Chapter 2

Near Josody

I opened my eyes to see the smiling faces of Tam and Amara.

“I thought we’d lost you,” Tam said.  “It seemed that your spark had gone out, but then it came back.  Count yourself lucky to not walk in the halls of the elders.”

I was confused for a moment.  I remembered a mine, a pick-axe exploding, coldness…  At the same time, I plainly recognized the two elves standing before me.  I know who they were and knew who I was.  Memories and purpose rushed through my head, intertwining two lives into one life.  Then I remembered we had been trying to disable a magic device that was causing animals in the area to become overly aggressive.  The memories faded and I was left with only myself, lying on the ground, in a forest near Josody.  Something was different, but I didn’t know what it was.  “Did it work?” I asked.

Amara flashed one of her brief smiles, which was quickly replaced with a reproachful stare.  “Oh, it worked,” said she.  “For about five seconds. Then it compensated and the discharge threw you 15 feet.  What were you thinking?  A 40 year old knows better than to try to craft a counter-rune inside an existing enchantment.  Forget that this is one of the most powerful pieces of constructed magic I’ve ever seen.  Forget that you have what, a grand total of four years of magic schooling.  Forget that you were expressly told NOT to try doing this.  ‘Did it work?’ he asks.”  She trailed off, shaking her head in a mix of amusement and disgust.

“Look,” I said.  “You’re right, I don’t know much about magic, but I know runes.  I know I can use them to take this thing down.  Besides, I’m fine, aren’t I?"

Tam haruffed.  “Have you looked at yourself?” He asked.  “You’ve got half a dozen broken bones and at least that many open cuts.  You feel ‘fine’ because I put a pain reducing spell on you.  Maybe I should have let you wake up in agony first…”

“Alright alright," I said. "The important thing is that it worked at all.  I think I know how it runs now, so next time I should be able to take it out completely.”

As I said this, I realized I did know exactly how the device functioned.  My previous assumption of how to disable it seemed startlingly naïve.  My method would have worked, but the power required to blatantly disable the thing was staggering to think about.

Almost as an afterthought, I took off my pack and dug out a large flask of thick blood red oil.  I opened it and let a drop of my blood fall into it.  A dark swirl formed at the top and started to work its way into the fluid.  Holding the flask in my left hand, I pressed my thumb to the rune pattern etched into my left bracer at the same time as I said the command word.  The flask instantly became so painfully hot that I let go of it by reflex.  Before it hit the ground, it exploded, sending glass shards everywhere.  I screamed in pain and collapsed, grasping my right side where a large piece had deeply cut into me.  The pain passed immediately and I found that my ribs no longer hurt, the open cuts Tam had mentioned were sealed without a scar, and my breathing was full and easy.  The jagged cut from the glass was similarly repaired.

“What is wrong with you?!” Amara yelled.

“Actually, I think I really am fine now.  It was an experimental new healing potion I’m working on.  The healing aspect is undeniable, but I need to find a way to stabilize the catalization of the bloodroot.  As you can see, it is a bit violent when used in its current formula.”

“You’re insane, you know that right?”  she said.  Then she dangled a bottle of thin milky grey-white liquid in front of me and asked, “What is wrong with these healing potions? Not potentially fatal enough for you?”

“Ok, the exploding bottle was admittedly a less than desirable result.  However, the current line of so called ‘healing potions’ are a disgrace to alchemists everywhere.  They are weak, slow, hard to make, have nasty side effects, and taste awful.  I’m sick of everything tasting like ground chalk.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Maybe if you spent less time in graveyards you wouldn’t get attacked by ghouls so often and have to drink so many of them.”

I put my pack back on and said, “Look, there are certain plants that only grow-“

“Enough!” Tam interrupted.  “You two bicker like children.  Come, we do have actual work to do and we must hurry back to tell the elders what we have learned.  We must report the number of Astari we have seen moving through our lands.”

We returned and told the Elven elders of our progress with the device, though certain details of my experiment were omitted.  They listened with little interest.  Ours was a minor project in the scope of the troubles facing the Elves.  News of a human prince set to take the throne of Krythan made them wonder where the humans would send their armies if they united into one nation.  Rumors of the Orc tribes ending their blood wars and increasing in number stirred memories of the orc hordes that ravaged the lands in the Rune Wars.  The Thepa high shaman had vanished and they had left their ancestral lands, becoming little more than bandits.  The Gnolls had retreated into the rocky highlands and mountains.  They had closed passes and talked to no one.  Now the Astari had been spreading in great numbers, especially into the Westland forests.  The elders worried that their younger kin might awaken great evils in the forests which the Elves had kept watch over for millennia.  And recently these devices had appeared, making once peaceful animals become savage and violent. 

The elders said all signs showed that a second Great War was coming.  Just as the first one was not the Elves’ war, so was this one a war to be fought by the armies of other races.  They would take their people and leave.  They would flee to a safe place and when the war had died down, they would return.

This triggered something in my mind.  A sense of panicked rage shot through me.  I knew I had tried to do what they were proposing.  I knew it had not worked.  I told them they could not run from their troubles.  I explained to anyone who would listen that the only option that offered hope of survival for our people was to join forces with the other races and fight back against the coming evil.  I told them we must learn to respect and trust the Astari.  Time had made them wiser and if we shared some of our ancient secrets, perhaps they might even help us safeguard the forests from danger.  We must learn to be patient with Mankind.  The Elves always have trouble associating with such a short-lived race.  Everything they do seems hasty, but they had strength of purpose that other races could never match.  I showed them that we must let ancient grudges go and try to trust those Orcs who had sought a way of life beyond warfare.  Certainly they were warriors unmatched and if we set them on a righteous purpose, they could bring work great things.

The reply was that to do what I proposed would end thousands of years of Elven culture.  They said they had a duty to their people and to their people’s heritage.  They had to protect not just the Elves, but their way of life as well.  The elders said what I had proposed was the same as leading their entire race to slaughter.  But they would not force anyone to go.  I could spread my idea to any who would listen.  They wished me luck.

Tam, Amara, and I worked to disable the devices and unite the people for two years with little success.  The clear understanding of their function that I had felt earlier still remained, but I saw no way to generate enough power to be effective.  Then one summer, the young human prince turned 16 and ascended to rule, being crowned King Lotor II.  The elders said a human ascending to the throne of Lotor was the last sign they needed.  Within months, almost all of the high elves in Dransik had left.  Gone.  Hidden.

Tam had a large family and when the elves set to leave, he went with them, but Amara believed in the things I had said to the council and stayed, along with a few others scattered throughout the westlands. 

Elven scouts are by nature solitary.  They have to be or else they are unable to tolerate the months or years they might be required to spend virtually alone in the woods or swamps.  Amara and I had worked together as scouts and trackers for decades though.  We were close, knowing each other’s talents and quirks.  The new isolation from our own race forced us even closer.  If we had been human, we might have been said to have fallen in love, but love among the Elves is an entirely different thing.  Certainly all races feel the passion and excitement when someone they love is near, but the expression is different.  For the short lived races, it is often more physical than mental.  Their highs carry them through their lows.  For the long lived races, for a race that might easily live many times the length of a human’s short 60-100 years, the expression is more of a knowing the person on a  deep and personal level.  We might stalk a deer for hours and as we crossed an open field on opposite sides, catch a half glance at two bow shot’s distance, but then go a week without talking.  We would sleep back to back so we would be ready at any threat or intrusion.  It is not slowness when compared to men, for these small gestures mean the same thing as a warm embrace after a week’s absence, or a tender kiss when sitting under the lilacs beneath the spring-time glow of the moon and stars.  They are signs of care and devotion and togetherness that elves hold deeply and cherish.

We were not so bold as to attempt any further action against the devices, but instead sought ways to protect those whom the animals now threatened.  Especially with the elves gone, the forests had grown even wilder.  We taught peasants the signs of a maddened creature so they would know which ones were dangerous.  We crafted quality arrows and bows which we gave to farmers as well as townspeople and gave them basic training in the use of ranged weapons.  As the beasts of the land grew more and more violent, we were forced to cull their numbers, sometimes significantly.

In the end, none of it played a significant role in saving anything of what we had loved.  The elves continued to flee and farmers of other races vanished from the fertile farms of the westlands.  The trees quickly took back the fallow lands, leaving little trace.  We found ourselves living somewhat near Josody as much for safety as for convenience.  We traded with the humans who now lived there, and occasionally with the trolls west of the city who had not all gone mad yet.

My kin would have said what happened was inevitable.  They would have claimed without our guiding influence, the Astari would grow reckless.  I do not know if this was true, but perhaps they would have been right.  It took less than a year for the Astari to grow openly resentful of the humans in Josody.  Many were becoming outright hostile and sometimes aggressive.

So it happened that a group of Astari decided to remove what they called “the invading humans,” by force.  We had been watching for such a thing and, feeling loyalty to our friends, went to inform Josody of the impending attack.  When we reached the gates though, we found them bolted shut and guards posted.  We were known by many in the city, so I revealed myself and hailed the gate.

“Good men,” said I.  “What troubles the city?”  For it was not yet dusk and traffic through the gates should still have been flowing at a steady pace.

“Unrest inside the city,” came a clear voice from the walls.  “Who approaches?”

I made myself known and a man stepped out of the sally port.  The gate captain was a good friend of ours and took my hand in greeting when I reached the walls.  “Trouble it is my friend,” he said.  “Three hours past, armed men took all who were in the bank as hostages.  Despite protests from the Astari, word was sent to the King.  Not but twenty minutes ago, Royal Guards teleported in over by the portal there.  They stormed the bank.  Word has not reached me of what fate those inside met as of yet, but a grim feeling settles on me.  Innocent blood has been spilled I think.”

I nodded, saddened by the news.  “I hate to add to your worry,” said I.  “But you know the tensions as of late.” 

“All too well I know them." 

“Whether it has some part of your current trouble I do not know, though it reeks of conspiracy, but you must know that three hours south of here, a force of armed Astari march on Josody.  It is their intent to remove any humans from what they feel is their land.  They mean to use force.”

“Add worry to evil it does,” he said his voice full of frustration.  “Though we take your telling us well enough, we would rather know than not know.  What do you mean to do?  As I must tell you I have orders to let no one in or out.”

“We would fight for your city,” Amara said.  When she spoke, the captain leapt almost a foot into the air, even wearing his breastplate and chainmail as he was, for he had not heard her approach behind me, and I had not announced her when he had asked.  “For our city and for our friends.  Barring that though, I think their hate is for you, not us.  They resent our people, but if we stay away I doubt they will hunt us down just to do harm over a slight annoyance.”

A messenger came for the captain.  He read what looked to be orders and a heavy weight seemed to settle onto his shoulders.  His breathing slowed and he glanced at us several times, his eyes questioning something with which his mind wrestled. 

“Yes.  Go then,” said the captain, his voice strained as if speaking caused him great pain.  “It would be best for you to not be caught between us and the Astari.  When you go, do not approach the walls for some time, if they still stand, after the battle ends.  Not all my men can tell elf from elf, if you catch my meaning, and may send a shaft at you.”  We shook hands again, in the human custom, and Amara and I vanished into the woods. 

It was a strange luck that saw us into the woods that day.  Almost a decade, and two lives, had passed before I learned what had weighed the captain that day.  Those hostage takers in the bank had been humans.  The response of the humans, Royal Guards of the human’s very own king, had left three astari dead, only one of which was by the hostage-taker’s hands.  Apparently the humans had also noticed the Astari unrest.  Mages had worked to set up magical watch eyes through the forests.  Knowing of the dead Astari in the bank, the approaching army, and the generally tense atmosphere in the city, the Royal Guards, by order of the mayor (though they likely used their right to issue edicts in the King’s name and forced him to give the order) gathered up the remaining Astari into a barn.  This upset the Astari, but being so imprisoned, there was little they could do about it.  No doubt the orders were to gather all elves, and it was only by a loose interpretation of his orders mandating the collection of those “within the city” that we walked away free from the gate.  Later, during the battle, a flaming arrow fell upon the barn.  It burned down, killing almost everyone inside.  Still, it may have been better odds had we been arrested and put into the barn than we had by being set free. 

The Astari army came to Josody’s west gates with little trouble.  I watched from the forest as, to my surprise, they gave the humans one full hour to leave the city peacefully.  Humans, of course, are notorious for their disproportionate responses.  Such ultimatums make them behave as if they were little more than armed savages.  Later, tactical analysis would say that the defenders had not wanted to let the Astari form proper ranks for defense.  At the moment though, it looked like a hail of arrows fired from hundreds of bows.  The barrage was maintained for at least three volleys.  The two who had stepped out to parley were viciously cut down.

The rage such disrespect lit in the Astari was little aid during the fight.  The Royal Guards already in the town certainly helped in that first half hour.  What truly wrote doom for the Astari was the three mages who had teleported the hostage response force into the city.  Not wasting their time with simple combat, the mages teleported to Lotor’s Castle.  In the next hour, armed men and women arrived from the castle as well as Parian and New Korelth.  More troops arrived shortly after that from Hothbra, Valmond, and Etherea.  It took only four hours for the mages to increase the defensive force to well over three times the number of attacking night elves.  The human counter attack, lit by magical fire, completely destroyed the hostile army outside their walls.

The next day put Amara and me to work tending wounds of those few Astari that survived.  They numbered less than 100, not counting the dozens who died under our care that day.  Death had turned their hate into sadness.

We had not stayed to watch the carnage, but judged two days long enough to hazard a return to Josody.  The battle had taken place out of sight of the walls, but there was a killing ground where the first bow shots had been exchanged in front of the gates.   We were skirting the open area as we moved toward the city.  We could see a much higher than normal number of guards on top of the walls and were being cautious.  Amazingly, some of the Astari who had taken wounds first still lay on the ground, dying slowly and unable to help themselves.  The sight sickened me, though I knew my own people were capable of viciousness to equal the humans.

Our skills in woodcraft were honed as only those of our people could ever be.  Still, I never saw the root or rock I tripped on.  Perhaps there was no root, rock, or anything else, but only luck of one kind or another.  I fell a short ways, colliding with Amara, pushing her into the clearing abruptly.  She turned to help me up, and as I regained my feet, the amused look on her face vanished.  She jerked forward into my arms, a confused grunt escaping her lips.  A yard shaft stood out from her back, disappearing beneath her soft elven armor.

When one spends enough time with the wounded or treating wounds and serious injury, that person becomes adept at picking up subtle signs.  The rasp of breath when blood is clogging its passage ways sounds just *so* when a person will recover, but also sounds just *so* when a person is going to die.  The way a body moves, the way they look around, the tension in muscles, they all tell the difference between an injury that someone will recover from and one that will slay them painfully.  To anyone who knows, there are a thousand signs, though they are strange and boring to relate to one who does not know them.  I knew from the way she became limp as I dragged her to the relative safety of the shadowed woods that the wound was a mortal one.  The only comfort I had was that it would kill her quickly and she would not feel pain for long.  I knew she would not survive, so as I laid her down I removed the arrow from her back.  She did not even wince as it tore its way out.

As her skin grew cold and pale, she struggled to speak.  “I’m sorry,” was all she managed.

“No, no, no no no no,” I said.  “You have nothing to be sorry for.”  I was as unable to say anymore as she was.

She nodded and smiled, swallowing blood, though it clung to her teeth like grimy brine.  “Sorry…that I’m leaving you…alone.”  She tried to breath, but choked.  I laid her on her side, not because I thought it might save her, but to save her the pain of racking coughs.  Neither my medicinal skills nor meager magic would save her.  We both knew the truth.  I kissed her forehead, now clammy and still.  She smiled, or tried to, her lips slow and unresponsive.  She tried to speak again.  I drew close, trying to hear her weak words.  Her breath came out slow and hot against my face.  No air made the trip back, as she had died.

Dream Journal
Very early morning, May 1, In the 33rd year of the reign of Lotor II

An icy wind hits me.  My skin is coated with sweat.  I don’t know where I am.  My friend is next to me.  They are dead.  Dead and they will never come back.  I can almost see their spirit leaving them, escaping with the steam that rises from the hot wet hole.  It rises and disappears into the cool fog of early morning that clings to the earth like a lover.  Or a ghost.  The woods look dark and haunting nearby.  The trees are unfamiliar.  I do not know these forests.  They are not the forests of my home.  The dagger in my hands erases all thought of the forests.  Now I remember.  My friend…the one I had to kill.  This was my doing, but not my fault.  I killed him because I loved him.  He was closer than a brother and…it was the better way.  The only way.  I look to my west.  Toward Jeel.  The dog that did this went that way.  I know where he will be and I will make him pay.

I held her a minute and then stood.  A memory washed over me there.  The memory of a beloved friend dying.  Of a mercy killing.  My mind reeled.  It had not done this since…since that day…things become clear.  Since the day that I died.  Since the day both of us had died.  The grayscale whites and blacks of the forest seemed to slip out into the rest of the world, like a tide flowing out from my small pocket of reality.  Pale ghostly whites and dark sickly greenish blacks replaced all light, all color, they replaced all things.  Right at that moment, I knew.  I could see the pattern.  The withdrawal of my people, the hated between man and elf, this battle, so much more and so much less too.  Tiny crimes, pointless taxes, aggressive foreign policy, logging businesses, the closing of farms, too many things to count, on too many levels to comprehend.  Everything had been planned, arranged, orchestrated.  And it had taken Amara’s life.  I could see it, like a web, lines of scheming, of deceit, of plans within plans, of ulterior motives and double dealing…all leading back into Josody.  It did not start there, but it was being harbored there.  I looked at the gates and helplessness tore at my heart.  I did not know what to do.

Dream Journal
Noon exactly, January 3, In the 7th year of the reign of Lotor II

The blood is growing tacky on my hands as the platelets congeal.  I look and see them, small bits of cells connecting to one another, forming a barrier against liquids.  Not that they need to as their host has already lost use for them.  They do catch the cold though, the cold of a wind that rushes past me, blowing around and over the forest and plain and city.  It flies, light, weightless, and free, across the killing field, effortlessly scales the walls, and sails over Josody.  It follows a pattern of death.  A pattern of darkness.  I see how easy it is for the wind to make such a climb and simply follow it.  Now I am atop the walls.  I can see from the stunned look in the eyes of the man next to me that this was unexpected. Blood does not touch his body, but death lies upon his hands.  He has shot his bow in hate recently.  A sudden understanding fills me with sadness and revulsion.  This is no man, but merely a beast.  A pawn of some greater filth.

I place a blade between his fourth and fifth ribs on his left side.  It cuts his heart clean through.  The quickest and cleanest death I can give it.  Better than a beast deserves.

I check my thoughts.  I do not kill the beasts out of hate, but because they must be killed.  It is simply the way of things.  I do not care about his pain or the revenge that distantly beckons me.  This is not about justice for innocents, though that does have some value.  This is about safety.  The shepherd does not hate the wolf, but loves his flock, and so must slay the wolf.

I understand now.  I am not a man that much is clear.  I am also not a beast, though I can know them and understand them.  I am not the shepherd either, but serve such one.  I am the hand that kills.  I am the blade that cuts.

Dream Journal
Late night or early morning, October 22, In the 19^th year of the reign of Lotor II

I stand upon a wall of death, surrounded by death.  Behind me shapes dance in the limelight, vague shadows of form shifting in and out of reality.  To my left a pair of shades rush me.  An arrow from my bow chases the knife I throw, each weapon slaying one, before either fully realize one of their own has already died by my hand.  Their deaths would be a painfully slow thing, each one falling to the soft stone ground like flies trapped in sap, slow and all too aware of their problems.  I do not wait out their hour long deaths.

Am I that fast? Are they that slow? Is this something I have caused, or does some greater power act on my behalf? It does not matter of course, but remains a curious thing.

From beyond me, from in front of me, the seduction of the Beastmaster, the Spinner, reaches me.  It is a horrible thing.  My heart quivers in my chest though my ears hear nothing.  Not something that one hears or even feels, the call of the Spinner corrupts the soul.  It has already corrupted so much…

I can end this.  The Beastmaster cannot stop me.  I walk down the wall and into the town.  Many beasts hide in the crowd, hoping I will not notice them.  I do.  Then the beasts lie dead on the earth.

The Master’s lair is no special thing.  A building.  A house maybe.  Even as I approach many beasts are visible around it.  I kill them and pass into the Beastmaster’s domain.  If many Beasts were without, then an uncountable number huddle within.  Some are a clever thing, not man-Beasts, but something strange.  When blood leaves the strange one’s bodies through blade made holes, they die like man-Beasts though.  This is good enough for me.

Dream Journal
Sunrise, December 14, In the 33^rd year of the reign of Lotor II

The frosty chill of death nips at me, accompanied by the bitterest of winter wind. I find myself confronted by something I had hoped never to see again.  “This is what I came to stop!” I say, or maybe think.  The Spinner does not try to hide from me.  Such an attempt would have been a wasted effort.  But even more, it does not think it needs to.  Perhaps it does not think at all.  The Spinner is a black space, or hole in space, resting next to a man whom I know to be the mayor.  It whispers to him, telling him lies and half truths. Seeing it now, again, and remembering, the thing-Beasts make more sense.

I set to do what I have come for.  I attempt to kill the Spinner, but nothing happens.  When I withdraw my blade though, its awareness shifts to me.  It knows I am here, but does not know what to do about me.  It growls, a low sound that I am not sure is actually audible, or sound at all.  This reveals its mouth, which it opens menacingly.  Inside its mouth, I can see its throat.  Throats bleed.  Bleeding kills things.  Even as the thought occurs to me, I see that my blade will not be enough.  My hand though…I grab for the Spinner’s neck and find only mist.  I press on, pushing through a nothing that resists my assault, to find hardness in the center.  I grab it and lift the Spinner by whatever I have managed to grasp.  Coldness spreads through me.  Not the coldness of ice or even death, but the chill of passion lacked, of life without purpose.  It is the cold of something that does not and cannot feel.  The coldness of something that hates those who can.

“How are you doing this?” says a voice behind me. “How are you here? 

I turn and see a man.  No, more than a man.  It is a Shepherd.  This pleases me.  I answer his questions. I can see from his eyes that he does not understand.

“You assault the Spinner,” he says, giving me a grim look.  “This is new.  I have tried to stop it for many months now.  You slay the Beasts, can you also slay It? 

This is not truly what he says, but it is what I understand him saying.  I realize he does not know about Beasts and Shepherds and all the things that are happening, so I tell him.

Then I wonder if I can even kill the Spinner.  I examine it and feel the same horror I always have known when confronting such a thing.  A perversion of the gifts of Kuthos.

“Runes were never meant to be used this way,” I say.  He clearly does not understand.  His ignorance is a blessing.  “I cannot kill it, but I can make it leave.”

He seems truly amazed.  “This is the same thing to Men.  And to me.”

I tell the Spinner to leave, and it does.  It has no other choice.  When it is confronted with the fact that it should not exist, the Spinner simply ceases to be present.  Perhaps it is dead.  Perhaps not.  It is not my place to question the desires of Men, let alone those of a Shepherd.

The man looks at me in awe and asks who I am.  I tell him and he seems, if possible, more shocked yet.  His next question is the one I feared he would ask.  “Do you know who you are?”

I do not.  I tell him such.  Somehow, this seems to comfort his worried state.  He then says something I do not understand.  Something changes.  I realize he is one of the mages who came with the Royal Guard.  This is strange to me.  I had not realized that a Shepherd could be a human.  Or a Man at all.

He says I must leave Josody.  He asks if I can do so.  I know I must leave.  It is always this way with Man and Beast, and certainly I am more Beast than Man.  Men do not understand Beasts, but it is not their role to do so.  “Is the wind still blowing?” I ask him in answer to his question.  I do not wait for his response.  I am gone, over the walls, and back into the forest, before the body of the first Beast I killed, the Beast who shot Amara, falls dead atop the walls.  Not even a second has passed.

I built a mound for Amara near the swamp, so her body could nourish the earth.  The Astari buried hundreds of their dead nearby in the same way, for the same reasons and I help them.  It was an interesting bond between us, to see each honor the dead in the same way.  We did not talk during the weeks that it took to pile dirt and stones for the fallen.

When we were done, one of them, whose name I did not know and never learned, turned to me.  “Come with us to Whisperdale,” he said.  “Your place is with your kin, even cousins as we are, not with Men.”

I nodded.  “I thank you for your offer.  In time I may make my way south, but my work is not yet done here.”  I knew the truth of what they said.  I could already feel the absence of Amara as a hole in my heart; in my life.  No other Elf-folk remained in the north of the Westlands.  My only bonds had been cut.  Still, it wasn’t right yet.  Maybe it never would be.

I wasn’t sure what I was meant to do and so wandered south for a few hours.  I realized I had absently made my way toward one of the crystal machines Amara, Tam, and I had been studying for years.  I don’t know why, but I decided to make the hike up the short hill it rested on.

The crystal sat in the middle of a clearing.  All of them were that way.  Perhaps they needed the space, or perhaps whatever had placed them simply cut away the forest for aesthetic purposes, though that seemed unlikely.  When I came to the edge of the undergrowth, where the well cut lawn-style grass started, even with my meager magic skill I could tell something had dramatically changed.  Caution slowed me, but eventually I approached the horrible thing.  Where once it surface was slick and shiny, like oil on a pool of water, not it appeared dull and black, like tarnished silver.

“It’s dead…” I whispered to myself.

Fire shot through my back, following a sharp twang.  I fell to my knees, seeing a wolf calmly standing not 5 yards from me.  There was no sign of the madness in its eyes which the strange crystals had been spreading.

My strength continued to drain out of me.  Looking past the wolf, I saw a farmer man in rugged clothing.  He carried a staff and led a pack of sheep that already had begun to graze on the trim healthy grass of the clearing..  A shepherd then.  In his hands rested a short bow exactly like the ones Amara and I had taught the poor desperate survivors of the Westlands to make and use.

I think the shepherd saw me then as I collapsed to the ground.  A sort of gallows humor came over me as I considered how none of those we had equipped ever became very good either at making their bows or shooting them.

“What strange fate,” I thought.  “To be shot by probably the last farmer in the West, who is using skills I taught him, to hunt a wolf that is no longer a threat.”  As my breaths became slow and painless, I could not bring myself to be angry at the shepherd.  The shepherd loves his flock, and while may value the wolf for his strength, knows the wolf values his flock as food.  The shepherd must slay the wolf to protect what he loves.  While I lost feeling in my hands, it occurred to me that maybe we should have taught them to use slings instead of bows.