A gruff voice cursed in words he didn’t understand. His world shook a little more, but a shadow cut off the excruciating torment of the light. Geth forced his eyes open.
An orc stood over him, a shroud in one hand and a club in the other.
Geth shouted and tried to writhe away from him, but the orc cursed again, dropped the shroud and the club, and reached for him. “Rest, shifter! Rest or you’ll tip the boat!”
Awareness forced itself on Geth. The house in Zarash’ak, Vennet, the cult, the monstrous chuul, the orc … Dah’mir’s spell. A vague memory of a plunge into foul water. An even more vague memory of something or someone nudging him to the surface. He focused on the orc.
“You saved me,” he gasped. Another thought tugged at him. “Natrac!”
He twisted again, looking around. Natrac lay close beside him, pale but breathing slowly in sleep. Both of them lay in the bottom of a flat-bottomed boat. Over the boat’s sides, Geth could see the tops of trees and the nodding heads of reeds. The hot light that beat down on him was the sun, sailing across a blinding blue sky. The club the orc had been holding, he realized, was actually an oar of some kind. The shroud was a blanket.
“Where are we?” he croaked. “Where are Singe and Dandra?”
The orc’s face tightened. “Your friends were taken upriver by the cult.” Geth cried out and tired to sit up. The orc held him back. “Be still!” he commanded.
“My arms,” Get moaned. “I can’t move my arms!” He struggled to raise his head and look down his body.
“I’ve bound them,” said the orc. “You’ve already come close to tipping us once before with your thrashing.” He eased Geth back down. “Dah’mir’s spell infected you with disease, and swallowing the waters of Zarash’ak didn’t help you. You’re too sick for my skill and knowledge to cure you. I’m taking you to someone who can.”
He picked up the blanket and draped it across a kind of frame to make a rough sunshade. The scorching light of the sun vanished. Geth’s vision seemed to swim with the plunge back into fevered darkness. “Who are you?” he asked thickly.
“My name is Orshok.” The orc’s rough hand reached out of sight for a moment, then reappeared cupping a number of knuckle-sized red-purple berries. He held the fingers of his other hand over them and murmured a prayer. Geth felt magic like a sweet breeze swirl around them. Nature’s magic.
“A druid,” he said. “You’re a druid!”
“Rest,” said Orshok. He picked a berry out of his hand and placed it in Geth’s mouth. The tiny fruit burst on his tongue, filling his mouth with tart-sweet juice. A feeling of ease spread though him, pushing back his fever and aches a little bit. His eyelids drooped …
He was tearing the wet meat off a half-cooked chicken carcass when he felt the presence of someone watching him. The hair on his neck and forearms bristling, he whirled around, one hand still clutching the chicken, the other snatching up his sword from the grass beside him.
Both ended up pointed at a man of about his own age, a human with red-brown hair and a beard that was just filling in. The man leaned casually on a heavy spear decorated with a spray of fresh green oak leaves and contemplated the blade and the bird. “I hope you don’t get those mixed up while you’re eating,” he said in a pleasant voice.
Geth didn’t move. The other man shrugged. “Don’t mind me,” he added. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You’re not,” growled Geth. When the man still made no move, he settled back down to the ground, though he made sure to keep one hand free and his sword close. The sack that held his great-gauntlet was nearby as well-he wouldn’t have time to don the armored sleeve, but its weight made a decent weapon on its own.
The bearded man moved slowly out from among the trees, deliberately giving the shifter plenty of time to react. Geth’s eyes darted around the small clearing, trying to see if he had brought anyone else with him. The forest was thick with the new growth of spring and the shadows were growing deep as evening settled over the valley, but neither growth nor darkness were so dense that he couldn’t see through them. The man was alone.
As the stranger settled down on the other side of the small fire, Geth became conscious of how he must look. Chicken juices shone on his face and hands, mingling with the grime of long travel. His thick hair was matted. His clothes were stiff with dirt and a foul stink rose from both them and his body. How long had it been since he washed? He choked off the thought and bit back into the chicken, sharp teeth ripping off a big chunk of flesh. He kept his eyes on the bearded man as he chewed.
“My name’s Adolan,” the man said after a time.
“Geth,” the shifter answered around a mouthful of meat. He looked over the other man’s well-worn leather clothing and the rough collar of polished, rune-etched stones that hung around his neck. He swallowed and, in between bites, grunted, “You’re a druid?”
Adolan nodded. “I watch over this valley.” He twitched his spear toward the forest. “There’s a hamlet back that way. Bull Hollow. You might have noticed it?” Geth grunted and Adolan continued. “Some of the farmers on the edge of the Hollow have noticed someone suspicious skulking around the forest. One of them asked me to look into the theft of a couple of chickens.”
“Might have been a fox,” said Geth, licking his lips.
“Might have been,” agreed Adolan. The druid looked at him. “Are you just passing through?”
The question sent a flash of heat through Geth. “Maybe,” he rasped angrily, returning his gaze. “Maybe not.”
Adolan’s eyes seemed to sharpen with such intensity that, even in anger, Geth hesitated. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Just passing through.”
“Mind if I ask where you’re headed?”
Geth seized a bone in his teeth and pulled it loose from the chicken, then spat it away into the night. “West,” he answered. “As deep into the Eldeen as I can.”
The druid actually chuckled. “You can’t get much deeper into the Eldeen than Bull Hollow-unless you want to turn south and live with the fey in the Twilight Demesne.” He fell silent for a moment, then said, “I know you’re not from around here. Your voice has the sound of the northern Eldeen in it, though. Is that where you’re from?”
Geth’s lips twisted. “A long time ago,” he said.
To his surprise, Adolan let the matter drop entirely. Geth waited for the inevitable questions-where have you been? what did you do? — but they didn’t come. The druid said nothing. After a long silence, Geth looked back at him, then nodded at the fire and the other chicken that was roasting unevenly above it. “Want some?”
Adolan glanced at the plump carcass and Geth could tell he was appraising the way its skin, tufts of singed feathers still clinging to it, was turning black on one side while remaining pale and raw on the other. “Was that the red one or the white one?” he asked.
“Red,” said Geth. Adolan nodded.
“That was a fine-looking bird.” With nimble fingers, he flipped the chicken on its spit, then produced a knife and sliced a leg free. He settled back and bit into the steaming meat. “Would be better with salt,” he said after chewing thoughtfully.
“My chef took it all when he ran off with the chambermaid,” Geth said.
Adolan laughed and stripped another mouthful of meat from the leg. Geth found himself laughing as well-and he hadn’t laughed since well before the last time he’d bathed. A feeling of peace settled over him and the faint warmth of tentative friendship stirred in his belly as he looked into the fire-
— that rose all around him. He spun and blocked the blow of an Aundairian soldier’s sword with his gauntlet, then punched the man in the gut. The blood-smeared mail shirt that the soldier wore soaked up the worst of the blow, though, and he laughed.