Thornsong opened his eyes. He expected to see the branches of the lean-to overhead. Instead, he stared into nothing but cold, blue sky.

He sat upright. The lean-to was gone. There was no sign of a fire. And he and Raspberry had apparently been sleeping feet-down on an aggressive slope. The treeline was straight ahead, maybe 100 yards away. His pack was tucked between Raspberry’s legs.

“Raspberry, wake up,” he said. “I think we’re here.”

Raspberry snorted and kept his eyes closed.

“Seems brighter than it should be,” he mumbled.

“Raspberry, up. The Little People - I think they carried us through the trees. We’re on the mountainside.”

Raspberry opened one eye - just a crack - and swiveled it toward Thornsong.

“I didn’t feel a thing,” he said.

“I don’t think they physically carried your sizable ass,” he said. “Magic. Whatever. But we’re out of the trees.”

Thornsong stood and turned slowly in a circle. They were definitely past the forest, and the mountain’s shark peak was directly north.

“Check the pack,” he said.

Raspberry sat up slowly and by degrees, groaning the entire way. He rifled through the pack. His eyes widened.

“It’s full,” he said. “Acorns, honeycomb, salted venison, dried mushrooms.”

He dropped the pack but kept his eyes locked on it.

“I will never doubt the Little People again,” he said.

“And there’s more,” Thornsong said, gesturing.

About 10 feet away, a mat of dried chestnut leaves had been laid down and squared off. Thornsong and Raspberry approached.

On the right side of the mat was a fine lechuza-feather shield. Thornsong bent and threaded his arm through the rawhide straps. It was as wide as his chest but nearly weightless. The thick feathers had been double-stitched together into a flowing inverted teardrop shape. He held it up to the sun and tried to peer through. Not a crack of light penetrated.

He bent to the mat again and came up with a short spear, expertly crafted out of ironwood and volcanic glass. Resting on the ground, the tip came up to his neck. A band of lechuza feathers circled the shaft below the point, and the central grip was made of crosshatched rawhide.

“Masterful,” he breathed. “You seem to have a gift, too.”

A beech log had been chipped into a roughly oval shape with a grip carved into it. The grip sported the same crosshatched rawhide as Thornsong’s spear, and the face of the log was studded with limestone chips hammered into the wood’s surface. Raspberry picked it up and curled it toward his chest to study the weight.

“Could fell a bear with this,” he said. “And not scratch my knuckles.”

“You could fell a stone giant with that,” Thornsong said.

He turned to the trees and waved the spear and the shield. The trees seemed to wave back, in rhythm with the air rolling off the mountain.

“We’ve upgraded our gear,” he said. “Now we have to armor our hearts and souls. Up we go.”

“Not a bad bit of loot from one lechuza and a night of getting pelted with chestnut pods,” Raspberry agreed. He seemed somehow taller while gripping the beechwood knuckle, swollen with pride.

“We’ve still got a long way to go, even with the surprise boost from the Little People,” Thornsong said.

“Then let’s get moving,” Raspberry replied.

The pair walked steadily north, keeping the sun’s warmth on their right shoulders until it was directly overhead. They stopped, munched on a little salted venison, and then picked up the trail again when the sun started to warm their left shoulders.

“Keep your eyes open for tracks, clothing caught in branches, anything that can help us narrow down where he might be,” Thornsong said.

“You mean like those?” Raspberry said, gesturing with his free hand.

Thornsong bent to investigate the tracks. A lone man, wearing moccasins. Walking, but walking quickly.

“Here we go,” he said.

The tracks were alarmingly straight - due north, no variation. After an hour of walking, the tracks became thinner, spread further apart. Toe marks appeared.

“He shed his moccasins here,” Thornsong said. “Maybe tossed them in the trees, because they aren’t along the path. He picked up his pace, too.”

With every passing minute, the tracks grew further and further apart until it appeared the man had begun outright sprinting.

“Bizarre,” Raspberry said. “Look at this one. It’s him, has to be. We’ve seen no other tracks. But it’s-”

“Different,” Thornsong said. “Bigger. And still arrow-straight to the north.”

Each subsequent print seemed to be sunk deeper into the earth. They were not only larger, but the shape was changing. The toe elongated and splayed out. Webbing appeared between them.

“Like snowshoes,” Raspberry said. “With claws.”

Thornsong set in his mouth in a thin line as he began to jog along the trail, his pacing quickening to match the pace of the prints. The spread was truly gigantic now. He’d seen stride lengths this size before. He tightened his grip on the spear.

“Keep an eye out,” he said. “Stay alert.”

The terrain was steadily becoming more rugged. The aggressive slope gave way to steep, rocky pitches punctuated by plateaus sprinkled with tall pines. In a few spots, Raspberry had to boost Thornsong up over cliff ledges before clambering up himself.

“We’re not natural climbers,” he said, sweat dampening the hair at his temples and on his chest.

“More like sitters,” Thornsong said, smiling, his own face slick with sweat.

“Wait. There,” he said, dropping to the ground and gesturing with the spear point toward a thick of juniper.

“We’re too late,” Raspberry said.

The exile - or what was once the exile - lay curled in the fetal position in the dry, cold dust of the mountain. Great gray folds of skin hung from a skeletal frame, like the skin that hung from otherwise well-fed victims of famine. His hair was entirely gone except for a bristly mane tracing his spine. His hands and feet were massive, gnarled things; even in his apparently dormant state, the hands appeared to grope forward, as if about to snatch a meal.

“Wendi-” Raspberry began, before Thornsong clapped a hand over his mouth.

“We might yet be able to talk to him,” he said.

“Talk to it?” Raspberry said. “We ought to rush it now, put a spear through its brain.”

“I have to try,” Thornsong said. “We have to try.”

“And then what?” Raspberry said.

Thornsong sighed.

“Then it has to die - whether it talks or not.”