Chapter Two
The ghosts are loud here.
Xaverie cups a hand to her ear, as though to hear them better. It does little to focus the sounds. Though, why should it? She’s not entirely sure it’s her ears that pick up on the soft, whispery voices of the long dead.
She still can’t hear the words. Not clearly, at any rate. It’s like they’re talking on the other side of a wall — clear enough for her to know the voices are there, to guess at the tones and emotions behind the sounds, but so muffled as to round away the edges of consonants and vowels, and strip away the context and meaning. The only reason she’s sure they’re ghosts is because other than her, there’s not a soul for a mile around — so it’s either ghosts, or she needs to see a cleric about a diagnosis. She drops her hand from her ear with a private, dry laugh at the idea that she hasn’t already tried that.
It’s cold, wet, and dreadful. The ground is dark with the bounty of a recent rain, but other than that, the colors are washed out from the heavy blanket of gray clouds that blot out the moonlight. The hills of Daggerford stretch out behind her, the twinkling lights of the faraway town almost swallowed up entirely by the growing night. Before her lies the dark stain of the woods, nestled tightly against the bottom of the hills.
And within the trees curl the thin, ghostly tendrils of mist.
Xaverie uncrosses her legs, leaning forward as she places her fiddle case on her knees. From her perch, she can mark the mist’s movement. It moves almost as though it’s half-alive. Little tendrils, like tentacles, wind out of the dark trees, poking, grasping, prodding gently at the ground before it, as though it searches for something, attempting to hide its predatory movement in its lazy swirls.
Or maybe she’s just paranoid. Maybe it’s just mist, moving the way mist does. Xaverie inhales a deep breath full of rain and pine trees and worst, the cold, cold earth. It makes her stomach turn. Too close for comfort to places she’d rather forget.
“Hello?” a voice breaks through the silence. “Who’s there?”
Xaverie leans back against her stony perch, tilting her head to see who hails her.
She has to take a moment to adjust, as one of the pair carries a torch, and it briefly sears her night vision. He’s tall, and his eyes are cutting. His pearlescent white armor shimmers with the reflection of the torch’s light, and the image of a curled, plate-armored fist is emblazoned across the fabric draped over his chainmail. A knight of the Order of the Gauntlet. She supposes she shouldn’t be surprised. The Harpers aren’t the only ones paying attention, after all. Who knew what other factions might be out hunting the same quarry?
What’s curious to Xaverie, however, is the girl who hovers behind the tall knight, clutching the torch in one hand and the edge of his chain shirt in the other. She wears the white robes of a Gauntlet’s acolyte, and her hair is the same silver tone as the man beside her. The resemblance, actually, is uncanny. Father and daughter, perhaps? Siblings? She looks too young to be out on missions for the Gauntlets yet, even with a mentor. Can’t be older than fifteen.
“Good evening,” Xaverie calls back. “Hope I didn’t startle you.”
His eyes narrow as he considers her, eyes flicking up and down. They linger a moment on her old fiddle, then on her battered vest, her mud-stained boots.
“Strange night to be out here on your own,” he says. “You have business in Daggerford?”
Xaverie holds up both her hands, palms out.
“Just passing through, really,” she says. “Chasing some rumors on the behest of an acquaintance. You?”
“Much the same,” he says. “There’s been talk of werewolves in this area. It’s dangerous to be alone.”
So he is here for the same reason she is. Well, she’s never had cause to be on the bad side of a Gauntlet. While she’d prefer to keep outsiders out of her business — for their sake — she wouldn’t say no to an extra blade.
“We’re here on the same job, then,” she says. She reaches into her breast pocket to flash a small Harper’s insignia. Not hers, but a copy she’d had made after lifting Sesum’s for a few days. She isn’t about to take an oath to get a real one, but an emblem could get you places. “Just scoping things out.”
He visibly relaxes at the sight of the emblem. She almost feels bad, like it’s a cheap trick to play. Maybe Sesum’s right. Maybe there is a benefit to being an official member of the faction. Well, not that she’ll ever admit that to his face. She has far too much to do to be tied down to even the loose conglomerate of the Harpers. Her oaths belong to another cause already.
“I should have guessed the Harpers would be here as well,” he says. “Have you been here long?”
“Just arrived tonight. Haven’t even stopped in town yet.”
She ought to be meeting with Sesum’s acquaintances soon, but she’d wanted a look at the mists as quickly as possible. She glances back out at the trees. The mists have curled up thickly about a foot or two past the last edges of the forest, and they coil there, clinging silently to the grasses below. They come no closer, however — and Xaverie almost fears that if she starts towards them, they’ll coil back away from her, and disappear.
“Odd weather,” the Gauntlet mutters.
“Bad night to be looking for werewolves, that’s for certain. Which almost makes it for certain that the buggers will be out there tonight.”
She stands up, stretching and cracking her back as she swings her fiddle case back over her shoulder. She makes a decision in a half second, sending a silent apology to Sesum and the other Harpers in town as she does so.
“I hadn’t intended to do much more than scope the place out tonight, but you two seem kitted out for a hunt. Would you like an extra sword?”
He pauses, considering her for a moment. His eyes are sharp, a pale violet that searches hers with a piercing intensity. For a moment, she wonders if he might be able to see into her soul with those eyes, ferreting out every secret she’d rather hold to herself.
He leaves off, however, the sharpness fading as he nods.
“I would never say no to an ally,” he says. “I hope you are one.”
She only nods as she lays her hand lightly against the hilt of her longsword. There’s not much more one can say to that.
“I’m Xaverie,” she says. “Xaverie Davaros. And you?”
She glances at both of them for this, though the girl shies back behind the man.
“Chevall Leilrir Sunstruck, of the Order of the Gauntlet,” the man says. “And this is my ward, Linla Millan.”
He gestures to the girl, who grips at his cloak as she eyes Xaverie from behind him. Different surnames? Perhaps Xaverie should be more cautious about making assumptions. Still...the resemblance is uncanny. Perhaps she’s a niece.
She hefts her pack better onto her back and turns her gaze back towards the woods.
“Did you have any ideas of where to start?” she asks.
“Our contact in town left me a map of where the most recent trails have led,” Leilrir says. “I’ll lead the way.”
Xaverie nods, then follows the pair down the hill and towards the woods. The mists do not shy away as she feared, but swirl gently before their approach. As though inviting them in. She tenses for a moment. On her tongue is a warning. She should tell them both to turn around. To go back to the light and warmth of the town and let her walk into the mists alone. She should not get them involved.
But the warning dissipates before a rush of uncertainties. She has no idea if these are the mists she seek. She knows she can’t manage to fight a whole werewolf pack on her own if she doesn’t find the trail she’s looking for tonight. And if she isn’t here, and they do get swept into the mists...they deserve the fighting chance she can give them.
But perhaps it won’t even be tonight. Perhaps she’ll see another disappointing dawn crack over the horizon and know that she’s failed, once again.
With such thoughts swirling in her mind, she grips the hilt of her sword, and she follows the disappearing backs of the Gauntlet knights.
Passion draws a slow, measured breath, trying to mask the sound with the rustle of the leaves overhead in the evening breeze.
A faint trickle of music wafts through the trees to where she crouches in the brush, relying on her dark coat to keep her hidden. From this vantage point, she can’t see much except for the flicker of firelight against the tree trunks, and not the fire itself. That’s for the best, though — if she can’t see them, they can’t see her, either.
She lets her eyes unfocus, listening rather than seeing. She catches the low rumble of a tent’s canvas catching the wind for a moment. The creak of wagon wheels settling. The soft stamp and huff of tied horses. All twisted up with the strumming of a single lute. A few low voices mutter to each other, too low and far away for her to catch the words. She’ll likely have to move closer soon, but she wants to wait for as many of the Vistani as possible to fall asleep first.
She doesn’t dare take out her notebook for the fear that the sound of the paper rustling will alert someone to her presence, but it doesn’t matter. She could recite the notebook by heart. She runs through her most commonly recited notes in her head, like a mantra.
The last thing I remember: Natlia and I were going to the market.
The next thing I remember: I was walking out of the woods. Six months had passed.
Her head pangs, a deeper ache below the constant buzz of pain. She wants to massage her forehead, but it won’t do her any good, and she needs to remain still.
Then a sharp pain stabs between her eyes. She lets out a gasp in spite of herself. As she does so, something in the bushes rustles.
Passion moves so quickly that it almost feels like someone else moves for her as she scoops her axes off the ground. She spins, one ax blade whipping through the air.
There’s resistance — a clang. A few sparks fly as her ax skids off the edge of a dagger. Passion flips the other blade up and around — then freezes in place as she feels something dig into her stomach. The other hand freezes before cutting her open, as her own ax blade hovers inches from the soft, brown skin of the other woman’s neck.
She is pretty — a regal face, high cheekbones, a long, pretty nose that hooks elegantly, like the beak of an eagle. Her mass of dark curls is pulled back with a colorful scarf, and her skin is a soft, warm brown. Her clothes aren’t suited for sneaking — long shimmery pants and a colorful tunic tied off with a dangling scarf that drips with beads. How on earth did the woman sneak up on her?
She dares a glance at what the woman has at her stomach. A long, thin knife. It’s anyone’s guess as to which of them will be fast enough — and Passion isn’t in the mood for bloodshed tonight. That wasn’t the plan.
The pair of them stare at each other for a long, tense moment. There’s something about that stare, too. A wideness to the woman’s eyes, a shock in the parting of her lips. More than just the surprise at having been caught, and held at blade point. She stares at Passion as though she’s trying to map her face.
And Passion finds herself staring, too. An ache rises and falls in her head, unable to look away from the woman’s dark brown eyes. She stares into them as though entranced — disoriented enough to worry that she might have been magicked.
Then the woman breaks the silence, and the strange haze that seemed to have drifted over Passion’s mind lifts. The distant firelight glints off the Vistana woman’s dark eyes, like sparks in the night. Passion’s headache throbs against her forehead and makes her throat go dry.
“Don’t you know it’s rude to sneak around someone’s campground in the dark?” the Vistana woman says, her voice low.
“Don’t you know it’s rude to greet someone with a knife?” Passion says sarcastically.
Something flickers over the woman’s eyes. Passion can’t place it, but she sees the corners of her eyes tense, then relax.
“Says the one with an ax to my throat.”
Her voice places her as a little older than she looks; sometimes it’s hard to tell with humans. She has a lower, smoother tone. Early thirties, maybe.
Passion grunts, shifting her grip ever so slightly. She could probably fight the woman off without much trouble. But she doesn’t want to make too much of a commotion.
“Tell you what. I’ll put my ax down if you put down your knife.”
The woman’s lips press together. Then to Passion’s surprise, she nods.
“On three, then?” she says.
The pair of them stare at each other. Too quick to agree. Can Passion trust her?
Slowly, she lowers her ax. She keeps a firm grip on it, ready to spring into action. The woman flips her knife around and slides it back into its sheath. Her hand remains on its hilt, however, and she stays tense, light on her feet. Ready to move, by Passion’s reckoning.
You shouldn’t be out here,” the woman says, terse. “Haven’t you heard about the werewolves?”
“Haven’t you? Why are you all camped out here?” Passion says.
“We have safety in numbers. You are alone.”
Passion raises her eyebrows at the woman.
“So are you, right now.”
The woman’s eyes narrow, and she twists her hand against the hilt of her knife. Passion readjusts her grip on her axes.
“You should leave,” the woman says. “I will pretend I didn’t see you. For your own sake, you should accept my generosity.”
“What’s in it for you?” Passion says. She’s pushing her luck, and she knows it. All the woman has to do is shout, and the whole camp will be on Passion in moments. “You don’t even know why I’m here. I could be dangerous. It’s a strange choice.”
“Don’t make it one I regret, then,” the woman says tersely. “You’re outnumbered, at any rate. You ought to realize that.”
There’s no way Passion is going to cut and run now. Not when she feels like she’s so close.
She takes a half step forward, and the woman tenses. Passion is shorter than her, but her axes can do the talking for her.
“Are you part of the same troupe that passed through Daggerford two years ago?” she asks.
The woman shoots a furtive glance towards the camp. Her knuckles are white against her dagger’s hilt.
“I’ve only been with this caravan for a few months. I wouldn’t know.”
Lying, Passion thinks, inexplicably — as though someone is whispering that thought into her head. She’s lying. The pain in her head crests and ebbs like a wave crashing against the shore.
“I’m not leaving here without answers,” Passion says. “Did this troupe ever come to Daggerford?”
“If we did, what would it mean to you?” the woman shoots back. Her eyes cut into Passion’s — as though she’s looking for answers as desperately as Passion is. It takes Passion aback for a moment.
Passion’s jaw clenches. The pressure in her head swells. It’s like there’s something in her skull trying to claw its way out.
“There was a Vistani troupe here two years ago. At the same time I —”
She doesn’t even know if she wants to say. Can she tell this stranger about her lost time? Her missing sister? Does she have any other choice? She needs answers. She needs to know.
“My sister,” Passion says. “Natlia. Have you ever seen someone who looks like me before?”
The woman’s lips tighten. Her eyes flash. For a moment, her lips part, as though she’s ready to speak.
Then a howl echoes through the woods, and her face goes pale.
Quicker than Passion is ready for, the woman grabs her by the shoulder and whips her bodily around, shoving her back in the direction of Daggerford.
“Run,” she hisses. “Get out of here. Before the mists find you.”
“Wait!” Passion says, struggling to turn back around. “I’m not finished with you yet!”
Another howl breaks through the woods, echoing off the trees as it’s joined by a second, then a third. It’s deep and throaty, almost human, and in the near distance, the Vistani camp surges into life. Tents snap shut; wagons shudder under the weight of new passengers who hurry into the safety of wooden walls.
“Go!” the woman insists, shoving Passion forward with both hands. “Now! By the Nine Hells, go! Before there’s nothing I can do to save you!”
Passion whirls back around, but the woman is already fleeing, back to her camp as shouts raise from among the Vistani, torches are lit, swords and shields are drawn. Passion wants to run after her. The ache in her head seems to have fled down to her chest, making her feel as though her heart is going to explode.
But as the howls grow closer, she realizes that these are no ordinary wolves.
The werewolves.
Dammit. She can’t take a whole pack on her own, and the Vistani will ask too many questions if she tries to join them in their stand. Head throbbing and spinning with frustration, she turns, and bolts through the dark.
Linla doesn’t like the feel of this forest.
Her fingers ache to grip onto the end of Leilrir’s cloak, but she knows that will only slow him down. So she refrains, instead keeping as close to him as she can without stepping on his heels. He’s shifted into the Leilrir who focuses on his mission, rather than the quiet, kind Leilrir who lets Linla share his cloak at the inn when she’s cold. His eyes flicker and flit from tree to tree, shield braced to his arm and mace in his hand. While she can’t hold his hand, it does relax her to know that he’s here, that he’s ready to fight. She’ll always be safe if she’s next to him.
Linla plays with her necklace with one hand, holding her torch with the other. She twists and turns the necklace around her neck over and over again as she touches each dangling charm in turn. She silently recites each symbol, one after the other.
The shard of bone. The golden scales. The white dove. The crook and flail. The moonstone. The black dog. The weeping eye.
She passes the charms of their varying materials through her fingers, spinning the necklace around and around her neck. Some of the charms are already showing some of the wear of her fingers constantly touching them. But they comfort her, drawing in the strength of the faraway gods that Leilrir has taught her they each represent — and the memories of the people that each one holds for her.
Behind her, the soft steps of the new woman’s boots makes her tense up. Linla doesn’t like having the stranger behind her, but Leilrir took the front, and she needs to be close to him. She chances a glance over her shoulder at the woman.
She’s even taller than Leilrir, and she has a sharp look to her eyes. Something about her seems somehow...wrong. She can’t explain why. It just makes her uneasy. She scuttles closer to Leilrir.
“This trail seems fresh,” Leilrir calls over his shoulder, his voice low so as not to disturb the silence. “They’ve been here recently.”
“It’s surprisingly clear,” Xaverie mutters as she walks up to stand near Leilrir, looking over where he points. “Werewolves are usually more subtle than this.”
Leilrir glances over at her.
“Do you often track werewolves?”
“It’s not my regular line of work, no,” Xaverie says, shrugging. “But occult creatures are one of my specialties. I’ve done my research, at the very least.”
She gestures at the paw prints — each one clear, showing at least a pack of three or four or maybe even more. Linla can’t count them all, but there’s a lot of prints. Big ones, too big for a normal wolf.
“Normally a pack acts more like wolves. They walk in each others footsteps to hide how many of them there are,” she says. “I don’t like this. It almost feels like they wanted someone to follow —”
A shrill, piercing howl echoes through the trees. Linla gasps and clutches her necklace. The charms dig into her palm like knives. Leilrir whips his shield arm in the direction of the sound as a second and a third, a fourth howl, countless howls join the fray.
“Torm’s tits,” Leilrir swears. “We walked right into them.”
“Circle up! We need to have each other’s backs — the forest will benefit them and hinder us!” Xaverie snaps.
Leilrir presses Linla behind him as Xaverie takes up a position with her back to Leilrir, sandwiching Linla between them. Linla fumbles with her belt, her hands catching on the folds of her skirts as she tries to get hold of the mace Leilrir gave her, the one she barely knows how to use. Beside her, Xaverie draws a longsword, and Leilrir hefts his morningstar, ready to swing.
A soft swear and the scrabble of feet through leaves breaks through the tension. Leilrir gets ready to swing, but a voice calls out.
“Wait! Wait! I’m not a werewolf, dammit! Shit!”
In the dark, she’s a bit hard to make out — her clothes and skin are so dark that at first, all Linla can see is the flash of her bright yellow eyes. Linla squeaks, convinced for a moment that it’s a trick, that they are a werewolf.
But Leilrir doesn’t swing, and neither does Xaverie. Instead, he gestures at the new figure with his shield, beckoning her forward.
“We won’t outrun them — you’ll have to make your stand with us here.”
“Shit,” the tiefling woman swears, as she comes into the pool of light from Linla’s torch. “I really don’t have time to die tonight.”
“Neither does anyone,” Xaverie says. “So let’s not, shall we?”
The tiefling joins the circle, turning to place her back to the others as she lifts a pair of battleaxes. Linla’s hands shake, one holding the mace and the other the torch. Should she put it out? She starts to move to douse it against the dirt.
“Keep the torch, Lin, you can use it to fend them off,” Leilrir says, and she stops. Licking her suddenly dry lips, she nods, holding mace and torch both up and ready to swing.
The barking and yipping gets louder. Louder. It echoes around them, as though the creatures are circling, surrounding them. Breathing is getting hard. Her vision blurs with the growing panic.
“Shit,” Xaverie swears suddenly.
Wait. Maybe it’s not her panic that’s making things blur. Linla squints, closes her eyes and opens them. It’s...it’s mist. Mist pours in around them, quiet and silent in the dark, blurring the sight of the trees as it snakes between trunks. She takes a little step back from the flood of white fog that suddenly laps at her feet like ocean waves.
“What in the Nine Hells,” the tiefling swears.
The howls and yips swell as the mists grow thick around them, so thick that Linla suddenly fears to breathe, as though it might suffocate her from the inside. Then, as though the fog itself blots it out, the sounds of the werewolves start to fade.
And the mists grow thicker, and thicker, and thicker...
The webs vibrate. Spring opens her eyes.
The tree trunk against her back makes her stiff, and she’s almost too tense to move for a moment. So she doesn’t, waiting.
Overhead, the thickly woven canopy of spiderwebs, stretching from tree to tree and blanketing them like pillars, vibrates almost imperceptibly again. Spring still doesn’t move. She doesn’t even tighten her grip around the bow that lays gently in her lap.
A faint vibrating sound echoes from behind her, and she moves only her eyes towards it. A long, slender leg coated with thick brownish hair slides around the trunk, followed by a large, flat face. Two large black eyes, surrounded by two rows of three more smaller eyes above and below, stare towards the woods. Just Karma. Spring blinks silently at the giant wolf spider, who wiggles its mandibles back.
Another vibration sounds from somewhere past Karma, and Karma wiggles its mandibles, before rubbing its front legs together to create a similar vibration in response.
Not prey, then. They seem as confused by the web’s movement as Spring. She glances back up at the webs. They vibrate again. To her eyes, it’s hard to make out the faint distinctions in movement, even after years of watching them. Quietly, so as not to touch any of the webs herself, Spring lifts up to the balls of her feet, leaning forward at a crouch.
“I’ll look into it,” she says. “You all stay here.”
Karma purrs at her, indignant, but after Spring shoots it a glare, it remains where it is. She can just see the shadows of its much larger brethren, hiding nervously between the trees, inside their balls of webbing, or peeking out from their trapdoors beneath piles of leaves. None of them move from their positions, however, simply watching as she moves, quickly and quietly, through the trees.
For anyone else, this forest might be a death trap. For Spring, it’s home. She moves easily between patches of spiderweb that might trap an unwary traveler, darting from cover to cover, matching the movement of her feet to the natural rustle of trees and wind. She has to duck under a few low hanging canopies of spiderweb, keeping an eye out for the vibrations so that she can track where she ought to be going.
The vibrations guide her towards the northwestern edge of the forest, close to the ring of mists. Spring’s skin crawls — she hates to be this close to the boundary. There’s something alien and alive about the mists, as though it’s always watching. Even the spiders won’t go near it.
But that’s why Spring has to go. She has to see what might be there, threatening her home and her family. She’s the only one who can protect them.
Voices. Spring halts. Her fingers twitch against her bow. Silently and smoothly, she pulls an arrow from her quiver and lays it against the haft. Not drawing it, not yet, but putting it in reach. She’s not quite close enough to make out words among the tones, but it’s definitely a person language, not a beast’s.
Keeping low, Spring edges towards them. The trees mask her movement as she slides through the woods, until she can catch the edges of words, make out the consonants. It’s a familiar, recognizable language, though with an accent she can’t place. It’s the voices that are causing the faint tremors in the webs as their words part the otherwise silent air.
“The tracks...they’re gone.”
“The trees are wrong. These aren’t the same trees. But that can’t be right. We didn’t move.”
Spring comes up behind a tree and peers around it with one eye.
There are four of them. Three might be human, one is decidedly not. Spring has never seen their like before, with their blue-black skin and sharp yellow eyes, black horns curving from their head. While the others are more humanlike in appearance, their clothing is unfamiliar and strange. Spring tenses. Outsiders. Again?
The silver haired, white-armored man stands up from where he had been examining the ground. He looks uneasy as his eyes flit from tree to tree. Spring edges back behind the tree before he can lay eyes on her, waits, then shifts her position, crouching so she can watch the strange group from behind strategic cover.
The silver-haired girl, who looks like she might be related to the man, clings to his cloak with one hand, holding up a torch with the other as she looks nervously around. The yellow-eyed one grips both of her axes with a tight expression.
The only one of the group who doesn’t seem concerned, however, is the tall woman with the long brown hair and the strange pointed ears. She only closes her eyes and inhales a deep breath, as though scenting. Her eyes open, and in the faint glimmer of the torch, the brown looks briefly red. Spring shivers instinctively.
“Finally,” the woman mutters.