weapon-knives. No bows nor quivers, no canteens, no blankets, no cloaks, no pots or kettles. Not even cloaks or coats, just their sweaters and jerkins. Further, they were dirty and hungry. True, Jedit had knocked down deer, wild boar, and partridges, which they'd cooked without utensils or salt. Still, Adira's crew was ill-equipped to mount an expedition, and it showed to the natives.
Perhaps facing an addlepate, the spokeswoman tried again, still husking low, 'We are the people of the pines, and we demand-'
'Yes, yes, we heard. Talk until your tongues turn blue. We have no idea where we go.'
'Nor why,' put in Simone.
Adira tugged on her boots with a grunt. She was being a balky bitch, she knew, but her feet hurt, and she disliked the leader's lofty tone. Adira pointed with her thumb. 'Who are these black devils, and why do they capture strangers?'
'Akron Legionnaires.' The leader spat the name. 'They bring victims to Shauku. What she does with them we don't know, for none ever return.'
Adira kept a poker face but secretly congratulated herself. Her bullheaded never-retreat forge-onward foolhardiness had brought her crew to their goal: striking distance of Shauku's castle, and hopefully, Johan. Swinging her left hand behind her, for her right was slashed and sore from the shipwreck, she accepted a sword from Simone. Like its master, the legionnaire's sword had a black leather haft and balanced blade slim as a wasp sting. Sword in hand, Adira hoped she looked more confident than she felt.
'The truth is, we hunt Shauku's castle to find an enemy. Nothing will stop us.' The sword bobbed in her hand as if thirsty for blood.
Stunned silence dragged. Then came a rumbling purr in an antique accent. Natives goggled to hear a tiger talk. 'The truth is, if our enemy shelters with your enemy, we have much in common. Furthermore, we heard of you folk in Buzzard's
Bay. You trade furs and timber fairly, so are unlikely to harm travelers without cause. The murdering warlord we hunt is Johan, who seeks to conquer or lay waste all of Jamuraa. He passed this way and goes, we are sure, to the castle. If we all run him down, we all benefit. May we count on your help?'
The spokeswoman husked, 'A red man with black stripes who wields deadly magics?'
'That's he,' said Adira.
'He wrought havoc on our scouting party. Please be our guests.'
'We thank you,' said Adira. 'Lead on. I want to get off my fins.'
With a collective sigh, the pirates stripped the black bodies of ropes and swords and, luckily for Adira, a new pair of shiny black boots. In diplomatic silence, the natives fell in front of and behind the newcomers. Walking no path, but simply between trees.
Murdoch asked low, 'That's it? No fight?'
'No,' said Adira Strongheart. 'We've got a new pack leader. Jedit Silver-Tongue Ojanen, Harbinger of Peace and Master of the Soothing Balm. Who'd have thought such a fearsome warrior would prove an artist at diplomacy?'
Clearly chagrined by backhanded praise, the tiger quirked his muzzle, so one fang shone. Everyone laughed.
'Where is your camp?' asked Adira.
'Here,' husked Magfire, the warchief. 'And nowhere.'
Adira blinked at a patch of pine forest like any other. Jedit further piqued her by purring, 'Clever.'
Heath stepped to one side and reached out a hand. Seeming to grope at thin air, the part-elf caught a film light as spider web. Adira saw some near-invisible cloth or webbing was strung between three trees to cover a bedroll, woven packbaskets, and some cordwood. Adira caught the gossamer. Even held against the dusky sky, the fabric took on the mixed-gray tone of overcast.
'Don't bother to ask,' whispered Magfire. 'We shan't share its secret.'
Heath positively bubbled, a strange sight to his crewmates. 'Anything! I'll give anything for a swatch of that fabric! Just enough to cover myself in full!'
'Anything?' The tall chief smiled as might a black widow spider, thought Adira. Magfire's whisper exuded sex. 'To promise anything is rash, my friend. You might live to regret it.'
Puzzled, Heath wrinkled his brow while his shipmates laughed. Jedit Ojanen had meanwhile moved on. The forest seemed untouched, as if humans had never existed, yet he stopped at a shallow depression littered with pine needles and tipped up another nigh-invisible cloak that covered a blackened firepit.
Magfire whisked off the gossamer, rolled it into a ball, and tucked it in her belt. 'Without our camouflage cloaks we'd be extinct.'
'How do these soldiers snare your crew?' asked Jasmine. 'Black leather is ill-fitted for a forest, while your people are born to the trees.'
'They have traps and magics that deceive.' Magfire gathered charcoal and tinder and struck a flint on her steel knife. 'By the time we learn one peril and counter it, the legionnaires spring another.'
'It's true.' Heath was still sheepish about being gulled. 'I detected no sign, smelt nor heard nothing. Just a blow upon the head.'
'Verily,' said Magfire. 'Legionnaires have no smell. It's masked magically. They can see in the dark too. Detect strangers behind them, or above in trees, or screened by brush. They know each other's whereabouts at all times, so to assault one brings many running. They nab our hunters and pickets. Sometimes even trailblazers and trackers.'
'What's the difference?' asked Heath. Everything this tribe did intrigued him.
'Trailblazers explore and trackers hunt. But their ranks mean more than that.' Magfire fed a crackling pyre. 'Either requires senses more animal than human that are honed by years of study under a master. Such blessings cannot be learned but are bestowed by the gods, born in the bone, then refined.'
The Robaran Mercenaries marveled as-as if popping from the ground like mushrooms-more people of the pines filtered from the lowering dusk. Clad in leather and furs, with many cowled by the heads of animals, the gathering seemed like herds of ghost animals. The eerie picture was compounded because the woods dwellers trod silently and conversed in whispers. The pirates had to lean close whenever a pinesman spoke. Up close they exhaled a blend of pine sap, tannin, sweat, and juniper. Low voices and earthy spice gave an air of intimacy that was dizzying.
Over fifty natives and guests congregating made the gloomy woods almost homey. Hunters had fetched three deer on poles, as well as a bundle of grouse, fat raccoons, and opossums. Others brought beechnuts, walnuts, mushrooms, and other scomber. A cheery fire crackled in the firepit as night settled, though the flames were kept low.
'Won't Shauku's soldiers spot your fire by night?'
'Legionnaires never venture out by night. They're not that good. And we move camp often,' explained Magfire.
'Good idea,' said Adira. 'I saw them fight Jedit. They're top-notch soldiers, all right. Practiced killers. They'd cut us to pieces going toe-to-toe.'
'Something we avoid,' admitted Magfire.
Warchief and pirate captain sat side by side on cloaks to eat. The pirates devoured anything handed to them. Afterward the natives passed around some fiery liquor in gourds. Even Sergeant Murdoch and Adira Strongheart lost their breath at a long pull. Yet no one got rowdy, for the natives never spoke above a whisper, even tipsy, and shushed any pirate noise.
'Where are you from?' asked Adira.
'The heights of the southern forest.' Magfire accepted a gourd and sucked down a draught that made her wheeze. 'This was our land decades ago. But a great disaster drove us out. Too, a monster haunted the forest.'
'Monster?' Adira jolted, unsure she'd heard right. 'What sort of monster?'
'What?' Magfire lost the topic and found another. 'Then an old man in our village in the south began to speak. He'd been mute and senile for years. Now he talked incessantly about reclaiming our heritage, our lost
