Somewhere in the impenetrable darkness, thunder pealed and rumbled. Or was that the pang of lightning slamming in Rowan's skull? Another crack and rumble shook the air. She became aware of horses. The wet stench of them. Restless nickering. Mud squelching underfoot. Canvas flapping. The sound of leather tack creaking, and disgruntled male voices shouting above the wind.

Her mouth wasn't working or she'd have called out to them, whoever they were. Since when were there horses in Carthyrk? Striga notwithstanding.

Why did her lips feel like straps of old leather? Why was her tongue bone dry?

She tried to move her hands, but her arms were as heavy as iron. Wait, they sounded like iron, too! At the sound of clanking metal, she gasped. Her eyelids finally flew open.

She blinked and cursed as a sharp bolt of lightning lit the sky, blinding her a moment. Not just in her head but cracking through the sky with ominous violence. When it passed, she realized she was sopping wet and cold. She shook her head, trying to clear the blur from her eyes, but it hurt too much, so she held still and too inventory of her pain.

Her hands were manacled, no mistaking that. Through her waterlogged eyes and the hideous throbbing in her head, she could see the iron shackles around her wrists. Her skin was raw and stinging. But more disturbing even than the manacles was the little gold band on her finger. Her old wedding band.

She tried to speak, but the sound was muffled by a dirty gag. As her vision cleared a little, her surroundings came into focus.

She was in a spartan little tent, sitting in the mud with a smelly horse blanket thrown around her shoulders. The gag in her mouth tasted like an old man's codpiece. Disgusting! What in Maeda's name was going on? Where was she?

In answer to her silent question, the tent flap was shoved aside and Merritt ducked inside. She hissed, shutting her eyes against the painful lightning streaks. Beyond the tent flap lay only sodden gloom. But it wasn't the dark of night. A storm raged in the sky behind Merritt. Even with the tent flap back in place, she could hear it, and the interior flared with light each time lightning snapped across the sky.

She glared balefully at Merritt as he crouched beside her looking far too cheerful.

He tugged on the gag a moment, but then paused as though uncertain. "Don't look at me like that, dear heart. You know I'm doing this for your own good, don't you?"

She growled, her skin crawling with rage and revulsion. The bastard had kidnapped her! By the pain still coursing in her brain, she guessed he'd knocked her senseless. When Thrax found them, he'd kill Merritt. Well, if there was anything left of the cur once she was done with him.

Her eyes seemed to convey every dark thought because he quickly dropped his hands, deciding against the ungagging.

She summoned what calm she could and hooded the hate from her eyes. "Please," she said around the gag. "Please."

He wavered a moment and then sighed, yanking her gag down. "There's no use shouting because—"

"You bastard! You Hekki-spawned rat! When Thrax finds out what you've done..." She was too enraged to continue.

"He won't find out!" Merritt swallowed uncomfortably, looking over his shoulder as though the shadow of the wargrex had crept over his grave. "He thinks you've left him. All very civilized, I assure you."

Her belly heaved with nausea. But it quickly passed. "No, impossible. He knows I wouldn't leave him." Did he, though? She'd never gotten to tell him she loved him, and that she had no intention of leaving next summer. That Carthyrk was her home now. "He'll come for me." But her voice grew soft as dismay stole into her chest, and unbidden into her eyes.

Merritt saw it before she could squelch it, and it instantly palliated his terror. "You don't look so sure, Rowan."

"If nothing else, Thrax knows I'd never leave Meera or Striga behind."

He grinned, nodding. "And that's why I've brought them both along, too. Meera's a trusting little fool, didn't take much to convince her that I'd harm you if she didn't cooperate. Quietly."

She gnashed her teeth, wishing she could strangle him. "I'll kill you for this, Merritt."

"No, you won't, you're not bloodthirsty. Soon you'll realize that I'm doing this because I love you. As soon as you see the walls of West Gate—as soon as you have some warm butter pudding, or those honey things you like—you'll realize you never belonged with those godsawful savages. They've brainwashed you, you know."

"By the goddess, you are a rambling fool." And fools were dangerous, she was coming to find out too late. Fools couldn't be reasoned with. She'd find herself gagged again if she tried to make him see reason. She bit her lip and peered past him where the tent flap was thrashing in the wind. "Where are we?"

"A shortcut. I found maps of the outland in some old books in the Temple Library."

Dread swooped into her cold bones. "There are no shortcuts in the outland—only dead ends." Her eyes flicked nervously down at the mud. What if there were blood wyrms nearby? No one would hear the approach of blood wyrms over the storm.

"This way is safer, Rowan. I promise. An old and reliable road with no blood-sucking orchids to menace my men."

"If it was worth going this way, the wargs would do it."

"Don't look so scared, we're all wearing nixrath silver." He tugged at the cluster of gleaming chains hanging over his surcote. It was very pure silver, nearly white. "And the storm is helping to cover our scent and tracks. No sane beast is out in this stupid weather."

She shook her head. "Only fools like you."

He shrugged. "Needs must..."

"Caves are dark and wet," she said gesturing to the wet darkness beyond the tent. "Grendels will be out in this storm." They were cave dwellers in the day, but they emerged in the dark, rain or no rain. And the sun was blotted behind thick black clouds. She shifted uncomfortably, hating that she'd been lying in one spot for gods-knew how long. Any longer and she'd be fodder for wyrms and vishwa, no less horrifying than grendels. "That silver," she reminded him, "did nothing to help you the last time."

"Of course it did," he replied, "I'm still alive, aren't I?"

She squeezed her eyes shut and counted to three. "Merritt, we have to get back on the move. It's dangerous to rest in one place too long."

"We are leaving, the men are packing up as we speak." He gave her knee a light tap. "Can't lay about all day, lazy bones."

She was one more stupid remark away from shoving her boot through his teeth.

He held the tent flap open for her. Once outside, she held her manacled hands up to shield her eyes against the worst of the rain. "Where's Meera?"

He pointed to a group of mounted riders. "There, on Striga's back. It lent a lot of credibility to our departure—your maid atop your steed. You resting your head on my shoulder as we left..." He watched her closely. "Your guard dog wasn't sniffing about in the small hours to witness us leaving." Was he talking about Thresh or Thrax? Merritt glanced over to Meera and Striga again. "If only that damnable wing wasn't useless, Striga could've flown us off into the dawn and all the way home."

"I was home before you stole me away."

He waved the remark off like it was nonsense. "Never mind that, you'll be in Black Bridge Castle in no time, with all the sweets and cakes thus far denied you. No doubt you've missed your treats, you're looking far too rangy nowadays."

She stared at him as though he'd sprouted a boil on his lip. Behind her, the tent was hastily dismantled. The rain slashed ever harder at her face and cut her eyes as the men broke camp and began mounting.

When Merritt offered to hoist her up behind his skittish horse, she dug in her heels and glared. "I'll ride with Meera on Striga."

"I'm not an idiot, Rowan." She rolled her eyes dubiously, but he ignored it and continued. "I'll have no hope of catching you on that beast, broken wing or not." That was the only wise thing he'd said so far. "No, you ride with me or you walk."

She thrust her shackled wrists out at him. "Then unchain me."

"Don't do it, my lord!" said a soldier coming up behind her. Or was it Merritt's valet? The milk white complexion suggested the latter. "I heard the wargs crowing about her supernatural strength—the mating bond, they called it. Stronger than any human man, they said."

The word mating seemed to make Merritt's eye twitch. "How vile."

"Indeed, my lord." His valet nodded readily. Then he puffed his chest out. "I've been learning the warg tongue."

"You little toad," Rowan said in wargish, "how well you lick your lord's backside." She was briefly satisfied to see his face turn a splotchy red. She snorted. If they thought a pair of shackles would keep her from strangling Merritt, they were even greater idiots than she first thought.

But, though she hated to admit it, Merritt was her only ally out here. In the outland where everything wanted to eat you, one couldn't be picky about allies—even hateful fools like Merritt. The only reason she'd survived the outland both times before was because she'd been guarded by wargs.

She glanced over to Meera sitting astride Striga, eyes downcast, two mounted mercenaries flanking her. Rowan knew she couldn't risk anything reckless, she had to think with care and decide on a course of action that would bring no harm to Meera or Striga. One that, gods willing, ensured the safe return of everyone. Even Merritt, much as she wished him to Hekki.

Everyone winced as the sky exploded. It roared with thunder, blasting shards of light at the ground nearby. Brek was in a foul temper.

Rowan hoped that if the god aimed his bolts at them, they'd strike Merritt and not Meera or Striga.

"Let's move!" Merritt yelled over the storm. He caught her staring hopefully in the opposite direction and said, "I'm not worried. He won't come after you, he thinks you've run off with me."

"You'd better hope so," she said darkly.

But even if that was so—even if Thrax thought the worst of her—he would send wargs after them to make sure they got to West Gate safely. Especially knowing what a bungling twit Merritt was. That fact she would stake her life on. And there was every chance of him coming himself, too, just so he could blast her with a foul farewell and a last look of disappointment.

Well, she hadn't deserted him! As mad as he was at her, he must know that.

When the valet planted her none too gently behind Merritt, she thought about strangling the pair of them. Instead, she grabbed fistfuls of Merritt's surcote as his horse leaped forward into a gallop. Finally, they were moving. But in which direction? The pelting rain and her pounding head were making it impossible to read the landscape. But her glimpses weren't promising.

She had little faith in his shortcut. "This doesn't look right!" she yelled, having sighted no giant Kolg and no winding Jorg. All she could tell was that they seemed to be climbing steadily upward. Nearby, a large waterfall and a small lake emerged into view. But the rain drowned out the sound, and she knew no human eye could see through the torrent. Likely no one else saw the waterfall. Dread gurgled in her belly as her blurry vision began to clear.

They were riding in the vast shadow of a looming mountain, she realized. And there was only one mountain range that she knew of hereabout. Myrkheim.

Merritt yanked out a compass, squinted down at it, and then shoved it back into his cote. "Ah-ha!" He exclaimed, pointing ahead. "I see a path!" He sounded far too smug, saying, "And you had no faith in my shortcut!"

"Merritt, we have to turn around! We're in the Dead—"

But he spurred his horse on with a belting, "Hyah!" and cut her off,

Gods above! He thought he'd found the mountain pass! But her warg vision pierced the murk beyond. Even with the throbbing and blurring caused by the painful knot on her temple where he'd hit her, she could see now that it wasn't a path at all, much less a mountain pass.

A network of strange white roots were spreading out along the ground, peeking out from the mud. To the human eye, prone to seeing what it wished to see, it was unnatural enough to mistake for a Mantor Eye pathway up the mountain side. Some old roads were lined with Mantor Eyes, so he no doubt mistook the snaking white feature for the road he sought.

Nervous, she twisted around to see that Meera was right behind them, head bowed to shield her eyes from the flying mud and driving rain.

"Striga!" she shouted, "look sharp!" And the meaning was twofold. In an instant, Striga's horse face reshaped itself into a razor sharp owl beak mid-stride. Out came the wings, dicing at the rain. She'd have exchanged her front hooves for talons, too, but the hooves were better suited for galloping than talons were. Now she looked as fierce as a griffin, her wings tucked in over Meera's sodden head.

Whatever happened, Striga would protect Meera to the death with beak and claw.

Behind Striga lay endless sheets of rain and the somber shadows of the other riders. Some were glancing down at their compasses, others shaking their heads. Those with honed senses could likely feel the danger lurking nearby.

It was a terrible time to pit one's mettle against the elements. Merritt was right, no sane beast would be out in this. But nightfall would bring out the worst monsters. At least it was still daytime...for now. What time of day, she didn't know. These were all pertinent details mounting in Merritt's favor. Not least of which was the fact that the wind and rain would confuse things, scatter scent trails all over the place, and delay Thrax from finding her.

But he would come!

Just as she was about to face forward again and brave the slicing rain, she caught sight of another shadow. One that didn't belong to their sorry little troop. This shadow was as large as a horse, but bulkier and further off. None of the other riders had noticed it yet.

A warg.

Every nerve in her flesh rippled with excitement. She sent up a prayer of thanks to any of the gods listening. Stupid Merritt, if he hadn't made camp, the warg, or wargs, might not have caught them so soon. But here it was, the shadow becoming darker and larger as the distance closed between them. Then just as suddenly as she'd sighted him, he vanished. She searched the gloom over and over, but the rain was too thick. No one else seemed the wiser. None of the men seemed to sense they were being hunted.

Relieved, she turned to face the front. At the same moment, however, Merritt's horse reared with a equine shriek of terror. She was so unprepared for the horse's sudden swerving halt that she was hurled off like a doll. The moment she hit the ground, she rolled away to avoid getting a hoof in her skull. Had she been merely human, the fall might have shattered some bones. As it was, she was only winded.

In the chaos of the storm and spooked horses, no one had yet seen the warg. But the horses sensed him. She herself sensed him, but the rain obscured his scent, so she didn't know which warg it was.

Merritt was fighting the reins, trying to calm his jumpy horse. "Rowan!" He twisted this way and that, bouncing in the saddle, his horse dancing beneath him. "Are you all right?" He sounded terrified, but she couldn't tell if that terror was for her or for himself.

She ignored him and raced towards Meera. She threw herself at Striga's brawny shoulder, her fingers latching in the feathery mane. The manacles made the embrace awkward, but she didn't care.

"They're here, Meera! They've come to save us! Don't take fright! Be ready!"

"Just one warg," said Meera. "I saw him, too." Her teeth were chattering and her lips blue.

That was impossible. Rowan wouldn't have spotted the warg without her preternatural eyes, so how did Meera? "You saw him?" she asked. "How?" Had Thresh shared the night gift with her? There didn't have to be a bond for a warg to share the gift. A bond made it permanent, though.

But Meera didn't answer. She was scanning the stormy murk. "There!" she cried suddenly.

Rowan wheeled around, following Meera's shaking finger. She hadn't expected him to ambush them from the front.

But there, emerging through the deluge, was a hulking warg, head low to the ground, his stance threatening.

Merritt's horse gave another awful scream and threw her rider into the mud. Having unseated her master, the horse galloped away with his sword still strapped to the saddle. Merritt sat defenseless in the mud, staring up at a snarling warg.