Now, though, Murtagh found no thrill in the prospect of a hunt. His wards removed any possible danger, and with it any sense of challenge or accomplishment, leaving only slaughter for the sake of meat. It was a dour thought. There was a significant difference between a hunter and a butcher, and he had no desire to be a butcher.

  Along with Bachel and her retinue, he departed the temple and returned to the front courtyard.

  Dust shook from the building as Thorn landed beside them.

  Bachel spread her arms in a welcoming manner and said, “A hunt, noble dragon! Join us on our venture, and you may slake your thirst for blood and hunger for flesh.”

  Thorn snorted and looked at Murtagh. She enjoys making lots of noise, like a magpie in the morning.

  Do you want to come?

  The dragon licked his chops. I’ll not let you wander off with her alone. Besides, she is not wrong; I do hunger.

  “Assemble, my faithful children!” cried Bachel. “Bring us horses and water and wine and all the things needed for a hunt. Quickly!”

  Dozens of grey-robed cultists and white-robed temple acolytes rushed about the courtyard as they sprang to obey. Alín approached carrying two braces of broad-bladed, short-handled spears, one set of which she handed to Bachel and the other to Murtagh.

  Bachel tested the edges of her spears with her thumb and then pointed a spear at Murtagh, like an accusatory finger. “There is a condition to the hunt, Kingkiller.”

  Of course. “And what would that be, my Lady?”

  “No spells are to be used in the killing of the boars. They are sacred beasts, touched by the power of this place, and it would be disrespectful, as well as blasphemous, to do otherwise.”

  Murtagh likewise tested the edges of his spears. They were tolerably sharp, but the metal seemed to be rather poor iron; they would bend after the first hard blow, and the edges wouldn’t stay sharp for more than a few strokes. Using them would be a challenge, as would forgoing magic.

  He liked the idea.

  “That seems eminently reasonable. I shall abide by your custom.”

  She inclined her head. “The Dreamer will look kindly upon your efforts, my son.”

  Then Murtagh gestured at her spears. “Do you mean to hunt as well, my Lady?”

  A gleam appeared in Bachel’s eyes, and she hefted one of the spears with surprising ease. “Think you that I am incapable?”

  Murtagh didn’t, but neither did he have a good measure of her. In a mild voice, he said, “Hunting boar takes great strength. I have never seen a woman attempt it.”

  Bachel’s laugh echoed off the mountains, and crows cawed in response from the Tower of Flint. “A human woman, you mean to say. ’Tis good, then, that I am not wholly human. The blood of the elves runs in my veins. Though it may not be so thick as my mother’s, it is still thicker than that of the women of your kind.”

  “Then I look forward to seeing your prowess upon the field of action.”

  “And I yours, my son.”

  * * *

  As the cultists hurried to organize the hunting party, several of Bachel’s servants brought screens and held them about her while Alín and two other women attended her. When the screens were lowered, Murtagh saw Bachel no longer in her dress of red but now garbed like a man, with leather vambraces upon her forearms and chased riding boots that went to midthigh and a peaked helm divided by lines of bright rivets. The helm had a half mask to protect her eyes and nose, and an aventail of fine mail edged with rings of brass or bronze. It was a handsome look, Murtagh thought, for war or for sport.

  From among the stone buildings came men leading a score of horses—short, hardy animals that were barely taller than ponies. Their coats were shaggier than those of any horse Murtagh had seen before, as if they were wearing their own knotted blankets for warmth in the long northern winters.

  The cultists gave him a mare with a liver chestnut coat to ride. She was a far cry from the chargers he’d been trained on, but the animal seemed steady enough. He just hoped the mare’s nerve would hold during the hunt.

  Before getting on the horse, he slipped off his cloak and tucked it into one of Thorn’s saddlebags. It would only hinder him when on foot.

  As he climbed onto the mare, Thorn’s disapproval washed over him. It does not seem right to see you ride one of those hornless deer animals.

  Horses. They’re called horses, and you know that.

  But it sounds more insulting to call them hornless deer.

  Murtagh glanced over. If Thorn were human, he would have sworn the dragon was smiling. You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?

  Thorn coughed in his chest. It is not every day I see a Rider riding a horse.

  As the hunting party readied itself for departure, a realization came to Murtagh: Dogs…They don’t have any dogs. Now that he thought of it, the village was surprisingly quiet. There were no hounds baying, nor were there mutts yapping in the streets or scrapping over food. It was an odd thing. In all his years and all his travels, Murtagh had never before seen a human settlement without dogs.

  Are dogs so important? Thorn asked.

  They are. For the common man, having a dog is the closest thing to the bond you and I share.

  Do you mean to compare dragons to dogs?

  No, no. Not as such, only to say that the connection a human may share with a dog can—in part—resemble the connection that we have.

  Thorn seemed unconvinced. Mmm. Did you ever have a dog?

  You know I didn’t…. The other boys would have hurt or killed any dog I owned.

  Thorn’s lip wrinkled slightly, not enough that others would notice, but Murtagh saw. They would not have dared were I there.

  Murtagh chuckled. No. That they wouldn’t.

  He coaxed his mare to sidestep over to Bachel. “I notice you have no dogs.”

  Disdain sharpened the witch’s angled features. “And for good reason. They are blasphemous creatures.”

  “Dogs?”

  “They refuse to accept the insight one may receive through the power of this place. No dog will stay here in Nal Gorgoth, and that has ever been the case. Crows are wiser. They understand the promise of dream.”

  “How will you drive the boars, though?”

  Her hooded gaze grew mysterious. “You shall see, Kingkiller. We will not need such assistance as you are accustomed to.”

  As the group organized their provisions, Murtagh spotted Alín watching from among the temple’s shadowed pillars, a furtive figure half hidden behind the carved stone.

  When everyone in the party was mounted up, Bachel lifted a spear over her head and cried, “With me!” and spurred her shaggy stallion forward, away from the temple and into the village.

  Murtagh was tempted to brandish Zar’roc, as if rallying troops, but instead he spurred his mare and followed at a sedate pace. The cultists trailed after, and Thorn brought up the rear, his weighted tread shaking dust from the shingles of the buildings.

  Dozens of villagers gathered along the streets to watch them depart. Murtagh spotted a surprising number of children among their ranks. It seems like there ought to be more people here, given how many children they have, he said to Thorn. It’s odd.

  The dragon answered: Perhaps they send the younglings elsewhere when they are grown.

  Once the party reached the edge of Nal Gorgoth, Bachel reined in her stallion and pointed toward the southern side of the valley. “Do you see that small gap between the mountains, Kingkiller? Where the trees follow a stream out of the heights? That is our destination.”

  “We will find boars there, my Lady?”

  “Enough to feed a thunder of dragons!” Then she spurred her stallion again, bending low over the horse’s neck as he sprang forward with a startled snort over the blackened earth.

  Grieve scowled and lashed the side of his mare as he followed. “Keep with the Speaker, blast you!” he shouted at the warriors who filled out their party.

  With a clamor of drumming hooves and the cries of the excited men, the group headed south toward the narrow wedge of space that separated one mountain from the next.

  It will be a wonder if we don’t scare away all the boars with this ruckus, said Murtagh.

  Thorn surprised him then by taking flight; his wings cast a crimson shadow upon the group as he soared over them. I will scout ahead and see where our prey might be, before you drive them from their feeding grounds and watering holes.

  Murtagh watched with some regret as Thorn rose with enviable ease above the foothills. He wished he were riding Thorn instead of the mare with the coat of liver chestnut; he hated being left behind among strangers.

  Most of all, he hated how familiar a feeling it was.

  The air grew warmer as they neared the sliver of a side valley, and more and more wisps of smoke rose like garden eels from the crusted earth. A few times, a scrap of wind-torn smoke struck him in the face, and he gagged from the overwhelming stench of sulfur. The land had a charred and barren appearance, as if razed by fire in the recent past.

  Bachel had slowed her stallion to a more measured pace, so Murtagh rode up next to her. “I’ve never seen a place like this before, except for the Burning Plains far to the south. And those don’t smell of brimstone.”

  The witch nodded. “There are many such places, Kingkiller, scattered about Alagaësia, though you will not easily find them. There is another, not far south of here: the barrows of Anghelm, where Kulkarvek the Terrible is buried in state.”

  Murtagh fought to hide his reaction. Kulkarvek was the only Urgal known to have united their fractious race under a single banner, an event that had occurred long before the fall of the Riders, if stories were to be trusted. His resting place was one of the other locations—along with the ruins of El-harím and Vroengard Island—that Umaroth had warned Thorn and Murtagh to avoid.

  But what bothered him most was the implication that there were many such places throughout Alagaësia: places where the ground was burnt and the air smelled of brimstone.

  Why aren’t they more widely known? he asked Thorn. Even if they’re in remote, isolated locations, surely the Riders or others would have noticed any place that smelled like this. It would be difficult to hide, especially from the air.

  A weirding veil, perhaps? A spell that hides the obvious from sight?

  Wards ought to block that sort of thing.

  It depends on the spell. You know that. It could be an enchantment of a sort none now are familiar with. Or something akin to the Banishing of the Names.

  Murtagh glanced up at Thorn. Dragon magic?…Do you feel something of that here?

  I do not know what I feel, only that the land seems alive, despite the charring.

  The world narrowed around them as the hunting party entered the side valley and the mountains pinched close, until the foothills were only a few hundred feet apart and dense ranks of trees blocked their sight. It was good, Murtagh thought, that Thorn was in the air and not there in such tight quarters.

  Bachel led the way along a well-trodden path that wound between the tall pines.

  Past the gap, the valley widened again, and Murtagh beheld what elsewhere in the Spine would have been a long alpine field where deer and bears and other wildlife would gather. Not here. Here the earth was still scorched and blackened, and the trees were dead and skeletal—bare of all but a few clumps of brittle needles. None of which made as strong an impression on Murtagh as the enormous numbers of mushrooms growing from the ground.

  They came in all kinds. Brown-capped, white-capped, round as puffballs, tiered like the temple in Nal Gorgoth, broad as shields or as tall and narrow as a spear; the profusion of forms was overwhelming. There were gilled mushrooms, and mushrooms as red as ladybugs, and huge woody funguses that rose higher than a horse-mounted man. A rich, savory smell scented the area—like a cut of well-cooked beef—and thin veils of brown spores drifted upward along currents of rising air, mixing with the wisps of vapor from the ground.

  Amid the field and forest of mushrooms, Murtagh spotted dark shapes moving through the shadows: monstrous wild boars, ridge-backed and covered in coarse black bristles.

  “They eat the mushrooms and grow to exceptional size because of it,” Bachel explained, bringing her horse alongside his. “It gives their meat a taste unlike any other.”

  Murtagh shook his head, still taking in the sight. “I’ve never seen or heard of mushrooms like these.”

  “The ground here suits them as much as it is hostile to green growing plants.”

  From above, it looks as if the ground is covered with melted fat, said Thorn, circling over the far end of the narrow crevice splitting the Spine, some miles away.

  Delightful, Murtagh replied.

  Bachel continued: “As you can see, we need no drivers. We are our own drivers. We will push toward the head of the valley, and the boars will gather before us. If your dragon—”

  “He is only mine as much as I am his.”

  Her eyelids drooped with what seemed like amusement. “Of course, Kingkiller. If Thorn wishes to hunt there at the other end, he might help us and so trap the boars between our spears and his teeth and claws.”

  It is a good plan, said Thorn, and Murtagh could almost hear him snap his jaws shut with finality. I will do so. The dragon folded his crimson wings and dove toward the far end of the valley, a burning meteor blazing.

  The ranks of mushrooms hid Thorn as he descended.

  Then Bachel lifted her spear. “Dismount!” The hunting party obeyed, as did Murtagh, grateful to be rid of the liver chestnut mare for the time being.

  Some seconds later, a muted thud rolled down the valley: the sound of Thorn’s impact belatedly arriving.

  There were, Murtagh saw, numerous game trails wending through the expanse of overgrown mushrooms—pathways pounded flat by the passage of countless sharp hooves.

  Along with the cultists, Murtagh staked and hobbled his horse and then set out on foot along the near trail. The ground, though blackened, was softer than by Nal Gorgoth, as if the entire subsurface were riddled with fungus.

  Murtagh made a face as he stepped on a shelf of brown mushroom and it dissolved into a slippery, foul-smelling liquid the color of night soil.

  “Spread out,” commanded Bachel. Her warriors responded quickly, forming an arching line to either side of her. Grieve remained close by, which she seemed to expect.

  Murtagh moved away from the group toward the eastern side of the valley. He wanted space to maneuver; hunting with strangers was always a dangerous proposition, and doubly so here. Besides, he knew from past boar hunts that having room to run was often the difference between success and injury or death.

  “Where are you going, Kingkiller?” Bachel called out in a gay voice.

  “I hunt better alone, Lady Bachel!” he answered in a like tone.

  She flashed him a savage smile. The mushrooms appeared archaic—primitive predecessors of more finely finished plants—as if they’d endured from a time beyond recorded history, and Bachel seemed a part of that ancient remnant. “Only remember to control your tongue, Kingkiller. You must make your kill without magic.”

  “Oh, that I shall,” he muttered. No matter how poor the metal used to make the spears they’d given him, Murtagh knew he could deliver at least one fatal blow apiece.

  Step by measured step, they proceeded up the valley. Ahead of them, an occasional roar sounded as Thorn chased this boar or that. It wasn’t long before the dragon touched his mind again, and Murtagh found it full of blood and excitement and the hot thrill of the hunt.

  The witch was right, said Thorn. The meat is good.

  Murtagh laughed softly. That should be all the recommendation a butcher or cook needs. A dragon said, “The meat is good.”

  Thorn roared with amusement.

  Mushrooms crunched and squished and snapped beneath Murtagh’s boots with every step. The soft fungal bodies made it difficult to keep a steady footing. He was off any trail now, which wasn’t ideal for finding game, but it allowed him to keep his distance from Bachel’s group, a few hundred feet to his right.

  His senses sharpened as he neared the edge of a dense stand of…he wasn’t sure what to call them. Mushroom trees? Their gnarled trunks were as broad as a horse’s chest and had scraps of cobweb-like membranes clinging to them. Please, no giant spiders, Murtagh thought. He would rather face a horde of Urgals barehanded.

  The air was thick and moist and smelled fleshy and overheated, as if he were pressed close against an enormous, sweating armpit. He grimaced and moved forward with caution, eyes darting from shadow to shadow as he looked for any boars.

  Would it be using magic to find the beasts with my mind?

  He hadn’t meant the thought for Thorn, but the dragon answered all the same: Do you care about pleasing Bachel?

  I care about keeping my word.

  Murtagh decided to rely on only his eyes and ears for the time being. It made for an even more interesting challenge.

  A chorus of squeals and grunts sounded across the field to his right. He dropped into a crouch as he spotted a cluster of seven or so hogs—boars and sows alike—run out from under the treelike mushrooms and charge Bachel and her line of warriors.