[prose-only version here]

IV.

Frostmere 15, Goldday, Year 731.

The afternoon had grown long within the Greenwood Rise, golden light dappling the small glade. Vessa’s head and stomach both felt hollow, raw and carved out like a melon. She still had no idea what happened last night. Woke in a barn with a dog licking her face, a missing tooth, shaved head, and a government writ-seal in her pocket. Lotus leaf and drink, but what else? Whatever had happened then, right now what her body yearned to do was spend a full day in darkness, retching and clutching her stubbled skull. Instead, she’d been tromping slowly west of Oakton, up and up through the forested hills, following a lamed scribe and stumbling upon a group of outcasts.

She took no pleasure in sneaking up on the one whose throat she’d slit. The bald man with the black tar-marks on his cheeks wasn’t the first nameless idiot who’d died without ever seeing her approach, and he bloody well wouldn’t be the last. But killing left her in a foul mood, and her mood had already been foul. Vessa spit a glob of bile, briefly remembering the man’s choking gasp, the hot blood that spilled down his dirty shirt. With a grimace, she pushed the images away and focused on the woman in front of her.

The crone must have been four times Vessa’s age, back bent by labor and hair white and wild as loose spider webs. She regarded Vessa with a natural look of distaste on her wrinkled, leathery face, thin lips pursed. The same black streaks as the man she’d slain decorated her cheeks, and she wore a dirty homespun shift and a bulky necklace of—Vessa squinted—blobs of wax? She decided that the old woman was poor as dirt and, glancing at her almost black feet, had been living out here for a long, long time.

“Ye killed ‘em, then? The others?” the woman asked into the growing silence with a dry, papery voice.

Vessa shrugged, rubbing at her crooked nose, an old injury that flared whenever her temper did. Her shaved head felt too cold and tingly in the autumn air, and she moved her hand to brush over the unfamiliar stubble. Gods, she needed some proper sleep.

“You’re not the one asking questions,” Vessa muttered. “So shut it.”

The old woman crossed her thin arms, little more than loose flesh dangling from bones, and squinted hard at Vessa. Dammit all. Vessa knew that she wasn’t particularly charming in the best of times, but she’d fumbled their interaction already. She saw clearly that this woman wasn’t going to tell them a bloody useful thing.

“We did kill them,” Maelen said, stepping forward in a crunch of leaves. “They friends of yours?”

“Not as much. Bah,” the woman scoffed, turning her attention to Mae. “They woulda done the same t’you, I s’pose. Sorry fer it, though. Good people, hard workin’.”

Maelen sighed. “I was coming up to talk to you all when I tripped. Then there was yelling and people coming down the hill at me with weapons.”

“Heh,” she smiled wearily, showing three withered teeth in otherwise empty gums. “Didn’t expect you, eh? Big warrior wif a sword bigger’n they’d ever seen, I bet. They weren’t soldiers. Jassel was a chimmy-sweep. Bran a lampligh’er. Karn was a stablehand.”

“The bearded one with the club? His name was Karn?” Maelen asked.

The woman nodded, sucking at her top lip.

Maelen turned to show the side of her leather vest. It was scarred with two small tears in the leather. “He hit me one good. Strong fellow. A different day, it could have been me in the dirt.”

The old woman nodded. “Kinda you to say,” she said. “Wha’s yer name?”

“Maelen. Yours?”

“Yara. Folks call me Old Yara if’n ‘cause I’m older’n the sun.” She smiled her gummy smile.

Maelen chuckled. “Seems to me, all the young ones are lying dead in the leaves and you’re still here, Old Yara.”

“True ‘nuf,” the woman nodded once. “I’m a survivor.”

“Yes ma’am,” Maelen cocked her head. “What’s with the black goop on your cheeks?”

“Oh,” Old Yara waved a hand dismissively. “Jus’ somefin’ the Night Captain makes us do, to be part ‘o his gang. Calls us the Lanternless, and I never met anyone hates the light much as him. Don’ even like us makin’ fires at night, so I’ve got used t’eat’n meat raw.”

“He an outcast from Oakton too?” Maelen asked casually, and even amidst Vessa’s hollowed-out haze, she admired the mercenary. Whereas Old Yara immediately hated Vessa, Maelen had used her streetwise charm to turn her around. If they’d been in the city, the old woman would have been offering them tea. Quietly, Vessa drifted back from the conversation, letting Mae take the old woman’s full attention.

She glanced over at Alric, the scribe, who had found a place to sit and stretch his legs out beneath him, back against a tree. The man’s eyes were watching Old Yara and Maelen intently, probing. She decided not to interrupt his eavesdropping. The last thing they needed was for the kid to yelp in surprise and break the spell Maelen was weaving with the old outcast. Keeping her eyes scanning for anyone approaching, Vessa brought her attention back to the conversation.

“He was a lamplighter too, then?” Maelen was saying in response to whatever Old Yara had answered. “Like the one in your group?”

“A lampligh’er, aye, like Bran. Had a pole ‘n whistle his whole life ‘n wore the city’s colors. When the Night Captain talks ‘bout Oakton, s’like he’s still walkin’ its bones,” the old woman bobbed her head. “But he did his work long ago, mind. Long time.”

“So he’s got the age of experience like you, eh?” Maelen folded her thick arms casually, a move Vessa thought was to remind Old Yara of her strength while seeming relaxed.

The crone waved a hand, shooing away Maelen’s words. “Naw, naw… he’s older’n me but you got the wrong idea.” Her eyes twinkled in the dappled sunlight. “He ain’t human, see. He’s been walkin’ these woods longer’n any o’ us.” She paused. “The Night Captain’s a ghost.”

Alric shifted, sitting up straighter and practically buzzing with questions. Vessa cocked an eyebrow herself. What in the bloody mists was going on out here?

Thankfully, as if reading her thoughts, Maelen asked. “A ghost? Now why would a bunch of outcasts band together to follow a ghost out here in the wilds?”

The way she posed the question clearly hit Old Yara badly, as if she suddenly realized she were being interrogated. Or perhaps there was some other offense in the words none of them understood. Whatever the case, the woman’s face hardened, and she crossed her thin arms, mirroring Maelen’s posture. “Well, we’re outcasts, ain’t we? Gotta survive. The Night Captain’s tougher’n anything we meet out here, includin’ you and your pups. If he was here, you’d be skinned and hangin’ from that tree, sure as night.”

Maelen saw that she’d struck a nerve. She held up a hand in peace. “Now listen, Old Yara, I didn’t–”

“I think,” the woman spat, barreling forward and getting herself riled up. “You’ll be hangin’ there soon anyway. Night Captain’s not gonna like you cullin’ his flock none. How d’you think it’ll feel, when your skin comes off in strips and your pups are screamin’ while he pulls their tongues out one by one?” Something unsettling filled the old woman’s voice, hard and mean. “Will ya be so tough then? Your big sword won’ do squat to the Night Captain. You’ll die wailin’ and beggin’ tonight, sure as night. And I’ll be watchin’ and laughin’ the whole time!” She cackled.

Maelen’s lip curled, the patience slipping like bark from a burned tree. Then, quick as a snake’s strike, she backhanded the old woman. It wasn’t a strong blow, and done so casually that Maelen’s expression looked almost bored. Old Yara spilled to the ground with a surprised yelp, and when she looked up from her hands and bony knees, fear flickered across her face.

“That’s enough of that,” the warrior said. “I’m just trying to have a conversation, Old Yara. I don’t need you scaring the lad and lass. Okay?”

The crone scampered to her knees on the forest floor, wiping blood from her lip with the back of one hand. Her eyes had gone flat and distant.

“Sure, sure,” she said. “Ask yer questions, then.”

The light was fading by the time Maelen had finished her conversation. They left Old Yara tied sitting to a tree, using a shirt from one of the dead men. When Alric protested that the old woman would die left like that, Maelen assured him that Sarin and the Lanternless would seek out their patrol when it didn’t return and so would find her long before she succumbed to hunger or thirst. She also argued that, if the Lanternless had claimed this part of the Greenwood Rise as their territory, the chances of a predator finding Old Yara before her gang were slim. Alric didn’t seem convinced but wisely didn’t push the issue.

Instead, all the scribe wanted to talk about was the gang’s leader, Sarin the Night Captain.

“It’s a Nightwight, I’m sure of it,” he said breathlessly to Vessa as they pushed through some underbrush. “Several scholars have written about them, but I don’t believe anyone has seen one in more than a generation!”

Vessa scanned the forest for danger but had stayed by Alric’s side to help him keep Maelen’s pace. The warrior had said they needed to gain as much distance from Old Yara and where she’d said the Lanternless’ camp was as possible, and soon darkness would make stumbling through the forest foolish. They still crawled at a frustratingly slow speed because of the man’s limp, but Vessa had to admit that he was pushing himself without complaint.

Despite herself, she was curious. “What’s a Nightwight, then? Is it a ghost like she said?”

“More solid,” Alric panted. “A corpse risen and filled with spirits, not a spirit itself. But powerful and consumed by some purpose that keeps the body moving. For Sarin—ow!” he yelped as a branch thwacked him across the cheek. “For Sarin, it seems it’s whatever he has buried at their camp that the woman said he wouldn’t let any of them see. What do you think it is? Is he guarding it or waiting for something to happen related to it?”

“Old Yara said he was waiting for a sign. ‘The Blind Sovereign will send a herald,’ she said. What do you think that means?”

“I have no idea,” Alric said, frustrated. “But I want to ask some people at the Inkbinders Lodge when we’re back. It’s remarkable, don’t you think? I mean, it’s all utterly terrifying, but still… this could be something–”

“By the Rootmother’s teat, shut up you two!” Maelen said from the deepening shadows ahead. “Keep up and keep your ears open and mouths tight.”

Maelen continued to push them hard. Vessa wouldn’t have minded, especially at the scribe’s halting pace, except for her pounding head and sour stomach.

Eventually, long after Vessa thought advisable, it became clear even to Maelen that the woods had become too treacherous to continue safely. The three of them found a space amidst a copse of trees and large stone that Maelen pronounced “as defensible as they were likely to find in the twice-cursed darkness,” ate a dinner of trail rations and dried jerky, and unrolled their bedrolls. Maelen decided that, based on the conversation with Old Yara, they would avoid making a fire. Wind gusted across the ridge of the Greenwood where they’d stopped, chilling their small camp in the autumn night.

Alric had done well against the challenges of the day, Vessa thought, though he was nearly asleep on his feet, and snoring as soon as his head touched the bedroll.

“You sleep too, Vess,” Maelen grunted, grinning down at the scribe and shaking her head. “I’ll take first watch. I have to repair my jerkin and see to my ribs. That bloody club tagged me harder than I admitted to Old Yara.”

“You need any help?” Vessa asked, stifling a yawn.

“Nah,” Maelen chuckled in the darkness. Clouds off the bay had swept across the Greenwood Rise, and chill fog wound through the trees, swallowing the forest whole. Beyond their circle of breath and silence, the world seemed to vanish. “You looked at bad as the lad when we stopped. Get some rest.”

Vessa nodded, this time yawning fully and loudly. Gratefully, she stretched herself down on her bedroll, resting her head upon folded arms.

Eyelids heavy, she said, “Mae?”

“Mm?”

“We’re going to go steal that thing the old woman mentioned, right? Sarin’s buried treasure?”

“Damned right we are,” Maelen answered.

“Good,” Vessa murmured, the grin audible in her voice. She closed her eyes. The world went black.

Next: Thornmere Hold [with game notes]