slid out of the gloom. They waited in silence as it slithered by, the sickly glow of its eyes scanning the underbrush for prey. It paused just outside their thicket, the sound of its hissing breath uncomfortably close.
From where Majida was crouched in the underbrush, she could see that it was an exceptionally large snake, and she had no interest in tangling with it. The clever jaculi were much faster than either she or Zo, so there was no point in trying to run from it. It would simply overtake them, immobilize them, and eat them while they were still alive. The jungle had thousands of gruesome deaths to offer, but being slowly digested by a jaculi was one of the worst ways to die that Majida could think of.
Zo was trembling beside her, and Majida could sense the fear cresting in him. Soon he would bolt and run like the child he was. She laid a restraining hand on his shoulder and pressed her finger to her lips. She whispered a few words, and an indistinct form appeared in the palm of her hand. At first it was just a circle of blue light. But soon there was an outline of a wing, and she felt the distinctive feel of feathers against her hand. Smiling faintly, Majida hunched her shoulders over the glow and held it close to her chest. When she felt the little body grow warm, she opened her hand to reveal a perfect white bird with a crown of golden feathers.
Majida slipped a dagger out of the sheath she wore strapped to her upper arm. Holding the trembling bird tightly in one hand, she pushed the tip of the dagger into the skin just under its wing. When she pulled the knife out, blood flowed down the bird’s breast and stained its white feathers. Majida held the bird up, and it fluttered from her, out of the thicket, and directly past the jaculi, who caught the obvious scent of blood. An injured bird was easy prey, and the snake followed the bird away from the nettle thicket back into the gloom. As soon as it was out of sight, Majida felt Zo relax beside her.
“Poor bird,” she said sadly.
“You can make another,” Zo told her.
Majida wanted to chide Zo for such a statementas if the bird were no more important than a hood or a new breastplatebut she held her tongue.
“Let’s go around to the southern wall,” she whispered. But when she moved, Zo caught her elbow.
“Do we have to go tonight?” he asked. “Why can’t we wait and see what happens tomorrow?”
“They’re vulnerable for an attack. They might as well cut their own throats. That’s how safe they are in there.”
“You said they weren’t going anywhere until morning,” Zo reminded her.
“So I did. Which means tonight is the perfect time to sit here and weigh our options,” she said sarcastically.
Zo looked at her with a hurt expression. “I can’t tell if you’re serious or not.”
Immediately Majida felt bad. She liked Zo well enough. When his father died, their tribal customs had thrust leadership on him, even though there were other dwarves more qualified to lead than he. Majida thought that he would be a good leader in a few years, if he lived that long and was smart enough to learn from his mistakes. The dwarves of the Domain were particularly shortsighted when it came to embracing talent and recognizing the accidental nature of a person’s birth. At different points during her long life, Majida’s tribe had considered her a miscreant, a sedition-ist, and a rescuer. Several times, she had thought her tribe would exile her from the Domain, except she was the best healer and caster the tribe had ever produced.
“There are two ways the conflict can end: We can be picked off one by one until the Domain is empty. Or we can move.”
“Move?”
“Find a new Domain.”
“Where would we go?” Zo asked. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
By the look on his face, Majida knew he was imaging some green and verdant land just waiting for them. Majida had meant the last option as a farce, something that would bring him back to his senses, but he was actually considering it. Most of the dwarves of the Domain hadn’t strayed far from the hidden caverns they called home, and Majida was one of the few to have traveled extensively outside of Chult.
“They don’t want our kind anywhere else,” she said firmly. “This is where we belong.”
Zo scrubbed his stubby hands across his face. “All right. I’m putting my trust in you. What do you need me to do?”
“Follow me.”
The sun hadn’t broken the treeline when Boult woke up, but he could see well enough in the dim light to know that Harp and Liel were not in the room. And by the snoring coming from opposite sides of the room, he was sure that both boys were still sound asleep. Keeping an eye on the door, Boult began a systematic search of every inch of wall, floor, and ceiling. Shaking his head in disgust at the shoddy craftsmanship of the hut, Boult ran his fingers along the timbers at the base of the roof and poked at the seams between the boards on the walls.
On one side of the room was a chest filled with clothes. Boult slid it away from the wall and saw a cracked floorboard. Using his grubby fingernails to pry up the broken piece of wood, Boult saw that a small box had been nailed under the planks. He pried it open and pulled out a rolled-up parchment. A circle of red wax had sealed the parchment before being broken, and Boult took special care to examine it. He held the parchment to the light, examining the waxy ridges of the seal.
“An otter? Or maybe a weasel?” he murmured to himself.
Boult unrolled the parchment and held it up to the dusky light coming through the uncovered window. After reading the parchment several times, he put it back into the small box under the planks, replaced the chest, and headed outside.
Stepping around Harp and Liel, Boult trotted down the stairs. He stopped mid-step when he noticed something on the trunk of the nearest tree. Glancing back over his shoulder at the sleeping figures intertwined on the porch, Boult inspected the ground between his feet and the tree. Besides a few rotting goldenfruit buzzing with flies and some patches of scrubby grass, the ground revealed nothing interesting.
Boult moved closer to the trunk where three runes had been seared into the bark. The marks were still fresha wisp of smoke hung in the air as if the bark still smoldered under the mystical mark. Boult stood in front of the trunk for a long time as he analyzed every nuance of the scorched lines. Slowly, he made a circuit around the house and found runes on trees every few feet around the hut. Behind the house, where the vegetation was thicker, it took him longer to locate the runes, but they were there. When he was done, he paused for a moment, watching as the streams of sunlight angled across the tops of the trees and flooded the grove with rose-tinted light.
Boult lit his pipe. He made a slow walk around the perimeter of the fence, chewing on his pipestem and standing for an overly long time in front of the goat pens. Then he returned to the front of house and sat on one of the logs around the cold fire pit. Boult puffed on his pipe, turning his griffon-head tamper around in his hands. When he saw Harp stir, he tamped out the pipe and secured it in his pouch.
“You look terrible,” Boult said as Harp sat down across from him on a log.
“Thanks,” Harp said, resting his head on his hands. “Kit and Verran still inside?”
“Yes,” Boult said, taking a closer look at Harp. “Didn’t get much sleep, did you?”
Harp shook his head.
“She did a number on you and not in the good way.”
“Shut it, Boult,” Harp said in a low voice.
“What did she do? Guilt you for ever daring to touch her precious body?”
“I’m not having that conversation with you.”
“Women. They’re right in it with you, and then they change their minds, and somehow you’re a monster.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Wasn’t that the gist of the conversation? How coukLyou treat me like a such a whore?”
“Were you listening?”
“I didn’t have to. I just imagined what she would say to get you to look like that.”
“I should have done things differently.”
“Maybe so. But not with that girl.”
“Watch yourself, Boult. I still care about her.”
Boult looked over his shoulder at the porch where Liel was just sitting up, her long hair tousled and her dress falling off her shoulder. She saw them looking at her and straightened her clothes. Then she pulled on her boots and
