Once we had avoided Tur­lake and the sur­round­ing towns we swung north again to strike the Vin River. It was as dif­fer­ent from the Buck River as a cow is from a stal­lion. Grey and pla­cid, it slid along between open fields, wal­low­ing back and forth in its wide grav­elly chan­nel. On our side of the river, there was a trail that more or less par­alleled the wa­ter, but most of the traffic on it were goats and cattle. We could al­ways hear when a herd or flock was be­ing moved, and we eas­ily avoided them. The Vin was not as nav­ig­able a river as the Buck, be­ing shal­lower and given to shift­ing sand­bars, but there was some boat trade on it. On the Tilth side of the Vin, there was a well-used road, and fre­quent vil­lages and even towns. We saw barges be­ing drawn up­stream by mule teams along some stretches; I sur­mised that such cargo would have to be port­aged past the shal­lows. Set­tle­ments on our side of the river seemed lim­ited to ferry land­ings and in­fre­quent trad­ing posts for the no­madic her­ders. These might of­fer an inn, a few shops and a hand­ful of houses cling­ing to the out­skirts, but not much more than that. Nighteyes and I avoided them. The few vil­lages we en­countered on our side of the river were deser­ted at this time of year.

  The no­madic her­ders, tent dwell­ers dur­ing the hot­ter months, pas­tured their herds on the cent­ral plains now, mov­ing sed­ately from wa­ter­hole to wa­ter­hole across the rich graz­ing lands. Grass grew in the vil­lage streets and up the sides of the sod houses. There was a peace to these aban­doned towns, and yet the empti­ness still re­minded me of a raided vil­lage. We never lingered close to one.

  We both grew leaner and stronger. I wore through my shoes and had to patch them with raw­hide. I wore my trousers off at the cuff and hemmed them up about my calves. I grew tired of wash­ing my shirt so of­ten; the blood of the Forged ones and our kills had left the front and the cuffs of it mottled brown. It was as men­ded and tattered as a beg­gar’s shirt, and the un­even col­our made it only more pathetic. I bundled it into my pack one day and went shirt­less. The days were mild enough that I did not miss it, and dur­ing the cooler nights we were on the move and my body made its own warmth. The sun baked me al­most as dark as my wolf. Phys­ic­ally, I felt good. I was not as strong as I had been when I was pulling an oar and fight­ing, nor as muscled. But I felt healthy and limber and lean. I could trot all night be­side a wolf and not be wear­ied. I was a quick and stealthy an­imal, and I proved over and over to my­self my abil­ity to sur­vive. I re­gained a great deal of the con­fid­ence that Regal had des­troyed. Not that my body had for­given and for­got­ten all that Regal had done to it, but I had ad­ap­ted to its twinges and scars. Al­most, I had put the dun­geon be­hind me. I did not let my dark goal over­shadow those golden days. Nighteyes and I trav­elled, hunted, slept and trav­elled again. It was all so simple and good that I for­got to value it. Un­til I lost it.

  We had come down to the river as even­ing darkened, in­tend­ing to drink well be­fore be­gin­ning our night’s travel. But as we drew near, Nighteyes had sud­denly frozen, drop­ping his belly to the earth while cant­ing his ears for­ward. I fol­lowed his ex­ample, and then even my dull nose caught an un­fa­mil­iar scent. What and where? I asked him.

  I saw them be­fore he could reply. Tiny deer, step­ping dain­tily along on their way down to wa­ter. They were not much taller than Nighteyes, and in­stead of antlers, they had goat-like spiralling horns that shone glossy black in the full moon’s light. I knew of such creatures only from an old bes­ti­ary that Chade had, and I could not re­mem­ber what they were prop­erly called.

  Food? Nighteyes sug­ges­ted suc­cinctly, and I im­me­di­ately con­curred. The trail they were fol­low­ing would bring them within a leap and a spring of us. Nighteyes and I held our po­s­i­tions, wait­ing. The deer came closer, a dozen of them, hur­ry­ing and care­less now as they scen­ted the cool wa­ter. We let the one in the lead pass, wait­ing to spring on the main body of the herd where they were most closely bunched. But just as Nighteyes gathered him­self with a quiver to jump, a long waver­ing howl slid down the night.

  Nighteyes sat up, an anxious whine burst­ing from him. The deer scattered in an ex­plo­sion of hooves and horns, flee­ing us even though we were both too dis­trac­ted to pur­sue them. Our meal be­came sud­denly a dis­tant light thun­der. I looked after them in dis­may, but Nighteyes did not even seem to no­tice.

  Mouth open, Nighteyes made sounds between a howl and a keen, his jaws quiv­er­ing and work­ing as if he strove to re­mem­ber how to speak. The jolt I had felt from him at the wolf’s dis­tant howl had made my heart leap in my chest. If my own mother had sud­denly called out to me from the night, the shock could not have been greater. An­swer­ing howls and barks erup­ted from a gentle rise to the north of us. The first wolf joined in with them. Nighteyes’ head swiv­elled back and forth as he whined low in his throat. Ab­ruptly he threw back his head and let out a jagged howl of his own. Sud­den still­ness fol­lowed his de­clar­a­tion, then the pack on the rise gave tongue again, not a hunt­ing cry, but an an­nounce­ment of them­selves.

  Nighteyes gave me a quick apo­lo­getic look, and left. In dis­be­lief I watched him race off to­ward the ridge. After an in­stant of as­ton­ish­ment, I leaped to my feet and fol­lowed. He was already a sub­stan­tial dis­tance ahead of me, but when he be­came aware of me, he slowed, and then roun­ded to face me.

  I must go alone, he told me earn­es­tly. Wait for me here. He whirled about to re­sume his jour­ney.

  Panic struck me. Wait! You can’t go alone. They are not pack. We’re in­truders, they’ll at­tack you. Bet­ter not to go at all.

  I must! he re­peated. There was no mis­tak­ing his de­term­in­a­tion. He trot­ted off.

  I ran after him. Nighteyes, please! I was sud­denly ter­ri­fied for him, for what he was char­ging into so ob­sessedly.

  He paused and looked back at me, his eyes meet­ing mine in what was a very long stare for a wolf. You un­der­stand. You know you do. Now is the time for you to trust as I have trus­ted. This is some­thing I must do. And I must do it alone.

  And if you do not come back? I asked in sud­den des­per­a­tion.

  You came back from your visit into that town. And I shall come back to you. Con­tinue to travel along the river. I shall find you. Go on, now. Go back.

  I stopped trot­ting after him. He kept go­ing. Be care­ful! I flung the plea after him, my own form of howl­ing into the night. Then I stood and watched him trot away from me, the power­ful muscles rip­pling un­der his deep fur, his tail held out straight in de­term­in­a­tion. It took every bit of strength I had to re­frain from cry­ing out to him to come back, to plead with him not to leave me alone. I stood alone, breath­ing hard from run­ning, and watched him dwindle in the dis­tance. He was so in­tent on his seek­ing that I felt closed out and set aside. For the first time I ex­per­i­en­ced the re­sent­ment and jeal­ousy that he had felt dur­ing my ses­sions with Ver­ity, or when I had been with Molly and had com­man­ded him to stay away from my thoughts.

  This was his first adult con­tact with his own kind. I un­der­stood his need to seek them out and see what they were, even if they at­tacked him and drove him away. It was right. But all the fears I had for him whined at me to run after him, to be by his side in case he were at­tacked, to be at least within strik­ing dis­tance if he should need me.

  But he had asked me not to.

  No. He had told me not to. Told me, ex­ert­ing the same priv­ilege of self that I had ex­er­ted with him. I felt it wrenched my heart side­ways in my chest to turn away from him and walk back to­ward the river. I felt sud­denly half blind. He was not trot­ting be­side and ahead of me, re­lay­ing his in­form­a­tion to sup­ple­ment what my own duller senses de­livered to me. In­stead, I could sense him in the dis­tance. I felt the thrill­ing of an­ti­cip­a­tion, fear and curi­os­ity that trembled through him. He was too in­tent on his own life at the mo­ment to share with me. Sud­denly I wondered if this was akin to what Ver­ity had felt, when I was out on the Rurisk, har­ry­ing the Raid­ers while he had to sit in his tower and be con­tent with whatever in­form­a­tion he could glean from me. I had re­por­ted much more fully to him, had made a con­scious ef­fort to keep up a stream of in­form­a­tion to him. Still, he must have felt some­thing of this wrench­ing ex­clu­sion that now sickened me.

  I reached the ri­verb­ank. I hal­ted there, to sit down and wait for him. He had said he would come back. I stared out over the dark­ness of the mov­ing wa­ter. My life felt small in­side me. Slowly I turned to look up­stream. All in­clin­a­tion to hunt had fled with Nighteyes.

  I sat and waited for a long time. Fi­nally I got up and moved on through the night, pay­ing scant at­ten­tion to my­self and my sur­round­ings. I walked si­lently on the sandy ri­verb­ank, ac­com­pan­ied by the hush­ing of the wa­ters.

  Some­where, Nighteyes scen­ted other wolves, scen­ted them clean and strong, well enough to know how many and what sexes they were. Some­where he showed him­self to them, not threat­en­ing, not en­ter­ing their com­pany, but simply an­noun­cing to them that he was there. For a time they watched him. The big male of the pack ad­vanced and ur­in­ated on a tus­sock of grass. He then scratched deep fur­rows with the claws on his hind feet as he kicked dirt at it. A fe­male stood and stretched and yawned, and then sat, star­ing green-eyed up at him. Two half-grown cubs stopped chew­ing one an­other long enough to con­sider him. One star­ted to­ward him, but a low rumble from his mother brought him hasten­ing back. He went back to chew­ing at his lit­ter­mate. And Nighteyes sat down, a set­tling on the haunches that showed he meant no harm and let them look at him. A skinny young fe­male gave half a hes­it­ant whine, then broke it off with a sneeze.

  After a time, most of the wolves got up and set out pur­pose­fully to­gether. Hunt­ing. The skinny fe­male stayed with the cubs, watch­ing over them as the oth­ers left. Nighteyes hes­it­ated, then fol­lowed the pack at a dis­creet dis­tance. From time to time, one of the wolves would glance back at him. The lead male stopped fre­quently to ur­in­ate and then scuff at the ground with his back legs.

  As for me, I walked on by the river, watch­ing the night age around me. The moon per­formed her slow pas­sage of the night sky. I took dry meat from my pack and chewed it as I walked, stop­ping once to drink the chalky wa­ter. The river had swung to­ward me in its grav­elly bed. I was forced to for­sake the shore and walk on a tus­socky bank above it. As dawn cre­ated a ho­ri­zon, I cast about for a place to sleep. I settled for a slightly higher rise on the bank and curled up small amidst the coarse grasses. I would be in­vis­ible un­less someone al­most stepped on me. It was as safe a spot as any.

  I felt very alone.

  I did not sleep well. A part of me sat watch­ing other wolves, still from a dis­tance. They were as aware of me as I was of them. They had not ac­cep­ted me, but neither had they driven me off. I had not gone so close as to force them to de­cide about me. I had watched them kill a buck, of a kind of deer I did not know. It seemed small to feed all of them. I was hungry, but not so hungry that I needed to hunt yet. My curi­os­ity about this pack was a more press­ing hun­ger. I sat and watched them as they sprawled in sleep.

  My dreams moved away from Nighteyes. Again I felt the dis­join­ted know­ledge that I was dream­ing, but was power­less to awaken. Some­thing summoned me, tug­ging at me with a ter­rible ur­gency. I answered that sum­mons, re­luct­ant but un­able to re­fuse. I found an­other day some­where, and the sick­en­ingly fa­mil­iar smoke and screams rising to­gether into the blue sky by the ocean. An­other town in Bearns was fight­ing and fall­ing to the Raid­ers. Once more I was claimed as wit­ness. On that night, and al­most every night to fol­low, the war with the Red Ships was forced back on me.

  That battle, and each of the ones that fol­lowed are etched some­where on my heart, in re­lent­less de­tail. Scent and sound and touch, I lived them all. Some­thing in me listened, and each time I slept, it dragged me mer­ci­lessly to where Six Duch­ies folk fought and died for their homes. I was to ex­per­i­ence more of the fall of Bearns than any one who ac­tu­ally lived in that Duchy. For from day to day, whenever I tried to sleep, I might at any time find my­self called to wit­ness. I knew no lo­gic for it. Per­haps the pen­chant for the Skill slept in many folk of the Six Duch­ies and faced with death and pain they cried out to Ver­ity and me with voices they did not know they pos­sessed. More than once, I sensed my king like­wise stalk­ing the night­mare-wracked towns, though never again did I see him so plainly as I had that first time. Later, I would re­call that once I had dream-shared a time with King Shrewd when he was sim­il­arly called to wit­ness the fall of Silt­bay. I have wondered since how of­ten he was tor­men­ted by wit­ness­ing the raids on towns he was power­less to pro­tect.

  Some part of me knew that I slept by the Vin River, far from this ram­pa­ging battle, sur­roun­ded by tall river grass and swept by a clean wind. It did not seem im­port­ant. What mattered was the sud­den real­ity of the on­go­ing battles the Six Duch­ies faced against the Raid­ers. This name­less little vil­lage in Bearns was prob­ably not of great stra­tegic im­port­ance, but it was fall­ing as I watched, one more brick crum­bling out of a wall. Once the Raid­ers pos­sessed the Bearns coast, the Six Duch­ies would never be freed of them. And they were tak­ing that coast, town by town, ham­let by ham­let, while the erstwhile King sheltered in Trade­ford. The real­ity of our struggle against the Red Ships had been im­min­ent and press­ing when I had pulled an oar on the Rurisk. Over the past few months, in­su­lated and isol­ated from the war, I had al­lowed my­self to for­get the folk who lived that con­flict every day. I had been as un­feel­ing as Regal.

  I fi­nally awoke as even­ing began to steal the col­ours from the river and plain. I did not feel I had res­ted, and yet it was a re­lief to awaken. I sat up, looked about my­self. Nighteyes had not re­turned to me. I ques­ted briefly to­ward him. My brother, he ac­know­ledged me, but I sensed he was an­noyed at my in­tru­sion. He was watch­ing the two cubs tumble each other about. I pulled my mind back to my­self wear­ily. The con­trast between our two lives was sud­denly too great even to con­sider. The Red Ship Raid­ers, the For­gings and Regal’s treacher­ies, even my plan to kill Regal were sud­denly nasty hu­man things I had fois­ted off on the wolf. What right was there in let­ting such ugli­ness shape his life? He was where he was sup­posed to be.

  As little as I liked it, the task I had set my­self was mine alone.

  I tried to let go of him. Still, the stub­born spark re­mained. He had said he would come back to me. I re­solved that if he did, it must be his own de­cision. I would not sum­mon him to me. I arose, and pressed on. I told my­self that if Nighteyes de­cided to re­join me, he could over­take me eas­ily. There is noth­ing like a wolf’s trot for de­vour­ing the miles. And it was not as if I were trav­el­ling swiftly without him. I very much missed his night vis­ion. I came to a place where the ri­verb­ank dropped down to be­come little bet­ter than a swamp. I could not de­cide at first whether to press through it or to try to go around it. I knew it could stretch for miles. At length I de­cided to stay as close to the open river as I could. I spent a miser­able night, swish­ing through bul­rushes and cat­tails, stum­bling over their tangled roots, my feet wet more of­ten than not, and be­dev­illed by en­thu­si­as­tic midges.

  What kind of a moron, I asked my­self, tried to walk through an un­fa­mil­iar swamp in the dark? Serve me right if I found a bog-hole and drowned in it. Above me were only the stars, around me the un­chan­ging walls of cat­tails. To my right I caught glimpses of the wide, dark river. I kept mov­ing up­stream. Dawn found me still slog­ging along. Tiny single-leaved plants with trail­ing roots coated my leg­gings and shoes and my chest was wel­ted with in­sect bites. I ate dried meat as I walked. There was no place to rest, so I walked on. Resolv­ing to take some good from this place, I gathered some cat­tail root-stocks as I trudged. It was past mid­day be­fore the river began to have a real bank again, and I pushed my­self on for an­other hour bey­ond that to get away from the midges and mos­qui­toes. Then I washed the green­ish swamp slime and mud off my leg­gings, shoes and skin be­fore fling­ing my­self down to sleep.

  Some­where, Nighteyes stood still and un­threat­en­ing as the skinny fe­male came closer to him. As she came closer, he dropped to his belly, rolled over on his side, then curled onto his back and ex­posed his throat. She came closer, a single step at a time. Then she stopped sud­denly, sat down and con­sidered him. He whined lightly. She put her ears back sud­denly, bared all her teeth in a snarl, then whirled and dashed away. After a time Nighteyes got up, and went to hunt for meadow mice. He seemed pleased.

  Again, as his pres­ence drif­ted away from me, I was summoned back to Bearns. An­other vil­lage was burn­ing.

  I awoke dis­cour­aged. In­stead of push­ing on, I kindled a small fire of drift­wood. I boiled wa­ter in my kettle to cook the root-stocks while I cut some of my dried meat into chunks. I stewed the dried meat with the starchy root-stocks and ad­ded a bit of my pre­cious store of salt and some wild greens. Un­for­tu­nately the chalky taste of the river pre­dom­in­ated. Belly full, I shook out my winter cloak, rolled up in it as pro­tec­tion against the night in­sects and drowsed off again.