I WOKE WITH A SPLITTING headache to find Elsie kneeling over me, bathing my face with warm water.

“Mag,” I groaned. 

“You are alive,” she said, her brows rising. “The healers told me so, but I did not believe them. Neither would you, if you could see yourself.”

“Mag,” I repeated. I tried to lift my head, but a spike of pain nearly drove me senseless again. I fought to remain conscious. “Where is she?” I whispered.

“Puttering about the place,” said Elsie. She rose and went to fetch me water from a bucket by the wall.

“Alive?”

“No, she died, but that has not stopped her. Of course she is alive, you dolt.”

I let myself relax, at least a little. “Everyone else?” I said. Each word came with great effort. “How many survived?”

Elsie’s brisk demeanor seemed to fade away. She looked over at me, and for a moment her eyes sparkled with tears. “Not enough. Though I suppose each one is a blessing.”

She had been there when I first fought to defend Northwood against invaders all those years ago. I could see from the sadness on her face that this time was far, far worse.

“I am sorry,” I said.

Her resolve returned at once, and she turned back to the water, ladling a cup full of it. “You should not be. You fought like a champion. Not as well as Mag, of course, or she would be lying here and you would be the one walking around. But you did all right, I suppose.”

That forced a weak chuckle out of me, and with it, I felt a bit better. Strength had been creeping back into my limbs. I tried to lift my head again, and this time the pain was not so bad.

“No,” said Elsie at once, coming towards me. “You are to stay—”

“I want to see the town,” I told her firmly. “And I need to see Mag.”

Before she could reach me, I sat up, and I gently batted away her hands when she tried to push me back down. Despite her protests, I sat up from the straw pallet where I had been laid.

It was not till then that I realized I was in the common room of the Lee Shore. Mag’s inn could not have looked more different. All the tables had been cleared out, and the floor was covered with four rows of pallets holding the wounded. Healers and helpers moved down the line, providing more pillows, fetching water, and seeing to their patients’ needs.

“Are these all who remain?” I said as I fought painfully to my feet.

Though she clucked her tongue at me, Elsie at last abandoned her attempts to force me back to bed. She took an arm and helped me rise to my feet. “Of course not,” she said. “Every tavern and inn throughout Northwood has been turned into a sickroom. Those that were not burned down in the attack, anyway.”

“Help me to the door,” I said.

“You mean to go outside?” she said, horrified.

“I told you I need to see Mag. If she is not in here, then yes, I need to go outside.”

Elsie glared up at me and did not budge. “I am not sure how else to tell you this, and I do not understand why I have to, but: you nearly died, you great idiot.”

I smiled at her. “I am no stranger to injury. I will be fine.”

“No stranger indeed. You seem well acquainted with head injuries in particular.” But she sighed and moved forwards, helping me hobble towards the inn’s front door. With her help, I pushed it open.

And there stood Mag.

She stood across the street, leaning against the building opposite. Her head was tilted back, resting against the wall, and her eyes were closed. Dirt covered her face, her arms, every scrap of her clothing. A great deal of blood was mixed in with it. But as I looked closely, I could see that none of it was hers. There were no rents in her skin, no angry red wounds. Not even a scratch.

I stood there for a long moment, staring at her, entirely dumbfounded. And as I stared, Mag opened her eyes and looked at me. A small smile tugged at her lips.

“Mag,” I said. “You are alive.”

“Albern,” she said. “You are up. That is good, I suppose.”

Gone from her voice was the lifeless, heartless monotone of her battle-trance. This was the Mag who was my friend, who did not mercilessly cut down her enemies, but who provided beds and food and rest to a band of children who had come down out of the mountains with her old friend.

I walked towards her. Elsie tried to help me, but I had almost forgotten her, and I pulled away from her grip. The pain in my body, even in my head, was forgotten. I went to Mag and put my hand on her shoulder.

“I am sorry, Mag,” I said. “Sky above, I am so sorry.”

Mag shrugged. “It was not your fault, nor mine. Blame the ones who did this.” She gestured vaguely at the town. “Something is happening, Albern. If that was not clear to both of us before, it should be now. It is bigger than either of us, bigger than poor Loren and her friends. All we can do is try to weather the storm and pull the ones we love through it with us.” She turned her gaze away, looking into the blood-soaked mud of the street. “And sometimes fail.”

“Mag—”

“Leave it,” she said. There was just a hint of sharpness in her tone, enough to make me obey.

After a long moment, I spoke again. “Before I went down, I saw you surrounded. I thought I saw you wounded.”

That seemed to bring her out of the darkness her thoughts had cast her into. For a moment she smiled, and it was like we were on the campaign trail again, trading boasts around a campfire. She stepped forwards and held out her arms. “They did surround me. I fought my way free. Do you see any wounds?”

I did not. I sighed. “You are frightening sometimes, Mag.”

“Only sometimes?”

“But … but then what happened?” I pressed. “How did we drive them away from Northwood, in the end?”

Mag frowned. “I have only an answer that is both poor and troubling. I do not know that we did drive them away. They simply turned and marched into the mountains. No one knows why.”

My jaw clenched. “I would like an answer. And I would like them to answer for other things as well.”

“As would I,” said Mag. “But now that you have risen, many things need tending to—and one of them, in particular, was not one I wished to tend to until you were awake.”

My shoulders sagged. “Sten.”

She had cleaned him already. I helped her wrap him in cloth. But when I moved to lift him, she shook her head.

“I will take him,” she said, and her expression brooked no argument. 

She lifted him into her arms. Now, Mag had always been strong and well-muscled, but Sten was a large man. She was breathing hard before she reached the southern gate, and her steps began to falter before we were a span away from the walls. But she did not stop, not even once, and despite her staggering, she never seemed close to dropping him.

Close to the bottom of the Reeve, she laid him down at last. She had prepared the place in advance, and a neat pile of wood lay there to receive him. His final resting place. I could not help but think of how Loren and I had buried Jordel in the mountains. I had not known him nearly as long as Sten, and I had loved him less well—but not by much.

“Too many,” I said quietly.

“Too many,” agreed Mag.

She struck flint and steel upon the heaps of dry branches, and they caught with little effort. We stood back, watching as the flames licked higher. The wood burned bright, and soon it caught upon the cloth we had wrapped Sten in.

I sang, then. I have been told I have a fair enough voice, though I did not think it sounded well in that moment, for my words were thick with tears. But I had learned a number of songs in my travels, and many of them were songs of mourning, for this was not the first time I had lost a friend.

To all of you, come all of you

No tarrying, I call to you

The darkness calls, the fall of you

It bids you come to rest

It welcomes you, and all of us

The years will pass, the fall of us

And you below, will call to us

And bid us go to rest

The wind is cold, and hollow too

All joy has passed, and sorrow too

The children weep, and follow too

They bid you come to rest

Now mourn no more, and we as well

Sit by the fire, and heed as well

One day they call for me as well

And bid me go to rest

“Will he truly rest, do you think?” said Mag.

“No one knows the darkness,” I told her.

“I asked what you think.”

“I hope so. He deserved it. More than either of us, at least.”

“Truly said.”

Her frame was steady, but I could see her hands shaking. I put my hand on her shoulder for a moment and then took it away. We stood a long, silent vigil, watching as the fires burned away the last evidence of my friend and her husband.

When the flames were only coals and the last of the drifting smoke was nearly out of sight over the trees, Mag turned to me.

“Will you come with me?”

I looked at her in surprise. “Where?”

“Atop the Reeve.”

A thrill coursed through my heart. “Mag …”

“Something has weighed on me ever since the battle,” she said. “I did not know exactly what it was. It was like a sense that I should be doing something, but I do not know what. Do you feel the same?”

“I do,” I said. “What would you do, if you could?”

“Only one thing,” she said. “Kill the weremage.”

The words hit me like lightning. I straightened, balling my hands to fists at my sides.

“Yes.”

Mag’s eyes blazed with fire. “I want to find her. Wherever she may have run to. Wherever she may be hiding. And I want to end her.”

“As do I.”

Mag balled her right hand into a fist and slammed it into her hand. “Then let us do it. Come with me. Let us have vengeance for Sten.”

“She will be nearly impossible to track down,” I pointed out. “We do not know where she has gone.”

“I have nothing better to do with my time,” said Mag.

“Even when we find her, she could very well have an army at her back.”

“Let them try to stand before us,” said Mag. “Will you come?”

I grinned and thrust out my hand. “Even if we must ride into the darkness below.”

Mag seized my wrist and pulled me into an embrace. My head, still tender, swam for a moment, but I held her. Finally, I gently pushed her back to hold her at arm’s length. 

“We will need horses.”

“There are some in my stables,” she said. “Come with me to the top of the Reeve, and then we will fetch them.”

“And then into the Birchwood.”

It was as if a cold snap rushed through the air, piercing us both in an instant. I felt the thrill inside me vanish even as I saw it disappear from Mag’s eyes.

“The Birchwood?” said Mag. “Why the Birchwood?”

“To go after Loren, of course,” I said. “Wherever this weremage has gone, she will come into conflict with Loren in the end. And she and the others will need our help, in any case.”

“The weremage went west,” said Mag.

“And who knows where she turned, after she entered the mountains?” I said.

“I do not know, but the mountains are the best place to start.”

“But Loren—”

“The way she and the children rode from here, I doubt we could catch them even if we wanted to.”

“We could try.”

Mag frowned for a moment—but then her expression softened. “Latrine duty,” she said. She pulled a copper sliver from a pouch at her waist. “I say heads.”

“We are not new recruits,” I told her. “This is not—”

“I say heads, Albern.”

I sighed. Half a chance was better than none—better, indeed, than an argument I knew might not end. Any soldier knows the virtue of a firm, clean decision—even if it is a poor one. “Very well.”

Mag flipped the coin. I think I knew, even as it flashed in the air, what the result would be. She flipped it onto the back of her other hand, looked at it, and smiled.

“West.”