'Few. At least, not many you'd want to meet. We're getting into bandit territory.'
'Caim, are you sure about this? We could turn back. There might be people who would help us in Othir.'
He snapped the reins. His gelding trotted for a few steps before falling back to a lazy walk. Josey caught up a moment later, handling her mount with practiced ease.
'This person you're taking us to,' she said. 'He can help us? Who is he? Your teacher?'
'Not exactly. But I trust him, and I don't trust many people. Neither should you.'
'All right. So where does he live? On the other side of this wood?'
The path entered a stand of red maples. Cool shadows played across the ground. These woods were no mystery to Caim. He had explored their length and breadth extensively as a boy. They had been his refuge, his castle, his haven from a host of memories that refused to fade, but he had never considered returning until now.
Half a mile after they passed under the leaf canopy, a humble dwelling appeared beside the road. Caim pulled his mount to a halt. Not much had changed since the last time he'd seen the place. A tendril of wood smoke rose from the clay-brick chimney. Roughed logs formed the walls, insulated with thick layers of wattle. The roof was bundled thatch.
'Is this it?' Josey asked. 'How long since you've been here?'
'A long time.'
Their horses whickered as a heavyset man came around the corner of the cottage. He had a wood axe with a black iron blade in one ham-fisted hand and a load of firewood tucked under the other arm. He looked to be somewhere in his fifties. His broad frame was clad in a homespun tunic tied with a rope over buckskin breeches. His face was uneven from an old war wound that had smashed in the left side of his jaw, giving him a menacing appearance, like a mangled wolf that'd been in too many fights. Watery blue eyes watched their arrival without expression.
Caim leaned forward in the saddle. The old man had changed. His beard, as scraggly as always, had grown down to his chest, and he'd lost some hair on top. Extra weight now clung to his middle, but his shoulders were still massive, rolling on either side of his head like tumbling boulders. Caim supposed he had changed somewhat himself. He'd been little more than a half-grown boy when he left. Would the old man even recognize him?
Those fears evaporated with a nod. 'Caim.'
Caim returned the nod. 'Kas.'
The axe man scratched his leg with the blade. 'Looks like your taste in company has improved. You two jumped a broom yet?'
Calm's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. 'Uh, no. Kas, this is Josey. Just a girl I know.'
The old man started toward the door. 'Well, come inside. I've got a pot of cha on the fire. It should be about ready.'
Caim climbed down and moved to help Josey from her horse, but she beat him to the ground.
'So I'm not good enough for you?' she asked, wearing the same feral smile Kit gave him whenever she wanted to pull his tail feathers.
With a grunt, Caim headed toward the cabin, hobbling with every step from the long ride. Caim ran his hand across the surface of the table in the larger of the cabin's two rooms. The whorls and knots brought back memories. He and Kas had spent a lot of time at this table, conversing over meals of homeground sausage garnished with whatever they could coax from the garden. Well, Kas had mostly talked while he listened. He remembered less pleasant things, too: angry words and all-out battles, the bitter winter when everything in the cabin except themselves had frozen solid. Caim could still imagine the chill in the tips of his fingers after all these years.
The interior was just the way he remembered it, except smaller. A layer of dust covered everything. Cobwebs hung from the rafters and the old spear over the fireplace, and the window shades looked like they hadn't been cleaned since the cabin was built. A pile of threadbare blankets was stacked in the corner where he used to sleep. The smells of wood smoke and Kas's joint liniment hung in the air.
The old man hadn't said much since they arrived, just dropped his firewood by the hearth and puttered around the squat iron stove. Josey sat back in the homemade chair and studied the two of them like animals in a menagerie.
Caim shifted to alleviate the stitch in his side. Maybe this wasn't the best idea. He was trying to come up with an excuse to leave when Kas came over with a steaming kettle, a rag wrapped around the handle. He poured a cup for each of them and lowered himself onto a stool made from a tree stump. Josey offered to give up her chair for the third time since they arrived, and for the third time Kas refused.
'No, I'm fine. I made those chairs, you know. Hope you don't get a splinter.' He made a smile at that like it was a private joke.
Caim took a sip from his cup and winced. The cha was just like in the old days, horrible, but it was hot.
'So,' Josey said, 'are you and Caim related?'
Kas glanced across the table with raised eyebrows. Caim shrugged. They were past the point where his secrets could do him much more harm.
'Not exactly,' Kas replied. 'I served his father for a time after my soldiering days. After his father and mother were killed-'
'She wasn't killed.' Caim squeezed the cup tight. The old resentment bubbled to the surface as quick as marsh gas. 'She was taken.'
Kas nodded. 'All right.'
Josey looked Caim. 'Your father was killed, and someone took your mother? How old were you?'
Caim took another sip. 'Eight.'
Josey reached out as if to touch his arm, but stopped before her fingers made contact. 'I'm so sorry, Caim.'
'Ancient history.'
'Who did it?'
'We never found out,' Kas said. 'Caim ran off during the attack. I searched for weeks before I found him scrounging around the streets of Liovard, skinny as an alley cat and almost as feral. I brought him out here and we built this cottage.'
Caim could feel Josey's stare. He could guess the thoughts running through her head, trying to piece together the shambles of his life, to trace the journey from that small forlorn boy to what he'd become. He could have told her not to bother, that he had chosen his path with his eyes open wide, but it didn't matter what she thought. Nothing could change the past, so the past didn't matter.
'We had some good times here,' Kas continued. 'That is, until he up and ran out on me. You were what, Caim? Fifteen?'
'Thirteen.' He remembered the day like it was yesterday. They had argued over something; he couldn't remember what, but it had seemed like the most important thing in the world at the time.
'We had a fight,' Kas said with a shrug, as if that explained everything. 'I can't even recall what it was about. Anyways, Caim turned in early that night. The next morning, he was gone. You know, I went back to Liovard searching for you.'
'No one asked you to.'
'Dammit, boy. I thought you were long dead by now.'
'Well, I'm not.' Caim got up. The room was cramped and stifling, the air thick with regrets.
'I know I made mistakes,' Kas said. 'I couldn't replace your family. The gods know I tried.'
'Save it.'
Caim left the cabin. He went around back to the wide meadow lined by a bulwark of ancient boles. This had been his playground, the place he went to escape with his thoughts. Years had passed, but the sights and smells of the cabin brought it all back like he was still just a boy, wrestling with the same problems, asking the same questions. And still finding no answers. What had really happened all those years ago on that cool spring night? Was he truly alone in the world?
Footsteps crunched on the carpet of dry leaves behind him. 'I come out here a lot,' Kas said. 'In the evening with my pipe. It's relaxing.'
'Where do you find tobacco this far out?'
