OoOoO

Dawn was breaking. Seemingly in defiance of yesterday's carnage, morning came soft and peaceful upon The Teeth. Rays of sunlight fell upon the mountainside in a golden caress, warming the summer dew and perfuming the air. Eagles circled far overhead, hunting the last of the nocturnal creatures as they stumbled home wearily to their dens. One such night-time wanderer made her way down toward Trosk on slow, shuffling feet.

                There had been no sleep for Lhara, nor would there be any today. It was only by sheer strength of will that she had managed to force herself to turn around and set her course back toward Trosk. The urge to simply wander forever along the ridgeline all the way south to the sea had been a tempting one. Lhara knew though that Magda would need her help.

            By the time she at last came to the village, people were already awake and milling about, if indeed any of them had slept either. Some effort was being made to start cleaning up the smoldering wreckage of The Giant's Shoe. Quella and Devina looked up with sooty faces from sweeping the debris together at the foot of The Ram. Their eyes were full of pity when they saw Lhara, even more so when they took in her wild, bushy hair and bramble-covered pants. If once her tendency to wander in The Teeth had garnered amusement or exasperation, today there was only sympathy.

            Lhara found Magda already at work in her little cottage. The old Wise Woman was just drawing a sheet over a still form on the table when Lhara slid through the door. Magda looked up to greet her apprentice with a regretful nod.

            "One of the Factionists," she explained before Lhara's thoughts could inevitably find their way to her uncle. "He died just before sunrise."

            "Oh..."

To be entirely honest, Lhara was not surprised. The pale man had looked more dead than alive when she found him. She felt a shred of relief that the poor soul needn't be subjected to trepanning or madness after all.

"If you could bring water to those who are awake, and check the dressings on their wounds, I need to send for the girls to bring a wagon." Magda looked tired, perhaps even more than Lhara felt. Her cottony white hair, still half-tied up in a bun, revealed a glimpse of her faded dark blue Ættartré tattoo.

"Alright."

"And Lhara?"

Lhara stopped in mid-turn to glance back, expecting further instructions from her teacher. Instead she was met with Magda's outstretched arms. The Wise Woman, bowed and bent with age as she was, still managed to reach up far enough to draw Lhara down into a hug.

"I'm so sorry for all that you have lost, little daughter," Magda murmured into Lhara's tangled hair. "Know that you always have a place here beneath my roof, if you wish it."

Tears instantly sprung up to sting the corners of Lhara's eyes. Fighting against the knot in her throat, Lhara nodded against Magda's shoulder. She had done enough crying last night. Despite her efforts otherwise, she knew her eyes were reddened when she at last pulled away from the comforting warmth of Magda's shawl.

Trying to find words of thanks and finding none, Lhara instead steadied her trembling voice before changing the subject.

"How is Uncle Torl?"

Magda offered her apprentice a small, reassuring smile. "Torl's leg will not be the death of him, that I can promise you and your aunt both. I went to go see him after the ceremony last night, and found him resting comfortably with your cousin's babe. Even so..." Magda's worn expression tightened. "...I can also promise that he will be forever crippled by it. Walking may be within your stubborn uncle's power, eventually, but he must never shepherd his flock in the heights again. The bone simply will not have the strength for such hiking." 

            It was hardly good news, but still better than anything Lhara had heard in the past night and day. Trying to accept fate with grace, she nodded.

            "There may yet be time for you to slip away to visit your aunt and uncle today," said Magda. "They're very concerned for you as well."

            For some reason, Lhara didn't really feel like being fussed over, especially with Torl as badly injured as he was. Being the object of sympathy reminded her too sharply of the days following her ma and da's deaths. Besides, she wasn't the only one who had lost family yesterday. She could only imagine how Gerdiom's family was suffering, to lose their husband and father. Or Magda herself, with Halna still missing after the battle.

If the Wise Woman was afraid for her only daughter though, she made no display of it. Instead Magda left Lhara with a pile of clean cloths, a kettle of boiled garlic water, and a horn pitcher of drinking water. The scent of lingering smoke poured in through the open door as Magda left, and Lhara was quick to shut it tightly behind her.

It was surprisingly quiet in Magda's cottage, despite the presence of the wounded. Some of the less severely hurt had been taken home by their families for the night, leaving only a handful of men by the hearth or in the bedroom. Lhara tended the villagers quickly and easily, making pointless small talk with those who were awake if only to ease the silence. They seemed glad to see her, and were tactful enough not to ask after her brothers, for which Lhara was very grateful.

When Lhara elbowed open the door into the bedroom, expecting to find the Factionist with the belly wound on the bed, she was surprised. Rather than the alert, screaming clansman, it was the pale man that she found lying there. Even more to her surprise, he was coming around. He flinched at the sudden scraping of the door against the ground, white brows flying together in a pained expression.

"Sorry," Lhara offered, coming around to his side of the small bed. Next to him, Owen the carpenter groaned fitfully in his sleep.

The pale Factionist did not answer. His eyes moved beneath closed lids though, and one hand hovered a few inches above where it had been resting at his side. Lhara wondered if his wits were still in one piece. Deciding that noise was probably too painful for him regardless, she leant over and gently turned his head to one side. The stitches she had sewn into his scalp the day before seemed to be holding just fine; no blood spotted the whiteness of the cloth bandage.

"...Wen...nis..."

It was little more than an incoherent moan, but Lhara heard it anyways. Carefully she turned his head back to rest on the pillow. When she did, a startled gasp nearly escaped her.

The stranger's eyes were half-open, trying to focus on her with only limited success. And small wonder too, for the man was blind. Irises as white as the clouds which ringed The Teeth wavered beneath downy lashes. Then, all of the sudden, they settled on Lhara with an eerie precision.

Licking her dry lips, Lhara cautiously tested to see if he could understand her. "You...you're in the village of Trosk. Do you remember what happened?"

At first there was no answer. Those colorless eyes wandered from her face to the walls and back, and oddly enough Lhara got the feeling that he could actually see the room, and her. Someone coughed in the next room, and again he winced. Then he tried again to speak.

"...Tro...sk?"

He sounded parched, reminding Lhara of the pitcher on the bedside table. Sliding an arm beneath his lean shoulders, she helped the Factionist rise up in bed just enough to drink. He spluttered and nearly choked, but managed to swallow a mouthful of water down. His hand even came up as if to try to hold the pitcher himself. That was when Lhara saw them.

The backs of the man's hands, wrists, and arms were covered with a myriad of shiny white scars. They were puckered, suggesting they had healed poorly after the fact, or that the burns themselves had been very deep. Unbidden, the memory of Marden's charred back came to Lhara, and she shuddered.

"...won't...hurt you."

Lhara was taken aback by the apologetic, chagrined expression tightening the man's pale face. It occurred to her then to be angry at him for the damage the Factionists' presence had done to her village and family. Somehow that didn't seem to be what he was talking about. Then it dawned on Lhara that he seemed to think she was shuddering in fear of him, as if a wounded, wiry slip of a man like him could frighten her.

"It's not you," she assured him, settling him back down onto the pillow. "Not really."

"No?" He sounded confused. Understandable, considering the state he was in.

"No."

An awkward silence fell as the Factionist regarded her. Lhara was surer than ever now that, despite their colorlessness, his eyes were not in fact blind. With every moment he seemed to become more alert, which at least was a good sign. Not knowing what else to say, Lhara was just about to leave the bedroom when he broke the silence with his quiet voice.

"I have to get to Falerik...have to tell Vinie."

The mention of western Goran held Lhara in the room. Tarun was bound for the west, even now crossing The Teeth with the Fourth Company. She didn't know exactly where Falerik was, but she pressed the pale man for more anyways.

"Falerik? Is that where you're from?"

The Factionist slowly shook his head, and regretted it immediately if his wince was anything to go by.

"Have to tell Vinie what?"

"...An Obad...fighting alongside soldiers...she has to know."

Lhara couldn't imagine that he would be able to walk a straight line to the front door, much less all the way across the mountains. Even less imaginable was the notion that anybody left in Trosk would be interested in helping him to do it. Yesterday had assured that.

"You can't travel right now," said Lhara, hand on the door, this time not to be stopped. "Get some rest."

OoOoO

The rest of the day was spent helping the others to pick up the pieces of Trosk. The argali flocks were restless and hungry, having spent over two days without any fresh grazing. Lhara and Eima had taken first Torl's flock then Marden's a short ways up the mountainside to eat. By the time they got the last of the sheep penned back into their paddock beside the cottage, the sun was already setting behind The Teeth. How Lhara was going to manage the house and the flock by herself, she had no idea, much less how Eima and Aunt Rhena would do it with Torl's leg crippled and Eima a mother.

The two cousins staggered exhaustedly down the road toward Rhena and Torl's house as twilight fell. For Lhara, having gone so long without rest, she felt she could fall down by the wayside and sleep right there in the heather. The smell of dinner cooking had been enough to urge her onward though. By the time she and Eima fell through the door of her aunt's house, her stomach was rumbling audibly.

"There you girls are," Rhena greeted them at the door, relief briefly lightening her careworn face. She wore her favorite yellow apron, and even that little sign of normalcy was a comfort to Lhara. "We were beginning to worry about you, being out in The Teeth after dark."

"How is Ristan, ma?" Eima was quick to sweep past Rhena into the main room, arms already outstretched for her son.

"We're getting on just fine," Torl sat beside the hearth with the sandy-haired baby on his lap. Ristan immediately held out his little arms for Eima, who scooped him up with a sigh.

Lhara's eyes went straight to her uncle's leg. The limb rested out in front of Torl on a stool, heavily wrapped with stiff linen and braced on all sides by narrow boards. Torl followed her gaze and gave his niece a little shrug.

"Magda brought herbs this morning for the pain, so it doesn't bother me much. Can't feel my toes, but Magda said their color was fine anyways."

"That's good then," said Lhara, not really knowing what else to say. There was so much wrong, there wasn't any place to begin with it all. 

Dinner was a quiet affair, made even quieter by the obvious absences at the table. There was no Garrit, teasing his sister and getting glared at by Hengar for his cheek. There was no Tarun to interrupt with uninvited commentary about how 'his book said this' or 'his book said that'. Worst of all, there was no Marden to talk about the weather or the flocks with Torl, calmly discussing everything from lightning storms to new lambs like it was all another day's work. The young men's places sat empty at the table, gaping like shelves in the crypts until Rhena took their chairs away.

By unspoken agreement it seemed, nobody had brought up the men taken by the Fourth Company. To mention their names was to invite too many emotions; loss, worry, anger, and worst of all, hope. Garrit, Hengar, and Tarun were all alive as far as they knew, but the not-knowing could only grow worse the longer they were gone. No one at the table knew if they would grow old and grey, waiting and hoping for their boys to return, and so they said nothing about the matter.

After dinner Lhara tried to take her leave to go down to Trosk and help Magda. Rhena wouldn't hear of it however.

"You're just about grey from exhaustion, and quieter with heartsickness than I've ever seen you, Lhara," Rhena said. "Magda will send for you if she needs you, but otherwise you're going to sleep here." When Lhara tried to protest, Rhena planted herself in front of the door. "Consider it the woman of the house's demand."

Too tired to fight any more, Lhara let Eima settle her in Garrit's room. Her cousin's bed smelled like him, and it made Lhara want to run back up the mountainside to throw herself onto Marden and Tarun's empty beds. Sleep was rushing up to meet her like the bottom of a ravine though. Curling up under the quilt and squeezing her eyes shut, Lhara tried hard not to relive her childhood nightmares of falling.

She didn't. That night, Lhara's dreams were filled instead with the roar of fire, the groaning of collapsing timber, and ghostly white eyes.

OoOoO

            The next morning Lhara was awake and on her way down into Trosk before even little Ristan stirred. It was a grey, windy day, overcast without any real intent of rain. The wind tugged at her hair and cloak, whipping the helm of Eima's borrowed kirtle around her ankles. There was the first real hint of autumn nipping at the edge of the air, drawn down from the highest peaks of The Teeth and perfumed by snow that never melts. If winter came, Tarun wouldn't be able to make the crossing of The Old Mountain Road until spring... 

            To Lhara's surprise, there was some commotion in the town square when she arrived. Women had gathered in front Magda's cottage, and some were shouting.

            "Don't be stupid, you can't get to Derbesh on foot!"

            "Then I'll buy a mount! Don't you have a horse to part with...or even a mule?"

            "Poor man's lost his wits as well as his color."

            "If you'll just listen-"
             "I know what you intend to tell me, and I cannot! This information is too important to wait."

            Lhara recognized the previously soft-spoken voice straight away, raised almost hysterically as it was. Pushing her way through the gaggle of women, she found Quella and Alina trying to restrain the pale Factionist as Magda scolded. It was impossible to tell if he was flushed with fever or not, but he seemed clear-eyed and purposeful, if a fool.

            "Please, I have to reach Falerik!" he was shouting. "You cannot hold me here against my will!"

            "Why on earth are you trying to go to Derbesh then?" Lhara interrupted, planting herself right in the man's path. Quella and Alina looked like they had a firm enough grip on his arms, but just in case...

            The Factionist seemed to recognize her; his face lifted with relief for half a second. He still did not stop trying to shake off the villagers. His clothes, still rumpled and stained from battle, looked haphazardly arranged, as if he had dressed himself without really paying attention.

            "I need to buy passage on a ship from Derbesh to Moaan," he explained. "From there I can deliver word of an Obad in the Gorian army to my superiors in Falerik." Seeing little to no sympathy on the faces of the women around him, he tried again. "Surely, even if the Factionists played a part in what happened here, you can have no special love for the army either?"

            "Oh believe me, I don't," Lhara ground out.

            "You're in no fit state to travel, much less all the way to Derbesh," said Magda, leaning heavily on her staff. "Besides, why go so far east when you can take The Old Mountain Road and be there in half the time?"

            "I...do not know the way."

            Something rang untrue to Lhara's ears, even as the Factionist hung his white head. The Old Mountain Road was hardly possible to miss, especially from this side of The Teeth.

            "There's also the ridgeline, if you're really in that much of a hurry," she offered, although why Lhara couldn't exactly say. It just came to her to suggest. "No faster way to get from north to south inside The Teeth."

            That idea seemed to enthuse the Factionist even less than the notion of the Old Mountain Road. He gave one last solid attempt at shrugging out of Quella and Alina's grip, but even that put him off balance enough to make the man wobble. He stayed upright though, white eyes narrowed with some mixture of pain and determination.

            "I know even less of that path than I do the Old Mountain Road. I have money...wouldn't anyone in Trosk be willing to guide me to Falerik? Please...imagine what damage that Obad could do to other towns like Trosk."

            Alina bristled, her generous bosom heaving with grief. "We don't need to imagine. We've seen! All we want now is for you to mend yourself and leave us be."

            "I can better do that if I have means to get to Falerik! I am sorry for-"

            "Oh stuff it! You don't know anything about what we've lost by sheltering your lot, Factionist!"

            "You brought death upon us, you and the army both! Get gone, bone crow!"

            "At least sell me a mule, or something! You said it yourselves; I cannot get to the west on my own."

            "Pah, as if we would sell to you even now."

            The mood in the square was quickly turning dark and foul. Magda was trying to wrangle her unsteady charge back from Quella and Alina, but the women of Trosk were incensed. Their angry voices raised even above the usually authoritative shout of the Wise Woman, deaf to all but their grief and loss. The Fourth Company was gone, along with all of the men-folk, leaving no one to take the blame for the Battle of Trosk but the Factionists, of which only the pale man now remained. The shouting grew in heat, making Lhara's ears ring.

            Marden could have stopped this, she thought. Tarun could have reasoned with everyone. Her friends and neighbors were in real danger of becoming a mob, with the hapless Factionist in their midst.

            Seized by the impulse, the need to act, Lhara threw herself headlong into the throng of women. Nobody had come to blows yet, but it was still a struggle to shove her way through. Shouldering past everyone, Lhara found herself once again face to face with the pale Factionist.

            Surrounded on all sides by anger, the man looked genuinely afraid. He quailed between Quella and Alina, trying to both pull away from their white-knuckled grasps and shield himself from the baying of the crowd. More than afraid, Lhara was startled to notice, he looked resigned, as if he had somehow expected as much. Factionist though he might be, Trosk could not come to this, Lhara resolved.

            "How much for the journey?" she shouted. Hands on her hips, she planted her feet between the pale stranger and the people of Trosk. Staring down those eerie eyes, Lhara was likewise aware of dozens of shocked gazes peppering the back of her head.

            "I...what?" The Factionist gaped in confusion.

            "How much will you pay for a guide through the mountains to Falerik?" Lhara repeated, loud and clear so that everyone could hear her.

            To his credit, the man recovered himself, as well as his polished accent which Lhara could not place reasonably quickly. Turning his body so that she could see the small leather pouch on his belt, he spoke hopefully.

            "Twenty silver Luns here, and the equal value in gold Sols when we reach Falerik?"

            Four hundred copper coins' equivalent for a trek along the ridgeline. It was the kind of money Lhara, Marden and Tarun would have worked half a year for. Even some of the other hearty young women cast an entirely different sort of gaze toward the pale Factionist now, or more precisely, toward his coin purse.

             "Three gold Sols in Falerik, and transport to Geristan after the fact," she demanded.

            "Geristan?" Seeing that he was unlikely to get a better offer from any of the other villagers, the Factionist nodded. "Done."

            Ignoring the shocked looks everyone around was sending her, Lhara nodded curtly. "Meet me at the top of the road out of town in two hours. We leave before midday."

            A deal had been struck, and there was nothing left but to honor it. Reluctantly Alina and Quella released their hold on the Factionist, who retreated away inside Magda's cottage the second he was free. Magda for her part remained where she stood, leaning heavily on her staff at the center of the dispersing crowd. Lhara's feet were heavy with guilt as she approached her teacher.

            "Magda..." she began. "I...it wasn't my plan, to leave now with my training as a Wise Woman just begun. I'm sorry. I promise I'll return as soon as I've-"

            "You go to Geristan?"

            That was all that Magda said, and the matter-of-fact way in which she asked unnerved Lhara somewhat. For a dreadful moment Lhara wondered if Magda would end her apprenticeship on account of her absence.

            "Yes. The Fourth Company said that they were taking the men to Geristan to train as soldiers. That's where Tarun and Garrit and the others will be."

            "It's a dangerous world west of The Teeth, Lhara," Magda warned, staring up at her student through a web of laugh lines and fresh wrinkles. "The king holds sway in the west. You will not find things as they are here in Trosk."

            "All the more reason to find Tarun quickly. With the money from the Factionist, I might even be able to buy his early release."

            The notion seemed to both amuse and sadden Magda. With a small, sad chuckle she reached out to cup Lhara's cheek. Then all the sudden the Wise Woman seemed to find some spark of determination of her own. Drawing herself up to her full height, lesser than Lhara's though it might be, Magda thumped the butt of her staff on the ground.

            "The Wise Women have always been the wanderers. Remember that, little daughter. Go, guide and seek, and come back to Trosk even wiser than you left it. Stars willing, I will be waiting for you when you both return."

OoOoO

            Lhara avoided Rhena and Torl's house on the way up out of town. As much as she might have wanted to be seen off by her only remaining relatives, it could not be. Rhena would undoubtedly try to stop Lhara from leaving, as would Eima. With every step though, Lhara grew more certain of her decision. The Factionist could not stay in Trosk, and now neither could Lhara. With an empty cottage and a shepherd-less flock, there would be no peace for her until she brought her family home.

            The first thing Lhara did was to set Marden's flock free. There would be no one to tend to them, and in truth no one to claim them. It was better that the rams lead their ewes and lambs freely into The Teeth, there to make their own way. They would find all the best grazing before sunset, of that Lhara was sure. Still, when Old Longbeard lingered at the gate and had to be shooed along, Lhara couldn't help but pet his wooly head one last time. Longbeard returned the farewell by gently butting his nose, so soft and velvety, the softest place on an argali ram, against her hand.

            Packing did not take long. Trying not to linger on the threshold to Marden and Tarun's empty room, Lhara went about gathering together everything she would need. Some food, a mending kit, a change of under-clothes, a spare tunic and fleece-lined gloves were all she would hopefully need, along with her sturdiest boots and thickest cloak, of course. More food could be found along the way, if one knew where to look. Still, some basic trekking gear and toiletries took up the last of the room in her pack, leaving room for only one more, most important thing.

            Wild hair tamed into a sturdy scalp plait and dressed for travel, Lhara stopped beneath the threshold of the cottage. The Ættartré waved forlornly in the grey, cool air, its colorful strands a mockery of the fate of its household. Still, it was all that Lhara had left of her family. Reaching up on tip-toe, she just barely managed to snag the bottom of the Ættartré and lift it from its hook.

            With the woven family hoop tucked down the side of her pack, Lhara did not need to look back at the little cottage where her ma had been born and raised. Without the Ættartré, it was just a shell now. Still, she could have sworn that the wind whistled through the lightless chimney, crying out after her as she left it behind.

            The Factionist was waiting for her at the top of the trail. He still seemed to Lhara unsteady on his feet, but he didn't waver when he turned to meet Lhara. There was a quiet, grim determination in the tight set of his jaw, as if he were about to do battle. For the condition that he had been in the night before, he may as well have been. It occurred to Lhara that she did not know the man's name, nor likely he hers.

              "My name is Lhara," was all that she could think to say; a meager introduction for a joyless occasion.

            "Jath," he answered, pronouncing the single syllable like an unfortunate outcome. "I am in your debt, Lhara."

            "Pay me the twenty Luns and you won't be, at least until Falerik."

            The money changed hands without ceremony, Jath untying the coin purse on his belt and simply handing the entire thing over to Lhara. It was not lost on her that this might just be the pale Factionist's whole worldly wealth in her hands. It seemed at least the start of a fair trade for the ruin of her life, for now.

            "This way," she pointed up The Teeth toward the ridgeline. The narrow path waited, a dizzying knife's edge between the west and the east, suitable only for argali and fleet-footed mountain folk. If the sight intimidated Jath, he said nothing, only squared his shoulders and followed after Lhara.

            Below on the mountainside, a little cottage sat empty beside a deserted paddock. The gate to the pen swung open freely, creaking in the silence. Three shepherds' crooks leaned against the shed door, never to be taken up by their owners again.

OoOoO