"Wake up Sletling."

Ulrick tapped me on the ribs with the tip of his boot, then, without any further ado, he removed the saddle that served as my pillow. The Val had put on his armor, its polished bronze slats shimmering weakly.

I stood up, as stiff as I was cold. Humidity embraced my body like an intangible garment. The mist had invaded the woods, so dense that I could guess more than I could see the trees on the edge of the valley.

"There's a broth of soaked bread on the fire, and there won't be anything else before noon," said the warrior to me over his shoulder as he walked away towards the horses, with the saddle on his arm. "Hurry up and eat. Finish the pot, get stronger. You're going to need it." Still too sleepy to be curious, I followed his instructions to the letter. By the crackling fire, I filled my stomach and burped loudly when I finished. The Val came back between the horses he was leading by the bridle, the fog fraying between their long legs. The sharp freshness of the undergrowth awoke me faster than I would have liked.

I raised my head, squinted my eyes and looked up at a sky I couldn't see, my mouth pasty. I was far from home, even if I hadn't immediately perceived it as such, I could see it now. The foliage faded into the gray veil, shredded in the muffled light, like the black antlers of a large deer. Ulrick gave me a pat on the ear. He had tied the animals to one of the elm trees and was staring impatiently at me. "This is no time to be daydreaming Sletling," he said in an acidic voice. "I have something to lend you. I'm sure you'll like it." His tone was ironic. I looked down with suspicious eyes. In his hands he held a haubergeon of brown, dull mail. "I shortened it for you last night," he said. "I wanted to sell it in Brown-Horn, but nobody wanted it as it was. The mail is made of copper. Might as well wear wet wool. You're lucky, I was going to melt it." I touched the object without hearing half of what Ulrick was telling me, captivated as I was by the rustle of the patinated metal. "It's for me? I'll be allowed to wear it?" I asked, my eyes shining. The Val had a dry laugh. "Oh, trust me, you're going to wear it Sletling," he replied. "Raise your arms!"

I complied, radiant, and Ulrick helped me to put on the armor. I blew under the effort, and my initial smile faded somewhat. It was horribly heavy, especially on my shoulders. The Val crouched down, a leather strap in hand, which he tied in a tight knot above my hips. "To better distribute the weight," he said. "I'll try to find a proper belt for you this afternoon." I took a few awkward steps, feeling like I was carrying a mountain on my back. "Do I look like a warrior now?" I asked proudly. The Val had an amused growl. "You look like a chicken bone in a jute bag, Sletling," he said. "Let's go now. I want to reach Woody before noon." Ulrick then took the obedient gelding by the bridle and mounted Berda, the great rigan mare. His thighs spurred the sides of his mount, and without understanding, I watched him leave the foggy valley without me. Just before the limbo engulfed him, the Val pulled on the reins of the mare, made her take a step to the side. I saw her eyes narrow. "You're walking Sletling," he told me, before resuming his path. I complied, with a heavy heart, and we left the undergrowth.

This was how my training as a warrior began. Not, as I had imagined, on the saddle of a spirited horse, with a gleaming sword in my hand, but with my feet kneading the cold mud of the Woody road, dragging the dead weight of useless armor on my shoulders. In the forest, moisture was dripping from the leaves to soak the soggy ground and I advanced laboriously, the hood of my cloak covering my face.

The vast world, the very idea of which had filled me with both apprehension and wonder, slowly closed around me in an envelope of effort, until it consisted of only a few spans of immediate wallow. There was only the slimy suction of the horses in front, the wet lapping of the trampled clay and, all around, the voice of Vaw, muffled and unreal, like the song of a mocking spirit.

After an hour's walk, the fog lifted and the road began to climb a gentle slope that undulated, as slippery as an eel, through the dark woods. I was really starting to suffer. Every step had become an effort, then a real torment, and the only thing that kept me on my feet was fear. The fear of falling, of not having the strength to get up, and of drowning with my mouth full of mud. Ulrick would periodically stop to wait for me and, from the top of his charger, he would be heaping me with mockery and taunting as I struggled to catch up with him. "You're weak, Sletling," he said. "You're as fast as a snail." I bent my back and, with difficulty, I put one foot in front of the other.

The few miles that followed seemed to me to be a whole continent, but the path finally stopped climbing. I was panting, exhausted, with frozen feet through my soaked shoes while thinking regretfully of the lesser pain of the saddle. I thought Ulrick was going to continue on his way again, but he let me join him this time and, without leaving his stirrups, he handed me a soft goatskin gourd. "Catch your breath Sletling, we're almost there," he said. I weakly whimpered my assent, had to make three attempts to raise my arm, and barely managed to bring the horn tip to my lips. I scanned the surrounding area and drank the fresh water. In places there were undeniable signs of human activity: here and there, stumps covered with moss and other more recent cuts that spread between the deciduous trees, making the forest less dense and more luminous. Above, the sun was reaching its zenith. My heavy mail was getting warmer and I began to sweat. Ulrick took the gourd from my hands, swallowed a swig, half of which ran down his beard, snapped his tongue, and with a squeeze of his legs, he led the mare down the path. I barely had time to come to my senses before we set off again. I staggered, pushed one knee into the mud, then, with legs as heavy as granite, I followed him miserably.

We walked on for another hour, and then I felt with relief that the road was becoming firmer under my feet, and the clay suddenly gave way to an endless succession of huge pieces of wood, which had been split along their length and then pressed into the soft earth like a solid floor. Muddy water oozed from between the cracks in the logs, but the hard, though uneven, surface gave my frozen feet stronger support. We came across the first houses in a curve, small, sadly flat stone and wood constructions, half swallowed up by the forest. Where the trees had been cleared and in the shade of those who were still standing, a few tiny fields of raves, cloistered behind light fences of braided hazel tree, grew with difficulty. The bushy heads of the yellowing raves protruded from these frail baskets, which I saw no real use for. Distrustful glances sometimes detailed us from the darkness of the porches or through the crack of the windows, and the few dogs that barked ferociously in our path made me hurry, despite exhaustion.

Then the forest suddenly became more distant, the horizon opened on the blue of the sky and, suddenly, we went down while snaking towards a large clearing, several miles long, open, like a huge trench which one would have dug within the forest. Below, at the top of the green mound that rose in the center of the gap, stood a small fort, built of gray stones. The village of Woody spread out at the foot of this castle mound, a hundred or so houses with slate roofs that smoked peacefully in the midday sun. The rest of the immense clearing was lost in a succession of small wet fields, in which I saw teams of long-haired oxen, of a breed I did not know, ploughing. A cart-driver passed us in silence, casting an anxious glance at the sight of Ulrick, and then it was two little girls of my age who arrived in the other direction, pushing in front of them a small herd of bleating goats. I tried to straighten up, but my efforts to impress them were in vain and they didn't give me a single glance. I swore under my hood, exhausted and scarred.

The Val had slowed down the pace of the horses as we went down to the village, so I was now walking alongside the gelding. The warrior coughed. "Remember, Sletling," he whispered when the cart driver was no longer within earshot, "we are going to Benkepp." I nodded, too tired to speak. I didn't even pay attention anymore to the rough faces that watched us pass insistently over the moss of the low walls that lined the path. We stopped at the entrance of the village, where a massive wooden guard house and two turrets stood on either side of the road supported by a low log palisade. Ulrick talked briefly with a puffy, reddish guard, then paid the toll with a handful of tin coins. The man gazed at me with indifference as I trotted behind the gelding, muddy and exhausted, my glowing face as red as his.

There seemed to be only two actual streets in Woody, one stretched east around the fort, the other cut the first one in half and went south, before turning into a forest road leading to Brican. We thus stopped in the middle of this crossroads. Ulrick finally left his saddle and, bent in two, the hands on the knees, without worrying about the curious glances, I started to catch my breath. A blacksmith's hammer was tinkling somewhere a little further on, and a flight of turtle doves flew over the houses, before turning towards the heights of the mound. There was the smell, too, the pungent smell of civilization, fire and filth and moldy shit.

The Val tied his mare under the porch of the half-timbered inn that stood at the corner of the crossroads, before handing me the reins of the grey gelding.

"Wait for me here with Pike," he said. "Take the opportunity to get to know him, you'll be riding him in a while." Then to the horse: "Pike, net bewette." The workhorse blinked his big eyes, its short tail wiggled slowly. Ulrick patted him on the snout and spat on the loamy boards, then he disappeared through the worn-out door of the inn, next to which a faded bed-shaped sign creaked, which I could decipher after a while. "Woody's rest stop". So I found myself face to face with Pike, who, obediently, did not move a single finger. I flattered him shyly to avoid the silent glances of passers-by, which he seemed to appreciate. I lost myself in his big, slow eyes and the warmth of his breath, happy to have perhaps made a friend. At least he wasn't trying to kill me like the mare. Ulrick reappeared shortly afterwards, in my back, under the arch leading to the stable:

"Sletling! Go around!"

I led the placid horse into the backyard and waited near a dilapidated well, on slate paving stones that reeked of piss, for Ulrick to return with Berda. The Val entrusted the two animals to a pimply helper who had gone out to join us and specified that he paid for a double ration of oats. I expected Berda to crush him on the spot, but to my surprise, and perhaps also to my disappointment, she let herself be taken away without fuss by the scruffy stripling. When the horses were gone, the warrior drew me after him. We passed under the crumbling porch, through a hidden door, until we reached the main hall.

The room was smoky and noisy, yet there didn't seem to be many people. Several massive tables were arranged in a square, refectory style, where a handful of hawkers and three hooded travelers, wearing the sculpted masks of the peregrine guild, exchanged news in turbulent disorder. A small assembly of local lumberjacks and old men shared a round table near the entrance, and gazed at the commotion with their reddened eyes. Most of them were already drunk. We sat back, under the narrow and creaky staircase that would lead to the second floor dormitory. I had never been so happy to sit down in my entire life, rested against the cob. Ulrick grunted as he sat down. His knee was still bending with difficulty. "First lesson, Sletling," he said softly. "You never turn your back on the door. That way we see who comes in and who goes out." I absent-mindedly nodded , too tired to really listen.

The owner of the place, a little redhead with clubfoot, limped to our table to place two steaming calabashes filled to the brim with a fragrant stew and a large barley beer pot. I rushed to my meal with a wolf's hunger. We ate in a silence that Ulrick broke only once to ask the innkeeper for more meat in our bowls. He complied, with a pinch on his mouth. As I was swallowing the last gulp of beer that the Val had allowed me, one of the peregrines got up and wandered to our table. Ulrick made a gesture to invite him to sit with us.

The peregrines, whom some people simply call walkers, hide their faces under a varnished wooden mask, so that only their eyes and mouths are visible. The guild to which they have pledged is an ancient order of beggars and peddlers, whose job is the circulation of news and the spreading of rumours. For this purpose they travel all the time, and I have often heard that in a lifetime a peregrine may have traveled more miles than a sailor. They are generally welcomed in exchange for the latest gossip from the canton next door, or for the transport of mail that is not very urgent. To protect themselves from the dangers of the road, peregrines have a very simple policy: they never keep change when they go out on the road and, in any case, most of the time they exchange their services for a roof or a meal.

The asceticism of their travel gear is such that bandits rarely take time to bother them. The masks of the walkers, none of which resemble another, whether joyful, sad, particularly plain or finely decorated, were originally intended to dissociate the messenger from the message: the first brownian lords had the annoying and angry habit of making ominous birds lose their heads. Today, the tradition is quite different: not welcoming a peregrine or, worse, harming him is considered a source of bad luck.

The peregrine who had sat down with us wore a large garment that covered him from head to toe, a sort of wobbly compromise between the cape and the cloak. The fabric must have been green, but had been stitched in so many places that it now looked like a faded patchwork. Ulrick nonchalantly pushed the pot of beer toward the man and let himself go backwards against the blackened cob on the wall while smoothing his mat with a distracted hand. He waited for the man to drink. Beneath the mask, which had been carved and then covered with dark lacquer so as to offer the illusion of a moving mass of entangled roots, two green eyes gleamed joyfully.

When the walker had taken three long sips, he mischievously winked at me and put the pot back firmly in front of him before addressing Ulrick. "Thank you very much, sir," he said in a melodious voice before getting to the point. "I've just come from Cover-Pass and, before that, from High-Pass. I met several of your compatriots there. They were on their way to Vaw, at the request of Spinel's lord."

At my side, Ulrick bowed his head and smiled. "That's where I'm heading. To High-Pass. Then to the Val country." Feeling that the time had come, I intervened in my turn "Ben Kep", I said awkwardly, while nodding vigorously, before the Val reduced me to silence with an irritated clap. "The last time I passed by, the sheperd bridge had been swept away by the torrent. The roads are good up to the pass?" he asked the peregrine. "I had no complaints, sir," he replied. "And the bridge has been redone this summer. But I have other news, which concerns you more directly, I think."

Ulrick, impassive, pointed the beer with his chin. The man grabbed the pot again between his grey mittens and this time he emptied it in one go. "Last night two horsemen from Brown-Horn passed by here and set off again in a hurry towards Cover-Pass and distributed portraits. A child of the clans, perhaps in the company of a lame Val. They offered copper and silver for information, gold for the capture of the child. One of them wore the insignia of the Franlake assassins."

I swallowed. Ulrick frowned and thanked the peregrine who returned with his companions, to the large table. When we were alone, the Val leaned towards me, his eyes darkened. "You're in trouble, Sletling," he said in a low voice. "Big trouble that you'll have to explain to me."