They made camp in a thick grove of huge silver firs, the lowest branches drooping almost to the ground like curtains. After the horses were unsaddled and curried and secured on a high-line for the night, and they had eaten a cold, miserable supper of dried meat and flatbread, Amon called Galan over. There was a bit of open space at the center of the grove. He produced two lengths of oak, each roughly the length of a sword.

  “If you’re going to wear a sword lad, you’re going to have to learn how to use it,” Amon told him. “That sword you picked up is good steel. If you drop it, you’re like to cut your foot off.” He showed Galan how to use a one-handed grip.

  “It’s too heavy,” Galan complained, letting the point fall to the ground.

  “Your arm will get stronger,” Amon said. “A longsword is meant to be wielded with one hand. There isn’t room on that grip for both your hands, and if you try to swing it two-handed, you won’t have enough reach.” He stepped back. “Now, you have to learn how to defend before you learn how to kill.”

  Galan looked stricken. He lowered the sword and stared down at it. “I don’t want to learn how to kill.”

  “Then throw that blade in the nearest lake,” Amon said. “If you carry a sword, you’re going to be expected to know how to use it. That sword was made to kill men. It has no other purpose. It’s not a bow you can use to hunt your supper with. That thing is made to kill. If you can’t do that, then don’t carry it.” He put a hand on Galan’s shoulder. “I can’t tell you which is the right course, because I don’t rightly know. But I can tell you what I do know. The world isn’t a kind place, and you’ll be better off if you can defend yourself. If you were still back in Ambermill, it might be different, but there are people out there who want to take you or even kill you. You picked up that sword for a reason. Ask yourself why, and think on it.”

  Galan nodded, still looking stricken.

  Nora stepped up. “I want to learn,” she said.

  Amon looked at her curiously. He considered. Then he nodded. He took the stick-sword back from Galan and handed it to her.

  Nora tried to stand as she thought one did when sword fighting. Amon smiled and shook his head. “Not like that. Turn sideways, sword arm out. Better.” He took her by the shoulders and adjusted her posture. “Now, if I teach you to fight, I’ll be teaching you my way, not the way some brute of a knight fights. Neither of you can take a hammering from some big bull of a man. Neither can I. I learned to be quick instead, to strike and retreat.” He stepped back, taking his own stick-sword in one hand and settling into an easy stance. “Every opponent you fight will try to finish you quickly. No big brute wants to admit that a girl or a skinny boy tried them sorely. So, they’ll waste their energy coming at you hard. Use that to your advantage. Now, try to hit me.”

  Nora tried a tentative lunge.

  “Not like that,” Amon said, easily stepping out of the way. “Put some feeling into it. Hit me!”

  ***

  Nora went to sleep that night sore and bruised. She hadn’t managed to get her stick anywhere near the ranger, but he had dealt her more than a few solid hits. “You can’t learn to fight without taking a few bruises,” he had said. “If you don’t want to get hit, then defend.” He had showed her how to parry a strike. “In a real fight, it won’t be a stick swinging at you.”

  It was cold up here high in the mountains, colder than it should have been, colder than down at lower elevations. Nora had thought the nights cold when they first started out from Ambermill. Those nights seemed barely chilly compared to up here. There was frost on the ground when she awoke, an hour before dawn, the next morning, sore and stiff. Amon still allowed no fire. He was being even more cautious than before, if that was possible. He was on edge after the encounter with the Seekers, watching every shadow, watching the moods of the horses and his wolf. He kept watch over the camp as Galan and Nora slept, spending much of each night honing his blades. A sharp blade could save your life, he had said more than once. That morning, they awoke to find that their practice “swords” now had carved grips and a semblance of a hilt.

  Three more days passed, each day spent riding dawn to dusk cross-country, up and over ridges, up narrow valleys and across wild mountain streams running high with snowmelt. Each evening, Nora fought Amon. Or rather, she tried to. The ranger easily danced aside from each of her clumsy attacks. He would show her some new move, a way to block, a way to parry, a way to avoid a hit, a way to attack, but it was Amon’s stick sword that connected with flesh again and again. Each blow raised a purple bruise. Nora suspected he wasn’t putting his full strength behind each blow, but they still hurt. Each blow made her determined to learn.

  Galan watched each session. He still carried Justan’s sword, but he still claimed he didn’t want to learn to kill. When he had asked Nora why she wanted to learn, her response had been simple. “I felt so helpless when Justan caught us. I don’t ever want to feel like that again.”

  On the fourth day with no sign of pursuit, Amon led them down a steep slope to a road. The North Road, at long last. Nora was glad for the easier riding after days and days of pressing hard through rough country. Galan looked relieved as well. He rode the sorrel gelding taken from Justan. He had uncreatively named the horse Red. Flint, the leggy dark bay, was behaving better. Far better. He was almost like a normal horse instead of a bundle of frayed nerves ready to explode at the slightest provocation.

  The road wound up and up through the mountains, the earth hard-packed beneath their horses’ hooves. Here and there, old paving stones jutted up, cracked and crumbled, an echo of an older age when the elves had ruled this isle. As the elevation increased, the forest around them changed. Pines and cedars gave way to solid stands of silver fir and mountain hemlock, and here and there a towering redwood. Jagged mountain peaks poked up above the tree line like the teeth of some monster, the dark stone still cloaked in snow even this late in the year. Above those dark spires, the snow-clad slopes of Mount Basal rose stark and white against the sky.

  “Look,” Amon said, pointing. “Up by that sawtooth ridge.”

  Nora peered into the blue. Far above those mountains, small specks circled. “What are they?” she asked. Galan was shading his eyes with his hand to see better.

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  “Griffins,” Amon said. “They roost on the heights.”

  Nora gasped. She had always wanted to see a griffin. At least there were still griffins around. She had always wanted to see a dragon, as well, ever since she had heard the tale of Sir Celedrian the Dragonknight. Hundreds of years ago, there had been those who tamed and rode dragons. The dragonknights had been the elitist of knights, dominating the sky. Nora wondered what it would feel like to fly. The dragons were gone, though. She had heard a story of a griffin rider as well, though griffins were supposed to be even harder to train than dragons had.

  “Could we get closer?” Nora asked.

  Amon shook his head. Beneath his hood, Nora spied a small smile. “That wouldn’t be a good idea. Griffins are particularly fond of horsemeat, but they’ll eat the rider too. I’ve hunted them once or twice. Some rich fools from Stormgarde paid good coin for me to guide their expedition. Big, nasty birds, best left alone.”

  Near mid-afternoon, they crested a steep rise and found themselves looking down on a green valley ringed by dense trees and sheer cliffs. Chimney smoke rose from a cluster of buildings down below. Amon named the town Farshire. Above it all loomed Mount Basal. Nora could scarcely believe they had come so far. They weren’t to the end of their journey yet, but it felt good to see civilization again. She and Galan shared a hopeful smile.

  Amon paused at the summit of the rise and scrutinized the town for some time. Nora wondered what he was looking for. A trace of the fourth Seeker, perhaps?

  Eventually, he led them down the long, winding hill toward the town. “We’ll stay at the inn tonight if everything looks safe,” he said. “A hot meal and warm beds will do us all good, I think. They know me here. Don’t expect a warm welcome.”

  They passed small farms as they neared the edge of town. Farshire seemed much like Ambermill, right down to the goodwives and goodmen working in their yards and gardens, dogs at their sides. Those dogs barked as they passed, and the people looked up. Nora saw how every face darkened at the sight of Amon. He seemed to hunch in his saddle, plainly uncomfortable with the gazes of the townsfolk. He wore his hood pulled as low over his face as he could get it. If people knew him here, they certainly weren’t friendly. Did they know what he hid under his hood? Nora suspected that they did.

  Amon led them to the inn, a squat, two-story building at the center of town. The roof was tiled in red tiles. The first story was stone, the upper story white-washed timber. It sat at the confluence of two streams. One was crystal clear, one cloudy white and bearing the scent of sulfur.

  “That one comes down from the volcanic vents up on Mount Basal,” Amon said when Nora asked about the odd color of the water. She glanced at the mountain, aware that she stood in the shadow of a volcano.

  A stableboy came out to take their horses. He paled at the sight of Amon. The ranger gave the boy instructions to take extra care with Flint before leading Nora and Galan toward the inn, saddlebags slung over his shoulder.

  The sign swinging in the chill breeze showed a smoking mountain that looked a bit like Mount Basal. The inn was called the End of the World. Nora and Galan followed Amon inside.

  The common room was paneled in pale fir. Half a dozen villagers were scattered about the tables. They looked up at the opening door, then quickly looked away upon seeing the ranger walk in. A few stout armchairs sat near the hearth, which blazed merrily. The walls were all but covered in framed pictures under glass. Sketches, drawings and paintings. Most, if not all, seeming to show Mount Basal and the Great Eruption. The air smelled of pipesmoke and ale, fresh bread and roasting meat.

  A balding man in a stained white apron, nearly as wide as he was tall, scurried out from behind the bar.

  “Where in hellfire have you been?” the man demanded. From the way he glowered at Amon, Nora was surprised the ranger hadn’t drawn a blade. The big innkeeper was a head taller than Amon. “I’ve got shepherds complaining of wolves and griffins, wealthy idiots wanting to go up that cursed mountain, and Celwyn patrols riding through like they own the damn roads. And you’re nowhere to be found!”

  “Good to see you as well, Master Alvar,” Amon said mildly, as though the tirade hadn’t been directed at him. He finally removed his hood now that they were indoors. One of the villagers spat. “This place falls to ruin every time I leave, it seems. It’s a shame the mayor is so ineffectual.”

  The innkeeper’s face turned a dark shade of red. “We had an agreement. I put up with you and convince the townsfolk not to shoot you on sight, and in return, you take care of problems. Then you disappear for half a year...”

  “Three months is hardly half a year,” Amon said. “I believe it’s half of half a year. I had business in the south. You don’t pay me enough to keep me here all the time, and you wouldn’t want me here even if you did.”

  “I don’t pay you at all,” Master Alvar growled.

  “Exactly,” Amon said, almost smiling. “I’ve been busy. I’m still busy, for that matter. Have the shepherds forgotten how to set wolf traps? Maybe if you paid a better bounty on the beasts, more hunters would have some incentive to go after them.”

  “I’ve got a nobleman out of Stormgarde who wants to go up the mountain,” Alvar said. “I’ll tell him his guide has arrived.”

  “You will not,” Amon said. “I’m only staying one night and I don’t have time to deal with some fool of a noble. On that note, I’ll need two rooms for me and my friends here.” He gestured toward Nora and Galan. Galan was inspecting a framed painting near the door, showing Mount Basal in full eruption. “I assume you can manage that?”

  Master Alvar paled. “You mean to stay here tonight? Not going on to your cabin?”

  Amon shook his head. “We’re staying here tonight and leaving first thing in the morning. We’ll want supper. Whatever you have cooking back there smells excellent, by the way. And I’ll want to restock my supplies for the road before we leave. I have coin this time,” he added hastily.

  Nora, Galan and Amon shared a meal of steak and kidney pie, fresh baked bread with butter, apples baked with cheese, and mugs of chilled cider, barely hard. They sat at a table in the corner of the common room. Amon sat with his back to the wall and watched every person who came and went through the front door. Nora noted that many of the men who saw Amon as they entered spat in disgust and turned away.

  “Why does no one want to talk about the mountain?” Nora asked. They had been here for a few hours, and Nora had taken it upon herself to ask a few of the villagers about the area. Not one person had wanted to talk about Mount Basal, calling it “the mountain,” despite the fact that the Great Eruption 90 years ago seemed to have been the only exciting event that had ever happened in Farshire.

  “The people here think the mountain is cursed,” Amon said.

  “Why?” Galan asked. “It’s just a mountain.”

  “Well, it blew its top 90 years ago,” Amon said. “Destroyed just about everything to the west of here and covered most of Tol Morad and Tol Doril in ash. The sulfur springs spew boiling hot water and mud up from the mountain’s depths, and every now and then the earth shakes and smoke rises from the summit. Some people think it’s evil spirits. Some people think it’s a dragon living beneath the mountain. And some of them think I’m to blame.”

  “Why?” Nora asked, curious.

  Amon shrugged, taking a bite of the pie. “I was on that mountain when it erupted,” he said. “Some scholars out of Belfalas wanted a guide for an expedition up the mountain and I was foolish enough to take the job. We spent two weeks climbing all over that mountain, and the day we were trying for the summit, the damn thing decided to erupt. I’ve never run so fast in my life. We were on the east side of the peak and the worst of the eruption went west. We were lucky in that.”

  Later that night, Nora fell into her bed and was asleep almost immediately. The mattress was stuffed with rags and was a bit lumpy, but it was far superior to the ground. The sheets and comforter smelled clean. Nora had taken a turn in the bathhouse out back, glad to scrub the days of dirt and sweat off of her. The water had turned brown. Her clothes were still filthy, but there wasn’t time to wash them, so she put them back on again. Galan had the room next to hers and had gone to sleep even before Nora. They would be riding early again the next morning.