"Moonlight," Canth cursed. Beside him Castleia reined her horse to a stop. Her mouth hung open in disbelief. "Tegonoragoth. The High Mountains," he finished.

And aptly named.

A sheet of grey rock rose over the horizon. Spines of stone cleaved across the hills in ridges that wove together into indecipherable patterns. White blankets of fluffy clouds drifted over the mountains' lofty peaks only to be shredded at the tips of the peaks' edges. Bunches of broken cloud floated through the blade-like summits, concealing the highest points of the mountains in soft white mist.

"How..." Castleia did not have to finish the thought for Canth to agree with her.

How indeed? Absentmindedly rubbing the bruise on his shield arm, Canth shook his head.

"And we get to cross them."

If there was anything that could have close Castleia's marveling mouth, those words did it. She clenched her teeth and pulled tight on the reins of her horse as he pranced with her uneasiness.

"I'll be prey first. There will be no entering there, and certainly no coming out if we do."

Tilting his head, Canth looked at her incredulously. "What exactly did you expect when you heard High Mountains? You knew full well this was our duty."

"Yours maybe," she shot back faster than a hunter's arrow.

"And yours is to see that no harm comes to me while I bring Emereld's letter to the Halfmen. How do you expect to do that when your down here and I'm up there?"

Up there... He could feel his throat drying at the words. Another glance at the peaks left him parched. White-capped peaks glared down at him in the waning afternoon light in challenge. His eyes searched the roaming sides of the hills for a road or trail but nothing met his gaze beyond the jagged grooves fit only for mountain goats.

"A guard cannot help someone looking to kill themselves," Castleia retorted.

"And what do you expect to do while I go 'kill myself' as you put it?"

She offered no response.

"Let's just camp here," he sighed. "A new morning brings new eyes."

Mumbling something, she consented by dismounting.

Dusk found them sitting around the crackling embers of a small fire fed by the dry, scraggly bows of the woody bushes that grew at the mountain steps. Canth had been reluctant to light it but with the pack horse gone and their meager supplies exhausted, their only options were raw rabbit or fire.

Canth found himself picking idly at his half of the scrawny creature that Castleia had caught for them. How she managed to trap it he still marveled, though he found that it did little good in the way of improving the tough meat's flavor.

"One more night of this hare and I think my tongue will shrivel in my mouth," she muttered from the other side of the fire.

Smiling, he set his spit back on the few rocks they had arranged for the fire pit. "You took the words right out of my mouth. Made them sharper and less agreeable, but took them for sure."

She levelled a gaze at him. "You know you have a habit of making a simple phrase complicated, Scribbler."

"Just my habit I guess," he agreed. "We need lots of words to fill those long tomes with."

"For certain - " She stopped mid-agreement. "You were kidding, weren't you?"

A sly grin answered her.

Drawing a dagger from her belt, she shoved it into the ground beside her with a huff. "You're insufferable."

"Is that why you are leaving me alone tomorrow?"

She froze. "Pick up your sword and shield."

He almost groaned. His fingers drifted to rub the bruise that covered his shield arm like a purple sleeve.

As he retrieved his shield, his arm ached with dread for the blows Castleia prepared. She paced back and forth, ax in hand. Flickering flames cast a crazed light in her eyes that drifted in out until he could not be tell if it was emanating from her or the fire.

The thick leather straps of the shield embraced his swollen arm snuggly, propping the sheet of metal-bound wood flat on his arm. "Do we have to do this?"

She answered with a darting downward swipe with her ax. Tripping backwards, he threw his shield up with his left hand while his right summoned his sword.

A thud sent the ax's edge sliding straight down the polished wood and a numbing vibration down his arm.

"No," she barked. "How many times must I tell you? If you block an ax straight, on your arm will get dislocated. A glancing block like this," prying the edge of the shield away from him until it was a thin slant across his body. "Send the blade away from you to shift the attacker's weight. Then you counter-strike. Again."

Her cleaving blow fell again. This time he tried to imitate her guidance, sending her edge sliding across the wood away from him.

"Hey, it worked!" Before he could relish the moment he felt the stump of her ax jamming upward from under his shield, connecting with his ribs. Pain lanced him off his feet, sending him tumbling in the dusty grass beside their fire.

"You know better," Castleia seethed.

Glancing from his sprawled position, his eyebrows furrowed. "I'm sorry, alright? Just surprised is all."

"Get up."

Before he was fully on his feet another swing hurtled toward his head. He threw up his shield again, luckily casting the blow off his left shoulder. Instinctively he jabbed his sword up toward her chest but she twisted out of the way. Side-stepping, she spun around using two hands to bring her ax on his unshielded right side. Dust filled his mouth as he dropped to the ground. Unable to stand, a blind strike with his shield arm sent its metal edge connecting with her booted ankle.

A dull thud told him the blow had knocked her off her feet.

To his surprise she chuckled from the ground.

"What's so funny? That was good, wasn't it?"

It took a moment for her to collect her breath. "That – that was awful." She giggled again.

"Then why are you laughing?" he spurned.

"Because now I've no choice but to come with you."

Canth rolled over, finding himself smiling as well. "Well enough then."

Above them, the stars lit a heavenly scene of prey charging across the night sky. The moon of the Hunter's chariot rode low in the early night sky, but the Bear was charging with the North Star at its nose and its Cub close behind. Across the sky, the Elk still grazed just above the jagged black line where the mountains made the darkness of night a shade darker.

"It's a beautiful sky tonight."

"Aye," Castleia agreed. "The Hunter will have a fine feast."

"I wonder what it's like. It seems a lonely existence to hunt each night only to grow hungry by day."

"My mother used to tell me a story. She said that the Hunter did not hunt for food like you and I. He hunted not to bring good things from the woods but to purge bad things from it."

"Is that why he never slays the Prey?"

"Yes." Castleia lay quiet for a while. "They are beautiful. The Bear leads travelers home – it would be a shame to slay it."

"Did your mother tell you many stories?"

Canth could hear her shoulders rub against the coarse grass as she shrugged. "No more than most. My favorite was about Silis the Scribe. He wrote so many stories and tales so tall that the people put him on a pedestal that reached the stars. He told everyone he was the Lost King, the Hunter in human form, the only man to see every Sea, and to dine in the halls of Elves and Dwarves alike and tutor their kings. He said he fought a thousand wars and won a hundred battles. Yet when he died they were baffled that he never appeared on the Hunt." She waved a hand at the tapestry of light that lit up the sky.

"What happened then?"

"The people learned he was a charlatan, a swindler. His bodied crumbled to dust like all of his lies and the people realized that Men were simply Men. Nothing special, nothing grand. Just people."

"A sad moral to teach a little girl," Canth mused quietly.

"All the better that I learned it young," she whispered.

"Is that why you dislike scribes so much?"

"In part. Words, texts, they have little meaning to me. Anyone with an imagination can tell a grand story. Only a person with great courage and strength can live a grand life. Fight a battle  and you have written a more immortal story than any scroll could write."

"I suppose I leave much to be desired then. But Aster, why do you dislike him?"

She scoffed. "I live because of him, but live on the edge of a nearly certain fatal trek. He knows nothing."

Canth almost laughed until he remembered the looming mountains. "Fair enough. He isn't so bad though once you get to know him."

"How did you get to know him?"

Canth thought for a moment. "We were neighbors, or our folks were at least. That was back before his uncle disappeared."

"And your parents?" she asked. "What happened to them?"

Canth let his fingers curl into the stiff grass of the ground's turf. At first their spiny stiffness felt like needles on his soft palm until they crunched satisfyingly.

"They were lumberers," he finally murmured. "My father and mother cleaved trees and towed them to the city." A small twig snapped as he closed his hand around the crisp grass on the plain. "One winter they were working near the river and the tree fell the wrong way. They were standing on the ice when the tree came down on it, and it broke."

"I'm sorry," Castleia whispered.

"It happens."

"It shouldn't," she answered. "Things like that should not happen."

"But they do, and there's nothing we can say. I feel for Aster, I really do," Canth continued hesitantly, "but in some ways I envy him. Pheor was a kind man, strong, and honest. So were my parents. But Pheor died most likely at the hands of a creature, a beast that can be dealt revenge with the swing of an ax. The Hunter is not so easy to have revenge against."

"Pheor may not have died."

Canth let himself laugh. The thought had crossed his mind a thousand times; he had spoken to Aster about it half that many before. Never had it seemed humorous, but his heart ached as it opened with the memories of his parents' smiling faces. The idea of being so cruel as propose a loved one might return seemed nothing short of a joke.

"He is gone. Everyone who enters the forest is gone."

"Not Endel, not -"

"Even them," Canth interrupted. "It is only a matter of time before they die. A piece of them does each time they step into it."

Canth could hear Castleia sit up and pull her legs close to her. A slash of white darted across the black sky.

"Look, an arrow!" She announced, pointing at the darting light. "The Hunter says that the Hunt is dangerous for those in North."

A bitter taste rose to Canth's tongue. "For three children to lose their parents? Too dangerous, I'd say."