They had been several days in the village, and Jileen offered them a place by the fire in the common hall of the alehouse. Ardal insisted that Fafnir reside in Brogan’s house for his comfort until he took his leave. So Padric’s days were spent helping Fafnir at the forge and his nights in the companionable warmth of the alehouse. He saw little of Rosheen who remained strangely absent. She claimed to be helping the gnome with Faabar’s healing, but Padric had known her long enough to detect things unsaid. On the fourth morning, Padric entered the oppressive heat of the smithy to find the dwarf already hard at work on a plough blade. The same blade commissioned by Brogan just before he died.

“Too much of the wilds?” The dwarf barely looked up from his labors.

Padric feared there might be a jibe in the comment and was tense in his reply. “Not at all. I am ready to leave whenever you are. I will not be going back to Stone Fort. You have my word.”

“Oaths,” Fafnir said between hammer strikes. “No need for those tricky things. Ingot and I are glad of your company. No one need bind themselves to me. Our travels will take us back to your home one day and it would be a pity if you could not see your kin because of an oath sworn in haste.” The dwarf worked the tongs deftly as he spoke, turning the hot steel and hammering it into shape. It would be a fine plough, well-tempered and strong. Padric laughed at the thought; the habitual musings of a farmer’s son. “And it was not the wilds ahead of us that I was meaning, but the wilds surrounding us today. The wilds your piskie means to wander with Faabar and that sour gnome.”

“Was that today?” Padric went to the coal scuttle and began shoveling so Fafnir would not see the confusion on his face. “I had forgotten.” In truth, he had not known at all. Where would Rosheen be going with those two? And for what purpose? He had suspected she was hiding something, but willful as she could be, it bothered him that she would keep her journey a secret.

“Not how I would spend my day, for certain and sure. Out hunting a husk,” the dwarf grunted as he bent the glowing metal. “A fool’s errand and wise of you to see it, boy. He is well away from here by now. Husks do not eat and need little rest, unlike men. You must be weary of such travel. Kederic Winetongue has men out looking and dogs too, Ardal tells me. Why would a wounded warrior, an herbalist and a piskie new-comer go out in search of a quarry long gone and well sought for?”