With his open hand not coming within three feet of her, he herded her back toward the clearing like someone shooing ducks. He pointed to a big fallen log a way apart from the scuffed spot of her recent struggle and walked to his horse, a rangy chestnut calmly browsing in the weeds trailing its reins. She plunked down heavily and sat bent over, arms wrapped around herself, rocking a little. Her throat was raw, her stomach hurt, and though she wasn’t gasping anymore, it still felt as though she couldn’t get her breath back or that it had returned badly out of rhythm.

The patroller carefully turned his back to Fawn, did something to dismantle his bow, and rummaged in his saddlebag. More adjustments of some sort. He turned again, shrugging the strap of a water bottle over one shoulder, and with a couple of cloth-wrapped packets tucked under his left arm. Fawn blinked, because he seemed to have suddenly regained a left hand, stiffly curved in a leather glove.

He lowered himself beside her with a tired-sounding grunt, and arranged those legs. At this range he smelled, not altogether unpleasantly, of dried sweat, woodsmoke, horse, and fatigue. He laid out the packets and handed her the bottle. “Drink, first.”

She nodded. The water was flat and tepid but seemed clean.

“Eat.” He held out a piece of bread fished from the one cloth.

“I couldn’t.”

“No, really. It’ll give your body something to do besides shake. Very distractible that way, bodies. Try it.”

Doubtfully, she took it and nibbled. It was very good bread, if a little dry by now, and she thought she recognized its source. She had to take another sip of water to force it down, but her uncontrolled trembling grew less. She peeked at his stiff left hand as he opened the second cloth, and decided it must be carved of wood, for show.

He wetted a bit of cloth with something from a small bottle—Lakewalker medicine?—and raised his right hand to her aching left cheek. She flinched, although the cool liquid did not sting.

“Sorry. Don’t want to leave those dirty.”

“No. Yes. I mean, right. It’s all right. I think the simpleton clawed me when he hit me.” Claws. Those had been claws, not nails. What kind of monstrous birth…?

His lips thinned, but his touch remained firm.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come up on you sooner, miss. I could see something had happened back on the road, there. I’d been trailing those two all night. My patrol seized their gang’s camp a couple of hours after midnight, up in the hills on the other side of Glassforge. I’m afraid I flushed them right into you.”