Midwinter

"I'll tell you anything you want to know," he said, his voice slurred with fear.

Mauritane puffed on his pipe. "What is your assignment here?"

"We're on a scouting mission. Looking for a safe route through the Contested Lands into Seelie territory."

Mauritane scowled. "To what end?"

"I don't know," he said. "We were told only to seek the route."

"How wide?" Mauritane asked.

"What?"

"How wide of a route?"

Mires closed his eyes. "Wide enough for two columns."

Mauritane and Silverdun shared a quick glance.

"When is the first incursion planned?"

Mires looked at Mauritane, eyes wide. "I don't know! They wouldn't tell me something like that."

"He's telling the truth," said Silverdun.

"I know," said Mauritane. "I possess Insight as well."

Silverdun snorted. "Is there any Gift you don't have, Mauritane?"

"Describe the lands west of here," Mauritane said to Miret. "What perils are we apt to encounter?"

Miret shook his head. "I don't know that either," he said. We came straight south from the water station at Ce Valon, just on the other side of the mountains. We haven't been west."

"What did you see on the western slopes of the mountains, then?"

"Nothing much. A few bugganes. Some shifting places. Nothing we couldn't avoid."

Silverdun shrugged. "Better than nothing, I suppose."

They asked Miter a few more questions, but it soon became apparent that they'd gleaned from him everything of value. Mauritane dragged him back to the fire, where his fellows refused to even look at him. Raieve felt a sudden pity for Miter that cut through her disgust at his shame. She had done this to him; she had stripped him of his honor.

"What happens now?" said Ma Denha.

Mauritane tamped the tobacco in his pipe. "We'll return your uniforms, leave you enough rations to return to friendly territory. But we'll keep your weapons and your horses. And your boots."

"Captain Mauritane?" Ma Denha began.

"Yes?"

"Would you truly have let the Avalona woman torture us?"

"No," said Mauritane.

"I didn't think so."

There was a choked shriek outside the camp. Raieve looked and saw the Unseelies' horses rearing and straining at their reins. The sound had come from the largest of them, which was kicking at the tree to which it was tied, its teeth bared. The tree bent, then its dry branches snapped, and all seven horses bolted, whinnying fiercely in the echoing canyon. They fled as one to the west, past Raieve.

"What in the hells?" she said.

Then there came a low sound, like thunder. Once, then again. The sound took up a regular rhythm, growing louder each time.

The ground began to shake. The Unseelie men looked to each other nervously. They were naked, weaponless. Helpless.

Raieve unsheathed her own weapon and spun in a slow circle, seeing nothing.

"Do any of you see anything?" said Mauritane, his voice even.

"Nothing," said Silverdun, scrambling up the side of the valley for a better look.

Mauritane handed one of the Unseelie soldiers' swords to Satterly. "Keep an eye on the prisoners. The rest of you, spread out and find the source of this disturbance."

Gray Mave pointed to the southern rim of the valley, his arm shaking. "I don't think that will be necessary," he said.

Raieve looked up. Something was climbing over the precipice at the valley's edge. It was shaped like a man, but much, much larger. In the darkness it was difficult to tell how large. Its hands clawed fingerholds into the solid rock of the cliff face as it descended. It looked over its shoulder and its eyes seemed to lock with hers. The eyes were like twin red suns.

Satterly grabbed Silverdun's arm. "Is that… is that the Thule Man?"

Silverdun cleared his throat. "It certainly looks that way."

"You said it was a fairy tale!" Satterly shouted.

"I said it was probably a fairy tale."

thule man

The Thule Man locked eyes with Mauritane. He hung there, fingers dug into the cliff face, then his face twisted into a smile and he let himself drop to the ground. The sound of the impact was like the concussion of a spellbomb, and the ground shook in its wake.

The Thule Man was not forty feet tall, as the story promised, but still taller and stronger than any man Mauritane had ever seen, and from the sound of his landing, he seemed to be made of stone. His skin certainly looked like stone, rough and pocked. He was covered in dust, the gray hair that sprouted from his head and ears was long and matted with filth, and he was dressed only in a loincloth made of crudely stitched buggane skins. Up close, his eyes blazed bright enough to sting Mauritane's eyes.

"I have come to the appointed time," the Thule Man said. "And I am met." His voice was deep and gravelly, but he spoke in a dialect of High Fae that reminded Mauritane of the oldest historical documents he'd read in the archives at the City Emerald. Mauritane strained to understand him.

"Which of you is Mauritane?"