I avoid Delkash as much as possible over the next two days as my arm mends, and I regain my strength. The villagers are all very kind, but all seem aware too that I’m destined to face the bonewalker in Foxhollow, the ruined village. There is a sadness in their face that makes me feel as if they never expect to see me again.

Giliana visits me twice a day—ostensibly at Nakata’s insistence, and to check my arm, but Giliana never seems to despise the assignment. She often stays longer than mere duty would require, and I admit, I’m happy for her company. She is bold, and clever, and knows much about many things. Talking with her cheers and strengthens me.

The night before Delkash and I leave, she finally removes the bandage and examines the scar.

“It has healed well,” I say.

She grimaces. “Nakata shames me each day, with your scar. She says if I knew the craft better the skin would be new now, like an infant’s.”

“But, surely, that’s what you’re training with her for? And I certainly don’t mind the scar, so I’m an ideal target for you to practice on.”

I smile, trying to get a smile from her in return. Instead, she looks at me with tears in her green eyes.

“Oh, come now,” I say. “The joke wasn’t so bad, was it?”

She just shakes her head and looks away. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I came this evening hoping to wish you luck on your quest, but it seems my eyes insist on drowning you, instead.”

“The wish of luck is gratefully received,” I say, trying to sound gallant, but cringing as it comes out sounding pompous.

She hesitates, opening her mouth and closing it again several times before clearing her throat. She averts her eyes as she says, “Foxhollow… I wish you weren’t going there.”

“It seems fate will always wish the hardest tasks for us.”

“It’s more than that,” she says. “It is a place of ill luck, and dark omen. My grandfather used to tell of how his own father fought in the battle there. He came away scarred and broken, but at least he came away. Many were not even so fortunate as that.”

“How did the bonewalker come to reside there?”

She shrugs, still not meeting my eye. “No one knows for sure, though Nakata says her mother used to say it was the power of the hatred at that place that lifted those bones and gave them unlife.”

“Hatred?”

“The hatred that led the invaders to fight their way into the village, and to sack it. Have you not heard the story?”

“Very little. There were some mentions of a haunted village in the papers that Makari gave me, and a battle that laid it waste. I know that the bonewalker abides there, with Makari’s ancestral artifact, and attacks travelers that make camp there.”

“Well,” she says, finally looking up at me. She artlessly pulls a stray lock of hair behind her ear and sits up straighter. “I am no storyteller, but I suppose you’ll have to hear it from me, anyway. Years and years ago, before my grandfather was born, there was an expedition from the Deep Wilds, to the west, which came far into the Hinterlands and asked at Foxhollow for supplies. Foxhollow, though, had suffered a hard winter, and though their crops were in the ground and growing well, their own stores were being stretched thin, and they had to turn away the Deep Wilders. The leader of the force—an austere man of horrible countenance—took offense, believing that they were denied out of prejudice, and roused his men to anger as well. Such was the ferocity of their hatred that they fell upon the village early in the morning, before many were well up. In moments half the village was decimated and burning, casting great clouds of smoke into the sky, all before any resistance could be organized.

“The surviving women took the children and fled into the hills, while the men armed themselves with whatever weapons they could muster—staves, and sickles, and hammers, and axes. In desperation, they threw themselves at the invaders—men who were accustomed to battle, and dressed for it, too. They should have stood no chance, these humble farmers, fighting trained warriors, but from the depths of their despair they dredged up a fierce berserker spirit.

“My grandfather used to say how his father claimed there were spirits fighting beside them, holding the warriors back, tripping them up, tangling their weapons, and leaving them vulnerable to the farmers’ makeshift weapons. Nakata says her mother witnessed wolves leaping into the fray, snapping at the necks and hamstrings of the invaders. I’ve heard others declare that a mystic walked the battlefield, working rituals of great power that cast the Deep Wilders back.

“Whatever it was, though, by the evening, the invaders were in retreat, such of them as survived, and the people of Foxhollow were left to try and recover what they could from the ruin. They tried valiantly to rebuild, but the broken village now held a dark presence that foiled their efforts. The survivors had to leave, so they came here, to Raven Hill, and built anew. They say that the darkness festered in the ruins, a brooding infection that finally grew sufficiently in power to animate the old bones of a fallen soldier, and that evil reigns in that place, now.”

She falls silent, though I wish she hadn’t. The sound of her voice had worked a kind of charm upon me, and in its absence I feel a strange vacuum in my heart.

“Well,” I say finally. “I won’t be alone, will I? Delkash will be with me.” She looks skeptical, probably hearing the skepticism in my own voice. “And how can I fail with Rigi at my side, eh?” The owl is perched on my shoulder, as ever, and I scratch him playfully on his chest. He hoots proudly, acknowledging his own importance.

Galiana giggles, but abruptly looks away as her giggle ends in a choked sob.

“Come, Galiana,” I say, touching her softly on the arm. “I will return. You will see.”

With her other hand she grips mine, holding it against her arm. “Please do,” she says. “I know you’ve far yet to go, even if—when—you defeat the bonewalker, but I would very much like to see you come back here, when you can.”

“You may count on it,” I say, and silence falls again between us, filled only by the crackling of the fire in the hearth, and the beating of my own heart in my ears.