Compared to the other slaves, Joblar appeared in almost godlike health. The pens were designed to contain them in the smallest possible area, no more. There was hardly room to curl up in the mud of the floors. Sanitation was impossible, and the slaves were caked with filth, ravaged by disease, and stuporous with despair.

Koli had limped out to where they’d hidden the cart, making a job of it with his fresh wound. Returning at long last, he found Joblar pissing on the body of the dead sergeant.

“Eleven slaves dead,” the dall answered the unspoken question. “Three of them have been dead for days. Of the rest, another handful will not live out the season. Some, not the day if we try to move them.” He kicked the body viciously, flipping it over on its back and releasing a foul stench. “They kept me and the other wood cutters in a separate pen. I had no idea....” He growled and kicked the dead sergeant again.

Koli allowed him to work off the bulk of his rage, wrinkling his nose at the odor. Only when the dalla had wound down did he cluck the horse toward the milling slaves.

Those slaves were taking a long time to realize their freedom, standing, sitting, or laying hardly a long pace from their former prisons. Joblar carried the dying out into the grass and lay them down where they could see the sun. There was little else he could do for them.

Koli gathered grass and piled the cart high, making a bed for those strong enough to move but not strong enough to walk. Joblar had assured him that none would ride the horses.

The other wood cutters refused, at first, to exit their pen. Clearly they suspected some sort of trap, although what need a trap when they were already caged was not immediately clear. Nor did they, at first, recognize Koli as a were. He bore the shape of a man child, so he was a man, fit only to be hated. Joblar tried. They’d known him, hadn’t they? He’d escaped, hadn’t he? Finally, even he gave up. They were red marmot dall, he reminded himself, and dense as onyx.

The horses from the stable and those previously liberated were pressed into use as pack animals and Koli began the systematic pillaging of the camp. Blankets, food, weapons — he even stripped the dead of their armor, poorly kept though that was. Anything and everything that might remotely be considered of value was loaded onto the spare horses for use or sale, down to the near empty keg of horseshoe nails and the dead sergeant’s malodorous pipe.

Joblar finished filling the last water barrel and lashed it to a pack saddle. They’d found eight of them capable of holding water and taken all, taxing the well to its limit. The last barrel had been cloudy with silt. With the aid of one of the liberated, he lashed the sloshing barrels to the last of the loose horses, two to an animal.

There had been a keg of beer in the cabin. Awful, green stuff. The beer had been poured out to make way for water, but some had been rescued. Joblar took the last of it now, in a pair of soggy leather mugs out to the prairie where he’d left the dying. One of them had already gone on, but the other three watched his approach, eyeing the mugs.

“That?” a wizened male shifted a skeletal hand.

Joblar sat beside them in the grass. “Some really terrible beer, the brewer of which I hope I was able to kill. Would you like some?”

A ghost of sound which might have been a chuckle had it had any force, wheezed out of the old lungs. “Tenabe Nine Toes refuse beer?” he gasped. “I’d never live it down.”

Joblar held one of the mugs to the old lips and trickled some of the alcohol into the old one’s mouth. Barely a drop had passed before old Tenabe followed his ancestors down the path of dreams.

Turning to the female, Joblar held up the mugs inquiringly. She nodded, and he eased forward, holding the mug to her lips.

“Is it true, then?” she whispered between sips. “Did old Nine Toes make good his vow?”

He shrugged, leaning over to hold a mug to the remaining male’s mouth. “What vow was that?”

She smiled a toothless smile, ignoring the pain of her failing body for the glory of the day. “He swore to me that he would not die a slave.”

“He was a seer, lady,” the big dall choked. “He kept his vow.”

Was. She heard it and the smile withered away. Then it was back. “Ah well,” she sighed shallowly. “He won’t get far. I’ll catch up before he knows it. I always have.”

Sitting as he was, Joblar could see the long string of horses begin to move, the freed slaves following slowly. They’d no idea where they were going, but anywhere that wasn’t here was satisfactory.

“We’re leaving now,” he told the two. “I have to go.”

The old male nodded, but the old female took hold of Joblar’s hand with a surprisingly strong grip. “I’m stronger than I look,” she confessed. Joblar’s eyes widened, but she hurried on. “Not that strong, youngling. I won’t see another sunrise, I think. But I’m not quite ready to pass, and I can feel old Nine Toes getting farther away.”

“What would you have of me?”

Her lips crinkled into that toothless smile again. “Give an old lady a boost?”

Joblar looked stricken. He glanced wildly at the remaining male. That one nodded gently.

The withered hand went to the knife at Joblar’s belt, but she was too weak to pull it free. He did it. Guiding his hand, she placed the blade against her own chest. “You tell them that old Elata caught him again, eh?” she smiled.

“She walked into the camp,” the remaining male told the big dall as he withdrew his blade from the still chest. “Months after he’d been taken. She’d chased the train hundreds of stad across the land, trying to get him free. And when he’d finally been delivered here and she realized it wasn’t possible, she just walked in. Everyone knew the story. Elata the Tenacious, they called her.”

Joblar wiped the backs of his hands across his flooding eyes, regarding the old one in wonder. “How long—?” he began

A feeble shrug. “Hard to count the years I was a pup when they brought me here, and the pair of them were already established.”

“Tenabe Nine Toes and Elata the Tenacious,” Joblar repeated the names, voice breaking. “I’ll sing for them.” He made as if to rise.

“Youngling...?” The old one was regarding the knife.

Joblar paused, eyes going from the damp blade to the old one’s face.

“I’d rather not die alone either,” the old voice was steady.

* * *

The horses were gone when Corwyn awakened. All but the strange palomino with the burn. The sky outside the cave mouth was near pitch black. Late enough for both moons to have set, then. Testing his balance, he found he could walk with only minimal dizziness. Good enough. Shadra lay quietly within her nest of blankets, her breath coming easier. He allowed himself to believe she might survive.

The horse rumbled low in his throat, tossing his head as though he were trying to speak.

Corwyn shrugged. Every time he saw the beast, it grew stranger.

The fire had gone down completely. Even the coals had gone dark. Was this the same night during which he’d revealed his identity? He had vague recollections of sunlight interposing itself in the interim, but couldn’t be sure. Certainly he was hungry enough for days to have passed.

Not the stranger nor the other horses could be found anywhere along the cut. They must be up on the prairie, then. The narrow, near invisible path seemed daunting when he’d finally located it in the darkness. His legs began to tremble at the mere sight of it. He couldn’t imagine taking a horse down that thing, even in daylight, even not leading eight other mounts behind.

Well, yes, he could imagine it being done, he supposed. There were those from the southern territories, from beyond the Hart’s Blood River and hard up against the Fellgrim mountains... He’d heard the opinion bandied about that those riders could take a trotting horse up the side of a brick building were the mortar grooves a finger’s width deep. Still, they rode mountain-bred ponies, not recycled cavalry mounts.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Gingerly, he picked his way up the eyelash of trail, taking frequent rests, though the sum total of the distance couldn’t have been more than a couple of hundred paces.

The plain was empty when his head finally cleared the bank. Nor could he find any tracks in the darkness. Had they been abandoned? No, certainly not. Even if the stranger had felt the urge, he’d hardly have abandoned his own horse.

As if on cue, a scramble of hooves sounded from behind. Corwyn turned just in time to see the strange palomino stallion lunge onto the lip of the plain and stop, head turning toward the burn on its rump, clearly in pain. It snorted wetly and pawed the ground, head shaking. Then it moved past him, pausing again from a pace or so before him, turning its head to regard him levelly. Stranger and stranger. The wounded boy put one foot before the other and the stallion moved off.

Something over a stad of prairie lay behind them, and Corwyn had assumed the stallion’s back, careful to stay well up on the withers and clear of the burns. Now the horse whickered and was answered from out in the darkness. A few moments later, the first of the stolen Turaleean mounts came into view, grazing quietly. Still no sign of the stranger.

The stallion halted and tossed his head, blowing. Corwyn didn’t immediately move, and the horse turned to nip at his leg. Oh. He climbed wearily down, legs protesting as his weight settled on them.

“Alright, master horse,” the boy allowed his voice to show his disbelief. “Which way?”

The stallion tossed his head and took a step toward the south before turning and trotting back toward the river.

“South it is, then,” the boy muttered.

Ten minutes later, legs throbbing vision swimming, he was consoling himself with the thought that he’d already been dead once this seria, so how much worse could it be? Then he heard the horse nicker.

The stranger stood a few paces beyond the officer’s black gelding, peering up into the sky, a sheaf of unrolled parchments held before him.

“What are you looking for?” Corwyn asked him.

“Stars.”

“Well,” the boy allowed. “That’s where you’ll find them.”

“If only,” the man sighed.

“Is something wrong?”

“Yeah,” the man told him. “There is. Oh,” he turned, holding out his left hand. “It occurs to me that I haven’t gotten around to introducing myself. Braedonnal Storm.”

“Corwyn Tedrikkson,” the boy responded unnecessarily, taking Storm’s left hand in his own.

Storm released Corwyn’s hand and held up the re-rolled parchments. “I think I might have been taken by a cartographer,” he admitted. “Although he seemed more than reputable at the time.”

“Taken,” Corwyn wondered.

“Taken in. Bamboozled. Swindled.”

“Oh,” Corwyn nodded. “How so?”

Storm handed the roll of parchments to the boy. “These are supposed to have star charts on them, but nothing matches.”

Corwyn unrolled the stack of parchments and held them close to his face, angled to catch the starlight. He tsked once or twice. “Well, friend Braedonnal,” he confirmed. “I’d have to agree.”

“They’re no good, then?”

“Oh,” the boy admitted, “they look good enough, I suppose. Might even do you some good by next spring, do you ride the winter long.”

Storm cocked his head. “Meaning what?”

Corwyn smiled, rolling the maps back up. “Meaning, did you take off in that direction,” he pointed roughly west-southwest, “and ride at a moderately brisk pace until early spring, you’d be near to the lands for which these were drawn.”

Storm regarded the boy solemnly. This didn’t look good. “But the maps are good?”

“Certainly,” Corwyn confirmed. “Rather better than good, actually. “I’d almost believe they were breeling maps if I didn’t know better.”

Storm didn’t answer at once. “Why wouldn’t they be breeling maps?”

The boy shrugged casually. “With the Turaleeans swarming over the known world, slaughtering as they go, the breelings wouldn’t likely be out of their glades causing trouble, now would they?”

“Meaning?”

“How would you come by breeling maps except from a dead breeling?”

Storm shook his head. “I told you, I bought them from the cartographer.”

“And how would he have gotten them? My point stands.”

“Couldn’t I have purchased the maps from a breeling cartographer?” Storm was beginning to wonder if he hadn’t made a mistake regarding good guys and bad guys.

Corwyn, for his part, thought himself the butt of a poor joke. “Buy a map from a breeling?” he let the incredulity out of his voice. “Why on earth would you do that?”

Storm’s eyes were narrowing, his mouth drawing into a firm line. “I needed maps, he had maps.”

“But a breeling? Do you buy milk from the cow? Do you buy fleece from the sheep?”

“Ah,” Storm’s expression didn’t change. “So a breeling is no more than a farm animal.”

“Well, no,” the boy allowed. “Not a farm animal. I don’t believe they can be domesticated, actually. Tend to die under the iron, I’m told.”

Storm didn’t trust himself to speak immediately. The boy was young, he told himself. Second worlders didn’t view each other as people, he told himself. Bullshit! He stood and stalked to the black gelding, placing a shaking hand on the saddle, ducking his head as he struggled to maintain his composure without the little birds to hold him down.

He wanted very badly to just mount up and leave the soulless little bastard out here in the grass. He couldn’t believe he’d risked his life to save the little prick. You just never knew—

“Is there something wrong?” the voice was tentative.

Storm spun around, human eye blazing. But he didn’t speak. He stopped himself, drawing his shoulders back, rolling his head slowly to relax his neck muscles. It took awhile before he’d trust himself, and even then, his voice was laced with gravel.

“Boy,” he rasped. “Do your people have a tradition concerning saved lives?”

Corwyn didn’t attempt to hide his confusion at this apparent change of subject. “Yes, I suppose we do.”

Storm waved his hand in a rolling, get on with it motion.

The boy’s eyes were narrowing now, his own expression going sour. “You have a claim, if that’s what you’re getting at.” he admitted.

The rolling wave again.

“You’re due,” Corwyn grated,” should you demand such, a ransom commensurate with the value of my life, or that portion of it which you’ve preserved.”

“Payable how?”

Corwyn’s face went white, his voice going stony. “Payable in gold, land, slaves — however you may gain value.”

“And if I should demand service?”

The boy’s mangled hand flinched toward where his sword would ordinarily be hanging.

“I thought so,” Storm allowed. “How’s that feel?”

Silence.

“I asked you, boy, how it felt!” Storm spat.

“Bugger off!” Corwyn hissed.

Storm was suddenly there, right there, the cold blade of his knife against the boy’s throat. “How... boy,” he hissed into Corwyn’s ear from inches away, “does... it... feel?”

“Bu—!” the knife slid a finger’s breadth and blood flowed. “If feels bloody awful, alright?”

The knife retreated minutely. “I require service,” the whispered voice was barely human, so cold was it.

Corwyn Tedrikkson, Governor General of the Iskan Republics, felt his legs go boneless and he sagged within the man’s grasp. Service. Slavery. that one fate truly worse than death. He allowed himself to go to his knees, chest heaving.

Could he run? Where? How? He had no horse, his strength was gone, he was weaponless in what was now enemy territory. His doom was complete. A fitting end for the notoriously proud boy general. “What would you of me... master?” he choked, head bowed.

Braedonnal Storm loomed over the cowering boy, radiating anger, his muscles bunched and quivering. Everything was fogged red and it took more conscious effort every minute to force what the little birds called the cold place away. Concentrating hard, he reached down and grabbed a hank of hair atop the boy’s head, pulling until the tear-filled eyes were forced upward.

He stared into the depths of those hopeless eyes, struggling against disorientation, for he was seeing the boy half in this world and half in that strange maelstrom of flowing colors he’d visited while fleeing from the dragon. “Change.” he hissed.

Corwyn stared mesmerized into the mismatched orbs glaring down at him, barely registering the word he both felt and heard spoken. He felt himself going over backwards as the big man shoved violently. It was only after he hit the ground and lay there watching his bizarre rescuer mount the shiny black horse that it registered. Change? What did that mean?

The man was turning the horse away, ignoring him. “What does that mean?” he called out. “I don’t understand?”

And then he was standing alone in the darkness with the swishing of the grass and his pounding heart the only sounds. Turning south, he strained his tearing eyes for a sign of anything that wasn’t gently waving grass. Nothing. No landmarks, no glow of light. East and west were similarly barren. He had no food, no water, and his legs were already trembling. His head throbbed where Shelador had slashed him, and his missing fingers itched abominably.

“Well,” he told himself finally, turning south again. “It’s escape of a sort, isn’t it?” He’d actually taken a few steps before he remembered Shadra of the Purest Light. Sick, weak, and alone with a madman. It stopped him. Then he remembered who he was.

He didn’t think much of himself these days, it was true. He’d come to realize all too late the price to be paid for vanity and arrogance. He’d also learned that sometimes the ones who paid the price for such things weren’t the ones who’d earned it. His men had died by the thousands to teach him that lesson. Shadra had done magic she’d sworn upon her life never to use, and the men had died anyway. All for his folly. And here was he about to spit into their dead faces and abandon her to an unknowable fate as though he’d learned nothing.

He was the governor general. The republics might be dust beneath Turaleean boots, but that didn’t change a thing. He was the governor general and there were certain responsibilities inherent in that. Debts were to be repaid, for good or ill.

He looked eastward, to where his men would be lying out in the open, with no services to guide them to the other side — no markers to show their loved ones where they lay. Eastward, where the wild beasts would be feasting on the last of the Grand Expedition.

Did he swagger off to death to avoid just payment for his life, it wouldn’t be the death he sought in any case. That had passed him by when it had failed to claim him in the old ferry station. It would be a specter’s death he got, for those who’d gone before wouldn’t have him. His mere presence in the next world would be an affront to their spirits that he could not bear to foist upon them.

Northward, then, he turned his eyes. I require service, the man had said. Very well then. In slavery, the honor of the fallen would be preserved.

The short-coupled roan nickered as he approached. The other horses were nowhere to be seen. There was no saddle, only a rough rope hackamore. It took three tries before Corwyn could find a seat, but the horse stood still for him. He was an even-tempered beast, or perhaps just old.