A drop of blood sprang from her finger, splashing onto the white snow. With all she had learned, and that had been much, Kerian had not managed to learn the art of fletching.

“It’s because you’re slitting the arrow too wide,” Jeratt told her scornfully, around a mouthful of breakfast. “Y’got no patience here, Kerian. Here’s where you need it” Swiftly he reached across the fire and snatched the failed arrow from her hand. He tossed it into the fire and handed her another naked shaft. “The arrow’s always going to bite your finger when you try to fletch into slits too wide. Try again.”

The stink of burning feathers stung her nose. Kerian took out a small-bladed knife and began the work of etching the slits the feathers would sit in. Too narrow, the feathers would fail to settle, too wide …well, she knew about that already.

Around them, outlaws came and went, men and women going about the business of hunting, fishing, and trapping. Some had other missions, and now and then one would call Jeratt aside. These conversations were short, out of Kerian’s hearing. They always resulted in a handful of outlaws drifting out of the basin, up the hill and away from the falls.

Once, when they came back, she’d noted their flush of victory. A ringing pouch of steel coin hung at a hip, an ornately decorated sword over the back of another, and two pairs of gleaming leather boots roped and slung round the neck of a third. Later she learned that two Dark Knights lay dead in the forest, ambushed and killed by these outlawed elves.

A black cock feather slipped neatly into the top slit; Kerian did not stop to rejoice. She settled in the two gray hen feathers on either side. As though casually, she lifted the arrow to inspect it. Jeratt watched a moment, then snatched it from her hand.

“What?” she demanded. “It’s perfect!”

“Maybe for someone else.” He held it close to the snapping fire. “But shouldn’t Kagonesti choose white feathers in winter?”

Kerian lunged and grabbed back her arrow. She jerked her chin at the feathers and said, “I’ll do that when your hunters fetch me white geese.”

Jeratt’s laughter rang around the stony basin. Here and there, outlaws looked up to see what amused him.

“All right then, Kerianseray of Qualinost. The snowy geese are gone away to warmer places now, but you go fletch yerself a full quiver of arrows, and day after tomorrow we’ll go see if we can find something else to take down and make you a hunter.”

Wind blew a scattering of old snow across the stony distance between Kerian and Jeratt. The wind bit her cheeks, stung the tips of her ears red. She wore a tight-sleeved, long-cuffed bleached woolen shirt, which she had got from one of the smaller men in exchange for first cut of whatever she brought down this day. Her coat of tanned elk hide, warmly lined with the beast’s own fur, came from an end of autumn raid on a trader’s cart headed into Qualinost. Had they been outlanders or Knights, the traders would have fared hard, but the man and his two sons were elves, and so Jeratt’s outlaws left them roughed up and bruised, one a little cut, and all angry.

“Ought to know better than to bring that kind of thing through here,” Jeratt had laughed, displaying the plunder. “Outlaws all over the Qualinost road. Didn’t the fools know that? Nice of ‘em, though, to come by with supplies.”

Warmly outfitted, still Kerian shivered and longed to slip her stiffening fingers into the sleeves of her coat for warmth, hut she did not. A silver ribbon of water streamed between her and Jeratt, leaping over rocks and lapping the dark lines of mud at either side. The mud on both sides of the water was churned by tracks, the marks of a deer’s passage, Kerian had said upon spotting them. Jeratt had nodded agreement and positioned her deep in shadow on one side of the stream, himself concealed on the other, and said no more.

Wind-whipped, Kerian watched the stream. A blue kingfisher darted down and came up with a flash of silver in its beak. In the forest, a jackdaw called, its raucous voice drowning out smaller birds, and another answered. Kerian did not so much as glance in the direction of the sounds. She was held in aching stillness by the thought of Jeratt’s mockery, his own jackdaw laughter should she so much as shift her weight from one foot to another.

“Dancey-footed folk go hungry,” he’d snarled the first time he’d seen her do that. “Find your place and stay.” He sounded like Dar when he said that. She could almost conjure up a memory of the ancient days when he let her come along while he hunted. She had not hunted to kill then-in those days she was just learning her bow skills-but here, in this place far from home, she heard an echo of Dar’s gruff tones and frustration with her impatience.

It felt like a week of waiting, listening to the wind in the forest, the stream purling over stone, the rustlings of small animals in the fern brakes. She had a boulder at her back, one upon which she could sit with some ease. Even so, it seemed to Kerian that every muscle rebelled at stillness. Her left leg cramped, her right foot itched….

She shifted her gaze from the half-elf to the forest beyond. She thought she saw something move in the green darkness, then the illusion vanished as the wind dropped. Very slightly, Jeratt lifted his head, for all the world like an old dog sniffing the air. He sniffed again, then resumed his stillness, his back against an old high pine, his bow strung loosely, heel on the ground, head against his hip. Kerian kept stone still.

The iron sky shifted, clouds parting, and she squinted as Jeratt seemed to vanish in a sudden flash of sunlight, then reappear when the clouds shifted again. In the after-glare, Kerian widened her eyes to adjust her vision to the change of light. Above, the sky resumed its lowering, clouds growing thicker. Now she smelled what Jeratt must have, the sharpening of the air that heralded the coming of snow.

The forest grew quiet, birds stilled, squirrels fell silent. Kerian looked to Jeratt, but he, as she, heard only the stilling, not the cause.

She lifted her head in question: What?

He lifted a hand to signal silence. In the same gesture, he took up his bow.

Kerian slipped an arrow from the quiver at her hip, nocked it neatly to the bowstring. Along her shoulder, down her arm, her muscles quivered with excitement. She drew a calming breath.

Behind her, the forest erupted in the crashing sounds of something heavy and swift tearing through the underbrush.,

In one flashing instant, Kerian saw Jeratt lift his bow, an arrow ready to fly. She turned, heart crashing against her ribs, and saw a low, thick body coming toward her.

Wolf!

She lifted her own bow, pulled, and saw what came behind the headlong beast-a boy.

“Ulf!” the boy called, his cry ringing through the forest.

Kerian shouted, “Jeratt, no!”

An arrow wasped past Kerian’s cheek just as she shouted, “Boy! Down!”

Whether he dropped or stumbled, Kerian wasn’t sure. Relief washed through her to see him go down, to hear the thock! of Jeratt’s arrow hitting the pine just above him.

Jeratt cursed, the dog shot past Kerian, fangs white and glistening. She heard the hiss of another arrow coming from Jeratt’s quiver.

“Boy!”

From the ground, his face covered in blood and dirt, the boy screamed, “Ulf! Drop! Drop!”

The dog fell, a bright splash of blood on the stone beneath him.

Leaping to his feet, the boy cursed. He flung himself past Kerian and past the dog itself. Startled, Kerian realized he was heading for Jeratt and that the half-elf had another arrow in hand. She reached to grab the boy’s shoulder and jerked him hard behind her.

“Jeratt-”