Picking up his digging-stick, his uncle hummed deep in his chest, a reassuring and resonant sound. “Then we will find it, Dani. You are the Bearer, and I have promised the Yarru-yami to remain at your side, to guide your steps no matter how you choose.” He turned the stick in his hands, humming absently. “Where water flows beneath the earth, I will chart the ways. When we find the taint of the Shaper’s blood, we will follow it to Darkhaven.”

“Good.” His burden felt lighter for having decided. He edged closer to his uncle. They sat in companionable silence, sharing the warmth of their cloaks, watching blue twilight descend over the mountains. “Uncle?”

“Aye, lad?”

“We’re not likely to live through this, are we?”

The deep humming faltered. He looked up to meet his uncle’s gaze. “No,” Uncle Thulu said quietly. “Venturing into the bowels of Darkhaven? Not likely, lad.”

He nodded, remembering the gleam of moonlight on the pelts of the Were, the companions they had abandoned. “That’s what I thought.”

“I’m sorry, Dani.”

“It’s all right.” Beneath his cloak, Dani fumbled for the vial at his throat, closing his fingers about its strange weight, obscurely comforted by his burden. “Uncle, what do you think he meant?”

“Who?”

He shivered. “The Slayer. The man with the black sword. ‘Listen,’ he said.”

Uncle Thulu gazed at the fire, his hands gone still on his digging-stick. It was dark now, and the flickering light cast shadows in the hollows of his eyes and the crease beside his broad nose. “I don’t know, Dani,” he murmured. “I am only the guide. You are the Bearer.”

“He sought to kill Malthus.”

“Aye.” His uncle nodded. “Aye, that I believe he did.”

He held the vial, pondering its heft. “Well,” he said at length. “It is a long way to Darkhaven. We will see.”

“Aye,” his uncle said softly. “That we will.”

THE MARASOUMIË WAS LOOSENING ITS grip on Tanaros.

The terrible will he exerted was only part of it. In truth, he should not have been able to prevail against Malthus; not with the wizard wielding the Soumanië. Once he regained a measure of his depleted strength, Malthus should have been able to wrest himself into the Ways, sealing Tanaros in the Marasoumië.

He hadn’t, though. Foolish wizard. It seemed his priorities lay with his Companions. Even now he struggled like a fly caught in amber, sending his strength elsewhere to shore up a fading spell, using the dregs of his exhausted power to cast a pall of protection over those who had none. Sensing it, Tanaros grinned without knowing it, the memory of his face shaping a rictus. With his right hand clenched on his sword-hilt, feeling the annealing power of a Shaper’s blood temper his will, he fought for mastery of the Ways.

Fought, and won.