"Where are you going?" the bailiff demanded.

"Zu?" asked Talen.

"I just gave you an order."

Talen paused. He could see no sympathy on the faces of the men. He wasn't stupid, but at the moment he felt very much like a dunce. Then he realized there would be no picking up his cart and baskets.

"Directly home," said Talen, changing his course. "That's where I'm going."

The bailiff only looked at him with those pale eyes.

Talen walked across the field toward the trail. He hurt all over. But he could walk. He could breathe. And that was something to be thankful for. He remembered the peppercorns and felt to make sure bag was still hanging from his neck. He hadn't lost those, yet another thing to be thankful for.

As he departed he heard the bailiff lecturing his men, but he was so rattled he couldn't focus on what the man was saying.

Talen crossed the fence and began to follow the trail. He looked at the wood in front of him. The hatchlings had been seen in this district. And where would hatchlings hide?

They wouldn't be here. Not right here. Of all the miles upon miles of woodland available, why would the Sleth hatchlings choose this little section of the district right here in front of him? The chances were so remote that it wasn't worth thinking about. But his heart wasn't listening to his mind. It was said Sleth needed to feed often on the Fire of other men. And a lone stripling walking in the cover of a thick wood was a perfect target.

Furthermore, Sleth never came alone. There was always a big nest of them. So it was likely there were more than this one family, which meant there were probably adults, full of the dark art, looking for those hatchlings as well.

And even if the Sleth didn't find him, then there were the bounty hunters the bailiff had mentioned. Only the fiercest of men took it upon themselves to hunt Sleth. And because these Sleth had been found among Koramites, the hunters would suspect every Koramite they came across, and he did not want to fall into their hands for questioning.

He looked back at the bailiff and the village men making their way toward the river.

Goh, he thought. Mobs and monsters. Being chased about by Ke and River now seemed a pretty thing.

He faced the woods again. He didn't have much choice. Besides, even if someone were waiting behind a bend in ambush, standing here like a coward wasn't going to improve his odds.

He searched the ground for a sturdy stick and a few good throwing stones, and then Talen entered the wood.

Talen tried to keep himself from running. But the farther he got into the dark, old wood, the more he felt like a fat worm sinking on a hook into the water.

A fat worm that had already been worked over. He catalogued his pains. There were two spots on his head that hurt to touch them. There was his eye that was now almost swollen shut. His ribs smarted. His kidneys, he was sure, had been abused. It hurt his back to walk. Lords, even his toes protested. He looked down, saw a smart bruise on his left foot and realized someone must have stomped it.

But these were physical pains. They would heal. At least, he hoped they would, especially the blows to his brain. The Sleth, on the other hand, were different. And he couldn't tell what would be worse: to be taken by the Bone Faces and forced into a nine-fingered enslavement or to be kept in storage like a living carcass, to be feasted upon or twisted into something unnatural. At least with the Bone Faces he'd die a man.

And how could he follow the bailiff's suggestion and bring in the hatchlings, the children of these Sleth? A proper Sleth hunt required one hundred men. It required a Divine. Was he expecting the Koramites to field groups of hunters? But the bailiff had been looking at him. It had been clear he was suggesting Talen join in the hunt. Except, what could one runt do?

If he had his bow, he might be able to do something. That is if the Sleth didn't know the arrow was coming. He'd heard once at an alehouse that Sleth could whisper to arrows. Even so, he didn't have his bow. He was defenseless. What were a few stones going to do against Sleth? The thing to do now was get back to Da and the others as quickly as he could and alert them.

The hatchlings were somewhere in these woods. He tried to act calm-the last thing prey should do is act like prey. But then the distinct thock of a branch breaking sounded off to his right followed by a squirrel screeching out a warning.

His heart leapt up into his throat. But he told himself it was a falling branch, told himself to stand upright and walk like a man. He quickened his pace despite the twinge in his back.

Then came a grunt and high keening, something moving toward him, scuffling through the leaves on the forest floor.

You are not prey, he told himself, you are not prey, but try as he might, he could not be calm. Could not walk. Could do nothing but abandon all pretense, ignore his injuries, and run.

Not once did he look back. He dared not. Eyes to the front, he told himself. He couldn't afford to smack into a branch or step wrong, or, most especially, see the face of the thing that surely was behind him. He knew if he saw the beast, his courage was likely to completely desert him. At that point it would be impossible to do anything but cringe upon the ground like a cornered rabbit. So it was eyes in front, even when the woods broke before him and he saw the river below and the farm stretching away from him on the far side.

Talen ran down to the river, stumbled through the shallow water of the ford, and scrabbled up the other side. Only when he reached the smoke shed did he stop and turn, and, with much panting, search the woods.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

The Sleth children, if there had ever been any, must have been one-legged pigeons. No regular monsters would have let him escape alive.

Of course, there probably hadn't been a thing in those woods besides squirrels and mice. The sound he'd heard was most certainly somebody's renegade pig.

Coward, he told himself, and bent over, resting his hands on his knees. He was such a coward.

"Where's the handcart?"

Talen turned. Da sat in the shady side of the barn, sharpening his scythe. Seeing that great horse of a man brought immense relief.

"Back at the bridge," said Talen. He took a breath.

"Ah, that's what I like to see. A boy who races home to work and leaves the chickens to fend for themselves."

"Da," said Talen. "The bailiff wants you."

"We're mowing the fields now. The bailiff can wait."

Then he stopped and looked at Talen more closely. "Is that blood? What happened to your face?"

Talen poured out everything that had happened, including his run through the woods. As the story progressed, Da stroked the braids of his beard with increasing anger.

When Talen finished, Da set his scythe aside and stood.

"Are you going?"

"It appears I am," said Da.

"Should we bring our bows?" asked Talen. "Or would billhooks be better?"

"Billhooks?" asked Da.

"In case we're attacked."

Da grunted. "You're going out to glean. We've got a field that needs stacking."

"But the hatchlings," said Talen.

"The hatchlings," said Da. "Son, did you not learn anything from your adventure this morning? Even if the children were Sleth, the greater risk is being mistaken for a Soul-eater by an idiot with hunt fever. We're talking about two children, however ferocious they may be." Da shook his head. "You said a Fir-Noy rider brought the message? That's the problem right there."

"Shouldn't we at least give the warnings some credit until we find out otherwise?"

"Sparrow was a good man," said Da. He heaved a great sigh.

Talen had not known the smith very well. However, he'd always wondered about his name. He'd thought it funny such a mighty man would be named for such a little bird. Talen, Ke, and Nettle were named after noteworthy ancestors. His sister was named so she might be granted all the qualities-the strength, life, purpose-of a River. But Sparrow? Talen had found out that the smith's family had a long line of Sparrows, all named after an actual bird that had saved one of the family's progenitors from drowning. He'd always wanted to hear that tale, but now he wasn't so sure.

A great weariness seemed to descend upon Da. "You could search this whole land. You could search the whole Nine Clans, and not find Sparrow's better."

"But he was Sleth," said Talen.

Da shook his head. "If Sparrow was Sleth, then fish swim in the deep blue sky." He turned to Talen. "Do you still have the peppercorns?"

Talen nodded. He opened the small pouch hanging around his neck that served as his purse, poured out the corns, and handed them over.

Da took them with his large fingers and carefully placed them in his own pouch.

"Get out to the field and help with the stacking," said Da. "I'm going to fetch us some hens and go talk to the bailiff." Da turned and headed for the barn. "By the way, I found your pants wadded up under your bed," he called back. "They're lying on the table."

"I looked under my bed," said Talen.

Da shrugged. "They were there, plain as day."

That was impossible. Talen had moved his bed out. He would have seen them.

Talen turned and went in to the house to get his old pants. These were stained, thanks to the Stag Home idiots, with blood and grass and would take an hour of washing to get them clean. When he came back outside, Da had Iron Boy saddled.

Da's unstrung hunting bow stood in the leather bow bag strapped along Iron Boy's side. He should have been taking his war bow. "I'll be back before dark," Da said. He secured what he called the Hog behind the saddle.

The Hog was an axe with a handle about as thick as four fingers and a shaft as long as Talen's arm. The head was not broad like a timber axe, but short and narrow with a blade at one end and a pick at the other. But it was used for other things. An archer needed a weapon for close work. He needed something for when he exhausted his supply of arrows. The Hog could pierce armor when wielded by a man half Da's size, and Da had killed three Bone Faces last year with it. But he did not reverence it as many men would: most of the time he used it to break up the bee propolis in the hives or to chop kindling.

"If you find any Sleth," said Da, "be sure to tell them you're tough and gamey and not at all fit for dinner." A little bit of a smile softened his grim expression.

"Easy for you to say," said Talen.

"We're going to be fine, Talen," he said. "Don't worry about a thing." He picked up the reins and led Iron Boy away.

Talen watched him go. Then he looked at the woods and swallowed.

THE HUNT.

O.

n the day before Talen took his beating, Barg, the harvest master and butcher of the village of Plum, stood in the crisp light of early morning with a number of men, waiting to murder the smith, his wife, and their two children.

Oh, none of them called it murder, but all knew that's where this would lead. And what choice did they have?

The villagers had been joined by others in the district and divided into groups positioned around the smith's. One group hid behind the miller's. Another, the one lead by Barg, kept itself behind Galson's barn. The third waited in a small grove on the outskirts of the village.

The men with Barg stood for an hour, checking the buckles of what armor they had, wrestling with the shock of the matter, and waiting for the signal in silence. At first, a handful of the outsiders had boasted of what they'd do. "Mark me," a Mokaddian wearing the turquoise of the Vargon clan said. His Vargon accent was plain, rolling his r r's much too long. "I will land one of the first five strokes."

Barg cut off a handful of his hair with a knife to show his mourning. "You'll be one of the first five he guts." He grasped another handful of hair and sawed through it.

"What do you know?" the Vargon said.

"I know that today I will help kill a man who saved my life." He cast another clump of shorn hair to the ground. "The smith is a roaring lion. You had best beware."

The Vargon said nothing in return, but what could he say? He was only trying to cover his fears. Sparrow the smith was a formidable warrior, and if the accusations against him were true, then it was certain some of those who had gathered today would die.

The approaching dawn silvered the fields and thatch roofs about the village and set the roosters to crowing. The cattle in the paddocks began to low, a stray dog outside the alewife's barked at a snake trying to get to the tall grass, and down in the south field a few straggling deer decided it was now time to leave the fields and find cover. The men knew their signal was only minutes away.

On the side of the village closest to the forest and the Galson's homes, the smith's daughter, Sugar, stood in the barn feeding their two horses and heard the jingle of a trap bell in her garden. It was followed by the panicked cry of a hare.

Nothing ever got away from one of Sugar's traps. And from the sound of the scuffling and ringing, this creature was big. All that commotion was sure to bring Midnight and Sky, her family's dogs. She'd trained them to leave her game alone, but these two liked to bend the rules whenever they could. So Sugar put down the hay fork, and told Fancy, their mare, and Sot, their draft horse she'd return later. Then she picked up her smothering sack and stepped out of the barn and into the yard in her bare feet.

The village homes looked like fat ships floating amidst a sea of grain. But it was not a quiet sea. Da had flung both doors to the smithy open and stood at the forge hammering away at his work. Farmer Galson's cattle bellowed. They were the noisiest bunch of cattle in the whole district. Sugar saw them bunched up at the far end of their paddock, waiting for one of Galson's grandsons to open the gate so they could go to the watering pond. But that was odd ... someone should have led them out long ago.

Beyond the paddock gate stood the thatch-roofed homes for Farmer Galson, his children, and his adult grandchildren. Almost a village all by itself. The soft yellow light of hearth fires still shone in many of the windows. Outside, one of the wives made her way back from the privy in a pale nightgown. She held a wailing babe on her hip.

The woman looked up, and Sugar waved across the field at her, but she did not wave back; instead, she dashed for her house. Maybe she hadn't seen Sugar. But then again, maybe she had. Some of the Galsons thought they rode a lord's high horse.

Sugar walked to the garden, opened the gate, and stepped under the arch of climbing rose. The lemony scent from its pink blooms lay heavy in the air. She walked along the shadowed rows of vegetables until she came to the peas and salad greens.

There she found a large hare, a black-tail that was going to make a fine breakfast.

It was easiest just to brain them with a stout stick, but she didn't want to chance ruining the fur about the throat, so she readied the smothering sack and approached the animal. This part of the garden was still wet with yesterday's watering and the soil stuck to the bottoms of her bare feet.

When she got close, the hare began to kick in earnest. It was a monster. Twelve pounds at least.

She threw the sack over it to protect her from its kicking and clawing and quickly held its hind-and forequarters in place. It cried out in distress, but she kneeled on its side, pressing the air out of its lungs. She pressed until she knew she'd start breaking its ribs, then waited for it to suffocate.

The giant hare struggled underneath her. It bucked once more then lay very still. Sugar removed the snare noose from its leg. The hare felt dead. But she'd been tricked before. A number of years ago, before her moon-cycles had come upon her, she'd picked up a hare and carried it into the house and laid it on the cutting stone. The whole time it had lain in her hands like a limp rag, but the second she began to cut, it jumped up and knocked the knife right out of her hand. Then it flew off the table and bolted out the open door. And so she continued to press this hare.

Across the paddocks the Galsons' dogs began to bark. They were joined by another group down by the miller's.

The dogs would often bark this way when travelers passed through. Sugar looked up to see what was causing the commotion and saw a wide line of men on the far side of Galson's paddocks.