Another Day Colder

[Christina Bredith]

Bunnying approved and all that good stuff.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but even hell locks its doors tight when Christina Bredith is on the warpath.

In the dawn hours following her return to consciousness, she had turned the sleepy hamlet of Keepswatch upside-down in her search for the prisoner that had assaulted her. With the threat from Devil’s Keep dealt with—the men were already beginning to return to the town, having left the prison in control of the few Gorum’Fael that remained and a small contingent of men for support—Christina was easily able to direct the villagers as she pleased. It was her indomitable force of will that made her so difficult to stand against. You either did what she said or were pushed aside so that she could do it herself. Resistance was rare; it was not as though anyone in Keepswatch was keen on letting a dangerous convict escape into the populated south.

It was irrational, really, her fixation on that lone Drow. Under normal circumstances she would probably have cut her losses and washed her hands of the whole thing. But this was not a normal circumstance in any sense of the word, and that prisoner had had the audacity to lay his hands on her—to point a gun at her throat! It wasn’t the first time she had been underestimated because of her looks, but Christina never let someone make that mistake twice.

During the time it took for her things to be gathered from the Last Stop, Christina began questioning the villagers about any suspicious figures that might have passed through during the night. The chances of finding much were slim, of course; Drow were almost designed for blending into the night, and most of the villagers were locked up tight inside their houses besides. Indeed, for all that her interviewees were more than willing to give up the information they had, there simply wasn’t enough to give.

Christina was thus a thundercloud of bottled disappointment as she stomped through the town that morning. Her fury crackled in almost palpable waves and made her singularly unapproachable, even to those who found her convict-catching dedication the most admirable. She stomped through the snow looking and listening for clues, but the main road and all the alleys branching out from it were a complete mess of footprints, both human and canine. Her meagre tracking skills had been sufficient to find him before—with a significant amount of luck—but they were not availing her now.

She was about to resign herself to giving up the chase when, some hours later, she overheard a conversation completely by accident that gave her pause.

“... newolf lost one of ‘is dire wolves,” a young man was saying. He was speaking to another man, both slim and ruggedly-bearded, leaning against the wall of a house along the main street.

“Lost one?” the blonde man asked, eliciting a nod from his companion.

“That’s what ‘e says. ‘E ‘ad three what weren’t bein’ used for the containment, an’ gave up two of ‘em during the night to some messengers, but when ‘e came back in the mornin’, the third was gone.”

The conversation got no farther before Christina inserted herself into it. “Who are you talking about?” she demanded. Her voice was calm and steady, but her aura must still have been pulsing with fury, because the men seemed visibly shaken by it. Either that or her reputation merely preceded her, which was just as likely.

“Feargus Stonewolf,” the darker-haired one answered first. When asked to elaborate, he continued. “‘e’s a dire wolf breeder. Breeds the best in the whole region. Nearly all the steeds at Devil’s Keep are ‘is work. His stable’s just down the way, there, on the outskirts.”

“I’ve never known him to lose so much as a pup yet,” the blonde put in. “It must have been stolen, that’s what I think. There’s no way it just went missing.”

“Steal from ol’ Feargus?” the first came back with a laugh. “‘E’d ‘ave you strung up by the ‘airs on your arms inside an hour, an’ that’s if you’re lucky enough to catch ‘im sleepin’.”

The blonde chuckled and shook his head. “So, what, you think he just gave it away, Ernst? Don’t listen to him, milady, he’s clearly had a bit too much to—”

But when he turned to the person he had been addressing, he found that the air was clearer and thinner, and Christina was already gone, dashing through the darkness of the alley. She knew it was a long shot, but her gut told her not to accept it as a mere coincidence, either. A lone dire wolf unaccounted for on the very night that a treacherous little sneak of a convict goes missing from this very town? No. There was coincidence and then there was downright unbelievable, and she had a feeling that she had all but tripped right over the latter.

[Christina Bredith]

Feargus Stonewolf was a gnarled old oak with a scraggly salt-and-pepper beard and long, slightly-greasy hair to match. He was lean and wiry and walked with something of a hunch as he tended to the remaining dire wolves in his stable on the outskirts of the town.

The man’s head lifted as she entered the stable, and he gruffly asked, “Whaddaya want?” without so much as glancing in her direction. In her present mood, Christina was just about ready to beat the information out of the man with the broad side of her sword, but in the end, as always, tact won out.

“Mr. Stonewolf?” she responded in her sweetest voice. That was enough to attract his attention in full. “I was hoping you could help me with something.”

“It’s Feargus, miss, and Ah’m always pleased ta serve.”

“Well, you see, I was wondering about the rumours that you’re missing a dire wolf. I’m looking for the man who took it. I want to point the guard in the right direction.”

Perhaps the forthrightness of her comment took him aback; he started and began to drywash his hands slightly. When he realized the error, he controlled himself better and turned back to the wolf he had been tending. “Ah, yes. That were a shame. Stole me best wolf, ‘e did.”

“Stole?” she asked. “You mean you weren’t tending to the stables last night? I thought you might have been, what with the trouble at the prison and the need for your wolves.” In fact, the townsmen had said he had barely left the stable for more than a few minutes together, just enough to see his wolves off with their riders or to receive those delivering messages hither and thither.

“’Course Ah was, but Ah’m not perfect,” he said defensively. “Yeh can right imagine how bad it was last night. Ah can hardly be blamed for losin’ track o’ one wolf.”

She put on an affected look, face downcast. Her voice immediately dropped and she sounded on the point of tears. “Oh, I see. That’s justice for you… a dark elf accosts a young woman in the dark of night and nearly… nearly—!” The sentence hung there, the sudden silence a void that the imagination filled with implications to much greater effect than words ever could have. “Well, and then he gets away with it, and with theft, too. That’s justice for you.”

Silence. Feargus said nothing in response, but he had paused in tending his steed, as well. She sniffed dryly into the silence for a while, but then decided that her ruse was not having the intended effect. Maybe the dire wolf really was stolen, and he had no more idea than she did of where the drow had gone. “Thank you for your time, Feargus.”

She turned to leave, but before she could reach the door, Feargus called out to her. “Wait. Whoever it were, Ah didn’t think ‘e ‘ad done that sort o’ thing, an’ Ah’d ‘ave gutted ‘im if Ah did. Ah never saw ‘im, Ah swear that to ye, miss, but Ah may be able ta help ye find ‘im.” The old man shuffled over to a wall of tools and took a small cloth purse off a hook. He brought around one of the dire wolves and opened the purse before her. She could see coarse fur inside.

“That be Moondare’s fur in thar. Ah keep some from all me pups at a young age, so’s the older ones can find ‘em if’n they get lost in the wilds. Snow Dancer ‘ere should be able to track ‘er right quick after a whiff o’ this. She’s ‘er mother, after all.” He brought the satchel up to Snow Dancer’s nose and the older wolf inhaled deeply. It sounded like the bellows of a great furnace. “Now, yeh be a good lass, Snow Dancer, an’ be careful. Yeh’re not as young as yeh used ta be. Ever ridden a dire wolf before, miss?”

“I’m sure I’ll manage,” Christina responded with a smile, taking the dire wolf by the reins and beginning to lead her out into the snow. “Thank you, Feargus. You can’t know how much this means to me.”

“No, Ah’m sure Ah can’t, but Ah cannot abide… that sort o’ thing. You take care now, and find a guard to take yeh who knows ‘ow to ‘andle a dire wolf. Give ‘im hell, lass.” Christina wasn’t sure whether he was talking to her or to Snow Dancer, there, but she smiled and nodded anyway.

She had felt a slight pang of guilt, deceiving Feargus as she had. He was a sweet man in the end, but she comforted herself with the admission that she had not lied, not really. Who knows what that dark elf did to her while she was asleep? Perhaps the implication hanging in the air was more serious than he had actually managed—she was still clothed when she awoke, after all—but there was enough truth to it to stink of foul play on its own merit. She had just needed the extra push to win Feargus over.

Naturally, she had no intention of bothering any of the guards with this incident. Snow Dancer was a smooth ride, much better than the wolf she had ridden before, and before Christina had even mounted her, the gentle old beast was braying at the wind as it blew up from the south, presumably at the scent of her daughter. She was eager to take off along the fresh-fallen snow, following a trail that no amount of snow could disguise but that no human could follow, and Christina could feel her eagerness mounting with each of the wolf’s loping steps.

I’m coming for you, she thought excitedly, wondering if the drow had the decency to feel special at winning Christina’s undivided attention. She was an arrow in flight, now, and Phyr Sa’resh would not know what hit him when at last she fell.

[Les Misérables]

Frigid fire painted the eastern horizon of Salvar's morning sky as the messenger named Julaio heaved himself into saddle. The great stinking dire wolf it was strapped to gave a snort and shifted slightly, enough that Julaio panicked and threw himself onto the mount too fast, trouncing his icemold nuggets. The foul, wool-headed blanket-bound Gorum'Fael chortled as Julaio whimpered in pain and adjusted the crotch of his thick leather trousers. The monstrous creature was already sitting comfortably atop the larger of the two dire wolves Julaio had leased from Feargus Stonewolf. Half dark elf and half orc, the brown-skinned creature's curved ears and sloped incisors made it look like a demon. Just having to ride next to the leather garbed beast affronted Julaio's sensibility. He had accepted the job in Keepswatch because of its simplicity. The warden had paid him a monthly wage just to live in the little-known town, which was all but lost beyond the northern tundra of Salvar. There, Julaio had been able to keep his boots shiny and his shaven face hidden, for he was wanted for treason in Knife's Edge, following the end of the great civil war. He had never dreamed that the only condition of his contract would be fulfilled. But it had happened. The most secretive prison of the Northlands - the stronghold called Devil's Keep, had broken, a single drow escaping the slaughter of freed prisoners. It was now Julaio's oathbound task to journey to the city he most feared, accompanied by a creature from any Salvarian's nightmare, and tell the Warden his prison had fallen.

The icy air caught in his throat and seemed to paralyse his lungs as he rode down the sleepy streets of Sularik Lake, the Gorum'Fael monster at his side. Thankfully the dire wolves gave a smooth ride, and he was able to enjoy the large town's architecture despite the bite of the cold and the ache in his genitals. Named for the body of water it was build around, the town looked much more civilised than Keepswatch. Brick and rock buildings, some two stories high, replaced the wooden shacks and earth huts. There were inns with proper signs, and more than one shop! As they came to each inn the unlikely pair of wolfriders would stop. Julaio would hop down, loop his reigns around a convenient post or if absolutely necessary hand them to the Gorum'Fael, and dart inside. Much as he would have liked to take a proper hot breakfast or warm himself by the hearths that billowed smoke out mason-made chimneys, he asked the same solitary question in each before hustling back outside, a negative ringing in his ears.

Have you seen or heard tell of a one armed drow riding a wolf?

The bleary-eyed innkeepers all had the same answer, even when he insisted that the drow in question was a wanted criminal. Julaio sighed as he climbed into the saddle for what felt like the twentieth time, exercising extreme caution so as not to injure himself anew. The Gorum'Fael was swigging foul-smelling grog from an iron flask, and belched hideously when it saw Julaio looking.

"I don't believe he passed through this place. We should make for the south rode and journey hard past noon." The hybrid creature did not react, perhaps not comprehending. Well enough, Julaio thought, and rode off with his bodyguard at his side. He had hoped to catch the escapee himself, to bring the one-armed drow to justice before making his report to the Warden. Such an act might have promised future employment opportunities. The reedy messenger's leather-gloved hands tightened on the reins as they reached the outskirts of the waterside town. It was still very early, too cold a morning for sensible folk with proper lives to be out and about. Julaio did not like being alone with the Gorum'Fael, and thinking of reporting to the Warden had set his nerves twitching like a sleeping wolf. The noise of a snowbank shifting behidn them made Julaio jump, but the monster ignored it, slopping grog down its leather jacket as it drank deeply. The messenger was on the verge of asking for a spot of the vile brew, just to calm his stomach, when someone hailed them from behind.

"Turn about!" The voice sounded like rusted chains over rock. Julaio turned, the Gorum'Fael mimicking him and reaching into the folds of its jacket.

Two small explosions rent the air, echoing out across the great frozen lake. Smoke trailed from both barrels of the large, ugly flintlock pistol. The gun sizzled when the one armed drow dropped it in the snow. The bodies had both fallen clear, and the wolves responded as they should to dropped reins, remaining still. Phyr Sa'resh cooed to them as he worked quickly as his single arm allowed, looping the reigns of one mount through the other and searching the pockets of the dead messengers. He came away with a wax-sealed scroll from the small, foppish one and a woven sack that clanked merrily from the large, smelly one. Setting foot to stirrup, the drow heaved himself agonisingly into the taller wolf's saddle and got them both trotting southward. In the centre of the road he left two corpses, both bled out from traumatic chest wounds.

Frost would lace their skin before anyone discovered the grisly double murder.

[Les Misérables]

Steam billowed from the snouts of both dire wolves, yet the beasts trotted alongside one another as if comfortable with the cold. Phyr shivered within the layers of his thick cloak and forcibly slowed his breathing to stop his slender shoulders shaking. The Salvic chill pierced his sinuses and bored into his extremities, as if trying to gnaw off the old drow's remaining arm. His stump throbbed from the reins cutting in where he’d looped them, back and necked ache from sitting in the saddle most of the previous night. Distorted shadows of the escaped convict and his arctic steeds played on the windswept road to his right. Rocky foothills guarded distant mountains on both sides, covered by twisted skeletal taiga that insisted on its existence wherever frosted soil granted roots sanctuary. Snow drifts shifted and slumped everywhere, blanketing many of the miniature trees.

Phyr's chin clipped his collarbone and he sat up rigidly, blinking bleary eyes. He had not slept in nearly a full day, not rested in longer. His wrinkled azure skin felt too tight, stretched across spindly bones like hide on a tanner's rack. Freeing his mouth from a tightly wrapped woollen muffler, Phyr gripped the saddle between his knees and let go of the reins long enough to find a leather canteen in the saddle begs. It contained tasteless water, unfortunately, but soothed his parched throat and cracked lips. Stowing the canteen, he shivered again as the wind shifted and gained power.

The cold seeped into Phyr's being as a great river waterlogs hardwood. Escaping the prison, fleeing the force of the Gorum'Fael, and besting the Coronian swordswoman had sapped most of the luck and determination that kept Phyr Sa’resh sitting up in the saddle. Overhead the clouds swirled and shifted. If possible the air got colder, somehow damper. Phyr shuddered and realized he could not stop. Exhaustion made a hammer that drove the cold’s chisel down his throat, through his lungs, into his guts.

“Left, there’s a good w-wolf.” He managed through chattering yellowed teeth. He pulled on the reigns with his numb hand, working the long gnarled fingers constantly, seeking sensation. The dire wolf responded and its smaller stablemate followed off the road and into a large snow drift. The trauma and stress of the past sun cycle had pushed him past fear, but he knew beyond all else he must keep his hand alive. They trekked over ice encrusted hillocks and through frosted taiga, miniature trees and bushes that would never attain the grandeur of Alerar’s dark forests. Even the graceful, powerful wolves could not provide a smooth ride while wading through a chest-deep snowbank. Phyr abandoned the reins and clung to the beast’s neck, using its body heat to warm his hand and face. Finally they reached the alcove at the base of a brush-covered hillock.

The old elf sighed, grimacing, as he slid out of the saddle into waist deep snow. He dipped in his cloak pocket with sluggish fingers, fumbled the cap off a rusted iron flask, and tipped a double measure of the contents past his lips. The fiery grog, stolen from a residence in Keepswatch, burned his throat and singed his belly and actually warmed him enough that he caught his breath.

“Moondare my dear... come out fair lady, ‘tis only I and your kin!” Phyr’s voice still sounded like rusted metal, but kindness invaded his tone as hearth-irons warm a chilly room. Powder stirred where the snowline met a steep slate cliff, and then a dark snout and pair of bright yellow eyes emerged. Moondare dug her way out of the shallow cave and nuzzled Phyr’s shoulder, trying to lick his face with a pheasant-sized tongue and knocking him flat in the snow. “E’et Tak! the ancient drow wheezed, rolling over and rising to his knees then feet. The wind increased yet again, tearing his hood off and flinging shards of frozen water in his face. The clouds grumbled directly over head, growing darker gray.

“You must forgive me for not providing a proper brush down,” Phyr mumbled honestly as he ushered the two captured wolves into the cave, then heaved himself into Moondare’s saddle. He made a great wager in returning to Sularik Lake riding a wolf, but fancied his odds of evading capture in the city above those of surviving a Salvic hailstorm on the open road. Moondare, easily larger and stronger than either of the beast’s Phyr had left in the cave, powered over the rough terrain and brought the building’s of Salvar’s northernmost city back into sight. They approached from the southwest, avoiding the road with the two corpses and instead approaching along the lake’s wharf. Multicolored wooden huts scatterplotted the ice, winter fishing lodges that kept the city’s stores from drying up.

Deep in Sularik Lake’s eastern quarter, where the messenger would not have asked, Phyr found a large inn with attached stables. The Northlands Limit as the carved and tarred sign letters named it, was a testament to Salvic stoicism. It appeared to have started as small earth-and-stone residence, not unlike the one Phyr had swiped the flask of grog from. But it seemed the owners had fared well and expanded the building with regular renovations. The main building was a single story of hardy sod clay, and was dwarfed by two-story connecting wings. Phyr lifted the latch of the wooden straw-insulated barn which made up the north wing, and thankfully found Moondare a stall away from the horses and mules that populated the stables sparsely. He had heard tell dire wolves would make other steeds skittish, but the long-faced occupants seemed content to doze or chew listlessly on the hearty dried grass that kept the building warm.

“Well milady,” Phyr whispered as he undid Moondare’s saddle buckles one at a time, and found a stiff brush hanging on a nearby nail. “Looks like we get to spend some time living like buki Royals.” The brush made sighing, soothing sounds as he rubbed down her coat with long smooth strokes.

Outside, thunder echoed the gunshots from earlier, and eyeball-sized hailstones cascaded from the clouds.

[Christina Bredith]

Life returned to the streets of Sularik Lake as the sun rose and blessed the city with what little warmth it had to offer. Hardy Salvaran men and women trudged through the snow on their daily errands, dragging bundles of wood on makeshift sleds, carrying loads of groceries—kept fresh by the natural chill—from the local market, hoisting sacks of laundry over their heads bound for the city’s only source of hot water for the weekly washing. Though it was the largest city this far north in Salvar, Sularik Lake would never be “busy” by a real city’s standards, but it was all Jakob had ever known.

A sprightly twelve-year-old thing with mousy brown hair and already beginning to show the wispy beginnings of a beard, Jakob was orphaned at an early age. Known to most of the locals only as “that rapscallion,” or names even more unpleasant, he had lived in the care of his aunt, herself a widow, for longer than he could remember. He spent his days exploring the disorganized network of streets and alleys that made up the city, and was proud to say that he knew them better than any other. That he knew the best ways to get in and out of places where he was not supposed to be only added to his reputation as a troublemaker, but that reputation was almost undeserved.

Familiar with the city as he was, Jakob was also familiar with the city’s habits, and even in the early afternoon when the day was at its warmest and the people at their busiest, Sularik Lake should not have been as bustling and as loud as it was that morning, one or two hours to high noon. The cause of that commotion was not difficult to find or understand: two bodies had been found by the city guardsmen as the sun rose on their patrol of the outskirts, one human and one Devil, a rare sight this far south. Stone dead, they both were, frost already lacing their skin like a spider’s cobwebs. There was a great deal of talking among the crowd gathered nearby: when had this happened? Where had the guards been, and could such a thing happen again if they were so inattentive? Who could do such a thing? Nobody knew the answer.

Nobody except Jakob.

He had seen the whole thing, though he couldn’t let anyone know that; his reputation was already (mostly) undeservedly poor around here, and people could be so cruel as it was. How would they react if they knew he had witnessed a murder? He would say something if he absolutely had to, if the guards accused someone he knew was innocent, but otherwise…

A sudden rise in the commotion drew Jakob’s attention back to reality. The crowd was looking north, where the main road plunged into the city from the west; further in that direction, it veered off into the great trade road which ran north to Keepswatch and south to the rest of Salvar, terminating in Knife’s Edge. Along the north road, a dire wolf rider was bearing down on them at great speed, which only increased upon seeing the crowd gathered at the city’s outskirts. From this distance, all Jakob could tell was that it was a woman, judging by the length of her blonde hair as it fluttered in the wind. As she approached, her steed slowed to a lumbering walk, and she dismounted at the edge of the crowd.

Purposefully she strode to the center of the crowd’s attention, the two bodies being examined by the guards. By Sularik, but she was beautiful! She was quite tall, though Jakob thought he might outstrip her one day when he was done growing, and her face had features of poise and elegance rarely seen in hardy Salvaran stock. For every brush stroke this city’s women neglected, the newcomer seemed to have given her hair two every day for eternity—her golden mane was lustrous despite being clogged with snow, and it fell with a light bounce around her shoulders in complete defiance of all natural forces that would see it otherwise. Not Salvaran, then; in Jakob’s estimation, they had all given up caring about their appearance long before he was born, and compared with this creature, why should they bother?

He had no idea what brought the woman to this part of Salvar—and from the north, at that, where there was even less to see!—but she had stepped onto the scene with such purpose that even the guards were having a difficult time standing her down. Their protestations about “guard business” and “internal affairs” were brushed aside by the woman’s casual but purposeful questions about the murder as she examined the bodies.

“I suppose it’s impossible to tell how long they’ve been dead,” she said lightly in Tradespeak, removing her glove and pressing her hand against the human corpse’s face. Even her hand was perfectly polished! Was she a human or an ivory statue modeled to perfection by its sculptor? She retracted the hand, presumably from the chill, and replaced her glove. “Did no one see what happened here?”

The newcomer was facing the crowd now. She would not get answers here—Jakob had seen the stubborn set in the women’s eyes before, and in this case he knew it came as much from jealousy as from the fact that she was an outsider. The men, on the other hand, were too dazed by her beauty to even comprehend the question. As was Jakob, for the most part, though his aunt insisted he was much too young for “that kind of thing,” as she called it. It was good, at least, that Tradespeak was her language of choice—not as good as Salvic, but it was nevertheless well-known in Sularik Lake, the end-point of most standard trade routes.

The woman took a step forward, a pleading cast to her face. The men softened, if that was possible, but the women locked their jaws and crossed their arms, almost in unison. “Please,” she asked. “If any of you know anything, please tell me. These people—” Some townspeople scoffed at the thought of calling a Gorum’Fael a “person,” but the newcomer ignored it—“were killed by gunshot wounds, and if my suspicions are correct, the man who did this is a dangerous escapee from Devil’s Keep. He will kill again if we do not stop him.”

That drew some of them in. She was a good speaker, but a number of the women were still put off by the way their men ogled her, as if it were her fault for it. Jakob yearned to open his heart to her, to tell her everything he knew, but…!

Her eyes searched the crowd. She must not have believed that nobody knew anything; they ought to have said exactly that if that was the case. Their stubborn silence seemed to imply knowledge that Jakob knew none of them had. “You would let him kill again? He has no control of his urges; when I confronted him, he almost…” She looked down. “And he may again if he comes across any of your wives, or sisters, or daughters!”

Jakob had no idea what she was talking about—the implications did not connect in his adolescent mind—but the crowd seemed to, and the warming was almost immediate, as was the growing sharpness of alarm. Several of the women turned to their men admonishingly. “Speak up, Lorens,” one woman badgered, smacking her husband firmly on the back of his head. “You were out at the tavern awfully late last night. You must have seen something!” Lorens rubbed the back of his head and protested his ignorance, as did many of the other men who had been admonished similarly.

The woman sighed. “Well, thank you for your help. I will keep searching. With luck, I can find him before he reaches the next town.” She turned toward her steed, followed by the best wishes of the crowd and their apologies for not being of more help. She was about to mount the dire wolf when, suddenly—

“Wait, please, miss! I know what happened.”

Jakob was momentarily astonished to find everyone looking at him, and even more so when he realized that it was he who had spoken aloud. The faces were not surprised, but there was a great deal of disappointment there; whether for the fact that he had been at the scene, or because he waited so long to speak up, he didn’t know. He wasn’t even entirely sure why he had spoken. Was it a desire to do the right thing, to see this murderer brought to justice? Or did he just want this beautiful newcomer to stay a little longer? She was already facing him, eyes fixed with burning intensity.

“I saw it,” he said. “I saw everything.”

[Christina Bredith]

Jakob Henriksson was certainly an odd lad. In the first few minutes of knowing him, Christina could tell that he was not well-viewed by the people of the city. The looks they cast at him were filled with something worse than disappointment—they were the expressions of people who expected absolutely nothing more from him and never would. But he was energetic, intelligent, and clever, and if anyone had his finger on the pulse of Sularik Lake, it was him. Those looks and words of admonishment from the other onlookers masked their own ignorance of the situation and the city at large. Those men could have been murdered in broad daylight and they wouldn’t have found out until daybreak the next morning.

“You’re sure it was a Drow,” she repeated, looking closely into Jakob’s dark eyes. They were seated on some boxes stacked on the side of one of the city’s main streets, his set a little higher than hers so that their eyes were roughly level. The blood of Salvar would never cease to amaze her: by his face she could tell he was not thirteen, and yet he was already beginning to show patches of bearding the same mousey shade as his hair. He kept averting his eyes as if he was doing something wrong, but the faint blush in his cheeks hinted at an ulterior purpose.

“Yes,” he said shyly. “He had very dark skin. Only Drow have that, right?” Well, that wasn’t quite true, but Christina didn’t have the time to go into the specifics right now. The odds of a dark-skinned human and a runaway Drow running around murdering people in this same part of remote Salvar was minute at best. “Oh yeah! I’m not sure—it was really dark—but it looked like he only had one hand.”

Bingo. If there was any minute doubt remaining about the killer’s identity, Jakob had dispelled it with one lash of his tongue. For the first time that evening, she allowed herself to smile, but kept it slight out of respect for the loss these people had shared. “Did you see where he went?”

Jakob paused at that question and thought for a moment. “It happened very quickly. But I know that he didn—”

“Jakob!” came an older woman’s voice somewhere behind Christina. She looked over her shoulder to see a short, thin woman in stout woolens scurrying toward them through the snow. Her hair was much grayer than it was brown, a rather unflattering combination that gave her all the look of age without any of the appearance of refinement and dignity. The strands with their split ends were in severe need of brushing and conditioning, but she supposed residents of these northland towns had other concerns.

“It is my Aunt Sanna,” he told Christina, looking in the older woman’s direction. She was waving furiously, apparently gesturing for him to come to her. When he did not heed, she spoke again. It was in Salvic, and Christina only caught snatches of it, but she gathered that he was demanding he come home with her. From her tone, she expected it done yesterday.

Jakob shook his head and responded in Tradespeak, which seemed to aggravate his aunt even more. “I must help this woman,” he said. “She is tracking a very dangerous man.”

“And how it is your business?” Sanna retorted, now speaking in heavily-accented but understandable Tradespeak.

“I saw him,” Jakob said. His Tradespeak was much better than his aunt’s; Christina almost took him for a natural. “I know where he went.”

Sanna made a sound in her throat. “Do not remind me! I hear the rumours already. Why do you do these things?” The woman shook her head, a firm denial of everything that was happening. This was clearly a woman who understood the world to work a certain way, and would simply not accept anything that challenged that view.

“Please, ma’am,” Christina said, swinging her legs over the edge of the boxes and standing up. She made a point of not placing herself between Sanna and Jakob; rather, she stood off to one side, unthreateningly. “The man I’m after has killed two people in this city already, and dozens of people died in a jailbreak he started up north. Maybe hundreds! There’s no telling what he’ll do if someone doesn’t stop him.”

“No!” Sanna shouted with an air of finality colder than the winter lake-air. The way she looked at Christina now was uncomfortably critical; she was sizing her up, and Christina could practically read the woman’s mind, filled with criticisms that had nothing to do with her hunt of Phyr Sa’resh. “You foreigners… you bring trouble with you everywhere you go! You waltz in here with your pretty blonde hair and think we will wrap ourselves around your little finger? We will not! Jakob is good boy! You stop dragging him into this nonsense!”

With each word, dripping in venom, Christina felt rage bubbling inside her. How was she to reason with someone as dull-witted and narrow-minded as this? This wasn’t even about Jakob—she was going to let people die to preserve her family’s reputation! Well, Christina had never been known for possessing a subtle tongue herself, and she was about to strike a blow of her own when Jakob cut across her.

“Please, auntie!” he pleaded much more mildly than Christina could have mustered at that moment. “She’s not dragging me into anything. She needs my help. You’re worried about how people will think of us, but that’s already done—what will they think if I don’t do anything to stop this man after he killed two people right inside our city?”

With her arms crossed, the expression on Sanna’s face made her look like she was about to explode and just trying to hold herself together. The explosion came in the form of a resigned roar, and she waved a hand to dismiss Christina and Jakob. “But do not leave the city! You have exactly five minutes!”

Jakob reached up to kiss his aunt on the cheek, and then took a bewildered Christina by the hand, almost dragging her down the street toward the scene of the previous night’s grisly murder. The crowd had dispersed by the time they arrived, with only a pair of guards standing watch over a third man, presumably an investigator of some kind, examining the surroundings. Snow Dancer was tied up outside the Welcome Mat, a tavern right on the outskirts of town.

“You see the hills over there?” the boy said, pointing out to the west, away from the road. The omnipresent Salvic mountains were there, but further in the distance. A bit nearer, much lower and less menacing, there was a series of snowy hills. She could just barely make them out by their shadows; without being pointed to them, they would have blended together indistinguishably with the rest of the crisp white landscape. “He went in that direction. There is a little forest, and then the hills beyond that. It was too dark to see where he was going, but there are many caves and places to hide, and it is not very far.”

“You think he might be hiding out there?” Christina asked, though her attention was on the horizon.

“The kids from the city play hide-and-seek there all the time during the summer, though it’s way too cold now. His timing wasn’t very good if that’s his plan, though.”

She smiled a little and finally returned her attention to the bright young lad before her. “You’ve been a huge help, Jakob. I hope everyone in this city appreciates that.” Leaning down to kiss him on the cheek, which brought an instant blossom of colour to his cheeks, she said, “I know I do.”

Turning away from him, she untied Snow Dancer’s lead and climbed up into her saddle, arranging the woolen cloak around her. “Thank you for everything, kiddo. Let’s go, Snow Dancer! Ya!” A slight kick of her heels sent the giant wolf into motion, at first struggling to find purchase on the snow and then moving across it gracefully. She spared a moment for a final look and a wink at Jakob Henriksson, who waved until he was long out of sight.

A constant wave of cold air was moving in off Sularik Lake, bringing with it colder temperatures but, thankfully, not much snow. With her eyes pressed to the ground in search of tracks, she noted something interesting as she passed through the taiga: someone who had passed this way wasn’t leaving footprints, but rather an entire trail, as if simply trudging along. It made sense: even the light-footed Snow Dancer was struggling to keep atop the fluffy, fresh-fallen snow.

“Well, someone was kind enough to leave this for us, so let’s make use of it. Come on, Snow Dancer! There’s a good girl.” The large beast veered slightly to the left, and eventually sank into the trench. It seemed to fit the dire wolf quite well, lending credence to her suspicion that this trail was left by none other than the intrepid Phyr Sa’resh. A mile or so ahead, just at the foot of the hills that rose out of the taiga, she saw the trail split in two. One branch ran ahead, toward the hills, and the other broke off to the south and veered back through the forest—toward Sularik Lake.

Did the bastard return to the city? Then why come all the way out here? She pressed forward to the fork in the trail, and immediately her Ranger training flared to life. The trail branching back toward the city was slightly larger than the one she had been following, larger even than Snow Dancer’s ancient girth. “Of course!” she blurted out at last. “The wolves he took from the victims! I forgot all about them! He must have stashed them here and then taken one back into the city!”

Snow Dancer was growing excited, too. She was busily sniffing the offshoot of the trail, and at length, she let out a low, baying howl and twisted her neck as if trying to look up at Christina. “You smell Moondare, don’t you?” the woman crooned, scratching her steed beneath her right ear. “Well, I think a reunion is in order. Ya!” The dire wolf turned sharply and took them along the branching path, moving with renewed speed and vigor towards Sularik Lake.

Taking a warming swig of some whiskey she had purchased in Keepswatch, Christina clung fiercely with her other arm to Snow Dancer’s neck and thought excitedly of the confrontation ahead. Phyr was astonishingly ill-equipped for this journey and the cold must be about to take its toll, while she had the advantage of a warm cloak and suitable traveling clothes, not to mention supplies. No, he would not best her this time.

The trail led them around Sularik Lake entirely—the city, not its namesake—circling back to enter from the south. The snow was not deep enough within the city limits to leave a trail, but they had gained ground on the drow by following his trail while he had had to trudge through the snow himself, and Snow Dancer was hot on Moondare’s trail. She broke into a run once the snow was shallow enough to permit it. People threw themselves aside as she approached, some screaming in apparent ignorance that she was well-trained and would not hurt a fly without direct orders. She came to a stop outside the stables attached to an inn called the Northland Limit, and snuffed heavily at the latched door.

Christina dismounted, patting Snow Dancer pleasantly on the muzzle. She tied her to a post outside the inn and approached the stable alone. Gray clouds that had been gathering during her entire journey began spewing hail, and just as she undid the latch and stepped through the door, lightning rent the skies, followed closely by the bellow of thunder, masking her entrance. It was dark inside, but not as dark as the house in Keepswatch. No, Phyr would not best her this time.

Carefully, methodically, and with Rosebite drawn, she began checking the stalls for the fugitive drow. It was time to end this.

[Les Misérables]

By the fires of Kachuk, that is a saucy lass.

Phyr had left a well-brushed Moondare to rest and laboriously climbed to the loft, heaving his weight up the rough wooden ladder with his fading arm. He had only the time to settle into a soft bed of hay when thunder roared, hailstones fell, and Christina Bredith broke into his hiding place. Phyr felt numb, not only from the cold and exhaustion. He had pressed onward till his fading point, travelling night and day without rest. His legs resisted commands to gather beneath him, while the chit from Corone stalked from stall to stall like a hunting panther. Even petrified of her, torn by hunger and fatigue, through the thick layers and cloak she wore, the old drow was allured. The simple truth was he'd been too long away from women. If she'd thought to doff her woolens and shake a hip or bat an eyelash, Phyr probably would have fainted straight into her lap.

But the measure of her step showed cunning and confidence. Determination stronger than Dwarf-forged steel. She had passed the rows of horses and mules, and scooted by the empty stalls, fast approaching Moondare's nest.

Phyr Sa'resh had seconds to decide if he wanted to run free or die, whether on the point of the valkyrie's sword or in the prison she'd send him to eternally. He had bested her once, but the same tricks would not work again. In the sod-hut back in Keepswatch he had taken her by surprise - jammed her sword in its scabbard and pulled her off balance. He'd caught her in a chokehold she could not defend and kept her hands away from weapons with his knees. In a flurry of perhaps five seconds he'd felled her using every dirty trick in the Aleraran' Army's close-quarters combat manual. And he'd taken a kiss as she slipped into an artificial sleep.

Should have buki well killed her. Would have were she a man. Were I not thrice cursed and cursed again. Such a fool, Sa'resh. He'd kissed her instead of taking her life, and here she haunted him, refusing to let him rest. Defiance flared within him, fueling his slack muscles and empty belly, driving him to stand.

He reached out from the loft and emptied the grog from his flask while drawing a line in the air with his arm. It splashed noisily to the straw-covered floor, alerting the hunter below. Phyr threw the flask frantically, hearing it bounce of a wall somewhere away from his position, and scrabbled in his pockets. The matches. The most valuable item he'd taken from Keepswatch. Even in Devil's Keep they'd had matchbooks, and he'd long since learned to strike one-handed. The first match flared to life and dropped like a miniature meteor - straight onto the grog-laced straw.

Fire sprang up so fast the air displaced with an audible whum. Flames formed a wall cutting Christina off from the only ground level entrance. Phyr dealt the top of the ladder a furious kick, dislodging the lone iron nail that held it to the wall. It fell in slow motion and seemed to splash the growing inferno.

"I'd love to taste your lips again milady," he croaked in the gathering smoke, "but the whims of the weather call me away." The words were in her tongue, thick and lacking elegance, but he used them well.

The horses and mules screamed, and Phyr's heart stayed with them, but he turned and fled out the loft's wood-latched door.

The beasts should be well, he told himself, they've a buki Corone Ranger to care for them. All the same, Phyr felt a twinge of guilt that made the hailstones that showered him hurt all the more. He jumped down to the Northlands Limit's main roof, landing with legs awkwardly splayed on frosted sod. His knees ached, but the jump would have been easy for a younger Phyr Sa'resh, and he told himself to push on. Groaning and wishing for a rest, he aimed carefully and slid off the top of the inn's low roof...

... Right into the Ranger's saddle. The wolf the Coronian had left tethered aided his escape to perfection. Aleraran Dragoon training took a combat-oriented approach to horsemanship, and Phyr had learned to leap into the saddle from a number of positions. His wet boots caught the oiled leather on opposite sides and slid down faster than desired. Phyr jolted his Royal Jewels on the hard surface, and nearly coughed his lungs up in the ensuing pain, but he drew his iron bayonet and slashed through the tether, and set Snow Dancer to a gallop southward. Even with the hood up and leaned low over her neck, the hailstones hurt like rocks from a child's sling. The cave, Sa'resh told his world-weary bones, if we can make it to the cave, all will be well.