrel scampering up the trunk.

His uncle threw a leg around Daisy's rump and stepped down. He watched Simon closely. "Ain't you had enough?"

"I'm fine," Simon said.

"These horses won't stay the night. There ain't enough here to graze. You could ride them back."

Simon's jaw tightened. Try, uncle, he thought. Try to get rid of me. "No, thank you."

"We'll be walking come morning. That's harder."

"I imagine it is."

"Damn it, lad--"

"Are we going to start a fire? Or is that too risky?"

Bogg blew out a surrendering breath. "It's safe enough. Why don't you gather up some kindling?"

As Simon gathered sticks and broken strips and shells of bark, it occurred to him that Bogg was another master who had just given him an order. Simon rejected the thought. Bogg didn't need Simon. Bogg was desperate to be rid of him! So Simon was perfectly free.

The armload of kindling Simon gathered was dusty and teeming with bugs. The dust itched his nose and the thought of beetles and spiders creeping inside his shirt made his skin crawl. He dumped the armload at Bogg's feet with a dull clatter, watched Bogg for a moment as he cut branches down with his fang-dagger, and went to gather more. When he came back, Bogg had set up a lean-to and was scooping out a hole at the base of a tree.

The lean-to was just a straight branch run between the crooks of two trees, with more branches leaning diagonally on the first. It was little more than a wind break. But if Simon stepped a few feet back from it, the lean-to vanished, its branches blending with natural branches and trees. Bogg had hung the two saddle blankets from the horses on the horizontal branch as well, to close off the shelter. He had spread tree litter and leaves around inside, and spare clothes and gear on top of that, to make a comfortable floor.

Bogg dug away at the base of the tree, making a deep, narrow hole, about the size of a milking pail. He worked quickly, almost automatically, with no time spent assessing or deciding or wondering, and Simon tried to imagine how many shelters like this one Bogg had built in his life.

What was the hole? A latrine? Simon hoped not; it was awfully close to the lean-to.

Bogg began a second hole beside the first. "See this? This is how greenies make campfires." The second hole was only half as wide and once it was a foot deep, he reached in and scooped out more soft earth until the two holes were connected. "Dump some kindling in there," he said, pointing with a filthy finger at the bigger hole.

Once Simon did, Bogg placed a wad from his tinderbox on the kindling and brandished his flint. Bogg struck at the flint with a shining bit of steel that looked familiar to Simon...

It was the severed blade from Marshall Dunster's knife. Bogg must have picked it up at Fort Sanctuary. When Bogg saw Simon staring, he said, "Don't ever abandon something useful. This world is a goose, and them that do not pick will get no feathers."

A spark lit the tinder, and as Bogg lowered more wood into the fire pit, Simon saw how the second hole provided air flow, how the fire was below ground level and could not be seen from a distance, and how the branches of the tree above would disperse the smoke.

The fire glowed yellow-bright and warm. The sticks and dead leaves twisted up and were eaten.

"That didn't take hardly any time at all," Bogg said, warming his dirty hands. "We've got enough daylight for a snare or two." He disappeared inside the lean-to, muttering, "Snatch me a squirrel, catch me a coneybuck..."

"We packed food," Simon said. "Why do we need to--"

"A goose, do you hear?" came his rumble. He emerged with three notched sticks, all sharpened on one end and flattened on the other. The bark on them was nearly worn away. "These sticks have provided me many a fine meal." They looked like they had been carved years ago.

Bogg passed them to Simon. "Fit those together."

Simon frowned. He could tell that the point of one stick fit into the notch of another, but he couldn't see how all three could connect. While he struggled, Bogg mixed some of the hominy with water to make a bit of samp, and sprinkled a pinch of salt in it. "They tend to like this stuff as much as me. Hand me the pointy one."

They were all pointed, but Simon noticed that one was stained and crusty with old dried samp. He handed Bogg that one. Bogg stuck a blob of the corn paste on the point and dabbed it up and down the stick. Then he took all three to a pair of boulders twenty feet away, and arranged them. Simon stared.

Two made a cross, and the third fit diagonally to them, making a perfect number 4, with the bait on the projecting right end of the horizontal piece. No part of it really snapped together. Instead, the whole thing sort of rested together, quite fragile. Bogg set the 4 on the ground, placed his feet, and lifted one of the boulders on top of the other. He let it roll down the side a bit, and propped it up with the sticks.

It took Bogg a minute of shifting and grunting to get the contraption to balance. Once it did, the bit of samp hovered under the boulder, which was held up by the diagonal stick. If the horizontal piece was nudged even a little, all three would come apart and the boulder would squish the hungry creature into a furry bag of stew.

Bogg stood, admired his work, and strode proudly back to the fire. "Deadfall, they call it. With luck, we'll call it breakfast."

Simon's hands probed his slender torso. "Can we eat now?"

"Now we eat." Bogg broke out the pork and venison, and opened the waterskin to mix more samp, splashing a little water on his dirty hands first, Simon waiting politely all the while, crouched by the fire.

Then Bogg's fingers froze. His face turned grim, almost frightening, and his beard wiggled as his jaw worked back and forth. "You ain't eating."

Simon's throat was suddenly dry, and he struggled to swallow. "Pardon?"

"No food for you. Nope. I could hog-tie you. I could set you on your horse and give it a wallop. There are numerous methods I could employ, were I a crueler man than I am. But I figure that sort of thing ain't right, seeing as how you're such a little whelp and can't hardly defend yourself. I ain't a bully. At least, not on most occasions. So I won't drive you away. But you're far more likely to get killed on this trip than me, and I don't want to see that. And you'll distract me with looking after you, which could like as not get me killed. I don't want to see that neither. So I won't abet. You stay or you go, but you'll get no help from me. I've had all day to give it a good think. I will not abet."

Bogg stared into the fire and nodded to himself. "That's right. It's proper. And you'll have to sleep outside the lean-to. Wouldn't be right, otherwise. 'Sides, there ain't enough room in there to cuss a cat without getting hair in your mouth."

Simon's hunger and fatigue faded away to cold numbness. What could he do? Fight Bogg? Reason with Bogg? Nothing! It was hopeless. Simon stood, and the motion made his head swim with weakness.

Daisy and Jouster had wandered a dozen yards away. Their saddles were on a couple of rocks, but Simon would need a saddle blanket from the lean-to. He could find his way back. He would ride all night, and reach Fort Sanctuary by morning.

But wasn't there another way?

The horses' heads were down, their big nostrils snuffling the ground, their heavy lips pulling up weeds.

Simon watched them. He reached down and pulled up a green fern, tore off a feathery leaf, and ate it.

It was horribly bitter. Simon chewed. He wanted to spit so badly, it was as if his body would kick it out of his mouth. With a great effort, he swallowed. It was like swallowing a rock.

Bogg's blue eyes were on him.

Simon tore off another leaf and popped it in his mouth.

Bogg laughed. "Bracken fern. Pretty bad, ain't it?"

Simon didn't answer. He turned to the boulders that littered the site, steering clear of the deadfall. One boulder had some of the gray lichen Bogg had eaten earlier. Simon dug at it with his fingernails and ate the scrapings. It was chewy and bland, not as bad as the fern.

"Soldier's lichen," Bogg said. "Right palatable."

Simon ignored him. He searched other rocks, but couldn't find any more. The twilight was getting deeper, the colors of the woods fading, the gray lichen becoming difficult to see.

Bogg stood, passed Simon, and stopped at a tree with a small boulder beside it, about ten yards away. He dug at the soil at the base of the tree with his boot, making a shallow hole. He stretched, loosened the rope belt at his waist, dropped his trousers, and pressed his back against the tree, sliding down until he looked like he was sitting in an invisible chair. Unlike the tan, weatherbeaten skin of his face, his thighs were pasty white.

So that's the latrine. Simon munched his bracken fern and tried not to think about what Bogg was doing, but the sounds coming from over there made that impossible.

Simon cast about more for lichen.

"The lee of the rock," said Bogg from his invisible throne. "Find the lichen on the lee of the rock. Like moss."

Simon looked around --

"Godzooks, pup, that means the sept side. The sept side! Don't you know sept from aust and eost from hest?"

Simon kicked a boulder. " _Eos_ means dawn, so it tells you where the sun comes up. Hest comes from _Hesperos_ , the Evening Star, which appears in the sky where the sun sets. Sept means seven, and comes from _Septentrionalis_ , the seven stars of Arctos, which are always in that direction. And aust comes from _Australis_ , which means a kind of wind."

Bogg gathered up some leaves, reached underneath himself, and did an unmentionable thing with them. "That sounded pretty enough, but it's all vine and no 'taters if it don't help you find what you're looking for." He dropped the soiled leaves into the hole under him.

Simon tried to remember where the sun had gone down, and turned right from there. The lee of the rock... it was so dark now that he could only feel the boulders. His fingers found soft soldier's lichen. He scraped and scraped, and shoved it in his mouth. Then he scraped another rock, and another.

"Attaboy." Bogg hitched up his trousers and tied his belt. "Wait a minute -- I ain't rooting for you. Go home before those horses wander off."

Simon chewed and swallowed. "Are you really going to deny me food?"

Bogg stared hard at him for moment, then looked down at his boots. "Go home, son. It's over."

Simon marched to the lean-to and yanked off the green saddle blanket that had been on Jouster's back all day.

He shook it out -- it was nearly as tall as he was -- and laid it on the ground beside the fire pit. He sprawled himself on it and gazed down into the flames for a few minutes, then he gripped the edge of the blanket and rolled himself up in it. "See you in the morning."

Simon closed his eyes, but he could feel Bogg staring at him, and heard Bogg chuckling. He smelled ashcake and salt pork as Bogg made dinner for himself, and it made his mouth water and his stomach hurt. He plugged his nose and breathed through his mouth, but he could still hear that ashcake sizzle on the coals, and his mind's eye showed him no mercy. He imagined apples, rye bread, potatoes, corn, cowpeas, yams, salt bacon, salt beef, salt fish, molasses and maple syrup, venison, rabbit, prawns...

#

Chapter 7

Simon slept, and dreamt of being terribly cold.

Simon slept, and dreamt of being chased.

Simon lay awake, aware that the night was indeed freezing. Through the black branches above him, the stars glimmered. He saw Arctos the Bear (a new constellation spoken of only in Mira; Algolans called it the Sickle), realized that direction was sept, and tried to fix in his mind the lee of the rocks, in the darkness around him. He saw the three stars of the belt of Diana the Hunter, and thought they could pass for Bogg's rope, with the middle star as the knot.

Simon slept, and dreamt of being home.

#

Bogg lay awake, wondering how it could be that trying to do the right thing could make a body feel so wrong. Bogg didn't try to cause suffering. He tried to save the boy's life. It was simple. Wasn't it?

Just the same, there were three times during the night that Bogg nearly roused himself to take the lad some food. And three times he stopped himself.

There was the slightest outside chance that sending the kid away was more akin to what Bogg wanted than what was right. Ornery old Bogg, no-manners Bogg, doing what needed to be done to keep himself alone because that's the way he liked it. Unfit to carry guts to a bear.

#

Simon lay awake, his nose and ears numb with cold. The night was dark and quiet. His eyes focused, and the stars reappeared. Diana the Hunter had moved. Simon dozed, and woke again. His arms and legs, wrapped in the horse blanket, were stiff and without feeling, and the numbness of the cold pressed on him. He closed his eyes, and began to lose track of whether he was awake or not.

He couldn't quite recall where he was. This didn't feel like his bed at home. Memories came to him, dreamlike, but not dreams.

He remembered a time last year, at the docks of Fort Sanctuary. It had been almost noon, and the sun had beaten down on him mercilessly. The sea had sparkled and lapped at the docks, and the cutting scent of the salt air had mixed with the pungent smell of the parchment under his nose.

The stack of paper he carried was too high, too heavy. He teetered under the load. It pulled at his fingertips until they were numb and clawlike, and was so tall that it pressed against his chin. It leaned against his shoulders, tipping him back, and he stepped a wobbly path down the muddy road without being able to see his feet.

Simon had to get the paper to his father's printing house. He was already late. He could have taken Main Street, it would have been faster, but dodging bullies had become instinctive for him, and Simon couldn't walk a direct and obvious course even if he tried. It was ridiculous of him. This time of day, Marshall Dunster and Yohann Gordon were in school.

But not Simon. Simon had learned to read around the time he learned to walk. His earliest memories were of his father (and, hazy and dim, his mother) reading stories to him. By the time he was old enough to attend maven Sigrid Minder's one-room school, his father had already taught him everything he needed to know to help full-time in the printing house. Simon had never gone to school, not even a day.

Over the paper, Simon saw sloops and pinnaces, sails furled, rocking on the water and pulling lazily at their moorings. All was quiet. It was lunchtime, and most of the longshoremen were probably eating haggis and shepherd's pie in the Mermaid or the Drake.

There was just one fellow in sight, sitting at the end of a dock and fishing, his felt hat tipped low over his eyes. The line lay slack in the water, and the fellow lazily turned at the sound of Simon's steps and tipped back the wide brim of his hat.

It was Marshall Dunster.

Simon's blood chilled and his fingers nearly gave out.

Marshall grinned a hungry grin. "Well, well. All I figured I'd get out of a day of playing hooky was a sardine or two. And who do I find?" He reeled in his line. "You're a real prize. Like a shiny new copper."

Simon wanted to drop his stack and run. He knew he was faster than Marshall in an open sprint. But to drop the paper in the dirty street... for Marshall to stomp and kick off the edge of the wharf... Simon couldn't. His father would miss a printing deadline and tan Simon's hide for it. And Simon would end up working late hours to pay for the paper.

Simon scooted backward, panicking, desperate for distance between he and Marshall. The paper suddenly felt twice as heavy. He was numb to his elbows and his neck was cramping from pinning the stack with his chin.

"Hey," Marshall called sweetly. "Where are you off to?" He stood at the dock's end, still holding the fishing rod in both hands.

Maybe all was not lost. Marshall would have to run the length of the dock to the street, then up the street, to catch Simon. Maybe Simon could slip between a couple of clapboard warehouses on the street's other side. Simon turned his back on Marshall and scooted that way.

Simon began to feel he would make it. He didn't hear the shoes-on-wood clatter of Marshall sprinting along the dock to catch him. Instead, he heard the whizz of the line cast from Marshall's fishing pole. Simon saw the weight, bob, and glistening hook flash by, and his stack of paper teetered.

As Simon recovered his balance, a slicing pain struck his ear.

"Gotcha!" called Marshall.

The jabbing in his ear got worse. Simon spun around. Marshall had hooked him! The line arced from his ear, across the street, over the water to Marshall's pole at the end of the dock. Marshall reeled him in.

Simon winced and tried to stand his ground. His ear stretched and he felt blood drip down his neck. No good -- he staggered closer to the water's edge. "Help!" he cried through clenched teeth.

Marshall laughed. "I like that. Keep it up. Yell a little more." He kept reeling, and the fishing line stayed taut. The weight and bob danced on the line and tugged viciously at Simon's ear. Simon barely kept his feet under him. He couldn't reach the place where Marshall's dock met the street -- Marshall was pulling him diagonally, toward the shining water between them.

Simon could see what would happen. Marshall would pull him off the edge of the wharf and into the sea -- paper, bloody ear, and all. His ear bled on his shirt. The pain raged in his head, as if the hook would pull through, or rip his ear off. Simon winced and scanned up and down the street, desperate for help or escape, as he was drawn step by step toward the water.

"Good heavens," came a familiar voice, crackling with indignation. "What's this?" Simon's father, Oliver Jones, suddenly appeared at Simon's side. With the little pen knife he usually used for cutting through parchment bindings and prying loose the frisket on the printing press, he snipped the fishing line. The remainder hung limp at Simon's side. Simon was free!

Marshall's face fell as the line flopped in the water. "Aw! What did you do that for, you old paper-pusher?"

Oliver glowered at Marshall over the spectacles perched on the end of his nose, and the veins on his high forehead pulsed with red rage. "Barbarian!" He pointed. "You're hardly a child any longer, Marshall Dunster. And what is unseemly for a child is often criminal for an adult. Keep up this sort of abuse, and you'll be clapped in irons soon enough!"

Marshall looked sour. "Drop dead, old man."

"Get thee hence!" roared Oliver. "I shall tell your father of this."

"Go ahead. He don't care."

Oliver strode toward him. "I'm sure he doesn't. That explains a great deal about your behavior. But let me assure you that while an uncaring father seems to you a asset, it is in fact the greatest of liabilities. Would he care if you fell down a well, or were kicked by a horse? What if you were shang-haied to Algolus? Numerous misfortunes come to mind, all easily arranged by someone suitably resourceful."

Marshall scowled deeply, and Simon could see the wheels in his mind struggling to turn.

"Away with you," said Simon's father. "If I find another mark on my son, I assure you, your stars will change. Away now!"

Marshall Dunster's head seemed to be too full for him to argue. He wandered off, frowning, the severed line from his pole dragging in the street behind him.

Somehow, the pain in Simon's ear dulled to a sharp pinching, and the stack felt a bit lighter. "Thank you, father."

Oliver stooped to Simon's ear. "We shall have to cut the loop from the hook and push it through." He shook his head. "How could you be so foolish? Lift your chin." He took the top half of Simon's stack. "This is vellum, you know. The most expensive there is. Think, child! Make two trips next time, if you must."

Simon refirmed his grip on the blessedly lighter stack in his arms and hung his head. "Yes, father."

"Hurry to the printing house, now, and we'll tend to that ear."

"Yes, father." Simon marched on, miserable and grateful all at once.

#

The memory of his father faded, and the pain faded with it. Memories of yesterday came back. Jouster. Uncle. Hidebehind. The lee of the rock. Simon stirred, breathing the cold air, feeling his hunger and the roughness of the horse blanket. Diana the Hunter had nearly set.

Simon slept, and now dreamt of trekking alone through woods so dark and deep that even Bogg had been left behind. Simon listened and kept his eyes on the ground, so he wouldn't lose the trail.

He must not lose the trail, he knew with the cool certainty that came to him in dreams. For the tracks he followed were not the tracks of the quarry.

#

Chapter 8

Bogg woke, and there was light enough to see the lean-to branches over his head. What a fine morning! He would check the deadfall, piss like a draft horse, fry up something and--

He remembered the pup, and his cheery mood plumb vanished. He threw off his black cloak and peered past the remaining horse blanket that hung from the cross branch above him.

The lad was gone.

The green horse blanket he'd wrapped himself in was still there, empty.

Godzooks! He'd wandered off and gotten himself killed already! Bogg hated being right. His body went on edge and his ears woke up, to tell whether the predator that et Simon was still on the premises.

Bogg heard something all right. Rustling in the bushes, some ways off. He tied his cloak on, gripped the handle of his sabertooth knife, and crawled out to look around.

Simon was alive and standing twenty yards away, throttling a branch on a big green bush. He noticed Bogg right off and smiled at him, holding up something small in his fingers.

A blackberry. Juice was running down the lad's chin.

Bogg hadn't noticed the bush yesterday. Neither had the pup, obviously, but here it was now, clear as daylight.

That was the key to why they'd missed it, too. Morning sun. The light was different, shadows all the other way.

Bogg grinned, and whistled a tone through his toothhole. He had to hand it to the pup--

Suddenly the pup crouched, eyebrows high, and held a purple finger to his purple lips. He'd seen something. He pointed at the three sticks and propped-up rock of the deadfall.

Bogg hushed.

A coneybuck picked its way through the camp. Its ears had caught Bogg's whistle, and they pivoted to him, tall and white. Its nose wiggled and its black eyes stared. Bogg calmly held his breath and tried to think of nothing, as he usually did in the presence of an animal that he wanted to forget about him.

The coneybuck decided Bogg was all right, and went back to sniffing its way to the deadfall. It was a fine big one, with tawny fur, six points, and oversized back legs that kicked its snowy bobtail in the air with each hop.

Simon was watching too, still as a post.

When it reached the samp stick, its long ears lay flat on its neck and it took a good sniff. It nibbled for a few seconds before the stick gave way, and when it did, the critter knew something was wrong. Its whole furry body tensed and those powerful back legs seemed to coil up like a spring. Then the rock hit it, and little bones crunched.

Bogg let out a cheer. He was there in a second, staking the critter through the exposed hindquarters with his fang dagger and rolling the rock off. The thing was stark dead.

Bogg picked it up by a twiglike antler -- nice weight to it -- and let out a whoop. "How about that! Flat as a flounder!"

Bogg could see Simon try to hold in his laugh. Bogg judged that, like most civilized folk, the pup didn't like to see or dwell on the suffering of nature's creatures. But Bogg knew that hunger trounced all that kind of thought. And sure enough, the pup started giggling. It was a high, fine sound, like a mockingbird.

Bogg had a grim thought. He was waving this coneybuck in front of Simon's face as if he'd be giving the boy some. His arm sagged, and the animal's hind feet touched the ground. He was heartlessly forgetful at times. He'd clean it and eat quickly, salt the remainder... and give it to the boy to take with him. Yes, that was just.

Simon came to face him, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, making a purple streak on the white cotton. "You look awfully grumpy, sir."

Bogg nodded. He picked up the three sticks of his deadfall. "I just don't mean to mock you with it."

Simon smiled. "Is that because you won't give me any?"

"That's right," Bogg grumbled. He had to be firm.

"Fine with me. I've been watching that coneybuck and munching berries for an hour at least. I couldn't eat another bite of anything."

"That so?"

"Yes, indeed. And here's another matter for you to consider." Simon pointed past Bogg. Bogg turned.

Daisy and Jouster lazily wandered up the trail. They were still here! Bogg couldn't figure it -- they must be parched and fit to starve.

Bogg was startled out of his amazement by the queer sensation of the coneybuck springing to life in his hand. It jerked free--

\-- and Simon ran off with it. He had grabbed it, the sticky-fingered fox! Bogg stood there flustering, listening to the boy holler as he ran, "I'm rich! I'm rich! Look Uncle, I'm rich! What do you think, Uncle? Uncle, Uncle, Uncle!"

Bogg tore after the pup.

Simon tucked the coneybuck under his arm and sprinted straight down the trail, the way they had come the day before. What in tarnation did the lad plan to do? Did he think he could get a good distance between he and Bogg, so he could start up a nice roasting fire and have breakfast before Bogg could catch him? It plumb made no sense -- didn't answer at all.

Bogg ran and roared at him. "Why you stinking puddle of piss, I'm going to beat you into bad health!" He realized that hollering slowed him up, so he concentrated on running. Sure enough, Bogg closed on the little beggar, and just when Bogg was ready to reach for him, Simon tossed the coneybuck up in a birch tree and scooted around Bogg.

Simon raced back toward the camp.

The coneybuck hung up on some branches over Bogg's head.

Bogg looked at the coneybuck, then at Simon, back to the coneybuck, to Daisy and Jouster, who were just a few feet away. Jouster whinnied at him, and never had Bogg felt so sure he was being laughed at.

By the time Bogg fetched the coneybuck and reached camp, Simon had eaten half the salt pork and now stood among the trees, ready to run if Bogg should give chase, grinning like a fool, chewing on a wedge of venison.

Bogg was quiet as he restoked the fire pit and bled the coneybuck into a pan. He eyed Simon meanly as he cleaned the carcass, split the skin with Dunster's steel and ripped it free. Simon kept his distance all that time. Once the meat was roasting on a stick, he called to Simon, "That trick won't work a second time."

"I imagine not."

"You try it and I'll thump you silly."

"Yes, sir."

Bogg didn't feel especially mad at the boy anymore. "You standing out there on your lonesome don't serve either of us. Why don't you come over and have some?"

"I'll come over soon enough," Simon said. "As for breakfast, I've had mine. And I mean it this time."

Bogg frowned. "You sure? The horses stayed. You've got an easy ride back home. I got no quarrel with you now."

Simon finished the last of the venison and slapped his hands together up and down, as if his eating it was a job well done. "I was thinking rather the opposite. Since the horses stayed, we can ride on together."

#

Chapter 9

Bogg was so tickled at the notion of a second day clipping along on horseback that he didn't make a fuss about Simon staying with him. Getting the boy safely out of his hair was turning into a real conundrum, so he decided not to think on it.

The path was still there, but faint -- just a strip on the ground running between the trees where the forest litter was a little thinner. Bogg knew he was on the trail though. Every so often, a clear boot print in an exposed patch of moist ground smiled up at him bright as day.

Daisy was slower and tireder, sure enough. Both horses needed water. If he remembered his bearings, Bogg thought, there was a stream up ahead. Cripple Creek, it was called, nearer to Driftwood Bay, but that was a stretch from here. Bogg had never seen it this high up. The trail was climbing, away from the coast, heading toward the pines beneath the Starry Mountains, and the hill just slowed the horses down more. They would have to find water soon.

But even at the pace of a wore out horse, they'd beat the pace of five walking Algolan mercenaries steeped in blood. If this was the way the chase kept going, Bogg would be on those sons of bitches in short order.

A whispery sound came from ahead, barely more than wind in the trees.

Bogg called behind him. "Hear that, pup?"

Simon snapped alert. "What is it?"

"A chance for our rides to get a rest." They would stop and forage for food, too. Graze a little, all four of them.

The rushing sound of water grew stronger as they peered through the white-barked birches and here-and-there mossy boulders big as the houses back in Fort Sanctuary. The trees up ahead were missing, and Bogg reckoned that had to be it.

But it was a canyon.

Water rushed by fifty feet below, heading eost to the sea. The drop off was pretty sharp, just a downward slope of bare rock for a few feet, then a straight plunge to the rapids.

"Don't that beat all!" Bogg thundered. The roar of the water swallowed his voice. "I judge this is the tail end of Molly's Ravine. Hadn't reckoned it ran so deep so far downstream. Sorry, Daisy. No drink for you. Must be like smelling whisky through a jailhouse winder."

"How do we cross?" cried the pup, and he was right. It sure was some kind of obstacle. Down, across, and up, maybe... that meant no more horses. Bogg took a long gander upstream to the left and downstream to the right. Downstream a ways he spotted a bridge... no, it weren't no bridge. Just a bunch of ropes running across. Bogg pointed. "There! Say goodbye to your horses, pup."

On foot from now on. This slipped an ace to his quarry's hand. Bogg ground his molars over it, then decided it weren't no matter. He'd catch them. It was inevitable. Just postponed a bit. He dismounted and unhitched the saddlebags.

Simon stepped off and petted Jouster's gray mane. "Will they be all right? They're a long way from home."

"Don't fret for them. They got more sense on such things than you and me."

"We should feed them."

"With what? _Our_ food?"

"We can't just abandon them. Maybe they'd eat the rice."

"You don't seem to appreciate what a precious thing food is, boy."

"I certainly do. That's my point."

"Listen fast, pup. It's hunger and thirst that will drive them homeward. You feed them and they'll just mill around here. Now, get your pack off."

#

Simon was glad to set the horses free, but he thought Bogg was dead wrong about feeding them. This morning had been miserable, the horses gasping and slogging up the hills, their necks straining and their heads low. A little nourishment after their hard work would be the right thing to do. Simon would even split a waterskin between them.

Bogg slapped Daisy's rump and said, "Git!" Daisy started off, seemed to lose track of where she was headed, and walked a lazy circle back to Bogg. Bogg waved his hand at her and started along the edge of the ravine with the saddlebags over his shoulder.

Simon took hold of Jouster's head, petted the mare's white star, and looked into her tired, shining black eye. "Go home, Jouster. Go on. Thank you." He hurried after Bogg. The horses watched them go.

Bogg and Simon marched to an outcrop of rock where the width of the gap narrowed to forty feet or so. At the edge, three posts were driven into the ground.

"A rope bridge," Simon said. A single rope, tied at the bottom of the middle post, ran across the chasm to the middle of three posts on the other side. Two more ropes, tied at the top of each outer post, ran across similarly. That was all. Simon would have to walk on the middle rope like a carnival performer and cling to the upper ropes for balance. Water rushed by, splashing itself white, fifty feet below.

Simon swallowed. "Do you really think they came this way?"

"I do."

"Why couldn't somebody have built a more substantial bridge?"

"This ain't a bridge, it's a circus act. Nobody comes this way, pup -- we're lucky to have this much. You stay on this side until I make it all the way across. If I fall... er..." Bogg scratched his beard in thought. "Go home."

Bogg gripped the ropes tied to the outer posts and pulled at them firmly, then he yanked them and wiggled them so waves whipped across the chasm and jerked at the posts on the other side. All held firm. Then he knelt and whipped the center rope back and forth the same way. He shrugged and started across.

"Sir? Have you ever crossed something like this before?"

"Sure. Heck, I crossed a two-roper once. Just don't lose your balance. And stay the hell off until I'm across!"

Simon watched Bogg to see how he did it. Bogg's head kept moving, flipping the coontail of his hat, looking right as he slid his right hand along that rope, looking left to move the left hand, then looking down to slide one foot, then the other foot. Then all over again, and again.

Simon waited. The horses wandered over to watch the spectacle.

"Hey, Sir?" Simon called.

Bogg's roar was matched by the roar of the rapids. "What is it?"

"Why didn't they cut it down behind them?"

"Because they ain't cowards! Now shut up, I'm concentrating."

Soon enough, Bogg reached the other side. Once he stood on firm ground, his whole body sagged, arms limp, exhausted. He let the saddlebags slip from his shoulder to the ground. He sank, knees wobbly, until he sat down.

Simon stepped to the precipice.

Water rushed by far below, and Simon couldn't get away from the idea that he would fall. He didn't think the ropes would break; they had held Bogg, who weighed twice what Simon did, or more. Simon's foot would slip, or a rope would pull free from his fingers. He could see himself rolling and tangling in the ropes for the briefest agonizing moment, reaching and grabbing, then tumbling down to the waves below, his body getting smaller and smaller.

"I can't!" he cried to Bogg.

Bogg got up, stretched, and put the bags over his shoulder. "Good! Take care of yourself lad. I'll be back, like as not, with the sword that killed your father."

Simon's fingertips touched the bristly weave of the ropes. They felt alive, moving slightly as the ropes swayed in the wind across the ravine.

Why did he need to do this? Why didn't he go home? He could find work somehow, he could find someone to take care of him, find someone to protect him from Marshall Dunster and the other bullies --

Simon's body tensed with rage. Would he always need someone's protection? Would he always live at the mercy of others? Would he always be weak and frail, a victim?

He'd rather cast himself into those rapids.

His fingers grabbed the ropes and squeezed until the rough fibers prickled his skin. A deep growl crept up from his throat. He stepped onto the center rope and edged his way down the slope of the outcropping, then out into open space.

He shimmied along as he had seen Bogg do, looking left, then right, then down--

Down! Water rushed by in the distance under his feet, and every muscle in his body screamed at the sight.

But he kept going. He narrowed his eyes, trying to tune out the view of everything beyond his hands and feet. There was nothing else in the world, he told himself. Right hand, left hand, feet. Over and over. Right hand, left hand, feet.

Some minutes went by, and Simon began to think he would make it. It became a matter of simple repetition, simple focus. Simon risked a glance straight ahead.

Bogg was still there, watching him. But he was so far away!

Simple focus. Simon kept going. He was smart enough for this. No rope bridge would outdo him.

His legs began to quiver. The center rope bucked left and right under his feet, and the weight of his body tried to sink down past it. The ropes in his hands seemed to rise higher and higher over his head.

A tiny dark shape in the water caught his eye. It startled him and he focused on it. It was his own shadow, lonely and small on the rapids.

His foot slipped, and the center rope snapped up between his legs. He screamed, but held his grip on the side ropes as his body rocked wildly up and down. Eventually it came to rest, and trusting his life to the strength in his fingers, Simon worked one foot up to the center rope, then the other.

His breath raged in and out of him, the sound lost to the rapids. He wanted to cry.

Again... right hand, left hand, feet. Right hand, left hand, feet. Hello little shadow. Right hand, left hand, feet.

And soon enough, Bogg was clinging to the center post, hanging over the water and reaching for him.

Bogg grabbed Simon by the collar of his shirt and hauled him to solid ground. They both collapsed. Simon's body pressed itself flat and wide on the earth. He had no strength left.

"Great Jupiter, pup!" cried Bogg in a high-pitched voice Simon had never heard before. His grimy, lined face was flushed red. "You most give me the fan-tods!"

Simon lay there, grateful to be alive, but in the cellar of his mind he knew that the next stage of this journey \-- travelling with Bogg on foot -- could be the real test.

#

Chapter 10

Some time later, Bogg dragged himself to his feet. He let the boy lie for a bit longer while his eyes roved for the marks of his quarry. They were here, most notably an inch of dug-up earth where somebody stuck a sword in the ground. Other signs were quieter. Kicked gravel, a scuffed root at the base of a tree. They'd crossed those ropes late yesterday, then spent some time here. Bogg imagined these five mighty warriors spooked sweaty by that rope bridge and laying about, all noodly, until their nerves cooled off.

If a sissy rope bridge had made it warm for them, then jest wait until Bogg caught them. Those corkers had no idea what they were in for.

Bogg hauled Simon to standing and gave him some gear to carry. "Shank's mare, now, lad."

"Wh-what?"

"Our feet. Hustle up."

Off they went. In time, the roar of Molly's Ravine faded, and Bogg could hear the thrush, thrush of his tread in the grass, steady as a heartbeat. From behind him, came swish-swish-swish.

On this side of the ravine, there was no road, nor trail, nor footpath. Bogg reckoned the sight of those ropes turned most folks back. There were still the marks of his quarry, though, sure enough. So as long as Bogg stayed sharp, he'd keep with them.

The grass grew knee-high, waist-high in clumps, dry and dusty-smelling. It seemed to hold sway over the land, except for patches of bare rocky ground here and there, and broad stretches of ragged green trees.

Bogg had played over and over in his mind what these bastards were like and where they might go. This wasn't their country. They didn't know the wilderness, and made it though by sheer muscle and meanness. If they were privateers who had somehow misplaced their ship, they'd want to reach safe ground, familiar territory, friends.

But they kept going inland.

So Bogg had no choice but to reckon that they planned to go straight through, cross the Chilly Mountains, down the other side, a straight line to the coast and Pirate's Bay, and one of the towns there.

Pirate's Bay was hell-and-gone from here. It wasn't the way Bogg would do it. He'd hug the coast and circle around, especially if the sea was what he knew best.

Bogg walked. This was the real test of the new boots, and he kept his old boots in mind. Out here, foot blisters could kill a man, worst case, because any man who couldn't walk was dead soon enough. But the new boots felt all right.

His eyes roved spot to spot on the ground, and on those wide stretches before him where there were no marks, he let his instincts lead. If I was a bloodthirsty murderous killer far from home, he thought, would I take that ridge or stay in those trees? The ground sloped up, and sometimes he scrabbled up patches of bare rock, and soon enough the smell of pines was in the air, and the deep green of needles and red-brown of pine bark showed through the thinning birches and hemlocks.

The pup stayed with him. Bogg wondered if it was only because he was walking so slowly to catch the signs. Simon was indeed a quandary. On this side of the rope bridge, and without the horses, it hardly seemed possible to send him home now.

His boots drew his attention. What was wrong with them?

Nothing, he realized. The ground was getting softer. He spotted his quarry's leather boot prints to prove it. Shrubs grew here, hip-high, and the tracks worked into the wide spaces between them, clear as day.

Shrubs and softer ground meant water was close. Bogg couldn't hear any rapids. But by and by they came upon Muddy River, wide, slow-moving, and shallow. It joined Molly's Ravine away upstream, and ran clear through the Chilly Mountains, getting its start in the Starry Mountains, possibly in the vicinity of Hottencold Lake, near Steamy Peak and Boiling Coffee Springs. That didn't mean it was all hot water belched up from the Earth's belly, no. Most of it was Chilly Range snowmelt.

No bridge across this one. Bogg and the pup were too far from civilization and this river was just too wide. The pines on the far bank looked dark over the sunlit water, maybe two hundred feet away. The water here to there was cloudy brown and flat as glass. No rocks to hop to. "We might get wet on this one," Bogg said. "It's shallow, and right sleepy compared to the ravine. We'll wade."

Simon eyed the water nervously. "How do you know it's shallow?"

"Because they made it across, and with their armor and such, they were too laden to swim."

Simon's adam's apple moved up and down in his throat. "Maybe they got swept away and drowned."

Bogg glared at the pup. "That would be a real shame."

"For us..."

"For us. Them getting away like that. Nope. I don't take no stock in it. We'll walk right across, and shake the grunions and such out of our shoes on the other side." Bogg tightened his rope belt, tossed the saddlebags higher up on his shoulder, and jumped in with both feet.

Icewater shot up to his knees and into his boots to his toes. Godzooks! That was cold. The bottom was sandy but not soft enough to get stuck in. Bogg waded on.

Twenty feet out he was waist deep, and looked back to see the pup still on the bank. Bogg almost called to roust him into the water... but then he thought to do the other thing and wave him off. Neither made much sense to him, so Bogg shrugged and waded on.

"Sir?" Simon called.

Bogg stopped again. "What is it?"

"I can't swim."

"You see me swimming?" Bogg sloshed on. The bottom was still middling sandy, with some tangly weedy spots to kick through here and there. If it stayed waist deep for all two hundred feet, then the lad would blubber a little and put on a show, and then make it just fine.

Bogg heard a splash behind him, about right for two little feet hitting the water, and he grinned.

"It's cold!" the pup shrieked.

Bogg didn't answer. On his next step, the sandy bottom was missing, and it didn't bother to show up until he was beard-deep. His pack and saddlebags slipped under. Bogg grimly placed his tongue in his toothhole. Everything he owned was wet now. Except his head, he thought. He hoped he'd keep that dry. Maybe the sons of bitches did get washed to watery graves.

A brown pine needle floated by, under his nose.

Bogg stomped on. He could feel the current pushing on him now, working him downstream. The only way to hold his footing was to stand still, so he marched and let the current push him.

Past halfway, his toes kicked into a sandy uphill slope, chucking his balance, and his face almost pitched into the water. He teetered and tried to climb the river bottom like stairs while the current had its way with him. Finally he pulled out and was waist deep again. Cool river breezes blew over his wet skins and chilled him.

Smooth sailing now. He turned to check on Simon.

The lad was standing chest deep, brown water easing its way around him. He held his elbows out, looking pale and wet and unhappy.

Leave him be. Bogg closed on the far shore. When he was knee deep, he checked the bank for tracks in the mud when he heard the cry.

"Uncle!" The lad hadn't moved. His eyes darted back and forth over the water around him, like he was afraid it would rear up and strike.

"You'll get no attention from me with that kind of talk."

"It's too deep!"

The lad was too small. Neck deep for Bogg would be over Simon's head. If he couldn't swim...

"Turn back," Bogg suggested.

Simon splashed his fists into the water. "I won't!"

Bogg didn't know what to say.

Simon's gray eyes burned and his lips pulled back from his teeth. He surged forward, head bobbing, and disappeared under the surface.

Bogg scanned the river for some part of the boy to come up. There was no sign. He sloshed back toward the center of the river, uncertain how far to cut downstream. There weren't much point. If the boy had lost his footing, the current would blow him downstream quicker than Bogg could follow.

Bogg was in to his chest. With his eyes this low over the water, it was harder to search. "Pup!"

He heard splashes, but the water out there was so brown and churned up and milky that he couldn't make sense of what he was seeing at first. It was Simon, sure enough, splashing along on his back, his nose bobbing out of the water, pointed at the blue sky. The boy kicked his legs and pumped his arms together, pushing himself along like a turtle or a river otter.

"By jings..." Bogg muttered. The lad was swimming, but it weren't no stroke seen before by the eyes of men. Bogg laughed.

The current was still playing with the little feller. Bogg stomped after him. Simon wriggled his way across the river, passing downstream of Bogg, and closed on the shallows. And quick! His nose, hands and knees came up with each pump of his arms and legs.

"What do you call that, boy? It ain't no dog paddle."

Simon's ears were underwater. He swept his way to the bank and -- maybe tried to turn over, Bogg couldn't tell \-- and plumb sunk himself. His legs kicked up in the air. Bogg splashed down to him, but paused just out of arm's reach to see if the kid would do some other neat trick.

Nope. The kid had lost it and was drowning in two feet of water.

Bogg grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up. Simon spat and coughed and waved his arms, his eyes wild and unseeing. Finally, the pup got his feet under himself and grabbed Bogg's hairy wrist.

"Ow," Simon said.

Bogg let him go. "I thought you couldn't swim."

"I can't." He wobbled a little.

"What was that?"

"I don't know. I made it up."

Bogg whistled low out his toothhole, and chuckled all the way to dry land.

#

There are many contradictory stories of mystical phenomena on Mira, but one common thread runs through them: thaumaturgy does not work there. Charms, spells, hexes, and glamours don't function as expected, or at all.

One of the reports from the _Stiletto_ gives the account of a survivor of an earlier expedition. They had scouted inland to a bank of impassable hills, and were attacked from above by a pack of serpents (see Creatures, Hoopsnake). The expedition's war mage attempted a volley of lightning bolts, but the spells malfunctioned and merely charged the air. The serpents rolled down the hill and struck, killing the mage and all but three in the rear guard, one of whom passed on the story.

There are two exceptions to this rule of magical quiescence. First, there are reports that some, but not all, enchanted objects retain their magical properties on Mira. Second, reports are very consistent that many of the creatures native to Mira exhibit magical properties.

Excerpt from the Introduction to _Survival in the Miran Wilds_

by Dugan Wisefoot

#

That evening, they camped among the pines at the base of the Chilly Mountains. Bogg offered Simon some waterlogged coneybuck. "It won't keep. If I had a day to lay around, I'd smoke it."

Simon huddled in his wet clothes close to the fire. To distract him from the cold, he flipped through Dugan Wisefoot's Survival in the Miran Wilds. He hadn't opened it since he had tried to read on Jouster. Reading on horseback made him nauseous. Now, he held each wet page up and let the firelight glow through it, warmly translucent.

Bogg had stripped and wrapped himself in his black cloak, which seemed to repel water well enough. Everything else they owned hung on pine branches over their heads. Two pairs of boots swayed up there, along with a much smaller pair of shoes.

"Bogg," Simon said. "You're always wearing that cloak."

"I am," he declared. Even after its dunking, it looked velvety and coal black as always. Bogg worked his fingers through his drying beard.

"What kind of skin is that?"

Bogg grinned so wide, Simon could see that awful gap in his teeth. "It's a splintercat skin."

Simon's eyes narrowed. He shivered. Bogg didn't say yes to every wild conjecture about Mira, so maybe the stories Bogg told him were true. Or half true. No unicorns? Fine. The story about the hidebehind sounded frightening enough at first... then less so over time as Simon thought it over. But this--

"What's a splintercat?"

Bogg's blue eyes twinkled in the firelight. "One of the deadliest, treacherousest critters this side of the Two-Dog Mountains. Not many have seen one, and fewer live to crow about it. Traces can be seen now and again of the creature. I came across one by accident. Startled both of us. Have you ever seen a tree plumb split open and shattered?"

"I think so."

"Splintercats do that."

"Lightning does that."

Bogg watched the fire and nodded. "That's true." His grin didn't slip. He had a secret he was proud of.

Simon's shirt clung wet and icy to his back where the fire couldn't reach it. "Bears will pull down apple trees to get at the apples."

Bogg nodded again. "I reckon. But not always. Splintercats live in the deep woods, in the Green Man Forest, where trees are thick. They're the fastest animal there is. When they smell prey and get revved up, they go faster almost than you can see. Why, if they had a straight shot, they'd go a mile before you could say what. Just a black streak over the hills, like a thunderbird shadow. But in those woods, they fly around like a parched pea in a hot skillet, busting trees near to sawdust. They've got teeth and claws and suchlike, but they kill their prey often as not just by clobbering it." Bogg took a deep breath and let out a satisfied sigh. "Naturally, their skin is invulnerable."

Simon's mouth hung open. He closed it. "How come I've never heard of it?"

Bogg grinned. "Read plenty of books, have you?"

"I have indeed."

"What about that one?" Bogg pointed at Wisefoot's work in Simon's lap. "That one mention splintercats?"

Simon peeled through the wet pages to the index, which he examined with his water-spotted magnifying glass. Under S, no. He looked under life... then animals... then found a host of entries under creatures. No splintercat, though.

"No, it doesn't."

"Too bad. Hm. What'd you pay for that book?"

"My dad printed it for the author. It's a gratis copy." Simon kept looking. No unicorn, either. Thunderbird was listed, and... "Have you ever heard of star jelly?"

Bogg raised his eyebrows. "Heard of it. Great piles of it at dawn, shimmery and light as air, always gone by breakfast-time. Evaporates. Comes from the sky, they say. An omen. I never seen it."

"Skunk ape?"

Bogg whistled. "Smelled it, maybe."

"What about a giant giasiccus?"

"Never heard of it."

"Bald Eagle?"

"Real. But they ain't bald. Their heads is white."

"Bugaboo?"

"Real."

"Ballyhoo?"

"No such thing."

"Chipmunk?"

"Real."

"And we've both seen coneybucks. Let's see... farn?"

"Real."

"Hellangone?"

"Fake."

"Hoopsnake?"

"Not sure."

"Kangaroo?"

"Fake."

"Teaketteler?"

"Maybe."

"Whangdoodle?"

Bogg scowled. "That's just plain stupid."

"Wampus?"

"Definitely. All those critters in there?"

"There's more. I skipped some." Simon handed Bogg the book. He took it, closed it, opened it, hefted it, as if to check the binding and feel the weight. Then he looked at the index page. "It's the queerest thing I ever saw. Like a shrew with muddy feet danced on the page. I want to wipe it clean. Just the same, it's so neat and orderly, in little rows. Like it's supposed to make sense." Bogg nudged Simon and pointed at the page. "I tell you what, there ought to be a book about this!"

Simon smiled. "There are. There are books about everything."

Bogg frowned. His jaw worked back and forth. "Can you learn me?"

#

Chapter 11

Tyrus Jurgen leaned against a pine tree, and the trunk pressed his cuirass sharply into his back. This hill was brimming with trees, the whole land was brimming with trees. He and the others had dragged themselves up this wooded hill -- steep as a gangplank -- for an hour.

His party -- Yolaf, Cadogan, Uilleam, and Zane -- had collapsed on the hill. They sprawled around him. He remained alert and standing, even though blisters burned his feet.

Tyrus had never felt so far from home. He had come to believe that the entire land of Mira was cursed.

A week earlier, Tyrus had captained a stout little man-of-war and made a living both profitable and enjoyable, striking terror in the hearts of the Miran scum he found cowering on the vessels that came and went from Driftwood Bay. His patron, a certain Duke of Zubenshire, had a rival in a neighboring Algolan province who had set up a logging colony of indentured servants in Mira. Direct war would have been undiplomatic and expensive, so the Duke had hired Tyrus.

Under the regal blue unicorn of the Privateers of Sept Algolus, Tyrus and his team had sailed the long voyage across the lonely ocean to Mira. The heavily treed islands in the bay made excellent cover, and ambushes proved so easy that Tyrus commanded the man-of-war's quartermaster to target any supply or colony ship they came across, whether subjects of the Duke's rival or not.

Soon, the stout little _Maleolus_ had grown heavy with booty. But the quartermaster only complained about its lost nimbleness, and how it rode low in the water. Tyrus knew their mission was complete and the time had come to sail for home, but he couldn't resist a tasty frigate that had blundered into range.

One last prize.

The frigate had given them a merry chase among the islands, into a part of Driftwood Bay that the charts called Keelkicker Shallows, a name stemming from more than simple Miran whimsy. In one moment, Tyrus was standing proudly at the bow, and in the next, he was jumping into a lifeboat.

He wouldn't have made it -- in his armor, he'd have gone straight to the bottom -- but for Yolaf, who cleared the lifeboat for him, tossing the quartermaster and the sailors into the waves.

Tyrus and his party were the only ones who made it to land.

It had been four days since the wreck of the Maleolus, and two days since their last decent meal -- a pig Yolaf found in that last little town. Cadogan had burnt the pig black over the fire. Tyrus wanted meat, properly cooked. He wanted grog. He wanted a woman. He wanted to be back in Algolus, or at least under sail.

Yolaf sat up, leaning his enormous body on his hammer, and turned his bald head to the speckles of sunlight that came through the trees. "I like the rest," he boomed contentedly. "I don't like the walk, but I like the rest." The day before, Yolaf had found a patch of brown-spotted, earthy-smelling mushrooms. He had wolfed them down, only to double up and howl with cramps an hour later, and vomit them up. He rubbed his belly from time to time now, but seemed to suffer no permanent harm.

Zane's slender body lay slack on the ground like windless sails. His arm lifted to point at the giant. "One more optimistic word comes out of your mouth, you clod, and..." Zane stopped. Zane was no match for Yolaf. Zane was a bowyer and a dandy, half Yolaf's size (though they were all half Yolaf's size), and would only stand a chance against Yolaf if he were a hundred yards away, because then Zane could put an arrow through him.

"Wanna wrestle?" Yolaf asked. It was as close as he ever came to a threat.

Zane's blue-gloved fingers felt his chin under his neat black van dyke. "By the gods," he pouted. "I need a shave."

A grin pulled at the corners of Yolaf's enormous mouth, showing massive teeth.

Cadogan the Red held his axe in the air. "I volunteer."

Tyrus pushed himself off the tree. With morale this low, his men would be at each other's throats. Unless he kept them moving, so there was no time for anything else. "Rise, gentlemen."

Yolaf stood, and gray-haired Uilleam pushed himself to his feet with his javelin. Cadogan and Zane groaned. Before Tyrus could threaten them, Uilleam touched Tyrus's arm and turned him away from the others. "I don't see the reason," Uilleam murmured, "to continue this way."

Tyrus's face tightened up and he whispered, "Another challenge from you, Uilleam?"

"Just a suggestion. We could descend to the wide river we crossed..."

Tyrus sneered. They had almost drowned getting their armor and weapons across that river, except for Yolaf, who waded across, dry from the waist up.

Uilleam went on. "We could build a raft from trees on the bank. Follow the river to the ocean. Journey on the shore, where the going is easy, village to village, taking the provisions we need. We can reach Rastaban soon enough that way."

Tyrus put his hand on Uilleam's shoulder and squeezed. "Not soon enough. Build a raft? You think Cadogan and Zane would be any use in building a raft? You would step onto a raft with Yolaf? It would take too long, Uilleam."

"Tyrus... my lord... even the mosquitos seem to covet our Algolan flesh. This land is killing us."

"Hold your tongue, Uilleam. You presume to educate me about this land? I know the evil of this place. I feel the wretchedness of Mira in my bones. Every moment on this foul continent, away from Algolus, away from a ship, is agony for me. So we will waste not a moment. We shall cross directly over this peninsula, straight to my buried treasure, then to Rastaban, where we shall dine with our fine displaced Algolan countrymen, purchase a vessel and crew, sail out of Pirate's Bay and homeward bound. There isn't a wakeful moment in which I don't hold this goal fixed in my mind. I see it."

"But Tyrus," Uilleam said. "We are warriors. We are not mountain men."

"How dare you!" Tyrus hissed. "We are not worms? We are not rats, you say? We are not rebels and exiles, fanatics and doomed madmen? Speak like that again to me, and I need not warn you about what I'd do." Tyrus's eyes bored into Uilleam. He tipped his head to the others. "You are not like those three. You are too wise, Uilleam, to need threats from me to motivate you--"

The tree beside them sounded a loud wooden snap. Its branches vibrated and sprinkled pine needles on them. Tyrus scanned above him for the thing, whatever it was, that had struck the trunk. He half-expected branches to break loose and fall on him, the tree had been beaten so hard. Nothing. An icy wind blew, lifting their hair and chilling their skin. Uilleam looked suspicious. "Is it--"

"To arms!" Tyrus roared as more trees downslope snapped and shook. The others drew weapons and looked up. Zane strung his longbow with quick efficiency, nocked an arrow, and searched the treetops for a target. Some trees stretched to a hundred feet or more, and each tree shivered as it boomed, like it had been struck.

"Attackers upslope!" cried Tyrus. He dodged to the downslope side of a thick pine, and braced his shield close against his shoulder. "Get behind cover!"

Cadogan had just turned to face uphill when the armor at his chest rang as if pounded by a hammer. He fell back and rolled in dead pine needles, lay prone for a moment, and dragged himself behind a tree.

Yolaf stood behind a tree too small for him.

"Zane!" said Tyrus. "Let fly!"

"At whom?"

Tyrus had no answer. Was it a squad armed with firelocks? He couldn't hear the discharges or smell the gunpowder. His shield rang and bucked against his arm. Tyrus pressed back against the tree's rough bark and checked his shield for damage. And there, jammed in a nest of splinters, was a small gold sphere. Tyrus knew the stories--

"Vivets!" he called.

"Where?"

"In the trees!" Tyrus couldn't reach them if they were in the trees. No axe, hammer, not even his sword could reach them. Zane, the bowyer, was their only hope. "Zane!"

Zane snarled in frustration, drew back his longbow and launched a black arrow into the trees. It vanished among the branches. Soft titters, as from snickering children, came from above.

"Uilleam," said Tyrus. "Your javelin!"

Uilleam leaned out from his trunk and scanned the trees up the hill. A gold ball flashed through his arm, piercing the chain mail, and sprayed a mist of blood out both sides. Uilleam howled, dropped his lance, and sank behind the tree.

Cadogan lay on his back, his fingers pressed to the dent in his cuirass. He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his red braids, and screamed a charge of curses at them. "Fie! You cullions! You scalls, you foul blots! Die and be damned, you curs! Hell gnaw your bones! Vengeance, plague, death, confusion!"

Tyrus drew his sword. He had taken it from old Fergus Smith, the greatest swordmaker in Sept Algolus, and a decent alchemist as well. Then he had killed old Fergus, testing the blade on his calcified bones, making sure there would never be another (it seemed the sensible thing to do; Tyrus had wondered why it didn't happen more often, then he had wondered why anyone would go into weaponsmithing if that was the tradition). The sword was called Blodleter, and its gleaming blade had a groove deep in the flat of each side to let out the blood and bile and spinal fluid that Tyrus would spill. The hilt was gold and inscribed with, "Behold Blodleter -- KALLISTI", which meant "To the fairest."

Tyrus had begun with the plan of counting all the people he would kill with it, and the plan had gone fine, until (at a count of one hundred seventy three) he had swung into battle and killed so many, so fast, that he lost count. After that, he wondered if he should count animals too. And what of those he prodded overboard with it? Did they count? He couldn't decide, and gave up. A shame, because he would be pushing a thousand by now.

Tyrus grinned. And what of including vivets?

The hilt of Blodleter fit in his gauntleted fist and fairly cried for vivet blood. But what use was the sword against laughing green ghosts in the treetops? Tyrus had never seen a vivet face-to-face, and didn't know what to do. How could he get close to them? He could climb this tree, but he'd be no closer to them. They flitted tree to tree like monkeys.

Tyrus snarled with rage. He couldn't reach them! They were too fast and too well armed. He had to think of something, or he and his men would cower here until they were each pierced through and bleeding, wounded or dead. And then what? What would these green men do with their conquered intruders?

Of all the vivet stories he had heard -- that they were men, that they were animals, that they were quick and deadly plants -- he had never heard that they could fly. "Cadogan!"

Cadogan moaned.

"Cadogan!" Tyrus screamed. "Give your axe to Yolaf!"

"What? Why?"

Tyrus stepped back from the tree that shielded him and doubled up his grip on the sword. With a wild cry, he swung the blade at the trunk.

It flashed through.

Before the tree could topple, Tyrus ran to the next tree and slashed at the trunk -- at a downward angle this time. The tree slipped along the diagonal cut and the newly exposed wedge jammed into the earth. As the two trees toppled, Tyrus hacked through a dozen more.

The birdlike chittering above took on a desperate tone.

Yolaf yanked Cadogan's axe from him and swung at the nearest trunk. The axe blade buried itself three-quarters through, and Yolaf wrenched at the handle.

"Avaunt!" cried Cadogan, dragging himself to his feet. "That's my axe! Don't break it, you churl!"

The axe came free and the tree creaked, broke and toppled, cushioning itself in the branches of its neighbors. Yolaf smiled his childlike, dimwitted smile. He struck the next tree twice, a swing that arced up and another that arced down, and a triangular section of wood dropped free. The tree fell. Yolaf stomped uphill, dispatching trees with quick double strokes.

The trees were too close together to fall directly to the forest floor. The branches tangled with trees still standing, until the mass of trees that had been cut overwhelmed those still standing and pushed past them to lay flat. The crashing of trees and snapping of limbs drowned out the shrieks of the green men.

The onslaught of gold sling spheres slackened. Yolaf and Tyrus lay down a fan shape of leveled trees, and vivets leaped for unharmed trees beyond their reach. The fleeing creatures were in no way human -- too small, too frail for that. They were nearly naked and quite hairless, with skin as radiantly green as a ripe lime.

"Zane!" called Tyrus.

"Aye." Zane had already drawn, and let an arrow loose. It raced fifty feet up and struck a vivet square in the back, hard enough to pass through and keep going until the arrow drove itself into a limb farther on. The vivet fell and snagged in the branches. The tone of the vivet cries rose to shrieks.

Zane saw a vivet standing on branch as it dropped a gold ball in its sling. Zane let fly. The vivet ducked the arrow, whipped its sling about it and fired. The gold ball whizzed past Zane's head and whammed into a tree trunk.

Tyrus's path was blocked by felled trees now. He leapt onto a trunk and stalked along it, swinging himself around the branches. Where was a vivet? He had dulled his blade on so much wood, he was hungry to cut through green flesh. They didn't carry hand-to-hand weapons -- at least, none he could see - so it couldn't possibly be a fair fight. And the last Tyrus wanted was a fair fight.

The vivets scampered and cried and vanished. The last tree that Yolaf cut down crashed and was silent. Tyrus watched and listened. Nothing.

Tyrus hopped down and swung through a final tree -- the one holding their only kill in its branches. It crashed down.

Zane retrieved arrows while Cadogan snatched his axe away from Yolaf, thumbed the blade and pouted, his red braids hanging limp around his bearded face.

Tyrus doubled back to Uilleam, who lay bleeding on the pine needles and clung weakly to his arm.

"Broken," said Uilleam through clenched teeth.

Tyrus knelt by him. "Can you walk?"

"I'll not stay here."

Tyrus smiled. "If you can't, I'll have Cadogan carry you."

"Ach! Leave me to die."

Yolaf found a gold ball embedded in a tree limb. "Pretty." He pried at it with a knife.

Cadogan forgot about his harshly treated axe and scampered to the dead vivet. "Ooh," he cooed. "Isn't it lovely."

Tyrus helped Uilleam to his feet and walked him over. "It belongs to Zane."

"Disgusting!" Zane said, waving a delicate hand. "I don't want it."

Cadogan drew it out of the snag of branches by a slender-boned forearm and held it up, one-handed. Its bald green head, no bigger than a cantaloupe, hung low between its fragile shoulder blades. The blood from the arrow wound was white, like tree sap. Cadogan clutched its throat and rolled its head back. Its large, heavily-lidded eyes had blue-white irises. Its teeth were small and pearl-like, with white gums. The body had no odor.

It was four feet tall and weighed perhaps thirty pounds. Tyrus reached down between the branches and drew out its sling, woven entirely from vine. It would dry out in a few days. They must have to keep making them.

Cadogan pulled a necklace off the body. It was made of nothing but acorns and seed pods, and he tossed it aside. Tyrus reached down again, and came up with a sack in his fist.

"Aha!" said Cadogan.

Tyrus looked inside. Six golden spheres. He tossed the sack to Zane.

"What?" cried Cadogan.

Zane smiled. "You catch one."

Cadogan throttled the corpse. "Where are your friends, hm? How do you throw such gold about? You timber-head, you stumbling block!" He turned to Zane. "Couldn't you have wounded it? Think what it could have told us."

Zane scowled and pocketed his gold. "Go hang yourself, Cadogan."

"Let's move on," called Tyrus. "March, and tend to Uilleam. Cadogan, drop that thing."

Cadogan clutched the body close. "Never!"

"Suit yourself."

#

Chapter 12

Well on into the third day, it got colder and gray clouds bunched up in the sky, crowding out the blue and putting shadows on the ground. The wind picked up and blew chilly, not fiercely, more teasingly, but with dark promise.

Bogg and the pup came across a broad field of blackberry bushes. The tracks of the quarry passed right through, moving fast, with slashes in the brush here and there to clear a path.

Since starting this trip, the pup had apparently developed a hankering for blackberries. He lagged behind, reaching between the thorns to get to the fattest ones, eating some and keeping some in one of Bogg's old boots.

"You sure you want to put berries in there?" Bogg asked. "I walked a lot of miles in those."

Simon put his nose to it. "I think the river rinsed it out. It smells fine."

"Boy, the wilderness is getting to you. You're thinking a little more like me."

And the lad had a point about slowing down the pursuit on account of berry-gathering. Eat as you go, that was the way. Don't gobble up your food stores if you can help it. This world is a goose. Bogg stopped to pull a few berries as Simon caught up.

They walked together for a spell, then Simon lagged behind again. Bogg wondered how far the field went --nigh on three-quarter mile, it seemed. He drew his sabertooth dagger and whacked off a bundle of berries so he could eat and walk at the same time.

It might have been the cold breeze, or it might have been all the berries, but anyhow, he sure didn't smell the bear before he saw it.

It was a fine one. Not like a piddly Algolan bear. They grew big in Mira. This one was big as a wagon, and looked like it could have swallered Bogg's head whole, and also like it wouldn't mind trying such a stunt.

It was eating berries its own self, walking through the bushes. The bushes crackled as its paws mashed them, and its pink flat tongue lapped up berries between its black claws, paying no mind to the branches or thorns.

The warm, earthy stench of the bear came to him. Bogg wrinkled his nose. He could tell the bear had eaten fish lately, the smell was that strong. Good thing too. The wind was blowing Bogg's way, and the bear hadn't sniffed him out yet.

Bogg heard Simon's careless strolling footsteps approach behind him. Bogg would have warned Simon, but didn't know how to do it without moving or making a sound. The lad's footsteps stopped cold, and Bogg figured he'd laid eyes on the bear and that was warning enough.

The bear crunched its way through the brush, moving crosswise to Bogg and Simon, so big and close that Bogg couldn't see the top of the bear's back. He didn't think he'd ever killed a bear that big. He might have to today. If the wind shifted, or if the bear turned its head, Bogg could only draw his fang dagger and go to work.

Bogg reckoned he would live through such a confrontation, half likely or more. It was just a question of whether he would keep all his arms and legs.

Two cubs crashed through the bushes behind the bear, about as big as fluffy brown dogs. The first tackled a blackberry bush and gobbled up some berries. The second jumped on the first, and they tumbled about and wrestled.

Mama bears were the worst. All the billow dropped out of Bogg's sails.

Bogg could feel Simon creeping up behind him. Jupiter Pluvius! Didn't that boy know not to move? Stand still and let the critters pass, that was their only chance to not git et. Simon would barely make a decent snack, poor lad. Bogg, he was old and sour enough to give the bear a case of--

A cub lost the wrestling match and got knocked flat, opened its eyes and saw Bogg. Its round cub ears pricked up and it hissed. The other cub saw Bogg and Simon and froze, and mama bear sighted them too.

She hollered at them something awful, a roar so loud and low that Bogg felt it crawl up and down his ribs and ring in his ears. Her teeth were white, as big and hooked as Bogg's thumbs. The points glistened with the sheen of bear-spit and blackberry juice. Bogg thought he heard a little whimper from Simon, but with that racket coming from the bear, he couldn't rightly tell.

The bear reared up on her hind legs, and Bogg knew that was a sight that would stay with him. She was twice as tall as him like that, maybe more. The cubs scampered and hid behind her.

Bogg's legs quivered like they really wanted to go somewhere. He didn't know what they had in mind, but they were adamant about it. His hands were better behaved, and his right eased to the sabertooth knife in its sheath at his hip.

The bear slammed her front paws to earth, and Bogg felt it through the soles of his new boots. He shook away the sight of those boots digesting in her gut with his feet still in them.

She took a step toward him. That step was a reckoning, Bogg knew. There weren't no other choice, now. He stuck his jaw forward and took a step toward her.

A gentle hand gripped Bogg's left elbow from behind. It pulled.

Not now, pup.

But the hand was insistent. It gripped his deerskin sleeve and didn't let go. Bogg glanced to his left.

Simon's free hand held a boot full of berries.

It struck Bogg as a right decent gesture.

He took the boot, and Simon melted away behind him. Bogg, working to keep everything slow and smooth, hunkered a bit and dumped the berries out.

Mama bear snorted like a gust of wind as Bogg backed off. As he took steady steps away, he slipped the fang dagger free. Mama lumbered to the berries. Her black nose, big as Bogg's fist, probed at them.

She lifted her head and roared at Bogg. Bogg brought his dagger up slow between them, ready for the fight.

Mama glared at Bogg and seemed to think it though. Bogg crept back little by little.

She glared at him for a spell, then her head dropped to the berries and her tongue whipped a dozen into her mouth.

And that seemed to settle it. The cubs came around and joined in at the berries. Bogg wondered if all berry and no thorn was a convenience outside the regular experience of bear-kind... and he kept on backing off. It didn't take long for that bootfull to dwindle away, and just before it was gone, Bogg turned tail and sprinted for distance. Simon was ten yards farther back and when he saw Bogg turn, he got the picture quick and made off himself.

Bogg gained on the boy but didn't pass him until they were nigh on a mile from the blackberry field, with no sign of the bears behind them.

#

Simon Jones had never run so far or so fast in his life. The scene of Bogg sprinting at him, blue eyes wide, sabertooth knife flashing, his very beard hairs seeming to stand on end, with that brown wall of a bear behind him, would never leave Simon's memory.

It had taken a few hours to circle around the blackberry patch and try to pick up the trail of the Algolan privateers on the other side. Bogg acted like he knew exactly where they had gone, but Simon wasn't so sure.

The coming twilight forced them to stop and make camp at the base of a hill. The spot was just below where the pine trees started, and the slope of the hill looked like it climbed all the way up to the shoulder of the Chilly Mountains.

"We'll catch those mean skunks. See that?" Bogg put his face close to Simon's with a hand on his shoulder and pointed at the jagged skyline of frosted white above the trees. Gray clouds scudded across them. One great mountain rose above the others, the snow of its hestern slope touched pink with sunset.

"I see," Simon said.

"That's Desperation Peak. Eost of that is a wee little groove in the snow called Settler's Pass. It's downhill for us after that, past Deadreckoning Peak, to Pirate's Bay."

Grim, shapeless clouds blocked the peaks like a slowly drawn curtain. "And that's where you think they're going?" Simon asked.

Bogg stood up. "It's a damn-sight obvious, ain't it? Tomorrow, we'll head upslope and catch their trail. I ain't worried. These buggers ain't been exactly snake-stealthy so far." Bogg grinned. "They wouldn't know beans if they had their heads in the pot. They can have the extra day that mama bear gave them." He climbed a pine and hacked off some branches for a lean-to, while Simon dug a fire pit and fueled it with sticks broken off a dead log that lay nearby.

Later on, after they'd eaten (food stores were light, all the hominy and half the rice gone, but Bogg wasn't worried, so Simon tried not to), they sat together by the fire. Bogg scratched letters in the dust with Marshall Dunster's severed steel blade. "I'm getting it. A is for ain't, which means no how."

Simon turned the three sticks of the deadfall snare over and over in his hands and tried to figure them out. Maybe he could set them under one end of that log.

Bogg went on. "I like how the letters are named for the sounds they make. That's inspired. B is for bear, that nearly ate Bogg -- " His eyes went wide. "Great Scott... by jings, I don't believe it! _B is for Bogg!_ "

Simon giggled. He scratched some letters in the dust with one of the sticks.

"Hey, you be careful with those." Bogg considered the letters.

B O G G.

"Good land. These little scratches mean _me_."

Simon's giggles broke out into real laughter. He fell back and rolled around, unable to contain himself, and Bogg blushed and chuckled softly.

Just then the gray sky opened up and sprinkled on them, and Simon sobered under the icy drops. He wondered why he had laughed so hard. Glad to be alive, maybe. Tomorrow would be their fourth day, and he worried about eating and being eaten, and about the men they were chasing. The smell of rain in the forest was thick and heavy, like a handful of moldy earth under his nose.

Bogg looked to the sky, blinking, and tiny beads of water appeared on his face. "That's about it. Lay out the frying pan and we'll hit the hay."

In the lean-to, Bogg lay on his back with his head sticking outside, his mouth open to catch the rain. Simon imitated him. It seemed an uncomfortable and painfully slow way to get a drink. The black cloak was not quite big enough to keep them both warm, and Simon tugged at the velvety skin to cover himself.

"You know, lad..." Bogg spoke in short phrases, keeping his mouth open and tongue out in between his words. "That bit with the berries... and the bear... saved me eight acres of hell... it was right clever."

Simon's jaw was already tired from holding his own mouth open. "You know, Bogg, I've been wondering."

Mouth wide open, Bogg said, "Uh-huh?"

"If splintercat skin is so invulnerable..."

"Uh-huh?"

"How did you kill it?"

Bogg pulled his tongue in so he could grin devilishly. The sound of rain in the trees hissed around them, heavier and heavier, and steam rose from the fire pit as drops fell in and sizzled.

"It's wasteful to talk in rain like this, boy. Got to drink while the drinking's good." Bogg opened his mouth.

The rain was too heavy for Simon. He reached over and sipped from the frying pan, and decided that was enough for him. He ducked into the lean-to and tried to sleep.

#

Chapter 13

Simon dreamt of following tracks.

He walked along, eyes to the soft earth, knowing he'd seen these tracks before, but all the same feeling in awe of them. They were tracks of someone walking barefoot, and Simon could fit his shoe inside each track with plenty of room all around it. They were three times the length of Simon's shoes, and touched the earth every five feet or so.

Simon felt like he should know who he was following, but he didn't. He felt like he was close, and it bothered him. He was unprepared.

The tracks came to a gully. A tree had been pushed over to bridge the gap, and Simon knew he had to cross. The roots of the tree splayed wide, sheltering the broken earth that had held them.

Simon scrabbled up on the log and stepped out over the gully. It was only eight or ten feet down to pebbles and ferns and a trickling stream below, but crossing over the gully took all of his willpower. It was another forest on the other side, a different forest, one he didn't know.

Once across, he jumped down from the log, and there in the ground was another track. He followed the trail.

He had to be close. Simon looked up, and saw an enormous figure walking through the woods, obscured by branches.

Simon sprinted to catch up, but couldn't get any closer. The figure strode away from him, walking its own course, paying him no attention. It was at least twelve feet tall, wore no clothing, and was covered head to toe in dull orange-brown fur.

Simon was scared but kept running after it.

It turned to face him and Simon stopped short. Its orange hair grew everywhere but the palms of its hands and on its face, where the skin was dark and smooth. It had a wide mouth, animal-like, and a flat nose, and eyes with orange irises that seemed human and peaceful.

Breath heaved in and out of Simon's lungs. He and the giant watched each other.

"Hi," Simon said at last.

The giant spoke to him.

Tlal, it said.

Tlal, non trofos, galdo hama.

"I don't understand."

Tlal. Galdo hama wren fono sam clochos. Chenoo.

Simon wanted the words to make sense. He was missing what the giant was saying, and that scared him. He tried to calm down and be still. The giant sat on the ground and its dark face was level with Simon's.

Kath manack lalo feldus nok-toth. Non trofos. Galdo hama. Sloros Ahm.

It rose smoothly to its feet and stood there, treelike.

Tlal.

Its enormous hairy body pivoted away, starting into the forest, building speed to its walking pace. Simon ran after it. The giant wild man was too fast, though, and it gradually pulled away until Simon could only catch glimpses of its orange-brown fur through the trees. He was going to lose it in these trees, and then where would he be?

Then it stopped.

Simon caught up. It stood at a ridge overlooking a clearing at the bottom of a hill. There were three men down there, kneeling around a fourth, who lay unmoving. Simon couldn't see them clearly, it was too far.

The giant wild man raised a hairy arm as long as Simon's body and pointed.

A cooking fire burned a short distance from the men. Their backs were to it. There was a fifth man there, tending the fire. Something was roasting on a spit over the flames.

Simon caught his breath. It had arms and legs, like a tiny person.

Tlal. Chenoo. Sloros Ahm.

Simon nodded, uncertain what the message was. "Tlal," he said.

#

Some kind of noise kicked Bogg out of his happy sleeping. It was the pup, rolling another log to the fire, wrestling it in with his skinny arms. The log was wet and it hissed as the fire dried it out.

No rain falling at the moment. The sky was starless and dark as a cave, though, and the air felt heavy with water. The fire had survived the rain, Bogg reckoned, and the pup had restoked it.

The little feller sat with his legs tucked under him, sideways to the fire.

"Here now, pup," Bogg grumbled. "Can't you sleep?"

The pup's face was pale and serious in the firelight. He propped his book in his lap. "I'm reading."

Bogg frowned. "Long day tomorrow."

"I just want to look something up."

"What?"

The boy wore an uncertain expression, like he was just beginning to feel a bellyache coming on. "I'm not sure." His mouth hung open a little, and Bogg waited for him to decide if he would say more. The boy didn't. Instead, he opened the book and peered at the pages with his magnifying glass.

Bogg lay there, listening to the fire crackle anew and watching the pup read. The pup was a wonder. He held his glass steady as a stone. It drifted over the page like a sail over a calm sea, bending the firelight into orange spots that glowed on the page. The brass frame that held the lens was tarnished, and the wooden handle the pup clutched in his small fingers was worn smooth and smudged dull gray with printer's ink. Bogg reckoned the glass was twice the boy's age, or more.

Reading was a neat trick, Bogg had no doubt. But he couldn't see a body trading sleep for it. And he had never heard of anyone doing it with a glass like that. "That glass you use. What's it do?"

The boy didn't look up. "It makes the print bigger."

Bogg's jaw worked back and forth. He drew his hand from under his cloak to scratch at his beard. "Why not make a bigger book?"

The boy looked at Bogg and sighed. He passed the lens to him, its old handle extended neatly out. "Not everyone needs to use a magnifying glass to read. Only some people."

Bogg took the glass and looked at the campfire. Flames splashed up at him through the lens and he jerked back. "Jupiter's boots, would you look at that!"

Bogg peered around the lean-to. Most everything was blurry, more blurry than the drunkest Bogg had ever been.

The pup ignored him. In fact, the pup went back to his book.

Bogg considered the glass in his hand and scowled. "What are you doing, pup?"

"Reading."

"Without this?"

"I don't need it to read."

Bogg was flummoxed. He stuck his tongue in his toothhole. "Then why in tarnation do you bother hauling this thing along?"

The pup shrugged. "I don't know."

"What? Sure you do."

The pup was quiet, and seemed to consider it for a time. "It belonged to my father."

Bogg's first thought was that the pup's answer weren't no answer at all. Then Bogg thought that maybe it was indeed.

Just then, a heavy drop of rain slapped the book's open page. The pup stared at the black sky, looking cross. More drops pattered down, some hissing in the fire.

Bogg felt an icy drop on his cheek. "Well. That's that."

All they could do was bundle up in the lean-to and try to stay dry. It drizzled off-and-on like that, uncertain, for the rest of the night.

#

Tiberius Bogg dreamed of walking a thousand miles.

The trees were thick and green and a type he didn't know. His new boots were wore out now, his food long gone, and his gut shrunk and skinny.

He didn't have his black cloak, and couldn't remember what might have happened to it, but at the same time its missing didn't bother him much.

He had never been so hungry.

Bogg stopped pushing through the brush and listened. There was no sound of any living thing bigger than bird or bug, not for miles around. He had no memory of the last time he had seen a human. He took in the silence for a spell, waiting, hoping for a particular noise. Not yet.

He pushed on through the green. It seemed thicker and tanglier than woods had any business to be, and it took all his effort to fight through it. In time, he listened again.

There was breathing now, under the silence, deep and peaceful. Ahead, through the green brush, he could see blue sky. He pushed his way to it, and when the branches gave way, he found himself at the top of a cliff. It was a drop to a rocky beach, and the surf of the Hestern Sea breathed its steady breaths on the rocks below. Blue sky and bluer ocean met at a perfect line in the distance. It was bigger and deeper and more beautiful than he could have imagined.

He stepped over the edge and, somehow, slid his way down safely. At the bottom, he climbed over the rocks of the beach. They pressed hard and rugged under the thin soles of his boots, and their dusting of sand felt gritty on his palms. He crawled boulder-to-boulder toward the water like a lonely crab, and leapt from the rocks to damp white sand. Waves crashed and shot up spray, hiding that distant perfect line, then settled into a flat layer of water that rushed over the sand to him. He waded out. Water pushed into his boots, and the Hestern Sea touched him at last.

The coldness of the water shocked him, and he felt alive.

#

Chapter 14

Uilleam lay in the gentle rain with his back against a tree. His soaked gray hair matted on his forehead, and he wondered if the links in his chain mail were rusting yet. The anguish in his left arm pulsed from the shoulder to the fingertips and back, as if all the muscles and tendons were being gnawed by demons. As a warrior, he had felt pain before, but this was the worst.

The darkness of the long night was lifting. Dull, shadowless light came from clouds so low that they hid the tops of the trees. Wisps of fog flowed between the trunks, sinking, masking colors and details.

He closed his eyes.

He was too old for this. He should be captain of his own privateering vessel by now. He had hoped that by casting his lot with Tyrus that he would catapult to power. Tyrus was the best natural leader and fighter that Uilleam had ever seen. Surely, Uilleam had thought, this was a man to follow if power was the goal.

Uilleam knew now that Tyrus was too indomitable and left a vacuum of power around him. Within Tyrus's miasma of absolute domination, Uilleam had no chance of leadership.

It didn't matter now. With this arm, Uilleam was destined for early retirement, or worse.

Heavy footsteps crunched their way to him, and Cadogan's sardonic voice: "Breakfast?"

Uilleam could not escape the pain and danger of his situation, and wondered why he had to endure Cadogan as well. He opened his eyes.

Cadogan offered a vivet arm. Its green skin had charred black over last night's fire, and split to show roasted white flesh. Cadogan grinned, showing crooked teeth in a mouth surrounded by wiry red beard hairs. "It's good. It's a bit like rabbit and a bit like sweet potato. I don't know what to make of that, but quite nourishing--"

"Get that away from me!"

"Well, now." Cadogan withdrew the limb. "That's gratitude in Uilleam Land, is it? Let me take a moment to work this through. You four lacked the insight and resourcefulness to keep our rightfully taken prey yesterday. I did not. You four are hungry. I am not hungry. I have the goodwill to extend this, er," Cadogan considered the limb, gripped it by the shoulder stump and thrust the little hand, now a blackened claw, at Uilleam. "That is, the hand of friendship..." Cadogan snickered, lost control and guffawed.

Uilleam prayed silently for relief.

Cadogan's mirth suddenly vanished. "And you feeble-minded scarecrows spurn me!" he roared. "Starve, then! Rot!"

Cadogan dropped to his knees and pressed his face to Uilleam's. "But think on this," he whispered, and his breath was foul with vivet flesh, "if you won't feast on my arm, then perhaps soon..." Cadogan sniffed deeply at Uilleam's wound. "Oh, it smells all right now, old Uilleam, but let's give it time. Time! Tyrus's sword will do the job..." Cadogan's greasy finger drew a line along Uilleam's shoulder. "Here, perhaps. And we'll have ourselves another meal. Maybe you'll have the sense to partake then!"

Tyrus stood behind him. "Cadogan."

Cadogan snapped to attention. "My lord."

Tyrus's cold eyes pierced Cadogan. Tyrus's eagle nose, his stature, the lionlike way he stood motionless, ignoring the rain coursing down his long brown hair, even his deep and powerful voice, all spoke to his destiny to command. It was a destiny Uilleam would have ascribed to himself many years ago.

"Don't speak of Blodleter," Tyrus said. "Don't speak to Uilleam, unless relaying a message. Tend your duties. We're moving."

Cadogan nodded and slinked away. Tyrus kneeled at Uilleam's side. "Zane is back."

"Did he catch anything?"

"Nothing. Settler's Pass is close."

Uphill, and soon in snow. Uilleam closed his eyes and readied himself for the march.

#

Chapter 15

Rain, Bogg thought, let's you know you're alive. It ain't common, as in every single day, and it ain't unhealthy neither. Perfect. Bogg loved rain. He put on the woolens and osnaburg trousers under his skins, fit his coonskin cap firmly on his head, and packed up camp while the pup boiled up a bit of rice.

They had food for today and no more, so he'd keep his eyes peeled on the trail for game. Hunting and trapping were easy enough when you stayed in one place \-- Bogg had lived pretty high in the days when he'd laid out traps on a ten mile loop and kept walking it over and over. That was a pleasant life. But catching enough to eat when you were hustling to cover ground, well, that was different. More like climbing a greased pole with two baskets of eggs.

Take that coneybuck, for example. If he'd had a place to tan the skin, he would have made the pup a nice hat to keep the rain off him. As he was, his black hair was soaked all the time, hanging nearly in his eyes, making him look cold and sad.

Bogg didn't worry himself. If they had to stop and forage, then they'd stop. It meant his quarry would get ahead of him, and that set his teeth on edge. But at least, he cheered himself, the rapscallions must be right peckish themselves at this point.

Bogg and Simon lit out into the pines, their shoes kicking dew off the patches of grass as they walked. It was barely a mile before they hit the hill. The pines just kept on growing, a whole forest set on an endless slope, higher and higher.

The pup looked up there like it was nine miles of briar patch. "Are you sure they went this way?"

"I got a feeling." Bogg had no idea. This was vaguely the way to Settler's Pass. That's all he knew. If he didn't pick up the trail soon, Bogg wasn't sure what he would do. "Come on. Up we go."

After an hour, the rain seemed to run out. Drops still sprinkled from the wet trees. Simon called, "Can we rest?"

"Let's not lose them now."

After another hour, Simon's voice came from behind him. "Now can we rest?"

"Fair enough." Bogg dropped his pack and saddlebags and stretched out with his back against them. The sky was bright white. Bogg figured Whoever was up there would throw down another armload soon.

A flock of black dots sashayed beyond the treetops. Bogg watched them for a bit, unsure what they were. Then he had a guess. "Hey, Simon! Look at this."

The pup sat beside him and followed his pointing arm. "Where?"

"See those birds up there?"

Simon frowned. "No."

"They're nearly gone now. There! Six of them. Thunderbirds."

Simon's jaw hung down a little. "No way."

"Indeedy."

"They look like normal birds."

Bogg grinned. "That's a common mistake. In the sky like that, it's hard to judge distance. Lots of times, thunderbirds are mistaken for smaller birds that are closer. Leads to the misconception that thunderbirds are rare and unusual."

"I've never seen one."

"Maybe you have and you don't know it."

Simon smiled and shook his head.

The birds were gone now, maybe heading aust for the winter, Bogg didn't know. "I understand they have rocs in Algolus. The thunderbird must be its Miran kin. They're too big to snare, anyhow. Let's tramp on."

They hiked until almost noon, hill and pines, pines and hill. Bogg felt hunger and decided to forget the feeling, like he often did in the deep wilderness, where he might miss a day's eating without much strain. But then, if Bogg was feeling it, the boy must be, too.

The shade of the trees broke up ahead, and the ground was lit with cloudy white light. A clearing.

As Bogg and Simon approached, they saw it was no ordinary clearing.

Twoscore-odd trees had been cut down.

Maybe more. All slashed at waist height, or chopped at shoulder height, and scattered every which way among the tall stumps, lying on their broken branches that propped the trunks off the ground. Bogg ran his fingers along the top of a stump and felt the stickiness of fresh pine sap. A day ago, maybe two. The cut was clean, made by something sharper than normal, with a more than healthy amount of power behind it. "This was cut by a man who eats his peas. I'd say we found the trail we were looking for."

"Hey, Bogg!" The kid pointed at the ground. "Is this blood?"

Bogg leaned close. It surely was. Human, or near enough, two splatters with a man's width between them. "That's a goes-inta wound and a goes-outa wound," Bogg said. "Somebody got shot clean through, with an arrow, or a firelock ball, or..." Bogg cast about, gandering for small traces.

It was such a mess of busted trees. He couldn't make sense of it. Bogg stretched his back. The clouds were thick and overcasting, and all the light was soft and shadowless.

He found a finger-sized hole in the stump of a tree that had been cut down at eyeball-height. He peered into the hole, then pressed his fang dagger into the wood. After a spell of whittling, Bogg cut out a golden ball the size of cat's eye. He tossed it in the air and caught it, hearing the sound as it slapped hard in his palm. He handed it to Simon.

The pup peered at it in his hand. "It's heavy!" It sparkled in the white light from the sky.

"It's gold. Vivets."

Simon's eyebrows shot up. "Vivets chop down trees?"

"Why, that's the most cockamamie flapdoodle I ever heard! You think vivets did this?"

The pup's adam's apple wheeled up and down in his throat as he looked at the mess. "Those men did this. I don't see why. Were the vivets in the trees?"

"Give it." Bogg stuck out his paw, and the pup dropped the gold ball in his palm. It surely was a treasure, but Bogg knew better than to keep it, or even hive it someplace safe. "This stays here." He pitched it away.

Bogg leapt onto a fallen tree and stalked along it, searching, weaving between the branches. The pup followed him. Bogg climbed onto a fallen trunk that crossed over the first, and turned right. Simon turned left.

The boy called out a minute later. "What's this?"

Bogg looked up, and was flamboozled for a moment at how dark everything was. Then the shadow lifted and the light was back to pale and shadowless. "What was that?"

"This!" The boy pointed at the trunk. He seemed to have missed whatever it was. Bogg swung between the branches until he could follow the boy's finger to the glistening white stain on the bark.

Bogg had seen greenie blood once before in his life. It had been at the start of some troubles, rather than near the end, and Bogg had the feeling it would be the same this time.

"And these." Simon held up something in each small hand. A greenie sling and necklace.

"Godzooks, lad, don't touch those! You'll jinx us."

A breeze picked up suddenly, and the shadow came back. Bogg searched the sky for the cause of the peculiar weather. He saw nothing but gigantic black feathers.

#

Chapter 16

The tree Bogg and the pup were standing on bucked up and threw them. Bogg flipped through the air, catching a glimpse of his boots over his head, his boots against clouds, his boots against black feathers, then a close-up view of pine cones, needles, and scraps of dead bark as his face hit the dirt.

He rolled over.

A thunderbird had landed on the far end of the tree they'd been standing on, the very spot Bogg had been when Simon had called him.

Well -- one foot was on the tree. The other was perched on another tree across the clearing.

The critter was still settling, flapping its hundred-foot wings. Its head weaved on the end of a flexible black-feathered neck, with a white crest and red eyes high enough to search over the treetops. Its beak, smooth and yellow as egg yolk, could have snipped Bogg in half, easy. The trees it held rocked and shifted, gripped in claws as black and shining as river stones.

Its beak and talons were falconlike, but it was tall and gangly like a wren.

Where the devil was the pup?

The thunderbird sighted on Bogg and stared straight down at him, its yellow beak making a razor-sharp V-point between its red eyes.

Run? Fight? Bogg had a quick vision of his arms and legs being dropped down the throats of some horse-sized and hungry chicks on some mountaintop a hundred miles away.

The thunderbird squawked at him, and he went stone deaf.

It flapped its black wings and took off in a power of wind. The two trees in its talons went with it, scraping along other trees and flinging branches through the air, until the trees came free. The thunderbird lifted up and disappeared.

Bogg lay on his back for a spell, wondering if Simon was all right. By and by, he could hear birds chirping and a breeze blowing through the trees. Regular birds and regular breeze. He reckoned he was all right. He sat up.

Simon appeared from behind a six-footer stump. His whole body trembled and wiggled.

"Pup," Bogg said. "You look just about scared skinny. I thought you might have got et."

"It took the trees."

Bogg shrugged. "Must be nesting season."

Simon giggled and looked dumbfoundedly at his own quivering body. He still held the sling and necklace.

"Put those down," Bogg said.

"The world is a goose," Simon replied, shaking a little less.

Bogg grunted. "I mean it."

Simon wandered off among the tangle of logs.

Just as Bogg had himself pulled together, something black waved in the air over the fallen trees. Another one! Bogg hollered with fright.

Simon giggled and waved the nine-foot thunderbird feather. "And those that do not pluck--"

Bogg scowled and jutted out his chin. "Nice to see you ain't hurt. Come on." At the far end of the clearing, Bogg spied a soggy Algolan boot print, and reckoned that was the way to go.

Simon followed, carrying the thunderbird feather by the stalk in one hand. "It's so light!" It bobbed behind him. "If I had two, I could flap them." He gripped it in both hands and swung it down hard, and his feet spent a couple of seconds off the ground.

Down among the pine needles shone a drop of white. Vivet's blood, out here, on the trail left by the quarry. That didn't bode well.

After a couple hours of hiking uphill, the pup didn't seem nearly so chipper. The rain started again, drizzily-mizzily, and that seemed to weigh the lad down and make him slump. He huffed and puffed and slogged along. The happiest thing about him, Bogg noticed, was that feather. The rain beaded on it like little gems, and the end of it bobbed above the ground, about as heavy as air.

Gray clouds peeked through the trees ahead, and Bogg reckoned the hill was about done. They came out of the trees onto a ridge. It was rocky here, and mostly open space. They rested and swallowed a bit of dry rice with gulps of water from their last waterskin.

"Are we close to Settler's Pass?" Simon asked.

"Nope. It's all higher than this. Past those clouds." The view down was better. The brown ribbon of Muddy River wove through the green hills to the eost, and swelled into the big brown puddle of Massacre Lake. Cloud cover hid the Slumbering Hills and the ocean. To the sept and hest, great waves of pine trees lifted into the clouds.

The pup hunched over a spot on the ground, his feather sticking out behind him like he'd sprouted it himself. His fingers touched the mud. "It's a track."

Bogg checked it. "It's a muddy spot."

"It's a giant footprint. The rain has disintegrated it."

Bogg looked again. "Lad, I know tracks big and small, even the ones been rained on."

Simon pointed. "Heel! Toes!"

Bogg's jaw worked back and forth. Many years back, he had known a fur trader who had been out in the sticks a long time, and came to think he was a beaver. Bogg gave him a stick to gnaw on, and they had gotten along all right. "Well... it seems to be going our way. Wouldn't you say?"

Simon's gray eyes fairly lit up with determination. He swallowed. Then he looked to Bogg and nodded.

"Off we march then," said Bogg. "Like a herd of turtles." He stuck his tongue in his tooth hole.

The ground was flat enough, and Bogg felt his legs stretch out as he walked, a good feeling after all that hill they had climbed. The trees grew farther apart, and bigger, redwoods among the pines, with plenty of hip-high greenery between them. The trees dripped so much water, Bogg couldn't tell if it was raining or not.

Simon scampered ahead, dragging his weightless feather, sand in his craw about something. Bogg spotted a boot print now and again, and reckoned all was well. They came to a gully, just a little thing, eight or ten feet deep, with a stream trickling through at the bottom. Since it looked like fresh runoff from the rain, Bogg worked his way down the muddy, crumbling side and filled a waterskin.

Bogg picked his way down the gully a ways, looking for a simple place to climb out the other side. Simon never set foot in the gully. Bogg watched the pup follow the edge to a deadfall across the gully. It was a fat log and looked fresh and plenty strong - not brittle or cracked. Bogg didn't think it would give the pup any trouble, but how that pup did squirm and squeal when he saw it.

Bogg considered Simon by that log, and took a moment to give the matter a good think.

And Bogg had it. The pup recognized that log across the gully. Like he'd seen it before. Bogg didn't see any way how that could be. At least, none that would answer. But there it was.

The pup climbed up the bark just past where the roots had torn up from the ground. He took a moment to look around, then he teetered his way across. Bogg had never seen him looking this antsy. He was so worked up, in fact, that he plumb dropped his thunderbird feather. It hung in the air.

"I got it, lad," Bogg said from below.

But Simon reached for it and lost his balance, swung his arms, collapsed and sort of scrabbled at the bark. Bogg raced to get under him, but didn't make it. Simon rolled off and dropped ten feet to the gulley floor with an unfortunate-sounding hollow thump and crack.

#

Chapter 17

The feather followed the breeze down the gulley.

Bogg splashed down the stream to Simon and kneeled at his side. The water was gurgling around him, and he was shivering in it, with his legs twisted around under him, one of them crookeder than a barrel of snakes.

"Great Jupiter, pup! Hold still now. I thought I heard something go."

"My leg," Simon whimpered.

"Easy now. Yeah, that leg took a beating. How's the rest of you?"

The pup held back sobs. "It hurts. Oh, that was stupid."

"Don't start that. It was a good, honest fall. Hang on, I'm going to unwind you a little." Bogg squeezed the leg that looked okay to see if Simon hollered. When he didn't, Bogg lifted it out of the way. The leg underneath was definitely broken. Bogg probed--

And he hollered, high-pitched and sing-songy like a dying bird.

Bogg let go, and Simon breathed in exhausted gasps.

"Well, now." Bogg wiped his hand down over his beard and thought on it. He had to get the pup out of the brook. It was like icewater, and with that busted leg, it could kill him. Bogg had seen that sort of thing before. But where would Bogg take him? The sides of the gully were too steep to carry him out. And once Bogg got him out, what then? Set the leg -- now that was something the pup would remember for the rest of his life -- and... get him to a town.

A town? Where?

Slow down, he told himself. You're getting discombobulated. The quickest way to do many things is to do one thing at a time.

Bogg lifted Simon from the stream. The wee lad was soaked and freezing, and as Bogg had always suspicioned, hardly weighed a thing. Bogg's boots splashed in the stream, step after step, as he passed under the log and looked for a spot where he could climb up from the gulley with his arms full.

He walked a quarter mile.

Simon was pale, limp, and shivery as Bogg fought up the gulley slope and laid him down in the grass. Bogg wiped the sheen from Simon's forehead. "You're sweating."

"I'm freezing," Simon muttered.

"You're shocked. Once I was travelling with a feller, and he got thrown by a horse. Broke his arms. It was a week before help arrived, and I thought he'd make it, but he just sweated and talked funny and... and I got no reason to tell you that story."

"I'm going to die."

"I don't think so. I can't figure you out, though, laughing off she-bears and thunderbirds just to fall off a damn log."

Simon smiled, and Bogg reckoned it was a decent sign. "Lay still. I'll build a shelter over you and start a fire." He glanced at the gray sky. "Cuss this drizzle. It's getting colder. Hey..." Bogg swung the saddlebags off his shoulder and rummaged through them until he found the pint of rum. "Here. Drink this."

"What is it?"

"A tragedy. I've been carrying that for four days, and now you're the one who gets to drink it. But you need it, because I'm going to set that leg as soon as you're warm."

Simon sniffed it and his face twisted up. He sipped and coughed.

"Good land!" Bogg said. "Don't spray it everywhere. Here!" Bogg snatched it and sipped. He swished it in his mouth -- fiery! -- and handed the bottle back. "It's fine. Go on."

Maybe he should check it again.

Instead he built a lean-to, and when it was done, Bogg set Simon inside as carefully as he could and wrapped the boy in his black cloak. Then he built a fire. With all the damp wood about, getting a fire lit took a lot of his tinder. By then, fog had sunk from the trees and sat on the ground in ghostly pools, and the day's light slipped away.

Simon pulled the cloak to his chin. "This old thing."

"Drink."

"It's warm."

"Drink." Branches crackled, hissed, and puffed out white smoke as the fire dried them.

"But not impervious." The lad's voice came slow and easy, on account of the rum, or the shock, or most likely both. "That's crazy. Hell, it's probably just a regular panther skin."

"It's a regular splintercat skin. Panthers... now, they're the ones irregular in these parts."

"How did you kill it? Did you strangle it with your bare hands, mighty Bogg?" Simon smiled.

Bogg frowned and jutted his chin out. "I'll tolerate that sass, on account of your weakened state. I'll even share the story."

"Oh? Lovely."

"They ain't the brightest of creatures, truth be told." Bogg crawled to Simon's feet and hunkered down with his backside past the end of the lean-to. Once he was in place, Bogg's fingertips probed along Simon's broken leg. "I was hiking along Sore Thumb, and it came whipping out of the trees and knocked me in the water. It was going so fast we both went in. I just held it down."

"That's it?"

Bogg sat down and stuck his legs out, fitting his bare feet into Simon's armpits. "That's it." He found a firm grip on Simon's ankle. "Any rum left?"

"No. It's gone."

"Good." Bogg yanked.

Simon put up a power of hollering, and Bogg's ears rang such that he thought of the thunderbird squawking at him earlier that day. In his mind, Bogg tried to misplace his ears and concentrate on what his fingers told him.

The bone felt about like it slipped home. Bogg let go.

The pup couldn't do anything but sob and gasp. Bogg listened respectfully for a while, then decided his being there wasn't no good, so he stepped outside and stood in the come-and-go drizzle and blinked.

The clouds up there were dark and angry and nowhere near done yet. He felt the rain on his face and blinked some more.

When Bogg was ready, he ducked under again, cinched a splint on Simon's leg and covered him up properly. "There." Bogg boiled the last of the rice in water from the stream, and fed spoonfuls of it to the pup, who got sleepier and sleepier, chewing slower and slower.

Soon enough it was completely dark, and there was nothing else Bogg could do but stretch out beside the boy and try to sleep.

#

The pain in Simon's leg woke him up.

He had fuzzy memories of the evening before. Drinking rum. Bogg yanking on his leg. Before that, the feather drifting away from him over the log, like it was made of smoke.

The splint was tight. His head hurt. And he was hungry. And Bogg was not beside him.

There was misty gray light outside, and the fire crackled and glowed. "Bogg?"

Boots crunched in the grass, and Bogg's head appeared. "You look right fit this morning."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to scare up some victuals."

Simon swallowed, and it hurt his head. "You're leaving me?"

"Great horny toads, pup. You're still shocked." Bogg reached in with a long stick and prodded Simon's chest with it. The end branched into a natural trident, and Bogg had sharpened all three points, even whittling the knots into barbs. "I figure the stream in that gulley will end in a pond sooner or later. Going fishing."

Simon closed his eyes. "Bogg... I'm sorry. I lost them. I let them get away. It's over."

Bogg shook his head. "Easy does it now. When you eat, you'll feel better. An empty wagon rattles the most. I reckon we'll be here a while, so I set my three sticks under a log over yonder, and a couple more snares as well." Bogg grinned, and the gap in his teeth showed. "So stay put."

"I wanted to make it. To prove I could do it. But I didn't."

Bogg seemed to consider that. "Hmph. I'll be back before dark."

#

Chapter 18

Once it was clear that the penal colonies on Mira were thriving, opinions of that distant land among the nations of Algolus began to change. Mira became an option for exiles and refugees. Within a century, several communities had established themselves on Miran coasts. Naturally, efforts by Algolan royal houses to administer these colonies met with difficulty. Many of these new colonies have paid taxes late or not at all, or have ousted royal governors. Some have abandoned their Algolan benefactors altogether.

Soon, the generations of children that grow up on Mira will be wholly ignorant of their rich Algolan cultural heritage. They will be a people without history and without tradition. Even now, sailors returning from Mira report that the local tongue is changing, as are names of people and places. They are becoming difficult to understand, and unless something is done, perhaps soon they will be lost to us forever.

Excerpt from the Introduction to _Survival in the Miran Wilds_

by Dugan Wisefoot

#

Simon endured a slow, painful day. The rain was icy and dripped inside the lean-to. Around noon, he heard the thud of something heavy hitting the ground, but he couldn't turn himself to see. He hoped it was one of Bogg's snares.

He wondered about how well his leg would heal, and where Bogg would drop him off. Some coastal town on the peninsula, maybe. Simon didn't want to go back to Fort Sanctuary, and he doubted Bogg would take him that far. And what would Bogg do after that?

From where he lay, he tipped another log into the fire. Then he wiped off his magnifying lens and searched Survival in the Miran Wilds again for any reference to a creature like the wild man he had seen in his dream. He found...

Grassman.

Old Yellowtop.

Skunk Ape.

Tainted Keitre.

He found nothing. The memory of the dream itself seemed to slip into the distance, and he had to struggle to recall it.

He flipped through the book, reading chapter after chapter. Most of it was nonsense.

Finally, he pushed the book aside and gazed sadly at the magnifying lens, turning it over and over in his hands.

It didn't matter now.

And then, almost with resignation, his memory gave up what had happened on that awful morning in Fort Sanctuary. It came slowly at first, quiet and unbidden, then fast and vivid as a wildfire.

#

Simon ran down the alley, hoping that his pumping arms and pounding feet would drive the image of Yohann Gordon's death from his mind. It didn't work. That awful spray of blood -- who were these monsters? When the red-headed man had pointed that wet axe at Simon, Simon's heart nearly stopped from terror.

Simon ran to the only place he could think of going -- home, to where his father was. He burst through the heavy oak front door, slammed it behind him, and slid the iron bolt in place. "Father?"

He wiped sweat from his forehead and pressed his back to the door, panting. The one-room house was empty. Just the stone wall and hearth with two firelocks crossed over the mantle, a bookshelf, some printing equipment, and the desk in the corner where his father wrote. Near the pantry sat a stack of damp paper under a lead plate. Paper held ink better that way, wetted and pressed. Those sheets must be due at the printing house tomorrow.

Simon was alone. He swallowed hard. This door wouldn't hold off those raiders. What could he do? Where was his father?

The screams of women rang through the stout door. Then the distant blast of a firelock, the clang of steel on steel, and the screams of men, desperate, dying. Simon trembled and leaned against the door. The sliding bolt dug into his shoulder.

But the room before him was quiet. A tea kettle, old and scorched, hung in the fireplace. Two beds in the corner, large and small. Their linens looked worn and comfortable. He would give anything to sip that tea, to recline in that bed, to wish away the horror outside.

A fierce pounding on the door shook through him. Simon's breath caught in his throat. That had to be them -- this was the end.

"Simon!" his father hissed, his voice sounding as if his lips were close to the door jamb. "Open this door!"

Simon's shaking hands pulled back the bolt and Oliver Jones burst in. He slammed and rebolted the door, and they watched each other for a moment, father and son hovering -- Simon nearly threw his arms around him, but didn't. The moment ended.

"We're safe now," Oliver said, leaning against the door just as Simon had. He nodded his head and closed his eyes, and his spectacles slipped down to the end of his nose.

"Who are they?" Simon asked.

"I've no idea."

Everything was different now that his father was here. "But what can we do?" Simon said. "They--"

"Calm down. We shall stay right here."

Simon's fear had left him, but its restless energy remained in his limbs. "Shouldn't we help?"

"Be still!"

The noises from outside faded. After a minute of silence, Oliver said, "There, you see? Just be still."

Something struck the door with a deafening crack. The blow shook the door so violently that Oliver was thrown to the floor, along with the door's upper hinge. It lay there beside him, dented, oak splinters clinging to its broken bolts.

In the door, where the hinge had held it, protruded the blade of an axe. It glinted, dark with blood, turning this way and that, until the door split and gave way. Oliver scrambled clear as the lower hinge bent and cracked, and the door fell.

The red-headed warrior -- the one called Cadogan -- stepped proudly into the little house, laughing and shaking his braids. His shield, with its blue unicorn, hung casually from his left forearm so he could swing his axe two-handed like a lumberjack. "You again!" he said to Simon. "I thought I saw you dart in here."

Oliver and Simon scrambled away from him. Oliver crossed the room in a flash and pulled the firelocks from their brackets on the stone mantle.

Cadogan dropped his axe and snatched up Simon in both hands. Just as Oliver aimed the weapons at Cadogan, Cadogan held Simon up between them, in Oliver's line of fire.

Simon stared at the iron barrels of the firelocks leveled at him, as Cadogan's powerful hands squeezed his ribs. His feet kicked empty air, and the grim determination in his father's face melted to quivering terror.

"Go ahead and shoot." Cadogan's breath was hot and foul on the back of Simon's neck. Simon was being squeezed so hard that he couldn't draw a breath.

The barrels leveled at him wavered. Oliver swallowed. "Damn you."

"Make no mistake!" Cadogan barked. "It's not a suggestion. Shoot!" He laughed and shook Simon's body. "I insist!"

The agony in Simon's ribs was more than he could bear. Tears welled in his eyes, and his arms and legs went limp.

"Simon," Oliver whispered. "Make yourself small."

Simon drew on the last of his strength and pulled his knees to his chest.

Oliver spread his arms, aiming one firelock high and the other low. "Your shield is insuffient." Rage shook his voice. "Now you choose, fiend. In the leg? Or between the eyes?"

Cadogan's grip weakened. Simon wrapped his arms around his knees and ducked his head as much as he could. Cadogan snarled and took a step back toward the door.

A man's voice in the distance, stern and commanding, called, "Cadogan?"

"Duty calls." Cadogan flung Simon at Oliver and darted out the door.

He was gone! Simon collapsed at his father's feet. He felt his father's arms around him, and all the horror and pain in him fell mute.

The same man's voice, outside. "Where is your axe?"

Simon lifted his head and turned. The monster's axe still lay beside the broken door. A shadow passed over the threshhold. Simon felt his body tense.

Another man in chain mail appeared in the doorway, slow and lionlike. Brown hair, straight and thick, fell past his shoulders. His face was tan, his jaw square and his nose like an eagle's beak. His eyes swept the room, narrow and piercing. He showed no alarm at the two firelocks now pointed at him, and didn't bother to raise his wooden shield, with its blue unicorn. Over his shoulder gleamed the golden pommel of a broadsword sheathed on his back.

"Get out!" Oliver demanded.

"What village is this?" asked the man.

Oliver didn't answer. His firelocks tracked the man as he stepped from the doorway to the pantry. The intruder's head nearly brushed the beams in the ceiling. He reached for a loaf of bread on a shelf.

"Stop!" Oliver's arms flexed, and Simon knew he was about to fire.

The man seemed to be waiting for it. Simon opened his mouth to call a warning, but it was already too late -- the man snatched the lead plate off the paper stack and raised it as Oliver's firelocks boomed and threw sparks that lit the walls.

The firelock balls rang off the lead plate in the stranger's hands. The burning stink of gunpowder smoke filled the air and two shining dimples now appeared in the plate, in front of the stranger's chest.

"That was a mistake." The man flung the plate at Oliver. It struck him in the stomach, knocking him down and sending the empty firelocks spinning.

Simon scrambled to Cadogan's axe and heaved at the handle, but it was too heavy. The blade clung to the floor.

The man siezed the loaf, tucked it under his shield arm, and drew his sword. Oliver lay stunned at his feet.

"No!" Simon raised the axe a few inches and took a step toward him. Panic coursed in his veins, and he wished for the strength to bury the axe in the stranger before he--

But it was too late. The sword hovered over Simon's father for just an instant before it flashed down on him.

Simon screamed and swung. The man didn't even parry with his sword. He simply caught the axe in his shield hand and lifted it out of Simon's grasp. With his boot, he kicked Simon out of his way. As he strode out, Simon lay on his back, lacking even the strength to crawl to his father's side.

#

Inside the shelter, Simon didn't move. His leg ached and felt swollen. The rain stopped. Smoke from the fire, white and heavy, hung in the air like fog and burned his eyes.

He wondered if there was a dead animal in Bogg's snare outside. There was nothing else to think about. The call of a single lonely bird sounded persistently in a tree high above him.

#

Chapter 19

Tyrus and his four men marched among the pines.

They trailed behind him. Zane stayed closest, his sharp eyes narrowed and scanning, his nimble blue-gloved fingers ready to draw string and drive an arrow through any creature he saw.

Next was Uilleam, leaning heavily on lumbering Yolaf. Uilleam's shoulder was worse, his chance of survival dwindling. Yolaf's stomach growled loud enough for all of them to hear.

Cadogan the Red was last, well back. Tyrus could feel his beady, unbalanced eyes on the rest of them.

There was no snow on the ground yet, but the air was heavy with cold, and their breaths came out as thick clouds of mist. They would see snow before the day was over, Tyrus felt sure.

Tyrus turned and waited, to give his men time to catch up and tighten ranks. The treed slope dropped away behind him, wild, green, and desolate. Through breaks in the pines, he could see down to the hills they'd climbed the day before. There, beyond an outcropping of dark, wet granite, gray smoke rose from the trees, tiny, but standing out clearly against the green background.

A small campfire. One or two men. Tyrus's stomach clenched in hunger. What food might they have down there? It would be a simple raid, good for morale--

No. Tyrus wouldn't double back. He wouldn't delay his escape from this place.

The smoke curled up slowly above the treetops and faded in the breeze. Tyrus wondered what sort of hopeless Miran reprobate would choose to live so deep in the wilderness.

"My lord!" came Zane's nervous voice.

Tyrus's eyes lingered on the smoke. "What is it, Zane?"

"Don't you hear it?"

Tyrus's attention snapped to his immediate surroundings. Everything was deathly still. Green needles trembled as the wind moved through the highest branches over their heads. A single pine cone, far off, fell to the wet ground with a gentle _tap_.

Tyrus couldn't hear anything.

But he could smell. And the heavy, dank animal smell that found his nostrils chilled his spine.

"To arms," he whispered. He slipped Blodleter free.

Zane quietly strung his bow and nocked an arrow.

Tyrus heard a strange sound that called to mind a galloping horse. But its hoofbeats were lighter and faster than any mortal horse, as if they barely touched the ground. He had no doubt that it was some indescribable Miran creature, beyond compare to anything seen by Algolan eyes, and he steeled himself for a monster.

Yolaf rubbed his bald head. "I hear," he rumbled. "But I don't see."

"Avaunt!" hissed Cadogan. Even he looked nervous.

A blast of wind tugged Tyrus's brown locks and threw leaves and dead needles in the air.

"Something passed me," croaked Uilleam, his tired eyes darting.

Too fast, Tyrus thought. Too fast to see.

Twenty yards beyond Uilleam, the thing struck a tree and blew its bark to splinters. The crack was loud as a cannon shot, and the pale wood of the tree's core showed bright in the dark forest. The thing that struck it was gone, never more than a blur, black and shapeless as tar.

"Zane," barked Tyrus. "Let fly!"

"At what?" The glinting head of Zane's arrow trembled, whipping back and forth.

The monster collided with Yolaf and he spun through the air, massive arms and legs flung wide and reaching. He crashed to earth a distance away with a helpless grunt and didn't move.

For an instant, a shadow had hung beside Yolaf, barely long enough to leave an impression in Tyrus's mind. An animal's glossy black coat. Triangular ears folded back on a wedgelike battering ram of a head, burning yellow feline eyes.

The image vanished in a gust of wind.

"Gods, no," muttered Zane. "Not Yolaf."

"Courage!" snapped Tyrus. "Eyes wide."

"If it can do that to him," Zane went on, "we don't stand a chance."

Uilleam took tentative step toward the fallen giant. "Yolaf?"

The giant didn't move. Uilleam's javelin hung low and hopeless.

Cadogan roared in frustration, mad eyes searching. "What is it? Griphon? Centaur? Some drow-elf spell? What can it be?" He swung his axe randomly, left then right, slicing the air.

Tyrus knew it was none of those things. It was some Miran beast, native to this land of horrors. It was something none of them had seen before, something none of them knew how to fight.

What chance did they have? How could they ever reach home again?

Tyrus didn't know... but he believed.

He might not know how to fight, but fight he would. No matter how odd or alien, how hideous or baffling. He would slash and stab and butcher this whole continent if that's what it took. "Stop your mewling, you cowards! We'll kill it, do you hear? We'll roast it on a spit and feast on it. Form up, brace yourselves!" Tyrus gripped Blodleter in both hands and pressed the pommel against his chest, so the blade stood straight out. "This need not be difficult. Let it come, and impale itself."

Uilleam dropped to one knee and held his javelin low, bracing it to receive a charge. Cadogan widened his grip on his axe, ready for impact. Zane set down his bow and held an arrow extended in each hand. They stood with their backs to each other, forming a loose circle around Yolaf.

The wind came again, and that galloping sound drew nearer, light as a fairie's wingbeats.

The creature struck Zane from the side, too fast for him to cry out. As his body pitched through the air, a glossy shadow appeared where he had stood.

Tyrus saw its long catlike body, oily black, muscled legs stretched broad and reaching, talons on wide paws seizing the earth. He knew it was his moment, and he swung Blodleter down on the creature's neck.

But it was too fast. It sprung, and the sword struck its spine at its hindquarters. Its body flexed, yielded, and a screech from the animal cut the air. It sprawled under the blade for an instant before those paws found the earth again.

Then it was gone.

The wind blew fast, then faded. Dead leaves settled back to earth. Tyrus ran a gloved finger along the flat of Blodleter's blade. Clean and dry. The creature had not been cut. It was the first time this sword had failed him.

He wondered at the skin of such a creature, as the forest fell silent.

Cadogan grumbled and nudged Yolaf with his boot.

Uilleam made his way to Zane, but weakness seemed to overtake him and he stumbled. Tyrus caught his good arm and helped him up. Together they found Zane stirring but senseless, his eyes darting under half-closed lids.

"Zane?" Uilleam knelt heavily beside him and said to Tyrus, "He's alive, but I'll say no more than that. I doubt he can travel."

"No, he's too young and limber. Too green, like a sapling. He'll bend before he breaks." Tyrus grabbed Zane's chin. "Zane! Your rest is over."

Zane's eyes snapped open. He groaned, turned, and pitched bile on the ground.

Behind them, Yolaf sat up, his head weaving slightly on his thick neck. "Did I fall down?"

Tyrus surveyed his four men. Worn, beaten, exhausted, starving. And their supper just vanished with a gust of wind. Tyrus felt his molars pressing together. There was nothing to do but try to keep their feet under them and march them on.

#

At last, as twilight descended, Bogg's heavy tread came to Simon's ears. "Good work," Bogg said. "You kept the fire going."

Simon was so happy to hear his gruff old voice that he nearly cried. "Bogg! You're back! Hey, Bogg, did we catch something? I heard a snare."

"Huh? Oh! Well, no. Looks like the rain set it off. Such things happen. That's all right." Bogg poked his head inside the lean-to, and a smile brightened his hairy face. "I've got something better."

Simon gently propped himself up on an elbow. "Better?"

"Eel!"

Simon let himself back down. "Sounds lovely," he muttered.

"There's a little pond downstream about four mile. And even the eel ain't the best part. I didn't want to tell you, on account of you wouldn't believe me. It was real lucky." Bogg's face disappeared.

"What?" Simon carefully turned and peered outside.

Bogg had gathered firewood on the hike back. He dumped logs on the coals, and they hissed and sizzled. "I was realistically expecting bass or something. You know, regular food. Still, I knew there was a chance."

Simon leaned out a little farther, and his leg shot jabs of pain to his hip. "Bogg -- ow -- what did you find?"

Bogg grinned. "I caught us a fur-bearing trout."

Simon shook his head. There was no way he could have misheard that.

But it was a myth!

All the same, Simon didn't think that telling Bogg he was being ridiculous would have any impact. Simon tried anyway. "Bogg... there's no such thing. I know about this one. An early explorer sent back a report from Mira, describing 'many fur-bearing animals and fish.' It was a misinterpretation, probably a joke from the start."

Bogg reached into his saddlebag. "Tell me if this looks like a joke to you."

He hauled out a trout, maybe a six-pounder -- and it wasn't like in the stories.

Flowing from gills to tail were fine, long, snowy white hairs, making the trout look like it had a wolf's winter coat. The silvery scales showed through, the hair was that fine -- in fact, the hairs didn't quite look natural.

"It's diseased," Simon said.

Bogg lopped off the head and descaled it, shedding the white fur into the fire, where the fine strands twisted and flared. "That's true. Algae, fungus, some kind of parasitic unpleasantness. Makes certain trout grow fur." Bogg scraped out the entrails and stabbed the fish on a spit. "It's darn rare."

"Why would you want to catch one of those?"

Bogg propped the trout over the fire. "Because whatever the little nasty is that infects the trout and makes the fur, it also changes the meat."

Simon swallowed. "Changes it how?"

"You'll see."

Simon watched the orange flames flicker at the trout. "May I pass?"

"You're eating it. A few bites might be enough. I'll smoke the rest. Fur-bearing trout is too precious to waste." Bogg got up to reset the triggered snare.

It will be fine, Simon reasoned. Roasted clean by the fire and safe enough. Just the same, he wondered if he would be sprouting a wooly coat after eating it. Simon struggled up to a sitting position, and persuasive jabs of pain shot through his leg. If sick fish made his leg feel better, so be it. He didn't want any more days of lying in the tent in agony.

Of course, there was a more likely outcome of eating diseased meat in the middle of the wilderness. Namely, death from gastrointestinal distress.

"I reckon it's ready." Bogg broke a little fish into Simon's bowl and handed it to him, and began cleaning the eel for pan-frying.

"What about you?" Simon asked. "You're not eating any?"

"Eel for me, pup." Bogg sawed off the eel's head. "Medicine for you."

Simon picked up a bite of trout in his fingers. It was greasier than any fish he'd ever eaten, and smelled musty, like fresh mushroom. "Not a good smell for a fish."

Bogg glared at him, his bushy chin jutted out. Eat it, kid, said that look.

Simon held his breath and popped it in his mouth. It tasted rotten. He swallowed.

Bogg kept staring at him until he ate the rest.

"There, now," said Bogg. "Not so bad."

Simon's tongue was numb. He waited for his stomach to cramp up.

Bogg scraped guts from the eel into the fire and lay the pan on them. Simon kept waiting.

Bogg cut some six-foot stakes and tied them to make a tripod over the fire. Once the eel was done and Bogg ate it, he let the fire burn low and hung some of his rain-soaked clothes on the tripod stakes, enveloping the trout in a Bogg-style smoker.

"Bogg," Simon said. "I don't feel any--"

#

The sun was setting, streaking orange through the clouds overhead, and the sudden sight of it startled Simon out of speaking. He hadn't expected to see any sunlight at all, not even this. The light was as orange and radiant as glimpses of the campfire though gaps in the lean-to, and it shifted over the clouds as they flowed across the sky.

The sight was gorgeous and captivating. Simon could watch it forever.

The orange streaks spread and flooded the entire sky with firelight, and new streaks curved down and weaved between the trees. Simon almost warned Bogg, but he couldn't find his voice.

The orange clouds thickened. A storm was brewing. Deafening thunder boomed and lightning crackled, flashing violet.

It was just occurring to Simon that it all might be the work of the fur-bearing trout, when he found he wasn't in the camp anymore.

He was on the other side of the gulley and a quarter mile along it, where the log lay across.

Standing on his own two feet! His leg felt fine.

His pack was on his shoulder. The sky was bright mid-day blue, his clothes were dry and he was warm. Sweating, in fact. In one hand he clung loosely to a long black thunderbird feather that weighed nothing at all.

Simon pieced it together as he climbed onto the log. He had a job to do. He would walk across the log again, and not fall this time. He wouldn't break his leg... and so his leg would never have broken! The log would be dry in this weather, not wet and slippery. All he had to do was not drop the feather.

Maybe he should climb down, cross the stream at the bottom and climb back up, like Bogg did.

Where was Bogg, anyway?

Or maybe he should abandon his feather. That had been the cause--

Oh, enough. Simon balanced himself and took a few steps so he was over the gulley. Nothing to it.

The feather pulled out of his hand -- the wind got it, maybe. It hung in the air beside him. Simon reached for it, calmly, gently, staying centered on his feet... and his feet slipped anyway. His arms swung wildly and he panicked at the unbearable notion that he was falling off the log again\--

And he drifted off the log.

He thought, horribly, that he was falling in tortuously slow motion. But he was drifting over the gulley, following the feather, not falling.

He stretched an arm out to grasp the feather, and his body eased toward it. Got it! Simon and his feather cruised down the gulley, his boots ten feet above the brook. Simon watched the gulley pass under him and the trees drift by, then he pointed the feather up, and his body raced after it.

As the ground dropped and Simon shot into a clear blue sky, pine-covered hills rose beyond the foreground. He tipped the feather and his body spiraled gently in the air. Behind him, the range of the Chilly Mountains made a snowy spine through the green of the peninsula. In that white spine was a great pyramid-like peak. Deadreckoning Peak. And beside it, a saddle point with another mountain, that was Settler's Pass.

Simon could see beyond the spine to the sloping hills, then to Spying Scarp, the cliff that overlooked the coast of Pirate's Bay. Squatting on that coast was Rastaban, which meant Dragon's Head, a sprawl of tumbledown buildings and piers that housed more pirates and cutthroats than law-abiding citizens, and made a great sanctuary for unsavory types. That had to be where the murderers were heading. They could find a ship there, and make it all the way back to Algolus.

Simon raced higher, and the icy air buffeted him. The Chilly Mountains joined the greater range of the Starry Mountains, some of which were so high that there wasn't enough air to breathe on them. Not many tales came from beyond those mountains.

It was even colder now. Simon guessed he was as high as those Starry peaks. Their jagged gray and white edges seemed about level with him, and the sky above them was dark blue, a deeper color of sky than he had ever seen from the ground. The air was too thin. He would pass out if he didn't turn around.

In fact, he felt lightheaded already--

#

Chapter 20

Simon woke up in the lean-to. The twilight when he had eaten the fish was now shadowless mid-day, and the sky was bright white with masses of gray beyond the pines. The makeshift smoking house over the fire was gone, and the fire had burned to glowing ashes. "Bogg?"

Simon had to pee, and he was starving. His leg ached... but then, his whole body ached. He tried to roll over and look outside. "Bogg?"

"Shh!"

"What?"

"I've been watching this squirrel dance around a snare for two hours. Hush!"

Simon squirmed around -- as quietly as he could -- so he could poke out his head. His legs both hurt, although there were no jabs of pain from the broken bone.

Outside, a squirrel with a reddish-orange face and shining black eyes scampered past a pine sapling that had been bent down and tied to a loop of vine or rope, in turn tied to a short stick. The stick was baited -- with eel, maybe -- and propped in the crook of a Y-shaped branch Bogg had jammed in the ground.

The squirrel noticed Simon and raced up a tree.

Bogg yanked off his raccoon-skin cap and threw it on the ground. "Well, that's that." He ran dirty fingers through his matted blond hair. "Now, now. The little feller will come down sooner or later."

"I'm sorry, Bogg."

Bogg trudged to the snare and touched the stick carefully with his toe. The stick slipped out of the Y-shaped branch, but only dragged listlessly on the ground a bit. The pine sapling hung over. "Trees like this lose their zing after being bent for longer than a few hours. We'll let the poor thing rest up. Rest up, tree! You're off duty."

Bogg picked up his hat and brushed halfheartedly at a mud stain. "How's the leg?"

"I'm not sure. I feel funny. Awful all over."

"Why don't you try it?"

"What?"

"The leg."

Simon needed a moment to understand what Bogg was saying. He carefully sat up and felt his thigh. Nothing, except the cramped ache throughout his body. He began to probe his leg between the sticks and ties of the splint. Bogg stomped over and with a sweep of his arm, threw the lean-to off Simon, scattering the branches on the ground.

"Get up!" Bogg yelled.

Simon stared at him, wide-eyed and startled. Bogg grabbed him by the armpits and hauled him to his feet. Simon screamed, in anticipation of agony that didn't come. Bogg let him go, and he stood, wobbly, on his own.

"Jupiter Pluvius," Simon whispered. "I never broke it, did I?"

"You broke it all right. It may not be completely healed. The visions the trout gives you just let you know what's afoot in your body. It's not like it never broke... but almost. In a few more days, you should be skipping about like that squirrel."

"The trout... does it cure cancer? Consumption?"

"I couldn't say."

"Amazing! Bogg... this means we could still catch them... doesn't it?"

Bogg's eyes narrowed and his lips pulled tight. Simon didn't know what his expression meant. "Bogg... how long was I asleep? How long has it been?"

Bogg opened his mouth. "Just a day. But it might not make a difference."

Simon's mind reeled. The Algolans might have a two-day head start, but the chase was still on! He and Bogg could beat them to Rastaban. "Then we can catch them!"

"Are you hungry? Fur-bearing trout uses up a lot of strength."

"I'm starved. But don't change the subject. Bogg... can't we?"

Bogg let out a sigh. His jaw thrust forward. "I can catch them."

"Then let's go!"

"You can't even walk a log without busting your bones."

Simon's breath caught in his throat.

"It was a fluke of nature that I could find a fur-bearing trout in a single day's search. Most likely odds say that you wouldn't take three steps on your own for well on six months. I'd be carrying you out of here, downstream to Fort Consequence or Fort Misfortune. I'd snig you along on a blanket, or haul you on my back, or cut down a canoe or whatnot. Weeks to get you someplace where somebody proper could look after you. Our cussed pursuees would be long gone by then, and so would the truck your Maven Minder promised me."

Simon tried to think. "But my leg is better. I can keep up now."

"Sure, more or less, and I'm truly glad of that. I don't care to see you suffering, and I'm right pleased I don't have to run you to civilization. And maybe, now, you could keep up with me. Until you hurt yourself again. And even if you manage to stay healthy, you're a second mouth to feed. I know for certain, even with the lead they've got, that I could catch those sons of bitches if I was on my own. With you along, I don't know. That makes it a coin toss."

Simon searched for words. "But Bogg... you're my uncle--"

"Don't even try it."

Simon looked at the splint on his leg and swallowed. "I didn't know that's what you thought of me. A burden."

"Hell yes, you're a burden! Open your eyes! We started one day behind them, and on horses. Alone, I would have caught them around the Muddy River crossing. I'd have cut them up and thrown their bits in the water to wash out to sea. I'd have taken that sword and knocked on the gate of Fort Sanctuary..." Bogg thought a moment. "About now, I reckon. Look, pup, I ain't saying I hate you. I like you. I think you're a fine little feller. But I'm me, you see."

Bogg scratched at his beard and squinted at the trees. "Why do you think I spend all my time out here in the wilds?" He shrugged. "It's where I belong. I ain't meant for people. I ain't set that way."

Simon felt ache and hunger, cold and fatigue all at once. He felt like an icy hand was squeezing his heart. He had failed... again. He wanted to sit down before he collapsed. "What are you going to do?"

Bogg grunted. "I've had a good think about that while you were sleeping. Plan one, give up. I don't care for that one much. Plan two: you and me keep going along like we have, until we catch them, or we lose them, or until you get hurt again. I don't care much for this plan either, although it strikes my fancy more than plan one. Plan three: I boom on alone and leave you here with some food and water. I'll take you home on the way back. I like that one best of all. It near tickles me."

"Bogg... no. One more chance. Please."

"Why do you want to come with me so bad? Ain't you had enough yet? Are you really taking all this trouble for your pa's sake? I always figured he was pretty rough on you, so I don't see why."

Simon sat down in the wet grass. "My father..." The words came slowly. "My father wasn't simply a harsh taskmaster. I mean, he was, but... he protected me. I never realized it at the time just how he looked after me."

Bogg crouched beside Simon. "So you do owe him."

"It's more than that." Simon felt tears well up, but fought them back. "I didn't tell you this before. Bogg, I was there. I saw him die. And he saved me even then. And..." Simon faltered.

Bogg watched him quietly.

"And I couldn't help him," Simon said. "I wasn't strong enough. After all the times he saved me. I failed him." Simon's guts had twisted up, and he held his breath to keep from sobbing.

Bogg looked away to the treeline, as if he were contemplating which way the weather might turn. He drew a deep breath in through his nose, and let it out in a sigh. "I didn't know that."

"I'm sorry."

Bogg looked askance at him, narrow-eyed, his jaw working back and forth. "Plan two, hm? You and me, creeping along, slow as cold molasses..." He made a face as if he was tasting something spoiled. "That would be least pleasant for the both of us." He fixed his gaze on Simon. "We'd move fast, you know. That leg may give you grief yet, and I don't aim to hold your hand."

Simon nodded. "Okay."

"You'll do chores. I won't take no more cats that can't catch mice."

Simon thought of the basement of the print shop, and decided it didn't matter. "Okay."

Bogg rummaged in his pack beside the scattered branches of the lean-to. "For starters..." he pulled out the steel blade from Marshall Dunster's knife. "That's as tricky to use as a cotton key. Why don't you see if you can make a handle for it?"

Simon took the steel carefully. "May I see your..."

"Ah," Bogg said. "For comparison." He drew his fang dagger and handed it, neatly and handle first, to Simon. "That's held up for five years now. Do it like that."

Simon took the sabertooth knife. It was beautifully weighted and bobbed in his hand, almost urging him to slice through something. He noted how Bogg had carved the root of the canine to fit it into the split in the antler, and how the lashings crossed and recrossed between handle and blade. Simon turned the fang dagger and handed it back. "I can do it."

"Once you do, use it to carve up a copy of the three deadfall sticks. Two sets would be better than one. Seems to me you should have your own set."

Simon nodded.

Bogg nodded back. "Let's put in some miles."

#

Over the next four days, Simon and Bogg climbed higher into the Chilly Mountains, getting closer to Desperation Peak and Settler's Pass. Simon's leg ached at the end of each day, so Bogg made camp each evening, while Simon rested and rubbed his thigh. He made sure not to complain. Each morning, Simon broke camp and packed the gear.

They ate little besides squirrel meat and soldier's lichen. One night near a pond, Bogg showed Simon how to spear fish by torchlight. The light drew the fish to the surface, and it was easier than catching them by day. Bogg returned to the campfire, and Simon caught two fish on his own. He was astounded at how good they tasted.

Simon's first handle for the steel worked itself loose in a day of whittling on his first deadfall stick. He spent another day perfecting a second handle.

Bogg wouldn't speculate about how far ahead their targets were, or if Bogg and Simon were closing, or even if they were on the right track. Simon left that to Bogg, and struggled to keep up and master everything he could.

On the fourth day, they climbed above the snow line.

Simon's whole experience of snow prior to that was seeing white mountains in the distance on a cloudless day in Fort Sanctuary. Now he marched through it, now it fell on him. He loved to watch it float down as if it was enjoying the journey, so different from rain, which plunged down so ungracefully. As they climbed along the top of a cliff on the slope of Mount Desperation, the wind whipped snow up at them from below. Snow seemed to have a trace of thunderbird feather in it... or vice versa.

Simon packed snowballs and pelted trees, and thought about landing one on the back of Bogg's neck... but didn't actually do it. Simon's aim wasn't that good, anyway, and after an hour, his fingers were numb and he stopped handling snow altogether. He jammed his hands in the pockets of his osnaburg trousers or pinched them in his armpits.

All the fresh snow had to be burying any trace that Bogg was following. Bogg was grimly silent about it. Simon suspected Bogg was just marching to Settler's Pass and hoping for the best. Settler's Pass was the only way to get through the Chillies, besides circling all the way around along the coast. So the five Algolans should have passed through there. Simon wondered if Bogg had any tricks in mind for finding them. One thing Simon had noticed was Bogg liked to keep his tricks to himself until the last moment. Simon was patient and focused on whittling deadfall sticks, keeping his eyes open, and not freezing. Did Bogg have something in mind, some other fur-bearing trout up his deerskin sleeve?

The novelty and allure of snow lasted a day, until his ankles were painfully cold and his toes were numb. After that, he felt hatred growing inside him at the awful stuff. You couldn't even walk in it. You could only kick your way forward. With each step, his boot sank almost to his knee. The extra work drove a deep ache into his previously broken thigh.

"Camp," Bogg called, and Simon flopped into the snow.

Bogg found a short, bushy pine tree, with its lowest branches just above the snow, dropped to his hands and knees, and crawled past the branches to the trunk. He started digging into the snow near the trunk. Simon watched Bogg dig so deep that he disappeared.

Simon frowned. "You're digging out the tree?"

"Tree-pit shelter," came Bogg's raspy, exhausted voice from the hole. The snow he dug out piled up around the hole until it touched the lowest branches. Simon listened to the rustling of branches, the floof of thrown snow, and Bogg's huffing for an hour.

Then Simon dragged himself over and peeked in. Bogg had cleared a circular zone down through five feet of packed snow to the long-buried pine needles on the ground, and out about five feet from the tree. The tree stuck up the middle like a fat tent pole. It looked cozy in there. "How will you get out?" Simon asked.

Bogg threw himself at the wall of snow that surrounded him, digging and clawing with his hands wrapped in his black cloak. He scraped out a channel and climbed it to the outside. "We'll start a little fire right in there. I'll gather wood. You get in there and warm the place up."

Simon climbed down the channel - a narrow, snowy staircase. Standing in the shelter, Simon's eyes were about at the level of the snow-covered ground. He leaned against the tree in the center and peered out past branches and snow piles. It was a squirrel's-eye view. And above, dense snow-laden branches made a decent roof.

Bogg came back with branches for a fire and for bedding. "Fuel and victuals will get tougher to scare up. Water is easier... as long as there's fuel." He built a small fire opposite the channel he had dug. "I smoked a mess of the fur-bearing trout. I hope our straits don't get so dire that we eat that out of hunger. Might not be healthy. How are your feet?"

"Numb," Simon said.

"Let me see them."

Simon sat on his bedlining and carefully worked his boots off. Bogg eyed his feet and felt them with his warm rough hands. "I've seen worse. Truth to tell, I've had worse. Just point your toes at this fire."

Simon considered that whittling might be a good way to use his time while his feet warmed up, but after an exhausting and frigid day, the flames were too mesmerizing. The wall of snow behind the fire gradually melted and refroze with a reflective sheen, and the firelight that danced there caught his eye and wouldn't let go. Dry pine needles crackled as Bogg fed them in, a soft and delicate sound.

Their little round home warmed nicely, and Simon peeled off layers while the sky's light filtering in through their ceiling of branches lessened to the black of night and was lost in rising smoke.

A distant low howl called steadily. It was a somber, sustained note. Once it faded, Bogg muttered, "Maybe the wind." He shrugged. "Maybe wolves, maybe wendigos." A grin crept over his craggy firelit face. "Maybe a wampus cat."

Simon was sleepy and had to find his voice. "I read about the wampus. It's a cat with a call that sounds like a human woman."

"Poor lad," Bogg said. The quiet and darkness hushed them both, and Bogg continued in a low tone. "That book ain't worth the powder to blow it to hell. A wampus cat is a woman. She's a witch who wears the skin of a cat, so she can become one."

"Why?"

"I don't have a clue. Maybe to eat up those who cross her."

"You wear the skin of a cat, Bogg."

Bogg grinned, and the gap in his teeth showed. "Then you're lucky I'm not a witch."

"What about the other?"

"A wolf?"

"I know what a wolf is. The other."

"Wendigo?"

"What's that?"

"Well... legend has it that if an only child eats too much fur-bearing trout, that by the light of the next full moon, he will transform into--"

"Bogg!"

Bogg chuckled.

Simon was sorry he yelled. It had disturbed the tranquil feeling in the shelter.

Bogg quieted down, and he was silent for a moment. "A wendigo starts out as a man. But it ain't no man. It's taller and skinnier, with teeth and claws and damned red eyes. It stalks and eats whoever it can find. It's hooked on people, see? That's why you find them up here, where the food is scarce."

Simon tried to put it together, but couldn't. "You can turn into one?"

"Yep."

"Seriously, now."

"As I understand it. If a man is driven to consume the flesh of his fellow men, that does it. I don't know if it's a sickness, or some kind of ghost that comes into you. But you change, and then you start hunting. And you howl something awful. Not really like what we just heard. Nastier."

"You've heard one?"

"Deep, but screechy. Pained. Like a moose with a wolverine hanging on its haunches, bleeding it out, so the moose knows it's the end. I heard one. I didn't know the sound at the time, so I stalked it out of curiosity. I found the seven-foot skeleton of a man in buckskins chawing on another feller."

Simon's eyes went round. "Did you kill it?"

"Naw." Bogg looked somber. "I run away."

"You?"

Bogg shrugged. "I was young. Since then I asked around. It's hungry. In a sweat to eat all it can. You can lop its head off, and it'll just stuff you down its neck hole. They say it has a heart of ice. You got to melt that heart of ice, or the wendigo will just keep coming. I don't take much stock in that. Seems like flapdoodle to me."

A long moment passed, and sleep pulled at Simon's eyes.

Bogg watched him. "You ought to get some shut-eye. You've got a lot of work to do in the morning."

#

Chapter 21

Falling snow clung to Tyrus's long hair in accumulating delicate flakes. Cadogan snarled and shook his head every few minutes, flinging it from his braided beard. Zane scouted ahead, almost out of sight. Uilleam lagged farther and farther behind. Yolaf was with him.

Tyrus cursed the snow. It slowed them, keeping them from Rastaban... and drained their strength with every trudging step in the chilling knee-deep powder. He pushed his men on. They wouldn't freeze to death -- not at this pace. But they would starve all the sooner.

The sky above looked heavy and threatening. Flakes spiraled out of the heavens. The green of the pines seemed drained away, and the forest around them was gray and white. Between the snow-laden branches, Tyrus could see downslope, under the clouds, almost to where they had crossed the snow line.

Wafting up from the trees was a thin ribbon of smoke.

It had been there yesterday, too. Closer, now.

Coincidence, possibly. Other travelers heading the same way. Like the old man they had found -- he had told them that Settler's Pass was the only way though these mountains.

Tyrus returned to the march. The smoke was not worth his concern. But he felt his gut telling him otherwise.

He spotted Zane ahead, his body rigid, his fist in the air. He had seen something. Tyrus froze, anticipating. Behind him, the others stopped and fell silent.

Zane nocked an arrow and drew, aiming low among the trees. The _twang_ of taut string resonated in the heavy, still air. Zane lowered his bow and stood relaxed.

Tyrus could tell by his posture. Zane had struck something! All four rushed to him, saw his satisfied smile, and followed his gaze to the kill. Twenty yards ahead, the bright blue feathers on the arrow's tail marked the spot like a pennant.

Cadogan got there first. He pulled up the arrow, and everyone cheered when they saw the hare empaled on the arrow's head. Its fur was white flecked with brown, a common hare, gloriously fat, and with no damned antlers.

"Well done, Zane," said Tyrus. "Yolaf and Cadogan, gather wood. We eat right now."

Zane beamed quietly. Even Uilleam smiled broadly as he cradled his arm, huffing great clouds of mist from his sprint to the hare.

Cadogan's face fell. "Won't Uilleam gather wood?"

Uilleam turned suspiciously.

Tyrus scowled. "Cadogan--"

"Zane, I understand. It was his shot. His eye and arm earned him his rest. But what has Uilleam done?"

"Uilleam was wounded in battle--" Tyrus stopped himself. Was he about to debate with Cadogan the Red? Surely Tyrus was slipping. A sign he was more exhausted than he had estimated. Tyrus had to demand obedience from Cadogan, from all of them--

"Too badly wounded," Cadogan said. "I fear we must bravely face the truth, friends. Uilleam grows weaker. He'll soon drop in his tracks. Shall we waste a portion of this fine catch on a man already dead--"

Tyrus had Cadogan by the throat.

He squeezed, cutting off Cadogan's air, grinning as he saw Cadogan's eyes bug out.

"You task me," Tyrus whispered in his ear.

Cadogan dropped the arrow. The hare fell in the snow.

"You ask what Uilleam has done?" Tyrus's fingers dug still deeper. "What have you done? You speak of a man already dead. I wonder which man that is. You speak of facing the truth. I have a truth for you, Cadogan."

Tyrus felt Cadogan try to swallow, and fail. Saliva oozed from Cadogan's lips, and his skin flushed a bright shade that clashed with his beard. Tyrus pulled at his throat, turning his body so he was facing the distant ribbon of smoke.

Tyrus's lips were still at Cadogan's ear, but his voice grew louder. "Did you notice that we are being followed? No? Then it's time your eye and arm earned you _your_ rest. Sharpen your axe, Cadogan. You will take a share of Zane's catch, to keep your strength up. Then you will double back to where we found the old man. You will wait for them to reach you, kill them, take their food, return to us and report."

#

Snow fell lightly the next morning. Bogg hated snow, but he tried to roll with it as with everything else he had no power over.

You couldn't hardly walk in it, nor set snares in it, nor forage in it, you could freeze yourself in it, and you stood out against it like a beetle in rice. And it covered the track you were following.

That one beat all.

At least the lad was working out, for now. He hadn't caught frostbite nor sunk in snow up to his eyeballs yet.

It was nigh on noon when a shape in the snow caught Bogg's eye. It was a lump of snow up against a tree. Bogg stood and watched the lump for a time, gathering up what his intuition whispered to him.

The pup caught up, and watched him watching the lump.

By and by, Bogg stuck his hands in the snow, grabbed hold and pulled. It was a knapsack, sort of like Bogg's, untied and mostly empty. No food. No waterskin, not even an empty one.

In the snow, where the knapsack had laid, there was a bit of smooth tan, like buckskin. Bogg took a deep breath, grabbed fistfuls of it and pulled. Something big and heavy came up, and snow fluttered off it. It was a body.

Bogg laid it down in the open and brushed off snow. He and Simon weren't high enough for there to be year-round snow here, so this feller weren't no fossil. A season he'd been resting here, no more, and Bogg suspicioned a lot less.

He was an old feller, in a beaverskin hat and long white beard, both frozen crackly. Head to toe in buckskins. A fellow traveler, a mountaineer like Bogg. The feller's right arm was missing just short of the elbow, cut clean, and his chest was all a mess with frozen blood. He had held up an arm to ward off his fate, and been run through. The cutting was peculiar enough, but not new to Bogg's eye. It was the same sharp and heavy broadsword that had made that clearing the thunderbird had favored, and that had taken Bogg's brother Ackerley, and the pup's father.

It near churned Bogg's stomach. "Aw, you poor nathead, you gone and got yourself killed."

The pup was rightfully timid and respectful. "Do you know him?"

Bogg sighed. "I know him a little just by looking at him. That's enough to know him as well as anybody who'd ever seen him alive, or known his name, like as not. This is a feller not unlike me."

Bogg didn't think of himself as an especially good man, nor an especially evil one. He had done his share of wrongs and raised his share of ruction. He hadn't planned on ever having to account for himself in summary. But now he was beginning to think that he could balance out any rot or treachery he might have knowingly or unknowingly committed in his life by doing one simple thing. And that was ridding the world of the unspeakable, despicable hound who carried that sword.

"What should we do?" asked the pup. "Bury him?"

Bogg stuck out his chin. "That's a nice thought, but there's too many strikes against it. His killer would benefit too much by it, for one, with us being slowed down. For two, his type don't ever expect to be buried, so I don't think we're doing him much injustice if we don't." He searched through the knapsack for anything written down, letters or whatnot, that the pup could read so they could ferret up his name and try to get to his family. Bogg found no such thing.

He pulled the beaverskin cap off the feller's white hair and worked it in his fingers to soften and thaw it. "You need a hat, pup."

The boy's adam's apple bobbed and he leaned a wee bit back. "I don't want a dead man's hat."

"Don't insult him, lad. Take it."

"I'd rather be cold."

"We're going up farther, before we go down. It'll be colder before it gets... All right, we'll do it like this." Bogg pulled off his raccoon hat and tossed it to Simon, and pressed the icy beaverskin cap down on his head. It chilled his scalp, but he reckoned his head would warm it up and it would start working soon.

The pup held the coon hat, uncertain. Then he flicked the ringtail with a finger, stuck it on and struck a noble pose like he was dressed in the king's finest.

"Now, that's fitting," Bogg said. "It's the handsomest you've ever been, pup. You look a foot taller. Like you could stare down a cougar."

Bogg could see the boy holding back a grin on account of respect for the dead. "Enough. Snow will bury this poor feller until spring. By then, our fates -- and the swordsman's -- will have worked themselves out, one way or t'other. Onward."

#

Simon found that he could keep up with Bogg, who was slowing down. It had to be the climb. The path had steepened and steepened, until they crept along a ridge on the very side of Desperation Peak. The ridge was only ten feet wide, narrower in places, and blocked with boulder after snow-topped boulder that must have tumbled down the mountainside and come to rest here. Great drifts of snow buried the ridge in places, and he and Bogg had to dig through. In other places, masses of snow clung to the rock wall above them, piled higher than they could see, ready to break loose and bury them or blast them over the cliff.

No trees could grow here. On the left, a cold granite wall. On the right, a drop down hundreds of feet to white-topped forests. And between, man and boy, shivering and marching on.

It had been hours since they had left the body of the white-haired man, and Simon worried that soon they'd have to make camp on the mountainside. Not here, he hoped. It was too cold, too exposed, and there was no wood for a fire.

At least there was no wind. The air was still and heavy, and fog sank down the cliff above them in billowing white puffs. It splashed on the ridge and flowed over the edge to drop out of sight. It was a steady, translucent waterfall of fog. Simon had never seen or heard of anything like it.

There was no life here. No birds nor squirrels nor insects... and yet he could feel a presence, an eerie sense of being watched. He had read plenty of ghost stories, but didn't find them convincing. Just words on a page, nothing to put ice to his heart.

But now, the ice was there. It made him wish they had buried the old man.

The only sound was the crunch of Bogg's boots.

Simon squeezed past a boulder and walked on, watching the fog fall.

He was right on Bogg's heels. That creepy presence was making him scamper along, so close to Bogg that he could see the thousand dewdrops the mist had laid on the black velvet of Bogg's cloak.

Bogg stopped. Simon nearly bumped into him.

Bogg turned, and his blue eyes gazed into the distance over Simon's head. His broad nostrils sniffed noisily. His eyes focused... and locked grimly on something. Simon spun and saw a tall gray shape behind them. Fog poured down the cliff and washed over it.

Simon's throat was suddenly dry. He shivered.

"Thought I smelled something," Bogg grumbled. He set his saddlebags gently down.

The misty shape loomed closer. Panic roared through Simon's limbs. Bogg's hands came down firmly on his shoulders and pushed him to the side, away from the drop off.

Out of the fog came a man in plate armor and green heraldry. His grinning face was white and freckled, his hair bright red, his beard twisted into a dozen braids. His teeth were crooked and yellow, and he held, almost lovingly, a heavy-looking war axe.

Fear pulsed even stronger in Simon, and his legs went numb. He had seen that axe take Yohann's head off and spray blood across the street in Fort Sanctuary. He had felt this man's iron grip when his father's house had been invaded.

_Cadogan_.

"Well, dog my cats," Bogg muttered under his breath. Then, louder, "Hello, stranger." His hand slipped to the handle of his sabertooth knife. He was grinning, too, and Simon could see the gap of his missing tooth.

"Greetings," hissed the man, "and salutations."

Bogg's eyes narrowed. "You're Algolan."

Cadogan straightened with pride. "I am."

Bogg edged past Simon, closer to Cadogan. "I can always tell. The smell, mostly. And nobody in Mira wears sissy armor like that."

Cadogan's grin twisted to a sneer. He stepped closer, and the fog seemed to slip from him, revealing him in nightmarish detail.

"Say..." began Bogg. "You're not out here with four of your friends, are you?"

"Those louts? Curse them. They sent me to dispatch you. But Tyrus will be pleased to know that you are, indeed, following us." Cadogan sucked in a breath, and in a sudden motion, lunged and swung his axe at Bogg's head.

Bogg dropped, and the axe streaked over him. He drew his fang dagger and slashed at Cadogan's throat. But he wasn't close enough. A single red braid fell to the gravel at their feet.

Cadogan snarled. The two men faced each other, tense, ready to strike.

"Nice axe," Bogg said.

"You cut my beard!"

"I was hoping for a sword, though. I owe a feller who carries a sword."

"I know the blade you speak of. It is legend. It has spilled an ocean of blood." Cadogan sidestepped and pushed closer, threatening. Bogg slipped out of range, holding his dagger high.

"But you'll never see it," Cadogan said. "Instead, mark well my axe. It is your fortune teller, and speaks of your fate. Which is to be lopped to pieces." Cadogan swung again. The sabertooth fang clashed with the steel shaft of the axe and threw sparks that burned green images in Simon's vision.

Bogg chuckled. "I just put a nick in my fate."

Cadogan roared. Simon, blinking and shivering, edged back, trying to stay clear. But his motion caught Cadogan's eye.

"And you, little one!" Cadogan screamed. "Did you think I didn't see you? I remember your father's firelocks, ready to put holes in me. And here you are again, a small and clinging pest. A chigger! A tick!"

Cadogan whipped his axe in a broad arc and swung it down on Simon's head. Simon didn't even have time to scream before everything went black and crushing pain exploded through his skull.

The agony pulsed through the rest of his body. He couldn't see, and wondered dizzily where he was. Time stretched blindly out. If he was dead, why did it hurt so bad? And why could he still hear Cadogan's snarling and Bogg's taunts?

Simon's fingers clutched at velvety splintercat skin and pulled it from his face. Bogg had thrown his cloak over him, so Cadogan's blade only knocked him senseless instead of splitting his brain like a melon.

Bogg and Cadogan came back into focus. Cadogan raised his axe and howled an awful cry that echoed off the cliffs above them. Bogg readied his dagger to parry. But Cadogan, eyes glinting, kicked high rather than swing, and his boot knocked Bogg's dagger from his hand.

It spun into the mist and dropped to the snowy trees below.

Cadogan laughed and swung.

Bogg stepped out of range as the axe sliced the air under his beard. He darted back a few more steps, but Cadogan closed the distance.

Simon knew he couldn't cower under this cloak while Bogg was gutted. He dropped the skin and scraped snow off a boulder. Cadogan's axe was poised over his shoulder, ready to hack at Bogg, when Simon's snowball blew itself to bits on his forehead.

Cadogan roared. Bogg leapt in and followed the snowball with a right fist that snapped Cadogan's head back and caught his howl in his throat.

In the instant of silence that followed, Simon heard the effect of all of Cadogan's hollering. From above them came the sounds of cracking ice and sliding snow, a hiss quickly building to a rumble.

"Bogg!" Simon cried.

Bogg and Cadogan both turned to the noise and gazed up the cliff face.

Bogg reacted first, sprinting to Simon and scooping him up, cloak and all. That was all he could do before the snow hit them and pushed them over the cliff.

#

Simon lay in the freezing darkness. All was still. He was grateful for the stillness. It had come at last, after sliding and tumbling in a screaming panic down the mountainside for entirely too long a time. Now he could quietly die of hypothermia, numb and peaceful. He didn't even hurt, really. No broken bones. Just his head, where Cadogan had tried to cleave his skull through the splintercat skin.

He wondered how deeply he was buried, and who would find him in the spring. He had no family to miss him. His frozen, mummified body would be pawed up and chewed to pieces by wolves, probably--

"Hey, pup."

It was familiar... but where did it come from? "Bogg?"

"Sit up, there."

Simon didn't understand. "What?"

"I see the toes of your shoes sticking out of the snow at one end of you, and coon fur at t'other. Sit up, before you suffercate."

Simon sat up. He had been buried in only a few inches of snow, and it rolled and sprinkled off his body. He took Bogg's hat off and shook the flakes out of it.

Bogg was buried waist-deep a few feet away, grinning at him. He shoveled at the snow in front of him with his hands.

And Cadogan?

Simon sprung out of the snow, eyes darting, looking for Cadogan to pop up and attack once again.

"Don't fret." Bogg lifted each knee, over and over, working them free. "Our red-headed friend didn't go over. I heard him giggling to hisself, up there." The ridge was perhaps two hundred feet up a slope scraped free of snow. The snow, and they, had settled on a shoulder of the mountain, where pine trees grew. "I do wish he'd come down with us, though. I nearly had him."

Simon remembered Bogg dodging that axe, no cloak, no fang dagger. He swallowed. "Where is he now?"

"Moved on, I reckon." Bogg combed snow out of his beard with his fingers. "There's an oversight that will cost him dearly, time enough." He frowned. "But not today. Today, in the light we have left, we'll dig up our packs. Wherever they are. And find that cloak. Shame to lose that."

Simon's numbness was gradually replaced by a deep cold that crept into him and settled around his bones. "He almost killed you."

"I bet that's how he'd tell it." Bogg laughed. "That ain't my story, though."

Simon stared up the cliff. For a long moment, he didn't breathe. When he spoke, he was surprised at how quiet and sad his voice sounded. "He almost killed you, Bogg. And me. And there are five of him."

Bogg didn't reply. He pulled his feet out of the snow and stood quietly. He sniffed, and his jaw worked back and forth. Finally, he sat down next to Simon.

"Two bits of good news," he said at last.

"Okay," said Simon.

"First, you and I just got left for dead. That gives us the advantage of popping up from the grave later on. Handy thing, that. And second..." Bogg grinned.

Simon frowned. "What?"

Bogg pointed up. In the branch of a pine tree, Bogg's sabertooth dagger had embedded itself so deeply that its white, serrated tip jutted out the other side.

#

After another two days of trekking uphill, Bogg and the pup laid eyes on Settler's Pass.

Bogg had travelled sept of here but twice, and he had done it along the coast. He'd never gotten around to Settler's Pass before.

Weather was fairer. Heavy clouds still boomed along overhead, but they stepped aside to show a little blue sky now and then, though it was otherwise bashful. Not a whit of snow fell, yesterday or today, which cheered him, though it was thick on the ground.

The trees thinned at the pass, and the ground flattened out. Bogg and Simon trudged into an open field of snow as they crossed from the eost slope of Desperation Peak. The pass was a saddle -- they'd cross onto the hest slope of the neighboring mountain before nightfall if they kept up the pace.

Outside the thick of the trees, the snow was disturbed. It was kicked around, piled up, and scraped off the grass in wide stripes. Where the grass showed, there were patches of bare frozen dirt and holes where the grass had been pulled up.

The pup took in the abused earth, too. "Red rhinos?" The words made puffs of fog.

Bogg jumped over a hole where a square yard of grass had been uprooted. "Not even red rhinos eat this much. I'd wager some four-legged hills been through here."

That put a wobble in the pup's step. "Will we see one?"

Bogg wondered if he was interested or nervous. Both, likely. "Trust me, pup. You don't want to see one unless it's from higher ground a mile away."

Simon fidgeted with his hat. "What do we do?"

"Walk softly. But with purpose. Let's get across this clearing."

They started across and kept their gaze down, stepping from heavy snow to frozen grass and holey dirt and back, and trying not to lose footing. Peculiar rustling of brush came from the snowy forest behind them. It was a sound Bogg had heard plenty of times before -- a deer picking its way through the woods.

Had to be close by, because a body doesn't hear that noise from any sort of distance away. Bogg's stomach cinched up and gurgled. Oh, he was starved! Roasting up a deer would be powerful good eating.

The critter was a dozen trees back, in the thicket from whence they'd just come. It was a fine big one, an elk really, with more points than Bogg could count --

And a damn greenie on its back!

Bogg touched Simon's shoulder. "Hey, pup..."

The pup turned and got educated as to the situation, just as Bogg picked out three more greenie elk riders beyond the first. The elks themselves were well obscured by snowy pine branches, their riders nothing but shadows behind the great antlers of the animals. There had to be some on foot, too, but Bogg knew he'd never see them.

Bogg and Simon froze, a couple of icicles waiting for spring. The greenies didn't approach. Everybody took a moment to watch everybody else.

"What do they want?" Simon whispered.

"I don't rightly know," Bogg rasped back.

"They've allowed us to see them."

"I reckon that's true."

A sharp keening cut the air and jabbed into Bogg's old wrinkled ears. He winced. "That's a battle cry--"

Twenty green footsoldiers popped up around the four elks. There were flashes of spinning motion in the shadows, and something whizzed past Bogg's ear. Something else skittered along the ground toward them, throwing up puffs of snow and frozen blades of grass.

Sling stones. Golden sling stones.

Bogg was short on plans and shorter on time needed to carry them out. "Run!"

#

Chapter 22

They both turned tail and bolted farther into the clearing. Bogg heard another stone pass his ear, sounding like a bumblebee.

Bogg and Simon scooted past the scraped and trampled snow, and past the grass uprooted by hungry hills. They reached the center of the field, which was flat and bare unbroken snow. It was easier to race like a splintercat on it, but Bogg reckoned he and the pup stood out clearly and might, for all their running, suffer from gold poisoning shortly.

The pup clearly had the fear of death in him and sprinted bit by bit ahead of Bogg. Bogg dropped his pack and saddlebags and poured it on. That whizzing sound came less frequently, but here and there ahead of them, the wide stretch of smooth cottony white burped up explosions of snow where sling stones hit.

The ground underneath them started to moan and creak. Something big down there was waking up. The pup broke his stride and gandered wildly about. "What's under us?"

"Good land!" Bogg said. "What now?" Bogg's boots stomped through six inches of snow, and the ground under that, while hard, shifted in a squealing, rocking way.

"We're on a lake!" Bogg hollered. "A frozen lake!" His feet skittered along and kicked clouds of snow while he tried to stop short and keep running full speed at the same time.

All right, Master Bogg, sage of the ages. What do we do now?

The treeline ahead of them was jagged and dark... and close. They were more than halfway across. "Keep going! Move it, kid!"

If they could disappear into those trees and get under cover, maybe they could slink away on their bellies. Bogg couldn't quite picture that working out, but then, he was mostly running, not thinking. The pup was a few paces ahead of him, and when the pup stopped short, Bogg almost knocked him flat.

Something dark was moving among the trees ahead of them. It weren't no elk. It stood as tall as most of the trees and was too big to squeeze between them, so it just pushed them aside with its tusks and stomped down the slope toward Bogg and the pup.

Simon let out a hopeless soft moan. "Is that a four-legged hill?"

Bogg spied more after the first. "Looks like about five."

At various times in his life, Bogg had seen traces of four-legged hills. Mostly tracks, big and round like tree stumps. Once, in the Chilly Mountains near Hottencold Lake, Bogg had found a herd of them grazing about two miles away, and watched them all afternoon. There had been wee ones, pups, or colts, in that herd, that were not much taller than a man and right adorable, though the adults had lost their cuteness along the way somewheres.

These five that came clear of the trees didn't have any of that peaceful grazing aspect. They were full of piss and vinegar and ready to do some killing. They were big as the two-story brick buildings Bogg had once seen in Fort Inconvenience, and about that color, too -- the same brick brown as a red rhino. They looked less like hills up close, though their shaggy hair looked earthy and the crowns of their heads, with their shoulders right along, looked like the summit of something.

They swung their heads around as they thundered toward Bogg and Simon, their bone-white tusks slicing the air. Their trunks -- thick as a man and twice as long -- slithered up as they roared and hollered. Their beady black eyes shined out from beneath hairy brows and their little ears, long as Bogg's arm, flapped with rage.

And then, to beat all, to add insult to this injury, a greenie roosted on each monster between the shoulder blades and behind the hairy crowns of their heads, standing out like a mint leaf set on a pile of manure.

It was an ambush. The elk riders had chased them just where they wanted. Now Bogg and Simon were going to end up mushed between the dinner-plate sized toenails of a hill.

"Back!" Bogg called to Simon. "Back on the ice!"

They ran back over their own snow tracks, onto the creaking sheets of the lake. This was too many for Bogg. Get flattened at the foot of the hills? Get punched full of golden holes by the elk riders? Or slide off broken ice and freeze at the bottom of this mountain lake? "Lay flat, kid," Bogg gasped. "Lay flat or we'll break through."

Bogg's instincts fought it -- dropping on his belly in front of an enemy didn't seem at all like fighting or running, which were Bogg's two favorites. But there he lay, Simon sprawled on one side of him and his abandoned pack and saddlebags laying chilly on the other side, right where they skidded to a stop after he dropped them.

Those hills couldn't walk out here, at least. And low like this, Bogg and the pup were wee bitty targets for the slingers with the elks. Maybe this froze-over lake would turn out to be their best friend today.

They could use a friend about now.

The hills waited at the bottom of the slope. They screamed and swung their tusks at the ground, launching snow, grass, and clods of dirt from side to side. By and by, they settled into waiting and just rumbled in their throats now and then. Bogg peered over the snow piled in front of his face. The greenie slingers crept out of the trees, flowing all smooth, passing in and out from between the legs of the elks as they strode down the slope to the lake. Out in the open, walking greenies reminded Bogg of tall grass blowing in the wind. They were slender little fellers, smaller than the pup, frail, dressed in some kind of leaves and vines, their bald egg-shaped heads green as wet moss.

A voice came to them from the direction of the elk riders, high-pitched but sonorous, like the voice of a child. "Galdo hama!"

Bogg tried to see who spoke. The elks stopped at the bottom of the slope and didn't venture on the ice. The greenies on foot did. Bogg reckoned they were so light they wouldn't budge it.

Oh, well. Bogg felt chilled to the core. Lying on ice wasn't the healthiest way to spend an afternoon. The greenies could wait them out if they wanted. By tomorrow morning, Bogg and Simon would be stiff as icicles. A dozen greenies could pick them up by the edges and trot them home.

"Non trofos! Palano samash," said the voice. It was somebody on an elk. When his ride ducked its antlered head to sniff at the hill-torn grass, Bogg got a look. He wore gray-brown coneybuck skins, lashed together with vines into a tunic, and a crown of vines sat on his round head. His eyes sparkled blue, and his teeth showed in his sneer like little pearls. He was inside of four feet tall, and his legs were so short that his bare green feet didn't hang past the flanks of the elk.

He was an impressive-looking feller, Bogg would grant him that, but to be pinned down and bullyragged by such tiny critters seemed an irony that wore on Bogg's patience.

Simon rolled on his back and stared up at the shining blue holes in the clouds. The pup might have had enough, too. But he had a look on his face, not of frozen hopelessness, but of crazed determination, like he was about to cross a rope bridge he didn't trust, or about to jump in a river when he knew he couldn't swim.

The lad cupped his hands to his mouth and hollered at the sky. "Tlal! Wren fonos sam clochos!"

#

Chapter 23

There was a pause that hung in the air after that, like a heavy invisible blanket that made them colder instead of warmer. Then the greenies fore and aft let loose with a power of hooting that echoed from one side of the lake to the other. One of the hills got excited by the foofaraw and trumpeted.

Bogg wasn't sure if he should be impressed. "You speak greenie?"

"No," Simon cried over the racket.

That answer unhinged Bogg a bit. "Then what did you say?"

"I don't know."

Bogg pressed a cold palm to his forehead. "Then that might not have been too smart, mightn't it?" he hollered. "Did you read that in a book somewheres?"

"No. I dreamt it."

"You what?" His hand slipped over his eyes and he pressed his face in the snow.

The hooting died down to eerie silence.

"Kolomo," said the greenie chief on the elk. "Hal mani trofos."

"He's asking if we really speak vivet," Simon whispered.

Bogg lifted his head. "How do you know?"

"I don't. But it's obvious." The pup cupped his hands to his mouth. "Wren fonos sam clochos!"

Bogg frowned. "Didn't you just say that?"

"I don't remember any more of it."

The boss on the elk waved a green three-fingered hand. Slingers on foot flowed onto the flat white plain of the lake.

"Here they come, to do for us. Good try, pup. You bought us a few seconds. You think if we rush the four-legged hills, we might slip between them? Maybe they'll tangle up with each other."

"Wait," the pup said. "I remember..." He pressed his hand to his heart and hollered, "Sloros Ahm!"

The greenies on the ice stopped. They looked back to the boss on the elk.

"Ahm!" said a new voice, even higher and more birdlike than the others. Another elk strode to the edge of the lake, and with its rack of points, Bogg couldn't see the greenie riding it. "Ahm! Humu lalo feldus. Non sam clochos."

The two elk riders approached each other and palavered.

"They're deciding what to do with us," said the pup.

"I can tell that," snapped Bogg.

"Grolock lo sath," said the chief, and that must have been the final decision, because the twenty foot greenies raced over the ice and made a circle around Bogg and Simon. Their slings each held a golden marble in the pouch, and swung at the ready, the two straps held loosely in green fingers. Bogg and Simon gently got to their feet, wary of the slings and the shifting ice.

The greenies paid the ice no mind, and well they shouldn't. It didn't seem like they weighed hardly anything, the way they skipped and hopped around. The circle of them opened toward the four-legged hills.

Simon pressed his hand to his heart again, like he had a pain there.

Bogg found his shoulder. "You all right, lad?"

Simon didn't answer. His hand cradled something lumpy in the front pocket of his cotton shirt. His fingers reached in, and Bogg saw a string of acorns and seed pods.

Good land! He kept that thing? And he chose this moment to return it? He should have left it in that mess of hewn trees where he found it. The poor lad was clearly scared plumb out of his gourd and not thinking straight. His wits had snapped their moorings and gone adrift.

Bogg's fingers tightened on the boy's shoulder. Maybe the whelp had a nice gesture in mind, returning the dead's belongings to his people -- but Bogg judged it would only get them both branded as thieves. What the tree people did to thieves he could not hazard.

Simon quietly tucked the bangle necklace back in his pocket. Bogg rested easier, happy that the boy's common sense had revived.

They reached the edge of the lake, man and boy with their wreath of greenies, and one of the hills rocked and hunched down with its belly on the upturned grass. The pup seemed resigned to whatever the greenies had in mind, but Bogg decided he wasn't so tame. "I ain't getting on that thing."

"We can't fight them," Simon whispered. "And I don't think they plan to hurt us."

"Shows what you know. Four-legged hills ain't meant to be ridden by people. It ain't natural. They can reach their backs with their trunks, lad. One moment you're high as the treetops, the next moment that trunk's got you and your head is getting chomped -- don't touch it!"

The pup reached out and put his hands to the shaggy red hair on the hill's side. "It's warm."

"So's hell."

The pup grabbed fistfuls of hair and pulled himself up, while the greenie up there watched him with an ornery look. Simon settled in on the hump of the back, six feet behind the greenie. "Come on up, Bogg."

Bogg wished he had time for a think. But with a hill in front of him and twenty greenies all around, he didn't see much freedom of choice. Maybe he'd get a chance to turn the tables later... hopefully before they wound up staked in the greenie's barbeque pit.

Once resolved, Bogg lost no time scrambling up next to Simon. It was roomy enough up there that Simon and Bogg sat facing each other, their legs kicking out, clutching handfuls of hill hair in front of them.

"And the cussed swordsman?" asked Bogg. "Are we no longer interested in him?"

Simon shrugged. "We're still alive."

"Don't lose my hat," Bogg said.

Simon clapped a hand on his head, holding down Bogg's raccoon hat as the hill lurched to its feet, lifting Simon and Bogg into the air. Hills, elks, and greenies lit out for parts unknown.

#

It was sure no trouble staying awake on the back of a four-legged hill. The hairy pile of flesh they clung to rocked in a figure-eight as its four pillars each took a step. You couldn't let go of the hair and you couldn't relax for a second. All the rocking set Bogg's stomach on edge, a state of discomfort amplified by the smell of the beast. Waves of hot animal stink rose up from its back.

It was nice to be so warm, but the smell made Bogg's eyes cross. The greenie pilot never turned to watch them, though the greenies on the other hills looked over plenty enough. All their own greenie ever did was nudge the hill this way and that, in a pattern Bogg couldn't fathom. On occasion, it also reached into the thing's fur, pulled out a beetle or maggot big as its green fist, and gulped it down.

At this height, Bogg could see for miles down the treed mountainside and up to Desperation Peak. The caravan was leaving a decent trail of hill prints and uprooted trees, too. If Bogg got loose, he could follow it easy back to Settler's Pass and be on his way again.

And as for getting loose, Bogg could conjure all manner of violence in his mind. The greenies hadn't bothered to disarm him, they were so cocky. They were the big-bugs under the cow chip, all right. He thought of killing the pilot in front of them... but riding an out-of-control four-legged hill to freedom didn't seem a likely prospect. He thought of slashing his fang dagger into the hill itself -- kill it and escape in the fracas. But beneath all the hair, he and the pup were riding on a good six feet of blubber. He doubted he could cut deep enough to hit the spiney column without going spelunking into the beast.

The pup seemed unreasonably easy and content. After hanging on through the rocking for an hour or so, he turned around and started asking questions to the hill driver, all in that humbug talky-talk.

"Tlal," the kid said.

The driver whipped his head around and stared at Simon with the water-blue eyes all the greenies had. "Tlal," he said back, sounding as much like a little kid as the kid, and looked forward again, past the hairy crown of the hill's head.

"Non trofos," said the pup.

"Col sombi sok." The driver didn't look around again.

"Galdo hama," said the pup.

Bogg could tell that Simon was just saying the words he had picked up from someplace, and didn't really have a clue.

"Tlal?" The lad was determined.

"Kili falm mano lob Ahm," snapped the driver. Simon seemed to chew on that a bit.

Cuss that kid! Bogg had been hot on the trail of the swordsman just a bit ago. He wasn't sure how, but all that had been pissed away. Bogg knew now it had been a blunder to keep the kid with him. He should have left Simon by the gulley, and lit out on his own. That was what he was good at. Being on his own.

Bogg stayed quiet and hung on, stewing in his juices, for hours and hours and into the night.

#

Chapter 24

Simon woke up when the hill stopped moving. Bogg's hand had him by the shirt collar, holding him on the creature's back. "Wake up, lad," said Bogg. "We've stopped."

Simon couldn't see anything. It was night and overcast -- not even starlight to see by. He felt a sharp poking from the hill driver, prodding him off the hill. He slipped down its hirsute mound, gripping fistfuls of hair, without seeing where his feet would land. At last, they touched solid ground. He heard Bogg thump down behind him, grumbling.

Vivets appeared in the darkness ahead, holding sticks with glowing ends, as if they had just been pulled from a fire. Simon followed them past smooth stone walls, into a shelter, or structure of some kind -- he wished he could see! He stepped onto a stone floor so smooth it glistened in the amber glow of the fire in the center of the room. There were no seams in the floor. It was not made of blocks, but appeared to be a single rock, polished flat.

Bogg made a commotion behind him. "Hey, kid..."

Two vivets had stepped between them, facing Bogg, leading him away. Bogg stood his ground, his blue eyes narrow, his hairy chin thrust forward.

"It's all right, Bogg," Simon said, knowing that it wasn't all right.

Bogg's jaw worked back and forth. "See you in the morning, kid." He turned into the shadows. "Maybe." He let the vivets lead him away, behind a wavy sheet of rock that reflected red and tan in the firelight.

For the moment, Simon was alone in the room, all flowing stone and campfire. He knew Bogg was right -- they weren't safe here. The vivets could do anything to them. Or worse, the vivets could keep them captive indefinitely. Escape made sense, and the sooner the better.

But Simon also knew that in his dream, the wild man had spoken vivet to him. The dream had saved him on the ice. It had gotten him here. He knew the wild man was real, he knew the wild man had put the dream in his head and given him those words.

Vivet words.

What did they have to do with all this?

What was he supposed to do here?

A vivet appeared at the far end of the chamber, as if from nowhere. Simon couldn't see well enough to pick out the passageway it had come from.

The creature stepped around the fire. It was a bit under his height, the firelight casting its green skin as orange dancing on gray. Its tunic was made of fresh oval leaves with no sign of stitchwork -- perhaps pasted together with sap. Its naked feet were four-toed and smaller than Simon's.

Black hair fell back from its forehead and beyond its slender neck. It was the first vivet Simon had seen with hair. There was a trace of a high widow's peak, and the creature's budlike ears showed behind locks of hair braided and held with bits of stem.

Simon suddenly wondered if it was a boy or a girl. Something about it suggested female, although its body was thin and childlike, as were all the vivets at the frozen lake. There was nothing womanly about her. Maybe the leaf-tunic reminded him of petticoats. Maybe vivets didn't have genders... although Simon didn't see how that could work. Even plants had genders.

Her large eyes were wary... and possibly blue; it was hard to tell in the firelight. Her nose and mouth were tiny, and her cheeks sloped to a small rounded chin.

Simon took off his hat.

"Tlal," he said.

#

Chapter 25

Her eyes narrowed and her head drew back, in a way that suggested he was using the word incorrectly.

"My name is Simon Jones."

"Mahee name is Sahman Dones."

He had been hearing her voice all his life, in the calling of birds in the apple orchards and the babbling of Stone Brook eost of Fort Sanctuary.

He touched his hat to his chest. "Call me Simon."

She rested a four-fingered hand on her hair. "Call me Sahman."

Simon shook his head.

"Humu lalo feldus," she declared. "Po lal Ahm fan oko?"

An icy chill trickled down Simon's spine. He was in deep over his head. "Pardon?"

She stepped close to him and peered up into his eyes. Hers were blue, Simon could see despite the dim firelight. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. She sniffed at his mouth, and he closed it and swallowed nervously. Then she sniffed at his neck, and looked from his left shoulder to his right.

Simon held his breath.

Her fingers gripped the hat in his hand. He let it go. She brought it to her nose, gave it three quick inhales, and dropped it on the stone beside her. Her eyes roved over his body.

Simon's eyebrows raised. "What are you doing?"

"What are you doing?" she said. It was the sound of a stone skipping across a lake.

She raised a tentative hand to his face and held it before his eyes. Simon saw fingerprints on the tips of her rounded fingers, and no nails. Her fingers touched his raised eyebrows, and felt slightly warm. Slowly, she brushed his cheek, then his ear. She tugged gently on his earlobe, and slipped a finger inside.

He squirmed and pulled away. "Hey, now." He froze, fearing he'd overreacted. If she took offense, what would she do?

"Hey, now," she said. She felt his nose. Then she brought both hands to the back of his neck and tugged carefully at his hair. Then she pressed her palms to feel the shape of his head.

Simon guessed that she had never been this close to a human before. Or maybe vivets always greeted each other this way. In either case...

He lifted his hand and held it before her. She froze. He touched her nose -- just a little bump above two nostrils. Her skin was warm and featureless -- no pores, nor hairs, nor scars. He felt the bud of her ear, and tugged on a black braid.

Her head tipped to the pull, and she grinned. Her teeth shone in the firelight, small and round. He grinned back.

She took his hand in both of hers, pulling and working his fingers, feeling his fingernails, rotating his thumb, then making a fist. She squeezed and pulled his index finger, as if deciding that it, in particular, was the extra one.

With his left, he felt the concatenating leaves over her shoulder. They were pliable and fresh, picked only a day or two ago. Vivets must make new clothes for themselves constantly. He pulled at a leaf, curious as to how they adhered to each other, and the leaf came off in his fingers. The strap of her tunic hung broken at her shoulder.

She released his hand and took a step back. "Hey, now," she admonished.

He held the leaf out to her. "Sorry."

She pressed it back into place and reattached the strap. It looked good as new, stuck with tree sap that didn't dry out.

She poked a button on his cotton shirt, and pulled at the collar, frowning. With one hand, she unbuttoned his top button. Simon's breath caught in his throat. She undid another.

"Hey, now," Simon said. He rebuttoned.

"Sorry." She turned her attention to his boots. He took them off so she could get a sense of them, and she sniffed them and reached inside. Footwear seemed very new to her.

"Boots," he said.

She briefly placed a hand over one eye. "Galdo boots." Simon guessed there was no vivet word for boot, but wondered about the gesture. One eye. Impaired perception. Confusion, maybe... a vivet shrug?

She stepped into the boots and clopped around the fire, wildly swinging her arms for balance. Simon clapped a hand over his mouth to hold in his laugh, but it was too much. He nearly exploded, so he forgot about propriety and laughed outright.

She stepped out of them and nudged them over with a toe. "Nok-toth," she said.

He stepped beside her to compare feet. She saw his five toes and dropped low to investigate.

"Toes," Simon said.

"Toes. Fim."

He sat down and counted for her. "One, two, three, four, five toes."

She sat and waved a foot at him. "Ob, nob, pob, dobe fimi."

Simon repeated it and held up four fingers. "Dobe."

She gave him a sidelong glance. "Tlal."

Simon frowned. He hadn't heard _tlal_ used in the affirmative before. He had thought it was an attention-getter. Maybe it was both. Questions were piling up in his head, so he closed his eyes and repeated mentally what he had learned.

When he opened them, she was nose-to-nose with him, peering at him.

He fought the urge to step back. Instead he asked, "What is your name?"

She didn't answer.

He gestured to himself, placing his hand to his chest. "Simon." And she would surely think it was the word for chest, heart, shirt, soul... He pointed to his temple with his other hand. "Simon."

"Sahman." She looked askance at him, another sidelong glance. Turning one's head to the side... it could be a nod. She mimicked him, pressing her hand to the leaves at the front of her dress and touching her head with her other hand. "Ee-manu-lali."

"What?"

"Ee. Ifiga Ee."

"Ee," Simon said. "I can remember that." He gestured to himself again. "Ifiga Simon."

"Tlal, Sahman."

He looked askance at her. "Nice to meet you."

#

The glow from the fire had died down by the time Simon was talking about the thunderbird. He had worked his way through their story that far when he noticed the light in the room changing, acquiring the gray clarity of an approaching dawn. It was only then that he noticed there was no ceiling, but open sky above him. How could he have stayed so warm last night? What was this place?

Ee sat patiently -- his audience and tutor -- and showed no signs of fatigue. Simon wondered if vivets slept. Then again, he was a pretty entertaining act. He hopped around the room and flapped his arms.

She didn't get it.

He pointed to a rock he had pulled from the edge of the camp fire. Over the past hours, the rock had been a mountain (sosh), a horse (nidaboo), a four-legged hill (mamoo), Bogg (Bogg), an elk (kariboo), and a dozen other things. Now, he pointed to it and said "Kariboo," and made a show of flapping down and snatching it up with one hand.

"Tlal!" She gave him a sidelong look. "Borakoo."

"Got it," Simon said. "So Bogg and Deff dali in this clearing -- all the ish cut down, manack, and out of the sky comes this borakoo, and it nearly manack Bogg. Almost galdo Bogg. Instead, it just picked up, timack maybe, a couple of trees, nob ishi. Timack nob ishi, and flew away."

Her eyes were wide and her mouth made a little circle. "Nok-toth," she whispered.

"No, it's true!"

"Kolomo," she crooned. ("Amazing.")

"So these trees, ishi, must have been cut down, manack, by the privateers, the hunters, wren. Wren manack ishi. Bogg and I think that maybe they fought some vivets right there, before we got there. Wren manack vivoo."

Her eyes narrowed, grim and expressionless.

Simon knew this was dangerous ground. He had worked through his story all night, painfully slowly, in the hope of winning the vivets' favor, or at least keep the vivets from killing them. He had tried to make it clear that he and the vivets had a common enemy. He hoped he wouldn't botch up here. His grasp of her language was not firm, and a slight miscommunication could cost their lives.

She said slowly, "Po lal Ahm fan oko?"

She had asked it before. He didn't know any of those words.

Simon had guessed that his blatherings in their language had saved Bogg and him from being killed on the frozen lake... but why did she labor to teach him now? What did she want from him?

What had he said?

Sloros Ahm.

What did it mean? Why had he dreamt it?

She watched him intently, waiting for an answer.

"They manack vivoo, the unspeakably vicious criminals who started all this, in their ruthless sprint to save themselves, wren manack vivoo. How can I make you believe me?"

He put his hand to his heart and felt the beads. "And then, once Bogg and I were there, Deff timack... this." He drew the necklace from his shirt pocket and handed it to her.

She shrank away from it and keened a high note. It upset her so much, Simon knew he had blundered and wanted to put it away -- to take back the moment. Then she leapt to her feet and snatched it from him. "Sloros Ahm!" she said. "Non trofos. Wren fono."

He had heard that before. "Lalbi?" ("I don't understand.")

Her body shook with... rage? Terror?

She held up the beads. "Ahm!"

None of it made sense. Simon had crossed a line, made his error. He swallowed, and his own body quivered with fear. "Lalbi," he whispered.

"Ee-manu-lali!" she cried, pressing her hand to her chest. "Ahm!" She pressed the bead necklace to her chest, bunching it in both hands. "Ahm-manu-lali!" She spoke more, but Simon only heard a keening howl. Clutching the necklace, Ee rushed away, between the stone walls and into the predawn gloom.

#

All night, Simon's world had been Ee, the fire, the stone floor, and the dim, flickering hints of walls. Now, gray twilight melted the darkness and brought his surroundings into proper existence.

The clouds overhead took on grim contours. They still threatened rain or snow.

For the first time, Simon saw the maze of stone in which he had been abandoned. Around him sprouted columns and walls like a forest of rock, twenty feet tall. They were stalagmites, or at least they looked it. Had they come from a cavern? There were no blocks, no seams, no sign of construction. The twelve columns, in a rough star-pattern around him, flowed like gray waterfalls, like they had been dripped into place from above over thousands of years. They were frozen in swaying, undulating motion, lumpy, pointed, tan with freshets of milky stone flowing through.

The floor was a pool of stone, with concentric rings of minerals. Simon couldn't see how it could have been built here, and from its size -- a single piece of stone thirty feet across -- he didn't see how the vivets could transport it.

It belonged a mile underground. Simon felt like he was in a lost cave, except for the clouds overhead and the dandelions growing at the floor's perimeter. Stretching between the pillars were wavy and folding sheets of what looked like limestone, thick and rounded at the edges and thin as buckskin in spots near the center. These sheets made bending rectangular walls.

The sun came up in the eost. It hung soft and red below the smeared charcoal of the clouds. Simon stepped behind one of the sloping, cascading sheets of rock, which was thin enough to be translucent. Through the rock, the sun was a golden flame. He touched the spot, expecting it to be warm.

But the stone was cold.

In a moment, the sun would rise into the blanket of clouds above it and be lost. But for now, it touched the monument and turned the curving tips of the twelve columns bright orange.

A pair of stalagmites standing eost of the circle twisted together, and sunlight beamed through a short segment of the gap between them. The spear of light fell on a thin sheet of stone standing near the central floor, making a pattern of light shaped like Bogg's sabertooth knife. The sheet was peppered with holes -- hundreds of them. Simon wondered if they had been water-carved by some subterranian river or polished into the stone by intelligent hands. The dagger of light fell on three of the holes.

Simon peered around the sheet. Three ribbons of light passed through the holes and across the central floor to another sheet with veins of reddish minerals running along the stone. There, three brilliant spots appeared, brightening and shifting as the sun crept higher, two of them luminous white and one glowing scarlet.

Simon stared, dazzled by the small, beautiful lights on the rock. The parts dropped into place in his mind: the twin pillars, with the sliver of light between them, the panel of holes, and the final colored screen. If things were not arranged just as they were, the sunlight wouldn't shine into a pattern -- certainly not this pattern. If the sun didn't rise just where it did, a different part of the twisting twin pillars would be illuminated, light would fall through different holes, making different colored spots on that last screen of rock. Maybe four spots, maybe two, or five. Two red, none red...

It was a calendar.

The two white spots and one red -- that was today's date. Tomorrow the sun would rise at a slightly different azimuth, as it journeyed solstice to solstice, which meant different holes, different colors.

Nothing like it existed in Algolus or anywhere else in the world. The engineering of rock out of cave sinter was one thing, but the coordination of the stones, the design of the patterns of holes... if vivets had built this, they were more advanced than anyone had thought. But why would they need it? What would they use it for?

The luminous spots faded and vanished. The sun was lost in the clouds. Simon stood and watched the bare, cold sheet of rock where the points of light had been.

Bogg stepped from behind a column. "Morning, pup."

#

Chapter 26

"Bogg! Are you all right?"

"Plumb wore through. No sleep."

"Me neither."

"I spent the night in a staring contest with a green man, down the way there. Then another one came in and chittered at him, and they both left. The other one had a necklace in its hands. Your'n, I judge. I was unwatched and felt turned loose, so I wandered. These stones go on for a bit. It's all bigger than it looks."

"I talked with one. The vivet killed in that clearing was someone close to her."

"What the jings are these critters up to? And did you say 'her'?"

Simon closed his eyes and thought of poor Ee. "She's in mourning. That's what it is."

Bogg spat into the dandelions. "So why don't they mount up and run those bastards into the ground?"

"I don't know. Maybe losing the one was enough for them. Maybe seeing the swordsman fight gave them pause. Maybe vengeance isn't their way."

"That's _their_ shortcoming, then. Suits me well enough. I'm going."

"Really?"

"I don't see any greenies trying to stop me."

Simon shook his head. "No sleep, no food. The trail is so old -- you really think we can catch them?"

Bogg barked out a laugh. "No, pup! I'm going. Not you. You stay with your little green friends if you want."

"Bogg--"

"And I mean it this time. If you try to come, I won't just ignore you. I'll whale you silly and leave you for dead. I swear it."

Simon had no will to fight Bogg on the matter. He slumped against a stalagmite. His head hung low and fatigue pulled at him. "If I'm that useless to you... if I hinder you that much... then yes. I'll stay here."

Bogg scowled and snarled out a frustrated sound. "It ain't your uselessness so much. You ain't as useless as when I first met you, though you are a boulder to carry at times... but that's beside the point. The thing is, well... I'm a bit of a bastard. That is, I ain't fit to look after a pup such as you. Not such as you should be looked after. I ain't fit to look after anybody, tell truth. Heck, I reckon my best friend in all the world is a trapper named Aloysius, with a beard down to his belly, and I last seen him in the Darkling Hills well on six years ago. I just ain't set for people. I don't want them. I won't have them."

Dull aching rage swelled in Simon's stomach, cramping in his fatigued, sleep-deprived body. "All right, Bogg. Go."

"I'm sorry, Simon-lad."

"Just go."

Bogg's blue eyes searched Simon's for a moment, then turned grim. Bogg jutted out his chin and drew his black cloak about him. "Take care, pup." He disappeared beyond the flowing columns.

Simon seethed. By staying behind, he was abandoning the quest to avenge his father. Simon had no lust for vengeance in his heart -- no need to kill -- but all the same, the thought of letting the swordsman and his allies escape -- after all the crimes they had committed -- sickened him.

Simon thought of Bogg gaining on them in long strides, and let the image cheer him up. Maybe they wouldn't escape after all.

Part of him wanted to find his way back to Fort Sanctuary, but he condemned this as merely the instinctive pull of the familiar. There was no reason to go back there. But maybe he could hike eost, down to one of the villages along the coast.

What could he do? Where could he go? Could he even find his way out of this maze of rock? He sat down, exhausted and hungry, against a column.

His remaining strength left him and his body pressed painfully against the rock. He felt powerless, as weak as the day he had failed to save his father's life. After all that had happened, he hadn't changed at all.

The gray sky sent brief bouts of snow, which melted flake-by-flake on the stone or vanished into the dying coals with barely a whisper. After an hour, the stalagmites were wet with snowmelt. The clouds broke, and shining beams slanted from growing patches of blue.

He couldn't lie here forever. It was time to pick a direction and start walking.

Ee reappeared, quiet as the falling snow, with food and fuel for the fire. In this light, the oval leaves of her dress were brilliant green, and her skin shone as verdantly as a sapling newly open to the sun. Her braids were coal black and swayed as she placed branches just so on the coals. She wore Ahm's necklace around her neck.

He wondered if Ahm was her brother or her husband. He didn't know how to ask for words like that. He had never seen a vivet child -- did they have brothers and husbands, sisters and wives? Maybe vivets grew on trees, and those words were meaningless. Mothers, fathers, daughters, sons...

She passed him boiled venison and berries, and ate quietly with him. Simon was glad vivet diet was not as strange as other things about them. She ate daintily, which didn't surprise him, and she showed no signs of exhaustion, despite staying up with him last night.

"How long can I stay here?" he asked. Her little chin stopped the rolling movement it made when she chewed. She couldn't have understood him, and she made no answer. Simon regretted asking.

Her chin started again. She swallowed, and he could see the muscles in her throat move.

"Never mind. I won't stay. I just wish I could understand more about Ahm."

Her eyes focused on him, cold and lightning-blue. She had caught that last word, he knew.

"Sloros Ahm." She set down the berry she had held in her fingers and her delicate arms hung limp, a weeping willow.

Simon looked askance at her to show he understood. _Sloros_... a word from his dream, and so ominous. It meant killing vivets or humans, he thought, or maybe it meant murder, rather than _manack_ , which could mean killing an animal or cutting down a tree.

Ahm is murdered.

Ee roused herself to her feet. She waved a hand over the remaining food and said, "Kenok nata."

"You're leaving?"

Her little feet carried her to the edge of the circle.

"Don't go!"

She was gone.

Simon was too exhausted to chase her. The sun shone through a gap in the clouds, and a pillar to the aust of the circle, with a tapering point, cast a shadow on the floor. Faded round stains, some milky, some scarlet, made arcing dotted lines across the stone. It was a sundial, too, and the red and white traces reminded him of the sunlight on the wall at sunrise. Part of the language of the ancients. Or perhaps he was so tired he was seeing spots.

He had been awake almost thirty hours, and couldn't do any more. He stretched out, piled his pack under his head, and fell asleep.

#

Chapter 27

Simon felt better. He was jogging through the Green Man Forest, eost of the Darkling Hills, in the cool of a summer morning. Birds chirped in the lowest branches of the pines and firs, and he could hear them, out of sight, high in the occasional redwoods that stood like wooden monuments taller than he could see.

The wild man was beside him.

The giant's long strides came slowly, so Simon could keep up by maintaining a light trot. The man's hand -- at Simon's eye level -- swung like a slow clock's pendulum.

"Tlal! Bolalbi nana hem sako," Simon said. ("Hey! I didn't know if I would ever see you again.")

The wild man stopped. Those legs stood before him like two hairy auburn trees. Seven feet over Simon's head, the wild man's pleasant dark face and orange eyes gazed down at him.

"Ifiga Simon," Simon said.

Ifiga--

The giant turned and crouched low as if startled by a sound, his eyes scanning the distance, where the trees mottled into brown and green impenetrability.

Then Simon heard it too. The barking of dogs.

"Pada?" Simon asked. ("What is it?")

Crouched, the wild man was only a head taller than Simon. He brushed a hand big as an oar blade over his eye and listened. Then, with an explosive snort, the giant stood and ran.

Too fast! He was out of sight before Simon could react. For a moment Simon heard the receding soft crunch of his feet on leaves and pine needles and the baying of a dozen hounds closing in -- but there was nothing to see. Simon sprinted after him.

The giant's tracks lay ten or twelve feet apart. Then the ground became rocky and they vanished altogether. The dogs grew louder. Hunting dogs! What if Simon climbed a tree? The wild man was too big -- he'd just pull branches down -- but Simon could manage.

No, that was madness. Chasing prey up a tree merely cornered it. That was how hunting worked.

Not in these redwoods, though. Simon wondered if the wild man might leap fifty feet to the lowest branches of a redwood, then climb a hundred feet higher than that. Maybe he already had.

Think! Who was hunting here? If only Simon could--

"Hey!" Simon screamed. "Call off your dogs! Hey!" He couldn't believe his ears. He'd just heard himself cry, "Tlal! Nadu ta wrenkoroo! Tlal!"

Those dogs wouldn't attack a person, would they? Or would they rip him apart? Simon glanced up the redwoods as he ran, wondering if the wild man was up there. Couldn't the giant reach down and scoop him up to safety?

The trees thinned out and Simon dashed up a rise of granite outcroppings. He stopped fast, boots skidding, at the twenty foot drop-off. Beyond, meadow grass and stubby pine saplings waved breezily around blackened tree stumps. A natural clearing, the site of an old forest fire.

The giant bound through the clearing, straight for Simon. He had never climbed a tree. He had run this way, seen the hunters waiting at the clearing's far side, and turned around.

It was an ambush.

Beyond the giant were eight men on horseback. Thirty vivets stood with them, wearing iron collars linked together with sagging chains. Each vivet struggled under a heavy pack. In the center of them all prowled a she-bear fitted with a saddle and bridle. A man, with brown hair streaked with silver that turned in the wind like aspen leaves, sat proudly astride the bear.

He stood in the saddle. His face bore a scar from the center of his forehead, under a black eyepatch on his right eye, to the front of his right ear. His chain mail glistened in the sun as he leveled a firelock with four black barrels at the giant. As the giant reached the bottom of the rise where Simon watched, the firelock cracked thunder and spat four puffs of smoke.

The giant's broad chest exploded and blood splashed on the rocks. The wild man stumbled and teetered, finally crashing onto the granite under Simon like a felled tree.

The men on horseback cheered in Algolan accents.

"Excellent shot, Governor!"

"Congratulations, my Lord."

"Fitting, fitting, that you should be the first to defeat such a vexing creature."

"Indeed, after so many others had found nothing but tracks all these years."

"What a giant! I've never seen anything so fearsome in all your lands, my Lord."

Smoke curled from the firelock barrels. The man dug his heels into the bear's flanks. She growled and lumbered to the wild man's corpse.

Simon ducked and peeked over the top of the rise.

The long-haired man with the eyepatch holstered the weapon on the saddle, dismounted, and considered the giant from head to toe, nodding proudly. He turned to his entourage, placed a boot on the creature's hairy rump, and with a casual hand drew a broadsword from a sheath on his back.

The man pointed the sword to the sky. "My friends! Another victory!"

The crowd applauded.

Sunlight sparkled on the runes along the blade's deep groove. Simon struggled to make them out--

KALLISTI.

Low snarling came from behind. Simon turned, and the hounds were on him.

#

Chapter 28

When Simon awoke, the scream was already half out of his body. He gasped and sobbed.

Sunrise touched the stone circle in the dripstone monument. Rays beamed through the network of holes and made two white and two red spots. They were already fading when Simon's groggy eyes focused on them. He could barely see them, the images in his mind were so powerful.

The wild man.

The wild man had shown Simon his death. And the death of Mira.

So the swordsman wouldn't scurry back to Algolus. The swordsman had more ambitious plans, or would someday come to have more ambitious plans. Spearheading bloodthirsty Algolan rule over Mira? Simon sat up.

No way! Simon had to do something. But what? Catch up with Bogg? Bogg had a day's head start, and was traveling alone, unhindered by overcivilized twelve-year-olds.

The thought of Bogg in hot pursuit was, somehow, easy in his mind. Obstacles didn't matter. Simon Jones was going to stop the swordsman. He would avenge his family, Bogg's family, Ee's family. He would snuff out the steel plague the swordsman was spreading.

But how?

"Ee!" Simon called. Yesterday, she had appeared around this time--

She peeked around a boulder.

"Ee! I need your help. I'm going after the privateers. Your sling! Can you teach--" Simon stopped, stunned by the words coming out of his mouth. He had said, "Ee! Wo fabi bo. Wo lonni wren naga. Suskah! Eboshan--"

The wild man's gift.

"Your sling," he repeated.

Ee's blue eyes were round and startled. "It is not for humans..."

"Ee, listen. They killed Ahm. They killed my father."

"You... speak well."

"And they're just starting."

She stepped back and crouched, ready to spring to safety. "But you are alone. Your hairy friend has abandoned you."

"He'll need my help." The words came fast, before Simon could doubt them. Maybe Bogg didn't need his help. Maybe Simon would die, or get in the way and get Bogg killed, or both.

No time for that now.

"Po lal Ahm fan oko," Simon said. "That's what you said to me. All along, you've been asking me what I know about Ahm's death, and hoping I would understand you. That's why you saved us on that frozen lake, because I said 'Ahm is murdered.' That's why you stayed with me, here, all night -- to try to find out what I know."

"How are you doing this?" Ee asked.

"Do vivets ever dream of the wild man?"

Ee watched him for a long moment, her green lips parted, her breath coming heavy past her pearl-like teeth. "You've seen the wild man?"

"He gave me the speaking I'm using now. I saw him die."

"Impossible, Simon. I think you've been talking to other vivets."

"Who is he? Ee... please."

"There are old stories of vivets who go seeking the wild man. The skyman, he is called, or the One Who Walks Between the Trees. The vivets travel far, have adventures -- they are good stories -- but they all end the same way. The vivet travelers learn some wisdom, but the wild man is never found."

"Never?"

"He only comes to us in dreams, Simon. And only some of us."

"Well, he came to me," Simon insisted. "I have to save him."

"He cannot die! Or so the stories say."

"I don't think so. He might really be out there. Somewhere."

"How could you save him?"

"By stopping the people who killed Ahm."

Ee's eyes narrowed. "One human kills vivets. Another says he dreams of the wild man and asks for my sling. Maybe you're a liar with a gift for languages, and you're going to _join_ the people who killed Ahm."

Simon flinched. But why wouldn't she think that? "They've taken from you, they've taken from me, from Bogg, from countless others. I'm going after them."

Ee's skepticism slipped away and her little mouth hung open.

Simon waited for her to speak, but she didn't. He raised his hands, pleading. "Don't you want that? Justice? Revenge? Anything? To save their future victims? What's with you people?"

Ee glanced to the fire and seemed to shrink a little. "I want it."

"Then let me--"

"But the other vivets don't. They think the privateers are cursed. Too dangerous. They are only passing through, so... let them pass."

Simon stepped closer to her and held Ahm's necklace in his fingers. "These seeds. I understand them now."

Her head drew back and she peered down at his hands as he counted each pierced bit. "This acorn. The necklace starts here, and the acorn represents Ahm's birth. Or his hatching, or when he sprouted; I don't get that part of vivet life yet. All necklaces begin with an acorn."

His fingers selected a maple seed pod, with its dry, leaflike wing. "This means a rescue. Some other vivet saved Ahm's life." Next on the necklace was a horse chestnut. "Humans around here call these buckeyes, because they're dark and round, just like the eye of a deer. But they're poisonous. Ahm suffered an illness, but he recovered."

Simon counted quietly through the seeds and nuts on the necklace. "This is the history of Ahm's life. All his milestones, all his experiences, are here."

He paused on a walnut. "This is when he met you. That's funny, a little... that for vivets, a walnut symbolizes--"

Ee looked up into his eyes. "Come with me."

#

Tiberius Bogg hadn't eaten all day, and he plumb adored it. His stomach had shrunken to a tight little growling monster, and Bogg boomed along lick-splickety, listening to it whine.

He was on the sept side of Settler's Pass, downhill now, past the icy rotten snow and frozen trees in the shadow of Deadreckoning Peak. He didn't have the trail yet, and he didn't know just where the buggers were up ahead, but if they were anywhere this side of Rastaban, Bogg would catch them, and then, by jings, there'd be thunder to pay.

What a fracas it would be! All the bards would write songs about it.

Course, if they reached Rastaban, Bogg would lose them. That place, old Dragon's Head, was so full of rapscallions and scoundrels and bastards that even Bogg's sons of bitches would blend in -- or else team up with the rest of them -- and Bogg didn't judge that he could butcher the whole town.

Hold on now. No reason to believe they were in Rastaban already. Bogg had been held up (and how!)... so maybe they had been held up too. Hope lifted Bogg's spirits and burned in Bogg's heart, hotter than love in haying time.

Recollecting being held up, naturally, called the pup to mind. Bogg didn't feel at all right about leaving him with the greenies. Bogg didn't know for sure that the greenies wouldn't hurt the boy. Bogg's gut told him it was true, but his gut was heavily swayed by his own intense desire to be where Bogg was right now, ripping and tearing alone after those killers. Maybe it wasn't true at all. Maybe the boy was in danger right now.

His stomach roared painfully and twisted itself up, and the spring in his step sagged a little. His stride petered down until he stood on the mountainside, puffing, watching his breath come out as fog in the chilly air.

Cuss that kid. Even when he wasn't here, he was here.

#

Chapter 29

Ee led Simon down the grassy slope from the dripstone monument. Once they were clear of the stalagmites, Simon could see a camp of vivets in a grove of trees, and elk and four-legged hills grazing in a field beside it.

He followed her through the camp. Vivets around them worked at every task Simon could imagine: tanning skins, mixing sap and plucking leaves for clothes, foraging... even vivets working a gold smelter, tossing measured blobs high in the air so they would cool in a round shape before plopping and hissing in a pond. A small vivet then dove in to retrieve the sling balls.

Simon was curious to see where the smelter's gold came from, but that wasn't why he was here, so he stayed close on Ee's bare green heels instead.

Green face after green face turned up to see Simon pass. He had never seen so many sets of wide, blue, suspicious eyes. All the vivets were smaller than him. He imagined he could spot genders. The males were broader across the shoulders and never had hair, while the females had rounder faces and hair on their heads that might be black, green, white, or some shade in between. There were no children, and the mystery of where vivets came from would have to wait.

At the far side of camp, at a meadow overlooking a bluff, two vivet warriors practiced with slings. Their target was a lonely dead tree that stood at the edge of the bluff like a dry and twisted scarecrow. Its bark was chipped and broken from countless sling hits.

The vivets saw Simon and took slinging stances toward him.

"Wait." Ee approached alone and spoke to them quietly. They looked astounded at first, then bemused. One gave Ee a sidelong glance and handed her his sling and a small sack made of animal skin. They melted away to the edge of the clearing and shot up the trunk of a tree to watch.

Ee motioned Simon over.

"Do humans use slings?" she asked.

"No," Simon said. "That is, yes. But I never have."

She handed him a vivet sling made of about four feet of twisted vine, with a woven green diamond-shaped pouch in the middle. Simon felt the flexible, moist life of the vine. It would dry out and be useless in a day or two. "Why not make these out of leather? You have leather."

Ee thought about it. "We don't like making permanent weapons. It's bad luck. _Tlal_ \-- see this loop? Slip it over your middle finger. Wait. Which?" Ee stopped, flummoxed by Simon's extra finger.

Simon slipped the loop over his ring finger and pinched the other end of the vine between his index finger and thumb. He reached for the bag.

"Do you know how?" Ee asked. "You have to let go of the end at exactly the right moment."

"How can I learn if you don't let me try?"

Ee handed him the bag. Simon reached in and withdrew a sling stone.

It was a small, round rock. Not gold.

"These are for practice," Ee said.

"But these are too light. The gold ones would feel different than these. They would fly differently. Do you have gold ones?"

Ee blinked, the gesture for negation. "Vivets practice with stone, not gold."

Simon looked askance at her. "I see. So the gold is too valuable to waste."

"No. These stones are untraceable. They are merely stones. But the gold shows that vivets were here."

Simon looked askance at her again, to show he understood. He held the sling in one hand and the bag in the other, and realized he needed a third hand to place a stone in the sling. "How do you do this?"

"Hang the bag on your belt. Swing the sling around, get a sense of how it moves. A trained warrior can drop a stone in a moving sling."

Simon tucked the bag in his osnaburg coat pocket. He lifted the ends of the vine and tried to set a stone in the sling pouch as it swayed in the soft breeze. It was like trying to thread a hanging needle. By holding very still, Simon was able to set the stone in the sling. If he moved, it would fall out.

"Go ahead." Ee melted into the meadow grass, the vivet equivalent of hitting the deck.

Simon rocked the sling a little. The stone didn't drop out. He swung it in a full circle, just to get a feel for it, and as the pouch came around and lifted into a second circle, he tried to stop the swing and the stone plopped in the grass.

The bag at his belt was full, and Simon was thankful for that. He drew another stone, and with patience, set it in the pouch.

This time, he would kill that old tree.

He worked his wrist and set the sling racing in a loop, over and over.

"Good," said Ee, invisible in the grass. Her slender green arm reached up to point to his elbow. "Here, to start." She pointed to his wrist. "Then here. Faster."

Die, tree, thought Simon.

He whipped the sling around with a final burst of speed and let the vine slip from his fingers. A tree branch rustled behind him. The stone fell rattling from the branch and thumped in the weeds.

The two vivets behind him chittered with laughter. One of them sounded a warning hoot -- Danger, we're under attack! -- and they both chittered louder.

Simon huffed. His arms hung limply at his sides. He hadn't even come close to them. They didn't have to mock!

"Your timing was wrong," Ee said. "And too much power. Let the sling do the work. Once the sling is moving, it just takes a little wrist. You know, a trained warrior can drop a stone into a moving sling and fire that bag empty in a few heartbeats."

Simon hated being mocked. But he needed this weapon and he wouldn't give up. Let the swordsman attack with his shining blade. Simon would strike him down before he could get close.

Simon set another stone in the pouch and set it swinging. He relaxed, and the sling spun up to a blur. He kept it racing for a few seconds while he thought about his timing and rather than projecting evil thoughts at the scarecrow tree, he locked his gaze on a particular crooked branch halfway up.

Timing, timing.

He let go, and the crack was so loud it startled him. The old tree gave up a puff of dust, and the branch snapped and tumbled over the ridge.

Simon froze. He didn't think he would hit it!

Victory hoots echoed from the tree behind him. Ee rose from the grass, her eyes wide. "A vivet's shot. Are you sure your blood is red, Simon?"

Simon felt invincible. He really could overtake Bogg and slay the swordsman himself -- somehow. Simon's dear fuzzy uncle would leap out, ready for battle, and find Simon in repose, scrimshandering with that monster's sword. How extraordinary that would be! If Simon could dazzle Bogg, he could dazzle anyone. He would never need anyone's assistance for anything. No one would be able to hold him prisoner, indentured or indebted, again.

"Vivets have a saying," said Ee. "One success is a blessing afforded all creatures, but no more." Her tiny nose wrinkled mischievously. "Beginners have luck."

Simon nodded. The swordsman had companions. A single hit wouldn't do the job.

There were eight more stones in the bag. Eight more limbs to blast off the scarecrow tree, his surrogate enemy. Eight more chances to prove himself. "We have that saying too," Simon said. "But watch this."

Simon missed eight times.

#

Simon sat alone in the grass. Ee had left to find more practice stones, and the two warriors in the tree had grown bored and melted away quietly, the way vivets did.

What was Simon going to do? Go through with this and be killed like so many others?

He remembered the wild man's message. The swordsman had to be stopped.

But how would Simon keep from being just another one of his victims? Simon pulled at the meadow grass, despondent.

More practice, more practice.

Then, when the moment came -- whenever it came -- and the swordsman was in range... all Simon needed was a lucky shot.

He wished he knew what would happen.

Ee, quiet as a mirage, appeared beside him. She held out the bag to him, heavy and full.

Simon took it. It held so many smooth white riverbed stones that they would spill out if the bag tipped.

"Good. Thanks, Ee."

She smiled and put her hands behind her back. It was a strange gesture for a vivet, and it caught Simon's eye. She brought her three-fingered fists together in front of him, showing him the knuckles of a toddler.

Simon knew this game. He tapped the soft skin on the back of her right hand.

She nodded and opened her right fist. A golden slingstone sat on her palm, the twinkling center of a flower, her fingers the green reaching petals.

Simon plucked up the slingstone. Gold, all right -- so heavy it nearly pulled itself out of his fingers. It was misshapen, more acorn than sphere. He frowned.

"It was rejected," Ee said excitedly. "Because it didn't cool quickly enough and became unround. Sling warriors are stodgy about these things."

"Ee..."

"I was able to steal it before it was returned to the cauldron for melting. It should fly true, I think."

Simon locked the ball in his fist and pressed his fist to his eye. "Ee, you don't understand. One gold slingstone? I don't want to seem ungrateful, but I'm going to need about a hundred of these. Isn't that obvious?"

Ee frowned, deep lines forming over her eyes, the delicate skin between the lines pinched pale. "I had to steal this one. There will be no more."

"Don't you want me to stop the hunters?"

"Yes! But my people don't."

"Why not?"

"They've chased the hunters to the pass, so they are no longer in our territory. They no longer threaten us. The vivets feel that's enough. They mourn Ahm, as I do, but otherwise, they are content."

"One stone? You can't get more?"

"Your presence here is tolerated for now, out of respect for me and a taste for novelty. If you demand more, the vivets will come to believe you are merely a gold-hungry human, and they'll cast you out. They might kill you, if you squawk loudly enough."

One stone.

Simon racked his brains. Beg? Demand? Steal?

Maybe there was another way. He pocketed the stone. "Thank you, Ee. Come on... there's something else you can do for me." Simon reached for the lowest branches in the scarecrow tree and pulled himself up.

Ee didn't follow. She only watched him climb.

"Come on!" When Simon was halfway up, and the brittle old tree was creaking in the breeze, Ee sprinted up to a branch just above him. "Being in this tree is silly and dangerous," she said.

Simon pointed. "Look."

Down the bluff and across a mile of rocky slope, on a stretch of tundra surrounded by evergreen forests, the vivets' herd of four-legged hills dug at the frozen grass.

"I'm going to need one of those," Simon said.

#

Chapter 30

Bogg followed a path of stunted brush that weren't no more than an animal trail. It cut back and forth down the sept slope of Mount Deadreckoning. Bogg hadn't eaten or slept, but he didn't feel tired or hungry -- the passionate need to find the sons of bitches before they reached safe ground fueled his limbs.

He was right sick of the way this trail was sashaying along. He jumped off, into the bushes that grew in between the firs and pines, and boomed along straight down the hill. He'd pick it up again when it switched back.

Crashing through the brush was more fun anyway. It shot a load of polleny bits right up his sniffer, though, and time enough he was ripping and tearing with sneezes.

His nose filled right up. He grinned at the thought of young Simon in this predicament. He might have asked Bogg for a kerchief or some other dainty mark of civilization.

Bogg pressed his thumb against his right nostril, took a big bellows of a breath through his mouth, and blew his left nostril clear. A stream of watery snot splatted on the leaves.

He did likewise with the right nostril, then decided that it was wasteful of water to blow snot on the ground like that. He resolved to snort and swaller it from now on, at least as much as he could stand.

Boulders seemed to spring up in his path down the mountainside. He hiked up them and jumped off their edges, crashing into the bushes below or thumping onto the next boulder.

Straight down -- that was the way to get off a mountain. Bogg didn't see any way those five bastards could be moving this fast.

As he clipped along, the side of the mountain slowly changed. There was less and less scrub, more and more crags, and the few pines that grew looked scrawny, twisted and downright poorly.

No birds, nor any other happy forest sounds, nuther. Something unhealthy about the land here. And a stink in the air, too, like rotten eggs.

Bogg was just wondering why, when he jumped off a boulder and found there was nothing for his feet beyond it. He slipped into a gap in the rocks. He scraped and bounced and slid on the gravel into the dark, and kept on scraping and sliding, until he was having some serious doubts about his future.

By and by, he came to rest in a place that wasn't a cave so much as a skinny pit.

His deerskin trousers were torn and his knees were bloody enough that he could feel it drip down his calves, even if the pit was too dark to see it. The heel of each palm stung but good. He picked gravel out of them. His splintercat cloak didn't have a scratch, naturally, but it had been pushed up around his head by all the sliding and didn't do a thing for his hands or knees, not to mention his hips or elbows.

He reckoned it had kept his noggin safe, though, and he was fine with that. Bogg stood on achy legs and unfurled the cloak so as to find his salvaged beaver hat in it. With bloody hands, Bogg fit the hat back on his head and pulled it snug. He spent some time catching his breath and getting used to the dark, and came to notice two things.

First, he wasn't going to get out of this pit the same way he got in. It was thirty feet or more up steep and crumbling rock to that lonely little patch of cold blue sky.

Second, down here in the dark, it was a fair sight roomier than he originally suspicioned. In fact, he couldn't quite see it all.

He could sure smell it though. Rotten eggs and then some -- it stank worse than a tanning house, and gave him a powerful prodding to find another way out.

Bogg opened his pack and rummaged until he found the long-neglected candles from Fort Sanctuary. They were down at the bottom of the pack and melted so they stuck together. He snapped one off and, after a dozen tries in the dark, lit some tinder with his flint and stuck the candle wick in it. The wick flared and caught, tossing shaky yellow light around the hole.

Candles had been the pup's suggestion. Smart. Bogg had been awfully hard on that boy. He saw rocks and gravel, along with dead leaves and twigs that had blown down the hole over the years. About an average log cabin's worth of space. Right cozy. Warm, too. If it weren't for the stench, and if he could have clumb free, this place would make a dandy hideout.

Shadows jiggled on the rocks as Bogg moved the candle back and forth to see... except for one spot on the floor where the shadows didn't budge. Bogg crept to the spot and -- sure enough - clumb on down the hole.

#

Chapter 31

Simon strolled nonchalantly across the field to within a quarter mile of the herd with Ee behind him. After that, his will ran out.

He was in the open. If the four-legged hills charged, there was no cover to reach. They could trample him easily \-- they could mash his bones into the grass.

The cold wind that chilled him sent waves over the field and their deep auburn fur. For now, they ignored him. Their trunks worked endlessly, looping around tufts of grass and stuffing them -- roots, dirt and all -- into their mouths. Their tusks, large as curved white trees, swayed as they walked. Occasionally they snorted or rumbled.

Sheer terror prevented Simon from taking a step closer. Determination prevented him from retreating. He stood still and watched them, trying to notice their habits. He could smell them from here. Like horses, but more pungent.

"They'll kill you," Ee said. She cowered behind him, crouched low, ready to vanish into the grass -- and a vivet crouched low is half-invisible already.

Simon kept his eyes on the grazing hills, standing tall, his hands in his trousers pockets. He remembered the fear he felt when his father died. He remembered how brave his father had been.

Fear now, weakness now, would not stop him. He wouldn't allow it.

"I'm going to ride one." His voice sounded hollow and distant, but the words had come out so easily that it surprised him. They sounded believable.

"Simon," Ee said. "I like you. I don't want you to die."

"So you'd better help me. You'd better tell me the secret of riding one."

"Vivets have a saying. There are ninety and nine secrets to riding a mamoo without being killed, and no one but the wild man knows the hundredth."

Simon had spent a night on the back of one of the things -- he called to mind what he had observed. "I have some ideas. Maybe you'll tell me if I'm on the right track."

Simon felt his heart doing a splintercat routine, battering his ribcage. He closed in on the herd, one step at a time.

#

As Bogg squeezed down through the cave, deeper and deeper, his blood rushed to his head, and that got him thinking. This hole might just end, or get too skinny to squeeze through, and there was no way he could back out uphill, feet first. There had better be a place big enough to turn around down there, or this would be it for him.

Now, that was silly. Whether he died in this tunnel or died back in that pit didn't matter none. He was heartened, too, by the candle flame, which danced a little, like there was a breeze.

But on did he crawl, and on, and on. He slid along on his bloody knees, and ground his elbows into the rock, and that hurt enough to make him grim and ornery.

Wax from the candle dripped now and then onto his hand and scalded his knuckles, and that hellish stench of rot didn't go away, and his feet being high and his head being low got his eyes pulsing and his cheeks fit to burst -- it all summed up to make him even grimmer and ornerier.

And the thought of the passage getting too skinny to clear made him so mad that he reckoned that if it actually happened, he'd be fit to explode and just rip and tear and holler himself dead.

He shuffled down a little farther and the passage opened up. Bogg stuck his tongue in his toothhole and chuckled at himself. He half tumbled and half poured himself like pancake batter out of the tunnel and into the big empty space, stood up and looked around.

And by jings if the candlelight didn't get swallered up by all that space. Bogg couldn't see anything but the floor and the hole he come out of.

It was big.

And empty.

And stinky. And hot. Bogg took a minute to stretch and uncramp his body now that it wasn't squeezed in that hole, and found he could see a lot better with the candle somewhere besides in front of his face. He held it behind him -- then he realized it was about to burn his thumb. The candle had burned down to a stump. He'd been in that tunnel a long while.

Bogg set his pack in the black gravel at his feet and dug out a second candle. He lit it with the first, held one in each hand at arm's length, and blinked at the darkness until things came into view.

Bogg was tucked away in the corner of a great cavern. Jupiter's boots, but it was big. Never in his life had Bogg been in such a power of a big space and yet still had a roof over his head. It had to be a thousand feet to the far side, and a couple of hundred feet up to the arch of the ceiling.

He didn't think caves could be this big. The far sides were plenty shadowy and indistinct, so maybe it wasn't as big as all that. On the other hand, maybe those shadows were passages that led elsewhere.

The stubby candle put fire on his thumb. Bogg yelped and dropped it.

His yelp came back to him from across the way. Two, three, four times.

The candle still burned on the floor, not more than a knuckle long. It lit up something black and pointy.

Bogg knelt and swung his fresh candle close. It was a hodag skull, fanged and spiked, like an unsightly mix of wolf and gator. He picked it up by the eye sockets and the lower jaw dropped off.

Bogg hated hodags. Cuss the lot. Ferocious man-eaters. One less hodag suited him fine. He dropped the skull, and some of the black stayed on his fingers, feeling sort of greasy.

Bogg stomped out the candle stump, then stomped the hodag skull as an afterthought (it crunched nicely), and started strolling.

It wasn't easy, on account of all the bones in his way. He stepped over or kicked through ribs and backbones and skulls and leg bones of every sort of critter, along with all those little bones he couldn't identify because he tended to throw those bits on the fire, and bones that were busted into splinters. His candle put jittery bone shadows all around him, and the place was so quiet and dark it most gave him the creeps.

He came across a red rhino skull with a black horn as long as his arm.

He came across a human skull, as he thought he might. Hello, sir or madam. Well met.

Then a square sort of skull bigger around than a wagon wheel, with an empty socket in the middle of the face, like a one-eyed giant. Bogg had never heard of a one-eyed giant, and when he looked closer, he found little eye sockets on the sides. He judged he'd found the skull of a four-legged hill, and the hole in the front was where the trunk fixed on.

Sure enough, a little later on, he found a tusk. Even lying lonely on the ground, the tusk curved taller than he was.

It tickled him no end. If a four-legged hill could wander down here, then he could wander out. He didn't need nearly as much room as all that.

Past some hill leg bones that were just about coffin-sized, he found a whole set of rib bones balanced on end so they loomed over him, with the spine running between them. The ribs were finger-thin and fragile-looking, not the right build for a hill. Bogg couldn't resist standing in the critter's belly.

He nudged one of the ribs. It broke loose from the spine with just a touch and spun on end in a most startling way.

Bogg chuckled and set it spinning again. Didn't that beat all? He gripped the rib and lifted. Despite being a good twelve-footer, it didn't weigh more than a handful of copper commons.

Thunderbird.

He let it go and watched it come down like it was underwater. It touched the ground and balanced there, like the rest of them.

Bogg caught a wild hare of an idea. He picked up the rib near the bottom, stepped clear of the others, and spun himself up like a dervish, holding his candle close so it wouldn't sputter out, but not so close that it lit his beard on fire. Once he was spinning good, he let that rib go.

He waited, letting the dizzies fade, listening. By and by, the rib clattered off the ceiling, and time enough after that, rattled to a stop on the cave floor someplace too far to see.

More greasy black came off on his hand. It was an awful lot like soot.

Enough fooling.

Bogg picked his way past the bones. At the far end of the cavern, the ceiling dipped to within fifty feet of his head, and the sound of dripping water made him stop and listen.

The wind whispered, real quiet, up there, sort of thoughtful.

Why had all these animals come in here and died?

Animal graveyard. Maybe there was a steep-sided hole ahead -- plenty big -- that critters stumble in now and then, and wander around down here until they starve.

Uh-oh. That didn't bode well.

Bogg marched on, and the cavern opened up again like it was the next room, although Bogg couldn't imagine a room being built this big, unless it was the great hall in the castle of some moonbrained Algolan king.

He snorted at the thought.

His next footstep sounded like a bag of three-penny nails hitting the floor. He shone the candle low to see what he'd stepped in. The light flickered off a pile of commons. Bogg picked up a coin and rubbed at the face of some queen he'd never heard of. The soot came off.

Gold.

Bogg stood at the edge of a pile of gold sovereigns, just lying here in the dirt.

"Good land," he muttered, and wondered if he was rich. He walked along the edge of the coins until the floor of the cavern steepened into the wall, then he waded in, three-penny nail bags hitting the floor with each step.

The gold made him think pirates. Wouldn't it be nice if the swordsman and his friends would stop by for a withdrawal? That would free up Bogg's schedule right quick.

There were other goodies amongst the coins. Rings and such. A breastplate, awful fancy. A man wears a thing that sparkly into battle, he's like to get shot at so much that it wouldn't be worth the bother.

Here was a shield, shiny as a mirror, soot notwithstanding. Bogg polished it with his splintercat cloak and got a gawk at his reflection. He was sooty and bloody -- much more grimed up from crawling down that tunnel than he would have guessed. Every inch of him was black streaked with red, excepting those parts which was red streaked with black, and his blue eyes peered out of the mess, clear and glowing, the only clean things he owned.

"But I hate baths," he muttered.

The whispering at the top of the cavern blew fierce and rumbled. Bogg's candle flame danced and held on for its life as something big and dark crawled into the cavern from the blackness beyond.

Two bright green eyes, narrowed to slits, glowed at him from near the ceiling, in a long face framed by spikes. Clawed black hands splashed in the coins and leathery wings fell into place around the bulk of the thing like a shawl.

That awful rumble faded, and so did the racket from the coins sliding everywhere. A fresh wave of heat washed over Bogg, and that rotten-egg smell of sulfur and spoiled meat crawled up his nose and burned.

Bogg had trouble standing, with the shifting coins under his feet and his knees all wobbly. This was a sight that explained some things. He'd only heard stories as a kid, but any nathead would know a dragon when he saw one.

#

Chapter 32

ARE YOU...

That voice grabbed his head, heart, and gut all at once, and shook him hard.

... A KNIGHT?

Bogg couldn't make a peep.

YOU HAVE NO ARMOR. ARE YOU A WIZARD?

Its glowing eyes dropped to just in front of Bogg. They were eight feet apart, easy. Bogg was close enough to put a fist up each nostril if he wanted. Teeth glistened in the candlelight like broadswords.

Bogg reckoned he'd better find his voice -- and as soon as he reckoned that, he had it. "My name is Tiberius Bogg. I got no truck with you. I'm just passing by."

Its head swung up to a respectable height.

A LOCAL. ALGOLANS ARE BETTER SPOKEN. IF YOU WERE ON A QUEST TO SLAY ME, I WOULD EAT YOU.

Bogg judged that cowering wouldn't get him anywhere. He stuck his chin out. "I wouldn't if I were you." But what in tarnation was a dragon doing in Mira? "Say... ain't you lost?"

The critter's wings fluttered and scattered coins. Each wing was an acre of black leather, and watching them move was like seeing wind blow waves across the grass on a moonlit meadow. This was a great-grandpappy of a dragon, a three-hundred-footer if it was a cub.

Its scaly head and frame of spikes rocked sideways, and Bogg could see it was deciding whether to gulp him down or not.

I AM IN EXILE.

Bogg nodded. "What did you do?"

Between its wings, the black scales of its belly shone like steel, and from the seams came the faintest cherry-red glow.

PERHAPS I SHOULD EAT YOU.

Bogg's eyes narrowed. He shifted the candle to his left hand, drew his fang dagger and glared down its white curve at the dragon's green eyes. "I'll give you one hell of an ulcer."

YOU HAVE NOT COME TO SLAY ME. AND YET YOU DO NOT FEAR ME. YOU ARE A PARADOX...

A thundercrack echoed from the caverns behind the dragon. Bogg judged it was the whip-crack of its tail.

AND THUS WORTH SAVING FOR LATER. I WAS SENT TO MIRA BY THE COUNCIL OF DRAGONKIND FOR EATING MY RIDER.

"Oh, a hothead. Good for you."

I AM CALLED ORMIR. PERHAPS YOU HAVE HEARD STORIES ABOUT ME.

Bogg hadn't even known dragons had names. "Nope."

MY RIDER WAS ALPHORUS THE GOBLIN KILLER. A PRINCE OF SOME STANDING.

"Never heard of him."

IF YOU ARE HUMAN, HE LIVED WELL BEFORE YOUR TIME. MY CRIME WAS A CARELESS ONE. THE COUNCIL COULD NEITHER SLAY ME NOR ABSOLVE ME. EITHER WOULD UPSET THE DELICATE BALANCE BETWEEN DRAGONS AND MEN.

It slammed down a claw and puffed out a volcanic snort.

WE ARE FEARSOME... BUT WE MUST NOT BE SO FEARSOME THAT MEN UNITE AND LAUNCH THEIR LEGIONS AGAINST US.

"Well. I didn't think humans had you dragons up such a creek. So... you'll be staying here, then? In Mira?"

FOR A THOUSAND YEARS. LONG ENOUGH FOR OUR MEMORIES TO FADE AND YOUR HISTORY TO BE REWRITTEN.

"It ain't my history. I'm just glad none of your friends will be coming over." Bogg's brain was just about addled, between making sense of this palaver, holding his knees at stationkeeping, and trying to conjure a way out of here undigested.

DRAGONS COMING TO MIRA? Ormir shook his great head.

BEFORE MEN SAILED IN THEIR SHIPS TO FIND THIS PLACE, WE DRAGONS DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS HERE.

Bogg shifted his feet, ankle-deep in coins. "No fooling?"

OUR NAME FOR IT IS MIRA, TAKEN FROM THE HUMAN TONGUE. THIS OFFENDS US, AS THIS LAND OFFENDS US.

"Well, well. So dragons don't know everything."

WHY WOULD WE KNOW OF THIS CONTINENT? WHY WOULD WE CROSS TWO THOUSAND LEAGUES OF OCEAN IN SEARCH OF UNDISCOVERED LANDS? ONLY HUMANS ARE SO FOOLISH.

"Hey, now--"

PERHAPS THE WORST OF THEM WILL CONTINUE TO COME HERE. BY THE TIME I RETURN, ALGOLUS WILL BE A PARADISE.

Bogg felt his sass get up, and knew it was a bad idea, but he was too dragon-addled to stop it. "Looky here, Grampa. Don't go badmouthing other people's homes. It ain't neighborly."

HERE IS A MAD HUMAN, WHO THINKS HE CAN ADMONISH A DRAGON. IN ALGOLUS, ALL THE RACES KNOW THEIR PROPER ROLE. THERE IS HISTORY. THERE IS TRADITION. HERE, THERE IS NO PAST. ANYONE CAN BE ANYTHING TO ANYBODY. ALL IS CONFUSION IN MIRA.

"Confusion suits me fine. So I reckon you'll bide your time here until your sentence is up, then light on back home."

I DREAM OF NOTHING ELSE.

"Good."

MIRAN! I HAVE NOT SPOKEN TO ANYONE IN NEARLY A CENTURY, AND YET I AM WEARY OF THIS CONVERSATION. THE NEXT HUMAN I MEET, I WILL EAT RIGHT AWAY.

"Hold on a minute. You're just going to eat me now?"

THAT'S RIGHT.

"That's not very sporting. How about if we make a deal?"

BEGGING?

"No. I just want to take a shot at you first." Bogg gestured with the fang dagger.

YOU CANNOT HURT ME WITH THAT.

"Then you got nothing to sweat about. You hit me, then I'll hit you. Whoever's the better off, wins."

YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS.

"I toured your boneyard. Didn't see no sabertooth cats. I reckon you've never fought one before."

YOU AMUSE ME. IF I KILL YOU, WHAT DO I WIN?

"You can eat me. And if I win, you let me go. No--" That was too dull. "You fly me to Rastaban."

The dragon's eyes narrowed to slits, and their green light brightened.

I ACCEPT.

Bogg set his feet in the coins. "All right. Go ahead."

Ormir's spiky black head dipped to Bogg's level. Its mouth opened in a toothy grin.

OH NO. I THINK YOU SHOULD GO FIRST.

"You sure?"

The grin widened and showed a power of daggers and swords around a red snaky tongue.

I AM CERTAIN OF IT.

"That'll answer--" Bogg leapt at the dragon's face and slashed his fang dagger across the fine scales from nostril to nostril, casting a shower of sparks that brightened the cavern walls like a lightning strike. The slash left behind no wound.

Before the dragon could react, Bogg swung backhand a little lower and whacked off three ivory teeth from Ormir's upper jaw. They stuck themselves in the coins at his feet.

Its green eyes went wide as dinner plates and it reared back, hissing. Black blood dribbled from the exposed cores of the tooth stumps, leaving a trail of scattered drops on the treasure.

A rumble tore from the dragon's throat all around the cavern and back. Its wings lifted and spread, and its head pulled all the way to the ceiling, its neck S-curved and ready to strike.

Ormir's body swelled up like a volcano of evil inside was abiling to bust out. That cherry-red glow at his belly let off a wave of heat like flipping a log in a campfire. Something worked up the critter's throat, and Ormir's head lunged at Bogg.

DIE!

The cavern lit up like daylight from the dragon's mouth, and fire exploded from its throat in a stream of yellow and orange that made the coins sparkle like they were new, the cavern walls bone white, and the dragon's shadow flash behind it in perfect detail, spikes and all.

#

Chapter 33

Bogg turtled under his cloak before the flames washed over him. It felt like being in a hurricane and a frying pan at the same time, and Bogg knew he was screaming himself hoarse but couldn't hear it over the roar.

The cloak seared him everywhere it touched him, and he could smell smoking deerskin. His eyes clamped tight to keep them from hard-boiling in their sockets, and his whole body felt like it was scorching, so he honestly didn't know if any parts of himself were uncovered by the cloak and burning off as he cowered there, curled up like a pill bug.

If he didn't burn up he'd go stone deaf, and if he didn't go stone deaf he'd have a lifetime case of the fan-tods. What was left of him?

Bogg was suddenly glad he'd left the pup behind. He was someplace else, safer than this.

#

The hill's shining eye was bigger than Simon's fist. It watched him, inscrutable. He had been standing here for a long time, legs numb from terror, stroking the animal's coarse, tangled red-brown hair.

#

The hurricane slowly blew itself out, and as the noise and fiery wind faded, all Bogg could hear was his own sizzling. He opened his eyes, but all that did was let smoke sting them. Smoke billowed up all around him.

Most of the hissing and crackling was coming from his cloak. He threw it off, and a lot of the smoke went with it. It lay on the coins all charred, and jagged bits as orange as hot coals seemed to crawl all over it, chewing it up.

Bogg patted himself down. All his parts were hot, but still there. His left hand was coated with wax -- all that was left of his candle -- but all five fingers wiggled at him.

His pack and saddlebags were steaming. He reckoned the waterskin had boiled dry and the other candles had melted away. His sabertooth dagger was all right, but the sheath he kept it in had shriveled up. He jammed the dagger in his rope belt.

Bogg stared into the darkness, flushed red and doused with sweat, well aware that he was sooty, bloody, and smoking, with charred clothes and a fair amount of beard that had gone and crumbled away. He could see two green eyes up there, wide and perplexed, and in the dimming glow of red-hot coins and cavern walls, a set of newly asymmetrical choppers beneath them.

"I win!" Bogg hollered.

The dragon snatched him up with a scaly hand, each of the five fingers sporting a claw bigger than a steer's horn. Ormir held Bogg up close to his nose and they glared at each other.

Bogg hoped the dragon wouldn't be a sore loser and gulp him down raw like an oyster. But reminding Ormir that dragons tended to keep their word in stories wouldn't increase the likelihood of the event.

IT WILL TAKE MY TEETH A DECADE TO GROW BACK.

"That ought to learn you."

Ormir lifted Bogg so his blackened beaverskin hat nearly grazed the cavern ceiling and dropped him between its wings. Bogg sat up and admired all the spikes that had nearly impaled him -- then the dragon was on the move. Bogg wrapped his arms around a spike and held on.

The dragon galloped through the dark -- its feet crashing in its treasure didn't sound like bags of three-penny nails. It was more like boulders hitting a lake in a steady avalanche. Once Ormir was out of treasure and running on cavern floor and bones, it was like boulders hitting each other and busting to bits.

The spike Bogg clung to whipped about like the aust end of a goose. Ormir was part bucking bronco and part earthquake.

Sunlight up ahead -- suddenly Bogg could see. The cavern walls heaved and jumped, and Ormir's scaly back was olive green. The spike Bogg had his arms and legs hitched around was still black, with a few chips missing near the point, and patches of old scales stuck at the bottom like dead snakeskin.

Bogg felt a hard pull and thought he'd be plucked off Ormir's back. The sunny cavern walls dropped away. Dead trees and boulders flashed by, then the whole sept side of Deadreckoning Peak sunk and got small, the way a tavern floor sinks and gets small when a drunk picks himself up off it after staring at a crumb by his nose for a half hour.

Bogg whooped. "I'm flying!"

NO. I'M FLYING.

"Whatever."

Batlike wings, dark and grim in the sun, took up a farmer's field on either side. The wind was fierce. Then into icy clouds, and it was like somebody was flapping a white bedsheet in his face. Fog to a splintercat, maybe.

They broke into sunlight again, and the clouds below made a glorious mountain range Bogg had never seen before.

He was vaguely aware of the extent to which his eyebrows were cranked up and his jaw was cranked down, but it hardly seemed important in the presence of beauty like that. There was a whole new kind of wilderness up here.

"Ormir!"

I CAN HEAR YOU.

"How often do you fly up here?"

I LEAVE MY CAVE EVERY SEASON TO FEED, BUT ONLY AT NIGHT.

"Godzooks, but it's purty!"

Ormir's long neck twisted and Ormir glared at Bogg. In this light, Bogg could see that its eyes were slitted, like a cat's.

I PREFER TO THINK OF DOWN THERE AS UGLY.

Bogg felt his beaverskin cap loosening in the wind, but didn't want to spare a hand to hold it down.

It whipped off his head, gone forever. Ormir's green eyes refocused, slits widening, watching it go.

"Shouldn't you watch where you're flying?"

THAT'S JUST WHAT ALPHORUS SAID.

"Hey, now! Let's both of us keep our cool. We know where your temper got you last time."

Ormir's head swung away.

YES. I AM THINKING OF THIS FLIGHT AS AN EXERCISE IN DISCIPINE.

#

It was late morning, and Tyrus Jurgen could smell the sea. He and his four men broke through the last of the hemlock woods and paused with the knee of the Chilly Mountains behind them. Tyrus gazed at last on the green waters of Pirate's Bay, a sea serpent's bite out of the land. The sun had risen over a slender forested peninsula at the far sept-eost end, which the locals called Sore Thumb.

On this side, a mile down a sandy slope with washboard dunes carved by ocean breezes, was Rastaban, old Dragon's Head. Its flickering lights burned on its wharves, and the tall masts of its ships stood beyond the low wooden buildings. Tyrus could almost hear his old friends (and enemies) crying out the chanties in his favorite pubs: the Boar's Head, the Swan, the Rose...

Tyrus swept his arm across the sight in a victorious gesture. "There it is, gentlemen."

"At last," cried Zane. "Women!"

Yolaf, huge and tireless, carried Uilleam in his arms and said in his baritone, "Hear that, Uilleam? You're almost home."

"Not too late," Uilleam moaned. "Not too late for me."

"Oh no, Uilleam," Yolaf whispered to him, giving him a shake. "You'll be all right."

These three were dirty, exhausted, and starved -- nearly broken men. Tyrus was the same. And yet, he had held them together. He had buttressed their will with his own. Even their fifth had survived this far.

Tyrus scanned the trees behind them for Cadogan. The red-haired pirate had become angry and insubordinate, and once Tyrus threatened him, sullen and aloof. Tyrus owed him a thrashing and Cadogan knew it. Now, Tyrus spotted Cadogan's outline in the trees.

Tyrus had no fear of any man or beast, but Cadogan unnerved him. It was disgust, not fear. Cadogan's mind...

Tyrus didn't want to dwell on it. He had led his team home. "One final task awaits us, men. We shall not stagger into Rastaban as hopeless and penniless vagrants, to be mocked by our fellows. First, we stop there." Tyrus pointed.

On a natural terrace below, called Spying Scarp by the locals, a lonely tower leaned over the sandy slope that dropped to the outskirts of Rastaban. It stood forty feet tall, and several of its gray blocks had fallen to the sand around it.

It was the New Algolus Tower, built in a younger, more ambitious age a century ago. It was to be a watchtower and a beacon to merchants and colony ships of newly arrived Algolans. Now, its heavy oak door was locked, the fire unlit and cold at its crenellated top, and it had, in recent decades, started to lean over the slope, a lean that would topple it in another century or less. It was empty, worthless, and while those at Dragon's Head saw it each day, they thought nothing of it except a passing joke or two. They certainly didn't consider scuffling up the half mile of loose sand to reach it.

That was why Tyrus Jurgen had used it as a marker for his treasure. "We'll do a bit of digging, and then you all shall be paid handsomely for your efforts and loyalty. And we shall descend to Rastaban as rich men." Tyrus slapped a worn glove on the trunk of a hemlock beside him. "Zane!"

"My lord."

Tyrus pointed into the branches of the tree. "Do you see what's up there?"

Zane peered into the tree. "It's a cow's skull impaled on a branch. How did you know it was there?"

"Because I put it there. Come on. To the tower."

They sidestepped along the dunes to the terrace, where the tower waited. Tyrus glanced back and saw Cadogan following, but not too closely. Good enough.

The tower leaned due eost, toward the sea, and as the men crowded around it, they naturally chose not to stand on that side, avoiding the small risk that today might be the day it finally fell and tumbled its stones to Dragon's Head. Seven blocks had already fallen and left rectangular holes in the tower like randomly placed windows.

Tyrus stopped at the heavy door. His iron padlock was rusted, but still here. "Yolaf."

"Yes, sir?"

"Break this. Put Uilleam inside to rest, and bring me the shovels hidden in the crate on the top floor."

"The top?"

"Go, Yolaf."

"Yes, sir." Yolaf set Uilleam over his shoulder and struck the lock with his war hammer. It rang and fell in pieces, and the door itself shuttered. The bald giant pushed the door open and ducked inside, taking care not to bump Uilleam on the stone arch.

"Zane," said Tyrus.

"My lord?"

"I need your bowyer's eyes. There are places where blocks have fallen and you can see inside the tower."

"Yes, my lord."

"There are also places where you can see in through one hole and out through an opposite hole."

Zane frowned at the tower. "It must be so, my lord."

"You can even look through the tower and spy that cow's skull I showed you at the top of the hill. Believe it, and show it to me."

Zane stroked his fine black mustache. "I shall, my lord." Zane stared at the tower, walked a few paces, and stared again. He did it over and over, and Tyrus knew that with his eyesight and determination, Zane would succeed.

Cadogan shuffled down the sand, and it was the first time Tyrus had seen him clearly in two days. Cadogan the Red was now Cadogan the Mad. His braids and beard were streaked with mud, and deep gray circles framed his crazed, sleepless eyes. Cadogan cradled his dirty axe like a baby, but his mad eyes were hungry for blood.

"Cadogan!" Tyrus barked.

Cadogan grinned evilly. "Yes, my lord?"

"Our time together is almost finished."

"My wise and masterful lord, were that it not so. I long to serve, my hale and hearty master. Show me where the buried treasure is, and I shall pull it up. I do not need a shovel. I shall dig with my axe. Nay, with my bare hands in the earth, shall I serve dutifully--"

"Shut your festering hole, you cretin. Stand there by the door and don't move."

"But my lord--"

"Stand there. Don't move."

"As you wish, my lord. You need only speak, and I am commanded. Your--"

"And do not speak."

Cadogan's mouth hung open stupidly, showing crusty yellow teeth. He stood by the door and peered in.

"Don't go in. Stay where I can see you."

Cadogan moped. "Yes, my lord." He leaned toward the door and sniffed.

"Aha!" called Zane. "I have it!"

Tyrus found him standing not far from where Tyrus would have guessed, at a nondescript spot on the sand about fifty feet from the tower.

"Look, my lord! Behold, just barely..." Zane stepped aside. Tyrus saw a patch of green in one of the tower's holes, but no skull.

What was wrong? Zane's wits were sound...

But he was almost a head shorter than Tyrus. Tyrus took a step toward the tower. A tiny patch of white appeared in the green. Yes! The skull impaled on the branch, almost obscured by a young hemlock that had sprouted up in the line of sight over the intervening eight years. In another few years, his treasure would have been lost forever.

But today, it would be found.

"I see it, Zane. Good work."

Zane beamed, and raised a crafty eyebrow. "And now, I would imagine that I must shoot an arrow through the holes in the tower, and where the arrow lands is the spot where the treasure is buried."

Tyrus smiled. "Very creative, Zane. But no."

"Then... where do we dig?"

"Where I'm standing."

Zane stared at the spot between Tyrus's boots. "Ah. Simple. That is to say, brilliant. Tell me, my lord, how many such treasure caches do you have in these parts?"

"More than you'll ever know." Tyrus turned to the tower. "Yolaf! Bring the shovels and your strong back!"

#

Chapter 34

Bogg's face whipped through freezing clouds. Then the waters of Pirate's Bay appeared, and the docks and buildings of Rastaban. Up a hill from Rastaban, just outside the edge of forest, stood a leaning stone tower. A feller with red hair stood beside it, holding an axe. Nearby, three others dug a pit in the sand with shovels, making a pile beside it that was dark, damp, and shoulder-high. All had the traps of warriors, and one had a broadsword on his back.

Could be them, Bogg thought. Where was the fifth? Oh well, Bogg wouldn't be fooled. "There they are, Ormir! Burn them up. Attack!"

NO.

"Come on! You like that sort of thing."

DISCIPLINE. REMEMBER?

"Not even a little spurt?"

FIGHT YOUR OWN BATTLES.

"All right. Then drop me on them."

I'LL SET YOU AT THE TREELINE. I'VE NO WISH TO BE SEEN.

Ormir fell fast to the treetops and braked hard with its wings, flattening Bogg against its back. The dragon dropped between the trees and crouched low. Its claw pinched Bogg around the waist and slipped him off the spike.

Bogg found that his feet were on the ground. It was a strange feeling. He looked up at the dragon nestled with him in the forest, its wings making a regal sun-dappled shawl around it... and that was a strange feeling too.

Ormir's spiked tail drew restless runes in the dirt.

NOW WE ARE SQUARE. GOODBYE, TIBERIUS BOGG.

"Wait! Those men down there -- I know you'd enjoy roasting them. And if I told you what they'd done, you'd know they deserved it."

TODAY, YOU HAVE RIDDEN A DRAGON AND LIVED. NO MORE GIFTS FOR YOU. IF I SEE YOU AGAIN, I'LL PROBABLY KILL YOU. Its wings unfurled over the trees. GOODBYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE.

The wings pumped and Ormir lifted into the sky. It raced low and away. When it appeared no bigger than a flea, it streaked up to the clouds and disappeared in a blink.

Bogg stood for a minute beside the critter's five-fingered tracks it had pressed deep into the ground. The forest smelled funny. Bogg couldn't place it at first. It smelled like flowers and bees and happy little bunnies.

Then he had it.

Absence of dragon.

A bird chirped, quiet and cautious, breaking the silence. Then another, and another, and the forest was normal again.

Bogg could have stood there all day, trying to make sense of what had just happened. But the swordsman was close. Bogg dashed through the trees.

He broke through at the top of the hill, and could take an easy gander down at his foe from this spot. Bogg's eyes narrowed and his jaw stuck out. There they were. It was positively enlightening to finally get his peepers on these reprobates after chasing them from afar for so long. Soon, this whole misadventure would be over.

He was quiet for a time, watching and listening, planning and anticipating. It got to be midafternoon, and the sun eased down close to the Starry Mountains. He could hear the tarnal sons of bitches, just barely.

"Put your back into it, Zane."

"Tyrus, sir, I'd like to check on poor Uilleam."

"Go ahead, Yolaf. Check on Cadogan, too."

Bogg pieced it together. The giant was Yolaf. He carried a war hammer, and was close to the wounded man, Uilleam, who was in the tower. Zane, the dark-haired bowyer, complained the most about the digging. Cadogan, dirty and red-haired, seemed to be standing guard with his axe. And Tyrus...

Tyrus.

They called him "my lord," often as not. He commanded the others. Tyrus carried a sword. He was Bogg's man.

Bogg would kill him last.

Zane was standing in the pit they were digging. Only his head appeared above the ground when he stretched his back, and when he was digging, only flying shovelfuls of dirt showed he was there. He suddenly made a ruckus. "I've found something!"

Yolaf turned, and Tyrus scampered over to look.

Cadogan, who didn't say much, slipped quietly inside the tower, out of sight. What was Cadogan up to?

The wind shifted, and Bogg smelled something. It wasn't dragon, nor thunderbird, nor the wharves at Rastaban. But it was a familiar smell. Like horse, but with more power behind it. What was it?

#

Uilleam lay on stone at the top of the tower, beside the crate that had held the shovels. Through the missing stones came the faint sounds of Yolaf's digging and Zane's grousing. Uilleam was grateful for the chance to rest. Being hauled around by Yolaf was not painless.

His arm throbbed, went numb, then throbbed some more. The stench of gangrene had just started that day. Tyrus knew it, but hadn't let on. He'd let some sawbones in Dragon's Head take the arm off, rather than leave it to Blodleter. Uilleam tried not to think about it. He tried not to think about life as a cripple, and he tried not to think about the jolts of pain that pulsed up his arm or how hard this stone floor was.

"Uilleam, my man..." came a seething voice.

Cadogan!

"What do you want?" Uilleam wheezed. "Leave me alone!"

"I've come to bring you comfort." Cadogan appeared on the steps below Uilleam. "While the others are distracted by the treasure. I've come to bring you the comfort of death."

Uilleam took a sharp inhale to cry out, but Cadogan was on him, his axe at Uilleam's throat. "Don't cry out! I'll drive this blade home. And dull as it is, it will hurt. I've suffered, Uilleam. How I've suffered. How I've been tempted. And I shan't have to resist any more."

"Tyrus is--" Uilleam croaked.

"Tyrus, Tyrus... Tyrus is next. I've realized something. My greatest triumph has already come and gone. My moment of supreme illumination. It came when I ate that vivet. Since that moment, I've been changing. I've felt it all this time. And now, it's no longer hunger or fear of starvation that drives me. It's the changes-"

Tyrus's voice came from outside. "Where's Cadogan? Cadogan!"

Uilleam and Cadogan both heard it. Uilleam looked hopeful, but Cadogan drove his axe blade into Uilleam's throat, and kept pushing until Uilleam's head rolled off.

#

Bogg had the scent. It was the smell of four-legged hill. It threw him for a loop, that smell, since there weren't no tundra out here, and with coats like they had, four-legged hills liked it chilly. They'd never come this low, or this close to the water.

#

Chapter 35

Tyrus Jurgen raced to the doorway of the tower. "Cadogan!"

No answer. If Cadogan was up there with Uilleam alone--

Yolaf had just dragged the treasure chest from the hole. Zane stooped by the hole's edge, taking the chest from Yolaf. The chest was old, wet, coated with sand and slippery from years underground. Zane had barely secured the chest at a point where it wouldn't slide back in the hole. He was wet and sandy himself, but his eyes danced with the thought of treasure.

A sound roared to Tyrus's ears, a furious trumpeting cry. He stepped away from the doorway and saw a monstrous creature thundering down the slope from the forest, covered with red hair, its great round feet driving up sand. Its white tusks swung like scythes, and its writhing trunk looked ready to strangle.

Tyrus had heard stories of creatures like this, but he had treated them like all the stories of strange creatures in Mira. He had laughed. And now, he knew that the four-legged hill was real.

And behind the ears of the creature, spurring it on...

Was a little boy.

He wore a white shirt and an osnaburg coat, with a raccoon-skin cap on his head, like a Miran mountain man. His face was young and childlike, but fixed in an expression of pure rage.

"To arms!" Tyrus cried.

Yolaf jumped halfway out of the hole and scrabbled the rest of the way, throwing sand behind him. He reached his war hammer and took it up in his right hand, while keeping the shovel in his left.

Zane found himself on the wrong side of the hole, trapped between a rampaging monster and a pit. His bow was by the tower--

Tyrus snatched up bow and quiver and hurled them to Zane. Zane plucked them both from the air and gripped an arrow, letting the quiver fall, and knocked it with cool professionalism into his bow.

But the animal was on him before he could draw. He ducked a swinging tusk and stumbled back into the pit, disappearing from Tyrus's view.

Yolaf strode into the fray, a giant swinging a hammer and shovel, and if anyone looked like he could slay a monster, Yolaf did. It swung tusks at him, and he parried them both. Its trunk wrapped around his shovel and pulled. Yolaf pulled back, and when the hill trumpeted, Yolaf roared his battle cry.

The hill won the battle over the shovel. It lifted the shovel high over its head and pitched it at Tyrus. Tyrus threw himself to the sand, and the shovel clanged against the stone wall behind him.

Yolaf gripped his war hammer in both hands and struck a blow to the side of the monster's head. The beast's bulk simply absorbed the blow and the hammer bounced off. The creature swung its tusks and knocked Yolaf flat. Its trunk reached into the hole just as Zane, crouching there, aimed his only shot.

His arrow flashed through the beast's ear and raced into the sky. The creature bellowed.

Zane draws first blood, Tyrus thought. Well done. Too bad his arrow didn't do more than that.

The beast's trunk wrapped around Zane's head and drew him out, blind and screaming. The creature tossed Zane over its hairy shoulder. His body flew helplessly through the air, thumped on the sand behind it and didn't move.

Yolaf rolled to his feet and squared off against the creature again.

Tyrus drew his sword and circled the hole, approaching the creature from behind.

#

Bogg was dumbfounded, near paralyzed from the sight of the fracas down there. Not only had the pup jumped into the mess, but he had beaten Bogg to it. And Bogg had used a dragon! To get here so quick, the pup must have rode that four-legged hill as hard as he could put.

Bogg could believe it. Hills were speedy when they wanted to be. Why the critter didn't pull the pup into bits was a question outside of Bogg's scrutiny at the moment... but by jings, now was the time to fish or cut bait. Bogg was going to settle a score, and a giant hairy monster didn't make any difference to him -- especially if it might be fighting on his side.

Bogg jumped out of the cover of the woods and raced down the hill.

#

Chapter 36

As Tyrus crept closer to the creature from behind, Yolaf swung his hammer and rang a blow against a tusk. The beast took a step back, and the boy urged it on. Its trunk wrapped around the hammer and pulled. Yolaf couldn't dodge the tusks and hold on to the hammer at the same time, and when the beast swung its head, the tusks knocked him down.

The creature swung the hammer around and brought it down on Yolaf again and again, beating him with his own weapon. Finally, it reared on its hind legs, and as the boy held on, stomped its front feet on the dazed Yolaf, crushing him.

"Boy!" Tyrus called.

The hill roared and shuffled around, still holding the bloody hammer.

"That's a dangerous pet. Make sure it doesn't turn on you."

The creature coiled up its trunk and pitched the hammer at Tyrus. He sidestepped. The hammer sailed over the bluff, blasted into the sand, and slid halfway to Dragon's Head.

Tyrus tightened his grip on Blodleter and remembered how the creature had fought Zane and Yolaf. When it was almost upon him, Tyrus dodged and stepped in quick from the side, and with a flick of his sword, lopped off a tusk. He leaped clear of the tusk as it fell, but it nearly caught him as it rolled on the sand.

#

Bogg ran on. He watched as the oversized one, Yolaf, got squished by something even bigger than he was. That suited Bogg just fine.

"That's one," Bogg muttered.

As that tusk fell, and Bogg knew he still had a fight on his hands, the dark-haired one, Zane, got up and brushed himself off. He seemed all right.

Zane spotted Bogg coming down the hill. Not far away was an arrow stuck in the sand - the same arrow that had cut though the hill's ear. Zane pulled it from the sand and held it like a short sword. "Greetings, filthy creature. I presume you are in league with the boy and that thing."

Bogg skidded to a stop, puffing like a bellows from all this running. He stepped up to Zane and drew his sabertooth dagger from his belt. "You reckoned right." Bogg swung his dagger and snipped off the end of Zane's arrow. Then he drove the dagger through Zane's breastplate and into his heart.

Bogg pulled it free, and Zane fell.

"That's two." Bogg was about to wipe his blade on his own clothes, but he was too sooty and bloody. He wiped Zane's blood on his own blue-and-whites, instead.

#

The one-tusked creature bellowed at Tyrus, its black eyes burning. The boy atop it had lost all focus, gazing only at the fallen tusk.

"Now," said Tyrus. "You see the end, boy." Blodleter swayed gracefully, teasingly in his hand. "I'll kill your hairy steed. Then I'll kill you."

The hill charged at him.

Tyrus could not have asked for more. He slipped to the side, keeping the treasure pit between himself and the monster. The beast's great round feet came close to the edge, slipped in the sand... for a moment the creature teetered, a huge living mass thrown out of balance.

The animal's right front leg slipped into the hole, and its whole body dropped down and forward, its weight straining against the trapped leg, and Tyrus heard the glorious thundercrack of snapping bone.

The animal cried again, slumped down against the hole, but this was a cry of anguish, sonorous and high and sad. Tyrus grinned. Its remaining tusk was pressed against the sand, forcing its head up at an awkward, lopsided angle.

And the boy was suddenly in convenient reach of his sword. Tyrus leveled it at him. "Not so many get this close to me, boy. Who are you?"

"You killed my father!" the boy whined.

Tyrus paused. "Recently?" He did not recall killing the boy's father. How could he?

Instead, he thought of the fine job the boy had done. Riding in on a monster like that, defeating Zane and even Yolaf. Maybe, rather than kill the boy, Tyrus should offer him a job.

Tyrus looked the boy over. The point of his sword drifted over his features. The child had startlingly bold gray eyes, but the face of a child. He was so small... simply too young, even when storming on his four-legged hill.

No. Death for him.

Tyrus's intent was shattered by a howl; long, pained, hungry, mournful, that came from the top of the tower.

Cadogan stood triumphantly on a crenel at the tower's edge, forty feet up. At least, the thing up there looked like Cadogan. He brandished his axe over his head. It and the entire front of his chain mail were soaked in blood. Tyrus knew it had to be Uilleam's blood.

He stared. His blade sagged, forgotten.

So. Only Tyrus and Cadogan. Cadogan would have to be dealt with, and Tyrus would have to do the dealing.

Good.

The thing that was Cadogan howled again, and even Tyrus's iron heart was chilled by it. Cadogan looked seven feet tall and skeletal, his red eyes gleaming.

#

Bogg had thought the hill busting itself up in the pit was bad enough, when the fracas he was heading into suddenly became a pup rescue. But now...

Bogg knew that sound. That feller up there. He'd gone and switched into a wendigo. So whose team was he on?

#

Chapter 37

Cadogan leapt from the leaning stone tower. He landed on his feet near Tyrus, and Tyrus brought Blodleter on guard.

Cadogan's feet had driven six inches into the sand after that drop, but he seemed unhurt. He had grown a foot, and become emaciated. His arms were no stouter than the handle of his war axe, but they hefted it easily. Claws like knives tipped each finger, and wolflike teeth showed past his shrunken lips.

Werewolf? Vampire? Tyrus had never seen anything like it.

Cadogan raised his bloody axe to strike. "My lord!"

The axe was a slow weapon and Tyrus parried the blow easily. "What happened to you, Cadogan?"

Cadogan's armor hung on him loosely and rattled as he brought the axe to bear. His red eyes flashed gleefully.

The fool. The next time he swung that axe, Tyrus would sidestep and cut him in two.

Something dark moved beyond the crippled and writhing four-legged hill. At first, Tyrus thought it was another creature like Cadogan -- blood and black filth covered every inch of it. But it was a man, coated with grime and with half his beard missing. Another enemy?

Cadogan struck while Tyrus was distracted, and the axe came down fast for Tyrus's head. Tyrus parried, hooked the axe's blade with Blodleter and wrenched it down and away from Cadogan. Cadogan released his axe and slashed his finger knives across Tyrus's face.

Tyrus saw his own flying blood as his face opened up. Cadogan threw his head back and cackled.

#

Simon winced at the red splash from the swordsman's ruined right eye. The swordsman stumbled back and screamed.

Simon pulled at the hill's fur, but the animal simply couldn't get up. In the two days since Simon had learned to ride this young female four-legged hill, he had come to know her. He had nicknamed her Hummock. And now -- the sound had been like a pine tree snapping -- her leg was broken and she would starve to death. And her tusk! And he had brought her to this!

She wailed, a sad and deafening sound, and her trunk writhed helplessly.

And what could Simon do now -- run for his life?

The sling. The golden slingstone... one shot.

But at the swordsman or the... monster?  
Simon knew what it was. He remembered Bogg's story of the wendigo, and even knew the vivet word for it.

Chenoo.

And as terrifying as the chenoo was, Simon knew that the swordsman's destiny would be far more destructive for all of Mira. He slipped the sling's loop on his finger and reached for the bag at his hip.

The swordsman shook his head hard, flinging his long brown hair and throwing blood from his face. He gripped his sword and whipped it up to swing at the chenoo -- then feinted back and drove it into the chenoo's mouth. Two feet of the blade pushed out the back of the monster's head.

Now was the moment. Simon's fingers slipped inside the bag, and he felt the hard weight of the gold stone.

The chenoo didn't bleed. It grinned and its wolf teeth gnawed and squeaked on the blade. It lifted its hands, claws spread wide, and reached for the swordsman's throat.

The swordsman's remaining eye was wide with horror. He stepped back, put a boot on the chenoo's chest, and heaved the monster off his sword. The blade made a terrible scraping noise as it came free of the monster's skull.

The chenoo staggered back. A moment passed between the two of them as they sized each other up. The swordsman wielded his blade to strike again, but the chenoo darted out of range.

And straight for Simon. Its red eyes fell on him and flashed ravenously. It leapt onto Hummock and balanced its gaunt frame on the furry crown of her head. Simon recoiled, drew up his legs to roll off the hill and run for his life, but the chenoo was too fast. It snatched Simon up, squeezed him in its claws, and leapt off Hummock.

It thumped on the sand, long legs springing into a run across the dunes.

Simon's body went numb with terror as the chenoo's claws pressed against his skin. The chenoo was fleeing the swordsman's blade, Simon knew, and stealing Simon as a meal for later. It would find some dark, safe place far from any chance of rescue, and peel the flesh from Simon's bones.

Simon found the strength to move -- he kicked and pounded with his fists, but the chenoo's long, scrawny body felt like it was made of wood. Simon stretched and reached for anything to grasp. His sling trailed limply from his finger, and his head lolled back, upside down.

Sky, sand, chenoo tracks, all blurring with tears. Simon choked on the monster's death stench and twisted to escape the claws cutting his skin. He blinked, struggling for a last glimpse of Hummock - an innocent creature that Simon had spurred into this disaster.

And there was Bogg, bloodstained and dirty, creeping up on the swordsman. His splintercat cloak was gone, and black soot puffed off him with each step.

But he was so far away! Simon's great-uncle receded, shrank, as the chenoo's broad strides carried it up the dunes toward the forest.

Simon focused every last shred of strength and hope he had and screamed.

#

Chapter 38

Bogg stopped where he was. Things were changing mighty fast.

The pup had gotten himself snatched by a wendigo, and how it was making tracks! The swordsman stood there, dumb as a stump, watching it go. He held his shiny pigsticker in one hand and his bloody face in the other.

Then the swordsman saw Bogg. Bogg held up his sabertooth knife, stuck out his jaw, and grinned at him.

The swordsman didn't seem happy to see Bogg at all. He kept the sword in his right, grabbed the chest of truck in his left, and dragged it over the lip of the terrace leading down to Rastaban. He had had enough.

Bogg's grin fell away. He sprinted to the spot where the swordsman and the wendigo had just been standing, next to the bellyaching four-legged hill.

The wendigo ran.

The swordsman ran.

Everybody was getting away.

Bogg's mind got up and danced. He figured the pup for a goner. The poor luckless lad could never get an even break. Wendigos were fast and tough, Bogg had never beaten one before, and this one was already up near the treeline. If Bogg chased down the wendigo, he couldn't be sure he could catch it, let alone thump it, let alone thump it before it killed the pup.

And if he even tried, the swordsman would get away, safe to Rastaban, and lose himself in the crowd down there. Bogg would never find him, and if Bogg did, he'd have to wrestle thirty of the swordsman's friends, and Rastaban was a tough town.

The chest dragged a smooth stripe through the sand as the swordsman hauled it one-handed. Blood ran down his face. He was laden, half-blind, vulnerable as all getout, and that sword he was swinging around for balance was Bogg's ticket to the Hestern Sea. No way Bogg would let it go.

Bogg's chin jutted forward, his eyes narrowed, his face grim. Poor luckless lad.

The sorry, one-tusked hill let loose another ear-cracking holler.

And somewhere in his hearing way above that, the pup's screaming came through to him. Bogg's head whipped around from the swordsman to the wendigo. It was a hundred yards away, near enough, and nigh into the trees.

Bogg tucked away his fang dagger and picked up the bloody axe at his feet. He gripped it by the end of the handle and swung it around, spinning his body, faster and faster.

He let fly. The axe sailed like a thunderbird rib after the wendigo and the pup. It whacked off the wendigo's left leg just above the knee. Down they went.

Bogg barked out a laugh and sprinted after them, all the while thinking what a lucky bastard that swordsman was. By the time he got up the hill, the wendigo was snarling and scrabbling like a lizard after the pup, and the pup was scampering away, kicking sand with all he had.

Bogg came up behind the skinny beast and pushed its head in the sand with his boot. "Hey there, pup. You all right?"

The pup stopped scampering and collapsed flat. "Bogg! I knew you'd come for me. Watch out!"

The wendigo's claws were sure fearsome up this close, but they only flailed and dug in the sand. The critter's face was buried, and it seemed to be turned all around and blinded. It couldn't find Bogg to slash at him.

"Oh, him. I reckon we should deal with him."

"Can you kill it?"

"That's a trick. We'll try. There's not much else to worry about, now." Bogg pushed the cussed swordsman from his mind, and took a moment to recall the wendigo stories he'd heard. "We'll hog-tie him and take him to that tower."

Simon picked himself up and, after teetering for a moment, threw his arms around Bogg. With his boot on such an important task, Bogg was in no place to get away from the kid... so he hugged the kid back.

It was a peculiar moment.

Bogg realized that the kid was still wearing Bogg's raccoon skin hat. Bogg had lost his own on the dragon, and felt suddenly that the kid had outdone him in the arena of hat-keeping responsibility. It made Bogg like the kid, a lot, in some hard-to-place way.

Simon looked good in that hat. Sharp. Like he belonged in the woods.

His nephew.

The wendigo got to slashing too close, and Simon jumped back. Bogg stomped a little harder. "Yep. Let's tie him with something. His heart's colder than a well digger's wallet, memory serves. We'll have to melt it."

Simon's eyes locked on something, down near Rastaban. "Bogg... there's the swordsman!"

Bogg found him and grunted. "Yep. Mean skunk. Someday he'll pop his head up again, the one-eyed son of a bitch... and when he does, maybe I'll be there." Bogg balanced on the wendigo's head and considered his nephew. "Or maybe you will."

The lad grinned at Bogg, all crazy-eyed. It was clear he had some kind of idea.

"That's an unsettling expression," Bogg said.

The pup didn't answer. He just held up a lopsided gold flintlock ball. He fitted the ball into the sling that hung off his finger. In his deepest voice, he said, "I can do this."

"Do what?" Bogg asked.

The lad stepped back from Bogg and stared hard at the swordsman, who was so far away that he weren't more than a little teeny feller.

"Do what?" Bogg said again.

The kid revved up the sling, faster and faster, until the vine was a green blur.

Bogg couldn't believe his peepers. The kid was serious.

"Do you really think you can...?" Bogg started, then he shut himself up to let the kid concentrate.

Go get him, kid. You just might to it. You just might...

The kid's face was wrenched into a grimace of concentration. The sling whipped in a circle so fast that it made a wild buzzing sound.

The wendigo howled and snarled, but it was with a mouthful of sand and came out real soft and kitteny.

The kid let fly.

#

Chapter 39

Bogg stared at the swordsman dragging his chest, wishing all manner of holes to be knocked in him. Time itself seemed to hang around in the air.

The chest exploded. Gold coins sprayed on the sand, and the swordsman -- holding nothing but a leather-wrapped handle attached to half a chest at most -- fell back on his keister. After a moment, he picked himself up, took a gander at his gold scattered hither and yon and everywhere, and let up a howl of frustration. Then he fixed his sword in its sheath and skittered off empty-handed.

Bogg chuckled.

The pup's head hung low. "I missed."

Bogg nodded and stuck his tongue in his tooth hole.

"He got away," Simon said.

"Yes he did. But enough of that. We've got a wendigo to get rid of, and quite possibly, a four-legged hill to put some nursing to. Challenges abound... but sicker cats have been cured." Bogg stomped. "I'll carry him if you carry his leg. Come on."

#

At the tower, Simon dropped the leg and threw his arms around his furry friend. "Poor, poor Hummock."

It was a strange sight to Bogg, in a day full of strange sights. Bogg shrugged and wrestled the wendigo to the door. "Tell me something, pup. How do you ride a four-legged hill without getting crushed, gored, or et?"

"Lots to remember," Simon said. "Poor Hummock. First, wait until they're used to you. Next, wait until they're bored of you. Then, groom them."

"Groom them?"

"That's right. Pull bugs out of their fur. I noticed the vivet doing that when we were riding one. Do you remember?"

"Not quite," Bogg said. "Tear yourself away from there, run past me and get the signal fire going up top. And watch your step. There's a dead feller name of Uilleam somewhere, and I reckon he's been chewed on."

The pup managed to do it. He stoked up the signal fire, and like Bogg said, put Cadogan's leg in it. And while that was burning up, the pup found old headless Uilleam's (headless! Good land, wendigos were nasty) javelin, and set its steel point in the flames.

Bogg needed all that time to hoist Cadogan the wendigo up the stairs. He couldn't tie the critter well, because those knife-claws could slice through anything holding his wrists or arms. So Bogg mostly just held him close, kept his claws at bay, and dragged. The critter snapped at Bogg with those wolf teeth once, and Bogg nearly lost his nose. The swordsman's hit was still there, in the critter's throat.

"When you open your mouth," Bogg taunted, "I can see through your head."

When they reached the top, the signal flame was hot and high, and the javelin had been in there a while. Bogg sent the pup downstairs.

The sun, by this time, was low over the mountains to the hest, and the tower's shadow leaned a mile along the shore.

Bogg pitched the wendigo headlong into the crenels. It righted itself, shook its scraggly red braids, snarled, and as well as it could on one leg, launched itself at him.

Bogg snatched up the javelin and drove its orange-hot tip square into the wendigo's chest. Its howl shrank down to a wheeze. It clutched at the javelin and tried to pull it out, but Bogg pushed hard and pinned the critter against the stone floor. It squealed and cried, turned all to smoke and was gone.

Bogg stood alone at the top of the tower, signal fire warm behind him, holding a javelin with a suit of chain mail stuck on the end.

Downstairs, he found the pup hugging and murmuring to his great big hairy friend.

"That's that," said Bogg. He stooped and pulled gear from his pack. Then he emptied his saddlebags, dumping odds and ends on the ground.

Simon looked up. "What are you doing?"

"I've been thinking," said Bogg. "I ought to be the one to scoot down the hill and gather up all that loot before that swordsman comes back for it. Gold doubloons and silver pieces of six, it mostly looked like. A shame to let all that go to waste. And you, being an expert on four-legged hills, ought to..." Bogg rummaged. Where was it?

"What, Bogg?" asked Simon.

Bogg's thick, dirty fingers closed on a soft package. "Here it is."

"What, Bogg?"

Bogg stood. "You ought to figure out how to feed fur-bearing trout to your friend, there."

"What?"

"Now, it's a little singed. Not to say burnt. I hope it's still good. I had a little problem with a certain dr--"

But here the kid was hugging him again.

#

Chapter 40

That night, the pup stayed with his hairy friend. Its foot never left that treasure hole, and it bellered and bellyached about its broken leg. But somehow the pup got some of the smoked trout down its throat -- without losing his fingers -- and the critter was quiet after that. The pup just snuggled his little self against its furry hide and murmured and sang quiet songs to it.

Bogg chose to steer clear of the beast, and watched all this from the top of the tower. By the time he'd stuffed his saddlebags full of the swordsman's treasure, the signal fire had burned down to hot coals and the stink of the wendigo had faded. It was right easy and comfortable up there, not a bad place to spend the night. But Bogg slept fitfully. He kept peeping over the crenels to see if anyone was advancing on them from Dragon's Head, and to see if the four-legged hill had flattened Simon or gulped him down. No, on both counts.

Time enough, the coals were dark and the sky turned pink over the ocean. A morning breeze, salty and cold, blew up from the beach. Down the stairs and outside the tower's front door, Bogg found the four-legged hill struggling and trumpeting. The pup stood clear, looking quiet and hopeful.

With a good hard snort, the critter stepped out. Its leg was as fit as any hairy tree trunk could be. The pup squealed and jumped about, tickled. He threw himself at it and hugged its trunk, and the trunk hugged him back. Bogg had no kind feelings for the beast, not a bit, but the sight lifted his spirits just the same.

Or maybe it was the sunrise.

The pup looked up to Bogg in the tower's doorway. "Bogg! Good heavens, you look terrible."

Bogg grunted. "Fine morning greeting, that." He glanced down at himself. He'd gotten himself coated with sand last night when he scampered down to gather the spilt coins. The sand stuck to all the soot, not to mention the blood, which had dried dark and ugly. "I reckon I could use a swim."

The pup grinned. "I reckon that too. Then breakfast, if there is any. Then Tyrus."

Bogg's spirits lifted even higher. "Suits me. Maybe if we try, we can sneak up on the one-eyed son of a bitch."

The pup frowned. It made him look older. "No, Bogg. It would be better if you led Hummock back up to the tree line. So she can find her way home."

"Me? Why?"

The pup let go of the thing's trunk and faced Bogg directly. "Because I'm going after Tyrus, and you're not. I'm going by myself."

That hit Bogg hard. He blustered about for words. "Where's your sense, pup? You want to stick yourself on the end of that sword of his?"

Simon wouldn't look Bogg in the eye. "Don't try to scare me, Bogg. I know it's dangerous. But I'm doing it."

Bogg fumed. "By jings, kid, if brains were gunpowder, you wouldn't have enough to blow your nose."

Simon's little face turned hard, and now he did look at Bogg dead-on. "You can't stop me."

Bogg laughed. "Sure I can."

Simon didn't budge. "No. You can't."

Bogg scowled and moved his foot, scuffing away some of the soot on his boot. The four-legged hill stood there next to Simon, all placid, its big hairy sides swelling up and down with each windy breath. "Well, look, here's a thought..." Bogg shrugged. "Let the bastard go."

"You don't mean that."

"I surely do. The swordsman's gone. Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you."

Simon frowned. "Never... what?"

"Never mind. Look, pup," he patted the saddlebags that hung heavy with gold on his shoulder. "I got what I need. I can let the ransom on that sword pass. Thundering after bounty and following the Maven Minder's orders ain't the best life."

"I don't believe this." Simon shook his head. "You would let him get away? After what he's done?"

Bogg jabbed a dirty finger at him. "My brother ain't coming back! Nor's your father. We can't change that."

Simon sighed. He grabbed handfuls of hair and pulled himself up to the crown of the beast's head. From up there, Simon looked down on him. "Tyrus is just getting started. He'll kill again. Lots. I know."

It seemed to Bogg that the pup talked as if he'd seen it already, and Bogg wondered how he could be so sure. Then again, the pup's reckoning wasn't exactly a stretch. "I judge that's true enough. But the killing he does needn't involve you."

The four-legged hill flapped its reddish ears, and the pup settled in front of its shoulder hump, ready to ride. "The vivets were willing to let him go, too. Ee tried to persuade me to give up."

Bogg nodded. "I always thought the greenies had some sense, living as deep in the sticks as they do."

Simon laughed. "You and Ee. I wouldn't have believed it." His fingers touched the raccoonskin hat on his head. "You want your hat back?"

Bogg felt himself flush. "Don't talk like that!"

The pup pulled the hat low on his head and tugged gently on the critter's ear. It started lumbering toward the slope to Dragon's Head. "Goodbye, Bogg."

"Wait! Let's do this together then."

Simon turned to him as the monster lumbered away, his face small and pale over the beast's sizeable backside. "Thank you, Uncle. For everything. I love you."

Bogg made fists and jutted his chin out as the boy moseyed away. "What in tarnation! You're jest going to ride a four-legged hill through downtown Dragon's Head?"

The beast was picking up speed. "No, Uncle," Simon called. "Just away from you. I have to do it! I'll meet you right here. I'll light the signal fire. I'm sorry!"

The pup touched the hill's head in some way Bogg couldn't see, and the thing took off. Bogg tore after it. They both ripped down the slope. The critter pulled ahead right quick, but there was no way Bogg could lose sight of it. And any moron could follow four-legged hill tracks in beach sand.

The pup didn't guide the monster straight toward the town. The thing curved away, running closer and closer to a road that led out of Dragon's Head. Bogg huffed and puffed, but he was falling behind. All the gold pulling at his shoulder might have been the problem. Bogg let the saddlebag slip off and plop heavy in the sand. Lighter now, he poured on the speed and raged after the pup's monster, small in the distance.

It reached the road out of Dragon's Head and kept going. But the road weren't empty! A haywagon pulled by a tired-looking horse found itself in a head-on spat with a four-legged hill. The wagon swerved and the hill swerved, horse neighing and hill trumpeting.

Oh, pup, you've done it now. Bogg laughed as he ran.

The wagon made it by intact, and the driver, a young feller with blond hair and a white cotton shirt, spurred on his old mare and rode for dear life. He'd have a story to tell for the rest of his days, Bogg judged.

The four-legged hill ripped along, too, crossing the road and dropping out of sight down the slope on the other side. Bogg closed in, his breath roaring through him, his boots pounding the sand. He watched the spot where the hill had disappeared and tried to conjure in his mind what the blazes Simon was planning.

Bogg reached the road. On the other side, the waters of Pirate's Bay crashed on the beach. The morning sun sparkled on the waves. And Bogg could smell four-legged hill.

There it was! Not running anymore. As Bogg ran to it, it crept up to the water. A wave surged up the beach and washed over all four of its big round feet. It trumpeted and scampered back.

Simon wasn't on it.

There was no trace of him. Not even a single kid-sized track in the sand. Just a four-legged hill playing in the surf. What had Simon done? Swum for it?

Bogg followed the monster's tracks backward. If Simon had jumped off, he'd leave a mark. Time enough, Bogg had backtracked all the way to the road. By then, even without Simon's tracks, Bogg had sussed out what had happened.

The haywagon was long gone, clear to Dragon's Head now. Heck, in all the fracas, the driver might not even have noticed a little boy slipping into the back and burying himself in the hay.

Bogg sat down by the side of the road and had a think. He saw himself trudging up and down every muddy stinking street, bumping into every shoulder, casting about for a wee hard-to-spot lad who knew towns, and how to sneak in them, a whole peg better than Bogg did. Bogg could reckon his odds of finding the pup before the pup found the swordsman. Not good.

There weren't no answer. Nothing to do, now, but pick up his damn saddlebag, wait by the tower, and start worrying.

#

The doctor in Rastaban removed Tyrus Jurgen's destroyed eye. That, and the week of expensive leech treatments that followed, had forced Tyrus to sell his armor. He had nearly run the doctor through with Blodleter when Tyrus heard the cost, but Tyrus stayed his hand. Good doctors were rare.

Now, Tyrus stood at the bow of his new barque, the Eldritch Wand, as it docked at Mutiny Island at the mouth of Pirate's Bay. He wore cotton instead of chain mail, and his dark high-collared captain's coat hung past his knee and covered the sword at his hip. The sun had set, and while the sky overhead was rose-colored and bright, the eost was darkling gray, the horizon fading. No wind pulled at his long hair, and the sea was flat as glass. He inhaled to draw in the familiar salt smell, and his jaw tightened at the stabbing ache under his new eyepatch.

His crew would board on the morrow, take on final supplies here, then sail to Algolus. Tyrus had stepped back from privateering for now and made use of his skills as a ship's captain, and taken the safe and banal job of ferrying the Wand, a colony ship, back home, since her original captain had died of dysentery.

Tyrus's old habits lived on, though. He might sail this rig down the coast a bit, around the peninsula and skirt Driftwood Bay, and if he found a suitably harmless victim on the water, he would raise the blue unicorn and strike. It would be foolish -- he had not engaged in mortal combat since losing his eye and had no feel for its effect, and he had no privateers among the Wand's crew to fight with him -- but to take another ship single-handed would be a lovely and glorious thing.

It would put his mind at rest.

Tyrus Jurgen walked the perimeter of the deck, casting his eye about in grim inspection, uncertain what he was looking for. There were no munitions to check on this empty civilian boat. Tyrus was just restless.

He stopped at his captain's quarters under the poop deck. As the frail wooden door creaked open, the maiden lashed to his bedpost startled and launched a fresh round of tugging at her bonds.

"Do you know what I would do if you actually broke free?" Tyrus asked.

She stopped tugging and trembled quietly under his gaze. Her petticoats were torn and dirty, her hair fallen unkempt but pretty about her shoulders, and her face was streaked with tears. Her teeth showed white and lovely, biting the rag tied round her neck.

She had been quite another sight in the Swan, a pub in the aust quarter of Rastaban. All sass and laughter with the sailors, drunks, and riffraff. Tyrus had snatched her in the wee hours of this morning, after hearing that his new employer could not afford a ship's whore for this journey.

The windows to port and starboard showed nothing but gloom outside. Tyrus moved to light the lantern on his desk, but thought better of it. He dropped his coat over his chair, unhitched his scabbard belt and set it by the lantern.

"Don't be afraid," Tyrus soothed. He approached her on the bed. "You've got important responsibilities here. You're going to keep me sane on an otherwise maddeningly dull voyage." He set a boot on the straw mattress and unlaced it. Then he unlaced the other, and slipped them both off. "I'm going to remove your gag, and you're going to tell me your name. Do you understand?"

The girl had striking green eyes. She nodded.

As gently as he could, Tyrus untied the gag. Her lips remained parted, her breath still coming quick, her bosom heaving. Perhaps Tyrus would light the lantern after all, to get a better look at her.

From behind him came the sound of Blodleter being drawn from its scabbard, and a child's voice. "Her name's Amorette."

Tyrus whipped about and found a boy standing in the shadowy corner of the cabin. The sword gleamed brightly, shadows or not, its deadly tip pointed at him. The boy stepped into the gloomy light from the windows. He was dressed in the red wool cap and check linens of a cabin boy.

Tyrus's jaw tightened as he considered this invader and how to disarm him. It was only a child -- scrawny at that -- and shouldn't be difficult. Black hair hung past the cap and touched narrow shoulders, and cold gray eyes gleamed in the soft light, sharp as the blade he held.

"Do you know who I am?" asked the boy.

"I can guess," Tyrus said as he looked for his chance. "You're here to avenge some relative I've killed. It must have been recently, young as you are. Your father, perhaps."

"That's right. Although I come in the stead of more people than I can name. Amorette, for example." The boy gestured to her with the sword.

Tyrus didn't take his eye off the boy or the blade. "I remember you now. You've tried this once before -- I saw you riding one of those monsters -- a four-legged hill, they're quaintly called in these parts. Tell me... how did you find me on this ship?"

The boy was so small that he looked preposterous holding that giant sword. It had to be heavy for him. If Tyrus could keep him talking a bit longer, this would be easy.

"The proprietor of the Swan pointed the way." Sure enough, the blade's tip wavered a bit.

"And did you kill my cabin boy to get his clothes," Tyrus asked, "or just subdue him?"

"I told your cabin boy of my plan and he surrendered his clothes willingly. You don't have many friends, Tyrus Jurgen. You've lived by the sword."

"Indeed."

"So you know what happens next."

"You survived last time," Tyrus said. "I'll have to be more thorough tonight." Before the boy could react, Tyrus slapped the blade aside with the broad palm of his hand. Tyrus was about to lunge for it, already envisioning snatching the sword and killing this whelp, when the girl behind him yanked his hair.

But he had tied her to the bedpost!

She had two fistfuls and didn't let go. Tyrus's arms swung out and his bare feet shuffled in a scramble for balance. The boy swung the weapon back to bear and plunged it into his heart.

Amorette stepped off the bed and stood beside him, still holding his hair. As Tyrus's lungs filled with blood and his legs grew numb, she yanked again, pulling his ear to her lips. "This smart little boy, he loosened my bonds and suggested I play your prisoner. A good idea, don't you think?"

The way she had tugged at the ropes had seemed so real. Tyrus looked down.

The whelp's little hands still clung to the handle of the sword in Tyrus's chest. The runes on the blade read, "Behold Blod--"

The rest disappeared inside him.

Tyrus's last thought was to wish he could at least die with his boots on.

#

Chapter 41

Bogg stomped on through the forest of unfamiliar trees. It was thick and tangly stuff, but he'd pushed through worse. The thing that made it easy was the four-legged hill he was following. She knocked down enough trees and mashed enough brambles underfoot as she struggled on, that it weren't no real trouble.

He ambled along behind the hill and absently tugged on his beard. He'd picked up that habit after it had been singed off, feeling it now and then to see how much there was, and now that it was all back, he judged he'd let the habit go sooner or later.

The downhill slope made the way easy, too. They'd been out of the snows for a week. Hummock didn't like it this warm, but Bogg was tickled, because it couldn't be much farther. He kept noticing the signs -- the smell of salt in the headwind, the softness of the soil under the worn-thin soles of his boots -- and jotted them down in blocky crooked letters in his journal.

Two days ago he'd seen a gull. It wouldn't be long now. They had made great time. Walking behind a hill -- even a one-tusker like Hummock -- that was the way to cover ground in a hurry. Though the view wasn't so great. There were far prettier things in the world than hairy hill haunches. And the sheer size of the hillapples he'd stepped over near scared him skinny.

The pup had told him that they'd go even faster if Bogg would climb on up, and Bogg reckoned that was true, but he wouldn't do it. He remembered the last time he'd ridden a hill, and no-thank-you-kindly. Bogg had changed plenty in the last year, and by jings, he wouldn't change everything just to please the pup.

Please his nephew.

No, please the pup.

Young Simon had sprouted three inches on this trip and showed no signs of letting up. His face had changed too, gaining straight lines, losing its baby-roundness and becoming the face of a young man.

Not that Bogg could see that from here. All he could see of Simon from Bogg's post at the stern was his long black hair hanging past his shirt collar and swaying as Hummock rocked along. Just under that, strapped to the boy's back was the broadsword. Near the golden hilt were runes that said "Behold..." and the rest Simon had ground off. Such a thing had weakened the blade, surely, and the smithy they'd found in White Pass, in the Darkling Hills, had said as much.

Simon had told the smithy that was all right. The thing wouldn't get the same use as it had in earlier days. Nothing much ahead for it but finishing off a coneybuck here, a salmon there.

"What did it used to say?" asked the smithy.

"It's not worth remembering," Simon had replied.

While Bogg had spent the swordsman's spilled treasure on a final load of supplies, Simon had paid the smithy to etch new runes on the shiny bare steel where the old runes had been, and time enough it said, "Behold... the Golden Slingstone."

Somebody else might have chucked it in a ravine or left it wedged in the heart of its former owner, but Bogg respected the lad's thinking. The lad would make the thing new.

Simon nudged Hummock to a stop. "You hear that?"

Bogg took a moment to listen. At first, all he heard was the rough breathing of the hill. But when he moved on from that sound, he heard another breathing, deeper and slower. "We're close!"

Simon urged Hummock forward. Bogg boomed past the hill and into the brush, dodging between the trees, catching glimpses of blue sky beyond the thick of the green around him.

Bogg busted clear of the forest. Beyond the rocky slope in front of him, the ocean crashed on a white beach, again and again.

It would take Hummock time to get over these rocks, but Bogg couldn't wait. He whooped and darted boulder to boulder until the thin soles of his boots pressed into sand that sparkled like a million tiny diamonds. Blue waves with white peaks curled toward him, tumbled on the sand, and raced away, and between each one, he saw the perfect line in the distance where ocean met sky.

He ran on, letting up a power of whooping and hollering. Simon laughed behind him, and Hummock ripped out a trumpety call.

Finally, Bogg splashed up spray. A wave rushed past him, pushing at his legs. Cold water flooded his boots, shocking him, and the Hestern Sea touched him at last.

THE END

AFTERWORD

Thank you for giving this novel a try. If you enjoyed it, please tell a friend or leave a review online. Little things like that can help an author tremendously!

You can also contact me through Facebook or Twitter, or stop by my site and sign up for the newsletter. Once per month or so, I'll send out a freebie coupon for one of my ebooks, or announce a contest or giveaway. I'll also let you know when my next book is coming out.

Sincerely,

Steven W. White

NOW AVAILABLE

Hair of the Bear

In this sequel to New World, Tyrus Jurgen's cunning and deadly sister, Lisandra, has vowed to avenge his death. Once in the mysterious land of Mira, she hires a local to serve as a guide, and mountain man Tiberius Bogg takes the job. He'll keep her from tracking down young Simon Jones... or die trying. But is the swordsman's sister more than Bogg can handle?

Learn more at the author's Smashwords page. Hair of the Bear is available wherever ebooks are sold.
