flooding back. All of the bloodshed. All of the fire. All of the screaming.
Geth stopped for a moment and clenched his jaw tight. The great war, the Last War that had consumed the kingdoms of Khorvaire and lured a young shifter away from the Eldeen Reaches with promises of glory and adventure, had ended officially two autumns past. The news had reached Bull Hollow with a wandering tinker the following spring. But for him, the war had come to an end nine years ago. In his mind, Geth saw the snows of northern Karrnath, their clean white stained red with blood and dusted black with ash…
He choked on his breath and forced the memories away, burying them behind other memories. A return to the Eldeen Reaches after two years of wandering Khorvaire like a ghost. His first glimpse of a certain valley, at the very end of the Eldeen itself, caught in the green of spring. His first encounter with Adolan.
Geth opened his eyes again and looked around at the scattered buildings, visible through the trees, of Bull Hollow. The lively noise of Sandar's tavern drifted on the air all the way from the common. Seven years in Bull Hollow, he thought, as long a time as I was away from the Eldeen before.
Not that all of those years had been easy. Virtually all of the other races that inhabited Khorvaire had an instinctive mistrust of shifters-a less than desirable part of the lycanthropic heritage. Even in the Eldeen, where shifters were more common than anywhere else on the continent, they tended to form their own tribes and communities. The humans of Bull Hollow weren't that much different than any other members of their race. With Adolan to speak for him, though, Geth had at least had a chance and Bull Hollow had come to accept, and even respect, him. He had more than enough good memories to blot out the bad ones.
Geth took another breath-a deep, confident one-and started walking again. When he stepped out of the trees and onto the common, his face was still grim, but his heart was lighter.
And at least the people of Bull Hollow were used to seeing him with a grim face. As he walked up to Sandar's inn, a cluster of men who had brought their drinking out into the open air hailed him. 'Geth! How was your hunting?'
Geth forced his face to soften a little more and gave the men a restrained smile-one that didn't show all of his teeth. 'Good hunting!' he called back with a lightness he didn't quite feel. 'I have news for Sandar and the other elders. The beasts are dead!'
The men cheered and raised their tankards and mugs. 'You'll find the elders inside,' one man told him, 'but if you want to talk to Sandar, you'll have to catch him on the run. He has guests!'
Geth's eyebrows rose. 'Guests? Travelers?'
'Well, they're not from around here, are they? If they were, they'd know better!'
The cluster broke into laughter. Sandar's serving woman, a pretty young lady named Veta, raised her nose in the air as she came out of the inn's common room with another round of beer. 'You ignore them, Geth!' she said loudly. 'Our guests are proper gentlemen!'
'Veta,' said Geth, 'if they were proper gentlemen, they wouldn't be this deep in the Eldeen.'
Veta gave him a disapproving look. 'Well, they aren't like any of the men around Bull Hollow, I can tell you that. They're from a dragonmarked house-the younger one was wearing a crest and all! And the older one…' She sighed as she passed a tankard to Geth. 'Oh, he was the finest looking man you've ever seen! Tall and lean, with beautiful blond hair and just a patch of a beard on his chin. And he carried himself so well!'
The shifter grunted. 'Anyone can stand up straight, Veta, and there are more crests than the ones that great houses use.'
'They're gentlemen for true, Geth!' Veta simpered. She turned to go back into the common room.
'Gentlemen or not,' said Geth, 'I hope they're peaceful. We don't need more trouble.' He could hear a growing buzz from inside the common room. Word of the displacer beasts' deaths was beginning to circulate. People would be eager for the story. Taking a deep breath, he stepped through the door.
A cheer so loud it would have shaken leaves from a tree greeted him. The inn's patrons stood, roaring their approval. Sandar raised his arms high. 'The hero of Bull Hollow!' he called. Geth turned, nodding with embarrassment as he acknowledged their praise.
At a table toward the back of the room, standing along with everyone else, were the two men who could only be Veta's gentlemen travelers. Geth had to admit that they did cut much more impressive figures than most visitors to Bull Hollow. The younger of the two was cheering along with the Hollowers, the pattern of a dragonmark flashing on his forearm.
The other man, blond and about the same age as Geth himself, was staring at him with stinging fury on his face. Geth met his gaze with a curious glance.
It took a moment for him to recognize the face behind the chin-patch beard and the burning rage. After seven years of peace in Bull Hollow, he had let his guard down. He'd forgotten what it was like to be pursued. He'd forgotten that he was being hunted.
'Geth!' the bearded man bellowed. His rapier cleared its scabbard in a single smooth motion. Sandar's patrons froze, their cheers silenced by surprise. 'Geth, you bastard traitor!'
For a moment, Geth froze, too. The hair on his arms and the back of his neck rose sharply. His lips pulled back from his teeth.
Then the hero of Bull Hollow dropped his tankard and spun around, leaping for the inn door and the common beyond. There was a crash behind him and thundering footsteps. Shouts of alarm. Singe's shouts of anger. A voice he didn't know commanding Singe to stand down. Sandar's voice demanding that he put away his sword.
Geth ran as fast as he could, racing across the common. Singe's rapier was only as effective as his reach. But it wasn't the blond man's only weapon. Geth kept his eyes on the trees ahead.
Too late. Behind him, he heard Singe call out a simmering, sizzling word of power.
A dozen paces ahead, flame blossomed in the night, swirling into a sphere of seething orange fire that was almost as tall as the shifter. Geth skidded to a stop, his feet digging up strips of sod, then tried to dart around the sphere. The sphere rolled over on itself, moving to block him. He feinted left, then darted right. The fiery sphere moved with him, then rolled closer. Geth was forced to leap back or be burned.
'Geth!' Singe called.
The shifter whirled and dropped into a crouch, his sharp teeth bared and his pointed ears back like a cornered animal. His hand darted to his belt, groping for his axe. Singe was trotting across the common, his right hand holding his rapier, his left crooked in the arcane gesture that controlled the flaming sphere. He stopped a cautious distance away.
The two men faced each other in silence in the flickering, smoky light.
'Singe! Singe! Lieutenant Bayard!' The younger man who had been with Singe in the inn came dashing from the direction of the inn, his jacket hanging open, his sword already drawn. Behind him, the folk of Bull Hollow were gathering. Their voices were animated and alarmed. Some were jogging across the common, clubs and daggers in their hands. The young man's face was pale. 'Have you lost your mind?' he gasped. 'What are you doing?'
'Toller,' Singe said tightly, 'I spent four years trying to track this bastard down. I only came back to the Blademarks because I thought I'd never find him.'
The wizard was cut off by the arrival of a number of the men of the Hollow, Sandar in their lead. The white- haired innkeeper carried a surprisingly large mace in one hand. 'Good master,' he said to Singe, 'I'd ask you to lower your weapon and… uhhh…' He glanced at the fire burning behind Geth. 'Dismiss whatever magic you command.'
Singe didn't take his eyes off Geth. 'They don't know, do they?' he asked.
If it was possible, Geth's lips peeled back even further. Singe took a step closer, his left hand gesturing. The sphere of fire began to roll forward…
The deep bellow that echoed across the common-across the entire valley-seemed to shake the very air itself. It sounded like the cry of some enormous wounded animal, caught in unimaginable pain. Around Singe, the people of Bull Hollow gasped. Toller yelped in fear. Geth's own gut clenched in sudden alarm.
Singe's hand trembled. He looked up into the night. 'What was that-?'
In the second that the wizard's gaze was turned away, Geth's muscular frame uncoiled. His arm swung back and then snapped forward, sending his axe spinning through the air. Singe choked and flung himself down and backward.
It was a terrible throw, awkward and haphazardly aimed. Geth could see recognition of that flicker in Singe's eyes even as he dropped. The axe missed him by a good five feet, embedding its blade deep in the ground of the common. Geth didn't wait to see his reaction. He turned and darted around the resting ball of fire, putting it
