“How’s it going out there?”

The familiar voice of Ketty Pordis awoke Zeter from his sleep. Damarys was sitting by the fire, still adding pieces of troll to it from time to time. The creature burned surprisingly well, almost as good as firewood. The only drawback was the oily scent that filled the air.

On one side of him was Kasyn and on the other was Emilie, both sound asleep. They were all tucked close together for warmth since the night was cold enough for frost to form. A few more months and they’d be into winter. Coming up here with snow on the ground didn’t sound appealing so he hoped they could get what they needed from this elder tree and not have to come back.

“Zeter?”

Ketty Pordis’ voice was growing impatient but he wasn’t in the best situation to respond.

Rather than respond and risk waking Emilie or Kasyn, he crawled out of his bedroll and joined Damarys by the fire.

“Can’t sleep,” he lied when she looked up at him. “I can finish the watch. Morning can’t be that far away.”

Damarys tossed a troll hand onto the fire and shrugged.

“Just keep the fire going,” she said as she walked over to take his former place in the bedroll. “It should keep pretty much everything away.”

“Why is that?” he asked.

“Nothing eats trolls except other trolls, and a burning troll is a well known warning to stay away.”

With that she lied down and pulled the blanket over her head.

Zeter waited several minutes until her breathing slowed.

“What?” he whispered into the night.

“What’s going on out there? I heard you were sent out of the city but not what for?”

“Just helping the city get put back together.”

“What’s out in the woods that the city doesn’t have?”

It was the middle of the night. Didn’t she have better things to be doing than bothering him about this? He didn’t ask her that, but he was beginning to grow tired of her near constant pestering.

“There’s a lot of useful plants in the woods that we don’t have in the city, Ketty.”

“Then send an herbalist. They wouldn’t send your lot in for flowers.”

“It’s dangerous out here,” he retorted. “We had to kill a troll before going to bed.”

“Did you say a troll? I need some troll fat if you can bring me some.”

There was plenty, he knew, but carrying any of this smelly creature around with him was not something he looked forward to.

“Listen, Ketty, you know who I am and what I do. Nothing’s for free. You want information? You want me to run an errand for you? You want me to bring you back some troll fat? Fine. But you’ve got to pay me for it.”

He waited, knowing she’d not like that. Sages were always happy to have Zeter do things for them, but ask them to pay you and suddenly it was an insult, as if they didn’t know who he was already. What he wasn’t was a full, regular member of their organization. They couldn’t threaten him with revoking his status because, officially, he had none. That’s what Jelvaic and the other’s didn’t understand. Yes, he was associated with the Sages of the Mercurial Robe, but he wasn’t one of them. He was more of a mercenary than anything else. That also meant he could refuse work if he didn’t like it.

“Fine, forget the troll fat,” Ketty finally replied and her tone was certainly less pleasant. “Just tell me what you’re doing out there. I’ll have your standard fee ready for you when you return.”

“Mostly it’s an escort mission,” Zeter replied. “Damarys knows where we can find a plant that some of the repair crews need. It’s dangerous to go fast through the woods so she didn’t want to go alone. Hence the escort, and the troll.”

“What’s the plant?” Ketty asked next.

“Damarys called it an elder tree. I don’t know much more about it, but it’s dangerous enough the hunters stay away from the valley where it grows.”

“Bring me a sample,” Ketty said at once. “Perhaps the Sages have some of it in their stores and we could use it as a bartering tool with Jelvaic.”

“This’ll fall in the dangerous or unknown substances category,” he told her, hoping to dissuade her from making him bring her some. Although, if he was being totally honest with himself, a part of him still hoped she’d agree to it since the payment for this sort of job wasn’t in money but in magic.

There was a longer pause this time before Ketty responded.

“One item or two spells,” she offered.

“Item,” he replied. “Do you have access to my list of acceptable items?”

“I do. I’ll have one found and ready for you by the end of the week.”

Normally he insisted on payment upon completion of a job but magic items were often harder to come by so he let it slide.

“We’ll be back in another day or two. I’ll let you know before then whether or not I was successful.”

He hadn’t intended to accept her offer, but the magic items on his list were incredibly hard to come by for those not in the Sages of the Mercurial Robe unless you were particularly wealthy. Normally it was spells that were offered to him, but he still had the spell book from his last real job and he hadn’t learned all of the spells in there yet so there wasn’t much of a point in accepting more spells for a while.

He might still fail to get any elder tree wood for Ketty anyway. Or maybe he’d get some but make sure it was dead or dying so it wouldn’t be of much use to her. Then again, what was the risk in it, really? It sounded like it was mostly just sturdy wood that could self heal, up to a point.

Zeter tossed another chunk of troll onto the fire as he felt the connection with Ketty end. The Sages were certainly not giving up on gaining access to Yomichi. The wealth of knowledge available within was appealing, no doubt, but he wondered at their methods. They were too desperate, in his opinion, as if they were afraid of something. It could be that they were just the first of many who would come to try and plunder Yomichi. Or they, like Zeter, suspected that Akumu wasn’t fully destroyed and might return, sooner or later, so if they were going to exploit the city now was the time.

It was all such a mess. The people themselves were just trying to survive and make sure they had enough food for the winter. If the Sages had just helped with that from the beginning they would probably be welcome inside the city already. As it was, he doubted Jelvaic would agree to letting them in without some enormous paradigm shift.

The rest of the night passed without incident. As the sky grew brighter, the pile of troll pieces grew smaller until the sun finally peaked over the horizon and the last piece of troll was added to the fire. Damarys was the first to rise even though she’d gotten the least amount of sleep. It didn’t seem to bother her and she got to work helping Zeter make breakfast. They started a second fire to cook over since neither of them wanted their food to taste like troll. As potatoes and bacon began to cook, Kasyn and Emilie arose. They packed away the bed rolls while breakfast finished cooking and then sat down by the cooking fire to eat.

“I don’t know how you hunters do it,” Emilie grunted as she massaged her side and neck.

“We have specific places we usually make camp,” Damarys explained. “They’re a lot more accommodating than just sleeping out here.”

“Do they have beds, four walls, and a ceiling?” Kasyn asked, joking.

“Some have beds, carved out of stone or shaped with earth. Most have at least one side against a cliff or are dug into a hill to keep us out of the worst weather. They also are near to streams. We leave each other little gifts too, like a bit of extra jerky, or sometimes geodes or animal pelts. There just isn’t one near where we’re going.”

They finished eating and then doused and buried the cooking fire. The troll fire burned itself out while they were eating. There was nothing left but slimy ash and Damarys had them all spreading it far and wide to ensure none of it could recombine and become a troll again. With that done and the morning still young, they headed off once again, following Damarys as she led them farther and farther into the mountains.

As they neared a high ridge, Damarys slowed their pace.

“Once we reach the top we should be able to see the elder tree,” she said. “We’ll need to move quickly over the ridge, though, since we’ll be exposed up there and I don’t want to risk anything seeing us.”

A few minutes later, Zeter realized why Damarys had told them that. As he came to the ridge and looked down into the valley below he was struck by just how deep the valley was. It seemed to plunge down for thousands of meters, and yet the canopy of the elder tree was almost at eye level with them. It was a massive, twisting, branching, knotted tree that looked half fallen over. It should have been impossible for it to stand as it was and yet there it stood. It was too large, too grand to be allowed. And flitting among the upper branches were bird-like creatures, soaring and calling out to one another.

“What kind of birds are those?” Kasyn asked as he squinted at them.

“They’re not birds, and keep moving,” Damarys replied, hurrying them all onward. “The top of the tree is home to a wyvern. Those are her brood.”

Zeter felt a chill go down his back at the mention of a wyvern and everyone followed Damarys down the slope until they were safely concealed once again beneath the boughs of lesser trees.

“A lot of ancient and powerful things live around the elder tree,” she said. “I don’t know if they’re drawn to it or if it spawns them. This valley is home to a pack of dire wolves, and most animals here are a lot bigger than you’d normally expect to see. I’ve also heard there are sometimes other things in this valley, magical portals or traps set here by the fae and the like.”

“Lovely,” Zeter muttered and began ticking off his fingers. “So watch out for rings of mushrooms, standing stones, shimmers in the air, overly sweet or rotting smells…”

“Sounds like you’ve had your own bit of experience with them,” Emilie eyed him.

“Let’s just say I earned my ability to see in the dark.”

“We’ll be going slowly from here on out,” Damarys warned. “Keep your eyes and ears open for anything and only speak if you absolutely have to.”

She motioned for them to continue forward and they began the descent into the valley of the elder tree.