Starspawn Sample Chapter

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Once a notorious pirate, Jendara has at last returned to the cold northern isles of her birth, ready to settle down and raise her young son. Yet when a mysterious tsunami wracks her island's shore, she and her fearless crew must sail out to explore the strange island that's risen from the sea floor...

Chapter 1: Harbor Wave

Jendara put down the file and checked the edge of her blade. She'd worked out the last of the nicks, but the sword could use a touch of the whetstone to bring out the edge. She reached for the bottle of oil at her elbow and paused. It was the kind of autumn morning in the Ironbound Archipelago that she loved. The smoke of her village's fires rose up in straight blue streaks, and the sound of children at play resounded in the crisp air.

"Ho, Jendara!"

She turned from her makeshift workbench, a split length of driftwood balanced on two fat stumps, already smiling. "Good morning, Boruc."

"No sign of the Milady yet?" The big man tucked his thumbs into his belt—nearly hidden under the bulge of his belly—and glanced out at the harbor.

"Not yet, but the tide only turned a few hours ago. The boatyards at Halgrim aren't that close."

"That captain husband of yours ought to hurry." Boruc grinned, and his teeth showed brightly against the red of his beard. A native islander like Jendara, he'd become one of her closest friends in the time since she'd returned to the archipelago. "Doesn't he know it's your birthday?"

"You remembered?" She laughed and got to her feet.

The ground moved beneath her in a sickening shudder.

She grabbed onto the workbench to steady herself. The earth jolted and jumped, and from the cottage behind her came the smashing of glass. A heavy yelm of thatch crashed down off the roof.

Her mind leaped to her son. "Kran!" She stumbled as the ground gave a last shake, then found her footing again. She sheathed the sword and broke into a run. "He went to the beach with Oric and that damn dog."

"You ain't got much time," Boruc warned.

Jendara knew it. She'd grown up on an island not that different from this one, and she'd spent her life on the sea—she'd seen what could happen after an earthquake. She scanned the horizon. It was probably too early for the ocean to rise up, but given the power of the shaking, the tsunami wouldn't be long.

A woman raced out into the street. "Fire! My house is on fire!"

Any other time, the rest of the village would have rushed to help her, but not now. People stumbled out of their houses, running uphill. Jendara could already see the tide turning in the harbor, the water pulling itself away from the shore like a blanket whipped back from a muddy bed.

"Kran!" she bellowed. The boy had brains. He knew he had to get away from the shore.

A man shoved her aside.

"Hey!"

"Gotta get uphill!" he shouted over his shoulder, and she saw the chicken clutched under his arm and the blue beads strung in his beard. The baker, Norg.

His wife ran behind him. "Get out of here, Jendara!"

"Kran!" Jendara shouted again. The boats at the piers were already high and dry.

"Jendara!" A tall man with sandy hair and beard—Morul—caught her by the arm. "Tell me the boys are already headed up to Boruc's house."

"I haven't found them yet." She caught the look of panic in his eyes. "I'll get the boys. You get Leyla to high ground!"

"She can't walk yet—the fever's got her knocked out."

"Then you better hurry!"

She broke away from him, her own fear climbing in her throat. Kran was a smart lad and levelheaded for a twelve-year-old. He should have made it up from the beach by now.

The crowds pressed against her and she found herself shoving aside old men, children—anyone that stood between her and her son. She could already see the ridge of water forming on the horizon. It didn't look like much right now, but she knew these waves to be deceptive. When it hit the island, it could be devastating.

Her boots slid on the mud of the beach. Were they down by the boats or over by the caves? The beach itself was empty, dotted with abandoned clam shovels and buckets.

"Kran!"

He couldn't answer, of course. That only made it all the worse. Her boy, her precious boy, was mute.

"Help!"

But Oric wasn't. Kran's best friend shrieked like a stuck pig, his voice bouncing off the rocks by the caves. Anger lit Jendara's blood on fire. Even on a good day, the caves were dangerous.

She raced toward the rocks.

And then skidded to a stop.

"Oh, shit."

She stared at the two boys on the nearest outcropping of rocks, unable to quite make sense of what was happening. Her son had Oric by the arm, but the other lad was clearly stuck between the two great rocks—a space she herself had passed through a dozen times collecting mussels.

"Help!" Oric screamed again. Kran looked over his shoulder, his eyes black circles in a too-white face. His little dog burst out of the gap between the rocks, whimpering. She was caught in something as well—some kind of thick, sparkly rope had wound itself around her chest, binding her to the stones.

Jendara scrambled up beside Kran. The ocean began to growl softly, the sound of all the rocks and debris it had sucked up now grinding along at the bottom of the sea bed. She could feel sweat prickling in her armpits.

The same tough rope had snared Oric, she saw. Jendara drew her sword. She'd never seen rope like this. It clung to the tow-headed boy with the stickiness of tar, and it shimmered with a pale purple-blue light. It reminded her of a spider's web—if the spider were the size of a small cottage.

She hacked through it, glad she'd sharpened her blade. The roaring was getting louder.

Kran jumped down beside the dog, pulling on its front legs.

"Cut the dog free," Jendara snapped at him.

He shook his head wildly and held up an empty hand.

"Where's your damned belt knife?"

"He must have left it at my house." Oric was nearly babbling. He wriggled and twitched as the words bubbled out. "We were whittling and then we needed mussels for your birthday dinner and—" He broke off at the fury in her eyes.

She seized the boy by the armpits and yanked him free of the rocks. A strip of skin ripped free of the back of her hand, stuck fast to the strange silk, and she hissed.

"Now run!" She slashed the binding on the dog and then sheathed her sword. "Get running, both of you!"

They slipped and slid on the mud. The dog raced past them. It might have been a half-sized, ugly thing, but it wasn't stupid.

Jendara risked a glance over her shoulder. The wave had picked up speed. It towered over the bay, a wall of mud and debris ready to crash down and swallow the island. They were never going to make it to the safety of the hilltop.

She put on a burst of speed to pass the boys. "To the meeting hall!" She stretched her hand behind her and caught Kran's sleeve.

The meeting hall was the largest and sturdiest building in the village, and stood on a knoll of rock above the main street. Decorative finials stuck up from each end of the high ridgeline of its shingled roof, while colorfully painted columns outlined a covered porch. She ran her hands over the green-and-blue surface of the nearest column. Kran wouldn't have any problem shinnying up it.

"On the roof," she ordered. He was up the column in a flash, and then immediately put out his hand to help his friend. Oric leaped onto the column but slid down again. He was bigger than Kran and less agile.

Jendara gave him a shove and let him scramble up onto her shoulders. His boot knocked into her head as he struggled up onto the roof.

The dog whimpered.

Illustration by Jesper Ejsing

Jendara risked a look over her shoulder and felt her stomach twist. The sea had arrived in the harbor. It raised itself above the beach, hoisting longships and sailboats up into its muddy mass with a nasty crashing crunch.

There was no time for shinnying up the column. Jendara grabbed the dog by its collar and flung it onto the porch roof. Then she jammed her belt knife into the column and pulled herself up. Her hand closed on the edge of the roof as the great wave hit the first row of houses.

Walls boomed and crumpled, wooden joints screeching as they ground together. Jendara hung for a second, and then Kran grabbed the back of her jacket. She came up onto the roof.

It wasn't high enough here. They had to get to the top of the building, the ridgeline with its finials—they could hang onto those.

"Up!" she shouted.

Kran was already moving. The next section of roof was much higher and steeper, and for a second she thought he wouldn't be able to get a grip on it, but he did. Oric was right behind him. He caught a shingle and dangled for second. Then the shingle broke free.

The boy hit the roof of the porch and slid down. Jendara lunged for him. Her fingers closed on his wrist and his weight hit the end of his arm with a crack. He screamed in pain and grabbed her with his other hand just as the wave smashed into the side of the meeting hall.

The water slammed down on Jendara, driving out light and air and all sense of up or down. An incredible crackling and ripping resounded around her. For a second, she couldn't breathe.

Then with a powerful crunching, the porch roof ripped free of the meeting hall. Jendara gasped for air as she popped to the surface of the water.

The roof slid along the side of the meeting hall, riding the muddy mass of the wave. Oric clung to her, and she clung to the edge of the porch. If the roof broke apart or sank, the debris caught in the floodwater would crush them.

The wave drove them into the side of the next house. The walls had cracked and buckled against the power of the water. Wood groaned and snapped all around them. Over the powerful stink of mud and brine, the smell of smoke was choking. The earthquake had caused its own damage via fireplaces and woodstoves.

She looked around, desperate for her boy. She made out his silhouette on the still-intact ridgeline of the meeting hall and felt herself relax a little. If he was still all right, she could focus on saving herself and Oric.

"Jendara!" Oric's voice cracked with fear.

Jendara whipped her head around. A wall of debris was headed right for them: wood and rubble and a still-recognizable door, jutting out of the swirling water like a giant knife.

Jendara shoved against the broken house. She wasn't going to die pinned to a cottage, stabbed to death and buried in muck. She'd killed a giant and a troll and faced down a horde of barbarian shapeshifters. She had a family, a business, friends. Damn it, she wasn't going to drown!

The porch roof popped free of the broken house. The figurehead of a longship smashed into the wall where they'd been trapped, and with a groan, the house began to collapse on itself. The porch roof bobbed into the middle of the street. The water had carried them uphill, but it was still up to the bottoms of the windows, at least four feet high, and it would only get higher until the floodwaters withdrew.

Jendara searched for safety. They couldn't stay on this makeshift raft. Another wave would rip it apart or smash it into bits. Her eye caught the building on the far side of the street—the blacksmith's. The only stone building in the village. Its porch wasn't much, but it was the best shelter she could see.

She grabbed a length of board floating beside her and poled hard. The road beneath her climbed the hill, and the current was fighting her now as the water pulled back for its next pounding wave. The raft shuddered as it moved slowly through the churning water.

She drove her pole between the slats of someone's garden fence. The support column for the blacksmith's overhanging roof was just a few feet away. Someplace nearby someone screamed for help, and her heart gave a squeeze.

But she couldn't help anyone if she didn't help herself first.

She jerked her chin at the porch, arms trembling to hold the roof-raft in place. "Get over there!"

Oric grabbed onto the fence with his good hand and jumped off the raft. The water was shoulder deep on him, but he didn't complain. He might not have Kran's stoicism, but he was still an islander through and through.

Jendara jumped off the raft. The water tugged the raft away in an instant, smashing it into a floating log. It sank immediately.

Here on the other side of the sturdy garden fence, there was a little less floating debris. A plow sluiced past, grinding against Jendara's side and bumping up against the fence with a heavy thud. She hoped the fence would hold a little longer.

Wading was hard. The water pulled her back with every step, and rocks and broken tree branches slammed against her chest and legs. Oric slipped and slid, then made it up onto the porch. Though the difference in height was slight, she thanked the ancestors as she followed him up onto the porch. There was less wreckage moving in the water, and the current wasn't as strong. She took hold of the porch column, then frowned.

Oric gripped the column with one arm, but the other hung uselessly at his side. He must have dislocated it when she'd grabbed him on the roof. If another big wave hit, he'd be gone.

She felt for her belt, the leather stiff in the saltwater. Cursing, she got it off and around the column. "Grab onto that," she ordered.

Then the next wave hit, and all she could do was cling to the column and the boy and try to protect her head as mud and smashed stonework and broken bits of everything battered them. She coughed and spluttered.

The next wave seemed a little smaller—or perhaps she was simply used to it. She lost count of them as they came, driving flotsam into the corners of the porch and dragging it back out into the street. A dead duck washed up against the pillar and floated in the eddy, its yellow feet sticking up in the air as the water spun it in a slow circle. Then it sank beneath the muck.

Between the waves, she stared at the roof of the meeting hall and watched Kran and the dog huddle in silent misery as the water slowly withdrew. He had never felt so far away, and she had never been so powerless to help him. She had thrown away her old life—a dangerous life, to be sure, spent serving bloodthirsty Besmara, the pirate goddess—to find someplace safe to finish bringing up her boy. Leave it to nature to prove her wrong.

Oric shivered beside her, and she risked letting go of the column to grip his shoulder. If only he hadn't gotten caught in that stuff down by the rocks, that strange silky rope like spider webbing. They would all be up at Boruc's house waiting for the water to recede, warm and dry and safe.

It was just bad luck, she supposed. As the Varisians might say, it was just a bad alignment of the stars, bringing misfortune down upon their entire village. She shivered and tightened her grip on the column.

The breeze strengthened, pushing aside a few clouds and inviting the sun to play on the surface of the floodwaters. They were receding, she realized. The houses on this stretch of the street were badly battered, and the ones closer to the beach were smashed and ruined, but at least the worst was over.

"I've got to get Kran," she told Oric. "You stay here."

"Don't leave me!"

"You'll be fine. The water's going down. And Kran's been alone this whole time."

"We would have all been out of here if he hadn't wanted to make you that stupid present," Oric grumbled.

Jendara shot him a stern look. "You'll be fine," she repeated. She took a careful step down from the porch. Something shifted beneath her feet and she gritted her teeth. There was no way to see what lay beneath the surface of the water—the stuff was as opaque as milk and as dark as garden soil. The worst might be over, but that didn't mean it was safe.

It was like capturing a rival pirate ship, she thought, setting her foot carefully before taking the next cautious step. They fought hard on the deck and you felt your blood boil as you cut your way forward, knowing every hand was set to kill you. But that was only the obvious danger. Down below was where the real nasty stuff waited: the injured happy to take someone to Pharasma's Boneyard when they went, the vicious cook devoted to his captain, the booby traps some loyal mate had set when all seemed lost.

Back in her pirate days, she'd seen plenty of her crewmates killed after the battle was ostensibly won, and she'd learned a thing or two. She kept her focus on the ground and the debris floating around her knees, and she moved slowly, even if every bit of her wanted to race back to the meeting hall and make sure Kran was all right.

Then she was there. The porch columns were slick with mud, and some stood at odd angles. She didn't trust them. She looked around for an alternate route.

To her left, Kran's dog barked.

She turned. The dog stood on the canted roof of the house beside the hall. At some point, a massive fir tree had toppled down on the broken house, and now lay at an angle, its top driven into the colorful wall of the meeting hall and its roots tangled in the wreckage below. The dog must have climbed down the tree.

"Smarter than you look," she grumbled. The yellow-and-white mutt wasn't the companion she would have picked for her boy. It wasn't a sturdy herding dog or a fine hound bred for hunting, just some stray he'd found by the docks, good for nothing but eating Jendara's venison. "Come here ..." She tried to remember its name. "Fylga. Come."

The dog scrambled onto the tree trunk and began climbing back up to the roof of the meeting hall.

"Or maybe not." Jendara picked her way toward the base of the tree and gave it a shove. It felt solid.

In the distance, wood groaned and crumpled. Someone called for help again, the voice thin and tired. She had to get moving; people needed her.

"Kran!"

The boy peered over the roofline at her. He pointed at the tree and spread his hands questioningly.

"It's safe, I think. But hurry!"

He came down the tree cautiously, clinging to it like a bear cub. Jendara found herself reaching for him before he even made it to the halfway point. Her lip hurt from biting into it. The meeting hall could collapse, the tree could shift, the house could crumple more—

And then she had a hold of him and he was on the ground and she was squeezing him tight, tighter than she'd hugged him in years. He was twelve, after all. And he'd never been a cuddly boy, even when he'd been little.

He kissed her cheek and hugged her back. Then he pulled away, a smile spreading over his face. With his black hair hanging in wet clumps, that smile looked even whiter and broader than usual.

He pointed at the demolished house beside them, and it took Jendara a minute to make out what he saw in the midst of the broken beams and the sludge of mud. There was only the hint of colorful paint to remind her of the meeting hall's porch columns, one of which had been driven through the ruins of the house next door.

And there, jutting out of what had probably been a blue-and-green painted sea star, was the belt knife she'd stabbed into the wood as a handhold just before the wave had hit. Kran wrenched it free with a grunt, and handed it to her, beaming.

Maybe her stars weren't so badly aligned after all.

Purchase the whole novel here!

Behind the Book—Starspawn

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Hey there! Josh Vogt speaking... er... typing. I hate to interrupt your regularly scheduled Pathfinder Tales blog post that James Sutter usually provides, but he's so focused on Starfinder these days that I think I can steal his slot without him noticing until it's too late...

Illustration by Eric Belisle

If you ever get the chance to meet Wendy Wagner in person, you'll likely come away a little dazzled by the joyful energy she projects. It's practically impossible to not to get swept up in her enthusiasm about any topic you happen to latch on to, be it a favorite recipe or a fantastic horror flick. Whatever the project, Wendy is sure to bring a real passion to it.

The thing is, this same energy comes through in her writing. In her first Pathfinder Tales novel, Skinwalkers, Wendy introduced us to Jendara, an ex-pirate who'd given up her marauding ways to try and raise her son. However, raids by a brutal clan of shapeshifters threatens the safety of her island home, and Jendara must use her wits and axe-wielding prowess to defend those she cares for at all costs.

Reading Skinwalkers made me realize I'd never want to get into a cage match with Wendy, because she refuses to pull a punch. Her characters feel incredibly vibrant and alive. Her action scenes leave you breathless. Her descriptions can be brutally detailed (did I mention her penchant for horror, both subtle and shocking?). So when I heard that Wendy would be tackling another Pathfinder Tales novel, Starspawn, I was thoroughly excited, even before I found out the premise would be...

Vikings versus Cthulhu.

Vikings. Versus. Cthulhu.

I mean, come on—I could practically see Wendy grinning with glee at being able to pit seafaring barbarians against Lovecraftian horrors. And I knew she'd do a smashing job of it, too.

In Starspawn, Jendara returns, and is once more trying to find a measure of peace in life. Yet the stars are aligned against her, and when an unnatural tsunami devastates the area, it leaves a mysterious island in its wake. Strange structures, murderous cultists, and mind-twisting art are just a few of the disturbing elements Jendara and her crew encounter on exploring the new island—but these are hardly the most terrifying things they'll be forced to face before the end.

So get ready for Wendy to ramp up the adventure, the horror, and the thrills, all while delving into the sanity-skewing intersection of the Elder Mythos and Golarion—a perfect appetizer to get you in the mood for the new Strange Aeons Adventure Path. I know I'll be enjoying the adrenaline rush the whole way.

Josh Vogt
Editor

Winter's Wolves

by Wendy N. Wagner

Chapter Three: Up the Mountain

Jendara moved through the dense forest, following Irlu as the tracker floated through the bracken and brush. Jendara was an able tracker; the dark-haired Blackraven made her look like a novice. Despite the hill giant's size and ungainly burden—Lugh stood six and a half feet tall—the creature had left little spoor. It might be huge and ungainly, but the giant clearly knew the woods.

"Irlu will find him." Grotnir's voice was a soft rumble from behind Jendara. She glanced over her shoulder to see his face. She hadn't noticed the gray in his beard earlier.

Jendara watched the woman pick a flake of lichen off a branch and look closely at it. "She's a great tracker."

"The best I've ever worked with. And she doesn't give up. She'll comb these hills all night, if that's what it takes. He's Caul's brother, so he's as good as her own."

There's nothing natural about white wolves.

He caught the questioning look on Jendara's face. "Irlu's family was killed when she was just a little girl. She's never said what happened to them. A Blackraven patrol found her in the woods, surviving on her own."

No wonder Irlu had joined the prestigious border guard. And to have survived at such a young age in these woods—here, so close to the Irriseni border, where creatures like giants and white wolves were a constant threat—only made Jendara's admiration for the woman grow.

They moved through the forest in silence for a few minutes, crossing a stream at the bottom of a steep ravine and then climbing up again. They'd left behind any trace of loggers or hunters long ago: this was wild country, a rough and uninviting wilderness. Even the trees looked shorter here, their trunks twisted and wind-battered.

"I have a son a little younger than Lugh," Grotnir said, suddenly. He leaned against a tree for a moment. "He wants to join the Blackravens."

Jendara caught something in his tone. "And you don't want him to?"

He shook his head. "He's a good man, but no warrior. He'd make a fine smith or farmer, but I can't tell him that. Not after hearing Blackraven stories all his life."

Jendara picked a bit of moss out of the end of her braided hair. "I have a son myself. He's ten."

He reached out and caught her hand, pulling it close to study the tattoo. "And do you want him to follow in your footsteps?" He tapped the inked spot. "Besmara is a cruel goddess."

She pulled her hand away. "You know her sign."

He shrugged. "I've known a pirate or two. Bad men, all of them."

"We'll lose Irlu if we don't get a move on." She pushed past him without making eye contact.

He was right, of course. There were good reasons she wasn't a pirate anymore, and her boy was only one of them. But that didn't mean she'd apologize for it.

Irlu picked up her pace, and after a few moments, Jendara understood why. They were following some kind of game trail that snaked up the steep hillside. There was very little ground cover here, and bits of broken rock and debris marked the paths of long-ago landslides. The trail ran between little heaps of scree and dead leaves, looking well used.

Irlu hesitated and looked back over her shoulder. "I don't like this."

"What?" Grotnir asked.

"There's no sign of the giant anymore. I don't know how she lost us, but she has. We're only following the wolf."

Jendara frowned. "But the wolf didn't have Lugh."

"I think it does now." Irlu squatted. "I've seen a couple of scrape marks alongside the trail. I think it's probably Lugh's boots, dragging as the wolf carries him. I don't know when they switched off. Before they left the tree cover, certainly."

"Why didn't you say something sooner?" Jendara snapped.

"I wasn't sure." Irlu paused to cough. This walk uphill after breathing as much smoke as she had—it couldn't be good for her. She cleared her throat. "They're planning something."

A sudden rumble made them all turn to stare up the hill.

"Move!" Grotnir bellowed. A massive boulder bounced down the rocky slope, stirring up clouds of dust.

Jendara grabbed Irlu's hand and pulled her off the trail. They skidded for a second before Irlu caught a scraggly brush and stopped their descent. The boulder careened past them, hitting a stony outcropping and exploding into shards.

"Merciful Desna," Irlu breathed. Then she doubled over in a coughing fit.

"Too much dust." Jendara fumbled in her belt pouch for a handkerchief and offered it to the tracker. "We can probably expect more of that."

Another boulder, much smaller, soared out over their heads, landing a few feet beyond the remains of the other. It bounced down the hillside and disappeared into the trees.

"Now we know where the giant went," Grotnir said. "How the hell are we going to make it up to the top of this hill? Except for this game trail, it's all rock ahead. Not a bit of cover."

Jendara studied the terrain, then pointed out a thin, tall larch that somehow clung to the steep rocks of the hill. The game trail ran away from the tree as it headed up the hill's soft flank on the other side. "There's a chimney in the rock about halfway up the slope. If I shinny up that tree, I can jump to it and make my way to the top. That's got to be where the giant is."

Irlu's eyes widened. "Climb that? You're crazy."

Jendara grinned. "I'm a sailor. Climbing is what I do." She eyed the vertical crevice again and took off her sword—she didn't want to risk getting caught in the narrow gap. "Just give me a few minutes' head start."

Keeping low to the ground, she ran to the larch and scrambled up into its branches, which were thin, weak, and few. Despite her bravado, she felt her stomach twist. It was one thing to climb a stout oak mast, but this tree wasn't much thicker than her ankle. She'd better hope her luck held.

The trunk narrowed and began to lean. Jendara bit down on the inside of her cheek and eyed the rocks. There was a sequence of ledges leading up to the chimney—she ought to be able to jump onto one. She closed her eyes for a second and leaped.

She caught the rock with her fingertips and felt her boots skid before she steadied. She grunted. It would have been a nervous shriek if she didn't know the giant was someplace over her head. But after a moment, she pulled herself up to the next ledge and slipped into the jagged crack. She was glad she'd left her sword behind. The rocks pressed tight against her body—but that actually helped her. She braced her palms against the rock and pushed herself upward.

A ribbon of sunlight ran down the narrow gap between the rocks. Jendara felt as if the light itself pulled her up the tiny space. She kept her eyes fixed on the glittering bit of sunshine, filling her mind with its brilliance and not her precarious position.

Suddenly, the ribbon of light went dark.

A guttural voice boomed down the tube. Jendara craned her neck. Something blocked the top of the crevice. The giant, peering down at her. She could smell its filthy stink. Her heart thudded in her chest.

The giant pulled back and Jendara climbed faster. Then suddenly the huge voice bellowed in pain. Jendara threw herself up out of the crevice just as volley of arrows peppered the stones. Jendara pressed herself to the ground. Irlu must have raced up that hill while Jendara was in the tree.

The arrow storm paused. Down below, a cold voice shouted. Jendara couldn't make out the words, but she knew that voice. They'd found the wolf.

The giant was peering over the edge of the hilltop once more. The ground here was wind-scoured rock, dotted here and there with lichen-dappled boulders and rocks—the perfect lookout for an ambush.

Jendara got to her feet and drew her handaxe just as the giant spun around to face her. An arrow jutted out of the creature's arm, but it didn't seem to notice anymore. Its piggy eyes narrowed and it roared in rage, then pulled back its leg and kicked a chunk of rock at Jendara.

She threw herself aside, but the rock still hit her shoulder, jolting her hard enough to make her teeth rattle. The giant snatched up another rock.

Anger boiled up inside her. She charged the creature, dropping low at the last second and chopping into its kneecap with a crunch. The giant screamed. Jendara wrenched the axe free and shoved against the thing's hip. It stumbled backward.

For a second, its arms windmilled and it balanced at the very edge of the cliff. Then it flew backward. There was a thud as it hit the ground, just missing Grotnir as he rushed the white wolf.

The wolf bit into his hand, and Grotnir bellowed in pain. He wrenched himself free and stumbled away. Arrows streaked toward the wolf, and the creature retreated beyond Jendara's limited view. She glanced around herself. She had to get down off this hilltop, and she didn't have time to risk the crevice.

A mound of dirt caught her eye, and she hurried toward it. This side of the hill wasn't half as steep, and she could see the giant's footprints in the dirt. She followed them down and around the hillside. A few feet ahead, Grotnir's green cloak stood out against the rocky outcropping he was sheltering behind.

Jendara sank down behind a larch sapling. A few dozen yards beyond Grotnir, Irlu was creeping uphill. Jendara followed Irlu's gaze up the hill, beyond the sprawled corpse of the giant. A dark slit stood out against the rocks making up the hill, a horizontal version of the crevice Jendara climbed up. That had to be the wolf's den.

If Lugh was still alive, he was almost certainly in that cave.

She sprang up from her cover and burst into a run. It wouldn't be expecting a head-on charge, not from her, and this would distract from Irlu's stealthy approach. She realized she was bellowing like a berserk raider, but couldn't make herself stop.

The wolf burst out of the cave, snarling. Its teeth flashed as it lunged toward her, and for a second she feared its ice breath attack, but her handaxe was already slamming down on its face. The blade bit into fur and meat. The creature twisted aside, ripping the blade free with a splatter of blood.

But Jendara hadn't lost her grip on the weapon. She rolled under the beast's counterattack, her knees grinding into the broken gravel of the cave's entrance. The white wolf shrieked in sudden desperate pain.

She didn't pause to wonder why, just pushed herself up, slamming into the beast's belly and sending it flying. It fell on the rocks beside the dead giant. Blood trickled out of its mouth, and an arrow jutted out of its ribs. Irlu crept toward it.

"Finish me, Blackraven," it gurgled. "Like you finished my mate."

"I'm no Blackraven," Jendara spat.

"But I am." Irlu jammed her knife into the wolf's blue eye. The wolf convulsed once and went still. Irlu grinned savagely, and then a coughing fit made her double up as well.

"Irlu! Are you all right?" Grotnir ran to her. His arm hung limply at his side, blood running down his fingers.

Jendara turned away from them and hurried inside the shallow cave. "Lugh?"

A groan answered her. She couldn't make out his face in the dim light, but the sound was comforting. "You okay?"

"My head hurts."

"At least you didn't hurt anything important." She found his shoulders and began dragging him out into the light. He chuckled once, then groaned with pain again. When he was out of the cave, his skull bloody and knotted but still intact, Jendara sat down beside him and stretched out her legs.

"You know," she said, "you have a lot more of this to look forward to once you become a Blackraven."

Lugh chuckled again, then touched his head. "Like you said, no one ever said my brain is my best feature."

"Still," Jendara said, "you have to admit this was more interesting than hunting a bunch of ducks."

At the entrance of the cave, Irlu laughed. "Jendara, are you sure you're not a Blackraven?"

Jendara grinned. She was pretty sure that was a compliment.

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Wendy N. Wagner is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novel Skinwalkers and the web fiction story "Mother Bears," both starring Jendara. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies such as Armored and The Way of the Wizard, and in many online magazines. Wendy lives with her family in Portland, Oregon, where she also teaches writing for youth. An avid gardener and board gamer, she can be found online at winniewoohoo.com.

Illustration by Ian Llanas

Winter's Wolves

by Wendy N. Wagner

Chapter Two: Message in Blood

The hill giant stepped over the smashed remains of the trees. It wore a vest and skirt made of filthy hides, and a necklace of raccoon skulls dangled between its two drooping and half-covered breasts. Its hair hung in clumpy strands the color of dirt, damp and clinging to its jowled cheeks.

A dozen of the canvas and wood tent cabins stood between Jendara and the giant, and two men raced out of one of the structures, loaded up with gear and screaming. One of them shoved Jendara aside and barreled down the hill. Jendara ignored the other. Off to her right, Grotnir ran with Nola, headed toward the end of camp where the mule screams were coming from. She couldn't see his horse anywhere.

The giant bellowed something in its ugly language and swung a tree limb at the nearest tent cabin. The structure crumpled on impact.

What hill giants lack in intelligence, they make up for in brute strength.

Jendara unslung her bow and narrowed her eyes. A giant. She had only seen one once: While traveling on the mainland with her father, they'd seen one attack a shepherd and his flock. Her father had driven the giant away with only a hunting spear and a handaxe. Jendara had been maybe six or seven, but she'd never forgotten the ugly, stinking mass of the thing, or the pain that filled the shepherd's eyes as he struggled to breathe with lungs and ribs crushed by the creature. That shepherd was the first man she had watched die.

The giant wrenched a broken tree trunk from the ground and flung it. Jendara threw herself aside. The log crashed down in the logging road, just inches from where she'd been standing.

She felt the hot stirring of anger in her chest. She growled and readied her bow again.

She let fly her arrow. It sank fletching deep in the giant's floppy dug, and the creature shrieked. Then the giant ripped the arrow free and cast it aside. Jendara reached for another. She had to choose a better target—the creature's torso was just too fat for her arrows to hit a major organ.

The ground rumbled beneath her feet. A herd of mules thundered down the hill, straight toward Jendara.

A hand closed on her arm and she flew up in the air, her bow clattering to the ground.

"Get on!" Lugh bellowed. She scrabbled for a grip on the saddle and managed to get onto the horse's back even as it bolted away from the stampeding mules, racing leftward up a switchback Jendara hadn't noticed before.

Lugh slowed the horse. A couple of good-sized hemlocks stood between them and the camp, but Jendara could still hear the giant's laughter, low and rumbling and ugly. She sat up straight in the saddle. The black horse tossed its head, and she recognized it as Irlu's.

"We've got to stop this thing before it brings down the whole camp. Do you know where Irlu is?"

Lugh patted the horse's neck. "I saw her bringing wounded out of the biggest tent—must have been the folks the wolf hurt when it came through camp. Want to bet the giant and the wolf are working together?"

"I'll keep my money, thank you."

Lugh only laughed and urged the horse back toward the camp. Jendara gripped Lugh's shoulder tight with her left hand and drew her sword with the other. The giant stood in the middle of camp, fallen and shattered tent cabins all around it. The horse leaped over a toppled tree.

Then it suddenly reared up, hooves flailing. Something white burst up out of a fallen tent, snarling and roaring. The horse screamed as frost covered its hooves and coated its front legs. Jendara lost her grip on Lugh's shoulder and slid off the horse's back. She had the presence of mind to roll to her right, but she hit the ground hard. She pushed herself to sit up. Her ribs hurt, and her sword had fallen someplace. She felt naked without it.

The horse dropped to all fours and spun around. The white wolf lunged forward, but the horse lashed out with a rear leg and clipped the wolf in the muzzle. The creature toppled backward, but caught itself and shook its shaggy white head. Its glacial blue eyes fixed on the horse.

Jendara's sword lay just inches from the big white wolf. She eyed the distance between the creature and the sword. There was no way she could grab it and attack before the beast saw her.

A splintered door smashed down in front of her. She kicked the broken slab of wood away and jumped to her feet, but the wolf was gone.

Jendara ran to grab her sword. "Where is it?" she shouted. "Lugh, do you see the wolf?"

He stroked the horse's neck. It was calm now that the wolf had vanished. "I'm more worried about the giant."

"Forget the giant," Grotnir growled, appearing at Jendara's elbow. "Irlu and I have gotten most of the injured onto a logging skid. Let's grab the last of them and get these people down to Big Cascade before anyone else is hurt."

"What about the mules?" Jendara shouted, remembering the stampede. She sheathed her sword.

"Nola's rounding them up!" Grotnir beckoned her toward the biggest of the tent cabins.

Before she could move, part of the big tent's wooden frame collapsed. Flames whooshed suddenly up the back wall. The giant stumbled backward, shielding its face from the heat.

"Irlu!" Grotnir grabbed Jendara's arm. "She's in there!"

They ran into the smoky haze. On this side of the tent, the doorframe still stood, but black smoke billowed out the open door. Jendara covered her mouth and nose with her shirt. A deep whump shook the wall, and another section collapsed.

Jendara grabbed the back of Grotnir's cloak. "You can't go in there!"

He tried to shake her off. "I've got to get her out!"

Flames lapped across the sagging tent roof. Jendara threw her arms around Grotnir and heaved him away from the doorway. He wrenched at her fingers, but she stuck fast.

A hunched figure burst out of the doorway, enshrouded in smoldering wool.

"Irlu!" Grotnir shouted.

Irlu threw herself on the ground, rolling hard to smother any flames. She sat up and coughed hard, fighting for air. Jendara and Grotnir hurried to help her to her feet and away from the flaming tent.

"We've got to get out of here," Jendara warned Grotnir. "Where's the logging skid?" She couldn't see a thing. Her eyes stung with the black smoke choking the air.

"The road," he grunted. They staggered forward until their boots squelched in the road's deep mud.

Irlu sagged against Grotnir's side for a second, sucking up air. "A barrel of cooking oil," she croaked. "Exploded. I tried to get to the last man, but there were flames everywhere."

"Don't talk," Grotnir said. "You've breathed a lot of smoke."

Jendara blinked around herself. There was no sign of Lugh or Irlu's horse—and no sign of the logging skid, either. "I don't see Nola or the skid."

A black horse burst out of the smoke, riderless. Jendara's stomach sank. "Where's Lugh?"

A gust of wind stirred the smoke, and Jendara caught a glimpse of white at the edge of camp. She ran toward it. She could make out a voice—a rough, horrible voice, speaking a language she couldn't understand. The consonants clacked like rocks tumbling together, but the voice wasn't a giant's deep boom. She remembered what Grotnir had said about the wolves speaking.

The smoke eddied around Jendara, obscuring the world around her. She stumbled and fell into the mud, then pushed herself up to her hands and knees and looked back at what had tripped her: the still figure of a dark-haired woman in a brown coat, her cheek pink and blistered.

Nola. She'd come back to help her friends, and now she lay here in the mud.

The skull-and-crossbones tattoos on the backs of Jendara's hands—symbols of the pirate goddess she'd once revered—burned with rage. She reached for the axe in her belt. That wolf was going to pay. The giant may have crushed the camp, but the white wolf had to be the brains behind the attack.

Snarling, she jumped to her feet and ran toward the sound of the wolf's voice. The wall of smoke dissipated and she saw the white shape again, now moving into the dark forest beyond a broken corral, the giant close behind. The wolf turned to look at her. Its lip curled.

"Tell the Blackravens I took their partner." The creature made a noise in the back of its throat that might have been a laugh. "If they want him, they'll have to find him."

The giant's sides jiggled in merriment. It raised one hand and wiggled the fingers in a mocking wave. The other hand rested on Lugh's back, bent over the giantess's shoulder. His body was limp.

"Give him to me!" Jendara bellowed.

The wolf smiled broader. "Don't forget the message." It slipped into the trees without another sound.

Jendara ran forward—straight into the sudden swing of the giant's club. She managed to sidestep the full force of the blow, but it still caught her on the edge of her ribcage, spinning her around. She crumpled into the mud, her vision gray and bleary. She tried to sit up and saw a dazzling constellation of stars.

Someone knelt beside her and touched her shoulder. "Jendara?" Irlu's voice was raspy with smoke.

Anger pushed the pain out of Jendara's head. She sat up. "It thinks Lugh is one of you. A Blackraven. It wants you to come after him."

Grotnir squatted to meet Irlu's eyes. "So that's what this is about. It's the wolf the last patrol didn't finish."

"They wrecked this whole camp just to draw us in," Irlu growled.

"Fine." Grotnir spat on the ground. "If it wants Blackravens, we'll give it Blackravens.."

Jendara grabed his shoulder and pulled herself up. She felt terrible. Her head hurt, and her ribs screamed from the double insult of the giant's club and the fall from the horse. But at least she could think clearly. "This is a trap."

Irlu swiped soot from her face. "Of course it is. But I'll be serving on patrol with Caul for a whole year. Am I supposed to look him in the eye and say I let his brother get kidnapped by a white wolf and didn't go after him?"

Jendara nodded, then regretted the motion. "I'm going with you."

Grotnir's fist closed on her shoulder. "You're a brave one, but you're no Blackraven. Go down to Big Cascade and warn the townsfolk."

She knocked his hand away. "I promised Lugh's father I'd take care of him. I can't turn my back on him now."

Grotnir's lips pursed, but at last he nodded.

"Besides," Jendara added. "That wolf tried to turn me into a messenger girl." She grinned. "I'm going to teach it a lesson."

Irlu stood and moved toward the forest. "If you two are coming, then hurry up." Then she slipped into the trees as silently as the white wolf had.

Jendara had to admire the dark-haired tracker. The white wolf had killed two of her fellow border guards. Irlu was injured and didn't even know Lugh. But she hadn't hesitated to go after him.

Jendara tapped the handle of her belt axe. It had been her father's, once; he had used it to fight off that giant. If his spirit could see her holding it now, he would certainly approve.

Jendara followed Irlu into the forest. That wolf had no idea who it was dealing with.

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Coming Next Week: The icy conclusion of Wendy N. Wagner's "Winter's Wolves"!

Wendy N. Wagner is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novel Skinwalkers and the web fiction story "Mother Bears," both starring Jendara. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies such as Armored and The Way of the Wizard, and in many online magazines. Wendy lives with her family in Portland, Oregon, where she also teaches writing for youth. An avid gardener and board gamer, she can be found online at winniewoohoo.com.

Illustration by Ian Llanas

Winter's Wolves

by Wendy N. Wagner

Chapter One: Mud, Ice, and Blood

Jendara dropped onto a fallen log and eyed her companion. "Are you ready to give up?"

The young man's ever-present grin widened. "Already? We haven't shot anything yet!"

Jendara sighed and scrubbed mud off of one jolly roger-tattooed hand. She'd grown tired of the stink of mud over the past two weeks. She was used to the sea, to sailing on the trading ship Milady, or hunting on the wind-battered island of Sorind that she had come to call her home. But she and Vorrin, the Milady's captain, had both agreed that this summer they'd look for new stops to add to their trade routes, and old friends in Trollheim had convinced them to sail upriver for good deals on garnets.

Lugh squatted down so he could meet her eye. The boy—young man, she corrected herself—was nearly as big as a bear, and almost as hairy. "You've got your cursing-the-locks face on."

She sighed again. "I just can't believe we're still waiting for the damn locks to be fixed. It's bad enough having to sail up a river. Being stuck out here in the mud is just ridiculous."

"What's ridiculous is that we didn't find any ducks." Lugh stood up, stretched, and looked around himself. "The villagers said this marsh is packed with ducks and geese, but we haven't even seen a blackbird."

Jendara stood up. At her feet, a small stream ran by, hurrying toward the wide marsh she and Lugh had trekked around. If she squinted, she could just make out the headland separating the marsh from the solid ground the village of Big Cascade stood upon. Vorrin and the rest of the crew were probably drinking in the village's pathetic excuse for a tavern by now.

She turned back to Lugh. He was a new friend, a passenger they'd taken on as a favor to his father, who ran a canvas mill in the capital city of the Ironbound Archipelago. The Milady had too many sails not to curry favor with a man like that, and besides, he'd paid them well. Lugh's family was enormously proud of the fact that Lugh and his twin brother had been selected for a year's service in the Blackravens, an elite border guard here on the mainland. The brother had gone ahead while Lugh had been delayed several months by a leg broken during the testing, and now he fairly vibrated with his eagerness to catch up. The youth's boisterous good spirits irritated Vorrin, but Jendara didn't mind. The boy was no great philosopher, it was true, but she enjoyed practicing her swordplay with someone who could laugh about it afterward.

"I don't like this place much," she admitted. "Everything feels damp and smells musty. The clouds look so heavy, I can feel them weighing down my shoulders."

Lugh clapped her on the back. "Let's get you back to the village. The food might be garbage, but the ale will cheer you up."

The ale wasn't much better than the food, but Jendara knew he was trying to bolster her spirits. She gathered up her bow and quiver and led them back toward the rutted logging road that followed the edge of the marsh. The mud sucked at their boots, and she swore under her breath the whole way. Lugh chuckled as he pushed back a branch of a young alder and held it aside for her to step out onto the road.

As she did, a pair of riders rounded the corner. She waved at them, a neighborly gesture, but neither the man nor the woman looked like they could be the neighbor of anyone in Big Cascade. The villagers earned their keep via the locks, and were as soft as people got in the Linnorm Kingdoms. These newcomers were anything but. A battered but polished halberd hung on side of the man's saddle, and the woman had a fine bow slung across her back, along with an array of blades. Neither spoke as they passed by.

"Beautiful horses, weren't they?" Lugh asked Jendara. He looked after them wistfully. As methods of transit went, Jendara would always choose a boat over a horse.

The woman turned around in her saddle, dark eyes wide. "Caul?"

Lugh beamed. "You know my brother?"

She laughed. "Merciful Desna! Caul said he had a twin, but I never expected you'd be his copy." She dismounted and stuck out her hand. "Irlu Icewine, tracker and Blackraven. Caul's assigned to our patrol! "

A Blackraven is a force to be reckoned with.

Lugh's shook her hand with an exuberance that threatened to take her arm off. Jendara stepped forward. "Jendara Eriksson. Pleased to meet one of the Blackravens."

Irlu gave her a quick glancing-over, her eyes pausing on Jendara's belt axe and sword, then smiled. With her dark hair and dark eyes, she didn't look like the natives of the region—she could almost pass for Tian. But her face was open and friendly, and her handshake firm. Several dark feathers had been woven into her hair. "Just doing my part to keep the witches of Irrisen and their accursed beasts out of the Linnorm Kingdoms. But any friend of Caul's is going to be a friend of mine. Grotnir!" she called to her companion. "Come down here and meet these fine folks!"

The other Blackraven dismounted to join them. "I see you've found Caul's twin," he said, his voice a low rumble. "Did you get held up on your journey to Blackraven Hall? We heard the locks were down."

"You guess correctly," Lugh answered. "We've been waiting two weeks for the repairs to finish. Jendara and I escaped the harbor to try our luck at duck hunting."

Irlu eyed their muddy clothes and empty game bags. "It looks like your luck failed you."

"It was oddly quiet out there." Jendara said.

The two Blackravens exchanged glances. Grotnir's lips tightened.

"Do you know something?" Jendara's hand went immediately to the axe in her belt. Anything that upset two experienced Blackravens was bad news.

Irlu's face darkened. "We've been tracking a white wolf that's already killed two of our patrol members, and injured another. Caul's with our hurt man, maybe twenty miles back; he took him to the nearest healer. We're headed to the logging camp up this hill, because one of the loggers reported a sighting."

"A white wolf?" Lugh's eyebrows knitted. "How could a wolf kill two Blackravens?"

Grotnir shook his head. "Not an ordinary wolf, son. A white wolf. Nothing natural about those. They're bigger, smarter—they can even talk."

"And they can breathe ice," Irlu added. "They use it to stun their prey."

"We think it's been through here before," Grotnir said. "Another patrol passed through this area a few months ago and dealt with a particularly vicious pair of white wolves. One got away."

"It wouldn't have if I'd been on that patrol," Irlu snapped. "Their tracker ought to be ashamed of himself."

"Are the white wolves a big problem in this area?" Jendara asked. There weren't any such creatures on Sorrind. She knew this part of the Linnorm Kingdoms had more than its share of dangerous creatures, but this beast was one she'd never encountered.

"They're nomadic," Grotnir said. "But they're bad news. If that logger really saw a white wolf, the people of Big Cascade don't even know the kind of trouble they're in."

Jendara cocked her head. "We've been standing here talking for a good ten minutes. That's long enough for most birds to stop worrying about a person's presence. Why haven't we heard any?"

Grotnir's eyes narrowed. "You're right."

"Help! Please, help!"

Lugh stared up the road. "What the—"

A woman raced down the hill toward them, her brown jacket streaked with blood. She tripped on a rock and fell hard. With a little cry, she jumped back to her feet and kept running. "Help!"

Lugh raced forward and caught the woman as she stumbled again. "Are you all right?"

She gasped for air. Blisters dappled the left side of her face and the skin was puffy and pink, as if she'd been splattered with hot oil. "Something attacked the camp," she managed to say, although it clearly hurt to talk.

Irlu balled her hands into fists. "The white wolf."

The woman's fingers went to her cheek. "Its breath burns, it's so cold."

Grotnir was digging in his saddlebags. He tossed Lugh a container. "Ointment. Help her." He caught Irlu's eye. "We've got to get to that camp."

"Most of us are still in the woods—it's just cooks and them's too sick to work today. I'm not sure they can hold it off much longer." The woman winced as Lugh slathered the cream on her face.

Irlu swung up onto her saddle. She looked unhappy. "Looks like we caught up with it after all."

"Finally." Grotnir smiled without humor. "No beast brings down a Blackraven and lives."

"We'll help!" Lugh said.

Irlu frowned. "You're not a Blackraven yet, boy."

"We can tend the wounded," Jendara said. "If you've got supplies."

"Me too," the logger added. The presence of four armed warriors seemed to have calmed her. "The beast took us by surprise, but with you four..." She began marching back up the hill toward camp, her mouth set tightly.

"The white wolf is probably gone already. They prefer sneak attacks to drawn battles. I'll go ahead." Irlu urged her horse into a quick trot and raced past the woman.

"I don't like this," Grotnir growled at Jendara. "I should send you back to Big Cascade for reinforcements."

"Let's take stock of the situation, and if need be, I'll head back to town and organize a hunting party," Jendara told him.

He rubbed his beard and gave her a measuring glance. At last he said, "Well enough. Irlu's right—the beast's probably disappeared already. Let's go."

The hill climbed sharply away from the marshes and lowlands of the Rimeflow River valley. The country here was rugged, all craggy hills and steep ravines. The dense evergreen forest crowded down to the edges of the logging road, a muddy track cut out of the woods, just wide enough for a horse-drawn skid. When the locks were up and running, the road was probably much busier. Lots of barges and small craft went up and down the Rimeflow, and the towns and cities of the Linnorm Kingdoms were hungry for quality timber. These trees, no matter how dark and ominous they might feel to Jendara at this moment, were worth a great deal.

The woman from the logging camp gave Jendara a sidelong glance. "You're no Blackraven."

"No," Jendara answered. "Just a sailor out for some hunting."

The woman put out her hand. "I'm Nola. Good meeting you."

Jendara shook on it. Nola gave her a smile, and fell silent, lost in her own thoughts. As Grotnir's horse pulled ahead of the three walkers, Jendara peered into the woods. The late morning sunlight that dappled the logging road ended at its edges. The forest beyond sat in twilight gloom.

A thin, piercing howl split the air. Nola went pale.

"The beast!"

She broke into a run. Lugh tore after her.

Jendara walked faster, the hairs on her neck prickling. Everything felt wrong about this situation. The too-quiet forest, the attack on the logging camp, and now the wolf's triumphant call. She unslung her bow and pulled free an arrow.

The road went up one last switchback and then widened out into the logging camp, a cleared space filled with at least a dozen canvas-sided tent cabins. People darted from tent to tent. Someone screamed in pain. Over the top of it all, the panicked braying of mules added a cacophonous note.

Jendara stood on the edge of the madness, unsure where to go or how to even start to help. She couldn't see Irlu's horse or Grotnir's, and Lugh was nowhere to be seen.

The wolf's call resounded again, and the earth shook beneath Jendara's feet.

With a tremendous crashing noise, the stand of trees on the far side of camp burst into splinters as a boulder blasted through it. The massive stone bounced once, twice, and landed in the middle of the road, just inches from Jendara. Her heart lurched and she stumbled backward.

A club the size of a small tree smashed down on a tent at the edge of camp. Jendara stared at it.

"Hill giant!" someone screamed.

Somewhere nearby, the wolf howled again.

Want more Jendara?
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Coming Next Week: A deadly hunt in Chapter Two of Wendy N. Wagner's "Winter's Wolves"!

Wendy N. Wagner is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novel Skinwalkers and the web fiction story "Mother Bears," both starring Jendara. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies such as Armored and The Way of the Wizard, and in many online magazines. Wendy lives with her family in Portland, Oregon, where she also teaches writing for youth. An avid gardener and board gamer, she can be found online at winniewoohoo.com.

Illustration by Ian Llanas

Skinwalkers Sample Chapter

by Wendy N. Wagner

In Skinwalkers, Wendy N. Wagner returns to chronicle the further adventures of Jendara, who was first introduced in the web fiction story "Mother Bears." As a young woman, Jendara left the cold northern isles of the Ironbound Archipelago for fame and fortune on a pirate ship, only to return home to find her family slain by raiders. Now, many years later, she's forsaken her buccaneer ways and sails the islands in search of a simpler life, hoping to raise her young son in peace. When a strange clan of shapeshifters begins pillaging the islands, however, the past comes crashing back, and there's no choice for Jendara but to take up her axe and help the islanders defend all that they hold dear...

Chapter Two
The Quarry

The thwack of wood against wood jolted Jendara awake. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the sound reverberated throughout her whole head.

"I shouldn't have had so much of that lingonberry wine," she grumbled.

Wood cracked outside again. Jendara pushed back the furs and swung her feet over the side of her bed. She padded out into the hallway. Kran's door was open and his bed stood empty, his clothes missing from their hooks.

She sighed. He'd avoided her all day yesterday, and skipped the going-away feast. She shrugged on her sheepskin coat and trudged into the main room of the cottage.

"Kran?"

But he wasn't to be seen. His latest woodworking project sat on the plank table, the tools neatly in their case. A half-eaten slice of bread sat beside it. Jendara reached for her sword belt, hanging by the door, and buckled it on.

"Kran?" She opened the door. A swath of mist swallowed up the rest of the village. It cast a wintry pall over the summer morning, and Morul's house, just a few hundred feet away, was so shrouded in fog that it may well have been on the other side of the world. Fog was common here in the islands, but she never enjoyed the otherworldly cast it spread across the landscape, or the clamminess it left on everything.

With a sigh, she stepped out into the damp morning. Her toe squished on something wet and ropy on the doorstep, and she whipped her bare foot back.

It was the neck cord for Kran's slate. If the boy had taken it off, it was a sure sign he didn't want to talk.

Jendara's lips compressed. She didn't have the luxury of waiting around to settle this. In a few hours, the tide would change and she and the crew of the Milady would take their last trip to the mainland before winter's snow and ice hit. The thud resounded again, and she followed the sound to the back of the house.

No one messes with Jendara's islands.

She rounded the corner of the little cottage and saw Kran's shape, the woad-blue sweater and shaggy black hair. He stood just past the wood-chopping block, his attention on a stick of firewood balanced on top of a fence post. His pants, she realized, cleared the top of his boots by a good half an inch. He was going to be tall, like his father. Like her father. The boy was made up of the best of both sides of his family.

She didn't know where the muteness came from. When he'd been littler, she thought it was something she'd done wrong before he'd been born. Maybe she should have made offerings to other gods beside Besmara, dark l0ady of pirates. Maybe she should have stayed on land instead of climbing so much rigging. But she'd never found a real reason for Kran's inability to speak, and she had to admit that as he'd gotten older, it didn't seem to matter much to the boy.

Kran wound up his sling and lobbed a shot at the firewood. It hit dead center and launched the wood far out into the mist.

Jendara clapped.

Kran spun around. His face, for one instant bright with his own success, went dark. He spiked two fingers toward his eyes, then pointed out over the fence line. The gesture spoke for itself: See?

"I saw. You've got a nice release." She held out her hand. "Can I take a look at your shot?"

He reached in his coat pocket and held out a handful of wooden marbles. She rolled one between her fingers. It was smooth and heavier than it looked.

"You carved these?"

He nodded.

"Makes a world of difference, using shot that all weighs the same. Can really improve your aim." She tossed the marble in the air. "May I keep this? I need a good shooter if we play marbles on the ship."

He tapped his full belt pouch, suggesting he had plenty more.

"You still practice with rocks at all?"

He shrugged a shoulder.

"You should. What if you run out of shot while you're out hunting? Be sad to miss out on a really good snowshoe hare just because you forgot how to adjust for the weight of an off-balance stone."

At the word "hunting," his face crunched into a scowl. He reached for his chalk and board and made an exasperated sound when he realized he'd left it behind.

Jendara took a seat on an old driftwood log and patted the spot beside her. Kran didn't sit. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't take you hunting yesterday. I was afraid. Boars are trouble. I've heard of too many things going wrong on a boar hunt."

Kran was quick to tap his ear, then raise his eyebrow and point at his eye. He didn't know much of the sign language other mutes used, but he was good at finding his own ways to communicate.

"That's true: I've only ever heard stories, I haven't seen anything. But I know a man whose uncle—" She broke off, suddenly reminded of Yul's ridiculous story about the skinwalker. "Look, Morul's dog was almost killed yesterday. Hunting is dangerous."

Kran shook his pointer finger at her and then crossed his arms. He must have picked the gesture up from Yul over the last few summers spent ashore. She wondered, not for the first time, if perhaps she should have insisted the boy accompany her on trading journeys. He was the son of two sailors. He should practice his seamanship.

She reminded herself to focus on the problem at hand. Her son was angry. She had only a few hours before the tide turned and she set out on a two-month-long journey. She rubbed her head and wished it would stop aching.

She switched tactics. "You're going to be eleven in spring. That's pretty grown up." Really grown up. At age eleven, she'd gone with her father on her first raid, sailing to the mainland and stealing five sheep and a gallon of Chelish brandy. He'd let her drink it, too.

The boy kept his eyes on her face, his own expression guardedly neutral.

"If you can show me that you're ready for hunting big game, then I'll take you hunting with me. Maybe moose, down on Flintyreach. They're dangerous, but you haven't lived until you've made your own moose jerky."

He tapped his belt, beside his belt knife. She knew just what he meant.

"Yes, you'll get to take your own weapons. I'll even make you your own hunting spear. A good ash one, like my father made me."

Kran frowned and made a gesture with his hand like a half-closed fist, the thumb lifted. Jendara cocked her head, mimicking him. He repeated the gesture, raising the fist to eye level and giving it a little snap. She stopped in the middle of raising her own.

"No." She shook her head, even though it hurt. "My father didn't give me my belt axe. I took his when he died. To remember him."

Kran stepped over the scraps of wood and put his arms around her. She leaned her head against his. He normally considered himself too mature for babyish hugging.

He released her and beckoned toward the house. She got up off the log and paused a moment to brush wood chips off herself. Beyond her own small garden space, kept tended by Kran and Leyla, the fog was lifting. She could see all the way out to the harbor now, although the view was hazy. The Milady's yellow-and-blue pennant already waved. She smiled a little. She'd bet a gold coin Glayn had raised it before the sun had even reached the horizon. The oldest member of the crew, the gnome loved the Milady as much as she did.

She scanned the path leading up to the village. A familiar figure was approaching, the ridiculous peacock feather in his felt cap bobbing along. Vorrin, of course. That must mean the Milady was ready to set sail.

Jendara waved at Vorrin. She was happy to see him, even if she wasn't ready to leave Kran just yet. But she knew a good way to buy a few more minutes with her boy. "Kran!" she called. "How would you like pancakes for breakfast?"

"Pancakes?" Vorrin asked. "You know I can't resist pancakes." He gave Kran a friendly punch in the shoulder.

The boy punched him back with a grin. Vorrin slung his arm around Kran's shoulder. "You sure you don't want to go with us? We're going to swing south a bit to meet Boruc—he's Morul and Yul's brother, and some kind of hermit-artist-genius. He lives in a mine."

"A quarry," Jendara corrected. She stooped to gather up Kran's slate and pass it to him. "I guess he lives in Averaka most of the year, but in the summer, the quarry reopens and he goes out to get first dibs on the best stone. Yul says all Boruc does is carve rock, drink mead, and chase wo—" She eyed her son. "Chase parties," she corrected herself. "He likes to have a lot of fun."

"Maybe we're glad you're not going," Vorrin said. "Boruc doesn't sound like a very good influence."

Kran rolled his eyes. Boats are boring, and so are statues, he wrote.

Jendara ruffled his hair. "I love you, Kran."

You, too, he wrote. Pancakes???

Vorrin laughed. "It's good to know the lad's mind is in the right place."

∗ ∗ ∗

Flintyreach, one of the largest islands in the Ironbound Archipelago, lived up to its name. Off the Milady's bow, the gray rock of the island's bones stretched down to the water, no softness of soil or grass to invite a sailor off her boat. A few stunted shrubs sprang up out of the cracks in the rock. But although these plants were small, Jendara felt certain she'd never seen any such a happy green. The people of the islands were like that: a hardscrabble lot, quick to fight, but quicker to reach for the mead. Every day was a celebration when you worked so hard to survive.

"I can't see why Yul's brother wants to live in a place like this," Vorrin said, leaning his elbows on the deck railing beside her.

She reached into her pouch for a bundle of leftover pancakes and passed him one. "Boruc's a stoneworker."

"He could go anywhere to find stone." Vorrin waved at the gray expanse. "There aren't even trees here."

Jendara pointed to the south, where greenery climbed up the steep flanks of Flintyreach's inner hills. "The beaches look harsh, but most of Flintyreach is forested. Unfortunately, the interior is also infested with trolls, giants, and ettins. The folk down in the villages organize hunting parties, but it's still dangerous. People stay close to the sea here. It's safer."

The Milady began to swing around, preparing for its approach to the docks. In a few minutes, the ship was tied up and the twelve-man crew ready to explore the little fishing village of Alstone—or at least, its tavern. Vorrin consulted with Tam, the big blond first mate who'd grown up on Flintyreach, and then met Jendara at the edge of town, where a little cart road ran off toward Alstone Quarry.

"Tam says he and the crew will pick up our other trade goods, so there's no rush to get back to town." He eyed the sun, about three fingers above the horizon. "But let's try to be back by nightfall."

Jendara nodded. Morul claimed there hadn't been any major problems with giants or trolls in this part of Flintyreach lately, but she didn't want to risk a run-in. Wild animals were bad enough, but giants...Jendara could definitely live without running into any of them.

As the cart road snaked away from the shoreline, the scrubby trees grew taller and the undergrowth thicker. Still, the place didn't feel anything like Sorind, the island she'd just left behind. The trees here had grayer bark and twisted limbs. They did little to soften the wind coming off the ocean.

Jendara glanced over at Vorrin. He had gone quiet, his teeth working the edge of his mustache like he did when he was worried. She watched him a minute longer.

"All right, what's bothering you?"

"Nothing. It's just getting awfully late in the season."

"It'll be fine," she said. "Sure, we've had a busy summer and it's kept us moving more than usual. Maybe we're a few weeks behind, but it's no big deal. And you've been wanting more variety in our trade goods. Boruc's carvings might be just the moneymaker you've been looking for."

He sighed. "I understand the logic, but that doesn't make me any more comfortable. We playing it close this trip, Dara. You and I both know summer fades fast out here."

She gave him a particularly winsome smile, one that rarely failed to soften him. "This is our last stop before we leave for Varisia. We'll be fine."

"It's going to make for a hard trip back to Sorind, and you know it. That's why you've been so awkward with Kran. Because you're worried."

"I'm not worried, and I haven't been awkward." She paused, her eyes scanning the brush. "Did you hear something?"

Vorrin shook his head. "No. It's perfectly quiet."

"Now it is. But just now, I thought..." Jendara trailed off. She sniffed at the air, but smelled only smoke and the faint scent of roasted meat. "We must be getting close to the quarry."

"I hope Boruc's work is as good as Yul claims it is. Our shipment this fall is too ordinary. Too many furs and wines, not enough ivory. If we could get some walrus—"

Jendara cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Hush." She listened for a long moment, head cocked. "Don't you think it's too quiet?"

He didn't answer. There were no birds calling, no squirrels rustling the branches. Jendara broke into a run. Vorrin hurried after her.

The road tilted downhill. A few ruts showed where carts loaded with rock must have dug into the surface, and Jendara avoided them, glad it hadn't rained lately. The smell of smoke intensified, as did the heavy smell of roasted meat.

Vorrin grabbed her shoulder. "Wait."

"What?"

"It's a long time till dinner. Why would anyone be cooking right now?" He shook his head. "Something feels wrong."

"We should be careful." Jendara moved closer to the edge of the road, ready to dive into cover at any moment. She crept forward.

A crow exploded from the bush in front of her, its scream launching her backward. She fell onto her backside and pushed herself away. The crow rose up, cawing once, twice as it cleared the treetops.

Vorrin helped her to her feet. "You okay?"

She nodded.

They moved forward again. The cart road turned a sharp corner. Jendara and Vorrin stopped, staring down at the encampment at the edge of the quarry. Nothing moved.

"It's too quiet," Jendara murmured.

"Jendara," Vorrin whispered. He pointed.

Beside a cart, a man stood awkwardly, head hung low, arms behind him, legs too straight. It took her a minute to make sense of the strangeness of his pose, to see the stake running through him, lifting his feet inches off the ground. To see the black puddle beneath, clotted with flies.

A crow settled on his shoulder and nipped at his cheek.

"No!"

Even as she ran, she knew it was stupid, knew it couldn't change anything. But she couldn't just watch the bird eat his face. Her sword jumped into her hand.

"Jendara!"

The bird fluttered aloft, but the sword was already swinging, already biting into its neck. For a second, the crow hung in the air, eyes fixed on her face. Then its head soared out over the brink of the quarry. Its body fell to her feet.

"Damn it, Jenny!" Vorrin spun her around by the elbow.

"Don't call me Jenny." She shook him off and began pacing, too upset to hold still. "I've seen this before."

"We need to scout out the camp," Vorrin said, keeping his voice low. "We need to know if there are any survivors."

"Or worse, any attackers." She took a deep breath, regaining a little control. "You're right, we need to go through the whole place."

"Do a quick perimeter check. I'll head west, you go east. And don't take any chances." He reached out for her, brushed his fingers against her cheek. "I don't like this."

"Me neither," she whispered, but she was already turning away from him. She still couldn't hear any sounds save for her own footsteps crunching the gravel underfoot. That was bad.

She sank into her hunter's crouch and approached the nearest building, the largest around. The presence of a tin stovepipe suggested it might be the kitchen and mess hall for the quarry workers. Jendara pressed her ear to the wall and listened hard. Still quiet, save for a faint drip-drip-dripping. She wished she could look through the window, but the shutters were closed.

Jendara's fingers trembled as she reached for the doorknob.

She snapped open the door and almost staggered backward at the overpowering stench of blood and offal. The kitchen looked like a scene from a nightmare. Bloody handprints covered the counters. Flies buzzed over raw-looking heaps that she didn't want to name, and blood slicked the floor. Jendara swallowed hard and took a step inside.

"Is there anyone here?"

She didn't know why she called out, except in the faint hope that someone hiding might hear her and come out to explain that this was all a joke, this was all animal blood, those weren't human intestines curled around that sack of onions, there was nothing horrible in the big pot sitting on the stove. She kept her grip on her sword, but her knees wobbled a little as she picked her way across the room. She had to look. Had to know. She peered over the lip of the pot.

It was empty.

Jendara sagged. She had expected...she shook her head. Silly perhaps. Whatever happened here, it must have happened fast, and whoever did it hadn't stopped to cook. They weren't that civilized. She knew they weren't that civilized.

After all, she'd seen this before.

She shook her head and pushed forward.

A door opened up into the dining hall, and she stepped out into the space. The dripping was louder here. With only a few windows, the big room was almost too dark to see into, but she saw enough. Something squelched under her boot as she crossed to the nearest table and righted a bottle of milk. The puddle on the table kept dripping, a soft slow pattering onto the tin mug lying on its side on the floor.

The door burst open. Sunlight poured in, lighting up a long sweep of blood leading outside. Vorrin stopped in the doorframe. He took in the empty room. "I see you forgot we were just circling the perimeter. Any survivors in here?"

Any survivors. Such a flat way to say the worst. She shook her head. "It's empty. Just blood and parts."

The dripping stopped.

"This must have just happened," she realized. "A lot of this blood is still wet. And the milk bottle couldn't have been knocked over more than a few minutes ago."

"We must have scared someone away. A looter, maybe. From what I saw, I think most of this was done longer ago. Maybe this morning."

"Most of what?" Her voice sounded faint even to her own ears. An attack at dawn. That was what happened on Crow's Nest, her father's island. Her sister's island. She thought of the man tied to the stake and felt sure it was no coincidence. She stiffened her shoulders. "Show me."

They stayed silent as Vorrin led her around the side of the nearest building, passing by a clothesline with a few limp garments hanging in the still air. An open door showed a basket of dirty shirts and a washtub. Ordinary items in an ordinary washhouse.

They rounded the corner. A heap of bodies lay ahead, a raw mound of broken and bloody dead.

"Gods," she breathed. "That has to be eighteen or twenty men."

Vorrin circled around the pile. "Some of these bodies don't look...whole."

"What?"

He waved her over. Jendara knelt to look at a body on the bottom of the stack. She was glad she couldn't see his face; only his feet and legs stuck out—or more aptly, his mutilated legs and foot. Jendara's stomach twisted. "Is it just me, or do his legs look like the meat's been cut off in strips?"

"I don't want to think about it." He pointed to the remains of a small campfire. "Someone definitely built a fire here, like they stayed a few hours."

Jendara stooped to hold her hand above the ashes. She nudged a flat rock in the center. "Still warm, and if I had to guess, I'd say those were grease stains on this stone."

Vorrin blanched. "I don't want to think about it," he repeated. He pressed his fist to his mouth, skin pale.

Jendara felt her own gorge rise, but swallowed hard. "We should check out the rest of the camp."

She moved to the next building, a woodshed. Jendara freed her sword to circle it. Behind her, Vorrin moved quietly, only the occasional crunch of gravel giving away his movement. There was no blood in the woodshed.

Jendara steeled herself to walk past the mound of dead again, but Vorrin caught her eye. He tapped his ear and nodded toward the gaping pit of the quarry.

She listened. She heard nothing at first, but then caught a small sound: a scrape of leather against stone. "Do you think it's our milk spiller?" she whispered.

He nodded. They crept toward the cart road. As they passed behind the washhouse, Jendara felt a momentary gratitude that its bulk hid the grisly mound, a feeling which passed all too quickly was the tiny sound of a foot crushing gravel caught her ear. There really was someone down there. She wondered how deep the quarry went and tightened her grip on her sword.

The cart road led to the rim of the quarry—a deep stony bowl cut out of the hillside. It stretched a good quarter of a mile across. Jendara peered over the edge. The narrow track continued down into the rocks, following the curve of the walls. For the first hundred yards or so, mounds of yellow sandstone lay piled up on the shoulders of the road. Trees and brush obscured the turn beyond. Jendara leaned out farther. The bottom of the quarry looked empty, the flat expanse of sea-green stone like a placid lake.

Jendara turned back to Vorrin. "Whoever went down there, they haven't reached the bottom yet."

He glanced over the edge. "I don't like that descent. It's too easy to rig an ambush on a road like this."

Jendara laid her hand on his arm. "If the person we're chasing is dangerous. This could be a survivor, scared out of their mind after what they saw back there. Or it could be a witness, some woodsman who just walked into a nightmare. No matter who they are, I want to talk to them."

"Let me go down."

"No. I'm a local, they're more likely to trust me." Jendara pointed to the far side of the quarry. "I think you'd better follow the top of this cliff around to the far side. The ground's rough, but I think that looks like a footpath leading out of the quarry, don't you?"

Vorrin squinted a moment. "I see it. Good plan." He gave her a sharp look. "You'll be careful, right? You're not running down there with your sword half-out just because of what you saw back there?"

Jendara began walking down the steep path without sparing him a backward look. "I know I'm doing, Vorrin. Just watch the trail."

As she went, she studied the path ahead for clues. There was no way to make out tracks on gravel this heavily traveled, but blood would stand out. No way to kill that many people without getting bloody. And it was hard not to leave tiny signs of passage that a good set of eyes might pick up: with every step, a person shed spoor like hairs and threads and fragments of the foods they ate.

She paused to listen for other footsteps. The quarry was silent. Jendara took a few steps forward, focusing on the sound of the gravel beneath her boots. She knew how to step lightly, but the tiny stones made a certain amount of noise no matter what. She paused again. There. That might have been the rustle of a foot passing over pea gravel.

She resisted the urge to run toward the sound. It would be all too easy to think of those bodies piled up by the wash house and let hot rage whip her into a run, but she pushed the anger aside. If she ran toward a survivor, it would only further terrify the poor man or woman. And if it was a killer, well, it would still be just as easy to die by falling to the bottom of this pit as it would be to get jumped by a slavering cannibal.

Cannibalism. Just the thought of it sickened her. The only cannibals she'd ever heard of were the Kalvamen, those reclusive island dwellers far to the north. Few risked the trip to Kalva to see the massive barbarians with their milk-white eyes and sickening eating habits, and no Kalvamen had raided the islands in generations. Morul and Yul weren't the only ones who thought the Kalvamen were nothing to fear. If asked, most islanders would agree that the people of Kalva were too deranged and inbred to manage a sea crossing.

Maybe they should be more afraid, Jendara thought. After she'd returned home that day to find her father dead and her sister missing, she had taken to her ship and scouted the island of Kalva from the sea. It was true she had seen no sign of ships large enough to travel the ferocious seas between Kalva and the Ironbound Archipelago, but it was also true that plenty of islanders had sailed remarkable distances in small raiding vessels. She had never discounted the Kalvamen just for lack of seafaring ability.

She tripped on a stone jutting out of the worn path, and at the last second caught herself on a massive boulder. She clung to it a moment, trying to catch her breath. She needed to pay better attention if she didn't want to kill herself.

A few feet beyond her, someone had cleared away the piles of fallen rock and brush, and she could clearly see the bottom of the quarry. The current work zone stood out from the rest of the rock floor, with racks of gear and tools stacked around a square perimeter. Piles of rock sat waiting to be loaded onto carts. Jendara knew little about stones or masonry, but thought the green stuff might be soapstone. It was always in high demand, being easy to work.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. All those piles provided easy cover for an ambush.

She picked her way forward and kept low to the ground as she came out into the flat stone-working area. A massive chunk of green rock sat beside the edge of the path. There was no way to see behind it.

Jendara brought out her handaxe. She pressed her back to the stone and reminded herself that whoever was down here might not be a white-eyed cannibal killer.

"I don't want to hurt you," she called out. "I just want to talk."

No reply.

She threw herself around the side of the stone with her axe ready. She saw no one.

The jolt of unused adrenaline made her legs go to jelly. She ignored it, kept her axe at the ready, and began to walk the perimeter of the quarry. She'd expected the worst. It felt strange not to face a monster when she was ready for one.

She stopped. She'd reached the side of the quarry bottom almost directly below its entrance, and a dark blot lay on the ground. The crow's head she'd lopped off at the top of the quarry. An ant crawled over the still-glossy bead of its yellow eye.

She had to avert her gaze. Beheading the crow had been a bad idea. She'd been raised to uphold the old clan traditions, and the crow had been her clan's totem. Life at sea had been one way to escape the bird's constant presence on dry land—the only time she had to look at them was when the ship docked, or when she saw someone wearing one of those crow-shaped traveler's pendants. She tried not to look at those necklaces for too long. She'd bought one once for Kalira, her sister. The younger girl had adored it.

Jendara had circled most of the way around now, and still hadn't seen anyone. Where was the person who'd gone down into the quarry?

Above her, something scraped. Jendara looked up and swore. She'd missed the entrance to the little footpath, and now her prey was escaping up it.

"Vorrin!" She had to warn him.

But a roar answered her shout: the rumble of something huge rolling down the hill. Vorrin might not be in danger, but she was.

She somersaulted over the soapstone block, pressing her face against its rough surface. Dust filled the air. She couldn't see. Or breathe. The soapstone shuddered as something massive hit it and stone shards rained down on her. Jendara hissed as one pierced her sleeve and drove into her forearm.

Coughing, she managed to get to her feet. Chunks of rock lay all around the soapstone block. If she hadn't moved behind it, she would have been crushed.

She scanned the trail above. Dust obscured all details. She was going to have to climb it blind.

Jamming her axe back into her belt, she scrambled forward. The ground was steep, the yellow sandstone of the main cliff walls unstable. She kept sliding backward in the stuff. Jendara grabbed for a handhold and dug her fingers into a gnarled root. The dust was clearing.

Something dark moved up ahead.

Jendara reached for the next handhold. Until she got her feet under her, she didn't dare try to attack the thing. She had a good arm, but on a nearly vertical path, the odds of her hitting him with her handaxe were small. She pulled herself up over a knoll of solid stone and caught her breath.

There he was. A man—a tall man in a long, shaggy cloak—hurried up the trail. He pulled himself up the steep hillside, snatching at the branches of the overhanging trees like rungs on a ladder.

"Hey!" she shouted, and reached for her belt axe. She'd never really believed she was chasing was an innocent bystander, but the man's grace and mass made his guilt a near certainty in her mind. No islander would have just stood by to watch his friends be ripped apart and eaten, not unless he was sick or crippled.

He leaped forward and disappeared between a pair of bushes. A rock as big as Jendara's head rolled out of the brush, bouncing and tumbling straight toward her.

"Damn it!" She threw herself aside and skidded on the path. She caught herself on a tree and raced up the hill.

Up above, Vorrin gave a sudden shout of surprise. Jendara hurried, but by the time she reached the top, Vorrin was just picking himself up, pinching a bloody nose and swearing.

"It got away," he growled. "I turned away for a second—I thought I heard something behind me—and it jumped me. Looked like a bear."

Jendara shook her head. "A bear? I was following a man. A big man, but a man."

Vorrin shrugged. "It happened fast, and there was a lot of dust in the air. Could have been a man, I guess. But it looked furry. And it had claws." He held out his hand. A gash ran down the back of it.

Jendara looked out into the forest. Some kind of trail continued into the forest, but here the trees were thick and the bracken dense. If anything wanted to disappear out here, it would. And back at Alstone Village, the crew of the Milady were waiting.

"Let's get out of here," she said. "Someone should know about this."

Purchase the whole novel here.

Coming Next Week: An all-new story starring Jendara!

Wendy N. Wagner is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novel Skinwalkers and the web fiction story "Mother Bears." Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies such as Armored and The Way of the Wizard, and in many online magazines. Wendy lives with her family in Portland, Oregon, where she also teaches writing for youth. An avid gardener and board gamer, she can be found online at winniewoohoo.com.

Art by Eric Belisle.

Skinwalking

Thursday , February 20, 2014

With the release of her much-requested Pathfinder Tales novel Skinwalkers swiftly approaching, we thought we'd give Wendy N. Wagner a chance to talk about the book's genesis. Take it away, Wendy!

A few years ago, James Sutter asked me if I would write a short story for Pathfinder. I'd never played, but the world sounded amazing and like a good fit for me, so I dove into Golarion and tried very, very hard to come up with a character to have adventures there. I knew I'd have to create someone I could both like and really believe in, and I knew it wasn't going to be easy. But then Jendara, the hero of the short story "Mother Bears" and my upcoming novel, Skinwalkers, walked into my bathroom without even knocking.

That's exactly her style. Unlike most of the characters I've written, Jendara sprang into my mind fully formed. She just showed up with her handaxe and a belt pouch crammed full of the kinds of snacks and survival supplies that every traveling mom has to carry, and she perched on the edge of the bath tub (that's where I brainstorm, in the bath tub), and said "I can't be a pirate anymore, but being on the right side of the law ain't easy." Just like that, I knew that her family was gone and her husband had been murdered by another pirate and that this woman was going to have a hard time making a new life for herself. She was going to need me.

I feel very lucky that James believed in Jendara and gave me a chance to write her first story, but I feel even luckier that the Pathfinder community decided this tattooed, short-fused woman was somebody they liked, too. After "Mother Bears," there was a lot of positive feedback on the Paizo forum and places like Twitter. People reached out to me to let me know that they thought an ex-pirate single mother was pretty great—and that a novel about her would be just the kind of adventure they were looking for. It was a tremendous experience, and I am utterly thankful to the Pathfinder community for being so supportive and welcoming.

I loved writing Skinwalkers. There's a lot of scary and horrible stuff packed into its covers, but there's a lot of wonder and beauty, too. My fingers are crossed that when people see more of Jendara, they will continue to enjoy and believe in her.

As for me, since I wrapped up the novel, I've been enjoying a little time away from my larger-than-life creation. I've started playing Pathfinder, although I'm still a rank novice. I like it a lot—and my bumbling cleric character is a totally different kind of woman from Jendara. She at least knocks before barging into the bathroom.

Wendy N. Wagner Pathfinder Tales Author

Wendy N. Wagner's short fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, The Lovecraft eZine, and anthologies like Armored and The Way of the Wizard. Skinwalkers is her first novel. Wendy is currently the Managing/Associate Editor of Lightspeed and Nightmare magazines, which means she now spends more time reading submissions than playing Pathfinder with her amazing family. You can keep up with her exploits at her website, winniewoohoo.com.

Mother Bears

by Wendy N. Wagner

Chapter Three: Fires by Day

Jendara followed Tam's light, feeling the cave's blackness like velvet pressing against her skin, her nostrils. She wanted to run outside before the cave smothered her. But she couldn't stop thinking of that horrible wail. It wasn't Kran—he could make a few sounds, but none so loud or carrying. She reminded herself of that fact again and again.

It still made her skin crawl.

"Remember," Tam called over his shoulder. "Keep an eye on the person ahead of you. The floor of these places isn't always—"

His voice cut off in a scream and his light disappeared.

Jendara darted forward. "Tam!"

"Jendara, stop!" Vorrin shouted.

She froze. By the glow of her lantern, she could see the sudden drop Tam hadn't. The tunnel opened into great mouthing darkness that her lantern barely began to light. "Are you all right?"

"My arm's caught." Tam grunted. "Caught bad."

Vorrin knelt beside her. "I can wrap a rope around this bit of stalagmite, lower you down. Be some work getting the two of you up again, but I can manage it."

Jendara held her lantern over the cliff’s edge, getting a glimpse of Tam's red hair about seven feet below her, just above the floor of what must be a vast cavern. The cliff broke up into long fingers of rock at the bottom, and he hung from the crotch of the two tallest. Jendara shook her head. "Damn, that's ugly. Let's do this fast before he loses an arm."

Somewhere in the darkness, the wail sounded again. Jendara felt gooseflesh prickle as she passed her length of rope to Vorrin.

"Make a good knot when you join those."

He brushed his fingers down her cheek. "The best."

She didn't watch him tie the two ropes together or wrap the rope around the rock, just moved her lantern out of the way and rubbed dirt into the palms of her hands. She didn't need any sweat to make climbing harder.

Vorrin wrapped the rope around her waist and tied it tight. She clambered over the cliff edge, and after only a moment's climbing could hear Tam's pained breathing below her. He was too much the islander to groan or whimper—the raw rasp of his inhalations was as bad as a scream. But there was no way to climb faster. No light, no ladder, just her fingers and toes searching out purchase on the cracked rocks.

Suddenly Jendara's palms went sweat-slick. Her fingers slipped off the narrow handhold, and for a sickening second she swung from the end of the rope, her face scraping the cavern wall.

"Jendara!" Vorrin yelled.

Then her foot found a hold, a rock spur of some kind. "I'm okay!"

And wished she'd been quiet as a frenzied barking sounded out in the darkness.

"Gods," Tam groaned. Jendara could see what he saw, a brightening in the distance like flickering torchlight. She thought of the goblin dog scat on the boat and climbed faster.

The bottom of the cliff came as a surprise. Now that she was down, Vorrin's hands were free to hoist the lantern, lighting up Tam and the rocky ground.

The goblin dog's snarl echoed off the walls of the great cavern. Jendara loosened the rope from her waist and stretched on tiptoe to work it around Tam's. His breathing was just tiny gasps now. Every ounce of his body hung from the pinned arm.

Jendara locked her arms around his thighs, grunting as she lifted him up out of the vise. A horrible squeak choked in his throat, and the big man went limp. "Damn it," she whispered. She could only hope he'd regain consciousness soon. She couldn't get him back up that cliff on her own.

Pressing herself against the rock that had gripped him, she pushed off again, getting a little higher. Tam coughed and wriggled. Suddenly all his weight was on Jendara and she staggered.

"Vorrin, he's free!"

"Islander, pirate—but most of all, mother."

The light disappeared, and after a second some of the weight came off Jendara.

Behind the rocks, the goblin dog shrieked. Jendara stiffened as she heard a sound she knew only too well, the dry scrape of air moving in a throat that had never spoken. Kran's strange laugh.

"Kran!"

She pushed Tam back against the cliff face, propping him against the wall. She could smell the blood seeping from his scraped and mangled shoulder. "Be right back, friend."

Then she was off. She wished for her own lantern, but guttering torchlight guided her forward, as did a cacophony of sounds: the hollow wailing, a clatter of stones, the hideous sounds of goblin speech.

A goblin dog lay twitching on the cave floor, the end of a very familiar pocketknife jutting out of its eye socket. Its rider had rolled free, and swung a torch around its swollen gray head to block the volley of rocks Kran lobbed at its face. One goblin, alone. Jendara grinned to herself and felt for her belt axe. She could handle one goblin scout and a dead dog.

The belt axe soared through the air. The wet thud of it sinking into the goblin's skull was like music.

Kran dropped his rocks and ran to the dead dog. He jerked his knife free and began to cut at the black pack on the dog's back, which wailed and wriggled. Jendara reclaimed her axe and jogged to his side.

It was no pack, she realized. The glossy black hide belonged to a bear cub, a cut seeping blood along its side. She held its paws as Kran struggled to cut the last of its ties. The white blaze on its nose triggered prickles on the back of her neck.

A grizzly rampaging last night. An island under attack this afternoon.

A goblin scout here right now.

"We've got to get out of here." She tucked the bear cub under her arm and grabbed Kran by the hand, racing for Tam and the only way she knew out of the cave.

"Vorrin! Hurry up!" she bellowed. She didn't wait for him to begin pulling. She slapped Kran on the butt and urged him up the cliff, scurrying behind him. One-handed, weighed down by the bear, she still made it up before Vorrin finished hauling Tam.

They worked together to half-drag Tam out of the tunnel and down to the beach. By the time they hit the sand, they could see the goblin torches flickering at the mouth of the cave, brighter than the faint orange of sunset over the sea.

"How did you know there were more?" Vorrin asked.

"The bear," Jendara grunted, shifting Tam's weight against herself. "The goblins must have scared it last night when they took to the caves. The attack on Black Bay Island was a distraction."

Oric jerked awake from his post on a washed-up log. "Wha—"

But Jendara cut him off. "Run back to your village. If there's trouble, let us know."

His eyes were huge as he nodded and dashed away.

Jendara could already smell smoke. Her stomach sank as they rounded the headland. Flames stained the sky. Oric stood frozen, staring at his burning village.

Behind them, goblin riders whooped and cheered.

Jendara passed her son the injured bear cub. "Kran, run to the Milady and arm yourself. Help the crew protect the docks. And take Oric!"

The boy looked pale, but did as he was told. Jendara smiled up at Tam. "I sure hope you can fight left-handed."

He gave a weak laugh and took up a fighting stance. Jendara felt heat course through her veins, the ice that gripped her all day melting away. She rubbed the tattoos on the backs of her hands and chuckled to herself.

"Little bastards don't know what they're in for."

∗∗∗

Jendara stood beside the mound of goblin dead and waited for Vorrin to pass her the torch. Her arms ached with exhaustion, but she felt proud: proud of herself and the people she'd helped defend. A group of women stood close by, and at least one smiled at her. She'd forgotten that, whatever other duties the women of the islands might have, they could still fight. They weren't so different, she and them.

A great roar came up from the docks as the villagers cheered for their returning kin. But many minutes passed before Jendara made out the shapes of the returning war party, and even in the moonlight, she could see a grimness in their approach. The man in front led a shorter figure on a rope.

Oric jumped up from his seat beside Kran. "Father! You're home!" He dashed toward the men but stopped as the torchlight revealed the scowl on his father's face.

"What happened?" Morul growled. "Smoke fills the sky above the island. We found this filth looting the tavern on Black Bay. And all the village gathers here to make a bonfire?"

Vorrin handed the torch to Jendara, and she held it a moment above the goblins. "Not just any bonfire. While you fought the fires on Black Bay Island, the main goblin troop prepared to attack your village under the cover of darkness. They would have succeeded, too, if not for our sons and their furry friend here."

Kran hugged the bear cub, who made a sleepy grumble.

"Bears? Boys? I don't understand."

The wise woman stepped forward. "Know that we only lost one building—the meeting house—and have only two wounded. Jendara and her people helped greatly."

Morul tugged the rope lead hard enough to send the small, dirty man at its end sprawling. "And what of this trash?" Gorg groaned from the sand, but didn't move.

Jendara smiled. "I have an idea." She beckoned to Morul and, when he joined her beside the bonfire, murmured quietly for a moment.

He looked from the cowering Gorg to the villagers to the pile of dead goblins. And then to Jendara. "You truly are Erik Eriksson's daughter, aren't you?"

She laughed and lit the bonfire.

∗∗∗

Vorrin watched Jendara finish tucking the blankets around a sleeping Kran and a snoring baby bear. He waited for her to close the cabin door behind her and join him on the deck. The night was clear and the stars brilliant.

Jendara could tell he wanted to say something—something meaningful and true about the day, about helping the village women fight off the goblins, about finding Kran, about everything they had done. But he knew better. Instead, he settled for standing with her and grinning as they watched a small boat row out of the harbor. "Nice of Gorg to chip in like that. Glad he didn't have any hard feelings after that beating we gave him."

"You'd think he'd need his ship, but it was thoughtful of him to leave it to the village for rebuilding materials." Jendara laughed, then sobered.

She reached out to the grizzly fur, still sitting on the deck. "You know, it's funny how this bear saved so many people. If the goblins hadn't driven her out of the caves, she would never have lost her baby or attacked Yul's sheep. Kran wouldn't have followed his ears down into that cavern. Right now, we'd be sailing for the mainland, and a lot of people would be dead."

"That's some bear." Vorrin studied the moon a moment. "Are you disappointed that we missed the tide?"

She shook her head. "No. Not one bit. It felt nice tonight. Like being part of someplace. Like having a home."

He reached for his pipe and lit it, puffing until the coals glowed red. "You know, when we get done selling this load, maybe we should come back here. It'd make for a nice summer harbor."

Jendara looked sideways at him. "You saying we should tie up for summer?"

He puffed the pipe again. "There should be a place we can take the ship for repairs and supplies. A place to let Kran get his land legs. What do you think?"

She nodded, and felt herself begin to smile. Behind his pipe, Vorrin was doing the same.

Neither of them had used the word "home." But for two retired pirates, it was a pretty good first step.

Coming Next Week: Scaly adventures in the Sodden Lands in Ari Marmell's "Hell or High Water"

Wendy N. Wagner is the author of short stories in such anthologies and magazines as Armored, Way of the Wizard, Rigor Amortis, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and more. She is a regular contributor to inkpunks.com, and can be found online at winniewoohoo.com.

Illustration by Florian Stitz.

Mother Bears

by Wendy N. Wagner

Chapter Two: Ill Tide

"Where's my son?" Jendara's voice rumbled like a great beast's growl. Vorrin gripped her elbow, hard.

The boys stared back at her for a second, then bolted.

"Come back!" Jendara yanked her arm, but Vorrin kept his grip.

"They won't talk to you," he snapped. "Hell, you scare me."

Yul chuckled. "You're right, mainlander. The boys will run home to hide. We'll go door to door. I know their fathers."

But as he led them deeper into the village, a hunting horn blew a long blast, then two short. Yul stiffened. "That's the call to town meeting. The emergency signal."

"We'll come," Vorrin said, and tightened his grip on Jendara's arm. She could feel her heart pick up its beat. An emergency, and Kran missing...

The narrow walkways filled with people, all chattering in high, tense tones. Everyone hurried toward the peak-roofed structure at the center of the village, the only building unclad by turf, and painted in dizzying shades of reds and blues. The church and meeting house. Jendara's family had practiced no faith, but town business was serious religion for anyone in a small town. She'd spent plenty of time in her own village's meeting hall. Just looking at it made her feel smaller and younger.

But her shoulders stiffened as she stepped inside. An elder in a wise woman's black kirtle and chemise stood beside a bandaged man, who alone sat on a wooden bench. The right side of his beard was blackened, in some places singed to the skin. The woman offered him a mug, and he sipped at it with a grimace.

Yul leaned to whisper at Jendara and her friends: "That's Birn, the chief's son from our neighbormost island. Their best fighter."

The cold prickling on Jendara's neck intensified. Instinct told her that whatever trouble had beset Birn somehow touched her son.

Another man stepped onto a podium. His red cloak proclaimed him a leader of some kind, and his craggy face bore more than a passing resemblance to Yul's. "Grave news, my friends. A goblin raiding party attacked our neighbors. Birn here rowed an hour to bring half a dozen wounded children to be treated by our wise woman."

Birn looked up, unflinching as the woman in question tightened a bandage around his right hand. "Most of our warriors are away, on a trading expedition. Our women and older children even now fight the fires the creatures have set. Our own wise woman was ripped apart by their dogs."

Jendara shook her head. This was bad news. With the benefit of surprise, a crew of goblins could wreck an entire village. Those people needed help. But she didn't have time to go on a rescue mission. She had a son to find. She began to turn away from the speakers, but paused as her eye caught movement at the front of the room. A towheaded boy hurried toward the man in the red cloak. She would have recognized him anywhere.

She tugged Yul's fur vest. "That's the one who stole my boy's tassel."

He frowned. "My nephew, Oric. We'll have to wait for the meeting to finish before we approach my brother."

Jendara shifted on impatient feet, listening as the warriors around her suggested and discarded course after course of action. Several of the women spoke quietly to the wise woman and then hurried off to their duties: preparing the warriors' fighting gear, gathering medicine, darting over to the wise woman's cottage to tend the injured children. Even if this was her home village, Jendara knew she wouldn't be joining them. She had taken on a warrior's life when she joined the pirate crew, closing the door on such domestic fellowship.

Yul caught her attention and they pushed forward through the crowd. His brother had neatly divided the group into parties, and now he clasped wrists with each of the men he'd commanded to lead. For a moment, Jendara pitied the goblins. These men knew battle, with their seamed faces and silvered scars. Most islanders practiced trade as the seasons turned, but in a land of quick tempers and fierce pride, everyone brought their shields and belt axes to the trading table.

"Yul." The leader clapped his brother on the shoulder. "I thought you'd stay with your wife. Her belly is fit to burst."

"Ayuh, her time is near." Yul leaned closer to his brother's ear. "I didn't come to volunteer, Morul. I came to ask you about your boy. I fear he brought harm to a visitor, the son of my new friend Jendara."

"Islanders give little credit to a mainlander like Vorrin."

The light-haired boy crept back into the shadows behind his father. Jendara narrowed her eyes at him.

Morul grunted. "There's a boatload of injured here to tend, and a second to follow. There are goblins on Black Bay Island and no idea how they got there. I've got a war party to lead and defenses ready. I've no time to talk about children."

"I'll help with your goblins if you help with my boy," Jendara interjected. "Just need a word with your son, that's all. Get my boy back safe."

Morul looked Jendara from head to toe. He could be Yul's twin, he looked so much like the craggy farmer, and a sharp intelligence flared behind his blue eyes. The islanders followed him not just for his brawn, but his brain. "Why are you so worried about your boy, woman?"

She set her jaw. "He's a mute. Plenty of folks reckon that's reason enough to give him trouble."

Morul nodded. "Ayuh, that's reason to worry." He glanced at her belt axe. "You any good with that thing?"

Vorrin spoke first. "I served beside her in many battles. She's faster and meaner than any man I've ever sailed with." Beside him, Tam nodded.

The leader of the islanders looked unimpressed.

Jendara tried not to shift impatiently. Her father would have never taken Vorrin's word, either. "My father led the men of his island in twenty-five battles and never lost a one. He trained me like I was his son, and kept me at his right hand for six trading parlays."

"And his name?"

"Erik Eriksson the White."

Both Yul and Morul looked pleased. It was not a great or famous name, but well traveled. Like her abilities with axe and sword, trade was in Jendara's blood naturally. Everyone knew Erik Eriksson the White.

"A fine man and long missed. I will accept your offer of help against the goblins." Morul turned to the boy. "Oric is a boy for pranks. Come here, lad."

The tow-headed boy slunk toward them, his hands twisted behind his back.

"Show me the tassel," Jendara snapped. Kran would have been familiar with the steely tone.

Oric put out his hand, the yellow tassel sitting on his palm. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Morul cuffed the side of the boy's head. "An islander speaks with pride even if he fears his punishment."

"I'm sorry!" Oric barked, stiffening his spine.

Jendara took the tassel. "Do you know where the mute boy—my son—went?"

Oric nodded. He cleared his throat. "Some visitor men on the pier told us you were a pirate. So we told Kran he ought to visit the pirate caves at the end of the island. That's all."

Jendara glanced at the tassel and raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, we took his hat and we messed around with it. And we told him he was nothing but a chicken liver if he didn't go down to the caves and come back with gold to prove he'd been there. But that's it! He even took his hat back." He looked up at her, then added in a mumble, "He gave my cousin a black eye."

Jendara felt a moment's pride for her boy, quickly overrun by anxiety. "Caves?"

Morul's lips thinned. "I doubt he went too far in, but it's an extensive network. Oric, take the visitors to our home. Get lights and rope."

Jendara nodded. "We'll join you as soon as we can. Thank you for your help."

She followed Oric out of the meetinghouse, the others following behind. Yul tapped her shoulder, his face troubled.

"I must go home to my wife now, but I wish you luck in your mission."

She thanked him for his help, and clapped him on the arm before hurrying after the others. Oric moved swiftly, gathering supplies from the family storehouse and then leading the rescue party down the beach. The sun's rays cast long, pale fingers of light across the sea, their touch failing to ease the chill in Jendara's heart. Goblins to fight, her son exploring in the darkness—it all felt like bad omens.

They rounded the headland of the beach, and she could see the caves cut into the cliffs at its end. There were multiple openings at different points in the rock face, and for the first time, her own fear touched her, freezing her tongue to the roof of her mouth. She was a child of open farmland and open sea. She had never been in a cave before.

"Kran!"

Tam shook his head. "Spare your voice, lady. The way the waves echo in there, ain't no point shouting." He turned to Vorrin. "You mind if I lead? I grew up playing in caves like these."

Vorrin happily agreed.

Tam stopped a moment to light the lanterns Oric had brought for them. He smiled at the boy, who looked anxious. "Why don't you be our lookout, lad? If we need help, we'll shout for you, and you can run back to the village."

"I can do that, sir."

"Great. Then let's go into the first cave. It looks like it's right at the water line and the easiest to get into."

Jendara eyeballed the rocks flanking the cave's entrance. They looked rough and slick, the waves spitting up foam that clung to their dark flanks. One misstep, and a boy would tumble into the water. A boy or his mother, she reminded herself. She was glad she had a good sense of balance after working on ships all these years.

The yellow glow of Tam's lantern lit up the dark hollow of the cave, and as Jendara followed behind him, her own light redoubled the glow. It wasn't much of a cave, just ten or twelve feet gnawed into the cliff wall. A battered rowboat bobbed on the waves, as if sheltering peacefully while waiting for its owner.

"What's this?" Tam murmured, peering inside. He jumped back, nearly toppling off the rock he'd been balancing on.

"What is it?" Vorrin asked.

But Jendara could see for herself the still figure at the bottom of the boat, the long white hair and singed black cloak. The wise woman from Black Bay Island.

Tam leaned over again, his nose wrinkling as he pointed out a smear of dung on the gunwale. "I'm not sure, but this looks like goblin dog to me."

Jendara balled her hands into fists. The sliver of ice burning down the back of her neck had been a true warning, not the trite discomfort of an overprotective mother. There were goblins on this island, and given goblins' love for dark holes in the ground, the little bastards were probably exploring the same damn cave her son was.

"Well, whatever it is, one thing's for sure," Tam said slowly.

"What?" Jendara growled.

"No one's in this cave."

They picked their way out of the lowest sea cave and stared up at the other entrances. The cave mouths looked far above the beach, dark and unwelcoming. The sun sank another degree lower in the sky.

"Time to climb." Jendara slung her length of rope over her shoulder and reached for the first handhold in the cliff face.

Somewhere above, something wailed, its voice hollow and unbearably sad.

Coming Next Week: The stunning conclusion of Wendy Wagner's "Mother Bears."

Wendy N. Wagner is the author of short stories in such anthologies and magazines as Armored, Way of the Wizard, Rigor Amortis, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and more. She is a regular contributor to inkpunks.com, and can be found online at winniewoohoo.com.

Illustration by Florian Stitz.

Mother Bears

by Wendy N. Wagner

Chapter One: Waking the Bear

Kran tapped his slate, louder this time, and Jendara gave in, looking up from her ledger. The boy's blue eyes gleamed as his chalk squeaked, underlining the word "please" a second time—his equivalent of begging. Jendara's lips moved as she read the note.

"You want to play marbles on the beach? With some village boys?"

He nodded his head, making the yellow tassels of his cap dance. The tip of his nose was pink from the cold sea air.

She grunted. "Just don't take too long. Captain Vorrin wants to catch the outgoing tide, and that means all packed up by sunset."

He swiped his slate with his sleeve, scribbled a thanks, and then darted down the gangplank. Jendara's eyes followed him along the pier until he cut over to the small strip of beach. She trusted Kran more than most mothers trusted their eight-year-olds, but she liked knowing where he was. He didn't get social invitations very often. There weren't many on the islands who could read, or who'd go near a god-touched boy with no speech.

She realized she was holding her quill too tightly, and put it down. Anyway, someone was approaching the ship-turned-market square: a big man with the dung-crusted boots of an island farmer. He reminded Jendara of her father, and she tried not to smile at him. Bad enough being a woman in this business; it wouldn't do to look soft.

"You got something real heavy in that pack of yours." She cleared the ledger and writing case off the table to make room for his wares. She'd been buying lots of ivory and whalebone this trip—always in high demand on the mainland—but whatever he carried in his pack looked soft. Furs, maybe.

"Ayuh. It's a load alright." The man dropped his bag with a thud that made the table creak. He undid the knotted ties and the sack slid open, revealing a pile of deep brown furs.

"What did you catch?" The fur felt sleek and oily beneath her fingers, the hairs coarse.

He didn't answer at first, working with the bag. Now Jendara could see that this great mass wasn't a stack of pelts, but one magnificent hide, and her heart quickened. This could be worth a lot of gold to the right buyer.

He began unfolding the hide. "It's big."

"Grizzly?"

"Ayuh." He shifted on his feet, frowning as he recollected. "It was in with the sheep, killing anything that moved. Had to protect my stock."

A paw hit the ship's deck, and she could see claws longer than her own hand. She couldn't imagine facing something so huge gone on a killing spree. "How'd you kill it?"

"Arrow through the eye. Then I jumped on its back and cut its throat." He'd uncovered the head, well cured and massive, but marred by a white patch of fur like a lightning bolt down the nose. "Woulda kept it, but the wife said it was probably unlucky, way it was acting. Figured you'd give me a fair price for it."

Jendara mentally calculated a few figures. It was a good pelt, and she knew a dealer in Magnimar looking for quality winter furs. She named her price, and the farmer grinned hugely. He spat on his palm and stuck it out, just as her father had done every deal he ever struck. She spat on her own and shook as fiercely as he did.

"We should drink. This deal is good for both of us."

"Yul is a typical islander—gruff and hard, but kind all the same."

She looked out at the docks. No one else approached, and the sun was already low in the sky. She doubted anyone further would be looking to trade with her. "All right."

Someone laid a hand on her shoulder. "You two mind a little company?"

Jendara shrugged. She hadn't heard Vorrin behind her, but wasn't surprised by his sudden appearance. Her husband, Ikran, had asked Vorrin to look after her and Kran as he'd lain bleeding out on the deck of a captured caravel. She couldn't hold it against either of them, much as she wanted to.

"You have a name, Bear Hunter?" Vorrin put out his hand. "I'm Vorrin, captain of this ship."

The farmer's lips thinned as he took Vorrin's measure. Vorrin's close-cropped black hair and thin mustache were a strike against him here on the archipelago. His accent, city-fine, didn't help. The farmer hooked his thumbs in his belt, a conspicuous rejection of the hand. "I am Yul."

"Lead us to the nearest ale, friend." Jendara stepped between the two men, hurrying Yul down the gangplank. She could feel Vorrin's eyes on her back, and could easily imagine the irritated expression. He abided the Ironbound Archipelago because she wanted to do business here, because he loved his nephew and believed in keeping his word. But he didn't like this cold, rough land.

The crunch of gravel beneath her boots made Jendara smile. It had been one thing to leave the islands for the man she loved, but she'd never felt right when she was away. Here the stone lay just beneath the tough heath, and the beaches were long stretches of gray rock and gravel. Even the land was hard here. It went without saying that the people worked hard, fought hard, and grew hard as frozen leather under the wind's cold buffeting.

But business had been brisk in this town, and the wind a constant reminder that she had a trade route to finish before the winter sea grew too rough for Vorrin's ship, the Milady. Jendara hadn't taken a moment to visit the village. It wasn't so different from the place where she'd grown up. The steep peaks of the house roofs stood out from the green turf climbing up the walls, the houses themselves snuggled down into the earth. They could withstand any storm, stay warm in any gale—little tough houses for big tough people.

A donkey huffed at her as they passed a lean-to where animals could wait out of the weather. Jendara patted its shaggy head and then hurried to catch up as Yul pushed opened the nearest door, releasing the pungent tang of peat smoke and spilled ale.

Jendara stepped inside and was struck by the realization that she had been here before. She could remember sitting at the little bar, rubbing oils into the backs of her still-itching hands, tossing back drinks that burned her throat but eased the fresh sting of the tattoos. She touched the back of her hand, the now-old ink covered by fingerless gloves. She could easily imagine the black jolly rogers beneath the wool, puffy and peeling as they had that night. So it must have been the end of her first pirate tour, pockets loaded and a lust to prove herself filling her heart.

Yul nodded at the barkeep, a shaven-headed man as broad as Yul and just as bearded. The man filled three tankards in quick succession, sliding them down the bar without a word. Jendara drank a long pull of the foaming stuff.

"Well, well, if it ain't the famous Jendara. I thought the rumors of you turning respectable were gullshit, but look at you out here, drinking with the farmers."

Jendara put down her tankard with deliberate softness. She turned to face the voice—one of those nasty, thin voices she'd come to associate with cowards. There was no point ignoring it: men like this only responded to intimidation. She folded her arms across her sheepskin vest and let her ice-blue eyes speak for her.

A short and dirty man stood in front of the nearest table, where a knot of men sat drinking. The little man sneered. He wasn't a native—the brown hair and narrow jaw, far too small for all his yellow teeth, proved that. From the waves of fish stench wafting off his layered sweaters, she imagined him a very minor pirate who made ends meet by fishing.

The worst kind of pirate. The jolly rogers on the back of her hands felt suddenly hot, as if Besmara, chief bitch and goddess of all pirates, agreed with Jendara's pronouncement.

She peeled off her gloves slowly, letting everyone in the bar see the tattoos.

"Jenny, Jenny, Jenny." The weasely man took a swig of beer and grinned down at her. She remembered him now. He'd once asked Ikran for a position on their boat, and she'd had to throw him overboard when he didn't like Ikran's answer. Gorg. That was his name.

Gorg's grin grew wider as he leaned toward her. "You still watching over that mute brat of yours?"

The jolly roger seemed to laugh as her knuckles connected with Gorg's face, splitting the skin over his cheekbone with the force of the blow. He screamed and dropped to his knees—not incapacitated, but going for his boot knife. Jendara lashed out with her heel, launching the man backward across the room.

She hadn't paid attention to other men at the table, but they must have been Gorg's friends, because they exploded up from their seats, snarling. Men screamed. Knives hissed free of their scabbards. Jendara laughed and slipped her axe free of her belt.

The weapon's haft shook with its own mirth as she brought the blunt end down on a man's skull, then jerked her arm backward, slamming the handle's butt into another man's solar plexus. Both sailors dropped. Jendara looked around for more, but Grog was already draped senseless across a chair, and the last of his companions was currently dangling from Vorrin's fist, toes not quite touching the floor.

The tavern door flew open, the low light of afternoon like a lighthouse beam cutting through the thick air. A man stood framed in the doorway. Jendara recognized him as Vorrin's first mate. Silence filled the room.

Vorrin released the man he'd been holding up by the sweater-front. The sailor crumpled to the ground. "Tam? Something the matter?"

"Ayuh." The word reminded Jendara that Tam was a fellow islander. He hesitated in the doorway.

"Well what, man?"

"It's the boy." Tam stepped inside, bobbing his head uncomfortably. "I saw a whole group of lads come racing up from the beach, laughing like loons. But Kran weren't with 'em."

Jendara felt her knees go soft, and she put her hand down on the bar to steady herself.

"Looked down the beach, but there weren't no sign of the boy. Figured we ought to go look for him."

Jendara sheathed her axe and moved toward the door. Vorrin clapped his hand on her shoulder. "Don't go off half-cocked."

She shook his hand loose. "I've got to find my son."

"No purpose going by yourself," Yul warned. "Folks don't tolerate strangers around here."

Jendara's lips thinned. She knew it was true—knew the close-knittedness of islanders—but resented it anyway. "He isn't like other boys. There's been trouble other places."

Yul didn't ask for details, but opened the door. "I'll help you look for him."

Jendara nodded curtly, rage boiling her veins, some of it residual, some of it the goddess's, and most of it for anyone who might hurt her child. Beyond Yul's shoulder, a knot of sniggering boys huddled under the lean-to where the donkey had waited. A growl bubbled up in Jendara's throat.

"You don't know they've done anything wrong," Vorrin whispered.

But she did, just from their wicked laughter, their covert glances. She did know, from the hush that fell over the little group as they saw the strangers coming their way. A shiver of cold warning ran down her spine.

One of the boys held a yellow tassel between his fingers. A yellow tassel just like the ones she'd sewn onto Kran's hat.

Coming Next Week: A mother's fury in Chapter Two of Wendy Wagner's "Mother Bears."

Wendy N. Wagner is the author of short stories in such anthologies and magazines as Armored, Way of the Wizard, Rigor Amortis, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and more. She is a regular contributor to inkpunks.com, and can be found online at winniewoohoo.com.

Illustration by Florian Stitz.