Watchword - 2. Chapter 2

The room was fairly ordinary, as these things went, but it was larger than Nik expected. Cheap boards for walls, a small night stand, and two low stools. A couple of cots at the far end stood on either side of a small window. At some point, the moon disappeared behind the clouds and shrouded Tellen in darkness. Only the light from the lamps that lit the courtyard spilled in through the crude glasswork.

Next to one of the cots was a wash basin and a small screen made from cheap strips of wood and burlap for privacy. That wasn’t something you’d normally find in a room like this. Maybe Ullen’s friendliness was not as superficial as Nik had first thought. Or maybe Andar paid the full cost of the room because none of the smaller ones were available. The place seemed pretty full as it was. But it seemed clean and didn’t smell bad, and the heavy door blocked out most of the sound from downstairs. Nik only caught the high notes of occasional laughter but that’s it.

He snorted. Whatever. He wasn’t sure why he was even thinking about it. More likely than not, Ullen was just after the gold they carried anyway, and didn’t harbor much affection for wardens. It certainly wouldn’t be unusual.

They stripped out of their travel clothing and ate in silence, each of them sitting on a stool and hungrily digging into the food. The pies were hot and oozed with sticky gravy. The meat inside was pretty good, but it could have been the fact that Nik hadn’t eaten anything better than dried sausage and u’darlen bread for the better part of a week. They had set snares for game earlier on, but as they tracked the border with the Excluded Places, their catches had been few and far between. In any event, he was grateful for the fresh, warm food.

Nik spooned the last of the crumbling pastry into his mouth and sat back contentedly. That felt good — he hadn’t been full like this for a long time.

Andar sat hunched over the remains of his food and smiled slightly at Nik. “Well, that was a welcome change.”

Nik grunted in assent as he looked out the window at the moon just barely visible through the gathering cloud cover. He wondered briefly if it was going to rain.

“Have you figured out what you’re going to do when we get back?”

Their second year together was winding down and they were on their way back to Altaar to make their reports to the Court. They had spent the majority the last three seasons in Skarinia, a kingdom about a third the size of Ritvin’s Empire, to the west. Andar was the Court’s foremost expert on the region and had been sent there by the High Regent to determine whether there was any stock to rumors of a growing conflict between the kingdom’s most powerful clans in the wake of the illness of King Terender Dramln.

Andar had surprised Nik when he invited him on the journey. In their first year together, Nik was under a pupilage to Andar, a necessity of becoming a Journer with the Court. But once that requirement was completed, it’s rare that a Master and a Journer continued to travel together.

But Andar isn’t like other masters, Nik reminded himself. While he seemed more reserved than most, once you got to know him he was fairly agreeable and easy to get along with. Of course, there were rumours about his so-called past with Archons College, the enforcement arm of the Court that was tasked with tracking down renegade syf, but those were just rumours. Nik never saw any evidence that he was ever involved with them. Plus everyone knew you could never just leave Archons College and go back to being a warden. In any event, they both got along quite well, and Nik had to admit that he was much more experienced now than he was two years ago.

“I don’t know yet,” Nik replied. Last time they had this conversation, Andar started talking about Nik coming along for a third year with him, this time to the south through Taml to assist with culling the erkin threat along the Excluded Places near the mouth of the Ingre Straight. He frowned as something like irritation kindled somewhere within him as he weighed the option in his mind.

“Well, you still have some time to think about it,” Andar said slowly as he sat up and stretched. He gestured to the wash basin near the door. “You go first.”

Nik shrugged and downed the rest of his dark cider. The liquid was warm in his belly, remnants of sweet fruit playing about on his tongue. It had been a while since he’d had anything besides water. He felt himself relax and his senses dull as the drink settled into him.

Behind the screen, he removed his own undershirt and grimaced at the smell it gave off. It must have been at least two, maybe three, weeks since the Isamatien River snaked away from the main road and disappeared into the forest and the Excluded Places. On quiet nights, he could hear it at the edge of his senses, the steady rushing of water over jagged stone. But it was too far away to get to safely. That meant no bathing, and no washing clothes. It didn’t make for a pleasant odor.

He tossed his shirt aside, pulled down his breeches and underwear, and grabbed the sponge. He worked up a lather from a shriveled bar of soap offered up by a crude wooden bowl and began to wash. In the light of the oil lamp, his skin was like polished burnished copper. The sponge moved effortlessly over it, like a hand over fine velvet.

He rubbed hard against his chest and belly. Lightly defined muscle moved beneath, toned from years of training in the talí — the wardens’ art of fighting. He would never be big like Andar — his body simply wasn’t built for it — but he was a lot stronger than he looked, and that would sometimes make for an interesting fight.

The light danced off of the remnants of various nicks and cuts to his forearms and hands — the costs of practice at Wardens College and life on the road fighting erkin. Thankfully, the tori at the Court made excellent salves, and syf naturally healed faster and cleaner. Together with his Uétan blood, he didn’t look worse for wear than most people who grew up in a city and had never left or encountered much hardship.

Of course, he lived far differently than he looked.

He hadn’t always been lucky, though. He rinsed off his lower body and ran hands down a thick scar on his left leg. It went from the top of his inner thigh, moved jaggedly down over the knee, and ripped across his calf. Anyone who saw it knew that he was lucky to be alive, let alone have full use of his leg.

Images of the Ordeal tugged at him. Winter, in a forest, not one that he knew. Snowfall blanketing the landscape. Tall trees tearing through a low mist. Dollops of snow falling lazily from somewhere above. An inhuman sound, a whining, like a slow scrape of steel against flagstone, but at the edge of his senses. An awareness that he’d seen this before crept up his spine. A branch snapped in the distance.

He shuddered and pushed it out of his mind. Don’t need to think about that right now. Or preferably ever.

He rinsed the last of the soap off with lukewarm water and took one of the rough towels that hung from the privacy screen. It was a nice touch, the screen, but it was a bit pointless. At Wardens, he’d spent enough time in the company of other apprentices in the dorms, and later in the Carpenters Street mews, to be self-conscious about being naked in front of others.

Yeah except whenever you saw Inan. The thighs on that boy…

Stop that.

And anyway, he and Andar had been traveling together for over two years. Being on the road like that — most of the time sleeping in narrow caves or out in the open — didn’t lend itself to modesty. Not to mention, Andar, though looking like he was in his thirties, was certainly over twice that age. And Nik very much doubted Andar thought of him that way.

Most people don’t think that way, or they keep it locked up. And so should you if you know what’s good for you.

He grunted to himself as he pulled on the last of his somewhat-clean clothing that he had set aside earlier.

There was a knock at the door as he emerged from behind the screen and Andar rose from the bed to open it. A lady dressed in a blue apron stood outside holding a sack in her left hand. She smiled as she wiped her brow with her sleeve. “You have laundry?”

Her accent had a Tamlish lilt to it, but coloured with time spent in the north.

Andar nodded and gathered up most of their clothing, save for their robes, and put them in the sack she offered.

“Should be ready by morning. I’ll bring it by around sun-up.” She gripped the bag and threw it over her shoulder in a move that looked like it belonged to a younger woman and trudged down the hall.

Andar closed and latched the door. He’d been in nothing but his underwear when he handed everything over, but if the woman thought anything of it, she didn’t give any sign. He certainly wasn’t unpleasant to look at. He was well-built with strongly muscled arms and shoulders, a broad chest, and a narrow waist and hips. Most of his body was covered in finely healed scars, slivers of raised pink streaks on his back, chest, and arms. They were much more visible than any of Nik’s were.

Without his warden’s robe, he could pass for a simple fighting man and nothing more, and he may even be mistaken for one were it not for his gesh—a thin clasp of metal around his left wrist that marked him as a syf. Once put on, it could never be removed. The Old Law required it to be so, in order for everyone to know what he was. In order to make up for the mistakes that brought about the Great Discord two centuries before.

Nik rubbed the edge of his gesh absentmindedly. It wasn’t uncomfortable, really, and once he got used to it, he didn’t think about it much. The only time he was reminded of it was when he saw others’ eyes wander over to it and its dark silver-coloured design, their expressions changing minutely at its sight. Changing to fear or distrust. Sometimes anger.

Nik settled into his cot while Andar washed. He intended to stay awake but sleep pulled at him. It had been so long since he was warm and comfortable. The sleeping arrangements weren’t much, but compared to spending the night on cold dirt and rocks, wrapped up in his robe while the wind whipped at him relentlessly, no fire to ease the chill or provide solace, this was luxury.

He didn’t even realize he’d fallen asleep until he heard a loud rapping. He startled awake and for a moment didn’t know where he was. There was no wind, and the ground beneath him was soft. Then his memory caught up as he recognized the dance of the courtyard torchlight from outside the windows.

The inn.

The light cast long shadows into the room, elongating the sparse furniture like they were obscure Skarinian artwork made of melted candle wax. At some point, Andar put out the oil lamp on the small table between the cots and crawled into bed. He could hear him snoring slightly.

Another rap from the door, louder this time. “Open up, it’s Cendril!”

He rubbed at his eyes in confusion and annoyance. He couldn’t imagine what would bring the old sergeant to pound on the wardens’ door at this hour, but then he remembered the conversation from the gates—you’ll just drag the ‘kin in from the forest—and frustration rose within him. Ah shit, it better not be ‘kin.

Nik threw the wool covers aside and went to the door. He heard Andar stirring behind him as well, apparently roused with the shouting.

He unlatched the door and scowled at the person on the other side. “What?”

The sudden brightness from the hallway made it difficult to see the sergeant’s features.

“Sorry to bother you, Master Warden, but we need your urgent help.” His voice was conciliatory but hurried. “We have a bit of a problem.”

“Erkin?”

“Not exactly, no, but no better, I’m afraid.”

“Well, tell us, then,” Andar said, coming up behind Nik. He had pulled on his robe and now stood beside the young journer in what Nik suddenly imagined was an absurd scene—a half-naked Uétan boy and this other man glowering at a stranger that interrupted what they were doing. If Nik were a woman, this would not be that out of place. Even as a man, he supposed, it wouldn’t be that unusual in Altaar’s Painted District. But here, in the wash of the hall’s lanterns, still somewhat half asleep and slightly tipsy from cider, Nik couldn’t help but find it unreasonably humorous.

The rational part of him fought hard to keep a smile from forming on his lips. He decided he’d better put some clothes on as he stepped back from the door to pull on his shirt and robe.

“It’s the baker’s daughter, Milla,” said Cendril. His voice edged with concern. “She’s nowhere to be found! We think she’s left the gates and ran for the forest.”

Andar frowned. “Why would she do that?”

Cendril shook his head wearily. “She’s a bit of a trouble-maker. She was fancying a boy in town but her mother didn’t take kindly to him. She was told she couldn’t see him anymore.” A pause and a glance to the side. “She didn’t take it too well.”

“Why not get the watch out looking for her?”

“Well normally I would,” he said somewhat defensively. “It’s just that, we’ve seen ‘kin in the forest earlier this eve. They weren’t coming closer so we didn’t think much of it—they usually stay away—but I can’t send my men in there to get ambushed.”

“So you’ll leave some girl to go to her death instead?” Nik had barely formed the thought in his head before the words came out. As soon as it left his lips he realized it was a stupid thing to say out loud.

Cendril’s eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. He locked eyes with Nik and spoke slow, compressed words. “I do such thing with little solace, Master Warden. We only have so many men, and we have lots to protect here. But I would trade my life for hers if I knew with certainty she could be saved.”

Nik could feel Andar staring at him but he kept his eyes focused on Cendril instead. It was getting to him—everything he’d been through these past two years. The disdain most folk had for him and Andar, despite the fact that the Wardens were sworn to protect them. The long travel and nights out in poor weather. The lack of sleep. The constant erkin threat. The dirty politics. Even here, that the townsfolk wouldn’t even let them in the damn village at first but now they needed his help—so of course they come crawling despite themselves—and he was expected to oblige.

He had a vague inkling he was being a bit unfair, particularly with the old sergeant, but the spite that bubbled within him pushed it down before it could take hold.

Out loud, he only said, “I’m not a master. Only a journer.” He wasn’t entirely certain what he meant by that, but he wasn’t about to make an apology. Even if he felt pretty stupid for putting a voice to his brooding.

Cendril’s expression didn’t change. Andar cleared his throat. “What my colleague here means is that he’s made a poor choice of words and he lacks the experience to know what they mean. Of course we’ll help, Sergeant. Please lead the way.”

Cendril paused for a moment, his face unreadable. Then he nodded to himself and turned in the direction of the stairs. “You have my thanks. Please follow me, I’ll take you to where we think she last was.”

Nik kept his eyes on the silhouette of the sergeant and said nothing as the three of them made their way down the steps, through the dark and empty taproom, and out the front door.

A low mist had settled over Tellen, pushing back against the torches that burned vigil. The sky itself seemed to glow from their flames. Nik and Andar kept a close pace with Cendril, who moved quickly down the main thoroughfare to the front gates. All of the houses were dark now, and the air was thick with the smell of earth and the coming rain. The sound of their steps on the dirt road hung close to them, echoes dampened by the heavy air.

They trudged up to the gates and paused in front of a young man dressed in the light leather of the watch.

“Tell them what you saw,” Cendril told him.

The sentry pointed meekly to the forest to the south west. “I saw her run that way, through Seren’s farm. She slipped past Danby while I was walking beneath the walls. I barely recognized her, but as soon as I saw that cloak she was wearing I knew it was her.”

He looked at Cendril, his brows raised in pleading. “I called out to her, sir, I did, but she ran.” He made a helpless gesture. “I lost her in the mist.”

Cendril turned to Andar. “It’s not much to go on, I know. But I’m told Wardens can find people better than Ansett rangers.”

Nik frowned. The rangers who trained near Ansett were some of the best in the Empire. The forests up north were some of the largest and oldest on the continent. The Excluded Places there spread for thousands of square span, and only a good ranger could keep you safe on the path. They also needed to track game and be effective hunters so they wouldn’t starve as they made their way through the ancient trees. Wardens simply learned the same tricks. Wielding fiat wasn’t something that was required, most of the time, to find someone in that kind of circumstance. If it were, he wasn’t certain it could be easily done.

“We will do what we can,” replied Andar. “You and your men stay here, in case our presence in the forest brings out the erkin.”

Cendril nodded and spared the sentry a reproachful look. “We’ll be ready.”

The wardens left the gates behind and travelled up the road to the west for a short while. About half a span from the village, a path branched off and snaked its way south towards the forest through a large wheat field. The air was still damp but the visibility seemed better. As they left the glow of the settlement, Nik found that the cloud cover wasn’t as thick as he had originally thought. The moon filtered sluggishly through the mist and gave them just enough light to navigate through the crops. A slight breeze tugged at them and carried the songs of crickets from amongst the wheat.

“That business, back with the sergeant,” Andar began as they walked the narrow path between the stalks. “You need to watch what you say, lest they get the wrong impression about us.”

Nik couldn’t really see Andar’s expression in the pale light, but he assumed it was appropriately admonishing. He didn’t really want to have this conversation right now. “Sorry,” he said simply.

“I’m being serious. It’s just like what I told you back at Esan. Keeping the shallow peace in the wake of the Great Discord depends on the lot of us holding up our part of the bargain.”

Anger suddenly lept from Nik’s belly to his throat. He stopped and grabbed Andar’s arm. “And what about them? What about their end of the bargain?” He gestured furiously toward the direction of the settlement. “Or can they continue to treat us worse than the dirt they walk on yet expect us to be there the moment they want something from us?”

“People fear what they don’t understand—”

“Oh that’s a load of pigshit, Ren, and you know it.” Nik’s voice had risen to a near shout, his hand clasping Andar’s arm tightly. He groped for serenity he didn’t feel, brutally wishing for the fiery calm of a vetrin pipe. He took a breath, forced his grip loose.

“It’s not fear. It’s—” A wave with his other hand in frustration as he fumbled with the words. “It’s like they’re trying to say we’re not human anymore! Like they haven’t been corrupted and how that somehow makes them superior in some way. They take pleasure at the thought of treating us like we’re less. Last I checked, I’m just as human as they are!”

Andar sighed and looked at Nik sympathetically. He knew that Nik wasn’t entirely wrong, but it was a lot more complex than that.

The syf were unbounded once, only limited by their own abilities. But that kind of power could only bring about a slow corrosion of discontent. Over the centuries, a faction of radical syf began to believe they were the only ones who had the right to rule the Continent. In an attempt to quell this growing movement, the more traditional of the learned masters refused to pass on their knowledge or had locked it away in such a fashion that it became all but lost. The Regents, the ruling body of the syf and all of Altaar, also severely limited the kind of power a syf could access, making the practice of certain kinds of fiat illegal. But despite these attempts, alliances between the radical syf grew stronger and finally fomented revolution. The group made a move to bring down the Empire and cement rule for themselves on behalf of Altaar. But the armies of Ritvin’s Empire were no trifle. The ensuing war, which was also a conflict in and among the two factions of syf, became known as the Great Discord. The defeat of Altaar and its syf was the disastrous capstone. The concessions exacted from a once proud and powerful people were telling. The only thing that kept Altaar and the Falconer Court from absolute destruction was the erkin threat. Everyone understood, despite their hatred of the syf, that they were needed.

Centuries later, this distaste for the syf still persisted, as did the memories of the Empire’s glory. Every conversation with an Imperial citizen was tinged with this history. But the pride of Altaarians ran deeper, knowing that their few syf were the ultimate guardians of the world. This was a source of honour for them, despite the fact that the Continent was plunged into war as a result of the machinations of not insubstantial number of syf.

To this day, Altaar and the Court seek atone for the sins of their predecessors, the ones who dared to use their power to subjugate the people of the continent.

Andar looked Nik in the eyes. He saw an intensity there, a sharp dislike for those he was sworn to protect. He couldn’t blame him, knowing what the young warden had experienced in the past two years on the road. But where they had gone, people had historically been touched by the syf in terrible ways. That kind of memory runs deep. It moves through generations and sleeps only restlessly, easily awakened by contact with the past.

But these complexities were difficult to explain and understand, and it took Andar the better part of two decades to come to terms with the state of the world. There is no way such a lesson could truthfully be had in any less time, he reckoned.

“These people,” Andar said finally, “don’t know any better. In time you will come to understand their hostility as their perception of what happened long ago. Neither you nor I are at fault here, and honestly neither are they. But the more you play into their prejudices, the more they believe they are justified. Better to be a mealworm twisting at the end of a line than the edge of a blade leaping to a nobleman’s throat.”

Nik had heard the ridiculous proverb before and couldn’t help but give a humourless guffaw. He knew it was crap when it first came from the lips of one of the old Court masters, and he knew it was crap now. If we were all mealworms, we’d all be eaten up by now, wouldn’t we? Despite himself, he felt his hostility burn down to a bare smolder. The quiet frost of apathy leaked in slowly at its wake.

Why the hell does it matter so much?

There wasn’t an easy answer to that question.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Yeah, of course you’re right.” He let go of Andar’s arm clumsily and began walking again. Andar followed close by. He knew it wasn’t over, but he let the issue drop. There would be time enough to debate this later.

A few minutes later, the field ended abruptly at the edge of the forest and they stopped. It was cooler there, with the tall trees having blocked out most of the sun during the day. Now, whatever warmth had been left over had leeched away into the night, leaving in its wake a damp chill.

Andar pulled a stone from one of the pouches at his belt and closed his fist over it. A moment later, harsh blue light burst from between his fingers as the stone began to glow brightly. He unclasped his hands and held out the stone, letting the radiance settle over the surrounding forest.

It was a trivial invocation, as the glowstone was already imbued with the innate properties necessary to make it give off light. Nevertheless, Nik felt the tug of the invocation against the threads of reality, as he always did when something unnatural affected the physical world. He instinctively reached out with his senses and brushed gently at the fabric of the world. Other than the usual pull he felt from himself and Andar, nothing else seemed out of the ordinary. The wards that marked the boundary of the Excluded Places were about two span further south into the forest. They hummed gently in his mind like harp strings, their music serving as a warning to passing wardens of the dangers that lay beyond.

“Nothing unusual going on,” Nik said as he watched Andar scope out the ground with a keen hunter’s eye. Andar had done much the same in the barren wilderness of eastern Skarinia as they made their way to the high steppes and the cities that had their homes there. The foreign land was dangerous and only those who knew what to look for could hope to survive. Andar had made the trek many times over the years and got them through with only a couple of harrowing run-ins. It was the least one could hope for, really.

Andar pointed at a patch of bent needles on the forest floor. “She came through here.” He looked out amongst the trees and started to walk slowly, following a path that Nik could only roughly make out. “Come, and stay close. Watch for ‘kin.”

Nik followed Andar at arm’s length, their boots crunching on dead needles as they wove their way through heavy undergrowth. Nik pushed aside the sound of their walking and focused his attention on the activity coming from within the forest. It was unusually quiet. He heard only the low whisper of a light breeze passing through the pines. He tested the threads of the world once more for erkin but found nothing.

Well that is to be expected, he told himself. Most erkin didn’t pull against the fabric, despite that they were terrible and ghastly creatures. The few that did were called greater erkin and were dangerous beyond description. He wasn’t sure he was ready to fight them again. He’d had to face one in Skarinia on his own, as he and Andar had become separated in a fight that involved many lesser erkin. Though he defeated it, it nearly cost him his life. And it wasn’t even one of the stronger ones. There were still nights where he awoke from his dreams, sweat-stained and heart pounding as images of heavily carapiced torsos with arm-length claws and teeth the size of wagon nails faded from his vision.

They came upon a shallow brook and Andar frowned as the path he’d been following seemed to end. He paused and looked both directions, considering his options for a moment. He furrowed his brow and raised his chin towards the west, upstream. “I think she followed this up that way.”

In the distance, a faint laughing, but not from a human throat. Then a scream tore through the quiet.

The wardens spared each other a brief glance and then took off running to the source of the sound. They followed the bank of the stream, but in areas they had to leap in amongst the rocks to avoid colliding with the trees. Honed reflexes and syf perception assured their footing, and their pacing never wavered as they wound their way through the forest.

Up ahead, Nik spotted movement through the trees. The eldritch cackle was closer now, recognizable as the cry of rúod. He spotted maybe four of them in the distance, slowly surrounding a small hooded figure.

A snarl came to his lips. The frustration of his conversation with Andar transformed into an urge to do violence.

He flung out his right arm like a bird stretching a wing. He grasped at the air and threw out his perception into the places between the worlds. He sensed the shape and form of Rendquill woven into the fibre of reality, implored its existence into his fist, and reality acquiesced with a shudder.

The space at his hand shimmered, light rippling through the air like cloth billowing in a breeze. At his grip, the world seemed to bend around itself and melt. One by one, Rendquill’s components became manifest. First its edge, tearing itself away from the air like parchment shredding, then its hilt.

Then, as if it had always been there, he felt the sword’s cool grip in his palm. He tightened his fist over it and let out a cry at the erkin.

In his hand, the blade weighed almost nothing. It was made of materials men had no name for and was covered with intricate designs and features that no human possessed the ability to craft. Forged by fiat, the master bladesmiths of the Court compelled the world to yield to its existence, and it did so only reluctantly. If you looked closely, its edges seemed to exist on the margins of human perception and tinged with subtle violet hues.

As Nik reached the first of the creatures, he felt the edge of his mouth curl into a smile. He held the blade out with both hands and ran the nearest erkin through.

Flesh and sinew tore as Rendquill plunged into the creature’s chest. The force of the impact pushed the erkin off balance and it tumbled backward, howling notes of fractured glass. Nik twisted and pulled the blade as it fell. Thick, blood-like sludge sluiced through the air. It smelled sickly sweet, like rot, but unmistakably from flesh still alive.

The downed erkin groped at Nik’s leg with long-clawed digits. Its face was like a melted skull, fangs protruding from what looked like two mouths. The orifices flapped and sputtered as the creature shrieked.

Nik stepped back into a low stance, sliced down with Rendquill. The creature stopped moving.

Another ‘kin, finally realizing that this newcomer was definitely a threat, snarled at Nik and flung itself at him. Nik threw up a blocking arm, stopping the worst of the creature’s claws from nearing his throat. His footing kept him upright but he couldn’t easily maneuver around the body of the fallen erkin without risking getting pulled down. He shifted his weight as much as he dared and chopped awkwardly down and left at the erkin’s side. The move would have earned him a howling rebuke from Master Palis—I didn’t know you were some peasant with a hand axe instead of a warden! Use some god damn finesse!

The edge bit, the erkin shrieked. Yeah, well, the peasantry seems to be fucking working, Nik thought savagely.

The ‘kin clawed at him harder. Nik kept it at bay with his arm but Alkna’s cunt it was scratching the shit out of him.

The creature’s face was a handsbreadth away. Its stink crept down his nostrils and coated the back of his throat. His eyes started to water. If he wasn’t about to get shredded he’d have had time to gag.

Behind him, a squeal. He felt movement. Shit.

He had no idea where Andar was, and had no time to look around to find out. He needed to free up his feet.

He called out to the threads of the world and sensed how the fibres moved around and intertwined with the erkin in front of him. He tugged at them, willed reality to force the creature away from him quickly. He felt around for potentials — something that he could balance the equation of power he was building — and found something adequate in a thread he sensed protruding from a large boulder nearby. With some effort, he pulled the fabric to himself and matched the parts to the intent he had formed within. Reality shuddered as it accepted the entreaty and he felt it grab hold of the equation in his mind.

The fiat locked. He heard the boulder next to him rend in two and the erkin was suddenly pulled away as if it were tied to a skiff in a storm, flying backward at an arc—as if he had planned it that way—directly into the gnarled branch of a pine. The wood impaled the ‘kin in the back of the head. Ooze from its eye socket dripped densely to the ground below.

Without thinking, Nik spun around in a low sweep. His foot connected with the erkin he sensed was behind him and knocked the creature off balance. At the same time, the back of Nik’s fist drove high in an arc and hit the erkin in the side of one of its mouths. It shrieked as it lost its footing and began falling to the side. Nik swung long with his sword, edge cutting through the air in a sharp whine, and plunged the blade into the ‘kin’s ribs as it fell. Rendquill pulled through the bone with little effort, leaving faint popping sounds in its wake as the surrounding cartilage gave way. A twist and pull with both hands had the blade through sternum and throat. The erkin tumbled to his feet.

Quiet.

Nik took a breath and looked around. Andar stood about ten paces away, two erkin corpses at his feet. A huddled mass lay shaking on the ground between them, faint keening coming from underneath an oversized woolen cloak.

“You alright?” Andar held his own blade up and out as he looked around the small clearing.

Nik surveyed himself. His forearm hurt like hell. He felt warm rivulets of blood run down between his fingers and drip to the forest floor. There’d be time for taking stock later. “No problems here. You?”

A humourless guffaw. “Never better.” He kicked at one of the bodies. “Rúod it looks like. I don’t see or hear any more.”

Nik felt the air around him. “Me either.”

Andar set his blade down and approached the figure. He knelt and pulled the hood of the cloak back, held the glowstone out. The girl’s face was puffy from sobbing, fear in her expression still palpable. “I’m Andar Fayren, Warden of the Falconer Court. You must be Milla.”

The girl’s eyes widened but the terror didn’t loosen its grip. Andar sighed slightly. “Can you stand?”

Milla nodded rapidly. Andar put an arm under her and helped her up. Her expression shifted slightly as she looked around her.

“Are you hurt?”

A pause, then a noise from her throat.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

Another pause. She looked up at him this time. “No, I think.”

“What were you doing out here?” He tried for the gentlest tone he could muster so soon after a fight.

She looked out into the distance, into the forest. Her gaze seemed to drift outward to nothing. “It called me,” she said quietly.

“It—called you?” Andar glanced at Nik. The journer’s expression mirrored his own uncertainty. He looked back to the girl. “What did?”

“The trees.” Her eyes moved over to Andar, but her focus didn’t seem to be on him. Her voice was distant, almost unintelligible. “They sang of ice and millstones.”

Nik’s mouth formed a line. “What is she—“

“Check the wards,” Andar said hurriedly. Then, to Milla, “When did they start talking to you?”

Nik felt for the wards, heard them sing nearby. He caught Milla starting to answer as he began moving toward the nearest one about a quarter span away, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. He walked quietly but quickly, listening for erkin, holding Rendquill at the ready.

He found the monolith. It was a marker about the height of a man and twice as wide made of dark hewn stone. They were scattered at the borders of the Excluded Placed every dozen or so span, imbued with fiat ancient and powerful. Erected by the Old Knowers, back when syf ability was limitless, the wards had been holding vigil since long before even the Great Discord. They kept the greater erkin away, which was their main purpose. The way the wards pulled at the fibres of the world pushed them back deep into the Excluded Places. But they didn’t always work. How they failed and why was a mystery to the syf.

Nik put a palm to the smooth stone. It felt cold under his touch. He closed his eyes and tried to feel inside the monolith. Threads writhed and shifted within, complex workings tying it to reality and securing its function. His grasp of the mechanisms at work was absolutely primitive, as it was for most syf. The knowledge and understanding of the fabric that moved within these things was long lost. The best the syf could do now is just make sure they more or less worked.

He followed the better known strands, recognized how they vibrated and spoke to him. Everything seemed fine.

Then, he caught something. A weave that was out of place, spoke something he didn’t recognize. He tried to tug at it with his senses, see where it went, what its purpose was. The bundle of fibres it connected to pulsed and shuddered. He gripped at what he thought was the one. Tested it. And—

No. It was nothing. Not what he thought.

He sighed and dropped his arm from the stone. All was well, as far as he could see.

By the time he got back to Andar, Milla seemed to have calmed. They had moved away from the bodies of the dead erkin and stood near the base of one of the pines at the outskirts of the clearing. As Nik approached, she giggled at something Andar was saying.

Andar turned, slight smile still on his lips from whatever he told the girl. He looked expectantly at Nik as he neared.

“Seems fine.” Nik shrugged. “What was—“

Andar made a low, flat-palmed gesture that he assumed meant we can talk about this later and shuttled his eyes at Milla. “I was just telling Milla that she should stop trying to secretly date rúod.”

Milla giggled and shook her head abashedly, reddened a little. She told Nik, “I was supposed to meet Glen but I think he fell asleep waiting for his mum to go to bed.”

Nik raised his brow. “You were to meet here? In the forest, crawling with ‘kin?”

Milla made a sour face. “Well, not exactly. We were supposed to meet in Seren’s field but…” She trailed off, then shook her head again. “I think I heard noises and got scared. I don’t know why I didn’t run back to the gates.”

She seemed suddenly confused and alarmed, as if trying to remember what happened was like thinking of grasping hot iron. She looked to Andar with panic in her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter,” Andar said quickly, flickering another warning glance at Nik. “You’re safe, that’s what’s important. Come, let’s head back before there’s any more trouble.”

They made it out of the forest and to the wheat fields without incident. The cloud cover had cleared and yielded to an open sky, waxing moon sprinkling pale light over the crops. Andar walked in front of Nik and Milla, holding out the glowstone to light the narrow path. It was mainly for Milla’s benefit, so the girl could easily keep her footing on the uneven ground.

On the way, Nik dismissed Rendquill with a silent invocation. In response, the sword seemed to unravel in his hand into motes like fine embers. The flecks fell to the ground and winked out as the blade unwound itself from being. Then, it wasn’t.

Milla gaped at the empty space where it was.

“How did you do that?” She asked softly, wonder warming her voice. She seemed to have recovered from her encounter with the erkin quite well.

Nik smiled at her gently. “It’s a thing you learn when you’re a warden.”

They walked in silence for a while. “What’s it like being a warden?” She moved aside a muddy puddle as she said it, keeping an eye focused on Nik. It must have rained at some point while they were in the forest.

Nik said nothing for a moment, listened to the crunch of their steps on the damp dirt. He saw Milla watching him curiously.

He thought back over the last two years. Hundreds of fights with erkin, thousands of span travelled, countless nights of sleep out in the wilderness. Checking and fixing wards, defending settlements. In Skarinia, because of Andar’s ties to some of the noble families, they had to play some politics, too. When most people never left their town or village, never ventured out into the world beyond what they could see, how do you describe the opposite to them? And seeing it from the lens of a warden was much different than if an ordinary imperial citizen somehow ended up on the same journey.

Plus, the girl was only about 11. There was no way he could say anything that would make sense to her. On top of that, how people treated wardens was certainly part of the answer, and he didn’t trust himself to say anything about that.

He let out a slow breath. “It’s different. Certainly not like anything else.”

Milla either sensed that Nik didn’t want to talk about it or she was satisfied with the vague reply, because she fell into step beside him quietly. At last, they went around the final bend and emerged from the wheat field onto the main road.

They walked the last half span to the gates side by side. Andar had put out the glowstone, pressing it between his thumb and forefinger until the glow died out like a doused coal. Milla looked at Andar’s pouch as he slipped the stone inside.

“Is that like your magic? Like with your sword?” She asked.

Andar shook his head. “No, the stone gives off light because that’s what it was made to do. There’s no magic involved.” He looked at the girl with a thoughtful expression. “And anyway, the syf don’t possess magic. Only the sorcerers of Tian are capable of that. The syf affect the shape of the world by fiat.”

She thought for a moment. “But isn’t that what magic is? Affecting the world?”

Nik raised his brow. For some reason he didn’t expect such a question from a baker’s daughter. It took him back to his first year at Wardens College to the debates about how syf abilities differed from those of the old world castera; how syf power was more dangerous and more potent, but imposed far greater barriers to even casual use. And mastery of it, in the true sense of the word, was all but impossible.

Andar chuckled. “Smart girl. Yes and no. Sorcery relies on the channeling of natural energies into manifesting the will of the caster. But those spells rely on rules governed by the form and substance of the world. Syf power changes the world itself. And that’s a far different thing.”

As they neared Tellen’s gates, they heard a loud shout. Nik could see about eight men standing near two braziers, and another three figures standing to the side. One of them tore away from the group and started toward them.

“Mum!” Milla called out, breaking into a run.

The two met halfway and embraced. Close behind them, Nik recognized Cendril. The third man who followed was unfamiliar, but wore a cloak of fine black cloth that shone slightly in the nearby firelight.

“You stay away from my child!” The woman yelled to Andar as the wardens trailed up to the reunion. She was a portly thing, long ashen hair making a mess of her face. The scowl she wore made her look even older than she probably was.

Andar held up a hand to explain. “We were asked to find her, bring her back here.”

“I know what you were doing!” She said icily. “It was because of you that she ran off in the first place.” She pushed Milla behind her protectively, blocking her from the wardens’ view with her patchy knee-length cloak.

The sentries, who were probably far enough away to not hear casual conversation, exchanged serious looks as they heard her shout.

Cendril pulled a face and stepped out in front of the woman. “Now Gwyn, let’s not speak untruths. As I said, I asked them to go look for her. And Delne saw her wander off while these two slept.”

Gwyn inhaled sharply and speared the old sergeant with a look. “We all know your affinity for these—” She stabbed a finger at Andar. “Degenerates.”

The venom in her voice touched the base of Nik’s spine. He felt the tug of hatred stirring within him.

Milla started to sob behind her mother. “But mum—”

“Be quiet!” She snapped. Then looked to the well-dressed man to her side. “Reeve, I implore you, throw these men out before anyone else suffers. Before the whole town gets overrun by death!”

“This is absolute nonsense.” Cendril was shaking his head rapidly, arms out in frustration. He too turned to face the Reeve. “Your worship, if it weren’t for these wardens I am absolutely certain Milla would be dead. We should be thanking them not talking of throwing them out!”

The reeve made a face and looked between Cendril and Gwyn.

Before he could say anything, Andar took a step forward. “We don’t want to cause any trouble. It’s likely true that Milla would have died, or at least have been gravely injured. She was surrounded by rúod. She was lucky we got there when we did.” He pointed at Nik. “My journer was injured in the fight.”

The three of them looked at Nik, saw the dried blood caked to the sleeve of his robe and the deep gashes on his forearms where the fabric tore. Nik stared back at them, his expression tight.

“But,” Andar continued. “We don’t want to create any division here. It’s almost first light. If you allow us to gather our things from the inn, we’ll be on our way.”

Cendril held up a hand. “I don’t think there is any need for that. You deserve a rest and time to heal.”

The reeve nodded carefully and took a breath. He looked at Gwyn and then Cendril before turning back to Andar. “I thank you for your assistance, Master Wardens.” The reeve’s voice was steady and sure, the confidence of his office present behind the words. “But, perhaps you are right. For the sake of not causing more upset than there has been tonight, it may be best for you to depart.”

The reeve looked to the sergeant. “Cendril, please fetch their things from the inn.” He moved his eyes to Gwyn, brow narrowing slightly. “And please take Gwyn and little Milla home.”

For a moment, Cendril seemed to want to protest. But finally, he inclined his head sharply and stepped away. “Come, then, Gwyn.” He extended his arm to the village, palm out. Gwyn turned around without looking at anyone, held a hand to the back of Milla’s head, and pushed her to the gates as she walked beside.

As they passed the gates, the reeve cleared his throat. “I do apologize. When Gwyn discovered that Milla was gone, she had gone house to house shouting hysterically that you two took her. I know you didn’t, but you can’t change her mind about that sort of thing.” He glanced involuntarily at the sentries waiting out of earshot near the gates. “Or anyone else’s.”

Nik took a deep breath and tried to calm the fury that had been building inside of him. His arm ached. Until Andar had said something, he hadn’t even remembered he was hurt. Now, the wounds burned like hot coals. Stabs of pain moved up his bicep and shoulder whenever he moved it or flexed his fingers.

Andar sighed. “We understand.”

Nik thought from his tone that he probably didn’t. Not really. But Andar was endlessly patient. Nik envied it, the quiet way Andar seemed to weather the endless abuse people had subjected them to. It never appeared to upset him. It was a kind of tranquility Nik found himself wishing for often but rarely finding. He was exhausted.

Cendril returned shortly with their things. He carried the heavy bag with their clean clothes over one shoulder and their two travel packs over the other. He didn’t seem to strain at all from their weight.

Andar thanked the sergeant as he took the offered belongings. He pulled out his clothes from the laundry bag and moved them to his pack. Nik did the same as Cendril and the reeve stood by silently. When they were finished, Andar handed back the empty sack to Cendril and straightened.

“Alright, we’ll be off.”

“Are you going to be alright?” Cendril said to Nik with a halting tone. The old sergeant seemed genuinely concerned.

Nik nodded stiffly. “Should be fine.” He’ll put on some salve later, he thought, once they found someplace to wash off the blood. It didn’t feel like he was seriously hurt in any event, and his syf abilities should keep any infection away.

“Well okay then.” Cendrill clasped a hand to Andar’s. “Thank you for your help. Both of you.”

“My pleasure,” Andar said, giving a slight nod to the two of them. Nik had already turned and started walking, not bothering to exchange parting pleasantries.

Andar left the gates and caught up to the young journer. The sun was starting to rise over the low hills in front of them, turning the sky a pleasant shade of deep purple. Around them, the birds began to stir.

As the day began to wake, the two silently made their way out out of the valley and into the hills beyond.