Wander West, in Shadow

Martimeos lay in his bed, staring up at the rafters of the ceiling of his room, where Flit nested quietly, his head tucked into his wing. He shifted, and winced as a fiery lance of pain went shooting through his whole body.

It had been months now, since the attack on Pike's Green, and the wound running through his core still burned, though not so agonizingly as it once had. His brother came to work healing Art on him every day, and slowly, his body was recovering. At first he had not even been able to feel his legs; now, he could walk. Halting, uncertain steps, but he could walk. It was considered a miracle, by the folk in the village, the one bright spot in all the horror of the carnage the attack had left behind.

Martimeos himself still could not come to grips with that. He had been lucky - his entire family had survived. But most other folk in the village had lost someone - a parent, brothers, sisters - if their whole family had not been killed. Poor Vivian had lost her whole family, save for Hadley, and at times seemed half-mad with grief over it. She came to visit him every day, and there had not been a single time that she had not wept. She had cursed him for being such a fool, for nearly getting himself killed, and begged - pleaded with him - to never leave her alone like that again. Martimeos was certain he wouldn't. She had lost so much, and seemed so destroyed by it.

But, confined to his room as he was, so much of the attack still seemed so surreal. He hadn't even been able to attend the funerals for his friends - or anyone else - the many, many funerals, the months since the attack having been a long procession of grief. It had been just last week that, with the aid of his father, he had taken his first few shaking steps outside his home. Pike's Green was still unrecognizable from the peaceful, quiet village he had once known. The burnt shells of farmhouses, and their crumbled rubble, were visible in every direction, and the fields themselves had been burnt as well, long black scars on the rolling green hills.

What had been even more shocking, however, were the marks left behind by his brother's working of the Art. Massive furrows gouged into the earth, shattering rock and boulder, like some great beast had ravaged the land. From what he had heard, of the attackers, nearly a hundred of them had been killed - though it was hard to tell, for so many of them had been torn to pieces by the Art. Their bodies, or what could be found of them, had been tossed unceremoniously into a great pit some distance from the village, and left for the crows.

Though, Martim reflected, not all of those had been his brother's work. He had heard talk of Daveth Pike, as well, one of his brother's friends - the man had apparently fought like a whirlwind of steel with his blade. The Pikes were the closest thing that Pike's Green had to nobility - the village was named after them, after all - and fancied themselves the town's protectors. Martimeos had always thought it silly, before. No longer, though. And many of the other villagers had taken up weapons to protect themselves, as well. It was, however, no question that his brother's Art had slain many, and broken the raid. Martimeos had not even known his brother was capable of such things.

He sighed, plucking irritably at the woolen blankets that covered him, and cast his eyes about his room. It was a humble enough affair, and not large, but crowded well with decorations from those who had visited. A desk crowded with books, and plate of cookies that Vivian had bought him, though Flit had eaten more of those thus far than he had. A table covered with wooden shavings, and some half-formed lumps of wood - his father, Nathaniel Cobblespur, in addition to mending boots, considered himself somewhat of an artist; when he visited Martim, he would spend much of his time idly whittling. And, of course, the many potted plants his mother had decorated the room with, climbing ivies and bright orange lillies and dangling, violent larkspur, enough to almost make his room seem a garden.

With a groan, he tugged the blanket off his legs, and slowly, with a wince of pain at each movement, swung them off the side of his bed, placing bare feet firmly against the floor before daring to put weight on them. Fortune's loving grace, he thought, that he could walk. Fortune's grace that he had lived at all, in fact, but there had been a time when he thought he might never walk again, and that had been almost too much to bear. At least now, having recovered a bit, he could do some things alone that had been humiliating to rely upon others for.

But as he slowly crossed the room on shaking legs to the bucket that served as his bedpan, he passed by his door. And as he did, he heard, from the floow below, a knocking at the front door of his house. And, with a curiousity grown hungry over the course of being cooped up in his room during his recovery, he could not help but push open the door to his room a bit, and stand by the crack, listening.

Through it, he could see the flickering light cast by the by the lit fireplace downstairs, and the long, strange shadows it cast against the wall as whoever was still awake at this hour moved to answer the door.

"Oh, hello, Hadley," came the muted voice of Martim's brother, barely audible from the lower floor. Martiimeos held his breath and strained his ears, struggling to hear the conversation. "What brings you by - Fortune's folly, you've been drinking, haven't you?"

"Not nearly enough," came the slurred reply, and Martim winced. Hadley had once been a jolly, boisterous man, but ever since losing all of his siblings, save Vivian, in the attack, the few times Martim had seen him, he had been drunk and dead-eyed. Vivian spoke often of her worry for him.

"Fool, you can barely stand. Come in. You had best not be sick in here, though, or back out into the night you go. No, no more, give me that bottle - give it."

A stomp of boots, a scaping of chairs, and the clatter of a bottle being set aside followed, with Martim's brother muttering curses and admonitions too low beneath his breath to be heard. Martimeos hissed to himself. He would not be able to hear their conversation from here. Perhaps if he got a little bit closer...

He pushed open the door to his room, planning to crouch at the top of the stairs so that he might hear what it was they spoke of. But the moment he did, he realized something was wrong. Something had changed, something was not the way it was supposed to be. The hallway of the upper floor of his home was not the comforting, familiar place it once was. Instead, it lay shrouded in darkness, more dark than there should be even at this time of night, deep shadows that drank up everything they touched. And the top of the stairs....though firelight cast their shadows on the wall, Martim found that neither his brother nor Hadley were visible. Indeed, neither was the fire. For, peering down the stairs, the entire bottom floor of his house had been swallowed up by shadow, so that the stairs descended, seemingly, into a void.

Though Martim found his heart frozen with fear, and his already unsteady legs further weakened by the trepidation he felt, there was something that hooked his heart, surely as a fish caught on a line, and drew him down that staircase and into the darkness. As he descended, he could hear the voices of his brother and Hadley, though they echoed as if coming to him through a long tunnel, ghostly voices that seemed to originate from somewhere within that endless dark.

"There, enough. You are in no state to be walking home right now. You can stay the night here, but no more drinking. And be quiet, I am trying to read-"

"I did not come by to sleep. I wanted to talk to you. Daveth...told me of your plans. To join the fight against the Queen."

There was a long pause after this statement, and Martim took the time to look around. He had already descended further down the stairs than he should have been able. Though there seemed to be some source of light that lit his way as he walked down, hand tracing against the wall, the top of the stairs behind him had already vanished into darkness. He was a lone spot of light in a great, yawning dark that seemed to stretch on forever, standing on a slice of stair and wall that floated in the void. It no longer even felt as if he was within his house. That darkness felt infinite. Shaking, and trying to keep his teeth from chattering, he continued down the stairs, as his brother began speaking again.

"Well, yes. We plan to take our leave as soon as I am done with my healing of Martim. I have been asking traders of how the fight against the Queen goes. You have heard of the Durnholde Concord, yes? Apparently they take any willing to fight."

Martimeos put a hand to his mouth in shock. He had heard of the Durnholde Concord before, though only vaguely. An alliance of townships, close by to the Queen's territory, that had banded together to resist her. Though Pike's Green had never seen any of their representatives, apparently much of their harvest eventually made its way to the Concord's forces. It was thought that this was the likely reason that the Queen had sent a raid against them to begin with; they had likely planned to ravage the neighboring villages as well. Unfortunately for them, it seemed that Pike's Green had been the first place they had struck at, and they had not been prepared to meet a wizard. When the Concord had heard of the attack, they had apparently sent a detachment of horsemen to scour the countryside for any sign of more raiders; they had apparently even ridden into Pike's Green itself for a day, though at that time Martimeos had still been so wounded as to be unconscious most of the time.

He wondered whether it was from those horsemen that his brother had gotten the idea to join the Concord. Martim had not known until now that his brother had even planned to leave.

"I told Pike that I wanted to come with you." Hadley's voice seemed bitter, with an undercurrent of anger uncharacteristic of the man. "He told me that a blacksmith's place is not on the battlefield."

Martim's brother gave a laugh in reply to this. "Pike's a stubborn mule. He thinks all who hold a blade should have spent their lives training with it. But I do not think you should come with us either. You have a sister."

"You have a brother."

"You know what I mean. Martimeos was wounded grievously, but he did not lose any of his family. You...you're all Vivian has left, besides her parents. She needs you."

Hadley paused for a long moment, and for a while the only sound in all that darkness was that of Martim's footsteps softly tapping as he continued descending the staircase. "It is precisely because of Vivian that I feel I must go," he replied quietly. "She's all I have left as well, and if...if this happened again, and I were to lose her, I think I may go mad."

"It will not happen again. The Concord's scouts have found no signs of further raids having slipped past their lines. And I have spoken to mother, and she has told me that next time, her family will-"

"And what if the war goes poorly for the Concord? What if the Queen breaks their lines, and the next time she sends not a raid, but a full battalion?" Hadley stopped for a moment, his voice having ridden high to near frantic panic, and then added softly, "Harkheim wants to come too."

Harkheim, Martim thought. The huntsman who had taught him to speak with birds, which had won him his familiar. Another one of his brother's friends. Harkheim had once seemed so at peace, and was a familiar sight - Martimeos spent much of his time wandering the woods around Pike's Green, and it would not be unusual for him to stumble across Harkheim there, often accompanied by his lover, a short-haired, lively woman named Kassandra. The two of them shared a love of the forest.

But that was all in the past. Though people were reluctant to speak of it, Martimeos had learned of what had happened to Harkheim. Vivian had told it to him in hushed whispers, almost as if she felt guilty merely speaking it. Kassandra had been killed in the attack, one of many villagers who had been locked inside a barn and burned along with it. And darker still, Vivian had whispered, was that Kassandra had been carrying Harkheim's unborn child when she had been killed.

Martim's brother sighed. "Of course he does," he replied, voice echoing through the darkness. "I will not argue the point with you. You're free to choose, after all. But Daveth and I...we were made for such, I think. I am not so certain about you. The Queen's War has raged for years, already. It may be years still before you return, if ever you do."

"I am not so gentle a soul as to shy away from war, when it's needed. I took a man's head during the raid, and it did not bother me much." Hadley's voice grew wavering, though, uncertain despite his words. "Years. Vivian might be full grown, by the time I come back."

"If you do," Martim's brother repeated. "Are you prepared for that?"

Hadley was quiet for a long, aching moment. And then his voice came whispering through the darkness, full of resolute certainty. "I am. I would pay any price. Anything at all, to ensure this never happens again. Never." He paused, and then gave a low laugh. "Vivian will not be all alone, anyway. She'll have Martim. Who knows; perhaps we'll be gone so long that they'll be married by the time we return."

And with that, the voices faded away into the dark, the ghostly whispers dying as the last echoes drowned in shadow. Martimeos paused on the stairs, waiting for more, but nothing came. He swallowed, his mind a blank except for the stain of fear, and continued on, the only noise his footsteps and the whisper of his hand tracing along the wall.

The stairs continued for what must have been hundreds of feet, far more than could have possibly fit in his house, but eventually, they did come to an end. A small landing, where there lay both an odd door, and a curious painting hanging on the wall.

The painting was large, nearly as tall as Martim was, and just as wide, surrounded by an ornate gold frame, extravagant, wrought in the shape of roses blooming among thorns. It depicted, in rich and vibrant color, so vivid that it nearly seemed real, three hunched and wicked figures, hunched backs covered in tattered, dirty robes, nearly rags. And where their faces should be, there were, instead, the heads of animals. One a fox, one a great serpent of mottled green, and one the head of a snarling black bear. Their eyes and teeth were made of a glittering black metal, and they stood in a copse of gnarled and dead trees, beneath a cloudy sky stained with the light of the moon, and at their feet burnt a small, dirty flame, fed by sticks and leaves, its black smoke curling around them.

Martimeos knew what these were. He had read of them. Dolmecs, they were called; Outsiders and daemons, they were dangerous and fickle, but deals could be struck with them, deals of prophecy and telling. He had no idea what the painting was doing here; nothing like this had ever hung in his house. He stared at the painting for a time, and then turned away with a shiver. It was realistic enough that it almost seemed as if the Dolmec were staring directly at him, like they could actually see him, and might move out of the painting at any moment.

He turned instead to the door. It was a great, heavy thing, wrought of black iron that was scratched, bent and worn. Worked into the metal, on a plaque, was an engraving of a smith's hammer and anvil in burnished silver. And above the doorway, seated into a small nook on its frame, sat a skull with red roses sprouting in its sockets, so bright they almost seemed to glow.

Martim felt drawn to this door, and he wasn't certain why. He wasn't certain why any of this was happening; where his house had gone, or where he was, but it seemed, oddly, not to matter. Bracing his shoulder agains the door, he pushed with all the might he could muster in his still weak and broken body. At first, it seemed like it would not open. But slowly, with the tortured squeal of heavy hinges, it swung open. A blast of cold air hit Martim's face as it did, and he opened his eyes, and gasped in astonishment at what he saw.

Past the doorway lay an endless stretch of wind-whipped snowy fields, the gales blowing a thin dust of snow along the ground like a cloud, beneath a pale gray sky. And lying in the fields, for as far as the eye could see, were dead soldiers, the aftermath of some terrible battle.

As Martimeos stepped through the doorway, he found himself changed. No longer was he in the body he had as a child; no, now, he was as he was, full-grown, in his leathers, sword buckled around his side and crossbow strapped across his back. His black-furred cloak flapped wildly in the wind, and his long hair flew about as well, obscuring his vision. He drew his red scarf close to his face to protect against the chill. Turning around, he found that the door that he had come through had disappeared. There was nothing about him but the carnage and the snow.

Struggling against the fierce gales, he trudged forward, towards the shelter of a treeline he spotted in the distance, the dark green of a forest of pines. But the battlefield was impossibly large. More men had fallen here than in any battle Martim had ever heard. There must have been thousands, tens of thousands - or more, for all he knew. He saw among their corpses many banners, flying tattered and shredded in the wind, their holders fallen beside them. One here, a flag of a yellow rising sun over a field of waving grain, on a red background, and there, a green and white banner that bore a willow tree. And he saw others that he recognized, as well. The gray flag of the Durnholde Concord, with its black key standard. And also the flag of the White Queen, a white rose on a blue background, lying fallen by one of her knights in their gleaming and grand silver armor, now rimed with frost. Crosscraw lay among the dead, as well, bright red hair and long beards making them stand out from the other corpses.

Soldiers from a dozen towns, from both sides of the Queen's war. Their shattered and broken bodies, twisted limbs and gray faces, though, they all shared in common now. And as Martim walked through the bloodstained snow, through the endless dead, a great and wretched bitterness took a hold of him. For this was what the Queen's War had come to, in the end. An entire generation gone for the White Queen's madness. It was obscene that it should be like this, that a single monarch might conjure so much death for their folly. That a single person might be responsible for wounding the world so.

For what seemed like hours he walked through all that death, through all the young men who had their lives taken from them far too early, eyes misted over forever, staring at the bleak sky. Until finally, he came to the edge of the forest of pines, a dark green woods whose shadows felt comforting. But there, by the forest, sitting on a gnarled and ancient stump, sat Hadley.

He was not the man Martim had once known. Once joyful and boisterous, Hadley now seemed weary and broken. He was leaner than he had been when he had lived in Pike's Green, and his face that had once seemed so odd without a smile had grown hard. He wore a chain hauberk, and metal-plated boots; by his feet, leaning against the stump, sat a leatherbound targe and a wicked-looking bearded axe. His golden hair was cut very short, and scars Martim did not remember him having ran across his face. But his sky-blue eyes were as clear and intense as ever.

And in his hands he held a helm made from a massive auroch's skull, cracked and bleached bone, from which hung a long cape so dark it seemed to drink the light. And as Martim watched, Hadley raised this helm, to place it on his head.

As soon as Martimeos saw this, he shouted, and began running towards Hadley. He wasn't sure why. His thoughts were a blur, and seemed to fly away from him. He only knew, deep within his heart, that if Hadley should put on that helm, he'd be irretrievably lost and damned.

Hadley looked up at the sound of Martim's shout, and smiled, and it broke Martim's heart to see that now it was a smile that looked so strange on his harsh and scarred face. "I'm sorry, Martimeos," he said, even as Martim dashed towards him. "But it can't happen again. None of this. Never again."

Martim fell to his knees in the snow as Hadley placed the helm on his head, and immediately the cloak wrapped itself about him, drowning Hadley in shadow. And then it grew, and spread, until where Hadley had once sat, there was now a pillar of darkness, a man-shaped hole towering as tall as the trees, and where the shadow touched, the color drained from the world. The edges of it crackled and screamed, as if simply being there tormented the very air itself.

And even as Hadley rose, a massive black blade in a long, clawed hand, another shadow rose behind him in the forest. A massive black stag, taller than the trees, taller than a castle, its antlers sharp thorns, its eyes blazing white light, and as Martim watched it raised its head to the sky and roared, a howl loud enough to shake the world. And when it did, the forest burst into flame, the sky itself burst into flame, and the ground shattered. And Martim tumbled down, deep into the earth, as it fell apart beneath him, looking up at a sky of roiling orange flame, and against it the silhouette of that massive black stag, as it roared the world apart.

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Martimeos jolted awake, a scream ripping his throat raw, but soon found the foggy grip of his dream driven away by a deep, throbbing pain in his leg as he sat up. The stone walls surrounding him and the thick carpet of scattered furs he lay upon were familiar; he was back in Grizel's chambers, in one of the many spare rooms the witch had.

He put his hand to his head, but before he could collect his thoughts, there was a rustling from behind him. He twisted around, wary of his throbbing leg, to see Elyse stirring in a corner of the room, yawning and stretching, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes before she glared at him. "I suppose you couldn't just wake up like a normal person, could you," she muttered, but despite the words, she could not hide a look of weary relief. She gently moved Cecil, who had been draped over her legs and purring peacefully, to the side.

Though the dream was nothing but tattered wisps in his mind now, Martimeos still found that his memories eluded him in the moment he was torn from sleep. "What are we doing here...?" he asked, as Elyse staggered to her feet and stumbled towards him. "What happened to my leg?"

The witch gave him an odd look as she knelt by his side, and placed a hand on his forehead. "Fever's broken, it seems," she said quietly. "And what happened to your leg was that it paid the price of your foolishness. Do you truly not remember?"

Martimeos put a hand to his head. Not only did his leg throb, he realized, but he felt weak and spent, as if his limbs had been wrung by terrible strain. Slowly, his thoughts grew more solid and real. "I remember," he muttered, "Fighting Torc, and the wound in my leg, I remember. But after that..."

"After that," Elyse interrupted, "You fainted. The wound in your leg is deep, You must have bled enough to fill two buckets during that fight. And it seems fortune itself wanted to punish you for your stupidity, for despite the care of myself and Grizel, the wound became infected. It was far beyond my healing; if it were not for that old witch you may well have lost your leg. Or died. As it was, you have been wracked with fever and babbling nonsense for nearly a week. I told you how foolish fighting Torc was, and mad too. You ought to have listened to me." She looked as if she was going to continue berating him, but then her expression softened, dark blue eyes filling with concern. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired," Martim replied, "And hungry, and weak." He paused, running a hand through his shaggy hair, which was knotted and snarled from his time in bed. A week. "What...what has happened, since Torc and I fought?"

Elyse sighed, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them as she sat beside him. "Well," she said, "Though you spared his life, many of the Crosscraw were not so happy with what you had done to him. Maol-Manos said that what was done was just and fair, and more merciful than he would have been, but still."

"Torc lives, then?" Martimeos asked. He dimly rememebered how he had left the man, at the end of the fight. A broken and bloody mess, handless and beaten half to death. Though he had spared the Crosscraw in the end, it was very possible he might have died of his wounds.

"He does. Though for the life of me, I do not know how. Grizel refused to treat him. She said she would not heal a childkiller." Elyse paused, staring at Martim intently, her expression mysterious and unreadable. "I am somewhat surprised you spared him, myself," she murmured softly. "I...do not know if I would have had such mercy, in your boots."

"I did not do it to spare him," Martim snapped, suddenly fierce. "I could have killed him. I let him live because I saw that death was what he wanted." His face contorted in a snarl, his dark green eyes dancing with shadow, blazing with such dark rage that Elyse nearly jumped. "A worm like him doesn't deserve the release of death. He deserves to suffer. There is nothing I could do to one such as he that would make him suffer enough."

Elyse regarded him quizzically. "You did not let him live for Aela's sake, then? For the sake of his wife and child?"

"No!" Martim cried, slamming his fist against the ground. But then he sighed, and the rage drained out of him; his shoulders slumped, weary. "I don't know. I saw that he carried the burden of guilt for what he had done, and thought it better that he carry it for the rest of his life, rather than have a merciful death. Perhaps I ought to have killed him. But...what I did, it was not for them." He paused for a moment, frowning at his hand and shaking it; he had slammed it far harder against the stone floor than he had meant to. And then his mind turned to Aela, as he remembered how utterly heartbroken the Crosscraw woman had been during the fight. "How is Aela?" he asked softly. "I...do not think she ever thought to hear that about her brother."

"I have not seen her since." Elyse bit her lip, and twirled her dark hair in her hands so fretfully that Martim was sure it would tangle in impossible knots. "Truth told, I have not left Grizel's chambers since the fight. I do not know if it is....safe for us here, anymore. The Chief and Grizel do not hold a grudge against us, and that's fine for now, but...many of the Crosscraw women, I think, do. I would not feel safe going back up into Dun Cairn proper. Kells still goes, though I think he's mad for it, but he wears his armor when he does." She sighed, then frowned, and reached out and pinched Martim's nose, hard. "Because of you, I can't enjoy their fine baths," she snapped.

Martimeos frowned, and pinched her back; she yelped and rubbed her cheek where he had done so. But as she glared at him, he held up his hands. "I apologize," he said ruefully. "I just...something came over me, when I realized Torc had been one of the men to attack Pike's Green. It could have been done better. I should have thought of where it might put the two of you, as well."

Elyse gave a small laugh, putting her hand to her face as she regarded him with eyes gleaming beneath the brim of her hat. "Something certainly did seem to come over you, I'll say. Something very strange indeed. I would almost think you were drunk. Except I tasted no wine on your lips when you kissed me. I cannot say what was stranger; that, or the tongue you spoke in while you fought Torc."

Martimeos, who had blushed at the mention of the kiss, became as still as stone. "I...was wroth," he said, after careful consideration. "I cannot even remember what it was I said. Just shouting wordless babble, probably."

The corner of Elyse's mouth twitched up in a small smile. Her dark blue eyes seemed to dance with strange light, seeming unnaturally bright in the darkened room. "Is that so," she said, sounding distinctly predatory. Martimeos gave a small jolt as she smoothly uncoiled herself and drew close to him, bringing her face inches from his, her eyes drinking his in, nearly hypnotic. "Oh, Martim," she whispered, nearly hissing, as she placed her lips next to his ears. "Do you think I am a fool? You hide a secret from me, wizard. Many, probably."

Martim could not move away from her, not without incurring the pain in his leg. So instead, he simply stared back, meeting her mysterious eyes with his own. "Do you think I'm one?" he retorted, which Elyse simply answered with a dusky laugh. "You hold a secret as well, witch. And you've learned enough of mine that I never meant to share."

Elyse laughed at this once more, and the shadows in the room seemed to darken as she did so. "So you admit it. Then do not insult me with these stupid excuses. If you do not trust me-"

"'Tis not that I don't trust you." Martimeos said simply, interrupting her. Elyse seemed caught off-guard by this, settling back a bit, her sly, predatory expression replaced by one of surprise. "Of course I do. I would not have allowed you to remain by my side if I did not. There are many things I might tell you, Elyse, except that I can tell there are many things you do not tell me."

The witch seemed ashamed now. She cast her eyes to the ground, fiddling with the dark ring she wore on her finger, silent for a moment. "If you knew my secrets," she said softly, "You might not be so trusting."

"You would be surprised at what I might trust, in one I knew to be a fine companion, I think," Martimeos replied.

Elyse gave a small start at that, and her wicked look returned. She surged forward, like a flowing shadow in her black robes, and Martim found her curled about him. "A fine companion, indeed," she hissed, eyes wide and wild, and then she struck. She grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him. Martimeos was taken aback, at first, until he realized that Elyse was quite awkward at this. He had a disconcerting memory of a wolf pup he had once seen in the forest, fumbling after a squirrel, its first prey. "That," Elyse said, as she broke away, "Is for stealing the kiss from me. I steal it back. I - what is that look for? Are you laughing at me?"

Martimeos struggled to find a suitable answer as Elyse's glowering, disbelieving stare grew darker and darker, but before he could say anything, there came a rapping noise from behind them. Martimeos looked over Elyse's shoulder to find Grizel standing in the doorway of the room. The old witch leaned on her cane, her eyes gleaming, giving the two of them a nasty leer. "Ah see ye've awakened, then," she said.

In an instant, Elyse was uncurled from Martim, standing up and straightening her robes, so fast that it almost made him wonder whether she had been wrapped around him at all. "Just so," she said, crossing her arms idly, as if she had nothing to be embarrassed about. "His fever is broken. Lucky for him that it did not take him."

Grizel tottered forward, her cane clacking against the stone floor. Flit, who had been nesting in her hair, fluttered forward to greet his master with a series of trills and tweets. The little cardinal seemed to be of a mind with Elyse that Martim was a fool, but only because he had not called on Flit to peck Torc's eyes out during the fight. "Ah had nae worry tha' this one would die from his rotten wound," Grizel grinned. Suddenly, Martimeos did not like the look the old witch was giving him. It was a hungry, almost wolfish look, something wicked written in her wizened, wrinkled features. "Nae, nae worry at all. He's work tae do, ye ken."

Martimeos stroked Flit's head as the bird settled onto his shoulder, and gazed up at Grizel as the witch made her way across the room to stand above him, a shadow haloed by her wild shock of silver hair. "What do you mean, work to do?" he asked cautiously. "Do you want some form of payment for the healing...? I think I still need time to recover, before I do any work."

Grizel cackled, as she stalked around him, her colorful shawl dragging behind her as she did so. "Oh, nae, boy. Et en't somethin' ye're tae do fer me. Et's somethin' Ah ken ye'll do. Th' moment Ah saw ye take Torc's hand, Ah knew. Oh aye, ye'll get yer healin' an' yer rest, dinnae worry about tha'. 'Tis after that, yer work begins."

"What work are you talking about?" Elyse asked, an edge of irritation to her voice, as she regarded Grizel. "I don't know that we should even stick around for any work. Frankly, I think we should make our way out of Dun Cairn as soon as possible."

Grizel stopped her pacing, shaking her head and chuckling to herself. "Et en't somethin ye hae a choice in. Ye'll do et. Ye jest will."

"Do what?" Martim insisted. "Speak plain."

"Why," Grizel replied, giving a gap-toothed smile, "Yer tae kill th' Bogge-King."