“This is not like fighting a gruagach, Padric!” Rosheen’s voice was growing thin with impatience. “This is…”

“Is what?” he would not let her finish. “The truth of it now! I may be mortal and too foolish…too…unskilled for this company, but if you are all so wise, so powerful, why would I be in any danger from a lone husk? Even one that has killed? Answer me that,

Rosh! Or else get used to me being here, for I am going with you.”

“I cannot let you, Padric...”

“Why?”

“I promised…”

“What is so damned dreadful that you would keep me from…”

“An Unwound!”

Padric laughed. He was so embarrassed for her that he could not even meet Rosheen’s eyes. He kept laughing and looked at his feet, shaking his head. She truly still thought him a mewling child, frightened by stories. His laughter turned bitter in his throat and he did finally look her in the face. “An Unwound? Why stop there? Why not Festus Lambkiller or the Gaunt Prince himself? You really do think me a fool.”

“She says it true, lad.” It was Deglan who spoke, regarding Padric with a withering look, part pity, part disdain. “And you are a fool. I do not know any in the race of man who is not, but you are a prize among buffoons, not trusting the word of one you have known your whole, miserably short life. A life that will end even sooner if we find this thing, so do as you’re told and go back. We have no use for you here.” The gnome turned his toad and started up the trail. Padric turned to Rosheen, but now it was she who could not meet his gaze. Padric spared her the effort and started back toward the village.

“Wait,” Faabar’s voice rolled deep and wet in his throat. Padric turned and the fomori limped down towards him. He came up and regarded Padric with his golden eyes. “Is it true? Did you battle a skinchanger and live?”

Padric struggled to hold the fomori’s gaze. “I did.”

“And the gruagach? Did it survive?”

Padric clenched his teeth. He had not been proud of killing the gruagach and the face of the little girl came to him in his sleep, forcing him to split it with his axe again and again in a nightly struggle of bad dreams. He was not proud, but the act had given him a sense of prowess, of courage. A sense that shrank away while he stood in the shadow of the huge fomori. Faabar’s arms were slabs of muscle, thicker than Padric’s waist, his weapons larger than most men. What was Padric’s deed compared to this fearsome brute? But he answered all the same.

“No.”

Faabar looked down at him for a moment longer than turned and began struggling up the trail. “He comes.”