Crouched on the dirt of the hut, my gaze focused on the gaps between the stones, most of which were filled with old mud and dead leaves. Around the fire swirled a handful of moths and butterflies, whose elliptical patterns I followed. I had been waiting all day long, but now that the time had come, I was getting impatient watching Petir chew his bread so slowly, picking up the smallest crumb he dropped, or taking such small sips of water or ale. My heart was pounding and I couldn't quite hide the tension that crackled along my nerves. Petir saw it and took hold of it. It was only fair. To wait, I fed the fire and pushed aside the insects that fell into it, which resulted in three blistered fingers for no good reason. Finally, the peddler burped, rubbed his belly, and settled comfortably in the depths of his bed, stirring and rummaging like a satisfied badger. The alcohol had loosened his tongue and freed him from the remnants of fear. I watched his ungrateful face disappear under a mountain of half-rotten furs.

"Spinel," he began simply, after repressing another belch. I nodded, doing my best not to let my agitation show. Petir took a breath and I thought he was going to start talking, but then he paused a bit abruptly. "Is this where you plan to go after all?" he asked. I waited a moment before answering, hoping he would drop the subject and move on. That didn't happen. "Maybe," I said cautiously. "It depends on what you tell me." My interlocutor leaned over the flames, and moistened his lips. "Well, it's all been a bloody matter that the people of the Gray-March didn't care much about, me first. Between that and the new war in the Pass, Southy and Wolf-Bay fighting each other, and the Carmians getting into it behind the mountains, it seems like the whole world is at war. And I'm not even talking about what's going on on the other side of the strait. Here, we mostly take care of our business and we thank the gods that it doesn't happen here. It's always the poor people who suffer anyway. There were a lot of people who left Vaw at the beginning, before it got really bad. The refugees settled mostly in Cover-Pass. There was a large camp near Woody and the primate Daff had donations collected so they wouldn't starve. That was four or five years ago. Then the fighting started for good."

"I was told about fires," I mumbled, trying to steer my interlocutor. Petir bounced back immediately. "Fires, yes, there have been a lot of them. There are quite a few people who say that Ovie Vilan went crazy when the Leafies killed her father. That she burned her entire primacy, whether it was worth it or not, to flush them out. So there was fire, you can imagine, lighting up the night all the way to the sea. Not so long ago, foreign soldiers arrived in Vaw by the hundreds, even if they came back just as many dead and crippled. Those who couldn't afford to take a boat to Alessa and return home preferred to take the road to Fossin. A few of them passed through the Gray-March, mostly men from the Five Cities. Some of them gossiped well if you got them drunk, and I heard a lot of curious things about the leafy rebels they were fighting. Wizards would come to their aid, leprechauns from the Bramble plateau, and I don't know what else." I spat into the fire. "The Ktoï," I muttered, in a mournful voice. "Yes," said Petir. "I don't know what to think of it. My grandpa once told me an old fable about that, about the vine and the king of the Elms and other old things, but I don't remember. I'm thinking maybe they're just getting each other all excited. There are so many crazy stories about the Ceras around here. People say they can make themselves invisible or turn into beasts, which is a lot of nonsense, if you ask me." His eyes then wandered and I had to cough to bring him back to the present. "The war in Spinel," I insisted. "Well, what about it?" Petir replied, shrugging his broad shoulders. "The war ended moons ago."

I swallowed, listening to the slightest movement of his lips. My interlocutor, seeing that he had piqued my interest, watched me for a moment before resuming. "Well yes", he continued, making his voice swell in a theatrical way. "They say that nothing lives in the canton of Spinel, that the same goes for the whole north of Gorwill, and that it's at a high price that Ovie Vilan won her war. Her lands are wretched, her people are exhausted from slaughtering their neighbors for six years in a row, and some believed that her lieges would eventually abandon her, if the wizards didn't kill her first. And still. They fought for a long time, because the Leafies had captured villages, they even took Spinel for a year or two, until Vilan ordered the forest to be burned. Things changed from then on. The Vawans pushed the rebels back and the wilderness of the Brambles with them. From reliable sources, I know that there has been no fighting since last fall." His voice lowered a little, softened to a complicit tone. "But if you're thinking of going there, it's because you've heard about the reward, am I right?" Petir's eyes gleamed in the gloom. I shook my head. "No, I haven't heard anything about that." I felt as if I were talking from a great distance, as if I were not quite myself anymore and the peddler's words had numbed a part of my soul.

"Well, that's good. Only a fool would risk going there, if you ask me," Petir told me with a relieved expression. "Ovie Vilan has won her war, but she's not going to be satisfied with that. She has promised her hand or the title of liege to the man who leads a successful assault on the Brambles. If you decide to go, I have no doubt that you'll find captains there who will want to take up the challenge, and that they'll be looking for men like you to help them. If I were you, I'd settle for Hill's denarii. They pay well, everyone says so, and then you wouldn't have to go crawling around in the Brambles. Whether the witchcraft stories are true or not, one thing's for sure, it's not a place you come back from. Everyone who lives near the plateau knows that. I'm not telling you that it's not possible, of course. No doubt you can do a lot of things for gold and lands, maybe even come back from the Brambles alive with the head of the king of the Elms as a bonus. But my guess is that a lot of good guys will have to die before we get to the bottom of it, and at least you'd know what to expect, if you went to war against the Waddans."

I nodded slowly, in a state of unspeakable anguish. Again and again images of Brindy and her captivity materialized in my mind. I knew all too well the whirlwind of war. She could have been killed by one side or the other, or burned alive in a fire. I knew that if anything happened to her, if I was too late, again, I wouldn't be able to get over it. I also pictured myself at the end of the road, the devastated lands of Vaw, without any idea of what I would do when I got to Spinel. It was all the work of a single sentence, spoken by a man wearing a peregrine mask more than six years earlier. Part of me wanted to curse my own foolishness, the stubborn fervor with which I clung to something that could have been shattered long ago. On the other hand, I understood that this hope had allowed me to survive the pit and the mountain. That it continued to keep me standing, even today. I imagined walking through deserts of charred stumps, and the dread of just waiting, and nothing coming. I wondered how many years I would be able to hold on, waiting for a promise that the peregrine might not be able to keep.

Seeing my puzzled expression, Petir was kind enough to say nothing more. He gave me time to digest, and I was grateful because he had given me a lot to think about. In my mind, plans were made and unmade, I jumped from one perspective to another like a goat in springtime, but in the end I always came back to the same thing and my worries didn't change anything. If the Leafies had been defeated, if those who had survived had taken refuge in the Brambles, then that was where the peregrine would be, and that was where I would have to go. I didn't know yet if I should venture there as a friend, or if it would be safer for me to join one of the war expeditions Petir had just mentioned. I was counting on the journey ahead of me to find some answers.

Huddled in his corner, my companion had not moved in the meantime, but he wasn't sleeping either. He was watching me, standing still like a fat creature wrapped in bad skins. After a moment, I moved to grab my thorn branch, white and wet from having been peeled. I set about shaping the wood, refining the base to create a suitable grip. The shavings reached the fire, twisted as they burned, and focussing finally chased away the questions and doubts that haunted me. Finally, I looked up at Petir. "I would like to borrow your hammer, friend," I said softly. He stirred and rummaged in his things for a while, before silently handing me the tool, and then he leaned over curiously to watch me work.

I took my two-inch nails out of the bag and spread them in the dust like the runic sticks of the mountain shamans. One by one, using a flat stone to wedge the club, I hammered in the spikes I had bought from the peddler. When I had finished, the heads were still sticking out of the wood on the length of a phalanx. I weighed the whole thing, then blackened the tip in the fire, in order to tighten the wood around the nails. It wasn't an elegant or subtle weapon, and it wouldn't be of much use against a well-equipped opponent, but it was better than nothing. My doublet wasn't worth a good gambeson, but I figured I was still better protected than most of the scavengers and cutthroats that could be found on the road and on the outskirts of the war. I hoped that the spiked club would intimidate anyone who thought of messing with me, so that I wouldn't have to use it. Petir nodded in the gloom and grunted a slightly worried approval as I showed him my work in the light of the flames.

Then I wrapped myself in my woolen blankets and took a few long gulps of beer, content to be lulled for a while by the crackling of the fire. Outside, I could hear the wind caressing the foliage of the trees, and the cautious sounds of the beasts burrowing in the beds of leaves and thorns. "If I ever wished to go to Spinel, which road do you think I should take?" I asked Petir, after a moment. The peddler, who had started to fall asleep, shook his jowls and clicked a pasty tongue. "If you had time and money, I'd advise you to go south, to the banks of the Pulo," he grumbled, clearing his throat. "There, you could easily find a boat on the way to Whitewood. It's a long way, and you'd add a good two weeks to your journey, maybe even more, but you wouldn't have to worry about the fights between Wadd and Hill."

I scratched my nose and sniffed as I thought about it. "What if I don't have the time or the money?" I finally asked. Petir stifled a yawn. "Then you'd have to go through Hill to Ac-Pass, then on to the Gor. The armies of Cleo Gon held the canton of Garnear according to the most recent news, and fortified villages in Tross as well, but Wadd often launches counter-attacks, and the front line is fifty miles wide. As a result, you never know which side you're really on. A friend of mine, a cart driver from Ochreclod told me that, and I'll introduce you to him when we get there, if you want." I left the question hanging, because I was thinking of Garnear and the waddan lands I had crossed with Ulrick, idyllic stretches of green hills, fields of flowering grass that rolled like the sea beneath the gusts of wind. I remembered the welcome we had received in the villages along the way, when the rearguard had left Garnear, the worried looks of the old men and children, and the strange guilt I had felt at the idea of having broken their peace, even temporarily. I couldn't transpose the deformity of war to these places. I probably didn't want to either. Petir began to snore. I sighed and took a moment to make sure he was really sleeping before I too fell asleep.

We reached the Great-Bastide after two days of walking, a grimy, noisy frontier citadel that overlooked the paved road between Ochreclod and Greyarm. The journey had been punctuated by showers and gusts of wind, and I was glad to finally leave the heights for a more practicable terrain and an easier path. A motley crowd of iron merchants, beggars, hooded travelers, and shouting caravaneers gathered at the gates of the parade square, all in a hurry to pay for passage so they could go about their business on either side of the demarcation. Several detachments of militia and at least as many civil guards were stationed at the Great-Bastide, supposedly to ensure the security of the area. Petir had explained to me that it was mostly a place where troublesome men and bastard sons were sent to work off their dishonor by chasing Ceras and bandits on roads far from the capital. During the day, they would leave their austere garrison to loiter in the drinking houses that had been set up near the border post, gambling and spitting and whoring until it was their turn to go on patrol. Corruption went hand in hand with idleness, but I looked helpless enough that they left me alone.

Petir had time to soak himself properly before we passed through the fortified gate where Greyarm's hammer was floating. Farther on, under a swollen sky streaked with lighter veins, fluttered the orange tower of Hill. The peddler and I had discussed whether we would spend the night in one of the filthy dormitories near the border crossing, or whether it would be smarter to push on and find lodging on the road. We opted for the latter when I discovered the exorbitant prices charged by the dormitories, but more importantly when a pickpocket escaped from one of the inns in question with an angry groom and his apprentice on his heels. I knew nothing of the thief's fate, but I wasn't about to risk what little I had for the comfort of a roof. Petir assured me that this was the first time he had witnessed such a scene, but conceded that these establishments had a bad reputation. Eventually we agreed not to linger any longer.

Ochreclod appeared on the horizon three days later, atop a large, bald hill that lived up to its name. The black rock of the carmian Wall had given way to orange granite as the journey went on, and the fir trees had disappeared in favor of scattered groves of tall, budding beech trees. The sky had cleared, and while my package was as uncomfortable as ever, the road was paved and relatively flat, because it weaved between the hillsides that surrounded us. There had been a few villages along the way, with locals who were accustomed to traffic and most of whom were welcoming. We had mingled with the other travelers, on whom Petir had been able to wear out his tongue to the great relief of my own ears. My walking companion had regained his confidence since we had returned to the hubbub of civilization, and the abundance of booze made his ramblings more difficult to follow. I didn't shun his company, though, because even if he was drunk, I had someone to watch my back. Also, he knew the country and without his help I don't think there would have been many people to open their doors to me.

On Hill's lands, with my triangular scar and the cut of my clothes, I was no longer considered a simple foreign vagabond. Most thought I was Carmian, which was fine with me because I wasn't asked any questions. Some, better informed, identified me as a freed slave - or an escaped one - and would probably have treated me with less deference, had it not been for Petir at my side. I kept wondering how I should proceed when, as I approached the front, I might come across real Carmians, and they would be carrying weapons.

On the final stretch of the road, we walked behind the cart of a traveling blacksmith who had left Greyarm to offer his services to Cleo Gon's army. We hit it off briefly. Petir told him again and again that I was a good travel companion and that I could go with him to Hill. The blacksmith didn't seem to be interested in that. We passed through the city gates a little before the evening, but not without a brief interrogation by the captain of the guard on duty, and the payment of an exorbitant donation of six pennies for the right to carry my weapons into the compound. Petir kindly waited until the matter was settled, and then offered to take me with him to an inn that he had already visited, close to the market. There I found lodging for a fair price, and after I offered him a final drink as a thank you for his help, we parted ways. Many years later, I learned completely by accident that Petir the Bit had become one of the assistants of the intendant of Bridge-of-Ceras before his passion for drinking caught up with him for good. On the evening of his fortieth birthday, he got drunk and fell into the winter foam of the Ash-Flow, where he drowned.