The night was dark and overcast, but the entire west end of the village was illuminated by torches, lanterns, and mage lights as the villagers watched the forest and waited for a possible attack.

“Were you able to get word to the hunters that live outside town?” Corec asked the mayor, a man named Barl, as they both eyed the trees in the distance.

“I sent boys out with messages, but I wouldn’t expect to hear back until morning,” the man said. “I don’t know how many will come.”

“Well, at least we’ll have the ones who are already here. I talked to them about our plan and they’re marking out spots for themselves.”

Just then, Shavala trudged out of the trees and headed toward the lights.

“Are you all right?” Corec asked when she reached him. “You look exhausted.”

“Too much magic, and it’s been a long day.”

He nodded. Katrin had told him about the rain spell. “Did you find the ogres?”

“There are nine of them. Some are injured, but not badly enough to slow them down.”

“Where are they?” Mayor Barl asked.

“West, then north,” Shavala said. “Near a big pond. If they take the same route, I think they can get here in about two hours, but they were bedding down for the night when I left.”

“If we know where they are, should we attack them?” Barl asked, then looked as if he regretted speaking.

“Only after your baron sends some guards,” Corec said. “Until then, it’s better to stay here, like we talked about. If they come back, we at least have a position we can defend. And if they’re only two hours away, they might be back sooner than we’d hoped.”

“I’m faster than them,” Shavala said. “I can go out in the morning to see if they’re on the move, and then come back here to let you know.”

Corec nodded. “All right. You should go get some rest for now, though.”

“I will. Where are the others?”

“Treya and Bobo are asleep back at the temple. They looked as tired as you, but the big building that burned down was the only inn, so the priest took us in. Katrin’s with them, watching over the wounded. I think Ellerie’s trying to sleep too—she cast a larger alarm ward than usual. Boktar’s around here somewhere, trying to find something to barricade the streets with. He and I are going to take turns sleeping in one of the houses on this end of town, so we’re close by in case anything happens tonight.”

“I’ll go to the temple, then.”

After she’d gone, Barl said, “Do you think they’ll attack before the baron’s men get here?”

“I don’t have any experience with ogres, but Boktar does, and he says we need to be ready for them.”

“Do you really think we can fight them without the baron’s men, after what happened today?”

“Today, you were surprised and nobody was armed. Once we show everyone what to do, it’ll be a different story. The archers alone will make a huge difference. Make sure everyone gets enough sleep, though. Go count out half the men that are on watch and tell them to go to bed for the next four hours, then have them switch with the other half.”

The mayor nodded and headed off. Luckily, when faced with fighting an enemy that had already killed four of their own, the townsfolk were willing to take Corec’s and Boktar’s suggestions, viewing their armor and weapons as a symbol of authority. They’d kept the plan simple, since the men in the village weren’t trained soldiers, but once some basic defenses were in place, Corec was optimistic about their chances if it came down to a battle before the baron’s men showed up.

More than that, helping with the planning had felt right. The knights of Pallisur were trained to lead men in battle—soldiers, guardsmen, or even villagers like these who just needed someone to show them what to do. Corec wasn’t much of a tactician, but these people didn’t need an expert, just somebody who could give them a way to defend themselves.

Perhaps it wasn’t quite what the crazy man in the dream had meant, but it felt closer to it than anything else Corec had done in the past six years.

#

The next afternoon, Katrin grasped her flute tightly in her hand, nervously watching the forest from the roof of a house. One of the hunters who plied his trade in the woods around the village was with her, holding a bow as tall as he was. Six other archers were hidden on other rooftops nearby. Only two of the hunters had been in town during the initial attack, and both had been caught without their bows, but now they were ready to fight back.

The street to Katrin’s left had been blocked off with a wagon, as had most of the other streets in town, in an attempt to funnel the ogres into a spot between the buildings to her right, where Corec and Boktar stood in front of a group of farmers and villagers armed with pitchforks. Corec had spent the morning training the men on how to use the implements to stop an enemy charge, as a short version of a pike. Treya and Ellerie stood to one side of the group. Treya had insisted on being present for the battle, leaving Bobo and the village priest with the wounded.

Suddenly, Shavala ran out of the tree line and straight to where Corec and Boktar stood. It had been her third scouting trip that day, and had been much shorter than the first two. When she was done speaking to the men, she headed to Katrin’s building and climbed the ladder.

When she’d reached the roof, she retrieved her bow and quiver, which were already there waiting for her. She strung the bow, then slung the quiver over her back, fastening the strap tightly so it would stay in place.

“Did you see the ogres?” the hunter asked.

“They’re heading this way,” Shavala replied. “They’ll be here any minute.”

“All nine of them?”

“Yes.”

Corec finished arranging his men, having them brace the handles of their pitchforks against their feet, holding the tines out at an angle. He then waved up at all the archers, giving them the signal that the enemy was coming.

There was the sound of a bell ringing as Ellerie’s alarm ward was triggered, and then the ogres appeared from the forest, heading for the village. They looked almost like people, but they were nine or ten feet tall, with rough features, gray skin, and thick muscles. Their clothing was made of animal furs, belted together with leather straps. Most of them carried large wooden clubs as weapons, but the two in the lead had stone-headed axes.

When they saw the armed men lined up to meet them, they split into two groups. Five of the ogres ran toward Corec, Boktar, and the villagers, while the others went one street south, shoving the wagon barricade out of their way. That put a row of homes between them and the defenders, which meant it was up to the archers on Katrin’s side of the battle to stop them.

Shavala and the other archer ran to the south side of the building, taking aim, as did the two men on the next roof over. Shavala loosed her arrow first. It hit the leader in the shoulder, but didn’t penetrate far. He brushed it off and looked up at them, then charged, raising his weapon high enough that he’d be able to reach them.

As the other archers fired, Katrin put her flute to her mouth and played, suffusing the music with her bardic magic. Outside of her performances, she’d never tried to affect more than one target before, and something felt strangely different about the song. She kept playing though—she didn’t know if it would work, but it was the only way she could think of to contribute.

She was so focused on the music, she almost didn’t notice when the archers started calling back and forth to each other in confusion. She looked up to see that the ogres, who a moment before had been running in a rage, were now slowly plodding toward them.

Was that because of her music? She had no way to tell, but the other group of ogres hadn’t slowed when they’d reached Corec and the pikemen. Corec stood alone in front, and she saw the familiar flash of his shield spell flaring out when the lead ogre’s stone axe crashed down against it. Corec responded by slashing his sword against the ogre’s arm, causing it to drop its weapon.

Then, Boktar was there, hitting it in the back of the knee with the pointed end of his warhammer. The ogre collapsed, landing on its other knee, and Corec stabbed it through the torso while Boktar swung his hammer against its head. Three of the ogres had slipped by them during the fight, and after the leader fell, both men turned to help the pikemen deal with them, while the archers on the other side of the battle took care of the one farthest away from the commotion. Before Corec and Boktar even reached the pikemen, a beam of white light shot out from Ellerie’s hand, felling one of the giant man-beasts.

Katrin turned her attention back to her own group and kept playing, in case she was the reason they’d slowed down. Slowing them down wasn’t as good as bringing them to a halt, as she’d been able to do in the past, but maybe ogres weren’t as susceptible to bardic tricks. Or perhaps she hadn’t done anything at all, and they’d simply slowed down to figure out how to fight people standing on roofs.

Either way, with how slow they were moving, the ogres made easy targets. The hunters were using bows that were taller and stronger than Shavala’s, and their arrows were more effective at piercing the ogres’ thick muscles, but it still took them several shots to stop each of the first two. Then, Shavala hit the third one in the eye, killing it with a single arrow, and she and the other three archers worked together to finish off the fourth.

With their side of the battle done, Katrin checked on Corec again to find that Boktar was helping him to his feet. Corec was grimacing in pain, and the entire front of his cuirass was dented. Before Katrin had a chance to worry, Treya approached him, her hands already glowing. While she healed him, Boktar helped him remove the cuirass.

“I’m going to go check on the others,” Katrin said, heading for the ladder.

“Did we get them all?” Corec asked her as she approached.

“The archers got the second group. They’re checking to make sure they’re dead. What happened to you?”

“The last one got in a lucky shot. Bloody hell, he was strong.”

Treya said, “Your ribs are cracked. I’ve healed them part of the way, but you’ll need to take it easy. If nobody else was hurt today, I’ll heal you more later.”

“Thank you,” Corec said.

“You’re going to need to find an armor smith to pound this back out again,” Boktar said, holding up the cuirass. “A good one might be able to save it, and reinforce the weakened spots.”

Corec sighed. “Well, I suppose I can pack it on one of the mules until we get to Tyrsall. I certainly can’t afford to replace it.”

Katrin felt a flash of guilt, thinking about how much money he’d spent to get her brother out of prison, but it was too late to change that now. Hopefully she could earn enough in tips from her music to pay him back someday.

“What do we do now?” she asked. “Are we staying here tonight?”

“He needs to rest,” Treya said, pointing to Corec. “And I need to check the rest of my patients. I can’t leave today.”

Ellerie said, “We might as well wait until the reinforcements arrive, just in case there’s another group out there. That’ll be tomorrow night at the earliest, so that puts us here for two more nights. Hopefully Priest Davi won’t mind our company for a bit longer.”

Corec nodded. “I don’t think I could go anywhere today anyway. It hurts too much to try to get on a horse.”

“Have Bobo make you some willow bark tea,” Treya said. “I’ll come heal you again as soon as I can.”

“Boktar and I can help these folks deal with the ogres’ bodies,” Ellerie said.

“I’ll go to the temple, then,” Corec said.

Katrin accompanied him, though they had to stop and talk to an overly excited Mayor Barl on the way.

#

Leena waited impatiently as the customer looked over what was left of the day’s baking. His dirty clothes suggested he was a day laborer.

Finally, he pointed and said, “Half a loaf of the rye.”

She nodded. The shop was closing soon and the bread had been baked the previous morning. It was better to sell half the loaf than none of it. If the baker didn’t keep the rest for his family, she’d take it home herself. She quickly sliced off half the loaf and wrapped it, exchanging it for a half-copper.

When the man had left, the baker, Maric, grunted from where he was wiping down the counter. “You should be friendlier with the customers. My last girl did better business than you. It wouldn’t hurt you to smile and show a bit of skin.”

She glared at him. “Didn’t your wife let the last girl go because she was too friendly? Besides, we weren’t going to do better business with him. He had no money.”

“And what about all the others? You can’t tell me you wore dresses like that in Sanvar.”

Leena faced him, the bread knife somehow back in her hand. She didn’t want to discuss the high-necked, long-sleeved dress she was wearing. “You hired me to bake, not watch the counter. If you want someone to be friendly, ask your wife. I’m sure she won’t mind.” Even as she said the words, she winced.

He reached up to slap her, but then eyed the knife and thought better of it. “Get out of here. Don’t bother coming back tomorrow.”

“You owe me a week’s pay!”

He scowled, then dug through the money box, counting out three silver coins and six copper. “Thirty-six coppers for four days. I’m not paying you for today—you didn’t stay the whole day.”

“I’ve been here almost twelve hours!” she protested.

He just pointed to the door.

She stalked out of the bakery. The days were shorter now than when she’d first arrived, and the sun was already setting as she walked home, wondering what to do next. Maric was the third baker she’d worked for during her short time in Telfort. The first had been better, but had only needed her three days a week, and she hadn’t been able to save up enough money to try to make her way home. The second had been worse than Maric.

Leena’s walk was short, since the boarding house she was staying at was only two blocks away. It was a large, three-story building that only accepted women as residents. Like Leena, most of the women were younger and all were unmarried, trying to support themselves by working in the city. Many were from Telfort itself, or various other towns around Larso, but Leena wasn’t the only foreigner.

Her tiny, shared room was on the top floor. When she opened the door, her roommate, Lara, looked up from the man’s shirt she was mending. Lara worked for a seamstress, and often brought work home with her.

“You don’t look happy,” her roommate said.

“Maric let me go.”

“Oh, Leena. You lost another job? What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t put it past him to warn the other bakers away from me.”

“You know how to sew, don’t you? I can ask Miss Anella if she has more work.”

“Will you? I’d appreciate that. At this rate, it’s going to take a year before I can afford to go home.”

“Why not stay here?”

Lara’s look was inviting, and Leena reminded herself once again that she needed to avoid any complications.

She shook her head. “I’ve got family—they’ll be wondering what happened to me.”

“Couldn’t you send a message?” Lara asked. She was the only other person who knew how Leena had ended up in Larso.

“If you help me write it, but nobody in my family can read, and most of them only speak Zidari, which I don’t know how to write at all.”

There was a knock at the door. Leena opened it to find Sarine, the short, gray-haired proprietress of the boarding house.

“Leena, you have visitors downstairs. Two men.”

Leena exchanged a confused glance with Lara. She hardly knew anyone in the city. “Visitors? Who are they?”

Sarine braced both of her hands on her cane to steady herself. “They didn’t say. You know you’re not allowed to have male guests here.”

“I’m sorry, Sarine. I’ll send them away.”

She followed as the old woman slowly made her way down the stairs. In the lobby, the two men stood waiting, one with brown hair and one with blond. They wore the uniform of the city guards, with a truncheon belted at one hip, but they also had arming swords on the other. Royal guards, then.

Leena swallowed. Had Maric complained about the knife? It would be her word against his, and he was both a local and a business owner. She was an outsider.

“You are Leena of Sanvar?” the brown-haired man asked.

“Yes.” It was no use denying that.

The blond man grabbed her left arm and pushed her sleeve up, exposing one of the tattoos she kept hidden—three circles, each smaller than the last, linked in a row.

“Come with us,” he said.

“What? Why?”

“The Church forbids mages in Telfort. If you come with us, you’ll be allowed to leave the city without harm.”

“I’m not a mage!” she said.

“Your mark says otherwise. Let’s go.” He pulled on her arm, dragging her along behind him toward the door.

How had they known? She hadn’t attempted to use magic since arriving in Larso. The tattoo didn’t mark her as a mage—not the tattoo they’d seen, anyway. It was the first one she’d gotten, on her tenth birthday, and was the only mark common amongst her entire clan.

“Stop!” Sarine exclaimed. “What are you doing?” She tried to block the door but the other man pushed her to the side. She lost hold of her cane and would have fallen if she hadn’t grabbed onto a nearby chair.

“She’s a mage and an outlaw. If she cooperates, one of us will return for her things.”

Outside, the chilly evening air cut through Leena’s dress. They hadn’t given her time to retrieve her cloak, and she hadn’t been in the north long enough to get used to the colder weather. She tried to pull her arm away, but the man refused to let go. People in the street ignored the struggle once they saw the guard uniforms.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“To someone who can help you. If you do what he says, you won’t end up in prison…or worse.”

“Who?”

“You’ll see.”

“I told you, I’m not a mage!” Leena had never trained her abilities. The first time she’d tried, she’d ended up falling twenty feet back to the ground, breaking her arm. Once it had healed, she’d tried again, and had appeared a mile off the coast. It was that second attempt that caused the nightmares, memories of trying to stay afloat in the rough seas, her magic failing as she tried to use it to get back to dry land. She’d only avoided drowning because a fishing boat passed nearby. She’d ended her apprenticeship after that incident, and found a baker willing to take her on. Baking didn’t cause nightmares. She hadn’t used her magic again until that night a month earlier. She’d needed to get away, and she had—much farther away than she’d intended.

“Yes, you are,” he replied. “You’re just how the woman described you, and she hasn’t been wrong yet. Serve him like the others do, and he’ll protect you from the Church.”

“Serve him how? What woman? I don’t want to serve anybody!”

“Then we’ll give you to the Temple of Pallisur and let them decide on your punishment. They have priests who specialize in dealing with mages.”

They’d come for her because she was a mage. Was that how they wanted her to serve? What would they do with her when they realized she couldn’t use her magic? She had to get away. The blond man still held onto her wrist, but that wouldn’t stop her.

Going west was bad. If she overshot Westport, she’d end up in the ocean again, and the water was much colder this far north. To the east were the Black Crow Mountains, and then the hills and the free lands. That was the extent of her knowledge—she’d never been to any of those places. If she was going to risk her life to use her magic anyway, then southeast was best, toward home. Maybe she could control it this time; maybe she could actually get back to Sanvar. She closed her eyes and concentrated.

There was a muffled shout that faded out. “Hey! Stop her!”

Leena opened her eyes, then shivered, clasping her arms tightly together. She was alone, surrounded by flat land overgrown with weeds and grasses. The moon was bright enough that she could see a line of scraggly trees to the east. At least, she thought it was east. Why hadn’t she paid more attention to where the moon had been in the Telfort sky before she’d left? Why hadn’t she stuck with her apprenticeship long enough to learn how to read the stars?

If she’d gone south at all, it couldn’t have been very far south—it was colder here than it had been in Telfort, and the plants looked nothing like what she was familiar with in Sanvar.

She had no food, no warm clothing, no idea what direction to head in, and only the few coins Maric had paid her that afternoon. Still, there was nothing she could do about it but endure. Trying to teleport again was out of the question. Even if she’d had the strength, this attempt had proven that she was no better at it than she’d been during her apprenticeship. Not knowing where she was starting from would make another attempt even more dangerous.

The trees might indicate a source of water. If she could find a stream, she could follow it. Streams connected to rivers which connected to the ocean. She’d run into people eventually…if she lived long enough.

#

“What do you mean, she escaped?” Rusol asked.

“I apologize, Your Highness,” the guardsman said. “We were bringing her to you when she disappeared. I was holding onto her arm when it happened. She just…faded, and then there was nothing there.”

Rusol clenched his fists, keeping a tight rein on his anger, but the two guards still stepped back, looking at each other nervously.

Then a voice boomed out. “You did well, men. One must expect the unexpected when dealing with magic.”

“Your Majesty!” The two guards bowed low.

Rusol turned to see his father approaching. As usual, King Marten wore an all-white knight’s dress uniform, with a simple circlet on his head rather than the crown.

“If she returns, we’ll try a different approach,” Marten said. “I commend you both for helping us to contain the scourge of magic in the city. We’ll let you know when we have a new lead.”

The two men bowed again, and backed out of the room, leaving the prince alone with the king.

Rusol glared at his father. “I wasn’t going to hurt them.”

“Perhaps not, but if you scare off the royal guards, who will you get to do your dirty work? Those idiot mercenaries of yours? The guards are already uneasy with your plan to use these mages you’re finding. Somehow, word got to the cardinal—he visited today. I managed to convince him to keep things quiet, and that it’s better to have the mages under our control rather than in prison.”

The prince grunted. His father had always been much better than him at influencing people, and making sure they didn’t realize they were being influenced.

“It wouldn’t have happened if you’d let me take care of things myself,” Rusol said.

“And risk the people on the streets realizing you’re a mage? What next, tell them my mother was demonborn? What other laws should we violate?”

“You’re the king! You make the laws! Why should we hobble ourselves?”

“The strength of a nation is much greater than any one mage, but it must be cultivated carefully. The army and the knights are just as loyal to the Church of Pallisur as they are to us, and the Church won’t tolerate magic…yet. Bide your time, son; I’ve been working on this for thirty years.”

The elder blood in their line went back over three hundred years, and had been hidden for just as long. It skipped generations at a time, and Marten himself wasn’t an elder mage, but when Rusol’s older brother Rikard had been born a witch, the king had taken it upon himself to attempt to change the Church’s teachings. Rikard was dead now, but Rusol had the same gift, so Marten had continued his work. One by one, he’d been manipulating the priests into accepting magic, at least behind the scenes. The priests might believe they’d changed their minds on their own, but in truth, Marten had used the influence of demonic magic against them—magic that he’d learned from his mother.

Rusol had inherited both the demonic and the elder magic, but he’d never figured out how to be as subtle as his father when it came to controlling people. Luckily, both he and Marten could pass for human. The only thing that marked them as different were the scars left over from where their tails—their only demonborn stigma—had been cut off at birth.

“And how much longer will it take?” he asked.

“Fewer and fewer of the priests have been blessed by Pallisur,” Marten said, “especially those in high-ranking positions. The cardinal himself is one of the unblessed. Soon, I’ll have enough sway over them to change church doctrine, but it must be done slowly. The blessed might stage a coup if they realize what’s happening—my gifts are unlikely to work on them.”

“Fine. I’ll wait for now, but I’d appreciate it if you don’t interfere with my own efforts.”

“Oh?” Marten asked. “And why did you send the guards after a Zidari Traveler, anyway? What did you expect them to do?”

“I’d hoped that the offer to protect her from the Church would be sufficient. It worked for the others.”

“But apparently not for someone who can transport herself anywhere she wishes to go. Do you have people watching for her?”

“Of course.”

“Then this time, if she returns, you can go after her yourself, but make sure you’re not seen. You must learn caution. Patience and caution.”