That night, I dreamt of the Deer God, his body titanic as he stood above the forest surrounding Voorhei. His legs rose like towers, and his antlers pierced the clouds, slashing through them when he shook his head.

I hovered in the air watching, as he bent to tear away the tree tops below and grind them with his teeth, just enough to swallow. Then, he went down once more, and the tree spirits didn’t complain at all. Just the opposite, they clamored for his attention, practically uprooting themselves to do it.

A cold wind blew, fluttering my hair wildly, but I was somehow insulated, my senses dampened. The only thing I felt strongly was the beating of my own heart—a steady, warm thumping.

Time passed, and the Deer God ignored me. The sense of it was almost palpable, an intentional disregard aimed at me and—I realized there were others; I turned and saw—a group of spirits of the land behind me.

Ikfael, I recognized right away. Her spirit peeked out of a Knight Otter water sculpture, and next to her was a large, white egret who was likely to be Leiluminwei. We’d never met before, but Ikfael had mentioned him; he was the one connected to the moonlight wolf she’d healed. Opposite him, on Ikfael’s other side, was a moose covered in a purplish-violet grass. Vines hung from her and wound their way around her body. Little white flowers bloomed and faded with every breath she took.

The moose tilted her head as if to say, “You should turn around.”

So I did, and caught the Deer Good looking at me—just for a single heart beat—and in that ephemeral moment, the dampening of my senses disappeared. I felt the chill mist clinging to his fur, the exultant exhalations of the trees in their rapture, the birds fluttering between his teeth, the pulse of the earth as it beat along with me, the god, and everything else.

###

I woke up with a start, and immediately grabbed for anything solid. I’d felt like I’d begun to fall at the dream’s end, but when I opened my eyes, all I saw was Ikfael looking amused at me clutching my blanket. With a snort, she went back to preparing a pot of coffee.

The smell hit me, and I scrambled to sit up. “Can I help?”

Ikfael gestured, handing over responsibility for the coffee and the rest of breakfast to me. There were a handful of eggs already out, along with rashers of salt-cured venison. It wasn’t exactly bacon, but it would do.

From above, I heard the sounds of the other hunters getting ready. It was a little after five in the morning according to the phone in my head, but the plan was to get an early start on the day. We had to if we wanted to have any chance at keeping up with Mumu’s group.

Borba couldn’t just keep going and going, could he? And surely Mumu wouldn’t be so foolish as to keep chasing him to the point of exhaustion, would she?

That I wasn’t certain about the answer to either question concerned me. Well, and there’d been the dream too. Assuming it was a dream.

Yuki? I asked.

It seemed like every other dream we’ve shared... until the end. That’s when your body chemistry changed. Yuki's qi swirled as they spoke; they enjoyed investigating the peculiarities of my body. The last time we saw anything like it was the night at Fort Sugar Shack, when you dreamt of the Deer God then.

I licked my lips, and turned to Ikfael. “Did anything happen last night?”

The otter quirked her head. “Nothing other than you snoring. It was louder than usual.”

“I dreamt of the Deer God just before waking up.”

Her eyebrows rose. “And? What happened?”

“I’m not sure. He was just eating, and then he noticed me. You were there. Leiluminwei too, and a moose with grass for fur.”

Ikfael gazed at me before signing, “That would be Aethleita. She is friendly, but protective. Be respectful if you should happen to meet her.”

“So the dream wasn’t just a dream, then.”

“Obviously. You’ve done something to get this Deer God’s attention. That’s... concerning.” Ikfael frowned in thought. “Or you will do something. Time doesn’t exactly work the same for gods as it does for us. There’s also the possibility that he was influencing an event nearby, or something else entirely.” Ikfael got up and patted me on the arm. “Whatever the reason, stop thinking about it. Leave the gods to themselves, and just do what you would normally do. Otherwise, you’ll go mad trying to figure things out.”

She’d given me that advice once before. At the time, she’d said: “The gods give their gifts with ten hands, but you only see one.”

Ikfael nodded when I repeated her words aloud. “That’s right. It’s an old saying, but true—the gods always have more than one purpose for everything they do.”

“And just to confirm: you didn’t visit my dream just now. That wasn’t really you or any of the other spirits of the land?”

She looked at me askance. “As far as I know, none of the spirits nearby can visit a person’s dreams, including me.”

“So I should leave it alone, even if it feels like the Deer God is spiritually taking over the area around Voorhei?”

“Whether he is or is not, what can we do about it?” Ikfael asked back.

“Nothing, I suppose.”

“Nothing,” she said with a finality to her gestures, like snapping a book closed. “Now, enough chatter, let’s eat. We each have a long day ahead and need to prepare for it.”

###

The morning was still dark, and the sun wouldn’t be up for another half hour, but that didn’t stop Voorsowen’s villagers from lining up at the gate. They stood in two rows to watch us leave, their faces stony.

The way they’d done it, they’d left three gaps in the lines to show where their injured would’ve stood, which was nonsense because the people who'd been hurt were all healed up. There was nothing stopping them from attending, except that the villagers wanted to make a point, so whatever.

Stupid village politics.

Dura led us with his back ramrod straight, ignoring the spectators. Susu, on the other hand, glared at everyone, including her own people. Apparently, some of her team had wandered away in the middle of the night to go drinking. I glanced back, and saw how they sheepishly trudged after me. They looked miserable, but thankfully not hung over.

The story I heard from Teila was that they’d been sensible enough to stop before getting drunk, but Susu had lit into them anyway—mostly for skimping on their sleep during a big hunt, but also because they made us look bad. While Voorsowen’s villagers had survived Borba’s visit, not all of their animals had.

At the east gate, the village’s leaders waited for us.

Dura marched right up to them, and said, “We will take our leave now.”

Heicata was there too, and she nudged Apskala. The reeve nodded, and said, “As discussed, we will contact Voorhei to settle things between our two villages.”

“We have been friends before and will be again,” Dura said.

Apskala’s lips tightened, but she said, “Yes, let it be so.”

Heicata stepped forward. “Since this is a matter between our lodges, I will go to Voorhei to represent Voorsowen. I wish you a safe hunt, and hope to see you all on your return.”

Well, she’d said ‘all,’ but looked directly at me and at the statue of Ikfael whose head poked out of my backpack’s left-side pocket. No doubt the shrine would see its first official supplicant soon.

###

The hunters spread out, once more placing Teila and me at the center of the lead formation. This time, they were farther apart than usual in order to scour the ground for signs of what had happened the day before, which turned out be easy—the evidence of it shot through the pastureland surrounding Voorsowen like an arrow, telling the story of a running battle.

Borba and Mumu’s group had clashed with spears, knives, and claws, leaving behind patterns of footwork, except every step dragged—the combatants marring the artistry of their techniques with exhaustion. To my spirit eyes, desperation clung to the prints, like willpower alone had pushed them onward.

There were older signs under the more recent ones—of animals moving from one pasture to another—and the arrow of battle had deflected to follow them. Specifically, Borba had sprinted towards a small herd of horses, and the others had chased after him. None of their steps had been empowered, and only the faintest scent of qi lingered from each.

We followed the trail to a bloody patch of ground. The sun started to rise about then, its soft pink light limning the edges of the horses’ hoofprints. One of them had gone down, the rest had scattered, and the scent of Borba’s qi grew stronger.

What had been a three-on-one fight had suddenly become one-on-three, with Mumu’s group on the defensive against a once-more empowered Borba. Working together—thank the gods—they’d fended him off; I could almost feel Borba’s frustration soaked into the land along with the blood.

They’d fought to draw, and then Borba took off again to chase down the remaining horses. With Dog’s Agility, he’d caught up to them, and left behind more blood, fragments of skin, and viscera. Then, he’d leapt a low wall to go after a herd of panicked llamas.

What followed appeared to have been an unrestrained bloodbath, with Borba moving from pasture to pasture, while Mumu and the others harassed him—not that it’d done much good. The animals fell one after another. He was only driven off by the appearance of more human footprints—the hunters and ranchers of Voorsowen. Dramatically outnumbered, Borba fought briefly, but then fled to the east.

Mumu had attempted to follow, but was delayed. I spotted the places where Haol and Tegen had sat to rest, but they’d just quickly gotten up again to run after Borba. The rest of the prints in the area were of milling confusion and panicked rushing to treat the injured. They and the dead were taken back to the village.

We followed Borba’s trail east to the last of the village’s low stone walls. There, he’d stopped long enough to let gravity stamp the impression of his feet into the earth—a minute or two. His prints shifted, as if he’d had the luxury of time enough to gloat or to decide what to do or where to go. Afterward, his stride had lengthened as he turned confidently to the southeast.

The signs left by Mumu’s group were shallower and more tightly clustered. They also appeared to have paused at the village’s boundary—perhaps to consider and confer—but then they’d continued to follow Borba. They’d refused to give up, even though they were exhausted.

“What are you thinking, Mumu?” I muttered aloud. “This is foolishness. Plain foolishness.”

Our plan had worked to bleed Borba dry by cleansing the trees he’d marked. Our fugitive had almost run out of gas, but then he’d found Voorsowen and tanked up again. There was no way for Mumu, Haol, and Tegen to catch up to him now. And if they did... I worried for my friends—my stomach cramping at the thought of what might happen to them.

I even felt Yuki’s qi clench in concern. We have to hurry, they said.

We do. The good thing is that there aren’t many trees here. Borba will have fewer targets for his Siphon, and we can pick up the pace.

He can chase after animals—

And that’ll take time, I thought. At least more than it did when he was just clawing trees.

Susu came up beside me as I was talking to Yuki. She was scowling in the direction of Borba’s travel. I noticed, then, that all the other hunters had come close and were watching her.

Dura asked, “Susu, you’ve been here before. Is it what we’re thinking?”

I felt a sense of foreboding. “What is it?” I asked. “What am I missing?”

Susu spit to the side before answering. “Like I told you before, I did some work with that Andrassotei, helping to butcher of some of his older animals that weren’t needed anymore. The deal, though, was to move them first; the idea being that the meat and hides would transport themselves to where they’d be sold.” Her scowl deepened. “Andrassotei also thought it’d be quicker to skip the road and head southeast directly. That’s how I know—if you keep on from here, you’ll run into Albei.”

###

I’d asked Uncle Kila once about Albei. At the time, we’d been in the middle of talking to the Alchemist’s Lodge about selling them eilesheile, and I had wanted to know more about the city to help me understand the context of the negotiations.

A few things stood out:

The three most powerful political figures in the area lived there: Ithia the Land Knight, Xefwen the Hierophant, Sanduskar the City Head. Slightly less powerful, but still political were the various lodges and trading families. They ran much of the day-to-day life. The city was a major trading hub for natural and animal resources. People brought their goods to Albei, where they were purchased by artisans and merchants, processed, and then shipped to bigger metropolises. That meant the two ocean ports to the east and south. The population fluctuated between 35,000 and 45,000 people. The exact number depended on the number of people visiting, either to trade their goods or to attend one of the big biannual festivals.

That was a lot of people, and it wasn’t hard to imagine Borba hiding himself among them. He wouldn’t even look stray as long as he found a way to cover up his claws.

Even worse, who would notice if one or two people went missing occasionally? Borba was a hunter—he knew how to pick out the sick, the injured, and the isolated. With his skills and stolen qi spells, he’d have no problems staying hidden or fed.

When Borba had fled Voorhei, we’d thought he might try circling back to sneak into the village to kill more of the people he’d seen as responsible for his punishment. Either that or he’d head to Voorhoos. His home village hadn’t been a happy place for him, and there were people there he’d want revenge against too. Instead, he’d lit out for the wilderness, apparently at random, looking to get away as fast as possible.

We’d taught him, though, that there was no escape; we’d followed and starved him, no matter where he’d gone. Then, Voorsowen had come along to also teach him that he’d be better off Siphoning from animals—lots and lots of animals—and there was nowhere better for that than a city full of them.

Yuki and I were confident we’d be able to recognize his qi anywhere, but that was it. Once he was among so many people, I wasn’t sure if my Uncanny Tracker talent would work to single out the signs of his passage among so many others. I hoped so, but it was untested.

The trail would likely grow cold, and I didn’t know how we were going to manage. All I knew was that we had to try.

###

We traveled quickly over a ground that’d been cleared of trees. If it hadn’t been for all the stumps poking up from in between the dry, straw-colored grasses, it’d look like prairie land, with only the occasional rare oak, standing dark and tall.

What were common were the ghosts, and they came in all shapes and sizes. There were trees, of course, but also spiders as big as shoe boxes, a troop of about a hundred raging bishkawi, and even what looked like a couple of Komodo dragons at the scale of city buses. There were people too, mixed in among them, sometimes fighting the animals and sometimes fighting each other.

Some of the human ghosts looked relatively fresh, fighting with spears, axes, and bows—their weapons apparently coming with them beyond death’s door. Others were nothing more than blobs drifting across the empty ground.

The pressure from this ghostly battleground was so heavy on my eyes, I had to half-close them. It’d been a long-time since my Spirit Hunter talent caused me problems, but I felt like I’d get a migraine if I kept my spirit eyes open for too much longer.

At one point, I tried a quick merge with Yuki, and we cast Dog’s Agility, but it didn’t help. In the past, the spell had let us better handle the sensory inputs from our spirit eyes, but not in this case. There was something about the volume of information—perhaps we just weren’t big enough to contain it all?

We split consciousnesses, and I shrugged. What was, was, and I’d just have to deal with it. Besides, Borba hadn’t made any effort to hide where he was going, so we easily followed his trail, spirit eyes not required.

The hunters ran when they could—using a loose, loping gait that ate up the ground—and walked when they needed to—mostly when Teila and I needed a break. We detoured whenever we spotted a tree that had survived the clearcut, but we found no evidence of Borba’s Siphon at work. His focus had clearly been on getting to Albei as quickly as possible, so that became our focus too.

Mumu must’ve had the same idea, because we found no signs of her group resting. Their prints doggedly followed Borba’s. It was an amazing feat, really—they’d spent a full day tracking, fighting, and chasing—but they had to be running on fumes by now. I wished hard for the fools to just stop and rest. To let us catch up, so we could work at the problem together.

That was something I’d learned about overachievers in my previous life: they thought they could do everything on their own. And sometimes the truly talented folks could, but life didn’t always cooperate. The problems it posed—the really hard, thorny ones—required people to act in concert.

Humans were social animals for a reason. Usually, the Hunter’s Lodge was good about harnessing that, but Mumu was moving outside the lodge’s standard operating procedures. She was trusting in her talents more than her teams, and for where Borba was heading, talents wouldn’t be enough. Or at least, I didn’t think so.

We had a couple more hours to travel, and my mind circled as I thought and considered and worried. Yuki’s thoughts circled along with mine, and the two of us brainstormed scenarios and responses as best we could. It was hard, though, without having been to Albei ourselves. At least, we had a contact there—Uncle Kila—and a Hunter’s Lodge in the city we could tap for help.

Eventually, we caught sight of a highway off to our left and the grey-blue expanse of a river beyond it. Both ran north-south, paralleling each other, with Borba’s trail veering dramatically towards them once they were visible.

Shortly after, once we were on the road ourselves, we came across five carts pulled by oxen, along with about ten outriders on horses. One of them fell back, but she didn’t engage us at all—just giving us the once over before riding to catch up with her comrades. One of the riders was dawn, another dusk, but on the whole the group was unremarkable. Their oxen moved steadily but slowly, and we outpaced their caravan soon enough.

Then, we saw the city walls in the distance. They looked squat from where we were, like a rocky outcropping marring the otherwise flat plain. The hazy smoke of civilization gave it away, though. I was finally going to visit my first city in a new world.