touched them, quick hands to sharp knives. I imagined I would do this as well when I’d been on the road awhile.
We sat outside on the grass, eating dried sausage and hard-boiled eggs as the sun set, the song of the night birds trilling in the background.
“The gloaming.” Madoc waved a hand over the horizon. “That is what they call the end of twilight in Elshland.”
His eyes were alert and clear, and his smile was easy and relaxed. The long rest had done him good.
“The gloaming,” I repeated. “It’s a fitting word—pretty, but melancholy.”
I stood and swung Viggo’s leather pack over my shoulder. It settled into the side of my torso in a comforting way. I’d given Gyda my cloak and wrapped Viggo’s around my own shoulders—I was just tall enough to keep the hem from dragging on the ground.
The Bards finished eating and rose as one, three graceful shadows under a darkening sky. I turned and closed the door to Viggo’s hut one last time, my palm lingering on the handle.
“You will return,” Ink said, moving to stand near me.
I glanced toward her. “Life shifts with the wind, and only death is certain.”
Ink nodded, delicate chin moving under her drawn hood. “Say a prayer to Stray, then.”
I moved two fingers to my heart. I, unlike Olli, from the Blood Frost Saga, would be back again someday.
Let it be so, Stray.
I heard a clucking noise and looked up—the chickens were roosting on the roof. They’d be fine on their own if a fox didn’t eat them, and they could forage for bugs until winter. It was the best I could do.
I pointed north. “We can follow this stream for a while and then move onto the sheep trails for a few miles until we reach the Cloven Tell Valley. From there we can drop down onto the Stretch if we wish—we can move faster this way, though it does carry a certain amount of risk.”
The main road through the Middlelands was known locally as the Stretch. It ran from the foot of Wolf Peak in the Skal Mountains to the city of Dongor in the south. Most of the major villages in the region lay near or on this road.
“The wolves fear no one and invite confrontation.” Stefan scanned the dark hills, eyes narrowed. “Still, they don’t often take the Stretch—makes them too easy a target for the Quicks’ arrows. Lake Le Fay is some fifty miles from here, but they will use footpaths to get there.”
Gyda nodded. “They are wolves. They slink down dark trails like beasts—they don’t walk the open roads. They use the Stretch only when they attack a village.”
Stefan looked at Gyda, eyebrows raised.
“Gyda followed Uther and the wolves for several days,” I said, “before she came to live with Morgunn and me.”
“Why would you follow a band of wolf-priests?” Madoc tilted his head, eyes on the druid. “Have you sworn to hunt them, like the Quicks?”
Gyda adjusted her cloak and gave Madoc another of her sly looks. “I have my reasons.”
Madoc smiled. “Keep your secrets, then, wizard.”
“I’m no simple wizard, Bard. Druids have religion—we worship the goddess Dune, and she is kind and wise. We have order and law, myths and traditions. Wizards are rogues who worship only magic and themselves.”
Stefan pointed a thumb at Gyda. “Lots of opinions, this one.”
I laughed. “Only about magic, which is her right.”
Gyda gave me a nod and then pulled her hood down low over her face.
I didn’t glance back over my shoulder at Viggo’s hut as we left. It felt unlucky.
We followed the stream north, mile after mile, the night stretching out before us. The sheep trails crisscrossed the hills, eventually splitting off to the east or ending at the Brocee Leon Forest. The paths had many twists and turns, but I’d walked them enough times with Viggo that I moved forward with ease.
Stefan and I led, followed by Madoc, then Ink. Gyda took the end. We were mostly silent, speaking rarely, five figures slipping over black hills.
Around midnight we crossed paths with a shepherd. He was bony and young, with startled brown eyes. He pushed a cart filled with combed wool. The moonlight showed a face and tunic streaked with dirt, and his cheek bled from a cut near his ear.
Despite the blood and the dirt, his wool looked clean and soft. He was headed south to sell at one of the Fleece Festivals, no doubt. Viggo would have been on this journey as well, if he’d