Distant peals of retreating thunder and the occasional burst of mist-laden wind intermittently brushed aside the quiet reigning over the woodland clearing. Nevin sat cross-legged in the damp grass, elbows on his thighs and head in his hands. He rubbed his temples in wide circles, hard enough to occasionally send a sharp ache back behind his ears and down through his clenched teeth. He barely noticed it when it happened, his unfocused eyes directed into his lap while he tried to make sense of the confusing emotions battling it out in his mind.

Sprawled out on the grass before him lay the motionless body of the wounded soldier, his unnaturally loose jaw dangling from his bruised and swollen face. A mixture of drool and blood oozed from the corner of his slack lips. Beside him lay the discarded bronze canteen, an impromptu weapon that now bore two sizable dents along its southern edge.

One dent for each of the men he'd laid low in the past two days.

Aidux licked away the last vestiges of blood coating his paws and approached. As caught up as he was in his own internal drama, Nevin hadn't noticed the cat watching him intently as he cleaned himself up, and he didn't react when the concerned feline rested one of his considerable paws on the young man's shoulder.

“Are you okay?” he asked, an uncertain edge to his child-like voice.

Nevin pulled away from the cat's touch. “I wish you two would stop asking me that.”

The cat's ears wilted.

“Either of you hurt?” called the man in black, wiping his blade clean with a faded red handkerchief procured from a pouch on his belt. Nevin grit his teeth and turned away. He wrapped a hand over the still seeping wound in his left side, more concerned with hiding the cut from Theis than he was about stopping the bleeding. The narrow gash burned something fierce, and Nevin fought to keep the pain from coloring his facial expression.

Aidux padded around to his other side and nosed at his hand. “Come on, lemme see.”

“Leave me alone, Aidux.”

He draped a paw over Nevin's wrist and tugged. “Just left me make sure your stomach isn't gonna fall out.”

“My stomach isn't-” He sighed. Arguing took too much energy. He lifted his left arm overhead to give the lynx what he asked for.

Blood soaked the fabric of his gray woolen overshirt like sealing wax all the way down to his hip. It glistened even beneath the overcast sky, the day's humidity preventing it from hardening and losing its luster. Wincing, he raised the shirt high enough for the lynx to get a good look. Aidux closed one eye and leaned in close, his tongue hooking over the corner of his upper lip in concentration.

“How's he look?” asked Theis as he strode across the clearing to join them.

“Well,” the cat began. “He's lost a good bit of blood, but he's lucky. Looks like the knife hit bone. With a little clean water, I don't even think we'll have to ampatit.

Nevin shot him a dirty look and yanked his shirt back down. “You're not funny.”

“I'm pretty funny.”

“It's 'amputate', you dolt,” Theis grumbled. Aidux rolled his eyes, but Nevin could hear the click of fangs as he silently mouthed the word over and over again.

The dark warrior shoved his blade home in its scabbard and knelt beside the motionless soldier. His shining blue eyes searched Nevin's face as he probed the man's neck for signs of life. The young man refused to meet his gaze.

Instead, Nevin surveyed the carnage scattered all over the forest clearing. Nearby, a man laid on his side, facing away. Though he couldn't see how the man had died, Nevin had witnessed Aidux take down enough big game to know his methods. He wouldn't want to see even if he could.

The trampled wild grasses on the far side of the stone dais did little to conceal the bodies Theis had left in his wake. No blood. No visible wounds. Though he knew better, at this distance, they may as well have been sleeping. Five dead, with a questionable sixth hidden somewhere beyond the ruined, crumbling hovel.

He hugged his legs to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. He couldn't understand how the day had come to this. The chances of encountering any of Vincht's soldiers in the wilds of the Traagen were so slim he hadn't even considered it. Even if a group did wander this far north, Aidux would have sniffed them out in time to easily avoid crossing paths. And with the legendary Theis Bane as chaperon, a small group wouldn't stand even the smallest of chances should worse come to worst.

But this...something had orchestrated this day. Something had brought each of them here against their will and set them against one another. Something with a lust for conflict. Something with a hunger for blood.

He squeezed his eyes shut and shivered. Something, he suspected, not of this world.

Still, the thought of some near-forgotten deity manipulating the two groups into a confrontation bothered him less than what he'd done with Dalen's canteen, and the memories the act had brought screaming back.

Theis straightened with a huff. “Where's the thing? The weapon.”

Nevin shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Better figure it out. We're leaving soon.”

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"Then go." He buried his face in his knees.

"Know I can't touch the..." Theis twirled a finger before dropping his hand to his side and shooting the young man a seething glare. "What's wrong with you? We won, you're alive. So get up."

"I don't want-"

"Don't care what you want, boy." Theis stormed over and grabbed Nevin by the arm, but the man's touch inspired an unexpected wave of emotion, and Nevin ripped free of his iron grip and shot to his feet.

"You're not listening." The intensity of his vicious, tear-stained scowl surprised Theis enough to drive him back a step. For a moment, the motes in the man's bright eyes practically vanished.

Nevin's chest heaved from the anger and despair burning within. A steady stream of tears dripped from his chin. He loathed being seen this way. Weak. Vulnerable. But as much as he hated feeling this way in front of the most callous, unfeeling person he'd ever met, he hated himself in that moment even more.

“I didn't-”

His voice caught, so he closed his eyes and breathed. When he spoke again, his quiet tone had taken on a weary edge. “I've spent so much of my life reading about the terrible things people go out their way to do to one another, and for what? Precious metals? Land? Spices? It's...it's just stuff. There's not one thing I've ever owned or wanted that was more valuable to me than my friendship with Aidux, that was more satisfying to me than getting to spend time talking with Ishen. The only thing I've ever really wanted was my own life away from...”

He stopped, shaking his head against the sting welling up in his eyes.

Theis watched him, still as death. “Away from what?”

“It doesn't matter. I just...I didn't want this. I didn't want any of this. I just wanted to leave Elbin and make a life for myself that didn't involve fear and pain and constant disappointment.”

“Then why stay?”

“I didn't have a choice!” he snapped, his clenched fists shaking against his sides. “I grew up in an apple orchard. Farming is really all I know. Sure, Aidux and I could hide out in the woods, scavenging and hunting for food, but that's not much of a life. What about a family? Kids? Love?

“And the city? I guess I might be able to make it as a scribe or scholar or something, but what about Aidux? The farmers of Elbin would have skinned him alive if they ever figured out he was out there in the woods. I can't imagine city folk would be any better. What sort of person would it make me if I was willing to trade the life of my one and only friend for the chance at having some sort of normal existence?”

He sighed, kicking at the grass. “But that's getting ahead of myself. I'd have to get up the courage to actually leave the Traagen first. And I'm not brave. There's things in this world that scare me so much that my mind and body literally shut down in the face of them.

"I'm not like you, Theis. I'm not a warrior. I don't go looking for fights. I don't want to hurt anyone.”

He winced, pressing a hand over the still bleeding gash in his side.

“Even if I am a killer.”

“You didn't kill anyone, boy.”

“I know what I-”

“He's still alive,” he barked, jabbing a gloved finger toward the motionless soldier. “You shattered his jaw and knocked him out cold, but he'll live.”

The cat cocked his head, listening. “He's right, Nevin. I can hear his heart, thunk-thunking away.”

Nevin squeezed his head with both hands. They didn't understand, and he couldn't bring himself to explain. “What...what even happened? There's no way we should have lived through that fight. Eight armed soldiers? And they were practically tripping over themselves trying to get at us. Actually tripping.”

Theis snatched the feathered tip off a nearby grass stalk and crushed it in his fist. “Can thank Grobin's greed and complete lack of honor for that.”

“It was like they each suffered a streak of the absolute worst kind of luck.” He held up a hand, extending a finger with each point he made. “Grobin slipped and fell. That archer's bowstring snapped. Mine broke his ax against the Sharasil.”

Aidux raised a paw. “Mine got eaten.”

“Like they were cursed,” he continued, ignoring the cat. He pressed a hand to wound on his side and groaned softly. “This wound could have been a lot worse, too. A little higher or a little lower and I might not be talking to you right now. I can't explain it, but it's almost like we had some...magical assistance.”

Theis shook his head. “Not magic. Deific influence. Might seem magical, but its no less real than you or I.”

“Deific influence?” Whether it was his imagination or something else, the young man thought he could feel the goat-headed effigy watching them from atop the mottled stone dais. Listening. “Ivvilger...helped us?”

“The god of the living struggle doesn't help. At best, he ignores you. At worst...” He trailed off suggestively. “Just be grateful we were on the side that got ignored.”

Aidux raised a paw. “Is that the name of the goat? The statue thing? That's Ivvilger?”

Theis nodded.

“That's who was talking to all of us. The one that made us all come here.” The cat bared his teeth. “And you want to us to be grateful?”

“Do what you like,” he grunted, waving the cat off. “I don't really care.”

A faint humming filled the air. Theis froze in place, his body positioned as though gazing off the edge of some precipitous cliff side. He carefully backed away until the humming ceased.

“Over here, boy.”

Nevin snatched up his pack and trudged over to Theis' side. He bent forward and ripped the missing weapon from the midst of a thin patch of frozen grass. Sinking into a crouch, he went to work binding it across the top of his leather satchel.

“I need to dry off,” he said, shivering in his soaked clothes. Without fear driving him forward, the morning's chill was finally starting to take its toll.

“Not here. Once we've put this place behind us, we'll see about making a fire.”

He nodded, looking forward to the prospect of a fire that wasn't chasing him. While they were too high in the mountains to find any white oak, he was certain he could gather some leaves from a demon's crook shrub if he paid attention while they walked. It wouldn't take much to throw together a simple poultice.

Nevin glared down at his discarded canteen. The cork had broken loose in the fight, spilling its tainted contents into the already drowned grasses. Beside it, the unconscious soldier twitched and groaned but didn't wake. With a pang of guilt, Nevin reached over and untied the man's swollen water skein.

“Sorry,” he whispered to the fallen soldier, taking one final look at Dalen's most prized possession before turning to follow his two companions north into the trees.

Empty as it was, he had no further need for the damaged, tarnished canteen. Especially now that he remembered how he'd come by it in the first place.