I woke up expecting to see the sunrise; instead the room was pitch black, the snores of exhausted hunters all around me. Even Tegen, who was supposed to be keeping watch, was slumped over asleep at the door. My Status clock said that it was only eleven in the evening.

Yuki?

Ikfael is here.

I must’ve been out of it, because it took that long for me to realize that she’d been tugging on my hand. I cracked open my spirit eyes, and saw her glowing faintly in the dark. That sent a thrill of alarm through me—Ikfael’s spirit was dim and patchy.

I sat up in a hurry, and when my hand pulled out of Ikfael’s hold, a piece of jerky fell from it. I even cast Night Eyes to make sure, but it was exactly what it looked like.

The jerky must've come from my pack, which was nearby, the flap open and Ikfael’s statue laying on the ground beside it. Had she taken the jerky and put it in my hand?

The otter seemed diminished—not in size but in presence. Her shoulders were hunched, and her fur bedraggled.

She signed, “Good, you’re awake. Give me the food.”

Confused, I did as she asked, and the moment the jerky passed from my hand to her paw, Ikfael’s spirit rippled, growing a touch brighter. Under normal circumstances, such a small change would’ve been unnoticeable, but with how dim her spirit was—

A sudden realization rolled through me, followed quickly by dismay. Yuki felt it too, the feeling echoing between us. So much had happened that we’d both forgotten we were supposed to make her dinner each night; it was part of our arrangement for this trip. And clearly it wasn’t just a meal at stake. The exchanges she made had a real, material impact on her wellbeing.

I mean, I wasn’t dense—I’d recognized early in my relationship with Ikfael that trades were important. Why else did she value them so much? I just didn’t expect a single dinner to affect her to this degree. Unless... unless it wasn’t dinner? After all, the day wasn’t over, and there was still time to honor our deal.

I fought to think through the grogginess, and recalled the warmth I’d felt after I’d been shot. It had radiated from behind my heart, almost as if it had come from my back—

“Oh, Ikfael,” I whispered. “You helped save me, didn’t you?”

She glared. “I’ll have none of your pity. What I do, I do for myself.”

“It wasn’t part of our deal, and it cost you somehow. I can see the effect on your spirit.”

Ikfael turned away, and refused to look at me.

“Can you talk to me about it? Explain how the exchanges work? Maybe Yuki and I can help.”

She still didn’t say anything.

“What if I gave you a gift? Asking nothing in return.”

In response, Ikfael clenched her paws. She guarded her spirit, so that her feelings wouldn’t leak out.

She’d been excited in the past when I’d given her gifts. Usually, it was just extra food beyond what she was owed, but there’d been that one time when she’d arranged for me to learn the Healing Water spell without cost. The whole process had felt like one big workaround, which hadn’t sat well with me, so I’d given her a bunch of stuff anyway.

She’d been so pleased, she even showed off the gifts to Diriktot, who she’d been hanging out with at the time.

Ikfael deserves the world, Yuki said. She’s been so good to us.

Yeah, she does, doesn’t she?

So, I removed my favorite knife from my belt—yes, I slept with it—and put it at her feet. I removed all the rest of my knives, and put them on the ground too. They were prizes I’d won from my enemies, zombies and parasitic worms, and each represented something meaningful to me.

That still didn’t feel like enough, so I carefully got up so as to not disturb the others and went to retrieve my bow. I put that at her feet too.

“I—” I started, searching for a way to articulate how grateful I felt, but she placed her paws on my hands to stop me.

“Foolish boy. A hunter never gives up all their weapons. Why save your life if you’re just going to give it away? No, that will not do.” She pushed the stilettos back towards me. “These are irreplaceable; hold on to them.” Then she returned my bow, as well. “This one is closer to your heart than you realize. Do not be so quick to give it away.” The rest of the knives, though—the ones I got from the zombies—those, she picked up and put in her pocket. “These are easy to enough to replace, and heavens know you have the money for it.”

Her spirit had perked up when she took the knives, but it was still uncomfortably dim.

“Yes, I can do that, and I bring you more things too—”

Ikfael grabbed my hands again. She let go to sign, “Things are more complicated than you think. Spirits are—” She stopped partway, though, as if unable to continue. Then, she smiled, her eyes asking me to understand that she couldn’t explain.

Was there was some rule or law in place to govern how spirits interacted with people—something like Tenna’s Gift? Which... which would make sense given the potential for danger and/or abuse in the relationships between people and spirits.

I’ll have to ponder this some more, I thought.

We can also ask the others about it, Yuki said.

That’s right. People will have investigated deeply into something as important as this.

In the meantime... “Can I make you something to eat?”

Ikfael glanced at the sleeping hunters around us, and lifted a wry eyebrow at me.

“There must be a kitchen somewhere we can borrow,” I said, and made my way over to the door. Moving Tegen out of the way proved to be challenge, but given time and his deep exhaustion, I was eventually able to do it.

Well, I was beat too, but there were things a man didn’t skimp on, and taking care of his family was one. Long story short, I was able to make Ikfael her dinner. We were nearly caught by the inn’s staff, and the meal itself was simple, but I got it done.

###

The next morning, the hunters who were supposed to have traded watches during the night were embarrassed for having fallen asleep instead. Tegen, in particular—the poor man—I didn’t know his face could burn that bright a red. Fortunately, Ikfael and Yuki had been there to take on the responsibility, and everyone had been able to get a solid night’s rest.

Everyone looked haggard from the previous days’ exertions, but there was a life in their eyes that had been muted before. Their spirits were more settled too. Not good or easy, mind you, but the grief-soaked hunger for revenge seemed to have diminished. Watching Mumu, it occurred to me that last night might very well have been the first sleep she’d gotten since Inleio’s death.

Mulallamu the Lodge Master (Human)

Talents: Scout-Born, Tracker, Wild Sense

Nascent: Money Lover, Guardian of the Lodge

And she’d had a breakthrough the previous night, picking up a new nascent talent: Guardian of the Lodge. First Teila and now Mumu—as difficult as this journey had been, it’s been a productive one for my team.

Our gear, unfortunately, hadn’t weathered the trip as well, and it took about an hour to clean and tend to it. My poor mail would need to be repaired again. At least the hole was much smaller this time compared to the kalihchi bear.

By silent agreement, no one spoke of the assassination attempt. That would come later when all of Voorhei’s hunters gathered for a briefing. Instead, I used the time to grill my team about spirits of the land.

I learned the following:

As might be obvious from the name, spirits of the land tended to be tied to geographical features, and their territories grew in size when the spirits grew in power. There were spirits with and without avatars. Mumu thought it was because some started as ghosts—they wanted to remember the feeling of having a body—but Tegen cautioned that the idea was unproven. Almost everything about spirits was, in fact, unproven. Mostly because the spirits themselves weren’t allowed to talk about their natures; not even to say what divine gifts or laws constrained them. And there were definitely constraints—the big one being that favors had to be exchanged. Yes, people frequently gave gifts, and those seemed to help spirits grow, but there were almost no stories of spirits offering anything unreciprocated. Which was immediately disputed by both Teila and Haol who regaled me with multiple tragic stories about spirits and people falling in love, almost all of them ending in one or the other—sometimes both—sacrificing themselves for the other. I mentioned meeting the moonlight wolf who was the Beloved of Leiluminwei, a spirit with a territory near the Glen, but the hunters shrugged in response, not knowing anything about what it meant or how it happened. Spirits grew naturally over time as they cared for their territories. They could also absorb silver and darklight directly to speed up the process. Woe to any hunters entering a dark spirit’s territory. The land itself conspired against them. Another danger was when spirits fought over territory, and when that happened, any people or animals in the area suffered. Fortunately, it was more common for spirits to settle into hierarchies, wherein greater spirits ruled a territory, but delegated sections to the smaller spirits under them. Finally, there were spirits of the sea and air, as well as the land, and the rules—mysterious as they were—appeared to apply to them all equally.

By the time we were done, Mumu’s impatience was getting the better of her. She’d forced herself to wait—to let her team take care of themselves and their gear—but the sun was steadily rising, and there was a lot to discuss with the rest of Voorhei’s hunters.

Her spirit might’ve been more settled, but she was still anxious to catch Borba, as well as to apologize to the other hunters for her recent behavior. Eventually, she couldn’t take it anymore, and sent me and Teila to check on them and see if they were ready.

###

The second floor had a couple of big common rooms used for cheap accommodations overnight. For a single taak, someone could lay out a bedroll alongside anyone else willing to pay. The only caveat was that they had to be out of the space shortly after dawn, so that the room could then become available to rent during the day.

Mumu shelled out the money for one of these big rooms, which is why we ate our breakfast accompanied by the funk of unwashed bodies, wet leather, and old farts. Still, it was a small price to be able to talk in private.

After Mumu had briefed the other hunters about the assassination attempt and I contributed my observations about the healers, she began her mea culpa.

“My brothers and sisters,” she said. “I’ve been wrong. You all know me, and understand that this isn’t an easy thing to admit, but I say it to you now: in my sorrow and anger, I made decisions which I regret.”

“Those damn cutter hawks,” Susu said.

“Yes,” Mumu replied. “I didn’t expect you to fight them. I thought you would go around and continue following.”

“We might have,” Dura said, “except for Teila’s plan.”

“I underestimated you, all of you.” Mumu paused to look every hunter in the eyes. As she did so, her spirit rippled with glimmers of the silver I’d seen the previous night. “I promise not to do so again.”

“You won’t run off on your own anymore?” Susu asked.

Mumu’s brow furrowed. “I can’t promise that. The decision to split the teams wasn’t wrong, but continuing to chase Borba once it was clear that three hunters weren’t enough to kill him—that was a mistake. As was driving Haol, Tegen, and myself to exhaustion.”

I watched as Mumu felt her way, looking for the right words. “There are times when we fight half-broken, but this did not need to be one of them.”

“The Long Dark,” Ahlrein muttered behind me, and the hunters all nodded along.

“So, what happens now?” Dura asked.

“We continue our hunt for vengeance,” Mumu said, her voice grim. “But we do it the hunter’s way—together.”

After that, we dived straight into strategizing. And eating. Breakfast was apparently included in the big room’s rental fee, and the inn’s staff carried in a big pot of corn porridge, along with trays of grilled vegetables and pork.

The longer we waited, the more difficult tracking Borba would be, but Mumu seemed determined to make up for her earlier mistakes. She gave the hunters time to eat, and involved them in the strategizing.

“Why did the assassin call the healers?” she asked the room. “That’s the question that bothers me most.”

“What did they have to lose by doing so?” Tegen responded. “If Eight died, they benefited. If he was saved by a healer and owed them his life, the same. There was no loss either way.”

Okay, I got that, but the choice of healers seemed odd to me. “Shouldn’t the assassin have used a more competent bunch to come save me? The healers who showed up were useless.”

“Not useless,” Haol said. “They were all journeymen and women; I saw the badges.”

“Drunk then,” I said, “and clueless about the attack.”

Haol nodded, conceding the point.

“That was likely to protect their lodge,” Dura said, tapping his chin. “If questioned, they’d be innocent.”

“Or it might be one faction setting up another.” Mumu said.

“There are factions within the Healer’s Lodge?” I asked around a mouthful of the vegetables.

“There are factions in every lodge,” Mumu replied.

“Not our lodge,” I protested. “We sometimes argue, but that's different.”

The mood in the room was a hard one, bloody-minded, but that didn’t stop the hunters from chuckling in response. Even Mumu smiled briefly.

“Our Inleio was very good at helping people find ways to get along,” she said.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Susu said. “He had a knack for knowing when trouble was brewing and arranging training sessions for everyone involved.” She shook her head at the memory. “Training was what he called it, but it was really just him knocking sense into m... into people. Other people, you know, troublemakers. Not me.”

I saw more than a few embarrassed smiles, and Mumu waited for the moment to fade before continuing. “It was impossible for us not to be suspicious of the healers’ arrival. The assassin must’ve known that, which is what makes me think the attack was one faction of healers setting up another. But we don’t know enough about the inner workings of their lodge to know who was responsible. We’ll need our lodge’s grandmaster for that.”

Haol added: “If that’s the case, then this faction attempted to kill two birds with one arrow: to hurt their competition and rid themselves of a thorn in their lodge’s side: our Eight.”

“But the damage has already been done,” Susu said. “Eight’s spells are within the Hunter’s Lodge.”

“The spells I have now,” I said, “but what about the ones in the future? Because there’s no way I’m going to give up looking for more. Magic’s much too precious. It’d be like... like cutting off my own hands.”

“Our Eight is talented, and his path is a bold one,” Mumu said.

The other hunters nodded along, and I felt heartened to see their support. The previous day’s events had left me feeling unsettled and uneasy. There were people who wanted to kill me. Sure, that was something I’d expect from the forest’s predators and unstable Ghitha, but from faceless people I’d never met? It was a strange idea for someone who’d once been an office manager and sometime-producer of documentary films.

I was also pissed, which was reasonable, you know? Someone wanted me dead, and they’d taken the necessary steps to make it happen. “The assassin used a poison resistant to healing spells,” I said. “In other words, they knew me well enough to counter my abilities. Whatever else is going on in the Healer’s Lodge, killing me wasn’t some bonus objective—it’d been a critical part of the assassin’s mission.”

After that, the hunters talked among themselves for a while, discussing the situation and coming up with ideas to address it. I immediately squashed the ones involving me going back to Voorhei or being cooped up at the inn. Several hunters pressed for it, but I refused to budge.

They were clearly worried for me, but frankly, they needed my spirit eyes and Uncanny Tracker talent, while I needed to address the situation directly. If that meant assassins, then so be it.

I couldn’t run every time things became dangerous. Instead, success would come from adapting to danger, to finding ways to ameliorate and overcome it. Like trading the magic knife to Ikfael. Like becoming dear friends with Yuki. Like going to Voorhei and joining the Hunter’s Lodge.

This world demanded engagement, and the Way of the Hunter required me to test myself against it. Again and again and again.

Before the attempt on my life, I’d never really thought of myself as being on a path. Sure, I’d considered myself a spiritual seeker in my previous life, but path with a capital P? That had always seemed pretentious to me—a sign of someone who took themselves too seriously. Now, though, I was on the Path of the Young Forester, and I had the Way of the Hunter as a soul mark.

Those weren’t just words on my Status.

###

Ultimately, we decided that Susu’s team should report the assassination attempt to the grandmaster at the Hunter’s Lodge, and coordinate with her as necessary. While that was happening, Dura’s team would head to the Nathta and Geista districts to search for places where Borba might try to sell or pawn Salu’s necklace.

My team’s job would be to pick up Borba’s trail directly, if possible. We’d had better luck doing so last night than I thought was possible, but I continued to be pessimistic about our chances. Over time, Borba’s trail would surely dissipate and/or be masked by the city’s residents.

One thing I made fundamentally clear to everyone: no matter what else happened that day or any other day during the hunt—I absolutely required time to attend to Ikfael in the evenings. Even if it was just an hour, half an hour, whatever. Nothing could interfere with my obligations to our spirit of the land.

Oh, and we’d do all of the above while watching out for assassins.

Albei, you sure gave us one hell of a welcome.