Thayne started awake and all he could see was what had awoken him, the horse’s nose. It had snorted in his face and as he slowly sat up, he tried to ignore where the moisture on his face had come from as he wiped it dry. The sun had set and the moon was on its way across the sky. He realised he had been lying face first in the dirt. It was a rich brown, ploughed dirt. He was in a garden bed. His head swam when he moved his head too fast and he had to put his hand on the ground to stabilise himself. He stared without comprehension as a man strode through the gate and into the door of the house. His eyes focused a bit more and he saw the picket fence encircling the yard. There were trees just beyond it, a forest. He was sitting in the garden of a yard, near a forest. What seemed like a moment ago he had been on the trail to Penn, a small village on a rocky peninsula.

“Where am I?”

“Oakwood,” came the unexpected reply. A grey-haired woman was standing in the doorway of the cottage.

“What! But I can’t be, I— where’s Penn?” he asked, his mind tumbling over too many thoughts to fully focus on one.

She frowned and said, “Penn? It’s about a week South-East. What’s wrong with her?” She nodded towards the impatient horse.

“But Oakwood! We can’t be at Oakwood! That’s near Quia Forest and the Mermanke Ranges. Right between the elves and–… troll country.”

“So it is,” she replied staring at him blankly, before shouting suddenly, “John! Get out here and help me.”

A large man suddenly appeared behind the woman, Thayne shrank back instinctively but they both ignored him and moved to the horse.

“She’s tied on,” the woman said noticing the ropes but John was already cutting them with a dagger from his belt.

They slid her off the horse. “There’s an arrow here,” John said gruffly.

“Bring her into the light,” the woman replied and they carried her towards the open doorway.

The woman nodded. “Get her to a bed, it’s a troll arrow.”

‘It’s as if I don’t exist,’ Thayne thought following them inside.

“Close the door,” John barked over his shoulder as he and the woman went through a door to the left.

Thayne did as he was told and stood in the small front room at a loss for what to do. He gazed around the simple room. It was bare except for the six chairs lined up against two walls. He sat, his eyes continuously wandering for lack of anything better to do, and they were drawn to the small window opposite him. It made him remember the horse.

He went to the door and peered out into the darkness but could see nothing. He went out further and looked around but there was no trace of the horse at all. He didn’t call out because he didn’t know the horse’s name and felt too embarrassed to call, “Here horsey, horsey!”

He returned to the house to find the large man, John, waiting for him on the porch.

“The horse is gone,” Thayne said, pointing back to the yard.

John nodded and gave a thoughtful grunt in response. “I’ll show you where you can stay.”

“I can’t stay, I have to get… to Kent. I was supposed to be in Penn tonight!” Thayne watched for a reaction. He had had at most a ten-minute walk to Penn and now, what could only be half an hour later; he was a six-day journey northwest of his original location.

John just nodded in reply, as if Thayne had confirmed something and walked back to the room where the woman worked. Thayne followed, closing the front door behind him.

The woman was bent over the girl who was laid out on one of three cots. The arrow was in two pieces, lying on a stool serving as a makeshift table. Next to it lay a sharp knife, some needles and thread, and a bowl of pink-stained liquid with a strong smell of alcohol. There was a real table against one wall covered in various bottles and jars with different plants, stones, and wriggly bits of animals and one bowl with remnants of some salve or paste stuck to the bottom. The woman straightened as they entered and Thayne saw that she wasn’t as old as he had supposed, perhaps forty. Her expression was tired but triumphant. Thayne’s gaze shifted to the patient and he saw her clearly for the first time. Her red hair shone in the light from the candle. Her face was still clammy but seemed peaceful. He had supposed they were around the same age when he had discovered her, but he could tell now she was a number of years older than him; it was her height that had thrown him. His eyes wondered lower and veered off in embarrassment as he realised a sheet was all that covered her chest. The bandage on her shoulder and chest hid all possibly erotic bare skin, but it was still more than his fifteen-year-old eyes were used to.

“You were right, Glenda,” said John crossing his arms as he glanced at the unconscious patient.

Glenda nodded and turned to Thayne. “I’ve done all I can. The rest is up to her. You can stay til morning, but then you must take her and go.”

“What? I can’t! I have things to do; I have to… do something. She needs care. I don’t know how– this isn’t my responsibility–”

Glenda frowned and with hands on hips replied, “Oh it’s mine is it? You’d just dump her on a stranger?”

“No, I mean– can she be moved in her condition? Doesn’t she need rest, or… something?” Thayne threw his hands up in frustration. Maybe he should have left her on the road. He had his mission; he didn’t have time to cart around an invalid.

“I’ll tell you something. I am the best with troll poison. I have had the most experience and most success of anyone I know, in treating those infected,” she said matter-of-factly. The woman on the bed made a sound, and Glenda checked on her, examining her eyes and her bandages before continuing where she left off. “And I have already done more than most would. Letting her stay even one night in my house is pushing it but I can’t send even the likes of her out at night in times like these. I’ll risk one night but that is it. You will take her with you or I won’t be held responsible for what happens.”

Thayne felt helplessly trapped and confused. Why was this his problem? What could he do? He wasn’t a healer and he was hopeless at magic. He sighed. This was just another reminder of how useless he was, a reminder he didn’t need. “I can’t deal with this. And what do you mean by ‘the likes of her’ anyway?”

Both John and Glenda looked at him in incomprehension for a moment. With a wry smile Glenda asked, “You mean you don’t know what she is? You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in?”

“What? What is she?” Thayne looked from one to the other but they just shook their heads.

“I wouldn’t worry. It’s a bit late for that,” Glenda said, patting Thayne’s shoulder as she walked past him. She turned and beckoned him to follow. As she opened the door to the next room and showed him in she added, “Whatever happens will happen, boy. Just go with it.”

“But–” he started to say, but she was gone, shutting the door behind her.

Thayne looked around the room, but took nothing in as he realised with a jolt he didn’t have his pack. He bolted from the room glancing in on his new companion on his way past. He went to the front room but the bag wasn’t there. He felt his eyes misting up as he looked around, as if his pack was somehow hiding behind a chair leg but it was hopeless. He went out onto the porch, knowing he could never ever go back to Psyhne now, even if he had wanted to. He leant against a support pole and head butted it a couple of times. How could he have lost it? He hadn’t taken it off his shoulder when he’d mounted the horse. It must have fallen off on the way here, while he was unconscious. It had been so important to Professor Globulus and he had let him down.

Tears ran down his cheeks as he lifted his eyes towards the horizon, towards the direction he thought Penn was in and stopped on a large rock in the garden bed.

He stared hard at it for a moment. It was lying near where he had woken. He left the porch and strode towards it, his stride almost a run as he reached it and picked it up, hugging his pack close to his chest in profound relief. Globulus was the only person with any confidence in him, he couldn’t have borne it if he had failed him.

Realising he was holding his pack like a long-lost lover, he loosened his embrace and glanced around, before casually slinging it over his shoulder and strolling back into the cottage and to his room.

John was there. He had brought in a rickety table and two chairs from the front room. The original furniture consisted of three cots lined up against three walls. All the rooms of the cottage he had seen were bare of decoration.

“Where’s Glenda?” Thayne asked, noting the two plates with bread, meat and cheese, and two mugs of an as yet unidentified liquid.

“Preparing for your departure. Have a seat,” John said sitting down himself.

Thayne sat and eyed the plate in front of him as John watched him. He hadn’t realised just how hungry he was until this moment but despite how much he wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself to tear into the food without some kind of invitation.

“You can eat if you like.”

Before John had finished speaking, Thayne had seized a slice of bread and piled the meat and cheese onto it.

John, a bit more sedate, neatly placed one slice of meat onto his bread, put it down and picked up a folded piece of paper that Thayne hadn’t noticed on the table.

He spread it out and Thayne saw it was a map.

John pointed out their current location and Thayne couldn’t help marvelling at the distance they’d come, he sighed, and in the wrong direction.

“It will probably be a quicker journey from here than from Penn.” He ignored Thayne’s incredulous look. “You’ll need to take the North road from Oakwood and hire some kind of boat at Magyar. Mermanke River flows all the way to the coast,” John said, tracing it with his finger. “All the way to Kent.”

Later, as Thayne got ready for bed, making sure the door was locked and shutters closed before removing his cloak and school robes, he thought about what John had said while eating with him. He was right; it made sense. It would be much faster and safer to travel by boat than land, but Thayne was nervous. It would mean passing the Juene-Haven port on the way. The capital city of Engola and residence of the Supreme Mage.