They learned of dissension in Staccia, and how the lords along the Galäinridder’s route had gathered themselves for battle, making ready to ride to the plains of Curonan to await the coming war, filled with the fire of their changed hearts. And they learned how Earl Coenred had stayed, reckoning he guarded a more important thing.

Vesdarlig Passage.

It was a tunnel, a very old tunnel, leading to Darkhaven itself. Staccians and Fjel had used it from time out of mind. And from it, a company had come; Men and Fjel. Earl Coenred had seen them emerge and knew they were bound for his estate. He had sent away the women and children of Gerflod, bidding them take shelter at a neighboring manor house.

“There was a slaughter.” Sorhild, wife of Coenred, told the story sitting at the head of the long table in the Great Hall, her eyes red-rimmed from long nights of weeping. “It is all we found upon our return. Bodies stacked like cordwood, and bloody Fjel footprints upon the floor, everywhere.” She smiled grimly. “My husband and his men fought bravely. There were many human dead among those Darkhaven had sent. But they were no match for the Fjel.”

“No,” Dani murmured. “They would not be.”

In the small hours of the night, her words haunted him. It was too easy, here, to envision it; it was written in the grieving visages of the women, in the bloodstained cracks of the floors. And if it was real here, it was real at home, too. He thought about Warabi, old Ngurra’s wife, always scolding to hide her soft heart. It was impossible to think she was not there in the Stone Grove, awaiting their return. And Ngurra, ah! Ngurra, who had tried to teach him all his life what it meant to be the Bearer, patient and forbearing. Dani had never understood, not really.

Now, he wished he didn’t.

“We cannot linger here,” he whispered, hearing his uncle toss restlessly on the pallet next to him. “If there is pursuit, we would lead the Fjel to their doorstep”

“I know, lad.” Uncle Thulu’s voice was somber. “We’ll leave at first light. What do you think about this tunnel she spoke of?”

“I don’t know.” Dani stared at the rafters overhead, faintly visible in the moonlight that filtered through the narrow window. It made him uneasy, all this wood and stone above him. The thought of being trapped beneath the earth for league upon league made his throat feel tight. “Are there more Fjel hunting us, do you think?”

“We cannot afford to assume otherwise,” Thulu said. “But from which direction?”

“If they come from the north, the tunnel is the last place they would think to look for us. But if they come from Darkhaven …” Dani rolled onto his side, gazing in his uncle’s direction.

Uncle Thulu’s eyes glimmered. “We’d be trapped like rabbits in a burrow.”