Hinterland

A WINTER’S CLOAK

Brantscowled at the finery draped over his form. Arms out, he stood perched on a stool as a gaggle of women tucked and folded, pinched and pinned. A slim-waisted tailor in a peaked cap strode in a tight circle around them all, calling out final measurements and instructions.

Finally, the man clapped his hands. “Perfect! But we’ll raise the collar just a bit to hide that scar on your neck.”

Brant gratefully lowered his arms.

He was dressed in shades of blue, from navy leggings to a ruffled azure shirt, the hues of Oldenbrook. But his position as Hand of blood was also represented in his dressings: a piping of crimson down the leggings, with matching sash to be pinned at the shoulder with a clip of gold, along with gold buttons for the shirt. It was all topped by a navy half cloak, tasseled with crimson.

“Off with it! We’ll make the final adjustments and have it all ready for packing by the morning.” A sound escaped the man, a mix of exasperation and satisfaction. “Hurry now! We have another three Hands to fit!”

Brant climbed from the stool, shed the clothes, and ushered everyone out of his rooms. Once alone, he pulled on his usual worn leathers and boots. He caught a reflection in the mirror that the tailor had hauled up here. He lifted his chin. One hand rose to touch the scar, mapping it with a finger, then dropped away.

A reminder of another life-one best forgotten.

He turned away. A loud sigh flowed from him as he grabbed his unstrung bow. It would be good to escape the city for the rest of the day.

All of the High Wing was in an excited flurry. Half the Hands were readying themselves for the flight to Tashijan the day after tomorrow. The others would remain to attend Lord Jessup, who, of course, could not leave his realm. The selected Hands would represent his Lordship and the entire realm at the knighting of the new regent.

After the long winter, the festivities had the entire castillion aflutter, a bit of pomp and color after the perpetual drab.

Brant shook his head at the foolishness.

The coming ceremony at Tashijan was plainly a symbolic gesture of unification and healing for the First Land. Brant would have been happy to forgo such posturing, but he had his reasons for not refusing Jessup’s request that he join the outgoing retinue. First, he respected Lord Jessup and could hardly refuse anyway, but also he wished to investigate further into the mystery of the castellan’s new page.

Brant’s fingers traced the stone around his neck.

A sharp squeal drew his attention toward the door to his room. It came from the outer hall. Now what? He shouldered his quiver of freshly fletched arrows and hurried to the door.

As he pulled it open, he heard Liannora, Mistress of Tears, let out another delighted exclamation. “I must have it before we leave! The fur will make the perfect winter cloak!”

Brant stepped out as Liannora graced a tall man with a kiss to the cheek. Brant recognized the head of the castillion guards, a fellow with flowing blond hair, braided back from an angular face, and flint-hard dark eyes. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, half-bowed to accept her kiss. There were few who didn’t know how the man favored the lithe Mistress of Tears.

“Thank you, Sten. Your gift could not be more opportune.” She clapped her hands in her excitement.

One other didn’t share her mood. The tailor stood to one side, face clouded with worry. “As fresh as this hide is, it will take much Grace and alchemy to tan this much skin in time.”

“I don’t care how much it costs,” Liannora said. “It can come out of my own purse.”

Brant had no interest and tried to sidestep the others, but his motion drew Liannora’s attention. She glanced him up and down, her smile hardening to distaste.

“Off on your hunt for a few scrawny rabbits and frozen birds, are we, Master Brant?” she asked.

Brant shrugged. “Best to be out of the way.”

“Perhaps you should take Sten with you. It seems he could teach you a thing or two about hunting these woods.”

“I’ll manage. Thank you.” He stepped away.

Liannora blocked him and revealed her gift from the guardsman. She motioned with her hand. “Here is the work of a true hunter.”

Brant glanced at the floor, where a fresh hide lay draped and spread.

Liannora turned away, missing Brant’s shocked expression.

“The snowy fur will match my new dress perfectly,” she said, too excited even to toy with Brant any longer. Her full attention was with the tailor. She pointed to the hide. “And we must keep the gray tufts at the ear tips for the hood. Everyone must know it’s not just an ordinary wolf cloak. The tufts will let everyone know it came from a Fell wolf!”

Brant stumbled back. He knew where the hide had come from. He pictured the gaunt and starving Fell wolf that had hunted his track in the icy woods, begging for bloody scraps.

Dried blood still stained the hide. It was a fresh kill, no older than half a day. He noted the ragged tear of the hide at the rear ankle. No skinning knife had done that. It was the work of a razor snare, a cruel trap. How long had she been snared, the wire slicing to bone as she struggled?

Brant eyed the leader of the castillion guard. The man continued to drink up Liannora’s attention like fine wine. He was no hunter-only a butcher. Brant would remember.

Brant headed toward the back of the High Wing, toward the tower that would lead down and out. He had another duty now before he set off for Tashijan.

He was a hunter. As one who followed and respected the Way, he knew why the she-wolf had come to him in the winter wood-and what pain had dulled the cunning of such a great beast to allow it to be snared.

It was more than hunger.

Brant remembered the smaller eyes that had glowed from the deeper forest as he had departed: a pair of cubbies, the children of the she-wolf.

She had only been protecting her whelpings, driven to extremes, far from home. And according to the path of the Way, such children were now his responsibility.

He had no choice.

He had to hunt them down.

The stilted city creaked and moaned as Brant stepped farther out onto the ice. Though the skies were still achingly blue, the winds had already begun to gust. The air smelled of storm. Snow was coming. Heavy snow. The northern skies were already lowering with dark clouds. Ice fog lay across the frozen lake as the day grew colder with almost every breath.

Brant returned his attention to the pair of loam-giants who stood guard at the foot of the tower. The massive twins huddled from the worst of the wind, buried in their furred long-coats, leaning on pikes.

“The scabbers came from that direction,” Malthumalbaen said, raising a stout arm. “Should’ve seen ’em. All singing and pounding their round shields, like they had wrested a wyrm with their own bared hands.”

Dralmarfillneer nodded his head, scowling his agreement with his twin brother. “Mal speaks true. Stinking of ale, too. Could smell them long before you could see ’em.”

Brant circled off in the direction Malthumalbaen had indicated. He easily found the tracks of Sten and his men. It would not be hard to follow their trail back to the frozen forest.

“Mayhap you should stay in Oldenbrook’s shadow,” Malthumalbaen said. “Skies turning. Best not challenge on foot. Leave your hunt for another day.”

Brant shook his head. It could not wait. “I will return by the first evening bell.”

Dralmarfillneer shrugged, his eyes rolling at Brant’s foolishnesss.

“Ock!” his twin called to Brant as he set out. “If you should come across any scrawny bits of snowhare, I could use some new gloves!”

Brant pulled up his hood and lifted an arm in acknowledgment. As he trudged across the snow-swept ice field, he heard the brothers arguing about who needed the gloves more. When he was a good half a league off, he still heard a barked laugh echoing out to him from the pair.

Shortly after that, as he followed the trampled tread of Sten’s hunting party, his only companion was the wind. It whistled and moaned, kicking up. It was easy to grow weary, especially with the sun reflecting in a blinding glare. The only relief was found in the patches of fog in sheltered gullies between upended cliffs of ice.

As he crossed through one patch, Brant was reminded of the mists of his homeland, of the cloud forests of Saysh Mal. Unlike the cold here, the mists of Saysh Mal were all dripping leaves and steaming heat. He allowed the memory to warm him now-despite the pain that came with it.

He could still remember the day he’d heard of his father’s death; he’d been killed by a she-panther. It had marked the beginning of the end of Brant’s life. His mother had died giving birth to him. But the Way extended to the people of Saysh Mal as well as to the forest. No child was left to starve or beg. The god-realm was a rich one. The forest fostered an endless bounty, with a prosperous trade in wood, fur, and incenses.

Brant had been taken in by the school in the shadow of the Huntress’s own castillion. It had been a good life: surrounded by friends, challenged by his schooling, and always near the forest, ready to hone eye, ear, and nose. It was out in the forest that Brant’s father came alive for him again. Sometimes he swore he could see his father’s shadow shifting through the bower. More than anything, the forest helped him both mourn and heal.

It was also the Way.

And as time passed like a panther through a dark wood, Brant was discovered to be quick of mind, especially for one so young. He rose to the attention of many of the learned masters and mistresses, and eventually to the Huntress herself.

Then it all ended.

Brant had to stop his hand even now from clutching at his throat, at the stone buried under his leather and furs. If only he hadn’t been so dull…if only he hadn’t found himself bowing a knee before the Huntress…if only he had kicked that cursed stone away when it had been rolled to his toes by a burning god.

But he had bowed his knee. He had threaded the stone and made a necklace out of it. How could he toss it away? The stone was as much a talisman of his father as any rogue god. They had come upon it together. It was their secret. Brant had carried it with pride.

Then he had met the Huntress, god and mistress of Saysh Mal.

And his life had truly ended.

A new noise intruded on this painful memory. It came from ahead, cutting through the drone of the wind. A sharp popping, like breaking bones, along with a dry rattle. The forest. The gusting winds were shaking the trees, crackling ice and frozen limbs.

Rounding a tall shelf of ice, Brant spotted the dark line at the edge of the lake, thick with clinging fog. Even the rising winds seemed unable to shred the mists away.

Brant followed the tracks toward the forest. He welcomed reaching the shadowed bower. His eyes had begun to sting and water from the glare of the sun off the ice. He hurried toward the shore of the lake.

The mists ahead lay thick, as if the winds were some storm-driven sea and the fog were a tall surf, pounded and driven into the forest.

Brant tossed back his hood, despite the cold. He wanted nothing muffling his ears. He knelt a moment to string his bow, bending the taut wood with practiced ease.

Within steps, the lake vanished behind him, the sun became no more than a glare above, and even the trees seemed to fall away and disappear. He could barely see more than a handful of steps ahead of him.

Still, he had a well-beaten trail to follow-both into the forest and eventually out again. He was careful from here to step where Sten’s men had trod. That hid his own trail and was easier than crunching fresh tracks into the ankle-deep and icecrusted snowfields.

He moved silently, ears straining.

Once he was away from the edge of the forest, the winds died. The rattle and pop slowly faded. A dread quiet settled as thick as the mists.

Brant continued onward. The only sign of the larger world was the track of Sten’s hunting party. But even this trail shortened as visibility shrank. The fog continued to grow thicker and higher, shielding the sun into a twilight pall.

And the silence seemed to grow even deeper.

He smelled the blood first. A loamy ripeness to the air. He followed the tracks to the slaughter.

It appeared like some fetid bloom in a snowy field. A glade opened, slightly brighter with the open sky above. In the middle, blood splashed in frozen streaks, as far as the treeline.

Brant paused at the edge.

She had fought. The first blow had not been a killing strike, whether done for the cruelty or merely drunken aim. Brant bristled at the pain.

In the center, blood had pooled and iced around the abandoned and frost-rimmed carcass. They had not even taken the meat, only the hide. They had skinned her here. Off to the side, they had scraped and trimmed the hide. Brant leaned down and shifted a pile of scrap. They had cut away her belly skin, too thin of fur to be of value. He spotted the abandoned heavy teats. Brant’s jaw muscles tightened. Sten’s butchers must have noted the same, known she was nursing whelpings.

But to them, all that had mattered was her pelt.

Brant slipped out his own skinning knife, cut two of the heaviest teats away, and gently slipped them into deep pockets in his heavy coat. He would bury them later. The rest of the bruised and frost-blackened flesh he would leave to the hungry forest. While Sten’s men might waste good meat, it would fill the bellies of other scavengers.

Straightening, Brant continued on. He suspected it was only the scent of men that had kept the hungry denizens of the winter wood away so far. Brant had noted the unburied shite and piss left by the drunken men. And in another spot, a pile of upturned stomach, smelling still of ale.

Had it been the ale or the slaughter that turned the man’s belly?

As he had suspected earlier, a glint of metal trailed from a rear ankle of the carcass. Razor snare. The trapped ankle was twisted at an unnatural angle.

Brant took a deep breath through his nose. There was nothing he could do to lessen her pain now. Sten’s butchers knew nothing of the Way, of honor and responsibility between hunter and prey.

But Brant did.

As he circled, he noted the smaller paw prints, mere scratches in the crusted snow. They were too small to leave true tracks. Except for a few bloody prints, bright against the snow.

The cubbies had come out of hiding, come to their mother, nosed her cooling form, smelled her blood and pain. Brant knew that pain. There was nothing he could do to lessen that ache-only end it swiftly.

He slid an arrow from the quiver on his back. He warmed the frozen fletched feathers with his breath. He would make their ends swift. Better than to let them starve and freeze, locked in grief. He would finish what Sten and his man failed to do.

Brant moved away from the other men’s trail for the first time, following a new one now. Scratches in the ice. He would find the pair together.

Who else did they have?

Brant rose from one knee. He had been fingering a broken and bent twig on a bramblebriar bush. A pluck of black downy fur clung to it.

Frowning, he straightened. The hunt had stretched longer than he would have expected. He was deep in the wood by now. The whelpings were still on the move. Had they heard him, scented him? Fell wolves were known for their cunning, but the pair of cubbies were still suckling. Surely they were not so wise to this strange forest, separated from their own dark mountainous haunts of Mistdale far to the north.

Brant felt the pressure of time. Blind to the skies in the fog-shrouded forest, he had no way of judging the coming storm. But his nose sensed the snow in the air. He would not reach Oldenbrook before it fell.

Still, he continued. Turning back was not a choice. If the Way led into the teeth of the storm, so be it.

Clearing the patch of bramblebriar, he noted a dart of shadow ahead, a flicker from the corner of his eye. He froze in place, not even turning his head. He stretched his senses. From the edge of sight, he saw a flash, close to the ground, a pair of eyes.

One pair.

Where was the other?

From the clouded skies, large flakes of snow shed downward. It started as if it had been snowing all along. First nothing. Then all around, the flakes fell heavily, silently. It was as if the ice fog had simply crystallized and begun to collapse around him.

Flakes landed on his lashes, on the edges of his ears.

Too cold.

Rather than melting, they froze the flesh they touched.

Before Brant could react further, a small hare skitter-pattered right past his toes, fleeing to the left.

Farther in the forest, the fog broke enough to reveal a large buck bounding in the same direction, head low to the ground. Behind him, Brant heard something even larger breaking through the brush in a panicked scrabble.

Heading in the same direction.

South.

Soon Brant spotted more hares. A pair of fat badgers, driven from their dens, hurried by, all but scrambling over each other. Off in the distance, snow crunched and branches cracked, marking the passage of more and more fleeing animals.

Brant finally moved, obeying the forest.

What was amiss?

The snow fell thicker, burning with its cold kiss. Unnaturally cold. He might have missed it if he hadn’t stopped, his senses on edge. He dragged up his hood, protecting his face. He moved with a steady but swift gait. He didn’t know what had routed the forest with such panic, but he knew better than to ignore it.

His trot grew quicker, his heart suddenly pounding.

A pair of flicker deer flew past him, parting to either side of him. Something large growled farther to his left. Grass bear. But the anger was not directed at him; it was a blind warning to whatever had set them aflight.

Brant found himself hurrying, boots pounding through the iced snow, dredging through occasional deeper drifts. He used his shoulders and back to keep moving. The cold rolled over him-sinking into him, drawn in with every breath.

Ahead, a hare, which had been spearing ahead of him in zigzagging bursts, suddenly collapsed on its side. It skidded into the snow, shook a breath, then lay still.

Brant ignored his own thundering heart to stop at its side. He touched an ear, blue and frosted. He nudged the body with a gloved finger. It was stiff and solid. Frozen to the core.

Impossible.

Brant stumbled onward.

Snow blinded now. But he found more bodies in agonized postures or simply dropped in their tracks.

This was no natural cold. There was something behind him, cloaked in the storm, something of Dark Grace and deadly touch. He could almost smell the taint in the air-or maybe it was just the fear in the forest. Then again, maybe it was one and the same.

Then he saw them, off to the right. Two pairs of eyes glowed from beneath a leafless thrushberry bush. The cubbies huddled together, lost, panicked.

He would have to hurry. Each breath was now ice in the lungs. But he had come to honor the Way. Even what lurked in the storm would not stop him.

He notched an arrow, drew a full pull, and aimed for the first cubbie. He clutched the second arrow between his lips. Eyes glowed back at him. He saw their trembling, a mix of fear and cold. It spread to his aim. He tightened his grip to steady himself.

Still, his fingers refused to let go of the string.

Snow burned his exposed wrist where his coat sleeve had pulled up.

Cursing silently, he relaxed the tension and lowered his bow. With an exasperated sigh, he dropped the bow and spat out the arrow. His actions were foolish, a waste of precious breath, but the forest had seen enough death this day.

Brant undid the top hooks of his coat and used his teeth to pull the gloves from his fingers.

By now, the forest had gone silent again. All the animals had fled past him already.

He reached to his pockets and found the she-wolf’s teats, now thawed enough to squeeze. He massaged a bit of milk over his fingers, smearing them. Satisfied, he pulled his hands free and approached the cubbies’ hiding place. He held his hands out and made a small growled whine.

The whelpings backed from him, deeper into the bushes. They were dark-furred except for white-tipped ears, the better to hide in a den or shadowed nest. They would gain a winter’s snow white pelt only when full grown.

Brant held still. He had only the time to try this once. If they bolted, he would have to chase them down with bow and arrow. While he would honor the Way, mercy went only so far.

He waited for a full icy breath. Then noted one of the cubbies’ nose shift, tasting the air.

“That’s right-” Brant whispered gently. “You know your mama.”

A whine escaped the second, scared, testing.

The first cubbie, the one who tested the air, reached toward his fingers, sniffing and growling. The second huddled against it. Brant’s fingertips were at the first one’s black nose.

A fast nudge, and the braver cubbie licked its nose.

“You know your mamma’s milk,” Brant whispered with a growling whine of his own. “There’s no one you trust more.”

The pair trembled, caught between panic and hope.

Brant reached farther, sliding his palms between their flattened ears, filling their noses with their mother’s scent. The first cubbie continued to growl. Brant dared wait no longer.

He grabbed each cubbie by the nape of the neck and hauled them to him. They growled. The first swung around and bit him in the forearm, catching mostly coat but also a pinch of flesh. He pulled them to his chest. The cubbies struggled, but just as weakly as the first one’s bite. The pair was thin, half a stone each at best, exhausted to the edge of collapse.

He tucked one pup into his half-open coat, then shoved in the second. Using one arm to sling under them, he rehooked his coat.

The cubbies took solace in the darkness and were reassured by each other’s presence. They gave up their fight and settled together within the warmth of his coat.

Brant straightened. The forest had emptied out. The world was snow and tasted of ice. The distraction of the cubbies had helped calm his heart, allowed his wits to settle. He was done running blindly like an animal. Whatever came from the north flowed south, driving the beasts ahead of it. There was another path. Rather than flee from whatever death was within the storm, he could step aside.

So Brant set off to the west instead, toward Oldenbrook, moving fast, abandoning quiver and bow to the snow. With his breath frosting the air, he fought the snow, underfoot and from the skies. He moved with an unerring sense of direction, swiftly, crossing frozen creeks and hurtling deadfalls. He flew as straight as an arrow.

As time froze around him, he fought only to keep moving, to put one boot in front of the other. His face went numb and senseless, vanishing away, stolen by the storm. He was only a walking, gasping lung. The cold now sliced with each ragged breath. He tasted blood on his tongue.

Snow continued to fall. He lifted his head, cursing the skies.

Flakes settled atop his upturned face-and melted.

The icy water ran like tears down his cheeks. It took him another two breaths before he realized the significance. The snow fell just as thickly, but this was no cursed blizzard. It was simply ordinary snowfall.

Relief surged through him.

He had cleared the river of death flowing through the wood, reached its western bank. He stumbled on with a coarse laugh, sounding half-maddened to his own ears. In steps, the forest vanished around him, and the lake opened ahead of him.

Free of the forest’s shelter at last, the winds blew stronger. Ducking against the onslaught, Brant headed out onto the ice fields. Ahead, Oldenbrook had been swallowed by the storm, but Brant trusted the tidal pull of his senses. He trudged onward.

Still, his brush with whatever Dark Grace tainted the storm had weakened him more than he had suspected. He coughed into his glove and saw the blood. His eyes watered, freezing lashes together.

He fought onward. Winds swirled and battered him, trying to drive him back into the forest. His legs trembled, and he could not stop his teeth from rattling in his skull.

Must not surrender…

Time slipped. He found himself suddenly standing in place. How long had he been frozen there? He stared ahead. The storm seemed lighter there. Was that the lamps of the city? Or was it merely the setting sun?

He moved again.

One boot…then another.

Then he was on his knees. He never remembered slipping down.

He craned up. Snow fell everywhere. The world was gone. Maybe it never existed. He coughed, wracking and loud, falling to one arm. Blood splattered the ice.

Trembling all over, he pushed up. A glow in the storm wobbled ahead.

He thought maybe he heard a noise that wasn’t the wind. He reached up and pulled down his hood.

“…this way!”

Brant blinked his frozen lashes.

“Braaaant! Ock, Master Brant! Where are you?”

Hope surged. He tried to answer, but another bout of coughing shook through him, taking him to his knees again.

But someone heard him.

“Over here, Dral!” a voice to the left called.

Brant sank to the ice. Two dark figures appeared out of the storm. They held lamps aloft, swinging from raised pikes.

The twin giants.

Malthumalbaen and Dralmarfillneer.

Brant closed his eyes with grateful relief. He sank around himself. Against his belly, two hearts beat. The Way had never been an easy path.

But it was the right one.

“Preposterous,” Liannora said under her breath. “Daemons in the snow…”

The next morning, Brant sat in the High Wing’s common room, sipping a healer’s draught of bitter herbs and warming alchemies. Thick drabs of honey failed to mask the acrid tang, and the swirl of complex Graces made his vision swim. He was under orders to drink it with every ring of the day’s bell. It was his second draught since being released from the healer’s ward.

His breathing remained pained, his voice hoarse, but the sputum no longer bled. Still, deep in his chest, he felt some sharpness if he inhaled too quickly, as if a few shards of ice still remained in his lungs. But the draughts slowly helped-as had a night buried under furs with bladders of heated water tucked against him. He felt almost himself again.

He warmed his palms on the hot stone mug.

By now, other Hands had gathered. By order of Lord Jessup. The god of Oldenbrook would be arriving shortly. All had heard Brant’s tale of some dread force cloaked in the heart of the past day’s storm. Doubt could be seen in their eyes and heard behind their whispers. Especially since the storm had blown itself out by morning, moving south and away, leaving in its wake a frigid cold and a world blanketed in windswept drifts of snow. The sky remained low and misted. Sunrise was more a pale effort at the start of a day, seemingly defeated before it had begun.

But nothing worse was revealed.

Just another winter’s day.

Talk of Dark Graces that stole through the forest, cloaked in a freezing snow, killing with ice, was little believed in the light of day, as meager as that light might be.

“How many winters have you spent up here?” Liannora persisted. She wore a resplendent morning dress of silver adorned with iridescent blue shells.

“This is my first full winter here,” Brant said hoarsely. “But I spent another three in Chrismferry, even farther north than Oldenbrook.”

Liannora scoffed, “Those are city winters, sheltered by towers, spent indoors, never more than a step or two from the nearest hearth. This is a wild winter. A true winter.”

Brant stared at her, wondering how many winters it had been since Liannora had stepped more than ten paces from the closest hearth. Or mirror, for that matter. He could not picture her traipsing a winter forest. But he stayed silent. He did not have the patience or the breath to confront her.

“Raised in the hot lands of the far south,” Liannora expounded, “you were simply ill-prepared for the savagery of our winters here. Imagining daemons behind every snowflake. I recommend you dress warmer next time. What were you doing out in that storm anyway?”

A pair of fellow Hands chuckled: the wide-hipped Mistress Ryndia and the skeletally thin Master Khar, Hands of seed and sweat, respectively. They were ever at Liannora’s bidding.

Brant felt heat rise inside him that had nothing to do with the healing draught.

Across the table, an older man cleared his throat, stirring from his seat with a creak of wood and bones. His intrusion was welcome. Brant respected the elderly Hand, though he represented the least of the humours: black bile. Master Lothbren was near the end of his duty here, bent and aged by his years of handling a god’s Grace. As much as it was an honor to serve, there was a cost. A god’s Grace burnt its bearers, setting flame to the candles of their lives, flaring them brightly but consuming them just as quickly.

The old man stared at Brant with eyes still sharp. “You rescued a pair of wolf cubbies, I heard,” he said.

Brant nodded. He had left them with the giant brothers, who had promised to deliver them to the castillion’s kennels, to get them warmed and fed. Brant had left his coat with the cubbies, the better to let them feel secure, to accustom themselves to his scent. He was planning on visiting them once he was finished with Lord Jessup’s summoning, to see how they were faring.

“For dogs!” Liannora spat with another roll of eyes. “He risks his life, his station for a couple of spitting curs. I daresay such an act smacks of disrespect toward Lord Jessup-to so wantonly jeopardize oneself when one is in service to a god.” She shook her head in disbelief and mild outrage.

Brant had heard enough. “Those dogs,” he said through clenched teeth, “were whelpings of the she-wolf your most glorious Sten slaughtered with razor wire and cowardly spear, while full to the brim with ale. He knew she had cubbies on her teat, yet he left them to starve and freeze.”

The shocked look on Liannora’s face almost made his outburst worth it. For too long he had bitten his tongue at her slights. No longer. Still, he saw her surprise fade into angry cunning, a flash of wickedness, a promise that this was far from over.

She waved his words away with a flip of a hand, keeping her tone even, as if his angry outburst were a rudeness beyond her. “I thought a skilled hunter like yourself would be well aware of life’s cruel necessity. Some die so others might live.”

“Or so others might wear pretty coats…”

She shrugged. “Strange words from someone who traipses out into our forests with bow and arrow. I don’t see you starving and needing to grace our board here with your scrawny hares and rabbits. I’d say you hunt more for pleasure than necessity. At least I’ll put my coat to good use.”

Master Lothbren lifted a placating hand. “What are your plans for the cubbies, Master Brant?”

He tempered his voice, breathing through his nose to calm himself. “Once they are well-weaned and fleshed, I hope to gain a boon from Lord Jessup to return them to Mistdale whence they came.”

“So again you plan to forsake your duty here, to further slight our lord-”

“Thank you, Liannora, but I believe I can withstand such an insult.”

All eyes turned to find Lord Jessup at the door to the commons, dressed casually in loose leggings and a simple shirt of stitched sailcloth. He entered with a ghost of a smile, like a kindly father coming upon a squabbling set of his children. He settled to a seat at the head of the long table.

A few words were exchanged, morning pleasantries; then Lord Jessup settled his gaze upon Brant. He noted the slight glow of warm Grace behind the god’s eyes.

“How are you faring this morning?”

“Fine, my lord. Much stronger.”

“You look it,” Jessup said with a nod. “I daresay you arrived as pale as Liannora here when those giants carried you home. But your color is returning nicely.”

“The healers know their craft.”

“I shall certainly pass on my own gratitude.” Jessup leaned back into his seat. “Now, if you’re able, I’d like to hear more about what you saw out in that storm.”

Brant nodded. “It wasn’t so much saw as felt.”

Liannora opened her mouth, sitting straighter, ready to offer her thoughts, but Lord Jessup waved her down. She sank back into her chair.

Brant slowly but firmly reported all he experienced: the unnatural cold, snow that burnt with ice, the panicked flight of the beasts of the field, their sudden and inexplicable deaths, frozen where they fell.

“I saw no sign of man or daemon,” he finished, “but this was no mere storm. Something hid at its heart, cloaked in snow. I’m certain of it.”

Jessup pondered his story, leaning forward a bit, eyes down, fingers steepled and tapping his brow. “There has been much strangeness of late, much to worry and concern me. Clearly those of ill purpose take heart from this stretch of bitter winter. Who’s to say what emboldened act might be attempted? It bears investigation. If there are any Black Alchemists afoot on my lands, we must root them out.”

“Lord Jessup-” Liannora began again.

A hand raised, palm out. “I will send the chief master of the Oldenbrook school, a man familiar with corrupted Graces, out into the wood along with a small legion of guards.” He eyed Brant again. “I will have maps brought up. Are you able…do you remember…?”

“I can mark where I hunted. But mayhap I should accompany the search.” Brant was afraid that the heavy drifts would have blanketed all evidence to his claims, deeply burying the bodies.

“I fear it’s not best for your health to be out in this bitter cold. Not if you’re to recover for the coming morning’s flight to Tashijan. And I fear even the strain of such a flight, of the festivities at the Citadel, perhaps will be too much.”

Brant sat straighter and pushed away his emptied mug. “I will be more than hale enough to travel.”

He did not want to be excluded from the retinue. Despite all that had happened, there was still the matter of Dart, his stone, and the strange apparition conjured as the stone flared. He could not pass up this chance for answers. Not after so long.

“I hope you are right,” Lord Jessup said. “I was the first to put Tylar ser Noche’s cloak in service to the Order. It was here he first bent a knee as a knight. I would send the best of Oldenbrook to witness his knighting again. To send less would cast some doubt on my support. Still, if you are not able…I will not risk your health.”

“I am mending fine, Lord Jessup.” A rasping cough confounded his words, but he met the god’s blue eyes with steady assuredness. “I am.”

A nod. “Very good. Then it’s settled.”

Lord Jessup began to rise, but now it was Liannora’s turn to lift a hand. “A wonderful thought has just occurred to me, stirred by your words of honoring the assembly at Tashijan. For the past nights, my slumber has been troubled by worries of how to properly show our respect, of what gifts we might bring besides our fine personages.”

“What idea has possessed you?”

Liannora glanced to Brant, flashing some wicked intent, then turned back to Lord Jessup. “Master Brant here has risked his life to bring two beautiful woodland cubbies out of the forest, to save them from the savageries of the storm. What better gifts might we present than those same twin cubbies? Fell wolves, no less.”

Brant felt as if he’d been clubbed in the stomach.

“The whole ceremony at Tashijan is one of unification,” Liannora continued. “To heal the fractured houses of Chrismferry and Tashijan. Would it not be a wonderful gesture to offer one pup to the celebrated and battle-brazened Argent ser Fields, high warden of the Citadel-and present the other to the new regent, Lord Tylar ser Noche?”

“Most wonderful,” Mistress Ryndia added.

“Indeed,” Master Khar chimed in.

“Fell wolves represent strength, cunning, and honor. To share them between the two houses-Tashijan and Chrismferry-would help symbolize the new resolve of all the First Land, to stand against the darkness, proud and nobly.”

Brant finally found his tongue. “The wolves belong in Mistdale. It is where they should be returned.”

“There are enough wolves in those dark forests,” Liannora said. “Was it not hunger that drove the she-wolf down here to begin with? The symbolic nature the pair could represent would serve far better than stocking two more starving wolves in Mistdale.”

“That is not the Way of-”

Now Brant was silenced with a nod from Lord Jessup. “Thank you, Liannora. Well-spoken indeed. The gesture would be significant, but as it was Master Brant who risked his life to bring the wolves here, then it should be his choice on what will be done with them.”

Liannora bowed her acknowledgment and settled with a shimmer to her seat. All eyes were on Brant.

Even Lord Jessup’s.

Brant ignored the others, but he could not dismiss the gentle attention of the god in their midst. He knew the high esteem in which Lord Jessup held the new regent. Even more deeply, he understood the god’s desire to acknowledge and certify the new pact between Chrismferry and Tashijan. The First Land must heal.

But he had a responsibility beyond the land. By saving the cubbies, he now had their lives to protect. He weighed the life they would lead if he agreed. He had no doubt they’d be raised with pampered attention. As gifts of a god, representing the new unity and symbolizing the First Land’s newfound fortitude, the wolves would be well cared for and well-kept. Their lives would be easy; they would be fatted and groomed.

Yet still it would be a caged life, all freedoms gone. Brant rankled at the thought. Here he was, exiled from his own homelands into this pampered existence. He’d had no choice. Then again, sometimes freedoms had to be laid down for the greater good.

“Master Brant…?” Lord Jessup pressed softly.

He met his god’s eyes, knowing what the god hoped.

Brant nodded slowly.

“I gave ’em some goat’s milk ’bout a bell ago,” Malthumalbaen grumbled. “Just about took my thumb off.”

The giant held out a ponderous digit, wounded with an arc of needled bites.

Shadowed by the giant, Brant stood at the cage door. The cubbies were half-buried in his old coat, forming a den beneath it, glowering. A low growl greeted him.

Brant flipped the latch and pulled the gate.

“Take care, Master Brant. Or at least count your fingers. Make sure you leave with the same number.”

The giant’s twin returned from down at the end of a row, where he had finished relieving himself into a pail. Dralmarfillneer snugged the laces on his trousers as he joined his brother. A few of the kennel’s hounds regaled his passage.

“Them’s some feisty bits of fur,” he said with a grin upon reaching their side. “Probably taste a mite nice, too. After being fattened up first.”

Malthumalbaen clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Take no offense, Master Brant. Dral’s always wondering what things taste like.”

Brant slid into the cage.

“We must get back to our posts,” the giant said.

Brant nodded to them. “Thank you again for coming out and pulling me out of the teeth of that storm.”

“No thanks necessary.”

“Just a few hares now and then-that’d be nice.” Dral elbowed his brother for his agreement.

Malthumalbaen sighed. “Is that all you think about? Your belly?” He shoved his brother toward the far door. “Don’t you know anything about honor, ’bout doing what’s right for rightness’s sake?”

“Still, a few hares…If you’d rather not have yours, I’ll be happy to-”

“Ock, that’s not the point. Mother surely dropped you on your head.”

Their argument faded into grumbled snatches as they left the kennels.

Alone, Brant pulled the door closed behind him and sank to a crouch. The cubbies stared at him. Two pairs of eyes reflected the torchlight beyond. Brant noted a pile of spoor in one corner. It was runny and loose.

“Goat’s milk is not your mamma’s, is it?” Brant whispered.

A growl answered him. He caught a ripple of teeth.

Ignoring the threat, Brant sidled closer, then sank cross-legged into the hay. He would wait them out. Let his scent push through the pall of shite and hound piss.

After a long moment, a snarling nose peeked out of the coat, curious but wary.

“Do you recognize my smell?”

The small cubbie lowered its muzzle to the ground, ears flattened. It was the little she-wolf, braver than her brother. She edged out a whisker at a time in his direction. Her brother shadowed her. Brant saw how the male, more cautious, studied him, first from one side of his sister, then the other. Though he lacked his sister’s bravado, he made up with wits and cunning.

Brant had rested a hand in the hay. The little she-wolf, bristling with black fur, stretched her neck to sniff at a nail. Satisfied, she crept farther, circling out a bit, still wary.

Then she lunged and snapped into the meat of his thumb. She stayed latched, growling. Brant could guess she was the one who had wounded Malthumalbaen. Brant simply waited her out.

Finally she let go and pulled back.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I probably deserve it.”

Her hackles slowly lowered. She sank to her belly and wiggled forward again. A small pink tongue licked at the droplets of blood raised by her milk teeth. A whine escaped her, apologetic.

The male slipped from the den and joined his sister, licking at Brant’s thumb. Once his finger was clean, the pair were soon sniffing him all around, exploring his nooks and corners.

He watched them, his heart heavy.

After a few moments more, they grew bored with his presence. The male returned to the coat, grabbing it by a sleeve and tugging on it. Such housekeeping plainly angered his sister. She grabbed the other sleeve, fighting with determined growls.

Brant sighed. Maybe he should have left them to the storm. Had it been any true kindness rescuing them? Into what sort of life were they headed? Still, it was life. As long as their hearts beat, the future was never set in stone.

Not theirs, not his.

He pondered the strange storm again. Even he had begun to wonder if he had not merely caught the contagious panic of the animals. Maybe it was just the extra cold spooking the beasts. Still, he remembered the ice in the air, the cold flesh of that hare, dropped in midleap.

No.

Something unnatural had been cloaked in the storm.

But what? And more importantly, why?

The storm had blown itself out of Oldenbrook and now rolled south toward the distant sea. In another day or two it would be gone from these lands. Perhaps it would always remain a mystery. He thought he had sidestepped it, but maybe that had been a delusion. Maybe it still held him in its grip.

Maybe it always had.

Brant clutched the stone at his throat, rolled to him by the dying breath of a rogue god.

How much freedom did any of them have?