The man shook his head. “Truly, I mean no harm. Indeed, I’ve come to offer my fealty.” He nodded. “For a time.”

The red-clad irk let down his shield, poured wine into both cups and held one out to the man. “The lassst time I sssat with a man in thessse woodssss, Thorn attacked me.” He frowned. “I did not come off bessst.”

The man took a cup of wine from the irk’s outstretched hand. “We must see to it that doesn’t happen again,” he said. “But Thorn is not the real enemy. Thorn is only another victim.”

“You have sssaid hisss name often enough to invite him to your fire,” the Faery Knight said.

The human nodded. “He will not come. He will not even attempt to contest my passage. In fact, he can neither see me, nor hear me, even when I say his name.”

The irk nodded and knocked back his wine. “Then I know who you are. I congratulate you on being alive.”

The man smiled. “It is rather delightful.”

The Faery Knight laughed—all the faeries laughed by the stream. “Perhapsss that isss how we will pick up the sssidesss for this fight,” he said. “Not good againssst evil, but merely thossse who find thisss world a delight againssst thossse who find it a burden. Thorn feelsss the world isss dark and grim.”

“God knows he does his best to make it so. Very human of him,” said the man.

“In the woodsss, it isss sssaid that you are on the dark path,” the Faery Knight said.

The human shrugged. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” he said. “Perhaps I’m on it. But I have a goal, and an enemy. I will fight until the fight is over, or I am beaten.”

“Ssso,” the irk said. He poured more wine. “You know the truth.”

“I know a truth,” said the man who had once been Harmodius.

They touched their cups.

“I will ask no vasssalage of one ssso puisssant asss you,” said the irk. “We will be alliesss.”

Harmodius touched the rim of his cup to the other. “Well met by firelight, my lord. We will be… alliesss.”

Bill Redmede was preparing for war. He and his Jacks—those who had survived the long march—had to make many things themselves that they’d always bought or stolen. Arrows first and foremost, but also clothes and quivers. Hard leather purses were replaced with softer Outwaller bags and wool hose with leather stockings of carefully tanned deerskin.

Most still had their white cotes, now stained and worn to a hundred earthy hues.

Bill watched them work—watched them loft shaft after shaft into the stumps he’d prepared for them, led them on runs through the woods with targets to the left and right. Winter had made them fat. But it had also made them steadier. Most of the men and not a few of the women had found mates among the Outwallers, almost as if a suggestion had been planted among them that they sink roots. Weddings—with no priests—had been celebrated. More than a few bellies were round, since Yule.