THERE WAS STILL MUCH TO be done that night. Ditra sent the fastest messengers she had left to find the refugees on the road and order their return. She then sent a small contingent of soldiers to meet them on the road and provide protection from ambush. The Shades had vanished after the small part they played in the battle, and Ditra feared further mischief from them.

After that she retired at last, ordering us to do the same. Mag and I collapsed in our beds the moment we saw them. We slept well past midday and rose to find Kahaunga had begun the long process of rebuilding itself. We helped where we could, and spent our time in rest when we could not.

True to her word, Apok returned the next day, and she met with Ditra on the slopes north of Kahaunga. They discussed the pact again, redrew the boundaries, and pledged that their descendants, and those they commanded, would swear by the new pact from that day forth. Then the humans and the trolls joined each other in rebuilding their lives, with the trolls helping Telfer subjects reclaim and rebuild their homes in the mountains, and the Telfers providing the trolls with great stores of bread and crops, which were gratefully (if messily) devoured.

Early on the third day, Dryleaf and Oku returned to us, along with the rest of the refugees. Oku barked madly as he leaped around us, and Dryleaf beamed.

“I knew somehow that you two would come out all right,” he said, “yet I am glad to see myself proven correct.”

“I think you had an almost foolish confidence in our success, then,” I told him.

“Someone had to.”

“Albern may speak for himself, but not for me,” said Mag, in a light mood that I doubted was genuine. “If our foes wish to rid themselves of me, they shall have to do better than trolls.”

“And speaking of your foes,” said Dryleaf, “what of Kaita?”

Mag’s false cheer vanished.

“She escaped,” I said. “She was last seen fleeing southwest, as fast as her raven wings would carry her.”

Dryleaf gave a tired sigh. “I suppose you wish to strike out upon the road as soon as may be, without even giving an old man a night to rest?”

Mag paused for a long moment. Her mouth worked, her lips twisting around each other, as though words were fighting to escape.

At last she simply said, “No.”

I gaped at her. “No?”

“No.” Mag shook her head. “Kaita led us here step by step. Always she left us a clue, pulling us along until we reached Tokana, where she hoped to have done with us. That game has finished, and she has lost. Now we have no more clues, no signs by which to pursue her. So why should we hurry back to the road? Besides”—and she gave me a gentle smile—“you have returned home after far too long. You have reunited with your family. You should take the time to enjoy that.”

“I will,” I said. “But my aims have not changed. In Northwood, you and I said we would make Kaita pay. I said I was with you. That promise still stands.”

“I am glad to hear it,” said Mag, and I could hear how deeply she meant it. “Then enjoy your return to your homeland. Kaita will still be out there when you are done, and we will find her together.”

“I, too, am still with you,” muttered Dryleaf from his chair. “Though I suppose it sounds less heroically inspiring coming from me.”

The rest of our Yearsend was rather pleasant. Ditra’s rangers were kept very busy hunting down the Shades in the mountains. When Kaita abandoned them, they melted into the wilderness, trying to hide from all sight and retribution. Most did not succeed. Ditra’s forces hunted the Shades down in every hole where they tried to hide. And those who passed farther into the mountains, and were discovered by trolls … well, I did not like to imagine their fate then, and I still do not.

We stayed in Kahaunga for more than a week. When Ditra was not too busy rebuilding her city, I spent most of my days with her, and when she was, I would visit Vera instead. Sometimes I would take her riding beyond the walls of the stronghold, and I discovered to my great delight that she seemed to love the mountain wilderness almost as much as I had when I was her age.

My time spent with Ditra was mostly pleasant. In the very first days, we were so thrilled at Kahaunga’s salvation that we thought of little else. After that, our conversations turned back to our past and our family. We still had some angry words to say to each other then, things we had not had time to say before the trolls attacked. But I will not repeat it all here, for it worked itself out in the end—the way it usually does, with family. One’s true family, at any rate. We found peace with each other, and I took every meal with her and Vera, with Mag and Dryleaf joining us more often than not. Ditra had, you remember, been rather cool towards Mag when she thought she was a sellsword. That was no longer the case, and they grew to like each other greatly in a very short time. Ditra found great amusement in Mag’s frequent jokes at my expense, and sometimes the two of them would join forces against me, doing their utmost to make me blush, and falling into peals of laughter when I retreated, muttering, into my wine. On one such occasion, Dryleaf gave a sudden, barking laugh.

“Sky above, I have just realized it.” He reached over and patted Mag’s arm. “Mag has become your new Ditra.”

That sobered both women up rather sharply, and they glared at him. “I certainly have not,” said Mag.

“She certainly has not,” said Ditra, at the exact same time.

This, of course, sent both Dryleaf and me into hysterics, and Vera giggled at her mother’s side. When I had recovered enough to talk, I patted Mag’s hand. 

“I think he is wiser than either of us, my friend.”

It was Mag’s turn to retreat to her cup of wine.

Ditra and Vera got to hear Dryleaf sing often during that time. We would sit in her chamber, Vera on my lap or her mother’s, Mag by the window with Oku curled at her feet, and listen as Dryleaf shared songs we had never heard before. I never failed to marvel at how many he seemed to know. I thought I could learn a new one every week for the rest of my life and still not match him. The years seemed to fall away from him when he performed; his face shone in the firelight, his stance was firm, his shoulders straight. And as I watched him, and listened, I reflected on a conversation that he and I had had more than once in the last few months.

One day, nearly a week after the battle with the trolls, I saw him alone in his chamber after the others had gone to bed. I had just helped Ditra put Vera to bed; she had fallen asleep on her mother’s lap, and I carried her to her room while Ditra tucked the blankets in around her.

“What is it, my boy?” said Dryleaf, brows raised in curiosity.

“I … I wanted to share something with you, if you do not mind staying up a while longer.”

Dryleaf frowned. “Of course. Is everything all right?”

I took a deep breath. “It is. I have … this is still dear to me, and I am reluctant … it is the song. Jordel’s song.”

Dryleaf understood at once, and he nodded solemnly. “Ah.”

“I told you of my journey with Loren in the Greatrocks. I spoke more of her than of Jordel, but Jordel was dearer to me, and I promised that I would make a song for him. I … I would be honored if you were the first to hear it.”

I did not look up at him, even though he could not see me, for I suddenly felt like a very foolish child. But Dryleaf reached over and took up my hand and squeezed it between his leathery fingers. I looked up to find him smiling gently, his gaze seemingly just over my left shoulder.

“The honor would be mine,” he said.

And so, in hesitant, stumbling tones, I sang him the song I had spent the last few months writing.

What sorrow feel we

Who mourning raise our hands

To farewell bid to he

Who watchfully guarded the nine lands

Stranger, will not you weep

Do you know he who fell from high

In a bed of stones and there to sleep

And ages will pass him by

Do you know Jordel of Adair

Who walked miles long

His mighty arm, his silver hair

His shining blade, his armor strong

For none could meet one so bold

Or kindness in such measure great

Without weeping when he lay there cold

The master of his own fate

He saw along his own trail

And knew the fate that loomed

With his head high, in shining mail

Jordel rode forth to meet his doom

Our tears we must bring to close

And bitter our grief we must allay

Jordel his own resting place chose

To bring us all through night to day

My voice faded in the chamber, and Dryleaf sat nodding in the firelight, his head bobbing in time with the pace at which I had sung. I could not even look at him, such was my embarrassment.

“You can tell me,” I said. “It is not very good.”

“I can hear the heart of it. You have done a rare thing. A fine thing.”

“How very diplomatic of you,” I said, with an embarrassed snort. My face was beet-red. “But those are fair words holding little substance. You are trying to try to make me feel better.”

“Stop it, boy,” said Dryleaf. It was one of the only times he ever spoke sharply to me. “You think it will make you feel better to hear it, so let me make it plain that you are wrong: No, your song is not very good. Of course it is not. You said you have never written one before, and you have been trying to do it all on your own. And it is not even finished.”

“No, just a great deal of time wasted, it seems.” I already knew the song was poor, but hearing it from the old man, who was always so kind, was like a knife in the gut.

“Wasted?” said Dryleaf incredulously. “No. You could have brought it to me sooner, and then things might have gone a bit faster. But no work upon a song is wasted. You have done the important work, my boy, you have the most important piece. You have the heart of it. Your language is off, the poetry lacks, and your rhythm … well. But these are dressings. These are the niceties you drape atop the soul of the song itself. If the soul is weak, all the dressings in the world will yield you nothing. You have spent your time wrestling with the hardest task, the part that too many bards eschew. But your work has borne fruit. Now it is ready to be honed, like a blade on a whetstone.”

“I will work on it more, then,” I said. “Thank you for your advice.” I made to rise, but Dryleaf reached out suddenly and seized my hand. 

“Sit down, boy, sit down,” he said. “You have struggled too long at this alone.”

“It is mine.” I could hardly understand the sense of jealousy and selfishness rising up in me, and I did not enjoy it, but neither could I rid myself of it. “I have to do this on my own. It is important to me.”

He released my hand and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “I am sure it is. It is clear you loved him.”

My anger abated somewhat, and I spoke softly. “I did.”

“Then do him justice, and let the song become something great. You feel you must do this yourself, because you think it would be weak to beg help from another. Forgive me, but it is very like Mag.”

I scoffed. “Mag? Mag has no interest in songs.”

Dryleaf shook his head. “Not in songs. But in other things. She is the greatest warrior of her age. Everyone knows it. She feels the weight of it. It makes her feel that she must always take on more, and do it alone.”

“She fought beside us against the trolls.” 

“I have no doubt,” he said, “that if she thought you would have stayed behind and let her face them alone, she would have. And she took it upon herself to slay the pack leader, and to subdue Kaita.”

I looked down at my hands in my lap. “She asked me to come with her, when she left Northwood.”

“Did she?” said Dryleaf. “That, then, was a rare moment of wisdom. I think that, if you do not want both your roads to end in tragedy, you must teach her to show such wisdom more often. You should not learn her way of doing things, but persuade her to a wiser course instead. She needs your help if she is to accomplish her aims. If she tries to do it alone, she will fail, Uncut Lady or not.” He took a deep breath. “It is a lesson many never learn. Your sister thought she could succeed on her own. But look how she fared here, before you came. In the end, only you and Mag brought even the faintest hope of success.”

We fell silent. I thought upon what Dryleaf had said, and I saw, swimming before me, the face of Maia. She needs you to save her, he had said to me.

After a little while, I stood and made for the door. But I stopped by Dryleaf’s chair and reached down for his hand. He squeezed my fingers again, gently.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. “It is late now. But we will speak of the song again soon.”

“I cannot wait,” he murmured.