“Head north, begin the climb past the valley. Our guide will meet you there,” instructed Bryer as they slipped like shadows to the northern gate through to the sacred valley.

  “How will they know to find us? How will we know it is your guide?” asked Dorius.

  Cryptic as ever, Bryer smiled, “You will know. He will find you.”

  Val shrugged the large pack on her back, She’d strapped it around her chest to keep the weight high and comfortable, and adjusted her harness to carry her axe low and horizontal across her lower back. In the narrow streets, she tilted the axe one handed as she moved, worried about it clanging against a stone wall inadvertently. She wore her leather armor, padded for comfort and warmth, and around her shoulders the wolf pelt she was beginning to find a regular addition to her wardrobe.

  Dorius was small at her side, bundled in heavy travelers robes, leggings, and furs for warmth. The Vigilants knew best the weather they would face on the higher slopes, so Val had not said no to any supply they could offer them. The weight of extras, as long as it could all fit on her back, did not bother her. The rest of her load was food - dried meats, nuts and grains for porridge, hardened biscuits made from twice cooked tubers that would need to be softened with heat and water for eating. Water she had been less worried about, if they could reach the snow line, she could melt plenty.

  Dorius had only a small pack, he’d carried some writing supplies, and a few extra layers for warmth. His lack of priorities didn’t concern her, he’d long since lost any self-preservation instincts.

  The thought drifted her mind to Bastian. He had not returned, and there was no sign of him as they made their way to the sacred valley’s gate. Val truly had no idea if they would return from the mountain to find him gone, despite his assurances he would not leave. She had not spoken on the matter to Dorius, and let him interpret what he would from her silence.

  It was the dark of the early morning they had set out. It came as no surprise when Bryer had greeted them, to offer a final few supplies and see them to the gate. Elias was left with no warning though, and while he would panic, Val was certain he’d find plenty to study in the Vigil’s libraries that he’d make the best use of his time.

  Val had considered ordering a Laon soldier or two along with her, and decided against it. As useful as they might be, especially if they had knowledge of other Laon tunnels or shelters on their journey, she was riddled with caution and guilt at asking more than the simplest of tasks from them after learning she had likely wielded her compulsion callously. For the same reasons, they had left Lee’to. Dorius had written a small note for Val to leave her, freeing her from their service. Val had left the broach gifted to her, with the strange black pitted stone, as her mark. Without spoken word, Val was not certain it would unbind the act of compulsion on her, but it would have to suffice.

  They reached the northern gate, the three bars across it sealed into place with hardened red wax. Val broke the edges with her hip knife, and lifted each oaken bar on her own, leaning them against the wall within easy reach.

  Dorius, like her, hesitated, hopeful that someone would call a snarky goodbye or reprimand from the dark. But none came. They had no reasons to linger, so Val pushed Dorius through and gave a final nod of thanks to Bryer.

  Dorius was mostly silent while they began their walk, crossing the open lower fields of the valley in the dark. Val’s goal was to reach the tree line by dawn, rest briefly depending on Dorius' strength, then travel in the daylight as they began the climb. They’d need light in unfamiliar ground.

  —

  Dawn broke as planned, they’d crossed the valley well before the first hint of light in the edges of the sky came, and made a small camp in the trees to wait for it.

  Val gathered fuel for a fire, kicking clear the leaf litter for it. Thinking on the bell player’s words, she stared at the fire for a time, trying to work out a way to summon flame without using her hands and the familiar feeling of it streaming from her core.

  Dorius sat hunched nearby, blinking back his weariness, and eventually grew impatient, “What is wrong?”

  Val sniffed, and loath to leave him waiting, extended a hand and coaxed a spark from her finger that was enough to light the tinder. She blew it to life, and fed it a few larger pieces, before pushing in the small metal trivet that was used for the cooking pot.

  “The bell players said I use my body too much when I make fire. I was hoping maybe to practice doing it differently…” she finally explained, pouring some drinking water into their pot and placing it over the fire.

  Dorius peeled back his gloves to warm his hands directly over the small fire. “Sorry,” he said meekly. Val was silent, feeding smaller twigs into the growing flame and watching it eagerly grow. It seemed suddenly magical, the familiar act, like a small life she was growing before her very eyes. The song it sang, now she paused to listen, was the barest noise at the very edge of hearing - tentative and yearning, but with a promise of something greater.

  “It does not matter. I will have time yet to try,” replied Val after her pause.

  The water in the pot had begun to simmer, so Val crumbled up one of the tuber biscuits and added it, and cut one of the fresh pears into segments in her hand, offering Dorius one. He silently took the piece offered, and the fresh crunch as he ate was the only sound between them for a while longer.

  “Do you think he will forgive us?” asked Dorius quietly.

  Val hummed, and stirred the quickly thickening gruel. There were more feelings than just forgiveness that Val was uncertain of. She tapped the side of her spoon on the pot and commented, “Maybe.” If they came back successfully, that was, Bastian was pragmatic enough to understand the ends sometimes justified the means.

  She pulled their breakfast from the fire using a sturdy stick, and placed the small pot before Dorius with her spoon in it, “Eat,” she commanded, “I know it will not be to your taste, but we have a long way to go.”

  Dorius sulkily picked at the thickened paste, more like glue than food, but did as he was told. Thinking on Bastian was deeply distracting to her, so she hurried her thoughts back to contemplation of the fire.

  At the edges of her sense of the magic web, she was aware of movement. A pack of creatures rapidly travelling together. She had a growing awareness that the web picked up everything, birds and deer, trees and insects. They blended with the web, creating its constant hum and hush, but this movement was different - discordant with the rest. She did not know enough to give the feeling any other description, but it bothered her, and felt to be in the direction they were to continue moving.

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  When it seemed Dorius could stomach no more of the gruel, she finished the rest, kicked dirt over their fire, and hurried him to his feet to continue their march.

  —

  A feral howl, and the mad cackling of beasts below them, heralded the first sign that their scent had been caught. Val unstrapped her axe, and hurried Dorius onwards.

  “Quicker, we need somewhere I can move if they catch us,” she urged roughly.

  The narrow mountain path they were on meandered up from the valley to a higher split between the peaks where it looked like the crevices between the mountains smoothed again and carved a path to the west around the central peak that loomed primarily over the Sacred Valley of High Haven.

  Dorius was jogging, breath panting, catching his feet on the rough, uneven steps up the trail. She followed smoothly after him, her long steps worth two of his, and each time she paused she looked over her shoulder again down the trail for the movement of whatever hunted them. She’d avoided their presence as best she could while picking their path north, but their confrontation had felt inevitable since she had sensed them at breakfast. At first she hoped they might be wolves, but knew it was a hope at best.

  When she had first heard their feral calls, she knew it was wild Fae that were on their trail.

  She saw the first one scrambling up the trail, down on its forelegs sniffing the ground. Its hind feet were cloven, its forefeet composed on long clawed fingers, with odd hunched movements from its humanoid proportions folded in two. It had a mane of feathers around its shoulders and throat, pendulous breasts swinging as it galloped. A face, flattened like a humans but covered in thick hairs, sniffed the ground then looked up and snarled. The teeth were flat and square.

  Val dropped their luggage, kicking it back up the path so she’d be free of the weight. She braced her axe on her shoulder and took several steps down to meet the creature and yelled over her shoulder, “Run Dorius!” She did not look back to see if her command was followed.

  Several others came swarming up the path after the first, howling and yelping with the adrenaline of the hunt, each a mix of feather and scale, fur and horn, jumbled together in twisted chimeras. They bumbled over each other, snapping at the ankles and hackles of their packmates, some running four legged and others loping on their hind limbs.

  Val crashed her axe into the first one, sending it tumbling off the edge of the path. The next she caught between the heads of her axe, toppling it sideways into another and her axe's head chewed into a torso - red blooming with a splatter across granite. As her axe caught in their falling bodies, another scrambled free. She lowered her body and lifted her head upwards as it leapt at her, feeling her horns pierce through its shoulders and the weight of its body rising with her as she stood. It hung, writhing and clawing at her back, blocking her vision and she released her grip on her axe and lifted her arms to try and push the body upwards and free of her horn. She tossed her head over the edge of the path, pushing it off her, and almost lost her balance as the weight was lifted and it went screaming down the side of the mountain along with the first.

  Not wanting to lose her axe, she wiped the blood from her mouth, bellowed, and surged down the path, tucking her head close as she toppled the beasts and fell within their mix. She roared with pain as one bit her hand, pulling it close and punching with her other. There was the visceral, crispy crackle of shattering bones grinding against each other, and she wrenched her hand free with a tooth still embedded. She retrieved her axe with her good hand, and body slammed another against the side of the cliff they climbed against, pushing a third over the edge. Panting, she looked down the slope to see another four climbing at the path, frothing wildly at the jaws or covered with filth and rotting gore from previous hunts.

  From above, a giant black wolf dropped into the group, landing four legged as if he had jumped from somewhere up the cliff.

  His head was so large his jaws effortlessly picked one wild Fae up and tossed it down the mountainside. The second he scooped up and shook vigorously, the body flopping like a ragdoll and tearing in the wolf’s jaws, slimy bowels spilling out and untangling like wet rope. The other two were beneath his paws, clawing at his legs, or tripping up his great paws. He yelped and kicked one free with his hind foot, lifting his tail and hackles bristling, he snapped at the other beneath his feet.

  Val was too busy to be shocked by the help, or the sheer size of the wolf, and she dove under his legs to wrestle the final Fae that was harassing his feet, pinning it with her weight against the ground. It screeched and arched its back, kicking at her with clawed feet and leaving gashes in her leather armor. She punched it in the head, and in the stunned pause, climbed up its body and pressed her forearm into its throat to trap it against the ground. Stradling her knees on either side, she lifted her axe to smash the head in with one bladed side, the kicking coming to a sudden stop.

  The wolf looked down at her with bright yellow eyes, thick pink tongue lolling between wicked, white teeth. Val scrambled to her feet, using her axe as a crutch to support her exhausted steps, and rushed up the mountain path to find Dorius, nearly tripping on one of the Fae bodies and the red mud between the rocks. She left their supplies where she had dropped them.

  Further up the path, where it widened and flattened, Dorius was huddled against a cliff face wearily watching two regularly sized wolves that were panting and watching him back, a stick held futile in his hands to ward the wolves back. Val bellowed at them as she got close, and they backed off eagerly, wagging their tails over their backs once or twice in greeting.

  “Val behind you!” cried Dorius, his eyes widening as he spotted her.

  Val ignored him, and skidded protectively to a stop between him and the wolves. The giant black wolf casually paced after her, their bag of supplies grasped delicately in his huge jaws. He gently placed it on the ground before them, Val kept her guard up, and held her axe at the ready, although she felt her odds of winning a fight with this creature were slim. Thankfully, the wolf sat back on his haunches, letting the great pink tongue fall from his mouth again as he panted, and there was finally enough stillness for each party to regard each other.

  So the Vigilants were right. Her blood yet survives.

  The wolf's words spoke directly into her head, carried thoughtlessly on the web of energy. The way Dorius started behind her, Val knew he had heard them as well.

  Tentatively, Dorius climbed to his feet, casting suspicious glances at the wolves that had trapped him, “You are the guide they sent?” he asked.

  The great black wolf yawned, exposing a pink mouth, dark throat, and entrails from the Fae still trapped between its teeth. It stretched its long limbs and sat so its head was at their level. Its tail thumped once against the ground, and was still, and the wolf waited unblinking.

  You’d best treat that hand.

  Val looked down at the bite, a tooth still embedded and the holes in the arc seeping sluggish black blood. She grimaced at the nasty wounds, within the next half hour it would swell and her hand would be useless for several days, even with her fast healing and assuming she could keep it clear from infection.

  “Who are you?” asked Dorius, peering around Val at the giant black wolf. The wolf grinned a fearsome smile that sent shivers of fear and awe down Val’s back.

  I am your guide. It said silently.

  The voice in her head was youthful and masculine, like a cocky teenage boy. The wolf’s fur was gorgeous black, tinted with tips of silver around his neck and along the spine of his back. His paws alone were the width of her chest, his limbs proportionally longer than the two smaller silver wolves that waited with them. His yellow eyes were pure in color, unblemished and huge as dinner plates.

  He is the Wolf God. You would show him respect. Spat an arrogant female voice.

  Val turned to face the other voice. And down the path out of a minstrel's fable, wandered a winged horse.