Chapter Three: Alliances

The dirt track was narrow, wagon ruts mostly filled with fresh snow from the night before. The group rode silently, only the muffled thud of the hooves of the horses and the jingling of tack and armor for accompaniment. Callas shifted, trying to settle her new chain mail better on her shoulders. New armor always takes getting used to. Damned stuff's lighter than I'm used to. The elves had given them all mithril shirts before they'd left early that morning, seemingly as part of a mute apology on their part. Stubborn people. Their pride might have killed them.

She pulled Spot up, bringing the horse to a halt. Gavião was about thirty feet ahead, the rest about forty feet behind her; her mare had been in a cranky mood this morning, almost as much as her rider had been. Her companions had learned to give her a wide berth when she woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

This was working to her advantage at the moment as she listened to the woods. Something was wrong; the trees around her were quiet, more quiet than they should have been even with Callas and her friends passing through.

An oak stood by the track; she tried to speak to it, but she only got the sense of a faint snoring from it. I didn't know trees actually slept in the winter. What stays awake? Evergreens, probably. On the other side of the track, she greeted a large fir tree. Hello. Are you awake?

The tree's voice was made up of the sound of wind sighing through needles. Yes.

Who has passed this way recently? Do you remember?

Two-leggeds like you, many. And then He came, and the two leggeds lay down.

Did they get up again?

Felled. Felled like we are felled by them. He is The Friend. He felled the two leggeds.

Where are the two leggeds now?

There was no response from the tree. Evidently, it was done talking to her.

She called out, "Gavião!" The knight reined in and looked back at her. "There's something wrong. The tree said that there were a lot of two leggeds--I'm not sure what it meant, I don't think trees distinguish between kinds of humanoids--but it said someone it called The Friend felled all of them, and they didn't get up again. And the forest is too quiet."

He nodded and rode back to Callas, pulling Faidor up beside her, absently wrestling with the reins as the stallion aimed a bite at the mare. "Quit that, Faidor. Gaius and Riyor, could you go take a look?"

The two nodded and dismounted. "Tromping through woods is our specialty, right, monk?" Gaius rolled his eyes at Riyor and walked into the woods, kicking snow up under their boots.

They had been gone for about a quarter of an hour when Riyor came back. "I think you three need to come see this."

As Callas dismounted, she asked, "What did you find?"

"It's...sort of hard to explain. You just need to see it."

About a quarter mile from the road, they came upon the first body. It was an orc, its small eyes open, staring at the sky. The look on its piggish face was that of utter astonishment. It was lying at the base of a large tree. A raven quorked and several others answered it. Callas could see several of the large black birds about fifty feet away, sitting on the bodies they'd evidently been feasting on.

About thirty feet away was another orc body. And another. In fact, every large tree in the area had an orc underneath of it. "What is this?"

"None of them were killed where they lie. They were all dragged there, it looks like. The fresh snow makes it hard to see, but I think this happened yesterday, or maybe the day before. It's hard to tell, in the winter. It's so cold here that they freeze instead of rot."

Gavião knelt in the snow next to one of the bodies. He brushed the snow away from the insignia on the orc's breast. It was a device none of them had seen before, a pyramid with a large snake wrapped around it, coiling all the way up to the top. "Odd. They're wearing a badge I've never seen. It reminds me of something, but..."

"Morgan le Fay." Arnie scowled down at the dead orc, standing at Gavião's shoulder.

Gaius objected. "That's not her usual device, though. She's fleur de lis with the raven. The pyramid and the snake's completely different."

"It's still her. The people who kidnapped my parents wore this device. And she was behind them."

"Perhaps it's an allied force?"

The men continued talking while Callas walked among the trees, looking for something--what, she didn't know. So many bodies, all of them at the bases of trees. "Fertilizer," she murmured to herself.

"What, Callas?" Gavião was standing now, brushing off his knee.

"Oh, I didn't realize I'd spoken aloud. I was just remembering what this reminds me of. In the orchards, we used to be told to bury any animals that died and whose meat we couldn't use underneath trees. It's fertilizer."

"I've seen a lot of battles, and the aftermath of them. I think this has to qualify as one of the more...unusual."

"And spooky." Callas shuddered. "Hey, this one's got better armor than the rest. A leader, perhaps?"

"Probably. Orcs don't use the same insignia we do, it's impossible to tell how high he was in the chain of command."

Callas brushed the snow off of him, noting that he was wearing the same badge as the others. This one had taken longer to die--a belly wound, it looked like, his face still twisted into a rictus of pain. Someone had it in for you, my ugly lad. Someone did indeed. Her hand brushed against something that felt electric against her hand, and she jumped back. She hadn't expected magic on the orc, even though he was a leader. Orcs usually held magic in disdain, if not actual open contempt. They considered it a weakling's weapon.

She closed her eyes briefly, focusing her mind and dropping herself into the frame of attention in which she could see the magic in the world around her.

There were two things on the orc that were glowing with magic. The cloak he was wearing, dark blue wool, had the strength of magic on it that she associated with the artifacts they had been hunting. Overshadowed by the glow of the cloak, but still present, an amulet around the orc's neck had some sort of...communication spell on it, she thought. She blinked, and Arnie was standing next to her, a thoughtful look on his face. "It says it's MacNannan MacLir's cloak."

"It...what? You can talk to the cloak?"

He tilted his head. "Of course I can talk to the cloak. I can talk to all of the artifacts."

"Arnie, you're making no sense. Wait. Aiden."

"See, you got it! Anyway, the cloak says it's bored. We should take it with us."

Callas knelt beside the dead orc and undid the cloak's clasp. "What does it do, Aiden, do you know?"

"It's protective, and if you're wearing it, you can breathe water. Doesn't seem too useful to me...oh, and the person wearing it can't be scried on. Not very exciting, really." The drow in the dwarf's body shrugged.

"You just like the stuff that explodes," Callas accused him.

"That's one thing me and the dwarf have in common." His flash of a smile was so out of place on the dwarf's face that Callas' memory was drawn to the first time they'd met him, when he was still in his own body. He'd been pretty, even if he'd been completely mad, and she'd liked him almost immediately. An accident with a gate had destroyed his body and shoved his soul into the dwarf's body about three weeks ago. Arnie, of course, had objected to sharing his head with a certifiably crazy dark elf, but seemed to have mostly accepted it.

The priestess shook her head at the dwarf and said, "Since you're here, help me roll this fellow over so we can get at the cloak." A few minutes later, the cloak was in their possession. It was stiff with dried blood, and Callas folded it as best she could with the least soiled parts to the outside.

She took the amulet, as well, holding it up to the light. "Anyone recognize this?" The gold disc had stamped into it a number of arcane symbols and an equal-armed cross.

Gaius came over and took the amulet from her. "I've seen one of these before. They're made as communication devices, but instead of words, they transmit emotions. The magic had long faded from the one I saw, but otherwise it was nearly identical. The cross says that this was a set of four, I believe."

Callas took the amulet back from the monk, holding it by the chain and watching it spin. She knew that using magical devices that hadn't been positively identified was a bad idea, but...Gaius had identified it as something that probably wouldn't hurt her. A small voice whispered in her head, there are harms that are not immediate hurt, but she ignored the voice.

Before she could change her mind, she slipped the chain over her head.

A wave of pain rolled over her, underscored by rage and determination. Whoever was wearing it was hurt, and badly. She studied that pain, the emotions that were pouring through the amulet into her. There was that anger, directed probably at whoever had caused the hurt--wait. Whoever was still causing the hurt, she decided. Torture, she thought to herself. And around the edges of that anger was despair. Whoever it was beginning to give into the inevitability of death, though there was still hope of some sort. Poor bastard, whoever they are.

She blocked out the pain and another presence asserted itself, this one gloating. There was glee with no regard for consequences, a sense of triumph. That mind felt--mad, was the only way that Callas could describe it to herself. Something was wrong with the person on that end of the link, and whoever it was wasn't someone she'd want to meet in a dark alley.

The third set of emotions was far quieter. Almost not there at all, as a matter of fact. She caught a sense of quiet satisfaction, a feeling that all was going as it ought to be. After the pain of the first and the madness of the second, the third ought to be a relief, but Callas found that it wasn't by a long shot. Something about whoever was on that of the link disturbed her, far out of proportion to the emotions involved. The presence felt...dusty. Dry. Cold. Inhuman, she thought.

She pulled the amulet off, and the world around her snapped back into focus. Gavião was speaking. "--and I just don't like it."

"Well, the tree did say that one person felled all of these orcs. Damn, wouldn't want to meet whoever it was." Riyor looked around, blue eyes darting from tree to tree.

"Perhaps we should go back to the road. I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this place."

The hairs raised on the back of Callas' neck. She could feel someone watching her. She said, in a low voice, "Gavião--"

"I'm on it." He unsheathed his broadsword and moved swiftly to her side.

Callas shifted her staff into her right hand, freeing the butt from the snow where it had been resting. She turned, aware that Riyor was nocking an arrow in his bow, Arnie was reaching into his pocket for some more of his exploding crystals, and Gaius was circling wide behind her. She stared into the forest, waiting for the person she knew was there to reveal themselves.

After a very long moment, a cloaked figure stepped out from behind a tree, its hands raised. The hood was pulled low over the figure's face, revealing nothing about what the stranger looked like.

The figure's voice was low and mellow. "Peace, gentlemen, lady. I bear you no ill will."

"Apologies if we appear untrusting, neighbor. You must admit that this is not exactly a place where one meets friends. Especially considering the corpses."

"They give the place a bit of a macabre air, do they not?"

"I don't suppose you have any idea who put these corpses here?"

"I did, of course." The figure gestured at the woods around him. "They were...inconvenient. They're much more useful as fertilizer. I am a druid, friends. There is an army in this woods that I would most heartily like to be rid of. I have been taking out detachments as I come across them, but taking on the bulk of the army by myself is beyond my abilities. I have information, and I have the forest on my side."

Callas said, "I would feel better if I knew your name and could see your face."

"You can call me Forest. As for my face, it is better left hidden for the moment. If this works out as I think it might, we may trust each other enough for more than that. For now, though, you will simply have to put your faith in the fact that this army is a mutual enemy."

The group looked at each other, exchanging glances. Gavião said, "Callas, it's your decision."

She hesitated, and nodded. "Alliance, for the moment. I think we need your information, and you evidently need our help. What do you know about the army?"

"The orcs number about nine or ten thousand. There's a red dragon and a red-gold dragon to deal with. And the commander of the army is a Yuan-ti named Caul."

"What the hell is a Yuan-ti?" asked Arnie.

"A snake-person. Basically. This one's one of the Yuan-ti that are in a hybrid form--powerful in battle, and possibly more intelligent than most of us put together. I can take care of the orcs. The dragons and Caul are your problem."

Gavião's face was thoughtful as he sheathed his sword. "Caul has been mentioned to us as a member of the council of people who are trying to steal all the magic from the world."

"That's not their ultimate aim." The man's mellow voice held a mixture of emotions--anger, fear, and, oddly enough, a bit of self-loathing. "They're trying to kill all of the gods. They succeeded at last, with Sucellus. He was only the first on their list."

"Why? Do you have any idea?"

"To replace the gods with themselves."

Those words fell into a silence, the only sound that of snow sliding off branches deeper in the forest. Callas tried to grasp the idea of wanting to become a god and failed. "That's...there are no words for what that is. Terrible. Unthinkable."

Forest's voice was again tinged with loathing. "Yes, friends, it is. But they have thought it, and they are executing the plan as we stand here and discuss. I suggest we start moving."

Gavião asked, "Where are they located?"

"About three miles distant. The bulk of the army's about ten miles away, though; he has them out foraging. We'll only have about five hundred to deal with, and we should be able to get close without being seen, with my help."

Arnie scratched his head. "And what exactly do we do with two dragons? And a red-gold? That's...unusual."

"She's the only red-gold in the world that I know of, and she has the combined strengths of both colors of dragons. As for what you do with them, dragons aren't my specialty. I rather hoped you had some ideas."

Riyor was rummaging through his pack excitedly. "I have something...wait...remember the deep dragon's haard? I have something...yes!" He waved a potion at them. "Dragon Control! We can control them, for a little while at least."

"You do realize that spell doesn't work on Great Wyrms, right?" Gaius looked amusedly at the enthusiastic elf.

"No? Damn. Well, we can get one..."

"The lesser of the two dangers, that is."

"I've got these gauntlets that might help, too. They were meant to cling to any surface, including a dragon in flight, if what Aiden's told me is true. They certainly work on threes and walls."

"If nothing else, you could distract the larger of the two while we take care of Caul."

"And afterwards?"

"We'll think of something."

Forest took them up to the edge of Caul's encampment, the trees concealing them as they moved. They crouched at the edge of the clearing and watched the orcs gathered around several fires, warming themselves. One of the tents in the clearing was much larger than the rest, obviously a commander's tent. And out of the tent slithered perhaps one of the most horrible creatures Callas had ever seen. It was a well-built man, his torso bare in the cold, and from the waist down, instead of legs, it was a snake. Smooth-scaled, a shade of blue that was almost white, Callas could not take her eye off the man's snake half. The man's face might have been handsome, except for an odd smoothness that put her in mind of the snakes she used to catch during her childhood on the farm.

Riyor, next to her, grimaced and whispered, "That's just not on, I tell you what."

"Any sign of the dragons?"

"Not yet."

Gavião said, "If we move fast, we may be able to end this before they arrive. Callas--"

"I'm support, I know. I'll stay out of the way."

"Riyor, you're on the dragons, Gaius, Arnie, you're with me. Ready?"

"Yep. How do we start this thing?"

"Riyor? Would you do the honors on the snake?"

The elf pulled back his hood and nocked an arrow in his bow. He took careful aim, Callas whispering a prayer to her goddess, hoping she would hear. He let the arrow fly, and it buried itself in Caul's shoulder.

The Yuan-ti roared in shock and pain, and Gavião burst into the clearing, Gaius close on his heels. Callas shimmered into Sanctuary, shielding herself from attack, and waited.

The orcs in the clearing scrambled to their feet, intending to put themselves between the intruders and their commander. Caul, though, shoved them out of his way, his inhuman eyes fixed on the knight and the monk approaching him.

Callas glanced up--and plummeting from the sky were a pair of dragons. One of them looked much closer than the other, but on second glance it was simply much, much larger. Riyor was using the potion he had, pointing at the dragons.

She saw the smaller dragon break away from the larger and go winging off to the side, the larger not heeding the smaller's defection, plummeting like a striking raptor towards the battle.

And the forest went mad.

The trees pulled themselves up from the ground, spraying snow and earth as they yanked their roots upwards. The orcs cowered, crying out as the trees came after them, using their branches as clubs. The trees didn't move very fast, but they didn't have to. There was nowhere to run.

Callas looked around, on the verge of panic. Gavião and Gaius had engaged Caul and looked to be doing a fair job on him, Arnie was throwing fire around, and Riyor--what was Riyor doing? He had climbed one of the moving trees, or been lifted into the branches, and the huge dragon was stooping towards him, harassed by the smaller, trying to keep its wings from being fouled.

The moving tree that Riyor was in the top of shrieked as an orc, more intelligent than most of its kind, shoved a brand from the fire against the trunk of the tree. Its branches whipped down, and Riyor, not anticipating the sudden movement, went flying--

--landing square on the head of the red-gold dragon. With his gauntlets, he stuck to the crest on its head, and it bellowed in surprise and began to wing upwards, shaking its head. Callas could only see that Riyor was evidently trying to talk to the giant beast when she lost sight of it, trying to dodge orcs and trees that, while they had no interest in hurting her, were still in danger of tripping over her if she didn't stay out of their way. Sanctuary was a mind-affecting spell, one of the most useful ones in a battle cleric's arsenal. It allowed many a cleric to stay alive long enough to care for the wounded and bless the dead after a battle.

Gaius and Gavião were wearing the snake-man down, but both of them were bleeding, Gavião worse than Gaius. Callas wove and dodged her way through the battle towards them. Caul got in a good swing on Gaius and he staggered, blood pouring from the wound in his shoulder. But as the snake man was turned, Gavião came in low, his sword running into the place where human skin gave way to shining scales. The blade slid so easily into the flesh, slicing into the abdomen, ending up with six inches of bloody blade emerging from the Yuan-ti's back.

Caul made a sound like steam escaping a kettle and collapsed, the connection between his upper and lower half severed. Gavião withdraw his sword and with a smooth gesture slit his throat, waiting dispassionately as the blood flowed first thick and fast and then slower, all expression fading from those not-quite-human eyes.

It was done.

Callas reached her knight, finally, calling his name--a needed safety measure in the heat of battle, when a touch on the arm might seem to be an attack. She checked his wounds quickly and determined that none of them were likely to cause him to bleed to death. Gaius was worse off, and she muttered a healing spell, the energy flowing from her fingertips to seal shut the worst of his wounds. The sounds and smells of battle still raged around them, but the trees had almost finished their work. There was barely an orc left, and those that were still standing were running.

And at last, the trees walked back to their places, and with great groans settled their roots back into the soil. A final shake of their branches, evidently to make them fall back into place, and they were again silent and still.

Callas bound Arnie and Gaius' wounds and then looked up in the sky, wondering where Riyor had gotten to. Her answer came in the form of the dragon she'd last seen Riyor with making a pass over the clearing, and then coming in for a landing, the wind from her wings buffeting them and making the hair that had escaped Callas' braid sting her eyes.

Riyor jumped down from the dragon's head, which it had lowered to about ten feet from the ground. Close up, the dragon was both terrifying and beautiful. I've never seen one close up before. It's...amazing.

The dragon was perhaps a hundred and fifty feet from nose to tail, with a hundred-foot wingspan. Its scales were a deep garnet red, with a translucence that made her look almost enameled. Each scale was flecked with metallic gold, showing her heritage as a combination of metallic and chromatic dragon. Callas remembered what she knew of the red and gold dragons, the gold edging out the reds in power only by the smallest of fractions. The weapon of both was fire and the weakness of both was cold. The largest differences in the two were their personalities. The reds tended towards irritability and temper, and the golds were known for being far, for more civilized, though they had a reputation for fierce anger when aroused. All in all, the creature before them, being a dragon who had lived long enough to attain Great Wyrm status, was one of the most dangerous beings on the planet. The dragon was at least two thousand years old, and possibly much, much older.

A dragon far-off in the sky was a terrifying sight. Up close, it was more so, but also heart-stoppingly beautiful. Callas understood now why, in the long-ago past, they had been worshiped, and why they were still held in awe in all of the lands they lived in.

Its eyes were a deep red, with neither white nor pupil, the mark of the dragon no matter which of its forms it was in. And it was looking at them with an expression that Callas found unreadable. Was that, perhaps, humor in its eyes? Or was it thinking that they would make a good snack before dinner?

Riyor stumbled when he landed and went to his knees, landing in the bloodstained snow. "Damnation. Here I thought I'd manage to keep my leathers clean this time. Arnie, I don't suppose I could talk to you?"

"About what?"

"It's about, ah, her." Riyor inclined his head in the dragon's direction.

"It's a her? And why me?"

"You have the stash of gems you swiped from that deep dragon, right?"

The dwarf scowled. "And what's it to you if I do?"

"I rather promised her she could have it. In return for not killing us. Which she could, still, so would you please give them to me? I promise I'll replace them."

Arnie's face turned red, then purple. "You WHAT? Those are MY gems. You gave MY gems to a DRAGON?"

"I didn't exactly have a choice!"

At this point, though she was enjoying watching the dwarf turn different colors, Callas stepped in. "Arnie. Note that the dragon is right here. Please give her the gems. We'll get you some more, the dragon will go away happy, and we'll still be alive." Arnie grumbled and then stomped over to where he'd left his pack, digging into it.

The dragon's voice rolled out of its throat, decidedly female, the great throat giving the voice a deeply resonant quality. "It is good to know there are some in this world who pay their debts."

"Begging your pardon, lady, but I would not think that there is anyone in the world who would choose to default on a debt to you." Callas had begun speaking without thinking, and was startled when the dragon's head swung over to her, looking at her with what might have been a thoughtful look in those depthless eyes.

"None who have ever tried yet live, Callas de Navarre."

Callas' heart froze in her chest. The dragon's scarlet eyes rested on her, watching her reaction. She groped for words, and ended up asking only, "How do you know my name?"

A chuckle rolled out of the dragon's throat. "Your name has been whispered recently in many unlikely quarters. New Headmistress, so young, so inexperienced. The power of your Order is a prize many would bleed for."

"But how did you know it was me?"

"'A girl with dark hair and green eyes, who travels with a knight of middle years, a dwarf, a monk, and an elf afflicted with Luck.' Sounds like you, doesn't it?" Her voice was amused.

"It does, at that. So, lady, what name might we know you by?"

"For the moment, to you--my name is Strawberries. It is a nickname I'm known by in much of the human world." She swung her head under her left wing and rubbed her head against the tough membrane, apparently scratching an itch. Then she fixed her gaze on Callas once more. "Do not make the mistake of thinking I am your ally. I know for a fact that you don't have nearly enough wealth to make it worth my while."

"I will remember. Speaking of, it looks like Arnie's gotten the gems out."

Two large bags of gems later and the dragon was winging away. Arnie watched the dragon's retreat, a sorrowful look on his face. The winter sun was starting to dip towards the horizon, and Gavião said, "We'll have to camp tonight. We don't want to get caught on the road after dark, not in this snow. We should move as far away from the battleground as we can. Death attracts scavengers I'd rather not meet."

"I know a place that should be safe for the night." The druid--Callas had almost forgotten about him once the trees had stopped moving in such a disturbing manner--stepped out from the trees at the edge of the clearing, his hood still pulled low over his face. "You're right, you don't want to be near here once night falls. But before we go, there is something you should know."

He pulled back his hood. The company took a collective breath. The druid who had introduced himself as Forest was a drow.

Hair white as the snow that surrounded them was pulled back from a high-cheekboned, beautiful face, great violet eyes set slightly slanted. His skin was a flawless midnight black.

And he was not just any drow. They had met him once before, in battle. He and a cohort of dark elves had attempted to kidnap Callas about a month and a half ago, though at that point they hadn't known who he was.

But now, they did.

It was Tennant, the dark elf fighter that Jheris had mentioned what seemed like an age ago but had only been yesterday. Tennant, the drow council member.

Tennant, who they had been assuming was their enemy.

Gavião broke the uncomfortable silence. "I suppose you have an explanation."

The drow's mouth twisted into a bitter grimace. "I do, but you have to promise not to kill me before you've heard me out."

The knight nodded at him, and Tennant continued. "I have been living apart from drow society for a very long time now. I have, for the past few centuries, been working with Morgan le Fay, furthering her goals. And yesterday, in this very woods, I and Caul ended the life of a god. Sucellus."

Gavião put his hand on Callas' arm. She stayed silent, though her lips were pressed together in a thin line.

"When the gods are killed, some of their power is conferred on those that are present at the death. We knew that and were prepared for it; Morgan has us all magically linked so that power is shared amongst us. What we did not know is that some other things get conferred to a god's killer. In my case, I received Sucellus' conscience. I stood over the corpse of the god and I knew that what I had done was perhaps one of the most wrong things anyone has ever accomplished. And what I had done could not be undone.

"But to work openly against the council? I cannot. They would kill me, and I still wish very much to live. Caul needed to die, first, and that was what I hoped you would trust me long enough to accomplish. And so, I come to you with a proposition. I will help you bring them down, one by one, as I can, like I did Caul. I can travel among them, and they trust me without question, especially now that I have been the first to kill a god. But you're going to have to take a chance on trusting me. Without me, I am not sure you will get very far, but it is your choice."

Callas stared at the drow, trying to judge whether he was telling the truth. She rather thought he was, but it was nothing that he said that convinced her. Rather, it was the tired droop to his shoulders, the self-loathing in his eyes when he had told them that he had killed Sucellus. He's not lying. He's not telling the whole truth, but he's not lying. But can we accept help from him? The drow's face was impassive, waiting for their verdict. Damn him, he's right. We need someone on the inside, and he's it.

She sighed. "All right. Alliance it is, then." She walked forward and held out her hand; Tennant, after a moment, reached out to clasp her hand in his gloved one. "Welcome to the team, such as it is."

He smiled, a bit lopsidedly. "Thank you. Now, I'll show you that place I know-it's sheltered and large enough for you and your horses. After that, I will take my leave of you. Morgan is waiting at Versailles for me to report."

She nodded, and said, "I'll call the horses." Callas raised her voice, and in the ululating cry that rose from her throat was a note of power. Gavião, from long experience around Epona clerics, recognized it as The Call.

Their six horses--Gavião's Faidor, Riyor's Nigel, Arnie's pony Midnight, Gaius' roan Emma, Callas' aptly named mare Spot, and their pack mare Mercy, came walking single file out of the copse they had been left in with a stern command to stay still. They came to Callas, looking for treats, and were rewarded with sugar lumps and scratches behind the ears.

Spot nosed Callas' shoulder affectionately, and the priestess turned, scratching her mare under the chin. Callas and the mare stood for a moment, breathing together, Callas' eyes closed. Gavião watched his charge at her quiet ritual. He did not know if anyone who had not worked with the Temple extensively would know it, but this was the essence of who each priest in the Order was. This bond between human and horse, the quiet ecstasy of finding oneself in a working communion with a creature at once as powerful and as vulnerable as a horse. He knew that this was what Callas lived for, that this was what got her through even the most difficult of days. She loved her human herd, but she lived for her equine one.

They mounted and rode, Tennant leading the way, away from the bloodstained snow of the battlefield. Gaius reined in beside Callas, and said, "I have something for you. I got it off Caul." He handed her something made of metal, warm from being in his pocket. Callas held it up to the waning light.

It was a pendant, a twin to the one she had found on the orc. Out of curiosity, Callas slipped it over her head, listening to the link--the quietly satisfied presence was not there. Must have been Caul. The mad presence was toweringly angry, and the presence who had been being tortured was evidently asleep or unconscious. The pain was still leaking through, but it wasn't nearly as severe as it had been.

Callas left the pendant on, tucking it under her shirt so it came in contact with her skin. She listened to the crunch of hooves on snow, her thoughts very far away.

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