Emrys, long hair and beard still wet from washing off in the curtained space behind his tent, eased himself into his favorite camp chair, happy to get off the knee he struggled not to favor. A strap around his calf needed adjusting before he could get truly comfortable, the leather, wood, and metal device on his left leg as unpleasant as ever. Still, there were improvements in how he walked. Most days there wasn't even lancing pain that drove down to his toes and up his back. He marveled at the brace, letting old aches wash over him.

  He ignored the familiar pain. A long day was finally at an end. He wanted a moment to savor simple stillness.

  Not that his mind ever allowed him much rest, all that happened floating through.

  The mountain had begun to really burn when he'd brought that wounded bird back, billowing black smoke rising ominously. Half the caravan wanted to go on. Emrys refused and hobbled around in his bloodied robes, barking instructions about how to set up firebreaks on the other side of the river. Tross and Tass had no rest, doing most of it themselves while Emrys organized an early departure for tomorrow morning. His presence settled the unease throughout the camp, whereas the magic convinced those with doubts. After all, seeing earthworks come together in wagon sized chunks, ripped out of the ground as if scooped by giants, left quite the impression.

  Motion drew Emrys from his thoughts.

  He stared at his apprentice, Titus, as he cleaned the tools of his father's profession. The young man washed surgery tools in a basin of magically distilled water, reddish stains already marring the once clear fluid.

  Titus had said nothing to his master when he'd limped into the tent, and Emrys knew better than to interrupt his apprentice when he was focused.

  But now the young man stole a glance across the tent.

  "How is our guest?" Emrys asked, picking up his pipe and precious pouch of dwindling gimth.

  "Alive," Titus breathed out heavily. "For now."

  Emrys raised a brow as he pinched strong smelling leaves into his blackwood pipe. "Is there a problem?"

  "Aside from my patient having her arm cut off?"

  The young man's irritability was easily forgivable, considering the state of the patient he took on. Then again, Emrys couldn't recall ever scolding him for tone. Maybe he should've, but what did it matter? Titus understood him enough to never believe such a lecture.

  "An imitation of an arm is possible, as a sort of tool, isn't it?" Emrys asked. "I swear I saw a few in Etrucia."

  "A false hand? Possible, even ones good enough to hold a sword. But there are few craftsmen who can make anything so complicated as an elbow and false hand that wouldn't be more frustrating than useful. An entire arm?" The young man stared intensely at Emrys. "Even if we had an engineer like Wendmane's Anonymous Source, I'd focus on tools to make life easier over constructing a fake limb."

  "Surely they're not that difficult to engineer," Emrys grumbled, not caring for mention of that mysterious engineer.

  "With the right magic and mindset, probably not. But false limbs are painful, dangerous, and require constant care. I wouldn't mention them for a while."

  Emrys touched his brace. There were times, during the first two months of wearing it, that he'd wanted to throw it into a smelter. How bad would it have been if he'd needed a false leg instead?

  "Is that an order from you as an apothecary?"

  "I'm not an apothecary." Titus took a deep breath and spoke like one anyway. "If you have some plot in your head, keep it away from my patient while she is in the most delicate stage of recovery. I can't promise her, whenever she wakes, there won't be festering and fevers, despite all I've done. Any additional hope or despair could crush her."

  "Not an apothecary, he says," Emrys grunted, eying the elaborate tools the young man washed. They were Uur made sunforged gold, the finest implements that coin could buy, and worth a third of the caravan. "Why, then, did your father gift you those?"

  "You know he meant to buy me away from your tutelage."

  "Thinking of leaving when we're next at a port?"

  "I've never thought that, nor will I," Titus pointedly said, setting his tools down. "If I had isinglass I could properly seal her wound. Thread, even the silk you got for me, has too many dangers to be called real medicine."

  "Someone so fierce won't die that easily," Emrys said, picking up a brand from the small bronze brazier and lighting his pipe with it. "Any other wounds on our guest?"

  "A few bruises."

  Puffing on his pipe to get it going, Emrys contemplated that. "No hyena bites?" He asked. "Scratches?"

  "No. Her bruises looked to be from a stick or staff, maybe fists if they were in a gauntlet."

  Again, Emrys felt like he was forgetting something. No matter. Whatever conclusions could be drawn from that wouldn't change any of his plans. They'd leave tomorrow and rush towards the caravan's final destination, the lake city Tpocic-tal.

  "Titus," he suddenly said seriously, Emrys' expression straightening his apprentice's back, "keep a close watch over her, would you?"

  The stern faced young stared, piecing it together from intuition and context. Just as he'd been taught. "You don't trust our hires or companions."

  Taking a slow draw from the pipe, letting the earthy taste linger in his mouth, Emrys shook his head. Smoke curled towards the top of the tent when he spoke. "I don't want to learn if they see our guest's presence as an ill omen, what with Old Man Ngnun burning."

  Titus said nothing and polished his tools. That was fine. Emrys knew his apprentice was already going to take good care of the wounded birdkin. Such was the young man's nature, and why Emrys even agreed to take him as an apprentice. But it never hurt for a master to give permission.

  Emrys took a deep drag of his pipe, limb soothing gimth smoke filling his head and tent.

  Surgical tools clinked, then silenced as they slipped back into a tightly packed roll. Titus took a change of clothes from his chest, a spare bedroll, and gem encrusted dagger with him out of the tent. The bustle of the dining camp outside momentarily invaded Emrys' sanctuary before the flap closed. Only a dim muffle floated in afterward.

  With no one watching him, he practiced blowing smoke rings and exercised his braced knee. Against the strain of a joint creaking more than leather or metal, Emrys thought about the birdkin and his red stained robes.

  By that karr tree he'd taken her remaining bandages off to see for himself the damage. At her shoulder there had been a clean cut, done in a single stroke that would make an executioner envious. Bone was severed as easily as a razor going through mulberry paper, not a chip or crack in it. However, losing an arm meant a vital artery was severed. Something, the gods and that bird alone knew what, had kept the major blood vessel from bleeding. Once she collapsed, however, it tried to bleed again. Emrys had to clutch it shut with his fingers and get Tross to cauterize the artery, and even then neither of them had been sure she'd survive the trip back to camp. Somehow they managed, and the moment they hurried into camp Titus was there.

  His apprentice took over without asking who the bird was or what happened, the young man a natural born apothecary.

  The caravan was lucky to have him.

  Emrys considered the fates of everyone in camp as he refilled his pipe. He'd be out of gimth before he returned to Tpocic-tal's bazaar, but they might not make it there easily. For now, he wouldn't ration himself.

  Too much for him to consider and he needed to keep himself busy somehow, or else he'd be up on his knee again.

  He needed to think clearly, to plan, for the sake of every soul in his camp.

  Whoever had attacked the bird, Emrys reasoned, had set Old Man Ngnun ablaze. He had little evidence. But there was simply nowhere else the bird could've come from; the nearest village was in a different direction and she'd never have survived running for that long. And whoever bandaged her up had done so hastily, but with care. She likely hadn't lost an arm as punishment, meaning she wasn't an exile. 'Stray, that's what they call them on the plains.'

  Smoke drifted up in his tent, along with his gaze.

  Emrys decided not to worry about the bird's attackers, even if they wanted to finish what they started. With the twins blasting mounds of dirt out of the ground and making a terrible ruckus before nightfall with firebreaks farther out, anyone watching his camp for miles would think twice about even approaching. Sorcerers capable of turning a hill into a fort gave even those accursed elves second thoughts about getting too close.

  More than that, he mused over an old saying. 'Where there are two sorcerers there are either three—or worse.'

  That twisted Emrys' mouth.

  He was sure about one thing with Titus' patient, their unexpected guest. Tross and Tass both confirmed she wasn't a wizard, and a sorcerer knew best whether someone was. From Titus' examination, he was confident she wasn't a sorcerer either.

  Such a confounding thing, magic.

  A sigh left Emrys' lips. 'Nothing to be done about it now. She's here, and I've got to get us back.'

  Emrys stood up, slowly, and stretched his back. At that moment, his knee feeling like a freshly knapped chunk of flint was stuck in the joint, he decided to get the camp rumors tomorrow while they were on the road instead of going and checking right now. And if talk of 'War-Dancers' wasn't everywhere, Emrys would have a cautious conversation with Osso once the fox seemed less jittery—the poor bastard was so terrified of hyenas that no amount of silver could ever willingly set him on their trail.

  Still, it was concerning how quiet Osso had gotten. He'd lost his parents to the beasts. That sort of mental wound could reopen easily, and deeper than ever before. Emrys needed to check on him.

  Already envisioning the conversations he'd be having tomorrow, he took one last drag on his pipe and blew a near perfect ring, perhaps the best he'd made.

  The loop drifted away, but he couldn't appreciate the private accomplishment.

  'What am I forgetting?'

  It tingled in the back of his head, some unremembered fact that mattered.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  He sighed, putting it all out of mind so that the memory would strike sooner, and sat back down to enjoy how the gimth lessened the sensation of a rock stuck in his knee.

  ---

  Dawn approached, brightening the haze of smoke behind the mountain. The fires had stayed on the other side of the peaks instead of spreading to the trees or grasses they could see. Still, the camp roused itself in such a hurry they hardly noticed Emrys until he passed by, his staff quiet against the dirt.

  Dozens of lives moved along perfectly well without his guidance. The caravan could run itself, or at least reach their final destination, without him. He knew that. But watching them, he wondered if all these people knew it. Did their subtle fear of him convince them that he was needed for everything to remain safe? Did any of them even care about Old Man Ngnun burning, since he heard no such whispers flit about? Did they fear nothing because he walked about?

  Emrys pondered much on his way around the double spiral of camp.

  He stopped at one of the tradegood wagons used to pen the pack beasts for the night, the rest of the fence magical wards, and tapped a few knuckles against a wheel.

  Immediately a volpes man scrabbled out from underneath the wagon, stuffing a flat stone into his pack. Osso's frantic eyes twitched about as he spoke. "There trouble?"

  "Expecting more hyenas?" Emrys asked.

  Osso shuddered, and Emrys regretted his choice of words. "They love blood."

  "No more than any other predator."

  "No." Osso scowled eastward, at the sun peaking up from the horizon. "People's blood turns them. Makes them savage."

  "They'll be too terrified of Tross and Tass to get near, animals remember the scent of a sorcerer."

  The volpes grunted, hands wringing the strap of his pack as he stared at the rising sun. "What brings you here, master Emrys?"

  "Matters of your pay."

  "Eh?" The volpes' head turned at last, surprise etched into his fur.

  "I promised you silver for introducing me to the War-Dancers, but circumstances prevented that."

  The fox blinked, then nodded. "I'd forgotten."

  "Somehow I doubt that," Emrys chuckled.

  Osso's gaze lowered in shame. "Even I can forget about good silver."

  "But not my generosity." Metal clinked in a small pouch that Emrys tossed.

  Osso's hands fumbled, bouncing it from one to another. When it settled in his palm, the volpes pulled the string to stare inside. Then he swiftly cinched it shut. "For risking my life against the worst of the plains?" Osso guessed hopefully.

  "Indeed."

  "I didn't know you had coin left, after buying so much ancient wood," the volpes smiled broadly, and insincerely—yet there was still gratitude in his eyes. "None will forget your generosity, master Emrys."

  "A new day makes men forget much."

  "Not what we want," Osso said, his smile sinking into the bitter frown he no longer hid. He stuffed the coin pouch into his pack, then nodded. "I don't know anymore than I already told you."

  "I haven't asked anything."

  "You were going to. Old Man Ngnun is all anyone wants to talk about," Osso's voice soured, "that and the dying stray you found."

  Emrys ignored his guest being insulted. "They've been talking about the mountain?"

  "Only on the edges of camp."

  'So they're avoiding my ears. Superstition?'

  Emrys pushed that disgruntled thought away, as he always had Tross and Tass to rely on for rumors. Instead, he reasoned that the volpes' bitterness towards the wounded bird was entirely due to the hyenas. And if not, well such a resentful tone towards the birdkin wasn't uncommon in camp. Those that didn't speak with pity seemed to blame her for the rushed pace, without directly mentioning the bird. Even the plainsmen wouldn't speak too ill of someone who survived an encounter with hyenas.

  At least, that's what they all assumed happened. Emrys had been clear to Tross and Tass that no one was to know her wounds weren't from hyenas. Titus knew better than anyone else, and Emrys trusted his apprentice to be appropriately cautious with the truth.

  "And what have people been saying about her?" Emrys asked, leaning on his staff and folding his arms.

  "Not much good. Not much bad."

  "Tell me a scrap of good, and a morsel of bad, then."

  Osso dipped his head. "Only because I trust master Emrys to know they're not my words."

  "You're but a messenger."

  "If you must send my head back to my family, I beg of you to keep it on my neck."

  "I'll keep that connected to the rest of you as well."

  The volpes let out a dry laugh, dusty as the fading season. "Ah, I will not forget your generosity."

  The laugh seemed a good sign that Osso was starting to return to his usual self.

  "I have heard," Osso began, lowering his voice and getting closer, "that she killed one of the beasts."

  "Is that something good from you, or rumors in the camp?"

  "Both," he nodded. Then the volpes leaned in, fox eyes showing more than bitterness or the frustrating favor seeking falseness of the plains. Curiosity, but wary and frightful as any herd animal, lingered within. "Did she?"

  Emrys smiled. "Why ask me instead of her? She'll wake up eventually."

  Osso leaned back. "If I know you, master Emrys, your charmed tongue will ask long before me."

  "Time shall tell. Now, though, I am curious what is the bad you have heard."

  This time Osso whispered. "That she's a thief, to have been found with a sword, or a stray that should be left behind."

  To the people of the plains, there was no difference between an exile or those without kin nor clan, they were all strays. Just because Emrys understood it, however, didn't mean he accepted it. "I've not heard that."

  "They seem scared you will hear it."

  'That explains why they're avoiding my ears.'

  Osso tapped his fingers, unease real as he whispered the next part. "Some think she might be a gzgigi."

  The word wasn't immediately familiar, so Emrys asked, "And that is...?"

  "Ah," the volpes flinched. He actually swallowed. "It's... it's much worse than a stray. A cast out, ah, pleasure wife? No, that is not the right word. It is—it means gzgigi. Such a strange feeling, knowing what it means but never having to explain the word before!"

  "You get used to it the more languages you learn," Emrys grunted. "I expected ill rumors, thus I'm far from surprised."

  "Few have uttered that last rumor."

  "Well if you feel like spreading new rumors, good rumors, it should keep peace in camp."

  Osso hesitated, then nodded.

  "What matters is that she's alive," Emrys said, "and I'll hear her story soon. No one else need worry about her."

  The volpes' smile was placating, not real.

  "However, Osso, I wish to know one more thing." Emrys adjusted where he stood, holding his staff with both hands to lazy lean on it. "What stories of War-Dancers and Blood-Drinkers do you know?"

  "Ah?" The volpes' head tilted, eyes suddenly widening as his memory must've caught up with him. "Ah, only what all know. I've seen the War-Dancers, yes, but they speak so little of themselves! They're great warriors, great enough to long ago drive away the Blood-Drinkers. War-Dancers are supposed to be masters of many magics, grand magicians that all envy!"

  "Do you know the sort of magic?"

  Osso stared stupidly at him.

  Emrys wanted to sigh, but held it in. To the Mgan Plains all things magic were the same, and as such their word "magician" lumped sorcerers, wizards, and the odd rituals at the corners of the world into the same category. Emrys was half convinced the confusion was an ancient conspiracy by wizards of the plains that had somehow carried on.

  "What can the War-Dancers do? Not rumors, but what you know?" Emrys asked, trying again.

  "Run on water, cut through metal, skip across the wind even! Or," the volpes' smile thinned, "so they say. I only saw them walk across burning coals, used to cook after they walked so I know they were hot, and flip and dance about in ways no man should! My little brother said he saw them skipping across a lake up there."

  "Teppi, was it?"

  "Yes," Osso nodded, warmth in his eyes. "Yes, he likes to wander more than me. He claimed he snuck out at night and saw it, but I don't know if I trust it wasn't a dream."

  Emrys hrmed at that, then asked, "Were there any women among them?"

  Fox ears stayed honest as Osso shook his head. "We were met by a group of four young men, who carried the supplies of twelve porters by themselves back up the mountain. Then the ritual was all men, but they talked about their 'sister disciples' training somewhere else."

  "I suppose that's what got Teppi curious."

  "It was," Osso chuckled.

  "Has he married yet?"

  "No, master Emrys, but soon." The volpes fidgeted, almost reaching for his new pouch of silver. "Soon, I hope."

  "If you're in Tpocic-tal for his wedding, send word to me."

  "I'd never want to trouble you with something so small, master Emrys."

  "Weddings aren't small. I won't bother the gathering with my presence, and all the commotion that would bring, but we've known each other for a few years, Osso. It's only right I send my well wishes," and gifts, Emrys deliberately left out, "to such a happy occasion."

  "Ah, I can never tell you my gratitude often enough, master Emrys! Your well wishes would be a great honor for my brother and his wife."

  "So he's already sweet with a girl?"

  "You guess too well! Yes, yes he is," Osso laughed, genuinely, shoulders finally relaxed. "I don't know if he's serious, but he should be."

  "Scare him with Tross or Tass if that'll help."

  "Maybe," Osso mused, rubbing his chin. Then he glanced suspiciously at Emrys. "What is the question you aren't asking?"

  "Those are too many to count."

  "Gah, I walked into that trap. Alright, what other rumors do you want from me? You can ask about my family another time, when it's not so hot."

  "Very well," Emrys fake sighed. "I've asked about the War-Dancers, so you should know I want to hear about the Blood-Drinkers as well."

  Osso's mouth shut, drawing tight. He shook his head. "It's ill omen to speak of them, master Emrys. They hunt and devour the clans, so it is said, but no one seems to know how or why."

  "And you don't even know rumors?"

  "I will tell you a few, but only because it's you, master Emrys," Osso fidgeted. "They're strong, fast, almost silent in the grass. Their faces have no mouths, so their fingers drink the blood of those they rip apart. They can skip across water, and cut metal, but fire is supposed to be their greatest fear."

  "You speak as if they're monsters.

  "They are," Osso uttered, tail fluffed and shivering. "Children hear stories, how they'll be taken up, and I believed them all."

  "Don't fear them now," Emrys said, almost reaching out to pat the volpes on the shoulder. "If you remember anything else, or hear more about either group, come tell me."

  "I will, master Emrys."

  This time a false grin settled on Emrys' face, but the fox didn't know that. Osso quickly stared east, fingers squeezing the leather strap of his pack. "How soon do we leave?"

  "When Titus is finished with his tasks."

  "I will ride ahead while I can," the volpes decided, turning with his tail twitching.

  "Before you go, I've something else for you," Emrys said, reaching into his robe and pulling out a silver disk on a braided cord. "If, gods forbid it, you get chased by hyenas, or worse, then squeeze this in both hands and whisper for help. Tross and Tass will sense it and come find you. Day or night."

  "Ah! You bless me with a wonderful gift, master Emrys," the fox smiled, almost ear to ear, with relief that didn't reach his tail. He took the pendant, rubbing a finger over the big garnet centered in the etched silver. "This is a grand treasure."

  "I won't last long," Emrys grunted. "The rest of the trip, if we're fortunate. Be sure to give it to one of them every day or two, to reattune it, otherwise it'll just be another pretty bauble."

  "I'll not miss a day," Osso promised, looping it over his head to proudly wear instead of hide.

  Emrys knew the fox would keep such a treasure close, so he left the guide with a wave. Along with a silent prayer that Osso would use the amulet if he needed help.