The forest beyond the road was as thick and tangled to traverse as it had been before – more so, even. The brambles here were huge, snarled walls that could and did stretch many yards long, completely impossible to slip through or cut through without a crew of ten men and the grace of a week. Finding a way through the maze that didn't end in a spiky, impenetrable fence took hours and hours, given that the travellers couldn't follow Schiri's previous route through the pine branches themselves.

But Isaille wasn't thinking about the pines or the brambles as she walked. She was thinking about how the air had changed, and how the cold no longer hurt her hands and feet, and how she could feel that fine, feathery, invisible shroud against her skin, slowly trying to seep deeper, right into her flesh …

She wanted it to feel repulsive again, wanted her senses to lurch with the same nausea that she'd always felt at the touch of Darkness. On some subconscious level, deep-seated inside her now, it did – an awareness like a pale, flickering candle burning in a dark room. But Isaille knew that, like the candle, the lifespan of her resistance was limited. What would happen when a cold breeze finally blew it out? What else was this 'ward' actually doing?

Well, the Captain thought bleakly, if nothing else, it seems to be keeping some of the Dark things away … unless Schiri was just exaggerating about how many there are …

The first three hours had indeed passed without any incident at all. Though their progress was painfully slow – not least on account of their forced stops while Schiri took to the trees and searched out the way to proceed at ground level – nothing leaped at them from the maze of brambles. The thought that Schiri might well have insisted on invoking his ward for a different purpose did occur to Isaille, which she could not quite dismiss out-of-hand, and she watched him with a troubled stare each time he dropped down from the pines and led the way again.

Her friends were doing much the same thing. Simbelyne's bleak expression spoke the loudest of all, and several times the Star Mage seemed to be on the verge of saying something – challenging the Dark Elf, or ordering him to remove the ward entirely. But she never did.

Schiri, for his part, was either oblivious or indifferent to their unrest. He led the way in total silence, Sending rather than speaking each instruction for them to stop and wait when he slipped back up into the pines. The wariness that leaked in through each thought he Sent was undeniable, but it was only a level, ready caution; even Jeren's earlier stumble near the heartbeasts had drawn outright alarm, and the heartbeasts had been easy enough to deal with.

The short Northern daylight hours had not yet come to an end when Schiri called for their attention in the latest of a long line of orders. Must stop, was the first, very familiar impression Isaille felt, but another emotion lingered on the fringes of Schiri's thoughts: Resignation …

They all stopped again, waiting for the Dark Elf to take to the trees, but he did not. Instead he pointed away towards the north-east, a slightly altered course, and gestured twice when none of them moved. Impatience! … Must go.

Isaille took the first steps, watching the soldier uncertainly, then shrugged and strode off towards the narrow break she could see in the brambles there. The others followed, but Schiri stayed where he was, waving them on again impatiently before turning back to face the trees behind him.

As usual, or so Isaille dourly reflected as she led her friends out of sight, she had no idea what the Dark Elf was doing. How far did he want them to go? Were they supposed to keep walking until he caught them up again, or should they wait nearby? We'll walk … for a while, at least. Just in case.

They slogged on for about half an hour and then stopped to wait by an ice-slick tumble of rocks, looking around at each other's drawn, uneasy faces without giving voice to their fears. Schiri finally rejoined them another half-hour later, but he did not stop to explain or wait for their questions – Haste. Impatience. Must go.

Their pace was faster, now, though still no sign of alarm was evident in Schiri's thoughts. Before the sun finally left the sky, their black guide abandoned them another five times in exactly the same way, ignoring their confused, irritated glances and offering no explanation at all.

The thick Northern night was creeping down in earnest as the companions sat waiting for the sixth time, sheltering under two tangled pines' lower branches as the wind and the forest-filtered snow harassed them. Simbelyne had lit one of her small blue flames to help the others see while they waited, grinning faintly as Binni – even in her slightly subdued state – fussed over the blue light and fed it sticks and twigs as if they were scraps for a pampered dog.

At last Schiri appeared, approaching the fire from the darkening forest and bending under the low branches to see the companions in their pine nest. "We should move again," he said, his soft voice nevertheless a brief surprise after so many long hours of silence, and beckoned for them to come out.

The left hand that waved them up was bare, startlingly pale out of the sheath of its black glove, which was held in Schiri's right. Isaille saw Simbelyne raise her eyebrows, her keen Elven eyes following a droplet's fall through the darkness to earth, and after a moment the Mage spoke up incuriously: "You're bleeding, black one."

Schiri's reaction was startling. Curling his fingers tightly over his palm to trap the blood, the Dark Elf pulled sharply back from their shelter and started moving away. "Come out, swiftly!" he ordered over his shoulder, staring around the forest and its quiet whispers. "Move, I said!"

They emerged with weary resignation, as much for Schiri's behaviour as for the day's long trek. Schiri was uncurling his fingers carefully as they reached him, trying not to spill the small pool of blood he cupped as he started to pull on his glove again.

Nuan grimaced. "Ugh. That's not going to be too comfortable inside your glove."

"Are you less than a halfwit? Walk!" Schiri snapped.

"I was just saying," the sailor growled as they quickly moved on again, unconsciously wrapping his arms around his shoulders at the Darkness' continuing creep. "What gave you the cut down your hand, anyway? And why don’t you just use that magic potion on yourself -?"

Schiri had just tugged his glove properly into place, but glanced up sharply from his now-covered palm to Nuan's face. "That salve is not for a son of the blood," he replied in a curt tone.

Jeren rolled his eyes on the sidelines. "Here we go. Thought you said it was too good for humans?"

"It is," the Elf sneered. "It comes from the holiest temples of Alachast. It is used only in dire need, where a captain or lieutenant – lowly born – is deemed too valuable to lose to wounds. Usually," he added, with a sour look at Jeren.

"So the mighty nobles are too talented and invincible to require it?" Simbelyne sneered back, the little blue flame cupped in her hands still lending strange shadows to her face.

"It is against every law to heal or tend one of the true blood," replied Schiri witheringly. "For any reason."

Simbelyne snorted, bending down to check Binni's wrap against the cold, but Nuan – being Nuan – cast the Dark Elf a mystified, vaguely intrigued look. "But why? You've rattled away at us long enough about the amazing importance of your lot –"

"A noble soul is a thing of immense power, idrinn. Every noble who dies strengthens the Darkness and the nobles who remain." The soldier spoke with the disdainful air of someone imparting common knowledge. "To interfere with that process is to steal power from the ellieneth."

"So why don't the nobles all just stab themselves?" interjected Jeren sourly, interrupting Nuan's next, honest question.

To their surprise, Simbelyne gave a short, startled gasp and stared at the mercenary in a mixture of disbelief and outrage. Her reaction was nothing to Schiri's. The Dark Elf's lips pulled back in a feral snarl, his grey eyes slitting, and the flare of Darkness that accompanied his anger made the eerie ward against their flesh suddenly feel like burning slime.

"Suicide is the act of an honourless coward, idrinn," he hissed, "and an act that you will surely be committing if ever you dare say such a thing to me again!"

"Hold your forked tongue, black one," snapped Simbelyne. "Suicide is ungrateful blasphemy against the Immortals and Elementals, not 'cowardice'."

"Actually," Alkior piped up in his random way, "it’s a rather interesting thing: suicide isn’t considered a crime amongst Dwarves of the southern Kingdoms, and indeed most of the human peoples. The Source Knights, for example, are in fact expected to take their own lives if they fail their liege in any serious –"

"Master Alkior, it's not at all proper to talk about such things!" The Air Elf cut him off somewhat brusquely, compared to her courteous norm. "And I must insist that we don't. Let's just move on and have done, shall we?"

"Yes. No-one's to talk about my Knights from now on, ever," said Binni, her fur-gloved hand still clinging tight to Simbelyne's, and the little girl's eyes were haunted.

They set off again. Full night fell, obliterating the landscape entirely except for Simbelyne's pale blue flame and the faint, ambient light of the moon, which only appeared during short intervals where the snow-clouds relented.

As they toiled on in one such interval, still harried by half-invisible brambles but enjoying a rare stretch of almost-level ground, Isaille began to see black splotches drifting very slowly before her eyes. At first she put it down to exhaustion, but the more she walked, the stranger they became: peculiar, ragged-edged shapes gliding at a ghostly pace in the gaps between the trees.

A glance at Nuan's curious expression showed that he, too, was seeing what his sister could see in the dim moonlight. They began to edge forward, just a little, for a better look, but froze at a familiar, warning touch to their minds: Caution.

All of the companions turned back to look at Schiri; the Dark Elf had pressed a gloved finger to his lips, and was motioning them back. But his caution was still only mild – they could feel it for themselves – and he did not seem in any haste as he softly moved back himself.

They retreated until the splotches were specks, then turned to the Dark Elf impatiently. "What –" began Nuan, dropping his voice mid-sentence as Schiri made another gesture for quiet, "– are those?"

"They are called narethiyai," the soldier whispered. "Scavengers from the Void. They are eyeless, but they follow sound and movement more keenly than any Elf. As a hunting-cloud they can –"

Simbelyne snapped her fingers, softly, and pointed through the trees, her pale eyes fixed unwaveringly on a shadow that Isaille could not see until it had floated closer. A faint frown settled over Schiri's face, uncertainty over what drew the creature towards them, but after a fleeting pause he turned quickly to Simbelyne and pointed at the blue flame cupped in her hand. Simbelyne understood. In an instant, the light went out.

The moon broke fully through the clouds and the canopy a few heartbeats later, briefly and wanly replacing the illumination of the Star Mage's magic. It was enough to outline the shape that hovered between two pines no more than twenty yards away, five or six feet off the ground, utterly silent. The silhouette was frighteningly alien: not large, but strange, a flat-looking creature with long, ragged tendrils trailing out behind it, undulating in gentle, constant motion. It reminded Isaille of nothing so much as a stingray draped in rags.

Time inched by while the peculiar creature hung in the air, gracefully swimming against its invisible current. It was clearly not a thinking being – the disappearance of Simbelyne's magic had left it immediately directionless – but Schiri watched it like a hawk, his grey eyes gleaming almost silver under his hood.

Binni, drowsing on her feet where she stood beside Simbelyne, took a sleepy half-step to one side as her balance gave slightly. The sound of the snow grinding under her boot was small, no more than an icy whisper, but the effect was instant: the eerie narethiya curved around in a slow, graceful half-circle and began to glide again in their direction.

Schiri softly drew his longsword, easing the blade out inch by inch rather than snapping it free with the usual theatrical ring, and moved through the snow to meet the creature. For some odd reason the Dark Elf tightly clasped his right hand over his own mouth as he crept forward, keeping it there even as he made his first lightning slash upward.

The strike was just a brief flash of the moon's reflection in the eyes of the watching companions – and it missed completely. Seemingly feeling nothing more than the movement of the air, the black narethiya flipped with sudden, startling speed around the line of the ascending blade, evading Schiri's equally rapid downswing to streak forward and bat its blunt nose against the hand over his mouth.

It was such an ineffective 'attack' that Isaille felt a stab of pity for the odd creature, shaking her head sadly as Schiri whipped his blade up again past his own face to just barely slice at its trailing tendrils. As it fluttered away, wounded, Jeren's crossbow gave a loud clack in the silence – the mercenary had carried his loaded weapon since late afternoon, naturally – and a bolt pinned the creature like a moth to a scholar's board. It spun away and wilted delicately to the ground, soft as a handful of spider-webs.

Schiri looked around quickly as the narethiya died, searching for more, but the other shadows were still gliding, oblivious, in the trees much further ahead. "True-shot," he murmured as he uncovered his mouth, glancing at the bolt that had transfixed the airy narethiya.

"And what a curious creature!" exclaimed Alkior in interest, absent-mindedly forgetting to remove his shielding hand from little Binni's eyes until she poked him.

"Looked like a flying dishcloth," Nuan snorted. "What was it going to do? Tickle us?"

Schiri gave a one-handed Dark Elven shrug as he sheathed his sword, fingering a small, ragged slit on the back of his right-hand glove with vague annoyance – the same glove that the narethiya had batted against. "If this word 'tickle' means 'tear into many pieces', then yes," he said. "Come. A hunting-cloud of narethiyai is impassable, so we had best change our course. Follow me."

"This light is too poor for eyes that aren't Elven, black one," interrupted Simbelyne, voicing the others' thoughts. "I assume my magic is too dangerous to use near those creatures?"

"Yes. They feed on it as readily as flesh." The Dark Elf gave an irritated sigh – a familiar response, by now, to the companions' 'frailties'. "Very well. We shall move a safe distance from the narethiyai – a long way indeed, if your usual clamour is to be counted upon – and stop a whiles. But you must be ready to move when I tell you."

"Aren't we always?" Nuan growled.

"Let us test it. – Move."

The campsite they eventually chose was the icy bank of the meandering stream that had already followed them far through the North, like an energetic dog that bounded away from its master and returned for an occasional petting. Tucked away in a stony hollow behind a huge hedge of brambles, the tired companions nursed their aches and scratches as they settled down for the night.

A palpable gloom settled down on them, as well. The insidious touch of the Dark ward seemed to constantly evolve the longer it stayed with them – from choking to cloying, from cloying to comforting, particularly in the way it kept the worst of the cold from their limbs.

Now, from comforting, it was slowly beginning to make the transition to pleasant – a cool but heady sensation that only waned if Schiri's fuller presence flared up. Their hunger and thirst both were dulled, even Nuan's; the pain of their injuries seemed slightly detached; their tiredness, despite its weight, would have been bearable if dire need had presented again.

But with that pleasant touch came a deeper, more instinctive dread.

Binni huddled miserably in Isaille's lap as they sat in brooding silence, unable to sleep yet in spite of their weariness. Only Schiri made any sound – he sat out of sight on the lip of the hollow above their heads, softly intoning the Dark Elven warrior's code that he had recited in the Dwarven Kingdoms.

"I … I want someone to tell me a story," Binni announced suddenly, her tiny voice echoing only slightly in the hollow. "A good one."

The thought of a real voice – not Schiri's ghostly whispering in the background – to banish the murmurs and Darkness of the forest made Isaille abruptly hungry to hear someone speak, as well. "I'm not so great at it," she said. "And nor's Nuan, so don't let him tell you otherwise. What about you, Alkior? You're a scholar. A Master Scholar. You must know hundreds."

"Oh, well, ah," began Alkior, blushing a little, "I'm really rather dreadful when it comes to telling tales, actually – for some reason I just seem to talk myself in circles and forget what I'm supposed to be saying …" He coughed uncomfortably, then ventured, "I suppose … I suppose I could sing you a song, if you'd like? I seem to remember songs and sagas most of the time …"

Binni clapped her hands and pointed at him imperiously. "Yes! Ilja! Ilja! Sing!"

Alkior blushed even more. "Well, I, ah, this is rather a silly song, from the Midlands, but I do have a soft spot for … that is to say I wouldn’t sing it in front of other Dwarves, if I were you, unless you're completely sure that they …"

"Ilja!"

"Oh. Quite. Yes. Beg pardon."

There was a considerable wait while the little scholar coughed and cleared his throat to his satisfaction, making Binni fidget impatiently in Isaille's lap, but at last he gave a last 'ahem' and lifted his rich voice in a long, jolly, rambling song that could only be from a taproom:

"I sing of Orgren, doughty Dwarf,

Who took it to his head to fly!

Too long he'd felt the prick of gibes

Sneered down by haughty Elves on high!

"He pondered long, he pondered hard -

Dwarven minds are cunning quite -

His first idea was giant wings

To bear him on the air, bird-light...

"He sought himself a pair of beams

Full thick in width, their length full long,

And, feather-decked, flapped both full hard -

But could not rise, however strong.

"So Orgren, none deterred, sought more -

A pair of wheels, and he was done!

But though he fixed them to his feet

He found it far too hard to run.

"'Ah, speed, more speed!' bold Orgren boomed

And sought himself a sturdy horse -

But while his great arms gripped his wings

He could not mount the beast, of course.

"But Orgren found a volunteer -

That tireless Dwarf just could not stop!

'My son,' quoth he, 'Pass me my wings

'Once you have seen me safely up!' …"

Binni was giggling madly by this stage, giving Isaille's leg small, staccato claps each time she found a verse particularly amusing. Isaille found her own spirits lifting the longer the song lasted – it was, as Alkior had said, very silly, and the rhymes and meter were dreadful, but it spoke eloquently of evenings spent with bawling drinking friends and a tipsy bard. Enough to make one homesick …

"…'I'll do it, Da!' the youngling cried

And tightly clutched each feathered wing

So Orgren strode up to his horse –

But found he could not mount the thing.

"'Ah, height, more height!' he, thwarted, boomed

And bought himself a timber crate

But as he climbed to mount his horse

The worthless box broke 'neath his weight.

"'Less weight, less weight!' quoth Orgren, grim,

Then fasted for ten hungry weeks -

And lo, it worked! He mounted high;

Proud tears rolled down his bearded cheeks.

"'Let's have the wings, my boy!' he roared

And in his mighty hands took each

But though he flapped, horse full a-pelt,

The smirking sky stayed out of reach.

"He galloped long, he galloped hard,

Until he reached the rippling sea -

But never closer came the clouds;

His daring bird-flight could not be.

"So Orgren, doughty Dwarf, went home -

Not in defeat, however -

I've heard it said he sews a sail

For flying in windy weather!"

Alkior turned crimson, as much from lack of breath as embarrassment, as he finally finished his meandering song and the others all began to applaud, grinning. "We've got us a laureate," chuckled Isaille, though she wasn't sure whether the Dwarf heard her over Binni's shrills for an encore … and Nuan's.

After a moment, Isaille realised there was a different sound missing from the din, a sound that had also been noticeably absent throughout the singing – Schiri's quiet chanting above their heads.

"You thought so too?" she called to the unseen Dark Elf. "How's it rate against Dark Elven songs?"

"We have no songs," his cold voice replied. “They serve no purpose.”

"Oh, really? Why didn't you just keep mumbling away to yourself just now, then?"

"How do you suppose I could concentrate for all that yowling, hmm?"

Alkior stared contritely down at his lap. "I suppose you must still be practising the hard parts of your code," he said meekly, leaning back after a moment and trying to peer up at the Elf to give him a proper, apologetic look. "It does all sound terribly severe and difficult."

"Practising?"

"Y-yes," the scholar replied, shrinking in a little at the tone of Schiri's hissing voice. "Unless I mistranslated estharan prist as' kiarasin drayais as' marai'stha hura aem. Ah. 'Always focus the world as upon the blade's fine edge'? That is, ah, always concentrate very hard?"

Isaille, her shoulders silently shaking, leaned over to slap the confused Dwarf's back as a frigid silence ensued above. He stared at her, nonplussed, then moved back again to timidly try and peer up at the Dark Elf. "I'm very sorry, vocabulary is always one of my stickiest points – is estharan actually -?"

"Ta'n yana schal leure je, nli’aka," snapped Schiri. "It is time I kept a further watch. Whatever efforts I expend, I doubt you shall see dawn – but if by some whim of Fate you do, that is when I shall return."

"Yes, goodnight to you too," called Isaille dryly, slapping Alkior's shoulder again as the Dark Elf rose – they saw only the shadow of his cloak – and then vanished into the tangled trees. "Ah, you're a gem, Alkior, truly you are. What a useful skill that language is."

"Can you teach me how to swear?" Nuan begged eagerly.

Alkior looked shocked, and a little puzzled. "How very curious. All my students seem to ask that first …"

"Go on – just one little oath? How about the thing Grey-eyes said?"

"Oh, he didn't swear at me. He said 'The safest waters are still.'" The Dwarf scratched at his nose with a sigh, then noticed Nuan's blank expression. "Ah. You know. 'Shut up or else.'"

Simbelyne trilled out a malicious laugh and settled back, tucking her furs close around her. "The Captain is right, my dear scholar. You're a precious asset. Shall we all try to sleep, now, in case your talents make our guide wake us early, out of spite?"

"I want a lullaby," declared Binni, her clear blue eyes already beginning to droop as everyone curled up to rest.

"Let's not push our luck, sweetling."

Sweet, red mystery running in your veins

Cold, hard harmony singing in your cries

Pure chalcedony drying in the stains

Spreading on the thirsty earth where every Mortal dies …

Isaille jerked awake, her face frozen slick under sweat gone to ice, at the sound of breathy, low-pitched voices. They were not confined to her dreams. As she stared around the hollow in the darkness, her eyes picking out only black shapes and forms under the pre-dawn gloom, she could hear that song pressing in all around her, clinging, pouring in her ears like powdered ice. The singers could not be seen, but they sounded very, very close – so much so that she groped around for Nuan's shoulder in the dark and shook it urgently.

Nuan did not wake up. The Captain left off with a slow feeling of dread after a full slap on the cheek failed to rouse him, looking around at the other dimly perceived shapes of her friends: all asleep, even Simbelyne, who would normally have opened her eyes at the simple utterance of her name, let alone this phantom choir …

Of course there was Darkness in that thirsty crooning; Isaille saw little reason to expect anything else in this Immortals-damned forest. But if there was Darkness around, where in Aieren's name was Schiri?

The Southerner drew her sabre as she stood, clenching it in her fist for comfort, and slowly tried to feel her way past the snarled screen of brambles out of their stony hollow. Everything was black, or near-black, so she relied on silhouettes and the snagging of her maltreated gloves to crawl out into the open. Once out, Isaille slowly crept away from the stream bank in the direction she thought the voices were coming from, brushing the spicy, spiky fingers of the pines away as she walked.

The breathy choir continued its low graveyard melodies, soughing out notes like spirits fluttering away into the beyond:

Fierce it burns inside your frame –

The flick’ring of the spirit's flame

But Mortal skins cannot retain

That fragile light, nor bright remain

As time attacks the living spark

And drives it back into the dark:

The dark, where we shall surely take

That sweet, sweet soul, our thirst to slake …

Isaille forced herself to keep walking, regardless of the chilling, dispassionate hunger-given-voice that pressed in, and as she did she realised she could hear another – one lonely, living voice, sharp with a Darkness of its own, speaking a measured litany in the Dark Elven tongue. At first the sound of Schiri's voice in this eerie black dream filled her with relief – however much it aggravated the creep of the Darkness still warding her flesh – but as she listened closer and moved faster, she recognised a rare note in it: weariness.

"Ka'na'jarr, jain mai. Ka'na'jarr, jain mai. Ka'na'jarr, jain mai …"

The Southerner rattled and rustled her way up the looming slope towards Schiri's voice, making sure she kept hold of her sabre carefully. But what she saw at the crest of the hill made her jerk back, swearing in startled horror, all thought of assistance driven from her mind.

Schiri stood with his hands held out before him, as if in supplication, with a knife still gripped in his left hand. At first glance it seemed that he was still wearing his dark gloves, but a closer look under the break of the moon clearly showed the truth: his hands were drenched in blood, his own blood, and his arms streamed with it up to his elbows, falling in stuttering lines onto the snow. Darkness radiated like black fire here, enough for Isaille to feel with outright pain again in spite of Schiri's ward, a haze around the Dark Elf and the …

… And the pallid white faces staring out from the forest ahead …

Isaille had never seen their like: eight thin, alien women, seemingly fragile as ice, thin hands clasped, hunched and swaying with their songs. Their glazed, flared eyes were shockingly crimson, blazing as the only point of colour against their dead skin and long, spider-web hair, which grew not only from their heads but also their shoulders and waists, wisping down as far as the ground. A musty scent like centuries-old air permeated the forest with each gust of wind …

While Isaille stood staring, one of the frightening albino figures made a slow, jerky approach towards Schiri, the thin curtain of hair about her shoulders and waist fluttering. The Dark Elf stretched out his hand towards the creature, clenching his fist so that a trickle of blood ran through his fingers and fell free towards the ground.

"Ka'na'jarr, jain mai," he repeated, and the white woman reached out with her own painfully thin hands to catch at the falling blood, muzzling at her stained fingers before she slipped back into the shadows.

"Aieren's bl-" began Isaille, cutting the oath short at the bleak thought that there was enough blood here already.

At the sound of Isaille's voice, Schiri sharply turned his head and looked in her direction, breaking off his constant litany. "Na'ai! How did you come here?"

"Walked," replied Isaille blankly at the surprise in his voice. "What … what are you doing? Why are you calling these –"

She broke off as the seven remaining apparitions suddenly sang louder, harsher, as if seizing on the distraction:

The icy grave cannot contend

With what awaits you ‘ere the end

For death is but a fleeting flight

Into the shadows of the night –

But pain eternal in our hall

Awaits the fragile Mortals, all;

And for that truth a truth to be

Among that 'all', we must have thee …

Schiri hissed and stretched out his hand to the blanched women as the song swelled again, leaving it extended and repeating those first words – 'ka'na'jarr, jain mai' – until one creature finally fell silent. Isaille pushed forward up the hill with trepidation as the Dark Elf again clenched his fist tight, drawing the next silent white monster jerkily towards the blood that seeped free. "Listen, is this –"

As Isaille drew within arm's reach of Schiri, the white demon already advancing on him swung her head towards the Southerner, clawing her stick-thin fingers when her shocking red eyes trained on this unrecognised shape. She opened and closed her mouth for several moments, just as if she were working something free from her throat, mouthing blackly while she stared at Isaille.

"Ka'na'jarr, jain mai!" Schiri shouted, clenching his right fist even harder to forcibly wring the blood from it. The colourless woman simply glanced at it, once, glanced back at Isaille – and suddenly leaped from silence into a high, whistling scream.

It was not a sound of fear or surprise. It was an attack, an assault with sound that bored instantly into Isaille's mind and began to rip at everything within, shredding and churning, grating through to the bone of her skull from the inside …

Isaille blacked out.

When she woke up, she was lying on the snowy hill, on her back. The shadows of the forest – the physical shadows, at least – had lightened before another overcast dawn, showing nothing of screaming white demons or dark bloodstains.

There were two things left to convince Isaille she hadn't been dreaming, however, as she slowly sat up and brushed ice from her face. First, and most noticeably, the intense aching in her ears, which flared up in agony at each tiny creak of the pine branches overhead; second, the fact that Schiri was still nearby, leaning back against the nearest pine with his eyes closed.

As Isaille watched him, waiting for some indication as to whether he was aware of her or not, she was struck again by how little she could actually make out by looking at him. She had no real idea what he looked like. The Darkness of his presence robbed him of any solid definition; he was simply a collection of nebulous impressions, 'tall', 'slender', 'pale' and other such, which did not combine to form any firm, cohesive description.

Looking at his face was no more enlightening now. The Captain came away with just a vague sense of angularity, and realised that she relied almost entirely on the Dark Elf's eyes for his expressions, not his features.

Schiri shifted slightly under her stare, though he did not yet open his eyes. "I should have known the Keleidynith could do no harm," he said. "You are mindless already."

Even the usual withering scorn could not mask the exhaustion in the Dark Elf's soft voice, making it harder to hear than usual. It was still enough to set Isaille's ears to throbbing, however. "The what?" she whispered gingerly.

"The White Ladies. The disgraced handmaidens of Aralanael, the Princess of the Night. Their songs bring insensibility, but their raised voices bring death … usually." Schiri's eyes flicked open as Isaille maintained a nonplussed silence, instantly making his expression obvious – annoyance. "You do not even know of the demon-princess's disfavoured servants, hmm?"

"Demons know demons, Schiri," replied Isaille tartly, and was repaid for her tone with a fresh, sharp twinge of her ears. "Speaking of which, what in Aieren's holy name were you doing last night?"

"You will not invoke my response by that name," Schiri answered in an equally sharp tone. "How can you not know what I was doing? I am a son of the blood."

"Oh, Elementals. Let's not have this particular carry-on so early in the morning."

The Dark Elf's expression became exasperated. "So you do not actually know what a son of the blood is, either. Na'ai shi na'hari … I shall revert to simpleton's talk, hmm?

"The children of the blood are the most powerful of our race – our wills are the strongest, our spirits hold the most Darkness, and our very lifeblood contains a share of our power. As such, the demons of the Void desire it as much as any pitiful Mortal soul. The Dark Temples use noble blood in the summoning of demons –"

"I've seen that!" exclaimed Isaille, cursing herself for being a slow learner as her ears rebelled yet again at the noise. "Shanahri used Lluril's blood to call the caelcanth. … But why did you summon those 'White Ladies'?"

Schiri hissed. "I did not summon them! I said the Dark Temples have the knowledge of it, not I! If you would ask me these inane questions, at least bide your time for the answers!"

Isaille was not Alkior, and made no attempt to look contrite. "I might, if you'd just get to the point. If Voidspawn like Dark Elven blood so much – sorry, Dark Elven noble blood, your mighty highness – why don't they just eat every noble they find?"

"The Dark Temples use this blood to open Void-gates," Schiri repeated, evidently deciding that ignoring Isaille was the best way to move on, "and it is also effective in bargaining with the Voidspawn, as they readily exchange services for its power. But only the most formidable amongst the Old Ones would ever dare the Night’s wrath and the ire of the Temples by taking noble blood – much less a noble life – without sanction."

Isaille's glance strayed down to Schiri's arms, which rested in his lap. His gloves and sleeves had been returned to their normal arrangement, leaving no suggestion of the cuts beneath. "It all sounds pretty gruesome. Why don't you just cut demons in half instead of bribing them to go away – I assume that's what you were doing last night -?"

The Elf inclined his head in acknowledgment. "If any Mortal had ever found a way to harm the Keleidynith, I would surely have resorted to that instead. But they are greater demons. So too was the Yenann, the Rider, who stalked us a long ways indeed yesterday."

"It did?" The Captain suddenly remembered Schiri's comings and goings the day before, realising their purpose. "Everything seemed so quiet …"

"Today will be worse. It bodes ill that so many of the Old Ones have been drawn to your company already. The White Ladies and the Rider are only fallen servants, exiled from the Black Court long ago. To meet with any of Aralanael's true servants would be deadly."

"Then we should go." Isaille stood, but Schiri was already shaking his head.

"I shall bide here a moment," he said softly. "You may go. See if your companions have roused from the stupor of the Keleidynith's song yet – or have been harmed by their distant scream. For your part, you should be dead."

The Southerner shrugged at his significant stare. "It was probably this ward-thing of yours."

"Oh? Why then were you conscious throughout the song, hmm? Clearly your companions were not, else they would have come to investigate as senselessly as you did." The Dark Elf hissed again, but this time it was a sound of curiosity rather than irritation. "Tssh, this leidyn is more of a mystery than those in white! But I shall take your measure yet."

The walk back down the hill – and past the vengeful bramble-wall – was a thoughtful one. Isaille briefly pressed her icy gloves to her ears as she squeezed back into the stony hollow of camp, finding that it eased the pain a little, and looked around anxiously at her friends, all lying where she had left them the night before. She knelt by Nuan first, her tight heart easing slightly as she saw him breathe, and began to shake him hard. It took more than ten dozen heartbeats – and twenty dozen of Isaille's – before his eyes finally twitched and he muttered a quiet, "Ugh."

The Southerner let out a sigh of relief in a pluming puff of steam, shaking her brother again until he finally cracked one eye and looked at her. "'Saille?" he mumbled.

"About time! Sit up."

"I … can't. Muscles are all stiff …"

Nuan moved like a fabled magician's golem by the time he finally managed to sit, slow and ponderous, and followed his sister's words dazedly, only seeming to catch their meaning after prolonged pauses for thought. The others were exactly the same, difficult to wake and slow to act – even Simbelyne, her physical and mental agility both quelled by the after-effects of the White Ladies' deathly song.

She was the first to recoup her faculties, however. "I had the foulest dream," the Air Elf murmured, stringing together the first spontaneous remark any of Isaille's friends had yet managed. "Aiyah, my legs … who'd have thought a shelter as good as this wouldn't be enough to keep us from the cold-sleep?"

"It wasn't the shelter, Simbelyne," replied Isaille soberly. "Cold didn't do all this to you." The Captain explained the arrival of the alien White Ladies, heartening at the sound of the others shuffling closer as they regained their senses – and the sound of Binni querulously demanding breakfast. After a bit of thought, she described the gruesome blood-letting that had coaxed the demons away, then added Schiri's explanation of it, finding herself annoyed by Nuan asking all the same questions she'd asked Schiri before.

"Yuck," said Nuan at the end, summarising the matter succinctly.

"Hope he doesn't tap out before we get back to the road," Jeren grunted. "Not when we've finally found a use for him."

"Powerful Dark Elves heal quite fast," replied Simbelyne reassuringly.

Isaille thought about Schiri still leaning against the pine tree, and wondered.

By the time they finally left the hollow and climbed back up the hill, dawn had given way to later morning. Snow was sifting down through the pines again, but although they could recognise it as cold, it was not much more than a word: there was no discomfort, no shivering. Nuan restlessly pulled off a glove and gathered up a bare handful of snow, staring down at the ice in his palm with anxious eyes.

Isaille bent down, made a snowball and tossed it at the back of his head. "Makes it easier to have a snow-fight, doesn't it?" she said casually as he started and turned around, but on the inside her stomach fluttered with the same anxiety. The Dark ward that 'protected' them was now so pervasive that she barely noticed Schiri's arrival until the noble was in clear sight.

"Follow me," the Dark Elf said simply as he reached them, and turned to lead the way again.

"Hold up a moment, Schiri," replied Isaille. Schiri turned back, his expression sharp with his usual impatience, but waited for her to speak. "I want you to tell us just what this ward of yours is doing."
The noble's irritated expression sharpened further. "Is that all? Have I not explained it once already, hmm? The ward extends my protection over you. It prevents all but the strongest of the Voidspawn from sensing you at a distance and shields you from certain effects of the Darkness. It shouldallow you to withstand my full presence if I must call on it."

"That's not what I'm talking about. What is it doing to us?"

"Keeping you alive," Schiri returned curtly. "I have no time to decipher your babble this morning, leidyn. We cannot stay here."

"The subject isn't dead, Schiri," Isaille warned as the Elf turned and moved ahead again.

On through the bramble-walls they went, tracing their path as erratically as ever, and the days crawled much as they did. Schiri drifted off more frequently as the day wore on, propitiating whatever unholy Voidspawn trailed them, leading Jeren to bleakly predict on the fourth day that circling back to the road would take at least another day and a half. It was a worrying prospect, not improved by Schiri's return to silent, Sent instructions.

Early that same afternoon, matters became even more troubling. Every time the Dark Elf came gliding back and called for them to move on, a stronger sense of disquiet had seeped through his thoughts. The impressions of Sending were, as always, unclear, and all that Isaille could gather from his deliberately short directions was that some sort of foreboding had unsettled him.

Schiri's last instruction for them to wait as he slipped away left the companions anxious and nervous. Mixed in with the usual sense of Must stop were other, more urgent senses that almost overwhelmed the intended message: Suspicion – alarm – haste!

Time stretched after Schiri's departure. Crouched under another broad-spreading pine, they waited, listening to the harsh, Dark whispers hissing constantly through the forest. Slow snow began to pile up around their calves, and still they waited. Each time a sharper gust of wind set the pines and bramble-leaves to moving, they looked towards it, willing their guide to return and let them set as much of the haunted pines behind them as possible before dark.

But Schiri did not come.

How much daylight had been lost, Isaille wasn't sure. She could feel her muscles twitching with restlessness the longer she sat, but eventually it was Simbelyne who ended the waiting.

"There's a strange sound out in the deeper forest," the Air Elf said warily. "I think we should keep moving."

Alkior looked anxious. "Oh dear … but it seems terribly easy to get muddled about in this forest …"

"All we need to do is look for the sun. If I climb a tree and hope for a gap in the clouds, we can find south and head that way. I really think we need to find the road again." Brushing some of the snow from her robes, Simbelyne sighed and climbed up into the lower branches of their pine, shielding her face from poking needles and trying not to snag her beaten white robes as she went.

Escaping the light rain of dislodged snow beneath Simbelyne, the others crawled out from under the pine and watched her gradual ascent, a pale shape difficult to see amongst the ice-whitened branches. Her choice of tree was slightly inexperienced, as Isaille knew from a busy childhood: its limbs were thinner than others, and awkwardly spaced when it came to moving from one to the next, not quite within a comfortable arm's stretch. Simbelyne's lightness dealt with the first problem, more or less, but climbing from branch to further branch was slower than someone her size should have managed.

I suppose you don't get much practice climbing trees in the desert, Isaille thought, and tried not to chafe at the wait.

At last the Air Elf climbed as high as the flimsier upper branches would allow, standing in a fork of the tree only as thick as her own slender arms, and straightened, riding the swaying of the pine in the breeze more gracefully. The others could no longer see her clearly, lost in the canopy. "Can you see anything?" Nuan shouted up as the sound of her climbing stopped.

"The sky's thick with these clouds," Simbelyne called back. "But since the wind is blowing, perhaps there'll be a …" Suddenly she trailed off into silence.

"What? What's wrong?"

"The pines! Something's broken through the trees further behind us – there are huge, flattened trails, all winding about like snake-tracks through sand …" Her voice rose in abrupt horror. "There! It's there! That's the sound! Yar alabryne, we have to get moving again!"

"What can you see?" Nuan called insistently, but the Air Elf had already begun a noisy, hasty descent, any reply lost in the loud hissing of snow shaken free from the pine's limbs. Alkior muttered something uneasy about slippery branches and 'climbing safety' in the background, absently fussing over Binni's hood to keep her head fully covered. Jeren paced around edgily, apparently trying not to reflect on his childhood memory of falling from a similar tree and breaking his legs.

And Isaille … listened.

The ground was quivering under her feet – just slightly at first, but becoming more pronounced the longer she stood there in the snow – and a faint but persistent noise was playing on the edge of her hearing: a crunching, crackling sound, violent even at a distance. Breaking through the trees, the Captain thought, remembering Simbelyne's horrified call, and tried to imagine what new monster had found them.

Simbelyne continued to climb down, but it was painfully slow going – the Air Elf's robes were hampering her badly now, snagging on every jutting twist of wood. She was only a third of the way down to the ground by the time the quivering of the ground had become a shuddering, and the drawn-out, tearing sounds of ripping timber crackled like thunder through the forest.

"Move on ahead! I'll catch up!" Simbelyne's voice called frantically over the noise.

"Just climb!" Isaille called back.

The pine began to sway slightly as the shuddering of the earth broke into a full, furious shaking, forceful enough to set everyone on the ground to swaying as well. They could hear Simbelyne's thin, anxious exclamations as she slipped and slid hastily down the tree, but only when they stood huddled close by the trunk, for the ripping of wood was now a roar, and the pines to the north were quivering violently …

Suddenly, the quivering trees exploded outward in a blast of snow and splinters, smashed flat like river-reeds, and the massive black shape of a vast, worm-like monster lurched into view, crushing pines and brambles beneath its plated bulk. A rounded, flattened head at least fifteen feet in diameter turned towards the frozen companions – completely eyeless, but recompensed with a horrible surfeit of mouths, a dozen jagged crisscrosses across its huge head that gaped open and closed independently of each other with crammed mouthfuls of sword-sized teeth.

Binni screamed out in the Northern Tongue for her mother and father at the sight of the monster, clutching at Nuan's arm when the Southerner scooped her up for flight, and the companions scattered as the massive worm-demon lurched down towards them. No-one entertained any idea of fighting the thing – the glossy, articulated plates that covered its hide gleamed like steel, and it was so huge that a direct sword-thrust would have been little more than a grazing cut in all that flesh.

Perhaps it should have come as no surprise, but as Isaille dashed in one direction, the enormous Voidspawn turned its blind head unerringly after her, swerving in a powerful arc away from its original course. One of the ridges on its plated hide grated past Simbelyne's pine, shaking the tree like a storm wind, and with a trailing cry the Air Elf was thrown free of her high perch towards the ground, saved from broken bones or death only by a clean catch that sent both Jeren and Simbelyne tumbling backwards into the snow.

"Isaille! Circle around!" Nuan shouted fearfully, stopping in mid-flight and waving his sister towards him as he realised the worm-demon's target. Isaille continued to back away, mesmerised by the creature's mouths as they randomly gnashed at the air in front of her, and made the only reasoned choice left to her.

"Find the road! Be careful!" she yelled back to Nuan, and ran.

Her brother's voice hollered out behind her in frightened protest – "Isaille!" – but the crunch of the undergrowth as the massive Voidspawn lurched after her was even louder, and the Captain didn't stop. She had only instinct and fear … and the cold, inner strength of the Dark ward … to rely on to keep her moving now.

The shouts of her brother and her friends were soon lost behind her as Isaille sprinted through the trees, her feet pounding on the snowy ground as hard as her heart was pounding against her ribs. Ahead, the snarled bramble-walls and tangled pine-branches formed familiar mazes, forcing Isaille to frequently double back full-speed like a rabbit fleeing its twisting burrow from a fox. Behind, iron-corded brambles and deep-rooted trees tore and splintered like string and kindling, effortlessly flattened by the huge worm-demon's direct ploughing in Isaille's wake.

On clear ground, she was faster. But clear ground broader than four or five feet was almost impossible to find in the forest, and Isaille's constant turning and retracing through the 'corridors' of the wood was steadily shaving down the distance between herself and the Voidspawn's many mouths …

Purely by accident she stumbled out into an open, splintered trail of forest wreckage, her throat raw from gasping the icy air, and stared desperately down the avenue of broken pines. That thing came this way. That meant that the trail led deeper into the forest, not towards the road, which Isaille realised she'd been hoping to find by blind luck.

The crackling thunder of more falling trees further behind decided her. For now, staying away from those teeth was more important, and the demon's trail was wider and clearer than the forest. With a mixed prayer and curse, the Southerner broke into a full run across the debris, vaulting shattered trunks and stumbling through crushed brambles and bracken as she went.

It was still difficult going, particularly now that the snow could settle thickly on everything out of the shelter of the canopy, but Isaille privately exulted as the chase wore on and the thundering and shaking began to fall back. Then a cold thought hit her like the snow flying in her face. What if it gave up and went back for her friends? She had to keep it chasing her as long as possible before she tried to escape outright, leave them some time to get away … and hope that the stubborn bunch were actually trying to get away …

In mid-fret Isaille suddenly felt the ground slope away beneath her – yet another of the sharp, unexpected drops that filled the Northern countryside – and fell forward with a startled yell, clenching her teeth as her shoulder hit the ground and she began to jolt and roll down the ridge. Halfway down she tumbled onto a small, flat shelf and managed to slow herself a little, finding time to cover her face before she pitched forward the last few yards.

Whipped and cut all over by the teeth of torn blackberry-brambles, liberally bruised by the hard ground, the Captain crashed to the bottom of the ridge in a shower of snow. As she crawled out of the drift – disentangling hair and clothes alike from the brambles in one painful wrench up to her feet – and shakily tried to work out how she'd avoided a broken neck, something moved in the woods behind her.

Isaille whirled with nothing more than scratched, clenched fists raised to defend herself, her heart pounding even harder, and then dropped her hands with a gasp of delight as she saw a white, unmistakably Elven figure standing amongst the distant trees, golden hair bright against the dark woods. “Lorannon!”

She started struggling out of the brambles, grinning in spite of the faint trembling of the worm-demon’s closing pursuit, preparing to shout for him to run. He didn’t answer her first call; he simply stood back where he was, watching.

The Southerner bent down to tug one of her abused boots free, swearing, and frowned as something began to sting at her skin, like radiant heat. She raised her head – and then jumped back, falling into the brambles again.

The Elf in white now stood directly behind her, gone from a distance of yards to a distance of inches, and he was not Lorannon.

His golden hair was like sun spun in strands, almost a light of itself, wisping around his face in the Northern wind. Somehow all Isaille’s attention was drawn away from that incredible face – as delicate and beautiful as crystal-work, tapered and smoothed and sculpted – to the stinging glory of his green eyes. They were as timelessly fresh and clear as spring, but with none of spring’s joy; a deep winter had fallen there, the desolate memory of green things gone to ice.

Power, intelligence, sorrow, incredible age – it was all seated in the stranger's vivid gaze, more astonishing and evocative than the most effusive of the 'Elf-loving' Midlanders' stories about older Elves. This man was clearly no Lorannon or Simbelyne, still young and fiery and full of curiosity about the world: he had passed through the rapids of youth long ago, and whatever he had found towards river’s end had broken him.

Even as Isaille stared, speechless, and the Elf stared back, a last light seemed to fracture in his brilliant eyes, and winter claimed it all. “Tuvé cu shior …” he whispered. “Tuvé cu shior … alú, auri shianarya?”

“I can’t understand you,” replied Isaille, her own voice hardly above a whisper.

Trying to renew her sense of urgency – the ground’s trembling grew stronger by the moment – she struggled up again from the brambles, wiping at her blood-speckled face.

A sharp, sudden sting, painful but somehow not alarming, shot through her cheek as the golden-haired Elf reached out to touch her face. Blood in her head started pounding towards a headache, and the fiery feel of his fingertips remained even after she’d jerked away.

“Where are they?” asked the Elf, his voice hollow and hopelessly lost.

“Where are -?”

Isaille broke off as crackling tree-thunder broke out over their heads and the shaking of the earth became violent enough to shiver snow from the nearby pines. “Listen, we can’t talk now! We have to run!”

“I have searched the old places and the near planes and I cannot find them,” the Elf said brokenly. “The roads are empty and the walls are gone …”

“Are you listening to me? There’s a demon!” Isaille grabbed at the Elf’s shoulder, grimacing at the fiery sting, and then started as he seized her arms in turn.

“You know where they are,” he insisted in a low voice, his green eyes burning with hot, grieving pyre-light. “You are all I have found. Please, I cannot be alone!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! We have to go!”

The Captain struggled, feeling fear tighten her chest as the worm-demon’s pursuit grew louder and nearer and faster, sending snow and splinters avalanching down the slope behind them, but the Elf’s burning fingers were locked like oak-roots on her flesh. “Please, let me go! We’re both going to die!”

If the Elf even heard her, he gave no sign. “Where are they? Where have they gone, that nothing marks their passage?”

“Let me go! I don’t know! I don’t know!”

The next earth-shudder would have set her stumbling if not for the shining Elf’s unshakeable grip. Isaille looked up in pure terror as a shadow cast across the ridge, and the vast bulk of the demon reared above. “I don’t know!” she screamed out, kicking now at the Elf in desperation, and then hunched her shoulders for miserable protection as the massive black monster came surging down.

Fire seemed to burn around her, a horrible but somehow strengthening pain against her skin, utterly unlike Schiri’s Dark ward. Isaille closed her eyes, crouching down on the ground as the Elf’s hands slipped away from her arms, and waited to be crushed – but time no longer seemed what it had been. The terrible blaze of pain stretched on mercilessly, past the point where immeasurable demon-bulk should have ended her, and the ground shook so hard that she couldn’t have stood even if she’d wanted to …

Sudden calm fell. Isaille waited many pounds of her labouring heart before she opened her eyes, and the sight that waited staggered her. The huge worm-demon was draped down the ridge where it had lunged down, and now lay in a great splintering of debris where pine woods had been – on its side, just as if something had caught it as it lunged down and thrown it aside from its path.

The golden-haired Elf was gone.

It was impossible for Isaille to move of her own accord. Instead, she crouched where she was, bracing herself against the ground and breathing slowly, trying to dispel a dizzy weakness. As she crouched, she gradually noticed that the whispers which haunted the trees had picked up again, hissing the commands of the Master’s voice more sharply, and Darkness was pressing in against her skin once more, redoubled in the near presence of the unmoving worm-demon.

Suddenly Isaille felt indescribably lonely and lost, and with a spark of rekindled, Dark-born energy she reeled to her feet, meaning to stumble through the crushed undergrowth in search of the vanished Elf. Before she had moved five paces, however, a voice called out from a teetering, half-broken pine some yards ahead of her: "Leidyn!"

The feeling vanished. She stood still as Schiri slipped lightly from branch to branch, finally dropping down on the ground before her with utter incredulity shining stark in his flared eyes.

“What was that?” he shouted at her, visibly shaken. Isaille was too stunned and bemused herself to enjoy the rare sight. “Was that you?”

“No, it was the Elf! Did you see him?” Isaille blurted out. Schiri broke off, staring at her narrowly, until she tried to explain, trying to collect all her scattered, skittering thoughts. "There was –"

In the chaos of broken forest off to the side of the ridge, timber groaned.

Schiri hissed, backing further away from the fallen demon. “Nothing can kill Curcurth. Even for you, the Wyrm is indestructible.”

More timber protested as the demon stirred, making a second, abortive attempt to roll back onto whatever of the mass was its belly. Schiri hissed again, waving sharply at Isaille, and darted away – off the levelled chaos of the Wyrm’s former path into the thicker pines still standing.

Isaille also stumbled away from the ridge as another heavy tremor made the old trees quake. Haste! came Schiri's anger-edged Sending, coupled with the fleeting image of a smooth-paved highway.

The road … the Southerner thought desperately, and dredged up all the endurance that the Dark ward could give her, wringing out each drop of cold strength eagerly – her own was long since spent.

The monstrous bulk of the Voidspawn surged back onto its foul belly, riding a fresh wave of splintering trees behind her, as Isaille plunged again into the forest.