At home, in the desert, Tanin and other Fell developed an instinctive sense of time based on the sun’s movement and the season. Here, walking beneath a thick overhead canopy several body-lengths high, the world was lit well enough to see, but the sun itself remained elusive, peeking only at times through breaks in the boughs above.

The odd group moved swiftly and generally in silence, with the two taller creatures eating and drinking from water skins on the go. For the Fell, one good thing about the forest was its abundant, endless greenery; every so often Tanin would grasp a plant for its moisture and feel satiated, although he would need to eat solid food before long. His rations would last a week or more, and he certainly was not going to ask his companions to share their own.

“How long will it take to catch up to the Charic?” Tanin asked as the forest light began to dim at the end of their first full day. The sun would set soon, but he could not sense when, and he had no metric to know how far they had travelled.

“In Anyi’s time,” Orrock said over his shoulder.

Tanin swallowed a curt response. “How did you come to fight them?”

“Not now.”

“I will tell you, Fell!” Mohani declared, grinning at the back of Orrock’s head.

“My name is Tanin.”

“I still do not care. Many generations ago, all Guar lived in the northern grasslands. They hunted there, and travelled in roaming tribes, sometimes warring with one another but most often trading amongst themselves and other creatures they happened upon or who happened upon them.”

“Then you aren’t all monks?” he asked Orrock.

Mohani’s head fell back as she laughed. In doing so, she also pressed a giant hand against her side, where Iona had partially healed her. “Absolutely not! I do not know what this one is doing in the robes of a monk. He did not tell me.” Mohani paused. “More to the point, I did not ask. Guar! Tell us! What makes you, alone among your kind, trod the cleric’s path?”

“We must encamp soon,” Orrock said.

Mohani grinned. “You see? He is very secretive.”

“But he has fought the Charic,” Tanin pressed.

“For certain. It is the Charic who made the Guar who they are today. Isn’t that right, Guar?”

Orrock said nothing. He swiveled his head from side to side now, apparently searching for a reasonable campsite.

“Long ago, the Charic destroyed much of the town of one of these hairless creatures like you and the Tashri,” Mohani went on, not disguising her disgust. “Some of the survivors had traded with the Guar, and asked for their help, offering great stores of fruits highly prized by the Guar but which were not found in their homeland. The Guar agreed, and chased this band of Charic for months.”

Months? Tanin thought dismally. No, no—not months. Memine doesn’t have months . . .

“They found them, and defeated them,” Mohani went on, but chuckled and raised a hand as if to prevent a question. “No. I mislead you. The Charic were butchered.”

If the giant could hear them—and Tanin felt sure he could—he pretended not to.

“For you see,” Mohani went on, and Tanin could not help noticing the way the Agnise’s tone had taken on that of a true storyteller, “the Charic killed the Guar leader in the first salvo of arrows. The Guar are known for their loyalty. The killing of a beloved brings out the animal inside. It is one reason among many that we, the Agnise, take them.”

“Take them?” Tanin repeated, unsure he’d heard correctly.

“Here!” Orrock barked. He stopped in a small clearing. “Here is where we camp.”

The other two reached him. He gestured with the hammer. “I shall sleep in this tree. You will sleep as you wish. If any creature should disturb me, I will strike it down. Is that understood?”

He was focused on Mohani. The Agnise smiled politely and nodded once. Orrock gruffed something under his breath and gently set Iona on the ground.

Tanin knelt over her, examining the brown stumps of her shoulders. A small leaf had appeared at the tip of her left nub, but no more. He gingerly touched her chin. “Iona?”

The wood witch opened her eyes, smiled, and closed them again. Tanin moved away, letting he rest. “You said she needed water and sunlight?”

“We will reach the Offward River tomorrow,” Orrock said. “It is clean and good. There we will refill our skins and help the witch.”

Mohani laughed again. “The Offward? Is that a Guar joke? The Offward is infested with water dragons!”

“In places,” Orrock allowed, and kicked a small area clear of dead needles and leaves.

“They’ll eat this Fell in one gulp.”

Tanin raised his eyebrows.

“Perhaps,” Orrock said. “You are welcome to return to your home or take your mission elsewhere, Agnise.”

Mohani spit, her dark skin taking on a reddish tint. Tanin swiveled his head between them, and thought maybe Orrock was resisting a smile; the effort cramped his features.

“What’s a water dragon?” Tanin asked.

Orrock hefted the hammer and stood before a slender, dead tree. “Yes,” he said, and let fly with the hammer. It smashed the tree to kindling. “Go on, storyteller. What is a water dragon?”

“River monsters,” Mohani said. “They are born in the north, and swim the river until it reaches the sea, where they perish from the salt water. They prefer large meals, the kind that come to the river for clear water.”

“H-how often does that happen?”

“As often as Anyi wills it.” Orrock climbed a stout tree, finding a comfortable thicket of branches that would support his great weight. “If you are going to stay, Agnise, then be useful and start our fire.”

“I am here for one thing, Guar!”

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Orrock settled into his nest with a faint smile. “Very well. Enjoy the cold.”

He made a great show of sighing contentedly and closing his eyes, the hammer tucked between his folded arms.

“Watch for spiders,” Tanin called, but Orrock feigned sleep.

Mohani thumped Tanin’s shoulder. “You heard him. Make the fire. I’m hungry.”

Before he could protest, the Agnise stomped into the woods. Tanin scowled and gathered the crushed wood Orrock had knocked free. He placed it in the dirt space Orrock had cleared.

Using a stone from his native soil, Tanin got the small fire going. The sun disappeared entirely, casting the forest into darkness and severely lowering the temperature.

Tanin shivered. The desert could cool in the winter, but not much more. How cold might this forest become overnight? How quickly could his body adapt, if at all?

“You are muttering, Fell.”

Orrock’s voice startled him. He grumbled at the monk, “I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

Orrock chuckled. “Tell me, Fell. Have you ever been in open combat?”

“No. Not the way you mean. I’ve survived sandcats, which aren’t creatures to trifle with.”

“Indeed? Tell me about them.”

Tanin fed sticks into the fire to make it grow. “They are as long as a Fell, but bigger. Well muscled. Their coat shifts and shimmers in the sunlight, blending with the desert. They’re hard to detect. We have—we had—Guardians who were trained to fight them off if any wandered into town.”

“But you were not a Guardian.”

The certainty in Orrock’s voice made Tanin’s shoulders hunch. He told himself it was the cold. “No.”

“But even these Guardians could not defend against the Charic’sada.”

“There were hundreds for all I know!” Tanin shouted, rising. “Maybe thousands!”

“It was not an accusation. Only an observation. These Guardians were not numerous enough or strong enough to protect your town. Even if their numbers existed, the Fell lived in isolation. They had no means to defend against what the Charic bring to bear.”

Tanin hunkered down and snapped a branch between his hands. “No. We didn’t.”

“Then why sacrifice yourself?” Orrock’s baritone sounded remarkably tender. “I understand your motive. But I fear you do not understand that which you pursue. Might it not be better to grieve your beloved and carry on?”

From this angle, Tanin could only see Orrock’s eyes beneath his giant horns. “Would you?”

He saw the larger creature scowl. Orrock shifted in his nest, then dropped to the ground a length from Tanin. Tanin stood, fearing an attack for his smart response. Orrock had left the hammer in the tree, however.

“I, too, loved once.” The giant did not sit, did not avert his eyes, did not grimace. He only looked into Tanin’s face with calm fortitude. “Her name was Coam. She and the others on a trading expedition were attacked by Tashri, hairless creatures not unlike the Fell.”

“I’ve heard stories of the Tashri.”

“These were the pale ones, like the Brothers of the Hands of Anyi. Coam was killed. When I discovered this, I hunted down the creatures who had done it, and I slaughtered them, one and all. But they were too many, and I had formed no plan of attack.”

Orrock raised a thick eyebrow at this sentence, as if to ensure Tanin caught the parallel between this story and Tanin’s own.

“I was grievously wounded during my mad assault.” Orrock turned slightly to show Tanin the jagged scar running from his armpit to his hip, a white patch where no hair grew. “I was dying. One of their priests found me. I spit on him and cursed his people. He asked me why I had attacked them. I told him of Coam.”

Here, something did shift in the monk’s expression.

“The priest began to weep, and told me the people I sought were not his people. They were a farming society, and the ones I had sought vengeance upon lived much farther to the south. I had destroyed the innocent.”

Tanin swallowed.

“The priest,” Orrock said in the silence, as if an afterthought, “bound my wounds. Cared for me. Healed me. His name was Brother Obos, and when I was well enough to move, he took me to the monastery where he and the other Brothers of the Hands of Anyi resided. I stayed with them ten years. Now, I go as all initiates, to search Kassia for the Holy Creator.”

He folded his arms, muscles flexing powerfully. His forearms were nearly the size of Tanin’s thighs.

“Why do I tell you this?”

Tanin didn’t hesitate. “To call me a fool.”

“Yes. Your desire to save your beloved is laudable, but you are ill prepared, as I was. You do not understand the grave risk you are taking, or where such action may lead you.”

“My people will be no more if I don’t.” Tanin pointed a finger at Orrock. “And despite your fine story, you did not answer my question. If you were in my place, would you go? Right now? With all your . . . your wisdom and faith and knowledge, would you go, monk?”

Orrock stared at him, the skin around his eyes tightening. Tanin intuited the answer, whether or not Orrock would bring himself to say it out loud.

Of course he would. For love. For the survival of his people, he would.

Orrock did not get a chance to respond. From out of the depths of the dark woods, a massive figure flew at the monk, attacking from behind. It drove Orrock past Tanin, who nimbly leapt out of the way to avoid the flailing Guar.

Orrock roared as he hit the forest floor face-first, kicking up dried leaves and dark soil. Tanin instinctively threw himself over the prone Iona, who lay motionless near the fire.

“Surrender!” cried Orrock’s attacker, and only then did Tanin realize it was Mohani.

While he tried to make sense of the assault, the two larger creatures wrestled for supremacy. With another roar, Orrock bucked the female off his back. Mohani did not go willingly, grasping the tips of Orrock’s horns and riding out his thrashing. She slipped to his side and Orrock rolled toward her, smashing her beneath his weight. She lost her grip on his horns.

The monk jumped to his feet and faced her in a crouch, fingers curled into fists. Mohani recovered as well, turning to the Guar with a savage grin on her face.

“Stop fighting me, Guar! Accept the inevitable.”

“I will tear you apart!” the monk bellowed.

Mohani laughed wildly and launched herself at him. Orrock spun to dodge, but the Agnise landed on her hands and kicked both legs backward. Her feet caught Orrock in the gut. He coughed and staggered backward toward the fire. Tanin tensed over Iona, fearful he’d have to take the giant’s entire weight on himself to protect her from further damage.

“Stop!” he shouted. “You’re going to hurt—”

Mohani paid no attention. She landed from her kick with her back to Orrock, reaching behind her to seize his neck. With a complex martial maneuver that Tanin could only barely process, Mohani flipped the enormous Guar over her shoulder and dropped to the ground, taking Orrock with her.

Orrock’s eyes bulged as Mohani laughed again and squeezed, her biceps rounding. “Tonight, Guar! Tonight is mine! Then you will be rid of me.”

“Stop!” Tanin cried again, helplessly.

Orrock pried at her forearm, which she had pressed tightly to his throat. She had him pinned in such a manner that even as he struggled to move his head side-to-side, his horns could not reach her.

Mohani froze as Tanin pointed his spear at her face, a hand span from one eye. “Whatever it is you’re attacking him for, stop. My people’s lives depend on it. I’m warning you.”

Mohani glared hatefully. “Get that thing out of my face, little Fell, or when I’ve finished with the Guar, I shall twist your head from your body.”

Tanin inched closer, heart pounding. “I’m serious, Mohani. I need him.”

“I need him.”

“For the last time . . .”

Orrock took advantage of the Agnise’s distraction. He jabbed a fist behind himself, landing it against Mohani’s already damaged nose. The blow loosened her grip just enough for Orrock to wriggle out of the choke and regain his feet. Breathing hard, the Guar gestured furiously with one fist.

“Leave now, Agnise. I will not have these interruptions any longer. Go!”

Keeping her eyes on Tanin—he saw that the tip of the spear shook in his hands—Mohani slid backward until she had enough room to stand. “I will not. Besides . . . now I want to see this Fell ripped apart by a water dragon.”

“So be it,” Orrock said, which should not have surprised Tanin yet somehow still did. “But next time I will not be so gentle.”

Mohani laughed, but the craziness had dropped from it. “Nor I, Guar.”

She brushed herself off and pushed past Tanin, who did nothing to stop her. She went back into the forest where she had launched her attack, rustled in the underbrush, and came back with two small, dead, furry creatures in her hand. She dropped beside the fire and tore the skin from one of them with the hands of a practiced hunter, the sound of its flesh separating from muscle making Tanin cover his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Why do you fight?” he asked quickly as his appetite disappeared.

Orrock snarled and hiked back into his nest in the tree.

“Why do any creatures fight?” Mohani stabbed an improvised skewer through the skinless meal. “To take what is theirs.”

Tanin heard Orrock grumble something in response but the words were too muffled for him to hear. He carefully slid back to Iona’s side and knelt while Mohani continued preparing her meal—she did not seem to intend to share it, which, as the hides of the animals steamed in the growing cold, did not bother Tanin in the least.

If this was the best army he could assemble to help him save Memine, his chances were indeed as dismal as Orrock believed.