A thought did occur to Declan, then, and his eyes fell from the distant horizon to the wheezing forms of the two warg the old man had seen spared.

  Clever, he thought to himself with a smirk, suddenly suspecting the abruptness of Bonner’s idea might just have been masking a well thought-out—and thoroughly considered—plan of action.

  “The dark elves?” Ester asked in what was almost a moan, obviously not believing her own ears. “Father, you can’t be…” She paused, gaping at the mage for a moment longer. “You are, aren’t you? You are serious? Gods above…”

  “Can you give a suggestion to the contrary?” Bonner asked her, though Declan felt the question was really meant to address the group as a whole. “South sees us likely fall prey to the necromancer, back west is only delaying the same, and any variation of east very likely means a slow and plodding fight for every day gained through the wereyn, who are likely to overrun us the moment they are told of our presence and ordered to converge.” He indicated the distant horizon he was facing with a tilt of his head. “North seems our only option, in many ways.”

  No one argued this. No one had any way of arguing this. Still, just the same, Declan felt justified in staring at the back of the old man’s bald head in open astonishment given that he knew Ester and even Ryn were doing the same within an arm’s length.

  You think they would take us in? the dragon finally got out. That easily? You think they would join us?

  Bonner seemed, then, to deflate ever so slightly before their eyes, shoulders sagging under the pressure of the question.

  “Truthfully… I can’t say. I can hope as much, but I know no more of the er’endehn than you do, Ryndean. They may well take what information we have and imprison us in the same manner as their counterparts to the south would, and that’s only if they believed us.”

  They would believe us.

  It was Bonner’s turn to look surprised, and he turned to look at the dragon with raised eyebrows. “They would? You’re sure?”

  Ryn hesitated. When he spoke, he sounded as uncertain as his expression. Arrackes should be with them, if he’s still alive.

  Bonner’s eyes widened, his mouth forming into a quiet “oh” of comprehension.

  “Who is Arrackes?” Ester asked, narrowing her eyes and looking between Ryn and her father.

  A dragon, Ryn answered, not looking away from Bonner, but reinforcing Declan’s relief that there would be no more secrets between them now. Older than I by a thousand years, but one of a few who were still willing to follow my commands after the war ended.

  “You mentioned that,” Declan interrupted, but paused, looking at Bonner. “Or was it you? Didn’t you say there were others?”

  “And that Ryndean was electing to live in isolation, away from his kind,” the mage continued with a disgruntled shrug. Then his face softened. “I did, and it’s true, but not without cause. There was a choice to make, after Elysia took down Sehranya—or thought she did. There were a handful of those dragons that remained who would have followed Ryndean, who would have bowed to him as a primordial and seen him redeem his place among their race with time. He could have stayed in the Reaches with them, could have seen to consolidating his own power and raising his kind back to prominence. Instead…”

  Instead, Ryn picked up, looking somewhat pained, I had those who would have followed me scatter themselves across the realms. As I’ve said, Declan, the Accord still holds, and I never quite believed Sehranya was gone for good. Not without a body to prove it. Then again, even if I’d had the proof, who knew when a threat like her would rear its head again? Elysia tempered the dangers of magic with her prohibition, but she also castrated your kind in doing so. The armies of man are still formidable in their vastness, but without its mages the Vigil is a shadow of what it once was. I had to consider what would happen if someone like the Endless Queen took hold of the world again. He shrugged. So I disseminated my dragons, the handful whose faith I still held, with orders to live their lives with one eye ever open. He looked north almost wistfully. Arrackes is such a sentry. If he still lives, he will have spent seven hundred years in Eserysh, likely among the er’endehn. He could vouch for us, assuming his word holds any sway with their High Chancellor.

  “‘If’,” Ester repeated almost under her breath, clearly unconvinced. “‘Assuming’. There are a lot of uncertain factors in this plan, you two.” She was watching Ryn and Bonner with a mix of fear and trepidation. “Not to mention the Tears themselves. Between the two of you the climb would certainly be easier, but if the ranges are even half as barren as the stories I’ve heard, where are we going to find food?”

  “We buy it,” Bonner answered like this was the obvious solution.

  “With what coin?” Ester insisted, face regaining some of its color, starting to flush with irritation. “We’ve hardly anything left of the levers Declan took from his accounts, and an ascent like that must take weeks. Even if Ryn bears the brunt of the load, we’ll be weighed down beyond our ability.”

  “Money won’t be an issue,” Declan said over his shoulder, already turning away from the circle and moving a little ways down the hill.

  “‘Won’t be an issue’?!” Ester hissed after him. “How won’t it be an issue if what little gold we have to rub together—your gold, I might add—has to earn us not only warm clothes, but also the supplies enough for a fortnight of travel with no chance of resupply? And where are you going?”

  Declan didn’t answer immediately, kneeling down beside the closest of the wight’s bodies. It was the captain, he saw the thong about his neck absent the horrible charm that has caused them so much trouble, leather dyed black now by the congealed blood of the ruin Ryn’s sword had made of the man’s head at some point during the fight. Ignoring the unappealing sight with a quick prayer to the Mother and Her Graces, Declan untied the object he’d seen from the body’s belt with quick fingers, standing again before tossing it back up the hill.

  The coin purse landed amidst his companions’ feet with an audible thump and the faint clink of metal.

  “Wereyn have no use for money,” he said with a friendly grin at Ester, starting to climb again. The half-elf was looking at the purse with dawning understanding. “They took the steel, but left the gold.”

  There was a moment of silence, then Ryn snorted.

  Ester glared at him briefly, then looked at Declan, fire in her green eyes. “Fine, money won’t be an issue,” she repeated like she didn’t like the sounds of the words. “That only solves one problem, though, and the lesser of two. Now, if you would be so kind as to explain how you plan to carry half-a-month’s provisions without turning our resident dragon into Viridian’s most overburdened pack mule, I’m all ears.”

  “Your father’s already thought of that,” Declan said slowly, eyeing the mage. “Haven’t you, Bonner?”

  The old man paused, about to answer his daughter, to blink at Declan. He broke into a broad smile, chuckling. “You’re a sharp boy, Declan. I’ll give you that much.”

  What? Ryn, for once, was among those left behind now. What do you mean? You already have a solution?

  Declan gave a low laugh which he hoped cloaked the nervousness of his answer. “The warg. Bonner thinks we can tame the warg to our advantage.”

  It was a distasteful chore, collecting what purses they could find from the other dead. Declan wasn’t bothered by the pillaging—one took what one needed to survive, in a war—but it turned out not all of the wights had been as cleanly killed as they might have liked. Several—generally among those who had fallen to Ryn’s claymore—were in pieces and immobile, but with heads intact. It fell to Declan and Ester to gather the coin, and therefore in the same vein to see to it that the corpses in question wouldn’t rise around them, even maimed as they were.

  “Ugh,” Ester groaned from nearby, and Declan turned to see her withdraw her saber blade from the eye of one unfortunate woman Ryn’s sword had seen cleaved entirely in half, her legs and the lower part of her torso lying some five feet up the hill. “I don’t think this is what the storytellers have in mind when they spin their tales of adventure and grand treasure.”

  Declan laughed, setting his own bastard sword against the nape of a man’s skull and thrusting it in and up. He’d recovered the weapon shortly before, found not far from where he’d thought he’d lost it, and was grateful for the comfort of its plain weight back in his hand. “I don’t know about adventure, but the ‘treasure’ part seems to be holding true.” He held up the trio of purses gathered in his other hand with a grin. The smile faltered, however, when he noticed blood dripping from the soaked side of one of the burlap sacks. “Don’t know about ‘grand’, though…”

  Ester snorted, bending down to relieve the woman she had been seeing to of her own pouch and tossing it into the small pile she’d started nearby. She paused, arm falling slowly back to her side, listening to the yowling and growling which had drowned out the buzz of the flies for the last several minutes.

  “Do you think it’s going well?” she asked over her shoulder, not looking back at Declan.

  He shrugged, moving on to the next corpse. “Your father can speak to bears and basically pull a drey out of the sky with living magic. If anyone can sway a couple of beasts like those, it’s him. And—” he stopped over the body of a young man, who was absent both arms and a leg “—if he can’t, Ryn will make short work of them.”

  Ester nodded, but even with her back to him Declan could tell she wasn’t altogether convinced.

  Finally, she resumed her task, looking discontent. “He should have just turned and fired the whole damn hill from the sky,” she muttered. “Then we wouldn’t have been attacked and no one would have gotten injured in the first place.” She eyed Declan’s chest with barely-masked worry. “You’re sure you’re all right? I wasn’t kidding when I said I could see bone, you know?”

  Declan gave her a truer smile this time, glancing down at himself. He’d taken the time to replace his ruined shirt with a new one, a grey garment of thinly-spun cotton he was particularly fond of. “I’m fine,” he said for what might have been the sixth time, admitting to himself he didn’t dislike being the subject of the half-elf’s concern. “And I think you know that would have been a bad idea. He was exhausted for days after the last time, and we can see the fairway from the hill. I’m not sure even Ryn could create an illusion broad enough to hide his true form.”

  Ester mumbled something under her breath with a shrug, returning to her work. Declan followed suit, and within another five minutes they’d seen to the rest of the corpses, including the two wights that had nearly torn him limb from limb just inside the line of the trees. All in all most of the Vigil soldiers had been carrying some amount of coin when the wereyn had fallen upon them, and so the two ended up with more than half-a-dozen purses each, cradled in both arms when they set off around the hill towards the sounds of the warg’s angry snaps and howls.

  “I hope they hurry up,” Ester said as they walked, glancing into the forest behind them nervously. “I know we’re not that close to the High Road, but if someone hears them…”

  “Ryn is probably keeping a lookout for that,” Declan assured her as they came around the edge of the hill.

  There would have been a time, not so long ago, in which the outlandish nature of the scene which unfolded before the pair of them as they cleared the rise would have left Declan bewildered and without words, and a not insignificant part of himself missed and longed for those simpler days. Now, it was with nothing more than mild curiosity that he approached the four figures. Ryn was largely at ease, leaning back on his clawed hands where he’d seated himself in a rare patch of clean grass, the sheathed claymore lying beside him while he watched Bonner’s actions unfold. The mage, for his part, was standing closer to the two warg than any sane man might have found prudent, but given that the paired beasts were lashed securely on their sides by several knotted roots the thickness of Declan’s arm, he appeared to have little cause to worry. The animals themselves were yowling and squirming, but their wounds—both old and new—had been healed, and their distress now was merely a manifestation of being immobilized and approached by a strange man who couldn’t have looked or smelled anything like the riders they’d likely known all their lives.

  “How’s it going?” Declan asked of Ryn, dropping his gathered purses to the ground with mirrored thumps before claiming a place for himself beside the dragon. Ester did the same, sitting on his other side, watching her father.

  Ryn grunted. As well as can be expected? He answered like he wasn’t quite sure of the statement. I think he’s been talking to them, in his own way. They settled a little after he saw to their injuries, but I can’t tell if he’s had much luck since.

  Declan nodded, turning his attention on Bonner and the beasts. The old man was in the process of kneeling by the head of the larger of the two—a male, Declan believed—his hand reaching out, thumb and small finger extended. At first the warg growled and snapped its massive jaws at the limb, ugly stained fangs gnashing together, but as the mage’s hand came down, the animal quieted. It continued to glare at him, black beady eyes taking Bonner in with dim suspicion. If the man was remotely afraid, he didn’t show it, and with deliberate steadiness he brought the knuckles of his bent fingers down to rest gently between the warg’s broad ears, hushing softly. Slowly he pet the animal like that, running his hand up and down the crest of the animal’s muzzle slowly. For several seconds nothing more impressive than the warg’s silence held.

  Then the beast eased its head down slowly, resting it against the ground, allowing itself to be stroked with the same uncertain enjoyment of a stray dog being shown kindness for the first time.

  From their safe distance away, Declan, Ester, and Ryn all gaped in astonishment.

  “That was amazing,” Declan finally got out in a low breath, not completely believing his eyes while Bonner yr’Essel continued to pet the calmed warg with as much care as he might have a housecat.

  Ryn laughed beside him nervously. Mind over matter, I suppose.

  Declan and Ester both nodded numbly, having no other words to answer with.

  “Good lad,” Declan heard the mage say under his breath. “There you go. There’s a good boy.”

  He stayed like that for almost a minute. When the old man finally pushed himself up to his knees, Declan could have sworn he heard the male whimper, like he was asking for more, but Bonner was already moving cautiously towards the second of the creatures. This one—a slightly smaller female, Declan thought—had grown somber upon witnessing the taming of her companion, but it was with more rebellion than curiosity that she watched Bonner approach her. When he was within arm’s reach, the growling and writhing started up again with a desperate fervor.

  “Easy, girl,” Bonner could be heard to say, kneeling beside the female’s head in the same way he had the male’s. “You’ll hurt yourself like that. Easy. Eas—ouch!”

  Declan, Ester, and Ryn alike were on their feet in a blur, going for their weapons, but Bonner waved them off with a bleeding hand without even looking around.

  “Just a nip!” he assured them over his shoulder. “Settle. You’ll only make her more nervous.”

  Declan thought the sizable divot in the meat of the man’s outer palm looked like rather more than “a nip”, but after a second’s hesitation he relaxed the grip on his sword. Ryn followed his example, but it took some coaxing from both of them before Ester did the same, her saber having already been pulled half out of its sheath before her father had assured them all was well. Still, they didn’t sit down again, and it was with a dose more trepidation that they watched Bonner work his magic—if indeed it was magic. Declan couldn’t be sure. There were no runes, no flashes of light as he had seen with some of the man’s casting. The roots held the beasts firm—even the calmed male—but he knew enough to believe he was seeing something altogether different take place, something more subtle than the weaves the mage so aptly used to manipulate the physical world.

  Again, Declan felt a pang of anticipation, recalling the promise of instruction Bonner had made him earlier that very morning.

  It took a good deal longer, but eventually the female settled, though even after she’d let her head to the ground she appeared restless, eyes blinking and ears twitching with every sound and motion around her. As before, Bonner stayed by her side several minutes longer, and it was only after her tail had quit its uneasy batting that he stood up carefully again.

  “Alright. I’m going to release them.”

  You’re sure that’s wise? Ryn asked as he, Declan, and Ester all took up the hilts of their swords again, at the ready.

  Bonner didn’t answer, a fact that didn’t lend itself to the group’s confidence in whatever whisperings the man had managed to put into the warg’s ears.

  Bonner took several steps back, Ester moving aside so that he could slip in line with them between she and Declan, then carefully lifted his injured hand—the nip already having partially knit itself together—and lowered it. Heeding his command, the roots that were the beasts’ cages shuddered, then began to pull away, slipping over and off the massive, shaggy bodies like earthen snakes to slide back into the coolness of the ground. Once they realized they were free, the warg regained some of their earlier energy, thrashing and snorting until they rolled themselves onto wolfish legs and stood up.

  The first sign that things might work out—or so Declan hoped—was that the beasts neither outright attacked them nor turned tail and fled into the open forest that waited for them not ten feet further down the hill. Rather, the pair trotted to each other and sniffed at one another’s sides, licking the dried blood about their faces and eyeing the conspicuously absent spaces of empty fur and new scars that had been gaping lacerations not long before. Only once they appeared assured they were each indeed unharmed did the warg turn to look at Declan and the others, black gazes not completely without malice, but overcome much more greatly with what might have been curiosity and—to no one’s surprise—hunger.