Dart leaned closer to the mark on his chest, bending at the waist. "Ia"I thought I saw somethinga"

Tylar glanced down at himself, his brow crinkling.

The well of dark water that was his mark swirled ever so slightly as she stared closely. She had noted the same back in Chrismferry, as if something had crested just under the surface, stirring the waters.

His naethryn.

But that was not what had drawn her eye.

Sheershym sighed with impatience. "I assure you, lass. Nothing is amiss."

Rogger warded him back. "Best let her look. She's got eyes a mite sharper than ours. Sees things others miss." He said this last with a wink in her direction.

Dart kept her focus on the mark, only a hand's breadth from Tylar's chest. She waited. Maybe she was mistakena"

Then it flashed again.

Deep within the well, a trickling trace of green fire snaked across the mark and away again. Flames within a dark sea.

"Did you see that?" Dart asked, startled.

Sheershym glanced at her, shook his head, then returned to study the mark.

Tylar caught her eye. "What did you see, Dart?"

"Flames, stirring deep with your mark. Then away again."

"Flames?" Rogger mumbled. "What did they look like?"

She frowned, picturing them, trying to capture how they made her feel. "Emerald but with a sickly cast. A feverish sheen to them."

Tylar touched his mark and found only flesh. "Green firea" His eyes narrowed.

"What?" Rogger asked, plainly sensing some recognition in the other's voice.

Tylar kept his gaze fixed to Dart. "Like moonlight off pond scum."

She slowly nodded.

"I've seen such a flame before," Tylar said. "It shone from the blade Perryl struck me with. Or rather struck Meeryn's naethryn with."

"Who is this Perryl?" Sheershym asked.

"A black ghawl," Rogger said. "A daemon wearing another's skin."

"His dark sword grazed the naethryn when it was last released. I felt the burn of the blade's kiss." Tylar touched the side of his chest. "Here."

Sheershym inspected the bruised flesh. "Where your rib is broken now."

Tylar nodded.

Off to the side, Brant stirred and mumbled. "Sheasheawe musta" Then he drifted away.

The master looked to the boy, then back to Tylar. "I fear young Brant might not be the only one poisoned here. That blade must have carried some corruption. It poisoned your naethyna"and as the two of you are bound together, you suffer for it, too."

Silence settled over them.

"And if his naethryn diesa?" Rogger finally asked.

Sheershym shook his head. "I cannot say. But I suspect the wear and break of your body reflects the vitality of the naethryn inside you. As you grow more crippled of limb, it maps your naethryn's slide toward death."

"Is there some cure?" Rogger said. "Some powder to smoke the poison out, like you did with Brant?"

"Such matters are far beyond my skills," Sheershym said. His face looked especially waxen with fear, something unspoken.

"What?" Tylar asked.

"Even if there were a cure," the master said, "I fear its potency might never reach where it is most needed."

"Why's that?"

"There has been talk and speculation amongst the masters since you rose to your regency. Arguments and thoughts shared by raven's wing. One consensus is that the naethryn inside youaisn't truly inside you. How could it be? Instead most believe it to be tethered to you while trapped half in this world, half in the naether. For any hope to burn the poison from the creature, you must bring it fully here."

"Which I failed to do before," Tylar said.

"And while poisoned, you may never be able to do."

Rogger shook his head. "A perfectly laid trap."

But it wasn't the only one.

Brant suddenly sat up on the neighboring litter, gasping out as if startled by the terror of a dream, "Sheashea"

A shout caught his words and finished his thought, coming from the forest, in the direction of the cliff's edge. "She comes! She comes!"

Dart straightened, along with everyone else.

Even Brant gained his legs, wobbly but supported by Lorr.

They all stared to the east, toward the burnt swath of the black river.

The Huntress was on the move.

"The river remains quiet," Brant said. "Takaminara seems to show no interest in stopping the Huntress this time."

"She may not be able to," Rogger said. "It must have cost her greatly to split the land the first time."

Their party gathered at a hunting lodge that overlooked the cliff's edge. It had been turned into a watchtower by a pair of sentinels, boys barely past twelve. The lodge offered a wide view of the valley floor, once a green sea, now split by a black river.

Brant shifted the arm in his sling. The firebalm had sealed his wound, and Grace already knit the tissue with a burning itch. Between his eyes, a throbbing ache persisted, the dregs of his poisoning. His left leg also felt numb and thick. But the walk here had helped return sensation with a fiery prickling.

He was alive.

But for how long?

Harp stood at his shoulder. Brant could not believe how much his old friend had grown. Once shorter, he now stood half a head taller than Brant. But so much remained the same, too. The worried crinkle at the corners of his eyes, the way he tapped his chin when struggling with a puzzle, even the same crooked grin, offered when he'd first crossed to Brant back in the camp. Still, despite the warm and genuine greeting, there remained a darker look to his eye, something Brant had never seen before. Shadows that would forever haunt his friend.

Brant studied the land below. In just the short time it had taken to come here, the Huntress had led her war party halfway across the river. She did not shy from its burn and stink any longer. Brant had heard the story of Harp's flight. The Huntress, angered by their escape, meant to end this now.

"They move swiftly," Tylar said.

"And so must we if we're to reach the cliffs and the hinterlands beyond," Rogger said.

Brant had walked these lands as a boy. He knew them well. The Divide fell away into the hinter about two leagues away. A hard march, but one they should be able to make. They had already sent ahead the youngest and oldest, to await word at the cliff's edge, in case Takaminara chose to protect them yet again. No one wanted to enter the deadly hinterlands unless there was no other choice.

Now they knew.

"We must go," Brant said.

Harp had everything prepared. While camped here, he'd had ladders woven of vine and sinew. They waited at the Divide, coiled and ready to be unfurled down the cliff into the hinterlands. But Harp had planned further strategies as well.

"I'll leave ten of our fastest runners," he said and pointed to key high points. "Along the ridges here and there. With arrow and bow, they should be able to hold the pass, slow the others a bit longer. We don't want to be caught on the cliff, still on the ladders. A few ax chops and we'd all be tumbling headlong into the hinter."

"How likely will her hunters be to follow us down there?" Tylar asked.

"She won't stop until we're all dead," Harp said with certainty. "But I've already soaked the ladders in poxflame oil. Once below, we can set the ladder afire. Burn them off the cliffs. It will take time for any pursuers to find another way down."

Brant read the appreciation and respect in the regent's eyes as he nodded. "Very good," Tylar said.

Krevan stood at the lip of the cliff, a long glass to his eye. He finally lowered it. "Six score," he said. "Eighty with bows. Forty with spears."

Harp frowned at him. "Six score? You're sure of that count?"

Krevan stared hard, not bothering to answer.

Harp's frown deepened as he glanced below. "The best of her hunters number two hundred. She comes with too few."

Brant understood what he meant. All attention had been on the war party that crossed the river directly. But the burn spread to the north and south, stretching out of sight in both directions, beyond the view of the sentries in the makeshift watchtower.

"She sent others ahead of her," Harp said and turned to them, his eyes wide with worry.

"To close off our escape," Brant said. There was a reason their god was named the Huntress.

Confirming this, screams suddenly erupted, faint and distant, coming from the top of the pass. Where the others had been headed. Horns sounded from that direction, echoing darkly through the wood.

The snare had been sprung.

Responding to the horns, the Huntress called to them from below. Her voice carried to them, borne aloft in Grace.

"I want only the Godslayer and the boy! To bring his stone!" Horns punctuated her words. "The rest will be allowed to leave my realm. But any further trespass will be met with blood!"

"What are we going to do?" Dart asked as the horns echoed away. She stood with Lorr and Malthumalbaen at the door to the lodge. "You can't go down there."

"Agreed." Krevan pointed toward the Forge. "Best we fight our way through to the Divide. There are only two score up there."

"Two score of her best hunters," Harp said with a sour shake of his head. "And they have the high ground. Even if we could make the cliffs, they'd burn us or chop us off the ladders."

The Huntress called again, pointing an arm. "Come to where the black rock meets the green wood! In the open. If you are not there when I set foot back to loam, your livesa"all your livesa"will be forfeit!"

Brant watched Tylar study the spread of hunters below, his eyes narrowed with calculations. Though his body was broken, his mind remained sharp.

Tylar finally spoke. "Krevan, lead the others toward the Divide. Gather everyone you can along the way. Keep them safe."

The leader of the Black Flaggers seemed ready to argue, but whatever he saw in the regent's eyes held his tongue.

Dart was not so reticent. "I can be of help," she said.

"No. If the Huntress spots anyone else belowa" Tylar shook his head. "We dare not antagonize her any further. And I'd rather you're safely away."

"Then take Pupp at least. No one can see him, and he'sahe's fierce."

"He is indeed. But we've never tested his nature against a god, and now is not the time to find out. Still, you've given me a thought."

Tylar turned to Harp. "You mentioned swift runners. Take me to your fastest." With a nod, Harp led him around the corner of the lodge.

Dart came to Brant and touched his arm, still unconvinced. "It is surely your death if you go down there."

"I pray it's only my death," he mumbled, remembering the bloodstained lips of Marron. "Perhaps this is my path. It started in the shadow of the Forge. Maybe it is supposed to end here."

Tylar quickly returned, hopping on his good leg. He had overheard Brant's words. "Don't be so quick to accept death. Do that and you'll have one foot in your grave already."

Rogger crossed to them and held out his hand. A piece of yellowed bone rested in his palm. "Before we fled, I stole a sliver of the skull. Mayhap it still contains enough Dark Grace to break the seersong's hold with that black stone of yours."

Brant stared at the skull, touched the stone at his throat, and slowly shook his head. "I feel the smallest tingle or warmth, nothing more."

Rogger frowned. "I was afraid of that."

In his heart, Brant was relieved. He wanted nothing more to do with the skull.

"Still, keep it safe for now," Tylar ordered the man, then nodded toward the approaching hunters. "We dare tarry no longer."

In short order, their two parties split. Harp led the others toward the higher pass, guarded by Krevan and Malthumalbaen. Tylar headed back down the small deer path. He hobbled heavily on one side, lost in his own thoughts.

Brant followed. "You have some plan?" he asked.

"I do."

Brant waited for him to elaborate, but the regent remained silent, marching onward, descending toward the dark river below. A view opened briefly. The leading edge of hunters neared the fringe of forest below, running ahead of the Huntress. Her scouts would reach the jungle first.