Galen felt at home in the forests around Dern. The woods were his sanctuary, and he had seldom come upon a strange or unknown creature there.

The Wild Green was different.

For the first few days, the trees and plants, birds, insects, and fungi were familiar, and the travelers had a pleasant time, walking well-worn paths beneath stately trees.

There were many little streams, with water clear and sweet; wild onion, watercress, raspberry, and crab-apple clustered the banks and made fine additions to their fare.

They slept soundly on carpets of soft, sweet-scented moss, or in open meadows beneath bright stars, where the grass was long and dry.

Animals were abundant, too. Galen glimpsed many fowls, squirrels and rabbits, deer with little fawns, and, once, a magnificent stag with a many-branching crown.

Then, gradually, the forest grew wilder and more strange.

The trees became larger and older, their trunks clothed in emerald mosses, and beards of lichen hanging from their boughs. Ferns carpeted the ground, and a rich, loamy scent rose from the ground underfoot. In places, the trees were spaced far apart, like the pillars of a great hall; in others, their tangled limbs formed a barricade that made travel slow and difficult.

Sevhalim explained that not every region of the Wild Green was the same. Some were relatively tame; others were impenetrable wilderness. Likewise, some were safe, and others rife with peril. The path he had chosen for them crossed, by necessity, through a variety of each.

As they walked, the party exchanged tales. With hunters and boars left far behind, the weather fair and their surroundings scenic, spirits lifted and tentative friendships formed.

Triss and Rea took archery practice together every morning, challenging one another to smaller and more distant targets, while Iksthanis showed Behn how to find wild herbs and how to identify which mushrooms were safe to eat.

Meanwhile, Sevhalim and Zenír taught Galen how to meditate.

"Mental focus is the foundation of magic," Zenír said. "It is the bedrock on which all greater work is built."

His voice was soft and soothing, and Galen found him easy to listen to. For the first few days, the instruction was simple—focus on something, and stay focused.

Zenír focused on a sound—a single tone he hummed beneath his breath—while Galen followed Sev's lead and chose a mental image. He envisioned a little star of light, which increased and decreased in brightness with his breath.

It was enjoyable, once he found his center, and exhilarating once he felt the result; the more he practiced, the more he sensed the power lying dormant and untapped within his core.

He sensed the ambient energies surrounding him, too—the vast, ancient power, quiet and deep: a complex web of life.

Opening himself to it, he called forth his own magic just a little, and released it like an offering to the great trees. It escaped him like tiny effervescent bubbles, rising from his heart and floating free from his uplifted palms.

A soft gasp broke his concentration, and he opened his eyes to find Zenír staring—which was odd, as the man was blind.

"I can see it," Zenír breathed, eyes wide as he reached towards Galen. "The magic."

Galen realized he could see it, too. All about him, tiny dots of emerald light, like dust in a sunbeam, sparkled in the air.

He brushed his hand through them, but with his concentration broken, they vanished like embers on a breeze.

"Jewel of Sakkara," Sev murmured, and—to Galen's slight discomfort—pressed his hands together and bowed his head.

"I don't know what that is," Galen said, grimacing, "but I'm not it."

Sev held his gaze, his princely features set with strange sincerity. "You are, in my eyes, p'yrha," he murmured.

Unaccountably, Galen flushed.

Hoping to brush off the awkwardness, he rose. "I think I'll see if Obi needs help with the firewood," he said.

As he walked away, Zenír spoke in a soft tone. "Be careful, Sev. Best not to get attached."

It was clear he meant not to be overheard, and Galen wondered if perhaps the prolonged sessions of focus had sharpened his hearing a little.

"Don't worry, Zen," Sev answered in an equally low voice. "I know my duty well enough. You need not remind me of it."

"It is for you I worry," Zenír answered. "Your duty will mind itself, I imagine."

Sev sighed. "That is what I fear."

They said no more, but Galen pondered what he'd heard. Perhaps when the opportunity arose, he would ask Sev exactly what his duty entailed.

-✵-

On the sixth day, the forest changed once more, and became less pleasant.

Little by little, there were fewer oak and alder, poplar and fir, and more of a certain, densely growing pine.

The trunks had rough, gray bark, and the needle-like leaves were short, sharp, and bristly. In places, the trees grew so close together it was difficult to find a way through, and they had no choice but to travel some distance in search of a clear path. Finally, on the opposite side of a small clearing, they came upon a wall of such pines, beyond which no other species grew.

"What unpleasant trees," Behn remarked grumpily, eyeing the barrier with distaste.

"Indeed," Sev agreed, gesturing at the wall of narrow trunks. "This is the edge of the Pinedark, as the region is called. The young trees choke out their competition. Gradually, the weaker ones die off, so the older the forest, the more spread out they'll be, but only of one kind, and still close enough to make a perpetual twilight beneath their boughs. I'm afraid this is the end of our pleasant woodland wanderings, for now."

Unhappily, the group bade farewell to the sunlit meadow, and followed Sev into the gloom beneath the pines. Soon, the branches overhead grew so thickly the travelers caught only occasional glimpses of the sky, and then even those disappeared. With no way to judge the time of day, only a gradual darkening told them night would soon descend.

They camped in a level place, but no one slept well. The thick layers of pine-needles carpeting the ground might have made good bedding, if they were not sharp enough to stab through cloth. After a prickly night, they rose and broke camp, and carried on.

The deeper they went into the pines, the less Galen liked the place. Little grew there apart from the trees and the sparse bracken beneath. Everything was gray or brown, and eerily still. The few birds they heard had strange, forlorn calls, and the beasts they glimpsed were oddly dark, and blended with the gloom. Once, Galen spotted a deer with a sable coat, and even the squirrels were gray or black.

For a while, they did their best to keep the oppressive quiet at bay with laughter and song, and with tales of past adventures; but soon, even the most talkative of them fell silent. By the third day, they were all on edge, and spoke in whispers, and jumped at the snap of twigs underfoot.

It didn't help that the trees seemed almost to have a language of their own, and chattered among themselves in creaky voices, rubbing their branches together in strange conspiracy.

"It's just the wind," Sev assured them when a particularly loud outburst of creaking swept overhead, as if the trees were passing a secret along.

"What wind?" Behn asked, swishing his hand through the stagnant air, wide-eyed and spooked.

"There's plenty of wind above the trees," Sev said. "They're quite tall. We can't feel it down here, so it seems as if they're moving on their own."

Reassured by this explanation, they paid less heed to the creaking.

The howling and the eyes were another matter.

That night, Galen woke from an uneasy sleep. All was still beneath the trees, and pitch-black beyond the ring of firelight, as usual. Behn snored softly on his left, and Triss lay curled on her side to his right. Sev sat nearby, his back resting against the trunk of a tree, with his eyes shut. Galen couldn't tell if he was awake or not. A few paces away, at the edge of the light, Iksthanis stood on watch, his broad-shouldered shape blending with the gloom.

Galen shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position, and willed himself back to sleep. The one good thing about the Pinedark—so far—was that the ground was relatively flat. That was changing, and the coming day promised to be a hard one, filled with grueling climbs and steep descents.

He'd just shut his eyes when a long, eerie wail echoed through the trees. It started low, rose high and thin, then fell again and faded to end in a strange, clicking growl.

Galen sat up, wide awake, and looked to Sev, who had also gone alert.

"What is—"

"Shh." Sev held a finger to his lips and shook his head, then pointed at the others. It seemed he wanted them to stay asleep. He rose and beckoned, and Galen carefully got up and stepped over Behn, then joined Sev at Iksy's side.

"See anything?" Sev whispered.

Iksthanis shook his head. "Not yet."

"Ideas?"

The larger man shrugged. "Could be anything, this far into the pines: a wolf, or a wraith."

Galen shivered. He'd heard stories about what lived in the Wild Green, but dismissed most as mere fantasy. Everything from wolves and bears to witches, goblins, and ghouls were said to make their homes deep beneath the shadowed trees.

In the middle of the night, in the middle of the Pinedark, the tales were much easier to believe.

The howl came again, and this time another joined it, though from a greater distance. Farther yet, another faint wail rose and fell on strange, discordant notes and ended in the same clicking growls.

"Not wolves, I think," Sev muttered.

"What, then?" Iksy asked, scanning the darkness beyond the fire's light.

Sev shook his head. "I have an idea, but I'd rather be sure than guess."

"Something bad, then."

Sev didn't answer, but waited, listening. Minutes passed, but the night remained silent and still.

"Is it gone?" Galen whispered. He didn't like to admit he'd been frightened by noises in the night, but he couldn't deny he hoped whatever had made those sounds was far away.

"We'll know soon enough," Sev said. "If I'm right, they won't come near the fire, anyway. Don't let it die down, Iksy; and don't wander beyond its light. Who has the next shift?"

"Rea."

"Warn her, too."

"No need." Rea herself said this, speaking in a whisper and approaching with a silent tread.

"Sound familiar?" Sev asked.

She nodded. "The mounds."

Galen shivered. He did not know what it meant, but it sounded like either a terrible monster or a terrible disease. When no one spoke again, he ventured a question.

"What are 'the mounds?'" he asked.

Rea glanced at him, but it was Sev who answered. "The 'mounds' are a region in Yuthraka," he said quietly. "Over the eastern mountains, in the low-lying marshlands near the sea. They're man-made burial sites—like little hills. Rea and I once heard something similar, there."

"Barrowlings," Rea said. "At least, that's what you would call them in Thryn. Corpse-eaters. Some say they were human, once, but took to eating their own kind. Hunted and shunned, they fear the light and make dark places their home. They feast on the dead, but favor fresh meat—if they can get it."

Huffing a laugh, Galen relaxed. Whatever environs they supposedly preferred, 'barrowlings' lived only in fairy tales. Parents used them to frighten difficult children into obedience—'go to bed, or the barrowlings will get you.' They weren't real.

"If you won't tell me, then—"

"Shh!"

Sev pointed. At the very edge of the light, where the slim gray trees vanished in the gloom, something moved. Galen glimpsed a pale form with long, thin limbs, walking on all fours. A pair of eyes shone with dim sparks of reflected light in a small, oval head, flashing as they turned towards the light, then blinking into darkness again as the creature slipped back among the pines.

"Shit," Iksthanis swore. "Was that...?"

"Definitely," Sev confirmed.

"How many?" Rea asked.

"Impossible to know. We heard at least three, but there's usually a hive. These are probably scouts."

"We need to get out of these pines," Rea said.

"No shit," Iksy agreed.

"We can't move until daybreak," Sev said. "The fire will keep them at bay. Tomorrow we'll carry torches, just in case. The one thing they hate is fire."

"And no wonder. They live in a tinderbox," Iksy said, looking up at the shadowed branches overhead.

They had been exceedingly careful with their fires; a stray spark could start a blaze.

"What about the perimeter?" Galen asked. Each night they had laid out the circle of symbols and the bells on the strings.

"That's to hide us from unfriendly forces, looking from afar, not to keep out creatures of flesh and blood," Sev said.

"Should we wake the others?" Rea asked.

Sev shook his head. "No. Let them sleep. They'll need their rest for the day ahead. You, too," he added, turning to Galen. "There's another four hours of night. Make use of it."

Galen nodded, doing his best not to let his fear show. Sev saw it anyway, and his expression softened.

Laying a hand on Galen's shoulder, he said, "Don't worry. When there is something to fear, you'll know it. A few barrowlings are little threat to a strong party like ours. If they were indeed human, once, they are as animals now. They don't use tools or weapons, and while cunning, they are not especially strong. We must simply hope their hive is far away, and that they are well-fed enough not to bother with those who wield fire."

Somewhat, but not entirely reassured, Galen returned to his bed, but sleep did not follow him, and phantom howls teased his ears until dawn.