The half-troll’s grimace wrinkled his face. “They’re extremely crude. Even worse than the Sleepless. If I had a freshly dead bird and a drop of the Stitcher’s magic, I could probably replicate it.”

“Any way to stop them? Any weak points?” Dropping my hand from Hasda’s shoulder, I walked over to where the arbiter crouched. “Is the technique only avian? Hasda suspects it could be used on other animals.”

“It could indeed.” The ogre’s lips pursed. “Charax, I think you need to be prepared for Hasda to fail this Trial. If the Stitcher has more of these, and he likely does, there’s a very good chance that your boy can’t make it past all of them without divine intervention.” He lifted a hand and counted off on his fingers. “He can’t burn the whole forest down or carve a direct path. Perhaps with the djinn’s fire, but then that would draw the Stitcher’s eye. He has no magic or way of warding himself against such small creatures, to say nothing of protecting his men, which I’m sure he wants to do. He can’t even detect them, at least not that we’ve seen. You might, now that you know to watch for them, but you know the rules.”

I frowned. “And what of the dying man? Am I able to take him to the river to die?”

“I don’t see why not.” Kydon waved his hand dismissively before diving back into the birds. “It sounded as if Hasda was merely relaying a request by the mortal. Though it indirectly helps Hasda advance his Trial by freeing him to move forward, it’s not direct interference.”

“Ah, so I can advise him against certain trees and pitfalls, but not explicitly tell him that zombie birds or rodents are waiting to ambush him.”

Kydon narrowed his eyes at my grin. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve picked up your bad habits from Malia again. No, you cannot.”

“Hasda, when the birds attacked, did they say anything?”

He frowned. “Not really. They screamed hatred—claw, scratch, peck, but nothing coherent. A lot like the Sleepless, in that regard.”

I rubbed my face. “Kydon says their commands are rudimentary at best. Do you think the birds retained enough intelligence to understand new orders?”

He shrugged. “I can try. Do they have any weak points we could exploit?”

Kydon shook his head. “No different than normal birds, I’m afraid. The bindings used by the Stitcher give them merely enough energy to carry out their attacks. Your father knows more about necromancy than I.”

“Which our pantheon does precious little of.” I sighed. “If we had a god dedicated to the craft, they might know a way to unravel the Stitcher’s magic from a distance. But I suspect such a method wouldn’t work to prevent an ambush. Even with simple wards, you need to know they’re there to try dissolving them. A blanket disenchantment could have unintended consequences.”

The man at Hasda’s feet coughed and spluttered.

“We should get moving.” Eyes tight, Hasda knelt down to lift the man and carry him to me. “Please hurry. We’ll try not to outdistance you too much, but we need to reach the Stitcher before we lose too many more.”

“I’ll keep an eye on the boy while you’re gone,” Kydon rumbled. “And I know you and Malia still want him. If it looks like he’ll be lost, I’ll extract him and end the Trial. But I’ll leave him a fighting chance before I do.”

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Nodding, I took Hasda’s warrior into my arms. “Stay safe. I’ll be back soon.”

And with that, I turned and backtracked towards the river. Kydon was dependable, and fair. If he said he’d get Hasda out if things soured, then Hasda would be waiting safe and whole in Nebesa when I returned.

But I wouldn’t be gone long enough for that to happen.

My strides lengthened as I retraversed our path. Not only because I wanted to return to Hasda soon, but also because this Massan had the feeblest of holds on life. His sweat-soaked skin was waxy, and his limbs had stiffened. Were it not for his feathery pulse and shaky breaths, it would have been easy to mistake him for one already gone.

Carrying this mortal, it was hard not to think of Hasda. I hadn’t held any other human like this in a long time, not since Hasda in his teens had nearly broken his leg falling through a rotten log he thought would hold his weight. Life was a fleeting thing, and those beneath death’s shadow seemed intent on rushing to find its caster.

This ambush also served as a reminder that Hasda was closer to immortality than before, but hadn’t yet reached the stage where even he could consume unadulterated ambrosia and climb the steps of divinity. Perhaps glory from his future exploits as the Carthian hero, his godly upbringing, or his ties to Jade—whom I suspected gave him that stash of ambrosia, given that Malia would never have used such a flash—would drag him up, but his feet were still firmly planted on the mortal plane.

And the men he led now, and the army soon to follow, lay even lower. They practically made their bed in their graves for how near their demise followed. Even the brightest would gutter out to leave, at best, an ash stain on history.

Such morbid thoughts serenaded me against the silence of the forest, a symphony that climaxed at our arrival at the river. The voice of the current added its thoughts on finality to the chorus that contemplated an end to life. Here in its waters, one more would be swept away by the physical analog to time’s best metaphor.

Massan had been quiet the whole journey. Not even a whimper from an uneven step, no requests for water or pleas for an extension to his existence. When we reached the riverbank, he barely opened his eyes. But he was grinning as I lowered him into the dark waters, and used his last breath to whisper his thanks.

I felt no connection to this blade of grass, snapped by the fingers of a death god who wasn’t me. And yet there was a weight to his passing, the shadow of Hasda’s care for those under his wing. Although I would hurry on my return, I couldn’t help but wait in the tall grass and watch as the man’s body floated away.

As his body drifted downriver, it bobbed until it lay face first in the water. Milky strands fanned like fronds from his arms and legs, spreading until it covered his body like a funeral shroud. When it had congealed to almost opaque, his spirit leaped out, diving ahead of the corpse, connected only by a thin, spidery thread. The man’s soul was strangely egg shaped, though translucent, like the ribbony wisps clinging to the body.

To greet the psychopomp, the river glowed with pale light, as if a dozen white-fired lamps had been lit beneath it. The water stayed calm, however, as gentle as when it had received the corpse. As the body grew more distant, the glow receded. By the time the man’s remains had passed the first bend, the river had dimmed.

Although I could still feel the soul tugging against its charge, I turned to go. The body had passed out of sight, and the request had been fulfilled.

It hadn’t even taken half a day.

My stride took me back among the trees and away from uncomfortable contemplation. This was Hasda’s final Trial, and already he was losing men. But I had trained him well, and—

Something rustled in the underbrush.

By the time I registered the movement, I’d already put a good distance between me and it. I wasn’t going back, but it was certainly in the back of my mind.

Life.

There was life in the forest.

I dodged around a tree that snuck in my way. Whatever had been back there, it wasn’t undead. Not quite a deer, maybe not even a wolf, but big enough to be sure it wasn’t the Sleepless, or more of those rotten birds. But certainly an animal. Maybe a fox? Assuming they were native to the Strixenvaas.

My mind raced with the implications. An animal, in a forest that had been bare of lifesigns for so long. If something had driven the animals away, perhaps it was gone, and now they were returning. Or maybe our presence provided a safety from the Sleepless that allowed them to come out of hiding in our wake.

Halfway back, I heard another. This time, I stopped long enough to scan the underbrush. As soon as I paused, however, the rustling ceased. Frowning, I resumed my lengthened stride. There was certainly something out there, but it had no aura, and I didn’t have time to go rooting around in the bushes to find it. I did catch a glimpse of tawny fur when I glanced over my shoulder.

A jackal? Certainly an ordinary animal, nowhere near the size nor weight for it to be divine. But was it tailing me, or were there more than one?

It didn’t matter. Once I got back to Hasda and made sure he was okay, then I would worry about a jackal, or jackals. I had a bad feeling in my gut, like the onset of a stomach ache. Not just because the Stitcher was finally starting to put up resistance, but also because the Sybil and her Sisters had been quiet thus far. At least one of their four had shown herself each Trial, and they’d been markedly absent.

Coupled with Phe’s unknown message to Kydon, it had my insides churning leaving Hasda out of sight for so long.

I hurried.