Going on through the mist-covered wood was not altogether easy. Sickly and injured as it was, Tuyaara released her falcon into the east a short distance from the tower, unwilling to risk its life any further - though it had also left her without eyes to spy from above any shortcuts through the sprawling green. The rain had turned the narrow road along the flooded river into a slick, muddy slope, forcing them to ride on higher ground deeper in the forest, where brambles and bushes grasped at every step. The bank at their side eventually began to sink and broaden once more, until they eventually came upon another narrow bridge of planks that rose just barely above the floodwaters.

On the other side of the bridge, Tuyaara pointed out several low, rounded shapes which Yesugei presumed to be moss-grown boulders, but then he saw plumes of dark smoke rising from them, and heard the voices of men in song. The words were little known to him, for the charcoal-burners sang in the older, ancient tongue of the Klyazmites from the days of legend. When they rode carefully on and by the charcoal-burners’ camp, their song quickly died down as the men turned to look upon the Khormchak travelers with dull eyes.

“Nomads?” muttered one of the charcoal-burners, a big man holding a shovel with a sharp iron blade. “Away with you lot, all of you! Leave us in peace!”

There were some women and children around, but they quickly made themselves scarce as the warning of nomads rang throughout the camp. The big man strode up to menace them with his shovel, and a few others snatched up long staves of oak to drive off the riders when one man suddenly leapt out to stop them. In the gray, misty morning, the man’s thin blond hair shone a sickly gold hue.

“Wait, hold!” he shouted. “These riders are friends! I know them - or one, at least.”

The mob of the charcoal-burners slowed to a stop before the man’s cry, though the suspicion did not leave their eyes even as the blond man explained to them how the Khormchak had helped free him from Stribor’s captivity. Yesugei’s eyes quickly scanned across the rest of the charcoal-burners’ camp, and he saw from several huts emerge other familiar faces - including one wizened, hunched figure who now needed the help of two others to stagger to where the charcoal-burners stood.

“Aye, it is as Lubomir speaks! This one freed us from our own kin who had taken us as slaves!” spoke the old woman to the ragged mob. She regarded Yesugei with a cunning gleam in her eye as she said, “If he were coming bearing us ill, half your lot would have been filled with arrows already. Now set down your weapons, and let us speak as friends, for the world has enough madness and ill tidings as is!”

It was only on the words of the old wisewoman that the charcoal-burners reluctantly put aside their tools, and it was only once most had slouched off back to work when Yesugei let loose his reins and dismounted without fear. He stooped to take the wise woman's gnarled hands in his own whilst Tuyaara lingered on the boundaries of the camp.

“You made it out well, it seems,” chuckled the old woman. “New clothes, new arms, and even a new woman by your side!”

She gave a judging tsk as she pointed to Tuyaara. Yesugei shrugged his shoulders. “She is not my woman any more than Vasilisa, and it is her I seek.”

“Aye, and you’re not the only one. That wretched Stribor sent his men out to comb the woods - at first we thought for us, but when they came to this camp they only had the princess’ name on their wagging tongues.” The old woman spat thrice at the boyar’s name, as though it were some bitter poison.

“It might do your spirits well to know that three of them are dead,” Yesugei reported. “We left them to feast the crows by the ruined tower, some miles south.”

The old woman made a sign of prayer in the air, and then smiled. “How strange are these times, when Khormchaks are friends and one’s own kin might be enemies.”

“The times will grow stranger still,” broke in Tuyaara as she trotted her horse up to them both with an impatient look in her eye. “And it does little to linger. We look to travel further north, towards Belnopyl. Have you seen anything along the road?”

The man named Lubomir strode to the old woman’s side. “We’ve been hearing more and more wolves howling at night, though these lands have not known them for years before. The charcoal-burners say it is as though they are being driven here, perhaps by war.”

“It isn’t war the wolves fear,” muttered the wisewoman with a shake of her head, and she leaned on her gnarled branch. “There is a strange wind blowing from the east again - like the last, so many years ago. Madness rides on that wind, and the animals sense such things sooner than men.”

“Where will you go?” asked Yesugei with concern. There were only a few shacks in the charcoal-burners’ camp, and no walls or stakes to protect against packs of wolves who had little fear of men.

“We’ll stay for a time with these woodsmen,” sighed the old woman. “Their fires can ward off the wolves at night, and they’ve food and kindness enough for our little few. But once the moon turns...we’ll make for the west - it will be a hard trail, but the lands of Merensk are where we might find safety soonest. The roads north and south are bloody with war, chill, dead winds blow from the east…no other paths remain to take.”

Yesugei saw Tuyaara’s look from the corner of his eye - a rare look of pity. A thought to escort the peasants westwards must have crossed her mind, but the notion left quickly, and she instead turned back to the road once more. Yesugei himself said only a few words of parting, but before he climbed back onto his mare he dug through his saddlebags and took out a small bundle of food; the few supplies he had left from the Baskords’ ulus. He passed the food along to Lubomir, then trotted his mare to join Tuyaara as the wise woman waved her goodbyes.

"Take heed, Khormchak!" she called to his back. "Ride far, ride fast, but never despair! Not all will fall into the madness, and not all who smile have knives in hand, even now!"

The watchful eyes of the charcoal-burners followed them for a while, but eventually the mist fell between them as a shroud. He still heard the farewell calls of the peasants, but their voices grew muffled and distant fast, as though swallowed by the creeping gray.

“Any march westwards will be harsh,” remarked Tuyaara once they had ridden some miles on. “The old woman will not survive, this you must know.”

“That old woman walked nearly two hundred miles through a storm of ash that killed men young and strong,” Yesugei replied. “If any will survive, it is her.”

Yet even though he felt confident, his words sounded hollow to his own ears. He remained silent for a long while then, and as they rode at a gentle pace along the misty road he wondered whether the peasants might find some reprieve and a better fate in Merensk. Some part of him felt they would - a small voice in the back of his mind - though he felt it growing smaller and smaller with every step he drew away from the charcoal-burners’ camp.

They rode on quietly for many long hours through the woods, exchanging little talk save warnings of close falls or pits in the forest. The quiet ride did little to calm his spirits, for Yesugei soon felt the same strange chill that the old woman had sensed on the winds. But more than that, he realized how unnervingly quiet the spirits of the land were - where in the steppe and woodlands he once could feel small, watchful presences in the swaying grasses or black soil, when he closed his eyes now all he sensed was a terrible emptiness, like a foxhole or burrow left abandoned before a flood or fire. The spirits themselves had either deserted the land, or lay hidden and silent with fear - which was worse, he did not know.

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Eventually, the late afternoon sun gleamed upon them through gray clouds and grasping branches, though its light seemed cold and distant. The land that yawned out before them was grassy and flat, cut apart by a vast array of rivers which all ebbed and flowed into the mouth of the Cherech. The great river along whose waters flowed the lifeblood of commerce between the western principalities now lay bereft of trade cogs or fishing vessels - a black, empty expanse that stretched undisturbed almost to the horizon.

On glancing to the east, Yesugei was able to make out the dim shapes of lofty, distant peaks that seemed to stretch from north to south like a knife’s edge…or perhaps, the spine of some dead god whose name was forgotten even in the myths of the Klyazmites who gave those mountains their name.

“The road turned us too far west, it seems,” muttered Tuyaara as she surveyed the land. “Or the mountain god has stirred since I had last seen those peaks.”

I’ve seen men of stone shape flesh into swords, thought Yesugei to himself with a bitter smile. I’ve heard songs of the stars which have not been heard for an age. Who’s to say it is so unlikely that dead gods should stir in such times?

As dusk neared and the gray skies turned ever darker over the road, the mountains slowly disappeared before their eyes. The jagged slopes gradually blended in with the darkness of the coming night, until only the highest peaks could yet be seen, lit by the dim light of the moon.

In the growing darkness, Yesugei spotted in the distance a flickering flame. Silhouetted against the meager campfire two men sat grilling fish, their arms and armor laid against the trunk of an old, proud willow tree beneath whose branches the men camped.

The older of the two was bald and fat, his great belly straining at the laces of his tunic, while the younger, though not by much, seemed skinny as the willow branches, with a long, hooked nose and shaggy black hair streaked with gray. At the bend in the road the sound of their approaching hooves roused the two men, and as they stood to their feet Yesugei drew his steed to a stop - for on their stacked armor and sewn to their tunics, the blue griffon of Gatchisk leered menacingly.

Tuyaara stayed a distance behind him, and Yesugei saw her hand straying to the horse whip tucked into her belt as the younger of the greenlanders approached to greet them.

"Who be you, a traveler, or a brigand?" said the black-haired warrior with an easy smile. "For the first, we've fire and fish aplenty to share. For the second, we've no coin or valuables, only rusted armor and iron blades."

"I could ask much the same," Yesugei replied as he studied the two men. Neither of them had been in Stribor's band, that much he knew, but warriors far from commander or home were themselves little more than brigands. "But we are travellers, as you were the first to ask."

The younger warrior nodded his head as he looked over the two nomads before him. "As your kind are like to do, though it's been an age since we've seen you shy Baskords stray beyond the plains, isn't that right, friend?"

The older warrior turned the fish on their spits, and his entire body shook with a loud cough before he spoke, "Aye, and even longer since they come upon this road."

"Then it must be something interesting that brings folk of the steppe into the shadow of the mountains," grinned the younger warrior. "Well then traveller, come and dismount, share our fire. Are you hungry?"

The growling pit in Yesugei's stomach was, and the provisions Tuyaara had packed were too scarce to see them both through the God-Spine - if the journey were as treacherous as he imagined. But the wariness in his heart made him take pause.

"Armed men on the road are a dangerous prospect," he called back to the warriors. "I would have your names."

In truth, neither of the two men looked particularly dangerous - even the act of sitting seemed a labor for the older one who coughed incessantly, and the younger either did not have the eyes of a killer, or concealed it all too well. Their armor was beaten leather and maille, their arms a studded club and a sword with a chipped blade. If it came to blows, he was sure even Tuyaara could handily deal with them unless taken by cunning.

"I am called Bykov," announced the older warrior with a chuckle and a slap of his hanging belly. "Named of the ox, strong and mighty! My comrade is Kargasha, named of the crows - though I dare say it's more for his bloody chattering than any wisdom.”

The younger warrior sneered, and shot back to Bykov, “And I dare say I’ve never seen an ox half as fat as you, nor half as stupid!”

The two began to bicker among themselves, with the fat man jabbing a grease-covered spit at his comrade like a small dagger. Yesugei gave a thin smile at their banter.

"I would gladly share your fire," Yesugei spoke over the two warriors’ growing argument. "My sister and I thank you for your kindness.”

The two men cut their argument abruptly short at his voice, and then Kargasha bowed his head in embarrassment. “Apologies…it’s been a rough road, and ill weather makes for ill temper, as my father used to say.”

Yesugei laid his bow against the trunk of the willow tree, and by the time he and Tuyaara sat cross-legged by the crackling fire the fish were cooked, their outsides uniformly crisp and greasy. For a while they sat in comfortable silence, and the hanging branches and leaves of the willow tree shielded them from the worst of the chill winds blowing from the east. Fat Bykov greedily ate with a fish skewer in either hand, while Kargasha picked carefully at every little remaining silver scale before daring to bite.

“If it’s the mountain paths you wish to cross, then we walk with the same destination in mind,” spoke Kargasha as he bit into his second skewer. “The roads are perilous, and there’s war in the wind. Perhaps we could travel together.”

Yesugei made to respond, but Tuyaara spoke first. “My brother and I thank you for your offer, warrior, but we ride quickly, and you are on foot.”

“Our feet serve us well,” Bykov insisted. “The mountains are our home, born and raised. Your horses will be little good once you pass the Blackhand Gate - past there, the paths are narrow and too treacherous for most beasts, especially mounts of the steppe. Your kin lost some thousand good horses trying to brave the peaks when last they came by there.”

“And you would guide us?” Yesugei interrupted, a suspicious smile on his lips. “To what do we owe this kindness?”

“Nothing, except keen eyes to keep watch,” spoke Kargasha. “The roads these days are perilous for all, and beasts come down from the woods like never before.”

“Surely two brave baghatur need not fear such things?”

“Two, perhaps not,” said Kargasha. “Four…well, we could be doubly certain.”

The younger warrior cast his chewed-down spit into the fire, and the greasy stick immediately erupted into flame. “Well, perhaps you can think on it more come tomorrow. For now, one of you take the first watch - I cannot keep my head up for any longer.”

To Yesugei's surprise, the two warriors were the first to nod off, and neither man made much effort to stay awake. Once Yesugei was sure both were well and truly asleep, only then did he allow himself to sit and rest his head against the trunk of the willow. He and Tuyaara both had half a mind to ride on past the warriors he knew, but neither of them had the strength left, and the night all around them was suffocatingly dark. The watch was a risk they needed to take, and come the morning they could quickly set a lead against the warriors such that their paths would seldom cross again even in the mountains.

His thoughts were interrupted by the howling of wolves beneath the crescent moon. They sounded just as near as when he had last slept in the abandoned tower, and when their howls faded he saw Tuyaara stand up to pace around the campfire, muttering to herself in the language of the Modkhai. He wished to speak with her more, of wolves, of prophecy, of the strange silence that rang through the land, but his head and eyelids by then had become unbearably heavy, and he drifted into a fitless, dreamless sleep once more.

He did not know for how long he slept, only that the night was still deep and dark when he was roused suddenly by a rough hand on his shoulder.

His eyes shot open to see Kargasha’s face before him, and for a moment his grip on the hilt of his dagger tightened. But then he saw the warrior’s face was pale with fright, and his stomach dropped as the Klyazmite spoke.

“Get up, and take your bow. Wolves are drawing on us- getting closer by the minute. Get up!”