Author's notes:

Expected chapters.

22: The Wounds that Don't Heal or Damn Them all to Hell (Neesha)

23: King's Port (Neesha)

24: Moon Eater (Alek)

25: Burning all the Bridges (Alek)

26 / epilogue: Death and Forest Spirits (Tsai Ting)

Of course I volunteered to go into the Darkmoss and see the gang. Alek was bringing them an Anorian girl with cute little horns sprouting from her temples. I'm not sure what race she was, but she was young, and pretty, and didn't speak a damn word that anyone understood. Not even Saito. The girl seemed happy enough to stick near me, actually avoiding Saito and his family now that I think of it. She called me Te-la-ni. Which I think was supposed to be Tel’ani, but she utterly refused to correct the word. Or possibly couldn't. Maybe it was an accent thing. Anyway I got her name from her, Tsai Ting, which was something Alek hadn't bothered to do, because sometimes he’s a dick who takes a trip into the Darkmoss just to avoid Tanalia. It was hard to get a read on Tsai Ting in the few hours of marching into the forest, but I’d call her bitter.

"Where's Tom?" Alek asked when we finally reached the fort.

The group looked at eachother. I think Alek had half expected for the random dude he sent out here to have run off.

"Dead, sir." Said Brent. The other five turned to glare at him and he backed away.

"What do you mean, dead?" I could hear the anger in Alek's voice pick up, turning his question into a growl. Honestly, I didn’t think Alek gave two shits about the man, but the way everyone looked at Brent like he had just tattled to one of their moms on them gave away that there was more to this that we weren't going to like.

"Idiot fell down a ravine." Said Tarik.

"And he died?" Alek growled.

Most nodded. Brent did not.

Faster than I honestly thought Alek could move, he snatched Tarik by the horn and drew the man in close. I reached for Tsai Ting's hand and pulled her back away from this mess. Alek punched Tarik in the gut and dropped the man to the ground. He put a boot on the back of the Horned's head.

"Fell down a ravine. Then what?" Alek growled.

"He, broke his ankle, I think." Tarik stammered, his tail thrashing around violently.

I watched the others. They all backed off except Mallika, who was staring at Alek, her expression calculating. Maybe it was because Alek grew up in a Hornless world, but he always seemed to give women the benefit of the doubt when it came to blame. Whatever happened, it was her idea. Alek just didn't get that.

"How does that make him DEAD?" Alek pushed down harder on Tarik's neck.

"We, left him, there for the night. Thought it, was funny. Wolves got him. I think."

Alek released the man, who curled up in a near fetal position and cradled his neck. Alek glared at the lot of them.

"Though it was funny?"

No one said anything.

"Why? Because he didn't have horns?"

Alek kicked Tarik so hard, the man was picked off the ground and moved back half a pace. Alek spit toward the group. "Let's go." He growled. Presumably to me and Tsai Ting. I'm not sure I've ever seen Alek angry before. We quietly followed. Not daring to say a word.

Hours of walking one way only to turn back and walk the other. Tsai Ting was slowing us down and Alek kept stopping and glaring at us as we fell behind. Shit, I remember when I couldn't walk half the distance. A few hours more and the girl was stumbling due to darkness just as much as fatigue.

"Alek?" I asked when his silhouette disappeared into the gloom.

"What?"

I homed in on the voice and started pulling Tsai Ting with me.

"Oh, sorry. We're almost home." Alek came into view with a stick. He poked the tip of it with a finger, mumbled something, and handed it to me, now with a glowing ball of sickly yellow flame on its end. It wasn't a lot of light, but it certainly made things easier to see. We trudged on and finally came to the trail I used when setting off into the woods on my daily trap run. Beyond was home.

I left Tsai Ting in my tenement and promised to go get her some food. Honestly I didn't think she'd be awake when I got back. I packed up some bread and cheese for the girl in a towel, avoided Raiah trying to grope my ass, and practically stepped on Alek on my way out. He tilted a bottle toward me in a wordless gesture that said "want a drink?" I considered for a moment, but I highly doubted Tsai Ting hadn't fallen asleep the moment her head touched the pillow, so I sat down on the steps next to him. I winced as the alcohol burned its way down my throat. I didn't drink much or often, but this stuff seemed abnormally harsh. Alek took the bottle back and said nothing. For a long while we sat together listening to the crickets chirp, the frogs peep, the owls hoot, and Raiah laughing about something inside.

I was at the point where I didn't think Alek was going to say anything, when he did.

"I was going to leave her with them."

"I can't believe they'd kill a guy." I lied. Honestly I could totally see Mallika pushing a Hornless down a ravine and leaving him for the wolves.

"She has horns. Do you think they would have…?"

"I… I don't know."

"Do they only listen to me because I have horns?"

"No. You're also much bigger than them." I gave him a grin that I was pretty sure he could see in the darkness. "And you give them a lot of freedom with a support line to the rest of the world."

"Do you only listen to me because I have horns? "No." I said without hesitation. "What makes you think I listen to you at all?"

"You do everything I say."

"You haven't given me an order in well over a month."

"I think I told you to go get laid."

I gave him the shittiest shit eating grin I possibly could. "I think I told you no."

"Hmm. I think you did."

I gave him a pat on the shoulder and stood up, remembering to pick up the bundle for Tsai Ting.

"Hey Neesha?"

"Yeah?" I looked back at him, but couldn't really make out the man from the shadows.

"Nevermind, goodnight."

"Goodnight Alek."

Tsai Ting couldn't walk. Hells, my legs were sore as shit. I can't believe the girl managed to keep up like she did. I didn't have any traps set on account of not expecting to be back today so I went fishing. It was a good day to just sit around and do nothing. I needed to figure out what I was doing with the rest of my life. Mostly I checked the traps in morning, cooked lunch, and fucked around for the rest of the day. I guess I was kind of stuck with the girl for a while so in the short term it was more language lessons and trapping lessons, but what about next year when the snow melted. I didn't actually do anything around here anymore except help Saito on occasion and spar with Alek or Tanalia. I even had money pooling up from selling pelts, but nothing I wanted to spend it on. I was basically Alek's errand boy and Alek preferred to do shit himself. I wasn't going to come up with an answer today. I didn't really have options. Even if Slavery was going to be abolished come spring, I didn't need to work.

Brent showed up a day later. A bit later in the day, but still on schedule which was normal, alone which was not. Guy looked like he had been mauled.

"Where's the others?" Alek asked.

"What's wrong with your neck?" I asked.

"It's fine." He said to me before looking at Alek and saying, "they left."

"Left where?"

"To the southwest. Into the forest." Brent winced as Alek pulled the fabric of his tunic away from his swollen neck, revealing a nasty bite that was blue and black and red and puffy.

"Who did this?"

I already knew the answer. The teeth marks could have been made by me.

"Ah, Mallika, sir."

"Neesha, can you go fetch the comfrey salve?"

"Yeah, give me a minute." I ran to the tower and headed for the closet.

"Neeshaaaa!"Raiah said, far too excited to see me.

"No!"

I grabbed the salve and dashed for the door.

"But Neesha!"

"No." I have no idea what the fuck she wanted, but it was never good.

Alek had Brent over by the well with his shirt off. As bad as his neck was, I wasn't prepared to see him covered in nasty red lines where the skin had been scratched away.

"It's kind of creepy by myself." Said Brent.

Alek looked at me, his eyes going down to the salve. He shook his head. "Put it back I guess, I'm just going to take him to see Cameron." He turned back to Brent. "You can stay here and work the woods nearby until I figure things out.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

***

Tsai Ting is weird. At least for an Anorian. Yoko, Saito's wife, was happy to take the girl in, Tsai Ting was not. She seemed to dislike Saito and his family, choosing to stay with me. For now, it made the language lessons easier, but beyond gaining a list of words, no one still could understand her, not even Saito. He had declared that there was no way she was a southerner, which means nothing to me. I also wasn't sure if Tsai was her first name and Ting was her last name, the reverse, or if like me, she only had a given name. She answered to Tsai Ting, Tsai, Ting, Tsai-Tsai, and Ting-Ting. Though those last two seemed to be acceptable to her only if I said them. She came with me on my morning trap checking, of which she was reasonably proficient, though nowhere near as competent in the forest as Tanalia. She ate with me, something I'm not confident she liked as I tended to eat whatever I caught and only once per day. I used to eat three times a day plus a snack. No wonder I was fat.

The month passed by fairly quickly. Alek sold most of the things his garden produced, minus the things he could eat on a daily basis. For all the work he put into it, I don't think he knew what to do with the actual produce. He'd likely be buying the same stuff back after someone else preserved it. Once the leaves changed into their vibrant fall suits and the mornings grew chilly, Alek asked if I wanted to go on a trip with him. Of course the answer was yes. I was getting bored and I think he was too. He told me to make a list of the things I thought I'd need. I did make the list, but I bought the stuff myself.

I looked myself over in the mirror. An actual full sized mirror. We have one of those now. It's technically Sarah's, but she said I could use it. I looked good. Tanalia had given me a Wildling haircut. I never actually styled my hair before, but I was really into this. It was pulled back and braided from the back of the head down, the sides shaved from my horns back. It was a little close to winter for such short hair, but it should grow in a bit before the real cold hits. On my neck I wore a collar. Technically it was a slave collar, but fuck them. Black and a bit tight with a rounded burnished metal ornament displaying a tower surrounded by feathers. Below that I was wearing a rather nice dark green full sleeve tunic with blue trim. Very similar to the one Alek had bought me a while ago, but a nicer quality. It couldn't be seen due to the thick dark colored gambeson. My pants were again similar to the ones Alek had purchased earlier in the year, but these had burnished metal plates instead of leather pads. The boots were the same, well broken in now. I had a thicker cloak and some winter camping gear in the cart. I strapped the harness down tightly, hooked my short arming sword, a gift from Tanalia, onto the back. Rightside up for travel, not upside down like Alek. I didn't have the ability to snap my fingers and summon my weapon from its sheath like Alek did. Last to go on my back was the wooden round shield with the same symbol as my collar painted on the front. I checked myself out again. What happened to the soft, fat, docile girl I once was? I was happy with the new me. My ass looked great. My tail looked great. My face and my arms and my thighs looked great. I felt great. I gave Tanalia a hug and a kiss on the cheek goodbye, and climbed up into the waiting cart. Then I waited. Where the fuck was Alek?

Somebody was grumpy today. Alek said nothing as we rode through town, and as we got out of town. I'll admit that I was a bit annoyed with him already for not saying anything about my new hairstyle for the past few days. He was brooding. He did that a lot lately. I poked him.

"Hey?"

"Hmm?" He grunted.

"I styled my hair, well, Tanalia helped."

"I noticed."

"Oh? Well?"

"What?"

"Do you like it?" Fucking dick.

He shrugged. "I've never seen the cut on anyone so… small."

I'm gonna kill him.

His yellow eyes fixed on me for a moment. "It suits you. I think."

"I know it suits me. I asked if you like it."

"Sorry. I'm kind of in my head at the moment."

"At the moment, or the last week?"

"Kind of the last month." He admitted. "What's with the slave collar?"

"Not every collar has to be a slave collar. I think it's cute."

"Ok, so what's with the emblem in the center that makes the collar look a lot like a slave collar?"

"It's the house that I serve."

He gave me a funny look. "What house?"

"Your house. It's your heraldry, plus some feathers to indicate my freedom."

"Since when the fuck do I have heraldry?"

"Since you married a noble woman and she noticed you never made your own heraldry. You should probably talk to your wife once in a while. Holy gods in hell Alek."

He returned his focus to the road with an annoyed frown on his face. "Generally try to leave her and her boyfriend alone."

"The guy does understand that it's a political marriage and appreciates you not sleeping with her."

"Good."

Well this wasn't the way I pictured the start of my first epic adventure. I let him sit in silence for a while. "So what is your problem? I thought you'd be happy to get away from home."

He was quiet for a while. A long while. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"I thought we were going to Summer Glade?"

"We are. We're going to purchase slaves. I want to see if a more even mix of human and Tel'ani can work together. But I'm not sure it's a good idea, or that there is any point."

"Oh. Some adventure."

"Yeah. Well… most adventures are like that. A whole lot of nothing to do something that isn't exciting."

"You spent a lot of travel time with Lothar?"

"Yup."

Silence fell and I settled back to watch the road surrounded by the ever changing colors of fall.

***

-Wood and Rain and Darkness came;

-The three to pillage and burn.

-Fifty good men, sent to settle the score;

-But only five return.

-Sir Galeron was…

"STOP!"

"What?" I asked, a little surprised at how angry he sounded.

"Where the hells did you hear that?"

"Tanalia. She translated it from Elven and fixed…"

"Don't ever sing it again."

"Ah why?"

"I don't want to hear."

Well, that was weird. Never thought Alek would get pissy about a song. "Okay. It's about…"

"I know what it's about. I don't want to hear it."

And now the silence was Awkward. We were barely four hours out of Lydia. The song in question was the story of Corrinthien's Triad. An absolutely horrific tragedy started when Corrinthien united a couple bands of forest elves, high elves, and if they aren't actually a myth, drow. All the songs I learned told of Wrath pretty much single handedly wiping out the Triad, with a little help from his Harbinger. Tanalia's song told a much more detailed and darker tale. None of the songs or stories I was used to ever mentioned more people, certainly not fifty. In her song only five men came back alive. Sir Galeron is supposedly a drunkard now, the ranger Bri hanged himself, and the bard no longer speaks. Even Wrath supposedly stopped being cheerful. The only one not affected was The Harbinger of Wrath and the song suggests that the statement isn't entirely true. Another big difference is that the humans' songs talk alot about Wrath's victory over the Triad and how righteous it was. Tanalia's tale makes The Harbinger the hero, though maybe more of an antihero. Slaughtering men and women in their sleep isn't very heroic. -and no one knows what trouble grows, being that golden gaze.- The song could almost have been written about…

Alek stood up suddenly, looking on high alert. I looked around. There were a few wagons pulled off the side of the road, but no people or horses. It was eerily quiet.

"What's up?" I asked quietly.

"Not sure. Bandits maybe. Keep your eyes open."

I did so, looking deep into the trees as we slowly drew closer.

"When I jump out, take the horse to the other side and get him settled. Yell if anything happens."

I gave him a nod and when he dropped off the cart I did as instructed. With the horse settled and chewing on the long grass next to the road, I drew my sword and shield and looked for Alek. I found him partially in the woods crouched down and examining the ground. I almost stepped on the body of a dead man half under one of the carts. He had been shot with several arrows and stabbed with something larger. I didn't say anything. Alek looked back at me and waved me closer.

"They made several trips to the wagon." He whispered while pointing at a trail. "Likely they won't stay in the area. This is fairly fresh, so they may still be wherever they're camping."

"What do we do?"

"We move back down the road a bit, wait until dark. Then you stay with the horse and warn any travelers. I'll see if I can find the camp."

"In the dark?"

"I can see just fine in the dark."

Right, I forgot that. I wasn't excited about not going with, but Alek was the seasoned adventurer with darkvision.

It was a long night alone in the woods with the possibility of bandits and wolves. The coyotes were out, possibly eating the corpses of the dead. We should have buried them, but Alek didn't want to bring any attention until the bandits were dealt with. I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up in the morning shivering. The horse was fine, but Alek still wasn't back. Once it was light enough, I quietly walked over to the dead men to see how back the scavengers had left the place. A weird rhythmic "shunk. shunk, shunk" sound emitande from behind the wagon. Sneaking up close and peering around the cart, I was relieved to find Alek digging.

"Alek?" I asked quietly.

"Yeah."

He didn't look up at me, which made me wonder if he already knew I was here. He had a pile of spears, a few bows, and a couple shields that hadn't been there the day previous.

"Did you find them?"

"Yeah." He said, just as deadpan as the first time.

"Are they dead? How many?"

"Yeah. Five, sorta. Four men and a pregnant woman."

"You killed a pregnant woman?" There was part of me that didn't care, but the part of me that did was currently miffed.

"Yeah."

"Could have captured her. Brought her in or something."

"No. She would have been executed."

"Without giving birth first? Why?"

"It was Mallika."

I stared at him with my mouth open. Fuck. I looked down at the three bodies Alek had pulled together, well, what was left of them after the coyotes had gotten their fill. This was all our fault. No. This was Alek's fault. I was innocent in this. Still felt the weight of it though.

"You want help?"

"I think there's a shovel attached to the other wagon."

I found the other shovel and wordlessly began digging.

"Neesha?"

"Yeah."

"When I told you to start catching your own food, and you didn't need us anymore. Would you have left if I didn't have horns."

"No." I said without hesitation.

He accepted that and didn't speak anymore. He was brooding and now I was too. I had answered his question without any thought to it, but was it the correct answer? Would I have stayed if he was Hornless? Honestly Alek was far more human than I would ever hope to be. Yes he had gray skin, and a tail, and horns, and yellow eyes, but he was still technically an invader. I tried to picture him without the horns and tail. With pale skin and brown eyes. If he had looked like that, would I have stuck around? I realize that I am biased. I do split the world into Horned and Hornless. I do give more weight to the words of people who are not human. Alek didn't like me when I first met him and I thought he was a dick. Still is a dick sometimes. He treated me differently after I bought that chicken. I was different. I am different. Would I have stayed?

I pondered that question as we buried the dead. Alek left a sign explaining what happened with the now ownerless carts, but I didn't read the exact words. We brooded together, though about different things. As the sun was setting, I watched the Traveler fly overhead, ever eastward on its never ending journey, as always, it suddenly disappeared before reaching the horizon. Maybe I would have followed it. Made it my God.

We stayed at an inn in a tiny nothing town halfway between here and there. It must have been a common enough way point to have a few individual rooms. Like in Kyne's Port we were sharing a bed. I crawled in first, next to the wall. Alek stayed fully clothed and ready to arm himself. I think it was a defensive thing. Unlike in Kyne's Port, he climbed under the covers with me. It was colder. I stared at the silhouette of his head. His yellow eyes probably closed. His breathing calm.

"Alek?"

"Mmm?" He grunted.

"I don't know if I would have stayed or left."

"Yeah? I would have left either way. I can barely stand to stay at my own home."

Of course he didn't care that I didn't know. Why would he? I scooted down a bit and after a moment, I placed my head on his shoulder. I waited, listening to my heart thud in my chest as I waited to see if Alek would accept this or push me away. It wasn’t too long before he reached over and grabbed my horn. He could have just said to get off, or even pushed me. He didn’t have to manhandle my head. But… he didn’t push me away. He lifted my head enough to get his arm out from between us and placed it back down so the bulge of my other horn sat nicely in the crook of his arm. I had to scoot a bit more down and closer for my body to fit my head position, but this was probably more comfortable for him. I might have actually been poking him in the face. Ha, Horned problems. His arm wrapped around me, his hand resting on my waist. I couldn’t keep my tail from happily twitching under the covers.

Did I like Alek? Short answer was yes, but did I like him in a possible romantic way? I don’t know. I like his eyes. His stubby tail is kind of cute. His horns are weird, but I hardly notice that anymore. It’s something I forgot that I could consider. For most of my life the only relational thing I had was sex. Not romance. There was no point in romance between slaves. I had a thing for, or possibly with, Tanalia, but that was different.

“Are you still awake?” I whispered.

“Yeah. I haven’t been sleeping well. Thinking of people I've gotten killed.”

Well, so much for hoping he was thinking of me. “Oh, sorry.”

“Not your fault. Any Horned advice on how to fall asleep when your mind is full?”

Hehe. He used Horned. “I double numbers.”

“Oh?”

“Mmm. Three. Six. Twelve. Twenty-four. Forty-eight. Ninety…Six. One…Ah. Ninety… Two. Um. Forty-Eight… Ninety… Forty… For..”