homeland. The time of prophecy neared, the time of None, One, and Two.'
'Song of the Sea King!' Adira swayed on the cloak and almost tipped over. 'Not that again! Hazezon uncorked that bottle! It's mackerel tripe! I don't know why I married him!..'
'We swore an oath upon the war post in our village.' Mag-fire slurred on. 'Painted it red with our own blood! But when we got here, we found Shauku infested the ruins. That's where the disaster sprang from, you see. Long ago… Curse them all! No legionnaires will push us from our land! We will drive her and them out, on my honor!'
Both blabbed, drinking steadily. Then a voice by Adira's elbow asked, 'So you venture farther afield than just Buzzard's Bay?'
'Uh, beg your pardon?' Muzzy, Adira turned toward the new speaker, who'd sat for hours without saying a word. He had a lean face and neat brown beard, and wore a homespun tan shirt, leather kilt and leggings, a hood and cowl thrown back, and on his chest, a neatly stitched wolf's head.
'My brother, Taurion,' slurred Magfire. 'He finds our forest confining, though it stretches a thousand leagues.'
Taurion waited quietly for an answer. Addled by liquor, Adira babbled to the brother, 'Uh, yes, we sail the Sea of Serenity and beyond. Past the Onyx Bridge thrice, south of Albatross Alley, and uh, elsewhere. Anywhere water will run under our keel! Why do you-'
A distraction intruded. A flash of white caught Adira's eye. Squinting across rippling firelight, she realized it was Murdoch's bare belly. A woodswoman tossed his shirt to the night, then flopped on his chest to smother him with kisses. Simone the Siren laughed amid a circle of admiring men and one woman who stroked her limbs. Jasmine Boreal whispered in Heath's ear, or else chewed on it, while a pine-dwelling woman slid her hands under his shirt. Whistledove Kithkin rode a man's shoulders, giggling. Murdoch hoisted over his head a laughing lithe woman and bellowed like a bull, but was hushed by passionate kisses. Even Jedit Ojanen received affection, lying alongside the fire while four woman rubbed his belly. Many woodsfolk had slipped away in pairs.
'But we just met.' The thought struck Adira funny. She giggled and couldn't stop. Suddenly a black shape eclipsed the campfire. Under her butchered blonde mop, Sister Wilemina was white-faced and sweating. The archer had borrowed a bow, though her right arm was still cradled in a sling.
'A-adira, 1 v-volunteer to st-stand guard!' Then she bolted into the night. Taurion had also departed in silence.
'What distresses the girl?' mumbled Magfire.
'She's a-what do you call it-a virgin, dedicated to some goddess. I forget who.' Adira took another pull of the scorching liquor. 'You certainly are friendly people! What is this stuff?'
'Pulque from a highland cactus,' Magfire gabbled. 'And herbs. Lobelia and verbena to excite passion, ginger to make women fertile, zigiberis to make men virile.'
'Love philters! That explains it!' Waving a hand, Adira slopped drink down her ample cleavage.
'Allow me.' Magfire twisted and planted her face in Adira's bosom, lapping up liquor.
'Whoa!' Squawking, the pirate queen sprawled backward in pine needles. Magfire followed. The woman's hair was stippled with white feathers, giving her a bizarre birdlike intensity. Chuckling, she smothered Adira with a burning, throaty, drunken kiss. Gasping, snorting for air, Adira at first gave in. But as Magfire's tongue intruded into her mouth, the pirate queen bucked and tossed the chief aside.
In her husky whisper, lips inches from Adira's, Magfire said, 'I should have warned you. Our tribe is too closely related to interbreed. We count on outsiders for our blanket-wrestling.'
'This outsider isn't breeding with anyone!' Shaking her wobbly head, shedding pine needles, Adira Strongheart tried to clamber to her feet. Five men helped her rise, hands floating everywhere. Adira's traitorous loins tingled and itched with lust-whether the feeling was magical or natural seemed beside the point. She mumbled, 'Ship your oars, you octopuses! I don't-'
'Alarm! Rouse! Alarm! Someone's killed!'
Wilemina's shouting electrified the camp. Men and women scrambled upright, some only half-dressed but all clutching weapons.
Panting, the archer pointed west with her borrowed bow. 'Two folks are dead, eaten alive! They're covered with a furry moss such as I've never seen!'
'Spuzzem.' Magfire shrugged aright her belt and silver fox mantle, and picked up her iron spike. 'It's too late, but show me.'
'Drag your anchor!' Adira grabbed the black-hiked sword of the legionnaires, which she had to carry naked for lack of a scabbard, and in her left hand. 'What was that word? Spuzzem?'
Without answering, Magfire trotted after Wilemina. Jedit Ojanen launched after on all fours, silent on pine needles.
Adira Strongheart jogged too, though her brain throbbed and stomach churned. Running helped sweat out the poisons, and gradually she felt better. Fighting suited her better than loving, she thought bitterly.
Sister Wilemina stopped at two mossy logs. Jedit snuffled the air and curdled his muzzle. Magfire bent over the forms but did not touch. Adira approached and gagged.
Not mossy logs, but the remains of two lovers who'd slipped away from the party. They might have lain here for years. Covered in a fuzzy gray moss or mold, their mouths hung open in horror, teeth and tongues sprouting velvet. The pair looked like something dredged from the sea. Their bellies and loins were gaping cavities.
'The spuzzem.' Magfire tapped the red-hafted spike against her hand. 'It eats guts and leaves the rest. These two wandered too far from the fire.'
'What is it?' rumbled Jedit. 'This spuzzem?'
'No one knows.' Magfire scanned the dark woods. 'It's haunted our forest since the disaster. It preys on elk and other animals. And us. It has no head.'
'No head?' asked Adira.
'None. It comes and goes like fog, and we cannot track it. Some think it can't be killed at all, that it's an avatar of the forest. It can't be killed by spears or arrows, we know, for heroes have hurled missiles into it in times past. Too, anyone who comes too close writhes in terror. The pixies say-'
'Pixies?' chirped half a dozen.
The warchief scratched her braided scalp where small white feathers jutted, then changed the subject. 'We'll break camp. You need to see the castle.'
Turning abruptly, Magfire strode back toward camp. Pirates jogged to catch up. Adira nodded over her shoulder. 'What about those two?'
Magfire said only, 'You live, you die, you feed the forest, you're reborn, you do it all over again. Such is life in Arboria.' Without further ado, they quit the camp. Fires were snuffed and watered, and pine needles raked back. All other traces were smoothed over.
The pirates were armed. The people of the pines had generously shared supplies. Adira, Simone, Murdoch, and Wilemina had the captured legionnaires' swords. Raw deer hide made scabbards and baldrics tied with the black slave ropes. Heath and Wilemina, despite her broken arm, were given bows and precious hand-made arrows, for which the archers were slavishly grateful until they realized they were property of the dead souls lying eaten in darkness. Whistledove, too tall for a sword, borrowed one of Adira's matched daggers. Jasmine Boreal accepted a bronze knife and magic oddments from the tribe's shaman. Too, they were given wool blankets traded from Buzzard's Bay, water gourds, food satchels woven from hemp, and other small effects, but none received the gossamer camouflage cloaks. Only Jedit received nothing, for he needed nothing. Armed and outfitted, the pirates felt ready for anything.
Yet in packing to go, Adira missed Virgil and Peregrine. For the first time, Adira wondered if Virgil had family, a mother, brothers and sisters. For that matter, she knew little about all her Circle. There was never enough time, it seemed, to become friends. Lately her life raced helter-skelter like a skiff before a typhoon.
'It's the bearers, milord. They're afraid.'
Johan only glared at his captain of bodyguards. For the first time, the Tyrant of Tirras gave thought to his entourage and the discomforts they endured. The castle was drear. The Akron Legionnaires shunned the Tirran soldiers as inferiors and warned that any peasants who set foot in the great hall would be cut down without mercy.
