The quthli moved with their typical gait, an unflagging stride that rocked from side to side. They were neither swift, nor exhaustible, and before the sun rose they had left at least ten miles of Mingling behind them. They did not stop with the coming of a grey dawn beneath low clouds. Jareen kept to her own feet, thankful that the narrow path kept the quthli from breaking into their faster lope. At least it wasn't raining, and for that Jareen was thankful. She was startled at her own fatigue and the aches that grew in her joints. Sometimes, her joints ached even when she had done nothing to strain them. She knew her muscles were likely to spasm when next she laid down to sleep. She thought of Coir as an old man, but she was older, too, and getting older every year. More than half of her life had fled by—possibly well over half.

If it were not for her worries about Faro, her own fate would not trouble her much, but she feared not being there for him, even if she did not know where he was. Now, a new fear emerged. How would Faro know where to find her? These were Vireel's quthli. Certainly, they must have some means of finding each other.

As the first hours of the toilsome day passed, Jareen noticed that the air was cooling. At first, it was a welcome reprieve from the warm humidity of the Mingling that sent sweat running down her back, making her robe cling to her skin, but by afternoon, she was shivering in those damp clothes, and a wind rose chill from the north. She could not remember encountering such cold in the Mingling before. Was this normal outside of Vireel's embrace or that of the enclaves?

She asked Coir to slow the quthli, or pause so she could rest. He spoke to them, but they appeared to refuse, though Coir related that they offered to carry her in their arms if she wished. She did not wish. Yet in the afternoon, the quthli halted abruptly. Their muscles tightened, and they hunched even more than usual. After a long stretch of silence, one of the larger, older quthli at the fore called something out in their huffing language.

"What's happening?" she asked Coir.

"They smell another troop of quthli."

The elder quthli called out again, and this time there was a response from the trees. Now the quthli strained to their full height to look forward, blocking Jareen's view.

Coir spoke to his chair-bearers, and they lowered him to the ground. Grasping his cane, he rose.

"Come," he said, and Jareen followed him along the line of quthli. The beasts pressed against the thorns to either side to give them room to pass forward. At the fore, they saw another cluster of quthli, only seven strong, facing off against the leaders of Vireel's troop. The quthli of the two groups jerked their noses back and forth near each-other's necks and armpits, sniffing and grunting low words. At the sight of Jareen and Coir, the newcomers raised their heads, their lips curling to show fangs.

Coir spoke something in the quthli language, and Jareen had to smile at the reaction of the strange quthli. They leapt backward as one, covering a full yard in a single bound. The wrinkles of their foreheads flattened, and they released startled "hooof" sounds together. Undeterred, Coir walked forward as Jareen hung back. He approached the strange quthli, leaned forward, and sniffed at the closest one as if he was one of the beasts, himself. He grunted words as he did so.

The strange quth looked from one to another, and then as if on some signal raised their voices in a chorus of whooping cries, similar to the cacophony they made when they killed some poor creature for food.

The creatures from both troops broke out in rapid speech, a jumble of incomprehensible grunts and exhalations. Coir added his voice to the mix. In the midst of this, the two groups mingled together as much as the narrow trail allowed, sniffing and even scratching each other. A few of the strangers glanced at Jareen, and she tensed, hoping they would keep their distance. One of the strange quthli was running his fingers through Coir's beard. One of the quthli stepped toward her.

"Coir!" she said.

Coir noticed her distress and hurried to her, leaning on his stick. He intercepted the approaching quthli with more of their huffing. No more of them approached her.

"The quthli language is quite fascinating," he said at last. "They do not have over-many words, but they have a word that means the opposite of any word that follows it—" here, Coir made a sound that Jareen could not hope to replicate.

"Is this a time for lessons in language?" Jareen asked.

"Well," Coir went on. "They say that in direction of dark, the not-hot falls as it does in the not-close not-wind-home. Wind-home is their way of saying south. This is not far, and not good. But the not-friends have left."

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"What?"

"It is an imperfect translation. They describe it as the opposite hot, the opposite of good, the opposite of dark, and the opposite of friend."

"I thought the 'not-friends' left," Jareen said. "What does any of this mean?"

"They also said that the not-hot is strong in the dark direction."

Jareen stared at Coir. How he could spend so much time speaking with the quthli, she did not know.

"I take it to mean that it is also cold west of here, and possibly snowing," he said. "They belong to a troop serving the Yellan enclave, sent to scout in the direction of dark. . . the west."

"And what have they found?"

"Besides snow? Not much. The companies of Findel appear to have withdrawn."

"So, what now? What do we do?"

The quthli continued to speak amongst themselves, and Coir was half attending to what they were saying.

"Oh," he said, watching them and not her. "We will stop for the day, and they will eat with us."

"With you," Jareen muttered.

"Hmm?" he asked.

"Should we trust them? They serve the enclaves."

"Staying hidden from the scouts of the enclave is not likely. Not without venturing close to Findeluvié, and that is dangerous, too. We should wait here until we understand more about what is happening in the west. They say there is a clearing nearby where we can camp."

Jareen sighed. She was hungry and thirsty, and more than ready for a rest. A clearing sounded much better than spending the night on a narrow trail in the Mingling.

The quthli could set up a camp almost as quickly as they could leave one. A fire was raging before they had been in the narrow clearing for fifteen minutes. It stung Jareen's eyes and set her nose running, but she suffered from their smoke for weeks on the outskirts of Forel. They had also brought some kind of dried flesh with them, which they set to boiling in a brass pot, filling the glade with a nauseating stench.

The clearing was no more than thirty yards wide and twice as long, surrounded on three sides by tall stands of trees. The underbrush of thorns had been hacked away recently, leaving sprouting stumps behind. The remains of other fires and some collapsed shelters showed that this was a common stopping place for the quthli. A thin stream flowed along the edge of the glade, running over cobbles. Jareen drank till her thirst was satisfied, if not her hunger. They had brought little by way of Vien food, for they had been expecting a delivery from the enclave the following morning.

It was mid-afternoon, and the quthli were eating their boiled meat when the afflicted vienu awoke upon her litter, confused to find herself lying in the Mingling amidst a troop of quthli. She tried to rise and nearly fell, clearly on the verge of panic. Jareen attempted to calm her.

"Easy, easy. Sit. What is your name?" Jareen asked, knowing that the distressed and confused responded better to their own names.

"Felit," she said. "What is going on? Where am I?"

"Do you remember me, Felit?"

"Yes," she said, blinking.

Coir watched from among the quthli. He had joined them for their meal.

"Good," Jareen said, her hands on the vienu's shoulders. She sighed. "The enclave found you, Felit. You were to be cast out."

"They exiled you too?" Felit asked.

Jareen hesitated.

"No, but we left."

"Daughter of Vah, you should not have come with me."

"Well—"

Felit must have remembered her hand at that moment, for she jerked it up to look at her fingers. The swelling had already receded considerably.

"It's better," she said. "It's gotten better."

Before sunset, the quth had erected a series of shelters from branches and felled trees. They even constructed a shelter for Jareen and Felit, a simple lean-to frame of logs, overlaid with branches, grasses, and dirt. The sloping walls were covered in the same way. Across the narrow opening, they hung a filthy hide as a door. She hated the idea of even touching it, but she also hated the idea of not having at least a hanging hide between herself and the Mingling. Her whole body ached, and she needed to lie down. Coir sat at the fire, eating with the scouts and leaders of Vireel's troop. It appeared they had plenty of flesh to eat. Jareen moved aside the hide with the back side of her fingers and crawled within the low shelter. Felit remained in the clearing. She had refused to enter the dirty shelter.

Within, Jareen collapsed onto the piled grasses, wishing she had a blanket. It was far colder than anything she had felt since she'd left Nosh. She had seen snow in Drennos, of course. There were a few snow showers every winter, but the snow rarely lingered on the ground as she heard it could in other human lands.

She wrapped her robe close, hugged herself, and closed her eyes. If she could not be warm, at least she could rest her limbs, feeling her pulse aching through her joints. Where was Faro, and was he safe? Every night and every morning, and many times in the day, she wondered.

In the clearing, the quth slipped into their rhythmic breathing and hoofing, a sound they often made around their fires in the evening. It did not sound like their spoken language, and she wondered if it had any meaning. She had heard it many times before, but as she lay listening, it occurred to her that it might be some kind of music, more rhythm than melody. She wondered what Tirlav would make of it—what he would have made of it, once.

She thought of Faro far more often, but music always made her think of Tirlav. What did his life look like, now? Did he still look young, or had the Change marred him quickly? Did he think of her or wonder if she lived? She could remember him as she first saw him, wearing the armor of a rider, but she thought of him most as a harper, as he was in his letters, though she had never heard him play.

There was little music left in Jareen. Her son had drawn what was left out of her, but she wished Faro was there to ask for one more old vien ballad.

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