The sun was sinking into the horizon when a series of sharp whistles rent the silence of the forest. John Black responded with his own succession of whistles, and a few instants of silence passed before a steady trickle of men, in groups of threes and fours, emerged from the forest, just as their current group had done so that very morning. Uncas began to wonder if they moved like that to better mask their real numbers. He kept an eye out for the combative Scot, but he was either avoiding them or gone somewhere else.

Kanyenke emerged last, walking straight towards John Black with barely concealed impatience.

John Black read the question as easily as Uncas had. "They've agreed."

Kanyenke searched with his eyes until he found their father. "We thank you, chief Chingachgook." Then he went on to the area beyond with determination, straight-backed and proud as if these were his own men.

All around Uncas and his own group, John's men and Kanyenke's men headed out towards each other, exchanging greetings in various languages and setting off towards different parts of the small glade to prepare camp. Match-coat blankets, even some oil cloths were taken out, and wood was arranged in the midst of it. Uncas would have called the fire a remarkably stupid comfort to be had in the middle of unfriendly territory, but the combined strength of all John Black's men seemed enough to give anything that might find them a proper reckoning.

Nathaniel broke the silence, his tone not unkind but impatient. "You promised us answers, Mr. Black"

John Black scanned the encampment with shrewd eyes for a second before nodding at their group and heading towards the southernmost end of the glade, trusting he would be followed.

They arranged themselves in a swath of thick shadows far from trees and milling scouts, both Munro sisters securely in their midst, John Black and Kanyenke in front of their small half ring. It reminded Uncas of story-telling nights, huddled against the winter winds with their Lenape kin to the west. Well, this is storytelling, of a kind, even if we're not about to hear about Moskim or the Rainbow Crow.

The matter of whether or not to include the Munro sisters in the meeting had been solved faster than Uncas had anticipated. Cora had apparently believed they might treat her like the English would and send her away, sparing her the potential unpleasantness of their talk, so she'd squared her shoulders as if going into battle and informed them all (though her eyes never left Nathaniel's) that she would be "glad to accompany them". She'd been pleased, if a little embarrassed by Nathaniel's answer ("Yeah… what, thought we'd send you two over to the German, help with dinner?") until she realized the invitation extended to Alice.

Before the younger Munro sister's situation could turn into an argument, Nathaniel had glanced at their father and declared that "if she's gonna be family, she should be treated like such." Chingachgook had given Alice a probing stare. He gave no hint as to his final assessment of her, but he did give Nathaniel a faint nod; Cora had made a face that bordered on mutinous, then nudged Alice's back to gently herd her forward before Uncas could see what she made of everything.

Uncas had tried to read their father's silence in vain. Chingachgook had expressed neither like nor dislike of Alice in his wordless answer, though he did seem to her find her presence harmless: that could be bad or good, depending on a hundred other details he was unlikely to discern from the stolid older man anytime soon, which had inevitably led Uncas to ask himself what about their father's opinion of Alice mattered to him so badly. He had no answer to that, and so he'd tried to forget he'd wanted to know in the first place.

In front of them, John Black examined his hands for a long time. Then his colorless looked straight to Uncas, firm and uncanny. "What do you know of my family, l'agile?"

"A man named Philip Black would sometimes come around to speak with the Moravian missionaries of the Shekomeko village (1), leaving gifts of money and food," Uncas responded easily. "I saw him once, with Reverend David."

Nathaniel folded his hands over his bent knees. "Uncas and I attended a Moravian missionary school when I was ten, and he eight."

John Black appeared satisfied. "Yes. My father was…not a religious man, but he approved of the Moravian's belief in tolerance, and was pleased with their attempts to find common ground with the tribes, versus…other orders' desires to blind them with faith and rob them. He was disheartened when they were chased out of New York." He glanced the center of the group, as if waiting for either of the women to say something about his father's views, but neither of them stirred: Cora's face was straight, but polite, and Alice's eyes were clear, if empty. She hadn't fallen into the dark abyss of last night and this afternoon, but the shadows of it were close to her, even safe and surrounded on all sides as she was.

"Your family businesspeople then?" Nathaniel frowned at John Black with a hint of confusion that probably only his family would be able to catch.

"Somewhat, Mr. Poe. We've made a conscious effort to remain close and organized over the centuries. We have some wealth, some weight to our name. I'd say I'm the first mercenary, but we've been of a military mind since the XVI century. And we've made an effort to choose our allies for ourselves, regardless of who's calling himself king. Or kings."

Uncas thought back to John Cameron, loyal only to his family, and to Jack Winthrop's profound disappointment when England, in the person of Colonel Munro, went back on their promises; a free man, Jack was. Uncas felt more disposed to like John Black.

"Mr. Black, if I might be so bold…if you've made an effort to stay out of matters of politics, why would a man of means single out your family so pointlessly?" Coming from anyone else, the question would have sounded wary, but as it came from Cora, it only sounded curious.

"I have my suspicions," John Black looked around as he spoke the words, almost glaring at the tree line warily.

"We're being given as much space as can be spared without putting us all in danger, John. If you cannot speak now, and here..." Kanyenke looked at the man beside him with exasperation. Uncas felt a tug of amusement at how easily the reproach seemed to come from him, and wondered if this was usual between them.

John Black looked at them all with a rueful smile, then folded one of his hands over the other on his knees, like a pastor about to deliver a sermon. "Sometime in the XVI century, my ancestor, Sir Morgan Black, came to the Americas. He belonged to an order of crusader knights known as the Knights of Saint John, then based off the island of Malta (2). He had served them loyally for many years though the end of the Crusades had weakened them greatly, even abandoned his native Scotland for them, so when the Knighthood bade him come here, he came without question. Yes, Miss Alice, we're…distant countrymen as well."

As he went deeper into his account, John Black looked away from them and up at the sky in contemplation, as if he were watching images of the past as he spoke. "As the story goes, when Morgan disembarked, he soon realized the order's commander, the Frenchman Allain Magnan, had betrayed the Knights of Saint John. He'd summoned them to the New World to use them as his personal army in search of treasure, killing and pillaging on the way. The Knights of Saint John were originally created to protect helpless pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, preached compassion and hospitality…so, naturally, their leader's perversion repulsed Morgan deeply. He assembled an army to oppose him: Natives, renegade knights, pirates. The family myths say even an Ottoman captain known as Sahin the Falcon answered the call to arms. Allain Magnan was killed, and the bloodshed stopped. But it emerged that Magnan had never been dedicated to the Knights of Saint John. He'd been at the service of an order known as The Circle of Ossus."

"The Circle of…?"

"Ossus," John Black flashed Cora a brief, indulgent smile. "You've heard of the Freemasons, I suppose?"

"A little…"

"Yeah," Cora turned to look at Nathaniel in surprise. "What? They've been around here a couple years now too. Heard a Mohawk chief's been asked to join, even. (3)"

"Oh,"

"…you were thinking we're too savage for that?"

"No, of course not!" Cora retorted, in a way that plainly told them she'd thought exactly that.

John Black seemed amused by their repartee. "While I hardly expect any of you to be members, I trust you'll know what a secret society of their kind seems to do: they're secretive, they have long memories, and most importantly, they amass what they consider wealth. The Freemasons, as far as I can tell, consider knowledge and brotherhood their wealth. The Circle of Ossus, as far as we know, does the same thing, only their chosen wealth is power and gold, taken at any price."

"Ossus…that's quite close to the Latin word for 'bones', isn't it?" Alice's interruption surprised them all. "I recall some things. From boarding school." The feeling of eyes on her clearly intimidating, Alice lowered her own to her lap, embarrassed.

"You're correct though, Miss Alice," John Black said with an even livelier smile than before. "The Circle's symbols include a standard with two bones, crossed over each other. It's said to represent, amongst other things, that the Circle will pursue their ends to death. Theirs, or that of anyone who stands in their way," Then liveliness vanished from John Black's face, as if it had been puffed out by an errant breeze. "When Kanyenke and I began following my uncle's trail, separate people spoke of seeing a blue flag with crossed bones and men in chain mail accompanying a British battalion that seemed en route to no fort nor battlefield."

"Boneguard," Kanyenke clarified. "The Circle's particular guard. They wear armor and chain mail."

Nathaniel slouched forward. "Then this Warwick is part of the Circle, and he took your uncle as revenge for a hundred year old insult?" Uncas sighed inwardly at Nathaniel's tone. It's incredulity bordered on the insulting. Reasonable, but unwisely and far too brazenly spoken. Which is Nathaniel's nature.

Thankfully, it seemed that John Black took it in stride. "If that were the case, Mr. Poe, then my uncle would have been killed weeks ago, and my search would have ended. No…while I do believe Warwick is part of the Circle, I also think him a madman. One who's been listening to the wrong stories." John Black looked away, seemingly hypnotized by the distant glow of the fire at the center of the camp, but his tone didn't lose any of its barely concealed anger. "I think I mentioned that Allain Magnan meant to use the Knights to find treasure? Well…the nature of that treasure is still a mystery. There were things of value to be found here, of course. But the more…fantastic accounts maintain he'd found the location of the Fountain of Youth. When he died, then the sole remaining bearer of that secret would have been the man whom he'd tasked with finding it, before their knighthood fractured: Sir Morgan Black."

Nathaniel scoffed. Cora glanced at him in slight reproof, but there was incredulity in her face. And on all the rest of us, I'm sure, Uncas mused. He was very grateful for the respectful tone in Cora's answer. "And what do you make of these…stories, Mr. Black?"

"I think they're distorted by time. Fairy tales. I can think of no relations of mine who believed in the Fountain," He tightened his jaw grimly. "But the Circle seems to remember our part in their failure to seize more of the New World, and seems to have those amongst them who'd believe in the Fountain. If my uncle's corpse has yet to appear, I'd suppose he's still with Warwick, and alive. If that's the case, either Warwick thinks time will make Uncle Stuart reveal the Fountain's location, or he's realized there is no such secret, and means to have Stuart tell him other family confidences that might benefit him. Our allies, our fortunes. Our weapons caches. One of our ancestors, Elisabet Ramsay, was a pirate; I think we still draw from her many stores when the family fortune runs low."

Nathaniel slowly nodded, his face less conflicted. "That sounds rather more reasonable."

John Black nodded. "I have more enemies than friends, Poe. I've made a lot of people angry in my life. More than a few would leap at the chance to get a piece of me."

"Stuart Black is not the strongest of them," Kanyenke supplied frankly. "He will cave with less pressure than is comfortable to think of. And to leave more riches in the hands of a man willing to kill women and children for an old legend…"

"We understand," Nathaniel placed his open hands firmly on his knees. "You've got yourselves your guides, Black."

"I thought I'd already gotten them, Mr. Poe."

"You had our father's word. Now you've got us. We don't go running cross country for just anyone, no matter how much they pay us."

John Black seemed about to make a witty response to Nathaniel's audacity when Kanyenke stood up abruptly, looking at something behind all of their backs with seriousness. Uncas turned in time to see one of the mercenaries cantering to them with a serious tilt to his brows.

"Commander. War party, coming in from the north."

"Huron?"

"They might be."

Kanyenke spoke up. "It's unlikely they're any nation of the Iroquois Confederacy if they're coming from the north right now."

"Then we greet them with our muskets. Rally the men, Maurice." John Black looked back at them: all three of them had assumed battle-ready stances, muskets in both hands. "I'll need you three at the front with me. See if it's your Huron, if he's willing to send an envoy, somehow disposed to talk."

Unbidden, the sight of Magua standing over the butchered remains of Colonel Munro returned to Uncas' memory. He recalled the dispassionate expression in his sunken face as he held Munro's heart in his clenched fist.

He said nothing, but something in the lifelessness of Magua's eyes made Uncas feel their attempts at diplomacy would end in nothing.

The fire was doused, more to maintain some advantage than to avoid being seen. It was unlikely that they hadn't been spotted anyway, as they were close to fifty men in the middle of nowhere.

Uncas noted, with relief, that the mercenaries were more used to fighting in the frontier: instead of assembling into the complicated formations of the British with shouts and shuffles, they quickly headed for cover, either behind trees or amidst tall-growing plants, and waited in silence with weapons drawn.

Uncas and Nathaniel crouched behind a fallen log; their father, who'd followed John Black behind a tree further in as a vantage point, was out of sight. If their incoming enemy turned out to be Magua's war party, and if Magua were at any point convinced to give up, the arrangement meant he'd be dealing with Chingachgook, the most able of the three with words, and John Black, who'd call his fifty men over them in a show of strength to help them.

With practiced ease, Uncas set his musket on the log and slid the weapon forward, hands firm. Beside him, Nathaniel shifted, laying more of his body to the ground. They settled in to wait with attentive ears: it felt much like the Ottawa burial grounds, only this time there would be no sacred burial platforms, no revered dead in the trees, making their stalkers turn around – and there were more men their backs. The number of the mercenaries, the way they'd been courteous and kind to the Munro sisters, and John Black's promise combined to make Uncas feel as he rarely did before a confrontation, confident and dangerously close to relaxed. He forced himself to think about the two women they'd left behind, huddled together beneath a half-tented oilcloth. The cloth had been piled with leaves, so that all Cora and Alice had to do if the war party broke past them was pull down the half-tent's two supporting poles and let the disguised oilcloth fall on them, then pretend to be part of the forest floor until they could head for safety.

It was a sobering enough thought, to imagine Cora pulling a half-dazed Alice behind her through the dark. They'd have to head back towards Fort Edward with only half remembered directions to guide them, pray for an errant patrol to find them before the Huron caught on and gave chase. Uncas seized the feelings and planted himself firmly between wariness and cautious confidence.

"I've lost count," Nathaniel whispered in Mahican with a hint of humor, "It's how many times that we've been fighting a fight that is not ours, counting this one?"

"To be fair, this one is ours. We are still protecting the Munro sisters – we simply have help this time."

He saw Nathaniel nod, as if to say fair enough. Then, "You've said nothing about that, naugheesum," the Mahican word for 'younger brother' full of Nathaniel's rough affection.

It took Uncas a moment to realize he meant himself and Cora, and what that meant for their family. "If I haven't it is because I am hardly surprised, my brother." Uncas suppressed a grin. "Cora Munro chose you in a way that leaves nobody in doubt just this afternoon. And you chose her."

He could feel Nathaniel's joy like a warm summer breeze, and his brother seemed about to say something in response when the sensation of people approaching, almost as solid as the touch of a moth's wings on their arms, made them both turn towards the trees, humor vanishing in a flash to be replaced with single-minded focus.

Uncas had just barely made out a figure coming down towards them with soundless steps, barely decided he was most likely a Huron, when the thin shadow of an arrow, sailing like a bird of prey, hit the figure high in the head. The man sank to his knees and then fell on his back; Kanyenke was nowhere in sight, but he was the only man with a bow and arrow on their side.

"Damn…" Nathaniel, being a famous shot, was not easily impressed. But that was a shot worth feeling awe about.

And that was the last reprieve before the battle started in earnest.

Cracks of musket and smoke filled the air almost as soon as the arrow-shot man finally became still, men pouring out of the trees in front of them and falling against the wall of the mercenaries, only to be replaced by more. Uncas had no presence of mind to keep a real count, busy as he was firing his musket, but he knew without doing so that Magua no longer had the advantage, not after William Henry and tracking them through the forest, especially not with a small army on their side for a change. The Huron realized this quickly and stopped advancing on them, throwing impetus into trying to breach their lines instead.

Soon the cavalcade of men appearing from behind the trees slowed, and the blasts of musket fire were no longer a steady stream; mercenaries flowed out around their point of defense, surging ahead to reverse the Huron's advance, and Uncas thought he heard his father's voice, shouting over the din in English.

Uncas was too little given to imaginings in the heat of battle, and so he turned to Nathaniel at once. "They must have seen Magua!"

Nathaniel's eyes widened and he inclined his head towards the fray, clearly saying then we should go ahead too. Uncas nodded, and both brothers rose, bounding over the fallen log and towards the front of battle.

They didn't have long to go. Uncas reached a place where trees didn't grow quite as close, too small to be called a glade or a clearing, in time to see a tomahawk bury itself in the tree behind Chingachgook's shoulder. He followed the weapon's path, raising his musket, but a pistol shot rang out before Uncas could take aim, and by the time the barrel was at the level of his eyes there was but a blur vanishing into the trees. The figure re-emerged from a cluster of high-growing weeds further ahead, and a shaft of moonlight briefly illuminated an uneven face set with eyes devoid of everything.

It must have lasted the blink of an eye, and yet it seemed a slow moment to Uncas: Magua's face, painted yellow and black, returning their stares as they took aim at him. His gaze was no longer dispassionate: it was alive with the harsh light of hatred and something else, something that chilled Uncas as he pressed the trigger. Shots were loosed all around him, but he knew none of them had hit their target even before the smoke cleared. They would have heard the sound of a body crashing to the ground.

True to form, Magua was gone with the dispersing musket smoke, not even the slightest hint of sound or sight to tell where he might head now. He will be back, Uncas thought with grim clarity. This is not the last time we see him.

Uncas went to Chingachgook. A ways to the side, he heard the forest erupt in celebratory yelling, indicating the rest of the Huron were dead or on the run; he looked at the tired expression on their father's face and the angry frustration in Nathaniel's clenched jaw, clashing fiercely with the sounds of joy in the background, and felt quite torn himself.

"Magua was in our presence mere seconds. He did not want to speak," Chingachgook said haltingly, "His anger against Munro burns brighter in the absence of his enemy; I fear he's found consuming Munro's heart was insufficient, and that he wants more."

Uncas was dismayed, but he was hardly surprised. Hunger...that was a fitting name for the strange emotion that fought for dominance with the hatred in Magua's eyes.

"There was a Magua adopted into one of the Mohawk tribes some years ago, a Huron captive who earned the rank of blood brother," began a voice at their backs; Kanyenke slowly appeared from the deep blue shadows, graceful as a wolf on the prowl. "A warlike man."

"Probably this Magua. Heard he sometimes said he was a Mohawk, when it suited him," Nathaniel's words were tinged with frustration as he glanced at John Black. "Now he knows we're with your people." Uncas quickly filled in the blanks: all Magua had to do now was ask his adopted brothers, and he'd have John Black's name, perhaps more.

John Black, pistol still poised in his hand, looked towards where Magua had vanished. "Then let us hope the knowledge is useless to him. Let's go back to camp."

A new fire was just beginning to smoke at the center of their camp when Uncas made it back to its center. Whoever had brought in more wood and put in the kindling was long gone: now, only Alice Munro remained huddled in front of it, her gold-haired head only half visible above a match-coat blanket someone (probably Cora) had wrapped her in.

There was no Cora there now, though. No Cora, no Nathaniel, not even Gert the cook, only Alice Munro under the brittle rays of the moon, swathed in wool that should have been intolerable in the middle of summer and looking for all the world like a fawn left behind by its mother. Uncas hesitated only a moment before approaching, feet heavy so as not to frighten her.

Alice turned when he was about five steps from her. He thought he caught a darkness in her eyes as she did, but it vanished quickly as she recognized him, pushing herself further out from her blanket cocoon. "Uncas."

"Miss."

"We heard no more muskets. You are all unhurt?" She asked gently.

"Yes."

"And…"

"Magua escaped." He did not elaborate – a man who fled was no ally.

"Oh." Alice's eyes turned down and away, clearly disheartened at the news. She glanced at him again, and this time Uncas could see the precise moment when a dense sadness clouded her eyes, turning their shadow green depths lifeless and murky, a lake turned dark when it's bottom was upset. Her face fell, tired and resigned, and she turned back to the fire, burrowing deeper into the blanket.

Something caught at Uncas' chest, thin and painful, making him think of fishing lines and the subtle tug of them in his hands when trout bit. It dawned on him that Alice had probably been sitting in that very state for a long time, and had only briefly come back to life at the sight of him. He let the tug guide him, towards the fire, then to Alice Munro's side.

People walked back and forth around them, but nobody came, the pile of wood not caught enough yet for cooking or giving warmth, even though orange light had begun to flicker at the heart of it. Uncas sat a step or two to the girl's right, not unlike Alice had sat by him for dinner, close but not with. He stared ahead as she did, observing the wood pile, but glancing at her every so often from the corner of his eyes.

Her decision to stay lost on the frontier had both surprised him and not. Uncas had lived for more than twenty summers as a nomad, joining the camps of their Lenape kin when the threat of winter was upon them, visiting with their distantly related Mahican kin in Pennsylvania, even lingering on the farms and homesteads of settler friends, but Uncas thought of none of those places as home. The Cameron farm came a lot closer to that, with John and Alexandria's eternal good will, with little James and his sister climbing up his back, pulling at his hair, Brandy the hound underfoot and a sensation of being safe, though he knew it was him and his family providing the safety for the Camerons - and still he'd grown restless there often enough. Every time Nathaniel, their father and he had walked down the slight incline, away from the farm, Uncas had felt sad to see the house vanish behind stalks of corn and trees, but happy to be back on the road.

His home wasn't a place, but a feeling, and the people who brought it out. Home was in the faces of Nathaniel and Chingachgook to his left and to his right, their shoulders touching his, their legs against his, Nathaniel's body often giving in to his boundless energy and twitching or bouncing one foot. They could be under a roof or under the open skies, prodded or even pummeled by cold rain, by snow, faces illuminated by fire or shadowed under rock overhangs. They could be walking in a line, five steps between each other, or converging on a quarry over rough ground, Uncas checking his speed to keep them in his sight. His home was two people, plus him, and would flow out into whatever space they could occupy where they could set down their muskets in peace.

But Uncas was not naïve enough to believe it was that clear and simple for Alice. He didn't know where her home was, and suspected she didn't either: all she seemed to be sure of was that it was not England anymore. She kept to Cora's side, and Cora to hers, which meant Alice drifted along at their side but not truly with them, lost in some cold, dark crevasse of her mind half the time. She and Cora, but her most of all, were two homeless girls, only just beginning the hard labour that came with building a new home made up of people and not walls.

The line around Uncas' heart tightened a measure at the though. They were not below the waterfall, shielded from sight by a wall of water, separated from their companions by rock ledges and grief; to touch her, to cradle her in his arms as he had then, was unthinkable. He glanced at her, a few strands of shining hair overflowing from the edge of the blanket, and was still looking when she glanced over too. Their eyes caught each other, and for moment neither spoke.

"You have French names." Alice still seemed not all there to him, but she was speaking, and Uncas felt a tiny flicker of relief, both at the sign of life and at her seemingly not detesting his presence. Then her question made its way through his head, and Uncas frowned. "He – John Black - called you all names in French."

Uncas almost smiled. "The French traders and their allies will sometimes give people names, for what they can do. They know Nathaniel as a great marksman, as if his rifle were very long and capable of shooting far. They call my father a serpent because he knows the sinuous ways of words."

"And you?"

"I am fast." The smile he'd been holding in check broke free at that, that she'd noticed he had not spoken of himself, and called him out. She is more there than here, but here is winning.

"The agile deer?"

"We translate it at 'the bounding elk'. But that is the spirit of it."

"Oh." It was different from the first oh of their conversation, tinged with some curiosity. Life and interest to stand against the gloom that drained the color from her face.

Uncas realized Alice had never seen him run. He wondered if she ever would, if she would agree that he bounded like his namesake. A brief image of himself outstripping Nathaniel on an open field, the great plains that were Lakota territory perhaps, his feet eating up the distance between himself and a small white-and-gold figure. He imagined her eyes bright and alive – then Uncas straightened, realizing he couldn't imagine the rest of her face, that he had never seen Alice's real smile, and the improbable image faded.

They seemed to run out of words after that, but their silence was not heavy or uncomfortable. Alice seemed absorbed in watching the fire slowly come to life, crackling and blowing off thin slivers of ash, as Uncas glanced equally at the rising flames and at the way Alice's face slowly became illuminated by it.

1: The Moravian Christians really did settle in the Mahican village of Shekomeko, in New York, circa 1740.
2: This order, which existed in the real world and really owned the island of Malta once, survives to this day, now known as the Knights Hospitaller
3: Believe it or not, the Mohawk war chief Thayendanegea, better known as chief Joseph Brant, really was accepted as a Mason, and there were Masonic lodges in North America as early as 1715. While Joseph Brant received his initiation in England in 1775, Uncas mentions a chief Joseph Brant, leading a 5 mile long Mohawk field, to the Camerons. So yes, this is a small historical inaccuracy of the film, but it's also canon, and therefore here I am exploiting it :D

The story of the Circle of Ossus, with some adjustments from me, along with John Black and Kanyenke, are (c) Microsoft.