Healer, Killer

by Amanda Swiftgold

Completely revised and UPDATED as of 2/20/14! Chapter Fifteen: The Dragoons attack Mayfil, but they find both devils and shadows of the past standing in their way.

2. Chapter Two

HEALER, KILLER
By Amanda Swiftgold

BOOK ONE: DRAGOON SPIRITS GATHER

Chapter Two

It was a normal dream, as dreams went - fuzzy, confusing, the unexplained commonplace - and so Shirley did not question why she was standing next to an auction block, clinging to her mother, holding on so tightly she could barely breathe. It was a dream, but she had been here before.

The faces of the slaves above seemed to melt into one another, tantalizingly familiar, just on the edge of recognition. A man with his head tilted back to hide the tears trickling around the curves of his cheeks. Long red hair, red beard, the smear of color the only thing she could really remember of her father. The slam-crack of a gavel - sold. A succession of children she knew were meant to be her older siblings, the youngest a boy no older than six, the eldest a grown man of twenty. Sold. Sold. Here in the dream, she knew them all, though her memory in waking hours failed her.

Her oldest brother stood on the block now, and Shirley held out her hand toward him, seeing him stretch to touch it. Maybe, if she tried hard enough, she could remember what his name had been…

Bang. Sold.

Shirley suddenly sat upright, batting away the hand that poked at her upper arm. "What, what?" she gasped, blinking the sleep from her eyes and looking around wildly. Everything in the room seemed calm, however, and she focused her gaze on the figure of the girl kneeling on the floor at her side. "Damia, what-"

"It's okay," she said quickly, patting at Shirley's arm. "I'm sorry, but you were crying and - and I couldn't stand to hear it." Damia looked down quickly as the woman reached up to touch her own cheek, feeling it damp and sticky from the tears. "Was it a nightmare?"

"Oh," Shirley murmured, "it's all right. Yes, a nightmare…I always have it after going to the slave market. I'm all right now." Glancing around at the room, she saw daylight streaming in through cracked window drapes, and the other two beds empty, one made neatly and the second left rumpled. "Where are Belzac and - Kanzas?"

Hopping onto the foot of the bedstead and flipping the corner of her blue wrap over one shoulder, Damia swung her slender legs back and forth. "They went out to get things for the trip, and new clothes for me and Kanzas."

"They did?" Frowning a little, she sat up reluctantly, running her hands through sleep-tangled hair. As a thought occurred to her, her cheeks flushed slightly. "Kanzas didn't have anything to wear to go out in."

"Belzac gave him a shirt," Damia volunteered, "but it was way too big and long. It looked funny." She giggled. "Anyway, he told me to stay here with you."

Shirley hoped Belzac had finally put his mind to ease and gone to sleep the night before. He didn't need to be worn out on the first day of a journey, especially one that promised to be longer and more arduous than usual. They hadn't counted on buying two slaves, and had only brought along enough cold-weather equipment for one; they'd also planned to take a cargo ship back to Vellweb rather than go on foot.

Neither outcome could be helped now, of course, but it would take so much longer to return home than she'd originally hoped. Getting to Mekadris was, as always, vastly more simple than returning with strangers in tow, no matter which way they traveled. It's just too bad we can't fly both ways.

"But isn't he buying things for you, too?" she asked as the thought struck.

"Yeah," the girl agreed, twisting her mouth into a pout, "I wanted to go out with them. But they were arguing this morning, and…" She fell silent, giving Shirley a hesitant glance before continuing, "He said he didn't want me getting hurt. It's kind of unfair. I don't think anyone would try to grab me with Belzac and Kanzas around."

Flipping the covers aside, she stood up, untwisting her woolen shift and letting it fall straight. "I'm not sure that's what he meant," she responded. It was quite clear now; after all her years knowing the large man, she had learned just how he thought. Belzac obviously did not trust Kanzas - but to distrust him enough to think that he'd hurt Damia, and in public? "But he was just thinking of your own good," Shirley finished appeasingly.

Hanging her head, Damia sighed, "I guess so. He also said you shouldn't be left alone sleeping anyway, so I guess it's okay. You'd still be having that nightmare."

"Yes," she agreed with a smile, shaking out her clothes as the girl jumped up and made the bed for her. "Belzac just worries too much," she sighed, wriggling back into her pale turquoise robe. It wasn't appropriate travel wear, but heavy leathers and furs would have attracted notice in the slave markets if she was supposed to be a trusted slave who'd come into the city on the teleporter. Of course, it was warmer in Mekadris than it should have been at this time of year, thanks to the Winglies' magics, so it was fortunate that she had to bring the lighter clothing anyway.

Damia gave a little snort of laughter, and at Shirley's arched eyebrow she explained, "He told me you'd say that! He also told me, 'tell her she doesn't worry enough'."

"Ah, that man," she laughed back lightly.

"Well, you don't," a voice said suddenly, and, surprised, Shirley whirled around to see the door open. Belzac was ducking through it, his arms laden with packages. He gave her a half-smile, continuing, "I could have been anyone, and you didn't even hear the door."

Appearing from behind him and carrying only a small case, Kanzas gave Belzac a sidelong glance. "You sound like you're trying to be her father," he pointed out curtly. The feeling of tension in the room immediately heightened as the two females gave them wary looks, half-expecting a fight to break out.

"I've already had enough of this," Belzac finally said calmly, turning away. Kanzas rolled his eyes at his back, leaning against the wall as Belzac handed two of the packages to Damia. She grunted under the weight, her eyes widening curiously. "These are for you. I hope they suit you."

"Presents!" she said excitedly, her pale skin flushing with delight. "It's so heavy!" She put the boxes on the bed nearby, plucking at the string that encircled the paper wrapping of the largest one. Belzac smiled at her enthusiasm, watching as she unwrapped the box to reveal a long-handled iron hammer. The girl lifted it out of the wrapping, hoisting it with two hands up to eye level. "Wow," she whispered.

"Now that you're free," Belzac clarified, "you'll need to learn to defend yourself, and the path back to Gloriano isn't easy. The hammer is light enough for you to swing, but it should still cause some damage."

"Maybe," Kanzas interjected, his voice dripping disgust.

Shirley crossed her arms. "I think it's a wonderful idea. You'll only get stronger, Damia."

The half-mermaid beamed, laying her new weapon down on the mattress to turn to the bundle of clothing. "I hope so!"

Glad Damia hadn't been discouraged by Kanzas' comment, the red-haired woman shot a warning glare at him, noticing for the first time the new clothes he'd acquired: calf-high boots, a shirt of undyed wool and fur-lined leather trews so dark as to nearly be black, the only real color being the deep purple of the sash around his waist. He had also trimmed his beard closer to the skin, if not exactly neatly, and on the whole he no longer looked like a woodland hermit. In fact, Shirley realized, he now looked as dangerous as he had claimed he was, and she suddenly found herself regretting how quickly and innocently she'd trusted him the night before.

He caught her staring and gave her a deliberate look up and down, making her face redden. "Anything you'd like?" he asked teasingly in a soft tone.

Flustered momentarily, she spun away, watching Damia and Belzac talking together before turning back quickly. I am not going to let him get to me again. If he knows it bothers me, he'll keep doing it. "Oh, ah, just, what's in your box?" Shirley asked him in an attempt to regain control of where the conversation was heading.

In response, Kanzas flipped up the lid of the small container, revealing something metallic within a dark leather casing. He lifted out and unsheathed a hand-held claw, its two long gleaming blades jutting out on either end, with a shorter one in the middle rising between his fingers. "My old one was taken," he said, running the pad of his thumb along one of the blades. Shirley bit back a gasp as a line of red welled up along the cut, speckling the metal a little. "It's too shiny, but it's not bad."

"I could tell it was sharp," she said disapprovingly. "You didn't have to cut yourself."

"Ah, but you see," Kanzas told her, "whenever you unsheathe a weapon, you have to draw blood before you can put it back. And now that I know you aren't a collaborator…"

She shook her head, trying to keep the smile off her face, although inside she couldn't help but wonder if he'd been telling the truth when he'd offhandedly said he killed anyone, everyone. "Stop teasing me!" she protested half-heartedly. "For all you know, I could be very offended by teasing."

"That's true," he conceded, sliding the claw back into its case and tying it to his sash. "But you aren't, which is good, since I can't help it."

Shirley opened her mouth to reply, but the abrupt silence in the room stopped her. She looked back to see Belzac and Damia watching them; though the twelve-year-old was just curious, the man had an oddly unhappy look on his face.

I don't like him, was all Belzac found himself thinking, the thought growing increasingly insistent. I don't like him…

He could feel all his anger melting away, however, as Shirley gave him a smile, turning to face him and putting her hands on her hips. "I suppose you didn't get me anything?" she asked lightly.

"Of course I did," Belzac responded, holding out a thick envelope.

Walking forward to take it from the man's hand, she opened the flap and peered inside, her hair falling to frame her face. Grinning, she then smelled the familiar scent of the dried rosemary the envelope contained, saying, "Just what I wanted. Thank you."

"You know it's no problem," he responded. He then frowned, bending forward to look more closely at her. "Shirley, you were crying?"

"Oh!" She reached to touch her cheek briefly with her free hand. "I just had that dream, that's all. I should go wash up while I still can."

Belzac put one large hand on her shoulder, squeezing it in reassurance. "Next time, you don't have to come here," he told her firmly. "I know how much it hurts you."

"No," she responded with equal insistence, "you know I have to come, and why. Besides, it's fine, really. Being able to free people more than makes up for any dreams." Wrapping one arm around his waist, Shirley hugged him tightly, feeling him return it with his customary restraint.

A sudden crashing noise and Damia's shriek of surprise made them break apart and look toward the source. The shelf that had formerly been on the wall next to where Kanzas was standing was now lying on the wooden floor, the small rough vases and dried flowers once on the shelf scattered in pieces around his feet. "That scared me!" Damia announced, looking quizzically at Kanzas.

He ignored her, his arms crossing in front of him as he leaned back against the wall. "Oops," he said calmly, staring hard at Belzac, "did I do that? Sorry. Watch your feet, Shirley, the bits are sharp."

"What? Oh, all right, I see," she replied distantly, looking at him askance before picking her way out of the debris to find her boots.

I'm too tired for this foolishness right now. "Well, anyway, we should get going soon," Belzac announced wearily, mentally adding extra onto the tally of money he'd pay the owner of this house. Moderate Winglies living in the Slave City Mekadris were understandably rare, and the widow who owned the place had to walk a fine line between outwardly obeying the law and quietly letting out this spare room to masterless Humans, who weren't allowed to take rooms in Wingly inns. He didn't think she deserved to have her possessions broken over something stupid without recompense.

"Let's go find out if there's any hot water ready, before we get into our traveling clothes," Shirley told Damia as she finished putting on her boots and grabbing up her pack. "We're not going to have another chance for a bath until we reach Gloriano."

"I've never really been out in the snow," Damia confessed nervously. "Is it really all right to travel in winter?"

As the two left the room, the sound of Shirley's assurances still audible down the hallway, Belzac began to gather the rest of their things in silence, double-checking their provisions and repacking their bags. What was going to happen when they reached Vellweb? He himself wasn't sure if he would be accepted as a Dragon Knight, but he already knew that he would be helping Diaz and his struggle no matter if he was one or not. He had to, for the children in his care at the orphanage, and for Shirley. But Kanzas - if he became a Dragoon, what kind of future would he mold for the children of Endiness?

Belzac could understand Shirley's optimism that she'd found a new Dragoon, but right now he could only hope that she had been wrong.

---

"Ya!" Damia cried as she spun the hammer around, using the momentum to smack it hard against the rough stake planted in the ground. "Ha-!" With both hands, she swung it downward, spraying splinters as she knocked a piece from the top of the tree limb.

"Keep it up," Belzac encouraged from his seat on a fallen log not far away. He was surrounded by bent wooden frames and strips of rawhide, the materials of the short, wide mountain snowshoes he was working at weaving together for all of them. Although they tried to avoid it as often as they could, this would not be the first time they'd crossed the mountains in winter in order to return home.

Damia's long wavy hair swirled around her like her cape as she danced back for another swing. This one, however, flew inches away from the stake, making her stumble to regain her balance. "Aw, I missed," she complained, resting the head of the long-handled hammer on the ground and taking a few deep breaths. It billowed out like fog in the cold air. "It's getting too dark out to see."

"Things will attack at night, too, you know. And you can't stop, even if you miss," the large man told her sternly. "Never turn your back on a creature unless you're sure it's dead, because that's when it'll strike."

"I know, I know," she grumbled, straightening and hoisting the hammer over her shoulder, "but it's just a stick, Belzac." She tugged her furry hood back up over her head, her lower lip stuck out in an exaggerated pout.

He snorted, trying not to show his amusement. "Yes, and you should be thankful it's not countering."

Shirley laughed softly, the firelight casting a warm golden glow over her face and white cloak. "I hope I never see the day it does," she commented mostly to herself, leaning forward to turn the skewers resting partially in the blaze. When she settled back, she pulled the woolen fabric more tightly around her and glanced back at Damia, who was gamely running at the stake once more. She's had to learn quickly, though we're lucky there aren't many dangerous creatures around here.

The small group had been traveling for several days, winding their way through the evergreen forest that stood between Mekadris and the pass to Gloriano. They had finally made it out of the trees early that morning, and now little but a low, dry plainsland stood between them and the foothills. Further to the north, the Life City floated high above, but they were too far from it to see more than a faint glimmer along the horizon.

"Belzac, Damia?" the red-haired woman called. "When you're ready, dinner's done."

Pulling out of her swing, the girl straightened, her expression brightening considerably, and Belzac smiled, getting to his feet and following her at a slower pace.

Damia dropped her hammer onto her bedroll before plopping down in front of the fire and foraging around briefly for something. Finding a seat again, Belzac unconsciously took the skewers of dripping meat Shirley handed him, giving the twelve-year-old a curious look. "What are you doing?"

Not answering at first as she came up with a long stick, Damia crouched forward and poked in the ashes, uncovering a small, blackened object. Rolling it out, she picked it up and quickly had to readjust her fingertips, blowing hard on it. "Hot, hot, ouch," she muttered, dancing it between her hands before finally resting it on a corner of her wrap.

"Oh, you cooked a potato?" Shirley asked, realizing what it was as Damia put her gloves back on and then split the charred object open with her thumbs. She glanced into her open pack before giving her a playful frown. "I was saving that!"

"Sorry," Damia told her, not sounding very apologetic. Her food cooled quickly in the chilly air, and after a minute she grinned with satisfaction around a mouthful of potato. "But it's my favorite." A little more guiltily, she explained, "Sometimes I got hungry, so I used to sneak a potato from the kitchen and keep it in the embers in the back house. I've never tasted anything so good, and so…"

Chuckling, she answered, "I see! Well, ask next time, okay?" Damia nodded, and she reached for her own skewer, nibbling on a corner of the meat gingerly so as not to burn her mouth. I wonder how often she went hungry before, Shirley mused, but kept the thought to herself. She and Belzac had made many of these trips to the slave markets, and there had come to be several unofficial 'rules' between them and the slaves they'd freed; one of these was that they would never ask anyone about their former owners, or about how they came to be sold.

Sometimes it was hard to contain her curiosity, though, and Kanzas in particular was making her want to ask the prying questions she knew she shouldn't. What was his story? What had brought him to the auction block at the back of the market?

She sighed as she ate, glancing around for any sight of the man, but there was none. He'd gone out to scout around - or so she assumed, as he never bothered to give them notice before he went off on his own. Instead, she turned her attention to Belzac, finding him stretched back before the fire, his head pillowed on massive arms. "You finished already?" she asked, startled.

"It's okay, I'm not hungry," he answered quietly, glancing over at Damia. The girl was now devouring the meat from the skewers, licking her fingers and seeming completely content. She stared into the flickering flames, lost in her own world.

Had he been giving his portions to her the whole time? She hadn't noticed that, or the fact that Damia was so hungry. The realization made her a bit ashamed, as it was something she knew she'd normally have noted. Shirley liked to be aware of her surroundings, to know what was needed and where, and she didn't like the feeling of missing it. "All right," she mumbled, wanting to chide him about not eating, but he knew not to let himself get unhealthy.

After a few minutes, Damia half-crawled around the edge of the campfire toward Belzac, crouching down near his head. "Thank you," she murmured to him respectfully, lowering her face. "I'm sorry I eat so much, but my old master didn't always give us so much to eat, since he was out of money a lot…he had to sell us to pay for stuff, so we didn't get much food…"

"Child, it's all right," the man said, raising his hand and placing it on her head as her shoulders shook, tears beginning to wind their way down from her ruby eyes. She leaned forward, burying her face into his shoulder and sobbing, and he enfolded her into a hug. "Never worry about it again," Belzac whispered.

Quickly finishing her food, Shirley decided to leave them alone, feeling awkward about overhearing. Standing up, she moved a short distance from the campsite, picking her way up to the top of a large boulder half-embedded in the ground and sitting there. The ground here was mostly flat, making it easy to see a long way around. The evening was quiet, with no beasts, bandits, or anyone else in evidence. Tucking the ends of her cloak under her to ward off the boulder's chill, she sat down on top of it, gazing up into the quickly darkening sky.

It was winter here, as it should have been; the land between the mountains and forest was not farmable anymore, and each year the barren territory grew, spreading outward in a slow creeping ring from beneath the Life City to the north. Even Winglies would not bother with changing the weather in such a land as this. The soil was rocky and seemed to support only a calf-deep sea of dry grasses and scrubby trees, its life and vitality drained by the flying city to keep it aloft. At least the grasses would be useful; she'd already cut a good amount for use as insulation in their boots. As they got closer to the mountains and higher up, the weather would only get colder.

Thinking about the Life City made her search for it, and soon enough the faint sparkle above the horizon caught her eye. Its brightness was a large dot visible against the emerging spray of stars. She reached up to enfold her Dragoon Spirit in her hand, squeezing it tightly. Besides the obvious pain of the past, there was another good reason she didn't ask any of her companions about their former lives: she didn't want to have to talk about her own in turn. Because then she might have to try to describe the darkness that was hidden deep within the prisms of the Crystal Palace - and what had happened to send her there in the first place.

She heard no footsteps against the stone she was sitting on, merely feeling the soft tickle of animal fur against her cheek. Startled, Shirley jerked back a little, turning her head as Kanzas crouched down next to her. She recognized the patchwork coat he was wearing as what had touched her. In what she'd assumed was his typical arrogance, Kanzas had not gotten a cloak with the money Belzac had given him before they'd left Mekadris, and they'd had to scramble to find him something before they left. The coat was made of several different kinds of fur sewn together with sinews, and although it was rather crude, it did the job well enough.

Although Belzac was sure he'd done it on purpose, she found herself wondering if he really hadn't realized that the rest of the Northlands weren't as warm as the Slave City. A warm current in the nearby ocean made it much nicer there than the rest of the area, even in winter, and the Winglies used their magic to keep the rest of the bad weather away. Apparently he really was as much of a Southlander as his tanned skin had indicated; he hadn't even questioned the wisdom of their trip through the mountains at this time of year, and that proved to her that he, like Damia, had little experience with snow. She and Belzac had gone this way many times before and would be able to guide them through all right, but he had no way to know that, so his lack of questioning was telling.

Kanzas glanced sidelong at her, his gaze resting on her hand clasping her necklace, as it so often did. He said nothing, however, waiting for her to make the first move. He wondered what she would say - something thoughtful, certainly.

"I saved your dinner for you," Shirley finally announced, tucking the orb of the Dragoon Spirit under her collar.

He smirked to himself in success, nodding but not feeling the need to respond. I want to know what that thing is, Kanzas thought, biting his lip briefly. And I want to know before we get to that city, and before it gets me into something hard to get out of.

The silence stretched as the woman looked up at the stars, her arms folded for warmth against her fur-lined vest. She always felt so uncomfortable around the man, as if she had to constantly remain on her toes, waiting for him to surprise her in some way. He got a kind of perverse joy out of doing or saying the unexpected, and even expecting it didn't always help.

"The moon is bright tonight," she mumbled to break the silence. "It looks like…veins, on the surface there. A moon that doesn't set. It's so eerie, but somehow beautiful too." She felt as though she was talking to herself, but went on anyway. "Do you remember when it appeared in the sky? I was little, but I still remember how everyone thought it meant the world was ending. I was scared to death that it would, but of course it never did…"

"The Winglies have sealed the gods away in the sky," he finally said, and she whipped her head toward him, her hair shining like blood against her pale cloak. "Only they may call upon the gods' power. They answer the prayers of Melbu Frahma alone."

Shirley shook her head emphatically, feeling her face flush with a bit of anger for letting him surprise her again. "Uh, but, how - how could that be true? I think they'd have been just as worried when it appeared," the healer managed to reply. Even the Winglies can't seal up gods.

"No," Kanzas muttered hoarsely, his mouth drawn tight into a frown. "In Aglis, they celebrated for days, the ones who knew the truth of what had been done."

"Aglis?" she repeated. "That's their…ah, the Magic City, right? You were there then?"

This was not what he wanted to be talking about right now. He drew the claw at his belt, squeezing it tightly in his hand and letting the moonlight glint along blades stained with blood he deliberately hadn't cleaned off. "Shirley…"

Her brown eyes seemed even darker in this light, looking up at him with sympathy; she did not react to the claw in his fist, and he wondered if she was either that brave or that naive. "Forgive me," she told him, ducking her head. "I shouldn't be prying." He nearly jerked back as she reached out to put her hand on his shoulder with her usual unthinking reassurance.

Kanzas resisted the urge to touch the strands of red framing her face, instead giving her a deadpan goodnight and leaping down from the boulder. He straightened and walked back toward the campsite without another word, feeling the weight of her wide-eyed stare along the back of his neck.

Pressing the edge of the claw against his forefinger, he sucked at the blood that beaded upward from the cut before sliding his weapon back into its sheath. This game was only going to work as long as she couldn't get to him in return. He was going to have to be more careful about what he said.

---

A light, gentle snow had been falling steadily in the foothills for almost an hour when the creatures arrived, materializing out of the drifting whiteness around them. Two huge, shaggy things covered in brown fur lunged out from behind the protection of snow-covered boulders as the small group passed beneath, sounding a loud and distinctive challenge.

Damia's scream alerted them a moment before one of the mammoths charged at her, swinging its trunk as though to sweep the terrain before it. The trunk hit the girl heavily as she tried to run, throwing her sideways and several feet into a rocky snowdrift. She tried hard to scramble out of its way as it ponderously turned to find her again, scrabbling for purchase in the snow and gasping painfully for breath. Blood spattered the pristine whiteness, and the girl clutched at her side, doing her best not to cry.

The large animal lowered its head, one huge curved tusk pointed at the intruder. Damia cringed, covering her head instinctually, before a figure flew between her and the mammoth as if falling from the sky. Kanzas, claws in fist, slashed hard where the mammoth's trunk met its head, its trumpeting noise of pain loud in response. "Thank you-" she wheezed as he stepped in front of her, drawing back defensively.

"Just get out of the way," the bearded man rasped coldly, narrowing his eyes at the furry animal before him.

"Are you okay?" Shirley yelled over to Damia, her bow in her hands.

"Y-yes," she called back, getting shakily to her feet and reaching for her hammer. She'd never seen a mammoth before, but neither Belzac nor Shirley seemed to be too surprised as they faced the second beast, and it gave her hope that they'd fought these things once and knew what to do. As scared as she was, she didn't want to simply cower while the others defended her.

Nodding, Shirley grabbed for an arrow, drawing the string tight and letting it fly at the second mammoth. Belzac was already wielding his axe, with strong swings hacking at the enraged, territorial beast. Though the half-Giganto's strikes were getting through the thick, protective mats of fur at the mammoth's neck, Kanzas was forced to aim for the skull, trying to avoid the tusks and horns that swung by as the creature flailed its head.

"I can help too!" With a shriek, Damia ran forward, striking with all her might at the beast's knee before twisting around for another hit. Making huffing noises, it drew back, turning its head nearly sideways as it tried to strike her. The mammoth's trunk hit the girl in the chest this time, knocking her away again.

Snarling, Kanzas half-swiped at Damia as she staggered to her feet painfully. "Didn't you hear me? Get out of my way!" Springing forward sharply, he used one of the tusks as leverage to fling himself higher above the mammoth's head, dragging his blades down through the flesh as he descended. Bright arterial blood sprayed in his wake, spattering the snow.

Her breath hitching, the half-mermaid forced back a sob, shaking her head. She looked over at Shirley, who was standing back and supporting Belzac with her arrows, and as the last dart drove deeply through the second mammoth's eye and into its brain, sending it toppling to the ground in death, her expression hardened suddenly. "I'm helping!" Putting the hammer head-down in the snow, Damia raised her arms, leaning back. "Haaa-!" She dropped forward, almost as if bowing, her fingers outstretched.

Lurching backward in surprise, Kanzas whipped around to look at the girl before returning his gaze in time to see a handful of icicles the size of sword blades thrusting through the mammoth's thick hide. With one last bellow, it collapsed, the ground shaking slightly beneath it and snow flurries flying upward around the body. His expression darkened. "So are you part Wingly, or part monster, to have that power?" he asked, making her blanch. "Or is there even a difference?"

"That was magic!" Shirley exclaimed, hugging her longbow to her as she and Belzac ran to them. "How did you-?"

"My mother could," Damia answered, panting for air. "Not…Wingly." She swayed slightly, dragging her arm across her forehead. "I said…I could help you, Kanzas…"

Belzac leaned forward to catch her as she fell, kneeling down as Shirley crouched next to him. He felt the heat of the twelve-year-old's blood against his palm, and pulled it away to reveal the deep gash in her side. "Oh, poor child," he murmured as Shirley leaned forward unasked, her Dragoon Spirit in her hands. "It must be hard for her, traveling with us like this."

"Huh, stupid kid," Kanzas snorted, swiping his hand through his wild hair and shaking his mottled coat straight again. "She should have just stayed back. She's too weak to keep up, even with magic."

"Just shut up!" Belzac snapped at him, scowling darkly. "If we hadn't freed you, we'd have been able to afford passage on the ship! If I hadn't knocked into that man, Shirley would have been outbid, and we wouldn't have to worry about this!"

Dropping his hand, Kanzas pointed the claw blades at the other man, his brows knitted into a frown. "Did I ask to be bought?" he retorted, shaking his fist; a fine spray of mammoth blood speckled Belzac's skin, making him flinch slightly. "I was under the impression it was Shirley's decision. I thought you supported her in everything, Giganto. What if she-"

"Stop it! Just stop it! I can't think with all this!" the woman shouted, her back tense and her knuckles white around the orb in her hands. The snow was still falling around them, and it was too cold for Damia to be lying there so long. The child's breath could still be seen as a cloud above her lips, but faintly, as if she was struggling for air. "If Damia dies because of the two of you, then Soa help you both!"

Belzac fell silent, turning his attention to the girl he held, though the anger he was feeling didn't dissipate at all. Kanzas stood back several seconds later, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at Shirley with hooded eyes. Nodding hard, she held the Dragoon Spirit up, whispering under her breath, "White-Silver Dragon, please, heal this girl!"

The bright glow spread, bathing them all with its shining rays and forcing the three to close their eyes against its intensity. As it faded away, it seemed to take Damia's wound with it, leaving her pale skin whole and unbroken through the tear in the fabric of her tunic and woolen undershirt. Finally, she began to stir, her lashes fluttering as Belzac smoothed blue-green wisps of hair away from her eyes, and then sat up slowly.

"Good," Shirley sighed, sitting back on her heels in relief. "Better now, Damia?"

She nodded, leaning her cheek against Belzac's chest as if to comfort herself. "You healed me with the stone," she stated.

"Yes." She stood up, stretching a little, and then bent to grab her bow from where she'd dropped it, methodically unstringing, sheathing, and hooking it back onto her pack. Hopefully, the string hadn't gotten too wet, though she at least had spares if it was ruined. "Would you carry her, please, Belzac?" she asked in a soft voice, almost reluctantly. The memory of the argument still sat in her mind, but there was no need to bring it up again now. "We should keep going until we reach tonight's shelter; the snow doesn't look like it's stopping anytime soon."

The big man stood as well, cradling Damia in one arm. The girl looked as if she was about to protest, but thought against it, wrapping her arms affectionately around her friend's neck. He nodded without otherwise responding, still a bit stung by the fact that Shirley had shouted at him as well. He couldn't even remember the last time she'd been truly angry at him, and the thought made his chest ache oddly.

Pained, the red-haired woman turned toward the path and nearly smacked against Kanzas. "Yes?" she asked impatiently when he gave no sign that he intended to get out of her way.

The wiry man was staring at the necklace of her Dragoon Spirit, still seeming to shine palely in one of the folds of her cloak. "This thing…" He ran his finger beneath the links, pulling it up so that the orb hung in front of his eyes.

Though he was hardly much taller than she, Shirley found herself rising onto her toes to ease the pressure of the short chain against the back of her neck before rocking forward, unbalanced. Her hipbone hit against his, making her blush, and though Kanzas was apparently still examining the silvery-white orb she could feel his other hand move to her waist. She froze, watching him stare into the Dragoon Spirit, and without using any force at all he held her standing there on tiptoe against him, unable to move away.

"Only you can make it glow?" Kanzas asked her finally, his demeanor as calm as if they were standing five feet apart. Shirley frowned, feeling oddly foolish for being so embarrassed. She could not find her voice to reply.

Belzac answered the other man's question, sounding strangled and full of repressed rage. "Yes," he forced out as civilly as he could. "It's hers alone. It's not some store-bought Wingly magic trinket."

As she took her pendant back, Shirley looked at him, astonished by the unfamiliar tone in his voice. They had just been arguing, but-

"Hn." Kanzas gave the half-Giganto a smug look, taunting him with the way he was playing with Shirley's emotions. However, he let go of the woman as she stepped back away from him, her head lowered a little and her hair hiding her expression from view. "So, what's so special about it?"

Belzac squeezed his free hand into an angry fist, otherwise staying still, and remained silent. This was a situation Shirley could easily handle for herself. Overreacting to this kind of thing was one habit he did not want to get back into, despite the thought that was telling him how satisfying it would be to take the axe he was still holding and whack this man's head off - slowly. Think of Damia, he told himself, consciously adjusting her slight weight in his arm.

"In Vellweb, Kanzas," Shirley spoke up, standing straight again and looking calmer now. "I told you before, you have to wait. It's not my place to explain it. Only Lord Diaz may, because the secret of the power was revealed to him."

"Secret, huh?" He waved dismissively, as if he suddenly didn't care anymore. "Well, whatever."

Kanzas strode on ahead, and Shirley heaved a sigh, her shoulders slumping momentarily as she watched him go. I don't understand him, she thought, almost despairingly. I don't understand him at all. She'd felt such a strange sense of rightness when they'd found the two in Mekadris, as if with their presence they were filling some kind of hole inside her. So why did it have to be this way now?

"Maybe we should stay here," Belzac said suddenly. She turned and looked up to see him regarding the bodies of the mammoths speculatively. "That's a lot of meat we'd be happy to have later, and these rocks would make enough shelter. There's a good overhang here, half a cave almost, and this snow could easily turn into a blizzard if the wind comes up."

"It'll take some time to preserve it," she pointed out. "And we couldn't carry all of it, even between the four of us."

He shrugged, setting Damia back down on the ground. "We can spare two days to smoke the meat," he said, already beginning to circle around the body of the nearest mammoth. "Can even use the hides to do it. And if we make up a drag-sled, I could pull most of it over the snow myself, easily."

Though part of her wanted to protest the delay, she quashed it fiercely. A winter trip through the pass was dangerous enough; if they were caught by an avalanche up there and their way forward was blocked off, they would owe their lives to the extra supplies. "Well, I see your mind's already made up," Shirley retorted instead, forcing some lightness into her tone.

"Better safe than fast," Belzac said.

She gave his arm a pat, the corner of her mouth lifting, and was rewarded with his own quick smile in return. "You're right."

"We're staying here?" Damia asked, raising her dark brows and looking up as the snow fell, gently still, onto their heads. Her initial delight at the stuff had quickly turned into distaste for its temperature, and relative dryness compared to 'real water', after a day or so of slogging over and through the thickening drifts of the hills. "Won't there be any more mammoths?"

The half-Giganto shook his head. "These were young males, small," he said, surveying them. "We probably came across as a threat, coming up this way so openly. Bulls are mostly solitary, and they all tend to stay on the plains, in any case; I suppose these wandered too far in search of food." He glanced up at the rocks surrounding them; they were in a small canyon of sorts, and there was very little living vegetation in reach, even for a mammoth. The bare trees and fallen wood, however, would be perfect for their fires. "They didn't find it here."

The girl exhaled loudly. "Well, that's all right, then," she answered after a moment, clearly trying to sound as if she hadn't been worried at all.

"I'll start setting up camp," Shirley volunteered, turning for the little overhang they were going to be inhabiting for a while. Before she went, however, she glanced further up the trail; Kanzas was already merely a dark shape in the snowy distance.

"He'll figure it out," Belzac grunted shortly, needing only one unhappy glance to realize her thoughts. That was a definite downside to staying here several days - they'd all be stuck together in one place. He forced himself to dismiss further thought of the other man, crouching down at the side of one of the dead mammoths. "Have you ever done butchering, Damia?"

She shook her head, eyeing the carcasses with vague distaste and pulling her cloak tighter around her. "That was someone else's job, at home - er, with my old master, I mean. I've cleaned fish, but I don't think it's quite the same."

"No," he agreed, "it's not, but it's something you ought to learn, since you're going to be out in the wilderness for a while. Come on and help me, and I'll show you how we make a smoke tent for preserving the meat. We'll need some wet wood, for lots of smoke-"

He'd unconsciously fallen into the familiar 'teacher's voice' Shirley knew so well, and she smiled as she began to clear a space in the sheltered area for their campsite, pushing all the gloomy thoughts from her mind as if they were the rubble and stones she was kicking aside. No matter how long it took to cross the mountains and reach Gloriano, she would find out the truth behind the strange feelings her Dragoon Spirit was giving her when they arrived. Lord Diaz would have the answers for her - he had to.

---

The world seemed to fall away below the four travelers as they ascended into the mountains that divided the Human country of Gloriano from the Wingly-held lands to the east and south. The snow was ever-present here, drifting between the evergreens and turning them to dark shadows within the whiteness. It also apparently concealed any landmark that might have directed them on their way.

Belzac and Shirley led the group on confidently despite this, and the two newly-freed slaves had no choice but to trust that they indeed knew the way forward, a fact which rankled Kanzas considerably. He might have been surviving off the land just fine until now, but the forests and mountains he was familiar with in the Southlands were nothing like the ones here in the north. As much as he would have liked to set out on his own, he had been forced to admit, if only to himself, that he would never be able to make it through alive. Be damned if I ever say that to them, though. Bad enough they won't shut up about snow-blindness, thin ice, and freezing water. All it's done is make the kid nervous.

Kanzas glanced at the other three briefly at the thought, in time to catch Shirley's own eyes on him. She and he were making up the rear of the small procession, just behind the dragging ends of their improvised sled of supplies. She was frowning again; as the short days flew by, the sun bright in their eyes and wind whipping at their skin, all of them had gotten annoyed with each other at some point. He couldn't remember what he had said or done this time to make her grumble, though it was probably just as well.

"What?" he demanded sharply when she didn't immediately look away. "What's wrong now?"

"Nothing's wrong," she hastened to say. "I was just wondering what you were looking at so intently."

The man waved his mittened hand in a gesture that seemed to encompass the entire mountain range. "Snow. Trees. Rocks. Take your pick. There's nothing else to see up here."

He wasn't sure it would look any better in the middle of summer, either. The mountains were taller and craggier than the ones he knew, dull and white and foreboding. Mostly, he was just sick and tired of being cold. Even though the mid-morning sky was bright and clear, the air stung his skin and bothered the inside of his nose. It was like a never-ending ice spell - those were bad enough, but at least they came to a stop eventually. They had been traveling for a week and a half now, with the promise of at least another month to go. Every day, the thought of spattering the others' blood across this pale, colorless landscape got more and more appealing. If only that wouldn't guarantee his own certain freezing, miserable death up here afterward…

"You're exaggerating," Shirley answered mildly, her lips twitching as if she wasn't sure whether she wanted to allow herself to smile.

"You don't have to see something good in everything, you know," he shot back. "They're ugly mountains and they don't ever end. I wish more mammoths would attack - no, wait, not more mammoths," Kanzas amended. "Then we'd have to eat those, too. Talk about something else that never ends."

"Like your complaining?"

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, like that."

Shirley scoffed under her breath, causing billows of fog to swirl out into the cold air from beneath her hood, but she only shook her head when Belzac turned to look back at her curiously. The big man always went first now, pulling the sled behind him, stomping down the drifts of snow with his broader snowshoes and clearing the way for the rest. He was also the first one to encounter any breaks or weaknesses in the snowpack, based on the idea that if the path could hold him, it would hold the others.

Though Shirley fussed over him doing so much work, and taking on so much of the danger, Belzac shouldered the extra burden with seeming cheer. He'd even claimed - in that overly conscientious, holier-than-thou way of his Kanzas hated so much - that city life had been making him soft and he needed the extra training. If he had been doing it simply to get on Shirley's good side and into her bed, that would have been one thing; he could have understood, even respected, a reason like that. But, no, as far as Kanzas had been able to tell, he really was as insufferably kind and caring as he seemed.

If Belzac had been slacking before, he was showing no signs of it now; the half-Giganto was currently leading while dragging the sled with one hand and carrying Damia against his shoulder in the other arm, a feat of strength that made Kanzas' teeth grind as he thought of it. They had all suffered from the sickness that came with the thin air up here, a sort of lightheadedness that made him feel as if he'd somehow gotten a hangover without having had the pleasure of the drink beforehand. The mountain sickness had passed within a day for him and the other adults, but Damia had been hit particularly hard by it.

Perhaps it was due to her mixed blood, or her never having lived far from the sea, but the girl was still suffering from the dizziness and nausea now, long after the rest of them had recovered. Unable to walk for very long, she had slowed them down a lot. Though they murmured together about what they might have to do if her sickness grew more severe, naturally Belzac and Shirley wouldn't even consider leaving her behind.

I would. Risking the rest of us for her? Apart from that ice spell, she's useless. He'd made sure they'd known it, too.

Oh, right - that was why Shirley was mad…

In fact, it seemed that Damia now completely occupied most of her concern. "Belzac," she said suddenly, as they came upon a small pile of boulders stacked high alongside the trail, "let's stop here for a bit to let her have some water."

"Right," he said agreeably, drawing the drag-sled to a stop at the convenient landmark.

As Belzac shifted to sit down with Damia, who was awake but appeared very miserable, Shirley pulled her waterbag out from under her vest. Thanks to the snow there was no lack of fresh water, but they had to keep their supply between their clothes and skin to first melt the snow and then keep it from freezing up again. "Here you go," she said, handing it over to her. "Is it still helping when you drink?"

"A little," she answered, but she drank like she had been parched.

While they were tending to Damia, Kanzas untied his snowshoes and began to make his way up the pile of boulders slightly down the trail from them, where the path seemed easiest. Despite the snow covering the rocks, there was no lack of handholds and crevices for feet unencumbered by the annoying but necessary devices. At the top of the boulders was a wide outcropping sprinkled with pine trees, a sort of extension outward from the thicker ranks of trees on the slopes above. Even from this higher vantage point, he couldn't see a thing that looked a bit different than the miles of landscape they'd already been crossing. Somewhere up ahead, he'd been told, they would run into a river valley, and there the route would change a bit - but it would also become steeper and narrower, with much more chance of a misstep.

"Just eat a bit," Belzac was coaxing, pressing strips of mammoth jerky into the twelve-year-old's reluctant hands.

"But I'll just get sick," Damia protested. "I'm still so dizzy…"

Shirley shook her head, taking a precarious seat on the rock on the other side of her. "You have to eat something, you know. If you don't eat and don't walk a bit on your own, you'll lose all your strength, and then how can you get better?"

She made an unhappy noise, tearing off a tiny mouthful of the dried meat with her teeth and chewing it listlessly. Her skin, always pale, now seemed to rival the snow, making her hair an even more brilliant teal next to it. She looks like death warmed over, Kanzas thought, perching vulture-like on the edge of the rockfall and looking down at them from above. "It's just more of the same up ahead," he informed them. "How much longer till camp?"

"From these boulders," Belzac answered, "about four more miles to the next shelter."

The 'shelters' where they had been making their nightly camps had been varied in appearance, but generally of natural features: small caves, or even deep cavities under tree roots that were very like animal dens. A few, however, had clearly been built or put together by someone. These were lean-tos or small round stacked-stone windbreaks half-buried in the frozen earth to make sort of dugouts. They had been planned to be about a day's travel apart, though that was generally more for summer travel than through the snow. If they happened to miss the prepared shelter, which was often, they made camp where they were as best they could.

"How could you even know that?" Kanzas snapped irritably. When they made ten miles a day, if they were lucky, four more meant another half-day's hike in those blasted snowshoes. "I think you're just making it up!"

"These boulders are one of the trail signs we were telling you about," Shirley told him, forcing civility into her voice.

Damia shifted, interest blooming in her expression for the first time a while. "The last one was the three spruces by the broken rock," she recalled.

"And the next will be a circle carved into a dead tree trunk," the large man told her, giving her a smile. "It's good that you remember it. It may be you who will lead escaped slaves to Gloriano this way, someday."

She chuckled weakly, but her eyes were bright. "Maybe…"

"Not if she's always puking her guts out from the air up here."

"I'll get used to it, too!" Damia defended before anyone else could say anything. She craned her head back to glare up at the man. Kanzas snorted derisively, but didn't bother with a response.

Shirley, standing up again, reached to take back her waterbag from the girl. She moved a short distance away, crouching to fill it up with new snow to melt. "Of course you will."

"Could I really be a guide?" she wondered, apparently quite taken with the idea.

Belzac nodded. "It's an important job. You'll come to know the way, but the people who are fleeing the Winglies won't. The most anyone can give them in Mekadris or on the plains is the way to begin, but if they're to make it they need a guide or a clear trail."

"In fact," Shirley began, "there are some who live along the border here all year long, keeping the paths open-"

"Wait! What's that noise?" Damia broke in. She looked around, twisting about, but saw nothing.

The others paused, and then all of a sudden it came to their ears as well. A high-pitched whirr broke the silence of the cold, peaceful landscape, though its origin and the direction it was coming from was unclear. It had an odd rhythm to its whine, a sort of dull pulsing cadence that seemed to be just on the edge of hearing.

Kanzas whipped his head upward, his eyes narrowing as he peered into the clear blue sky. "I know that sound!" Instantly, the entire set of his body changed, as if ready for battle. He felt his hands clenching into unconscious fists, and he leapt to his feet, steadying his balance atop the rockfall. For a moment he was surrounded by miles of churning ocean, not snow, as the droning sounded overhead- "Wingly ship!"

"Ours?" Shirley asked quizzically, looking to Belzac as if for confirmation.

Before he could answer, or Kanzas could question that, the unnatural sound grew louder, and it became obvious that it was heading their way. The big man shook his head, picking up Damia as he stood. "No way to know." He pointed toward the evergreens up ahead before snatching up the drag-sled's towbar. "Come on, under the trees! Into the trees!"

Shirley immediately heeded his words, following right behind him, but Kanzas balked. "What's the point? They'd have to be blind to not see that trail!"

"Better the trail than us!" he shot back, almost invisible now within the thicker stand of pine trees. Kanzas growled under his breath and then ran for the trees on his outcropping, although they were sparser than the ones below. He weaved through until he felt he was under enough cover; his dark coat and pants would be quite apparent from above against the span of white. There was a nice shadowy clump of evergreens just past the boulders, however, and he threw himself down below them, crawling beneath the droopy, low-hanging branches until he could see back out. It would have been hard to see him from the ground, much less the sky.

The Wingly ship flew closer to the river valley that lay further ahead than the ridge they had been traveling on, moving at a moderate, steady pace not far above the tops of the trees. It was shaped like a seagoing ship but with no masts or sails; rather, a set of brightly glowing rings beneath it rotated slowly, their magic holding it up. As the ship passed over, the pine needles beneath it seemed to wilt and turn brown, their life energy being taken to power the ship. These Winglies were clearly making sure to survey the ground below, but they did not slow or stop, only continuing in a northwesterly direction.

The whirring of the ship began to fade as it moved into the distance, but reverberating beneath that dwindling sound was a chain of alarming rumbles, their sound distant and echoing; he had no idea where they were coming from or what it meant. For a moment, all was completely still again, and then a distinctive whomp rang out, quite nearby. From his vantage point beneath the trees, Kanzas stared, watching as a slab of snow detached itself from the slope up above.

Slow at first, but with increasing speed, it tumbled down the ridge, appearing to turn almost to liquid as it went. The sparse pines in its path did nothing to stop its descent, branches snapping off as the snowslide passed between them. It came within feet of the man, who merely pushed up to hands and knees to avoid the spray in his face, and then the rolling slab pitched over the boulders they'd stopped at and down across the trail below. The snow piled up deeply as it landed, and he wondered what would have happened to him if he'd been caught in it. If it had just been a little bit closer-

"Hey!" he shouted, pushing out from under the tree before the last tumbling chunks of white had even finished rolling past. "Where are you all? You still there?" What if they're buried in it? What am I supposed to do then? None of their stupid horror stories had ever mentioned what to do if any of it actually happened.

"Kanzas!" Shirley's hair was the first part of her visible as she came out from under the trees on the other side of the slide, waving at him. The other two were just behind, shaking off the light dusting of powder that had fallen onto them from the branches above. "We're all right!" Her eyes grew round at the sight of the amount of snow that had buried their landmark. "Good thing we were well away."

"And that was a small one," Belzac remarked. He set Damia back on her feet; she wobbled, but stayed upright with a hand in his cloak to steady herself. "It still would have been deadly, if we had been caught in it."

Kanzas came up to the edge of his ridge and eyed the pile. "My snowshoes are under that," he pointed out. Somehow, he couldn't make himself feel all that upset about losing them.

"We can make more," Shirley said lightly.

"Don't bother."

She crossed her arms over her chest, leaning back to glare up at him. "You'll need them, like it or not. Or should we leave you behind for slowing us down?" He scowled, but she had scored a point, and they both knew it. She tossed her head once in acknowledgment of the fact before turning away. "I hope that ship didn't set off too many other avalanches up ahead," the healer continued, gazing worriedly down the path they were supposed to be taking. "We might not be able to get past it, or we could have lost markers-"

"We'll deal with that if we come to it," Belzac said, though his face reflected his growing concern at the idea. "There's no helping it either way. Snowslides happen naturally, too."

Maybe that was the case, but that ship and its magical reverberations certainly hadn't helped anything. "Damned Winglies," Kanzas muttered.

"Were they looking for us?" Damia asked, still scanning the sky nervously.

"I don't think so," Shirley told her. "They don't really have any reason to, for one. Sometimes they will pursue a slave this way, but neither of you are escapees."

Belzac frowned. "Though it wasn't a merchant, that's for certain. They were moving much too slowly for just traveling between the cities."

"Doesn't mean they weren't still looking for something, though," Kanzas pointed out.

"And they were moving in the direction of Gloriano," Shirley murmured to Belzac.

"They patrol here, often," he reminded her. "Shirley, a moment." Handing the towbar of the sled to Damia, he then drew her aside and leaned in closely, speaking in a soft tone of voice.

Kanzas narrowed his eyes, unable to hear them without blatantly moving closer. More secrets, was it? Come to think of it, they hadn't been too surprised about seeing a Wingly ship around here. What was it Shirley had said, 'ours'? "You said before that we could have taken a ship to your Gloriano," he interrupted suddenly. They spun to look up at him, obviously startled, and he took the opportunity to slide his way back down the slick of snow to where they were.

"Did we?" she asked, having forgotten.

He didn't take his eyes off her, watching for some hint of dissembling. "The Giganto did. So, how can you go north by sea? No Humans I know can make ships that can go out on the open water, and they'd just be destroyed by the Winglies if there were any. There's only fishing boats, and I know damn well those things can't go as far as all that."

"No, not a fishing boat," Shirley clarified. "He was talking about one of the Winglies' flying cargo ships, in fact."

"You're lying," Kanzas said flatly.

"Why would we lie?" Belzac defended before she had a chance to respond.

He smiled unpleasantly, his voice filled with mocking disbelief. "Why don't you tell me? You're trying to say that you free slaves from the Winglies, just to take them right back onto a Wingly ship, which then flies them off to freedom?" He waved his hands in a fluttery motion. "I suppose everyone gets a horse and some crown jewels too-"

"Look, it's not anything like that," Shirley cut in crossly. "He's a merchant with a ship and a crew that's willing to take on Humans and make a stop between Mekadris and Zenebatos, that's all. And he charges a great deal for it, too, which is why we weren't able to go that way after buying the both of you."

"There are Winglies and there are Winglies," the tall man put in, gesturing with one gloved hand and then the other. "He's decent enough, but he is a merchant. His only real interest is in the money he makes, of course." There was an odd tone to his voice at this, and Shirley squeezed his hand briefly, but they didn't explain why and Kanzas didn't care.

"Well, he does put himself in some danger by trading with us, much less transporting us, so I suppose it's justified," she summed up.

Kanzas let out a long breath of air. "Fine, all right. That how you get to Mekadris in the first place, too?"

"Oh, we do fly, yes," she answered, with a teasing, deliberate vagueness that he chose to ignore. Since she'd said that she wasn't going to answer his question about her magic stone until they reached Vellweb, he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of trying to wheedle it out of her in the meantime, or piece it together from the hints she dropped. After all, he told himself, he was the one playing the game here.

Well, even if Shirley wasn't the collaborator he'd accused her of being, he would bet they were still dealing with the Winglies somehow, and far past buying rides from merchants. He couldn't come up with any other explanation for all their coin, which even a free Human country wouldn't be able to produce for themselves, or the quality of their equipment. He had to concede that it made no sense to provision and take him all the way into the mountains if they were just going to betray him to the Winglies, but all these secrets were making him question them more.

He knew that his ties to the woman meant he was inclined to trust her further than he usually would have. Even so, he couldn't let his guard down, couldn't let her sucker him into starting to care about their mysterious lord, or even answers about that damned magical stone of hers. They weren't doing all this out of some sense of altruism alone. There had to be something in it for them.

---

The stretch of land they had just reached was almost flat, or at least gave that appearance, forming a sort of saddle between the two nearby peaks. They had finally come to the highest point of their route. "Kashua Pass," Belzac announced. "We're here. It'll all be downhill from here, and into Gloriano territory." It was technically true; there were definitely no border guards, and the Winglies didn't quibble about where the border was when they traveled in this area, but it still made him happy to know he was on land that was theirs, nonetheless.

"We'll spend the night here, and continue on in the morning," Shirley added.

"Good!" Damia interjected. "I'm tired. And hungry." The half-mermaid sounded rather cheerful despite her words. In fact, Damia had been keeping up with them easily, now that her sickness had finally passed, and Belzac suspected that the girl's gangliness was turning to muscle beneath her layers of fur and wool. She spun in a half-circle, surveying the area. "Where are we going to make camp?"

"Not just yet," the half-Giganto said. "A little further on. And it won't quite be camp, tonight, either."

She frowned quizzically. "No? Then what do you mean?"

He gave her a quick grin, his own spirits lifted by the knowledge that the worst part of the journey was over. "Just keep going this way. You'll see."

Kanzas said nothing, simply following along as they continued up the last slight slope. He had been very quiet since the Wingly ship had passed over, and Belzac did not miss his complaining, though he did have to wonder why they had been granted such a reprieve. He knew it was bothering Shirley, anyway, who was concerned that he didn't trust them. I don't think he's the one who should be worrying about trusting, he thought sourly. He's the criminal among us, after all.

They had seen no one else since they had left Mekadris, and would come across nothing as populous as even a small hamlet until they reached a Gloriano outpost on the other side of the divide. The few Humans who lived in these mountains were generally solitary shepherds or goatherds tending their flocks in the occasional hidden valley, or the rare remote farm in the lower regions. Therefore, when the small hut at the apex of the pass came into view, Damia let out a little gasp. "A house!" she exclaimed. "Are we going to get to stay in a real house tonight?"

The woman smiled at her excitement. With her white hood and red hair framing it, the fond expression lit up her face in a way that Belzac couldn't help but admire out of the corner of his eye. "We certainly are!"

As the small group trudged across the snowfield toward the hut, with the weak sun already descending behind a thick bank of gray snow-laden clouds, it looked like the most luxurious dwelling in Endiness. It was tiny and windowless, but it had an actual thatched roof, even if there was a smokehole in it instead of a chimney.

Shirley, her gaze fixed on the building, stopped suddenly in mid-stride. "Belzac," she called, and he turned around immediately at the sound of alarm in her voice. "There's no smoke! He'd never let the fire go out up here-"

"Something's wrong," he agreed, and he dropped the tow-bar of the sled to reach for his axe on his back. "Be careful," he began to caution, but Kanzas had taken the first excuse to cut the straps of his snowshoes and leave them behind. He was already pushing ahead of them without a word, an anticipatory light in his eyes. Paying no mind, Belzac looked to the other two. "Stay back here with Shirley," he told Damia, who was hesitantly fumbling for the ties securing her hammer to the sled. "Run for the trees if there's trouble. And don't argue," he added when she opened her mouth to do just that.

Shirley already had her bow out and an arrow to the string; Belzac nodded at her, secure in the knowledge that she would be watching his back. He cut himself free of his own snowshoes, in case he had to run, before heading for the house cautiously. The hut had been partially dug down into the ground, and what could be seen of its walls above the snowdrifts was short indeed. The tall man could actually look over the top of the roof with little trouble.

The windswept plain of snow had been trampled down all around the little dugout, and his heart sank as he saw telltale spatters staining the pristine whiteness. It was impossible to make out one mark or footprint from another. The only thing he knew for sure was that it had been some time since whatever had happened, due to the signs of freezing and crusting on the edges of the prints. "Cai?" he shouted, just in case.

He received no answer, and as he rounded the corner of the hut he knew that his fears had been right all along. The indistinct dark shape of a body wearing furs lay sprawled in the bloodied snow there. Kanzas came around the other side of the building, having already been through here and gone. The half-Giganto gave him a questioning look, but he shook his head: no enemies were lying in wait for them. Belzac lowered his axe, pausing to seat it in its carrying sling on his back before he approached the body.

Shirley, moving up behind him, gave a little cry of dismay. "Oh, no! Cai was killed?"

"I'm afraid so."

A pale-haired corpse in dark brown armor also lay nearby. Kanzas kicked it over to inspect it, and then spat on it. "Wingly," he said unnecessarily. "Looks like your free land's not so safe after all."

Belzac ignored that, shaking his head as he continued to look around the trampled area. "Here's another," he pointed out, this one visible only as a gleam of metal half-buried in a windswept snowdrift. "I think now we know what that ship from last week was after. These must have been scouts, and the only two, or the others would have taken the bodies away. At least they paid a price for taking his life."

The russet-haired man made a vague impressed noise, knowing as well as Belzac did how hard Winglies were to kill out in the open. "What was a man who could take out two of them doing in the middle of nowhere?"

Finding a fairly unbloodied patch of snow to step into, Shirley dropped to one knee next to the dead Human. Cai had always had something a gruff manner, but it had hidden a heart that had cared deeply about the fate of other Humans, and she'd quite liked him. "He was a guide," she told Kanzas sadly. "A good one, too. There are many escaped slaves who never would have made it to Gloriano without his help."

"And now more, until we can get someone else who's willing and able to do the same," Belzac sighed regretfully.

He watched Shirley as she attempted to compose the cold body, straighten out the limbs, close his eyes, but without much luck. He'd been there long enough to have frozen far past the stiffness that came from recent death. "We can't just leave him out here," the woman said finally.

Belzac nodded in agreement. "This ground's too icy to dig in, but there's plenty of rock around. I'll have to make a cairn." He looked to Kanzas. "Care to help?"

He gave a derisive snort. "Not really. He's dead, and devils are probably playing with his soul in Mayfil as we speak. What does he care if his body lies in the snow?"

"I care," he answered flatly.

"Then you may have the joy of building a cairn all by yourself, Giganto."

Shirley got to her feet, frowning at him. "I'll help you, Belzac," she offered.

He held up a hand as if to stop her. "Thanks, but it's fine. I'll do it." He reached for the horn hanging at his belt, pulling at its ties. It held the wood coal they carried between camps to make starting fires faster, and he handed it over to her, smiling just slightly. "At least tonight we'll have a roof over our heads."

"Right. Don't take too long; snow is coming in," she reminded him with a glance to the clouds. "I'll make sure you can warm up when you're done." Shirley glared at the other man as he turned to go. "Well, you can at least help me by bringing in the wood for the fire, or you can sleep outside tonight!" she told Kanzas sharply.

He sighed like she'd asked him to kindly move the mountains out of their way by the time she had the tea on, but stomped over to the woodpile regardless, muttering a nasty-sounding litany of complaint that Belzac was grateful he wasn't able to actually hear.

Damia had come up to the house along with Shirley, though she still hung back, waiting nearby with her hammer in her hands. She was close enough to have been listening, though she avoided looking too closely at the bodies and the dirty red-brown snow behind the hut. "How can I help, Shirley?" the girl asked anxiously, as if afraid she would get yelled at too.

"Once I get the fire going, we'll need to start some dinner cooking." She frowned. "Let's see if there's anything left inside."

Leaving them to it, Belzac headed in the direction of the nearby slope. As he'd expected, many seasons of avalanches and mudslides had left veritable piles of rock, and he set to work selecting large ones for the base of the cairn.

As he chose a site not far away and began to stack the stones, he tried to restrain his irritation. He had been doing his best to get along with Kanzas on the long trip, well aware that outright hostility between them would only make everyone miserable. What can Shirley see that I don't? he wondered. Other than as a fighter, he could find no redeeming qualities in the man at all.

Was it just the spirit pulling? Whatever she'd felt from it before had been enough to send them on their mission to Mekadris out of season - they usually went in spring or summer to make the travel easier. If the pull had been that strong, he had no doubt she would be declaring Kanzas a candidate on their arrival, no matter how unsuitable he might be as a servant of Diaz. Others she had found had ended up failing, though. Was it so wrong to wish-?

Squashing such counterproductive thoughts, he returned to the side of the hut to collect Cai's frozen body from the snow. Belzac carried him easily, if awkwardly, back to where he'd placed the base of the cairn; he was so stiff it was like carrying a stack of cordwood.

Laying the guide's corpse in the little hollow he'd left for it, he paused a moment for a brief prayer for his soul, although he knew how useless it was. Human souls entering the Death City were sent to Hell, no matter what they'd done in life. Kanzas had been annoyingly right in that respect, but it didn't mean that Cai deserved to be left exposed and unburied on a mountainside, either. The Winglies he'd managed to kill - well, they could stay where they were.

The dead man's unkempt beard fluttered in the breeze, grown long and thick against the cold. He bore some passing resemblance to Kanzas, and the half-Giganto narrowed his eyes suddenly. Maybe she had wanted to purchase him, and had trusted him so easily, because he had reminded her of Cai? Not because of the spirit? Could it really be as simple as that? Divine Tree, he hoped so.

Belzac made trip after trip for more rock and covered the body over, piling the stones heavy and high to prevent it from being disturbed by hungry beasts. By the time he'd placed the last, he felt chilled through, and was more than ready to get inside and warm up. The wind was getting stronger and smelling of the coming snow. He hoped this storm would move on quickly. If it became a full blizzard, they might be stuck here for a few days digging out, and the shelter was small enough that things would get disagreeable quickly.

He paused only long enough on the way back to investigate a shed, pleased to find it had been the smokehouse. There were several frozen sides of what he guessed was deer left in there. It wasn't mammoth, anyway, and that was just fine by him. Although - as he had predicted - they had been quite glad of the meat when hunting was poor, he was also getting tired of its flavor. The thought of food made from something else entirely was making his mouth water.

The others had gathered up the discarded snowshoes and had brought the drag-sled up close to the door. It was pretty light by now, and they could probably abandon it soon in favor of their packs again.

As he neared the hut, he could hear Damia's high voice speaking on the other side of the wall, muffled a bit but still understandable. "There's magic in these."

"Spells," Kanzas answered unexpectedly. "They're spell-bottles. Open it, throw it, no need to use energy to cast. Even Humans can use it, but it draws on the natural magic of whoever opens it, so it'd be pretty weak-" He fell silent again, almost as if he'd said too much.

"How do you know all that?" Shirley broke in, unbridled curiosity in her voice. "Was it in-" She cut herself off suddenly. "Sorry," she mumbled instead, and Belzac frowned, wondering what she had been about to say.

"Where would he have gotten Wingly spell-bottles, I wonder?" the half-mermaid mused aloud.

"I expect that this wasn't the first time Cai was attacked up here," Belzac said, joining the last of the conversation as he let himself in, coming down the few stone steps into the hut. Damia turned from where she was kneeling on the bed, examining some glints of color in a niche in a wall - that explained why they were talking about spells, at least. Kanzas sat nearby, leaning against the wall, his arms folded over his chest. "The smoke from his fire would be pretty visible to anyone flying over," he continued, setting down his pack and weapon along the wall where the others had left theirs. "Slaving parties may not go into Gloriano directly, but here on the borders, with no one around, they can usually get away with it."

"Then they can see our fire too," the girl said with dawning horror.

"Don't you worry," he told her, half-smiling. "They'll get more than they bargained for if they try it, believe me."

"All done?" Shirley asked him from her place by the fire. She had been quite busy as well while he was working on the cairn, and he could smell the welcome and unexpected scent of baking bread. From the looks of it, she'd found some barley meal among the supplies of the hut, and was in the midst of frying bannocks on a griddle stone.

He nodded. "It's no proper grave, but it'll serve. I found his storehouse, too. There's still some venison left we can bring when we leave."

"Good! Come sit down. Dinner's just about ready."

The blaze had taken nicely, and Belzac spread out his bedroll in front of it. The firepit lay in the center of the hut much like at a campsite, the roof beams around the smokehole above blackened from its near-constant smoke. The hole had a little overhang covering it to prevent snow from falling in, though he knew he'd have to make sure it stayed clear during the night, if the snow fell as hard as he thought it might. Having this shelter tonight would mean little if they all choked to death without even waking up. Settling down atop his blankets, he stripped off his gloves, holding his hands out to the heat.

Damia was still inspecting the confines of the rest of the hut, although she didn't have to go far or look very hard to see everything it contained. It hadn't changed at all since the last time Belzac and Shirley had stopped by, bringing provisions; Cai had lived very simply, even for a Human. Piles of furs atop a box of stacked boughs made up his bed, and his only other apparent possessions had been some knives and tools. He had made and repaired everything with what could be had in the forest around and below the pass.

Her curiosity apparently satisfied, Damia joined him shortly, taking her seat next to him, and he edged over a bit to give her more room. The silence was comfortable for once as they enjoyed being under a real roof for the first time in weeks of hard travel. The chill of the wind did not invade its stone walls, insulated by both the ground and the ever-present snowdrifts, and it was as cozy as anything they could have wished for in a village.

Dinner passed quietly around the fire, the extra heat from being indoors making them feel more relaxed than normal. The barley bannocks had been a wonderful change, the otherwise tiresome mammoth meat improved by some of Shirley's rosemary, and there was the promise of a stew, slowly cooked overnight, to be had in the morning. A nice big mug of ale would have completed it, but there was nothing to be had but water or bitter pine needle tea so far from civilization. And if that's all you can really wish for, Belzac told himself, then you have nothing to worry over at all, do you?

The only thing that seemed to mar his contentment was Kanzas' silent, staring presence on the other side of the firepit, where he remained in the shadows with his patchwork coat pulled close around him. Even in the smallest of their temporary shelters, he had managed to keep himself apart when they went to sleep, always with his back to some kind of wall or barrier. Belzac knew the man had to sleep sometime, but since they'd left Mekadris he'd never caught him doing it.

Shirley, too, seemed to keep glancing his way, but for once she didn't try to engage him in conversation, even when she passed him on the way to where their things lay. She'd already been fussing over the dirty cookware, and so as she began to poke through one of the large packs Belzac leaned back, raising a brow at her. "You don't have to keep house for us, you know," he teased gently.

She smiled in return, holding up the jar of salve she'd extracted from the bag in explanation as she returned to the fire. Windburn was a constant plague on the mountainsides, and the jar was quite a bit emptier now than it had been when they'd started out. She knelt down next to Damia, starting in on her first; used to the treatment by now, the half-mermaid turned her head and extended her hands to let Shirley rub the oily stuff on her without needing to be asked.

Standing again, the healer crossed to his other side before sitting down there again. "I suppose it was fortunate we had to come this way, in the end," Shirley murmured, as if the thought had just come to her. "I don't know how long it would have taken us otherwise to find out what happened here."

"It's not likely anyone will be through here again until spring at the very earliest," he agreed, readily giving her his hand as she reached for it. He found himself appreciating the feeling of her fingers on his skin much more than the soothing properties of the salve, although he tried not to let on just how good it felt.

"He lived up here all by himself, all the time?" Damia asked. "That must have been very lonely."

"It suits some people, I suppose."

"Not me!" she announced. Yawning widely, the girl leaned to the side, folding her arms atop Belzac's leg and then resting her head on them comfortably.

The man reached to smooth down her wavy teal hair with his free hand, smiling gently. Moments like this one seemed to justify all the hardship they had faced, and everything they would face in the future. He didn't allow his thoughts to rest long on the future, however, not wanting to spoil his happiness with the uncertainties of the fight ahead of them. "You two can take the bed," he told them. "Go to sleep if you're tired, Damia."

"Mhm. Okay," she murmured. However, she didn't move to get up, and he didn't insist she do so.

"I would have given a lot for a real bed, the first time we came through," Shirley said thoughtfully, shifting upward to reach Belzac's face.

He sighed, leaning slightly into her touch, the stubble along his jaw making a bristly sound as she smoothed the salve on. He too had been letting it grow, both for warmth and because shaving was annoying in the cold. Gigantos had little in the way of body hair, though, and he'd inherited that trait; only the eldest of them seemed to have beards at all, and his own had barely sprouted in the three weeks they'd been traveling. Finally, he murmured, "Any shelter would have been nice, but there was no path then, and hardly a Gloriano, either."

Damia tilted her head to look up at them from under sleep-heavy lids. "You came this way so long ago?"

"Yes," Shirley answered her. "The first time, like you, we had just been freed. It was Belzac and I, our mothers, and my younger brother, Lyss. That was…eight years ago now. My brother was just about your age, actually."

"And you weren't much older," Belzac reminded her.

Shirley waved that off, finally sitting back down, to his disappointment. "We had no guide, so it would have been a hard trip no matter how old we were," she pointed out.

"You went by yourselves?" the girl asked.

"Yes," he answered, "we were given nothing but our weapons, and told to lead our families from the Eastlands to Gloriano."

The healer next to him shook her head, and he took her hand, giving it a squeeze. He could well remember the sense of despair he'd felt at the enormity of the task, knew that she had felt the same. It had been a test, of course, but there had been a lot at stake, including the lives of those he loved the most. The five of them had been slaves their whole lives until that point, and had known nothing about hunting or living off the land. As it was, they would all have died several times over if not for the power of Shirley's spirit rescuing them from otherwise mortal wounds sustained on the long journey. It was then, too, that he had learned he was capable of killing another person…

"Why?" Damia asked with wide eyes, sitting up slightly in surprise. "Er, if you don't mind?"

Belzac smiled at her. "It's all right. Lord Diaz believes in the fate given us by Soa, the creator. If we couldn't do it, he'd chosen wrongly."

"That's a lot to wager on fate," Kanzas interjected from the other side of the fire, startling them after his long silence. The flickering blaze made his eyes look very dark and intent.

"That's just the strength of his belief," the half-Giganto said coolly. "And he was right. It took us three months, but we all made it."

Looking over at Kanzas, Shirley made as if to offer him the jar of salve. He only made a derisive noise in response, and so she took it back and set it aside with a sigh. "And we got stronger, doing so," she added, "which might well have been his real purpose."

"Ridiculous," he muttered, but he said no more as he settled back as if to go to sleep, and for that Belzac was grateful.

We made it through then, and we'll do it now, no thanks to you, he thought at him. Shirley's spirit had seemingly chosen both Kanzas and Damia in Mekadris that day, and it was as if the sense of affection he felt for the young half-mermaid was mirrored in full by the animosity in his heart for the other man. And I'm going to make sure that you don't do anything to harm them before we get there, either. Shirley still seemed to think Kanzas was putting on a show of toughness, but Belzac remembered his casual claims of killing, his wild eyes, the fist he'd thrown at the woman's face and his fingers around her neck. No, he wasn't going to let his guard down around him, not for a minute.

---

"Wake up."

Blinking groggily, Shirley turned over onto her stomach, hiding her face in the darkness of her folded arms. "Just a little longer," she pleaded, muffled by her sleeves. A foot pressed gently against her side, shaking her slightly. "Just one more minute. C'mon, Belzac, it's barely dawn."

"Don't you know my voice yet?" Kanzas said, exasperated. "Get up, Shirley. You need to look at this."

Oh, Divine Tree, I hate being woken up early! "Later…" Suddenly, she felt herself being lifted from her bedroll, blankets and all, a hand muffling her cry of alarm. "Kanzas, what are you doing?" she hissed quietly, as the other two were still asleep. "Put me down!"

Ignoring her flailing, he carried her out from under the lip of the shallow cave where they were encamped and pointed across the white-capped rocky peaks. Just under five cold weeks had passed since they had left Mekadris, and if the weather held, they were now two days away from reaching Gloriano's flat plains. It was in this direction he was making her look. "Your country's over there, right?"

Shirley squinted through the darkness, wondering what Kanzas wanted her to see. "What, but I don't-"

"Up," he said gruffly, tilting her chin toward the sky and to the right.

Peering above the horizon now and over, she suddenly realized what he was talking about. Shirley gasped, holding onto the man's shoulder and neck to steady herself. "Flanvel! No, oh no, what is Flanvel doing here?"

The huge flying fortress was hanging in the air just beyond the ridgeline; unlike the other floating structures of the Winglies, it could move around, and its purpose was to protect the stationary sky cities. However, the nearest of those were Zenebatos and the Crystal Palace, both of which were much further away than this.

Kanzas' next words were quite serious and did nothing to reassure her. "Burning things, I think. I can smell it."

"No!" Shirley cried, wriggling out of his grasp and back to her feet on the ground, her blankets falling around her boots. Running back into the cave, snow flying behind her, she went to Belzac's side and shook him hard. "Get up! Belzac, Damia, get up quick! We have to go, now!"

His pale eyes opened immediately, and he straightened, reaching to brush her cheek briefly with his fingertips. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"It's Flanvel, Belzac! Faust is burning Gloriano!"

"Soa, no!"

She drew back, shaking her head hard, and turned to pull a groggy Damia into a sitting position. "Damia, come on! We have to go!"

Belzac jumped to his feet, gathering up the blankets as the girl rubbed her eyes with the back of her arm, unhappy about being woken but curious at the same time. "What…?" she began, her question going unheeded.

Shirley began almost haphazardly snatching for things, trying to shove them into an open pack with a frantic kind of hysteria. "Fit, damn it!" she hissed, slapping at the worn leather when it refused to expand enough to let the bundle inside.

Her hands were shaking, almost uncontrollably, until suddenly they were covered by a larger pair and pressed down onto the thick hide. "What can you do?" Kanzas asked her, his expression for once rational, almost sympathetic. "How would you being there stop a crazy Wingly in a flying tower from doing anything?"

The calm reasonableness of it made her even more angry and frightened, but she fought back the panic she was feeling, her voice still trembling as she retorted, "I have to do something!"

Yanking her hands away, she abandoned the struggle with the pack, letting Belzac take it from her and finish with it. At least he was with her - at least he understood the worry she was feeling. Gloriano had become their home when she was sixteen, and the thought of the Winglies taking their hard-gained liberty away from them was too much to bear.

She began to pick up Damia's few things and pack them when the girl continued to sit and stare at them fuzzily. The drag-sled had been abandoned as their supplies of mammoth meat dwindled, so at least they had only their own packs to deal with. Quickly finished with the task, she leaped up and turned to run outside again, ignoring her snowshoes in favor of speed. We have to hurry…we're still so far away, but maybe we can get there in time to help. Belzac was close behind her, his face drawn with worry. He too left his snowshoes behind, following her as quickly as he dared down the steep, snowy mountain trail leading northwest.

Their sudden absence made Damia slowly get to her feet; she glanced at Kanzas before wandering to the edge of the shallow cave, shivering in the cold. There was a haze of smoke more visible now across the peaks, a bright orange glow tinting the dawn clouds and dancing across the surface of the magical fortress in the air. "The Winglies are here too," she said softly. "Shirley looked so scared…"

"They're everywhere," Kanzas corrected darkly. Scuffling noises came from the back of the cave as he kicked dirt over the remains of the fire. "They rule Endiness. I don't know why she thought they'd leave a whole country of free Humans alone."

"Who's Faust?" Damia asked in a small voice.

"What I said. A crazy Wingly magician. Maybe the most powerful one they've got," he grunted.

"And they went after him?" she squeaked.

"Stupid," he summed up. "But that's those two for you."

Damia gave a start as he moved up next to her, tossing her pack at her. She caught it with a grunt, scowling as the weight of the hammer tied to it made it hit hard against her chest, and then ran to catch up with him, yawning hard. "What do you think they're going to do?" she questioned, skidding on a patch of ice and flailing her arms to stay upright.

"I don't know. Don't care. It won't matter, anyway. Run after them if you want, but if you fall in some hole I'm not helping you."

"I…" The twelve-year-old glanced at the trampled trail ahead of them before shaking her head. "I'll stay. It's still dark out, and I don't want to go alone."

They must really have been worried if they both ran off without thinking of the kid. "Fine."

Flanvel had been created to guard the other floating cities, mostly from actual dangers like Dragons; if it was burning Gloriano outposts, it meant that some high-up Wingly was concerned about the threat from this country of Humans. Kanzas was certain this had something to do with the power Shirley had mentioned, and now he was more inclined than ever to find out just what kind of force would make the Winglies so nervous.

As they made their way downhill along the road, following the now-familiar trail markers, he found it odd that he and Damia had not quickly caught up with the other two, even taking into account that he was not hurrying at all. Shirley couldn't have been running the whole way, not this long and through the snow, but she was definitely not stopping for anything. He almost envied the fact that she could care that much for something, even something as abstract as a country.

The girl was quiet for a long while, concentrating only on keeping up with him, but suddenly broke her silence. "What's a magician, exactly?"

He wasn't really in the mood to play teacher, but the idea of scaring her into not asking any more questions held some appeal. "They live for magic, not like the Winglies you can find anywhere. They study it, make magic devices, and they're so full of power they have golden wings. So," he said, glancing back and smiling darkly at the sight of her expression, "if you ever see that, you might as well enjoy it, because you'll be dead when they cast something at you."

"D-do Shirley and Belzac know that?" Damia forced out, her voice betraying her fear.

"They're not that stupid," he answered softly. Her footsteps behind him stopped for a moment, but he continued on, and she didn't pause for long before hurrying after him. He was rather impressed, despite himself - though she was probably just as crazy as the rest of them, all things considered, to keep going toward a Wingly magician and not to run the hell away like any sane Human ought to do.

Although the sun continued to rise as they traveled, they could barely tell as the gray, murky haze of smoke grew stronger in the sky overhead. The smell of burning pine choked the air around them. At the top of a rise Kanzas stopped to look down, seeing what appeared to be a wall of flames blocking the path at the bottom of the hill. The two overstuffed packs belonging to Shirley and Belzac lay here alongside the trail, as clear a marker of their destination as any he could have wished.

Damia bent to catch her breath and coughed hard before straightening and letting out a gasp of shock. She was tired, hungry, and had a stitch in her side from pushing to keep pace with Kanzas for over an hour, but her discomfort suddenly melted away as she stared down the hill, horrified. A Human outpost had lain on the mountainside, the buildings built against the steep slopes and supported by high stilt-like beams. It was now aflame, the sparks having ignited surrounding evergreen trees and threatening to start an even larger, more devastating blaze. The only thing controlling it at all was the fact that snowfall and generally moist conditions had left very little dry tinder for the fire to catch.

"There's people down there!" she breathed, peering harder at what looked to have been the outpost's main square. "Flying - it looks like Winglies! And so Shirley and Belzac-"

"Are there too, the fools," he finished harshly. "You'll want to run down and help them, I guess. Don't let me stop you."

She gave him a terrified look, gazing back and forth between the man and the burning buildings as if trying to decide which was worse. "They're our friends! Aren't they? They freed us, and you have to help - you're stronger than me, I can't do it by myself!" Damia pulled at his sleeve of his coat, swiftly yanking her hand away when he smacked at it. "Please, Kanzas!"

"You're asking me to help?" he inquired calmly. "And why should I?" However, his mind answered that question before the girl could even open her mouth: You should help them for Shirley's sake, because it would be stupid of you to lose her now. "Stupid of her to get herself killed for no reason," he retorted aloud, shaking his head and frowning.

Damia clutched at her hair, stamping her feet in frustration. "Please," she asked one more time before turning and bolting down the hill toward the burning outpost, trying to detach her hammer from her pack as she went.

Biting back a snarl, Kanzas went after her, yanking off both his own pack and his crude mittens and throwing them aside carelessly as he ran. He passed the girl as he reached the bottom, drawing his own hand-claw and holding it ready. Silhouetted against the blaze below was the dark outline of a figure in armor, sword in hand and shimmering wings like a mist of shadow behind it. He aimed in that direction, picking up speed as he slid along the crusts of snow.

He gave a cry as he charged, slicing downward sharply as the Wingly turned to face him. The silver-haired soldier immediately let out a scream, a burst of blood exploding along the side of his face as Kanzas' claws obliterated his left eyeball. A fierce punch to the jaw stopped the wail as his tongue was severed on his teeth, the next claw-strike snapping his head back and slicing open his throat. Blood from severed arteries sprayed outward, splattering him with red until the failing heart no longer beat.

"Kanzas!" came Damia's scream, nearly blocked out by the roar of the fire and the clunk of the armored corpse hitting the packed ground. She was staring at him in shock, her ruby eyes like platters.

"This is what you wanted! You wanted me to help you fight!" he hissed cruelly, bending to drag the soldier's body up again by the neck, the head lolling unnaturally back as if on hinges. The man squeezed the unfeeling flesh, letting the blood run between his fingers, making rivulets down the back of his hand, before throwing the corpse hard behind him. "That's one!" he roared, turning away from the sickened child and running further toward the outpost square. "Any more? Come out now!"

Damia was completely aghast; though she'd seen him kill before, it had never been anything more than creatures, beasts with fangs, fur - not a Wingly, who could pass for Human - not a person. They were the enemy, she tried to reassure herself, running after him because she had nowhere else to go and no desire to stay by herself. It was okay to hurt the Winglies because they wanted to hurt her…

Even thinking that, she felt her stomach turn, her palms clammy and her grip on her hammer weakening. It was okay for them to fall down and die…the Wingly soldier's neck, gaping wide…

The half-mermaid nearly tripped over the next body, laying twisted on the debris-strewn path, and continued running, using her hammer only to knock fallen, half-charred wood out of her way. Remembering why they had run this way in the first place, she kept a close eye out for any Winglies with golden wings, but saw nothing but corpses. There were bodies everywhere she looked, it seemed, though almost all were the Humans who had lived here, brought down by the fires or the invaders' blades.

However, as she came upon the end of the trail, she quickly pulled up short. Two of the Wingly soldiers who still remained in this dying place were here in the small square, facing off against Belzac and Shirley, who stood back-to-back. Unable to use her bow at such a close range, the woman had a dagger in her hand, slashing a bit inexpertly when a soldier came near.

Fending off a sword strike with a swing from his greataxe, Belzac glanced over upon seeing Damia's movement. His eyes widened, and in that moment one of the Winglies traced a design in the air, sending a sharp magical wind lancing through the large man's form. Gasping at the onslaught, Belzac swayed forward, receiving a sidelong blow at his temple as his opponent caught the opportunity. Shirley made a choking noise as he fell, a worried expression on her face.

"Oh no, Belzac!" Damia cried out before suddenly remembering something. She shoved her hand through the rip in her tunic, pulling the small spell vial from inside a fold of her belted shirt. Uncorking it, she threw it hard at the two soldiers now ganging up on Shirley, squeezing her eyes closed in concentration as it hit the ground, shattered, and its contents sprayed forth. A golden cloud flickered into being above the Winglies, rainbow rays of light shooting down from its depths and slicing through the armed men. The magic grew stronger as she focused, until she could hold it no longer, and they flinched away from the Human woman, distracted momentarily by the pain.

Thank you, Damia, Shirley thought, looking quickly between the girl and her fallen friend and seeing no other choice. Even with her help, she knew she would be quickly overwhelmed without Belzac. His head wound was bleeding badly, and the fire was slowly surrounding them as well. Moreover, where was Kanzas? Had he left Damia to follow them on her own?

Feeling a wave of disappointment rise up within her, she shoved her way back a little and grabbed her bow again. She didn't want to do this, nor was she supposed to let anyone see it, but that didn't matter. She had to make sure Belzac was all right. Taking a deep breath, Shirley spread her arms wide, feeling her Dragoon Spirit respond to her mental entreaty.

A column of light enveloped her form, and although it was blindingly bright, she didn't need to close her eyes. A wave of energy feeling very much like feathers coalesced around her, growing heavier as it formed her white and copper armor. Her wings were flapping as the light dissipated, leaving her hovering off the ground, her bow larger now and more elaborate, fused with the bracer on her arm.

The Winglies jerked back, looking at each other for explanations, odd fear on their faces. If either of them had any thoughts of trying to fly away from this strangeness, however, the smoke roiling overhead prevented them from easily doing so. By now, the outpost's few remaining attackers were as trapped here as the rest of them. Taking advantage of their wariness, she pulled her bow, a beam of light feeling tangible beneath her fingers, serving as an arrow. "Moon…Light!" Shirley cried, leaning back to send the dart flying upward.

The clouds of smoke parted as it went, revealing the early morning sky and the bright face of the immobile moon above them. As if knocked down by her shot, a pillar of golden radiance rushed downward, surrounding her with its glow.

"She's Human, isn't she?" she could hear one of the Winglies ask apprehensively on the edges of her hearing. "How is this-" He gave a cough, inhaling some of the smoke as it returned to the area as quickly as it had been dispersed.

Drawing down her arms, Shirley directed the glow at Belzac. It rose up around him, blue now, as if having traveled through the ground. The wound on his head shrank, though it left streams of blood behind, and he blinked to clear his vision, staggering up to his feet.

One glance at the red-haired woman told him all he needed to know, and he looked at her with sad understanding before hefting his axe and rushing for one of the stunned soldiers. Two armor-rending slices were enough to send him flying a short distance, crumpling against the burning support beam of a house and making it creak ominously. A glowing arrow drove into the neck of the other one, followed by icicles from Damia, making him fall as well.

Panting for breath, Belzac straightened and turned toward the girl, who was gazing in awe at Shirley, her entire body radiating wary interest. Despite a little lightheadedness, he felt otherwise just fine for having been concussed, unconscious and bleeding a minute before. Being healed so completely and so quickly was not something he was ever going to get used to. "Damia," he gasped, wiping at the sweat and blood on his forehead before it could get into his eyes, "we shouldn't have left you alone, I'm sorry-"

"I-I wasn't," she began, looking around uneasily before creeping closer and wrapping her hand into the fabric of his cloak. Wordlessly, the girl pointed, and Belzac followed the line of her gaze to see Kanzas standing at the edge of the square. His dark amber eyes, serious and speculative, never left the white winged figure hovering in the middle of it.

Shirley, hugging her bow to her in relief, quickly looked up as the man stalked forward. She bit her lip as she took in the blood covering him, spattering his open coat and woolen shirt and turning his bare fists a stained red color she could see clearly in the bright glow of the fires around them. "You took care of Damia for me - thank you."

Ignoring that, he demanded, "What the hell is that armor? Shirley! Tell me! It's that stone of yours, isn't it?"

Weary from the fight, she felt her Dragoon armor shimmering away, the rays of white light making Kanzas cover his eyes with his arm briefly before she felt her feet touch the ground once more, her normal vest and cloak back again. "Please, Kanzas, don't," she said softly, shaking her head. "I can't…"

He grabbed hold of her upper arms and shook her; his face seemed frighteningly wild, and her brows knit in apprehension. She felt like a rag doll, without the strength to resist his rage. "Tell me how you can do magic! Tell me, Shirley!"

The punch Belzac threw knocked the bearded man back several steps, his grip on her arms nearly dragging her with him before he broke away and dropped into a defensive stance. "Do that again and you die!" Belzac snarled, looming over Kanzas with both hands now on the haft of his axe.

Shirley could see red handprints on her pale sleeves when she glanced down, and swallowed heavily before looking back up, ready to break up the fight once more. However, her words changed in her throat as a creaking noise met her ears. "Watch out!" she cried in alarm, already taking hold of Damia and turning to run.

The two men, acting on instinct, also dove out of the way as the framework of a gutted house collapsed, sending a flare of fire upward and spraying bits of burning wood and ash everywhere. The air immediately grew hazier, making them all cough more than they had been before. "Damn it," Belzac bellowed, "this place is falling apart!"

"Shirley!" Kanzas shouted again insistently. "I don't care if the whole damn mountain's falling! Tell me-"

Grabbing Damia's hand, Shirley began pulling her away from the square, waving an arm for the other two to follow. There's no time for this now! "No! Let's go! We'll finish this later, Kanzas!" she called loudly, dragging the unresisting girl toward the path out of town and back up to the ridge where they'd left their things. Belzac was at her side in a moment, and, cursing loudly, the smaller man soon caught up as well, looking very irritated with current events. He wouldn't be any happier when she told him she still couldn't answer his questions.

She put the thought of that aside for a moment, concentrating on getting everyone out of the area before the blaze and the smoke grew worse. An inner voice was laughing at her, telling her that, for all her struggling, she hadn't helped anything. She tried to shake it away, tears forming in her eyes as she glanced upward. Through the clouds of gray, she could still see Flanvel, its spiral shape moving slowly toward the northeast.

They were not going to get away with this. Not while she still had breath.