The morning sun saw Iarius and Nessalir inspecting blood upon the road.

  It had cooled over the past day, and had faded from scarlet to a rusted color, and the patterns had been disturbed by the second detachment, which had been sent out to collect the dead. To Iarius' eyes, the dirt road was simply that, a dirt road. It was a mass of tramped down dust and soil, and soon enough even that would be covered by Remuran brickwork.

  His barbarian companion, however, seemed to take a different view.

  "Do you know anything about the state of the bodies when they were retrieved?" she asked.

  Iarius shook his head. "No one informed me of anything, but that's hardly surprising."

  Nessalir frowned. She took a few steps away from the blood, toward the edge of the road and the start of the trees. All the while, her golden eyes never left the ground.

  "You said you believed only a pair of archers attacked the Century?" she asked.

  "I do," said Iarius.

  "I believe you may be correct."

  Iarius frowned and walked to her side. He examined the patch of dirt she was so focused on, but couldn't make heads or tails of it.

  "Look," said Nessalir, and she pointed with the toe of her boot at an indentation in the ground. Iarius did look, and slowly he realized that the indentation looked familiar.

  "A footprint," he said.

  "And there are others," Nessalir told him. "Enough to account for only a single person. One approached the bodies, while the other kept watch. Likely the bandit would have put down any legionnaires who still clung to life, and it is likely as well that he would have taken anything from the corpses that he might have found useful."

  Now that she'd pointed them out, Iarius could see the footprints in the dirt, leading back to the trees. "So they left a trail for us to follow."

  "They have," Nessalir agreed. She lifted her gaze from the road, looked out over the tops of the trees. "Tell me about those mountains."

  Iarius shrugged. "You would know more than I," he said. "This is as far into the Northern Lands as I have ever come." He frowned. "One of the scouts for the Equines believed the bandits may be hiding out near Caelus Pass."

  Nessalir considered this. "I came through Caelus Pass on my way to Paeliig. I saw no signs of banditry there."

  "Most trade with the North comes through Caelus Pass," said Iarius. "There have been no reports of bandit attacks in the pass. But the scout was certain they were there."

  "Perhaps they don't want to strike too close to home," said Nessalir. "Or perhaps…" She trailed off, and from her expression Iarius surmised that she was deep in thought.

  "We will follow the trail as far as it goes," Nessalir said at last. "If it takes us near the pass, then so be it."

  With that said, she climbed once more onto her black horse—Huunang, she called him.

  "Will the horses be able to traverse the forest?" Iarius asked.

  "The trees are thin," said Nessalir. "I doubt there will be much trouble."

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  Iarius hesitated, but he supposed that a barbarian horsewoman likely knew her business when it came to wandering about the wilderness in a saddle. So he mounted his own horse as well. According to stablemaster, his gelding's name was Bellus.

  "How long have you been in Paeliig?" Nessalir asked as she directed Huunang toward the side of the road.

  "Only a few months," said Iarius. He followed after the barbarian woman. With a practice ease, she found an area of the treeline where the vegetation grew thin and her steed walked through it. Bellus seemed unsure about making the same journey, but after some gentle coaxing, he walked after the black stallion.

  "In all that time, you have not ventured far from the city?"

  Iarius raised his hand and pushed aside a low-hanging branch. "The Legion is stationed there as a garrison force. There is little for it to do beyond its walls."

  "Still, you strike me as curious about the Northern Lands."

  "I was. I am. But my first duty is to the Empire, and they required me to stay with my assigned Century."

  "But you have met with the locals in that time, surely?"

  "As shopkeepers," said Iarius. "As workers. Occasionally I have been in audience with the mayor—he was a local lord, appointed to his position by the governor."

  Nessalir glanced over her shoulder at him. "So for your interest in barbarians, you have not walked among us? You have not learned of our ways?"

  "I… was preoccupied," said Iarius. And that was true. His work as a Historian was why he was Paeliig in the first place. He was a chronicler of the Empire of Remura, and so his histories were concerned with the people of that Empire.

  "I met a Remuran on my way to Paeliig," Nessalir went on. "He was leading a band of mercenaries. They were hunting rare creatures, looking to sell them to your nobility."

  "Yes, there is quite a market for exotic creatures in the Empire," said Iarius. "My masters, before I was freed, kept a pet griffon."

  "These men were after unicorns," said Nessalir. "And when they met me, they decided to add a drakkowar to the collection as well."

  Iarius opened his mouth to reply, but then shut it again when he processed her words. If she'd been captured, she would have been a slave like him. It was technically legal—she was not a citizen of Remura—but foreign slaves tended to be either bought or captured in warfare.

  "What happened to him?" asked Iarius.

  "He was speared through the heart."

  "You killed him?" asked Iarius. He didn't know why that shocked him so. Of course a barbarian would defend herself, but this was a Remuran they were discussing. One of his people.

  "I almost did," replied Nessalir. "But no, and not for lack of trying. It was a unicorn that ended his life, the same unicorn that he'd sought to claim and sell."

  Iarius fell silent. He found this topic so discomforting that he couldn't even wonder at the casual manner in which she'd described the presence of a unicorn. They were rare beasts—so rare that many scholars believed they were but a myth. And yet he was now in a company of virem draconem, and were there not scholars who held similar opinions about such halfbreeds?

  These Northern Lands, he realized, seemed to hold far more secrets than he'd previously imagined.

  Nessalir abruptly brought her mount to a stop, and raised her fist in a motion to freeze. Iarius almost asked her what was the matter, but caught himself just in time.

  They had roamed deep into the woodlands now, and all he could hear was the rustling of leaves in the wind and the songs of birds in the trees. But still, he remained silent, and Nessalir looked about them slowly. Her nostrils flared, and Iarius wondered if she was sniffing the air.

  Did her dragon blood grant her a keener sense of smell?

  "Stick close to me," Nessalir told him. Her voice was soft, but firm. "Do not stray far, no matter what. Understand?"

  "Understood," Iarius said, frowning. Something had clearly spooked the barbarian woman, but he couldn't imagine what.

  "We've gotten away from the trail," said Nessalir. "Let us turn back and find it again." She pulled on Huunang's reins, directed the horse back the way they'd come. Iarius silently bid Bellus follow, and as they set out, he caught whiff of something sweet on the air, and thought for sure he heard a faint giggle on the breeze.