I

It was the rugged, lonely beauty of western Tourant that had inspired him to become a ranger.

Neuville sat back beneath the branches of a huge, ancient pine situated on a low cliff in the western reaches of Tourant, his breath steaming up faintly in the chilly, early spring night. A faint eastern breeze stirred through his close cropped, brown hair, bringing a faint promise of rain by the morning. Winter had only ended a week or so earlier, far later than usual, and patches of snow still survived in the shade of trees and rock faces. The days were beginning to warm quickly, but the night weather could still freeze the melting snow into patches of ice along the ridges and shadowed gorges. In the far reaches of the nation, Tourant's border stretched into the imposing, jagged peaks of the Khairathi Mountains, interspersed by thick forests of pine and spruce, deep gorges, and narrow river valleys. While eastern Tourant's population grew by leaps and bounds each year, the western reaches of the nation had only recently seen any settlement, mostly loggers in search of tall, straight pine for the massive shipyards of Stith and Lancoux. The natural beauty of the Khairathi Mountains could go unspoiled for days or even weeks at a time, and there had been occasions in the past when Neuville had traveled for almost a month without seeing any traces of human life in the wilds. The silence of a crisp, early spring night was something he cherished more than nearly anything else.

"Did I tell you about that mage Crispin was taking to Falloux?"

"Three times," Neuville grumbled, closing his steel blue eyes for a moment. Just behind him, Thierry was still poking at the tiny bed of embers left over from their cooking fire, humming a Sadeaux reel as he finished heating the miniature copper kettle set on the edge of their fire ring. The younger, ranger was probably as bright and talkative as Neuville was dour and taciturn, an odd combination that had somehow worked well enough during the two years that they had been paired together.

"Well then, did I tell you about Alicia?" Thierry inquired, walking over to the ranger with two small wooden cups of tea in his hands. As the younger ranger ducked beneath the heavy boughs of the enormous pine, he handed one of the cups to his slightly older and far larger companion.

"Who?" Neuville inquired, hoping that his voice indicated his complete lack of interest in the conversation.

"Alicia," Thierry reiterated, pushing his faintly long, sandy hair back from his smooth, handsome face as he knelt next to Neuville. "You know who I'm talking about. The blond that lives just west of Montcalm. François' daughter."

"Twice," Neuville said, finally remembering the name. "I thought you said she looked like a horse."

"I don't think I said that," Thierry said, turning to look out the valley below the cliff. "I just said she kind of had a kind of, you know, bit of… well, you've seen her. How would you describe her?"

"She looks like a horse," Neuville said flatly. Thierry shrugged.

"But she has a great personality," the younger ranger put in with a grin, holding his hands out in front of his chest.

"Thierry," Neuville said, finally turning to the younger man next to him. Thierry turned his bright blue eyes back to the older ranger. "Please. Be quiet for at least a little while. Before all the orcs down below come charging up here to kill us."

"They're bedding down for the night," Thierry said, gesturing to the valley. Far beneath the two rangers, dozens of campfires lit the east bank of the River Ondava, a narrow, fast moving river that threaded its way south through the mountains. Neuville knew the serrated crossed sword banners that flew above the tents of the orcs well enough; the Cruel Blades were one of the fiercest, most brutal tribes ever to roam the Khairathi Mountains. For two days Neuville and Thierry had been tracking the monstrous war party's movements, expecting the mountain barbarians to turn east. Tourant's steady push west to the mountains had been met by increasing raids each year from the tribes of mixed orcish and human barbarians that called the mountains their home. "With the way they snore, they wouldn't hear us if we collapsed half the cliff on them."

"You've told me about these girls over a dozen times in the past four weeks," Neuville pointed out. "Tell me again and I'll throw you down to the orcs."

"Hey, if I wasn't keeping the conversation going, we'd be sitting here in silence," Thierry said, taking a sip of his tea as he turned to his older companion.

"That's right," Neuville said, nodding in agreement. Thierry chuckled slightly.

"I am the only social scout in all of Tourant," the younger ranger concluded, dropping easily to one knee. For a long, thankfully silent moment Thierry gazed down at the campfires below them, but then he turned back to his companion once more. "I wonder why they haven't turned east yet," he asked.

"I don't know," Neuville answered, blowing slightly on his tea before taking a sip. When he said nothing further after a long moment of silence, Thierry turned back to him.

"I guess it doesn't really matter, as long as they stay out of Tourant," the younger ranger said. "But it still seems odd. They always try to head into Tourant."

"Maybe there's no one to raid in Tourant," Neuville said. "With the way winter went, loggers aren't coming out yet this year, and the ones already out here are probably out of food anyway."

"The Cruel Blades never come this far north," Thierry said. "Think they know something we don't?"

"Maybe Oleksandr is trying to conquer the mountains this year," Neuville said. "The Bloody Fist is to the north. Libor and Oleksandr have been enemies for years."

"Libor and Oleksandr fighting," Thierry said wistfully. "Imagine. If they wipe each other out, the mountains would be peaceful for years to come."

"Every time a major tribe falls, six new ones rush to take its place," Neuville muttered cynically. "How do you think the Cruel Blades got so big? They pounced on Slava when the Black Spear got beaten up by Krysztof's hobgoblin knights."

"Yeah, I know," Thierry said. "But a guy can dream, right?"

"Of course," Neuville said flatly, standing up and looking down over the fires. The ranger hesitated for a moment, then turned to his companion. "Get some sleep. I'll take first watch. Come morning, let's try to get ahead of them and make sure they're not marching on any logger settlements that crept into the mountains during the winter."

"It'll give us something to do, anyway," Thierry said, taking a final sip of his tea before tossing the rest across the rocky ground. The younger ranger started to his bedroll, but stopped for a moment and turned back to his laconic companion. "I think I'll dream about Lynette tonight. You know the one from the Western Sun?"

"You mentioned her seven times," Neuville grumbled. "Go to sleep."

"Yes, father," Thierry teased, pulling his blanket about him as he slid into his bedroll. Neuville shot a withering glance back at his younger companion for a moment, then returned to watching the orcish camp in the valley.

"Where are you going, Oleksandr?" the ranger inquired of the lights below.