The Dark-Eyes War

Chapter 8

Realizing that the battle was theirs, that her efforts to persuade her father and Enly and the lord governor to go ahead with this invasion had been vindicated, Tirnya knew a moment of pure and profound relief. She would never have admitted it to anyone, but she had spent the last turn doubting that this day would ever come. She didn't need Enly to tell her how strange these Mettai were, nor did she need her father to tell her how difficult it would be to defeat the Fal'Borna if it turned out they hadn't been weakened by this so-called white-hair plague. She had spent day and night afraid that in her rush to reclaim Deraqor, her family's ancestral home, she was leading thousands of soldiers to their doom.

Now, though, seeing how easily they had conquered this first Fal'Borna settlement, her worries vanished. It seemed that a terrible burden had been lifted from her shoulders. She strode toward the sept beside her father, struggling to keep a satisfied grin from spreading across her face. This was warfare. Even now, with the last few Fal'Borna warriors scattering before the onslaught of Fayonne's wolves, it would have been wrong of her to take too much pleasure in their victory. Her father would have told her so if he had known how pleased she was. He would have warned her that this was just one battle in what still promised to be a difficult and dangerous war. And of course he would have been right.

But wasn't she allowed a few moments to enjoy this feeling? Could she be faulted for wanting to gloat just a little the next time she found herself alone with Enly? Thinking this, she looked over at the lord governor's son. A second later, he turned to face her, almost as if he felt her gaze upon him. They shared a quick look. Then Enly looked away.

"All right, Eldest," Jenoe said as they continued to advance on the settlement. "You can call back your wolves now. The day is ours."

As he said this, three of the wolves were closing in on a Fal'Borna woman who was backing away from the creatures, gripping a spear with both hands. As Tirnya watched, fire appeared to burst from the ground just in front of the middle wolf, but the animal leaped over the flames and charged the woman.

At the same time, its two companions attacked her from either side. The woman managed to impale one of them with her spear, but she could do nothing about the other two. One of them clamped onto her arm with its mighty jaws. She screamed. The other wolf tore at her leg. Tirnya saw her go down, but looked away rather than watch what followed. The woman continued to howl for several seconds. Then she fell silent, which was even worse.

"Eldest!" Jenoe said, sounding frantic.

"There's nothing I can do, Marshal. I have no way of calling them back."

"What? You created them! You have to be able to stop them!"

Another pair of wolves had begun to stalk a young man. He held a spear in one hand and a blade in the other. But rather than fight the creatures, he turned and ran. This proved no better than facing them. The wolves raced after the man, quickly closing on him. They took him down from behind, as if he were a rilda.

"They're wild creatures," Fayonne said, clearly unnerved by what she was seeing. "They may be born of magic, but they're alive now. I can't control them any more than I can control you."

"Can't you use some other magic against them?"

She glanced at her son. "We can try. But I'd suggest you have your archers take aim at them. That may be our best hope."

Jenoe nodded once. He turned to one of his soldiers and ordered the man to hurry back and bring the bowmen forward.

A moment later, though, matters turned far, far worse. The large pack of wolves that attacked the Fal'Borna Weaver had moved on, leaving little more than a bloody carcass where the man had been. They made their way through the settlement, snarling at any movement, snapping their jaws. Several broke off in pairs and threesomes to pursue stray warriors. But the bulk of the pack seemed headed for the horse paddock.

Before they reached it, two large groups of Fal'Borna children, who apparently had been hiding in shelters near the far end of the sept, burst into the open. There were at least thirty of them in all. Several of them looked nearly old enough to be warriors, but most were far younger. As soon as they appeared, the wolves turned and started after them.

"Gods!" Jenoe whispered. "They'll be slaughtered!"

"We have to do something, Father," Tirnya said, finally finding her voice. He nodded. "To the wolves!" he shouted, raising his sword and breaking into a run. "Kill the wolves!"

The rest of the army raised their blades as well and followed. But Tirnya knew that they wouldn't get there nearly in time. The wolves closed in on the children even faster than they had on the fleeing warriors. She saw the great animals drag down several of the young Fal'Borna. They didn't even bother hunting in teams; the children were easy prey. She heard snarls and the horrible shrieks of the children. She felt her stomach heave and clamped her teeth shut to keep from being ill.

Along with her father and the other captains, she was among the first to wade through the frigid waters of the stream and enter the settlement. Tirnya could see the beasts clearly now. Many of them had blood on their snouts; others were feeding on the bodies of children, and still others were closing in on those children who had escaped their first attack. The Eandi army was still too far from them to help, and the archers couldn't aim a salvo at the wolves without killing the young Fal'Borna as well. Jenoe shouted at the wolves and waved his arms over his head, trying to draw the beasts' attention, but most of the animals barely took notice. A few broke off and turned to face the advancing soldiers, but the others remained intent on the children.

"Ideas?" Jenoe asked, slowing to a walk and then stopping.

No one spoke. Tirnya didn't know what to suggest. She stopped beside Jenoe, knowing that he couldn't fight the wolves alone. The other captains halted as well. Eight of the great animals stood before them. It almost seemed that they'd been chosen to fight the soldiers and thus give their brethren time to hunt the children.

The creatures started forward slowly, growling, their ears laid back, their teeth bared. Tirnya and her father crouched low and readied their blades. Other captains and soldiers on either side of them did the same.

Tirnya heard a cry go up behind her. Glancing back quickly she saw something soaring toward them. She squinted. Whatever it was looked like a series of small, thin clouds. It took her a moment to realize that they resembled the odd, sparkling powder sent forth by the Mettai when they cast their spell against the Fal'Borna. Was this more magic? She wasn't sure whether to rejoice or shudder. She watched it pass overhead and then rain down upon the wolves and children at the far end of the settlement.

But she had no time to see what this newest spell had done.

As if responding to some silent signal, all eight wolves suddenly charged the soldiers. Tirnya had never seen a normal wolf in the wild, though she'd once seen a captive one that came to Qalsyn with a traveling festival. But that animal had been timid and gentle. These magical creatures were something else entirely. Not only were they large and unnaturally swift, they were also canny. They didn't fight like wild dogs; they fought like warriors.

The one in front of Tirnya and Jenoe broke off its charge at the last moment, darted to the side so that it had a clearer path to Tirnya, and then sprang at her. She tried to stab the creature with her sword, but it managed to evade her thrust with a twist of its body. Its snapping jaws just narrowly missed her shoulder. The animal landed behind her, turned with blurring speed, and attacked again, this time leaping for her neck. Tirnya slashed at it with her blade and was certain that she drew blood. But the wolf crashed into her, knocking her to the ground. She landed on her back, losing her grip on her weapon.

The wolf struggled to get to its feet again, its claws scraping her chest and neck. An instant later its face was just next to hers, its hot breath stinking of blood. Tirnya gagged.

She heard her father shout something, and then felt the full weight of the beast sag onto her body. Its blood, slick and warm, soaked into her coat of mail. She tried to push the beast off of her, but couldn't. After a moment, though, it rolled away.

Her father stood over her, his sword stained red, his chest rising and falling.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Tirnya nodded, and struggled to her feet. She bent to retrieve her sword, and as soon as she straightened again, she swayed. Her father put out a hand to steady her. Looking at the carnage around her, she saw that the other seven wolves were also dead. Five men, including one of her father's captains, had been wounded.

Her father, though, had his head turned away from the wolves and injured men. Following the direction of his gaze, Tirnya saw that he was looking toward the Fal'Borna children. She'd forgotten momentarily, but it all came back to her now, and she hurried toward them. After only a few steps, she halted. From what she could see, all of the children appeared to be dead, as did all the wolves.

Tears streamed down her face and once more she feared that she'd be ill. "What did you do?" she screamed, turning to look for the Mettai. "What did you do to them?"

Fayonne was just emerging from the stream, her son and the other Mettai with her.

"We put them to sleep," she answered, striding purposefully in Tirnya's direction. "It was all we could think to do."

"To sleep?" Tirnya turned again and looked a second time at the children and magical beasts. She took a tentative step forward, and then another. Clearly many of the children were dead. Some had been mauled so violently that it was hard to say where one body's blood ended and the next began. There were at least a dozen like this. But beyond them, scattered among the prone bodies of perhaps twenty wolves, were many more young Fal'Borna. All of them appeared whole and unhurt, save for the fact that they were unconscious.

"They put them to sleep," she whispered. She faced Fayonne again. "How long?"

The eldest had stopped next to Jenoe. She shook her head. "I don't know. Not long. Especially for the wolves. They're bigger; the magic will have less effect on them."

Right. Tirnya still held her sword in her hand, and now she walked to the first of the sleeping wolves. Once more she was amazed by how large the creatures were. This wolf's paws were as large as her hand; its jaws appeared capable of biting through the limbs of an oak. In other ways, though-the glossy black fur, the peaceful rise and fall of its flanks with each breath-the animal looked for the moment like any domesticated dog. That is, except for the smear of blood on its muzzle.

Tirnya raised her blade and plunged it into the creature's chest. The wolf spasmed, rolled onto its back, its paws clawing at the air. She pulled the sword out and stabbed the wolf a second time, and then a third. She drew back the weapon for a fourth thrust, but the animal was dead.

She looked up at her father, who regarded her, grim-faced.

"Kill the rest of them," Jenoe called to his soldiers, without taking his eyes off of Tirnya.

She walked over to the nearest of the children. It was a small girl; she couldn't have been more than five or six years old. Her face was smeared with dirt and tears, and her long white hair was in tangles, but Tirnya could see that she was beautiful. She had a small rounded nose and eyelashes that were fine and long and pale, as if made of spun silver.

Yes, she was a white-hair, but in that moment Tirnya would have given up everything she owned to spare this child the horrors and anguish to which she would awake.

She heard a footfall behind her, but didn't bother to turn.

"We should do something for them," she said.

"There isn't much we can do," her father told her, as she had expected he would. "You know we can't take them with us, not even as prisoners."

"Yes, I know." She looked back at him. "What about food? Could we leave them some of…?"

She trailed off. He was shaking his head.

"We can't start giving away our provisions, Tirnya. If this war goes as I expect it will, these aren't the last children we'll be leaving behind as orphans. It's not our responsibility to feed them all. This is war. Even the Fal'Borna would tell you that."

Tirnya nodded, knowing that he was right. There were older children lying nearby. No doubt the Fal'Borna had food stored somewhere in the sept, and if the children needed to leave this place, they could take some of the horses. This little girl and the others around her would survive.

Jenoe looked like he might say more to her, but Enly, Gries, Marshal Crish, and several of the other captains were coming toward them. So, too, were Fayonne and her son.

"The rest of the wolves are dead, Marshal," Gries said, casting a dark look sidelong at the eldest. "The men who were wounded will be all right. None of the adult Fal'Borna survived. Fourteen children were killed."

Jenoe's mouth twitched. "Damn."

"I'm sorry, Marshal," the eldest said. "We didn't know that this would happen."

"Of course you didn't, Eldest. How could you?"

She glanced at her son, but quickly faced the marshal again. "This was an ancient magic, and we thought it would help us win the battle. The next time we-"

"There won't be a next time," Tirnya said.

Her father frowned. "Tirnya."

"No more of those… creatures. I want you to promise me."

He looked at her with obvious concern, his eyes straying to the drying wolf blood on her mail. But then he took a breath and shook his head. "I can't promise that," he said, keeping his voice low. "We'll have to be more careful next time. But the wolves the eldest and her people created for us did what we wanted them to do. We defeated a Fal'Borna settlement today. Not a single Eandi soldier was killed. Only five were hurt. I'd be mad to promise that we won't use that magic again."

"There are other creatures we can conjure," Fayonne said. "It doesn't have to be wolves."

Tirnya eyed the woman for a moment before turning and starting the long walk back to where they'd left the horses. She brushed past Enly and Gries, and continued past men from all the armies, including her own soldiers and lead riders, but she said nothing. Reaching the stream, she paused long enough to wash the blood from her blade and sheath it. Wading through the water chilled her, but though she was shivering she stopped again halfway across to splash away the blood on her coat of mail. The other captains had followed her, and several walked past now. No one spoke to her, though, or even made eye contact.

The foot soldiers had remained behind, and Tirnya could see a column of dark smoke rising from the settlement and twisting in the wind. "What are they doing?" she demanded of no one in particular. "They're burning the dead. Men and wolves."

She turned. Gries stood waist deep in the stream a short distance away. "The dead children, too?"

He nodded. "Your father had his men move the survivors so that they wouldn't awaken to all that blood."

Tirnya continued to stare at the billowing smoke.

"Come on, Captain," Gries said, starting toward the far shore. "You'll freeze in this water."

Reluctantly, she walked after him. When they reached the bank, he held out a hand to her and helped her up the slope to the plain.

They found the horses just where they had left them, and soon the captains were riding back to where the rest of the armies waited for them. Tirnya had tethered her father's mount to her saddle, so that he trotted alongside Thirus. Gries had done the same with Hendrid's horse.

By the time they crossed the stream again and found the two marshals, several of the Fal'Borna children were awake. They sat in a tight cluster, watching the Eandi soldiers. The youngest among them looked frightened, but a few of the older boys and girls wore expressions of pure hatred. Jenoe and Hendrid stood a short distance off, speaking in low voices and glancing occasionally at the children.

Tirnya and Gries steered their horses to the marshals. Tirnya dismounted and approached her father.

"How long have they been awake?" she asked.

He shook his head and began to untether his mount. "Not long. Fayonne thinks the others will be awake soon. It would have been easier if we'd been able to leave while they were still sleeping."

"Have they said anything?"

"Not a lot." Jenoe pointed to a long-limbed boy who wore his hair tied back. "That one threatened me. He said that he'd follow our army and cut my throat while we slept."

Tirnya stared at the boy. He had a narrow, bony face and he sat with his knees drawn up to his chest, his muscular forearms wrapped around his shins. Tirnya had heard that Qirsi came into their power around the age of sixteen; this boy couldn't have been more than a year or two away. She noticed that he had an empty sheath strapped to his side.

"Is that why you took his knife?" she asked.

"You should have heard the way he said it," Jenoe said, sounding defensive. "You would have done the same."

"I don't doubt it."

After watching the children for another few moments, Tirnya approached the angry boy her father had disarmed. His eyes flicked in her direction, but he seemed determined not to look at her.

"My name is Captain Onjaef," she said. "You can call me Tirnya." No response.

"It looks like you'll be in charge here now. Do you know where your people stored your food? Will you be able to feed the others?"

He continued to ignore her, but a few of the other children were watching. Tirnya approached one of them, a girl who looked to be nearly as old as the boy. She had a dark wound on her neck-an old burn, from the look of it, perhaps from when the plague struck-and a cut high on her cheek that appeared to be healing well.

"What's your name?" Tirnya asked.

She didn't answer.

"Is there food here? Do you know where to find it?"

The girl hesitated before nodding once.

Tirnya smiled. "Good. Thank you for telling me that." The beautiful young girl Tirnya had seen earlier was still asleep beside this older child. Tirnya pointed to the young one now and asked, "What's her name?"

"Don't answer," the boy said. He scrambled to his feet and crossed to where Tirnya was standing. Looking down at the older girl, he said, "Don't tell her anything more. Do you hear me?"

He was half a head shorter than Tirnya. From all that she had heard about the Fal'Borna, she gathered that he wouldn't grow much taller, but would wind up broad in the shoulders and chest. Right now, though, he looked terribly young, even more so than he had when he'd been sitting. Still he didn't flinch from her gaze.

"I was speaking to her," Tirnya said. "You had your chance to answer my questions."

"As you said, dark-eye, I'm a'laq now. This sept is mine. And I'll decide who you speak to."

She had no desire to humiliate him. "Very well. Then you'll answer my questions."

"I'll speak to a man. Not to you."

On second thought, maybe she did want to humiliate him. "You threatened the marshal. You won't be speaking with him again. You've got me now. And I want to know if you can take care of these children."

His eyes widened and he suddenly looked terribly sad. "No, I can't. Won't you stay and be our mother? Won't you cook our food and smooth our blankets at night?" He grinned harshly.

Tirnya drew her blade and had it leveled at his eye so quickly that the boy actually staggered back a step. His grin had vanished.

"I think this girl here can lead the others just as well as you can," Tirnya said, gesturing vaguely at the girl who had answered her question. "They won't miss you at all if I kill you."

To the boy's credit, he recovered quickly from his surprise and stood unbowed before her.

"A Fal'Borna warrior doesn't fear death," he said.

"What about a Fal'Borna child?"

His cheeks reddened, and he glowered at her. "Go ahead and kill me, dark-eye. If that's what it takes to make you feel like a real soldier, then do it."

"Where is the closest sept?" she demanded.

"Why? So you can destroy them, too? So you can send your plague and your wolves and your arrows into their z'kals?"

Tirnya shifted her stance so that her blade still menaced the boy, but she could look the girl in the eye.

"Tell me where the nearest sept is," she said.

The girl swallowed and shook her head. "I-I don't know. South, I think."

"Z'Maara!" the boy said.

"She'll kill you otherwise!"

"Actually, I wouldn't have," Tirnya said, not certain why it mattered to her that they know this. "But thank you for telling me." She faced the boy again. "We're not going south. That sept will be safe for you. Take the others there."

"I don't take orders from you."

Tirnya ran her hand through her hair. She wanted to scream at him, but she could imagine an Eandi boy his age speaking the same way to an enemy. She and her army had conquered his village, killed his family. For all he knew, she was about to kill him, too. Where was the boundary between bravery and folly?

"You're going to follow this order," she told him, speaking with as much patience as she could muster. "You can't stay here. There may be food enough to keep you alive, and shelter for when the Snows begin in earnest. But you're still just children. You have those horses. Use them. Ride south to the next sept. They'll care for you there."

The boy stared back at her. The look of defiance had fled his face, leaving him looking like a child once more. He appeared confused, as if he didn't know how to respond to what she'd said. Finally, Tirnya glanced at the girl

"Did you hear what I said?" again.

Z'Maara nodded.

"Sleep here tonight," Tirnya went on. "Leave in the morning. The little ones will be scared; it'll be up to the two of you to reassure them and keep them safe. The wolves that attacked you are all dead. I promise. Any wolves you hear tonight will be the wild ones you're used to."

"I told the old man that I'd follow you, and kill him when he sleeps," the boy said. "I won't ride south, like a coward."

"You think it's brave to get yourself killed taking on an entire army by yourself?"

He bristled.

"I won't pretend to know a lot about your people. But I do know that an a'laq takes care of those in his sept who can't take care of themselves. You can try to kill the marshal and leave these children without a leader, or you can take them south to the next sept and make sure that every one of them is safe."

For a moment she saw doubt in his pale eyes. And she thought she saw acquiescence as well. He'd take them south. A moment later, though, his expression hardened again, and this she understood, too. He was Fal'Borna, an a'laq. He couldn't appear weak in front of the other children.

"What does a dark-eye woman know about being an a'laq? What does she know about bravery?"

She held his gaze, refusing to let him provoke her; refusing as well to let him believe he had shamed her. After a few seconds she turned and walked away, sheathing her weapon as she did.

"Is it brave to destroy a sept that's already lost most of its warriors to the plague?" the boy called after her. "Is this how the Eandi fight their wars?"

Tirnya didn't look back. When she reached Thirus, she swung into her saddle. Her father was already sitting his horse, waiting for her. He looked like he might say something. Before he could, though, she spurred Thirus into motion.

She continued to look straight ahead, but as she rode past her father she slowed just long enough to say, "Give the boy back his knife. He won't be following us."

Eventually the armies resumed their march westward, leaving behind the Fal'Borna settlement and its orphaned children. Once more Fayonne and the other Mettai took their place at the back of the vast column. Mander walked beside the eldest, silent and clearly disturbed by what had happened this day. Fayonne knew that he would want to speak of it, but she didn't press him. He'd talk when he was ready.

For her part, the eldest wasn't certain that any of it could have been helped. Of course she'd been troubled by the deaths of so many children. But to declare that they were never to conjure the blood wolves again struck her as an overreaction. The marshal's daughter was young. She'd never seen what Fal'Borna magic could do. That was why she had spoken so rashly. Let her face a full, healthy sept. Let her see Eandi soldiers cut down by shaping magic and Qirsi fire. Then she would understand the value of Mettai conjurings. All of them would.

She would need to speak with the marshal. He'd been angry with her, as had several of the captains. Fayonne noticed how the young man from Fairlea looked at her, and she knew what he was thinking. Perhaps during the next battle they would be better off using gentler magic. The sleep spell had worked well against both the wolves and the children. They would be better off using such magic again. She'd heard her grandmother speak of poison spells used during the earliest of the Blood Wars. Mettai sorcerers had wiped out entire settlements with a simple conjuring. Fayonne thought that she could teach herself a similar spell, but she wasn't certain that Mander and the others would let her use it. The Mettai of old had forsworn all such spells after withdrawing from the wars and retreating into the Northlands around the Companion Lakes. They decided that earth magic shouldn't be used to kill indiscriminately.

Fayonne understood, of course. That kind of magic led to evil. But for years she and her people had known that other Mettai had begun to dabble once more in the darker powers. How else could they explain all that had befallen the families of Lifarsa for so many generations? How else could they explain the plague that had killed so many Fal'Borna over the past few turns? Teaching themselves the blood wolf spell had been a violation of the old Mettai laws, but the people of Lifarsa were hardly the first Mettai to cross that line. And if this invasion really did mark the return of the Blood Wars, they wouldn't be the last.

"We nearly made a mess of things, didn't we?" Mander said suddenly, his voice low.

Fayonne shrugged. "I suppose. The Eandi soldiers who were hurt will recover. The Fal'Borna children…" She shrugged. "Marshal Jenoe and the rest will forget about them soon enough."

"It had to have been the curse."

She hissed and quickly looked forward to see that none of the soldiers had heard. "Keep your voice down!" she said.

He regarded her sullenly, but when next he spoke it was in a whisper. "They'll figure it out eventually."

"There's nothing to figure out," Fayonne told him. "You don't know that what happened today had anything to do with… with anything else. You're assuming it did, but you don't know."

"Don't I, Mama? It's been following our people around for more than a century. We were fools to believe that it would remain in Lifarsa while we came out here onto the plain."

She started to argue, but thought better of it. The truth was, Mander might well be right. This was precisely the way the Curse of Rheyle worked. They conjured; their spells did most everything she and her people wanted them to do. But at the end they turned out… wrong, somehow. It almost seemed that Qirsar reached down at the last moment and twisted their magic into something dark, something far from what they had intended.

Conjuring had been like this for Fayonne all her life. It had been this way for every man and woman in Lifarsa.

She still remembered watching her father use a simple fire spell to light a cooking fire in their home one stormy night. Most nights they lit their fires without magic, but on this evening they'd started the meal too late. Fayonne didn't remember why. She did recall watching her father as he took every precaution he could think of-moving the wood pile outside; having Fayonne, her older brothers, and younger sister stand outside as well. Families in Lifarsa had burned their homes nearly to the ground with such spells. But he didn't, and for a few sweet moments all of them-her parents, her siblings, and she-thought that for this one night they had escaped the village's unhappy fate. Her mother cooked the meal, and they sat down to eat.

When the fire popped, they thought nothing of it. All fires popped; this one had several times already. But then they smelled the burning cloth and hair, and Traisa began to scream. By the time they put out the flames, she had burns on her back and neck. Fayonne's mother said that they were fortunate Traisa hadn't died, and she made their father promise never to use a fire spell in the house again.

Mander smiled grimly. "You know I'm right, don't you?"

"I'll admit it's possible that the curse had something to do with what happened today." She paused, glancing at the Eandi soldiers again. The nearest of them appeared to be absorbed in their own conversations. "But that's as far as I'll go. We were using ancient, powerful magic. We'd talked of using the blood wolf spell, and a few of us thought we'd figured out how to make it work. But we'd never actually tried it before. Even without the curse we might have had trouble controlling those wolves."

Her son shook his head and laughed bitterly. "Believe what you will, Mama. But we'd best take care with the next set of spells we conjure for the Eandi. Because if we have another day like this one, they're going to start asking questions."

She nearly said the first thing that came to her mind: They already are. Qalsyn's lord heir had already made it clear that he didn't trust them and didn't like relying on their magic. If this occurred to Mander as well, he kept it to himself.

"We should never have left the village," he murmured after a lengthy silence.

They'd had this discussion before, and Fayonne wanted no part of it today.

She didn't want to be out here on the plain any more than he did. Mander knew this, but still he blamed her. And maybe it was her fault. But she still believed that they might find a way to escape the curse, and as eldest it was her responsibility to give the people of Lifarsa an opportunity to live as other Mettai did.

Once, little more than a hundred years ago, their ancestors had been among the most prosperous of Stelpana's Mettai. They lived farther south then, in a village called Rheyle at the southern tip of Bear Lake. They were farmers, cloth weavers, trappers, basketmakers. Merchants-Eandi and Qirsi alike-came from every corner of the Southlands to trade with them.

From what Fayonne's father and grandfather had told her, she knew that other Mettai villages came to resent the people of Rheyle, and perhaps with good reason. It wasn't just that they were so successful, or that they lured peddlers and their gold away from neighboring villages. Rheyle's leaders grew more aggressive as time went on and for a brief time-nearly two years-they engaged in small raids on these other villages. They took fertile farming lands from one, and a bountiful woodland from another. By the end of the second year, the men and women of Rheyle had established four small hamlets as protectorates of the main village. Even Fayonne's grandfather once admitted to her that they were wrong to have done so. He also stated his belief that they would have continued to expand had the other settlements in the Bear Lake region not banded together to stop them.

When Rheyle's soldiers next attempted to take land from Gavdyre, a fishing village on the lake's southeastern shore, warriors from other villages came to Gavdyre's defense. In a bloody skirmish known to the Mettai as the Battle of Seven Villages, the new alliance drove off the men from Rheyle.

Emboldened by their success, they then attacked Rheyle's other protectorates, defeating each of them in turn. When all of the outpost villages had been conquered, they turned their attention to Rheyle itself. They didn't attack this time, but rather used magic fueled by blood taken forcibly from Rheyle prisoners captured in the preceding battles.

They placed a curse-the Curse of Rheyle-on the village's people and their descendants. It laid waste to their once-fertile lands. Suddenly their soil seemed poisoned; crops that had thrived for years before now barely managed to stay alive. Game animals, both large and small, forsook the woodlands surrounding the village. Rheyle's hunters and trappers had to range farther and farther from home in order to find their prey. Much the same thing happened to the lake waters near the village. Schools of fish seemed to vanish overnight.

But the curse did more than that. It touched their magic as well. Spells that Rheyle's people had conjured with ease for centuries abruptly stopped working. Or if they did work, they turned dark, as had this day's conjuring of the blood wolves.

After suffering under the curse for several years, the people of Rheyle finally made a difficult and painful decision. They abandoned their village, moved northward away from their enemies, and established a new settlement on the northwestern shore of Bear Lake, which they called New Rheyle. When they found their new home they thought the lands as rich as any they had ever seen.

Within a year, however, New Rheyle was no better than their blighted first home had been. The curse had followed them. A year later, they fled New Rheyle and built yet another settlement, which they called Dranig, as if by abandoning the name "Rheyle" they might confound the spell and thus escape it.

Three years after that they left Dranig, and settled in what became known as Lifarsa. Lifarsa proved no more immune to the curse than the other settlements had been, but the village's leaders concluded that there was nowhere they could go to escape the magic of their enemies. So they remained in their newest home and did their best to make a life for themselves there, regardless of the curse.

In the hundred years since, none of Lifarsa's eldests had tried to find a new home for their people. Until now.

It wasn't that matters had grown any worse in recent years. But Fayonne could see how the curse wore on her people; she herself knew how great a burden it was. So when Jenoe and his soldiers came to Lifarsa offering them an opportunity to make a new home for themselves far away from the Companion Lakes, she leaped at the chance. How could she not?

Mander was probably right in thinking that the curse would follow them no matter where they went. But what kind of a leader would she have been if she refused even to try?

"Maybe we shouldn't have left," Fayonne finally said, drawing her son's gaze. "Maybe we can never escape the curse. It was placed on our ancestors and they've passed it to us, and it's possible that no matter how far we go, we'll always carry it in our blood and in our magic. But no spell is perfect. We're far from the Companion Lakes, and we increase that distance every day. Mettai magic is blood magic, but it's also earth magic. Look around you, Mander."

He did, taking in the great expanse of the plain.

"Our blood may be the same, but this is different earth. Maybe the curse will be weaker here. Maybe that's why the Eandi soldiers were only wounded by the wolves."

The look on Mander's face told her that he hadn't considered this before. He nodded thoughtfully.

"We'll still have to be careful," he said.

Fayonne managed a smile. "Of course. But perhaps it can work to our advantage. The wolves killed those poor children, but they also killed white-hair warriors, even after the marshal told us to call them back. Without meaning to, we've brought the Curse of Rheyle to the Fal'Borna. Maybe it's a weapon we can use."

Clearly Mander hadn't considered this, either.